Category: Politics

{For the third week, Iraqis gather in Baghdad’s streets to protest corruption and call for an independent cabinet.}

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets of Baghdad for the third week in a row to demand a political overhaul.

Gathering on Friday in the capital, protesters heeded a call to gather by powerful Shia cleric Muqtada al- Sadr, who is pressuring the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to push on with a plan to form a cabinet of independent ministers.

In a pre-recorded speech aired during the demonstration, al-Sadr said: “I urge Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi to press on with plans to form an independent cabinet of technocrats, to fight graft despite political pressure to desist.

“I want the prime minister to continue his reform plan with no fear of political pressure.”

The cleric has given the prime minister 45 days to appoint a cabinet, which he hopes will tackle corruption. If al-Abadi fails, he says he will bring a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Those attending the demonstration held up banners calling for a clean sweep of the government, and chanted that they would defend Iraq with their “blood and souls”.

‘Al-Sadr’s rally’

Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said that while there were few banners with al-Sadr’s photograph, “it was clearly his rally”.

“There have been protests before. This one is an indication of ongoing rifts between some political parties backing the prime minister.”

Our correspondent said that al-Sadr had urged the government in the past to give land previously granted to corrupt officials to those in need, and called for senior government officials to donate half of their salaries to the poor and those fighting against the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant group.

She added that al-Sadr had warned the prime minister that if he fails to come up with a new government, he would send his followers to the heavily fortified “Green Zone”, which houses government buildings and foreign embassies, including that of the United States.

“He’s told that embassies and missions that they shouldn’t be afraid of an attack, but it is still very clearly a threat,” our correspondent said.

A day ahead of Friday’s protests, al-Abadi delivered a televised speech to the Iraqi public where he said he had submitted reforms to to implement the promised ministerial reshuffle.

The leader first announced his plan to reshuffle the cabinet in February.

The current Iraqi political structure is a quota-based system in which each ethnic and religious group – such as Shia, Sunni, Christians Arabs, Kurds and others – is assigned its own specific representation in the parliament, government and military.

{Election event cancelled as thousands of opposing attendees shout at and shove each other, prompting security fears.}

US presidential candidate Donald Trump cancelled a rally in Chicago after it descended into chaos when rowdy shouting matches broke out between the flamboyant billionaire’s supporters and opponents.

Backers of the Republican frontrunner and protesters inflamed by his candidacy later shoved and punched each other at the University of Illinois in Chicago where the rally had been scheduled to take place on Friday.

The announcement that Trump would postpone the rally prompted some of the crowd inside the Chicago Pavilion to break out into cheers of, “We stopped Trump!”

But, in boisterous scenes, supporters of the candidate chanted back: “We want Trump! We want Trump!”

Scuffles broke out as signs were ripped from hands and police moved in to quickly defuse the most serious incidents.

There were also isolated clashes outside the venue, according to media reports.

The full statement from Trump’s campaign read: “Mr Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date.

“Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”

However, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department told the Associated Press news agency that it had not recommended Trump take such a step.

Before the announcement, highly charged exchanges had taken place between Trump supporters and protesters as the crowds waited for his arrival.

Veronica Kowalkowsky, an 18-year-old Trump supporter, said before the event that she had no ill will towards the protesters – but didn’t think they felt the same way.

“I feel a lot of hate,” she said. “I haven’t said anything bad to anyone.”

Ted Cruz responded to the cancellation by saying that Trump had created “an environment that encourages this sort of nasty discourse”.

Black Lives Matter

Earlier in the day, at a rally in St. Louis, Missouri, Trump had been speaking for less than 10 minutes when protesters began interrupting him. The disruptions continued over the next hour as Trump urged security to “get them out”.

“Can I be honest with you, it adds to the flavour, it’s more exciting. Isn’t this better than listening to a long boring speech?” Trump said of the disruptions.

At some events, altercations have turned physical. In New Orleans last week, several protesters supporting the Black Lives Matter movement were dragged out as Trump shouted “get them”.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, protesters interrupted Trump’s speech more than 16 times.

One was punched by a member of the crowd as he was led from the arena.

Trump has become a particularly polarising candidate in the presidential campaign.

He has both inspired impassioned supporters and ignited a backlash of angry dissent with his promise to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and his call to temporarily ban the entry of non-US Muslims into the country.

{Democratic presidential hopefuls spar over who is more committed to immigration reform at presidential debate in Miami.}

Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have sparred over who is more committed to US immigration reform at a presidential debate in Miami.

Debating on Wednesday evening, a few days before Florida’s crucial primary election, both candidates promised they would not deport undocumented immigrants without criminal records.

Clinton and Sanders took turns thrashing Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for his vow to round up and kick out millions of undocumented immigrants, with Clinton accusing him of “trafficking in paranoia”.

“I think the American people are never going to elect a president who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women, who insults African-Americans,” Sanders said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Republican leaders opposed to Trump becoming the party’s presidential candidate in the November US election warned that the billionaire businessman could become unstoppable if he wins two crucial nominating contests next week.

{{Mexico border wall}}

Clinton got some laughs by saying that Trump wants to build “a beautiful, tall wall” that will “magically” be paid for by the Mexican government.

Her comments came in response to a question on whether her vote as a New York senator to build a wall on the southern border differs from Trump’s plan, which she has called ridiculous.

Clinton said responsible legislators chose to improve border security with more agents and some fencing when needed, and as a result the country has lower rates of illegal immigration.

Once again Clinton defended her role in the deadly 2012 attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya.

She said at Wednesday’s debate that her shifting explanations for the crisis in the early hours were because of changing dynamics and new information.

Clinton also said the investigation has been politicised by Republicans seeking to score points against her campaign.

“This was fog of war,” she said, saying that she regrets the lives lost in the crisis. She added: “I wish there could be an easy answer at the time but we learned a lot.”

Sanders boasted at the debate that his upset win in Michigan’s primary the day before over Clinton had rejuvenated his campaign.

Sanders pointed out that some observers considered the victory, which was not forecast by opinion polls, “one of the major political upsets in modern American history”, saying the win strengthened his case for being the party’s nominee.

The senator from Vermont said the task before him was to convince the so-called Democratic “superdelegates,” party elites who have largely sided with Clinton, that he “is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said.

Asked about the Michigan loss, Clinton said. “It was a close race. I’ve won some. I’ve lost some.”

{Htin Kyaw on course to become head of state as democracy icon barred from post looks to rule through a trusted proxy.}

Politicians in Myanmar have begun the process of choosing a new president, following decades of military rule.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a crushing electoral victory last year, on Thursday nominated her close ally Htin Kyaw for the presidency.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a hugely popular democracy icon and Nobel laureate, has vowed to rule “above” the president, despite being barred from top office by the army-scripted constitution,

As the ruling party’s favoured presidential candidate, Htin Kyaw is now on course to become the country’s first head of state in decades who is not a former top-ranking member of the military.

Htin Kyaw runs the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charity to assist people in Myanmar’s poorest areas founded by Aung San Suu Kyi, and has from time to time served as her driver.

Three presidential candidates will be nominated on Thursday – one by the lower house of parliament, one by the upper house, and one by the military bloc. The constitution gives the armed forces a quarter of seats in both houses.

Htin Kyaw, an Oxford graduate with a degree in economics, was nominated from the lower house.

Henry Van Thio, an MP of the ethnic Chin minority, is the NLD’s nominee from the upper house.

At a later date, possibly late next week, parliament will hold a vote for president. The unsuccessful candidates will become vice presidents.

“The National League for Democracy party dominates both the upper and lower house of parliament so it will get the president of its choosing, or at least if should if everything goes smoothly,” Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay reported from the capital, Naypyitaw.

Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from top political office because she married and had children with a foreigner.

But she has vowed to run the country regardless through a proxy she would name as president.

The president picks the cabinet that will take over from President Thein Sein’s outgoing government on April 1, with the exception of the heads of the home, defence and border security ministries who will be appointed by the armed forces chief.

{Sanders chips away at Hillary Clinton’s dominance in Democratic race as Donald Trump expands Republican lead.}

Bernie Sanders has defeated Hillary Clinton in a close vote in Michigan state, breathing new life into his White House bid.

Clinton however breezed to an easy victory in Mississippi, propelled by overwhelming support from black voters, and she now has more than half the delegates she needs to clinch the Democratic nomination.

In winning Mississippi, exit polls showed Clinton winning nine of every 10 black voters.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, said Sanders had young people to thank for his win in Michigan.

“There’s a large percentage of African-American voters there who typically are favouring Mrs Clinton but at the same time, [Sanders’] message of income inequality, of being left behind in a ‘rigged economy’ resonate with those voters who have felt the impact of globalisation and seen the auto-manufacturing industry really crumble,” she said.

“This is a tremendous psychological as well as political victory.”

In his victory speech, Sanders said his “strongest areas are yet to happen”, saying he expected to do well on the West coast and in other parts of the country.

“The American people are saying they are tired of a corrupt campaign, finance system and super packs financed by Wall Street and the billionaire class,” he said. “They are tired of a rigged economy.”

Reality Check: The truth about the Trump phenomenon
Republican Donald Trump meanwhile swept to victory in both Mississippi and Michigan, expanding his lead in the contest for the Republican nomination.

Trump built his victories in the industrial Midwest and the Deep South with broad appeal across many demographics, winning evangelical Christians, Republicans, independents, those who wanted an outsider and those who said they were angry about how the federal government is working, exit polls showed.

At a news conference afterwards, Trump said he was drawing new voters to the Republican Party and the establishment figures that are resisting his campaign should save their money and focus on beating the Democrats in November.

“I hope Republicans will embrace it,” Trump said of his campaign. “We have something going that is so good, we should grab each other and unify the party.”

READ MORE: Super Saturday – A nightmare for the Republicans?

Having entered Tuesday’s contests facing a barrage of criticism from rival candidates and outside groups, Trump reveled in overcoming the attacks.

“Every single person who has attacked me has gone down,” Trump said at one of his Florida resorts.

Trump’s Michigan victory sets him up for a potentially decisive day of voting next Tuesday. On March 15, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina – like Michigan, states rich in the delegates who will select their party’s nominee at July’s Republican National Convention – cast ballots.

The Republican contests in Florida and Ohio award all the state’s delegates to the winner. If Trump, 69, could sweep those two states and pile up delegates elsewhere next week, it could knock home-state favourites Marco Rubio and John Kasich out of the race and make it tough for Ted Cruz to catch him.

{Plan would be tantamount to blanket return of foreigners to third country, which is not consistent with law, UNHCR says.}

Proposals to send back refugees en masse from the European Union to Turkey would contravene their right to protection under European and international law, agencies and rights groups say.

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has criticised the plans drawn up by Turkey and the EU, saying they would amount to a violation of human rights.

“The collective expulsion of foreigners is prohibited under the European Convention of Human Rights,” Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR’s Europe regional director, said in Geneva on Tuesday.

“An agreement that would be tantamount to a blanket return of any foreigners to a third country, is not consistent with European law, is not consistent with international law.”

On Monday, Turkey offered to take back all refugees and migrants who cross into Europe from its soil in return for more money, faster EU membership talks and quicker visa-free travel for Turks.

EU leaders accepted the offer in principle, with Donald Tusk, European Council president, saying the deal was a “breakthrough” that sent “a very clear message that the days of irregular migration are over”.

The next step for the EU-Turkey plans involves presenting the proposals to EU leaders at a key European Council meeting on March 17 and 18.

‘Improved cooperation’

Ahmed Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, reaffirmed the plan at a meeting on Tuesday with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras, saying that improved cooperation would “reduce the dramatic scenes in the Aegean Sea to a minimum”.

For his part, Tsipras said intensifying cooperation was “very important”.

However, the UNHCR’s Cochetel said Europe’s commitment so far to resettle, on a voluntary basis, 20,000 refugees over two years remains “very low”.

Europe has not even fulfilled its agreement last September to relocate 66,000 refugees from Greece, redistributing only 600 to date within the 28-nation bloc, he said.

Inside Story – Can Turkey succeed where the EU has failed?
“What didn’t happen from Greece, will it happen from Turkey? We’ll see. I have some doubts,” Cochetel said on Swiss radio RTS.

Turkey hosts nearly three million Syrian refugees – the most worldwide – and has “done more than all the EU countries put together”, he said.

But its acceptance rate for refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran – at about three percent – is “very low”, Cochetel said.

Nine in 10 of those arriving in Europe each day were Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans “fleeing for their lives” who deserved international protection, he said.

“We hope that the EU member states and Turkey will come up with a balanced agreement and that this balanced agreement won’t be to the detriment of people seeking international protection.”

Before the European Council meeting later this month, “supplementary guarantees” must be put in place so that those sent back to Turkey will have their asylum requests reviewed, Cochetel said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Alexander Betts, director of the Refugees Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, said the plan was a set of “appalling proposals on all human rights and international legal grounds”.

He said Turkey needs “an asylum system that can guarantee the protection of refugees’ rights and the socio-economic integration of Syrian refugees” before European leaders should consider returning refugees.

Deep concerns

Several other groups have also voiced deep concerns about the plan intended to stem the flow.

Save the Children, the UK-based charity, said that in Europe, one in four asylum applicants is a child.

“Any returns of individuals who have not had their asylum applications properly considered, or who are returned to a country where they do not have the right to international protection, would be illegal under international refugee law,” it said in a statement.

For its part, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said European leaders had “lost track of reality”.

Hundreds of refugees still making perilous journey to Greece
Aurelie Ponthieu, MSF humanitarian affairs adviser on displacement, said: “Europe is willing to do anything, including compromising essential human rights and refugee law principles, to stem the flow of refugees and migrants.

“It is time European leaders stopped fuelling the policy-created European migration crisis and provide the only realistic and humane response: safe and legal passage and humanitarian assistance and protection to those in need.”

Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The integrity of the EU’s asylum system, indeed the integrity of European values, is at stake.”

Meanwhile, Iverna McGowan, Amnesty International’s Europe head, doubts Turkey is a safe country to be sent to.

READ MORE: The plight of rejected Afghan asylum seekers

“By no stretch of imagination can Turkey be considered a ‘safe third country’ that the EU can cosily outsource its obligations to,” she said.

The plans have been praised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as having the potential to hurting smugglers, a major cause of refugee deaths at sea.

Nearly 4,000 people have died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea since the start of 2015.

Merkel’s liberal refugee policy saw about 1.1 million asylum seekers arrive in 2015 alone.