Saturday, December 21, 2024
Israeli attacks across Gaza-UN: Siege is 'strangling' the humanitarian response
Six In The Morning Saturday 21 December 2024
Scholz vows 'full force of law' after man drives car into Christmas market, killing five
Summary
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised an investigation after a car drove into crowds at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, killing at least five people, including a child
More than 200 people have been injured, according to city officials
The suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist, holds "Islamophobic" views, according to Germany's interior minister. However, the motive behind the attack is still unclear
Dramatic video footage shows the moment the suspect was arrested
The incident could prompt new questions about Germany's security architecture, says the BBC's Berlin correspondent, Jessica Parker
Were you at the scene? Get in touch with us
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised an investigation after a car drove into crowds at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, killing at least five people, including a child
More than 200 people have been injured, according to city officials
The suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist, holds "Islamophobic" views, according to Germany's interior minister. However, the motive behind the attack is still unclear
Dramatic video footage shows the moment the suspect was arrested
The incident could prompt new questions about Germany's security architecture, says the BBC's Berlin correspondent, Jessica Parker
Were you at the scene? Get in touch with us
Ukraine faces difficult decisions over acute shortage of frontline troops
On a recent icy afternoon in the western Ukrainian city of Kovel, a silver-haired man in military fatigues prepared to board a train. A small boy hugged him at the knees, reluctant to let go. “Come on Dima, say goodbye to grandad,” his mother told him, pulling him away.
A few minutes later, the train pulled out of the station with the man on board, headed on a long journey to the east of the country, towards the frontlines in the fight against Russia. Daughter and grandson, both in tears, waved from the platform.
Similar scenes now play out frequently in Ukraine, where the depleted and exhausted army is increasingly made up of older men. As the country approaches three years of full-scale war with Russia, and waits uneasily for the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, an acute personnel shortage at the front presents a dilemma.
Paris court issues heavy sentences in teacher Samuel Paty's beheading trial
France’s anti-terrorism court convicted eight individuals on Friday for their roles in the 2020 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed after showing Prophet Mohammed cartoons in class during a debate on freedom of speech.
A French court on Friday handed heavy sentences to several men convicted of having played a role in the jihadist beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty in 2020 -- a murder that horrified France.
Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin after showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class.
His killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, died in a shootout with police.
Panel agrees to measures to improve the lot of SDF members
By NOBUHIKO TAJIMA/ Staff Writer
December 21, 2024 at 17:14 JST
Better pay and living conditions are among initiatives being pitched to address a shortage of Self-Defense Forces members.
A Dec. 20 meeting with Cabinet-level input agreed on a basic policy direction under which other industries would be courted to hire SDF personnel who retire at comparatively younger ages than those employed by private companies.
Some enter the SDF for a limited term of employment, meaning they often retire while still in their 20s or 30s. Even those who sign on for the longer haul face retirement when they reach 56 because of the need for SDF members to be in prime physical and mental shape to perform the tasks required of them.
The desperate last stand to save a forest from Tesla
In the German forest of Grunheide, hundreds of protesters have occupied the trees to protest Tesla's expansion plans.
Activists hang from treehouses and ropes as high as 30 metres (98 feet) above the ground in November, attempting to evade police officers who are trying to evict them. They defy a clearing order issued by authorities conducting a search for World War II ammunition, remaining in the trees for three days, in protest against the expansion of the Tesla gigafactory in Grunheide, Germany, before they finally give in and leave
At 8am on a morning in late November, on the outskirts of Berlin-Brandenburg, hundreds of police officers have entered the Grunheide Forest, which has been occupied by activists from the "Stop Tesla" movement since the end of February.
The area, referred to as the "water forest occupation" has been the focus of a battle against expansion plans for Tesla's gigafactory - its fourth in the world and the first in Europe - which environmentalists say is causing irreparable damage to local water reserves in a region already suffering from drought.
Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent – experts
Lawsuits against Iowa paper and settlement with ABC signal beginning of aggressive legal action to silence critics
Donald Trump and his allies have started to wage a campaign against media organisations in the US that are critical of the president-elect by launching lawsuits that media experts warn are designed to stifle dissent and potentially put them out of business.
The tactic appears to be to aggressively pursue legal action against news organisations – which Trump has long dubbed “enemies of the people” – by asking for often hefty sums in damages. The cases are launched even if the odds of success sometimes appear long, because even an unsuccessful court action can be expensive for a cash-strapped media company and act as a deterrent.
“The recent spate of lawsuits that he has filed, and his public threat to ‘straighten out the press’, do seem to signal an increased effort by Trump and his allies to go after the press through lawsuits,” said Anna Diakun, staff attorney and managing attorney, fellowship program, for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
Friday, December 20, 2024
A car has driven into a group of people at a Christmas market in Germany
A car drove into a group of people at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, German news agency dpa reported. The driver of the car was arrested, the agency said, citing unidentified government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. There was no immediate information on whether people were killed or injured. Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 inhabitants.BREAKING: Car runs over people at Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. Reports of many victims pic.twitter.com/02lQBscdqq
— BNO News (@BNONews) December 20, 2024
Six In The Morning Friday 20 December 2024
Soldier-spies in Myanmar help pro-democracy rebels make crucial gains
The once formidable Myanmar military is cracking from within - riddled with spies secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels, the BBC has found.
The military only has full control of less than a quarter of Myanmar's territory, a BBC World Service investigation reveals.
The junta still controls the major cities and remains "extremely dangerous" according to the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar. But it has lost significant territory over the past 12 months - see map below.
At least 30 children die from drug shortages in Pakistan after sectarian violence
Key roads closed in Kurram, a hotbed of sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims for decades
Fri 20 Dec 2024 16.01 GMT
At least 30 children have died in Kurram in north-west Pakistan due to drug shortages after the regional government closed key roads in and out of the district in an attempt to quell an outbreak of deadly sectarian violence.
Kurram, which borders Afghanistan in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakthunkwa region, has been a hotbed of sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims for decades, but since July disputes over farmland have escalated.
The violence flared on 21 November when gunmen ambushed a vehicle convoy and killed 42 people, mostly Shia Muslims. Nobody claimed responsibility for the assault, which triggered retaliatory gunfire and arson by rival groups in several areas.
German politicians criticize Musk backing for far-right AfD
After Elon Musk posted his support for Germany's far-right AfD, the party's leader Alice Weidel expressed her gratitude. Other German lawmakers have criticized "interference" in the country's upcoming federal elections.
The leader of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Friday welcomed a social media post by Elon Musk in which the American tech billionaire expressed support for her party.
Musk, a prominent supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, opined on his platform X (formerly Twitter) on Friday morning that "Only the AfD can save Germany."
Alice Weidel, who is running for chancellor as co-leader of the AfD, responded to Musk an hour later, saying:
"Yes! You are perfectly right! Please also have a look into my interview on President Trump, how socialist Merkel ruined our country, how the Soviet European Union destroys the countries [sic] economic backbone and malfunctioning Germany!"
Fallout of Assad’s ouster in Syria ripples down the Mediterranean to Libya
The loss of its military power in Syria has led Russia to turn its sights on Libya. Could the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria see the strengthening of his Libyan counterpart, Khalifa Haftar?
The reports began trickling in barely 24 hours after Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad was ousted.
“Several Assad regime officials arrive in Libya’s Benghazi,” read a headline on a local Libyan news site on Monday, December 9 – the morning after rebels arrived in Damascus to find the Syrian president had fled.
While Assad was taken to Moscow, Libyan news reports said “a number of Syrian officials” loyal to Assad had landed in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. No details of the fleeing officials were provided, although officials at Benghazi’s Benina airbase and global flight tracking sites confirmed the plane landing.
Why is Apple being sued by the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
Tech giant accused of using illegally mined metals in iPhones and other products sold globally.
French President Emmanuel Macron has faced jeers from locals on the cyclone-battered French overseas territory of Mayotte, telling them they should be “happy to be in France, because if it wasn’t France you’d be 10,000 times even more in the s***.”
Macron has come under fire for his handling of Cyclone Chido, which ripped across Mayotte last weekend inflicting destruction that has been likened to an atomic bomb, and his comments only risk exacerbating anger from locals who are without water or electricity.
Opposition politicians say France has neglected the archipelago and has failed to anticipate how to fortify the islands in anticipation for natural disasters linked to climate change, such as Chido – a category 4 storm that flattened neighborhoods, knocked out electrical grids, crushed hospitals and schools and damaged the airport’s control tower.