Tag: InternationalNews

{Visit comes after US president failed to explain how to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks after meeting with Netanyahu}

Donald Trump has arrived in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as the US president seeks to restart peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The short visit in Bethlehem on Tuesday comes a day after Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Palestinians held a general strike in support of hundreds of hunger-striking prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Meetings with Netanyahu concluded on Monday with Trump promising to help broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but gave little indication of how he could revive negotiations that collapsed in 2014.

“It’s not easy. I have heard it is one of the toughest deals of all, but I have a feeling that we are going to get there eventually. I hope,” Trump said after the meeting, without elaborating.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Bethlehem, said Palestinian officials were not clear of Trump’s intentions during Tuesday’s visit.

“They have told us they were listening, they were watching and they were trying to figure out whether Trump’s visit was another visit where he was seeking ideas or whether he was going to come up with his own ideas,” Abdel-Hamid said.

The last round of peace talks, led by then-President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, fell apart in 2014.

One point of contention is the fate of occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967.

During his presidential campaign, Trump advocated breaking with decades of precedent and moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, deeply alarming Palestinians.

He has since said the move was still being looked at.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation, says Trump’s comments about striving for a negotiated solution between Israel and the Palestinians are not promising.

“The time is now for the world to end Israel military rule,” she told Al Jazeera. “It’s not going to come through negations; it’s only going to come through exerted efforts to hold the Israelis accountable by boycotting through sanctions and bringing them before the international criminal courts.”

“That Palestinians have to negotiate their freedom and prove ourselves worthy of freedom is repugnant,” Buttu added, arguing that Trump should use its multi-billion dollar financial support to Israel as weight to pressure it from ending its occupation of Palestinian territory.

“I have very little faith that he will be able to do anything with the Israelis to change their policy,” she concluded. “I don’t anticipate anything positive is going to come out.”

{{‘Day of rage’}}

The Palestinian prisoners’ affairs committee called for a “day of rage” on Monday for “the voice of the prisoners to be heard by the president”.

Tuesday marks the 37th day of a mass hunger strike inside Israeli jails. Palestinian news agency Ma’an estimates that more than 1,300 Palestinians are currently on strike behind bars in Israeli prisons, while Israeli outlets have placed the number in the high hundreds.

On Monday, Israeli forces shot and injured at least 11 Palestinian protesters who staged a general strike in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip in support of those prisoners on hunger strikes.

In a separate incident on Monday, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager as he allegedly attempted to stab a border police officer at a checkpoint near Bethlehem.

In Gaza, Hamas organised a demonstration on Monday to denounce its labelling as a “terrorist” group by many Western governments, including the United States.

After talks with Abbas, Trump will travel to Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and give a speech at the Israel Museum.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Pentagon says US forces kill seven suspected members of AQAP in a ground raid on a compound in Marib governorate.}

US forces have killed seven suspected members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) during a ground raid in Yemen, the Pentagon has said.

The operation in the early hours of Tuesday came some four months after a botched US commando raid against the group that left more than a dozen civilians dead.

US forces used “a combination of small arms fire and precision airstrikes” to attack a compound in the Marib governorate, with the support of Yemen’s authorities, a statement by the US Central Command said on Tuesday.

“Raids such as this provide insight into AQAP’s disposition, capabilities and intentions, which will allow us to continue to pursue, disrupt, and degrade AQAP.”

Two US officials, speaking to the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, said the primary objective of the raid was to gather intelligence. There were no known US casualties or injuries, they said.

The statements could not be independently verified.

The US has increased attacks against AQAP, which it regards as the most dangerous branch of the armed group, since President Donald Trump took office in January.

That has included an ill-fated raid against AQAP in January that left at least 16 civilians, including women and children, dead. AQAP fighters and a US Navy SEAL were also killed in the operation.

Yemen has been torn apart by conflict since 2014, when Houthi fighters allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh captured large expanses of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, including the capital Sanaa.

AQAP and a local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group have exploited Yemen’s war to carry out assassinations and bombings, mostly in lawless areas in the south.

According to the UN, more than 10,000 people have died – nearly half of them civilians – since an Arab coalition began a campaign of air strikes in March 2015 to drive out the Houthis and their allies.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Jan Kubis tells UN Security Council armed group will soon be defeated but continues to use civilians as human shields.}

The liberation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul “is imminent” and the days of ISIL’s self-declared caliphate “are numbered”, the UN envoy for Iraq says.

But Jan Kubis told the UN Security Council on Monday that despite progress, fighting remains “a tremendous challenge” because ISIL fighters are increasingly using civilians as human shields in “a last-gasp effort that reveals little more than the inherent inhuman barbarity of the terrorists”.

Kubis paid tribute to Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners for trying to limit the impact of military operations to protect civilians, “even if that comes at the cost of prolonging a harsh, bitter campaign that continues to claim both civilian and military lives”.

Iraqi forces, backed by a US-led coalition, officially launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, in October.

The city’s east was declared “fully liberated” in January and the fight for the west was launched the following month. It has been marked by some of the most grueling and deadly combat in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to date.

The city fell to ISIL fighters during a lightning charge in June 2014 that left nearly one-third of Iraq in their hands and plunged the country into its most severe crisis since the US-led invasion in 2003.

ISIL’s “caliphate”, declared after the June 2014 military campaign, once stretched across northern Syria through much of northern and western Iraq. But the group, also known as ISIS and Daesh, is now under attack in both countries and the territory it controls has shrunk.

Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has announced the next steps are to secure the Iraq-Syria border and to liberate west of Ninewa and Anbar governorates, the UN envoy said.

“Although large-scale military operations against ISIL will hopefully conclude by the end of this year, the security environment will remain volatile and will be characterised by continued cowardly terrorist attacks by Daesh, targeting civilians in many parts of the country,” Kubis said.

“Whenever given the opportunity, Daesh, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups will likely seek to tap into and deepen sectarian, tribal or ethnic divides, including by cooperating with criminal gangs,” he added.

To deal with these challenges, he said a long-term, comprehensive reform of the security sector “is imperative”.

Kubis expressed continuing concern at the delay in returning displaced residents to areas liberated long ago and at many hundreds of alleged disappearances that remain unresolved, saying these and other issues can undermine efforts towards national reconciliation and a political settlement in Iraq.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Health professionals hit the streets to denounce Maduro government as protesters torch Hugo Chavez’ childhood home.}

Doctors rallied in Venezuela in the latest street protests against President Nicolas Maduro as the death toll climbed to 49 with the deepening unrest entering its eighth week.

New clashes broke out between protesters and police on the outskirts of Caracas, where demonstrators blocked streets with barricades.

After marches by various civil groups, it was the turn of the Venezuelan Medical Federation to vent its frustrations on the streets.

More than a thousand of its sympathisers marched towards the health ministry in Caracas. Police fired tear gas to drive them back in scenes familiar after weeks of turmoil.

“The country is verging on catastrophe. The health system is a disaster,” said Fernando Gudayol, a 50-year-old surgeon. “One is always afraid to come out, but we will carry on doing it until there is a change.”

The opposition is demanding elections to remove Maduro from power. They blame him for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies.

“A simple infection can turn into something serious for a lack of antibiotics and any kind of supplies, and for a lack of maintenance of the equipment,” said Eliecer Melear, a 41-year-old urologist.

Maduro’s supporters staged a counter-demonstration near the presidential palace.

“What lack of medicine?” asked medical student Rangel Vegas, 31. “We are in the streets and in the clinics giving a response to what communities need.”

Maduro called for a further “march for peace” on Tuesday.

Meanhwile, protesters set late president Hugo Chavez’s childhood home in western Venezuela on fire on Monday, an opposition lawmaker said.

While demonstrators are decrying Maduro for the country’s triple-digit inflation, rising crime, and shortages of food and medicine, they have also destroyed at least five statues commemorating Chavez, Maduro’s mentor and the founder of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution.”

Demonstrators lit the house in the city of Barinas, where Chavez spent his early years, aflame along with several government buildings, said Pedro Luis Castillo, a legislator who represents the area.

The burnings capped a violent day in Barinas – known as the cradle of Chavez’s revolution – during which protesters clashed with national guardsmen, businesses were shuttered, and roads were blocked with fire-filled barricades.

Yorman Bervecia, 19, was shot and killed during a protest, according to the nation’s chief prosecutor. His death brings to at least 49 the number killed in two months of anti-government protests.

“It is pretty symbolic that the citizens are venting their frustrations on the author of the Bolivarian revolution,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas.

The street clashes engulfing Venezuela appear to be turning increasingly violent, with both security forces and youth protesters looking more unruly.

Opposition leaders are urging restraint from their followers, but say security forces and pro-government militias – not the protesters – are behind the vast number of deadly attacks.

Maduro accused protesters on Sunday of setting fire to a government supporter, saying what he calls “Nazi-fascist” elements are taking root inside the opposition’s ranks.

Maduro said Orlando Zaragoza, 21, suffered burns to almost all his body when he was doused with gasoline and set on fire at a protest in Caracas a day earlier. Videos circulating on social media show a man covered in flames fleeing a small mob.

It’s not clear what triggered the attack, which is under investigation, although some eyewitnesses told local media that Zaragoza was caught robbing demonstrators who had gathered by the tens of thousands to protest Maduro’s rule.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Nineteen people have been killed in a suspected terrorist attack during a pop concert by US star Ariana Grande in the northwest English city of Manchester, police said Tuesday.}

There were scenes of panic as Grande’s audience of youthful fans fled the 21,000-capacity venue after what eyewitnesses described as a “huge bomb-like bang” in the foyer area at the end of the concert.

A fleet of ambulances was seen rushing to the venue and bomb disposal teams were dispatched soon after, as city residents opened up their doors to stranded concert-goers after train services were shut down.

“So far 19 people have been confirmed dead, with around 50 others injured. This is currently being treated as a terrorist incident until police know otherwise,” police said in a statement.

{{Appalling attack }}

British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the “appalling terrorist attack”.

“All our thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected,” she said in a statement.

The first unconfirmed reports of an explosion emerged shortly after 2145 GMT on Monday.

Gary Walker from Leeds told BBC Radio 5 Live he was hit by shrapnel in his foot and his wife sustained a stomach wound as they waited for their daughters to come out of the concert.

“We heard the last song go and then suddenly there was a massive flash and then a bang and smoke,” he said.

Manchester Arena said the incident “took place outside the venue in a public space”.

{{Shaken }}

Isabel Hodgins, an actress who had been attending the concert, told Sky News: “Everybody was panicking, there was pushing up the stairs.

“The corridor was full, it smelled of burning, there was quite a lot of smoke as we were leaving.

“It’s just shocking and we just feel very shaken up. We’re just lucky to have gotten away safely,” she said.

Majid Khan, 22, who was attending the concert with his sister, said: “A huge bomb-like bang went off that hugely panicked everyone and we were all trying to flee the arena”.

Calvin Welsford, 18, from Bristol told the BBC: “It almost sounded like a gunshot”.

“I looked around and people were just spilling down, heading out of the building”.

{{Screaming and running }}

“I was actually having an asthma attack. It was sheer panic,” he said.

Police carried out a controlled explosion in a small park near the venue a few hours after the blast but said the item turned out to be only abandoned clothes.

Manchester residents opened up their homes to people who could not get home after the incident, sending messages with the hashtag #RoomforManchester.

Robert Tempkin, 22, from Middlesbrough, told the BBC: “Everyone was screaming and running, there were coats and people’s phones on the floor. People just dropped everything.

“Some people were screaming they’d seen blood but other people were saying it was balloons busting or a speaker had been popped.

“There were lots of ambulances. I saw somebody being treated. I couldn’t tell what had happened to him.”

{{Huge bang }}

The Manchester ambulance service warned people only to call “for life threatening emergencies” as it had “a large number of resources at the incident”.

Suzy Mitchell, whose flat is opposite the venue said she heard “a huge bang” and came out of her flat to see “everyone was running away in big crowds”.

Train services to and from Manchester Victoria Station — located under the Arena — had been cancelled.

“Disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day,” National Rail said in a statement.

British Transport Police said in a statement: “Officers are at Manchester Arena following reports of an explosion within the foyer area of the stadium at 10.30pm this evening.

The incident caused transport chaos, with traffic jams outside the venue.

“Emergency services are dealing with an incident near Manchester Victoria, resulting in all lines being closed,” operator Northern Railway wrote on its website.

Source:AFP

{World Health Organization’s spending on travel exceeded its expenditure on public health problems, report says.}

The World Health Organization spent about $200m in 2015 and 2016 on travel, a figure that far exceeds what it spends on public health problems such as AIDS, the Associated Press (AP) news agency has reported.

Citing internal documents, AP reported on Sunday that the UN health agency is struggling to reign in travel expenses even as it pleads for more money to fund its responses to global health crises.

Despite introducing controls, members of staff have been breaking rules by booking business class plane tickets and rooms in five-star hotels, AP reported.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan came under heavy criticism, with AP citing three unnamed sources who said she often travelled first class. She is reported to have spent $370,000 on travel in 2015.

The WHO has denied the allegations against Chan, saying she “strictly abides by WHO’s travel policies”.

“Travel is an essential aspect of WHO’s global health work – convening experts for collective decision-making on health interventions or travelling experts anywhere in the world that requires technical assistance for global health,” the WHO told Al Jazeera in a statement.

The WHO, which employs 7,000 people worldwide, said that less than half of its travel costs were on its staff.

Rules ignored

The UN allocates an annual budget of $2bn for the WHO.

In 2016, the agency spent $200m on travel while the figure was $234m in 2015, the year of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, according to AP figures.

In comparison, the report said, WHO spent about $71m on AIDS and hepatitis last year. On malaria, it spent $61m, and to slow tuberculosis, it invested $59m.

An internal analysis, obtained by the news agency, found that only two of seven departments at WHO’s headoffice in Geneva met their targets, and concluded the compliance rate for booking travel in advance was between 28 and 59 percent.

WHO’s transport costs were much higher than that of other comparable aid agencies, AP continued.

With 37,000 aid workers, Doctors Without Borders spends about $43m on travel per year, while the UN children’s agency UNICEF, which employs 13,000 people, said it spent $140m on global travel in 2016.

Experts who spoke to AP warned that WHO’s travel spending could have significant consequences for fundraising.

Dr Ashish Jha, the director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard University, said: “If WHO is not being as lean as possible, it’s going to be hard to remain credible when they make their next funding appeal.”

The organisation has asked for about $100m to save people in Somalia from an ongoing drought and requested $126m to stop the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Trump’s comments linking Hamas to ‘terrorism’ show his ‘complete bias’ towards Israel, says the group’s spokesman.}

Hamas Movement has rejected US President Donald Trump’s comments linking it to “terrorism” in his speech in Saudi Arabia, saying it shows his “complete bias” towards Israel.

“The statement describing Hamas as a terror group is rejected and is a distortion of our image and shows a complete bias to the Zionist occupation,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement on Sunday.

Barhoum dubbed the speech a “confirmation” that Trump is following the policy of previous US administrations.

Trump addressed the leaders of 55 Muslim countries in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and said they must take the lead in combating “radicalisation”.

“The true toll of ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and so many others, must be counted not only in the number of dead. It must also be counted in generations of vanished dreams,” said Trump in the speech.

Hamas says its battle is against Israeli occupation, not the West.

The movement presented a new political charter earlier this month that accepts the formation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, without recognising the statehood of Israel, and says that the conflict in Palestine is not a religious one.

Trump’s speech came on the second day of a visit to Saudi Arabia, part of Trump’s first foreign tour that will take him next to Israel and occupied Palestinian Territories and then to Europe.

Palestinian activists call for protests against Trump

Meanwhile, Palestinian activists have called for a “Day of Rage” when Trump visits the West Bank on Tuesday.

The call for mobilisation was put out by a group calling itself the Supreme National Leadership Committee, which includes various Palestinian political factions, including Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The committee was set up in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons.

The demonstrations are meant to draw attention to a month-long hunger strike by hundreds of prisoners being held by Israel and to protest what many Palestinians say is unfair US support for Israel.

In a statement, the group said on Sunday the Palestinian factions “affirm their rejection of the American position, which is biased in favour of the occupation”.

Trump’s visit to Israel and occupied Palestinian territories on Monday and Tuesday will be closely scrutinised as he seeks ways to restart peace efforts.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Students dressed in caps and gowns protest White House policies as vice president delivered commencement speech.}

Dozens of students at Indiana’s Notre Dame University have protested against White House policies by walking out of a commencement speech by Vice President Mike Pence, who criticised political correctness at US colleges.

The members of the graduating class – dressed in caps and gowns together with some 2,000 classmates -stood up and quietly left the school’s football stadium when Pence began delivering his speech on Sunday, videos posted online showed. Others cheered and some booed.

Notre Dame, in the city of South Bend, is one of the country’s most prominent Catholic universities.

Pence, who received an honourary degree from the university, said that “far too many campuses across America have become characterised by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness – all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech”.

“These all-too-common practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge, and they are wholly outside the American tradition,” he added.

A religious social conservative, Pence is a former Indiana governor who was born in the state and also served as one of its representatives in Congress for 12 years.

The protest comes amid mounting controversy over what constitutes free speech at college campuses since the election of President Donald Trump in November, with students objecting to appearances by divisive conservative figures. Some schools have cancelled events.

In addition to Pence’s record as governor, the protesters said they wanted to voice objections to Trump’s threat to civil liberties and policies such as his attempts to ban travellers from several Muslim-majority countries .

“The participation and degree-conferring of VP Pence stand as an endorsement of policies and actions which directly contradict Catholic social teachings and values and target vulnerable members of the university’s community,” Notre Dame student Xitlaly Estrada said in a statement by the student group WeStandForND, which organised the protest.

More than 100 people walked out, organisers said. Many wore rainbow pins or flags, a symbol of gay pride.

Pence delivered his speech while Trump was on the first day of his first trip abroad as president. In a speech in Saudi Arabia, he called on Middle Eastern leaders to help defeat extremism.

Source:Al Jazeera