Tag: InternationalNews

{Senior official threatens to withdraw Palestinian Authority’s recognition of Israel if US embassy is moved to Jerusalem.}

A senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party has threatened to withdraw the Palestinian Authority’s recognition of Israel in response to the planned relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

During his electoral campaign, US President Donald Trump pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem despite reluctance to do so by past administrations.

Speaking to the Voice of Palestine radio station on Tuesday, Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said the Palestinian Authority, or PA, planned to adopt a raft of retaliatory measures in the event of the embassy’s relocation.

“One of these steps would be to withdraw recognition of the Israeli state,” said Ahmad.

“[We would also] demand that Israel recognise Palestine as a state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

The Fatah official went on to assert that Palestinians would “escalate their peaceful popular resistance” in response to any embassy move.

Earlier in the day, Osama Hamdan, the spokesman for Hamas, a group that governs the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that Trump should not add “oil to the fire” by moving the embassy to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem remains at the core of long-standing disputes between Israel and the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel for 50 years – as the capital of a future state.

Although Israel has claimed the city as its “eternal capital” since occupying East Jerusalem in 1967, the international community has never recognised the assertion.

Until now, most foreign diplomatic missions remain based in Tel Aviv.

On Monday, the White House announced that “no decisions” had been made on the planned move, saying talks on the issue were still in the “very early stages”.

Earlier this month, Republican politicians in the US introduced legislation, which is still winding its way through the Senate, to relocate the embassy and recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

{Women routinely forced to wear high heels in jobs where they are on their feet all day, British politicians find.}

A British parliamentary inquiry has found that sexist dress codes were rife in some industries in Britain and women were routinely being forced to wear high heels in jobs where they were on their feet all day.

The report published on Wednesday said women facing discriminatory dress codes tended to be young and in low-paid jobs with precarious contracts, making it difficult for them to challenge company practices.

Under Britain’s equality law, company dress codes must make equivalent requirements for women and men, but the politicians said breaches of the law were widespread in sectors including hotels, travel, temporary work agencies, hospitality and retail.

It called on the government to take urgent action, including raising financial penalties against employers found to be in breach of the law, and promotion of awareness campaigns targeted at companies, workers and students.

The politicians set up an online forum for one week in June last year, and 730 people came forward with stories.

While high heels were the most prominent issue, the politicians heard from women who had been required by companies to dye their hair blonde or wear revealing outfits.

“I came in one morning and my manager was cracking down on uniform and informed me that I had to look ‘sexy’, which entailed wearing heels,” wrote one retail worker, who gave her name as Jasmine.

Jasmine complied, but her job involved standing and walking all day and she found high heels extremely painful.

“When I asked my manager if it would be OK if I changed to flats she replied saying ‘What girl can’t wear heels?’ and continued to tell me I was being pathetic,” she wrote.

{{Petition}}

The parliamentary investigation was prompted by the efforts of Nicola Thorp, 27, who refused to wear high heels one morning at work and was sent home without pay.

Thorp started a petition against compulsory high heels on parliament’s website that garnered 152,420 signatures. Her rebellion became a national talking-point and prompted the inquiry.

“This may have started over a pair of high heels, but what it has revealed about discrimination in the UK workplace is vital,” said Thorp, commenting on the report.

{Seven of 20 actors nominated for an Academy Award are not white, compared to previous years which had no representation.}

The nominations for the 89th Academy Awards offered more diversity than previous years, with several non-white actors and directors up for an Oscar.

Seven of the 20 actors announced as nominees on Tuesday are not white.

Actors Denzel Washingon, Ruth Negga, Mahershala Ali, Dev Patel, Viola Davis, Naomie Harris and Octavia Spencer were announced as nominees, along with directors Barry Jenkins, Raoul Peck, Herbert Peck and Ava DuVernay.

Best picture nominations included: Fences, a film set in the 1950s about a black American family starring Washington and Davis; Hidden Figures, a biographical drama about African-American mathematicians at NASA, and Moonlight, a coming-of-age story set in Miami.

DuVernay’s non-fiction film exploring the mass incarceration of black Americans, 13th, was up for best documentary feature.

Aisha Harris, culture writer and editor at Slate, told Al Jazeera: “All the people of colour who were nominated this year deserved the nominations that they got.”

Previous years drew sharp criticism over a severe lack of representation. All 20 nominees in the main acting categories at last year’s Oscars were white for the second year running, prompting calls to boycott the glitzy event and a social media backlash under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

In response, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises Hollywood’s annual Oscar awards ceremony, pledged last year to double its membership of women and minorities by 2020.

April Reign, who launched the #OscarsSoWhite tag, wrote on Twitter that while “things are changing because our voices are stronger together … One year of films reflecting the Black experience doesn’t make up for 80 yrs of underrepresentation of ALL groups”.

Elsewhere in Tuesday’s nominations, La La Land, a musical, landed a record-tying 14 Academy Award nominations, matching it with Titanic and All About Eve for most nominations ever.

{{Here are the main nominations:}}

Best picture:

Arrival

Fences

Hacksaw Ridge

Hell or High Water

Hidden Figures

La La Land

Lion

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

Best director:

Denis Villeneuve, Arrival

Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge

Damien Chazelle, La La Land

Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

Best actor:

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge

Ryan Gosling, La La Land

Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic

Denzel Washington, Fences

Best actress:

Isabelle Huppert, Elle

Ruth Negga, Loving

Natalie Portman, Jackie

Emma Stone, La La Land

Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best supporting actor:

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water

Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea

Dev Patel, Lion

Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Best supporting actress:

Viola Davis, Fences

Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Nicole Kidman, Lion

Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures

Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Best documentary feature:

Fire at Sea

I Am Not Your Negro

Life, Animated

OJ: Made in America

13th

Best foreign language film:

Land of Mine (Denmark)

A Man Called Ove (Sweden)

The Salesman (Iran)

Tanna (Australia)

Toni Erdmann (Germany)

{Building plan for occupied West Bank came two days after more than 500 settlement homes were approved in East Jerusalem.}

Israel has approved a plan to construct 2,500 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, two days after the country accepted building permits for more than 500 settler homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement on Tuesday that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on the approval “in response to housing needs”.

It is the largest recent settlement building plan announced by Israel, which came as the country’s government feels emboldened by US President Donald Trump, who is not critical of illegal settlement activity, as opposed to his predecessor Barack Obama.

Lieberman said the majority of the housing units will be built in existing settlement blocs, areas where most settlers live and which Israel wants to keep under its control under any future peace deal with Palestinian officials.

Palestian officials have condemned Israel’s latest plan for settlements, which are illegal under international law.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it deals a new blow to attempts to bring peace to the region and will promote extremism.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the decision “disregards” international opposition to the settlements and is calling on the international community to take a “real and serious position” against Israel.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from East Jerusalem, noted that the Israeli defence ministry’s statement said that 100 of the new settler homes will be built in Beit El, a settlement bloc “that is deep within the Palestinian territory”.

The fresh settlements plan “has already caused a significant amount of anger from the Palestinian Authority, which says it flies in the face of UN resolutions,” he added.

“They also said that it will be the death of the two-state solution.”

According to media reports, the parents of Jared Kushner – who is Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his senior adviser, have contributed a significant amount of funds to the Beit El settlement bloc.

“We build and continue to build,” Netanyahu wrote on Twitter shortly after Lieberman’s announcement on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Israeli authorities approved the construction of 566 settler homes in East Jerusalem.

That announcement came shortly after the inauguration of Trump in the US, with Israeli officials saying the permits had been held up until the end of Obama’s administration.

“The rules of the game have changed with Donald Trump’s arrival as president,” Meir Turgeman, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, told AFP news agency.

“We no longer have our hands tied as in the time of Barack Obama. Now we can finally build.”

{Haider al-Abadi says army took back eastern part of city, day after defence ministry retracted earlier claim of victory.}

Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said eastern Mosul has been “fully liberated” from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.

Abadi’s announcement on Tuesday came 100 days after a US-backed operation to retake the city began.

In a news conference, Abadi hailed the “unmatched heroism of all security forces factions” and public support for the operation.

“Daesh has quickly collapsed and no one expected such collapse,” Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym of ISIL, also known as ISIS. “The heroism of our security forces was behind Daesh’s defeat.”

A day earlier, the Iraqi defence ministry issued a statement retracting an earlier claim in which it announced the “liberation of the eastern part of Mosul” from ISIL, calling it a “mistake”.

On its website on Monday, the army said that the armed forces succeeded in liberating the left bank of the city completely, “after inflicting heavy losses in lives and equipment to the enemy”.

However, in a later statement on Monday, the defence ministry said that the 9th and 16th army brigades were still locked in fierce battles against ISIL in the Al-Rashidiya district, while Iraqi troops were still clearing other neighbourhoods and clashing with ISIL fighters.

Asked how long it will take to liberate the western side of the city, Abadi told the Associated Press news agency: “I can’t tell now, but we are capable of doing so and we will do so.”

International and Iraqi aid groups have expressed concern for the estimated 750,000 people still in the city’s ISIL-held west.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, voiced fears for civilians in the western half of the city in a statement signed by 20 international and local aid groups.

The cost of food and basic goods has been soaring, supplies of water and electricity were intermittent, and some residents were being forced to burn furniture to keep warm, Grande said.

“We hope that everything is done to protect the hundreds of thousands of people who are across the river in the west,” Grande said in the statement.

“We know that they are at extreme risk and we fear for their lives.”

The statement called on warring parties “to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and ensure they have access to life-saving assistance”.

In Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office said it had received “reasonable corroboration” for a report that 19 civilians were killed in an air strike in the al-Jadida neighbourhood of ISIL-controlled western Mosul last week.

“Attributing responsibility for air strikes is very difficult,” Shamdasani said, adding that “it is clear that civilians are being killed in air strikes”.

The UN human rights office also said ISIL fighters have taken over “many hospitals” in western Mosul and are using them as military bases. It said the group is diverting food, water and medicine to its fighters.

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and the ISIL’s last urban stronghold in the country, fell into the hands of the the armed group in the summer of 2014, when the fighters captured large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

Hundreds of civilians fled from the northeastern Rashidiya neighbourhood on foot as Iraqi helicopters circled overhead and fired on fighters.

Meanwhile, Abadi renewed his promise to investigate allegations of human rights violations by security forces in conflict areas and bring those responsible to trial, a day after ordering a probe into a video on social media purportedly showing government troops beating and killing at least three ISIL suspects in Mosul.

On Monday, a provincial investigative committee in the country’s western Anbar province concluded its probe into human rights violations in June near the town of Fallujah. It found that a member of a Shia militia killed 17 civilians, he said.

The fighter, affiliated with the Badr group, is now in detention and awaiting trial, Abadi said.

{Two controversial projects that were rejected by Obama to go ahead with Trump’s approval.}

US President Donald Trump has signed two executive actions to advance the building of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Tuesday’s steps illustrate Trump’s plan to give the oil industry more freedom to expand infrastructure and ease transportation bottlenecks.

Former President Barack Obama rejected Transcanada Corp’s Keystone XL oil pipeline in November 2015 after environmentalists campaigned against the project for more than seven years.

The pipeline will run from Canada to US refineries in the Gulf Coast. The US government needed to approve the pipeline because it crossed the border.

The $3.8bn Dakota Access Pipeline has also faced opposition.

Activists have spent months protesting against plans to route the pipeline beneath a lake near a North Dakota Indian reservation, saying the project poses a threat to water resources and sacred Native American sites.

Energy Transfer Partners, the company that wants to build the pipeline, disputed that and said it would be safe.

The pipeline is to carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

{{Reaction}}

An activist group against the two pipelines called on “all New Yorkers who care about the future of our planet” to march on Trump Tower in the city on Tuesday at 6pm local time (11:00GMT on Wednesday).

“If Trump wants to build pipelines, he’s going to have to go through ALL OF US,” the protest announcement on Facebook said.

Erich Pica, the president of Friends of the Earth, a network of environmental organisations, condemned Trump’s move in a statement sent to Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

“Donald Trump has made it clear that his America does not include the millions of Americans who fought to protect our land, water, sacred cultural sites and climate from dangerous pipelines,” the statement said.

It also accused the president of pledging “his allegiance to the oil companies and Wall Street banks that stand to profit from the destruction of public health and the environment.

“Friends of the Earth and our allies will not give up the fight to stop Trump’s agenda and these destructive pipelines,” the statement said.

{President formally pulls US out of massive 12-nation TPP trade deal that covers 40 percent of world’s economy.}

The US president, Donald Trump, has signed an executive order formally withdrawing the country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, following through on a promise from his presidential campaign.

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Trump said as he signed the executive order in an Oval Office ceremony on Monday, calling the move a “great thing for the American worker”.

In the same ceremony, Trump also signed an order imposing a federal hiring freeze, with the exception of the military.

Additionally, Trump signed a directive banning US aid or federal funding for international non-governmental organisations that perform abortions abroad.

The TPP accord was negotiated by former President Barack Obama’s administration but never approved by US Congress.

Signed by 12 countries in 2015, the agreement had yet to go into effect and the US’s withdrawal is likely to sound its death knell.

It had been the main economic pillar of the Obama administration’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region to counter China.

Its signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Brunei. They together represent 40 percent of the world economy.

Trump, who took office on January 20, called it a “potential disaster” during his campaign. His opposition to the deal, as well as his campaign demands for US allies to pay more for their security, has raised concern in Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.

Trump concerns in Asia-Pacific

On Monday, Trump also met a dozen manufacturers in the US at the White House, pledging to slash regulations and cut corporate taxes, but warning them he would take action on trade deals he felt were unfair.

The new president has promised to bring manufacturing plants back to the US, an issue he said helped him win the November 8 election.

He has not hesitated to call out by name companies that he thinks should bring outsourced production back home.

The Republican leader is looking to shift attention firmly back to his policy agenda after a first few days that put his incoming administration on the back foot.

“Busy week planned with a heavy focus on jobs and national security,” he tweeted early on Monday.

Since he was sworn in on Friday, Trump’s White House has been pilloried for lying to the public about inaugural crowds and over a campaign-style speech by the president before a memorial to fallen CIA officers.

On Saturday, several million Americans poured onto the streets for women-led demonstrations against Trump, the scale of which were unseen in a generation, in a potent rebuke to the president.