Tag: InternationalNews

{A national independent commission is due to begin gathering information on “national human rights crisis”.}

Toronto, Canada – Canada has announced the details of a long-awaited, federal inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Canadian Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, said a national, independent commission would begin working on what has been described as a “national human rights crisis” on September 1.

Bennett said the commission would have the “historic” ability to gather information across Canada and she thanked the indigenous families that have already shared their experiences.

“It’s because of these courageous women and families, who knew something was very wrong, that we are here today,” Bennett said during a press conference at the Canadian Museum of History near Ottawa.

“They knew an inquiry was needed to achieve justice and healing and to put an end to this ongoing terrible tragedy.”

For over a decade, indigenous community leaders and human rights advocates across Canada have urged Ottawa to formulate a national strategy to address high rates of violence against indigenous women and girls.

In 2014, Canada’s federal police force, the RCMP, reported that 1,017 Aboriginal women were murdered across the country between 1980 and 2012 and another 164 women were still missing. More cases have been reported since then.

Marion Buller, the first female First Nations judge in British Columbia, will head up the five-person commission, which is tasked with examining the root causes of the violence, including racism, sexism and Canadian colonialism.

The commissioners will have the power to compel individuals to give evidence, including police officers, and gather documents, Bennett said. The inquiry will be able to issue recommendations that are non-binding.

“Our goal is to make concrete recommendations that will ensure the safety of our women and our girls in our communities,” said Buller, the chief commissioner.

The first part of the inquiry will run from September 1 to December 31, 2018, at a cost of $53.8m (CAD). Another $16.17m will fund liaison units to help families get information on specific cases.

“We cannot move forward until we face and recognise and put a stop to this ongoing tragedy. Until that time, our entire country will live under its shadow,” said Patricia Hadju, Canada’s minister of status of women.

Aboriginal women over age 15 are at least 3.5 times more likely to experience violence than non-Aboriginal women in Canada, and Aboriginal women are five times more likely to die violently than non-Aboriginal women, according to Statistics Canada.

The inquiry was one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election campaign promises.

{{Concerns raised
}}

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) welcomed “the leadership shown by the federal government” in setting up the inquiry.

“After 11 years of NWAC listening to the families of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada, we are pleased that we now have a government who is prepared to listen and act,” said NWAC President Dawn Lavell-Harvard.

But the group also raised some concerns with the commission’s mandate.

Families will not have the chance to pursue or reopen cases through the justice system, and they will only have access to culturally based trauma counselling during their appearance before the Commission, not before or after, NWAC said.

The group also stressed that the Commission does not explicitly mention the role of provincial and territorial authorities in the process, or the need to work with justice partners to improve the system.

Alex Neve, executive director of Amnesty International Canada, welcomed the inquiry but also said “there are still doubts, uncertainty and concern” as to how it will examine Canada’s police and justice systems and include provincial and territorial governments.

These issues “are particularly preoccupying as they go to the very fundamentals of what this inquiry must address”, he said.

Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, an umbrella group representing indigenous peoples in Canada, said the inquiry sends a message to indigenous women and girls that “their lives are important, their lives matter”.

“Systems that are broken need to be fixed,” Bellegarde said.

“It’s not only good for Indigenous peoples; it’s good for Canada.”

{UK police arrest 19-year-old man after death of one woman and injuries to five others in attack in Russell Square area.}

Mental health issues were “a significant factor” in a London knife attack that killed one woman and injured five others on Wednesday, with “possible terrorism links” also being investigated, according to British police.

A 19-year-old man was arrested in Russell Square, in the city centre, which was cordoned off after the attack as police swarmed the area.

“Early indications suggest that mental health is a significant factor in this case and that is one major line of inquiry,” Mark Rowley, a senior police officer, said in a statement on Thursday.

“But of course at this stage we should keep an open mind regarding motive and consequently terrorism as a motivation remains but one line of inquiry for us to explore.”

Russell Square is a busy tourist area with a string of high end hotels and is also close to the British Museum and the University of London.

A woman believed to be in her 60s was treated by paramedics at the scene but pronounced dead.

Two women and three men were also injured during the attack.

“Two people who were injured in the Russell Square incident remain in hospital. Three others have been discharged,” the Metropolitan Police said on Twitter.

The arrested man is currently in police custody in hospital.

Police were called to Russell Square at 10:33pm local time (21:33 GMT) on Wednesday following reports a man armed with a knife was attacking people.

The man was arrested six minutes later, with one of the officers firing a Taser electroshock gun.

{{Mayor’s assurance}}

In a statement on Thursday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Safety of Londoners is my number one priority.

“I urge all Londoners to remain calm and vigilant. Please report anything suspicious to the police.”

“We all have a vital role to play as eyes and ears for our police and security services and in helping to ensure London is protected.”

The threat level in Britain remains at “severe”, its second highest level, meaning a strike is “highly likely”.

London police had already promised to deploy more armed offices after a spate of deadly attacks in other European countries.

Police chiefs and security bosses have repeatedly warned that fighters supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL also known as ISIS) group want to carry out attacks against Britain.

London police said on Wednesday they would deploy an additional 600 armed officers across the capital to protect against the threat of attacks.

Rowley has previously warned that ISIL was seeking to radicalise vulnerable people with mental health issues to carry out attacks.

He said that, in some operations, police commanders have taken advice from specialist psychologists.

London was hit by coordinated attacks on July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers targeted three underground trains and one bus, killing 52 people.

One of the bombs was detonated on an underground train traveling between Kings Cross and Russell Square.

Since then, dozens of plots have been foiled and there have been smaller-scale attacks, such as the killing of an off-duty soldier on a street in south London by two people in May 2013.

“Londoners will wake up and in the morning they will notice an increased police presence on the streets, including armed officers,” Rowley said.

“This is there to provide reassurance and safety. We ask the public to remain calm, vigilant and alert,” he said.

{Rebels lose two hilltops and two villages as government is accused of targeting six hospitals in and around Aleppo.}

Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes have recaptured hills and villages from rebel groups on the outskirts of south-western Aleppo, a monitoring group and state-run media have said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Wednesday that the government had been launching a counterattack on areas captured by rebels in the past two days.

“Since the attack began and until Tuesday midnight, 40 civilians have been killed on both sides of Aleppo, among them 22 children,” Abdel Rahman said.

About 50 rebels and dozens of regime troops have been killed since the assault kicked off on Sunday, according to the Observatory.

Syrian state-run radio confirmed that government troops had started a “wide-scale counterattack” against rebels in south-west Aleppo.

“There are tit-for-tat attacks in all areas across south-western Aleppo, amid dozens of Russian strikes on areas which were taken by the rebels,” Kenan, an activist based in the rebel-held Salaheddine neighbourhood of Aleppo, told the Dpa news agency via Facebook.

Government troops managed to seize two hilltops including Telat al-Mahroukat and the villages of Khweriz and al-Amriyeh, which the rebels took control of two days ago, the Observatory said.

Hospitals attacked

Meanwhile, the New York-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said on Wednesday that over the past week, Syrian government forces launched deadly air strikes against six hospitals in and around Aleppo.

The group said in a statement that this was the worst week for attacks on medical facilities in the region since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

PHR said it had verified each attack.

All six facilities hit between July 23 and July 31 were major hospitals in Aleppo governorate, including a referral hospital just outside opposition-held eastern Aleppo and a pediatric clinic inside the city where four infants died after their oxygen supply was cut, the group said.

“Since June, we’ve seen increasing reports of attacks on civilians in Aleppo and strikes on the region’s remaining medical infrastructure. Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime,” said Widney Brown, PHR’s director of programs.

“Destroying hospitals is tantamount to signing thousands of death warrants for people now stranded in eastern Aleppo.”

{Dozens of mostly women and children brought to hospital after chlorine gas bombs hit town of Saraqeb, activists say.}

Helicopters dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town in Syria’s Idlib province, a rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday.

Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian Civil Defense group, told Al Jazeera that 33 civilians, including 18 women and 10 children, were brought to a local hospital after the attack in the town of Saraqeb.

“Just before midnight, helicopters dropped five explosive barrels containing cylinders of chlorine and shards of metal on neighbourhoods in Saraqeb,” he said.

“We suspect it was chlorine because of the smell and the nature of the injuries – suffocation and burning, red eyes. Members of the civil defense brought them all to the nearby hospital.”

The group, a network of volunteer search and rescue workers also known as the White Helmets that operates exclusively in rebel-held areas, posted a video on YouTube purportedly showing a number of men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by rescue workers.

Two of the injured were in critical condition, Saleh said.

Downed helicopter

Saraqeb is located approximately 15km from where a Russian helicopter was shot down on Monday, killing all five people on board, in the biggest officially acknowledged loss of life for Russian forces since they started operations in Syria in October 2015.

The helicopter came down roughly mid-way between Aleppo and the Russian air force base at Khmeimim, near the Mediterranean coast.

No group has claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter.

“Several activists are wondering if this [the alleged chlorine gas attack] is a retaliatory attack for the downing of the helicopter,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

Yet, Russia on Tuesday rejected reports that the chemical attack had happened and said they were full of false information.

“The Kremlin had denied that this incident took place at all,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said.

“It said that reports of chemical barrel bombs amount to an unfounded information attack, lies essentially,” he added.

“Because the location of this alleged chemical attack is very close to the site of the helicopter downing … the Kremlin is very key to void the assumption that has been made in some circles that it is involved in some way in any kind of retaliatory or punitive response to that incident.”

The Syrian government has so far not addressed the allegations.

{{‘Not the first time’}}

Syria’s government has repeatedly been accused of dropping barrel bombs loaded with chemicals, on rebel-held areas.

“In Saraqeb … this is not the first time that activists have reported barrels bombs being dropped that contain chlorine gas. We were told of an attack that happened last May, also in Saraqeb. And then, also, there was an attack … that happened just a month prior … close to Saraqeb,” Jamjoom said.

Since the conflict began in 2011, there have more than 160 chemical attacks in Syria, according to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS).

“The 161 documented chemical attacks have led to at least 1,491 deaths and 14,581 injuries from chemical exposure,” SAMS said in a report published in March.

Another 133 chemical attacks were reported in addition to the 161 documented in the reported, but SAMS said the claims “could not be fully substantiated”.

{Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls launch “an unforgivable act of violence toward Japan’s security”.}

A medium-range ballistic missile fired from North Korea has landed near Japanese territorial waters, according to South Korean and Japanese officials, the latest in a series of such launches.

A suspected Rodong missile was fired on Wednesday from the North’s western Hwanghae province, the governments said.

Japan’s defence ministry said the missile landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, a 200-nautical-mile offshore area where Tokyo has sovereign rights for exploring and exploiting resources.

“It imposes a serious threat to Japan’s security and it is unforgivable act of violence toward Japan’s security,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

The US Strategic Command said North Korea had fired two presumed Rodong missiles simultaneously.

A statement said initial indications indicated one of the missiles exploded immediately after launch, while a second was tracked over North Korea and into the Sea of Japan.

The launch came after North Korea threatened “physical action” in response to a planned deployment of a US anti-missile system in South Korea, and just weeks before the start of annual joint South Korea-US military exercises, which Pyongyang says are rehearsals for a possible invasion.

Seoul and Washington have said the system, Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is needed to better cope with what they call North Korea’s increasing military threats.

{{UN resolutions}}

North Korea has called it a provocation that it says is only aimed at bolstering US military hegemony in the region.

The United States condemned what it called a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting North Korea’s use of ballistic missile technology.

“This provocation only serves to increase the international community’s resolve to counter (North Korea’s) prohibited activities,” a Pentagon spokesman, Gary Ross, said.

In June, North Korea, after a string of failures, sent a mid-range ballistic missile more than 1,400km (870 miles) high.

In July, it fired three ballistic missiles into the sea, according to Seoul defense officials. The North later confirmed that it fired ballistic rockets carrying trigger devices for nuclear warheads as part of simulated pre-emptive atomic attacks on South Korea.

North Korea is pushing to manufacture a warhead small enough to be placed on a long-range missile that can reach the continental US, but South Korean defense officials say the North doesn’t yet have such a miniaturised warhead.

{Intense fighting has continued around the Syrian city of Aleppo, where a rebel offensive is trying to break a government siege of rebel-held areas.}

Over the weekend, the rebels tried to reconnect an encircled area in the east with insurgent territory in the west.

They set off a huge tunnel bomb underneath army positions in the strategic Ramouseh district.

The army has been fighting back with the help of Russian air strikes to stop the rebels breaking through.

Around a quarter of a million civilians are living under siege in rebel-held areas since government forces cut them off last month.

“We are now overlooking the Ramousah area but Russian jets are intensifying their bombing, which is holding us back from moving quickly,” a rebel commander told Reuters news agency.

Another rebel source told Reuters that about 10,000 troops, at least 95 tanks and several hundred rocket launchers had been deployed for what he described as the “great epic battle of Aleppo”.

The source said scores of suicide bombers had also been prepared to drive explosive-laden military vehicles into army posts.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has described the rebel offensive as the largest so far, involving fighting across the divided city’s main battle fronts.

Government troops supported by Russian warplanes have put up a fierce defence, the observatory adds.

“This has slowed the offensive and allowed regime troops to retake five of the eight positions that rebels had taken since Sunday,” observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The observatory said 50 rebel fighters and jihadists had been killed since the operation began on Sunday, as well as dozens of government soldiers.

It has been reported that barrels suspected to contain chlorine gas were dropped on the town of Saraqeb near Aleppo.

About 30 people, mostly women and children, were reported to have been affected. Chlorine gas can cause victims to become short of breath and to foam blood from the mouth.

It is not clear who was responsible.

The attack took place near to where a Russian military transport helicopter was shot down by rebels hours earlier killing all five personnel on board.

It was the deadliest single incident for Russia’s military since its air campaign began last September.

The Russian government has responded to US criticism over its actions in Syria by arguing that it is “unacceptable” to demand restraint around Aleppo.

Aleppo was once Syria’s commercial capital and also boasted a rich architectural and archaeological heritage.

Much of it has been destroyed or looted during more than five years of war.

Russia and Syria have announced the opening of what they called humanitarian corridors for civilians and rebels wanting to surrender but few people are reported to have used them.

One resident told the BBC daily life in the city was now incredibly hard: “Starting from the basic food it has completely disappeared. I mean vegetables, because they come from the countryside and it is full of buildings, this area, so there is no land for farming or to do some agriculture.

“The people are afraid because those families who have children who should provide their children with milk, there is no milk in the markets…

“Public transportation has completely stopped because of the lack of fuel and you know now we are in the summer and it is very hard to go around in the day at all so people keep staying inside their houses and also it is better to avoid shelling.”