Six In The Morning Sunday 17 November 2024

 

Dozens reported killed or wounded after Israeli airstrike on residential building in north Gaza

Attack in Beit Lahiya follows reports of deadly attacks elsewhere in territory as Israel also strikes targets in Lebanon

Jason Burke in Jerusalem and William Christou in Beirut

Sun 17 Nov 2024 13.08 GMT

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed or injured by an Israeli strike on a multistorey residential building in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, local medics and officials in the territory have said.

The government media office in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, put the number of those killed at 72. It said the strike on Sunday morning hit a residential building that housed six families.

There was no independent confirmation of the reports or the reported death toll, which followed intensive Israeli bombardment of targets across Gaza in recent days. The Palestinian Civil Emergency said around 70 people were living in the property.

Russia launches 'massive' attack on Ukraine infrastructure

Tom McArthur & Kathryn Armstrong

BBC News

A “massive” Russian missile and drone attack has targeted power infrastructure across Ukraine, the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

At least 10 people were killed in the strikes, which hit the capital, Kyiv, as well as multiple targets in several regions including Donetsk, Lviv and Odesa.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said its thermal energy plants had suffered “significant damage”, resulting in emergency blackouts.

It is the largest co-ordinated assault since early September, according to authorities and local media.

Senegal's new president seeks majority in parliamentary vote

Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye called the early elections hoping to pave the way towards major reforms pledged during his election campaign earlier this year.

Polls opened in Senegal on Sunday for an early parliamentary election, called in September by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a few months after his first-round win in presidential elections running on an anti-establishment platform of rapid and far-reaching reform. 

A total of 165 seats are up for grabs in the country's legislature, with polls scheduled to close on Sunday evening.

First projected results could come as early as Monday morning, finalized results could take much longer.

Venezuela frees 225 prisoners detained in post-election unrest

Venezuelan authorities this weekend released 225 of the more than 2,400 people arrested during protests against President Nicolas Maduro's disputed releection in July. The detainees included 164 minors, 69 of whom remain behind bars. Relatives of detainees plan to rally Monday in front of the prosecutor's office to demand that more be released. 

Venezuelan authorities freed 225 people this weekend who were detained in protests against the disputed reelection of President Maduro in July, the prosecutor's office said Saturday.

The releases were "granted and executed for people prosecuted for the violence that occurred after the 28 July elections," the office said in a statement, after prosecutors launched a large-scale review of their cases.

Human rights group Foro Penal had independently confirmed the release of 107 people by Saturday evening.

Hokkaido event draws protests for denying Ainu are indigenous

By KOHEI UWABO/ Staff Writer

November 17, 2024 at 17:05 JST

Protesters denounced as hate speech an event here that claims the Ainu people are not indigenous to Japan, which flies in the face of the law of the land.

About 30 people gathered outside a civic center where the Ainu no Shijitsu wo Manabu Kai (Group to study Ainu’s historical facts) organized a speech and panel exhibition on Nov. 15.

The group contends the Ainu, who mainly inhabit Hokkaido, are not an indigenous people, unlike the Aborigines in Australia and Native Americans in the United States.

Duterte returns as Philippines’ political clans wage ‘a fight to the death’

By Kathleen Magramo, CNN

A foul-mouthed former Philippine president who jailed political rivals, insulted the pope and claims to have hired “death squad” gangsters is running for re-election in his hometown in a desperate bid to strengthen his scandal-hit political dynasty.

Labeled “Asia’s Trump” by some commentators due to his unorthodox leadership style and bombastic rhetoric, Rodrigo Duterte is aiming for a perhaps even more unlikely political comeback than Donald Trump’s seismic return to the White House.

Duterte, 79, wants to return as mayor of Davao City, on the southern island of Mindanao, where he held power for more than two decades before leading the archipelago nation between 2016 and 2022.