UK Afghan relocation backlog reaches 71k as charities decry ‘restrictive’ criteria

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy aims to relocate people who worked with UK forces during the country’s war until the Taliban takeover in 2021. (File/AFP)
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy aims to relocate people who worked with UK forces during the country’s war until the Taliban takeover in 2021. (File/AFP)
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Updated 22 January 2023
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UK Afghan relocation backlog reaches 71k as charities decry ‘restrictive’ criteria

The ARAP aims to relocate people who worked with UK forces during the country’s war until Taliban takeover in 2021. (File/AFP)
  • Applicants who “risked lives” serving British forces face “impossible choices,” says advocacy director

LONDON: Britain’s Afghan relocation scheme has a backlog of 71,149 applications from vulnerable people still stuck in the Taliban-led country, The Independent reported.

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy aims to relocate people who worked with UK forces during the country’s war until the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Many are in imminent danger after waiting for months on their applications, charities have warned, amid a wave of reprisals in the country against those who worked with Western-led forces.

Figures from the UK Ministry of Defence show that more than 127,000 applications have been received since April 2021, with staff only recently assessing files from January 2022.

Charities have also described the ARAP criteria as “restrictive,” leading to many applicants “falling through the cracks” despite having served British interests in the country.

About 12,000 Afghans have been relocated to Britain through the scheme.

One Afghan waiting on a response to his ARAP application was told by the Ministry of Defence to acquire a birth certificate for his children through Taliban authorities.

Zehrah Hassan, advocacy director of the charity Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “The disgraceful ARAP figures reveal our government has slammed the door shut on vulnerable Afghans.”

She added: “People who have already risked their lives — working as interpreters, teachers and aid workers — will now face the impossible choice of risking persecution in Afghanistan or making their own perilous journeys here and facing criminalization.”

Refugee Council campaigns chief Mark Davies said: “It is unacceptable that so many Afghans are caught in the backlog of applications to the ARAP program, leaving them desperately unsafe in Afghanistan.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “Our priority, as set by ministers, is not simply processing a volume of applications but finding and relocating those Afghans who meet the ARAP criteria through direct service with the British Armed Forces.

“There are fewer than 1,000 interpreters and other staff yet to be allocated a place on the scheme. Our priority is finding them and bringing the individuals and their families to the UK.”


China’s Xi looks to strengthen Vietnam ties after Biden visit

China’s Xi looks to strengthen Vietnam ties after Biden visit
Updated 10 December 2023
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China’s Xi looks to strengthen Vietnam ties after Biden visit

China’s Xi looks to strengthen Vietnam ties after Biden visit
  • China and Vietnam have a border in common, as well as close economic ties and ruling communist parties, but Xi’s two-day trip will be his first visit to the country in six years
  • Like the United States, Vietnam has concerns about its neighbor’s growing assertiveness in the contested South China Se

HANOI: China’s President Xi Jinping will arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday on a mission to strengthen relations, just months after Washington and Hanoi upgraded their diplomatic ties.
China and Vietnam have a border in common, as well as close economic ties and ruling communist parties, but Xi’s two-day trip will be his first visit to the country in six years.
It comes hot on the heels of US President Joe Biden’s stopover in Hanoi in September, when he sought to shore up support against Beijing’s growing influence in the region.
“From China’s perspective, the visit is to emphasize that it has not lost Vietnam to the rival camp,” said Huong Le Thu, Deputy Director of the Asia Program at the International Crisis Group.
“For Vietnam, it represents its successful ‘bamboo diplomacy’, in which it is able to maneuver between the competing great powers without being forced to take one side over another,” she told AFP.
After an official welcome at the presidential palace on Tuesday, Xi will hold talks with Nguyen Phu Trong, the leader of Vietnam’s ruling communist party.
On Wednesday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, before Xi meets Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and President Vo Van Thuong.
Vietnam and China already share a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnam’s highest diplomatic status. Hanoi and Washington upgraded to that same level in September.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the visit would involve discussions on “bringing China-Vietnam relations to a higher position.”
Items on the agenda include “politics, security, practical cooperation, the formation of public opinion, multilateral issues and maritime issues,” said Wang.

Like the United States, Vietnam has concerns about its neighbor’s growing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.
China upset several ASEAN members, including Hanoi, with its September 1 release of a new official map, showing sovereignty over almost the entire resource-rich waterway.
The issue of maritime borders is a sensitive issue for Hanoi, which in July banned the “Barbie” movie from being shown domestically due to a brief appearance of a map that included a depiction of the nine-dash line used in official Chinese maps of the region.
Political researcher Nguyen Khac Giang told AFP that Xi’s visit presented an opportunity for Beijing to draw Vietnam closer, possibly through invoking the Xi-era foreign policy concept of the ‘Community of Common Destiny’.
The loosely defined phrase refers to a vision of future cooperation on economic, security and political issues.
“While Vietnam may remain cautious about joining China-led political initiatives, we can expect to see further progress in economic cooperation, especially in infrastructure development and green energy transitions,” he said.
Vietnamese state-controlled media reported last month that China Rare Earth Group Co. was looking for opportunities to work together with Vietnam’s mining giant Vinacomin.
It comes after the United States and Vietnam in September agreed to cooperate to help Hanoi quantify and develop its rare earth resources.
The United States has said Vietnam — with the world’s second-largest deposits of rare earths after China — has a key role to play as it looks to source less from China after supply chain shocks rocked the global economy in recent years.
 


Chinese ships assault Philippine fisheries vessels en route to disputed shoal

Chinese ships assault Philippine fisheries vessels en route to disputed shoal
Updated 10 December 2023
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Chinese ships assault Philippine fisheries vessels en route to disputed shoal

Chinese ships assault Philippine fisheries vessels en route to disputed shoal
  • The noontime assault by Chinese ships off the Scarborough Shoal was one of the most aggressive this year
  • It’s the latest flare-up of the long-seething territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a flashpoint in Asia that has put the US and China on a collision course

MANILA, Philippines: The Philippines and its treaty ally, the United States, separately condemned a high-seas assault Saturday by the Chinese coast guard together with suspected militia ships that repeatedly blasted water cannons to block three Philippine fisheries vessels from a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

The noontime assault by Chinese ships off the Scarborough Shoal, one of the most aggressive this year, caused “significant damage” to the communication and navigation equipment of one of the three Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ships, Filipino officials said.
They said without elaborating that suspected militia vessels accompanying Chinese coast guard ships used a long-range acoustic device that could impair hearing, causing “severe temporary discomfort and incapacitation to some Filipino crew.”
It’s the latest flare-up of the long-seething territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a flashpoint in Asia that has put the US and China on a collision course. China claims virtually the entire strategic waterway, but the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have also pressed their separate claims.
Territorial standoffs between China and the Philippines over a number of disputed offshore areas, including the Scarborough and the Second Thomas shoals, have been particularly heated this year. The US has warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its longtime treaty ally, if Filipino forces, aircraft or ships come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
China has warned the US to stay away from what it calls a purely Asian dispute. It has deployed ships and aircraft to closely shadow US Navy ships and aircraft, which periodically undertake freedom of navigation and overflight patrols in one of the world’s most hotly disputed seas.
A Philippine government task force that deals with the long-seething territorial disputes said Saturday it “vehemently condemns the illegal and aggressive actions carried out by the Chinese coast guard and Chinese maritime militia against the civilian Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessels.”
“We demand that the Chinese government take immediate action to halt these aggressive activities and uphold the principles of international law and desist from actions that would infringe on Philippine sovereignty and endanger the lives and livelihood of Filipino fishermen,” it said.
US Ambassador to Manila MaryKay Carlson condemned China’s “aggressive, illegal actions.”
“This (Chinese) behavior violates international law and endangers lives and livelihood,” Carlson said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “We stand with our Philippine friends, partners, allies in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The Chinese coast guard said in a single sentence announcement on its website that it “implemented control measures in line with the law” Saturday against three BFAR vessels that “intruded into waters adjacent to Huangyan Island,” the Chinese name for the Shoal.
Separately, the coast guard said it had “implemented controls in accordance with laws and regulations” on Sunday against two Philippine coast guard vessels, including one official ship and one supply ship that were attempting to transport construction materials to the Second Thomas Shoal.
China has long sought to blockade the submerged reef, where a small contingent of Filipino marines has stood guard for years aboard a long-marooned but still actively commissioned warship, the BRP Sierra Madre.
The statement gave no details about the measures taken, but said the Philippines action “seriously infringed on China’s sovereignty.”
Philippine fisheries bureau’s ships had sailed to the Scarborough Shoal to provide humanitarian aid, mainly free fuel and Christmas grocery packs, to poor Filipino fishermen aboard nearly 30 boats in the rich but far-flung fishing area, Philippine officials said.
They said the swarm of Chinese coast guard and accompanying ships took dangerously aggressive actions, including the use of water cannons at least eight times, as the Philippine government ships approached about 2.6 kilometers to 3.5 kilometers (1.6 to 2 miles) from Scarborough Shoal.
They added that the Chinese coast guard installed a floating barrier at an entrance to the vast fishing lagoon of Scarborough Shoal and deployed personnel aboard small motor boats to drive away Filipino fishermen waiting for the distribution of fuel and food supplies at sea.
“To prevent the distribution of humanitarian support is not only illegal but also inhumane,” the Philippine government task force said.
In past faceoffs in the high seas off disputed shoals, the Chinese coast guard has used a military-grade laser that caused Filipino crewmen temporary blindness, and resorted to dangerous blocking and shadowing maneuvers, including one that caused minor collisions.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has allowed a larger US military presence in local military bases under a 2014 defense pact partly to strengthen territorial defense amid China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters. China has strongly opposed and expressed alarm over increasing deployments of US forces, warning that it would threaten regional peace and stability.
The Philippines has also launched joint sea and air patrols separately with the US and Australia, and plans to expand this to a multilateral patrol, possibly including Japan and other like-minded nations to deter aggression in the South China Sea, National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano told reporters last week.


Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania president, resigns as antisemitism testimony draws backlash

Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania president, resigns as antisemitism testimony draws backlash
Updated 10 December 2023
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Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania president, resigns as antisemitism testimony draws backlash

Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania president, resigns as antisemitism testimony draws backlash
  • Calls for Magill’s resignation exploded after her testimony in a US House committee on antisemitism on college campuses
  • Universities across the US have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: The University of Pennsylvania’s president has resigned amid pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.

The departure of Liz Magill, in her second year as president of the Ivy League school, was announced by the school late Saturday afternoon. The statement said Magill will remain a tenured faculty member at the university’s Carey Law School. She has agreed to keep serving as Penn’s leader until the university names an interim president.
Calls for Magill’s resignation exploded after Tuesday’s testimony in a US House committee on antisemitism on college campuses, where she appeared with the presidents of Harvard University and MIT.
Universities across the US have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.
The three presidents were called before the committee to answer those accusations. But their lawyerly answers drew renewed blowback from opponents, focused particularly on a line of questioning from Rep. Elize Stefanik, R-N.Y., who repeatedly asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate Penn’s code of conduct.
“If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes,” Magill said. Pressed further, Magill told Stefanik, “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”
Criticism rained down from the White House, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, members of Congress and donors. One donor, Ross Stevens, threatened to withdraw a $100 million gift because of the university’s “stance on antisemitism on campus” unless Magill was replaced.
A day later, Magill addressed the criticism, saying in a video that she would consider a call for the genocide of Jewish people to be harassment or intimidation and that Penn’s policies need to be “clarified and evaluated.”
Magill had been under fire from some donors and alumni this fall over the university’s handling of various perceived acts of antisemitism.
That included allowing a Palestinian literary arts festival to be held on its campus in September featuring speakers whose past statements about Israel had drawn accusations of antisemitism.
A former US Supreme Court law clerk, Magill, 57, is the daughter of a retired federal judge and was dean of Stanford University’s law school and a top administrator at the University of Virginia before Penn hired her as its ninth president last year.
Earlier Saturday, New York’s governor called on the state’s colleges and universities to swiftly address cases of antisemitism and what she described as any “calls for genocide” on campus.
In a letter to college and university presidents, Gov. Kathy Hochul said her administration would enforce violations of the state’s Human Rights Law and refer any violations of federal civil rights law to US officials.
Hochul said she has spoken to chancellors of the State University of New York and City University of New York public college systems who she said confirmed “that calling for genocide of any group” or tolerating antisemitism violates codes of conduct on their campuses “and would lead to swift disciplinary action.”
The governor’s letter doesn’t address any specific incidents. Her office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
A popular chant at pro-Palestinian rallies at Penn and other universities has been falsely misrepresented in recent months as claiming to call for “Jewish genocide.”
Experts and advocates say the chant, “Israel, we charge you with genocide,” is a typical refrain heard at pro-Palestinian rallies. Jewish and Palestinian supporters both acknowledge protesters aren’t saying “We want Jewish genocide.”
 


A British Palestinian surgeon gave testimony to a UK war crimes unit after returning from Gaza

A British Palestinian surgeon gave testimony to a UK war crimes unit after returning from Gaza
Updated 10 December 2023
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A British Palestinian surgeon gave testimony to a UK war crimes unit after returning from Gaza

A British Palestinian surgeon gave testimony to a UK war crimes unit after returning from Gaza
  • Human rights groups have alleged that Israeli forces have dropped shells containing white phosphorus on densely populated residential areas in Gaza and Lebanon during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war

BEIRUT: A British Palestinian surgeon who spent weeks in the Gaza Strip during the current Israel-Hamas war as part of a Doctors Without Borders medical team said he has given testimony to a British war crimes investigation unit.
Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon specializing in conflict medicine, has volunteered with medical teams in multiple conflicts in Gaza, beginning as a medical student in the late 1980s during the the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Abu Sitta crossed from Egypt into Gaza on Oct. 9, two days after the war began and remained in the besieged enclave for 43 days, working mainly in the Al-Ahli and Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza.
The war was triggered by a deadly Hamas-led incursion on Oct. 7 into southern Israel in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Since then, Israel has launched a punishing air and ground campaign that has killed more than 17,700 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Abu Sitta told The Associated Press in an interview during a visit to the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut on Saturday that the intensity of other conflicts he experienced and the war in Gaza is like “the difference between a flood and a tsunami.” Apart from the staggering numbers of killed and injured, he said, the health system itself has been targeted and destroyed in Gaza.
“The worst thing was initially the running out of morphine and proper strong analgesics and then later on running out of anesthetic medication, which meant that you would have to do painful procedures with no anesthetic,” Abu Sitta said.
He said that when he returned to the UK, he was asked by the war crimes unit at the Metropolitan Police to give evidence in a possible war crimes investigation, and did so.
The police had issued a call for people returning from Israel or the Palestinian territories who “have witnessed or been a victim of terrorism, war crimes or crimes against humanity” to come forward.
Abu Sitta said much of his testimony related to attacks on health facilities.
He was working in Al-Ahli hospital in northern Gaza on Oct. 17 when a deadly blast struck the hospital’s courtyard, which had become a shelter for displaced people, killing hundreds. Israeli authorities, along with US and French intelligence agencies, have said the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.
Hamas maintained that it was an Israeli strike. Abu Sitta said many of the injuries he saw were more consistent with damage caused by an Israeli Hellfire missile which he said “disintegrates into shards of metal that cause amputations.”
The international group Human Rights Watch said the fragmentation pattern around the impact crater lacked the pattern typical of the Hellfire missile or others used by Israel.
Abu Sitta said while in Gaza he also treated patients who had burn wounds consistent with white phosphorus shelling, which he had also seen during the 2009 war.
Phosphorus shells cause a “chemical burn that ... bursts into the deep structures of the body rather than a thermal burn, which starts at the outside and (covers a) much larger surface area,” he said.
Human rights groups have alleged that Israeli forces have dropped shells containing white phosphorus on densely populated residential areas in Gaza and Lebanon during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Israel maintains it uses the incendiaries only as a smokescreen and not to target civilians.
Abu Sitta, who rotated between Al-Ahli and Shifa hospital, had left Shifa when Israeli forces encircled the hospital, eventually storming it in search of what they described as a Hamas command center. Israeli officials released visuals of an underground tunnel and rooms that they said were used by Hamas, but have not provided further evidence.
Abu Sitta, like other medical workers in the hospital, denied the allegations.
He said he had complete access to Shifa and there “was never, ever even any military presence.” He said policemen whose job was to control the crowds in front of the emergency department only carried truncheons.
The physician said he hopes the UK war crimes investigation will lead to prosecutions, locally or internationally.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said after a visit to the West Bank and Israel last week that a probe by the court into possible crimes by both Hamas militants and Israeli forces is a priority for his office.
 

 


Iran begins trial of Swedish EU employee detained in 2022

Iran begins trial of Swedish EU employee detained in 2022
Updated 10 December 2023
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Iran begins trial of Swedish EU employee detained in 2022

Iran begins trial of Swedish EU employee detained in 2022
  • The Swedish charge d’affaires was at the court but was refused the right to participate in the trial

STOCKHOLM: An Iranian court has begun the trial of a Swedish national employed by the European Union who was detained last year, Sweden’s foreign minister said on Saturday.
“I have been informed that the trial of Johan Floderus has begun in Tehran,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish news agency TT.
“The Swedish charge d’affaires was at the court but was refused the right to participate in the trial. Sweden has ... requested the right to be present when the trial resumes.”
Floderus was detained in April 2022 while on holiday in Iran for what his family said was alleged spying. Billstrom did not specify what Floderus had been charged with.
Floderus’ family has said he was detained “without any justifiable cause or due process.”
Rights groups and Western governments have accused the Islamic Republic of trying to extract political concessions from other countries through arrests on security charges that may have been trumped up. Tehran says such arrests are based on its criminal code and denies holding people for political reasons.
Relations between Sweden and Iran have been tense since 2019 when Sweden arrested a former Iranian official for his part in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in the 1980s. Hamid Noury was sentenced to life in prison last year, prompting Iran to recall its envoy to Sweden in protest.
In May, Iran executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident convicted of leading an Arab separatist group Tehran blames for a number of attacks including one on a military parade in 2018 that killed 25 people.