Tag: InternationalNews

{Rights group says Bank indirectly financed coal projects despite pledges to cut support over environmental concerns.}

The World Bank has been accused by a rights advocacy group of indirectly financing a boom in coal-fired power in Asia despite commitments to cut funding towards the sector.

Coal power plants, which cause detrimental air pollution and and contribute to deforestation, are spreading from Bangladesh to the Philippines with funding provided by financial intermediaries supported by the World Bank, said a report by Inclusive Development International (IDI) on Monday.

In 2013, the Bank said it would end virtually all support for the creation of coal-burning power plants, supporting them only in “rare circumstances” where there are no viable alternatives.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim earlier this year warned against the dangers of new coal power projects, saying “if Asia implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished”.

However, according to the IDI’s report, since the pledge, 41 coal projects have received funding from banks and investment funds supported by the World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The report identified 56,127 megawatts of new coal capacity funded indirectly by the IFC.

These included the planned 1,360-megawatt Rampal power station in Bangladesh, to be situated on the edge of the sprawling Sundarbans mangrove forest, which is home to endangered species and supports the livelihoods of two million people.

The report said the World Bank itself declined to support the project, which could threaten the Sundarbans with air and water pollution. But six local banks, all IFC-financed, agreed to support the project, despite protests from environmentalists.

The report also cited power construction in the Philippines, where coal burning is estimated to result in almost a thousand premature deaths annually and where more than 30 environmental activists were killed in 2015 alone.

IFC-financed banks have supported at least 20 new coal projects since 2013 in the Philippines.

They include the proposed 540-megawatt Lanao Kauswagan power station, which is expected to begin operations next year and may threaten marine life in nearby Panguil Bay and the livelihoods of fishing communities, Inclusive Development International said.

“While the IFC has tried to distance itself from the projects funded by its intermediaries, the fact is that these banks are brazenly disregarding the IFC’s environmental and social requirements,” David Pred, IDI’s managing director, said in a statement.

In response to questions from the AFP news agency, Frederick Jones, an IFC spokesman, said the global lender took the report seriously.

“It raises important long-term questions about how we need to create stronger markets for clean energy and create incentives for countries and the private sector not to invest in coal, but rather in renewable energy,” he said.

Jones added that since 2005 the IFC had already invested more than $15bn in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other areas, and had mobilised $10bn more.

However, Jones conceded that IFC policy did not prohibit equity clients from funding coal plants, meaning the institution might be indirectly exposed to the industry.

The report’s release coincided with the start of this week’s high-profile annual meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as the world’s finance chiefs gather to discuss efforts at poverty reduction.

{Over 98 percent of voters reject EU plans after less than 50 percent turn out for the referendum.}

An overwhelming majority of Hungarians who voted in Sunday’s referendum have rejected the European Union’s plans to relocate refugees and migrants among member states.

However, turnout stood at 43.9 percent, the National Election Office said, below the 50 percent threshold for the vote to be valid.

With 99.25 percent of the votes counted, more than 3.2 million voters, or 98.3 percent of those who cast valid ballots, backed the government.

The government claimed a “sweeping victory” while analysts said that the result was an “embarrassing but not totally catastrophic defeat” for Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The invalid result, because of the low turnout, would make Orban’s quest to persuade Brussels to drop the refugee quotas more difficult.

But in a “victory” speech on Sunday, Orban said the vote must be taken into account by EU decision makers.

“Thirteen years after a large majority of Hungarians voted at a referendum to join the European Union, today Hungarians made their voices heard again in a European issue,” Orban told a news conference.

“We have achieved an outstanding result, because we have surpassed the outcome of the accession referendum.”

Orban said that he would submit an amendment to Hungary’s constitution to put the result of the plebiscite into law.

The referendum asked: “Do you want the European Union to be able to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?”

Before the referendum, Orban argued that “No” votes favoured Hungary’s sovereignty and independence.

If a majority of voters agree, Hungary’s parliament would pass legislation to advance the referendum’s goal whether or not turnout was sufficient for a valid election, he said.

While the referendum has no binding legal consequences for the EU, Orban hoped its passage would increase pressure on Brussels.

“We are proud that we are the first” he said.

Inside Story: Warding off a potential refugee threat or challenging Brussels?
“Unfortunately, we are the only ones in the EU who managed to have a referendum on the migrant issue.”

Separately from the referendum, the Orban government is also taking the EU’s 2015 decision to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from overburdened Greece and Italy to the European Court of Justice.

Under the original plan, 1,294 asylum seekers would be moved to Hungary.

Polls show that the relentless campaign urging citizens to “send a message to Brussels”, while associating migrants with terrorism, has increased xenophobia in Hungary.

Several opposition and civic groups had called on citizens to stay at home and boycott the vote.

Others urged casting invalid ballots that would not count in the final tally, but still could be interpreted as rejecting the government’s “zero migrants” policies.

Nearly 400,000 migrants passed through Hungary last year while making their way towards Western Europe.

Razor-wire fences erected on the border with Serbia and Croatia, along with new expulsion policies, have reduced the numbers significantly this year.

Last month, police reported either zero or just one migrant breaching Hungary’s border area on 13 different days.

Hungary rejected more than 80 percent of the asylum claims made in the country last year, one of the highest rates in the EU, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office.

{With diplomacy on “life support”, Russia reportedly sends more warplanes as more Aleppo civilians are killed in raids.}

Russia is reportedly sending more fighter jets to Syria to ramp up its one-year air campaign in the country, as fierce fighting around the city of Aleppo intensified and diplomatic efforts to end the conflict stalled.

One week into a new Russian-backed Syrian government push to capture rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, residents said that the city was subjected daily to ferocious bombardment.

At least 30 civilians were killed by Syrian government or Russian air strikes overnight in Aleppo, activists told Al Jazeera on Saturday. A further 18 were killed in air strikes on various towns in Damascus’ eastern countryside, activists said.

Al Jazeera’s team in Aleppo was on the scene when an air strike hit a residential area in the eastern part of the besieged city on Friday.

“There is now shelling with phosphorous bombs on a number of neighbourhoods in Aleppo city,” Al Jazeera correspondent Amr al-Halabi reported.

“People are absolutely terrified … A number of homes have been set on fire after they were targeted with phosphorous bombs,” he said, adding that civil defence forces were trying to extinguish the blazes.

Aleppo’s M10 hospital, the largest medical facility in city’s besieged rebel-held east, was hit by at least two barrel bombs on Saturday, according to a medical organisation that supports it.

“Two barrel bombs hit the M10 hospital and there were reports of a cluster bomb as well,” said Adham Sahloul of the Syrian American Medical Society.

Both M10 and M2, the second-largest hospital in the area, were hit by heavy bombardment earlier this week that UN chief Ban Ki-moon denounced as “war crimes”.

“There’s a big difference between [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad and the Russian jets. The biggest weapon that Assad uses are the barrel bombs or surface to surface missiles, but since the Russians got involved, they’ve been using much more powerful weapons,” Ahmad Abu Rania, a resident of east Aleppo, told Al Jazeera.

At least 320 people, including nearly 100 children, have been killed in Aleppo since a US-Russian brokered ceasefire collapsed on September 19, according to UNICEF.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by telephone for a third straight day on Friday, with the top Russian diplomat saying Moscow was ready to consider more ways to “normalise” the situation in Aleppo.

But Lavrov criticised Washington’s failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those Moscow call “terrorists”, arguing that it allowed forces led by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, to violate the US-Russian truce agreed on September 9.

Moscow and Washington have traded blame for the collapse of the ceasefire, with US Secretary of State John Kerry admitting on Thursday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

On Friday, however, Washington said that it would not, for the time being, carry through on the threat it made earlier in the week to halt diplomacy if Russia did not take immediate steps to halt the violence.

“This is on life support, but it’s not flat-lined yet,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

“We have seen enough that we don’t want to definitively close the door yet.”

Nearly 300,000 people – including 100,000 children – are trapped in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil defense workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week.

The air campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

On Friday, Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria’s Hmeymim base.

The Su-25 is an armoured twin-engine jet that was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber.

Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The US state and defence Departments declined comment on the Izvestia report.

The newspaper report came hours after the Observatory reported that 9,364 people, including about 3,800 civilians, have been killed in one year of Russian air raids in Syria. Later on Friday, the Russian government rejected the figures provided by the monitor.

{{Leaked recording}}

Meanwhile, an audio recording obtained by the New York Times on Friday suggested that Kerry was frustrated that his diplomatic efforts to end the conflict had not been backed by a serious threat of US military force.

“I think you’re looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument,” Kerry told a group of Syrians, diplomats and others n the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last week, according to the 40-minute recording of the session.

“We’re trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand it’s frustrating. You have nobody more frustrated than we are,” Kerry said.

The recording was made by a non-Syrian who attended the session, the newspaper reported, adding that several other participants confirmed its authenticity.

According to the New York Times, several people in the meeting pressed Kerry on what they saw as contradictions in US.policy.

It said one activist, Marcell Shehwaro, asked “how many Syrians” had to be killed to prompt serious action.

Kerry responded that “Assad’s indifference to anything” could push the US administration to consider new options, according to the newspaper, but he also said that “any further American effort to arm rebels or join the fight could backfire”.

In an interview on Friday, CIA director John Brennan said that Russia’s actions in Syria over the last several weeks have shown that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been serious about negotiating a political solution to the conflict.

“I think that pushing back against a bully is appropriate,” Brennan told Reuters news agency.

“I think that is very different than rushing in and bombing the hell out of a place.”

{India and Pakistan trade fire along de facto border as UN secretary general offers to mediate escalating dispute.}

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has offered to act as mediator between India and Pakistan amid rising tensions over the disputed region of Kashmir.

The nuclear-armed neighbours traded gunfire on Saturday in the Bhimber sector of the Line of Control (LoC), one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world that separates Kashmir between Pakistani- and Indian-controlled areas, a statement from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.

The ISPR did not say whether there were any casualties on either sides.

The exchange of fire came after Ban urged “both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation”, his spokesman said late on Friday.

Earlier in the day, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN chief was following the situation “with great concern” and “would welcome all proposals” or initiatives aimed at de-escalation.

Tensions remain high between the two countries following the killing of 18 Indian soldiers nearly two weeks ago.

Ban’s offer came after Pakistan’s ambassador met with the UN chief and urged him to personally intervene, while India said it did not want to aggravate the situation.

“This is a dangerous moment for the region,” Pakistan’s Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told AFP news agency after meeting with Ban at UN headquarters in New York.

“The time has come for bold intervention by him if we are to avoid a crisis, because we can see a crisis building up.”

Lodhi accused India of creating “conditions that pose a threat to regional and international peace and security”.

India on Thursday said it had carried out “surgical strikes” several kilometres inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on what they called “terrorist” targets.

In response to India’s statement, Pakistan insisted that the incident was not a “surgical strike” but “cross-border fire”.

“The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists’ bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects,” the Pakistani military said in a statement.

“This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross border fire as surgical strike is fabrication of truth.”

{{‘No desire to aggravate the situation’}}

In a statement to AFP, India’s mission to the UN said “India has no desire to aggravate the situation”, and that “our response was a measured counter-terrorist strike.”

“It was focused in terms of targets and geographical space,” the mission said. “It is reflective of our desire to respond proportionately to clear and imminent threat posed by terrorists in that instance.

“With our objectives having been met that effort has since ceased.”

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the two countries gained independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in its entirety.

Rebel groups have for decades fought Indian soldiers – currently numbering about 500,000 – demanding independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

{Collision with 67P, 720 million km away, marks final bid to gather closer than ever images of the ice-and-rock cluster.}

The European Space Agency (ESA) has completed its Rosetta space probe mission with a landing on a comet 720 million km away, according to mission control.

Rosetta collided with the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after more than 12 years in space, in a final effort to gather closer-than-ever pictures of the cluster of ice and rock.

Mission controllers in the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, fell silent shortly before Friday’s touchdown, before breaking into jubilant applause as the mission was confirmed over.

There were tears, hugs and cheers at mission control when Sylvain Lodiot, spacecraft operations manager, announced: “This is the end of the Rosetta mission.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the command centre in Germany, Detlef Koschny, one of the scientists leading the mission, said: “When we touched the surface, I have to admit, I had tears in my eyes.

“I spent 22 years on this mission and it was a very special moment.”

Comets are thought to contain primordial material from the planetary system’s birth, preserved in a dark-space deep freeze.

“The mission was to go to a comet, a comet that was formed during the formation of our solar system,” Koschny said.

“So we went there to learn how our own solar system formed, how the Earth formed and how life came on Earth.

{{Rocky, cold surface}}

Rosetta had been programmed to touch down at a human walking pace of about 90cm per second, after a 14-hour free fall from an altitude of 19km.

It joined long-spent robot probe Philae on the galactic wanderer’s rocky, cold surface for long journey around the Sun.

Confirmation of the mission’s end came at 11:19 GMT, when the Rosetta’s signal – with a 40-minute delay – disappeared from ground controllers’ computer screens.

Mission scientists had expected Rosetta would bounce and tumble about before settling, but its final moments will forever remain a mystery as it was instructed to switch off on first impact.

In its final hours, Rosetta sent home data gathered from nearer the comet than ever before, tasting the comet’s gas, dust and plasma, and taking close-up pictures of the spot that is now its icy tomb.

Rosetta and lander probe Philae had travelled more than six billion km over 10 years to reach 67P in August 2014 .

A social media campaign and cartoon depicting the pair as intrepid space explorers, each with its “own” Twitter account, earned the mission a global following.

On Friday, the cartoon was updated with a dusty and bashed-up Rosetta lying eyes closed on the comet surface, as Earth held a placard proclaiming “Goodbye Rosetta”.

“#Rosetta, is that you?” ESA said on Twitter on Philae’s behalf.

Philae was sent to the comet surface in November 2014 , bouncing several times, then gathering 60 hours of on-site data which it sent home before entering standby mode.

Rosetta stuck with the comet, hoping to spot Philae, which it finally did in September this year.

But the spaceship started running low on energy as the comet looped out on its near-seven-year orbit, further and further away from the Sun’s rays.

Instead of letting Rosetta fade away, scientists opted to end the mission on a high by taking comet measurements from up close – too close to risk under usual operating conditions.

Insights gleaned from the $1.5bn project have shown that comets crashing into an early Earth may well have brought amino acids, the building blocks of life.

Comets of 67P’s type, however, certainly did not bring water, scientists have concluded.

“Rosetta has blown it all open. It’s made us have to change our ideas of what comets are, where they came from and … how the solar system formed and how we got to where we are today,” said Matt Taylor, a scientist with the Rosetta mission.

“We have only just scratched the surface. We have decades of work to do. The spacecraft may end but the science will continue.”

For flight operators, the separation was more difficult.

“They [scientists] still have the data to analyse but we don’t have the spacecraft any more,” said Lodiot, who had been involved in the project for 12 years.

Comets are thought to contain the oldest, largely unchanged, matter from the birth of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.

Koschny, who is an expert in comets and astroids at the ESA, told Al Jazeera: “What we can say now is that the mission has been a big success.

“I mean science analysis is only starting now. We will be able to answer some of the question we have always been asking.”

{Following days of protests calling for justice over police killing of black man, El Cajon authorities release footage.}

After days of protests, US authorities released on Friday two videos showing police fatally shooting an unarmed black man in California, but the low-quality footage, much of it without sound, was not likely to pacify outrage over the killing of yet another African American at the hands of officers.

The grainy cellphone and surveillance videos show two officers in a San Diego suburb confronting Alfred Olango, 38, in the parking lot of a restaurant before opening fire, one with a gun and the other with a Taser.

In the cellphone video, which lasts only about 17 seconds, a woman can be heard shouting: “Officer don’t shoot him!” before at least four shots ring out and she screams.

The shots came less than a minute after police arrived at the scene in response to Olango’s sister calling the department and reporting he was acting erratically.

The videos were released after three nights of protests in El Cajon, and on the eve of a demonstration organised by clergy and supporters of Olango’s family, who had pressured authorities to show the footage of the fatal encounter.

The Reverend Shane Harris, of the civil rights organisation National Action Network, said the low-quality videos, shot at a distance, did not clarify what led to the shooting and said they were likely to make people angrier.

“What we saw today, that isn’t enough,” said Harris, who is assisting Olango’s family.

In addition to the videos, police showed the four-inch electronic cigarette device Olango had in his hands when he was shot.

{{Officer ‘provoked’ Olango}}

Dan Gilleon, a lawyer for the family, said the victim’s relatives welcomed the release of the videos, but he questioned the tactics used by one of the officers. Olango had been reported to be mentally disturbed and unarmed and yet Officer Richard Gonsalves approached with his weapon out, according to Gilleon.

“It shows a cowboy with his gun drawn provoking a mentally disturbed person,” Gilleon said.

The incident is the latest in a series of fatal police shootings of black men that have roiled communities across the US.

It came weeks after fatal shootings by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Olango was a Ugandan refugee who arrived in the US as a child. His family described him as a loving father and a joyful, happy person.

His mother said he suffered a mental breakdown recently after the death of his best friend. On Tuesday, his sister called the police and reported he was acting strangely and walking into traffic by a strip mall.

The longer of the two videos released by police came from a surveillance camera in the drive-thru of a restaurant. It is roughly a minute, has no sound and police blurred out the heads of everyone in it.

In the second video, taken on a cellphone by a witness in the drive-thru, Olango’s sister is seen approaching Gonsalves from behind and a woman can be heard screaming at Olango to put up his hands and telling police not to shoot.

Olango then bent over and Gonsalves quickly fired four shots at close-range. A woman shrieked loudly as Olango fell forward.

That night, as a crowd protested outside police headquarters, police released a single image from the video showing Olango with his hands clasped in front.

Olango’s family and demonstrators demanded to see the full video, saying the single frame was selectively misleading to support the police version of events. They also questioned why it took them more than an hour to respond to three calls for help and then less than a minute to use deadly force.

El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis, who said the investigation was ongoing, did not address whether officers acted appropriately in how they responded to the incident.

Andre Branch, president of NAACP San Diego, commended the city for releasing video. “Full disclosure to the public builds trust, and it demonstrates respect,” Branch said.

{Rally in Amman follows signing of contract between US firm and Jordanian utility for imports from Leviathan field.}

Hundreds of Jordanians have taken part in a demonstration in the centre of Amman in protest against a deal signed this week to import natural gas from Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners on Friday, reading: “No to financing the Zionist entity from the pockets of Jordanian citizens” and “No to gas imports from the Zionist enemy”.

The protest was called by trade unions and political parties opposed to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, half the population of which is of Palestinian origin.

“Gas from the Zionists is a disgrace,” the demonstrators chanted.

A US-led consortium leading the development of Israel’s offshore gas reserves announced the signing on Monday of a deal to sell natural gas from its Leviathan field to Jordan.

US firm Noble Energy, the lead partner, said the contract with the National Electric Power Company of Jordan (NEPCO) was for 8.5 million cubic metres per day over a 15-year term.

It includes an option to purchase a further 50 million cubic feet, up to a total of 350 million daily.

Friday’s protests against the gas deal are likely to put pressure on a government facing multiple domestic challenges, notably in security matters.

Writer’s killing

The demonstration in Amman came just a day after King Abdullah II visited the home village of Nahed Hattar to pay condolences to the Christian writer’s family, following his murder on Sunday outside a court.

Abdullah “strongly condemned this heinous crime” which was “alien to our [Jordanian] culture”, the royal palace said in a statement on Thursday.

On the visit to the Christian village of Al-Fuhais, 20km northwest of Amman, Abdullah, who was accompanied by Hani al-Malki, the prime minister, said Jordan’s Muslims and minority Christians were united against “extremism, violence and bigotry”.

Hattar, 56, was shot dead by a bearded assailant on the steps of an Amman court where he was on trial for allegedly insulting Islam with a cartoon he shared on social media.

Hattar’s family accused the authorities of failing to protect the writer despite warnings that his life had been under threat.

The assailant, who surrendered to police at the scene, has been charged with premeditated murder, terrorism and possession of an illegal firearm.

If convicted, the suspect could face the death penalty.

{Two Pakistani soldiers killed as tension surges following Indian attacks targeting “terrorist units” across the border.}

The Pakistan army has dismissed claims that India’s military conducted “surgical strikes” against “terrorist units” on its side of the border in Kashmir region.

Pakistan rejected the claims as an “illusion” but acknowledged the loss of two of its soldiers in the exchange of fire that also wounded nine others on Thursday.

“There had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India which is [an] existential phenomenon,” said an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement released shortly after the Indian director-general of military operations (DGMO) held a press conference making claims about surgical strikes.

“The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists’ bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects,” the Pakistani military said in a statement.

“This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross border fire as surgical strike is fabrication of truth.”

Tension remains high between the neighbours following the killing of 18 Indian soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir nearly two weeks ago.

Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, had given warning that those responsible for the attack on an army base in Uri, near the Line of Control, on September 18 “would not go unpunished”.

In a statement on Thursday, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, “strongly condemned the unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces” and pledged that the military was capable of thwarting “any evil design to undermine the sovereignty of Pakistan”.

Lieutenant-General Ranbir Singh, the Indian DGMO, said the “surgical strikes” were launched following “very specific and credible information that some terrorist units had positioned themselves to infiltrate”.

“Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them,” Singh said.

He said he had called his Pakistani counterpart to inform him of the operation.

“Some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the Line of Control,” Singh said.

Pakistani account

There were unconfirmed reports on Thursday that Pakistan had captured an Indian soldier on its side of the Kashmir border.

Two officials based in Pakistan’s Chamb sector said the Indian soldier with weapons was captured at 13:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on Thursday but no official confirmation was made by either country.

Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, told Al Jazeera that India was trying to “provoke crisis with Pakistan” in an attempt to divert attention from the Kashmir issue.

“India is doing this in the hope that it can divert attention and calm its domestic opinion because even India’s domestic opinion is questioning its role in Kashmir,” Lodhi said.

“My country has exercised maximum restraint in the face of what happened in the early hours of Thursday.”

She confirmed that an Indian soldier, trying to cross the border, was captured by Pakistan.

“We think [India’s action] is hugely irresponsible and we think the international community should urge restraint upon India,” Lodhi said.

Earlier, Sreeram Chaulia, of the Jindal School of International Affairs in New Delhi, said there was a sense of satisfaction in India following the cross-border strikes.

“A lot of people here are elated in many ways that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has authorised this kind of bold action,” he told Al Jazeera.

“India has been accused of being soft and unable to respond, but for the first time we’re seeing a bolder initiative from the government and the military.”

Saifullah, a resident of the border town where the Indian strike took place, told Al Jazeera that there was fear and unease among the locals when the shooting started.

“While there was a lot of fear and unease, things have settled down now,” he said.

“You see cars on the road and a bit of calm on people’s faces. Shops are also open and businesses are running as normal now.”

For its part, the UN has urged both countries to exercise restraint.

“The United Nations calls on the government of India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and encourage them to continue their efforts to resolve their differences peacefully and through dialogue,” said Stephane Dujarric, UN spokesperson.

The Indian-administered part of the territory has a Muslim majority and there are a number of armed separatist groups fighting Indian rule

Tensions had already been high in Kashmir valley since the Indian army killed a young Kashmiri separatist commander in a gun battle in early July, setting off a series of protests that have left more than 80 people dead and thousands injured.

{Kerry sees no sign of “seriousness of purpose” on part of Russia, which in turn terms US threat “emotional breakdown”.}

The US is “on the verge” of ending talks on Syria with Russia following days of deadly attacks on Aleppo, according to the US secretary of state.

US officials say the administration is looking at other ways to end the war in Syria that has been going on for over five years.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council think-tank on Thursday, John Kerry said that the US is “on the verge of suspending the discussion because it’s irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place”.

He said the US has no indication of Russia’s “seriousness of purpose” and discussions made no sense at a time when Russian and Syrian warplanes were bombing rebel-held areas of Syria’s second largest city.

The US has been working with Russia for months to try to secure a ceasefire in Syria.

The latest truce collapsed last week after several days of relative calm.

The joint bombardment of Aleppo has left more than 400 people dead and at least 1,700 wounded since last week

On Wednesday, US officials told Reuters news agency that President Barack Obama’s government had begun to consider tougher responses – including military options – to President Bashar al-Assad government’s assault on Aleppo.

The officials said the failure of diplomacy in Syria has left the US administration no choice but to consider alternatives, most of which involve some use of force and have been examined before but held in abeyance.

Earlier, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said the US threat to suspend talks on Syria over the bombardment of Aleppo’s rebel-held areas constitutes “an emotional breakdown”.

Ryabkov also rejected US calls for a week-long truce as “unacceptable”, but said a two-day ceasefire could allow desperately needed aid to reach the more than 250,000 civilians trapped in Aleppo.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said the Kremlin “saw the seven-day ceasefire as a step that would allow the terrorists, as they call them, to stock up on supplies and rest”.

“They [the Russians] say that the US is fixated on demands of a seven-day pause for reasons only they know,” he said.

“It seems after the negotiations that brought about the collapsed ceasefire – there is a widening gulf between the Russians and the Americans.”

Ryabkov’s comments followed a previous warning by Kerry that the US would end talks on the conflict, as well as a military pact that involved targeting the ISIL and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham groups unless Russia halted the assault on Aleppo.

Kerry conveyed the message in a call to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Wednesday in which he voiced “grave concern” over the Syrian government’s air and land attacks on Aleppo.

Kerry said the US held Russia responsible for the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs which put Aleppo civilians at great risk, according to John Kirby, the State Department spokesperson.

The Syrian government’s offensive to recapture all of Aleppo – with Russian air support and Iranian help on the ground – has been accompanied by bombing that residents have described as unprecedented in its ferocity.

On Wednesday, at least six civilians were killed when air strikes hit two hospitals in rebel-controlled parts of Aleppo.

The M10 and M2 hospitals were hit before dawn, forcing both to shut temporarily, and leaving just two of east Aleppo’s eight hospitals with surgical facilities.

Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays asked Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s UN ambassador, if his country had bombed the two hospitals.

Jaafari walked away laughing, without giving an answer.

“It’s not clear why he was laughing considering his country is being accused of war crimes in Aleppo,” said our correspondent.

An estimated 250,000 people still live in eastern Aleppo, which has been under near-continuous siege since mid-July, causing food and fuel shortages.

Attacks on water installations from both sides have left more than two million civilians without water.

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

Five years on, more than 400,000 Syrians are estimated to have been killed, and almost 11 million Syrians – half the country’s prewar population – have been displaced from their homes.

{Number of displaced Iraqis in Kurdish region about to double with the battle to retake Mosul set for mid-October.}

Dibaga Camp, Iraqi Kurdistan – In a stifling hot office with more flies than oxygen, Rzgar Abed does not hesitate when asked about the biggest challenge in managing the camp for Iraq’s internally displaced people (IDPs).

“Space … we’re at 31,000 and that is our capacity. Thirty-one thousand,” said Abed, who works for the Barzani Charity Foundation.

It oversees a number of camps, populated by 1.4 million Iraqi IDPs fleeing fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in the Kurdish region.

That number is set to double within a month, with an additional 1.5 million people expected to flee when the operation to take back Mosul from ISIL starts in mid-October.

As it is, conditions in the Dibaga camp are already cramped – each tent can only hold up to six people.

Families fled from their villages under the control of ISIL, also known as ISIS, and have kept on leaving, even though some of those villages have since been recaptured.

Most are only within 10km to 50km of their homes.

More than half of the camp population are children. They flow through the camps, running between tents and climbing anything they can.

Intisar Mohamed Suleiman came here from Makuk with her husband and nine children – between one and 12 years in age.

In April, Kurdish and Iraqi forces supported by the US took out ISIL targets near her village with air strikes.

“It was very difficult – we walked five hours to get here,” said Suleiman, 34, who has been at Dibaga for six months. She was part of the last wave of people who headed towards Erbil.

“We did not think we would stay long when we came here,” she said, still hopeful that a return would be imminent.

While she is anxious to go back, like many here she is unsure of what she has to go back to.

“Most people have no idea what we are dealing with here,” said Vian Rasheed, who heads the Erbil Refugee Council which reports to the governor’s office.

“They have a few thousand refugees show up in Europe and they start to worry. When fighting broke out in Mosul in 2014, we had 100,000 people show up in one night at checkpoints,” said Rasheed.

{{Contingency plans}}

Rasheed said they expect at least 420,000 people would flee to Erbil and Duhok. About 250,000, she said, will end up in Erbil governorate alone.

Neither Erbil nor Duhok, roughly 155km northwest of the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, are ready for such numbers.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has prepared a contingency plan for Mosul, which would cost $284m for six months, Rasheed said.

“With our economic crisis, nobody can have this money – we are now looking for donors and at UN agencies for intervention,” he said.

But according to the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR, funding has fallen short, with 63 percent of IDP shelter needs unmet.

Still, everyone is racing to build what they can in the next couple of weeks.

In Hassan Sham, about 60km from Dibaga, the UNHCR plans to build 2,000 tents while Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement is funding an additional 10,000 tents to be built by the Erbil governorate.

That is nothing close to the 30,000 tents Erbil will need to deal with the upcoming influx of refugees, Rasheed said.

Caroline Gluck, UNHCR’s senior public information officer in Baghdad, told Al Jazeera the expected influx represents an “enormous displacement” in a country that already has 3.3 million IDPs.

Negotiating for land, whether with the government or individuals, is time consuming, something agencies can ill afford at this make-or-break moment. And that is just part of the challenge.

“For Mosul, half of the IDPs will not be in camps,” said Gluck. Some, she said, will have “emergency shelter kits” for the short term.

For aid agencies, it is a matter of trying to stay a step ahead of total disaster.

“It’s not like the agencies hadn’t been busy before this … we were already overstretched,” said Gluck.

{{Broke, but welcoming}}

International funding is crucial in this crisis because the Kurdish government is essentially broke. It has been unable to pay salaries for public sector employees, who have been protesting regularly.

“I believe we are in a massive crisis, a real crisis,” said Dindar Zebari, deputy minister and head of KRG’s foreign-relations department.

“KRG, by itself, will not be able to fully accommodate the IDPs.”

The KRG has been strapped for cash since Baghdad cut its budget and the drop in oil prices took a bite out of its exports.

Zebari also said he is worried that there will be ISIL members and sleeper cells coming in with this massive wave of IDPs.

“We’ve already had some and we’ve arrested them, but we are scared. We need to accommodate them somewhere outside [the cities] because at least there are a lot of checkpoints,” he said, adding that this is a greater worry now than in the past.

“Now we are facing the dangerous people,” said Zebari.

Still, unlike some officials in the EU and US, who feel that any potential security threat is enough to justify barring all refugees from countries such as Syria and Iraq, Zebari said the KRG will not turn away the IDPs,

“We are different … we have never had that strategy,” he said.

“I must assure you, KRG will continue to, with open arms, receive those in need.”