Protests in London as Israel’s Netanyahu meets UK PM

Demonstrators protest on Whitehall, following a visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Downing Street in central London on March 24, 2023. (AFP)
Demonstrators protest on Whitehall, following a visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Downing Street in central London on March 24, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 27 March 2023

Protests in London as Israel’s Netanyahu meets UK PM

Protests in London as Israel’s Netanyahu meets UK PM
  • The UK government released few details about the two-day visit, but Netanyahu’s office said in a statement his meeting with the British leader will “focus on the Iranian issue”

LONDON: Hundreds of protesters rallied Friday outside Downing Street in central London to heckle the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a meeting with his British counterpart Rishi Sunak.
Netanyahu has faced weeks of escalating protests in Israel over his government’s judicial reform program, which would increase politicians’ power over the courts and critics argue is a threat to democracy.
Demonstrators in the UK capital, many holding Israeli flags and placards critical of the country’s veteran leader, shouted “shame” in Hebrew as he greeted Sunak at the door of 10 Downing Street.
They erected the letters of the word “democracy” on Whitehall opposite the entrance to the gated street, while wielding signs accusing Netanyahu of dragging Israel toward “dictatorship.”
“It’s important to be here because maybe at some point they won’t have the right to protest in Israel,” Dana Drori, a mother-of-two in her 30s, told AFP at the protest, alongside her young daughters.
“It’s anger, it’s sadness,” she said of her emotions. “It’s just hard to believe it’s becoming a dictatorship.”
In a televised address hours before departing for London, Netanyahu pledged to restore unity within his increasingly fractured country, but gave little away about how he would do that while still pursuing the reforms.

Some of Israel’s allies abroad, including the leaders in the United States and Germany, have raised concerns about the controversial overhaul.
However, Sunak and his ministers have not commented on it.
The UK government released few details about the two-day visit, but Netanyahu’s office said in a statement his meeting with the British leader will “focus on the Iranian issue.”
The pair will discuss “the need to formulate a united international front against Iran in order to stop its nuclear program,” it added.
They are also expected to talk about strengthening bilateral “strategic ties” as well as issues including the war in Ukraine and developments in the Middle East, the statement noted.
Netanyahu is also set to meet hard-line interior minister Suella Braverman — who has herself faced stinging criticism over contentious UK plans to deter asylum-seekers — to discuss countering global terrorism.
Further protests by pro-Palestinian groups are expected in central London later Friday, with some Palestinians attending the morning rally.
“As Palestinians from the diaspora we see ourselves at the front line of the fight for a free Palestine and when Netanyahu comes to visit in our backyard we have to protest it,” said one 24-year-old protester, who gave her name only as Yasmine.

 


Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps protest demanding repatriation to Myanmar

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps protest demanding repatriation to Myanmar
Updated 08 June 2023

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps protest demanding repatriation to Myanmar

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps protest demanding repatriation to Myanmar
  • More than a million Rohingya are crammed in the camps in southeastern Bangladesh, which have become the world’s largest refugee settlement
  • Attempts to begin repatriation in 2018 and 2019 failed as the refugees, fearing prosecution, refused to go back

DHAKA: Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh protested on Thursday, demanding to be repatriated to Myanmar, so they can leave behind the squalid camps that they have lived in since fleeing a brutal military crackdown in their homeland in 2017.
More than a million Rohingya are crammed in the camps in southeastern Bangladesh, which have become the world’s largest refugee settlement.
During Thursday’s demonstrations across the sprawling camps, refugees, young and old, waved placards and chanted slogans.
“No more refugee life. No verification. No security. No interview. We want quick repatriation through UNHCR data card. We want to go back to our motherland,” the placards read. “Let’s go back to Myanmar. Don’t try to stop repatriation.”
Rohingya community leader Mohammad Jashim said he was keen to return to Myanmar but wanted citizenship rights guaranteed.
“We are the citizens of Myanmar by birth. We want to go back home with all our rights, including citizenship, free movement, livelihood, safety, and security,” he said.
“We want the United Nations to help us to go back to our motherland. We want the world community to help us to save our rights in Myanmar,” he added.
Attempts to begin repatriation in 2018 and 2019 failed as the refugees, fearing prosecution, refused to go back.
And a group of 20 Rohingya Muslims said they would not return to Myanmar to “be confined in camps” after visiting their homeland as part of pilot scheme aimed at encouraging voluntary repatriation. A Bangladesh official said the pilot scheme envisaged about 1,100 refugees returning to Myanmar, but no date had been set.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said every refugee had “an inalienable right” to return to their home country, but that returns also had to be voluntary.
Myanmar’s military had until recently shown little inclination to take back any Rohingya, who have for years been regarded as foreign interlopers in Myanmar and denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.
Densely populated Bangladesh says that the refugees’ repatriation to Myanmar is the only solution to the crisis. Local communities have been increasingly hostile toward the Rohingya as international aid agencies funding for the refugees has been drying up.
The World Food Programme recently cut the monthly food allocation to $8 per person from $10 earlier.
“Our situation is only deteriorating. What future do we have here?” asked refugee Mohammed Taher, as he stood with other protesters.


Four children injured in knife attack in French town, two in critical condition

Four children injured in knife attack in French town, two in critical condition
Updated 08 June 2023

Four children injured in knife attack in French town, two in critical condition

Four children injured in knife attack in French town, two in critical condition

PARIS: A Syrian national wounded four children and an adult in a knife attack in a French park on Thursday, police said, leaving some of the victims critically ill in hospital.
The attack, which happened in the French alpine town of Annecy, was carried out by a Syrian national with legal refugee status in France, a police official told Reuters.
"Children and one adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock," French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on Twitter, calling the attack "an act of absolute cowardice".

 

 

French Interior minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that attacker had been arrested.
A local lawmaker, Antoine Armand, said the children were attacked on a playground. Speaking to BFMTV from the National Assembly building in Paris, he said the victims included “very young” children and that they were “savagely attacked.” The attack took place close to a primary school, he said.
National police and an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the developing situation both said that four children were among the wounded.
Police said two of the children suffered life-threatening injuries and that the other two were lightly injured.
Police said one adult also suffered life-threatening wounds.
Both police and the Interior Ministry official cautioned that cautioned that the number of wounded could evolve because the full details weren’t yet clear.
"Nothing more abominable than to attack children," French national assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. The French parliament observed a minute of silence to mark the incident.


EU makes fresh attempt to overcome yearslong crisis over migrants

EU makes fresh attempt to overcome yearslong crisis over migrants
Updated 08 June 2023

EU makes fresh attempt to overcome yearslong crisis over migrants

EU makes fresh attempt to overcome yearslong crisis over migrants
  • Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered, most fleeing conflict in Syria
  • EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson says Thursday’s meeting is “extremely important” to resolve what has “been a marathon” issue for Europe

BRUSSELS: European Union interior ministers on Thursday made a fresh attempt to overcome one of the bloc’s most intractable political problems as they weighed new measures for sharing out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization.
Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered — most of them fleeing conflict in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, in the process sparking one of the EU’s biggest political crises.
The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope.
Arriving for the meeting in Luxembourg, the EU’s top migration official, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said it was an “extremely important day” to resolve what has “been a marathon” issue for Europe.
“Of this marathon, we have maybe 100 meters left. So, we are so close to actually find an agreement today,” Johansson said. “I expect the member states to be able to do the final extra meters to reach the agreement.”
“If we are not united, we are all losers,” she said.
Under the existing rules, countries where migrants first arrive must interview and screen them and process the applications of those who might want to apply for asylum. But Greece, Italy and Malta maintain that the burden of managing the numbers of people coming in is too onerous.
Later attempts to impose quota systems on countries to share out the migrants were challenged in court and finally abandoned. EU countries now seem to agree that the assistance they provide must be mandatory but can take the form of financial and other help rather than migration sharing schemes.
The EU’s presidency, currently held by Sweden, has proposed a system under which countries who do not want to take migrants in could pay money instead. Figures of around 20,000 euros ($21,400) per migrant have circulated in the runup to the meeting. It remains unclear if the idea will be accepted.
Diplomats said ahead of the meeting that an agreement is only likely if big member countries France, Germany and Italy back the plan. A deal requires the support of a “qualified majority” — roughly two thirds of the 27 members but crucially also making up about two thirds of the EU population.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the compromise on the table “is very difficult for us.” She said that “I am fighting for us to have a Europe of open borders,” and warned that “should we fail today ... that would be the wrong signal.”
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that he had come with compromise proposals and that plenty of work remains to be done on what is a “very difficult” issue.
“What we want to do is completely change the situation on migration,” Darmanin said.
His Spanish counterpart, Fernando Grande-Marlaska — whose country has struggled to deal with an influx of people trying to enter from North Africa through Spanish islands in the Atlantic — warned that “if we don’t reach that agreement, I think that all of us will be losers.”
Even if a political agreement is reached Thursday, the member countries must still negotiate a full deal with the European Parliament, which has a different view of solidarity — one that requires countries to draw up detailed “annual migrant support plans” in case of emergency.
Lawmakers have warned that this is a last chance to solve the conundrum before EU-wide elections in a year, when migration is likely once again to be a hot-button issue.
Should the EU fail, the project might have to be abandoned or completely overhauled as it’s taken up by the next European Commission — the bloc’s executive branch — and the new members of parliament after next June’s polls.
“If we miss this chance to make it right, I don’t think we will have another,” Spanish Socialist lawmaker Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a leader on migration policy, said in April. “The kind of a message would be: ‘Hey, listen, it’s not going to happen. Not this time. Ever.’
The long-festering dispute has led to the collapse of Europe’s asylum system. Unable to agree, the EU has tried to outsource its migrant challenge, making legally and morally questionable deals with countries like Turkiye or Libya, which many people transit through on their way to Europe.


UNICEF concerned by Taliban move to bar international groups from Afghan education sector

UNICEF concerned by Taliban move to bar international groups from Afghan education sector
Updated 08 June 2023

UNICEF concerned by Taliban move to bar international groups from Afghan education sector

UNICEF concerned by Taliban move to bar international groups from Afghan education sector
  • Latest restriction on NGOs in Afghanistan after ban imposed in December on Afghan female staff
  • Around 17,000 teachers, including 5,000 women, work in UNICEF’s education activities

ISLAMABAD: UNICEF said Thursday it is deeply concerned by reports of the Taliban pushing out international organizations from Afghanistan’s education sector and ordering them to hand over their activities to local nongovernmental groups.
It’s the latest restriction on NGOs operating in the country after the ban imposed in December on Afghan female staff, allegedly because they weren’t wearing the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, correctly and weren’t complying with gender segregation in the workplace. In April, the ban was extended to the UN
A WhatsApp voice note, purportedly from a senior education official in Kabul, says all international organizations have a one-month deadline to transfer their education work to local groups.
The Education Ministry was not immediately available to verify the voice note, but aid agency officials said they are aware of the message and are taking it seriously. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
The ban on Afghan female staff working at the UN was also relayed through a WhatsApp voice note, purportedly from a senior Taliban figure.
“As the lead agency for education in Afghanistan, UNICEF is deeply concerned by reports that over 500,000 children, including over 300,000 girls, could lose out on quality learning through community-based education within a month if international non-governmental organizations working in the field of education are no longer allowed to operate and if handovers to national NGOs are done without comprehensive assessment and capacity building,” the agency said in a statement.
“UNICEF is seeking to better understand the reported directive, and what it could mean for the nationwide program that provides learning opportunities for children in some of the most remote and rural areas of Afghanistan.”
Around 17,000 teachers, including 5,000 women, work in UNICEF’s education activities.
UNICEF is meeting the Education Ministry in Kabul for further information.
Aid sources said some provinces have ordered the immediate suspension of all foreign-led education activities after officials reportedly told Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada that foreigners are creating their own Education Ministry and not coordinating their work with the Taliban.
The latest voice note says the new measure affects all international organizations, even if they are Islamic, and that only ministry-approved Afghan NGOs that agree to ministry conditions can take on education work. The order also affects school construction.
In April, the Taliban closed education centers and institutes supported by NGOs in the country’s south until further notice. The centers were mostly for girls, who are banned from going to school beyond sixth grade.
The ministry did not provide an explanation for the closures at the time. But an education department spokesman in Kandahar said the decision was made in response to complaints.
Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover of August 2021 and the economic collapse that followed it.


Italy ‘must not be left alone’ on migration: Germany’s Scholz

Italy ‘must not be left alone’ on migration: Germany’s Scholz
Italy, Greece and the other Mediterranean countries are receiving a huge influx of migrants . (AFP)
Updated 08 June 2023

Italy ‘must not be left alone’ on migration: Germany’s Scholz

Italy ‘must not be left alone’ on migration: Germany’s Scholz
  • Italy, Greece and the other Mediterranean countries are receiving a huge influx of migrants
  • Scholz called for a “joint distribution of responsibility and competences between EU Member States”

ROME: Italy cannot be abandoned to deal alone with migrant arrivals, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday ahead of a meeting in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“Italy, Greece and the other Mediterranean countries are facing a huge challenge as the number of people arriving at their borders is increasing,” Scholz said in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
“We cannot leave Italy and the other countries alone, we must adopt an approach of solidarity and responsibility,” the chancellor added.
Meloni, who heads a hard-right coalition, vowed in her election campaign last year to clamp down on migrant arrivals, but the number of people crossing to Italy by boat has risen significantly since the start of 2023.
Some 52,300 people landed in Italy between January 1 and June 7, compared to 21,200 during the same period in 2022, according to figures from the Interior Ministry.
Scholz called for a “joint distribution of responsibility and competences between EU Member States”, pointing out that Germany took in “more than a million” Ukrainian war refugees in 2022 as well as “230,000 refugees from other countries”.
Italy, which has long been on the frontline of migration from North Africa, says other European Union countries should do more to help, particularly by taking in some of the arrivals.
EU interior ministers were meeting Thursday in Luxembourg to attempt to reach an agreement on a long-stalled revision of the bloc’s rules to more equally share asylum seekers and migrants.
But diplomats have cautioned that the odds of a deal were still 50-50, with more countries adopting hard-line policies on the issue.