Passengers testify about the accident: "Horrible screams"
Andrew Davies, a passenger on board the Singapore Airlines plane, testifies to the BBC that it suddenly appeared and that objects started flying around the cabin.
- During the few seconds that the plane fell, there was a terrible scream and something that sounded like a thump.
When the situation calmed down, Davies helped a woman who was "screaming in pain" and had a "large open wound on her head".
Another woman says that one moment her son was on board the flight with his seat belt on - and the next he woke up on the floor after passing out.
- There was water everywhere, blood everywhere, people's belongings were scattered everywhere.
The passengers have now been taken to a special section at the airport in Bangkok, where the plane made an emergency landing.
A 73-year-old British man died of a suspected heart attack, and more than 50 were injured, when the plane hit severe turbulence as it approached Myanmar airspace.
.........................................
Expert: The turbulence seems to have come without warning
So-called clear-air turbulence, which occurs without warning, was most likely behind the fatal accident on the plane between London and Singapore. Aviation expert Jan Ohlsson tells TT.
The two passengers who died were probably not buckled in, he says.
- If you are not strapped in, you end up on the roof and risk breaking your neck. Other common injuries are legs, arms and ribs and knocking out teeth. Those are pretty big forces and it doesn't help to hold on.
A 73-year-old British man died in the accident, probably from a heart attack, according to the manager of the airport in Bangkok where the plane made an emergency landing, according to British media. According to information in the Thai media, one more person is said to have died. 53 people were injured, seven of them seriously. .............................................
One dead and 53 injured on plane after turbulence
One person has died and more than 50 have been injured after a passenger plane en route from London to Singapore on Monday was hit by severe turbulence, British media reported, citing a statement from Singapore Airlines.
A total of 53 passengers and one crew member were injured, according to the BBC. Seven people are being treated with serious injuries, according to Thai authorities according to British media.
According to information in the Thai media, another person must have died in hospital after the incident, writes TT.
A total of 221 passengers and 18 crew members were on board the plane which made an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand.
Had a heart attack while painting the king Jonathan Yeo's heart stopped when he created the portrait
Jenny Alexandersson
Published 07.41
Jonathan Yeo, 53, painted the very first official portrait of King Charles.
It has been widely criticized and during the creation process he suffered a heart attack.
- I had an out-of-body experience where I was led away to see another world and I realized I was looking down on something chaotic, Jonathan Yeo told the Sunday Times. Quick version
Jonathan Yeo worked on the painting for four years before it was unveiled by King Charles last week.
The king's face appears through a sea of scarlet color and the red background has caused many to criticize the regent's first official portrait.
- He is engrossed in the carnage of the British Empire of yore, their centuries of colonial genocide, plunder, enforced starvation, rape, slavery, creation of new borders, theft of lands, plantations, taxes, gold mines, diamond mines, cobalt mines, oil, which amount to trillions! writes one of the critics on Instagram.
Others joke that the king wanted to be Queen Camilla's tampon in a wiretapped conversation that made huge headlines in the British tabloids in 1993.
King Charles unveiled the first official portrait of him as regent. Next to him is the artist Jonathan Yeo. Photo: TT
Collapsed when the ambulance arrived
Now the artist Jonathn Yeo reveals that he suffered a heart attack last March while he was in the middle of the process of painting the king.
He had premonitions that something was wrong with his heart on a quiet Sunday afternoon and that he collapsed just as the ambulance arrived.
During the out-of-body experience, he had to choose between two worlds. Since he did not feel finished with everything on earth, he chose to come back.
- The same second you make the decision, you are back in your body with a health care provider who says "Stay with me", says Jonathan Yeo to the Sunday Times.
He admits that the choice of the red background color may well be psychological and related to his heart attack.
- But it wasn't a conscious choice - I just felt: I love this color.
The first official portrait of Charles since becoming king was painted by artist Jonathan Yeo. Photo: TT
"The painting is terrifying"
The painting in question has aroused very strong reactions even among art critics. Some consider it banal, others that it is brilliant.
- It is a confusing, haunting, oversized and inexplicably terrifying portrait of King Charles III. And after trying to like it (a critic's first responsibility), I've realized it's just as bad as I first thought, writes award-winning art critic Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post.
But Jonathan Yeo shakes off the worst criticism.
- There are always people who disagree with you about how you should paint these things
Jonathan Yeo, 53, målade det allra första officiella porträttet av kung Charles.
Death of Ebrahim Raisi Ceremonies in honor of Raisi - buried in hometown
The funeral ceremonies for Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter accident, will begin on Tuesday, writes AFP. In the city of Tabriz near the crash site and in the capital Tehran, people have begun to gather to honor the president.
On Thursday, Raisi will be taken to his hometown of Mashhad where he will be buried.
On Monday, the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared five days of national mourning after the accident, in which Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, a local governor and a number of high-ranking government officials also died.
*******************
Economy Opposition to the euro is growing
Almost a quarter of Swedes want to exchange the krona for the euro. This shows a survey that TV4 has produced together with Verian, formerly Sifo. Despite the weak krona, resistance to the euro has grown since the last measurement last autumn.
According to the survey, 53 percent of Swedes are now against a currency exchange and 24 percent are in favor – last fall, 47 percent were against and 27 percent in favor.
The survey was conducted online during week 20 and includes responses from 1,050 people across the country.
Biden's weak numbers are worrying – Democrats are distancing themselves
Democratic politicians in several important states are trying to distance themselves from President Joe Biden after several opinion polls have shown that he is not doing well there, writes The Hill.
Several senatorial candidates whose personal opinion numbers are better than Biden's are said to worry that Biden's weak popularity will spill over to them as well.
Some candidates have made their mark by taking a different position than Biden on important issues. This applies, for example, to Senator Jacky Rosen in Nevada, who criticized Biden's decision to withhold arms deliveries to Israel.
Of particular concern is Biden's age.
- If you do a focus group, everyone answers "he's 200 years old, you've got to be joking", says another Democratic senator who wants to remain anonymous.
.....................................
Economists: Trump tariffs could cost 500 billion a year
The bill for Donald Trump's promised tariffs in the event of an election victory could reach $500 billion a year, and it is the poorest households that will take the biggest hit. That's what the think tank Peterson Institute writes in a report, reports the Financial Times.
The presidential candidate wants to introduce a tax of 10 percent on all imported goods and 60 percent on Chinese goods. The money must be used to finance tax cuts. According to the think tank, this means a turnaround that will shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor.
The 500 billion does not include possible effects of trade partners fighting back, and economists believe that the economic consequences could be five times as great as when Trump was on the tariff war path in 2019.
The Israel-Hamas warThe reactions Joe Biden: "What is happening is not a genocide"
Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. This is what US President Joe Biden said in a statement during the night of Monday, Swedish time.
- What is happening is not a genocide, we reject it, Biden said late on Monday evening.
Biden specifically singled out the genocide charges brought by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Earlier on Monday, Biden also directed harsh criticism at the International Criminal Court. The court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan recently requested an international arrest warrant be issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
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The violence in Haiti Haiti's largest airport open after three months
Haiti's main international airport, Toussait-Lourverture, in the capital Port-au-Prince, opened Monday to air traffic for the first time in nearly three months. This is reported by AP.
The first departure was to Miami with local airline Sunrise Airways. US-based airlines are not expected to begin using the airport again until later in May or early June.
The opening of the airport is expected to ease the critical shortage of medicine and other supplies. The port is still badly damaged.
Around 80 percent of Port-au-Prince is currently controlled by criminal gangs. The unrest erupted on February 29, when gunmen seized control of police stations, attacked the airport and freed more than 4,000 prisoners from the country's two largest prisons.
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Climate threat The threat to the Amazon A third of the Amazon struggles in the grips of drought
More than a third of the Amazon rainforest is struggling to recover from periods of drought, according to a new study according to The Guardian.
This reduced resilience has been made clear after four very severe dry spells in the last 20 years, and shows how vegetation is becoming increasingly strained by climate change.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined satellite images from the period 2001 to 2019. It shows that the rate of recovery of 37 percent of the trees in the Amazon has become increasingly slow.
- It makes me very worried about the future of the Amazon, says the study's lead author Johanna Van Passel.
******************
Reactions to Eurovision Erdogan: Eurovision threatens traditional values
The Eurovision Song Contest is a threat to traditional family values and encourages "gender neutralization", according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a speech on Monday, he describes participants in the competition as "Trojan horses for social corruption", AP writes.
Turkey has not participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2012. This year's edition was won for the first time ever by a non-binary artist.
Study: Climate scientists burn half their CO2 budget - in one week
Christina Nordh
Published 2024-05-20 15.31
An image from Puerto Rico trying to understand how the Earth can recover from extreme weather due to increasingly higher temperatures. Photo: AP
Climate scientists say that carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced.
But some of them burn half their CO2 budget in a week, shows a new study from Lund University.
Participants at an annual international water conference in the years 2004–2023 have been reviewed. The conference is organized by the Association for the sciences of limnology and oceanography, it is attended by an average of 1,500 people.
In recent years, the conference has been held in places such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Mallorca.
The average emissions from each participant and conference were 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The level of emissions per person per year that we need to get down to according to the Paris Agreement is 2.3 tons in 2030 and 1.4 tons in 2040, writes Lund University in a press release.
Photo: Audrey McAvoy/AP
- Among the researchers who participate in these conferences, there is deep knowledge and great commitment to climate change and how it affects aquatic systems. In fact, 50 percent of all presentations last year touched on climate change. There was also a big focus on the fact that this knowledge needs to be "translated" and "lead to change", not just communicated within science, says Emma Kritzberg.
In addition to Lund University, the University of Lausanne, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg have also participated in the study.
Fires, mass migration and famine threaten if the world gets three degrees warmer
Sofia Eriksson/TT
Updated 2024-05-20 16.05 | Published 2024-05-19 18.36
Fighting a forest fire in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil last year. Gunilla Svensson, professor of meteorology. Archive image. 1 / 2Photo: Andre Penner/AP/TT
The planet is headed for at least 2.5 degrees of warming, according to hundreds of climate scientists.
Many also believe that it is rather about three degrees.
A "semi-dystopian" future of famine, conflict and mass displacement is to be expected as climate change leads to more extreme heat waves, fires, floods and storms. This is the opinion of some of the researchers who responded to a survey from The Guardian.
843 researchers and editors who have worked with reports from the UN climate panel IPCC since 2018 received the survey. 380 responded and almost 80 percent of them believe that the world is heading for a global warming of at least 2.5 degrees this century, compared to pre-industrial times. Almost half believe in at least three degrees of warming.
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep global warming below two degrees, preferably 1.5 degrees, to mitigate the most devastating effects of climate change. The world has already warmed 1.2 degrees and only six percent believe that the 1.5 degree target can be reached.
More extreme heat waves
The effects get worse for every tenth of a degree that the earth warms.
At 1.5 degrees of warming, more intense storms and heat waves and an increased risk of mass death among corals await. At two degrees, a greater proportion of the population is exposed to deadly extreme weather and increases the likelihood of irreversible tipping points in the climate.
- When you raise the average climate, you will also increase the extremes. There will be more extreme heat waves and more extreme precipitation, says Gunilla Svensson, professor of meteorology at Stockholm University, to TT.
- It is difficult to say exactly how much worse it will be at three degrees warmer, compared to 2.5 degrees, but we see big problems with what we have to deal with already now.
At three degrees of warming, the likelihood of climate-related events having cascading effects around the world increases, such as increased food prices, refugee flows and shortages of food and water, writes The Guardian.
Rising sea levels
Cities such as Miami, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and The Hague are threatened by rising sea levels.
- The effects of warming occur on different time scales. Some things are discovered quickly, such as the average temperature increasing and the extremes intensifying, says Svensson.
- Other things are going slower, like the melting of the ice caps. This results in an increase in sea level that increases the risks in the world's coastal areas.
The world is trying to adapt. The question is whether it goes fast enough, says Svensson.
- The best thing would be to get to the root of the problem and stop emitting carbon dioxide so that we can limit warming. The consequences will be greater and more difficult to deal with as the planet gets warmer.
FACTS
The Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is a global climate agreement that the world's countries agreed on in December 2015. It formally entered into force in November 2016.
According to the agreement, global warming must be kept well below 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, with the ambition to limit it to 1.5 degrees. This must primarily be done through reduced emissions of greenhouse gases.
The parties to the agreement must gradually tighten their commitments and renew or update these every five years.
Warned the regime before a fatal crash - accuses the US
John Edgar Updated 00.31 | Published 00.30
The helicopter was flying in fog without transponders on.
The regime was warned in a secret document before the accident.
The country's former foreign minister calls the crash "another American crime against Iran".
The helicopter, a Bell 212, had nine people on board when it crashed in bad weather into a mountain in northern Iran.
The rescue team searched for hours in the rain without finding the wreckage.
Only when the fog lifted on Monday morning was a Turkish reconnaissance drone able to find the wreckage and the charred bodies on the mountainside.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in the crash. Photo: AP
All nine dead
President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian died in the crash.
The helicopter "hit the mountain and broke up on impact," Iranian state media said. All on board probably died immediately.
It emerged on Monday that no signal was sent from the accident helicopter, which was flying the political leaders back after inaugurating a dam project near the border with Azerbaijan, before the crash.
The Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu stated this at a press conference, writesThe Guardian.
The crashed helicopter. Photo: Azin Haghighi / TT
Warned the regime
After hearing about the crash on Sunday, Turkish authorities searched for a signal from the helicopter's transponder.
- But unfortunately we think that the transponder system was either turned off or the helicopter did not have one, says the Turkish minister.
After the announcement of the fatal crash, it has now emerged that the regime was warned in a secret document about its helicopter fleet, The Guardian states.
There was concern that maintenance of the aging fleet was lagging due to a lack of spare parts.
It was asked to buy two new Russian helicopters to transport the top management.
Here, the president took off in a helicopter at the Iranian border on Sunday. Photo: Ali Hamed Haghdoust / AP
"American Crime"
Mohammad Javad Zarif, former foreign minister and UN ambassador to Iran, now accused the US of indirectly causing the president's death through the trade sanctions against the country.
"Another point on the black list of American crimes against Iran," he states.
The US State Department hit back at the accusations in the evening.
"Ultimately, it is the Iranian government that is responsible for the decision to fly a 45-year-old helicopter in what has been described as poor weather conditions, no one else," spokesman Matthew Miller said, according to The New York Times.
The Bell 212 model was developed in the 1960s for the Canadian military, according to Reuters.
Last night, no Iranian accusations of sabotage had been made against the country's enemies, then primarily the United States and Israel.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, former foreign minister, accuses the US. Photo: Khalid Mohammed / AP
"Technical issue"
Iranian media have been sparing with details and speculation about what caused the crash.
The state news agency IRNA has only stated in its English-language articles about the crash that "the results of the accident commission's investigation will be announced when it is complete".
But in a short article for a slide show about the president, the news agency writes that the helicopter crashed due to "a technical error".
- We have no information about the cause of the accident at the moment. I know the Iranians are investigating and we'll see what they come up with, says US Defense Secretary Lloyd J Austin.
The US is playing with fire – China is buying gold
Andreas Cervenka
Reporter and economic commentator
This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Published 2024-05-20 22.16
President Joe Biden. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
The question that hangs like a shadow over the world economy.
Nothing can pulverize an accurate analysis as effectively as time.
In the mid-2000s, a prudent but calculating man pressed the alarm button. His name is David Walker and he was then theUS equivalent of the auditor general.
"We are suffering from an economic cancer. It grows within us. And if we don't address it, it will have disastrous consequences for our country."
What worried David Walker was the tower of debt that the US government had built up over a long period of time.
To say he was right is an understatement. In 2005, the government's debt amounted to approximately 12,000 billion dollars, or the equivalent of 435,000 kroner per American citizen. The other day it passed 34,500 billion dollars or 1.1 million kroner per person.
As a share of the US economy, the debt has risen from 90 percent of GDP to 120 percent (in Sweden it is below 20 percent).
Yet David Walker was dead wrong. In the almost twenty years that have passed since he became a merchant traveler in dystopia, no doomsday has been seen. He's not the only one who wears stupid shit.
If there was a Hall of Fame for forecasting failures, all those who predicted a US debt crash would be given a booth the size of an airplane hangar.
Warren Buffett. Photo: Nati Harnik / AP
In fact, one of the worst deals by far in the last 70 years is to speculate on the impending doom of the United States of America. The legendary Warren Buffett, who in practice has built his entire career on doing the opposite, is today worth SEK 1,500 billion.
In the financial market, being too early is the same as being wrong. Namely, it means losing money and no one can tolerate losses for any length of time.
But it also contributes to the fact that problems can be underestimated for a long time, for the simple reason that they have not yet had consequences (the climate is a good example).
Anyone who wants to get a quick introduction to the mathematical phenomenon of the exponential function is recommended to take a look at the curve of the development of the US national debt. Since the early 1980s, the slope has steadily increased, with some short breaks.
The debt has risen under both Democratic and Republican presidents, albeit for slightly different reasons. During Barack Obama's eight years, the government borrowed another 11,000 billion dollars, mainly as a result of the financial crisis. During his four years, Donald Trump indebted the country with 7,000 billion, first due to tax cuts and then the pandemic.
And underJoe Biden it has continued in the same style, with an acceleration of late. So far in 2024 alone, the US debt has increased at a rate of over 100 billion kroner a day, or 4 billion an hour. For every hundred bucks that the American government spends this year, 25 kroner must be borrowed.
And it will get worse. A forecast from the US congressional budget office CBO this spring showed that if nothing changes, the US will not only run with historically high deficits for the next decade, they will gradually increase. According to the CBO, the debt will reach $54 trillion by 2034 and a staggering $152 trillion by 2054, or 179 percent of GDP.
Forecasts are forecasts and of course it can be better than what CBO thinks, but also significantly worse. The Bloomberg news agency had a computer do a million simulations of different scenarios for the US economy. In 88 percent of the cases, the result was an unsustainable debt explosion.
But this is how it has sounded for a long time. Why should anyone care this time?
First, the world economy has changed quite radically. If it was painless to be in debt a few years ago, it is much less pleasant now, something that all Swedish mortgage borrowers have noted.
Next year, US interest spending relative to GDP will pass post-WWII record levels. The US is already spending more this year on interest than on its defense.
Within ten years, America's largest social security systems, Social Security and Medicare, will run out of money.
On Wall Street, the debate about the US budget deficit usually elicits yawns. It usually works out.
But lately, more and more influential people have started to screw up nervously. Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater, recently came out and warned that the US's escalating debt risks scaring off buyers of US Treasuries. He advised investors to spread their risks to other countries.
The second thing that has happened is that the world is at war, with the US and the West on one side and Russia and China on the other. To keep the loan machinery going, the US depends on borrowing money abroad. China was for a long time the largest creditor. But the country has been selling US paper for a long time and during the first quarter of this year the rate increased. Instead, China has replenished its gold reserves. Several other countries have done the same.
If the US economy were to fall into a recession and the US suddenly couldn't find new buyers for its debt notes, the entire financial system would fall down an empty elevator shaft.
The US thus takes rather high risks not only with its own economy but with the whole world.
There are those who think this is alarmist nonsense and that the US national debt is a non-issue. They may well be right. After all, they've had it for fifty years.
But if a few thousand years of economic history can teach us anything, it's that right today can be wrong tomorrow. It's usually just a matter of time.
The White House on Monday offered condolences to Iran, but did not offer a heartfelt eulogy for the dead president, Ebrahim Raisi.
"This was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, according to AFP.
However, Kirby added that "as in any other case, we generally regret the loss of life, and therefore offered appropriate official condolences".
The US also clarified that the death does not change the country's general stance on Iran's rule.
.....................................
Analysis: The reactions show how divided Iran is
The government sends out images of grieving people, but clips of celebrations are spread online - the contrast shows the division in Iran, says SVT's foreign reporter Gilda Hamidi-Nia.
Raisi was an unpopular president whose career was marked by repression, and after the Mahsa Amini protests he gave more power to the morality police – which means the opposition must be even more careful now, she continues.
“There probably won't be any protests like we saw in 2022 because the security forces are prepared for this. Protesting in Iran is life and death.”
The mixed reactions reflect what a polarizing figure Raisi was, writes Jiyar Gol for the BBC.
The president, staunchly loyal to the architect of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomenei, rose through the ranks through the legal system. In the 80s, as a prosecutor, he played a central role in the execution of 5,000 political prisoners, writes Gol.
"Many of the victims' families now express mixed feelings: although many hated him, they hoped he would be brought before an international court for crimes against humanity."
Israel-Hamas War Victims Stop food trucks in Gaza after several were sacked
There has been a halt to food deliveries to Gaza via the US-built pier in the sea since Saturday, when eleven of 16 trucks were loaded with food before reaching the UN warehouse, writes Reuters.
- We must ensure that security and logistical arrangements are in place before we continue, a UN source told the news agency.
The Gazans, who "hadn't seen any trucks for a long time", climbed onto them and took the food for themselves. It is unclear when deliveries will start again.
........................................
The Israel-Hamas war|The reactions The ICC prosecutor is sawn by Joe Biden: "Scandalous"
Joe Biden sees the ICC chief prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, and calls it "scandalous", writes Reuters.
"Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor may suggest, there is no similarity - none at all - between Israel and Hamas," the US president wrote in a statement.
US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken also dismisses the prosecutor's request as "shameful", according to AFP.
It was in an interview with CNN on Monday that Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced that he will seek arrest warrants against Israel's prime minister, defense minister and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The charges concern war crimes and crimes against humanity. Neither the US nor Israel has signed the ICC Statute.
.....................................
Israel and Hamas rage - Netanyahu: "How dare you?"
On Monday, a number of Israeli representatives completely raged against the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan's announcement that he will seek an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
"Hypocrisy", "Jewish hatred" and "disaster" are some of the judgments that have come from ministers and politicians in both the government and the opposition.
- How dare you compare the monsters of Hamas with the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world? says Netanyahu himself according to AFP.
Karim Khan also wants Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar arrested. In a statement, the terror-labeled group accused the ICC of "equating the victim with the executioner" and encouraging Israel to continue its "war of extermination" in Gaza.
Det har varit stopp för matleveranser till Gaza via den
USA-byggda piren i havet sedan i lördags, då elva av 16 lastbilar
länsades på mat innan de kommit fram till FN-lagerbyggnaden, skriver
Reuters.
– Vi måste säkerställa att säkerhetsmässiga och
logistiska arrangemang är på plats innan vi fortsätter, säger en
FN-källa till nyhetsbyrån.
Gazaborna, som ”inte sett några
lastbilar på länge”, klättrade upp på dem och tog för sig av maten. Det
är oklart när leveranserna ska komma i gång igen.
Joe Biden sågar ICC-chefsåklagarens begäran om
arresteringsorder mot Benjamin Netanyahu, och kallar den ”skandalös”,
skriver Reuters.
”Låt mig vara tydlig: vad den här åklagaren än
må antyda finns det ingen likhet – ingen alls – mellan Israel och
Hamas”, skriver den amerikanske presidenten i ett uttalande.
Även USA:s utrikesminister Antony Blinken avfärdar åklagarens begäran som ”skamlig”, enligt AFP.
Det
var i en intervju med CNN på måndagen som Karim Khan, Internationella
brottmålsdomstolens (ICC) chefsåklagare, meddelade att han kommer söka
arresteringsorder mot Israels premiärminister, försvarsminister och
Hamasledaren Yahya Sinwar.
Anklagelserna gäller krigsbrott och brott mot mänskligheten. Varken USA eller Israel har skrivit under ICC:s stadgar.
Israel och Hamas rasar – Netanyahu: ”Hur vågar du?”
En rad israeliska företrädare har under måndagen fullkomligt
rasat mot Internationella brottmålsdomstolens (ICC) chefsåklagare Karim
Khans besked om att han kommer söka arresteringsorder mot Israels
premiärminister Benjamin Netanyahu och försvarsminister Yoav Gallant.
”Hyckleri”,
”judehat” och ”katastrof” är några av de omdömen som kommit från
ministrar och politiker inom både regeringen och oppositionen.
–
Hur vågar du jämföra monstren i Hamas med soldaterna i IDF, den mest
moraliska armén i världen? säger Netanyahu själv enligt AFP.
Karim
Khan vill även att Hamasledaren Yahya Sinwar grips. I ett uttalande
anklagar den terrorstämplade gruppen ICC för att ”likställa offret med
bödeln” och uppmuntra Israel att fortsätta sitt ”utrotningskrig” i Gaza.
The separatists are rebuilding destroyed roadblocks
The separatists in riot-ravaged New Caledonia continue to resist the French police forces, AFP reports.
1,000 gendarmes have been sent to the island and destroyed 76 roadblocks on the six-mile road between the capital Nouméa and La Tontouta international airport.
However, the protesters, who are largely from the indigenous Kanak people and demand independence from France, vow not to give up. AFP reporters saw how some of the destroyed roadblocks were rebuilt in an even larger format.
The reporters also witnessed vehicles full of masked, machete-wielding men and heard tear gas being fired in the suburbs.
- It feels like being in "The walking dead" [...] We have no idea when it will be safe again, says a local post office manager.
.......................................
Macron in new crisis meeting - unrest continues
On Monday, French President Macron will hold a third crisis meeting with the Defense and Security Council in less than a week, due to the continued unrest in New Caledonia, writes The Guardian.
The first meeting resulted in a state of emergency being declared, and the second in a decision to send 1,000 gendarmes and police to the archipelago.
The island's international airport has been closed since Tuesday and will remain so, despite requests from Australia and New Zealand to evacuate their residents, airport management said, according to AFP.
Separatisterna i det upploppshärjade Nya Kaledonien fortsätter att stå emot de franska polisstyrkorna, rapporterar AFP.
1 000
gendarmer har skickats till ön och förstört 76 vägspärrar på den sex
mil långa vägen mellan huvudstaden Nouméa och den internationella
flygplatsen La Tontouta.
Demonstranterna, som till stor del
tillhör ursprungsfolket Kanak och kräver självständighet från Frankrike,
svär dock att inte ge upp. AFP:s reportrar såg hur några av de
förstörda vägspärrarna byggdes upp i ännu större format.
Reportrarna bevittnade också fordon fulla med maskerade, machetebeväpnade män och hörde tårgas avfyras i förorterna.
–
Det känns som att vara i ”The walking dead” [...] Vi har inget begrepp
om när det blir säkert igen, säger en lokal postkontorchef.
Macron i nytt krismöte – oroligheterna fortsätter
På måndagen håller Frankrikes president Macron ett tredje
krismöte med försvars- och säkerhetsrådet på mindre än en vecka, med
anledning av de fortsatta oroligheterna i Nya Kaledonien, skriver The
Guardian.
Det första mötet resulterade i att undantagstillstånd
utlystes, och det andra i att beslut togs om att skicka 1 000 gendarmer
och poliser till ögruppen.
Öns internationella flygplats har
hållits stängd sedan i tisdagen och kommer så att förbli, trots att
Australien och Nya Zeeland begärt att få evakuera sina invånare, uppger
flygplatsens ledning enligt AFP.
Stockholm Details: Israeli weapons systems on the roof of the Riksdag
Oskar Forsberg
Updated 18.38 | Published 18.29
The Israeli arms company Elbit has sold systems to Sweden's Riksdag, which have now been installed on the roof.
This is Dagens ETC's experience.
- It feels completely sick, says a source to the newspaper.
The "Red Sky" weapon system has been installed on the roof of the Riksdag Photo: Robin Lorentz Allard
The military equipment from Israel is called "Red sky". The system detects, identifies and neutralizes drones by disrupting them.
The system is now installed on the roof of the eastern parliament building and consists of three components.
On site in Stockholm
The newspaper Dagens ETC, which first drew attention to the new system, has spoken to several defense experts who confirm that it is the current system.
A source for the newspaper tells us that representatives of Elbit are currently in place in i Stockholm and in the Riksdag.
- Elbit will have drones flying over central Stockholm to show that their secret equipment can catch them, says the source.
Controversial company
Today's ETC can confirm the data.
This after requesting the Riksdag's visitor lists. They show that representatives from Elbit have been on site on repeated occasions during the spring.
Due to Elbit's involvement in Israel's ongoing invasion of Gaza, several financial institutions and pension and investment funds around the world, including Swedish pension funds, have sold their holdings in the company Elbit.
The system must protect against drones Photo: Robin Lorentz Allard
FACTS
Bit of electricity
Elbit systems is Israel's largest arms company and closely linked to the IDF, the Israeli army.
The company has been repeatedly criticized for supplying the Israeli military with equipment used against the Palestinian civilian population.
Since the company's operations are not considered compatible with international law, the AP funds decided in 2010 not to invest in Elbit systems.
Elbit systems has had an office in Sweden since 2021, via the subsidiary Elbit systems Sweden.
On October 23, 2023, Elbit signed a ten-year agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces worth SEK 1.7 billion.
Source: Today's ETC
New Caledonia
Will take back the paradise island: "Whatever the cost"
Emil Forsberg
Published 01.04
A large number of cars have been left burnt out on the paradise island after this week's protests. Photo: Nicolas Job / AP
French elite forces have been called in to quell the protests in New Caledonia.
Now a warning is being sent to the rebels.
- Order will be restored, whatever the cost, says High Commissioner Louis Le Franc.
Last night, France launched a major operation to take back control of the Pacific island group of New Caledonia, where protests have raged for almost a week.
Six people have been killed in the clashes between police and protesters.
600 heavily armed police are now working to retake the main road that runs between the airport and the capital, Noumea, Reuters said.
76 improvised roadblocks set up by the protesters have been destroyed, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
200 people are said to have been arrested.
- There are still many obstacles that must be removed in order to be able to introduce a republican order, says Darmanin.
"Will risk the worst"
New Caledonia's High Commissioner Louis Le Franc says order will be restored "whatever the cost".
- If the protesters want to use their weapons, they will risk the worst.
French elite force Brav-M is used to dealing with violent clashes. Archive image. Photo: Christophe Ena / AP
The protests broke out after the amendment to the French constitution that will allow residents who have lived in New Caledonia for ten years to vote in the provincial elections in the French colony.
Something that is seen as a threat to the indigenous Kanak population's vote share and influence.
Macron calls for crisis meeting
Dominique Fochi, leader of the independence movement, says the French government must immediately stop the constitutional amendment.
- We need powerful measures to calm the situation. The government must stop pouring fuel on the fire, he told Reuters.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a meeting of the National Defense and Security Council on Monday evening to discuss the situation in the territory, the Elysee Palace said.
Protests have also been held in Paris during the week in support of the island's uprising. Photo: Thomas Padilla / AP
Analyst: The important thing is that Zuma can campaign
As former South African President Jacob Zuma is barred from standing in parliamentary elections, he cannot become president again even if his new MK party gathers enough votes to nominate him. This is because the president must be chosen from among the members of parliament, writes AFP.
But political analyst Sandile Swana does not believe the court order stopping Zuma will cost the party many votes.
- The important thing is that he can participate in the election campaign and be its face, she says.
According to a survey by Ipsos, support for MK is around eight percent. That could be enough to help the ANC, to which Zuma formerly belonged, lose its absolute majority in parliament. Otherwise, the party that has governed South Africa since democratization would have to negotiate with various small parties to retain power. ....................................
The ex-president is ported from South Africa's parliamentary elections
South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma is stopped from standing in the parliamentary elections after a decision in the Constitutional Court, writes Reuters. This is because he was previously sentenced to prison.
Zuma was forced to leave power in 2018 following accusations of, among other things, corruption. He wanted to stand in the election on May 29 with a newly formed party, when the state-bearing party ANC turned its back on him, writes TT.
The Israel-Hamas war|The reactions ICC prosecutor: Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested
International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan wants an arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, reports CNN.
The charges relate to war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Hamas' terrorist attacks on October 7 and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza.
The arrest warrant also intends to include Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the two Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniya, according to Khan.
A panel will now make a decision on the matter.
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Netanyahu in new talks with the US about the war in Gaza
White House national adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, news agencies report.
Netanyahu reportedly briefed Sullivan on the warfare in Gaza and discussed how the military operation should be conducted to cause the least possible harm to the civilian population.
The meeting comes after Sullivan earlier on Sunday met Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and among other things talked about a two-state solution.
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The Israel-Hamas warThe attacks Israel intends to expand the ground offensive in Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has informed White House security adviser Jake Sullivan that Israel intends to expand the offensive against Rafah in Gaza, reports Al Jazeera.
"We are committed to expanding the ground operation in Rafah until Hamas is defeated and the hostages brought home," Gallant said in a statement after his meeting with Sullivan on Sunday.
Sullivan, for his part, is said to have come up with suggestions for how Israel can defeat Hamas, while at the same time causing the least possible damage to civilians, TT writes. He is also said to have proposed measures for more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
