‘Communalization of Politics’: Assam CM Expresses Concern over High Turnout in Muslim Areas
New Age Islam News Bureau
07 Jun 2024
Assam CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma.(photo:Himanta Biswa Sarma Twitter)
----------
India
·
Muslim Representation in Parliament Witnesses
an All-Time Low, only 24 Elected Out Of 78 Candidates in 2024 Lok Sabha
·
‘A Little Less Suffocating’: Why Many Muslims
View the Lok Sabha Verdict With Cautious Hope
·
We lost seats due to Muslim consolidation
behind Sena (UBT): Shrikant Shinde
·
Did BJP strike rate improve after Modi’s
‘anti-Muslim’ rhetoric? Here’s how it fared in all 7 phases
·
Video of Man Criticising Hindus in Ayodhya for
BJP’s Defeat Is Not Muslim
-----
Mideast
·
UN chief says Gaza strike a ‘horrific example’
of civilian suffering
·
Israel Targets Hamas and Islamic Jihad
Terrorists Hiding in UNRWA School
·
Yemen's Houthis chief: Operations with Islamic
Resistance in Iraq against Israel will intensify
·
Turkey urges Chinese authorities to protect the
cultural rights of minority Muslim Uighurs
·
Yemen's Houthis claim joint attacks with Iraqi
militias against Israel's Haifa port
·
Yemeni armed forces carry out two joint
operations with Iraqi Islamic Resistance
·
Israeli settlers in the West Bank were hit with
international sanctions. It only emboldened them
·
US warns Israel of ‘massive’ impact of denying
Palestinian revenue
·
Israel’s Netanyahu to address US Congress on
July 24: source
·
Hamas still to give response on Gaza truce
plan: Qatar
-----
South Asia
·
Nationwide University entrance exam begins in
Afghanistan without female participation
·
Minister Khairkhwa and UN Top Official Discuss
Journalists’ Status and Media Issues in Afghanistan
·
Islamic Emirate Seeks Global Cooperation to
Combat Environmental Crisis
·
US Reacts to Acting Minister of Interior's
Visit to UAE
·
Major Electricity Projects Worth 390 Million
AFN Launched in Aqcha, Jawzjan
·
Taliban’s Ministry of Justice to halt Tamadon
TV broadcasts
----
Pakistan
·
Pakistan Becomes Non-Permanent Member of Top UN
Body
·
40 injured as Chaman protests take violent turn
·
Lahore ATC grants bail to seven PTI activists
in corps commander’s house attack case
·
Rights activist Sarim Burney held in Karachi on
‘human trafficking complaint by US’
·
Imran Khan met more than 400 people during
imprisonment: documents
·
PM Shehbaz arrives at Great Hall of People in
Beijing
·
Grand Jirga held between FC Balochistan
(North), local tribal elders in Sibbi Balochistan
--------
Europe
·
The Muslim Vote endorses four Labour candidates
·
Spain Applies To Join South Africa's Case At
Top UN Court Accusing Israel Of Genocide
·
D-Day 80: Doncaster Muslims join poignant
beacon lighting ceremony
·
US soldier accused of theft goes on trial in
Russia
-----
Arab World
·
How A Saudi Consultancy Is Helping Businesses
Remain Competitive In The Age Of AI
·
Saudi crown prince congratulates India PM on
coalition’s election win
·
Neurosurgeons at King Abdulaziz Hospital save
life of Indonesian Hajj pilgrim
·
Hajj minister: Over 1 million pilgrims have
arrived in the Kingdom so far
·
Energy Ministry unveils energy terminology
dictionary in collaboration with Saudi Language Academy
--------
North America
·
Columbia Law Review Website Back Online After
Shut-Down Over Criticizing Israel
·
Canadian premier remembers Muslim family killed
in 'terrorist attack’ in 2021
·
Canada worst in G7 for targeted killings of
Muslims, MPs told
·
Leftist stabs right-wing politician in German
city where Islamic terrorist just went on a stabbing spree
·
Community Alert: CAIR Encourages American
Muslims to Join June 8th Anti-Genocide Protests
·
Islamists target northern Mozambique –
especially the children
·
Both Riyadh and Moscow Make It More Difficult
for Muslims from Russia to Make the Haj but Keep the Russian Quota at 25,000
·
2 Men Detained in Georgia for Possible Links with
Islamic State
--------
Africa
·
Sudan: RSF Kills at Least 100 In Attack On
Village - Activists Say
·
South African President joins key party meeting
on new government formation
·
N423 Billion Theft: “Don’t Go After El-Rufai” –
Muslim Group Issues Warning
·
UN: Somalia elected to Security Council after
more than 50 years
·
ANC leans towards unity government as
uneasiness gains grassroots supporters
·
South Africa questions its identity,
strengthens democracy
·
Russia's top diplomat promises more military
support for Burkina Faso
--------
Southeast Asia
·
Consult Legal Experts On Islamic Conversion of
Minors - Penang Mufti
·
Tired of 'Muted' Response, Group Won't File
Report Against Muslim Preacher
·
Indonesian president in damage control over new
capital
·
Home minister: Malaysia, China agree to deepen
national security framework proposal
·
PM Anwar extends donation to former footballer Azman
Adnan
·
Police arrest nine men for Kulai woman’s
abduction
·
Indonesian Influencer Detained in Saudi Arabia
for Selling Illegal Hajj Packages
·
Jokowi Wants to Set Up Makeshift Hospital in
Gaza
Compiled by
New Age Islam News Bureau
URL:
‘Communalization
of Politics’: Assam CM Expresses Concern over High Turnout in Muslim Areas
June 6,
2024
Assam CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma.(photo:Himanta Biswa Sarma Twitter)
-------------
Assam
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday expressed concern over the higher
turnout in minority-dominated areas of Assam, saying it indicates
“communalization of politics” in the state.
Speaking
to the media, he highlighted that Congress candidate Rakibul Hussain’s victory
by a margin of 10 lakh votes in Dhubri constituency raises concerns about
demographic changes in Assam.
He
claimed that the Congress win in the Nagaon parliamentary constituency resulted
from demographic shifts in the state.
Sarma
stated that while BJP led in Hindu-dominated assembly segments, Muslim voters
in Muslim-majority areas helped Congress secure the seat.
The
Chief Minister further asserted that Hindu voters do not vote communally, as
their votes are split among the BJP, Congress, and AGP.
During
the first five phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Dhubri reported the
highest voter turnout in Assam at 92.08%.
Barpeta
and Nagaon also saw high voter participation, with turnouts of 85.24% and
84.97%, respectively.
Assam’s
Lok Sabha elections were conducted in three phases, with the first phase on
April 19 seeing a turnout of 78.25%, the second phase on April 26 with 77.35%,
and the third phase on May 7 reaching 81.71%.
Dhubri
and Barpeta recorded high turnouts on May 7 during the third phase, while
Nagaon had a strong showing on April 26 in the second phase.
In
Dhubri, approximately 24.5 lakh out of 26 lakh eligible voters participated in
the electoral process.
Source: thestatesman.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.thestatesman.com/india/assam-cm-says-communalization-of-politics-over-high-turnout-in-muslim-areas-1503307511.html#google_vignette
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Palestine
Is ‘Just A Device That Muslims Use As A Weapon Against Israel,’ Says ‘Son Of
Hamas’ Mosab Hassan Yousef
June 7,
2024
Mosab Hassan Yousef spoke at the Jerusalem
Post Annual Conference on Tuesday, where he addressed the question of a
Palestinian state and called for a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mosab
Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef and a former member of
Hamas, expressed strong opposition to a two-state solution headed by the
Palestinian Authority, as suggested by many in the West.
“Palestine
is non-existential. It’s just a device that the Muslims use as a weapon against
Israel, and as a weapon against the Jewish people,” Yousef told the conference
attendees. “Palestine depends on the destruction of Israel. If there is any
definition of Palestine, it means the absence of Israel,” he stated.
Those
who call for a two-state solution “either want Israel to cease to exist, or
they are not aware of this existential threat,” Yousef added.
The
former Hamas member said that he views the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a
greater threat than the Hamas terrorist organization because it “advocates
worldwide through their embassies” who are “fighting against Israel and its
legitimacy.”
Yousef
also said it's not true that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over land, as
many claim.
“The
Jewish slaughter at the hands of Muslims has been going on for approximately
fourteen centuries,” Yousef said.
“The
Jewish people are in denial,” he continued. “I understand why. Because if the
Jewish people admit that, then they will have to confront a majority of
Muslims.”
However,
he said from the beginning of the war, and even prior, “I came to realize that
the ideological dimension of this war cannot be ignored.”
“I’m not
calling for a religious war, there has been a religious war, and it’s about
time to wake up.”
Yousef
added: “Hamas is not only acting on their own, they belong to the Muslim
Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood belongs to a religion, and that religion
has a scripture, and it’s about time to open the books for the rest of the
world.”
Later in
his speech, Yousef said the PA also has ties with the Muslim Brotherhood
through its founder Yasser Arafat.
“I did
not mean to talk about Islam this much, but in my opinion, Palestine, the
Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood,
all of them are inspired by the same death cult,” he warned.
“Yasser
Arafat was Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam was Muslim Brotherhood, Osama Bin
Laden was Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas - Muslim Brotherhood. All of them are
Muslim Brotherhood. So, we have a big problem and we need to wake up.”
Yousef
challenged the idea that giving up control of land for a Palestinian state
would lead to security for Israel.
“Nobody
can afford a Palestinian state that is hostile to Israel. What happened on
October 7th cannot be ignored,” he stated. “You cannot give them Judea and
Samaria, you cannot give them the mountains, you cannot sacrifice the Jordan
Valley, this is a defense line. I speak from a security point of view,” he
said, before joking that he sounded “like a right-wing Jewish extremist.”
He said
the PA could not be trusted because it sponsors and encourages terrorism.
“Yasser
Arafat was a terrorist,” Yousef noted. “I was in his meeting when he gave my
father the authority to blow up buses, markets, and beaches during the second
Palestinian Intifada.”
Yousef
said he agreed with his interviewer, Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem
Center for Foreign Affairs, that Israel needed to switch from defense to
offense in countering the Palestinian narrative. “Palestine is not a country,”
he remarked, “it’s only an ideology.”
Yousef
believes there are solutions and said the world must "get anchored in the
truth and face reality, face things as they are. As long as we try to escape
it, we are not able to provide a good solution for this problem.”
While he
noted several political solutions, he said the fundamental issues in trying to
solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are economic problems caused by poor
investment strategies and PA nepotism and corruption, as well as a lack of
education.
“I’d
start with educating the Arabs of the West Bank on the Holocaust. This should
be mandatory for every Arabian to learn from the Jewish experience,” Yousef
argued.
He said
the Jewish resilience after the Holocaust inspired him. The idea to "never
be a victim, to rise above pleasure, above pain. This is the model that
inspired me.”
While he
briefly addressed several options for political leadership in the Palestinian
Territories, including recruiting Israeli Arabs to leadership and police
positions, Yousef ended his talk by challenging the audience.
"We
need to really have a deep look into the situation and be honest with
ourselves. Is this serving the Arabs? Is this serving the Jews? Is this
securing the future of the generation or not? Then after that, we make our
decisions.”
Source: allisrael.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://allisrael.com/palestine-is-just-a-device-that-the-muslims-use-as-a-weapon-against-israel-says-son-of-hamas-mosab-hassan-yousef
--------
UN Lifts
Travel Ban On Four Senior Taliban Officials, Intelligence Chief,Deputy PM and
Two Ministers
June 7,
2024
The UN
Security Council Sanctions Committee has lifted travel restrictions on four
senior officials of the Taliban officials who wish to participate in the Hajj
pilgrimage.
In a
recent statement, the Security Council announced that the travel ban exemption
for Sirajuddin Haqqani, Minister of Interior, Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, Deputy Prime
Minister for Political Affairs, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Intelligence Chief, and Noor
Mohammad Saqib, Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs, has been granted to
attend the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
According
to a statement from the council, the travel ban exemption for these four Taliban
officials was approved on Wednesday, June 5th.
Meanwhile,
Matthew Miller, the US State Department spokesperson, reacted to the officials
of the Interior Minister of Taliban travel to the United Arab Emirates by
stating that host countries should consider the sanctions.
Sirajuddin
Haqqani, the Interior Minister, and Abdul Haq Wasiq, the Intelligence Chief,
had traveled to the United Arab Emirates a day before the travel exemption
approval and met with senior officials of the country.
Source: khaama.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.khaama.com/un-lifts-travel-ban-on-four-senior-taliban-officials/
---------
Govt
Lays ‘Controversial’ OrdinancesAbout the Accountability Law and The Elections
Before NA
June 7,
2024
PTI-backed
Sunni Ittehad Council Chief Whip Aamir Dogar (L) and Law Minister Azam Nazeer
Tarar speak in the National Assembly on June 6. — X/NAofPakistan
-------------
ISLAMABAD:
As it faces challenges to the recently promulgated ordinances about the
accountability law and the elections, the federal government on Thursday tabled
the Election (Amendment) Ordinance 2024 and National Accountability (Amendment)
Ordinance 2024 through supplementary agenda while the PTI described the laws
“politically motivated”.
The NAB
law increases the remand period from 14 days to 40 days; whereas the election
law allows the government to appoint retired judges to the election tribunals,
a move already challenged in the Islamabad and Lahore high courts.
Even
before Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar laid before the house the ordinances,
PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council Chief Whip Aamir Dogar, while speaking on a
point of public importance, criticised the NAB ordinance.
He
recalled that in April 2023 the PDM government reduced the period of physical
remand from 90 days to 14 days but now the period has been increased to 40 days
because the government was afraid of Imran Khan.
Speaking
about the changes to the election law, he said in 2013 a committee on electoral
reforms decided that retired judges would not be appointed to election
tribunals. The law minister said that the Elections Act 2017 had a provision
for retired judges, which had been restored through the recent ordinance.
He said
the decision was made because the high courts were “overburdened” with 82,000
cases and could not spare judges. He noted that ordinances were promulgated
when the National Assembly was not in session, adding that the ordinances have
become properties of the house and will be decided through voting. The House
also extended The Seed (Amendment) Ordinance, 2024 for 120 days with effect
from June 13.
Wheat
scandal
During
the question hour, Minister Tarar informed the National Assembly that the
investigations into the wheat import scandal were underway while opposing the
idea of a judicial probe. “You can take a briefing from the minister for food
security in the chamber and examine the inquiry report,” he said.
The
minister said the issue must not be taken to the judiciary as it was the job of
the executive and parliament. He explained that the permission for import had
been given to the private sector on the basis of market assessment, and the
government did not import wheat itself.
The
minister said the crash in the global wheat market led to domestic prices
falling to between Rs 2,800 and Rs 3,200 per mound. He said that the State Bank
was asked for additional funds, resulting in Rs2,250 billion in loans for the
agriculture sector and provinces have also been urged to play their role to
facilitate the farmers.
Mr Tarar
said agriculture contributes up to 23 per cent of GDP, making it a crucial
sector.
The
National Seed Development Regulatory Authority has been established, a seed
procurement tracking system has been introduced, and both central and
provincial budgets will reflect subsidies for the agricultural sector, he said.
The
response failed to satisfy the house members who rejected the inquiry calling
it an eye-wash. Dr Nafisa Shah said, “Even if those responsible are not to be
punished we should be told what happened [in wheat scam]”. She also sought the
details of SIFC’s corporate farming, including the land acquisition and status
of the project.
PTI
lawmaker Aslam Ghumman claimed that he could “prove that the then caretaker
prime minister [Anwaarul Haq Kakar] and the caretaker Punjab chief minister
[Mohsin Naqvi] were involved” in the scandal.
Chaman
sit-in
National
Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub, while speaking on a point of order,
called for an end to enforced disappearances and condemned restrictions “being
imposed on the use of camera by media persons and YouTubers on premises of the
Parliament House”.
JUI-F
chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman, meanwhile, talked about the sufferings of people
in Chaman in Balochistan and Angor Ada and Jamrud in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Presiding officer Shehla Raza said the interior minister should come to the
National Assembly and give a statement on the Chaman issue.
MQM-P
lawmaker Waseem Hussain mentioned the death of 25 people in a cylinder blast
in Hyderabad and condemned the federal government for not responding to the
sufferings of victims there.
Source: dawn.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.dawn.com/news/1838301/govt-lays-controversial-ordinances-before-na
--------
Germany
started training its own imams to replace the ones sent by Turkey
Photo:
Raimond Spekking/Wikimedia
----------
At their
annual press conference in May, Germany’s largest Islamic association, the
Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) announced that they will
extend their imam training. Starting in 2025, 75 Turkish graduates of Islamic
theology will be trained annually in Germany. This will include intensive
training in language and culture as well as training related to their clerical
and social work. The goal is to gradually replace the more than 1,000
Turkish-trained imams deployed to Germany by Diyanet, a measure seen as overdue
for the integration and independence of the Muslim community in Germany.
Instead of being deployed for four to five years, the German-trained Imams
would commit to staying in Germany for at least ten years, preferably longer.
This
follows an agreement reached by the German Ministry of the Interior, DİTİB, and
the Turkish government to train 100 Islamic clerics per year in Germany while
simultaneously reducing the number of imams sent from Turkey. So far, only 58
imams have been trained in DİTİB’s training center since 2019. The imams in
DİTİB will no longer be supervised by the Turkish consulate but by the
association itself. This aims to reduce foreign influence on Islamic
communities in Germany.
The
relationship between DİTİB and the German government has been strained over the
last few years. When the central mosque in Cologne was inaugurated in 2018 by
Turkish President Erdoğan, many German politicians considered this an affront
to their country. The mayor of Cologne who supported the construction of the
new central mosque was not invited. In 2023, a Taliban spokesperson talked in a
DİTİB mosque, which was later condemned by the association saying they were not
informed, and they condemn all forms of extremism. Further tensions arose after
DİTİB was reluctant to distance themselves from Ali Erbaş, president of Diyanet
and head of the 1,000 imams deployed to Germany, after his antisemitic
statements following the Hamas attack on Israel.
“We need
preachers who speak our language, know our country, and stand up for our
values. We want imams to engage in interreligious dialogue and discuss
questions of belief in our society.” Nancy Faeser, Germany’s Minister of
Interior.
DİTİB
also trains German graduates of Islamic theology, but the demand is not enough
to reach the annual goal of 100 German-trained Imams. In Germany, students of
Islamic theology are mainly female and DİTİB
does not accept women as imams. Training of Turkish imams is still necessary
according to Eyüp Kalyon, DİTİB secretary-general: “We anticipate a demand for
the coming years and decades that we cannot meet with the applicants from our
training program originating from the Islamic Studies Program (UIP) and the
Centers for Islamic Theology here in Germany.”
DİTİB is
the largest Islamic organization in Germany with around 900 affiliated mosque
communities. It is controlled and financed by the Turkish Directorate of
Religious Affairs, Diyanet. Diyanet deploys imams to Germany for four or five
years, who are civil servants paid by the Turkish state and often have little
to no knowledge of German language and culture. This practice has been
criticized for years, as the imams are controlled directly by the Turkish
government. There have been accusations of them being used for political
influence and spying after the attempted coup in 2017, though it has not been
proven.
Source: bianet.org
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://bianet.org/haber/germany-started-training-its-own-imams-to-replace-the-ones-sent-by-turkey-296235
--------
India
Muslim
Representation In Parliament Witnesses An All-Time Low, Only 24 Elected Out Of
78 Candidates in 2024 Lok Sabha
June 6,
2024
Of the
78 Muslim candidates who contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, only 24
emerged victorious nationwide, continuing a downward trend in representation
over the years. In the 2019 elections, 26 Muslim candidates were elected to the
Lok Sabha, with four each from the Congress and TMC, three each from the BSP
and SP, and one each from the NCP and CPI(M).
In the
latest election, Congress candidate Imran Masood won in Saharanpur with a
margin of 64,542 votes, while Iqra Choudhary, a 29-year-old Samajwadi Party
candidate, secured a victory in Kairana, defeating BJP’s Pradeep Kumar by
69,116 votes.
In Uttar
Pradesh, Samajwadi Party’s Mohibbullah secured the Rampur seat with 4,81,503
votes, while Zia Ur Rehman won in Sambhal by a margin of 1.2 lakh votes. In Jammu
and Kashmir, Mian Altaf Ahmad of the National Conference won the
Anantnag-Rajouri seat by 2,81,794 votes, defeating former Jammu and Kashmir
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. In Srinagar, NC candidate Aga Syed Ruhullah
Mehdi secured 3,56,866 votes.
In West
Bengal’s Baharampur seat, first-time contender Yusuf Pathan pulled off an upset
by defeating Congress veteran and six-time MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury by 85,022
votes. In the Basirhat constituency, which includes Sandeshkhali, TMC’s Haji
Nurul Islam defeated BJP candidate Rekha Patra by nearly two lakh votes.
In
Uluberia, TMC’s Sajda Ahmed surpassed BJP’s Arunuday Paulchowdhury by a margin
of over two lakh votes. In Jangipur, the Trinamool’s Khalilur Rahaman defeated
Congress’s Murtoja Hossain Bokul by over one lakh votes. Murshidabad also saw
TMC’s Abu Taher Khan surpass CPI(M)’s Md Salim by over one lakh votes. In
Maldaha West, Congress’s Isha Khan Choudhary defeated BJP’s Sreerupa Mitra
Choudhary by a margin of 1.2 lakh votes.
In
Lakshadweep, Congress’s Muhammed Hamdullah Sayeed narrowly won, surpassing
Mohammed Faizal PP of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) by just
2,000 votes.
The
Indian Union Muslim League (IUML)’s Navaskani K secured a victory in Tamil
Nadu’s Ramanathapuram. In Kerala’s Ponnani, IUML’s Dr. M P Abdussamad Samadani
defeated CPI(M)’s K.S. Hamza. In Vadakara, Congress’s Shafi Parambil defeated
CPI(M)’s Shailaja Teacher by a margin of over one lakh votes. IUML also
triumphed in the Malappuram constituency, where E T Mohammed Basheer defeated
CPI(M)’s V Vaseef by over three lakh votes.
In
Bihar, Congress’s Tariq Anwar won from Katihar, surpassing Janata Dal
(United)’s Dulal Chandra Goswami by nearly 50,000 votes. In Kishanganj,
Congress’s Mohammad Jawed defeated JD(U)’s Mujahid Alam by almost 60,000 votes.
In Assam’s Dhubri constituency, traditionally an AIUDF stronghold, Badruddin
Ajmal was defeated by Congress’s Rakibul Hussain.
Muslim
MPs Party Wise
This
year, the BSP fielded 35 Muslim candidates, the highest among all parties. Of
these, more than half (17) were in Uttar Pradesh, with four in Madhya Pradesh,
three each in Bihar and Delhi, two in Uttarakhand, and one each in Rajasthan,
Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Telangana, and Gujarat.
The
Congress followed with 19 Muslim candidates, the largest number being in West
Bengal at six, followed by two each in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, and UP,
and one each in Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Telangana, and Lakshadweep. The TMC
had the third highest number of Muslim candidates, fielding six, five of whom
are from West Bengal and one from Assam.
The SP
has four Muslim candidates, three from UP and one from Andhra Pradesh. Notably,
the SP replaced one of its sitting Muslim MPs in UP, Moradabad’s S T Hasan,
with a Hindu candidate, Ruchi Veera. Excluding J&K, the highest number of
Muslim candidates are contesting in UP (22), followed by West Bengal (17),
Bihar (seven), Kerala (six), and Madhya Pradesh (four). Assam, which has a high
proportion of Muslims in its population, has three Muslim candidates, down from
four last time.
“The
Muslim Voter In 2024 Has Voted Very Carefully”
S.Q.R.
Rasool Illyas, president of the Welfare Party of India, who was a candidate
from the Jangipur constituency in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, said,
“Due to the narrative which has been created by the BJP, political parties are
giving fewer and fewer tickets to Muslim candidates.”
Political
analyst Rashid Kidwai believes that even with a reduced mandate for the BJP, it
is unlikely that a higher number of Muslim candidates would be nominated. He
asserted, “I don’t see this changing anytime soon. The Muslim voter in 2024 has
voted very carefully. Muslims have tacitly taken a step back and voted for
safety and security. They (Muslim voters) would surely want a seat at the high
table, but for now they are insecure about safety and security issues, and have
made decisive choices while voting.”
Source: newsx.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.newsx.com/national/lok-sabha-results-2024-muslim-representation-in-parliament-witnesses-an-all-time-low-only-24-elected-out-of-78-candidates/
--------
‘A
little less suffocating’: Why many Muslims view the Lok Sabha verdict with
cautious hope
Tabassum
Barnagarwala & Rokibuz Zaman
For
several days in June last year, Ayaz Shaikh could not go to his carpentry
workshop as he ran from lawyers to police station to court, hoping to get his
17-year-old son out of trouble.
On June
6, his son was among five minors in Kolhapur detained by the police for sharing
an Instagram post featuring pictures of 18th-century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan –
and subsequently sent to a remand home.
Mistaking
Tipu Sultan for Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, Hindutva groups had accused the boys of
hurting religious sentiments and insulting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the
17th-century Maratha ruler revered in Maharashtra.
A mob
had gathered outside Shaikh’s home and thrown stones, injuring another son
while his elderly mother hid inside. Riots soon broke out in Kolhapur on June
7, 2023, damaging 80 vehicles and property worth Rs 7 lakh.
“After
my son came out of juvenile home, we feared for his safety for months,” he
said. Most rioters, said Shaikh, were residents from their neighbourhood. “This
had never happened before,” said Shaikh. “And we hope it does not get repeat.”
When
Shaikh went to vote on May 7, he resolved to support a political party that
would ensure peace. He voted for Congress candidate Chhatrapati Shahu Shahaji,
a descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
In his
campaigns, Shahaji told voters that he chose to enter active politics at the
age of 76 “to protect the Constitution” and “to retain democracy”.
When the
results came in on June 4, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party stopped short of a
simple majority, its tally reduced from 303 seats to 240.
Shahaji
won by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes, defeating a candidate of the Shiv Sena,
which is a BJP ally.
The
verdict came as a relief for several Muslim voters, who have faced the brunt of
demolitions, hateful speech and discrimination in the last decade. Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s divisive speeches throughout the election campaign had
targeted Muslims, referring to them as “infiltrators” and “those who have more
children”.
“People
are fed up with riots, with inflation,” said Shaikh. “The results show that one
party cannot continue to dominate.”
But for
many Muslim voters who spoke to Scroll, the hope for an end to the politics of
hate is tempered with caution.
‘People
have resisted’
Saidur
Rahman Mullah, a 40-year-old pharmacist in a remote village in Western Assam’s
Dhubri, is hopeful that the results will rein in the BJP, which he said had
“dehumanised the Muslims” in the state.
“The BJP
is targeting Muslims, evicting them from their homes, arresting and putting
them in jail for child marriages,” he said.
Mullah
said madrassas were shut and masjids were demolished. “But the results show
that one cannot rule a country with such hate and prejudice.” Mullah’s own shop
was demolished six months ago by the Dhubri administration.
Mullah
is most optimistic about the Congress’s performance. But he felt that Muslims
of Bengali-origin will continue to be under siege unless there is a change in
the government in Assam. Since 2021, Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma-led
administration has been openly targeted Muslims in the state, especially those
of Bengali origin.
“Perhaps,
if Congress manages to form a government in Delhi, it can return to power in
Assam too in 2026,” said Mullah.
In Uttar
Pradesh’s Saharanpur, 38-year-old Mohammed Salim said the verdict will force
the BJP to soften its stance against Muslims. “Pehle akramak the. Earlier they
were in attack mode,” he said. “Now even if the NDA forms a government, police
atrocities will be reduced. The administration will not do as it pleases.”
Salim
took hope in the representation of Muslims in Parliament. In the Saharanpur
constituency, where Salim voted, Imran Masood from the Congress won by a margin
of over 64,000 votes, taking the total number of Muslim parliamentarians to 24,
which is still lower than the 26 elected in 2019.
Shaheed
Ahmed, a 29-year-old Barpeta-based legal researcher, said that the resurgence
of the Opposition had made him hopeful about democracy.
“Despite
the Election Commission trying its best to favour the ruling party, people have
resisted and fought for democracy,” Ahmed said. The Congress should represent
and speak for the people so that they can breathe, he said.
‘Not a
defeat of communalism’
Several
other voters were reluctant to read too much into the verdict.
In
Mumbai, 24-year-old law student Umair Alware said the results are “not a defeat
of communalism”. It will still take time to change the communal mindset and how
the majority community perceives Muslims in India, said Alware. “BJP has not
lost,” said Alware. “They only have fewer seats than the last term.” Voters who
had drained their savings during the Covid-19 pandemic had sent the ruling
party a message, he said.
Alware,
however, was relieved that the BJP’s inability to secure an absolute majority
could push back the party’s agenda of introducing a uniform civil code,
implementing simultaneous state and general elections, and creating a National
Register of Citizens.
Ashiqua
Ahmed, a resident of Bongaigoan district, however, counted the losses of the
past decade. “I have felt more isolated and helpless each day for the last 10
years because of the increasing hate against Muslims, communal speeches and the
indifference of most people to that,” she said. “I still believe we have a long
way to go and it’s too early to rejoice maybe, but at least it feels a little
less suffocating.”
Source: scroll.in
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://scroll.in/article/1068915/a-little-less-suffocating-why-many-muslims-view-the-lok-sabha-verdict-with-cautious-hope
--------
We lost
seats due to Muslim consolidation behind Sena (UBT): Shrikant Shinde
Jun 07,
2024
Mumbai:
Newly elected Shiv Sena MP and chief minister Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant
Shinde said the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) trumped the ruling
alliance in the state owing to polarisation and the consolidation of Muslim
votes behind Shiv Sena (UBT), which he termed as a temporary phenomenon. “The
Mahayuti also suffered because of the Maratha agitation,” Shinde told HT in an
exclusive interview. Edited excerpts:
This
election was fought on polarisation. The opposition started a campaign of
‘Samvidhan Bachao’ and incited Muslims and Dalits. If you see, our candidates
lost in Muslim-dominated areas as voters rallied en masse behind opposition
candidates. They spread lies and we could not break the narrative. It’s
dangerous for the nation when voting happens in this manner.
Besides,
shuffling of our candidates and delay in announcing some names cost us four to
five seats such as Nashik, Ramtek, Yavatmal Washim, Hingoli and South Mumbai.
This should not have happened. Candidates should have been selected earlier.
What
went wrong in South Mumbai?
Our
candidate lost in South Mumbai only because of minority votes.
Shiv
Sena (UBT) has been claiming that four MPs affiliated to your party are in
touch with them.
This is
not true – they have gone mad and must be put in an asylum.
Shiv Sena
depended entirely on the BJP for declaration of candidates and poll strategy.
Why did your leaders not have a final say?
This is
not true. We have a coalition government and the three parties chose candidates
together. But, surveys to gauge winnability led to delays in announcement of
candidates. This could have been done in a better manner.
Has the
poll performance stalled the entry of new faces into Shiv Sena from the
Thackeray faction and other groups?
New
people will come. It is an ongoing process – a lot of people are coming to us
and more will join in future. Our vote share is also better than the Thackeray
faction’s. We got 14.5% votes while they got 4.5%. The vote bank of Shiv Sena
(UBT) comprising Muslims and Dalits is temporary and will not be with them on a
permanent basis. They voted with vengeance in this election because of false
propoganda. This won’t work every time. We are the original Shiv Sena.
Did the
BJP machinery wholeheartedly help you in the polls?
We
fought as a coalition government and all cadres worked together in all
constituencies.
The Shiv
Sena has got a raw deal in the state cabinet and many MLAs are dissatisfied.
This
question can only be answered by the chief minister and the deputy chief
ministers.
How many
seats will your party ask for in the assembly polls?
Let us
see. We will ask for maximum seats, but have not decided on a number as it is
too early.
What
impact did the Maratha agitation have on the polls?
It
affected us in Marathwada. Even though we provided reservation to Marathas
without touching the OBC quota, a false narrative was created.
Did the
split in the Shiv Sena affect your party’s prospects?
We
secured 14.5% votes only because we are the original Shiv Sena. In Mumbai
itself, we got two lakh more votes than Shiv Sena (UBT). In Sambhaji Nagar, our
candidate Sandipan Bhumare was the winner, the AIMIM candidate Imtiyaaz Jaleel
was the runner up, and Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Chandrakant Khaire came third.
These
factors show that Shiv Sena (UBT) won only because of minority votes. This is
true of Mumbai as well as Parbhani. The INDIA alliance too won in Bhiwandi
because of minority votes.
When
will civic polls be held in Maharashtra?
I really
don’t know whether it will be held before or after the assembly polls.
What
plans do you have for Kalyan over the next five years?
I want
bring in more development, such as a separate dam for supplying water to Kalyan
and Dombivali. We want to revamp schools under the KDMC and zilla parishads,
aligning them with CBSE standards. We also want to have a robust mechanism for
health in my constituency.
Source: hindustantimes.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/we-lost-seats-due-to-muslim-consolidation-behind-sena-ubt-shrikant-shinde-101717702020809.html
--------
Did BJP
strike rate improve after Modi’s ‘anti-Muslim’ rhetoric? Here’s how it fared in
all 7 phases
AMOGH
ROHMETRA
06 June,
2024
New
Delhi: BJP’s strike rate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls held in seven phases over
44 days ranged from 35 to 70 percent, declining between the third and seventh
phase, an analysis by ThePrint shows.
The
Opposition attributed this decline to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
“anti-Muslim” rhetoric and the BJP’s showing in the 77 seats it contested in
the first phase. Of these 77, the BJP won 30 — a strike rate of 39 percent.
Also
important to note is that Tamil Nadu, where the BJP has been a marginal player,
was among the states where all seats went to the polls in the first phase. If
one were to discount the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, of which it contested 23,
BJP’s strike rate in the first phase was 55 per cent.
Referring
to the speech Modi made in Rajasthan’s Banswara on 21 April, two days after the
conclusion of the first phase, the Opposition claimed then that Modi’s
“anti-Muslim” rhetoric was prompted by low voter turnout and the BJP’s “poor”
performance in the first phase.
As ThePrint
reported earlier, there was also a decline in the mention of BJP’s “400 paar”
slogan in Modi’s speeches after the first phase.
In the
second phase, the BJP’s strike rate increased by 35 percentage points to 67
percent — it won 47 of the 70 seats it contested in this phase. This included
all 20 seats in Kerala, of which the BJP secured one.
In the
third phase, the BJP improved its strike rate further to 70 percent. This was
highest for the BJP among all seven phases. Its strike rate in this phase can also
be largely attributed to Gujarat, where it won 25 of 26 seats.
However,
from the fourth phase onwards, the BJP’s strike rate began to decline — barring
one exception. In the fourth phase, the BJP’s strike rate declined, by 15
percentage points from the previous phase, to 55 percent.
This
decline continued in the fifth phase, where its strike rate was only 45 per
cent. Of the 40 BJP candidates in the fray in this phase, only 18 won.
The
sixth phase was where the party managed to stage a revival of sorts by winning
31 of the 51 seats it contested in this phase — a strike rate of 61 percent.
But it
could not keep up the momentum in the seventh phase where its strike rate
declined, by 26 percentage points from the previous phase, to 35 percent. It
won only 18 of the 52 seats it contested in this phase.
Overall,
the BJP won 240 (including Surat) of the 440 seats it contested in the 2024 Lok
Sabha elections — a cumulative strike rate of 54.5 percent.
Source: theprint.in
Please click the following URL to read the
text of the original Story
https://theprint.in/politics/did-bjp-strike-rate-improve-after-modis-anti-muslim-rhetoric-heres-how-it-fared-in-all-7-phases/2120141/
--------
Video Of
Man Criticising Hindus in Ayodhya for BJP’s Defeat Is Not Muslim
6 June 2024
A video
purporting to show a Muslim man criticising the Hindus of Ayodhya for not
electing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in their constituency of
Faizabad is viral online. BOOM found that the claims are false, the video does
not show a Muslim man, but a pro-BJP Hindu content creator from Agra, Dhirendra
Raghav. The results of the Lok Sabha elections were announced on June 4, 2024,
and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Faizabad, Lallu Singh, lost
to Samajwadi Party's Awadhesh Prasad by a margin of 54,567 votes. This defeat
has been especially upsetting for the BJP since Faizabad is the constituency
that houses the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which the BJP has taken great pride in
building. The viral video shows a man in a skull cap shaming the Hindus of
Ayodhya for not electing the BJP and saying, "Traitor Hindus, you were
saved this time. Ram Bhakt Hindus saved you and did not let the Congress form
government. Otherwise, Rahul (Gandhi) would give us reservation, the temple at Ayodhya
would have been replaced by a mosque. But what's five more years? Allah will
bless us. But there is one thing. If our leader would build us a mosque in
Ayodhya or somewhere else, then we would vote for him without any doubt. Not
just 400, we would bring 450, 500 seats for them. You are such traitors, Modi
did everything for you, and you didn't even vote for him. (spits), shame on
you. We (Muslims) are ashamed of you. One who isn't there for their own people,
can't be there for anyone else."
The
video is being shared on X with the caption, "To the people of Ayodhya,
listen to this and be ashamed of yourself." (Original text in Hindi:
"सुनोअयोध्यावालोंइसवीडियोकोसुनोउसकेबादचुल्लूपरपानीमेंडूबजाओ।")
Source: boomlive.in
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.boomlive.in/fact-check/muslim-man-criticises-hindus-in-ayodhya-pm-modi-bjp-faizabad-elections-2024-25550
--------
Mideast
UN chief
says Gaza strike a ‘horrific example’ of civilian suffering
June 06,
2024
NEW
YORK: The UN chief on Thursday condemned an Israeli strike on a UN-run school
that the Israeli military alleged housed a “Hamas compound” as a Gaza hospital
said at least 37 people had been killed.
“It’s
just another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying, that
Palestinian men, women and children who are just trying to survive (are
paying),” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric
said.
“Of
course he condemns this attack. There will need to be accountability for
everything that has happened in Gaza.”
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525386/middle-east
--------
Israel
Targets Hamas and Islamic Jihad Terrorists Hiding in UNRWA School
conducted
a precision airstrike on Hamas terrorists hiding inside a central Gaza school
operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on June 6.
According to the IDF, the strike targeted 20-30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
terrorists who were hiding in three classrooms in the school in Nuseirat. The
IDF said the school was used by Hamas’s Nukhba Force, some of whom participated
in the October 7 atrocities in Israel. Besides the terrorists, the school was
also sheltering displaced civilians. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said
that the IDF took precautions to minimize civilian casualties, even postponing
the strike twice. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, which refuses
to distinguish between terrorist and civilian casualties, claimed that at least
27 Palestinians had been killed. Later in the day, the IDF released the names
of nine Hamas and PIJ members who were killed in the precision strikes. IDF
spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said during a press conference that Israel is
working to identify additional terrorists who were killed. The strike comes
after a June 4 IDF airstrike on a Hamas compound located inside UNRWA’s Abu
Alhilu school in Bureij.
Expert
Analysis
“UNRWA
is a Hamas affiliate, plain and simple. Hamas turned a school into a terror
headquarters and Israel carefully eliminated the terrorists while avoiding
civilian casualties. It’s time to impose terrorism sanctions on UNRWA.” —
Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
“Time
and again, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza have demonstrated that they
will exploit any opportunity to act against Israel, whether it’s hiding in a UN
facility, digging tunnels under hospitals, or concealing rockets in residential
areas. The primary concern of Hamas and its allies is their survival, not the
well-being of Palestinian civilians.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at
FDD’s Long War Journal
Multiple
Incidents of Hamas Terrorists at UNRWA Facilities
On May
5, Israeli planes destroyed a Hamas command center located in an UNRWA complex
that the IDF and the Shin Bet intelligence agency said was used to stage
multiple attacks against Israeli troops. On May 11, Israeli troops exchanged
gunfire with numerous terrorists in an UNRWA aid distribution compound in
eastern Rafah. The same day, Israel released an aerial surveillance video
showing several armed Palestinians inside an UNRWA compound, with some of the
gunmen standing next to vehicles with “UN” markings. On May 14, the IDF struck another
UNRWA school in Nuseirat, killing 15 terrorists, including 10 Nukhba Force
members, based on intelligence that Hamas was using it as a war room. On May
30, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) — the
agency responsible for coordinating civilian policy inside Gaza and the West
Bank — wrote on X that Israeli troops uncovered shafts leading to a network of
Hamas’s tunnels inside an UNRWA school’s classrooms, as well as large
quantities of weapons.
UNRWA’s
Ties to Hamas
Israel
has accused the UN agency — which is charged with maintaining the welfare of
Palestinians UNRWA classifies as refugees — of collaborating with Hamas. The
agency employs active Hamas members — including at least 15 UNRWA employees who
played a direct role in the October 7 massacre — and ignores Hamas’s use of its
facilities. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has said that Hamas is so integrated
with UNRWA that “it is impossible to say where UNRWA ends and Hamas begins.” On
May 29, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a preliminary bill to
designate UNRWA as a terrorist organization.
Source: fdd.org
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/06/06/israel-targets-hamas-and-islamic-jihad-terrorists-hiding-in-unrwa-school/
--------
Yemen's
Houthis chief: Operations with Islamic Resistance in Iraq against Israel will
intensify
JUNE 06,
2024
DUBAI —
The leader of Yemen's Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday (June 6)
the group's operations against Israel, carried out with the group Islamic
Resistance in Iraq, would intensify.
Earlier,
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group launched two joint
military operations with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance against ships at Israel's
Haifa port — though the Israeli military denied the report.
Islamic
Resistance in Iraq said it carried out two operations with the Houthis on Haifa
port, according to a statement on its Telegram channel.
Source: asiaone.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.asiaone.com/world/yemens-houthis-chief-operations-islamic-resistance-iraq-against-israel-will-intensify
--------
Turkey
urges Chinese authorities to protect the cultural rights of minority Muslim
Uighurs
June 7,
2024
ANKARA--Turkey’s
foreign minister has urged Chinese authorities to protect the cultural rights
of minority Muslim Uighurs in China’s western Xinjiang province and allow them
to “live their values,” a Turkish official said Wednesday.
Foreign
Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday concluded a three-day visit to China, where
he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, Vice President Han Zheng and
other officials. He also travelled to the cities of Urumqi and Kashgar in
Xinjiang province, becoming the first Turkish official to travel to the region
since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited in 2012.
Turkey
has cultural and ethnic ties to the Uighurs and many members of the community,
fleeing human rights violations in the region, have found sanctuary in Turkey.
China is
accused of sending more than a million Uighurs and other largely Muslim
minorities into prisons and detention camps. Beijing denies human rights abuses
and says the centers were for vocational training.
The
Turkish government, which once vehemently criticized China’s treatment of
Uighurs, has moderated its criticism as it developed stronger economic
relations with Beijing.
Fidan
told Chinese officials during his meetings that Turkey respects China’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Turkish official said. But the
minister added that the Turkish people and the Islamic world have
“sensitivities” concerning the protection of Uighurs’ cultural rights,
according to the official.
Fidan
conveyed the message that removing the concerns “would be of great benefit to
everyone,” according to the official, who provided the information on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
China is
Turkey’s third-largest trading partner. Ankara is trying to reduce a trade
imbalance that is in China’s favor by urging it to import more Turkish
agricultural goods, increase investments and motivate more Chinese tourists to
visit Turkey, the official said.
Source: asahi.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15296662
--------
Yemen's
Houthis claim joint attacks with Iraqi militias against Israel's Haifa port
Jun 06,
2024
Yemen's
Houthi rebels on Thursday said they had launched two joint military attacks
with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance militia group against ships at Israel's Haifa
port, a claim denied by the Israeli army.
Like
Hezbollah in Lebanon and other armed groups in Syria, the Houthis and the Iraqi
group, which includes several armed factions, are part of the so-called Axis of
Resistance, an anti-western political and military coalition led by Tehran.
Since
the war broke out in Gaza on October 7, the Iran-backed armed factions have
established a daily co-ordination process through a joint command, mainly
focused on picking up targets and the timings of attacks against Israel and US
forces.
But this
is the first time the Houthis, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea for
the past seven months, have announced a joint military operation with another
armed group.
The
Houthis “carried out two joint military operations with the Iraqi Islamic
Resistance, targeting two ships carrying military equipment in the port of
Haifa and a ship that violated the decision to ban entry to the port of Haifa”,
they said in a statement.
“The two
operations were carried out through a number of drones, and the casualties were
accurate,” they added, emphasising that “the joint Haifa Port operation comes
in response to the massacres of the Israeli enemy in the Rafah” in the southern
part of the Gaza Strip.
However,
the Israeli military denied the claim. “It's not true,” military spokesperson
Lt Col Peter Lerner was quoted as saying.
The
heavily armed Houthis have been attacking western-linked shipping in the Red
Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas in Gaza. They have launched more than
50 attacks on ships since November, seized one vessel and sunk another.
Shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined because of the
threat.
In Iraq,
militant groups have also claimed attacks against Israeli targets since they
halted their operations against US forces in February as part of an announced
truce that involves Iran, the US and the Iraqi government.
In
response to the rebels’ attacks, British and US forces launched at least five
joint strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen where the rebels control the
capital Sanaa and vast areas of the northern and western parts of the
war-ravaged country.
Washington,
however, has been carrying out almost daily strikes against Houthi targets,
including incoming missiles and drones aimed at ships, as well as weapons that
were prepared to launch. But the missiles and drones keep coming, putting into
question the effectiveness of air power.
On
Thursday, Yemen’s rebel leader Abdul Malik Al Houthi said in a speech that the
rebels launched 11 attacks this week, including eight against ships.
Commenting
on the alleged joint operations with the Iraqi militias, he said that this
co-ordination is the beginning of an “important path that will provide a model
of co-operation between the sons of Islam”.
“The
joint operations will have a significant impact on the enemies and the course
of joint operations with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq will be important,
strategic and progressive,” he added.
Source: thenationalnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/06/06/yemens-houthis-claim-joint-attacks-with-iraqi-militias-against-israels-haifa-port/
--------
Yemeni
armed forces carry out two joint operations with Iraqi Islamic Resistance
[06/June/2024]
SANA'A
June 6. 2024 (Saba) -Truimphing for the oppression of the Palestinian people
and in response to the American-British aggression against our country.
The Yemeni
Armed Forces carried out two joint military operations with the Iraqi Islamic
Resistance, the first targeted two ships carrying military equipments in the
port of Haifa.
While
the second targeted a ship that violated the decision to ban entry to the port
of Haifa in occupied Palestine.
The two
operations were carried out with a number of UAVs, and the strikes, with
allah's help, were accurate.
The
joint operation on Haifa port comes in response to the massacres of the Israeli
enemy in Rafah area, and the Israeli enemy shall expect more specific joint
operations during the next period of time, until its brutal and criminal
aggression stops and its siege against our people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.
The
Yemeni Armed Forces call on all Arab armies to participate in supportive
operations in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance consistent with their
religious and humanitarian duty towards the Palestinian people.
Allah is
sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs, the best protector, and
the best helper
Long
live Yemen, free, beloved and independent
Victory
belongs to Yemen and to all the free people of the nation
Sanaa
Dhul-Qi’dah
29, 1445 AH
June 6,
2024 AD
Al-hamadani
Issued
by the Yemeni Armed Forces
Source: saba.ye
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3337667.htm
--------
Israeli
settlers in the West Bank were hit with international sanctions. It only
emboldened them
June 07,
2024
SOUTH
HEBRON HILLS, West Bank: For weeks after being sanctioned by the United States,
Yinon Levi struggled to pay the bills, living at his farming outpost atop a
hill in the occupied West Bank. But the Israeli settler’s problems didn’t last.
When the
banks froze his accounts, his community raised thousands of dollars for him,
and Israel’s finance minister vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’
behalf. Two months after sanctions were issued, Levi was granted access to his
money.
“America
thought it would weaken us, and in the end, they made us stronger,” Levi, 31,
told The Associated Press from his farm in the South Hebron Hills — one of
dozens of unauthorized settlement outposts dotting the West Bank.
Levi is
among 13 hard-line Israeli settlers — as well as two affiliated outposts and
four groups — targeted by international sanctions over accusations of attacks
and harassment against Palestinians in the West Bank. The measures are meant as
a deterrent, and they expose people to asset freezes and travel and visa bans.
But the
measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and
land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights
groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP.
Sanctions
prohibit financial institutions and residents in the issuing country from
providing funds to a person or entity. In some cases, property is seized. Even
though Israeli banks aren’t obliged to freeze accounts, many do so to maintain
relations with banks — particularly for US sanctions — and avoid risk.
But for sanctioned
settlers, the implications didn’t last long, with communities donating money
and holding fundraisers making tens of thousands of dollars. And Israeli
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, said he’d “take
care of the issue” of people being sanctioned, Levi’s father-in-law, Noam
Federman, told AP.
Smotrich
said in a text-message statement that sanctions are “a grave mistake by the
Biden administration.” He didn’t address questions about whether he intervened
directly to unfreeze settlers’ accounts. But he said his actions to develop
settlements are authorized, and the government is working with “our friends in
the US” to cancel or reduce sanctions.
Israel
seized the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank; the international
community largely considers their presence illegal. But under Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — the most right-wing in Israeli history, with
settlers themselves in key positions — expansion has been turbocharged.
Palestinians
say expanding Israeli outposts are shrinking their access to land, and settler
violence against them has soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the
war with Israel. Land seized through unauthorized outposts has more than
doubled since the war started, according to settlement watchdog Kerem Navot.
Palestinians
living in small hamlets ringed by hilltop outposts say they fear it’s just a
matter of time until they’re forced to leave their homes.
US
officials have repeatedly raised concerns about surging settler violence, with
President Joe Biden saying it had reached “intolerable levels” when announcing
sanctions. Israel has said it’s calling for settlers to stand down and
investigating violence. But rights groups accuse the government and army of
complicity with the settlers.
In
March, even the Israeli army complained about the extent to which the
government intervenes on settlers’ behalf. An internal document, seen by AP and
published by The New York Times, said the army is routinely denied
authorization to act against illegal building by Israelis and regularly
authorized to act against Palestinians.
REALITY
OF SANCTIONS
Three
sanctioned settlers — Levi, Federman and Elisha Yered — told AP the measures
against them were, at most, an annoyance.
Levi
founded Meitarim Farm in 2021 on a hill whose sloping sides give way to
lowlands where Bedouin farmers graze sheep. He said he wanted to protect the
area from being overtaken by Palestinians.
“Little by
little, you feel when you drive on the roads that everyone is closing in on
you,” he said. “They’re building everywhere, wherever they want. So you want to
do something about it.”
Since
then, anti-settlement activists say, more than 300 people from four nearby
hamlets have been pushed off their land. Levi said the land is his and denies
violently chasing anyone away.
US
officials sanctioned him in February over accusations that from his outpost, he
led settlers who assaulted Palestinians and Bedouins, threatened them, burned
their fields and destroyed property.
Levi
said his Israeli bank froze his accounts — holding nearly $95,000 — and within
days, he couldn’t pay his mortgage or children’s school and activities fees.
Friends
and relatives donated about $12,000 to him through April, he said, when the
bank allowed him to withdraw on a controlled basis — he calls for permission
and explains each transaction’s purpose.
An
online fundraiser by the area’s regional council raised $140,000 for Levi from
3,000 donors worldwide. Following AP reporting on the fundraiser, the Mount
Hebron Fund was also sanctioned by the US.
Since
regaining access to his money, Levi said, he’s never been refused a request.
The bank gave him a monthly limit of $8,000 in withdrawals, he said, but he
nearly doubled that in the first few weeks.
In a
clarification letter to Israel’s banks in March, the US Treasury said banks can
process transactions for sanctioned people for basic needs such as food and
healthcare, provided the transactions don’t involve the US financial system or
US residents.
But Levi
said he could buy whatever he wanted — he wouldn’t give specifics but said it
wasn’t limited to “food or diapers.”
A US
Treasury spokesperson didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment on Levi’s
claims, sanctioned settlers and monitoring mechanisms.
The
spokesperson for Bank Leumi, Levi’s bank and a major Israeli financial
institution, didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment on the
settlers’ accounts and transactions.
BEYOND SETTLER
SANCTIONS
Local
rights groups hope sanctions will be extended to Israeli government officials
who they say embolden settler activity.
That
would send a stronger signal of Washington’s condemnation, said Delaney Simon,
of the International Crisis Group.
“Sanctions
against government officials have cast a chilling effect in other countries,
causing firms to shy away from doing business in those places,” she said.
Smotrich,
who lives in the Kedumim settlement and was given special powers over
settlement policies as part of the governing coalition agreement, told Israeli
media in April that he’d take steps to help sanctioned settlers.
Levi’s
father-in-law, Federman, told AP that he spoke to Smotrich directly.
“He said
he will take care of it, and if necessary he will even make a law against
interference of other countries in Israelis’ bank accounts,” Federman said.
Shortly after, he added, his son-in-law’s account was unfrozen.
During a
US congressional subcommittee meeting Tuesday with Treasury Secretary Janet
Yellen, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland urged sanctions against Smotrich.
“This is
in direct contradiction of US policy,” he said.
Yellen
said she shared “concerns about what’s happening in the West Bank.” No action
was taken in the meeting.
Britain
sanctioned Federman, 55, in May over allegations that he trained settlers to
commit violence against Palestinians, which he denied. He said he’d already had
his wife open a separate account, after seeing others sanctioned.
He said
he’s had no issues accessing money.
Israeli
human rights lawyer Eitay Mack said that in addition to sanctioning settlers,
the international community should target organizations funding settler
expansion.
“If the
international community is serious about the two-state solution, they have to
tackle everything that gives the system money and legitimacy,” he said.
Activists
cite groups such as Amana, which funds settlements and maintains oversight for
some of Levi’s farm, according to a contract seen by AP. They also point to the
group Nachala, which has a stated goal of enhancing West Bank settlement and
has openly planned construction of unauthorized outposts.
Nachala
is run by Daniella Weiss, a prominent figure in fringe Israeli efforts to
resettle Gaza who’s regarded as the godmother of the settler movement.
“I’m not
afraid of sanctions,” Weiss said. “The truth of the matter is that the United
States wants us to be in Gaza because the United States does not want jihad to
rule the world.”
EFFECTS
FOR PALESTINIANS
Meanwhile,
Palestinians in the West Bank say sanctions are mostly futile.
Eight
Palestinians in two hamlets in the South Hebron Hills told AP they’re still
being pushed off their land, with several alleging Levi has threatened them
since being sanctioned.
One man
said that in February, while out with his sheep, Levi held him at gunpoint,
recounted all the places he’d forced people away, and threatened to kill him if
he returned.
“He told
me, ‘I displaced people from Zanuta to ad-Dhahiriya ... I am from the family of
the farm of mad people,’” said Ahmed, who spoke on condition that only his
first name be used, over retaliation fears.
Levi
told AP the incident never happened.
Ahmed
and other Palestinians said they are verbally and physically harassed, can’t
move freely, and face intimidation by settlers circling their properties on
motorbikes, cars or horses and spying via drones. A drone hovered overhead
while AP was on the land; Palestinians say the buzzing is used to send sheep
fleeing.
The few
Palestinians who’ve refused to leave the area around Levi’s farm say their land
has shrunk by 95% since he established Meitarim, crippling them economically.
In
recent years, settlers have changed land-grabbing tactics, anti-occupation
researcher Dror Etkes said: Rather than establishing residential settlements,
they’ve turned to farming outposts, which use more land for grazing animals and
spark more violence because they’re spread out, with high visibility.
Etkes
said there’s been a total collapse of rule of law in the territory, with the
Israeli government defending settlers.
Etkes
said land Levi controls has nearly doubled since the war, from about 1,000 (400
hectares) to 2,000 acres (800 hectares).
And
settlers say they’ll keep expanding.
In a
makeshift clubhouse on a hilltop near the settlement of Maskiyot in the
northern West Bank, Elisha Yered said he’s established five outposts since
2021. The most recent was built about a month before he was sanctioned by the
European Union in April.
He’s a
leading figure for Hilltop Youth — a group of Jewish teenagers and young men
who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of attacking Palestinians
and their property. Hilltop Youth was also sanctioned by the UK and the EU.
The EU
order said Yered, 23, was involved in deadly attacks on Palestinians. He was
accused of involvement a 19-year-old Palestinian’s death last year.
Yered
told AP the incident was one of self-defense over Palestinians attacking a
herder and said he had nothing to do with his death. He was arrested in the
case but never charged.
Yered is
also sanctioned by the UK, which said he incited religious hatred and violence
and called for Palestinian displacement.
Yered
said that while the sanctions initially posed challenges accessing money,
friends and family supported him. His credit card remains blocked, he said, but
his bank lets him withdraw with permission.
He said
nothing has halted his expansion goals.
“Only
settling the land will bring security,” Yered said. “Anyone who thinks this
will break us is mistaken. We’ve survived harder things than this.”
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525456/middle-east
--------
US warns
Israel of ‘massive’ impact of denying Palestinian revenue
June 07,
2024
WASHINGTON:
The United States warned Thursday that Israel will see a "massive"
negative impact if the Palestinian Authority collapses as Washington again
pressed its ally to let revenue flow.
"We
have made clear to the government of Israel in some very direct conversations
that there is nothing that could be more counter to the strategic interests of
Israel than the collapse of the Palestinian Authority," State Department
spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
While
acknowledging shortcomings in the Palestinian Authority, he said the
Ramallah-based body had helped maintain stability in the West Bank even as war
has raged in Gaza, run for years by rivals Hamas.
"If
you saw the Palestinian Authority collapse and instability spread across the
West Bank, it's not just a problem for the Palestinians," he said,
"it is also a massive security threat for the state of Israel."
Under
peace agreements in the 1990s, Israel collects money for the Palestinian
Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank.
Israel
then disburses the money to the PA.
But
Israel has been blocking revenue since Hamas on October 7 carried out its
massive attack in Israel, triggering a relentless retaliatory military
campaign.
Israeli
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a member of the far right who advocates
Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also a long-time critic of the Palestinian
Authority and of moves toward an independent Palestinian state.
The US
warning followed a statement by the Israeli military that the Netanyahu
government policy of cutting off funds to the PA could push the occupied West
Bank into a third “intifada.”
The
World Bank has also warned that the PA's fiscal situation has
"dramatically worsened" with the risk of complete collapse.
Source: arabnews.com
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-------
Israel’s
Netanyahu to address US Congress on July 24: source
June 07,
2024
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation from Republican
and Democratic party leaders to address lawmakers in the US Congress on July
24, a congressional source told AFP on Thursday.
The
visit comes amid mounting pressure for the US ally and Hamas militants to agree
to a permanent ceasefire as Israel faces growing diplomatic isolation over the
rising death toll in Gaza.
Biden
last week presented what he called an Israeli three-phase plan that would end
the conflict, free all hostages and lead to the reconstruction of the
devastated Palestinian territory without Hamas in power.
But
Netanyahu's office stressed that the war sparked by the October 7 attacks would
continue until Israel's “goals are achieved,” including the destruction of
Hamas, which has not given its response to the plan.
The four
party leaders in the US House and Senate asked Netanyahu last week to speak
before a joint meeting of Congress in a letter voicing solidarity with Israel
“in your struggle against terror, especially as Hamas continues to hold
American and Israeli citizens captive.”
The
visit comes after Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called in
March for Israel to hold new elections in a rare example of strident criticism
from a senior American official of the country's handling of the war in Gaza.
The
rebuke from Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Jewish American in history,
came amid expressions of dismay from progressive Democrats who have condemned
Netanyahu over his handling of the military response and vowed to snub the
right-wing leader’s speech.
The war
was sparked when Hamas attacked Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,194
people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official
figures.
Militants
also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says
are dead.
Israel’s
retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza, also
mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
A Gaza
hospital said Thursday at least 37 people had been killed in an Israeli strike
on a UN-run school that the Israeli military alleged housed a Hamas compound.
US,
Qatari and Egyptian mediators have resumed talks aimed at securing a truce and
hostage-prisoner swap in the nearly eight-month war.
But the
nation has faced a mounting diplomatic chill, with international court cases
accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognizing a
Palestinian state.
US media
reported on Monday that Netanyahu had agreed to visit on June 13, but his
office told Israeli media the date had "not been finalized" and would
not be on that date because it interferes with a Jewish holiday.
Source: arabnews.com
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525446/middle-east
--------
Hamas
still to give response on Gaza truce plan: Qatar
June 07,
2024
DOHA:
Hamas has not given its response on a tabled plan for a ceasefire with Israel
in Gaza and an exchange of hostages and prisoners, Qatar's foreign ministry
spokesman said Thursday.
"Mediators
have not yet received a response from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance
Movement (Hamas) regarding the latest proposal," Majed al-Ansari told
Qatar's state news agency.
Hamas
had "indicated that it is still studying the proposal", Ansari added,
explaining mediation efforts were ongoing.
Qatar,
with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in months of negotiations
over details for a ceasefire in Gaza.
But
except for a seven-day pause beginning in November, which led to the release of
more than 100 hostages, there has been no break in the fighting.
Seeking
to restart talks, US President Joe Biden said last week Israel was offering a
new three-stage roadmap.
Egypt on
Thursday said it had received encouraging signals from Hamas over a potential
deal with Israel, according to state-linked Al-Qahera News, citing a high-level
source.
The
comments came a day after meetings began between Hamas representatives, Qatari
Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief
Abbas Kamel in Doha.
But
Beirut-based senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday cast doubt on the
substance of the framework described by the US president.
"There
is no proposal -- they are just words said by Biden in a speech," he said.
"So
far, the Americans have not presented anything documented or written that
commits them to what Biden said in his speech," he added.
Also on
Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry held talks in Cairo with
Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk.
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525441/middle-east
--------
South Asia
Nationwide
University entrance exam begins in Afghanistan without female participation
June 6,
2024
The
National Examinations Authority of Afghanistan has announced the commencement
of the first round of the nationwide university entrance exam (Kankor exam) in
16 provinces.
This
authority mentioned in a statement that the first round of the 1403 Kankor exam
began this morning, Thursday, June 6.
In the
first round, students from the provinces of Logar, Parwan, Kapisa, Panjshir,
Ghazni, Paktia, Paktika, Zabul, Bamyan, Samangan, Nuristan, Badghis, Herat, Ghor, Maidan Wardak, and Kunar will be
taking the exam.
The
National Examinations Committee had previously announced that the 1403
nationwide Kankor exam would be conducted in five stages. The second stage,
which will include students from Kabul
and its districts, is scheduled for June 21st and 22nd.
The
third stage of this exam, scheduled for June 27 and 28, will be taken by
students from the provinces of Takhar, Kunduz, Balkh, Jowzjan, Sar-e-Pul,
Faryab, Uruzgan, Baghlan, Daikundi, and Badakhshan.
The
fourth stage of the Kankor exam is announced for July 4, 5, and 6. It will
include students from the provinces of Nangarhar, Laghman, Khost, Kandahar,
Helmand, Farah, and Nimruz.
The
fifth stage of this exam, which is allocated to students outside the country
and those who missed previous stages, will be held on July 12.
Notably,
for the second consecutive year, the Kankor exam in Afghanistan is being held
without the participation of female students.
Since
the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, this is the second consecutive year that
girls have been barred from participating Kanko exam.
It has
been the third consecutive that girls’ and women’s access to education beyond
the sixth grade has been barred. These policies prohibit girls from continuing
their education past elementary school, effectively barring them from pursuing
higher education and professional opportunities.
These
restrictive educational policies have resulted in a significant gender gap in
education, limiting the prospects and future potential of many Afghan girls and
women.
The
long-term impact of such policies is likely to hinder the overall development
and progress of the nation.
Source: khaama.com
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https://www.khaama.com/nationwide-university-entrance-exam-begins-in-afghanistan-without-female-participation/
---------
Minister
Khairkhwa and UN Top Official Discuss Journalists’ Status and Media Issues in
Afghanistan
2024-06-07
KABUL(BNA):
In a high level meeting with Markus Potzel, the UN Deputy Special
Representative for Afghanistan, Acting Minister of Information and Culture,
Alhaj Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, stated that the Commission for the Review of
Media Violations and Issues is dedicated to addressing the problems and
challenges faced by journalists.
During
the meeting, both sides discussed the current situation in Afghanistan,
including the status of journalists, access to information, humanitarian aid,
the significance of continued engagement, and other pertinent issues.
Potzel
remarked that recently, the environment for journalists in Afghanistan has
become more favorable, and that journalists are now content and satisfied with
their current circumstances.
Alhaj
Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa also mentioned that the Commission for the Review
of Media Violations and Issues thoroughly assesses the concerns and grievances
of journalists. Moreover, journalists are courteously informed about the
procedures of the Islamic Emirate through this commission.
Additionally,
he reiterated that the Islamic Emirate has fulfilled and continues to honor its
promises in the areas of reconstruction and providing facilities to the people.
As the
meeting concluded, Markus Potzel assured of the UN’s cooperation with
Afghanistan in various sectors.
Source: bakhtarnews.af
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--------
Islamic
Emirate Seeks Global Cooperation to Combat Environmental Crisis
World
Environment Day was commemorated in a program attended by high-ranking
officials of the Islamic Emirate and several international organizations in
Kabul.
A number
of officials from the Islamic Emirate said during this program that due to the
exploitation by some industrial powers, the environment worldwide is facing a
crisis, which has also caused serious damage to Afghanistan.
Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Islamic Emirate's
deputy prime minister for administrative affairs, referring to the Islamic
Emirate's efforts in constructing large and small water canals and check dams,
called on countries and international organizations to also strive to combat
the environmental crisis in Afghanistan.
Hanafi
said: "Continuous droughts, floods, earthquakes, and other natural
disasters contribute to the destruction of the environment in Afghanistan;
however, the role of humans is even more significant."
Representatives
from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee
(NAC), who participated in the program, also emphasized addressing the
environmental crisis in Afghanistan.
The
United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative for Afghanistan,
Stephen Rodriques, said: “Afghanistan contributes very, very little to global
climate change but is one of the countries most severely impacted by it.”
Richard
Trenchard, FAO Representative in Afghanistan, said: "Everywhere one goes
one sees the inescapable mark of climate change. One feels the thirsty grip of
drought. One sees once fertile lands that are now dry, parched hillsides once
thick with trees now bare, and wells that are pumping deeper and deeper, year
after year."
Terje
Watterdal, the country director of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee, said:
“An important problem is climate change knows no geographical or political
boundaries. As a result, Afghan children, youth and adults from the north in
Badakhshan to the south in Nimroz have been affected by the unpredictable
climate changes."
Meanwhile,
officials from the National Environmental Protection Agency said that although
Afghanistan is a member of 16 international environmental conventions and
agreements, it currently does not receive any financial or technical support
from international organizations for implementing these agreements.
Furthermore, environmental and climate change projects in the country have been
suspended.
Aziz
Rahman, head of the National Environmental Protection Agency, said:
"Rehabilitating the land through forest development, land use planning,
and management helps us reduce poverty and misery and mitigate climate change
and climate risks."
The
National Environmental Protection Agency said it has significant plans for
expanding forests and creating national parks in various provinces. The agency
said that by the year 2031 (1410 solar year), 25 million saplings will be
planted annually across the country.
Source: tolonews.com
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--------
US
Reacts to Acting Minister of Interior's Visit to UAE
The
spokesperson for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, said countries that
host members of the “Taliban" who are under sanctions must do so through a
United Nations-mandated exemption process.
In a
press conference, Miller said: “I would just note that member states hosting
UN- sanctioned Taliban members must seek permission for travel through an
exemption process as outlined by the UN 1988 sanctions committee and it’s
important that member states follow these procedures.”
These
remarks come as Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting Minister of Interior of
the Islamic Emirate, recently visited the United Arab Emirates. Haqqani's
unexpected trip to the UAE is his first trip abroad since the Islamic Emirate's
return to power.
Without
commenting on Matthew Miller's remarks, the Islamic Emirate has described the
acting Minister of Interior's trip to the UAE as productive.
Zabihullah
Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, told TOLOnews: "The acting
Minister of Interior had talks with UAE officials, discussing various topics
including Afghanistan's relations with the UAE and the release of Afghan
prisoners."
Three
days ago, the acting Minister of Interior, leading a delegation, went to the
UAE, accompanied by Abdul Haq Wasiq, Director of the General Directorate of
Intelligence, and Anas Haqqani, a senior member of the Islamic Emirate.
Source: tolonews.com
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--------
Major
Electricity Projects Worth 390 Million AFN Launched in Aqcha, Jawzjan
2024-06-07
KABUL(BNA):
In the Aqcha district of Jawzjan province, three major electricity projects
with a combined value of 390 million Afghanis have been initiated.
During
the inauguration of these projects, Safiullah Ahmadzai, the Chief Operating
Officer of Breshna Sherkat, announced that the initiatives encompass the
construction of a substantial 220 kV substation, the extension of a 220 kV
transmission line, and the development of an electricity distribution network
across five districts in Aqcha.
He
mentioned that these projects are being implemented by Da Afghanistan Breshna
Sherkat( DABS) and will be completed within a year, benefiting hundreds of
thousands of households with electricity.
At the
same time, Qari Gul Haidar Shafaq, the governor of Jawzjan, remarked during the
ceremony that the Islamic Emirate pays special attention to the implementation
of major projects across the country, especially in Jawzjan province. Examples
include the Qush Tepa Canal and the construction of this significant
substation.
On the
other hand, Residents of the five districts of Aqcha in Jawzjan also expressed
their gratitude to the officials of the Islamic Emirate for the initiation of
this project.
It
should be noted that after the Qush Tepa national project, this is the second
major project in Jawzjan that commenced today.
Source: bakhtarnews.af
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--------
Taliban’s
Ministry of Justice to halt Tamadon TV broadcasts
June 7,
2024
The
Ministry of Justice of the Taliban administration has announced that Tamadon
TV’s broadcasts will be stopped due to its affiliation with a political party.
Barakatullah
Rasouli, the spokesperson for this ministry, wrote on his Twitter account on
Thursday, June 6, that the activities of Tamadon TV will be halted because of
its affiliation with a political party and the use of seized government lands.
He also
mentioned that Khatam al-Nabiyin University in
Kabul, which is affiliated with the “Islamic Movement Party,” will be
closed for similar reasons.
The
Ministry of Justice has declared the activities of any political party in the
country illegal.
Previously,
Tamadon TV reported that Taliban members had come to their office and demanded
the cessation of their activities.
The
Islamic Movement Party has not yet commented on this matter.
Additionally,
the Taliban regime has also banned the broadcasting of other TV channels that
they claim are affiliated with political parties, including Noor and Barya TVs.
This
move has raised concerns among journalists and media organizations about the
increasing restrictions on freedom of the press in Afghanistan.
Furthermore,
there have been reports that the Taliban are planning to impose stricter
controls on all forms of media, aiming to eliminate any content they deem as
opposing their ideology or policies. This has led to fears of further
suppression of free speech and expression in the country.
Source: khaama.com
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--------
Pakistan
Pakistan
becomes non-permanent member of top UN body
June 06,
2024
UNITED
NATIONS: In a major win on the international arena, Pakistan has finally been
elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
Thursday, with an aim to participate in the resolution of acute challenges of
security and prosperity.
Pakistan
secured 182 votes in the 193-member General Assembly — far more than the
required 124 votes representing the two-third majority.
Islamabad
did not face any opposition at the forum.
Loud
applause rang out in the iconic hall of the General Assembly when its
president, Dennis Francis, announced the winners of the five non-permanent
seats — Pakistan, Denmark, Greece, Panama and Somalia –to replace Japan,
Ecuador, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland whose terms end on December 31. He congratulated
them on their victory.
Pakistan
will replace Japan, which currently occupies the Asian seat, on January 1,
2025, to begin a two-year term, its eighth.
Speaking
about Pakistan’s priorities and goals as a member of the 15-member Council,
Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, said the country's
election "represents the confidence of the international community in
Pakistan’s ability to promote the purposes and principles of the UN
Charter".
Ambassador
Akram said Pakistan would actively work with other member countries of the
Council to advance the shared objectives.
In this
regard, he especially highlighted Pakistan’s ambition to contribute
meaningfully to the prevention of conflicts and their peaceful settlement in
line with the UN Charter.
Pakistan’s
earlier terms on the Council were in 2012-13, 2003-04, 1993-94, 1983-84,
1976-77, 1968-69 and 1952-53.
Pakistan
is joining the Security Council at a time of great international upheaval and
challenges and plans to pay special attention to:
Promotion
of peace and security in South Asia
Upholding
the principle of self-determination for the people of Palestine and Kashmir
Promotion
of normalisation in Afghanistan
Promotion
of equitable solutions to the security challenges in Africa
Enhance
the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations
As a
non-permanent member of the Security Council in the past, Pakistan had made
significant contributions to its work aimed at strengthening international
peace and security.
Over the
last 50 years, Pakistan has been a leading contributor to United Nations
Peacekeeping Missions. Currently, it has over 4,000 troops and other personnel
deployed in UN Peacekeeping Missions around the world.
The new
members will join the five veto-wielding permanent members — the United States,
Russia, China, United Kingdom and France — and the five countries elected as
non-permanent members last year — Algeria, Guyana, South Korea, Sierra Leone
and Slovenia.
Source: thenews.com.pk
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https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1197590-pakistan-becomes-part-of-non-permanent-member-of-top-un-body
--------
40
injured as Chaman protests take violent turn
June 7,
2024
QUETTA:
At least 40 people, including 17 security officials, were injured in Chaman on
Thursday amid escalating tensions as protesters, incensed by the arrest of
their leaders of a sit-in, launched attacks on government buildings and
installations, demanding immediate releases.
The
unrest spread across the border town, with protesters staging rallies and
demonstrations, effectively shutting down the city.
The
arrested leaders were part of a months-long sit-in in Chaman against the
government’s decision to only allow those with valid passports and visas to
cross the Chaman border crossing. Before, Pakistanis and Afghans would cross
the border upon showing their respective identity cards.
Officials
said clashes started when the protesters tried to block major roads, including
the national highway linking Quetta with Kandahar, disrupting traffic with
barricades.
However,
the local administration, along with security forces, including police, Levies
and personnel of Frontier Corps, lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the mob and
restored traffic by removing hurdles from the highway.
During
their march, the protesters also staged a demonstration in front of the Deputy
Commissioner Office complex and hurled stones at the building and forcibly
closed all shops at Mall Road and other business centres. They also beat some
shopkeepers with sticks.
According
to local officials, the demonstrators also disrupted communication systems and
attempted to cut power supplies to the Frontier Corps (FC) fort.
They
hurled stones at the FC headquarters in Chaman, prompting the security
officials deployed in the area to fire blank shots and lob tear gas shells.
Shahid
Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said the forces and local
administration tried their best to disperse the protesters, but when they
started attacking the forces, they responded and used rubber bullets.
“At
least 17 security personnel were injured in clashes while a policeman received
a bullet in his hand,” he confirmed, adding that some protesters were also
injured.
Other
sources said that over 20 protesters received rubber bullet injuries during the
clashes and were shifted to the district hospital in Chaman. Six of them were
shifted to Quetta for treatment.
“We have
received 13 people who were hit by rubber bullets along with other injured,” Dr
Rasheed of the district hospital said.
Official
sources said that law enforcement agencies have arrested over four dozen
protesters for pelting stones at the security forces and attacking government
buildings.
“As many
as 56 people were taken into custody from different areas of Chaman,” security
officials told Dawn, adding that more security personnel were deployed in the
border town.
Asghar
Achakzai, a local journalist, told Dawn by phone from Chaman that the town
resembled a battlefield during the clashes, with disrupted internet services
for the past two days complicating reporting efforts.
However,
by late evening, tribal elders and political leaders headed by Mufti Qasim and
Muhammad Hasan mediated negotiations with Chaman Deputy Commissioner Athar Abbas
Raja, after which the protesters dispersed and the situation became normal.
However,
Molvi Abdul Manan, a protest leader, vowed to continue demonstrations “until
the release of our seven leaders who were arrested by Levies the other day and
shifted to Quetta Jail”. He demanded that all people arrested over the past two
days be released immediately.
Govt to
open Badini crossing
Meanwhile,
the Balochistan government has decided to open the Badini border crossing at
the Pakistan-Afghan border in the Qila Saifullah district for trade with
Afghanistan due to uncertainty in Chaman amid months-long protests.
An
official notification issued on Thursday said that in recent months, the Badini
crossing was used for the repatriation of illegal foreign nationals on a regular
basis; however, the crossing is yet to be fully utilised for trade purposes.
The
notification also asked the chief collector of Balochistan Customs and the
FIA’s provincial director to take concrete measures in this regard.
Source: dawn.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.dawn.com/news/1838299/40-injured-as-chaman-protests-take-violent-turn
--------
Lahore
ATC grants bail to seven PTI activists in corps commander’s house attack case
June 7,
2024
LAHORE:
An anti-terrorism court on Thursday granted post-arrest bail to seven activists
of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in a May 9 case of attack on Lahore Corps
Commander’s House, commonly known as Jinnah House.
Judge
Khalid Arshad allowed the bail petitions and directed each suspect to furnish a
surety bond of Rs300,000.
The
suspects were: Talha Mustafa, Mirza Tahir, Muhammad Abid, Azhar Abbas, Umair
Khan, Zubair Gulzar and Junaid.
Separately,
Judge Khalid Arshad resumed the jail trial of the Jinnah House attack case in
the Kot Lakhpat jail.
The
judge directed the prosecution to distribute copies of the challan
(investigation report) among 266 suspects on June 13.
Among
the prominent suspects, PTI-Punjab President Dr Yasmin Rashid, former governor
Omar Sarfraz Cheema, Senator Ejaz Chaudhry and former provincial minister Mian
Mahmoodur Rashid are already in jail.
Several
other suspects including Fashion designer Khadija Shah, former MNA Rubina
Jamil, social media activists Tayyaba Raja and Ayesha Ali Bhutta have been
released on bail.
Sarwar
Road police registered the case against leaders and workers of PTI for
attacking and vandalising the Jinnah House during the protests of May 9 last
year against the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan.
Source: dawn.com
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https://www.dawn.com/news/1838309/lahore-atc-grants-bail-to-seven-pti-activists-in-corps-commanders-house-attack-case
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Rights
activist Sarim Burney held in Karachi on ‘human trafficking complaint by US’
June 6,
2024
KARACHI:
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday arrested human rights
activist and philanthropist Sarim Burney when he arrived at Karachi airport
from abroad for his alleged involvement in “child trafficking by way of illegal
adoption” on the complaint of US authorities.
An FIA
official said that the Anti-Human Trafficking Cell (AHTC) of the FIA-Karachi
registered a case (FIR No. 126/2024) against Mr Burney under Sections 420
(Cheating and dishonestly, inducing delivery of property), 468 (Forgery for
purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document), 109 (abetment)
of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Sections 3 (trafficking in persons), 4
(aggravating circumstances) and 5 (abetment and criminal conspiracy) of the
Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018.
According
to the FIR, “Sarim Burney and his associates Basalat Ali Khan, Humaira Naz and
others, in collusion with each other knowingly and wilfully gave false
information, made misdeclaration as well as concealment of the facts before the
Hon’ble Family Courts District East Karachi in the garb of illegal
adoption/guardianship of three baby girls by using and providing fraudulent
documents.”
It
stated that the statement by the suspects that “the three baby girls in
question were orphans and found from outside the gate of M/s Sarim Burney Trust
and it tried level best to find their parents but no person came forward for
claiming them” was contrary to the facts.
The FIA
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the US Consulate
General had stated in its complaint that during the last one and half years,
around 17-18 children had been adopted in the US but the adoption process was
‘illegal’.
Elaborating,
the official said that these children were not declared as lawaris (abandoned).
As per laws concerned, only children abandoned by their families can be
adopted.
However,
the FIA had traced three children and the FIR had been registered about their
adoption, the official added.
Source: dawn.com
Please click the following URL to read
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https://www.dawn.com/news/1838006/rights-activist-sarim-burney-held-in-karachi-on-human-trafficking-complaint-by-us
--------
Imran
Khan met more than 400 people during imprisonment: documents
June 06,
2024
New data
revealed Thursday that former premier Imran Khan was allowed to meet with as
many as 403 people in the time of 8 months in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail since
moving from Attock prison last year in September.
From
September 28 last year to May 30, the 71-year-old met 105 times with different
people.
The
data, submitted by the government in the Supreme Court revealed that on
September 28, the cricketer-turned-politician was allowed to meet with six
people while in October, the former premier saw 43 people in 12 separate
meetings.
It also
mentioned that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's founding Chairman in the
following month of November, held 13 meetings with 52 people.
In
December last year, the 22nd premier of Pakistan held 12 meetings with 48
people, and in the first month of the current year, the former athlete saw 17
people in eight meetings.
According
to the revelations, his meetings in February rose to 74 people and 19 meetings
and in the following month, he met with 53 people in 11 meetings.
In
April, Khan, who was ousted in 2022 by a no-confidence vote, met 54 people and
held 15 meetings. In May, he was allowed to meet 56 people and hold 13
meetings.
The
federal government submitted documentary evidence of people who met Khan and
the facilities being provided to him to rebut the former prime minister's
claims that he was being kept in solitary confinement.
"...if
this Court may deem appropriate and necessary, it may appoint a judicial
officer in the form of a commission to verify the facts as submitted before
this Court," it said.
Source: thenews.com.pk
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https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1197561-imran-khan-met-more-than-400-people-during-imprisonment-documents
--------
PM
Shehbaz arrives at Great Hall of People in Beijing
June 07,
2024
Prime
Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif arrived at Great Hall of People in Beijing
today.
Chinese
Premier Li Qiang received the Prime Minister.
A
contingent of the People's Liberation Army of China presented guard of honour
to the Prime Minister.
Source: radio.gov.pk
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the text of the original Story
https://www.radio.gov.pk/07-06-2024/pm-shehbaz-arrives-at-great-hall-of-people-in-beijing
--------
Grand
Jirga held between FC Balochistan (North), local tribal elders in Sibbi
Balochistan
June 07,
2024
A grand
Jirga was held between FC Balochistan (North) and local tribal elders in Sibi
District of Balochistan.
Corps
Commander Balochistan Corps Lieutenant General Rahat Naseem Ahmad Khan and IG
FC Balochistan (North) Major General Chaudhry Ameer Ajmal attended the Jirga.
Tribal
elders and farmers appreciated the role of Pakistan Army and FC in maintaining
peace.
Lieutenant
General Rahat Naseem Ahmed Khan said the Green Pakistan Initiative project has
started having positive impact on the people. This will also change the lives
of the farmers of Balochistan.
The
Corps Commander said Pakistan Army is providing security to the Kachi Canal
project in Balochistan. He said we will play our role in completing the
project. The completion of this project will solve the water problems.
Source: radio.gov.pk
Please click the following URL to read
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https://www.radio.gov.pk/07-06-2024/grand-jirga-held-between-fc-balochistan-north-local-tribal-elders-in-sibbi-balochistan
--------
Europe
The
Muslim Vote endorses four Labour candidates
6th June
2024
The
Muslim Vote organisation has caused controversy within the community by
endorsing four Labour candidates – Naz Shah, Apsana Begum, Afzal Khan and
Yasmin Qureshi – in the upcoming General Election.
After a
significant backlash from Muslims online over the decision, The Muslim Vote
released a statement saying” “If this election is primarily about the
ceasefire, then just as much as we should punish those who did not vote for it,
we should support those who did.”
Critics,
however, say the organisation has undermined its credibility to endorse
candidates by sending out mixed messages over the extent to which the community
should support a Labour Party which is complicity in the Gaza genocide.
Source: 5pillarsuk.com
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https://5pillarsuk.com/2024/06/06/the-muslim-vote-endorses-three-labour-candidates/
--------
Spain
applies to join South Africa's case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide
Spain
will ask a United Nations court for permission to join South Africa's case
accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, its foreign minister announced Thursday.
Spain is
the first European country to take the step after South Africa filed its case
with the International Court of Justice late last year. It alleged that Israel
was breaching the genocide convention in its military assault that has laid
waste to large swaths of Gaza.
Mexico,
Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya and the Palestinians have already requested to join
the case.
The court
has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern
Gaza city of Rafah but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave.
Israel has not complied.
"We
take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,"
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said. "We want peace to
return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support
the court."
Israel
denies it is committing genocide in its military operation to crush Hamas
triggered by its deadly Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel.
Hamas
killed 1,200 people and took 250 more hostage in the surprise attacks. Israel's
air and land attacks have killed 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's
Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Spain,
Norway and Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state on May 28 in a
coordinated effort by the three Western European nations to add international
pressure on Israel.
Source: africanews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.africanews.com/2024/06/06/spain-applies-to-join-south-africas-case-at-top-un-court-accusing-israel-of-genocide/
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D-Day
80: Doncaster Muslims join poignant beacon lighting ceremony
7th Jun
2024
Bilal
Mahmood, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Doncaster, read a verse
at Edlington Community Woodland at last night’s ceremony.
He said:
"We came to honour and remember the veterans of WW2 who made great
sacrifices for the sake of stopping cruelties and we pray that people in the
modern day are instilled with similar selfless traits and a desire to end
cruelties and injustice."
Source: doncasterfreepress.co.uk
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https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/people/d-day-80-doncaster-muslims-join-poignant-beacon-lighting-ceremony-4657010
--------
US
soldier accused of theft goes on trial in Russia
6 Jun,
2024
The
trial has begun of an American soldier who stands accused of stealing from a
local woman in the Far-Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. The suspect,
identified as US Army Staff Sergeant Gordon Black had flown to Vladivostok to
visit a female acquaintance. She alleges he assaulted her, threatened to kill
her and took money from her, according to Russian media reports.
Black,
who is 34, reportedly arrived in Vladivostok in early April to meet a woman he
had previously become acquainted with in South Korea, where he was stationed.
The US soldier reportedly stayed in her apartment for about a month but was
detained in early May after the woman, identified as Aleksandra Vashuck by some
Russian and American media, filed a complaint to the police against him.
According
to the prosecutor’s office, Black assaulted the woman during a quarrel and
“forcefully grabbed her by the neck” before leaving her apartment and taking
10,000 rubles ($112) from her wallet. He was later detained in a local hotel
room, which he reportedly paid for using the stolen money.
Asked by
the judge if he admitted guilt, Black told the court on Thursday that he
understands the nature of his charges but would put in a plea at a later stage.
Vashuck
has called for Russian authorities to provide Black with psychological
assistance rather than send him to prison. “I do not want him to be severely
punished,” she told the court, according to RIA Novosti. “He is ill, the man
needs help,” she maintained, adding that his condition was known to US Army
authorities.
“He
served in a conflict zone. He is just an unfortunate person… he needs treatment
that his home country could not provide to him, even though they were well
aware of [his condition],” Vashuck argued. She also said that Black was prone
to anger outbursts, particularly when he was drunk.
According
to ABC, Black was serving at Camp Humphreys in South Korea with the Eighth
Army. In April, he took leave as he was in the process of returning to his home
base at Fort Cavazos, Texas. “Instead of returning to the continental United
States, Black flew from Incheon, Republic of Korea, through China to
Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons,” Cynthia Smith, a US Army
spokesperson, told the media outlet.
According
to US officials, Black is married. ABC described Vashuk as Black’s
“girlfriend,” while some Russian media said that the two were “romantically
involved.”
Under
current Pentagon policy, US service personnel must first get clearance for any
international travel. The US Army said last month that Black had sought none
and his trip to Russia was not authorized.
Under
Russian law, Black could face up to five years behind bars.
Source: rt.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.rt.com/russia/598891-us-soldier-theft-trial-russia/
--------
Arab World
How a
Saudi consultancy is helping businesses remain competitive in the age of AI
June 06,
2024
RIYADH:
Unless company executives adopt artificial intelligence technologies now, they
will soon find themselves outmoded and driven out of business by their
competitors, a Saudi AI consultant has warned.
Mohammed
Alqarni, an academic, AI-for-business consultant, and CEO of the Saudi AI
consultancy firm Foresighted, believes it is important for businesses to begin
experimenting with AI right away, otherwise they will quickly fall behind their
more nimble rivals.
“AI will
not replace your job — someone using AI will replace your job,” Alqarni told
Arab News.
Working
with top executives, Foresighted aims to enhance understanding of AI’s
advantages and limitations, propel the development of innovative business
models, and integrate AI technologies into business plans.
“One of
the main philosophies that we have is: No one understands the business more
than the business people themselves,” Alqarni said. “We teach them what AI can
do and what AI can’t do because AI can’t do everything.”
Alqarni
is developing a “generative AI organizational transformation framework,” which
will consider key impact areas of AI, including the impact of automation on
various jobs — including top managerial positions.
“A very
interesting insight we found was that the higher the skill needed, the more AI
impact will have,” said Alqarni.
“Initial
analysis revealed that if you are in a managerial position, AI will impact your
job more, and this makes a lot of sense, because your main tasks are reviewing
documents, and doing strategic level work, and that is heavily data-driven, so
AI will help you a lot.
“The
lower you go, to the more operational tasks, the impact of AI reduces, because
it is usually manual work.”
For many
in the business world, AI is still just a trendy buzzword that is not fully
understood. Alqarni believes bosses cannot afford to be complacent about the
tectonic shifts already underway.
Asked
about the possible repercussions that executives and companies will face if
they fail to utilize AI, Alqarni is unequivocal: “They will be out of
business.”
He
added: “As I said, AI is no longer an option. It’s your only defense against
creative destruction. If you do not change, someone else will force you to
change or you will be out of business. The sooner you start, the better you
are.”
To avoid
falling behind, Alqarni says business leaders should start experimenting with
AI right away and encourage their employees to start utilizing it in their work.
“I am not saying deploy AI today,” he said. “All I’m asking is, start
experimenting today.”
One of
the biggest challenges executives cite for avoiding AI uptake is that they are
“too busy” and lack the time to experiment. However, Alqarni says business
chiefs “need to create a culture of innovation, a culture of experimentation in
order to utilize AI in the best way.”
Some are
likely putting off AI adoption, fearful that it could make many human jobs
obsolete. Alqarni acknowledges the transition could be painful, but believes it
is wrong to bury one’s head in the sand.
“The way
I think about it, when it comes to AI and unemployment — because this is the
ultimate fear at a government level — AI will definitely eliminate jobs, but it
will also change some jobs, and at the same time it will create more jobs,” he
said.
“The
question is not about whether AI will eliminate jobs or not. It’s about how
many jobs will be created and how many jobs will be eliminated and how many
jobs will be changed.”
Drawing
parallels with the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, when
large, steam-driven factories destroyed many traditional cottage industries and
artisan crafts, Alqarni said the job market eventually “balanced out” as more
roles were created.
Likewise,
he believes the employment landscape will adjust to the rhythms of the AI age.
“My only concern is the speed at which this has happened,” said Alqarni. “I
think we will feel it stronger with AI because the development is much faster.
“For you
to build a factory, it will take years. To build a model AI agent that could
replace human beings could happen in a couple of days.
“It is
not black and white when it comes to job creation and job elimination, but it
is a scale. There will be jobs that are lost, transitioned, changed, as well as
job creation.”
For
Alqarni, the best way to guarantee job security during this turbulent
transition, therefore, is through re-skilling the workforce.
“People
that are losing their job will need to be re-skilled, given relevant skills
that are needed in the market,” he said. “For jobs that are being changed, it
is a matter of up-skilling.”
Alqarni
believes Saudi Arabia should prepare young workers for a rapidly changing job
market.
“Vision
2030 programs tasked with such planning should consider AI’s impact on jobs in
the near and far future,” he said.
“This
would ensure that job creation matches the required demand. This is a crucial
consideration that is not being considered enough.”
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525351/saudi-arabia
--------
Saudi
crown prince congratulates India PM on coalition’s election win
June 06,
2024
RIYADH:
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman congratulated Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi on his coalition’s election win on Thursday.
Modi
claimed victory for his alliance on Tuesday in India’s general election.
In a
cable of congratulations, the crown prince expressed his best wishes for the
success and prosperity of India and its people, Saudi Press Agency reported.
On
Thursday, Modi was deep in negotiations with alliance partners to form his
cabinet after an unexpectedly close election forced his party into a coalition
government.
Modi’s
Bharatiya Janata Party, which ruled for the past decade with an outright
majority, had been expecting another landslide win.
But
results of the six-week election released on Tuesday ran counter to exit polls,
seeing the BJP lose its majority and sending it into quick-fire talks to lock
in a 15-member coalition that would allow it to govern.
That
grouping, the National Democratic Alliance, announced late Wednesday that they
had agreed to form a government, “unanimously” choosing Modi as their leader.
The
alliance holds 293 seats in parliament, giving it control of the 543-seat body.
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525281/saudi-arabia
--------
Neurosurgeons
at King Abdulaziz Hospital save life of Indonesian Hajj pilgrim
June 06,
2024
Makkah:
Neurosurgeons at King Abdulaziz Hospital in Makkah saved the life of an elderly
Hajj pilgrim who fell into a coma.
The
Indonesian woman, said to be in her 70s, was suffering from acute
hydrocephalus, a serious condition commonly referred to as “water on the
brain,” the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.
After
X-rays confirmed the problem, caused by a tumor exerting pressure on the
woman’s brainstem, the neurosurgery team performed a delicate, life-saving
operation during which they inserted a shunt to drain the cerebrospinal fluid
that had accumulated and alleviate the pressure in her brain.
The
woman regained partial consciousness and then completely emerged from the coma.
Health authorities said hospital staff continue to monitor her progress and she
is receiving therapeutic care to aid her recovery.
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525271/saudi-arabia
--------
Hajj
minister: Over 1 million pilgrims have arrived in the Kingdom so far
June 06,
2024
RIYADH:
Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah confirmed that over one million
pilgrims have arrived in the Kingdom for Hajj season, during a press conference
in Riyadh on Thursday.
He
stressed the need for pilgrims to adhere to regulations and cooperate with the
authorities, adding that Hajj is for worship and “not for any political activities.”
Al-Rabiah
said that the ministry is committed, through the Makkah Road Initiative, to
deliver pilgrims' luggage to their residences.
The
Saudi government “bears all costs” of the initiative to facilitate pilgrims and
enable them to perform Hajj easily and conveniently, he added.
The
minister pointed out that an international campaign has been launched to raise
awareness about the danger of fake Hajj packages, adding that the Hajj Nusuk
App provides more than 120 services for pilgrims.
He also
underlined that pilgrims from 126 countries around the world could apply
electronically for Hajj without an intermediary or travel agents, to prevent
fraud.
The
minister said that about 11 new buildings were built in Mina to accommodate
37,000 pilgrims.
Al-Rabiah
revealed that about 10,000 volunteers would join this year’s pilgrimage.
He also
announced that the Sacred Sites Metro Line would operate during this pilgrimage
season, with a transfer capacity of 72,000 pilgrims per hour.
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525266/saudi-arabia
--------
Energy
Ministry unveils energy terminology dictionary in collaboration with Saudi
Language Academy
June 06,
2024
RIYADH:
The Ministry of Energy, in partnership with the King Salman Global Academy for
Arabic Language, unveiled a comprehensive dictionary of energy terminology on
Thursday in both Arabic and English.
The
Saudi Press Agency reported that the first edition of the dictionary features
over 1,500 terms, organized into eight categories: oil and gas, atomic and
nuclear energy, sustainability, electricity, renewable energy, units of
measurement, names of entities and initiatives, and common abbreviations. This
dictionary provides a reliable reference for all terminology used in the energy
sector, facilitating the standardization of their use across various forms of
content.
Notable
features include an easy-to-use interactive digital version and alphabetical
organization in both languages.
The
dictionary was prepared by national experts in the energy sector and reviewed
and approved by a specialized linguistic team from KSGAAL.
In
developing the dictionary, a comprehensive methodology consisting of six main
stages was employed. First, English terms were collected from various
specialized energy sources. These terms were then translated into Arabic,
adhering to the principles of accurate translation. Next, the terms were
classified according to different energy fields and subsequently reviewed both
technically and linguistically by experts in energy and linguistics. The terms
were then arranged alphabetically. Finally, terms with varying usage across
different regions and countries were standardized according to common usage in
the energy sector within the Kingdom.
Ongoing
efforts will ensure the dictionary evolves to keep pace with developments in
the field.
The
dictionary can be accessed through the following link:
https://www.moenergy.gov.sa/ar/Pages/Dictionary.aspx.
It can
also be searched on the digital dictionary platform Siwar at:
siwar.ksaa.gov.sa.
Source: arabnews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2525261/saudi-arabia
--------
North America
Columbia
Law Review website back online after shut-down over criticizing Israel
07 June
2024
The
website of the Columbia Law Review, a prestigious student-run law journal in
the United States, has been restored a few days after it was shut down over the
publication of an article critical of Israel.
The
journal’s board of directors on Monday took the website offline after the
editors refused to halt publication of an academic article by a Palestinian
human rights lawyer that was critical of Israel.
On
Thursday afternoon, the board of directors reinstated the website with the
article, titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept”, by Rabea Eghbariah, and a
link at the bottom of the homepage directing readers to a statement from the
board about the piece.
In the
statement, the board said it had “received multiple credible reports that a
secretive process was used to edit the article and that “some individuals
reporting exclusion expressed concerns with the process and the denial of their
opportunity to provide input.”
The
restoration of the website came as students threatened, in an email sent to
board member Gillian Metzger, a Columbia law professor, that the staff of CLR
would stop all work on the journal if the board continued to hinder the
publication of Eghbariah’s piece.
They
made the threats after the students who run CLR voted on Wednesday to reject an
offer from the board to reinstate the website with a note attached to the
lengthy article, which was published after months of revisions, disclaiming
what the directors, in an unsigned letter to students, described as “secrecy
and deviation from the Review’s usual processes,” The Intercept reported.
The
student editors rejected the deal for a disclaimer by a 20-5 vote.
“I think
that this whole year, and particularly this last semester, has been about
students recognizing, stepping into their power,” Sohum Pal, a CLR articles
editor, said, adding, “And I’m very glad that the law students at the law
review are doing the same.”
“Powerful
legal scholarship cannot be silenced,” Pal said.
“It’s
already been circulating. It’s already gotten far more views or reads than the
average law review article. And, yeah, to the extent that they’re trying to
censor Rabea, that simply won’t happen — that simply hasn’t happened and
can’t.”
Eghbariah,
the first Palestinian legal scholar to publish in CLR, told The Intercept he
viewed the board of directors’ actions as an example of a “Palestine exception”
to free speech and academic freedom.
The
shutdown of the website was the latest in a battle on Columbia’s campus, and on
campuses across the US, over free speech and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Protests
were held on many of the campuses, demanding an end to the US-backed war, which
has killed more than 36,654 Palestinians, and injured 83,309 others. The
demonstrators were met with brutal police violence.
Source: presstv.ir
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/06/07/726995/US-Columbia-Law-Review-website-reinstated-strike-
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Canadian
premier remembers Muslim family killed in 'terrorist attack’ in 2021
06.06.2024
Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commemorated Thursday a "terrorist attack'
that killed four members of a Muslim family in Ontario in 2021.
"Three
years ago, Talat, Salman, Madiha, and Yumnah Afzaal were murdered. Three
generations killed and a young boy orphaned by a cowardly terrorist
attack," Trudeau wrote on X.
He noted
the "painful anniversary," while denouncing Islamophobia and pledged
to fight against it.
"We
remember that Islamophobia kills, and it is on every Canadian to fight it,
wherever and whenever we see it," he said.
Three
generations of the Pakistani-origin family were killed when a pickup truck
plowed into them as they walked on a road in London -- a small city about 200
kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Toronto.
The
victims were Salman Afzaal, a 46-year-old physiotherapist; his wife, Madiha,
44, who was working on her doctorate in engineering at London’s Western
University; their daughter Yumna, a 15-year-old honor-roll student and Salman’s
mother, Talat, 74, the family matriarch.
The sole
survivor was the couple’s 9-year-old son.
Nathaniel
Veltman, the driver, was given four life sentences for the murders and another
life sentence for the attempted murder of the boy.
Source: aa.com.tr
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/canadian-premier-remembers-muslim-family-killed-in-terrorist-attack-in-2021/3242390
--------
Canada
worst in G7 for targeted killings of Muslims, MPs told
MPs on a
committee investigating Islamophobia and antisemitism heard Thursday that more
Muslims have been killed in targeted attacks in Canada in the past seven years
than in any other G7 country, and that Islamophobia has increased exponentially
since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war last October.
Giving
evidence before the Commons justice committee, Stephen Brown, chief executive
of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), added that Islamophobia is
a “dangerous form of hate” which has spiked in recent years.
The
committee also heard that social-media algorithms are promoting vile
anti-Muslim content, which is translating into hate in the real world.
Mr.
Brown said Muslim communities are experiencing unprecedented hate and violence
“from every level of society.”
Mr.
Brown was speaking on the third anniversary of the terror attack on June 6,
2021 in London, Ont., when a white nationalist drove his pickup truck into a
Muslim family, killing four of them and leaving a young boy orphaned.
“In our
sacred places of worship, and in public spaces, Muslims in Canada are not safe
from violent Islamophobia,” he said, giving as an example the Quebec City
mosque attack in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at the Islamic Cultural Centre,
killing six worshippers and seriously injuring five others after evening
prayers.
Mr.
Brown told the Commons committee investigating Islamophobia and antisemitism
that before the shooting, the Quebec city mosque had been targeted repeatedly,
yet the authorities “did nothing.”
A dead
pig head was placed in front of the mosque, and far-right-wing marches were
organized in the neighbourhood, he said.
He
accused the Quebec government of “legislating discrimination” through a
provincial law that prohibits many civil servants from wearing religious
symbols, including hijabs, at work.
“In the
last few months, there has been a drastic rise of Islamophobia and
anti-Palestinian racism across Canada,” he said. “In quarter four of last year,
the number of such hate incidents across Canada reported to us increased by
1,300 per cent,” the head of the NCCM said.
He said
professionals have lost their jobs or been disciplined after calling for a
ceasefire in Gaza, while Muslim women wearing hijabs have been attacked and
harassed in public spaces.
A few
days ago, a woman wearing a hijab in Ottawa who was peacefully protesting was
struck to the ground and taken to hospital for her injuries, he told MPs.
He
called for recommendations made last year by a Senate committee, which held a
year-long inquiry into Islamophobia, to be adopted in full. Among them was the
establishment of a hate-crime hotline to allow victims of Islamophobic attacks
to report abuse.
Earlier
in the week, the committee heard from Ali Islam, uncle of Madiha Salman who
with her husband, Salman Afzaal, mother-in-law Talat Afzaal, 15-year-old
daughter, Yumnah Afzaal, and nine-year-old son, Fayez Afzaal, who survived,
were the targets of the deadly attack three years ago in London.
“Three
generations erased with the aim of scaring Muslim Canadians into leaving
Canada. The crime my family committed? Being visibly Muslim in public,” he
said.
Mr.
Islam told MPs that Muslim Canadians are being actively and intentionally
“portrayed as outsiders and foreigners“ and for decades “have been deliberately
portrayed as a fifth column,” which eventually “has real, brutal and deadly
consequences.”
“Which
of you will say that the conditions that led up to June 6 no longer exist
today?” he asked.
Imran
Ahmed, chief executive and founder of the Britain-based Center for Countering
Digital Hate, told the committee on Thursday that online platforms were not
taking down enough Islamophobic and antisemitic online content. Some algorithms
are configured in such a way that disturbing content, including hateful
caricatures of Muslims, is promoted, he said.
He said
accounts posting Islamophobic and antisemitic content can attract huge
attention, while white supremacists spread hatred against both Muslims and Jews
and “play them off against each other.”
Online
hate is having “offline consequences.” He explained that the psychological
“illusory truth effect,” which persuades people who see a message frequently
that it is likely to be true, means that people bombarded with hateful content
“end up concluding there is no smoke without fire and we start to normalize
hateful attitudes and conspiracy theories and lies.”
Source: theglobeandmail.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-worst-in-g7-for-targeted-killings-of-muslims-mps-told/
--------
Leftist
stabs right-wing politician in German city where Islamic terrorist just went on
a stabbing spree
JUNE 06,
2024
With the
European parliamentary elections just days away, radicals in the streets and in
the media appear to have ramped up their attacks against right-wing
politicians. The right-leaning Alternative for Germany, poised to secure new
seats Sunday, is a popular target for such attacks.
On Tuesday
evening, one radical slashed 62-year-old AFD politician Heinrich Koch with a
carpet knife in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, roughly five miles
away from where an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing spree Friday.
According
to the German publication Junge Freiheit, Koch — a Rheinau district council
member and an AFD candidate for Mannheim city council — spotted a leftist
tearing down his campaign posters around 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday, near the market
square where Islamic terrorist Sulaiman Ataee murdered a police officer Rouven
L., stabbed politician Michael Stürzenberger, and cut up four other anti-jihad
demonstrators.
Footage
of the incident shows Koch run over to confront the vandal tearing down the
posters only to realize he was armed with a knife. Police indicated the
25-year-old suspect, who previously damaged and stole several election posters,
stabbed Koch.
AFD
Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier told Junge Freiheit that Koch was taken to
the hospital with injuries to his stomach and face.
AFD
cochairman Tino Chrupalla said in a statement, "Our members and
representatives are the most frequent victims of political violence and
destruction. That cannot stop us. Get well soon, Heinrich!"
Alice
Weidel, cochairwoman of the AFD, assigned some blame to the AFD's leftist
political opponents and the media, claiming they "are creating a climate
in which even extreme physical attacks are no longer shied away from. We
condemn this violence and call on people to finally return to the basic democratic
practices!"
Markus
Frohnmaier, the regional chair of the AFD, said, "It is unacceptable that
this mental agitation against our party continues, with surveillance and an
attempt to push us out of the democratic political consensus in Germany.
Because incidents like the one in Mannheim are the result of this!"
Hans-Georg
Maassen, former president of Germany's domestic security agency, similarly
suggested the German left has set the stage for future attacks.
"We
are currently seeing the seeds sprout," Maassen told Junge Freihei.
"We must finally return to social reconciliation, and that can only work
if the political left refrains from treating its opponents like enemies."
Mannheim
Mayor Christian Specht, who previously intimated the anti-jihad demonstrators
stabbed last Friday were partly responsible for their attacker's rampage, said
in a statement Wednesday, "This cowardly act is abhorrent and cannot be
justified in any way. Anyone who attacks election candidates is calling into
question our free, equal, general, direct and secret elections — and thus the
basis of our democracy."
"This
despicable incident is one of a series of attacks on campaign workers and
politicians that are currently being observed throughout Germany,"
continued Specht. "The hatred and willingness to use violence that are
currently breaking out in our society are unbearable."
The AFD
has drawn the ire of the left, in part, by criticizing the fallout of Germany's
immigration policies and officials' refusal to deport criminal noncitizens.
For
instance, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a member of the AFD, generated outrage in 2021
for citing government statistics in an X post that showed Afghan and African
asylum seekers disproportionately engaged in certain types of violent crimes.
Despite the veracity of her statements, Kaiser was charged and convicted with
incitement to hatred.
Weeks
after her May appeal fell through, there were two instances of migrant knife
attacks: one in Mannheim and another in the northeastern German town of Bergen.
In
Sunday's election, EuroNews indicated that AFD stands to secure 15 seats in the
European Parliament. A June 5 German voting intention poll showed AFD trailing
the center-right Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union alliance in
second place.
Source: theblaze.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.theblaze.com/news/leftist-stabs-right-wing-politician-in-german-city-where-islamic-terrorist-just-went-on-a-stabbing-spree
--------
Community
Alert: CAIR Encourages American Muslims to Join June 8th Anti-Genocide Protests
June 6,
2024
The
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil
rights and advocacy organization, today encouraged American Muslims and people
of all faiths and backgrounds to join protests and marches on June 8th to mark
eight months of slaughter and starvation in Gaza and demand that President
Biden enforce his red line on Rafah by ending U.S. support for the Israeli
government’s genocide.
In a
statement, CAIR said:
“This
Saturday, June 8th, marks eight months since the start of the Israeli
government’s genocide in Gaza. To mark this day and demand an end to U.S.
support for the genocide, many Americans plan to hold peaceful protests this
weekend.
“We
encourage American Muslims – and Americans of all faiths and backgrounds – to
join peaceful protests, marches and other demonstrations to deliver a clear
message to President Biden and other elected officials: changed rhetoric is not
enough. We need a complete and immediate change in policy.
“It is
long past time for President Biden to enforce his own red line, suspend
military aid to the Israeli government, and demand an end to the genocide.”
Source: cair.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/community-alert-cair-encourages-american-muslims-to-join-june-8th-anti-genocide-protests/
--------
Islamists
target northern Mozambique – especially the children
June 6,
2024
Musa was
eating dinner with his wife and three children at their farm in northern
Mozambique when the rattle of gunfire in the distance suddenly broke the calm.
On that
February evening, he knew immediately what was happening: His village was under
attack by Islamist militants. They would likely kill or enslave anyone they
managed to catch, and then burn the homes and farms they left behind.
Musa –
who uses that pseudonym for his safety – did the only thing he could think of.
He ran, joining a panicked throng taking cover in a nearby forest.
Only
after the chaotic escape did he make a horrifying discovery: His 8-year-old
son, Ismael, was not with him.
Since
2017, a group of extremist militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State
(ISIS) has waged a fierce terror campaign in Mozambique’s northernmost
province, Cabo Delgado. Around 6,000 people have died in the fighting, and more
than a million have been displaced. This year alone, 100,000 people have fled
their homes. Some 60,000 of them are children, deepening the trauma of a
generation that has grown up in the shadow of a brutal guerilla war that is
largely invisible to the outside world.
Each of
those children has a story. This is the story of Ismael and his father Musa.
A
desperate search
Ismael –
also using a pseudonym – was only 1 year old in 2017, when news of a strange
new wave of terror attacks began to arrive at his parents’ farm in Chiúre, a
farming region in the south of Cabo Delgado. Young men would enter nearby
villages at night, spray them with bullets, and take prisoners. They called
themselves Al Shabab – or “the youth” in Arabic – and claimed to be waging a
holy war to establish an Islamic government in Cabo Delgado.
The
militants – loosely affiliated with ISIS – were angry at having watched
Mozambique’s government fail to develop the region for decades, even as
privileged locals and foreigners grew rich extracting its rubies, graphite,
gold, and timber. Over the next few years, the insurgency spread through the
poor and isolated province.
In 2021,
the conflict made international headlines when insurgents captured the town of
Palma, the site of a $20 billion natural gas project. Foreign troops soon
restored the peace, but late last year, Al Shabab began a fresh wave of attacks
in sparsely guarded areas in the south of Cabo Delgado.
All
along, Musa knew that his young son was particularly at risk. Al Shabab
specifically targeted schools, and as its support among local people dwindled,
the group often kidnapped young boys to serve as fighters.
So when
the war arrived at Musa’s doorstep on that day in February, he feared the worst
for Ismael. After the attack, he fled south on foot to Eráti, a town in the
neighboring province of Nampula. As he traveled, he made panicked calls to
friends and neighbors. Over and over he heard the same thing: “Sorry. We ran
for our lives, too. We didn’t see Ismael.”
Musa
wasn’t the only parent frantically searching. UNICEF registered nearly 200
cases of children separated from their parents in Chiúre.
But he
was fortunate. Three days after he arrived in Eráti, Musa got word that some
neighbors had found Ismael in the frightened crowd fleeing into the forest, and
had taken him with them.
Recalling
the moment he saw Ismael again, Musa says the joy was nearly impossible to
describe. “I recovered everything,” he says simply.
Stay or
go?
But
displacement took other tolls on his family. Living in a small town overflowing
with uprooted people like themselves, they did not have enough to eat, and they
couldn’t work.
With much of the world’s attention and money
focused on crises in places like Gaza and Ukraine, “the funding [for displaced
people] is not enough, and the presence of [humanitarian] actors is low” in
northern Mozambique, says Ulrika Blom, country director for the Norwegian
Refugee Council. Aid workers are stretched thin in a remote province roughly
the size of Maine with few paved roads, where insurgents still roam freely.
That
lack of support drives many displaced people back to their villages, even when
the threat of violence still looms.“They say that they prefer to die at home in
the attacks instead of dying in the displacement camps,” says Tomás Queface,
who heads Cabo Ligado, an organization monitoring the conflict.
And so,
a little more than a week after he fled, Musa and his family made the return
journey, heading for the house in Chiúre he’d built by hand.
“Home is
home,” he says. “Whenever you need something, you can ask your neighbors and
they will help you. Being away from here is like being in a foreign country.”
But he
found Chiúre transformed. His chickens and ducks were gone. The burned-out husk
of a truck set aflame by the insurgents sat on the road leading to his farm.
Musa also watched how somber and timid Ismael
and his friends had become, drained of the innocence they had displayed before
the fighting in their village.
“They
don’t play as they used to, because now they’re aware that there’s a war,” he
says.
More
than 100 schools in Cabo Delgado and neighboring Nampula have shut down because
of the conflict, disrupting classes for 50,000 children, according to the
latest figures from UNICEF. Ismael is studying, Musa says, but many of his
classmates are afraid to go back to school.
This is
common in Cabo Delgado, says Lindsay Shearer, a child protection specialist for
UNICEF in the province. After seeing schools destroyed, “it takes time for
[children] to build trust again and feel safe.”
When a
Monitor reporter met Musa in March, just a few weeks after the family’s return
home, he and Ismael were taking their new life one day at a time.
“Every
night when you go to bed, you say thank you to God that you survived the day.
They didn’t find us. They didn’t come,” he says.
Then, in late April, Al Shabab forces attacked
Chiúre once more, burning 50 homes and beheading a man. Musa longs for a normal
life. “We are crying for an end to the war, crying for an end to the war, so
that we can relax,” he says.
Source: csmonitor.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2024/0606/islamist-rebels-mozambique-target-children
--------
Both
Riyadh and Moscow Make It More Difficult for Muslims from Russia to Make the
Haj but Keep the Russian Quota at 25,000
June 6,
2024
Paul
Goble
Staunton,
June 1 – While the Saudi-established quota for Muslims from the Russian
Federation remains unchanged at 25,000, both Riyadh and Moscow have tightened
the rules for those who want to go, with the Saudis requiring a special haj
visa and the Russian authorities allowing only those with biometric passports
to get one.
Those
restrictions are unlikely to lessen the demand among the Muslims of the Russian
Federation for making the haj, but they will make it more difficult and more
expensive given that this year as in the past a majority of Russian hajis will
come from the North Caucasus with most of those coming from Dagestan alone.
In
reporting this, the Kavkaz-Uzel provides a useful set of statistics on the
number of Russia’s Muslims who have made the pilgrimage since 1990. (Before
perestroika, only a handful of them were allowed to go; and some years not a
single Muslim from the USSR made the required visit to Mecca.)
(kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/171622)
Below
are the figures for the number of hajis 1500 went from Russia in 1990, a figure
that rose to 3,000 in 2000 and then jumped to 18,000 in 2007. In 2015, the
Saudis set a quota of 16,400; and then in 2017, they rose it to 20,500. In
2020, under pressure from Moscow, the Saudis upped this quota to 25,000.
In 2021,
because of the pandemic, the Saudis allowed only those living in Saudi Arabia
to make the haj. In 2021, when covid ebbed, they introduced a new quota for
Muslims from Russia of 11.318; and then in 2022, Riyadh raised the quota for
Russians back to 25,000 where it has remained ever since.
Source: windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/both-riyadh-and-moscow-make-it-more.html
--------
2 Men
Detained In Georgia For Possible Links With Islamic State
June 06,
2024
Georgia's
State Security Service said on June 6 that its officers detained two men in the
Black Sea resort city of Batumi for illegal firearms possession and for
possible links with the extremist Islamic State group. According to the statement,
the suspects' homes were searched and an assault rifle, several pistols,
grenades, and flags with Islamic State symbols were discovered. Batumi is the
capital of Georgia’s Autonomous Republic of Ajara. Georgia is predominantly
Orthodox Christian but Ajara, which borders Turkey in the southwest, is home to
many Muslims. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Echo of the Caucasus,
click here.
Source: rferl.org
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.rferl.org/a/men-detained-georgia-links-islamic-state-batumi/32981440.html
--------
Africa
Sudan:
RSF kills at least 100 in attack on village - activists say
At least
100 people were killed, and dozens were injured after the paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces attacked a village in Gezira province in Sudan on Wednesday,
officials said.
Women,
children, and elderly were among the victims in the attacks by the Rapid
Support Forces on Wad al-Noura village in Gezira, Mini Arko Minawi, the
governor of Darfur province, said on X, formerly Twitter.
A
grassroots group set up to protect residents in Wad Madani, the capital city of
Gezira, said late Wednesday on social media that the paramilitary force, which
has been fighting the Sudanese army for over a year, used heavy artillery to
besiege and attack the village.
The
Madani Resistance Committee, which has been threatened and attacked by the RSF
in the past, accused the paramilitaries of looting Wad al-Noura in the midst of
the attacks which it said started Wednesday morning.
The RSF
claimed in December that it had seized control of Wad Madani, about 100
kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and a haven
for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting.
The
resistance committee said the RSF invaded the village, displacing residents,
including women and children, to other parts of the district of al-Manaqil.
The
Sudanese transitional government in a statement on its Telegram channel
condemned the attacks and called for the international community to hold the
RSF accountable.
"These
are criminal acts that reflect the systematic behavior of these (RSF) militias
in targeting civilians, plundering their property, and forcibly displacing them
from their areas," said the media office for the Transitional Sovereignty
Council, which was set up after the ouster of longtime president Omar al-Bashir
in 2019.
The RSF
alleged on X late Wednesday that the Sudanese military planned to attack its
troops in Jabal al-Awliya, in the west of al-Manaqil district, by mobilizing
Sudanese armed forces in three bases. The Associated Press couldn't verify this
allegation.
The
paramilitary group said it attacked three camps west, north and south of Wad-al
Noura, clashing with the Sudanese army.
"Our
forces will not stand idly by in the face of any movements or gatherings by the
enemy and will work to pursue and defeat the enemy," said the RSF in its
statement.
The war
between the RSF and the Sudanese army has wrecked the country as clashes spread
across multiple cities and pushed its population to the brink of famine. More
than 14,000 people have been killed and thousands have been wounded. Hundreds
of thousands have been displaced.
Source: africanews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.africanews.com/2024/06/06/sudans-rsf-kills-at-least-100-in-attack-on-village-activists-say/
--------
South
African President joins key party meeting on new government formation
South
African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with senior officials of the African
National Congress on Thursday to decide how to go about forming a government
after the party lost its 30-year grip on power and left a post-election
deadlock.
The
party's National Executive Committee was meeting in Johannesburg to work through
a split within the party's ranks over which direction to take. ANC lost its
long-held majority in last week's vote but remained the biggest party, and now
needs some form of agreement with others to run Africa's most industrialized
country.
ANC has
indicated it's leaning toward a government of national unity that would bring
together many of the political parties in a broad agreement, rather than a
direct coalition with the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance, or DA.
"We
want to bring everybody on board," ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula
said before Thursday's meeting, which was likely to last all day. Mbalula said
a government of national unity was being proposed to the NEC to decide on, but
he expected there to be debate and disagreement.
ANC is
the party that was once led by Nelson Mandela and freed South Africa from the
apartheid system of white minority rule by winning the country's historic first
all-race vote in 1994. It had seen a gradual decline in its support over the
last 20 years as South Africa struggles with high levels of poverty,
unemployment and inequality.
The
National Executive Committee that includes more than 80 of the ANC's top
officials is expected to be the body to decide on which direction it will take.
There's
no guarantee that all the other parties will accept the idea of a government of
national unity, even as South Africa's political leaders are under some time
pressure to decide on the way forward as the newly elected Parliament must sit
for the first time by June 16, with one of its first priorities to elect a
president.
The
South African president is seeking a second term in office, and the agreement
being sought will also decide if Ramaphosa is reelected. South African
elections decide how many seats each party gets in Parliament and lawmakers
then elect the president. Because ANC only won 40% of the vote and lost its
parliamentary majority for the first time, it needs others to join with it to
reelect Ramaphosa for his final term.
A
coalition between ANC and the centrist DA had been touted as the likeliest
option to co-govern South Africa as the two would hold a clear majority after
DA won the second biggest share of the vote with 21%.
But that
has met resistance from grassroots ANC structures as well as some of its political
allies, like South Africa's congress of trade unions.
DA could
also be opposed to a wide-ranging agreement involving many political parties
given it has insisted it will never work with two of them — the new populist MK
Party of former President Jacob Zuma and the far-left Economic Freedom
Fighters. They won the third and fourth biggest shares of the vote.
Source: africanews.com
Please click the following URL to read
the text of the original Story
https://www.africanews.com/2024/06/06/south-african-president-joins-key-party-meeting-on-new-government-formation/
--------
N423
Billion Theft: “Don’t go after El-rufai” – Muslim Group issues warning
June 6,
2024
The
Muslim Rights Concern Group, MURIC has condemned moves to probe a Former
Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-rufai, over an alleged theft of N423
billion.
An ad
hoc committee set up by the Kaduna State House of Assembly to investigate all
finances, loans and contracts awarded under Nasir El-Rufai’s administration
submitted its report on Wednesday, indicting the ex-governor and some of his
appointees of siphoning N423bn state funds..
Reacting
to the development via a statement made available to POLITICS NIGERIA on
Thursday, the group condemned the move stating that it was ‘ill-advised’.
“The
special committee set up by the Kaduna State House of Assembly has recommended
that the former governor of the state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, should be probed
(https://www.crimechannels.com/el-rufai-administration-to-be-probed-for-abuse-of-office-money-laundering/#google_vignette).
“MURIC
received the news with a pinch of salt. There can be no clean motive behind the
attempt. Those who want to probe El-Rufai are not looking for stolen money. It
is political vendetta. They are out to stain Mallam’s good name using falsehood,
manipulations and manufactured figures as their weapons. It is unsavory,
laughable and preposterous. It is an ill-advised move.”
“The
current administration in Kaduna will do well to concentrate on building on the
enviable achievements of the former governor instead of digging pits for his
predecessor. Introducing politics of bitterness to Kaduna State is alien to the
political culture and tradition laid down by the great Ahmadu Bello, the
Sardauna of Sokoto.”
“Any
attempt to de-market El-Rufai today is an attempt at undermining the
possibility of a continued handshake across the Niger which was characterized
by the North-South-West alliance in the February 2023 election. El-Rufai’s role
in making the alliance a fait accompli gave Kaduna State special prominence.
Therefore, only those who do not wish Kaduna State and, by extension, the
North, well can promote the idea of probing El-Rufai.”
“Any
attempt by Kaduna lawmakers to shake the status quo is politically naïve,
myopic and kindergarten. Kaduna politicians should stop searching for a needle
in a whole collection of haystacks.”
Source: politicsnigeria.com
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UN:
Somalia elected to Security Council after more than 50 years
Somalia
was elected on Thursday (Jun. 6) to serve on the UN security council as a
non-permanent member for two years.
Denmark,
Greece, Pakistan and Panama also got seats on the U.N. Security Council in a
secret ballot in the General Assembly.
The
193-member world body elected five countries. The 10 non-permanent seats on the
15-member council are allotted to regional groups that usually select their
candidates but sometimes can’t agree on one. There were no such surprises this
year.
This
time, the regional groups put forward Somalia for an African seat, Pakistan for
an Asia-Pacific seat, Panama for a Latin America and Caribbean seat, and Denmark
and Greece for two mainly Western seats.
The
freshly elected council members will start their terms on Jan. 1, replacing
those whose two-year terms end on Dec. 31 — Mozambique, Japan, Ecuador, Malta,
and Switzerland.
They
will join the five veto-wielding permanent members — the United States, Russia,
China, United Kingdom, and France — and the five countries elected last year —
Algeria, Guyana, South Korea, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia.
The
Security Council is charged with maintaining international peace and security.
But because of Russia’s veto power it has been unable to take action on Ukraine
— and because of close U.S. ties to Israel it has not called for a cessation of
hostilities in Gaza.
All five
countries that won seats on Thursday have previously served on the Security
Council – Pakistan seven times, Panama five times, Denmark four times, Greece
twice and Somalia once.
Virtually
every country agrees that almost eight decades after the United Nations was
established the Security Council needs to expand and reflect the world in the
21st century, not the post-World War II era reflected now.
But with
193 countries with national interests, the central question — and the biggest
disagreement — is exactly how. And for four decades, those disagreements have
blocked any significant reform of the U.N.’s most powerful body.
Source: africanews.com
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ANC
leans towards unity government as uneasiness gains grassroots supporters
Can a
unity government like that of 1994 help South Africa now?
ANC
officials say it is the first option on the table after the party lost its
parliamentary majority.
President
Cyril Ramaphosa and senior party officials were in a critical meeting Thursday
(Jun. 6) in Johannesburg to decide how to go about forming a government.
“We have
already held constructive discussions with a number of parties. Economic Freedom
Fighters, Inkatha Freedom Party, the Democratic Alliance, the National Freedom
Party and the Patriotic Alliance. We've also engaged our alliance partners to
brief them on the process and will continue to seek their invaluable views and
guidance.”
Any
unity government plan would still have to be taken to those other parties, some
of whom are more opposed to each other than ANC. The Democratic Alliance (DA)
has pledged never to work with EFF or MK, for example.
Complex
process
Ramaphosa
who seeks a second and final term acknowledged the challenges laying ahead.
“The ANC
notes that we do have ideological and political differences with several
parties in our political landscape. However, we will not preclude the
possibility of working with any party so long as it is in the public interest,
and it is in keeping with the principles that they have articulated,” Ramaphos
said.
More
than 50 parties contested the election with at least eight of them receiving
significant shares of support.
“We want
to bring everybody on board,” ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said of the
unity government proposal. He said the ANC meeting, which would decide whether
to back that idea over a narrower coalition with one or two parties, was likely
to last all day.
In
addition to staying true to its core principles, the ANC leadership must
reassure grassroots party members.
Some
protested outside the venue of the committee's meeting.
An
agreement of some sort needs to be in place by June 16, the deadline for South
Africa’s new Parliament to sit and elect a president.
South
Africa is seeking to minimize any uncertainty through what promises to be a
complex process that is likely to run well into next week. It is keeping South
Africans on tenterhooks at one of the most important times in their young
democracy.
A
government of national unity evokes South Africa’s transition from apartheid’s
white minority rule to a democracy.
Source: africanews.com
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--------
South
Africa questions its identity, strengthens democracy
South
Africa is undergoing intense introspection following an election that resulted
in a significant break from the African National Congress, the party that
secured the nation's freedom and democracy three decades ago.
In the
wake of turning away from what was once the country's most cherished party,
South Africans are grappling with crucial questions about their future
direction and the progress they've made in their fledgling democracy since the
end of apartheid in 1994.
Despite
having Africa's most industrialized economy, the injustices of South Africa's
past have not been made right three decades after Nelson Mandela and the ANC
were elected in the country's first all-race vote and promised a better life
for all. That has driven discontent among millions of the poor Black majority.
"We
remain the pyramid society that apartheid and colonialism created," said
Thuli Madonsela, a professor of law who helped craft a new, post-apartheid
constitution for South Africa in 1997 that was meant to guarantee everyone was
equal from then on.
Speaking
on national broadcaster SABC, Madonsela outlined how South Africa's democratic
journey is still marred by vast problems of joblessness and race-based
inequality at some of the worst levels in the world. In last week's election,
opposition parties were united in one thing: Something had to change in the country
of 62 million.
The
problems are both the hard-to-heal scars of apartheid and the contemporary
failings of the ANC. The nation, once a prime example of brutal oppression that
then embodied a great hope through Mandela, is still searching for what it wants
to be — but self-aware, at least.
"What
must we do with this South Africa of ours?" asked Thabo Mbeki, the former
South African president who had the almost impossible task of succeeding
Mandela as his nation's leader.
Politically,
South Africa is heading into the unknown again as it did after the
turning-point election of 1994, but with none of the joy or optimism of a
transition celebrated across the world. The ANC has lost its majority, but with
no other party overtaking it, South Africa faces what might be an excruciating
series of negotiations to form the first national coalition government in its
history.
Yet amid
the uncertainty and South Africans' introspection, some have urged them to be
proud and to take a closer look at what just happened.
The ANC
has accepted the result of the election and the will of the people without
question, even after it ended such a long political dominance that it was
sometimes hard to see where the ANC ended and South Africa began. An ANC leader
once said in bluster that it would govern South Africa "until Jesus comes
back," but it graciously submitted to the will of the people last weekend
and pledged to work with opposition parties for the good of the country.
After
the election results were officially declared Sunday night, South Africans went
to work Monday and their children went to school. South African President Cyril
Ramaphosa, while still digesting a historic defeat for the party he leads, sent
an online message to the nation like he does at the start of every week. He
began it with the words: "We have just held a successful general
election" and wrote that the vote showed "that our democracy is
strong, that it is robust and that it endures."
Frans
Cronje, a political and economic analyst, said that shouldn't be lost given how
other long-ruling post-colonial political parties in Africa have rejected
election results and clung to power, sending their countries spiraling. And
there have been efforts in recent years to subvert democracy and elections
further afield in bigger countries, he said.
"There's
actually not much to see here (in South Africa) other than a democracy that
worked in a world where they don't always work as well as the architects of
Western democracy would have wanted them to," Cronje said. Cronje said it
was "the least profound" observation he could make, and yet it might
have gone unnoticed.
It
wasn't meant to underestimate South Africa's troubles, though, and they are
stark: The South African Human Rights Commission, one of several independent
bodies set up by the government with a mandate to guard democracy, found in
2021 that 64% of Black people in South Africa and 40% of those with biracial
heritage were classified as poor, but for white people that figure was only 1%.
That
must change quickly, Madonsela warned, or South Africa's democracy could face
sterner tests ahead and the constitution that she co-wrote could be in danger
of becoming "meaningless" to people. She cautioned that some might
conflate the failure of the ANC with the failure of democracy as a whole. More
than 80% of South Africa's population is Black and the frustration of millions
over broken government promises cannot be underestimated.
South
Africa's future now lies in coalition talks that will bring almost every major
party in, although it's still unclear what the final product will be. More than
50 parties contested last week's election, with at least eight receiving
significant shares of the vote, reflecting a country that has never pretended
not to be complicated. Ramaphosa said South Africa has to find unity "now
more than ever."
As
politically and racially diverse groups try to chart a new way forward
together, an optimistic South African might find a connection with one of the
most famous speeches Mandela gave 60 years ago when he stood in an apartheid
courtroom and held firm in his defense of democracy, and that every South
African be allowed to vote and have a say in their future.
"We
believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it," he
said.
Source: africanews.com
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--------
Russia's
top diplomat promises more military support for Burkina Faso
Russia's
foreign minister on Wednesday pledged more support to Burkina Faso in fighting
militant groups as he pressed his whirlwind tour of West Africa in an attempt
to fill a vacuum left by the region's traditional Western partners.
Sergey
Lavrov spoke at a news conference in the country's capital of Ouagadougou while
on the third leg of his latest Africa trip, after Guinea and the Republic of
Congo.
Russia
is seeking to shore up support from the region amid Moscow's full-scale
invasion of Ukraine. A number of African countries in recent years have
expressed growing frustration with their traditional Western partners such as
France and the United States.
"Russian
instructors have been working here and their number will increase," Lavrov
said, adding that Russia has been helping train Burkina Faso's military and law
enforcement personnel. "We have supplied and will continue to supply
military equipment to help strengthen Burkina Faso's defense capability and
allow it to eliminate the remaining terrorist groups."
Lavrov
said he appreciated the "objective and fair" position of Burkina Faso
on the war in Ukraine. "For our part, we are ready to provide our support
for the just cause of Africans who are trying to free themselves from
neo-colonial influence."
Burkina
Faso, a landlocked nation of 20 million, has been ravaged in the past eight
years by violence from extremist groups loosely affiliated with al-Qaida and
the Islamic State group, and from the fighting between government forces and
the militants.
The
country also went through two coups in just 10 months, the second last year
after which a military junta threw out French forces and turned to Russia for
security support. However, the junta has struggled to contain the security and
humanitarian crisis.
Burkina
Faso has topped the list of the world's biggest neglected crises for the second
year in a row, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. A record 6.3 million
out of 20 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, the aid
organization said, with many on the brink of starvation. Two million people
remain internally displaced, about 60% of them children. Many have been
traumatized, but resources to help them are scarce.
Jan
Egeland, the agency's secretary-general, told The Associated Press that Western
governments have been withdrawing financial aid from Burkina Faso and other
countries in the Sahel, a region encompassing states on the fringes of the
Sahara Desert, contributing to the vicious circle of poverty, violence, and
extremism.
"The
disengagement of the West is bringing them no influence in the region,"
Egeland said. "But I haven't seen Russia helping us in our humanitarian
work or doing development programs, so the Russian approach is not going to
bring relief that the people need."
But, he
added, "I see Russian flags in Burkina Faso. I don't see European
flags."
Later
Wednesday, Lavrov arrived in Chad, which has also made the list of the world's
neglected crises.
Source: africanews.com
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--------
Southeast Asia
Consult
legal experts on Islamic conversion of minors - Penang mufti
Jun 6,
2024
Penang
Mufti Wan Salim Wan Mohd Noor has called on parties involved in an alleged
attempt to convert non-Muslim school students to Islam to consult legal
experts.
Speaking
to Malaysiakini, Wan Salim pointed out that every state in the country has
their own legal advisers and experts.
Source: malaysiakini.com
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https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/707960
--------
Tired of
'muted' response, group won't file report against Muslim preacher
Jun 7,
2024
The Global
Human Rights Federation (GHRF) has decided not to lodge a police report against
Muslim preacher Firdaus Wong despite urging authorities to act against him for
encouraging the conversion of minors.
Speaking
to Malaysiakini, GHRF president S Shashi Kumar claimed this is because the
authorities have failed to act on their previous reports on similar issues.
Describing
the response...
Source: malaysiakini.com
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https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/708017
--------
Indonesian
president in damage control over new capital
07 Jun
2024
JAKARTA,
June 7 — Indonesia’s president is rushing to reassure investors and bureaucrats
about his US$32 billion new capital city in a malaria-prone pocket of Borneo,
after the resignations of two officials overseeing the plan raised fresh doubts
about its future.
President
Joko Widodo’s announcement that he will start working next month from an office
in Nusantara, a giant construction site over 1,200km (750 miles) from the
current capital Jakarta, is unlikely to allay fears about his legacy project,
analysts say.
“Investor
confidence has dropped, I think. They were already in doubt and in
‘wait-and-see’ mode, partly because of the unclear land status, partly because
of a lack of transparency in governance of the new capital,” said Yanuar
Nugroho, the president’s former deputy chief of staff.
“The
resignations worsen this... instead of explaining what really happened, the
government is trying to cover it up,” he said, describing the president as in
damage control mode.
Travelling
to Nusantara just a day after the two respected technocrats in charge resigned
without explanation, the president broke ground on schools, office complexes
and promised foreign investment was coming.
But
years after the president announced his signature project, intended to ease the
burden on the traffic-ridden, polluted, sinking and over-populated Jakarta,
zero foreign funding has been committed.
A
presidential spokesperson referred question regarding doubt on Nusantara’s
future to previous President Widodo’s comment saying the project will continue
as plan.
Jokowi,
as the president is known, leaves office this October after serving the maximum
two terms as his legacy project faces a host of problems, including land
issues, water supplies, the threat of tropical diseases such as malaria, and
widespread reluctance among civil servants to move.
An even
bigger stumbling block could be president-elect Prabowo Subianto.
Prabowo
won February’s election promising “continuity”, but the ex-commander has a
legacy project of his own: A US$29 billion “free meal” programme intended to
curb stunting.
Privately,
Prabowo is yet to discuss moving to Nusantara with his team, and while he has
pledged to continue developing it, it is unlikely to be at the same speed, one
politician with direct knowledge told Reuters.
A
spokesperson for Prabowo did not immediately respond to request for comment,
but publicly Prabowo has said he is committed to continuing the project.
Members
of Prabowo’s coalition have also privately discussed doubts about the capacity
of the state budget to fund both the new capital and the nutrition programme,
said a separate senior politician involved.
“If
resources become scarce, (Nusantara) could just become a backburner item,” said
political analyst Kevin O’Rourke. “There’s going to be a lot of competition for
other spending items in the Prabowo administration.”
‘A
sacrifice’
Envisioned
as an uber-modern, green smart city complete with flying taxis, Indonesia’s
Nusantara is more technologically and logistically ambitious than new
administrative capitals in the region such as Myanmar’s Naypyidaw, and
Malaysia’s Putrajaya.
Thousands
of civil servants are scheduled to be sent to Nusantara starting this
September, but some are reluctant to go.
Of
almost a dozen civil servants who spoke to Reuters, only two wanted to move,
while others said they would consider quitting or seeking a transfer if asked.
“There
is nothing there, health and education facilities and so on,” said one civil
servant in the communications ministry, “It’s not a choice but a sacrifice.”
The
government has ensured basic facilities including apartments, water,
electricity and internet will be ready when civil servants arrive, said Danis
Sumadilaga, the head of the infrastructure task force for the Nusantara
project.
“We must
understand that not all of the facilities will be available in an instant...We
are going there for work, what kind of facilities you want? You can’t expect it
to be like Jakarta,” he said in a recent interview.
Other
key government buildings including the presidential office, state palace, and
some ministerial buildings will be ready in August when Indonesia will hold its
independence day.
Foreign
investment has been held back due to the election and associated risks, said
Chris Wren, CEO of BritCham Indonesia, adding that interest was now picking up.
“There
are interested parties as investors across the range of needs and opportunities
– infrastructure, smart city tech, utilities, education, etc,” he said.
“However, the sense remains that the pitch is far from perfected at this
point.”
Public
health experts have also expressed concern about malaria, with East Kalimantan,
the Indonesian part of Borneo where the new capital is located, home to the
country’s second-highest rate of the mosquito-borne disease.
The
government has stressed the capital site is malaria-free, but transmission
remains a risk because of undocumented workers who illegally log nearby
forests, epidemiologists say.
Official
data shows the rate of malaria in Balikpapan, the closest city to Nusantara,
more than doubled from 2022 to 2023.
“If they
are not careful, I suspect malaria cases will increase in the next six months to
a year,” said Iqbal Elyazar, from Oxford University’s clinical research unit in
Jakarta. — Reuters
Source: malaymail.com
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--------
Home
minister: Malaysia, China agree to deepen national security framework proposal
07 Jun
2024
PUTRAJAYA,
June 7 — Malaysia and China have expressed agreement to deepen the proposed
National Security Framework scientifically which is expected benefit both
countries as well as the region and the world, said Home Minister Datuk Seri
Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
He said
it was one of the high-impact results obtained through the Fifth Meeting of the
Malaysia-People’s Republic of China Joint Working Group on Combating
Transnational Crime (5th JWG) yesterday (June 6) in China, which was chaired by
him and Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong.
He said
both countries also expressed their commitment to explore and lead the
cooperation of Asean + China + Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the fields of
security, economy and social in accordance with the three main pillars of
Asean.
“Also
signed was the extension of the Agreement for Cooperation in Combating
Transnational Crime between Malaysia and the People’s Republic of China which
is in effect until 2034,” he said in a statement today in conjunction with the
5th JWG.
The
agreement is a master document that lists more than 15 areas of cooperation
between the two countries such as the prevention of terrorist activities and
extremism, illegal gambling, cyber crime, human trafficking and illicit
substances and crimes on the environment.
Besides,
he said the two countries also agreed to immediately finalise a number of new
agreement and cooperation documents between the two countries on immigration
and extradition matters.
“The 5th
JWG meeting also acknowledged the existing close cooperation between the
enforcement agencies of the two countries and pledged to increase it to a more
intensive level in line with the comprehensive and strategic relationship
status of Malaysia-the People’s Republic of China.
“This
includes information sharing, capacity building and the exchange of officer
placements,” he said.
The 5th
JWG is a discussion mechanism under the umbrella of the Agreement for
Cooperation in Combating Transnational Crime between Malaysia and the People’s
Republic of China signed in 2012.
The annual
meeting is a manifestation of Malaysia’s close relationship with the People’s
Republic of China in the context of public security and order.
Saifuddin
Nasution is currently on a working visit to China from June 5 to 10. — Bernama
Source: malaymail.com
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--------
PM Anwar
extends donation to former footballer Azman Adnan
07-06-
2024
KUALA
LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today extended a donation to
ailing former national footballer Azman Adnan to help ease the financial burden
of his medical expenses and treatment.
In a
post on Facebook, Anwar said the donation was presented to Azman by his
Political Secretary Ahmad Farhan Fauzi who visited the former Selangor
sensational footballer yesterday.
According
to Anwar, Azman, 52, is now suffering from leg pain that requires regular physiotherapy
treatment.
In
addition, several other health problems also made it difficult for Azman to do
heavy work and hence, lost his source of income.
“Wishing
Azman a speedy recovery, Insya-Allah,” the Prime Minister posted.
Source: thesun.my
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Police
arrest nine men for Kulai woman’s abduction
06-06-
2024
JOHOR
BAHRU: Police have arrested nine men believed to be involved in the abduction
of a woman in Kulai here last month.
Johor
police chief M. Kumar said that acting on information and intelligence, a team
of officers from the Johor and Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department
arrested the suspects, aged between 24 and 48, at various locations in Johor,
Negeri Sembilan and Selangor from May 23 to 25.
He said
police also recovered a significant amount of money believed to have been paid
to secure the woman’s release.
“All of
them have criminal and drug abuse records. Initial urine tests also revealed
that six of them were positive for methamphetamine,“ he said in a statement
today.
According
to Kumar, the suspects were remanded for 14 days from May 24 until today to
assist in the investigation, and the investigation papers were referred to the
Deputy Public Prosecutor’s Office yesterday.
He said
five suspects were charged today in the Sessions Court here and the Kulai
Magistrate’s Court under Section 3(1) of the Kidnapping Act 1961 and Section
383 of the Penal Code, but all pleaded not guilty.
The
other four suspects were released on bail bonds to be prosecution witnesses
under Section 118 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
On May
16, a 30-year-old woman was abducted by three men armed with machetes from her
residence in Kulai before being released at a bus station in Skudai later that
same day.
The
self-employed victim was unharmed and released after a ransom of RM111,000 was
paid.
Source: thesun.my
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https://thesun.my/local-news/police-arrest-nine-men-for-kulai-woman-s-abduction-OC12543940
--------
Indonesian
Influencer Detained in Saudi Arabia for Selling Illegal Hajj Packages
June 7,
2024
Jakarta.
An Indonesian influencer has reportedly been detained by Saudi Arabian
authorities for allegedly selling illegal Hajj packages to pilgrims using visit
visas to Mecca.
"We
are investigating the report," said Yusron B. Ambary, the Consul General
of Indonesia in Jeddah, in a statement on Friday.
He
mentioned that the social media influencer suspected of misusing the visit visa
is currently under surveillance, and the whereabouts of the pilgrims who were
already sent are being tracked.
Additionally,
Saudi authorities are also investigating other social media accounts involved
in selling illegal Hajj pilgrimage packages without proper authorization. These
accounts lure their victims by promising immediate Hajj trips without the long
wait.
Typically,
the waiting time for the Hajj queue can extend up to 30 years, with the
shortest regular wait being up to 15 years.
Yusron
added that their primary task is to regulate and assist the victims who had
already paid for the illegal Hajj visas sold by the influencer.
However,
at this time, they cannot provide detailed information about the individuals
selling the illegal Hajj visas.
"Our
actions are more focused on the victims. After the Hajj pilgrimage is
completed, we will continue to identify both the victims and the
perpetrators," he said.
Indonesia,
home to the world's largest Muslim population, will send 554 batches of Hajj
pilgrims this year. Indonesia has been allocated a total of 241,000 Hajj slots,
with 213,320 designated for "regular Hajj" pilgrims, a program
managed directly by the government. The remaining 27,680 slots are reserved for
"special Hajj pilgrims," who will make their pilgrimage to Mecca
using private travel agency services.
Source: jakartaglobe.id
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--------
Jokowi
Wants to Set Up Makeshift Hospital in Gaza
June 6,
2024
Jakarta.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo plans to send medical workers to war-torn Gaza
and set up a makeshift field hospital to help Palestinians injured by the
ongoing Israeli military campaign, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said on
Thursday.
Prabowo
visited the president at the State Palace in Jakarta to report on his recent
participation in an international dialogue in Singapore, where he revealed
Indonesia’s determination to provide more humanitarian assistance to Palestine.
"I
reported to the president about the current situation in Gaza, and he fully
supports my stance. He even instructed me to set up a field hospital and send
our medical workers to Gaza," Prabowo told reporters after the meeting.
Prabowo
will be installed as president on October 20, succeeding Jokowi, whose son,
Gibran Rakabuming Raka, will serve as vice president.
Prabowo
said Indonesia will collaborate with countries in the Middle East, most notably
the United Arab Emirates, in providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza
residents.
During
the meeting, Jokowi also instructed his future successor to attend a summit in
Jordan discussing the conflict in Gaza and to visit Saudi Arabia, Prabowo said.
During
the seminar in Singapore last weekend, Prabowo said Indonesia is ready to send
a peacekeeping force under the UN flag to Gaza and evacuate up to 1,000 patients
for medical treatment in Indonesia.
Source: jakartaglobe.id
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--------
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/politics-assam-turnout-muslim-cm/d/132468