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| Three people killed and dozens injured in extensive anti-government clashes with police outside PM's office in Tirana. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 19:41 GMT | ||
Three people have been killed and dozens injured in extensive anti-government clashes outside the prime minister's office in Tirana, the the Albanian capital. State health officials confirmed three people had died from gunshot wounds during the clashes between opposition supporters and riot police. About 30 civilians and 25 policemen and national guard officers were also hurt, the officials said. The violence follows months of tension between the government of Sali Berisha, the prime minister, and opposition Socialists. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Karolina Risto, chief editor at Albania's Vision Plus TV, said: "Albania is finally calm now after more than six hours of violent clashes. "Three people are reported dead, all of them young men among the demonstrations in Albania's capital. "The whole purpose of this gathering is because the opposition is accusing the government of stealing their votes in the last election." 'Corruption scandal' More than 20,000 people took to the streets on Friday to demand that Berisha call early elections after Ilir Meta, the country's deputy prime minister, resigned over an alleged corruption scandal earlier this week. The scandal broke after a private TV station aired a video allegedly showing Meta asking a colleague to influence the awarding of a contract for building a power station. Clashes broke out when several hundred protesters broke away from the main group and started attacking a riot police cordon. Chanting "Get out, Get Out," some of the protesters overturned and torched cars, smashed paving stones and hurled them at riot police and reached the steps of the government building. Police responded with tear gas, plastic bullets and water canons. As the night fell, hundreds of riot policemen and national guard officers swept through the centre of the capital, beating protesters with batons and detaining dozens of youths. Police did not say how many people were arrested. In a statement, the US, OSCE and European Union expressed "deep regret" at the violence "Violence and excessive use of force cannot be justified and should be avoided," the text read. "We urgently appeal for calm and restraint on all sides and to abstain from provocations". The statement also renewed a call for "constructive dialogue and compromise to resolve the existing political differences". 'Barbaric power' President Bamir Topi urged rival political leaders to start an urgent dialogue to defuse the tension. Edi Rama, an opposition leader, also called for calm, but said Berisha should also heed the message from the mass protest. "My call is for the so-called prime minister not to go any further down the blind alley," Rama said. Rama appeared to suggest that protests will continue. "I assure all of you, we shall continue our struggle in a determined way, because the way out is clear: Either a free Albania for all, or keep the people subdued under the boot or barbaric power," he said. The Socialists have accused Berisha's conservative Democratic Party of rigging the 2009 general election, which it won by a narrow margin. The next general election is scheduled for 2013. Albania, one of Europe's poorest countries, is a NATO member, and is also seeking EU membership, but corruption is believed to be pervasive and there is widespread unemployment. | ||
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| Source: Agencies |
Friday, 21 January 2011
Three shot dead in Albania clashes
Lebanon's Jumblatt backs Hezbollah
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| Druze leader's decision deals a blow to caretaker PM Saad Hariri's effort to form a new government. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 17:03 GMT | ||
Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader from Lebanon's opposition camp, has announced his support behind Hezbollah in a move that could give the group and its allies a veto over who becomes the country's next prime minister. Hezbollah, which has a parliamentary bloc as well as a powerful military wing, commands overwhelmingly support among Lebanon's Shia Muslim community. Jumblatt said the aim of his decision on Friday was to preserve Lebanon's stability. "I am announcing the right political stand ... by assuring the steadfastness of the group [Progressive Socialist Party] alongside Syria and the resistance [Hezbollah]," he said. Jumblatt leads a bloc of 11 parliamentarians and his support is crucial to decide who forms the new government out of the two rivals: Hezbollah or Saad Hariri, the caretaker prime minister. Hariri announced on Thursday in a televised speech that he would seek to form a new government despite strong pressure from Hezbollah for him to step down. His speech comes after talks to try to end the stalemate over the formation of a new government in Lebanon came to a complete halt. The Hezbollah-led opposition brought down Hariri's government last week after he rejected their demands to repudiate a UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 killing of his father, Rafiq al-Hariri. "We have said Hariri should not come back, and yes he should not come back," said Michel Aoun, a Christian leader allied with Hezbollah. Open to different outcome Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, said Hariri made it clear in his speech that he will accept any outcome from political consultations expected to be launched by Michel Suleiman, the country's president, on Monday. Suleiman has called parliamentarians for consultations to name a new prime minister after which he will ask the candidate with most backing to form a new government. "He seems to feel that he might lose the battle with the Hezbollah-led opposition if they get enough votes to nominate their own prime minister and form the next government without him," our correspondent said. She said Hariri blamed the opposition for the failure of his effort to preserve Lebanon's stability and security. He also appealed for calm, saying: "Any drop of blood that falls from any Lebanese citizen is more important to me than any post." Hezbollah and its allies are widely expected to nominate the veteran Omar Karameh, who has already served twice as prime minister. In Lebanon's power-sharing political system, the prime minister must be Sunni Muslim, the president Maronite Christian, and parliamentary speaker a Shia Muslim. It was not clear whether Hariri will get enough support on Monday. | ||
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| Source: Al Jazeera and agencies |
US teen held in Kuwait returns home
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| Gulet Mohamed was stuck in Gulf state after being placed on the US no-fly list, prompting a lawsuit on his behalf. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 18:03 GMT | ||
A US teenager stuck in Kuwait for a month after being placed on the US government's no-fly list was reunited with his family at a Washington airport. Gulet Mohamed, 19, of Alexandria, Virginia, expressed concern for others who may be in the same situation he was in after greeting family members on Friday. Mohamed claims he was blindfolded, beaten and tortured while he was detained for nearly a month in Kuwait at the behest of the US authorities. "There are probably people out there being tortured like I was, whose voices are not being heard," he said. His return to the US was delayed for weeks because US authorities had apparently placed him on the no-fly list. His homecoming follows a lawsuit filed earlier this week in the US District Court of Alexandria. 'Wrongfully assumed' The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued on Mohamed's behalf seeking an order that would require the government to allow the teenager to return to the US. But before a judge issued any order, a government lawyer said Mohamed had been released from detention in Kuwait and was heading back home. In its lawsuit, CAIR alleges that the no-fly list has expanded dramatically in the last year and that 400,000 individuals have now been placed on the list. Mohamed was born in Somalia but came to the US at age three and is a naturalised citizen. In March 2009, Mohamed travelled to Yemen and Somalia, where he still has family, to learn Arabic. He stayed in those countries for just a few months and settled in Kuwait in August 2009, where he lived with an uncle. Gadeir Abbas, Mohamed's lawyer, said it is wrong for the government or anyone else to assume Mohamed was engaged in something nefarious because he travelled to Yemen and Somalia, two countries labelled as terrorism hot spots with the US state department. For years, he said, Yemen has been a natural place to visit for people of Somali descent who want to learn Arabic. "Somalis go to Yemen like Americans go to Canada," Mohamed’s lawyer said. | ||
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| Source: Agencies |
Bin Laden threatens France
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| Al-Qaeda leader says in audio tape hostages will die if country does not pull out troops from Muslim lands. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 13:20 GMT | ||
The leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, has called for the withdrawal of French troops from Muslim lands in exchange for the release of hostages, in an audio message. Referring to French hostages being held in Niger, the speaker on the tape, who sounded like Bin Laden, says their release depended on moves by their own government. He says France will pay dearly for its policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere. "President Nicolas Sarkozy's refusal to remove his forces from Afghanistan is nothing but a green light for killing the French hostages," Bin Laden says in the recording, broadcast on Al Jazeera on Friday. "We repeat the same message to you: The release of your prisoners in the hands of our brothers is linked to the withdrawal of your soldiers from our country." This is the second tape that Bin Laden, believed to be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, has released an audio recording attacking French policy and linking the French presence in Afghanistan to the kidnapping of its nationals in Niger. Seven foreigners, including five French nationals, were kidnapped in Niger in September, with the group's north African wing Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claiming responsibility. AQIM also claimed responsibility for two Frenchmen found dead last week after a failed rescue attempt in Niger, but the group did not say how the men died. Following the kidnappings last year, an AQIM spokesman, Salah Abi Mohammed, said in an audio message: "We inform the French government that the mujahedeen will later transmit their legitimate demands." The September kidnapping was an escalation of hostilities between AQIM and France. AQIM killed 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneu last July after French commandos took part in a failed raid to free him. France has eight hostages held across the world, five held by AQIM in Niger, two in Afghanistan held by the Taliban, and one in Somalia. Bin Laden's last audiotaped message to France, released on Al Jazeera in October, attacked France's planned ban on full-face Islamic veils, a subject also latched on to in reported demands made by the AQIM kidnappers for its repeal. In August 2009, al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, criticised France over what he called its hatred for Muslims and issued a list of historical grudges he said Muslims should feel for France's colonial actions in the Middle East and Africa. | ||
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| Source: Agencies |
Guantanamo tribunals may resume
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| Criticism follows report that Obama administration might lift its ban on military trials at the US prison. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 19:31 GMT | |||
The prospect of the United States charging Guantanamo Bay detainees before new military tribunals has unleashed a torrent of protests from human-rights groups. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Robert Gates, US defence secretary, would soon The Pentagon would not immediately confirm the report. According to the US daily, three detainees will be referred for new charges, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of having organised the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in Yemen. Al-Nashiri is among three Guantanamo detainees US authorities acknowledge were tortured. He was subjected to the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding, as well as threatened with a gun and a power drill. "Trying Guantanamo detainees in a system that is designed to ensure convictions, not fair trials, strikes a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. It urged the Obama administration to try the suspects in US federal courts, which have "well-established rules of procedure and evidence". A legal quagmire While the decision to resort to military commissions for cases such as Nashiri's is seen by some as a reversal of the Obama's promise to close Guantanamo, Mason Clutter, counsel for the rule of law programme at The Constitution Project, a Washington-based think-tank, told Al Jazeera that the move is not a step back. "We're moving forward, but we're moving forward in the wrong system. We should be moving forward in our traditional criminal justice system," he said.
Clutter said it was "disappointing" that Obama's administration has given "new life" to the military tribunals, allowing for new cases to proceed under the system. She said this will only "delay justice for the victims of 9/11 and their families". Military tribunals - even as amended by the Obama administration - present issues that are not present in the US civilian justice system, under which one Guantanamo detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, was tried and convicted in the fall of 2009 (he was found guilty of one of 286 charges levelled against him in connection with the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa). His sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 25. For example, Clutter said that certain types of evidence that would not be admissible in a civilian court - such as hearsay - are admissible before a military panel. It is possible that allowing for new cases to proceed via military tribunal is the administration's way of moving things forward, given that the defence authorisation bill passed by congress in December limits the president's ability to transfer detainees using defence funds. But Clutter argued that there are still fund available from other sources, such as the US justice department, to help facilitate the transfer. "This is the first time that we have seen congress overstepping and dictating how and where detainees should be tried, essentially tying the hands of the president, Clutter said. Still, 59 of the detainees held at the facility have been scheduled for release by the Obama administration, although given the concerns tied to their release - diplomatic wrangling, issues with repatriating detainees into countries with security issues, such as Yemen etc - the men have yet to be freed. Even though the new cases will make it harder for Obama to shutter Guantanamo, Clutter has faith that Obama is focused on ultimately clearing out Guantanamo Bay, which has not had a new detainee since 2006. "The administration remains committed to closing the facility," she said. Challenged repeatedly About 30 detainees at the Guantanamo prison, a US naval base Obama had hoped to close within his first year in office. But he later backpedalled in the face of congressional opposition. The use of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, a US naval base, began in 2006, when the US congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, allowing for the indefinite imprisonment of "unlawful enemy combatants", preventing them from access to the evidence against them and holding that "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever". Numerous legal challenges to the law (Rasul v. Bush, Hamadi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush) eventually yielded change when the order was ultimately amended in 2009, making some changes in what sort of evidence could be used against defendants in military tribunals and how that evidence could be used against them. While a comparison between the 2006 and the 2009 versions of the act shows notable differences, human-rights groups criticise the decision to allow more cases to be tried under even the new version of the act. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents some Guantanamo detainees, said it was "very disappointed" in Obama, predicting the move will "cost the United States foreign popular and diplomatic support that is essential to legitimate law enforcement efforts against terrorism". Joining the chorus of critics was Human Rights First, which cited Obama's own defence one month ago of using federal courts to try terrorism defendants. "But with the exception of one Guantanamo detainee who was convicted in federal court last month, President Obama has failed to use that tool," the group said. Additional reporting by Al Jazeera's D. Parvaz | |||
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| Source: Al Jazeera and agencies |
S Korea rescues hijacked ship crew
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| All 21 crew members aboard a hijacked ship freed and eight Somali pirates killed in navy operation. Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 08:02 GMT | ||
South Korea's navy has rescued all crew members aboard a South Korean chemical ship hijacked by Navy commandos stormed the hijacked vessel on Friday, killing eight pirates and capturing five during the rescue mission, military officials said at a separate briefing. "Our soldiers rescued all of 21 crew aboard Samho Jewelry, including eight Koreans, who were hijacked by Somalia pirates," President Lee told reporters. The vessel, en route to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates, was seized at the weekend. Aboard was a crew of eight Koreans, 11 Myanmar nationals and two Indonesians. All were rescued alive, although a South Korean skipper of the chemical freighter suffered a non-critical gunshot wound to his stomach during the raid. Firefight The firefight left several pirates missing and believed killed although their bodies have not been found, spokesmen said. Three South Korean commandos were slightly hurt. Seoul ordered a destroyer on patrol in the Gulf of Aden to give chase after reports of the vessel being hijacked. President Lee ordered "all possible measures" to save the crew. Commando's chased the hijacked ship for days, and started a rescue attempt before dawn on Friday. The mission lasted five hours. This hijacking came two months after an oil supertanker belonging to the same firm was freed after seven months in captivity, the government and local media said. The pirates said they had received a record ransom of $9.5m for the release of the supertanker. According to the London-based International Maritime Bureau, which monitors maritime crime, there have already been 22 incidents reported off the coast of Somalia in 2011, including four hijackings. Currently, 31 vessels are being held by Somali pirates, the Bureau reported. | ||
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| Source: Agencies |
Qatar show they can play football
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| Late 3-2 defeat to Japan in Asian Cup quarter-final gives hope to hosts as they build towards World Cup 2022. Paul Rhys in Doha Last Modified: 21 Jan 2011 17:33 GMT | |||||
World Cup – check. Stadium plans – got those. Now Qatar has shown it has a football team to go with the grand schemes off the pitch. It is a work in progress. Qatar were knocked out of their home Asian Cup on Friday in a pulsating quarter-final against Japan, after twice taking the lead against a team ranked 76 places above them in the world. The hearts of 20,000 Qataris who had relentlessly roared on the team at Al Gharafa stadium were broken a minute before full time when Masahiko Inoha punished an overwhelmed defence to send 10-man Japan into the semifinals with a 3-2 win. What had come before should give hope for the future of a Qatari team that will play against the planet's best at the World Cup in 11 years' time. "We have shown the whole world that the Qatar team can play football," French coach Bruno Metsu said afterwards. "You can see from the reaction of the Japan players how hard it was for them. You do not get a team that has played in two World Cups celebrating like that if they have not played against a good side." Rough and ready With the showpiece Khalifa International Stadium reserved for Uzbekistan v Jordan later in the day, the hosts made do with the rough-and-ready Al Gharafa across town. In a tournament that has witnessed poor crowds and a lack of atmosphere, the more confined arena was a boon. The men and women of Doha came, they saw a football match, and they stayed for 90 minutes – banging drums, waving portraits of the Emir and the Heir Apparent, and responding to the shouts of "Wehda!" (unity!) and "Shaja'a Al Anabi!" (support the Maroons) booming from the throat of a man with a loudhailer. Qatar showed their intent when right-back Mesaad Ali came close with two efforts in as many minutes. His shot from the right was parried away by Eiji Kawashima for a corner, before the defender unleashed a rising drive from almost 40 yards that the Japan goalkeeper again did well to keep out.
Then, on 13 minutes, came a goal that brought a first Asian Cup semi-final for Qatar a step closer – a goal made in Uruguay, before being imported by Qatari football's tiger economy. Sebastian Soria now holds a different passport to that of his countryman Diego Forlan, but he showed all the poise and conviction of the World Cup star to beat the offside trap from halfway, twist Maya Oshida inside out, and sidefoot underneath Kawashima into the net. Dreams of an upset lasted 16 minutes before CSKA Moscow midfielder Keisuke Honda lifted the ball into the path of Shinji Okazaki, who lobbed Qasem Burhan for Borussia Dortmund striker Shinji Kagawa to head into the empty net. Half time coincided with the call to prayer, and much of the crowd was still putting their shoes back on and retaking their seats when Soria almost broke again. But this time a lack of pace was telling and Japan were able to clear. With Soria now being cancelled out in a bad-tempered battle with Yasuyuki Konno, Qatar injected creativity with the introduction of Brazil-born Fabio Cesar Montezine, the former Napoli player whose free kick had capped a 3-0 defeat of Kuwait to qualify for the quarters. Harsh yellow The impact was instant. Oshida received a harsh second yellow for a tackle on Yusef Ahmed, resulting in a 60th-minute free kick on the right wing that was tailor-made for a cross to the far post. Instead, the midfielder curled a left-foot shot that crept inside the near upright, taking Kawashima with it into the net.
The roar was worthy of a World Cup final. Fabio sprinted to the corner of the ground to be jumped upon by teammates as ecstatic fans reached over the hoardings to pound the players on the back. If destiny seemed to be on Qatar's side, the reality of a gulf in class between the teams proved more telling. Honda combined again with Okazaki and Kagawa, who took advantage of some mixed-up defending to sprint clear and finish past Qasem. Japan continued to launch attacks despite their one-man disadvantage. Qatar could still have won it, with captain Mohammed Bilal, Soria and Fabio all going close, but defensive legs were looking tired with no let-up in the tempo. As extra-time approached, desperate defending in the Qatar box would almost certainly have resulted in a penalty for a late tackle had defender Inoho not taken the decision out of the referee's hands. He prodded home a loose ball, sending the three-times champions into the semi-finals to the delight of their balloon-waving supporters. A minority of home fans immediately headed for the exits with four minutes of injury time still to play. Those who stayed to bring down the curtain on Qatar's first campaign since winning the right to host the World Cup have cause for hope on the long road to 2022. | |||||
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| Source: Al Jazeera |
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