Tag: World News

RAFAH (TIP): Displaced Palestinian families in Gaza’s south have fled what they said was intensifying Israeli fire in northern areas of Rafah to seek shelter elsewhere, describing a chaotic night as the sounds of fighting drew closer and prompted the difficult decision to evacuate.
“Just carry your son and run, we don’t have anything with us,” said one man, Mohammad al-Hadad. Some who fled overnight were able to return, throwing their belongings atop vehicles or wagons pulled by donkeys and setting off.
“We do not know where we can go,” said a woman, Ghada Qudeh. “Since yesterday, we have not found food or drink.” She said her family fled after Israeli forces fired missiles at a house where they were sheltering Thursday.
Palestinians arrive in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis after fleeing an Israeli ground and air offensive in the nearby city of Rafah on Friday, June 28, 2024.
10 children suffer amputations daily in Gaza, says UNRWA
The Israeli military said its forces were continuing to operate in Rafah but did not immediately comment on specific strikes. The military said one soldier had been killed during combat overnight in Rafah.
The people fleeing Rafah are some of the last holdouts in a city that was once filled with displaced Palestinians. However, Israel’s ground invasion since early May has driven nearly everyone who sought shelter there to leave.
The United Nations estimates 1.3 million people have been displaced out of Rafah, more than half of Gaza’s entire population, and only 65,000 remain.
International criticism is growing over the nearly nine-month Israel-Hamas war as Palestinians face severe and widespread hunger. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and people there are now totally dependent on aid. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.
Palestinians arrive in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis after fleeing an Israeli ground and air offensive in the nearby city of Rafah on Friday, June 28, 2024.
Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.
Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 37,700 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. (AP)

NAIROBI (TIP): Kenyan President William Ruto said on June 26 he won’t sign into law a finance bill proposing new taxes, a day after protesters stormed parliament and several people were shot dead. It was the biggest assault on Kenya’s government in decades.
The government wanted to raise funds to pay off debt, but Kenyans said the bill caused more economic pain as millions struggle to get by. The chaos on Tuesday led the government to deploy the military, and Ruto called protesters’ actions “treasonous.”
The president now says the bill caused “widespread dissatisfaction” and he has listened to the people and “conceded.” It’s a major setback for Ruto, who came to power vowing to help Kenyans cope with rising costs but has seen much of the country unite in opposition to his latest attempt at reforms.
“It is necessary for us to have a conversation as a nation on how to do we manage the affairs of the country together,” the president said.
Kenyans faced the lingering smell of tear gas and military in the streets a day after the latest protests saw thousands storm parliament, an act of defiance that Ruto called an “existential” threat. At least 22 people were killed, a human rights group said.
Ruto acknowledged deaths, calling it an “unfortunate situation,” and offered condolences.
The capital, Nairobi, has seen protests in the past, but activists and others warned the stakes are more dangerous. Ruto on Tuesday vowed to quash unrest “at whatever cost,” even as more protests were called at State House on Thursday. Soldiers patrolled alongside police, who were accused of shooting several people dead on Tuesday.
Kenyans united beyond tribal and other divisions in a youth-led effort to keep the finance bill from becoming law. It would have raised taxes and fees on a range of daily items and services, from egg imports to bank transfers. The government wanted the revenue to pay off debt in East Africa’s economic hub.
There were no reports of violence Wednesday, but there was fear. Civil society groups have reported abductions of people involved in recent protests and expect more to come.
Many young people who helped vote Ruto into power with cheers for his promises of economic relief now object to the pain of reforms. Part of the parliament building burned Tuesday, and clashes occurred in several communities beyond the capital.
At least 22 people were killed, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission said. Commission chairperson Roseline Odede told journalists that 300 others were injured and 50 people were arrested.
The mother of a teenager who was killed, Edith Wanjiku, told journalists at a morgue that the police who shot her son should be arrested and charged with murder because her 19-year-old son had been unarmed.
“He had just completed school and was peacefully protesting,” she said.
Parliament, city hall and the supreme court were cordoned off Wednesday with tape reading “Crime Scene Do Not Enter.” Authorities said police fired over 700 blanks to disperse protesters in the Nairobi suburb of Githurai overnight. (AP)

BEIJING (TIP): Former Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu was expelled from the ruling Communist Party and is being investigated for corruption and bribery, the official Xinhua news agency reported on June 27.
The Defense Ministry said Li had abused his authority to enrich himself by taking bribes and granting favors in violation of military and party discipline. Li was removed from office in October 2023 after disappearing from public view for almost two months.
Such charges have been leveled against numerous military leaders under the rule of President Xi Jinping, who also heads the armed forces as chairman of the Central Military Commission and has made a crackdown on corruption a hallmark of his rule since taking power more than a decade ago.
Former Chinese defense minister Li was expelled from the ruling Communist Party and is being investigated for corruption and bribery.
Insiders have claimed that he is undertaking a widespread purge of officers suspected of conspiring with foreign forces or simply being insufficiently loyal to Xi. High-ranking military officers occupy an elevated position in Chinese politics and can enjoy extensive privileges.
In its statement, the ministry gave no details of the allegations against Li, other than saying that his alleged crimes were “exceptionally pernicious” and that they posed “an enormous danger.”
Li spent most of his career as a specialist in the missile and procurement branches, and was under travel and financial sanctions from the U.S. at the time he dropped from view last September. That roughly coincided with the sudden disappearance of then-foreign minister Qin Gang and several leading officers in the rocket corps amid unproven allegations of misconduct. Li was replaced in December by Admiral Dong Jun.
China has the world’s largest standing military, its biggest navy, and a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, but it has not been tested in warfare in half a century. The military reports to the Communist Party, with the defense minister playing a secondary role. (AP)

DEIR AL-BALAH (TIP): Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands.
In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing.
The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by eight brutal months of war between Israel and Palestine. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say.
Palestinians gather to fill water jugs near one of the strip’s few functioning desalination plants in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.
Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear that as warmer weather arrives, an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely without dramatic changes to living conditions. The U.N., aid groups and local officials are scrambling to build latrines, repair water lines and bring desalination plants back online.
COGAT, the Israeli military body coordinating humanitarian aid efforts, said it’s engaging in efforts to improve the “hygiene situation.” But relief can’t come soon enough.
“Flies are in our food,” said Adel Dalloul, a 21-year-old whose family settled in a beach tent camp near the central Gaza city of Nuseirat. They wound up there after fleeing the southern city of Rafah, where they landed after leaving their northern Gaza home. “If you try to sleep, flies, insects and cockroaches are all over you.”
Over a million Palestinians had been living in hastily assembled tent camps in Rafah before Israel invaded in May. Since fleeing Rafah, many have taken shelter in even more crowded and unsanitary areas across southern and central Gaza that doctors describe as breeding grounds for disease — especially as temperatures regularly reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
“The stench in Gaza is enough to make you kind of immediately nauseous,” said Sam Rose, a director at the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Conditions are exacting an emotional toll, too.
Anwar al-Hurkali, who lives with his family in a tent camp in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, said he can’t sleep for fear of scorpions and rodents. (AP)

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (TIP): Led by a top general vowing to “restore democracy,” armored vehicles rammed the doors of Bolivia’s government palace on June 26 in what the president called a coup attempt, then quickly retreated — the latest crisis in the South American country facing a political battle and an economic crisis.
Within hours, the nation of 12 million people saw a rapidly moving scenario in which the troops seemed to take control of the government of President Luis Arce. He vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander, who immediately ordered the troops to stand down.
Soon the soldiers pulled back, along with a line of military vehicles, ending the rebellion after just three hours. Hundreds of Arce’s supporters then rushed the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering.
The soldiers’ retreat was followed by the arrest of army chief Gen. Juan José Zúñiga, after the attorney general opened an investigation.
Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo said that in addition to Zúñiga, former navy Vice Adm. Juan Arnez Salvador was taken into custody.
“What was this group’s goal? The goal was to overturn the democratically elected authority,” del Castillo told journalists in announcing the arrests.
Late Wednesday, Defense Minister Edmundo Novillo said “everything is now under control.” Surrounded by the new military chiefs appointed by Arce, Novillo said that Bolivia lived a “failed coup.”
The apparent coup attempt came as the country has faced months of tensions and political fights between Arce and his one-time ally, former leftist president Evo Morales, over control of the ruling party. (AP)

KYIV (TIP): During daytime, entire districts of Ukraine’s capital are disconnected from the power grid to save energy. Traffic lights stop, choking traffic, accompanied by the constant rumble of generators installed outside cafes and shops.
Ukraine, including Kyiv, is struggling to cope with a new wave of rolling blackouts after relentless Russian attacks took out half the country’s power generation capacity.
Residents and businesses of Kyiv are adapting to the absence of electricity using generators, power banks, and flashlights and even recalculating their bathroom visits. Heavy damage inflicted to the country’s power system has left millions feeling uncertain about Ukraine’s ability to meet the national electricity demand after the warm weather months are over and the weather turns cold.
“I light my apartment as our grandparents used to — with candles and small flashlights,” said Rudoy, a 40-year-old insurance agent from Israel who relocated from Tel Aviv to Kyiv in 2023 after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
He said that he wanted a new life despite the war — to live side-by-side with old friends and reside in a milder climate — but he hadn’t foreseen the inconveniences of living without power. Rudoy bought an apartment on the seventh floor of a newly built 25-story high rise with no gas system or water supply that’s wholly dependent on electricity.
“I have to adjust my life to the blackout schedules, otherwise it is impossible to live normally — not even to use a toilet at times,” Rudoy told The Associated Press.
A friend in a nearby district typically has power when he doesn’t, which makes his life easier. Work often gets done at a cafe that has a generator, but there’s a catch.
“Even if you find a free table at a cafe nearby, working generators are very noisy and spread diesel fumes,” he said. “That’s why not many cafes that operate during blackouts are actually good to work in.”
Ukraine is struggling to meet electricity demand as systematic attacks on its power infrastructure have intensified since March, forcing utilities to ration household supplies over the last three months. The country’s top officials repeatedly called on allied countries to provide more air defense systems to protect its power plants from Russian missiles and drones, but tangible damage had already been inflicted.
The blackouts in Kyiv are the worse since the early months of the war when Russian strikes on the country’s power grid led to major winter-time blackouts that led to authorities setting up communal heating areas and hundreds of emergency points where residents could drink tea, recharge their phones and get help. (AP)

BEIJING (TIP): Nine people have died and six are missing after downpours caused historic flooding in rural parts of Guangdong province in southern China, while authorities warned on June 21 of more flooding ahead in other parts of the country.
Four people died and four are missing, in Meixian district in Guangdong’s Meizhou city, state broadcaster CCTV reported Thursday night. Another five are dead in Jiaoling county, which is also in Meizhou.
The heaviest rains were from Sunday into Tuesday, toppling trees and collapsing homes. A road leading to Meixian district completely collapsed during the heavy rains. The Songyuan river, which winds through Meizhou, experienced its biggest recorded flood, according to CCTV.
The estimated direct economic loss is 3.65 billion yuan ($502 million) in Jiaoling county, while in Meixian district, the loss is 1.06 billion yuan ($146 million).
Other parts of the country also face torrential rains and extreme weather in the next 24 hours, with the National Meteorological Center issuing a warning for several provinces in the south and a few individual places in the north.
Henan and Anhui provinces in central China, as well as Jiangsu province on the coast and the southern province of Guizhou, all are expecting hail and strong thunderstorms, according to the forecast. Rainfall could be as high as 50 mm to 80 mm (1.9 to 3.14 inches) in one day in Henan, Anhui and Hubei provinces, the National Meteorological Center said.
Last week, it was southern Fujian and Guangxi provinces experienced landslides and flooding amid heavy rain. One student died in Guangxi after falling into a river swollen from the downpour. (AP)

SEOUL (TIP): South Korea said on June 20 that it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a major policy change suggested after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war.
The comments from a senior presidential official came hours after North Korea’s state media released the details of the agreement, which observers said could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. It comes at a time when Russia faces growing isolation over its war in Ukraine and both countries face escalating standoffs with the West.
According to the text of the deal published by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, if either country gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance.” But the agreement also says that such actions must be in accordance with the laws of both countries and Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which recognizes a U.N. member state’s right to self-defense.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the pact at a summit Wednesday in Pyongyang. Both described it as a major upgrade of bilateral relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties.
The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement condemning the agreement, calling it a threat to the South’s security and a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and warned that it would have negative consequences on Seoul’s relations with Moscow.
“It’s absurd that two parties with a history of launching wars of invasion — the Korean War and the war in Ukraine — are now vowing mutual military cooperation on the premise of a preemptive attack by the international community that will never happen,” Yoon’s office said.
At the United Nations in New York, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul called it “deplorable” that Russia would act in violation of multiple U.N. sanctions resolutions against North Korea that Moscow voted for.
Yoon’s national security adviser, Chang Ho-jin, said Seoul would reconsider the issue of providing arms to Ukraine to help the country fight off Russia’s invasion.
South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, has provided humanitarian aid and other support to Ukraine while joining U.S.-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it has not directly provided arms to Kyiv, citing a longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict.
Speaking to reporters in Hanoi, where he traveled right after Pyongyang, Putin said Thursday that supplying weapons to Ukraine would be “a very big mistake” on South Korea’s part. (AP)

Tokyo (TIP): Earthquakes early on June 4 again struck Japan’s north-central region of Ishikawa, still recovering from the destruction left by a powerful quake on January 1, but the latest shaking caused only minor damage.
A magnitude 5.9 temblor on the northern top of the Noto Peninsula was followed minutes later by a 4.8 and then several smaller quakes within the next two hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There was no danger of a tsunami. Two houses that had been damaged in the January 1 quake collapsed in Wajiima city but no injuries or other damage was reported so far, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
JMA seismology and tsunami official Satoshi Harada said on June 4 quakes were believed to be aftershocks of the magnitude 7.6 earthquake on January 1.
Seismic activity has since slightly subsided but Harada urged people to be cautious, especially near buildings that were damaged earlier.
Shinkansen super-express trains and other train services were temporarily suspended for safety checks but most of them resumed, according to West Japan Railway Co.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were found at two nearby nuclear power plants. One of them, the Shika plant on the Noto Peninsula, had minor damage, though officials said that did not affect cooling functions of the two reactors.
Hokuriku Electric Power Co said there were no power outages.
Monday’s rattlings rekindled fear among residents who are still struggling to recover from damages from the New Year’s quake. NHK public television showed a number of people who came out of their homes and temporary shelters to see if there were additional damage.
Reconstruction comes slowly in mountainous areas on the peninsula and many damaged houses remain untouched. In Wajima, which was one of the hardest-hit areas, an inn operator told NHK that he immediately ducked under the desk at the reception when the first quake struck on Monday. Nothing fell to the floor or broke, but it reminded him of the January shakings and made him worry that a big quake like that had occurred even five months later. The January 1 quake killed 241 people. Damages still remain, and many residents remain evacuated. (AP)

Mexico City (TIP): Claudia Sheinbaum, a scientist with a PhD in physics, has been elected by a huge margin as Mexico’s first female president. Sheinbaum, 61, will succeed her mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who first included her in the government in 2000 and with whom she broke away from the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 2014 to form Morena that is also headed for super majorities in both houses of the Congress.
“For the first time in the 200 years of the republic, I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum told supporters, according to the Mexican media.
A successful politician in her own right, she was the Mayor of Mexico City during Obrador’s tenure as the President. The final vote in Sheinbaum’s favour is expected to be 60.7 per cent, making it the highest vote percentage by a Presidential candidate in Mexico’s democratic history.
Mexican analysts felt a glass ceiling was broken because of Mexico’s pervasive macho culture and the majority Roman Catholic population which tends to circumscribe the role of women in public life in those parts.
They noted that she was the first woman to win a general election in the entire North America — the US, Mexico or Canada.
The elections were the most violent with 38 candidates murdered amid an expansion of organised crime cartels during Obrador’s term as the President during which 1.85 lakh people suffered violent deaths. (TNS)

Dubai (TIP): Iran opened a five-day registration period on May 30 for hopefuls wanting to run in the June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others. The election comes as Iran grapples with the aftermath of the May 19 crash, as well as heightened tensions between Tehran and the United States, and protests including those over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini that have swept the country.
While Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, maintains final say over all matters of state, presidents in the past have bent the Islamic Republic of Iran toward greater interaction or increased hostility with the West.
The five-day period will see those between the ages of 40 to 75 with at least a master’s degree register as potential candidates. All candidates ultimately must be approved by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei. That panel has never accepted a woman, for instance, nor anyone calling for radical change within the country’s governance.
Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s interior minister, opened the registration period. The Interior Ministry, in charge of the country’s police, run Iranian elections with no substantial international observation.
“These elections, like the parliamentary elections, will be held in complete safety and health, with good competition and wide participation of all dear people,” Vahidi said.
Raisi, a protege of Khamenei, won Iran’s 2021 presidential election after the Guardian Council disqualified all of the candidates with the best chance to potentially challenge him. That vote saw the lowest turnout in Iran’s history for a presidential election. This year’s parliamentary vote saw an even-lower turnout amid widespread boycott calls.
That likely was a sign of voters’ discontent with both a hard-line cleric sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in mass executions in 1988, and Iran’s Shiite theocracy over four decades after its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Who will run — and potentially be accepted — remains in question. The country’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, a previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat, could be a front-runner, because he’s already been seen meeting with Khamenei. Also discussed as possible aspirants are former hard-line President Mohammad Ahmadinejad and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami — but whether they’d be allowed to run is another question. The five-day registration period will close on Tuesday. The Guardian Council is expected to issue its final list of candidates within 10 days afterwards. That will allow for a shortened two-week campaign before the vote in late June.
The new president will take office while the country now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a drone and missile attack on Israel amid the war in Gaza. Tehran also has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.
Meanwhile, Iran’s economy has faced years of hardship over its collapsing rial currency. Widespread protests have swept the country, most recently over Amini’s death following her arrest over allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to the liking of authorities, A UN panel says the Iranian government is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
Raisi is just the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the Islamic Revolution. (AP)

Seoul (TIP): Nuclear envoys of South Korea, the US and Japan on May 28 strongly condemned North Korea’s latest attempt to launch a military spy satellite, casting it as a blatant violation of UN resolutions and a serious threat to peace.
Lee Jun-il, director general for Korean Peninsula policy, discussed the North’s botched space rocket launch in three-way phone talks with his US and Japanese counterparts, Jung Pak and Yukiya Hamamoto, respectively, Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a release.
The envoys “stressed that it was a blatant violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning the North from any such launches using ballistic missile technology and that its provocations pose serious threats to peace and security in the region and beyond.”
The three sides vowed to continue coordination trilaterally and with the international community to prepare for the North’s potential additional provocation, saying such acts will “only strengthen the three-way security cooperation.”
The phone talks came after the North said it launched a new rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite from a launching site on its northwest coast on Monday. The launch failed due to the air blast of the rocket during the first-stage flight.
It was the first launch attempt by Pyongyang after it successfully put its first military spy satellite into orbit in November last year, following the two previous botched attempts in May and August, respectively. (IANS)