UPSC Jihad - TV Show Offensive, Could Promote Communal Attitudes — Government In Affidavit To Supreme Court
New Age Islam News Bureau
19 November 2020
UPSC Jihad - TV Show Offensive
------
• UN-designated Terror Group Jaish-e-Mohammed
Threatens French President Macron, Calls Him a ‘Blasphemer’,
• Mumbai Terror Attack Mastermind Hafiz Saeed
Sentenced to 10 Years in Jail in Illegal Funding Case
• Hostility Towards Pakistan Quickest Route To
National Unity In India, Says Obama
• Pressure Mounting On Myanmar Over Rohingya Repatriation
• Bahrain Calls For Resuming Palestine-Israel
Negotiations Based On Two-State Solution
• Iran Releases Documents Proving Terrorist Grouplet’s
Link with Riyadh
• UAE summit: Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Bahrain
King, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince
India
• UPSC Jihad - TV Show Offensive, Could Promote
Communal Attitudes — Government In Affidavit To Supreme Court
• 'Love Jihad' Undefined, Yet Indian States Rushing
With Anti-Conversion Laws
• Four JeM terrorists killed in Jammu encounter
• 12 civilians injured in grenade attack in south
Kashmir’s Pulwama
--------
Europe
• UN-designated Terror Group Jaish-e-Mohammed
Threatens French President Macron, Calls Him a ‘Blasphemer’,
• France Ups The Ante Against Pakistan, Turkey; Urges
EU To Take This Step To Curb Terrorism
• Armenia’s prime minister unveils action plan amid
pressure after Karabakh peace deal
• UK sees sharp increase of children as young as 10
investigated for far-right extremism: report
• German state minister resigns over gun purchase from
right-wing extremist
• UK to likely follow US in reducing troops in
Afghanistan: Defence minister
--------
Pakistan
• Mumbai Terror Attack Mastermind Hafiz Saeed
Sentenced to 10 Years in Jail in Illegal Funding Case
• Trader ‘Pays For’ Meeting Maryam, Refused Entry To
PM’s Event In Faisalabad
• Pakistan parliamentary committee passes CPEC
Authority Bill
• Thousands of Pakistani labourers protest in Karachi
against China's unequal wages for locals
• Pemra ban on airing Nawaz speeches challenged in
court
• GB govt seeks army deployment in Gilgit, Chilas amid
protests
--------
North America
• Hostility Towards Pakistan Quickest Route To
National Unity In India, Says Obama
• US To Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan, Iraq: 'We've
Destroyed ISIS Caliphate', says Acting Defence Secretary
• US senators seek to stop Trump arms sales to UAE
over Israel’s military edge
• Saudis Target Muslim Brotherhood As Biden Takes Over
Washington
• Over 13,000 civilians killed in US attacks in Iraq,
Syria since 2014: Airwars
--------
South Asia
• Pressure Mounting On Myanmar Over Rohingya
Repatriation
• Australian Forces Suspected of Killing 39 Locals in
Afghanistan
• All Madrassas In Kabul to Biometrically Register ‘Students’
• ‘Good step’: Taliban welcome US troop drawdown from
Afghanistan
--------
Arab world
• Bahrain Calls For Resuming Palestine-Israel
Negotiations Based On Two-State Solution
• Saudi Arabia, Iraq reopen border after 30 years
• UAE Suspends Visit Visas For Pakistan, 11 Other
Countries
• Shadowy new militias in Iraq targeting US forces as
new front for Iran
• Arab Coalition intercepts Houthi drone launched from
Yemen targeting Saudi Arabia
--------
Mideast
• Iran Releases Documents Proving Terrorist Grouplet’s
Link with Riyadh
• Iran will ‘automatically’ return to nuclear
commitments if Biden lifts sanctions
• Top Security Official: No Safe Haven for Iranian
Nation’s Ill-Wishers
• Official Blasts US Sanctions for Violating Iranian
People’s Rights
• Afghan FM Lauds Iran’s “Sincere, Brotherly” Support
• UAE health workers attacked by ‘cowardly’ gunmen in
Yemen, says Red Crescent
• Bahrain’s first official government delegation heads
to Israel on Gulf Air flight
• Iran dismisses Canadian-drafted resolution on its
human rights situation
--------
Africa
• UAE summit: Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Bahrain
King, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince
• Behind Susan Rosenberg and the roots of left-wing
domestic extremism
• 5 Killed in Mogadishu Bombing After Report That US
Will Pull Troops from Somalia
• In jihadist-hit Burkina areas, no elections -- and
no state
--------
Southeast Asia
• Only Non-Muslim Houses Of Worship Exempted From Jawi
Signage Rule, Says Pahang Exco
• Bangsa Malaysia only way to unite the ummah, not a
‘grand coalition’
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/upsc-jihad-tv-show-offensive/d/123514
--------
UPSC Jihad - TV Show Offensive, Could Promote Communal Attitudes — Government In Affidavit To Supreme Court
AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA
18 November, 2020
UPSC Jihad - TV Show Offensive
------
New Delhi: The controversial ‘UPSC jihad’ episode of
TV channel Sudarshan News’ show ‘Bindas Bol’, which sought to “expose” an
alleged conspiracy to infiltrate Muslims into the Indian civil services, is
“offensive, not in good taste and has the likelihood of promoting communal
attitudes”, the Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has said in an
affidavit filed before the Supreme Court Wednesday.
“…The tone and tenor of the episodes telecast do
indicate that the channel through the various utterances and audio-visual
content breached the Programme Code,” the government added in its affidavit, a
copy of was seen by ThePrint.
The Programme Code is a list of yardsticks TV content
needs to adhere to before it is aired for audiences.
The ministry states in the affidavit that it has
through an order issued earlier this month cautioned the channel to be careful
in future.
It also directed the channel to review the content of
the yet-to-be-aired episodes of ‘Bindas Bol-UPSC Jihad’ and suitably moderate
and modify them, to ensure there is no violation of the Programme Code, the
ministry said.
VDO.AI
The ministry has asked the channel to comply with its
directions and report to the government.
Four of the controversial show’s 10 episodes have
already been aired. However, the airing of the remaining six were barred by the
Supreme Court on 15 September and the case has been sub judice since. The
matter will be heard Thursday by a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice D.Y.
Chandrachud.
Reached for comment, Suresh Chavhanke, editor-in-chief
of the channel, told ThePrint that the government has not barred the airing of
the subsequent episodes, adding that he is hopeful the Supreme Court will allow
them to be telecast too.
‘Don’t intervene in freedom’
The Programme and Advertising Codes, prescribed under
the Cable TV Network Rules, 1994, list what cannot be carried by a cable
service.
Restrictions include content that offends “good taste
or decency, contains attack on religions or communities or visuals or words
contemptuous of religious groups or which promote communal attitudes”, among
other things.
According to the ministry, the programme portrays one
community and the UPSC in poor light as “certain videos and utterances are not
in good taste or decency”.
The ministry’s conclusion is based on the contents of
the programme and the findings and recommendations of the inter-ministerial
committee (IMC) that decides if private television channels have violated
broadcast rules, besides the submissions of the channel. The IMC heard the
matter last month.
However, the ministry said it concurs with the
findings of the IMC, which said the issue of the alleged terror links of Zakat
Foundation — a UPSC IAS training institute at the centre of the Sudarshan News
programme — is a disputed matter, and requires to be investigated.
Chavhanke said he was grateful to the ministry for
acknowledging that the issue they dealt with in the programme is serious and
needs to investigated.
He added: “The government and courts should not
intervene in the freedom of the press.”
The Sudarshan News episode came to light after the
channel released a promotional trailer of the programme, which at once elicited
widespread criticism, with many alleging the content amounted to hate speech.
The episode was also challenged in the Delhi High
Court, which stayed its telecast. When Sudarshan News approached the court to
vacate the stay, the latter asked the I&B ministry to take a call.
Subsequently, the ministry said it cannot pre-censor a
programme, or stop it from being telecast, and allowed the show to air, but
asked the channel to ensure the programme proposed to be telecast does not
violate the Programme Code.
After the airing of the four episodes, the channel was
served a show cause notice by the central government for allegedly violating
the programme code. The Supreme Court started hearing the matter after it was
approached by a lawyer, Firoz Iqbal Khan.
Why news media is in crisis & How you can fix it
India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning
journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.
But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There
have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking,
yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists
and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart
and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or
overseas, you can do it here.
https://theprint.in/india/governance/upsc-jihad-show-offensive-could-promote-communal-attitudes-govt-in-affidavit-to-sc/547415/
--------
UN-designated Terror Group Jaish-e-Mohammed Threatens
French President Macron, Calls Him a ‘Blasphemer’,
November 19, 2020
Macron's strong expression of support for the
publication of the Prophet cartoons has triggered protests in Pakistan, with
huge crowds gathering in Rawalpindi under the leadership of Barelvi Sunni
preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and have laid siege to the main highway to
Islamabad.
-----
New Delhi: UN-designated terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM) has warned French President Emmanuel Macron and “others like him” that
they will be targeted by those ready to be “sacrificed for the honour of the
Prophet”, said a report. Also Read - France Plans Hefty Punishment Against
Those Issuing 'Virginity Certificate' For Marriage
According to an article published by The Indian
Express, the terror group, in an unsigned article published on the website of
its online journal Al Qalam has not only called President Macron a “blasphemer”
but also threatened him for his support for the publication of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. Also Read - French
President Emmanuel Macron Receives Threat From Al-Qaeda, After Country Kills 50
Jihadists
The article said, “If not today then tomorrow, if not
tomorrow then day after there will be some Abdullah Checheni (the Chechen youth
who killed a teacher in Paris last month), Mumtaz Qadri (who killed Pakistani
politician Salman Taseer in 2011), and Ghazi Khalid (who shot dead Tahir Ahmed
Naseem, an Ahmedi, in a Pakistan courtroom where Naseem was being tried for alleged
blasphemy in July this year).” Also Read - Pakistani Teacher Beheads French
President Macron's Effigy In Front of Young Girls, Video Goes Viral
The article that goes with the header, ‘Muslims:
Sacrifice for the Honour of the Prophet’, further stated, “if someone commits
the sin of blasphemy, it gives birth to the Abdullah type of young men… no
Muslim will allow you to burn the Koran or blaspheme against the Prophet.”
Even though JeM has been listed as a proscribed
organisation by Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority and the
Deobandi JeM and its leader Masood Azhar are designated terrorist entities
under the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1267, its website Al Qalam continues
to be available. The date on the main page of the website is May 2019, but the
articles in it are being updated regularly on a page called Madina Madina and
the article that mentions President Macron is the latest update in it, said The
Indian Express report.
Macron’s staunch support of secular laws that the
Prophet Muhammad caricatures are protected under freedom of speech had
triggered many protests and also heightened tensions between the French
government and the Muslim world. Protesters in countries like Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Iraq, Turkey and Gaza not only burned his effigies but also branded
him a ‘Satan-worshipper’.
https://www.india.com/news/world/un-designated-terror-group-jaish-e-mohammed-threatens-french-president-macron-blasphemy-sacrifice-for-honour-of-the-prophet-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-4214892/
--------
Mumbai Terror Attack Mastermind Hafiz Saeed Sentenced
to 10 Years in Jail in Illegal Funding Case
News18 19
November 2020
Hafiz Saeed
-----
26/11 Attack Mastermind Hafiz Saeed Sentenced to 10
Years in Jail in Illegal Funding Case
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Thursday
sentenced Jamat-ud-Dawa head Hafiz Saeed, along with three others, to 10-year
imprisonment in an illegal funding case. The court also ordered that Saeed's
properties be confiscated.
"The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore on
Thursday sentenced four leaders of Jamat-ud-Dawa, including its chief Hafiz
Saeed, in two more cases," said a court official.
Saeed and his two close aides - Zafar Iqbal and Yahya
Mujahid - have been sentenced to 10 and a half years each, while JuD chief's
brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
"Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta of ATC Court No. 1 heard the case No. 16/19
and 25/19 filed by Counter Terrorism Department in which the verdict has been
announced after the statements of witnesses were cross-examined by Naseeruddin
Nayyar and Mohammad Imran Fazal Gul Advocate," the official said.
A total of 41 cases have been registered by the CTD
against the JuD leaders, out of which 24 have been decided while the rest are
pending in the ATC courts. Four cases have been decided against Saeed so far.
Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) which is
responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people,
including six Americans. The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed
as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. He was listed under the UN Security
Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.
(With inputs from PTI)
https://www.news18.com/news/world/2611-attack-mastermind-hafiz-saeed-sentenced-to-10-years-in-jail-in-illegal-funding-case-3096575.html
------
Hostility towards Pakistan quickest route to national
unity in India, says Obama
Anwar Iqbal
19 Nov 2020
WASHINGTON: The quickest route to national unity in
India is “expressing hostility toward Pakistan,” says Barack Obama, America’s
first coloured president in his new book, “A Promised Land.”
The book, released worldwide on Nov 17, also includes
a pen portrait of former Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, whom he first
met at the 2009 G20 summit in Pittsburgh.
When Obama met Singh again during his visit to India
in November 2010, Singh told him that he feared “rising anti-Muslim sentiment
had strengthened the influence of Hindu nationalist BJP”, the main opposition
party at the time.
Obama described Singh as “a gentle, soft-spoken
economist” who engineered the modernisation of his nation’s economy.
Obama quoted Singh as saying that the “call of
religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating” for politicians,
particularly in a country like India, which was still racked by poverty, wealth
inequality, violence and ultra-nationalism.
Obama noted that “many Indians (took) great pride in
the knowledge that their country had developed a nuclear weapons programme to
match Pakistan’s, untroubled by the fact that a single miscalculation by either
side could risk regional annihilation.”
“Violence, both public and private, remained an
all-too-pervasive part of Indian life. Expressing hostility towards Pakistan
was still the quickest route to national unity,” Obama wrote.
“Most of all, India’s politics still revolved around
religion, clan, and caste.”
But Obama also acknowledged that “in many respects,
modern-day India counted as a success story, having survived repeated
changeovers in government, bitter feuds within political parties, various armed
separatist movements, and all manner of corruption scandals”.
But “despite its genuine economic progress, … India
remained a chaotic and impoverished place: largely divided by religion and
caste, captive to the whims of corrupt local officials and power brokers,
hamstrung by a parochial bureaucracy that was resistant to change,” he added.
“A Promised Land” ends with the US raid on the Bin
Laden compound in 2011 and, therefore, does not include the current Indian
prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Commenting on the prevalence of violence in India,
Obama wondered if “violence, greed, corruption, nationalism, racism, and
religious intolerance” were “too strong for any democracy to permanently
contain”.
The former US leader noted that those who believed in
violence “seemed to lie in wait everywhere, ready to resurface whenever
growth rates stalled or demographics changed or a charismatic leader chose to
ride the wave of people’s fears and resentments”.
Obama also praised Singh’s ascent to prime minister’s
office, noting that he was from an “often persecuted Sikh religious minority.”
He claimed that “more than one political observer”
told him that Sonia Gandhi had “chosen Singh precisely because as an elderly Sikh
with no national political base, he posed no threat to her 40-year-old son,
Rahul, whom she was grooming to take over the Congress Party.”
“Somehow, I was doubtful” if Rahul Gandhi was capable
of “preserving the Congress Party’s dominance over the divisive nationalism
touted by the BJP,” he wrote.
Obama described Rahul Gandhi as “smart and earnest,”
with good looks” but noted that “there was a nervous, unformed quality about
him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress
the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master
the subject.”
Obama wrote that India had “always held a special
place in my imagination.” Analysing this fascination, he said: “Maybe it was
its sheer size, with one-sixth of the world’s population, an estimated two
thousand distinct ethnic groups, and more than seven hundred languages spoken.”
But “more than anything, though, my fascination with
India had to do with Mahatma Gandhi. Along with Lincoln, King, and Mandela,
Gandhi had profoundly influenced my thinking,” he added.
Obama mentioned that his Indian and Pakistani college
friends, who “taught me to cook dahl and keema and turned me on to Bollywood
movies” also stirred his interest in India.
But this, he wrote, could not hide the huge issues
India faced as the world’s second most populated country.
“Across the country, millions continued to live in
squalor, trapped in sunbaked villages or labyrinthine slums, even as the titans
of Indian industry enjoyed lifestyles that the rajas and moguls of old would
have envied,” he writes in his new memoir.
“Violence, both public and private, remained an
all-too-pervasive part of Indian life.”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1591177/hostility-towards-pakistan-quickest-route-to-national-unity-in-india-says-obama
--------
Pressure mounting on Myanmar over Rohingya
repatriation
Md. Kamruzzaman
19.11.2020
DHAKA, Bangladesh
Worldwide pressure is seemingly mounting on Myanmar to
address the repatriation of Rohingya refugees after the newly elected Suu Kyi
administration assumed power for a second consecutive term.
Sidelining the country's nearly two million Rohingya
at home and abroad, the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian country of more than
54 million people held national polls on Nov. 8.
Nobel Peace Laureate and Myanmar’s de facto leader
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party once again
ascended to power after its victory in the 2015 elections.
The polls, however, received a huge amount of
criticism across the globe for disenfranchising nearly 2.8 million ethnic
minorities including 600,000 Rohingya still in Myanmar and over one million in
Bangladesh, raising concerns over whether Rohingya can be peacefully
repatriated to their home country.
Amid the prevailing situation, Bangladesh, the host
country of more than 1.1 million Rohingya, has been planning to step up
pressure on Myanmar since the very beginning of the Suu Kyi government’s second
term.
Dhaka also wishes to engage Beijing, the main ally of
Naypyidaw, in the repatriation process so that during the four-year-long second
term of Suu Kyi, Bangladesh can achieve a concrete goal.
Timeframe for repatriation
Bangladesh’s top diplomat even declared that he will
ask the newly elected government in Myanmar for a specific timeframe for the
sustainable repatriation of Rohingya to their homeland in Rakhine state,
formerly known as Arakan province.
“We will ask them to give us a date of commencing
Rohingya repatriation […] We [Bangladesh] are ready to send them back,”
Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told local media Tuesday following
a public function in the capital Dhaka.
Underling the assurance to Bangladesh by the global
community to put pressure on Myanmar’s new administration, Momen added: “Our
friends like China, Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom assured us
that they would help us so that Myanmar takes the initiative in this
regard," he added, referring to Rohingya repatriation.
Bangladesh has already been engaged in a tripartite
mechanism with China and Myanmar to speed up the repatriation issue.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency late Wednesday, Momen added
that Bangladesh was optimistic about starting the sustainable repatriation of
Rohingya.
“We are ready to send the displaced people of Myanmar
back to their country. We believe, as Myanmar agreed to take them back,
ensuring their safety and security, that the new government will honor its
commitment,” he said.
Seeking an initiative from the international
community, he said: “It is high time for the international leadership to take a
proactive initiative for their [Rohingya] safe, secure and dignified
return."
Underlining the sustainable repatriation of Rohingya
as crucial for the peace and stability of the entire region, Momen added:
“Otherwise, if repatriation is delayed, it may create pockets of radicalism
that may create uncertainty in the region, frustrating hopes for a better
future for the region.”
He also warned that a lingering Rohingya repatriation
may result in an adverse impact on overall regional investments.
“All the investments in the region may face
uncertainty,” he said.
Repatriation the only solution
Pointing to subhuman living conditions in the crammed
makeshift settlements in Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar, lack of
education and growing up new generations as stateless people, a Rohingya
community leader told Anadolu Agency that peaceful and dignified repatriation
to homeland is the only solution to the crisis.
“Without immediate repatriation with citizenship
rights and safety, we have no hope here in Bangladesh,” Rahmat Karim, a
Rohingya community leader in Cox’s Bazar camp told Anadolu Agency.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency Kyaw Win, Executive
Director of UK-based Rohingya rights defender Burma Human Rights Network
(BHRN), addressed the peaceful and dignified repatriation of Rohingya as one of
the top priority issues for them.
"But before repatriation we must ensure two
factors -- the Rohingya must be allowed to return to their original places of
birth from where they were forced to flee and their citizenship rights must be
restored."
The rights network also outlined a series of demands
from the upcoming government of Myanmar in order to ensure a more democratic
and humane future for the country.
"The process of Rohingya repatriation must be
sped up while ensuring the dignity and rights of the population. In order to do
so, Rohingya politicians and leaders in Burma must be involved in the
process," BHRN said in statement on Wednesday.
Acting president of European Rohingya Council Dr.
Ambia Perveen, however, told Anadolu Agency: “We hope that the Bangladesh
government will hold dialogue with Myanmar and appoint some new visionary young
ministers to solve the Rohingya reparation issue”.
“The dialogues should be transparent with the
participation of Rohingya representatives,” she added.
Parveen also demanded for a prior visit to the Rakhine
state to assess the real condition there by Rohingya for a “conducive and
meaningful repatriation”.
Repatriation without transit camps
A global Rohingya rights defenders’ platform, the
Arakan Rohingya Union, in a report submitted to the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation urged the newly elected government of Myanmar to “immediately start
repatriation of the forcefully displaced Rohingya from camps in Bangladesh
directly to their original homes in Arakan with no transit camps.”
The report, issued Sunday, also recommended
permanently stopping the controversial National Verification Card process of
the Myanmar government and to “reinstate the National Registration Certificates
and White Cards of the Rohingya ethnic minority."
The persecuted Rohingya have rejected the card,
terming it a “genocide card” and a trick of the Myanmar government to establish
Rohingya as illegal Bengali.
The platform, representing 61 Rohingya organizations
worldwide, also recommended dismantling the internally displaced people camps
in Arakan and resetting the IDPs in the original locations on their property.
It is estimated that nearly 120,000 Rohingya have been
living in the camps like in open prisons without basic rights of movement and
education.
The letter also recommended stopping the Burmese
military from “indiscriminately shelling the villages in Buddhist Rakhine and
Rohingya areas in Arakan, causing death, destruction and displacement of the
civilian population."
Persecuted people
According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000
Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh
after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in
August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2
million.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims
have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the
Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires,
while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, entitled Forced
Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience.
As many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped
by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes burned down, while
113,000 others were vandalized, it added.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/pressure-mounting-on-myanmar-over-rohingya-repatriation/2048717
--------
Bahrain calls for resuming Palestine-Israel
negotiations based on two-state solution
Rawad Taha
18 November 2020
Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani called
Wednesday for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine
based on a two-state solution.
Al-Zayani’s call came during the first official trip
by a Bahraini government delegation to Israel, where he also announced that
flights between the two countries would begin in December.
“Let us achieve a peace that brings prosperity to the
Middle East. We must work to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and we
call for the resumption of peace negotiations based on the two-state solution.
The vital cooperation between Bahrain and Israel will pave the way for a new
dawn,” al-Zayani said.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News
channel online or via the app.
Israel and Bahrain will institute an “e-visa system”
on Dec. 1, which aims to facilitate travel by their respective citizens between
the two countries, Bahrain’s FM also said he anticipates 14 weekly flights
between the Gulf kingdom and Tel Aviv.
Praising Washington’s role in brokering the peace
deals between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, al-Zayani said: “We value the role
of the United States in achieving peace agreements. We are optimistic about
achieving what was agreed upon with Israel.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/11/18/Bahrain-foreign-minister-calls-resumption-of-negotiations-based-on-two-state-solution
--------
Iran Releases Documents Proving Terrorist Grouplet’s
Link with Riyadh
2020-November-18
Iranian Ministry of Intelligence has published several
documents that proves Harakat al-Nidhal al-Arabi terrorist group has
connections with the Saudi intelligence apparatus.
The Iranian intelligence ministry confirmed in a
statement last Thursday that Farajollah Chaab, has been arrested.
The statement said that the leader of the separatist
and terrorist group, which had planned several other large-scale operations in
Tehran and Khuzestan in recent years, has been planning a new terrorist
operation.
“This terrorist group, which is directly supported by
the Saudi intelligence services and the Zionist regime, has been managing
terrorist operations in Iran despite the issuance of international arrest
orders for the group's leaders,” it added.
“The main perpetrator of the bloody terrorist attack
in Ahvaz is now in the hands of the Intelligence Ministry; he also has revealed
details of other terrorist and bloody operations of this group," the
statement said.
Farajollah Chaab, also known as Habib Osivad is the
former leader and the current vice-president of the Al-Ahwaziya terrorist
group, which claimed responsibility for the September 2018 terrorist attack on
a military parade in Ahvaz, Southwest of Iran, which killed 26 and injured 69
others.
The terrorists attacked the bystanders watching the
annual Armed Forces' parades, marking the start of the Sacred Defense Week,
commemorating Iranians' sacrifices during the 8 years of the Iraqi imposed war
on Iran in 1980s, in disguise of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and
Basij (volunteer) forces, killing and wounding several people, including innocent
women and children.
None of the officials participating in the military
parades in Ahwaz city in Khuzestan province was injured in the attack.
Last February, the Danish Security and Intelligence
Service (PET) and the Netherlands police separately arrested and charged four
members of an anti-Iran terrorist group on suspicions of spying for Saudi
Arabia and plans to conduct terrorist attack in Iran.
Three members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the
Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) or al-Ahwaziyeh terrorist group carried out
espionage activities from 2012 to 2018, PET said in a statement on February 3.
It said the three individuals “collected information
about individuals in Denmark and abroad and passed on this information to a
Saudi intelligence service," among other things.
A pretrial detention hearing is due on February 4.
In August, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced
it has arrested Jamshid Sharmahd, the ringleader of an anti-Iran terrorist
group based in the United States.
Sharmahd directed "armed operations and acts of
sabotage" in Iran from the US, according to the Intelligence Ministry.
Following a complicated operation, the ringleader of
the group, named Tondar (Thunder), was arrested and he is "now in the
powerful hands" of Iranian security forces, it said at the time.
Also, in October 2019, the Intelligence Organization
of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corp (IRGC) had managed to arrest Rouhollah
Zam, the administrator of counterrevolutionary website Amad News, in a
neighboring country.
The meticulous intelligence operation involved
outmaneuvering the intelligence services of certain Western countries,
especially France, which offered Zam guidance and protection for his operation.
“Intelligence forces had been keeping a watchful eye
on Rouhollah Zam’s movements for a long time and he stepped into the
intelligence trap set by IRGC some two years ago. Ultimately, we were able to
arrest him through cooperation with other intelligence services,” Second
Brigadier General Mohammad Tavallaei, a high-ranking IRGC official, said at the
time.
In June this year, Iran’s Judiciary sentenced Zam to
death after he was convicted of corruption on earth.
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/13990828000582/Iran-Releases-Dcmens-Prving-Terrris-Grple%E2%80%99s-Link-wih-Riyadh
--------
UAE summit: Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Bahrain King,
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince
Emily Judd
18 November 2020
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has joined Bahrain and UAE
leaders for a trilateral summit in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa arrived in the
UAE on Tuesday and was received by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin
Zayed Al Nahyan, according to Emirati state news agency WAM.
Other officials present included UAE Ambassador to
Bahrain Sheikh Sultan bin Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of the Interior Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and
Deputy Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al
Nahyan.
“They welcomed King Hamad and expressed sincere
condolences to him on the death of [Bahrain’s] Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al
Khalifa,” WAM reported.
King Abdullah arrived in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday as well,
at the invitation of Sheikh Mohamed, according to the office of the Jordanian
king.
The summit comes after the UAE and Bahrain normalized
relations in September with Jordan’s neighbor, Israel.
Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994.
UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba said in
August that the UAE-Israel deal would directly benefit Jordan.
The UAE’s treaty with Israel “bolsters Jordan’s
stability and reaffirms its importance in future initiatives,” Al Otaiba wrote
in an op-ed for Israeli news outlet Ynet.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that the
UAE-Israel deal would “move the region toward a just peace” - if Israel
approached it as an incentive to end occupation of Palestinian land.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/11/18/UAE-summit-Jordan-s-King-Abdullah-meets-Bahrain-King-Abu-Dhabi-Crown-Prince
--------
India
'Love
Jihad' Undefined, Yet Indian States Rushing With Anti-Conversion Laws
Prabhash
K Dutta
November
18, 2020
With
Madhya Pradesh government announcing its plan to bring a law to ban religious
conversion for marriage, talks around 'love jihad' are gaining traction again.
'Love jihad' is more a political term than legal for religious conversion
resulting from inter-faith marriages. This term is not defined in law, Union
Minister of State for Home Affairs Kishan Reddy told Parliament in February
this year.
"The
term 'Love Jihad' is not defined under the extant laws. No such case of 'Love
Jihad' has been reported by any of the Central agencies," Kishan Reddy had
replied to a question by Congress MP Benny Behanan, who sought to know
"whether Central agencies have reported any case of 'Love Jihad' from
Kerala during the past two years"
Rush
for laws against 'love jihad'
Yet,
some of the state governments have said in subsequent months that they will
bring laws against 'love jihad'. In October, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi
Adityanath said at a bypoll rally, "We will bring an effective law. It is
my warning to those who play with the honour and dignity of sisters and
daughters by hiding their real names and identities, if they do not mend their
ways, the 'Ram Naam Satya' [final] journey will start."
His
remark came a day after the Allahabad High Court ruled that religious
conversion for the sole purpose of marriage was null and void. "So, the
government has also decided that it will take stern measures to stop 'love
jihad'. We will make an effective law," he said.
Later,
the BJP governments of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka too said they will
bring out laws to check 'love jihad'. The proposed law in Madhya Pradesh makes
it a "cognisable" and "non-bailable" crime that will
attract a jail term of five years.
Existing
anti-conversion laws
Interestingly,
at least 10 states have had passed anti-conversion laws in India. These states
are Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.
In
the case of Tamil Nadu, the law was repealed in 2004. In Rajasthan, the
anti-conversion bill passed by the state legislature was returned by the
Centre. Most of these laws ban religious conversion by force or allurement.
The
recent push for conversion laws emanates from an amendment made by Himachal
Pradesh to its 1968 law. It was this law that Haryana minister Anil Vij
recently referred to while announcing that the state government would bring a
law to check 'love jihad'. His comments came against the backdrop of the Nikita
Tomar murder case.
A
model 'love jihad' law?
The
anti-conversion law of Himachal Pradesh bans conversion from one religion to
another "by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion,
inducement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage". It does not,
however, cover a person re-converting to his "parent religion".
The
law provides for declaring a marriage null and void if the conversion was
conducted for the sole purpose of it.
Further,
the Himachal Pradesh law says if somebody wants to convert to any other
religion, he or she is required to give a declaration to authorities at least
one month in advance expressing "free consent". The priest presiding
over the conversion has to inform the authorities one month in advance. In
absence of advance information, the conversion will be invalid.
Himachal
Pradesh's anti-conversion law puts the burden of proof that conversion was not
forced on the person converting and, on those facilitating conversion. An
illegal conversion under this law is a cognisable, non-bailable crime with
punishment up to five years in jail.
If
the person converting is a minor, a woman or an SC/ST member, the punishment
can go up to seven years in jail. Failure to give advance notice of conversion
attracts two years in jail.
Why
no all-India anti-conversion law?
Laws
banning conversion from one religion to another began in pre-Independence
colonial rule. Several princely states rolled out such laws. After Independence,
the first anti-conversion bill was brought out in 1954. It was called the
Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill. Parliament did not pass
it.
Another
bill by the name of Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill came up in
1960 and one more in 1979 titled the Freedom of Religion Bill was introduced.
None were passed by Parliament. Failure of Parliament to pass such a law got
Odisha (then called Orissa) to pass the first anti-conversion law in India in
1968.
In
2015, the Law Ministry wrote to the Home Ministry expressing its view on an
all-India anti-conversion law and said the matter is "purely a state
subject" and legislating such a law by Parliament would not be in
accordance with the tenets of the Constitution. This means anti-conversion laws
are completely in the domain of the states.
Can
inter-faith marriages happen legally al all?
There
is a Special Marriage Act passed by Parliament in 1954. This law allows
marriage of individuals from different religions. Under this law, a civil
marriage can be registered in courts without requiring conversion to another
religion.
But
this law has not found much favour as it requires a notice of one month. During
this period, the details of the marrying couple are "prominently"
displayed so that objections can be received. This provision was inserted in
the law to check possible fraud by one of the parties getting married.
This
provision, however, becomes troublesome for the couples who fear harassment
from their families in case the marriage is against their will.
Another
issue with the Special Marriage Act is that when a member of an undivided Hindu
family -- which in legal term also includes Buddhist, Sikh or Jain religions --
gets married, it leads to his or her "severance" from the parental
family. This denies them the right of inheritance.
https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/love-jihad-anti-conversion-laws-madhya-pradesh-uttar-pradesh-haryana-karnataka-1741872-2020-11-18
--------
Four
JeM terrorists killed in Jammu encounter
Nov
19, 2020
JAMMU:
Four terrorists travelling in a truck were killed on Thursday morning during an
ongoing encounter near Nagrota in J&K' Jammu district, top police officials
said.
"Four
terrorists have been neutralised and one police constable injured in an
encounter at Ban Toll Plaza Jammu with Police, CRPF and Army. Area is being
sanitized," police said.
Speaking
to IANS, Director General of Police Dilbag Singh said a group of four JeM
terrorists had infiltrated into India through the International Border in Samba
on Wednesday night.
They
were travelling in a truck on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, which was
intercepted by the police at a toll plaza near Nagrota.
After
they were intercepted the heavily armed terrorists threw grenades at the police
party. During the gun battle the truck caught fire.
The
area was cordoned off and additional forces were rushed to the spot. This is
the second such encounter on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway this year.
According
to the police, the terrorists belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed
terror group.
In
January three terrorists were gunned down by the security forces. They had
adopted the similar modus operandi by hiding inside a truck.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/four-jem-terrorists-killed-in-jammu-encounter/articleshow/79295810.cms
--------
12
civilians injured in grenade attack in south Kashmir’s Pulwama
Nov
18, 2020
Twelve
civilians were injured when militants hurled a grenade at a CRPF bunker in
South Kashmir’s Pulwama district Wednesday evening. The grenade missed the
intended target and exploded on the road causing injuries to locals.
A
police spokesman said militants tossed a grenade on a CRPF bunker at main
market Kakapora in Pulwama.
“Preliminary
investigation revealed that terrorists had hurled a grenade upon a bunker of 41
battalion CRPF at main town Kakapora of Pulwama. However, the grenade missed
the intended target and exploded on the road. In this incident 12 civilians
received injuries,” the spokesman said.
He
said senior officers reached the spot to investigate the matter.
All
the injured civilians were taken to district hospital Pulwama for treatment
where their condition is stated to be stable.
The
police spokesman said that they have registered a case and the investigation
into the terror crime is in progress . “The area has been cordoned and search
in the area is going on,” he said.
So
far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/12-civilians-injured-in-grenade-attack-in-south-kashmir-s-pulwama/story-vx0hEJJnF7LmeykbjQPSqM.html
--------
Europe
France
ups the ante against Pakistan, Turkey; urges EU to take this step to curb
terrorism
Nov
19, 2020
Tanweer
Azam
Expressing
serious concerns over the support provided by terrorists from countries like
Turkey and Pakistan, French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jordan
Bardella has called for "real financial or trade sanctions" against
Ankara, Islamabad, Kuwait city and Doha. Bardella said that sanctions are needed
in order to make "European solidarity tangible".
Bardella
has made the call at a time when the rift between France and Muslim countries
are increasing. It may be recalled that France in has witnessed several terror
attacks in October after Charlie Hebdo announced to republish the controversial
cartoon of Prophet Muhammed. The stiuation worsened after French President
Emmanuel Macron refused to criticise Charlie Hebdo's decision.
Protests
erupted in several Muslim countries over the incident and people in many Muslim
countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan, joined calls to boycott
French goods.
On
October 16, a secondary school teacher was beheaded by a terrorist for using
controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in his classes. On October 30, a man
stabbed three people to death and wounded several others in a church in Nice.
On
November 2, an Islamist terrorist shot dead four people in Vienna.
"Ongoing
tragedy and terrorism continues on European soil and Europe struggles to find a
common solution to the constant killings of innocent victims at the hand of the
terrorists and extremists," the European Chronicle reported.
Following
his own statement "over and beyond feeble statements concerning the
Turkish President's 'unacceptable' comments," MEP Bardella requested to
know if the Commission is "planning to adopt any real financial or trade
sanctions against countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Kuwait and Qatar, in
order to reassert our common values and make European solidarity tangible?"
It
is expected that the European Commission would nswer the questions of MEP
Bardella in the coming weeks.
Another
French Member of European Parliament (MEP) Nicolas Bay has also appealed to the
EU to stop "showering" Ankara and Islamabad with subsidies and impose
sanctions against them for supporting terrorism.
"During
the European Parliamentary plenary of November 11, French MEP Nicolas Bay from
the Identity and Democracy Group had strong words against European aid to
Pakistan and Turkey in light of threats coming from both countries. MEP Bay's
comments were made in the context of a debate on the 'fight against terrorism,
freedom of expression and education'," a press statement read.
https://zeenews.india.com/world/france-ups-the-ante-against-pakistan-turkey-urges-eu-to-take-this-step-to-curb-terrorism-2325423.html
--------
Armenia’s
prime minister unveils action plan amid pressure after Karabakh peace deal
18
November 2020
Armenia’s
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has unveiled an action plan amid pressure to resign
over a ‘disastrous’ handling of the conflict with Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan
has rejected calls from opponents and protesters to resign over what they
describe as his ill handling of the six-week fighting with Azerbaijan over the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Pashinyan
said on Wednesday that the six-month action plan had been designed to ensure
the democratic stability of his country.
Under
a Russian-brokered peace deal, swaths of territory previously controlled by
ethnic Armenians were being handed over to Azerbaijan, whose forces recaptured
chunks of territory which Baku lost in an earlier war in the 1990s.
The
deal triggered political turmoil in Armenia. Foreign Minister Zohrab
Mnatsakanyan was forced to resign.
On
Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Armenia is an independent,
sovereign state, it has the right to decide its internal affairs as it sees
fit.”
However,
Putin warned that if Armenia backed out or refused to comply with the
Nagorno-Karabakh agreement, that would be “suicide.”
Putin
pointed out that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh will be determined in the
future.
Meanwhile,
the Russian Federation Council has passed a resolution granting President Putin
its consent to dispatch Russian peacekeeping forces to Nagorno-Karabakh. The
upper house of the Russian parliament approved the measure on Wednesday.
On
November 9, leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a joint statement
on the complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The
agreement ended weeks of heavy fighting that left at least 2,400 people dead
and displaced tens of thousands.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/11/18/638859/Armenia-action-plan
--------
UK
sees sharp increase of children as young as 10 investigated for far-right
extremism: report
18
November 2020
Children
under the age of 10 in the U.K. are being investigated over their links to
far-right extremism, Sky News has found.
Home
Office figures show a dramatic rise in the number of under-18s referred to the
government's counterterrorism program Channel over concerns about their
possible involvement with the far-right.
A
total of 682 children were referred for this reason in 2017-18, compared with
131 in 2014-15 — a more than five-fold increase, according to figures obtained
through a freedom of information request.
The
total for 2017-18 includes 24 children under the age of 10.
For
the first time since the data has been recorded, there was an equal balance in
the number of cases linked to the far-right and those linked to Islamic
radicalization in the year up to March 2019.
Out
of 5,738 referrals across all age groups, 1,404 (24%) were for concerns related
to Islamist radicalization and 1,389 (24%) related to right-wing radicalization
The
bulk of referrals, 62%, were related to young people up to the age of 20.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/uk-sees-sharp-increase-of-children-as-young-as-10-investigated-for-far-right-extremist-links-report?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
German
state minister resigns over gun purchase from right-wing extremist
17.11.2020
A
controversial gun purchase prompted the resignation of the interior minister of
the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Tuesday.
The
minister, Lorenz Caffier, bought a hunting pistol from the arms dealer in 2018.
It later came to light that the dealer was a member of the Nordkreuz (Northern
Cross) group, an extreme-right survivalist network made up of people
stockpiling for the collapse of the German state.
"I
bought a firearm from someone whom I should not have bought it from, in
hindsight. Although it was not the purchase that was a mistake, but how I
handled it. I apologize for that," Caffier said in a statement.
The
arms dealer's affiliation with the group only came to light in 2019, but the
dealer's name was already known to authorities in 2017. The name came to light
during the questioning of a witness associated with the Nordkreuz Group, and
the information was then forwarded to authorities in Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania.
As
the state interior minister, Caffier oversaw the police and intelligence
agencies conducting an investigation into the extreme-right group.
In
his statement Tuesday, Caffier flatly denied any links to right-wing extremists
and condemned "unrestrained reporting" into the case. He said he was
resigning to "protect my family, the people around me and my staff"
and to "avert damage from the government."
Who
is Lorenz Caffier?
Caffier,
65, had served as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania interior minister for 14 years
and was the oldest sitting politician in that position. He also served as the
leader of the center-right CDU party in the northeastern German state from 2009
to 2017.
He
had also played a key role in a proposed ban of the extreme-right NPD party, a
measure that was not implemented.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-state-minister-resigns-over-gun-purchase-from-right-wing-extremist/a-55636461?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
UK
to likely follow US in reducing troops in Afghanistan: Defence minister
19
November 2020
Britain
will likely follow the United States in reducing troop levels in Afghanistan
but it will continue to work with its government and the US to protect the
country’s security, Britain’s Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.
“I
expect if they (the US) are reducing at some stage, we will come down,” he told
Sky News on Thursday.
The
Pentagon said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump will sharply reduce the
number of US forces in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by mid-January.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2020/11/19/UK-seeing-hostile-states-using-cyber-attacks-against-it-Minister
--------
Pakistan
Trader
‘pays for’ meeting Maryam, refused entry to PM’s event in Faisalabad
19
Nov 2020
FAISALABAD:
The chairman of the Supreme Anjuman-i-Tajran City has protested against the
district administration for not allowing him to attend the prime minister’s
function despite official invitation.
Traders
of Jail Road and Narawala Road also faced issues as the administration
allegedly forced them to shut their shops en route the prime minister’s convoy.
Aslam
Bhali along with others had met PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz on Monday and Bhali
claimed that he was refused entry due to the meeting.
Talking
to reporters outside the hotel, Bhali showed the invitation dispatched to him
by the district administration to attend the function. He said he came here as
a representative of the traders who had been facing numerous issues.
He
said it seemed his name had been excluded from the guests list as a ‘punishment’
that was why he had met Maryam Nawaz with a delegation.
“I
came to see Prime Minister Imran Khan to present him the issues the traders had
been facing to run their businesses. I am a representative of traders having no
political affiliation, so being their voice I have to meet everyone to resolve
issues.”
Traders,
talking to the media, said the prime minister came to Faisalabad for solution
to the issues being faced by the business community, while on the contrary the
district administration created problems for them by forcible closure of their
shops.
They
said during the election campaign the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf had been
criticising the VIP culture in the country and vowed to eliminate it. However,
the administration forced us to close the shops due to the VIP movement.
Traffic
leading to the Serena Hotel Road also remained suspended due to the event.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1591139/trader-pays-for-meeting-maryam-refused-entry-to-pms-event-in-faisalabad
--------
Pakistan
parliamentary committee passes CPEC Authority Bill
Nov
18, 2020
ISLAMABAD:
A parliamentary committee has cleared with majority vote the "China
Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2020" which was
blocked by the opposition members during the last meeting, a media report said
on Wednesday.
The
National Assembly's Standing Committee on Planning and Development presided
over by ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Junaid Akbar took up the
government bill on Tuesday. After a detailed discussion, the committee agreed
to decide the fate of the bill through voting.
The
Opposition members said their objections over the creation of the CPEC
Authority (CPECA) had not been addressed and the creation of a new authority
would affect CPEC projects instead of expediting them.
The
USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is fully funded by
Beijing under the multi-billion One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. India has
protested to China over the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir.
Planning
and Development Minister Asad Umar said the CPECA would have no powers as all
work would be carried out by the line ministries and added that the authority's
operations would not be in conflict with the working of the line ministries.
The
committee chairman then put the bill to vote, saying a comprehensive discussion
had already been held during the previous meeting.
The
committee recommended with majority 7:5 votes that the bill may be passed by
the National Assembly, the report said.
Out
of total 20 members of the committee, half each from the government and
opposition benches, 13 members were present in the meeting. Out of 10 members
from the government benches eight were present while five of the Opposition
members attended the meeting.
Members
of the committee belonging to the Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz
(PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) voted against the bill.
Former
planning minister Ahsan Iqbal strongly opposed the creation of the CPECA,
saying it was unnecessary and superfluous as the planning ministry had
discharged the role very diligently and effectively in the past.
The
PML-N members believed that the CPECA would become a parallel Planning
Commission with little utility and the real role and would be another
"white elephant”.
Iqbal
recalled that more than USD 29 billion worth of investment had been channelised
by the Planning Commission successfully without any authority and with the
support of various ministries which should continue for successful
implementation.
The
planning ministry advocated the creation of CPECA, saying it would be
"responsible for planning, facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and
evaluating to ensure implementation of all activities related to CPEC".
It
said the authority was also required to ensure inter-provincial and
inter-ministerial coordination, organising and coordinating meetings of a joint
coordination committee and joint working groups.
It
would also "be responsible for conducting sectoral research for informed
decision making and long-term planning, monitoring and evaluation and to ensure
implementation, besides narrative building and communication of CPEC and other
related activities from time to time, " according to the planning
ministry.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/pakistan-parliamentary-committee-passes-cpec-authority-bill/articleshow/79283796.cms
--------
Thousands
of Pakistani labourers protest in Karachi against China's unequal wages for
locals
Nov
18, 2020
ISLAMABAD:
Thousands of labourers on Wednesday staged a protest against China in Sindh's
Karachi complaining about unequal wages received by them as compared to their
Chinese compatriots.
Earlier,
The News International reported that the Chinese staff recruited by the Punjab
Mass Transit Authority for Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project was getting
huge salaries in comparison to their Pakistani employees.
The
huge disparity in the salaries is impacting the morale of the Pakistani staff,
who are also given a different grade system than the Chinese. Besides, even as
the Chinese staff is being paid in Yuan, the locals are getting their salaries
in Pakistani rupees (PKR).
"On
Wednesday, the value of 1 CNY against 1 PKR was equal to Rs 24.02. According to
the data of the salaries of 93 Chinese working at the OLMT project, the Chinese
staff is highly paid. If the salaries of Pakistani officials working on the
same/equivalent seats are compared with those of Chinese staff, the Pakistan
employees are getting mere peanuts. According to data, a Chinese-origin deputy
chief executive officer/CFO/director with grade L2 is being paid 136,000 CNY
per month which is equal to over Rs 3.26 million. There were three positions
and all were filled with Chinese. No Pakistani was hired on this
designation," The News International stated.
Giving
another example of the disparity in salaries, The News International said while
12 people of Chinese origin working on the slot of train dispatcher/train crew
are getting 57,000 CNY each, equal to Rs 1.36m, the locally recruited employees
working on the OLMT project are getting much lower salaries.
The
Pakistani employees have demanded a salary hike from the government in
accordance with the salary of their Chinese counterparts.
Meanwhile,
Beijing has put a hold on projects that are part of the $62 billion CPEC, a
flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the COVID-19
pandemic, ongoing political unrest and foreign debt limits have resulted in a
slowing of Chinese investments in Pakistan.
According
to sources, Pakistan in 2017 had decided to cut the salaries of contractual
employees responsible for executing various projects in the CPEC. Pakistan's
finance ministry had refused to pay the employees as per the agreement.
Meanwhile,
the National Assembly Standing Committee on Planning and Development on Tuesday
cleared the CPEC Authority Bill 2020 with majority despite members belonging to
opposition parties strongly opposing the bill, reported The News International.
Former
minister for planning Ahsan Iqbal opposed the bill and presented seven reasons
for opposition to the creation of the CPEC authority. However, after conducting
a heated debate, the NA panel passed the CPEC authority bill with a majority.
"Creation
of CPEC authority is superfluous and unnecessary," he said. "Ministry
of planning has discharged the role diligently and effectively in the
past."
The
national debt of USD 80 billion on account CPEC is bound to pose a danger to
the sovereignty of Pakistan in coming years; as has been the CCP methodology in
numerous under-developed countries.
The
incidents clearly depict the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) core motive, which
is using the CPEC project to turn Pakistan into a 'Chinese colony'.
As
Imran Khan states China as an 'all-weather' friend, till then, the CCP will
maintain a facade of Pakistan-China friendship whilst continuing to exploit
Pakistan and market outdated items from its industries to Pakistan. Pakistan's
debt burden is also being pushed up by the CCP on every available opportunity.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/thousands-of-pakistani-labourers-protest-in-karachi-against-chinas-unequal-wages-for-locals/articleshow/79278917.cms
--------
Pemra
ban on airing Nawaz speeches challenged in court
19
Nov 2020
ISLAMABAD:
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and 15 renowned journalists,
anchorpersons and media analysts have filed a petition before the Islamabad
High Court (IHC) against the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority
(Pemra)’s prohibition order to all TV news channels banning the broadcast of
speeches, interviews and public addresses by proclaimed offenders and
absconders.
Pemra
issued these directives after Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Nawaz
Sharif’s speech was live broadcast by the electronic media while he was
addressing a multi-parties conference via video link from London in October.
The
petitioners include I.A. Rehman, Mohammad Ziauddin, Saleem Safi, Zahid Hussain,
Asma Shirazi, Syed Ejaz Haider, Munizae Jahangir, Ghazi Salahuddin, Zubeida
Mustafa, Najam Sethi, Nasim Zehra, Amber Rahim Shamsi, Gharida Farooqi, Mehmal
Sarfraz and Mansoor Ali Khan. Vice chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council Abid
Saqi and the HRCP’s Saleema Hashmi are also among the petitioners. The petition
challenges the order Pemra issued on October 1 and another directive of May 25,
2019. Besides banning the above-mentioned broadcast, Pemra has also banned the
broadcast of any debate on possible outcomes of sub-judice matters.
The
petition contends that the order of the electronic media watchdog is
“unconstitutional and illegal prohibitions have been imposed on the electronic
media of Pakistan with respect to the dissemination of information. This
prohibition is a constitutional wrong in its own right and amounts [to]
nullifying the rights made available under Article 19A of the constitution”.
According
to the petition, it is the right of the petitioners and of the print and
electronic media in general to express, publish, disseminate, relay and
broadcast the views and words of any person, including a convict, proclaimed
offender or an absconder.
“Is
a convict, proclaimed offender or absconder deprived of the fundamental rights
guaranteed by the constitution including the right to express, the petition
asks.
It
requests the court to declare Pemra’s directives illegal. The IHC chief justice
will take up the petition for hearing on Thursday (today).
https://www.dawn.com/news/1591191/pemra-ban-on-airing-nawaz-speeches-challenged-in-court
--------
GB
govt seeks army deployment in Gilgit, Chilas amid protests
Jamil
Nagri
19
Nov 2020
GILGIT:
Amid ongoing controversy and protest demonstrations against the alleged rigging
in the Gilgit-Baltistan elections, the caretaker government of the region on
Wednesday sought Pakistan Army’s assistance to control security situation in
the region.
Through
a letter written to the Federal Ministry of Interior, the GB government has
requisitioned two companies of army to maintain law and order situation in
Gilgit and Chilas.
The
GB administration has requisitioned 480 troops, out of which 300 to be deployed
in Gilgit and 180 in Chilas.
The
troops will standby as third tier security layer to aid the administration and
will remain deployed till Nov 23.
The
workers of PPP continued their protest sit-in near the deputy commissioner’s
office in Gilgit against the alleged rigging in elections on GBLA-2 Gilgit-2
seat.
Writes
letter to interior ministry; recounting completed in GBLA-2; re-polling at
female station ordered
PPP
alleged that its candidate Jamil Ahmed was leading in the vote count on Sunday
night, but next day his result was changed and he was shown trailing merely by
two votes to PTI’s Fatehullah Khan.
The
PPP workers have blocked Shahrah Quaid-i-Azam in Gilgit since Monday morning.
Following
the PPP’s protest, the GB Election Commission already ordered recounting of the
votes in the constituency. The recounting took place in the presence of both
the candidates on Tuesday but the results have so far so not been announced due
to the fear of a law and order situation.
The
supporters of an independent candidate Haji Dilpazeer also blocked Karakorum
Highway near Thalichi and Gunarfarm against the alleged rigging in GBLA-15
Diamer constituency.
The
protesters alleged that 418 postal ballots in favour of Dilpazeer were rejected.
Another independent candidate Haji Shah Baig has been unofficially declared
winner from the constituency.
Meanwhile,
GB chief election commissioner issued orders for re-polling at a female polling
station in GBLA-17 Diamer III on Nov 22. The orders came in the light of the
reports that women had been barred from voting through implied agreement or by
threats from religious scholars on Nov 15.
The
GB Election Commission also ordered re-polling at Gindai polling station in
GBLA-21 Ghizer on Nov 22 after the returning officer reported unlawful taking
out of ballot boxes from the polling station.
Meanwhile,
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday through his social media
account on Twitter claimed that despite the fact his party was not provided a
level playing field in the Sunday’s GB polls, it got more votes than any other
party.
He
also posted screenshot of a TV channel showing that PPP had secured 25 per cent
of the total votes polled, followed by 24pc and 12pc by PTI and PML-N,
respectively.
On
the other hand, in a statement, PPP vice-president Sherry Rehman alleged that
federal government openly violated election rules in GB. According to the
Election Act 2017, she said, the federal government was not allowed to campaign
on the ground.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1591218/gb-govt-seeks-army-deployment-in-gilgit-chilas-amid-protests
--------
North America
US
To Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan, Iraq: 'We've Destroyed ISIS Caliphate',
says Acting Defence Secretary
Nov
18, 2020
The
United States on Tuesday announced to reduce its troops' presence in
Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 each by January 15 next year.
"By
January 15, 2021, our force size in Afghanistan will be 2,500 troops. Our force
size in Iraq will also be 2,500 by that same day," Acting Defence
Secretary Christopher Miller said during a live press conference.
The
United States has around 4,500 troops currently in Afghanistan and over 3,000
in Iraq, according to CNBC.
"This
decision by the president is based on continuous engagement with his national
security cabinet over the past several months including ongoing discussions
with me and my colleagues across the United States government," Miller
told reporters at the Pentagon.
The
"repositioning" of the US forces were being done on the orders of
President Donald Trump, he said, adding that the decision was taken after
consulting with key leaders in the Congress , NATO Secretary-General
Stoltenberg and Afghanistan's President Ghani.
"Just
this morning, I spoke with key leaders in Congress as well as our allies and
partners abroad to update them on these plans in light of our shared approach.
We went in together, we adjust together and when the time is right, we will
leave together," said Miller.
NATO
chief's dissent
The
announcement on the heels of the NATO chief's warning against leaving the
war-torn country too soon. He said that an uncoordinated effort could cause
unintended consequences for the world's largest military organization.
"Afghanistan
risks of becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan
and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS could rebuild in Afghanistan
the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq," said NATO chief
Stoltenberg said, reported CNBC. On the contrary, Miller said that the US has
destroyed the ISIS caliphate.
According
to the US news outlet, NATO joined the international efforts in Afghanistan in
2003 and has more than 7000 security personnel in the country where the Taliban
is gaining strength.
https://www.ibtimes.co.in/weve-destroyed-isis-caliphate-us-withdraw-troops-afghanistan-iraq-830385?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
US
senators seek to stop Trump arms sales to UAE over Israel’s military edge
19
November 2020
Several
US senators have said they would introduce legislation to block the sale of
more than $23 billion of weapons to the United Arab Emirates, voicing concern
over the deal seen as a reward for the Persian Gulf Arab country’s recognition
of Israel.
Democratic
Senators Bob Menendez and Chris Murphy and Republican Senator Rand Paul will
introduce resolutions of disapproval of President Donald Trump's plan to sell
F-35 fighter aircraft, Reaper drones and air-to-air missiles to the UAE.
The
munitions also include products from privately held General Atomics, Lockheed
Martin Corp F-35s and missiles made by Raytheon, and more than 14,000 bombs.
Lawmakers
expressed concern about whether the UAE sales would violate a longstanding
agreement with Israel that any US weapons sold in the Middle East would not
impair Tel Aviv’s "Qualitative Military Edge" (QME) in the Middle
East region.
Senator
Chris Murphy, a Democrat close to President-elect Joe Biden, also said that the
UAE violated terms of previous sales, pointing to reports that weapons sent to
the US ally have been discovered in war-ravaged Yemen and Libya.
"I
support the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab
Emirates, but nothing in that agreement requires us to flood the region with
more weapons and facilitate a dangerous arms race," Murphy said.
US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week formally informed Congress of the
sale, hailing the UAE normalization with Israel and casting the sale as part of
efforts against Iran.
The
senators said the Trump administration, seeking to rush the sale as it brokered
a peace deal between the UAE and Israel, circumvented the normal review
process. They said State and the Pentagon failed to respond to their inquiries.
The
UAE had long requested the F-35 fighter jets, which have stealth capacity and
can be deployed for precision bombing, intelligence gathering and air-to-air
combat.
Israel
had considered its own F-35 fleet to be vital to its own strategic edge over
Arab nations but dropped its opposition to the US sale as it saw the advantage
of normalized ties.
Tel
Aviv last month ended its opposition after getting so-called US guarantees that
Israeli military superiority would be preserved.
Congress
last year tried to block a major arms package for Saudi Arabia and the UAE but
failed to muster the two-thirds majority to override Trump's vetoes.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/11/19/638916/US-senators-Trump-arms-sales-UAE-Israel-Qualitative-Military-Edge
--------
Saudis
target Muslim Brotherhood as Biden takes over Washington
November
18, 2020
DUBAI:
Saudi Arabia is pursuing a new campaign to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood, the
Islamist political movement feared by most Gulf monarchies, as Riyadh prepares
to deal with what is likely to be a less friendly US administration under Joe
Biden.
Over
the past two weeks, officials, religious scholars and state media have warned
Saudis about the group’s ideas, saying they sow dissent and call for
disobedience against the state’s rulers.
They
have urged people to report members to authorities.
Such
diatribes are an indication Riyadh is worried that president-elect Biden’s
administration will more closely watch the autocratic kingdom’s human rights
record and be more tolerant of peaceful Islamist activism, experts say.
It
was not known if authorities had arrested anyone since the campaign began.
The
Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment on the campaign and
if it was linked to the incoming US administration.
The
Brotherhood, which welcomed Biden’s election win earlier this month, denied the
Saudi accusations.
“The
group is far away from violence and terrorism, it has been rather a victim of
dictators’ terror,” the movement’s Egyptian branch said on Tuesday.
It
called on the new US administration to review policies which it said supported
dictatorships.
Dynastic
rule
The
Brotherhood is viewed by Saudi Arabia as an ideological competitor and sees its
promotion of political activism, including support for elections, as a direct
threat to its dynastic system of rule.
Founded
more than 90 years ago in Egypt, it has survived repeated crackdowns at home
and influenced other political movements across the Middle East.
It
went underground in Egypt when current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled
then Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013.
In
Saudi Arabia, activists and some clerics have founded Brotherhood-linked
organisations in the past but those groups were banned and most of their
members jailed.
Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt list the Brotherhood as a
terrorist organisation and have lobbied Washington for years to designate it as
such.
Relations
reassessed
Biden
has already pledged to reassess ties with Riyadh, demanding more accountability
over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in its Istanbul
consulate in 2018 and calling for an end to US support for its forces in the
Yemen war.
Khashoggi
was accused by Saudi media of being a member of the Brotherhood.
Crown
Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s relationship with current President Donald Trump
had provided a buffer against international criticism.
He
has come under increasing global scrutiny over his human rights record since
Khashoggi’s murder and the detention of dozens of women activists,
intellectuals, clerics and journalists.
On
Monday, Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh called the Brotherhood a
“deviant group” that “had no links to Islam whatsoever”.
Islamic
Affairs Minister Abdullatif al-Sheikh, in an interview with al-Arabiya
televison, urged Saudi citizens to report members of the group to authorities.
“It
is a religious duty … anyone who does not report them to authorities is like
them,” he said.
Sheikh’s
comments followed another statement, issued by Saudi Arabia’s highest religious
body, the Council of Senior Scholars, that warned Saudis of joining the group
or having “sympathy” for its members.
Prayer
sermons echoed the council’s statements across the kingdom.
Attacks
The
push against the group follows two security incidents in the Red Sea city of
Jeddah and the first attack with explosives in years targetting foreigners in
Saudi Arabia.
The
bomb attack on a non-Muslim cemetery during a World War I remembrance ceremony
last week was claimed by Islamic State and there was no link between the other
security incidents and the Brotherhood.
But,
said Elisabeth Kendall of Oxford University, shifting attention to countering
extremism was “useful” for Saudi Arabia to justify any planned crackdown at a
time when the incoming US administration is expected to question its record of
repression.
“The
new Saudi campaign helps to mark out Saudi as a victim of terrorism rather than
an incubator of it,” Kendall said.
Shadi
Hamid of the Brookings Institution in Washington said Saudi Arabia was trying
the make the most of the last two months of Trump’s tenure.
It
wants to get “as much authoritarianism out of one’s system before it comes
under additional scrutiny under a President Biden,” he said.
“It’s
almost like a rush to the finish line.”
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2020/11/18/saudis-target-muslim-brotherhood-as-biden-takes-over-washington/
--------
Over
13,000 civilians killed in US attacks in Iraq, Syria since 2014: Airwars
19
November 2020
A
watchdog group has obtained US military data on almost all instances of
civilian harm and casualties in Iraq and Syria, according to which up to 13,000
civilians were killed by US forces over the past six years.
For
the first time since the US-led coalition launched its so-called war on Daesh
in Iraq and Syria in 2014, the military exclusively released the geographic
coordinates for nearly all confirmed instances of civilian harm and deaths in
the two countries.
According
to the data, obtained by the watchdog group, Airwars, the total number of
civilians killed by US-led coalition forces during the war is somewhere in the
range of 8,310 to 13,187.
Former
spokesman for the US-led coalition Myles Caggins told the Britain-based
organization group that the primary reason behind the decision to release this
data now was transparency.
“We
take every allegation of civilian casualties with the utmost sincerity,
concern, and diligence,” he said. “We see the addition of the geolocations as a
testament to transparency.”
The
data indicates when and where a particular event took place, and simplifies the
process of determining which individuals were affected by a specific attack,
according to Airwars.
Of
the 344 “credible” incidents of civilian harm on record, 341 have been
confirmed through this data, it said.
The
remaining three were excluded by the military for various reasons such as
continuing investigations and the inclusion of sensitive information.
The
watchdog group said many of these incidents have been confirmed through
firsthand accounts such as photos and videos posted to the internet by
witnesses.
This
new evidence could now provide an opportunity for affected civilians in Iraq
and Syria, to pursue their compensation claims from the United States and its
allies, who joined a campaign of airstrikes purportedly against Daesh in August
2014.
An
inability to prove the exact attack or location of an offensive that caused
civilian casualties, have so far posed a major obstacle to those seeking to
pursue claims.
Citing
a report from the Pentagon, Airwars said only six “ex gratia” payments were
made to Iraqis in 2019.
The
US and its allies of 68 nations, has repeatedly been accused of targeting and
killing civilians.
The
coalition released a report last year, admitting that it has killed over 1300
civilians in 34,514 strikes between August 2014 and the end of May 2019 in Iraq
and Syria.
“During
this period, it "assesses at least 1,319 civilians have been
unintentionally killed by coalition strikes,’ the report said.
The
US-led coalition has, however, been largely incapable of fulfilling its
declared aim of eliminating Daesh.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/11/19/638908/US-military-civilian-deaths-Daesh-ISIS-Airwars-Syria-Iraq
--------
South Asia
Australian
Forces Suspected of Killing 39 Locals in Afghanistan
By
Mohammad Arif Sheva
19
Nov 2020
KABUL,
Afghanistan – At least 19 current and former Australian soldiers will be
referred for potential criminal prosecution for allegedly killing 39 Afghan
locals, Canberra said Thursday, the majority of whom had been unarmed and
captured.
Detailing
the findings of the long-awaited inquiry into the conduct of Special Forces
personnel in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016, Australia’s General Angus John
Campbell said there was credible information of 39 unlawful killings by 25
Australian Special Forces personnel in 23 separate incidents, as TOLOnews
reported.
All
of those kills were outside the “heat of battle”, Campbell said. “These
findings allege the most serious breaches of military conduct and professional
values.”
“The
unlawful killing, of civilians and prisoners is never acceptable,” he added.
According
to reports, majority of those killed – including prisoners, farmers and Afghan
locals – were initially kept hostage; and therefore, are protected under
international law.
Campbell
said 19 current and former members of Australia’s military will be referred to
a soon-to-be appointed special investigator to determine whether there was
sufficient evidence to prosecute, said the report.
Australia’s
Minister for Defense Linda Reynolds said last week that Canberra had been
advised that local prosecution would negate charges at the International
Criminal Court at The Hague.
https://www.khaama.com/australian-forces-suspected-of-killing-39-locals-in-afghanistan-34534/
--------
All
Madrassas In Kabul to Biometrically Register ‘Students’
By
Mohammad Haroon Alim
18
Nov 2020
Boys
study at the madrassa in Lamatak village, in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, on
Sept. 16, 2019. STEFANIE GLINSKI FOR FOREIGN POLICY
First
Vice President Amrullah Saleh said all madrassas in Kabul had been ordered to
biometrically register, and identify their students and teachers so that they
would not be abused, or taken advantage of.
First
Vice President Amrullah Saleh wrote on his Facebook page that, 362 madrassas in
Kabul and 130 in the districts have been told to biometrically identify and
register all their students and teachers so that no one could take advantage of
them.
Saleh
called on Central Statistics Office that this matter should be prioritized, and
focused on.
This
comes as the country’s madrassas are being used for lawless activities and
students are being encouraged for worst actions.
This
comes as a Taliban militant was arrested for extorting $ 100,000 from money
changers and previously had thrown a hand grenade at them to set a grown fear
among the Shroffs.
https://www.khaama.com/religious-educational-institutions-to-biometrically-register-students-9798798/
--------
‘Good
step’: Taliban welcome US troop drawdown from Afghanistan
18
November 2020
The
Taliban on Wednesday welcomed the Pentagon’s announcement it would soon pull
about 2,000 US troops from Afghanistan as a “good step” that will help end the
country’s long-running conflict.
The
Pentagon announced Tuesday that the US will slash troop levels in Afghanistan
and Iraq to their lowest levels in nearly 20 years of war after President
Donald Trump pledged to end conflicts abroad.
“It
is a good step and in the interest of the people of both countries,” Taliban
spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP, referring to the US and Afghanistan.
“The
sooner the foreign forces leave, the more the war will be prevented.”
Critics
have expressed concerns that a precipitous departure could embolden the Taliban
and erode gains made since 2001, when US-led forces ousted the hardline
extremists in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The
latest Pentagon move would see 2,000 US troops quit Afghanistan by January 15,
less than a week before President-elect Joe Biden is expected to be sworn into
office.
The
withdrawal follows outgoing President Donald Trump’s plan to end US military
involvement in Afghanistan.
Under
a deal signed February 29, the Trump administration agreed to pull all foreign
forces from the country by May 2021.
In
return, the Taliban promised not to attack US forces and said they would stop
transnational extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State from operating
in the country.
Germany,
which has hundreds of troops in northern Afghanistan, on Wednesday said it was
worried the speedy US withdrawal could affect the bid to find peace in
Afghanistan.
“We
are particularly concerned over what the US announcement could mean for the
continuation of peace talks in Afghanistan,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
said.
“We
should not create additional hurdles -- something that a hasty withdrawal from
Afghanistan would most certainly lead to.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2020/11/18/-Good-step-Taliban-welcome-US-troop-drawdown-from-Afghanistan
--------
Arab world
Saudi
Arabia, Iraq reopen border after 30 years
19
Nov 2020
BAGHDAD:
Iraq and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday reopened their land border for the first
time in 30 years, with closer trade ties between the two countries irking
allies of Riyadh’s rival, Tehran.
Top
officials including Iraq’s interior minister and the head of its border
commission travelled from Baghdad to formally open the Arar crossing.
They
met a delegation who had joined them from Riyadh, all in masks, and cut a red
ribbon at the border crossing as a line of cargo trucks waited behind them.
Arar
will be open to both goods and people for the first time since Riyadh cut off
its diplomatic relationship with Baghdad in 1990, following Iraqi ex-dictator
Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Ties
have remained rocky ever since, but current Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa
al-Kadhemi has a close personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman.
Kadhemi
was to travel to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip as prime minister in
May, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute when Saudi King Salman was
hospitalised.
He
has yet to make the trip, although Iraqi ministers have visited Riyadh to meet
their counterparts and a top-level Saudi delegation travelled to Baghdad last
week.
Baghdad
sees Arar as a potential alternative to its crossings with eastern neighbour
Iran, through which Iraq brings in a large share of its imports.
The
two Arab states are also exploring the reopening of a second border point at
Al-Jumayma, along Iraq’s southern border with the Saudi kingdom.
But
pro-Iran factions in Iraq, which call themselves the “Islamic Resistance”, have
stood firmly against closer ties with Saudi Arabia.
Ahead
of Arar’s opening, one such group identifying itself as Ashab al-Kahf published
a statement announcing its “rejection of the Saudi project in Iraq”.
“The
intelligence cadres of the Islamic Resistance are following all the details of
the Saudi enemy’s activities on the Iraqi border,” it warned.
Speaking
to reporters on Tuesday evening, Kadhemi fired back against those describing
the rapprochement as Saudi “colonialism”.
“This
is a lie. It’s shameful,” he said.
“Let
them invest. Welcome to Iraq,” Kadhemi added, saying Saudi investment could
bring in a flood of new jobs to Iraq where more than one-third of youth are
unemployed.
The
closer ties have been a long time coming.
They
did not improve much after Saddam’s toppling in the 2003 US-led invasion, as
Riyadh looked at the new Shiite-dominated political class with suspicion due to
their ties to Iran.
A
thaw began in 2017 when then Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir travelled to
Baghdad — the first such visit in decades — followed by a Riyadh trip by Iraqi
premier Haider al-Abadi.
The
first commercial flights resumed between the two countries and officials began
discussing Arar, with high-profile US diplomat Brett McGurk even visiting the
crossing in 2017 to support its reopening.
But
those plans were repeatedly delayed, with Arar only opened on rare occasions to
allow through Iraqi religious pilgrims on their way to Makkah for the Haj.
Iraq
is the second-largest producer in the OPEC oil cartel, outranked only by Saudi
Arabia.
Its
oil, gas and electricity infrastructure is severely outdated and inefficient
but low oil prices this year have stymied efforts to revamp it.
Baghdad
is also notoriously slow to activate external investment, with international
firms and foreign countries complaining that rampant corruption hamstrings more
investment.
Kadhemi’s
government has sought to fast-track foreign investment including Saudi support
for energy and agriculture.
On
his trip to Washington this summer, he agreed to a half-dozen projects that
would use Saudi funding to finance US energy firms.
Last
year, Iraq signed a deal to plug into the Gulf Cooperation Council’s power grid
and add up to 500 MW of electricity to its dilapidated electricity sector.
Those
deals too have been criticised by pro-Iran factions in Iraq.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1591174/saudi-arabia-iraq-reopen-border-after-30-years
--------
UAE
suspends visit visas for Pakistan, 11 other countries
Nov
19, 2020
ISLAMABAD:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has temporarily suspended the issuance of new
visas to visitors for Pakistan and 11 other countries until further notice.
Pakistan's
Foreign Office on Wednesday confirmed the news saying that the decision by the
UAE authorities is "believed to be related to the second wave of
Covid-19", The Express Tribune reported.
"We
have learned that the UAE has temporarily suspended the issuance of new visit
visas until further announcement for 12 countries, including Pakistan,"
the country's Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said.
Besides
Pakistan, the UAE government suspended the issuance of visit visas to Turkey,
Iran, Yamen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Kenya, and Afghanistan among others.
This
development comes amid a rising number of Covid-19 cases in the country. For
nearly one week, Pakistan has recorded over 2,000 new coronavirus cases.
Back
in June, when cases in Pakistan were on the rise, UAE's Emirates had announced
the temporary suspension of passenger services.
Pakistan
has so far recorded 363,380 cases of coronavirus and 7,230 deaths. There are
30,362 active Covid-19 cases in the country, Geo News reported.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/uae-suspends-visit-visas-for-pakistan-11-other-countries/articleshow/79295342.cms
--------
Shadowy
new militias in Iraq targeting US forces as new front for Iran
Lauren
Holtmeier and Yaghoub Fazeli
18
November 2020
A
handful of shadowy Shia militias have emerged over the last year in Iraq intent
on targeting US coalition forces and Western interests in the country. The new
militias, loyal to Iran, have claimed responsibility for several attacks on US
targets, including those in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Much
about the groups is unknown, including how many there are or how many fighters
are in their ranks. Al Arabiya English was able to identify more than 10, and
some experts put the number as high as 20, but their shifting nature makes it
difficult to track.
The
groups demand the full withdrawal of US and Coalition forces from Iraq, with
some suggesting that they seek revenge for the killing of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu
Mahdi al-Mohandes, who was the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known
as the Popular Mobilization Forces,.
One
group even bears the name Lewaa Thaar al-Muhandis, or al-Mohandes’s Revenge
Brigade, and has claimed at least two attacks on US facilities and properties,
a May report from BBC Monitoring service noted. The November 18 attack on the
Green Zone was claimed by Ashab al-Khaf, another of the groups that has emerged
over the past year.
Usbat
al-Thaereen, or the League of Revolutionaries, one of the more prominent new
militias, claimed the attack on Camp Taji that hosts US Coalition forces near
Baghdad that killed two US soldiers and one British soldier in March earlier
this year.
The
groups have no clear leadership or command structures – which experts say is by
design.
The
loose design structure of these groups gives Iran “plausible deniability” for
attacks they carry out, Phillip Smyth, a fellow at the Washington Institute,
explained to Al Arabiya English.
While
direct state-on-state conflict would be a costly and dangerous move for Iran,
by using its militia proxies, Iran is able to carry out attacks on US targets
with little fear of retribution, Emily Hawthorne, a Middle East and North
Africa analyst at Stratfor, told Al Arabiya English.
The
groups began to emerge in early 2020 in the wake of the US targeting and
subsequent deaths of Soleimani and al-Mohandes on January 3 in an airstrike at
Baghdad International Airport.
However,
Smyth, who is set to publish a report on the new front groups soon, said that
he had noticed activity from a variety of different groups across the region
before January, signaling that the Iranian regime had already begun committing
resources to its proxy militias.
“The
front groups themselves – they really kind of got their start in 2019 where
they were testing the waters,” he said. “The Iranians do things in phases, and
had started sending signals even since 2018.”
Soleimani
and al-Mohandes’ deaths presented Iran with an opportunity to up the ante,
allowing them to push forward with a new phase of their regional strategy,
Smyth said.
Pressure
has mounted for the US to withdraw troops from Iraq since the January
assassinations. Attacks against US targets have escalated, and in response US
Secretary Mike Pompeo has warned the US could close its embassy and would
impose sanctions and limits on dollar transactions if the attacks against US
targets do not cease.
The
groups primarily target US forces, but in practice this often means Iraqi
contractors – such as truck drivers – are the victims of these attacks, said
experts who spoke to Al Arabiya English.
They
also target Iraqi protesters.
“They
have assassinated and targeted Iraqis, including protesters,” Dr. Zana
Gulmohamed, an analyst who has previously written about Shia militias in Iraq,
said. “The level of involvement is unknown but it is there.”
Links
to Iran
Experts
seem confident the new wave of militias, referred to as “Katyusha” factions by
Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute, are linked to Iran, but
questions remain about the autonomy of these groups, where these fighters came
from, and if they are distinct entities.
Over
the past decade, Iran has used similar tactics, creating front groups and
others as part of a pattern of asymmetric warfare. While Iran is regionally
isolated and has continued to avoid direct military action, it has used these
tactics to continue its regional expansionist objectives through alternative
means.
“[The
new front groups] appear to be a tactic to blur responsibility to allow Kata'ib
Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba to pay no political price for the
attacks, but this has not worked. Iraqis think of the ‘Katyusha’ factions as
one, despite the new names,” Knights told Al Arabiya English.
Gulmohamad
suggested that while some of the factions may be operating alone, it is nearly
impossible to know much about these secretive groups yet. Smyth, however, said
he doesn’t necessarily believe that any of these groups are “truly
independent.”
For
all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Kata'ib
Hezbollah is one of Iran’s more established proxy groups, and experts have
already said that evidence has begun to emerge that these new militias are
closely linked to the group.
“The
question is if these are all front groups for established groups like Kata'ib
Hezbollah, are they actually something that will keep growing, are we going to
see real, deadly attacks come out of these groups, that still is up in the
air,” Hawthorne said.
So
far, the groups have demonstrated relatively basic capabilities, mostly relying
on roadside improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and Katyusha rockets.
Al-Mohandes’ Revenge Brigade, for instance, in May published a video claiming
that it targeted to US helicopters with surface-to-air missiles.
Laying
low
While
attacks claimed by these groups have so far been low-level, Smyth said this
could be by design. The militias may be looking to strike a balancing act where
they can strike targets without prompting a significant response from the US.
And
while the militias have only carried out small-scale attacks before, the
fighters may be more seasoned than demonstrated.
“You
may have some younger fighters that are involved, based on some of the releases
that have come out, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going through more
trusted, more advanced training regimens that the IRGC gives them,” Smyth said,
adding that a lot of them have likely already participated in fighting in Syria
and have potentially cooperated with other groups.
“They’re
experienced and loyal fighters who they know can do stuff and get away with it.
Sometimes the more experienced older guys will have people out there, but they
can cull from a lot of different organizations.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/11/18/Iraqi-militias-Shadowy-new-militias-in-Iraq-targeting-US-forces-as-new-front-for-Iran
--------
Arab
Coalition intercepts Houthi drone launched from Yemen targeting Saudi Arabia
Rawad
Taha
19
November 2020
The
Arab Coalition announced late Wednesday night that its forces had intercepted
and destroyed an explosives-laden drone launched by the Iran-backed Houthi
militia towards Saudi Arabia.
In
a statement, coalition spokesman Colonel Turki Al Malki said that Coalition
Forces destroyed the drone which was "systematically and
deliberately" targeting civilians in the Kingdom's Southern Region.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/11/19/Arab-Coalition-intercepts-Houthi-drone-targeting-Saudi-Arabia
--------
Mideast
Iran
will ‘automatically’ return to nuclear commitments if Biden lifts sanctions
18
November 2020
Iran
will “automatically” return to its nuclear commitments if US President-elect
Joe Biden lifts sanctions imposed over the past two years, its foreign minister
said on Wednesday.
Tehran’s
return to its commitments “can be done automatically and needs no conditions or
even negotiations,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in comments published in the
state-run Iran daily.
Decades
old US-Iranian tensions escalated after US President Donald Trump unilaterally
withdrew from a landmark nuclear agreement in 2018 and reimposed, then
reinforced, crippling sanctions.
For
all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
While
Trump has sought to maximize pressure on Iran and isolate it globally, Biden
has proposed to offer the Islamic republic a “credible path back to diplomacy.”
Zarif
argued that “America is obligated to implement Resolution 2231 as a member of
the United Nations and its Security Council,” pointing to the UNSC resolution
that enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal.
“If
it does carry out this resolution and sanctions are lifted and there are no
obstacles to Iran’s economic activities, then Iran will carry out” its
obligations under the deal, he said.
Iran,
which denies it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb, has since May 2019
gradually suspended most of its key obligations under the agreement.
It
argued it was reacting to the sanctions and the inability of the other parties
-- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- to provide Tehran with the
deal’s promised economic benefits.
Zarif
described Biden as a “foreign affairs veteran” whom he has known for 30 years.
Once
in the White House, Biden could “lift all of these (sanctions) with three
executive orders,” Zarif argued.
If
Biden’s administration does so, Iran’s return to nuclear commitments will be
“quick”, the minister added.
Washington’s
return to the deal, however, could wait, Zarif added.
“The
next stage that will need negotiating is America’s return ... which is not a
priority,” he said.
“The
first priority is America ending its law breaking and rebelling.”
The
New York Times reported Monday that Trump had last week asked top aides about
the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Senior
officials reportedly “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military
strike,” warning him that such an attack could escalate into a broader conflict
in the last weeks of his presidency.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/11/18/Iran-will-automatically-return-to-nuclear-commitments-if-Biden-lifts-sanctions
--------
Top
Security Official: No Safe Haven for Iranian Nation’s Ill-Wishers
2020-November-18
“There
is no safe and impenetrable haven for criminals and ill-wishers of the Iranian
nation,” Shamkhani wrote on his twitter page on Wednesday.
He
warned that the powerful hands of the defenders of the Islamic Republic of Iran
"will sooner or later take the breath of any aggressor or criminal',
adding that history will witness this claim.
Shamkhani
also used the #انتقام_سخت (harsh revenge) in his twitter post
(written in Persian language) which had gone viral after the US assassination
of former IRGC Quds Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in
January.
In
relevant remarks on Monday, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace
Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh said taking revenge from the United States for its
nefarious assassination of General Soleimani will surely take place, and
meantime, stressed the need to heed the conspiracies hatched by the US against
the Islamic Ummah.
“Taking
revenge from the US for Martyr Soleimani will certainly happen,” Hajizadeh said
on Monday in his meeting with the visiting Iraqi Defense Minister Juma Anad
Saadoun and his accompanying delegation, and underlined the need to pay
attention to the schemes and strategies of the wicked enemies of the Islamic
Ummah, specially the US.
Also,
on Sunday, IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami emphasized that Iran
will take revenge from the killers of General Soleimani, stressing that martyr
Soleimani and deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu
Mahdi Al-Muhandis played the main role in obliteration of ISIL.
Salami
made the remarks during a meeting with the visiting Iraqi Defense Minister Juma
Anad Saadoun, adding that Iran will definitely take revenge for General
Soleimani’s blood from murderers on the battlefield.
“Taking
revenge has nothing to do with the legal pursuit of the assassination,” he
said, adding, “We are sure that the children of the great Iraq will also take
revenge for Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis' blood."
"General
Soleimani started defeating ISIL from Iraq. Americans could not tolerate his
brilliance and decided to kill him," the commander noted.
Lieutenant
General Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad
International Airport in Iraq on January 3, 2020.
The
airstrike also martyred al-Muhandis. The two were martyred in an American
airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.
Five
Iranian and five Iraqi military men were martyred by the missiles fired by the
US drone at Baghdad International Airport.
On
January 8, the IRGC Aerospace Force started heavy ballistic missile attacks on
US Ein Al-Assad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a
US operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the US assassination of General
Soleimani.
Ein
Al-Assad is an airbase with a 4km runway at 188m altitude from sea levels,
which is the main and the largest US airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the
radar systems and missile defense shields in Ein Al-Assad failed to operate and
intercept the Iranian missiles. Unofficial reports said the US army's central
radar systems at Ein Al-Assad had been jammed by electronic warfare.
The
second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in
Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the second leg of "Martyr Soleimani"
reprisal operation.
Iraq
said the attacks had not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these
two bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ein Al-Assad to everyone,
including the Iraqi army.
The
IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.
Meantime,
Iran announced in late June that it had issued arrest warrants for 36 officials
of the US and other countries who have been involved in the assassination of
the martyred General Soleimani.
"36
individuals who have been involved or ordered the assassination of Hajj Qassem,
including the political and military officials of the US and other governments,
have been identified and arrest warrants have been issued for them by the
judiciary officials and red alerts have also been issued for them via the
Interpol," Prosecutor-General of Tehran Ali Alqasi Mehr said.
He
said that the prosecuted individuals are accused of murder and terrorist
action, adding that US President Donald Trump stands at the top of the list and
will be prosecuted as soon as he stands down presidency after his term ends.
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/13990828000948/Tp-Secriy-Official-N-Safe-Haven-fr-Iranian-Nain%E2%80%99s-Ill-Wishers
--------
Official
Blasts US Sanctions for Violating Iranian People’s Rights
2020-November-18
“The
imposition of extraterritorial unilateral sanctions has had unacceptable and
unfortunate impacts on human rights. Even sanctions have prevented global
charities from sending donations and medical and health donations to the
population and vulnerable countries of embargoed countries,” Darvishian said on
Wednesday, addressing the Fourth meeting of the Eurasian Ombudsman Association
and the International Conference on Human Rights.
He
added that based on the remarks by the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights
Council, unilateral sanctions have had very unfortunate consequences and have
targeted the most vulnerable sections of society and the most fundamental human
rights, including the basic rights of living and health of children, the
elderly and the sick.
Darvishian
said at a time when the coronavirus had become an epidemic, the US government
proudly imposed the toughest-ever sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which have been unprecedented in the history of international relations.
According
to latest official records, coronavirus has so far claimed the lives of over
42,000 Iranians. However, medical reports indicate that the number of Iranian
patients who are dying because of lack of particular foreign-made medications,
whose imports have been obstructed by the unilateral sanctions of the US, hit a
higher number.
Late
in December, Head of the Iranian Society of Child Blood and Cancer Hassan
Abolqassemi said that the US sanctions have almost made it impossible for
cancer patients in Iran to access and supply their needed medicine.
"The
US has targeted the Iranian patients and they have planned to pressure those
who are consumers of these drugs. Therefore, the vitamins and ordinary drugs
are easily accessed in the market, but the US is making its utmost efforts to
prevent Iran from purchasing vital pharmaceutical products and those which are
necessary for cancer patients," Abolqassemi told FNA.
The
US sanctions and restrictions on export of drugs and medical equipment to Iran
have shortened the breath of patients suffering from cancer, hemophilia,
epilepsy and thalassemia.
Despite
the American officials' claims of not imposing sanctions on imports of drugs to
Iran, it's reported that medications are hard to obtain in the country due to
banking embargos that hamper money transactions which causes some Western
companies to refuse to sell the necessary drugs and medical equipment to
Tehran.
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/13990828000975/Official-Blass-US-Sancins-fr-Vilaing-Iranian-Peple%E2%80%99s-Righs
--------
Afghan
FM Lauds Iran’s “Sincere, Brotherly” Support
2020-November-18
During
the meeting in Kabul on Wednesday, the two sides discussed the Afghanistan
peace negotiations and Iran’s role in supporting the talks.
Strengthening
of mutual cooperation, specially holding a joint economic commission meeting,
endorsement of the comprehensive document to increase cooperation between the
two countries and inauguration of Khwaf-Herat railway were among other issues
discussed by the two sides.
Taherianfard,
for his part, stressed Iran’s continued support for the Afghanistan peace
talks, describing the regional and world states’ support for the current peace
negotiations as important.
Iran
has always underlined its help to the process of peace talks in Afghanistan.
Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in September that Tehran was
prepared to contribute to the intra-Afghan talks to improve the peace process
in the neighboring country.
Zarif
discussed the latest situation of Afghan parties within the framework of peace
process in a phone contact with Atmar, and stressed that Iran is ready to offer
any help for the improvement of the peace talks.
He
also touched upon the role of neighboring countries in the peace process.
Zarif
expressed satisfaction with the ongoing talks among the Afghan parties.
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/13990828000388/Afghan-FM-Lads-Iran%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9CSincere-Brherly%E2%80%9D-Sppr
--------
UAE
health workers attacked by ‘cowardly’ gunmen in Yemen, says Red Crescent
18
November 2020
The
Emirati Red Crescent said Wednesday one of its mobile health clinics was
attacked by gunmen in war-torn Yemen, in a strike it condemned as a “cowardly
terrorist act.”
It
did not mention any casualties in the assault in Yemen’s third largest city of
Taiz, which is under government control but surrounded by forces of the
Iran-backed Houthi militia.
“The
Emirates Red Crescent condemns and deeply regrets the cowardly terrorist act
that targeted its medical staff working in mobile clinics,” the organization
said in a statement.
The
“shooting attack” on its medical staff “represents a major violation of
international norms, treaties and covenants,” it said.
The
UAE foreign ministry did not accuse any group of the attack, but also
criticized the breaching of conventions that provide special protection for aid
and rescue workers.
“The
ministry stressed that such hostile acts impede relief operations and hinder
humanitarian access in Yemen, which may aggravate the plight of the people and
worsen their conditions,” the state news agency WAM said.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/11/18/UAE-health-workers-attacked-by-cowardly-gunmen-in-Yemen-says-Red-Crescent-
--------
Bahrain’s
first official government delegation heads to Israel on Gulf Air flight
18
November 2020
Bahrain's
first official government delegation to Israel traveling on the first Gulf Air
commercial flight to Tel Aviv landed in Israel on Wednesday as the two
countries look to broaden cooperation after establishing formal ties in
September.
For
all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Gulf
Air flight GF972 - a reference to Israel's country telephone code - took off
from Manama airport Wednesday morning and landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
Airport about two hours later, according to a US official and flight tracking
website FlightRadar24.
Bahrain's
foreign minister, Abdullatif al-Zayani, was leading the delegation.
President
Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Avi Berkowitz, was also on the flight and was
leading a US delegation to Bahrain and Israel, he said on Twitter.
Bahrain
and the United Arab Emirates established formal ties with Israel in a
US-brokered deal signed at the White House on September 15. Sudan has since
said it would also formalize relations with Israel, a former foe.
The
foreign minister's trip to Israel will coincide with a visit there by US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They will hold a three-way meeting with
Netanyahu, two diplomats briefed on the planning said.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/11/18/Israel-relations-Bahrain-s-first-official-government-delegation-heads-to-Israel-on-Gulf-Air-flight
--------
Iran
dismisses Canadian-drafted resolution on its human rights situation
19
November 2020
Iran
has condemned a UN resolution, drafted and proposed by Canada, as a rehash of
“groundless” claims about the Islamic Republic’s human rights situation, saying
it instead proves the “hypocrisy” of the “notorious” group of countries that
voted for it.
Iran’s
Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned the “unacceptable” resolution, saying it
“lacks any legal grounds and effect”.
Saeed
Khatibzadeh noted that the move made by the Ottawa government and other
sympathizers of the resolution is a clear example of “abusing lofty human
rights concepts and values in order to achieve short-sighted political
objectives.”
He
expressed regret that the Canadian government is using human rights and its
international mechanisms as a means for achieving its goals and political
ambitions.
“Such
unconstructive actions will not only fail to help promote the status of human
rights and respect for human rights at the international level, but will only
trigger moves to form negative clichés against, and attach political stigmas to
independent countries,” the spokesman added.
The
anti-Iran resolution was passed with 79 ‘yes’ votes at the third committee of
the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, even though 32 countries had voted
against it and 64 others abstained from voting.
In
his statement, Khatibzadeh said the majority of UN member states either voted
‘no’ or abstained from voting in a bid to show their discontent with the
hypocritical approach adopted by the supporters of the resolution.
The
resolution was adopted with the votes of less than half the UN member states,
including the Israeli regime, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the
United Arab Emirates, Albania, Britain and Canada, he said.
Khatibzadeh
stressed it is a shame that Canada has brought together a bunch of governments
with “notorious records in the domain of human rights”, including the American,
Israeli and Bahraini regimes, to teach human rights to Iranian people.
He
also urged Canada to stop hosting economic offenders and looters of Iranian
people’s wealth, “who have found Canada a safe haven for the transfer and
investment of the assets they have looted.”
Earlier
on Monday, the head of the Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights
had slammed the countries trying to pass the anti-Iran rights resolution at the
United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee, highlighting bleak rights
records of the sponsors of the draft resolution.
“Canada,
which is the main driving force behind rights resolution against Iran has a
record of systematic violation of human rights,” including against the
country’s native population while being among top countries in terms of
violence against women and girls, Ali Baqeri-Kani said.
“Those
who are behind this resolution are the same countries, which have given refuge
to terrorist groups that have killed thousands of Iranians ... or have been
following suit with the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign by
implementing Washington’s unjust and illegal sanctions against the Iranian
nation,” Iran’s rights chief added.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/11/18/638903/iran-human-rights-canada-resolution
--------
Africa
Behind
Susan Rosenberg and the roots of left-wing domestic extremism
18
November 2020
Susan
Rosenberg, who made the FBI’s Most Wanted list by the time she was 29, is among
the most prominent far-left revolutionary activists in the U.S.
Earlier
this summer, she sparked controversy after it was discovered that she
purportedly sat on the board as vice-chair of Thousand Currents, which has poured
more than $10 million into grassroots social change initiatives, including
Black Lives Matter as of late.
The
nonprofit, formerly known as IDEX, quickly removed the director’s page
featuring Rosenberg from its website in June. It remained unclear if and to
what capacity she still serves the organization. Thousand Currents did not
immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
The
police officer who personally escorted Rosenberg out of the Newark courthouse
in 1985 after she was sentenced to 58 years for explosives possession said her
affiliation with the group showed that the same domestic terrorism ideologies
from 35 years ago still are percolating now.
"I
was at first shocked to learn of (Rosenberg's new role), but on the other hand,
I wasn't so shocked given that members of these same groups get into academia
and still follow the same teachings and inspiration," retired NYPD Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Fox News.
Born
in 1955 and raised on New York City's Upper West Side, Rosenberg fervently
joined activist causes during high school, including the Black liberation
movement and others rejecting "repressive" U.S. policies globally and
domestically.
Starting
in the late 1970s, Rosenberg became involved in the far-left revolutionary terrorist
outfit, May 19 Communist Organization ("M19CO"), which the FBI
described as "openly advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government
through armed struggle and the use of violence."
According
to officials at the time, the M19C0 gave support and resources to an adjunct of
the Black Liberation Army (BLA), which the Terrorism Research and Analysis
Consortium (TRAC) characterized as an "underground Black nationalist
militant organization that operated from 1970 to 1981." As a splinter group
of the Black Panther Party, it was known to have "carried out a series of
bombings, murders, robberies and prison breaks."
She
also was linked to the controversial Weather Underground Organization (WUO),
founded in 1969 on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan, with a
1974 stated goal "to create a revolutionary party to overthrow American
imperialism," according to the FBI, which labeled it a "domestic
terrorist organization" when bombings began the following year.
"The
left-wing extremist groups were predominantly Marxist in political
thought," noted Kenneth Gray, a senior lecturer on criminal justice and
forensic sciences at the University of New Haven. "They conducted
robberies and hundreds of bombings throughout the U.S."
By
the time she was 29, Rosenberg was on the FBI's Most Wanted List, suspected of
being an accomplice in the 1979 prison escape of the still FBI-wanted Joanne
Chesimard, aka "Assata Shakur," a BLA member who was serving a life
sentence for the murder of police troopers in New Jersey. Rosenberg was also
wanted in connection to a 1981 Brink's robbery that claimed the lives of two
police officers and one guard.
Rosenberg,
after several years as a fugitive in disguise, finally resurfaced in the late
fall of 1984. She was caught after renting out a storage unit in New Jersey
under a stolen identity – that of Barbara Grodin. She was found storing 12
assorted guns, nearly 200 sticks of dynamite, more than 100 sticks of the
highly explosive DuPont Trovex, and hundreds of false identification documents.
On
Dec. 6, 1984, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Rosenberg
and her associate, Timothy Blunk, with conspiracy, firearms offenses and
possession of false identification documents.
Prosecutors
dropped the conspiracy and racketeering charges against Rosenberg, and she was
never tried in connection to the Shakur escape nor the Brink's robbery.
According to an archived New York Times report, it was Rudolph Giuliani, then
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who chose not to prosecute
the Brink's charges on the premise that the other charges sufficed.
As
the court filings from the March 1985 hearing highlighted, from the beginning
of the proceedings, "it was evident that Blunk and Rosenberg styled
themselves as 'political prisoners' rather than criminal defendants."
"The
defendants insisted on being absent from most of the trial proceedings and
directed their retained counsel to remain inactive during the trial,"
filings stated. "To accommodate them, the trial judge provided Blunk and
Rosenberg with closed-circuit television through which they could monitor the
proceedings, and appointed a public defender to remain in the courtroom for the
trial to protect the defendants' interests."
On
March 17, 1985, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all submitted counts
for both Rosenberg and Blunk. New Jersey U.S. District Court Judge Frederick
Bernard Lacey slapped them with the maximum sentence of 58 years each behind
bars at New York's maximum-security Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).
Sympathizers
lamented that the sentence was 16 times the national average for similar
offenses.
Craig
Caine, a former law enforcement officer who later went on to become a U.S.
federal marshal, said he remembered the day scores of special officers, a bomb
squad, and a legion of high-ranking officers arrived at the MCC, coupled with
closed off roads, ceaseless sirens and cleared areas in preparation for a
"high profile prisoner."
"They
brought in the skinny little woman, who seemed scared and I wondered who the
heck this was," Caine recalled. "Then, I found out it was someone who
basically had enough dynamite to blow up half of Manhattan."
Caine
said Rosenberg immediately became something of "a celebrity" inside
the MCC, with a following of female fans and entrenched in her own clique of
inmates, but stressed that she always was "respectful" and stayed out
of the way of authorities.
Kerik
had a different take.
"She
despised us all; I am sure she would have killed every single one of us if she
could have," he conjectured. "In court, she and Blunk would go on
rampages about the government and all this death to America."
Moving
Rosenberg to court or anywhere outside the MCC was no easy feat – requiring
roads to be shuttered, backup cars, and trained snipers in the vicinity.
In
1988, Rosenberg additionally faced accusations of "aiding and
abetting" a string of bombings targeting the U.S. Capitol, the National
War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.
Additional
charges included a role in a series of New York attacks, of which bombs were
planted but did not detonate, on sites such as the FBI's office in Staten
Island. These charges were discarded as part of a plea deal by other
revolutionary members and Rosenberg was neither tried nor convicted in
connection to the 1983-1985 terrorism surge.
Rosenberg
and Blunk went on to appeal their convictions and sentences unsuccessfully.
Throughout
what would be just 16 years in federal lockup, Rosenberg became a noted author,
poet and activist – even earning a master's degree from Antioch University and
voraciously writing. In the morning of Jan. 20, 2001, then-President Bill
Clinton commuted Rosenberg's sentence.
She
swiftly moved from prison to her mother's Manhattan apartment.
"I
have seen speculation that Rosenberg's sentence was commuted based upon the
connection between her former attorney Howard Gutman and President
Clinton," Gray said. "Gutman was a big donor to the Democratic
Party."
The
commutation ignited outrage among law enforcement and elected officials in the
New York area from both parties, who viewed the move as an act of betrayal,
given that their own brethren had lost their lives during crimes tied to
Rosenberg.
"I
wrote (Clinton) a scathing letter," Kerik said. "Rosenberg's group
was responsible for a number of murders of cops."
Over
the ensuing years, now a free woman and anti-prison advocate, Rosenberg entered
academia, teaching at Manhattan's Jay College of Criminal Justice. After four
semesters, the CUNY administration was forced to let her contract quietly
expire amid the political pressure surrounding her hiring.
Rosenberg
also penned a memoir in 2011 entitled "An American Radical: A Political
Prisoner in My Own Country," in which she defended her 1984 actions,
proclaiming that "there was no immediate, specific plan to use the
explosives" with which she and Blunk were apprehended.
"We
were stockpiling arms for the distant revolution that we all had convinced
ourselves would come soon," Rosenberg wrote. "I also believed that
our government ruled the world by force and that it was necessary to oppose it
with force."
Soon
after Rosenberg's name resurfaced publicly again over the summer, President
Trump threatened to designate Antifa – an extreme left-wing, leaderless
conglomerate – a "terrorist" organization. Critics have pushed back
with the counterargument that Antifa was merely an ideology and that right-wing
extremists were to blame for much of the protracted violence.
Nonetheless,
it points to the notion that even with the passage of time, "domestic
terrorism" may have changed little in its actions and may still be
comprised of the same advisers and activities that birthed the movement decades
ago.
"Many
of the inspirations (and ideologies) are still the same," Kerik added.
"Many like Rosenberg are still alive, have gone into academia, and are
still doing the same thing years on."
https://www.foxnews.com/us/susan-rosenberg-left-wing-domestic-extremism-roots?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
5
Killed in Mogadishu Bombing After Report That US Will Pull Troops from Somalia
By
Harun Maruf
November
17, 2020
At
least five people were killed, and eight others were injured following a
suicide bombing near the main Somalia police academy in Mogadishu on Tuesday,
officials said.
Government
communication sources said two police officers, a military officer and two
civilians were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest outside
a restaurant that is often used by members of the police academy.
Police
spokesman Major Sadiiq Aden Ali confirmed the death toll to VOA Somali. Other
government officials said eight others were injured.
The
al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hours
earlier, The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump could withdraw
U.S. troops out of Somalia under an order being circulated at the Pentagon.
Virtually
all of the more than 700 troops conducting training and counterterrorism
missions would leave, the paper reported.
Pentagon officials have not commented on the report.
U.S.
troops in Somalia provide training and advice and assistance to a unit of
Somali army known as Danab (Lightning) that has been hailed as model for
rebuilding the Somali army.
The
U.S. also conducts airstrikes against al-Shabab, which have increased since
Trump took office in 2017.
The
Times report says the plan under discussion to pull out of Somalia may not
apply to U.S. forces stationed in nearby Kenya and Djibouti, where American
drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based.
When
the news of possible U.S. troop withdrawal emerged last month, Somalia's
president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo voiced his opposition to the idea. He
tweeted that U.S. military support to Somalia has enabled the country to combat
al-Shabab.
Farmajo
called for continuous security partnership and capacity building support.
https://www.voanews.com/africa/5-killed-mogadishu-bombing-after-report-us-will-pull-troops-somalia?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
In
jihadist-hit Burkina areas, no elections -- and no state
18/11/2020
Two
days before Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore held a campaign
rally in the northern town of Dori earlier this month, the body of a driver for
a regional MP was found 15 kilometres (nine miles) away.
The
death of Sorgho Wendtoin served as a brutal reminder of the difficulty of
holding a national election in a country where large areas remain outside the
state's control due to a grinding jihadist insurgency.
Amadou
Abdouramane Ly, a civil servant in Dori and parliamentary candidate for the
ruling party, said "we must tell the truth, the situation is
precarious".
"This
is a new example of it."
Burkina
Faso is preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections on November 22,
while neighbouring Niger has its own presidential election on December 27.
But
no votes will be cast in many districts because the state is absent in the
"three borders" region between Burkina, Niger and Mali.
The
territory is at the mercy of jihadist forces that have spread across large
swathes of the three Sahel nations.
Burkina
first came under attack in 2015 from groups that have sworn allegiance to the
Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
"How
are we to organise an election in a zone where the attacks come almost every
day?" asked a Burkinabe security specialist.
Islamist
fighters killed 14 soldiers in a road ambush on November 11, the biggest attack
on the army in several months.
—
'Immense challenge' —
On
Saturday, a week before the general election, a large group of jihadist
fighters with about 100 motorcycles and five other vehicles was reported in
Mali's In-Tillit zone, near the border with Burkina Faso.
"We
know very well that this is going to be an immense challenge," a source
close to the authorities in Dori said of the election.
The
toll from jihadist attacks -- sometimes intertwined with conflicts between
ethnic groups -- is heavy in Burkina Faso. Some 1,200 people have been killed,
mostly civilians, and about one million have fled their homes over the past
five years.
The
north is the hardest-hit.
The
Constitutional Council has acknowledged that the election cannot take place in
almost one-fifth of Burkina's territory because of "the presence of
terrorist groups in places, the absence of the administration in affected
zones, the abandonment by the population of places where they lived."
"You
have to add the one million displaced persons, who mostly came from these zones,
and who will not vote," said Mahamoudou Savadogo, a Burkinabe researcher
studying violent extremism.
At
the bus station in Dori, the north's biggest city and commercial hub, the
drivers look grim. They know there are many routes they can no longer use for
fear of a potentially deadly encounter.
"There
are too many problems on the road," one of them said, withholding his
name. Commercial buses must wait for a military escort before heading to Djibo,
200 kilometres (125 miles) west of Dori.
—
'Children of the nation' —
"The
victory of the jihadist groups is not so much a military one as having
installed a fear that makes people's lives extremely difficult," Rinaldo
Depagne of the International Crisis Group said.
The
jihadists "are the children of the nation. They know the terrain and
they're on social networks. The attacks are never a matter of chance,"
said Saidou Maiga, mayor of the rural commune of Falagountou, on the border
with Niger.
Maiga
warned against visiting Gorom-Gorom, 30 kilometres from Dori, "even at
midday". He said in the old days "we took the road at night to go to
drink tea there and drive back to Dori afterwards".
"This
is not a question that Burkina Faso can answer alone," the mayor added.
"As
long as together (with Niger and Mali), we don't master these three borders, it
won't go well."
The
G5 Sahel Joint Force, a regional military body backed by the United Nations,
was deployed in 2017, adding troops from Chad and Mauritania to those of the
"three borders" nations.
The
force, which has yet not had major effect, is also supported by 5,000 troops as
part of France's Operation Barkhane, as well as the fledgeling European force
Operation Takuba.
"It's
only around the towns that the soldiers are present. In the camps in the bush,
there are none left, everybody has gone," Savadogo said.
"The
state has no more control there. Whole tracts of the country will be unable to
vote."
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201118-in-jihadist-hit-burkina-areas-no-elections-and-no-state?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1730121_
--------
Southeast Asia
Only
non-Muslim houses of worship exempted from jawi signage rule, says Pahang exco
18
Nov 2020
KUANTAN,
Nov 18 — Only non-Muslim houses of worship are exempted from the Pahang
government’s directive to include jawi script on signboards, said state Local
Government and Housing Committee chairman Datuk Abd Rahim Muda.
He
said the directive to use jawi script on business premises and advertisement
signboards, as well as road signs beginning Jan 1 this year, was subjected to
all premises, including those that belong to non-governmental organisations and
Chinese associations.
“We
want to clarify that jawi script does not symbolises Islam, but it is part of
Malay and Arab culture. In fact, agreements between the past government and the
British were written in jawi.
“Supposedly
there should not be any confusion regarding the jawi issue at this level,
because everything had been informed together with the terms and font size,” he
said when replying to a question from Lee Chin Chen (PH-Bilut) at the State
Legislative Assembly at Wisma Sri Pahang here today.
As
of Sept 30, he said a total of 198 compound fines had been issued by local
authorities to the owners of business premises who failed to comply with the
directive. — Bernama
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/11/18/only-non-muslim-houses-of-worship-exempted-from-jawi-signage-rule-says-paha/1923913
--------
Bangsa
Malaysia only way to unite the ummah, not a ‘grand coalition’
K.
Parkaran
November
19, 2020
Ummah
is an Arabic word which means a community. But over time, the word has now
become a synonym for the Islamic community in general. In the Malaysian
context, it had always referred to the Malay/Muslim community.
As
a far as I can remember, Malay-based parties Umno and PAS were always calling
for the unity of the ummah, meaning Malays and Muslims. It was accepted that
the other races were not in this equation and no one complained.
Similarly,
another oft-used phrase by the leaders that had always bothered me was agama,
bangsa and negara (religion, race and nation) to marshal all Malaysians. I
always wondered if it encompassed all races and religions or was it only used
to rally Malays and Muslims.
After
losing power in the 2018 general election; which saw a government with a better
racial balance in power, Umno and PAS decided to use the “Penyatuan Ummah”
(Uniting the Community) theme to tell the Malay-Muslim community that if they
did not unite, they will lose the political power that they had been enjoying.
Obviously they knew it would work, and work it did.
From
then on, we saw racial and religious ties on a downward slide, with some
leaders within Pakatan Harapan (PH) itself attending cloak and dagger meetings
to whip up the ummah sentiments that finally led to the infamous Sheraton Move.
As we know, some turncoats caused PH to be robbed of its electoral mandate.
Again, they openly declared it was done in the name of uniting the ummah.
So,
when Barisan Nasional secretary-general Annuar Musa proposed a grand coalition
to unite the ummah to settle what he termed as Malaysia’s political paralysis
by making overtures to Malay and multi-racial parties, some felt it merited
attention. They were those who said it was just a moot point.
Annuar
did single out Malay and Bumiputera parties like Pejuang, the youth party Muda
and multiracial Warisan to join Perikatan Nasional (PN) to form this coalition.
He also included non-Malay and non-Muslim political parties like the Indian
Progressive Front, Makkal Sakthi and Parti Cinta Malaysia, among others.
As
long as they were opposed to PH, he said, they could join the coalition. Soon
after including the “others” in his grand plan, what he said got me thinking.
“The efforts of the union of the ummah must be our main responsibility and
continuous.” One wonders who he actually had in mind when he uttered this.
Are
we to assume that Annuar or BN are now having a change of heart and including
the “others” into the ummah? In other words, will we then be part of the
Malaysian ummah, or is it another of their political games to just get a
comfortable number to stay in power? Your guess is as good as mine.
I
am asking this because if he says he only wants anti-PH politicians or parties
to join this grand coalition, “uniting the ummah” does not make sense because
DAP, PKR and Amanah combined have more than 40% of the MPs in Parliament.
A
split down the middle, right? Sounds very rhetorical indeed. Looking at the
larger picture, if you use elected representatives as a yardstick for uniting
the ummah, it will not be reflected on the ground, far from it as we can see
today. Politicians actually split the ummah.
So,
the grand coalition is not the panacea for all our unity ills as Annuar makes
it sound. The fact is we are facing a Malaysian dilemma. While many non-Malays
are ready to identify ourselves first as Malaysians, it is not the case in the
Malay community.
The
only time we do this is when we are abroad, telling foreigners that we are
Malaysians and not identifying ourselves racially. Once we are home, we tend to
go back into the racial cocoon. When some of our leaders were asked whether
they were Malay or Malaysian first, most did not give direct answers except for
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
Posed
the question in 2010, Muhyiddin said: “I am a Malay first, I want to say that.
But being a Malay first does not mean you are not a Malaysian. How can I say I
am a Malaysian first and Malay second? All the Malays will shun me and say you
are not proper. An Indian will say he is Indian first. Can (DAP stalwart Lim)
Kit Siang say he is Chinese last and Malaysian first?”
Former
prime minister Najib Razak tackled the question differently in an interview
with Al Jazeera also in 2010. He said: “Technically, I am a Malay under the
constitution. And I am comfortable being a Malaysian. And I want us to work
towards becoming a one Malaysian society. I am proud to be a Malay, proud to be
a Muslim. The fact that I am proud to be a Malay and Muslim, it does not mean
that I cannot relate to others.”
Opposition
leader Anwar Ibrahim chose to be diplomatic in his answer to Al Jazeera two
years ago, with a bit of distraction though.“To me, there is no contradiction,
if you ask me am I a Muslim first or Malaysian first or a Malay first. I am a
Malay, I am a Muslim, I am a Malaysian. I am an Asian, I am an
internationalist, I am a practising Muslim, I consider Shakespeare as an
international genius, and that does not erode my belief in race, religion,
culture or nation.”
And
as recent as Nov 10, PPBM youth leader Wan Ahmad Fayhsal declared he is a Malay
first before being a Malaysian, dashing hopes of the younger generation taking
a more liberal stand on this.
“This
question has been asked to Muhyiddin. My answer is: ‘I am Malay first’, as this
comes from a legacy which has been recognised physically, biologically and
culturally. Being a citizen comes from a legal aspect,” he said.
When
Dr Mahathir Mohamad launched his Vision 2020 in 1991 when he was prime
minister, he declared we will see the evolution of a Bangsa Malaysia when it
comes to fruition. Ironically, it was this same man who had a hand, directly or
indirectly, in destroying this vision.
The
2021 budget further underscored the perceived “irrelevance” of the
non-Bumiputera community when the allocations stunk to high heaven. It became a
race-based budget, not a Malaysian needs-based plan.
Muafakat
Nasional has announced it will meet to formally seal a tripartite alliance
between Umno, PAS and the Bersatu faction of Muhyiddin. This is going to change
the political landscape quite significantly and have a bearing in all future
elections.
With
this, have we also sealed all hopes of giving birth to a Bangsa Malaysia that
will unite us and move the nation forward? Although it may just be a dream, I
choose to remain optimistic for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/highlight/2020/11/19/bangsa-malaysia-only-way-to-unite-the-ummah-not-a-grand-coalition/
--------
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/upsc-jihad-tv-show-offensive/d/123514
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