Tag: InternationalNews

{Police recommend bringing criminal against wife of Israel’s PM on suspicion she misused state funds, Israeli media say.}

Israeli police recommended bringing criminal charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife on suspicion of misuse of state funds and inflated household spending, Israeli media have said.

Police said in a statement on Sunday that they had concluded an investigation and had presented their findings to prosecutors, who would decide what action to take.

The statement offered few details but unsourced reports in all of Israel’s main media outlets said police had recommended that charges be brought.

The suspicions relate to Sara Netanyahu’s alleged misuse of state funds to pay a caregiver for her ailing father before his death; the hiring of an electrician who did not meet the requirements of a government tender; and for opulent meals.

The prime minister denied the allegations in a Facebook post. “In the police statement there was no recommendation to bring Mrs. Netanyahu to trial. In contrast to reports, Mrs. Netanyahu did not commit any crime.”

The investigation was prompted by a government auditor’s findings and by information provided by a former chief custodian at the official residence. In February, he won damages for emotional distress after a labour court found that Mrs Netanyahu had repeatedly scolded him and other household staff.

Israeli minister resigns after row with Netanyahu
In a separate report by the state auditor on Tuesday, the prime minister was criticised over free air tickets that he and his family received for travel abroad when he was finance minister more than a decade ago.

No criminal charges have been brought in that investigation. Netanyahu’s lawyers said he had broken no laws in having travel and expenses covered by organisations that invited him to speak at events raising funds for Israel, or by private individuals associated with those groups.

{{Opulent lifestyle}}

The Netanyahus have long faced scrutiny over their spending and accusations that their lifestyles are out of touch with regular Israelis.

The Israeli first lady has come under fire for her expensive tastes and alleged abusive behaviour toward staff.

The Netanyahus say they are the victims of a media witch-hunt and have denied any wrongdoing.

The prime minister says political opponents cynically target his wife as a way to get even with him.

{Woman missing after crocodile attack during night swim in waist-deep water in Queensland state’s Daintree National Park.}

A woman struggled in vain to drag her friend from a crocodile’s jaws off a northeast Australian beach, police said.

The pair were in shallow water at Thornton Beach in the World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park in Queensland state when the 46-year-old woman was taken by the crocodile late on Sunday, police senior constable Russell Parker said.

“Her 47-year-old friend tried to grab her and drag her to safety but she just wasn’t able to do that,” Parker told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Police said the women were swimming in waist-deep water, while paramedics reported they were wading in knee-deep water when the crocodile struck.

A rescue helicopter fitted with thermal imaging equipment failed to find any trace of the missing woman on Sunday night, Parker said, with the search resuming on Monday with a helicopter, boat and land-based search teams.

The missing woman is from Lithgow in New South Wales state.

The survivor from Cairns, 93 kilometres south of Thornton Beach, was taken to a hospital in Mossman suffering from shock and a graze to her arm inflicted as the crocodile brushed against her, Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman Neil Noble said.

“The report that we have from the surviving woman is that they felt a nudge and her partner started to scream and then was dragged into the water,” Noble told ABC.

Crocodile warning signs

The two women might not have been aware that the area was well known as a crocodile habitat, Parker said.

But Warren Enstch, who represents the area in the Australian Parliament, said the beach was beside a creek where tourism operators run crocodile-spotting tours.

Enstch said the two tourists had to have seen plentiful crocodile warning signs in the region.

“You can’t legislate against human stupidity,” Entsch said. “If you go in swimming at 10 o’clock at night, you’re going to get consumed.”

The attack occurred near where a 5-year-old boy was taken and killed by a 4.3-metre crocodile from a swamp in 2009 and a 43-year-old woman was killed by a 5-metre croc while swimming in a creek in 1985.

Darwin-based crocodile expert Grahame Webb said while most crocodiles were found in rivers, swamps and other protected waterways, open beaches in northern Australia were not safe.

“There have been quite a lot of attacks off beaches and off coral reefs where people are snorkelling,” Webb said.

The number of crocodiles has boomed across Australia’s northern tropics since they became a protected species under federal law in 1971. They pose an increasing threat to humans.

{Chief peace negotiator of main opposition bloc Mohammad Alloush resigns over failure of peace talks to end Syria war.}

The chief peace negotiator of Syria’s main opposition bloc said on Sunday he was resigning over the failure of the UN-backed Geneva peace talks to bring a political settlement to the Syria crisis.

Mohammad Alloush, who is also the representative of the powerful Jaish al-Islam rebel faction in the Saudi-based High Negotiations Committee, told Al Jazeera that the peace talks failed to secure the release of thousands of prisoners languishing in regime custody.

“The peace talks failed to stop the bloodshed of our people, failed to secure the release of thousands of detainees or to push Syria towards a political transition without [Bashar] al-Assad and his criminal gang,” he said.

“The Internbational Community need to put serious pressure on Russia and Assad to stop the killing of our people.”

The UN-backed parties have not set a date for the resumption of the peace talks after the High Negotiations Committee suspended their participation over intensifying of regime air strikes in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels have taken two villages from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as they fought to undo gains made by the group in a surprise offensive days earlier, activists have said.

Rebels retook the villages of Kafr Shoush and Braghida on Sunday, expanding their buffer around the rebel-held town of Azaz, home to tens of thousands of people displaced by war, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network inside the country.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, took Syrian rebels by surprise on Sunday when they launched an offensive that threatened to seize Azaz and isolate Marea, another rebel-held town north of the contested city of Aleppo.

More than 160,000 civilians have been trapped by the fighting. The international medical organisation, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), evacuated one of the few remaining hospitals in the area.

The rebel pocket around Azaz, which connects to the Turkish border, is surrounded by ISIL to one side and the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to the other.

The ISIL advance prompted a rare deal between the SDF and rebels on Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group.

It said that the rebels surrendered control of a village near Marea to an SDF division in exchange for allowing 6,000 civilians to evacuate to areas under Kurdish control.

Elsewhere in Aleppo, government air strikes targeted the neighbourhood of Sakhour on Saturday and killed at least six people, including five children, the Observatory said.

Fighting continued between government forces, rebels and ISIL in other parts of the country on Sunday.

Government forces shelled an opposition neighbourhood of Homs, Syria’s third largest city, the observatory said on Sunday.

The strikes on the al-Waer neighbourhood killed at least seven people and injured 17, including four children, according to the Observatory.

Al-Waer has been under government siege since 2013, according to the monitoring group Siege Watch. The UN says nearly half a million people are trapped in sieges in the Syria war.

{Special forces enter “third phase” in fight to liberate the central city from ISIL, as 50,000 people remain trapped.}

Iraqi special forces launched an assault one of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group’s most emblematic bastions, Fallujah, as the group counter-attacked in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Quoting commanders, agencies confirmed the assault was launched in the early hours of Monday morning. Troops entered the city from three directions.

Explosions and gunfire could be heard in Fallujah’s southern Naimiya district, Reuters reported.

Fighting on Monday followed battles a day earlier that prompted a new exodus of thousands of desperate civilians from the surrounding areas and deep concern for the many more trapped in the battlegrounds.

The overall commander of the Fallujah operation, Abdelwahab al-Saadi, had earlier warned that the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) would enter the city.

The week-old operation has so far focused on retaking villages and rural areas around Fallujah, which lies just 50 kilometres west of Baghdad.

CTS’s involvement will mark the start of a phase of urban combat in a city where US forces in 2004 fought some of their toughest battles since the Vietnam War.

In Iraq, only a few hundred families managed to slip out of the Fallujah area, with an estimated 50,000 people still trapped inside the city proper.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), around 3,000 people have managed to escape the Fallujah area since May 21.

The biggest wave so far arrived on Saturday night, NRC said, but a larger influx could be triggered when the urban battle between CTS and IS begins in earnest.

“Our resources in the camps are now very strained and with many more expected to flee we might not be able to provide enough drinking water for everyone,” said Nasr Muflahi, NRC’s Iraq director.

“We expect bigger waves of displacement the fiercer the fighting gets.”

The Fallujah operation has come at a human cost, rights groups said, amid battles between ISIL (also known as ISIS) fighters and the advancing Iraqi army and allied Shia militia.

Al Jazeera’s Omar al-Saleh, reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, described the situation in the city as dire.

“There is a lack of medicine and food. They are caught between the fighting between ISIL and Iraqi forces,” he said.

Peshmerga offensive

The ISIL fighters were also under pressure from Kurdish fighters east of their northern Iraqi stronghold Mosul and from US-backed Kurdish-led fighters in Syria.

Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region on Sunday announced the launch of a pre-dawn offensive involving 5,500 Peshmerga fighters to retake an area on the road between its capital Arbil and Mosul.

“This is one of the many shaping operations expected to increase pressure on ISIL in and around Mosul in preparation for an eventual assault on the city,” the Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a statement.

Ten hours into the operation, which was launched a day after a wave of 12 coalition air strikes in the area, Kurdish forces had fully retaken three villages, it said.

In Syria, Kurdish rebels from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) allied to Arab fighters and backed both on the ground and in the air by the US-led coalition, were targeting Raqqa, ISIL’s de-facto Syrian capital.

ISIL countered in both countries where they declared their “caliphate” in 2014, attacking rebels in Syria as well as the Iraqi town of Heet, which the army recaptured just last month.

“An attack by Daesh (ISIL) terrorists on several parts of Heet was thwarted… Now the whole area is under control,” the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

{{Suicide attack}}

It said coalition aircraft targeted ISIL forces during the attack and added that pockets of ISIL fighters remained.

“Daesh attacked Heet to ease the pressure on their fighters inside Fallujah, especially following the announcement that CTS had arrived,” the statement said.

Northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, police said a suicide bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 22 when he blew himself up in a cafe in Moqdadiyah, in an attack claimed by ISIL.

In northern Syria, ISIL has launched an offensive against the towns of Marea and Azaz that threatens to overrun the last swathe of territory in the east of Aleppo province held by rebels.

It would also bring ISIL to the doorstep of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

Iraqi forces surround Fallujah as they push to drive out ISIL
As the fighting raged on multiple fronts, civilians were once again bearing the brunt of the conflict.

At least 29 civilians have been killed since ISIL began the assault in Aleppo province early on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

More than 6,000 civilians fled into the countryside, it said.

Northwest of Azaz, a senior nurse said late Saturday that a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was closed except for emergencies.

MSF said on Friday it was evacuating patients and staff from the hospital in Salamah town as it was just three kilometres from the front line.

{Police arrest seven as violence breaks out between anti-Islam and anti-fascist groups in Melbourne.}

Police in Australia have used pepper spray to separate more than 300 angry protesters as anti-Islam and anti-racism groups clashed in the streets of Melbourne, the country’s second biggest city.

Seven men were arrested in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne on Saturday after anti-Islam protesters, some of whom were draped in the Australian flag, began fighting with their rivals.

TV Footage showed protesters using Australian flags to beat other demonstrators, before police moved in and used capsicum spray to stop the violence.

In one incident, a member of the United Patriots Front (UPF), which organised Saturday’s anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rally, fell to the ground was kicked several times by two anti-racism activists.

When asked about the opposing groups, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the multicultural nature of Australian society was “one of our great achievements”.

“We are united, we have so much in common, and we are stronger and more prosperous as a nation because of that diversity,” he told reporters.

Attacks against Australia’s Muslim community have increased in recent years partly due to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

In November, a survey by the Western Sydney University found that Muslims in Australia experience racism three times the national average.

{As the Taliban threatens to retaliate its leader’s death, Afghan civilians continue to pay the highest price.}

Basira Mohammadi has no answer to give to her two daughters – Sitaeesh, 3, and Sana, 1 – when they call for their father.

Her husband, Mohammed Ali Mohammadi, has not been home since January when he was killed in a Taliban suicide bombing.

“I am sick of them asking about Ali all the time. I cannot explain to them that he is dead and will never return,” Basira, who now lives with her mother along with her two children, told Al Jazeera.

Ali Mohammadi, a Dari dubbing artist at Kaboora, a production company affiliated to Afghanistan’s first 24-hour broadcaster TOLO News, was killed when a Taliban suicide car bomber detonated explosives near their bus in Kabul.

Six other colleagues were killed in the attack.

“My husband used to call me everyday after work, asking if I needed something from a shop. But that night, my phone didn’t ring,” Basira said.

“My father-in-law told me the next morning that Ali had passed away.”

In September 2015, the Taliban, under now-late leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, staged an escalating offensive against Afghan government forces, gaining territory across the country.

According to the Pentagon, the Taliban initiated about 800 to 1,000 attacks per month in the second half of 2015.

In late 2015, the armed group also openly threatened to target TOLO News after it had reported allegations of summary executions, rape, kidnappings and other abuses by Taliban fighters during the battle for Kunduz in October.

The Taliban said at the time that the reports were inaccurate.

Two months after the January attack, in a statement emailed to Al Jazeera, the Taliban said that it was responsible for targeting the bus carrying Ali Mohammadi.

The father of two was the sole breadwinner of his family. Following Mohammadi’s death, TOLO News promised to pay his family $300 per month for one year as bereavement support.

“When I heard about Mullah Mansoor’s death, I wasn’t happy, nor sad. I’ve lost my husband, there is no point in hating him as my husband will never come back with this,” Basira said.

Mullah Mansoor was killed last week in a US strike in Pakistan, a year after his appointment as leader of the group.

Confirming the death of Mansoor, the Taliban also announced that Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada would be its new leader.

“It does not matter who the next Taliban leader is; innocent people are getting killed in this country everyday. Nothing will change with the new leader, they will keep fighting,” Basira said.

“But I want to tell them [the Taliban]: please don’t kill civilians, just don’t kill them.”

Haji Hashmatullah says he misses his son, Saifullah, “every day” [Fatima Faizi/Al Jazeera]
Last month, a huge car bomb attack in Kabul near the Afghan defense ministry and presidential palace killed at least 60 people.

Among them was Saifullah, a driver at the ministry, who left behind a father, a wife and five children. The youngest one, Narwand, is two years old.

“We cannot bear this loss,” Safiullah’s father Haji Hashmatullah told Al Jazeera.

“It is hard for us to live without him [Safiullah]. I am an old man and cannot imagine what will happen to them [his wife and children] when I die.”

Saifullah was the sole breadwinner of his family too. His father now works as a farmer to earn a living.

“My son was innocent and he got killed in a suicide attack. What was his fault?

“I blame the Afghan government and the Taliban as both of them are fighting against each other in a bid to win without thinking of all the innocent people getting killed.”

According to a February UN report, last year’s hostilities in Afghanistan left more than 3,500 civilians dead, including a record number of children – one in four casualties during 2015 was a child, making this the highest number of civilian deaths recorded.

“This report records yet another rise in the number of civilians hurt or killed. The harm done to civilians is totally unacceptable,” Nicholas Haysom, the secretary-general’s special Representative for Afghanistan said in a statement at the time.

The UN figures also showed a four percent rise in total civilian casualties during 2015, compared to the year before.

“We call on those inflicting this pain on the people of Afghanistan to take concrete action to protect civilians and put a stop to the killing and maiming of civilians in 2016.”

Yet, the prospect of peace seems distant.

“There are no chances at the moment for peace talks and I don’t think there will be in the near future,” a Taliban source told Al Jazeera.

“Mullah Mansoor got killed by US drone strikes, so instead of talking about peace, they are planning Mullah Mansoor’s revenge,” the source said.

Amidst the escalating conflict, Basira said her only worry was the future of her children.

“We don’t know where will this war take our country. The government has failed and the Taliban are not giving up. Where do we go?”

{Our country boasts of a 35km six-lane superhighway whereas in the southeast Asian nation, 10-lane roads are a norm, not an exception.}

Visiting South Korea for a Kenyan can be inspiring and depressing.

Inspiring because this nation is an example of what is possible with the right leadership, discipline and policies. Depressing because it is a reminder of our unattained potential.

At independence in 1963, the economies of the two countries were at par.

In fact, a story is told of how Jomo Kenyatta offered Sh10,000 to South Korea. And that is where the comparison ends.

While Kenya is still described as a developing nation, South Korea is a powerhouse with brands like Daewoo, KIA, Samsung and LG.

“After overcoming two wars and occupation, South Korea succeeded in industrialisation, democratisation and ‘informatisation’ with support of allies. It has become a leading country in development aid. It would not be an exaggeration to say south Korea is a proud asset to humanity,” said Hong Duckryul, the Daegu University President .

South Korea is the world’s 15th largest economy with per capita income of $33,629 compared to Kenya’s $1,300.

And while Kenya boasts of a 35-kilometre six-lane Thika Superhighway, 10 lanes of roads with multi-storey interchanges covering thousands of kilometres are the norm in South Korea.

Metropolises like Seoul, Buson, Daegu and Chungbuk are connected through a web of highways, airports and speed rail.

In a country that is 70 per cent mountainous, continuous traffic flow is attained through tunnelling.

More than 80 per cent of the 50 million citizens live in apartments, some as high as 90 storeys.

These are properly planned and well-maintained blocks with shopping centres, schools, roads and other amenities.

South Koreans will apologise for traffic jams causing delays of 15 minutes in peak time.

Manufacturing in Kenya suffers as the country has become a supermarket for imports.

In Korea, police and other public officials, including ministers, drive local models like Daewoo and KIA.

Locally made TVs, home theatres and lifts are found in hotels and other buildings. That way, South Koreans ensure their factories thrive.

While Kenya’s envisioned tech city — Konza — remains a patchwork of contested savannah, South Korea has created 80 innovation centres.

Dreamers are encouraged to innovate in order to drive tomorrow’s industrial revolution.

Anyone who proves he is working on something that will revolutionise, improve or generate products for the industry is given free office space and printers for six months.

When an idea shows promise of making it to the production stage, the innovator is linked up with financiers and industrialists.

Out of this, newer versions of the Samsung cell phone, TVs and other products are in the offing.

Koreans are already thinking about the Green economy where solar, wind and other renewable resources will play the biggest role in industry.

Everywhere one goes, there is no shortage of governors, mayors and national government officials eager to entertain and show visitors how great their country is.

They have converted traditional Korean homes into multi-million businesses attracting tourists. Some of the most sought after real estate is in villages.

And there is a condition. They must be maintained in their current form.

In the rush to modernise and turn everything into retirement flats, Kenyans are losing their inheritance.

Soon, it may not be possible to describe a Maasai manyatta, Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu or Kalenjin hut or even their cuisine.

{Authorities have promised to bring the men to justice.}

Brazilian police are investigating the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl whose attackers boasted about in an online video that has horrified the world.

Online social networks erupted with outrage over the video posted on Wednesday featuring the girl naked on a bed and the apparent rapists bragging that she had been raped by more than 30 men.

They are suspected of assaulting her in Rio de Janeiro, a city stricken by crime and which will host the Olympic Games in August.

The authorities have promised to bring the men to justice.

“Those who committed this crime will be found, condemned and imprisoned,” Justice Minister Alexandre de Morais told a news conference.

Police have identified four of the men suspected of taking a part in the rape or the posting of the video, Rio police chief Fernando Veloso said.

“We cannot say if there were 30 attackers, 33 or 36. The investigations will determine that,” he said.

Brazil’s acting president Michel Temer and other senior figures reacted with outrage.

“I condemn most forcefully the rape of the teenager,” he wrote on Twitter. “It is absurd that in the 21st century, we should have to live with barbaric crimes such as this.”

He added that authorities were working to find those responsible and punish them.

{Iraq and Syrian regimes say they will not stop until regions under the Islamists are retaken.}

International concern mounted for civilians caught up in fighting in Syria and Iraq as US-backed forces pressed simultaneous offensives against the Islamic State jihadist group.

Around 165,000 displaced Syrians were trapped between the closed Turkish border and the northern town of Azaz, the UN said, after IS launched a lightning advance in Aleppo province.

Further east, a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by the US-led coalition pressed an offensive against the jihadists north of their de facto Syrian capital of Raqa.

The city is home to an estimated 300,000 people who are increasingly desperate, according to activists.

In neighbouring Iraq, an estimated 50,000 civilians remain trapped in Fallujah after the military launched an offensive to retake the city from IS.

Iraq Prime Minister Haider al Abadi has vowed to recapture the city.

The UN refugee agency said it was deeply concerned about the plight of around 165,000 displaced people massing near the Syrian town of Azaz.

“People have started to flee due to heavy fighting in northern Aleppo. Civilians are being caught in cross-fire and are facing challenges to access medical services, food, water and safety,” it said.

More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Peace talks aimed at ending the conflict stalled last month over the opposition’s frustration at escalating violence and lack of humanitarian access.

A leading opposition group, the National Coalition, on Saturday called on the international community to ensure the urgent and immediate protection of civilians in areas under attack by IS and the regime.

In northern Aleppo, heavy fighting between IS and rebels gripped the outskirts of the opposition-held town of Marea, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an activist said, besieging around 15,000 residents.

IS swept through rebel-held territory in Aleppo on Friday in a shock offensive, cutting off the road between Marea and Azaz.