India has just five years to solve its water crisis, experts fear. Otherwise hundreds of millions of lives will be in danger
Updated 0536 GMT (1336 HKT) June 28, 2019
The world’s second-most populous country is running out of water.
French city shuts down public pools after two women wear burkinis
Grenoble authorities say shutdown was requested by lifeguards at the pool
Despite the unprecedented heatwave sweeping across western Europe, lifeguards in Grenoble have shut down the city’s two municipal swimming pools after Muslim women went swimming in burkinis.
The women went to the pools twice at the initiative of the Alliance Citoyenne rights group to challenge a city ban on the full-body swimwear.
According to a statement from the town hall, the lifeguards at the pools asked for the shutdown because “they are there to maintain safety and they can’t do that when they have to worry about the crowds”. It added: “We are working towards a positive solution.”
Father, Neighbor, KillerGermany’s Chilling New Far-Right Terror
The recent politically motivated assassination of a prominent local leader in Germany has raised concern about the growing threat of far-right extremism in the country. As investigators search for possible accomplices, politicians are struggling to find answers to the escalating violence. By DER SPIEGEL Staff
Looking back, it was almost as if the group of high-ranking officials tasked with protecting Germany had had some dark premonition about what would soon transpire.
As the interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states convened in a hotel in the northern city of Kiel, the first item on the agenda was a “security report.” Sinan Selen, the vice president of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which is responsible for monitoring all forms of extremism, began enumerating the gravest threats to the country.
Why United Nations failed to save Rohingya
Insiders say UN sought to downplay criticism of Myanmar and was hamstrung by China, Russia opposition to firm response.
When Liam Mahony travelled to Myanmar to advise the United Nations on its handling of the Rohingya crisis, the dozens of aid workers he spoke to were almost unanimous in their appraisal of the organisation’s approach.
Their view, the researcher recalls, was “this was all screwed up… this was not going to help the Rohingya population”.
An aid worker who was helping to manage the detention camps in the western state of Rakhine – where the UN and others provide food and other basic necessities to tens of thousands of Rohingya who were forcibly relocated after riots in 2012 – offered Mahony a grim assessment of her role there.
Trump jokes to Putin: ‘Don’t meddle in the election, please’
By Jonathan Lemire
U.S. President Donald Trump met Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday for the first time since the special counsel found extensive evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. When asked if he would warn Russia not to meddle in the next election, Trump wore a bit of a smile, pointed his finger at Putin and dryly said: “Don’t meddle in the election, please.”
The tone of the president’s comments were immediately open to interpretation but would seem to do little to silence questions about Trump’s relationship with Russia in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that his campaign did not collude with Russia in 2016. Their meeting in Japan was the first time the two sat together publicly since their summit in Helsinki nearly a year ago in which Trump pointedly did not admonish Putin over election interference and did not side with U.S. intelligence services over his Russian counterpart.
India arrests after women’s heads shaved for resisting rape
Two people have been arrested in India’s Bihar state after a group of men shaved the heads of two women as “punishment” for resisting rape.
The group, which included a local official, ambushed the mother and daughter in their home with the intent of raping them, police said.
When the women resisted, they assaulted them, shaved their heads and paraded them through the village.
Police say they are searching for five others involved in the incident.
“We were beaten with sticks very badly. I have injuries all over my body and my daughter also has some injuries,” the mother told the ANI news agency.