Australia moves to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders

Update Australia moves to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders
Australian soldiers participate in an operation in southern Afghanistan in this photo released on Oct. 21, 2009. (Australian Department of Defense photo via AFP)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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Australia moves to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders

Australia moves to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders
  • Defense Minister Richard Marles says decision was needed to ‘address the wrongs of the past’
  • Fewer than ten commanders will be stripped of their awards, but their names will not be released

SYDNEY: Australia on Thursday moved to strip medals from Afghanistan war commanders whose units were involved in alleged war crimes and “unlawful conduct.”

Defense Minister Richard Marles said the decision — related to specific unit commanders who were in charge between 2005 and 2016 — was needed to “address the wrongs of the past.”

Fewer than ten commanders will be stripped of their awards, but their names will not be released for privacy reasons.

An official inquiry into the 11-year period examined the alleged unlawful killing of 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan by Australia’s elite special forces.

Its findings in 2020 revealed a “sub-culture of elitism and deviation from acceptable standards,” Marles said, which “warranted the most serious, considered and thorough response.”

Almost all the report’s 143 recommendations have been adopted — including a medal review, a compensation scheme and culture reform.

The inquiry also suggested 19 individuals be referred to Australian Federal Police, but this process has been slow.

Police have so far only pressed charges against a former SAS soldier — whose case remains before the courts.

Ex-SAS corporal Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith notably lost a defamation case last year over allegations he had murdered four Afghan prisoners.

But he has not faced criminal charges and is not identified in the government’s report over any wrongdoing.

Despite being decorated for his service in Afghanistan, Roberts-Smith is not understood to be affected by the latest decision to strip unit commanders of their honors.

Marles said the commanders involved in Thursday’s decision may not have been aware of the war crimes their units allegedly carried out, but there was an expectation for them to know what was happening.

He vowed to continue reforming the defense force culture and police have not pressed charges.

“Australia is a country which holds itself accountable,” Marles said.

The governor-general of Australia — the king’s representative in the Commonwealth — will determine how and when the medals are handed back.

Greg Melick, president of the Returned and Services League of Australia veteran support group, said no medals should be taken away from recipients until all investigations and potential trials have been completed.

Melick said the incident had caused “significant strain” to veterans’ mental health — even those not involved in alleged incidents.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, more than 26,000 Australian uniformed personnel were sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside US and allied forces against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.

Australian combat troops officially left the country in late 2013, but since then a series of often-brutal accounts have emerged about the conduct of elite special forces units.


Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan

Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
Updated 3 sec ago
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Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan

Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
  • More than 1,000 people, many of them teenagers, joined a peaceful march in the northern Italian city organized by Fridays For Future, the climate change movement Thunberg helped found
MILAN: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attended a climate change and pro-Palestinian rally in Milan on Friday, days after her criticism of Israel sparked a row over protests in Germany.
More than 1,000 people, many of them teenagers, joined a peaceful march in the northern Italian city organized by Fridays For Future, the climate change movement Thunberg helped found.
Wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel, Thunberg walked near the front of the procession as other protesters waved flags, held banners and danced to music.
“Palestinians have been living under suffocating oppression for decades by an apartheid regime, and during the last year with Israel’s live broadcasted genocide, the world has once again abandoned Palestine,” the 21-year-old said in a speech.
The Gaza war began on October 7 last year, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and carried out the worst attack on Israel in its history.
The militants took 251 people hostage in an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures to be reliable.
Thunberg drew a link between global warming and the weapons industry.
“The fight for climate justice is a fight against the fossil fuel industry, just as much as it is a fight against the weapon industries, militarization and the over-extraction of natural resources,” she said.
German police on Tuesday closed a pro-Palestinian protest camp that had invited Thunberg after a rally she attended in Berlin Monday — the anniversary of the Hamas attack — ended in clashes with police.
She accused Germany of “silencing and threatening activists.”
The Milan march was part of a “national strike for the climate,” a series of protests organized by Fridays For Future across Italy.
“Demonstrating is the only weapon we have against the injustice that we suffer,” said protester Sofia Parisi, 17.

Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz

Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz
Updated 1 min 2 sec ago
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Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz

Ukraine’s Zelensky arrives in Berlin to meet with Scholz
  • The Ukrainian leader has been seeking fresh military and financial aid from his European allies as Kyiv faces a tough winter
  • He is set to renew his push for Germany to deliver more weapons including long-range missiles

BERLIN: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Kyiv’s presidency said Friday, the final leg of his whirlwind tour of European leaders.
The plane carrying Zelensky has landed, the Ukrainian presidency told AFP.
The Ukrainian leader has been seeking fresh military and financial aid from his European allies as Kyiv faces a tough winter.
He is set to renew his push for Germany, the biggest military aid supplier after the United States, to deliver more weapons including long-range missiles.
However, Scholz has rejected sending the German long-range Taurus missile system, fearing an escalation of NATO’s tense standoff with nuclear-armed Russia.
Zelensky has been on a two-day tour of London, Paris, Rome and now Berlin, amid fears of dwindling Western support if Donald Trump is elected US president next month.
A scheduled Ukraine defense meeting Saturday at the Ramstein US air base in western Germany was postponed after US President Joe Biden called off a state visit to Germany because of Hurricane Milton.
Russian forces have made advances across the eastern frontline and targeted the war-battered country’s power grid as Ukraine faces its toughest winter since the full-scale Russian invasion started in February 2022.
Russia said Friday its forces had captured the frontline villages of Zhelanne Druge and Ostrivske, the latest in a string of territorial gains for Moscow.
Zelensky has pushed for clearance to use long-range weapons supplied by allies, including British Storm Shadow missiles, to strike military targets deep inside Russia.
Washington and London have stalled on giving approval over fears it could draw NATO allies into direct conflict with Russia.
In Germany, Scholz’s refusal to deliver Taurus missiles is controversial, even within his own three-party coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
“We must supply Ukraine with significantly more air defense, ammunition and long-range weapons,” said the Greens’ European MP Anton Hofreiter.
“Restrictions on the range of weapons supplied do not contribute to de-escalation but rather enable further Russian attacks.”
The FDP’s defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told the same newspaper: “I very much hope that Zelensky will make it clear to the Chancellor once again that if Ukraine loses this war, this will not be the last war in Europe.”


Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders

Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders
Updated 3 min 23 sec ago
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Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders

Thai national killed by anti-tank missile in north Israel: first responders
  • Israel has been battling Hezbollah since the Iran-backed militant group started launching cross-border attacks from Lebanon in support of its Palestine

JERUSALEM: A Thai agricultural worker was killed by an anti-tank missile fired into northern Israel, Israeli emergency services said on Friday, while the army confirmed that two civilians were injured in a strike from Lebanon.
Israel has been battling Hezbollah since the Iran-backed militant group started launching cross-border attacks from Lebanon in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack.
“Following an anti-tank missile strike on farmland in Upper Galilee, (rescue workers) declared the death of a 27-year-old Thai foreign worker,” according to a statement from emergency service provider Magen David Adom (MDA).
Thai nationals in Israel have been particularly hard hit since the start of the war with Hamas, with at least 39 killed as a result of the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
More than two dozen are believed to have been captured by militants during the attack.
During a brief November truce, 23 Thais were released from captivity.
The Israeli army said two Thai nationals had died in captivity in Gaza in May.
About 30,000 Thai nationals live in Israel, where salaries are much higher than in the southeast Asian kingdom.
After over eleven months of cross-border clashes that displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, the Israeli army intensified its air strikes against Hezbollah from mid-September and later launched limited ground operations in southern Lebanon.


Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina

Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina
Updated 11 October 2024
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Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina

Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina
  • Shafiqur Rahman is the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members were hounded, driven underground and sentenced to death during Hasina’s rule
  • After Hasina’s toppling and exile in neighboring India following a student-led revolution in August, the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami’s activities was lifted

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s top religious party leader says he supports the extradition of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina to face trial for crimes against humanity in the same tribunal that convicted his colleagues.
Shafiqur Rahman is the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members were hounded, driven underground and sentenced to death during Hasina’s autocratic 15-year rule.
Her government justified the crackdown on the nation’s largest Islamic party by accusing it of sponsoring extremist attacks — charges Rahman denies.
After Hasina’s toppling and exile in neighboring India following a student-led revolution in August, the ban on Jamaat’s activities was lifted.
Rahman is leading its public revival.
Now back in the political mainstream, he says Hasina must be extradited to face trial with her allies for abuses committed during her tenure.
“We don’t believe in the theory that just because we faced injustice, someone else should also face injustice,” the 65-year-old told AFP at his party office in the capital Dhaka.
“But people want them to be tried. If they don’t face trial, these criminals will commit more crimes.”
Dozens of Hasina’s allies were taken into custody after her regime collapsed, accused of culpability in a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during the unrest that deposed her.
Several cases accusing Hasina of orchestrating the “mass murder” of protesters are being probed in a deeply contentious war crimes court her government set up.
The International Crimes Tribunal was ostensibly created to try Bangladeshis accused of committing crimes against humanity during the country’s devastating 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
The United Nations and rights groups criticized its procedural shortcomings, and it became widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate political opponents.
The tribunal hanged five of Jamaat’s top leaders, sparking protests that led to the deaths of around 500 people.
Rahman said it was important Hasina and her loyalists faced a fair trial, the kind denied to his executed comrades.
He said he was confident that the tribunal, if reformed, could meet the task.
“Whenever there is any crime against humanity in this country, then there is no problem with it being explored in the tribunal,” he said.
“If there is any disparity of law, if there is any contradiction with the constitution or human rights, that can be amended.”
At the same time, Rahman said Jamaat would challenge the tribunal’s former wrongdoings by posthumously appealing the death penalty verdicts handed to his former colleagues.
“We will prove that we faced injustices in the court which hanged our leaders,” he said.
Jamaat’s headquarters was shuttered for more than a decade but reopened days after Hasina’s downfall. It is now swarming with party activists.
The party will contest the next national elections, expected sometime in the next two years — but Rahman says they are in no rush.
Instead he wants the caretaker government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, to first fulfil its pledge of a democratic overhaul.
“The election would not be meaningful without reforms,” Rahman said.
So far there had been no alliance struck with its previous coalition partner, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), he said.
But Rahman did support the return of exiled BNP leader Tarique Rahman, convicted of graft charges during Hasina’s government, and who has lived in London since 2008.
“We have many false cases against us, so we believe he also has many false cases against him,” Rahman said.
Hasina accused Jamaat of supporting extremism and undermining the country’s secular constitution.
The impetus for her crackdown on the party was bolstered by several attacks during her time in office that killed bloggers accused of blasphemy and Westerners living in Dhaka.
Rahman emphatically denied the party’s association with any extremist group, saying Jamaat had long committed to the democratic process.
He cited Jamaat’s condemnation of a spate of attacks after Hasina’s toppling on Bangladesh’s minority Hindus, motivated by the community’s perceived support of her government.
And he pointed to the party’s efforts to guard Hindu temples and Sufi Muslim shrines after they were attacked since August.
“We are loud and clear,” he said. “We don’t have any ambiguity here. We don’t support any of this.”


Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy

Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy
Updated 11 October 2024
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Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy

Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy

SHENGJIN: Two reception centers built in Albania to take in migrants arriving in Italy opened their doors on Friday, an Italian official said, part of a deal between the two countries aimed at tackling irregular migration into the European Union.
The deal is the first example of a non-EU country accepting migrants on behalf of an EU nation and has drawn the interest of other Western nations seeking to discourage the growing numbers of migrants arriving from Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
“As of today the two centers are operational and ready to welcome the first ones,” said an Italian official who spoke on condition of anonymity in the port town of Shengjin, a port on Albania’s Adriatic coast where one of the facilities is located.
The 2023 deal with Albania stipulates that irregular migrants arriving in Italy will be taken by boat to Shengjin, where they will be identified and their applications for asylum processed.
They will then be driven a short distance inland to the small town of Gjader, where they will be accommodated.
Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries which is also a candidate for EU membership, cannot host more than 3,000 migrants in total at any one time under the deal.