Tag: InternationalNews

{Seven detained in connection with killing of ambassador Andrey Karlov as Russia and Turkey attempt to contain fallout.}

Turkish authorities have detained seven people after the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, while Russia is sending more than a dozen investigators to join the inquiry.

Andrey Karlov, 62, died from bullet wounds after a 22-year-old off-duty Turkish policeman shot him in the back as he gave a speech at an Ankara art gallery on Monday night.

“The group will act in Turkey within the framework of the investigation into the murder,” Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, said on Tuesday.

“Eighteen people will work in the group.”

Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart, had agreed on the decision in a phone call.

Karlov was several minutes into a speech at an embassy-sponsored photography exhibition when a man who stood directly behind him in a dark suit shot him multiple times in the back from close range.

Shouting angrily while pacing around Karlov’s body in front of a shocked crowd, the assailant – identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas – highlighted the situation in Aleppo and said all those responsible for what has happened there would be held accountable.

Police later killed Altintas in a exchange that lasted 15 minutes.

Three-way meeting

A three-way meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia, and Iran in Moscow over the Syria crisis began on Tuesday where Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s representative said “no quarter should be given to terrorists in Syria” after Monday’s assassination.

Earlier, Putin declared, “We have to know who directed the hand of the killer”.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said the attacker’s mother, father, sister and three other relatives were held in the western province of Aydin, while his flatmate in Ankara was also detained.

After the initial shot, the attacker approached Karlov as he lay on the ground and shot him at least one more time at close range, an AP photographer said at the scene.

Karlov’s assassination has reinforced the sense of unease over the region’s conflicts as also shifting alliances and relationships.

“On behalf of my country and my people I once again extend my condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the friendly Russian people,” said Erdogan.

Putin promised a response to the assassination.

“The crime that has been committed is undoubtedly a provocation aimed at derailing the ties between Russia and Turkey, as well as the peace process in Syria,” said Putin from Moscow.

“There is only one possible response to this – the strengthening of the fight against terror, and the bandits will feel it themselves.”

Relations between Russia and Turkey were badly strained by the downing of a Russian fighter jet at the Syrian border in November 2015.

However, Turkey’s apology earlier this year helped to overcome the rift.

“The Russians and the Turks have been trying mend the strained relations over the last few months, hoping that strong relations between the two countries would pave the way for comprehensive regional agreement on different issues, particularly on the issue of Syria,” Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Ankara, said.

“At this particular moment, the two countries are hoping to put the peace process on track between Syrian rebels and the government,” he said.

“There were huge concerns that the attack would undermine or at least erode the efforts. But officials from both governments are doing their best to contain the fallout from this assassination.”

{Andrey Karlov was speaking at a photo exhibition event in the capital when he was shot by a Turkish off-duty policeman.}

Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot dead in front of a crowd at a posh art gallery in the capital Ankara as the angry gunmen screamed “don’t forget Aleppo”.

Police later killed the assailant on Monday night, Turkish station NTV reported.

Andrey Karlov, 62, was several minutes into a speech at an embassy-sponsored photo exhibition when a man who stood directly behind him in a dark suit shot the diplomat in the back from close range multiple times.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the announcement of Karlov’s death in a live televised statement.

The assailant was a 22-year-old off-duty police officer who worked in Turkey’s capital, said Ankara’s Mayor Melih Gokcek.

After the initial shot, the attacker approached Karlov as he lay on the ground and shot him at least one more time at close range, according to an AP photographer at the scene.

He also smashed several of the framed photos on exhibition, but later let the stunned guests out of the venue, according to local media.

The spectacle of Karlov’s assassination by a member of the Turkish security forces at a photography exhibit meant to highlight Russian culture reinforced the sense of unease over the region’s conflict and complex web of alliances and relationships.

Several media outlets reported a gunfight later ensued after Karlov was shot.

Local broadcaster NTV television said at least three people were wounded and were taken to the hospital.

Mayor Gokcek told reporters outside the exhibition centre the “heinous” attack was aimed at disrupting newly re-established relations between Turkey and Russia.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone about Monday’s attack.

“On behalf of my country and my people I once again extend my condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the friendly Russian people,” said Erdogan.

Putin promised a response to the assassination.

“The crime that has been committed is undoubtedly a provocation aimed at derailing the ties between Russia and Turkey, as well as the peace process in Syria,” said Putin from Moscow. “There is only one possible response to this – the strengthening of the fight against terror, and the bandits will feel it themselves.”

Relations between Russia and Turkey were badly strained by the downing of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border in November 2015, but Turkey’s apology earlier this year helped overcome the rift.

Russia and Turkey have co-sponsored the evacuation of civilians and rebels from Aleppo and discussed the prospect of organising a new round of peace talks in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana.

{{‘Don’t forget Aleppo’}}

The assailant referenced the situation in Aleppo after he shot the ambassador in the back.

“Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria,” the attacker said in Turkish after gunning down the ambassador, as seen on a video shared by Turkish media from the scene.

“Whoever took part in this cruelty will pay the price, one by one… Only death will take me from here,” the man said while holding a pistol.

He then continued in Arabic, saying: “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.”

Diego Cupolo, a photojournalist in Ankara, told Al Jazeera there were about 100 armed soldiers in camouflage and police officers at the scene, along with armoured fighting vehicles.

The attack came a day before a meeting of Russian, Turkish and Iranian foreign and defence ministers in Moscow to discuss Syria.

Ankara focuses on Gulen links in Karlov assassination

Those talks will go ahead on Tuesday despite the murder of Karlov, the Interfax news agency said, citing Leonid Slutsky, a senior parliamentarian.

The Russian ambassador to Turkey was a career diplomat.

Karlov joined the diplomatic service in 1976. He served as Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang in 2001-2006, and later worked as the chief of the foreign ministry’s consular department.

He had served as the ambassador to Turkey since 2013.

{Electors unswayed by last-ditch bid by die-hard opponents to bar the Republican candidate’s path to the White House.}

President-elect Donald Trump has received a majority in the US Electoral College as votes from Texas electors put him over the 270 threshold.

Monday’s result confirmed as expected Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States.

The Electoral College appeared unswayed by a last-ditch bid by die-hard opponents to bar the Republican’s path to the White House.

Six weeks after his upset victory over the Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump sailed past the 270 votes needed to make his victory official, clearing the way for him to succeed Barack Obama on January 20.

{Solar-powered fan to blow air down labourer’s face to provide cooler micro-climate for workers, Qatari official says.}

World Cup 2022 labourers in Qatar are to be given “cooling” hard hats which reduce their body temperature as they build football stadiums in the fierce desert heat, tournament organisers announced.

The innovative technology uses a solar-powered fan to reduce the skin temperature by up to 10 degrees, said the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the body overseeing the controversial tournament’s organisation.

“We are confident that this technology will create more comfortable and safer working conditions,” said Saud Abdul-Aziz Abdul Ghani, an engineering professor at Qatar University, where the hat has been developed.

The cooling hat scheme could be rolled out by next summer, officials said.

Summertime temperatures in Qatar regularly approach 50 degrees Celsius.

“Our objective was to reduce heat stress and heat strokes for workers in Qatar and the region during the summer months,” said Abdul-Ghani.

“Our concept is to use a solar-powered fan to blow air over a cooled material at the top of the helmet, which will then come down over the front of the person’s face and provide a cooler micro-climate for the worker.”

It would provide “cooling in hot conditions for up to four hours straight”, he added, and could “revolutionise” the construction industry in the hottest parts of the world.

Workers in Qatar will be the first to use the helmet, which has been two years in the making, said Hilal Jeham al-Kuwari, an engineer with the supreme committee.

Since 2007, labourers have been banned from working outside in Qatar for several hours during the day at the height of the summer, owing to temperatures.

There are currently more than 5,000 construction workers helping to build World Cup stadiums in Qatar. That number is set to increase to 36,000 within the next two years.

Qatar has come under international criticism for the treatment of its migrant labour force ever since being chosen to host the 2022 World Cup.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International accused Qatar of using “forced labour” at a World Cup site, the Khalifa International Stadium.

In October, it was revealed that Anil Kumar Pasman, a 29-year-old Nepalese labourer, had died after being struck by a lorry at Al-Wakrah stadium, the first “work-related” death announced by Qatar’s World Cup organisers.

{French court finds Lagarde at fault for failing to challenge a $420m compensation payout but she will not face prison.}

Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has been found guilty of negligence by a French court over a massive payout to a tycoon when she was the country’s finance minister, but will not be fined or face prison.

Lagarde was found to be at fault on Monday for failing to challenge a 404m euro ($420m) compensation payout to businessman Bernard Tapie over the sale of the Adidas sports brand to Credit Lyonnais bank.

She was put on trial over her 2007 decision to allow the dispute to be resolved by a private arbitration panel, and then failing to challenge the result.

The court cleared her of negligence over her decision to refer the matter to arbitration but upheld the charge over her failure to contest the award.

“The context of the global financial crisis in which Madame Lagarde found herself in should be taken into account,” said Martine Ract Madoux, the main judge, in explaining the absence of any sentence.

She also cited Lagarde’s good reputation and international standing as reasons why the court did not hand down a punishment in a case that could have carried a sentence of up to a year in prison.

Lagarde, who was France’s finance minister between 2007 and 2011, was not in the Paris court to hear the decision. Her lawyer said that she was in Washington, where the IMF is based.

The French government pledged confidence in Lagarde after her conviction was announced.

The IMF board was to meet on Monday to discuss the implications of the guilty verdict against IMF chief Christine Lagarde in a French court, a spokesman for the organisation said Monday.

“The Executive Board has met on previous occasions to consider developments related to the legal proceedings in France. It is expected that the board will meet again shortly to consider the most recent developments,” fund spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement.

{Dozens of buses safely depart east Aleppo, as 500 people are also evacuated from rebel-besieged Shia villages.}

Dozens of buses carrying evacuees from the last rebel-held district of Aleppo travelled to opposition-controlled areas of countryside outside the city early on Monday, a United Nations official and a monitor said.

The UN official told Reuters news agency that 50 buses and two ambulances had left the rebel zone, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 65 buses had left carrying about 3,500 people.

Earlier, Dr Ahmad Dbis, who heads a team of doctors and volunteers coordinating evacuations from Aleppo, told AFP news agency that about 1,200 people, including women and children, had arrived at the staging ground west of Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an estimated 500 people had been evacuated from two villages besieged by rebels in Idlib province on Monday.

SOHR said 10 buses had left the besieged Shia villages of Fouaa and Kefraya carrying evacuees through rebel-held territory towards Aleppo..

The evacuations from rebel-held areas of Aleppo had been suspended on Friday, a day after convoys of people had begun leaving the rebel sector under a deal allowing the regime to take full control of the battleground city.

The main obstacle to a resumption had been a dispute over how many people would be evacuated in parallel from Fouaa and Kefraya, under rebel siege in northwestern Syria.

But just as a deal to go ahead with the evacuations was reached and announced by both sides, gunmen attacked buses sent to take people out of Fouaa and Kefraya and torched them, killing a bus driver, SOHR said.

The evacuation process in Aleppo got off to a shaky start last week, with agreements collapsing and four people reportedly killed by government-allied forces as they attempted to leave eastern Aleppo.

Reports said ambulances and buses were able to enter Fouaa and Kefraya late on Sunday after being prevented from entering for hours.

SOHR said the evacuation operation would involve about 4,000 people, including patients, orphans and families.

‘Sleeping in the streets’

Thousands of people remain in eastern Aleppo, many sleeping in the streets in freezing temperatures as they wait to be evacuated.

“Conditions in eastern Aleppo remain extremely dire,” said Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border.

“In the evenings it can go to -5C. They have access to very little food, fuel, water and medical supplies.”

Thousands of people from east Aleppo were taken to rebel-held districts of the countryside west of the city on Thursday.

Turkey has said that Aleppo evacuees could also be housed in a camp to be built near the Turkish border to the north.

UN monitors

Meanwhile at the United Nations, France and Russia announced agreement on a compromise resolution to deploy UN monitors to eastern Aleppo to ensure safe evacuations and immediate delivery of humanitarian aid.

France’s UN ambassador, Francois Delattre, told reporters the compromise was reached after more than three hours of closed consultations on Sunday and the Security Council would vote on the resolution on Monday.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters before consultations that Moscow could not accept the French draft resolution unless it was changed.

He presented council members with a rival text.

After the consultations, Churkin said a “good text” had been formulated.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said the resolution would quickly put more than 100 UN personnel on the ground to monitor evacuations.

“The text contains all the elements for safe, secure, dignified evacuation, for humanitarian access to those who choose to remain in eastern Aleppo” and for protecting civilians, she said.

She said that following the siege in eastern Aleppo, there have been “many, many reports of people being pulled off buses and disappeared, whether into conscription or into torture chambers or killed outright.”

Deploying UN monitors would deter “some of the worst excesses,” she said.

Russia, which has provided military backing to Assad, has vetoed six Security Council resolutions on Syria since the conflict started in 2011.

China joined Russia in vetoing five resolutions.

Aleppo had been divided between government and rebel areas in the nearly six-year war, but a major advance by the Syrian army and its allies began in mid-November following months of intense air strikes.

The offensive forced the opposition fighters out of most of their strongholds within a matter of weeks.

{Government deal to avoid clash approved by Jewish families occupying private Palestinian land in occupied West Bank.}

Israeli Jewish settlers of a settlement in the occupied West Bank have agreed to a plan to relocate their hilltop outpost peacefully that could allow the government to avoid a potentially violent clash.

The 40 families living at Amona, northeast of Ramallah, face a high court order to leave the site by December 25 because it was found to have been built on private Palestinian land.

The approaching deadline led to efforts to resolve peacefully the situation, with the settlers refusing to leave and several hundred Jewish youths streaming into the outpost in recent days in support.

However, after hours of a debate on Sunday, outpost residents approved a revised government proposal to relocate by a vote of 45 for and 29 against, a spokesman wrote on the outpost’s Twitter account.

“After 20 years of pioneering settlements against all odds, and after two long years, we have decided to suspend the struggle,” Amona residents said in a statement.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, had earlier pressured outpost residents to accept the deal, saying “we have done the maximum”.

“Until dawn this morning we made very great efforts to reach an agreed solution on Amona,” he said at the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

Signals from Trump

Since Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war, it has built about 120 formal settlements in the territory.

Most of the world deems them illegal and an obstacle to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In addition to the main settlements that Israel fully supports, settlers have created over 100 outposts.

Many of them are located on hilltops across the West Bank, often built with tacit government backing.

Right-wing politicians in Israel have been buoyed by signals from US President-elect Donald Trump of a more accepting US stance on illegal settlements.

Trump has said he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would break long-standing US foreign policy and anger the Muslim world.

{While the number of people who arrived in Europe in 2016 dropped, the number of drownings reached a record.}

About 350,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in the European Union so far this year, a sharp decline from 2015 when more than 1 million people arrived, according to the EU border control agency.

Fabrice Leggeri, executive director of the Frontex border agency, was quoted on Saturday as saying about 180,000 people arrived via Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, while 170,000 reached the continent across the central Mediterranean route from Libya and Egypt.

Leggeri told German daily Ruhr-Nachrichten a deal between the EU and Turkey reduced the number of refugees and migrants coming from the east, but migration from northern Africa rose 30 percent.

Earlier, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) said that 4,812 people have died on the Mediterranean so far this year – a record number.

That is about 1,200 more than last year between January to the end of November.

According to the IOM, 7,189 migrants and asylum seekers have died so far this year around the world, notably in Central America.

That is an average of 20 deaths each day, with the IOM predicting that another 200 to 300 will die en route to safer lands before the year is over.

IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told Al Jazeera that the casualty numbers are “undoubtedly an underestimate”.

“This is the numbers we have of people who are reported to have died, but there are many more who have died lonely deaths, by themselves, in the deserts and in the oceans,” said Doyle.

He added that the nature of the crisis makes it difficult for any organisation or government to keep an accurate count of the dead and missing.

“They [migrants and refugees] are leaving in a clandestine way, they’re leaving without papers, and they’re leaving in small and dangerous boats. Quite often these boats sink without a trace and nobody actually knows about them,” said Doyle.

{ICRC says it hopes to resume the evacuation of Syrians stranded in east Aleppo, days after government claimed victory.}

Tens of thousands of civilians are anxiously waiting to leave eastern Aleppo after a new deal was reached between rebel fighters and the Syrian government.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it hoped to resume the evacuation of civilians and injured people on Sunday, two days after the operation was suspended.

“We are getting ready to resume the evacuation of people from eastern Aleppo, hopefully this morning,” ICRC spokeswoman Elodie Schindler told the Reuters news agency.

The ICRC had urged Syria’s warring parties on Saturday to agree quickly on a plan and provide “solid” safety guarantees for evacuees.

Mohammed Shakiel Shabir, an aid worker based in rebel-held Idlib province, said approximately 100 buses were being prepared to collect the civilians from Khan al-Asl, a suburb of Aleppo city.

“We are taking several ambulances, food and medicines and approximately 100 coaches to Khan al-Asl,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Each coach can transport around 40 people so [God willing] we will be transferring thousands to safety.”

Reports differ on how many people remain in eastern Aleppo, with numbers ranging from 15,000 to 40,000 civilians, along with an estimated 6,000 fighters.

The evacuation of eastern Aleppo was suspended on Friday after rebels and government forces accused each other of violating an earlier deal.

A correspondent for Syrian state TV said on Saturday that the main condition for the Aleppo evacuation to resume was for residents of Fua and Kefraya to be allowed to leave.

Al-Farouq Abu Bakr, a rebel negotiator based in eastern Aleppo, told Al Jazeera that the deal, brokered late on Saturday, would allow for the transfer of tens of thousands of Syrians from besieged areas across the country.

The deal come days after the Syrian government claimed victory in Aleppo, which had been partly under rebel control since 2012.

“An agreement was reached to evacuate pro-regime loyalists from the [Shia majority] towns of Fua and Kefraya in Idlib province. This will allow evacuations from east Aleppo to resume within the next few hours,” Bakr said.

“A number of civilians will also be evacuated from the besieged cities of Madaya and Zabadani as part of the deal. In the next few hours, we will see the agreement taking effect.”

According to the UN, more than four million people live in besieged or hard-to-reach areas in Syria, with limited or no access to food or medical supplies.

Al Jazeera’s Amro Halabi, reporting from eastern Aleppo, said tens of thousands of people were still trapped inside opposition-controlled areas and were too scared to leave the besieged districts.

“Now, the people are afraid and they are running away from the meeting point where they were supposed to gather in order to take the buses out of the besieged east Aleppo districts. They are in a state of horror and shock,” he said.

OPINION: I live in Aleppo, under siege

The UN Security Council is to expected to discuss the possible deployment of observers to Aleppo later on Sunday and vote on a resolution demanding immediate and unconditional access for UN staff to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.

According to several UN delegations on Twitter, the Council will meet for a special session at 12:00GMT on a French-drafted resolution.

The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, calls on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to immediately redeploy UN staff already on the ground to carry out “neutral monitoring” and “direct observation and to report on evacuations.”

It stresses that evacuations of civilians “must be voluntary and to destinations of their choice”.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN Ambassador, said on Friday he would examine the draft but was skeptical that monitors could be deployed quickly.

Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and once a key cultural and economic hub, has been divided between government forces and rebels since 2012.

The evacuation agreements came a month after the Syrian government and allied militias launched a military offensive to retake the entire city. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has hailed the operation as a victory.

The Syrian conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad’s rule in March 2011. It has since morphed into a full-scale civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and more than half of the country’s prewar population displaced inside and outside of Syria.