Tag: InternationalNews

{Armed group says top commander Omar al-Shishani, considered by US as ISIL’s defence chief, killed in Iraq.}

Omar al-Shishani, a top commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been killed in Iraq, a website affiliated with the armed group said.

Citing a “military source”, ISIL’s website on Wednesday said that Shishani was killed “in the town of Sharqat as he took part in repelling the military campaign on the city of Mosul”.

Amaq, the ISIL-linked website, did not specify when Shishani was killed, but the loss of the commander is a significant blow to the group, which has suffered a string of setbacks in Iraq this year.

Mosul is the last ISIL-held city in Iraq. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the report.

The Pentagon announced in March that US forces had killed Shishani, saying his death would probably hamper ISIL’s operations in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman, reporting from Washington, DC, said his death “is not necessarily a big development, as far as the US is concerned”.

“The question here is why is ISIL so willing to admit that he in fact is dead,” Ackerman said.

“We’ll have to see exactly what comes out of the Pentagon and also what comes out of the Iraqi command as to what the actual effect of this will be on the fight for Mosul.”

But US officials – who had previously, prematurely announced Shishani’s “likely” death from an air strike – did not specify how or where he was killed.

Detriment to ISIL

Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said Shishani made a name for himself during the capture of Menagh Airbase from Syrian government forces in 2013.

US-backed rebels teamed up with Shishani’s militia, which was mostly foreign fighters, and used suicide bombers to finally capture the airbase after a two-year-long siege in northern Syria.

“He then joined ISIS and rose to the top. He was a big personality. Troops liked him,” Landis told Al Jazeera.

“It’s been reported a number of times that he’s been killed, most recently in March. The United Stated claimed that it had killed him in a bombing raid. Then they denied it. Some people said that he was brain dead in a hospital. So we don’t know yet. There is a lot of fog around this – whether this is related to the bombing in March or this is something new,” he said.

“Anyway, it will be a real detriment to ISIS.”

‘Omar the Chechen’

Shishani, whose real name was Tarkhan Batirashvili, was a fierce, battle-hardened fighter with roots in Georgia.

Shishani, whose nom de guerre means “Omar the Chechen”, was one of the ISIL leaders most wanted by Washington, which had put a multi-million-dollar bounty on his head.

His exact rank was unclear, but US officials had branded him as “equivalent of the secretary of defence” for ISIL, also known as ISIS.

Shishani came from the former Soviet state of Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge region, which is populated mainly by ethnic Chechens.

He fought as a Chechen rebel against Russian forces before joining the Georgian military in 2006, and battled Russians again in Georgia in 2008.

He later resurfaced in northern Syria as the commander of a group of foreign fighters, and became a senior leader within ISIL.

The hardline group overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but has since lost ground to Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes and other assistance.

The group has responded to the battlefield setbacks by striking civilians, particularly Shia Muslims, and experts have warned that there may be more bombings as the group continues to lose ground.

{When she was 12, Grace was abducted and then raped and beaten every day for 11 months.}

So common are the practices of abduction, rape and forced marriage of girls in northern Tanzania that a single word is used to encapsulate them all: kupura. It is a word used by people from the Sukuma tribe to describe the snatching of girls in broad daylight as they walk to school; a three-syllabled euphemism that downplays their long-term physical and sexual abuse.

And yet here in the region of Shinyanga, the practice of kupura is validated by the oft-recited motto of Sukuma men: alcohol, meat and vagina.

“This slogan is in their blood and a way of life,” says Revocatus Itendelebanya.

“These are the three things they feel entitled to as men.”

Itendelebanya, the legal and gender officer for the local NGO, Agape, says this sense of entitlement, in what is a perennially patriarchal society, also explains why passers-by don’t intervene when they witness an abduction.

“When a Sukuma man is attracted to a girl he will start asking people where she lives, and what her routine is,” explains Itendelebanya.

“Once he finds out these details he might wait for her near the borehole – or whatever he thinks is the best place to get that girl – and then grab her.”

Kupura is so prevalent in the region that when a girl disappears, her parents will suspect what has happened. But rather than calling the police, they will seek the man out not to rescue their child, but to negotiate the dowry – or bride price – in cattle.

{{Cash cows}}

For daughters are sadly seen as a short-term investment for poor, rural households – cash cows that can boost a family’s financial position at the expense of a girl’s schooling and wellbeing.

Such is the value placed on a girl’s head that Itendelebanya says parents will take their daughters to a witch-doctor if they are not attracting any suitors.

The ensuing samba ritual involves cutting cruciform nicks into the girl’s chest and hands with a razor to not only help cleanse her of her bad luck, but to make her more attractive to older men.

And if ever there was a poster child to highlight the pernicious effects of child marriage, it’s Grace Masanja.

“Bitterness still fills my heart when I look at them,” she says, pointing at the cows grazing at the rear of her family’s compound. For Grace they are a daily reminder of how she was treated like cattle, a commodity to be bought and sold.

“But given what I went through, I sometimes wish I had been born a cow,” she whispers.

Her father had bartered a dozen cattle for his daughter but, despite daily beatings with sticks and her father’s belt, she still refused to marry the older man.

But a deal had been made; a dowry had been paid.

And so it was that Grace was abducted on motorbike by her betrothed early one morning – all with the complicity of her father.

That night, and every day for the next 11 months, she was raped and beaten.

She was only 12.

“That day felt like the end of everything,” Grace recalls, glancing again at the cattle.

{{A country of contradictions}}

When it comes to child marriage, Tanzania was until very recently a country of contradictions.

The 1971 Marriage Act set the minimum age of marriage for girls at 15 with parental consent – but a girl of 14 could wed where judicial approval was given.

And while the 2009 Child Act did not expressly outlaw child marriage, it did define a child as a person under the age of 18, stating that a parent should “protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression”.

This contradictory legal Venn diagram was further obfuscated by the Local Customary Law of 1963, which allowed Tanzania’s many ethnic groups to adhere to their customs and traditions.

The Tanzanian government had long made noises about a constitutional review process to address these conflicting laws, but last year’s presidential election campaign, in addition to a lack of consensus in community surveys, had served to stall any political momentum on the issue.

Only in July 2016 did the government finally ban child marriage outright – but will it actually make a difference?

Female genital mutilation was outlawed in Tanzania in 1998, and yet a 2010 government survey found that in remote parts of the Mara region, more than 40 percent of girls and women had been cut.

While it is true that Tanzania does not rank among the countries with the highest rates of child marriage, with four out of 10 girls being married before their 18th birthdays, it seems to be a problem that is not going away.

And this national average masks more disturbing regional trends in the vast East African country.

In the Shinyanga region, more than 59 percent of girls like Grace – some of them as young as nine – are forced into child marriages.

Police corruption

Itendelebanya believes that the actual figure is concealed by the remoteness of many rural communities, as well as widespread reports of corrupt police and court officials burying cases in return for bribes by family members.

The legal and gender officer says there have been cases of police being paid to ignore some early marriages in villages, to lose crucial evidence, and to even help forge the incriminating birth certificates of child brides.

“Police entertain corruption because they benefit from it,” claims Itendelebanya. “And police see NGOs like Agape as preventing the flow of money into their pockets.”

But Superintendent Pili Simon Misungwi, who heads the gender desk at the Shinyanga district police station, dismisses any claims of wrongdoing by her staff.

In 2008, the Tanzanian government requested that every police station have such a specialist unit, with trained personnel who could handle cases of gender-based violence and child abuse across the country.

“I can’t deny that corruption does exist because it’s mostly done in private,” she says. “But I also can’t say that 100 percent of all cases are delayed because of corruption.”

“For example, the poverty-stricken parents of a victim may accept financial compensation from the perpetrator’s family, which would lead to the adjournment of a case.”

Misungwi says it’s also not uncommon for a child bride’s parents to scupper investigations.

“A girl’s parents may be offered two, three or five cows by the husband’s family to derail the case,” she says. “And because life is hard for these people, they often take the money.

“The police may think the family is cooperating with them, but then when the time comes to testify they tell us the girl is sick, in another village, or even dead.”

Misungwi stresses that her officers were hired because of their high moral standing, and then provided with the necessary training.

“And we provide people with a confidential environment where they can have a one-on-one conversation in private rooms where others cannot listen,” she adds.

But what the superintendent says, and what actually happens in her absence, appear to be two different things.

Before Misungwi arrives at the station, a young mother sits in the main office as she tells a police officer about the regular sexual assaults she endures at the hands of her husband – the private rooms sit empty.

The officer takes no notes, his attention not on the mother, but on the Nigerian soap opera blasting from the television set in the corner of the room.

Other staff members sit nearby, staring into space, periodically checking their phones for text messages.

Meanwhile incidents related to child marriage have doubled over the past two years.

When staff compile a list of these they do not use the Swahili terms, instead opting for the English equivalents, to mitigate the shocking nature of the crimes.

Kubaka is replaced with rape, kulawiti is replaced with sodomy, kumpa mimba mwanafunzi is replaced with child pregnancy.

And Misungwi says it is the lack of police resources, rather than corruption, that has contributed to the prevalence of child marriage in the region.

“When the government is giving budgets to ministries like Home Affairs, they don’t have a separate pot of money for the police gender desk,” she says.

As a result, her unit has to rely on using one of the station’s three vehicles to reach remote villages where child marriages have been reported to them – but these are often already being used for routine police business.

“And the witnesses may live very far in the villages and can’t afford to come to town to do a follow-up interview,” says Misungwi. “As a result we often can’t reach a conclusion on a case.”

{{The curious case of Agnes Dotto}}

“There can be no secrets in the villages.” So says Paulo Kuyi, who is fighting the ground war against child marriage in the nearby town of Muchambi.

The 53-year-old activist acts as a primitive early warning system for the NGO Agape, which in turn tips off the local police force.

Last September, it was the sudden appearance of 16 cows in a family’s compound that triggered alarm bells for Kuyi. And he knew the poor family had a 13-year-old daughter, Agnes Dotto.

“When a dowry has been paid a feast is arranged before the wedding,” Kuyi explains. “The family now has cows coming into their clan and they want to celebrate and invite other villagers.”

Ten days later, thanks to Kuyi’s regular updates by phone, police and Agape staff raided the wedding ceremony.

The husband-to-be was arrested and taken to the local police station in Maganzo, where he should have remained until his case went to trial.

The next day the man walked free; neither he nor Agnes has been seen since.

Kuyi says that he saw a Maganzo police officer leaving a late-night meeting with village leaders.

“These leaders were paid by Agnes’ parents to help arrange the marriage,” he claims. “It was because of that complicity they paid a police officer to release the perpetrator.”

These are the “meanders” – as Itendelebanya euphemistically calls them – that child marriage cases take on their way to the courts.

Three months on, the police tell the legal officer that they are no closer to finding Agnes or the man.

Assistant Superintendent Meshack Sumuni says the village leaders and the girl’s parents have refused to cooperate.

“And we don’t have the resources to be more proactive in our investigations,” he says. “The Tanzanian government provides no specific budget for gender-desk teams, which means we often rely on NGOs for assistance.”

The lack of police resources is felt even more keenly here than in Shinyanga.

Roads are regularly washed out in the rainy season, the unit has no dedicated car pool of its own, and their office is bereft of furniture or computer equipment and has a leaking roof, which in the past has led to important legal documents being damaged.

“So the gender desk staff feel like they have been given this role as a punishment,” says Sumuni. “So this in turn affects their motivation to chase down reports of child marriage and related cases of abuse.”

Back in the village, where there can be no secrets, it is common knowledge that Kuyi is the one reporting cases of child marriage to the police.

Resentful of the potential loss of income that marrying off their daughters can generate, villagers have threatened to lock the activist in his hut and burn it down.

Kuyi says that he doesn’t care; he is an old man and he has nothing left to fear.

But what worries him are what advances in technology mean for future child marriages going undetected by him.

He has heard rumours that a dowry has already been paid for Agnes’ sister – but by mobile money transfer, and not cattle.

This shift from the traditional, physical form of payment means Kuyi can no longer be visually tipped off about an impending marriage.

“Many other activists are now reluctant to report cases to the police,” Kuyi says. “They’ve been intimidated by death threats, or demoralised when they see only a few cases actually go to court.”

{{Picking up the pieces}}

Only through death has Grace Masanja clawed back something resembling a life.

After physically and sexually abusing her for 11 months, her husband was killed in a motorbike accident.

Grace, now 13, was filled not with joy, but sorrow.

The man who had raped and beaten her for the better part of a year was dead – but she now has a child to take care of, and no income.

Grace and her child Mathias are at her family’s home, where she and her father live out an uneasy truce.

After hearing an announcement on the radio, she applied to enrol on one of Agape’s vocational skills courses. Each year, the organisation provides dozens of girls with an opportunity to learn a trade so that they can become breadwinners in their own right.

The majority of the girls opt for tailoring classes, but others want to take the courses in welding and electrical engineering – professions that challenge the patriarchal and gendered stereotypes so ingrained in Tanzania’s communities.

It is also hoped that the lure of this additional income will lessen the short-term appeal of a dowry to parents.

Grace’s father, Kurwa Masanja, says that he now regrets what he did to his daughter.

“It was Sukuma tradition that forced me to have Grace married when she finished primary school,” says Kurwa. “When she came back I apologised, and I hope now that we can slowly become father and daughter again.

“I cannot repeat this mistake because when Grace came back, she told us what had happened to her.”

But Grace has her doubts, and fears for her four-year-old sister Birha.

“My father has only six of the cows left from my dowry,” she says. “He sold the others to build a second home.”

“What do you think he will do when the others have gone, and he is poor again?”

{This research was conducted with the support of the ‘International Development Reporting Fellowship’ (http://www.akfc.ca/en/get-involved/reporting-fellowship), a joint programme of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada and the Canadian Association of Journalists.}

{US president calls for unity and understanding in emotional ceremony for five police officers shot dead in Texas.}

US President Barack Obama has implored Americans of all races to show more unity and understanding as he addressed an emotional memorial ceremony for five police officers shot dead in Dallas last week.

“I know that Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the past week,” Obama said on Tuesday

“I’m here to say we must reject such despair. I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem.”

Obama’s speech included a frank admission that his own efforts to tackle violence, guns and racism had come up short.

“I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency,” he said with uncommon candor. “I’ve seen how a spirit of unity born of tragedy can gradually dissipate.”

“I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been.”

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from in Dallas, said unlike Obama’s previous speeches after other mass shootings, “this was not a president hoping to comfort people, just the opposite.

“This was an impatient president,” Culhane said.

Obama said it was time for the country to start having “uncomfortable conversations about race”, as well as inequality and gun control, Culhane added.

{{‘Prejudice in our heads and hearts’}}

Micah Johnson, 25, a US military veteran, was killed on July 7 by police using an explosive device after he fatally shot five police officer in the streets of Dallas following a demonstration over police killings of African-Americans. Nine other officers and two civilians were wounded by Johnson.

Black Americans protesting police racism, Obama said, must understand how hard the police’s job can be.

“You know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve are. And you pretend as if there’s no context?”

Obama also challenged a mostly-white police force and white Americans at large to admit that while the edifice of legalised racism had gone, prejudice remained.

“We have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point,” he said.

“We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts.”

Obama also made a call for Republicans to realise the cost of their opposition to gun control and spending on mental health and drug treatment.

“We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighbourhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment,” Obama said, pointing to a string of causes for violence.

“We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.”

Following the service, Obama met for more than an hour with families of the officers killed and wounded.

{China rejects South China Sea tribunal ruling and says it has right to set up air defence zone if threatened.}

The Chinese government has vowed to take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty in the South China Sea and said it reserved the right to set up an air defence zone, a day after an international tribunal ruled China had no legal basis for its expansive claims in the region.

“On whether China will set up an air defence zone over the South China Sea, what we have to make clear first is that China has the right to,” Liu Zhenmin, the vice foreign minister, told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

“But whether we need one in the South China Sea depends on the level of of threats we face.”

US officials have previously said that they feared China may respond to the ruling by declaring an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea, a move that would sharply escalate tensions in the disputed territory.

In 2013, China declared an ADIZ in the East China Sea. That zone is not recognised by the US and others.

Liu also said that the Philippines was to blame for “stirring up trouble”, as he introduced a policy paper calling the islands in the strategic sea lane “China’s inherent territory”.

His comments came a day after, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rejected China’s claims to economic rights across large swaths of the South China Sea.

The tribunal also found that Beijing had aggravated the seething regional dispute and violated the Philippines’ maritime rights by building up artificial islands that destroyed coral reefs, and by disrupting fishing and oil exploration.

“There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’,” the Court said on Tuesday, referring to a demarcation line on a 1947 map of the sea.

The South China Sea is a resource-rich strategic waterway through which more than $5 trillion of world trade is shipped each year.

China, which boycotted the case brought by the Philippines, rejected the ruling, saying its islands had exclusive economic zones and the Chinese people have more than 2,000 years of history of activities there.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country “will not accept” the decision, adding that China “under any circumstances, will not be affected by the award”, Xinhua state news agency reported.

Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing, said: “It’s fair to assume that the Chinese government knew which way this was going to go.

“Within minutes of the decision, the Chinese government released a fairly detailed statement restating why China always believes these islands belong to them, so now the question is really what is going to happen in the coming days.”

China has sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea, including the Spratlys and Paracels, and Beijing’s position is consistent with international law and practice, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

The United States, which China has accused of fuelling tensions and militarising the region with patrols and exercises, said the ruling should be treated as final and binding.

“We certainly would urge all parties not to use this as an opportunity to engage in escalatory or provocative action,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing.

Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas, reporting from Manila, said the Philippine government has “called for calm in terms of how to move forward after the decision despite now having gained leverage with this court ruling.

“President Rodrigo Duterte seems to want to retain friendly relationship and open ties with China. However, there is concern among many Filipinos here that its current government might be a little too friendly,” Ortigas said.

Perfecto Yasay, the Philippine foreign secretary, said in Manila that the “milestone decision” was an important contribution to efforts in addressing disputes in the sea.

“The Philippines reiterates its abiding commitment to efforts of pursuing the peaceful resolution and management of disputes with the view of promoting and enhancing peace and stability in the region,” he said.

The ruling is expected to further increase tensions in the region, where China’s increased military assertiveness has spread concern among its smaller neighbours and is a point of confrontation with the US.

It could also spur Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, which also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, to file similar claims.

“This award represents a devastating legal blow to China’s jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea,” Ian Storey, of Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, told the Reuters news agency.

“China will respond with fury, certainly in terms of rhetoric and possibly through more aggressive actions at sea,” he said.

US diplomatic, military and intelligence officers told Reuters that China’s reaction to the court’s decision would largely determine how other claimants, as well as the US, respond.

In China, social media users reacted with outrage to the ruling.

“It was ours in the past, is now and will remain so in the future,” wrote one user on microblogging site Weibo. “Those who encroach on our China’s territory will die no matter how far away they are.”

Spreading fast on social media in the Philippines was the use of the term “Chexit” – the public’s desire for Chinese vessels to leave nearby waters.

Al Jazeera’s Jamela Alindogan, reporting from Northern Luzon, near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, said Filipino fishermen affected by the dispute have welcomed the decision, but are awaiting for Philippine President Duterte’s help in improving their livelihood.

{Israeli soldiers kill a Palestinian and wound another after “feeling in danger” at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem.}

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian and wounded another after an alleged car ramming attack in northern Jerusalem.

The incident took place early on Wednesday at a checkpoint in the district of al-Ram.

The Israeli army said in a statement that one of the border guards “felt in danger” when the driver of the car began to speed near the checkpoint, causing them to open fire.

A third Palestinian, who was also present in the vehicle, was arrested at the scene.

Their identities remain unknown.

{{Wave of violence}}

In the latest cycle of violence since October 2015, Israeli forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians, including unarmed demonstrators, bystanders and attackers.

Meanwhile, more than 30 Israelis have been killed in stabbings and car ramming attacks.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, nearly 17,000 people have been wounded in the violence, some 6,000 by live or rubber-coated steel bullets.

Palestinians are frustrated by Israel’s decades-long occupation and with peace talks going nowhere.

{Pyongyang’s decision is apparently in retaliation to US move to blacklist leader Kim Jong-un for human rights abuses.}

North Korea has announced that it will sever the only channel of communication it has with the US and hinted at harsher punishments for American detainees in the country, in retaliation to Washington’s decision to blacklist leader Kim Jong-un for human rights abuses.

On Monday, the North Korean state media said Pyongyang had told the US it would terminate contact through a UN channel in New York that allowed diplomats to communicate.

The two countries do not have diplomatic ties and their animosities have deepened because of the North’s nuclear and missile programmes.

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby did not directly address the fate of the New York channel.

In comments to reporters, Kirby called on North Korea “to refrain from actions and rhetoric that only further raise tensions in the region”, but said he would not comment on the details of diplomatic exchanges.

North Korea also said it informed Washington that it will handle all issues between the two countries, including Americans detainees, according to an unspecified “wartime law”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) said.

“As the United States will not accept our demand for the immediate withdrawal of the sanctions measure, we will be taking corresponding actions in steps,” KCNA said.

North Korea had already been sanctioned because of its nuclear weapons programme, but it was the first time that Kim has been personally sanctioned. The North called the sanctions tantamount to a declaration of war.

The move was the latest escalation of tension with the isolated country, which earlier on Monday threatened a “physical response” after the United States and South Korea said they would deploy the THAAD missile defence system in South Korea.

THAAD refers to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system that will be used to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

“As the United States will not accept our demand for the immediate withdrawal of the sanctions measure, we will be taking corresponding actions in steps,” KCNA said.

“The Republic will handle all matters arising between us and the United States from now on under our wartime laws, and the matters of Americans detained are no exception to this,” it added.

{{‘Technically at war’}}

South Korean media have suggested that North Korea might use the wartime law to hand out harsher punishments on Americans detained in the North.

The North’s actions could complicate US efforts to secure the release of at least two American citizens being held for alleged espionage, subversion and other anti-state activities. One is serving a 10-year prison term with hard labour while the other received 15 years.

North Korea and the US remain technically at war because of the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Washington sided with the South.

The UN channel has been an intermittent point of contact between the North and the US to exchange messages and, less frequently, to hold discussions.

North Korea said last week it was planning its toughest response to what it deemed a “declaration of war” by the US after it sanctioned Kim.

On Saturday, the North test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, but it appeared to have failed after launch.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s closest ally, Beijing, has also condemned the decision to deploy the THAAD system.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday that THAAD exceeded the security needs of the Korean peninsula, and suggested there was a “conspiracy behind this move”.

The move to deploy the THAAD system also drew a swift and sharp protest from China.

The US is a close ally of South Korea, maintaining 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War.

{Government seizes plant after Kimberly-Clark halts operations because of the country’s worsening economy situation.}

Venezuela’s government says it is taking over and reactivating a factory belonging to US company Kimberly-Clark, after the consumer products giant announced last week it was suspending operations because of the country’s deteriorating economic situation.

Speaking on state television on Monday, Venezuelan Labour Minister Oswaldo Vera said President Nicolas Maduro had ordered the seizure of the plant at the request of its 1,200 workers.

He said the government would supply the raw materials the plant needed to operate.

Kimberly-Clark, which manufacturers a series of products, including facial tissue, toilet paper and diapers, announced on Saturday that it was halting production in Venezuela’s northern Aragua region because of a lack of hard currency and raw materials.

Bridgestone, General Mills, Procter & Gamble and other multinational corporations have also reduced operations in Venezuela amid a deepening economic crisis.

Kimberly-Clark y said on Monday that it had acted appropriately in suspending operations.

“If the Venezuelan government takes control of Kimberly-Clark facilities and operations, it will be responsible for the well-being of the workers and the physical assets, equipment and machinery in the facilities going forward,” the Texas-based company said in a statement.

Maduro accused Kimberly-Clark of participating in an international plot to damage Venezuela’s economy.

Venezuela has been mired in an economic crisis that has emptied shop shelves and created shortages of food, medicine and household supplies.

The recent slump in oil prices devastated the OPEC nation’s economic model, leading to growing anger among the roughly 30 million residents.

The Venezuelan opposition launched its efforts to remove the president, including a bid for a recall referendum, after winning control of the legislature in January.

But Maduro has challenged his rivals through the Supreme Court, which they accuse him of controlling.

{US defence secretary says soldiers will help the Iraqi army retake the country’s second largest city of Mosul from ISIL.}

The US will send an additional 560 troops to Iraq to help secure a newly retaken airbase as a staging hub for the long-awaited battle to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said during an unannounced visit to the country.

Most of the new troops will be devoted to the build-up of the Qayara airbase, about 64km south of Mosul, and include engineers, logistics personnel and other forces, Carter said on Monday. They will help Iraqi security forces planning to encircle and eventually retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

“These additional US forces will bring unique capabilities to the campaign and provide critical enabler support to Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight,” Carter said.

He revealed US President Barack Obama’s decision as he spoke to about 120 troops in a building at Baghdad’s airport. The increase brings the total US force in Iraq to 4,647, and comes just three months after Obama’s last troop addition.

Congressional Republicans have long called for a more robust US deployment in Iraq. Some have even argued the US should have never left in the first place.

But Al Jazeera’s State Department correspondent Rosiland Jordan said some members of Congress have warned that a sizeable deployment of US troops to Iraq would require new legal authorisation.

“Right now, [US forces] are only there on a ‘train and assist’ mission, and if they were to try and take a more active role in helping the Iraqi military try to launch the campaign for Mosul, there would certainly be some eyebrows raised and renewed calls for legalization for that particular activity,” she said.

Carter told reporters earlier in the day that US advisers were prepared to accompany Iraqi battalions if needed, as those units begin the siege of the key northern city, but it is not clear when exactly that will happen.

American officials said a team of US troops had visited the Qayara airbase for a brief site assessment on Sunday.

Iraqi forces retook the airbase from ISIL, also known as ISIS, on Saturday. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi hailed the success as a key step towards retaking Mosul, saying residents there should “get ready for the liberation of their areas”.

US officials said American advisers are already working at the brigade level with Iraqi special operations forces, but they have not yet accompanied them on operations.

The latest force increase came less than three months after Washington announced it would dispatch about 200 more soldiers to accompany Iraqi troops advancing towards Mosul.

In April, Obama gave the go-ahead for American troops to assist Iraqi forces at the brigade and battalion levels, putting US soldiers much closer to the battlefront – although still behind the frontlines.

The role of US troops had previously been limited to advising at headquarters and division levels, much further from any active frontlines.

Iraqi forces were already improving the base’s perimeter in case of a counterattack from the nearby town of Qayara, which is still controlled by ISIL, according to US officials in Baghdad.

ISIL has suffered a number of territorial losses in recent months, including the Syrian town of al-Shadadi, taken by US-backed Syrian forces in February, and the Iraqi recapture of Ramadi in December and Fallujah last month.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

The recapture of Mosul, ISIL’s de facto Iraqi capital from which its leader declared a modern-day caliphate in 2014, would be a major boost for Abadi and US plans to weaken the group, which has staged attacks in the West and inspired others.

Two years since ISIL seized wide swaths of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in a lightning offensive, the tide has begun to turn as an array of forces lined up against the armed group have made inroads into their once sprawling territory.

ISIL has increasingly resorted to ad hoc attacks, including a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left nearly 300 people dead – the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

{The UK will have a new leader by Wednesday evening, David Cameron says, backing his successor Theresa May.}

Theresa May will on Wednesday become the politician tasked with leading Britain into talks to leave the EU after her only rival in the race to succeed Prime Minister David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly.

May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the Conservative Party leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children.

“I am honoured and humbled to have been chosen by the Conservative Party to become its leader,” said May in London after she was formally confirmed as the winner of the Conservative leadership contest on Monday afternoon.

“During this campaign, my case has been based on three things. First, the need for strong, proven leadership to steer us through what will be difficult and uncertain economic and political times; the need to negotiate the best deal for Britain in leaving the EU; and to forge a new role for ourselves in the world.”

Cameron said he would resign as prime minister on Wednesday, paving the way for May to take over the job the same day.

He said he expected to chair his last cabinet meeting on Tuesday, and then take questions in parliament for around 30 minutes from 11:00 GMT on Wednesday.

“After that I expect to go to [Buckingham Palace] and offer my resignation,” he told reporters outside his office in Downing Street. “So we will have a new prime minister in that building behind me by Wednesday evening.”

Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from London, said May was the choice of many in the ruling party.

“Of the five people that contested the Conservative Party leadership, many people regarded Theresa May as perhaps the more establishment figure. She has been the home secretary, the interior minister, for the past six years and because of that she has had intimate knowledge of the workings of the government and has had to liaise very closely with her European counterparts on matters of security and immigration,” Brennan said.

Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from London, said May was the choice of many in the ruling party.

“Of the five people that contested the Conservative Party leadership, many people regarded Theresa May as perhaps the more establishment figure. She has been the home secretary, the interior minister, for the past six years and because of that she has had intimate knowledge of the workings of the government and has had to liaise very closely with her European counterparts on matters of security and immigration,” Brennan said.

“I am now putting the whole of the party on a general election footing.”

May, a 59-year-old clergyman’s daughter, will be Britain’s second female prime minister after Margaret Thatcher, who was in office from 1979 to 1990.

She has portrayed herself as the leader who can unite the country following a bitterly divisive campaign, and a tough negotiator who can stand up to Brussels in what promise to be tortuous talks over Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Leadsom’s withdrawal means all the top Brexit campaigners – Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Leadsom and outgoing UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage – have now stepped back from leadership roles.

“Brexiteers threw rocks through the window, now they’re all running away from the house,” author Salman Rushdie said on Twitter.

‘Howl of pain’

On the latest in a string of astonishing days at Westminster recently, Eagle also launched her bid to take over the leadership of the main opposition Labour Party from veteran socialist Corbyn.

Corbyn has widespread support among party members but has lost the confidence of at least three-quarters of his MPs, many of whom accuse him of lacklustre campaigning to stay in the EU.

Eagle, who is from Labour’s “soft” left and was the first female MP to enter a civil partnership with her female partner in 2008, said Britain faced “dangerous times”.

Of the referendum, she added: “This vote was a message for millions in our country who felt that no one had listened to them for a very long time.

“For many of them, it was a howl of pain.”

By contrast with the Conservative outcome, there is still major uncertainty about how the Labour leadership contest will work out.

Central to the race will be a decision by Labour’s governing National Executive Committee (NEC) about whether Corbyn automatically gets on to the ballot or needs to secure 51 lawmakers’ nominations, which he could struggle to do.

The NEC is due to meet on Tuesday.