Tag: InternationalNews

{Moscow and Damascus say halt in air strikes will continue to allow civilians and rebels to flee the besieged city.}

Russia announced that it will broadcast live images of the evacuation of civilians and wounded people from besieged eastern Aleppo during a “humanitarian pause” it has scheduled for Thursday.

The planned pause would also be extended for an additional three hours to run from 0500 to 1600 GMT, General Sergey Rudskoi of the Russian General Staff said in a statement carried by the official Itar-Tass news agency on Wednesday.

The extension is intended to give United Nations and Red Crescent representatives enough time to evacuate sick and wounded people and civilians from the rebel-held enclave, Rudskoi said.

Activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, have said few civilians made use of humanitarian corridors from eastern Aleppo previously announced by Russia.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said troops had pulled back from two designated humanitarian corridors to facilitate the transport of rebel fighters from eastern Aleppo to areas of their choice, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Rebels have said they will not leave eastern Aleppo, the last remaining major urban centre controlled by opposition forces.

The UN has said security fears, the fear of arrest, and the presence of Syrian troops at the corridors designated by Russia have prevented civilians from using them to leave the enclave.

Some 275,000 people are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo, with minimal access to food and medical care after hospitals have been repeatedly hit in air strikes, apparently by Russian or Syrian forces.

Youssef al-Youssef, of the rebel group Noureddine al-Zinki, described the new Russian announcement as “mere propaganda”.

“This is not a truce. Eight hours to evacuate Aleppo is a request for surrender. This is totally rejected,” said Zakaria Malhafji, a spokesman for the rebel group Fistaqim.

“We will not leave the city. We want a total truce and the entry of aid,” he told the dpa news agency.

The Syrian regime and its Russian allies on Wednesday suspended air strikes on rebel areas in the divided city of Aleppo for the second successive day before Thursday’s planned humanitarian pause.

Aleppo has been the target of an intense campaign by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia since a US-Russian brokered ceasefire in the country fell apart on September 19.

Activists inside eastern Aleppo said government planes had dropped leaflets calling on fighters to leave “because they have no other choice”.

Meanwhile, an unnamed diplomatic source told the Reuters news agency that Russian warships were headed to Syria in the largest military deployment since the end of the Cold War.

The fleet passed the Norwegian city of Bergen on Wednesday, the diplomat said, while Russian media has said it will move through the English Channel, past Gibraltar, and into the Mediterranean Sea to the Syrian coast.

“They are deploying all of the northern fleet and much of the Baltic fleet in the largest surface deployment since the end of the Cold War,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

“This is not a friendly port call. In two weeks, we will see a crescendo of air attacks on Aleppo as part of Russia’s strategy to declare victory there,” the diplomat said.

Russia has said that the deployment will target Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters in Syria.

But the NATO diplomat said the additional military firepower was designed to drive out or destroy the 8,000 rebels in Aleppo, the only large city still in opposition hands, and allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to start a withdrawal.

“With this assault, it should be enough to allow a Russian exit strategy if Moscow believes Assad is now stable enough to survive,” the diplomat said.

The fleet off Norway includes Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is carrying jet fighters, and the Soviet-era nuclear-powered battle cruiser Pyotr Velikiy, or Peter the Great.

{Homes, schools and crops destroyed as powerful typhoon strikes main island of Luzon, but no reports of deaths.}

One of the most powerful typhoons to ever hit the Philippines destroyed houses, tore roofs off schools and ripped giant trees out of the ground on Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

Super Typhoon Haima hit the northern province of Cagayan late on Wednesday night with winds similar to those of catastrophic Haiyan in 2013, which was then the strongest storm to strike the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago and claimed more than 7,350 lives.

Haima roared across mountain and farming communities of the northern regions of the main island of Luzon overnight, and by morning a picture was emerging of large-scale destruction.

“Rice and corn plants as far as the eye can see are flattened,” Villamor Visaya, a university teacher in Ilagan, one of the main northern cities with a population of 130,000 people, told the AFP news agency by phone.

“Many houses were destroyed. I saw one school building crushed under a large tree … it was as if our house was being pulled from its foundations.”

Haima hit coastal towns facing the Pacific Ocean with sustained winds of 225km an hour, and wind gusts of up to 315km/hr.

It weakened overnight as it rammed into giant mountain ranges and by Thursday morning had passed over the western edge of Luzon and into the South China Sea, heading towards southern China.

Jefferson Soriano, mayor of Tuguegarao, the capital of Cagayan where Haima made landfall, reported badly damaged schools and gymnasiums where people had sought shelter.

“They are calling for help because the roofs have been torn off. The problem is, our rescuers here are unable to go out and help,” Soriano told DZMM radio before dawn while the storm was still raging.

In in the mountains of Carranglan, a town of about 40,000 people, on the southern edge of the typhoon’s direct path, landslides had left a bus trapped in mud on Thursday morning.

Men walked knee-deep through mud and floodwaters across a destroyed road in Carranglan, while aluminium roof sheeting lay on a nearby hillside.

{Fighting enters third day as Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes push towards last major ISIL stronghold.}

Fighting has entered the third day as coalition forces focused efforts on the town of Hamdaniya as they march towards Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city and the last major ISIL stronghold in the country.

Explosives and booby traps laid down by ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group), also known as ISIS, slowed down the Iraqi offensive in recent days, despite air support from the US-led coalition.

ISIL snipers posed danger to Iraqi forces trying to advance towards Mosul as the coalition air strikes pounded Hamdaniya.

The Iraqi army said that it had to destroy five cars being driven by ISIL suicide bombers during their advance.

“The Iraqi army, not the Peshmerga, are trying to advance into [Hamdaniya]. They tried to storm the area yesterday, but were forced to retreat,” Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Khazir near the frontline, said.

“What we saw on the first day of the offensive – with Peshmerga forces taking the lead, clearing ground, and taking villages – that was easy, even though ISIL put up a fight,” she said. “It was easy because [those areas] were depopulated. Hamdaniya is more difficult. It is a built-up area with civilians inside.”

“If [the Iraqi forces] take over Hamdaniya, they will be at the gates of Mosul itself,” she added.

Before ISIL’s takeover in 2014, Hamdaniya’s population stood at 50,000. Although most civilians fled at the time, a few thousand people are believed to reside in the town.

Although reports have suggested the use of human shields by ISIL, Khodr said that it was impossible to independently verify these reports given that communication with these towns and cities has been cut off.

The Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul began on the first day with the taking of nine villages, mostly by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

But Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, also reporting from Khazir, said that since then the armed forces’ advance was “not as formidable” as the first day.

Iraqi commanders maintain that progress continues to be made as their forces push from two main fronts, namely, the south, where government troops are moving up towards Mosul, and the east and north, from where their Kurdish allies are advancing.

Late on Tuesday, the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias, said it would back Iraqi government forces advancing toward Tal Afar, about 55km west of Mosul.

Taking Tal Afar would effectively cut off the escape route for fighters wanting to head into neighbouring Syria, but it could also hamper the escape of civilians from the area of Mosul, a Sunni-majority city.

ISIL forces are believed to be vastly outnumbered, with the US military calculating up to 4,500 fighters in and around Mosul, compared with an estimated 30,000 Iraqi army troops, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Sunni tribal forces.

Iraqi forces have significant ground to cover before reaching the boundaries of the city, which ISIL is defending with berms, bombs and burning oil trenches.

The US-led coalition said air strikes destroyed 52 targets on the first day of the operation.

“Early indications are that Iraqi forces have met their objectives so far, and that they are ahead of schedule for this first day,” Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said.

Most of the coalition’s support has come in the shape of air strikes and training, but US, British and French special forces are also on the ground to advise local troops.

Mosul is Iraq’s second-largest city and the United Nations fears that up to a million people could be forced from their homes by the fighting , with 700,000 of them in need of shelter.

“We don’t know where [the civilians] are going,” Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan reported, also from Khazir.

“We know people have fled from these villages [recently won by Peshmerga forces] and wound up in IDP camps, but we’ve heard very little about the people who are still stuck – there are some 1.2 million people still in [Mosul]. Where they go once this fighting intensifies remains a very big issue.”

{Envoy confirms getting assurances of commitment from all parties to truce, which will go into effect on Wednesday night.}

The United Nations has announced that a 72-hour ceasefire in Yemen will go into effect on Wednesday night.

In a statement on Monday, the office of the UN’s special envoy for Yemen said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had received assurances from all Yemeni parties of their recommitment to the ceasefire.

“A cessation of hostilities that first went into effect in April will re-enter into force at 23:59 Yemen time [20:59 GMT] on October 19, 2016, for an initial period of 72 hours, subject to renewal,” it said.

Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi, foreign minister of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, confirmed via his official Twitter feed that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had agreed to the ceasefire with the possibility of it being extended.

“The president agreed to a 72 hour ceasefire to be extended if the other party adheres to it, activates the DCC [De-escalation and Coordination Committee] and lifts the siege of Taiz,” he said.

The DCC is the UN-backed military commission responsible for overseeing ceasefires in Yemen.

Taiz, the country’s third largest city, is almost completely surrounded by the Iran-allied Houthis and their allies; forces loyal to Hadi have tried unsuccessfully for months to wrest it back.

On Sunday, the United States, Britain and Cheikh Ahmed issued an appeal to the rival parties in the civil war to declare a ceasefire.

The appeal was made after John Kerry, the US secretary of state, met Cheikh Ahmed in London and his opposite numbers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the Yemen conflict.

“This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry said after the talks.

Deadly bombing

The Arabian Peninsula country has been rocked by a deadly war since the Houthis, who are allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014.

However, the conflict escalated after a coalition of mainly Sunni Arab countries assembled by Saudi Arabia launched a bombing campaign against the Houthis and their allies in March 2015.

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, said on Monday that the kingdom was prepared to accept a ceasefire if the Houthis agreed to one, but that he was sceptical about peace efforts.

Previous attempts to enforce a ceasefire in the country have so far failed, with the war intensifying after a round of peace talks in Kuwait ended in August without achieving a breakthrough.

The Arab coalition stepped up its air raids following the breakdown of talks, and cross-border attacks from Yemen also intensified.

Monday’s ceasefire announcement came just over a week after the coalition bombed a funeral hall in Sanaa, killing about 140 people including prominent political figures.

The air strike, which the coalition blamed on mistaken information from Hadi loyalists, drew international condemnation and led to pressure for a ceasefire from the US and Britain, key backers of the coalition air campaign.

Hundreds of air strikes

The Arab coalition has carried out hundreds of air strikes and provided ground troops to support Hadi’s forces.

But it has failed to dislodge the Houthis and their allies from key areas including Sanaa.

The Houthis and their allies hold most of Yemen’s northern half, while forces loyal to Hadi share control of the rest of the country with local tribes.

Government forces have recaptured the south and east but failed to make any significant advances.

The war has killed almost 6,900 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three million since March last year, according to the UN.

{Pro-China politicians stage walk out of legislative session to halt swearing-in of two pro-independence lawmakers.}

Dozens of pro-Beijing politicians have staged a walk-out from the Hong Kong legislature to stall the swearing in of two pro-independence legislators in the Chinese-administered city.

The topic of independence has long been taboo in the former British colony, now governed under the “one country, two systems” principle since its return to China in 1997.

The government failed in an unprecedented legal attempt on Tuesday to halt the swearing-in of the two.

The politicians marched out of the legislative chamber, leaving Chinese and Hong Kong flags in their place, to deprive it of a quorum.

It is unclear when swearing-in will take place.

Al Jazeera’s Sarah Clarke, reporting from the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, said: “In an unprecedented move, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive C Y Leung has intervened in this whole process. He’s trying to get two of the pro-democracy candidates disqualified from parliament.

“Leung’s case is being mounted on the grounds that he believes last week’s oath-taking was invalid and disrespectful to Hong Kong’s basic law.”

The government will formally challenge the decision of legislative authorities to allow Baggio Leung, 30, and Yau Wai-ching, 25, to retake their oaths in the High Court next month.

Yau and Leung sparked outrage among Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing establishment when their first oaths were rejected by legislative officials last week.

‘Hong Kong is not China’

Then they pledged allegiance to the “Hong Kong nation” and displayed a banner declaring that “Hong Kong is not China”, using language some legislators portrayed as derogatory Japanese slang.

The pair are part of a new generation of Hong Kong activists determined to force issues of self-determination and independence on to the mainstream political agenda.

A judicial review will take place on November 3.

Outside, hundreds of pro-Beijing protesters thronged the grounds of the legislature, some carrying placards of the pair dressed in Japanese army uniforms that denounced them as “traitors” and “dogs”.

Others chanted that the pair must step down to protect China’s “dignity”.

The judicial review looms amid an unprecedented constitutional battle in the free-wheeling global financial hub, testing its rule of law and the separation of powers between the government and legislative branch.

Some senior judges and government officials fear privately that the issue could force Beijing to invoke rarely used powers to re-interpret Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, or push through new laws.

{UN agency passes resolution that criticises Israeli policies around al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.}

Palestinian leaders have welcomed a decision by the United Nations cultural agency to adopt a resolution on occupied East Jerusalem that sharply criticises Israeli policies around the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while Israel says it ignores Jewish ties to the key holy site.

A spokesman for Paris-based UNESCO said on Tuesday that the resolution, which caused Israel to suspend its cooperation with the agency, was adopted without a new vote after being approved at the committee stage last week.

The text, which touches on Israel’s management of Palestinian religious sites, refers throughout to the al-Aqsa mosque compound site in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City only by its Muslim names: al-Aqsa and al-Haram al-Sharif.

Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the third-holiest site in Islam. Jews refer to the site as the Temple Mount.

Palestine’s deputy ambassador to UNESCO, Mounir Anastas, told reporters the resolution “reminds Israel that they are the occupying power in East Jerusalem and it asks them to stop all their violations”, including archaeological excavations around religious sites.

The UNESCO resolution also condemned Israel for restricting Muslim access to the site, and for aggression by Israeli police and soldiers, while also recognising Israel as the occupying power.

“By criticising the report for the omission of the words Temple Mount, [Israel] glosses over more than two dozen detailed criticisms of Israeli actions in and around the Old City, which is after all occupied territory,” Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from West Jerusalem, said.

The resolution was submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan – and was originally passed with 24 votes in favour, six against, and 26 abstentions.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in a statement on Thursday that UNESCO had lost its legitimacy by adopting this resolution.

“The theatre of the absurd at UNESCO continues, and today the organisation adopted another delusional decision which says that the people of Israel have no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall,” Netanyahu said.

In April, UNESCO also passed a resolution condemning “Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to the al-Aqsa Mosque”, also failing to mention the site’s Jewish name.

In 2011, the Palestinians were admitted as a member state of the organisation, which led the United States to suspend its payments to UNESCO.

The latest resolutions created unease at the top of the organisation, with Michael Worbs, who chairs UNESCO’s executive board, saying he would have liked more time to work out a compromise.

“We need more time and dialogue between the members of the board to reach a consensus,” he told AFP news agency.

UNESCO chief Irina Bokova had distanced herself from Thursday’s vote, saying in a statement: “Nowhere more than in Jerusalem do Jewish, Christian and Muslim heritage and traditions share space.”

But Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, responded to Bokova by describing her comments as “completely unacceptable”.

“The Palestinian government expects Ms Bokova to focus her efforts on implementing the will of member states and preserving Jerusalem from the Israeli systematic colonisation and assault on its Palestinian character,” said Maliki.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is located in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed following its invasion in 1967 – in a move never recognised by the international community – as part of its subsequent military occupation of the West Bank.

Jewish settlers and Zionist organisations have called for complete Jewish control over the mosque compound.

Jewish groups’ incursions into the mosque compound have continuously led to Palestinian protests across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military and armed settler incursions have resulted in Palestinian deaths and injuries in recent years in particular. Muslim access to the religious site has also been tremendously limited by the army.

{Leftist government says it exercised “sovereign right” by temporarily restricting WikiLeaks founder’s connection.}

Ecuador’s government acknowledged on Tuesday it had partly restricted internet access for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who has lived in the South American country’s UK embassy since mid-2012.

WikiLeaks said Assange lost connectivity on Sunday, sparking speculation that Ecuador might have been pressured by the United States due to the group’s publication of hacked material linked to US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Ecuador’s government said WikiLeaks’ decision to publish documents affecting the US election was entirely its own responsibility, and the country did not want to meddle in election processes or favour any candidate.

“In that respect, Ecuador, exercising its sovereign right, has temporarily restricted access to part of its communications systems in its UK Embassy,” it said in a statement. “Ecuador does not cede to pressures from other countries.”

The United States denied charges from WikiLeaks that Washington asked Ecuador to cut Assange’s internet connection.

“While our concerns about WikiLeaks are long-standing, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the State Department were involved in shutting down WikiLeaks is false,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

“Reports that Secretary Kerry had conversations with Ecuadorian officials about this are simply untrue. Period.”

The State Department also denied a WikiLeaks tweet alleging that “multiple US sources tell us John Kerry asked Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing Clinton docs during FARC peace negotiations” – a conversation alleged to have taken place on the sidelines of the Colombia-FARC peace agreement signing on September 26.

Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador after a British court ordered his extradition to Sweden to face questioning in a sexual molestation case involving two female supporters.

WikiLeaks said it activated “contingency plans” after Assange’s cut-off, and Ecuador said that its action did not stop the group continuing “journalistic activities”.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has long backed Assange’s right to free speech and has also supported Clinton publicly. “For the good of the United States and the world … I would like Hillary to win,” he told broadcaster Russia Today last month.

{Iraqi Kurdistan president says 200 sq km area near Mosul is “liberated”, but warns the armed group’s threat is not over.}

A joint operation carried out by Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga troops has “liberated” a 200 sq km area around Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani said.

Barzani made the announcement on Monday, following the launch of a major operation to free Iraq’s second largest city from the armed group, which has held it since 2014.

“Today is a turning point in the war against terrorism. This is the first time that Peshmerga forces and Iraqi army have cooperated and fought in the same area,” Barzani said during a press conference near Mosul.

“We are hopeful that this operation will be successful and that Mosul will be liberated. But this does not mean that the terrorist threat is over.”

Barzani said the joint offensive had been launched from south and east of Mosul.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman of the US forces, said the US carried out air strikes in Mosul “to soften up” the areas controlled by ISIL, allowing Iraqi forces to advance.

“We do provide our intelligence capability, we provide our logistics, these are capabilities that the coalition has that are singularly distinctive. We are very capable in these areas, and it is a big help to the Iraqis as they move into position,” he said.

“The plan is for the Iraqis to liberate Mosul, They are going to be the ones that will move in to the city,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from northern Iraq, said at least nine villages have been retaken from ISIL, but two key areas along the highway between Erbil and Mosul were still being disputed.

“We are hearing intensive gunfire going on as the Peshmerga are trying to advance,” she said, adding that Peshmerga forces reported incidents of suicide attacks carried out by ISIL fighters.

She said at least five Peshmerga forces and one Iraqi army soldier were killed in the operation on Monday.

“It’s in the very early days and it is going to be a long fight. It is not going to be easy,” Dekker said.

Our correspondent also said that while it is significant that Iraqi forces and Peshmerga fighters are fighting together against ISIL, differences remain as to which of the competing groups would take control of the disputed areas after they are recaptured.

“With some many different factions and groups with their own interests, Mosul highlights again that the political plan has not been put in place yet after ISIL is gone,” our correspondent said.

The bid to retake Mosul on Monday comes after the military, backed by armed tribes, militias and US-led coalition air strikes, regained much of the territory the fighters seized in 2014 and 2015.

“We are proud to stand with you in this historic operation,” Brett McGurk, US envoy to the coalition against ISIL, said on Twitter at the start of the Mosul offensive.

Ash Carter, US defence secretary, called the operation a “defining moment” in the fight against ISIL.

“The United States and the rest of the international coalition stand ready to support Iraqi Security Forces, Peshmerga fighters, and the people of Iraq in the difficult fight ahead,” he said in a statement.

“We are confident our Iraqi partners will prevail against our common enemy and free Mosul and the rest of Iraq from ISIL’s hatred and brutality.”

{Envoy confirms getting assurances of commitment from all parties to truce, which will go into effect on Wednesday night.}

The UN has announced that a 72-hour ceasefire in Yemen will go into effect on Wednesday night.

In a statement on Monday, the office of the UN’s special envoy for Yemen said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had received assurances from all Yemeni parties of their recommitment to the ceasefire.

“A cessation of hostilities that first went into effect in April will re-enter into force at 23:59 Yemen time (20:59 GMT) on 19 October 2016, for an initial period of 72 hours, subject to renewal,” it said.

Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi, foreign minister of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, confirmed via his official Twitter feed that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had agreed to the ceasefire with the possibility of it being extended.

“The president agreed to a 72 hrs ceasefire to be extended if the other party adheres to it, activates the DCC (De-escalation and Coordination Committee) and lifts the siege of Taiz,” he said.

The DCC is the UN-backed military commission responsible for overseeing ceasefires in Yemen.

Taiz, the country’s third largest city, is almost completely surrounded by the Iran-allied Houthis and their allies; forces loyal to Hadi have tried unsuccessfully for months to wrest it back.

On Sunday, the US, Britain and Cheikh Ahmed issued an appeal to the rival parties in the civil war to declare a ceasefire.

The appeal was made after John Kerry, the US secretary of state, met Cheikh Ahmed in London and his opposite numbers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to discuss the Yemen conflict.

“This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry said after the talks.

{{Deadly bombing}}

The Arabian Peninsula country has been rocked by a deadly war since the Houthis, who are allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014.

However, the conflict escalated after a coalition of mainly Sunni Arab countries assembled by Saudi Arabia launched a bombing campaign against the Houthis and their allies in March 2015.

Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi foreign minister, said on Monday the kingdom was prepared to accept a ceasefire if the Houthis agreed to one, but that he was sceptical about peace efforts.

Previous attempts to enforce a ceasefire in the country have so far failed, with the war intensifying after a round of peace talks in Kuwait ended in August without achieving a breakthrough.

The Arab coalition stepped up its air raids following the breakdown of talks and cross-border attacks from Yemen also intensified.

Monday’s ceasefire announcement came just over a week after the coalition bombed a funeral hall in Sanaa, killing about 140 people including prominent political figures.

The air strike, which the coalition blamed on mistaken information from Hadi loyalists, drew international condemnation and led to pressure for a ceasefire from the US and Britain, key backers of the coalition air campaign.

Hundreds of air strikes

The Arab coalition has carried out hundreds of air strikes and provided ground troops to support Hadi’s forces.

But it has failed to dislodge the Houthis and their allies from key areas including Sanaa.

The Houthis and their allies hold most of Yemen’s northern half, while forces loyal to Hadi share control of the rest of the country with local tribes.

Government forces have recaptured the south and east but failed to make any significant advances.

The war has killed almost 6,900 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three million since March last year, according to the UN.

{Faced with tough choices and social pressures, some women in the region are paying the ultimate price.}

Erbil, Iraq – Jaleh has spent a total of one year inside an unmarked women’s shelter in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Before coming here, the 19-year-old woman with long, dark hair had fallen in love with a man she hoped to marry – but one of her five brothers did not approve.

“So he killed my boyfriend and shot me with a Kalashnikov in our home,” Jaleh told Al Jazeera, speaking under a pseudonym. Hearing the shots and her screams, neighbours called the police, and Jaleh was taken to a hospital, where doctors had to amputate her right leg at the knee.

To this day, Jaleh does not know why her brother objected to her boyfriend: “He never told me why … he still has not.”

After spending an initial nine months at the shelter, Jaleh returned home earlier this year in hopes of working things out with her family, “but the problem was still there”.
“No one in my family was able to help me. They didn’t want me there – they made it clear. They couldn’t even look at me,” said Jaleh, who returned to the women’s shelter three months ago.

Jaleh’s case was just one among 7,436 registered complaints of violence against women in Iraq’s Kurdish region in 2015, according to the General Directorate of Combating Violence Against Women – an increase from the 6,673 complaints recorded in the previous year.

In a region where data is not always collected consistently, comparative statistics are few – but according to the Ministry of Health, more than 3,000 women were killed as a result of domestic violence between 2010 and 2015.

‘Five-star prisons’

In 2012, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) created the Independent Commission for Human Rights, an autonomous body tasked with studying violence against women in the region and developing strategies to combat it. Although the commission is currently funded by the KRG, it is transitioning towards independent funding.

In its National Strategy to Confront Violence Against Women, a five-year-plan implemented in 2012, the KRG acknowledged that the prevalence of violence against women in the region had become a “huge obstacle” to progress.

Krmanj Othman, a senior legal adviser with the human rights commission, told Al Jazeera that most women’s shelters feel like “five-star prisons” because the women there often feel trapped.

“What is the future of this lady? … She is always living under threat,” Othman said. “Because even legally, if she is protected, living in this situation, she will always be scared.”

One of three shelters for battered women in the region, the one in which Jaleh lives, is unmarked, tucked away in the middle of a residential area.

Jaleh said that she does not feel threatened by her family; rather, they have completely rejected her. But although she wants to go to law school and work towards protecting women’s rights, this dream seems impossible right now.

“No one wants me outside this shelter,” she said. “Where should I go?”

According to Ramziya Zana, the director of the Gender Studies and Information Organisation, an Erbil-based NGO, most women experience increased psychological stress after they leave the protection of a shelter.

“We don’t accept a woman in this society who makes a complaint against men – they are not accepted back,” Zana said, noting such rejection often leads to depression and potentially suicide. In 2015, at least 125 women in six surveyed cities in Iraq’s Kurdish region killed themselves via self-immolation – up from 97 cases in 2014.

Problematic data

Zana cited a correlation between the worsening economic situation in Iraq’s Kurdish region and an increase in divorce rates. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of divorces in Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimania rose from 1,029 to 8,105, court documents show.

“The worsening economy puts extra stresses on marriages, and women tend to pay the price,” Zana said.

As with other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, Iraq’s Kurdish region has landed in the crosshairs of women’s rights groups – both domestic and international. The region has been criticised for not implementing laws that protect women from female genital mutilation (FGM), domestic violence, sexual assault, self-immolation and femicide.

Using the United Nations’ metrics for gender inequality – where inequality is scored between zero and 1, with higher numbers indicating more inequality – Iraq’s Kurdish region scores 0.41. The region scores better than the rest of Iraq, which comes in at 0.55, but worse than some of its neighbours, such as Turkey (0.36) and Lebanon (0.38).

Official statistics show that there was an increase in the rates of violence against women, female suicide and femicide in Iraq’s Kurdish region between 2014 and 2015, with the number of domestic violence complaints rising by nearly 800 and cases of suicide by self-immolation increasing by more than two dozen. The rate of reported sexual assaults decreased slightly – by 20 cases – over that timeframe.

In the first seven months of 2016, meanwhile, 52 women in Iraq’s Kurdish region committed suicide, compared with 64 in all of 2015. An additional 62 women did so via self-immolation, compared with 125 in all of 2015. And 145 women were set fire to by someone else, compared with 198 in all of 2015.

Othman said that the real numbers were likely even worse, as the data is not collected in a manner that complies with international standards. “Every place and every person can be collecting the data in a different way,” Othman said.

In some cases, attackers take steps to ensure their victims are unidentifiable.

“Sometimes they throw the bodies of the women into rivers or the mountains. At times, their bodies are burned,” Zana said.

In 2011, legislators in Iraq’s Kurdish region passed a law against domestic violence in response to the growing problem. A study done that year indicated that 44 percent of married women reported being beaten by their husbands if they “disobeyed his orders”. The global estimate for violence against women by their partners, married or unmarried, is 30 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

Implementation of the 2011 law has been criticised as insufficient by rights groups and the UN’s office of the high commissioner for human rights. But Dindar Zebari, deputy minister and head of the KRG’s foreign relations department, said that the increasing number of complaints between 2014 and 2015 indicates that things are improving for women in the region.

“Regarding FGM and domestic violence and things like this – the KRG has never said it does not happen. We admit it happens,” said Zebari, noting that the law has made such practices illegal.

“This law has made things better for women in [the Kurdish region],” he said, citing a rise in public awareness that has led to an increase in the number of complaints filed. The rising divorce rate is also a positive sign, he added: “Now women see they have rights and they will not accept this [domestic abuse].”

However, Othman pointed out that unless a woman files a formal complaint, nothing can be done – and he believes there is still a lack of understanding about women’s rights in the region.

“If you don’t have anything on paper,” he said, “then it doesn’t exist.”