DT e-Paper 21 March 2017

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DT 8 World TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017 SOUTH ASIA Pakistan to reopen of border with Afghanistan Pakistan on Monday ordered the border with Afghanistan to be reopened, a month after it was closed amid soaring tensions as Islamabad and Kabul accused one another of providing safe haven for militants. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the two main crossings on the long, porous border be reopened as a gesture of goodwill. AFP INDIA India’s NIA issues fresh summons to Zakir Naik India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday issued a second notice to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik asking him to appear before it on March 30 in a case filed against him under an anti-terror law. The agency had early this month issued the first summons to him, asking him to appear on March 14. HT CHINA China warns US over arms sales to Taiwan China on Monday reiterated its firm opposition to US arm sales to Taiwan, amid reports that Donald Trump’s administration is preparing a large shipment of advanced weaponry for the self-ruling island. “China firmly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan, this is consistent and clear-cut,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing. AFP ASIA PACIFIC New Zealand expels US diplomat after ‘incident’ New Zealand has expelled an attache at the US Embassy after Washington declined to waive his right to diplomatic immunity after an “incident” which gave him a broken nose and a black eye. New Zealand police said they responded to the incident near the capital on March 12 involving an employee of the US Embassy but did not say what work the employee did or give any other details. REUTERS MIDDLE EAST Strikes pound east Damascus after rebel assault Heavy air strikes hammered opposition-held neighbourhoods of Syria’s capital on Monday after regime forces pushed back a surprise assault that saw rebels try to fight their way into the city centre. Rebels and allied jihadists launched an attack early Sunday on government positions in east Damascus, initially scoring gains. AFP FBI director confirms probe of possible Russia links to Trump team • AFP, Washington, DC FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time Monday that the agency is investigating Russian interference in last year’s presidential election and notably Moscow’s possible collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign. The FBI “is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey told a hearing by the House Intelligence Committee. “And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts,” he said. Comey’s disclosure confirmed longstanding reports that the FBI was probing the explosive charges that Trump’s stunning election victory over Hillary Clinton last November came on the back of Russian meddling. US intelligence chiefs said in Indian Hindu devotees gather on the banks of the river Ganga to take a ‘holy dip’ in Allahabad on February 3, 2015 AFP After New Zealand, India’s Ganga gains legal status of a person • Tribune Desk FBI Director James Comey, left, and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Intelligence hearing on March 20 in Washington, DC AFP The river Ganga was recognised Monday as the first living entity of India by the Uttarakhand High Court. One of the largest rivers in India, Ganga is considered to be the holiest river in the country and holds a high place in its mythology. The Ganga is worshipped as a goddess, and for centuries Indians have come to it, especially in Varanasi, to be near its holy banks and to cremate their loved ones by it. Recognising a river as a living entity means granting it the same legal rights as a human being. The new status means if someone pollutes river Ganga, the law will see it equal to harming a human being. This ruling comes only four days after New Zealand’s parliament granted the same rights to the 145-kilometre long Whanganui River, after calling it a living entity. The river became the first in the world to be legally recognised as a living entity and was granted the same rights as a human being. The court also ruled the government to form a Ganga Administration Board for cleaning and better maintenance of the river. Earlier in the month, the court came heavily down upon the Union and Uttarakhand state government for doing “nothing concrete” to clean the river. The court slammed them for wasting efforts on reviving a lost river Saraswati but not taking efforts on maintaining Ganga which if given proper attention will once again flow in its full glory. • January they were convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind that effort. But they had not commented on whether they were examining links between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. Republican committee chair Devin Nunes opened Monday’s hearing, the first public hearing into the issue, by saying the panel had “seen no evidence to date that officials from any campaign conspired with Russian agents.” But Adam Schiff, the Democratic vice chair of the committee, detailed a list of alleged links and communications between the Trump team and Russia. “Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated, and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence? Yes, it is possible,” he said. “But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated, and that the Russians used the same techniques to corrupt US persons that they have employed in Europe and elsewhere.” • Police shooting stokes anger among Israel’s Arab minority • Tribune Desk On a wind-swept hilltop in this Bedouin village, a cracked solar panel lying atop a mattress and slabs of broken concrete provide an eerie reminder of a clash that has come to symbolise the strained relations between Israel’s government and its Arab minority. On a frigid January morning, Yaakub Abu al-Qiyan was shot dead as his jeep swerved into Israeli police who had come to demolish his illegally built home. At the time, police called the 47-yearold schoolteacher a terrorist with ties to the IS. But officials now acknowledge he may have rammed into the forces unintentionally and that his fatal shooting could have been a mistake. Arabs make up about 20% of Israel’s 8.5m residents. They are Israeli citizens but frequently face unfair treatment in areas like jobs and housing. Many Israeli Jews view them as disloyal because they largely identify with the Palestinians, and some have openly sided with Israel’s enemies. Making up just a small part of Israel’s diverse Arab minority, Bedouin tend to be at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, although they are among the few who are Comey: No evidence of Trump wiretapping claim • Reuters, Washington, DC FBI Director James Comey on Monday said that neither the Department of Justice nor his own agency had evidence to support a claim by US President Donald Trump that his Trump Tower headquarters had been wiretapped during the 2016 election campaign. “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets,” Comey told a congressional hearing. “And we have looked carefully inside the FBI. The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components: the department has no information that supports those tweets,” he said. Trump created a controversy in early March when he tweeted without giving evidence that former President Barack Obama’s administration had wiretapped Trump Tower in New York. • willing to serve in the army. Tensions have grown since the 2015 election, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu galvanised supporters by warning that “Arab voters are going in droves to the polls.” The government vowed to crack down harder on illegal Arab construction after a court order forced it to evacuate Jewish settlers from an illegally built West Bank outpost, angering a key constituency. Arabs say the equivalency is false. Israeli settlers are allowed to build on occupied territory, while Arab citizens face long-standing state-imposed barriers to acquiring permits to build inside Israel itself. Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab bloc in parliament, called the clash a “terrible chapter in a much larger story, one of discrimination and segregation in the Negev.” Like some 100,000 others who live in the 35 southern Arab villages unrecognised by the state, they aren’t connected to water, electrical grids, paved roads or school systems and have to rely on the services of the nearby township of Hura, a 10-minute drive away. A small mosque serves as the centre of activity, with generators and solar panels providing most of their energy needs. •
World Britain’s May to launch EU divorce proceedings on March 29 • Reuters, London Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Britain’s divorce proceedings with the EU on March 29, launching two years of negotiations that will reshape the future of the country and Europe. May’s government said her permanent envoy to the EU had informed European Council President Donald Tusk of the date when Britain intends to invoke Article 50 of its Lisbon Treaty, the mechanism for starting its exit after a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48% margin to leave the bloc. The EU said it was ready to begin the negotiations and within 48 hours of the trigger on March 29, Tusk will send the other 27 member states his draft negotiating guidelines, which means that talks could start in May. Sterling fell half a cent against the dollar on what Brexit minister David Davis described as a move taking Britain to “the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation”. May, 60, hopes to negotiate terms that keep trade, financial and political relations with EU member states as close as possible after Brexit, but also satisfy eurosceptics in her Conservative Party who demand a complete break from an institution they say has stolen British sovereignty. It will be a difficult and ambitious balancing act. Talks on departing the prosperous club Britain joined in 1973 are likely to be the most complex London has held since World War II, with other EU leaders saying they will not give May an easy ride. With nationalism and anti-establishment, anti-immigrant sentiment spreading across Western Europe, the EU leadership in Brussels is anxious to avoid encouraging others in the 28-member bloc to bolt. At the same time, May faces threats by Scottish nationalists to call a new independence referendum that could break up the UK and fears in Northern Ireland that a “hard border” with EU member Ireland will return after Brexit. • EU citizens in UK anxiously seek security before Brexit • Tribune Desk Sam Schwarzkopf, a German neuroscientist at University College London, was startled to receive a letter from the British government telling him that his application for permanent residence had been rejected and he should prepare to leave the UK. As a EU citizen, he is legally entitled to live in UK, and last year’s decision by UK voters to leave the 28-nation bloc hasn’t changed that. But he is one of hundreds of thousands of Europeans battling British bureaucracy to confirm their legal status, and sometimes discovering that the process only increases their uncertainty. Before last year’s EU membership referendum, most people didn’t even know the cards existed. Residents of EU nations can live and work across the bloc, no special visas or paperwork are needed for Europeans living in Britain. That will change once Britain leaves Anger, frustration in Kurdish southeast to shape Turkey’s referendum • Reuters, Diyarbakir, Turkey Thronged with shoppers and men sipping tea on a warm day in early spring, the main streets of Turkey’s Diyarbakir show few signs of the devastation wrought by months of fighting last year between Kurdish militants and security forces. But nearby in Sur, the historic district that saw some of the worst violence, the narrow back alleys simmer with anger. Many residents blame both the state and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. How voters in Sur and across the largely Kurdish southeast view the 33-year-old conflict could shape the outcome of an April referendum intended to give President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers. In a close race, pollsters say Kurdish voters, about a Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May fifth of the electorate, could tip the balance. One resident, Serkan, gestures toward bombed-out buildings and fields of rubble. “Our homes, our memories and our past have been erased, and both sides are to blame for that,” he says. A 2-1/2-year ceasefire between the government and the PKK broke down in July 2015, pitching the southeast into the worst violence in decades. During the months of security operations that followed, about 2,000 people were killed and up to a half a million displaced, the United Nations has estimated. Diyarbakir is seen by many of Turkey’s 15 million Kurds as their cultural capital, and Sur is the warren of streets in its ancient heart, encircled by towering Roman-era basalt walls. • the EU, after a two-year divorce process due to begin by March 31. But no one is sure exactly how. Britain says it will end free movement and impose controls on EU immigration, but has given no details. Officials in both the UK and the EU say the 3m EU citizens living in Britain, and the 1m Britons who reside elsewhere in the bloc, should be allowed to stay. But there has not been a formal guarantee, or a decision on when the cutoff date for legal residence could be. That leaves Europeans in Britain anxious, and gives the previously obscure residence cards new value as proof of immigrants’ legal status. The number of residence cards issued by the British government shot up sevenfold between the final quarter of 2015 and the same period in 2016. There were 240,000 applications in all of 2016, a number that has stressed the civil service, which at the end of 2016 was working through 90,000 unprocessed applications. • Pakistan PM orders reopening of border with Afghanistan • AFP, Islamabad REUTERS Pakistan on Monday ordered the border with Afghanistan to be reopened “immediately”, a month after it was closed amid soaring tensions as Islamabad and Kabul accused one another of providing safe haven for militants. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the two main crossings on the long, porous border be reopened as a gesture of “goodwill”, a statement from his office said. The crossings, Torkham at the famed Khyber Pass, and Chaman in Balochistan province, were closed last month after a wave of militant violence killed 130 people across Pakistan. Afghanistan has long accused Pakistan of providing safe haven to the Afghan Taliban, and the claim sparked a diplomatic furore as both countries traded allegations. The two nations are divided by the “Durand Line”, a 2,400- km frontier drawn by the British in 1896 and disputed by Kabul, which does not officially recognise it as an international border. • 9 TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017 DT USA Pressure builds on Trump to back off wiretap accusations US lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday they had seen no proof to support the claim by President Donald Trump that his predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him last year, adding pressure on Trump to explain or back off his repeated assertion. Several Republicans last week urged Trump to apologise for the allegations he made in a series of tweets on March 4. REUTERS THE AMERICAS Mexican authorities find more bodies in clandestine graves Mexican authorities said Sunday they found the remains of nearly 50 bodies in clandestine graves in the convulsed state of Veracruz, lashed for years by organised crime, where a few days ago it was reported that other 250 corpses. In eight graves within a perimeter of 120sq meters in the municipality of Alvarado so far have been extracted 47 skulls plus multiple body parts, state prosecutor Jorge Winckler said. REUTERS UK May starts UK tour before pulling Brexit trigger UK Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Wales on Monday as part of a plan to engage with all the nations before she formally launches Brexit. May is due to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, by the end of this month, and her office said she would be visiting Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to hear people’s views. REUTERS EUROPE Merkel warns Germany could ban Turkish campaign events Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday warned that Germany could ban future campaign events by Turkish politicians on its soil unless Ankara stopped “Nazi” jibes aimed at Berlin. Merkel stressed that such insults must stop, “no ifs, no buts”, and that Germany reserved the right to “take all necessary measures, including reviewing the permissions” for campaign events it had already granted. AFP AFRICA 10 killed in latest Kenya drought clash At least 10 people have been killed in the latest clashes in drought-hit Kenya between rural communities fighting over pasture to graze their animals, police said Monday. Herders from the Borana and Samburu communities fought a gun battle on Sunday in an area in the centre of the country called Kom, where both groups had taken their livestock to graze. AFP
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DT e-Paper 21 March 2017

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