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French soldiers accused of raping CAR children

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Prosecutors investigate accusations that troops in Central African Republic abused children they were sent to protect.

A UN report detailed interviews with six children, aged eight to 15, who approached the French soldiers to ask for food [EPA]

A UN report detailed interviews with six children, aged eight to 15, who approached the French soldiers to ask for food [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

France is investigating allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic after a leaked UN report said victims as young as eight were raped in exchange for food and money.

The French government “was made aware at the end of July 2014 by the UN’s high commissioner for human rights of accusations by children that they had been sexually abused by French soldiers”, the defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

An investigation was opened shortly after by Paris prosecutors, it said.

The defence ministry vowed to take measures to ensure that “the truth be found” and said “the strongest penalties” would be imposed on those found responsible.

The abuse was alleged by around 10 children, the ministry said, and reportedly took place at a centre for displaced people near the airport of the capital Bangui between December 2013 and June 2014.

UN spokesman Farhan Haq confirmed that UN rights investigators had conducted a probe last year following “serious allegations” of child abuse and sexual exploitation by French troops, and had suspended a staff member for leaking the report in July.

The report was given to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper by the US-based advocacy group AIDS-Free World, which is calling for a commission of inquiry to be set up on sexual misconduct by peacekeepers.

Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said that even though the French military said an investigation was under way on their behalf, the incident is potentially embarrassing for the UN.

“Until now, the one person who has been punished for anything is that UN human rights official who raised the alarm,” he said.

Children searching for food

Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World, said the report detailed interviews with six children, aged eight to 15, who approached the French soldiers to ask for food.

“The children were saying that they were hungry and they thought that they could get some food from the soldiers. The answer was ‘if you do this, then I will give you food’,” Donovan told AFP news agency.

“Different kids used different language.”

The report by the UN human rights office was commissioned amid fears of sexual abuse against children last year as tens of thousands were displaced by fighting and unrest in the country.

The UN employee accused of the leak, Swedish national Anders Kompass, is based in Geneva and turned the report over to French authorities because his bosses had failed to take action, The Guardian reported.

He has been suspended and faces dismissal for breaching protocol, the paper said.

But UN officials said Kompass passed on the confidential document before it was presented to senior officials in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, suggesting that senior UN officials were not even aware of the report’s findings when it was leaked.

“This constitutes a serious breach of protocol, which, as is well known to all OHCHR officials, requires redaction of any information that could endanger victims, witnesses and investigators,” said Haq.

While the UN did not identify the source of the leak, it asserted that “such conduct does not constitute whistleblowing”.

IPL: AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan lift RCB to 200

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Sarfaraz Khan

Bengaluru: A half-century by old faithful AB de Villiers, followed by a cameo by 17-year old fresh face from Mumbai Sarfaraz Khan, carried Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to 200 for seven against Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League match here on Wednesday.

The efforts of South African ace de Villiers (57, 45b, 9×4, 1×6) and Khan (45 not out, 21b, 6×4, 1×6) made up for the early exits of in-form openers Chris Gayle (10) and skipper Virat Kohli (1) as Rajasthan Royals bowlers wilted under pressure, leaking 70 runs in the last five overs.

Barring Kiwi paceman Tim Southee (2 for 32), the rest of visiting bowlers appeared quite pedestrian with leg-spinner Pravin Tambe slammed for 39 runs in his three overs and left-arm seamer James Faulkner going for 26 in two.

The RCB innings was off to a sensational start with Southee dismissing openers Chris Gayle (10) and Kohli (1) in the space of eight deliveries to leave the hosts teetering on 19 for two in the third over.

Gayle blasted a four and a six off Southee who, however, sent back the big Jamaican, playing across and holing out to Hooda at mid-wicket, all this action in the first four deliveries of the match.

Southee, in his next over, inducted a nick from Kohli who was caught behind.

The early reverses did not stop de Villiers from blasting away with Mandeep Singh following suit.

So much so, Faulkner went for 14 in his first over and Tambe leaked 15 as RCB batsmen raised a gallop.

Mandeep and de Villiers put on 74 runs for the third wicket in quick time. However, Rajasthan bounced back with Stuart Binny trapping Mandeep plumb in front and then de Villiers run out attempting a sharp single as RCB slid to 124 for four in the 14th over.

Thereafter, Karthik and Khan maintain the momentum before the former was run out following a misunderstanding.

However, Khan continued his merry way, carting Tambe for 18 in the 18th over as the leg-spinner conceded 39 runs in his three overs for a disappointing performance.

(IANS)

Rahul Gandhi begins sanvad padyatra; meets Maharashtra farmers

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rahul-padyatra

Amravati: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi Thursday began a 15-km day-long padyatra in Amravati district in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, during which he is meeting the families of farmers who committed suicide.

Rahul, who reached Nagpur last night, left this morning for village Gunji to begin the foot march dubbed as ‘sanvad padyatra’.

On the way to Gunji, people were seen lined up on roads at Kondhali and Talegaon villages to greet the Congress leader.

Rahul stopped at Talegaon for some time, before proceeding to Gunji.

Rahul spoke to the people who greeted him and sought to know their problems and the issues affecting them.

He will be visiting five villages between Gunji to Ramgaon and will meet the farmers who have suffered crop losses due to unseasonal rain. He is accompanied by MPCC president Ashok Chavan and senior state Congress leaders.

Maharashtra is one of the states that experienced severe agrarian crisis and Amravati division in Vidarbha region has witnessed many suicide cases of farmers this year.

Ahead of his visit, a farmer, Gajanan Sheshrao Khongal, allegedly committed suicide by jumping into a well in Morshi tehsil of the district on Tuesday.

(PTI)

Chandigarh: Girl dies after jumping off bus to avoid molesters

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Chandigarh Girl dies after jumping off bus to avoid molesters

Chandigarh: A 13-year-old girl died and her mother was seriously injured when they had to jump out of a moving private bus to avoid molestation by some youth along with the bus conductor near Punjab’s Moga town, police said on Thursday.

The incident took place on Wednesday evening.

The girl was declared brought dead by doctors. The mother was admitted to a government hospital in Moga.

The bus was impounded.

“We are investigating the matter and trying to nab the accused. The bus has been impounded,” a police officer told media on Wednesday night.

Eyewitness account of passengers on the bus indicated that the mother and daughter were subjected to molestation and lewd remarks by some youth and the bus staff after they boarded it.

When both of them, travelling with a boy, tried to get off the bus, the driver increased the speed.
“No one in the bus came to the rescue of the victims. There were not many passengers in the bus when the incident happened,” an eyewitness told police.

The Punjab Police registered a case.

(IANS)

Nepal quake: Man pulled alive from rubble after 80 hours

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nepal

Kathmandu: A Nepali-French search and rescue team pulled a 28-year-old man, Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu after he had spent around 80 hours in a room with three dead bodies.

Khanal appeared to have had no access to food or water during his ordeal, which began at midday on Saturday when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, destroying buildings and killing at least 4,600 people.

“It seems he survived by sheer willpower,” said Akhilesh Shrestha, a doctor who treated him.

Khanal had been on the second floor of a seven-storey building when the quake struck. The top floors were intact and the teams drilled down to him after he shouted for help and responded to questions in Nepali.

The rescue took five hours.

Khanal had just finished lunch at a hotel in Kathmandu and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started to move and fall apart. He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble.

“I had some hope but by yesterday I’d given up. My nails went all white and my lips cracked … I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die,” he told The Associated Press from his hospital bed on Wednesday, surrounded by his family.

“There was no sound going out, or coming in. I kept banging against the rubble and finally someone responded and came to help. I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink so I drank my own urine.”

It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or a guest.

“It feels good. I am thankful,” he said. He was taken away for surgery before more details could be obtained.

More than 5,000 people are known to have died and over 10,000 injured in the Nepal earthquake. There were also deaths in India, Tibet and Bangladesh.

(Reuters)

AIADMK, DMK MPs unite to oppose Karnataka members on Cauvery issue

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CAUVERY

New Delhi/Bengaluru: An unusual bonhomie was witnessed in Rajya Sabha today when members of rival Tamil Nadu parties AIADMK and DMK got together to oppose MPs from Karnataka while seeking government’s intervention in stopping construction of dams in the Cauvery river basin.

Raising the issue of construction of a reservoir by Karnataka in the Cauvery river basin during Zero Hour, S Muthukuruppam (AIADMK) urged the central government and the Ministry of Environment and Forests not to grant clearance to any such project.

The AIADMK member also demanded that Karnataka government should be told to maintain status quo on the issue and not go against the directions of the Supreme Court and the Cauvery Disputes Redressal Commission.

This prompted members from Karnataka including B K Hari Prasad (Congress) to rise and raise strong objections to the AIADMK member’s plea, leading to a verbal clash.

The AIADMK member was joined by his party members as well as those of the rival DMK in putting up a strong protest against the objections raised by Karnataka members who were far outnumbered in the verbal spat.

The uproar led the Deputy Chairman P J Kurien to intervene and ask the protesting members from Karnataka to give notice to put across their point of view.

Muthukuruppam then insisted that he be given some more time to complete his mention, but the Chair refused to allow him saying his three minutes were over and he was not allowed to read out in the House as per the rules.

(Agencies)

BMTC, KSRTC buses to be off roads April 30

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bus-bandh

Bengaluru: A nationwide strike has been called by the Motor Transport and Engineering Workers Union and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) Employees Association to protest against ammendments brought to the central government’s Road transport and Safety Bill, 2014.

The unions have, in a joint statement called the amendments anti labor and anti people. The statement said that the bus employees are opposing the amendments which stipulate jail term and sterner punishments for drivers and conductors even in case of minor accidents and other incidents.

Public transport services across the country tomorrow is expected to be non existent as they strongly believe that the new law will curtail the powers of state-owned transport corporations and will favor private bus operators.

It is reported that the striking employees of public utilities will also be protesting against the attitude of private owners in coastal districts in putting off payment of daily wages to conductors and drivers at the rate already agreed upon. The unions have extended full support to the national level strike call given by different labor unions.

BMTC and KSRTC buses too will be off the roads tomorrow inconveniencing commuters across the state. With the Federation Sr. National Athletics Championship set to take off tomorrow at Mangaluru tomorrow, 4 PM, the organizers are feeling hard pressed to ensure that it goes off smoothly.

(Agencies)

Hunger and death stalk millions in Yemen's war

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(Photo: UNICEF)

(Photo: UNICEF)

by Mohammed Mukhashaf and Noah Browning, Reuters

Aden/Dubai: Hospitals bereft of electricity, homes crushed by air strikes, thousands on the move in search of water, shelter and food: Yemen’s humanitarian plight, long fragile, has become disastrous after a month of all-out war.

In a reversal of a journey long undertaken by those fleeing disaster, war and famine, some Yemenis have resorted to escaping to less unstable zones in the Horn of Africa.

Hospitals in the capital Sanaa, too short of gasoline to run ambulances, blared appeals to private drivers with enough fuel to collect the dead and injured lying in the street after a big air strike on capital Sanaa last week.

The bombing of a missile depot set off a explosion which shredded dozens of homes and sent a mushroom cloud towering over the city.

Crammed with wounded people, some hospitals lacked the electricity or generator fuel to perform surgery, and aid officials say some bodies are now being stored in commercial refrigerators or hastily buried when fetid morgues lack power.

“Ambulances can’t run, there’s very little electricity and not enough fuel for generators. In a water-scarce country like Yemen, that means you can’t even pump water,” said International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Marie Claire Feghali.

“It’s a catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe. It was difficult enough before, but now there are just no words for how bad it’s gotten,” she added.

Hundreds of Saudi-led air strikes and dozens of ground battles across Yemen have left millions in the impoverished country hungry and 150,000 fleeing for their lives.

At least 1,080 people have been killed, according to the United Nations, their bodies often crushed under bombed homes or left to fester in war zones. More than 4,000 have been wounded.

An Arab alliance’s month-long campaign against Iran-allied Houthi rebels has yet to loosen their grip over the capital Sanaa or beat back their gains in fronts across hundreds of miles in Yemen’s south.

Behind the struggle for the country’s future, average Yemenis bear the brunt of fighting. The United Nations say 12 million people are “food insecure” or going hungry, a 13 percent increase since the conflict started.

A blockade has choked off imports of food and medicines, while combat has interrupted fuel supplies to the country’s 25 million people.

The shortages have warped daily life and crippled hospitals.

Hisham Abdul Wahab, a resident of the district lashed by last week’s blast, said he tried but failed to stay on.

“Some people began returning to the neighborhood, but the strikes began again and now they’re leaving a second time. The place is devastated: there are no roads, no water and no electricity. Nobody’s left but thieves,” he said.

EXODUS

The tank and machine gun fire became too much for Samad Hussein Shihab and his family last week. He, his young children and elderly mother left their homes in the town of Houta and trekked by foot over sandy wastes to a village an hour away.

“It was the only way to protect my family. Houta is a total disaster area, with almost no civilians remaining. 3,000 families have left and they are suffering badly,” he said.

While he has now reached the relative safety of Aden and was taken in by kin, the city is itself shaken by clashes between Houthi militiamen and armed locals.

Snipers’ bullets and Katyusha rockets have rendered roads into town virtually impassable, preventing aid supplies getting in and desperate citizens from getting out.

Residents say dozens from the city have taken to rickety fishing boats seeking refuge in Somaliland and Djibouti, lands even poorer than Yemen but now more peaceful.

For those who remain, hope, along with basic staples of life, are in short supply.

“Displaced people are camped out in abandoned school grounds and people in the city are sitting through the shelling with no food and no electricity,” said local aid worker Wissam al-Hiswa.

“We are more desperate than a person sitting on a red-hot coal to get food into this city, but over the last week only 22 tons have gotten in, and we have nothing to provide,” he added.

Saudi Arabia announced last week that it would scale back its strikes and step up aid efforts, in a pause that was demanded by rights and aid groups.

The kingdom pledged $274 million to fully cover a U.N. humanitarian aid appeal for Yemen this month and has allowed aid agencies to ship hundreds of tons of medicine.

But air strikes hit a displaced persons camp, killing at least 40, and a humanitarian warehouse for aid agency Oxfam.

For many tens of thousands of people fleeing remote conflict zones, like Bakeel Saleh from the city of Dalea tucked among mountains in Yemen’s south, peace and relief look distant.

“There are no supplies or aid organizations around to help the thousands who fled the city into surrounding villages,” Saleh said.

“The main hospital and most people’s homes have been hit by the shelling. Our house was among them – it’s destroyed.” he added.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing By Noah Browning, Editing By William Maclean and Philippa Fletcher)

Why Baltimore Rebelled

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The most salient thing in Baltimore isn’t the damage caused by protestors, but the grinding poverty and neglect wrought by capital.

A protester on a bicycle in front of a burning CVS drug store, during clashes in Baltimore yesterday. Jim Bourg / Reuters

A protester on a bicycle in front of a burning CVS drug store, during clashes in Baltimore yesterday. Jim Bourg / Reuters

by Shawn Gude, Jacobin

Days before social unrest in Baltimore reached levels unseen in decades, Dan Rodricks, the Baltimore Sun‘s resident liberal columnist, painted a picture of Saturday afternoon’s march against police violence. Peaceful. Family friendly. An expression of justifiable anger.

But he concluded somberly: “And as I write those words, the Freddie Gray march turned violent . . .”

“The dream of the Next Baltimore is cracked.”

What was the cause of Rodricks’s lamentations? The destruction of a handful of police cars, it seems, and the smashed windows of some businesses in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

And the “Next Baltimore” occupying his imagination? A vision built not on pouring investment into long-neglected communities, but attracting young professionals and tourists. It’s a vision that left intact racial and class inequality — even as it trumpeted inclusiveness and opportunities to come.

Baltimore, then, is like so many other cities with their own Freddie Grays: a place in which private capital has left enormous sections of the city to rot, where a chasm separates the life chances of black and white residents — and where cops brutally patrol a “disposable” population.

Yesterday’s uprising occurred the same day Gray, the twenty-five-year-old whose spine was almost completely severed while in police custody, was laid to rest. Protests haven’t ceased since his April 19 death.

The rebellion began when police amassed at a West Baltimore mall, citing calls by students on social media for a “purge” and after issuing histrionic reports of a “gang partnership” to injure police. In the acute (if imbalanced) melee that ensued, police sprayed tear gas and shot rubber bullets; the young crowd threw bricks and water bottles. (Some police responded by chucking the objects back.)

Spilling into adjoining neighborhoods, the demonstration escalated through the late afternoon and early evening. When I arrived around 5:30 at Pennsylvania and North, about a mile south of the mall, a pall of smoke obscured the road. I passed a couple burned-out police vehicles.

The source of the smoke was a looted CVS at the intersection. Some protesters screamed at the line of police arrayed across the road, but the crowd had thinned substantially. The occasional demonstrator bolted back after getting pepper sprayed. An assortment of packaged snacks, presumably from the pharmacy, were strewn across the ground.

Intent on dispersing the remaining demonstrators and spectators, riot police fired flaming smoke bombs. They advanced in unison, wooden batons clacking against their plastic shields, chanting an unnerving cry: “Move back, move back, move back.”

Further down, at the next intersection, it was a picture of catharsis and unadulterated joy: two young men dancing to Michael Jackson — one in the middle of the street, the other on top of a yellow truck — the music mixing with the sounds of fire engines.

But of the entire scene, the most salient thing wasn’t the destruction wrought by protestors — the cop car demolished, the payday loan store smashed up — but by capital: the decrepit, boarded-up row houses, hovels, and vacants in a city full of them.

These are the streets in which Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has now declareda state of emergency, the same streets that would suffer from his austerity. They are the streets that have endured astronomic unemployment rates for decades, even as Democrats have run the city unrivaled. And they are the streets where police folded up Freddie Gray’s body “like origami,” then restrained him with leg irons in the back of a police van and delayed calling for an ambulance.

After Saturday’s protests, Baltimore officials blamed property destruction on “outside agitators” (a charge that reeked of both red-baiting and hackneyed desperation). On Monday night, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake embraced a new term of abuse — “thugs” — and imposed a weeklong curfew. And still the results of the Gray investigation have yet to be released.

Through it all, the local governing elite has danced the liberal two-step: denounce the extremists, then placate with reassurances that reform is on the way — that grievances are justified, but only orderly marches are legitimate acts of protest. Anything else would be a “disservice” to the memory of Freddie Gray.

Yet the unrest in Baltimore is a response to the unmitigated failure of this approach. The snails-pace of police reform at the Maryland Legislature didn’t spark an uprising. When Tyrone West died at the hands of police, and when Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts insisted that they were “changing and adapting the organization” after the cops got off scot-free, Baltimoreans didn’t revolt. And when police faced no charges in the death of Anthony Anderson, Charm City residents showed remarkable restraint.

But police immunity and dehumanizing poverty can only coexist for so long. If the future is uncertain, one thing is clear: it is only through resistance and struggle that a new, more just Baltimore will be born.

Indonesia executes drug smugglers by firing squad

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Executions of eight out of nine convicts carried out despite plea by Australia to investigate judicial corruption.

A coffin bearing the body of Indonesian drug convict Zainal Abidin was buried in Cilacap several hours after his execution [AFP]

A coffin bearing the body of Indonesian drug convict Zainal Abidin was buried in Cilacap several hours after his execution [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

Indonesia has executed eight out of nine drug convicts by firing squad despite last-ditch appeals by Australia’s foreign minister for a stay of execution so that claims of corruption during the trials of two Australian prisoners could be investigated.

The executions were carried out after midnight (17:30 GMT) at Besi prison on Nusakambangan Island on Tuesday, after the inmates were given 72-hours notice.

Australia on Wednesday took the unprecedented step of recalling its ambassador to Indonesia in protest against the executions, in which two of its citizens, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, were killed.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the relationship with Jakarta “has suffered as a result of what’s been done over the last few hours”.

“These executions are both cruel and unnecessary. Cruel because both Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran spent some decade in jail before being executed, and unnecessary because both of these young Australians were fully rehabilitated while in prison,” Abbott told reporters in Canberra.

“We respect Indonesia’s sovereignty but we do deplore what’s been done and this cannot be simply business as usual,” he said.

Over the weekend, authorities had asked the nine convicts, which included four Nigerian men, one man each from Brazil and Indonesia and a Filipino woman for their last wishes.

However, the execution of Filipina Mary Jane Veloso was postponed at the last minute after someone suspected of recruiting her surrendered to police in the Philippines, the attorney general’s spokesman told the Reuters news agency late on Tuesday.

“The execution of Mary Jane Veloso has been postponed because there was a request from the Philippine president related to a perpetrator suspected of human trafficking who surrendered herself in the Philippines,” Tony Spontana, spokesman for the attorney general said.

“Mary Jane has been asked to testify.”

Earlier, Filipino migrants had rallied in Hong Kong on behalf of Velose – a 30-year-old mother of two whose  supporters said was tricked  into carrying a suitcase loaded with heroin.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Cilacap in Indonesia, said while there was an outpouring of joy among Filipinos that Velose had been spared, there would be a different reaction from Australia after Jakarta rejected last-ditch pleas for clemency.

“The executions could cause a diplomatic fallout between Australia and Indonesia similar to earlier this year when the Netherlands and Brazil recalled their ambassadors after their nationals were killed,” she said.

Australia had mounted a sustained campaign to save its citizens, who have been on death row for almost a decade.

Chan and Sukumaran were the Australian ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” heroin trafficking group whoe were arrested at the main airport on the holiday island in April 2005 for trying to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin to Australia.

The seven other members of the Bali Nine, all Australians, were jailed in Indonesia and did not face the death penalty.

White coffins

The families of the Australian convicts had paid an anguished final visit to their loved ones earlier on Tuesday, wailing in grief as ambulances carrying empty white coffins arrived at the prison.

Julie Bishop, Australia’s foreign minister, told media earlier in the day that she had asked for a stay in their executions, saying allegations in the Australian media that their judges had requested money to commute the death sentences were “very serious”.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that such concerns should have been conveyed a decade ago when the case went through the courts.

A former lawyer of the prisoners, Muhammad Rifan, told Australia’s Fairfax Media on Monday that Indonesian judges had requested more than $100,000 in return for prison terms of less than 20 years.

But Rifan said the judges later told him they had been ordered by senior legal and government members in Jakarta to impose a death penalty, so the deal fell through.

Among the condemned on Tuesday was Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, who had been diagnosed by Indonesian medics with schizophrenia.

Gularte, 42, was arrested in 2004 at a Jakarta airport after trying to enter the country with 6kg of cocaine hidden in a surfboard.

He was also sentenced to death in 2005.

Amnesty International condemned the executions saying they showed a “complete disregard for due process and human rights safeguards.”

“Some of the prisoners were reportedly not provided access to competent lawyers or interpreters during their arrest and initial trial, in violation of their right to a fair trial which is recognized under international and national law,” Rupert Abbott, Amnesty’s Research Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific said.

“Gularte, had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and international law clearly prohibits the use of the death penalty against those with mental disabilities,” Abbott added.

Fourteen people have now been put to death in Indonesia this year, and the government has announced plans for further executions this year.

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