Tag: InternationalNews

{Several killed in attacks on parliament and Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran, as ISIL claims responsibility.}

Gunmen and suicide bombers have attacked Iran’s parliament in central Tehran and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in south of the city, killing several people.

Four armed assailants attacked parliament office buildings on Wednesday morning, while the shrine of revolutionary founder Ruhollah Khomeini was struck by a female suicide bomber, state media reported.

One of the attackers on Iran’s parliament complex blew himself up on the fourth floor amid an ongoing siege, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Lawmaker Elias Hazrati told state television that three attackers, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 assault rifles, raided office buildings at the parliament complex.

ISNA news agency quoted a member of the parliament as saying that all the parliament doors were shut and access to the complex was sealed by police.

“There is panic going through the streets of the capital right now because of the attacks. There is chaos inside the parliament,” Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons said.

“It is very likely that these attacks were coordinated. It’s hardly a coincidence that it happened within minutes of each other.”

ISIL claim

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attacks via its online forum.

“Fighters from the Islamic State (ISIL) attacked the Khomeini mausoleum and the parliament building in Tehran,” the Amaq agency said, citing a “security source”.

The attack on the shrine of Khomeini is symbolically stunning. As Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Khomeini is a towering figure in the country and was its revolutionary leader in the 1979 ouster of the shah.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Jail term up to 15 years and $136,000 fines could be handed out to offenders, attorney general statement says.}

The United Arab Emirates has banned people from publishing expressions of sympathy towards Qatar and will punish offenders with a jail term of up to 15 years, the UAE-based newspaper Gulf News and pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya reported.

In a statement released on Wednesday, UAE’s Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said sympathising with Qatar was a cybercrime punishable by law.

“Strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy or any form of bias towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form,” Gulf News quoted Shamsi as saying in the statement.

The Federal Public Prosecution also announced that according to the Federal Penal Code and the Federal law decree on Combating Information Technology Crimes, anyone who threaten the interests, national unity and stability of the UAE will face a jail term from three to 15 years, and a fine not less than AED 500,000 ($136,000).

Since the diplomatic row erupted, slogans against and in support of Qatar have been among the top topics discussed on Twitter in Arabic, which is a hugely popular medium of expression in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting “extremism”.

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris that Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Gulf Arab states could be restored.

Hamas said in a statement that al-Jubeir’s remarks “constitute a shock for our Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nations”.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused US President Donald Trump of stirring up conflicts in the Middle East and risking a new arms race.

The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against “extremism”.

Qatar said there was “no legitimate justification” for several nations severing diplomatic ties and the decision was in “violation of its sovereignty”.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Gulf countries making ‘serious accusations’ about Doha supporting ‘terrorism’, Turkish president says.}

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended Qatar after several countries severed diplomatic ties with it, saying he personally would have intervened if accusations that the tiny Gulf emirate supports “terrorism” were true.

Erdogan stood by Qatar on Tuesday, saying he intends to “develop” ties with the embattled Gulf state hit by sanctions from Saudi Arabia and its allies.

“Let me say at the outset that we do not think the sanctions against Qatar are good,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

“Turkey will continue and will develop our ties with Qatar, as with all our friends who have supported us in the most difficult moments,” he added in reference to last year’s failed coup.

Turkey has close ties with Qatar but also has good relations with the other Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia.

Erdogan was careful not to criticise Riyadh, calling on the member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council to “resolve their differences through dialogue”.

“Efforts to isolate Qatar … will not solve any problem,” said Erdogan, praising Doha’s “cool-headedness” and “constructive approach”.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting “extremism”.

“Presenting Qatar as a supporter of terrorism is a serious accusation,” the Turkish leader said. “I know [Qatar’s leaders] well and if that had been the case, I would have been the first head of state to confront them.”

Source:Al Jazeera

{New round of leaked emails show repeated criticism of then presidential candidate Trump by UAE ambassador to the US.}

The latest round of leaked emails of the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States reveal repeated criticism by the diplomat of US President Donald Trump.

The Huffington Post, the US media outlet that received the latest series of emails, said they showed Yousef al-Otaiba denigrating Trump and others in communications with officials close to then President Barack Obama.

The Huffington Post said one of the emails showed Otaiba corresponding with Rob Malley, Obama’s chief adviser on the Middle East, on election night.

“You got room for me in Abu Dhabi?” Malley wrote to Otaiba.

“This isn’t funny,” the UAE ambassador responded. “How/why is this happen. On what planet can Trump be a president.”

READ MORE: Hackers leak emails from UAE ambassador to US

In another exchange from 2016 with Judith Miller, a right-wing US commentator who reportedly sent Otaiba a series of tweets from a Saudi whistle-blower that criticised Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE diplomat said “the 7 minutes I spent reading this was the equivalent of watching 7 minutes of Donald Trump. A waste of my time.”

The latest email leak comes after US media reported on Saturday that emails, released by a group called “GlobalLeaks” – not affiliated with the software developer, GlobaLeaks – showed clear collaboration between Otaiba and a pro-Israel think-tank in an attempt to discredit Qatar.

Otaiba is a well-known figure in US national security circles – he has been called “the most charming man in Washington” – and has participated in Pentagon strategy meetings at the invitation of defence officials.

Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said those behind the leak told Huffington post that “their intention is to reveal the ‘two-faced nature’ of Emirati foreign policy”.

He added that “from these emails it would appear that the ambassador to Washington doesn’t have a very high opinion of Trump”.

READ MORE: All the latest updates on the Qatar diplomatic crisis

Huffington Post reporter Akbar Ahmed told Al Jazeera the emails “certainly shows a high level of UAE scepticism over Qatar”.

Ahmed added that the emails also reveal that the “prime focus” of UAE officials in public “is Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood”, but “it seems that a prime focus of these messages has been about neighbouring state Qatar”.

He said this showed the UAE’s “influence, their access and the kind of agenda they’re pushing”.

US and UAE officials have not commented on the recent leak.

On Monday, the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and the Maldives cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar, a move Qatar’s foreign ministry called “unjustified” and “based on claims and allegations that have no basis in fact”.

The dispute between Qatar and the Gulf’s Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency. It has spiralled since.

Following the hack, comments falsely attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, were published.

Qatar’s government categorically denied that the comments.

“There are international laws governing such crimes, especially the cyberattack. [The hackers] will be prosecuted according to the law,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday.

UAE-based Sky News Arabia and Al Arabiya kept running the discredited story, despite the Qatari denials.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Gunman reportedly claims to be ISIL after killing one and wounding three police officers in attack.}

Australian police are treating a deadly siege in the southern city of Melbourne as an “act of terrorism” after a claim by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) group that one of its fighters was the gunman responsible.

Police shot dead Yacqub Khayre on Monday after he held a woman hostage inside an apartment building in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city.

Police confirmed on Tuesday that Khayre, who was acquitted of a plot to attack a Sydney army base in 2009, had shot a man dead in the foyer of the building.

“This terrorist attack by a known criminal, a man who was only recently released on parole, is a shocking, cowardly crime,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in the capital, Canberra.

“It is a terrorist attack and it underlines the need for us to be constantly vigilant, never to be deterred, always defiant, in the face of Islamist terrorism,” he said.

Victoria state Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said police were still investigating after ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq news agency.

“We’re aware of them having claimed responsibility, but then they always tend to jump up and claim responsibility every time something happens, so we note that that has happened,” Ashton said.

After holding the woman hostage for several hours, Khayre burst out of the building firing at police, who shot back and killed him. The woman was rescued unhurt, but three police officers suffered non-life threatening gunshot wounds.

Amaq said the attack was launched because of Australia’s membership in a US-led coalition fighting against the armed group in Syria and Iraq.

Police were also investigating a telephone call made to the newsroom of Australian TV broadcaster Seven Network during the siege.

The network said it received a phone call Monday afternoon from a distressed woman who said she was involved in a hostage situation.

“We asked her more information, at that point a man came on the same line and said ‘This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda,’” Seven news director Simon Pristel said.

“We asked for more information and that’s when he hung up,” Pristel added.

Ashton said Khayre, an 29-year-old Australian of Somali heritage, had a long criminal history and was on parole at the time of the attack.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Rights groups denounce comments after US congressman called for a war against ‘Islamic horror’ after deadly attack.}

A US congressman has called for a war against “Islamic horror” in response to the attacks in London over the weekend that claimed the lives of seven and wounded 48.

Clay Higgins, Republican representative of Louisiana’s third congressional district and volunteer law enforcement officer, said in a social media post on Sunday the “free world … all of Christendom … is at war” with “radicalized Islamic suspect[s]”. He finished the post with “Kill them all”.

The comments caused concern with many advocacy groups calling on Monday for Higgins to measure his words.

“Congressman Higgins’ comments on social media do nothing but fan the flames of anti-Muslim rhetoric, which have reached a fever pitch following the 2016 election,” Heidi Beirich, director of Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups in the US, told Al Jazeera via email.

“Words have consequences and, in a time where hate crimes against Muslims are up 67 percent, our elected officials need to be issuing statements of unity and not vilification,” she said.

Al Jazeera contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nationwide grassroots civil rights advocacy organisation for comment on Higgins’ statement.

CAIR’s government affairs director Robert McCaw said he wanted clarification on whom exactly Higgins believes Christendom is at war. “Is he referring to criminal terrorist groups … or is he including all Muslims in that statement?”

McCaw echoed Beirich’s concern that these comments can be dangerous as the US is living in a “climate of hate. A white supremacist killed two men and wounded another who were defending two Muslim teenagers just last week,” he noted.

The remarks reference an attack in Portland at the end of May. White supremacist Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, allegedly stabbed three men who defended two female Muslims ages 16 and 17 while on public transportation.

Christian considers himself a defender of free speech and has been seen at rallies in support of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attempted to institute a travel ban on six predominately Muslim nations.

McCaw said CAIR plans to send Higgins a letter regarding these concerns.

The post was met controversy not only from advocacy groups, but also Higgins’ constituents.

Kayla Cooley of Lake Charles, Louisiana, called the remarks “unacceptable … I do not support this racist, terrorist rhetoric,” she said. Others supported the congressman’s remarks.

Higgins’ office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Antonio Guterres says one recent study warns discarded plastic rubbish could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.}

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever UN conference on oceans with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before” with one recent study warning discarded plastic rubbish could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.

The UN chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries on Monday that oceans – “the lifeblood of our planet” – are being severely damaged by pollution, overfishing, and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.

The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement – a decision criticised by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.

Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created”.

He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.

“We must put aside short-term national gain to prevent long-term global catastrophe,” Guterres said. “Conserving our oceans and using them sustainably is preserving life itself.”

General Assembly President Peter Thomson, a Fijian diplomat, said: “the time has come for us to correct our wrongful ways”.

“We have unleashed a plague of plastic upon the ocean that is defiling nature in so many tragic ways,” he said. “It is inexcusable that humanity tips the equivalent of a large garbage truck of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day.”

Thomson also warned that illegal and destructive fishing practices and harmful subsidies for fisheries “are driving our fish stocks to tipping points of collapse”. And he said increasing human-caused carbon emissions are not only driving climate change but causing rising sea levels by warming the oceans and making them more acidic with less oxygen, which harms marine life.

Thomson said the conference probably represents the best opportunity ever “to reverse the cycle of decline that human activity has brought upon the ocean”, and to spur action to meet the UN goal for 2030 to conserve and manage the ocean’s resources.

The conference asked governments, UN bodies, and civil society groups to make voluntary commitments to take action to improve the health of the oceans. So far, more than 730 commitments have been received, most on managing protected areas, according to conference spokesman Damian Cardona.

At the end of the conference on Friday, nearly 200 countries will issue a Call for Action addressing marine issues that Cardona said have already been agreed.

It will urge nations to implement long-term and robust measures to reduce the use of plastics, including plastic bags, and counteract the sea-level rise that threatens many island nations as well as rising ocean temperatures and increasing ocean acidity.

Micronesia’s President Peter Christian said Pacific islanders are concerned the ocean has been “left to heal itself” after being used as “a dumping ground for industrial waste”, a weapons’ testing ground, and being polluted by humans on shores and ships at sea.

Stressing the importance of all countries being part of the Paris agreement, Christian said in an apparent reference to Trump’s decision: “While some may continue to deny man’s culpability for the damaging effects of climate change on islands and islanders … no man, no island, no village and no nation can deny that trash in our oceans is of man’s own doing.”

“And for this, man must clean up his mess,” he said.

Bolivia’s Morales was more forthright, telling the conference that the government of the United States, one of the world’s “main polluters”, decided to leave the Paris agreement, “denying science, turning your backs on multilateralism, and attempting to deny a future to upcoming generations”.

This “has made it the main threat to Mother Earth and life itself”, Morales said.

Source:Al Jazeera

{A top secret National Security Agency document shows that hackers from Russian military intelligence tried repeatedly to break into US voting systems before last year’s presidential election, The Intercept reported.}

The online news outlet said on Monday the NSA report depicted a hacking operation tied closely to Moscow’s GRU intelligence directorate that targeted private US companies providing voter registration services and equipment to local governments around the country.

{{US vote }}

The operation, which potentially threatened the integrity of the US vote, went on for months, until just days before the November 8 election, according to the document.

The NSA did not conclude whether the hackers had any effect on the outcome, The Intercept said. But US intelligence officials have repeatedly said vote tallies were not affected in the election, won in a shock upset by Donald Trump.

The Intercept, which focuses on national security issues, said the NSA document was dated May 5, the most up to date view made public so far by US intelligence services of the Russian effort.

The Intercept did not say how they acquired the document, but shortly after its report appeared, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Reality Leigh Winner, an employee of a national security contractor, for leaking top secret information to “an online news outlet”.

{{Help Trump}}

While neither the information nor the outlet were identified, the information was also described as a report dated May 5.

Asked about the arrest, Intercept spokeswoman Vivian Siu said the NSA document came to them anonymously. “The Intercept has no knowledge of the identity of the source,” she said.

The report expanded on US allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed a concerted effort, involving hacking and disinformation, to interfere with the election to help Trump.

“Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named US company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,” the NSA report says, according to The Intercept.

{{Denied }}

“The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting US local government organisations.”

The report was published just days after Putin denied allegations that the Russian state had meddled in the US election.

Putin conceded, however, that there may have been hacking by Russians unconnected with the government.

As for the charges of government involvement, he said: “This useless and harmful chatter needs to stop.”

The NSA did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the report.

{{Unanswered }}

The Intercept said that the agency, Washington’s most important signals intelligence body, sought first to dissuade them from publishing it, and then requested redactions.

The report shows that, by trying to steal log-in credentials and using spear-fishing emails to plant malware, the hackers “obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards.”

How successful that effort was, and what kind of data may have been stolen, remains an unanswered question, the NSA report says.

It also notes that despite then-president Barack Obama’s warning to Putin in September last year to not interfere with the election, the hacking attack on voter systems continued through October.

Source:AFP

{India successfully launched its most powerful home-produced rocket, another milestone for its indigenous space programme which one day hopes to put a human into orbit.}

The 43-metre rocket hurtled into a clear sky at 5:28 pm from the southern island of Sriharikota, one of two sites used by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch satellites.

Scientists hugged each other and cheered as the 640-tonne rocket lifted off on Monday.

“The GSLV – MKIII D1/GSAT-19 mission takes India closer to the next generation launch vehicle and satellite capability,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on his Twitter account.

{{Proud nation }}

“The nation is proud!”

The rocket boasts a powerful engine that has been developed in India over many years. Programme managers hope to reduce reliance on European engines that have propelled some of India’s spacecraft in the past.

The GSLV Mk III rocket carried a satellite weighing more than three tonnes into a high orbit above Earth, a landmark achievement as India had struggled to match the heavier payloads of other space giants.

“They just launched the most powerful engine in India. It is a cryogenic engine, which took them 20 years to develop. Some engineers have spent their life working on this,” Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France’s space agency CNES, said.

The launch is another feather in the cap for scientists at ISRO, who won Asia’s race to Mars in 2014 when an Indian spacecraft reached the Red Planet on a shoestring budget.

That feat burnished India’s reputation as a reliable low-cost option for space exploration, with its $73 million price tag drastically undercutting NASA’s Maven Mars $671-million mission.

ISRO is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus.

{{Reaching for the stars }}

India is vying for a larger slice of the booming commercial satellite business as phone, internet and other companies seek expanded and more high-end communications.

In February India put a record 104 satellites in orbit from a single rocket, surpassing Russia which launched 39 satellites in one mission in June 2014.

The rocket’s main cargo on that occasion was a 714-kilogram (1,574-pound) satellite for Earth observation but it was also loaded with 103 smaller “nano satellites”, nearly all from other countries.

Although India has successfully launched lighter satellites in recent years, this latest rocket is capable of carrying a massive four-tonne payload into high orbit — twice the capacity of its predecessor, ISRO says.

{{Indian-made }}

The space agency tested a less-developed version of the rocket in December 2014 while the cryogenic engine was still in the testing phase.

It carried an unmanned crew capsule which separated from the rocket and splashed down in the Bay of Bengal off India’s east coast 20 minutes after liftoff.

The Indian-made capsule was designed to carry up to three astronauts but ISRO said it would take at least another seven years to reach the point where a crew could be put into space.

India wants to become the fourth nation — after Russia, the United States and China — to put astronauts into orbit but its manned spaceflight programme has experienced multiple stops and starts.

Source:AFP

{Group’s fighters behind van and knife attacks, Aamaq says, as tech firms including Facebook reject UK PM’s accusation.}

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has claimed responsibility for Saturday night’s attack in London in which three armed men ran over pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed several more before being killed.

The ISIL-linked Aamaq agency said late on Sunday that the group’s fighters were responsible for the assault that killed at least seven people.

“A detachment of fighters from Islamic State carried out London attacks yesterday,” it said.

This was the third attack in Britain that ISIL has claimed, after the bombing in Manchester and a similar attack in the heart of London in March.

ISIL makes such claims when it sends in attackers, and also when others carrying out deadly plots are inspired by the group’s ideology.

In another development, social media companies Google, Twitter and Facebook have rejected a statement by Theresa May, UK prime minister, that internet companies are partially to blame for giving “extremist views” the “safe space it needs to breed”.

May said on Sunday the three attacks in Britain were bound by an “evil ideology” that claims Western values are incompatible with Islam and demanded action from internet firms.

Representatives for the companies issued statements saying they have been working to improve the technology to identify and remove inappropriate content.

Facebook said it wanted to make its platform a “hostile environment for terrorists”.

“Using a combination of technology and human review, we work aggressively to remove terrorist content from our platform as soon as we become aware of it – and if we become aware of an emergency involving imminent harm to someone’s safety, we notify law enforcement,” it said.

Nick Pickles, UK head of public policy at Twitter, said: “We continue to expand the use of technology as part of a systematic approach to removing this type of content.”

Google said: “We are committed to working in partnership with the government and NGOs to tackle these challenging and complex problems, and share the government’s commitment to ensuring terrorists do not have a voice online.”

London police have not said what role, if any, social media or information from the internet factored into Saturday night’s attack.

British police say they have arrested 12 people in east London over the attack in the London Bridge area.

Raids are continuing in the Barking district, and the police said they would release names of the three attackers “as soon as operationally possible”.

The city of London is convening a public vigil for those killed and wounded at 6pm on Monday at Potters Fields Parks, a statement from Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said.

A Canadian was among the seven killed.

Of the 48 who were wounded, 21 people remain in critical condition, according to the National Health Service.

They include French, Australian and German nationals.

Source:Al Jazeera