Overwhelming majority of UK public want ICC arrest warrants pursued: Poll

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv. (File/AFP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv. (File/AFP)
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Updated 07 August 2024
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Overwhelming majority of UK public want ICC arrest warrants pursued: Poll

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference in the Kirya military base
  • Court’s chief prosecutor issued warrants for Israeli PM, defense minister in May
  • Only 18% of Britons oppose ending arms sales to Israel

LONDON: The overwhelming majority of people in Britain believe that the UK should arrest the subjects of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, a new poll has found.

Commissioned by the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestinians, the survey follows a request by Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The poll, conducted on July 30-31, found that 84 percent of the UK public believe that Netanyahu and Gallant should be arrested if they enter British jurisdiction.

The new UK government has overturned previous legal opposition to Khan’s move, which CAABU in a press release described as a “welcome first step.”

The organization’s director, Chris Doyle, said: “At some point, perhaps within weeks or even days, the British government may have to enforce ICC arrest warrants relating to the atrocities over the last 10 months. This government has assured the electorate it will adhere to international law.

“This poll shows the electorate overwhelmingly wants to see that and that full accountability and justice matters to them, regardless of who is accused. The climate of impunity enjoyed by so many for so long must end.”

Fifty-eight percent of Britons support ending weapons sales to Israel, the poll found. Only 18 percent oppose the move.

Despite the previous British government’s unwillingness to support a ceasefire in Gaza, 74 percent of the public believe that the UK should back an end to the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians and injured 91,000.

Rohan Talbot, MAP’s director of advocacy and campaigns, said: “As Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment, including of homes, healthcare and so-called ‘safe zones,’ wages on, the British public has reaffirmed widespread support for action by the UK government to bring the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza to an end.

“This includes suspending arms sales to Israel which may be used in violations of international law. Ten months in, people in Gaza cannot wait any longer — the government must act now.”

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Ten years after the genocide, their torment continues

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Indians demand justice in candlelight march for murdered doctor

Indians demand justice in candlelight march for murdered doctor
Updated 58 min 6 sec ago
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Indians demand justice in candlelight march for murdered doctor

Indians demand justice in candlelight march for murdered doctor
  • The brutal murder of a women doctor triggered protests across India and repeated strikes by medics --- demanding safer conditions for women

Kolkata: Vast crowds of Indians bearing candles marched through the streets of Kolkata early Thursday, demanding justice nearly one month on since the rape and murder of a doctor.
The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in Kolkata on August 9 has stoked nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
“We want justice,” read one message spelt out in flickering candles and clay lamps.
“Let there be light, let there be justice,” a sign held by protesters read.
The brutal murder has triggered protests across India — and repeated strikes by medics --- demanding safer conditions for women.
While many protests and strikes have since calmed in the rest of India, regular demonstrations continue in the sprawling megacity of Kolkata.
Police said as many as 100,000 took part in the rally in Kolkata. Similar but smaller rallies were also held in the capital New Delhi.
“The heart of the entire nation is torn,” said protester Rubina Mukherjee.
Thousands gathered late on Wednesday evening, joining hundreds of doctors who are maintaining a strike, linking arms to form a human chain in a protest to “reclaim the night.”
Many lights were turned out for an hour, plunging a swath of the city into darkness, with protesters bearing flaming torches lighting up the city’s night sky like fireflies.
“We will take back the night, time and again, until justice is delivered,” said 35-year-old housewife Smita Roy.
Traffic ground to a halt in Kolkata’s usually bustling main city streets, as women blocked the route with a mass sit-in, waving a sea of Indian flags.
At times, crowds shouted in anger, chanting “We Want Justice.”
But they also paused in quiet reflection as the candles were lit, before softly singing.
The father of the murdered doctor also spoke at the rally outside the hospital where her battered body had been found, talking of his family’s “broken hearts” and how they had been “shocked to the core” by the killing.
Demonstrators have given the murdered doctor the nickname “Abhaya,” meaning “fearless.”
One man has been detained for the murder, but West Bengal’s government has faced public criticism for the handling of the investigation.
The father spoke in fury at what he said had been “so much pressure” on his family to rapidly cremate her body.
“We wanted to keep her body... What was the hurry to cremate her? Mystery shrouds her death,” he said.
He also dismissed a state law passed on Tuesday — that could lead to the execution of rapists — as nothing “but a populist sham.”
The protests were largely peaceful, although in places, small scuffles between the protesters and supporters of West Bengal state’s ruling party, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), broke out.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said schoolteacher Parbati Roy, 54, holding a candle.
“We are wanting to shed light on the investigation into the rape of the murder of the junior doctor.”
India’s Supreme Court has ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the “horrific” killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus.
It became a major political issue, and was seen as one factor in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) subsequent success in elections.
An average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.


First mpox vaccines due in DR Congo today

First mpox vaccines due in DR Congo today
Updated 05 September 2024
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First mpox vaccines due in DR Congo today

First mpox vaccines due in DR Congo today
  • The vast central Africa country of around 100 million people is at the epicenter of the mpox outbreak, with cases and deaths rising
  • More than 17,500 cases and 629 deaths have been reported in DR Congo since the start of the year, World Health Organization says

KINSHASA: The first delivery of almost 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines will arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, the African Union’s health watchdog said, with a total of 200,000 jabs expected this week.
The vast central Africa country of around 100 million people is at the epicenter of the mpox outbreak, with cases and deaths rising.
“We are very pleased with the arrival of this first batch of vaccines in the DRC,” Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told AFP, adding that more than 99,000 doses were expected on Thursday.
More than 17,500 cases and 629 deaths have been reported in the country since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The first cargo of vaccine doses will be transported onboard an aeroplane leaving the Danish capital Copenhagen on Wednesday evening and are due to arrive at Kinshasa’s international airport on Thursday at 1100 GMT.
Another flight carrying the rest of the 200,000 jabs is scheduled to arrive before the end of the week, Africa CDC confirmed. These first vaccines come from the laboratory of Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic.
According to the WHO, the DRC’s government plans to start rolling out the jabs at the weekend.
UNICEF says that thousands of children in the DRC and neighboring countries are at serious risk of contracting the disease.
“We are in a health war against mpox. To face this disease, we need you,” Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said on X on Tuesday.
In Africa, mpox is now present in at least 13 countries, including Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, according to figures from Africa CDC dated August 27.
On Wednesday, Guinea said it had recorded its first confirmed case of the disease, convening an emergency meeting in response.
A health official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that the case was discovered in a sub-prefecture close to the Liberian border.
Outside the continent, the virus has also been detected in Sweden, Pakistan and the Philippines.
Other countries have also promised to send vaccine doses to African nations.
Spain has promised 500,000 doses, with France and Germany each pledging 100,000.
The WHO declared an international emergency over mpox on August 14, concerned by the surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.
Both the Clade 1b and Clade 1a strains are present in the DRC.
The WHO’s Africa bureau said at the end of last month that 10,000 vaccine doses would be delivered to Nigeria — Bavarian Nordic vaccines donated by the United States.
This was the first African country to receive doses outside of clinical trials.
Formerly called monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys kept for research.
It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC.
Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.


Pope Francis, grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque make joint call to fight violence, protect planet

Pope Francis, grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque make joint call to fight violence, protect planet
Updated 05 September 2024
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Pope Francis, grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque make joint call to fight violence, protect planet

Pope Francis, grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque make joint call to fight violence, protect planet
  • Pontiff travels to Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal Mosque for a gathering with representatives of the six religions officially recognized in Indonesia
  • The interfaith gathering was the highlight of Francis’ visit to Indonesia, which concludes later Thursday with a giant Mass in Jakarta’s stadium

JAKARTA: Pope Francis and the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque vowed Thursday to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the environment, issuing a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of Francis’ visit to Indonesia.
In an encounter rich with symbolic meaning and personal touches, Francis traveled to Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal Mosque for an interreligious gathering with representatives of the six religions that are officially recognized in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.
There, he and the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar, stood at the ground-level entrance to the “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underpass which connects the mosque compound with the neighboring Catholic cathedral, Our Lady of the Assumption.
Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, has held out the tunnel as a tangible sign of its commitment to religious freedom, which is enshrined in the constitution but has been challenged by repeated instances of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.
From January 2021 to July 2024, there were at least 123 cases of intolerance, including rejection, closure or destruction of places of worship and physical attacks, Amnesty International noted on the eve of Francis’ visit.
Approaching the elevator to the tunnel, Francis said it was a potent sign of how different religious traditions “have a role to play in helping everyone pass through the tunnels of life with our eyes turned toward the light.”
He encouraged all Indonesians of every religious tradition to “walk in search of God and contribute to building open societies, founded on reciprocal respect and mutual love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justifiable.”
Francis traveled to Indonesia, at the start of an 11-day, four-nation trip to Asia and Oceania, to encourage Indonesia to combat religiously inspired violence and pledge the Catholic Church’s commitment to greater fraternity.
The meeting at the mosque showed the personal side of that policy, with Francis and Umar — the 87-year-old pope and the more youthful 65-year-old imam — showing a clear affinity for one another. As Francis was leaving in his wheelchair, Umar bent down and kissed Francis on the head. Francis then grasped Umar’s hand, kissed it and held it to his cheek.
The event began with a similarly moving moment, as a visually impaired Indonesian teenage girl, Kayla Nur Syahwa, chanted verses from the Qur’an about tolerance among believers of different faiths.
Francis has made improving Catholic-Muslim ties a hallmark of his papacy and has prioritized travel to majority Muslim nations to further the agenda.
During a 2019 visit to the Gulf, Francis and the imam of Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni learning, launched a “Human Fraternity” movement calling for greater Christian-Muslim efforts to promote peace around the world. More recently, Francis traveled to Najaf, Iraq, in 2021 to visit the top Shiite cleric, who delivered a message of peaceful coexistence.
The new initiative launched Thursday, called “The Istiqlal Declaration,” now becomes another pillar of Francis’ interfaith push. It was signed by Francis and Umar at a formal ceremony in the tent on the Istiqlal mosque compound. The other religious representatives at the encounter didn’t co-sign it but were listed by organizers as having “accompanied” it.
The document said religion should never be abused to justify violence, but should instead be used to resolve conflicts and protect and promote human dignity. It also called for “decisive action” to protect the environment and its resources, blaming man-made actions for the current climate crisis.
“The human exploitation of creation, our common home, has contributed to climate change, leading to various destructive consequences such as natural disasters, global warming and unpredictable weather patterns,” it read. “This ongoing environmental crisis has become an obstacle to the harmonious coexistence of peoples.”
Fighting climate change has been an important priority for the Argentine Jesuit pope, who has issued encyclicals insisting on the moral dimension of caring for God’s creation. The climate issue is of existential importance to Indonesia, a tropical archipelago stretching across the equator and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest and a variety of endangered wildlife and plants.
Umar, the grand imam, recalled in his remarks to the gathering that the Istiqlal mosque was designed by a Christian architect and is used for a variety of social and educational programs that benefit everyone, not just Muslims.
Calling the mosque “a big house for humanity,” he said the tunnel was a melting pot for people of different faiths. “We hope and have the principle that humanity is one, so anyone can enter and benefit,” he said.
The interfaith gathering was the highlight of Francis’ visit to Indonesia, which concludes later Thursday with a giant Mass in Jakarta’s stadium expected to draw some 60,000 people. Catholics represent about 3 percent of Indonesia’s population of 275 million, but the country is home to the world’s largest Catholic seminary and has long been a top source of priests and nuns for the Catholic Church.
Francis is seeking to encourage their faith by becoming the third pope to visit Indonesia, after Paul VI in 1970 and John Paul II in 1989.
On Friday, Francis heads to Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his trip, one of the longest and farthest in papal history, which will also take him to East Timor and Singapore before it ends Sept. 13.


Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysia will not stop South China Sea exploration despite China protests

Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysia will not stop South China Sea exploration despite China protests
Updated 05 September 2024
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Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysia will not stop South China Sea exploration despite China protests

Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysia will not stop South China Sea exploration despite China protests
  • Malaysia’s exploration activities were within its territory and were not intended to be provocative or hostile toward China, PM says
  • Leaked note reveals Beijing’s assertion that Malaysia’s oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea breached its territory

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Thursday the country will not stop its oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea despite claims by Beijing that Malaysia was infringing on its territory.
Anwar, speaking from Russia where he is on an official trip, said Malaysia’s exploration activities were within its territory and were not intended to be provocative or hostile toward China, with whom it has friendly relations.
“Of course, we will have to operate in our waters and secure economic advantage, including drilling for oil, in our territory,” Anwar said in a televised press conference in Vladivostok.
“We have never denied the possibility of discussion (with China). But it doesn’t mean we have to stop the operation in our area.”
Malaysia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it would investigate the leak of a classified diplomatic note from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
In the note, which was carried by a Philippine news outlet, Beijing asserted that Malaysia’s oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea breached its territory.
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including parts of the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, complicating energy exploration efforts by several of those countries.
Under international law, an EEZ does not denote sovereignty, but grants a country sovereign rights to extract natural resources from those waters.
Malaysian state energy firm Petronas, or Petroliam Nasional Berhad, operates oil and gas fields in the South China Sea within Malaysia’s EEZ and has in recent years had several encounters with Chinese vessels.
Anwar said China has sent “one or two” protest notes to stop Malaysia’s oil exploration activities, without specifying details, but stressed that the government would continue to explain to Beijing its position.
“We have said that we will not transgress other people’s borders. That is our stringent policy and principles,” he said.
“They know our position.... They have claimed that we are infringing on their territory. That is not the case. We say no, it is our territory.”
“But if they continue with the dispute, then okay, we will have to listen, and they will have to listen.”
An international arbitration tribunal in The Hague in 2016 ruled China’s claim to about 90 percent of the South China Sea, made via a U-shaped “nine-dash line” on its maps, had no basis under international law, a decision Beijing does not recognize.


UK-bound Air India plane makes emergency landing in Moscow

UK-bound Air India plane makes emergency landing in Moscow
Updated 05 September 2024
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UK-bound Air India plane makes emergency landing in Moscow

UK-bound Air India plane makes emergency landing in Moscow
  • The plane, en route from New Delhi to Birmingham, landed safely without any injuries to all 258 passengers and 17 crew members
  • In July, an Air India plane made a precautionary landing in Siberia after the cockpit crew detected potential issue in the cargo hold

MOSCOW: An Air India Boeing 787-800 passenger plane en route from India to Britain made a precautionary landing in Moscow on Wednesday due to “technical problems,” Sheremetyevo Airport said.
The plane, en route from New Delhi to Birmingham, landed safely without any injuries to all 258 passengers and 17 crew members.
The scheduled departure time of the flight was set for 2135 Moscow time (1835 GMT).
In July, an Air India plane operating from Delhi to San Francisco made a precautionary landing in the Russian region of Siberia after the cockpit crew detected a potential issue in the cargo hold area.