Author: IGIHE

{Iraqi officials say at least two people have died after falling ill from an iftar meal in an IDP camp outside Mosul.}

At least two people have died and hundreds more have fallen ill after suffering food poisoning in a camp for displaced Iraqis east of Mosul, officials said.

People started vomiting and some fainted after eating the fast-breaking iftar meal on Monday, lawmaker Zahed Khatoun, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s committee for displaced people told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

Iraq’s health minister told The Associated Press that a girl and woman died and more than 750 people were affected.

The food was provided by a non-governmental organisation.

Authorities have launched a formal investigation into the incident, officials said.

The Kurdish news agency Rudaw, citing Erbil’s mayor, said the owner of the restaurant that made the food had been arrested.

The camp is located in al-Khazer on the road linking Mosul and Erbil and houses those displaced due to the ongoing offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

According to the UN refugee agency, more than 6,000 people currently live inside the camp.

A US-backed military operation to retake ISIL’s last three remaining enclaves outside Mosul’s Old City began last month – the latest push in a major operation that began in October.

Aid groups have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been forced to flee and are at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

Almost 10,000 people fled from Mosul’s northwest and the Old City every day during the last week of May, the UN said.

More than 750,000 people have been displaced from the city since October.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Separately, US think-tank says North Korea sanctions-skirting network could be defeated by targeting China firms.}

North Korea’s advancing missile and nuclear programmes are the “most urgent and dangerous” threat to US national security, US defence secretary Jim Mattis said.

Mattis said the “most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security is North Korea”, adding that its “continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them has increased in pace and scope”, a statement he has made in the past.

The US focus on North Korea has been sharpened by dozens of missile launches and two nuclear tests since the start of 2016 and by Pyongyang’s vow to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

“The regime’s nuclear weapons programme is a clear and present danger to all, and the regime’s provocative actions, manifestly illegal under international law, have not abated despite the United Nations’ censure and sanctions,” Mattis said in a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee on Monday.

Earlier this month, the UN Security Council expanded targeted sanctions against North Korea after its repeated missile tests, adopting the first such resolution agreed by the United States and China since President Donald Trump took office.

Pyongyang slammed the latest round of sanctions as “mean”.

Mattis, speaking before the panel, warned of the potential losses in the case of conflict with North Korea.

“It would be a war like nothing we have seen since 1953 and we would have to deal with it with whatever level of force was necessary … It would be a very, very serious war,” Mattis said, referring to the Korean war, which ended in 1953 and killed more than a million civilians.

Last week, South Korea’s top national security adviser said Seoul did not aim to change its agreement on the deployment of a US anti-missile system to protect against North Korea, despite a decision to delay its full installation.

Also on Monday, a report by a US-based think-tank said that the North’s effort to circumvent international sanctions on its nuclear and missile programmes is complex, but could be defeated by targeting relatively few Chinese firms.

The C4ADS report said a small number of interconnected Chinese firms accounted for the vast proportion of trade with North Korea, leaving the impoverished country’s procurement network vulnerable to targeted, enforced sanctions.

“A concerted effort by the international community to target specific sanctions-violating entities is needed,” the report said

It added that it was a mistake to think that sanctions could not succeed against a country like North Korea, which was less isolated than it appeared.

“Although to date economic coercion has been ineffective in persuading North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, this does not mean it cannot work,” it said.

The report said a relatively small number of Chinese companies – 5,233 – traded with North Korea from 2013 to 2016, compared with the 67,163 that exported to South Korea.

{{Rodman to visit North Korea}}

Separately, former National Basketball Association (NBA) star Dennis Rodman is expected to arrive in North Korea on Tuesday.

This will be the latest of at least four visits the basketball player has made to Pyongyang, most recently in 2014 when he attracted much criticism after being filmed singing happy birthday to his “friend for like” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Rodman told reporters at Beijing’s international airport that he is going to North Korea to open a door, but has no plans to discuss the four US citizens being held by Pyongyang.

US media quoted a senior Trump administration official who said Rodman is “going as private citizen”.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Ricardo Martinelli detained on extradition warrant from Panama, where he is accused of political espionage and graft.}

Former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli has been arrested in Florida on an extradition warrant from his country, where he is accused of political espionage and corruption, the US Marshal Services said.

Martinelli, 65, was taken into custody near his home in Coral Gables, Florida, according to Manny Puri, a spokesman for the agency.

The former president was transported to a federal detention centre in Miami and was expected to appear before a judge for an extradition hearing on Tuesday.

Panama’s government had requested Martinelli’s extradition last September to face accusations he spied illegally on his political rivals and intercepted the telephone calls of more than 100 people, including politicians, business and labor leaders, and critical journalists, during his 2009-2014 term as president.

Interpol also issued a notice for Martinelli’s arrest last month.

In Panama, lawyers on Martinelli’s defence team said the extradition process would proceed normally.

“The defence for ex-president Martinelli is going to exercise all the rights and guarantees offered under the rule of law,” said lawyer Carlos Carrillo. “It is totally false that a request for political asylum was denied.”

Martinelli has denied wrongdoing and contends the case is political persecution by his successor, Juan Carlos Varela.

Varela served as Martinelli’s vice president but they have sparred bitterly since the transfer of power.

Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon, presided over an infrastructure boom and Latin America’s fastest economic growth in recent years, but his administration was tainted by allegations of corruption.

Graft charges have been brought against the former president in Panama, but the cases have stalled in the courts.

In February, prosecutors in Panama said they were seeking international help in detaining two of Martinelli’s sons in relation to an alleged scheme to launder bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Source:Al Jazeera