Category: Politics

{Steps unveiled during Merkel’s visit include push to halt assault on Syrian city of Aleppo and curb “illegal migration”.}

Turkey and Germany have agreed on a set of measures to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis, including a joint diplomatic initiative aiming to halt attacks against Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Officials from the two countries announced on Monday in Ankara that they would also push to curb what they called illegal migration.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in the Turkish capital for talks on how to reduce the influx of refugees into Europe, said after discussions with Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, that she was “not just appalled but horrified” by the suffering caused by Russian bombing in Syria.

Merkel said Turkey and Germany will push at the UN for everyone to keep to a UN resolution passed in December that calls on all sides to halt without delay attacks on the civilian population.

“We have been, in the past few days, not just appalled but horrified by what has been caused in the way of human suffering for tens of thousands of people by bombing – primarily from the Russian side,” she said.

“Under such circumstances, it’s hard for peace talks to take place, and so this situation must be brought to an end quickly.”

Davutoglu, for his part, said the city of Aleppo was “de facto under siege. We are on the verge of a new human tragedy.”

“Russians are carpet-bombing – they want to clean the entire region so as to make sure the Damascus [Syrian] army will take over and push on to the Turkish border,” Cengiz Aktar, a political scientist with the Istanbul Policy Centre, told Al Jazeera.

“This will make the lives of refugees more difficult.”

Thousands stranded

The Germany-Turkey talks come as tens of thousands of Syrians remain stranded at the border with Turkey after fleeing a Russia-backed government offensive in Aleppo.

Turkey is facing pressure from the EU to open its border to up to 35,000 Syrians who have massed along the frontier in the past few days, fleeing an onslaught by government forces.

The discussions also came as reports emerged that at least 33 people died off Turkey’s coast as they tried to reach Greece.

The coastguard has launched a search-and-rescue mission, including helicopters, to try to find 14 migrants who are reported to be missing.

The International Organization for Migration says 374 refugees and other migrants have died so far this year while trying to reach Greece.

Turkey, a key country on their route to Europe, is central to Merkel’s diplomatic efforts to reduce the flow.

Germany saw an unprecedented 1.1 million asylum seekers arrive last year, many of them fleeing the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Davutoglu said the two countries’ security forces would increase efforts to thwart illegal migration and combat smuggling groups.

The two leaders would also be trying to get NATO’s involvement in the refugee issue, Davutoglu said.

He said they would seek the use of NATO’s observation capabilities at the border with Syria and in the Aegean Sea.

He said the two countries’ aid organisations would cooperate in providing aid to Syrians at the border.

Turkey’s contention

Turkey, already home to 2.5 million Syrian refugees, says it has reached its capacity to absorb refugees but has indicated that it will continue to provide refuge.

It agreed in November to fight smuggling networks and help to curb irregular migration.

In return, the EU has pledged €3bn ($3.3bn) to help to improve the condition of refugees, and to grant political concessions to Turkey, including an easing of visa restrictions and the fast-tracking of its EU membership process.

Turkey has since started to require Syrians arriving from developing countries to apply for visas, in an effort to exclude those who aim to continue on to Greece.

Turkey has also agreed to grant work permits to Syrians as an incentive for them to stay in Turkey, and has announced plans to increase coastguards’ capabilities and designate human smuggling as a form of organised crime – which would bring stiffer punishments.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Turkey’s Kilis province near the Syria border, said trucks carrying scaffolding were seen passing through the border on Sunday.

“We know they are building tents and facilities for the thousands of people camped on the other side of the border,” she said.

“But there is no movement on this side. It’s very quiet and the border is still closed.”

Governor’s account

Suleyman Tapsiz, governor of Kilis, said Turkey was taking care of the tens of thousands of refugees who had gathered around the nearby Syrian city of Azaz over the space of 48 hours.

Another 70,000 refugees may head for the frontier if Russian air strikes and Syrian regime military advances continue in Aleppo, Tapsiz said.

Carrying their few belongings, Syrians queued in the cold and rain in squalid camps waiting for tents that are being distributed by aid agencies, AFP news agency reported.

Others are reportedly sleeping in fields and on roads, it said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Gaziantep in Turkey, Fadi Hajjar, a Syrian activist belonging to the Aleppo Media Centre, said there were between 30,000 and 50,000 people waiting at the border.

“This number is likely to increase in the coming days,” he said on Sunday.

“Some villages in Aleppo have been completely emptied of people.”

Source:Al Jazeera:[Turkey and Germany agree on plan to ease refugee crisis->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/merkel-visits-turkey-fleeing-syrians-wait-border-160208045039438.html]

{Ottawa to pull jets from Syria and Iraq but instead will triple number of special forces training Iraqi Kurdish forces.}

Canada is to end its participation in air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Syria and Iraq within two weeks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced

Following up on campaign promises he made last year to withdraw Canada’s jets, Trudeau said on Monday his country’s contribution to the fight against ISIL would be extended until the end of March 2017 – but would be “a non-combat mission”.

“It is important to understand that while airstrike operations can be very useful to achieve short-term military and territorial gains, they do not on their own achieve long-term stability for local communities,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

“We will be supporting and empowering local forces to take their fight directly to ISIL so that kilometre by kilometre they can reclaim their homes, their land and their future.”

Training support

Trudeau said Canada will triple the number of special forces deployed to train Iraqi Kurdish forces on the ground over the next two years.
As well as training them, Canada will also arm the Kurdish forces with light weapons such as assault rifles, machine guns and light mortars, as well as optical systems for the weapons and ammunition.

The number of elite Canadian commandos helping train Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq will also jump from 69 to 230, bringing the total of Canadian soldiers deployed in the region from about 650 to about 830.

Canada will also provide $CAD840m ($609m) in humanitarian assistance over three years, and has allocated $270m to “build local capacity” in Jordan and Lebanon, which are hosting more than two million Syrian refugees.

While the country will pull its six CF-18 Hornet fighter jets from the bombing mission, it will keep its aircrew and support personnel for one CC-150 Polaris aerial refuelling aircraft and up to two CP-140 Aurora spy planes.

‘Step backward’

The US had asked coalition members to boost their military contributions in Iraq and Syria against ISIL after the deadly attacks in Paris in November. However, Trudeau, who was sworn in last November, had already promised to withdraw his jets during his election campaign.

Trudeau promised to put the new policy to a debate in Parliament when the House of Commons resumes next week.

Rona Ambrose, leader of the official opposition and interim leader of the Conservative Party, denounced the plan to withdraw the fighter jets as “a step backwards for Canada”.

Helene Laverdiere, foreign affairs spokesperson for the left-wing New Democratic Party, said Canada should focus on stopping the flow of arms, funds and foreign fighters, including improving anti-radicalisation efforts at home.

“We are concerned that the Liberal government has chosen to place Canadian Forces personnel deeper into an open-ended combat military mission in Iraq – a mission that fails to even define what success would look like,” Laverdiere said.

US President Barak Obama “welcomed Canada’s current and new contributions to coalition efforts and highlighted Canada’s leadership in the coalition,” the White House said in a statement without specifically mentioning Canada’s decision to halt airstrikes.

Source:Al Jazeera:[Canada to end ISIL air strikes within weeks->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/canada-pull-jets-syria-iraq-weeks-160209042506120.html]

{Israeli PM announces bill to remove lawmakers from Knesset over visits to relatives of alleged Palestinian attackers.}

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed a bill that would suspend lawmakers who follow in the footsteps of three Palestinian members of the Knesset, including Hanin Zoabi, who visited relatives of alleged Palestinian attackers.

Netanyahu’s proposal on Sunday came after an Israeli court handed a six-month suspended sentence to Zoabi for insulting public officials in a separate case.

As part of Zoabi’s plea deal, the court also issued her a fine of 3,000 Israeli shekels ($750), placing her on parole for three years and stripping her of parliamentary immunity.

The charges were levelled against Zoabi after she called Arab police officers “traitors” during protests held in 2014 in Nazareth, a Palestinian city in the Galilee region of northern Israel.

Zoabi is a senior member in the Balad faction of the Joint List, a popular electoral coalition among the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians who carry Israeli citizenship and live across the country.

“Hanin Zoabi was sentenced for protesting against police treatment of young people during demonstrations, against torture, against arrests,” Jamal Zahalka, a legislator from the Joint List, told Al Jazeera.

“It will not stop us from struggling for our civic and human rights,” Jamal added.

During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said he would promote the bill that, if passed, would require 90 votes in order to expel Knesset members for “unseemly behaviour”.

He announced the bill after Zoabi, Zahalka and fellow legislator Bassel Ghattas met with the families of Palestinians who were killed by Israeli forces while allegedly attacking Israelis.

Zahalka said the proposal would be “anti-democratic and crazy” by enabling Knesset members to “throw democratically elected lawmakers” out of the parliament.

“Netanyahu is doing this because he wants to gain more cheap popularity points by inciting against Arabs,” he added.

Netanyahu and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein also filed a formal complaint against the three in the parliament’s Ethics Committee.

Netanyahu accused Zoabi, Zahalka and Ghattas of “comfort[ing] the families of murderers, people who murdered Israeli citizens”.

“Many Israeli citizens do not feel that these MKs represent them. We are making great efforts, a great investment to involve Arab citizens in Israeli society and [these legislators] do the exact opposite, they build walls of hatred,” Netanyahu said in a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

“I would like to examine new and reinforced legislative changes to ensure that anyone who acts in this direction – will not serve in the Israeli Knesset.”

Amjad Iraqi, an international advocacy coordinator at Haifa-based Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights, accused Israeli leaders of double standards.

“The key thing here is the pure double standard with which these kinds of measures are applied,” he told Al Jazeera.

Iraqi alluded to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s recent visit to the the mother of an Israeli teenager accused of participating in an arson attack that killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Duma last July.

In December, Shaked, a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, met with the unnamed suspect’s mother and Adi Kedar, a lawyer for Honenu, a group that provides legal support to Jewish settlers accused of attacking Palestinians.

Iraqi also mentioned that Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett employs Nathan Nathanson, an Israeli who was a member of the Jewish Underground, considered a “terrorist” organisation by Israel.

In 1985, Nathanson was sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement in three separate car bombings targeting Palestinian mayors in the West Bank five years prior.

“Regardless of what one may think of visiting families on either side, the fact that Netanyahu only sees a problem when Palestinians are the ones doing the visiting illustrates the very targeted and discriminatory nature in which the government approaches what Palestinian lawmakers can and cannot do,” Iraqi added.

According to Adalah’s online database, Palestinian citizens of Israel face dozens of discriminatory laws that limit their access to state resources and muzzle their political expression.

Source:Al Jazeera:[Netanyahu seeks to suspend Palestinian politicians->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/netanyahu-seeks-suspend-palestinian-politicians-160207132204345.html]

{Republican rivals question Marco Rubio’s readiness to be president in televised debate ahead of New Hampshire primary.}

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, first-term senators on the rise in the US presidential race, faced a barrage of attacks in Saturday night’s Republican TV debate ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

Rubio exceeded expectations to finish third in the Iowa caucuses and appeared to be gaining steam heading into Tuesday’s primary.

His rise is a threat not only to frontrunners Donald Trump and Cruz but to several other candidates, including Jeb Bush, who need a strong showing in New Hampshire to stay in the campaign.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took immediate aim at Rubio on Saturday night, saying that the Florida senator has “not been involved in a consequential decision where you need to be held accountable”.

Bush, in turn, said Rubio was a gifted politician but warned voters against again putting the White House in the hands of a first-term senator: “We’ve tried it the old way, with Barack Obama and soaring rhetoric,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the debate hall in New Hampshire, said the big story ahead of the debate was the momentum Rubio had generated after coming third in Iowa – but that made him the focus of attacks from his rivals.

“Christie attacked [Rubio] quite early on in the debate, and he never really seemed to recover,” Fisher said.

Rubio said he was proud of his service in the Senate and suggested that Obama’s “problems” were less about experience and more about ideology.

He also defended his decision to walk away from the sweeping immigration bill he originally backed in the Senate and said he would not pursue similar legislation as president.

“We can’t get that legislation passed,” Rubio said of the bill that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the US illegally.

‘Washington ethics’

Cruz, who was the winner in Iowa, also faced criticism for messages his campaign sent to voters ahead of the caucuses, saying rival Ben Carson was dropping out and urging the retired neurosurgeon’s supporters to back the Texas senator instead.

Cruz apologised for his campaign’s actions on Saturday, but not before Carson jabbed him for having “Washington ethics”. Those ethics, he said, “say if it’s legal, you do what you do to win”.

Trump was back on the debate stage after skipping the last contest before the Iowa caucuses.

After finishing second in Iowa, he sought to refocus on the core messages of his campaign, including blocking Muslims from going to the US and deporting all people in the country illegally.

Trump currently leads the polling in New Hampshire, but the debates have heavily shifted support for candidates in the past, Fisher reported.

“Marco Rubio will spend the next 72 hours scanning the poll numbers to make sure no lasting damage was done at the debate here,” Fisher added.

The debate began shortly after North Korea defied international warnings and launched a long-range rocket that the UN and others call a cover for ballistic missile test.

Asked how he would respond to North Korea’s “provocations”, Bush said he would authorise a pre-emptive strike against such rockets if it was “necessary to keep America safe”.

Cruz said he would not speculate about how he would handle the situation without a full briefing, whilst Trump said he would rely on China to “quickly and surgically” handle North Korea.

Source:Al Jazeera:[Rubio and Cruz take fire at US Republican debate->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/rubio-cruz-face-attacks-republican-debate-160207041548636.html]

{Diplomatic activity surges ahead of imminent rocket launch by Pyongyang as regional tensions rise.}

The United States plans to use missile defence assets to track an expected North Korean missile launch as tensions escalate over Pyongyang’s plan to fire a rocket soon.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, however, declined to comment further on Thursday on any specific plans to position navy ships or move a large sea-based radar to the Asia Pacific region ahead of the imminent launch.

Japan has said it put its military on alert to shoot down any rocket that threatens its territory.

North Korea notified the United Nations this week of its plan to put an “earth observation satellite” into orbit sometime between February 8 and 25.

{{What do we really know about North Korea?}}

Pyongyang says it has a sovereign right to pursue a space programme, although the United States and other countries allege such launches are missile tests in disguise.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing sent its special envoy for the nuclear issue, Wu Dawei, to North Korea in what he described as “a serious situation”.

“We don’t want to see anything happen that could cause further tensions,” Wang told Hong Kong’s Phoenix Television in London after Wu returned from North Korea.

“We hope all sides, including North Korea, can meet each other halfway and should work hard together to push the North Korean nuclear issue onto the track of a negotiated resolution.”

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se on Friday held a meeting with the US, Japanese, EU and Australian ambassadors over the issue.

North Korea said the launch would be conducted in the morning one day during the announced period, and it provided coordinates for the locations where the rocket boosters and cover for the payload would drop.

Those locations are expected to be in the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula’s west coast, and in the Pacific Ocean to the east of the Philippines, Pyongyang said.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

Tension has risen in North Asia since last month after Pyonyang’s fourth nuclear test, what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

{President condemns “inexcusable political rhetoric” against Muslims during visit to Islamic Society of Baltimore.}

President Barack Obama has made his first visit to a US mosque and condemned “inexcusable political rhetoric” against Muslim-Americans, as he tries to counter increasing levels of bias against the community.

Obama arrived at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday. Its campus contains a mosque and school that runs from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“So often, Muslim Americans are targeted and blamed for the acts of a few,” Obama said in an address following a meeting with representatives of the community.

“An attack on one faith, is an attack on all faiths.”

“We’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim-Americans that has no place in our country,” he said, lauding Muslim-Americans who were sports heroes, entrepreneurs and members of the US military.

Earlier, the president met with participants including university chaplains, community activists and public-health professionals.

One of the participants, Ibtihaj Muhammad, has qualified for a spot on the US Olympic Team for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.

She will make history as the first US Olympian to compete in a headscarf.

It is the kind of effort that Muslim-Americans said they have been waiting for from America’s political and religious leaders.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has tracked a growing number of attacks on mosques and on individuals in the months following the Paris attack and the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California.

A severed pig’s head was delivered to a mosque’s doorstep in Philadelphia. Someone attempted to set fire to a mosque in Southern California.

In a separate interview with Al Jazeera, Robert McCaw, a CAIR spokesperson, said that in 2015, the Muslim community saw “unprecedented number of attacks” on individuals and houses of worship.

Republican criticism

Meanwhile, some Republicans have criticised Obama for not linking attacks like the one in Paris to “radical Islamic terrorism”. Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Trump have voiced that concern.

Obama has said he refuses to describe the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other such groups that way because the term grants them a religious legitimacy they do not deserve.

In June 2009, just five months into his presidency, Obama toured the Sultan Hassan mosque during a visit to Cairo.

Rising Islamophobia concerns US Muslims
In a speech at Cairo University, he declared that the US would never be at war with Islam.

“America and Islam are not exclusive,” he said, and share “common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Attendees at the Baltimore mosque are predominantly of Turkish heritage, although immigrants of other nationalities also participate, according to Akbar Ahmed, an Islamic studies specialist at American University who has researched mosques around the US.

Obama “left it literally to the last” to visit a US mosque, Ahmed noted, “but better late than never”.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Baltimore, said Obama’s critics in the Muslim community have called the visit as “too little, too late”.

For student Mohammad Abou-Ghazala, it is not what the president says, but what his government does that matters.

“We’ve had mosques tapped, mosques infiltrated, we’ve had fake converts coming in,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It creates an entire environment of mistrust in the one place Muslims are supposed to feel totally at ease, which is the mosque.”

Source:Al Jazeera:[Obama makes first visit as president to a US mosque->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/obama-visit-president-mosque-160203151341671.html]

{Protesters highlight the deal’s corporate agenda as 12 countries sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Auckland.}

Auckland, New Zealand – One of the biggest and most controversial trade deals in history was signed on Thursday by ministers from the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, as hundreds of protesters hit the streets to denounce it.

Security was stepped up across Auckland for representatives who travelled here to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a deal involving 12 economies worth about $28 trillion.

New Zealand’s wine exporters welcome regional trade pact
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the deal would benefit everybody.

“The opening of our markets will enhance the lives of our people. The TPP will make new trade opportunities. It is overwhelmingly in the best interests of our countries and our citizens,” Key said.

The TPP is a free trade agreement promising to liberalise trade and investment between the 12 nations, which make up about 36 percent of the world’s GDP.

The deal – which will cut tariffs, improve access to markets and sets common ground on labour and environmental standards and intellectual property protections – was finally reached in October after five years of negotiations.

It includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam.

The TPP is supposed to ensure everyone from Vietnamese shrimpers to New Zealand dairy farmers get cheaper access to markets and bring in economic benefits.

Ministers received a traditional Maori welcome from members of the Ngati Whatua tribe – including a hongi, which involves the pressing of noses and exchange of breath.

But the welcome wasn’t as warm in downtown Auckland where hundreds of protesters from different groups gathered to rally against the deal.

Many carried flags and banners and chanted outside the Skycity convention centre where the signing took place.

‘No balance of interests’

Rowan Brooks, a protest organiser, said he was concerned about the power the agreement would give to big corporations.

“Basically it eats away at New Zealand’s sovereignty and the whole process was undemocratic… The agreement gives power to corporations and takes it away from the people,” Brooks told Al Jazeera.

Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland, is one of the agreement’s fiercest critics.

She said she was concerned about how the deal could be used by the US to counter China’s influence in the region.

“It’s kind of a Cold War by proxy of trade and investment agreements,” Kelsey told Al Jazeera. “And that’s a real worry because not only do the corporations who have special insights and input to this agreement get to be centre stage but there is no balance of interests.”

The deal has not only triggered protests in New Zealand but has also drawn international criticism.

Former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz said it “may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades”.

In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Stiglitz wrote: “It gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms.”

“In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new trade era of agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak,” Stiglitz wrote.

The TPP is expected to come into force within two years, once countries have completed their domestic legislative procedures.

Questions have been raised over the ratification process as it coincides with the buildup to this year’s US presidential election. But US trade representative Michael Froman is confident it will be passed by the US Congress.

“We all have our domestic processes to go through and ours is clearly laid out… I believe at the end of the day… We will have the necessary bipartisan support for it to be approved,” he said.

Source:Al Jazeera:[Controversial TPP pact signed amid New Zealand protests->http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/controversial-tpp-pact-signed-zealand-protests-160204031601547.html]