Six In The Morning Sunday 27 April 2025

 

Vancouver: 9 killed after car plows into crowd at festival

At least nine people were killed after a car plowed into a crowd of people celebrating a Filipino festival at a street party in Vancouver, police said. A man arrested at the scene was also "known" to authorities.

Vancouver police said Sunday that at least nine people were killed after a driver plowed through a crowd celebrating a street festival in Vancouver, western Canada.

"As of now, we can confirm nine people have died after a man drove through a crowd at last night's Lapu Lapu Festival," authorities said in a statement.

In an earlier post on X, police said they were "confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism."

Israel faces legal pressure at UN’s top court over Unrwa ban

Hearings over bar on cooperation with Palestinian aid agency are test of Israel’s defiance of international law

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Sun 27 Apr 2025 14.37 BST

Israel will come under sustained legal pressure this week at the UN’s top court when lawyers from more than 40 states will claim the country’s ban on all cooperation with the UN’s Palestinian rights agency Unrwa is a breach of the UN charter.

The five days of hearings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague have been given a fresh urgency by Israel’s decision on 2 March to block all aid into Gaza, but the hearing will focus on whether Israel – as a signatory to the UN charter – acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities afforded to a UN body. Israel ended all contact and cooperation with Unrwa operations in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in November, claiming the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been contested.

Right Wing Extremist Chants Flourishing On Telegram

 By Maik Baumgärtner, Roman Höfner, Max Hoppenstedt, Ann-Katrin Müller, Sven Röbel und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

 He goes by "Hunter” on the messaging app Telegram. And the young German makes no secret of his political orientation. He’s from a "NatSoc Family,” he claims, writing in English – a family with national-socialist sympathies. Where they live in the German state of Saxony, he writes, there are fewer "non-whites” than in western Germany, and the far right is gaining ground, "especially the militant scene.”

In a chat with a Telegram user claiming to share his views, "Hunter” goes into detail. He writes that he is training a group of teenagers and young men between 13 and 25 and posts photos of them marching in camouflage. Sometimes, they drive to Poland or the Czech Republic, apparently for target practice. He is planning to conduct detonation tests in the woods with a mixture of diesel and manure, he claims. His role model: Timothy McVeigh, the man who blew up a federal building in the U.S. state of Oklahoma in 1995.

France is 'no place' for racism and hate, says Macron after murder of Muslim in mosque

President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France after the brutal murder of a Muslim in a mosque in the south of the country. The man suspected of killing the worshipper was still on the run Sunday, authorities said.

There can never be a place for racism and hate in France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday after the brutal stabbing to death of a Muslim in a mosque in the south of the country.

"Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated," Macron wrote on X in his first comments on Friday's killing, extending his support to "our fellow Muslim citizens".

The attacker, who is on the run, stabbed the worshipper dozens of times and then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday's attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region.

Kashmir attack live: Politicians criticise India’s ‘collective punishment’

By Abubakr Al-Shamahi

Published On 27 Apr 202527 Apr 2025

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reiterated that Pahalgam attackers “will be served with the harshest response”.
• MP for Srinagar Ruhullah Mehdi says Kashmir is facing ‘collective punishment’ after state’s former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti says security forces must distinguish between “terrorists” and civilians.
• Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif tells RIA Novosti that Russia and China may participate in an international investigation into last week’s deadly attack in Kashmir a day after Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif called for a neutral investigation. India has blamed Pakistan for cross-border “terrorism”, a charge it denies.
• India has taken various steps, including scaling down diplomatic ties with Pakistan and suspending its participation in the vital Indus Waters Treaty, in the wake of the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades.
• The attack has shattered the Indian government’s narrative of bringing normalcy to the Muslim-majority region through its heavy-handed approach, experts say. New Delhi scrapped the region’s limited autonomy in 2019 and brought the state under direct rule from New Delhi – a move that has further alienated Kashmiris.

Indian, Pakistani diaspora groups protest in London

Members of the Pakistani diaspora held a counter-protest in front of the Indian High Commission in London amid tensions between the two South Asian rivals over the deadly Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

While no arrests have been made at today’s protest so far, it comes a day after scuffles between pro-Pakistan and pro-India groups, this time in front of the Pakistan High Commission, after Indian protesters turned up to the demonstration with placards reading “I am Hindu”, according to the Times of India.