While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Dec 9
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Palestinians inspect a destroyed house, following Israeli airstrikes in Deir Al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
US blocks demand for humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza
The United States on Dec 8 vetoed a United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, diplomatically isolating Washington as it shields its ally.
Thirteen Security Council members voted in favour of a brief draft resolution, put forward by the United Arab Emirates, while Britain abstained.
The vote came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a rare move on Dec 6 to formally warn the 15-member council of a global threat from the two-month-long war.
The US and Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas.
Harvard president apologises for anti-Semitism remarks
The president of Harvard publicly apologised in an interview published on Dec 8 for remarks she made during a congressional hearing about anti-Semitism on US campuses amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Claudine Gay, a professor who has led the prestigious US university since July 2023, was asked on Dec 5 whether calls for “genocide” against Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct, to which she did not respond with a direct affirmative.
“I am sorry,” Prof Gay said, in an interview published by her university’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.
Teens convicted in connection French teacher’s beheading
A French court on Dec 8 convicted six teenagers in connection with the 2020 beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty, whose murder shocked the country.
The teacher had shown his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering some Muslim parents. Most Muslims avoid depictions of the Prophet, considering them to be blasphemous.
Among those on trial was a teenage girl who had allegedly told her parents that Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the caricatures.
Rich nations need to ditch fossil fuels by 2040, say scientists
Rich countries need to stop using coal by 2030 and oil and gas by 2040, with poorer nations following a decade behind, to give the world a chance of limiting warming to 1.5 deg C, climate scientists told the United Nations on Dec 8.
In a note to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Climate Change body shared with AFP, climate scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Exeter University said there was very little room for anything but a total phase-out of fossil fuels.
The steep timeline they laid out comes as climate negotiators at the COP28 talks in Dubai are tussling over the future of oil, gas and coal, responsible for the lion’s share of humanity’s planet-heating emissions.
‘No neutral athletes’ in track and field at Paris 2024 Olympics
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said on Dec 8 that there would be no Russians or Belarusians competing as neutrals in the athletics at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“You may well see some neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus in Paris, it just won’t be in athletics,” Coe told a press conference at the World Athletics Council meeting in Monaco.
World Athletics originally excluded competitors, coaches and officials from Russia and Belarus from its events as early as March 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a supporter of Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.
