ACCRA, 07 July 2021, (TON): Hundreds of opposition supporters marched through the streets of Ghana’s capital Accra demonstrating against what they described as rising insecurity and lawlessness since President Nana Akufo-Addo came to power in 2017.

Wearing mostly red or black, the youth wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) danced through the streets with signs such as “You tweeted for George Floyd … Ghanaians have died, speak up!”.

Accompanied by the honking of motorcycle horns and music blasting from pick-up trucks, the group delivered a petition to the offices of the president and speaker of parliament.

George Opare Addo, the National Youth Organizer for the NDC, posted on Twitter “thank you to the Youth of Ghana for turning up and having a peaceful protest.”

“May the powers that be see reason in our protest and act accordingly.”

The marchers pointed to a string of high-profile murders across the country.

“The recent killings in the city have put fear in us. We are afraid to go out at night for fear of being killed,” said Kingsley Boateng, a 40-year-old mechanic.

Two protesters were shot dead and four wounded in clashes with security forces in the southern region of Ashanti last month, in rallies over the death of youth activist Ibrahim “Kaaka” Mohammed.

NAYPYITAW, 07 July 2021, (TON): On May 24 in Myanmar’s Kachin State, 13-year-old Awng Di walked over to his aunt’s house about noontime to feed her chickens. Thirty minutes later, heavy artillery crashed through the chicken coop; Awng Di died before reaching the nearby clinic.

“Our family has never been involved in politics.. We’re just trying to survive,” Awng Di’s mother told media. “Now, I want to curse [the military soldiers] every time I see them.”

According to UN estimates “Momauk township, where Awng Di was from, has been the site of clashes between the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, and the Kachin Independence Army, the armed wing of an ethnic armed organisation, since April. The uptick in violence in Momauk and other parts of Kachin State has displaced more than 11,000 people.”

The clashes in Momauk mark a broader escalation in fighting across the country since the February 1 military coup, as decades-long conflicts between the Tatmadaw and ethnic armed organisations in Myanmar’s border areas resume or accelerate, and civilian defence forces emerge in townships that had not previously seen fighting.

In response to the increase in armed resistance, the Tatmadaw has launched indiscriminate air and ground strikes on civilian areas, displacing 230,000 people since the coup. Security forces have also looted and burned homes, blocked aid access and the transport of relief items, restricted water supplies, cut telecommunications networks, shelled places of refuge, and killed and arrested volunteers seeking to deliver humanitarian assistance.

According to Kim Jolliffe, an independent researcher focused on security and conflict in Myanmar, the four cuts strategy “treats civilians not just as ‘collateral damage’ but as a central resource in the battlefield.

He told media “they are targeted directly with extreme violence and see their livelihoods intentionally destroyed so that armed groups cannot find sanctuary and civilian support.”

TEHRAN, 07 July 2021, (TON): Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman is meeting with top Biden administration officials in the United States, just months after a US intelligence report linked his brother, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said “Khalid bin Salman is expected to meet with Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as with US State and Defense Department officials.”

“They’ll discuss the longstanding partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, regional security and the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory,” Psaki told reporters, adding that the murder of Khashoggi would also likely come up.

The high-level Saudi visit, which had not been announced in advance, comes after rights groups and US legislators had urged US President Joe Biden to sanction MBS for his role in the killing of Khashoggi.

Khashoggi was killed in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to retrieve documents for his upcoming marriage.

DHAKA, 07 July 2021, (TON): Bangladesh was ranked joint 106th, along with Lebanon and Sudan in the 2021 Henley Passport Index.

according to the Henley & Partners website “in 2020, Bangladesh was ranked jointly at 98th position with Iran. The Henley passport index "includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations. Updated quarterly, the Henley Passport Index is considered the standard reference tool for global citizens and sovereign states when assessing where a passport ranks on the global mobility spectrum.”

Japan (1), Singapore (2), South Korea (3), Germany (3), Italy (4), Finland (4), Spain (4), Luxembourg (4), Denmark (5) and Austria (5) make up the top five of the passport index.

Among other South Asian nations, India ranks joint 90th with Tajikistan and Gabon, Sri Lanka joint 105th along with Iran, Nepal 109th and Pakistan is in 113th place. 

TEHRAN, 07 July 2021, (TON): The United States and European powers have condemned Iran’s decision to produce uranium metal enriched to 20 percent purity but the US said “the window for diplomacy to allow both to resume compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal remained open.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran intended to enrich uranium to 20 percent, in the latest sign the Vienna talks on reviving the joint comprehensive plan of action could be stalling.

The move takes Iran a step closer to developing materials that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at a briefing “it is worrying that Iran chooses to escalate its non-performance of its [nuclear deal] commitments, especially with experiments that have value for nuclear weapons research.”

“It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran, particularly when we for our part have demonstrated our sincere intention and willingness to return to the [deal].”

Ever since former President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement (JCPOA) in 2018, Iran has gradually been violating its restrictions to put pressures on the remaining parties, the three European nations, Russia and China, to come up with economic incentives to offset crippling American sanctions

Meanwhile, Germany, France and the United Kingdom also voiced grave concern, saying in a joint statement that Iran was “threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks”.

UK, France and Germany said in a joint statement “Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”

The statement added “we strongly urge Iran to halt all activities in violation of the JCPOA, without delay and to return to the negotiations in Vienna with a view to bringing them to a swift conclusion.”

BERLIN , 07 July 2021, (TON): German federal prosecutors arrested and charged a semi-retired think tank head on suspicion of spying for China.

The political scientist, identified as Klaus L., 75, under German privacy laws, ran the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Munich according to broadcaster ARD since 2001 before later establishing the Institute for Transnational Studies.

The foundation is associated with the Christian Social Union (CSU), a sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in Bavaria.

German authorities allege he was recruited by Chinese intelligence while lecturing at Tongji University in Shanghai in mid-2010. He was regularly debriefing his handlers and given money, typically before major conferences and state visits.

His travel expenses to China were also covered through November of 2019, which is when German investigators showed up at his home to arrest him and execute a search of his property.

NAYPYITAW, 07 July 2021, (TON): The clandestine clinic was under fire, and the medics inside were in tears.

Hidden away in a Myanmar monastery, this safe haven had sprung up for those injured while protesting the military’s overthrow of the government. But now security forces had discovered its location.

A bullet struck a young man in the throat as he defended the door, and the medical staff tried frantically to stop the bleeding.

In Myanmar, the military has declared war on health care and on doctors themselves, who were early and fierce opponents of the takeover in February. Security forces are arresting, attacking and killing medical workers, dubbing them enemies of the state. With medics driven underground amid a global pandemic, the country’s already fragile healthcare system is crumbling.

“The junta is purposely targeting the whole healthcare system as a weapon of war,” says one Yangon doctor on the run for months, whose colleagues at an underground clinic were arrested during a raid.

He said “we believe that treating patients, doing our humanitarian job, is a moral job. I didn’t think that it would be accused as a crime.”

Inside the clinic, the young man shot in the throat was fading. A minute later, he was dead.

One of the clinic’s medical students, whose name like those of several medics has been withheld to protect her from retaliation, began to cry. She had never seen anyone shot.

Now she too was at risk. Protesters smashed a window so the medics could escape.

MALE, 07 July 2021, (TON): Maldives Reform Movement (MRM)'s interim leader, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom said that there is no room for a parliamentary system of government in Maldives.

His comment comes in response to a recent call by Parliament Speaker, former President Mohamed Nasheed to hold a constitutional referendum to decide on a parliamentary system next year.

In a tweet afternoon, Maumoon said he believes the presidential system to be the most suitable and beneficial government system for Maldives.

He said “the presidential system is the most suitable to Maldives’ situation, and the most beneficial government system for Maldives. The Maldivian people decided by a landslide on a presidential system. There’s therefore no room for a parliamentary system in Maldives. Its very clear.”

In response to a question during an episode of Ask Speaker night, Nasheed said “he plans on running in the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) primary for the next presidential election, but prefers a parliamentary system of government over a presidential system.

WASHINGTON, 07 July 2021, (TON): Raytheon will get up to $2 billion to develop the Air Force’s Long Range Standoff Weapon system, a new nuclear-capable air launched cruise missile that will be carried by B-52 and B-21 bombers.

The service on July 1 awarded Raytheon a cost-plus-fixed-fee deal for the engineering and manufacturing development stage of the LRSO program, with contract options that max out at about $2 billion.

The contract announcement stated “during the EMD stage of the program, Raytheon will continue to mature its LRSO design and prepare for full-rate production of the weapon in 2027.”

LRSO is slated to replace the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile, which was designed in the 1970s. Air Force officials have argued that the legacy ALCM has become more difficult to maintain as its supply base becomes obsolete, and its effectiveness gets increasingly compromised as adversaries field more sophisticated air defense systems.

The Air Fo-rce could buy more than 1,-000 LRSO missiles, which are projected to have a range in excess of 1,500 miles.

MOSCOW, 07 July 2021, (TON): Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow will toughly and decisively respond to the unfriendly actions of Washington.

According to the Russian minister, Washington must understand that attempts to conduct a dialogue with Moscow from a position of strength are doomed to failure.

“We will respond harshly and decisively to unfriendly actions,” RIA Novosti quotes the head of the department with reference to his interview with the Indonesian newspaper Rakyat Merdeka.

Lavrov drew attention to the fact that at the summit in Geneva , Russian President Putin made it clear that achieving results in all areas is possible only through the search for a mutually acceptable balance of interests and strictly on a parity basis.

At the same time, according to the minister, despite the fact that during the negotiations there were no objections to this, immediately after them, Washington with a vengeance took up the previous notations and also began to put forward new demands on Russia.

At the Villa La Grange in Geneva, a meeting was held between the presidents of Russia and the United States.

It lasted 4.5 hours, taking into account the break. After the talks, each leader stated that the talks were constructive and proceeded on a positive note.