Shiva Temple In Ajmer Sharif Dargah: Court Issues Notices To Minority Affairs Ministry, ASI
New Age Islam News Bureau
28 November 2024
Ajmer Sharif dargah
Wikipedia
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· Shiva Temple In Ajmer Sharif Dargah: Court Issues Notices To Minority Affairs Ministry, ASI
· MoIC Holds Seminar to Chronicle Jihad History and 20-Year Occupation
· New Rule For Non-Muslim Places Of Worship Makes No Sense -MIC Deputy President
· Islamic Jihad: Zionist Enemy Submitted To Hezbollah
· At Least 20 'Martyred' In PTI Protest, Claims PTI Secretary-General
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India
· Mumbai Azad Maidan Gets Ready For The 32nd Annual Sunni Ijtema Of Sunni Muslims
· ‘Ayodhya Happened, Now Sambhal’s Turn’: How A Court Order Sparked A Deadly Dispute Over A Mosque
· Seer, Chandrashekaranatha, Expresses Regret Over His Comments On Denying Voting Power To Muslims
· "Why Are BJP, RSS Spreading Hatred Over Mosques And Dargahs?": Owaisi Amid Ajmer Dargah Row
· Yasin Malik case: Supreme Court notice on CBI plea to transfer trial to Delhi
· Jammu NSG hub for reply to terror attacks
· 'Rights of Muslims will be snatched': West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee calls Waqf bill 'anti-secular'
· Winter session of Bihar Legislative Assembly sees protest against Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024
· As Tensions Escalate Around Uttarkashi Mosque, Uttarakhand Govt Tells High Court No Permission For Planned ‘Mahapanchayat’
· Uttar Pradesh: Sambhal remains tense over mosque survey, security personnel deployed, internet shutdown to continue
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South Asia
· Bangladesh Intends To Pursue Charges Of Crimes Against Humanity Against The Sheikh Hasina Regime At The ICC
· Reforms to ensure minority inclusion
· Khaleda, Tarique cleared of 4 graft, extortion cases
· Minister Azizi seeking Turkish products exhibition in Afghanistan
· Ministry of Interior Rejects UN Report on Drug Cultivation Increase in Afghanistan
· Over 68 Million AFN Allocated to 41 Education Projects in Maidan Wardak
· Defense Minister Mawlawi Mujahid Discusses Bilateral Ties with Pakistani Ambassador
· Bangladesh requests Malaysia for supplying palm oil ahead of Ramadan
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Southeast Asia
· Economic Considerations Do Not Limit Malaysia’s Stance On Gaza Issue - PM Anwar
· Over 700 items seized from Datuk Seri Vida’s home for possible auction to settle RM1m debt
· Anwar: RM1.6b Leonardo helicopter leasing contract backed by Italian govt, not ‘direct nego’
· Vocational student murder trial: Judge warns families of accused over alleged witness intimidation
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Mideast
· Displaced Residents Return To South Lebanon, Israeli Army Breaches Ceasefire Twice
· UN Chief Sees Lebanon Ceasefire As First Ray Of Hope In Mideast Conflict
· Lebanese Shiite Muslims Increasingly Blame Hezbollah For Destruction In Lebanon
· Arab, Islamic Organizations Hail Israel-Lebanon Cease-Fire Agreement
· Hamas praises pivotal role of Islamic resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah
· Hezbollah: We Achieved Victory After Two Months Of Jihad, Enemy Did Not Achieve Any Of Its Goals
· Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
· Former ICC chief prosecutor tells of ‘threats to family’ during Israel-Palestine war crimes probe
· Hezbollah faces long recovery, officials believe thousands of fighters killed
· 57 dead in army-miltant clashes in northern Syria: monitor
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Pakistan
· Imran Khan, other PTI leaders face fresh charges after protest fiasco
· PML-N's resolution seeks ban on PTI after 'violence' in Islamabad
· ‘Casualties of marchers’ main bone of contention between govt, PTI
· Govt fed up with capital onslaughts, vows ‘never again’
· SC rejects KP govt request for suo motu over protest
· Pak-China military talks focus on terrorism, security
· PTI protest: Amnesty demands transparent investigation into ‘deadly crackdown’ as 954 arrested
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Arab World
· Saudi Official Elected Vice Chair Of Codex Alimentarius Commission, That Sets Standards For Global Food Trade
· Saudi development fund chief meets Congo’s finance minister
· Saudi Geological Survey celebrates excellence in research, innovation
· Saudi Ministry of Culture to cooperate with King Charles’ school on craft training
· Saudi teams shine at Formula 1 in Schools World Finals
· Thunderstorms forecast across Saudi Arabia until Sunday
· Shoura Council, EU officials discuss strengthening ties
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Europe
· Does Labour back Islamic blasphemy laws?
· Western Europe’s Muslim problem
· Nelson Community Mosque wins at British Beacon Mosque Awards
· NATO struggles with Russia over the new world order – top general
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North America
· Muslim American Life after October 7
· Sean 'Diddy' Combs denied bail for third time in sex-trafficking case
· 'Arctic outbreak' for parts of US as millions travel for Thanksgiving
· Missing hiker found alive after more than five weeks in wilderness
· US believes Russian nuclear strike ‘unlikely’ – Reuters
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Africa
· Terrorists Attack Troops, Kill Three Soldiers In Benue State
· Osogbo Muslim Community Rejects Newly Appointed Asiwaju Musulumi Of Osogboland
· Money Laundering: EFCC To Drag Yahaya Bello To Court Today
· North Must Ensure That Its Actions Are In The Best Interest Of Nigeria – Gowon Tells Shekarau Delegation
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/shiva-temple-ajmer-dargah-ministry/d/133852
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Shiva Temple In Ajmer Sharif Dargah: Court Issues Notices To Minority Affairs Ministry, ASI
28.11.24
Ajmer Sharif dargah
Wikipedia
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A local court in Ajmer on Wednesday directed that notice be issued to three parties in a civil suit which claims that there is a Shiva temple in the dargah of sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, the plaintiff's advocate said.
Advocate Yogesh Siroja told reporters in Ajmer that the suit was heard in the court of Civil Judge Manmohan Chandel.
The suit, claiming that there is a Shiva temple in the dargah, was filed in September seeking directions to start the worship in the temple again.
He said notices have been issued to Ajmer Dargah Committee, Ministry of Minority Affairs and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) office in New Delhi seeking their response.
Plaintiff Vishnu Gupta said, "Our demand was that the Ajmer dargah should be declared as Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple and if the dargah has any kind of registration, then it should be cancelled. Its survey should be done through ASI and Hindus should be given the right to worship there." The next hearing is on December 20.
The development takes place close on the heels of violence that took place in Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh killing four people and injuring many including policemen, when a local court ordered survey of a mosque which petitioners said was built after destroying an old temple.
Source:telegraphindia.com
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https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/lawsuit-claims-shiva-temple-in-ajmer-sharif-dargah-court-issues-notices-to-minority-affairs-ministry-archaeological-survey-of-india/cid/2066616
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MoIC Holds Seminar to Chronicle Jihad History and 20-Year Occupation
2024-11-27
KABUL (BNA): The Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan organized a seminar titled Examining Afghanistan’s 20-Year Occupation to preserve and document the history of the Afghan people’s jihad.
The seminar, chaired by Mawlawi Atiqullah Azizi, Deputy Minister of Culture and Art, aimed to draft research articles and develop strategies for chronicling Afghanistan’s jihad history. Mawlawi Azizi emphasized the importance of documenting the sacred jihad of the Afghan people to preserve it for future generations. He noted that such seminars are crucial for promoting and safeguarding the country’s jihad values.
Azizi further highlighted that the seminar would compile the struggles, sacrifices, and heroism of various segments of Afghan society during the 20-year occupation into a documented and preserved book.
Meanwhile, Mawlawi Zabihullah Noorani, General Director of the Directorate for Preserving Jihadi Values, described the seminar as a significant opportunity to collect evidence of the horrors of occupation and the heroism of the Afghan people. He stressed the importance of scholarly articles in enriching historical knowledge and advancing the documentation process.
Participants shared their suggestions on selecting authors and emphasized the critical role of academic papers in this endeavor, considering the seminar as an essential first step toward writing the history of Afghanistan’s jihad.
Source:bakhtarnews.af
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https://www.bakhtarnews.af/en/moic-holds-seminar-to-chronicle-jihad-history-and-20-year-occupation/
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New Rule For Non-Muslim Places Of Worship Makes No Sense -MIC Deputy President
Nov 28, 2024
The Housing and Local Government Ministry’s decision to limit how frequently non-Muslim places of worship can apply for government allocations is unreasonable, said MIC deputy president M Saravanan.
This followed Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Aiman Athirah Sabu’s announcement in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday that non-Muslim places of worship that have received allocations can only reapply after three years.
This is intended to ensure more non-Muslim places of worship benefit from the ministry’s allocations.
“The new regulation on allocations for non-Muslim places of worship sounds foolish, illogical, and nonsensical,” Saravanan told Malaysiakini yesterday.
“The Indian community is already disappointed with the federal government for failing to address socio-economic challenges.
“This regulation will clearly reduce support, especially from the Indian community, for the Madani government.”
Don’t overlook contributions
Saravanan added the government should not overlook the contributions of the Indian community to the nation’s development and prosperity.
“Irrational decisions like this by (the ministry) will anger the Indian and non-Muslim communities. Do not disrespect non-Muslim places of worship.
“It is crucial for authorities to act fairly and responsibly. Most Hindu temples face financial constraints. Why impose such regulations now to amend guidelines for applying for government funding?
“Sufficient funds should be allocated based on the need to facilitate repairs, maintenance, and emergency works for non-Muslim places of worship. Such rules will only deprive places of worship that truly need assistance,” he said.
He added that such regulations would only burden places of worship that genuinely require help.
“If the government is truly concerned about fund misuse, it could deploy assessment and monitoring teams to evaluate before disbursing funds.
“The ministry must immediately halt its plan to amend funding application guidelines for non-Muslim places of worship.
“It is the government’s duty to treat all places of worship fairly and provide assistance,” he said.
Separately, Malaysian Indian Progressive Party (MIPP) deputy president S Subramaniam urged the Housing and Local Government Ministry to reconsider the new regulation.
“There is no need for such new rules. If you suspect any place of worship is misusing government funds, just blacklist that particular place.
“Don’t punish everyone because of one or two cases,” he said.
Source:malaysiakini.com
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https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/727272
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Islamic Jihad: Zionist enemy submitted to Hezbollah
27 Nov 2024
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine considered today, Wednesday, that the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and the Zionist entity is an important achievement.
It Confirmed that the Zionist enemy submitted to this agreement in front of "Hezbollah's heroes, its incubating environment and its heroism."
Source:saba.ye
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https://www.saba.ye/en/news3402614.htm
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At Least 20 'Martyred' In PTI Protest, Claims PTI Secretary-General
By Web Desk
November 28, 2024
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja addresses the press conference in Lahore on October 31, 2024. — Screengrab via YouTube / Geo News
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Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary-General Salman Akram Raja has claimed that at least 20 people were "martyred" during the party's 'do-or-die' demonstration held in Islamabad yesterday.
The PTI leader's statement comes hours after Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi rubbished the PTI's claims about casualties among its supporters during the security forces' crackdown in the federal capital. Naqvi, while talking to the media earlier today, termed social media reports claiming that 33 bodies were brought to a hospital as “propaganda” and challenged the former ruling party to provide the names of the deceased.
"At least 20 supporters of the PTI were killed in yesterday's protest in Islamabad. We have complete bio-data and videos of eight of them," the PTI leader said in a video statement released on social media on Wednesday.
"And, details about the remaining others will be released to the media."
Raja alleged that the former ruling party was being denied access to its workers receiving medical treatment at hospitals in Islamabad.
He further accused that hospitals in the federal capital were being instructed to destroy relevant records, with directives ordering them not to provide families with the records of their deceased or injured relatives.
The PTI's secretary-general announced that the Imran Khan-led party would take legal action, saying, "We will approach the courts against the government, the ministry of interior, and the interior minister."
Following a midnight crackdown on the PTI's demonstrators, law enforcers effectively dispersed the PTI workers. After the action by the law enforcers, the protesters dispersed and Bushra Bibi and KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur fled to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Later, the PTI issued a press release from its central media cell in the early hours of Wednesday, announcing a "temporary suspension" of its "do-or-die" protest.
The Imran Khan-led party's protest was staged against the "illegal" incarceration of the PTI founder, other party leaders and workers, the "stolen mandate" in the February 8 general elections and the 26th Constitutional Amendment.
Five security men martyred: Islamabad IG
While Salman Akram Raja's claim regarding the killing of party workers could not be verified so far, Islamabad IG Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi said that at least five security personnel, including three jawans of Rangers and two policemen, were martyred during the protest.
Addressing a press conference earlier today, “12 to 13 vehicles of police were set on fire [during PTI’s protest]."
In addition to this, the police chief said "miscreants" damaged 161 CCTV cameras of Safe City so that their activities could not be recorded.
“37 Afghan nationals among 954 people were arrested during the past three days. A Kalashnikov among 39 weapons was seized.”
71 personnel of law enforcers were injured, he said, adding that out of them, 27 received bullet injuries.
A spokesperson for the Polyclinic Hospital said that two dead bodies and 26 injured were brought to the hospital.
Source:thenews.com.pk
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https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1255791-at-least-20-martyred-in-pti-protest-claims-salman-akram-raja
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India
Mumbai Azad Maidan Gets Ready For The 32nd Annual Sunni Ijtema Of Sunni Muslims
Nov 28, 2024
MUMBAI: The massive Azad Maidan in South Mumbai is being prepared for the 32nd annual Sunni Ijtema on November 29, 30 and December 1.
Being held by Sunni Dawate Islami, a worldwide organisation of Sunni Muslims, the massive meet will see over 1 lakh women participating on the first day while ove two lakh men are expected to attend the meeting on the next two days. Scholars and commoners from across the country will participate in this much awaited meet of Sunni Muslims. "This is the biggest annual congregation of Sunni Muslims in the country. Many interactive sessions are being planned and almost all preparations areade for the meet at Azad Maidan which is called Wadi E Noor or Valley of Light during the three-day meet," said spokesperson Mohammed Shahid.
In a message, President of Sunni Dawate Islami Maulana Shakir Noori said: "Allah Almighty has created us joyful creatures, and the greatest joy you can have is in the Knowledge of Creator.
Happiness comes from (Rida bil Qadr) to be pleased with what Allah Almighty has decreed for you. That is true happiness and people are wretched in the world because they reject their circumstances, it doesn't mean that they can’t change their circumstances through rightful means."
He further said that real pleasure is in the service of others and therefore the happiest of all people in our belief is the Prophet of Allah (Peace be upon him) and no one served more than Prophet Mohammed, his life from the beginning to the end was a life of service, even before the announcement of Islam he was serving others.
Source:indiatimes.com
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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-azad-maidan-gets-ready-for-3-day-annual-meet-of-sunni-muslims/articleshow/115757463.cms
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‘Ayodhya happened, now Sambhal’s turn’: How a court order sparked a deadly dispute over a mosque
Abhik Deb
Nov 28, 2024
Since Sunday, Sambhal in western Uttar Pradesh has been on the edge. That morning, protestors clashed with the police accompanying officials conducting a survey of the town’s Shahi Jama Masjid. It had been ordered by the court to verify claims made in a petition that the mosque had been built five centuries ago on the site of a demolished temple.
At least four Muslim men – Naeem Ghazi, Mohammad Ayan, Bilal and Kaif – died of gunshot wounds during the violence on November 24. But there are two starkly differing versions on who was responsible for the deaths, reflecting the sharp divide between the administration and Sambhal’s Muslims.
Anger at the police
Families of the dead men and local community members alleged that the police had opened fire at people gathered to protest against the survey.
Lawyer Zafar Ali, the chairman of the mosque management committee, said that the protestors became anxious when a water tank inside the mosque was emptied out as the sub-divisional magistrate insisted that it should also be inspected. “As water flowed out on the road leading to the mosque, the protestors thought that the mosque was being excavated,” Ali told Scroll.
Moradabad Divisional Commissioner Aunjaneya Kumar Singh told journalists that the police only used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protestors, which was throwing stones at them and burning vehicles. The crows also fired at the police, he said, injuring a police officer in the foot.
On Wednesday, Singh told The Hindustan Times that autopsy reports suggested that the wounds on the bodies of the dead men did not seem to have been caused by ammunition used by the Uttar Pradesh Police. No bullets were found in their bodies, he said.
However, mosque chairman Zafar Ali told the media that he was present when senior police officials and the district magistrate held a discussion about opening fire at the crowd. Soon after his comments, Ali was taken into police custody for a few hours.
He refused to speak about the matter when Scroll asked him about it on Tuesday. But he dismissed the official version of the firing. “The police are claiming that shots were fired by the mob,” he said. “But why would the protestors kill each other?”
This argument was echoed by Muslims in Sambhal after the violence. They said that the seeming lack of logic in the police claims and the hasty manner in which the survey had been ordered and conducted was proof that the community was being targeted.
What sparked the violence?
The unrest has its roots in an order by a civil judge of the Sambhal district and sessions court on November 19 allowing an application asking for Hindus to be given access to the mosque. The petitioners claimed that the mosque had been built in 1526 by Mughal ruler Babar on the site of the “centuries old Shri Hari Har Temple dedicated to Lord Kalki”.
The plea is similar to those filed in relation to the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah in Mathura. In those cases too, Hindu petitioners claimed that mosques had been built after temples were demolished centuries ago. Among the eight petitioners in Sambhal is advocate Hari Shankar Jain, who is also a petitioner and lawyer in the Varanasi dispute.
Matter moved with lightning speed after this. Within hours of the plea being filed on November 19, the court ordered a survey of the mosque. It said the report was to be submitted by November 29. The first round of survey was conducted hours after the court order. Ali told Scroll that the court order was issued in a hurried manner, without allowing Muslims the right to appeal.
The survey on November 19 passed without incident. Nothing untoward happened even on November 22, when Muslims gathered for Friday prayers in unusually large numbers amid tight security.
But on November 24, when a second round of the survey started soon after the morning prayers at the mosque, the area was tense. Local residents told Scroll that they did not know that the survey was being conducted even though a notice issued by an advocate commissioner appointed to carry out the process shows that Ali had been told about it.
Ishtiyaque Hussain, who lives in the lane where the mosque is situated, said that the police and district administration were insensitive during the second round of the survey. “When we came out after namaz around 7 am, there was a huge police deployment around the mosque, much larger than that on November 19,” Hussain said. “We were forced to stay indoors and not even allowed to open our windows.”
Hussain said that the lack of awareness about the second round of the survey, compounded by the high-handedness of the police, prompted a crowd to gather at the mouth of the road leading to the mosque. “All sorts of rumours spread when something like this happens,” he said.
Hussain’s neighbour Aamer Jamal said that during the survey on November 19, each side – the petitioners and the mosque committee – had four men and a cameraman present. But on November 24, around 20 persons representing the Hindu petitioners entered the mosque, Jamal claimed. From the Muslim side, only Ali was allowed.
Both Jamal and Hussain said that they had heard several shots being fired.
Jamal said that the police’s claim that they did not shoot at the mob was absurd. “How can four people die in firing from the mob’s side?” he asked. “One person can be shot by mistake, not four.”
A video purportedly shot on the day shows a policeman firing a gun. Scroll has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the clip.
Scroll attempted to ask the circle police officer and police superintendent in Sambhal about this but they refused to meet this reporter even though they were in the police station.
A court order leaves Muslims distraught
On Tuesday, three days after the violence, Sambhal’s Muslim community was grieving for the deceased and worrying about those who had been detained by the police since Sunday for allegedly being involved in mob violence.
Laika Fathma, the mother-in-law of 35-year-old Naeem Ghazi, one of those killed, sobbed as she spoke to Scroll. “What will happen to my daughter now?” Fathma questioned. “She has four children, all of them are so young, how would she take care of them?”
She said she was also worried about her husband, about whom she has had no news since Monday night. On Monday evening, the police came to their home and asked him to appear at the police station, Fathma claimed. “He left soon after and I do not know where he is,” she said. “He cannot even walk properly due to a disability, how can he be involved in violence?”
Shan-e-Alam, who runs a tea shop next to Ghazi’s sweet shop in Sambhal’s Narottam Sarai locality, told Scroll he was struggling to come to terms with the fact that his friend was dead. “I spoke to him that morning before he went out to buy ghee for his shop,” Alam said. “I cannot believe he was involved in rioting. His death is on the police.”
Scepticism of the police account was also evident in the home of 18-year-old Mohammed Ayan, who died from a bullet injury in his chest. His elder brother Mohammed Kamil, told Scroll that Ayan had left home around 10 am on November 24 to go to a dhaba where he worked as a helper. “Around 11 am, someone called me to say that Ayan had been shot and was lying on the road,” Kamil said. “He was still alive when I picked him up but I had to admit him to a hospital in Moradabad because hospitals here denied taking him in saying a police case was involved.”
Ayan died of his wounds on Sunday night. Before his death, Ayan told Kamil that he went towards the mosque on seeing a crowd had gathered there. “As the police chased the crowd, he tripped and fell down,” Kamil said. “When he got up, he saw there was a team of policemen in front of him and he felt a bullet hitting him. Tell me now who else but the police could have shot him? And if it was someone else, why is the police not showing us the post mortem report?”
Shaheen Jamal, an advocate who practices in Sambhal, also raised questions about the manner in which the police had proceeded. “The police are saying shots were fired from country-made pistols, but then show us the ballistics report to prove that,” she said.
Jamal is part of a pro bono lawyers’ team that is defending the 27 persons accused in seven cases filed in connection with the violence. These cases involve charges of unlawful assembly, rioting, attempt to murder, causing hurt to public servants, damage to public property, use of explosive substance, robbery and disobeying orders.
For Jamal, the legal battle is also a personal one. Her sister, Farhana is among those who have been detained on suspicion of aiding the violence. Jamal showed Scroll videos on her phone to bolster her claim that the police vandalised her sister’s home, accusing her of allowing rioters to throw stones at them from the roof of the building. Jamal’s brother-in-law has made the same allegations on television channels.
Scarred by developments over the last week, Muslims in Sambhal do not believe they will be treated justly by the administration. “What hope is there when Jai Shri Ram is being chanted during the survey while the police are present?” asked Ishtiyaque Hussain, who lives near the mosque.
Hussain was referring to a video of the Hindutva slogan purportedly being chanted as officials walked to the mosque to conduct the second round of the survey. Scroll has not been able to establish the authenticity of the video.
Hussain summed up the pessimism of Sambhal’s Muslims: “Ayodhya happened, Kashi and Mathura happened, now it is Sambhal’s turn. Either we live with all this or get bullets.”
Source:scroll.in
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https://scroll.in/article/1076142/ayodhya-happened-now-sambhals-turn-how-a-court-order-sparked-a-deadly-mosque-temple-dispute
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Seer, Chandrashekaranatha, Expresses Regret Over His Comments On Denying Voting Power To Muslims
Nov 27, 2024
Bengaluru: Vishwa Vokkaliga Mahasamastana Math seer Kumara Chandrashekaranatha Swamiji on Wednesday expressed regret over his statement on denying voting power to the Muslim community, calling it a "slip of tongue". He said Muslims are also citizens of this country, and they too have voting rights like others. "My clear opinion regarding my yesterday's statement is, Muslims are also citizens of this country, they too have voting rights like others. I express my wholehearted regret if Muslim brothers are upset by my slip of tongue statement yesterday. I request not to develop this issue and to end it here," the seer said in a statement. Urging everyone to unite to protect farmers and their land, the Swamiji, in the wake of Waqf properties row, on Tuesday said that a law should be brought in where Muslim community don't have the voting power."Everyone should think and see to it that the Waqf board itself is not there....as politicians do things for the sake of votes, a law should be brought in where Muslims co mmunity don't have the voting power....it should be certainly done. In Pakistan, they have done it, others don't have power to vote there. Similarly, even in India, if we ensure that they (Muslims) don't have a right to vote, then they will stay to themselves, and everyone can remain peacefully," he he had .Reacting to the seer's comments, Home Minister G Parameshwara, earlier on Wednesday said, speaking contrary to the Constitution is not right, and no one should speak or go against .is t Vokkaligas are religious tolerant and that he has seen all religions equally so far, the seer in the statement said, Muslims too visit and keep contact with his Math, and he too takes part in the community's marriages and other auspicious events. "So there is no intolerance towards this (Muslim) community." Stating that he has no objections to the Waqf board protecting their land by giving the government accurate information as to how the land belongs to them, the seer in today's statement said, "but, farmers who have been ultivating in a land for generations cannot be evicted in the name of Waqf property." "Discussions are ongoing in the Parliament regarding the special privileges and legislations made in favour of the Waqf boards by parties that were earlier in power. A joint parliamentary committee (JPC) has also been constituted for this. Everyone should abide by their decision," he added. Following allegations by a section of farmers and others in certain parts of Karnataka that their lands were marked as Waqf properties, there have been protests by various farmers groups, organisations, and opposition BJP. Initially, there were allegations by a section of farmers from Vijayapura district that their lands were marked as Waqf properties. Similar charges had surfaced from a few other places subsequently, and also by some organisations and religious institutions like Maths. With the row escalating, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had recently directed officials that all notices issued to farmers be immediately revoked, and any u authorised amendments in land records without due notice must also be nullified.
Source:deccanherald.com
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https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/seer-expresses-regret-over-his-comments-on-denying-voting-power-to-muslims-3294657
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"Why are BJP, RSS spreading hatred over mosques and dargahs?": Owaisi amid Ajmer Dargah row
Nov 28, 2024
New Delhi [India], November 28 (ANI): All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi targeted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) following the recent controversy regarding Ajmer Sharif Dargah in Rajasthan.
Earlier, a Rajasthan court accepted a petition submitted by the Hindu Sena claiming Ajmer Sharif Dargah to be Lord Shiva's temple.
Speaking to ANI over the same, Owaisi highlighted the history of the dargah and said that previous Prime Ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru have sent "chadars" to the dargah.
"The dargah has been there for the last 800 years. At that time, the Mughals were ruling. Emperor Akbar erected many things there. Then Marathas came to rule Later, Ajmer was sold to the British for Rs 18,000. When Queen Elizabeth visited in 1911, they constructed a water house there. Prime Ministers starting from Nehru have been sending 'Chadar' to the dargah. PM Modi too sends 'Chadar' there. Why have BJP-RSS spread this hatred regarding mosques and dargahs?" Owaisi remarked.
AIMIM MP Owaisi further questioned the conduct of lower courts, implying that the Places of Worship Act was being ignored.
"Why are the lower courts not hearing the Places of Worship Act?" he asked.
"They have made the Ministry for Minority Affairs a party (in this case). What will the Modi government tell them? Why are the lower courts not hearing the Places of Worship Act? You will go everywhere and say that there was something else in place of a mosque or dargah. Next time, a Muslim would also go somewhere and say that this didn't exist here. Where will this stop? What about the rule of law? Where will the democracy go?" Owaisi asked.
"The governance of Modi and RSS was weakening the brotherhood and rule of law in the country," he said, adding that, "they will have to answer for this."
"We have seen in Sambhal that five people lost their lives. This is not in favour of the country. The governance of Modi and RSS is weakening the country, brotherhood, and rule of law. They will have to answer this. All this is being done on the directions of BJP-RSS," Owaisi said.
Congress MP Imran Masood said earlier that PM Modi should look into the matter related to Ajmer Sharif Dargah and the Supreme Court must take cognizance.
He accused the Union government of sidelining the Places of Worship Act and expressed his concerns over such incidents, saying that such things would set the whole country on fire.
"Such things will set the whole country on fire. What is happening? The PM should look into this matter, and the Supreme Court should take cognisance of this matter. Where do you want to sideline a whole community? You are not leaving their religious places and properties. Where do you want to sideline us? Where do we go? Exile us from the country. Under which mosques will you look for temples? Is there any limit or not? They (the central government) have kept aside the Worship Act 1991. Will they (the BJP) burn the whole nation for their political benefit? Jab aag lagti hai to sabke ghar lagti hai (When the fire rages, it rages everywhere)," Imran Masood said.
Syed Naseruddin Chishty, Chairman of the All India Sufi Sajjadanashin Council, said earlier that Rajasthan's Ajmer court has ordered the issuance of notices to three parties, including the Dargah Committee, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), and the Ministry of Minority Affairs, in response to a petition claiming there is a Shiva temple inside Ajmer Dargah.
"The concerned parties have been issued notices, one is the Dargah Committee, the ASI, and the third is the Ministry of Minority Affairs. I am a descendant of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty, but I have not been made party to it. We are in touch with our legal team," he told ANI.
Chishty criticised the rise in incidents where various groups are claiming mosques and dargahs.
"These incidents are on the rise in the country. Every second day we see groups claiming mosques and dargahs. This is not in the interest of our society and country. Today India is becoming a global power..Till when will we remain stuck in the temple and mosque controversy?" he said.
Chishty further urged the intervention of the Central Government into the matter adding that a law should be made and guidelines should be issued so that no one claims religious organisations such as these.
"Ajmer has a history of 850 years... I appeal to the government of India to intervene in this. A new law should be made and guidelines should be issued so that no one claims religious organisations such as these... In 2022, (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat had said that how long will we keep finding Shivalayas in mosques, and I agree with him," he said.
Earlier this month, a survey team that arrived at the Shahi Jama Masjid to survey the mosque in Sambhal district in Uttar Pradesh amid heavy police deployment faced stone-pelting from some "anti-social elements".
This survey was part of a legal process following a petition filed by senior advocate Vishnu Shanker Jain, who claimed the mosque was originally a temple. (ANI)
Source:aninews.in
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https://www.aninews.in/news/national/politics/why-are-bjp-rss-spreading-hatred-over-mosques-and-dargahs-owaisi-amid-ajmer-dargah-row20241128130140/
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Yasin Malik case: Supreme Court notice on CBI plea to transfer trial to Delhi
November 28, 2024
The Supreme Court on Thursday (November 28, 2024) decided to examine a plea made by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to transfer trial against Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik and other co-accused in two cases, including the killing of four Air Force personnel in 1989, from Jammu and Kashmir to Delhi.
A Bench of Justices A.S. Oka and Augustine George Masih issued notice on the Central agency’s plea to transfer the cases and another appliaction seeking to implead the other accused as contesting respondents.
The court listed the next hearing on December 18.
The court in the previous hearing had suggested setting up a trial court within the Tihar Jail premises where Malik is lodged.
The issue came up after the CBI had raised a strong objection against a Jammu court order allowing his physical presence in a criminal trial connected to the IAF killings case.
Justice Oka had said fair trial was afforded to even 26/11 Mumbai attack terrorist Ajmal Kasab in response to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s submission that Malik was not “just another terrorist”.
The Solicitor General had submitted that Malik was playing tricks with the courts by insisting on cross-examining witnesses in the trial instead of keeping a lawyer. The law officer said Malik had been in contact with Pakistani militant and founder of terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Saeed.
Opposing the Jammu court order, the top law officer had cautioned that taking Malik to Jammu would be a security risk. Already, he said, a witness in the case has been killed.
Mr. Mehta had mentioned how Malik was once brought in person to the Supreme Court last year in July after the Tihar Jail had misinterpreted a judicial order. The visit had caused quite a furore and led to sharp remarks from the Bench.
The Supreme Court had last year stayed the operation Jammu Special Court order allowing Malik’s physical presence at the trial to cross examine witnesses in the case.
Source:thehindu.com
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https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/yasin-malik-case-supreme-court-notice-on-cbi-plea-to-transfer-trial-to-delhi/article68921888.ece
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Jammu NSG hub for reply to terror attacks
Fayaz Wani
28 Nov 2024,
SRINAGAR: After a steep rise in terror attacks in Jammu region, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has established a permanent hub for National Security Guard in the winter capital of J&K for quick response to any major attack. The NSG hub has been set up in Jammu city.
“A special component of NSG is now permanently based in Jammu city. The number of NSG commandos deployed in the NSG hub in Jammu is more than enough to deal with any emergency situation arising out of any terror attack,” sources said on Wednesday.
NSG commandos had participated in last month’s anti-terror operation in Akhnoor of Jammu. It was probably for the first time that NSG commandos participated in an anti-terror operation in Jammu.
Sources said that the setting up of the NSG hub in Jammu will ensure speedy deployment of commandos in any anti-terror operation. “Instead of waiting for airlifting of the NSG personnel from Delhi or any other place, the elite commandos can now be deployed in quick time,” they said.
In the recent past, Kathua, Doda, Kishtwar, Udhampur, Rajouri, Poonch and Reasi districts of Jammu have seen a spurt in terror attacks.
Source:newindianexpress.com
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https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2024/Nov/28/jammu-nsg-hub-for-reply-to-terror-attacks
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'Rights of Muslims will be snatched': West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee calls Waqf bill 'anti-secular'
Nov 28, 2024,
NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the Waqf (amendment) Bill "anti-secular" and said that it would "snatch the right of the Muslims."
Banerjee said that the proposed bill had been introduced without prior discussions with state governments regarding the legislation.
"There were no discussion with us (state governments) regarding waqf bill. It will destroy waqf properties. Why have they proposed a bill like this which is absolutely against one particular religion. This is an anti federal bill," she said during the West Bengal assembly session, adding that "rights of Muslims will be snatched by Waqf bill."
Meanwhile, the joint panel on Waqf bill was extended up to last day of Budget session, 2025 after getting Lok Sabha nod.
This happened in view of a heated confrontation at Wednesday's meeting, during which opposition members stormed out, accusing the proceedings of becoming a "mockery."
Opposition parties have strongly condemned the proposed amendments to the Waqf Act, claiming they infringe upon the religious rights of Muslims. In contrast, the ruling BJP has defended the amendments, arguing that they will enhance transparency in the functioning of waqf boards and ensure greater accountability.
Source:indiatimes.com
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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/rights-of-muslims-will-be-snatched-west-bengal-cm-mamata-banerjee-calls-waqf-bill-anti-secular/articleshowprint/115760585.cms
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Winter session of Bihar Legislative Assembly sees protest against Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024
Dev Raj
28.11.24
The ongoing winter session of the Bihar Legislative Assembly on Wednesday witnessed vigorous protests by the Opposition against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, brought by the Centre in Parliament.
It led to adjournment and walkout by the Mahagathbandhan MLAs.
The protests started at the entrance of the Assembly even before the day’s proceedings could begin. The MLAs of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and the Left parties flashed placards and shouted slogans to demand the withdrawal of the bill.
Once the session began and the Question Hour was over, the leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav asked chief minister Nitish Kumar to clarify his stand on the bill.
Taking the cue, the Mahagathbandhan legislators rushed to the Well. They waved posters and demanded that the Centre should withdraw the bill. They also tried to topple the reporters’ table located in the House.
As the ruckus increased, Assembly speaker Nand Kishore Yadav adjourned the session till 2pm.
Speaking to reporters after the adjournment, Tejashwi said: “All Opposition parties and the constituents of the INDIA bloc are united against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. Chief minister Nitish Kumar should remember that he indulges in tall talk. He talks about Mahatma Gandhi and keeps Godse (Nathuram Godse) in his heart.”
Tejashwi pointed out that Union minister and senior Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh openly supported the bill in Parliament on the direction of Nitish.
“This is such a big issue and the chief minister is silent! Nobody will believe him even if he says something now. His words and actions differ from one another. He still has time to redeem himself. If he believes in the Constitution of India and the ideology of Mahatma Gandhi, he should not support the bill at any cost. He should rectify his mistake,” Tejashwi added.
The protests continued in the second half of the session and the entreaties of the Speaker failed to pacify the Opposition MLAs. They shouted slogans against Nitish and walked out of the House as a mark of their protest.
Bihar Congress legislature party leader and Kadwa MLA Shakeel Ahmad Khan asserted that Nitish has utilised waqf property to the hilt in various development projects, including construction of school, colleges and hospitals.
“But he (Nitish) is quiet now. This double standard will not do. He must make his stand clear on the issue by speaking on it,” Khan said.
Call for Mithilanchal
Former chief minister and MLC Rabri Devi demanded a separate Mithilanchal state in the Bihar Legislative Council on Wednesday. She suggested that the BJP should take it up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The BJP leaders were congratulating Modi for publishing the Constitution in the Maithili language. I am also happy over Maithili being in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, but the Centre should create a separate Mithilanchal state,” Rabri, who is the leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, said.
Source:telegraphindia.com
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https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/winter-session-of-bihar-legislative-assembly-sees-protest-against-waqf-amendment-bill-2024/cid/2066567
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As tensions escalate around Uttarkashi mosque, Uttarakhand govt tells High Court no permission for planned ‘mahapanchayat’
by Avaneesh Mishra
November 28, 2024
Amid escalating tensions over a decades-old mosque on Uttarkashi, the Uttarakhand government has said it had not granted permission for a mahapanchayat that Hindu outfits had planned on December 1 to push for their demand of demolishing the shrine. This comes amid escalating tensions concerning the mosque, with outfits such as Sanyukt Sanatan Dharm Raksha Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad insisting they would proceed with the planned event.
Meanwhile, the state government has transferred Uttarkashi SP Amit Srivastava within three months of his appointment. The transfer comes just over a month after the Uttarkashi Police led by him stopped a crowd from deviating from its pre-approved protest route and heading towards the mosque, sparking stone pelting and vandalism in the area.
In its clarification before the high court Wednesday, the state’s BJP government said adequate protection had been provided to the mosque. The remarks, made while the court was hearing a petition, came days after the court ordered that the mosque be protected and directed authorities to act against hate speech.
“The state has assured the court that adequate protection is being provided to the religious structure, with round-the-clock monitoring,” Kartikeya Hari Gupta, the counsel for the petitioners, said. “The court reiterated that threats of demolition and hate speech are unacceptable in a country governed by the rule of law.”
In their petition, Mushraf Ali, president of the Alpsankhayak Seva Samiti, and Istiak Ahmed flagged concerns over alleged anti-Muslim speeches and sought state protection for minority properties, including the Jama Masjid on Bhatwari Road.
The petitioners claimed that the mosque comes under the wakf board and that they had evidence – an alleged sale deed from 1969 and a gazette notification from 1987 – to prove this.
The dispute began in September, when some people claiming to be affiliated with the Sanyukt Sanatan Dharm Raksha Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad allegedly threatened to demolish the mosque. This led to tensions in the town, ultimately culminating in stone-pelting and vandalism that led to several people – including law enforcement officers – being wounded on October 24.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Uttarkashi Superintendent of Police Amit Srivastava confirmed that some outfits have yet to be granted permission to hold the rally.
“Police personnel have been deployed around the mosque to maintain law and order,” he said.
Source:indianexpress.com
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https://indianexpress.com/article/india/as-tensions-escalate-around-uttarkashi-mosque-uttarakhand-govt-tells-high-court-no-permission-for-planned-mahapanchayat-9694088/
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Uttar Pradesh: Sambhal remains tense over mosque survey, security personnel deployed, internet shutdown to continue
Nov 27, 2024
Riddhima Kanetkar
Security personnel have been deployed in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal for the third consecutive day on Wednesday after violence and ruckus ensued over an ASI survey. Security has been deployed near the Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid area, the police said.
The stones-pelting incident that escalated into violence over the survey team on November 24 claimed the lives of 4 and injured many, including officials and locals.
The internet shutdown will continue in the region while all other restrictions have been lifted as the situation has returned to normalcy, Sambhal SP Krishan Kumar said. So far, 27 people, including 25 men and 2 women, have been arrested, and 7 FIRs have been registered in connection with the violence, the police said.
Speaking to ANI about the current situation post-incident, Superintendent of Police (SP) Krishan Kumar said, "After the Sunday incident that took place in Sambhal district, the police had called for a precautionary internet shutdown, which continues. All other things have been restored to normalcy." "The police have processed all the CCTV footage of the people involved in the incident. More than 100 people have been identified. They will soon be apprehended by the police. In the last 24 hours, 27 people have been arrested, out of which 25 are men and 2 are women. Sambhal MP Zia-ur-Rehman Barq has been issued a notice under Section 168 of the BNS on November 23," he added.
Fresh visuals from the area show security personnel deployed in the area. The security team near the mosque is deployed with two-way radios for communication, security batons, flashlights, firearms, vehicle barriers, and metal detectors to maintain security for local regulations. Earlier on Tuesday, Moradabad Divisional Commissioner Aunjaneya Kumar Singh said that 27 people have been arrested in the Sambhal violence and seven FIRs have been registered following the ruckus and stone-pelting incident over an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) survey of the Mughal-era mosque of the district. Singh urged the people across all sections of society to refrain from making baseless statements. Earlier, Singh confirmed on Monday that those accused in the Sambhal incident include a Samajwadi Party (SP) MP and the son of a local MLA, adding further that he assured that the situation at the site of violence is now peaceful and an investigation is underway. In a joint press conference earlier, Sambhal SP Krishna Kumar Bishnoi informed that a complaint has been filed against as many as 800 people after the violence. SP Bishnoi also said that two accused, identified as Zia Ur Rehman Barq and Sohail Iqbal, had been arrested for allegedly instigating the mob to the violence. Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Zia Ur Rehman Barq had, however, denied the allegations of instigating violence in Sambhal over the mosque survey. He has denied the allegations and accused the Uttar Pradesh police administration of 'conspiracy' while claiming that the case registered against him was false, as he was not in the state when the violence erupted. The said survey was part of a legal process following a petition filed by senior advocate Vishnu Shanker Jain, who claimed the mosque was originally a temple. A similar survey was previously conducted on November 19, with local police and members of the mosque's management committee present to oversee the process.
Source:dnaindia.com
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https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-uttar-pradesh-sambhal-remains-tense-over-mosque-survey-security-personnel-deployed-internet-shutdown-to-continue-3119799#google_vignette
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South Asia
Bangladesh Intends To Pursue Charges Of Crimes Against Humanity Against The Sheikh Hasina Regime At The ICC
Nov 28, 2024
The government intends to pursue charges of crimes against humanity against the Sheikh Hasina regime at the International Criminal Court for the massacre during the July uprising and the enforced disappearances during her 16-year rule, the chief adviser's press wing said in a statement.
Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus discussed the issue yesterday when ICC prosecutor Karim A Khan visited him at the State Guest House Jamuna in Dhaka, the statement read.
Khan said the ICC would like to cooperate with Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), which is dealing with the cases related to crimes committed during the mass uprising, according to the statement.
The ICT has already issued an arrest warrant against Hasina and members of her political party.
Separately, Essa Mbye Faal, a senior lawyer of the ICC, said the international court is ready to assist the ICT if requested by Bangladesh.
"The ICC has always said that it is available to assist states in terms of technical support, training, and guidance when requested," he said while responding to a question at a press briefing in Dhaka.
"With this level of cooperation, if Bangladesh were to seek assistance, the Office would be more than happy to oblige," said the ICC lawyer.
During the meeting at Jamuna, Yunus and Khan also discussed the Rohingya crisis, the situation in Myanmar, and humanitarian efforts for the Rohingyas.
The ICC prosecutor informed the chief adviser that his office has formally sought an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing, the chief of the Myanmar military government, for crimes against humanity regarding the treatment of the Rohingyas.
Khan backed Yunus's call to hold a special global conference on the Rohingya crisis. The UN General Assembly has agreed to hold the conference in 2025. Khan said he hoped a new direction to a sustainable resolution to the crisis would be found at the conference.
The chief adviser said the conference would bring all the international stakeholders to a table to seek a durable solution to the crisis, especially the plight of the Rohingyas and their young children in the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
"We have to make sure that it does not explode," Prof Yunus said, referring to the young people growing up without hope in the camps.
The chief adviser reiterated his recent call for a safe zone inside Myanmar's Rakhine state to aid the displaced people and address the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
"The safety of the zone should be guaranteed by the UN. When the fighting stops, people who live in the safe zone can easily return to their localities," he said.
Khaliliur Rahman, high representative of the chief adviser on Rohingya affairs, Lamiya Morshed, principal coordinator of the SDGs affairs, and Riaz Hamidullah, the additional secretary of the foreign ministry, were present during the meeting.
Earlier, Rahman hosted a luncheon for the ICC prosecutor and the members of his team.
"Bangladesh is among the first Asian signatories to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, and we look forward to further deepening our cooperation in the coming days," Rahman said.
Source:thedailystar.net
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https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/diplomacy/news/govt-trying-hasina-allies-icc-3763466
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Reforms to ensure minority inclusion
Nov 28, 2024
Badiul Alam Majumdar, chief of the Electoral Reform Commission formed by the interim government, yesterday said their recommendations will ensure that ethnic minorities or backward groups are not discriminated.
He also said their recommendations will establish the legal rights and the right to vote for all citizens.
He made the comments at a views exchange meeting with representatives of different sections of the society including small ethnic groups, dalits, and people with disabilities at the parliament complex.
Representatives from different organisations including Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, Ashika Manabik Unnayan Kendra, Adibashi Samajik Unnayan Sangastha, and Bangladesh Dalit Human Rights joined the meeting and spoke about their different problems.
They also placed different proposals, including holding voting in the constituencies of three hill districts on a separate day with better security arrangement, constituting a bicameral parliament, holding direct elections to the Upper House, and holding non-partisan local government elections.
Badiul said that indigenous communities and other groups have problems with the voter list and national identity (NID) cards. The reform commission will make recommendations to address these issues.
He also said that many proposals like bicameral parliament, establishing balance of power between the prime minister and the president, election of Upper House, were discussed in the event.
He, however, said the commission does not have the authority to implement the proposals, and it will have to be done by the government or the Election Commission.
"The proposals of the reform commission will be discussed with the political parties, and maybe a roadmap for the election will come from there," he added.
Source:thedailystar.net
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https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/reforms-ensure-minority-inclusion-3763316
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Khaleda, Tarique cleared of 4 graft, extortion cases
Nov 28, 2024
The High Court and three lower courts yesterday cleared BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and acting chairman Tarique Rahman in four cases of graft and extortion.
The HC acquitted Khaleda in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.
The bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain scrapped the trial court's verdict that sentenced the BNP chief and two others to seven years.
It delivered the judgement after hearing appeals filed by the three challenging the trial court verdict.
Khaleda and two others were cleared of the charges in the Barapukuria coal mine graft case by a Dhaka court yesterday.
The two others are former ministers Air Vice Marshal (retd) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain.
Judge Md Abu Taher of Dhaka Special Judge's Court-3, however, framed charges against Moazzem Hossain, Nazrul Islam, Moinul Ahsan and Md Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, officially launching the trial.
In another development, Judge Md Rezaul Karim of the Dhaka Special Judge's Court-10 cleared Tarique in a case filed in 2008 over dodging Tk 26.86 lakh in income tax from 2002 to 2006.
Tarique was also cleared by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka in another case filed during the rule of the army-backed caretaker government in 2007 over demanding Tk 10.31 crore as extortion from Abdul Monem Ltd.
A Dhaka court convicted Khaleda and three others in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case on October 29, 2018.
The three others were the former prime minister's then political secretary Harris Chowdhury (now dead), the latter's then private secretary Ziaul Islam Munna, and Monirul Islam Khan, private secretary to a former Dhaka City Corporation mayor.
The Anti-Corruption Commission had filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station on August 8, 2011, accusing the four of abusing power to raise funds for the trust from unknown sources.
Khaleda, who mostly stayed at her Gulshan home for the last five years following the suspension of her prison sentence, was released on August 6 this year after President Mohammed Shahabuddin had granted her clemency in two cases based on the law ministry's recommendation.
The development came a day after Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country in the face of a mass uprising.
Khaleda landed in jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court in Dhaka sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her jail term.
In the same year, the same special court sentenced the BNP chief to seven years in jail in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.
Source:thedailystar.net
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https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/politics/news/khaleda-tarique-cleared-4-graft-extortion-cases-3763371
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Minister Azizi seeking Turkish products exhibition in Afghanistan
November 28, 2024
KABUL: The acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, during his participation at Istanbul’s International Halal Exhibition, invited the Turkish officials and private sector to launch that country’s domestic products exhibition in Afghanistan, the ministry said in a statement Wednesday. Addressing the exhibition, Azizi said that the purpose of the participation of the Afghan delegation in the exhibition is to create new opportunities for economic and commercial cooperation between Afghanistan, Turkiye and the countries of the region, to introduce the halal products and services of Afghanistan to the world markets and attract investment opportunities to the country. The Afghan industrialists also showcased their products, including carpets, precious and semiprecious stones, dried fruits, and banking services across eight booths. It should be mentioned that 45 countries, including Afghanistan, exhibited their domestic products for four days at the Istanbul Halal Exhibition. The Kabul Times
Source:thekabultimes.com
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https://thekabultimes.com/minister-azizi-seeking-turkish-products-exhibition-in-afghanistan/
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Ministry of Interior Rejects UN Report on Drug Cultivation Increase in Afghanistan
2024-11-28
KABUL(BNA): The Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan has strongly refuted a recent United Nations report alleging an increase in drug cultivation and production across the country.
In an official statement shared on its X account, the ministry dismissed the claims as baseless, reiterating the Islamic Emirate’s commitment to eradicating drug production. The statement highlighted:
“Drugs are a destructive and prohibited phenomenon under Islamic law. Guided by the decree of the leadership, the Islamic Emirate has placed combating this issue at the forefront of its agenda. Recent assessments indicate a marked reduction in drug cultivation and production over the past year, in stark contrast to previous years.”
The ministry also criticized the international community’s inaction, emphasizing the lack of meaningful support for Afghanistan’s efforts. “Despite expectations for assistance in eradicating this menace and providing alternative livelihoods for farmers, no tangible cooperation has been extended by countries or organizations,” the statement added.
Source:bakhtarnews.af
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https://www.bakhtarnews.af/en/ministry-of-interior-rejects-un-report-on-drug-cultivation-increase-in-afghanistan/
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Over 68 Million AFN Allocated to 41 Education Projects in Maidan Wardak
2024-11-28
KABUL(BNA): The Education Directorate of Maidan Wardak province has announced the successful implementation of 41 education projects during the ongoing 1403 solar year, costing over 68 million Afghanis.
According to officials, the projects include the renovation of 22 schools and religious seminaries funded by the Ministry of Education’s budget. Additionally, 12 permanent structures and 7 water and sanitation (WASH) projects were completed with financial support from UNICEF.
These projects were implemented across the province, including remote and underserved areas, with a special focus on ensuring broader access to education.
The projects encompass the construction and renovation of schools, religious seminaries, libraries, and other necessary facilities. The Education Directorate emphasized that, under the Islamic Emirate, there has been increased attention toward education in remote regions, and further efforts will be made to expand educational opportunities.
While significant progress has been achieved in recent years, Maidan Wardak still requires additional developmental initiatives to fully address its educational needs and foster long-term growth in the sector.
Source:bakhtarnews.af
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https://www.bakhtarnews.af/en/over-68-million-afn-allocated-to-41-education-projects-in-maidan-wardak/
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Defense Minister Mawlawi Mujahid Discusses Bilateral Ties with Pakistani Ambassador
2024-11-27
KABUL(BNA): Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid, the Acting Minister of National Defense, met with Ubaid-ur-Rahman Nizamani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, in his office.
According to the Ministry of Defense’s media office, during the meeting, the Acting Defense Minister emphasized the strong ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan as neighboring countries with shared interests. He highlighted that these shared values and enduring relations have fostered the Islamic Emirate’s commitment to mutual cooperation in various sectors, including economic and trade relations, based on principles of good neighborliness and mutual respect.
The Pakistani ambassador also expressed his commitment to expanding bilateral cooperation and strengthening relations between the two nations.
Defense Minister Mawlawi Mujahid Discusses Bilateral Ties with Pakistani Ambassador – Bakhtar News Agency
Source:bakhtarnews.af
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https://www.bakhtarnews.af/en/defense-minister-mawlawi-mujahid-discusses-bilateral-ties-with-pakistani-ambassador/
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Bangladesh requests Malaysia for supplying palm oil ahead of Ramadan
27 Nov 2024
DHAKA, Nov 27, 2024 (BSS) - Bangladesh has requested Malaysia to take necessary measures as early as possible to supply refined palm oil to Bangladesh through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) under the support of the Malaysian government ahead of the Holy Month of Ramadan.
Sk Bashir Uddin, Adviser to the Ministry of Commerce, made the request when he met YB Datuk Seri Johari bin Abdul Ghani, Minister of Plantation and Commodities of Malaysia, on the second day of his two-day visit to Malaysia yesterday.
In response, the Malaysian Minister took due note of the request of the Commerce Adviser of Bangladesh for the supply of refined palm oil to Bangladesh on a Business to Government (B2G) basis under the patronage of his government and strongly assured of taking immediate effective measures after discussing this with local businessmen, said a press release today.
The Malaysian Minister welcomed the Adviser and congratulated him on his new responsibility. During the meeting, the Adviser highlighted various aspects of Bangladesh-Malaysia bilateral relations and informed the Malaysian Minister about the demand, production and supply system of essential commodities in Bangladesh.
It is worth noting that Malaysia is the world's second largest palm oil producer and Bangladesh is one of the major South Asian importing countries in terms of importing Malaysian crude palm oil.
The Commerce Adviser highlighted the government's plan to provide various essential commodities including edible oil at fair prices to 10 million families under the Social Safety Net program through the state-run TCB.
Among the topics discussed included, among others, collaboration in the rubber sector development, potential trade and investment opportunities and cooperation in establishing the Commodity Exchange proposed by the Chittagong Stock Exchange.
Deputy High Commissioner Mohammad Khorshed Alam Khastgir, First Secretary (Commercial) Pranab Kumar Ghosh, First Secretary (Political) Rehana Parvin from the High Commission were present while Press Secretary to the Malaysian Minister of Agriculture and Commodities Yusrinuddin bin Abd Karim and other officials were present among others.
Source:bssnews.net
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https://www.bssnews.net/news-flash/226664
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Southeast Asia
Economic considerations do not limit Malaysia’s stance on Gaza issue - PM Anwar
BERNAMA
28-11- 2024
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said economic considerations, although very important, will not constrain Malaysia’s stance in voicing the demands and justice of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.
He said Malaysia as an independent and sovereign country will continue to voice its stance on international issues including the oppression and tyranny in Gaza.
Taking Malaysia’s relationship with the United States, the Prime Minister said that diplomatically it is still good and both countries continue all comprehensive partnerships and cooperation including meetings with the leaders of U.S.
“From January to October 2024, the total bilateral trade between Malaysia and the United States increased by 29.1 per cent to RM264.28 billion, a relatively high increase of US$57.76 billion from RM204.78 billion or US$45.09 billion for the same period in 2023,“ he said during the Minister’s Question Time session at the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was responding to a question from RSN Rayer (PH-Jelutong) on whether Malaysia faces any risk of trade sanctions from the United States due to the Prime Minister’s outspokenness in defending the rights of the Palestinian people and state.
However, Anwar said Malaysia would continue to monitor the latest developments in US policy.
“We are also concerned about the latest developments including the tariff hikes for Mexico, Canada and China. So far, we have been monitoring, it does not involve foreign policy issues including the Gaza or Palestine issue.
“It involves the balance of payments issue between the two countries where there is a deficit,” he said.
Previously, US President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would impose high import tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada as well as additional tariffs on goods from China as soon as he returns to the White House.
Responding to a question from Ahmad Tarmizi Sulaiman (PN-Sik) on whether Malaysia would consider taking stronger action by following South Africa in filing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the 1948 Genocide Convention, Anwar said Malaysia is sending a representative as a sign of support to the case.
Anwar said Malaysia does not have the same position and voice as South Africa to bring cases to the international court of justice because the country has not signed the Rome Statute.
“So far, Malaysia in the matter of the Rome Statute...has limitations because of several provisions in the Rome Statute that cannot be accepted as part of our society, especially in the policy of defending the rights of the Bumiputera, religious issues, and LGBT and this has also been raised by the Conference of Rulers.
However, the Prime Minister said Malaysia has voiced a firm stance including on international stages such as the G20 Summit and in four-point meetings with leaders of foreign countries.
Source:thesun.my
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https://thesun.my/malaysia-news/economic-considerations-do-not-limit-malaysia-s-stance-on-gaza-issue-pm-anwar-FE13350713
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Over 700 items seized from Datuk Seri Vida’s home for possible auction to settle RM1m debt
28-11- 2024
PETALING JAYA: More than 700 items, including luxury furniture and gadgets, have been seized from the three-storey Meru Heights bungalow of businesswoman Datuk Seri Vida to settle an unpaid debt of RM1,060,285 owed to Ah Design Communication.
Among the 727 items listed for auction are a punching bag, a Kawai piano, a PlayStation 5, a Nintendo Switch, a DSLR camera, chandeliers, a treadmill and several sofas, including two four-seaters.
Notably, four vehicles—a BMW and three Toyota Vellfire models—were also seized, mStar reported.
The operation, carried out last Monday (November 25), lasted five hours.
It was conducted in the presence of the plaintiff, Mohammad Taufik Kamarul, his lawyer Samir Zainal, and police officers.
A thorough inspection of the bungalow was conducted to identify valuables suitable for the auction.
It was reported that if she fails to settle the debt within 14 days, the auction will proceed.
Vida, whose real name is Hasmiza Othman, 53, was overseas during the seizure process.
Source:thesun.my
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https://thesun.my/malaysia-news/over-700-items-seized-from-datuk-seri-vida-s-home-for-possible-auction-to-settle-rm1m-debt-KE13351038
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Anwar: RM1.6b Leonardo helicopter leasing contract backed by Italian govt, not ‘direct nego’
By Syed Jaymal Zahiid
28 Nov 2024
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told Parliament today that the RM16 billion contract to lease over two dozen Leonardo helicopters for 15 years is backed by a tacit guarantee from the Italian government.
He dismissed claims the negotiations lacked transparency, that the contract was awarded based on submitted proposals and was the result of a government-to-government negotiation.
He added that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, during the G20 conference in Brazil, assured that Leonardo would provide the best service.
The Italian government holds a 30 per cent stake in Leonardo SpA, an aerospace, defence, and security company regarded as one of the best in the world.
“We wanted the negotiations for the helicopters to be transparent and directly between governments, without the involvement of agents. We also felt it would be more efficient to streamline the negotiations to avoid multiple discussions among different agencies,” Anwar said.
“We decided to consolidate the agencies that needed the helicopters and negotiate as a group to control costs. In fact, during the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, the Italian PM assured me that the Italian government would provide full cooperation.”
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin announced the award of the leasing contract on November 20. He said the contract is a lease-to-own arrangement, with the option to purchase all 28 helicopters for a nominal RM1.
Under the framework agreement, Leonardo will supply 12 aircraft for the Royal Malaysian Air Force, four for the Maritime Enforcement Agency, and two for the Navy.
The Royal Malaysian Police and the Fire & Rescue Department will receive seven and two units, respectively. The remaining helicopter is designated for the Prime Minister’s Department.
Anwar said the lease contract will include a clause for training maintenance and repair training, as well as parts manufacturing under an agreement for knowledge and technology transfer.
This is the second large leasing contract under the Anwar government, which is ramping up its cost-efficiency drive.
In August, the Ministry of Transport announced that Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) would acquire 62 passenger train sets through a rolling stock leasing agreement between China and Malaysia valued at some RM10 billion.
“From a policy perspective we agree the leasing approach is better because we don’t want (these assets) to be a financial burden for the country,” the prime minister said.
“There are instances in which even if we buy something cheaper, the maintenance cost would far surpass the cost of purchase. That’s why we reviewed the matter, then we found that leasing and MRO contracts (is better) because we also ask them to conduct the training and parts development (partially) here.”
Source:malaymail.com
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https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/11/28/anwar-rm16b-leonardo-helicopter-leasing-contract-backed-by-italian-govt-not-direct-nego/158270
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Vocational student murder trial: Judge warns families of accused over alleged witness intimidation
28 Nov 2024
TAWAU, Nov 28 — High Court Judge Datuk Duncan Sikodol yesterday warned the families of 13 students charged with the murder of a Kolej Vokasional Lahad Datu student in March not to intimidate or threaten witnesses involved in the trial.
Duncan stated that he had received reports of witnesses being threatened and emphasised that such actions were a serious offence.
“If this (report) reaches the court again, I will issue an order prohibiting any of the families from attending the trial or coming to Tawau during the proceedings. Please inform your relatives outside,” he said during the trial.
Earlier, before the proceedings started, deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Nur Nisla Abd Latif requested the court to issue a warning to the families of the accused regarding the disturbances, as there had been reports of prosecution witnesses being harassed, and a police report had been filed.
The 13 students, aged between 16 and 19, are jointly charged with the murder of Mohamad Nazmie Aizzat Mohd Narul Azwan, 17, at Dormitory Room 7 Resak and 5 Belian, Kolej Vokasional Lahad Datu, between 9.00 pm on March 21 and 7.38 am on March 22.
They were charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 34 of the same code, which carries the death penalty or imprisonment of 30 to 40 years, and up to 12 strokes of the cane, upon conviction.
Meanwhile, during the trial, the prosecution’s third witness, Mohammad Zul Amree Hamzah, an assistant medical officer at Lahad Datu Hospital, testified that Mohamad Nazmie Aizzat was believed to have died one to two hours before being pronounced dead at 7.38 am on March 22.
He said that he examined the victim and administered Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) for approximately 15 to 20 minutes upon arriving at the scene.
He also used an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to detect and stabilise heart rhythm, but the machine confirmed there were no signs of life.
“Based on my experience in determining death, I estimate that the victim had died approximately one to two hours earlier,” he said during re-examination by Nur Nisla.
Earlier, Mohammad Zul Amree testified in his witness statement that his colleague received a MERS 999 call at 7.02 am on March 22 from the dormitory warden, Muhammad Nuhrullah Aminuddin, who is the prosecution’s second witness. The call reported that the victim was unconscious and not breathing.
“Muhammad Nuhrullah said they had attempted to administer respiratory assistance. Following that, my team and I departed for the college at 7.05 am and arrived at 7.20 am,” he said, adding that there were visible injuries on the victim’s lips.
During the examination-in-chief, when asked about the recommended duration for CPR before confirming death, Mohammad Zul Amree explained that chest compressions and respiratory aid must be provided for 30 minutes according to the 2022 Basic Life Support guidelines.
He also agreed with defence counsel Mohamed Zairi Zainal Abidin’s suggestion that the victim might have survived if transported to the hospital within an hour and a half.
The prosecution team is led by Nur Nisla and supported by DPPs Ng Juhn Tao and Nur Batrisyia Mohd Khusri.
Eight of the 13 accused teenagers are represented by lawyers Datuk Ram Singh, Kamarudin Mohmad Chinki, and Chen Wen Jye. The remaining five are defended by Mohamed Zairi, Abdul Ghani Zelika, Vivian Thien, Jhassany P. Kang, and Kusni Ambotuwo.
The trial will resume this afternoon. — Bernama
Source:malaymail.com
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Mideast
Displaced residents return to South Lebanon, Israeli army breaches ceasefire twice
NAJIA HOUSSARI
November 27, 2024
BEIRUT: As soon as the ceasefire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army took effect at 4 a.m. on Wednesday — after hours of airstrikes targeting Beirut, its southern suburbs, the Bekaa, the South, and even Akkar in the far north — returning residents quickly transformed the tragic scene into one of “victory.”
Roads leading from Beirut to the South and Bekaa were crowded with hundreds of vehicles loaded with families and their belongings heading back to their villages.
People disregarded army warnings to stay away from damaged buildings or those reduced to rubble, citing fears of unexploded missiles. Upon reaching their neighborhoods, whose features had drastically changed, residents climbed the ruins, entered partially destroyed homes, or stood among what remained of their homes, a scene that vividly depicted the pain of war.
The harsh images of destruction and the tears of women over their lost homes were met by the younger generation filled with a determination to speak of “victory.” Celebratory gunfire filled the air, and Hezbollah flags and images of its former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah were raised atop the rubble of the buildings.
Neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which had turned into ghost towns for two months, came back to life with the sound of honking car horns.
Hezbollah organized a tour for journalists in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the smell of fires and the dust of explosives still emanated from the flattened buildings.
Traffic jams and chaos ensued as Ministry of Public Works bulldozers cleared rubble littered with people’s belongings, memories, children’s books, and toys from the middle of streets.
The road to the South was packed with thousands of cars, with many passengers waving Lebanese flags, declaring they were “returning to their villages, and if their homes are destroyed, they will stay with neighbors.”
Although many of those returning avoided routes damaged by Israeli airstrikes, life in some villages looked likely to be extremely challenging because of the lack of essentials such as water, electricity and operational shops.
The return did not include those border towns into which the Israeli army had advanced and destroyed homes. Reports indicated that civil defense teams were retrieving the bodies of party members killed in battles that no one had previously been able to recover.
Despite the destruction in frontline villages, some youths from the border area approached them. In Aita Al-Shaab, they burned the Israeli flag, while others challenged Israeli tanks stationed in villages such as Kfarkela, Khiam and Odaisseh. They took photos in front of the tanks, flashing victory signs, while photojournalists moved in to capture the moment. Israeli soldiers fired five artillery shells and warning shots in response, to push them away from the area, the first breach of the ceasefire agreement.
A second was reported by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel, which stated that “Israeli drones flew over the skies of Marjayoun and Khardali.”
The Israeli army acknowledged opening fire on those it described as “suspects in several areas of southern Lebanon” and affirmed that it would “respond with fire to any breaches of the agreement.”
In Khiam, photographer Mohammed Al-Zaatari suffered gunshot wounds to his leg in the town when the Israeli army opened fire.
The Lebanese army subsequently closed all access to Khiam due to the presence of the Israeli army in the area.
Some of the returnees to Nabatieh departed at dawn from Akkar, the region to which they had fled in the far north. Ahmad and his companions said: “We set out before the ceasefire took effect and arrived in the Zahrani area as the agreement came into force. The scene of destruction in Nabatieh is alarming, yet it was anticipated.”
On the way to the Baalbek-Hermel region, residents celebrated the ceasefire in their own way by slaughtering sheep in Tamnine El Faouqa.
The Israeli army focused its attacks on the city of Baalbek and surrounding villages just before the ceasefire was scheduled to take effect. Airstrikes, which targeted civilians, hit occupied and unoccupied residential buildings, with some attacks involving phosphorus bombs.
Fifty civilians were killed in the Baalbek-Hermel region during the ceasefire, including a 16-day-old infant named as Jaafar Ali, alongside 10 members of his family.
The Talais family lost 11 members, including children, was killed. In the city of Baalbek, four members of the Wahbi family were also killed their lives.
The recent Israeli airstrikes targeted the last land crossings connecting Lebanon to Syria in the north, particularly the official Al-Arida Border Crossing, disrupting work in the area.
Minister of Public Works Ali Hamieh said during his inspection of the Masnaa Border Crossing that “Al-Arida Border Crossing will be opened within 48 hours.”
Amid these developments, images of Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s coordination and liaison unit head, circulated on social media, showing him in good health. This was his first appearance after an assassination attempt a month ago in Beirut, resulting in the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians.
The Council of Ministers convened under the chairmanship of Najib Mikati to discuss the state’s arrangements for the ceasefire phase and its implementation.
Mikati described the ceasefire as “a new day that we hope will bring peace and stability.”
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said: “We are entering a new phase, and the moment of truth for the unity of Lebanon has arrived.”
Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said that Hezbollah has “a program related to reconstruction, but this is a shared responsibility.”
Source:arabnews.com
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2580968/middle-east
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UN chief sees Lebanon ceasefire as first ray of hope in Mideast conflict
November 27, 2024
LISBON: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that took effect earlier on Wednesday was “the first ray of hope” in the regional conflict after months of escalation.
“It is essential that those who signed the ceasefire commitment respect it in full,” he said in a short televised statement during a visit to his native Lisbon, adding that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon was ready to monitor the ceasefire.
He also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“I received an auspicious sign yesterday, the first ray of hope for peace amid the darkness of the past months,” he said, referring to the agreement. “It is a moment of great importance, especially for civilians who were paying an enormous price of this spreading conflict.”
Source:arabnews.com
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Lebanese Shiite Muslims increasingly blame Hezbollah for destruction in Lebanon
November 27, 2024
The Hezbollah terrorist organization, one of Iran's proxy groups in Lebanon, primarily draws its support from the local Muslim Shiite community and constitutes a significant portion of the country's population.
However, some Lebanese Shiites increasingly blame Hezbollah for the widespread destruction and deaths in Lebanon after more than one year of conflict with Israel.
While many Lebanese welcome the American-brokered ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel announced on Wednesday, many Lebanese citizens believe a similar truce could have been reached months ago.
Lebanese Shiite cleric Ali Al Amin blasted Hezbollah's leadership for forcing a war on Lebanon despite opposition from the majority of the Lebanese population.
"Ask your leaders why they brought this destruction on Lebanon," Al Amin reportedly stated, according to the Saudi Al Arabiya network. "Opening a front in support of Hamas in Gaza only hurt Lebanon," he added, referring to Hezbollah’s alliance with the Hamas terrorist organization, which launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 of last year.
Al Amin called for national unity among Lebanon’s politically, religiously and ethnically diverse population.
At least 3,500 people have reportedly been killed in Lebanon since the war began last year. While the majority of fatalities are Hezbollah terrorists, hundreds of Lebanese civilians have reportedly been killed and approximately one million people have been forced to evacuate their homes, mainly from southern Lebanon.
Furthermore, Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel is estimated to have inflicted a financial burden of at least $8 billion on Lebanon’s already fragile economy.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah forces began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched an unprovoked missile attack on northern Israel, officially to display solidarity with Hamas, which had carried out a deadly surprise invasion and terror attack in southern Israel one day earlier. Hamas terrorists stormed the border with Israel, massacring 1,200 men, women and children and abducting 251 people – dead and alive – into the Gaza Strip.
Between October 2023 and November 2024, Hezbollah's attacks on Israel escalated from initial skirmishes to more severe confrontations.
Over the past two months, Israel Defense Forces' ground operations have targeted Shiite towns and villages in southern Lebanon, areas from which Hezbollah militants have launched thousands of rockets and drones at Israel. These attacks were carried out while Hezbollah forces embedded themselves in civilian structures – a war crime under international law.
Criticism of Hezbollah is even more pronounced among non-Shiite Lebanese citizens. Sunni Muslim Lebanese legislator Waddah Sadek argued on 𝕏 that an earlier ceasefire could have saved Lebanon from “destruction, martyrs and losses worth billions (of dollars).”
Bahaa Al Hariri, the son of the former assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri, also criticized Hezbollah’s divisive conduct in Lebanese society.
"Lebanon's Independence Day falls at a historic and critical moment this year, in which the country stands at a crossroads that would determine its future," Hariri wrote on 𝕏. "The greatest challenge is our internal divisions and the attempts of some to replace the state and its institutions, especially its military," he continued in a veiled reference to Hezbollah.
The late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb attack in 2005, an act attributed to Hezbollah operatives.
"The Lebanese people, of all sectors, must join the rebuilding of Lebanon," the younger Harari stated.
Until recently, Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire with Israel and vowed to continue its attacks as long as IDF troops continue to target Hamas in Gaza.
It was only after Israel delivered severe blows to Hezbollah forces that its leadership began expressing interest in a ceasefire deal.
In late September, the Israeli military eliminated Hezbollah’s top leader, Sec.-Gen. Hassan Nasrallah, in an aerial strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in southern Beirut.
The IDF estimates that, in the past two months, it has eliminated at least 2,000 Hezbollah terrorists and most of its rocket and missile arsenal.
Source:allisrael.com
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Arab, Islamic organizations hail Israel-Lebanon cease-fire agreement
28.11.2024
Arab and Islamic organizations welcomed the cease-fire deal between Israel and Lebanon, emphasizing that it should pave the way for the end of Israel's aggression against Gaza, now in its second year.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Arab League and the Yemeni Houthi movement issued statements expressing support for the agreement.
OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha in a statement hailed the cease-fire and urged all parties to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which outlines terms for peace between Israel and Lebanon.
Taha expressed hope that this agreement would lead to a swift end to Israel's aggression in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi also welcomed the cease-fire, stressing that it should be a serious step toward ending the war in Lebanon, securing Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory, and implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
He called for the full commitment of all parties to the agreement in order to contribute to regional security and stability.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit also praised the cease-fire’s implementation, describing it as an important step towards de-escalation and the prevention of bloodshed.
He stressed the need for Israel to complete its withdrawal from all Lebanese territories and for displaced persons to return to their homes. He also called for intensified efforts to reach a cease-fire agreement for Gaza as soon as possible.
Mohammad Abdelsalam, the spokesperson for the Yemeni Houthi movement, expressed confidence in the resistance’s options in Lebanon, saying that the Lebanese Hezbollah group’s resilience had forced Israel to accept the cease-fire.
The cease-fire deal took effect early Wednesday to end more than 14 months of fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.
According to the terms of the cease-fire, Israel will withdraw its forces south of the Blue Line in a phased manner while the Lebanese army deploys its forces in southern Lebanon within a period that does not exceed 60 days.
The implementation of the agreement will be overseen by the US and France. However, details on enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.
More than 3,800 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon and over 1 million displaced since October last year, according to Lebanese health authorities.
Source:aa.com.tr
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https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/arab-islamic-organizations-hail-israel-lebanon-cease-fire-agreement/3406953
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Hamas praises pivotal role of Islamic resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah
27 Nov 2024
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) praised the pivotal role played by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, in support of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian resistance, and the great sacrifices made by Hezbollah and its leadership, led by the martyr Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.
In a press statement carried by the Palestinian Information Center on Wednesday, Hamas praised the steadfastness of the brotherly Lebanese people, and their permanent solidarity with the Palestinian people, in the face of the Zionist enemy and its brutal aggression, asking God Almighty to protect Lebanon and its people from all harm and evil.
The movement said: "The enemy's acceptance of the agreement with Lebanon without achieving its conditions is an important station in shattering Netanyahu's illusions of changing the map of the Middle East by force, and his illusions of defeating the resistance forces or disarming them."
It added: "This agreement would not have been possible without the steadfastness of the resistance, and the popular incubator rallied around it, and we are assured that the axis of resistance will continue to support our people, and support their battle by all possible means."
Hamas expressed its commitment to cooperate with any ceasefire efforts in Gaza and that it is interested in stopping the aggression against the Palestinian people, within the determinants of stopping the aggression on Gaza that it agreed upon nationally, namely a ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation forces, the return of the displaced and the completion of a real and complete prisoner exchange deal.
Source:saba.ye
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https://www.saba.ye/en/news3402569.htm
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Hezbollah: We achieved victory after two months of jihad, enemy did not achieve any of its goals
27 Nov 2024
Deputy Head of the Political Council of the Lebanese Hezbollah Mahmoud Qamati on Wednesday said that we achieved victory after two months of continuous jihad, steadfastness and will, and the enemy did not achieve any of its goals.
Qamati added in a press conference from the southern suburbs of Beirut "We achieved victory today after two months of continuous jihad, steadfastness and will, and the enemy did not achieve any of its goals."
He continued by saying "The steadfastness of the resistance in the south thwarted the enemy and thwarted the aggression against the Middle East as well." He stressed that what happened today is a victory for Arab national security.
He added a salute to the resistance environment that stood firm, was patient, and was loyal and sacrificing in order to support the resistance and its steadfastness, and we are loyal to this environment.
Qamati said today we are preparing for the funeral of the martyrs Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, which will be a popular and political referendum to adopt the approach of resistance.
He added "We will follow up on the issue of prisoners as well as the issue of reconstruction, and I tell the Lebanese public opinion that when the enemy fails to achieve its goals and reaches the point of military intransigence, this is victory.
He continued Hamas and Islamic Jihad thank the resistance and its leaders, and we say today that we will not abandon Palestine, which is our main issue.
Qamati stressed that how Hezbollah will continue to support Palestine is a matter that will be decided at the time, and he said "The credit for the victory goes first to the resistance, second to the official political position, and third to the resistance environment."
Qamati concluded his speech by saying "The credit for this victory goes to the solid negotiations of the Lebanese political negotiator, led by President Nabih Berri."
Source:saba.ye
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https://www.saba.ye/en/news3402473.htm
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Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
November 28, 2024
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing the Islamist movement Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Source:arabnews.com
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Former ICC chief prosecutor tells of ‘threats to family’ during Israel-Palestine war crimes probe
November 27, 2024
LONDON: The former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has told how she received “direct threats” to herself and her family while working there.
Fatou Bensouda’s comments about her experiences came six months after a newspaper report alleged that the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had threatened her in an attempt to get her to drop an investigation into accusations of war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories.
Appearing at a legal event in London on Tuesday, Bensouda did not mention any specific threats but said she was subjected to “unacceptable, thug-style tactics” while doing her job.
She said that while working on some of the court’s toughest cases, including those related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan, she received “direct threats to my person and family and some of my closest professional advisors.”
Bensouda was the ICC’s chief prosecutor from 2012 until 2021. The Guardian newspaper reported in May that Israel’s foreign intelligence services put pressure on Bensouda after she opened a preliminary investigation in 2015 into the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The newspaper, sighting several Israeli sources, alleged that Yossi Cohen, the director of Mossad at the time, threatened Bensouda during a series of secret meetings and warned her not to proceed with a case related to alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities denied the allegations of threats and intimidation, and Bensouda opened a full criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in 2021, shortly before she left her post.
Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military chief of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
The warrants were requested six months ago by Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, as part of an extension of the investigation that his predecessor initiated. Khan accelerated the case after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
During her lecture at the Bar Council on Wednesday, Bensouda, who is now Gambia’s high commissioner to the UK, said the arrest warrants issued last week focused exclusively on the events of Oct. 7 and those that followed, and did not include aspects of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine that formed the basis of the investigation she initiated.
She said her initial probe focused on whether Hamas, other Palestinian armed groups or the Israeli military had committed war crimes in relation to hostilities that took place during 2014, and its scope included illegal Israeli settlements and the displacement of populations into the occupied West Bank.
“It will be important to ensure that the full extent of criminality in the context of this devastating … conflict is fully investigated and accountability is finally had for the benefit of its many victims on all sides of the conflict,” she said.
During her time as chief prosecutor, Bensouda also came under pressure from the US. Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on her in 2020 after the ICC began investigating allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden. However, last week he described the ICC decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu as “outrageous” and said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC. However, the 124 states that have signed up to it are obliged to act on warrants it issues if the accused visit their countries.
Source:arabnews.com
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Hezbollah faces long recovery, officials believe thousands of fighters killed
November 27, 2024
BEIRUT: With the bodies of its fighters still strewn on the battlefield, Hezbollah must bury its dead and provide succour to its supporters who bore the brunt of Israel’s offensive, as the first steps on a long and costly road to recovery, four senior officials said.
Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed during 14 months of hostilities could reach several thousand, with the vast majority killed since Israel went on the offensive in September, three sources familiar with its operations say, citing previously unreported internal estimates.
One source said the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people — well over 10 times the number killed in its month-long 2006 war with Israel. So far, Lebanese authorities have said some 3,800 people were killed in the current hostilities, without distinguishing fighters from civilians.
Hezbollah emerges shaken from top to bottom, its leadership still reeling from the killing of its former leader Hassan Nasrallah and its supporters made homeless en masse by the carpet bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the destruction of entire villages in the south.
With a ceasefire taking hold on Wednesday, Hezbollah’s agenda includes working to re-establish its organizational structure fully, probing security breaches that helped Israel land so many painful blows, and a full review of the last year including its mistakes in underestimating Israel’s technological capabilities, three other sources familiar with the group’s thinking said.
For this story Reuters spoke to a dozen people who together provided details of some of the challenges facing Hezbollah as it seeks to pick itself up after the war. Most asked not to be named to speak about sensitive matters.
Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be “the people.”
“To shelter them, to remove the rubble, to bid farewell to the martyrs and, in the next phase, to rebuild,” he said.
Israel’s campaign has focused largely on Hezbollah’s Shiite Muslim heartlands, where its supporters were badly hit. They include people still nursing casualties from Israel’s attack on its mobile communications devices in September.
“I have a brother who was martyred, a brother-in-law who was wounded in the pager attacks, and my neighbors and relatives are all either martyrs, wounded or missing,” said Hawraa, a woman from south Lebanon with family members who fight for Hezbollah.
“We want to collect our martyrs and bury them ... we want to rebuild our homes,” said Hawraa, who stayed in her village until she was forced to flee by the Israeli assault in September. She declined to use her full name, citing safety fears. The Israeli offensive displaced more than 1 million people, the bulk of them from areas where Hezbollah has sway.
A senior Lebanese official familiar with Hezbollah thinking said the group’s focus would be squarely on securing their return and rebuilding their homes: “Hezbollah is like a wounded man. Does a wounded man get up and fight? A wounded man needs to tend to his wounds.”
The official expected Hezbollah to carry out a wide-ranging policy review after the war, dealing with all major issues: Israel, its weapons, and the internal politics of Lebanon, where its weapons have long been a point of conflict. Iran, which established Hezbollah in 1982, has promised to help with reconstruction. The costs are immense: The World Bank estimates $2.8 billion in damage to housing alone in Lebanon, with 99,000 homes partially or fully destroyed.
The senior Lebanese official said Tehran has a variety of ways to get funds to Hezbollah, without giving details.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally, is urging wealthy Lebanese Shiites in the diaspora to send funds to help the displaced, two Lebanese officials said.
The officials also expected significant donations to come from Shiite religious foundations across the region.
Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment for this story. Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
’THE RESISTANCE’ WILL CONTINUE Hezbollah has indicated it intends to keep its arms, dashing hopes of Lebanese adversaries who predicted the pressures generated by the war would finally lead it to hand them to the state. Hezbollah officials have said the resistance — widely understood to mean its armed status — will continue.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of Palestinian ally Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023. Israel went on the offensive against the group in September, declaring the aim of securing the return home of 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north.
Despite the resulting devastation, Hezbollah’s Fadlallah said the resistance put up by its fighters in south Lebanon and the group’s intensified rocket salvoes toward the end of the conflict showed Israel had failed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its campaign has set back Hezbollah decades, eliminated its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets, neutralized thousands of fighters, and obliterated its infrastructure near the border. A senior US official said Hezbollah was “extremely weak” at this moment, both militarily and politically. A Western diplomat echoed that assessment, saying Israel had the upper hand and had almost dictated the terms of its withdrawal. The ceasefire terms agreed by Israel and Lebanon require Hezbollah to have no military presence in an area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean Sea some 30 km (20 miles) from the frontier.
Hezbollah, which approved the deal, has not declared how it intends to help implement those terms, including whether it actively hands its arms to Lebanese troops who are deploying into the south, or leaves the weapons for soldiers to find.
Israel complains Hezbollah, which is deeply rooted in south Lebanon, never implemented the same terms when they were agreed to end a previous war in 2006 war. Israel says the group was preparing for a large-scale assault into northern Israel, pointing to its military build-up at the frontier.
Andreas Krieg of King’s College in London said Hezbollah had retained considerable capability.
The performance of its “core infantry fighters in southern Lebanon and rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory in recent days showed the group was still very, very capable,” he said.
“But Hezbollah will be very much bogged down in the effort of rebuilding the infrastructure and also, most importantly, securing the funds to do so,” he said.
’REPAYING THE DEBT’
Hezbollah has been handing out cash to people affected by the hostilities since they began, paying $200 a month to civilians who stayed in frontline villages, and offering more as people were forced to flee the areas, according to recipients.
Since the start of the escalation in September, Hezbollah has been paying around $300 a month to help displaced families.
The group has made no secret of the military and financial support it gets from Iran, which shipped huge sums of cash to in 2006 to aid the homeless and help rebuild.
Hezbollah supporters say more will be on the way. One, citing conversations with a local Hezbollah official, said the group would cover a year of rent for the homeless in addition to furniture costs.
Addressing the Lebanese people in an October sermon, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “the destruction will be replaced... repaying the debt to the wounded, bleeding Lebanon is our duty....”
The World Bank, in a preliminary estimate, put the cost in damage and losses to Lebanon at $8.5 billion, a bill that cannot be footed by the government, still suffering the consequences of a catastrophic financial collapse five years ago.
Gulf states Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia helped pay the $5 billion reconstruction bill in 2006, the last time Hezbollah and Israel went to war. But there has been no sign that these Sunni-led Arab states are ready to do so again. Hezbollah conducted a lot of reconstruction work after the 2006 war, financed by Iran and using its construction wing. The project was directed by Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel 11 days after Nasrallah, in a sign of the bigger challenges it will face this time round.
“For Hezbollah the priority is to guarantee the loyalty of the Shi’ite community. The destruction has been enormous and it will impact the organization,” said Mohanand Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
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57 dead in army-miltant clashes in northern Syria: monitor
November 27, 2024
BEIRUT: Militants launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday, sparking clashes in which 57 combatants were killed, a war monitor said.
Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham” (HTS), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, referring to a militant group led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch which controls a chunk of northwestern Syria.
The Observatory said “26 members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and allied factions” were killed, as well as “31 members of the regime forces.”
The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants in the area for the first time in years, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The Syrian conflict broke out after President Bashar Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011. It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
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Pakistan
Imran Khan, other PTI leaders face fresh charges after protest fiasco
By Ayaz Akbar Yousafzai
November 28, 2024
Hours after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) announced to call off its much-touted "do-or-die" protest, Islamabad police have filed eight different cases against the former ruling party's leaders and workers, including its founder, Imran Khan.
The action on Wednesday by the federal capital's police came after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif underlined the need for "tough decisions" to curb agitative politics and restore stability in the country.
"We have to decide whether we save Pakistan or allow sit-ins to take place," the prime minister said while addressing the federal cabinet meeting earlier today.
The cases were registered at various police stations, including Shahzad Town, Sihala, Khanna, Shams Colony, Noon, Nilore, Tarnol, and Bani Gala. The recently lodged FIRs named Bushra Bibi and the PTI's central leadership, including Ali Amin Gandapur, Salman Akram Raja and Sheikh Waqas Akram, among others.
Besides the party's local leadership, thousands of individuals are also named in these cases.
The cases include charges of terrorism, assault on police, violation of Section 144, abduction, and interference in government operations.
The former ruling party's "do-or-die" protest, which started on November 24 saw clashes between its supporters and law enforcers, closure of roads and educational institutions. The protest abruptly came to an end in the wee hours of Wednesday following a crackdown by security forces.
The operation by law enforcers dispersed the protesters with Ali Amin Gandapur and Bushra Bibi running back to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The recent protest was the latest effort by the PTI's months-long campaign to secure Imran Khan's release who has been behind bars in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail in various cases for more than a year now.
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PML-N's resolution seeks ban on PTI after 'violence' in Islamabad
By Web Desk
November 27, 2024
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will table a resolution in Balochistan Assembly tomorrow (Thursday), seeking a ban on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) after the party’s "do-or-die" protest that was put off in the wee hours of Wednesday.
PML-N parliamentary leader Saleem Khosa is expected to table the resolution against the former ruling party, which he believes has turned into a "political anarchist" group.
In the resolution — a copy of which is available with Geo News, Khosa claimed that the PTI, which has been at loggerheads with the incumbent government, was responsible for the May 9 events — a reference to the violent protest broke out last year following PTI founder Imran Khan's arrest and saw attacks on public properties including military institutions in many parts of the country.
"Once again, it [the former ruling party] is carrying out violent actions," it stated, noting that PTI's "anarchist agenda" has affected the country's system and every sector, including judiciary, media and the economy.
The resolution further stated that a provincial chief executive’s attempts to open a front against the Centre were tantamount to advancing the anti-state’s power agenda.
Furthermore, it said the KP government’s attempts to attack the Centre, with state machinery, are proof of the non-political agenda of a political party.
He urged the federal government to "ensure a ban on PTI" after the recent violence in Islamabad.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the Imran Khan-founded party announced a "temporary suspension" of its "do-or-die" protest following a midnight crackdown by the law enforcers, which effectively dispersed the PTI workers.
The protest was staged against the "illegal" incarceration of PTI founder Imran Khan, other party leaders and workers, "stolen mandate" in February 8 general elections and 26th Constitutional Amendment.
PTI says that eight of its members were killed in the stand-off with the law enforcers, while government officials say that three Rangers personnel were martyred along with two other police personnel.
The latest protest episode was part of the PTI's months-long efforts to secure Khan's release who has been behind bars in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail in various cases for more than a year now.
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‘Casualties of marchers’ main bone of contention between govt, PTI
Ikram Junaidi
November 28, 2024
ISLAMABAD: Claims and counter-claims over deaths purportedly caused by law-enforcement action against PTI marchers remained a major bone of contention between the government and the opposition party on Wednesday.
Following their retreat from Islamabad’s Blue Area on Tuesday night, PTI leaders alleged that a number of the party’s supporters had perished, allegedly due to firing by security personnel.
While party sources were claiming the deaths of at least six people, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja claimed in a video message that around 20 party supporters lost their lives.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports circulating on social media — which were also repeated on television by leaders such as Sardar Latif Khosa — put the death toll much higher.
However, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi categorically said that there was no loss of life in the law enforcement action taken to disperse marchers.
Normally, after any major incident such as a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other such happening, health authorities and institutions issue official lists of the number of dead and injured people who were brought to hospital.
But this time around, healthcare authorities have not issued any such lists, and information being shared by journalists and social media users seem to be based on anonymous reports with nothing concrete to back them up.
Whenever the issue of protesters’ deaths was raised before him, Information Minister Ata Tarar always asks, “Where is the proof?”
Dawn spoke to a number of hospital officials who usually release figures to the media, but in the present instance, none were willing to comment on the record.
On nearly every such occasion, hospitals of the federal capital usually establish an information centre to provide lists of those deceased and injured so that their relatives and media can have verified updates. But this time around, hospital administrations are keeping mum.
On their part, government functionaries are claiming that since none of the security personnel on duty was carrying live firearms, there was no question of civilian casualties.
But this has allowed some elements to spread misinformation on social media, which has also found its way to mainstream channels in certain cases.
A purported list of those brought to Islamabad’s Polyclinic hospital, circulated by social media users and picked up by some journalists, showed that at least two persons had died while several others were injured.
However, in a statement on Wednesday morning, the hospital clarified that it had not issued any such list and that reports attributed to the hospital circulating on social media were fake.
A senior doctor from the capital, who did not wish to be named, told Dawn that it was unfortunate that the health ministry was not releasing the details of those injured or killed during the protest.
“In the past, after every incident, whether it was an attack on a five star hotel or a bomb blast in district court, a plane crash or any other occasion, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, we had information centres that shared information, along with lists having names and age of the injured and diseased. [Hospital] heads used to hold press conferences, in which they informed about the number of deceased and injured,” he said.
A health ministry official told Dawn that he was not aware who would share the information. He said the interior minister was holding press conferences to share the official version, but even he had not given any details regarding the number of injured or deceased.
PTI claims and burials
In a video message released on Wednesday, PTI leader Salman Akram Raja denied the official claim that there were no casualties in the law enforcement action against their party’s marchers.
Giving details, Mr Raja said he had received information about at least six victims, namely Muhammad Ilyas, Anees Satti, Malik Safdar Ali, Mubeen Aurangzeb, Abdul Rasheed and Ahmad Wali.
He said he would also share the details of other party workers later on, and lamented that the state was instructing hospitals to destroy records of those people whose bodies or injuries were reported at healthcare facilities in the capital.
Separately, at least four of the men who were said to have lost their lives in the action against the PTI marchers were laid to rest in various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Wednesday.
Of them, Mubeen Aurangzeb — one of the men named by Salman Akram Raja — was buried in his native village Jandar Bari in UC Phalkot, Abbottabad.
Another victim, identified only as Qadir — a father of seven who worked as a daily wage labourer in Lahore — was interred in his native village of Soban Gali in UC Sherwan.
The funeral prayers were attended by a large number of locals and their coffins were draped in the PTI flag.
Sources said that both victims had died of bullet injuries and no postmortem was conducted on the bodies.
However, no PTI leader turned up to attend the funeral of the victims in Abbottabad, locals said.
Another man, identified as Tariq Khan, was buried in the Nusratkhel area of Martung tehsil in Shangla. He is said to have been run over by a vehicle.
Meanwhile, in Mardan, a PTI worker named Sardar Ali, was laid to rest in his native graveyard in the Babaini area. It should be noted that while Mr Raja mentioned a worker named Malik Safdar Ali as having been slain in the crackdown on protesters, it was not immediately clear if he was referring to the same individual.
Mansoor Malik in Lahore, Rashid Javed in Abbottabad, Umar Bacha in Shangla and Jamal Hoti in Mardan also contributed to this report
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Govt fed up with capital onslaughts, vows ‘never again’
Syed Irfan Raza
November 28, 2024
• PM says PTI protest caused daily losses of Rs190 billion; economy cannot handle frequent disruptions
• Asserts that decisive action after May 9 riots could have built deterrence against violent protests
• Expresses gratitude to army chief, law enforcers for their support in quelling demonstration
ISLAMABAD: After a days-long march by the PTI on the federal capital brought the city to a standstill, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday asserted the government would show zero tolerance in the future as he vowed to put an end to the repeated sit-ins and marches on Islamabad for the sake of stability.
In an address during the meeting of the federal cabinet, the premier said they had to take strict measures to quell such scenes in the future as they could no longer put all their resources and energies into stopping such demonstrations. The PTI rally, after three days, fizzled out last night after a crackdown by the law enforcement.
“As a prime minister, the chief executive, [and] as members of the cabinet and parliamentarians…[we] will not let that coterie of anarchy inflict further harm on the country’s economy,” PM Shehbaz added.
The recent protest caused Rs190 billion in daily damages to the national economy, affecting the country’s exports and imports, he said, adding that for personal interests, the PTI leadership was damaging the country’s interests, which ‘is a bigger crime and will not be forgiven’.
He said that the cabinet meeting had only one-point agenda: to discuss the current situation emerging after repeated assaults on the capital by a political party. The PM said they could no longer sap their energy and resources in confronting them, stressing that the government would not let it happen again.
It would not happen, not under their watch, he said, adding, “We will steer Pakistan out of the challenges.”
The premier said the protests caused huge economic losses: businesses were closed, traders were perturbed, owners of the factories were in distress, and daily wagers even found it hard to get a one-time meal. The patients were also stranded because of the protest, he added.
In the larger context, the economic losses were manifolds; the country’s stock exchange market, which had crossed the historic mark of 99,000 points a few days back, lost 4,000 points in one day due to the chaos, he said, adding, “These miscreants have become the permanent enemies of Pakistan’s progress.”
The directive of Islamabad High Court was torn up into pieces as a person was hell bent on putting the country at stake for his vested interests, the PM added.
The prime minister regretted that such a trend of upheavals and attacks was not a norm prior to 2014 because none of the political parties had ever thought of mounting attacks on the federal capital. He also referred to the 2014 sit-in by the PTI, due to which the visit of the Chinese president was postponed. The PM went on to refer to the protest on the eve of the SCO summit in October as well as during the visit of the Saudi delegation.
About the recent visit of the president of Belarus, the premier said that they were taking decisions to enhance bilateral ties and cooperation between the two countries, but on the other hand, there were scenes of battles.
The prime minister said that they could no longer waste their energies to tackle these spectacles on a daily basis and added that there was a need to introspect as to why the country was still mired in foreign debts even after the passage of 77 years.
May 9 punishments
PM Shehbaz said the miscreants had also injured and killed security personnel during the recent protest, adding that no patriotic citizen or even a resident of the country could imagine harming the country for their personal interests or going to such extremes.
He opined that had the suspects involved in the May 9 riots been given exemplary punishments by the courts, such spectacles would not have happened.
The prime minister also appreciated the Islamabad, Punjab, and Sindh police and other law enforcement agencies for quelling the protests, particularly expressing gratitude to the army chief for his cooperation with regard to the law and order situation. The prime minister said all the law enforcement agencies had collectively and with good strategy dispersed the protest and provided relief to the public.
Speaking about the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PM said that in KP, terrorism was on the rise while in Kurram, dozens of people were killed, but instead of focusing on the law and order situation in the province, the provincial government had left the residents in the lurch and led an armed attack on Islamabad.
In a veiled reference to the PTI, he said it pained them that Pakistan was saved from default due to the coalition government’s efforts. The coalition parties had put their political interests at stake to save the country, he said, adding that over the last eight months, the economy was on the path to recovery.
Earlier, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said all the bold claims and plans of PTI had been shattered following their failed protest. In a late-night press conference, the minister had described the protest as a ‘colossal failure,’ emphasising that it had become the inevitable fate of the PTI.
Source:dawn.com
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SC rejects KP govt request for suo motu over protest
Nasir Iqbal
November 28, 2024
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench on Wednesday ignored a request of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government to take suo motu notice of the casualties during the PTI’s ‘do-or-die protest’ in the federal capital.
It was during the hearing of a petition regarding existential threat posed by climate change to the country that KP’s additional advocate general made an earnest request to the apex court to take immediate notice of the reported casualties on both sides which he said fell within the constitutional bench’s purview.
However, Justice Aminuddin Khan, who was heading the bench, observed the court could not take cognisance of a case which was not before it. Justice Musarrat Hilali rebuked the provincial law officer, asking him not to bring a political matter before the SC during the proceedings.
Similarly, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail said since the matter was not before the court, the bench had no intention of discussing it.
Subsequently, the constitutional bench rejected the request made by the law officer via video link.
The petition was originally instituted by the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan through Advocate Syed Faisal Hussain Naqvi. While Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah-led bench initially heard the matter, it was referred to the constitutional bench.
On the other hand, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Mian Mohammad Rauf Atta demanded a judicial inquiry into the loss of lives during the protest and that both Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur step down.
He said CM Gandapur, who was leading the so-called long march, had repeatedly attempted to assault the federation and appeared to be more motivated in disenfranchising the country and the province he governs than addressing the serious law and order situation in KP.
“He is the epitome of catastrophe; he is pitilessly draining governmental resources to fulfil unlawful and unconstitutional whims while his own province is in turmoil,” the SCBA president regretted.
Mr Atta recalled that in the previous press statement, he had anticipated that the ground situation was imminent to be turned into carnage and strongly suggested both sides hold dialogue and reconciliation.
“We understand that numerous lives on both sides, i.e. of law enforcement personnel and civilians, have suffered losses,” he said, adding the association demand a judicial inquiry into this matter without any delay.
“A loss of single life alone holds immense importance and cannot be reverted. Our hearts go out to the families of those who lost their loved ones,” he said.
At the same time, the SCBA president said, the association also demanded that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi immediately step down from the position.
He said the minister had “deliberately disregarded the very constitutional and democratic right” of the protesters.
He said it was as clear as broad daylight that use of such brutal and coercive force was made on the orders of the interior minister who “clearly operated with a dictatorial mindset and mishandled” the entire situation.
The SCBA president said one could understand the minister was not an elected public representative rather “selected” by powers that be. “We are of the clear view that if some political figure had handled the situation, casualties could have been avoided by way of talks and negotiations,” he said, adding the association called upon the federal government to immediately replace interior minister Mohsin Naqvi and appoint a public representative to hold the portfolio.
The SCBA president said the association had always stood for the rule of law, protection of fundamental human rights, and civilian supremacy. In doing so, he said, he categorically underscored the bar association could not turn a blind eye to the “brutal and reprehensible handling” of the civilians protesting in the federal capital by the law enforcement agencies, which resulted in loss of lives and left dozens severely injured. The number of casualties is still on the rise as per media reports, according to the SCBA president.
“We note with grave concern that bullets were directly fired on armless protesters,” he regretted. This was heavily supported with undeniable facts in light of reports on the mainstream media and those received from the ground, he said, adding those killed as a result of the brutality were citizens of this country. Nevertheless, he said, such brutality sent a wrong message to democratic societies on an international level.
Source:dawn.com
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Pak-China military talks focus on terrorism, security
Baqir Sajjad Syed
November 28, 2024
ISLAMABAD: Counter-terrorism and regional security took centre stage during Pakistan-China military talks on Wednesday.
General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the People’s Republic of China and one of China’s two top military leaders, is visiting Pakistan along with a high-level delegation.
General Zhang held a one-on-one meeting with Army Chief Gen Asim Munir, followed by delegation-level discussions.
According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the engagements focused on “matters of mutual interest, regional security dynamics, measures for regional stability, and enhancing bilateral defence cooperation”.
Gen Zhang spoke about Pakistan’s ongoing counter-terrorism efforts, which remain a key topic of discussion between the two countries due to the rising frequency of attacks targeting Chinese nationals working in Pakistan.
While there have been media reports that Beijing is seeking a more proactive role in ensuring the safety of its citizens in Pakistan, the Foreign Office has emphasised that counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries is based on mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty.
Under the regional stability head, the two sides exchanged views about the Indian role in the region and the developments in Afghanistan particularly the presence of terrorist groups.
The CMC vice chairman’s visit follows a trip by Gen Li Qiaoming, commander of the People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces, to Pakistan in late August.
Additionally, Chinese troops are currently participating in Warrior-VIII, a joint military exercise hosted by Pakistan. Running until mid-December, the drills aim to enhance joint counter-terrorism operational capabilities.
During the talks, Gen Munir highlighted the resilience of Pakistan-China relations, noting their ability to withstand shifts in international and regional dynamics. He expressed gratitude for China’s unwavering support for Pakistan.
Gen Zhang, in turn, praised Pakistan’s dedication to the strategic partnership and reaffirmed China’s commitment to strengthening the enduring bilateral relationship.
The two generals last met in Beijing in April 2023, where Gen Zhang pledged to deepen and expand practical cooperation, elevate military-to-military ties, and jointly safeguard the common interests of both countries while promoting regional peace and stability.
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PTI protest: Amnesty demands transparent investigation into ‘deadly crackdown’ as 954 arrested
November 27, 2024
Human rights organisation Amnesty International on Wednesday demanded a transparent investigation of the state’s “deadly crackdown” to disperse PTI supporters from Islamabad’s D-Chowk where they had gathered for the party’s high-stakes protest.
More than 10,000 protesters surged into the city on the weekend, defying a ban on public gatherings and a lockdown to skirmish with 20,000 security forces enlisted to turn them back, AFP reported. As PTI supporters inched towards the heavily barricaded D-Chowk late on Tuesday, the police and security forces employed intense teargas shelling to disperse the protesters.
After a day of clashes between security forces and protesters in the city’s Red Zone ended in the party leadership’s hasty retreat, the PTI announced in the early hours of Wednesday that it was calling off its planned protest sit-in “for the time being”.
Overnight, security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters wielding sticks and slingshots, as roadblocks were set ablaze. By early Wednesday, AFP staff saw the main thoroughfare towards Islamabad’s government enclave cleared of crowds, and security forces in riot gear being bussed away from the area.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement they had “bravely repulsed the protesters”. The PTI harshly criticised the interior minister for his statements and blamed him for the alleged violence against its supporters, claiming multiple deaths.
Condemning the violence, Amnesty issued a statement in a post on X, saying: “Yet again, protesters in Pakistan have faced a brutal and lethal crackdown shrouded in a callous opacity by the authorities.
“Urgent and transparent investigation is needed into the deadly crackdown on protesters.”
Babu Ram Pant, deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International, said that the escalation of violence, shutdown of mobile internet services, mass detentions and “alarming rhetoric” against PTI protesters by the authorities spoke of a “pattern of intolerance” for the right to freedom of peaceful assembly throughout the country, adding that similar clampdowns were witnessed earlier this year against Baloch and Pakhtun protesters.
“Disturbing reports and testimonies regarding the unlawful use of force, including lethal ammunition, against protesters, during a government-enforced communication blackout, are emerging from yesterday. Continued restrictions on reporting by media and independent observers have made it difficult to verify the number of casualties and raise urgent questions about accountability for human rights abuses.
“Amnesty International calls for a prompt, thorough, impartial, effective and transparent investigation into the deaths and injuries of protesters as well as the unlawful use of force, including lethal and less-lethal weapons, by security personnel. Authorities must also immediately release all protesters detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly,” the statement quoted him as saying.
Earlier this morning, the heavily fortified Red Zone was empty of protesters but several of their vehicles were left behind, including the remains of a truck from which former first lady Bushra Bibi had been leading the protests that appeared charred by flames, according to Reuters witnesses.
As PTI supporters faced off with security personnel across the federal capital on Tuesday, with both sides using tear gas and rubber bullets, at least two were killed and over 60 were injured during clashes.
The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) confirmed the death of two civilians and injuries to around 60 persons, including security personnel. At least three injured policemen and 10 civilians were also shifted to Polyclinic for treatment.
A total of six lives were lost in the three days of protests, which included a policeman and three Rangers officials who perished in a vehicular accident, officials and hospital sources said.
PTI claims at least 8 dead in shooting at protesters
In its press release, which announced the suspension of its protest, the PTI claimed that “dozens” of its workers were shot at directly and killed, of which it said it had the details of eight and listed their purported names.
The PTI said it was “not a military or armed party and neither does it consider itself to be willing to have its citizens slaughtered by state murderers”.
Highlighting that its supporters cleared “all difficulties, obstacles, violence, savage barbarism” to reach D-Chowk but “would not allow the bodies of its citizens to pile up”.
According to the press release, the PTI had a “long history peaceful political struggle and kept blocking the way of the government plan to pile up bodies since November 24”.
The party also stated the dates of previous protests since its 2022 ouster where it said it “failed each of the government’s attempts to drench every peaceful protest in blood” — three from 2022 and four from 2023.
While calling off the protest, the PTI also reaffirmed its intention to “keep struggling” for “haqeeqi azadi” (actual freedom).
The PTI paid tribute to citizens and its workers for coming to Islamabad from all across the country for the protest, as well as overseas Pakistanis who heeded its call for global protests. It further said it was immensely grateful to the residents of Islamabad and Rawalpindi for the hospitality they offered to the party convoys.
The PTI also shared a photo of a “list of injured persons in Federal Government Polyclinic, Islamabad” on November 26 “during political protest”, which listed the details of 26 people with “gunshot” wounds and two others who succumbed to their injuries.
The two men who died were aged 20 and 24 years, according to the list, while those injured were aged between 19 and 50 years and belonged to mostly KP, with a few from the federal capital.
The PTI called the document a “partial list of those admitted to a single hospital in Islamabad”.
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja issued a video message and similarly alleged that “at least 20 people were martyred”, adding that the party had the “complete evidence” available for eight dead and it would make the data for the others available too.
He further alleged that hospital data and records in Islamabad were being tampered and manipulated with doctors told to not provide the data to families. “Straight firing was carried out … they were live bullets and people lost their lives. Shells were directly fired at people which caused deaths,” Raja claimed.
The PTI official said that it would be a “complete lie” for anyone to deny that no firing was carried out by law enforcement agencies, adding that the party would pursue and file cases against all those involved.
In a separate post earlier today, the PTI said a “massacre has unfolded in Pakistan at the hands of security forces”.
It accused the armed security forces of launching a “violent assault on peaceful PTI protesters in Islamabad, firing live rounds with the intent to kill as many people as possible”. It went on to compare last night’s clashes to the violence in East Pakistan in 1971.
“The rulers have learned nothing from history and are prepared to destroy the country to cling to their illegitimate power,” the post went on to say. “With hundreds dead and countless injured, the interior minister’s threat to kill and then the declaration of ‘victory’ over slaughtered innocents is enough evidence of the regime’s inhumanity.”
PTI called on the international community to condemn the “atrocity and the erosion of democracy and humanity in Pakistan”, as well as take action against it.
Gandapur says protest ‘still ongoing’
Meanwhile, after fleeing from the site of the Islamabad protest, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur resurfaced in Mansehra, where he assured his party workers that the “sit-in is still ongoing”.
Addressing a press conference in the afternoon in Mansehra, CM Gandapur said that it would not end till PTI founder Imran Khan ordered so.
“People have died in this protest, we must pray for them,” the chief minister said during the press conference held at the residence of KP Speaker Babar Saleem Swati.
“We have been targets of violence,” he said, lamenting that the PTI was not permitted to protest whenever it sought to.
“When we gave the protest call, we said this would be peaceful. Imran Khan said we will go to D-Chowk peacefully and we will not go ahead of D-Chowk where we are not permitted.
“[Imran] Khan sahib gave this call, and he said this protest will continue until I call it off,” CM Gandapur highlighted.
The chief minister remarked, “It is not necessary that every sit-in has people in it.”
“Unfortunately, our party has been cracked down upon, our mandate has been stolen. Our leader is in jail, our leader’s wife was thrown in jail,” Gandapur said, referring to Imran and Bushra, who was recently freed on bail after nine months in jail.
“We were going peacefully, talking peacefully, and in the end, the govt came in our path and inflicted violence on us. Why were bullets rained down on us?” the KP CM asked.
Terming the planned sit-in a “revolution”, the chief minister said: “If you try and stop it, people will come through other means.”
Speaking alongside Gandapur, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan alleged there was “an attack with a murderous intent” on Gandapur and Bushra Bibi at D-Chowk, where they were leading their convoy.
“We are a democratic and peaceful party. We were shot at, which I gravely condemn,” the MNA said.
Ayub also called for an investigation into the deaths of two policemen and three Rangers personnel.
He claimed “rescuing” five policemen from Pathargarh in Islamabad. “We are not unjust but others are unjust to us in return,” he lamented.
Bushra Bibi, CM Gandapur and Ayub were set to address an “emergency” press conference at 11am today, according to Taimur Saleem Swati, senior vice president of PTI’s Hazara chapter. However, when the two men finally addressed the media, the former first lady was not seen alongside them.
Gandapur’s announcement came after the PTI called off the protest.
A press release shared by the party on its official X account read: “In view of the government’s brutality and the government’s plan to turn the capital into a slaughterhouse for unarmed citizens, [we] announce the suspension of the peaceful protest for the time being.”
It added that future plan of action would be announced “in light of the directions” of its incarcerated founder Imran Khan after the party’s political and core committees presented their “analyses of the state brutality” to him.
The statement, issued by the party spokesperson, condemned the alleged “killing” and “terror and brutality against peaceful protesters in the name of an operation”.
The party appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi to take suo motu notice of the alleged “brutal murder of martyred [party] workers” and order legal action against the prime minister and interior minister as well as Islamabad and Punjab police chiefs for “attempt to murder”.
“We will chalk out the new strategy later after proper consultation, Mohammad Asim, PTI’s Peshawar president, told Reuters. He said that Bushra Bibi as well as CM Gandapur had returned “safely” to KP from Islamabad.
The late-night retreat by the PTI leadership, including Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and CM Gandapur, came after the latter was heard telling the protesters “to go home, have dinner and return tomorrow”.
Nearly 1,000 protesters held: Islamabad IG
Meanwhile, the Islamabad police chief said the law enforcement agencies had arrested nearly 1,000 protesters after crowds were evicted from the federal capital in a sweeping security crackdown.
Addressing a press conference, Islamabad Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ali Nasir Rizvi said 954 protesters were arrested between Sunday and Tuesday by law enforcement agencies when the crowds came within 1.6 kilometres of the government enclave. He said that 610 of the arrests were made “only on Tuesday alone”.
“We will not tolerate any terrorist activity,” Rizvi said. “How can you call it a protest when law enforcement personnel are fired upon, or when public property is damaged?
“This is not protest … this is terrorism and terrorism is a form of crime,” the IGP said. He warned that the protesters and those who “instigated” them would be booked.
According to the IGP, the demonstrators wielded “every kind of weapon” during the rally. “They were armed with AK47s, they had pistols, every kind of 7.62mm weapon and sniper rifles,” he said, adding that protesters used tear gas and slingshots to attack law enforcement personnel.
The IGP added that over 200 vehicles were impounded by police, while 39 weapons were seized, including Kalashnikovs, pistols and 12-bore weapons. “These terrorists brought them and used them on police,” Rizvi said.
“Seventy-one law enforcement officers were injured over the last three days, with 52 of them injured only yesterday,” he said. “Of those 52, 27 have suffered firearm injuries.”
Meanwhile, a statement from the Punjab police issued on the X account of state broadcaster PTV said 22 vehicles were damaged while over 170 personnel were injured and one dead.
Pakistan incurred Rs190bn loss daily in protests: PM Shehbaz
Meanwhile, addressing a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lamented that the damages from the PTI rally inflicted a daily loss of Rs190 billion to the national exchequer.
“This is hurting exports … containers bound for Karachi port are being used to block roads,” the PM said. “There is no more unforgivable crime than damaging the country for personal gain.”
He added that life in the twin cities had ground to a standstill. “Businesses were closed, factory owners were worried and labourers were unable to afford meals,” he said.
The PM added that as a result of the PTI descending on the capital, the stock market plunged, causing further economic loss.
“The stock market exceeded 99,000 points three days ago, a historic milestone,” Shehbaz said. “Within a day, it plummeted by 4,000 points, but once peace was restored, it rose above 99,000 once more.”
He added that investments only went “where there is peace”, branding the protesters “enemies of Pakistan’s development” due to the impact of the rally on the country’s economy.
The prime minister reiterated that the government needed to make harsh decisions to save the state and maintain Pakistan’s progress and prosperity. “We cannot spend all of our energy trying to stop these miscreants,” he said, referring to the PTI and their supporters.
“Either we make these choices or deal with these sit-ins daily.”
He said he would not allow the state’s efforts to revive the economy go to waste due to civil and social disturbance. “I will not let this happen. I want to make it very clear,” he warned.
PTI’s Yousafzai questions leadership’s ‘absence’, criticises Bushra
Separately, in another instance of apparent reservations among the PTI, former KP minister Shaukat Yousafzai questioned why the party’s central leadership was “not seen” at the much-touted protest.
“No one from our central leadership was there,” Yousafzai, the party’s KP secretary general, told Dawn.com.
“Where did our leadership disappear? Where were Barrister Gohar, Salman Akram Raja and [Sher Afzal] Marwat?” he asked.
“The people who call themselves leaders, where were they? I only saw Ali Amin Gandapur, Asad Qaiser, Omar Ayub and Ali […]. The other leadership was not seen, why was that?”
The PTI leader also said it was a “mistake” to term the protest a “final call”. “We are politicians, we must pay attention to the mistakes we make. This [protest] should not have been called final call.”
Yousafzai also questioned why “there was no dialogue” with the government, taking aim at why Bushra’s decisions regarding the protest were heeded.
Referring to KP government spokesperson Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif’s statements of Imran agreeing to the government’s offer of an alternative protest venue, he wondered: “Why was this not followed? Who stopped it?”
“Gandapur was made a sacrificial goat. He had pressure from the workers and the party,” the PTI leader told Dawn.com.
“Now the question arises that Bushra Bibi didn’t have any authority. Yes, she is Imran’s wife, she has a lot of love for him. But the party’s decisions should have been made by the party,” he added, referring to Saif saying that the PTI founder’s wife had not agreed to the venue proposal.
“Why did they sideline the party’s old workers and leadership?” the PTI leader asked, stressing that party supporters came on Imran’s call, not someone else’s.
“If someone said Bushra wasn’t listening to them, then she should have been removed from the party. Why cause all this chaos in the party?” Yousafzai asked, terming it “cruelty” with the PTI and Imran.
“We are political people, who stopped us from doing dialogue? Who decided not to go to Sangjani, and why? All these questions are what the workers will ask, and we will have to give answers,” he asserted.
“But what did we do? We caused the party so much loss. We just abandoned our workers.”
While Yousafzai acknowledged that the party needed to “review our own mistakes”, he also decried the “cruelty that the government inflicted, which is not something secret”, comparing it to the Israeli administration.
Nevertheless, the ex-minister also hailed that “people showed up in such large numbers and braved hardships to reach D-Chowk” to support the PTI. “There was a one-sided crackdown on the people. Political culture has been ruined,” he said.
Speaking about the deaths of policemen and Rangers, Yousafzai said he was “disheartened about those who were martyred from both sides”.
“Now they (the government) are saying they have cleaned Islamabad. No, you have hurt people, you have killed people. You have lost even when you have won,” the PTI leader quipped.
“We will definitely reflect on our mistakes and make our party stand again. God-willing, we will struggle again,” Yousafzai said, urging workers to be united.
Similarly, Imran’s sister Aleema Khanum also heaped criticism on those leading the main convoy.
“Why was the sound and light on the container shut early evening? As a result, in total darkness, there were no instructions or any guidance available for the people on the ground.
“We pleaded all evening for the light and sound on the container to be turned on, but there was no response by the people giving instructions,” she said in a post on X.
Data services restored, routes reopened
Meanwhile, data services, after remaining suspended for four days, were restored in various areas of Islamabad — including Red Zone and Bani Gala — as well as Rawalpindi, Dawn.com correspondents reported.
The internet services were “restored at 7am”, PTA Chairman (retired) Major General Hafeezur Rehman confirmed to Dawn.com.
A Dawn.com correspondent at the site in the morning reported there was no public at D-Chowk but police and other security personnel were present.
According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, business activities were resuming in the federal capital, with the district administration’s cleanup efforts underway.
While containers blocking various roads in the city had been removed, APP said, the removal of containers from Murree Road, which was sealed off for three days due to the protests, was in progress.
All motorways were reopened for traffic, including routes between Islamabad and Lahore, the report noted. A Dawn.com correspondent also confirmed that containers were being removed from the road connecting Islamabad to Rawalpindi.
Public transport and bus stations had been reopened as well, the correspondent added.
No state firing on protesters: info minister Tarar
On the other hand, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar refuted the PTI’s allegations of security forces shooting at its protesters.
State-run Radio Pakistan quoted Tarar as saying no firing was carried out on PTI protesters and there were no fatalities among them.
During a visit to the D-Chowk and Jinnah Avenue in Islamabad overnight, he said that while the protesters were dispersed, there was no state firing involved.
The minister said PTI protesters had damaged public property, referring to the deserted vehicles left behind by the protesters. He criticised CM Gandapur and Bushra for fleeing after “making big claims”.
Speaking to the media, he claimed that the PTI convoys “crashed their own vehicles into each other” in a hurry to flee the scene. He described the protesters as leaving behind their shoes and clothes while fleeing.
The minister further said that forensics would be carried out of “documents that got burned in the container” being used by the PTI, implying it was done on purpose.
“The interior minister was constantly monitoring. That the right time would come and then we would deal with them,” Tarar said, asserting that the government did not want bloodshed.
Taking a jibe at Imran terming the protest a “final call”, Tarar dismissed it as nothing more than “a missed call”, the APP reported.
In a separate televised statement, echoing Naqvi’s stance from yesterday, asserted that there were “no concessions and no talks under any circumstances” with the PTI.
HRCP calls for ‘political introspection’
Amid the tense political atmosphere, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) called for “political introspection”, demanding that the government and the PTI “enter a purposeful political dialogue”.
“HRCP demands that the government and the opposition, the PTI, immediately enter a purposeful political dialogue, both on the floor of the house and between different political parties,” it said in a statement.
“It is high time that they agree on a peaceful way forward instead of whipping up the emotions of their respective political workers and bringing the country to a standstill, particularly in Islamabad and Punjab, violating others’ freedom of movement and livelihood in the process,” the group stressed.
HRCP called for “political introspection” for all sides, saying it was “deeply disturbing” that the loss of life in protests and rallies “has been of little concern for any of our political actors”.
“Whether law enforcers or political workers, any casualty must be unacceptable for all,” it stated, adding that the group shared the grief of those who lost family members in “violent protests and through the unwarranted use of force by the authorities”.
Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that “Pakistan’s protests had no winners”.
Anger towards the establishment has increased over the crackdown, he said, while at the same time, PTI was forced to retreat.
“Pakistan on the whole is burdened by a worsening confrontation that distracts from [economic and] security crises,” Kugelman highlighted.
The analyst, in a separate post, pointed out a “problematic disconnect” between Imran and the rest of the PTI leadership.
“[Imran] Khan mobilised and galvanised. He said, fight to the end. And then PTI’s other leaders angered the base for not showing up or abandoning the cause,” he noted. “Today the gulf between Khan and the rest of the PTI leadership came into sharp relief.”
Road to protest
The PTI’s protest, which the government was determined to foil with force, was originally scheduled to be staged on November 24.
However, the party’s convoys took a breather on Sunday night as PTI leaders said they were in “no hurry” to reach the federal capital for their ‘do or die’ protest.
The PTI protesters, some of them employing industrial fans to counter tear gas, crossed Islamabad’s Toll Plaza on Monday night as the government vowed to not spare those behind a cop’s death in “violence of miscreants”.
As PTI workers from across the country attempted to defy arrests, baton charges and tear gas to participate in the agitation, around 800 PTI leaders and supporters were arrested from across Punjab as well as in and near Islamabad on Sunday.
In an update, capital police officials told Dawn that during the ongoing protests, over 500 local PTI leaders and workers have been arrested in Islamabad.
On Tuesday, the Pakistan Army was called into Islamabad to “deal with miscreants”, state-run Radio Pakistan reported. Shortly after, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said three Rangers personnel and a Punjab policeman lost their lives on Monday, in what he said was an “attack by miscreants”.
A stalemate in reported talks between the PTI and the government had continued, with PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan saying the government had “not made any contact” with the party and Naqvi similarly ruling out any negotiations with the party.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had ruled that PTI’s planned protest was unlawful and had directed the government to take all necessary measures to maintain law and order in Islamabad without disrupting public life, particularly as the Belarusian president’s arrival coincided with the protest.
Source:dawn.com
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Arab World
Saudi Official Elected Vice Chair Of Codex Alimentarius Commission, That Sets Standards For Global Food Trade
November 28, 2024
RIYADH: Saudi official Khalid Al-Zahrani was chosen on Wednesday to be vice chair of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets the standards for the international food trade that are designed to ensure products are safe and protect consumer health.
Representatives of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority who were present for the vote at the commission’s 47th annual session in Geneva, Switzerland, congratulated Al-Zahrani on his election.
“This is a significant milestone for Saudi Arabia and a testament to our commitment to global food safety and standards,” said Hisham Aljadhey, the authority’s CEO.
“By assuming the role of vice chair of Codex, (Saudi Arabia) aims to further strengthen international collaboration, promote sustainable food practices and ensure the well-being of consumers worldwide.”
Al-Zahrani has served as the Codex chairperson for the Near East region since 2020 and was reelected to the position in 2023.
He also represented Saudi Arabia on several international committees, including the World Trade Organization’s Technical Barriers to Trade, the Gulf Cooperation Council Standardization Organization, and the International Organization for Standardization’s Food Products Committee.
He works closely with the Kingdom’s Food and Drug Authority, which aims to prioritize sustainability and enhance efficiency, inclusiveness and transparency within food systems. The authority was recognized in January by the World Health Organization as one of the first five countries in the world to eliminate the use of industrially produced trans fats in food, alongside Denmark, Lithuania, Poland and Thailand.
“Al-Zahrani’s election highlights the exceptional quality of Saudi staff at the SFDA and the authority's efforts in food-safety legislation and oversight,” the authority said.
The Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Food Code”) is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations related to food production, labeling and safety, published by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the WHO.
Source:arabnews.com
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Saudi development fund chief meets Congo’s finance minister
November 27, 2024
CEO of the Saudi Fund for Development Sultan Al-Marshad met Congo’s Minister of Finance Doudou Fumba Likunde, the Saudi Fund said on X on Wednesday.
During the meeting, they reviewed development cooperation between the two sides that began 40 years ago, as well as discussing ways to enhance economic cooperation to develop vital sectors in Congo.
Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Congo Abdulaziz Al-Badi was present during the meeting.
Source:arabnews.com
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Saudi Geological Survey celebrates excellence in research, innovation
SALEH FAREED
November 27, 2024
JEDDAH: The Saudi Geological Survey recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special event in Jeddah, marking a quarter-century of excellence in geological research and exploration.
Makkah Deputy Gov. Prince Saud bin Mishaal and Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Al-Khorayef attended the event.
The event highlighted the survey’s achievements, future initiatives, and contributions to geological research and innovation. Guests shared insights from their experiences with the organization.
CEO Abdullah Al-Shamrani reviewed 25 years of accomplishments, emphasizing the survey’s role in advancing geological sciences, supporting national development, and managing resources sustainably.
He also outlined plans to raise awareness of geological risks via the “Rawasi” platform, preserve Zamzam water sustainability, and complete digital transformation of technical services.
Al-Shamrani affirmed a commitment to advancing technical achievements, implementing projects, and supporting development for a promising future through skilled Saudi cadres.
Al-Khorayef said that since the start of the millennium, the Kingdom had made intensive efforts in mineral resource research and exploration. Led by SGS employees, this had yielded significant discoveries over the past 25 years, impacting the mining sector by boosting investment and developing mineral wealth.
He added that the aim was to position the Kingdom as a global leader in earth sciences and geology through ambitious plans, aligning with its international standing.
These efforts included fully uncovering its mineral wealth, meeting geological needs, building a global earth sciences database, and creating a platform for stakeholders worldwide, the minister said.
Source:arabnews.com
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Saudi Ministry of Culture to cooperate with King Charles’ school on craft training
November 27, 2024
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture has signed an agreement with King Charles’ School of Traditional Arts to cooperate in the programs of the Year of Handicrafts 2025 initiative.
The signing ceremony on Wednesday was attended by Prince Bader bin Farhan, minister of culture, at the Saudi International Handicrafts Week Exhibition (Benan), currently held at the Roshn Front in Riyadh.
Khaled Omar Azzam, director of the traditional arts school at The King’s Foundation, and Hamed Fayez, deputy minister of culture, also attended the signing of the agreement, which aims to revive and promote handicrafts in Saudi Arabia throughout 2025.
A series of sessions and trainings will be launched to revive craft production in several Saudi regions through the “Regeneration of the Crafts of Saudi Arabia” comprehensive program, which will start in January 2025.
The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts will curate programs, training and initiatives that focus on design and crafts, the Saudi News Agency reported.
“The primary goal is to regenerate and renew Saudi craft traditions across different regions of the Kingdom,” a Ministry of Culture statement said.
The King’s Foundation, a British charity established in 1986 by King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales, has been at the forefront of educating traditional arts alongside urban design and traditional architecture.
The agreement between the Saudi Ministry of Culture and The King’s Foundation school is part of the national culture strategy under the umbrella of Saudi Vision 2030.
Saudi Arabia aim to help Saudi artisans, through training, to develop their skills in design, craftmanship and traditional arts.
Source:arabnews.com
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Saudi teams shine at Formula 1 in Schools World Finals
November 27, 2024
RIYADH: Three Saudi teams have scooped awards at the 2024 Aramco Formula 1 in Schools World Finals.
Over 450 students from gathered at Dhahran Expo from Nov. 23-26 for the competition, the first time it has been hosted in the Kingdom. The finalists emerged from an initial 29,000 schools worldwide.
The Clad team won the Enterprise Portfolio Award, while Oryx claimed Best Engineered Car and Shaheen took Best Application of Project Management.
Competitors worked in 55 teams to design, build and race miniature F1 cars on a 20-meter track. Those taking part were aged from nine to 19, one third of whom were female.
The competition reflects Aramco’s commitment to developing future leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, otherwise known as Ithra, oversaw the Saudi teams’ preparation during a nine-month training period. Led by 37 experts from six specialized centers, the program focused on engineering, design and teamwork.
It has become a key platform for developing Saudi Arabia’s next generation of scientific talent and putting innovation firmly on the global stage.
At the 2023 World Finals in Singapore, Saudi teams won the Innovative Thinking, Women in Motorsport and Identity awards.
The Aramco Formula 1 in Schools World Finals offer young innovators an opportunity to shape Saudi Arabia's future creative industries.
The program follows a unified curriculum covering physics, aerodynamics, design, manufacturing, branding, graphic design, sponsorship, marketing, leadership, teamwork, media skills and financial strategies.
Source:arabnews.com
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Thunderstorms forecast across Saudi Arabia until Sunday
November 27, 2024
RIYADH: The General Directorate of Civil Defense has forecast thunderstorms in several regions across the Kingdom until Sunday.
Makkah region is forecast light to moderate rain showers that could lead to flash floods, hail and dust-stirring winds, reported the Saudi Press Agency, while moderate to heavy rain is expected in Riyadh region.
Asir and Jazan regions will also be affected by moderate to heavy showers, while the Qassim, Eastern and Baha regions will experience moderate rain. The regions of Madinah and Najran can expect light rain.
The directorate has urged people to exercise caution, avoid areas prone to flash flooding, and refrain from swimming in flooded areas.
Members of the public should follow media channels to keep themselves updated on the latest conditions.
Autumn in Saudi Arabia is typically rainy, with rapid weather changes providing relief from the heat, according to the National Center for Meteorology.
Source:arabnews.com
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Shoura Council, EU officials discuss strengthening ties
November 27, 2024
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council Vice Speaker Mishaal Al-Sulami met in Riyadh with an EU Political and Security Committee delegation, led by its chair Delphine Pronk, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday.
The delegation included ambassadors from the 27 EU member states, the EU Special Representative for the Gulf Luigi Di Maio, and the EU Ambassador to the Kingdom Christophe Farnaud.
Al-Sulami highlighted the Shoura Council’s oversight and legislative roles and emphasized the importance of parliamentary diplomacy in strengthening cooperation.
The delegates praised the Kingdom’s significant developments and the ambitious Saudi Vision 2030, SPA reported.
The talks addressed the strong relations between Saudi Arabia and the EU, ways to enhance collaboration between the Shoura Council and the European Parliament, and other topics of mutual interest.
Earlier, the EU delegation visited the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, where they discussed ways to counter extremism.
The delegation also visited the Gulf Cooperation Council headquarters in Riyadh, where they discussed joint efforts to tackle global challenges.
Source:arabnews.com
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Europe
Does Labour back Islamic blasphemy laws?
27th November 2024
What century is this again? Earlier today, at Prime Minister’s Questions, a Labour MP stood up in parliament demanding the introduction of Islamic blasphemy laws. Tahrir Ali, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, asked Keir Starmer whether he would ‘commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?’.
Now, while Ali was careful to appear ‘inclusive’, calling for a ban on insulting all ‘Abrahamic’ faiths, it is clear he is primarily concerned with punishing the critics of one religion in particular. His question was posed in the context of ‘Islamophobia Awareness Month’. And he cited a recent UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning the desecration of the Koran.
As disturbing as it was to hear a Labour MP call for the introduction of medieval blasphemy laws, Starmer’s response was more alarming still. Instead of rejecting Ali’s call for Sharia-compliant speech as utterly incompatible with a liberal, democratic society, the prime minister agreed with the sentiment. He said: ‘We are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including, of course, Islamophobia in all of its forms.’ Here we see how easily charges of ‘Islamophobia’, which has been presented as a form of racism, can be weaponised to shield the religion of Islam from criticism.
Labour’s flirtation with Islamic blasphemy laws in the Commons today was not a one-off, either. In 2021, Labour MP Naz Shah called for tough sentences to be meted out against those who ‘defame, slander or abuse our prophet’. Starmer himself has signalled that his government could adopt a definition of Islamophobia that would severely chill discussion of Islam and even Islamist extremism.
Will our right to blaspheme survive this Labour government? We’ll find out soon enough.
Source:online.com
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https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/27/does-labour-back-islamic-blasphemy-laws/
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Western Europe’s Muslim problem
JOSEPH PUDER
Radical Muslim gangs who harbor a hatred for Western culture and believe Islam is the answer for all bear a visceral and violent antisemitic hatred for Israel and Jews. The pogrom perpetrated by Arab and Turkish Muslims against Israeli and Jewish fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team in Amsterdam earlier this month illustrates the point. Local law enforcement feigned efforts to contain the aggressive hordes, which did not prevent the severe beating of scores of Israelis and Jews and the hospitalization of six. For many people, the images out of Amsterdam conjured up images of the evil perpetrated by the SS Nazi Germany and the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938. Attacks on Jews and Israel are now widely evident in other major Western European cities, including Berlin, Brussels, London, Madrid and Paris.
Referring to the recent pogrom, there were kind words from the King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, who told Israeli President Isaac Herzog, “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.” Geert Wilders, leader of the largest party in the Dutch parliament, blamed Moroccan Muslims for the attack on the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. He noted that the Muslims do not hide the fact that they want to destroy Jews and recommended the deportation of those people convicted of involvement in the pogrom if they have dual nationality.
Muslim migrants arrived in the industrialized Western European states after World War II, many from the countries that were formerly colonial possessions. Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian Muslims landed in France and in Belgium (since French was also widely spoken there). Turkish Muslim temporary laborers were brought to Germany and never left. The Netherlands became home to Indonesian Muslims. South Asian Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims settled in Britain. Many of those early Muslim settlers sought a quiet life, economic betterment and freedom.
The revival of Islamic strength—with Saudi Arabia accumulating unimaginable oil riches and power in the 1970s—created an initial stirring, followed by the 1979 Islamic Shi’ite revolution in Iran, and the defiance against the Western world and its culture. The mayhem in Iraq and the endless terror in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s 2003 war that deposed Saddam Hussein eliminated the secular Sunni-Muslim rule in Iraq and led to Shia-Muslim supremacy and Iran’s stranglehold on Iraq.
Then came the civil war in Syria a decade later, which created millions of refugees. The guilt-ridden European and former colonial powers opened their doors to hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s misplaced guilt about the Holocaust led to more than a million Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, as well as Afghan Muslims, coming to live in Germany. Many of these refugees had been brought up to hate Jews and Israel.
For the new arrivals, the Western practice of separating church and state is unfamiliar and unacceptable. Islam is the state religion in most Arab states, especially in Iran. The majority of recent Muslim immigrants express less attachment to their Western European host countries and greater loyalty and attachment to their country of origin. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the host countries do not tend to promote assimilation into the culture. The Muslims have separate communities, separate schools and separate rules of law.
Europe used to have a “Jewish problem” and still does, but not for the same reasons as their “Muslim problem.” The Jews integrated well and enriched European culture in multiple ways. Many European Nobel laureates were Jews. Today’s Muslim immigrants commit a large percentage of violent crimes, while crime coming out of the Jewish communities is virtually nonexistent. In most cases, Jews spoke the native tongue better than the Christian natives. The problem, until the late 18th century, was religious animus and discrimination, which later transformed into antisemitic racism. In Europe, Jews became the scapegoats for the ills of their societies.
The late Oriana Fallaci, famed Italian journalist and author, who later in life became a staunch defender of Israel and Jews, famously stated that she stood with Israel and the Jews and that, “I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, and not to allow themselves to be exterminated a second time.”
While earlier in her career, Fallaci defended the Palestinians and Muslims, she was subsequently quoted as saying, “The Muslims refuse our culture and try to impose their culture on us. I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture—it is toward my values, my principles, my civilization.”
Fallaci made no secret of her hatred of the way Islam enforced passivity and submission of women through Sharia law. She famously ended an interview with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini by ripping off the chador she had been forced to wear, yelling “These Medieval rags!” She wrote of the “monstrous darkness of a religion which produces nothing but religion … secretly envious of us, confessedly jealous or our way of life … in Europe, the mosques literally swarm with terrorists or candidate terrorists … .”
In Europe today, Islamists and the radical left have allied themselves in the green-red alliance with a common antisemitic agenda under the guise of anti-Israelism. Their vocal demonstrations in the streets of Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris have intimidated the governments who have done little to stem the gushing hate displayed and the violence accompanying such events, as demonstrated earlier this month in Amsterdam. While peaceful demonstrations are a given in Western democracies, incitement to violence is proscribed.
With the Muslim population in Europe swelling into double-digit percentages and stagnant native European birthrates, it is only a matter of a generation or two before radical Islam becomes dominant in Europe. In her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro‐Arab Axis, Bat Yeor, the pen name for Gisèle Littman, pointed out that Europe has surrendered to Islam and is in a state of submission (described as dhimmitude) in which Europe is forced to deny its own culture, stand silently by in the face of Muslim atrocities, accept Muslim immigration and pay tribute through various types of economic assistance.
Incoming President Donald Trump, by acting on his unintimidated commitment to deport illegals and criminal aliens from the United States, may just show the Europeans how to save their culture. It’s high time for the European elites to consider acting aggressively on behalf of their survival.
Source:jns.org
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https://www.jns.org/western-europes-muslim-problem/
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Nelson Community Mosque wins at British Beacon Mosque Awards
November 28, 2024
By Jack Stott
An East Lancashire mosque is celebrating its success after collecting a prize at the British Beacon Mosque Awards 2024.
Nelson Community Mosque, in Bradshaw Street, collected the ‘Best Women’s Service’ award and was commended for its commitment to empowering women, fostering inclusivity and creating impactful services for women in the community.
The awards celebrate excellence among mosques, madrassahs, Imams, Alimahs, and volunteers across 11 categories, with independent judges selecting the winners.
The mosque's success was highlighted with a specific focus on providing tailored services for women, including educational workshops, health awareness sessions, counselling support and opportunities for spiritual development.
Shaukat Warraich, chief executive of Faith Associates, commending the mosque’s efforts, said: “The Nelson Community Mosque has demonstrated outstanding dedication in the field of women’s services.
"With over 60,000 votes cast online for this year’s British Beacon Mosque Awards, and tough decisions made by the judges, this recognition highlights the exceptional work being done.
“It’s heartening to see British mosques leading by example, bringing communities together and addressing critical societal issues.”
Providing spiritual education through structured Qur’an and Fiqh classes, as well as other short courses, the mosque was praised for seeing more than 300 women attending and enhancing their confidence in practising and sharing their faith.
Additionally, the Chat and Chai gatherings were said to provide a great platform for women to connect, share experiences and foster meaningful friendships.
The mosque also offered a “Teens of Faith” programme which enhanced emotional wellbeing and social skills for teenage girls to express themselves.
Also, through food bank initiatives, it has helped more than 400 women in the past few months alone, including 225 single mothers.
Also, family-focused services such as the family wellbeing service, parenting workshops and marriage counselling were said to have positively impacted women by providing them with the tools and strategies needed to build strong, healthy family relationships.
Source:lancashiretelegraph.co.uk
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https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/24754720.nelson-community-mosque-wins-british-beacon-mosque-awards-2024/
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NATO struggles with Russia over the new world order – top general
27 Nov, 2024
The US-led NATO bloc has been locked into a hybrid war against Russia and its backers, with the shaping of the “new world order” being at stake, deputy chief of the Allied Command Transformation (ACT), General Christian Badia, has said.
The General, who had previously served with the German military and assumed the senior nato role back in 2022, made the remarks in an interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper published on Tuesday.
“Russia is waging a hybrid war against the West,” Badia claimed, warning the ongoing conflict could escalate in an uncontrollable manner at any moment. “There are too many grey areas and the resulting miscalculation is the biggest risk,” he said.
The ongoing hybrid standoff has already grew out of proportion and cannot be described merely as the “Cold War 2.0,” as some refer to it, the general believes.
“The confrontation with Russia is not just ‘Cold War 2.0.’ Here we are talking about a new world order,” he said.
Moscow is backed by China, North Korea, and Iran, Badia asserted, claiming NATO’s rivals are jointly developing hypersonic weapons, and satellites and making advances in cyberspace. The deputy commander did not provide any facts to substantiate such claims, stating, however, that Russia is also backed by some other nations willing to challenge Western dominance.
Badia’s assessment of the standoff between Moscow and the US-led bloc echoes the remarks by the top Russian officials, who had described the situation as a hybrid war, particularly referring to the mounting sanctions pressure and the enduring Western military support of Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims by top officials of the NATO countries that the bloc’s active involvement in the Ukrainian conflict somehow did not make the bloc a party to it.
“NATO is already waging a war against Russia, but it is a hybrid war through the hands of Ukrainians,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said back in September.
Source:rt.com
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https://www.rt.com/news/608321-nato-russia-new-order/
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North America
Muslim American Life after October 7
11.27.2024
DESCRIBING THE October 7 Hamas attacks as a “watershed moment,” Asim Ijaz Khwaja, the co-chair of Harvard’s task force on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias, spoke on Monday evening with Asli Ü. Bâli, a Yale scholar of international and human rights law and president of the Middle East Studies Association, about the profound consequences of the past 13 months on American college campuses and American Muslims. The two painted a sobering picture of renewed negative attention and harassment directed toward people of Middle Eastern descent. They also outlined what they saw as a worrying retreat by university administrators amid political attacks against their students and their mission.
The event was hosted by the Radcliffe Institute, as the second of a two-part discussion about this still-unfolding tumultuous period; earlier this month, Radcliffe dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin talked with Frankfurter professor of law Noah Feldman about his newly published book, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.
Hamas’s attack on Israel sparked a war in the Middle East and set off a massive wave of pro-Palestinian protests in the United States, perhaps most visibly by students on college campuses, including Harvard’s. Student activism provoked an intense and powerful backlash: donors at multiple universities, as at Harvard, have rescinded their donations or threatened to stop giving; students involved in protests across the country have been arrested and in some cases charged with crimes, and many have been doxed or seen employment offers withdrawn. Investigations into antisemitic incidents and charges of antisemitism on American campuses have included highly publicized Congressional hearings, with politicians interrogating prominent university presidents; some of those administrators, including former president Claudine Gay, have lost their jobs. In the wake of this backlash, many institutions, including Harvard, are rethinking campus policies regarding speech and protest, adopting new stances of neutrality on global events, and redoubling efforts to facilitate critical inquiry and open dialogue.
In addition to all these consequences, Khwaja, the Sumitomo-FASID professor of international finance and development at the Harvard Kennedy School, noted the heightened focus and suspicion that Muslims and people of Arab descent have faced during the past year. He also noted that it isn’t the first time that’s happened: 9/11 was a similar watershed moment, with monumental and lasting effects, and it is the backdrop, he and Bâli said, for everything that’s happened since October 7.
Bâli recalled how, in the days after 9/11, the U.S. government used selective enforcement of immigration laws to sweep up Muslim immigrant men in mass arrests. They were released only after they’d been cleared of suspicion of involvement in the terrorist attacks, “reversing the presumption of innocence.” Other steps soon followed: prohibitions on speech—including pro-Palestinian speech—and coercive re-registration requirements for visa-holders from the Middle East. “There was an exponential increase in mass surveillance,” she said, “with intense scrutiny on Muslim American communities in particular, and government racial profiling practices, which singled out Muslims and people of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Arab descent,” and led to presumptions of disloyalty and increased criminal punishments. Hate crimes rose, and Muslims, who were now intensely policed, became a racialized community—although one that, ironically, was not entitled to formal protections against racial discrimination, Bâli noted. These events so stigmatized Muslims that in 2017, decades after 9/11, the Trump administration instituted a ban on Muslims entering the country, which was later declared constitutional, albeit in an altered form, by the Supreme Court.
Those reverberations can be seen, Bâli argued, in the current upheavals over Israel and Palestine. Bâli noted the numerous armed conflicts, many with direct U.S. involvement, that have erupted in the broader Middle East in the years since 9/11—in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria—and the “waves of grief and trauma” for the Muslim diaspora watching from abroad, who experience their connection to the region as a source of their own insecurity. “I think part of what explains what’s happening on our campuses is that there’s a growing awareness among Americans of all backgrounds of some of the things that have been truly unjust consequences” of these wars and their effects on American Muslims. “So what we saw in the last year is the broadest, widest mobilization ever in support of Palestinian rights in the United States. And that occurred…because non-Arab, non-Muslim students were making common cause very broadly in solidarity with a community they don’t identify with on any ethnic basis.” It’s important to remember, she added, that today’s students grew up almost entirely in the shadow of 9/11, watching its effects unfold. “There is really a reckoning with the long-term relationship that the United States has had to many of the destabilizing events in these regions, and an understanding that there is some responsibility.”
The punitive response against the Muslim community after the latest watershed moment, when Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, raped women, and took more than 200 others, including children, hostage, alarmed Bâli in its vehemence. She compared the repression of dissent and protest on American college campuses, which has at times included violent arrests, to “the extreme authoritarian excesses” in the Middle East and North Africa, including in Turkey, her home country. She noted the appearance of “sudden, ad hoc policies that are selectively enforced and viewpoint-specific,” using ostensibly neutral criteria such as trespass laws to exclusively disallow pro-Palestinian protest, as well as harsh disciplinary sanctions for “disfavored political views.” She also decried the “inquisitional” Congressional hearings like the one that toppled Gay’s presidency, and pressure from donors and political actors on universities to crack down on students. Some of the neutrality statements adopted by administrators on numerous campuses strike Bâli as “misguided in the particulars of what they’re going to be neutral about,” and new restrictions on how and where students can assemble now make it nearly impossible, she said, “to engage in meaningful protests in ways that can be heard by one’s fellow campus members.”
Months of these kinds of measures, Bâli worried, have succeeded in shutting down viewpoints and “teaching the lesson that…you are better off being silent or finding ways to accommodate power, because power will crush you—even in campus communities that are designed to be laboratories in which students are supposed to be able to experiment with free inquiry and free expression and association.”
In response, Kwaja asked the question he saw lurking in Bâli’s depiction: “You raise a deeply troubling view of the world,” he said. “Is there a buyer for free discourse? Is there a market where people really value free speech and academic freedom?...Every campus now has a ‘candid conversation something-or-other’”—at Harvard it is the Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group, which Brown-Nagin co-chairs—“but I don’t understand where this demand is to come from. And if it doesn’t, then it worries me even more.”
Bâli answered that producing that market for free speech is the business of universities—including not just wealthy private ones like Harvard, but all institutions of higher learning, many of which are deeply embedded in their communities. She called on administrators and academics to defend democracy, and to defend themselves. “Universities have a role, not just to their internal communities, but also as spokespeople in our democracy.” This has to be true, she said, even when an institution faces financial and reputational risk. “As public intellectuals, we have an obligation to offer that defense constantly.” Importantly, she added, “We have to push back by persuading our fellow citizens. I don’t think there’s a way to imagine out-lawyering, or out-financing…or that we’re going to conquer some group. No, I think we have to persuade.”
She blamed much of the difficulty in maintaining this kind of institutional fortitude and independence on decades of government disinvestment from higher education, which has left universities increasingly beholden to individual donors.
She emphasized the necessity of strengthening universities’ ties to their communities and to their alumni. And she pushed back on the sharp criticism of universities that has consumed the national discussion during the past year. “We should be wary,” she said, of falling for “populist narratives about universities,” which she described as inaccurate and disingenuous. “The notion that we’re just made up of elites in fancy quarters having jargonized conversations with one another…is pretty far from the reality of what the work of higher education is in this country,” she said. “And that work has been the engine of one of the most powerful economies in the world, and has been producing not only leaders among our own citizenry, but globally, [and] has made the last three quarters of a century possible as a period of human flourishing.”
Khwaja asked Bâli where she saw reason for hope, both for free inquiry in institutions, and for the future of the American Muslim community. In students, she answered. “There are real problems” she said, of anti-democratic harassment and repression and even violence, “but the fact is that this debate [over free speech and public policies affecting Muslim life] has become such a much broader set of questions. And we’re actually asking some of the most fundamental questions, once more, in the face of real threats, but also with many allies joining us.” It remains true at universities, even amid recent upheavals, that “in the discussions that we’ve seen on campus, the better argument has been heard. And the better argument always has a prospect of prevailing.”
Source:harvardmagazine.com
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https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/11/radcliffe-institute-discussion-muslim-american-life
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Sean 'Diddy' Combs denied bail for third time in sex-trafficking case
November 28, 2024
Samantha Granville
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been denied bail for the third time by a judge in New York City.
Two judges previously denied Mr Combs's release from custody, primarily due to concerns about potential witness tampering, deeming it a significant risk if he was freed before trial, which is scheduled for May 2025.
Mr Combs is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for prostitution.
He has entered a plea of not guilty and has also denied more than two dozen sexual assault accusations lodged in a flurry of civil lawsuits.
The judge cited evidence in the case showing Mr Combs’s alleged attempts at witness tampering, his violation of prison regulations while behind bars and claims he ran a "criminal enterprise" including forced labour and kidnapping.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian concluded the court could not trust Mr Combs if released on bail.
“The Court finds that the government has shown by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community," the judge wrote in Wednesday's ruling.
Prosecutors had opposed granting Mr Combs bail, citing his misconduct while in custody.
In a recent court filing, prosecutors accused the rap mogul of misusing jail communications to influence witnesses in his case and coercing others in his orbit to post online in order to sway public opinion and benefit his defence.
But defence attorneys for Mr Combs said he should be released so he has adequate time to prepare for his trial next year.
Earlier this month, Judge Subramanian ordered prosecutors in the case to destroy all copies of nearly 20 pages seized during a recent search of the former hip-hop star’s jail cell.
Some of the documents included handwritten notes to his attorneys and thoughts on his legal strategy, court filings show.
Mr Combs's legal team said the search was unlawful and that the material was subject to attorney-client privilege, a legal doctrine that safeguards confidential communications between lawyers and those they represent.
But prosecutors said the information wasn't protected due to Mr Combs's alleged actions, which could be considered obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
They claimed Mr Combs had encouraged his children to post a video on social media featuring their birthday celebration with the aim of swaying prospective jurors.
Allegedly, Mr Combs sent hundreds of text messages using an app called ContactMeASAP, marketed as "an innovative text messaging service for federal inmates to communicate with loved ones via real-time messages".
According to authorities, Mr Combs has maintained two accounts on the platform, communicating with dozens of individuals, including attorneys and others not listed on his approved contacts list at the jail.
Lisa Bloom, an attorney for Dawn Richards, who filed a civil lawsuit against Mr Combs, also alleges that he was contacting witnesses from prison.
In an interview with BBC's Newsnight, she said one person had called her client a liar, and that phone tracking showed this person had had more than 100 points of contact with Mr Combs from jail.
“The strong implication there is that he talked her into making those statements, perhaps gave her money. We don't know. But that would be witness tampering," Ms Bloom told Newsnight.
Prosecutors have stated their investigation is ongoing, leaving open the possibility of additional charges or defendants.
Ms Bloom said she believes others could be charged in the investigation.
"He didn't do this by himself," Ms Bloom said. "He had an operation that people were brought in by others, so he didn't do everything himself. And we think it's very important that not only do predators get brought to justice, but those who conspire with them, who help them, who are complicit."
Dozens of civil lawsuits also have been filed against Mr Combs accusing him of coercing and abusing both men and women, blackmailing them with video recordings of sexual encounters, threatening witnesses, and in some cases, physically beating them.
Several cases include accusations from people who were underage at the time of the alleged assaults.
Mr Combs has vehemently denied all the allegations.
His legal team previously offered a $50m bail package that included house arrest and no female visitors, but it was rejected by the court.
He put up his Los Angeles and Miami mansions for sale in a bid to secure the bail bond.
Source:bbc.com
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czj78kz8le7o
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'Arctic outbreak' for parts of US as millions travel for Thanksgiving
November 28, 2024
Nadine Yousif
Much of the eastern US could experience a wave of bad weather as travellers hit the roads and airports for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has forecast "a significant arctic outbreak" across a swathe of the country, during what tend to be the busiest travel days of the year in the US.
Heavy snow and rain were forecast over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday - part of a weather system that will intensify and move eastward later on Thanksgiving Day. More than 10in (25cm) of snow could fall in some areas.
Temperatures are also expected to drop to bitter lows across many areas.
The arctic blast could send temperatures as low as -30F to -40F (-34C to -40C) in the northern Plains and Upper Midwest, said BBC Weather forecaster Matt Taylor.
The storm is expected to advance into the Midwest area on Friday and through the weekend, where it will also bring with it "lake-effect" snow and severe thunderstorms.
Lake-effect snow happens when cold air passes over the unfrozen and relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes, causing the air to rise and form clouds which grow into a narrow band that produces 2-3in of snow per hour or more, the NWS says.
Places that could see a large dump of snow include the interior of New England and the Appalachians.
In the Midwest and Great Lakes region, there is a possibility of 4-8in of snow over the northern coastline of Michigan, according to the NWS.
The severe conditions come at a hectic time for travel.
Flight disruptions began on Wednesday, with more than 3,800 flights in the US delayed, and 861 cancelled, according to FlightAware.
The Federal Aviation Administration said delays were possible at airports across the US, including in Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston and Seattle. A ground delay was also in place at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey because of staffing shortages.
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says passenger volumes during this year's Thanksgiving have already reached record highs.
The busiest days were expected to be Tuesday and Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, as well as the Sunday after the holiday. The TSA expects to screen nearly nine million people at airports during those three days.
Meanwhile, a record number of nearly 80 million Americans are expected to travel at least 50 miles (80km) by car over the week, according to insurance company AAA. The anticipated increase is due to petrol prices that are lower than they were during the Thanksgiving holiday last year.
The Thanksgiving rain and snow over the eastern US come after a winter storm in California, on the west coast. This brought heavy snow for higher elevations earlier this week, as well as wind gusts as strong as 50 mph (81km/h).
Central California was also hit by another "atmospheric river" event on Tuesday after experiencing a similar phenomenon last week. The weather event occurs when water evaporates into the air and is carried along by the wind.
And in the Pacific north-west, communities are still recovering after last week's bomb cyclone, an intense weather event that takes place when air pressure quickly drops off the coast.
The storm caused mass flooding and power outages for hundreds of thousands of people.
Those affected areas could face even more wet weather this week, as the NWS is predicting a low pressure system that will cause coastal rain for Washington, Oregon and California.
Source:bbc.com
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgd70zxvg8o
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Missing hiker found alive after more than five weeks in wilderness
November 28, 2024
Jessica Murphy
A hiker who was lost in the backwoods of British Columbia for more than five weeks has been found alive.
Sam Benastick, 20, was reported missing on 19 October after he failed to return from a 10-day fishing and hiking trip in Redfern-Keily Park in the northern Rocky Mountains.
Authorities had called off search and rescue efforts for the avid hiker in late October. Temperatures in the region had at times dropped to around -20C (-4F).
Mr Benastick was found on Tuesday by two people headed to the Redfern Lake trail for work, who recognised him as the missing hiker as he walked towards them.
Given all the time he was missing, a different outcome had been feared, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl Madonna Saunderson told the BBC on Wednesday.
"We're very grateful. The family is thrilled," she said, adding that he had simply gotten lost.
Mr Benastick told police that he stayed in his car for a couple of days and then walked to a creek where he camped for 10 to15 days. At the time he went missing, he was equipped with a tarp, a backpack and some camping supplies.
He then moved down the valley and built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed. Winter conditions ramped up, with some snowfall.
Eventually, Mr Benastick made his way to the area where he flagged down his rescuers.
"Those are very difficult conditions for really anyone to survive in, especially [with] limited supplies and equipment and food," Prince George Search and Rescue search manager Adam Hawkins told the BBC.
"Even someone with quite a bit of experience would find that challenging."
Multiple rescue teams, the Canadian Rangers, the RCMP, and family and friends, had all conducted a ground and air search over "a pretty huge amount of terrain", Mr Hawkins said.
The rugged, remote region was hours from any towns, and featured low-lying hills, steep alpine cliffsides, and "even glaciated terrain", he said.
Little is known about Mr Benastick's condition or how he survived in the backwoods. He is currently in hospital.
Local inn owner Mike Reid, who got to know Mr Benastick's family while they stayed at his establishment during search efforts, told broadcaster CBC that the hiker had cut his sleeping bag and wrapped it around his legs to stay warm.
He said he was told the young man nearly collapsed as he was placed into the ambulance and was in "rough shape".
Before he was found, Mr Benastick's last known location was at a trailhead in the region of Redfern Lake - the park's largest lake - where he was seen using his red dirt bike, according to the RCMP.
Mr Hawkins , the search manager, said he is "intensely curious" to learn more about the area where Mr Benastick was found and what he was doing while missing to help inform future search and rescue operations.
Source:bbc.com
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde78p3zx5ro
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US believes Russian nuclear strike ‘unlikely’ – Reuters
28 Nov, 2024
The US believes it is unlikely that Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to Ukraine’s strikes deep into its territory with Western-supplied missiles, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing five people familiar with American intelligence.
According to the news agency, for several months US officials had been locked in “an often divisive” debate as to whether outgoing President Joe Biden should finally authorize Kiev to strike internationally recognized Russian territory with American-made ATACMS missiles. While some in the White House, Pentagon and State Department initially “feared lethal retaliation” against American or allied military bases and diplomats, sources told Reuters that “escalation concerns, including the nuclear fears, were overblown.”
“The assessments were consistent: The ATACMS weren’t going to change Russia’s nuclear calculus,” an unnamed congressional aide briefed on the intelligence told the news agency. Other sources were quoted as saying that intelligence reports concluded that “nuclear escalation was unlikely,” and that the assessment has “not changed” following Biden’s decision to lift restrictions on the use of ATACMS by Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the use of Western-supplied long-range missiles would drastically “change the nature” of the conflict and insisted that such sophisticated weapon systems could not be operated without direct involvement of NATO personnel. In his video address on November 21, Putin said Russia “reserves the right” to strike military targets outside Ukraine and would “respond decisively and in kind in case of escalation of aggressive actions.”
Putin delivered his warning hours after Russia struck a weapons factory in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr with its new Oreshnik ballistic missile. The Russian Defense Ministry later vowed to retaliate against further Ukrainian strikes.
Earlier this month, Russia officially revised its nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons. According to the updated document, Moscow reserves the right to deploy its nuclear arsenal against a nuclear or conventional attack that poses “a critical threat to its sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.”
Source:rt.com
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Africa
Terrorists Attack Troops, Kill Three Soldiers In Benue State
27 November 2024
By Udeze Ekene
Three soldiers were killed by terrorists who launched an attack on troops under Operation Hadin Kai, in Kukawa town, Kukawa local government area of Benue State.
Nigeria Army, in a statement on Wednesday, said the terrorists launched the attack on Monday. It stated that in a coordinated response, 12 terrorists were neutralized while weapons were recovered.
It added that a house-to-house search had commenced in the town to ensure the safety of the community.
It read, “In the early hours of 25th November 2024, an unconfirmed number of terrorists, mounted on gun trucks and motorcycles, launched an attack on troops of the 101 Special Forces Battalion under Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) in Kukawa Town, Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State. The attackers attempted to breach the camp using a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) from the Gudumbali axis.
“The gallant troops, in a coordinated and determined response, engaged the terrorists with overwhelming firepower, bolstered by support from the Air Component and the Nigerian Army’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Command. This resolute defense forced the terrorists into a disorganized retreat, leaving behind heavy casualties.
“During the confrontation, 12 terrorists were neutralized, while many others fled with gunshot wounds. The following items were recovered from the terrorists: 5 AK-47 rifles, 1 RPG bomb, 1 RPG tube, 2 Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns, 1 QJC gun, 1 NSV heavy machine gun, 40 motorcycles, 152 rounds of Shilka ammunition, among other items.
“Additionally, four out of seven VBIEDs deployed by the terrorists were destroyed. Regrettably, three brave soldiers paid the ultimate price during the attack. Efforts to clear and exploit the area are ongoing, with house-to-house searches being conducted to ensure the area is secure.”
Meanwhile, the Acting Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Olufemi Oluyede, commended the troops for their courage. He urged them to sustain momentum with ongoing clearance operations and fighting patrols.
Oluyede assured that Operation Hadin Kai remains steadfast in its mission to eliminate the remnants of terrorism in the North East, fostering an environment where socio-economic activities can thrive in line with its mandate.
Source:naijanews.com
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https://www.naijanews.com/2024/11/27/terrorists-attack-troops-kill-three-soldiers-in-benue-state/
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Osogbo Muslim community rejects newly appointed Asiwaju Musulumi of Osogboland
November 28, 2024
By Francis Ezediuno
The purported appointment of Alhaji Muniru Adebayo Raji as the Asiwaju Musulumi of Osogboland by the Chief Imam of Osogbo, Sheikh Musa Animashaun has received protests.
The Head of the Alasaro, Sheikh Sulaiman Ajao Akala condemned the appointment during a press briefing on Wednesday in Osogbo.
Sheikh Akala, who spoke on behalf of the Muslim community, described the appointment as a unilateral decision.
He also stated that the appointment was an attempt to create avoidable religious rise and disturb the peace enjoyed by the Osogbo Muslim community.
He said, “This unilateral decision of the Chief Imam is not only disappointing to the whole Muslim community but much unwholesome.
“It is best considered as an attempt to create avoidable religious crises in an otherwise peaceful Osogbo muslim community.
“Islam is a religion of peace which has a complete set of standard principles in virtually all facets of life.
“The ascendancy of Sheik Musa Animashaun to the position of the Chief Imam of Osogboland too is one of the proofs of the existence of this set of principles.”
The Alasaro Head declared that, “the alleged appointment of Alhaji Muniru Adebayo Raji as the Asiwaju Musulumi of Osogboland is not only unacceptable but very much demeaning to the collective religious sensibilities of the Muslim Ummah.”
Sheikh Akala, while revealing that Alhaji Raji allegedly played a role behind the crisis at the Osogbo Eid Ground on June 28, 2023, added that it was also reported that he had employed many divisive statements during the last political campaigns.
DAILY POST gathered that Chief Imam Sheikh Musa Animashaun appointed Alhaji Muniru Adebayo Raji as the Asiwaju Musulumi of Osogboland on Tuesday, November 26, 2024.
Source:dailypost.ng
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Money Laundering: EFCC To Drag Yahaya Bello To Court Today
28 November 2024
By George Oshogwe Ogbolu
Indications have emerged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will arraign former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello before a Federal High Court in Abuja today on a 19-count charge related to money laundering amounting to N82 billion during his tenure.
The court, presided by Justice Emeka Nwite, had previously been adjourned to January 21, 2025, to rule on whether to try the matter in absentia.
However, Daily Trust reports that it is now expected that the court will bring the hearing forward.
Naija News reports that an FCT High Court on Wednesday ordered the remand of the former governor of Kogi State in the custody of the EFCC pending the ruling on his bail.
Justice Maryanne Aninih fixed December 10 for ruling on the bail application of Bello and two others who are facing money laundering charges.
The remand followed the former governor’s and the two defendants’ plea of not guilty to the 16-count charge preferred against them by the EFCC after the former had reportedly submitted himself to the anti-graft agency’s headquarters in Abuja.
Bello and two former officials of the Kogi State government-Abdulsalami Hudu and Umar Oricha – were alleged to have conspired to use state government funds to acquire properties in high-brow areas within the FCT and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, worth N110.4 billion.
Arguing the bail application, counsel to Bello, Joseph Daudu (SAN), requested the court to release him on bail as contained in the application dated November 22, 2024, as the defendant was innocent until proven guilty, adding that the offence is ordinarily bailable.
He submitted further that by honouring the public summons, “the appearance of the defendant in court today shows he has respect for the law.”
However, EFCC counsel, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), opposed the application, saying it was incompetent having expired since October when it was filed earlier.
Pinheiro sought to move for the immediate commencement of trial and was ready to call its first witness.
Source:naijanews.com
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https://www.naijanews.com/2024/11/28/money-laundering-efcc-to-drag-yahaya-bello-to-court-today/
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North Must Ensure That Its Actions Are In The Best Interest Of Nigeria – Gowon Tells Shekarau Delegation
27 November 2024
Former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, has urged the people of the northern region and their leaders to always put the interests of Nigerians first.
According to him, having different opinions or positions on an issue should not hinder the North from working together with other regions for the good of the country.
Naija News reports Gowon made the submissions on Wednesday when he hosted a delegation from the League of Northern Democrats (LND) led by Ibrahim Shekarau at the Yakubu Gowon Centre in Abuja.
The former Nigerian leader stressed the need to foster unity and collaboration across Nigeria’s diverse regions.
“The north must ensure that its actions are in the best interest of Nigeria. My support for the creation of states was driven by the need to address fears of domination and to promote unity among all regions of the country,” he said.
Gowon also went down memory lane, submitting that all decisions he took during his time in office, including the creation of additional states, were in the interest of the entire country.
“At that time, the fear of disintegration was palpable across all regions. My decision to advocate for state creation was to mitigate these fears and ensure a balanced federation,” he said.
The elder statesman also explained he deliberately avoids partisan politics so as to focus on national service.
“My allegiance has always been to Nigeria. I believe in putting the country first and avoiding the distractions of partisan politics. Differences in opinion should never hinder us from working together for the nation’s good,” he told the LND delegation.
Gowon, while addressing the delegation, expressed concern over the current challenges facing northern Nigeria, including insecurity, disunity, and social issues like poverty and drug addiction and appreciated the members of the group for their efforts towards tackling the issues.
“The activities of groups such as the Lukurawa from Mali have only compounded our problems. However, I am encouraged by your efforts to address these issues and promote unity in the north and across Nigeria.”
Source:naijanews.com
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https://www.naijanews.com/2024/11/27/north-must-ensure-that-its-actions-are-in-the-best-interest-of-nigeria-gowon-tells-shekarau-delegation/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/shiva-temple-ajmer-dargah-ministry/d/133852