When Fawzia Amini worked as a senior judge in Afghanistan's Supreme Court, she presided over cases of violent crimes against women, hearing harrowing and heart-breaking accounts of child marriage, sexual assault and femicide.
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rock that stands alone in the western deserts of Central Australia—may seem an unlikely place from which to reflect on the scourge of violence against Black Americans that stains the U.S. body-politic today. But understanding the consequences of one event that happened far away in 1934 is a powerful reminder that the struggle to make Black lives matter and counter white supremacist violence transcends national boundaries.
In June 1931, Constable Bill McKinnon arrived in Alice Springs to take up his appointment as a police officer in central Australia. He was barely thirty—lean, brash, and tough—a no-nonsense raconteur with a sharp tongue and unyielding determination.
In 1934, after chasing down six Aboriginal men for the killing of an Aboriginal man that had taken place under tribal law, he cornered one man in a cave and shot and killed him at Uluru, a place that has long been sacred for the Anangu, its traditional owners, and is now spiritually significant for the entire nation.
In 1935, an Australian government Board of Inquiry, which exhumed the man’s body and eventually took his remains back to Adelaide, found that the killing was “ethically unwarranted” but “legally justified.” Remarkably, McKinnon claimed that he had fired his pistol into the cave in “self-defense.” Now, almost 100 years later—after the discovery of new evidence that proves he lied to the Inquiry—the murder of one defenseless Aboriginal man in the heart of Australia highlights the entrenched inequalities in societies rooted in violence and oppression.
There’s a reason that so many Aboriginal people identified with George Floyd. Australia’s First Nations people—twelve times more likely to be incarcerated than white Australians—continue to see themselves as victims of state-sanctioned violence, often involving police.
An undersea earthquake shook part of eastern Indonesia on Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 5.7-magnitude quake struck about 158 kilometers (98 miles) off Laikit village in North Sulawesi province. It said the quake was centered about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) beneath the sea.
The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency, which put the quake at 5.9-magnitude and 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) depth, said the quake was unlikely to trigger a tsunami.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the "Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines that arcs the Pacific.
In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, the same magnitude earthquake also killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.
One person is dead and 17 others were injured when a vehicle struck a crowd of people in Berwick, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, authorities said.
"A vehicle drove through a community event," state Trooper Anthony Petroski said Saturday night.
After the crash, the suspect is thought to have fatally attacked a woman in neighboring Luzerne County, he said.
"The male suspect in both incidents is in custody," the trooper said. His identity was being withheld.
Police have not released the identities of the two people killed or any of the 17 injured, who were taken to several area hospitals.
Geisinger Medical Center, in nearby Danville, received 13 patients by mid-evening, spokesperson Natalie Buyny said by email. Conditions of the injured were not available.
"Staff is assessing and triaging patients for appropriate care," Buyny said.
NBC affiliate WBRE of Wilkes-Barre reported that a vehicle struck multiple people who were attending a benefit in the borough of Berwick.
The crowds had gathered to raise funds for the families of the three children and seven adults who died in an early morning house fire Aug. 5 in neighboring Nescopeck.
Shortly after the crash, state police were called about a man physically assaulting a woman in Nescopeck, where he was taken into custody by municipal police, Petroski said.
Police have not said whether there is a connection between the suspect and the woman who was killed, and are investigating whether he intentionally drove into the crowd.
Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up 3.2 percent of Australia’s total population, yet they account for almost 30 percent of the country’s prison population. Their chances of dying in custody are almost six times greater than other Australians. Nationally, their suicide rates are more than double that of other Australians. Crucial social indicators such as life expectancy, health, housing, education, and employment—many of them impervious to the policies of successive governments to “close the gap”—continue to illustrate the alarming inequalities between Indigenous and other Australians. Despite the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Indigenous deaths in Custody (a large number of which are yet to be implemented), more than 500 Aboriginal people have died in custody since the Commission’s report was handed down.
Authorities say Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was shot at with two guns and police matched casings found at the scene of both homicides to a pistol and rifle found in Muhammad Syed's home and car.
Albuquerque police have said Muhammad Syed is also a "primary suspect" in the deaths of Naeem Hussain and Mohammad Zahir Ahmadi, 62, in November 2021, but he has not been charged in either case.
"Law enforcement officers also have recently discovered evidence that appears to tie the defendant, Shaheen Syed, to these killings," according to the motion to detain.
John Anderson, Shaheen Syed's attorney, declined to comment on Saturday. Shaheen Syed's family could not be reached for comment.