Tag: InternationalNews

{British, German missions in Ankara close, while state media says four are detained in connection to potential attack.}

Police have detained four people in connection with a potential attack against the British and German embassies in the Turkish capital Ankara, according to state-run media.

The reports came after Britain’s Foreign Office said its embassy in Ankara was closed on Friday for “security reasons”, and after the German embassy said its missions in Turkey were providing “limited services until Friday”.

Three people in Ankara and one person in Istanbul were detained connected to the threat against the two embassies, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said.

An investigation was launched after intelligence suggested a possible threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group to the missions, the agency said, but investigators found no links to any “terrorist” groups.

“We continue to cooperate closely and share information with the foreign missions,” an official from Turkey’s interior ministry told broadcaster Haberturk.

‘We take such leads seriously’

In the past 12 months, Turkey has been hit by a series of attacks blamed on ISIL and Kurdish fighters. Foreign missions have closed down on occasion due to security alerts.

In a statement on Friday, Britain’s foreign office said on Twitter that it had shut its embassy in Ankara for security reasons, without giving further details.

“Turkish authorities are taking necessary precautions about the threat,” Richard Moore, Britain’s ambassador to Turkey, said on Twitter.

“But it is an acceptable policy to close down the embassy in a situation like this”.

On Wednesday, the German embassy in Ankara said as well as offering limited services this week, its missions would “remain closed for any meetings”, without giving further details.

A spokesman for Germany’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday the closure of the diplomatic offices, citing both a four-day public holiday in Turkey and information, which he described as “not completely verifiable”, about a potential attack.

“We take such leads seriously,” the spokesman told a news conference in Berlin on Friday, according to the Reuters news agency.

“So we decided to keep our diplomatic missions and German schools in Turkey closed this week. It was a precautionary measure.”

He said the government would soon make a decision on whether the missions would reopen on Monday.

Like most foreign missions in Turkey, the British and German embassies had been closed for consular services throughout the Eid al-Adha holiday which began on September 12.

But they had been due to reopen on September, 16 with the holiday officially over.

{At least 40 people killed in fighting between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the government.}

Dozens of people have been killed in heavy fighting between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces in Yemen’s war-torn central city of Taiz.

Sadeq al-Hassani, a spokesman for forces loyal to the country’s exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, said on Thursday that 27 Houthis and 13 pro-government fighters were killed in clashes around Taiz, the AFP news agency reported.

On Wednesday, pro-government officials had reported that five Houthis were killed when loyalists backed by Saudi-led Arab coalition air strikes fought off a rebel assault in Kahbub, a mountainous area overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the death tolls and the rebels rarely acknowledge their losses.

More than 200,000 civilians have been caught up in the fighting in Taiz, a city between the rebel-held capital of Sanaa and the southern port city of Aden, which has become one of the major front lines in the battle for control of Yemen.

For months, aid agencies have warned of a major humanitarian disaster in the city. There are frequent reports of dire food and water shortages, and of hospitals struggling to function without access to fresh medical supplies.

Yemen has been torn apart by conflict since 2014, when Houthi rebels, allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, captured large swaths of the country, including Sanaa.

A coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign against the rebels in March 2015. Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed and 2.8 million driven from their homes.

Across the country, at least 14 million people, more than half of the population, are in need of emergency food and life-saving assistance.

{Officials rue ineffectiveness of all sides in using ceasefire to allow life}

The UN has called on the Syrian government to “immediately” allow life-saving aid into eastern Aleppo, where about 300,000 people are living under siege.

Speaking in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday, Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy, said there were 20 aid lorries ready to cross the border from Turkey into Syria, and make it to Aleppo city where a cessation of hostilities was holding “by and large”.

“The Syrian government promised permits for UN aid convoys before the ceasefire … they have not been received,” de Mistura said. “This is something that is required to happen immediately.”

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council and special adviser to the UN envoy, decried the ineffectiveness of all parties in taking advantage of the truce, saying that aid could reach Aleppo by Friday.

“Can grown men please stop putting bureaucratic roadblocks in place to stop aid workers doing their jobs to help civilians – wounded women and children?”

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said while progress was being made, it could take several days for aid to reach the city.

“One of the key issues is access, and one of the main arteries into Aleppo is Castello Road. It needs to become a demilitarised zone before any of that can happen,” she said.

“Syrian government troops and opposition forces would need to withdraw up to 3km from the road with their heavy weapons. The deal is that both want to do this at the same time because there is no trust.”

As the only supply route into the embattled part of Syria’s largest city, Castello Road plays a crucial role in ensuring that residents of Aleppo, who are largely dependent on outside aid, can receive food, medical items and other essentials.

Twenty lorries loaded with much-needed food and other aid have been awaiting clearance at the Turkish border since Wednesday for the journey to Aleppo.

“I’ve urged the Russian government to make sure that they exercise influence on the Syrian government, and also the American side to make sure that Syrian armed groups, they also fully cooperate,” Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said on Wednesday.

Under a deal brokered by the US and Russia on Friday, the two countries are aiming for reduced violence over seven consecutive days, before they move to the next stage of coordinating military strikes against ISIL and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

On Wednesday, both Russia and the US spoke positively about the truce deal, with the Kremlin saying it raised hopes for a peaceful solution to the crisis.

However, prominent Syrian opposition politician George Sabra said the many violations of a previous truce had undermined confidence in the current ceasefire.

He said it was too early to talk about a resumption of peace talks that were abandoned in April.

{{Estimated death toll}}

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

De Mistura estimated in April that more than 400,000 Syrians had been killed.

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

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

{Family calls for independent inquiry after white officer shoots teen who allegedly drew what turned out to be a BB gun.}

A white US police officer has shot and killed a 13-year-old black boy in the state of Ohio while chasing down suspects of a reported robbery, after the teenager allegedly pulled out a pellet gun.

Police in the town of Columbus, where the incident took place, said they were investigating Wednesday’s killing of Tyre King, the latest in a string of shootings of African Americans by law enforcement officers that have fuelled protests and national debate about policing tactics in US cities.

“We got a call on 911 saying that an armed robbery was being reported,” police chief Kim Jacobs said at a news conference on Thursday.

“Once they [officers] arrived at that scene they saw some people that they believed matched the description of the suspects and tried to track down those suspects.

“A confrontation happened and there was a policeman involved in shooting,” said Jacobs, adding that “one of the officers fired and as result of that the young man succumbed to his injuries”.

Police said King was shot multiple times after he pulled out a BB gun – a low-powered air gun which shoots small round pellets – during the confrontation, and was later pronounced dead at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Police promised to investigate the case “thoroughly”, but lawyers for King’s family called for an independent investigation, saying some witness accounts conflicted with the police version of what happened, according to the Associated Press news agency.

The lawyers said allegations about King cannot be considered fact until there’s a “thorough, unbiased investigation”.

Sean Walton, an attorney for King’s family, said the eighth-grader had no violent criminal history. He said King played football and was in the young scholars programme at school.

Walton also quoted the boy’s family as saying involvement in an armed robbery would be “so out of character” for King.

At the police news conference, Jacobs displayed a photo of a BB gun like the one King allegedly had.

“Officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon,” he said. “It turned out to not be a firearm … that fires real bullets. But as you can see, it looks like a firearm that could kill you.”

BB guns have small ball munitions, typically made of steel with copper or zinc coating.

The officer who shot him was identified as Bryan Mason, a white, nine-year veteran of the department who had recently been assigned to the neighbourhood where the incident took place.

Police records show that in 2012 he shot and killed a man who was holding another person at gunpoint, according to AP. The Columbus Dispatch said investigators cleared him.

The case has brought comparisons with the 2014 killing in the city of Cleveland of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot dead by a white police officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation centre.

‘There is something wrong in this country’

More than 150 people, including some of King’s family members, gathered for a prayer vigil on Thursday near where he was shot, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

On Thursday morning, Mayor Andrew Ginther appeared to choke up as he called for the community to come together and questioned why an eighth-grader would have a replica of a police firearm.

“There is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing its epidemic to our city streets,” Ginther said.

“And a 13-year-old is dead in the city of Columbus because of our obsession with guns and violence.”

Dozens of people attended a Thursday evening vigil near the scene of the shooting.

Some carried signs calling for justice for Tyre. Among those participating were several members of Tyre’s youth football team.

The second male who ran into the alley was interviewed by police and released.

The Columbus Dispatch newspaper identified the second male as Demetrius Braxton, 19, who told the newspaper in an interview that he was with King for both the robbery and the shooting.

“I was in the situation. We robbed somebody, the people I was with,” Braxton said, according to the Dispatch.

Braxton told the paper that, following the robbery, the suspects were chased by police.”

The cops said to get down. We got down but my friend [King] got up and ran,” Braxton said. “He started to run. When he ran, the cops shot him.”

Braxton told the paper that King was shot four or five times, asking “Why didn’t they tase him?”

A grand jury will ultimately decide whether the officer should face criminal charges, police chief Jacobs said.

{Khurram Parvez’s arrest follows Indian officials’ move to stop him from attending UN rights council session in Geneva.}

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have arrested a prominent human rights activist, a day after he was barred from travelling to Switzerland to participate in a session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Khurram Parvez, the chairperson of Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, was arrested at his home in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, late on Thursday, police said.

On Wednesday, immigration officials at New Delhi’s international airport barred Parvez from boarding a plane to Geneva even though he had a valid visa and letter of invitation from the UN body.

Authorities “told [Pervez] that due to orders from the Intelligence Bureau, he cannot travel to Geneva”, Parvez Imroz, the president of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, said in a statement.

“It appears that Khurram Parvez is not being allowed to travel because he has been highlighting violations of human rights.”

Parvez’s arrest comes as the divided Himalayan region is in the midst of some of most widespread anti-India protests in recent years.

Thousands of people have been protesting against Indian rule in Kashmir almost daily since the killing of a young separatist commander in a gun battle with Indian soldiers on July 8.

Since then, at least 82 people have been killed and more than 11,000 wounded, including more than 100 blinded by pellet injuries.

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

Several separatist groups have for decades fought Indian soldiers – currently numbering around 500,000 deployed in the territory – demanding independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.

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

{Fragile truce is largely holding, Washington and Moscow say, but much-needed aid still remains stuck at Turkish border.}

The United States and Russia have said that a cessation of hostilities in Syria is largely holding and it should be extended by 48 hours, as the United Nations urged all sides to guarantee the security of an aid convoy, currently held-up along the Turkish border, into Aleppo.

“There was agreement as a whole, despite sporadic reports of violence, the arrangement is holding and violence is significantly lower,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

“As part of the conversation they agreed to extend the cessation for another 48 hours.”

Toner said US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov had spoken by telephone earlier in the day and agreed it was worth extending the truce.

Under the deal, which was brokered by the US and Russia on Friday, Washington and Moscow are aiming for reduced violence over seven consecutive days, before they move to the next stage of coordinating military strikes against ISIL and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as al-Nusra Front that changed its name after cutting ties with al-Qaeda in July.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict through contacts on the ground, said no deaths from fighting had been reported in the first 48 hours of the truce.

“This recommitment will initially be for 48 hours, and, provided it holds, the US and Russia will discuss extensions, with the aim of achieving an indefinite extension to lower the violence,” Toner said.

He added that Russia needed to use its influence over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered to besieged communities under the agreement.

“We haven’t seen the humanitarian access yet so we’re still continuing to assess this, talking to the Russians,” Toner he said. “We’re pressuring them to pressure the Assad regime.”

{{Stalled aid deliveries }}

The extension of the ceasefire, which began at sundown on Monday, comes as aid convoys meant to reach besieged populations in the northern city of Aleppo remain stalled along the Turkish border.

Twenty lorries loaded with much-needed food and other aid destined for rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, home to some 300,000 people, remained at the border on Wednesday awaiting the all-clear for the journey into the embattled city.

“I’ve urged the Russian government to make sure that they exercise influence on the Syrian government, and also the American side to make sure that Syrian armed groups, they also fully cooperate,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference on Wednesday.

The convoy of aid was supposed to head towards Aleppo on Wednesday, but Ban said the security arrangements were still not in place.

“They are at the border with Syria. They are still there,” Ban said.

The UN estimates that well over half a million people are living under siege in Syria, where a five-year conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than 11 million.

On Wednesday, both Moscow and Washington spoke positively about the truce deal, with the Kremlin saying it raised hopes for a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Kerry also said it was a “last chance” to keep Syria together, with Washington hoping it will revive peace talks aimed at ending the conflict.

However, prominent Syrian opposition politician George Sabra said the many violations of a previous truce had undermined confidence in the current ceasefire, adding that it was too early to talk about a resumption of peace talks that were abandoned in April.

Speaking to Reuters, he lamented a lack of mechanisms to enforce the ceasefire and accused the Assad government and its allies of committing minor violations “to impede the other goals of the truce, such as delivering necessary aid to besieged areas”.

David Swanson, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said disagreements between the warring sides were blocking aid getting into opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

“Some groups are looking to gain political mileage out of this, and this is something we need to put aside,” he told Reuters.

A second UN official said that deliveries to Aleppo had to cross numerous checkpoints operated by both opposition and government forces, and it was still unclear whether the aid could get through safely.

But the opposition’s Sabra blamed Damascus, saying the government’s insistence on controlling aid was obstructing its delivery to Aleppo under the agreement.

The Syrian government has said it will reject any aid deliveries to the city not coordinated through itself and the UN, particularly from Turkey, which has backed the rebels fighting Assad.

A diplomatic source, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity on Wednesday, confirmed that the Turkish government’s involvement remains a major sticking point.

“Politics is coming in the way of the delivery,” the source said.

The UN says it must get permission for most of its aid deliveries from Damascus. The global body has repeatedly criticised the Syrian government for restricting access, especially to besieged areas, and for removing vital items from convoys.

{Meranti, the third most violent typhoon on record, brings strong winds and rain to coastal cities as Taiwan cleans up.}

Super Typhoon Meranti has made landfall in southeastern China, bringing strong winds and rain in what state media has called the strongest storm of the year globally.

The typhoon arrived in the early hours of Thursday near the major city of Xiamen after sweeping through southern Taiwan on Wednesday and killing one person.

Pictures on state media showed flooded streets in some parts of the province of Fujian, where Xiamen is located, fallen trees and crushed cars.

Xinhua news agency said it was the strongest typhoon to hit that part of the country since the founding of Communist China in 1949 and the strongest so far this year any where in the world.

In some parts of Xiamen, including both urban and rural areas, power supplies had been cut off, it said.

Meranti was a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest classification awarded by Tropical Storm Risk storm tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland and has since been downgraded to Category 2.

Dozens of flights and train services have been cancelled, state television said, inconveniencing people at the start of the three-day mid-autumn festival holiday.

Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated as the storm approached and fishing boats called back to port.

One person died and 38 were injured in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Centre said, as the typhoon hit the southern part of the island, including the port city of Kaohsiung, on Wednesday.

Typhoons are common at this time of year, picking up strength as they cross the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean and bringing fierce winds and rain when they hit land.

Meranti will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland and up towards China’s commercial capital of Shanghai, but will bring heavy rain.

{Visiting Kiev, foreign ministers of Germany and France announce Russia’s commitment on behalf of separatist leaders.}

Russia has accepted a unilateral seven-day ceasefire in Ukraine on behalf of the separatist leaders that it has been backing for the past two years.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, made the announcement on Wednesday in Kiev where he has been holding talks with the Ukrainian president.

“Today we came here with the news that with a commitment from Moscow, which reached us yesterday, starting tonight there will be a ceasefire on the part of the separatists, to start with for seven days, beginning at midnight,” he said.

Visiting Kiev with his German counterpart,Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said an attempt to revive a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine from midnight could set the scene for agreement next week on further peace moves.

Ayrault said he also expected both sides to sign an agreement next week to withdraw their troops from the lines of conflict in three hotspots.

“In the next week we see an opportunity for a new dynamic in the conflict,” Ayrault said.

A ceasefire was launched to coincide with the start of the school year on September 1.

It failed to stop all fighting.

“We are again at a crossroads,” Steinmeier announced on Wednesday.

“We see a small sliver of hope in the back-to-school ceasefire … but it is not enough.”

If the ceasefire holds and the agreement is signed as expected, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia could meet in New York next week on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN General Assembly.

That could prepare the way for a meeting of the leaders of the four “Normandy format” countries for the first time since October 2015.

The “Normandy format” is a set-up approved in France during the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing in 2014.

“The presence of Jean-Marc and Frank-Walter here in Kiev is evidence that the Normandy format works, that we must together force Russia to implement the Minsk agreements,” Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said.

France and Germany helped broker the 18-month-old Minsk peace deal. Many of its key points, such as holding regional elections and returning control of Ukraine’s border with Russia to Kiev, have long been stalled.

“We understand that to implement the Minsk agreements, to force Russia to implement them, we need a clear idea of the sequence of steps and guarantees of their implementation from Russia,” he said.

Russia denies accusations by Ukraine and NATO that it helps the separatists with troops and arms in a rebellion in which over 9,500 people have been killed since spring 2014.

Ayrault and Steinmeier emphasised their support for Ukraine and their rejection of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014.

Steinmeier said that as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. did not recognise the annexation, it would not send observers to Russian parliamentary elections planned in Crimea on Sunday.

Making his own separate trip to Kiev, Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, said on Wednesday it was crucial for the West to maintain sanctions against Russia.

“Clearly it’s up to the Russians primarily to make progress on the security side,” he said.

“But it’s up to all sides I think in this conversation to make progress together.”