Author: IGIHE

{New round of leaked emails show repeated criticism of then presidential candidate Trump by UAE ambassador to the US.}

The latest round of leaked emails of the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States reveal repeated criticism by the diplomat of US President Donald Trump.

The Huffington Post, the US media outlet that received the latest series of emails, said they showed Yousef al-Otaiba denigrating Trump and others in communications with officials close to then President Barack Obama.

The Huffington Post said one of the emails showed Otaiba corresponding with Rob Malley, Obama’s chief adviser on the Middle East, on election night.

“You got room for me in Abu Dhabi?” Malley wrote to Otaiba.

“This isn’t funny,” the UAE ambassador responded. “How/why is this happen. On what planet can Trump be a president.”

READ MORE: Hackers leak emails from UAE ambassador to US

In another exchange from 2016 with Judith Miller, a right-wing US commentator who reportedly sent Otaiba a series of tweets from a Saudi whistle-blower that criticised Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE diplomat said “the 7 minutes I spent reading this was the equivalent of watching 7 minutes of Donald Trump. A waste of my time.”

The latest email leak comes after US media reported on Saturday that emails, released by a group called “GlobalLeaks” – not affiliated with the software developer, GlobaLeaks – showed clear collaboration between Otaiba and a pro-Israel think-tank in an attempt to discredit Qatar.

Otaiba is a well-known figure in US national security circles – he has been called “the most charming man in Washington” – and has participated in Pentagon strategy meetings at the invitation of defence officials.

Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said those behind the leak told Huffington post that “their intention is to reveal the ‘two-faced nature’ of Emirati foreign policy”.

He added that “from these emails it would appear that the ambassador to Washington doesn’t have a very high opinion of Trump”.

READ MORE: All the latest updates on the Qatar diplomatic crisis

Huffington Post reporter Akbar Ahmed told Al Jazeera the emails “certainly shows a high level of UAE scepticism over Qatar”.

Ahmed added that the emails also reveal that the “prime focus” of UAE officials in public “is Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood”, but “it seems that a prime focus of these messages has been about neighbouring state Qatar”.

He said this showed the UAE’s “influence, their access and the kind of agenda they’re pushing”.

US and UAE officials have not commented on the recent leak.

On Monday, the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and the Maldives cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar, a move Qatar’s foreign ministry called “unjustified” and “based on claims and allegations that have no basis in fact”.

The dispute between Qatar and the Gulf’s Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency. It has spiralled since.

Following the hack, comments falsely attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, were published.

Qatar’s government categorically denied that the comments.

“There are international laws governing such crimes, especially the cyberattack. [The hackers] will be prosecuted according to the law,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday.

UAE-based Sky News Arabia and Al Arabiya kept running the discredited story, despite the Qatari denials.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Gunman reportedly claims to be ISIL after killing one and wounding three police officers in attack.}

Australian police are treating a deadly siege in the southern city of Melbourne as an “act of terrorism” after a claim by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) group that one of its fighters was the gunman responsible.

Police shot dead Yacqub Khayre on Monday after he held a woman hostage inside an apartment building in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city.

Police confirmed on Tuesday that Khayre, who was acquitted of a plot to attack a Sydney army base in 2009, had shot a man dead in the foyer of the building.

“This terrorist attack by a known criminal, a man who was only recently released on parole, is a shocking, cowardly crime,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in the capital, Canberra.

“It is a terrorist attack and it underlines the need for us to be constantly vigilant, never to be deterred, always defiant, in the face of Islamist terrorism,” he said.

Victoria state Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said police were still investigating after ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq news agency.

“We’re aware of them having claimed responsibility, but then they always tend to jump up and claim responsibility every time something happens, so we note that that has happened,” Ashton said.

After holding the woman hostage for several hours, Khayre burst out of the building firing at police, who shot back and killed him. The woman was rescued unhurt, but three police officers suffered non-life threatening gunshot wounds.

Amaq said the attack was launched because of Australia’s membership in a US-led coalition fighting against the armed group in Syria and Iraq.

Police were also investigating a telephone call made to the newsroom of Australian TV broadcaster Seven Network during the siege.

The network said it received a phone call Monday afternoon from a distressed woman who said she was involved in a hostage situation.

“We asked her more information, at that point a man came on the same line and said ‘This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda,’” Seven news director Simon Pristel said.

“We asked for more information and that’s when he hung up,” Pristel added.

Ashton said Khayre, an 29-year-old Australian of Somali heritage, had a long criminal history and was on parole at the time of the attack.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Rights groups denounce comments after US congressman called for a war against ‘Islamic horror’ after deadly attack.}

A US congressman has called for a war against “Islamic horror” in response to the attacks in London over the weekend that claimed the lives of seven and wounded 48.

Clay Higgins, Republican representative of Louisiana’s third congressional district and volunteer law enforcement officer, said in a social media post on Sunday the “free world … all of Christendom … is at war” with “radicalized Islamic suspect[s]”. He finished the post with “Kill them all”.

The comments caused concern with many advocacy groups calling on Monday for Higgins to measure his words.

“Congressman Higgins’ comments on social media do nothing but fan the flames of anti-Muslim rhetoric, which have reached a fever pitch following the 2016 election,” Heidi Beirich, director of Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups in the US, told Al Jazeera via email.

“Words have consequences and, in a time where hate crimes against Muslims are up 67 percent, our elected officials need to be issuing statements of unity and not vilification,” she said.

Al Jazeera contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nationwide grassroots civil rights advocacy organisation for comment on Higgins’ statement.

CAIR’s government affairs director Robert McCaw said he wanted clarification on whom exactly Higgins believes Christendom is at war. “Is he referring to criminal terrorist groups … or is he including all Muslims in that statement?”

McCaw echoed Beirich’s concern that these comments can be dangerous as the US is living in a “climate of hate. A white supremacist killed two men and wounded another who were defending two Muslim teenagers just last week,” he noted.

The remarks reference an attack in Portland at the end of May. White supremacist Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, allegedly stabbed three men who defended two female Muslims ages 16 and 17 while on public transportation.

Christian considers himself a defender of free speech and has been seen at rallies in support of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attempted to institute a travel ban on six predominately Muslim nations.

McCaw said CAIR plans to send Higgins a letter regarding these concerns.

The post was met controversy not only from advocacy groups, but also Higgins’ constituents.

Kayla Cooley of Lake Charles, Louisiana, called the remarks “unacceptable … I do not support this racist, terrorist rhetoric,” she said. Others supported the congressman’s remarks.

Higgins’ office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Antonio Guterres says one recent study warns discarded plastic rubbish could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.}

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever UN conference on oceans with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before” with one recent study warning discarded plastic rubbish could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.

The UN chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries on Monday that oceans – “the lifeblood of our planet” – are being severely damaged by pollution, overfishing, and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.

The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement – a decision criticised by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.

Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created”.

He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.

“We must put aside short-term national gain to prevent long-term global catastrophe,” Guterres said. “Conserving our oceans and using them sustainably is preserving life itself.”

General Assembly President Peter Thomson, a Fijian diplomat, said: “the time has come for us to correct our wrongful ways”.

“We have unleashed a plague of plastic upon the ocean that is defiling nature in so many tragic ways,” he said. “It is inexcusable that humanity tips the equivalent of a large garbage truck of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day.”

Thomson also warned that illegal and destructive fishing practices and harmful subsidies for fisheries “are driving our fish stocks to tipping points of collapse”. And he said increasing human-caused carbon emissions are not only driving climate change but causing rising sea levels by warming the oceans and making them more acidic with less oxygen, which harms marine life.

Thomson said the conference probably represents the best opportunity ever “to reverse the cycle of decline that human activity has brought upon the ocean”, and to spur action to meet the UN goal for 2030 to conserve and manage the ocean’s resources.

The conference asked governments, UN bodies, and civil society groups to make voluntary commitments to take action to improve the health of the oceans. So far, more than 730 commitments have been received, most on managing protected areas, according to conference spokesman Damian Cardona.

At the end of the conference on Friday, nearly 200 countries will issue a Call for Action addressing marine issues that Cardona said have already been agreed.

It will urge nations to implement long-term and robust measures to reduce the use of plastics, including plastic bags, and counteract the sea-level rise that threatens many island nations as well as rising ocean temperatures and increasing ocean acidity.

Micronesia’s President Peter Christian said Pacific islanders are concerned the ocean has been “left to heal itself” after being used as “a dumping ground for industrial waste”, a weapons’ testing ground, and being polluted by humans on shores and ships at sea.

Stressing the importance of all countries being part of the Paris agreement, Christian said in an apparent reference to Trump’s decision: “While some may continue to deny man’s culpability for the damaging effects of climate change on islands and islanders … no man, no island, no village and no nation can deny that trash in our oceans is of man’s own doing.”

“And for this, man must clean up his mess,” he said.

Bolivia’s Morales was more forthright, telling the conference that the government of the United States, one of the world’s “main polluters”, decided to leave the Paris agreement, “denying science, turning your backs on multilateralism, and attempting to deny a future to upcoming generations”.

This “has made it the main threat to Mother Earth and life itself”, Morales said.

Source:Al Jazeera