Tag: InternationalNews

{Netanyahu’s government announces fourth batch of construction since Trump’s inauguration.}

Israel has announced the construction of 3,000 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the fourth such announcement in the less than two weeks since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

“Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have decided to authorise the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Judea-Samaria,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, using the term Israel uses for the West Bank, a Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967.

Since the January 20 inauguration of Trump, Israel has approved the construction of 566 housing units in three settlement areas of occupied East Jerusalem and announced the building of 2,502 more in the West Bank.

On Thursday last week, Israeli officials gave final approval for 153 settler homes in East Jerusalem.

The plans had been frozen under pressure from the previous US administration of President Barack Obama, which had warned that settlements could derail hopes of a negotiated two-state solution.

Trump, however, has pledged strong support for Israel, and Netanyahu’s government has moved quickly to take advantage.

“We are building and we will continue building,” Netanyahu said last week, referring to settlement approvals.

The prime minister has said he sees the Trump presidency as offering “significant opportunities” after facing “huge pressures” from Obama on Iran and settlements.

The announcements have deeply concerned those seeking to salvage a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The international community views them as a major obstacle to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

More than a half million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

In a telling break with the Obama administration, Trump’s White House has not condemned Israel’s settlement expansion.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli army issued an eviction notice to residents of Amona as it prepared to demolish their homes.

The order posted at the site on Tuesday gave the residents – some 40 families, including more than 200 children – 48 hours to leave their homes, according to media reports.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from the Palestinian village of Taibeh which overlooks the Amona, said the settlement outpost “was built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land”.

“There are only about 40 houses there, so this is very small outpost … but it means a lot to the Jewish community. They say that if that settlement is evacuated and demolished, it sets a precedent for other settlements to also be removed.”

And while the announcement Tuesday that an additional 3,000 settler homes would be built in the occupied West Bank “is likely to alleviate some of the concerns of the settlers”, Khan said, the settlement movement in Israel feels it has been given a “green light” from the incoming Trump administration in the US and that “it shouldn’t be getting rid of any settlements”.

Israel’s top court had ruled in 2014 that Amona, built on land belonging to Palestinians from surrounding West Bank towns, must be vacated by February 8.

Although all settlements are considered illegal under international law, there are more than 100 outposts that were built without authorisation and are considered illegal by even the Israeli government.

In practice, Israel has confiscated Palestinian land since its military occupation of the West Bank – including Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip started as a result of the 1967 Middle East war.

{Personal accounts and phone records to be scrutinised under travel order targeting seven Muslim-majority nations.}

Travellers to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries singled out for “extreme vetting” will face scrutiny of their social media activity and phone records, the new US Homeland Security secretary has said.

John Kelly on Tuesday sought to explain President Donald Trump’s travel ban, four days after he issued it with no warning, setting off mass protests, legal challenges and confusion.

“There are many countries, seven that we are dealing with right now, that in our view and my view don’t have the kind of law enforcement, records-keeping, that kind of thing, that can convince us that one of their citizens is indeed who that citizen says they are,” Kelly said in a press conference.

For that reason, he said, US authorities will investigate visa applicants’ social media use and telephone contacts, “so that we can see who they are talking to”.

On Friday, Trump ordered a suspension of arrivals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, including refugees.

With the move under widespread criticism, Kelly denied it specifically targets Muslims, which could violate the US Constitution.

“The vast majority of the 1.7 billion Muslims that live on this planet, all other things being equal, have access to the United States,” he said.

“And a relatively small number right now are being held up for a period of time until we can take a look at what their procedures are.”

{{Longer ban possible}}

Trump’s order halted immigration from the seven countries for at least 90 days, but Kelly suggested that for some the ban could go on longer if stronger vetting procedures are not in place once the review period has elapsed.

“Some of those countries that are on the list may not be taken off the list anytime soon. There are countries that are in various states of collapse, for example,” Kelly said, without offering specifics.

The sudden order caught many US immigration gateways and foreign airlines by surprise, resulting in many people with legal US residency being blocked from boarding aircraft for the US, or being detained upon arrival.

US Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said travellers with dual nationality could enter the US as long as the passport they present is acceptable.

“Travelers will be assessed at our borders based on the passport that they present, not any dual national status,” he said.

By Monday, 721 people had been denied boarding while more than 1,000 people were granted waivers from the Trump order to allow them to enter the country, McAleenan said.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said: “The White House maintains these are extreme vetting procedures, not a Muslim ‘ban’, not a travel ‘ban’.”

However, Trump on Monday tweeted: “If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad “dudes” out there!”

{Syrian Khaled Akil, whose work is being exhibited in California, joins artists protesting discriminatory travel ban.}

A Syrian artist whose work about the war in his country has captured the world’s imagination has vowed not to apply for a United States visa until President Donald Trump is out of power.

Khaled Akil’s latest project is being exhibited from Tuesday at California’s Stanford University.

Under Trump’s recent executive order, which suspends travel for Syrian refugees indefinitely, there is no way he would be able to attend his opening.

“I understand they want to interview people and they have the right to know who is coming, but to give a racist order like this to prevent us is agonising,” Akil told Al Jazeera.

Akil moved to Istanbul, Turkey, five years ago. Since 2012, he has applied twice to visit the US to attend exhibitions and was rejected on both occasions.

He fears that in the US, because of the travel ban, there was now “justification for people to hate Syrians”.

“With Trump, I will never apply for the visa, whether or not a ban is in place,” he said. “The politics worries me because it creates the tension that I saw in my own country which led to more violence. That’s why I can’t trust the system any more, I won’t feel safe there.”

Besides banning Syrian refugees, Trump’s order also halts the US refugee programme for 120 days, and bars all immigration for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days.

Akil’s exhibition in California, “Requiem for Syria”, captures the hope and resilience of a population at war.

“It makes my heart sink that he can’t be here,” Anita Husen, Stanford’s associate dean of students, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s really sad that such a wonderful, talented artist who has generously offered Stanford to host his original prints, free of charge, will not be here to celebrate his opening,” she added.

“Painting broad strokes to deny people right to entry … is not making America any safer,” Husen said. “It’s hurting our intellectual prowess.”

Akil’s work has previously been exhibited at galleries in London, Beirut, San Francisco, Vermont and Istanbul.

One of his projects last year was titled “Pokemon Go In Syria – Part 1” and featured the animated figures in war-torn neighbourhoods.

“I will wait for at least four years [to apply for a US visa],” said Akil, adding that each application costs $160.

“[Trump’s] a racist man and I can’t trust him. I trust the American people – they are also victims of this propaganda.”

Seen by Al Jazeera, Akil’s 2016 rejection letter from the US consulate in Istanbul says that he was found “ineligible for a nonimmigrant visa”.

“You have not demonstrated that you have ties that will compel you to your home country after your travel to the United States,” the letter reads.

Trump’s travel order has exacerbated Syrians’ difficulties in travelling to the US.

The Syrian war began in March 2011. From 2012 to 2015, some 60,000 Syrians left their country, applied for visas and were rejected – four times the number of refusals than during the prior three-year period.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, has estimated that 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has also displaced millions.

“We are the first victims of this war, we are the victims of terrorism,” said Akil, who explained that while he would not apply for another visa any time soon, he hopes to continue exhibiting his work in the US.

“It’s very important for Americans to see Syria now. They’re just getting what the media is providing them. If we show them our art, music and writing, we can introduce then to our culture and show them not all Syrians are terrorists.”

Growing protests among artists

Akil is among a growing number of artists who are protesting the discriminatory travel measures.

Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi said he would not attend the Academy Awards ceremony in late February, whether or not he would be granted an exception to enter the US.

Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in Farhadi’s celebrated film, “The Salesman”, is also boycotting the event.

Malorie Blackman, a British children’s author, said she would not travel to the US while the travel ban was in place in solidarity with those affected.

Comma Press, a UK-based publisher, said it would only translate authors from the seven banned nations in 2018.

Marcia Lynx Qualey, a Cairo-based literary critic, said: “The violence of such an executive act cannot be countered solely with art, or translation.”

She called for the empowerment of authors from the affected countries through forging connections between those writers and literary communities, “thus resisting the ban”.

{US says missile test carried out in Semnan on Sunday, but Tehran insists its programme is not covered by nuclear deal.}

Iran’s missile tests do not involve rockets with nuclear warheads and are not part of a historic deal signed two years ago by world powers, according to the country’s foreign minister.

Javad Zarif affirmed his position on Tuesday, a day after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the United States was “aware that Iran fired a missile” and was “looking into the exact nature of it”.

Addressing reporters alongside his visiting French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Zarif said: “The missile issue is not part of the nuclear deal.”

Reiterating Iran’s traditional stance, Zarif said that his country’s missiles are “not designed for the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead”.

Iran is only using ballistic missiles to defend itself, he added.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a ballistic missile test was carried out on Sunday from a site near Semnan, east of Tehran, according to the Reuters news agency.

The medium-range ballistic missile reportedly exploded after 1,010km, the official said, adding that the last time this type of test was test launched was in July 2016.

{{Nuclear deal}}

The reported test drew wide condemnation as many feared it could be in violation of a UN resolution adopted in 2015 prohibiting ballistic missile tests designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.

The resolution was part of the nuclear deal between Iran and the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany.

US Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would work with politicians and President Donald Trump’s administration to hold Iran accountable.

Meanwhile, the European Union called on Tehran to “refrain from activities which deepen mistrust”. EU foreign policy spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said that such a test was “inconsistent” with the UN resolution.

Israel also condemned the test.

During the US election campaign, Trump branded the nuclear agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated”, telling voters that he would either rip it up or seek a better deal.

Speaking from Tehran, France’s Ayrault voiced “concern” over the reported test.

“France has expressed its concern at Iran’s continuation of its ballistic missile tests on several occasions,” Ayrault said.

He said the continued tests are “contrary to the spirit” of the Security Council resolution.

But, he added: “We harbour real concerns about the US administration’s attitude towards this agreement.”

In a similar vein, Zarif said that he hoped Iran’s defence programme “is not used by the new US administration … as a pretext to create new tensions”.

After an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, called by Washington, the US envoy to the UN said the test was “absolutely unacceptable”.

“We have confirmed that Iran did have a medium-size missile launch testing,” said Nikki Haley.

“That is more than enough to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon,” she sais, adding that the US “is not naive”.

Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Iran’s capital, Tehran, said Iranian officials insist that the country has complied with the restrictions imposed in the deal.

Meanwhile, Russia said the test by Iran does not contravene the UN resolution.

“Such actions, if they took place, do not breach the resolution,” Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told Interfax news agency, saying demands for UN talks were aimed at “heating up the situation”.

{Social media users express solidarity after attack on a Quebec City mosque leaves six Muslims dead and eight wounded.}

Soon after news broke that six Muslims had been killed in a shooting attack at a mosque in Canada’s Quebec City during evening prayers, people of all backgrounds took to social media to express their solidarity.

Gunmen fired on about 50 people inside the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre on Sunday at 8pm local time (01:00 GMT). At least eight people were also wounded in the incident.

In a series of posts, Twitter users denounced the attack against Muslims and offered condolences to the families of the victims.

Twitter user Gregory Brown described Sunday as a “sad day for Canada & the victims of this hateful act”.

“We must stand against racism and ‘other’ing, especially now,” he said in a post.

Mag Gardner, another Twitter user, urged her fellow citizens to stand together:

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, condemned the shooting as a “terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge”.

“Muslim Canadians are an important part of our national fabric, and these senseless acts have no place in our communities, cities and country,” he said in a statement .

While many in the North American country shared words of strength to each other via social media, others expressed concerns about Islamophobia in the country.

The incident took place a few days after US President Donald Trump barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries – Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen – from entering the United States.

Trump’s move led to the detention of incoming refugees at US airports, sparking protests, legal challenges and widespread condemnation from international leaders, rights groups and activists.

And on Twitter, some users said Trump’s executive order – referred to by many on social media as “#MuslimBan” – prompted “xenophobia” beyond US borders.

Twitter users also celebrated the Canadian Muslims in government, posting images and profiles of civil servants.

{Sally Yates quickly dismissed after ordering government lawyers to stop defending US president’s immigration ban.}

US President Donald Trump has sacked the country’s acting attorney general after she took the rare step of defying the White House by refusing to enforce his sweeping immigration ban.

Sally Yates had early on Monday ordered Justice Department lawyers to stop defending Trump’s executive order, resulting in her dismissal just hours later.

“The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House press secretary’s office said in an unusually caustic statement.

“Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”

Yates had agreed to serve in an acting capacity until Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick, was confirmed by the Senate. The White House said that Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, would now be acting US attorney general until Sessions is approved.

Boente said in an interview with the Washington Post that he would enforce the immigration order.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, political analyst Michael Shure said there is a political precedent in Trump’s decision, and that the president was “well within his legal rights” to dismiss Yates.

But Shure said that the firing could pose a “stumbling block” for Sessions confirmation, with Democrats and some Republicans expressing their opposition to Trump’s order.

The decision came as Trump pressed into his second week in office defending his sweeping immigration ban in what has become a quickly escalating political crisis.

Trump’s order suspends the US refugee programme for 120 days and bars all immigration for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days. The intake of refugees from Syria – ravaged by a brutal war in which some estimates say 400,000 people have been killed – has been suspended indefinitely.

{{Chaos at airports}}

Trump has argued tougher vetting of immigrants is needed to protect the US from attacks but critics complain that his order unfairly singles out Muslims and tramples on the nation’s historic reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants.

Reaction to the order was swift, with protests erupting at major airports and other major cities, including the capital Washington DC, as customs officials struggled to put the ban into practise.

Trump denied that his order was to blame for weekend chaos at the nation’s airports, instead pointing to computer glitches, the demonstrations and even the “fake tears” of a senior opposition senator, Democrat Charles Schumer.

The president publicly shifted his focus on Tuesday, signing an executive action aimed at cutting regulations for small businesses and teasing plans to unveil his Supreme Court pick.

But the immigration ban remained at the forefront of his first fortnight in the White House – and officials were reported to be pondering more actions moving forward.

According to a draft document obtained by The Associated Press news agency, Trump is now considering an executive order that would target some immigrants for deportation if they become dependent on government assistance.

The draft order calls for the identification and removal “as expeditiously as possible” of any foreigner who takes certain kinds of public welfare benefits.

Such immigrants have been barred from the US for the better part of a century and they can already be deported. But the proposed order appears to signal a Trump administration effort to actively crack down on such welfare cases.

Obama wades in

Another draft order under consideration would make changes to several of the government’s foreign worker visa programs.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comments on the draft orders.

The furore has prompted Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama to wade back into politics for the first time since leaving office and just 11 days into the new administration.

A spokesman for the former president said on Monday that Obama “fundamentally disagrees” with discrimination that targets people based on their religion. Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis alluded to but did not specifically mention Trump’s order but added that Obama was “heartened” by the protests.

The former president had said he would give Trump room to govern but that he would speak out if he believed his successor was violating basic US values.

There have been only a handful of instances in US history of top Justice Department officials publicly breaking with the White House.

The most famous example was in 1973, when then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than obey President Richard Nixon’s order to fire a special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal.

The incident, which became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” was a public relations disaster and is seen as a turning point in Nixon’s administration.

{Four of the biggest mosques in the Netherlands to shut doors during prayers after attack on mosque in Quebec.}

Four of the largest mosques in the Netherlands said on Monday they will shut their doors during major prayer meetings after six people were killed in an attack on a Canadian mosque .

The Blue Mosque in Amsterdam, The Hague’s as-Sunnah Mosque, Rotterdam’s Essalam Mosque and the Omar Al Farouq Mosque in Utrecht said in a statement: “We feel compelled to close mosque doors during prayers”.

Additional safety cameras have also been set up at the Blue Mosque, which is in the southwestern suburbs of the Dutch capital.

Several thousand people attend prayers at the four mosques daily.

“Merciless acts such as in Quebec contribute to the growing global hatred of Muslims,” Said Bouharrou of the Dutch Moroccan Council of Mosques (RMMN) told the AFP news agency.

Six people died and eight were wounded late on Sunday when gunmen opened fire at a Quebec City mosque, in a shooting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a “terrorist attack”.

“A mosque is an open building that should be accessible at any time of day to all people looking for peace and calm. But we have to be alert against these terror attacks. It’s disappointing that these stringent safety measures should be put in place,” Bouharrou said, adding mosque leaders were in close contact with the Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism.

The Netherlands will hold parliamentary elections in March with Islamophobic politician Geert Wilders leading in opinion polls.

Wilders has advocated closing all mosques and Islamic schools and banning the Quran, the Islamic holy book, if he becomes the country’s next prime minister.

Although no specific threats have been made against mosques in the Netherlands, Bouharrou said the RMMN was keeping a close eye on political developments, ahead of next month’s vote.

“There is considerable anxiety ahead of these elections. A politician like Mr Wilders has had clear viewpoints (about Islam) over the last few years,” he said.

In December, a court in the Netherlands found Wilders guilty of discrimination for leading a chant against Moroccans at a 2014 campaign rally.

He was convicted of discrimination but sentenced to no punishment on Friday for comments he made at a March 2014 local government election rally in The Hague.

When he asked supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands”, the crowd shouted back “Fewer! Fewer!” and a smiling Wilders answered: “We’re going to organise that”.

In 2015, Islamophobic harassment in the Netherlands rose sharply and at least 446 incidents of violent or verbal attacks were recorded, according to Dutch police. In 2014, police recorded 142 such incidents.

{At least three people die in a week in the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on Greece’s Lesbos island.}

A third person has died in a week in the Moria refugee camp on Greece’s Lesbos island, raising alarm about the grim winter conditions in overcrowded facilities that critics have denounced as deplorable.

The dead man is believed to be about 20 years old and from Pakistan, a police official on the island said. Another man who shared his tent was critically ill and taken to hospital.

The death at the island’s Moria camp follows those of a 22-year-old Egyptian and a 46-year-old Syrian who shared a tent and died days apart. Greek media reported they had inhaled fumes from a heater, but authorities would not confirm or deny that.

Greece’s migration minister Yannis Mouzalas ordered an investigation into the deaths, the causes of which remain unclear.

Steps would be taken “to make the situation more manageable,” he was quoted by the Athens News Agency as saying.

“We wonder how many deaths it will take for the government to wake up,” said Stavros Theodorakis, leader of the small centrist party To Potami.

At least 3,000 refugees and migrants are living in Moria, a hilltop former military base where conditions have deteriorated as they await for months for word on their future.

The United Nations refugee agency and other international organisations have urged Greece to improve conditions at its overcrowded facilities.

{{‘Wanton loss of life’}}

“Something has got to give. We cannot tolerate this wanton loss of life,” said International Rescue Committee Greece director Panos Navrozidis, acknowledging that conditions in Moria did not meet humanitarian standards.

As a mid-winter freeze gripped parts of the country earlier this month, thousands of asylum-seekers endured sub-zero temperatures. Summer tents on Lesbos were weighed down by snow.

Across Greece, more than 60,000 refugees and migrants, most from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been stranded since last March in formal or makeshift camps which US-based group Human Rights Watch has described as “deplorable and volatile.”

“We don’t know yet how they died but we do know the thousands stuck on the Greek islands have been suffering horrendous conditions in the cold, trapped by the failure of the EU to offer protection and dignity,” said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International’s Europe director.

Earlier this month, Germany announced its intent to start deporting newly-arrived asylum seekers back to Greece, despite a five-year suspension of such returns due to the poor conditions in Greek camps.

That decision came just a month after the European Commission recommended that member countries return refugees and migrants who first entered the EU in Greece back to that country.

The announcements have been widely condemned by rights groups and humanitarian organisations.