DR Congo president's mandate can be extended if no vote: court

ATHENS (AFP) - 

Six migrants who were fed up with being stuck on the Greek Island of Chios tried to make their way back to Turkey -- by swimming, Greek harbour police said on Wednesday.

Two groups of swimmers were picked up on Monday and Tuesday, several hundred metres (yards) off the coast of Chios, police said. The Turkish coastline, just nine nautical miles away, is visible from the island.

Like hundreds of thousands of people before them, they had reached Chios by crossing the same stretch of water on makeshift boats, often overloaded with desperate people.

The first group included four Iraqis who tried to swim back by clinging onto a rubber ring. It was not immediately clear who was in the second group.

Under terms of a controversial March 20 agreement between Brussels and Ankara aimed at easing the migrant crisis, all "irregular migrants" arriving on the Greek islands face the prospect of being deported to Turkey. The aim is to discourage people from making the perilous Aegean crossing.

According to the Ethnos daily, they were among those slated for deportation and had hoped that by making their own way back, they could arrive incognito, thereby avoiding detention by the Turkish authorities on their return.

So far, more than 300 people have been sent back, with rights groups saying their fate was unclear.

There are currently 8,400 migrants on the Greek islands, officials said Wednesday, most of whom are waiting for their asylum applications to be processed.

New arrivals are confined to camps for 25 days, after which they are allowed out but cannot leave the islands.

Separately there are another 45,000 migrants and refugees who arrived in Greece before the March 20 deadline who have been stuck since the Balkans state began closing their borders in mid-February.

© 2016 AFP

Two suspected jihadists killed near Tunisian capital, interior ministry says

Two suspected jihadists were killed on Wednesday during a security operation near the Tunisian capital, the interior ministry said.

Sixteen others, some of them armed, were arrested during the operation in Ariana province just outside Tunis, it said in a statement.

A resident of the Sanhaji district told AFP that a two-hour gun battle erupted with the suspects after the national guard launched the raid at around 8 am (0700 GMT).

“They were not from the neighbourhood. We didn’t know them. They rented the house recently,” she said.

Since its 2011 revolution, Tunisia has faced a growing jihadist threat, with the Islamic State group last year claiming a string of deadly attacks on holidaymakers and security forces that killed dozens.

Thousands of Tunisians have joined jihadist groups in conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria and Libya over the past few years.

(AFP)

Baghdad car bombing kills dozens in Shiite neighbourhood

A car bombing claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed at least 52 people at a market in a Shiite area of north Baghdad on Wednesday, officials said.

The blast, the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital this year, comes as the government is locked in a political crisis that some have warned could undermine the fight against the Islamic State group.

The bombing, which hit the Sadr City area at around 10am (0700 GMT), wounded at least 65 people, the officials said.

In separate attacks later in the day, two car bombs in the capital killed at least 22 civilians, police sources said.

One blast hit the entrance to Kadhimiya, a mostly Shi’ite district in the northwest of the Iraqi capital, killing 15 and wounding 33 others. The other bomb went off on a commercial thoroughfare in a predominately Sunni neighbourhood of western Baghdad, killing seven and wounding 20. Police sources said that the death tolls are expected to rise.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second and third attacks.

Sadr City attack sparks fury

The Sadr City blast Wednesday morning set nearby shops ablaze and left debris including the charred, twisted remains of a vehicle in the street.

Dozens of angry people gathered at the scene of the bombing, blaming the government for the carnage.

“The state is in a conflict over (government positions) and the people are the victims,” said a man named Abu Ali, adding: “The politicians are behind the explosion.”

Baghdad resident Abu Muntadhar echoed this anger, saying the politicians “should all get out.”

Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who spearheaded a protest movement demanding a cabinet reshuffle and other reforms, has a huge following in the working class neighbourhood of Sadr City, which was named after his father.

Suicide bomber

The IS group issued an online statement claiming responsibility for the first attack in Sadr City.

It said a suicide bomber it identified as “Abu Sulaiman al-Ansari” detonated the explosives-rigged vehicle.

The IS militants considers Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraq’s population, to be heretics and often targets them with bombings.

Iraqi forces have regained significant ground from the IS group, but the jihadists still control large parts of western Iraq, and have the capability to carry out frequent bombings in government-held areas.

Political crisis

Iraq’s legislature has been paralysed by a political crisis over replacing the cabinet that the United States and the United Nations have warned could undermine the fight against IS group.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has sought to replace the cabinet of party-affiliated ministers with a government of technocrats, a move opposed by powerful parties that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.

Angry demonstrators broke into Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and stormed parliament after lawmakers again failed to approve new ministers last month.

While the protesters withdrew the following day, parliament has still yet to hold another session.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
 

North Korea's Kim caps rare congress with colorful mass rally

PYONGYANG | By James Pearson

Thousands of ecstatic North Koreans joined a mass rally and parade on Tuesday as leader Kim Jong Un capped off the consolidation of his power at a ruling party congress at which he formalized its claim to be a nuclear weapons power.

Kim used the party congress, the first in 36 years, to highlight North Korea's aim to expand its nuclear arsenal, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, though he said the weapons would only be used if North Korea was threatened with similar weapons.
Kim also set out a five-year plan to revive his isolated country's creaking economy, although it was short on targets, and the party enshrined Kim's "Byongjin" policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development.
"Under the authorization of Workers' Party Chairman Kim Jong Un, the Central Committee sends the warmest greetings to the people and soldiers who concluded the 70-day battle with the greatest of victory and glorified the Congress as an auspicious event," Kim Yong Nam, the titular head of state, told the rally under overcast skies in the capital's Kim Il Sung Square.
North Korea had been engaged in a 70-day campaign of accelerated productivity in the run-up to the Workers' Party congress, including sprucing-up the capital, a grueling exercise that left many people exhausted, Western residents said.
But there was no sign of that at Tuesday's rally, where thousands shouted "manse!", or "live forever!" while clasping their hands in the air or waving pink flowers as they passed before Kim and other top officials on a leaders' platform.
Kim, 33, had traded the western-style suit he wore at the four-day congress for the more traditional uniform of North Korean leaders, a dark jacket buttoned to the collar.
He smiled and waved at the crowd and chatted with military and party aides, state media footage showed.
Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, who was formally elected by the congress to the party's Central Committee, stood next to him for some of the time.
The young leader Kim, who assumed power in 2011 after his father's death, took on the new title of party chairman on Monday. The promotion - his previous party title was first secretary - had been predicted by analysts who had expected Kim would use the congress to further shore up his power.
Among other changes at the congress, a former army Chief of General Staff who South Korean media had reported had been purged and executed, was elected alternate member of the party Politburo and a member of the powerful Central Military Commission.
The first congress since 1980 was seen by North Korea-watchers as a move to restore the central role of the party while diluting the political role of the military.

Old rival South Korea denounced North Korea's nuclear ambitions, seeing little cause for optimism in a conciliatory gesture Kim made on the weekend when he said military talks were needed with the South to discuss ways to ease tension.
South Korea President Park Geun-hye said the North showed no sign of willingness to change but only made "preposterous claims about being a nuclear weapons state".
The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. North Korea regularly threatens the South and its major ally, the United States, which it accuses of planning a nuclear attack.
Relations between the Koreas have been at a low since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, which also brought tougher U.N. sanctions backed by lone major ally China, which disapproves of North Korea's development of nuclear weapons.
Despite the sanctions, North Korea has pressed ahead with its nuclear and missile development, and said it had succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead and launching a submarine-based ballistic missile.
Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulations to Kim for his promotion at the party congress. There was no direct mention of North Korea's nuclear program in Xi's message.
"We will make efforts together with the DPRK side to bring happiness to the two countries and their peoples and contribute to peace, stability and development in this region by steadily developing the Sino-DPRK friendship and cooperation," North Korea's state KCNA news agency quoted Xi as saying.
DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
An unusually large contingent of 128 foreign journalists were issued visas to visit during the congress, but their access to formal proceedings was limited to a brief visit by a small group to the congress venue on Monday.
BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and two his colleagues who had been in North Korea to cover the visit of a group of Nobel laureates ahead of the congress were expelled from the country on Monday over his reporting.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing and additional reporting by Tony Munroe; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)
 

Car bomb hits police vehicle in Turkish city of Diyarbakir, 13 wounded: officials

A car bomb struck an armored police vehicle on Tuesday in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, located in the mainly Kurdish southeast, wounding 13 people, security officials said.

A Reuters witness heard a large explosion in the city center, followed by the wail of ambulance sirens after the attack. Parts of Diyarbakir have seen intense security operations since a three-decade conflict between the state and Kurdish militants reignited in July 2015.
(Reporting by Seyhmus Cakan and Orhan Coskun; Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

Obama to be first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima

U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month and become the first sitting U.S. president to do so since World War Two, but will not offer an apology for the United States' use of an atomic bomb on the city, the White House said on Tuesday.

The May 27 visit to the site alongside Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instead aims "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.
"He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in a separate blog.
Obama's visit comes as part of a visit May 20-28 to Japan to attend a Group of Seven summit as well as Vietnam, his 10th to the region that has played a large role in the president's strategic "pivot" toward Asia.
A U.S. warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 71 years ago at the end of World War Two, and there have been concerns that a U.S. presidential visit would be controversial in the United States if it were seen as an apology. [nL3N17P1Z2]
The bomb dropped on Aug. 6, 1945 killed thousands of people instantly and about 140,000 by the end of that year. Nagasaki was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later.
(Reporting by Megan Cassella and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Italy arrests three in probe into suspected planned attacks in Rome, London

Italian police on Tuesday arrested three people as part of an investigation into a militant cell suspected of planning attacks in Rome and London, authorities said on Tuesday.

The cell had been established in Puglia, in southeastern Italy, "to carry out violent attacks with the purpose of international terrorism, in Italy and abroad", the arrest warrant read.
Two Afghan citizens, one suspected of international terrorism and the other of aiding illegal immigration, were arrested, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in a statement.
A third man, a Pakistani also suspected of aiding illegal immigration, was detained in Milan later in the day, a police source said.
Police confiscated the suspects' phones, on which they found footage of presumed targets including airports, ports, shopping centers and hotels in Rome, London and Bari, the main city in Puglia, the arrest warrant said. Investigators also found recordings of prayers and images of weapons and mutilated U.S. soldiers.
Italy has not suffered deadly Islamist attacks like those in France and Belgium, but a number of people have been arrested on suspicion of planning assaults.
In all, the warrant calls for the arrests of five people. They are all officially resident near Bari but two are currently in Afghanistan, the source said.
Three of the suspects are accused of international terrorism and two of aiding illegal immigration.
Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe said at a news conference that there was "absolutely no indication of an imminent attack in Italy", but prosecutor Elisabetta Pugliese said at the same conference that the investigation was "worrying".
The group based in Bari is suspected of acting as a local unit or providing logistical support to an international organization linked to Islamic State, investigators wrote in the arrest order.
The group was also active in France and Belgium, the order said.
(Reporting by Vincenzo Damiani; Writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Angus MacSwan)

French government to impose labor reform by decree in face of rebellion

France's government decided on Tuesday to bypass parliament and impose a relaxation of the country's protective labor laws by decree, sidestepping a rebellion against one of socialist President Francois Hollande's flagship reforms.

The decision, announced by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, follows weeks of street protests against the bill which seeks to make hiring and firing easier and the realization that lawmakers within the ruling party looked certain to shoot down the proposal.
"Because the country must move forward ... the cabinet has authorized me to engage the government's responsibility, which I will do later on," Valls told lawmakers to boos and heckling from the some quarters and applause among ministers.
Defeat would have delivered a hefty blow to the unpopular Hollande, who has said he will only run for re-election next year if he lowers a jobless rate stuck above 10 percent. The government hopes the reform will encourage firms to recruit.
The government's decision not to compromise by watering down further the labor bill is also a strong signal to international investors and rating agencies, who have so far taken a welcoming but cautious approach toward Hollande's pro-business turn.
A rarely used clause in France's constitution - known as 49.3 - allows for reform by decree and underlines the strong powers wielded by the executive under France's presidential system, designed by World War Two leader Charles de Gaulle.
It is the second time in as many years Valls has used the clause, having last year rammed through parliament a law which loosened up Sunday trading rules and regulations in the transport and legal sectors.
Although Valls diluted parts of the labor bill in March following student protests, the proposal retains measures giving more flexibility to employers to agree in-house deals with employees on working time.
It also offers companies less restrictive conditions for layoffs made for economic reasons.
Rebel legislators in the Socialist Party accused the government of riding roughshod over parliament.
"It's a heavy-handed way of using the constitution to prevent the nation's representatives from having their say," Laurent Baumel, a rebel Socialist lawmaker told reporters, calling the decision "anti-democratic".
(Reporting by Brian Love, Leigh Thomas, Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose; editing by Richard Lough)

Say goodbye to OPEC, powerful Putin pal predicts

MOSCOW | By Vladimir Soldatkin 

 Internal differences are killing OPEC and its ability to influence the markets has all but evaporated, top Russian oil executive Igor Sechin told Reuters in some of his harshest remarks ever about the oil cartel.Russia, which has been hit hard by the oil price collapse, was flirting with the idea of cooperating with OPEC in recent months until tensions between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran ruined a global deal to freeze output.
Sechin - one of the closest allies of President Vladimir Putin - was the only Russian official to consistently oppose the deal with OPEC even after the Kremlin effectively endorsed the plan.
Now that his gloomy predictions about talking to OPEC have come to pass, Sechin feels vindicated and wants to help Russia avoid similar embarrassment in future.
"At the moment a number of objective factors exclude the possibility for any cartels to dictate their will to the market. ... As for OPEC, it has practically stopped existing as a united organization."
"The company (Rosneft) was skeptical from the very beginning about the possibility of reaching any sort of joint agreement with OPEC's involvement in current conditions," said Sechin, in comments over the weekend which were embargoed until Tuesday.
"Just to remind you, the only one question with which we responded to those who were interested to know our position: 'Who should we agree with, and how?' The development of the situation has clearly shown we were right."
Sechin's comments about the end of the era when OPEC could influence prices chime with those of Saudi Arabia's newly appointed energy minister Khaled al-Falih.
Falih, who took over on Saturday from long-serving Ali al-Naimi, has been very vocal in the past year about his views that the oil market needs to rebalance through low prices and that the Saudis have the resources to wait.
Falih's ultimate boss, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who oversees Saudi oil policies, has also signaled that the world is moving to a new era where supply and demand rather than OPEC will determine prices.
Sechin, who was born in 1960 - the same year as Falih - is also calling on Russia to abandon any hope that prices can be fixed by anything other than market rebalancing.
"At the moment, key factors which are influencing the market are finance, technology and regulation. We can see this with the example of shale oil which ... became a powerful tool of influence on the global market," Sechin said in the emailed comments.
(Writing by Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Andrew Osborn and William Hardy)

6 killed by armed tribesmen in Darfur

Camp in Sortoni attacked by gunmen on camels and pickup trucks, claiming lives of 6 including 2 children.

Cattle rustling is a frequent source of conflict in Darfur DARFUR - An attack by armed tribesmen near a makeshift camp for displaced people in Sudan's conflict-hit Darfur region killed six civilians, including two children, a resident and a UN official said Tuesday. A peacekeeper from the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur was also wounded in the Monday attack near the makeshift camp in Sortoni in North Darfur where tens of thousands of people have taken refuge from an upsurge in fighting this year between the army and ethnic minority rebels. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Marta Ruedas, "condemns the reported shooting and killing of six civilians, including two children, by armed local tribes in Sortoni," a statement said. A resident of the makeshift camp told AFP that gunmen riding camels and pick-up trucks had launched two attacks with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the attack followed a "reported rise in tensions between displaced people and armed tribesmen over cattle raiding". Cattle rustling is a frequent source of conflict in Darfur. Last month, as many as 20 people were killed in clashes between two rival Arab tribes in East Darfur that were sparked by the theft of livestock. Darfur has been gripped by conflict since 2003, when ethnic minority rebels rose up against President Omar al-Bashir, complaining that his Arab-dominated government was marginalising the region. Bashir launched a brutal counter-insurgency and at least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict, the United Nations says. Another 2.5 million people have fled their homes. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges related to Darfur, which he denies. Since 2003, parts of Darfur have been further destabilised by conflicts between the region's myriad of ethnic and tribal groups, as well as rising criminality.

US airstrike kills ISIS senior leader in Iraq’s Anbar province

Pentagon spokesman says May 6 strike near town of Rutba targeted Abu Wahib, ISIS's ‘military emir’ for vast western province.

Latest in series of attacks on senior ISIS leaders WASHINGTON - A US-led coalition air strike has killed a senior Islamic State leader in Iraq's Anbar province, along with three other ISIS jihadists, the Pentagon said Monday. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the May 6 strike near the town of Rutba -- deep in the Anbar desert -- targeted Abu Wahib, ISIS's "military emir" for the vast western province. Wahib was "a former member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who has appeared in ISIL execution videos," Cook said, using an acronym for the ISIS group. "We view him as a significant leader in ISIL leadership overall, not just in Anbar Province," he added. "Removing him from the battlefield will be a significant step forward." The men were traveling in a vehicle when they were hit. Cook provided no additional details and did not specify if a warplane or a drone had carried out the strike. The killing of Wahib is the latest in a series of attacks on senior ISIS leaders in Iraq and Syria, where the jihadists still control huge tracts of land despite an intense US-led air campaign dating back to August 2014. Some other recent targets include Suleiman Abd Shabib al-Jabouri, an "ISIL war council member," Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli -- the IS group's second-in-command also known as Haji Imam -- and Omar al-Shishani, the man known as "Omar the Chechen," who was effectively ISIS's defense minister. In February, US special operations forces captured Sulayman Dawud al-Bakkar, also known as Abu Dawud, who was described as a chemical weapons expert. "Since the start of 2015, we've targeted and killed more than 40 high-value ISIL and Al-Qaeda external attack plotters. We have removed cell leaders, facilitators, planners and recruiters," Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren wrote online last week. Despite many significant coalition gains against the ISIS group, the jihadists still control the key cities of Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, and assaults to recapture the towns are not expected for months.

Tunisians rally against closure of border with Libya

Around 1,000 people protest outside local government offices, against Libyan decision to close Ras Jedir border crossing.

Ras Jedir is the main frontier between western Libya and southeastern Tunisia BEN GUERDANE - Tunisian security forces used tear gas on Monday against hundreds of people in the southern town of Ben Guerdane protesting against the closure of the border with Libya, officials said. "Around 1,000 people rallied outside local government offices and set tyres ablaze in protest against a Libyan decision to close the Ras Jedir border crossing," interior ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah said. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, he added. Ras Jedir is the main frontier between western Libya and southeastern Tunisia, a region whose economy is largely dependent on cross-border trade, both legal and illegal. Tunisia's southern provinces are among the poorest in the country. Since April, Libyan border officials have stopped the flow of merchandise across the border, sparking anger among residents. A Libyan official, Hafedh Moammar, said at the time that the border was closed amid alleged "harassment" of Libyan travellers and to stop the flow of smuggled fuel. The governor of the Tunisian town of Medenine, Tahar Matmati, said Libya also wanted to impose a "unified tax" on all products crossing the frontier. In March, Tunisia closed two border crossings with Libya for two weeks in response to a deadly jihadist attack on Ben Guerdane. Tunisia has also built a 200-kilometre (125-mile) barrier stretching about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to prevent militants from infiltrating.

Iran possesses Russian air defence system

Iran’s Defence Minister says Islamic republic is now equipped with strategic S-300 system which serves its air force's counterattack command.

US and Israel have criticised Russia for the sale of the S-300 system to Iran TEHRAN - Iran's army is now equipped with a Russian air defence system after a long and controversial delivery process, Defence Minister General Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying Tuesday. "I inform our people that... we are in possession of the strategic S-300 system" and that it "serves our air force's counterattack command," Dehghan said, according to ISNA news agency. Parts of the system, including missile tubes and radar equipment, were displayed on April 17 during a military parade in southern Tehran. The United States and Israel have criticised Russia for the sale of the S-300 system to the Islamic republic. Tehran says it is needed to strengthen its air defence against possible attacks, including on its nuclear facilities. Iran and Russia originally signed a contract for its delivery in 2007, but in 2010 Moscow suspended the sale after the UN Security Council issued a resolution against Iran's nuclear programme. In 2015, shortly before the conclusion of an international agreement on Tehran's nuclear programme, Moscow re-authorised the delivery. The two countries are also in talks for delivery to Iran of Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jets, a deal also criticised by Washington. Dehghan also announced that Iran will start manufacturing this year an air defence system, Bavar 373, "capable of destroying cruise missiles, drones, combat aircraft and ballistic missiles." "This long-range system is able to destroy several targets at once," he added.