Tag: InternationalNews

{UN says at least 65,000 have escaped since the launch of an army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state three months ago.}

At least 65,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar – a third of them over the past week – since the army launched a crackdown in the north of Rakhine state three months ago, according to the UN.

The announcement on Monday came the same day as Yanghee Lee, the UN’s human rights envoy for Myanmar, began a 12-day visit to probe violence in the country’s borderlands.

“Over the past week, 22,000 new arrivals were reported to have crossed the border from Rakhine state,” the UN’s relief agency said in its weekly report.

“As of 5 January, an estimated 65,000 people are residing in registered camps, makeshift settlements and host communities in Cox’s Bazaar” in southern Bangladesh, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The exodus of Rohingya from northern Rakhine began after Myanmar’s army launched clearance operations while searching for fighters behind deadly raids on police border posts in October.

Human rights groups say the military campaign has been marred by abuses so severe they could amount to crimes against humanity.

In Bangladesh, escapees from the persecuted Muslim minority have given harrowing accounts of security forces committing mass rape, murder and arson.

The stories have cast a pall over the young government of Aung San Suu Kyi, with mainly Muslim Malaysia being especially critical.

Myanmar’s government has said the claims of abuse are fabricated and launched a special commission to investigate the allegations.

Last week, it presented its interim report, denying accusations of “genocide and religious persecution” and saying there was insufficient evidence that troops had been committing rape.

The report came days after a video emerged showing police beating Rohingya civilians, something the government said was an isolated incident after the officers were arrested.

On Monday, the UN’s Lee began her own investigation with a visit to Kachin state, where thousands have been displaced by fighting between ethnic rebels and the army.

Lee, who has faced threats and demonstrations on previous visits over her comments on Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya, is due to visit Rakhine before leaving on January 20.

Hardline Buddhist monk Wirathu caused outrage when he called her a “whore in our country” for criticising controversial legislation considered discriminatory to women and minorities.

{Move follows his Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party’s plea to first minister to quit over a contentious energy scheme.}

Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, has resigned over his power-sharing partner’s handling of a controversial energy scheme.

Monday’s surprise resignation is ikely to bring down the region’s government and lead to an election.

The development comes just weeks before the British government is due to trigger the process of leaving the EU, a decision that has divided Northern Ireland, which has Britain’s only land border with the EU.

McGuinness’s Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party had urged Arlene Foster, the pro-British first minister from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to step aside over an energy scheme that could cost the province hundreds of millions of pounds.

“The first minister has refused to stand aside. Therefore it is with deep regret and reluctance that I am tendering my resignation as deputy First Minister,” McGuinness said in a statement.

“Sinn Fein will not tolerate the arrogance of Arlene Foster and the DUP. We now need an election to allow the people to make their own judgement.”

Undisclosed illness

McGuinness, who has recently taken a break from some of his duties because of an undisclosed illness, told the British media that he would say at a later date whether or not he would be well enough to run as a candidate in any election.

McGuinness said Sinn Fein would not nominate anyone to fill the vacancy, meaning the power-sharing government will collapse at the latest once the seven days allowed for this elapse.

It would then be up to London’s Northern Ireland secretary to propose a date for the election.

Sinn Fein says Foster failed to close down the green energy scheme, which aimed to encourage businesses to burn wood pellets rather than fossil fuels, when it became clear that it was open to abuse.

The scheme gave businesses 1.60 pounds for every pound spent.

Foster says she closed it down as soon as the potential abuse was recognised.

Tension has been growing in recent months in the power-sharing government, created after a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland, and allowed border checkpoints to be dismantled.

Unlike Foster’s DUP, Sinn Fein campaigned against Britain leaving the EU, and McGuinness has called for a referendum on Northern Ireland joining the Republic of Ireland to avoid an exit, which could see border checks reinstated.

Overall, 52 percent of the UK voted in favour of leaving the EU in June’s referendum, but 56 percent of those voting in Northern Ireland backed remaining.

{Al Jazeera reveals discussions between Israeli diplomat and UK civil servant to “take down” anti-settlement politicians.}

Senior members of parliament have slammed comments made by an Israeli diplomat on plans to “take down” the UK’s deputy foreign secretary over his criticism of Israel’s settlement policy in the occupied West Bank.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour Party’s shadow foreign secretary, called the statements by Shai Masot – a senior political offficer at the Israeli embassy in London – “extremely disturbing” and demanded a probe into the potential extent of political “interference” in the United Kingdom.

Masot’s comments were secretly captured on film during a six-month undercover operation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, which reveals plots by the Israeli diplomat and a British civil servant to destroy the careers of senior politicians .

“It is simply not good enough for the Foreign Office to say the matter is closed. This is a national security issue,” Thornberry said in a statement.

“The embassy official involved should be withdrawn, and the government should launch an immediate inquiry into the extent of this improper interference and demand from the Israeli government that it be brought to an end,” she said.

In the recorded conversation with Maria Strizzolo, who was then chief of staff to MP Robert Halfon, the deputy chairman of the ruling Conservative Party, Masot asked if he could give her some names of parliamentarians he would suggest she “take down”.

Masot named Deputy Foreign Minister Sir Robert Duncan, who in 2014 said while he fully supports Israel’s right to exist, he believes settlements on occupied Palestinian land represent an “ever-deepening stain on the face of the globe”.

He also likened the situation in Hebron in the occupied West Bank to apartheid.

Strizzolo later hinted that “a little scandal” might see Duncan dismissed.

At the same dinner table conversation, Masot described British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Duncan’s boss, as an “idiot … without any kind of responsibilities”, while Strizzolo said he was “solid on Israel”.

Since the announcement by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit of its findings – and the international media coverage that followed – the Israeli embassy tweeted a response saying that Masot would be “ending his term shortly”, adding that Mark Regev, ambassador of Israel to the UK, had apologised to Duncan “and made clear that the embassy considered the remarks to be completely unacceptable”.

Al Jazeera learned on Sunday that Strizzolo had resigned from her post.

Scottish National Party MP Alex Salmond reiterated the call on Sunday for Masot’s deportation.

“Boris Johnson must right now revoke Mr Masot’s diplomatic status and remove him from the country as would most certainly have happened had the circumstances been reversed. Perhaps then the Israeli government representatives will regard the foreign secretary as less of a fool.”

Salmond also backed an official probe into the matter “so that we can be confident our elected officials are free to carry out their jobs to the best of their ability and without fear of having their reputation smeared by embassy officials who do not agree with their views”.

Ben White, a researcher and journalist who has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told Al Jazeera it is not surprising that Israel would seek to influence British politicians, but he added this case was unique because it involved a secret video that has been publicised.

“We know that the Israeli foreign ministry – and also interestingly the Israeli ministry of strategic affairs, which it actually seemed that this individual [Masot] is an employee of – are very focused on fighting what they see as dangerous, powerful solidarity activism with particular focus on trying to thwart and undermine the Boycott Divest and Sanctions campaign,” said White.

The incident is just one among the Investigative Unit’s many findings, which will be revealed in a four-part series “The Lobby” that will broadcast daily on Al Jazeera from January 15 at 22:30 GMT.

The undercover investigation shows how the Israeli government is involved in a brazen, covert influence campaign in Britain.

For half a year, Robin (an alias), an undercover reporter working with Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, met with members of Britain’s lobby network that enjoys strong support from the Israeli government by way of the Israeli embassy in London.

Robin posed as a graduate activist with strong sympathies towards Israel who was keen to help combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement prominent in Britain.

Shaping foreign policy agenda

Strizzolo, while advising Robin, revealed she had a strategy of manipulation to ensure Israel remains at the top of the UK’s foreign policy agenda.

“If at least you can get a small group of MPs that you know you can always rely on, when there is something coming to parliament and you know you brief them, you say: ‘you don’t have to do anything, we are going to give you the speech, we are going to give you all the information, we are going to do everything for you’,” she said.

She also advised trying to infiltrate Prime Minster’s Questions, a weekly session in which the leader of the country answers questions from MPs. The debate is televised live.

“If they already have the question to table for PMQs [Prime Minister’s Questions], it’s harder to say: ‘No, no, no, I won’t do it’,” she said.

Strizzolo then boasted how her own efforts once made an immediate impact on the national debate.

While in Israel with the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group in 2014, she persuaded MP Halfon to question the prime minster in public over three missing teenagers believed to have been kidnapped and murdered “to get a response from the government”, Strizzolo said.

Halfon took the request and called on former prime minister David Cameron to support the Israeli government, which he said should do “everything possible to take out Hamas terrorist networks”.

In response, Cameron promised that Britain would “stand by Israel”.

{No evidence given of ISIL link despite previous, similar attacks being attributed to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.}

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are “signs” that a Palestinian man who rammed a truck into a crowd of Israeli soldiers, killing four of them, was an ISIL supporter.

Sunday’s attack was carried out by 28-year-old Fadi el-Kunbar, a Palestinian from Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, who drove the truck into the group of soldiers as they stood on the side of a road. Seventeen soldiers were also wounded and el-Kunbar was shot dead.

“We know the identity of the terrorist. All signs are indicating he is a supporter of the Islamic State [of Iraq and the Levant group],” Netanyahu said, giving no further details.

Family members of el-Kunbar have reportedly been arrested and held for questioning.

Recent attacks committed by Palestinians primarily against Israeli soldiers have been said by some Palestinians to be a “natural” response to Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, its blockade of the Gaza Strip, and its discriminatory laws against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Since October 2015, 247 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP news agency count.

Israeli authorities have also embarked on a wave of mass arrests and home demolitions, which human rights groups have described as a “shoot-to-kill” policy and “collective punishment” against the families of Palestinians who attack Israeli soldiers.

{Buddhist monk sets himself on fire in demonstration against agreement with Japan on compensation for wartime sex slaves.}

A South Korean monk is in critical condition after setting himself ablaze to protest against the country’s deal with Japan on compensation for wartime sex slaves.

The 64-year-old Buddhist monk suffered third-degree burns across his body and serious damage to vital organs following his self-immolation during a rally late on Saturday in the capital, Seoul, calling for the ouster of impeached President Park Geun-hye, police said.

He is unconscious and unable to breathe on his own, an official from the Seoul National University Hospital told The Associated Press news agency on Sunday on condition of anonymity.

Police said in his notebook, the monk called Park a “traitor” over her government’s 2015 agreement with Japan that sought to settle a long-standing row over South Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s World War II military.

According to The Korea Times, he left a memo at the scene demanding the nullification of the contentious settlement.

“Please don’t make my death worthless,” he reportedly wrote.

Rising tensions

Under the agreement, Japan pledged to fund a Seoul-based foundation set up to help support the victims. South Korea, in exchange, vowed to refrain from criticising Japan over the issue and try to resolve the Japanese grievance over a bronze statue representing wartime sex slaves in front of its embassy in Seoul.

Yet, the deal continues to be criticised in South Korea because it was reached without approval from victims, and opponents say it does not go far enough in holding Japan responsible for its wartime abuses.

Students have been holding sit-in protests next to the Seoul statue for more than a year over fears the government might try to remove it.

On Friday, Japan announced it would recall its ambassador to South Korea and suspend economic talks in response to the placing of another “comfort woman” statue representing wartime sex slaves in front of its consulate in the Korean port city of Busan.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged South Korea to remove the statues and implement the 2015 agreement.

“It has been mutually confirmed that this is a final and irreversible agreement. Japan has sincerely fulfilled its obligation,” Abe said on a NHK news talk show aired on Sunday. He said Japan had already paid one billion yen ($8.5m) in compensation.

“Next, I think South Korea must firmly show its sincerity,” he said, adding the agreement should be implemented regardless of leadership change as a “matter of credibility”.

At the time of the deal, Seoul said there were 46 surviving South Korean victims.

{Ex-Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani dies in hospital after suffering a heart attack, state media reports.}

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died on Sunday at the age of 82 after suffering a heart attack, according to state media.

Rafsanjani was a key figure in the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979, and served as president from 1989 to 1997.

He was taken to the Shohadaa Hospital in northern Tehran earlier on Sunday with heart problems, the ISNA and Fars news agencies reported.

“Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was transferred to hospital after a heart attack,” said Reza Soleimani, a speaker of the Expediency Council, Iran’s main political arbitration body which Rafsanjani chaired.

“Despite the efforts of the doctors he died,” he said, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB.

Al Jazeera’s Dosra Jabbari, reporting from Tehran, said Rafsanjani’s death was described as a “huge loss” by Iranian officials.

“His death couldn’t come at a worse time for the country because there are disputes between the current government and the judiciary and Rafsanjani was seen as a mediator,” she said.

“He would advise on how to deal with such situations in the country. With the news of his death many people are in absolute shock.”

Following the announcement of Rafsanjani’s death, a crowd gathered outside the hospital in Tehran’s Tajrish neighbourhood where the former president had been taken.

{{‘Difficult and overwhelming’}}

Rafsanjani was born on August 25, 1934 in the village of Nough in southern Iran into a wealthy family.

He studied theology in the holy city of Qom before entering politics in 1963 after the shah’s police arrested the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

A confidant of Khomeini, Rafsanjani was the speaker of parliament for two consecutive terms until Khomeini’s death in 1989.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, paid tribute to Rafsanjani as a “companion of struggle” despite differences between them.

“The loss of my companion of struggle, whose cooperation with me dated back 59 years, is difficult and overwhelming,” Khamenei said in a statement quoted by the state broadcaster’s website.

“The different opinions and interpretations at time in this long period could never entirely break up the friendship” between us, he added.

Rafsanjani was an influential figure in Iran, and headed the Expediency Council, a body which is intended to resolve disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council.

He was also a member of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that selects the supreme leader, Iran’s most powerful figure.

Rafsanjani has been described as “a pillar of the Islamic revolution”.

His pragmatic policies, economic liberalisation, better relations with the West and empowering Iran’s elected bodies, appealed to many Iranians but was despised by hardliners.

His death is a big blow to moderates and reformists, depriving them of their most influential supporter in the Islamic establishment.

He is survived by his wife and five children.

{At least 43 people killed and several others wounded in northern stronghold of Turkish-based Syrian rebels.}

At least 43 people have been reported killed after a car bomb struck Syria’s northwestern city of Azaz, according to a monitor group.

Dozens were also wounded in Saturday’s attack, which took place in front of a court, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.

The group said the toll was likely to rise.

The attack was the latest in a string of bombings to hit Azaz, a city located near the border with Turkey, 16km south of the Turkish city of Kilis.

The area is a stronghold of the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels involved in a major operation aimed at clearing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group from the border region.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

But ISIL has frequently targeted rebel factions with bombings, including an attack in November that killed 25 civilians and opposition fighters in a car bomb on a rebel headquarters.

At last 20 people were also killed in a separate car bomb attack in October.

The blast comes as a fragile ceasefire is being observed across much of Syria.

The truce negotiated by government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey does not include ISIL or the former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.

More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

{Protesters say the deal will take over private land for an industrial zone in which China will have a major stake.}

Clashes between protesters and government supporters have erupted in southern Sri Lanka during a rally against a port deal with China.

The clashes took place as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was attending an opening ceremony for an industrial zone near the port city of Hambantota, about 240km southeast of the capital, Colombo.

Government supporters armed with clubs first attacked protesters organised by the opposition and led by Buddhist monks in Amabalantota, 22km from Hambantota. The protesters responded by throwing rocks.

It was not clear how many people were injured, but several people were seen being taken away in ambulances.

The villagers marched against what they say is a plan to take over private land for the industrial zone in which China will have a major stake. Lawmaker DV Chanaka, one of the protest organizers, said he fears the port area will become a “Chinese colony.”

“We are against leasing the lands where people live and do their farming, while there are identified lands for an industrial zone,” said Chanaka, the district politician. “When you give away such a vast area of land, you can’t stop the area becoming a Chinese colony.”

Buddhist clergy will follow an ancient tradition and issue a decree, asking the government to stop the leasing, said Magama Mahanama, from the Monks’ Organisation to Protect National Assets.

Historically, kings in predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka are said to have abided by decrees issued by Buddhist monks.

“Ninety-nine years means at least two generations. When they [the Chinese] take root here, what’s the guarantee that we will have it back? There is a major threat of cultural erosion and demographic change,” Mahanama said.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, speaking to reporters earlier this week, said the partnership arrangement was necessary to free the country from the debt incurred to build the port. He blamed the debt on former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose government was friendly to Beijing.

{Tsai’s US stopovers come after she incensed China by her phone call to Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory.}

Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has left for the United States Saturday on her way to Central America, a trip that will be scrutinised by China, incensed by her congratulatory call to Donald Trump.

While the focus of the nine-day trip is to bolster relations with Taiwan’s Central American allies, Tsai’s US stopovers will be closely watched amid speculation she may make contact with the president-elect and his team.

She is to transit in Houston this weekend and return to Taipei via San Francisco next weekend.

Beijing has asked Washington to bar Tsai from flying through US airspace.

“A transit is a transit,” the Taiwanese leader told reporters last week, in response to whether she would be meeting anyone from Trump’s administration.

Trump himself appeared to have ruled out meeting Tsai this trip, saying it is “a little bit inappropriate” to meet anybody until he takes office January 20.

Last month, Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister, Javier Hou, told a legislative committee that the ministry wanted to arrange meetings with members of the US Congress from both parties as per past protocols, according to Taiwan’s state-owned Central News Agency.

The call in December almost upended decades of diplomatic practise in the US. Since then, China has stepped up military drills near Taiwan, with speculation its sole aircraft carrier may pass through the Taiwan Strait during or shortly after Tsai’s trip.

The trip to Central America also serves as a way to create strong international relations that could help strengthen Taiwan’s self-rule.

Taiwan is considered a breakaway state by China, and it is down to 21 allies, after the small African nation of Sao Tome and Principe switched recognition to Beijing last month.

Analyst Liao said Beijing would continue to woo the island’s allies as a pressure tactic on Tsai, who refuses to acknowledge the concept that there is only “one China”.

{Heavy downpour and flash flooding ravages Thailand’s southern provinces, killing at least 12 people.}

Floods have killed 12 people in Thailand, while heavy rains continued to ravage the country’s south.

The flooding, which is roof-high in some areas, affected more than 700,000 people since it started a week ago, Thailand’s interior ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

“We are coordinating relevant agencies to provide the necessities for the people affected by the flooding,” Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha told reporters.

Neighbouring Malaysia was also hit by severe flooding earlier this week, with thousands stranded in relief centres in two northeastern states. By Saturday, the number of evacuees had dropped as weather conditions improved and authorities forecast less rainfall over the weekend.

However, there are two more days of downpour in Thailand, according to the Meteorological Department, which also warned of flash floods in eight of the hardest-hit provinces.

The rain is unusually strong for this time of year in Thailand, which normally sees a three-month long stretch of relatively dry and cool weather from November through to January.

It is high season for tourists who flock to the kingdom’s island resorts, powering a crucial sector of the economy.

But the deluge has already disrupted beach holidays in several traveller hotspots, including the popular islands of Samui and Phangan.

Hundreds of tourists have had their flights delayed, while train and bus services on the mainland have also been suspended in flood-hit areas.

Yet some travellers are refusing to let the storm stop the fun, with photos circulating on social media of tourists coasting through flooded streets on pool floats.

“Some tourists are enjoying the flooding, they’re taking pictures and going swimming,” said Nongyao Jirundorn, a tourism official on Samui island.