Tag: InternationalNews

{Pyongyang says Thae Yong-ho embezzled state funds, raped a minor and spied for South Korea in exchange for money.}

North Korea has accused one of its most senior diplomats, who defected to South Korea, of being a “criminal” involved in “embezzlement” and other serious offences, in an effort to discredit him.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that Thae Yong-ho, who they described as “human scum”, had embezzled state funds, raped a minor and spied for South Korea in exchange for money.

The report did not name the “diplomat who fled his mission in London” but it was apparently referring to Thae, who defected while in Britain.

Thae is one of the highest ranking North Korean diplomats ever to defect to the South, gifting Seoul a major propaganda coup at a time of rising tension on the divided Korean peninsula.

Any defection by a ranking member of an overseas North Korean mission would make waves, but London is considered a particularly prestigious posting that puts Thae’s flight on a whole different level.

KCNA also criticised Britain for handing over Thae and his family to South Korea, saying that Pyongyang had previously told London of his crimes and requested his extradition.

{{‘Fugitive’}}

The news agency’s comments mark Pyongyang’s first public response to the high-level defection, which is a rare and damaging loss of diplomatic face for the North.

Seoul said earlier this week that Thae’s defection reflected a loss of faith among North Korea’s elite in Kim Jong-Un’s leadership.

Thae had become disillusioned with the Pyongyang regime, admired South Korea’s free and democratic system, and was concerned about his family’s future, the South’s Unification Ministry said after the defection.

KCNA said Thae had fled “for fear of legal punishment for his crimes”, adding that the South had brought the “fugitive” to Seoul to use him in its anti-Pyongyang smear campaign.

“He deserved a legal punishment for his crimes, but he took to flight, betraying his country and parents and other kith and kin,” KCNA said.

The defection is likely to strain already-fraught relations between South and North Korea. The two sides are officially still at war since the Korean War in the 1950s ended in a truce rather than a peace deal.

Many North Koreans flee the country each year because of famine and repression. Most cross the border into China or travel via other countries to South Korea.

In April, a group of 13 North Koreans who worked in the same restaurant in an unspecified country defected to South Korea.

{EHRC says racial inequality is worsening in the United Kingdom for young blacks and people from ethnic minorities.}

Racial inequality is getting worse in the United Kingdom, with young black people and ethnic minorities suffering “institutional racism” and “unfairness” in the fields of education, employment and the criminal justice system, a human rights watchdog has said.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in its latest report on Thursday that race was the motive in 82 percent of hate crimes recorded in England and Wales, with the two nations witnessing an “unprecedented spike” since Britain voted to leave the European Union on 23 June.

The report, entitled Healing a Divided Britain, found that life chances for young people from ethnic minorities had got worse, becoming “the most challenging for generations”.

The report highlighted a 49 percent increase in long-term unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds from ethnic minority communities since 2011, compared with a fall of 2 percent for young white people.

Black people remained much more likely to be victims of crime, including murder, and to be more harshly treated in the criminal justice system.

It said that although educational attainment had improved, black college graduates were typically earning 23 percent less than white graduates.

“If you are black or an ethnic minority in modern Britain, it can often still feel like you’re living in a different world,” David Isaac, the commission’s chairman, told Al Jazeera.

“If you look across the country, in relation to the way people live their lives, whether it’s in health, work or being part of the criminal justice system … the picture presents blacks, ethnic minorities, gypsies and travellers as second-class citizens.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from London, said that the report reaffirmed what many Brits already held to be true about unfairness and racism in the UK.

“There’s nothing equal about Britain at all,” one black Londoner told Al Jazeera.

Omar Khan, the director of the Runnymede Trust, an equality-focused think-tank, accused the government of taking a “colour blind” stance in its submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination earlier this week.

While the UN committee’s review found that Britain has some of the world’s strongest anti-discrimination legislation, it also “showed the gap between that legislation and the reality of continuing racial inequality in the UK”, Khan said.

{Justice department’s reported move follows pleas for extradition of man accused of orchestrating failed Turkish coup.}

The US Department of Justice will dispatch a team to Turkey in the coming days to pursue allegations by the Turkish government of criminal activity by Fethullah Gulen, according to a US media report.

If true, the move, first reported on Friday by Bloomberg News citing a US administration official, would mark the first sign of progress in Turkey’s attempts to have the Pennsylvania-based Turkish-born religious leader extradited.

The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Gulen’s network of being behind a coup attempt last month, a charge he has strenuously denied.

“Sooner or later, the US will make a choice. Either Turkey or FETO,” Erdogan said last week, referring to Gulen.

However, the Washington Post newspaper, quoting an official at the US justice department, reported on Friday that the extradition request refers only to alleged activities before the failed coup attempt.

“It’s actually tied to allegations of certain alleged criminal activities that pre-date the coup,” the official said.

“At this point, Turkish authorities have not put forward a formal extradition request based on evidence that he was involved in the coup.”

US officials are “working alongside their Turkish counterparts to make sure we understand” everything contained in the evidence”, according to the justice department official.

“If there is probable cause for extradition, ultimately a court will determine whether the evidence is sufficient. … We are still a way down the line from even knowing whether that’s possible.”

US officials have said that even if the justice department decides extradition is warranted, a court case and possible appeals could take years.

{{Arrests in Azerbaijan}}

In another development on Friday, officials in Azerbaijan said they had arrested four men over suspected ties to Gulen.

The four are accused of an “abuse of power” while working for a mobile phone company for having passed on private information about subscribers and their call history, Azeri prosecutors said.

During a search of the home of one of the accused, investigators discovered “religious literature, disks, brochures containing speeches by Fethullah Gulen and other documents”, they said in a statement.

{Dozens killed, thousands evacuated after second day of Syrian government air raids on Kurdish-controlled areas of city.}

Syrian government jets have continued to pound Kurdish-controlled parts of the northeastern city of Hasakah for a second day, killing at least 22 residents and forcing thousands to flee.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which reports daily on the war using a network of activists, said on Friday that at least 22 civilians, including nine children, had been killed in the past two days.

Thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, were evacuated from the divided city on Friday, said Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

“Whoever can bear arms is fighting the regime and its gangs,” Xelil told the Reuters news agency, adding that dozens had been killed in the air raids.

“Our situation is so far defensive but it will change while the regime escalates in this way,” he said.

US precaution

A US-led coalition sent aircraft to Hasakah city on Thursday to protect American special operation ground forces from attacks by Syrian government jets, a Pentagon official said on Friday.

Captain Jeff Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said the coalition aircraft reached the area around the city as the two Syrian SU-24s were leaving.

He said the Syrian planes did not respond to efforts by ground forces to contact them.

“We will ensure their safety and the Syrian regime would be advised not to do things that would place them at risk,” Davis said.

The air raids on Hasakah, which is divided into zones of Kurdish and Syrian government control, marks the most violent confrontation between the Kurdish YPG and Damascus in more than five years of civil war.

The YPG and Syrian government have mostly avoided confrontation during the multi-sided war that has turned Syria into a patchwork of areas held by the state and an array of armed factions.

While forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, have focused mostly on fighting Sunni Arab rebels, the YPG has prioritised carving out and safeguarding predominantly Kurdish regions of northern Syria.

The group has ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey.

The YPG controls most of the northeast, though the Syrian government has maintained footholds in the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli at the border with Turkey. The YPG has controlled most of Hasakah city since last year.

Rami Abdulrahman, of the SOHR, said the fighting began this week after pro-government militiamen detained a number of Kurdish youths, a step that was followed by advances of Kurdish security forces towards government-held areas.

Naser Haj Mansour, a Kurdish official in the YPG-affiliated Syria Democratic Forces alliance, said Kurdish forces had taken some additional positions, including an economics college.

The Syrian army said in a statement on Friday that the air raids were the result of Kurdish forces trying to take over the city.

The response was “appropriate”, and any further such attacks would also be met with force, the army said in the statement, according to Reuters.

{Chairman of Republican candidate’s presidential bid is probed by Ukraine over millions allegedly paid for lobbying.}

Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who has been linked to a pro-Russia lobbying scandal, has resigned.

“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,” Trump said on Friday.

“I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success,” Trump said.

Manafort has drawn fire for millions of dollars in undisclosed payments he allegedly received for lobbying efforts on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.

His resignation comes amid a broader campaign staff shake-up that earlier this week saw Trump bring Stephen Bannon, a conservative media firebrand, onboard as a top campaign executive. Bannon’s role had left Manafort’s position unclear.

Trump’s statement on Manafort did not mention the broader campaign shake-up or the Ukrainian lobbying controversy.

Ukraine accusations

Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities said on Friday they were investigating Manafort over allegations related to his work on behalf of a pro-Russian political party.

Manafort “is among those names on the list of the so-called ‘black ledger’ of the Party of Regions”, the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau said in a statement.

The documents allegedly show funds allocated to Manafort totalling more than $12.7m between November 2007 and October 2012. But the agency emphasised that it had not determined whether Manafort had actually received that money.

Manafort’s work in Ukraine had been known, a New York Times article this month had exposed the extent of his involvement and fuelled questions about the Trump campaign’s possible pro-Russian sympathies.

Manafort, in a statement earlier this week, has denied any wrongdoing.

{Moscow says supports plan for 48-hour truce in battered city but lays out conditions before any agreement can take hold.}

Russia has said it would support a 48-hour ceasefire in Syria’s Aleppo, a move the United Nations envoy said would allow aid to reach besieged areas soon, as long as all sides respected the truce.

As viral images of a dazed child pulled from rubble in the heavily bombarded rebel-held east of the city captured the plight of its civilians and drew the attention of the world, Moscow said it was ready to start the first “humanitarian pause” next week.

Western diplomats gave a cautious welcome to the announcement, but stressed that the UN must be in charge of a sustained aid operation.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has long called for a 48-hour halt in fighting each week to allow aid delivery and medical evacuations from both rebel-held eastern and government-controlled western Aleppo.

“The Russian defence ministry has laid out several conditions for a weekly 48-hour pause in fighting,” said Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah, reporting from the Gaziantep on the Turkish-Syrian border.

“It says it’s willing to support the plan as a ‘pilot programme’ for the city of Aleppo only. That suggests Russia is not ready to back an indefinite weekly pause in violence. It also suggests there’s plenty for all sides to negotiate before the plan goes into effect.”

De Mistura welcomed the Russian defence ministry announcement and said a UN humanitarian team was “now set to mobilise itself to respond to this challenge”.

“Our plan is to collectively work out the operational details, and be ready for delivery as soon as possible,” de Mistura’s office said in a statement.

Moscow must ensure the Syrian army, its ally, adheres to the pause, while the United States and regional powers must make sure opposition fighters are on board, he said.

Aleppo, Syria’s most populous prewar city and once its commercial hub, has become the focus of fighting in the five-year-old war.

Some two million people on both sides of the divided city have been without running water for nearly two weeks after infrastructure was damaged by bombing earlier this month.

Escalating violence in and around the city, where Russia and Iran are supporting bombing campaigns against the rebels, some of whom are backed by Arab and Western powers, caused the breakdown of peace talk in Geneva overseen by de Mistura.

Residents in the rebel-controlled half of the city celebrated earlier this month when rebels broke a month-long government siege that had led to drastic price increases and shortages of food and fuel, trapping some 300,000 people inside the city’s battered eastern neighborhoods.

The situation on the ground, though, has not immediately improved, residents told Al Jazeera.

Sustained fighting in the area, as the government attempts to retake lost ground, has meant that no significant amount of aid has been able to reach the area, according to locals and aid workers.

The Syrian opposition has said it wants to see a credible pause in the bloodshed and improved aid access before talks can resume.

“Trucks with food, water and medicine are ready to move immediately and ambulances to evacuate urgent medical cases are on standby,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

{Images of five-year-old boy, confused after an air strike in Aleppo, spark revulsion across social media.}

Images of a five year old Syrian boy – covered in dust and blood after being plucked from a bombed-out building – have gone viral after they were posted to social media, provoking widespread outrage and upset.

The footage, released by opposition activists on Wednesday, showed the aftermath of an air strike in the city of Aleppo and encapsulated the human toll of Syria’s five-year war.

The video, posted online by the Aleppo Media Center, shows a stunned and weary-looking boy, sitting alone and bewildered on an orange chair inside an ambulance shortly after he was rescued.

Khaled Khaled, an Aleppo-based member of the Syrian Civil Defence, a volunteer rescue group that operates in rebel-held territory, identified the boy as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh.

The boy was later rushed by members of the group, also known as the White Helmets, to a nearby hospital, Khaled told Al Jazeera.

He suffered from light head wounds and was released later that night.

Three other people were killed and at least eight others, mostly women and children, were injured in the same air strike, according to Khaled.

It was the images of Omran, though, that made the headlines and drew shock and revulsion from both Syrians and foreigners on social media.

In a video of a chaotic night-time scene, a man is seen carrying the boy from the rubble of an unidentified building to an ambulance, the five-year-old’s expression dazed and flat-eyed.

The boy then runs a hand over his blood-covered face, looks at the blood and wipes his hands on the ambulance chair. He does not cry or make a sound.

The image has been shared thousands of times on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

The pictures of Omran – referred to by many as “the boy in the ambulance” – were reminiscent of the image of Aylan Kurdi, another Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey last year after he drowned as he and his family attempted to cross the Mediterranean in the hope of finding refuge in Europe.

The image of Kurdi’s body brought world attention to the growing refugee crisis, as tens of thousands of Syrians attempted to make the same dangerous journey, fleeing wartorn homes for the stability of Europe.

UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura estimated in April that at least 400,000 people had been killed in Syria in a five-year-long war that has uprooted nearly half of the country’s population.