Tag: InternationalNews

{Israel has moved ahead with plans for another 381 homes in the occupied West Bank, the third such announcement in two weeks and raising to 2,530 the number of new settler homes declared this year.}

The new construction will be in Givat Zeev, an illegal settlement immediately south of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Peace Now spokesman Lior Amihai told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.

“The Israeli Civil Administration, which falls under the defence ministry, has published plans for the construction of 381 extra units in Givat Zeev,” he said.

On January 6, Israel approved plans for 272 new homes in various illegal West Bank settlements. Four days later, it unveiled plans for more than 1,877 new units, some in occupied East Jerusalem.

Peace talks

Last July, Israel and the Palestinians embarked on nine months of direct negotiations, at the urging of US Secretary of State John Kerry, but over the past six months Israel has not slowed its construction in the occupied territories.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the message was clear. “Netanyahu’s government does not want peace,” he said.

“This decision confirms that Netanyahu’s government only wants to continue settlement building, which will destroy any possible peace.

“With very little progress visible and the April deadline for a framework agreement looming, Erakat said there was no chance the Palestinians would contemplate any extension of the talks.

“We’ve not been presented with a [plan for] extending negotiations, but we will not extend them for even an additional day after the nine month period we agreed on,” he said.

Aljazeera

(AP) — {Russia and Iran criticized the U.N. chief’s decision to withdraw Tehran’s invitation to join this week’s peace conference on Syria, as delegates began to arrive in Switzerland on Tuesday for the long-awaited talks that aim to end the Syrian civil war.}

A last-minute U.N. invitation for Iran to participate in the so-called Geneva conference threw the entire meeting into doubt, forcing U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to rescind his offer late Monday under intense U.S. pressure after Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group threatened to boycott.

After Ban withdrew the invitation, the opposition Syrian National Coalition said it would attend the talks aimed at ending Syria’s crippling three-year civil war, which has killed more than 130,000 and uprooted millions. The opposition said the conference should seek to establish a transitional government with full executive powers “in which killers and criminals do not participate.”

That cleared the way for the negotiations to open Wednesday as planned in the Swiss resort city of Montreux, with high-ranking delegations from the United States, Russia and close to 40 other countries attending. Face-to-face negotiations between the Syrian government and its opponents — the first of the uprising — are to start Friday in Geneva.

Expectations for a breakthrough at the conference are low. The front lines of the war have been largely locked in place since March, and despite suffering their enormous losses, neither the government nor the opposition appears desperate enough for a deal to budge from its entrenched position.

It’s also unclear how the opposition Coalition, a weak and fractured umbrella group with almost no sway over the most powerful rebel groups inside Syria, could enforce any agreement reached in Geneva.

{A Chinese man has been sentenced to life in prison for poisoning dumplings that made 10 people ill in Japan, Japanese and Chinese media say.}

Hebei-based factory worker Lu Yueting admitted last year to injecting insecticide into frozen dumplings that were later exported to Japan.

A five-year-old girl was among those who became ill and required treatment.

The incident in 2008 led to a scare over Chinese food and strained diplomatic ties between the countries.

The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court, in northern China’s Hebei province, announced Lu’s sentence on Monday, news agencies Xinhua and Kyodo reported.

Lu Yueting worked in the Tianyang Food company from 1993 to 2009.

He was accused of using a syringe to put a highly toxic pesticide, methamidophos, into the frozen dumplings over frustration with his wages and colleagues.

In January 2008, at least 10 people in Japan fell ill after eating the dumplings.

Diplomatic relations between China and Japan were strained as both sides debated whether the contamination occurred in their territory.

Lu was arrested and charged in China in 2010. He was put on trial in July 2013.

The sentence comes amid renewed tensions in China and Japan.

China has been angered by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Yasukuni shrine, a shrine that honours war dead including convicted war criminals, in December.

Meanwhile, Japan has criticised China’s move in November to create a new “air defence identification zone” which covers a group of disputed islands.

The two sides are embroiled in a bitter territorial dispute in the East China Sea.

BBC

{Italy’s controversial ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi has returned to the centre of the political stage, striking a reform deal with a centre-left rival.}

Berlusconi was thrown out of parliament in 2013 after a tax fraud conviction.

But he still heads the opposition Forza Italia party and held lengthy talks with Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi late on Saturday.

Under their agreement, he will back electoral and constitutional proposals aimed at making Italy more governable.

The current electoral system has left Italy with a series of shaky coalitions.

Last year’s general election left no party strong enough to govern alone, until a broad coalition emerged, headed by Enrico Letta of the PD.

Berlusconi, 77, was initially part of the government but later pulled out. Several key former allies abandoned him to form the New Centre Right party while he became a more marginalised figure.

But he remained head of Italy’s biggest opposition faction, Forza Italia.

Mr Renzi’s talks with the former centre-right prime minister have divided the coalition, and the PD in particular, whose supporters despise him, BBC Rome correspondent Alan Johnston reports.

BBC

{British people fighting in Syria are being trained as “jihadists” and then encouraged to return to the UK to launch attacks on home soil, an al-Qaeda defector and western security sources have told the Telegraph. }

In a rare interview on Turkey’s border with Syria, the defector from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) said that recruits from Britain, Europe and the US were being indoctrinated in extremist anti-Western ideology, trained in how to make and detonate car bombs and suicide vests and sent home to start new terror cells.

He has provided the first confirmation from Syrian rebels that young British men are being indoctrinated in extremist anti-Western ideology.

Some of those intent on overthrowing the Syrian regime are being brainwashed by fanatics, the former member of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) warned.

His comments echo the concerns of the security services at a time when it is feared that up to 500 Britons are fighting in Syria and could return to emulate attacks such as the London bombings and 9/11.

Telegraph

{Two Palestinians have been injured when they were hit by an air strike on Gaza, amid reports that Tel Aviv has plans to escalate attacks on the strip.}

Israeli rockets targeted a motorcycle in Gaza’s northern neighbourhood of Saftawi on Sunday, leaving its rider, a 22-year-old man, in critical condition.

Israel confirmed the attack in a statement issued by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The motorcycle passenger was identified by the IDF as Ahmad Sa’ad, who it accuses of being a senior operative in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PJI) and who it says is to blame for cross-border rocket attacks last week.

“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) successfully targeted a terrorist operative involved in recent attacks against Israel and was planning further attacks in the coming days,” it said in a statement.

The Israeli military blames Sa’ad for firing five rockets towards southern Israel on January 16. The rockets were intercepted by the army’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. The rockets caused no injuries or damage.

“The IDF operated in order to eliminate an imminent threat to the lives of Israeli civilians,” the IDF statement said.

Another victim was a 12-year-old boy who happened to be nearby, Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

Threats of attacks

There was no confirmation from Gaza that the wounded man was Sa’ad or that he belonged to PJI, with sources in the movement also refusing to comment on the strike.

The morning strike followed two more overnight, and amid fears that the strip will witness an escalation in attacks in near future.

An Egyptian mediator delievered a threat message from Israel to Gaza’s leadership, sources have told Al Jazeera.

On January 8, an PJI fighter was killed near Gaza City in what medics and family said was an Israeli drone strike, but the army denied any involvement.

Since the start of the year, tensions have risen in and around Gaza after a year of relative calm, with five people killed since December 20. Four of the victims were Palestinian and one was Israeli.

Since January 1, eight rockets fired from Gaza have landed in Israel with another five intercepted by Iron Dome last Thursday.

Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council late Friday “condemned in the strongest terms the horrific attack” on a Lebanese restaurant in the Afghan capital Kabul earlier in the day.

The attack killed at least 16 Afghan and foreign nationals, including four UN civilian staff, and injured scores more.

Such targeted attacks, later claimed by the Taliban, are “completely unacceptable” and are in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law. “They must stop immediately,” the UN press office said in a statement. Ban’s statement was echoed by the Security Council whose members also “condemned in the strongest terms” the Kabul terrorist attack.

The Council stressed that “no terrorist act can reverse the path towards Afghan-led peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, which is supported by the people and the Government of Afghanistan and the international community.

” The Council reiterated its steadfast support for the role of the United Nations and United Nations-affiliated organizations in Afghanistan, and reiterated its “serious concern” at the threats posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and illegal armed groups to the local population, national security forces, and international military and international assistance efforts in Afghanistan.

The Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these “reprehensible” acts of terrorism to justice, and urged all States to cooperate actively with the Afghan authorities in this regard.

It once again reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is “criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group.” The Council also reaffirmed the need and reiterated its determination to combat the scourge by all means.

KUNA

{Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov will meet with Walid Muallem, Deputy Chairman of Syria’s Council of Ministers and Foreign Minister, here on Friday. The situation in the Syrian Arab Republic with emphasis on preparation for a Geneva-2 international conference on Syria is expected to be the main theme of the forthcoming talks, APA reports quoting Itar-Tass.
}

Earlier, on Thursday, a three-sided meeting was held here with the participation of Lavrov, Muallem, as well as Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who is also in Moscow. According to some data, Zarif and Muallem arrived in the Russian capital in one plane from Damascus where Zarif had held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad. An official communique circulated as a result of that meeting pointed out that the fight against extremists and terrorists operating in the territories of Syria and other Middle East countries was the main subject of discussion at the meeting. The top-level consultations in a searchc for ways towards surmounting the crisis were continued in Moscow where on Thursday Zarif was received by Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the same day Lavrov had a separate meeting with his Iranian counterpart.

The talks in Moscow are held against the background of finalization of preparations for a Geneva-2 conference which is due to begin in the Swiss city of Montreux on January 22. The sides did not manage to settle a number of issues connected with the holding of the conference, including a list of participants in the meeting. Specifically, one of the largest organizations of Syrian opposition abroad — the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces — has not confirmed so far its participation in the conference. A decisions on the issue is expected to be made on January 17 at a meeting of representatives of the movement in Istanbul.

Late on Thursday night, there appeared reports referring to Lakhdar Brahimi, joint special representative of the UN and the League of Arab States, that the National Coordination Committee, the major association of Syria’s internal opposition, had refused to participate in the conference. The question of representation at the conference of some countries which have influence on the situation in the Middle East has not been settled either. This refers primarily to Iran. Russia repeatedly emphasized that, since Iran plays an important role there, its participation in the Geneva-2 is highly desirable. The United States, however, declares that for the US to take part in the conference, Tehran should specially reaffirm its commitment to the principles of the Geneva communique, dated June 30, 2011. An invitation to Iran has not been sent out so far.

{ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the European Union Thursday for calling in ambassadors over plans for some 1,800 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.}

Netanyahu’s angry remarks come hot on the heels of a public spat between his defence minister and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is energetically pushing Israel and the Palestinians toward a framework for a peace agreement.

“This is hypocritical. The EU calls our ambassadors in because of the construction of a few houses? When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors about incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction?” Netanyahu asked foreign correspondents at his annual new year reception.

“It’s time to stop this hypocrisy,” he said. “This imbalance… doesn’t advance peace, I think it pushes peace further away.”

Netanyahu’s government announced plans for the new homes in the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem, just days after the latest peace mission by US Secretary of State John Kerry who has slammed them as “illegitimate” and “unhelpful.”

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton had said she was “deeply concerned” over the move, adding that settlements were “illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make the two-state solution impossible”.

AFP

{Human rights lawyers have outlined allegations by hundreds of Iraqis that they were mistreated by British forces.}

More than 400 claims by Iraqis are now being presented in a dossier to the International Criminal Court.

Alleged abuses include sleep and food deprivation, physical assault, electrocution, mock executions and threats of rape.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has issued a statement saying the matters are under thorough investigation. It also rejected claims that the UK’s armed forces systematically tortured detainees.

Al Jazeera