Tag: InternationalNews

{{France’s interior minister revealed on Thursday that hundreds of home-grown Islamist militants were signing up to fight in Syria, and warned they could pose a security threat when they return to France.}}

More than 300 French nationals or residents are either currently fighting in Syria’s civil war, are known to have plans to go and fight, or have recently returned from Syria, Interior Minister Manuel Valls told France’s Inter radio.

Citing intelligence reports, Valls said that more than 130 French citizens or residents are currently fighting in Syria.

Most of them were young men with a delinquent past who had become radicalised, he said.

“This is a phenomenon which worries me because they represent a potential danger when they return to our soil,” Valls said. “We have to be extremely attentive.”

According to British defence consultancy IHS Jane’s, up to 10,000 jihadists from all over the world are fighting alongside rebels in Syria as they try to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, with the jihadis looking to replace his regime with an Islamic state.

Counter-terrorism officials fear that a chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21 could attract more radical Islamists to Syria, increasing the numbers of a new generation of militants capable of wreaking havoc when they return to their home countries.

At least one French national has already died fighting in Syria. A 22-year-old convert to Islam from Toulouse was killed in a clash with government forces in August.

france24

{{Paying for sex in France may soon become a criminal offence, according to a forthcoming bill whose details were made public this week.}}

The proposed legislation would also overturn a 2003 law that penalises prostitutes overtly offering their services, rules that were intended to reduce the presence of sex workers in the streets but instead led prostitutes to “dress down” while plying their trade.

“We are going to turn the law on its head,” said Socialist Member of Parliament Maud Olivier, who authored a report that will be the basis of the bill. “Prostitutes are victims and should not be treated like criminals.”

“The law is intended to reduce violence towards prostitutes and to get it into the general mindset that paying for sexual services is not acceptable. We need to destroy the idea that prostitution is a happy trade,” she said, adding that of the estimated 40,000 sex workers in France, 80 percent are women and 90 percent are immigrants.

The bill, which is due to be debated by the National Assembly (lower house) and the Senate starting in November, sets out progressive fines of up to 1,500 euros for a first offence, to 7,500 euros and six months’ imprisonment for repeat offenders.

It would also give prostitutes who are victims of sexual violence easier access to legal residency in France, while opening the doors to suing pimps who force them to sell their bodies.

The move was welcomed by campaign group “Mouvement du Nid”, an association that helps prostitutes find justice in the case of sexual violence and exploitation by criminal networks.

“Women who sell their bodies for sex are not harming anyone and they shouldn’t be seen as criminals,” said the Mouvement du Nid’s General Secretary Gregoire Thery.

“All the harm to the individuals involved and to society in general is committed by clients who are sexually violent towards prostitutes.

“This law will protect women. For the first time in French history it gives them the opportunity to tell clients who are violent or make unwelcome demands that they can be arrested and punished for committing an illegal act.”

france24

{{Coffee chain Starbucks Corp has asked U.S. customers to leave their guns at home after being dragged into an increasingly fractious debate over U.S. gun rights in the wake of multiple mass shootings.}}

While many U.S. restaurant chains and retailers do not allow firearms on their properties, Starbucks’ policy had been to default to local gun laws, including “open carry” regulations in many U.S. states that allow people to bring guns into stores.

In August, this led gun-rights advocates to hold a national “Starbucks Appreciation Day” to thank the firm for its stance, pulling the company deeper into the fierce political fight.

Locations for Starbucks Appreciation Day events included Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were shot dead in an elementary school in December. Starbucks closed that shop before the event was scheduled to begin.

Chief Executive Howard Schultz said in an open letter to customers late Tuesday that Starbucks Appreciation Day events “disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of ‘open carry.’ To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores.”

The letter will appear in major U.S. newspapers on Thursday, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

The coffee chain did not, however, issue an outright ban on guns in its nearly 7,000 company-owned cafes, saying this would potentially require staff to confront armed customers.

The Seattle-based company hoped to give “responsible gun owners a chance to respect its request,” Schultz said.

The National Rifle Association, a powerful pro-gun lobbying group, did not have an immediate comment on the Starbucks letter and made no mention of it on its Twitter or Facebook pages.

But one gun rights advocate said he would stop getting coffee at Starbucks.

“It’s their choice and we support their right as a private business to make that choice. Gun owners will choose on their own if they want to patronize them or not,” said Rob Harris, media director for Michigan Open Carry, a group that took part in Starbucks Appreciation Day events this summer.

A gun control advocacy group formed days after Newtown, killings, “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America”, predicted other large companies would follow Starbucks’ lead.

“This policy change represents a sea change in American culture, which is finally shifting away from allowing guns in public places,” Shannon Watts, the group’s founder, said in a statement.

agencies

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed on Wednesday that his government would never develop nuclear weapons, his strongest signal yet that he may be seeking a diplomatic thaw with the West after decades of acrimony.

In an interview with media days before he travels to New York for a U.N. appearance, the new Iranian president also insisted he had “complete authority” to negotiate a nuclear deal with the United States and other Western powers.

“We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever,” Rouhani said when asked whether he would forswear nuclear arms.

Rouhani’s conciliatory comments appeared to be another sign of his willingness to work toward a diplomatic solution in Iran’s bitter nuclear standoff with the West. Washington and its allies are intrigued but still wary, making clear they hope to see tangible steps to back up his words.

Speaking to the U.S. network at his presidential compound in Tehran, Rouhani said the tone of a letter he had received from President Barack Obama, part of a recent exchange of messages between the leaders, was “positive and constructive.”

“It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future,” Rouhani said six days before he is due to address the U.N. General Assembly, a speech that will be watched closely for fresh diplomatic overtures.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that nuclear weapons development would be inconsistent with Islamic values. But a willingness by a newly elected president to rule out nuclear arms could help provide a new opening in long-stalled international nuclear talks.

Questions remain about how much bargaining room Khamenei, a staunch promoter of Iran’s nuclear program, will give Rouhani’s government, whether in secret talks with Washington or in multilateral discussions with major powers.

Comments on Tuesday by Khamenei about the need for “flexibility” suggest a new willingness at the highest level to explore a compromise solution to Tehran’s dispute with the West.

agencies

{{A left-wing musician has been stabbed to death in the Greek capital, Athens, and the suspect is a member of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.}}

Pavlos Fyssas, 34, was killed early on Wednesday. Police arrested the suspect and searched Golden Dawn’s offices. The party denied any involvement.

Social tensions have risen as Greeks deal with years of austerity measures.

Greece’s Public Order Minister, Nikos Dendias, has cancelled a trip to Rome. He said the situation was critical.

The minister expressed his deep regret over the incident, and said the government would soon put forward a new law against political violence and armed groups.

Greece’s Socialist Party, which is the second party in the governing coalition, has said that Golden Dawn should be considered a criminal group.

The killing occurred ahead of further strikes against government plans to cut thousands of public sector jobs.

agencies

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he is committed to a plan to destroy his country’s chemical weapons but warned it could take about a year.

Speaking to Fox News, Mr Assad again denied claims that his forces were responsible for a deadly chemical attack near Damascus on 21 August.

The Syria disarmament plan was unveiled by the US and Russia last weekend.

The West wants the deal enshrined in a UN resolution backed by the threat of military force, but Russia objects.

Damascus – backed by Moscow – has insisted that rebel forces carried out last month’s attack in the Ghouta area.

In a separate development, fierce fighting has been reported between two rebel groups in the north of Syria.

Activists said the fighting began when jihadists from the al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq, and fighters from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) clashed in the town of Azaz, near the Turkish border.

This is believed to be one of the biggest confrontations so far between the jihadists and the FSA.

{wirestory}

{{The United States is set seize control of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper prosecutors claim is secretly owned by Iran, the US justice department said, though the ruling is to be appealed.}}

The seizure and sale of the 36-storey building, in the heart of New York City on Fifth Avenue, would be “the largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture,” the statement added.

A federal judge ruled in favour of the government’s suit this week, saying The Piaget Building’s owners had violated Iran sanctions and money laundering laws.

Manhattan Federal Prosecutor Preet Bharara said the decision upholds the justice department claims the owner of the building “was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran”.

Bharara said the funds from selling the building would provide “a means of compensating victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism”.

Prosecutors allege the building’s owners, the Alavi Foundation and Assa Corporation, transferred rental income and other funds to Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli.

Alavi also ran a charitable organisation for Iran and managed the building for the Iranian government, the statement said.

Built in the 1970s by a non-profit organisation operated by the Shah of Iran – and financed with a Bank Melli loan – the building was expropriated by the new Iranian government after the 1979 revolution, prosecutors allege.

aljazeera

{{Syria has given Russia new “material evidence” that opposition fighters in the Syrian conflict have used chemical weapons, a Russian minister has said.}}

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said a report by UN inspectors on the alleged use of chemical weapons was “politicised, biased and one-sided”.

He said the inspectors had only looked at evidence of an alleged attack on 21 August, not three previous incidents.

The UN team found that the nerve agent Sarin was used in the 21 August attack.

The report, however, did not apportion blame for the attack but Western nations blame the government forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Damascus – backed by Russia – says opposition forces are to blame.

Meanwhile the chief UN weapons inspector, Ake Sellstrom, has told the BBC it will be difficult to find and destroy all of Syria’s chemical weapons, but he believes it is “doable”.

Mr Sellstrom said much depended on whether the Syrian government and the opposition were willing to negotiate.

“Of course, it will be a stressful work,” he added.

Mr Sellstrom also said his team’s report may have contributed to Syria saying it was prepared to give up its chemical weapons.