Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Hate crimes last year injured more than 500 asylum seekers, including 43 children, interior ministry says.}

More than 2,500 refugees in Germany were attacked last year, according to a report by the interior ministry, raising fears over the safety of those who have fled war and persecution.

In a statement on Sunday, the interior minister citing police figures said that Germany recorded more than 3,500 attacks in total against refugees, migrants and their shelters last year, amounting to nearly 10 acts of anti-migrant violence a day.

The attacks left at least 560 people injured, including 43 children.

“People who have fled their home country and seek protection in Germany have the right to expect safe shelter,” the interior ministry said, according to the AFP news agency.

In one case, a German neo-Nazi was sentenced to eight years in jail in February for burning down a sports hall set to house refugees, causing damage worth $3.7m.

In another example that shocked the country one year ago, a crowd of onlookers cheered and applauded as an asylum shelter went up in flames in the country’s former communist east.

Ulla Jelpke, an MP for the socialist Die Linke party, blamed anti-migrant violence on proponents of the country’s far-right and urged the government to take stronger action.

“We’re seeing nearly 10 [criminal] acts a day,” she told the Funke Mediengruppe, a German regional newspaper group. “Do people have to die before the right-wing violence is considered a central domestic security problem and makes it to the top of the national policy agenda?”

There were 988 attacks including arson on shelters for refugees and asylum seekers, a similar number to last year. In 2014, there were only 199 such cases.

The sharp rise in hate crimes came after Germany, which hosts the largest refugee population in Europe, took 890,000 asylum seekers in 2015 at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome refugees polarised the country and fuelled support for far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

The number of arrivals fell sharply in 2016 to 280,000, mainly due to border closures on the Balkan overland route and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Thousands gather in Russian capital for rally in memory of ex-deputy prime minister murdered in February 2015.}

Thousands of Russians have marched in the capital, Moscow, in memory of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader murdered two years ago, calling for further investigations into his killing.

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who became an outspoken critic of longtime President Vladimir Putin, was shot in February 2015 while walking across a bridge a short distance from the Kremlin with his Ukrainian girlfriend.

At the time, Nemtsov, 55, was working on a report that he said proved Russia’s direct involvement in a separatist rebellion that has raged in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. Russia has denied the accusations.

Five men accused of murdering Nemtsov went on trial in October 2016.

Some marchers on Sunday in Moscow carried Nemtsov’s portraits, Russian flags and placards with slogans such as “Russia without Putin”.

“We gathered here to demand bringing of Boris Nemtsov’s killers to justice, not only its performers but also its organisers and those who ordered it,” Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition activist and an organiser of the march, told Reuters news agency.

“We gathered here to demand political reforms and release of political prisoners.”

Police put the number of marchers at 5,000, but a group of voluntary observers said there were more than 15,000 demonstrators.

The authorities blocked off several streets in central Moscow for Sunday’s event, sealing in the marchers with metal fencing guarded by police.

The event largely occurred without incident, but police made several arrests and opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov was attacked during in the march by an unknown assailant who threw green dye in his face.

“This is the hysteria of the government. They do not know what to do. The government is afraid,” Gennady Gudkov, a former deputy of Russia’s lower house of parliament and an opposition activist, said of the attack on Kasyanov.

After the march, thousands of people went to lay flowers on the site on the central Moscow bridge where Nemtsov was killed.

“It’s at times like this, particularly on the anniversary of Boris Nemtsov’s death, where you can kind of check in with the opposition and take the pulse of how [strong] the movement is,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from the march, said.

“What we are finding at the moment is that there is still obviously a good number of people devoted to the cause to keeping the idea of a more democratic, a more liberal Russia alive, but it’s an uphill struggle for these people. They are not the majority in the country.

“Certainly when you get out of Moscow and St Petersburg, and into more rural parts of Russia, you find a population that’s much more conservative and satisfied with the current status quo.”

{{Rallies in other cities}}

Similar rallies to honour Nemtsov took place in cities across Russia, including St Petersburg and his hometown of Nizhny Novgorod.

A Moscow march to remember Nemtsov last year drew thousands of people, with officials saying about 7,500 protesters had taken part in the rally, while others put the figure closer to 20,000.

Separately, prominent opposition activist Ildar Dadin was released on Sunday from a Siberian prison, after a court quashed a sentence that made him the only person convicted under a tough law against public protests.

The 34-year-old emerged from a Siberian penal colony after 15 months behind bars for repeatedly holding unsanctioned rallies against Putin’s rule.

Dadin, who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has complained of torture and abuse behind bars.

“I will continue to fight against Putin’s fascist regime,” Dadin said in footage broadcast online by the independent Dozhd channel.

“I will fight so that human rights are respected in Russia.”

Source:Al Jazeera

{Air strikes kill at least four people in rebel-held areas of Homs and Douma, a day after deadly attack on army officers.}

The Syrian government has launched attacks on rebel-held areas around several cities, including Homs and Damascus suburb, according to opposition activists and a monitor.

One person was killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma and three in the al-Waer neighbourhood of Homs in Sunday’s air strikes, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), while shells and rockets were used in Deraa and Idlib provinces.

“Today’s escalation began in the early afternoon with repeated air strikes,” said Bebars al-Talawy, an activist based in al-Waer.

SOHR, a Britain-based monitor, said that in addition to the air strikes, al-Waer was being shelled.

The development came a day after the government-held part of Homs was subjected to multiple suicide attacks.

Also on Sunday, according to Syrian state media and monitors, the Syrian government forces seized the town of Tadef from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group on the outskirts of the northern city of Al Bab that is already under the control of Turkish-backed rebels.

“We will continue war on terrorist organisations, whatever their names, until security and stability are restored to every inch of the Syrian lands,” the army said in a statement, according to the state news agency SABA.

SOHR reported that the government forces and allies entered Tadef just hours after ISIL, also known as ISIS, withdrew from there.

By taking ISIL territory south of Al Bab, the forces of President Bashar al-Assad is preventing any possible move by Turkey and the rebel groups it supports to expand southwards, and is moving closer to regaining control of water supplies for Aleppo.

Earlier this month, a senior Russian official said Tadef marked an agreed dividing line between the Syrian army and the Turkey-backed forces.

The eastward advance south of Tadef has extended Syrian army control across 14 villages and brought it within 25km of Lake Assad, the stretch of the Euphrates above the Tabqa dam.

The Syrian army and its allies also made a new advance against ISIL around Palmyra, coming to within a few miles of the ancient desert city that the group recaptured in December, according to SOHR and the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media.

The SOHR said the government now controls hills that oversee three oilfields west of Palmyra.

Elsewhere in Syria, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, a rebel group previously known as al-Nusra Front, killed and injured dozens of government forces on Sunday in an attack near the Lebanese border, according to SOHR.

The attack by Levant Liberation Body – part of al-Sham – targeted government positions in the northwestern part of rural Damascus, the SOHR said.

Founded in January, the Levant Liberation Body is headed by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and includes four other groups.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Kim Jong-nam had large amounts of toxic nerve agent in his body and died 20 minutes after being attacked, report says.}

Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, died about 20 minutes after being poisoned by a nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur airport, according to an official postmortem report by Malaysian authorities.

S Subramaniam, Malaysia’s health minister, said on Sunday in the capital Kuala Lumpur that an autopsy revealed that Kim Jong-un’s sibling died due to a large amount of VX in his body.

VX is considered to be the most toxic nerve agent ever produced.

It is classified by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction, can paralyse the nervous system and kill by suffocation within a half-hour after exposure either through direct skin contact or inhalation.

“The amount of the VX was so high that it affected his heart and lungs. The absorption was very rapid, and that resulted in him being killed in 15 to 20 minutes” after exposure, Subramaniam said.

{{Postmortem complete}}

Subramaniam said the victim’s relatives had still not travelled to Malaysia to verify Kim’s identity.

He said if no next-of-kin was available, other methods would be used to confirm the identity, such as dental profiling and photo comparisons where identifications can be made via marks such as moles.

Subramaniam also said the postmortem, excluding the verification process, was complete and would be handed over to Malaysian police for further investigation.

Kim died after falling ill on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after two women allegedly wiped his face with the nerve agent.

Separately, Hilmi Yahaya, deputy health minister, said that the VX found in Kim’s body has never before been seen in Malaysia’s recorded history.

He said the nerve agent was difficult for immigration or customs officers to detect in small amounts.

VX is an extremely toxic, odourless, tasteless liquid with a brownish colour that has been used in chemical warfare and can be fatal through direct skin contact or inhalation.

It is substantially more potent than the nerve agent sarin, but works in a similar way.

The official postmortem report came as Malaysian authorities questioned a number of detained suspects, including a North Korean national suspected of producing the VX used to kill Kim.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Leaders of two countries agree to ‘full restoration of defence cooperation’ and commit to free trade.}

Indonesia and Australia have restored full military relations, weeks after Jakarta suspended cooperation because of “insulting” teaching material found at an Australian army centre.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made the announcement on Sunday alongside Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who arrived in Australia on Saturday for his first visit as president.

“President Widodo and I have agreed to full restoration of defence cooperation, training exchanges and activities,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.

Military cooperation between the two countries has ranged from joint training and counterterrorism cooperation to border protection.

It was suspended in January after an Indonesian officer saw references which he deemed derogatory to Indonesia’s state ideology Pancasila in training materials used at a special forces base in the west Australian city of Perth.

A minor diplomatic spat ensued, followed by an apology from Australia’s army chief in February.

Indonesia and Australia have a history of patchy ties, but both leaders were keen on Sunday to emphasise their commitment to a strong relationship.

“That robust relationship can be established when both countries have respect for each other’s territorial integrity, non-interference into the domestic affairs of each other and the ability to develop a mutually beneficial partnership,” Widodo said.

The two leaders also witnessed the signing of an agreement on maritime cooperation that includes strengthening maritime security and border protection as well as combating crime and improving efficiency of shipping.

“We have vested interests in the peace and stability in our region’s seas and oceans, so we both strongly encourage the countries in our region to resolve disputes in accordance with international law which is the foundation for stability and prosperity,” Turnbull said.

The leaders stopped short of announcing joint patrols, but stressed the importance of resolving disputes peacefully and in accordance to international law.

Collaboration on counterterrorism, especially the return of foreign fighters from the Syrian and Iraq conflict zone, would continue, Turnbull said.

Trade relations

While the primary focus of the visit was on security and economic issues, talks also touched on tourism, cyber-security and social links.

Two-way trade between Australia and Indonesia was worth $15.3bn in 2015-16, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Following one-on-one talks, Turnbull said tariffs would be cut for Australian sugar and Indonesian pesticides and herbicides. He also praised changes to the export rules for live Australian cattle.

Widodo said he was confident that a free trade deal would be finalised this year.

“I have conveyed to Prime Minister Turnbull some of the key issues,” he said. “First, is the removal of barriers to trade, tariffs and non-tariffs for Indonesian products such as Indonesia’s paper and palm oil.”

Earlier this week, Widodo told The Australian newspaper that he would like to see joint patrols with Australia in the South China Sea if they did not further inflame tensions with China.

China, which claims almost the entire sea region, irked Indonesia last year by saying the two countries had “overlapping claims” to waters close to them, an area Indonesia calls the Natuna Sea.

Source:Al Jazeera