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Biden says killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh not helpful for ceasefire talks

Biden says killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh not helpful for ceasefire talks
US President Joe Biden speaks had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quickly reach a Gaza ceasefire deal. (AP)
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Updated 02 August 2024
AFP
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Biden says killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh not helpful for ceasefire talks

Biden says killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh not helpful for ceasefire talks
  • There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel
Updated 02 August 2024
AFP
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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for reaching a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza.
There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel.
Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, who had participated in internationally-brokered indirect talks on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
Anxious residents in Israeli-besieged Gaza feared that Haniyeh’s killing on Wednesday would prolong the war.
Iran said the killing took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for its new president.
“It doesn’t help,” Biden told reporters late on Thursday, when asked if Haniyeh’s assassination ruined the chances for a ceasefire agreement.
Biden also said he had a direct conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s government has issued no claim of responsibility but he has said Israel had delivered crushing blows to Iran’s proxies of late, including Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and would respond forcefully to any attack.
Israel’s tensions with Iran and Hezbollah have fanned fears of a widened conflict in a region already on edge amid Israel’s assault on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Gaza health ministry says that since then Israel’s military assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide accusations that Israel denies.
The United States has said it was not involved in the killing of Haniyeh.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel US Joe Biden Benjamin Netanyahu

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Experts sound alarm on new Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar

Experts sound alarm on new Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
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Experts sound alarm on new Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar

Experts sound alarm on new Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar
  • Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 during a crackdown by the military
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
Cox’s Bazar: The persecuted and stateless Rohingya minority is caught in a new violent crackdown in Myanmar, with children among those killed, two reports from influential expert groups warned Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 during a crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.
But around 600,000 remain in the country’s western state of Rakhine, where they have found themselves in the middle of an escalating conflict between junta-run Myanmar’s armed forces and the rebel Arakan Army.
The situation has been inflamed further by the Myanmar military’s forced recruitment of Rohingya to battle the rebel group, including reportedly more than 2,000 from Bangladeshi refugee camps.
Watchdog Fortify Rights said its interviews with eyewitnesses established that the Arakan Army had this month launched a drone and mortar attack on Rohingya civilians.
The bombardment killed more than 100 Rohingya men, women and children on the border with Bangladesh, Fortify Rights said.
“The fact that the AA first sent a surveillance drone before launching the massive attack shows clearly that the group intentionally attacked a civilian crowd,” the group said.
The Arakan Army denied responsibility for the assault in an August 7 statement and again through its political wing 10 days later.
The International Crisis Group think tank said that many Rohingya on the ground blamed the rebel group for the attack, along with other acts of violence and persecution.
“The combination of words and alleged deeds have fueled polarization and driven greater numbers of Rohingya to volunteer for the military or armed groups,” it said.
The reports come days after the UN Human Rights Office said it had information showing the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army had both committed serious abuses against the Rohingya.
They included extrajudicial killings, abductions, forced recruitment, indiscriminate bombardments of villages and arson attacks.
“Recurrence of the crimes and horrors of the past must be prevented as a moral duty,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said.
The Arakan Army, which says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population in Myanmar, has made steady territorial advances this year near the Bangladeshi border.
Bangladesh is home to around one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled the 2017 crackdown.
Further complicating the security situation for Rohingya there was the ousting this month of autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India.
Hasina was replaced by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is leading an interim government ahead of expected elections.
He pledged to continue to support Bangladesh’s population of Rohingya refugees, but said his country needed “the sustained efforts of the international community” to do so.

Russian official says border ‘under control’ after reported Ukrainian attack

Russian official says border ‘under control’ after reported Ukrainian attack
Updated 3 min 31 sec ago
Reuters
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Russian official says border ‘under control’ after reported Ukrainian attack

Russian official says border ‘under control’ after reported Ukrainian attack
  • Russian Telegram channels reported an attempted attack on Belgorod region on Tuesday morning
Updated 3 min 31 sec ago
Reuters
MOSCOW: The head of Russia’s western Belgorod region said the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult but under control” after reports of a Ukrainian attack on Tuesday.
Belgorod and other border areas have been on high alert since Ukraine launched a lightning attack on neighboring Kursk region three weeks ago and carved out a slice of territory from which Russia is still fighting to eject it.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov issued a brief statement after Russian Telegram channels reported an attempted attack on Belgorod region on Tuesday morning.
“There is information that the enemy is trying to break through the border of the Belgorod region,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
“According to the Russian defense ministry, the situation on the border remains difficult, but under control. Our military is carrying out planned work. Please remain calm and trust only official sources of information.”
SHOT, a Telegram news channel, said earlier that Ukrainian forces had attacked a border checkpoint at Nekhoteyevka but been pushed back after suffering losses.
Mash, another channel with links to the security services, said a total of about 500 Ukrainian troops had attacked two Russian checkpoints at Nekhoteyevka and Shebekino, but SHOT said there had been no clashes at Shebekino.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports.
A Russian military blog with nearly 1.6 million subscribers, “Operation Z — military correspondents of the Russian Spring,” said there had been no major attempts to pierce the border.
“There were clashes with (Ukrainian) sabotage and reconnaissance groups and (Russian) artillery is working. No large-scale attempts to break through have been recorded,” it said.
Three weeks ago, Russia was caught by surprise in neighboring Kursk region when thousands of Ukrainian soldiers punched through the border in the biggest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since World War Two.
Russia says Ukraine sent in thousands of troops along with sabotage units, swarms of drones, heavy artillery, dozens of tanks and heavy Western weaponry, which it says it will eject from Russian territory.
Since then, neighboring Russian regions have been braced for the possibility of further attacks.
Belgorod governor Gladkov said in separate messages that authorities were making arrangements to resettle residents of a group of villages near the border and pay compensation to them.
“Our situation continues to remain difficult,” said Gladkov, who also reported shelling and drone attacks on three local settlements overnight.

Pakistan hunts separatist militants who killed dozens

Pakistan hunts separatist militants who killed dozens
Updated 33 min 9 sec ago
AFP
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Pakistan hunts separatist militants who killed dozens

Pakistan hunts separatist militants who killed dozens
Updated 33 min 9 sec ago
AFP
Quetta: Pakistani forces hunted separatist militants Tuesday who killed dozens when they pulled passengers off buses, blew up a bridge and stormed a hotel a day earlier.
Militants in Balochistan took control of a highway and shot dead 23 people, mostly laborers from neighboring Punjab province, attacked the hotel and the railway bridge which connects Balochistan to the rest of Pakistan.
Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in impoverished Balochistan, but the coordinated attacks that took place in several districts throughout the province were one of the worst in the region’s history.
The sites hit were cordoned off Tuesday as the search for assailants went on.
“But no arrests have been made so far, and no additional militants have been killed,” provincial government spokesman Shahid Rind said.
Monday’s death toll includes 34 civilians and 15 members of the security forces, while the military said troops killed 21 militants.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the attacks were “deplorable.”
“In Balochistan, the doors for negotiation are always open to those who believe in Pakistan and accept its constitution and flag,” he said Tuesday as he addressed a cabinet meeting.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active militant separatist group in the province which has previously targeted Chinese interests in the region, said it was responsible for the attacks.
Sharif said their “sole aim is to halt Pakistan’s progress, sabotage the development projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and create divisions between Pakistan and China.”
The BLA is waging a war of independence against the state, which it accuses of unfair exploitation of resources by outsiders in the mineral-rich region.



Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistan’s poorest province, despite an abundance of untapped natural resources, and lags behind the rest of the country in education, employment and economic development.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has seen tens of billions of dollars funnelled into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects.
But the safety of its citizens is becoming an increasing concern for Beijing.
Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Pakistanis from neighboring provinces working in the region in recent years, as well as foreign energy firms including deadly attacks on Chinese citizens.
Punjabis are the largest of the six main ethnic groups in Pakistan and are perceived as dominating the ranks of the military.
Eleven Punjabi laborers were killed when they were abducted from a bus in the city of Naushki in April, and six Punjabis working as barbers were shot in May.
Kiyya Baloch, an analyst and former journalist tracking violence in Balochistan, said authorities are solely using force to suppress the two-decade conflict instead of seeking political solutions.
“This approach has led to increased retaliation from the youth and has caused the insurgency to gain momentum rather than diminish,” he told AFP.
“Never before have so many coordinated attacks occurred simultaneously across multiple districts of Balochistan,” he said.
bur-ecl/rsc

Australia to cap foreign student numbers at 270,000

Australia to cap foreign student numbers at 270,000
Updated 27 August 2024
AFP
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Australia to cap foreign student numbers at 270,000

Australia to cap foreign student numbers at 270,000
Updated 27 August 2024
AFP

SYDNEY: Australia plans to cap foreign student numbers from next year, the government said Tuesday, curbing a multi-billion dollar industry as it faces political heat on immigration.
New international student numbers for university, higher education and vocational training will be limited to 270,000 in 2025, Education Minister Jason Clare told a news conference.
“It will mean that some universities will have more students this year than next year. Others will have less,” Clare said as he unveiled the plan, which will require legislation.
Official data show that foreign students were worth more than Aus$42 billion ($28 billion) to Australian universities and vocational education centers in 2023.
Australian authorities granted more than 577,000 international student visas in the fiscal year to June 30, 2023.
Clare said the change would mean about the same number of international students starting a course next year as there was before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 2025 breakdown will be 145,000 new foreign students for universities, 30,000 for other higher education providers, and 95,000 for vocational education and training, the government said.
The new limit aims to replace a recent policy of giving priority to students deemed to be at low risk of visa non-compliance — a system that has favored top-ranked universities while drastically slowing visas for other institutions.
“We acknowledge the government’s right to control migration numbers but this should not be done at the expense of any one sector, particularly one as economically important as education,” said Universities Australia chair David Lloyd.
International students were Australia’s second largest industry after mining, accounting for more than half of the growth in Australia’s economy last year, Lloyd said.
“Every dollar from overseas students is reinvested back into Australia’s universities. Having fewer students here will only widen the funding gap at a time universities need greater support.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this month the industry was “absolutely vital” for Australia.
But he said universities should not be overly reliant on overseas students, in part because of the implications for migration.
About 69 percent of Australian respondents blamed immigration for high house prices, said an Essential poll for The Guardian published on Tuesday.
About the same share of people — 42 percent on each side — described immigration as “generally positive” or “generally negative,” it said.
Net migration to Australia surged 26.3 percent in calendar 2023 to 547,300, official figures show, with 751,500 people immigrating while 204,200 left.
Australia’s government also plans to protect the international education industry from “crooks who try to exploit it,” the education minister said.
More than 150 “ghost colleges” had recently been shut down, Clare said, describing them as “a back door” to let people work in Australia rather than get an education.

Topics: Australia Education

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Four dead in second night of Russian attacks on Ukraine

Four dead in second night of Russian attacks on Ukraine
Updated 27 August 2024
AFP
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Four dead in second night of Russian attacks on Ukraine

Four dead in second night of Russian attacks on Ukraine
Updated 27 August 2024
AFP

KYIV: Ukraine said Tuesday that its air defense systems had downed five missiles and 60 attack drones in a second night of Russian aerial bombardments that killed four.
The overnight attacks came one day after the Kremlin launched one of its largest-ever aerial attacks on Ukraine that battered energy facilities and left several dead.
The air force said on social media Tuesday morning that Russia had launched a total of 91 projectiles including 10 missiles and 81 Iranian-designed attack drones from several regions of Russia.
“Unfortunately, despite the effective work of our air defense systems, four people were killed and 16 were wounded,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.
He said rescue work was ongoing at the impact sites and vowed a response to the attacks.
“Crimes against humanity cannot be committed with impunity,” he added in the post.
AFP journalists in the capital Kyiv heard air raid sirens echo over the city throughout the night as well as explosions, likely from air defense systems.
Since invading in February 2022, Russia has launched repeated large-scale drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, including punishing strikes on energy facilities.
Local authorities said earlier on Tuesday that two people had been killed in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and two in the central city of Kryvyi Rig after a missile struck a hotel.
The hotel strike comes just days after a team working for the Reuters news agency were hit by a missile in their hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing a safety adviser working with the agency.

Topics: Ukraine Russia war

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