Tag: InternationalNews

{Landmark agreement signed in Tokyo despite criticism from anti-nuclear groups citing threats to safety.}

Japan has signed a controversial deal to sell civil nuclear power equipment and technology to I ndia, despite resistance from campaigners, as the two countries seek to boost business and security ties.

The pact, signed on Friday in Tokyo by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi , marked the first time Japan agreed to such a deal with a country that is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The treaty bans nations other than the five permanent members of the UN Security Council from developing and possessing nuclear weapons.

Critics in Japan, the victim of US atomic bombings in the final days of World War II, have previously raised concerns about a risk of the country’s technology being diverted to India’s nuclear weapons programme.

Yet, the deal is limited to peaceful commercial use, and Tokyo cam terminate it if India conducts a nuclear test.

The pact allows India to reprocess fuel and enrich uranium, though highly enriched uranium that can be used to make nuclear weapons is not permitted without written agreement by Japan.

Abe and Modi insisted the agreement will contribute to peaceful use of clean energy.

“This agreement sets a legal framework to assure that India acts responsibly for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” Abe said, adding that it gets India to effectively participate in the non-proliferation treaty framework.

“It is also in line with Japan’s position to promote non-proliferation to create a world without nuclear weapons.”

Abe’s pro-business government seeks to export nuclear power plants to counter shrinking sales at home since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has discussed similar deals with Vietnam and Turkey.

Modi praised the signing as “a historic step in our engagement to build a clean energy partnership” that will help India to “combat the challenge of climate change”.

Anti-nuclear groups denounced the agreement, citing threats to safety and regional peace and increased risk of proliferation.

“There is no effective separation between India’s nuclear energy programme and its weapons programme, and the Japanese government’s agreement conditions are meaningless,” Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement .

“Approving nuclear trade with India is a geo-strategic decision to support further nuclear weapons proliferation in Asia.”

The women of Fukushima, an anti-nuclear lobbying group, have issued an appeal to Modi to visit the disaster area and see at first hand the consequences of nuclear power.

“Nuclear power plants will not bring happiness to your citizens,” the group said in an open letter.

“We who experienced the injury of the nuclear accident, we came to understand this through our own bodies and lives.”

Energy-hungry India wants to increase nuclear power generation to support its strong economic growth. The country has signed similar nuclear agreements with France, Russia, Britain and the United States.

{Everything you need to know about what the controversial president-elect can and cannot do as leader of the US.}

A crucial question people around the world are asking right now is if Donald Trump will be the same in the Oval Office as he was on the campaign trail.

Many are wondering: How many of his controversial campaign promises will actually become reality?

It’s important to take a step back and look at the power of the president to see how a Trump presidency could play out.

{{Here’s a quick rundown:}}

{{Can Trump build a wall and make Mexico pay for it?}}

If Trump wants to build a wall along the entire southern border he is going to have to ask the US Congress for tens of billions of dollars.

He can’t do it without their sign-off. There has been some bipartisan talk in the past of doing more to secure the border but with a $20 trillion debt that is only going up, spending the amount it would take to build on the entire border seems like a tough sell, even with a Republican-led Congress.

He cannot – repeat – cannot make Mexico pay for it.

He said on the campaign trail that he would take remittances from the US that were being sent to Mexico. What would that even look like? Would FBI agents hang out at every Western Union and ask where the money is being sent?

If as president he signed an executive order to take people’s money, it would instantly be challenged in court.

He will be able to make sure the Supreme Court stays conservative-leaning but it’s hard to imagine any court not ruling that practice would be against the constitutional protection from illegal search and seizures.

{{Can Trump ban all Muslims from entering the US?}}

He did say he was going to “totally shut down” all Muslims from entering the United States. He later clarified that he was going to shut down people from entering who come from countries with a history of terrorism. The short answer is he can’t ban an entire religion, but there are caveats.

First let’s take a look at Americans who practise Islam. No president can keep them from entering the country. That would violate several provisions of the constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

For non-Americans it is pretty clear that he couldn’t come right out and say he was stopping Muslims from immigrating or visiting the US. The courts would probably step in if that was the case.

That doesn’t mean he can’t do it though. The president is allowed to ban people from certain countries from entering the US.

It has been done before, in 1980, when Jimmy Carter, the Democratic president, during the Iranian hostage crisis banned Iranians from entering the US unless they opposed the new government or had a medical emergency.

That means Trump can also stop the resettlement of all Syrian refugees, another one of his controversial campaign promises.

{{Can Trump renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal?}}

He can try to change what he called “the stupidest deal of all time”. He can call up the Iranian foreign ministry and say he “wants a better deal”.

There is no reason to think the Iranians would agree. As president, Trump could call the other nations who took part and ask them to put sanctions back in place in order to force the talks to resume. It seems pretty unlikely the other countries would agree to that.

He could issue new US sanctions. That seems more likely because the incoming minority leader Senator Chuck Schumer has voiced opposition to the deal.

He could say that the limited business US companies can do with Iran is no longer allowed. It seems unlikely that other countries are going to be willing to isolate Iran again to the extent they once did.

He could sign sanctions that make it tougher for foreign companies to do business with Iran and use the US financial system. In short, he can try to make Iran renegotiate but he will likely be left with only unilateral actions.

{{Can Trump start a trade war with China?}}

Yes, on his own without Congress and no one can stop him.

He can impose harsh tariffs on Chinese goods. That will mean that everyday goods that Americans are used to being able to buy fairly inexpensively at Wal-Mart will become incredibly expensive.

That would be hugely unpopular but he has the power to do it if he wants.

Can he renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA?

He can and officials in Canada and Mexico have said they are willing to start talking. If he can he get a better deal remains an open question.

Can he force American companies to move back to the US?

No. He quite simply cannot. He can impose heavy tariffs on the products companies make in Mexico and ship to the US.

Again, US consumers would quickly feel the pain of that move.

{{What can Trump do in Syria?}}

Anything he wants. The US involvement has been done under the legal authority of the Authorization for Use of Military Force from 2001.

Congress could pass a new bill forcing him to continue to arm opposition fighters or to stop providing assistance and that would be binding, but his own party controls both chambers of Congress and are unlikely to take that step.

Members of Congress have been reluctant to put their names to anything that authorises or stops the use of force overseas.

He can unveil his “secret” plan to stop the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) or he can side with the Russians and stop backing the groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ISIL and there is little likely to stop him.

{{Can Trump stop “normalisation” with Cuba?}}

Yes. Just by signing his name on an executive order he can roll back every change President Barack Obama has made.

{{What can Trump do at the UN?}}

Anything he wants. He could try to lift sanctions on Russia over Ukraine in exchange for cooperation in Syria. Congress couldn’t stop him, but the other veto-wielding countries can.

{{Can he rip up the Paris climate agreement?}}

Yes. With an executive order everything that was mandated under the agreement would simply go away.

Can he deport undocumented migrants?

He can do that and no one can stop him – short of a congressional bill.

Can Trump make America great again?

It seems we are about to find out.

{Project which began in 2010 and cost $7m opens in Ramallah on the 12th anniversary of the Palestinian’s leader’s death.}

A museum built on the grounds of the presidential headquarters in Ramallah, dedicated to the legacy of Yasser Arafat, has opened to the public, a day short of the 12-year anniversary of the Palestinian leader’s death.

The museum, according to Nasser al-Kidwa, chairman of the board of the Yasser Arafat Foundation, intends to present the most important events in Palestinian history from the beginning of the 20th century until the death of Arafat in 2004.

Speaking on Thursday in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, at a rally commemorating Arafat, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: “2017 is going to be the year to end the occupation, and even though Arafat is gone in body, he still lives among us in spirit.”

Arafat died on November 11, 2004, at a French military hospital after suffering a sudden illness following three years of Israeli military siege around his Ramallah headquarters.

Construction on the $7m project began in 2010. Kidwa said visitors will be able to walk from the museum to Arafat’s former office and bedroom by bridge.

On display are a selection of personal belongings, including his pistol and his keffiyeh kerchief.

The team of curators had a hard time collecting all of Arafat’s belongings, Kidwa said.

He said while the belongings in Ramallah were easy to find, most of Arafat’s items in the Gaza Strip were lost after the Palestinian group Hamas took over the territory in 2007.

Kidwa said Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize medal, which he won after signing the interim agreement with Israel in 1993, was found in a market in Gaza.

{Iraqi authorities deny Amnesty allegations that their forces tortured and killed six civilians during the Mosul push.}

Men wearing federal police uniforms tortured and executed civilians in villages south of Mosul during an ongoing operation to retake the city from ISIL, according to a rights group, an allegation denied by Iraq’s authorities.

In a report published on Thursday, Amnesty International said its researchers had gathered evidence that up to six people were “extrajudicially executed” last month in the al-Shura and al-Qayyarah sub-districts over suspected ties to ISIL, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS.

Three of the victims were part of a group of around 10 men and one 16-year-old boy who handed themselves over to men wearing federal police uniforms on October 21, the rights group said.

The men had waved a white cloth and lifted their shirts to show they were not wearing explosive belts, Amnesty said, but were taken to an open desert area and brutally beaten. One man’s beard was set alight.

On the same day, another victim was led away by men in police uniforms, only for his body to be found a week later, according to Amnesty, which said that its researchers had visited several villages in Shura and Qayyarah.

Again on October 21, another man was reportedly shot as he ran towards men in police uniform, pulling at his clothes to show he was not wearing a bomb.

And the body of a sixth man, who had defied ISIL’s attempt to remove civilians for use as human shields and stayed in the Shura area, was found with bullet wounds to the chest and chin after government forces moved in, according to the UK-based rights group.

Amnesty said that forces operating in the area “were apparently presuming that only ISIL fighters had remained behind”, but that the extrajudicial executions were in any case unlawful.

“Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul,” said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s Beirut office.

“Deliberately killing captives and other defenceless individuals is prohibited by international humanitarian law and is a war crime,” she added.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Maalouf also called Iraq’s authorities to urgently conduct proper investigations.

“It is crucial at this point, as the operation is ongoing, and Iraqi authorities are effectively taking control of these areas, to ensure that trust is maintained in the civilian population, and one of the ways to do that is to investigate these kinds of reports.”

{{Iraqi denial}}

Later on Thursday, Iraq’s federal police issued a statement denying its forces had been involved in extrajudicial killings.

A spokesman for the federal police said that its officers respected the human values and principles of civilians and their property, as well as providing all possible assistance to them during the operation to retake Mosul.

The federal police had been providing humanitarian aid, he said, adding that its forces had managed to rescue and evacuate more than 10,000 families who were being held by ISIL fighters as human shields.

A spokesman for Iraq’s interior ministry also denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respect human rights and international law.

{{‘Unknown facilities’}}

The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia militias and backed by US-led coalition air strikes, has entered its fourth week but is facing fierce resistance for ISIL fighters.

As Iraqi forces struggle to solidify gains in neighbourhoods in eastern Mosul, more and more civilians are fleeing the city and its surrounding areas.

Also on Thursday, rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with ISIL had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces from checkpoints, villages, screening centres and camps for displaced people around Mosul and Hawija, further south.

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while in detention, according to HRW’s report.

The group also warned that such conduct “significantly increases the risk of other violations”, including torture.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families were limited and due to limited resources.

“Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities,” Dindar Zebari told Reuters news agency.

{At least four people killed and 120 wounded as suicide car bomber rams his vehicle into the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.}

A suicide car bomber has struck the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least four people and wounding 120 others, according to police sources.

The bombing on Thursday was claimed by the Taliban, which called it a “revenge attack” for a US air strike in the province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.

US forces admitted last week that its air strikes “very likely” resulted in civilian killings in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

According to Mazar-i-Sharif police, “the suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city”.

“The blast was too loud and powerful, which shattered windows, and many civilians were wounded inside their homes,” Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head of security for Balkh province where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, said.

A German military spokesperson told Reuters news agency that shots were also heard outside the consulate and that NATO troops were on the site.

The number of attackers remains unclear.

Afghan police said that they found a second attacker hidden or buried under rubble on Friday morning, having spoken of only one attacker during the night.

A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that several fighters had entered the building and that clashes were ongoing.

The government source, however, did not confirm if fighting was still ongoing.

{{German presence}}

Germany has 938 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission.

The Taliban, who seized power and ruled Afghanistan from 1996, were toppled by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Almost 15 years later, about 13,000 troops from a US-NATO coalition remain in the country.

In the past year alone, the Taliban’s armed campaign has killed or wounded about 11,000 civilians, as well as 5,500 government troops and police officers.

{UN warns there will soon be no food left to distribute in rebel-held sector unless aid is immediately allowed in.}

The UN has urged the Syrian government, Russia and rebel groups to immediately allow food deliveries to besieged areas of eastern Aleppo, issuing a bleak warning that the 250,000 civilians still trapped in the divided city are at risk of mass starvation as the winter sets in.

Jan Egeland, the head of a UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, said on Thursday that the last remaining food rations were currently being handed out in rebel-held eastern Aleppo and there would be nothing left to distribute next week without a resupply.

“I don’t think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo,” Egeland said, referring to the number of civilians the UN says are living under siege.

He urged all sides – the regime, its key ally Russia and the opposition fighters – to grant humanitarian access, adding that with winter approaching it was the only way to avoid mass starvation.

Egeland said he was confident access would be possible after four months of deadlock because “the consequences of no help and no supplies will be so catastrophic I cannot even see that scenario”.

Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said that Egeland’s comments came as activists in eastern Aleppo said that they were fast running out of not just food but also medicines.

“Up until about last week, they had three to four weeks of supplies left, and the last time actually supplies went in was in August when rebels broke the siege and entered the besieged city of Aleppo,” he said.

“Since then, the government has taken back control … No aid has been allowed in, the Syrian government says that it … has offered truces, various offers, but that had been set back by rebel groups on the ground.

“So a bleak warning from the UN’s adviser that this is going to be yet another harsh winter for the people of Syria, in general, and particularly for the people of Aleppo who are fast running out of things to eat and things that could cure them.”

Egeland also warned that the incoming cold weather will be “a real killer” and said the UN urgently needed approval for its eastern Aleppo relief plan.

The plan includes the delivery of both medical and food supplies, as well as medical evacuations and deployment of medical personnel.

Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been devastated by fighting since the rebels seized the east of the city in 2012, turning its historic heart into a battlefield.

The army cut the last supply route into rebel-held territory in July, leaving more than 250,000 civilians still living there without access to basic goods.

On Wednesday, the Syrian army took control of a strategic district of eastern Aleppo in what would mark the most important advance in the divided city by the government and its allies in weeks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group that reports on the war, said government forces and their allies seized full control of 1070 apartments, calling it the most significant gain by the government in Aleppo since it launched a ground attack in September.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but quickly escalated into a full-on armed conflict.

Calculating a precise death toll is impossible, partially owing to the forced disappearances of tens of thousands of Syrians whose fates remain unknown.

However, in April, Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s Syria envoy, estimated that more than 400,000 Syrians had been killed.

Almost 11 million Syrians – half the country’s pre-war population – have been displaced from their homes.

{Israeli PM says he will not allow Iran to turn neighbouring Syria into a base of military operations.}

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not allow Iran to turn neighbouring Syria into a base of military operations and vowed to limit the Islamic Republic’s influence in the war-ravaged country.

“We are determined to … prevent Iran … from establishing itself militarily in Syria, on the ground, in the air or at sea,” Netanyahu said as he held talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Jerusalem on Thursday.

“We are also determined to prevent it from bringing about the establishment of Shia militias, which it is organising, and of course, the arming of [Lebanese] Hezbollah with dangerous weapons aimed at us.”

Thousands of Iranians and members of the Shia armed movement Hezbollah are in Syria fighting alongside government troops against Sunni rebels.

They have provided crucial support to President Bashar al-Assad’s overstretched and exhausted army, and have played a significant role in the latest battle for eastern Aleppo.

In April, Netanyahu publicly admitted that dozens of convoys transporting weapons to Hezbollah had been attacked.

Last year, Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to set up a “hotline” to avoid accidental clashes.

Fighting terrorism

Netanyahu also called Israel and Russia “partners in the war on radical Islamic terror” and noted that the two countries along with the United States and others “share the goal of eliminating” the Islamic State jihadist group.

Medvedev agreed that Russia and Israel were facing the “common challenge” of terrorism, adding that “we must stand together against it”.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely peaceful uprising against President Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-scale war.

Russia launched an air campaign in support of Syrian government forces last year, which has been widely credited with helping turn the balance of power in favour of Assad.

Since then, at least 9,364 people have been killed and a further 20,000 civilians have been wounded.

Earlier this year, the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimated that at least 400,000 people had died over the past five years.

Medvedev began his trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories on Wednesday. He is due to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho on Friday.

In September, Russia had expressed a willingness to host Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, though no date was officially agreed on by all of the parties involved.

In light of cooled relations with the US and the European Union, Israel has increasingly turned towards forging bonds with Russia.

{Hillary Clinton pledges to work with president-elect Donald Trump for the good of the United States in emotional speech.}

Hillary Clinton, the defeated candidate for US president, has pledged to work with president-elect Donald Trump to unite a divided nation in an emotional concession speech.

With a row of American flags in the background, the Democratic nominee told supporters that her loss was painful “and it will be for a long time,” and that she had offered to work with Trump as he prepares to begin his four-year term on January 20.

“Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country,” Clinton said in New York before noon on Wednesday, joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea.

“I hope he will be a successful president for all Americans.”

After the Republican Trump’s stunning upset of the heavily favoured Democrat Clinton, Democratic President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the ugliness of an angry and sometimes personal campaign to seek common ground.

Clinton said the United States was “more deeply divided than we thought,” telling her supporters they must accept the outcome of the election.

“I hope he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, but I believe in Americans,” she said. “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”

Clinton said that the US had not “shattered that highest and hardest ceiling,” referring to the fact that, if elected, she would have become the first female president in the nation’s history.

“Someday, somebody will,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from New York, said many Clinton supporters would find it difficult to accept the result.

“We saw a lot of people angry and shouting saying they do not accept the results. People are really frustrated,” she said

“What is really important here is that what this campaign has done is that it underscored the diversity of America and the reflection of America – America that is more diverse than many have felt they have been able to acknowledge in the past.”

Thousands of people marched against Trump in New York, Chicago, Portland and other cities on Wednesday night.

Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, said she had made history by paving the way for women to run for president.

Speaking ahead of Clinton to a room of supporters and aides, Kaine prompted a standing ovation when he noted Clinton secured more of that popular vote than Trump.

His voice shaking, he said that Clinton “knows the system we have. She’s deeply in love with it and she accepts it.”

A wealthy real-estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger towards Washington insiders to win Tuesday’s election against Clinton, whose CV included stints as a first lady, US senator and secretary of state.

Trump’s victory marked a crushing end to Clinton’s second quest to become the first woman president. She also failed in a White House bid in 2008.

Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday after a brutal night for his party, which also fell short of recapturing majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” Obama said at the White House , adding he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition.

“We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first,” he said.

Trump and his senior aides were meeting at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to begin the transition. The Republican majorities in both chambers of the US Congress will likely help Trump implement his legislative agenda.

In a victory speech early on Wednesday , he promised to embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and to double US economic growth.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from UN headquarters in New York, said diplomats and ambassadors had privately expressed shock at Trump’s victory and uncertainty over what his policies would be.

“We don’t really know what the foreign policy now is of the United States – the most powerful country in the world,” he said.

“If you believe what Donald Trump said on the campaign trail, then he’s going to overthrow many things that were always the case for the United States since the second world war.”

Joined by his family at his victory speech, Trump spoke to cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom, saying it was time to heal divisions and find common ground after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans.

“It is time for us to come together as one united people,” he said. “I will be president for all Americans.”