Giant puppet of Syrian girl starts England tour to mark World Refugee Week

Giant puppet of Syrian girl starts England tour to mark World Refugee Week
Little Amal, a giant puppet depicting a Syrian refugee girl, arrives in Parliament Square opposite the House of Commons in London. (File/AFP)
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Updated 19 June 2022

Giant puppet of Syrian girl starts England tour to mark World Refugee Week

Giant puppet of Syrian girl starts England tour to mark World Refugee Week
  • She will visit 10 towns and cities across England to share her resilient and hopeful message: “Don’t forget about us”

LONDON: A giant puppet designed to highlight the plight of child refugees embarked on a tour of England on Sunday and will visit landmark destinations as part of World Refugee Week.

Little Amal, the giant puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, became an international symbol of human rights after she journeyed from the Turkish-Syrian border to Manchester last July. Amal means “hope” in Arabic.

This year, the 3.5m puppet began her New Steps New Friends tour in Manchester, where she will be the special guest at the Manchester Day Parade with thousands of children and families all celebrating in the city.

She will visit 10 towns and cities across England to share her resilient and hopeful message: “Don’t forget about us.”

Artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi said: “It is because the attention of the world is elsewhere right now that it is more important than ever to reignite the conversation about the refugee crisis and to change the narrative around it.

“Yes, refugees need food and blankets, but they also need dignity and a voice. The purpose of The Walk is to highlight the potential of the refugee, not just their dire circumstances. 

“Little Amal is 3.5 meters tall because we want the world to grow big enough to greet her. We want her to inspire us to think big and to act bigger,” Zuabi said. 

After participating in the Manchester Day Parade, Amal will go on to visit Bradford, Leeds and the Liverpool docks. She will also meet communities in Birmingham, Cheltenham and Bristol’s historic Old City and Harbour.

She will return to the Southbank Centre in London and visit Stonehenge before finishing her journey on the beach in Folkestone in Kent.

In May, Amal landed in Poland, bringing aid relief packages for Ukrainian refugee children and their families.

“The machine of war is faceless, it’s metal grinding metal, but victims of the battles grownups fight have names and children are often the worst victims. That’s why Amal went to Ukraine. She’s a big girl so she can remind us there are many Amals and many Annas and many Andriys and many Abduls,” Zuabi said.

In September 2022, Amal will travel to New York City. She will travel through all five boroughs, meeting artists, civic leaders, community groups and New Yorkers of all backgrounds.


Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region
Updated 17 sec ago

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region
KYIV: A Russian drone attack killed two civilians and wounded one in the Sumy region of northern Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, said on Wednesday.

Yermak said on the Telegram messaging app that a Iranian-made “Shahed” drone had destroyed a private house and caused a fire. The president’s office said in a statement that Russia shelled the border region in the northeast several times at overnight and on Wednesday morning.

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
Updated 57 min 38 sec ago

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
  • ‘The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial’

THE HAGUE: Judges at a UN war crimes court in The Hague have ruled that geriatric Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga is unfit to stand trial but in a decision published Wednesday also said that slimmed down legal proceedings in his case can continue.
“The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial,” a decision published on the court’s website said.
However, instead of halting the trial the judges said they would set up an “alternative finding procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction.”


Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
Updated 07 June 2023

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
  • More than 150 forest fires burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control

MONTREAL: Northern Quebec’s largest town was being evacuated on Tuesday as firefighters worked to beat back threats from out-of-control blazes in remote communities in the northern and northwestern parts of the province.
According to the province’s forest fire prevention agency, more than 150 forest fires were burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control. The intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern US and parts of Eastern Canada in a haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.
The effects of hundreds of wildfires burning in Quebec could be felt as far away as New York City and New England, blotting out skylines and irritating throats.
Late Tuesday, authorities issued an evacuation order for Chibougamau, Quebec, a town of about 7,500 in the remote region of the province. Authorities said the evacuation was underway and promised more details Wednesday.
“We’re following all of this from hour to hour, obviously,” Premier François Legault told reporters in Sept-Îles, Quebec. “If we look at the situation in Quebec as a whole, there are several places where it is still worrying.”
Legault said the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region in northwestern Quebec is an area of particular concern, with the communities of Normétal and Lebel-sur-Quévillon under threat.
The mayor of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, where about 2,100 people were forced from their homes on the weekend, said the fire is about 10 kilometers outside of town, but its advance has been slower than expected.
“The fire started in an area where there were no trees, which slowed it down considerably,” Mayor Guy Lafrenière said.
Other northern communities at risk include Chibougamau the Cree village of Chisasibi on the eastern shore of James Bay. Firefighting resources have also been dispatched to Hydro-Québec’s Micoua substation near Baie-Comeau, Legault said.
On Monday, Legault said authorities had no choice but to leave the hamlet of Clova to burn, drawing the ire of local residents. Legault said Tuesday that he had simply repeated what fire prevention officials told him: the fire around the tiny community about 325 kilometers northwest of Montreal was too intense to send water bombers. That remained true Tuesday, he said, but he noted that no homes had burned.
Dominic Vincent, the owner of the Auberge Restaurant Clova, said that by Monday afternoon, the situation in the area had already improved, aided by cooler temperatures and a change in wind direction. While smoke remained visible, it was far less intense, he said.
Quebec Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina told reporters in Quebec City that evacuees across the province number just over 8,300, down from 10,000 to start the week, but the Abitibi region remains a concern.
“We are not expecting rain in the short term, which is what makes it more difficult to fight fires,” Blanchette Vézina said.


Russia says West trying to confuse the world over Nord Stream culprits

Russia says West trying to confuse the world over Nord Stream culprits
Updated 07 June 2023

Russia says West trying to confuse the world over Nord Stream culprits

Russia says West trying to confuse the world over Nord Stream culprits
  • The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to blow up the Russia-to-Germany project

The Russian embassy in the United States said on Wednesday that a report the United States knew of a Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines was part of a coordinated Western attempt to confuse the world over the truth.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing leaked information posted online that the CIA learned last June, through a European spy agency, that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to blow up the Russia-to-Germany project.

“The coordinated campaign of the West, led by the United States, to confuse the international community is sewn with white threads,” Russian diplomat Andrey Ledenev was quoted as saying in a post on the embassy’s Telegram messaging channel.

“The reason for the proliferating theories and versions, supported by the notorious ‘confidential’ data of the local intelligence community, is simple to the point of banality.”

Several underwater explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and the newly built Nord Stream 2 pipelines that link Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

The blasts occurred in the economic zones of Sweden and Denmark. Both countries said the explosions were deliberate, but have yet to determine who was responsible. Those countries and Germany are investigating.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that investigations into the Nord Stream attack were active.

“The last thing that we’re going to want to do from this podium is get ahead of those investigations,” Kirby said when asked about The Post’s reporting on the matter.

The Kremlin said in February that the world should know the truth about who sabotaged the pipelines and that those responsible should be punished after an investigative journalist said US divers blew them up at the behest of the White House.

Russia has repeatedly said the West was behind the blasts affecting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last September — multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects that carried Russian gas to Germany.

The Post said it agreed to withhold the name of the European intelligence agency as well as some aspects of the suspected plan at the request of government officials, citing risks to sources and operations.

The CIA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately confirm the intelligence cited by the Washington Post.


Mike Pence to launch presidential campaign against Donald Trump in Iowa

Mike Pence to launch presidential campaign against Donald Trump in Iowa
Updated 07 June 2023

Mike Pence to launch presidential campaign against Donald Trump in Iowa

Mike Pence to launch presidential campaign against Donald Trump in Iowa
  • Pence’s campaign to test party’s appetite for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply religious candidate
  • Former vice president and his advisers see Iowa as key to his potential pathway to the nomination

DES MOINES, Iowa: Mike Pence is staking his presidential hopes on Iowa as he launches a campaign for the Republican nomination for president in Des Moines on Wednesday that will make him the first vice president in modern history to take on his former running mate.
Pence’s campaign will also test the party’s appetite for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply religious candidate who has denounced the populist tide that has swept through his party under former President Donald Trump. And it will show whether Pence still has a political future after Jan. 6, 2021, with a large portion of GOP voters still believing Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that Pence had the power to reject the results.
Pence and his advisers see Iowa — the state that will cast the first votes of the GOP nominating calendar — as key to his potential pathway to the nomination. Its caucus-goers include a large portion of evangelical Christian voters, whom they see as a natural constituency for Pence. They also think Pence, who represented Indiana in Congress and as governor, is a good personality fit with the Midwestern state.
“We believe the path to victory runs through Iowa and all of its 99 counties,” said Scott Reed, co-chair of a super PAC that launched last month to support Pence’s candidacy.
Iowa has typically been seen as a launching pad for presidential candidates, delivering momentum, money and attention to hopefuls who win or defy expectations. But recent past winners including Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have failed to ultimately win the nomination.
And Pence faces steep challenges. He enters the race as among the best-known Republican candidates in a crowded GOP field that now includes Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
But Pence — seen by Trump critics as complicit with his most indefensible actions and maligned by Trump loyalists as a traitor — is also saddled with high unfavorable ratings.
A CNN poll conducted last month found 45 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would not support Pence under any circumstance. Only 16 percent said the same about Trump.
Pence’s favorability has also slipped in Iowa, according to The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.
Shortly after leaving office, in June 2021, 86 percent of Iowa Republicans said they had a favorable view of Pence. But the Register’s March Iowa Poll showed that figure had dropped to 66 percent. The poll also found Pence with higher unfavorable ratings than all of the other candidates it asked about, including Trump and DeSantis, with 26 percent of Republicans polled saying they have a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable view of him.
And just 58 percent of Iowa evangelicals said they had favorable feelings toward Pence — a particularly disappointing number, given his campaign’s strategy.
But Pence, who has already visited Iowa more than a dozen times since leaving office, has also received a warm welcome from voters during his trips. During a “Roast and Ride” event over the weekend that drew a long list of 2024 candidates, Pence stood out as the only candidate to actually mount a Harley and participate in the event’s annual motorcycle ride. When he arrived at a barbecue at the state fairgrounds, he moved easily from table to table, warmly greeting and chatting with attendees.
But there remains lingering skepticism of Pence among many Republican voters who adhere to the baseless but persistent conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen. Many who cling to the falsehood believe Pence was complicit in the plot to deny Trump a second term because he refused Trump’s pressure campaign to reject the Electoral College vote when he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters violently stormed the building.
Pence advisers say they recognize the challenge and intend to explain to voters directly that Pence was adhering to his constitutional duty and never had the power to impact the vote in his ceremonial role.
“I think it’s something you have to walk straight through,” said his longtime adviser Marc Short.
Beyond Jan. 6, his team sees their primary goal as reintroducing Pence to a country that largely knows him as Trump’s second-in-command. They want to remind voters of his time in congressional leadership and as governor and are planning a campaign heavy with town halls, house parties and visits to local diners and Pizza Ranch restaurants — — more intimate settings that will help voters get to know him personally.
“People have seen Mike Pence the vice president. I think what people are going to see is Mike Pence the person,” said Todd Hudson, the speaker of the House in Indiana and a longtime Pence friend who has signed on to help with outreach to state legislators. “I’m super excited for people to get to know the Mike Pence that I know, who’s funny, who’s just a wonderful person... the more relaxed Mike Pence.”
Reed believes there is a strong desire in the party for a candidate like Pence who espouses Reagan-style conservatism, including traditional social values, hawkish foreign policy and small government economics.
“We think this nomination fight is going to be an epic battle for the heart and soul of the conservative, traditional wing of the Republican Party. And Pence is going to campaign as a classic conservative. His credentials are unmatched,” he said.
Unlike Trump and DeSantis, Pence has argued that cuts to Social Security and Medicare must be on the table and has blasted those who have questioned why the US should continue to send aid to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.
“We are not going to try to out-Trump Pence. Everybody else is,” Reed said. “Pence is the only candidate running not to be Trump’s VP.”