Tag: InternationalNews

{Rights group to oppose prohibition in courts after Cannes imposes ban on full-body swimsuits worn by some Muslim women.}

A French human rights group has said it will oppose a ban on burkinis in courts after the seaside city of Cannes barred the full-body, head-covering swimsuits worn by some Muslim women.

“Ten women have asked us to sue the town of Cannes,” Marwan Muhammad, the executive director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, said in a statement posted on the group’s Facebook page on Friday.

“We are currently conducting interlocutory action against Cannes.”

Citing security concerns, Cannes Mayor David Lisnard issued an ordinance forbidding beachwear that did not respect “good morals and secularism”, the AP news agency reported.

Swimwear “manifesting religious affiliation in an ostentatious way, while France and its religious sites are currently the target of terrorist attacks, could create risks of trouble to public order”, added Lisnard, who has called the burkini “the uniform of extremist Islamism”.

The burkini prohibition is in effect until August 31, officials said. Those who violate the new rule risk a $42 fine.

The ban was also criticised by anti-racism group SOS Racisme, which attacked what it said was the mayor’s “strategy of tension”.

France remains in a state of emergency after a series of attacks on the capital, Paris, the southern city of Nice and on a Catholic church in the northwest of the country.

The ban also follows the cancellation of a one-day private pool day event in Marseille for Muslim women who choose to wear burkinis while swimming.

The water park hosting the event decided to cancel the planned event earlier this week after politicians on the both the right and the left criticised the initiative.

French law already forbids face-covering veils anywhere in public, and headscarves in public schools.

Proponents say the laws preserve France’s secular values and protect women from religious oppression.

However, critics argue such laws deepen the religious divide.

“Not a day goes by without the target of Muslims, especially Muslim women in France,” Yasser Louati, a human rights and civil liberties activist, told Al Jazeera from Paris on Friday.

“There is a feeling now that France is at war with its own citizens. Today they are Muslims, and yesterday they were Jews,” said Louati. “French elites cannot live in peace with minorities.”

{Attacks kill four people across the country, just days after adoption of contentious military-backed constitution.}

Thailand has tightened security after bomb attacks across the country killed four people and wounded many more, with authorities struggling to identify a motive and find the perpetrators.

Twin bombs exploded in the upscale resort of Hua Hin late on Thursday, killing one woman and wounding more than 20 others. They were followed by two more on Friday morning that killed another person.

A further two blasts struck on Friday in the popular tourist town of Phuket, while two more bombs were reported in the southern provinces of Trang and Surat Thani, in each of which one person was killed.

Last week, Thailand voted to accept a military-backed constitution despite claims by opponents that it will entrench the military’s power and deepen divisions.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Bangkok, journalist Pailin Wedel quoted a police spokesperson as saying there is currently no evidence of any link between the different blasts.

INSIDE STORY: Will Thailand’s new constitution lead to stability?

“They are also sticking to the line that they still do not have enough evidence that there are any links to outside terrorism, southern insurgency or anything that may be linked to the current political situation,” said Wedel.

Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the prime minister, called for calm and said he did not know who was behind the attacks.

“The bombs are an attempt to create chaos and confusion,” he said in a conversation with reporters. “We should not make people panic more.”

“Why the bombs occurred as our country is heading towards stability, a better economy and tourism – and who did it – you have to find out for me.”

The two bombs that went off in Hua Hin on Thursday evening were hidden in potted plants and went off within 30 minutes of each other in the bar district of the popular beach town.

While small bombings are common in Thailand during periods of heightened political tension, there have been few such incidents in the past year and it is rare for touristic areas to be targeted.

Hua Hin is home to the summer palace of Thailand’s royal family and the blast came on the eve of Queen Sirikit’s 84th birthday and just before the first anniversary of a Bangkok shrine bombing that killed 20.

Authorities were searching for leads on the attackers and a motive behind the latest blasts.

According to staff at local hospitals, German, Italian, Dutch and Austrian nationals were among the wounded.

Thailand is expecting a record 32 million visitors in 2016, with the tourism industry a bright spot in an otherwise lacklustre economy.

Anniversary of attack

The latest blasts came just days before the first anniversary of the last major attack on tourists in Thailand – an August 17 bomb that killed 20 people, mostly ethnic Chinese tourists.

The blast struck a crowded Hindu shrine in the heart of Bangkok and stunned the country as the deadliest assault in recent history.

Two Uighur men from western China have been accused of the attack and are due to go on trial later this month.

Both deny any involvement in the bombing and mystery continues to swirl around the case, with authorities failing to catch a number of other suspects or offer a thorough explanation for a motive.

Thailand’s military junta, which seized power in 2014 after a decade of at times violent political unrest, has touted an increase in stability in the kingdom as a major accomplishment of its rule.

Yet the generals have failed to quell a long-running conflict in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces – a region far from Bangkok or Hua Hin.
The conflict is largely contained to the mostly Muslim far south although violence has occasionally spilled into other areas.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Hua Hin, Thitinan Ponsudhirak, director of the Institute for Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, said: “I think the timing is striking here. Today is the 84th anniversary of the birthday of Her Majesty [Queen Sirikit].

“We had the referendum last Sunday, so it seems clear to me that this is a coordinated round of bomb attacks.

“I think this has to do with domestic politics. It has something to do with anti-regime sentiments – anti-regime people who want to send a message that they don’t like the outcome of the referendum.”

{Blast in Hubei province kills 21 people, a day before the first anniversary of Tianjin industrial accidents.}

An explosion at a power plant in China has killed at least 21 people and injured five, according to state media, the latest deadly industrial accident in a country that struggles with poor safety standards.

Thursday’s blast took place a day before the first anniversary of massive explosions in a hazardous-material warehouse in the northeastern city of Tianjin that killed nearly 200 people, one of China’s worst industrial accidents in recent years.

The blast in the city of Dangyang in the central province of Hubei occurred around 3:20pm local time on Thursday, when a high-pressure steam pipe exploded, the official Xinhua news agency said.

“The injured have been rushed to hospital,” it said, adding that authorities had launched a rescue effort, although the cause of the blast had not immediately been pinpointed.

Deadly accidents are relatively common at industrial plants in China, and anger over lax standards is growing after three decades of swift economic growth marred by incidents from mining disasters to factory fires.

Friday is exactly one year since one of China’s worst industrial accidents. An estimated 173 people were killed after two huge explosions in the busy port of Tianjin.

An official report blamed the blasts on hazardous chemicals stored illegally in a warehouse and 25 people, including members of the government, are still under investigation.

Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Tianjin, said: “In February an official report said the explosions were the result of a culture of mismanagement at the warehouse where the chemicals were stored as well as lax oversight by regulators.”

{{Toxic chemicals}}

Experts believe that the soil at the blast site in Tianjin may still be contaminated with toxic chemicals.

At the moment, a giant plastic sheet covers a mound of mud at the site of the explosions.

“This is the first stage of a delicate operation to move the soil to a purpose built storage facility four kilometres away,” Al Jazeera’s Brown said.

“But some people worry the area will never be safe.”

{Upcoming venue for performing arts to fulfil business-oriented emirate’s “vision to be one of the world’s top cities”.}

Workers are putting the final touches on Dubai’s new opera house, which is set to open at the end of this month.

The opera house – a short walk from the 2,700ft Burj Khalifa – is preparing to host Spanish tenor Placido Domingo at an opening gala on August 31.

While Dubai has a reputation for grand construction projects, it has not had a landmark venue for performing arts.

“Look at everything else Dubai already has now. We’re going make it even better,” Dubai Opera’s CEO Jasper Hope, former chief operating officer at London’s Royal Albert Hall, told AFP news agency.

“One of the areas that has been missing for many people is a venue in which to experience brilliant live music.”

Dubai Opera organisers hope to change that, with performances including Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and the Broadway musical West Side Story.

The venue will also host local shows, with popular Emirati singer Hussain al-Jassmi performing there in October.

In a nod to Dubai’s long history as a port city, the opera house is shaped like a dhow, a traditional wooden boat used for centuries in Gulf waters.

But the ultra-modern 2,000-seat venue can transform into three modes, operating as a theatre, concert hall and a flat-floored hall suitable for banquets and weddings.

Its developer, Dubai-based Emaar Properties, which also built the Burj Khalifa, has not revealed the cost of the opera project.

Centre for trade

In the space of decades, Dubai, one of the seven emirates that constitute the UAE, has transformed itself into a centre for trade, travel and tourism.

Spending several thousand dollars earned from oil exports, it put itself on the map with luxury resorts, glitzy skyscrapers and artificial islands shaped as palm trees and a world map.

But its cultural scene remained low profile in the business-oriented emirate.

Now, Dubai “has a vision to be one of the top cities in the world”, said Tala Badr, the emirati director of the privately run Centre for Musical Arts (CMA).

To succeed it has to “present the same things you would get whether you went to London or New York … and that does include performing arts”, she said.

Opera remains very much a cultural import for Gulf Arabs the only other opera house in the region is in the Omani capital, Muscat.

But Dubai’s population is predominantly foreign, including a sizeable Western community. Hope said his vision is for the opera house to inspire local artists.

“There are only a handful of musical education, dance education, theatre education projects running right now. I sincerely hope, and we will actively encourage, many more to come out of what we’re doing,” he said.

{{Cultural centre}}

Badri said she hopes Dubai Opera will help make the emirate a cultural centre.

“The opera house is a great idea, but if you want to fill it, you need to educate a population to understand it,” Badri said.

“At the moment it’s just a facility for hosting things, and it could be so much more.”

{Decision comes a year after frontier was closed by Venezuela, now facing severe shortages due to an economic crisis.}

Venezuela and Colombia have agreed to reopen pedestrian border crossings between their countries, a year after Venezuela closed the frontier in a dispute over security and smuggling.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Thursday that he and his Venezuelan counterpart agreed to open five pedestrian crossings for 15 hours a day from Saturday.

“What we are going to do is open the border gradually,” Santos said after talks with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“It will be a temporary opening schedule while we learn and adapt to the decisions so that each step we take will be accurate and positive.”

Maduro said that he hoped the reopening would lead to a “new frontier of peace” and “a new beginning for economic and trade relations”.

Santos said they would continue discussions about opening up the border to cargo vehicles.

He said they were discussing the possibility of setting up Venezuelan petrol stations on the Colombian side where Venezuela could sell its fuel.

At the talks in the eastern Venezuelan town of Puerto Ordaz, the leaders said they reviewed reports by their advisers on cross-border smuggling and security.

Security was the top issue at the border, Santos said.

The two countries this week set up a joint initiative to fight organised crime.

“This is very important because it is going to make it possible for the rest of the border to operate peacefully,” he said.

Santos said the two countries also agreed to exchange customs information to fight petrol smuggling – one reason Maduro cited for closing the border.

Maduro sealed off his country’s 2,200km western border on August 19 last year after an attack on a Venezuelan army patrol in which three people were wounded.

He said at the time that right-wing paramilitaries from Colombia were to blame.

Maduro briefly reopened the border in recent weeks to allow Venezuelans to stock up on food, medicine and other basic supplies.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans streamed into the Colombian city of Cucuta last month, taking advantage of the temporary reopening.

Venezuela is facing severe shortages in an economic crisis fuelled by the global crash in the price of oil, its main export.

Maduro’s opponents also accuse him of mishandling the state-led economy.

They are trying to call a referendum on removing him from office.

According to the UN, Venezuela deported hundreds of Colombians last year after the border was closed and thousands more fled back to Colombia for fear of being expelled.

The UN Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the situation caused a humanitarian crisis and that deported Colombians’ rights were violated.

Venezuela denied the allegation.

{No sign of aid windows promised by Russia as clashes between army and rebels continue in southern Aleppo.}

Syrian rebels and government forces have clashed in southern Aleppo, including during the period of a promised Russian lull to allow humanitarian convoys in, according to media reports.

Trucks carrying food were unable to enter Aleppo on Thursday because of intense bombardment, the AFP news agency reported from the rebel-held east of the city where private vendors managed to deliver fresh produce.

Syrian state news agency said army troops seized territory south of Aleppo on Thursday, adding that rebel fire killed four civilians in a government-held district. But it made no mention of the “humanitarian windows” announced by Russia.

Trucks carrying food were reportedly unable to enter Aleppo on Thursday because of intense bombardment [Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters]
Human Rights Watch said on Thursday it had documented six strikes by regime or Russian warplanes on health facilities in the north that killed 17 people in the past two weeks.

“With heavy bombing continuing relentlessly in Aleppo especially, hospitals and clinics need to be treated as the sacred life-saving places they are, not as additional bombing targets,” said deputy Middle East director Nadim Houry.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement Thursday he was “concerned by reports of a new chemical attack… that is said to have claimed four lives people and left dozens injured.”

Activists accused government forces on Wednesday of carrying out an attack using chlorine gas on a rebel-held residential neighbourhood in Aleppo.

Fifteen of the only remaining doctors in the eastern half implored US President Barack Obama on Thursday to protect civilians from atrocities in their city.

“Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry,” the letter said.

“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action. Prove that you are the friend of Syrians,” they wrote.

An estimated 1.5 million people live in Aleppo, including about 250,000 in rebel-held districts.

{{Battle for Raqqa}}

Further east, Russian raids hit Raqqa, the stronghold of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), killing at least 24 civilians and wounding 70 people, said the Observatory.

The monitor said another six people were also killed but it had not yet confirmed how many of them were civilians or ISIL fighters.

Russia said the raids destroyed a “chemical weapons factory” on Raqqa’s outskirts as well as a weapons storage facility and ISIL training camp to the north and southeast.

Its defence ministry said ISIL suffered “significant material damages” in the strikes and that “a large number of fighters have been killed”.

{Aaron Driver killed by police after authorities received “credible” information of a potential attack.}

Canadian police have shot dead a man in southern Ontario after receiving “credible information” of a plan to carry out a suicide bombing in a public area, local news organisations reported.

CBC News said on Thursday that Aaron Driver, 23, was killed by police at a house in Strathroy, a town about 225km west of Toronto, after he detonated a device that injured himself and another person.

CBC said that Driver had another device that he was about to detonate, before police shot him.

“A suspect was identified and the proper course of action has been taken to ensure that there is no danger to the public’s safety,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

CTV News, citing an internal government memo, said the suspect was planning to use an improvised device to carry out a suicide bombing in a public area. His alleged plan, according to the document, was to kill many people

Intelligence sources, who declined to be identified as they did not have permission to speak to media, told the Reuters news agency that Driver was arrested last year for openly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant on social media.

{Moscow says it has also beaten back an armed assault by Kiev, which called the claims “hysterical and false”.}

Russia’s federal security agency says it has thwarted “terrorist attacks” by the Ukrainian military in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Kiev in 2014, and beaten back an armed assault.

The FSB said on Wednesday that one of its officers was killed in an armed clash while arresting “terrorists” on the night of August 6-7, while a Russian soldier died in a firefight with a “sabotage-terrorist” group sent by the Ukrainian defence ministry on August 8.

Kiev has firmly denied claims that it plotted or carried out any attacks.

The FSB – which controls Russia’s border guards – said it had “foiled terrorist attacks on the territory of Crimea prepared by the intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian defence ministry.

“The aim of the sabotage and terrorist attacks was to destabilise the social and political situation” before elections in Russia and Crimea next month, it said.

The security agency said that in the August 6-7 raids, several people were detained, including a Ukrainian military intelligence officer, and a cache of explosives was discovered.

“On the night of August 8, 2016 special operations forces from the Ukrainian defence ministry carried out two more attempts to make a breakthrough by sabotage-terrorist groups,” it said.

The assault included “massive firing from the side of the neighbouring state and armoured vehicles” but was beaten back by the Russian authorities, the statement said.

Ukraine’s national security council chief Oleksandr Turchynov criticised the claims as “hysterical and false” and said Moscow was trying to stoke fear in Crimea.

Ukraine’s defence ministry dismissed the allegations as “nothing more than an attempt to justify the redeployment and aggressive actions” of Russian forces in the region.

The allegations are likely to fuel further tensions in the feud between Russia and Ukraine, sparked after Moscow annexed Crimea following the ousting of Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in a popular uprising.