Tag: InternationalNews

{Scandinavian country surges from fourth place in last year’s UN assessment all the way to top spot.}

A chilly climate is not keeping Norway from basking in the glow of being named the world’s happiest country on Monday.

The Scandinavian country surged from fourth place in last year’s UN assessment all the way to the top spot, according to the World Happiness Report 2017.

Other top countries on the list included Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland, as well as Switzerland.

Among the 20 nations at the bottom of the rankings, five were in the Middle East and North Africa and five were in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Central African Republic, which returned to the surveyed group, came in dead last at 155, with Burundi and Tanzania doing only slightly better.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who is facing a tough re-election battle in September, welcomed the report as “a nice validation on a Monday morning”.

“For many years, Norway has been behind Denmark in this ranking. I’ve made a point of it in many dinner speeches in the Nordics. Now I must find something new!” she said in a message on Facebook in Norwegian.

“But even if we top this statistic now we [must] continue to prioritise mental healthcare, to improve follow-up of children and young people because many are still struggling.”

The report found that “all of the top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance”.

Rounding out the top 10 were Finland, in fifth place, the Netherlands (6), Canada (7), New Zealand (8) and Australia and Sweden tied for 9th.

All in the top 10 were affluent, developed nations, though the report said that money was not the only ingredient for happiness.

In fact, among the wealthier countries the differences in happiness levels had a lot to do with “differences in mental health, physical health and personal relationships: the biggest single source of misery is mental illness”, the report said.

“Income differences matter more in poorer countries, but even their mental illness is a major source of misery,” it added.

Another major country, China, has made major economic strides in recent years. But its people are not happier than 25 years ago, the report found. China ranked 79th in the study of 155 countries.

The United States slipped to number 14 because of less social support and greater corruption – the very factors explaining why Nordic countries fare better on the happiness scale.

The World Happiness Report was released by the United Nations on the International Day of Happiness. It is the fifth such report since the first was published in 2012.

“Since then we have come a long way. Happiness is increasingly considered the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy,” the report said.

Source:Al Jazeera

{In agreement with Kurds, Russia to operate military base in Afrin and train YPG fighters in ‘anti-terror’ combat.}

Russia is setting up a military base in northwestern Syria in agreement with the Syrian-Kurdish YPG armed group that controls the area and will train fighters, a YPG spokesman said on Monday.

The agreement with Russia was concluded on Sunday and Russian troops have already arrived at the village of Kafr Jina, in the northwestern region of Afrin, with troop carriers and armoured vehicles, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters news agency.

“The Russian presence … comes in agreement between [the YPG] and the Russian forces operating in Syria in the framework of cooperation against terrorism and to help train our forces on modern warfare and to build a direct point of contact with Russian forces,” Xelil said in a statement.

“It is the first [agreement] of its kind,” he added.

However, in a statement put out shortly after news broke of the alleged deal, the Russian Defence Ministry said there were “no plans” to create additional military bases in Syrian territory, but added that a section of its “reconciliation centre” was located in Aleppo province close to Afrin for the prevention of ceasefire violations.

The YPG announcement angered neighbouring Turkey. Ankara views YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is waging an insurgency inside Turkey aimed at gaining greater autonomy.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said it would not accept a “region of terror” in northern Syria, and the ethnic structure of the area should be kept intact.

Turkey has launched a cross-border offensive along a section of the Turkish-Syrian frontier to prevent further gains by YPG, which controls swaths of northeastern Syria and the Afrin pocket of northwestern Syria.

Turkey’s troops pushed into Syria in August of last year in an effort to push Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) away from its border and to prevent Kurdish efforts to connect its two pockets of control in Syria’s north.

The YPG – or the People’s Protection Units – is also allied to the United States in the fight against ISIL, and is playing a major part in the US-backed offensive against ISIL’s urban stronghold of Raqqa, further east.

“The agreement came into force today,” Xelil said, declining to say how many Russian troops had arrived in Kafr Jina, the place where the base is being established.

Kafr Jina has previously been shelled by Turkish forces from across the nearby frontier, Xelil added.

The spokesman said that the YPG aims to expand its fighting force by nearly two-thirds to more than 100,000 fighters.

The group had about 60,000 fighters at the end of 2016, he said, and has already formed 10 new battalions – each comprising 300 fighters – since the start of this year.

The 10 new units and other new battalions to be formed this year will be trained in all forms of combat, weaponry and tactics, with the aim of turning the YPG into a more organised force that resembles a traditional army, Xelil said.

“A disciplined, cohesive military force, well-trained in different tactics of war … is the true guarantee to defend us and to affirm our presence as a great nation that deserves dignity,” said a YPG leaflet seeking recruits for the new battalions that has been circulated in the predominantly Kurdish regions of Syria, which is home to roughly two million Kurds.

Each fighter will reportedly receive a monthly salary of $200, which is $20 above the maximum wage currently paid to YPG fighters.

Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the US-based Atlantic Council, told AFP news agency that Russia was now partnering with the Kurds as they had become an important player in Syria.

“The Kurds are now the most consequential non-state actor in Syria, alongside al-Qaeda … They will have a huge say over the future of Syria,” Stein said.

{{‘No problem with the regime’}}

Syrian Kurdish groups established three autonomous administrations in Kurdish-dominated areas of northern Syria as Syrian state control collapsed in much of the country, setting up their own bureaucracies in addition to security forces.

Officials say their revenue streams include taxes on agricultural produce, and income raised by selling oil from fields in northeastern Syria, though they say only enough is sold to meet local needs.

The YPG commander Sipan Hemo told Reuters last week that the operation to storm Raqqa was due to start in early April, and the YPG would make up a quarter of the force that will take the city alongside allied Arab fighters. The Pentagon said no decision had been taken yet.

Xelil said the new battalions were not taking part in the operation to encircle Raqqa. He declined to say if the new training programme was supported by any foreign militaries.

The YPG and its political affiliate, the PYD, along with other Syrian Kurdish groups, aim to deepen their autonomy through the establishment of a new system of federal government in the north. The Kurds, systematically persecuted for years by the Syrian state, say their aim is not independence.

Hemo said the YPG aimed to “fight terrorism” everywhere in Syria, while its political priority was “guaranteeing the rights of the Kurdish people in Syria legally, constitutionally”.

He also signalled a readiness on the part of YPG to reach a long-term accommodation with the Syrian government, saying “there will be no problem with the regime” once Kurdish rights are secured.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stated his opposition to the regional federal model, which the dominant Syrian Kurdish groups say should be the solution to the Syrian war. Assad has vowed to take back all of Syria.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Fierce clashes reported in eastern areas of the Syrian capital after rebels attack government positions.}

Heavy clashes rocked eastern districts of the Syrian capital on Sunday after rebel fighters launched a surprise assault on government forces, a monitor and state television said.

Steady shelling and sniper fire could be heard across Damascus on Sunday as rebel factions allied with former al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham launched an attack on government positions in the city’s east.

The clashes centered on a government-held gap between two besieged opposition enclaves, the Jobar and Qaboun neighborhoods. The Ahrar al-Sham rebel group said fighters had “liberated” the area.

Tahrir al-Sham – a umbrella group of rebels formed by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham last month – and the independent Failaq al-Rahman group also participated in the attack.

Syrian state media said the military had repelled an attack by one group after “terrorists” infiltrated through tunnels in the middle of the night.

Rebels detonated two large car bombs at 5:20am on Sunday close to the Jobar neighborhood. Tahrir al-Sham claimed responsibility for the attack.

Rebels then advanced into the nearby Abbasiyn Square area, seizing several buildings and firing a barrage of rockets into multiple Damascus neighbourhoods, according to Rami Abdelrahman of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Government forces responded with nearly a dozen air strikes on Jobar, he added.

‘The fight is still on’

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Al Jazaeri, reporting from near Damascus, said that at least 15 civilians had been killed after government forces shelled residential neighborhoods in Eastern Ghouta, but that the fighting had since become less intense.

“This advance is the largest for opposition groups in over a year and a half,” Al Jazaeri said. “Military operations have not stopped in the area but it has calmed down. There remains sniper shooting from both sides and regime forces are shelling Jobar neighborhood, as well as other areas controlled recently by the opposition.”

Control of Jobar – which has been a battleground district for more than two years – is divided between rebels and allied fighters on one side, and government forces on the other. It is one of three pockets in the Syrian capital still in opposition hands.

The recent fighting has resulted in rebel control of industrial areas in Al-Qaboun in addition to parts of Abbasiyn breaking a siege on the area and linking it to Jobar neighborhood, which is connected to Eastern Ghouta, Al Jazaeri said.

Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria at the University of Oklahoma, told Al Jazeera that the offensive had taken the government by surprise and that its response was likely to be very significant.

“I don’t think it’s going to change the trajectory of the war, which has been seeing the regime make important gains and the opposition getting increasingly restricted. But it shows the opposition is far from dead. It shows also that this new combination led by [Tahrir al-Sham] is very potent,” Landis said.

“The regime is going to realise that it cannot allow these two areas to linger there because they are beachheads for this Tahrir a-Sham group to make inroads into the Damascus area,” he said, adding the government would likely withdraw some forces from areas such as Homs and Hama to refocus on Damascus.

“It means that the fight is still on, there are many fronts to this war, and the opposition remains powerful.”

Syrian state TV aired footage from Abbasiyn Square, typically buzzing with activity but now empty except for the sound of shelling.

Residents said artillery shells and rockets were landing in the heart of the city.

The Observatory said rebel shells hit several nearby districts in Damascus, including Bab Touma, Rukn al-Din and the Abbasiyin area.

Several schools announced they would close through Monday, and many civilians cowered inside in fear of stray bullets and shelling.

{{‘From defensive to offensive’}}

According to the Observatory, the Faylaq al-Rahman group and the Fateh al-Sham Front – known as al-Nusra Front before it broke ties with al-Qaeda – were present in Jobar.

“This neighbourhood is the most important front line because it’s the closest rebel position to the heart of the capital,” said Abdel Rahman.

Government forces have long sought to push the rebels out of the district because of its proximity to the city centre in Damascus.

But with Sunday’s attack, Abdel Rahman said, “rebels have shifted from a defensive position in Jobar to an offensive one”.

“These are not intermittent clashes – these are ongoing attempts to advance,” he said.

One rebel commander told the Associated Press news agency they launched the assualt from Jobar as a way to relieve allied fighters in the nearby districts of Barzeh, Tishreen, and Qabun from government attacks.

“This is to relieve the pressure on rebels with the regime not stopping its bombardment and artillery shelling,” said Abu Abdo, a commander from Failaq al Rahman.

The attack on Damascus comes just days before a fresh round of UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva aiming to put an end to Syria’s six-year war.

Rebels and government troops agreed to a nationwide cessation of hostilities in December, but fighting has continued across much of the country, including in the capital.

Rebels said the army had advanced in the last two days after weeks of bombardment and aerial strikes aimed at regaining control of strategic areas inside the capital, a few kms away from President Bashar al Assad’s seat of power.

The army had advanced towards a road between Qaboun and Barza, whose capture severed the links between the two besieged rebel districts where tens of thousands of people live.

“Taking this road would isolate Barza and Qaboun completely and with a security belt around it,” said Abu Abdullah, another fighter with Failaq al Rahman rebel group.

The army and allied militias have been targeting the besieged Eastern Ghouta area, the biggest remaining rebel bastion around the capital, for months, making incremental gains.

It has undertaken a relentless bombing campaign of residential areas to force rebels to surrender and agree to deals that push them out of these areas.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Afghan special forces soldier shot dead inside Camp Shorab base in Helmand Province after allegedly carrying out attack.}

Three American troops have been wounded after an Afghan soldier opened fire on them at a base in the southern province of Helmand, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission said, as separate attacks and clashes across the country left dozens dead.

A spokesman for the Afghan military in the south of the country said the Afghan special forces soldier was shot dead after firing at the Americans at Camp Shorab air base on Sunday.

“The guard lost his life in exchange of fire,” Mohammad Rasoul Zazai told Reuters.

Afghanistan: The Fall Of Helmand

The soldiers are receiving medical care, the NATO-led training and assistance mission said on Twitter.

So-called “green-on-blue” insider attacks by Afghan soldiers on international service members were a major problem several years ago, but now occur less frequently after security measures were improved and the number of foreign troops in the country fell sharply.

Most foreign combat troops withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, 13 years after they ousted the Taliban from power, but around 13,000 NATO-led soldiers remain to help advise and train Afghan forces fighting a revived Taliban insurgency.

Last May two Romanian soldiers were killed and a third wounded after two members of a local Afghan police unit they were training shot them.

Camp Shorab in Helmand, previously known as Camp Bastion, is a major former US and British base now run by the Afghan army.

Helmand has been one of the most fiercely contested regions of the country, with nearly 1,000 coalition troops killed there since the US-led military intervention in 2001.

{{‘Violence across the country’}}

The US said in January that about 300 Marines would be sent to Helmand to assist Afghan forces in intelligence and logistical matters in their battles against local armed groups .

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters attacked a district headquarters in the Kandahar province using a suicide car bomb, said Samim Khpolwak, a spokesman for the governor.

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release information, said six police were killed and five others were wounded in the assault.

In the southern Zabul province, an army operation killed 13 Taliban and wounded 11 others, said Gen. Sadiqullah Saberi.

He said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three others were wounded by a roadside bomb during the operation.

Two Taliban commanders were killed in an apparent US drone strike in the Barmal district of the eastern Paktika province, said Mohammad Rahman Ayaz, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Another 10 fighters were killed in a separate drone strike in the Dand-e Patan district of neighbouring Paktia province, said Gov. Zelmai Wessa.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Fighters and their families moving out of Al Waer and into rebel-held parts of Aleppo under arrangement with government.}

Rebel fighters and their families have begun leaving their last bastion in the Syrian city of Homs, state media and witnesses say, under an evacuation deal with the government expected to be among the largest of its kind.

The first few buses carrying rebels and their families drove out of Al Waer district on Saturday morning, heading for rebel-held areas northeast of Aleppo city.

Talal Barazi, the Homs governor, told Reuters news agency that about 1,500 people would depart for Aleppo’s countryside on Saturday, including at least 400 fighters.

Russian and Syrian forces were overseeing the evacuation, and the full departure of rebels from Al Waer would take about six weeks, he said.

“The preparations and the reality on the ground indicate that things will go well,” Barazi said.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government has increasingly tried to press besieged rebel areas to surrender and accept what it calls reconciliation agreements that involve fighters departing for northern Syria.

The Syrian government describes such deals as a good way of bringing the country closer to peace after six years of conflict. But the opposition describes them as a tactic of forcibly displacing people who oppose Assad after years of bombardment and siege.

“There is a delibrate strategy from the Syrian government in terms of retaking some of these areas is that they lay a siege on the area preventing all kinds of supplies from getting in, including food, medical supplies etc and then they indiscriminately attack these areas,” the deputy director of emergencies at Human Rights Watch, Ole Solvang, told Al Jazeera.

“Aleppo was perhaps the most egregious example of that but we’ve seen it in many other places as well, so one of the major concerns HRW has is about these deals and the way they come about.”

Under the Al Waer deal, between 10,000 and 15,000 people would evacuate in batches over the coming weeks, according to a Britain-based war monitor and the opposition Homs Media Center.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the buses would go to the Jarablus area in the north, held by Turkey-backed rebels.

Once completed, it would mark the biggest evacuation during the war out of one Syrian district, which is home to about 40,000 civilians and more than 2,500 fighters, the SOHR said.

The deal follows other agreements that were never fully implemented between the government and rebel groups in Al Waer, which has been targeted heavily by air strikes in recent weeks.

Source:Al Jazeera

{After reports of dozens of civilians killed, Pentagon releases picture of the site of a US raid in Aleppo province.}

The US has denied hitting a mosque in Syria where activists say dozens of people, mostly civilians, were killed.

The Pentagon said the US targeted an “al-Qaeda gathering across the street from a mosque”, and released footage showing that a mosque next to a destroyed building remained standing. It said the photo was taken less than five minutes after the strike on Thursday.

Syrian opposition activists said at least 40 people were killed in the Omar Ibn al-Khattab Mosque in al-Jinah village in Aleppo province. They accused the US of carrying out the raid.

Friday prayers were cancelled across rebel-held parts of northern Syria after the raid.

Bahaa al-Halaby, an Aleppo-based opposition activist based, said the air raid hit as about 250 people had gathered at the mosque for prayers or to attend a religious lesson.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strike on the mosque killed 46 while the Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group, said 40 were killed.

Resident Abu Muhammed told the AFP news agency that he “heard powerful explosions when the mosque was hit. It was right after prayers at a time when there are usually religious lessons for men in it.

“I saw 15 bodies and lots of body parts in the debris when I arrived. We couldn’t even recognise some of the bodies,” he said

Pentagon spokesman, Eric Pahon, said US surveillance of the target area indicated evening prayers already had concluded before the attack.

He said the building that was struck was a “partially constructed community meeting hall” that al-Qaeda leaders used to gather and “as a place to educate and indoctrinate al-Qaeda fighters”.

“Initial assessments based upon post-strike analysis do not indicate civilian casualties,” Pahon said. He said the Pentagon would investigate any credible allegations it received.

Al-Jinah lies in one of the main rebel-held parts of Syria, encompassing the western parts of Aleppo province and neighbouring Idlib.

Bilal Abdul Kareem, a documentary filmmaker, visited the mosque and posted footage online.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory, which monitors the war via a network of contacts across Syria, said that most of those killed were civilians.

Activists posted pictures of bodies scattered on the floor near the mosque.

Teams with the White Helmets, or Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer rescue group that operates in rebel-held parts of Syria, shared images of people being pushed into ambulances and panic-stricken residents searching among the rubble for survivors.

Source:Al Jazeera