WORLD - The African Mirror

May

30

2021

In victory for Trump, Republicans block probe of U.S. Capitol riot

WORLD

SUSAN CORNWELL REPUBLICANS in the U.S. Senate have derailed a bipartisan inquiry into the deadly assault on the Capitol by former President Donald Trump's supporters, despite a torrent of criticism the lawmakers were playing down the violence. Democrats and some moderate Republicans had called for a commission to probe the events up to and including Jan. 6, when hundreds of supporters of Trump, a Republican, stormed the Capitol, fighting with police, urging violence against lawmakers and delaying the formal certification of President Joe Biden's election victory. The violence left five people dead including a Capitol Police officer. The measure mustered…

May

30

2021

By The African Mirror

Swedish Finance Minister wants ‘millionaire’s tax’ to support welfare

WORLD

SWEDEN’S ruling Social Democratic party wants to introduce a "millionaire's tax" so that the richest contribute more to supporting the welfare system, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson has disclosed. The gap between the richest and poorest in Sweden has been growing in recent decades, though the country is still one of the most equal in economic terms in the world. Writing in daily Dagens Nyheter, Andersson said that while the poorest half of the population had seen their incomes increase 50% since the 1990s, incomes for the top 1% had more than tripled. "Inequality can raise the risk that authoritarian and…

Jun

04

2021

By The African Mirror

Netanyahu, battling for political life, attacks deal to unseat him

WORLD

JEFFREY HELLER ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fought back against an agreement by his political opponents for a government of left-wing, centrist and right-wing parties aimed at unseating him. Netanyahu, facing the prospect of an end to his 12-year run as premier, said on Twitter "all legislators elected by votes from the right must oppose this dangerous left-wing government", and he targeted historic Arab participation in the coalition. The right-wing leader mounted the social media attack the day after centrist politician Yair Lapid's announcement, about 35 minutes before a Wednesday night deadline, that he had succeeded in forming a…

Jun

04

2021

By The African Mirror

‘We cannot postpone again,’ Tokyo 2020 boss says of COVID gloom

WORLD

ROCKY SWIFT THE head of Japan's Olympics organising committee ruled out on Thursday another suspension of the Games, despite deep disquiet at the prospect of thousands of athletes and officials arriving during a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections. Already postponed from last year at the cost of an extra $3.5 billion, a scaled-down version of the Games, with no foreign spectators, is set to start on July 23. But with a slow vaccine rollout, Tokyo and nine other regions under a state of emergency, and rising numbers of severe coronavirus cases, most Japanese oppose hosting the Olympics. Most of the…

Jun

04

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 far more widespread in Indonesia than official data show: studies

WORLD

TOM ALLARD COVID-19 is many times more prevalent in Indonesia than shown by official figures in the world's fourth most populous country, authors of two new studies told Reuters. The country of 270 million has recorded 1.83 million positive cases, but epidemiologists have long believed the true scale of the spread has been obscured by a lack of testing and contact tracing. The results of Indonesia's first major seroprevalence studies - which test for antibodies - were revealed exclusively to Reuters. One nationwide study between December and January suggested 15% of Indonesians had already contracted COVID-19 - when official figures…

May

29

2021

By The African Mirror

As Tulsa commemorates massacre, African Americans hope for justice amid shifting tide

WORLD

MAKINI BRICE ONCE a week, every week, Rev. Robert Turner leaves his Vernon AME Church to march the mile to City Hall. Turner has been marching for years to demand reparations. His church is one of more than 1,200 buildings that were torched by white mobs in the 1921 massacre in the Greenwood district, where an estimated 300 people died, thousands were made homeless and an entire African-American community - Tulsa's prosperous "Black Wall Street" - was destroyed. A marker on a front corner of the church's brick structure notes that its basement "is the only edifice remaining from the…

May

29

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO seeks Gaza patient access, evacuations after violence

WORLD

THE World Health Organization has called for access to patients in the Gaza strip and free passage to evacuate them for medical treatment as health workers struggle to care for the sick and wounded after 11 days of violence. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a Geneva briefing that around 600 patients, including some with chronic conditions, needed to be referred outside of the Palestinian enclave since the start of the hostilities, but had been unable to due to crossing closures. "It's very important that we help Palestinians get the care they need, especially helping them get treatment outside the Gaza…

May

29

2021

By The African Mirror

World must prevent repeat of Belarus incident, airlines chief says

WORLD

THE head of a group representing most global airlines welcomed an international investigation into the forced landing of a Ryanair jetliner in Belarus and said the world must ensure such incidents never happen again. "That sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable and must be strongly condemned. We must have measures to ensure that can't happen again," Willie Walsh, director-general of the International Air Transport Association, told Reuters. The United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreed on Thursday to investigate the forced grounding. Belarus has said it was responding to a bomb threat. Walsh said evidence suggested the threat had…

Jun

03

2021

By The African Mirror

Biden warns of echoes of Tulsa massacre in the United States today

WORLD

JEFF MASON JOE Biden has become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where hundreds of Black Americans were massacred by a white mob in 1921, and he said the legacy of racist violence and white supremacy still resonates. Biden came to Tulsa to put a spotlight on an event that epitomizes the country's history of brutal racial violence, despite the massacre being largely under the radar in U.S. classrooms and history books for years. "We should know the good, the bad, everything," Biden said in a speech to the few survivors of the attack…

Jun

03

2021

By The African Mirror

Red Cross chief urges Israel, Palestinians to end cycle of violence

WORLD

NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI THE head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has urged Israel and the Palestinians to find a political solution so violence like last month's hostilities over the Gaza Strip border might be prevented. On his first visit to Gaza in four years, Robert Mardini toured areas devasted by Israeli bombardments during the 11 days of fighting, including a road where 42 people were killed. "It is really heart-breaking to see and to hear about the people who paid the ultimate cost of this escalation - women, children, civilians who were living safely in their apartments…