Muslim Advocacy Group Warns LGBTQ Rights Bill in Michigan Could Encroach On Religious Liberty
New Age Islam News Bureau
03 March 2023
Muslim advocacy group argues a proposed law change encroaches on religious freedom. Photo: Fox News
------
• Israel Does Not Need A Death Penalty — They Execute
Us In The Streets Already, Say Palestinians
• No Compromise With Extremism, All Should Unite To
Rebuild The Country: Kerala Muslim Jamaat
• Iran Is New Centre of Al-Qaeda Impacting Iran’s Ties
With The Rest Of The World, Says Former US Special Representative Khalilzad
• Malaysian Film Directors Association Wants Indie
'Mentega Terbang’ Director To Apologise To Viewers And Muslim Community
North America
• A Fairfax, Virginia, Controversial School Board Member
Endorsed Curriculum That Removes 'Islamic Terror' From 9/11 History Lessons
• US ‘deeply concerned’ over poisoning of Iranian
schoolgirls
• US waiting for UN nuclear watchdog meetings in Iran
before deciding next steps
• Report blames US presidents for instigating collapse
of Afghan military
• US ‘alarmed’ at Tunisia’s ‘escalating pattern’ of
arrests
--------
Mideast
• Iranian President Urges Europe Not to Turn into
Launch Pad for Anti-Tehran Conspiracies
• Israel passes initial reading of death penalty bill
for terror offenders
• Iranian Minister Underlines Necessity for Further
Strengthening of D-8
• Iran Registers Over 350 New Coronavirus Cases, 6
Deaths
• Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in surging West
Bank violence
• Israeli campaign raises funds for torched
Palestinian town in occupied West Bank
• Frenchman still in Iran prison despite acquittal:
Lawyer
• Israel urges Brazil to undock Iranian warships
• IAEA’s Grossi to travel to Iran, seeking
breakthrough on cooperation
--------
India
• Should Dalit Christians, Muslims Get Quota Benefits?
RSS Body To Discuss Issue
• Hindutva Goons, Right-Wing Worker Radha Semwal Dhoni
And Her Colleagues, Demolish Mazar; Claim It Was Built On State Land
• ₹ 5 Lakh Compensation For Families Of 2 Muslim Men
Burnt Alive In Haryana
• Has India Forgotten Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, The
Country’s First Education Minister And A Champion Of Hindu-Muslim Unity?
• Lucknow District Officials Meet Muslim Clerics,
Discuss Peaceful Holi & Shab-e-Barat Celebrations
--------
South Asia
• Afghan diplomats return to Turkey and Iran as
Taliban pushes for relations thaw
• Rohingya refugees decry ‘devastating’ cuts to food
aid
• Six TTP Members Killed in Afghanistan’s Khost IED
Blast
• UNAMA Chief Meets IEA Minister, Discusses Education
in Afghanistan
--------
Southeast Asia
• Thailand launches e-guidebook for foodies and Muslim
tourists
• Malaysia seeks deeper ties with Saudi Arabia after
Hajj minister’s visit
• Umno Islamic council’s ‘Ennahda-like’ trimmings
• PM Anwar wants sufficient allocations to be
channelled to flood victims
• In Johor, mosques in flood areas to open as
temporary flood relief centres
--------
Arab World
• Arab Nations Condemn Israeli Minister’s “Racist”
Palestine Comments
• Hidden Corridor Discovered Near Main Entrance Of
Great Pyramid Of Giza
• Saudi Film Commission Participates In Berlin
International Film Festival
• UN chief urges nations to repatriate citizens from
Syria camp
• UAE astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi docks at the International
Space Station
• Uneasy calm in Lebanon refugee camp following armed
clashes
• AlUla visitor center’s highly trained local
employees plan authentic experiences for guests
• Saudi FM discusses bilateral relations with
counterparts at G20 summit
--------
Africa
• Libya Approves Constitutional Fix But No Big
Breakthrough To Elections
• Tunis governor refuses protest permit citing alleged
plot
• Human Rights Commission head meets Sudan justice
minister in Geneva
• Experts share views on new UN proposal for election
process in Libya
• Peter Obi challenges winner of Nigeria presidential
election Bola Tinubu
• Protests greet Macron on Africa tour, Burkina Faso
scraps military pact
--------
Europe
• Manchester Arena Inquiry Finds MI5 Missed
Significant Chance To Prevent Suicide Bombing
• UK pledges to work with European allies to support
Turkish quake victims
• US, UK congratulate Tinubu on Nigeria election win
as legal challenge looms
• British navy seizes 'anti-tank weapons, ballistic
missile components' in Gulf of Oman
• France says Iran uranium enrichment ‘very
concerning’
--------
Pakistan
• Supervisors Must Act As Mentors, Not Punishers,
Rules Supreme Court
• Pakistanis paying heavily for Bajwa’s ‘regime change
conspiracy’: Imran
• FIA nabs ‘traffickers’; FO confirms 7 deaths in
Libya wreck
• ‘Militants’ killed, Nadra office attacked in Kech
• PPP, MQM-P Not Ready To Soften Their Stance On
Census
• JI, PPP trade barbs as controversy over Jan 15 LG
polls’ results re-emerges
• US to provide modern equipment to KP police, says
envoy
• Jadhav remains a living proof of Indian hostility,
state-sponsored terrorism against Pakistan
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/muslim-advocacy-lgbtq-religious/d/129239
--------
Muslim Advocacy Group Warns LGBTQ Rights Bill in Michigan Could Encroach On Religious Liberty
Muslim advocacy group argues
a proposed law change encroaches on religious freedom. Photo: Fox News
------
By Joshua Q. Nelson
A Muslim advocacy group told Fox News Digital that an
LGBTQ rights bill in Michigan is likely "unconstitutional" due to its
encroachment on religious freedom.
The Counsel of American Islamic Relations [CAIR]
launched a petition urging lawmakers to add religious protections to proposed
amendments to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), which seeks to
include sexual orientation and gender identity.
The ELCRA has provided protections for Michiganders
based on religion, race, sex and other demographics since 1976. LGBTQ advocates
have been pushing to be included in the bill for years to ensure they don't
face discrimination.
However, while expanding the rights for LGBTQ members,
the bill could remove protections for faith-based organizations that believe
marriage is between one man and one woman, or biological differences between
men and women.
"CAIR Michigan believes along with some other religious
groups that have done the policy and the legal research that there are
provisions of this bill that could be struck down as unconstitutional including
that provision that requires that covenant," CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Amy
Doukoure told Fox News Digital.
The proposed amendment to ELCRA was introduced last
month and received support from Democrats and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Doukoure said that officials are "cramming this
legislation through" and "have not yet agreed to meet with their
religious constituents that have religious concerns over this bill."
Catholic and Protestant groups and Republicans also
challenged the bill alongside Muslims. These groups are concerned that the bill
could lead to discrimination against religious and conservative people, as well
as expose them to potential lawsuits if they believe in the traditional
marriage of one man and a woman and their views on biological differences
between men and women.
Doukoure said that CAIR partnered with the Michigan
Catholic Conference, which is the main lobbying and advocacy wing of the
Catholic Church in Michigan, in calling for religious protections in the bill.
"They have a lot of lobbying power. They
testified in front of the Senate about the Senate version of this bill,"
she said.
"We work with them on a regular basis in matters
where our interests align in the preservation of religious freedoms,"
Doukoure said.
CAIR’s petition received more than triple the
signatures than their goal of 500. The petition is intended to urge lawmakers
to add reasonable language to any expansion of the ELCRA to provide religious
protections in order to prevent "expensive and lengthy" litigation
over First Amendment rights.
"We’re standing ready to provide legal defense to
any institution and organization that is at risk and has a risk of losing
contracts and not being able to obtain contracts with the government as it
relates to the state of Michigan because of the provisions of ELCRA that will
prohibit that," Doukoure said.
She went on to say, "All of the other states that
have passed the legislation have done so with religious protections. Michigan
wants to be different. They want to be an outlier. And we don't understand why
of the other 22 states have passed it, why Michigan can't include the
language."
Doukoure also noted that it's important for people to
realize that CAIR is asking the Michigan legislature to add in language that
has already been adopted by the courts.
"The language we're asking for and the
requirements or the provisions that we're asking for have already been adopted
by the courts as being reasonable accommodations, reasonable religious
expression. And we want it added in simply for the fact that we don't want to
have to litigate this in court," she said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the sponsor of the
bill, Jeremy Moses, for comment on Doukoure's claims. Moses said that CAIR
never reached out to his office. However, he said that he did have a meeting
with the Michigan Catholic Conference and they "could not come to an
agreement on amendment language."
"We left these conversations with disagreement on
the bill but with mutual respect," Moses told Fox News Digital.
"As for 'cramming the bill through,' this bill
was first introduced in 1983 before I was born. It has been reintroduced every
session since I was first elected," he said, pushing back against
Doukoure's claim that the legislation is being "crammed through."
"This session, the bill was introduced Jan. 12.
There was a committee hearing on Feb. 2. There was a second committee hearing
on Feb. 9, and it was voted to the floor of the Senate. Everyone who wanted to
submit testimony could. CAIR did not," Moses said.
He continued, "The bill was open for amendments
on the floor on Feb. 21. None were offered. The bill was open for debate on
March 1. Three of these religious amendments were offered, all were debated and,
in a majority vote, were defeated. That is the majoritarian and democratic
process. During the final vote, all senators had the chance to debate the bill.
One senator spoke in opposition, unimpeded, for 30 minutes. It passed with a
bipartisan vote. It is now in the House, where the process there will
begin."
The Michigan Senate will be voting on proposed
amendments to the ELCRA through Senate Bill 4.
Joshua Q. Nelson is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
Joshua focuses on politics, education policy ranging
from the local to the federal level, and the parental uprising in education.
Joining Fox News Digital in 2019, he previously
graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Political Science and is an
alum of the National Journalism Center and the Heritage Foundation's Young
Leaders Program.
Source: Fox News
Please click the following URL to read the text of the
original story:
--------
Israel Does Not Need A Death Penalty — They Execute Us
In The Streets Already, Say Palestinians
Israeli troops take up
positions during clashes with Palestinians following a raid at the entrance to
Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near the West Bank city of Jericho on March 1, 2023.
(AP)
-----
Mohammed Najib
March 02, 2023
RAMALLAH: Palestinians have denounced a draft Israeli
law to execute Palestinians found guilty of terrorism, which passed its first
stage in the Israeli Knesset this week.
The legislation, proposed by Internal Security
Minister and leader of the extremist Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir, cleared its preliminary reading on Wednesday
and is expected to pass the second and third stages to become law.
Palestinians consider it steeped in racism, while some
members of Israel’s security services have warned that the law would motivate
rather than deter more attacks on Israelis.
It has already faced opposition from Israeli human
rights institutions and calls for the country’s supreme court to strike it down
as inconsistent with international and humanitarian laws.
Qadura Faris, the president of the Palestinian
Prisoners Club, told Arab News that a specific death penalty would serve no
purpose other than to expose Israel as a “backward, fascist, apartheid state,
living in the past.”
“This law only targets Palestinians. This is a new
confirmation that there are two laws in the same geographical area: one for the
Israelis and the other for the Palestinians. This is racism,” he said.
He added that the death penalty would “not add to our
worries … we are extrajudicially killed daily without reason … [Israel] carries
out extensive executions against Palestinians daily outside the law.
“We know that Ben-Gvir’s insistence on proposing this
law comes within the framework of a process of blackmail.”
Rawhi Fattouh, the head of the Palestinian National
Council, agreed, saying: “Israel does not need laws to carry out field
executions against our people as it practices it daily and with false
pretexts.”
Israel currently uses a life sentence equivalent to 99
years of imprisonment against Palestinians who kill Israelis. There are more
than 550 inmates in Israeli prisons sentenced under this law.
Yousef Jabarin, a lecturer and former member of the
Israeli parliament, told Arab News that the law was a result of fierce
competition between extreme right-wing Israeli politicians to look the most
draconian.
Jabarin said that even if the law was passed, there
was a possibility that the supreme court would refuse it.
Maj. Gen. Qadri Abu Bakr, head of the commission for
detainees and ex-prisoners affairs, said that Palestinian activists did not
fear execution and that “Israel would pay the price for approving the law.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has called on the US
to arrest David Ben-Zion, the deputy head of the Settlement Council in the
occupied West Bank who is currently in the US.
The ministry said that Ben-Zion called on Israeli
settlers to attack Hawara town in the days before hundreds went on the rampage
earlier this week.
It said an arrest would be far more significant than
asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize for his minister’s
“disgusting” comments.
Meanwhile, a comprehensive strike took place in Jericho
and the Jordan Valley in protest at the killing of Mahmoud Hamdan, 22, who died
during the Israeli army’s incursion into the Aqbat Jabr camp on Tuesday.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed 67 Palestinians since the beginning of the
year, including 13 children, and four elderly.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the text of the
original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261311/middle-east
--------
No Compromise With Extremism, All Should Unite To
Rebuild The Country: Kerala Muslim Jamaat
'Kerala Muslim Jamaath
general secretary Syed Ibrahim Khaleelul Buhari inaugurating the state delegate
conference of Jamaath at Marine Drive in Kochi
------
03rd March 2023
KOCHI: The political and social situation in India has
grown more complex and all should unite to rebuild the country, said Kerala
Muslim Jamaat general secretary Syed Ibraheemul Khaleel ul Bukhari. Jamaat is
neither close nor far from politics and maintains good relations with all
politicians, he said while inaugurating the state delegate conference of Kerala
Muslim Jamaath at Marine Drive in Kochi on Thursday. He said the nation belongs
to the people and nobody has the right to question the patriotism of a citizen.
“The politics of grabbing power by dividing people and
spreading hatred is dangerous. The minority in the country, especially the
Muslims are facing a crisis. The situation that questions the existence and
future of Muslims should be seriously debated,” said Bukhari.
He said the Muslim Jamaath will not compromise with
extremism. The Jamaath has adopted an independent stand above politics. All
citizens should be provided housing, power, water, and education. The Jamaath
will extend the Kerala model of Islamic functioning across the country, he
added.
The meeting demanded the Union government withdraw the
hike in the price of LPG cylinders.
Samastha president E Sulaiman Musliyar presided over
the meeting. Kerala Muslim Jamaath president Kanthapuram A P Aboobaker Musliyar
delivered the message and leaders from across the state spoke on the occasion.
The meeting elected Kanthapuram A P Aboobaker Musliyar
as president, Syed Ibraheemul Khaleelul Bukhari as general secretary and Abdul
Karim Haji Chaliyam as finance secretary.
Source: New Indian Express
Please click the following URL to read the text of the
original story:
--------
Iran Is New Centre of Al-Qaeda Impacting Iran’s Ties
With The Rest Of The World, Says Former US Special Representative Khalilzad
The former US special
representative for the reconciliation in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad
----
By Fidel Rahmati
March 2, 2023
The former US special representative for the
reconciliation in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that Iran “would be the
centre of Al-Qaeda,” impacting Iran’s ties with the rest of the world.
In an interview with Tolonews, Khalilzad said Iran
would serve as the group’s centre more than anywhere else.
“Once Afghanistan was a centre for Al-Qaeda, but
Al-Qaeda has changed, and its small groups have become a network in various
world areas. However, if any centre exists, it should be Iran,” he said.
Earlier, he also wrote on his tweeter that Iran had
increased its reliance on terror groups against its opponents at home and
abroad.
Meanwhile, the US State Department said in February
that Said al-Adel, an Iran-based Egyptian, has become the head of Al-Qaeda
following the July 2022 death of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
“Our assessment aligns with that of the UN – that
Al-Qaeda’s new de facto leader Saif al-Adel is based in Iran,” a state
department spokesperson said.
Despite this, the group has not formally declared him
“emir” because it is sensitive to the concerns of the Taliban authority in
Afghanistan, according to a UN assessment.
Khalilzad added, “The growing Iranian threat warrants
the US and its allies to isolate further and weaken the Iranian regime’s
international legitimacy.”
Meanwhile, he said that the shift in terrorism’s
trajectory was one of the reasons for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Source: Khaama Press
Please click the following URL to read the text of the
original story:
https://www.khaama.com/132131-2/
--------
Malaysian Film Directors Association Wants Indie
'Mentega Terbang’ Director To Apologise To Viewers And Muslim Community
Mentega Terbang
----
By Arif Zikri
03 Mar 2023
KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — The Malaysian Film Directors
Association (FDAM) is disappointed with the content of controversial indie film
Mentega Terbang.
FDAM’s president, Datuk Ahmad Ibrahim via a press
statement said that they were taking the matter seriously as it touched on the
sensitivity of the Muslim community in the country and for spreading messages
that go against the Islamic creed.
Ahmad said that the film’s director, Khairil Anwar,
who is a member of FDAM, failed in terms of philosophical aspect and clearly
breached the ethics of directing.
“FDAM felt that the public don’t have to watch the
film to criticise it because the dialog and scenes are clearly insulting to
Islam.
“There’s no need to watch this kind of film.
“Just through a couple of scenes such as the dialog
between the father and the daughter on choosing religion and the dialog on
consuming pork have shown a clear message,” Ahmad said in the statement.
FDAM will be taking action against the director by
calling him in to give explanation regarding the controversial issue and demand
Khairil apologise to viewers and the Muslim community.
“Sensitive issues relating to religion are not
something to be trifled with, be it through acting or anything else.
“In fact, the Federal Constitution has stated that
Islam is the official religion in the country and Malaysians should respect
each other’s religion,” he said.
Ahmad added that FDAM also thinks that the Malaysian
Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should take action against the
film as suggested by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim).
Mentega Terbang which touches on the differences and
similarities of the major religions in Malaysia has prompted complaints from
the public following its release on streaming platform, Viu.
After a quick check on Viu, the Anomalist Productions
film which was released in January this year has been removed from the
platform.
Source: Malay Mail
Please click the following URL to read the text of the
original story:
--------
North America
A Fairfax, Virginia, Controversial School Board Member
Endorsed Curriculum That Removes 'Islamic Terror' From 9/11 History Lessons
March 2, 2023
A Fairfax, Virginia, school board member recommended
curriculum materials for teachers to use for their lesson plans which opposed
using terms such as "radical Islamic terror," "Islamic
terrorists" and "jihadists" when discussing the history of the
Sept. 11 attacks.
Abrar Omeish is a school board member and Georgetown
law student who has become marred in controversy over a series of controversial
statements. In one instance, she refused to vote on a motion to commemorate
9/11 victims.
Fox News Digital found that in 2021 Omeish recommended
public school teachers use a "culturally responsive" curriculum guide
for their lesson plans about 9/11 history.
It said, "Do not frame the lessons as a chance to
explore the definition of terrorism or a clash of two different
societies/cultures."
"There is much disagreement about what terrorism
means, and it’s often used in a biased manner," the guide continued.
Teachers should screen themselves for biases against
Arab-Muslims using an online test before educating students on 9/11, it
recommended. To create a "safe space" teachers should "wear
cultural items from Muslim countries as a show of support (e.g., scarf)."
In order to be "culturally responsive,"
teachers should focus "on the impact of 9/11 on communities of color,
including Muslim Americans," the guide said.
Teachers should bring up "Islamophobia at the
structural level (policies that were enacted at national, state, and local
levels) and individual level (policies at the individual level, outside of
government)."
"Muslim communities… responses of resilience but
also depression and anxiety" should also be raised about the topic.
Fox News Digital reached out to Omeish for comment but
did not immediately receive a response.
Omeish was accused of attacking 9/11 victims after she
refused to vote on a resolution to honor the lives of 2,977 Americans killed by
al-Qaida terrorists on 9/11.
The resolution was not "anti-racist" enough
and failed to address "state-sponsored traumas" experienced by
Muslims, she appeared to suggest. A local Fairfax County editorial board called
the rhetoric "callous."
The local GOP called for Omeish's ouster, stating,
"Her cruel attacks on the memory of 9/11’s victims and heroes should be
the last straw. They were not just incredibly tone deaf — they were vicious
and, frankly, anti-American."
Omeish said, "I vote against this today, because
our omission of these realities causes harm. We're levitating a traumatic event
without sufficient cultural competence. The token phrasing around 9/11 is
'Never Forget.' As a nation we remember a jarring event, no doubt, but we chose
to forget, as this resolution does, the fear, the ostracization, and the
collective blame felt by Arab Americans, American Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus
and all brown or other individuals that have been mistaken for Muslims since
that day over the past two decades."
"Why are we forgetting the experience of these
families, their traumas?' Omeish asked. "I hope we can include these
components in our broader anti-racist, [and] anti-bias work."
Omeish was also named in a complaint to the Department
of Education Office of Civil Rights by the Zionist Organization of America on
anti-Semitism in Fairfax. The DOE agreed to investigate anti-Semitism in
Fairfax as a result of the letter.
In May 2021, Omeish tweeted that Israel
"desecrates the Holy Land" and engages in "apartheid and
colonization" as its civilian areas were bombarded with Hamas rockets.
"Anyone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state
is either historically illiterate with no understanding of how apartheid
operated in South Africa or is willfully lying in the name of demonizing
Israel. Some Fairfax County residents demanded the School Board censure Omeish
for her comments," Virginia's 11th Congressional District GOP Chairman
Michael Ginsberg told Fox News.
The executive director of the pro-school choice
EdReform Virginia, Nathan Brinkman, said the woke agenda Omeish is pushing
shows the importance of school choice:
"To be fair, some families might actually want
Omeish's 'woke' social justice worldview to inform their kids' education. That
would be fine, as long as the rest of us are free to send our kids — and our
kids' educational tax dollars — to schools that reflect our values, too."
On Thursday, and soon after the 78th anniversary of
the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, Omeish called the battle "unfortunate"
and "evil" during a school board meeting.
The Battle of Iwo Jima – which lasted from Feb. 19 to
March 26, 1945 – was a significant victory for the U.S. during World War II.
Nearly 7,000 American service members were killed while trying to capture the
island from Japan.
"Just a few days ago was Japanese Day of
Remembrance," Omeish said during the meeting. "Something for us to
certainly reflect on … the days when, you know, Iwo Jima unfortunately happened
and set a record for really what, I hate to say, human evil is capable
of."
Following the controversy over her remarks, Omeish
released a statement to Fox News.
"I would like to set the record straight,"
she said. "Before the battle at Iwo Jima in Feb 1945, Japan knew it could
not defend the island, but its Government still demanded its military forces to
fight to the death. Even though Lieutenant General Kuribayashi knew there was
no possibility of winning the battle, Prime Minster Hideki Tojo sent him on a
suicidal mission to inflict as many casualties as possible on allied forces and
to never surrender. The unnecessary spilling of blood was not right."
Source: Fox News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
US ‘deeply concerned’ over poisoning of Iranian
schoolgirls
03 March ,2023
The US expressed deep concern on Thursday over reports
of hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls being targeted in a wave of poisoning
attacks and called on Iran to investigate the incidents.
In the past three months, hundreds of cases of
respiratory distress have been reported among schoolgirls, and one government
official said the poisonings could be an attempt to force the closure of girls’
schools in the country.
“It’s deeply concerning news coming out of Iran,”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.
“Truth is, we don’t know right now what caused those
ailments. We see reports that the Iranian government are investigating it,
that’s the right course of action,” he added.
“We want those investigations to be thorough and
complete, and we want them to be transparent. Little girls going to school
should only have to worry about learning. They shouldn’t have to worry about
their own physical safety, but we just don’t know enough right now.”
Kirby’s comments received some criticism on social
media, with some highlighting the general lack of transparency in the regime.
“How can the Biden administration expect Iran’s regime
to conduct a “transparent” investigation into the chemical attacks? How did the
Mahsa Amini “investigation” pan out?” Jason Brodsky, policy director at United
Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), wrote on Twitter, referring to the 22-year-old
Iranian Kurdish woman whose death in police custody in September triggered
months of anti-regime protests.
“Lies. The system is based on opacity, corruption,
gaslighting, and coverups,” added Brodsky.
On Thursday, state media reported that 21 female
university students were taken to hospital after they were poisoned in their
dormitory in the city of Karaj, west of the capital Tehran.
On Wednesday, at least 10 girls’ schools were targeted
with poisoning attacks, seven in the northwestern city of Ardabil and three in
the capital, according to state media.
Deputy health minister Younes Panahi said last week
that the poisonings were aimed at shutting down education for girls.
Some Iranians, including prominent activists, have
accused the regime of being responsible for the attacks. They believe that the
poisonings, which comes more than five months after protests that spread across
Iran following Amini’s death, are deliberate and a form of “revenge” against
schoolgirls for participating in the protests.
Amini died on September 16 after her arrest by the
morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress
rules for women. Her death triggered months of protests that quickly escalated
into calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
US waiting for UN nuclear watchdog meetings in Iran
before deciding next steps
03 March ,2023
The US is waiting for the head of the UN nuclear
watchdog to meet with Iranian officials this weekend before deciding on its
next steps in response to Tehran’s nuclear escalations, a State Department
official said Wednesday.
“We understand IAEA Director General Grossi will be in
Tehran for high-level meetings this weekend, and we await the results of those
discussions as well as issuance of his report on NPT related issues,” the
spokesperson told Al Arabiya English.
According to diplomats taking part in talks to revive
the 2015 nuclear deal, the UK, France, and Germany have tabled a proposal to
censure Iran at the next International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting.
But the unnamed diplomats, as reported by the Wall
Street Journal, said that the Biden administration is against this choice.
Asked about these reports, the State Department
official said they would wait for IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi to finish
his meetings and issue his report on Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) issues.
“We will not detail those diplomatic conversations,”
the official said about discussions between the US and its European allies.
The number three Pentagon official said this week that
Iran was capable of making enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in “about
12 days.”
The IAEA has reportedly detected uranium enriched to
84 percent purity in Iran, making it one of the highest levels reported and
close to weapons-grade, which is around 90 percent.
“We remain extremely concerned by Iran’s lack of
cooperation with the IAEA, as well as by its provocative nuclear escalations
that have no legitimate civilian purpose,” the State Department official said
on Wednesday. “We will continue to support the IAEA in its efforts and call on
Iran to fully comply with its legally-binding international obligations under
its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA.”
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Report blames US presidents for instigating collapse
of Afghan military
Barry Ellsworth
03.03.2023
TRENTON, Canada
The decision to withdraw forces by two US commanders
in chief was the major factor that caused a domino effect leading to the
collapse of the Afghan military which left the country open to the Taliban to
resume control, a special investigative report released Thursday concluded.
The 113-page report answers the question of what went
wrong in Afghanistan, and the conclusions are damning. In effect, the report
said the US wasted its money, to say nothing of lives lost.
"The decision by two U.S. presidents to withdraw
U.S. military forces from Afghanistan fundamentally altered every subsequent
decision by U.S. government agencies," the report said, and that
"ultimately accelerated the collapse of the ANDSF (Afghanistan National
Defense and Security Forces) in August 2021.
"But the stage had been set for that collapse
long before—by the failure of the U.S. and Afghan governments to create an
independent and self-sustainable ANDSF, despite 20 years and $90 billion of
international support."
The report was compiled by the Special Inspector
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction at the request of the US House Committee
on Oversight and Reform as well as the US House Armed Services Committee.
The two committees wanted to know why the US and its
allies lost in Afghanistan despite almost 20 years of fighting support,
training and billions of dollars spent.
Again, the report returned to the central flaw in the
US strategy -- the untimely withdrawal over a period of years of its military
forces.
"Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on U.S. military
forces, the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically
reduce U.S. support to the ANDSF destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and
police," the report said.
The Afghan forces relied on the US military to protect
it against "large-scale ANDSF losses" and to hold the government
accountable for ensuring the ANDSF were paid their salaries, the report said.
"The U.S.-Taliban agreement signed under the
Trump administration in 2020 made it clear that this was no longer the case,
resulting in a sense of abandonment within the ANDSF and the Afghan
population," the report said.
In August 2021, the ANDSF, which was supposed to be
"independent, self-sustaining and able to defend against internal and
external threats," collapsed when the US made the decision to withdraw
from the country, the report said.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, then commander of the
International Security Assistance Force, had warned the Senate Armed Services
Committee as early as 2014 that once coalition forces withdrew, the Afghan
security forces "will begin to deteriorate."
Then an agreement was signed that ended US military
support.
"On February 29, 2020, the United States and the
Taliban signed a bilateral agreement in Doha, Qatar, stipulating that the
United States would withdraw all U.S. military personnel and contractors from
Afghanistan," the report said.
"The United States signed the agreement despite
the fact that the ANDSF was still dependent on the U.S. military for support.
"In return, the Taliban promised not to attack
the United States or allow attacks from Afghanistan on the United States or its
allies and to enter into intra-Afghan peace negotiations."
Within a few months of the signing, the Taliban went
on the offensive.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
US ‘alarmed’ at Tunisia’s ‘escalating pattern’ of
arrests
03 March ,2023
The United States on Thursday slammed what it called
an “escalating pattern” of arrests in Tunisia of opposition figures, and
expressed concern over reports that people who were in contact with US
diplomats in Tunis are being targeted.
“We are alarmed by reports of criminal charges against
individuals in Tunisia resulting from meetings or conversations with US embassy
staff on the ground,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Price said the alleged criminal charges were part of
“an escalating pattern of arrests against perceived critics of the government.
The spokesman refused to identify any of the people
believed to have been targeted, nor did he offer any details about their
meetings with US diplomats, but he said any such meetings were legitimate.
“The primary role for any US embassy, for any diplomat
anywhere in the world, is to meet with a wide array of individuals to inform
our understanding of the different views and perspectives in that country,” Price
said.
“This is the work of diplomacy, it is the bread and
butter of our diplomats... and it is a practice that should not be subject to
persecution of a source.”
On Tuesday, Tunisia’s foreign ministry reminded
diplomats to “not interfere” in the country’s internal affairs, following
reports that political figures who have been arrested had prior contact with
Western diplomats.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Mideast
Iranian President Urges Europe Not to Turn into Launch
Pad for Anti-Tehran Conspiracies
2023-March-2
Rayeesi made the remarks during a telephone
conversation with Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Wednesday.
"The European countries' territories should not
serve as a source of plot and threats against the Iranian nation's
interests," the president stated.
Iran is inclined to preserve and enhance favorable and
constructive relations with the rest of the world, including Europe, he added.
Iran's president, however, cautioned foreign
governments, including those in the continent, to avoid coming under the
influence of false information that are propagated by anti-Tehran movements.
"If a government chooses the path of
confrontation under the influence of the false and misleading information [that
are provided] by terrorist and mercenary movements, it stands to lose," he
continued.
President Rayeesi also expressed concern about some
European countries' provision of support for Islamophobic activities.
Several European countries are accused of enabling
"state-sponsored" Islamophobia by contributing to systematic
suppression of their Muslim communities and tolerating sacrilegious insults
against the Abrahamic religion.
"The Islamic Republic is inclined to resolve
[its] issues [with others] through recourse to a cooperative approach, of
course, on the condition that the other side opts for such an approach
too," the Iranian president noted.
The Belgian official, for his part, laid emphasis on
the important development of relations between the two sides given their
130-year-old history of diplomatic relations.
"Belgium always chooses the path of dialogue
towards the reinforcement of its relations with Iran, and is inclined to
resolve various issues through [recourse to] an approach that is based on
understanding and cooperation," he stated.
Iranian officials have repeatedly lashed out at the US
and certain Eauropean countries for sheltering and supporting terror groups.
After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the
Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terror organization began its enmity
against Iran by killing thousands of Iranians and terrorist activities. Several
members of the terrorist group and its leaders are living in European countries
now, freely conducting terrorist activities.
The MKO terrorist group has martyred 17,161 Iranian
citizens and officials, including late president Mohammad Ali Rajayee, former
Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, late Head of Supreme Judicial Council
Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, late Deputy Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces
General Staff Ali Sayyad Shirazi, and 27 legislators, as well as four nuclear
scientists, some on itself and some others through collusion with Israeli
Mossad and other notorious spy agencies like CIA.
The MKO terrorist group has publicly specified targets
as martyred Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who commanded the Quds Force
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iranian President Rayeesi.
The terrorist organization said it would “welcome”
their assassination, adding that it desired for the ranking officials to “join”
Asadollah Lajevardi, Tehran’s former chief prosecutor, and Ali Sayyad-Shirazi,
a former commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces during Iraq’s 1980-88
war against Iran, who have both been assassinated by the terror outfit.
The MKO is currently based in Albania, where it enjoys
freedom of activity after being delisted by the European Union and the United
States in 2009 and 2012, respectively.
The terror group regularly hosts big events in which
top US and European officials make speeches in support of the group. Former
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Advisor John Bolton
and former Vice President Mike Pence met with the terror group’s leader several
times, voiced their support for the notorious cult.
In mid-July, Iran slapped sanction on several US
individuals and officials for their support for the MKO terrorist group,
stating Washington continues assisting the terrorist group which has its hands
stained with the blood of thousands of Iranian civilians.
The sanctioned US diplomats include Pompeo, Bolton,
Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and several others.
Source: Fars News Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Israel passes initial reading of death penalty bill
for terror offenders
Burak Dağ
02.03.2023
The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, in a preliminary
reading Wednesday passed a bill that would legalize capital punishment for
those who are charged with terrorism offenses.
The bill was approved by 55 to nine votes, according
to a statement.
The controversial bill states that someone who kills
an Israeli citizen with a racist motive or for the purpose of harming the state
of Israel should be sentenced to death.
The proposed bill must be approved and enacted in
three voting sessions to be held in the Knesset after being accepted by the
government.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Iranian Minister Underlines Necessity for Further
Strengthening of D-8
2023-March-2
Mehrabian made the remarks in a meeting with D-8
Secretary-General Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam in Tehran on Wednesday.
The minister said that Iran has been a key member of
the D-8 since its inception in 1997 and has always supported the organization
and its objectives.
“Other regional organizations have performed better
than the D-8 in recent years. Thus it is necessary for the D-8 to return to its
core missions,” he continued, adding that member states should seek to set
aside their differences and commit to their responsibilities vis-à-vis the
organization.
Mehrabian noted he welcomes a proposal by Iranian
Foreign Ministry to hold a summit of D-8 energy ministers in Tehran.
Imam, for his part, said the D-8 secretariat seeks to
activate more trade potentials between members of the organization.
He added trade between D-8 members could reach some
$500 billion by 2030, up from a current figure of $137 billion per year.
Source: Fars News Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Iran Registers Over 350 New Coronavirus Cases, 6
Deaths
2023-March-2
"A sum of 358 new patients infected with COVID-19
have been identified in the country based on confirmed diagnosis criteria
during the past 24 hours," the Iranian Health Ministry's Public Relations
Center said on Thursday, and added, "154 patients have been hospitalized
during the same time span."
It further announced that the total number of COVID-19
patients has increased to 7,569,261.
"Unfortunately, seven patients have lost their
lives in the past 24 hours, increasing the number of the dead to 144,864,"
the ministry noted.
It expressed satisfaction that 7,339,518 coronavirus
patients have recovered or been discharged from hospitals so far.
The center went on to say that 312 cases infected with
COVID-19 are in critical conditions.
It added that 55,305,428 coronavirus diagnosis tests
have so far been carried out across the country.
The health ministry public relations warned that 6
cities is orange, 94 cities are yellow, and 348 cities are blue.
Coronavirus figures and deaths have been on a downward
trend since the government started a mass vaccination campaign.
In a televised interview in May, Iranian President
Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi touched on the reopening of businesses and schools after
a successful vaccination campaign, saying that "today, in addition to
importing vaccines, we also have a very high capacity to produce vaccines in
the country and even export them”.
The president said his government's measures have
brought down the number of daily deaths from the coronavirus pandemic to a
one-digit number from hundreds.
The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting approximately
all countries and territories around the world. The virus was first reported in
the Central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. It has so far killed over 6.8
million people and infected over 680 million others globally.
The Iranian foreign ministry declared that despite
Washington’s claims of cooperation to transfer drugs to Iran via the new
Swiss-launched payment mechanism, the US is troubling the process amid the
coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Although the US claims that medicines and medical
equipment are not under sanctions, they have practically blocked the transfer
of Iran’s financial resources in other countries into the Swiss Humanitarian
Trade Arrangement (SHTA), former Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas
Mousavi said.
In relevant remarks in August, Iranian First
Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber rapped Washington and its allies for imposing
banking sanctions that prevent Iran’s efforts to buy drugs and medical
equipment amid a surge in the number of coronavirus infected and deaths in the
country.
“Although the arrogant system (led by the US) claims
that access to medicine is free for all people and there is no restriction for
any country when we want to purchase the needed medicine, they do not allow
transfer of money and prevent the drugs’ imports,” Mokhber said, addressing a
meeting in Tehran.
Source: Fars News Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14011211000576/Iran-Regisers-Over-350-New-Crnavirs-Cases-6-Deahs
--------
Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in surging West
Bank violence
02 March ,2023
Israeli forces shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian in
the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian officials said.
Ahmad Enaya, the mayor of the West Bank town of
Azzoun, said an Israeli military vehicle drove into town late on Thursday and
when teens hurled rocks at the car, soldiers responded with live fire.
The Israeli military said in a statement that soldiers
shot at suspects who had hurled explosives at forces while they were conducting
a search in the area for people who launched fireworks at Israeli vehicles
passing near Azzoun.
It said it was aware of reports of people being
wounded but did not confirm any Palestinian fatalities.
A statement by the public hospital in Qalqilya, near
Azzoun, said 10th grader Nidal Saleem died after being shot in the back. Two
other people were treated for gunshot wounds, it added.
Violence in the West Bank has been spiraling with
stepped-up Israeli military raids following a spate of Palestinian attacks.
Fears of escalation ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish
Passover festival have prompted the US, Jordan and Egypt to appeal for calm.
Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West
Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Israeli campaign raises funds for torched Palestinian
town in occupied West Bank
02 March ,2023
An Israeli-led crowdfunding campaign has raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars for Palestinian residents of the northern West
Bank town of Huwara that was set ablaze by hard-line Jewish settlers, the
organizer of the drive said Thursday.
Some 12,000 Israelis donated nearly 1.7 million
shekels (465,000 dollars) since the campaign was launched this week. The
fundraising effort was a rare instance of cooperation between Israelis and
Palestinians at a time when tensions have been surging between the sides over
spiraling violence.
Scores of Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage
in the northern West Bank town of Huwara late on Sunday, setting dozens of cars
and homes on fire after two settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman there
earlier in the day. One Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during the
incident, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The rampage, the worst such violence in decades,
prompted Israeli activist Yaya Fink, an observant Jew, to launch the
fundraising initiative.
“I had very bad feelings for when I saw hundreds of
religious Jews tried to burn Huwara, including innocent people,” he said,
adding that it delivered a message that “the majority of the Jews are against
extremism, against racism.” He said most of the money was raised within the
campaign’s first 12 hours.
Fink said the money will be sent as compensation to
Palestinians whose property was damaged in the attack. He said he received
threats from opponents to the campaign, who called him a traitor for raising
money for the Palestinians, even as some are carrying out attacks.
The rampage prompted international condemnation. But
Israel’s government, which is made up of pro-settlement ultranationalists,
expressed little outrage and only called on the perpetrators not to take the
law into their own hands.
However, some lawmakers went even further, including
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said Huwara should be “erased” — but by
state authorities and not by private citizens. He later backtracked on those
remarks.
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, head of the military’s Central
Command in charge of the West Bank, said this week the army was not prepared
for the intensity of the Huwara violence, which he called “a pogrom done by
outlaws.” He was using a term that usually refers to mob attacks against Jews
in eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Frenchman still in Iran prison despite acquittal:
Lawyer
02 March ,2023
French citizen Benjamin Briere is still in an Iranian
jail despite his recent acquittal by an appeals court, his lawyer said
Thursday.
Incarcerated in May 2020, Briere was sentenced to
eight years in prison for espionage.
He is one of several foreigners who campaigners say
Iran has jailed in a strategy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from the
West.
His France-based lawyer, Philippe Valent, said in a
statement sent to AFP that an Iranian appeals court had cleared his client of
all charges and ordered his release on February 15.
But Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the branch of the
security forces entrusted with the preservation of the regime, “are keeping him
imprisoned despite this declaration of innocence,” he said.
“His release was prevented at the last moment,” he
told AFP.
Held in the prison of Vakilabad in the eastern city of
Mashhad, Briere is continuing a hunger strike which he started a month ago, and
is “exhausted physically and mentally,” Valent said.
Valent, who had previously described the espionage
charges against his client as “fiction,” said Thursday their “arbitrary nature”
was “blatantly obvious”.
He said Briere’s family was demanding his immediate
release.
“This situation is completely incomprehensible,”
Blandine Briere, his sister, told AFP.
She said the family had decided not to report the
appeals court’s verdict earlier in the hope that the situation might be
resolved quietly.
Another detainee in Iran, 64-year-old Franco-Irish
citizen Bernard Phelan held since October 1, in January suspended a hunger
strike that included refusing water, at the request of his family, who feared
for his life.
Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested
while travelling and is being held in Mashhad in northeastern Iran.
Iran accuses him of anti-government propaganda, a
charge he has denied.
Six French nationals are currently held in Iran.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Israel urges Brazil to undock Iranian warships
02 March ,2023
Israel on Thursday criticized Brazil’s decision to
grant berth to two Iranian warships in the face of US pressure, and urged
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government to send them away.
The vessels docked in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
Reuters reported that Brazil had declined to admit them in January, in a
goodwill gesture from Lula as he flew to Washington to meet US President Joe
Biden.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a Cold War-style
conflict for decades, which has included mutual accusations of maritime
sabotage, even as Tehran faces intensified global pressure over its nuclear
program and regional conduct.
Lior Haiat, spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign
Ministry, called the Brazilian berth for the warships “a dangerous and
regretful development,” accusing the Iranian navy of cooperating with
sanctioned entities in Tehran.
“It is still not too late to order the ships to leave
the port,” Haiat said on Twitter.
President Lula’s press office did not respond to a
Reuters request for comment.
The ships have also caused tensions with the United
States. In a February 15 press conference, the US ambassador to Brazil had
urged it not to allow the ships to dock.
On Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz called for sanctions
against the South American country after the docking, dubbing it “a direct
threat to the safety and security of Americans.”
“The Biden administration is obligated to impose
relevant sanctions, re-evaluate Brazil’s cooperation with US antiterrorism
efforts, and re-examine whether Brazil is maintaining effective antiterrorism
measures at its ports,” Republican Cruz said in a statement.
A February 23 notice in a Brazilian gazette said the
warships had been given permission to dock between February 26 and March 4.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
IAEA’s Grossi to travel to Iran, seeking breakthrough
on cooperation
02 March ,2023
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Thursday its chief
Rafael Grossi will travel to Iran for “high-level meetings” as diplomats say he
wants to jolt Tehran into cooperating with an investigation into uranium traces
found at undeclared sites.
Iran’s stonewalling of the International Atomic Energy
Agency’s years-long investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared
sites prompted the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors to pass a resolution at
its last quarterly meeting in November ordering Iran to cooperate urgently with
the probe.
That cooperation has not materialized and Grossi is
hoping that a meeting with Raisi will help smooth the way towards ending the
deadlock, diplomats say. The board’s next quarterly meeting starts on Monday.
“Director General @rafaelmgrossi will travel to Tehran
for high-level meetings,” the IAEA said on Twitter, confirming a visit first
announced by Iran.
“The DG will hold a press conference upon his return
to Vienna on Saturday, late afternoon.”
Diplomats have said for weeks that Grossi wants to
meet hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi on this visit. The IAEA did not spell
out whom he would meet.
Since the last board meeting the IAEA has chided Iran
for failing to inform it beforehand of substantial changes made to the two
cascades, or clusters, of advanced centrifuges enriching uranium to up to 60
percent purity at its Fordow plant, which is dug into a mountain. Weapons grade
is around 90 percent.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
India
Should Dalit Christians, Muslims get quota benefits?
RSS body to discuss issue
by Deeptiman Tiwary
March 1, 2023
Even as the K G Balakrishnan Committee examines the
issue of quotas for Dalit Muslims and Christians, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh’s (RSS) mass communication wing Vishwa Samvad Kendra is set to organise a
two-day conference in Noida to discuss whether people from Scheduled Caste (SC)
groups who have converted to Islam and Christianity should get reservation
benefits or not.
The conference, beginning March 4, is being organised
in collaboration with Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida. Sources said the
event would see participation from jurists, educationists, research students,
voluntary organizations and even some former diplomats.
The event coordinator, Pravesh Chowdhary, said on
Tuesday, “After the constitution of the Sachar Committee, the Ranganath Misra
Commission and its recommendation, a situation has arisen among the Scheduled
Caste brothers in the country regarding whether the converted Christians and
Muslims should get reservation or not. There is also an ongoing discussion on
this in society. Some people believe that converted Christians and Muslims do
not find any change in their social status even after converting from Hinduism
… On the other hand, the majority society of the country believes that the
Scheduled Castes whose religion is Hinduism, should get all the facilities,
representation and reservations provided by the Constitution.”
Chowdhary, who is an assistant professor at the Centre
for Comparative Politics & Political Theory, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
said it was important to have a discussion while the Balakrishnan committee — K
G Balakrishnan is a former Chief Justice of India — examines the issue. He also
said whatever comes out of these discussions would be presented to the
government.
“Many questions have been raised in society regarding
the recommendations of the Ranganath Misra Commission, its validity, study,
method of analysis, and time period. This discussion is being organised only to
give an independent platform to the intellectual class of society. The
speciality of this discussion is that professors, deans of schools, heads of
departments, vice-chancellors, research scholars and representatives of
non-governmental organizations are also participating in this discussion. Many
former judges and senior advocates are also participating in this,” Chowdhary
said.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) Vijay Shankar Tiwari
who briefed the media along with Chowdhary on the issue, however, said the
VHP’s earlier stated position was that SCs who converted to Christianity and
Islam should not get reservation benefits. Chowdhary said he was in favour of
granting reservation to those who do “ghar wapasi (convert back to Hinduism)”.
Chowdhary said that while preparing for the
conference, the organisers had invited research work on the subject from across
India and as many as 150 papers were received. He said 70 of these papers were
shortlisted for the conference and there would be 32 speakers who will hold
forth on 14 subtopics related to reservations.
The Sangh Parivar has been traditionally opposed to
granting reservation to converted Dalits. The Sangh — through public movements
and submissions of some BJP MPs in Parliament — has also supported demands to
deny reservation to converted Adivasis as well.
Back in 1961, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha
(ABPS), the highest decision-making body of the RSS, said, “If any scheme of
separate reservation … of different sects is sought to be envisaged for
political purposes, it will prove highly detrimental to national unity…”
In 1990, in response to Christian demands for
reservation on the lines of neo-Buddhists, the ABPS said that “the Constitution
makers envisaged these concessions only to remove caste-based discrimination
and inequality prevalent in Hindu society …”
Even the BJP has made similar noises in the past. In
February 2010, the BJP national executive passed a resolution criticising the
Misra Commission. It said, “(The) commission cannot dictate or thrust its
opinion on the Christian Pope or Muslim maulvis … reservation would amount to a
formal introduction of a caste system in Islam and Christianity, thus changing
the basic tenets of these religions, which is outside the jurisdiction of both
Parliament and the judiciary and also contrary to the provisions of the Koran
and the Bible.”
The Central government last October notified a
Commission under Balakrishnan “to examine the matter of according Scheduled
Caste status to new persons, who claim to historically have belonged to the
Scheduled Castes, but have converted to religions other than those mentioned in
the Presidential Orders issued from time to time under Article 341 of the
Constitution”.
The Commission will submit its report within two
years.
As of now, reservation benefits are available only to
Dalit Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. Several petitions are pending before the
Supreme Court seeking reservation benefits for Dalits who converted to
Christianity or Islam.
Source: Indian Express
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Hindutva Goons, Right-Wing Worker Radha Semwal Dhoni
And Her Colleagues, Demolish Mazar; Claim It Was Built On State Land
2nd March 2023
A Mazar (Muslim shrine) was demolished by right-wing
worker Radha Semwal Dhoni and her colleagues claiming it was built on state
land. The incident happened in Uttarakhand.
A video has emerged where two men are seen breaking
the shrine with hammers.
Radha Semwal Dhoni posted the video on her officials
Facebook page with the caption:
रजिस्ट्री दिखाओ मजार बचाओ
उत्तराखंड देवभूमि है यहां देवता
ही वास करेंगे
प्रकृति कुछ बोलती नहीं भाइयों
लेकिन
((( जोशीमठ केदारनाथ धारी देवी)))
याद है ना अगर ज्यादा गंदगी करोगे
तो भुगतना भी पड़ेगा
Which translates to:
Show the registry and save the shrine
Uttarakhand is the land of gods, only gods will reside
here
Nature does not speak anything brothers but
((( Joshimath Kedarnath Dhari Devi)))
Do you remember, if you do too much dirt, you will
have to suffer.
This is not the first time Radha used violence
employing the narrative “Hindu khaterein mein hai” (Hindus are in danger).
On February 1, another video went viral on Twitter
where Radha can be seen hurling abuses and assaulting three Christians,
including a woman accusing them of religious conversion on the pretext of
taking tuition classes for children. The incident happened in the Jhajra
district of Dehradun.
In the video, she asks Manish to give her his number.
In the meantime, Radha moves to Neha, who is sitting quietly next to Manish,
and asks her how much money was she paid for converting people.
As Neha remains calm and silent throughout Radha’s
verbal abuse, she suddenly gets slapped by the latter. Shocked, Neha’s
colleague Jimmy questions Radha only to get more abuses in return.
Source: Siasat Daily
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
₹ 5 Lakh Compensation For Families Of 2 Muslim Men
Burnt Alive In Haryana
March 03, 2023
Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on
Thursday said those behind the killing of two men, whose charred bodies were
found in Haryana's Bhiwani district after they were abducted from Bharatpur,
deserve death penalty and that his government is committed to bring the
culprits to book at the earliest.
Nasir (25) and Junaid alias Juna (35), both residents
of Ghatmeeka village in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, were allegedly abducted
by cow vigilantes on February 15 and their bodies were found inside a burnt car
in Loharu in Bhiwani in Haryana on the morning of February 16.
The chief minister also announced a relief package of
₹ 5 lakh each for the families of the victims after meeting them at a temporary
arrangement made near a helipad in Ghatmeeka village.
"The state government will provide ₹ 5 lakh
compensation each to the wives and children of both the victims. An amount of ₹
1 lakh each will be provided as cash whereas a fixed deposit of ₹ 4 lakh each
will be done so that the dependent families do not face any problem in the
education and marriage of the kids," he told reporters.
Nasir is survived by his wife, while Junaid is
survived by his wife, six children and a mentally challenged brother.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Education Zahida Khan
had earlier announced ₹ 5 lakh each assistance for the families of the victims
besides ₹ 50,000 each extended by the Panchayat Samiti Pahari.
"Both families will also be provided ₹ 1.25 lakh
each as interim assistance besides connecting them with various public welfare
schemes," a statement by the government said.
Talking about the probe into the incident, Mr Gehlot
said, "We are working in a way that the accused involved in the case are
arrested and sentenced to death. Whether it is the Udaipur incident or this
one, those who commit such crime deserve nothing less than death penalty."
He was referring to the murder of a tailor in Udaipur last year over a
controversial social media post. Kanhaiya Lal, 48, was killed by
cleaver-wielding men -- Riaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad -- at his shop on June
28 last.
The chief minister also said that he will talk to his
Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar to take the incident with utmost
seriousness. For this, DGPs of both states are in talks, he said.
"I myself spoke to the chief minister of Haryana
who assured me help in getting the people involved in the incident arrested.
Even after so many days, these people have not been caught.
"The way the victims were abducted and beaten,
and later taken to a police station in Haryana, but they (police) denied taking
them into custody. No one knows what happened next with the victims... how they
were beaten and set on fire. Only the skeletons remained, what can be worse for
the family, villagers, society and the citizens of the state," he said.
A total of nine people, including Bajrang Dal member
Monu Manesar who runs a cow protection group, and Srikant Pandit, whose mother
lodged a complaint against the Rajasthan Police, have been named in the case so
far.
The accused have been booked under sections 143
(unlawful assembly), 365 (kidnapping), 367 (grievously hurt after kidnapping)
and 368 (wrongfully keeping in confinement) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Two
more IPC sections -- 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence)
-- were later added, police said.
Source: ND TV
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Has India forgotten Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the
country’s first education minister and a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity?
March 02, 2023
I am an orphan in my own motherland...
— Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
These words of Maulana Azad — the first education
minister of independent India — spoken from Delhi’s Jama Masjid on October 23,
1947 came to mind last week when the plenary session of the Indian National
Congress began in Raipur against the backdrop of placards and posters of some
of the tallest leaders of the party.
Hoardings and front-page advertisements in many
dailies had the photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash
Chandra Bose, B.R. Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri and
Sarojini Naidu besides those of post-Independence leaders from the Nehru-Gandhi
family and former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. Azad, former Congress
party president and the man who stood like a rock against Mohammed Ali Jinnah,
was missing from the posters.
Social media took note, and was soon abuzz with talk
about the activist and scholar who gave the country its first IIT, and helped
set up the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi, Sahitya Akademi and the
University Grants Commission, among others. Congress general secretary Jairam
Ramesh tried to cover up. He tweeted: “Today, an ad released by INC did not
carry a photograph of Maulana Azad. It was an inexcusable slip-up.
Responsibility for it is being fixed and action will be taken”.
Once lampooned by the Muslim League, now dumped by the
Congress and unwanted by the BJP, Azad is a forgotten man today. In December
last year, the BJP-led Union government had scrapped the Maulana Azad National
Fellowship for needy students citing “overlaps with various other fellowship
schemes”.
Launched in 2009, the scheme provided financial
assistance for five years to students from six notified minority communities —
Buddhist, Christian, Jain, Muslim, Parsi and Sikh — to pursue M.Phil and Ph.D.
The affected students protested but that did not change anything. Azad’s
anniversary on February 22 too went by almost unnoticed.
According to historian S. Irfan Habib, what’s happened
with Azad is indicative of the times. “It fits in well with the current
dispensation’s policy of erasing the history of any Muslim influence. They are
changing the names of cities and roads. The denial of Maulana is a part of
that,” he says.
Habib, whose biography of Azad titled Maulana Azad: A Life released just last
month, was among the first to react to the Congress slip-up in Raipur. “I
removed my tweet after Jairam Ramesh issued a public apology. I believe posters
for such events are made with planning. If it was planned, why so,” he asks.
“The reason I did this biography was to bring him back in national discourse as
there has been no book on him for several years.”
Azad’s plea to Indian Muslims
At a time when politicians have no qualms in telling
Muslims to go to Pakistan “if they want to eat beef” or “if they cannot sing
‘Vande Mataram’”, it is perhaps pertinent to recall Azad’s anguished words to
his countrymen after Partition, which he was dead against. He said, “Where are
you going and why? Raise your eyes. The minarets of Jama Masjid want to ask you
a question. Where have you lost the glorious pages from your chronicles? Was it
only yesterday that on the banks of the Jamuna, your caravans performed wazu? Today, you are afraid of living here.
Remember, Delhi has been nurtured with your blood. Brothers, create a basic
change in yourselves. Today, your fear is misplaced as your jubilation was
yesterday... I do not ask you to seek certificates from the new echelons of
power... Come, today let us pledge that this country is ours, we belong to it
and any fundamental decisions about its destiny will remain incomplete without
our consent.”
Source: The Hindu
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Lucknow District Officials Meet Muslim Clerics,
Discuss Peaceful Holi & Shab-e-Barat Celebrations
Mar 02, 2023
Lucknow District authorities have begun preparing for
the two upcoming festivals -- Holi and Shab-e-Barat -- co-incidentally falling
on the same day. This year, both Holika Dahan (popular as Chhoti Holi) and
Shab-e-Barat will fall on March 7. To ensure peaceful celebrations and prevent
any toward incident, senior authorities of the police department, district
administration, and other concerned departments held a meeting with Muslim
clerics at the Islamic Centre of India in Aishbagh on Thursday.
“Holi and Shab-e-Barat are both important festivals.
While we pay respects to our ancestors on Shab-e-Barat, Holi is a festival of
joy for our Hindu brothers and sisters. I am confident that these festivals
will be observed peacefully, displaying our society’s secular fabric. Both the
communities respect each other’s religious sentiments,” said Maulana Khalid
Rashid Farangi Mahali Imam, the chairman of the Islamic Centre of India. He
added, “Muslims should visit the grave of their loved ones only after 5 pm.”
Source: Hindustan Times
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
South Asia
Afghan diplomats return to Turkey and Iran as Taliban
pushes for relations thaw
By Ali M Latifi
2 March 2023
Earlier this week, Afghanistan’s Taliban government
officially sent its representatives to the country's embassy in Tehran and its
consulate in Istanbul, despite the fact that neither Iran nor Turkey formally
recognise the Islamic Emirate as the official rulers of the country.
These moves are just the latest example of diplomatic
breakthroughs that have been achieved by the Taliban in the Middle East and
Central Asia as they attempt to end their international isolation.
On Sunday, Fazel Mohammad Haqqani was chosen as the
charge d’affaires in Tehran. The following day, Gulmat Khan Zadran was
announced as the new consul general in Istanbul by the Afghan Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
Though neither Turkey nor Iran acknowledges the
Islamic Emirate as a formal government, both have had relatively cosy
relationships with the Taliban.
Each has maintained its diplomatic presence in the
country since the Islamic Emirate returned to power in August 2021, despite
both being allies of the former Western-backed government.
Additionally, both nations have continued to deport
thousands of refugees back to Afghanistan at a time when the government there
has been accused of rolling back womens' rights and abusing journalists,
activists, and former members of the security forces.
Tehran has also faced years of allegations that it
aided and abetted the Taliban when they were an armed opposition group fighting
the former Islamic Republic government and the western forces that backed it.
Since at least 2016, residents and officials in the
provinces of Herat, Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, and Kandahar alleged that Tehran
was supporting the Taliban.
This week's diplomatic handovers make Iran and Turkey
the latest in a list of recent appointments in the Middle East and the Asia by
the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Since the autumn of 2021, the Islamic Emirate has
appointed diplomats to various positions in embassies and consulates in
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, China,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia.
Hassan Sahak, a political analyst based in Kabul, says
these latest appointments are actually the culmination of efforts that began
long before the Islamic Emirate formally returned to power.
“For years, there had been delegations going to
neighbouring countries, and countries in Asia, that Afghanistan has had
relations and interactions with,” Sahak says of visits the Taliban have made to
Russia, China, Iran, and Uzbekistan over at least a decade.
During those visits, Sahak says the group made
promises about how a potential Islamic Emirate would operate should they return
to power - with a particular emphasis on regional security.
Sahak says that the recent acceptance of Taliban
diplomats is a sign that many of these nations now believe the Islamic Emirate
seems to be living up to its promises about how it would conduct its government
and bring security to Afghanistan.
Islamic State threat
Particularly important to all of these nations is the
ability of the Islamic Emirate to thwart the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
For nations like Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and
Pakistan - all of whom border Afghanistan - containing and stamping out any
force claiming allegiance to IS is vitally important.
Several of Afghanistan’s neighbours have personal
reasons to fear the expansion of IS influence in the region.
In Iran, in 2017 at least 12 people were killed in a
pair of IS-claimed attacks on the parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.
In 2015, the declaration of allegiance to IS by the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an armed group with a presence in both
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, only increased the fear of IS influence in the
region.
Islamabad has long been dogged by reports that many of
the fighters claiming allegiance to IS in Afghanistan have come from a part of
Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province known as Orakzai Agency.
Sahak says the Islamic Emirate’s commitment to
tackling its long-time rival IS is likely to be one of the reasons Kabul’s regional
neighbours have allowed the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan’s diplomatic
outposts.
“They see that the Islamic Emirate really is taking
decisive action against IS,” Sahak says of an issue that is considered a key
security issue throughout the region.
Realising this, IS has claimed responsibility for a
string of attacks targeting Russian, Pakistani, and Chinese diplomats and
civilians in the Afghan capital between September and December 2022.
At the same time, the Taliban government has stepped
up attacks on alleged IS hideouts in the provinces of Kabul, Kunduz, and
Kandahar.
Of course, stamping out the presence of IS in
Afghanistan is not only a matter of foreign policy.
The group has claimed responsibility for some of the
most heinous terrorist attacks in the country, both in the final years of the
western-backed Islamic Republic and in the period since the Islamic Emirate
re-took control.
But Andreas Krieg, a Professor at King's College
London who specialises in the Middle East, takes a much less rosy view of the
reasoning behind the Islamic Emirate’s diplomatic moves.
To him, the recent decisions by Turkey and Iran are
more an acknowledgment of the “status quo” than a reward for good behaviour by
the Islamic Emirate.
Instead, he says dealing with the Islamic Emirate is
“absolutely important” for humanitarian aid delivery.
“Currently, the Afghan people are punished for the
return of the Taliban to which the United States agreed," Krieg says,
referring to the six million people who are said to be one step away from
famine, due in part to the aid cutbacks, sanctions, banking restrictions, and
capital flight that followed the Taliban’s return to power.
Contradictory gestures?
All this leaves the Islamic Emirate and the world at
an odd juncture, whereby nearly all of the nations who have permitted diplomats
from the Islamic Emirate to come to their countries also continue to criticise
the Afghan government’s rollbacks of the rights of women to education, work,
and leisure.
Most recently, Riyadh called on the Taliban government
to allow women to "fully enjoy their rights without discrimination” at a
UN address.
However, Krieg says the steps taken in Asia and the
Middle East should not be seen as a possible sign of things to come from the
West, which has been adamant that they cannot acknowledge the Islamic Emirate
until the accusations of rights abuses by the caretaker government are
addressed.
Moreover, Krieg says the West has already outsourced
most matters concerning Afghanistan to “the Gulf and other intermediaries,”
like Qatar, which has hosted Taliban delegations in Doha since 2011 when
then-US President Barack Obama first called for peace talks with the group.
With the West pre-occupied with Ukraine and the
regional intermediaries having largely accepted the status quo, Krieg says the
increasing Taliban footprint in Afghanistan’s international missions is part of
the “inevitable normalisation" of the group.
And the Islamic Emirate is looking to take advantage
of that momentum.
Source: Middle East Eye
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/afghanistan-taliban-turkey-iran-diplomats-return
--------
Rohingya refugees decry ‘devastating’ cuts to food aid
March 3, 2023
KUTUPALONG: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh said on
Thursday they are struggling to survive after the United Nations slashed their
food aid due to a massive funding gap.
After a $125 million donation shortfall, monthly food
vouchers were cut from $12 to $10 per person starting in March, the UN World
Food Programme (WFP) announced, warning further cuts were “imminent” without an
immediate cash injection.
The drop has already caused hardship among the roughly
one million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh’s overcrowded camps, where
they are reliant on aid and malnutrition is already rampant.
“We don’t have any income and the rations are
reduced,” said refugee Rahela Begum, 40, whose son is ill and malnourished.
“He does not eat rice or other foods but only
nutritious nut cream. They have stopped giving the nut cream and I don’t know
if he will survive.”
This is the first time assistance has been scaled back
since an estimated 750,000 Rohingya fled over the border during a 2017
crackdown by Myanmar’s military that is now subject to a UN genocide
investigation.
Source: Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1740121/rohingya-refugees-decry-devastating-cuts-to-food-aid
--------
Six TTP Members Killed in Afghanistan’s Khost IED
Blast
By Nizamuddin Rezahi
March 2, 2023
At least six members of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
(TTP) including a prominent commander were killed and 15 others injured in a
blast that took place in Afghanistan’s Khost province on Thursday.
Sources reported that six TTP militants were killed
and 15 others injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast in Khost
province. The identities of the slain commanders were revealed to be Abdul
Manan, Alam Khan Mudakhel, Kajir, and three others unidentified.
The attack comes days after a senior Pakistani
delegation traveled to Kabul, and met with Mullah Abdul Ghani Bradar, the
Action Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban, and discussed key security
concerns.
Later reports emerged that Pakistan’s Defense Minister
Khawaja Asif had warned Afghan authorities if the Taliban regime does not take
necessary measures against the TTP hideouts, Pakistan does not have an option
but to target the militant groups on Afghan soil.
During the meeting, Mullah Bradar reiterated the
Islamic Emirate security forces will target TTP, ISIS, and other militant
groups wherever they hide in Afghanistan. Also, he has assured Pakistani
officials of enhancing security cooperation between the two countries in the
future.
Pakistan officials were confident that the outcome of
the visit would be visible in upcoming weeks as Pakistan expects certain
actions by the Afghan Taliban against terrorist outfits operating out of Afghan
soil.
Source: Khaama Press
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.khaama.com/six-ttp-terrorists-killed-in-afghanistans-khost-ied-blast/
--------
UNAMA Chief Meets IEA Minister, Discusses Education in
Afghanistan
By Nizamuddin Rezahi
March 2, 2023
Taliban’s Education Minister, Habibullah Agha met with
Roza Otunbayeva Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
(UNAMA), and discussed the recent development in the education sector in
Afghanistan on Thursday.
Minister Habibullah Agha has said to UNAMA Chief Roza
Otunbayeva that the Taliban group has had “considerable achievements” in the
areas of education, security, and economy, and the world should know their responsibility
towards war-torn Afghanistan.
In the announcement of the Taliban’s ministry of
education, it has been quoted the representative of the United Nations that
this organization will unconditionally continue to help the education sector in
Afghanistan.
This comes as schools and universities remain closed
for female students across the country with no sign of their resumption in the
near future.
The international community and aid organizations have
repeatedly called on the Taliban authorities to reopen schools and
universities, but Afghanistan’s de facto regime has not yet provided provide a
positive response to the demand of the people of Afghanistan and the
international community at large.
On Wednesday, the ministry of higher education
announced that the new academic year for male students at public universities
and educational institutions in colder regions will officially start on March 6
of the current year. However, the statement did not point out the resumption of
universities for female students, which has become a very controversial topic
among the Taliban senior members as well.
Source: Khaama Press
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.khaama.com/unama-chief-meets-iea-minister-discusses-education-in-afghanistan/
--------
Southeast Asia
Thailand launches e-guidebook for foodies and Muslim
tourists
BANGKOK - The Thai government has launched a free
e-guidebook to promote gastronomy tourism for Muslim and other foreign
tourists, an official said on Thursday.
Deputy government spokesman Rachada Dhnadirek said the
Thai and English versions of the e-guidebook, Muslim-Friendly and Gastronomy
Tourism Routes, is available for free download.
Ms Rachada said the e-guidebook from the tourism
department of the Tourism and Sports Ministry aims to support self-drive
tourism connecting 14 southern provinces and extending to Malaysia, Singapore,
and Batam Island in Indonesia.
The 154-page e-guidebook provides two routes.
Under the Muslim-friendly route, tourists can visit
places of interest to Muslim tourists. They may also follow the route to
experience Muslim culture, food and activities, said Ms Rachada.
Meanwhile, the gastronomy route provides information
on general tourist attractions and suggests local and famous restaurants in
each location.
The e-guidebook says the information is based on data
as at Aug 9, 2022. It provides links to websites and other sources for more
updated information as well.
The e-guidebook also provides a sample of the two
routes that are covered in 20 days. Both sample routes start and end in
Chumphon province, in the southern part of Thailand.
The Muslim-friendly route includes places and
provinces such as Phuket, Krabi, Batam Island, Penang and Singapore. As for
tourists who choose the gastronomy route, they will drive past the same
provinces and three countries but through different locations.
The e-guidebook has separate sections on the 14
southern provinces including Phuket, Krabi and Narathiwat.
It also provides information on how to apply for a
tourist visa to enter Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia by crossing the
borders.
Source: Straits Times
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Malaysia seeks deeper ties with Saudi Arabia after
Hajj minister’s visit
NOR ARLENE TAN
March 02, 2023
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is looking forward to closer
ties with Saudi Arabia, officials and experts have said after the Kingdom’s
Hajj and Umrah minister’s visit to Kuala Lumpur.
Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah concluded on Wednesday his
three-day visit to the Southeast Asian nation, where he met its new Prime
Minister Anwar Ibrahim, members of his Cabinet and Hajj officials.
After the visit, the Malaysian PM, who took office in
November and is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders in Southeast Asia,
said in a series of tweets that “the close relationship between Malaysia and
Saudi Arabia established over the years is expected to become closer.”
Officials who participated in the meetings with
Al-Rabiah told Arab News that the visit has opened doors for cooperation in
many areas.
“With a large delegation from Saudi Arabia and
multiple engagements conducted throughout the visit with Malaysian ministers,
this is a positive signal for more initiatives and cooperation between both
countries,” said Amrin Awaluddin, the chief of Malaysia’s Hajj pilgrims fund
board known as Tabung Hajji.
He added that while it was especially beneficial to
Malaysian Hajj and Umrah pilgrims, the minister’s trip had brought
“Malaysia-Saudi relations to another level, forging deeper ties between the two
countries.”
Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, and
Muslims make up two-thirds of its 34 million population. This year, about
31,600 of them will arrive in the Kingdom to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.
To facilitate the journey, Al-Rabiah launched the
Kingdom’s Nusuk platform, which allows pilgrims to plan and book visits to the
holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
The Saudi Hajj ministry also held a session at the
Tabung Hajji headquarters to train the leaders of pilgrim groups to improve the
quality of pilgrimage services, facilitate their trips and enrich their
religious and cultural experiences in line with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
Pilgrimage organizers also discussed with the Saudi
minister and his delegation possibilities to draw more Malaysian visitors to
the Kingdom, especially as its tourism portfolio has been expanding beyond
religious destinations and now also covers heritage sites.
“The event in Kuala Lumpur was about the launch of
Nusuk, but at our trade meeting with the minister, we discussed issues about
airlines, hotels, etc.,” said Razali Mohd. Sham, president of the Malaysian
Umrah and Hajj Travel Association.
“Saudi is very friendly, and the system has improved
tremendously, and we can go to other places, not just Makkah or Madinah.”
Uzaidi Udanis, president of the Malaysia Tourism
Council, who also participated in meetings with Al-Rabiah, told Arab News that
the relationship between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia is getting stronger and
expanding beyond Hajj and Umrah.
“Saudi is transforming with the latest technology, and
there are new things coming out,” he said.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261211/world
--------
Umno Islamic council’s ‘Ennahda-like’ trimmings
03 Mar 2023
The newly formed Umno Islamic council had its first
meeting on Monday and came out with a list of its priorities.
Stay up-to-date by following FMT's Telegram channel
Although it did not allude to any specific
inspiration, the goals could be attributed to Ennahda, the political vehicle of
Tunisia’s world famous Islamic intellectual Rached Ghannouchi.
In May 2016, Ghannouchi, a friend of Anwar Ibrahim,
enunciated a new direction for Ennahda.
He pronounced this direction as “We are leaving
political Islam. We are Muslim democrats now.”
With the new direction it was clear the party founded
by Ghannouchi in 1981, with the Muslim Brotherhood as its inspiration, was
equipping itself for participation in Tunisia’s democratising process, begun in
January 2011 with the unrest that overthrew the long-standing dictator Zine El
Abidin Ben Ali.
Ghannouchi’s Ennahda was in the thick of the agitation
for political liberalisation of the dictatorships that were common in the Arab
world and that were threatened by the Arab Spring.
But the Islamist parties could not win power on their
own; they had to consort with secular parties and this required compromise.
From this collaboration there emerged the awareness of
a need for trimmings to Ennahda’s Islamist sails.
Accordingly, the party’s conclave in 2016 determined
that henceforth it would be content to concentrate on being good “Muslim
democrats”.
This direction that was decided at the Ennahda
conclave did not receive the publicity it deserved in the Arab world, given
that no less a renowned Islamist intellectual than Ghannouchi was the
inspiration behind it.
Thus, it comes as an interesting surprise that the
Umno Islamic Council, in determining its course after the first meeting on
Monday, has come up with four guidelines that are an echo of what Ennahda
decided in 2016 as its future thrust.
The four are an advisory role in realising Umno’s
Islamic basis and purpose as provided in the party constitution; to educate and
discipline party members in line with the party’s principles and remain
steadfast in being pious Muslims and good citizens; to advise the government to
always act according to the Federal Constitution, in which Islam is stated as
the religion of the federation; and to guide Muslims to always stay on the true
path of Islam and be responsible Malaysians.
Although the council’s chief Dusuki Ahmad did not say
anything about who was the inspiration behind the guidelines, it is quite clear
that there is an ‘Ennahdaan’ overlay to them.
In a word, the council was saying its role was to see
that Umno leaders and members were good Muslims and good democrats.
Implicit is the acknowledgment that there are
boundaries to the role it intends to play.
Source: Free Malaysia Today
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
PM Anwar wants sufficient allocations to be channelled
to flood victims
02 Mar 2023
MANILA, March 2 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wants
sufficient allocations to be channelled to the victims of the floods in Johor,
Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah and Melaka, which have so far affected 29,000
people.
The prime minister said he has discussed the matter
with his deputy Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also the National
Disaster Management Committee chairman, on the latest situation and types of
assistance that can be provided before flying home from the Philippines today.
“On the floods in Johor and Pahang, I have been
updated on the current situation. I have discussed the matter with the deputy prime
minister (Ahmad Zahid) so that there are sufficient allocations for the flood
victims,” he told Malaysian media today at the end of his two-day visit to the
Philippines.
Earlier, the prime minister met some 100 Malaysians
residing in the country at Rumah Malaysia here.
Anwar also wants construction work on the Bailey
bridge at the location where a road collapsed in Felda Selancar in Rompin
yesterday to be expedited.
On his two-day visit, the prime minister said it
reflects the importance of bilateral relations between neighbouring countries.
Anwar said Malaysia and the Philippines should enhance
bilateral cooperation involving various fields, including trade and investment,
as well as education and training, which he added was once very active.
In a meeting with several local private parties today,
Anwar said some of the Philippines’ investors have shown interest in investing
in Malaysia involving the food security, financial and industrial sectors.
Anwar said the relevant ministries and agencies have been
told to speed up meetings with the potential investors.
On efforts to attain peace in Mindanao, the prime
minister said Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr greatly appreciated the
efforts taken by Malaysia in ensuring peace in the troubled region.
“Efforts to bring peace to Mindanao need to be
finetuned and expedited,” he said, but at the same time admitted that the
issues in the southern Philippines that have plagued the region for a long time
are not easily resolved.
However, Malaysia has a responsibility as a
neighbouring and Islamic country to ensure meaningful success and lasting peace
in the region, the prime minister said.
Anwar said Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul
Kadir has been asked to coordinate efforts to invite Mindanao leaders,
including Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao, Murad Ebrahim, to Malaysia.
He said their presence in Malaysia is for discussions
with related departments and agencies about administrative management affairs
in the southern region of the Philippines and also as part of efforts toward
the success of the peace process there, he said.
Anwar also wants to hold discussions with investors
from the plantation and industrial sectors keen on investing in the southern
Philippines to create job opportunities for the local population and develop
the region together.
Source: Malay Mail
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
In Johor, mosques in flood areas to open as temporary
flood relief centres
By Ben Tan
03 Mar 2023
JOHOR BARU, March 3 — Main mosques in flood-affected
areas in Johor are now open as temporary flood relief centres, following the
sudden surge in flood victims from the state.
Johor Islamic Religious Affairs Committee chairman
Mohd Fared Mohd Khalid said in order to accommodate the new role, guidelines
will be prepared for the mosques to continue their main function as a place of
Muslim worship.
"This is a contingency plan that we have taken to
accommodate the high increase in the population affected by the floods.
"The mosque is also allowed to assist in
preparing food for distribution and delivery to nearby temporary flood relief
centres,” Mohd Fared said in a statement posted.
On the fifth day of the floods in Johor, the number of
flood victims continued to increase today.
Source: Malay Mail
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Arab World
Arab nations condemn Israeli minister’s “racist”
Palestine comments
March 03, 2023
ABU DHABI: Arab nations have condemned what they say
were “racist comments” by Israeli Minister of Finance, Betzalel Smotrich calling
for the destruction of the Palestinian village of Huwara.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International
Cooperation (MoFAIC) said the UAE rejected all practices that contradicted
moral and human values and principles, state news agncy WAM reported.
On Wednesday Smotrich responded to journalists saying
the village had to be demolished following the violence. He later claimed the
comments were taken out of context, explaining he believed the village had
become “hostile” and was turning into a terrorist haven.
The UAE ministry underscored the need to confront hate
speech and violence and said it was important to strengthen “the values of
tolerance and human coexistence” in an effort to reduce instability in the
region.
Meanwhile Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Smotrich’s “inflammatory” comments.
The ministry spokesperson, Ambassador Sinan Majali,
said the calls for violence “portend serious consequences and represent a
violation of international humanitarian law,” state news agency Petra reported.
Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the
minister’s comments in the “strongest terms”, in a statement issued on Friday.
The statement said the Israeli comments represented a
“dangerous and unacceptable incitement to violence”, adding that they
contradicted “all laws, customs and moral values, and lacks the responsibility
that any official holding an official position should have”.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261521/middle-east
--------
Saudi Film Commission participates in Berlin
International Film Festival
March 02, 2023
BERLIN: The Saudi Film Commission has participated in
a variety of cinematic events during the Berlin International Film Festival to
introduce the Saudi film industry and highlight its financial incentives, ideal
locations for production, and the initiatives and programs offered by the
commission to develop this industry locally.
The commission’s delegation included specialists and
Saudi filmmakers, in addition to representatives of non-profit associations.
The delegation attended several specialized workshops and met with a group of
international experts and filmmakers.
The commission hosted nearly 150 producers, directors,
media professionals, and filmmakers from all over the world at a luncheon in
cooperation with Film AlUla and NEOM, highlighting the commission’s programs
and initiatives and promoting filming sites in the Kingdom.
Some of the commission’s initiatives include the
incentive program that offers cashback of up to 40 percent on the costs of
films produced in the Kingdom, talent development and support programs such as
the Filmmakers Program, opportunities for higher education and academic
cinematic majors in cooperation with Saudi universities, in addition to
investment opportunities in infrastructure to develop the sector and provide
commercial services and opportunities for logistical companies.
The commission’s strategic targets fall in line with
the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030 to develop and diversify the economic base
and increase employment rates.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261346/saudi-arabia
--------
UN chief urges nations to repatriate citizens from
Syria camp
02 March ,2023
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday
called for the swift repatriation of foreigners held in Syria’s infamous al-Hol
camp which houses relatives of extremists.
The sprawling and overcrowded Kurdish-run al-Hol camp
in northern Syria is home to more than 50,000 people, including family members
of suspected ISIS militants as well as displaced Syrians and Iraqi refugees.
Nearly half of the camp’s population is under the age
of 12 and residents are “deprived of their rights, vulnerable, and
marginalized”, Guterres said in a statement during a visit to Iraq.
“They are trapped in a desperate situation with no end
in sight,” he said at the Jadaa camp, which Iraqi authorities describe as a
“rehabilitation” centre for those returning from Syria.
“I have no doubt to say that the worst camp that
exists in today’s world is al-Hol, with the worst possible conditions for
people and with enormous suffering for the people that have been stranded there
for years,” Guterres said.
He urged UN member states who have nationals in al-Hol
to “significantly step up their efforts to facilitate the safe and dignified
repatriation of their nationals.”
He praised war-ravaged Iraq, which has repatriated
hundreds of families from al-Hol since May 2021.
“All countries with their citizens in al-Hol must do the
same, and must do the same in a dignified repatriation in line with applicable
international law, and in the case of children, guided by the principles of the
best interests of children,” he said.
Guterres warned that letting this “untenable situation
fester” will only fuel “more resentment and despair” and threaten security and
stability.
Kurdish authorities in Syria have repeatedly called on
countries to repatriate their citizens, but foreign governments have allowed
only a trickle to return home, fearing security threats and a domestic
political backlash.
ISIS seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and
ruled with brutality until local forces backed by the US-led coalition defeated
them, first in Iraq in late 2017 and then in Syria in March 2019.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
UAE astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi docks at the
International Space Station
03 March ,2023
Emirati astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi landed at the
International Space Station (ISS) on Friday a day after blasting off in a
spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule, named Endeavour, docked
shortly after 10.40 a.m. UAE time following a 24-hour journey to ISS where
al-Neyadi and his three crew members will spend the next six months in what
will be the Arab world’s longest space mission. It will see experiments ranging
from human cell growth in space to controlling combustible materials in
microgravity.
After a short wait 20 meters from ISS to fix a
troubleshooting issue, the Dragon capsule docked autonomously to the
space-facing port of the station.
The docking sequence finished at about 10.54 a.m. with
the four-crew officially welcomed to ISS.
The coupling was confirmed as the ISS and capsule flew
in tandem at 17,500 miles per hour (28,164 kph) about 250 miles
(420km) above Earth across the coast of East Africa,
according to a live NASA webcast of the rendezvous.
SpaceX crew are now conducting final checks before the
hatch is opened and the astronauts board the station and join the Expedition
68, consisting of seven other astronauts. For a short time, the 11 crew members
will live and work in space together until four of the previous crew return to
Earth in a few days.
The international crew are NASA’s sixth commercial
crew rotation mission with SpaceX aboard the orbital laboratory.
“Congratulations to the NASA and SpaceX teams for
another history-making mission to the International Space Station,” said NASA
Administrator Bill Nelson. “Crew-6 will be busy aboard the International Space
Station, conducting over 200 experiments that will help us to prepare for
missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, as well as improve life here on Earth.
We look forward to seeing all that they accomplish.”
Conducting new scientific research, Crew-6 will help
prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and benefit life on Earth.
Experiments will include studies of how particular materials burn in
microgravity, tissue chip research on heart, brain, and cartilage functions,
and an investigation that will collect microbial samples from the outside of
the space station. These are just some of the hundreds of science experiments
and technology demonstrations that will take place during their mission.
Nearly 80 spectators from the United Arab Emirates
watched from the launch site as astronaut al-Neyadi — only the second Emirati
to fly to space — blasted off on his mission on the Falcon 9 rocket carrying
their detachable spacecraft
NASA confirmed shortly after 9:50 a.m. Thursday that
the Dragon carrying the astronauts and the Falcon 9 separated as planned.
Shortly after, al-Neyadi, 41, sent a message from space on the live feed,
saying: “Thanks to my parents, my family, thanks to our leadership...thank you
for everyone who trained us and got us ready for this mission.”
“The launch was incredible. And, lastly, thanks to
Nasa and SpaceX. Go Dragon and go SpaceX.”
The Crew-6 launch is carrying two NASA astronauts,
Mission Commander Stephen Bowen and Pilot Warren Hoburg, along with the UAE’s
al-Neyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who will serve as mission
specialists for a space station science expedition.
Dr al-Neyadi is only the second ever Emirati to travel
into space, following Hazza al-Mansouri’s eight-day stay on the ISS in 2019. He
is also the first Emirati to launch from US soil as part of a long-duration
space station team.
After the successful launch, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed
bin Zayed Al Nahyan said: “I join the nation in congratulating Sultan al-Neyadi
as he begins his pioneering mission aboard the International Space Station.”
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Uneasy calm in Lebanon refugee camp following armed
clashes
NAJIA HOUSSARI
March 02, 2023
BEIRUT: An uneasy calm returned to Ain Al-Hilweh,
Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, on Thursday after a night of
violent clashes between gunmen from the Fatah movement and rivals from the
extremist Asbat Al-Ansar group.
Machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades were used
in a series of exchanges that left one Fatah member dead and seven other men
wounded.
The sound of gunfire could be heard in the nearby
coastal city of Sidon, adjacent to the camp.
Ghassan Ayoub, a Palestinian security official in Ain
Al-Hilweh, told Arab News: “What began as an isolated fight suddenly developed
into clashes that the Palestinian forces inside the camp are working to
contain.”
He said the victim has yet to be buried because of
simmering tensions in the camp.
Security officials say the clashes erupted on
Wednesday night after a dispute between Fatah members in one of the
neighborhoods resulted in injuries.
While transporting the injured to a hospital inside
the camp, armed Fatah members passed in front of Al-Shuhada Mosque at the
entrance to Al-Safsaf, a neighborhood controlled by the Asbat Al-Ansar group.
A guard at the mosque fired on the passers-by,
wounding a Fatah member. The group returned fire and clashes escalated
throughout the night.
The wounded man, Mahmoud Zubaidat, died early on
Thursday. His brother fired shots in the air when his death was announced,
prompting Palestinian forces to take action to restore calm.
UNRWA schools inside the camp closed on Thursday to
protect students. The clashes also caused damage to cars and property.
Nidaa Al-Insan Hospital inside the camp said in a
statement that it had treated seven wounded people with serious to moderate
injuries, including one who needed surgery.
Independent MP Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri said the armed
clashes “threaten the safety and security of residents and citizens, and harm
the Palestinian cause.”
He said that “serious work should be done to prevent
these clashes from happening again, as they harm civil peace and stability in
the region, especially since Lebanon needs peace and calm to overcome the
critical and exceptional circumstances it is going through now.”
Al-Birzi called on the rival groups to “assume their
responsibilities.”
Meetings are being held to contain the situation, and
“an investigation committee will be formed to establish responsibilities and
undertake the measures necessary to defuse the situation,” he added.
Ayoub denied any link between the violence and a
report by the US website “The Media Line” claiming that mercenaries from
Palestinian camps in Lebanon were being recruited to join Russian forces in
Ukraine.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denied the
allegations, describing them as “baseless news.”
The ministry added: “The Palestinian people have their
own cause and battles to fight, and are not party to any other war or conflict
elsewhere in the world.”
A Lebanese source told the US website that “in
cooperation with Hezbollah, employees at the Palestinian Embassy in Lebanon are
communicating with activists in the Fatah political movement so they can be
recruited in exchange for hundreds of dollars.”
The source added that “Palestinians residing in
Lebanon have signed up to join the conflict in Ukraine on behalf of Russia,
having been offered a sum of $350 by Russian entities.”
The US website claimed that “the majority of the
Palestinians being deployed to the front lines in Ukraine hail from Ain
Al-Helweh,” adding that “the recruits are members of the Fatah political
movement, as well as other organizations such as the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine.”
A 2017 report by the Lebanese Central Administration
of Statistics and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said that more
than 174,000 Palestinians were living in the camps.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261271/middle-east
--------
AlUla visitor center’s highly trained local employees
plan authentic experiences for guests
JASMINE BAGER
March 02, 2023
RIYADH: The UNESCO Heritage Sites in AlUla have become
more accessible after the Royal Commission for AlUla launched a new and free
concierge service.
Local visitor center professionals with in-depth
knowledge of tourist sites, hidden spots, and trending events will customize
itineraries for travelers venturing into the ancient city.
Center operations manager, Islam Fayez, told Arab
News: “The visitor center is the first impression that guests get — especially
the one at the airport in AlUla.
“It’s a completely free service that is available in
three business centers at this time — AlUla airport, the Old Town, and Winter
Park. “Staff at the center will create a full itinerary for the guests. They
have a lot of suggestions, they are updated with all the new places, and they
have the contact number for all the reservations for the restaurants. The
guests will only pay for the experience they are booking.
“The center staff will help solve a lot of problems
because many people come to AlUla and they’re like, ‘oh, I don’t know what to
do next,’ or they have one thing set up and then the rest of the time they
don’t know where to go,” he said.
Staff aim to customize trips to fit the preferences,
budgets, and stay periods of tourists, whether they be solo travelers, couples,
friends, or family groups.
And all tastes are catered for including hiking
adventures, zip-line experiences, helicopter rides, dining and stargazing
trips, and relax days.
Itineraries, complete with contact information and
timings, can be emailed to visitors in advance of arrival for approval with
transportation and accommodation queries among the main enquiries.
AlUla residents recently started renting rooms in
their homes to visitors, and hotel apartments and camp sites offer cheaper stay
options to luxury resorts.
Taxis are available in AlUla and many of the main
resorts provide their own cars for booked guests.
“We always look for the smallest details so the item
at the end of the day is as flawless as possible, and it is as professional as
it can get. We’re also supporting the local community. We call them
ambassadors. We don’t have any expats in that position,” Fayez added.
The ambassadors are bilingual, fluent in English,
ambitious, and highly trained to help international travelers with all their
needs, while uniformed roving ambassadors with iPads are available to help
advise tourists at designated sites.
All guests are encouraged to provide feedback to help
visitor center officials improve guest services.
Fayez said: “I believe the visitor center experience
will continue and operate throughout Saudi Arabia. When traveling to another
country, having a visitor, welcome, or tourist center as a base for information
and bookings is important.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261296/saudi-arabia
--------
Saudi FM discusses bilateral relations with
counterparts at G20 summit
March 02, 2023
RIYADH: Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin
Farhan met with the US secretary of state and the Singaporean foreign affairs
minister on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty summit in India, the Saudi
Press Agency reported.
The meetings were attended by Abdulrahman bin Arkan
Al-Dawood, the director general of the office of the minister of foreign
affairs.
During their meeting with American Secretary of State
Antony Blinken, they discussed strategic relations and ways to strengthen
cooperation in various fields between the two countries.
Prince Faisal and Blinken also reviewed developments
on regional and international issues of mutual concern, including the
Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261161/saudi-arabia
--------
Africa
Libya approves constitutional fix but no big
breakthrough to elections
02 March ,2023
Libya’s High State Council voted on Thursday for a constitutional
amendment intended to provide a basis for elections but there appeared to be
little progress on big disagreements standing in the way of a national vote.
Earlier this week, a special United Nations envoy for
Libya moved to take charge of a stalled political process in order to enable
elections that are seen as the path to resolving years of conflict.
Libya has been locked in a political stalemate since
late 2021 when a scheduled election was cancelled because of disputes over the
rules and the eastern-based parliament, the House of Representatives, withdrew
support from the interim government.
Peacemaking efforts since then have focused on getting
the House of Representatives and the High State Council to agree on a
constitutional basis for elections and on voting rules.
Thursday’s vote approved a constitutional amendment
that was issued last month by the House of Representatives and was presented as
step towards holding elections.
Foreign powers have long indicated that big political
changes need the approval of both the House of Representatives and the High
State Council under a 2015 agreement that was intended to establish a short
transitional period that would ultimately resolve the conflict.
On Monday, UN envoy Abdoulaye Bathily cited that 2015
agreement to say he was setting up a steering committee of major Libyan figures
to adopt a time-bound roadmap to elections.
In remarks that appeared aimed at both the House of
Representatives, which was elected in 2014, and the High State Council, which
emerged from a chamber elected in 2012, he said that “most institutions lost
their legitimacy years ago.”
Speaking before it was approved, Bathily also
described the amendment as “controversial within the Libyan political class and
general citizenry,” noting it did not address contentious issues such as
candidate eligibility or create a clear timeline for elections.
Many Libyans have grown skeptical that their political
leaders are negotiating in good faith, saying their true goal is to delay any
election that could cost them positions of power and privilege.
Tim Eaton of Chatham House think-tank in London said
the amendment seemed aimed at making it harder to sideline the two chambers.
“There is a ‘breakthrough’ every time it looks like
the House of Representatives and High State Council are going to lose control
of the process,” he said.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Tunis governor refuses protest permit citing alleged
plot
02 March ,2023
A Tunisian opposition coalition said on Thursday it
would hold a demonstration on Sunday despite being denied permission by the
authorities who cited an alleged plot against state security by the group’s
leaders.
Leaders of the National Salvation Front coalition are
among prominent opponents of President Kais Saied arrested over the past month
on charges that the opposition says are politically motivated.
The governor of Tunis said in a statement that he was
refusing permission for Sunday’s protest because of the charges against the
National Salvation Front leaders.
The arrests, which also include other senior
politicians, the owner of a major media outlet and a prominent businessman,
represent the biggest crackdown on opponents of Saied since he seized most
powers in 2021.
His opponents accuse him of a coup for shutting down
the parliament, moving to rule by decree and writing a new constitution giving
himself most powers that he passed in a referendum last year.
Saied has said his actions were legal and needed to
save Tunisia from chaos, and he has promised to uphold rights and freedoms.
Most protests since his seizure of powers have been permitted.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Human Rights Commission head meets Sudan justice
minister in Geneva
March 02, 2023
GENEVA: President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission
Hala Al-Tuwaijri met Sudan’s Minister of Justice Mohamed Saeed Al-Hilu and an
accompanying delegation in Geneva.
The Kingdom’s permanent representative to the UN and
international organizations, Ambassador Abdulmohsen bin Khothaila also attended
the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the 52nd session of the UN
Human Rights Council in the Swiss city.
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed ties
between Saudi Arabia and Sudan, and discussed issues of common interest.
They also tackled aspects of bilateral cooperation in
various fields, especially in human rights, in addition to issues related to the
work of the 52nd session of the council.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261201/saudi-arabia
--------
Experts share views on new UN proposal for election
process in Libya
March 03, 2023
WASHINGTON: A new UN proposal for holding legislative
and presidential elections in Libya this year has sparked hopes among some that
the oil-rich North African Arab country might soon enjoy a period of
reconciliation and stability after years of armed conflict.
Political factions have been vying for power amid a
crisis and impasse that has paralyzed the country for more than a decade, since
the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Despite a number of attempts to resolve the
differences between warring groups and reach a consensus over the sharing of
powers, Libya continues to be bitterly divided between the Government of
National Accord in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east of the
country allied with Gen. Khalifa Heftar, who commands the Libyan National Army.
Each side is supported by various regional and international parties.
During a discussion session in Washington on Thursday,
organized by the Middle East Institute and attended by Arab News, expert
speakers shared their views of the current situation in Libya, with many
emphasizing the need to reinvigorate the process for negotiations between rival
groups so that an agreement might be reached and, ultimately, democratic
elections held.
Earlier in the week, the UN’s envoy to Libya,
Abdoulaye Bathily, announced a new proposal for an election process.
He said that “building on previously reached
agreements among Libyan stakeholders” he had “decided to launch an initiative
aimed at enabling the organization and holding of presidential and legislative
elections in 2023.”
Stephanie T. Williams, a non-resident senior fellow at
nonprofit public policy organization the Brookings Institution’s Center for
Middle Eastern Policy and a former special advisor to the UN on Libya, said
that while the situation in Libya is extremely complex, the primary impediment
to elections is the “eligibility requirement” for candidates.
She said there is a democracy dilemma, in that prior
constitutional negotiations showed that Libyans want a strong presidential
system that can usher in stability and unity among the warring factions.
One of the key sticking points, Williams explained, is
“who would come to power,” in light of previous elections in which
“controversial candidates” created more friction than unity and ultimately
brought the political process grinding to a halt.
Taher El-Soni, the Libyan ambassador to the UN, said
during the session that the rival factions in the country have come to
represent the interests of their foreign backers, resulting in even more
conflict.
He argued there has always been support for an interim
government that can organize and hold elections, on an accepted constitutional
basis, but this has not happened because foreign countries and groups with
conflicting interests have interfered in Libyan affairs.
The Libyan envoy acknowledged that the responsibility
for the failure to reach an overarching agreement to resolve the conflict
between rival groups lies not only with other countries in the region and
beyond, or the UN, but also with Libyans themselves.
However, no single group has the power to impose order
on the entire country, hence the long-running stalemate, El-Soni added.
“Libyans remain at the mercy of regional and
international players (and their differing ideas of) how they want to deal with
Libya,” he said.
“Libya cannot be disconnected from the geopolitics and
the regional challenges that are happening all around. We are a playground as a
result of those conflicts.”
El-Soni said it remains to be seen whether Bathily’s
proposal can succeed and much would depend on the selection criteria for
candidates.
Mary Fitzgerald, a non-resident scholar at the Middle
East Institute, specializing in the Euro-Mediterranean region with a particular
focus on Libya, said that while the official reconciliation process continues
to go round in circles, unofficial efforts are also taking place based on
personal connections.
She said she has observed unusual, and unlikely, signs
of rapprochement between some key figures who were previously at odds with each
other but now appear to have reached agreement on certain issues.
Source: Arab News
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2261371/middle-east
--------
Peter Obi challenges winner of Nigeria presidential
election Bola Tinubu
02 March 2023
The Nigerian candidate that finished third in the
presidential election, Peter Obi, has challenged first-place Bola Tinubu,
claiming he won the election despite officials saying otherwise.
The 61-year-old Obi, who is considered a political
outsider, said on Thursday that he would prove that he won the vote, despite
the official results confirming that Tinubu had won the presidential race.
“We will explore all legal and peaceful options to
reclaim our mandate. We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians,”
Obi told reporters at a news briefing on Thursday in the capital, Abuja.
The Labor party candidate, who for many Nigerians
represented hope for change, said the election “will go down as one of the most
controversial elections ever conducted in Nigeria.”
“The good and hardworking people of Nigeria have again
been robbed by our supposed leaders whom they trusted.”
Obi had framed himself as the anti-establishment
candidate, hoping to harness the votes of the youth.
In the meantime, Tinubu -- the 70-year-old former
governor of Lagos, senior politician, kingmaker and multimillionaire
businessman -- was confirmed as the
winner of the election and set to succeed the octogenarian President Muhammadu
Buhari, who will step down in May after two terms.
Tinubu, who hails from Buhari's ruling All
Progressives Congress political party, on Wednesday called on his rivals and
their supporters to “join hands” with him, urging them to “come in so that we
may begin the task of rebuilding our national home together.”
Meanwhile, out of some 25 million people in Nigeria
who cast their votes on Saturday only three out of 18 candidates stood a
realistic chance of winning the presidency and the collated results four days
later on Wednesday by the country's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
from all ballots gathered at voting centers nationwide showed Tinubu as the
winner.
He bagged 8.8 million votes, hitting the required
number of votes across two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states.
The former vice-president Atiku Abubakar of the
opposition People’s Democratic Party, gained second place with 6.9 million
votes.
Obi came in third place with 6.1 million votes,
according to results released by the INEC.
The INEC has dismissed the allegations of fraud and
vote-rigging, confirming the election process was free and fair; however, it
stated that candidates who want to file complaints have 21 days to bring their
case to the courts.
Buhari came to power in 2015 at a time when abductions
and severe bombings were being reported in Nigeria on an almost daily basis,
most often attributed to Boko Haram, the extremist militant group that wreaked
havoc in northeastern parts of Nigeria.
Source: Press TV
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/03/02/699197/Nigeria-Peter-Obi-Tinubu
--------
Protests greet Macron on Africa tour, Burkina Faso
scraps military pact
02 March 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a tour
of Africa with a message that France is not after meddling, but the visit
revived old colonial wounds, sparking protests.
Macron on Thursday said the era of French interference
in Africa was "well over" as he began a four-nation tour of the
continent to renew frayed ties.
Anti-French sentiment runs high in some former African
colonies. Macron said France harbored no desire to return to past policies of
interfering in Africa.
"The age of Francafrique is well over,"
Macron said in remarks to the French community in Gabon's capital Libreville,
referring to France's post-colonization strategy of supporting authoritarian
leaders to defend its interests.
"Francafrique" refers to the wave of
decolonization in 1960 when France began propping up dictators in its former
colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.
Macron landed in Gabon on Wednesday, the first stop of
the tour that will also take the president to Angola, Congo Republic and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"What is Macron doing in Gabon? Is he coming for
the forest or to back (President) Ali Bongo?" asked a 39-year-old technician. "If Macron
wants to support the Bongo family, we will rise up," he said. "Gabon
is an independent country. It is not France that appoints Gabonese
presidents."
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), angry
protesters gathered in front of the French embassy in Kinshasa, spray-painting
anti-French graffiti on its wall and chanting "Macron is a killer!"
They unfurled banners reading, "Macron is the
godfather of DRC balkanization," "Congolese say no to French
policy," and "Macron is an unwanted guest in DRC".
More than 3,000 French soldiers are deployed in
Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Djibouti, according to official figures.
Burkina Faso said it has scrapped a 1961 agreement on
military assistance with France, only weeks after it told the French ambassador
and troops to quit the country.
The Burkinabe foreign ministry advised the French
government that the country was "renouncing the technical military
assistance agreement reached in Paris on April 24 1961," according to the
correspondence, dated Tuesday.
The ministry said Burkina was giving one month's
notice for "the final departure of all French military personnel serving
in Burkinabe military administrations."
Burkina also gave France a month to pull out a special
forces unit of 400 men that was based near the capital. The French flag was
lowered on the base last month.
Source: Press TV
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/03/02/699182/Macron-Gabon-Sahel
--------
Europe
Manchester Arena inquiry finds MI5 missed significant
chance to prevent suicide bombing
Mehmet Solmaz
03.03.2023
BIRMINGHAM, England
British intelligence agency MI5 missed a “significant”
opportunity to prevent a suicide bombing after a concert at Manchester Arena in
2017, an inquiry into the deadly attack concluded Thursday.
Twenty-two people died and hundreds were injured after
Salman Abedi detonated a homemade bomb when families arrived at the arena to
collect their children following a concert by the American singer Ariana
Grande.
The report says the MI5 received intelligence on Abedi
twice in the months before the bombing but failed to detect the plot.
"There was a realistic possibility that
actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to
actions preventing the attack," said the inquiry's third and final report.
The inquiry had heard that Abedi had been on the radar
of the security services for seven years before the bombing.
The lengthy report also looks into how Abedi was
radicalized and how he planned the bombing attack.
The report, published by former high court judge Sir
John Saunders, also identified problems with the sharing of information between
the security service and counter-terrorism police.
“It remains quite impossible to say whether any
different or additional action taken by the authorities could have prevented
the attack. It might have done; it might not have done,” the report said.
Following the publication of the report, Sir John
shared his comments on a live stream.
“It is not possible to reach any conclusion on the
balance of probabilities or to any other evidential standard as to whether the
attack would have been prevented. However, there was a realistic possibility
that actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to
actions preventing the attack.”
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
UK pledges to work with European allies to support
Turkish quake victims
Sumeyye Dilara Dincer
03.03.2023
The British government will work closely with its
European allies to support Türkiye during an EU donor conference which will be
held in Brussels on March 16.
Speaking to Anadolu during his visit to New Delhi for
the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, British top diplomat James Cleverly said:
“We will work very closely with our friends in Europe to make sure we continue
supporting Türkiye through the response to this earthquake and then ultimately,
of course, to the rebuilding of the homes that the people who have lost their
homes and so desperately in need.”
On Feb. 8, the European Commission announced their
intention to host a donors' conference, in coordination with the Turkish
authorities, to mobilize funds from the international community in support of
the people of Türkiye and Syria following the devastating earthquakes,
according to a European Commission statement.
“Türkiye is an important friend and ally to the United
Kingdom and when we saw the terrible earthquakes that had hit Türkiye, it was
heartbreaking. So we were very keen to give support quickly with the search and
rescue teams, but also to give humanitarian support.”
Commenting on calls to initiate a visa scheme for the
quake victims, Cleverly said he does not have any news about any changes to the
visa relationships with Türkiye, and added: “But we know that Türkiye will be
an important partner and friend and ally to the UK for years to come. And of
course, we want to make sure that Turkish people and British people get to
visit each other's countries, perhaps working in each other's countries and get
to know each other better. And this will always be at the forefront of our
thinking when we look at how we work with Türkiye in the future.”
After Ankara made an international call for help as part
of its level-4 alert after the quakes, a team of 77 people, including doctors,
firefighters, and engineers, from UK International Search and Rescue (ISAR) was
deployed in Hatay, Türkiye's southernmost province and one of the worst hit by
the disaster.
The British Foreign Secretary said his government is
keen to hold strong relations between the two states and praised the
contribution of the Turkish society in the UK. “We very much value our close
relationship with Türkiye and there are many people of Turkish heritage in the
UK. They contribute enormously to British society and to the British economy.
We always make sure that we find ways of working closely with our
friends.”
UK to continue supporting Ukraine for allies
Cleverly reiterated his country's Ukraine policy,
saying the UK will continue to support Kyiv until they have successfully
defended themselves.
“We've supplied anti tank missiles. We supplied main
battle tanks and now we are training their pilots and their marines to help
them defend themselves in the future. We will continue to work with Ukraine
talking to them about what they need. And we will also talk with our friends in
the international community to make sure that together, we are giving Ukraine
the equipment they need to defend themselves, but also the equipment to repair
the energy supplies, their water supplies, and the humanitarian aid that they
need to get through this tough winter. We will we will keep supporting Ukraine
until they win.”
Almost 12 months have passed since Russia declared a
"special military operation" in Ukraine, which has resulted in the
deaths of at least 8,006 civilians and 13,287 injuries, according to UN
figures.
UK government happy to reach agreement over Northern
Ireland
The UK and European Union on Monday struck a new deal
on the Northern Ireland Protocol, replacing it with what is called the Windsor
framework after persistent disputes over post-Brexit trade arrangements.
The British foreign secretary said: “The Northern
Ireland protocol was making it very difficult for one part of our country to do
business with another part of our own country. So I'm very pleased that we were
able to get a resolution on this with the Windsor framework. I'm very pleased
that we're able to resolve this long standing issue, which is good news for the
people of Northern Ireland. And I think also good news for our relationship
with the European Union.”
With border checks on certain goods, the superseded
Northern Ireland Protocol had created a de facto trade border between Northern
Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
US, UK congratulate Tinubu on Nigeria election win as
legal challenge looms
Hassan Isilow
02.03.2023
JOHANNESBURG
The US and UK have congratulated Bola Tinubu on his
victory in Nigeria’s Feb. 25 presidential election, despite lingering
uncertainty over the win as the opposition plans to mount a legal challenge.
“We call on all parties, candidates, and supporters to
refrain from violence or inflammatory rhetoric at this critical time,” Ned
Price, spokesperson for the State Department, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Many Nigerians have raised concerns after the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decided to manually transmit
results, opting against using an existing instant transmission system.
The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has
announced it will challenge the results in court.
According to the official count, Tinubu took top spot
in the presidential race with 8.7 million votes, followed by the PDP’s Atiku
Abubakar on 6.9 million and Labor Party candidate Peter Obi with 6.1 million.
“We understand that many Nigerians and some of the
parties have expressed frustration about the manner in which the process was
conducted and the shortcomings of technical elements that were used for the
first time in a presidential election cycle,” Price
said.
“There are well-established mechanisms in place for
the adjudication of electoral disputes, and we encourage any candidate or party
seeking to challenge the outcome to pursue redress through those mechanisms,”
he added.
The US joins “other international observers in urging
INEC to improve in the areas that need the most attention ahead of the March 11
gubernatorial elections,” the statement further said.
Over in the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took to
Twitter to congratulate Tinubu on his win.
“The UK-Nigeria relationship remains strong. I look
forward to working together to grow our security and trade ties, opening up
opportunities for businesses and creating prosperity in both our countries,” he
said.
Tinubu, 70, will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari as
the leader of Africa’s largest democracy and economy.
Buhari became president in 2015 and his tenure was
marked by security threats and economic issues.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
British navy seizes 'anti-tank weapons, ballistic
missile components' in Gulf of Oman
Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
02.03.2023
LONDON
British navy “seized anti-tank weapons and ballistic
missile components being smuggled” in the Gulf of Oman, Royal Navy said in a
statement Thursday.
The raid on Feb. 23 came after a high-speed boat chase
from Royal Marines and scrambling with a helicopter as the vessel was in
international waters, after a tip off from US army aircraft.
“The smugglers tried to evade the ever-present 815
Naval Air Squadron helicopter and ignored every radio call demanding them to
stop – instead steering their craft towards Iranian territorial waters,” the
statement said.
“They were intercepted by the British frigate before
they could do so.”
The navy said naval soldiers boarding the vessel found
a number of packages.
The Royal Marines boarding team who searched the
suspect craft found a number of packages and found “Iranian versions of Russian
9M133 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles – known in Iran as ‘Dehlavieh’ – and
medium-range ballistic missile components” on board, according to the
statement.
“The chase was sparked when an American drone spotted
the skiff moving at speed through international waters in the darkness.”
Source: Anadolu Agency
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
France says Iran uranium enrichment ‘very concerning’
02 March ,2023
France on Thursday called developments in Iran’s
nuclear program “very concerning” after the UN nuclear watchdog reported
finding uranium particles enriched just under the 90 percent needed for an
atomic bomb.
“This report states that the direction Iran is taking
is very concerning,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre told
reporters, adding this development was “unprecedented and extremely serious.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
confirmed Tuesday that it had detected particles of uranium enriched to up to
83.7 percent, only just short of the 90 percent needed to produce a nuclear
device.
Last week, Iran claimed it had not made any attempt to
enrich uranium beyond 60 percent.
The head of the IAEA is to meet with Iran’s President
Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran on Saturday to try to “relaunch the dialogue” on the
country’s atomic work, a diplomatic source said Wednesday.
Source: Al Arabiya
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
Pakistan
Supervisors Must Act As Mentors, Not Punishers, Rules
Supreme Court
Nasir Iqbal
March 3, 2023
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that supervisory
officer in any organisation should perform more like a mentor than a punishing
authority by cracking whip on finding a fault in the performance of his
subordinates.
The primary duty of a supervisor is to guide his
subordinates to improve their performance and efficiency, Justice Syed Mansoor
Ali Shah wrote in a judgement issued on Thursday in a case on a promotion
dispute in the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
Justice Shah headed a three-judge bench that had taken
up an appeal of the IB’s director general against a June 16, 2022 order of the
Federal Service Tribunal (FST).
In its order, the FST had allowed appeals of
respondents namely Riazul Wahab and Surkharu Khan and expunged adverse remarks
recorded by the countersigning officer in their performance evaluation reports
(PERs) and restored the assessment of their performance made by the reporting
officers.
The respondents had joined the IB as assistant
directors (BS-17) in 2001 and 2003, respectively. They were promoted as deputy
director (BS-18) and director (BS-19) in due course for having an “unblemished
and meritorious service record”.
IB’s appeal against service tribunal’s decision in
promotion case dismissed
In Mr Wahab’s PERs, his reporting officer evaluated
his performance as “very good” and “outstanding” and recorded him as “fit for
promotion.”
Whereas in Mr Khan’s PERs, his reporting officer
evaluated his performance as “good” and “very good” and recorded him as “fit
for promotion”. But their countersigning officer downgraded their performance
evaluation to “average” and declared them “unfit for promotion.”
The respondents preferred departmental appeals against
the countersigning officer’s remarks. The appeal of Mr Wahab was not responded
to while that of Mr Khan was rejected.
Consequently, they approached the FST which allowed
their appeals.
In his judgement, Justice Shah observed that
supervisory officers should see, having regard to the temperament of the
officer concerned, whether the advice or warning given orally or in written
form, or given publically in a general meeting of the officers or privately in
a separate meeting with the concerned officer, would be beneficial for the
officer in improving his performance.
It said the purpose of counselling was to improve the
performance of the officer and not to insult or intimidate him.
The judgement said PERs were the most important
documents in the service record of civil servants, which help the competent
authorities in making informed decisions with regards to personnel
administration matters, such as, selection for training,
appointments/transfers, promotions, confirmations or screening of civil servants.
An officer’s promotion and retention in service mostly
depends on what has been recorded in PER. It is, therefore, essential that PERs
are written by the reporting and countersigning officers most carefully and
responsibly, the judgement said.
If the reporting or the countersigning officer is
partial, his opinion is likely to cause incalculable damage to the officer
reported upon, and if a PER is ambiguous or carelessly written, it would not
serve the true purpose of recording PERs.
Therefore, the reporting and countersigning officers
should evaluate the performance of the officer reported upon in a detached and
objective manner, the judgement said.
The respondents asserted that no advice or warning
was ever given to them by the countersigning officer before recording the
adverse remarks and there is nothing on the record of the case to controvert
their assertion, the judgement noted.
In the present case, it explained, the countersigning
officer did not mention in the PERs that he had counselled the respondents for
improving their performance nor did he justify his departure from the above
rule of making prior counselling before recording the adverse remarks. He also
did not give specific reasons for his disagreement with the evaluation of the
reporting officers, the judgement said, highlighting a gross violation of the
instructions by the countersigning officer in recording the adverse remarks in
the PERs of the respondents.
Thus, the judgement said, the tribunal has rightly
expunged the same and therefore there was no legal flaw in the FST decision.
Source: Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1740093/supervisors-must-act-as-mentors-not-punishers-rules-sc
--------
Pakistanis
paying heavily for Bajwa’s ‘regime change conspiracy’: Imran
March
3, 2023
LAHORE:
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former premier Imran Khan Thursday
blasted former army chief General (r) Qamar Javed Bajwa and the incumbent PDM
government for “pushing Pakistan deep into the economic turmoil” and blamed
them for the prevailing financial woes of the country.
Since
his ouster, the PTI chief has maintained that the no-confidence motion against
him was a “huge foreign conspiracy against Pakistan” that he claimed was
carried out by the United States.
Recently,
however, Imran has shifted his focus away from the alleged role of the US in
his ouster and towards former COAS Bajwa instead.
In
an interview with Financial Times in November, Imran had signalled a desire to
work with Washington saying he wants to mend relations with the US despite
accusing it of treating Pakistan as a ‘slave’.
The
former premier had said he no longer “blamed” the US and wants a “dignified”
relationship if re-elected.
Then
in Februrary, the PTI chief gave an interview to Voice of America where he had
levelled accusations against Gen Bajwa claiming he “conspired with his political
opponents to remove him from office with help from the US”.
Later
in the interview, he retracted the accusations he had made against the US and
squarely blamed Gen Bajwa for his ordeal saying “it wasn’t the US who told
Pakistan [to oust me]. It was unfortunately, from what evidence has come up,
Gen Bajwa who somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.”
The ouster plan “wasn’t imported from there. It was exported from here to
there”.
Continuing
his attack on the Bajwa and the incumbent government, Imran said that
“Pakistanis are paying a heavy price of the regime change conspiracy where a
“bunch of criminals have been foisted upon nation by ex COAS”.
“Rupee
slaughtered,” Imran exclaimed as he noted that the Pakistani currency has “lost
over 62% or 110/$ in 11 months of PDM.”
“This
has increased public debt alone by Rs 14.3 trn & historic 75 yr high
inflation of 31.5%”, he said.
The
former prime minister’s tweet came after the Pakistani rupee plunged 8.29% (or
Rs24.07) to a new all-time low of Rs290.18 against the US dollar in the
interbank market at around noon on Thursday.
Inflation
in Pakistan has skyrocketed to the highest level of 31.5% in half a century —
becoming the 17th most expensive country in the world –after the government
massively raised energy and fuel prices coupled with the adverse impacts of
currency devaluation and imports at a halt.
Data
released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Wednesday suggested that
the country was fast heading towards hyperinflation, with at least four
consumer goods’ groups already in the territory of around 50% surge in prices
on a yearly basis.
Source:
Pakistan Today
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
FIA
nabs ‘traffickers’; FO confirms 7 deaths in Libya wreck
March
3, 2023
LAHORE/RAWALPINDI:
The number of Pakistanis killed in a migrant boat wreck off the coast of Libya
last week has risen to seven, the Foreign Office confirmed on Thursday, as the
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested three alleged traffickers
responsible for sending migrants down the ill-fated route that culminated in a
shipwreck off the coast of southern Italy.
At
the weekly briefing in Islamabad, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told
reporters that so far, seven Pakistani nationals had perished in the boat wreck
near Benghazi.
The
Pakistani mission in Libya is facilitating the identification of the bodies and
transportation of the mortal remains to Pakistan, with the support of local
authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross, she said. “The
embassy and ministry of foreign affairs are also in contact with the families
of the deceased,” Ms Baloch said.
Talking
about the tragic wreck off the coast of Italy, she said that so far,
authorities had confirmed that 17 Pakistanis were rescued, while two
individuals were killed and two are still missing.
She
said that the government was being cautious in making announcements as “it is
difficult for authorities and especially our embassies to ascertain details
about individuals who may not have their papers with them”.
“These
tragic incidents take place when unscrupulous individuals try to take advantage
of people who may be interested in traveling abroad for livelihood. The
government of Pakistan is very cognizant of the situation and measures are
being taken to address it,” she said.
FIA
arrests
Meanwhile,
in a statement on Thursday, FIA Punjab revealed that the three men in custody
would take money from the families of those they illegally sent to Europe.
Three
agents – Raja Raheel, Sufian and Mohammad Zahid Sanyara of Gujrat – would
receive money from the families of those sent to Libya, said a statement issued
on Thursday, adding that the amount received from them was transferred to the
gang leader abroad.
The
agency, it said, was working to track down all the agents involved in
trafficking people to Libya from the Gujrat belt. “More arrests are expected in
coming days,” the agency said.
According
to the FIA, human smugglers usually charge a substantial amount from anyone
aspiring to reach Turkey via the Balochistan-Iran-Turkiye land route.
Source:
Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1740096
--------
‘Militants’
killed, Nadra office attacked in Kech
Behram
Baloch
March
3, 2023
GWADAR:
Two alleged militants were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces
in Shapok and Sammi areas of Kech district on Thursday.
Officials
said security forces had launched a search operation on a tip-off about the
presence of suspected militants in the mountainous area of Kech district.
The
alleged militants were identified as Shoaib and Yahya who belonged to a banned
outfit, according to officials.
In
another incident, unknown attackers ransacked the National Database and
Registration Authority (Nadra) office in the Bal-Nagor area of Kech district.
Source:
Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1740129/militants-killed-nadra-office-attacked-in-kech
--------
PPP,
MQM-P not ready to soften their stance on census
Imran
Ayub
March
3, 2023
KARACHI:
Just a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif assured coalition partners of
steps to address their concerns over the digital census process, the key
partners in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government on Thursday came
up with their tough stances with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P)
warning that any count of Karachi population below 40 million would not be
acceptable to it and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) expressing serious
concerns over its “fairness and transparency” announced to set up a party cell
to gather complaints against the massive exercise.
First,
it was MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar who pointed out “basic flaws” in the whole
design of the national census and demanded the authorities concerned to take
notice of loopholes identified by the party.
He
also questioned the calculation under which Karachi was distributed in 16,000
blocks for the population count.
“There
should be no fewer than 27,000 blocks in Karachi for the census,” he said while
addressing a press conference at the party’s temporary headquarters in
Bahadurabad.
“And
make one thing very clear. The population of Karachi is more than 40 million.
Any attempt or exercise, that results in the total number of population of the
city below 40 or 42 million, would not be accepted by the MQM-P. Anyone who
lives and earns in this city must be counted as number of Karachi population.”
The
MQM-P leader criticised the political parties for “ignoring” the crucial census
and most of them were paying attention to politics of the upcoming elections
and the current crisis in Islamabad.
He
invited all the parties in Karachi to design a joint strategy for a fair count
of the city population.
He
also accused the PPP-led Sindh government of facilitating the “manoeuvring” of
the Karachi population number and referred to reports, which claimed that
deputy commissioner of one of the districts had strictly directed the census
staff to not to count children below five years.
“Khalid
Maqbool Siddiqui [the MQM-P convenor] has recently held a meeting with the
prime minister,” said Dr Sattar.
“He
has assured us of addressing our concerns, which we appreciate. But we have
things on ground that every attempt is being made to make this exercise
disputed. Whether it’s federal government, provincial government or district
administration, everyone has to be fair in this process. We would question
everyone if something goes wrong.”
The
PPP on the other hand came up with other concerns on the exercise.
In
a statement issued after the party meeting chaired by the Sindh Labour and
Human Resource Minister, Saeed Ghani, who is also its Karachi chapter
president, it expressed “serious reservations” on the digital census in Karachi
and demanded that the process to count the population of the city “should be
conducted in a fair and transparent manner”.
“It
is the responsibility of every concerned quarter in Sindh that the population
of the province is accurately counted,” it said. “The PPP Karachi Division also
decided to establish a cell to receive complaints against the newly launched
digital census campaign. The census should be conducted in a fair and
transparent manner in order to determine the population of Sindh in an accurate
manner.”
Mr
Ghani addressing the meeting said that the delimitation of constituencies would
also be carried out in a valid manner after a fair census drive. The fiscal
share of a province in the National Finance Commission award, he said, was also
determined on the basis of the population count.
“The
PPP had vocally raised objections against the flawed census drive of 2017 as
the issue was raised at the Council of Common Interests and other relevant
forums. The PPP should also be given the credit that a fresh census was being
conducted in the country merely after five years instead of the stipulated time
of 10 years,” the statement quoted Mr Ghani as saying.
PPP
Sindh General Secretary Senator Waqar Mehdi, while addressing a meeting, said
that an awareness campaign should be conducted to let the people know about the
benefits of the census drive. In this regard, a special campaign should be
conducted to make household women know of the benefits of the census, he added.
Meanwhile,
Sindh governor Kamran Khan Tessori was confident that issues being raised by
different political parties would be resolved. Talking to reporters while
inaugurating seventh census at the Governor House, he suggested the role of the
National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for fairness of the
process.
“There
should be a mechanism for masses to check with Nadra, whether they have been
counted or not,” he suggested.
“The
Nadra may be approached to ensure the same option. Entry of correct data is
essential as judicious distribution of resources is dependent on the same. As
the digital census is being held for the first time, various issues are being
faced which would be resolved.”
Source:
Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1740051/ppp-mqm-p-not-ready-to-soften-their-stance-on-census
--------
JI,
PPP trade barbs as controversy over Jan 15 LG polls’ results re-emerges
March
3, 2023
KARACHI:
In a re-emerging controversy surrounding the local government polls held in
Karachi more than a month ago, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Pakistan Peoples
Party (PPP), the two leading entities in the contest, came face-to-face on Thursday.
The JI, a right wing opposition party, also accused the Election Commission of
Pakistan (ECP) of conniving with the ruling PPP in changing the results of the
seats it had won during recounting, and warned the government of a sit-in
across the city if the constitutional body failed to rectify the results of the
Jan 15 polls and announce voting in the remaining 11 union councils.
The
PPP, on the other hand, came up with a strong reaction over JI’s accusations
and accused the JI of using threats and force as a tool to undermine and
pressurise a legal process, being carried out by the ECP on complaints of
certain candidates.
Addressing
a press conference at the party headquarters, Idara Noor-i-Haq, JI Karachi
chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman shared details of what he described as ‘post-poll
rigging’ going on in the name of recounting on the seats which his party had
won in Jan 15 polls.
“We
will wait for another week to let the Election Commission rectify the results
of the LG elections and announce polling in the remaining 11 union councils,”
he said.
“If
it doesn’t happen, we will go for a prolonged sit-in across the city from March
10. The Jamaat-i-Islami should not be mistaken for those who had sold out their
mandate against posts and perks of administrators. We will safeguard our votes
and restore our mandate.”
Hafiz
Naeem repeats allegation of EC’s connivance with ruling party; Ghani asks him
to stop propaganda
Hafiz
Naeem referred to the “ill-intentions” of the PPP government in Sindh due to
the alleged flaws in the process of recounting which was recently held in the
UC-6, Safoora Town.
The
bags carrying ballot papers, he said, were found torn but the returning officer
and district returning officer did not bother to take notice of that despite
the fact that their attention was drawn to the incidents.
“Similarly,
all our 50 votes at a polling station were shown as rejected in the recounting
as opposed to the Form 11 and 12,” added the JI chief.
“In
the process, only those votes were shown as rejected in the recounting which
were in favour of the JI. The RO and the DRO didn’t receive applications
against flaws. They also refused to show the record of the remaining ballot
papers.”
At
one of the processes, he said, a sibling of a PPP candidate in a UC was appointed
as presiding officer in the same UC. The ECP was responsible to appoint
unbiased staffers after thorough examination, but the PPP government was
pressuring government employees to manipulate the electoral process.
Hours
after the JI press conference, Sindh Labour and Human Resource Minister Saeed
Ghani, who is also the Karachi division president of PPP, accused the JI of
using pressure tactics by telling lies and launching a propaganda campaign.
Source:
Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
US
to provide modern equipment to KP police, says envoy
March
3, 2023
PESHAWAR:
US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Blome has pledged to provide modern equipment
to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police.
In
a meeting with IGP Akhtar Hayat here on Thursday, he appreciated the steps
taken by police to combat militancy and assured the department of full
cooperation.
A
delegation of the US mission and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs (INL), led by the US ambassador, met Mr Hayat at central police office
and discussed various activities launched by INL regarding increasing manpower
and capacity of KP police.
The
IGP informed the delegation about the training programme and scientific
investigation provided to cops and reorganisation and upgradation of
counter-terrorism department to effectively combat terrorism.
He
said that separate desks were established in most of the police stations to
exclusively resolve women issues.
Meanwhile,
the US ambassador said that United States helped Pakistan for 75 years to
advance economic growth and build a bright future for its people.
He
said strengthening and modernising the agriculture sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
was critical for ensuring food security, economic stability and climate
resilience.
He
was addressing a gathering after launching a US-funded Economic Recovery and
Development Activity (Erda) here on Thursday.
Erda,
a five-year initiative, is being implemented by Associates in Development
(AID). The initiative is meant to expand economic opportunities in KP by
strengthening and modernising agriculture sector and promoting micro, small and
medium enterprises.
According
to the US ambassador, 2,000 businessmen and thousands of families affected by
floods would benefit from the project. “This activity is going to help the
agriculture sector to develop new products and markets as well as boost small
and medium enterprises,” he told journalists.
Earlier,
Mr Blome stated that the US government helped to restore the irrigation
channels to hard-hit areas in KP following 2010 floods and enabled farmers to
plant wheat and avoid food insecurity. He added that since 2014, the US
government helped more than one million displaced persons to rehabilitate their
agricultural-based livelihoods in the newly merged districts.
Source:
Dawn
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1739985/us-to-provide-modern-equipment-to-kp-police-says-envoy
--------
Jadhav
remains a living proof of Indian hostility, state-sponsored terrorism against
Pakistan
March
2, 2023
ISLAMABAD:
As Kulbhushan Jadhav remains a living proof of Indian hostility and
state-sponsored terrorism against Pakistan, the world must take notice of
Indian inimical designs and policy of aggression against its neighbors.
Kulbhushan
Jadhav, alias Hussain Mubarek Patel, an Indian (spy) terrorist, was apprehended
on 3 March 2016 during a counter-intelligence operation from Mashkel,
Balochistan while he was travelling to Pakistan on an Iranian passport.
A
serving Indian Navy officer, Jadhav was involved in espionage, acts of
terrorism, and sabotage against the state of Pakistan.
According
to security experts, Jadhav was running a network of terror to sponsor
terrorism in Pakistan. His cynical activities cost Pakistan thousands of lives
and hence he was awarded the death sentence in April 2017 by the Field General
Court Martial (FGCM).
Jadhav
joined the Indian National Defence Academy in 1987 and was commissioned in the
engineering branch of the Indian Navy in 1991. During his service years, he was
promoted to the rank of Naval Commander.
He
was tipped by the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in 2013 to
pursue subversive activities in Karachi and Balochistan.
His
job was to hold meetings with Baloch insurgents and collaborate with them to
carry out terrorist activities, leading to the killing or maiming of thousands
Pakistani citizens.
Jadhav,
in pursuit of targets set by his RAW handlers, was arrested by Pakistani
intelligence agencies on March 3, 2016, when he attempted to cross over into
the country from the Saravan border in Iran.
During
interrogation Jadhav revealed that at Wadh, Khuzdar, he was in contact with
Haji Baloch, who provided financial and logistic support to Baloch separatists
and the Islamic State network in Karachi.
He
also said that the masterminds of the Safoora bus attack, where gunmen shot
dead 45 Ismaili passengers, were also in contact with Haji Baloch.
Jadhav
added that he had met Haji Baloch several times, sometimes for planning
sectarian violence in Karachi and the rest of Sindh.
Upon
information provided by Jadhav, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies arrested
hundreds of under-cover operatives working to sabotage peace in Pakistan,
saving thousands of innocent lives from potential harm.
Source:
Pakistan Today
Please click the following URL to read the full text
of the original story:
--------
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/muslim-advocacy-lgbtq-religious/d/129239
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism