Special forces from the U.S.-led military coalition in
Afghanistan fought insurgents early on Wednesday near the northern city
of Kunduz, a spokesman said.
The forces were on a
mission near the besieged Kunduz airport where hundreds of Afghan forces
are based after retreating from the city, the first provincial capital
to fall to the Taliban since 2001.
"Coalition special
forces advisers, while advising and assisting elements of the Afghan
Security Forces, encountered an insurgent threat in the vicinity of the
Kunduz airport at approximately 1 am (local time), 30 September," Col.
Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the coalition, said.
"U.S. forces conducted an airstrike to eliminate the threat in Kunduz."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Wednesday
called on Muslim countries to investigate the deadly Haj stampede in
Saudi Arabia on September 24 that killed 769 people, including at least
239 Iranians.
"Representatives from Iran and the
Islamic world should go to Saudi Arabia and investigate the cause of the
Haj incident," Mr. Khamenei was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.
A 31-year-old Indian was on Wednesday charged with
slapping a Muslim cleric and overstaying in the country by a court in
Kuala Lumpur.
Shabir Ahmad Khan faced relevant
provisions of Malaysia’s Penal Code for causing hurt to Imam Mohamed
Zuhairee and disturbing a religious assembly, as well as for the
Immigration Act 1959 for overstaying.
Khan pleaded guilty to the three charges.
Magistrate Siti Radziah Kamardin ordered Khan to undergo psychiatric evaluation and set the next mention date on November 30.
On September 18, Khan, who hails from Kashmir, was arrested for assaulting Zuhairee at the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur.
According to police, Khan had tried to grab the Imam’s microphone while
the cleric was conducting Friday prayers and then slapped him on the
right cheek.
The video of the incident was widely circulated on social media.
The man was later taken out of the mosque by the maintenance staff
before he was handed over to traffic police personnel who were on duty
there.
According to police, preliminary investigation found that the suspect was of unsound mind as he was seen speaking to himself.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday its
forces had begun airstrikes against Islamic State militants, targeting
military equipment, communication facilities, arms depots, ammunition
and fuel, news agencies reported.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin said that Russia is “not going to plunge into this
conflict head-on” and will help Syrian President Bashar Assad’s Army as
long as their offensive operation lasts.
Mr. Putin also said he expects Mr. Assad to sit down and talk with the Syrian opposition about a political settlement in Syria.
The presence of the vessel fuels speculation of Sino-Russian support for Assad
The presence of its naval ships in the Mediterranean Sea
is fuelling speculation that China may be sending military personnel to
Syria to reinforce the Russian-backed government of President Bashar
Al-Assad.
Russia Today, citing a write up that
appeared in Al-Masdar Al-Arabi — a Lebanon based news website —
reported that a Chinese naval vessel is on its way to Syria with dozens
of “military advisers” on board.
The ship is said to have passed the Suez Canal in Egypt and is making its way through the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the website, the Chinese advisers will be joining Russian personnel in the Latakia region.
China’s state-run tabloid Global Times
quoted Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military
Studies Research Institute as saying that reportage might have been
confused by the movements of the PLA Navy's 152 Fleet. The flotilla has
been headed by the Jinan guided-missile destroyer along with the Yiyang
frigate and the Qiandaohu supply ship, and has been conducting naval
activities in the Mediterranean this year. He pointed out that after
completing a four-month escort mission, the fleet began a five-month
global tour from Aug. 23 that began from the Gulf of Aden, and included a
passage through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.
The fleet has so far visited Sudan, Egypt, Denmark and Finland, after
passing through the Mediterranean in late August or early September.
However, WND, a U.S.-based website is reporting that a Chinese military ship has been located several “hours” away from the Syrian coast.
It
quoted a defence official from West Asia as saying that the ship is
awaiting a formal request for Chinese military advisers from the
government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
A
Syrian government source apparently confirmed knowledge of the Chinese
vessel, but Damascus was yet to take a call for Chinese assistance.
The
reported Chinese naval movement comes has come after the U.S. accused
Russia of dispatching heavy weaponry including tanks, combat aircraft, a
naval unit, and other military equipment to bolster the Syrian army.
The
website quoting its sources denied that the Chinese aircraft carrier
Liaoning-CV-16 had docked along with guided missile cruiser at the
Syrian port of Tartus, as reported earlier by Debka.com, an Israeli website. Mr. Zhang of the PLA think-tank also told Global Times that reports about the Liaoning heading to the Mediterranean are "purely rumours."
The
speculation about Sino-Russian military collaboration in the
Mediterranean follows an escalation of joint manoeuvres by the two
navies, following the crisis in Ukraine, and the growing U.S. military
presence in the Asia-Pacific.
In May, China and Russia held a joint naval exercise in the Mediterranean, codenamed Joint Sea-2015 (I).
This was followed in August by Joint Sea-2015 (II) — naval manoeuvres that were held in the Sea of Japan.
Donald Trump
has hit back at claims that he needs to become “more mature” to win the
Republican nomination as he patched up his feud with Fox News in an
interview defending his controversial campaign style.
Speaking to network presenter Bill O’Reilly, the Republican
frontrunner pushed back at criticisms that he needed to be “kinder and
more mature” and did not behave in a sufficiently presidential manner.
Trump replied: “I think the word mature is not appropriate.”
O’Reilly, who took pains to ask Trump whether each question he asked
was fair, singled out the real estate mogul’s description of Republican
rival Marco Rubio as “a clown” at conference of social conservatives on Friday.
Trump said that he was “a counterpuncher” and insisted “I was getting along with him and then he attacks me about nothing”.
The GOP frontrunner then bashed Rubio for missing votes on Capitol Hill and being “weak on immigration”.
But Trump did concede that he understood why using the word clown had
been controversial before saying that Rubio had “hit me very
viciously”.
During the interview in New York, Trump also weighed in on foreign
policy and said he was relaxed about Russian armed forces being deployed
in Syria to aid the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Republican frontrunner cited the cost to the United States of the
Iraq war before adding: “Putin is now taking over what we started ...
there’s very little downside of Putin fighting Isis”.
The billionaire took questions about his tax plan, unveiled Monday, which dramatically cuts taxes on many of the richest Americans.
Trump brushed off concerns about whether his plan, which cuts taxes by an estimated $12 trillion over a ten-year period, would be revenue neutral.
He expressed his confidence that he could avoid increasing the
national debt by reducing the size of government. “I am a cost cutter, I
know how to cut costs,” said Trump. He said there was tremendous waste
and abuse in government that he could find and cited the Department of
Education and the Environmental Protection Agency as two government
agencies where he could slash spending dramatically.
Trump fell out with Fox News after what he considered unfair treatment by moderator Megyn Kelly during the first presidential debate in August.
After Trump accused
Kelly of having “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her
wherever” during her questioning of him, a comment widely construed as
referring to menstruation, he was blackballed from a conservative event
and engaged in a brief boycott of Fox.
Roger Ailes, the chief executive of Fox News, initially released
a statement backing Kelly. Ailes assured Trump he would be “treated
fairly” and the GOP frontrunner returned to making appearances on Fox
News.
Trump resumed the feud last week, tweeting
“@FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore
decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable
future”.
The billionaire seemed to draw particular ire when a conservative
pundit said that former Hewlett Packard boss Carly Fiorina “cut
[Trump’s] balls off” during the second Republican presidential debate.
However, this boycott ended after a mere six days on Tuesday when Trump
appeared on O’Reilly’s show.
The Taliban are widening their offensive in northern Afghanistan
after government forces failed to take back Kunduz, the strategic city
in the north, which on Monday was captured by insurgents. It is the largest Afghan city to fall to the Taliban in the 14-year war.
Despite claims from Afghan authorities that an airstrike had killed a prominent Taliban leader and more than 100 insurgents, it appears that the militants have dug in around the city.
According to local people, Taliban fighters are still walking the
streets freely, assuring people they do not intend to harm civilians in
an apparent attempt to win local support.
“They don’t punish [ordinary] people,” said Waqif, a local reporter
who was still in the city, despite a mass displacement of families. “For
the time being, they are not threatening.” He said that while the
Taliban had initially told people not to leave their houses, some shops
had reopened on Wednesday morning.
Backed by at least two US airstrikes, the Afghan army has sent support from neighbouring Baghlan and Kabul provinces,
but Taliban ambushes and roadside bombs have impeded swift movement of
troops and interrupted supply routes, including for medical stocks.
About 5,000 Afghan troops have congregated around the airport,
according to a security official speaking to Reuters. But they barely
make up for the large number of troops who fled the city when the
Taliban invaded. According to local officials, morale remained low.
“We still have enough forces to take on the Taliban but sadly there
is no will or resolve to fight,” Mohammad Zahir Niazi, chief of Chardara
district, told Reuters.
After a full day of fighting, the militants were digging in and still
controlled most of the city, despite early government claims that they
were being pushed back. The Taliban were encircling the airport until
3am on Wednesday morning, according to another reporter who spent the
night there. If taken, the airport would help the militants choke off
the city.
The Afghan intelligence service, NDS, claimed a “precision airstrike”
had killed Mawlawi Abdul Salam, the Taliban’s shadow governor in
Kunduz, along with a local representative of the Pakistan-based militant
group Lashkar-e-Taiba and a dozen other insurgents.
The US military confirmed it had “conducted an airstrike in the
vicinity of the Kunduz airport at approximately 11.30pm local time, 29
September, against individuals threatening the force,” spokesman Col
Brian Tribus said. However, he did not confirm that Salam had been
killed.
Afghan authorities also claimed that more than 100 insurgents,
including at least three Arabs, had been killed. The ministry of defence
said 17 Afghan troops had also died.
Meanwhile, Kunduz’s civilians are suffering. The local Doctors
Without Borders hospital was working over capacity, with more than 130
injured patients, while the public hospitals had admitted almost 200
wounded, including 28 women, according to its spokesman, Wahidullah
Mayar.
The UN estimated that at least 100 civilians had been killed in the fighting, and that up to 6,000 civilians had fled.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Kunduz following the
Taliban’s attack on the city,” said Nicholas Haysom, the UN chief in Afghanistan.
“The reports of extrajudicial executions, including of healthcare
workers, abductions, denial of medical care and restrictions on movement
out of the city are particularly disturbing.”
A resident who asked to remain anonymous said: “My house is burned,
the town of Kunduz has been destroyed by the Taliban. Our poor people in
Kunduz have been displaced, killed and wounded. Expensive shops have
been looted by Taliban.”
During a visit to the US, Afghanistan’s chief executive officer,
Abdullah Abdullah, suggested to CNN on Tuesday night that the militants
had infiltrated the city rather than fought their way through it, which
reinforces the view from many in Kabul that the Taliban moved a lot of
fighters into the city during the Eid holidays in preparation for the
attack.
The fall of Kunduz is a great propaganda victory for the Taliban.
A military win can help consolidate support for the new leader, Mullah
Akhtar Mansour, at a time when the movement is plagued by rifts after
the announcement of the death of its founder, Mullah Omar.
The biggest territorial win since 2001, Kunduz is also symbolically
important, as it was the first city to fall after Russia’s retreat in
the 1980s. It was also the last major city taken by the US-backed
Northern Alliance, which toppled the Taliban government in 2001.
The troubles in Kunduz are likely to reignite discussion about
prolonging US engagement in Afghanistan. Barack Obama is aiming for a
withdrawal to a troop size small enough to be housed at the US embassy
in Kabul by the end of next year, but critics in Washington DC insist
that is premature.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Senator John McCain
said the incursion on Kunduz was “an indicator of the dimensions of the
Taliban’s capability to launch a very significant and successful
attack”.
However, more than a sign of Taliban strength, the seizure of Kunduz
may be a sign of the troubles faced by the security forces, propped up
by at least $61bn (£40bn) from the US, in securing the country.
Ali Mohammad Ali, a Kabul-based security analyst said the invasion of
Kunduz was evidence of the political weakness of the government. For
the past six months, fighting had raged only a few miles from the city,
he said.
“Everybody knew this was a threat, but nobody took it seriously,” Ali
said. “Kunduz fell into the hands of the Taliban because of lack of
political leadership, and lack of military leadership in responding to
the crisis.”
Saudi Arabia has called on Bashar al-Assad to give up power or be
removed by force, raising the global stakes at a time when the Russians
are shipping troops and military hardware to Syria in an effort to prop up its beleaguered leader.
The threat was made on Tuesday by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel Al-Jubeir.
“There is no future for Assad in Syria,” Jubeir told journalists at
the UN general assembly. “There are two options for a settlement in
Syria. One option is a political process where there would be a
transitional council. The other option is a military option, which also
would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power.”
“This could be a more lengthy process and a more destructive process
but the choice is entirely that of Bashar al-Assad.” The foreign
minister did not specify how Assad would be forcibly removed, but
pointed out that Saudi Arabia is already backing “moderate rebels” in
the civil war.
The Saudi intervention fuelled an already heated row at the UN over
Syria’s future, where the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a
forthright defence of the Syrian regime, describing it as fighting a
lonely and “valiant” battle against Islamic State extremists.
Putin has redoubled his support for Assad by a significant and growing military deployment in Syria.
US officials said on Tuesday that four advanced aircraft, Sukhoi Su-34
“Fullback” fighters had arrived at Latakia air base in western Syria,
bringing the total number of Russian planes stationed there to over 30.
The planes are ostensibly there to attack Isis, but have yet to fly
any combat missions, western officials say. Laurent Fabius, France’s
foreign minister, derided Russian claims to be leading the
anti-terrorist campaign in Syria, as “media strikes rather than real
strikes”.
“The fight against Daesh [the Arabic acronym for Isis] is an absolute
necessity but it must not be just a fight only through the media. It
must be a real one,” he said. “And when I’m looking at who is really
committed in the fight of Daesh … as far as Bashar al-Assad is
concerned, it’s still recent and it’s still modest. So as far as our
Russian partners are concerned, up to now they didn’t yet [do anything]
against Daesh.”
By contrast, Fabius said: “We the French this week struck against a Daesh camp. We have to judge realities and not mass media.”
The US has also carried out airstrikes
against Isis inside Syria, and following an Obama-Putin summit on
Monday – which US officials said brought greater clarity on Russian
intentions – the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, issued instructions
on Tuesday for communications channels to be opened with the Russian military to avoid the chance of collision on exchange of fire in Syrian airspace.
The US meanwhile sought other means to contain Isis. As Barack Obama
opened the anti-Isis summit on Tuesday, the US government announced
sanctions against 25 people and five groups connected to Isis in moves
it said were aimed at hitting the activities of financial, logistical
and recruiting operatives.
Opening the summit, Obama said: “This is not going to be turned
around overnight … There are going to be successes and there are going
to be setbacks. This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term
campaign – not only against this particular network, but against its
ideology.
“But, ultimately, I am optimistic. In Iraq and in Syria, Isil
[another acronym for the Islamic State] is surrounded by communities,
countries and a broad international coalition committed to its
destruction,” he said. “Like terrorists and tyrants throughout history,
Isil will eventually lose because it has nothing to offer but suffering
and death.”
Reiterating his position that Assad cannot stay, Obama said: “In
Syria, defeating Isil requires a new leader and an inclusive government
that unites the Syrian people in the fight against terrorist groups.
This is going to be a complex process. And as I’ve said before, we are
prepared to work with all countries, including Russia and Iran, to find a
political mechanism in which it is possible to begin a transition
process.”
Fabius also argued it made no moral or practical sense for Assad to
remain if the goal was to rebuild a new, free and united Syria.
“How can you imagine that the Syrian refugees – 80% of whom fled
Syria because they were under threat from Assad – how can you imagine
that they go back to Syria if we tell them that the future of Syria is
Bashar al-Assad?” Fabius asked. He said a political transition mechanism
had to be negotiated, but was not specific about timing.
Meanwhile, he said that France had revived the idea of the creation and enforcement of “safe zones” inside Syria where civilians would be protected both from the regime and Isis.
“It could be an idea to have within Syria one or two or three … safe
zones, security zones, in order that these zones will be able to welcome
Syrian people without forcing them to go out of the country. We are
working on that,” Fabius said, again without offering details on how
such zones could be achieved.
Russia continues to promote a separate negotiating effort, seeking
to recruit countries to its view of Syria and the need for Assad to
remain. The foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is chairing a ministerial
meeting to that end on Wednesday. French officials said that Fabius
would attend.
Japan must improve the living standards of its own people before it can consider accepting Syrian refugees, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe said, as he announced $1.6bn in new assistance for Syrians and Iraqis caught up in conflicts in the Middle East.
Abe’s consistent refusal to consider allowing even a modest number of
refugees to relocate to Japan has prompted criticism of the country’s strict policy on asylum: last year, it received a record 5,000 applications but accepted just 11 people.
Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York, Abe insisted Japan
must first tackle crises posed by its falling birth rate and an ageing population, and continue its push to boost the number of women in the labour market.
“It is an issue of demography,” Abe told reporters after his speech
to the UN general assembly. “I would say that before accepting
immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women,
elderly people and we must raise our birth rate. There are many things
that we should do before accepting immigrants.”
Abe added Japan,
which is pushing for a permanent seat on the UN security council, would
“discharge our own responsibility” in addressing the causes of the
refugee crisis.
“Japan would like to contribute by changing the conditions that give
rise to refugees. The cause of this tragedy is the fear of violence and
terrorism, and terror of poverty. The world must cooperate in order for
them to find a way to escape poverty.”
Japan’s latest aid package includes $810m for refugees and internally displaced people fleeing fighting in Syria and Iraq – three times the amount it provided last year – and $750m to fund peace-building efforts in the Middle East and Africa.
Human rights groups have highlighted the fact Japan and other
high-income countries such as Russia, Singapore and South Korea have failed to help
relieve the pressure on countries in the Middle East and Europe, as
they struggle to cope with the influx of people caught up in the world’s
worst refugee crisis since the second word war.
Japan, however, has pointed to its record on providing aid to
refugees: last year, it contributed $181.6m to the UN refugee agency,
second only to the US. But it has not matched its financial largesse
with pledged to accommodate Syrian and other refugees.
Of 60 Syrians already living in Japan who applied for refugee status,
three have been successful and another 30 or so have been given
permission to stay long-term for humanitarian reasons, according to the
Japanese association for refugees.
Japan’s population is expected to fall dramatically in the coming
decades, with experts predicting a serious strain on the economy from a
shrinking workforce and rising pension and social security costs. But
few politicians have broached immigration as a possible solution.
“To publicly broach mass immigration – and the multicultural
adjustments in Japanese life that it would necessarily entail – as a
means of solving the country’s looming demographic crisis is something
that verges on sacrilege,” said MG Sheftall, a professor of modern
Japanese cultural history at Shizuoka University. “For an important
national figure to do so would be an act of political suicide.”
While he did not mention any country by name, the EU council
president, Donald Tusk, appeared to round on the “hypocrisy” of Gulf
states criticising European nations for not taking in enough refugees,
while refusing to accept any themselves.
“Many countries represented here deal with this problem in a much
simpler way; namely by not allowing migrants and refugees to enter their
territories at all,” Tusk said in New York.
The International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) urgently needs funds to cover an unprecedented budget shortfall
caused by the conflict in Syria and Iraq, a senior official said,
warning that unless needs are met in the region, more refugees will make
the hazardous journey to Europe.
Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s regional director for the Middle East, said the funding gap for operations in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon reached “the alarming figure” of 80m Swiss francs ($82m) for 2015 in late September.
“Humanitarian response is a sticking plaster, but this sticking plaster is indispensable in Syria, Iraq
and the neighbouring countries today. Normally at this time of the year
our activities in major war zones are fully funded. This year they are
not,” Mardini said.
However, he remained hopeful that donors would step up and that the
gap could be filled by the end of the year. He said there had been
“positive signals” from the UK and other European governments.
The finances of the world’s oldest humanitarian organisation act as a
microcosm for a global humanitarian system straining under the weight
of multiple crises, at a time when national budgets in many countries
are being squeezed by austerity measures. Even when funding levels are
higher, they may fail to meet global needs.
“Paradoxically, 2015 is the year where we got the strongest support
from some of our own donors – and yet we have the biggest deficit ever,”
Mardini said.
The ICRC estimated it required a field budget for this year of
$1.65bn, a record for the organisation, which needs more than $123m in
cash flow every month to sustain operations. Its field budget has grown by nearly 50% in the last five years.
If the funding gap is not plugged, the ICRC has reserve funds of
$308m but Mardini said it hoped to avoid using this money, which is
often drawn on for operations when crises break.
Mardini said the ICRC, working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, has
“substantially improved” its access in Syria over the past month and
had been able to double the number of operations carried out across
frontlines over the past year.
But while these developments were positive, he painted a grim picture
of a country where the economy and infrastructure are crumbling. The
situation is particularly dire in besieged towns, like Moaddamiyah in rural Damascus, which the ICRC has visited several times.
“We were shocked to see that people there had not had electricity for
two years. People were eating grass, people were drinking water from
the swamps … We were able to help them, but it’s not a one-off. We need
to be able to go back there,” Mardini said.
“In areas controlled by the Islamic State group, we have very limited
access. We were able, however, to operate on an ad hoc basis through
interactions at the administrative level of this group,” he said, citing
the delivery of crutches and medical equipment to Al-Bab and water
projects in Raqqa.
In Syria, 12 million people need humanitarian aid,
with half a million living in besieged areas. The ICRC provides clean
water for 5 million people, delivers food and also provides health
services – and Mardini placed this work in the context of trying to
offer people an alternative to risky journeys to Europe.
“When you develop and offer public services to the population, you
can give them options to stay. There are other parameters in the mix,
but at least it can help people to decide to stay because the default
position for people is to stay close to their homes,” Mardini said.
“Ordinary Syrians, ordinary Iraqis have one wish: to be back in their
country and to have a decent, normal life,” he said. “The best way to
address this problem is to have it fixed in the countries of origin and
this is a combination of political work that needs to be done, but also …
this sticking plaster that is humanitarian aid.”
Mardini made an impassioned plea for all parties to the conflict to
respect international humanitarian law, stressing that the absence of a
sustainable political solution made these rules more essential than
ever. “International humanitarian law is not just ink on paper. It can
actually work if respected and it will alleviate the human suffering,”
he said.
Increasingly, aid workers are being caught up in the many conflicts around the world: two ICRC staff were shot dead
this month while travelling in a convoy in Yemen. The group temporarily
suspended travel for its teams in the country, but hopes to resume full
operations soon, Mardini said.
Asked about the increasingly bitter political debates
over refugees in Europe, Mardini said the fact that millions of Syrians
had found shelter in Lebanon and Jordan was a remarkable example of the
absorption capacity of countries.
“In Lebanon, you have more than 1.1 million refugees
in a country of 4 million. It’s 25% of the population in a country that
could hardly recover from its own civil war … It is coping … At the end
of the day, 200,000 or 400,000 refugees in Europe … is something that,
in absolute terms, can be manageable,” he said, adding that the crisis
might also spur more decisive political action.
“This is a stark reminder for the international community that there
is an unsolved problem over there that people were ready to forget …
Maybe it has to be seen as an opportunity for bolder political decisions
going towards a more sustainable solution [rather than] just funding
humanitarian organisations.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) urgently needs funds to cover an unprecedented budget shortfall
caused by the conflict in Syria and Iraq, a senior official said,
warning that unless needs are met in the region, more refugees will make
the hazardous journey to Europe.
Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s regional director for the Middle East, said the funding gap for operations in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon reached “the alarming figure” of 80m Swiss francs ($82m) for 2015 in late September.
“Humanitarian response is a sticking plaster, but this sticking plaster is indispensable in Syria, Iraq
and the neighbouring countries today. Normally at this time of the year
our activities in major war zones are fully funded. This year they are
not,” Mardini said.
However, he remained hopeful that donors would step up and that the
gap could be filled by the end of the year. He said there had been
“positive signals” from the UK and other European governments.
The finances of the world’s oldest humanitarian organisation act as a
microcosm for a global humanitarian system straining under the weight
of multiple crises, at a time when national budgets in many countries
are being squeezed by austerity measures. Even when funding levels are
higher, they may fail to meet global needs.
“Paradoxically, 2015 is the year where we got the strongest support
from some of our own donors – and yet we have the biggest deficit ever,”
Mardini said.
The ICRC estimated it required a field budget for this year of
$1.65bn, a record for the organisation, which needs more than $123m in
cash flow every month to sustain operations. Its field budget has grown by nearly 50% in the last five years.
If the funding gap is not plugged, the ICRC has reserve funds of
$308m but Mardini said it hoped to avoid using this money, which is
often drawn on for operations when crises break.
Mardini said the ICRC, working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, has
“substantially improved” its access in Syria over the past month and
had been able to double the number of operations carried out across
frontlines over the past year.
But while these developments were positive, he painted a grim picture
of a country where the economy and infrastructure are crumbling. The
situation is particularly dire in besieged towns, like Moaddamiyah in rural Damascus, which the ICRC has visited several times.
“We were shocked to see that people there had not had electricity for
two years. People were eating grass, people were drinking water from
the swamps … We were able to help them, but it’s not a one-off. We need
to be able to go back there,” Mardini said.
“In areas controlled by the Islamic State group, we have very limited
access. We were able, however, to operate on an ad hoc basis through
interactions at the administrative level of this group,” he said, citing
the delivery of crutches and medical equipment to Al-Bab and water
projects in Raqqa.
In Syria, 12 million people need humanitarian aid,
with half a million living in besieged areas. The ICRC provides clean
water for 5 million people, delivers food and also provides health
services – and Mardini placed this work in the context of trying to
offer people an alternative to risky journeys to Europe.
“When you develop and offer public services to the population, you
can give them options to stay. There are other parameters in the mix,
but at least it can help people to decide to stay because the default
position for people is to stay close to their homes,” Mardini said.
“Ordinary Syrians, ordinary Iraqis have one wish: to be back in their
country and to have a decent, normal life,” he said. “The best way to
address this problem is to have it fixed in the countries of origin and
this is a combination of political work that needs to be done, but also …
this sticking plaster that is humanitarian aid.”
Mardini made an impassioned plea for all parties to the conflict to
respect international humanitarian law, stressing that the absence of a
sustainable political solution made these rules more essential than
ever. “International humanitarian law is not just ink on paper. It can
actually work if respected and it will alleviate the human suffering,”
he said.
Increasingly, aid workers are being caught up in the many conflicts around the world: two ICRC staff were shot dead
this month while travelling in a convoy in Yemen. The group temporarily
suspended travel for its teams in the country, but hopes to resume full
operations soon, Mardini said.
Asked about the increasingly bitter political debates
over refugees in Europe, Mardini said the fact that millions of Syrians
had found shelter in Lebanon and Jordan was a remarkable example of the
absorption capacity of countries.
“In Lebanon, you have more than 1.1 million refugees
in a country of 4 million. It’s 25% of the population in a country that
could hardly recover from its own civil war … It is coping … At the end
of the day, 200,000 or 400,000 refugees in Europe … is something that,
in absolute terms, can be manageable,” he said, adding that the crisis
might also spur more decisive political action.
“This is a stark reminder for the international community that there
is an unsolved problem over there that people were ready to forget …
Maybe it has to be seen as an opportunity for bolder political decisions
going towards a more sustainable solution [rather than] just funding
humanitarian organisations.”
The Russian parliament has unanimously granted Vladimir Putin the right to deploy the country’s military in Syria, a move a top Kremlin aide said related only to the air force. Russia
has been building up its military presence in Syria, where it supports
the government forces of the president, Bashar al-Assad, in a conflict
that pits him against Islamic State militants and western-backed rebels.
Sergei Ivanov, the head of the Kremlin administration, said after the
vote in the federation council, the Russian parliament’s upper chamber:
“It is about Syria.”
He said the vote did not mean that Russian ground forces would be
engaged in conflict and that the move referred to the use of the air
force only.
There have been some media reports from the Middle East that Russian
military jets have already started carrying out airstrikes in Syria. The
Kremlin has declined to confirm that.
The last time the Russian parliament granted Putin the right to
deploy troops abroad – a technical requirement under Russian law –
Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine last year.
Japan must improve the living standards of its own people before it can consider accepting Syrian refugees, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe said, as he announced $1.6 billion in new assistance for Syrians and Iraqis caught up in conflicts in the Middle East.
Abe’s consistent refusal to consider allowing even a modest number of
refugees to relocate to Japan has prompted criticism of the country’s strict policy on asylum: last year it received a record 5,000 applications but accepted just 11 people.
Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York, Abe insisted Japan
must first tackle crises posed by its falling birth rate and an ageing population, and continue its push to boost the number of women in the labour market.
“It is an issue of demography,” Abe told reporters after his speech
to the UN general assembly. “I would say that before accepting
immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women,
elderly people and we must raise our birth rate. There are many things
that we should do before accepting immigrants.”
Abe added Japan,
which is pushing for a permanent seat on the UN security council, would
“discharge our own responsibility” in addressing the causes of the
refugee crisis.
“Japan would like to contribute by changing the conditions that give
rise to refugees. The cause of this tragedy is the fear of violence and
terrorism, and terror of poverty. The world must cooperate in order for
them to find a way to escape poverty.”
Japan’s latest aid package includes $810m for refugees and internally displaced people fleeing fighting in Syria and Iraq – three times the amount it provided last year – and $750m to fund peace-building efforts in the Middle East and Africa.
Human rights groups have highlighted the fact Japan and other
high-income countries such as Russia, Singapore and South Korea, have failed to help
relieve the pressure on countries in the Middle East and Europe, as
they struggle to cope with the influx of people caught up in the world’s
worst refugee crisis since the second word war.
Japan, however, has pointed to its record on providing aid to
refugees: last year it contributed $181.6m to the UN refugee agency,
second only to the US.
But it has not matched its financial largesse with pledged to accommodate Syrian and other refugees.
Of 60 Syrians already living in Japan who applied for refugee status,
three have been successful and another 30 or so have been given
permission to stay long-term for humanitarian reasons, according to the
Japan association for refugees.
While he did not mention any country by name, the EU council
president, Donald Tusk, appeared to round on the “hypocrisy” of Gulf
states criticising European nations for not taking in enough refugees,
while refusing to accept any themselves.
“Many countries represented here deal with this problem in a much
simpler way; namely by not allowing migrants and refugees to enter their
territories at all,” Tusk said in New York.
The repatriation of Iranians killed in the hajj stampede in Saudi Arabia has been delayed until at least Wednesday, officials said, citing administrative problems and difficulties in identifying victims.
With the uproar over the tragedy showing no sign of easing, President Hassan Rouhani arrived back in Tehran on Tuesday having left the UN General Assembly early, after citing Saudi “incompetence” at the hajj.
However the families of those who died in the crush – 228 Iranian fatalities have been confirmed – are still waiting for the ceremonial return of their loved ones.
“A plane is supposed to leave for Jeddah tonight for the transfer of bodies,” said Ali Marashi, head of the Iranian Red Crescent’s medical centre in Tehran, which is organising the repatriation.
But the task is proving difficult as the toll continues to rise – beyond the confirmed dead a further 227 Iranians were injured and 246 are missing.
“God willing we will have the funerals tomorrow,” Marashi said today.
“As well as the previous 21 containers there are now more dead bodies. Work is very slow.”
Iran’s health minister, Hassan Hashemi, arrived in Mecca early today to head the effort to return the bodies, having tried to go earlier but his plane was refused permission to land.
Iran, the region’s foremost Shiite state, has been deeply critical of Saudi Arabia, its Sunni rival, accusing it of serious safety lapses at the hajj.
In New York yesterday, Rouhani called for “an independent and precise investigation into the causes of this disaster and ways of preventing its repetition”.
He urged Saudi Arabia to allow immediate consular access to quickly identify the bodies and ensure their return home, and reiterated Tehran’s criticism of Riyadh’s response so far.
The pilgrims were taking part in a “grand and global spiritual gathering of the hajj” but “fell victim to the incompetence and mismanagement of those in charge”, Rouhani said.
Thursday’s deadly stampede worsened already deep tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The countries have been at odds over the civil war in Syria and Saudi Arabia’s months-long battle against Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen.
While Iran accuses Riyadh of committing atrocities in a bombing campaign against the Huthis – whom Tehran supports -the kingdom says Iran is using the conflicts to expand its regional influence.
Afghan troops backed by US air support launched a counter-offensive on Tuesday to retake Kunduz, a day after Taliban insurgents overran the strategic northern city in their biggest victory since being ousted from power in 2001.
Gun battles erupted and Humvees rolled through the city as Afghan security forces, who had retreated to the outlying airport after the fall, began a counter-strike backed by reinforcements.
The Taliban had captured government buildings and freed hundreds of prisoners yesterday, raising their trademark white flag throughout the city.
The stunning fall of the provincial capital, which has sent panicked residents fleeing, dealt a major blow to Afghanistan’s NATO-trained security forces and highlighted the insurgency’s potential to expand beyond its rural strongholds.
US forces also conducted an air strike in Kunduz province today, a NATO statement said, without specifying the target.
The strike was carried out to “eliminate a threat to Afghan and coalition forces”, the statement added.
Despite the launch of the counter-offensive, Kunduz swarmed with Taliban fighters racing stolen police vehicles and Red Cross vans.
Deputy Interior Minister Ayoub Salangi said earlier that security forces were ready to retake the city and vowed to investigate how the Taliban managed to seize a major urban centre for the first time in 14 years.
The defence ministry today claimed that the police headquarters and city prison had been retaken, after marauding insurgents freed hundreds of prisoners including some Taliban commanders.
But several other government facilities, including a 200-bed local hospital, were still under Taliban control.
“We are scared of leaving our homes, scared of being beaten by the Taliban,” said Sadiqa Sherza, head of Roshani Radio, a Kunduz media network focused on women’s issues.
“There’s no electricity, no water, and ration shops are all closed.”
The United Nations and other aid agencies were forced to pull their staff from the city, which has seen a huge influx of civilians displaced by recent months of fighting.
The Taliban’s incursion into Kunduz, barely nine months after the NATO combat mission concluded, raises troubling questions over the capacity of Afghan forces as they battle militants largely on their own.
“The upshot is that Afghan forces, despite their many improvements in recent years, remain a work in progress,” said Michael Kugelman, Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Germany has committed an additional 100 million euros (USD 113 million) to UN agencies to improve assistance for refugees in their home regions.
“Those who take care of refugees — especially the World Food Program and the UN refugee agency — are dramatically underfunded,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists before a Group of Seven meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“I think we have every reason to try everything so that people do not leave the countries neighboring Syria” because they face food shortages, he said.
Steinmeier urged the other G7 members, European countries and Gulf states to step up their financial contributions as well.
“They will only do this if we lead by example, and this is why we will go into this meeting with the pledge to give additional 100 million euros to the international agencies of the United Nations that take care of refugees,” he said.
Germany holds the presidency of the Group of Seven major democratic economies which also includes Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Germany also invited Austria, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to join the meeting.
Germany has been at the forefront of Europe’s migrant crisis by welcoming refugees fleeing the brutal civil war in Syria.
Many refugees say they have fled to Europe as a cash crunch raises shortages in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the main temporary homes for the four million Syrians who have fled.
At least 131 civilians, many of them women and children, were killed
in an air strike at a wedding in Yemen, suspectedly by Saudi-led
coalition, medical officials said on Tuesday.
Residents said the Arab coalition, which launched an air war on the
Houthi Shiite rebels in late March, was behind the attack on the wedding
hall near the Red Sea city of Mokha.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Monday’s air raid, saying
intentional attacks on civilians were considered a “serious violation of
international humanitarian law”.
The death toll rose to 131 people after “more bodies were taken
overnight to hospital and many of the wounded succumbed to their
injuries,” a local health official told AFP requesting anonymity.
Previously the toll had been at least 40 dead and dozens wounded.
A doctor at Mokha’s Al-Reefi Hospital, Mayaz al-Hamadi, confirmed
that 131 bodies, including women and children, had been brought in.
“Many bodies are laid on the floor because the hospital does not have
the means” to accommodate the large number of fatalities, he said.
The United Nations said it was trying to verify the death toll.
“If the numbers are as high as suggested, this may be the single
deadliest incident since the start of the conflict,” UN rights agency
spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva.
Colville said that more civilians were being killed in the fighting
in Yemen amid “an increasing number of air strikes targeting bridges and
highways”.
According to new UN numbers, 151 civilians were killed, including 26
children and 10 women, in the conflict from September 11-24.
A total of 2,355 civilians have been killed in the war since late March, and 4,862 more wounded, Colville said.
Ban urged all rival sides in Yemen “to immediately cease all military
activities and resolve all differences through peaceful negotiations”.
The foreign ministers of India, Japan and the US were meeting in New
York on Tuesday in the first such trilateral engagement between the
three countries with an eye on China’s growing influence in the world.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who would address the United
Nations General Assembly on September 30, arrived in the city for the
meeting along with her counterparts, US secretary of state John Kerry
and Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida.
The meeting that elevates a trilateral framework involving officials
of the three nations is reflective of their joint strategic vision in
the wake of Chinese plans to step up security tie-ups in the
Indo-Pacific region.
“I welcome the progress in giving shape to our joint strategic vision
on our Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean region, and also our joint
engagement with regional partners like Japan,” Prime Minister Narendra
Modi said on Monday during a brief joint media appearance with US
President Barack Obama.
India and the US are showing greater convergence in the region in the
sphere of strategic issues, especially on the matter of freedom of
navigation in South China Sea, which is pointed at Beijing. And Japan is a treaty ally of the US.
“To further increase our strategic engagement in the region, I look
forward to work with the US for India’s membership of the Asian Pacific
Economic Community (APEC),” Modi said.
The trilateral dialogue will also focus on maritime security.
“We discussed how we can further refine our strategic vision – our
common joint vision moving forward for security and partnerships,” Obama
said.
It’s been more than four years since the conflict in Syria started
and things have gone downhill with the advent of the Islamic State (IS).
It appears to be a conflict with no end in sight, but in less than a
fortnight that seems to be changing with Russia’s deployment of a
military force along Syria’s Mediterranean coast. By sending troops
Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought an interesting dimension
into the conflict.
In the absence of a cohesive strategy to fight the IS, Mr Putin’s
plan to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is welcomed by
some nations — and that’s a glaring reflection of how the United States
has failed to chalk out a plan. Washington’s efforts to tackle the
crisis have not shown the Obama administration in a good light with
reports stating that US-trained Syrian rebels, intended to fight the IS,
defected to al-Qaeda.
This comes on the heels of analysts at the US military’s Central
Command (CENTCOM) complaining that reports on Syria and Iraq were
watered down to show that the US was winning the battle on terror.
By inserting Russia into the West Asian conflict, Mr Putin has
ensured that any solution to the crisis will now have to include Moscow.
But this move also comes with its risks.
If Mr Putin refuses to accommodate the concerns of the West, its
regional allies and the moderate rebels, Moscow will soon find itself
entangled in the conflict without an exit route. Thus, it is in Mr
Putin’s interests to tread a middle path.
Whatever be the case, one thing is clear: Assad has no future in a
post-war Syria — not after the bloodshed unleashed by his regime on
innocent civilians. Now, the US, Russia, West Asian allies, moderate
rebels and the UN need to work together on three aspects: Put an end to
the IS, plan Mr Assad’s exit and a transition to a coalition that
reflects all sections of Syrian society, and, plan the democratic future
of Syria.
It is imperative to involve the moderate Sunni groups in a post-Assad
plan, because if excluded, there’s no incentive for them to fight the
IS. The mistakes committed while drawing up plans for a post-Saddam
Hussein Iraq must not be repeated in Syria.
Russia’s military build-up in Syria appears to have forced US
President Barack Obama to two unpalatable conclusions: He cannot ignore
Moscow, and Syrian President Bashar al Assad may survive for some time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, isolated after his annexation of
Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, secured a meeting
with Obama on Monday largely as a result of his surprise movement of
planes and tanks into Syria.
Both sides said they were looking for ways to work with one another
to end the Syrian civil war. And, according to a US official, they
agreed their militaries should coordinate to prevent Russian and US-led
coalition forces from inadvertently clashing over Syria.
A US official told Reuters the United States believes Russia has sent
four Sukhoi Su-34 “Fullback” fighter-bombers, its latest deployment of
aircraft to a base near the Russian naval facility at Tartus on Syria’s
Mediterranean coast.
With Moscow a staunch backer of Assad and keen to keep its foothold
in the middle east, analysts said the buildup may force Washington to
abandon its goal of Assad’s departure, at least for now.
As Obama’s former middle east policy coordinator, Phil Gordon, has
argued, the White House may need to explore ways to stop the bloodshed
and alleviate human suffering while holding its nose over Assad’s
departure.
At least 200,000 people have died in the conflict, displacing
millions and leading to the rise of the Islamic State militant group,
which has exploited the power vacuum to seize control of parts of Syria
and neighboring Iraq.
“What’s needed is a new diplomatic process that brings all the key
external actors to the table and agrees on a messy compromise to
de-escalate the conflict - even if that means putting off agreement on
the question of Assad,” Gordon, who worked at the White House until
April, wrote on Friday in Politico magazine.
Despite the stated US position that Assad has lost the legitimacy to
lead Syria and must go, officials have long said they see no policy
likely to achieve this at an acceptable cost.
As a result, for months they have tacitly lived with Assad staying in
power and made no bones that their focus is to combat Islamic State,
also known as ISIL and ISIS, rather than push the Syrian President from
power. Kerry probes new political track
Fresh from negotiating the July 14 nuclear deal with Iran, US
secretary of state John Kerry spent much of his week at the UN General
Assembly probing to find a new political track on Syria and to assemble a
new “contact group” after multiple diplomatic failures.
The group, if it emerges, is likely to include Britain, Germany,
France and an array of middle east players, including Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and Turkey, which have backed the uprising against Assad and the
campaign against Islamic State.
Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters he expected
greater military support for rebels fighting Assad, though he declined
to say what his country might do, and he said it was “inconceivable” for
Assad to stay under a political deal.
Another option being explored, western officials said, is a group
modeled on the P5+1 -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the
United States -- that came together for the Iran nuclear talks.
Kerry acknowledges that bringing all sides together will be hard without an agreement on Assad’s future at the outset.
“Even if President Obama wanted to just play along ... there are 65
million Sunni (Arabs) in-between Baghdad and the border of Turkey, Syria
and Iraq who will never, ever again accept Assad as a legitimate
leader,” Kerry told MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ program on Tuesday.
“Russians need to understand that you cannot have peace unless you resolve the question of Sunni buy-in.”
Foreign policy analysts said the best solution might be to leave the question of Assad’s future until later.
“If Assad’s departure and the defeat of ISIS, and a peaceful future
for Syria is the ultimate desired outcome, don’t try to achieve all that
in phase one.” said Matthew Rojansky of the Washington-based Wilson
Center think tank. “That can be phase two. That can be phase five.”
Rojansky, an expert on US relations with Russia, said a first phase
could be to work on the area that Washington and Moscow agree on --
defeating Islamic State, even if that means that Assad’s hand is
marginally strengthened.
Men are more likely to be killed in shooting or executions, while women and children are more likely to die from bomb blasts.
(AP Photo)
Of this sample, while men were most likely to be killed in shootings
or executions, women and children were more likely to die from air
bombardments, shells or ground-level explosives such as car bombs,
according to the research published by the British Medical Journal on
Tuesday.
This differs from previous conflicts for which figures are available
such as the 1992-5 Croatian war, in which the vast majority of children
who died were killed by firearms, and female deaths were rare, the
report said.
The findings “should give pause to anyone who thinks there can be a
safe hiding place for women and children when high explosives are being
used in populated areas,” said Hamir Dardagan, co-director of Every
Casualty Worldwide, a campaign group.
Both the Syrian government and rebel groups say the targets of their
bombs and shells are enemy strongholds, but “our findings indicate that
for Syrian children these are the weapons
most likely to cause death,” the report’s authors said.
The United Nations criticised the Syrian government earlier this
month for its aerial bombing campaigns including in civilian areas of
Aleppo, Idlib and Damascus, saying they had led to “widespread civilian
casualties”.
In June the UN Human Rights Council criticised the government’s use
of cluster bombs, barrel bombs and ballistic missiles in a resolution
rejected by Syria as selective and biased.
“Our study shows that civilians become the main target of weapons and
bear a disproportionate share of the burden of bombings,” said the
authors of the Louvain report.
“If we are looking for root causes of the migrant and refugee crises in Europe today, this is surely a major contributor.”
More than 4 million Syrians have fled the country because of the
fighting, the vast majority to neighbouring Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
Separatists on Sunday won a clear majority of seats in Catalonia’s
parliament in an election that sets the region on a collision course
with Spain’s central government over independence.
“Catalans have voted yes to independence,” acting regional government
head Artur Mas told supporters, with secessionist parties securing 72
out of 135 seats in the powerful region of 7.5 million people that
includes Barcelona.
The strong pro-independence showing dealt a blow to Spanish Prime
Minister Mariano Rajoy, three months before a national election. His
centre-right government, which has opposed attempts to hold a referendum
on secession, has called the separatist plan “a nonsense” and vowed to
block it in court.
Spain’s constitution does not allow any region to break away, so the prospect remains highly hypothetical.
The main secessionist group “Junts pel Si” (Together for Yes) won 62
seats, while the smaller leftist CUP party got another 10, according to
official results.
They jointly obtained 47.8 percent of the vote in a record turnout of
78 percent, a big boost to an independence campaign that has been
losing support over the last two years.
Both had said before the vote that such a result would allow them to
unilaterally declare independence within 18 months, under a plan that
would see the new Catalan authorities approving their own constitution
and building institutions like an army, central bank and judicial
system.
Addressing supporters of Junts pel Si in central Barcelona, Mas said
a “democratic mandate” now existed to move forward with independence.
“That gives us a great strength and strong legitimacy to keep on with
this project,” Mas told the exultant crowd, which chanted
“in-inde-independencia” and waved secessionist flags.
Albert Llorent, a taxi driver from Barcelona who had come to celebrate, said the result was one of historic proportions.
“What I think, what I feel, is that I belong to the best possible nation in the world. Long live Catalonia,” he said. Consequences?
The vote in Catalonia, Spain’s second-most populous region, is widely
expected to influence the course of the Spanish general election in
December.
Spain’s two dominant parties - the ruling People’s Party and the
opposition Socialists - lost tens of thousands of votes compared with
the last election in 2012, boding ill for their national ambitions,
although the PP suffered a much deeper setback than its rival.
Anti-austerity Podemos also registered a disappointing score at 9
percent, sharply down from last May’s nationwide regional and local
elections.
Among parties opposed to independence, pro-market Ciudadanos, often
cited as a national kingmaker, emerged as the only winner as it jumped
to 18 percent of the vote.
Despite the separatist victory, analysts believe the most likely
outcome of the election will be to force a dialogue between Catalan and
Spanish authorities.
“Many have voted for Junts pel Si even if they don’t favour secession
because they saw the vote as a blank cartridge... and a way to gain a
stronger position ahead of a negotiation,” said Jose Pablo Ferrandiz
from polling firm Metroscopia.
Opinion polls show a majority of Catalans would like to remain within
Spain if the region were offered a more favourable tax regime and laws
that better protect language and culture.
While investors do not see secession as an immediate material risk, financial markets may react negatively on Monday.
The gap between Spanish five-year bond yields and the higher yields
on the Catalan equivalents has been hovering near its widest point in
two years in the run-up to the vote.
xternal Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the leaders discussed the issue of Indians being held hostage in Iraq.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas in New York before leaving for India on Tuesday.
External
Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the leaders discussed
the issue of Indians being held hostage in Iraq. The meeting has raised
the hopes of family members of the 39 Indians kidnapped by the Islamic
State (IS) in Iraq.
The government had kept the
family members informed of the Modi-Abbas meeting as External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj herself briefed a delegation of the relatives on
September 18 before the Prime Minister left for New York.
Ms.
Swaraj had told the families that the Palestinian Authority provided
her irrefutable proof that the hostages had not been physically harmed
by the IS.
“Ms. Swaraj told us that the Indians are
being held by the IS in the northern part of the city of Mosul and the
IS is using them to move heavy loads across the city,” said Gurpinder
Kaur, whose 24-year-old brother, Harjinder Singh, is among the captives.
Silence for long
Mr.
Harjinder spoke to his family like others in his group on June 15,
2014, informing them of the kidnapping. Neither he nor others have
contacted their families since. One of the kidnapped men, Harkit Singh,
emerged last December to claim that the rest of the 39 were massacred by
the terrorists in Iraq a few days after the ordeal began.
Ms.
Kaur and other family members have formed a group which has been kept
informed of the progress of the investigation by the Ministry.
She
said Ms. Swaraj had promised them that Mr. Abbas would provide some
proof of life to Mr. Modi. “We are therefore waiting to hear what the
Palestinian President told the Indian Prime Minister.”
A high-level official in the Ministry told The Hindu
that the meeting had not thrown up anything substantial. Reportedly,
Mr. Modi reiterated India’s request for help from the Palestinians to
bring the men back home. “We have asked them for help in locating the
captives as we have asked Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and a
host of other countries.”
“The President said the hostages were alive and will update us as and when there is more information,” Mr. Swarup said.
The
meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Abbas comes in the wake of India’s
increasing proximity to Israel and ahead of President Pranab Mukherjee’s
visit to Israel next month.In an apparent effort to underscore India’s
historical association with Palestine, Mr. Swarup tweeted pictures of
the two leaders together, with the caption, ‘bonding with Palestine.’
The U.S. did not invite Iran to Tuesday’s UN summit on
combating the Islamic State and other violent extremist groups because
it still designates Iran itself as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Even
if he had been invited, it is not clear if Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani would have taken part. He has made clear he has different views
to the Obama administration on fighting IS.
However,
the absence of an invitation to a critical meeting on violent extremist
groups in Syria and Iraq, an issue in which Iran has a major stake,
illustrates the remaining institutional and political barriers to U.S.
cooperation with Iran even after the successful negotiation of a nuclear
agreement on its nuclear programme in July.
State
department officials confirmed that Iran’s designation as a state
sponsor of terrorism was the reason for its exclusion from the
countering IS summit being chaired by Mr. Obama on Tuesday.
Iran
was first designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. state
department in 1984 and the designation has been rolled over each year.
The
latest state department report said: “Iran continued its
terrorist-related activity in 2014, including support for Palestinian
terrorist groups in Gaza, Lebanese Hezbollah, and various groups in Iraq
and throughout the Middle East.”
The U.S. also
accused Iran of increasing assistance to Iraqi Shia militias, one of
which was designated a terrorist organisation, “in response to the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant incursion into Iraq, and has
continued to support other militia groups in the region. Iranian
officials have complained that about being stigmatised by backing
militia groups fighting Isis, something the US is also attempting to do.
The
state sponsor of terrorism label does not present a legal barrier to
negotiating with a national government, a fact that allowed the nuclear
negotiations to take place, so there is an element of discretion in its
application.
“These labels and lists reduce American
manoeuvrability and flexibility at a time when agility is a critical
property in foreign policy,” said Trita Parsi, the head of the National
Iranian-American Council, an advocacy group promoting diplomacy with
Iran
The U.S. and the U.K. have advised their citizens to
limit their movement in Bangladesh, a day after an Italian aid worker
was shot down in Dhaka. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for
the murder of Cesare Tavella on Monday.
The U.S.
Embassy in an alert update said: “Such attacks, should they occur, could
likely affect other foreigners, including U.S. citizens.” The U.S. has
“received information” that terrorist groups in the South Asian
countries, including Bangladesh, “may be planning attacks in the region,
possibly against U.S. government facilities, U.S. citizens, or U.S.
interests”.
Australia was the first to express
security concerns in Dhaka on Friday following which its cricket team
decided to delay its Bangladesh tour.
The U.K. has
also advised its citizens to limit movement in Dhaka. In a foreign
travel advice update on Monday it advised its officials “to limit
attendance at events where westerners may gather”.
Bangladesh
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamalsaid the involvement of IS in the
murder of Tavella was yet to be confirmed. “We are looking into
everything that might have been the motive behind the murder.”
"This is perhaps the best possible resolution that could have been achieved at the UNHRC", says TNA leader R. Sampanthan.
The draft resolution on Sri Lanka tabled at the United
Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by the U.S. and other countries has
addressed the main issues of accountability and reconciliation,
according to the Tamil National Alliance leader, R. Sampanthan.
The
involvement of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence counsel,
prosecutors and investigators would give the judicial process “much
greater degree of credibility”, the TNA chief told The Hindu on
Tuesday. “You can’t blame the people who are sceptical [of the domestic
judicial process] because the previous experiences were quite bad.”
The
references in the resolution to the need to evolve an acceptable
political solution and the proposed review of implementation of the
resolution at the 32nd and 34th sessions of the UNHRC are “welcome
features”, he said.
“This is perhaps the best
possible resolution that could have been achieved at the UNHRC on the
basis of a consensus.” Mr. Sampanthan also recalled that resolutions on
Sri Lanka were adopted at the UNHRC during 2012-2014 through voting.
Asked
whether he was confident of the full implementation of the resolution,
the TNA leader said that a “honest implementation will become
inevitable,” against the context of “a resolution based on consensus.”
He urged all to join together to make sure that the resolution was
“honestly implemented in the interests of the whole country and all
people living in the country.”
Emphasising that an
early settlement to the Tamil question should be found by next year, he
said it must be “reasonable, workable and durable.” “Our people must
feel that they have a new future where they honestly think that they
belong to this country and this country belongs to them.”
Old
Queen Zenobia came to Damascus the other day and was winched into place
in a prime spot on Umayyad Square, opposite the al-Assad national
library. The replica brass statue of the 3rd-century heroine was
representing Palmyra, her realm on the eastern edge of the Roman empire,
now in the hands of Islamic State. Zenobia’s ceremonial arrival in the capital was a pledge that Syria’s heritage has not been abandoned.
The destruction wrought by Isis on the desert city hauntingly known
as the ‘Venice of the Sands’ horrified a world fatigued by a conflict
that has claimed 250,000 lives and made millions homeless. And the
tragedy was cruelly personalised by the fate of Khaled al-Asaad,
the archaeologist who devoted his long life to Palmyra – and who was
tortured and beheaded after refusing to reveal where its treasures had
been hidden.
“Everyone is talking about Palmyra now,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s
director-general of antiquities and museums, and Khaled al-Asaad’s
devoted friend and colleague, told the Guardian in his Damascus office.
“But three months before it fell we asked the international community to
do everything possible to prevent it falling.” Yet the battle to preserve the country’s glorious past goes on.
Abdulkarim, who is of Armenian and Kurdish background, embodies the
cultural diversity of which Syrians were once proud – and which he
remains determined to defend in the face of disintegration and hatred.
He came to the antiquities job in the “catastrophic” summer of 2012,
when rebel attacks seemed to threaten the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s
regime. His first decision was to close down all the museums in the
country, to safeguard both collections and visitors. “I always say that I
am the unhappiest director-general of antiquities in the world,” he
quipped with a self-deprecatory smile.
Jeremy Corbyn used his Labour conference speech to
call for the Ministry of Justice to drop its bid for a Saudi prisons
contract, citing the case of pro-democracy protester, Ali Mohammed
al-Nimr, who has been sentenced to crucifixion.
Nimr is facing a death sentence, handed down when he was 17, which is
largely based on a “confession” he was forced to sign following what he
says were days of torture while in custody.
The sentence will be carried out in jail by the Saudi prison service.
Corbyn called on the British government to protest against this
sentence by dropping its bid for a £5.9m contract to provide prison
expertise to the Saudis.
The bid was put in by Justice Solutions International, the commercial
arm of the MoJ that was set up by the last justice secretary, Chris
Grayling, to sell its expertise in prisons and probation – including in
offender management, payment by results, tagging and privatisation –
around the world.
Last month the new justice secretary, Michael Gove announced that he
was closing down JSI, telling MPs it was because “of the need to focus
departmental resources on domestic priorities”.
But Gove said the bid for the Saudi contract to provide
“training-needs analysis” would go ahead because it is so far advanced
that the financial penalties for cancellation would be detrimental to
the British government’s interests. “All work relating to this contract
will be completed within six months of starting,” he said.
The official explanation was later amended to exclude the issue of
financial penalties, and a correction made to the parliamentary record.
But the justice ministry still says that it would not be in the “wider
interests of the British government” to withdraw the bid at this late
stage. This is taken by campaigners, such as Reprieve, to mean that the
Foreign Office is insisting it goes ahead.
In a statement last Friday, the FCO said: “We understand that Ali
Mohammed al-Nimr’s legal process has finished and his final appeal has
been denied. We will raise this case urgently with the Saudi
authorities.”
The spokesperson added: “The abolition of the death penalty is a
human rights priority for the UK. The UK opposes the death penalty in
all circumstances.”
Downing Street said the UK had already raised Nimr’s case with the
Saudi authorities and Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, would raise
it again with his Saudi counterpart.
The initial JSI bid to the Saudi authorities for the contract was
made in August 2014 with a final bid being submitted this April. It is
subject to final approval by the Saudi ministry of finance.
Maya Foa, of the anti-death penalty group Reprieve, wrote to Gove
asking him to drop the bid. She said: “Britain’s justice system has a
strong reputation for fairness and decency and we believe that to
continue with this contract would sully that reputation, while sending
the signal that Britain condones the abuses taking place in the Saudi
system, and others like it around the world.”
