Tag: InternationalNews

{Separately, three fighters attack an airbase close to the border with Pakistan in the eastern province of Khost.}

Eight policemen were killed by their colleagues after they were poisoned in their base in southern Afghanistan in the latest “insider attack”.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the incident, which happened in Nawshar district of southern Zabul province late on Friday, as the group escalates a deadly winter campaign of violence.

“The infiltrators first poisoned their colleagues and then shot them dead,” provincial spokesman Gul Islam Seyal told AFP news agency on Saturday, adding the attackers fled the area taking all the weapons and munitions from the base.

The governor of Zabul, Bismillah Afghanmal, said they had launched an investigation into the incident.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a message to the media that the group’s “infiltrators” carried out the attack.

The Reuters news agency, quoting local officials, said the attackers defected to Taliban.

So-called insider attacks – when Afghan soldiers and police turn their guns on their colleagues or on international troops – have been a major problem during the more than 15-year-long war.

Such attacks have sapped morale and caused deep mistrust within security ranks.

In a similar incident last month, an Afghan policeman linked to the Taliban shot dead 11 of his colleagues at a checkpoint in the neighbouring Helmand province.

And last September, two Afghan soldiers with suspected Taliban links killed at least 12 of their comrades as they slept in the volatile northern province of Kunduz.

OPINION: Drones kill any chance of peace in Afghanistan

Separately on Saturday, gunmen attacked a military airbase in the eastern province of Khost.

Faizullah Ghairat, security chief of Khost province, said three assailants attacked the base, close to the border with Pakistan. One was killed while two others escaped, he said.

The attackers tried to enter the base but were prevented by guards.

“Our forces have shot one armed attacker dead, and at least two [would be] suicide attackers are at large, we are looking for them,” he said.

Nine people, including seven CIA agents, were killed in a suicide attack carried by a Jordanian associated with al-Qaeda on the same military base in December 2009. Camp Chapman in Khost is said to be instrumental in providing intelligence to the CIA for drone attacks across the border in Pakistan.

There was no immediate comment from the headquarters of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Kabul.

The incident comes just before the normal start of the spring fighting season, when the warmer weather brings increased operations by both rebel and government forces.

Afghan and US officials have warned that Afghanistan will see increased fighting this year as the Taliban steps up a campaign that has cut the area controlled by the government to below 60 percent.

Earlier this week, the head of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel, asked for more American troops to join the roughly 8,400 already stationed there.

The Afghan interior ministry said over the past 25 hours, security forces had killed 51 fighters in counterterrorism operations across Afghanistan.

Source:Al Jazeera

{White House says US president welcomes his Palestinian counterpart to visit ‘in the near future’.}

US President Donald Trump has invited Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for a visit to the White House, in the first phone call between the two leaders since Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Trump invited Abbas “to visit the White House soon to discuss ways to resume the [Palestinian-Israeli] political process”, Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, quoted Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina as saying on Friday.

The White House said in a statement that Trump invited Abbas to a meeting at the White House “in the near future”.

Abbas told Trump that peace was a “strategic choice” for the Palestinian people which should lead to the “establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Wafa reported.

The White House said Trump told Abbas that he believes a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians must be negotiated directly by the both sides.

“The president emphasised his personal belief that peace is possible and that the time has come to make a deal,” according to a White House statement.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, DC, said this signals that Trump is going to take a different approach than previous administrations.

“Like most things, he puts things in the language of a businessman. He’s said in the past that it would be the ‘ultimate deal’,” our correspondent said.

“We believe he is going to let his son-in-law Jared Kushner take the lead. It’s not clear how much the Palestinians will trust him. His family foundation has given money to illegal settlements in the West Bank. That is something the likely new US ambassador to Israel has also done.”

Trump’s pick for ambassador, David Friedman, was approved on Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His nomination heads next to the full Senate for a vote.

He has been criticised for inflammatory language used in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including calling the two-state solution “a scam”.

In his confirmation hearing, he said that Israeli settlements, which he previously strongly supported, may not be helpful to the peace process.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law and have been major stumbling blocks in negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.

{{Two-state solution}}

In February, Trump met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

During that meeting, Trump broke with decades of US policy by saying he was not bound to the two-state solution for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump had said, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.

The White House has since been more cautious on the issue of the two-state solution, and there has been less talk of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a promise Trump made during his election campaign.

Palestinians criticised such promises as they hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state, and have had the broad support of the international community for that aspiration.

During his meeting with Netanyahu, the US leader had said he would “love to see” the American embassy move.

Friedman has also said he wants to see the embassy move and expects to work from Jerusalem at least some of the time.

In January, Abbas wrote to Trump telling him not move the US embassy, warning that such a development would have a “disastrous impact on the peace process, on the two-state solution and on the stability and security of the entire region”.

{{Israeli settlements}}

While Abbas was one of the first world leaders former President Barack Obama called, Trump has been cautious with contacts with the Arab world.

He has spoken to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and met Jordan’s King Abdullah, who flew to Washington for an impromptu visit.

One of the most heated issues of Middle East peace is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, territory Palestinians want for their own state along with Gaza.

During the US election campaign, Trump said he did not necessarily see settlements as an obstacle to peace.

Since his inauguration, Israel has announced plans to build at least 6,000 more settler homes, a substantial increase and an indication that Israel took Trump’s softer language as a green light.

But during Netanyahu’s visit, Trump said he wanted the Israeli prime minister to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Foreign Minister Cavusoglu says he will go to Rotterdam in support of referendum, despite Dutch ban on public speeches.}

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said he will go to Rotterdam on Saturday, despite an official ban on campaigning there for the upcoming Turkish referendum.

Cavusoglu on Saturday said that Turkish citizens living in the Netherlands were “being taken hostage” by the Dutch injunction on political rallies and speeches.

It is the latest in a series of bans across Europe, most of them in Germany, that prohibit Turkish leaders from campaigning to drum up support among Turkish expats on behalf of the country’s ruling party for an April referendum aimed at strengthening presidential powers in Turkey.

Speaking in an interview on CNN Turk television, Cavusoglu said that if the Netherlands refused to give him permission to fly to Rotterdam, Turkey would respond with harsh economic and political sanctions.

On Friday, Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters that Cavusoglu was welcome, but that all public rallies and speeches had been cancelled.

“He has diplomatic immunity and everything so we will treat him with respect, but we have other instruments to prohibit things happening in public spaces,” Aboutaleb said.

Cavusoglu’s delegation announced on Facebook that the gathering would instead be held at the private residence of the Turkish consul in Rotterdam. The invitation to the gathering asked visitors not to use their car horns or wave Turkish flags.

With the ban on campaign rallies, Rotterdam joined a growing list of European cities that block such gatherings for fear of unrest.

This week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Germany of “Nazi practices” after Turkish leaders had been prevented from rallying expats in several Germany cities in support of the referendum.

Many in Europe worry that Erdogan is capitalising on post-coup fears to push through a more authoritarian system with few checks on his power.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Armed group attack convoy carrying paramilitary forces, confiscate weapons and radio sets, officials say.}

Suspected Maoist rebels have killed 11 paramilitary commandos on Saturday in a remote part of central India after ambushing their convoy, police said, the latest attack in a simmering internal conflict.

The troops were on their way to provide protection to workers for a road construction project when the gunmen attacked, a senior police officer of the restive Chhattisgarh state said.

The assault is the latest in a deadly conflict that pits the fighters against local and national authorities in the forests and rural areas of mainly central and eastern India.

The armed group, who say they are fighting for the rights of tribal people and landless farmers, often collect funds through extortion.

“We can confirm that 11 security personnel have lost their lives in the ambush which was carried out by Maoist rebels in Sukma district,” police deputy inspector general Sundarraj P told AFP news agency.

“Three other CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) personnel are critically injured. We have deployed helicopters to evacuate them.”

The rebels also snatched weapons and radio sets from the attack site, local media reports said.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 states, but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, occupying thousands of square kilometres of land.

The decades-long conflict is believed to have cost tens of thousands of lives, with much action focused around the so-called “Red Corridor” stretching through central and eastern India.

Critics believe attempts to end the revolt through tough security offensives are doomed to fail, saying the real solution is development of the region.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Grieving family members bury the remains of 37 girls burned alive under lock and key at a San Jose Pinula shelter.}

Families buried some of the 37 girls killed in a fire at an overcrowded government-run youth shelter as Guatemalan authorities worked on Friday to determine exactly what happened.

The death toll mounted as girls succumbed to gruesome burns from Wednesday’s disaster, which officials said began when mattresses were set afire during a protest by the shelter’s residents.

Questions remained over why someone among the girls set the blaze and whether doors remained locked as the girls pleaded for their lives.

Parents and relatives said many of the young people at the shelter, which had both female and male residents, had been sent there because of abuse, poverty or family problems.

Others were ordered there by judges after run-ins with police, officials said.

A coffin holding 17-year-old Siona Hernandez Garcia was gently slipped into a niche at a Guatemala City cemetery on Friday and street musicians played hymns as workers bricked up the space.

Maria Garcia, Siona’s mother wailed and demanded justice.

“Guatemala is full of violence,” Garcia said. “They are raping and killing the poor’s girls.”

At the entrance to Roosevelt Hospital, Claudia Tecun broke down in tears talking about her daughter Noemi Tecun Munoz, 17, who was being treated inside for burns over 70 percent of her body.

“The doctors say there isn’t much hope she will live,” Tecun said, weeping.

“I heard on the news that my daughter was one of the girls who set the fire at the shelter; that’s not true,” she said. “My daughter wouldn’t try to take her own life.”

That was a reference to widespread reports, including from other victims’ relatives, that some of the girls set mattresses on fire to protest their apprehension and return to the facility after fleeing the previous night because of mistreatment, bad food and fears of rape.

San Juan de Dios Hospital officials said late on Friday that another girl had succumbed to her wounds, bringing the death toll to 37, with 19 dying at the scene and 18 others later while being treated at hospitals.

Hospital director Carlos Soto said that visiting doctors evaluating the burn victims had offered to take eight of them to Galveston, Texas, for specialised burn treatment.

Soto said the government had obtained humanitarian visas for the children from US officials, but authorities were awaiting permission from the parents.

Geovany Castillo said his 15-year-old daughter, Kimberly, suffered burns on her face, arms and hands but survived.

She was in a locked area where girls who took part in the escape attempt had been placed, he said.

“My daughter said the area was locked and that several girls broke down a door, and she survived because she put a wet sheet over herself,” Castillo said.

“She said the girls told her that they had been raped and in protest they escaped, and that later, to protest, to get attention, they set fire to the mattresses,” he said.

As grieving families began receiving the bodies of girls whose remains had been identified, others were still searching for their children.

Vianney Clareth Hernandez was waiting outside a morgue with a photo of her daughter, Ashley.

The 14-year-old was at the shelter but her mother said she had not found the girl at any of the local hospitals.

“It was a crime they didn’t open the doors, they didn’t do anything to get the girls out, even though they were screaming,” Hernandez said.

While many people believed reports that the doors at the overcrowded shelter were kept locked even as the fires spread, authorities said the circumstances were still under investigation.

But the exact sequence of events may never be known. Castillo said his daughter Kimberly had testified to police that the girls who started the fire were among those who died in the blaze.

The few surviving girls at the hospital were put under police guard on Friday for their own protection as witnesses.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Washington, Massachusetts, Oregon, New York and Hawaii seek to block president’s immigration order.}

Several US states have said they will move forward with legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s revised executive order that targets citizens of six Muslim-majority countries and refugees.

Washington state, which was the first to sue over Trump’s initial travel ban that created chaos worldwide and was eventually blocked, argued that the revised order violates the constitution “by disfavouring Islam”.

Bob Ferguson, the state’s attorney general, said a motion by his office calls on an existing injunction against the travel ban issued in January to be applied to the new directive.

“My message to President Trump is – not so fast,” Ferguson said. “After spending more than a month to fix a broken order that he rushed out the door, the president’s new order reinstates several of the same provisions and has the same illegal motivations as the original.”

Attorney generals in the states of New York, Massachusetts and Oregon said they had taken steps to join the lawsuit that Washington had filed along with Minnesota.

The opposition comes on top of a separate legal challenge to the new ban brought by Hawaii.

The revised executive order issued on Monday bars new visas for people from Syria, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen, and temporarily shuts down the US refugee programme for 120 days.

It is supposed to go into effect on March 16, and does not apply to travellers who already have visas.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said the executive order has hurt Oregon, its residents, employers, agencies, educational institutions, healthcare system and economy.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called the executive order “a Muslim ban by another name”.

The attorney general in Hawaii argued that while the new order features changes to address complaints raised by courts that blocked the first travel ban, the new order is pretty much the same as the first one.

“Nothing of substance has changed: There is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries (minus one),” state attorney general Doug Chin said in a statement.

Hawaii’s lawsuit says the order will harm Hawaii’s Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday the administration believed the revised travel ban will stand up to legal scrutiny.

“We feel very confident with how that was crafted and the input that was given,” Spicer said.

A federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order halting the initial ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate the order.

University of Richmond Law School professor Carl Tobias said Hawaii’s complaint seemed in many ways similar to Washington’s successful lawsuit, but whether it would prompt a similar result was tough to say.

Given that the new executive order spells out more of a national security rationale than the old one and allows for some travellers from the six nations to be admitted on a case-by-case basis, it will be harder to show that the new order is intended to discriminate against Muslims, Tobias said.

“The administration’s cleaned it up, but whether they have cleaned it up enough I don’t know,” he said. “It may be harder to convince a judge there’s religious animus here.”

Tobias also said it is good that Hawaii’s lawsuit includes an individual plaintiff, considering that some legal scholars have questioned whether the states themselves have standing to challenge the ban.

Imam Ismail Elshikh of the Muslim Association of Hawaii is a plaintiff in the state’s challenge. He says the ban will prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting him.

Source:Al Jazeera