Tag: InternationalNews

{French footballer Zahir Belounis plans to sue the brother of Qatar’s ruling emir after being forced to remain in the Gulf state for 17 months and losing up to €150,000 in pay, his lawyer said Tuesday.}

Belounis was not able to leave the 2022 World Cup host nation due to a pay dispute with his al Jaish football club, whose chairman, Sheikh Joaan Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmad al-Thani, is the ruling emir’s brother.

The footballer was only able to return to France in late November after obtaining an exit visa, which is usually granted only by employers in Qatar under its controversial kafala, or sponsorship, system.

To obtain the authorisation to leave, Belounis had to sign a letter back-dated to February announcing his sacking and forego a contract that was due to run until June 2015, thereby losing out on up to €150,000 ($200,000) in remuneration.

The French-Algerian footballer, 33, initially moved to Qatar in 2007 to sign for second-division al Jaish and was even granted Qatari citizenship, enabling him to represent the country in the 2011 World Military Cup in Brazil.

But the club stopped paying his wages in 2012 and Belounis decided to file a legal action in February, after which Belounis said he was “blackmailed”.

Belounis’s lawyer, Frank Berton, said a suit will be filed in Paris for fraud, inhuman working conditions and extortion.

Others named in the suit would include Gamaan al Hamad, the president of Qatar’s Military Sport Association, he said.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the only Gulf states that continue to require an exit visa from foreign employees who want to leave the country.

Human Rights Watch has denounced the kafala system as abusive.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

{{Hussein al-Laqis, who was killed on Tuesday night, was prominent figure in Hezbollah; official statement says that ‘Israel automatically held responsible for the crime.’}}

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Wednesday that one of its commanders has been “assassinated” outside of his home in southern Beirut. It blamed Israel for his killing, something an official there quickly denied.

A statement issued by the group said Hussein al-Laqis was killed as he returned home from work around midnight. It did not say how he died.

Lebanese security officials said assailants opened fire on al-Laqis with an assault rifle while he was in his car. He was in the parking lot of the residential building where he lived, in the Hadath neighborhood, some two miles (three kilometers) southwest of Beirut, they said.

He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died early Wednesday from his wounds, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The Lebanese state news agency later published a photograph of al-Laqis, a man who appeared to be in his mid-40s, with neatly cut black hair and a graying close-cropped beard, wearing beige-and-khaki military clothing.

The statement accused Israel of being responsible for the killing. It said Israel tried to kill him several times, but had failed.

“The Israeli enemy is naturally directly to blame,” the statement said. “This enemy must shoulder complete responsibility and repercussions for this ugly crime and its repeated targeting of leaders and cadres of the resistance.”

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied Israeli involvement.

“Israel has nothing to do with this incident,” Palmor said. “These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah. They don’t need evidence, they don’t need facts, they just blame anything on Israel.”

AP

{A total of 64 bodies have been found in mass graves in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, authorities said as they wrapped up a probe of alleged victims of a drug cartel.}

A total of 35 graves were found, an official at the attorney general’s office said.

The search in an area bordering the drug-plagued state of Michoacan stemmed from a probe into the November 3 disappearance of two federal police officers. They were not among the bodies found.

One civilian and some 20 police officers were arrested in the case of the missing two. They allegedly confessed to capturing the pair of federal agents and turning them over to a drug gang called Jalisco New Generation.

The detainees led police to the many mass graves.

Some of the bodies had been dead for months, others for two or three years, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said.

Some were bound by the hands and feet and showed signs of torture.

Jalisco New Generation is trying to penetrate into Michoacan and chase out a cartel called the Knights Templar.

Under the presidency of Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012, 26,121 people went missing in Mexico and drug-related violence claimed more than 70,000 lives as federal forces fought drug cartels.

AFP

Syrian rebels have once again taken control of parts of Maaloula, an ancient Christian town 60 kilometres from Damascus that lies close to key highways and smuggling routes, activists and residents said on Monday.

A spokesman for the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a local resident said on Monday that rebels were steadily seizing swathes of the town which they have occupied on previous occasions as fighting has ebbed and flowed in the rugged Qalamoun region near Damascus.

The Observatory obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground.

The resident said hardline Islamic brigades first began attacking Syrian forces in the town three days ago.

He said Maaloula residents fled to Damascus, fearing rebels would punish them for supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad and because they are Christians.

The resident requested anonymity, fearing for his safety.

Footage shot by the Associated Press on Monday showed smoke rising in the area, as well as a Syrian army tank on a nearby mountain road. Gunfire was also audible.

In previous battles, rebels have desecrated churches but largely left Christians alone, although the Vatican nuncio in Syria said the rebels kidnapped a group of nuns from the Greek Orthodox monastery of St Thecla.

Maaloula lies on the edge of the central region of Qalamoun, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of the capital, and is located near a key highway connecting Damascus with Homs, Syria’s third-largest city.

Rebels and forces loyal to Assad are battling in the Qalamoun area over a strategic highway and smuggling routes from neighbouring Lebanon.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

{A massive power cut plunged the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and other cities into darkness on Monday evening.
}

The Caracas metro ground to a halt and people had to be evacuated from shops and offices.

President Nicolas Maduro tweeted that the cut had been triggered in the same place as an outage in September, and suggested “sabotage” was responsible.

Power cuts are common in Venezuela, especially in the inland states, but rarely affect the capital.

Although Venezuela has large oil reserves it is dependent on hydro-electricity for about 70% of its power.

The blackout took place shortly after 20:00 on Monday (00:30 GMT Tuesday) as President Maduro was addressing the nation on television.

Deprived of the airwaves, Mr Maduro took to Twitter to say that the government was monitoring the “strange blackout that occurred in the same place as the last act of sabotage”.

BBC

Bangladesh’s 18-party opposition coalition has said it will boycott a general election scheduled for January, plunging the volatile country into political uncertainty just hours before the final deadline for nominations.

“There is no question of us filing nominations for the January 5 election under the present circumstances. We’re not going to take part in the January 5 elections,” Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, a vice president of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told AFP news agency on Monday.

Bangladesh has witnessed escalating street violence over the last five weeks that left 51 people dead and thousands injured, with almost all opposition leaders now in hiding.

Another protester died in the western town of Natore on Monday during clashes between hundreds of BNP supporters and ruling party activists, police said.

Chowdhury said the BNP and its 17 smaller allies, including the country’s largest Islamic party, would only change their mind “if the polls are organised by a non-party, neutral government”.

The BNP, led by two time ex-premier Khaleda Zia, has been demanding that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina quit and make way for a “non-party and impartial” chief executive to oversee the polls.

It believes any polls under Hasina will be rigged.

Hasina, whose party holds a majority in the current parliament, has rejected the opposition demand and instead formed an interim multi-party cabinet which includes her allies to conduct polls.

Aljazeera

{The United States called on North Korea on Saturday to release an elderly U.S. military veteran held in custody since last month and who Pyongyang has accused of killing civilians during the Korean War 60 years ago.}

Merrill E. Newman, an 85-year old former special forces officer, is in good health, his family said in a statement after getting an update on his condition from Swedish diplomats who had visited him in the North Korean capital over the weekend.

“He has received the medications that we sent him and medical personnel are checking on his health several times a day. Merrill reports that he is being well treated and that the food is good,” the family said. Sweden’s North Korean embassy gives consular help to the United States, which has no mission there.

The family, based in California, called on North Korea to release Newman, who has a heart rhythm disorder, as an act of compassion, taking into account his health and his age.

“All of us want this ordeal to end and for the 85 year-old head of our extended family to be with us once more.”

Reuters

{About 30,000 protesters launched a “people’s coup” on Thailand’s government on Sunday, swarming multiple state agencies in violent clashes, taking control of a broadcaster and forcing the prime minister to flee a police compound.}

Police fired teargas on protesters who hurled stones and petrol bombs in demonstrations that paralyzed parts of Bangkok and followed a night of gun and knife battles in which two people were killed and at least 54 wounded.

A group of protesters forced Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to evacuate to an undisclosed location from a building where she had planned to give media interviews, while hundreds seized control of state broadcaster Thai PBS, waving flags and tooting whistles.

Declaring Sunday “V-Day” in a week-long bid to topple Yingluck and end her family’s more than decade-long influence over Thai politics, protest leaders urged supporters to seize 10 government offices, six television stations, police headquarters and the prime minister’s offices in what they are calling a “people’s coup”.

Police said the protesters had gathered in at least eight locations. In at least three of them, police used teargas and water canons.

National police spokesman Piya Utayo said troops were being sent to a government complex occupied by protesters since Thursday and the Finance Ministry, occupied since Monday. “We have sent forces to these places to take back government property,” he said on national television.

It is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok’s urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly rural poor supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.

Reuters journalists waiting to interview Yingluck inside the police Narcotics Suppression Bureau were told by Natthriya Thaweevong, an aide for the prime minister, that she had left after protesters made it inside the outer part of the compound, the Police Sports Club, where the bureau is located.

In the early afternoon, protesters massed in front of a police barricade outside Wat Benjamabhopit, also known as the Marble Temple. Police fired teargas as some protesters tried to heave aside the heavy concrete barriers.

The deep detonation of stun grenades, followed by the jeers of protesters, echoed across the historic quarter.

“I just want the people named Shinawatra to get on a plane and go somewhere – and please, don’t come back to our country again,” said Chatuporn Tirawongkusol, 33, whose family runs a Bangkok restaurant.

More on Reuters

{ Prime Minister Tony Abbott vowed to be “absolutely candid” with world leaders but sidestepped questions on spying as Australia assumed the leadership of the G20 for 2014 on Sunday.
}

Abbott said the 2014 summit, to be held November in Brisbane, would be the “most significant meeting of world leaders ever hosted in Australia” and — as the host government — Canberra would also invite Singapore and New Zealand to attend.

“Our focus as G20 president will be on strong, private sector-led economic growth,” Abbott told reporters.

He vowed to be up front with his international counterparts, but refused to comment specifically on spying after reports that Canada had allowed America’s National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the 2010 G20 and G8 summits in Toronto.

The allegations were aired by Canada’s public broadcaster CBC citing NSA briefing notes provided by fugitive contractor Edward Snowden.

“I can promise leaders around the world who are visiting Australia that I’m going to be absolutely candid with them, I won’t be saying anything in private that I don’t say in public,” Abbott said when asked to guarantee there would not be a repeat performance in Brisbane next year.

“Apart from that I don’t comment on intelligence matters. Never have, never will.”

Ties between Canberra and Indonesia have been badly strained in recent weeks by claims Australian spies tried to tap the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and inner circle in 2009.

The allegations, based on NSA leaks from Snowden, saw Jakarta halt cooperation on people-smuggling and military exercises and recall its ambassador to Australia.

There were also furious public protests as relations between the two strategic allies hit their lowest ebb in years.

AFP