The Canadian Parvasi - Issue 16

The International News Weekly World
October 06, 2017 | Toronto
15
Omar Khadr's ex-brother-in-law, wife
released from captors by Pakistan
The Canadian Press
TORONTO: A Canadian
man, his American wife
and their three young
children have been
released from captivity
after being held hostage for
years by a network with
ties to the Taliban.
Joshua Boyle and his
wife Caitlan Coleman
were abducted five years
ago while travelling in
Afghanistan and were held
by the Haqqani network,
a group U.S. officials call
a terrorist organization.
Coleman was pregnant
when she was captured,
and the couple had three
children while in captivity.
Pakistan secured the
release of the family this
week, U.S. officials said
Thursday.
Foreign Affairs
Minister Chrystia Freeland
said Canada was "greatly
relieved" that Boyle and his
family had been released
and are safe.
"Joshua, Caitlan, their
children and the Boyle and
Coleman families have
endured a horrible ordeal
over the past five years.
We stand ready to support
them as they begin their
healing journey," she said
in a statement, thanking
the U.S., Afghan and
Pakistani governments for
their efforts in the case.
As of Thursday
morning, however,
the family's precise
whereabouts were unclear
and it was not immediately
known when they would
return to North America.
The family was not in
U.S. custody, though they
were together in a safe,
but undisclosed, location
in Pakistan, according to
a U.S. national security
official, who wasn't
authorized to discuss the
case publicly.
U.S. officials had
planned on moving the
family out of Pakistan on a
U.S. transport plane, but at
the last minute Boyle would
not get on, the official said.
Another U.S. official
said Boyle was nervous
about being in "custody"
given his background.
Boyle was previously
married to the sister of
Omar Khadr, who spent 10
years at Guantanamo Bay
after being captured when
he was 15 in a firefight at
an al-Qaida compound
in Afghanistan. Officials
discounted any link
between that background
and Boyle's capture, with
one official describing it as
a "horrible coincidence."
The couple has told U.S.
officials that they wanted to
fly commercially to Canada,
according to the official,
who spoke on condition
of anonymity because
he wasn't authorized to
speak publicly about the
situation.
In Pakistan, its military
said in a statement that U.S.
intelligence agencies had
been tracking the hostages
and discovered they had
come into Pakistan on Oct.
11 through its tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan.
The release, which
came together rapidly
Wednesday, comes nearly
five years to the day since
Boyle and Coleman lost
touch with their families
while travelling in a
mountainous region near
the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The high commissioner
of Pakistan to Ottawa said
he had no details on the
operation but said it was
clear it had to happen
quickly once Pakistani
authorities received
intelligence about the Boyle
family's whereabouts.
"Once we knew they had
been moved to Pakistan we
took the action," said Tariq
Azim Khan.
The couple set off in the
summer 2012 for a journey
that took them to Russia,
the central Asian countries
of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan, and then
to Afghanistan. Coleman's
parents last heard from
their son-in-law on Oct. 8,
2012, from an internet cafe
in what Boyle described
as an "unsafe" part of
Afghanistan.
The couple appeared in
a series of videos beginning
in 2013 proving that they
were alive.
US says bye-bye to Unesco
for its 'anti-Israel' bias
By Arul Louis
UNITED NATIONS: The US has
announced it is pulling out of the
Unesco, the scientific, educational
and cultural arm of the UN family,
citing what it decried as "anti-
Israel biases".
US membership in the UNESCO
will formally end next year, the
State Department announced on
Thursday.
But already in 2013,
Washington had lost its voting
rights in the UNESCO because
Congress stopped paying the dues
to the organisation starting in 2011
because it had admitted Palestine
as a full member.
The US contribution was 22
percent of UNESCO's budget and
the organisation had to cut its
programmes with US arrears
totaling more than $600 million
For the US, which has
consistently complained about the
Paris-based organisation's policies
and resolutions, the breaking point
came when UNESCO designated
the Old City of Hebron and a
sanctuary considered by both Jews
and Muslims in the West Bank as
part of Palestinian territory while
designating it a World Heritage
Site.
The area, which Israeli claims,
is under its occupation and Hebron
is called Al-Khalil by Palestinians.
The sanctuary is called the
Tomb of the Patriarchs by Jews and
the Ibrahami Mosque Muslim, and
both religions trace it to Abraham,
whose legacy is claimed both those
religions as well as Christianity.
The July meeting of the World
Heritage Committee in Krakow
that declared Hebron and the
sanctuary a World Heritage site
also gave the same designation to
Ahmadabad.
"The Tomb of the Patriarchs
decision was just the latest in a
long line of foolish actions, which
includes keeping Syrian dictator
Bashar al-Assad on a UNESCO
human rights committee even
after his murderous crackdown
on peaceful protestors," US
Permanent Representative Nikki
Haley said in a statement.
President Donald Trump
is a strong supporter of Israel
and a skeptic of international
organisations, who has threatened
cuts to contributions to those
bodies.
Americans fear World War III: Survey
Agencies
NEW YORK: Frequent
spats with North Korea and a
"reckless" attitude displayed by
US President Donald Trump
have prompted the fear of a
World War III among most
Americans, a survey has
revealed.
Led by researchers at
Chapman University in the
US, the "Survey of American
Fears 2017" showed that the
fright of a menacing world war
looms large. It is also a new
entrant into the list of "Top 10
fears" since the first survey was
conducted in 2014.
"Americans need to unlearn
'Duck and Cover' and replace
it with 'Get inside. Stay Inside.
Stay Tuned'," said Ann Gordon,
Director at the university's
Henley Lab.
"Duck and Cover" that 70 per
cent of Americans are familiar
with came up during the Cold
War with the USSR, which is
now "obsolete", Gordon said.
This fear was corroborated
by Republican Senator Bob
Corker earlier this week.
Corker had warned that
Trump was treating his office
like "a reality show" with
reckless threats toward other
countries that could set the
nation "on the path to World
War III", the New York Times
reported on Monday.
The survey showed that
48 per cent of Americans fear
North Korea using nuclear
weapons and 41 per cent fear a
nuclear attack. The prospect of
a nuclear meltdown troubles 31
per cent of all Americans.
Concern and fears about the
environment, which had never
cracked the Top 10 fears in any
previous surveys, also figured
more prominently in the 2017
edition. Environment fears
included pollution of oceans,
rivers and lakes (53.1 per cent),
closely followed by pollution of
drinking water (50.4 per cent),
global warming and climate
change (48 per cent) and air
pollution (44.9 per cent).
Following the reversal of
the environmental policies of
the previous Barack Obama
administration by Trump, the
researchers felt these green
fears grew.
Trump, who had called
the Climate Change a "hoax",
earlier had pulled the US out of
the Paris Agreement on curbing
global warming. Three out of
five Americans reported fear
of Islamic extremists/Jihadists
as a threat to national security.
White supremacists featured
as a threat to national security
among 51 per cent.
For the survey, the team
included more than 1,207 adults
from across the nation and all
walks of life. The 2017 survey
data is organised into four
basic categories: personal fears,
natural disasters, paranormal
fears and fear of extremism.