Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Six In The Morning Tuesday 4 June 2024
Pressure for truce deal rises as Israel reports four Gaza captives killed
The US says the onus is on Hamas to accept the deal, but confusion continues to build over Israel’s stance.
Israel has confirmed that four of the captives held in Gaza were likely killed during air raids on the enclave.
The Israeli military said late on Monday that the four men were believed to have died in southern Gaza several months ago. The news is likely to increase pressure on Israel’s government to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas.
The military did not provide details, citing a continuing investigation, but spokesman Daniel Hagari said Chaim Peri, 79, Amiram Cooper, 84, Yoram Metzger, 80, and Nadav Popplewell, 51, who were being held together by Hamas, were killed while its “forces were operating in Khan Younis”.
Nuclear issue looms over Iranian presidential election to succeed Raisi
About 80 candidates put names forward for vetting against backdrop of confrontation with west
About 80 candidates have registered to stand in Iran’s presidential election on 28 June, taking place against the backdrop of a growing confrontation with the west over Tehran’s nuclear weapons programme and UN access to its nuclear sites.
The winner will replace Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in May.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, has urged all sides not to add “nuclear weapons to the cauldron of the Middle East”. Grossi’s unsuccessful efforts to negotiate fuller access to the sites, including through a phone call on Friday with Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, suggest no progress on that will be made at least until after the presidential vote.
Far-right AfD appears as strongest German party on TikTok
Politicians and figures linked to the far-right Alternative for Germany party use TikTok as a "parallel universe" to spread extremism, a study says. Meanwhile, other parties show "weak performance" on the platform.
Of all the parties represented in the German parliament the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) uses the youth social media platform TikTok the most, according to a study published Tuesday.
"We are observing masses of openly right-wing extremist symbols and codes on TikTok," said Deborah Schnabel, the director of the Anne Frank Educational Center, which conducted the analysis.
"Time and again, accounts from the AfD or from the party's environment are involved" in such content, Schnabel said.
EDITORIAL: Boosted security dialogue vital for ensuring stable relations in Asia
June 4, 2024 at 13:42 JST
The Asia-Pacific region is riddled with many potential security flashpoints, such as the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and the seas around the Philippines.
Preventing a full-blown crisis from boiling over at these and other hot spots in the region requires building trust through dialogue and exchanges.
Such discussions should lead to stepped-up efforts to build a solid foundation for a long-term stable order in the region.
Modi’s BJP to lose majority in India election shock, needs allies for gov’t
Defying exit polls, opposition parties stun the BJP in vital states, resetting India’s political landscape.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is on course to lose its national majority after suffering major losses in key states, marking a dramatic shift in a political landscape it has dominated for the past decade.
The BJP is on track to comfortably emerge as the country’s single-largest party in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament. But as election officials declared leads and results from India’s six-week-long election on Tuesday, it became apparent that the BJP would struggle to repeat its performances from 2014 and 2019.
Unlike both those elections, when the BJP won clear majorities on its own in a house of 543 seats, its leads and wins were hovering around 240 constituencies through much of the day. The halfway mark is 272 seats.
Doppelgängers and deepfakes: How Russian trolls are meddling in the world’s second-biggest democratic vote
If you believe everything you read, it would seem the European Union wants to ban drivers from getting their old cars repaired, or that it plans to limit the flights people can take by implementing “carbon passports.” It might even impose Covid-style “climate lockdowns.”
None of these things are true, but as 373 million eligible voters head to polls this week to elect a new EU parliament, a torrent of disinformation is flooding the continent.
The EU and several of its member countries have set up investigative agencies to counter disinformation ahead of the vote — and they are squarely focused on campaigns originating in Russia.
Monday, June 3, 2024
How India's elections are dividing the nation
A childhood friendship strains under political polarisation in the lead-up to India’s election.
NATO concerned - Why Putin aims to control the Baltic Sea? | DW News
Six In The Morning Monday 3 June 2024
Top Canadian scientist alleges in leaked emails he was barred from studying mystery brain illness
Exclusive: Michael Coulthart’s claims emerge after New Brunswick closes its inquiry into disease affecting more than 200 people
A leading federal scientist in Canada has alleged he was barred from investigating a mystery brain illness in the province of New Brunswick and said he fears more than 200 people affected by the condition are experiencing unexplained neurological decline.
The allegations, made in leaked emails to a colleague seen by the Guardian, have emerged two years after the eastern province closed its investigation into a possible “cluster” of cases.
Pakistan's Imran Khan acquitted of leaking state secrets
The former prime minister is no longer considered guilty of treason, but will remain in prison over a conviction relating to his marriage. His supporters claim the cases against him are politically motivated.
A Pakistani high court on Monday overturned a conviction of treason against jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, his lawyer and party said.
The former leader and his former foreign secretary, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, were convicted in 2022 of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan's ambassador in Washington.
"This is the first big case which was part of the political victimization against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi which has been dashed to the ground," Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told the AFP news agency outside of court.
French charities decry 'social cleansing' of migrants, sex workers ahead of Paris Olympics
A collective of French charities that has been a persistent critic of the Paris Olympics accused organisers on Monday of carrying out a "year of social cleansing" of the capital ahead of the start of the Games.
A new report by "The Other Side of the Medal" group, which brings together 80 different charities, said Paris was following a playbook used by other Olympic host cities by cracking down on migrants, squatters, the homeless and sex workers.
"We hoped that this edition would be different from previous ones and we made suggestions over a long period in this regard," the report said. "Today... we can state that Paris 2024 will be no different from previous editions and will truly accelerate the exclusion of the most vulnerable."
The report looked in particular at actions by the French police to clear squats, as well as migrant camps and the homeless from Paris streets ahead of the Olympics which run from July 26-August 11.
Ministry to probe 5 vehicle makers over certification misconduct
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
June 3, 2024 at 19:17 JST
Five major vehicle manufacturers, including industry leader Toyota Motor Corp., were engaged in improper practices over government certification tests, the transport ministry announced June 3.
The remaining four are Mazda Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Suzuki Motor Corp. and Yamaha Motor Co., a motorcycle producer.
The companies discovered inappropriate acts during in-house investigations the ministry ordered following irregularities over certification found at Daihatsu Motor Co., Toyota’s wholly owned subsidiary, and Toyota Industries Corp., a core group company of Toyota.
She is set to be Mexico’s first female president. But who is Claudia Sheinbaum?
Known as “la Doctora” for her glittering academic credentials, Claudia Sheinbaum is a physicist with a doctorate in energy engineering, the former mayor of one of the world’s most populous cities, and was part of the United Nations panel of climate scientists that received a Nobel Peace Prize.
And on Sunday, she became the first woman, and the first Jewish person, to be elected president of Mexico.
Sheinbaum won around 60% of the vote in the largest election in Mexico’s history, marking a historic achievement in a mostly Catholic country known for its deeply patriarchal culture.
Hamas still strong in areas ‘cleared’ by Israel in northern Gaza, say experts
Hamas’s ability to return to areas from which it was earlier forced to retreat threatens ‘forever war’
There may be more Hamas militants in the north of Gaza, supposedly cleared by Israeli forces months ago, than in Rafah, the southern city in the territory described by Israeli officials as the extremist Islamist organisation’s “last stronghold”, analysts believe.
More than 1 million people have fled Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, after instructions from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the biggest wave of displacement since the early months of the conflict. The IDF has said repeatedly that four Hamas brigades – the militant Islamist organisation’s biggest remaining force – is based in Rafah.