On 15 March 2019 a man entered the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand and shot Temel Atacocugu nine times. That day 51 people were killed, but Temel survived.
Reporter Charlotte Graham-McLay follows Temel’s journey – through surgeries, the terrorist’s sentencing and a royal commission – as he tries to recover and rebuild his life.
Continue reading...Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving 12 months ago
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has told Harry Dunn‘s parents it will continue to pursue the prosecution of their son’s alleged killer, despite the high court ruling she had diplomatic immunity.
Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving 12 months ago after a fatal road crash outside a US military base in Northamptonshire on 27 August last year.
Continue reading...Zak Kostopoulos’s family say murder charges must be brought in a case that has exposed deep homophobia
Days after his death in the heart of Athens, the image of Zak Kostopoulos began to appear across the city centre, on buildings and nondescript office blocks, the marble steps of neoclassical mansions, walls and columns.
On Gladstonos street there were also words, some sprayed, some stencilled, some handwritten, but all amounting to the same thing: a memorial to a man who dared to be different.
Continue reading...Champions of herd immunity once lauded the Nordic refuseniks. All that has changed now
“Thanks for reminding me,” Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell replied deadpan when the Observer asked in late March how he handled the knowledge that he would be to blame if Sweden’s decision to forego a lockdown were to go badly wrong.
“But seriously,” he continued, “I might look like a figurehead but agencies in Sweden are very much working as a whole. This isn’t something I decide alone in my office every morning.”
Continue reading...City has been divided on ethnic lines leading to vital services not functioning
Polls have opened in the city of Mostar in the first local elections in 12 years following a dispute between parties representing the city’s two main ethnic groups that paralysed municipal institutions for more than a decade.
The city of 100,000, known for its picturesque Ottoman architecture, became one of the symbols of the devastating conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s, when its famous stone bridge was destroyed. The bridge was reconstructed in the early 2000s, but the city remains divided along largely ethnic lines. Since the end of the conflict, the west side of the city is mostly populated by Croats, and the east side by Bosniaks.
Continue reading...Leaders fear Donald Trump and Israel will act against Iran and Hezbollah before Joe Biden’s arrival
For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.
In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.
Continue reading...The outgoing US president has his eyes on a Saudi Arabia-Israel accord – no matter who gets hurt
Peace deals that entrench injustice, punish the weak and are propelled by greed, blackmail and weapons sales have precious little to do with peace – and are unlikely to endure. Yet the Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of such dodgy deals. All concern Israel and all were hastily cobbled together by the White House. As his curtailed presidency grinds to an unlamented close, Donald Trump appears engaged in a frantic foreign policy fire sale.
Peace is always a welcome prospect – but never at any price. Trump’s horse-trading on Israel’s behalf has made a cruel mockery of Palestinian rights. By agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, the UAE and Bahrain broke with the 2002 Arab peace plan that makes recognition conditional on the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state. The deal was sweetened with offers of advanced US weapons and money-spinning business and trade opportunities.
Continue reading...Ireland restricts travel from Britain as Italy, Belgium and Netherlands stop UK travel; Cases of new strain reported outside UK, says WHO
The Italian health ministry is reporting that they have found a patient infected with the same mutated strain of coronavirus as the UK.
The infected patient returned to Italy from the UK with his partner in the past few days and landed in Rome’s Fiumicino airport. They’re now in isolation, the ministry said.
El Salvador has banned travellers who have been to the UK or South Africa in the last 30 days.
President Nayib Bukele announced the new decision on Twitter after linking a Reuters story on European countries closing their borders to UK passengers.
A partir de ahora, queda prohibido el ingreso a nuestro país, de cualquier persona que su itinerario de vuelo haya incluido el Reino Unido o Sudáfrica o que haya estado en alguno de esos dos países en los últimos 30 días.
Cc. @R_Cucalon, @anliker1980 https://t.co/UQyL6ROsUN
Campaigners say the deals revealed in new report are a breach of firms’ human rights responsibilities
Human rights groups are demanding that two of Britain’s biggest banks explain why they have lent tens of millions of pounds to a technology company building a telecoms network that is part-owned and used by the Myanmar military.
HSBC and Standard Chartered have loaned $60m (£44.5m) to Vietnamese telecom giant Viettel in the last four years, a period when the Myanmar military has been accused of committing war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Viettel is a major investor in Mytel, a Myanmar mobile network that, since its launch in June 2018, has grown to become the second-biggest operator in the country with over 10 million users.
Continue reading...A new study confirms tax cuts for the rich do not benefit the rest. Recovery from the pandemic is a chance to change course
How should the huge financial costs of the pandemic be paid for, as well as the other deferred needs of society after this annus horribilis?
Continue reading...President-elect announces racially diverse team to face ‘existential threat of our time’
President-elect Joe Biden announced a racially diverse slate of environmental advisers on Saturday, to help his administration confront what he called “the existential threat of our time, climate change”.
Related: US to hold world climate summit early next year and seek to rejoin Paris accord
Continue reading...Top US infectious diseases expert tells Sesame Street event Father Christmas is ‘good to go’ for present-delivery duty
Children around the world should not worry about the logistics of Christmas present delivery while the coronavirus pandemic rages, Dr Anthony Fauci said – because he vaccinated Santa himself.
Related: US sets new record for daily Covid cases as Moderna vaccine approved
Continue reading...Ten killed when ‘high pressure oxygen device’ exploded at Sanko University hospital in Gaziantep
At least 10 people have died after an oxygen cylinder exploded at an intensive care unit treating Covid-19 patients in Turkey, the health minister said.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said the fire took place at the private Sanko University hospital in Gaziantep, which is about 40 miles north of the country’s border with Syria. It cited a hospital statement identifying the victims as being between 56 and 85. The fire was quickly brought under control.
Continue reading...Secretary of state blames Russia for worst-ever US government hack as Kremlin denies involvement and Trump stays silent
Mike Pompeo has become the first member of the Trump administration to blame Russia for wide-ranging hacks of US government agencies and private companies.
Related: US scrambling to understand fallout of suspected Russia hack
Continue reading...Secretary of state is first in administration to point to Russia but Trump attacks media over reports
Not long after Mike Pompeo became the first member of the Trump administration to blame Russia for wide-ranging hacks of US government agencies and private companies which have sent Washington scrambling to fill the breach, the president sought to play the hack down.
Related: US scrambling to understand fallout of suspected Russia hack
Continue reading...Three-day event comes as calls grow for PM to resign over handling of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
Armenia began three days of mourning on Saturday for the victims of clashes with Azerbaijan as the opposition kept up pressure on the country’s leader to resign over the handling of the conflict.
More than 5,000 people including civilians were killed in Armenia and Azerbaijan when clashes erupted between the ex-Soviet enemies in late September over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Continue reading...Jean-Luc Brunel charged in France with sexual harassment and the rape of minors over 15 years old
A modelling agent associated with the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein has been charged in France with sexual harassment and the rape of minors over 15 years old.
Jean-Luc Brunel was arrested on Wednesday at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was preparing to take a flight to Senegal.
Continue reading...David Werking can seek damages after parents got rid of films and magazines worth $29,000
A man who sued his parents for getting rid of his pornography collection has won a lawsuit in western Michigan and can seek compensation.
The US district judge Paul Maloney ruled in favour of David Werking, who said his parents had no right to throw out his collection. He lived at their Grand Haven home for 10 months after a divorce before moving to Muncie, Indiana.
Continue reading...Exodus that started after 9/11 has accelerated — and many fear New York’s financial district will not recover
“They used to stand at the bar three deep,” says John Moran, surveying the long, empty counter at Killarney Rose, a Wall Street bar that would, in another era, have been stuffed with early-shift construction workers and, at lunch and late into the evening, suited bankers.
The world’s pre-eminent financial thoroughfare – at least throughout the 20th century – is a ghost of what it once was. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are still located here, but dozens of financial institutions have emptied out from New York’s financial district in an exodus that started in the wake of 9/11 and has been hastened by Covid.
Continue reading...Two Kurdish asylum seekers made frantic attempts to save lives of family whose boat capsized in rough conditions
Two asylum seekers who were in the same boat as a Kurdish Iranian family who drowned trying to cross the Channel have spoken out about their frantic attempts to save the family’s lives after the vessel capsized.
Rasul Iran Nezhad, his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and their children: Anita, nine, Armin, six, and 15-month-old Artin, were among 22 people who boarded the boat, a rigid polyester structure about 20ft long, in October.
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