Author: IGIHE

{President’s pledge follows criticism from within government that move to create constituent assembly was not democratic.}

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has pledged to hold a referendum on a new constitution he is proposing, in response to two months of violent anti-government protests.

The move on Thursday came after the plan to create a new grassroots super-body. known as a constituent assembly, to rewrite the national charter was criticised not just by opponents, but also some within government as anti-democratic.

Luisa Ortega, the chief state prosecutor, had said creating the assembly, without a plebiscite as happened in 1999 when Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez rewrote the constitution, threatened to “eliminate” democracy in Venezuela.

Ortega, the highest-ranking public official to openly defy Maduro in the crisis, has been a traditional ally of the leadership of the ruling Socialist Party, but her criticism of Maduro over the past two months of violent unrest have raised the prospect of divisions in the government camp.

Maduro says the constituent assembly is needed to bring peace to Venezuela, but opponents view it as a cynical tactic to buy time and create a biased body that could perpetuate his party’s rule.

“I shall propose it explicitly: the new constitution will go to a consultative referendum so it is the people who say whether they are in agreement or not with the new, strengthened constitution,” Maduro said on state TV on Thursday.

There was no immediate reaction from Venezuela’s opposition, which now has majority support following a drop in the popularity of the Socialist Party amid a deepening economic crisis.

Maduro’s rivals are likely to try to turn any referendum into a vote on the president himself. They have been calling to move forward the next presidential election, scheduled for late 2018.

The government has said elections for the new assembly will be held in late July, though opposition leaders have said the process is skewed to ensure a pro-Maduro majority.

There was no word on when the plebiscite would be held.

{{Judge killed amid political unrest}}

Earlier, authorities announced that gunmen had killed a judge involved in the sentencing of Venezuela’s best-known jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, in the latest fatality during weeks of unrest that has left at least 61 people dead.

The judge, 37-year-old Nelson Moncada, was shot and stripped of his belongings as he tried to get away from a street barricade on Wednesday night in Caracas’ El Paraiso district, the scene of regular clashes, the prosecutor’s office said.

This week has seen widespread violence around the Venezuelan capital, with security forces repeatedly breaking up marches by opposition supporters towards government offices downtown, and skirmishes continuing into the night.

Protesters frequently block roads with rubbish and burning tires, sometimes asking passers-by for contributions towards a self-styled “Resistance” movement against Maduro.

The government said Moncada was one of the judges who ratified Lopez’s 14-year jail sentence, and suggested that might have motivated his killing.

“We cannot exclude the possibility this was done by hitmen hired by right-wing terrorists to keep creating and spreading terror,” Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said, referring to Venezuela’s opposition.

Victims from two months of unrest have included supporters on both sides, bystanders and members of the security forces.

The opposition is demanding elections to remove Maduro from power. They blame him for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies.

Maduro accuses protesters of seeking a violent coup and says he is the victim of a US-backed capitalist conspiracy.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Activists decry move to relocate hundreds of people outside Greek capital, as evacuation operation gets under way.}

Greek riot police have begun evacuating hundreds of refugees from a makeshift shelter set up inside the abandoned buildings of Athens’ old airport.

A heavy police presence blocked off all access to the Elliniko airport site in the early hours of Friday, denying entry to journalists, as men, women and children collected their belongings and began boarding buses to camps elsewhere in Greece.

Police had previously said up to 500 people, mainly families, would go to a camp outside the town of Thebes, about 70km northwest of Athens.

The remainder of mainly single people, estimated at more than 150, would be taken to Athens’ aliens department for identity verification, before being moved to facilities outside of the capital.

Activists gathered outside the old airport to protest against the police operation, and decried the transfer of single people to the department on Petrou Ralli Street as “nothing else than a deportation procedure”.

“Police went in violently and occupied the spaces in order to move the refugees to areas they do not want,” Petros Konstantinou said, a left-wing Athens city councillor and coordinator for United Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat, told Al Jazeera from outside Elliniko.

“Police arrested the camp’s leaders, including Masoud Qahar, under the pretence of identity verification,” he added.

Qahar, a former logistical officer with NATO who fled Afghanistan after he says he received death threats from the Taliban, has helped organise protests for better living conditions in Greece’s refugee camps.

A spokesman for Greek police told Al Jazeera that he could not comment on the issue as the operation was still under way.

Human rights groups criticised conditions at Elliniko, which had been home to around 2,000 mostly Afghans, as deplorable and unfit for humans. Hundreds slept crammed in tents in the old arrivals terminal last summer in scorching temperatures with little food.

Over the past 10 days, Elliniko’s residents were asked to willingly relocate to official camps, mostly outside Athens. Non-governmental organisations operating at the camp also left the site.

Greek officials reportedly said that 90 percent of refugees at Elliniko said they would relocate voluntarily, while the rest objected to being transferred.

But Konstantinou said that about 150 people staying at the arrivals terminal were against their transfer outside the capital.

“We spoke to them on Thursday night, and all of them said they did not want to move outside Athens. They want to be relocated to apartments in the city and better access to food services,” he said.

Activists close to refugees told Al Jazeera that the refusal of many long-term residents of Elliniko stemmed from the uncertainty over the conditions they would face at the new camps. The move could also limit much-needed access to legal and psychological support, they said.

“This is a serious and complex issue, as most of these people are very vulnerable and in need of specific help – from lawyers and counselling to psychologists and medicines,” a Greek volunteer worker, who is in daily contact with refugees, said.

Others, mostly Afghans not eligible for a European relocation programme to other member states, feared that moving farther from Athens would make it harder to leave Greece.

“The refugees have the right to live in humane conditions and not be transferred to another ‘ghetto’ camp like the one in Thebes or elsewhere,” Maria Bikaki, of the SYPROME solidarity group, told Al Jazeera.

“These are remote, isolated camps and completely unsuitable for vulnerable people and families – there is even a newborn child among those who are transferred,” she added.

According to SYPROME, the fenced camp outside Thebes is located next to a power plant and 12km from the nearest hospital, with only one coach service running throughout the day. Refugees there will live in containers – both during summer and winter – that can host up to eight people.

The refugees were first taken to Elliniko in November 2015 when police began transferring large numbers from the Greece-Macedonia border.

The government had long promised to empty the site, which it has agreed to lease to private investors under its bailout programme, but struggled to convince the refugees to move to other camps in the mainland.

More than 62,000 migrants and refugees heading to northern Europe have been stranded in Greece since countries in the Balkans shut their borders to those seeking passage in March last year.

Konstantinou, the Athens councillor, accused the Greek government and European authorities of “toughening their stance” against refugees and succumbing to pressure from an emerging “far-right sentiment across Europe”.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Police fire into the air as stone-throwing protesters demand better security in wake of huge blast that killed dozens.}

A rally in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, has turned deadly after security forces fired into the air to disperse protesters calling for the government’s resignation in the wake of a massive bombing earlier this week.

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied on Friday near the site of Wednesday’s blast, which killed more than 90 people and wounded 460, accusing President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah of failing to protect them.

Police in riot gear fired warning shots and used water cannons and tear gas to block the protesters, many of whom were throwing stones, from gaining access to the road leading to the presidential palace.

Waheed Majrooh, spokesman for the health ministry, told the AFP news agency that four people were killed and eight wounded in the clashes.

Local media put the death toll at seven, citing hospital officials.

Shopkeeper Mohammad Anwar said four members of his family were killed in the bombing and he wanted a change of leadership.

“We are calling on President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to resign,” he told AP

Protester Amir Arya said a number of his friends were wounded by police as they tried to block the protesters from advancing.

“Some of them were beaten by police with sticks and some others detained,” he said. “This act of police and government proves that peaceful demonstration would not be useful anymore.”

Others called for reform of the political system, the resignation of security officials and the execution of jailed fighters of armed groups.

{{‘War of words’}}

Wednesday’s attack in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter was the worst to hit the city in recent years.

Most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children, but the dead also included Afghan security guards.

Kabul’s acting mayor said the explosion damaged property as far as 4km away from the blast site and that scores of people were waiting in hospitals to learn the status of wounded family and friends.

Afghan intelligence officials blamed the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network and Pakistan for Wednesday’s truck bombing in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter.

Pakistani officials rejected the accusations and Taliban officials said they had no hand in the blast.

Ghani is expected to approve the execution of 11 Taliban and Haqqani prisoners, a government source told the AFP news agency, in apparent retaliation for the assault.

Before the attack, at least 715 civilians had been killed in the first three months of the year after nearly 3,500 in 2016, the deadliest year on record for Afghan civilians.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Hospital official says Palestinian, 15, ‘died from her wounds’ after being shot following an alleged stabbing attempt.}

A Palestinian teenage girl who was shot by Israeli forces on Thursday after an alleged stabbing attack outside a Jewish-only settlement in the occupied West Bank has died, a hospital official said on Friday.

A spokesperson for the Hadera-based Hillel Yaffe medical centre, where 15-year-old Nouf Iqab Abd el-Jabber Enfeat was being treated, told Al Jazeera that the teen “was critically injured when she came in and she died from her wounds this morning”.

The incident took place at the entrance of the Meto Dovan settlement in the northern occupied West Bank. A soldier was “lightly injured”, an Israeli army spokesperson told Al Jazeera by phone.

Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), a human rights group, told Al Jazeera it had opened an investigation into Enfeat’s case, adding that at least nine Palestinian children, including Enfeat, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in 2017.

Earlier this week, Israeli forces opened fire and injured 16-year-old Khaled Ghamri during a protest on the border of southern Israel and the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to Arabic-language news outlets.

Ghamri, who was struck in the stomach, is currently hospitalised and in critical condition, according to DCIP.

A day before US President Donald Trump met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli forces shot dead 15-year-old Raed Ahmad Rdaydeh during an alleged stabbing attempt at a checkpoint near Bethlehem.

DCIP said 2016 was the deadliest year in a decade for Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank.

The organisation documented the killing of at least 32 Palestinian children by Israeli forces and settlement guards. Israel says that at least 24 of those took place during attacks or attempted attacks, but DCIP says its investigations cast doubt on those claims.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Source:Al Jazeera