DT e-Paper 14 April 2017

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DT 8 World FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2017 SOUTH ASIA Pakistan mob kills student over alleged blasphemy Police in Pakistan say a mob has killed a university student over alleged blasphemy. Police officer Saleem Khan says a group of students at the Abdul Wali Khan University in the northwestern city of Mardan attacked Mohammad Mashal, accusing him of sharing blasphemous content on Facebook. Khan says the university has been closed indefinitely to prevent further violence. AP INDIA Assembly bypolls: BJP wins 5, Congress bags 3 The BJP on Thursday won half of the 10 Assembly seats in bypolls across seven States and Delhi while the Congress bagged three and the Trinamool Congress and the JMM one each with all but two of the seats being retained. Maintaining its hold, the ruling Congress in Karnataka retained the Nanjangud and Gundlupet Assembly seats in which the party and the BJP had played for high stakes. THE HINDU CHINA Trump: China is not manipulating currency US President Donald Trump reversed himself Wednesday and said China is not manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump appeared to lay to rest a simmering issue that threatened to erode relations with Beijing, just days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida. AFP ASIA PACIFIC At least 11 dead in Indonesian boat accidents At least 11 people were killed Thursday in two separate boat accidents on Indonesia’s main island of Java, officials said. Five others were reported missing in the waters of a vast archipelago that relies heavily on boat transport but has a poor safety record. Boat accidents are common in Indonesia. AFP MIDDLE EAST Rebel court sentences Yemen journalist to death A Yemeni court in the rebel-held capital has sentenced a veteran journalist to death on charges of spying for neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the press union and rebel media said Thursday. Prosecutors alleged that Jubaihi had been receiving a monthly salary of $1,200 from Riyadh since 2010, four years before the rebels overran the capital. AFP Russia, US at odds as OPCW probes Syria gas attack • Tribune Desk The international body on chemical weapons control is testing samples from a suspected nerve gas attack that killed at least 87 people in Syria last week and could produce a report on the matter within three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday. The report comes one day after Russia vetoed a Western-backed UN Security Council resolution demanding a speedy probe into the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the veto left Moscow with “a lot to prove.” The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has a standing fact-finding mission on Syria to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks, but does not apportion blame. The OPCW’s executive council held a session of its Assad: Chemical attack 100% fabrication • AFP, Damascus Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a “fabrication” to justify a US military strike, as Moscow digs in to defend its ally despite increasing strains with Washington. In an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus – his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US air strike on Syrian forces – Assad said his army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military power was not affected by the US strike. “Definitely, 100% for us, it’s fabrication,” he said in the interview on Wednesday in reference to the alleged chemical weapons attack. “Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is handin-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack.” SYRIA CHEMICAL ATTACK UN Security Council vote Russia on Wednesday vetoed a resolution demanding that the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation Ten members supported the resolution Permanent members Britain France United States China Russia Abstained Vetoed Other members Two-year terms Until Until Dec 31, 2017 Dec 31, 2018 Egypt Japan Senegal Ukraine Uruguay Bolivia Against Ethiopia Abstained Italy Kazakhstan Abstained Sweden Civilians gassed Areas controlled as of March 30 LEBANON executive council on Thursday to address the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, in the rebel-held province of Western leaders including US President Donald Trump have accused Assad of being behind last week’s attack in the rebel-held town Khan Sheikhun, saying his forces unleashed a chemical At least 87 civilians, including 31 children, killed in sarin gas Aleppo attack April 4 Idlib Latakia Rebels Khan Sheikhun Syrian regime US missiles hit and allies air base April 7 Homs The United States accused Syrian regime forces of carrying out the gas attack Damascus Turkey and rebel allies TURKEY Kobane Kurds JORDAN Raqa Sources: ISW/SOHR/UN IS Group IRAQ 25 km weapon during an air strike. The suspected attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage. • US’ first female Muslim judge found dead • Tribune Desk A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge has been found dead in New York’s Hudson River. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York’s highest court, was found floating off Manhattan’s west side on Wednesday, a police Syrian President Bashar al-Assad AFP spokesman said. Police pulled her fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. Police said her body showed no obvious signs of trauma, and they declined to speculate on the cause of her death. Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington DC, became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state’s high court in 2013. Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said her colleague will be “missed deeply”. “Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us . • Idlib, northern Syria. Britain’s delegation to the OPCW tweeted from the executive session that the “Fact Finding Mission is working to gather evidence” and has already started testing samples in a lab. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Thursday he expected the OPCW to conduct an extensive probe into the attack, and insisted the organization visit both Khan Sheikhoun and the air base struck by US missiles. But Moscow vetoed a Security Council resolution that would demand a speedy investigation a day earlier. Russia is a steadfast backer of the Syrian government amid that country’s bloody 6-year civil war. In northern Syria, US-backed Ku- The Syrian army meanwhile issued a statement saying that the US-led coalition attacked a position of the Islamic State group in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, killing hundreds of fighters and civilians, many of them from poisonous gas. • Trump puts chief strategist Bannon at arm’s length • Tribune Desk US President Donald Trump has declared: “I am my own strategist.” That would seem to bode poorly for his actual strategist, Steve Bannon. And Trump now appears to be publicly distancing himself. In an interview with The New York Post, the president said “I like Steve” and called his adviser “a good guy” — but one who wasn’t really all that involved with his winning election campaign. He said his warring senior officials, including Bannon, must “straighten it out or I will.” In a second interview with The Wall Street Journal, he dismissively called Bannon “a guy who works for me.” The unusual public, lukewarm support from the boss has Bannon’s friends and advisers worried he will soon be out of a job. But shedding Bannon would be no simple staff shake-up. “I think it’s important to recognise the value of the base. It’s important to recognise the base sees their advocate in Steve Bannon,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who has known the president for decades. Bannon is not the only Trump official to find himself in the hot seat in a White House divided. Press Secretary Sean Spicer has also come under fire for comments he made about the Holocaust on Tuesday. •
World 9 FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2017 DT China warns against force in Korean Peninsula as US warships near • Tribune Desk Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. With a US aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and tension rising, South Korea said it believed the United States would consult it before any pre-emptive strike against the North. Fears have been growing that the reclusive North could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of UN sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. China, North Korea’s sole major ally and benefactor, which nevertheless opposes its weapons program, has called for talks leading EU-Turkey ties hang in referendum balance • AFP, Brussels The future of badly strained EU-Turkey relations hangs in the balance Sunday when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asks voters to give him increased powers that opponents say will lead to authoritarian rule. Ties with the EU are a key issue for Turks long-promised membership of the bloc and Erdogan has rounded savagely on Brussels at the slightest criticism of his actions. As for Turkey’s EU membership bid, it would be back “on the table” after the referendum, he said Sunday. Analysts say Erdogan’s stinging rhetoric is meant to appeal to Turkish nationalists whose votes will be crucial in Sunday’s referendum which looks too close to call. The hopeful flip side is that he is at heart a pragmatist who will come to terms with the EU when the dust settles. For the moment however, things are about as bad as they get. The Nazi jibes in particular seem a new departure as Ankara lashed out after the cancellation in several EU member states of pro-Erdogan referendum rallies. At the same time, analysts said, the EU and strategically-placed Turkey still had many shared interests as major trading and investment partners. • to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearisation of the peninsula. Military force cannot resolve the issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. “Amid challenge there is opportunity. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks.” While US President Donald Trump has put North Korea on notice that he would not tolerate any provocation, US officials have said his administration was focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump has diverted the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group towards the Korean peninsula, which could take more than a week to arrive, in a show of force aimed at deterring North Korea from conducting another nuclear test or launching more missiles to coincide with important events and anniversaries. • European court rules Russia mishandled Beslan school siege • Reuters, Moscow Russian authorities breached European human rights laws when they stormed a school seized by Islamist militants in 2004, contributing to the deaths of more than 300 hostages, the continent’s rights court ruled on Thursday. Militants demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya seized some 1,100 children, parents and teachers as they celebrated the first day of the school year in September 2004. On September 3 the siege ended in a series of explosions and a bloody shootout when Russian forces moved in. Among the more than 330 dead were at least 180 children. A further 750 people were wounded when security forces used “tank cannon, grenade launchers and flamethrowers” while trying to free more than 1,000 hostages at the school in the southern Russian town of Beslan. This, said the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, “contributed to the casualties among the hostages” and did not respect the hostages’ “right to life” by failing to restrict lethal force to what was “absolutely necessary”. • WHO: Two billion people drinking contaminated water • AFP, Geneva Hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they are forced to drink contaminated water, the WHO said, urging large investments to help provide universal access to safe drinking water. “Today, almost two billion people use a source of drinking-water contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio,” Maria Neira, who head’s WHO’s public health department, said in a statement. “Contaminated drinking-water is estimated to cause more than 500,000 diarrhoeal deaths each year and is a major factor in several neglected In this file photo, the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as it departs its home port in San Diego, California August 22, 2014 REUTERS tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and trachoma,” she added. The report welcomed the fact that countries had on average raised their annual budgets for water, sanitation and hygiene by 4.9% over the past three years. But 80% of countries acknowledge that their financing is still not enough to meet their nationally-set targets for increasing access to safe water and sanitation, it found. The World Bank has meanwhile estimated that investments in infrastructure will need to triple to $114bn per year – not including operating and maintenance costs – in order to meet the SDG targets. • In rural Zambia, clean water is scarce. With limited options, families are forced to drink contaminated water COLLECTED USA Civil liberties groups sue US, seek details on travel ban Civil liberties groups on Wednesday said they were filing a series of lawsuits against the US government seeking details on how federal agencies enforced President Donald Trump’s ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries. The lawsuits were filed by local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union against US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security. AFP THE AMERICAS Boy among four killed in Venezuela riots A teenage boy was shot dead in renewed protests against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, one of four people killed in a week of unrest, officials said Wednesday. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina identified the teenage victim as Brayan Principal and said he was killed during unrest in the western city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday night. AFP UK Britain dismayed by Russia’s UN Syria veto British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he was “dismayed” by Russia’s veto on Wednesday of a UN draft resolution on the suspected chemical attack in Syria. “This puts Russia on the wrong side of the argument,” Johnson said in a statement issued in London. Russia blocked a draft UN resolution demanding that the Syrian regime cooperated with an investigation into the attack. AFP EUROPE Detained Islamist cleared over Dortmund blasts German federal prosecutors said Thursday they had cleared the sole suspect in custody for a bomb attack against the Borussia Dortmund football team bus of involvement. The announcement marked a setback for investigators, who described the three blasts late Tuesday as a “terrorist” act and said they are focusing on suspects in the “Islamist spectrum”. AFP AFRICA 22 dead in blaze at Senegal religious retreat A fire tore through makeshift straw shelters at a Muslim religious retreat in Senegal, killing at least 22 people and triggering a stampede, firefighters and local media said Thursday. The blaze broke out on Wednesday afternoon as worshippers gathered near the town of Medina Gounass in the southeastern region of Tambacounda. The cause is as yet unknown. AFP
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DT e-Paper 14 April 2017

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