14012020 - 50 years after: Let's revisit issues that caused Civil War

42 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020
Queen agrees ‘period of transition’ for Harry
and Meghan
QUEEN Elizabeth II
on Monday said
Prince Harry and his wife
Meghan would be allowed
to split their time
between Britain and Canada
while their future is finalised.
The couple said last week
they wanted to step back
from the royal frontline,
catching the family off
guard and forcing the
monarch to convene crisis
talks about the pair’s future
roles.
The 93-year-old queen,
her son and heir Prince
Charles, and his two sons
princes William and Harry
began a family summit
at her private Sandringham
estate in Norfolk, eastern
England, on Monday.
She called the discussions
“very constructive”
and said she and her family
were “entirely supportive
of Harry and Meghan’s
desire to create a new life
as a young family”.
“Although we would
have preferred them to remain
full-time working
members of the royal family,
we respect and understand
their wish to live a
more independent life as
a family while remaining
a valued part of my family,”
she added. “Harry and
Meghan have made clear
that they do not want to be
reliant on public funds in
their new lives.
“It has therefore been
agreed that there will be a
period of transition in
which the Sussexes will
spend time in Canada and
the UK. “These are complex
matters for my family
to resolve, and there is
some more work to be
done, but I have asked for
final decisions to be
reached in the coming
days.” The queen has previously
said she wanted to
find “workable solutions”
to the crisis, which has
dominated the media since
the bombshell announcement
last week.
Harry and Meghan’s effective
resignation has
thrown up a series of questions,
including how they
can raise their own finances
without compromising
the monarchy.
Downed plane: Iran protests rage
on for third day
PROTESTERS de
nouncing Iran’s
clerical rulers took to the
streets and riot police deployed
to face them in a
third day of demonstrations
after authorities acknowledged
shooting down a
passenger plane by accident.
Demonstrations, some
apparently met by a violent
crackdown, were the latest
twist in one of the most serious
escalations between
the United States and
Iran since the 1979 Iranian
revolution swept the
US-backed shah from power.
Video from inside Iran
showed students on Monday
chanting slogans including
“Clerics get lost!”
outside universities in the
city of Isfahan and in Tehran,
where riot police
were filmed taking positions
on the streets.
Video sent to the New
York-based Center for Human
Rights in Iran and later
verified by The Associated
Press showed a crowd
of demonstrators near Azadi,
or Freedom, Square
fleeing as a tear gas canister
landed among them.
People coughed and
sputtered while trying to
escape the fumes, with one
woman calling out in Farsi:
“They fired tear gas at
people! Azadi Square.
Death to the dictator!”
Oman’s newly sworn in Sultan Haitham bin Tariq (R) receiving Britain’s
Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the capital Muscat, yesterday.
Another video showed a
woman being carried away
in the aftermath as a blood
trail was seen on the
ground. Those around her
cried out that she has been
shot by live ammunition in
the leg. “Oh my God, she’s
bleeding nonstop!” one
person shouted. Another
shouted: “Bandage it!”
Images from the previous
two days of protests showed
wounded people being
carried and pools of blood
on the ground. Gunshots
could be heard, although
the police denied opening
fire.
US President Donald
Trump, who raised the
stakes last week by ordering
the killing in a drone
strike of Iran’s most powerful
military commander,
tweeted to Iran’s leaders:
“Don’t kill your protesters.”
Tehran acknowledged
shooting down the Ukrainian
jetliner by mistake last
Wednesday, killing all 176
aboard, hours after it fired
at US targets in Iraq to
retaliate for the killing on
January 3 of General
Qassem Soleimani in
Baghdad.
Iranian public anger,
rumbling for days as Iran
repeatedly denied it was to
blame for the plane crash,
erupted into protests on
Saturday when the military
admitted its role.
Dozens of protesters
were videoed at sites in
Tehran and Isfahan, a major
city south of the capital.
“They killed our elites and
replaced them with clerics,”
they chanted outside a Tehran
university, referring to
Iranian students returning
to studies in Canada who
were on the plane.
State-affiliated media has
reported protests in Tehran
and other cities but has provided
few details.
“Police treated people
who had gathered with patience
and tolerance,” Tehran
Police Chief Hossein
Rahimi said in a statement
on state media.
“At protests, police absolutely
did not shoot because
the capital’s police
officers have been given
orders to show restraint.”
Tehran’s showdown
with Washington has come
at a precarious time for the
authorities in Iran and the
proxy forces they support
to wield influence across
the Middle East. Sanctions
imposed by Trump
have hammered the Iranian
economy.
Iran’s authorities killed
hundreds of protesters in
November in what appears
to have been the
bloodiest crackdown on
anti-government unrest
since 1979. In Iraq and
Lebanon, governments
supported by Iran-backed
armed groups have faced
mass protests.
Adding to international
pressure on Tehran, five
nations, including Canada,
Britain and
Ukraine, whose citizens
died when the Ukraine International
Airlines Boeing
737 was shot down, meet in
London on Thursday to discuss
possible legal action,
Ukraine’s foreign minister
said.
Javad Kashi, a professor
of politics at Tehran Allameh
University, wrote online that
people should be allowed to
express their anger in public
protests. “Buckled under
the pressure of humiliation
and being ignored, people
poured into the streets with
so much anger,” he wrote.
“Let them cry as much as
they want.”
China accuses West of ‘Cold War’ against
Zimbabwe
CHINA’s foreign min
ister has accused
Western powers of waging
a “Cold War” against Zimbabwe,
as he condemned
the sanctions imposed on
the economically embattled
southern African state.
Wang Yi held talks with
President Emmerson
Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe’s
capital, Harare, as
he rounded up a five-nation
tour of Africa.
Zimbabwe has been under
US and European
Union (EU) sanctions for
more than two decades because
of alleged human
rights abuses.
Mr Wang called for the
sanctions to be lifted, and
Two Popes at odds over
celibacy rules
RETIRED Pope Benedict XVI has issued a defence
of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church as his
successor considers easing a ban on married men serving
as priests.
Pope Benedict made the appeal in a book co-authored
with Cardinal Robert Sarah.
It comes in response to a proposal to allow married
men to be ordained as priests in the Amazon region.
Pope Benedict, who retired in 2013, said he could not
remain silent on the issue.
In the book, Pope Benedict says celibacy, a centuries-old
tradition within the Church, has “great significance” because
it allows priests to focus on their duties.
The 92-year-old says “it doesn’t seem possible to realise
both vocations [priesthood and marriage] simultaneously”.
It is rare for Pope Benedict, who was the first pontiff to
resign in almost 600 years, to intervene in clerical matters.
The Vatican is yet to comment on the book, which was
previewed in part by French newspaper Le Figaro before
its full publication on Monday.
Vatican commentators have reacted with surprise to Benedict’s
intervention, suggesting it breaks with convention.
“Benedict XVI is really not breaking his silence because
he (and his entourage) never felt bound to that promise.
But this is a serious breach,” Massimo Faggioli, a historian
and theologian at Villanova University, tweeted.
US Senator Cory Booker ends
2020 presidential bid
UNITED States Democrat Cory Booker has
dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, ending
a campaign whose message of unity and love failed
to resonate in a political era marked by chaos and anxiety.
His departure on Monday now leaves a field that
was once the most diverse in history with just one remaining
African American candidate, former Massachusetts
Governor Deval Patrick. The once two-dozen-strong
field now has just 12 candidates vying for the democratic
ticket.
Since launching his campaign last February, Booker,
a US senator from New Jersey, struggled to raise the
type of money required to support a White House bid.
He was at the back of the pack in most surveys and failed
to meet the polling requirements needed to participate
in Tuesday’s debate.
US to reduce military presence in
Africa — Top Officer
The United States wants to reduce its military presence
in Africa, Washington’s top military officer said,
as France hosts Sahel leaders as it seeks to bolster
the fight against jihadists in the region.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Mark Milley, said resources “could be reduced and
then shifted, either to increase readiness of the force
in the continental US or shifted to” the Pacific.
His comments came as he flew in for talks with
NATO counterparts in Brussels.
The announcement follows President Donald
Trump’s call last week for NATO to do more in the
Middle East and comes as French President Emmanuel
Macron gathers his counterparts from Burkina
Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania.
Milley said his boss, Defense Secretary Mark Esper,
had not made up his mind what changes to
make.
pledged to continue helping
Zimbabwe to stabilise
its economy.
Zimbabwe has said it will
submit funding proposals
for at least half a dozen
projects, but did not elaborate.
In a tweet, the deputy
information minister, Energy
Mutodi, said Mr
Wang’s visit was a “slap in
the face” for the UK, EU
and US.
Zimbabwe would give
preference to “Chinese
business interests ahead of
any Western country”, he
added.
The historic visit to Zimbabwe
by the Chinese Foreign
Affairs Minister Mr
Wang Yi is a slap in the
face of Britain, US & the EU
who have remained hostile.
We will in return, prioritize
Chinese business interests
ahead of any Western
country.
China is building a new
parliament for Zimbabwe at
a cost of more than $150m
(£135m) and has loaned
Zimbabwe more than $1bn
to rehabilitate its Hwange
coal power plant.
Zimbabwe regards China
and Russia as being
among its “all weather”
friends. It adopted a “Look
East” policy during the rule
of then-President Robert
Mugabe, who was ousted
by the military in 2017. He
died last year at the age of
95.