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France says four migrants drowned trying to cross Channel

France says four migrants drowned trying to cross Channel
This handout photograph released by France’s Prefecture Maritime on July 12, 2024, shows rescuers assisting migrants from an inflatable dinghy off the coast of Boulougne-sur-Mer, northern France, after four migrants drowned overnight in The English Channel. (AFP)
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Updated 12 July 2024
AFP
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France says four migrants drowned trying to cross Channel

France says four migrants drowned trying to cross Channel
  • A navy patrol boat went to the site off of Boulogne-sur-Mer after being alerted that several migrants had fallen into the sea
  • The UK’s new interior minister Yvette Cooper described the deaths as “truly awful“
Updated 12 July 2024
AFP
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LILLE, France: Four migrants drowned in the Channel overnight off France’s northern coast while trying to cross to Britain, French maritime police said Friday.
A navy patrol boat went to the site off of Boulogne-sur-Mer after being alerted that several migrants had fallen into the sea, maritime police told AFP.
Four bodies were pulled from the water, but people were also rescued, the police added.
The UK’s new interior minister Yvette Cooper described the deaths as “truly awful.”
“Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk,” she wrote on X.
“We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue & bring down dangerous smuggler gangs,” she added.
The UK’s Labour government on Saturday confirmed it was scrapping a plan to deport migrants to Rwanda in an effort to reduce the number of irregular migrants arriving on the country’s shores.
Since Labour’s general election win last Thursday, nearly 500 migrants have arrived in Britain on small boats, according to an AFP tally of official government figures.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to tackle the problem by smashing smuggling gangs.
The latest Channel fatalities take to 19 the number of people who have lost their life this year trying to cross over to Britain from France on often overloaded boats.
Five migrants died on April 23 off the French coast while trying to make the perilous journey.
A total of 12,313 people have made the crossing so far this year, according to Home Office provisional figures released in mid-June.
The figure is 18 percent higher than for the equivalent point last year, when the figure stood at 10,472.

Topics: France UK English Channel migrants

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Sweden shuts Lebanon embassy amid fears of escalation

Updated 5 sec ago
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Sweden shuts Lebanon embassy amid fears of escalation

Sweden shuts Lebanon embassy amid fears of escalation
Updated 5 sec ago
STOCKHOLM: Sweden said Saturday it was shutting its embassy in Beirut amid fears the war in Gaza could escalate into a region-wide conflict, after urging thousands of its citizens to leave Lebanon.
The killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders this week, blamed on Israel, have heightened regional tensions amid the Gaza war.
“The foreign ministry has instructed its staff to leave Beirut and travel to Cyprus, and the foreign ministry is planning a temporary relocation of its embassy,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish Radio.
The decision had been taken “initially for the month of August but may be extended depending on the security situation.”
“The ministry is monitoring developments closely,” he said.
According to the foreign ministry, as many as 10,000 Swedish nationals may have traveled to Lebanon this summer, defying a travel warning in place for the country since October 2023.
“I urge Swedes in Lebanon to leave the country by whichever means possible, while they still can,” he said.

22 injured during explosion in paddock area at Germany’s Nuerburgring auto racing track

22 injured during explosion in paddock area at Germany’s Nuerburgring auto racing track
Updated 32 sec ago
AP
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22 injured during explosion in paddock area at Germany’s Nuerburgring auto racing track

22 injured during explosion in paddock area at Germany’s Nuerburgring auto racing track
Updated 32 sec ago
AP

BERLIN: Twenty-two people were injured by an explosion in the paddock area of Germany’s famous Nuerbergring racetrack, police said Saturday.
Police said the accident, which they believe was caused by the explosion of a compressed air canister on Friday night, injured one person severely, three seriously and the others slightly, German news agency dpa reported. Police were still on the scene to investigate the cause on Saturday.
Several people were taken to nearby hospitals by helicopter.
The accident took place behind a pit in track’s paddock area during a test and set-up run ahead of the NLS4 race, officials at the track in the West German town of Nuerberg said in a statement.
Organizers said the NLS24 race would go ahead after consultation with all parties involved, but said participation was voluntary.

Bangladesh students call for nationwide civil disobedience

Bangladesh students call for nationwide civil disobedience
Updated 03 August 2024
AFP
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Bangladesh students call for nationwide civil disobedience

Bangladesh students call for nationwide civil disobedience
  • Rallies against civil service job quotas sparked days of mayhem last month that killed over 200 in some of the worst unrest of PM Hasina’s tenure
  • Troop deployments briefly restored order but crowds hit the streets in huge numbers after Friday prayers in the Muslim-majority nation
Updated 03 August 2024
AFP

DHAKA: Student leaders rallied Bangladeshis on Saturday for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government weathered a worsening backlash over a deadly police crackdown on protesters.
Rallies against civil service job quotas sparked days of mayhem last month that killed more than 200 people in some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Troop deployments briefly restored order but crowds hit the streets in huge numbers after Friday prayers in the Muslim-majority nation, heeding a call by student leaders to press the government for more concessions.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the initial protests, urged their compatriots to launch an all-out non-cooperation movement from Sunday.
“This includes non-payment of taxes and utility bills, strikes by government workers and a halt to overseas remittance payments through banks,” the group’s Asif Mahmud told AFP.
Mahmud’s fellow student leaders also said another round of nationwide rallies would be staged on Saturday.
“Please don’t stay at home. Join your nearest protest march,” Mahmud wrote on Facebook.
Students are demanding a public apology from Hasina for last month’s violence and the dismissal of several of her ministers.
They have also insisted that the government reopens schools and universities around the country, all of which were shuttered at the height of the unrest.
Crowds on the street have gone further, chanting demands for Hasina to leave office.
Hasina, 76, has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Demonstrations began in early July over the reintroduction of a quota scheme — since scaled back by Bangladesh’s top court — that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
With around 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.
The protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups.
Hasina’s government eventually imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed troops and shut down the nation’s mobile Internet network for 11 days to restore order.
Foreign governments condemned the clampdown, with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell this week calling for an international probe into the “excessive and lethal force against protesters.”
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters last weekend that security forces had operated with restraint but were “forced to open fire” to defend government buildings.
At least 32 children were among those killed last month, the UN said Friday.

Topics: Bangladesh students protest Bangladesh Protests

At least 32 killed in Al-Shabab attack on busy Mogadishu beach

At least 32 killed in Al-Shabab attack on busy Mogadishu beach
Updated 26 min 24 sec ago
AFP
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At least 32 killed in Al-Shabab attack on busy Mogadishu beach

At least 32 killed in Al-Shabab attack on busy Mogadishu beach
  • Videos posted on social media platform X showed bodies lying on the beach in the dark
Updated 26 min 24 sec ago
AFP

MOGADISHU: An Al-Shabab suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a busy beach in the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing 32 people and wounding scores more, in one of the deadliest attacks in months, police said on Saturday.
The Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists have been waging an insurgency against the internationally backed federal government for more than 17 years and have previously targeted the Lido beach area, popular with business people and officials.
Unverified videos shared online in the immediate aftermath of the attack showed people scattering along a street, with a number of clips purporting to show bloodied bodies lying on the beachfront.
“More than 32 civilians died in this attack and about 63 others were wounded, some of them critically,” police spokesman Abdifatah Adan Hassan told reporters during a press conference.
“Targeting and blasting to kill 32 members from the civilian population means these Kharijites are not going to target only government centers, soldiers and officials,” he said, using the term Somali officials adopt to describe Al-Shabab.
The assault, for which Al-Shabab claimed responsibility in a post on a pro-Shabab website, began late on Friday when a suicide bomber detonated a device and gunmen stormed the area, police and witnesses told AFP.
Officer Mohamed Omar told AFP they had “shot civilians randomly.”
He said security forces had ended the attack and killed five gunmen, while a sixth member of the group “blew himself (up) at the beach.”
Witnesses said there were many people at the popular location when the explosion occurred, describing how gunmen then stormed the area.

“Everybody was panicked and it was hard to know what was happening because shooting started soon after the blast,” witness Abdilatif Ali told AFP.
He said that people attempted take cover on the ground or flee.
“I saw many people strewn (on the ground) and some of them were dead and others wounded,” he said.
Ahmed Yare witnessed the attack unfold from a nearby hotel.
“I saw wounded people at the beachside. People were screaming in panic and it was hard to notice who was dead and who was still alive,” he told AFP.
Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for numerous bombings and attacks in Mogadishu and other parts of the country, whose government is pressing on with an offensive against the Islamist militants.
The Lido area has been the target of previous attacks, including a six-hour Al-Shabab siege of a beachside hotel in 2023, which left six civilians dead and 10 wounded.
Five people were killed in a powerful car bomb blast at a cafe in the capital last month.
In March, the militants killed three people and wounded 27 in an hours-long siege of another Mogadishu hotel, breaking a relative lull in the fighting.

Topics: Somalia

US scraps plea deal with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

US scraps plea deal with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Updated 03 August 2024
AFP
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US scraps plea deal with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

US scraps plea deal with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
  • Deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices announced Wednesday had appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution
  • But they sparked anger among some relatives of those killed on September 11, 2001, as well as criticism from leading Republican politicians
Updated 03 August 2024
AFP

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday scrapped a plea agreement with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, just two days after the announcement of a deal that reportedly would have taken the death penalty off the table.
Deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices announced Wednesday had appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution — but sparked anger among some relatives of those killed on September 11, 2001, as well as criticism from leading Republican politicians.
“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused... responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Austin said in a memorandum addressed to Susan Escallier, who oversaw the case.
“I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case,” the memo said.
The cases against the 9/11 defendants have been bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings for years, while the accused remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
The New York Times reported this week that Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in exchange for a life sentence, instead of facing a trial that could lead to their executions.
Much of the legal jousting surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after 9/11.
The plea agreements would have avoided that thorny issue, but they also sparked sharp criticism from political opponents of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Republican lawmaker Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Austin that said the deals were “unconscionable,” while House Speaker Mike Johnson said they were a “slap in the face” to the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks.
And Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, described the agreements as a “sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists,” saying during a campaign rally: “We need a president who kills terrorists, not negotiates with them.”
Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s most trusted and intelligent lieutenants before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.
The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he had attended university.
Bin Attash, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, allegedly trained two of the hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks, and his US interrogators also said he confessed to buying the explosives and recruiting members of the team that killed 17 sailors in an attack on the USS Cole.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, he took refuge in neighboring Pakistan and was captured there in 2003. He was then held in a network of secret CIA prisons.
Hawsawi is suspected of managing the financing for the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and was also held in secret prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.
The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been repatriated to other countries. Biden pledged before his election to try to shut down Guantanamo, but it remains open.

Topics: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 9/11 mastermind

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