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Syria war: UN urges leaders to accept more refugees

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Ban Ki-moon says governments must “act with solidarity” to alleviate Syria refugee crisis and “counter fear-mongering”.

Many refugees have died while fleeing to European countries on rickety boats [AP]

Many refugees have died while fleeing to European countries on rickety boats [AP]

by Al Jazeera

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on governments around the world to allow in more Syrian refugees and “counter fear-mongering” about them.

At a conference in Geneva on Wednesday, Ban urged countries to “act with solidarity, in the name of our shared humanity, by pledging new and additional pathways for the admission of Syrian refugees”.

He said they can do so through “resettlement or humanitarian admission, family reunions, as well as labour or study opportunities”.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR convened a meeting of more than 90 countries at the Swiss UN seat in Geneva, aiming to win new pledges for resettlement and family reunification programmes, as well as study visas.

“We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time,” Ban said.

These programmes are separate from usual asylum procedures. They are aimed especially at helping vulnerable groups, including women, children and people with medical needs.

Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq have been hosting most of the five million refugees of Syria’s conflict, which has put serious strains on state budgets and public services.

“Communities hosting refugees in neighbouring countries are exhausted,” Ban said.

Furthermore, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are stranded in European countries without basic rights or the proper documentation to lead a normal life.

Ban also emphasised that countries should not demonise refugees, but should see the opportunities that the people could bring to their new host countries.

“Today, they are refugees. Tomorrow, they can be students and professors, scientists and researchers, workers and care-givers,” he said.

Earlier this year, an international donor conference in London pledged more than $11bn to assist Syrian refugees and internally displaced people in 2016-2020, the bulk of which came from the US and EU member-states.

And wealthy countries have pledged 178,000 of the 480,000 resettlement spots needed for Syrians, according to UN estimates.

EgyptAir hijack: Cyprus airport hostage drama ends

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Hostage drama ends after EgyptAir jet was diverted to Cyprus, amid reports that incident was not politically motivated.

A man climbs out of the cockpit window of the hijacked EgyptAir plane at Larnaca airport [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

A man climbs out of the cockpit window of the hijacked EgyptAir plane at Larnaca airport [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Cyprus’ foreign ministry has reported that the hijacker of an EgyptAir passenger jet has been arrested at the island’s Larnaca airport after a five-hour standoff.

The EgyptAir domestic flight from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked on Tuesday morning and forced to divert to Cyprus, in an incident that was not politically motivated, the president of Cyprus said.

EgyptAir said flight 181 had 81 people on board, including a crew of seven. Most of them were released shortly after landing in Cyprus.

At around 11:30 GMT, the last seven people were seen leaving the aircraft, one whom escaped though the cockpit window.

Earlier on Tuesday, aviation minister Sherif Fathy at a news conference in Cairo said three foreign passengers were still on board, together with the pilot and co-pilot, one flight attendant and an air marshal.

Initial reports said that the pilot of the plane was threatened by a passenger strapped with explosives, but Fathy said this has not been confirmed.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades said the hijacker seemed to have a personal motive and that the incident was “not related to terrorism”.

The plane was an Airbus 320, Egypt’s aviation ministry said. An official with flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 said the plane showed no immediate signs of distress. The flight between Alexandria and Cairo normally takes about 30 minutes.

The ministry said in a statement that pilot Omar al-Gammal had informed authorities that he was threatened by a passenger who possessed a suicide belt and forced him to land in Larnaca.

Cyprus foreign ministry identified the hijacker as Seif Eldin Mustafa and said it could not confirm the man was rigged with explosives.

Cyprus state TV said that the hijacker wanted to contact his ex-wife, who is Greek-Cypriot and lives in Larnaca.

Witnesses told Cyprus Mail newspaper that the he threw a letter on the apron of the airport in Larnaca, written in Arabic, asking that it be delivered to his ex-wife.

Other media outlets in Cyprus reported he first asked to be taken to Istanbul but that the pilot refused this demand.

CYBC said the airplane was parked at an apron at Larnaca airport. The hijacker asked police to back away from the aircraft, it said.

Egypt’s vital tourism industry was already reeling from the crash of a Russian passenger plane in the Sinai in late October.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said it was brought down by an attack. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has said it planted a bomb, killing all 224 people on board.

Cyprus has seen little militant activity for decades, despite its proximity to the Middle East.

A botched attempt by Egyptian commandos to storm a hijacked airliner at Larnaca airport led to the disruption of diplomatic relations between Cyprus and Egypt in 1978.

Pakistan says it captures Indian spy, summons envoy to protest

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Photo: AFP

Photo: AFP

Islamabad: Pakistan summoned the Indian ambassador on Friday to protest against the illegal entry of an Indian spy who Pakistan said was captured in the violence-plagued province of Baluchistan the previous day.

The accusation could raise tension between the nuclear-armed rivals months after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for an attack on an Indian air base in which seven military personnel were killed.

“(Pakistan) conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Baluchistan and Karachi,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to the message conveyed to India’s ambassador.

RAW is India’s Research and Analysis Wing, its main external intelligence agency.

Pakistan believes India is supporting a separatist insurgency in resource-rich Baluchistan. It also accuses India of fuelling strife in the city of Karachi.

India denies any such meddling.

India has long accused Pakistan of backing militants fighting Indian security forces in its part of the divided Kashmir region, of helping militants launch attacks elsewhere in India and backing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Pakistan say it only offers diplomatic support to the Muslim people of Kashmir living under what Pakistan says is heavy-handed Indian rule. It denies backing militant attacks in India.

A Pakistani military official in Baluchistan told Reuters the suspected RAW spy was an Indian navy officer. Another Pakistani official gave the same information.

Both declined to be identified as they were not authorised to give details of the incident to the media.

One of the officials said the suspected spy had been moved to Islamabad for interrogation.

The neighbours have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir which they both claim in full but rule in part.

Baluchistan’s provincial interior minister, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, told reporters the arrest “proved Indian involvement” in his province.

Last year, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said RAW was bent on annihilating Pakistan.

“RAW has been formed to undo Pakistan and to wipe Pakistan off the map of the world,” Asif said in a television interview.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made improving ties with India a priority when he won a 2013 election. But his push is seen as causing friction with the army which sees relations with India as its domain.

Last December, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Pakistan to meet Sharif, the first visit by an Indian premier in over a decade.

The visit raised hopes that stop-and-start negotiations might finally make progress after decades of hostility.

(Rueters)

Pilgrims die in bus crash between Mecca and Medina

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At least 19 Egyptians killed when their bus overturned in Saudi Arabia, between two cities considered holy to Muslims.

medina

by Al Jazeera

At least 19 Egyptians were killed when their bus overturned in Saudi Arabia, officials said.

Red Crescent spokesman Khaled al-Sahli said the crash took place early on Saturday on a highway linking the two Saudi holy cities of Medina and Mecca. At least 22 people were injured, he said.

An official with the Egyptian foreign ministry, Hisham al-Naqeeb, told the MENA news agency that the bus was carrying 44 Egyptians.

He said the bodies of the dead were transferred to different hospitals in the city of Medina.

Nawaf al-Mohammad, chief of the Medina traffic department, told Saudi online newspaper Sabq that the driver of the vehicle may have fallen asleep.

The pilgrims were on their way to Medina, about 400km from Mecca, according to the official.

The accident came a day after at least 14 Palestinian pilgrims en route to Mecca died in a bus crash in southern Jordannear the Saudi border.

Istanbul bombing: At least five killed in Turkish city

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At least five killed and 20 wounded on popular Istiklal street, a major thoroughfare in the Turkish city’s centre.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing [Reuters]

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

An explosion believed to have been caused by a suicide bomber has hit the popular Istiklal Street in central Istanbul’s Taksim square area.

Government officials said at least five people were killed and 36 were injured – seven seriously – in Saturday morning’s explosion.

The suspected suicide bomber is believed to be among those killed. Twelve foreign citizens were among the wounded, including an unknown number of Israelis.

Footage from the scene showed police and emergency services cordoning off the street, which has been completely cleared of people.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that hundreds of people ran in panic away from the site of the explosion, moments after the incident.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Istiklal street is a long pedestrian thoroughfare that winds its way through the Beyoglu neighbourhood from Taksim Square.

It is rimmed by hundreds of shops and would have been filled with pedestrians at the time of the explosion.

Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal said the location of the explosion was the equivalent of a bomb going off in Oxford St in London or Fifth Avenue in New York.

The explosion comes as Turkey is on edge following two recent suicide bomb attacks in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish group, that is an off-shoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Turkey has been fighting on multiple fronts. As part of a US-led coalition, it is battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), which has seized territory in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

It is also battling the PKK in its southeast, where a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire collapsed last July, prompting the worst violence since the 1990s.

Turkey sees the unrest in its largely Kurdish southeast as deeply linked to events in northern Syria, where the Kurdish YPG militia has seized territory as it fights both ISIL and rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad.

ISIL has carried out at least four bomb attacks on Turkey since June 2015, including a suicide bombing which killed 10 German tourists in central Istanbul in January.

Syria civil war: Kurds declare federal region in north

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Democratic Union Party and allied groups approve document that declares “federal democratic system” in country’s north.

Kurdish fighters have been tightening their grip on several areas in northern Syrian in recent months [Reuters]

Kurdish fighters have been tightening their grip on several areas in northern Syrian in recent months [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and several allied groups have voted to create an autonomous federation in the northern part of Syria.

Officials of the PYD claimed autonomy in the Kurdish-controlled areas on Thursday after two days of meetings with delegates of different communities in the country’s north.

Representatives of the Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian communities and other ethnic groups met in the town of Rmeilan in Hassakeh province to discuss combining three Kurdish-led autonomous areas into a federal system.

Both the Syrian government and one of the main opposition blocs have rejected the move.

The Syrian foreign ministry issued a statement “warning anyone who dares to undermine the unity of the land and the people of Syria under any title,” adding: “Creating a union or a federal system … contradicts the Syrian constitution and all the national concepts and international resolutions.”

Rojava autonomy declared

The opposition Syrian National Coalition also said it rejects such unilateral declarations and warned of any attempt to form autonomous regions that “confiscate the will of the Syrian people”.

The newly declared region, named by Kurds as Rojava, consists of three distinct enclaves, or cantons, under Kurdish control in northern Syria: Jazira, Kobani and Afrin.

The move is sure to anger Turkey, which fears that the growing Kurdish power in Syria is encouraging separatism among its own Kurdish minority.

Idris Nassan, a Syrian Kurdish official and former leader in the Democratic Union Party, said on Wednesday that the announcement would mean “widening the framework of self-administration” across northern Syria.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Kobane, in Syria, Nassan said preparations for federalism had been ongoing for quite some time.

“Federalism should be the future not only for northern Syria or the Kurdish regions but for Syria in general, because under federalism democracy and equality will be guaranteed,” he said.

Syria’s Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted 400km of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border from the Euphrates River to the frontier with Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed autonomy since the early 1990s. They also hold a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.

Bangladesh court upholds death sentence

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Mir Quasem Ali was convicted of murder and abduction during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.

Combatants who fought during the war of independence with Pakistan shout slogans. [Andrew Biraj/Reuters]

Combatants who fought during the war of independence with Pakistan shout slogans. [Andrew Biraj/Reuters]

by David Bergman, Al Jazeera

Dhaka: The top court upheld a death sentence on Tuesday imposed by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal on a leader of an Islamist political party for killing a freedom fighter during the 1971 war of independence.

In a short order read out by Chief Justice Surenda Kumar Sinha, the appellate division of the Supreme Court acquitted Mir Quasem Ali – a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami – of three other charges, including another offence that also carried the death penalty.

The court, however, upheld the convictions and sentences in six other cases.

So far, the International Crimes Tribunal – established in 2010 to prosecute those alleged to have committed war crimes during the bloody conflict with Pakistan – has convicted 24 people. Most convicted are leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, which in 1971 supported the military activities of the Pakistan military to stop Bangladesh’s secession.

Four men have now been executed.

“The appellate division has passed this judgment properly after scrutinising the facts, documents, materials and evidence in the court,” one of the prosecutors, Ran Das Gupta, told Al Jazeera. “The inspiration of the people has been fulfilled by this judgment.”

Jamaat-e-Islami called for a nationwide strike on Wednesday to protest at the verdict

Ali’s family questioned the ruling.

“The evidence presented against Mir Quasem Ali was self-contradictory and insufficient for a conviction,” said Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, Ali’s son. “Where the conviction itself has no basis, upholding of the death sentence is a travesty of justice.”

Lead defence lawyer Khandaker Mahbub Hossain said, “The judgment of the highest court of the law cannot be questioned. We will leave it to history.”

He added once the full written judgment containing the legal reasoning is published, the defence lawyers will consider whether to seek a review. Ali will be hanged within months unless a review reverses the ruling, or if he’s granted clemency.

MN Nahid Hossain, who came to the court to observe the proceedings, said “the whole country is satisfied with the judgment”.

The International Crimes Tribunal had ruled in its judgment in November 2014 that during the war Mir Quasem Ali was a leader of a pro-Pakistan militia, known as the Al Badr, and was in charge of a torture centre located at Dalim hotel in Chittagong.

The defence argued during Ali’s appeal that the prosecution’s own documents showed from the beginning of November 1971, when all the offences for which Ali was convicted are alleged to have taken place, the Jamaat leader was in the capital, Dhaka.

The tribunal and executions have divided Bangladesh and plunged the South Asian nation into its worst political crisis in years.

Israel demolishes Palestinian-owned homes in West Bank

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UN report says a total of 41 structures including a school were destroyed south of Nablus displacing 36 Palestinians.

Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned buildings a week, according to the UN [EPA]

Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned buildings a week, according to the UN [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Israeli forces have demolished dozens of structures, including a school, in the northern West Bank this week, leaving 10 families homeless, according to a new United Nations report.

In as statement issued on Friday, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance and Development Aid said the demolitions took place on Wednesday in the village of Khirbet Tana, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

In total, 41 buildings were destroyed, displacing 36 Palestinians, including 11 children, the UN said.

“These are some of the highest levels of demolition and displacement recorded in a similar timeframe since 2009,” the statement said.

Khirbet Tana is home to approximately 250 people who rely on herding and agriculture for their livelihood, according to the report.

Because the residents need grazing land for their livestock, most have “little choice” but to stay in the area.

“Due to the community’s location within an area declared as a ‘firing zone’ for training purposes, residents are denied building permits and have experienced repeated waves of demolitions, the last one taking place on February 9,” the report said.

Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that last month the number of such demolitions had tripled on average since the start of the year.

“Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned structures per week, three times the weekly average for 2015,” he said.

‘Firing zones’

Last week, the European Union hit out at Israeli authorities after they demolished a school funded by the French government.

COGAT, the defence ministry body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories, put the number of buildings at 20.

In the West Bank, an estimated 18 percent of the area has been declared by the Israeli authorities as “firing zones”, and 38 Palestinian communities are located within these areas.

Because the Israeli Civil Administration prohibits building in these areas, wide-scale demolitions frequently take place.

The Israeli military is also frequently accused of carrying out punitive demolitions against the family homes of individuals suspected of attacks against Israelis.

While the Israeli military stopped punitive demolition orders in 2005, following reports by an Israeli military committee that the practice did not deter attacks, the practice was resumed in July 2014.

Throughout occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, some 90,000 Palestinians are facing potential displacement, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Iran: GCC’s terrorist label for Hezbollah is a mistake

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Tehran says decision to label the Lebanese group a terrorist organisation undermines peace and the unity of Lebanon.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Iran was 'proud' of Hezbollah [Misha Japaridze/AP]

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Iran was ‘proud’ of Hezbollah [Misha Japaridze/AP]

by Al Jazeera

Iran’s deputy foreign minister has said that a decision by a Saudi-led bloc of Gulf Arab states to label the Lebanese group Hezbollah a terrorist organisation was a “mistake”.

Iranian state TV on Thursday quoted Hossein Amir Abdollahian as saying that the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) move would undermine peace in the region and the unity of Lebanon.

He said it was a “new mistake” by the GCC and that Iran was “proud” of Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani said that the six Gulf monarchies took the decision because “the [Hezbollah] militia recruited young people [from the Gulf] for terrorist acts”.

Hezbollah, a Shia political organisation with an armed wing, fights in neighbouring Syria to support the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Sunni-dominated GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Gulf nations have taken a series of measures against Hezbollah since Saudi Arabia last month halted a $4bn programme funding French military supplies to Beirut.

Hezbollah is backed by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran, with whom relations have worsened this year. The two nations are on opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

Announcing the military funding cut last month, a Saudi official said that the kingdom had noticed “hostile Lebanese positions resulting from the stranglehold of Hezbollah on the state”.

Riyadh would be conducting “a comprehensive review of its relations with the Lebanese republic”, the unnamed official told the AFP news agency.

He specifically cited Lebanon’s refusal to join the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in condemning attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January.

Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after demonstrators set fire to its embassy and a consulate following the Saudi execution of a prominent Shia cleric.

‘Spare Lebanon’

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah lashed out at Saudi Arabia during a televised speech on Tuesday.

“The kingdom is trying to put pressure on the Lebanese to try to silent us but we will not be silent on the crimes the Saudis are committing in Yemen and elsewhere,” Nasrallah said.

“Does Saudi Arabia have the right to punish Lebanon, its state and its army because a certain party has decided to raise its voice?” he asked.

“If they have a problem with us, let them keep it with us, and let them spare Lebanon and the Lebanese,” Nasrallah added.

Jamal Abdullah, head of the Gulf Studies Unit at the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, said he did not believe that the Gulf decisions targeted Lebanon as a whole.

“The relations between Gulf states and Lebanon are governed by diplomatic norms and strong links from their shared membership in the Arab League,” Abdullah said.

The GCC supported Hezbollah throughout the past three decades in its resistance against Israel. However, the bloc has always condemned Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria.

“This was a milestone in the nature of the relationship between Hezbollah and Gulf countries,” Abdullah said.

UN warns of hunger crisis in Central African Republic

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WFP says it only has about half of the funds needed to help 2.5 million people who are facing acute food shortages.

Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of school and even resort to begging [AP]

Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of school and even resort to begging [AP]

by Al Jazeera

At least half of the population or 2.5 million people in the Central African Republic are facing a hunger crisis, in a situation that has become dire, the World Food Programme said.

Bienvenu Djossa, WFP country director in CAR, said on Tuesday that the number of people battling hunger had doubled from 2015 and serious interventions had to be implemented to ensure the crisis did not deteriorate.

“It is serious. The situation is worse than last year,” Djossa said a statement.

“It is crucial that we continue helping the most vulnerable, who need emergency food assistance to survive. This is the time when people need the maximum help possible as it is also the lean season, when people struggle to have enough food to eat before the next harvest.”

Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one million people from their homes have disrupted harvests and sent food prices soaring in the volatile country.

The WFP’s call for CAR not to be forgotten comes as the UN revealed that overall crop production in 2015 remained 54 percent below the pre-crisis average.

“Some 75 percent of people in CAR depend on agriculture, and with the planting season starting in less than two months, boosting agriculture now is crucial to revitalising the economy and to stability in the country,” FAO Country Representative Jean-Alexandre Scaglia said in a press release on Monday.

The WFP said that families are so short of food that children receiving school meals under the WFP’s emergency programme put part of their serving in a plastic bag to take home.

Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of school and even resort to begging.

The country suffered the worst crisis in its history in early 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters toppled then leader Francois Bozize. Christian militias responded by attacking the Muslim minority.

Killing and looting had almost halved the number of cattle and reduced the number of sheep and goats by almost 60 percent, the UN said. Damage to infrastructure and insecurity had also hit fishing.

An escalation of violence in September helped exacerbate a massive increase in food prices, the agencies said, with the price of beef almost double pre-crisis levels.

WFP said it had only secured about half the $89m it needs until the end of July to respond to the needs of 1.4 million people in CAR and neighbouring countries hosting CAR refugees.

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