Brazil's future foreign minister Ernesto Araujo said Monday that the incoming government of Jair Bolsonaro will "dissociate" itself from a UN compact on migration, hours after the country's current government endorsed it.

"The Bolsonaro government will dissociate itself from the Global Migration Pact that is being launched in Marrakech, an inadequate instrument to deal with the problem," Araujo tweeted.

"Immigration should not be treated as a global issue, but rather according to the reality and sovereignty of each country."

The global pact was adopted earlier Monday at a conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, which was attended by official delegations from more than 150 countries. It still needs to be endorsed by the UN General Assembly.

"Supported by Brazil and more than 150 countries, the Global Compact does not compromise the sovereign right of states to determine their migration policies," Brazil's Foreign Ministry tweeted Monday.

In July, 192 countries unanimously approved the pact following 18 months of negotiations. The United States backed out in December 2017 followed by a slew of other countries.

It lays out 23 objectives to ensure "safe, orderly and regular" migration, including protecting migrants from exploitation and human rights abuses.

Araujo, a climate change sceptic and anti-globalist, is set to become Brazil's new foreign minister in January, when the government of far-right president-elect Bolsonaro takes power.

France will deploy tens of thousands of police nationwide and around 8,000 in Paris on Saturday to handle a fifth weekend of ‘yellow vest’ protests, although the movement appears to be losing steam after concessions by President Emmanuel Macron.

The chief of police in Paris said concerns remained about violent groups infiltrating the protests. Anti-riot officers will protect landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe and prevent people getting close to the presidential palace.

“We need to be prepared for worst-case scenarios,” police chief Michel Delpuech told RTL radio.

He expected businesses in the capital to be less affected this weekend after heavy disruption over the past three weeks when major stores shut, hotels suffered cancelations and tourists stayed away during the usually busy run-up to Christmas.

Nicknamed “Acte V” of the protests, the yellow vest demonstrators will take to the streets this weekend as France recovers from an unrelated attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, when a gunman shot and killed three people and wounded several others.

Hundreds of police officers were redeployed to Strasbourg to search for the gunman, who was shot dead in an exchange of fire on Thursday evening.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said it was time for the yellow vests to scale down their protests and accept they had achieved their aims. Police officers also deserved a break, he added.

“I’d rather have the police force doing their real job, chasing criminals and combating the terrorism threat, instead of securing roundabouts where a few thousand people keep a lot of police busy,” he said.

TOLL ON THE ECONOMY
Attractions such as the Louvre museum and Opera Garnier will be open this weekend, as will luxury department stores like Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. Last Saturday they were closed as thousands of sometimes violent protesters tore through the city. The previous weekend the Arc de Triomphe was vandalized, cars were overturned and torched and businesses smashed up.

The protests have taken a toll on the economy, with output in the last quarter of the year set to be half initial projections, while Macron’s concessions are likely to push the budget deficit above an EU agreed limit.

The yellow vest movement, which began as a protest against fuel taxes and then grew into an anti-Macron alliance, appears to have calmed since the president announced a series of measures to help the working poor.

However, many people wearing the high-visibility motorists’ safety jackets which are the symbol of the protests were manning barricades outside cities on Friday.

After heavy criticism for not being seen to respond to the protesters’ complaints, Macron made a TV address this week during which he said he understood their concerns and acknowledged the need for a different approach.

As well canceling fuel tax increases that were due to kick in next month, Macron said he would increase the minimum wage by 100 euros a month from January and reduce taxes for poorer pensioners, among other measures.

Since the first yellow vest protests on Nov. 17, supporters have kept up a steady stream of dissent, although the numbers joining marches have steadily fallen. ($1 = 0.8857 euros)

From :Arabnews

Two dozen countries agreed Tuesday to push for sanctions against perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for such strikes.

Twenty-four nations approved a new "partnership against impunity" for the use of chemical weapons, just a day after reports they were used in an attack that sickened 21 people in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, which Tillerson said was suspected to involve chlorine.

"Whoever conducted the attacks, Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims in East Ghouta and countless other Syrians targeted with chemical weapons since Russia became involved in Syria," Tillerson said after the international meeting in Paris, and ahead of further talks with ministers from several countries on ending the conflict.

Two dozen countries agreed Tuesday to push for sanctions against perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for such strikes.

Twenty-four nations approved a new "partnership against impunity" for the use of chemical weapons, just a day after reports they were used in an attack that sickened 21 people in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, which Tillerson said was suspected to involve chlorine.

"Whoever conducted the attacks, Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims in East Ghouta and countless other Syrians targeted with chemical weapons since Russia became involved in Syria," Tillerson said after the international meeting in Paris, and ahead of further talks with ministers from several countries on ending the conflict.

"There is simply no denying that Russia, by shielding its Syrian ally, has breached its commitments to the US as a framework guarantor" overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, as agreed in September 2013, he added.

Despite its pledge to destroy such weapons, the Syrian regime has been repeatedly accused of staging chemical attacks, with the United Nations among those blaming it for an April 2017 sarin gas attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun which left scores dead.

There have been at least 130 separate chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2012, according to French estimates, with the Islamic State group also accused of using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

- 'Bare minimum' -

Russia twice used its UN veto in November to block an extension of an international expert inquiry into chemical attacks in Syria, to the consternation of Western powers.

Moscow, backed by Iran and Turkey, has organised talks in the Russian city of Sochi next week aimed at finding a resolution to the brutal and multifaceted civil war.

Those efforts are running parallel to talks overseen by the UN, with the latest round due in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.

The talks have so far failed to make progress in ending a war that has left more than 340,000 people dead.

Tillerson said that "Russia's failure to resolve the chemical weapons issue in Syria calls into question its relevance to the resolution of the overall crisis".

"At a bare minimum, Russia must stop vetoing, or at the very least abstain, from future Security Council votes on this issue," he said.

At Tuesday's meeting, 24 out of 29 countries attending committed to sharing information and compiling a list of individuals implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Syria and beyond.

These could then be hit with sanctions such as asset freezes and entry bans as well as criminal proceedings at the national level.

Ahead of the meeting France announced asset freezes against 25 Syrian companies and executives, as well as French, Lebanese and Chinese businesses accused of aiding regime use of chemical weapons.

"The criminals who take the responsibility for using and developing these barbaric weapons must know that they will not go unpunished," said French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who chaired Tuesday's meeting.

"The current situation cannot continue."

- 'Worst humanitarian crises' -

Tillerson, Le Drian and Britain's Boris Johnson afterwards held a closed-door meeting on Syria with the Saudi and Jordanian foreign ministers.

They discussed how best to "provide backing and some concrete reinforcement for UN efforts to advance the political process in Geneva, constitutional reform and the preparation for the holding of elections", ahead of a series of meetings on Syria, a senior US State Department official said, warning that "it's going to take time".

Johnson later hosted his US, Saudi Arabian and UAE counterparts at the British Embassy to discuss the Yemen conflict in a whirlwind of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

"The conflicts in Syria and Yemen have created two of the worst humanitarian crises of our time," Johnson said said ahead of the meeting.

"There can be no military solution to either conflict, only peaceful and carefully negotiated political solutions will truly end the suffering."

The Syrian war has grown even more complex in recent days with Turkey launching a new ground operation against Kurdish militia who it considers an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Tillerson met with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Paris on Tuesday, though he did not hold a press conference to discuss their talks.

Last week Tillerson had warned that the US would remain in Syria until the situation was stable enough to remove President Bashar al-Assad from office.

Source: AFP

Sacked Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, in Copenhagen to muster international support for an independent Catalonia, has cited Denmark's autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands as models for a peaceful bid for independence.

But the model may be difficult to export, experts say.

"It's not easy I know but you're proof that it's possible," Puigdemont said Monday during a seminar on the Catalan crisis at the University of Copenhagen.

On Tuesday, Puigdemont was to meet with Danish MPs at the invitation of Magni Arge, a representative of the Faroese separatist party Tjodveld (Republicans).

No representatives from the parties that make up Denmark's centre-right government will be present.

Arge, who served as an observer for the banned Catalan independence referendum in October that saw a brutal police crackdown, said the purpose of the meeting was to take stock of relations between regional capital Barcelona and the central government in Madrid.

And for Puigdemont, the aim was to learn more about the road to independence being pursued by Denmark's former colonies.

The Scandinavian country -- a small parliamentary monarchy that has built its prosperity on reform, dialogue and consensus rather than social uprisings -- has since the 1950s gradually granted its former possessions increasing sovereignty.

Negotiations have occasionally been thorny, such as those on control of natural resources, but for the most part disputes are resolved through compromise.

"It's not a criminal act in Denmark to be in favour of the independence of the Faroe Islands," Arge told AFP.

- 'Legitimate' independence -

In the case of Greenland, it may be difficult for Puigdemont to draw any parallels at all.

The largest island on the planet, snow-covered and plagued by financial and social woes, has little in common with tourist magnet, wealthy Catalonia.

Its 55,000 inhabitants are for the most part indigenous Inuits.

In 2009, the Danish parliament adopted a law granting Greenland self-rule, though Copenhagen retains control of foreign affairs and defence.

For the Faroese people -- most of whom are fishermen and sheep farmers -- their status as islanders, coupled with Copenhagen's rather distant interest in the archipelago, means their independence drive is not much of a concern for most Danes.

The Faroe Islands, which receive sizeable government subsidies, will hold a referendum in April on a new constitution which would give the archipelago the right to self-determination.

"Full independence for these two parts of the kingdom is broadly seen as legitimate, should those parts of the kingdom so desire," says Henrik Larsen, a social sciences professor at the University of Copenhagen.

That said, "the political elite would not like to see this."

The Danish government has made several concessions to avoid any unilateral declarations of independence like the one made in Catalonia on October 27, said Marku Suksi, a professor of international law at the University of Turku in Finland.

Spain has appeared less flexible or willing to make concessions on the question of independence.

"Denmark has shown once again that it understands democracy," Puigdemont said on Monday.

But in Catalonia, the reality is far more complex.

The region, one of Spain's wealthiest, has its own language and culture.

But of its 7.5 million inhabitants, more than half come from elsewhere or were born to parents from other parts of Spain. And as far as independence goes, views among the Catalans are evenly split.

Polls suggest, however, that more than 70 percent of Catalans want the issue decided by a legal referendum.

- Polar opposites -

Spain and Denmark are polar opposites when it comes to their recent histories.

Spain emerged from four decades of dictatorship in 1977. In 2011, a violent four-decade drive for Basque independence that claimed more than 800 lives came to an end.

Denmark has meanwhile flourished in peacetime to become one of the most prosperous and egalitarian countries in the world.

Within the European Union, Denmark is however seen as a fierce defender of its autonomy and sovereignty. It has negotiated several opt-outs on defence, justice and the single currency, and is occasionally perceived as overly indulgent of Danes' reluctance to deepen European integration.

"It depends which government coalition is in power in Copenhagen," says Maria Ackren, a political science professor in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. "And right now, it's very conservative."

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen -- whose Liberal Party belongs to the same European Parliament group as Puigdemont's party -- has refrained from all comment on the Catalan crisis.

Source: AFP

Another potential challenger to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared in danger Tuesday of dropping out of the election race after he was accused of breaking the law with his candidacy announcement.

The allegations against General Sami Anan, a former armed forces chief of staff, mean that Sisi seems to be heading towards the March polls with most of his possible rivals already out of the running.

The general command of the Egyptian armed forces, in a video posted on Facebook, accused Anan of crimes including forgery.

Anan's campaign team said he had been arrested.

While there was no official confirmation of that, the armed forces said in the video that "all legal procedures must be followed regarding infractions and crimes committed that require his appearance before the relevant investigating bodies."

Several prominent figures who had been seen as potential challengers to Sisi had already either ruled themselves out or were sentenced to prison even before registrations opened on Saturday.

Sisi was elected president in 2014, a year after leading the military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi when he was himself commander in chief.

The video accused Anan of announcing his intention to run in the election "without getting the approval of the armed forces or following the required procedures to end his service in the military."

It also said Anan's announcement on Saturday "constitutes direct incitement against the armed forces with the intent of causing a rift between it and the great Egyptian people".

Anan was accused of forging official documents to erroneously suggest that his service in the armed forces had ended.

His candidacy announcement had come just hours after Sisi confirmed he would seek a second term in the March 26-28 election, the third since the 2011 overthrow of strongman Hosni Mubarak.

- 'Taken to prosecutors' -

One of Anan's top campaign aides, Hisham Geneina, told AFP that the presidential hopeful was arrested on Tuesday morning.

His detention came before the armed forces' statement, added Geneina, the former head of the Central Auditing Authority (CAA) who was sacked by Sisi in 2016 after he was accused of exaggerating the cost of corruption.

Mustafa Elshall, Anan's campaign manager, also reported the arrest on his Twitter account.

Ali Taha, a lawyer, said he was asked by the campaign to defend Anan, who in his announcement speech said he had already put in place a team of civilians to support his bid, including Geneina.

Anan served as armed forces chief of staff from 2005 until he was retired by Morsi in 2012.

When the longtime strongman was forced to step down by the Arab Spring protests of 2011, he ceded power to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), an interim executive made up of 20 generals in which Anan served as number two.

Anan's spokesman Hazem Hosni, a political science professor at Cairo University, said he had been meeting with the presidential hopeful and Geneina for months to discuss the country's situation and potential solutions.

"He sees that the state must have space for civil freedoms, political participation, and that killing politics this way in Egypt is not right," Hosni told AFP on Tuesday before the armed forces' video was posted.

- Not running -

Would-be candidates for the presidency must register with the National Elections Authority by January 29, but some have already stepped aside.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said on January 7 that he would not stand, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

Last week, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of the late president of the same name, said he too would not run because the climate was not right for free elections.

Other potential candidates include Khaled Ali, a rights lawyer and 2012 presidential candidate, and military Colonel Ahmed Konsowa.

However, a military court in December sentenced Konsowa to six years in jail after he announced his intention to stand.

Ali meanwhile has appealed a three-month sentence in September on charges of offending public decency, in relation to a photograph that Ali says was fabricated and that appeared to show him making an obscene gesture outside a court house.

Source: AFP

Myanmar blamed Bangladesh on Tuesday for delays to the start of a huge repatriation programme for Rohingya refugees, as the UN warned of the dangers of rushing their return to strife-torn Rakhine state.

Nearly 690,000 Rohingya escaped to Bangladesh after a brutal Myanmar army crackdown began in the state last August, while around 100,000 fled an earlier bout of violence in October 2016.

In signs the unrest was continuing despite the repatriation plans, Bangladesh officials said a huge fire burned and gunshots were heard in a village in Rakhine.

Myanmar agreed that from January 23 it would start taking back those refugees who had fled since 2016 and sought shelter in the squalid camps clustered in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district.

But a Bangladeshi official said Monday the programme would not begin as planned. Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said there was much more preparatory work to be done.

The complex process of registering huge numbers of the dispossessed has been further cast into doubt by the refugees themselves, who are too afraid to return to the scene of what the UN has called "ethnic cleansing".

Mainly Buddhist Myanmar sees the Rohingya in Rakhine as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship.

Myanmar has also been accused of drawing out the repatriation process by agreeing to take back just 1,500 people a week. It has prepared two reception camps on its side of the border.

Myanmar officials said that by Tuesday afternoon no Rohingya had crossed back into Rakhine, the scene of alleged widespread atrocities by Myanmar's army and ethnic Rakhine mobs.

"We are right now ready to receive... we are completely ready to welcome them according to the agreement," Kyaw Tin, Minister of International Cooperation told reporters in Naypyidaw, Myanmar's capital.

"We have seen the news that the Bangladesh side is not ready, but we have not received any official" explanation, he added.

With hundreds of Rohingya villages torched and communal tensions still at boiling point in Rakhine, rights groups say Rohingya returnees will at best be herded into long-term camps.

Those who return must sign a form verifying they did so voluntarily and pledging to abide by Myanmar laws.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said safeguards for potential returnees were still absent, while refugees continue to leave Myanmar and access for aid agencies and the media to Rakhine is restricted.

In a statement it urged Myanmar to implement advisory commission recommendations calling for security for all communities, freedom of movement and solutions for citizenship for Muslim communities.

"Without this, the risk of dangerous and rushed returns into a situation where violence might reignite is too great to be ignored."

- Not going back -

Myanmar has sent a list of more than 1,000 "wanted" alleged Rohingya militants to Bangladesh, while headshot photos of the suspects have been widely circulated inside the country.

In a sign of the tensions surrounding the issue, a second Rohingya leader was killed in Bangladesh camps on Monday -- allegedly after endorsing the returns programme.

Many in the camps are fearful of going back.

"We won't go there if they try to send us back... kill us here, because we won't go. If we go back, the Burmese (Myanmar) will kill us," 12-year-old Mohammad Ayas said at a camp at Cox's Bazar.

Others said repatriation was a pipe dream while people were still trickling into the camps.

Mohammad Amin, who arrived just last week, described villages being set ablaze and women assaulted.

Backing up his claim, a senior Bangladeshi border guard at Cox's Bazar said a "big fire" was seen raging late Monday in an abandoned village in Rakhine.

It is believed the homes ablaze overnight belonged to Rohingya, the official said on condition of anonymity. The border region is controlled by Myanmar's forces, he added.

Another border official said he heard several gunshots before flames were seen leaping from the village.

Footage of the blaze quickly spread among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh through social media, with many quick to blame Myanmar's security forces.

"The fire is designed to destroy the last remaining traces of Rohingya homes so that none of us can return to our villages," activist Rafique bin Habib told AFP.

He said without homes, those Rohingya who were repatriated would be denied access to their ancestral lands and forced to live in displacement camps.

Source: AFP

Diplomats from 29 countries including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meet in Paris on Tuesday pushing for sanctions and criminal charges against the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria.

Tillerson and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian will also co-host a meeting of ministers ahead of a new round of peace talks in Vienna later this week and again in Sochi in Russia the week after.

The chemical weapons meeting from 1300 GMT comes after allegations Monday of a fresh chemical attack by the Syrian regime on Douma in the rebel-held region of Eastern Ghouta.

The alleged attack prompted a sharp warning from the US to Russia to rein in its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The regime has been repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons, with the United Nations among those blaming it for an April 2017 sarin gas attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun which left scores dead.

There have been at least 130 separate chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2012, according to French estimates, with the Islamic State group also accused of using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

A month after his election in May, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that chemical weapons were a "red line" that would prompt a response from France if used again, though he has declined to specify what that response would be.

- 'We won't let this lie' -

At Tuesday's meeting, countries will commit to sharing information and compiling a list of individuals implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Syria and beyond.

These could then be hit with sanctions such as asset freezes and entry bans as well as criminal proceedings at the national level.

The French initiative comes after Russia twice used its UN veto to block an extension of an inquiry by international experts into chemical weapons use in Syria.

"Today the situation is blocked at the highest international level," an aide to Le Drian said.

"The perpetrators of chemical attacks must know that they can be prosecuted and that we won't let this lie."

Ahead of the meeting France announced asset freezes against 25 Syrian companies and executives, as well as French, Lebanese and Chinese businesses accused of aiding regime use of chemical weapons.

The brutal seven-year war has grown even more complex in recent days with Turkey launching a new ground operation against Kurdish militia who it considers an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

After the repeated collapse of UN-backed peace talks, a fresh round are due to be held in Vienna on January 25-26, followed by talks under a separate Russian peace initiative in Sochi on January 30, backed by Iran and Turkey.

Macron has been calling for months for the creation of a new Syria contact group that would bring together regional countries with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

Le Drian's entourage indicated that his meeting co-hosted with Tillerson later Tuesday is intended to take the first steps towards setting up the new group.

"Those within the Syrian system have found it extremely difficult to establish a path for peace," an aide to Le Drian said.

The meeting is designed to "find pathways towards and the means for a true political transition with the support of major powers, essentially the P5 and countries in the region directly affected," the aide added.

Source: AFP

US Vice President Mike Pence visited Jerusalem's Western Wall on Tuesday while Palestinians held a general strike after denouncing his fervently pro-Israel speech the previous day as "messianic".

The devout Christian's speech to the Israeli parliament on Monday laden with biblical references was praised by Israelis as perhaps the best they could ever hope for from a US administration, but Palestinians saw it as confirming some of their worst fears.

Pence proudly reaffirmed US President Donald Trump's December 6 declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and pledged to move the embassy to the disputed city by the end of 2019.

"The friendship between our peoples has never been deeper," he said.

On Tuesday, as he wrapped up his trip, Pence, who was boycotted by the Palestinians, visited one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the Western Wall.

The site lies in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the sector the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state, and many Israelis were likely to interpret it as Pence further backing their claim over the entire city.

"Very inspiring," Pence said after the visit during which he was not accompanied by Israeli government officials.

Pence followed in the footsteps of Trump, who in May became the first sitting US president to visit the Western Wall.

In December, a US senior administration official said: "We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not part of Israel."

Pence also toured Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday and met President Reuven Rivlin.

He said the White House believes the Jerusalem declaration "will set the table for the opportunity to move forward in meaningful negotiations to achieve a lasting peace and end the decades-long conflict".

He departed in the late afternoon to return to the United States.

- 'Gift to extremists' -

The Palestinians face a dilemma over how to deal with what they see as a blatantly biased US administration as they seek to salvage hope of a two-state solution.

A top Palestinian official called Pence's parliament speech "messianic" and a "gift to extremists", reiterating the view that the Trump White House is incapable of being an even-handed mediator in peace talks.

Pence issued no criticism of Israel's half-century occupation of the West Bank during his visit.

Around a dozen Arab Israeli lawmakers were expelled from the chamber after shouting as Pence began his speech in parliament.

On Tuesday, a general strike was observed in the Palestinian territories, but there were expressions of resignation among some.

"It's useless, the strike. Nothing will happen," said Adel Humran, a Palestinian in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"Only the shops will be closed. The people won't benefit from it at all."

But a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the strike was a "message of rejection of the visit and the American position".

"Jerusalem is a red line we cannot compromise on," said Nabil Abu Rudeina.

A few hundred Palestinians also protested near an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, throwing stones at soldiers who occasionally fired back with tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets.

The Palestinian leadership has sought to look elsewhere for backing, and Abbas met European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

The 82-year-old urged them to recognise a Palestinian state, but such a move was not forthcoming from the bloc as a whole.

Abbas said he was committed to negotiations, but he has sought an internationally-led process.

Netanyahu says there is no substitute for US leadership.

A senior White House official said on Tuesday that Trump's point men on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had not spoken to Palestinian leaders since before the December 6 declaration but were open to any approach.

"We are here, dedicated and ready to engage whenever they are," he said.

The official said there was no timeline for the White House to present its peace plan.

"We remain hard at work at it," he said but dismissed the idea of a European alternative.

"I don't think anybody believes the US can be replaced in this process," the official said. "Frankly I don't believe the Palestinians believe the US can be replaced in this process."

- Deadly unrest -

The US move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital broke with decades of international consensus that the city's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Unrest since the announcement has left 18 Palestinians dead, most of them killed in clashes with Israeli forces. One Israeli has been killed in that time.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

In Jerusalem, Pence reiterated Trump's position that the United States would support a two-state solution "if both sides agree".

Pence's visit, initially scheduled for December before being postponed after the Jerusalem declaration, was the final leg of a trip that included talks in Egypt and Jordan as well as a stop at a US military base near the Syrian border.

Arab outrage over Trump's Jerusalem decision had prompted the cancellation of several meetings planned ahead of the start of Pence's tour.

Source: AFP

US federal workers prepared to return to work Tuesday after Congress ended a three-day government shutdown, with President Donald Trump claiming victory in his standoff with Democrats.

The House voted 266 to 150 to extend federal funding for another three weeks, hours after Senate Democrats dropped their opposition to the plan after winning Republican assurances of a vote on immigration in the coming weeks.

Trump signed the measure into law Monday night and government operations were essentially to return to normal on Tuesday.

"I know there's great relief that this episode is coming to an end," House Speaker Paul Ryan told colleagues. "But this is not a moment to pat ourselves on the back. Not even close."

The stalemate consumed Washington for the better part of a week, as lawmakers and the White House feuded over immigration policy and the nation's two main political parties exchanged bitter barbs before finally reaching a deal.

The shutdown began at midnight Friday and thus affected only one regular workday -- Monday -- but it made both parties look bad. If it had continued, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would have been furloughed.

Democrats decided to end the shutdown after making progress with ruling Republicans toward securing the fate of hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" brought to America as children, many of them illegally. They had been protected from deportation under an Obama-era program known as DACA, which Trumps wants to end.

With Democratic support, a bill keeping the government funded until February 8 easily passed the Senate, where different versions of the funding had languished for days.

Word of the compromise deal struck in Washington sent US stocks surging to new highs.

Earlier, the White House appeared in no mood for bipartisanship or magnanimity after a shutdown that overshadowed Trump's first anniversary in office.

Trump moved to undercut Democrats, saying he would only accept a comprehensive immigration reform -- one that notably addresses his demands for a border wall with Mexico as well as the fate of the "Dreamers."

"We will make a long-term deal on immigration if, and only if, it is good for our country," he said in a statement.

And in a tweet late Monday, he again cried victory over the Democrats.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," he wrote on Twitter.

Trump added: "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA, but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

In a sign of the poisoned politics of Washington, when top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer announced his party would vote with Republicans to end the shutdown he also pilloried Trump.

"The White House refused to engage in negotiations over the weekend. The great deal-making president sat on the sidelines," Schumer said.

Trump spent the weekend stewing at the White House when he had planned to be among friends and family at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida for his anniversary bash.

And with the fundamental row on immigration and funding of Trump's border wall unresolved, Republicans and Democrats may very well find themselves back in a similar stalemate come February 9.

- High-profile holdouts -

Schumer told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he expected Republicans to make good on a pledge to address Democrats' concerns over the Deferred Action on Child Arrivals (DACA) program. This shields immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation but expires on March 5.

There are an estimated 700,000 "Dreamers" whose fates are up in the air.

"If he does not, of course, and I expect he will, he will have breached the trust of not only the Democratic senators but members of his own party as well," Schumer said.

Trump has staked his political fortunes on taking a hard line on immigrants, painting them as criminals and scroungers.

Senator Tim Kaine summed up the view of the more optimistic Democrats: "We got a commitment that I feel very, very good about."

But if no progress is made on an immigration bill, Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution warned, "Democrats still have the ability to potentially force another shutdown over the issue."

The House is under no obligation to pass any Senate bill generated as a result of McConnell's pledge to cooperate with Democrats -- although Speaker Ryan did say his chamber needs to "move forward in good faith" on DACA and immigration.

Notably, many of the Senate Democrats who voted against the funding agreement included a litany of potential 2020 presidential candidates, including Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren.

- Dealmaker on sidelines -

Ahead of the deal, Trump had goaded Democrats from the sidelines, accusing them of shutting down the government to win concessions on immigration, in service of "their far left base."

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. During the last one, in October 2013, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential federal services and the military were operational on Monday.

Source: AFP

The Turkish army on Tuesday clashed with Kurdish militia in Syria in an operation that has already left three of its soldiers dead, as the United States voiced alarm that the offensive could endanger attempts to end the Syrian civil war.

Amid growing international concern over the four-day-old cross-border campaign into Turkey's neighbour, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Ankara would emerge victorious.

Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" aimed at rooting out the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara sees as a terror group, from its Afrin enclave in northern Syria.

The campaign has caused ripples of concern among Turkey's NATO allies, especially the United States which is still working closely with the YPG to defeat Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria.

In his strongest comments yet on the offensive, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Turkey to show "restraint" and warned it could harm the fight against the jihadists.

Mattis, on a visit to Indonesia, warned the offensive "disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat" IS.

US President Donald Trump is expected to express America's unease in a call telephone with Erdogan on Wednesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron joined in the chorus of concern when he spoke by phone to the Turkish leader on Tuesday.

"While recognising Turkey's security needs, Macron "told his Turkish counterpart of his concern over the military intervention," the French presidency said.

- 'Until the last terrorist' -

Turkish artillery on Tuesday pounded targets of the YPG inside Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Turkish drones were also carrying out attacks, state television said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said fighting was "very violent" to the northeast, northwest and southwest of Afrin.

As well as the artillery and air strikes, Turkish ground troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels have punched over the border several kilometres (miles) into Syrian territory, taking several villages, according to state media.

After intense exchanges, Turkey's forces took control of the hill of Barsaya, a key strategic point in the Afrin region.

The Observatory said 43 Ankara-backed rebels and 38 Kurdish fighters had been killed in the fighting so far. It has also said 28 civilians have been killed on the Syrian side but this is vehemently rejected by Turkey which says it is targeting militants only.

Sergeant Musa Ozalkan, 30, the first Turkish military fatality of the operation, was laid to rest with full honours in a ceremony in Ankara attended by the Turkish leadership.

"We will win and reach victory in this operation together with our people, together with Free Syrian Army," Erdogan assured mourners, referring to the Ankara-backed rebels.

Two more Turkish soldiers -- a first lieutenant and a sergeant -- were killed inside Syria on Tuesday in clashes with the YPG, the military said.

The campaign -- which Erdogan has made clear has no fixed timetable -- is fraught with risks for Turkey.

Two civilians have been killed inside Turkey in border towns in the last two days by rocket fire from Syria blamed on the YPG.

"This operation will continue until the last terrorist is eliminated," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

Cavusoglu said in a television interview Turkey could extend the operation further to target other YPG-held areas in northern Syria including the town of Manbij and even areas east of the Euphrates River.

- 'Erdogan, Trump to talk' -

Ankara has expressed impatience with Western concern over the operation, arguing that the YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

The foreign ministry of Qatar -- Turkey's closest Gulf ally -- gave its unequivocal backing to the operation.

Critical is the opinion of Russia, which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG but is also working with Turkey to bring an end to the seven-year-old Syrian civil war.

Erdogan said Monday that the offensive had been agreed with Russia but this has not been confirmed by Moscow. Cavusoglu denied there had been any "bargain or deal".

However many analysts argue that Turkey would never have gone ahead with the offensive without the Kremlin's blessing.

Erdogan and Putin late Tuesday discussed the operation by telephone, the Turkish presidency said, but the details of the call were not disclosed.

Turkey's previous incursion into Syria was the Euphrates Shield campaign of August 2016-March 2017, targeting both the YPG and IS in an area east of Afrin.

The Turkish security forces have meanwhile imposed a clampdown against anyone suspected of disseminating "terror propaganda" against the operation on social media.

Ninety-one people were detained in 13 provinces in Turkey, state media reported on Tuesday, after 24 people were detained in other cities on Monday.

Source: AFP

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen, Mohamed al-Jaber, said in a tweet on Tuesday that the humanitarian operations that will be implemented in Yemen will produce thousands of direct job opportunities for Yemeni people.

He added that these operations will include all Yemen’s provinces “without exception or discrimination”. Al-Jaber also said that they will keep all ports open, as well as air and land crossings in order to receive aid continuously and safely.

The Saudi-backed Arab Coalition in Yemen announced the provision of $1.5 billion in aid to the country on Monday.

The announcement came following a Saudi Arabia’s $2 billion monetary aid to Yemen’s central bank to help the country’s currency.

The coalition added that they aim to increase monthly imports to 1.4 million metric tons, from 1.1 million last year.

source: Alarabiya

The UN Security Council discussed Turkey’s intensifying offensive against Kurdish militias and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria on Monday but did not condemn or demand an end to the sensitive Turkish operation.

Already scheduled to hear a report from UN aid chief Mark Lowcock on his recent visit to Syria, at France’s request the Security Council also touched on the latest Turkish offensive as well as the Syrian campaign in Idlib and Eastern Ghouta.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed no stepping back to the air and ground offensive seeking to flush out the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia from its enclave of Afrin, despite concern from Ankara’s allies and neighbors.

“It was of course part of the conversation,” French Ambassador Francois Delattre said of Afrin after the closed-door talks at UN headquarters in New York.

“The call for restraint, I believe, was widely shared during the discussion,” he added, saying that France was “attentive to the security of Turkey, its territories and its borders.”

US Ambassador Nikki Haley did not attend the meeting in person, a diplomatic source said.

Turkey’s operation “Olive Branch” is sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust militants from the ISIS militant group from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria’s north.

Western capitals fear the campaign against the YPG could shift the focus away from eliminating ISIS after a string of successes in recent months.

“It’s vital to keep the unity of the allies in what remains the number one priority, which is the fight against terrorism and against Daesh in particular,” Delattre stressed, using another term for the ISIS militant group.

“The number one party responsible for the humanitarian tragedy in Syria is the Syrian regime,” he added.

“The number one tragedy happening before our eyes happens in Eastern Ghouta and Idlib.”

“If things continue this way, Eastern Ghouta might be the new Aleppo in terms of humanitarian disaster,” Delattre added.

Turkey considers the YPG a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Russia and the United States have expressed concern about the operation, which Erdogan said Turkey had discussed in advance with Russia and Moscow was in “agreement.”

source: Alarabiya

Environmentalists say a winter storm has pushed a wave of trash onto a Lebanese shore just outside Beirut, stirring outrage over a waste management crisis that has choked the country since 2015.

Zouq Mosbeh’s beach was covered in a mantle of garbage on Tuesday, after an extended storm battered the Mediterranean country.

Paul Abi Rached of the NGO EcoMovement says rough waves last week dislodged a faulty retaining wall around a coastal dump, spilling trash into the sea.

Civil society groups demand officials close the dumps along the coastline, which were reopened in 2015 to absorb the garbage left out in Beirut during a summer-long trash collection crisis.

Sami Gemayel, a member of Lebanon’s parliament, said he will raise a lawsuit in international courts against the government over waste pollution.

source: Alarabiya

A senior al-Qaeda leader has called on Muslims “everywhere” to rise up and kill Jews and Americans in response to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In a video released Monday, Khalid Batarfi said Trump’s decision was “a declaration of a new Jewish-Crusader war” and every Muslim had a duty to “liberate” the holy city, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group reported.

“No Muslim has the right to cede Jerusalem no matter what happens,” said Batarfi, a top commander with the group’s powerful Yemen-based branch. “Only a traitor would give it up or hand it over.”

“Let them (Muslims) rise and attack the Jews and the Americans everywhere,” he said, in the 18-minute video entitled “Our Duty Towards Our Jerusalem”.

Breaking with decades of US policy, Trump on December 6 said his administration would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the city.

On Monday, US Vice President Mike Pence pledged to move the embassy by the end of 2019, in a speech to Israel’s parliament that saw Arab lawmakers expelled after they shouted in protest.

Jerusalem is the third holiest city for Muslims, and the first holy city for Jews.

The US decision to recognize Jerusalem triggered protests across the Muslim world, and was also criticized by several US allies.

In the video, Batarfi dismissed US allies’ protests as not genuine and “nothing but dust thrown in the eyes”.

“The greatest responsibility lies upon the Muslims in America and the Western countries in the world,” he said.

“The Muslims inside the occupied land must kill every Jew, by running him over, or stabbing him, or by using against him any weapon, or by burning their homes.”

Batarfi is a senior figure with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), described by the US as the worldwide jihadist network’s most dangerous branch.

The group has abducted foreigners and claimed responsibility for the deadly 2015 attack in Paris on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, targeted for its cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The United States has intensified its air attacks on AQAP since Trump took office in January.

source: Alarabiya

The Egyptian army announced in a statement that former military chief of staff and presidential candidate Sami Anan has been summoned over ‘violations’.

They added that Anan allegedly forged his end of army service document therefore his decision to run in the elections amounts to incitement against the military. They did not give any further details on the kind of violations he committed.

Egyptian Election Commission excluded ex-military Chief Sami Anan from candidates’ presidential list for sustaining his military status.

The army linked Anan to the Muslim brotherhood as a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader has written an open letter to the retired Egyptian army general seeking to run for president, listing the outlawed group’s conditions for supporting his candidacy against Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi.

Sisi is known to have also been a general-turned-president.

The letter by Muslim Brotherhood leader, Youssef Nada, posted on his Facebook account Monday, has provided media loyal to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi with additional ammunition to link the would-be candidate, former chief of staff Sami Annan, to the banned Brotherhood.

Anan's Arabism Egypt party and the campaign
The former secretary of the policies committee in Anan’s Arabism Egypt Party, Ragab Helal Hemeda, claimed in a press conference on Tuesday that the presidential hopeful is allegedly using Muslim Brotherhood figures to push his nomination.

Hemeda announced his resignation at the conference and his support for Sisi, saying that he has the character of a real leader.

Annan’s campaign is in the process of collecting 25,000 signatures, or "recommendations," from voters so that he could meet a constitutional requirement to run. Alternatively, any would-be candidate must secure the support of at least 20 elected members or parliament, a 596-seat chamber packed with supporters of el-Sisi.

The retired general must also secure the approval of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, of which he was once a member, before he can proceed with his candidacy.

What are Anan's chances of winning?
The president’s triumph in the March 26-28 election is widely believed to be beyond doubt, but Annan could still be in with an outside chance given the widespread discontent among the majority of poor and middle-class Egyptians struggling harder than at any time in living memory to make ends meet as a result of el-Sisi’s ambitious economic reforms, which sent prices and services soaring.

Authorities have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 and have since accused it of taking up arms against the government. Under el-Sisi, links to the Brotherhood are sufficient grounds for prosecution.

As defense minister, el-Sisi led the military’s 2013 ouster of former president Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and Brotherhood stalwart who became Egypt’s first freely elected leader in 2012. Ironically, Morsi, in jail since 2013, removed Annan and his boss, military chief Mohammed Tantawi in August 2012, replacing the latter with el-Sisi.

After removing Morsi, el-Sisi oversaw a massive crackdown against the Brotherhood and its supporters, jailing thousands of them and orchestrating the decimation of the nearly 90-year-old group.

Among the conditions Nada, who lives in exile in London, set for supporting Annan’s candidacy was the reinstatement of Morsi who, according to him, would then step down "in the interest of the nation." He also cited the "purging" of the police and judiciary and the release of political detainees.

Annan’s spokesman, Hazem Hosny, sought to distance the general from the Brotherhood, telling a television interviewer Monday night that the campaign rejects Nada’s conditions, but insisted that Islamists are an integral part of Egyptian society who should be included in the political process.

"We have Islamists (in Egypt), do we throw them in the sea or take them into the bosom of the nation?" he said.

Another hopeful besides Annan is rights lawyer Khaled Ali, an icon of the 2011 uprising who was convicted in September of making an obscene finger gesture in public. He denies the charge, but he would not be eligible to run if his conviction is upheld on appeal.

source: Alarabiya

Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies pressed an assault on a border enclave held by Kurdish militia on Tuesday but the fighting was more narrowly focused, a monitor said.

Turkish warplanes carried out new strikes on the northwest of the Afrin enclave and also hit the outskirts of the mainly Kurdish-held city of Qamishli far to the east, wounding two children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“The fighting is fierce but the focus is much narrower than yesterday (Monday),” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that it was mainly concentrated in the north and the southwest of the enclave.

In the northeast of Afrin, pro-Ankara rebels entered the village of Qastal Jando, the Observatory said.

In the same area, Turkish forces and their allies had briefly captured a strategic hill on Monday but it was retaken by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the evening.

Barsaya Hill overlooks both the Syrian town of Azaz, which is held by pro-Ankara rebels, and the Turkish town of Kilis just across the border.

Ankara sees the YPG as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

After months of threats, on Saturday Turkey announced the launch of Operation Olive Branch, an air and ground assault aimed at dislodging the YPG from Afrin. On Sunday its troops crossed the border.

But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust the Islamic State group from its strongholds in Syria and the Kurdish militia now holds much of the north.

source: Alarabiya

A military official in the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday its forces had instructions not to escalate an ongoing diplomatic crisis with Qatar.

UAE military aircrafts would also fly alternative routes over Saudi Arabia to avoid the possibility of interception by Qatari warplanes, air force brigadier general Helal Saeed al-Qubaisi told reporters at a news conference in the capital Abu Dhabi.

The UAE said on Monday that Qatari warplanes had twice intercepted its civilian aircraft during routine flights to Bahrain, but Qatar called the claim “completely untrue”.

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the four Arab countries combating terrorism and boycotting Qatar; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Bahrain, held a consultative meeting on Monday to discuss their course of action in light of Qatar’s activities.

The Qatari fighter jet intercepted two civil aircrafts en route to Bahrain International Airport while on their regular daily routes.

source: Alarabiya

A military official in the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday its forces had instructions not to escalate an ongoing diplomatic crisis with Qatar.

UAE military aircrafts would also fly alternative routes over Saudi Arabia to avoid the possibility of interception by Qatari warplanes, air force brigadier general Helal Saeed al-Qubaisi told reporters at a news conference in the capital Abu Dhabi.

The UAE said on Monday that Qatari warplanes had twice intercepted its civilian aircraft during routine flights to Bahrain, but Qatar called the claim “completely untrue”.

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the four Arab countries combating terrorism and boycotting Qatar; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Bahrain, held a consultative meeting on Monday to discuss their course of action in light of Qatar’s activities.

The Qatari fighter jet intercepted two civil aircrafts en route to Bahrain International Airport while on their regular daily routes.

source: Alarabiya

Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, has announced that the average value of foreign direct investment, FDI, received by the country in 2016 reached US$9 billion.

The UAE’s outgoing international investments also reached $15.7 billion, making the country the largest receiver of FDIs in the Arab region and the largest Arab investor abroad, he added.

In his lecture yesterday at the headquarters of the National Defence College in Abu Dhabi, with the attendance of Major General Staff Pilot Rashid Mohamed Salem Al Saadi, Commander of the College, Al Mansouri said that the cumulative balance of incoming FDI at the end of 2016 reached $117.9 billion while the balance of the UAE’s direct investments aboard reached $113.2 billion.

He explained that the country’s business and investment environment is witnessing ongoing developments and current work is being done on issuing a new investment law, with the aim of encouraging and promoting investments and strengthening the appeal of vital economic sectors while focusing on qualitative investments in value-added sectors.

Al Mansouri noted that the law will increase the allowed percentage of foreign ownership of local investment projects, up to 100 percent in certain specified sectors, based on key standards that include a project’s level of integration with the country’s strategic and development plans and the size of invested foreign capital, as well as its potential to realise added value, support the country’s human resources and advance its technological development, and its compliance with the principles of environmental protection and the green economy.

He also praised the key role of the National Defence College in the area of military academic education and elevating the UAE Armed Forces, as well as its contributions to preparing future leaders, through leading and integrated courses that include various specialisations and subjects.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is determined to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people and to help them cope with the economic burdens resulting from the crimes and violations committed by Iranian-backed Houthi militias, reported the Saudi Press Agency, SPA.

According to the agency, the Iranian-backed Houthis are looting the state as they seize government revenues, including those generated from oil and its derivatives. "They acquire this revenue in Yemeni Riyal as they manipulate its exchange rate. They are doing all this to pursue their destructive objectives at the expense of the Yemeni people. Their actions have resulted in a steady devaluation of the currency, which has significantly damaged the lives of Yemenis for several years," it added.

To address the situation, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has issued a directive to transfer a US$2 billion deposit to the Central Bank of Yemen, in continuation of the Kingdom’s support of the Yemeni people. This latest transfer takes the total amount provided by the Kingdom to Yemen's Central Bank to US$3 billion.

SPA went on to say that the monies transferred aim to boost Yemen’s financial and economic situation while bolstering the Yemeni Riyal. "As the value of the Riyal goes up, the living conditions of Yemeni citizens will change for the better," it continued, adding that Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed its support for the Yemeni Government.

The Kingdom will continue to assist Yemen in its efforts to restore security and stability, the agency concluded.

Minister of Defense, Yaacoub Sarraf, started a three-day visit to Iraq, which began with talks with his Iraqi counterpart Irfan Mahmoud Al-Hayali, on boosting bilateral relations, especially on the military levels.

The pair discussed prospects for joint cooperation between Iraq and Lebanon.

At the beginning of the meeting, Sarraf congratulated his Iraqi counterpart on "the victories achieved by the Iraqi armed forces in their war against terrorism."
He stressed that "Iraq fought this war on behalf of the world and the world is proud of the victories achieved by the Iraqi forces."

For his part, the Iraqi defense minister praised the "role of the Lebanese government in support of Iraq in its fight against terrorism," adding that he will visit Lebanon soon in order to strengthen ties and enhance cooperation between the two countries

Source: NNA

Maronite Cardinal Bshara Butros al-Rahi arrived Saturday afternoon in the town of Kfarb'al in the Province of Byblos, starting a parish visit that will include the towns of Annaya, Nabeh Torzaya, Meshmesh and Ehmej, NNA correspondent reported

Source: NNA

Prime Minister Saad Hariri, arrived in Kuwait yesterday evening on an official visit, where he is expected to meet with Kuwaiti Emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, and with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

Discussions will be featuring high on the latest developments in the Arab region, as well as the bilateral between the two countries

Source: NNA

Future bloc on Thursday categorically deprecated the visits by some ministers in the Lebanese government to Syria, saying such visits occurred in their "personal capacity" rather than official.

"Ministers who visited or shall visit Syria do so in their personal capacity, rather than enjoying official authorization," the bloc said on Thursday in a statement issued in the wake of its regular meeting at the Central House, chaired by bloc head, former Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora.

The bloc took up the overall situation in the country.

Future considered ministers' visits to Syria and their meeting with officials of the Syrian regime actually provokes the majority of the Lebanese and constitutes a threat to the regularity of the work of Lebanese constitutional institutions.

On the other hand, the bloc considered that the law passed by the Parliament concerning the repeal of Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code constituted an important achievement for the Lebanese legislation and for the protection of Lebanese women, thus preventing the culprit from escaping impunity.

Moreover, the bloc hailed the recent visit by Prime Minister Saad Hariri to the State of Kuwait and his proclaimed positions, indicating that this visit comes to emphasize adherence to Lebanon's Arab sense of belonging against those who are attempting to sabotage Lebanon's relations with the Arab world

Source: NNA

President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, visited Saturday morning the Command Operations Room in the Defense Ministry in Yarze, where he was welcomed by Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun.

General Aoun briefed the Lebanese President over the conduct of the military operations that the army started at dawn against Daesh in the outskirts of Ras Baalbek and Qaa areas

Source: NNA

Dutch Olympic BMX silver medallist Jelle van Gorkom is out of a coma but faces a long recovery.

The 27-year-old is "making good progress, and is out of acute danger," the Royal Dutch Cycling Union (KNWU) said.

Van Gorkom suffered broken ribs, a facial fracture, a tear in the skull and damage to the liver, spleen and kidneys in January.

He was put in an induced coma after the training accident.

Van Gorkom won silver medals at the 2015 World Championships and the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The KNWU said Van Gorkom was now conscious, reacting to stimuli, making contact and recognising people.

But he remains "fragile" and "it is obvious that he will need a long rehabilitation with no guarantees that he will make a full recovery

Source: AFP

Eurozone finance ministers approved a fresh cash injection for Greece on Monday to put the country on the road to finally leaving its long and painful bailout program later this year.
The 6.7-billion-euro tranche is the latest from Greece’s third financial rescue package since 2010, when its debt crisis brought the euro close to collapse.
The current program agreed in 2015 runs until August this year, after which the southern European nation hopes to fully return to market financing and get back on its own two feet.
EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said after finance ministers gave the green light to the latest tranche at a meeting in Brussels that 2018 “will be a decisive year for Greece.”
“This will be the year when Greece finally leaves this long period of financial assistance, marked by very hard tests for the Greek people, but which allow Greece to emerge stronger and more resilient,” France’s Moscovici told a news conference.
Portugal’s Mario Centeno, head of the Eurogroup of 19 finance ministers from the single currency, said they would also start technical work on debt relief for Athens, although that still faces opposition from Germany.
Greece’s huge debt pile is equivalent to an unsustainable 180 percent of its annual economic output.
“Looking ahead we can start with the technical work on debt relief measures,” Centeno said, particularly those that linked debt relief to economic growth.
The latest tranche will be split into 5.7 billion euros paid in February and the remaining one billion paid later in the spring once eurozone officials have checked that Greece has carried out all the reforms, the Eurogroup said in a statement.
Centeno, chairing the Eurogroup for the first time after replacing Jeroen Dijssebloem of the Netherlands, said the cash would cover debt servicing, arrears and boosting Greece’s cash reserves, said Centeno.
“This is critical to ensure Greece’s full market access,” he added.
Thousands of people demonstrated in Athens one week ago against the set of around 100 austerity measures imposed by Greece’s creditors, which include a politically-charged curb on industrial action.
The reforms also allow for the foreclosure and auction of properties owned by bankrupted borrowers. Both measures were fiercely opposed by leftists and trade unions.
The Greek government insists that the changes are limited, and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rejected criticism “as a shameless lie” that his left-wing administration was out to make strikes illegal.
Debt-laden Greece has received three multi-billion-euro bailouts since 2010.
The current rescue program — a package worth 86 billion euros agreed after months of talks that almost saw Greece crash out of the euro — is financially supported by eurozone states but not the International Monetary Fund.

Source: AFP

Catalonia's sacked president Carles Puigdemont on Monday, January 22, repeated accusations that the European Union is failing to defend fundamental rights in the wealthy Spanish region.

During his first foreign visit since leaving Spain to live in voluntary exile in Brussels on 30 October, Puigdemont told students at the University of Copenhagen the EU showed "failures" in the face of crises both inside and outside its borders.

"The EU has been a success in promoting freedom, democracy, prosperity and welfare on our continent," he said. "However, we're all aware of each failure every time there is a crisis.

"We saw it in Greece, we saw it in Ukraine, we saw it with the refugees and now we see it with the failure to defend the fundamental rights in Catalonia," he added.

Charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, Puigdemont faces arrest if he returns to Spain over his role in the independence drive.

Catalonia's parliament on Monday proposed Puigdemont as president of the region following a snap election in December in which separatist parties once again won an absolute majority.

According to the former leader "Catalan citizens see great concerns on some developments happening around EU institutions".

"We are of course pro-Europeans but we cannot close our eyes for each failure, we want more integration but only if it leads to more democracy and a uniformed application of the EU law in all member states."

Source: AFP

To the cheers of a crowd fired by his promise to bring them jobs and prosperity, former football star George Weah was sworn in as president of Liberia on Monday, completing the country's first transition between democratically-elected leaders in three generations.

Weah, 51, takes over from Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who over 12 years steered the country away from the trauma of a civil war but failed to ease dire poverty.

"I have spent many years of my life in stadiums, but today is a feeling like no other," Weah said, as he thanked Sirleaf for "laying the foundations on which we can now stand in peace."

Weah played for a string of top-flight European teams in the 1990s and was crowned the world's best player by FIFA and won the coveted Ballon d'Or prize, the only African to have achieved this.

Dressed in a white tunic and green sash, he was sworn in at a packed stadium near the capital, Monrovia.

The presidents of several west African nations, along with friends and fellow African football stars including Cameroonian legend Samuel Eto'o, watched as he took the historic oath of office on a bible held by his wife, Clar.

His first priorities, he said, would be to launch a national debate on the fair sharing of resources and root out graft in public institutions.

"Together we owe our citizens clarity on fundamental issues such as the land beneath their feet, freedom of speech and how national resources and responsibilities are going to be shared," he said.

"It is time to be honest with our people. Though corruption is a habit among our people, we must end it," said Weah, declaring he had an "overwhelming mandate" to do so.

But he urged the public to pull together for the tasks that lay ahead, with the wounds of the past only now beginning to heal.

"United, we are certain to succeed as a nation, divided we are certain to fall," he declared.

"We have arrived here on the blood, sweat and tears and suffering of so many of our citizens, too many of whom died long before real equality," he noted, referring to the quarter of a million people killed in Liberia's 1989-2003 civil war.

Weah's election is a watershed moment for the country's poor, many of whom view his ascent from Monrovia's slums to the nation's highest office with a feeling close to reverence.

"He came from nowhere but today he became a president. It means a lot for me and I'm so happy to witness this in my own country," said Suah Collins, selling drinks at the stadium.

- Under pressure -

After losing his first run at the presidency to Sirleaf in 2005, Weah has spent a dozen years attempting to gain political credibility to match his popularity, becoming a senator in 2014.

He now begins his task with severe restraints on spending and outsized expectations from the population, as well as a depressed market for the country's main exports of rubber and iron ore.

More than 60 percent of its 4.6-million citizens are under 25, and many voted for Weah in the belief he would quickly boost employment. Liberia ranks 177th on the 188 countries in the UN's Human Development Index.

Sirleaf's last act in office was to sign into law the abolition of female genital mutilation and stronger protection for survivors of domestic abuse -- her final legacy to Liberian women enduring endemic levels of abuse and rape.

The last time Liberia had a transition of power by democratically-elected leaders was in 1944, when William Tubman was elected.

He died in office in 1971. Since then, no living president has handed power to another after a democratic vote.

Weah has had less than a month to prepare for government, rather than the three months initially scheduled, after a legal challenge delayed his election.

Analysts, while hailing Liberia's democratic feat, were also mindful of the rocky road ahead, not least the likely resistance to reform by the Liberia's establishment.

"He will need to manage expectations carefully: this window of optimism will be short," Elizabeth Donnelly, a research fellow at the London think tank, Chatham House, told AFP.

"Weah has already stated that he will seek more investment into the private sector -- he understands that Liberia has a large youth population, whose expectations and needs he must satisfy.

"The new president is talking about giving Liberian businesses to Liberians ... If the president can make that dream a reality he will fully get the hearts of all Liberians. Let us hope that this is not just a political statement," said Moses Kahn, a Liberian political analyst.

Western and Asian firms predominate in Liberia's commodities sector, while Lebanese and Indian migrants are influential in retail and services.

Source: AFP

The UN Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed will step down as top negotiator for the war-stricken country next month, the international body announced on Monday.

A statement released by the United Nations did not name a successor for Cheikh Ahmed, who was appointed special envoy for Yemen in April 2015.

Cheikh Ahmed "does not intend to continue in his position beyond the end of his current contract ending in February 2018", the statement said.

"The special envoy remains committed to pursue through diplomacy an end to the violence and a political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Yemeni people, until a successor is named."

In nearly three years as Yemen envoy, Cheikh Ahmed oversaw multiple rounds of UN-brokered negotiations between warring parties in Yemen -- all of which failed to yield a detente in the violence that has claimed more than 9,200 lives since 2015.

In May 2017, his convoy came under fire in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the country's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

The Huthis never claimed the attack and have accused Cheikh Ahmed, and the UN, of bias towards Yemen's Saudi-backed government.

In March 2015, shortly before Cheikh Ahmed's appointment, Saudi Arabia and its military allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the rebels, who control the capital, much of northern Yemen and a string of Red Sea ports.

While both parties in the war stand accused of human rights violations, the Saudi-led military camp in particular has drawn criticism from the UN for civilian deaths as well as a crippling blockade on rebel-held ports and the country's international airport.

The UN has described Yemen as the world's largest humanitarian disaster, calling for $2.96 billion to combat imminent famine as well as cholera and diphtheria outbreaks in 2018.

Source: AFP

Colin Munro ensured New Zealand continued a stellar home summer on Monday when they thrashed Pakistan by seven wickets with 25 balls to spare in the opening Twenty20 match in Wellington.

Munro was left unbeaten on 49 when a wide by Hasan Ali in the 16th over gave New Zealand victory as they chased down Pakistan's 105 in the clash of the world's top two ranked Twenty20 sides.

It extended New Zealand's winning streak to 13 across all three formats in the past two months including five one-dayers against Pakistan and a series of Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s against the West Indies.

For Tim Southee, the stand-in captain after a late decision to rest Kane Williamson who has a minor injury, everything went according to plan.

"Obviously winning the toss on that wicket and then coming out and taking early wickets was the plan and we were able to do that. We bowled exceptionally well," said Southee who also paid tribute to Munro's role with the bat.

"It was a great knock from Colin. He likes to get on with it and I think he played a mature innings and was able to hammer it home towards the end."

Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed again had to defend a woeful performance by his top order batsmen, which also plagued them in the ODI series, and believed they were well short of a competitive total.

"We're not batting well enough up the order. The new ball was swinging and bouncing, we didn't keep wickets in hand. They bowled very well with the new ball," he said.

"If we had a score of 140-150 it could have been a good match."

After a wobbly start in which Martin Guptill went for two and Glenn Phillips was bowled for three, Munro and Tom Bruce (26) set up the New Zealand victory with a 49-run stand for the third wicket.

After cautiously lifting the score to 34 for two after eight overs, they took 23 off the next 12 balls to reduce the target to under six an over and they coasted from there.

Following Bruce's dismissal, Ross Taylor partnered Munro through to the end with a rapid 22 off 13 deliveries.

Munro's 43-ball innings included three fours and two sixes and he was left a frustrating one-run short of being only the third player behind Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle to score four consecutive half centuries in Twenty20 cricket.

Pakistan were in immediate trouble after being sent into bat and were four for 22 in the sixth over as Southee led a dismantling of the Pakistan top order.

By the 15th over, Pakistan were seven for 53 and in danger of falling short of their current lowest score of 74 against Australia six years ago, when Babar Khan (41) and Hasan Ali (23) boosted the total with a 30-run partnership.

Southee finished with the best New Zealand figures of three for 13 while Seth Rance took three for 26

Source: AFP

A Vietnamese former state oil executive who was allegedly kidnapped from Germany was jailed for life on Monday for embezzlement, in the highest-profile corruption trial to target the communist country's business and political elite.

The case -- also involving 21 other officials, including a former party politburo member -- has captivated a country where the affairs of the powerful are normally kept secret and the downfall of senior politicians rarely happens in public.

Vietnam has mirrored China in its massive corruption purge, but critics say the campaign is as much about targeting political foes as it is about tackling graft in one of Southeast Asia's most corrupt nations.

The life sentence for Trinh Xuan Thanh, the former head of PetroVietnam Construction (PVC), capped a dramatic two-week trial -- closed to international media -- that included a tearful apology from the 51-year-old.

Thanh was sentenced to "14 years for mismanagement and life in prison for embezzlement", according to state-run VNExpress news site.

The jury said "no one at PVC dared use money for wrong purposes" without Thanh's direction, the report said.

The embezzlement charges carry a maximum sentence of death but prosecutors recommended life instead.

He faces a separate trial for embezzlement Wednesday that could see him put to death.

Former politburo member Dinh La Thang, who once chaired the board of PetroVietnam, was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while the remaining defendants got punishments ranging between 22 years in jail and a 30-month suspended sentence.

They are accused of causing $5.2 million in losses for the state during an investment by PetroVietnam into a thermal power plant.

Public opinion on the prison terms remained divided on social media Monday, though some were swift to decry the punishments as too light.

"These were sentences for street thieves," wrote Facebook user Huan Pham after the verdict was announced.

- China echoes -

Thanh's case has gripped the Vietnamese public since 2016 when he was spotted driving a flashy Lexus with government licence plates -- prompting corruption rumours about the official, who swiftly fled to Germany.

He was next heard of in August 2017 when German officials said he was plucked from a central Berlin park by Vietnamese security agents, in a Cold-War style episode that Germany described as a "scandalous violation" of its sovereignty.

Hanoi has denied he was kidnapped, insisting he returned voluntarily to Vietnam, where he appeared on state television and confessed to his crimes in a broadcast that some suspect he may have been pressured into.

Germany said after Monday's verdict it was "too early to evaluate the trial" pending further proceedings this week and possible appeals, but "took note" of the fact that he was spared the death penalty, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr.

Thanh will return to court for a fresh trial on Wednesday on embezzlement charges after he was accused of pocketing $620,000 of state funds.

The charges carry the death penalty.

Thanh's German lawyer, Petra Schlagenhauf -- who was denied entry to Vietnam before the start of the trial -- called on Berlin to keep pushing for his release and return to Germany, and said the trial did not conform with the rule of law.

It was the highest-profile corruption case in the one-party state, which has long vowed to tackle graft but rarely targets senior officials.

According to Transparency International, Vietnam ranks 113th out of 176 on its corruption perception index, worse than its Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and the Philippines.

Scores of bankers, former officials and businessmen have been jailed as part of Vietnam's purge, including a senior banker sentenced to death for fraud last year.

Critics say the corruption purge is fuelled by political infighting and is led by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, characterised as a conservative hardliner.

Observers say the campaign is similar to the anti-corruption purge in China, led by President Xi Jinping.

"It's a good way to keep political opponents on their toes," Vietnam expert Jonathan London told AFP, adding it echoes Xi's corruption purge of "real, perceived and potential opponents".

London said Thanh's conviction may be the "most spectacular" but he expects the anti-graft drive to continue.

Source: AFP

The United States has ordered more stringent inspections of air cargo from five Middle East countries, citing a June 2017 attempt in Australia to bring down a plane as evidence that extremist groups continue to target civilian aviation.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday it had ordered seven airports in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to provide advance data on US-bound air cargo to US Customs and Border Protection for vetting before the cargo is loaded.

The agency did not cite any new specific threat for the move.

"The persistent threat to aviation calls for the world to raise the baseline on global aviation security across the spectrum," it said.

"These countries were chosen because of a demonstrated intent by terrorist groups to attack aviation from them."

TSA also pointed to Australian security officials' foiling of an advanced plot by three men with ties to the Islamic State group last June to bring down an aircraft with an improvised explosive device.

"The incident in Australia that occurred this past summer was an ominous reminder for TSA and all of our aviation partners, to include cargo carriers, that we need to continue our efforts to keep our skies secure," TSA said.

Last year US counterterrorism chief Nick Rasmussen said the Australia plot "shows that terrorists are aware of security procedures. They watch what we do and they try to learn from it."

Source: AFP

The United States sternly criticized Russia's failure to rein in its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad on Monday after reports of a new regime chemical weapons strike.

Rights monitors say 21 people, including children, suffered breathing difficulties Monday after an alleged chemical attack on a besieged rebel enclave outside Damascus.

Washington is not yet in a position to confirm the latest report, but officials noted that Russia has hamstrung UN efforts to probe previous allegations of regime atrocities.

"Civilians are being killed and it is not acceptable," Steve Goldstein, US under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, told reporters in Washington.

Asked whether the United States would raise the issue at the UN Security Council, Goldstein said: "We'll see tomorrow."

"Russia had failed to rid Syria of chemical weapons, and they've been blocking chemical weapons organizations. Enough is enough," he warned.

The United States has urged Russia to compel Assad to take a United Nations-brokered peace process in Geneva and Vienna seriously and come to the table.

But Moscow -- along with Iran and Turkey -- has been running a parallel peace initiative under its own auspices out of Astana and Sochi, and the eight-year-old civil war continues.

In 2013 the previous US administration, under president Barack Obama, balked at striking Syria over its alleged chemical arms use, choosing to work with Moscow on a disarmament plan.

Obama's successor in the White House, President Donald Trump, launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian airbase in April 2017 in response to an alleged chemical attack.

But US military action in Syria has otherwise been focused on defeating the Islamic State jihadist groups -- and thus-far ineffective diplomatic efforts to end the civil war.

Source: AFP

Turkey gave Washington advance warning before launching an operation against US-allied Syrian Kurdish forces, and Ankara has "legitimate" security concerns in the area, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday.

"Turkey was candid. They warned us before they launched the aircraft they were going to do it in consultation with us, and we are working now on the way ahead through the ministry of foreign affairs," Mattis told reporters aboard his aircraft at the start of a trip to Asia.

Turkey "is the only NATO country with an active insurgency inside its borders, and Turkey has legitimate security concerns," Mattis said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a separatist struggle against Ankara since 1984.

Turkey launched "Operation Olive Branch," an offensive by Ankara's troops and allied Syrian rebels against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the town of Afrin.

The YPG has been a key US ally in the war against the Islamic State group, helping to drive the group's jihadist fighters from swaths of Syrian territory, including its stronghold Raqa.

But Ankara considers YPG fighters to be "terrorists" linked to the PKK.

- Call for 'restraint' -

Turkey on Sunday ruled out the risk of an inadvertent clash with American forces in its operation in Syria, saying there were no US troops in the area where the campaign was taking place.

"US officials declared that there has been no American military or American soldiers in the region," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters in Istanbul.

The US State Department, while also referring to the "legitimate security concerns of Turkey," issued a call for Ankara to proceed carefully.

"We urge Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration and scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

"We call on all parties to remain focused on the central goal of defeating" IS, Nauert said.

A Britain-based monitoring group and a YPG spokesman both said that Turkish air raids on Sunday killed eight civilians in northern Syria.

A day earlier, the YPG's Birusk Hasakeh told AFP that a Turkish bombardment had killed 10 people, including seven civilians.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday that claims of civilian casualties from the offensive were untrue.

Source: AFP

The Philippines said Monday it would deport an elderly Iraqi man described as a scientist for Hamas and accused of helping the Palestinian militant group lob missiles at Israel.

Iraq tipped off the Philippines about the presence of Taja Mohammad Al Jabori, who was arrested on Sunday, national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa told reporters.

However, the arrest was due to visa problems rather than any evidence of militant activity, the police chief emphasised.

"He's an illegal alien, his visa is expired so he has to be deported right away," Dela Rosa said.

"He admitted being a member of Hamas. He's a chemist and he has been responsible for improving the rocket technology of Hamas in firing their missiles from their area towards the other side, for Israel."

The suspect will be deported to Iraq.

The police chief said it was the first time Philippine authorities had dealt with an alleged member of Hamas, a group labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

The Islamist movement does not recognise Israel, with which it has fought three wars, and has vied with the rival Fatah movement for control of Palestinian territory.

The handcuffed detainee did not speak while being made to stand beside the Philippine police chief at a press conference.

Dela Rosa said it was unclear at present why the alleged Hamas chemist had travelled to the Philippines.

Police said he arrived last year as Philippine troops battled militants loyal to the Islamic State group for control of the southern city of Marawi.

Al Jabori had however mostly stayed in Manila and nearby provinces and told police he had no intention of committing any terror act in the Philippines, the police chief said.

Source: AFP

Catalonia's sacked president Carles Puigdemont on Monday repeated accusations that the European Union is failing to defend fundamental rights in the wealthy Spanish region.

During his first foreign visit since leaving Spain to live in voluntary exile in Brussels on 30 October, Puigdemont told students at the University of Copenhagen the EU showed "failures" in the face of crises both inside and outside its borders.

"The EU has been a success in promoting freedom, democracy, prosperity and welfare on our continent," he said. "However, we're all aware of each failure every time there is a crisis.

"We saw it in Greece, we saw it in Ukraine, we saw it with the refugees and now we see it with the failure to defend the fundamental rights in Catalonia," he added.

Charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, Puigdemont faces arrest if he returns to Spain over his role in the independence drive.

Catalonia's parliament on Monday proposed Puigdemont as president of the region following a snap election in December in which separatist parties once again won an absolute majority.

According to the former leader "Catalan citizens see great concerns on some developments happening around EU institutions".

"We are of course pro-Europeans but we cannot close our eyes for each failure, we want more integration but only if it leads to more democracy and a uniformed application of the EU law in all member states."

source: AFP

Indian state governments made a last-ditch attempt Monday to ban a Bollywood film about a mythical Hindu queen which has sparked violent protests by radical groups.

The Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments asked India's top court to retract a ruling ordering states to show the film "Padmaavat", which is due to hit screens on Thursday.

The urgent petitions, which the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday, were lodged a day after Hindu extremists set fire to buses and blocked roads in Gujarat state.

In Rajasthan state, women carrying swords marched in Chittorgarh against the movie. In Noida, near the capital New Delhi, activists burned toll booths on a major highway after a rally.

Protesters claim the film falsely depicts a romance between 14th century Hindu queen Padmavati and Muslim ruler Alauddin Khilji. The producers deny this and insist the movie portrays her respectfully.

The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a ban on the release of the film which had been imposed by several states, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, saying it violated creative freedoms.

The states have asked the court instead to rule that individual state governments should be allowed to block the release on law and order grounds.

A caste-based group called the Rajput Karni Sena, which has been leading the violent protests, has threatened to attack cinemas showing the film, including with swords.

Its leaders claim that hundreds of women are ready to perform a mass self-immolation if the movie showing goes ahead.

In January last year members attacked the film's director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and vandalised the set during filming in Rajasthan.

The leader of the group also offered 50 million rupees ($769,000) to anyone who "beheaded" lead actress Deepika Padukone or Bhansali.

Protesters attacked another set near Mumbai in March, burning costumes and other props.

The movie stars Shahid Kapoor as Maharawal Ratan Singh, the husband of Padmavati, and Ranveer Singh as Khilji who leads an invasion to try to capture the queen.

Protesters maintain it distorts history, even though experts say the queen is a mythical character.

Earlier this month the film censor board cleared "Padmaavat" for release subject to five changes.

Source: AFP

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a speech at Stanford University on Wednesday that U.S. troops in Syria—thought to currently number around 2,000—would be remaining there indefinitely, even after all of ISIS’s territory has been retaken. What exactly those troops will be doing is unclear—other than finding themselves in the middle of a new and unpredictable phase of the Syrian conflict, where it’s getting harder to figure out just what side the United States is on, or what the sides even are.

The latest round of controversy started last weekend when the U.S.-led military coalition announced that, with operations against ISIS winding down, its troops would be working to create a 30,000-strong border security force made up mostly of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which the U.S. had backed to fight ISIS. The SDF is made up primarily of fighters from YPG, a Kurdish militia that aims to set up an autonomous region in northeast Syria along the Turkish border. The new force, as the New York Times reported on Tuesday, has the potential to cement the Kurds’ autonomous status.

 But wait! The YPG is closely allied with the PKK, a Kurdish guerilla group that has been fighting the Turkish government for decades and is widely considered a terrorist organization, including by the U.S. The YPG claims it is independent from the PKK, though it is openly devoted to promoting the teachings of the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Unlike their Kurdish counterparts in Iraq, Syrian Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full independence, just more regional autonomy—a Syrian Kurdish official I spoke with in Iraq in 2016 compared their vision to the federal structure of the U.S. or Canada, meaning they’d be like a state within Syria rather than an independent country. This has done little to reassure their neighbors

The idea of a YPG-affiliated force patrolling the border is strongly opposed by the governments of Syria, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. The U.S. probably couldn’t care less about how the first three feel, but Turkey—a NATO ally—is more of a problem. U.S. support for what Ankara considers a terrorist organization has been a sticking point in the deteriorating U.S.–Turkey relationship for awhile now. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was predictably furious in response to the latest news, accusing the U.S. of forming a “terror army” on the Turkish border and vowing to “strangle it before it’s even born.” Turkey also built up its military forces on the border and vowed to send troops into Syria’s Afrin area unless the U.S. withdrew its support for the SDF.

This prompted U.S. officials to backtrack, with Tillerson saying that the new force had been “misportrayed, misdescribed” and was not a border force at all. The Pentagon announced that the force would be focused on preventing the return of ISIS and providing security to liberated areas, and described Turkey’s concerns as “legitimate.”

Then came Tillerson’s Stanford speech, where he muddied the waters even more by, as the Washington Post reports, listing goals for the remaining U.S. troops including “vanquishing al-Qaeda, ousting Iran and securing a peace settlement that excludes President Bashar al-Assad.” The last goal is a far cry from Trump’s campaign argument that the U.S. should ignore or even partner with Assad to focus on ISIS.

“The United States believes that free and transparent elections … will result in the permanent departure of Assad and his family from power,” Tillerson said at Stanford. “Assad’s regime is corrupt, and his methods of governance and economic development have increasingly excluded certain ethnic and religious groups. Such oppression cannot persist forever.”

The hypothetical democratic election that will remove Assad from power has been part of U.S. officials’ boilerplate for a while now, but stating it as part of the goal of U.S. troops is new, even if it’s very unclear how 2,000 troops based in Kurdish-controlled areas far from Damascus will actually provide any leverage over Assad.

At the same time, the Assad regime stated today that it would consider any Turkish military incursion into Syria (presumably to curb the SDF) an act of aggression and was willing to shoot down Turkish jets.

Russia, meanwhile, is still hoping to host peace talks in Sochi later this month, but Turkey–Kurd tensions are, shall we say, making that difficult. (Turkey has vowed to pull out if the Kurds are invited.) Adding to the mutual suspicion, a Russian airbase in Syria was mysteriously attacked by mortar fire and a swarm of drones earlier this month, and Turkish-backed groups are thought to have been involved. The U.S. and European powers are not that happy about the Sochi talks either, given that Russia is not exactly a neutral arbiter, and the parallel process could undermine the ongoing U.N.-led talks in Geneva.

So, with all this going on, what are these American troops doing? Protecting the territorial gains of Kurdish revolutionaries from Turkey and Assad? Pressuring Assad to step down? Countering Iranian influence? Just making sure ISIS doesn’t come back? Nobody really knows, but based on how this war has gone so far, their ultimate role could very well be something entirely unexpected and not at all helpful.

Source: AFP

US federal workers prepared to return to work Tuesday after Congress ended a three-day government shutdown, with President Donald Trump claiming victory in his standoff with Democrats.

The House voted 266 to 150 to extend federal funding for another three weeks, hours after Senate Democrats dropped their opposition to the plan after winning Republican assurances of a vote on immigration in the coming weeks.

Trump signed the measure into law Monday night and government operations were essentially to return to normal on Tuesday.

"I know there's great relief that this episode is coming to an end," House Speaker Paul Ryan told colleagues. "But this is not a moment to pat ourselves on the back. Not even close."

The stalemate consumed Washington for the better part of a week, as lawmakers and the White House feuded over immigration policy and the nation's two main political parties exchanged bitter barbs before finally reaching a deal.

The shutdown began at midnight Friday and thus affected only one regular workday -- Monday -- but it made both parties look bad. If it had continued, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would have been furloughed.

Democrats decided to end the shutdown after making progress with ruling Republicans toward securing the fate of hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" brought to America as children, many of them illegally. They had been protected from deportation under an Obama-era program known as DACA, which Trumps wants to end.

With Democratic support, a bill keeping the government funded until February 8 easily passed the Senate, where different versions of the funding had languished for days.

Word of the compromise deal struck in Washington sent US stocks surging to new highs.

Earlier, the White House appeared in no mood for bipartisanship or magnanimity after a shutdown that overshadowed Trump's first anniversary in office.

Trump moved to undercut Democrats, saying he would only accept a comprehensive immigration reform -- one that notably addresses his demands for a border wall with Mexico as well as the fate of the "Dreamers."

"We will make a long-term deal on immigration if, and only if, it is good for our country," he said in a statement.

And in a tweet late Monday, he again cried victory over the Democrats.

"Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown," he wrote on Twitter.

Trump added: "Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA, but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!"

In a sign of the poisoned politics of Washington, when top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer announced his party would vote with Republicans to end the shutdown he also pilloried Trump.

"The White House refused to engage in negotiations over the weekend. The great deal-making president sat on the sidelines," Schumer said.

Trump spent the weekend stewing at the White House when he had planned to be among friends and family at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida for his anniversary bash.

And with the fundamental row on immigration and funding of Trump's border wall unresolved, Republicans and Democrats may very well find themselves back in a similar stalemate come February 9.

- High-profile holdouts -

Schumer told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he expected Republicans to make good on a pledge to address Democrats' concerns over the Deferred Action on Child Arrivals (DACA) program. This shields immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation but expires on March 5.

There are an estimated 700,000 "Dreamers" whose fates are up in the air.

"If he does not, of course, and I expect he will, he will have breached the trust of not only the Democratic senators but members of his own party as well," Schumer said.

Trump has staked his political fortunes on taking a hard line on immigrants, painting them as criminals and scroungers.

Senator Tim Kaine summed up the view of the more optimistic Democrats: "We got a commitment that I feel very, very good about."

But if no progress is made on an immigration bill, Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution warned, "Democrats still have the ability to potentially force another shutdown over the issue."

The House is under no obligation to pass any Senate bill generated as a result of McConnell's pledge to cooperate with Democrats -- although Speaker Ryan did say his chamber needs to "move forward in good faith" on DACA and immigration.

Notably, many of the Senate Democrats who voted against the funding agreement included a litany of potential 2020 presidential candidates, including Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren.

- Dealmaker on sidelines -

Ahead of the deal, Trump had goaded Democrats from the sidelines, accusing them of shutting down the government to win concessions on immigration, in service of "their far left base."

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. During the last one, in October 2013, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential federal services and the military were operational on Monday.

Source: AFP

Turkish authorities have detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" against Turkey's military operation inside Syria, the interior ministry said on Monday.

The suspects are being held in a nationwide crackdown on those posting social media messages deemed to be supportive of terror groups, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The arrests come after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged national unity over the operation, in which one Turkish soldier was killed on Monday, warning those who respond to calls for protests will have to pay a "heavy price".

Those detained are accused of making propaganda for the Syrian Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militia deemed a terror group by Ankara and the target of Turkey's operation.

The Dogan news agency said investigations had been opened against a total of 57 people. Reports said that arrests took place in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

According to the agency and Human Rights Watch (HRW), 30 people were detained in Diyarbakir over their social media postings.

Among those taken into custody was writer and human rights activist Nurcan Baysal at her house late on Sunday, HRW said in a statement.

Baysal was detained in connection with her tweets calling for peace and condemning Ankara's offensive, the New York-based rights group said late on Monday quoting her lawyer.

Emma Sinclair-Webb of HRW said that "nothing in Baysal's tweets advocates violence", adding that she had long advocated for dialogue to end the decades long conflict between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

"The move against people who took to Twitter shows that Turkey's government is determined to censor critical voices," Sinclair-Webb added.

- Probe into pro-Kurd MPs -

Turkey views the YPG militia as "terrorists" linked to the PKK, which has fought against the Turkish state since 1984 and is designated as a terror group not just by Ankara but also its Western allies.

It is seeking to root out the YPG from its western enclave of Afrin in Syria close to the Turkish border.

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into unverified photos shared on social media claimed to have been taken in Afrin, purportedly showing that the offensive inflicted civilian injuries, TRT state broadcaster reported.

Prosecutors in the eastern Van province launched an investigation into four lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who on social media urged people to take to the streets, TRT added.

Authorities are also probing social media posts of another HDP lawmaker Alican Onlu, according to the broadcaster.

Turkish anti-riot police on Sunday blocked protests in Istanbul and in Diyarbakir against Ankara's military operation inside Syria.

The rallies had been called by the HDP, whose members are facing a series of legal challenges for alleged ties with the PKK.

The Ankara governor on Monday said that while the military operation was underway, demonstrations could not take place in the capital without the governorate's permission.

Turkish authorities have in the last years strongly cracked down on social media posts deemed supportive of "terror", prompting concern from some activists that freedom of expression was being damaged.

Source: AFP

Concerns are growing over an oil slick off China's east coast after an Iranian tanker, the Sanchi, exploded and sank a week ago following a collision at sea.

Here is a look back at the major oil spills around the world in the past five decades:

- Shipwrecks -

- Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain, 1979: The two Greek-registered tankers collide and catch fire off Tobago in the West Indies, spilling an estimated 287,000 tonnes of crude. Thirty sailors die.

- ABT Summer, 1991: Loaded with 260,000 tonnes of crude, the Liberian-registered tanker explodes some 1,300 kilometres (900 miles) off the coast of Angola. The ship burns for three days before sinking with its cargo.

- Castillo de Bellver, 1983: The Spanish oil tanker runs aground off Saldanha Bay in South Africa, spilling 250,000 tonnes of oil.

- Amoco Cadiz, 1978: 227,000 tonnes of oil wash up on 400 kilometres of French coastline when the Liberian-registered supertanker sinks off Brittany.

- Haven, 1991: The Cypriot oil tanker sinks off Italy's Gulf of Genoa after fires destroy most of its 144,000-tonne cargo. The remainder of the oil forms a slick polluting Italy's Liguria coast and Provence in France.

- The Odyssey, 1988: The British ship carrying 132,000 tonnes of oil sinks with its 27-member crew in the Atlantic, 1,300 kilometres from the Canadian coast.

- Torrey Canyon, 1967: 121,000 tonnes of oil pollute the coast off England and France after the grounding of the Liberian-registered supertanker.

Other oil tanker shipwrecks may have involved less oil but still caused major environmental damage. These include the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, the Sea Empress off Wales in 1996, the Erika in France in 1999 and the Prestige in Spain 2002.

- Oil rig spills -

- Gulf of Mexico, 1979: Around one million tonnes of oil gush from the Ixtoc-Uno well after an explosion on a rig operated by Mexican state oil company Pemex. Capping the leak takes nine months.

- Gulf War, 1991: Around one million tonnes is estimated to have spilled when Iraqi forces set fire to Kuwaiti oil wells. Hundreds of kilometres of coastline are polluted.

- United States, 2010: The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, leaves 11 dead and leads to the spillage of more than 600,000 tonnes of oil.

Sources: AFP, France-based accidental water pollution expert group Cedre, International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF)

Source: AFP

The repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled violence in Myanmar will not begin as planned, Bangladesh said Monday, with authorities admitting "a lot of preparation" was still needed.

Bangladesh had been due to start the huge process on January 23, after agreeing a two-year timeframe with Myanmar.

But Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam announced Monday there was much more work to be done.

"We have not made the preparations required to send back people from tomorrow. A lot of preparation is still needed," Kalam told AFP.

Since August last year around 688,000 Muslim Rohingya have escaped over the border into Bangladesh in the wake of a military-led campaign in Rakhine state that the UN says amounted to "ethnic cleansing".

They poured into ill-equipped and overcrowded camps, bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and torture at the hands of Myanmar's feared army or Buddhist mobs.

After a global outcry, which included loud criticism of Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the two countries agreed earlier this month that the refugees would be returned to Myanmar in a process they said would take around two years.

Rights groups and the UN have said any repatriation must be voluntary. There are reports that many Rohingya settlements have been burned to the ground.

Bangladesh has sought to assure the international community that only those wishing to go back to their homelands in Rakhine would be sent back and that the process would involve the UN's refugee agency.

But on Monday refugee chief Kalam said transit centres still needed to be built, and work remained to be done on the "rigorous process" of approving lists of those entitled -- and willing -- to return to Myanmar.

"Without completing this, we cannot send these people back all of a sudden. This work is ongoing," he said.

He gave no revised start date but said two sites near the border had been identified for possible transit sites.

Bangladesh was "very keen" for the process to begin as soon as possible, he said, but added much work was outstanding on Myanmar's side including housing reconstruction and safety arrangements.

"Neither side is ready for the real movement to begin now," Kalam said.

- Angry protests -

The repatriation deal covers more than 750,000 refugees who have fled since October 2016, but does not include the estimated 200,000 Rohingya who were living in Bangladesh prior to that, driven out by previous rounds of communal violence and military operations.

Refugees have protested at the prospect of return, with many saying they fear the campaign of atrocities is not over in Rakhine.

Local authorities in Cox's Bazar in southeast Bangladesh on Monday stopped hundreds of protesters from marching on one large camp, with an organiser detained by the Bangladesh army, Rohingya leaders told AFP.

In recent days refugees have gathered by the hundreds chanting slogans and holding banners, demanding citizenship and guarantees of security before they return to Rakhine.

"It doesn't matter if it starts tomorrow, in three months or a year later," said 35-year-old Rohingya refugee Nurulla Amin upon learning that repatriation had been delayed.

"What matters is our rights, our demands and if they are actually met."

Five senior Rohingya leaders met UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee in the Cox's Bazar district late Sunday and handed her a list of demands before repatriation would be considered.

"We do not want to go back home because we have not got our rights," community leader Abdur Rahim, who met Lee during her tour of the camps, told AFP.

Tensions have been rising in the overcrowded camps as the deadline for repatriation loomed.

Two Rohingya representatives have been murdered in the past three days, police said Monday, including one described by local media and community leaders as pro-repatriation.

Rohingya militants at the weekend said the repatriation plan would trap the Muslim minority in long-term camps while their ancestral lands are seized.

Most refugees live in squalid camps in Cox's Bazar but an estimated 6,500 are stranded in a so-called no man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Kalam said Myanmar could take back these refugees "as a token of their seriousness" about the agreement, as they were not on Bangladeshi soil and therefore not part of the official repatriation.

Source: AFP

Turkey on Monday intensified its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no stepping back in a campaign that has stoked concern among Ankara's allies and neighbours.

The Turkish military announced the death of its first soldier since the launch of operation "Olive Branch" on Saturday, its second major intervention in Syria's devastating seven-year civil war.

The operation, with Turkish war planes and artillery backing a major ground incursion involving Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and Turkish tanks, aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia from its Afrin enclave.

Civilians in the town of Afrin, 18 kilometres (11 miles) from the front line, stocked up on food and medicine as they readied for a potential onslaught. Shelters were prepared and the internet was only functioning sporadically.

Turkey sees the YPG as a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

"We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.

But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust Islamic State (IS) jihadists from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria's north.

- 'A short operation' -

Turkish state news agency Anadolu said ground forces had already seized 15 villages and other locations during their advance into Syria.

Meanwhile, Turkish artillery fired shells on YPG targets inside Syria and ground troops opened a new front against Afrin from Azaz, further east, state media said.

In Afrin, residents queued at bakeries and cars were on the streets as residents braced themselves for any violence.

"God willing, the war will not last long. We pray for strength and courage for the YPG," Zuheir Hussein, 32, told AFP.

Convenience store owner Ali Sourani said his shop was running low on food and the region was "surrounded".

"We have had our shelters prepared for 10 days to hide during the fighting," he said.

"We have difficulties with the internet which has been down for three days. We cannot communicate with our relatives."

Turkey's military announced its first fatality of the campaign as a soldier was killed in clashes with the YPG southeast of the border town of Gulbaba.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said a total of 22 Syrian civilians have been killed by Turkish strikes and two more by Kurdish fire during the operation.

It said 54 Syrian combatants had been killed, including 19 Ankara-backed rebels, 26 Kurdish fighters and nine unidentified figures.

But Ankara has denied inflicting civilian casualties, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accusing the YPG of sending out "nonsense propaganda and baseless lies".

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahim told AFP in Beirut that Monday's clashes were the fiercest since the start of the offensive.

He said Kurdish forces had recaptured a key hill in the region, briefly seized by pro-Turkish Syrian rebels on Monday.

An AFP correspondent in the Turkish border village of Hassa saw more Turkish tanks heading towards Syria, enthusiastically cheered by locals.

In a sign of the risks to Turkey, rockets fired from Syria on the border town of Reyhanli on Sunday killed a Syrian refugee. One more person was killed in a similar attack Monday on the village of Kirikhan.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group dominated by the YPG, said in a statement that the operation amounted to "clear support" for IS.

Turkey's previous incursion into Syria was the Euphrates Shield campaign in August 2016-March 2017, targeting both the YPG and IS in an area east of Afrin.

Erdogan has warned that those protesting against the operation will pay a "heavy price". Turkish police detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" on social media.

- 'Russian backing' -

As well as a complex military mission, Turkey faces a sensitive diplomatic landscape as it seeks to avoid alienating allies and provoking foes.

Western capitals fear the campaign against the YPG will shift the focus from eliminating IS after a string of successes in recent months.

The UN Security Council discussed Turkey's offensive and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria on Monday but did not condemn or demand an end to the Turkish operation.

"The call for restraint, I believe, was widely shared during the discussion," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said after the closed-door talks in New York.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in London, said he was "concerned" about the offensive, while EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said she would discuss the situation with Turkish officials.

But Erdogan expressed impatience with US demands to set a clear timetable, saying the campaign would be over "when the target is achieved".

"How long have you been in Afghanistan? Is that over in Iraq?" he said, referring to long-running US military presence in those countries.

Erdogan has previously indicated that once control is imposed in Afrin, Turkey wants to head east to defeat the YPG in the town of Manbij.

Meanwhile Russia and Iran -- who have a military presence in Syria and are working with Turkey on a peace process -- have also expressed concern.

Erdogan insisted Turkey had discussed the operation in advance with Russia, and Moscow was in "agreement".

A crucial factor will be whether the operation affects a Syrian peace conference to be held in the Russian resort of Sochi in late January.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Kurdish representatives would be invited, without specifying who, and accused the US of encouraging Syrian Kurdish separatism.

Source: AFP

For three years, jihadists made life in Iraq's Mosul impossible. Now, six months after their defeat, even their corpses are polluting everyone's existence as no one wants to move them.

The rare few who dare to venture into Mosul's historic centre do so with their nose and mouth firmly covered with masks or scarves to keep out the stench.

Amid the rubble-strewn alleys overlooking the River Tigris, unburied human remains are rotting.

They are the bodies of Islamic State group jihadists, residents and the civil defence say, pointing to their Afghan robes, long beards, and sometimes even suicide belts.

Here and there, on a wall or on a road sign, are scribbled the words "Cemetery for the people of Daesh," using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The jihadists seized second city Mosul in July 2014, imposing their rigid interpretation of Islam on inhabitants and dispensing brutal punishments for those who did not obey.

Iraqi forces declared victory against IS in the city in July 2017, after months of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians and caused tens of thousands to flee.

But six months on, the putrefying bodies of jihadists killed in the battle are preventing some residents from returning home.

Othman Ahmad, an unemployed 35-year-old, said he would not go back to living in the Old City with his wife and two children as long as the corpses remained.

- 'Awful smell' -

"We're scared with all these bodies and this awful smell," he told AFP, in an alley not far from his former home, now barely recognisable after the destruction.

Not far off, Abu Shaker, 60, said he was terrified the bodies might lead to "germs and epidemics".

But civil defence teams say it is not their job to remove the corpses of IS fighters.

Their mission, which ended on January 10, was to extract the bodies of civilians from the rubble so their families could bury them.

For months on end, during and after the battle, they retrieved the remains of men, women and children and carried them away in black body bags.

There is no official death toll for civilians killed in the battle for Mosul, but the United Nations and a monitoring group have said hundreds were killed.

Extracting the bodies was gruelling work, as rescue teams could not enter the Old City's narrow alleyways with their vehicles or heavy equipment.

"To dig, we'd use light tools and our bare hands, so getting bodies out took a lot of effort and time," the civil defence's Lieutenant-Colonel Rabie Ibrahim said.

Whenever they were alerted, his colleagues said, civil defence members dashed out to search the ruins, tackling the mounds of broken concrete that now covers the Old City.

To avoid having to bury unidentified bodies, they only searched in the company of relatives able to identify those they had lost.

- 'Before it rains' -

As for the bodies of Iraqi and foreign jihadists, it is the city council's responsibility.

"We have already brought 450 out of the rubble, but there are hundreds more," city council head of services Abdel Sattar al-Habbu said.

Those bodies have been thrown into mass graves, without any rites.

Removing them is slow, he said, because the jihadists stole and destroyed most of their equipment.

And some bodies still carry undetonated explosives that the security forces did not defuse.

But time is pressing, said Hossam Eddine al-Abar, of the Mosul region's provincial council.

"The bodies have to be moved before it rains and the Tigris rises, taking with it the bodies rotting on its banks," he said.

If the river became contaminated, it would be impossible to treat its water as filtering and purifying stations around the city have been destroyed, either by the jihadists or in the battle to retake the city.

A doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, said no case of contaminated water had been reported so far.

But the rotting bodies "pollute the air and water and could soon cause diseases", he said.

Ahmad Ibrahim, a gastroenterologist, said the river's entire ecosystem could soon be contaminated if nothing was done.

"These diseases can develop now, or they can appear in coming years," he said.

Source: AFP

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will seek EU support in Brussels on Monday amid bitter acrimony with the United States, but he looks unlikely to get much the in way of concrete commitments.

In an interview with AFP on Sunday in Brussels, Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki said Abbas would urge the European Union to officially recognise the state of Palestine “as a way to respond” to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Abbas, who last week denounced US President Donald Trump’s peace efforts as the “slap of the century”, will also “reiterate his commitment to the peace process” in the Middle East, Malki said in an interview with AFP in Brussels.

The 82-year-old Abbas will meet EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini and the bloc’s 28 foreign ministers on the sidelines of their monthly meeting, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a similar trip last month.

“Since Trump’s decision has altered the rules of the game, he (Abbas) expects the European foreign ministers to come forward and collectively recognise the state of Palestine as a way to respond back to Trump’s decision,” Malki said.

No recognition likely

But diplomats and officials in Brussels say recognition for Palestine is not on the cards on Monday — the EU leaves recognition in the hands of individual members — and the best Abbas can hope for is progress towards an “association agreement” with the bloc.

Some countries, notably France, are understood to be keen to give Abbas something concrete to take away.

But others are more cautious and a senior EU official said for now launching talks on an association remained “something we should aim towards”.

A formal agreement would bring certain obligations the Palestinian Authority would have to fulfill, the senior official said, and currently it “does not have that full sovereign capacity”.

Malki told AFP that while the Palestinian Authority was “very serious” about an association agreement, they also expected to be formally recognised as a state.

“One does not replace the other. Absolutely not,” he said.

Abbas will urge the EU to take on a bigger role in trying to move peace efforts forward, Malki said, declaring American “exclusivity and monopoly” in the process is over and a new “multilateral” framework was needed.

Abbas’s mission to Brussels comes as US Vice President Mike Pence visits Israel during a tour of the Middle East with Arab anger still smouldering over Washington’s declaration on Jerusalem.

“It is an important coincidence. It will give a picture of a balance between the European Union and the United States in the area — Abu Mazen with the Europeans and Pence with the Americans. That is an important image for Abu Mazen,” analyst Jihad Harb, of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, told AFP. Abu Mazen is a common Arabic moniker for Abbas.

The Palestinian leadership, furious over the Jerusalem decision, has said it will not accept the Trump administration as a mediator in peace talks with Israel and wants an internationally-led process.

“The Palestinians are looking to move away from a US-led process to a more a multilateral process and there does appear to be a greater willingness on the EU side to look at such a process,” Hugh Lovatt, Israel Palestine Project Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said.

Mystery US plan

Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has been working for months with a small team to develop a new US proposal to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but no details or even news of progress have emerged.

A senior EU official said Friday the bloc “believes a plan is in the making” but is still in the dark about “the content of this plan or the parameters”.

The meeting will be the first gathering of EU foreign ministers since Trump set a 120-day deadline on January 13 for fixing “disastrous flaws” in the 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

Mogherini, who has been staunch in her defence of the landmark accord, will brief the meeting on the Iran situation but the three EU signatories to the deal — France, Britain and Germany — have not yet said how they plan to respond to Trump’s ultimatum.

Source: AFP

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow rejects any schemes to topple the Syrian regime.

Commenting on developments in Syria, he noted that Russia called for restraint and for respecting Syria’s sovereignty after Turkey launched its military operation in Afrin, north of Syria.

During a press conference with his Yemeni counterpart Abdulmalik Al-Mekhlafi in Russia, Lavrov added that Moscow knows that the US is continuing to provide arms to fighting groups in Syria, both secretly and publicly, adding that it also provided advanced weapons to “Kurdish militia” and it continues to nurture the Kurds’ separatist orientations.

He slammed these practices as a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and added that Washington has great influence in preventing the Kurds from engaging in a serious dialogue with the Assad regime.

“Moscow rejects schemes to topple the Syrian regime,” he also said, adding that the Kurds are invited to attend the Syrian dialogue conference in Sochi.

How Houthis caused Yemen's war
Commenting on the situation in Yemen, Lavrov said the situation there has become more complicated after former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was assassinated, adding that the Houthis’ murder of Saleh was “a hideous crime.”

He added that there was no alternative to a unifying Yemeni dialogue.

Meanwhile, Mekhlafi slammed the Houthis “who imposed the war on Yemen” via the coup and their occupation of cities.
He added that the Houthis pushed this war on Yemen when they began their coup and started taking over the cities and governorates of Yemen.

He said that the Houthi militia has not proved that they are a peaceful side which is evident with their daily activity in Yemen, more importantly, the murder of ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh and firing ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia.

Mekhlafi added that Yemen accepts the UN as a mediator to resolve the Yemeni crisis noting that Russia also has a very efficient role as it’s a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has good relations with Yemen.

source: Alarabiya

Delhi Police arrested Abdul Subhan Qureshi, the man suspected of being involved in the serial blasts in Delhi and Gujarat in 2008, following a tip-off and a gun battle on Saturday night.

Qureshi, labeled as the Osama Bin Laden of India, is allegedly the top bomb maker of the Indian Mujahideen.

According to the Hindustan Times, Qureshi was a quiet boy in school but began his journey as an extremist in 2001 after leaving a reputable computer firm to be involved with religious activities and edit Islamic Voice, the mouthpiece of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) which is banned in the country.

After the arrest of the group’s general secretary in 2008, Qureshi held the top rank in SIMI a Delhi Police officer said.

Qureshi, 45, appeared on the list of wanted terrorists after the Mujahideen group sent out emails claiming responsibility for blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh between 2007 and 2008.

Qureshi has been on the run since, said to live in a hideout in Nepal, the newspaper reported. Upon his arrest, he told police that he fled to Nepal in 2008 through the border in Bihar where he lived until 2015.

Police said that he even managed to create a Nepalese voter’s ID card and passport.

Police officers added that the Mumbai man has six brothers and sisters who are well-educated and not inclined to such activities. Qureshi’s teachers were also shocked at the news and told the Hindustan Times that he was a model student, scoring 76.6% on his secondary school exams.

source: Alarabiya

Seven brothers and sisters aged between five and 13 died of smoke inhalation in a house fire in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, police said.

Hundreds of fires are reported each year across the UAE, despite attempts by authorities to curb such incidents, but casualties are rarely reported.

Police in the eastern emirate of Fujairah said the mother awoke at dawn to the smell of a fire in her house.

"When rescue teams arrived at the house, the seven children were found dead: three sons and four daughters between the ages of five and 13," police said in a statement.

The local police chief said investigations were underway and called on residents to install smoke detectors as a safety precaution.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, took to Twitter to express the nation's "shared grief and pain" over the loss of the seven children -- addressing "heartfelt condolences" to the family.

The UAE's civil defence force in July said it had dealt with 928 fire-related incidents in the first half of 2017. Those fires had resulted in 12 deaths and more than 100 injuries.

House fires account for nearly two-thirds of all fires in the UAE.

source: Alarabiya

The Philippines said Monday it would deport an elderly Iraqi man described as a scientist for Hamas and accused of helping the Palestinian militant group lob missiles at Israel.

Iraq tipped off the Philippines about the presence of Taja Mohammad Al Jabori, who was arrested on Sunday, national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa told reporters.

However, the arrest was due to visa problems rather than any evidence of militant activity, the police chief emphasized.

“He's an illegal alien, his visa is expired so he has to be deported right away,” Dela Rosa said.

“He admitted being a member of Hamas. He's a chemist and he has been responsible for improving the rocket technology of Hamas in firing their missiles from their area towards the other side, for Israel.”

The suspect will be deported to Iraq.

The police chief said it was the first time Philippine authorities had dealt with an alleged member of Hamas, a group labelled a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

The Islamist movement does not recognize Israel, with which it has fought three wars, and has vied with the rival Fatah movement for control of Palestinian territory.

The handcuffed detainee did not speak while being made to stand beside the Philippine police chief at a press conference.

Dela Rosa said it was unclear at present why the alleged Hamas chemist had travelled to the Philippines.

Police said he arrived last year as Philippine troops battled militants loyal to the Islamic State group for control of the southern city of Marawi.

Al Jabori had however mostly stayed in Manila and nearby provinces and told police he had no intention of committing any terror act in the Philippines, the police chief said.

source: Alarabiya

The Yemeni army killed five Houthi gunmen and arrested another while they were trying to plant naval mines on the coast of Midi, adjacent to the Red Sea, in the Hajjah Governorate, West of Yemen.

A military source said Yemeni soldiers on four boats clashed on Sunday with Houthis on three other boats while they were trying to plant the landmines. They burnt one of the latter’s boats, seized the other while the third fled, he added.

Work is underway to remove the mines as soon as possible, the source added.

source: Alarabiya

The Saudi-backed Arab Coalition in Yemen announced the provision of $1.5 billion in aid to the country on Monday.

The coalition added that they will make sure to keep all ports open including the Hodeidah port in order to continue receiving humanitarian aid for the Yemeni people, in light of the Houthis still blocking any aid to come into the country through the ports.

The announcement came following a Saudi Arabia’s $2 billion monetary aid to Yemen’s central bank to help the country’s currency.

“The coalition will coordinate $1.5 billion in new humanitarian aid funding for distribution across UN agencies and international relief organizations,” the coalition announced in a statement.

The coalition added that they aim to increase monthly imports to 1.4 million metric tons, from 1.1 million last year. The program seeks to open land, sea and air ways to Yemen in order for this increase to happen, they said in the statement.

The coalition pledged up to $40 million for the expansion of ports to accommodate additional humanitarian shipments, adding that it would set up an air corridor between Riyadh and the central Yemeni province of Marib to run multiple aid flights of C130 cargo planes.

The coalition said it would set up 17 additional “safe-passage corridors” to facilitate overland transport for humanitarian organisations operating in the remote interiors of Yemen.

“The coalition is placing its military resources at the disposal of these broad-ranging humanitarian operations,” said coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki.

“We are backing a professionally planned and detailed humanitarian mission with military power and precision to guarantee that the humanitarian aid reaches the people who need it to lift their suffering.”

source: Alarabiya

The Arab Coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen will hold a meeting in Riyadh on Monday to discuss new political negotiations and call on all parties to take proactive steps to ensure the success of this critical stage in Yemen.

Yemen’s UN envoy, Ismail Weld al-Sheikh, said that the Arab Coalition was willing to be involved in the discussions. Weld al-Shiekh welcomed the opening of the Hodeidah and Saleef ports, calling on all sides to cooperate to keep them open and operating in order to secure the provision of aid and goods to the Yemeni people.

“I stand with the Yemeni people who are fighting for peace. All parties involved must abide by international humanitarian laws and give the Yemeni people the right to receive life-saving aid in a continuous and safe manner,” Weld al-Sheikh said.

He also expressed his gratitude for the Saudi Arabia for providing two billion dollars in monetary aid to Yemen to help their currency.

Weld al-Sheikh called on all sides to take the necessary steps to ensure the appropriate conditions for full engagement in the political process.

source: Alarabiya

Bahrain’s interior minister has accused Lebanese Hezbollah militias of supporting terror groups and at least 19 plots against public figures in the Gulf island kingdom in the past year.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said on Sunday that as a result, 47 people were charged with links to terrorism, including plots to assassinate public figures.

“The cells are run by individuals in Iran who coordinate with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Popular Mobilization Militias in Iraq and the Hezbollah in Lebanon to train terrorists. This fact has been highlighted in the past and continues to be highlighted,” al-Khalifa said at a press conference on Sunday.

Bahraini police have also transferred the cases of 290 wanted persons and suspects to the public prosecutor's office.

Most of the 47 people arrested on Sunday were part of the Saraya al-Ashtar, Saraya Al Muqawama Al Sha’biya and Saraya al-Mukhtar militia groups.

In the past year, Bahrain’s security apparatus carried out 105 security missions, including search of 42 sites and warehouses. A total of 290 fugitives and suspects were referred to the Public Prosecution and a quantity of weapons, equipment and explosives seized. Bahrain’s Public Prosecutor’s office told Al Arabiya English they will release the details of its investigations at a later date.

“Our security mission does not end with the uncovering of a terror group and the arrest of lawbreakers. Ours is a comprehensive mission which aims to achieve security and stability across the country, and to have a comprehensive security viewpoint to understand the main reasons and motives that have a bearing on the general security situation,” al-Khalifa said.

source: Alarabiya

Gunmen in army uniforms who stormed Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel late on Saturday and battled Afghan Special Forces through the night killed more than 30 people and wounded many more, although the final toll of dead and wounded may still be higher.

Wahid Majroh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said that 19 bodies had been brought into city hospitals, with six identified as foreigners.

However, a senior Afghan security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the death toll was over 30 and might climb higher. The dead included hotel staff and guests as well as members of the security forces who fought the attackers.

All five attackers were also killed, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said.

The raid was the latest in a series of attacks that have underlined the city’s vulnerability and the ability of militants to mount high-profile operations aimed at undermining confidence in the Western-backed government.

More than 150 guests were able to flee as parts of the building caught fire, with some shimmying down sheets tied together and dropped from upper-floor windows and others rescued by Afghan forces.

Local airline Kam Air said around 40 of its pilots and air crew, many of whom are foreigners, were staying in the hotel and as many as 10 had been killed. Local media reports said the dead included Venezuelans and Ukrainians.

Zamari Kamgar, the airline’s deputy director, said it was still trying to locate staff.

The Taliban, which attacked the same hotel in 2011, claimed responsibility for the attack, its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

A statement from the interior ministry put the blame on the Haqqani network, a group affiliated with the Taliban that is notorious for its attacks on urban targets.

Abdul Rahman Naseri, a guest who was at the hotel for a conference, was in the hall of the hotel when he saw four gunmen dressed in army uniforms.

“They were shouting in Pashto (language), ‘Don’t leave any of them alive, good or bad’. ‘Shoot and kill them all,’ one of them shouted,” Naseri said.

“I ran to my room on the second floor. I opened the window and tried to get out using a tree but the branch broke and I fell to the ground. I hurt my back and broke a leg.”

Even after officials said the attack was over, sporadic gunshots and explosions could be heard from the site.

source: Alarabiya

Ali Pantony, previously acting deputy features editor at Glamour, has left the publication to go freelance and is available for writing and editing commissions. In addition to Glamour, Ali has written for titles including Red, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, BBC Three, Refinery29 and Inspire at the Daily Mail, where she was junior commissioning editor before Glamour. She is also available for in-house subbing shifts

Source: AFP

In addition, Jessica Salter has been appointed deputy editor at Women's Health. Jessica was previously acting features director at Stylist, and prior to that, commissioning editor at The Telegraph Magazine. In addition, Amelia Jean Jones has been promoted from features writer to health & beauty editor at the title. Amelia will be covering beauty, fitness, general health and weightless

Source: AFP

Holders Saracens are through to the European Champions Cup quarter-finals after Wasps thrashed Ulster 26-7 on Sunday.

Munster and French pair La Rochelle and Racing 92 also progressed with wins against Castres, Harlequins and Leicester respectively.

Ulster came into the weekend as one of three Irish sides topping their groups but their crushing defeat at free-scoring Wasps meant they dropped to third in pool 1 and out of contention.

La Rochelle beat Harlequins 16-7 to top that stanza and despite moving up to second, Wasps missed out on the quarters.

Saracens had been in desperate waters following back-to-back pool 2 defeats to Clermont and a draw at Ospreys but they hammered Northampton 62-14 on Saturday and that was enough to see them squeak into the knock-out stages, where they will face a trip to dominant Leinster.

The Irish outfit completed a perfect pool stage campaign with a 23-14 victory at Montpellier on Saturday, but despite finishing with the best record they won't be relishing the prospect of a last-eight clash with the champions.

"See you in Dublin," said Saracens captain Brad Barritt on Twitter.

"Come on Wasps you good thing," added South African flanker Schalk Brits.

Ulster looked set to make it a perfect pool stage for the Irish but ran into an inspired Wasps, who claimed a bonus point thanks to tries from Guy Thompson, Tom Cruise, South African full-back Willie Le Roux and Jake Cooper-Woolley, Danny Cipriani going three from four with the conversions.

Ulster's reply from Sean Reidy was scant consolation.

Had Ulster won, no English side would have made it into the quarter-finals -- and that just two years after five Premiership sides made it into the last eight.

- Munster romp -

Twice winners Munster needed to beat Castres to ensure they would top pool 4 and they never looked in any danger, racking up six tries in a 48-3 thumping to qualify as third seeds, meaning they will face three-time winners Toulon in the last eight.

Keith Earls, Rhys Marshall, Simon Zebo, Alex Wootton and James Cronin crossed the whitewash while Munster also scored a penalty try as they recorded a 60th win in 64 European games at Thomond Park and a record 17th qualification for the quarter-finals.

La Rochelle scored tries through Pierre Aguillon and Kini Murimurivalu in the first half to take control against Quins, who ruined Wasps' hopes with a last-gasp winning try last week.

"For the first (participation) it's pretty exceptional," said La Rochelle fly-half Jeremy Sinzelle.

Playing in the Champions Cup for the first time, La Rochelle now face a trip to pool 5 winners Scarlets -- the first Welsh side in six years to reach the knock-out stage.

Finalists two years ago, Racing earned their berth by hanging on to beat Leicester 23-20 in the snowy English midlands.

The Parisians scored two tries in the first 12 minutes against a team who were already eliminated.

Yet Leicester responded to the early scores by Henry Chavancy and Maxime Machenaud with a display of pride. George Ford kicked three penalties before Brendon O'Connor scored a try early in the second half.

Twice in the last 15 minutes, Ford converted penalties to level the scores, but Machenaud restored the French lead both times.

In the dying seconds, Leicester won a penalty five metres from the line. The Tigers decided they would rather gamble on scoring a try to win rather than kicking a penalty for a draw, but Racing's defence held firm.

"We knew it was on the line," Racing's Irish lock forward Donnacha Ryan said. "We showed great determination in the end."

Racing will play away to French champions and last season's finalists Clermont in the quarters

Source: AFP

Memphis Depay struck a dramatic late winner as Lyon beat 10-man Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 on Sunday to move within eight points of the Ligue 1 leaders.

Nabil Fekir gave the hosts a shock second-minute lead at Groupama Stadium with a brilliant free-kick, but PSG snatched an equaliser on the stroke of half-time as left-back Layvin Kurzawa hammered home a stunning volley.

PSG full-back Dani Alves was given a straight red card for dissent, and Lyon made their man advantage count deep into injury-time as substitute Depay picked out the top corner.

Lyon retook second place from Marseille after inflicting only a second league defeat of the season on PSG.

With Neymar missing due to a thigh problem, Kylian Mbappe returned to the away team's starting XI after scoring as a substitute in the midweek 8-0 thrashing of Dijon, when Neymar netted four times.

Lyon caught the runaway league leaders cold with less than two minutes on the clock, as French international Fekir produced a moment of magic.

Alphonse Areola was anticipating a cross when Fekir shaped to take a free-kick from the right-hand side, but the attacking midfielder whipped in a shot that flicked the inside of the post on its way past the stranded PSG goalkeeper.

The 24-year-old has now scored 16 league goals this season from 19 appearances, while it was also the earliest PSG had conceded in a Ligue 1 game since May 2007.

PSG were rocked by Lyon's intense early pressing, but Edinson Cavani, looking for the goal he needed to break Zlatan Ibrahimovic's all-time club goalscoring record after levelling the Swede's total of 156 on Wednesday, saw a long-range lob spin narrowly wide after home keeper Anthony Lopes's poor clearance.

Mbappe, already bleeding from his head from an earlier challenge, had to be stretchered off and replaced by Julian Draxler after being flattened by some strong goalkeeping from Portuguese Lopes.

PSG levelled in first-half stoppage-time, though, as Kurzawa blasted home a magnificent left-footed volley off the crossbar from his fellow full-back Alves's dinked cross.

Unai Emery's side were reduced to 10 men before the hour mark when Brazilian Alves was sent off for dissent after becoming incensed by a free-kick decision, with Marco Verratti perhaps lucky not to follow him after knocking the red card out of referee Clement Turpin's hand.

Lyon almost retook the lead with 13 minutes to play as Rafael headed over from close range, before Cavani was also booked for dissent as PSG continued to lose their heads.

Maxwel Cornet saw a low effort turned behind by Areola, but it was 69th-minute substitute Depay who provided the winning moment in style.

The former Manchester United winger collected the ball just outside the area in the fourth minute of added time and planted a magnificent, curling finish into the top corner to score his ninth league goal of an up-and-down season.

Monaco see off Metz

Earlier on Sunday, fourth-placed Monaco eased to a 3-1 victory over Metz in the principality.

Brazilian left-back Jorge opened the scoring for the reigning champions on the stroke of half-time and Rachid Ghezzal added a second after visiting goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima was sent off.

Ibrahima Niane pulled one back for bottom club Metz, but Rony Lopes put any thoughts of a comeback to bed with a late tap-in.

"After a good first 25 minutes for Metz, (goalkeeper Danijel) Subasic was barely used, they scored on a corner, that's all and it's a very, very deserved victory," said Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim.

Wylan Cyprien scored his first goal of an injury-plagued season to give Nice a 1-0 victory over struggling Saint-Etienne at the Allianz Riviera.

Marseille stay third after beating Caen 2-0 on Friday, with Dimitri Payet and Florian Thauvin on the scoresheet

Source: AFP

Pope Francis was preparing to wrap up his Latin American trip on Sunday with a mass at an air base where a million faithful were expected to hear him speak.

On the last day of a week-long trip that has taken him to six cities in Chile and Peru, the 81-year-old pontiff began the day by delivering a homily to 500 nuns, as well as meeting the bishops of Peru.

He warned the church officials: "Dear brothers, work for unity, do not remain prisoners of divisions that limit our vocation."

The pontiff a day earlier had urged Latin America's faithful to fight rampant violent crime against women, comments which came during a mass in Peru's largest northern city of Trujillo.

"I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder," Francis told the crowd.

Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to UN Women.

While in Peru, the pope railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its indigenous people and lashed out at corruption in politics.

"There is so much damage done by this... thing that infects everything," Francis said. "And it's always the poorest and the environment that get the short end of the stick."

On Friday, he sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and indigenous tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia to meet the pope in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

During the first part of his South American visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous people

Source: AFP

The Iraqi parliament Monday approved the date of the country's general elections on May 12 after the federal court ruled that it is not possible for the elections to be delayed.

source: Xinhua

Up to 50 militants have been confirmed dead and 30 others injured as the Afghan forces wrapped up crackdown against Taliban fighters in northern Kunduz province, an army spokesman in the northern region said Monday.

The security forces, according to spokesman Ghulam Hazrat Karimi, launched cleanup operations against Taliban fighters in Char Dara district one week ago which concluded on Sunday night after liberating 10 villages and inflicting huge casualties to the Taliban group.

According to Karimi, 20 more militants were captured during the seven-day operations.

Only three security personnel have sustianed injuries over the past seven days of fighting, he said.

However, the spokesman admitted that more than 2,000 families have been displaced by the conflict.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment on the report.

source: Xinhua

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday he would seek a new truce with the ELN group in a bid to salvage peace talks that had been set back after a recent offensive by the rebel group.

The ELN indicated a willingness to resume negotiations.

Santos wrote on Twitter that the government's chief negotiator, Gustavo Bell, "will travel to Quito to explore the possibility of a new ceasefire that will allow peace talks with the ELN to continue."

The president said his decision followed a call from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who urged him to renew dialogue with the leftist guerrillas. Guterres had met with Santos in Bogota earlier this month to discuss the peace process.

The government suspended talks on Wednesday following an offensive by the ELN -- the National Liberation Army, the last active guerrilla group in Colombia -- that ended a 101-day ceasefire.

In recent days, the guerrillas have attacked government forces and targeted petroleum infrastructure. At least four soldiers have been killed, and some 22 presumed rebels were captured in a government counteroffensive, officials said.

The ELN has meanwhile released a statement expressing a willingness to resume the peace talks, which began in February 2017, and to discuss "all pending issues."

It said it was prepared "to agree to another ceasefire."

Santos, who is set to step down in August, hopes to reach an agreement similar to the one signed with the much larger FARC guerrilla group in November 2016. That accord led to the Communist rebels' disarmament and transformation into a political party.

Colombia's long internal conflict has had a devastating impact, leaving eight million people dead, unaccounted-for or displaced.

Syria's army today announced it had captured the vital Abu Duhur military airport in the country's northwest, more than two years after losing it to rebels and jihadists.

"After a string of special operations, units from our armed forces in coordination with allied fighters succeeded in their military operation and took control of the Abu Duhur military airport in Idlib province," the army said in a statement.

"Engineering units are now dismantling and clearing mines, explosives, and bombs planted by terrorists in the area," he said.

An alliance of jihadists and rebels overran the vast majority of Idlib province in 2015, seizing Abu Duhur in September of that year.

Syrian troops had been advancing on the northwest province of Idlib, and Abu Duhur in particular, as part of a fierce offensive launched in late December with Russian backing.

Regime loyalists have seized dozens of towns and villages as part of the assault, but the air base's capture marks the first military installation Syrian troops have managed to retake in Idlib.

Moscow today confirmed that allied troops were now in control of Abu Duhur.

With its capture, the Syrian army said, troops could now secure a key route leading from the neighbouring province of Aleppo south to the capital Damascus.

Syria's uprising erupted in 2011 with protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, but a government crackdown paved the way for a full-blown civil war.

The government lost swathes of Syrian territory in the first few years of the conflict but, since Russia militarily intervened in 2015, it has steadily regained the upper hand.

Turkish anti-riot police on Sunday blocked protests in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority southeast against Ankara’s military operation inside Syria.
At least seven people were detained in Kadikoy on the Asian side of Istanbul, an AFP photographer at the scene reported.
One protester was seen with his hands tied behind by the police officers with others were carried roughly away.
The rally had been called by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose members are facing a series of legal challenges for alleged ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The police action followed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warning of a “heavy price” for anyone joining protests against the Turkish army’s operation to oust Syrian Kurdish militia from northern Syria.
It came a day after Turkey launched its operation with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels to root out the Syrian Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) militia from Afrin.
Turkey views the YPG militia as “terrorists” linked to the PKK, which has fought against the Turkish state since 1984 and is designated as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
In the Kurdish-majority southeastern city of Diyarbakir, police also blocked a protest, surrounding the HDP headquarters and preventing party officials from making a press declaration, an AFP journalist in the city reported.
“People in Afrin will defend themselves. Turks ... will not gain anything, it is impossible. I call on the international community ... to stop Turkey,” protester Hakki Karagoz said.

Iranian officials on Sunday voiced support for efforts to end a dispute in neighbouring Iraq sparked by a Kurdish referendum on independence last year and underscored the need for Iraqi unity.

President Hassan Rouhani and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, made the comments during talks in Tehran with the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region.

Rouhani told Nechirvan Barzani that Tehran backs "a united Iraq" in which "the legal and legitimate rights" of the Kurdish people are recognised in line with the constitution, the presidency said.Shamkhani said Tehran "will do everything in its power to support efforts to ease the differences" between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional capital Arbil, official IRNA news agency reported.

Iraq's Kurds voted overwhelmingly in September to establish their own country but the non-binding vote was deemed illegal by the federal government in Baghdad which took retaliatory measures.

The referendum was also condemned in neighbouring Iran and Turkey.

On Saturday, Barzani met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad for the first time since the failed push by the Kurds to secede.

A statement from Abadi's office said they discussed the "political and security situation and ways of settling disputes".

After September's vote, Baghdad imposed an air blockade on international flights to the Kurdish autonomous region's two main airports and retook disputed areas, including oil fields from which the Kurds derived the bulk of their revenue.

Shamkhani said Tehran hoped to "contribute to the success" of the dialogue that has opened between Baghdad and Arbil.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday said that the government is currently engaged in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a new programme to stimulate economic growth.  

Ensour added that the expected deal with the IMF, the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), follows the “success” of the first programme, which was of “financial nature”. 

In August last year, Jordan and IMF concluded the three-year Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), which gave the Kingdom access to around $2 billion. 

The premier’s remarks came Tuesday during the Lower House’s oversight session in response to MPs’ queries about the government’s economic policies.

Ensour added that donor countries meeting in London for the “Supporting Syria and the Region Conference”, in February, linked their financial support to Jordan with economic stimulation programmes with the World Bank and the IMF.

“This is what we are doing now through ongoing meetings to arrive at an agreed upon programme,” Ensour said. 

The IMF and the government have recently started a second round of discussions over a new assistance programme to help the Kingdom implement medium-term structural reforms and to enable Jordan to benefit from the fund’s financing tools.

The EFF would focus on growth, job creation and improving the Kingdom’s business environment to be more attractive to investors. 
An informed source told The Jordan Times on Tuesday that a delegation from the Finance Ministry headed by Minster of Finance Omar Malhas were expected in Washington soon to continue negotiations over the new programme with officials at the IMF headquarters. 

The source said talks could be concluded this month as the two sides are currently discussing the size of the funding. Following the conclusion of negotiations, the IMF mission to Jordan would refer the programme to the fund’s executive board for approval. 

Former IMF mission chief to Jordan Kristina Kostial told The Jordan Times late last year that the size of the funding expected under the EFF would be less than the $2 billion in the form of low-cost loans under the SBA. 
Also during the session, Interior Minister Salameh Hammad said that trucks laden with Jordanian fruits and vegetables began some days ago entering the Iraqi market through Kuwait.

Hammad added that Jordan had to look for new trade routes after the closure of borders with Iraq and Syria due to war and unrest there. 

Minister of Industry and Trade Maha Ali said that the Jordanian exports to Iraq are exempted from customs fees according to the free trade agreement the two countries.

In a statement to The Jordan Times, Ali was quoted as saying that the ministry is following up with the Iraqis on news reports saying that the latter have imposed a 5 per cent customs fees on Jordanian exports. 

South Korea went into swoon mode Sunday -- at the feet of a party apparatchik from the North.

Hyon Song-Wol is, however, no dourly-dressed, suit-wearing bureaucrat from the nuclear-armed nation, but the leader of Pyongyang's most popular girl band.Cameras followed her every move as the glamorous songstress swept through Seoul at the head of a North Korean delegation sent to inspect performance venues for the Pyeongchang Olympic Games.

Wearing a fur muffler and exuding an air of confident calm, Hyun was unphased by the throng of cameras that followed her everywhere.

Believed to be in her late 30s or early 40s, Hyon is as close to a megastar as North Korea probably has.

Her "Excellent Horse-like Lady" -- a term describing a smart and energetic woman -- was a big hit in the 2000s.

She is also a politically powerful figure as an alternate member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party's central committee.

Hyon was once rumoured to be a former girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and became the subject of lurid and -- as it turned out -- incorrect 2013 reports in the South that she and a dozen other musicians had been executed for appearing in porn movies.

North Korea watchers dismiss speculation over her ties with Kim, saying in the deeply patriarchal North, romantic partners of leaders past and present are forced to keep a low profile.

Hyon heads the 10-member Moranbong Band -- the public face of North Korean soft power.

The all-female outfit perform a mixture of Western-style pop and patriotic North Korean numbers, and are frequently seen sporting miniskirts and shoulder-baring dresses.

Their style -- highly unusual in the conservative North -- is seen as quaintly provincial in the South, with its slick, image-obsessed pop scene, and it has also earned them a cult following among North Korean watchers.

The band is not expected to make the trip south for the Games next month, but other musical groups -- as well as hundreds of "cheerleaders" will be there.

Hyon's presence in the run-up to the international event -- which until recently was marked by global tensions over North Korea's missile and nuclear programme -- is seen by some as the latest attempt to capitalise on the appeal of its performers.

South Korea's voracious media followed her every move Sunday, with tiny details about her facial expressions and fashion style making headlines.

Hyon's attire -- from her shoes to an expensive-looking fur -- drew intense debate, with one fashion analyst likening her style to the US first lady.

"I think she was trying to emulate the style of Melania Trump... and trying to showcase the image of being rich by wearing the fur," Heo Euna, head of Korea Image Strategy Institute, told Yonhap news agency.

Pyongyang has often deployed young women to soften its international image, from hundreds of "cheerleaders" sent to previous sporting events in the South, to waitresses at the North's network of overseas restaurants, who put on a nightly musical and dance show for clients.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said the West’s “unprecedented Russiaphobia” was worse than at the height of the Cold War.
“This Russiaphobia is unprecedented. We never saw this during the Cold War,” Lavrov, fresh from a visit to New York on Thursday and Friday, said in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant’s online edition.
“Back then there were some rules, some decorum... Now, all decorum has been cast aside,” he said.
Lavrov denounced what he called “efforts to punish Russia by any means possible,” calling sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union “absurd and baseless.”
Russia was slapped with sanctions in 2014 because of its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, with Kiev and the West accusing Moscow of backing rebels — allegations the Russian authorities deny.
Russia is also mired in a doping scandal which led to the exclusion of its athletes from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the World Athletics Championships in London last year.
The International Olympics Committee has also suspended Russia from next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. “Clean” Russian athletes will be allowed to take part under the Olympic banner.

Near the olive grove where Christians believe Jesus agonised before his crucifixion, an American visitor spoke of a decision by US President Donald Trump some believe also holds spiritual importance.

Phillip Dunn, the 37-year-old pastor of an evangelical Christian church in the US state of South Carolina, said he saw Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last month as part of biblical prophecy.

"Certainly this holds a lot of significance for people in that way. We believe Christ is going to return," Dunn, part of a group of around 50 American Southern Baptists visiting Jerusalem holy sites over the weekend, said before climbing back aboard a tour bus.

Trump's controversial declaration on December 6 will be back in the spotlight over the coming days with Vice President Mike Pence arriving Sunday night for talks with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.

Dunn and his fellow believers are key backers of Trump's move in the United States and part of the Christian evangelical community there that has become an important pillar of support for his Republican party.

Pence, who stood behind Trump as he made his Jerusalem announcement, is himself an evangelical Christian.

Dunn and others on the Jerusalem tour, planned before Trump's announcement, said they were pleased with his declaration because they consider it important to support Israel and affirm its claim that the entire city is its capital.

But there were also otherworldly considerations among the group.

Some evangelicals believe, based on interpretations of scripture, that firmly establishing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and establishing a new temple there could help lead to the second coming of Jesus.

Dunn and others on the trip said interpretations of Jerusalem's place in biblical prophecy vary too widely to provide a simple answer such as that one.

- 'A lot of mystery' -

Brett Burleson, a pastor at a church in Alabama, said "there's a lot of mystery to that, so I don't claim to know how it's all going to play out".

"We do recognise that this is a place where we believe the Lord Jesus himself will return and bring a peaceful end to human history," the 47-year-old said.

Jerusalem's status is perhaps the most sensitive issue in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel occupied and later annexed its eastern sector in the Six-Day War of 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.

It sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Trump's declaration deeply angered the Palestinians, with president Mahmud Abbas cancelling plans to meet Pence during his visit, which had been set for late December before being postponed.

The declaration was partly the result of a long political debate in the United States, with a law passed calling for the embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 1995.

It however allowed presidents to sign a waiver every six months to prevent the embassy move for national security reasons.

Trump again signed the waiver when declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital last month, but stressed he intended to move the embassy.

He also said Jerusalem's final borders and status would have to be negotiated, but Palestinians were unconvinced.

- 'Probably not' -

David Parsons, vice president of the International Christian Embassy based in Jerusalem, said he helped draft an earlier version of the embassy legislation while working for a pro-Israel lobbying firm in the United States.

"We have a large, broad movement worldwide that supports Israel on various motivations," Parsons said of the primarily evangelical Christian embassy.

"Some are motivated by biblical prophecy, but there's a broad array of views on biblical prophecy."

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said Sunday that Israel has long reached out to US Christian groups for support.

Specifically mentioning evangelicals, Shoval said "we may not agree with everything anybody says about the future of Israel or the future of the country."

Some evangelicals believe Jews would eventually have to convert to Christianity.

"But we must look at the present situation," he told journalists.

"The present situation is that there is a very important body of people in America who believe -- honestly and genuinely believe -- in the future of the Jewish people and its place in the Jewish country in Israel."

Lewis Richerson, 37, a pastor from Louisiana on the Jerusalem tour, may be among those he had in mind.

His support for Trump's declaration was "primarily political" since backing Israel in part helps "promote democracy and freedom around the world."

Richerson said of the declaration: "Is that some type of biblical prophecy? Probably not."

source: AFP

The airport serving the Libyan capital resumed flights on Saturday following a five-day suspension after deadly clashes around the facility that also damaged planes on the tarmac.

Lotfi Khalil, the director general of Mitiga airport on the eastern outskirts of Tripoli, said services resumed with Buraq Air flying to the eastern city of Tobruk and Libyan Airlines leaving for Tunis.

One local carrier, state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, however, has yet to resume operations because its planes were damaged in Monday's fighting in which at least 20 people were killed, he told AFP.

Since the closure, flights had been diverted to Misrata, a city 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital.

Mitiga airport, a former military air base, was evacuated on Monday after militiamen attacked it in an attempt to free detainees at a jail there.

The health ministry of Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said 20 people were killed and 63 wounded in the violence.

The GNA condemned what it called a "premeditated" attack by gunmen trying to free "terrorists" belonging to the Islamic State jihadist group and Al-Qaeda.

Mitiga has been a civilian airport since Tripoli's main international airport was badly damaged in fighting between rival militias in mid-2014.

Libya has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival authorities and militias battling for control of its oil riches.

Source: AFP

Around 500 Syrian fighters graduated on Saturday from a US-led training course aimed at establishing a controversial "border security force" in the country's north.

Last week, the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State group announced it had begun forming a 30,000-strong security force to patrol territory captured from IS.

About half its fighters would hail from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that has emerged as Washington's best ally against jihadists, and the rest would be new recruits.

On Saturday, a batch of around 500 fighters marked their completion of the nearly three-week training programme at a ceremony near Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh.

Dressed in military fatigues, the graduates stood in neat rows and took an oath to protect the country's borders "against all attacks and threats".

Trainers from the SDF and US-led coalition looked on, with pistols strapped to their waists or thighs.

"This is the second (graduating) class of the Border Security Force. They're made up of every demographic in the area," said Kani Ahmad, who headed the training.

The first class graduated on Friday.

The BSF would be deployed from northeast Syria, throughout the Kurdish-controlled north across to the northwestern province of Idlib, he said.

"Their mission is to protect the border, especially threats by Turkey and its mercenaries because we're being threatened," Ahmad added.

Turkey vehemently opposes the creation of the border force because it considers the SDF's Kurdish component -- the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- a "terrorist" group.

The BSF's unveiling prompted an outcry from Ankara, whose escalating threats to attack YPG-held territory on Saturday culminated in Turkish air strikes inside Syria.

The force has also been denounced by Damascus and Tehran, as well as Syria's mainstream opposition.

After completing the 20-day course, graduates would go on to receive more specialised training, officials at the graduation said.

"I'm happy I finished this training," said 21-year-old border guard Jamal Issa, who hails from the town of Kobane near the Turkish border.

"We learned how to use light and heavy weapons, deal with mines and bombs, and first aid," Issa told AFP in Kurdish.

Amer al-Ali, an Arab fighter from the town of Tal Abyad, also along the frontier, said he began fighting alongside the SDF three months ago and was glad to be switching to border monitoring.

"The trainers were from the coalition and had a lot of experience. We learned a lot of tactics on fighting, defence, and attack," he said.

He and his fellow graduates broke out into the Middle Eastern line dance known as the dabkeh and cheered, "Long live the Syrian Democratic Forces!"

Since announcing the plan, the Pentagon has insisted that the BSF is not meant to be an "army" or conventional border force but would primarily seek to prevent an IS resurgence in the area.

Source: AFP

Turkey on Saturday launched a new air and ground operation to oust a Kurdish militia from their northern Syrian enclave, defying US warnings that the action risked further destabilising the area after almost seven years of civil war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had repeatedly vowed that Turkey would root out the "nests of terror" in Syria of the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which Turkey deems a terror organisation.

The launch came despite warnings that the operation could be militarily tough against an already battle-hardened foe and complicate relations with both Washington and Moscow.

Turkey's army said operation "Olive Branch" began at 1400 GMT and was aimed at the YPG and Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Among the targets hit was the YPG-held Minnigh military airport north of Aleppo, the army said.

It said 108 targets were struck and that all casualties were Kurdish militants.

A total of 72 aircraft took part in the initial onslaught, it added, saying all returned safely to base. IS targets were also destroyed, it said.

Saturday's attacks killed 10 people, a YPG spokesman in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, an area the militia controls, said.

"Seven civilians were killed, including a child, as well as two female fighters and one male fighter," said Birusk Hasakeh, adding that the child was an eight-year-old boy.

- Huge plumes of smoke -

An AFP correspondent on the Turkish side of the border saw two war planes launch air strikes inside Syrian territory, sending huge white plumes of smoke into the sky.

Units of pro-Ankara rebels known by Turkey as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) also began moving into the YPG-controlled Afrin area, Anadolu said.

There were no reports of Turkish ground troops crossing the border but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said "ground elements" could be deployed on Sunday.

Erdogan said Turkish forces would next seek to oust the YPG from Manbij, a town further east.

In a delicate diplomatic situation, the top envoys of Russia, Iran and the United States in Ankara were invited to the foreign ministry to receive a briefing on the operation, the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held telephone talks with US counterpart Rex Tillerson while Turkey's top general Hulusi Akar informed his American and Russian counterparts.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in the Turkish southeast for more than three decades and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG has been the key ally of Turkey's fellow NATO member the United States in the fight against IS jihadists, playing a key role in pushing the extremists out of their Syrian strongholds.

A senior US State Department official said on Friday that Washington did not believe "a military operation... serves the cause of regional stability".

Erdogan had reacted furiously this week to an announcement of plans to create a US-backed 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria composed partly of YPG fighters, describing it as an "army of terror".

Tillerson later said the "entire situation has been mis-portrayed, mis-described", admitting "we owe them (Turkey) an explanation."

"We don't care what they say," Erdogan spat back. "They will learn how wrong it is to trust a terror organisation."

- 'Russian green light?' -

Syria warned last week that its air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in the new offensive.

But Cavusoglu told the 24 TV broadcaster that Turkey was informing Damascus in writing about the operation through its Istanbul consulate, a rare contact between two governments who have been at odds since the civil war began.

The Syrian foreign ministry however strongly denied this, denouncing the operation as a "brutal Turkish aggression".

Turkey from August 2016 to March 2017 pushed into Syria in its more than half-year Euphrates Shield operation in an area to the east of Afrin against both YPG and IS.

Analysts say that crucial for any major new ground operation will be approval from Moscow which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG.

Russia is an ally of the Assad regime which Turkey has opposed since the onset of the war. But both Ankara and Moscow, as well as Tehran, have worked closely on a peace process in the last year.

The Russian defence ministry said its troops were withdrawing from the Afrin area to prevent any "provocation" and ensure the security of its troops.

Timur Akhmetov, Ankara-based researcher at the Russian International Affairs Council, told AFP that Russia appeared to have given the "green light" to the operation but made clear it should not lead to destabilisation elsewhere.

"I don't think Russia will agree to let Turkey occupy the whole Afrin region and insists on keeping the Syrian government in charge," he added.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella grouping composed mainly of YPG, said in a statement the Turkish operation threatened to "breathe new life" into IS and said it has "no choice but to defend ourselves and our people".

Source: AFP

US Vice President Mike Pence held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Saturday at the start of a delayed Middle East tour overshadowed by Arab anger over Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Controversy over President Donald Trump's decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem had led to the cancellation of a number of planned meetings ahead of the trip originally scheduled for December.

The Palestinian leadership, already furious over the Jerusalem decision, has denounced the US administration and had already refused to meet Pence in December.

A coalition of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament said Saturday it would boycott a speech by Pence on Monday, calling him "dangerous and messianic".

Pence held talks with former army chief Sisi in Cairo that were expected to focus on US aid and security, including a jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

Sisi's office said the talks also covered Jerusalem, with the president stressing Egypt's support for a two-state peace settlement and "the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state with east Jerusalem as capital".

Pence, for his part, said relations between Cairo and Washington had "never been stronger" thanks to the leadership of Trump and Sisi.

Expressing sympathy for deadly jihadist attacks that have targeted both Muslim and Christian places of worship, he said: "We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism."

The vice president later travelled on to Amman ahead of a one-on-one meeting with King Abdullah II on Sunday before heading to Israel for the final leg of the tour.

Pence went ahead with the trip -- which had been pushed back in December as a crunch tax vote loomed on Capitol Hill -- despite the federal government shutdown looming over Washington.

- Key security partners -

The leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, would be key players if US mediators ever manage to get a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process off the ground, as Trump says he wants.

They are also key intelligence-sharing and security partners in America's various covert and overt battles against Islamist extremism in the region, and Egypt is a major recipient of aid to help it buy advanced US military hardware.

Sisi, one of Trump's closest allies in the region, had urged the US president before his Jerusalem declaration "not to complicate the situation in the region by taking measures that jeopardise the chances of peace in the Middle East".

Egypt's top Muslim cleric and the head of its Coptic Church had both cancelled meetings with Pence in December in protest at the Jerusalem decision.

After Jordan -- the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem -- Pence will head to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

He will also deliver a speech to parliament and meet President Reuven Rivlin during the two-day visit.

Pence can expect a warm welcome after Trump's decision on Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians alike interpreted as Washington taking Israel's side in the dispute over the city.

Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 and later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its united capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

The international community considers east Jerusalem illegally occupied by Israel and currently all countries have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv.

- 'Matter of years' -

The State Department has begun to plan the sensitive move of the American embassy to Jerusalem, a process that US diplomats say may take years to complete.

This week reports surfaced that Washington may temporarily designate the US consulate general in Jerusalem as the embassy while the search for a secure and practical site for a long-term mission continues.

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has yet to make a decision on either a permanent or interim location for the mission.

"That is a process that takes, anywhere in the world, time. Time for appropriate design, time for execution. It is a matter of years and not weeks or months," he said.

Pence -- himself a devout Christian -- will visit the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites of Judaism in Jerusalem's Old City, and pay his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Source: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that his ambitious EU plans to reform the European Union needed German backing, as Chancellor Angela Merkel gears up for a crucial vote on forming a new coalition.

"Our ambition cannot come to fruition alone," Macron told a joint press conference with Merkel before talks in Paris. "It needs to come together with Germany's ambition."

On Sunday, some 600 delegates from Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) party will be asked to give the green light to a preliminary coalition agreement reached with Merkel's conservatives last week.

Merkel's political future is on the line, after more than 12 years in power.

At the meeting with Macron, which appeared aimed at giving her a boost, Merkel said that a "stable German government" was crucial for the EU to move forward with its reform agenda.

In November, she was left considerably weakened after her first attempt to form a new government collapsed when the pro-business FDP party walked out.

She then turned to the SPD, her outgoing governing partners with whom she hopes to form another grand coalition.

Macron, who is driving attempts to reform the EU in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the bloc, refused to be drawn into trying to predict the outcome of Sunday's vote, saying it could be "counterproductive".

But he stressed the pro-European credentials of the SPD and said the coalition blueprint showed "true European ambition".

Merkel said her CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD had a shared commitment to Europe.

Macron had made no secret of the fact that he would like to see the SPD, which is enthusiastic about his proposals for closer eurozone integration, including a common budget, remain on the front benches.

Last week he said a conservative-social democrat tie-up would be "good for Germany, good for France and above all good for Europe."

Source: AFP

US President Donald Trump plans to meet Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, the White House said Friday.

The announcement came after Trump cancelled a planned trip to London, casting further doubt on the strength of the vaunted trans-Atlantic "special relationship."

"President Trump looks forward to having a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister May in Davos next week to further strengthen the US–UK special relationship," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that the pair would meet on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort.

May was the first world leader to visit Trump at the White House after his inauguration last year and brought with her an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit.

Since then, however, ties have become strained and thousands of Britons have taken to social media to promise large-scale street protests if the visit goes ahead.

The latest blow to ties came on January 11 when Trump confirmed in a tweet that he had "cancelled" a visit to London during which he had been expected to open the new US embassy.

Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will on Monday head to London to visit the embassy and hold talks with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Tillerson will also visit Paris before joining Trump later in the week in Davos, which is hosting its annual policy forum for the global business elite.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Tillerson would use his visit to London "to reaffirm the US-UK special relationship."

"My understanding is that he will make a visit to the mission," the official said.

"I don't think that there is a ribbon-cutting or any sort of ceremony planned, in part because the facilities are still in the final phase of construction," he said.

"I think there's still quite a lot of pieces and debris in the lobby and elsewhere and it's really not the moment for a ribbon-cutting, but he is visiting the new embassy."

- 'Bad deal' -

The US embassy's move from Grosvenor Square in the West End of London near the British Government's Whitehall headquarters to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the Thames, had been planned for 10 years.

But Trump suddenly came out against the idea earlier this month in one of his trademark angry tweets -- accusing his predecessor of having overspent on an unnecessary project.

"Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,' only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars," he tweeted.

"Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

But the outburst was widely interpreted as an excuse from a sensitive president fearful that his visit would trigger an embarrassing public rejection from the British public.

Trump, while a supporter of those campaigning to bring Britain out of the European Union, has offended many other Britons with what they see as his divisive rhetoric.

The president has repeatedly sparred with London's Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, and other British officials on Twitter, accusing them of downplaying the threat of "radical Islamic terror."

And in November last year, he won a rebuke from May herself when he retweeted three propaganda videos promoted by the far-right racist movement Britain First.

But, despite the tensions, British leaders remain very keen to preserve trans-Atlantic ties, particularly so that their impending "Brexit" from Europe will not leave them isolated.

Source: AFP

President Donald Trump admitted Friday that chances were "not looking good" that 11th-hour talks in Congress would break an impasse over spending and avert a US government shutdown.

Less that two-and-a-half hours before a midnight deadline to reach a short-term deal to keep the federal government running at full capacity, Trump lashed out at Democrats.

"Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border," he tweeted, citing some of the government projects and agencies that will find themselves unfunded.

"Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy," he alleged.

Earlier, after meeting top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, Trump had sounded more upbeat, saying they were "working on solutions" with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

But Schumer admitted a "good number of disagreements" remain between the two sides, despite a "long and detailed meeting" at which they discussed "all of the major outstanding issues."

"The discussions will continue," the New York Democrat told reporters.

The president shelved plans to fly to Florida to celebrate at his Mar-a-Lago estate the first anniversary of his inauguration  -- which falls on Saturday -- to remain in Washington to ride out the storm, and the possible late-night Senate votes.

"He's not leaving until this is finished," White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters.

"There's a really good chance it gets fixed" before government offices open on Monday, Mulvaney added.

- 'Shutdown coming?' -

Trump seemed to revel in the high-stakes brinksmanship unfolding in Washington, with Senate passage of a government funding extension that was pushed through the House of Representatives on Thursday up in the air.

"Shutdown coming?" he tweeted to begin the day Friday. White House officials said he made several calls to Democrats to try to win votes before his talks with Schumer.

"Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders," Trump said on Twitter.

Republicans, who have a tenuous one-seat majority in the Senate, need as many as a dozen Democratic crossover votes to reach the 60 votes required for passage.

Democrats, however, appeared determined to block the measure, insisting on a deal that would protect from deportation so-called "Dreamers" -- the 700,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

The House measure, which would extend federal funding until February 16, reauthorizes for six years a health insurance program for poor children -- a long-time Democratic objective -- but not the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that affects Dreamers.

White House officials insisted there was no urgency to fix DACA, which expires March 5.

"This is purely an attempt by the Senate Democrats led by Schumer -- why we call it the 'Schumer shutdown' -- to try and get a shutdown the president gets blamed for," Mulvaney said.

- Political risks -

With mid-term congressional elections looming later this year, Republicans risk being blamed by voters if the government stops functioning over lack of funds.

A new Washington Post/ABC poll found that 48 percent of Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for a potential shutdown, and only 28 percent hold Democrats responsible.

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. In the last one in 2013, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential functions like the military, law enforcement, the White House and Congress would continue working but with reduced staff. Some agencies would shut altogether.

But others in the massive bureaucracy will be sent home without pay.

International ratings agency Fitch said a partial shutdown was unlikely to affect America's AAA/stable rating for US sovereign debt.

Wall Street seemed unconcerned so far, with the S&P and Nasdaq closing at new records.

- 'Like a Sphinx' -

Schumer said if agreement is not reached by Friday night, Democrats would support a shorter-term funding measure that would "give the president a few days to come to the table."

McConnell said the House bill provides for four weeks of funding, enough to allow talks to continue "without throwing the government into disarray for no reason."

Negotiations with the White House on a bipartisan compromise on DACA blew up last week after Trump reportedly referred to African nations and Haiti as "shithole countries."

Trump's unpredictable Twitter outbursts and sudden changes of position also have bedeviled Republican leaders as they maneuver to cut a deal.

In the past, Schumer has described Trump as "like a Sphinx on this issue," a sentiment Republicans also appeared to share.

"We need to know where the president stands," Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said Friday on CNN.

"Let's suppose we reach an agreement with the Democrats, and I think we will -- I want to know the president is going to sign it."

Source: AFP

 Pope Francis sounded a stark warning about the future of the Amazon and its peoples during a visit to the region on Friday, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Turkey on Friday started fresh shelling of the Syrian town of Afrin in a move to oust a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers "terrorists" and vowed to press on with a full-scale operation against them.

The Turkish government has repeatedly warned it will strike Syrian towns controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, including Afrin, after the US said it was training a 30,000-strong border force there.

"The Afrin operation will take place," Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli told A Haber television.

"The presence of all the terror lines in northern Syria will be removed. There's no other way out," he said.

Turkish troops fired on several YPG targets in Afrin to prevent the formation of a "terror corridor" on the border, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Army howitzers in the frontier Hatay province launched at least 10 rounds of artillery fire, targeting the "terror nests of the terror organisation in Afrin," Anadolu said.

A military convoy of 20 buses carrying Syrian opposition rebels backed by Ankara also crossed over into Syria through the Oncupinar border crossing in the Kilis province, Turkish media reported.

Separately, around 30 buses full of Syrian fighters headed towards the Cilvegozu border crossing in the town of Reyhanli, an AFP photographer said.

- 'De facto start'-

Canikli said with the shelling "in fact, the operation has de facto started."

Asked about the timing of a ground incursion, Canikli said: "It could be tomorrow, it could be in the evening. What we say is that this operation will take place."

Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad warned on Thursday that the Syrian air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in a threatened assault on the war-torn country.

The YPG is a major bone of contention in ties between Turkey and the US which considers it a key ally in fighting IS.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reacted with fury to the announcement of the US-backed border force, denouncing it as an "army of terror".

The Pentagon said it does not plan to create an "army" and that the force is aimed at fighters from the Islamic State group and maintaining stability in areas recaptured from the jihadists.

Ankara however said it was not satisfied with the US assurances.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in its southeast since 1984.

Meanwhile, mortar fire on the Syrian town of Azaz just across the border from Turkey and held by Turkish-backed rebels wounded at least 14 people in a psychiatric hospital, a monitor said on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the mortar rounds on Thursday were fired by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance dominated by the YPG.

The Turkish army condemned the mortar fire and said wounded civilians were also taken across the border into Turkey for treatment.

Analysts say Turkey needs the green light from Russia for a full cross-border operation because of Moscow's military presence in the area.

In a surprise development, Turkey's army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian counterparts on security issues and Syria.

Source: AFP

The Houthi militia intensified their activities aimed at helping prisoners escape from Yemen’s central prison in the Ibb governorate in an attempt to increase their numbers on battlefronts.

According to sources inside the central prison, the militia made deals with a number of prisoners saying that they would get them out if they agree to join the militia and fight on their battlefronts.

The Houthis are known to have released a number of prisoners within the past few years, especially those who were sentenced to death, and sent them to fight their battles on various fronts.

Houthi battle losses
In Hodeidah, 20 Houthi militiamen were killed on Saturday evening following raids by Arab Coalition fighters and battles with the Yemeni army on the outskirts of Hays, and al-Tahita, according to sources.

It is reported that one of the militiamen killed is the son of the head of the Houthi Revolutionary Committees in Hodeidah.

source: Alarabiya

Al Arabiya.net communicated with a journalist in Guinea to know more about Moussa Kante, the man who allegedly shot and killed Saudi Sheikh Abdul Muhsin Al-Tuwaijri in the village of Kantebalandougou in Guinea on Tuesday and acquired his photo.

Initial reports about Kante said he was 17 years and that he was arrested on Wednesday. However after communicating with Mamadou Hawa Keita, a senior editor at the news website Aminata.com in Guinea, Al Arabiya learnt that he was 27 years old and he was arrested on Thursday.

Keita conveyed information which he attained from Seydou Kante, an administrative official from the area where the crime happened. According to Keita, Kante is married and he is a father of two.

Kante spent his childhood and teenage years in the Ivory Coast and he returned to the town six years ago, Keita said, adding that he moved between the capital Conakry and neighboring Sierra Leone.

The suspect does not have any social media accounts and there are no photos of him on the internet. According to Keita, he is a pagan like some of the villagers. 

Eyewitnesses saw Kante carrying a hunting rifle and passing through the same road which Tuwaijri passed through after performing evening prayers and delivering a lecture at the mosque in the village.

Tuwaijri’s lectures and presence seem to have upset some pagans in the village so four of them decided to lurk for Tuwaijri after he leaves the mosque. Kante came across him as Tuwaijri was heading towards his car to go to Siguiri. He opened fire towards him and killed him and seriously injured the Moto-Taxi driver. 

Police arrested Kante on Thursday night after they were certain he was the murderer.

source: Alarabiya

Following the Syrian regime condemning Turkish military operations and “Operation Olive Branch” in Afrin on Saturday, the Assad regime opened up roads for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in order to transport weapons and reinforcements, the Anadolu Agency reported.

According to the news agency, the Syrian regime opened the PYD-PKK-held Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, and allowed the two groups to use Nubl and Al-Zahra roads connecting the center of Aleppo to Afrin.

An unknown number of PYD/PKK vehicles loaded with ammunition have been moving towards Afrin, the Anadolu Agency added.

US involvement in Afrin
The commander of the US Central Command, General Joseph Votel, said that Turkey informed the US about its military operation in Afrin, pointing out that Afrin does not fall within the scope of the US military.

However, Votel added that a possible operation in Manbij was not disclosed to them.

"We are not paying particular attention to that area with our military resources," General Joseph L. Votel told reporters during his flight in the Middle East, according to the Anadolu Agency.

Votel’s statement came following Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Afrin, aiming to establish security along its borders and eliminate the PYD and PKK groups.

He added that the fight against ISIS still continues in Syria, and that Turkey's operation on Afrin would distract the efforts in this manner, the Anadolu Agency reported.

On Sunday, France urged Turkey to stop its attacks on the Kurdish YPG in Syria, and called for a Security Council meeting to discuss Turkish incursions in Syria.

source: Alarabiya

Turkish attacks in the Afrin region of northern Syria killed ten people on Saturday, mostly civilians, a spokesman for the Kurdish militia which controls the area said.

“Seven civilians were killed, including a child, as well as two female fighters and one male fighter,” said Birusk Hasakeh, spokesman for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin, adding that the child was an eight-year-old boy.

The YPG’s political branch, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said earlier on Saturday that 25 civilians had been wounded in the Turkish bombing.

Ankara also said were casualties but were all Kurdish militants.

Afrin, a hilly region that falls in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, is home to more than a million people including displaced families.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels on Saturday began an air and ground operation, dubbed operation “Olive Branch”, aimed at ousting the YPG from the Kurdish-majority pocket.

The launch came despite warnings that the operation could be militarily tough against an already battle-hardened foe and complicate relations with both Washington and Moscow.

Turkey vehemently opposes the YPG because of its links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey for three decades.

source: Alarabiya

French authorities on Saturday charged a 33-year-old man, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video, with planning a terror attack, judicial sources said.

The man, who was not known to police, was arrested near the southern city of Nimes on Tuesday. Bomb making materials were found in his house but there was no indication of the targets he was planning to attack, they said.

“This is the first attack foiled this year,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The man was charged with “associating with terrorist criminals” and placed in custody.

“The investigation started when police saw on social media and attempt by a man in the Nimes region with extremist leanings trying to procure a weapon,” the source close to the investigation said.

The raid on the man’s house yielded a tube filled with powder which could likely be used as an explosive, different powders and a device to start a fire, the source said.

Several videos taken last year were seized including one in which the man pledges allegiance to self-proclaimed ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with the organization’s black flag in the background.

ISIS claimed two attacks in France last year -- the April 20 shooting of a policeman on Paris’s emblematic Champs Elysees and an October 1 attack in Marseilles’s railway station that killed two people.

source: Alarabiya

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called for US President Donald Trump to be welcomed to the UK, warning Sunday that resisting a visit risked damaging his country's national interest.

A day ahead of Johnson welcoming his US counterpart Rex Tillerson to Britain for talks, Johnson said postponing any Trump trip would be acting against the UK's "single most extraordinary economic relationship".

"Donald Trump is the elected president of the world's greatest and most powerful democracy -- and a country that also happens to be our closest ally," Johnson wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

He said critics of a Trump visit were ignorant of Britain's economic interests.

"In opposing the visit of the president of the United States to this country, they risk actually damaging the national interest."

Johnson rejected claims that Trump was presiding over an "isolationist America".

He said Trump's administration deserved "respect and recognition" rather than "infantile denigration".

source: Alarabiya

Turkish ground forces pushed into northern Syria’s Afrin province on Sunday, media cited the prime minister as saying, as Ankara stepped up artillery attacks on a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia it aims to sweep from its border.

NATO’s second-largest army entered northern Syria shortly after 11:00am, broadcaster HaberTurk cited Prime Minister Binali Yildirim as saying.

The Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia, supported by the United States but seen as a terrorist organization by Turkey, said it had repulsed the Turks and their rebel allies after fierce clashes.

The fighting marks the second day of Turkey’s new front in the nearly seven-year-old Syrian civil war.

Under what the Turkish government has called “Operation Olive Branch”, Turkish air strikes on Saturday pounded positions of the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia in the northern Afrin province.

The military said it had hit 153 targets so far, including shelters and hideouts used by Kurdish militants. The YPG has said Turkey’s strikes killed six civilians and three of its fighters, and wounded 13 civilians.

The YPG has also accused Turkey of striking civilian districts and a camp for the displaced in Afrin.

A Reuters reporter in the northern Syrian town of Azaz, which is under the control of rebels from the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army factions, could hear the boom of artillery being fired into the region.

There were no other signs of conflict and life appeared to continue as normal, with traffic on the muddy, potholed roads and uniformed rebel police at the main roundabouts. Still, Azaz was bleak and the toll from the war was plainly seen in some of its crumbling buildings.

At one of the car repair workshops on the outskirts of the town some men were fixing a gun-loaded vehicle.

“In its second day, Olive Branch Operation continues to ensure peace and security for our people, protect Syria’s territorial integrity and eliminate all terrorist elements in the region,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.

“Turkey expects its allies to support its fight against terrorism in all of its forms.”

On land, the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army rebels were also helping the operation in Afrin, Turkish officials said.

source: Alarabiya

Al-Qaeda’s most prominent historian and Afghan-Arab, strategist Mustafa Hamed, aka Abu al-Walid al-Masri, emerged from Tehran to resume his activity in lecturing radical groups via his website Mafa.

Abu al-Walid, Osama bin Laden’s and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s friend, willingly left Qatar in 2016 and went to Tehran to live there with his children.

Abu al-Walid, who was Al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Kandahar between 1998 and 2001, commented on resuming Mafa’s activity and explained that the website was established 2009 to publish six books about jihad.

“I resumed Mafa’s activity after returning to Iran because I have plenty to say about public matters. My opinions can only be voiced on Mafa as it’s not under the control of international powers which globalized people’s economies,” he said, adding that Iran’s “atmosphere for freedom” allows him to publish on Mafa.

Abu al-Walid reiterated that Iran allowed al-Qaeda members and their families to enter Iran following the September 11, 2001 attacks and offered to help some of them.

Ties between Iran, al-Qaeda
“Of course there are relations between Iran and al-Qaeda. They were imposed by the circumstances of America’s war on Afghanistan. However, they were random and were not planned. Before the war, al-Qaeda ignored the fact that Iran is a large neighbor while the Arabs’ situation in Afghanistan was bad due to international siege and the Islamic emirate suffered from internal conflicts. All this called for good neighborly relations and cooperation with Iran to resolve misunderstandings. Al-Qaeda could have been a mediator but it was based on the Salafist approach that was hostile to Shiites. If it hadn’t been for Bin Laden’s moderate character, al-Qaeda would have resembled ISIS,” he added.

He noted that relations eventually developed between the Islamist radicals and Tehran.

“A Salafist jihadist category began to understand facts and put things in order. It was very late but better late than never.”

Abu al-Walid also defended Iran and its policies and said Israel and the US aim to pressure it to serve Zionist interests.

He also defended Iran’s support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi Movement and said it was “a humanitarian, Islamic and security matter.”

Background 
Born in Egypt, he graduated from the engineering faculty in 1969 from Alexandria University and worked as a journalist during the 1970’s. 

He met Mawlawi Jalaluddin Haqqani, a leader of a fighting group in Afghanistan in 1979, and he later worked with him from 1992 until 1980. In 1988, he met Bin Laden and they remained friends until the latter was killed in 2011.

Earlier in 1986, he had also met Ayman al-Zawahiri in Peshawar. In 1993, he went to Khost and lived in al-Qaeda camps and also supervised a training program for fighters in Uzbekistan. In 1996, he went to Sudan and stayed there for few a months but he later left Khartoum with Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda commanders and went to Jalalabad. 

He met Taliban leader Muallah Mohammed Omar in Kandahar several times and he was among the first Arabs to pledge allegiance to him as commander of the faithful in 1997.

source: Alarabiya

An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced to death a German woman of Moroccan origin for membership of ISIS, a spokesman said.

The German national was captured by Iraqi forces during the battle for Mosul last year, the spokesman said, declining to identify her. She is the first foreign woman to be sentenced to death in Iraq for joining the militant group.

She can appeal the sentence, said Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad.

"She confessed that she traveled with her two daughters from Germany to Syria and then joined Daesh in Iraq," Birqdar said, referring to ISIS by an Arabic acronym. 

SEE ALSO: ANALYSIS: Stronger, stable Middle East states the most effective answer to ISIS

The woman was convicted of participating in attacks on Iraqi security forces and offering the militant group logistical support, said Birqdar.

A German foreign ministry spokeswoman declined to comment. 

Foreign fighters 
Thousands of foreigners have been fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

A Russian Islamic State fighter was sentenced to death in Iraq last year for joining the hardline group.

Iraq declared victory last month over ISIS, which had seized control of nearly a third of the country in 2014. However, ISIS continues to carry out bombings and other attacks in the country.

source: Alarabiya

The Yemeni government on Sunday released its first official budget since the Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa in 2014 and following a bailoutfrom ally Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher said spending in the 2018 budget is projected at 1.5 trillion Yemeni riyals ($3.9 billion), with revenues estimated at 978 billion riyals ($2.6 billion).

The Aden-based government projected a deficit of $1.3 billion, based on the official exchange rate of 380 riyals to the dollar -- higher than the market rate of about 450 riyals to the dollar.

In a post on Facebook, the prime minister painted a devastating picture of the country's economy, saying that oil and gas production -- the main source of revenue before the war -- had ground to a halt and that $5 billion in foreign reserves and stocks of the local currency had been "looted" by rebels who maintain a separate central bank in Sanaa.

Bin Dagher did not offer details on revenue sources for the budget.

The prime minister vowed "optimal use" of Saudi Arabia's $2 billion deposit to the central bank, which has buoyed the local currency in recent days, and said the new "austerity budget" would nonetheless guarantee wages for civil servants and the military.

Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 with the stated aim of rolling back Houthi rebel gains and restoring the country's "legitimate" government to power.

More than one million civil servants lost their jobs in 2016 after the Houthi incursion.

source: Alarabiya

Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the Revolutionary Guard to loosen its hold on the economy, the country’s defense minister says, raising the possibility that the paramilitary organization might privatize some of its vast holdings.

The comments this weekend by Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami appear to be a trial balloon to test the reaction of the idea, long pushed by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani. Protests over the country’s poor economy last month escalated into demonstrations directly challenging the government.

But whether the Guard would agree remains unclear, as the organization is estimated to hold around a third of the country’s entire economy. 

Interview 
Hatami, the first non-Guard-affiliated military officer to be made defense minister in nearly 25 years, made the comments in an interview published on Saturday by the state-run IRAN newspaper. He said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered both the country’s regular military and the Guard to get out of businesses not directly affiliated to their work.

“Our success depends on market conditions,” the newspaper quoted Hatami as saying.

He did not name the companies that would be privatized. The Guard did not immediately acknowledge the supreme leader’s orders in their own publications, nor did Khamenei’s office.

The Guard formed out of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force meant to protect its political system, which is overseen by Shiite clerics. It operated parallel to the country’s regular armed forces, growing in prominence and power during the country’s long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s. It runs Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well its own intelligence operations and expeditionary force.

In the aftermath of the 1980s war, authorities allowed the Guard to expand into private enterprise. 

Massive construction 
Today, it runs a massive construction company called Khatam al-Anbia, with 135,000 employees handling civil development, the oil industry and defense issues. Guard firms build roads, man ports, run telecommunication networks and even conduct laser eye surgery.

The exact scope of all its business holdings remains unclear, though analysts say they are sizeable. The Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which long has been critical of Iran and the nuclear deal it struck with world powers, suggests the Guard controls “between 20 and 40 percent of the economy” of Iran through significant influence in at least 229 companies.

In his comments, Hatami specifically mentioned Khatam al-Anbia, but didn’t say whether that too would be considered by the supreme leader as necessary to privatize. The Guard and its supporters have criticized other business deals attempting to cut into their piece of the economy since the nuclear deal.

source: Alarabiya

A video showing migrants being tortured by human traffickers in Libya went viral on social media following a report by CNN showing footage of migrants being sold as slaves there.

The last two scenes of the video shows migrants being subjected to unprecedented torture and brutality.

A migrant who was completely stripped of his clothes cries out in pain as the trafficker burns a plastic bottle and drips hot plastic on his body. The migrants body shows several scars and burns. Another stands on his head using insulting language telling him to look up at the camera.

The second video shows an armed man asking a number of half-naked migrants to show their faces to the camera after they were obviously beaten as the scars and bruises show on their bodies. Some are not moving at all and appear to be dead.

The time and exact place where this happened is still unknown. However, the armed man wearing winter clothes and his accent give an idea.

Thousands of migrants pass through Libya hoping to reach Europe, but they are caught by traffickers and put up for sale as slaves in auctions. Most have sold their life savings to go on this journey.

A recent clampdown by the Libyan coastguard has decreased the number of boats making it to the country, leaving smugglers shorthanded, according to CNN. This is how the slavery trade there became popular.

Libya is one of the most popular countries in which human smuggling networks operate through a wide desert border with African countries. When migrants reach its north coast, they are smuggled across the sea in boats known as death boats.

source: Alarabiya

Following the rape and murder of Zainab, a six-year-old Pakistani girl, the parents of eight other girls with similar cases appeared for a hearing in front of a special bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar.

The parents pleaded before a three-member bench of the apex court saying, “give us justice”.

The Joint Investigation Team on Zainab’s murder case presented a progress report detailing their investigations thus far. The court was dissatisfied with the progress.

“So many incidents have taken place, what was the police doing?” the court questioned, according to the Dawn newspaper.

“The incidents took place repeatedly in the remit of two police stations and no one conducted an inquiry,” the chief justice said. 

The investigative team said they retrieved DNA from 800 suspects, adding that the DNA found on Zainab matched seven other cases that also happened in Kasur since 2015.

The bench said that if the police had taken the matter seriously three years ago, the eight girls could have been saved, according to the Dawn newspaper.

No real progress has been made in the case since Zainab's body was found, despite the Counter-Terrorism Department, Intelligence Bureau, Special Branch and Punjab Forensic Science Agency each being tasked with investigating the case, according to the newspaper.

source: Alarabiya

A new photo has been released of Osama bin Laden’s son in law and al-Qaeda spokesman in Iran. The photo has emerged as part of the Abbottabad documents.

The image of the 52-year-old Kuwait-born Sulaiman Abu Ghaith taken north of Tehran showed him in a completely different form his normal appearance in al-Qaeda’s media publications.

The image taken in 2009 showed Abu Ghaith in a family outing organized by Iranian officials during the period al-Qaeda were establishing their presence in Iran.

ALSO READ: LEAKED BIN LADEN DOCUMENTS

The picture was described as taken during “a family trip in the tourist areas north of Tehran organized by the prison administration.”

Apart from Abu Ghaith, the trip is likely to have included his wife Fatima bin Laden and their children, along with her brothers Hamza, Othman, Mohammed and Saad, who were all living in the same house.

Abu Ghaith who also appeared in images during Hamza bin Laden’s marriage in Iran in 2005 was born in Kuwait in 1956 and worked as a teacher of jurisprudence and sharia in Kuwait before joining al-Qaeda.

Abu Ghaith was close to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the coordinator of the September 11 attacks, and who is currently being tried in the United States.

source: Alarabiya

The Turkish border town of Kilis was struck by a missile fired from Syria on Sunday, a Reuters witness said, the fifth cross-border missile fired in the same day.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, as Turkish ground forces pushed into northern Syria's Afrin province after launching artillery and air strikes on a US-backed Kurdish militia it aims to sweep from its border.

source: Alarabiya

The Pakistani security forces killed two terrorists in eastern Punjab province on Sunday, the military said.

An army statement said Pakistan paramilitary force Rangers carried out an intelligence-based operation in suburbs of Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab province.

"During the operation two terrorists of a proscribed terrorist organization were killed. Killed terrorists were involved in kidnapping and killing of security forces personnel," a statement from the army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said.

Meanwhile, the security forces also conducted operations in southwestern Balochistan province and seized weapons and ammunition, including sub machine and light machine guns, rockets, mortar bombs, grenades, detonators, explosive and communication equipment.

The paramilitary frontier corps conducted the intelligence-based operations in Dera Bugti, Kohlu and Dera Murad Jamali areas on Saturday, the army statement said.

source: Xinhua

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said here Sunday that the Islamic republic backs a "united and integrated" Iraq, state TV reported.

"All the regional countries and ethnic groups are duty-bound to defend a federal administration (in Iraq) and help secure border demarcations in the region," said Rouhani at a Sunday meeting with Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

"Extra-regional powers and forces do not and will not feel any sympathy for people of the region," he said, adding that foreign powers' intervention aims to deal a blow to regional stability and security.

"Extra-regional powers and forces only think about achieving their own long-term goals," he said.

Barzani said Iraqi Kurds want a "unified Iraq," and all sides should remain committed to the Arab country's constitution and pursue their demands through legal channels.

In September 2017, Iraq's Kurdistan semi-autonomous region held an independence referendum; however, the central government rejected the results and adopted punitive measures against them.

source: Xinhua

At least five people were killed and several others wounded on Sunday in Kinshasa during an anti-Kabila demonstration convened by the Catholic Church across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), according to the UN mission in the west African country.

At least 69 people were arrested across the country, according to the UN Stabilization Mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO).

In a church in Kinshasa, an 18-year-old girl who was one of the faithful of the Catholic Church was shot dead during this demonstration.

The Red Cross sources interviewed by Xinhua in Kinshasa reported eight seriously wounded people, six of whom were shot.

The DR Congo is going through an unprecedented political crisis since the expiry of the term of its current president Joseph Kabila.

This is the second demonstration in less than two months convened by the leaders of the Catholic Church of the DR Congo to demand the application of the political agreement signed last year under the auspices of the Bishops.

At least six people were killed in the demonstration in late December, which was also convened by members of the same Catholic church.

The National Independent Electoral Commission issued at the beginning of the year an electoral calendar that sets the presidential elections in December 2018. But this schedule has already been rejected by opponents of the Kabila regime who also demand a short transition without its presence at the head of the country.

source: Xinhua

Egypt on Sunday condemned the Turkish military operation in Syria's Kurdish-controlled Afrin region.

In a statement, Egypt's Foreign Ministry described the operation as a serious threat to Syria's sovereignty.

It added that the operation hampers the efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis and combat terrorism.

The foreign minister reiterated Egypt's rejection of all military solutions which only increase the sufferings of the Syrian people and called on all the Syrian people to engage in serious talks with maintaining the sovereignty and unity of their country, according to the statement.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced Sunday that Turkey has started a land operation against the Syrian Kurdish militants with land troops entering Syria's Afrin.

The military operation aims to establish a 30 km security zone into the Afrin province from Turkish border, he said at a briefing.

On Saturday, Turkey launched the Operation Olive Branch which aims to clear its borders from the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group considered by Ankara as the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The United States, which heavily backs the Kurdish forces and sees them as reliable allies in Syria, has urged Turkey not to fight the Kurds in Afrin, while the Syrian government has warned it would shoot down any Turkish warplane fighting in Afrin.

source: Xinhua

 Pope Francis on Saturday condemned "organized crime" and prayed for flood victims during a giant open air mass at a beach in Trujillo, Peru's crime-plagued largest northern coastal city.

A coalition of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament said Saturday it will boycott a speech by visiting US Vice President Mike Pence, calling him "dangerous and messianic".

Pence, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday to start his first Middle East tour, travels Sunday on to Jordan and to Israel later the same day.

He is scheduled to address the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on Monday.

The visit by Pence, a devout Christian, comes amid widespread anger in the Arab world over a December 6 decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

His trip had originally been scheduled for December but was postponed because of the furore over the Jerusalem decision, which broke with decades of international diplomacy.

The Palestinians have frozen contacts with the Trump administration and have said Pence would not meet any Palestinian leaders.

"He is a dangerous man with a messianic vision that includes the destruction of the entire region," Israeli Arab parliamentarian Ayman Odeh said of Pence.

Odeh heads the United List of Arab parties, the third largest political group in parliament with 13 seats.

"He comes here as the emissary of an even more dangerous man, a political pyromaniac, racist and misogynist who must be prevented from taking control of our region," Odeh said, referring to Trump.

"The entire Arab List will boycott his speech."

Arab Israelis are descendants of Palestinians who stayed on when Israel was created in 1948. They are Israeli citizens and represent 17.5 percent of the population.

Source: AFP

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met Kurdish regional government counterpart Nechirvan Barzani for the first time on Saturday since the autonomous northern region's failed attempt to secede.

Since Kurdish voters returned a resounding "yes" in a referendum on independence last September 25, the federal government in Baghdad has taken retaliatory measures.

These include an air blockade of international flights to the Kurdish region's two main airports, to remain in effect until the end of February.

Abadi has also sent Iraqi troops to retake areas disputed between Baghdad and Kurdish regional capital Arbil, including oilfields from which the Kurds derived the bulk of their revenue.

After a months-long frosty standoff, the two sides are now talking again and Kurdish officials including a minister have visited Baghdad.

On Saturday Barzani, accompanied by his deputy premier and the chief of staff of the Kurds' former president Massud Barzani, "discussed the political and security situation and ways of settling disputes" with Abadi, the Iraqi premier's office said.

Abadi had strongly opposed the Kurdish referendum, insisting on Iraqi unity and government control of airports and border posts in Kurdistan.

Baghdad wants to regain control of the area's three border posts between Iraq and Iran, as well as Fishkhabur on the borders of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, through which Iraqi oil flows to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Later on Saturday, Barzani will visit Iran, which also opposed the independence referendum given its own Kurdish minority.

Source: AFP

Film-maker Claude Lanzmann has sold 112 passionate love letters sent to him by the legendary French feminist Simone de Beauvoir, Christie's auction house said Friday.

The director of the acclaimed Holocaust documentary "Shoah" said he has been forced to part with the correspondence because of a "scandalous" French inheritance law which means that they must go to her family on his death.

The letters, which are filled with the "mad passion" the couple shared during their seven-year affair in the 1950s, have never been published.

They were bought by Yale University, which already holds de Beauvoir's manuscripts and personal archives.

"I never planned for these letters to come out or be published," said 93-year-old Lanzmann, who was the secretary of de Beauvoir's long-term lover, the philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre.

The golden couple of French mid-20th century intellectual life had a famously open relationship, and enjoyed -- and endured -- a number of similar love triangles.

Lanzmann, who was 18 years de Beauvoir's junior, fell in love with her while he was editing "Les Temps Modernes", the ground-breaking review she and Sartre founded after World War II, which the film-maker still heads.

Agnes Poirier, author of "Left Bank", a new book about how "the ideas that shaped the modern world" were formed in the French capital during the intellectual tumult of the 1940s, said Lanzmann was the only man that de Beauvoir lived with.

"She and Sartre always kept separate apartments, but she let Lanzmann move in with her. He was about 26 she was 44 when the affair started, and he always said was she a 'grande amoureuse', a very passionate lover," she said.

- Angered by affair -

"After the age of 40 de Beauvoir thought she was not desirable anymore but she had a second youth with him," Poirier said -- and the author of the "The Second Sex" lived it "like a rebirth".

Poirier said that it had been always rumoured that Lanzmann "seduced her for a bet, or at least boasted that he could steal a kiss," but said that there was no doubting the intensity of their love.

"They had two little desks and they would work together in the mornings, then in the afternoons she would go and write with Sartre."

Just as with Sartre, it was an open relationship "but de Beauvoir took it badly when she discovered that Lanzmann had had an affair he didn't tell her about."

"She wasn't judgemental, it was just the fact that he didn't tell her that annoyed her," the writer added.

According to Yale's library, which for now is only making the letters available in its reading room, most were written while de Beauvoir was travelling with Sartre on their headline-making visits to Russia, China, Japan and Cuba.

Lanzmann railed against the French law which he said had forced him to sell the letters to Yale, saying it was crazy that it "states that the contents of the letters did not belong to the person they were addressed to."

However, he said he had the right "to pass them on in the hope that the purchaser can, if not publish them, then at least conserve them and make them available to historians and researchers."

The top American university can "now be proud of having all of her letters to me", which Lanzmann called "an exceptional, passionate correspondence".

Christie's auction house which arranged the private sale did not reveal how much the letters had been sold for.

Source: AFP

South Africa's ruling ANC party said Saturday that it "must act decisively" to rebuild its reputation, as local media reported that President Jacob Zuma could soon be forced to leave office.

Zuma has been under growing pressure to resign since he was replaced as head of the African National Congress (ANC) in December by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa.

Zuma's presidency has been engulfed by corruption scandals and a weakening economy, with the party losing public support ahead of next year's general election.

Ramaphosa's supporters are keen for him to take over as president and try to revive the economy before the election, when the ANC could lose its grip on power for the first time since the end of apartheid.

"The ANC must act decisively and with determination to rebuild the bond of trust between our people and the movement," the party said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its senior members.

The statement addressed criticism that South Africa currently has two centres of power -- Zuma still in office as president, while Ramaphosa heads the ruling ANC party.

"(Party) officials, led by President Ramaphosa, will continue their engagement with President Jacob Zuma to ensure effective coordination between the ANC and government," it said.

- Zuma to leave, but when? -

The News 24 website said the party's executive meeting had decided that Zuma must leave office, but that no exact timeline had been agreed.

"We will have a new president in the coming weeks," it quoted one unnamed party member at the meeting as predicting.

Zuma's closest allies still hold senior positions in the party, and he could in theory remain president until the 2019 election that marks the end of his second and final term in office.

His control over the ANC was shaken when his chosen successor -- his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma -- lost out to Ramaphosa in the closely-fought race to be party leader.

Zuma, 75, could leave office either by resigning, through losing a motion of no-confidence in parliament or impeachment proceedings.

He could also be recalled by the ANC, forcing him to step down.

Whoever is president on February 8 will deliver the annual state of the nation address in parliament -- providing one deadline for political manoeuvering.

Ramaphosa, 65, is a former trade unionist who led talks to end white-minority rule in the early 1990s and then became a multi-millionaire businessman before returning to politics.

The ANC, which has ruled since 1994 when Nelson Mandela won the first multi-racial election, recorded its worst-ever results in 2016 local polls.

Source: AFP

Undefeated Mikey Garcia's bid for a fourth world crown in a super lightweight showdown with International Boxing Federation champion Sergey Lipinets of Russia has been postponed to March 10, promoters announced Friday.

Unbeaten Lipinets suffered a hand injury in training for a fight card that had been scheduled for February 10 in San Antonio, Texas. The bouts will remain in San Antonio, but the venue will be moved from the Alamodome to Freeman Coliseum.

Garcia, 37-0 with 30 knockouts, captured the World Boxing Council lightweight crown a year ago and has owned World Boxing Organization featherweight and super featherweight titles.

Lipinets, 13-0 with 10 knockouts, took a unanimous decision from Japan's Akihiro Kondo in November at New York to capture the vacant IBF crown and will be making his first title defense.

Also moved back a month was the undercard feature, for the vacant WBA super lightweight title and a possible unification bout with the Garcia-Lipinets winner, between Cuban Rances Barthelemy, 26-0 with 13 knockouts, and Belarus' Kiryl Relikh, 21-2 with 19 knockouts, in a rematch of last May's unanimous decision victory by Barthelemy.

Source: AFP

World 100 meter silver medalist Christian Coleman opened his 2018 campaign by breaking the 60 meter indoor world record on Friday at the Clemson Invitational track meet.

The 21-year-old American charged to victory in the final in 6.37 seconds to surpass the previous record of 6.39 held by compatriot Maurice Greene.

Greene ran the time twice, in 1998 in Madrid, Spain, and 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Coleman's previous best was 6.45 seconds at last year's US collegiate indoor championships.

The meet at Clemson University in South Carolina was the first event of the season for Coleman. Earlier in the day he ran a time of 6.47 seconds.

Tevin Hester, of the US, was second in 6.57 while Warren Fraser of the Bahamas finished third with a time of 6.69.

Last year, Coleman also ran a 9.82 100 meters which stood up to become the fastest time of the 2017.

Source: AFP

 Mary Lou McDonald is set to become the president of Sinn Fein, replacing Gerry Adams who is stepping down after 34 years as the dominant figurehead of Irish republicanism.

Pope Francis was set Saturday to hold a huge outdoor mass in a coastal region of Peru struggling to rebuild in the wake of devastating floods last year.

Thai police have arrested a Vietnamese national who they say ran an international network that trafficked massive quantities of elephant ivory, rhino horn and wildlife, threatening the existence of already endangered species in Asia and Africa for years.

Boonchai Bach, 40, was arrested Friday in Nakhon Phanom, a northeastern Thailand province that borders Laos, in connection to the illegal trafficking of 14 African rhino horns to Thailand in December, according to the Freeland Foundation, an anti-trafficking group that's been tracking Boonchai and his family for years. The case, which involved $1 million worth of rhino horns, also implicated a Thai official, a Chinese smuggler and a Vietnamese courier, the Associated Press reported.

"This arrest is significant for many reasons. The confiscated items are high in value. And we are able to arrest the whole network involved, starting from the courier, the facilitator, the exporter," who planned to move the goods through the Thai-Laos border, Thai Police Col. Chutrakul Yodmadee said.

Boonchai has denied the allegations against him.

Thai authorities have been investigating his family for years. They zeroed in on Boonchai in December, when Thai customs officials found concealed rhino horns in cargo on a flight from Ethiopia. The flight was carrying Vietnamese and Chinese passengers, which raised suspicions among customs officials, according to the Freeland Foundation. A Thai airport official was later arrested and admitted to working with a Chinese smuggler and a relative of Boonchai. The three are being held in a Thai prison.

Freeland Foundation said new evidence led to Boonchai's arrest this week.

"The arrest spells hope for wildlife. We hope Thailand, its neighboring countries and counterparts in Africa will build on this arrest and tear Hydra completely apart," the group's founder, Steven Galster, said, referring to a network of suppliers and buyers across Asia.

The Bach family, with Boonchai as the kingpin, led the illegal trafficking of exotic Asian and African wildlife, including elephant ivory, rhino horns, pangolins, tigers, lions and other endangered species, to major dealers in Laos, Vietnam and China, according to the Freeland Foundation. Authorities also believe the Bachs were the main supplier of Vixay Keosavang, a Laotian wildlife dealer dubbed the "Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking" in a 2013 New York Times story.

According to authorities, the original leader of the Bach family's trafficking ring was Bach Van Lim, Boonchai's older brother. In 2005, he passed on some of his authority to Boonchai, who operated headquarters in Nakhon Phanom. Contraband was brought from there to Laos through the nearby Mekong River and was transported to Vietnam and China, the Freeland Foundation said.

Boonchai could face up to four years in prison and a fine of 40,000 baht ($1,300), the AP reported. Authorities also could charge him with money laundering and customs violation, crimes that could add a sentence of up to 10 more years.

Thai police have been cracking down on the country's ivory trade for years. Officials announced in July that they have seized more than 400 elephant tusks and fragments in a single case.

"We have made serious efforts to block elephant ivory from being smuggled into the country and sent to another country. . . . If we block ivory from being smuggled out of the country, then we will destroy it. We have been able to effectively arrest more and more suspects with tangible results," Deputy Police Commissioner Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan said in July, according to the AP.

Thai authorities also had frozen $37 million in assets linked to the trafficking of tigers in the northeast of Thailand. In 2016, authorities seized bank accounts and assets of a Thai national who was convicted of trafficking rhino horns in South Africa.

Days before Boonchai's arrest, Thai authorities seized 326 pounds of African elephant ivory, including three large tusks, worth around $469,800 from a Bangkok airport.

Ivory, which comes from elephants' tusks, is used as jewelry, ornaments, medicine, chopsticks and others. Markets in the United States and Asia, particularly in China, fueled demand, according to a 2015 international study conducted by National Geographic, and that resulted in the death of about 30,000 elephants every year.

Last spring, China shut down dozens of its licensed ivory facilities, a move that some see as a sign that the country intends to help put an end to the ivory trade.

In November, the Trump administration announced it will reverse an Obama-era ban on importation of elephant-hunt trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. President Donald Trump later decided to keep the ban in place, at least for now, following protests from animal rights groups.

Source: AFP

Wilders's party will compete in Rotterdam against Denk party, backed by Turkish and Moroccan communities

Hundreds of right-wing demonstrators crowded a main square at Rotterdam's central station on Saturday to protest what they describe as the "discrimination against ordinary Dutch citizens" in favour of immigrants and Muslims.

The protest by about 700 right-wing supporters comes as Dutch political parties gear up for local government elections in March, with issues such as immigration and integration again expected to feature prominently among its 13 million voters.

"The Netherlands is our country, it's not (Prime Minister) Mark Rutte's country," populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who led the demonstration, told the protesters.

"We live here, not in Morocco, we don't live in Turkey or in Saudi Arabia, but in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands," said Wilders.

"Here it's our rules that count. I want to tell you that the Netherlands is not an Islamic country, do you agree?" Wilders said to loud applause, speaking through a megaphone and sporting his trademark peroxide hairdo.

He left the demonstration a short while later after safety concerns when his vehicle became boxed in by a throng of supporters and journalists.

Wilders, 54, is often called the "best protected" man in the country and lives under 24-hour security.

His anti-Islam views have seen him receive death threats including from terror groups such as the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

Last March, Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) campaigned in national elections on a virulently anti-Islam platform and used the slogan "Stop Islam", but failed to enter the government.

Wilders put a brave face on the result, tweeting: "We were the third largest party of the Netherlands. Now we are the second largest party. Next time we will be [number] one!"
Appealing against conviction

He is currently appealing against a 2016 conviction for discrimination against Moroccans in a speech at a 2014 election rally.

Many protesters on Saturday waved Dutch flags and carried placards saying "Stop the Islamisation of Europe" and "Keep the Dutch culture, traditions, norms and values!"

Police - who were out in force - formed a line between right-wing demonstrators and a handful of anti-demonstrators led by two MPs of the leftist Denk Party, which draws its support mainly from Turkish and Moroccan communities.

"This is a message of hatred and division and we're against it. We have a message of unity and solidary," Denk leader Tunahan Kuzu told AFP.

Wilders's PVV will compete in about 30 of the 335 local governments in the 21 March vote, with the party battling to find candidates to represent it in other local constituencies.

The PVV, however, will compete in Rotterdam, where it will face-off against Kuzu's Denk party, among others.

Source: AFP

The number of Syrians who have died trying to flee their war-torn country into neighbouring Lebanon during a snowstorm has risen to at least 13, the United Nations said Saturday.

A group of Syrians, including children, had tried to enter neighbouring Lebanon late on Thursday through a smuggling route but were caught in a fierce storm.

The Lebanese army and civil defence said on Friday they had retrieved the bodies of 10 Syrians, including two children and six women.

But the toll has since increased.

Lisa Abou Khaled, a spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency, said at least 13 Syrians were confirmed to have died in the incident.

"The victims were trying to cross an arduous and rugged passage in freezing temperatures," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"Others in the group, including a pregnant woman, were discovered in time and assisted by nearby residents and the Lebanese Armed Forces and Civil Defence to reach hospitals before they froze to death."

A Lebanese army source told AFP on Saturday that the toll had reached 14.

"The army retrieved a total of 12 bodies on Friday, and one person died at the hospital. Another body was found on Saturday, bringing the total to 14," the source said.

Lebanon, a country of four million, hosts just under a million Syrians who have sought refuge from the war raging in their neighbouring homeland since 2011.

Many live in informal tented settlements in the country's east and struggle to stay warm in the winter.

The UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Saturday it was distributing blankets, warm clothes and heating fuel.

"More children could be among the dead as residents in the area and the Lebanese authorities continue to look for people who are reportedly trapped in the mountainous in freezing temperatures and snow," a UNICEF statement said.

"The brutal wars have to stop and we all need to step up our generosity and assistance for the most affected children. We have no excuse. We cannot continue failing children!"

In 2015, Lebanese authorities introduced new restrictions to curb the number of Syrians entering the country.

Lebanon and Syria share a rocky 330-kilometre (205 mile) border with no official demarcation at several points.

Source: AFP

The US government officially shut down on Saturday, the first anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration, after lawmakers failed to agree a stop-gap spending deal.

Senators were still negotiating on the Senate floor as the clock turned midnight, but Trump's office issued a statement blaming opposition Democrats for the crisis.

Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the Democrats' insistence that the interim measure include protection for undocumented immigrants who arrived as children killed the deal.

"Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown," she declared, referring to the minority leader, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who met with Trump earlier Friday.

"Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country's ability to serve all Americans.

"We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands," she warned.

US federal services and military operations deemed essential will continue, but thousands of government workers will be sent home without pay until the crisis is resolved.

Source: AFP

Two American and two Canadians who were kidnapped in an ambush by gunmen in northern Nigeria this week were freed on Saturday, police said.

Nigerian security forces had launched a manhunt after the four were seized on Tuesday evening in the state of Kaduna by kidnappers who shot dead two of their police escorts.

"They have been rescued thanks to the efforts of the police," Kaduna state police spokesman Muktar Aliyu said, adding that they comprised three men and one woman.

"All of them are in a good condition of health" and are now in the care of their embassies, he said.

Aliyu said they were rescued at about 5 am (0400 GMT) in the same area where they were kidnapped, but declined to give further information, saying it was "classified information".

"I cannot confirm if there have been negotiations or a ransom paid," Aliyu added.

One person suspected of links to the kidnapping -- the latest abduction targeting foreigners in Nigeria -- has been arrested, he said.

The four North Americans -- whose identities have not been disclosed -- were on private business in Kaduna when they were snatched on the road from the town of Kafanchan to the capital Abuja.

"We are aware of reports of two US citizens kidnapped and released in Nigeria. The safety and security of US citizens overseas are among our top priorities. Due to privacy considerations we have no further comment," a US State Department official told AFP.

Kidnapping has long been a problem in Nigeria's southern states, where high-profile individuals, including the families of prominent politicians, are regularly seized.

- Violent crime common -

But as the economy stalled in recent years, the crime began creeping north.

A State Department travel advisory urges US citizens to "reconsider" travelling to Nigeria, warning that "violent crime such as armed robbery, assault, carjacking, kidnapping and rape is common throughout the country".

A crackdown on cattle rustling has been blamed for rising numbers of abductions in the north, with criminals turning to kidnapping.

The Kaduna-Abuja road is notoriously unsafe. It is a journey of about two-and-a-half hours by car through villages and past tracts of fields and forests.

Security on the route came under intense scrutiny last year when the federal government announced the closure of the capital's only airport for essential runway repairs.

Many foreign missions and companies advised staff to limit their travel during the closure period, as all domestic and some international flights were switched to Kaduna.

In July 2016, Sierra Leone's defence attache to Nigeria was kidnapped by men in military fatigues armed with AK-47 rifles at a fake checkpoint on the Abuja-Kaduna road.

And in another abduction against foreigners, in October, four Britons including a man and his wife working for a Christian charity were kidnapped in the southeastern Delta State.

The British government announced the following month that one of the hostages was killed, but the three others were freed.

Source: AFP

Beijing on Saturday said it had dispatched a warship to drive away a US missile destroyer which had "violated" its sovereignty by sailing close to a shoal in the disputed South China Sea.

The USS Hopper sailed within 12 nautical miles of Huangyan Island on the night of January 17 without alerting Beijing, the foreign ministry said, referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.

Also known as Scarborough Shoal, the ring of reefs lies about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from the Philippines in the South China Sea, where Beijing's claims are hotly contested by other nations.

The US vessel "violated China's sovereignty and security interests", and put the safety of nearby Chinese vessels "under grave threat", foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.

China's defence ministry said in a separate statement that a Chinese frigate "immediately took actions to identify and verify the US ship and drove it away by warning" it.

The USS Hopper recently entered the US Navy's 7th Fleet area of operations, where the ship is on an "independent deployment", according to a statement released earlier this month on the Navy's website.

Its mission in Asia involves "security cooperation, building partner capacity, and performing routine operations within the area".

News of the encounter follows Friday's release of a new US national defence strategy that says America is facing "growing threats" from China and Russia.

China is a "strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea", the document says.

China's defence ministry dismissed those claims on Saturday, saying "the situation in the South China Sea has steadily stabilised," in comments attributed to spokesman Wu Qian.

But it added, "the United States has repeatedly sent warships illegally into the adjacent waters of the South China Sea islands and reefs."

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours and has rapidly built reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

China seized Scarborough Shoal in 2012 after a brief stand-off with the Philippine navy. The shoal is also claimed by Taiwan.

Source: AFP

A former Egyptian armed forces chief of staff said on Saturday that he will challenge fellow military man Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the presidency in March.

General Sami Anan's announcement came just hours after Sisi publicly confirmed he would seek a second term in the March 26-28 election, the third since the 2011 overthrow of longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak.

In a video posted on Facebook, Anan said he would seek to correct the "wrong policies" that had been adopted since Sisi ousted elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi when commander in chief in 2013.

He said Egypt faced multiple challenges after the long years of turmoil, including deteriorating living conditions and a jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

"This is all the result of wrong policies which have put all the responsibilities on the armed forces without rational policies that would enable the civilian sector of the state to carry out its role in full, alongside the role of the armed forces," he said.

Anan said he had already put in place a team of civilians to support his bid, including Hisham Geneina, a former head of Egypt's anti-corruption watchdog who was sacked by Sisi in 2016 after publishing a damning report that put the losses from graft at more than $100 billion.

Anan served as armed forces chief of staff from 2005 until he was retired by Morsi in 2012 and analysts said his candidacy might attract Egyptians nostalgic for the relative stability of the Mubarak era.

When the longtime strongman was forced to step down by the Arab spring protests of 2011, he ceded power to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), an interim executive made up of 20 generals in which Anan served as number two.

The top post was held by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the army commander in chief who was replaced by Sisi at the same time that Anan was retired.

Would-be candidates for the presidency must register with the National Elections Authority by January 29.

Several prominent figures who had been seen as potential challengers to Sisi had already ruled themselves out even before registrations opened on Saturday.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said on January 7 that he would not stand, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

On Monday, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of the late president of the same name, said he would not stand because the climate was not right for free elections.

Source: AFP

Activists blocked roads and clashed with police in Honduras on Saturday as part of nationwide protests against the contested re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds jailed since Hernandez was declared the winner of the November 26 run-off election -- after a three week stretch of often-interrupted ballot counting that stoked tensions and sparked accusations of fraud in the Central American country.

The left-wing Alliance in Opposition against the Dictatorship is heading a protest campaign insisting that the election was stolen from its candidate, former TV anchor Salvador Nasrallah.

The opposition called for a "national strike" on Saturday to block the country's main roads ahead of the start of the president's new term in office on January 27.

The government deployed police and soldiers to confront protesters.

One demonstrator was shot dead Saturday, opposition leader and former president Manuel Zelaya told AFP, identifying the victim as Anselmo Villareal, 60.

Seven other demonstrators were detained and two police were hurt, police spokesman Jair Meza said.

A military spokesman, Lieutenant Jose Coello, told AFP that some highways had been blocked "but they are being cleared in a peaceful manner."

Coello said police confiscated tires, presumably to be set ablaze, that  protesters were carrying in their vehicles.

Protesters blocked the country's main highway between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula at a point about 100 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital, local media reported.

In Tegucigalpa, police fired tear gas at protesters trying to block a road and burn tires. The demonstrators responded by hurling rocks.

Hernandez has implicit backing from the United States, which is pouring millions of dollars into Honduras and neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador to improve security conditions there.

Those three countries, collectively known as Central America's "Northern Triangle," are the biggest source of undocumented migrants heading to the United States.

Source: AFP

Hollywood heavyweight Will Smith says he's now hooked on tennis after being courtside at the Australian Open to see Nick Kyrgios topple Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a Grand Slam classic.

The "Men in Black" star was on the edge of his seat as Australian hope Kyrgios beat the former finalist 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/5) in a spectacular night match on Friday.

"This match last night was CRAZY!! @klnkyrg1os vs @tsongaofficiel ... WOW! I haven’t been to many Tennis matches. But, Now... I’m pretty sure I’m hooked!" he said on Instagram Saturday.

Smith has 5.4 million Instagram followers and his post had got 227,000 likes in barely two hours.

Kyrgios is huge fan of the actor, producer and comedian and admitted after the match he was a bit star-struck when he realised he was watching.

"No joke, he's like my favourite actor. I get asked if one person were acting your life, I'd always pick him," said the 22-year-old, seeded 17 at Melbourne Park.

"It was surreal seeing him. You know, I was talking to him in the third set. I kept looking at him. I was like, 'I got to break the ice, I got to say something'."

Asked what he said, he replied: "I said, I watched a load of your movies a bunch of times. It was pretty cringe, but it broke the ice."

The pair met afterwards and had their picture taken, and Kyrgios was impressed.

"He was really nice. I met him after the match. He was really genuine," he said.

Source: AFP

Emmanuel Macron has said Britain can secure the bespoke Brexit trade deal Theresa May wants, but warned there would be a trade off.

The airport serving the Libyan capital resumed flights on Saturday following a five-day suspension after deadly clashes around the facility that also damaged planes on the tarmac.

Lotfi Khalil, the director general of Mitiga airport on the eastern outskirts of Tripoli, said services resumed with Buraq Air flying to the eastern city of Tobruk and Libyan Airlines leaving for Tunis.

One local carrier, state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, however, has yet to resume operations because its planes were damaged in Monday's fighting in which at least 20 people were killed, he told AFP.

Since the closure, flights had been diverted to Misrata, a city 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital.

Mitiga airport, a former military air base, was evacuated on Monday after militiamen attacked it in an attempt to free detainees at a jail there.

The health ministry of Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said 20 people were killed and 63 wounded in the violence.

The GNA condemned what it called a "premeditated" attack by gunmen trying to free "terrorists" belonging to the Islamic State jihadist group and Al-Qaeda.

Mitiga has been a civilian airport since Tripoli's main international airport was badly damaged in fighting between rival militias in mid-2014.

Libya has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival authorities and militias battling for control of its oil riches.

Source: AFP

Around 500 Syrian fighters graduated on Saturday from a US-led training course aimed at establishing a controversial "border security force" in the country's north.

Last week, the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State group announced it had begun forming a 30,000-strong security force to patrol territory captured from IS.

About half its fighters would hail from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that has emerged as Washington's best ally against jihadists, and the rest would be new recruits.

On Saturday, a batch of around 500 fighters marked their completion of the nearly three-week training programme at a ceremony near Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh.

Dressed in military fatigues, the graduates stood in neat rows and took an oath to protect the country's borders "against all attacks and threats".

Trainers from the SDF and US-led coalition looked on, with pistols strapped to their waists or thighs.

"This is the second (graduating) class of the Border Security Force. They're made up of every demographic in the area," said Kani Ahmad, who headed the training.

The first class graduated on Friday.

The BSF would be deployed from northeast Syria, throughout the Kurdish-controlled north across to the northwestern province of Idlib, he said.

"Their mission is to protect the border, especially threats by Turkey and its mercenaries because we're being threatened," Ahmad added.

Turkey vehemently opposes the creation of the border force because it considers the SDF's Kurdish component -- the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- a "terrorist" group.

The BSF's unveiling prompted an outcry from Ankara, whose escalating threats to attack YPG-held territory on Saturday culminated in Turkish air strikes inside Syria.

The force has also been denounced by Damascus and Tehran, as well as Syria's mainstream opposition.

After completing the 20-day course, graduates would go on to receive more specialised training, officials at the graduation said.

"I'm happy I finished this training," said 21-year-old border guard Jamal Issa, who hails from the town of Kobane near the Turkish border.

"We learned how to use light and heavy weapons, deal with mines and bombs, and first aid," Issa told AFP in Kurdish.

Amer al-Ali, an Arab fighter from the town of Tal Abyad, also along the frontier, said he began fighting alongside the SDF three months ago and was glad to be switching to border monitoring.

"The trainers were from the coalition and had a lot of experience. We learned a lot of tactics on fighting, defence, and attack," he said.

He and his fellow graduates broke out into the Middle Eastern line dance known as the dabkeh and cheered, "Long live the Syrian Democratic Forces!"

Since announcing the plan, the Pentagon has insisted that the BSF is not meant to be an "army" or conventional border force but would primarily seek to prevent an IS resurgence in the area.

Source: AFP

Turkey on Saturday launched a new air and ground operation to oust a Kurdish militia from their northern Syrian enclave, defying US warnings that the action risked further destabilising the area after almost seven years of civil war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had repeatedly vowed that Turkey would root out the "nests of terror" in Syria of the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which Turkey deems a terror organisation.

The launch came despite warnings that the operation could be militarily tough against an already battle-hardened foe and complicate relations with both Washington and Moscow.

Turkey's army said operation "Olive Branch" began at 1400 GMT and was aimed at the YPG and Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Among the targets hit was the YPG-held Minnigh military airport north of Aleppo, the army said.

It said 108 targets were struck and that all casualties were Kurdish militants.

A total of 72 aircraft took part in the initial onslaught, it added, saying all returned safely to base. IS targets were also destroyed, it said.

Saturday's attacks killed 10 people, a YPG spokesman in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, an area the militia controls, said.

"Seven civilians were killed, including a child, as well as two female fighters and one male fighter," said Birusk Hasakeh, adding that the child was an eight-year-old boy.

- Huge plumes of smoke -

An AFP correspondent on the Turkish side of the border saw two war planes launch air strikes inside Syrian territory, sending huge white plumes of smoke into the sky.

Units of pro-Ankara rebels known by Turkey as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) also began moving into the YPG-controlled Afrin area, Anadolu said.

There were no reports of Turkish ground troops crossing the border but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said "ground elements" could be deployed on Sunday.

Erdogan said Turkish forces would next seek to oust the YPG from Manbij, a town further east.

In a delicate diplomatic situation, the top envoys of Russia, Iran and the United States in Ankara were invited to the foreign ministry to receive a briefing on the operation, the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held telephone talks with US counterpart Rex Tillerson while Turkey's top general Hulusi Akar informed his American and Russian counterparts.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in the Turkish southeast for more than three decades and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG has been the key ally of Turkey's fellow NATO member the United States in the fight against IS jihadists, playing a key role in pushing the extremists out of their Syrian strongholds.

A senior US State Department official said on Friday that Washington did not believe "a military operation... serves the cause of regional stability".

Erdogan had reacted furiously this week to an announcement of plans to create a US-backed 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria composed partly of YPG fighters, describing it as an "army of terror".

Tillerson later said the "entire situation has been mis-portrayed, mis-described", admitting "we owe them (Turkey) an explanation."

"We don't care what they say," Erdogan spat back. "They will learn how wrong it is to trust a terror organisation."

- 'Russian green light?' -

Syria warned last week that its air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in the new offensive.

But Cavusoglu told the 24 TV broadcaster that Turkey was informing Damascus in writing about the operation through its Istanbul consulate, a rare contact between two governments who have been at odds since the civil war began.

The Syrian foreign ministry however strongly denied this, denouncing the operation as a "brutal Turkish aggression".

Turkey from August 2016 to March 2017 pushed into Syria in its more than half-year Euphrates Shield operation in an area to the east of Afrin against both YPG and IS.

Analysts say that crucial for any major new ground operation will be approval from Moscow which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG.

Russia is an ally of the Assad regime which Turkey has opposed since the onset of the war. But both Ankara and Moscow, as well as Tehran, have worked closely on a peace process in the last year.

The Russian defence ministry said its troops were withdrawing from the Afrin area to prevent any "provocation" and ensure the security of its troops.

Timur Akhmetov, Ankara-based researcher at the Russian International Affairs Council, told AFP that Russia appeared to have given the "green light" to the operation but made clear it should not lead to destabilisation elsewhere.

"I don't think Russia will agree to let Turkey occupy the whole Afrin region and insists on keeping the Syrian government in charge," he added.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella grouping composed mainly of YPG, said in a statement the Turkish operation threatened to "breathe new life" into IS and said it has "no choice but to defend ourselves and our people".

Source: AFP

Turkey on Saturday launched a new air and ground operation to oust a Kurdish militia from their northern Syrian enclave, defying US warnings that the action risked further destabilising the area after almost seven years of civil war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had repeatedly vowed that Turkey would root out the "nests of terror" in Syria of the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which Turkey deems a terror organisation.

The launch came despite warnings that the operation could be militarily tough against an already battle-hardened foe and complicate relations with both Washington and Moscow.

Turkey's army said operation "Olive Branch" began at 1400 GMT and was aimed at the YPG and Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Among the targets hit was the YPG-held Minnigh military airport north of Aleppo, the army said.

It said 108 targets were struck and that all casualties were Kurdish militants.

A total of 72 aircraft took part in the initial onslaught, it added, saying all returned safely to base. IS targets were also destroyed, it said.

Saturday's attacks killed 10 people, a YPG spokesman in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, an area the militia controls, said.

"Seven civilians were killed, including a child, as well as two female fighters and one male fighter," said Birusk Hasakeh, adding that the child was an eight-year-old boy.

- Huge plumes of smoke -

An AFP correspondent on the Turkish side of the border saw two war planes launch air strikes inside Syrian territory, sending huge white plumes of smoke into the sky.

Units of pro-Ankara rebels known by Turkey as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) also began moving into the YPG-controlled Afrin area, Anadolu said.

There were no reports of Turkish ground troops crossing the border but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said "ground elements" could be deployed on Sunday.

Erdogan said Turkish forces would next seek to oust the YPG from Manbij, a town further east.

In a delicate diplomatic situation, the top envoys of Russia, Iran and the United States in Ankara were invited to the foreign ministry to receive a briefing on the operation, the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held telephone talks with US counterpart Rex Tillerson while Turkey's top general Hulusi Akar informed his American and Russian counterparts.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in the Turkish southeast for more than three decades and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG has been the key ally of Turkey's fellow NATO member the United States in the fight against IS jihadists, playing a key role in pushing the extremists out of their Syrian strongholds.

A senior US State Department official said on Friday that Washington did not believe "a military operation... serves the cause of regional stability".

Erdogan had reacted furiously this week to an announcement of plans to create a US-backed 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria composed partly of YPG fighters, describing it as an "army of terror".

Tillerson later said the "entire situation has been mis-portrayed, mis-described", admitting "we owe them (Turkey) an explanation."

"We don't care what they say," Erdogan spat back. "They will learn how wrong it is to trust a terror organisation."

- 'Russian green light?' -

Syria warned last week that its air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in the new offensive.

But Cavusoglu told the 24 TV broadcaster that Turkey was informing Damascus in writing about the operation through its Istanbul consulate, a rare contact between two governments who have been at odds since the civil war began.

The Syrian foreign ministry however strongly denied this, denouncing the operation as a "brutal Turkish aggression".

Turkey from August 2016 to March 2017 pushed into Syria in its more than half-year Euphrates Shield operation in an area to the east of Afrin against both YPG and IS.

Analysts say that crucial for any major new ground operation will be approval from Moscow which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG.

Russia is an ally of the Assad regime which Turkey has opposed since the onset of the war. But both Ankara and Moscow, as well as Tehran, have worked closely on a peace process in the last year.

The Russian defence ministry said its troops were withdrawing from the Afrin area to prevent any "provocation" and ensure the security of its troops.

Timur Akhmetov, Ankara-based researcher at the Russian International Affairs Council, told AFP that Russia appeared to have given the "green light" to the operation but made clear it should not lead to destabilisation elsewhere.

"I don't think Russia will agree to let Turkey occupy the whole Afrin region and insists on keeping the Syrian government in charge," he added.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella grouping composed mainly of YPG, said in a statement the Turkish operation threatened to "breathe new life" into IS and said it has "no choice but to defend ourselves and our people".

Source: AFP

US Vice President Mike Pence held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Saturday at the start of a delayed Middle East tour overshadowed by Arab anger over Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Controversy over President Donald Trump's decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem had led to the cancellation of a number of planned meetings ahead of the trip originally scheduled for December.

The Palestinian leadership, already furious over the Jerusalem decision, has denounced the US administration and had already refused to meet Pence in December.

A coalition of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament said Saturday it would boycott a speech by Pence on Monday, calling him "dangerous and messianic".

Pence held talks with former army chief Sisi in Cairo that were expected to focus on US aid and security, including a jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

Sisi's office said the talks also covered Jerusalem, with the president stressing Egypt's support for a two-state peace settlement and "the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state with east Jerusalem as capital".

Pence, for his part, said relations between Cairo and Washington had "never been stronger" thanks to the leadership of Trump and Sisi.

Expressing sympathy for deadly jihadist attacks that have targeted both Muslim and Christian places of worship, he said: "We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism."

The vice president later travelled on to Amman ahead of a one-on-one meeting with King Abdullah II on Sunday before heading to Israel for the final leg of the tour.

Pence went ahead with the trip -- which had been pushed back in December as a crunch tax vote loomed on Capitol Hill -- despite the federal government shutdown looming over Washington.

- Key security partners -

The leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, would be key players if US mediators ever manage to get a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process off the ground, as Trump says he wants.

They are also key intelligence-sharing and security partners in America's various covert and overt battles against Islamist extremism in the region, and Egypt is a major recipient of aid to help it buy advanced US military hardware.

Sisi, one of Trump's closest allies in the region, had urged the US president before his Jerusalem declaration "not to complicate the situation in the region by taking measures that jeopardise the chances of peace in the Middle East".

Egypt's top Muslim cleric and the head of its Coptic Church had both cancelled meetings with Pence in December in protest at the Jerusalem decision.

After Jordan -- the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem -- Pence will head to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

He will also deliver a speech to parliament and meet President Reuven Rivlin during the two-day visit.

Pence can expect a warm welcome after Trump's decision on Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians alike interpreted as Washington taking Israel's side in the dispute over the city.

Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 and later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its united capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

The international community considers east Jerusalem illegally occupied by Israel and currently all countries have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv.

- 'Matter of years' -

The State Department has begun to plan the sensitive move of the American embassy to Jerusalem, a process that US diplomats say may take years to complete.

This week reports surfaced that Washington may temporarily designate the US consulate general in Jerusalem as the embassy while the search for a secure and practical site for a long-term mission continues.

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has yet to make a decision on either a permanent or interim location for the mission.

"That is a process that takes, anywhere in the world, time. Time for appropriate design, time for execution. It is a matter of years and not weeks or months," he said.

Pence -- himself a devout Christian -- will visit the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites of Judaism in Jerusalem's Old City, and pay his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Source: AFP

Jordan said on Thursday that Israel had formally apologized for the deaths of two of its citizens killed by an Israeli security guard last July in an incident that soured ties and led to the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammad al Momani was quoted by state news agency Petra as saying the Israeli foreign ministry had sent a memorandum expressing "deep regrets and apologies" over the incident at the embassy and pledging to take legal action in the case.

Jordan had said it would not allow Israel to reopen its embassy in Amman until it launched legal proceedings against the security guard.

The Israeli prime minister's office said on Thursday that the embassy in Amman would resume full operations immediately.The handling of the shooting had tested ties between Israel and Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel. The two have a long history of close security ties.

The embassy was closed shortly after Israel hastily repatriated the guard under diplomatic immunity to prevent Jordanian authorities interrogating him and taking any legal action against him. The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff were pulled out.

Jordan maintained that even if the guard had diplomatic immunity that did not mean he could not be punished.Israel has now pledged to "implement and follow up legal measures" in the case and also take action in the shooting of an unarmed Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier in an incident in 2014, Momani said.

Israel would pay compensation to the three families, he said.

Israel said at the time the armed guard opened fire after being attacked and lightly wounded by the workman, who was delivering furniture at his home within the embassy compound, and acted in self-defence in what Israeli officials called a "terrorist attack".

Israel then said it was highly unlikely it would prosecute the security guard.

Jordanian officials have treated the shooting as a criminal case and say the two unarmed Jordanians - the other was a bystander - were killed in cold blood by the armed guard.

The government statement said the Israeli government had met all of Jordan's demands for the return of the ambassador and the reopening of the embassy.Many Jordanians, in a country where the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread, were outraged that the guard was allowed to leave and staged protests calling on the authorities to scrap the 1994 peace treaty.

A televised welcome home for the guard and a hero's embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had enraged King Abdullah. In a rare outburst, he accused Netanyahu of using the incident as a "political show" saying it was "provocative on all fronts".

South Korea's prime minister apologised Friday for suggesting the country's women's ice hockey team had no chance of a medal at the Winter Olympics in an unsuccessful attempt to dampen criticism over a unified team with the North.

Japan's Olympic chief has slammed a top canoeist for spiking a rival's drink with a banned substance to scuttle his Tokyo 2020 selection hopes, describing his act as "unthinkable".

British police said Thursday they are investigating a man over a third sexual assault, with the Press Association news agency reporting that US actor Kevin Stacey is the suspected assailant.

The assault allegedly occurred in central London in 2005, during Spacey's 11-year tenure at The Old Vic theatre in the British capital.

"On 13 December we received an allegation that the man sexually assaulted a man (Victim 3) in 2005 in Westminster," a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday.

The force does not name people before they are charged with a crime, but the Press Association said the accused was the same man from earlier complaints.

The other two alleged victims said they were assaulted in 2005 and 2008 in the Lambeth area of the city where The Old Vic is located.

They came forward in the wake of the Hollywood scandal which erupted last year after numerous claims of sexual assault and harassment were made against mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Spacey has since faced a series of abuse allegations, prompting The Old Vic to launch an investigation into the actor's tenure at the theatre between 2004 and 2015.

A total of 20 claims of inappropriate behaviour were received, covering a broader period of 1995 to 2013, and have not been verified.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday ruled out the possibility of salvaging the Iranian nuclear deal if President Donald Trump decides to pull the United States out of the agreement.

"This agreement cannot be implemented if one of the participants unilaterally steps out of it," Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations.

"It will fall apart and there will be no deal then," he said, adding: "I think everyone understands that."

Trump last week agreed to again waive US nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, but demanded that US lawmakers and European allies fix the "disastrous flaws" in the deal or face a US exit.

"This is a decisive moment," Lavrov said.

Russia and the United States are among the six world powers that signed the 2015 landmark deal with Iran that aims to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Lavrov made clear that there would be no attempt by Russia to salvage it with the five remaining powers, if the United States pulls out.

Russia will make every effort to persuade the United States "not to touch this thing," said Lavrov, saying that the deal was "not dead yet."

The foreign minister again made the argument that killing off the Iran nuclear deal would also compromise any bid to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear arsenal.

If the Iranian nuclear deal is not upheld, "how can we ask North Korea to use the same option" and abandon its nuclear ambitions, asked Lavrov.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council this week that it was in the world's interest that the nuclear agreement "be preserved."

The funeral of Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan, who died suddenly in London this week, will take place near Limerick, Ireland on Tuesday, the church where she will be buried said Friday.

"The Funeral Mass for the late Dolores O'Riordan... former member of the Cranberries will take place in the Church of Saint Ailbe, Ballybricken, at 11.30am on Tuesday 23 January followed by private family burial," the church announced.

Her body will lie in repose at a funeral home close to her home town of Limerick before Tuesday's private service that will be attended by around 200 family members and friends.

The 46-year-old frontwoman of the multi-million selling Irish rock band was found dead in a London hotel on Monday, aged 46.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was among the first to pay tributes, calling O'Riordan "the voice of a generation".

London coroner Stephen Earl said Friday that he was awaiting test results following a post-mortem, with a full inquest set for April 3, although her death is not being treated as suspicious.

The Cranberries achieved international success in the 1990s with their debut album "Everyone Else is Doing it, So Why Can't We?", which included the hit single "Linger".

The follow-up album gave rise to politically-charged single "Zombie", an angry response to the deadly Northern Ireland conflict, which hit number one across Europe.

The band sold around 40 million records worldwide.

She was in London to record a version of "Zombie" with the hard rock band Bad Wolves, the group said on Tuesday.

The Cranberries' greatest hits collection "Stars: The Best Of 1992-2002" has hit number 16 on Britain's album chart, higher than when it was released in 2002.

Nearly 140 chief executives from companies around the world will gather at the Versailles Palace outside Paris on Monday, as the French government steps up its efforts to attract more foreign investors.

President Emmanuel Macron orchestrated what is being billed as an "attractiveness summit" as executives converge for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

A handful of economic accords are to be announced, including a major investment in "traditional industry" and two in "high-tech and artificial intelligence", an official in the president's office said.

"We are going to take advantage of the fact that on their way to Davos, corporate leaders are coming to Europe and can make a stop in Paris," the official said, asking not to be named.

The 40-year-old French leader has introduced a series of business-friendly reforms since taking power in May, including loosening labour laws and cutting taxes, and is aiming to slash unemployment from 9.7 percent to 7.0 percent by 2022.

The session will begin with a lunch with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, followed by sessions with government ministers and prominent figures including the mathematician Cedric Villani, who became an MP last year as part of Macron's Republic On The Move (LREM) party.

Macron will cap the event with a closed-door speech and dinner.

"The president had a quiet straightforward goal, that an 'attractiveness summit' doesn't make any sense unless it comes with concrete projects," the source said.

About ten projects are currently being negotiated, the source added.

"The important thing for us, beyond explanations, is to show projects that will make them want to invest in France."

Roughly half of the participants will come from European companies, including Bosch, SAP, Novartis and Rolls-Royce.

About 25 percent will come from American groups, and the remainder from Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The bosses of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Bank of America are expected to attend, while China's Alibaba will be represented by its deputy CEO.

Some 3,000 participants are expected to head to Swiss Alps for the 48th Davos conference that opens Tuesday.

A German rapper turned Islamic State fighter who reportedly married the FBI translator hired to spy on him has been killed in an airstrike in Syria, a US-based monitoring group has said.

Denis Cuspert, who performed under the stage name Deso Dogg, became one of the extremist group's most famous Western fighters, appearing in numerous propaganda videos including one that apparently pictured him with a man's severed head.

The German-Ghanaian was killed on Wednesday during an airstrike in the town of Gharanij in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, said a statement from the pro-IS Wafa' Media Foundation translated into English by the SITE monitoring group.

The jihadist group also posted eight graphic photographs on the Telegram messaging app that it said were of his bloody corpse, SITE said.

Cuspert's death has been reported before, including by the Pentagon which announced he had been killed in an airstrike in Syria in October 2015. It later acknowledged he appeared to have survived the attack.

Jihadist sources in April 2014 also said Cuspert had been killed in Syria but they later retracted the claim.

Daniela Greene, an FBI translator with "top secret" security clearance, allegedly sneaked off to Syria in June 2014 to marry Cuspert after she grew attracted to the extremist while spying on him, according to US court documents.

Greene, who was arrested on her return to the US less than two months after travelling to Syria, pleaded guilty to "making false statements involving international terrorism" and served a two-year prison sentence.

Cuspert had pledged an oath of loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was a chief recruiter of German fighters.

US officials have said Cuspert had made threats against former US president Barack Obama and US and German citizens, and had also encouraged Western Muslims to carry out IS-inspired attacks.

Catalonia's former leader Carles Puigdemont, who was sacked by Madrid over his attempt to break from Spain, said Friday he can govern the region from Belgium where he is in self-imposed exile as he eyes a comeback after scoring big in elections.

"There are only two options: in prison I would not be able to address people, write, meet people," Puigdemont, who risks arrest on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds if he returns to Spain, told Catalunya Radio.

"The only way is to continue doing it freely and safely."

"Nowadays big business, academic and research projects are essentially managed using new technology," he added.

His comments came as Catalonia's new parliamentary speaker, Roger Torrent from the pro-independence ERC party, held talks with party representatives to pick a candidate for the regional presidency.

Puigdemont, who was sacked along with his cabinet on October 27 after the regional parliament declared independence, is the only candidate from Catalonia's separatist grouping to lead the region.

And given pro-independence parties won an absolute majority in elections on December 21, he in theory stands a good chance to be voted in at a parliamentary session due by the end of the month.

- Plan to 'restore policies' -

But there is a huge stumbling block in the way: he is in Belgium and won't come back to Spain.

The Catalan parliament's legal experts say the contender has to be physically present.

But Puigdemont insists he has the legitimate mandate of the people to rule after his Together for Catalonia list won the most votes within the separatist camp in the elections.

He wants to present his candidacy and government programme to parliament -- a prerequisite to being voted in -- remotely via videolink or by having someone else read it for him.

The central government in Madrid, though, has warned it will take the matter to court and keep direct control over Catalonia if Puigdemont tries to govern from Belgium.

"To persist in this way is not the solution, to the contrary, it is a bad idea," government spokesman Inigo Mendez said.

Ultimately, it will be up to Torrent and his deputies -- three of whom are pro-independence and three others against it -- to decide whether to allow lawmakers to vote for a president even if he is not present.

On Monday, Puigdemont will take part in a debate at the University of Copenhagen - his first public trip since fleeing Spain.

His visit to Denmark could help avoid problems in Belgium, where European citizens can live without a residency permit for three months, after which they theoretically have to leave. If they return they can stay another three months.

In the interview, Puigdemont said he wanted to reinstate his sacked government as well as its policies, marked by disobedience towards Spanish courts and a failed strategy to break from Spain while he was president.

"We have a plan to restore democracy, the institutions and policies," he said.

"The result of these elections validate our government programme."

Madrid's direct rule, imposed after the independence declaration, has caused resentment in a region that had enjoyed considerable autonomy before its leaders attempted to break away from Spain.

According to Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, the secession crisis -- that kicked off in earnest on October 1 when Catalan leaders held an independence referendum despite a court ban -- has taken a financial toll.

He has said the crisis has slowed economic growth in the region at an estimated cost of one billion euros ($1.2 billion).

More than 3,000 companies have moved their legal headquarters out of the region as uncertainty persists.

A Taiwanese businessman who has been investigated and sanctioned by authorities on suspicion of selling oil to North Korea attempted suicide on Friday, prosecutors said.

Chen Shih-hsien was rushed to hospital in southern Kaohsiung city where he lives and was later discharged.

"We are aware of Chen's attempted suicide. We will consider his health state before deciding on the date for his next questioning," said Ke Kuang-hui, a spokesman for the Kaohsiung district prosecutor's office.

An emotional Chen, sitting in a wheelchair, told reporters as he was leaving the hospital that he was "framed by China", according to Central News Agency.

"I would not do business with North Korea," he was quoted by the agency as saying.

Taiwan's justice ministry last week announced a ban on all financial dealings with Chen and froze his companies' bank accounts due to the ongoing investigation into his activities.

Chen is being probed over links to a Hong Kong-registered ship that Seoul has said it detained in November.

The ship, known as the Lighthouse Winmore, is suspected of transferring oil products to a North Korean vessel and breaching UN sanctions against the nuclear-armed regime.

Chen is under investigation for making a false declaration that a ship he chartered was bound for Hong Kong when it actually sailed to international waters to sell oil, according to prosecutors.

He has told prosecutors that he did not know the oil products were bound for a North Korean vessel, sources told AFP.

Local media said the ship he chartered was the Lighthouse Winmore and that Chen sold oil products through "a Chinese middleman".

The Lighthouse Winmore was impounded in November by South Korean authorities after it allegedly transferred 600 tonnes of oil to a North Korean vessel, according to Seoul.

It was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, which is incorporated in the Marshall Islands and cannot be traced directly to Chen.

But Taiwanese authorities found him to be the sole shareholder of another company with a similar name, Bunker's Taiwan Group, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Taiwan has slapped sanctions on both firms.

Two other entities backed by Chen were also sanctioned by Taiwan under terrorism financing prevention laws.

Chen is currently on bail and has not yet been formally charged.

The US had previously asked the United Nations Security Council to blacklist 10 ships -- including the Lighthouse Winmore -- for violating sanctions against the North.

Taiwan announced in September it was banning all trade activities with North Korea.

India's top court on Friday upheld the acquittal of a Bollywood director accused of raping an American research scholar in a case that has sparked intense debate about consent in a country with high levels of sexual violence.

Mahmood Farooqui was initially found guilty of rape in 2016, but the Delhi high court last year overturned the conviction on appeal, ruling the incident had been consensual.

One of the judges hearing that appeal said Farooqui may not have been aware that the woman had not consented to sex, a comment that attracted fierce criticism from rights activists.

"In cases where the parties are known to each other, it could be really difficult to decipher whether a feeble 'no' – little or no resistance – actually amounts to denial of consent," said Justice Ashutosh Kumar.

The alleged victim sought to appeal, but the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed her plea, saying the acquittal had been sound.

"The high court judgement is well written. It does not require our interference," said S.A. Bobde, one of the judges hearing the case.

Activist Kavita Krishnan said Friday's ruling was a "betrayal of women's rights" and of the new, tougher laws on sexual violence introduced after the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student in 2012.

"If you made a drink for a man, our Supreme Court thinks your No can then be read as Yes," tweeted Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association.

"SC refusal to even admit the plea against atrocious 'Feeble No' verdict is a betrayal of women's rights and of the 2013 rape law."

The case dates back to 2015 when the scholar had travelled to India to seek Farooqui's assistance with her research.

She travelled home to the US shortly afterwards but returned to India to report the matter to police.

India has a grim record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of rape laws that increased penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through courts.

But activists say much more needs to be done.

An Iraqi teenager on Friday pleaded not guilty to allegations he was behind the attempted bombing of a London underground train last year which left 30 people injured.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, is facing charges of attempted murder and causing an explosion over the September 15 attack at Parsons Green station.

Wearing a purple jumper, Hassan appeared at the London court by video link from prison.

The blast, which occurred during rush hour, inflicted flash burns on passengers, while others were injured in the subsequent panic to escape the packed London Underground train.

Thirty people were treated in hospital following the explosion, which could have had a far more devastating impact but failed to detonate correctly.

The device had been placed in a plastic bag and contained hundreds of grams of explosives, as well as metal shrapnel including knives and screws, a prosecutor said during an earlier court hearing.

The bombing at Parsons Green, a quiet and wealthy neighbourhood, was Britain's fifth terror attack in six months and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

Hassan was arrested a day after the bombing when he was recognised by an officer at the southeastern ferry port of Dover.

He had been living in Surrey just south of London and has said his parents were killed in Iraq.

The two-week trial is due to start on March 5, after a further hearing scheduled for February 23.

A British teenager managed to access the communications accounts of top US intelligence and security officials including the then CIA chief John Brennan, a London court heard Friday.

Kane Gamble, now 18, was aged 15 and 16 when, from his bedroom in Coalville, central England, he managed to impersonate his targets to gain highly sensitive information.

"Kane Gamble gained access to the communications accounts of some very high-ranking US intelligence officials and government employees," prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones told England's Old Bailey central criminal court.

"He also gained access to US law enforcement and intelligence agency networks."

Gamble has admitted 10 offences against the computer misuse act, between June 2015 and February 2016, and is awaiting sentencing.

The court heard how the teenager founded the group Crackas With Attitude (CWA), who used "social engineering" -- manipulating call centres and help desks into divulging confidential information -- which they then exploited.

Gamble impersonated Brennan in calls to the telecommunications companies Verizon and AOL, although in one attempt, he stumbled on a question about Brennan's first pet.

Several sensitive documents were reportedly obtained from Brennan's private email inbox and Gamble managed to get information about military and intelligence operations in Iran and Afghanistan.

"It also seems he was able to successfully access Mr Brennan's iCloud account," the prosecutor said.

Gamble called AOL and initiated a password reset, and took control of Brennan's wife's iPad.

- 'I own you' -

Gamble also targeted the then US secretary of homeland security Jeh Johnson and made calls to his phone number.

He left Johnson's wife a voicemail saying "Am I scaring you?" and managed to get a message to appear on the family television saying: "I own you".

Other targets included the then US president Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser Avril Haines, his senior science and technology adviser John Holdren, and FBI special agent Amy Hess.

Gamble gained extensive unauthorised access to the US Department of Justice network and was able to access court case files, including on the Deepwater oil spill.

The British teenager gave some of the material he managed to access to WikiLeaks and boasted that he had a list of all Homeland Security employees.

- Clashing autism reports -

The court heard from consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Steffan Davies, whose assessment was that Gamble did not have a full understanding of the impact of what he was doing, due to autism.

"I'm very clear that he has an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)," he said.

"He spent most of his life in his bedroom on the internet and that is where he is getting his cues from.

"He has a very black and white understanding of what was happening, seeing it more as a video game with goodies and baddies.

"He was trying to right what he saw as an injustice."

However, another expert, Dr Philip Joseph, said he doubted Gamble was autistic.

"He's at the mild end (of the spectrum), if he's on it at all," he said.

"If he had that condition, it doesn't explain why he committed these offences."

Gamble was arrested at his home on February 9 last year at the request of the FBI.

He claimed he was motivated to act out of support for the Palestinians, and due to the United States "killing innocent civilians", the prosecutor said.

Wearing a black jacket, he spoke only to confirm his name, mumbling "yes", and sat in the court next to his mother.

He will be sentenced at a date yet to be fixed.

Trains on Germany’s intercity lines began running early Friday, a day after being suspended as violent gales battered northern Europe, killing at least six people across the country.

In the south, the high-speed ICE trains were running as normal on Friday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

The company had on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to storm Friedericke in the first such stoppage since 2007 when major gales battered the country.

By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend

Regional train services were also disrupted on Friday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state.

Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of branches and trees, many of which were uprooted by the force of the storm which saw winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour) while others worked to repair damage to the lines, it said.

The huge storm caused nine deaths in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos

Robert Redford said Thursday the #MeToo and Time's Up movements were a "tipping point" that would change Hollywood in favor of women's equality and intolerance for sexual misconduct.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that his ambitious EU plans to reform the European Union needed German backing, as Chancellor Angela Merkel gears up for a crucial vote on forming a new coalition.

"Our ambition cannot come to fruition alone," Macron told a joint press conference with Merkel before talks in Paris. "It needs to come together with Germany's ambition."

On Sunday, some 600 delegates from Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) party will be asked to give the green light to a preliminary coalition agreement reached with Merkel's conservatives last week.

Merkel's political future is on the line, after more than 12 years in power.

At the meeting with Macron, which appeared aimed at giving her a boost, Merkel said that a "stable German government" was crucial for the EU to move forward with its reform agenda.

In November, she was left considerably weakened after her first attempt to form a new government collapsed when the pro-business FDP party walked out.

She then turned to the SPD, her outgoing governing partners with whom she hopes to form another grand coalition.

Macron, who is driving attempts to reform the EU in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the bloc, refused to be drawn into trying to predict the outcome of Sunday's vote, saying it could be "counterproductive".

But he stressed the pro-European credentials of the SPD and said the coalition blueprint showed "true European ambition".

Merkel said her CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD had a shared commitment to Europe.

Macron had made no secret of the fact that he would like to see the SPD, which is enthusiastic about his proposals for closer eurozone integration, including a common budget, remain on the front benches.

Last week he said a conservative-social democrat tie-up would be "good for Germany, good for France and above all good for Europe."

US President Donald Trump plans to meet Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, the White House said Friday.

The announcement came after Trump cancelled a planned trip to London, casting further doubt on the strength of the vaunted trans-Atlantic "special relationship."

"President Trump looks forward to having a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister May in Davos next week to further strengthen the US–UK special relationship," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that the pair would meet on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort.

May was the first world leader to visit Trump at the White House after his inauguration last year and brought with her an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit.

Since then, however, ties have become strained and thousands of Britons have taken to social media to promise large-scale street protests if the visit goes ahead.

The latest blow to ties came on January 11 when Trump confirmed in a tweet that he had "cancelled" a visit to London during which he had been expected to open the new US embassy.

Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will on Monday head to London to visit the embassy and hold talks with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Tillerson will also visit Paris before joining Trump later in the week in Davos, which is hosting its annual policy forum for the global business elite.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Tillerson would use his visit to London "to reaffirm the US-UK special relationship."

"My understanding is that he will make a visit to the mission," the official said.

"I don't think that there is a ribbon-cutting or any sort of ceremony planned, in part because the facilities are still in the final phase of construction," he said.

"I think there's still quite a lot of pieces and debris in the lobby and elsewhere and it's really not the moment for a ribbon-cutting, but he is visiting the new embassy."

- 'Bad deal' -

The US embassy's move from Grosvenor Square in the West End of London near the British Government's Whitehall headquarters to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the Thames, had been planned for 10 years.

But Trump suddenly came out against the idea earlier this month in one of his trademark angry tweets -- accusing his predecessor of having overspent on an unnecessary project.

"Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,' only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars," he tweeted.

"Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

But the outburst was widely interpreted as an excuse from a sensitive president fearful that his visit would trigger an embarrassing public rejection from the British public.

Trump, while a supporter of those campaigning to bring Britain out of the European Union, has offended many other Britons with what they see as his divisive rhetoric.

The president has repeatedly sparred with London's Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, and other British officials on Twitter, accusing them of downplaying the threat of "radical Islamic terror."

And in November last year, he won a rebuke from May herself when he retweeted three propaganda videos promoted by the far-right racist movement Britain First.

But, despite the tensions, British leaders remain very keen to preserve trans-Atlantic ties, particularly so that their impending "Brexit" from Europe will not leave them isolated.

President Donald Trump admitted Friday that chances were "not looking good" that 11th-hour talks in Congress would break an impasse over spending and avert a US government shutdown.

Less that two-and-a-half hours before a midnight deadline to reach a short-term deal to keep the federal government running at full capacity, Trump lashed out at Democrats.

"Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border," he tweeted, citing some of the government projects and agencies that will find themselves unfunded.

"Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy," he alleged.

Earlier, after meeting top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, Trump had sounded more upbeat, saying they were "working on solutions" with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

But Schumer admitted a "good number of disagreements" remain between the two sides, despite a "long and detailed meeting" at which they discussed "all of the major outstanding issues."

"The discussions will continue," the New York Democrat told reporters.

The president shelved plans to fly to Florida to celebrate at his Mar-a-Lago estate the first anniversary of his inauguration  -- which falls on Saturday -- to remain in Washington to ride out the storm, and the possible late-night Senate votes.

"He's not leaving until this is finished," White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters.

"There's a really good chance it gets fixed" before government offices open on Monday, Mulvaney added.

- 'Shutdown coming?' -

Trump seemed to revel in the high-stakes brinksmanship unfolding in Washington, with Senate passage of a government funding extension that was pushed through the House of Representatives on Thursday up in the air.

"Shutdown coming?" he tweeted to begin the day Friday. White House officials said he made several calls to Democrats to try to win votes before his talks with Schumer.

"Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders," Trump said on Twitter.

Republicans, who have a tenuous one-seat majority in the Senate, need as many as a dozen Democratic crossover votes to reach the 60 votes required for passage.

Democrats, however, appeared determined to block the measure, insisting on a deal that would protect from deportation so-called "Dreamers" -- the 700,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

The House measure, which would extend federal funding until February 16, reauthorizes for six years a health insurance program for poor children -- a long-time Democratic objective -- but not the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that affects Dreamers.

White House officials insisted there was no urgency to fix DACA, which expires March 5.

"This is purely an attempt by the Senate Democrats led by Schumer -- why we call it the 'Schumer shutdown' -- to try and get a shutdown the president gets blamed for," Mulvaney said.

- Political risks -

With mid-term congressional elections looming later this year, Republicans risk being blamed by voters if the government stops functioning over lack of funds.

A new Washington Post/ABC poll found that 48 percent of Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for a potential shutdown, and only 28 percent hold Democrats responsible.

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. In the last one in 2013, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential functions like the military, law enforcement, the White House and Congress would continue working but with reduced staff. Some agencies would shut altogether.

But others in the massive bureaucracy will be sent home without pay.

International ratings agency Fitch said a partial shutdown was unlikely to affect America's AAA/stable rating for US sovereign debt.

Wall Street seemed unconcerned so far, with the S&P and Nasdaq closing at new records.

- 'Like a Sphinx' -

Schumer said if agreement is not reached by Friday night, Democrats would support a shorter-term funding measure that would "give the president a few days to come to the table."

McConnell said the House bill provides for four weeks of funding, enough to allow talks to continue "without throwing the government into disarray for no reason."

Negotiations with the White House on a bipartisan compromise on DACA blew up last week after Trump reportedly referred to African nations and Haiti as "shithole countries."

Trump's unpredictable Twitter outbursts and sudden changes of position also have bedeviled Republican leaders as they maneuver to cut a deal.

In the past, Schumer has described Trump as "like a Sphinx on this issue," a sentiment Republicans also appeared to share.

"We need to know where the president stands," Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said Friday on CNN.

"Let's suppose we reach an agreement with the Democrats, and I think we will -- I want to know the president is going to sign it."

Pope Francis sounded a stark warning about the future of the Amazon and its peoples during a visit to the region on Friday, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Turkey on Friday started fresh shelling of the Syrian town of Afrin in a move to oust a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers "terrorists" and vowed to press on with a full-scale operation against them.

The Turkish government has repeatedly warned it will strike Syrian towns controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, including Afrin, after the US said it was training a 30,000-strong border force there.

"The Afrin operation will take place," Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli told A Haber television.

"The presence of all the terror lines in northern Syria will be removed. There's no other way out," he said.

Turkish troops fired on several YPG targets in Afrin to prevent the formation of a "terror corridor" on the border, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Army howitzers in the frontier Hatay province launched at least 10 rounds of artillery fire, targeting the "terror nests of the terror organisation in Afrin," Anadolu said.

A military convoy of 20 buses carrying Syrian opposition rebels backed by Ankara also crossed over into Syria through the Oncupinar border crossing in the Kilis province, Turkish media reported.

Separately, around 30 buses full of Syrian fighters headed towards the Cilvegozu border crossing in the town of Reyhanli, an AFP photographer said.

- 'De facto start'-

Canikli said with the shelling "in fact, the operation has de facto started."

Asked about the timing of a ground incursion, Canikli said: "It could be tomorrow, it could be in the evening. What we say is that this operation will take place."

Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad warned on Thursday that the Syrian air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in a threatened assault on the war-torn country.

The YPG is a major bone of contention in ties between Turkey and the US which considers it a key ally in fighting IS.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reacted with fury to the announcement of the US-backed border force, denouncing it as an "army of terror".

The Pentagon said it does not plan to create an "army" and that the force is aimed at fighters from the Islamic State group and maintaining stability in areas recaptured from the jihadists.

Ankara however said it was not satisfied with the US assurances.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in its southeast since 1984.

Meanwhile, mortar fire on the Syrian town of Azaz just across the border from Turkey and held by Turkish-backed rebels wounded at least 14 people in a psychiatric hospital, a monitor said on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the mortar rounds on Thursday were fired by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance dominated by the YPG.

The Turkish army condemned the mortar fire and said wounded civilians were also taken across the border into Turkey for treatment.

Analysts say Turkey needs the green light from Russia for a full cross-border operation because of Moscow's military presence in the area.

In a surprise development, Turkey's army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian counterparts on security issues and Syria.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Friday he would stand in a presidential election due to take place in March.

"I announce to you in the honesty and transparency which we are used to... my candidacy for the post of president of the republic," Sisi said at a conference in Cairo, broadcast live on state television.

Sisi is widely expected to win in the first round, set for March 26-28.

Egypt's former army chief, Sisi was elected in 2014, a year after leading the military's ouster of his predecessor Mohamed Morsi amid mass protests against the Islamist's year-long rule.

That was followed by a crackdown against thousands of Morsi supporters who demonstrated for weeks to demand his reinstatement.

In August 2013, security forces stormed a sit-in to disperse protesters, killing hundreds within hours and arresting thousands.

Egypt has since faced a string of deadly jihadist attacks, particularly in North Sinai, where an Islamic State group affiliate led what became a full-fledged insurgency following Morsi's ouster.

Sisi announced his candidacy Friday during the final segment of a three-day conference named "Story of a Nation" which showcased his accomplishments during his first term.

He said he had "done all I could".

"Regardless of who your vote will be for, all that I wish of you (is that you) show the world your participation in the elections and choose whoever you wish to," said Sisi.

The conference saw ministers and members of the public discuss issues including completed infrastructure projects, the military's counter-terrorism efforts, foreign policy and the war on drugs.

- Who will stand? -

So far, two prominent potential candidates have announced that they will not take part in the poll.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, who had been seen as a major rival to Sisi, said on January 7 that he would not be a candidate, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

On Monday, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of Egypt's late president of the same name, announced he would not run in the poll because the climate was not right for free elections.

Other potential candidates include Khaled Ali, a rights lawyer and 2012 presidential candidate who challenged the government over Egypt's controversial transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

It remains unclear whether he will stand, as he was sentenced in absentia in September to three months in jail on accusations of "offending public decency", a ruling he appealed.

Ali said only the committee organising the election could decide whether that disqualified him as a candidate.

Separately, military Colonel Ahmed Konsowa was sentenced by a military court in December to six years in jail after he announced his intention to stand.

The head of Egypt's Zamalek football club, Mortada Mansour, said on Saturday he would put forward his candidacy.

Campaigning for the election begins on February 24 and will last until March 23.

The National Elections Authority will accept applications between January 20 and 29 from presidential hopefuls who are collecting the required number of signatures to stand.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq would be defeated militarily "in the coming weeks," as he laid out plans for bolstering France's defence capabilities.

"Today, thanks to the efforts of all the nations involved, the Daesh military organisation in the Levant is almost completely defeated," Macron said in a speech aboard a helicopter carrier in the southern port of Toulon, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"I'm confident that in the coming weeks we will achieve a military victory on the ground," he said.

"I want us now to firmly commit with our partners to stabilisation, reconstruction and aide to populations" after years of conflict, he said.

With many of its leaders dead and its fighters on the run, IS has now lost almost all the land it once controlled in Syria and Iraq.

France, which recently pulled out two of the 12 Rafale fighter jets it had been operating in the region, currently has about 1,200 personnel in the international coalition fighting the militants.

Macron said that although combat operations would continue, the country would "adapt" its contribution this year to developments, without providing details.

The French government has increased the 2018 defence budget by 1.8 billion euros, bringing it to 34.2 billion euros ($42 billion).

Macron reiterated his pledge to lift French defence spending to two percent of the country's GDP by 2025, in line with the target agreed to by NATO members in 2014.

The increased spending will include a "renewal" of France's nuclear arsenal during his five-year term, Macron said, calling nuclear deterrence "the keystone of our defence strategy for the past 50 years."

German insurers estimated Friday that ferocious gales that battered Germany caused 500 million euros ($614 million) in damages, as the number of dead across the country rose to eight.

Trains on Germany's intercity lines gradually resumed operation a day after they were suspended due to the hurricane-force winds which caused transport chaos across northern Europe.

Two more people were reported killed in the worst storm to strike Germany in a decade, adding to an earlier toll of six which included two firefighters responding to emergency calls.

A 64-year-old man fell eight metres (26 feet) while he was working to secure the roof of a house. He later died in hospital, police from the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

Another man, 34, also succumbed to his injuries after he was crushed by a falling tree, police said.

The huge storm caused another three deaths elsewhere in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos.

In southern Germany, high-speed ICE trains were running as normal on Friday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

The company had on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to storm Friederike -- the first such stoppage since 2007, when major gales battered the country.

- Baby in storm -

By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend.

Regional train services were also disrupted on Friday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.

Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of fallen branches and trees.

Many trees were uprooted by the force of the storm which saw winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour) while others worked to repair damage to the lines, it said.

The German Insurance Association said 500 million euros of damage was caused by the country's worst storm in more than a decade, although it was only a quarter of that inflicted by another deadly tempest in 2007, which cost some two billion euros.

Separately, Dutch insurers reported 90 million euros in damages across The Netherlands, where train services were on Friday also slowly creaking back into gear.

"According to our first estimates, the damage to homes and cars is at least 90 million euros," the Dutch Association of Insurers said.

But it said it had yet to add in the cost to businesses, government buildings and the agriculture sector.

The Netherlands bore the initial brunt of Thursday's severe storms which slammed in with winds of up to 140 kilometres (86 miles) an hour off the North Sea before barrelling across northern Europe.

On a lighter note, a baby boy was born in his parents' car in the western city of Cologne as they were caught up in the traffic chaos unleashed by storm, city authorities said.

The couple have called him Anton.

 Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday accused the Palestinian Hamas of trying to establish a foothold in southern Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel.

"Hamas, which finds it harder to carry out attacks from the Gaza Strip, is now trying to launch attacks from the West Bank and is also trying in new arenas, first of all in southern Lebanon to threaten the State of Israel," Liberman told journalists.

The hawkish minister has a history of furious statements against Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organization that runs the Gaza Strip.

"We will not allow two-faced Hamas to talk about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and on the other hand to try carrying out terror attacks in the West Bank or to build terror infrastructures in southern Lebanon," Lieberman said.

Lieberman also pointed out "the sudden friendship" between Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas commander living in Lebanon, and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. "This is something we are following," he said.

The remarks came five days after a man identified by Hamas' branch in Lebanon as a Hamas official was killed in a car bomb blast in Sidon, a southern port city in Lebanon.

Israel remained mum on the case but Hamas blamed Israel for perpetrating the assassination.

Hamas is based in Gaza but has branches elsewhere in the Middle East.

The organization has fought three wars with Israel over the past decade. The last one took place in 2014, during which Israeli forces killed at least 2,251 people in Gaza, mainly civilians, according to the United Nations figures. At the same time, 67 Israeli soldiers and four civilians were killed by Palestinian militants.

The 51-day war ended with a fragile truce, which was violated several times but has never escalated to a fully-fledged war.

Source: Xinhua

Indonesian President Joko Widodo and First Lady Iriana Joko Widodo will pay a state visit to Pakistan on Jan. 26 to Jan. 27, the Foreign Ministry said here on Friday.

The president will be accompanied by ministers and a large business delegation, a Foreign Ministry statement said. This will be the first visit of the president to Pakistan. He will also address a Joint Session of the Parliament, the statement said.

Widodo will also have talks with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. "President Widodo's visit will contribute towards strengthening existing fraternal ties between the two countries," the Foreign Ministry said.

Indonesia is the eighth largest trading partner of Pakistan and its largest trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Pakistan's bilateral trade with Indonesia stands around 2.1 billion U.S. dollars annually.

Pakistan is one of the largest importers of Indonesian palm oil. Bilateral trade is expected to grow manifold with the grant of duty free access to 20 tariff lines from Pakistan for export to Indonesia under the ambit of Preferential Trade Agreement, the foreign ministry said.

Source: Xinhua

Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday confirmed death sentences to 10 hardcore terrorists after they were found guilty of carrying out terrorist acts, the military said.

The convicts were tried and awarded death sentence by military courts, which have been established for speedy trial of terrorism-related cases, an army statement said.

"The convicts were involved in terrorists activities, killing of innocent civilians, attacks on educational institutions, slaughtering of soldiers, attacking Law Enforcement Agencies and Armed Forces of Pakistan," a statement from the army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said.

In total, these 10 terrorists were involved in the killing of 41 personnel while injuring 33 others, according to the statement. Arms and explosives were also recovered from their possession.

Besides these 10, another three convicts have been awarded imprisonment for varying periods of time by military courts.

Source: Xinhua

At least 35 people have been killed after suffering from influenza and seasonal flu in Pakistan's east Punjab Province over the last one month, officials said Friday.

The province's Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur districts were the worst-hit areas where all the fatalities were reported and hospitals received scores of people affected with the disease since December last year.

In Multan, 106 cases of influenza have been confirmed in the reported period, while 24 patients under treatment in the city's Nishtar Hospital have died, Pakistan's official news agency APP reported.

The death toll is feared to rise as at least ten more people are in a critical condition in the hospital.

A total of five people were killed in Rahim Yar Khan whereas six people including five women died of the contagious disease in Bahawalpur, the report added.

Hospitals in both of the districts are still treating 11 seriously infected people.

Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has ordered hospital administration to provide best available medical treatment to the infected people. He also directed health authorities to carry out awareness programs about the disease.

Health department said that most of the people who got killed by influenza were suffering from other diseases and flu only worsened their condition.

Talking to Xinhua, Rizwan ul Haq, an ENT specialist in Islamabad, said that persistent dry weather, lack of awareness and lack of health facilities are the basic causes of the epidemic outbreak in Multan.

"People with compromised health became victims of the disease. Flu is a contagious disease and people do not take care of their hygiene, they do not wear masks and protect themselves of cold weather, which worsens the disease," he said.

The disease has created an overall situation of panic in the country and people from across the country are heading towards hospitals to get the influenza vaccine.

A pharmacist at the Shifa International Hospital here told Xinhua that a manifold increase has been witnessed in the sale of the influenza vaccine over the last one month, in the wake of the outbreak of the epidemic in Multan.

Source: Xinhua

Yemeni army forces have liberated several areas in the Bart al-Anan District, northwest of al-Jawf governorate, which is adjacent to Saada, the major stronghold of Houthi militias on the Jawf front.

Commander of the First Brigade Brigadier Haykal Hantaf said the Yemeni army liberated the areas of Eafi, Quaif and al-Tamr in addition to the strategic Habash mountain which overlooks several important roads such as al-Jawf, Saada and the international roads and the road that links the Khob and Al-Shaaf districts with Bart al-Anan District.

He also said that army forces will continue to advance to liberate whatever is left of the district, adding that Houthis suffered huge losses as battles have killed and injured a number of Houthi fighters while several fighters fled.

The Yemeni army, aided by the Arab coalition air force, seized control of the strategic Shawkan Mountain and the Shaman Mountain which overlooks the Quaif area on Wednesday and captured 15 Houthi fighters.

Meanwhile, local sources said there are divisions among the ranks of the Houthi militia in Al-Masloub District in Al-Jawf, adding that some commanders have withdrawn and abstained from participating in the Houthis’ battles due to “treason.”

More than 25 Houthi members, including commanders, withdrew and accused the Houthis of involving innocent people in fake battles and called for handing over the members who planted mines in Al-Masloub and which killed and injured civilians.

Source: Alarabiya

Two more Iranians have been identified as having been killed under torture by authorities in Arak and Sanandaj during the recent uprising.

The body of 20-year-old Seyed Shahab Abtahi was left in front of his father’s house 10 days after he was arrested in Arak. Signs of the baton blows were visible on his body. Earlier, 22-year-old street vendor Vahid Heidari was killed by baton blows while he was detained.

The police of Markazi Province falsely alleged that Heidari had been arrested on charges of carrying drugs and committed suicide at the at Arak’s 12th police precinct. The detainees of the uprising in Arak were first transferred to Arak’s central prison and then to the Basij garrison in the Moghavemat square.

A number of detainees have been transferred to the Arak Intelligence Building, which is adjacent to the Basij garrison. According to regime senior officials in Arak, 396 people were arrested during the uprising in Arak and other cities of Markazi Province.

On Wednesday, January 17, Hossein Qaderi, 30, who was arrested in the Iranian people's uprising in Sanandaj and transferred to the central prison’s quarantine, died under torture.

Drug offender

The torturers were followed by declaration that this young prisoner is a drug offender, and even the prison clinic has not agreed to confirm the claim. Other victim who died following torture in Sanandaj Prison includes Sarou Ghahremani, 24, who was arrested on January 3, and Kianoush Zandi, a 26-year-old graduate from the University of Sanandaj in the field engineering, who disappeared on January 4.

Meanwhile, Hassan Torkashvand, a 23-year-old young man who was directly shot repressive forces in Karaj on December 30, died of his injuries in hospital. The regime’s intelligence agents arranged secret burials for this and other martyrs, refusing their families permission to hold funerals.

Killing under torture in prison is unquestionably a crime against humanity. The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN Security Council, its member states, and all international human rights advocates to take decisive measures against these crimes.

It also calls on the High Commissioner for Human Rights to immediately dispatch a fact-finding mission to investigate the situation of prisons and unconditional release of recent detainees.

Source: Alarabiya

British police cordoned off roads around Kings Cross railway station due to a report of a suspicious package on Friday.

Roads near the station had been shut and officers were in attendance. But the station was operating as normal, the British Transport police spokesman said.

Later, the police said the package found near Kings Cross was deemed non-suspicious and cordons were being removed.

Source: Alarabiya

Turkey on Friday started shelling the Syrian town of Afrin held by a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers “terrorists” in a move to oust them, the defense minister said.

The Turkish government has repeatedly warned that a full-scale operation against Syrian towns controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, including Afrin, is imminent after the US said it was training a 30,000-strong border force there.

“The Afrin operation will take place,” Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli told A Haber television.

“The presence of all the terror lines in northern Syria will be removed. There’s no other way out,” he said.

Turkish troops fired on several YPG targets in Afrin to prevent the formation of a “terror corridor” on the border, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Army howitzers in the frontier Hatay province launched at least 10 rounds of artillery fire, targeting the “terror nests of the terror organization in Afrin,” Anadolu said.

A military convoy of 20 buses carrying Syrian opposition rebels backed by Ankara also crossed over into Syria, Turkish media reported.

Canikli said with the shelling “in fact, the operation has de facto started.”

Source: Alarabiya

Yemen’s National Army said their ground forces were making further progress on Friday morning in front-lines of Nihm northeast of the capital Sanaa.

Military sources in the field said that the army and the Popular Resistance forces were able to regain control of Jabal al-Dabbayeb and the highlands west of Jabal al-Qarn in Nihm District after violent confrontations with Houthi militias.

Sources also pointed out that confrontations erupted at dawn, where warring sides used various types of heavy artillery in clashes that continued until midday.

In Taiz, southwest of Yemen, 13 Houthi militants were killed on Friday, including a leader in separate attacks by Yemen’s armed forces on militia positions.

Local security sources revealed the killing of Ahmed Abdulrahman Muhabi, who was a Houthi deputy field commander. He was killed along with three of his companions when artillery shelling hit their positions in west Taiz.

In the Qahfah distrct, similar artillery shelling on militia positions also resulted in six militants killed while several others were injured.

Source: Alarabiya

India’s top court on Friday upheld the acquittal of a Bollywood director accused of raping an American research scholar in a case that has sparked intense debate about consent in a country with high levels of sexual violence.

Mahmood Farooqui was initially found guilty of rape in 2016, but the Delhi high court last year overturned the conviction on appeal, ruling the incident had been consensual.

One of the judges hearing that appeal said Farooqui may not have been aware that the woman had not consented to sex, a comment that attracted fierce criticism from rights activists.

“In cases where the parties are known to each other, it could be really difficult to decipher whether a feeble ‘no’ - little or no resistance - actually amounts to denial of consent,” said Justice Ashutosh Kumar.

The alleged victim sought to appeal, but the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed her plea, saying the acquittal had been sound.

“The high court judgement is well written. It does not require our interference,” said S.A. Bobde, one of the judges hearing the case. 

Judgement critisised 
Activist Kavita Krishnan said Friday’s ruling was a “betrayal of women’s rights” and of the new, tougher laws on sexual violence introduced after the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student in 2012.

“If you made a drink for a man, our Supreme Court thinks your No can then be read as Yes,” tweeted Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association.

“SC refusal to even admit the plea against atrocious ‘Feeble No’ verdict is a betrayal of women’s rights and of the 2013 rape law.”

The case dates back to 2015 when the scholar had traveled to India to seek Farooqui’s assistance with her research.

She traveled home to the US shortly afterwards but returned to India to report the matter to police.

India has a grim record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of rape laws that increased penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through courts.

But activists say much more needs to be done.

Source: Alarabiya

Lebanon thwarted extremists’ plans to attack places of worship and government buildings over the holidays after gaining rare access to an ISIS operative, the interior minister said Friday.

Nuhad Mashnuq said at a press conference that an elite unit in Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) had arrested an Iraqi ISIS commander in Beirut last June.

The commander, known as Abu Jaafar al-Iraqi, had been tasked by the ISIS leadership to establish an ISIS network in Lebanon, according to information presented at the briefing.

This network would not only carry out attacks in Lebanon, but could have potentially hosted top ISIS officials fleeing Iraq and Syria.

Full details of the operation and the current whereabouts of Abu Jaafar were not revealed.

But Mashnuq said that for five months after the Iraqi commander’s arrest the ISF kept tabs on him through a mysterious “volunteer,” who had gained his trust and rented a home for him that was bugged by Lebanese authorities.

“This is one of those rare operations where you have someone this important in the terrorist organization, and you’re able to use him for five months to find out about the plans supposed to happen during the holidays, against places of worship and government buildings,” Mashnuq told reporters.

“The nature of this operation, as we explained, is unprecedented in the Arab world,” he claimed.

Source: Alarabiya

Manila airport fired a major contractor and announced a raft of new security measures on Friday after a spate of baggage thefts at the main Philippine gateway once derided as the world’s worst airport.

President Rodrigo Duterte summoned airport authorities and the transport minister on Thursday and ordered them to put a stop to the thieving, Manila International Airport general manager Ed Monreal told reporters.

“I am really ashamed over what is happening, what our passengers are going through,” Monreal said. “Let us all work together to stop these embarrassing incidents.”

Monreal said the airport would not renew the operating license of one ground handling company serving 14 carriers after passengers on at least two flights lodged formal complaints over items stolen from their luggage.

It also ordered other contractors to equip baggage handlers and security personnel with body cameras, install closed circuit television in their working areas, and remove all pockets from their uniforms.    

Surveillance footage   
Monreal said surveillance footage had confirmed the pilferage, with authorities also finding evidence including “boots that allow them (suspects) to hide stuff at their feet”.

The airport has filed criminal charges against a number of suspected thieves, he said without elaborating.

MIASCOR, the company that lost its Manila airport contract, did not reply to AFP’s request for comment.

Manila airport, also known as Ninoy Aquino International Airport, says 20.4 million passengers used the hub last year.

It topped the list of worst airports on the travel website “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports” from 2011-2013, causing the government to make major renovations.

Travelers have long criticized its “dilapidated facilities”, dishonest airport workers, rude officials and long waiting times, the website said.

In 2015 the government investigated claims of an extortion racket involving security personnel planting bullets in passengers’ luggage and demanding money not to press charges for illegal possession of bullets, punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

Officials said the extortion ended after the 2016 election of Duterte, a fiery politician who warned in his campaign speeches that he would force airport security personnel to eat any bullets they found in passenger luggage.

Source: Alarabiya

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday said America is facing “growing threats” from China and Russia and warned that the military’s advantages have eroded in recent years.

“We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models,” Mattis said as he unveiled the Pentagon’s national defense strategy.

“Our military is still strong, yet our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare,” he added.

Mattis also said that Iran and North Korea “threaten regional and even global stability”.

He also said that a potential government shutdown would impact military operations including some training, maintenance, and intelligence operations.

“Our maintenance activities will probably pretty much shut down... over 50 percent, altogether of my civilian workforce will be furloughed... we do a lot of intelligence operations around the world and they cost money, those obviously would stop,” Mattis said in response to a question about the impact of a potential shutdown.

Source: Alarabiya

The manner in which Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was honored last week has sparked wide debate on social media after a mayors decided to celebrate him using just his photo at a ceremony.

On Thursday, video and photos were posted on Facebook and Twitter from the Palais des Congrès in Algiers, where officials were shown honoring a photo of Bouteflika while the president himself was nowhere to be seen.

Algerians expressed dissatisfaction with the event, with some saying the event presented an “an insult to the president and Algeria” and asking the status of Bouteflika’s health and preventing him from attending even his wheelchair.

Bouteflika made his last rare appearance last July when he appeared in a video clip aired by the Algerian national television stations on a wheelchair visiting Al-Aliya cemetery putting a wreath of flowers for those who died in the liberation against the French and he kissed the Algerian flag.

Source: Alarabiya

The US State Department urged Turkey on Thursday not to take military action against Afrin region in Syria and called instead for Ankara to remain focused on fighting ISIS militants in the region.

Asked about signs that Turkey was preparing to strike a Kurdish militia in Afrin, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing: "We would call ... on the Turks to not take any actions of that sort. ... We don't want them to engage in violence but we want them to keep focused on ISIS."

Source: Alarabiya

Turkey dispatched its military chief to Moscow on Thursday, seeking approval for an air campaign in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled Afrin region, although Damascus warned it could shoot down any Turkish planes in its skies.

Turkey’s foreign minister said the Moscow trip by Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar was part of talks with both Russia and Iran, the two main backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to allow Turkish planes to take part in an Afrin campaign.

The diplomacy was the strongest signal yet that Turkey plans direct military action against territory held by Kurdish militia, potentially opening a new front in Syria’s civil war.

It would mean confronting Kurds allied to the United States at a time when Turkey’s relations with Washington are reaching the breaking point. The US State Department called on Turkey to focus on the fight against ISIS militants and not take military action in Afrin.

“We would call ... on the Turks to not take any actions of that sort,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing after being asked about apparent Turkish plans to attack Afrin. “We don’t want them to engage in violence but we want them to keep focused on ISIS.”

“We will intervene in Afrin,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told broadcaster CNN Turk, adding he did not expect Russia to oppose any operation there. “We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of air space.”

Turkey has ratcheted up its threats to take military action in Afrin in the past week, in response to US plans to support setting up a 30,000-strong force to guard areas held by Kurdish-led fighters in a large part of Syria east of Afrin.

Washington has become closely allied with the Syrian Kurds, who served as the main US proxies on the ground in battle with ISIS militants over the past two years. That infuriates Ankara, which considers the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia to be a branch of the banned PKK movement that has fought a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state.

President Tayyip Erdogan called the new US-backed border force a “terror army” on Turkey’s border and vowed to “strangle it before it’s even born”.

The issue is one of several that have disrupted relations between Washington and its biggest Muslim ally within NATO. The countries are also at odds over the US refusal to extradite a cleric Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup, and the US prosecution of a Turkish banker for sanctions busting, in which testimony implicated top Turkish officials.

In recent days Turkey has deployed tanks near the border with Syria across from the Afrin region, and Erdogan says Turkey’s military has shelled Kurdish forces there.

Throughout most of the nearly seven-year-old Syrian civil war, Turkey has been one of the strongest opponents of Assad, joining the United States in supporting rebels fighting to overthrow him. More recently, Turkey has been working with Assad’s backers Iran and Russia to reduce fighting between Assad and the rebels, while describing the Kurds as the main threat.

Cavusoglu said Akar would hold talks in Moscow with Russia’s armed forces chief to discuss Afrin, Idlib “and the future of Syria”.

Cavusoglu said Turkey needed to take into account the presence of a small number of Russian observers in Afrin. “When we carry out an intervention, we need to coordinate on this, it should not impact the Russian observers,” he said.

Cavusoglu said attacks were being targeted against Turkey from Afrin every day. The region of northern Syria controlled by Turkey-backed Syrian rebels was also being attacked, he said.

“Our response to this is our legitimate right to retaliate. We told the United States this,” Cavusoglu said, adding that Turkey was not satisfied with US attempts to allay its concern over US support for the Kurdish-led border force.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he met Cavusoglu to clarify the issue, and said the situation had been “misportrayed, misdescribed”.

“We voiced our discomfort in the meetings we held with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State ... However, the United States’ statements did not fully satisfy us,” he said.

“Our direct mistrust of the United States continues.”

Source: Alarabiya

Jordan said on Thursday that Israel had formally apologized for the deaths of two of its citizens killed by an Israeli security guard last July in an incident that soured ties and led to the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammad al Momani was quoted by state news agency Petra as saying the Israeli foreign ministry had sent a memorandum expressing “deep regrets and apologies” over the incident at the embassy and pledging to take legal action in the case.

Jordan had said it would not allow Israel to reopen its embassy in Amman until it launched legal proceedings against the security guard.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said on Thursday that the embassy in Amman would resume full operations immediately.

The handling of the shooting had tested ties between Israel and Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel. The two have a long history of close security ties.

The embassy was closed shortly after Israel hastily repatriated the guard under diplomatic immunity to prevent Jordanian authorities interrogating him and taking any legal action against him. The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff were pulled out.

Jordan maintained that even if the guard had diplomatic immunity that did not mean he could not be punished.

Israel has now pledged to “implement and follow up legal measures” in the case and also take action in the shooting of an unarmed Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier in an incident in 2014, Momani said.

Israel would pay compensation to the three families, he said.

Israel said at the time the armed guard opened fire after being attacked and lightly wounded by the workman, who was delivering furniture at his home within the embassy compound, and acted in self-defense in what Israeli officials called a “terrorist attack”.

Israel then said it was highly unlikely it would prosecute the security guard.

Jordanian officials have treated the shooting as a criminal case and say the two unarmed Jordanians - the other was a bystander - were killed in cold blood by the armed guard.

The government statement said the Israeli government had met all of Jordan’s demands for the return of the ambassador and the reopening of the embassy.

Many Jordanians, in a country where the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread, were outraged that the guard was allowed to leave and staged protests calling on the authorities to scrap the 1994 treaty.

A televised welcome home for the guard and a hero’s embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had enraged King Abdullah. In a rare outburst, he accused Netanyahu of using the incident as a “political show” saying it was “provocative on all fronts”.

Source: Alarabiya

Sudanese authorities have detained a Reuters stringer and an Agence France-Presse journalist who were covering protests in the capital Khartoum, the external information council, which deals with foreign media organizations, said.

Reuters last had contact with its stringer early on Wednesday before he went to report on the demonstrations, which resulted in clashes between police and protesters.

An official in the external information council, contacted by Reuters, did not say whether charges would be brought against the two Sudanese journalists. The official had earlier said they would be released early on Thursday.

“We do not know the circumstances of the detention and are actively seeking additional information about the situation,” a Reuters spokesperson said.

Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali, a 51-year-old who has worked for AFP in Khartoum for nearly a decade, was covering the protests on Wednesday in the Sudanese capital’s twin city of Omdurman, where riot police fired tear gas on some 200 protesters.

Idris Ali was unreachable after the protest and authorities informed AFP on Thursday that he had been arrested along with other journalists and was being held at a detention center run by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS).

Authorities initially said Idris Ali would be released within hours but as of late Thursday, more than 24 hours after he was detained, the reporter was still being held.

Authorities said the three journalists “are being investigated” but provided no further details.

“AFP management strongly condemns the arrest of Mr. Idris Ali and asks Sudanese authorities for his immediate release,” the agency said.

Several protesters were also reported to have been detained at the demonstration.

Sporadic protests have erupted across Sudan after prices of food items, but mainly bread, surged following a jump in the cost of flour due to a shortage of wheat supplies.

Wednesday’s rally was called by the main opposition Umma Party, a day after a similar demonstration was held near the presidential palace in Khartoum following a call issued by the Communist Party. Tuesday’s protest was also broken up by police.

Similar protests were held in late 2016 after the government cut fuel subsidies.

The authorities cracked down on those protests to prevent a repeat of deadly unrest that followed an earlier round of subsidy cuts in 2013.

Rights groups said dozens of people were killed when security forces crushed the 2013 demonstrations, drawing international condemnation.

Critics have repeatedly accused President Omar al-Bashir’s regime of cracking down on the media in Sudan, with watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranking the country 174th out of 180 countries in its 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

Source: Alarabiya

African UN envoys suggested on Thursday that US President Donald Trump meet with African leaders in Ethiopia this month after he was reported to have described some immigrants from Africa and Haiti with an offensive remark.

African ambassadors met with US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who told them she regretted the political drama around what was said a week ago at a White House meeting on immigration, according to diplomats at the UN meeting.

The diplomats said that South African UN Ambassador Jerry Matjila, who spoke on behalf of the group, told Haley that “it could be useful” for Trump to address African leaders directly when they meet in Addis Ababa at the African Union.

That meeting is due to take place on Jan. 28-29, according to the African Union website.

Haley told the ambassadors she did not know what had been said in last week’s White House meeting and promised to convey the African ambassadors’ message to Trump when she meets with him in Washington on Friday, according to the diplomats.

Trump has denied using derogatory language.

The US mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the UN meeting beyond a tweet it posted, which read: “Thank you to the Africa Group for meeting today. We discussed our long relationship and history of combating HIV, fighting terrorism, and committing to peace throughout the region.”

African UN ambassadors issued a statement last Friday that said they were “extremely appalled at, and strongly condemned the outrageous, racist, xenophobic remarks attributed to the president of the United States.”

They demanded Trump retract his remarks and apologize.

According to diplomats at the UN meeting on Thursday, Haley also spoke about the billions of dollars that the United States had invested in the fight against HIV/Aids and terrorism in Africa and in humanitarian aid for South Sudan.

Haley traveled to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo in late October.

Source: Alarabiya

A bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives on Thursday aimed at tightening the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, despite Tehran's rejection of changes to the accord.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the agreement aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program, which was agreed under his predecessor Barack Obama's administration.

The “Iran Freedom Policy and Sanctions Act” was introduced by Peter Roskam and backed by Liz Cheney, two Republicans in the US House of Representatives. The proposed legislation “makes clear what any effective agreement would have to contain,” Cheney said in a statement.

A deal with Iran would need to “at a minimum, authorize anywhere, anytime inspections including inspections of military facilities; disclosure of all past and present, military and civilian nuclear activity; a ban on weapons-grade enrichment; and a restriction on ballistic missile development,” said Cheney.

The legislation “will ensure that sanctions on Iran will only be relaxed if Iran meets these crucial requirements,” said Cheney, criticizing the current agreement for allegedly delivering “sanctions relief and cash payments to the Iranian regime in exchange for unverifiable promises.”

A parallel bill aimed at toughening the nuclear deal is under consideration in the Senate. Trump again waived nuclear-related sanctions last week -- as required every few months to stay in the agreement -- but demanded European partners work with Washington to “fix the deal's disastrous flaws, or the United States will withdraw.”

Iran's foreign ministry has said it “will not accept any amendments in this agreement” -- and the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed Tehran's compliance with the current agreement.

The other parties to the deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union -- have all said it is working and that Iran is complying fully with its commitments.

Source: Alarabiya

Israel has officially apologized for the killing of three Jordanians and offered to compensate their families, Jordan’s foreign ministry said Thursday.

On July 23 last year, a security guard for the Israeli embassy shot dead a Jordanian worker who had come to an apartment to install furniture and who stabbed him in the back with a screwdriver, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

A second Jordanian, the apartment landlord, was also killed -- apparently by accident. Jordan’s government spokesman Mohammed Momani said Thursday Amman had “received an official memo from the Israeli foreign ministry expressing the Israeli government’s strong sorrow and regret over the Israeli embassy incident.”

It had also apologized for the killing of a Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier at the countries’ border in 2014 and pledged to compensate all three families, Momani said in statements carried by the official Petra news agency.

Strategic relations
A statement Thursday from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “attaches great importance to its strategic relations with Jordan and the two states will act to advance cooperation between them and to strengthen” a 1994 peace treaty between them.

It made no mention of an apology or compensation. The embassy guard was briefly questioned by investigators in Jordan but was allowed to return Israel along with the rest of the embassy staff, on the grounds he had diplomatic immunity.

He received a hero’s welcome from Netanyahu, sparking widespread anger in Jordan. Amman later said it would not allow the embassy staff to return until Israel opened a serious investigation and offered an apology.

Momani said Israel’s memo had met all the conditions the government had set for the Israeli ambassador to return to Amman. “The government contacted the families of all three martyrs who agreed to accept the apology and compensation,” he added.

Source: Alarabiya

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic made an unexpected visit Thursday to the site of a massacre of Muslim civilians by Bosnian Croats during the country's 1990s war, an atrocity that led to several war crimes convictions.

Grabar-Kitarovic, on an official visit to Bosnia, paid her respects to 116 Muslim civilians, among whom 33 children and women, killed by Bosnian Croats in the village Ahmici in central Bosnia in April 1993.

Such gestures are still rare among leaders in the former Yugoslavia, torn apart by a series of bloody wars in the 1990s.

"I like to visit those sites of piety in silence, to bow to the victims and think about the past, but notably with idea that this past does not repeat ever again," Grabar-Kitarovic told reporters.

Journalists were not present during her visit to Ahmici.

In photos released by her office the Croatian president is seen laying wreaths at a monument for the victims and posing with an imam.

She also visited neighbouring Krizancevo Selo village, where some 90 Croat civilians and military personnel were killed by Muslim forces in December 1993.

The two villages are seen as symbols of the conflict between Bosnia's Croats and Muslims.

Although allies against ethnic Serbs during most of the war, Croats and Muslims also fought each other in 1993 and 1994.

Grabar-Kitarovic's predecessor Ivo Josipovic in 2010 also visited the two villlages and was the first Croatian leader to acknowledge the Ahmici massacre victims.

Local imam Mahir Husic said Grabar-Kitatovic's gesture was a "very important message which advocates peace and co-existence."

Bosnian Croats sentenced by the UN war crimes court over the Ahmici atrocity included Dario Kordic, vice-president of the self-declared Bosnian Croat state within Bosnia, who was sentenced to 25 years in jail.

In its final verdict in November, the UN court sentenced on appeals six former Bosnian Croat wartime leaders. One of them, Slobodan Praljak, committed suicide drinking poison in the courtroom.

Bosnia's 1992-1995 war claimed some 100,000 lives.

Source: AFP

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic made an unexpected visit Thursday to the site of a massacre of Muslim civilians by Bosnian Croats during the country's 1990s war, an atrocity that led to several war crimes convictions.

Grabar-Kitarovic, on an official visit to Bosnia, paid her respects to 116 Muslim civilians, among whom 33 children and women, killed by Bosnian Croats in the village Ahmici in central Bosnia in April 1993.

Such gestures are still rare among leaders in the former Yugoslavia, torn apart by a series of bloody wars in the 1990s.

"I like to visit those sites of piety in silence, to bow to the victims and think about the past, but notably with idea that this past does not repeat ever again," Grabar-Kitarovic told reporters.

Journalists were not present during her visit to Ahmici.

In photos released by her office the Croatian president is seen laying wreaths at a monument for the victims and posing with an imam.

She also visited neighbouring Krizancevo Selo village, where some 90 Croat civilians and military personnel were killed by Muslim forces in December 1993.

The two villages are seen as symbols of the conflict between Bosnia's Croats and Muslims.

Although allies against ethnic Serbs during most of the war, Croats and Muslims also fought each other in 1993 and 1994.

Grabar-Kitarovic's predecessor Ivo Josipovic in 2010 also visited the two villlages and was the first Croatian leader to acknowledge the Ahmici massacre victims.

Local imam Mahir Husic said Grabar-Kitatovic's gesture was a "very important message which advocates peace and co-existence."

Bosnian Croats sentenced by the UN war crimes court over the Ahmici atrocity included Dario Kordic, vice-president of the self-declared Bosnian Croat state within Bosnia, who was sentenced to 25 years in jail.

In its final verdict in November, the UN court sentenced on appeals six former Bosnian Croat wartime leaders. One of them, Slobodan Praljak, committed suicide drinking poison in the courtroom.

Bosnia's 1992-1995 war claimed some 100,000 lives.

Source: AFP

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged Macedonia on Thursday to keep up newfound momentum towards solving a 27-year-old dispute with Greece over its name, a key condition for joining the alliance.

"I welcome the willingness of your government to resolve this issue and the resolve the government has shown," Stoltenberg told Macedonia's parliament in Skopje during a two-day visit, the first by a NATO chief since 2014.

A two-hour meeting on Wednesday of negotiators on the issue at the United Nations in New York was a "valuable step", Stoltenberg said.

"I am encouraged by recent progress – as are all NATO Allies – and I urge you to take this chance to move forward."

Greece blocked Macedonia from joining NATO 10 years ago because of the row dating from the 1991-92 breakup of Yugoslavia.

Athens argues that the name Macedonia suggests that Skopje has territorial claims to the northern Greek region of the same name.

After the talks in New York, UN envoy Matthew Nimetz said he was "very hopeful" that a solution was within reach.

The two sides resumed talks on the issue after a change of power in Skopje last year, when a social democratic party replaced conservatives led by nationalist Nikola Gruevski following snap elections.

"There is no other way to join NATO without solving the name issue," Stoltenberg said after meeting Prime Minister Zoran Zaev later Thursday.

But "NATO doors remain open," he added.

Zaev said earlier this month that he believed a solution could be found by July.

Stoltenberg also commended Macedonia for reform efforts including "important progress on transparency, accountability, oversight of the intelligence and security agencies, and judicial reform".

Source: AFP

In bluntly vulgar language, President Donald Trump questioned Thursday why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa rather than places like Norway, as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to people briefed on the extraordinary Oval Office conversation. Trump earlier today denied using that language.

Trump’s contemptuous description of an entire continent startled lawmakers in the meeting and immediately revived charges that the president is racist. The White House did not deny his remark but issued a statement saying Trump supports immigration policies that welcome “those who can contribute to our society.”

Yet Trump himself tweeted early today: “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.” He went on to criticize the immigration deal, saying: “What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the president’s tweet.

Trump’s comments Thursday came as two senators presented details of a bipartisan compromise that would extend protections against deportation for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants — and also strengthen border protections, as Trump has insisted.

The lawmakers had hoped Trump would back their accord, an agreement among six senators evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, ending a monthslong, bitter dispute over protecting the “dreamers.” But the White House later rejected it, plunging the issue back into uncertainty just eight days before a deadline that threatens a government shutdown.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’ s No. 2 Democrat, explained that as part of that deal, a lottery for visas that has benefited people from Africa and other nations would be ended, the sources said, though there could be another way for them to apply. Durbin said people who would be allowed to stay in the U.S. included those who had fled here after disasters hit their homes in places such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti.

Trump specifically questioned why the U.S. would want to admit more people from Haiti. As for Africa, he asked why more people from “shithole countries” should be allowed into the U.S., the sources said.

The president suggested that instead, the U.S. should allow more entrants from countries like Norway. Trump met this week with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Asked about the remarks, White House spokesman Raj Shah did not deny them.

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” he said.

Trump’s remarks were remarkable even by the standards of a president who has been accused of racism by his foes and who has routinely smashed through public decorum that his modern predecessors have generally embraced.

Trump has inaccurately claimed that Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, wasn’t born in the United States. He has said Mexican immigrants were “bringing crime” and were “rapists.” He said there were “very fine people on both sides” after violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one counter-protester dead.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said, “President Trump’s comments are racist and a disgrace.” But it wasn’t just Democrats objecting.

Republican Rep. Mia Love of Utah, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, said Trump’s comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist and fly in the face of our nation’s values.” She said, “This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation” and called on Trump to apologize to the American people “and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”

Trump has called himself the “least racist person that you’ve ever met.”

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly describe the conversation. One said lawmakers in the room were taken aback by Trump’s remarks.

The Trump administration announced late last year that it would end a temporary residency permit program that allowed nearly 60,000 citizens from Haiti to live and work in the United States following a devastating 2010 earthquake.

Source: AFP

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has fired his powerful intelligence chief, state media said Thursday, in the latest shake-up of the country's security services.

Sisi appointed his chief-of-staff and close ally General Abbas Kamel as interim replacement for outgoing intelligence head General Khaled Fawzy, according to state media.

No reason was given for the move, which comes ahead of presidential elections to be held in March.

Sisi, who has run the country with an iron fist since 2014, has not yet officially declared himself a candidate, but he is widely expected to stand and win.

A former army chief, Sisi was elected in 2014 a year after leading the military's overthrow of his predecessor Mohamed Morsi amid mass protests against the Islamist's year-long rule.

Since then Egypt's security forces have faced a string of attacks, notably in the Sinai Peninsula where the Islamic State group is waging a deadly insurgency.

In October Sisi named a new armed forces chief of staff and announced changes in key security positions after at least 16 police officers were killed in the Western Desert some 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Cairo.

Kamel, like Fawzy, keeps a low public profile.

Dubbed Sisi's "box of secrets" by the press, he has been the president's chief-of-staff since 2010 while at military intelligence, the defence ministry and then the presidency.

Source: AFP

Struggling Swiss former winner Stan Wawrinka was knocked out of the Australian Open by American Tennys Sandgren in the second round on Thursday.

The 97th-ranked Sandgren defeated ninth seeded Wawrinka 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 and will next play Germany's Maximilian Marterer.

It has been tough so far this year for Wawrinka, who was playing in his first tournament since Wimbledon six months ago following left knee surgery.

He was never in the contest and had his serve broken five times and made only 21 winners and 35 unforced errors.

The three-time Grand Slam winner, who defeated Rafael Nadal to win the 2014 Australian Open, has slipped to nine in the world rankings and faces a battle to climb higher after his early round exit.

He made the semi-finals at last year's Australian Open where he lost to eventual champion Roger Federer in five sets.

Wawrinka had a troubled lead-in to the year's opening Grand Slam, pulling out of an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi on his way to Australia.

He has not played a competitive match prior to his first round Open win over Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis, having only decided to take part last weekend.

Sandgren's next opponent, world No.94 Marterer, reached the third round with a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-3 over Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco.

Source: AFP

Aggressive world number one Simona Halep kept her quest for a maiden Grand Slam title on course by cruising into the third round of the Australian Open on Thursday.

The Romanian top seed needed just an hour and five minutes to sweep to an easy 6-2, 6-2 victory over struggling Eugenie Bouchard on Margaret Court Arena.

"I thought that I played well tonight," said Halep, who dominated the encounter.

"I just wanted to make my game, to open the court, to stay closer to the baseline, to play a little bit more aggressive, which I did.

"Also to try to finish the points down the line, which I did pretty well with the backhand today."

Four years ago this match-up was the Wimbledon semi-final, which the then up-and-coming teenager Bouchard won 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 after Halep was compromised by an ankle injury.

Halep has since risen to number one while Bouchard, once touted as the game's new golden girl, has tumbled outside the top 100.

There was no chance of a Wimbledon repeat as the 23-year-old's form woes were cruelly exposed by Halep who broke the Canadian's serve at will.

So poor was Bouchard's delivery that she couldn't hold on to her serve a single time during a first set which Halep ripped through 6-2 in 33 minutes

She finally held serve in the third game of the second set to sympathetic cheers from the Margaret Court Arena crowd.

- Ankle pain -

But it was to be the only time in the match as Halep, scampering around the baseline, showed few ill-effects from rolling her ankle worryingly in her first-round win over Destanee Aiava.

"I felt the pain but I didn't think about it," said Halep of her fragile ankle which she said had needed some outside support.

"I couldn't practise much. But during the match, I just forgot about it. I had a very tight tape. I could move," she said.

"The most important thing is that I could play my game not thinking about the ankle. I did it great today."

The 26-year-old Romanian, who currently has no clothing sponsor, was wearing the same "lucky" red dress that she used while registering a dominant victory at the Shenzhen Open just over a fortnight ago.

She found the outfit on the internet. "Was a (web)site, in China actually, and one of my managers helped me, and in 24 hours I had the outfit, and it was perfect. I was lucky," she had said before her first-round match.

It helped her fight back from 5-2 and set point down against Australian teen Aiava.

But Halep needed no extra help Thursday to overcome the sadly out-of-form Bouchard.

She will face unseeded American Lauren Davis on Saturday for a place in the last 16 as the Romanian continues her quest for a first Grand Slam title.

Source: AFP

IMF chief Christine Lagarde has joined calls on Germany to invest in future economic growth even at the cost of relaxing its cherished budgetary discipline, raising hackles in Europe's powerhouse.

"There is an excess of savings over investments which suggests that Germany can afford to spend and invest more" Lagarde said at a Thursday conference with top economists and policymakers from around Europe hosted in Frankfurt by the IMF and the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank.

Increasing investments "will help to reduce global imbalances which we're concerned" about at the IMF.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative-led governments have pursued the "black zero" policy, which calls for paying down old debts and avoiding creating new ones.

Proponents argue Germany must put its financial house in order to meet EU rules and brace itself for a looming demographic transition, which will see the economy transformed as millions born during the postwar baby boom head into retirement.

However there have long been grumbles from Germany's partners in the eurozone about Berlin's trade and budget surpluses and there have been regular calls for Berlin to step up spending to boost growth throughout the region.

- Frosty reception from Bundesbank -

Lagarde's advice met with a frosty reception from Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, who argued Germany should "maintain a safety margin to the existing fiscal rules (on debts and deficits) in the face of the looming democratic challenges" in his speech to the conference.

Investments and other measures to boost potential growth "require a shift in public expenditure from consumption to investment, rather than increased spending," he insisted.

"This may not be the most attractive thing to do. But it would be the right thing to do," Weidmann added.

Germany's Finance Minister Peter Altmaier, speaking in Paris, said that Germany had in fact spent more than planned during the past four years.

But increasing investments now could mean "higher growth in the long term will improve prosperity, helping to offset the costs of an aging society," Lagarde wrote in a blog post ahead of the conference.

Lagarde, a former French finance minister, also urged Germany to stoke wage growth to help boost inflation in the 19-nation euro area.

"We have also advised the government to spend more on reforms that help women go back to work, such as opening more childcare centres and kindergartens," as well as "creating training programmes for refugees", she added.

Berlin should spend budget surpluses "to invest more in public infrastructure, such as roads, railways and digital infrastructure," she also wrote.

The question of public spending and investment was a key source of friction between Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats and the leftist Social Democrats which reached a preliminary deal on forming a coalition government, but which now have to hammer out the details.

The Social Democrats have called for stepping up investment in infrastructure and government spending on programmes for the middle and lower classes, while Merkel's conservatives have argued that Germany can't afford to loosen the purse strings.

Source: AFP

A former governor of Sri Lanka's central bank has been accused of insider trading by a damning presidential report into a high-profile bond scandal that cost the island millions.

The long-awaited inquiry recommended the state recover a $4.4 million loss caused by the actions of then bank chief Arjuna Mahendran in 2015.

He leaked sensitive information to his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius, a bond trader, according to the report released Wednesday by the president's office following an 11-month investigation.

"Mr. Mahendran acted wrongfully, improperly, mala fide, fraudulently and in gross breach of his duties as governor of the CBSL (Central Bank of Sri Lanka)," it said. Mahendran was sacked in 2016.

The scandal has deepened acrimony between President Maithripala Sirisena and his coalition partner Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who handpicked Mahendran to head the central bank.

Sirisena has publicly accused Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) of being more corrupt than the previous regime they toppled together in 2015 after cobbling together an alliance.

The allies ended the 10-year rule of strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse, whose regime had been accused of graft and nepotism, but the bond scandal has shaken the union and damaged their promise of clean governance.

Sri Lanka's parliament ordered an investigation after legislators' private phone records were leaked to the presidential commission looking into the scandal.

The commission denied tapping phones, as Sirisena blasted politicians from his own coalition for frustrating the probe.

Sections of the 1,154-page report released a fortnight ago recommended prosecuting Ravi Karunanayake, finance minister at the time of the scandal, for graft and perjury over his links with Aloysius.

He resigned as foreign minister in August last year after his association with the controversial bond dealer went public.

The investigation also recommended a forensic audit of the central bank during the Rajapakse era, saying insider trading had also occurred under his rule.

Source: AFP

 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged the Security Council to revive efforts to punish those responsible for chemical weapons use in Syria after Russia killed off a UN probe of the gas attacks.

Guterres said the use of chemical weapons in Syria's nearly seven-year war "seriously challenges the global taboo against these weapons of mass destruction."

"If the use of chemical weapons in Syria is once again determined, the international community needs to find an appropriate way to identify those responsible and hold them to account," he told a council meeting on non-proliferation.

Russia used its veto power twice in November to block the renewal of a UN investigative panel tasked with identifying those responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.

A month earlier, the panel had released a damning report that found the Syrian air force had dropped sarin on the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhun in April, killing scores of people.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), set up by Russia and the United States in 2015, shut down in November but Western powers have kept up efforts to restore some sort of mechanism for accountability.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley this month sent a letter to Guterres that contained a US rebuttal of Russia's objections to the gas attacks investigations in Syria.

The letter was seen as laying the ground for a renewed US push at the council to restore the chemical weapons investigation with a possible new resolution.

Russia's arguments "are misleading, unprofessional, inconsistent, and at times, completely false," said the US document, seen by AFP.

Haley told the council that Russia stood in the way of international action to hold its Syrian ally accountable, and said the top UN body "must respond to this outrageous violation of international law."

France will host an international meeting in Paris on Tuesday on boosting cooperation against "unacceptable impunity in the use of chemical weapons," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) continues to present to the council reports from its fact-finding missions in Syria.

A recent OPCW report concluded that sarin was used in another incident on March 30 in the village of Latamneh and is currently before the council.

Source: AFP

Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad warned on Thursday that Syria's air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in a threatened assault on the war-torn country.

"We warn that the Syrian Air Force is ready to destroy Turkish air targets in the skies of Syria," Mekdad told reporters, according to Syria's official SANA news agency.

"We warn the Turkish leaders that if they start fighting in the region of Afrin, it will be seen as an aggression by the Turkish army against the sovereignty of Syria," he added.

Afrin is among the areas Turkey has said it will attack in northern Syria to target the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia.

Ankara accuses the YPG of being a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984.

The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group said at the weekend it was working to create a 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria.

Ankara immediately objected, fearing the new force would be comprised of the YPG.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that Turkey had to "nip this terror army in the bud".

The United States later insisted it does not intend to create an army or conventional border guards.

Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey would soon begin an operation against towns in Syria controlled by Kurdish militia, calling the areas "nests" of terror.

"Tomorrow, (or) the day after, (or) within a short period, we will get rid of terror nests one-by-one in Syria starting with Afrin and Manbij" in northern Syria, he said in a televised speech.

Source: AFP

US officials mis-spoke about a plan to set up a 30,000-strong militia in eastern Syria and owe angry ally Turkey an explanation, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson admits.

On Sunday, the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria announced that it was training local fighters, including Kurdish militia, as a "border security force."

Turkey, which regards the US-backed YPG militia as a faction of the outlawed Kurdish separatist PKK and thus a terrorist group, reacted with fury and vowed to destroy the new unit.

Pentagon officials have since backtracked on how they describe the force, insisting it will operate within Syria to protect areas liberated from the Islamic State group.

But Turkey has not been reassured and Tillerson, who met his Turkish counterpart Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday in Vancouver, admits the issue was badly handled.

"It's unfortunate that entire situation has been mis-portrayed, mis-described. Some people mis-spoke," he told reporters on his plane late Wednesday.

"We are not creating a border security force at all," he said, adding that he had spoken to US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to confirm this.

"We have shared with the Turks what we are doing is we are trying to ensure that local elements are providing security to liberated areas," he explained.

In Ankara, even after talking to Tillerson, Cavusoglu said Turkey continues to reject the idea of the force.

"Did this satisfy us in full? No, it did not," he told CNN-Turk television.

"The establishment of a so-called terror army would cause irreversible damage in our relations ... it is a very serious situation," he warned.

Tillerson explained that the Islamic State group, while diminished, is still capable of carrying out attacks in parts of northwest Syria and in the Euphrates valley.

The new US-backed force "is just more training and trying to block ISIS from their escape routes" he said, not a means to protect Kurdish areas on the Turkish border.

"I think it's unfortunate that comments were made by some that left that impression. That is not what we're doing," he said.

"We owe them an explanation. It was not properly described, and it's unfortunate. We understand why they reacted the way they did."

Source: AFP

More than fifty people were killed in a passenger bus fire on Thursday in Kazakhstan as it traveled along a major highway.

The dead, believed to be immigrant workers from a neighboring Uzbekistan, were on a 1,370 mile highway linking Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan and Samara in Russia.

Both drivers were confirmed to be among the dead.

"According to preliminary information, there were 57 people -- all Uzbek citizens -- on the bus and of them 52 passengers have died, while five managed to get out on their own," Aktilek Kenes, a spokesman for the Aktobe regional emergency situations department, said.

Doctors and psychologists were at the scene of the fire and two hotlines were reportedly set up for the victims' families.

The route is commonly used by Uzbek migrant laborers traveling to construction sites in Russia.

No cause for the fire was given, however, regional authorities said that most of the 200 vehicle fires in 2017 were attributed to electrical problems.

Source: AFP

Turkish engineers on Thursday began a complex operation to lift with two cranes a passenger plane which skidded off the runway at a provincial to a precarious position just metres from the sea.

The Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane had landed normally at Trabzon airport late on Saturday on a flight from Ankara but then went off the runway just metres (feet) from the waters of the Black Sea with its wheels stuck in mud.

Since then, it has remained on the steep slope that descends from the airport apron into the sea for four days, its nose pointing down and managing to defy gravity by being stuck in thick mud.

The Turkish aviation authorities closed Trabzon airport from 0100 GMT to all air traffic so that the salvage operation can take place, with flights diverted to the nearby Ordu-Giresun airport, also on the Black Sea.

The authorities sent two cranes from Ankara and Samsun to carry out the operation, the Dogan news agency said.

Engineers began the operation by tying cables around the wing area of the plane in cradle fashion and also around the tail area. Both cranes will then work to lift the plane onto the runway.

Once it is back on the runway, it will be emptied of remaining fuel, taken to a hanger, where the baggage and personal possessions of the passengers will finally be removed.

All 162 passenger and six crew were safely evacuated but witnesses said at the time it was miracle there had been no casualties and the plane did not slip into the sea.

The pilot told prosecutors investigating the incident that the plane had undergone a sudden surge of power from one of the engines while taxiing on the runway.

The cause of the technical issue has yet to be made clear although images showed one of the engines had broken off and fallen into the sea.

Source: AFP

Afghanistan's top diplomat has pulled out of a high-level UN meeting about his country to help end a growing political crisis that is testing the authority of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, sources told AFP Thursday.

The eleventh-hour decision by Salahuddin Rabbani not to travel to New York comes as his Jamiat-e-Islami party holds talks with Ghani's office to resolve a dispute, involving a powerful governor in the northern province of Balkh who is refusing to stand down, which has caused concern in Washington.

In a crisis that many fear could turn violent, one of Jamiat's top leaders Atta Mohammad Noor, has refused to leave the post he has held since 2004, rejecting a claim by Ghani's office that he had resigned.

Tajik-dominated Jamiat's negotiating team "has decided that the presence of Salahuddin Rabbani, as head of the party and chief negotiator, is important at this key stage of the talks," Kamaluddin Hamid, a senior Jamiat member, told AFP.

"Unless there is a last minute delay (in the talks) or change of decision, he will stay in Afghanistan and not go to this New York meeting (on Friday) for the sake of national interest. The aim is to calm the tension and solve the situation peacefully."

An Afghan government official confirmed that Rabbani would not attend the special meeting on Afghanistan "due to the continuation of negotiations".

Rabbani's decision not to attend Friday's Security Council meeting comes days after the UN group, including US Ambassador Nikki Haley, visited Kabul for a close-up view of the security and political situation in the country.

The Balkh crisis was also on the agenda during a phone call between Vice President Mike Pence and Ghani on Tuesday.

"The vice president emphasized his support for the Afghan government to engage with Balkh Governor Atta and conduct a peacefully negotiated transition of leadership," said a readout of the call released by the White House.

The tussle with Noor comes at a bad time for Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, whose US-backed government faces deteriorating security as well as growing pressure to hold long-delayed parliamentary elections this year.

An Afghan diplomat said the negotiations, which have been going on for several weeks, were "deadlocked".

"For that reason Rabbani prefers to remain here... but this is a lack of respect for the Security Council," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

"Ghani may fire Rabbani."

For weeks Noor has made almost daily speeches to hundreds of supporters that have been broadcast live on television, highlighting the intense interest in the stand-off between the strongman and the president.

Source: AFP

Afghanistan's top diplomat has pulled out of a high-level UN meeting about his country to help end a growing political crisis that is testing the authority of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, sources told AFP Thursday.

The eleventh-hour decision by Salahuddin Rabbani not to travel to New York comes as his Jamiat-e-Islami party holds talks with Ghani's office to resolve a dispute, involving a powerful governor in the northern province of Balkh who is refusing to stand down, which has caused concern in Washington.

In a crisis that many fear could turn violent, one of Jamiat's top leaders Atta Mohammad Noor, has refused to leave the post he has held since 2004, rejecting a claim by Ghani's office that he had resigned.

Tajik-dominated Jamiat's negotiating team "has decided that the presence of Salahuddin Rabbani, as head of the party and chief negotiator, is important at this key stage of the talks," Kamaluddin Hamid, a senior Jamiat member, told AFP.

"Unless there is a last minute delay (in the talks) or change of decision, he will stay in Afghanistan and not go to this New York meeting (on Friday) for the sake of national interest. The aim is to calm the tension and solve the situation peacefully."

An Afghan government official confirmed that Rabbani would not attend the special meeting on Afghanistan "due to the continuation of negotiations".

Rabbani's decision not to attend Friday's Security Council meeting comes days after the UN group, including US Ambassador Nikki Haley, visited Kabul for a close-up view of the security and political situation in the country.

The Balkh crisis was also on the agenda during a phone call between Vice President Mike Pence and Ghani on Tuesday.

"The vice president emphasized his support for the Afghan government to engage with Balkh Governor Atta and conduct a peacefully negotiated transition of leadership," said a readout of the call released by the White House.

The tussle with Noor comes at a bad time for Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, whose US-backed government faces deteriorating security as well as growing pressure to hold long-delayed parliamentary elections this year.

An Afghan diplomat said the negotiations, which have been going on for several weeks, were "deadlocked".

"For that reason Rabbani prefers to remain here... but this is a lack of respect for the Security Council," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

"Ghani may fire Rabbani."

For weeks Noor has made almost daily speeches to hundreds of supporters that have been broadcast live on television, highlighting the intense interest in the stand-off between the strongman and the president.

Source: AFP

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that US troops will remain in Syria not just to fight jihadists but also to counter the power of Bashar al-Assad and his ally Iran.

In a speech on the US strategy to help end Syria's seven-year civil war, Tillerson stressed that the mission of the US military is to destroy the Islamic State group and prevent its return.

But he also made it clear that the open-ended deployment is intended to help create enough stability for Syrians to be able to remove Assad from office and reject Iranian influence.

"A total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad to continue his brutal treatment against his own people," Tillerson told an audience at Stanford University.

"A murderer of his own people cannot generate the trust required for long-term stability," he said.

"A stable, unified, and independent Syria ultimately requires post-Assad leadership in order to be successful."

The United States has deployed around 2,000 ground troops to Syria and its warplanes patrol over the east of the country, hunting remnants of the Islamic State group.

The US works with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia dominated by Kurdish fighters which Washington sees as a basis for a 30,000-strong border force to hold eastern Syria.

Assad's Damascus regime has condemned this force as traitors, and US ally Turkey, wary of the presence of the YPG Kurdish militia in its ranks, is highly suspicious of its role.

Tillerson insisted that Washington is not being dragged into the Syrian civil war as a combatant seeking violent regime change, nor into a long-term nation-building mission.

Instead, he argued that the US role will provide stability to allow a UN-led peace process to resume and find a Syrian-led alternative to Assad's rule and the Iranian presence.

"The departure of Assad through the UN-led Geneva process will create the conditions for a durable peace within Syria and security along the borders," Tillerson said.

"US disengagement from Syria would provide Iran with the opportunity to further strengthen its own position in Syria.

"As we have seen from Iran's proxy wars and public announcements, Iran seeks dominance in the Middle East and the destruction of our ally Israel," he said.

- 'Same mistakes' -

Despite rejecting the regime change and nation-building model of past US interventions in the region, Tillerson said that the United States must not repeat its "mistake" in leaving Iraq.

US troops completed a withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, eight years after they toppled Saddam Hussein's rule, only to return in much lower numbers in 2014 to fight the Islamic State.

"The United States will maintain a military presence in Syria, focused on ensuring that ISIS cannot re-emerge," Tillerson said, using an abbreviation for the Islamic State group.

"We cannot make the same mistakes that were made in 2011, when a premature departure from Iraq allowed Al-Qaeda in Iraq to survive and eventually morph into ISIS," he said.

Source: AFP

US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that his plan for a wall along the Mexican border has "never changed or evolved," in tweets posted after his chief of staff said he was not "fully informed" when he pledged to build it last year.

Retired General John Kelly's remarks, made to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and reported by the New York Times Wednesday, were a rare departure from the president on one of the core issues that defined his upstart run for office.

He told the lawmakers he had persuaded Trump the wall was not necessary and that the president's opinion on the barrier had "evolved."

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But Trump hit back on Twitter, writing: "The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it."

The president added that some of the wall will be "see through" -- a protection, he said last July, against people throwing "large sacks of drugs" over -- and repeated that it will be paid for "directly or indirectly" by Mexico.

"The $20 billion dollar Wall is 'peanuts' compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!" he said, reasserting his position on the trade pact which is currently being renegotiated.

Meanwhile, Trump also clarified the wall would not be built in areas of natural protection.

The Twitter burst comes amid rocky efforts in Congress to reach a deal on funding to avert a government shutdown, which could come as early as midnight Friday unless a short term fix is found.

Democrats have demanded a broader deal that includes continued protection against deportation for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

"If there is no Wall, there is no Deal!" Trump said in another tweet that described Mexico as "now rated the most dangerous country in the world."

Kelly was brought in as chief of staff six months ago in a bid to put order to the command center of Trump's chaotic presidency.

Source: AFP

Turkey on Thursday described as far from satisfactory US assurances playing down plans to create a border force in northern Syria made up of Kurdish militia forces deemed as "terrorists" by Ankara.

Washington said it is training a 30,000-strong border force on Syria's northern frontier with Turkey, comprised of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, whom Ankara accuses of being a terror group.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted furiously to the announcement of the plan over the weekend, denouncing the force as an "army of terror".

But the Pentagon said late Wednesday it does not plan to create an "army" and the force is aimed at fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group and maintaining stability in areas recaptured from the jihadists.

"Did this satisfy us in full? No, it did not," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNN-Turk television in an interview.

"The establishment of a so-called terror army would cause irreversible damage in our relations ... it is a very serious situation," he warned.

The YPG is a major bone of contention in ties between Turkey and the United States, which considers it a key ally in fighting IS.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in its southeast since 1984.

- Russian approval key -

The tensions come as Turkey repeatedly warns it is on the verge of launching an operation against towns in Syria controlled by the YPG, including the key centre of Afrin.

But analysts say a full cross border operation would be near impossible without the approval of Russia, which has a military presence in the area.

In a surprise development, Turkey's army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian counterparts on security issues and Syria, the army said in a statement.

Turkish artillery has already been shelling YPG positions near Afrin, Turkish media reported.

Cavusoglu said despite their disagreements over Syria -- including on the future of Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad -- Turkey has been working with Russia on the issue.

"The Russians should not oppose an Afrin operation," he said.

"What we need to coordinate is the situation of their observers (on the ground) there to avoid an accident," he added. "We have coordinated and are coordinating many steps with Russia thus far."

Source: AFP

 Pope Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants on Thursday and robustly defended a bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse at the end of a visit to Chile overshadowed by controversy.

The Israeli army on Thursday revealed details of a massive underground barrier being built along the border with the Gaza Strip in a bid to neutralise the threat of Palestinian attack tunnels.

Eventually stretching some 65 kilometres (41 miles), the concrete wall will be accompanied by motion sensors designed to detect tunnel digging and is expected to be completed by mid-2019.

The project had been previously announced, but details of its construction had been kept secret until Thursday, when journalists were allowed to view aspects of it.

The details were unveiled days after the army destroyed what it described as a tunnel intended for attacks stretching from the blockaded Palestinian enclave into Israel and eventually Egypt, at least the third uncovered and demolished in less than three months.

Tunnels were among Hamas's most effective tools during the 2014 war with Israel, with militants using them to enter the Jewish state, carry out attacks and at times even return to Gaza through the underground passages.

The devastating 2014 conflict killed 2,251 Palestinians, while more than 10,000 were wounded and 100,000 were left homeless.

On the Israeli side, 74 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers.

Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza say tunnels are needed for defence.

An Israeli state inquiry published last year accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top army brass of being unprepared for the "strategic threat" of the tunnels from the enclave run by Islamist movement Hamas.

But with the new underground barrier and sensors detecting movement, militant groups would no longer be able to build and use tunnels, a senior Israeli army official said.

"They understand that the strategic weapon of underground tunnels crossing the border is going to end," the official told reporters.

- 'Deep enough' -

Workers -- local and from abroad -- have been labouring around the clock for nearly a year.

The barrier is being built on Israeli territory, east of the existing border fence, with four kilometres completed so far -- in the area of the town of Sderot, off the northern Gaza Strip, and the Nahal Oz area near Gaza City.

The technique used is similar to that for building support walls for high-rise buildings or underground parking lots, the military official said at one of the barrier construction sites along the border.

Heavy machines dig a deep, narrow trench, filling it with bentonite slurry that keeps the trench from collapsing.

A metal reinforcing cage is inserted, with tubes sucking out the slurry and then filling the trench with cement drying into a wall approximately a metre wide.

Attack tunnels from Gaza can reach the depth of dozens of metres, with the Israeli army official only saying the new barrier would be "deep enough".

A new, eight-metre high border fence being erected atop the underground wall will further prevent infiltrations of Gazans into Israel, the senior official said.

Speaking to reporters near the Israeli community of Kissufim, where an attack tunnel built by Islamic Jihad was demolished in late October, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said the underground wall would be the first such "complete underground barrier."

The operation to demolish the tunnel in October left 12 militants dead.

"Any attempt to tunnel into Israel ... will be detected and targeted" by the army, Conricus said.

But eliminating the tunnel threat would not mean that Gaza militants would cease their attacks on Israel, the senior military official said.

"They're training, building forces for the sea and land," he said.

Source: AFP

The policies of US President Donald Trump and his embrace of populist strongmen have dealt a blow to rights campaigns around the world but resistance is building, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

In its annual report, the group denounced rights abuses in unstable states like Syria and Myanmar as well as authoritarian trends in powers like Turkey and China -- while also weighing in on the first year of Trump's term.

Under Trump, the United States cosied up to leaders like the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte and encouraged Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's bloody intervention in Yemen, HRW said.

But in an interview with AFP, the group's executive director Kenneth Roth hailed the growing civic and political resistance to populists.

- Unlikely champions -

"The big theme this year is really how much the world has changed," Roth said. "Because a year ago, just as Donald Trump was entering the White House, it was a moment of despair.

"What has been encouraging over the last year is how much resistance we've seen in many countries to this rise of populism."

He cited signs that Duterte was now encountering domestic resistance to his brutal anti-drugs crackdown and that Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro has had to contend with sustained street protests.

He also praised the role of Western nations in pressing nations to end rights abuses, such as Iceland's efforts at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which led Duterte to rein in his "murderous police".

And when Russia vetoed bids to hold Syria to account, "it was the superpower of Lichtenstein that led an effort at the UN General Assembly to appoint a special prosecutor," Roth said drily.

- French 'turning point'-

Roth also noted efforts by US judges and activists to fight back -- not always successfully -- against measures such as Trump's moves to curb immigration from Muslim-majority nations.

He also hailed Emmanuel Macron's victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France's presidential election.

"The reason we chose Paris to issue this report is really because of Macron's electoral campaign," Roth said at a press conference Thursday.

"We saw it as a real turning point in the reaction to the rise of populism," he said, referring to Macron's criticism of the rights records of Russia and Turkey during meetings with those countries' leaders.

But Roth noted that Macron had not pressed China's leaders on human rights during his visit there this month and also expressed concern over France's tough new anti-terror laws.

"We are worried that the greater ease with which the police can conduct searches, restrain some people's movements, close off certain facilities, is going to lend itself to discriminatory abuse, particularly against the Muslim population," he said.

- Saudi prince: reformer or warmonger?

Myanmar saw its cautious year-old transition towards elected civilian rule morph into a "massive human rights and humanitarian crisis" for its Muslim minority, the HRW report said.

According to the group 650,000 members of the Rohingya minority fled "mass killings, sexual violence, arson and other abuses amounting to crimes against humanity by the security forces."

Most criticism -- and some new US sanctions -- has been aimed at Myanmar's generals, sparing the country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Nobody believes that she led the ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, but she has in essence defended it. She's refused to publicly criticise it," Roth told AFP.

In the Middle East, HRW said weapons supplied by the US and Britain had killed civilians in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of regional allies battling Shiite Huthi rebels backed by Iran.

"The war is also exacerbating the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe. Both sides are unlawfully impeding the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid," the report said.

Although the crown prince is seen as pushing a modernising drive such as allowing women to drive and arresting princes suspected of corruption, he has also pursued the blockade of Yemeni ports.

Roth said the bombings and blockades had left more than six million Yemenis facing starvation and a million with cholera.

"So I take this view of the Saudi crown prince as being a reformer with a big grain of salt," he said.

Source: AFP

Turkey has ramped up its rhetoric to threaten an imminent cross-border incursion against Kurdish militiain Syria but the attitude of Russia and to a lesser extent the United States will determine the nature of the operation, analysts say.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia controls key northern Syrian towns including Manbij and Afrin, and is an ally of the US but Ankara accuses the group of being a terror organisation.

Tensions have risen to a new peak in the last days after the United States announced plans for a new 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria that would be composed partly of YPG fighters.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to destroy the force, describing it as an "army of terror".

"The preparations have been completed, the operation could start at any moment," Erdogan said this week, as the Turkish army sent dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of additional personnel to the border area.

- 'Needs Russian green light' -

Yet executing the operation on the ground -- especially against a well-populated urban centre such as Afrin -- could prove much harder than making threats in fiery language.

Crucial will be the attitude of Russia, which has worked increasingly closely with Turkey on Syria in the last year but has a military presence in the area where it cooperates with the YPG.

"Can Ankara dare to attack Afrin without getting a green light from Russia? It's a sure 'no' for me," said Metin Gurcan, security analyst at Istanbul Policy Center and Al Monitor columnist.

He said that despite the increasingly inflammatory language from Erdogan, a full operation would require that Russia open Afrin's air space to Turkey and withdraw its soldiers from the area.

Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have grown in the last days as Russia seeks wide attendance at a peace conference on Syria at the end of the month. But Turkey insists it will not attend if the YPG is there.

In a potentially decisive meeting, Turkey's army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy supremo Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Thursday with Russian counterparts on Syria.

- 'Hard to back down' -

"The only external power that can stop an invasion at this point is Russia," said Aaron Stein, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center.

He said Erdogan had threatened incursions inside Syria "once a week, every week" for the past year since the Euphrates Shield incursion Turkey launched in August 2016, which ended the following spring.

"What makes this different is that the rhetoric is far more specific, pointed and hostile towards the US. I assume that he will carry out his threat, but the scale of the operation is still an unanswered question," he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu insisted Thursday that Russia would not oppose an Afrin operation, saying that Ankara needed to coordinate with Moscow to ensure its military observers on the ground were not harmed.

Aaron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation, said that "it would be hard for Erdogan to back down at this point" following such "loud and persistent" threats.

He said if the operation turned into full-out combat, much of the actual fighting would be done by Turkey-backed Syrian rebel forces like in the Euphrates Shield operation.

But he added that Afrin has tough terrain and was well fortified while the "YPG is a disciplined and effective force."

- 'Not a US problem' -

Moreover, any Turkish intervention may not find the warmest of receptions in Washington, which has closely cooperated with the YPG as its main ally on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

Yet Afrin -- which lies to the west of the main Kurdish zone of influence in Syria -- may not be a prime concern of Washington which is more interested in the Kurdish-controlled areas stretching east to the Iraqi border.

"As far as I can tell, the Americans do not view Afrin as being their problem," said Lund, saying the American military was in Syria on a "fairly narrow counter-terrorism mandate."

"That said, they must be worried that this could create trouble for them" especially if Turkey fired on YPG-controlled areas to the east with a US presence, he said.

Stein said there was a "recognition in Washington that this is a Turkish show" and "little to be done to dissuade Erdogan" if he chooses to go ahead with the incursion.

Source: AFP

Israeli forces raided a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank overnight to arrest suspects in the recent murder of an Israeli, leaving one of them dead and sparking clashes, officials said.

Two Israeli special forces members were wounded during the raid on Jenin that began late Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning, the Israeli military said. A number of arrests were made.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed a Palestinian was killed in the operation, naming him as Ahmed Ismail Jarrar, 31.

It had earlier identified the dead man as Ahmed Nasser Jarrar, 22 and the son of a militant from the Hamas Islamist movement.

The whereabouts of Ahmed Nasser Jarrar remain unclear, with his family saying he was missing.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw at least two Palestinians arrested, with clashes continuing into Thursday morning.

Witnesses said two houses belonging to the family were also demolished during the operation.

The Israeli military said that during the raid "a violent riot was instigated. Palestinian rioters hurled IEDs (improvised explosive devices), blocks and rocks and fired at the forces."

"In order to disperse the violent riot, forces responded with riot dispersal means and fired live rounds selectively," it said.

Videos posted online by Palestinians showed multiple Israeli armoured vehicles entering the city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to India, said in a statement that "we will track down all who attack us and we will hold them accountable."

Raziel Shevah, a 35-year-old rabbi, was shot dead near Havat Gilad, the wildcat Jewish settlement outpost he lived in near the West Bank city of Nablus, on January 9.

Israeli forces have been hunting for the assailants since then, with roadblocks and checkpoints set up around Nablus following the murder.

There are frequent tensions between Israeli settlers in the Nablus area and Palestinians. Some 600,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem alongside nearly three million Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 6 triggered unrest in the Palestinian territories, although it was unclear if the murder was related.

Eighteen Palestinians have been killed since Trump's declaration, most of them in clashes with Israeli forces. Shevah is the only Israeli killed during that time period.

Source: AFP

Barely a month after Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State group, the jihadists could still recapture areas of Iraq, especially near the border with Syria, experts and officials say.

Ali al-Bayati, a commander of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary units which fought alongside Iraqi security forces in a gruelling battle against the group, said the Nimrud area of northern Iraq could "fall at any time because security there is fragile".

Last July, the authorities in Baghdad announced with much fanfare the "liberation" of nearby Mosul, Iraq's second city and capital of Nineveh province.

IS fighters who fled their former stronghold and took refuge to the west, in the vast desert towards the Syrian border, have since launched attacks on security forces and civilians, Bayati said.

Hiding out in valleys and gullies as well as trenches dug before their ouster from Mosul, the jihadists have built up stockpiles of arms, fuel, water and food and pose a persistent threat to populated districts along the Tigris valley, like the Nimrud area downstream from Mosul.

More than 4,000 jihadists have been arrested in Nineveh province since Mosul's capture, according to police chief General Wathiq al-Hamdani.

But Aed al-Louayzi of Nineveh provincial council said several civilians have been robbed or killed inside the city itself, some by assailants disguised as soldiers.

He said the attacks have been the work of IS members from the areas of Tal Afar and Hatra, both towns also recaptured last year from the jihadists.

Hisham al-Hashemi, a specialist on jihadist movements, said Iraq's announcement in December of military victory "simply means that the (black) IS flag is no longer flying" over government buildings.

To counter the threat of an IS resurgence, "several operations have been carried out south of Mosul" with US-led coalition support to seize arms, said coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon.

- Active not sleepers -

Louayzi said that "geographically, the territory has been retaken... but not all the jihadists there have been arrested".

"We are in the same security situation as that which led to the fall of Mosul" back in 2014, which came after the extremists had seized control of some areas, he said.

To try to avoid past mistakes, Dillon said, "the coalition has trained Iraqi security forces to address the transition and future threats. We knew there would be a transition from fighting to policing."

The Hashed, which is patrolling the border with war-torn Syria, says it faces infiltration attempts by jihadists on a daily basis.

Although IS is also on the verge of overall military defeat in Syria, it surprised observers last week by announcing a comeback in the country's northwest.

In the Hawija area of northern Iraq, at least three civilians and a Hashed fighter have been killed this month, according to security sources.

They said around 60 jihadists have died in fighting around the town, one of the last IS urban strongholds retaken by Iraqi forces.

Iraq plans to hold parliamentary and provincial assembly elections on May 12 but they may yet be put off until the end of the year.

Large numbers of Sunni Arabs have yet to return to their homes in Nineveh and in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, after fleeing the fighting with IS.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is seeking a new term at the head of a "Victory Alliance" while the Hashed are to stand separately on their own list as both seek to make political capital out of the military campaign.

On Monday, twin suicide bombings in Baghdad cost more than 30 lives, prompting Abadi to order security forces to "eliminate IS sleeper cells" and protect civilians.

But Hashemi said the threat is more immediate.

"This concept of sleeper cells is a mistake. They are not sleepers, they are active," he said. "They are capable of mounting attacks and even of taking control of zones."

Source: AFP

The spill from a sunken Iranian tanker off China's east coast has spawned four oil slicks as authorities prepared to send robots to the wreckage to assess the environmental damage.

The Sanchi, which was carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil from Iran, sank in a ball of flames in the East China Sea on Sunday, a week after colliding with Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter the CF Crystal.

The bodies of only three out of 30 Iranian and two Bangladeshi crew members have been found.

The State Oceanic Administration of China said late Wednesday that it was monitoring four slicks with a total area of almost 101 square kilometres (39 square miles), roughly the same size as Paris.

The office is attempting to "control the spread of the oil spill and is carrying out work to estimate its impact on the marine ecological environment", it said on its website.

The type of condensate oil carried by the Sanchi does not form a traditional surface slick when spilt, but is nonetheless highly toxic to marine life and much harder to separate from water. The cargo amounted to nearly one million barrels (bbl) of oil.

Japan's coast guard said Thursday a patrol ship and plane examined the oil spill and found that it was spreading 30 kilometres east and eight kilometres northwest from the wreck, with a maximum width of 800 metres.

"The swathe of oil slick is being diffused and disappearing," the coast guard said in a statement. "Chinese and other patrol ships continue to look for missing (crew) members and carrying out oil removal missions."

On Tuesday, China had reported two slicks measuring about 69 square kilometres and an additional 40-square-kilometre area of "scattered" oil.

The transport ministry said late Wednesday the vessel lay at a depth of around 115 metres (50 feet) and that robots would be deployed to explore the shipwreck.

- Sea life at risk -

The area where the ship went down is an important spawning ground for species like the swordtip squid and wintering ground for species like the yellow croaker fish and blue crab, among many others, according to Greenpeace.

It is also on the migratory pathway of numerous marine mammals, such as humpback and gray whales.

In addition to the light crude oil, the Sanchi also carried a fuel tank able to accommodate some 1,000 tonnes of heavy diesel.

If all of the Sanchi's cargo spills into the sea, it would be the biggest oil slick from a ship in decades.

By comparison, in the sixth-worst spill since the 1960s, the Odyssey dumped 132,000 tonnes some 700 nautical miles off Canada's Nova Scotia in 1988, according to figures from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation website.

Richard Steiner, an Alaska-based oil spill consultant, called on the Chinese government to conduct a survey of the sunken vessel as soon as possible, citing concerns about the possibility of continued leakage.

"It is critical to know if any condensate remains on board," he said in an email, adding that instead of evaporating it could create a "more concentrated toxic underwater plume."

"If the entire 1 million bbl cargo is released (which seems likely at this point), this will be the largest condensate spill in history."

Source: AFP

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Thursday his extreme concern over the lack of progress in the negotiations over the building of Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

During a joint press conference with visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Sisi stressed the necessity to overcome current obstacles in ongoing negotiations over the massive dam.

Sisi has also expressed understanding of the developmental goals Ethiopia aims to achieve with the GERD.

"We don't want any one-sided decisions on the dam filling process," Sisi said, adding that the GERD should not harm Egypt's interests or its share of Nile water.

The Egyptian president said that Egypt's recent proposal to include the World Bank as a neutral mediator in GERD negotiations was aimed at overcoming the delays in technical negotiations and to reassure all involved countries.

He added that the Egyptian proposal to include the World Bank is up to Ethiopia and Sudan to study, saying he has agreed with the Ethiopian Prime Minister on another vision.

However, he said he would not reveal the details at this time.

For his part, Desalegn affirmed that both countries should work together on overcoming obstacles through wise and friendly dialogue.

"Our destinies are common and bound by the River Nile, which represents a vein of life joining our nations," he said.

Desalegn affirmed that the dam will not have any negative impact on Egypt, pointing out that it will further contribute to the development of all Nile Basin countries, especially Egypt and Sudan.

The diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Egypt is largely intertwined with the Blue Nile River that originates from Ethiopia and shared among Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

The construction of the GERD on the river, which will be regarded as Africa's largest dam upon completion with a total volume of 74,000 million cubic meters, has been a major issue among the two countries since its commencement in April, 2011 with a construction cost of 80 billion Ethiopian birr (close to 4.7 billion U.S. dollars).

While Ethiopia and Sudan reached mutual consensus on the construction of the dam, Egypt frequently expressed its concern that the dam would affect its annual share of 55.5 billion cubic meters of the Nile River water amid the GERD's rapid construction.

Source: Xinhua

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi appointed on Thursday Presidency Chief-of-staff Abbas Kamel as the acting chief of the General Intelligence Service (GIS).

Kamel, who will remain in office until a new chief is named, replaced Khaled Fazwy as the GIS chief, according to the presidency media office.

Fawzy, 61, had held the office of GIS chief since December 2014.

On Sunday, the Egyptian parliament approved a limited cabinet reshuffle, with four new ministers named for the portfolios of local development, culture, tourism and the public business sector.

The four new appointments were proposed earlier by Sisi.

Source: Xinhua

U.S. New Mexico State Police said Thursday that five people were killed and one severely injured in the helicopter crash in Raton, about 280 km northeast of Santa Fe, the state's capital city.

The police said the six people were on board when the helicopter crashed in the mountains near the New Mexico-Colorado border Wednesday evening.

Investigators believed the helicopter crashed sometime around 6 p.m. on Wednesday about 25 km east of the Raton Municipal Airport.

According to the police, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigators will arrive on Thursday to investigate cause of the crash.

Source: Xinhua

The Iraqi parliament Thursday postponed its session for two days due to a lack of quorum after the lawmakers failed on whether to approve the date of general elections on May 12, or delay the elections to the end of the year, amid debate among political blocs.

A statement by the parliament said that 149 lawmakers out of 260 attending the session voted to hold secret ballot over whether to delay the May 12 elections or not.

After the secret ballot, the request to postpone the elections won the votes of only 123 lawmakers and did not achieve the quorum of half plus one, the statement said.

The Speaker Salim al-Jubouri adjourned the session to Saturday in order to carry out an open ballot for May 12 date set by the government and the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).

The secret vote was protested by the National Alliance, a Shiite bloc, pushing them and some other lawmakers to walk out of the session.

On Wednesday, Sunni major parliamentary coalition demanded postponement of the general elections for six months to allow hundreds of thousands of Sunni displaced people to return home to cast their ballots after the liberation of their cities and towns from the Islamic State (IS).

"The voter registration update is currently no more than 2 percent of the total eligible voters of Nineveh province and if it goes ahead (for May 12 elections), it will not reach 15 percent of total voters," Ahmed al-Jubouri, a Sunni lawmaker for Nineveh province, told Xinhua.

Jubouri noted that the elections under such circumstances will result in weaker representation for the Arabs, 82 percent of Nineveh's provincial population, and most of the parliamentary seats will go for other minorities.

"That will draw a new political map in the province and the majority Arabs will be the biggest victims," Jubouri added.

Earlier, the cabinet of the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in coordination with IHEC decided May 12 as date for the coming elections.

According to the Iraqi constitution, the parliamentary elections must be held at least 45 days before the end of the current legislative term.

The elections date must be ratified later by the current parliament before the endorsement of the Presidential Council to be fully approved.

Iraq's previous general election was held on April 30, 2014, when Iraqis elected 328 lawmakers for the parliament, which in turn elected Abadi to form an inclusive government from the Shiite alliance, Kurds and Sunnis.

Source: Xinhua

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said here on Thursday that preserving the international agreement on Iran's nuclear program was important, as failure of the deal would send "an alarming message for the entire international security architecture."

Speaking at the Security Council, Lavrov said the overwhelming majority of the international community recognizes that the 2015 agreement between Iran and the six world powers of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany is making a tangible contribution to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime and to the maintenance of international peace and security.

"We cannot for the benefit of political agendas of certain countries abandon a genuine achievement of international diplomacy," he said.

"The failure of JCPOA, especially as a result of one of the parties of the P5+1, would be an alarming message for the entire international security architecture, including the prospects for dealing with the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula," said Lavrov. JCPOA (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) refers to the Iran nuclear deal that was signed in July 2015.

Lavrov was clearly referring to threats from Washington that it might pull out of the deal unless it is to be "fixed."

U.S. President Donald Trump last Friday waived nuclear sanctions against Iran, but warned that he would not do it again unless the deal is modified. Tehran has said it will not renegotiate the deal, under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Source: Xinhua

The United States signaled on Wednesday an open-ended military presence in Syria as part of a broader US strategy to prevent Islamic State’s resurgence, pave the way diplomatically for the eventual departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and curtail Iran’s influence.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a speech at Stanford University, made clear the United States would work diplomatically toward Assad’s exit from power, but called for “patience” - an acknowledgment that Assad has been bolstered by Russia and Iran and is unlikely to leave power immediately.

Tillerson’s urging of patience was the clearest indication yet of Washington’s acknowledgment that Assad’s stronger position in Syria, bolstered by Russia and Iran, meant he would not leave power immediately.

Billed as the Trump administration’s new strategy on Syria, the announcement will prolong the risks and redefine the mission for the US military, which has for years sought to define its operations in Syria along more narrow lines of battling Islamic State and has about 2,000 US ground forces in the country.

While much of the US strategy would focus on diplomatic efforts, Tillerson said:

“But let us be clear: the United States will maintain a military presence in Syria, focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge,” while acknowledging many Americans’ skepticism of military involvement in conflicts abroad, Tillerson said.

US forces in Syria have already faced direct threats from Syrian and Iranian-backed forces in the country, leading to the shoot-down of Iranian drones and a Syrian jet last year, as well as to tensions with Russia.

Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, had previously disclosed elements of the policy but Tillerson’s speech was meant to formalize and clearly define it.

A US disengagement from Syria would provide Iran with an opportunity to reinforce its position in Syria, Tillerson said.

As candidate, US President Donald Trump was critical of his predecessors’ military interventions in the Middle East and Afghanistan. As president, Trump had to commit to an open-ended 
presence in Afghanistan and, now, Syria.

The transition to what appears to be open-ended stability operations in Syria could leave those US-backed forces vulnerable to shifting alliances, power struggles and miscommunications as Assad’s allies and enemies vie for greater control of post-war Syria.

After nearly seven years of war, hundreds of thousands Syrians killed and a humanitarian disaster, Tillerson asked nations to keep up economic pressure on Assad but provide aid to areas no longer under Islamic State’s control.

“Our expectation is that the desire for a return to normal life and these tools of pressure will help rally the Syrian people and individuals within the regime to compel Assad to step aside,” Tillerson said.

The top US diplomat said Washington would carry out “stabilization initiatives” such as clearing landmines and restoring basic utilities in areas no longer under Islamic State control, while making clear that “‘stabilization’ is not a synonym for open-ended nation-building or a synonym for reconstruction.But it is essential.”

Tillerson said the United States would “vigorously support” a United Nations process to end the conflict, a so-far stalled process. He called on Russia, a main supporter of Assad, to “put new levels of pressure” on the Syrian government to “credibly engage” with UN peace efforts.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria said on Wednesday he had invited the Syrian government and opposition to a special meeting to be held next week in Vienna.

But it was not immediately clear how or why Moscow would heed Washington’s oft-repeated demands.

Source: Alarabiya

A Palestinian was killed during clashes with Israeli forces in the north of the occupied West Bank late Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry announced.

Israeli forces entered the Palestinian city of Jenin late Wednesday, eyewitnesses said, with violent clashes breaking out in which Israeli police said there were a "number of injuries."

Palestinians state media named the dead man as Ahmed Jarrar, 22.

At least two Palestinians were arrested, with clashes ongoing in the early hours of Thursday, Palestinian eyewitnesses said.

Videos posted online by Palestinians showed multiple Israeli armoured vehicles entering the city.

Israeli media suggested the raid might have been linked to the killing of a rabbi in the West Bank a week earlier.

Raziel Shevah, a 35-year-old rabbi, was shot dead near the Jewish settlement he lived in near Nablus on January 9 by unknown assailants.

Source: Alarabiya