Two charged with murder after death of Yemeni teenager in Sheffield hit-and-run
Two charged with murder after death of Yemeni teenager in Sheffield hit-and-run/node/2603865/world
Two charged with murder after death of Yemeni teenager in Sheffield hit-and-run
Zulkernain Ahmed and Amaan Ahmed have also been charged with three counts of attempted murder following the death of Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Al-Yazidi (pictured). (South Yorkshire Police)
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Updated 8 min 21 sec ago
Arab News
Two charged with murder after death of Yemeni teenager in Sheffield hit-and-run
Teenager left Yemen for UK in hope of a better future, say victim’s family
Updated 8 min 21 sec ago
Arab News
LONDON: Two men have been charged with murder after a 16-year-old boy died in an alleged hit-and-run in Sheffield last week, it was reported on Sunday.
Zulkernain Ahmed and Amaan Ahmed have also been charged with three counts of attempted murder following the death of Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Al-Yazidi, said South Yorkshire Police.
Al-Yazidi’s family said the teenager had come to the UK from Yemen three months ago hoping for a better future. He had been learning English ahead of starting college in September and was described as someone who would “light up their faces with a big smile.”
He was walking along the road in Darnall on Wednesday when he was struck by a grey Audi.
Police believe the car first hit the rider of an electric bike before continuing on and hitting Al-Yazidi, who later died in hospital from his injuries. The 18-year-old rider of the e-bike was seriously injured but is expected to recover.
The two suspects are due to appear at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
A 46-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman, arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, remain on bail.
Saleh Al-Sirkal, a relative who runs a shop in Darnall, said Al-Yazidi had visited shortly before the collision, after attending a hospital appointment.
“He was a kind boy,” he told the BBC. “He just wanted to look after his family. His dad brought him over to change his life, to get a better future for his son, but this has happened and destroyed everything.”
Local councilor Qais Al-Ahdal said the teen was widely liked and respected in the area and that the community in Darnall was united in grief.
“We’ve really lost someone who is good in the community,” he said. “Praised by everyone unanimously, he was a really good kid.”
Climate change heightens risk of Indian farmer suicides
On a small farm in India’s Maharashtra state, Mirabai Khindkar said the only thing her land grew was debt, after crops failed in drought and her husband killed himself
Updated 32 sec ago
AFP
BEED: On a small farm in India’s Maharashtra state, Mirabai Khindkar said the only thing her land grew was debt, after crops failed in drought and her husband killed himself. Farmer suicides have a long history in India, where many are one crop failure away from disaster, but extreme weather caused by climate change is adding fresh pressure. Dwindling yields due to water shortages, floods, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, coupled with crippling debt, have taken a heavy toll on a sector that employs 45 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people. Mirabhai’s husband Amol was left with debts to loan sharks worth hundreds of times their farm’s annual income, after the three-acre (one-hectare) soybean, millet and cotton plot withered in scorching heat. He swallowed poison last year. “When he was in the hospital, I prayed to all the gods to save him,” said 30-year-old Mirabai, her voice breaking. Amol died a week later, leaving behind Mirabai and three children. Her last conversation with him was about debt. Their personal tragedy is replicated daily across Marathwada, a region in Maharashtra of 18 million, once known for fertile farmland. Last year, extreme weather events across India affected 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of cropland — an area bigger than Belgium — according to the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment research group. Over 60 percent of that was in Maharashtra. “Summers are extreme, and even if we do what is necessary, the yield is not enough,” said Amol’s brother and fellow farmer Balaji Khindkar. “There is not enough water to irrigate the fields. It doesn’t rain properly.”
Between 2022 and 2024, 3,090 farmers took their own lives in Marathwada, an average of nearly three a day, according to India’s Minister of Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Government statistics do not specify what drove the farmers to kill themselves, but analysts point to several likely factors. “Farmer suicides in India are a consequence of the crisis of incomes, investment and productivity that you have in agriculture,” said R. Ramakumar, professor of development studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Farming across many Indian smallholdings is done largely as it has been for centuries, and is highly dependent on the right weather at the correct time. “What climate change and its vulnerabilities and variabilities have done is to increase the risks in farming,” Ramakumar said. This “is leading to crop failures, uncertainties... which is further weakening the economics of cultivation for small and marginal farmers.” The government could support farmers with better insurance schemes to cope with extreme weather events, as well as investments in agricultural research, Ramakumar said. “Agriculture should not be a gamble with the monsoon.”
Faced with uncertain weather, farmers often look to stem falling yields by investing in fertilizers or irrigation systems. But banks can be reluctant to offer credit to such uncertain borrowers. Some turn to loan sharks offering quick cash at exorbitant interest rates, and risking catastrophe if crops fail. “It is difficult to make ends meet with just farming,” Mirabai said, standing outside her home, a tin-roofed hut with patch-cloth walls. Her husband’s loans soared to over $8,000, a huge sum in India, where the average monthly income of a farming household is around $120. Mirabai works on other farms as a laborer but could not pay back the debt. “The loan instalments piled up,” she said, adding that she wants her children to find jobs outside of farming when they grow up. “Nothing comes out of the farm.” The agricultural industry has been in a persistent crisis for decades. And while Maharashtra has some of the highest suicide rates, the problem is nationwide. Thirty people in the farming sector killed themselves every day in 2022, according to national crime records bureau statistics. At another farm in Marathwada, 32-year-old farmer Shaikh Imran took over the running of the family smallholding last year after his brother took his own life. He is already more than $1,100 in debt after borrowing to plant soybean. The crop failed. Meanwhile, the pop of explosives echoes around as farmers blast wells, hoping to hit water. “There’s no water to drink,” said family matriarch Khatijabi. “Where shall we get water to irrigate the farm?“
Explosion at a US air base in southern Japan injures at least 1 Japanese soldier/node/2603898/world
Explosion at a US air base in southern Japan injures at least 1 Japanese soldier
An explosion occurred at a Japanese military facility inside a US air base in Okinawa, officials told AFP, with local media reporting non-life-threatening injuries
Updated 09 June 2025
AFP
An explosion at or near a US military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa injured at least one Japanese soldier but the injury is not life threatening, Japanese defense officials said Monday.
The Self Defense Force's joint staff said they are looking into reports of an explosion at Kadena Air Base that occurred while a team of Japanese soldiers that specializes in handling unexploded ordnance was working near or at the base.
The SDF said they are trying to confirm the cause of the accident and where it occurred.
NATO learns as Ukraine’s ‘creativity’ changes battlefield
“What the Ukrainians did in Russia was a Trojan horse,” says NATO streategic commander for transformation
NATO has adopted new objectives for its defense capabilities to ensure it will be able to repel Russian aggression
Updated 09 June 2025
AFP
BRUSSELS, Belgium: Ukraine’s “creativity,” including its massive “Spider’s web” drone attack deep inside Russia, holds profound lessons for Western militaries, the top NATO commander overseeing battlefield innovation told AFP.
“What the Ukrainians did in Russia was a Trojan horse — and the trojan horse was thousands of years ago,” French Admiral Pierre Vandier, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, said in an interview.
“Today, we see this kind of tactic being reinvented by technical and industrial creativity.”
Vandier said the operation showed how crucial innovation and adaptation were for victory, as modern warfare changes at lightning speed.
“It was a real coup.”
“We are entering a dynamic era where armies must rely on both major planning but also adaptive planning,” the navy commander said.
“We will witness continuous innovation where, week by week, month by month or year by year, we will be able to invent things we hadn’t anticipated.”
Faced with the Russian threat, NATO this week adopted new objectives for its defense capabilities to ensure it will be able to repel Moscow.
But Western intelligence agencies have warned that the Kremlin is reconstituting its forces at a pace far outstripping NATO and could be ready to attack the alliance in as little as four years.
“Time is truly a crucial parameter. We must act quickly,” Vandier said.
The admiral, who previously commanded France’s flagship Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier, said NATO needed to amass the forces to dissuade any adversary from trying an attack.
“When you say ‘I’m defending myself’, you have the weapons to defend. When you say you deter, you have the weapons to deter,” he said.
“That’s what should prevent war — making the adversary think: “Tomorrow morning, I won’t win.”
NATO countries under pressure from US President Donald Trump are expected to agree a major increase in their defense spending target at a summit in The Hague this month.
That should see a dramatic surge in spending on military hardware.
But if cheap Ukrainian drones can inflict billions of dollars in damage on Russian bombers, is it still worth investing in vastly expensive systems?
“No-one in the military sphere will tell you that we can do without what we’ll call traditional equipment,” Vandier said.
“However, we are certain we need new equipment to complement it.”
Officials say that over 70 percent of battlefield casualties in Ukraine are caused by drones.
But while drones are indispensable in modern warfare, they are not omnipotent.
“Today, you won’t cross the Atlantic with a 10-meter-long (33-foot-long) drone. You won’t easily locate submarines with such tools,” Vandier said.
“If they accompany your large platforms, you’ll be able to achieve much better results at much lower costs.”
The admiral, who works out of NATO’s US base in Norfolk, Virginia, said the major challenge was “integrating new technologies and new combat methods, based on what we’ve witnessed in Ukraine.”
NATO and Ukraine have established a center in Poland designed to help the alliance learn lessons from Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
Artificial Intelligence and robotics are also increasingly having an impact and are set to help reshape the battlefield.
“All modern armies will have piloted and non-piloted capabilities,” Vandier said.
“It’s much more efficient to deliver ammunition with a ground robot than with a squad of soldiers who could face a 155-millimeter (six-inch) shell.”
This transformation of military capabilities within the alliance, which NATO aims to expand by at least 30 percent over coming years, will come at a significant cost, estimated in hundreds of billions of euros (dollars).
Vandier insisted that while the financial effort was “substantial” it was “fully realistic.”
“Today, we have all the tools. We have the engineering. We have the expertise. We have the technology. So, we need to get started,” he said.
US troops make first detentions in Trump border military zones
US presidents have long used active-duty and reservist troops on the international boundary in support roles to US Border Patrol such as surveillance and construction
Updated 09 June 2025
Reuters
US troops have made their first detentions inside military areas set up on the US-Mexico border as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the US Army said.
The unprecedented military areas along 260 miles (418 km) of border in New Mexico and Texas were declared extensions of US Army bases by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, allowing troops to temporarily detain migrants and other civilian trespassers.
Three “illegal aliens” were detained by troops in the New Mexico area near Santa Teresa on June 3, before being handed to US Border Patrol, Army spokesperson Major Geoffrey Carmichael said in an email.
“This marks the first time Department of Defense personnel have recorded a temporary detainment within either National Defense Area,” Carmichael said.
US presidents have long used active-duty and reservist troops on the international boundary in support roles to US Border Patrol such as surveillance and construction.
President Donald Trump took military use a step further by giving troops the right to hold trespassers they catch in the zones until civilian law enforcement assumes custody.
Federal troops can also search people and conduct crowd control measures within the areas, according to the Army.
Designation of the zones as military bases allowed troops to detain migrants without the need for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. The 1807 law lets a US president deploy federal troops domestically to suppress events like civil disorder.
Prosecution of dozens of migrants caught in the zones has faced setbacks in court after judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges, and acquitted a Peruvian woman, ruling they did not know they were entering restricted areas.
The primary role of troops in the zones is to detect and track illegal border crossers, with around 390 such detections so far, the Army said.
News of the detentions inside military areas came as Trump deployed state-based National Guard troops to Los Angeles during protests over immigration raids.
Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops
California governor accuses Trump of a “complete overreaction” designed to create a spectacle of force
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty Marines “if violence continues” in the region
Updated 09 June 2025
AP
LOS ANGELES: Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bangs to control the crowd.
Some police patrolled the streets on horseback while others with riot gear lined up behind Guard troops deployed to protect federal facilities including a detention center where some immigrants were taken in recent days. Police declared an unlawful assembly, and by early evening many people had left. Some protesters who remained grabbed chairs from a nearby public park to form a makeshift barrier between themselves and police and throw objects at them.
A woman is arrested, as protesters clash with law enforcement in the streets surrounding the federal building during a protest following federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025. (AFP)
It was the third day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 federal troops spurred anger and fear among some residents. Sunday’s protests in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown.
Outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, crowds chanted “shame” and “go home” at members of the National Guard, who stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields. After some protesters closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.
Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon, while southbound lanes remained shut down.
Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening as some protesters threw objects down at the roadway and state patrol officers fired back.
Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty.” He was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials. It wasn’t clear if he’d spoken to Trump since Friday.
I have formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command.
We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved. This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while…
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor)
Their deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Mayor Karen Bass echoed Newsom’s comments.
“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “This is about another agenda, this isn’t about public safety.”
Their admonishments did not deter the administration.
The deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles has been a chaotic escalation.
The City will remain focused on protecting all who call L.A. home.
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA)
“It’s a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement in response. Deployment follows days of protest
The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.
Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA’s fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.
Demonstrators attempted to block Border Patrol vehicles hurling rocks and chunks of cement. In response, agents in riot gear unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.
The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement.
The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.
The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Trump says there will be ‘very strong law and order’
In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is ”a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
He said he had authorized the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard.
Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were “violent people” in Los Angeles “and they’re not gonna get away with it.”
Asked if he planned to send US troops to Los Angeles, Trump replied: “We’re gonna have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden.” He didn’t elaborate.
About 500 Marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Los Angeles were in a “prepared to deploy status” Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lives in Los Angeles, said the immigration arrests and Guard deployment were designed as part of a “cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division.”
She said she supports those “standing up to protect our most fundamental rights and freedoms.”
Defense secretary threatens to deploy active-duty Marines ‘if violence continues’
In a statement Sunday, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused California’s politicians and protesters of “defending heinous illegal alien criminals at the expense of Americans’ safety.”
“Instead of rioting, they should be thanking ICE officers every single day who wake up and make our communities safer,” McLaughlin added.
The troops included members of the California Army National Guard’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a social media post from the Department of Defense.
In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty Marines “if violence continues” in the region.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the order by Trump reflected “a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism” and “usurping the powers of the United States Congress.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch Trump ally, endorsed the president’s move, doubling down on Republicans’ criticisms of California Democrats.
“Gavin Newsom has shown an inability or an unwillingness to do what is necessary, so the president stepped in,” Johnson said.
