Tag: InternationalNews

{Article on Chinese state media says Taiwan’s female president has an “extremist” style because she is unmarried.}

Taiwan’s new president is “extreme” in her politics because she is an unmarried woman lacking the emotional balance provided by romantic and family life, a member of China’s body for relations with the self-governing island has written in a newspaper opinion piece.

In Beijing’s harshest attack on Tsai Ing-wen since her inauguration last week, the new president was denounced as a flawed human being and strident advocate of Taiwan’s formal independence from China, something Beijing says it will use military force to prevent.

Tsai, Taiwan’s first female president, has been criticised by Beijing for refusing to explicitly endorse the “one-China principle” that defines Taiwan as part of China. But previous criticisms were not in such personal terms.

“As a single female politician, she lacks the emotional encumbrance of love, the constraints of family or the worries of children,” said the piece, written by Wang Weixing, an analyst with China’s People’s Liberation Army and board member of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, the semiofficial body in charge of contacts with Taiwan.

“Her style and strategy in pursuing politics constantly skew toward the emotional, personal and extreme,”
Wang wrote, adding that Tsai was prone to focus excessively on details and short-term goals rather than overall strategic considerations.

The piece appeared on Tuesday on the website of the International Herald Leader, which is published by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The article has since been removed from Xinhua’s website, but can still be found on other news portals and micro-blogging accounts.

Analysts said Beijing’s “sexist” attack on Tsai is unlikely to change Taiwanese voters’ opinion on their new president.

“During the election many [Taiwanese] people I spoke to said it didn’t matter that she was unmarried or didn’t have children,” said Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing.

“All that mattered was whether she could do her job as president.”

{At least five die as Italian navy “rescues 562 people”, taking the total transferred to the country this year to 40,000.}

Images released by the Italian navy have captured the moment a heavily overcrowded boat overturned in a shipwreck off Libya which left at least five people dead.

The blue fishing vessel, its deck heaving with people, tipped over on Wednesday after the refugees and migrants rushed to one side on spotting a rescue ship.

Those on the boat, many of them men, some already wearing orange life jackets as a precaution, were captured in rare photographs as they clung to the boat’s rails or each other, or dropped into the sea.

Some are seen hanging on to the starboard edge by their fingertips as the trawler rolls, while others try to balance on the rim.

Pictures taken seconds later show the waters around the boat filled with people trying to get away from the vessel which, now overturned, begins to sink, with four people still perched on its upturned hull.

The navy said its Bettica patrol boat had spotted “a boat in precarious conditions off the coast of Libya with numerous migrants aboard” but the trawler overturned shortly afterwards “due to overcrowding”.

The Bettica threw life-rafts and jackets to those in the water, while another navy ship in the area sent a helicopter and rescue boats.

{{Sounding the alarm}}

Survivors can be seen in the photographs wearing life-rings, some swimming towards the Bettica as the helicopter whirrs overhead.

The navy said 562 people had been pulled to safety.

The operation wound up late on Wednesday without finding any further survivors or victims.

Those on board had sounded the alarm by calling for help using a satellite phone some 18 nautical miles off Libya.

The Bettica went on to save another 108 refugees and migrants from their dilapidated vessel in a second rescue operation on Wednesday.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 1,370 people have lost their lives so far this year trying to make the crossing to Europe.

The latest arrivals bring the number of people rescued and transferred to Italy since the start of the year to nearly 40,000 following the rescue of more than 6,000 since Monday, according to figures collated by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and the coastguard.

The overwhelming majority of those arriving in Italy so far this year have been from sub-Saharan Africa.

Italian media reports warned the number of minors arriving was on the rise.

A nine-month-old baby girl whose mother died during a crossing this week was being looked after by cultural mediators in the reception centre on Lampedusa island, La Repubblica said.

The UNHCR, aid organisations and the Italian government say there is no sign yet of Middle Eastern refugees switching to the Libyan route to Europe following moves to restrict access from Turkey via the Greek islands.

{Human rights group B’Tselem says it will no longer file complaints with a system that habitually fails Palestinians.}

Citing a raft of deep systemic failures, human rights group B’Tselem has announced that it will no longer cooperate with Israel’s military law enforcement system.

For the past 25 years, B’Tselem, which documents Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, has served as a “subcontractor” for the system by submitting complaints about soldiers’ alleged misconduct, gathering relevant documents and evidence, and requesting updates for affected Palestinian families.

While the goal was to help to bring justice to Palestinian victims and deter future misconduct, the reality has been the opposite, B’Tselem said in a scathing report released on Wednesday.

“B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement system has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” the report noted. “B’Tselem will no longer play a part in the pretence posed by the military law enforcement system and will no longer refer complaints to it … The fight for human rights will be better served by denouncing this system and exposing it for what it is.”

The report details a number of cases in which Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israeli soldiers under questionable circumstances, but after a series of apparent investigative failures, no one was held accountable.

In one example, Wadi Samarah, 15, was fatally shot in the back of the neck by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin in September 2007. Samarah, who was targeted as he ran from a group of youths who had been throwing stones at military vehicles, was given no prior warning before the rubber-coated steel bullet was fired towards his head, according to witness accounts. However, the case was closed for “lack of sufficient evidence” in early 2014, more than six years after Samarah’s death.

This case is by no means unique. Since the start of the second Intifada in 2000, B’Tselem has requested investigations into 739 cases in which soldiers killed or injured Palestinians, used them as human shields, or damaged their property. In 25 percent of these cases, no investigation was ever launched. In nearly half, or 343 cases, an investigation was launched but subsequently closed with no action taken. More than 100 cases are still under processing, but in all of those that have gone through the system, charges were laid in just 25, with another 13 referred for disciplinary action.

These outcomes are the result of incompetent investigations that fail to get at the truth, with few efforts made to collect external evidence or challenge soldiers’ statements, B’Tselem said.

“The military law enforcement system is plagued by a host of issues in the basic way it is run: The system is inaccessible to Palestinian complainants, who cannot file complaints with the MPIU [Military Police Investigations Unit] directly and must rely on human rights organisations or attorneys to file the complaints on their behalf,” the report found. “The processing of each complaint lasts months, and even years, so that often enough soldiers who are the subject of the complaint are no longer under military jurisdiction.”

Obtaining updates about cases in the system is also fraught with difficulties, as the Military Advocate General Corps operates under a blanket of secrecy, B’Tselem said: “Any attempt to obtain information from them requires repeated communications and in many cases, the information that is ultimately provided is incomplete.”

Asked about B’Tselem’s announcement, an Israeli army spokesperson maintained that the military justice system is “an independent and professional entity”, noting any complaints submitted via this system are probed and, when warranted, an investigation is launched.

“For years the [Israeli army] has been receiving information regarding events which stray from the path of what is expected by [army] personnel … All information received is examined thoroughly,” the spokesperson said, noting the Israeli army would continue to “act as required to enforce the law and maintain the norms” among soldiers.

The criticisms cited by B’Tselem, however, have been echoed by other organisations, including the Adalah legal centre, which advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.

“Our experience engaging with Israel’s investigatory mechanisms for many years shows that these mechanisms do not comply with the international standards of independence, impartiality, effectiveness, promptness and transparency,” Adalah lawyer Nadeem Shehadeh told Al Jazeera. “As such, the inherently flawed structures of Israel’s mechanisms make it nearly impossible to obtain criminal investigations, prosecutions, and punishment of perpetrators of serious violations of international law.”

Among the key criticisms of Israel’s military law enforcement system is its failure to probe the legality or rationale of the directives underlying soldiers’ actions, with investigations focusing narrowly on the conduct of implicated soldiers.

In 2014, after Israeli soldiers fatally shot 14-year-old Yusef al-Shawamreh for breaking through Israel’s separation fence to access his family’s farmland, the case was swiftly closed with no charges laid. B’Tselem pointed to numerous deficiencies in the investigative process, including a failure to examine the “appalling logic” of the military’s apparent plan to lie in ambush for Palestinians breaking through the barrier and to deliberately harm them as a deterrent to others.

On average, in a sample of cases between 2000 and 2011, B’Tselem found that it took four years from the time of the incident to the conclusion of processing the case. In the event that charges are ultimately laid, “this will happen long after the incident, when the witnesses’ memory of events has grown dimmer and the evidence has disappeared”, impeding the possibility of a fair trial.

The semblance of a functioning justice system allows Israeli officials to deny claims that Israel does not enforce the law on soldiers who harm Palestinians, B’Tselem said, noting it would no longer prop up a system “whose real function is measured by its ability to continue to successfully cover up unlawful acts and protect perpetrators”.

B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli told Al Jazeera that while Palestinians would still have other options for mediating their cases, this action would help to draw public attention to the system’s severe flaws.

“Palestinians will still be able to approach other organisations, or private lawyers, but we will advise people who ask us to do this that we consider it counterproductive,” Michaeli said.

{Victims in Aranayake still in shock a week after massive mudslides killed more than 100 people with another 100 missing.}

Aranayake, Sri Lanka – In Siripura, one of three Sri Lankan villages completely buried by a massive landslide a week ago, a grieving Priyanthi Sudeepani, 42, continues to hold on to hope for her son’s return.

Yet, most here are aware that no survivors will be found after mudslides ploughed into their villages, killing 101 people and leaving 107 others missing on May 18. Nearly 290,000 Sri Lankans have been affected by floods and landslides since last week.

“A plane crashed into the mountain, so I thought, and then a ball of fire came tumbling down taking away my entire family,” a sobbing Sudeepani told Al Jazeera from a relief camp, kilometres away from what was once her village.

Inclement weather that triggered the mammoth landslides in three hamlets in central Sri Lanka affected more than 10,500 people. Rendered homeless, they have taken temporary refuge in dozens of relief camps.

For villagers such as Sudeepani, the shock of losing homes and all prized possessions in a split second is overshadowed by the reality that their loved ones too are buried beneath.

“I am waiting with hope, please help me to find them,” said Sudeepani, hands clasped in a pleading gesture.

But a rescue official said there is no chance of that happening.

“There is no question of survivors here. It is now assumed all those missing are dead,” said the head of relief operations, Major-General Sudantha Ranasinghe.

More than 200 military personnel have been deployed to the disaster zone to work with volunteers.

The Aranayake landslides are the worst disaster in Sri Lanka since the 2004 tsunami killed more than 30,000 people.

{{State of shock}}

Many survivors are still in shock. Inside temporary shelters, the slightest noise makes some rush to a corner where they huddle with hands covering their terror-struck faces, fearing another rolling hill is ready to bury more people.

Some still speak incoherently, unable to explain their anguish. Those who have taken temporary shelter at relief centres have also been receiving counselling.

“There is the fear of the unknown – and the known. They fear a future uncertain and the return to villages that no longer exist,” said Mahieash Johnney from the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society.

Kusumseeli Geekiyanage, 57, accused authorities of not issuing warnings of any impending disaster, despite days of heavy rain. She said no evacuation orders were given.

“There is not a trace of our village any more. No trace of our homes, our people,” she said, crying. “There is no Siripura. It’s completely gone.”

Refusing to leave

Nearby, many villagers have refused to take up temporary shelter at relief centres, preferring to stay despite the risk to their personal safety.

“Some survivors wanted to stay on in the hazardous zone. Evacuation to safer locations was made difficult by their resistance. They feared their properties and possessions would be lost, but look what has happened? Nature’s fury has not spared them of anything,” said Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera, Sri Lanka’s military spokesman.

In 2002, Sri Lanka’s National Building and Research Organisation declared Aranayake a “highly hazardous area” not suitable for human habitation, made more dangerous by bad land-clearing practices.

At Sri Seelananda Maha Vidyalaya in Bulathkohupitiya, the worst-hit village, Keerthiratne Guruge, 48, said villagers are angry with authorities because of the lack of warning.

“Nobody knew – and see what happened,” said Guruge, gesturing towards the displaced families inside a relief centre.

“They [the authorities] claim some public announcements were made, but there isn’t anyone who heard one. Do authorities wait till entire villages are buried? You can never give our homes back, our village back,” he said, fighting back tears.

{{Slow recovery}}

As the rescue workers continue to trudge their way through muddy terrain searching for bodies, the task was made difficult by slippery slopes and the inability to transport heavy equipment.

“In some areas, there are compost pits and agricultural wells, which are veritable deathtraps as they are now covered by layers of mud,” explained Major-General Ranasinghe.

Another landslide hit Matala Kanda in the Aranayake area on Saturday with no casualties reported. Yet, it triggered a new wave of panic among survivors.
The next phase in their ordeal is return and resettlement, having to go back to destroyed homes and mourn the dead.

{US-backed coalition of armed groups aims to oust ISIL from its de facto capital of Raqqa.}

Kurdish-led forces have massed thousands of fighters as part of a military offensive to take over Raqqa, the northern Syrian city controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group for more than two and a half years.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed coalition of armed groups led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), said it has mobilised thousands of fighters in the countryside north of Raqqa.

Fighting was reportedly ongoing on Tuesday near Ain Issa, situated 55km from the ISIL-controlled city.

SDF released a statement declaring its goal of “liberating” Raqqa from ISIL, which has ruled the town with an iron fist, committing atrocities against the civilian population.

The US-led coalition against ISIL was supporting the offensive, spokesman Steve Warren said.

“We have always been focused on evicting ISIS from Raqqa and we will continue to support the SDF as they conduct ground operations to further isolate the city,” the colonel said.

“The US-led coalition will continue to provide air support for SDF operations against ISIS.”

The coalition, as well as Syrian government forces and their ally, Russia, have launched air strikes on Raqqa since it was captured by ISIL during its advance through Syria and Iraq in 2014.

Joshua Walker of the German Marshall Fund said the timing of the Kurdish-led ground offensive was very important.

“It seems clear to me that this is a case in which the US is trying to communicate very symbolically and very clearly that ISIS is on its back foot,” he told Al Jazeera..

“Raqqa could be the beginning of the end for the group…From a symbolic point of view I think this is the most important offensive we have seen since Kobane last year.”

The offensive comes as Iraqi forces are trying to oust ISIL from Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

However, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep in Turkey, said the SDF’s mission to take Raqqa will be difficult considering ISIL’s fighting force.

She explained that the presence of Arab fighters in the SDF’s ranks is crucial to the success of the offensive because the areas they will attempt to take over have large Arab populations.

“It is crucial to have enough Arab fighters in this force when [they] take these areas where a lot of Arab, non-Kurds live,” she said.

“Because there is a lot of suspicion of the Kurds, it’s incredibly difficult; which is why it’s taken so long to start this.”

Writing on Twitter, Syria analyst Charles Lister said ISIL may launch retaliatory attacks in Kurdish-held areas.

Russia on Tuesday reiterated that it was ready to coordinate with US and Kurdish forces in the battle for Raqqa.

“Raqqa is one of the aims of the anti-terrorist coalition, just like Iraq’s Mosul,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “We are confident that these cities could have been liberated more effectively and faster if our military officials would have started coordinating their actions much earlier.”

On Monday, ISIL suicide bombers struck in several areas of Tartus and Jableh, government-held cities on Syria’s coastline, killing at least 150 civilians.

Syria’s conflict started with mostly unarmed demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011. It has since evolved into a full-on civil war that has killed at least 270,000 people, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, estimated last month that the actual death toll could be as high as 400,000 people.

{Armed group names Haibatullah Akhunzada as Mullah Mansoor’s successor plus two new deputy leaders.}

An Afghan Taliban spokesman has confirmed the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the armed group’s leader, in a US drone strike and announced the appointment of Haibatullah Akhunzada as his successor.

Agencies on Wednesday quoted the Taliban spokesman as saying that Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Yaqub have been appointed as new deputy leaders.

The announcement followed confirmation on Monday by President Barack Obama that Mansoor was killed in a US strike in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s chief executive, said on Twitter on Sunday that Mansoor was dead. Afghanistan’s spy agency also said he had been killed.

Mansoor was chosen to head the Afghan Taliban last summer after it was announced that the group’s longtime leader Mullah Omar had died two years earlier.

The Taliban is the most powerful anti-government group in Afghanistan, where an estimated 11,000 civilians were killed or wounded and 5,500 government troops and police officers died last year alone.

It seized power in 1996 and ruled Afghanistan until it was toppled by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Almost 15 years later, about 13,000 troops from a US-NATO coalition remain in the country, including about 9,800 Americans.

Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said Akhunzada is a well-known figure in the group.

“He is not a new man in Taliban leadership; he was the second deputy of Mullah Mansoor,” he said.

“He is very respected. He’s an old man, definitely older than Mullah Omar, who referred to him [Akhunzada] as his teacher.

“Akhunzada is from Kandahar, from the Noorzai tribe. It’s a strong tribe among the Taliban leadership. All these things are signals that he might be able to unite the Taliban. That looks like one of the reasons they didn’t choose [Sirajuddin] Haqqani as the leader.”

Al Jazeera’s Azimy said Akhunzada has held the role of chief justice within the Taliban previously.

“He was very active and a senior member of the Quetta Shura,” he said.