Tag: InternationalNews

{Rallies take place in Aden and elsewhere, with protesters saying UN envoy’s plan would legitimise the Houthis’ “coup”.}

Thousands of Yemenis protested against a new peace proposal to end the conflict submitted by the UN envoy to the war-torn country, saying the plan would legitimise the rebels’ power grab.

The demonstrations in the southern city of Aden and other locations took place on Thursday shortly before UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed arrived in the capital Sanaa for peace talks with Houthi rebels.

“We reject the plan of Ould Cheikh,” read one of the banners carried by protesters in Aden – the government’s temporary base – who responded to a call by authorities in the city to rally.

“No to an initiative that legitimises the coup,” said another.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Saturday rejected the envoy’s peace plan, saying it would reward the Houthis for seizing the capital and “opens a door towards more suffering and war”.

Hadi enjoys the backing of a Saudi-led Arab coalition that launched a military campaign in March 2015 after the rebels closed in on his refuge in Aden.

The contents of the roadmap, which the envoy presented to the rebels on Tuesday, have not been made public.

But informed sources say the proposal calls for agreement on naming a new vice president after the rebels withdraw from Sanaa and other cities and hand over heavy weapons to a third party.

Hadi would then transfer power to the vice president who would appoint a new prime minister to form a government in which the north and south of Yemen would have equal representation.

Hundreds of people also rallied against the plan Thursday in Marib, east of Sanaa, and in the southeastern province of Hadramawt, witnesses said.

Hadi described the new proposal as an “explicit departure” from the UN Security Council’s resolution 2216, which calls on rebels to withdraw from territory they have captured since 2014.

The Houthis have called the plan a “basis for discussion” despite containing “fundamental flaws”.

The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people so far, according to the United Nations.

{Allegation comes days after similar move by India, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network.}

Pakistan has accused eight Indian embassy employees of involvement in spying and “terrorism” but stopped short of expelling them, in the latest apparent tit-for-tat move as relations between the two countries deteriorate.

The declaration on Thursday came days after a similar move by New Delhi, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network, forcing Islamabad to withdraw them from their posts.

“A number of Indian diplomats and staff … have been found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments,” Nafees Zakariya, spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, told a press briefing in Islamabad.

He went on to name the eight men, including one accused of using a false identity to pose as an employee of a Pakistani mobile network.

“All these eight officials were involved in espionage, subversion and supporting of terrorist activities,” he said.

New Delhi rejected the allegations, calling them “baseless and unsubstantiated”.

“We completely reject the baseless and unsubstantiated allegations made by Pakistan against certain officials of Indian High Commission in Islamabad,” Vikas Swarup, foreign ministry spokesman told reporters in New Delhi.

“The allegations against the Indian officials represent an afterthought and a crude attempt to target these officials for no fault of theirs,” he said.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have soared since a raid last month killed 19 soldiers on an Indian army base near the de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir region, the worst such attack in more than a decade.

India blamed fighters in Pakistan and said it had responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily militarised border, although Islamabad denies that these took place.

Cross-border shelling between the two countries has led to at least 14 civilian deaths in November alone.

Tensions were already high before the army base attack, with nearly 90 people killed in clashes with security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir over the death of a popular rebel leader in July.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the mountainous region.

The latest round of diplomatic expulsions began on October 27 when India detained a Pakistani visa official accused of spying, later declaring him persona non grata and sending him home.

Pakistan responded with a similar move the same day.

{Recorded message says “total war” for Iraq’s second city “increases our firm belief all this is a prelude to victory”.}

ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has expressed confidence in victory, in his first message after US-backed Iraqi forces started an offensive to take back Mosul, the last major city under control of his group in Iraq.

He also called on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters to invade Turkey.

“This raging battle and total war, and the great jihad that the state of Islam is fighting today only increases our firm belief, God willing, and our conviction that all this is a prelude to victory,” he said in an audio recording released online by supporters on Thursday.

Al Jazeera could not verify the authenticity of the 31-minute-long recording.

Sherifa Zuhur, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, told Al Jazeera that with this recording Baghdadi is sending a message to supporters of ISIL, also known as ISIS, to fight to the death.

“It’s a call to martyrdom that says: if you stand in front of the coalition, just stand firm and say ‘God is enough for us’,” she said.

“On the other hand, it is a statement that ISIL is going to lose its physical territory, for now, and will go back to the condition that it was in, in 2010. It is also a call to those he feels have betrayed the cause of ISIL, a reference to other Sunnis in different groups.”

{{Latest message}}

The previous message purportedly from Baghdadi was from December 2015, an audio recording that reassured followers and supporters that air strikes by Russia and the US-led coalition had failed to weaken the group in Syria.

Zuhur said the latest recording was made within the last 10 days.

“We know that because he made reference to a phrase in a speech by al-Maliki about a recent operation in Nineveh province,” she said, referring to Nouri al-Maliki, the former Iraqi prime minister.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, called on the population of Iraq’s Nineveh province “not to weaken in the jihad” against the “enemies of God”.

He also called on the group’s suicide fighters to “turn the nights of the unbelievers into days, to wreak havoc in their land and make their blood flow as rivers”.

The battle that started on October 17 with air and ground support from a US-led coalition is shaping up as the largest in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.

Mosul still has a population of 1.5 million people, much more than any of the other cities captured by ISIL two years ago in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Baghdadi told ISIL’s fighters to “unleash the fire of their anger” on Turkish troops fighting them in Syria, and to take the battle into Turkey.

“Turkey today entered your range of action and the aim of your jihad … invade it and turn its safety into fear.”

ISIL has been retreating since last year in both Iraq and Syria, in the face of a myriad of different forces.

In Iraq, it is fighting US-backed Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias.

In Syria, it is fighting Turkish-backed Syrian fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, US-backed Kurdish forces as well as Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian army units loyal to Assad and foreign Shia militias.

Baghadi told his followers to launch “attack after attack” in Saudi Arabia, targeting security forces, government officials, members of the ruling Al Saud family and media outlets, for “siding with the infidel nations in the war on Islam and the Sunna [Sunni Muslims] in Iraq and Syria”.

He also said “the caliphate was not affected” by the death of some of its senior commanders, mentioning Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, both killed earlier this year in US air strikes.

{Rebel official says it is “completely out of the question” for them to withdraw from the divided city in northern Syria.}

Syrian opposition fighters have rejected Russian demands that they withdraw from the northern city of Aleppo by Friday evening, according to an official in one rebel faction.

“This is completely out of the question. We will not give up the city of Aleppo to the Russians and we won’t surrender,” Zakaria Malahifji, of the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia had told rebels in Aleppo to leave by Friday evening, signalling it would extend a moratorium on air strikes against targets inside the city.

The Russian defence ministry said opposition fighters would be allowed to exit Aleppo unharmed and with their weapons between 9am and 7pm via two special corridors.

President Vladimir Putin had ordered the pause in fighting “to avoid senseless victims”, the ministry said, saying that Syrian authorities would ensure that Syrian troops pulled back from the two corridors designated for rebels.

However, Malahifji said there were no safe exit corridors, as Russia had stated.

“It’s not true. Civilians and fighters are not leaving. Civilians are afraid of the regime, they don’t trust it. And the fighters are not surrendering,” he said.

Aleppo has been hit by some of the worst violence in Syria’s long-running conflict, turning the once-bustling economic hub into a divided and bombed-out symbol of the war.

At the moment, Aleppo’s frontline runs through the heart of the city, dividing rebels in the east from government forces in the west.

Humanitarian pauses in the past have been largely unsuccessful, both in getting aid into eastern Aleppo and getting residents out of the city.

Rebel offensive

Fighters launched a major assault on Friday, backed by car bombs and salvos of rockets, to break through government lines and reach the 250,000 people besieged in Aleppo’s east.

Since then, opposition factions have amassed on Aleppo’s western outskirts in a bid to end Bashar al-Assad government’s three-month encirclement of the city’s eastern districts.

“Russia halted its air strikes on Aleppo in mid-October to allow a humanitarian pause for civilians and rebels to leave the city in safety,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Gaziantep, on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

“But Syrian government jets and helicopers have their raids on the city dropping barrel bombs, cluster bombs and bunker busters.”

The latest attacks have been on neighbourhoods in western Aleppo recently taken by the rebels, our correspondent said.

“May God punish them for the air strikes that keep targeting us around the clock,” Abu Ahmad, a western Aleppo resident, told Al Jazeera.

“The artillery and tank shells do not stop day and night, but we have no plans to escape.”

{Authorities move over 1,600 unaccompanied children to sites across France, days after the “Jungle” camp was destroyed.}

France has moved more than 1,600 unaccompanied child refugees from the demolished “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais, as a feud with Britain dragged on over who takes care of the youths.

According to local officials, 1,616 children, mainly teenagers who had been living in shipping containers after the camp was razed late last month, had been transferred to processing centres across France on Wednesday.

More than 5,000 refugees had been transferred from Calais last week, but the fate of the children had remained unclear until Wednesday.

{Philippine president suggests he may turn to Russia and China for weapons after the US halts sale of 26,000 rifles.}

Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte has lashed out at the United States for halting a planned sale of 26,000 rifles to his country, calling those behind the decision “fools” and “monkeys” and indicating he might turn to Russia and China for the weapons instead.

Duterte said in a televised speech on Wednesday that he had “lost respect” for Washington.

“Look at these monkeys, the 26,000 firearms we wanted to buy, they don’t want to sell,” he said.

He added that Russia and China had shown a willingness to sell arms to the Philippines, but he would wait to see if his military wanted to continue using US weapons.

“Russia, they are inviting us. China also. China is open, anything you want, they sent me brochure saying we select there, we’ll give you.

“But I am holding off because I was asking the military if they have any problem. Because if you have, if you want to stick to America, fine.

“But, look closely and balance the situation, they are rude to us.”

The US State Department halted the sale of the assault rifles to the Philippine police after staff from US Senator Ben Cardin’s office said he would oppose it, Senate aides told Reuters news agency on Monday.

Aides said Cardin, the top Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was reluctant for Washington to provide the weapons given concerns about human rights violations in the Philippines during Duterte’s bloody, four-month-old war on drugs.

More than 2,300 people have been killed in police operations or by suspected vigilantes as part of Duterte’s anti-narcotics effort, which was the lynchpin of his election campaign.

Duterte has vented his anger at the US for raising concerns about the extra-judicial killings.

“That’s why I was rude at them, because they were rude at me,” he said.

According to procedures in Washington, the State Department informs Congress when international weapons sales are in the works.

Aides said the State Department had been informed Cardin would oppose the deal during the pre-notification process, thus effectively halting the sale.

“Committee staff told State that Cardin would block it if it was sent forward. They haven’t sent it. Does that mean it has been stopped? I guess that depends on your definition. It would be highly unusual for State to move it forward with explicit opposition,” a Senate aide said on Wednesday.

‘Committed to Phillipines alliance’

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said he was barred from commenting on the status of the sale, while stressing the US commitment to the important US-Philippines alliance.

“The department is restricted under federal regulations from commenting on the status of commercial export license approvals of proposed commercial defense sales,” Kirby said at a daily news briefing.

“So we’re going to stay also committed to working closely with members of Congress to deliver security assistance to our allies and partners worldwide, including the Philippines,” he said.

Since becoming president in June, Duterte has had an uneasy relationship with the US and with President Barack Obama, and has declared intentions to bolster relations with China and Russia as he revamps Philippine foreign policy that has long leaned on Washington.

Last month, Obama cancelled a planned first meeting with Duterte on the sidelines of an Asian summit in Laos after the Filipino leader blurted “son of a bitch” in warning the US leader not to lecture him on human rights ahead of their meeting.

Duterte later expressed regrets over his remarks.

{Deployment of Turkish military near border elicits warning from Iraq’s Abadi, who says “we do not want war with Turkey”.}

Iraq’s prime minister has warned Turkey against provoking a confrontation while saying he does not want war.

Haider al-Abadi made the comments after Turkey deployed tanks and artillery near the Iraqi border and insisted that any Turkish involvement would be a violation of national sovereignty.

Turkey wants a a role in the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, by virtue of being a member of the anti-ISIL coalition.

However, Abadi rejected this assertion and repeatedly called on Turkey to withdraw troops it has deployed near the northern city.

“The invasion of Iraq will lead to Turkey being dismantled,” Abadi said in a televised news conference on Tuesday.

“We do not want war with Turkey, and we do not want a confrontation with Turkey.

“But if a confrontation happens, we are ready for it. We will consider [Turkey] an enemy and we will deal with it as an enemy.”

Turkish military sources said on Tuesday that tanks and artillery were being send to southeastern districts near the Iraqi border.

The 30-vehicle convoy left Ankara for Silopi, the sources told AFP news agency, adding that it was now close to Adana province in southern Turkey.

Fikri Isik, Turkey’s defence minister, said the deployment was part of Turkey’s preparation for “important developments in the region”, referring to Kurdish fighters inside the country and events in Iraq.

“Turkey is preparing in advance for whatever happens [and] this is one element of that,” he was quoted by the official Anadolu news agency as saying.

Just over two weeks into the ongoing offensive to retake Mosul, ISIL’s last major stronghold in Iraq, soldiers managed to push within city limits.

The Iraqi army said its forces have advanced to the eastern edge of Mosul for the first time since the ISIL, also known as ISIS, overran the city more than two years ago.

The country’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement on Tuesday that its forces had entered Judaydat al-Mufti, an area on the outskirts of Mosul, about 3km away from the city’s airport.

Meanwhile, Iraqi State TV reported that the 9th armoured brigade had entered the district of Dweikhlah, in an attempt to open up a separate front in the battle against the armed group.

{{Biggest prize}}

Mosul was the biggest prize captured by ISIL when it swept through much of Iraq’s north and west in the summer of 2014 and declared a “caliphate” across those lands and the ones it captured in Syria.

Estimates of the number of ISIL fighters in Mosul vary from a few thousand to “not more than 10,000,” according to the Iraqi government and the anti-ISIL coalition.

The Mosul offensive involves tens of thousands of Iraqi government soldiers, federal police, Kurdish fighters, Sunni tribesmen and Shia militias.

Many of the militias – considered to be backed by Iran – were originally formed after the 2003 US-led invasion to fight American soldiers and Sunni armed groups.

They were mobilised again, and endorsed by the government, when ISIL swept through Iraq in 2014, but they also have been repeatedly accused of human rights violations against the country’s Sunni minority.

The UN forecasts that up to one million people risk being uprooted by the fighting, which UN aid agencies say has so far forced about 17,500 people to flee, a figure that excludes those taken into Mosul by the retreating fighters.

In a monthly report released by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, 1,792 people were killed in violence in Iraq in October, up from 1,003 the previous month.

An estimated 1,120 of the dead were civilians.

{Explosions blamed for fire that trapped scores of workers in dismantled oil tanker in ship-breaking yard in Balochistan.}

The death toll in a fire at a ship demolition yard in southern Pakistan has risen to 18, after more bodies were retrieved overnight, according to officials.

More than 50 labourers with burn injuries were being treated at hospitals after an explosion caused the fire on a ship in the Ghadani Ship Breaking Yard in the town of Hub, Jahffar Khan, local police chief, said on Wednesday.

He said the fire, which broke out at 10am local time (05:00 GMT) on Tuesday, was so intense that dozens of firefighters are still trying to put it out.

The casualty figure is expected to rise, Khan said.

The fire started in a dismantled oil tanker that was stationed in the yard, according to local media reports.

Several explosions occurred inside the oil tanker while the workers were performing gas-welding work.

Ghadani, in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, is the country’s largest centre for ship demolition.

Thousands of labourers work in the Pakistani ship-breaking industry under poor conditions and with low safety standards.

They are often the victim of deadly accidents.

The Ghadani ship-breaking industry has fallen on hard times recently and employs about 9,000 workers, fewer than in its boom years at the end of the last decade.

{Sharbat Gula, who became iconic photo of her country’s conflict, is accused of using fake ID cards to stay in Pakistan.}

A Pakistani court refused bail to an Afghan woman who became famous for her portrait on National Geographic cover 35 years ago, after she was arrested in Pakistan for using fake identity cards.

Pakistan last week arrested Sharbat Gula, whose haunting green eyes, captured in an image taken in a Pakistan refugee camp by photographer Steve McCurry in the 1980s, became one of the most recognisable photos of Afghanistan’s decades-long conflict.

She was accused of living in the country on fraudulent identity papers following a two-year investigation into her and her husband, who has absconded.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Pakistan’s interior minister, said on Sunday the country would review her case on the grounds that “she is a woman” and the government “should see it from a humanitarian angle”.

However a judge in the northwestern city of Peshawar rejected bail for Gula, saying she had failed to make her case.

She got both a computerised ID and a manual ID, Judge Farah Jamshed said in a written judgement, “meaning that on both occasions she impersonated herself as Pakistani citizen without legally adopting the status of same”.

Officials say Gula applied for a Pakistani identity card in Peshawar in 2014, using the name Sharbat Bibi.

‘Serious crime’

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Islamabad, said Gula’s lawyer intends to challenge the decision in a higher court.

“It is a serious crime in Pakistan to be in possession of fake identity cards. It carries a 14-year-term in jail and on top of that a heavy fine,” our correspondent said.

“However, her case is being pursued by the Afghan embassy in Pakistan.”

The Pakistan government has stepped up its crackdown on Afghan refugees, insisting that many attacks in the country had links with Afghanistan and therefore the refugees must now go home.

Gula’s arrest highlights the desperate measures many Afghans are willing to take to avoid returning to their war-torn homeland as Pakistan cracks down on undocumented foreigners.

Pakistan has for decades provided safe haven for millions of Afghans who fled their country after the Soviet invasion of 1979.

Until recently the country had hosted up to 1.4 million Afghan refugees, according to UNHCR, making it the third-largest refugee hosting nation in the world.

A further one million unregistered refugees were also believed to be in the country.

But since July hundreds of thousands have returned to Afghanistan in a desperate exodus amid fears of a crackdown, as even Pakistan’s famed hospitality ran out.

Last month UNHCR said more than 350,000 Afghan refugees, documented and undocumented, had returned from Pakistan so far in 2016, adding it expects a further 450,000 to do so by the year’s end.