Tag: InternationalNews

{Derk Johannes Bolt and Eugenio Ernest Marie Follender captured by Marxist rebel group in northeast Colombia, army says.}

Two Dutch journalists have been captured by Marxist ELN rebels in a conflict area of northeastern Colombia, the military said.

The leftist guerrilla group, which neither confirmed nor denied any kidnapping, said on Twitter on Monday that they were looking into the case.

“This morning, reporter Derk Johannes Bolt, 62, and his cameraman Eugenio Ernest Marie Follender, 58, both Dutch nationals, were stopped” in El Tarra, Norte de Santander, by presumed ELN rebels, police said in a statement.

Bolt and Follender work for the Dutch TV programme Spoorloos, which traces lost relatives.

In May 2016 in the same El Tarra region ELN rebels kidnapped a Colombian-Spanish journalist and two Colombian TV reporters. The reporters were handed over days later to intermediaries.

The government ombudsman’s office via Twitter demanded the “immediate liberation of the two Dutch nationals being held,” and said it will try to help solve the situation.

Meanwhile police specialists in kidnapping and extortion headed to the region in an attempt secure the release of the two men.

The ELN, Colombia’s second biggest rebel group, is in peace talks with the government to put an end to more than five decades of war in the Andean nation.

The biggest rebel movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signed a peace accord late last year and is expected to complete disarmament this week.

More than 220,000 people have been killed in a conflict that pit the military against FARC, ELN and right wing paramilitary armies since it began in 1952.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Report released ahead of World Refugee Day shows a jump of 300,000 people uprooted over the past year.}

A record 65.6 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict or persecution by the end of 2016, the United Nations said.

The record number includes 22.5 million refugees, 40.3 million internally displaced people and 2.8 million asylum seekers.

The number marks a jump of 300,000 from the end of 2015, according to a new report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday.

This is “the highest figure since we started recording these figures,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told reporters ahead of the report launch.

“By any measure, this is an unacceptable number, and it speaks louder than ever to the need for solidarity and common purpose in preventing and resolving crises,” he said.

The figures released ahead of World Refugee Day on Tuesday showed that 10.3 million of the world’s displaced people fled their homes last year alone, including 3.4 million who crossed international borders to become refugees.

“This equates to one person becoming displaced every three seconds – less than the time it takes to read this sentence,” UNHCR pointed out in a statement.

At the end of 2016, there were about 40.3 million internally displaced people in the world, down slightly from 40.8 million a year earlier, with Syria, Iraq and Colombia accounting for the greatest numbers.

Another 22.5 million people – half of them children – were registered as refugees last year, the UNHCR report showed, pointing out that this is “the highest level ever recorded”.

Syrians continued to be the largest forcibly displaced population, with 12 million people at the end of 2016.

Syria’s six-year conflict alone has sent more than 5.5 million people seeking safety in other countries, including 825,000 last year alone, accounting for the world’s largest group of refugees.

Along with the 6.3 million Syrians displaced inside the country, these numbers show that a nearly two thirds of all Syrians have been forced from their homes, the report said.

The Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 320,000 people, “is becoming a forgotten crisis,” he warned.

The UN refugee chief also voiced alarm over the rapidly deteriorating situation in South Sudan, which he said was currently the world’s “fastest growing refugee crisis and displacement crisis”.

South Sudan’s civil war, which began in December 2013, has left tens of thousands dead and forced a total of 3.7 million people from their homes – nearly a third of the population.

Overall, the refugee population from the world’s youngest country swelled 85 percent last year to reach 1.4 million by the end of 2016, the UNHCR report showed.

Besides Syria and South Sudan, Monday’s report also pointed to large-scale displacement in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan.

And nearly 70 years after Palestinians first fled today’s Israel, some 5.3 million Palestinians are currently living as refugees – the highest level ever recorded, UNHCR said.

The report showed despite huge focus on Europe’s refugee crisis, it is the poorer countries that host most of the world’s refugees.

For the third consecutive year, Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide, with 2.9 million people.

It was followed by Pakistan (1.4 million), Lebanon (1 million), Iran (979,400), Uganda (940,800), and Ethiopia (791,600).

Source:Al Jazeera

{Moscow says it will ‘target’ US coalition aircraft in the west of Syria’s Euphrates River after US downed a Syrian jet.}

Russia has said that it will treat all US-led coalition aircraft in the west of the Euphrates River in Syria as “targets” and halted an incident-prevention hotline with Washington after US forces downed a Syrian warplane.

Moscow only once before suspended the hotline, which was established in October 2015 to prevent conflict between the different forces operating in Syrian airspace.

Sunday’s downing of the jet and Russia’s response on Monday further complicate Syria’s six-year war and come as the US-led coalition and allied fighters battle to remove the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group from its Syrian bastion Raqqa.

Russia’s foreign ministry accused Washington of failing to use the hotline before downing the plane near Raqqa, and called for a “careful investigation by the US command” into the incident.

“Any flying objects, including planes and drones of the international coalition, discovered west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as aerial targets by Russia’s air defences on and above ground,” it warned.

Russia’s defence ministry condemned the downing of the jet in a separate statement, saying the latest incident, in addition to others, was a violation of international law.

“As a result of the strike, the Syrian plane was destroyed. The Syrian pilot catapulted into an area controlled by Islamic State [of Iraq and the Levant] terrorists. His fate is unknown,” the statement said.

‘Not much change on ground’

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst and columnist, in Moscow told Al Jazeera that the development was a dangerous escalation, but the sides did not want to do take real action against each other.

“Russia’s defence ministry does not say that they would target American planes with weapons. Moscow says they will just lock their radars on them, follow them but not really shoot,” he said.

Felgenhauer added that this happened various times before the latest incident when US planes came close to Russian bases in Syria.

“So, there is not much real change on the ground,” he said.

The Syrian jet was shot down on Sunday evening after regime forces engaged fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance battling with US support against ISIL, in an area close to Raqqa.

The American F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down the Syrian SU-22 around 7pm as it “dropped bombs near SDF fighters” south of the town of Tabqa, the coalition said in a statement.

The incident was the latest skirmish between the US-led coalition and regime forces in the increasingly tense and crowded space in Syria’s north and east.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Saad al-Kaabi says despite the blockade against Qatar, Doha will not shut its gas pipeline to its ‘brothers’.}

Qatar will not cut gas supplies to the United Arab Emirates despite a diplomatic dispute between the two nations, the chief executive of the state-run Qatar Petroleum has told Al Jazeera.

Saad Sherida al-Kaabi told Al Jazeera Arabic’s Liqa al-Yaum (Today’s Meeting show) on Sunday that although there was a “force majeure” clause in the Dolphin gas pipeline agreement – which pumps around 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the UAE – Qatar would not stop supplies to its “brothers”.

“The siege we have today is a force majeure and we could close the gas pipeline to the UAE,” he said.

“But if we cut the gas, it does great harm to the UAE and the people of the UAE, who are considered like brothers … we decided not to cut the gas now.”

According to analysts and industry sources, a shutdown of the 364km Dolphin pipeline, which links Qatar’s giant North Field with the UAE and Oman, would cause major disruptions to the UAE’s energy needs.

Earlier on Sunday, the chief executive of Sharjah National Oil Corp said he did not expect flows of natural gas from Qatar to the UAE to be interrupted by the diplomatic dispute in the region.

Four Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt – severed diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting “extremism” and aligning with their regional rival Iran – charges that Qatar has repeatedly denied.

The Saudi-led bloc of nations cut off sea and air links with Qatar and ordered Qatari nationals to leave their countries with 14 days.

Qatar Airways, one of the biggest regional carriers, was forced to take long detours after it was barred from using Saudi, UAE and Egyptian air space.

The air, sea and land restrictions imposed by its three Gulf neighbours have not so far affected maritime routes for Qatari LNG vessels which can pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Most of Qatar’s almost 80 million tonnes of annual LNG supplies are shipped in tankers, mainly to Japan, South Korea and India, as well as to several European countries.

Any disruption to Qatar’s LNG exports could anger the European Union as the UK, Spain and Poland rely on Qatari LNG.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Truce allows government troops to focus on quelling a month-long siege by ISIL-linked fighters in Mindanao province.}

The Philippine government has announced it would suspend offensives against communist fighters, allowing troops to focus on quelling a bloody siege by ISIL-linked fighters in the country’s south.

Silvestre Bello III, chief government negotiator, said on Sunday that the government move is in response to a similar plan by the communist New People’s Army rebels.

He did not specify when such a suspension of government offensives would take effect and under what terms.

READ MORE: Peace is still possible in Duterte’s Philippines

In the last year the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has been engaged in an on-and-off truce with the communist rebels.

Despite the latest peace overtures, Philippine troops killed five communist fighters in separate clashes in the south while the rebels stormed a police station in a central Philippine island of Leyte and seized a dozen assault rifles and pistols over the weekend, officials said.

Three communist fighters were killed in Davao Oriental province and two others died in Compostela Valley in separate clashes with army troops on Saturday, military officials said.

While in Leyte, about 50 communist rebels stormed a police station and seized 12 rifles and pistols, and other equipment, according to the police.

The rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that they waged the assault to punish police officers, whom they accused of being involved in extortion, gambling and distribution of illegal drugs.

{{Fighting two fronts in Mindanao}}

While Duterte has pursued talks with the communist rebel, he has expressed outrage over continuing attacks.

The rebels have also protested what they said were continuing military assaults on their rural strongholds.

The accusations and other differences have hampered negotiations being brokered by Norway, causing a scheduled round of talks to be canceled in May.

The communist rebels have been waging one of Asia’s longest-running armed rebellion, which has left tens of thousands dead.

Separately, the government is also fighting Muslim armed fighters in the southern island of Mindanao.

Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to end a 27-day siege by fighters aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in the southern city of Marawi.

The siege in Marawi has forced Duterte to declare martial law in the southern island.

The intense fighting has left at least 242 fighters, 56 soldiers and policemen and 26 civilians dead and turned the heartland of the Muslim-majority city into a battlefield, and displaced 300,000 people.

The US military has deployed a spy plane and drones to help troops end the insurrection, which was started by an estimated 500 ISIL-fighters, including foreign operatives.

The military said more than 100 fighters are holed up in the city, holding an unspecified number of civilian hostages.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Hamas says ISIL claim that three of its fighters attacked Israeli police is false and an attempt to ‘muddy the waters’.}

Palestinian groups have rejected ISIL’s claim of responsibility for Friday’s attacks in Jerusalem, which left one Israeli police officer killed and resulted in Israeli soldiers killing three Palestinians.

It is the first attack in Israeli-occupied territory claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) group. But the statement it released on Saturday appeared to have major discrepancies with Friday’s events.

Three Palestinians attacked officers at the Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem late on Friday and were killed by Israeli security forces.

Another Palestinian man from Hebron was also injured by Israeli security forces, despite playing no role in the attacks.

Hamas, the Palestinian group that administers the Gaza Strip, dismissed ISIL’s claim, saying the three attackers had come from among its own ranks, as well as the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman, said the ISIL claim was an attempt to “muddy the waters”, adding that the attack was carried out by “two Palestinians from the PFLP and a third from Hamas”, AFP news agency reported.

The killing was “a natural response to the crimes of the occupier”, he said.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency identified the three Palestinians as Bara Saleh, born in 1998; Adel Ankoush, born in 1999; and Asama Atta, born in 1998.

All three men were from the village of Deir Abu Mashal, near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The PFLP said Salah and Atta had recently been released from several months in Israeli prison.

The names differ from those reported by ISIL, which said the attack was carried out by three brothers by the names of Abu al-Bara’a al-Maqdisi, Abu Hassan al-Maqdisi, and Abu Rabah al-Maqdisi, AFP reported.

{{‘Shoot-to-kill’}}

Since October 2015, about 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, with many instances occurring within close range or during protests in occupied territory.

A number of local and international human rights groups have raised concerns that Israeli security forces have employed a “shoot-to-kill” policy when confronting Palestinians.

The Israeli police relaxed its open-fire regulations in December 2015, permitting officers to fire, with live ammunition, on those suspected of throwing stones or firebombs as an initial option, without having to use non-lethal weapons first.

About 42 Israelis have also been killed in attacks carried out by Palestinians since October 2015.

Palestinians say those attacks result from anger over decades of Israeli occupation.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Disclosure document nowhere nearly as detailed as the tax records that US president has refused to publish so far.}

US President Donald Trump had personal liabilities of at least $315.6m to German, US and other lenders as of mid-2017, according to a federal financial disclosure form released late on Friday by the US Office of Government Ethics.

The 98-page disclosure document, posted on the ethics office’s website, is nowhere nearly as detailed as the tax records that Trump has thus far refused to publish despite a long-standing tradition among American heads of state.

According to this disclosure, Trump resigned from his managing posts in almost all of his enterprises on January 19, 2017, one day before being sworn into office at the White House. The rest he had quit before that.

In terms of debts reported to the ethics office, Trump listed liabilities of at least $130m to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of German-based Deutsche Bank AG.

For example, Trump disclosed debts to Deutsche exceeding $50m for the Old Post Office, an historic Washington, DC, property in which he has opened a hotel.

Income increased

Trump also reported liabilities of at least $110m to Ladder Capital Corp, a commercial real-estate lender with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Boca Raton, Florida.

Income from many of his other hotels and resorts largely held steady.

Revenue from Trump Corporation, his real-estate management company, nearly tripled, to $18m, and revenue from Mar-a-Lago grew by 25 percent, to $37.25m.

The private club doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 after Trump’s election.

The data suggests that increased visibility for Trump could have led to an increase in revenue at least for his hotel and golf businesses.

He also earned $11m from the Miss Universe pageant, after selling the beauty contest in 2015.

His assets probably exceeded $1.4bn because the disclosure form provided ranges of values.

The document showed Trump held officer positions in 565 corporations or other entities before becoming US president.

His tenure in most of those posts ended on January 19, the day before his inauguration, and in others in 2015 and 2016.

Most of the entities involved were based in the US, with a handful in Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, Bermuda and elsewhere.

The Russia connection

The liabilities to Deutsche Bank are especially sensitive for Trump and were recently tied to the Russia probe led by Robert Mueller, FBI special counsel.

Democratic congressmen demanded that Deutsche Bank send legislators more details about Trump’s dealings. The bank refused to comply citing client privacy rules.

Democrats wanted to clarify whether Trump’s loans had been guaranteed for by the Russian government or other Russian entities.

Trump is facing increasing pressure related to the alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential elections and suspected ties to the Republican campaign.

Both the Kremlin and the White House have denied these collusion allegations.

Source:Al Jazeera

{US company says technology used to block child pornography pressed into service to address spread of propaganda online.}

Amid growing pressure from governments, Facebook says it has stepped up its efforts to address the spread of “terrorist propaganda” on its service by using artificial intelligence (AI).

In a blog post on Thursday, the California-based company announced the introduction of AI, including image matching and language understanding, in conjunction with it already-existing human reviewers to better identify and remove content “quickly”.

“We know we can do better at using technology – and specifically artificial intelligence – to stop the spread of terrorist content on Facebook,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s director of global policy management, and Brian Fishman, the company’s counterterrorism policy manager, said in the post.

“Although our use of AI against terrorism is fairly recent, it’s already changing the ways we keep potential terrorist propaganda and accounts off Facebook.

“We want Facebook to be a hostile place for terrorists.”

Such technology is already used to block child pornography from Facebook and other services such as YouTube, but Facebook had been reluctant about applying it to other potentially less clear-cut uses.

In most cases, the company only removed objectionable material if users first report it.

Facebook and other internet companies have faced growing pressure from governments to identify and prevent the spread of “terrorist propaganda” and recruiting messages on their services.

Government officials have at times threatened to fine Facebook, which has nearly two billion users, and strip the broad legal protections it enjoys against liability for the content posted by its users.

{{Efforts welcomed}}

Facebook’s announcement did not specifically mention this pressure, but it did acknowledge that “in the wake of recent terror attacks, people have questioned the role of tech companies in fighting terrorism online”.

It said Facebook wants “to answer those questions head on” and that it agrees “with those who say that social media should not be a place where terrorists have a voice”.

The UK interior ministry welcomed Facebook’s efforts, but said technology companies needed to go further.

“This includes the use of technical solutions so that terrorist content can be identified and removed before it is widely disseminated, and ultimately prevented from being uploaded in the first place,” a ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

Among the AI techniques being used by Facebook is image matching, which compares photos and videos people upload to Facebook to “known” terrorism images or video.

Matches generally mean that either that Facebook had previously removed that material, or that it had ended up in a database of such images that the company shares with YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft.

{{New techniques}}

Facebook is also developing “text-based signals” from previously removed posts that praised or supported terrorist organisations.

It will feed those signals into a machine-learning system, over time, will learn how to detect similar posts.

In their blog post, Bickert and Fishman said that when Facebook receives reports of potential “terrorism posts”, it reviews those reports urgently.

In addition, it says that in the rare cases when it uncovers evidence of imminent harm, it promptly informs authorities.

The company admitted that “AI can’t catch everything” and technology is “not yet as good as people when it comes to understanding” what constitutes content that should be removed.

To address these shortcomings, Facebook said it continues to use “human expertise” to review reports and determine their context.

The company had previously announced it was hiring 3,000 additional people to review content that was reported by users.

Facebook also said it will continue working with other tech companies, as well as government and intergovernmental agencies to combat the spread of “terrorism” online.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Family says Otto Warmbier has been in a coma since March 2016, shortly after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.}

An American university student who was returned to the US this week after being held in North Korea for 18 months, has a severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”, doctors say.

Otto Warmbier, 22, has been in a coma since March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in North Korea, according to his family.

He arrived in the US on Tuesday and is stable but “shows no sign of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surrounding”, said Dr Daniel Kanter, medical director of the neuroscience intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, on Thursday.

“He has not spoken,” Kanter said.

He said Warmbier was breathing on his own, but “he has not engaged in any purposeful movements or behaviours. He has spontaneous eye opening and blinking”.

Warmbier, from Wyoming, Ohio, was arrested for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported.

He was visiting North Korea with a tour group.

At a news conference before his trial, a weeping Warmbier said he had made “the worst mistake of my life” and pleaded to be released.

On Thursday, North Korea said that it had released Warmbier “on humanitarian grounds”.

His father, Fred Warmbier, said the family was proud of him, calling him “a fighter”.

Warmbier’s parents were told their son was given a sleeping pill soon after his trial in March last year but never woke up.

{{Botulism and sleeping pill}}

A Washington Post newspaper report said the parents were told he may have been infected by botulism while in the North Korea jail system.

The elder Warmbier said he did not believe North Korea’s explanation that the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill.

US doctors said they found no evidence of active botulism, a rare, serious illness caused by contaminated food or a dirty wound.

Kanter said Otto Warmbier suffered “extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of the brain”.

Doctors said his injuries are consistent with respiratory arrest cutting off oxygen to the brain, but they do not know what caused it.

The developments come amid tensions with the US following a series of missile tests by North Korea, focusing attention on an arms build-up that Pentagon chief Jim Mattis this week described as “a clear and present danger to all”.

A state department spokeswoman said in Washington, DC that Warmbier’s release followed “quiet diplomacy”, at US President Donald Trump’s suggestion.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Foreign minister says, after holding talks in Qatar and Kuwait, ‘problem can’t be solved with embargoes and sanctions’.}

As the rift between Qatar and the Saudi-led bloc enters its second week, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, has said that Qatari authorities does not want the diplomatic crisis to continue.

Cavusoglu held talks in Kuwait with his counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Sabah on Thursday to push mediation efforts aimed at resolving the dispute.

While saying an eagerness to resolve the crisis was seen in meetings with Qatari officials, Cavusoglu said Qatari officials are seeking proof of the accusations levelled against their country.

“We share our views to resolve this problem and remain impartial, but we say what is wrong without hesitation,” he said on his return to Ankara from Kuwait on Thursday.

“What is the problem, what are the accusations and what are the evidence? We must lay these out in order to solve this problem,” he said.

“This problem can’t be solved with embargoes and sanctions that go too far.

“We need to solve this problem as soon as possible by going through a process of easing the crisis without further escalating tensions.”

Cavusoglu was expected to visit Saudi Arabia on Friday and share Turkey’s “sincere views” on the crisis during a meeting with Saudi officials.

Qatar is facing an economic and diplomatic boycott by Saudi Arabia and its regional allies.

They accuse Qatar of “funding terrorism”, fomenting regional unrest and cosying up to their enemy Iran, all of which Qatar denies.

In response to an accusation that Qatar stands by Iran, Cavusoglu said these allegations were untrue, adding that no country in the region opposed Iran’s practices as firmly as Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Side by side

Cavusoglu said Qatar stood beside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Yemen, and also stood by Saudi Arabia when its embassy was attacked in Tehran last year.

He said Turkey too does not view the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as terrorist organisations.

Speaking on Qatar’s $12bn deal with the US to buy F-15 fighter jets, Cavusoglu said “just like other country, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt … it is natural for Qatar to buy airplanes or parts necessary for its own defence”.

The Saudi-led blockade imposed against Qatar raised fears of a food crisis in Qatar, as most of its supplies come from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

But the shortages have eased with Turkey and Iran shipping in meat, fruit and vegetables.

Source:Al Jazeera