Tag: InternationalNews

{At least six killed and many more wounded in first major Taliban attack since the group announced it “spring offensive”.}

At least six people were killed and many wounded when a suicide car bomber blew himself up near the defence ministry in the heart of the Afghan capital, police said.

Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said the explosion went off in the centre of the city at a busy time, in an attack quickly claimed by the Taliban.

Police said that 30 people were wounded and health ministry officials later gave a figure of 200.

“What we know from police sources is that a suicide bomber, who was driving a vehicle with explosives, detonated himself targeting a convoy of Afghan army near the defence ministry building,” Azimy said.

“Witnesses are telling us the attack was followed by some gunfire. The Afghan police believe there could be a number of attackers in one of the buildings nearby.”

A Kabul police spokesman, Basir Mujahid, told Al Jazeera that the gunfight was ongoing, as Afghan special forces rushed to the scene.

“The Taliban are still fighting with the security forces,” Mujahid said.

In a statement, the Presidential Palace condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms”.

“The explosion has caused a lot of damage to the government,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told Al Jazeera.

This is the first major attack since the Taliban announced the start of its yearly “spring offensive” last week.

The US embassy said it was not affected by the blast. The NATO military coalition also said it was unaffected.

{Prime Minister Netanyahu holds cabinet meeting in occupied territory to send message that Israel “will never” withdraw.}

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time held his weekly cabinet meeting in the occupied Golan Heights, amid criticism from local Syrian activists.

Speaking in the Jewish-only settlement of Maaleh Gamla on Sunday, Netanyahu declared that the 70 percent of the Golan, which Israeli forces occupied during the 1967 Middle East war, will “always remain” under Israeli control.

“I convened this celebratory meeting in the Golan Heights to send a clear message: The Golan will always remain in Israel’s hands. Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights,” he said.

The move came on the 70th anniversary of Syria’s independence, marking the withdrawal of French colonial forces from the country in 1946.

Mais Ibrahim, a Syrian human rights activist from the Golan’s Majdal Shams, criticised the decision to hold the meeting there – but added that this did not come as a surprise.

“On the contrary, I’d be more surprised if Netanyahu did not mention the Golan on Syrian Independence Day,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We are Syrians and we were raised as Syrians. We grew up as Syrians. We will remain [Syrian] regardless of what Israel says or who controls Syria … regardless of whether the war continues another 100 years or if we’re liberated tomorrow.”

Netanyahu’s declaration comes at a time when Syria is engulfed in a civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and opposition groups. Although it started as a largely unarmed uprising in March 2011, the United Nations estimates that more than 260,000 have been killed so far.

Illegal annexation

More than 131,000 Syrians – Christians, Muslims and Druze – were driven from the Golan when Israel occupied it 49 years ago, according to the Golan-based Al-Marsad Arab Human Rights Centre.

Around 20,000 indigenous Syrian Arabs – mostly from the Druze religious community – live in six villages still standing in the occupied territory. Meanwhile, upwards of 21,000 Israeli settlers live in 33 Jewish-only settlements subsidised and protected by the Israeli government.

While local Syrians are split over the ongoing civil war, the vast majority oppose Israel’s occupation. They hold Israeli-issued travel documents, but most have rejected offers of Israeli citizenship and remain legally “stateless”.

Israeli claimed to have annexed the territory in 1981, but the move was rejected by the international community, including the United Nations.

Syrian researcher and Golan-based analyst Salman Fakheraldeen accused Israel of attempting to “take advantage of the fact that Syria is a collapsing state”, referring to the ongoing civil war.

“But this doesn’t erase or cancel the rights of Syrians from the Golan,” he told Al Jazeera.

The Al-Marsad Arab Human Rights Centre has also accused the Israeli government of “a calculated effort to establish ‘facts on the ground’ in order to solidify their illegal annexation of the Golan in the midst of a brutal and protracted conflict in Syria”.

Afek Oil and Gas, an Israeli company, has been granted exclusive license to conduct exploratory drilling for oil in the southern Golan. Afek is a subsidiary of Genie Energy Limited, a New Jersey-based company for which former US Vice President Dick Cheney is an adviser.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, the Netanyahu government has also invested millions of dollars in Israeli settlements in the Golan.

‘My grandparents’ land’

Benedetta Berti, a security analyst and research fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, explained that the Netanyahu government views control of the Golan as essential to the country’s security.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, she said Israel is monitoring the Syrian-controlled side closely for activity by Iranian troops and Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group fighting alongside Assad.

“I think the Israeli security establishment still believes it is not in Israel’s interest to get directly involved in the internal battles between Assad and his opponents,” said Berti.

Nonetheless, she argued that big advances by pro-Assad forces could trigger “some type of Israeli ‘signalling’ operation”, such as the killing of Samir Kantar, a former prisoner and high-profile Hezbollah fighter.

Kantar, who had served 29 years in Israeli prison, was killed in December by a suspected Israeli air strike in the Jaramana area of Damascus.

In Quneitra, situated in the side of Golan still controlled by Syria, media activist Abu Omar al-Jolani said Syrians are united in their opposition to Israel’s occupation of the territory.

“The Syrian people are enduring the worst stage of their history, being killed every day by the regime,” he told Al Jazeera by telephone.

“The most important thing is surviving, finding bread. But at the same time, that is my grandparents’ and parents’ land. The Golan is Syrian. The whole world knows this.”

{Authorities struggle to provide services to tens of thousands of people in areas worst hit by two deadly earthquakes.}

Authorities were struggling to get aid to parts of southern Japan after at least 110,000 people were forced from their homes in the wake of two powerful earthquakes.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he wanted to officially designate the southern region a disaster area in a move that would allow the government to spend more on reconstruction.

About 30,000 rescue workers were scouring the rubble for survivors and handing out food to those unable to return to their homes after the quakes that struck Kyushu island from Thursday.

Some 42 people have been killed and 10 are missing. At least 110,000 people have been displaced, according to the Reuters news agency.

About 80,000 homes in Kumamoto prefecture – the worst hit area – still did not have electricity on Sunday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

The US military prepared to join relief efforts as many areas were cut off by landslides and damage to roads and bridges. Forecasts for heavy rains, which would make collapsed buildings more unstable, added to the urgency of the searches.

Some evacuees said that food distribution was just two rice balls for dinner.
“We are doing our best,” Abe told MPs when challenged by the opposition over his handling of the relief effort. “We are striving to improve living conditions for the people who have sought refuge.”

“Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, we will be working toward a full recovery,” Abe said.

Gradually, some roads were being reopened, and men in security guard uniforms were helping to direct traffic in drizzly weather.

Economy rattled

Many whose homes were not seriously damaged looked for shelter as the area was rocked by more than 500 aftershocks.

Local media said most of those missing were from Minamiaso, a mountain village southwest of 1,592-metre Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in the country.

Earthquakes on successive nights struck Kumamoto city and the surrounding region late last week. Nine people died in the first earthquake, and 33 in the second.

The parts of Kyushu affected by the quake include technology hubs and other industrial areas, and the disruptions to transport and logistics were expected to ripple through the economy.

Toyota Motor Corporation said it would shut down most of its vehicle production in Japan over the course of this week because of parts shortages stemming from the earthquakes. Nissan Motor Corporation also halted production at some facilities.

Other companies, including Sony, have announced stoppages at some of their factories in Kyushu.

{The decision by the lower house moves the matter to the Senate, which is expected to vote in May on whether to open a trial.}

Brazilian lawmakers on Sunday authorized impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff in a rowdy, circus-like showdown that plunged Latin America’s biggest country into profound political crisis.

Opposition deputies in the lower house of Congress needed 342 of the 513 votes, or a two thirds majority, to send Rousseff to the Senate, which will now decide whether to open a trial. They got there after five hours of voting.

Wild cheering erupted from the opposition at the 342nd vote, countered by furious jeering from Rousseff allies in a snapshot of the radical and bitter mood consuming Brazil just four months before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympics.

Outside Congress, where tens of thousands of people were watching giant TV screens, the split was echoed on a mass scale — with opposition supporters partying and Rousseff loyalists in despair.

“I am happy, happy, happy. I spent a year demonstrating in hope that Dilma would be brought down,” said retiree Maristela de Melo, 63.

Several thousand police stood by and the rival camps were separated by a long metal wall.

If, as many expect, the Senate goes on to impeach the leftist president, Vice President Michel Temer — who abandoned Rousseff to become a key opponent — will assume power.

But opposition celebrations could be short lived, analysts say.

Temer would inherit a country wallowing in its deepest recession in decades and a dysfunctional political scene where Rousseff’s Workers’ Party vows revenge.

“It will not be easy” for Temer, said Andre Cesar, an independent political analyst. “It will be a nightmare.”

Rouseff, 68, is accused of illegal accounting manoeuvres to mask government shortfalls during her 2014 re-election. Many Brazilians also hold her responsible for the economic mess and a massive corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras, a toxic record that has left her government with 10 per cent approval ratings.

The president and her allies had lobbied frantically in a last-minute effort to turn the tide, with her mentor, the fiery ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, flying back from his home in Sao Paulo to join the final assault.

Now the decision by the lower house moves the matter to the Senate, which is expected to vote in May on whether to open a trial. In case of a green light there, too — which experts also consider almost certain — Rousseff would step down for 180 days while the trial got under way.

If the Senate then voted by a two-thirds majority for impeachment, Rousseff would be ousted. Temer would stay on until elections in 2018.

CRISIS

A senior Rousseff ally said there would be no surrender.

“The coup plotters have won here in the house,” said Jose Guimaraes, leader of the Workers’ Party in the lower house of Congress.

“President Dilma (Rousseff’s) government recognizes this temporary defeat but that does not mean that the war is over,” Guimaraes said. “The fight will continue in the streets and in the Senate.”

Huge opposition rallies involving hundreds of thousands of people over the last months have played a big role in turning pressure against Rousseff into an unstoppable avalanche.

Anger on the streets could again play a role as the crisis enters ever higher stakes.

Sylvio Costa, who heads the specialist politics website Congresso en Foco, told AFP that Brazil’s troubles are only starting.

“Whoever loses will keep protesting in the streets,” he said. “What’s certain is that the crisis will not end today.”

However, on Sunday the crowds were peaceful so far.

In Brasilia, about 53,000 pro-impeachment demonstrators massed outside Congress, according to a police count. About 26,000 turned out on the pro-Rousseff side of the metal fence.

In Rio de Janeiro about 3,000 people each from the two sides demonstrated at separate time slots next to Copacabana beach.

The atmosphere even became festive, with a funk band singing in Rio and protesters blowing trumpets and vuvuzelas, as if at a football game, in Brasilia.

In Sao Paulo, the financial centre, thousands of pro-impeachment supporters thronged the central Paulista Avenue, many of them in the country’s green and yellow national football shirts.

In Brasilia, psychologist Eric Gamaliel, 29, said he’d joined pro-Rousseff protesters because impeachment would mean “Brazil loses a lot. The world will lose a lot. It will be a step backwards.”

But farmer Silmar Borazio, 50, who made a 20-hour journey to the capital with pro-impeachment supporters, said Brazil needs change.

“The first thing that needs to happen is for Dilma to leave. We are tired of producing revenue and seeing that in the end nothing improves in the country and it gets stolen,” he said.

{President, on a visit to the Vatican, says that he was returning home immediately.}

At least 233 people have been killed in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador’s Pacific coast, President Rafael Correa said today.

“The official figure of the number killed has risen to 233,” Correa said on his Twitter account. Officials had previously put the toll of Saturday’s quake at 77 dead and nearly 600 injured.

The quake, which struck at 2358 GMT Saturday about 170 kilometers northwest of Quito, lasted about a minute and was felt across Ecuador, northern Peru and southern Colombia.

Correa said Vice President Jorge Glas was on his way to Portoviejo, a city on the Pacific in an area heavily affected by the quake.

The quake, which struck at 2358 GMT Saturday about 170 km northwest of Quito, lasted about a minute and was felt across Ecuador, northern Peru and southern Colombia.

“Oh, my God, it was the biggest and strongest earthquake I have felt in my whole life. It lasted a long time, and I was feeling dizzy,” said Maria Torres, 60, in the capital Quito, which was rocked by the late Saturday quake. “I couldn’t walk… I wanted to run out into the street, but I couldn’t.”

Glas said early Sunday that the number of confirmed deaths has reached 77, and that more than 588 people were injured.

“We know that there are citizens trapped under rubble that need to be rescued,” he said in a special TV and radio broadcast.

Officials declared a state of emergency in the six worst-hit provinces.

Police, the military and the emergency services “are in a state of maximum alert to protect the lives of citizens,” Glas said.

President Correa, on a visit to the Vatican, wrote on Twitter that he was immediately returning to Ecuador.

In the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, home to more than two million people, a bridge collapsed, crushing a car beneath it, and residents were picking through the wreckage of houses reduced to heaps of rubble and timber, an AFP photographer reported.

Ecuador’s Geophysical Office reported “considerable” structural damage “in the area near the epicentre as well as points as far away as Guayaquil.”

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the 7.8-magnitude shallow quake struck off the northwest shore of Ecuador, just 27 kilometres from the town of Muisne.

The vice president gave a slightly lower measurement of magnitude 7.6.

{Government orders almost 250,000 people out of their homes following two earthquakes that killed over 40 people.}

Nearly 250,000 people have been evacuated amid fears of further earthquakes as rescue officials continue their deperate search for survivors in the remains of buildings destroyed in Japan.

A 7.3 magnitude tremor struck early on Saturday morning, killing at least 32 people, injuring about a thousand more and causing widespread damage to houses, roads and bridges.

It was the second major quake to hit Kumamoto province on the island of Kyushu in just over 24 hours. The first, late on Thursday, killed nine people.

Rescuers on Sunday searched for dozens of people feared trapped or buried alive, while survivors queued for scarce supplies of food and water.

Factories for companies including Sony, Honda and Toyota halted production as they assessed damage in the region, an important manufacturing hub in Japan’s south.

In the village of Minamiaso, eight people remain “out of contact”, said public broadcaster NHK.

Rescuers pulled 10 students out of a collapsed university apartment in the town of Minamiaso on Saturday.

Overnight, rescuers digging with their bare hands dragged some elderly survivors, still in their pyjamas, out of the rubble and onto makeshift stretchers made of tatami mats.

“The Self Defense Force, police and fire-fighters have been working to rescue people but there are still missing people,” Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, said.

“The government will further deploy all possible means by expanding the troop size to 25,000.”

He said had accepted a US offer of help with air transportation in the rescue efforts.

Three nuclear plants in the region were unaffected by the quake, but factories supplying tech and car parts to companies like Sony, Toyota and Nissan were shut to assess any damage.

Heavy rains prompted worries of more landslides and with hundreds of aftershocks and fears of more quakes, thousands spent the night in evacuation centres.

The indiscriminate nature of the destruction saw some houses reduced to piles of splintered timber and smashed roof tiles while neighbouring homes were left standing.

About 422,000 households were without water and 100,000 without electricity, the government said.

NHK said around quarter of a million people had received evacuation orders across the affected region amid fears of landslides.

On the other side of the Pacific, Ecuador was also struggling with the aftermath of a major 7.8 quake which hit on Saturday, killing at least 41 people.

Both Japan and Ecuador are on the seismically active “ring of fire” around the Pacific Ocean.

{Cruz wins all 14 delegates in northwestern state, moving to within 185 delegates of rival Republican candidate Trump.}

Ted Cruz has won all 14 delegates at stake in the western US state of Wyoming, handing rival Donald Trump, who made little effort to win the rural state, another loss in a series of defeats in Western states.

Cruz is trying to prevent Trump from obtaining the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination at the July convention in Cleveland. His win further narrowed the gap in the race for the party’s nomination.

By continuing to make small wins, Cruz is gaining ground on the New York real estate baron, who has thus far failed to shift his focus on the local-level campaigning necessary to win delegates.

According to a delegate count by the Associated Press news agency, Trump still leads the overall delegate race with 744 delegates. Cruz has 559.

That means Trump must win nearly 60 percent of those remaining before the party’s political convention in July.

Trump has been critical of the process, calling it “rigged” while speaking at a rally in Syracuse, New York.

He has repeatedly complained about Colorado state, which awarded all 34 of its delegates to Cruz despite not holding a popular vote.

Trump said his supporters are becoming increasingly angry with states such as Wyoming and Colorado.

“They’re going nuts out there, they’re angry,” Trump said in Syracuse.

“The bosses took away their vote, and I wasn’t going to send big teams of people three, four months ago, have them out there.”

Wyoming does not hold a primary vote.

Instead, 475 party activists convened in Casper, Wyoming on Saturday to hold a state convention and award 14 delegates.

Previously, 12 other delegates had been designated at county-level conventions.

Cruz won 10 of those, with one going to Trump and another being elected as “unbound”.