[nasheman news] Dakar Egyptian international footballer Mohamed Salah has won the 2018 Confederation of African Football Player of the Year award for the second year in a row.

The Liverpool forward beat his club teammate Sadio Mane of Senegal and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who plays for Gabon, to win the award for the continent’s best player, reports Efe.

“I have dreamt of winning this award since I was a child and now I have done so twice in a row,” Salah said at a ceremony here on Tuesday.

“I’m proud to win it twice, I must thank my family and my teammates, and I dedicate this award to my country, Egypt”, he said.

The 26-year-old scored 44 goals for Liverpool last season as he led the team to the Champions League final.

Although he started this campaign slowly following the summer’s World Cup, at which he scored twice for Egypt, he has notched 16 goals in 29 appearances in all competitions for Liverpool so far this season.

Along with Salah, Mane and Aubameyang, Atletico Madrid’s Ghanaian midfielder Thomas Partey was named in the Team of the Year.

That quartet were joined by Manchester United’s Ivorian central defender Eric Bailly, Liverpool and Guinea midfielder Naby Keita, Manchester City’s Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez and Tottenham Hotspur’s Serge Aurier, who represents Côte d’Ivoire.

Nasheman News : Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Monday said India and Pakistan are ‘big countries’ to decrease tension among themselves without any help from other nations.

“Both Pakistan and India are big enough countries to make sure they can also decrease tensions without any help from outside,” Solberg said during a press briefing at Norway Embassy here.

Solberg is in India on an official three-day visit to deliver the inaugural address in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the fourth edition of the major foreign policy event ‘Raisina Dialogue’, to be held from January 8-10, organised by the Ministry of External Affairs.

Solberg further stated her country is ready to mediate between India and Pakistan if the Asian neighbours are ready for it.

“We and other countries can say that we can help mediating if there is a possibility. But it has to be partner-driven. It has to be those who are party to the conflict,” she added.

Speaking on bringing a solution to the Kashmir issue, Solberg said she doe snot support the military approach to bring peace in the strife-torn valley.

“I believe in peaceful solutions. You can have victory through military solutions but you will have underlying activities. It is not just in Kashmir but in all places in the world. We see it in Syria,” she noted.

Solberg also inaugurated a new green compound. The embassy has obtained a green rating for integrated the habitat.

According to the embassy sources, the building is adapted to the local climate and takes into consideration Indian environmental concerns. The new compound is constructed with wells for rainwater harvesting.

“Geothermal wells are used for cooling by circulating water in 30 wells sunk 100 meters into the earth. Water is heated using solar panels, which produce 200 kWh energy per day. This is equivalent to powering a 40 W bulb for almost 7 months,” sources in the embassy said.

“As a green embassy, I hope it can serve as an inspiration for our shared efforts to achieve the green transition and the Sustainable Development Goals. I look forward to seeing our partnership bear more fruits, in business, politics and development,” Solberg said.

Rahaf Alqunun, 18, has appealed for asylum saying she was abused by her family and fears death if repatriated.

A Saudi woman held at Bangkok airport who says she is fleeing domestic abuse barricaded herself in a hotel room on Monday to prevent her deportation by Thai authorities.

An immigration official later said she would not be forced to leave the Southeast Asian nation because of concerns for her well-being. 

Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, said she fled Kuwait while her family was visiting the Gulf country and had planned to travel on from Thailand to Australia to seek asylum. She said she was detained after leaving her plane in Bangkok and told she would be sent back to Kuwait.

Alqunun shared photos of herself on Twitter in the room where she has been held since her arrival the previous day, as officials and police gathered outside the door to take her to a plane to return her to Kuwait.

A Thai court rejected an attempt to block her deportation, but hours later the country’s immigration chief reversed plans to expel Alqunun citing concerns for her safety.

“The flight this morning was via Kuwait Airlines to send her back to Saudi Arabia. If she does not want to leave, we will not force her,” chief of immigration police Surachate Hakparn told reporters.

Surachate also said he would meet officials from the UN’s refugee agency later in the day to discuss her asylum plans.

Passport seized

Alqunun appealed for the UNHCR to help her. “I’m not leaving my room until I see UNHCR,” she said in a video posted on Twitter. “I want asylum.”

Rights group Amnesty International released a statement on Monday saying the arbitrary confiscation of a passport “violates the right to freedom of movement”.

The group also said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has requested access to Rahaf, which the Thai authorities have yet to provide.

“The Thai authorities are bound by the general prohibition not to transfer persons to any place where they would face a real risk of serious human rights abuses. Rahaf is entitled to fair and effective safeguards against any deportation and to international protection,” Samah Hadid, Amnesty’s Middle East director of campaigns, said in the statement.

Alqunun was detained after she got off her flight in Bangkok. She said she had originally planned to spend a few days in Thailand, a popular destination for medical treatment, so her actions would not create suspicion when she left Kuwait.

“When I landed at the airport, someone came and said he would process the [Thai] visa but he took my passport. He came back with what seemed to be airport security and said that my parents objected and said I must return to Saudi Arabia via Kuwait Airways,” she told the Reuters news agency.

Her claim her passport had been seized was backed by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Alqunun told the AFP news agency on Sunday that her male guardian had reported her for travelling “without his permission”.

‘Losing hope’

She said she was trying to flee her family, whom she accused of subjecting her to physical and psychological abuse.

Alqunun said she was certain she would be jailed if she were sent back.

“My family is strict and locked me in a room for six months just for cutting my hair,” she said.

“I’m sure 100 percent they will kill me as soon as I get out of the Saudi jail,” she said, adding she was “scared” and “losing hope”.

The UNHCR said according to the principle of non-refoulement, asylum seekers cannot be returned to their country of origin if they fear their life is under threat.

Georg Schmidt, the German ambassador to Thailand, wrote on Twitter he had “great concern” for Alqunun and was in touch with the Thai authorities and the embassies of other countries about her situation.

“Saudi women fleeing their families can face severe violence from relatives, deprivation of liberty and other serious harm if returned against their will,” Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW, also said in a statement.

“Thai authorities should immediately halt any deportation, and either allow her to continue her travel to Australia or permit her to remain in Thailand to seek protection as a refugee.”

Another Saudi woman, Dina Ali Lasloom, was stopped in transit in the Philippines in April 2017 when she attempted to flee her family.

An airline security official told activists that Lasloom was heard “screaming and begging for help” as men carried her “with duct tape on her mouth, feet and hands” at the airport.

There was no immediate comment by the Saudi embassy in Thailand and officials in Riyadh.

Aljazeera

Nasheman News : Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have finalised a $6.2 billion support package to help Islamabad address its balance of payments challenge, the media reported on Saturday.

The package involves $3.2 billion worth of oil supplies on deferred payment, besides a $3 billion cash deposit. It is expected to be announced by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during his visit to the country starting Sunday, Dawn reported. 

According to a government official, the package was finalised on Thursday evening and was similar to that given by Saudi Arabia. 

With this, Pakistan would get a total saving of about $7.9 billion on oil and gas imports from the two countries, accounting for more than 60 per cent of annual oil import bill of about $12-13 billion, he said. 

This included about $3.2 billion each of oil supplies on deferred payments from the UAE and Saudi Arabia and about $1.5 billion trade finance from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC).

The total financing support from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including the ITFC’s trade finance, would be around $14 billion when cash deposits of $3 billion each from the two countries were also included, the official said.

This is in addition to a deep-conversion oil refinery to be set up by Parco — a joint venture of Pakistan and Abu Dhabi — worth $5-6 billion and an expected petro-chemical complex by Saudi Arabia.

The government also started backchannel discussions with Qatar for some relief in terms of reduction in LNG prices or a relaxed payment schedule, but that was at an early stage, the daily said.

Pakistan has already received $2 billion in cash deposit from Saudi Arabia at an interest rate of 3.18 per cent while the third tranche of $1 billion was due in the first week of February. The Saudi oil facility would also start rolling out this month with an average $274 million per month.

The daily said that with support from Qatar, Pakistan was expecting about $9 billion cushion in total oil and gas import bill.

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Nasheman News : The Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives has passed a spending package aimed at ending the partial government shutdown without paying for President Donald Trump’s border wall, drawing a veto threat from the White House.

The package was expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate, leaving congressional Democrats and the administration at a stalemate that leaves the partial shutdown no closer to getting resolved. It has affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have either been furloughed or have had to work without pay.

Trump has said he will reject any measure that does not provide $5 billion in funding for his wall on the Mexican border. Newly-elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said no funding for the wall would be made available, CNN reported.

The first bill passed by the House on Thursday in a 239-192 vote was a continuing resolution funding the Department of Homeland Security through February 8 that would not allocate any new wall spending. Five Republicans joined Democrats in approving the legislation.

Then, the House voted 241-190 to approve funds for six agencies, including Departments of State, Commerce, Agriculture, Labour, Treasury and other agencies through September 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Democrats say that Trump was holding government funding hostage for the wall, which they feel was “unnecessary and ineffective”.

Congressional leaders from both parties were expected to meet the President for another round of budget talks at the White House on Friday.

The Republican-run Senate has said it may not even vote on the legislation. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans will not back measures that Trump does not support and called the Democrats’ move a “total non-starter” and a “political sideshow”.

Vice President Mike Pence earlier said that “if there’s no wall, there’s no deal” to end the partial government shutdown during an interview with Fox News.

While he expressed openness to negotiating an end to the shutdown, the wall was a clear sticking point: “We are here to make a deal, but it’s a deal that’s going to result in achieving real gains. … We will have no deal without a wall,” Pence said.

The White House had issued a veto threat against the legislation ahead of the expected House vote.

Pelosi criticized the President’s wall as “a waste of money” and “an immorality” during a news conference hours after reclaiming the gavel in the new Congress.

“We’re asking the President to open up government,” she told the Today show before the first session of the new House. “We have given the Republicans a chance to take yes for an answer.”

The partial government shutdown stretched into its 13th day on Thursday, when the new Democratic House majority was sworn in.

Nasheman News : US President Donald Trump said that the US troops would be withdrawing from Syria “over a period of time,” dismissing the previously reported four-month exit plan.

“Over a period of time. I never said I’m getting out tomorrow,” Trump was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency on Wednesday.

Trump dismissed a New York Times story reporting earlier that the U.S. military had been given about four months to retreat the 2,000 soldiers from the war-torn country.

The Trump administration announced on Dec. 19 that it had started returning U.S. troops home from Syria after claiming a victory in the fight against the Islamic State.

U.S. media cited anonymous officials as saying that the United States was planning a “rapid” and “full” withdrawal of troops from Syria.

Trump himself last week reversed the tone in a tweet, claiming that his country is “slowly” withdrawing troops from Syria.

Currently, there are more than 2,000 US soldiers deployed in Syria.

Nasheman News : Former Republican presidential candidate and incoming Utah Senator Mitt Romney has launched a scathing attack on President Donald Trump, writing in an editorial that he caused dismay around the world and had “not risen to the mantle of the office”.

“It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not,” Romney wrote in the Washington Post opinion piece on Tuesday.

“… His conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions, is evidence that the President has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Romney, who is set to be sworn into the Senate on Thursday, also said that Trump’s presidency weakened America’s influence abroad, writing that “Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world”.

“The world needs American leadership and it is in America’s interest to provide it.”

“With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable… And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.”

Trump hit back at the Republican senator-elect in a tweet on Wednesday, saying: “Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not,” Trump tweeted, referring to retiring Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican who criticized the President often in the last few years. 

“Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didn’t. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a team player and win!” Trump said.

Romney said that he agreed with some of the policy changes Trump has championed. “But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency,” he wrote.

Responding to Romney’s piece, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said that the incoming senator “lacked the ability to save this nation” while Trump “has saved it”.

“Jealously is a drink best served warm and Romney just proved it. So sad, I wish everyone had the courage (Trump) had,” Parscale said.

Romney and Trump have long had a complicated political relationship. The President had called Romney “irrelevant” and had bragged that he was a more successful businessman. 

When Trump was running for President in 2016, Romney called him a “phoney” and a “fraud”. In 2017, he slammed the President after the deadly white supremacist rally in Virginia for causing “racists to rejoice” and “minorities to weep”.

Romney said he would support the President in policies he thought were in the best interests of Utah or the US but speak out against actions “that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions”.

Up to 40 people are believed to be trapped under rubble in Magnitogorsk in temperatures lower than -18 degrees Celsius.

Rescuers are battling through the bitter cold in Russia’s Ural Mountains looking for survivors after a gas explosion tore through a high-rise apartment building killing at least four people.

Officials have said up to 40 people could be trapped under the rubble, at least seven of them children, after the explosion on Monday collapsed a large section of the residential building in the industrial city of Magnitogorsk, some 1,700km east of the capital, Moscow.

State TV showed rescue workers combing through mangled heaps of concrete and metal at -18 degrees Celsius, but Russian officials acknowledged that the odds of finding anyone alive looked increasingly slim.

“The chances are reducing with time,” Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said when pressed by reporters on the likelihood of finding the trapped survivors.

“But incredible stories do happen.”

Witnesses told Russian television that the explosion was strong enough to shatter the windows of nearby buildings.

“I woke up and felt myself falling. The walls were gone. My mother was screaming and my son had been buried,” a witness said.

President Vladimir Putin rushed to the city, where the blast left hundreds of residents homeless in freezing temperatures on New Year’s Eve, the biggest holiday of the year in Russia.

Plunging temperatures

Authorities said rescue teams were to work through the night, with local temperatures expected to plunge to -23C.

Officials warned that two more sections of the Soviet-era high-rise on Karl Marx Street were in danger of collapsing.

Located in the mineral-rich southern Urals region, Magnitogorsk, with a population of more than 400,000 people, is home to one of the country’s largest steel producers.

The high-rise was built in 1973 and was home to around 1,100 people. The other residents of the building were moved to a nearby school.

The local governor, Boris Dubrovsky, told Putin that authorities published the missing persons’ list in the hope they were somewhere else when the explosion happened and would report their whereabouts. He promised to quickly provide new apartments for those who were left homeless.

Investigators opened a criminal probe into the accident, with the FSB security service confirming the incident as a gas explosion.

Such deadly gas explosions are relatively common in Russia where much of the infrastructure dates back to the Soviet era and safety requirements are often ignored.

Aljazeera

Reported troop entry into Manbij comes after Kurdish YPG asked for government help in preventing a ‘Turkish invasion’.

Syria’s army says it has entered the flashpoint city of Manbij, according to state media, after the country’s main Kurdish armed group invited government forces to take control of the northern area and protect it from a threatened Turkish offensive.

State-run Sana news agency said the army raised Syria’s flag in Manbij on Friday. 

It also pledged to guarantee “full security for all Syrian citizens and others present in the area”, according to Saba.

However, Reporter Mohammed Adow, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish border, said residents of Manbij dispute the Syrian army’s claim. 

“Manbij residents who we spoke to have said that they have not seen any sign of Syrian forces in their city but what we know is that Syrian government troops have already been on the outskirts of the city, where they were part of an international coalition that is fighting remnants of ISIL,” he said. 

The military declaration came moments after the People’s Protection Unit, or YPG, made an appeal to President Bashar al-Assad’s government to prevent a “Turkish invasion”.

Turkey, which views the YPG as a “terrorist” group, had threatened a military operation against Manbij to remove the Kurdish-led forces there. Turkey and its allied fighters have been amassing troops around the city in recent days.

Our correspondent said the YPG’s appeal was a “tactic by its fighters to avoid confrontation with the Turkish forces who they of course know they are no match for”.

The Turkish threats triggered the US announcement it would withdraw troops from Syria. A timetable for the withdrawal has not yet been made public.

But the surprise US decision rattled allies and the US Syrian Kurdish partners, who scrambled to find new allies to protect their Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria.

Assad’s government has said it welcomes the Kurdish group returning under its authority.

But government officials have stated they will not consider an autonomous area, a main demand for the Kurds.

There was no immediate response from Turkey or the US.

Russia welcomed the Syrian army’s entry into Manbij.

“Of course, this will help in stabilising the situation. The enlargement of the zone under the control of government forces… is without doubt a positive trend,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Studies, said Syrian troop entry into Manbij, if confirmed, was a “significant development”. 

“It is a solution all regional powers can accept because Turkey doesn’t want US troops in Manbij, while the other players don’t want Turkish troops there,” he told media from Beirut. 

Aljazeera

Nasheman News : An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia’s Papua Barat province on Friday, officials said. There was, however, no report of any casualty.

The earthquake had an epicentre of 26 km under Manokwari town, but no tsunami warning was issued, Xinhua news agency quoted an meteorology official as saying.

No major damage or casualty has been reported, Indonesia’s national disaster management agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

“The tremors only triggered panic, people were rushing outside their houses. The jolts were strongly felt for five minutes,” added.

This comes days after a tsunami struck the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra on December 22, shortly after the Anak Krakatau volcano erupted in the Sunda Strait. At least 430 people were killed after the volcanic eruption triggered a massive tsunami. 

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity.