World

A Walmart employee shot dead six people at a store bustling with Thanksgiving holiday shoppers, before turning the pistol on himself, police said Wednesday, in America’s second mass shooting in four days.

Four other people remained hospitalized in unknown condition following the Tuesday night rampage in Chesapeake, Virginia, police chief Mark Solesky said.

Solesky told a news conference the gunman was believed to have died of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” and that the motive behind the country’s latest deadly outburst of gun violence was not immediately known.

President Joe Biden condemned “yet another horrific and senseless” attack, mourning the fact “there are now even more tables across the country that will have empty seats this Thanksgiving.”

He added: “There are now more families who know the worst kind of loss and pain imaginable.”

The assault two days before the quintessential American family holiday, marked this year on November 24, followed a weekend gun attack at an LGBTQ club in Colorado that killed five people.

It was also the second mass shooting in the state of Virginia this month: three students at the University of Virginia who played on its football team were killed November 13 by a classmate after a field trip.

Emergency calls were first made just after 10:00 pm Tuesday (0300 GMT Wednesday) while the store was still open.

Officers arrived in a matter of two minutes and entered the Walmart two minutes later, Solesky said.

US media reported that the gunman opened fire in a room where employees take meal breaks but the police chief said he could not confirm this.

In the hours afterwards, news footage showed a major police presence around the Walmart, which is located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southeast of the US capital Washington.

– ‘Senseless violence’ –

Gun attacks in grocery stores in America have become increasingly common in recent years. A teenage gunman killed 10 people, most of them Black, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in May.

Last year a shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado also left 10 dead. And in a particularly gruesome attack in 2019, a young gunman killed 23 and wounded 26 as he stalked shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

An advocacy group called Guns Down America has reported that from January 1, 2020 to May 14 of this year there were 448 “gun incidents” and 137 deaths at 12 large national retailers.

In Chesapeake, local resident Edna Dunham told CBS news after the shooting, “That could have been me.”

“It could’ve been any of us because we go there so much. It could’ve been any of us,” Dunham said.

Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, issued a statement early Wednesday saying: “We are shocked at this tragic event.” 

The company added that it was “praying for those impacted, the community and our associates. We’re working closely with law enforcement, and we are focused on supporting our associates.”

Virginia state Senator Louise Lucas, who represents the Chesapeake region, said she was “heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place… in my district.”

“I will not rest until we find the solutions to end this gun violence epidemic in our country that has taken so many lives,” she wrote on Twitter.

Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia tweeted: “Tragically, our community is suffering from yet another incident of senseless gun violence just as families are gathering for Thanksgiving.” 

The incident occurred three nights after a gunman opened fire inside an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring at least 18, in what is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Authorities said that suspect, identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, had used a long rifle at the club, where partygoers were marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which pays tribute to trans people targeted in violent attacks.

So far in 2022, the Gun Violence Archive website has tracked more than 600 mass shootings in the United States — defined as an incident with four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter. 

Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who risks being jailed 10 years for denouncing President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, went on trial in Moscow on Wednesday.

The 39-year-old Moscow city councillor is in the dock as part of an unprecedented crackdown on dissent in Russia, with most opposition activists either in jail or in exile.

Yashin refused to leave after Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24 and regularly took to his YouTube channel, which has 1.3 million subscribers, to condemn the Kremlin’s offensive.

He is an ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was close to Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015.

Yashin sought to put on a brave face for the opening of the trial, laughing, giving a thumbs up and stretching in the defendant’s glass box, an AFP correspondent said.

Wearing a dark green hoody and jeans, he also smiled to his parents in the front row.

He insisted in court that he would not leave the country after the prosecutor asked the judge to extend his detention by six months.

“I love my country and in order to live here I am ready to pay with my freedom,” he said. 

“I am a Russian patriot,” he said.

– ‘Shut people up’ – 

Yashin was detained over the summer while walking through a Moscow park. 

He faces up to 10 years behind bars, accused of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army under legislation introduced after Putin launched the operation in Ukraine.

In an April YouTube stream Yashin spoke about the “murder of civilians” in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha where the Russian army has been accused of war crimes.

He called it a “massacre”.

His supporters at court said authorities were using the draconian legislation to muzzle critics of the military campaign in Ukraine.

“This law is absolutely anti-legal,” said Anastasia Leonova, 48.

“It’s just there to shut people up.”

Her 20-year-old daughter, Olga, said their family liked Yashin’s Youtube streams.

“We would gather in the kitchen every Thursday to watch,” she said. “Me, mum and my 87-year-old grandmother.”

Since Moscow’s intervention began in Ukraine, independent media outlets have been shut down or their operations suspended in Russia. Tens of thousands of Russians — including many independent journalists — have left the country.

– ‘Clean toilets’ –

Yashin has not minced his words while in detention.

At a court hearing earlier this month, Yashin questioned why authorities tolerate criticism of Russia’s military leadership from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the notorious mercenary outfit Wagner. 

Both have slammed generals after a series of defeats on the battlefield.

“You put me in jail for questioning the truth behind the ministry of defence statements about the war in Ukraine,” Yashin told the court, according to a transcript of his speech published by his team on Telegram. 

“But for some reason, you have no complaints about Prigozhin and Kadyrov, who so far only stop short of forcing the generals to clean toilets with toothbrushes.”

Another Moscow councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was in July sentenced to seven years in prison for denouncing the Ukraine offensive. 

The 61-year-old had questioned plans for an art competition for children in his constituency while “every day children are dying” in Ukraine. 

Almost all of Putin’s well-known political opponents have either fled the country or are in jail. 

Navalny, 46, is serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement charges widely seen as political. His political organisations have been outlawed.

A Russian court also banned the country’s most prominent rights group, Memorial, ahead of the military campaign in Ukraine,

Three women and 11 men were flogged Wednesday on the orders of an Afghan court after they were found guilty of theft and “moral crimes”, a provincial official said.

The lashings are the first to be confirmed since the Taliban’s supreme leader ordered judges this month to fully enforce Islamic law, or sharia, saying corporal punishment was obligatory for certain crimes.

Qazi Rafiullah Samim, head of information and culture for Logar province, told AFP the lashings were not administered publicly.

“Fourteen people were given discretionary punishment, of which 11 were men and three were women,” he said,

“The maximum number of lashes for anyone was 39.”

Supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered judges this month to fully enforce aspects of Islamic law that include public executions, stonings and floggings, and the amputation of limbs for thieves.

“Carefully examine the files of thieves, kidnappers and seditionists,” he said, according to the Taliban’s chief spokesman.

“Those files in which all the sharia conditions of hudud and qisas have been fulfilled, you are obliged to implement.”

Hudud refers to offences for which corporal punishment is mandated, while qisas translates as “retaliation in kind” — effectively an eye for an eye.

Social media has been awash for months with videos and pictures of Taliban fighters meting out summary floggings to people accused of various offences.

However, this is the first time that officials have confirmed such punishment ordered by a court.

Akhundzada, who has not been filmed or photographed in public since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, rules by decree from Kandahar, the movement’s birthplace and spiritual heartland.

The Taliban regularly carried out punishments in public during their first rule that ended in late 2001, including floggings and executions at the national stadium.

A Russian court on Wednesday began the trial of opposition politician Ilya Yashin who faces up to a decade in prison for denouncing President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

The trial against Yashin, a 39-year-old Moscow city councillor, comes amid an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices in Russia, with most opposition activists either in jail or out of the country.

Yashin refused to leave after Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24. 

He is an ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was close to Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015.

Standing in a defendant’s cage in Moscow’s Meshchansky district court on Wednesday, Yashin sought to put on a brave face, laughing, doing thumbs up and stretching, an AFP correspondent said. 

Wearing a dark green hoody and jeans, he was also seen smiling to his parents in the front row.

Yashin was detained this past summer while strolling through a park in the Russian capital. 

He faces up to 10 years behind bars, accused of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army under legislation introduced after Putin launched the attack on Ukraine.

The reason for Yashin’s probe was an April YouTube stream in which Yashin spoke about the “murder of civilians” in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha where the Russian army has been accused of war crimes.

He called it a “massacre”.

While in detention, Yashin has not minced his words about Russia’s tactics in Ukraine. 

In a speech in court earlier this month, he accused Russia’s judges of acting as “political servants of the Kremlin”. 

Another Moscow councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was in July sentenced to seven years in prison for denouncing the Ukraine offensive.

The 61-year-old had questioned plans for an art competition for children in his constituency while “every day children are dying” in Ukraine. 

Almost all of Putin’s well-known political opponents have either fled the country or are in jail. 

Navalny, 46, is currently serving a nine-year jail term on embezzlement charges widely seen as political. 

Moscow has stepped up efforts to stamp out dissent since Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

Violent protests have broken out around Foxconn’s vast iPhone factory in central China, as workers clashed with security personnel over pay and living conditions at the plant.

In videos shared with AFP or circulated on social media, hundreds of workers can be seen marching on a road and confronted by riot police as well as people wearing hazmat suits.

Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn on Wednesday confirmed the unrest.

Footage shared with AFP and captured by a factory worker showed one person lying inert on the ground next to a man in a blood-spattered jacket having his head bound in an apparent effort to staunch a wound.

Another clip shows dozens of hazmat-clad personnel wielding batons and chasing employees, one of whom is knocked to the ground before appearing to be kicked in the head.

The worker who shared the videos estimated that around 20 people were injured in the clashes, some of whom were taken to hospital. He requested anonymity to protect his safety.

The confrontations broke out after employees who signed an agreement with the factory to work at least 30 days in return for a one-time payment of 3,000 yuan ($420) suddenly saw the figure slashed to just 30 yuan, he told AFP.

Many workers were also incensed by “chaotic” living conditions, he said, adding that he “had not received any food” from the company since Tuesday.

Some Covid-negative staff had also been ordered to work alongside colleagues who once tested positive but were not quarantined, the worker said.

– Foxconn statement –

Foxconn said workers had complained about pay and conditions at the plant but denied it had housed new recruits with Covid-positive staff at the Zhengzhou factory, the world’s largest producer of iPhones.

“Regarding any violence, the company will continue to communicate with employees and the government to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” the firm said in a statement.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

China’s unrelenting zero-Covid policy has caused fatigue and resentment among swaths of the population, some of whom have been locked down for weeks at factories and universities or left unable to travel freely. 

Other videos posted on social media and subsequently verified by AFP included footage of a man with a bloodied face as someone off-camera says: “They’re hitting people, hitting people. Do they have a conscience?”

Another at the same scene showed dozens of workers confronting a row of police officers shouting “Defend our rights! Defend our rights!” while another voice talks of “smoke bombs” and “tear gas”. 

The Weibo hashtag “Foxconn riots” appeared to be censored by Wednesday noon but some text posts referring to large protests at the factory remained live.

– Hotbed of unrest –

Foxconn, also known by its official name Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer, assembling gadgets for many international brands.

The tech giant, Apple’s principal subcontractor, recently saw a surge in Covid-19 cases at its Zhengzhou site, leading the company to shut the vast complex to keep the virus in check.

The huge facility of about 200,000 workers — dubbed “iPhone City” — has since been operating in a “closed loop” bubble.

Footage emerged this month of panicking workers fleeing the site on foot in the wake of allegations of poor conditions at the facility.

Multiple employees later recounted to AFP scenes of chaos and disorganisation at the complex of workshops and dormitories.

The firm has offered large bonuses and other incentives for employees who stayed at the plant as the local government bussed in fresh labourers in a bid to keep it afloat. 

Apple this month acknowledged the lockdown had “temporarily impacted” production ahead of the holiday season at the Zhengzhou factory, the Taiwanese company’s crown jewel that churns out iPhones in quantities not seen anywhere else. 

Foxconn is China’s biggest private sector employer, with more than a million people working across the country in about 30 factories and research institutes.

China is the last major economy wedded to a strategy of extinguishing Covid outbreaks as they emerge, imposing lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines despite the widespread disruption to businesses and international supply chains. 

The policy has sparked sporadic protests throughout China, with residents taking to the streets in several major Chinese cities to vent their anger.

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Russian strikes killed a newborn baby at a maternity ward in southern Ukraine and targeted energy infrastructure in the capital Kyiv on Wednesday, the latest in a series of systematic attacks that has caused nationwide blackouts. 

The European Parliament meanwhile recognised Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism” over its nine-month invasion of Ukraine and urged the 27-nation EU to follow suit.

Ukrainian emergency services said the Russian rockets smashed into a hospital in Vilniansk, a town in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, that houses Europe’s largest nuclear power plant under Russian control.

President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strikes as Russian “terror and murder”.

Emergency service workers were shown in official footage wearing protective helmets with head lamps attached trying to dig out a man trapped waist-deep from rubble.

“The two-storey building of the maternity ward was destroyed,” the emergency services said in a statement, adding that there was a woman, baby and doctor in the building at the time of the attack.

“The baby… died. The woman and doctor were rescued from the rubble,” they added. Nobody else was trapped under the debris.

“Grief fills our hearts,” said Oleksandr Starukh, the head of the Zaporizhzhia region.

The strikes are only the latest to hit Ukrainian medical facilities since Russia invaded on February 24.

The World Health Organisation has warned that recent systematic attacks on the energy grid are causing severe disruptions at Ukrainian hospitals.

An infamous attack last March on a hospital in the war-battered coastal city of Mariupol left at least three dead in an attack widely condemned by Ukraine and its allies and that Moscow insisted was “staged”.

Russian strikes were also targeting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv Wednesday, with the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko saying important infrastructure had been hit.

“The enemy is launching missile strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv city. Stay in shelters until the air alert ends,” Kyiv city administration said on social media.

The western city of Lviv was also left without power after being targeted by strikes, the mayor said.

– ‘Terror and murder’ –

In the eastern region of Kharkiv, Russian strikes on a residential building and a clinic left two people dead, the governor said.

“Kupiansk was shelled. A nine-storey residential building and a clinic were damaged. Unfortunately, two people died: a 55-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man,” the official, Oleg Synegubov, said.

“The enemy has once again decided to try to achieve with terror and murder what it wasn’t able to achieve for nine months and won’t be able to achieve,” Zelensky said on social media following the attacks.

The World Health Organisation said this week it had recorded more than 700 attacks on Ukraine’s health facilities since Russia’s invasion began.

“Continued attacks on health and energy infrastructure mean hundreds of hospitals and health care facilities are no longer fully operational,” Hans Kluge, regional director for Europe at the United Nations’ health body, told reporters.

Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing severe damage ahead of winter, which Kluge said “is already having knock-out effects on the health system and on the people’s health”.

Vilniansk, where the maternity hospital is located, is around 45 kilometres from the front line and last week was targeted in Russian strikes that killed 10 people.

It is located in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claimed to have annexed despite not having full control of the territory.

– ‘Acts of terror’ –

The move by the European legislators to recognise Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism” is a symbolic political step with no legal consequences.

Kyiv has for months called on the international community to declare Russia a “terrorist state,” and the Strasbourg parliament’s decision will likely anger Moscow.

“The deliberate attacks and atrocities carried out by the Russian Federation against the civilian population of Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law amount to acts of terror,” a resolution approved by EU lawmakers said.

Ukraine praised the decision.

“Russia must be isolated at all levels and held accountable in order to end its long-standing policy of terrorism in Ukraine and across the globe,” Zelensky said.

Separately, Ukraine’s security service announced that it had seized “pro-Russian literature” and cash and interrogated dozens during raids of several Orthodox monasteries that spurred a backlash from the Kremlin.

The raided locations included the 11th century Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv, a UNESCO Heritage site.

The SBU said it had probed 850 people including Russian and Ukrainian citizens and that “more than 50 underwent in-depth counterintelligence interviews”.

“Some of them presented passports and Soviet-era military IDs or did not have original documents at all, but only copies of them, or had Ukrainian passports with indications of forgery or damage,” the SBU said.

Britain’s highest court on Wednesday rejected a bid by the devolved Scottish government in Edinburgh to hold a new referendum on independence without London’s consent.

The unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court torpedoed the Scottish nationalist government’s push to hold a second plebiscite next year.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party (SNP), said she respected the ruling, but accused Westminster of showing “contempt” for Scotland’s democratic will.

“This ruling confirms that the notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership of nations, if it ever was a reality, is no longer a reality,” she told a news conference.

Her government will now look to use the next UK general election due by early 2025 as a “de facto referendum” on separating after more than 300 years.

“We must and we will find another democratic, lawful and constitutional means by which the Scottish people can express their will. In my view, that can only be an election,” she added.

Outside the court, David Simpson, 70, who first voted for the SNP in 1970, said he was still hopeful of achieving independence in the future.

“This is not the end of the road,” he told AFP. “There is nothing impossible.”

In parliament, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the ruling “clear and definitive”, adding: “Now is the time for politicians to work together, and that is what this government will do.”

– ‘Mandate’ –

The Supreme Court’s Scottish president, Robert Reed, said the power to call a referendum was “reserved” to the UK parliament under Scotland’s devolution settlement.

Therefore “the Scottish parliament does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence”, Reed said.

Sturgeon’s SNP-led government in Edinburgh wanted to hold a vote next October on the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

The UK government, which oversees constitutional affairs for the whole country, has repeatedly refused to give Edinburgh the power to hold a referendum.

It considers that the last one — in 2014, when 55 percent of Scots rejected independence — settled the question for a generation.

But Sturgeon and her party say there is now an “indisputable mandate” for another independence referendum, particularly in light of the UK’s departure from the European Union.

Most voters in Scotland opposed Brexit. 

Scotland’s last parliamentary election returned a majority of pro-independence lawmakers for the first time.

Opinion polls, however, indicate only a slight lead for those in favour of a split.

At the Supreme Court last month, lawyers for the government in London argued that the Scottish government could not decide to hold a referendum on its own.

Permission had to be granted because the constitutional make-up of the four nations of the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — was a reserved matter for the government in London.

– Scotland not Kosovo –

Lawyers for the Scottish government wanted a ruling on the rights of the devolved parliament in Edinburgh if London continued to block an independence referendum.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, Scotland’s top law officer, said Scottish independence was a “live and significant” issue in Scottish politics.

The Scottish government was seeking to create its own legal framework for another referendum, arguing that the “right to self-determination is a fundamental and inalienable right”.

But the Supreme Court rejected international comparisons raised by the SNP, which had likened Scotland to Quebec or Kosovo.

Reed said international law on self-determination only applied to former colonies, or where a people is oppressed by military occupation, or when a defined group is denied its political and civil rights.

None of that applied to Scotland, he added.

He also rejected the SNP’s argument that a referendum would only be “advisory” and not legally binding.

Any such vote would carry “important political consequences” regardless of its legal status, the judge said.

Sturgeon’s SNP ran in the 2021 Scottish parliamentary elections on a promise to hold a legally valid referendum after the Covid crisis subsided.