US refugee programme suspended for 120 days and Syrian refugees barred until further notice.

Trump said the measures would prevent ‘terrorist’ attacks [Carlos Barria/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order suspending the US refugee programme for 120 days, specifically barring Syrian refugees until further notice.

Trump signed the order at the Pentagon, saying the moves would help protect Americans from “terrorist” attacks.

“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. Don’t want them here,” Trump said earlier on Friday.

“We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people,” he said.

Civil rights groups condemned the measures as discriminatory.

The order suspends the Syrian refugee programme until further notice, and will eventually give priority to minority religious groups fleeing persecution. Trump said in an interview with a Christian news outlet the exception would help Syrian Christians fleeing the civil war there.

His order had been expected to include a directive about setting up “safe zones” for Syrian refugees inside the country, but no such language was included.

The measure limits entry for at least 90 days from Syria and other Muslim-majority countries, but did not list the countries by name.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association said it would ban entry from nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

The order also said all immigration programmes should include questions to “evaluate the applicant’s likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society”.

Jennifer Sime, the senior vice president of US programmes at the International Rescue Committee, an NGO that works with refugees, told Al Jazeera: “I think it’s important to understand that there is already a robust vetting process in place. It was reviewed a few days ago and new things were added to enhance the vetting process.”

She added that refugees were already the “single most vetted population coming into the US”.

On the exception in the order that favours Syrian Christian refugees, Sime said: “The first thing to remember is that this programme [was] based on the principle of non-discrimination, so it’s not about choosing Muslims or Christians. Refugees are selected based on need, urgency and basically their cases, not based on political affiliation and religion.”

Trump’s order cuts the number of refugees the United States plans to accept this budget year by more than half, to 50,000 people from around the world.

During the last budget year, the US accepted 84,995 refugees, including 12,587 people from Syria. President Barack Obama had set the current refugee limit at 110,000.

During the Obama administration, vetting for refugees included in-person interviews overseas, where they provided biographical details about themselves, including their families, friendships, social or political activities, employment, phone numbers, email accounts and more.

They also provided biometric information, including fingerprints. Syrians were subject to additional, classified controls that administration officials at the time declined to describe, and processing for that group routinely took years to complete.

Following Trump’s signing of the order, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US Muslim advocacy and civil rights group, said it would file a “federal lawsuit on behalf of more than 20 individuals challenging the ‘Muslim ban'”.

Popular TV personality Aamir Liaquat banned by media regulator after accusing abducted activists of blasphemy.

Liaquat also accused those calling for the release of the activists of supporting blasphemy [Aamirliaquat.com]

by Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera

Pakistan’s media regulator has banned one of the country’s most popular television talkshow hosts over “hate speech” and “incitement to violence”, according to a statement, after he hosted a series of shows accusing five abducted activists and their supporters of blasphemy.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned Aamir Liaquat from appearing on his network Bol TV for an indefinite period on Thursday, until the body’s complaints cell issues a final verdict.

Liaquat is one of Pakistan’s most popular television personalities, having previously hosted a religion-themed show, as well as a major gameshow. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the past week, Liaquat levelled a series of accusations of blasphemy against five activists who were abducted within days of each other earlier this month, accusing them of insulting Islam and its Prophet, and of running anti-military Facebook pages.

He also accused those calling for the release of the activists of supporting blasphemy, including calling out some activists by name, while flashing their pictures on screen.

Blasphemy charges

Insulting the Prophet Muhammad carries a mandatory death sentence in Pakistan, while other forms of “blasphemy” carry sentences ranging from a fine to life imprisonment.

There is also a significant risk of mob violence in blasphemy cases in Pakistan, where the matter is considered particularly sensitive.

At least 68 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.

At least one rally calling for the release of the abducted activists has been attacked by a right-wing group in the last week. Rights activists say the blasphemy allegations on Liaquat’s show and elsewhere are aimed at silencing dissent .

“Aamir Liaquat … has willfully and repeatedly made statements and allegations which tantamount [sic] to hate speech, derogatory remarks, incitement to violence against citizens and casting accusation of being anti-state and anti-Islam, on various individuals,” the PEMRA statement read.

Liaquat has been banned from appearing on Bol TV in any capacity, and from declaring anyone an “infidel” or a “traitor” on any other television news channel, the statement said. PEMRA said it made the ruling in response to hundreds of hate speech complaints.

“I am not in favour of banning speech, but this was not just speech. This was the only kind of speech that should be criminalised, because this is incitement to violence,” said rights activist Gul Bukhari. “Incitement to violence in the Pakistani context is different, because vigilantes can and do come and kill you here.”

Jibran Nasir, a rights activist who was repeatedly accused by Liaquat of supporting blasphemy in the last week, welcomed the decision, saying he has also registered a legal case against Liaquat under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism laws.

“Clearly there were many Pakistanis who felt extremely distressed, and I’m glad that that good sense has prevailed among the masses to identify someone who was spreading hate speech,” he told Al Jazeera.

“In the end it is the constitution that prevails, which provides everyone the right to dignity, freedom of expression [and] also safety, liberty and protection from harm,” said media analyst Adnan Rehmat.

“In the presence of these clear guidelines on what is permissible and what is not, the insidious, incendiary, wanton and deliberate campaign by Aamir Liaquat was in violation of the constitution and the PEMRA laws,” he said.

Pakistan’s media regulator, which is connected to the government, has in recent months taken a more active approach in imposing a code of conduct on the country’s vibrant electronic news media, which consists of more than 45 24-hour news television channels.

Media rights activists and senior journalists have pushed, however, for a move towards a self-regulation model, fearing a crackdown on dissent by the state.

“We are all advocating not for a ban of any channel or individuals, but for self regulation,” said Owais Tohid, a senior journalist. “Media should hold itself accountable and implement its own code of conduct.”

The three nations also said they supported the willingness of the armed opposition to participate in UN-led talks.

by Dylan Collins & Zena Tahhan, Al Jazeera

Talks between key Syria war players in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, have ended with Russia, Turkey and Iran agreeing on a mechanism to support a delicate ceasefire.

The meeting, organised by Russia and Turkey and attended by the government and the armed opposition, was aimed at strengthening a nationwide ceasefire that has largely held despite pockets of violence, and paving the way towards United Nations-led political negotiations in Geneva on February 8.

It was not immediately clear whether the opposition or the government backed the communique.

The three nations also said they supported the willingness of the armed opposition groups to participate in the Geneva talks, and that they were committed to “minimising violence, building confidence, ensuring humanitarian access, protection and free movement of civilians,” according to a final statement read by Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov.

The mechanism will also seek to “prevent any provocations and determine all modalities of the ceasefire,” the statement said.

“There are very intense discussions because this is not about a paper; it is about cessation of hostilities, which means saving lives,” Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Syria, said at the beginning of the second day of talks on Tuesday.

Opposition spokesman Yahya al-Aridi had earlier played down expectations that the rebels would sign a potential collective statement at the end of the talks, saying that several obstacles still needed to be overcome.

“I don’t believe that the communique will be strong enough to be taken to the UN,” said Aridi, citing a number of rebel demands, including the lifting of sieges, the release of prisoners and the delivery of aid to besieged areas, that he said had not yet been “confirmed”.

The talks mark the first time the Syrian opposition was represented solely by representatives of armed groups.

On Monday, delegates from the warring sides sparred over interpretations of the December 30 ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, as their respective regional backers met behind closed doors to keep the meeting on track.

Bashar al-Jaafari, head of the Syrian government delegation, accused the opposition of “misinterpreting” the tenets of the truce, saying the “provocative tone and lack of seriousness in the opposition delegation chief’s speech” had “irritated the attendees’ diplomatic senses and experience”.

Referring to the rebel delegation as “terrorists”, Jaafari said opposition groups who signed the truce deal were “trying to undermine and sabotage the Astana meetings”.

Days after Trump’s inauguration, White House discusses controversial plan to relocate embassy from Tel Aviv.

A Palestinian demonstrator protests against Trump’s promise to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem [Mohamad Torokman/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The White House said, on Sunday, that it is in the early stages of talks to fulfil President Donald Trump’s pledge to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move opposed by the Palestinian leadership.

“We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

Hundreds of Palestinians protested against the plans in cities across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to local media reports.

Trump reportedly spoke to hardline, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day.

Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, welcomed the Trump administration’s announcement.

“This evening’s announcement has sent a clear message to the world that the US recognises Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of the State of Israel,” Barkat said in a statement.

“We will provide any and all necessary assistance to the US administration to ensure that the embassy move is done seamlessly and efficiently.”

Palestinians and their leadership strongly opposed the move.

Earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly wrote to Trump, who was president-elect at the time, telling him not to move the US embassy.

‘Disastrous impact’

Abbas warned that such a move would have a “disastrous impact on the peace process, on the two-state solution and on the stability and security of the entire region”, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported at the time.

In addition to the Syrian Golan Heights and part of the Egyptian Sinai, Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. The Sinai region was later returned to Egypt.

More than 530,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. They are considered illegal under international law.

Between 2009 and 2014, settlements were expanded by at least 23 percent.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli authorities approved building permits for 566 settler homes in the occupied eastern part of the city, according to local officials.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, condemned the building plans and called on the United Nations to take action, particularly given the recent Security Council resolution condemning settlements .

“It is time to stop dealing with Israel as a state above the law,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from West Jerusalem, said that with Trump now in the White House, the Israeli government believes it can build illegal settlements on Palestinian land without facing much criticism.

“They think that this is a retooling of the relationship with the US,” Khan said. “Under President Trump, the Israelis feel that they will have a lot more leeway to build on Palestinian land,” he added. “And this is a message to the world that they can build wherever they want, including on the land of a future Palestinian state.”

UN humanitarian aid office says 40,000 people also injured in the conflict while 10 million need ‘urgent assistance’.

The UN ranks the conflict in Yemen as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The United Nations’ humanitarian aid official in Yemen has said that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Jamie McGoldrick said that the figure is based on lists of victims gathered by health facilities and the actual number might be higher.

McGoldrick also said that up to 10 million people need “urgent assistance to protect their safety, dignity and basic rights”, according to a separate social media post early on Tuesday.

The announcement marks the first time a UN official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation.

“This once more underscores the need to resolve the situation in Yemen without any further delay,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.

“There’s been a huge humanitarian cost.”

The Yemen conflict pits Houthi rebels and allied forces against an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

The coalition began an air campaign in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government that fled the country after Houthis seized the capital Sanaa.

On Monday, reports said 34 people were killed and 16 others wounded during clashes between Houthis and pro-government forces in the southern Shabwa province.

New peace plan

McGoldrick’s remarks come as UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, held talks with Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, president of Yemen, in the southern city of Aden.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed is hoping to revive peace prospects in Yemen after Hadi rejected his proposed plan. He is due to report to the UN Security Council later this month.

The plan provides for a new unity government in Yemen and a rebel withdrawal from the capital and other cities.

“A peace agreement, including a well-articulated security plan and the formation of an inclusive government, is the only way to end the war that has fuelled the development of terrorism in Yemen and the region,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement.

“I asked the president to act swiftly and engage constructively with the UN’s proposal for the sake of the country’s future.”

“The current political stalemate is causing death and destruction every day. The only way to stop this is through the renewal of the cessation of hostilities followed by consultations to develop a comprehensive agreement.”

Under the proposal, Hadi’s powers would be dramatically diminished in favour of a new vice president who would oversee the formation of the interim government that will lead a transition to elections.

The envoy has been holding talks in the Gulf region in recent weeks, including in Riyadh, where he met Yemen’s central bank governor to ease a cash crisis in rebel-held areas.

One of the poorest countries in the Arab world, Yemen slid deeper into chaos when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to push back the rebels who had seized Sanaa and other parts of the country.

The United Nations ranks the conflict in Yemen as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

US military in Afghanistan says investigation into November gunfight confirms civilian casualties, including children.

Afghan villagers gather around the bodies of several victims killed in a firefight in Boz-e Kandahari village in Kunduz province [AP]

by Shereena Qazi, Al Jazeera

A US military investigation has found that air raids targeting the Taliban during a gun battle in northern Afghanistan last year killed 33 civilians.

Twenty-seven other civilians were wounded in the village of Boz in Kunduz city, a statement from US Forces Afghanistan said on Thursday.

The incident on November 3 saw US and Afghan troops carrying out a ground assault against the Taliban when they came under fire from the armed group, prompting a call for air reinforcements.

“Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives,” General John Nicholson, the top commander of US forces and the NATO mission, said.

According to the statement, the operation was launched to capture Taliban commanders the US said were behind the capture of parts of Kunduz in October 2015.

The civilian deaths caused an uproar and the United Nations and humanitarian organisations condemned the bombing raid.

“The loss of civilian life is unacceptable and undermines efforts towards building peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement after the raid.

Residents carried more than a dozen bodies, including children, towards a local governor’s office in a show of anger.

The US statement said civilians were killed and wounded because the Taliban were using their houses as bases and, additionally, a Taliban weapons cache was hit “which also destroyed multiple civilian buildings and may also have killed civilians”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, residents of the village said the air raids hit civilian areas where many women and children were killed.

“We don’t even know if the Taliban were actually killed in this attack. All we saw were dead bodies of the innocent people,” Ruhani, a resident of Boz village, told Al Jazeera.

“We saw dead bodies of children as young as three years old. What was their fault?”

Another resident who lost members of his family in the fight said the attack “only killed innocent people” and the houses were targeted based on “speculation”.

Charles H Cleveland, a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that the raids killed at least 26 Taliban fighters including three “top leaders who led the capture of Kunduz”.

“The only real option we had at that point was to conduct air strikes as the Taliban were attacking Afghan and US forces vigorously,” he said.

“The village is not a normal village. There are a lot of Taliban fighters there. However, the only real solution to prevent civilian casualties is for the Taliban to not hide behind civilians,” he said, adding that “even one civilian casualty is too many for us.”

The carnage underscored worsening insecurity since the Taliban in October 2016 overran Kunduz city for the second time in a year, as NATO-backed Afghan forces struggled to rein in the fighters.

Civilians being killed by NATO has been one of the most divisive issues in its 15-year battle with the Taliban, prompting strong public and government criticism.

Bombing in Kandahar kills seven people, including five UAE diplomats, and wounds Ambassador Juma al-Kaabi.

AP

by Al Jazeera

The United Arab Emirates says five of its diplomats died in a bombing in Afghanistan’s Kandahar that killed at least 11 people and wounded 17 others, including Juma al-Kaabi, the UAE ambassador to Afghanistan.

The official Emirati news agency, WAM, said the officials were “on a mission to carry out humanitarian, educational and development projects”.

The blast, which struck the provincial governor’s office during a visit by the UAE delegation, was one of a string of bombings that hit three Afghan cities on Tuesday, killing nearly 50 people and wounding 100.

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s prime minister and vice president, said on Twitter that “there is no human, moral or religious justification for the bombing and killing of people trying to help” others.

On the Afghan side, authorities said the dead included two politicians, a deputy governor from Kandahar and an Afghan diplomat stationed at its embassy in Washington.

The diplomats were expected to open a number of UAE-backed projects as part of an aid programme to Afghanistan.

In honour of the dead, government institutions across the UAE were directed to fly the flag at half-mast for three days.

The Taliban denied carrying out the bombing, saying the attack was a result of “internal local rivalry”.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, two suicide blasts claimed by the Taliban near Afghanistan’s parliament in Kabul killed at least 30 people and wounded 80.

In a separate incident on the same day, a suicide bomber on foot struck in the southern Helmand province, killing at least seven people, according to officials.

The target of the attack, also claimed by the Taliban, was a guesthouse used by a provincial intelligence official in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

Afghanistan last week welcomed the Pentagon’s decision to deploy some 300 US Marines to Helmand, where American forces engaged in heated combat until they pulled out in 2014.

The Marines will head to the poppy-growing province this spring to assist a NATO-led mission to train Afghan forces, in the latest sign that foreign forces are increasingly being drawn back into the worsening conflict.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but US forces were granted greater powers in June to strike armed groups as President Barack Obama vowed a more aggressive campaign.

President Erdogan says some refugees who pass screenings will be granted nationality to “make use” of their skills.

Turkey hosts more than three million refugees, mostly from Syria [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that some Syrian and Iraqi refugees who pass a screening process will be granted Turkish citizenship.

In a speech broadcast on television on Friday, Erdogan said that security checks would be carried out to determine who among the millions who fled war in their home countries were eligible for citizenship.

“Our interior ministry is carrying out work, and under this work, some of them will be granted our nationality after all the necessary checks have been carried out,” he said.

“There are highly qualified people among them, there are engineers, lawyers, doctors. Let’s make use of that talent … Instead of letting them work illegally here and there, let’s give them the chance to work as citizens like the children of this nation.”

Erdogan added that the interior ministry “is ready to implement the measure at any time”. But he gave no further details, notably about how many would gain Turkish nationality.

According to Turkish government figures, the country is hosting more than three million Syrians and Iraqis who have fled conflict.

The Turkish leader outlined a naturalisation plan last summer but the idea was met with angry protests and xenophobic comments on social media.

The country’s political opposition saw the plan as a scheme to widen Erdogan’s electoral basis at a time when he is pushing for constitutional reform to strengthen his powers.

Turkish media says at least three people have been wounded in the explosion outside a courthouse.

by Al Jazeera

An explosion has hit the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Izmir and ambulances have been dispatched to the scene, according to Turkish media reports.

At least one vehicle was burning close to a courthouse in the city, according to the photographs shown on national television networks.

Damage reported around the area close to one of the gates of the courthouse, where the blast happened, reports said.

The Dogan News Agency reported that at least three people were wounded in the blast.