Tag: InternationalNews

{Qatar and Turkey broker release of Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre who went missing last year.}

Three Spanish freelance journalists who went missing in Syria last year and were believed to have been kidnapped, have been released, according to the Spanish Press Federation and the government.

Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre disappeared last July while working on an investigative report in the northern city of Aleppo, where other journalists have been captured in the past, Spanish media reported at the time.

The government said a plane brought them from Turkey to Spain on Sunday.

No details were immediately available on how the three were released, but their release had been “possible thanks to the collaboration of allies and friends especially in the final phase from Turkey and Qatar”, the Spanish government said in a statement.

It was not clear whether ransom was paid to secure their release.

Al Jazeera’s Stef Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep, said that the three men have gone through a thorough medical examination and they seem to be in good health.

“According to the three journalists, they were treated well by their captors,” she said.

“We know from past negotiations, from past hostage releases, that money often changes hands.”

Qatari mediation

Qatar’s state news agency reported on Sunday that Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi, the Arab Gulf state’s assistant foreign affairs minister, received a phone call from Ignacio Iapanaz Rebeo, Spain’s junior minister for foreign affairs, thanking “the state of Qatar for its efforts in the release”.

Various Spanish media, including El Pais, said the three were held by al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front.

Qatar has previously mediated the release of foreign hostages held by al-Nusra Front in Syria.

The journalists had entered Syria from Turkey on July 10 and went missing shortly afterwards, Spanish press association FAPE said last year.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, the three reporters were last seen in a rebel-held area of Aleppo on July 13, when they were travelling in a van together before being taken away by armed men.

After they disappeared, Spain said officials were working with Spanish intelligence members in Syria to try to secure their release.

{Frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte, mayor of Davao City, could be the first politician from Mindanao to be elected president.}

Mindanao, Philippines – Close to 55 million voters have started casting their ballots in the Philippines’ presidential election that could, for the first time, propel a politician from the southern island of Mindanao to power.

This could signal a turn away from the policies of President Benigno Aquino and the political centre in the capital Manila.

Polls opened across the country at 6am local time on Monday (22:00 GMT Sunday) and the election pits frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte, an outspoken mayor from the city of Davao, against four other contenders.

Duerte’s strongest challenger is Grace Poe, a freshman senator who is weighed down by questions about her previous US citizenship.

Another candidate Manuel Roxas II, a former senator backed by current Aquino, is battling anti-establishment sentiment, while Jejomar Binay, the current vice president, is facing corruption allegations.

Senator Miriam Santiago, a fifth candidate, barely registers in the polls.

Duterte, who has faced allegations of human rights abuses and hidden wealth, has anchored his campaign in the fight against crime and corruption in the country.

He said he would declare a “revolutionary government” if criminality is not solved within the first six months of his presidency.

The promise, however, raised concerns in the business community and among other political observers, who have warned against the return of an autocratic rule similar to the time of Ferdinand Marcos 30 years ago.

But Duterte has endeared himself to voters with his plain, often expletive-laden talk which got him in trouble on few occasions including the time he cursed Pope Francis, made jokes about rape and threatened to burn Singapore’s flag.

He also railed against that the economic gains during Aquino’s six years in office, which he said failed to trickle down to the masses.

Myrish Cadapan-Antonio, a Filipino lawyer and professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, told Al Jazeera that Duterte’s rise reflects “a deep-seated angst among the masses for trickle-down development” and a “united” southern vote against “Imperial Manila”.

Antonio said there is also deep frustration among voters both towards the system of government and the current administration.

“It is difficult to discern who or what the object of such anger is but it is very evident,” she said, pointing to the “passion” of Duterte’s supporters towards their candidate.

But whoever wins the presidency, has to face the reality of a system of government dominated by political dynasties, including Duterte, who is a son of a former governor, said Earl Jude Cleope, a professor of history and education at Silliman University in central Philippines.

“If you look at it now, traditional politics is still at work, and it is still crucial in delivering the votes for the eventual winner,” Cleope told Al Jazeera.

Gina Balios, 18, and a single mother of a five-month old son said she hopes the next president would work hard to give more opportunities to poor Filipinos like her.

“I don’t think I will ever get a chance finish college. But I hope my son will, someday,” Balios told Al Jazeera.

Before the polls opened, President Aquino issued a statement on Sunday calling on Filipinos to exercise their right to vote, while urging a “peaceful” and “orderly” process reflecting “the spirit of democracy”.

Aside from the race for president and vice president, there are 18,000 national and local positions being contested in the polls, attracting the candidacy of 44,000 individuals.

{Pentagon says the deployment aims at assisting Arab coalition fight al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula.}

The Pentagon has acknowledged for the first time it has deployed its troops to Yemen more than a year after pulling out following military intervention by the Arab-led coalition.

The security void created in the wake of the more than a year of war between loyalists of exiled government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Shia Houthi rebels has been exploited by the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Pentagon spokesperson Jeff Davis said on Friday the US military had also stepped up air strikes against AQAP fighters in the war-torn country.

A “very small number” of American military personnel has been working from a “fixed location” with Yemeni and Arab coalition forces – especially the Emiratis – in recent weeks around Mukalla, a port city seized by AQAP a year ago, Davis said.

“This is of great interest to us. It does not serve our interests to have a terrorist organisation in charge of a port city, and so we are assisting in that,” the spokesman added.

He said the troops were helping the Emiratis with “intelligence support,” but declined to say if they are special operations forces.

AQAP fighters have now fled Mukalla and other coastal areas, due to the government offensive.

The United States is also offering an array of assistance to partners in Yemen, including air-to-air refueling capabilities, surveillance, planning, maritime security and medical help.

{{String of attacks}}

The Pentagon previously had more than 100 special operations forces advising the army in Yemen, but pulled them out early last year as the country collapsed.

The US Navy also has several ships nearby, including an amphibious assault ship called the USS Boxer and two destroyers.

AQAP took advantage of the chaos of fighting between pro-government forces and Iran-backed rebels to expand its control in southern Yemen, including the seizure of Mukalla.

The Pentagon announced it has carried out a recent string of strikes on AQAP in recent weeks, outside of Mukalla.

“We have conducted four counterterrorism strikes against AQAP since April 23, killing 10 Al-Qaeda operatives and injuring another,” Davis said.

The United States periodically targets AQAP in Yemen, including a strike in March on a training camp that killed more than 70 fighters.

The group claimed responsibility for last year’s attack in Paris on the staff of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, and has been linked to more than one attempt to blow up aircraft bound for the United States.

The Yemen conflict has killed more than 6,400 people and displaced 2.8 million since March last year.

{Officials fear growing fire could reach major oil sands mine nearby and even neighbouring province of Saskatchewan.}

Canadian officials say they expect the massive wildfire that has destroyed large parts of Alberta’s oil sands to continue burning for months.

The Alberta government said on Saturday the massive blaze in the province will cover more than 2,000 square kilometres by Sunday and continue to grow because of high temperatures, dry conditions and high winds.

Chad Morrison, Alberta’s manager of wildfire prevention, said it is not uncommon to fight such an inferno in forested areas for months.

There is fear the growing wildfire could double in size and reach a major oil sands mine and even the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan.

“In no way is this fire under control,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said.

No deaths or injuries have been reported since the fire started a week ago but thousands of people have been made homeless.

Notley said about 12,000 evacuees have been airlifted from oil sands mine air fields over the past two days, and about 7,000 have left in highway convoys escorted by police. She said the goal was to complete the evacuation from northern work camps by Sunday.

Oil sands mine at risk

The fire could reach the edges of the Suncor oil sands facility, about 25km north of Fort McMurray. Non-essential staff have been evacuated and efforts have been made to protect the site.

Notley, however, said that the facility was highly resilient to forest fires. Oil sands mines are cleared and have no vegetation.

Low humidity, high temperatures nearing 30 degrees Celsius and gusty winds in forests and brush dried out from two months of drought are helping fan the flames.

Environment Canada forecast a 40-percent chance of showers in the area on Sunday and Morrison said cooler conditions were expected Sunday and Monday.

The mass evacuation has forced as much as a quarter of Canada’s oil output offline and is expected to impact a country already hurt by a dramatic fall in the price of oil. The Alberta provincial government has declared a state of emergency.

Fort McMurray is surrounded by wilderness in the heart of Canada’s oil sands – the third largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Last May, wildfires led to the evacuation of hundreds of workers from the region.

{{

}}

{Madrid says the three men, who had been missing since July, arrived in Spain on a plane that took off from Turkey.}

Three Spanish freelance journalists who went missing in Syria last year and were believed to have been kidnapped have been released, the Spanish Press Federation and the government say.

Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre disappeared last July while working on an investigative report in the northern city of Aleppo, where other journalists have been captured in the past, Spanish media reported at the time.

The government said a plane brought them from Turkey to Spain on Sunday.

No details were immediately available on how the three were released, but their release had been “possible thanks to the collaboration of allies and friends especially in the final phase from Turkey and Qatar”, the Spanish government said in a statement.

Qatar’s state news agency said Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Martian had received a phone call from Spain’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Ignacio Iapanaz Rebeo, thanking “the State of Qatar for its efforts in the release”.

Various Spanish media, including El Pais, said the three were held by al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing, al-Nusra Front.

Qatar has previously mediated the release of foreign hostages held by al-Nusra in Syria.

The journalists had entered Syria from Turkey on July 10 and went missing shortly afterwards, Spanish press association FAPE said last year.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, the three reporters were last seen in a rebel-held area of Aleppo on July 13, when they were travelling in a van together before being taken away by armed men.

After they disappeared, Madrid said officials were working with Spanish intelligence members in Syria to try and secure their release.

{Three siblings were burned alive after their home was set ablaze by candles the family used due to electricity crisis.}

Palestinian political factions have traded accusations of blame over three siblings who were burned alive after their home was set ablaze by candles the family was using due to the ongoing electricity crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Officials in the Gaza-based Hamas movement and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority have traded barbs over the deaths, with each accusing the other of bearing the responsibility.

More than 600 Palestinians came out on Saturday for the funeral of the three children, whose home was engulfed in flames a day earlier in the al-Shati refugee camp in the north of the coastal enclave.

With leaders of the Hamas political organisation and local armed factions in attendance, the mourners decried the deaths of Rahaf, Yousra and Nasser al-Hendi, who were between one and four years old.

Mohammed al-Hendi, the 30-year-old father of the children, recalled his last day with his children.

“We were at the beach and came home to find there was no electricity again,” he told Al Jazeera at the funeral.

“They were sleeping, and I went out to bring dinner. When I came home, they told me my children were burned alive.”

Dozens of relatives and neighbours came to the Hendi family’s charred home in al-Shati after the funeral to express their condolences.

Standing in the blackened remains of the half-collapsed home, their grandmother Umm Fadi sobbed heavily as she recollected the last time she saw the late children at her nearby home a day before they died.

“They were so happy because we bought them clothes for Ramadan, and I cooked for them,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Then they were burned to death in those clothes.”

{{‘Tragedy’
}}

With the assistance of Egypt, Israel has imposed a tight siege on Gaza since Hamas took control of the region in 2007. The blockade severely restricts residents’ access to electricity, fuel, medicine, food and humanitarian goods.

Since late 2009, Israel has launched three major military offensives in Gaza, leaving much of the region in ruins.

“The whole world is aware of the suffering of Gaza. The Palestinian Authority is the one who is responsible for this,” said Hamas member Ehab al-Badrasawi in an interview with Al Jazeera at the Hendi family home.

Many Gaza residents blame the Fatah-led PA for the Blue Tax, a tariff which significantly increased the price of fuel that makes operations possible for Gaza’s sole power plant. In April, the PA announced a summer-long exemption from the tax.

Despite grants from the Qatari government, internal Palestinian political divisions and Israel’s ongoing siege of the strip have rendered any solution to the electricity crisis unlikely.

{{PA ‘complicity’}}

In March, PA President Mahmoud Abbas spiked a proposal to build additional electricity lines to support Gaza, where electricity outages have reached up to 18 to 20 hours a day in some districts.

Alluding to Israeli air strikes in Gaza in recent days, Hamas senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday that the PA is complicit in the electricity crisis due to the latter’s cooperation with Israel.

“The enemy’s planes burn the land and the homes, and the crippling siege and its accomplices burn our children… and the lights of our future,” Haniyeh said.

“Who has been taking $70m a month in taxes from Gaza? Who has been collecting fuel taxes? Who refused to enlarge the power supply from Egypt to the Gaza Strip and refused to build a pipeline to provide Gaza’s power station with gas to increase its capacity?”

President Abbas telephoned the grieving family on Saturday to express his condolences, and the PA has offered to rebuild the Hendi family’s home, according to local media reports.

In a statement released on Saturday, PA spokesperson Yousef Mahmoud decried Hamas for “false accusations”, insisting that the deaths were “a tragedy for the whole Palestinian people”.

The PA’s press office did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests to comment further.

{{‘Rage and anger’}}

Talal Abu Zareefa, a representative of the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s political bureau, called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its siege of the strip and demanded that Palestinian factions unite to solve Gaza’s many humanitarian crises.

“The world should apply the necessary pressure on the Israeli occupation to lift the siege of Gaza and let the Palestinian people live like any other nation in the world,” he told Al Jazeera at the Hendi home.

Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a political analyst and professor at Gaza’s Al Azhar University, explained that the death of the tragic incident highlights the ongoing political divides between Hamas and the PA, but it is “not a new type of incident” in Gaza.

“The mood among Palestinians in Gaza is rage and anger at both the Hamas movement and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But Palestinians are also very angry at Hamas because they have been here nine years without being able to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians here in their daily lives,” Abu Saada said.

“The house is being rebuilt, but there is no solution for the two million Palestinians in Gaza in the foreseeable future.”

Back in al-Shati, grieving father Mohammed al-Hendi said: “The world should come to Gaza and see how we are living. Look at what is happening to the people of Gaza; see our situation here.”

{Kim Jong-un says his country will not use nuclear arms unless its sovereignty is infringed on by others.}

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said his country will not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is infringed on by others, state media reported.

Speaking spoke in Pyongyang on Saturday to thousands of delegates gathered for the first Workers’ Party congress in more than 35 years.

“As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes,” the KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.

“And it will faithfully fulfil its obligation for non-proliferation and strive for the global denuclearisation.”

Kim also said North Korea may be willing to normalise ties with states that had been hostile towards it – generally understood to mean the US and South Korea

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from the South Korean capital, Seoul, noted that Kim’s latest comments were different from defiant statements made in recent weeks and months.

“The idea that North Korea would launch a preemptive nuclear strike has never been really likely, given the military response that would entail from the US,” Fawcett said, “However, Kim’s latest remarks do mark a shift in tone.”

North Korea withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2003 and started testing nuclear weapons in 2006.

Since Kim took power after the death of his father, late leader Kim Jong-il in 2011, North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and two successful space rocket launches that were widely seen as disguised ballistic missile tests.

Even as the international community responded with tougher sanctions, he pressed ahead with additional missile and technical tests.

During the height of the US and South Korea’s military drills, which took place in the Korean peninsula in March and April, North Korea was threatening a preemptive strike against both of those countries.

Our correspondent said the message from the party congress seemed to be that North Korea has made significant progress towards its aim to have a viable nuclear weapon, and that now is the time for the rest of the world to acknowledge it as a nuclear weapon state.

“The congress is saying that North Korea will be a responsible nuclear weapon state on the world stage, abiding by their obligations,” Fawcett added.

As Kim’s words are not likely to carry much weight either in Washington or in Seoul given his track record of banned nuclear tests and long-range rocket launches, his words may instead be aimed at rebuilding the country’s alliance with China.

“Potentially what North Korea is doing is trying to get more play in its relationship with China, which is very upset with North Korea’s recent actions in its nuclear weapons programme,” Fawcett said.

South Korea has taken a hardline approach to North Korea following its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, shutting down a jointly-run factory park in a North Korean border town that had been the last remaining symbol of cooperation between the rivals and slapping Pyongyang with its own economic sanctions.

Seoul has also been in talks with Washington on deploying a sophisticated US missile defence system in South Korea.

North Korea had spent the past months resisting talks with the South and threatening attacks against it, but during the congress, he said “fundamentally improving” inter-Korean relations was an urgent matter for his government.

{Labour party candidate comfortably outruns Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor.}

The British Labour party’s Sadiq Khan has been elected as London mayor by comfortably outrunning of his nearest rival.

The Labour party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn congratulated Khan on his victory on Friday evening.

Khan picked up 44 percent of first preference votes to Conservative Zac Goldsmith’s 35 percent. The Labour candidate then picked up enough second preference votes to cross the 50 percent threshold.

Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith’s campaign has been marked by accusations of being “dirty” and “negative” , including from within his own party, for its emphasis on Khan’s ties to alleged extremists.

Critics have accused Goldsmith of attacking Khan on the basis of his Muslim faith and labelled his campaign racist , a claim he denies.

Khan, who calls himself “the British Muslim who will take the fight to the extremists”, accused Goldsmith of trying to scare and divide voters in a proudly multicultural city of 8.6 million people, more than 1 million of them Muslims.

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips, reporting from London, said the victory was of “great symbolic importance” for the UK and internationally.

“What was interesting was that the campaign became much more personal, much more bitter, and much more ugly, than what many people had anticipated,” Phillips said.

“The Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith repeatedly attacked Sadiq Khan as someone who had fraternised and shared platforms with Muslim extremists.

“Sadiq Khan and Labour’s response was very angry, they said that the Conservatives were playing a subtle and even not so subtle, Islamophobic and racist campaign.”

Humble beginnings

The new mayor of the UK’s capital is the son of immigrants from Pakistan who settled in London in the 1960s, where his father worked as a bus driver.

Khan studied law and later became a human rights lawyer before being elected as the Labour MP for the London constituency of Tooting in 2005.

Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, included Khan in his cabinet, first as minister for communities and then transport. After Labour lost power in 2010, its leader Ed Miliband included Khan in his shadow cabinet.

Social media reaction

Some of the fault lines surrounding Khan’s election were visible on social media as soon it became clear he was the most likely candidate to win.

Huge numbers congratulated Khan and expressed pride in the UK’s diversity, but for others it was more evidence of the supposed Islamisation of the West. This despite Khan’s progressive voting record that has put him at odds with religious conservatives.

Many users mocked what they saw as xenophobic responses to Khan’s mayorship.

{{Scottish losses
}}

Labour’s expected success in London was marred by a poor showing in the Scottish assembly where the pro-independence Scottish National Party secured control for a third term.

The nationalists fell two seats short of the 65 needed for a majority but can form a minority government as the largest party.

Labour fell to third place in their former heartland, losing 13 seats for a total of 24, with the Conservatives gaining 16 to secure 31 altogether.

The Greens, who were the only other major party to back independence in Scotland, gained four seats for 6 seats in total, while the Liberal Democrats maintained their five.