Nigeria election violence to be investigated

Rights group seeks prosecution of abuse

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Leading opposition presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari launched his campaign on Wednesday, telling supporters to "lynch" anybody who attempted to rig the April vote (File)

LAGOS (AFP)

Global watchdog Human Rights Watch called on Nigerian authorities Sunday to establish a special commission to investigate and prosecute election-related abuses and violence.

"Nigeria has a history of violent and deeply flawed elections. At least 300 people were killed in violence linked to the last general elections in 2007," HRW said in a joint statement with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

The groups said an Electoral Offences Commission would investigate and prosecute offences under the Electoral Act, including incitement, the use or threat of violence, bribery, theft of ballot materials and falsification of election results.

They also accused the police of complicity or ignoring acts of violence and ballot stealing perpetrated by corrupt politicians.

"It is time for Nigeria to break with the past and to ensure that violence, intimidation, and fraud don’t undermine the credibility of the upcoming elections," said senior lawyer Dafe Akpedeye, who is chairman of the Election Working Group of the NBA, in the statement.

Since November, more than 50 people have been killed in violence linked to political party primaries and election campaigns and the level of violence is expected to increase in the run-up to the April poll, the statement said.

The Electoral Reform Committee, established by Nigeria's late president Umaru Yar’Adua, following the flawed 2007 elections, found that not a single Nigerian had been convicted and punished for electoral offences since the nation's independence in 1960, it added.

"The police lack the political will and independence to carry out investigations of election-related offenses," it stated.

Egypt army says to rebuild torched church

Church set ablaze sparked deadly setarian clashes

Sunday, 13 March 2011

On Friday, hundreds of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to call for national unity (File)

CAIRO (AFP)

Egypt's army will on Sunday begin rebuilding a church that was set ablaze last week, sparking deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians, a senior officer said.

"The Egyptian armed forces will on Sunday start to rebuild the church in Sol in the province of Helwan," south of Cairo, General Adel al-Qorashi said.

He was speaking at a rally attended by religious figures and residents of the town of Sol, where a romantic liaison between a young Christian and Muslim led to a family feud that left two people dead.

The subsequent torching of the Shahedein church in Sol sparked protests by Coptic Christians across Cairo and clashes in the poor working class district of Moqattam, killing 13 people on Tuesday.

The ruling military council "will rebuild the church at its expense and (the work) will be carried out by the army's engineering body at the exact same site," as the burned church, Qorashi said.

On Friday, hundreds of Egyptians gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to call for national unity, a day after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces -- which took power after president Hosni Mubarak's ouster last month -- met with Coptic representatives.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million population, complain of systematic discrimination and have been the target of several sectarian attacks.

Lebanon pro-west opposition set for mass rally

Marking sixth anniversary of uprising against Syrian troops

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Thousands of Lebanese headed to Martyrs' Square in central Beirut early Sunday (File)

BEIRUT (Agencies)

Opposition supporters began to gather Sunday for a mass rally marking the sixth anniversary of a popular uprising against Syrian troops in Lebanon, demanding the disarming of Hezbollah fighters.

Thousands of Lebanese headed to Martyrs' Square in central Beirut early Sunday, waving Lebanese flags and the flags of the country's Christian and Sunni Muslim pro-Western political parties, AFP correspondents said.

Convoys could also be seen across the country heading to the capital, blaring songs and displaying pictures in support of slain ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

The anniversary follows a drawn-out political crisis which saw the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah topple Saad Hariri's unity government in January, capping a long-running feud over a U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The Lebanon tribunal, the world's first international court with jurisdiction over the crime of terrorism, was set up to try those accused over the 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.

Lebanese officials and Western diplomats expect the court to accuse Hezbollah members of involvement in the assassination, a prospect Lebanese politicians fear could fuel further tensions.

Sunni Muslim billionaire Najib Mikati, appointed with Hezbollah's backing, has been tapped to succeed Saad Hariri and has since January 25 sought to form a government.

The Hariri-led opposition has announced it will sit out of Mikati's government, which it accuses of being "Hezbollah's cabinet".

Rafiq Hariri's assassination by a huge car bomb saw the rise of a U.S.- and Saudi-backed alliance that became known as March 14, named after a day of massive anti-Syrian protests dubbed the "Cedar Revolution."

Combined with international pressure, the protests in the weeks after the killing led to the pullout of Syrian troops from the eastern Mediterranean country in April 2005 following a 29-year deployment.

Red billboards urging supporters of the Hariri camp to head downtown on Sunday lined highways across the capital, bearing slogans such as "NO to assassinations," "NO to oppression" and "NO to the rule of arms."

Other billboards, which no party has yet claimed responsibility for, have surfaced in the capital, reading: "Israel too wants to topple arms," a reference to Hezbollah's arsenal.

The opposition has accused Hezbollah, the only party not to have turned in its arms after the 1975-1990 civil war, of having used its arsenal to intimidate MPs into voting against Hariri's re-appointment after his unity cabinet collapsed.

Death toll climbs to 7 as Yemen violence grows

Police use live rounds to disperse demonstrations

Sunday, 13 March 2011

The European Union, Britain and the United Nations condemned the brutal crackdown in Yemen (File)

Aden, YEMEN (Agencies)

Two anti-regime protesters died in Yemen on Sunday, a day after police shot them in the head, a medic said, raising the death toll to seven from demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The two succumbed to wounds after "being shot in the head" in the southern city of Aden, said the medic, adding four other demonstrators were in a critical condition after also being shot in the head.

On Saturday, two other protesters were killed in Aden, one by police when they opened fire to disperse a demonstration and the other when demonstrators set fire to a police station in the city.

A medical official said Saturday hundreds of angry people had set ablaze the police station to protest the death of the protester earlier in the day. Several people were also wounded by gunfire, he said.

Elsewhere, a 12-year-old schoolboy was shot dead when police opened fire at a demonstration of students in the southeastern city of Mukalla.

And two other people died in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, one as police attacked demonstrators in University Square, where anti-government protesters have been staging a sit-in since February 21.

The other was shot dead by a sniper while walking to the square with a group of protesters.

Dozens of demonstrators were overcome by the tear gas, and friends used pieces of cardboard to fan them as they lay stretched out on the ground, many of them barely conscious.

Two doctors at the scene in Sanaa said that toxic gas, rather than
ordinary tear gas had been used against the protesters.

"The gas used by the police is strange. It causes cramps and a collapse of the nervous system," said Bashir al-Kahli, a doctor helping the injured.

The Interior Ministry denied using any sort of nerve gas and dismissed the claim as slander

Condemn crackdown

The European Union, Britain and the United Nations condemned the brutal crackdown.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Saleh's government to honor promises he had made this week to protect demonstrators and uphold their right to free assembly.

The United States said it was dismayed by the growing fatalities and called for calm, warning that Yemen could suffer the same fate as Libya, where anti-government protests have spiraled into armed conflict between government and rebels.

Western countries and Yemen's neighbors increasingly fear that the growing chaos will make Yemen into a haven for al-Qaeda, which already uses it as a base, and a source of regional instability.

A series of political concessions by Saleh have failed to stem the tide of protesters frustrated with rampant corruption and soaring unemployment demanding his immediate resignation, and the police response has become tougher.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi bemoaned the fact that Yemen, also beset by rebellions in its north and south, had already become a base for the Islamist al-Shabaab rebels operating in Ethiopia's neighbor Somalia.

"If the demonstrations in Yemen lead to some sort of breakdown in law and order, this might give al-Qaeda ... a good opportunity to expand," he said.

As Yemen's water and oil resources dry up, it has become increasingly difficult for Saleh, 68, to fuel the patronage system that kept his tribal and political supporters loyal.

Japan battles nuclear emergency after huge quake

More than 10,000 people feared dead

Sunday, 13 March 2011

An explosion at Fukushima atomic plant blew off the roof and walls around areactor a day after the biggest quake ever recorded in Japan (File)

Fukushima, JAPAN (Agencies)

Japan battled a feared meltdown of two reactors at a quake-hit nuclear plant Sunday, as the full horror of the disaster emerged on the ravaged northeast coast where more than 10,000 were feared dead.

An explosion at the Fukushima atomic plant blew off the roof and walls around one of its reactors Saturday, triggering fears of a meltdown a day after the biggest ever quake recorded in Japan.

The 8.9-magnitude tremor unleashed a monster 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami that raced over towns and farming land, destroying all before it and leaving the coast a swampy wasteland.

In the small port town of Minamisanriku alone some 10,000 people were unaccounted for -- more than half the population of the town, which was practically erased, public broadcaster NHK reported.

The police chief in Miyagi prefecture -- where Minamisanriku is situated -- said the death toll was certain to exceed 10,000 in his district alone.

Police and military reported finding groups of hundreds of bodies at locations along the shattered coastline, including more than 200 found at a new site on Sunday.

The top government spokesman said at least 1,000 people were believed to have lost their lives, and police said more than 215,000 people were huddled in emergency shelters.

As the world's third-largest economy struggled to assess the full extent of what Prime Minister Naoto Kan called an "unprecedented national disaster", it faced an escalating atomic emergency.

At the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant 250 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the quake knocked out cooling systems vital for keeping the reactor from overheating, and back-up generators were disabled by tsunami flooding.

Possibility of meltdown

we are acting on the assumption that there is a high possibility that one has occurred" in the plant's number-one reactor

Japanese top government spokesman Yukio Edano

Japan's top government spokesman Yukio Edano said that radioactive meltdowns may have occurred in two of the plant’s reactors

Asked in a press conference whether meltdowns had occurred, Edano said "we are acting on the assumption that there is a high possibility that one has occurred" in the plant's number-one reactor.

"As for the number-three reactor, we are acting on the assumption that it is possible," he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 200,000 people had so far been evacuated from the area around the two Fukushima plants, while authorities prepared to distribute iodine to protect people from radioactive exposure. There are a total of 10 reactors at the two plants.

Workers doused the stricken No.1 reactor with sea water to try to avert catastrophe, but the situation deteriorated and the plant operator said another reactor at the quake-hit facility was also in trouble.

"All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No. 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant," operator TEPCO said, adding that pressure was rising slightly.

Kyodo reported that the fuel rods at one reactor were now three meters above the water, and that a radiation leak believed to be from the reactor itself had now reached levels above the legal limit.

Japan's ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki told CNN: "There was a partial melt of a fuel rod, melting of fuel rod. There was a part of that... but it was nothing like a whole reactor melting down."

Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the incident at four on the international scale of zero to seven. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five, while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven.

U.S. nuclear experts warned that pumping sea water to cool the reactor was an "act of desperation" that, in the worst-case scenario, may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.

Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome of the atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.

Government criticized

The government, in power less than two years and which had already been struggling to push policy through a deeply divided parliament, came under criticism for its handling of the crisis.

"Crisis management is incoherent," blared a headline in the Asahi newspaper, charging that information disclosure and instructions to expand the evacuation area around the troubled plant were too slow.

"Every time they repeated 'stay calm' without giving concrete data, anxiety increased," it quoted an unidentified veteran party lawmaker as saying.

There have been proposal of an extra budget to help pay for huge cost of recovery but the government says there is also a 200 billion yen ($2.4 billion) budget reserve for the current fiscal year which can be used.

Before news of the problem with reactor No. 3, the nuclear safety agency said the plant accident was less serious than both the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

An official at the agency said it rated the incident a 4 according to the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). Three Mile Island was rated 5 while Chernobyl was rated 7 on the 1 to 7 scale.

Mammoth rescue and recovery effort

The raging tsunami picked up shipping containers, cars and the debris of shattered homes. It crashed through the streets of Sendai and across open fields, forming a mud slick that covered vast tracts of land.

Some 50,000 military and other rescue personnel are spearheading a mammoth rescue and recovery effort with hundreds of ships, aircraft and vehicles headed to the Pacific coast area.

The United States, which has nearly 50,000 military personnel in Japan, ordered a flotilla including two aircraft carriers and support ships to the region to provide aid.

The quake hit at 2:46 pm (0546 GMT) and lasted about two minutes, making buildings sway in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area and home to some 30 million people.

Two days after the first massive quake struck just under 400 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, aftershocks were still rattling the region, including a strong 6.8 magnitude tremor on Saturday and a 6.3 quake on Sunday.

Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire", and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.

The government has long warned of the likelihood that a devastating magnitude eight quake would strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.

Japan's twin disasters: March 13 Live Blog

By Al Jazeera Staff in

Asia

on March 12th, 2011.

Photo by Reuters

Show oldest updates on top

Blog: Mar11-12

(All times are local in Japan GMT+9)

• Timestamp:

  8:43pm

  Pope Benedict XVI says he's praying for the quake and tsunami victims and in his traditional Sunday blessing, he praised the "dignity and courage" with which the Japanese are coping with the tragedy.

  Benedict also encouraged aid workers who are bringing comfort to those afflicted, saying God was with them.

• Timestamp:

  8:12pm

  PM Kan also said the current situation is the worst crisis Japan has experienced since the end of the Second World War.

• Timestamp:

  8:05pm

  Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan says the nuclear crisis is not the same as the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

  "Radiation has been released in the air, but there are no reports that a large amount was released," Jiji news agency quoted him as saying. "This is fundamentally different from the Chernobyl accident. We are working to prevent damage from spreading."

• Timestamp:

  8:03pm

  Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, in a broadcast news conference, says reactor 3 might be showing some "failure" which has to be solved and air pressure has to be lowered.

  "Currently, the radiation monitor hasn't showed any change, "he said.

  "A short while ago, they started seawater injection into the reactor" and the level of water has been rising, he said, "but it seems that the gage is not showing the water is going up."

• Timestamp:

  7:28pm

  Japan's biggest instant noodle maker Nissin says it will deliver 1 million packets to victimsin the northeast

  Nissin Foods Holdings Co. Ltd. said it will also deliver "kitchen cars." These are vehicles equipped with gas-powered kitchenettes and running water for cooking noodles.

• Timestamp:

  7:21pm

  The Japanese government has increased the number of troops to be deployed to the disaster zone to 100,000.

  "They're sending in all available resources, to try and rescue and bring relief to people who've been trapped by the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami," Al Jazeera's Shakuntala Santhiran, in Tokyo, said.

  "It's proving very difficult with the blocked roads and also many aftershocks."

• Timestamp:

  6:43pm

  Dr Ilham al-Qaradawi, a professor of nuclear physics at Qatar University, says the possible meltdown in the Fakushima facility does not necessarily have to become dangerous.

  "The meltdown means that the heat has been so great that parts of the core of the reactor has started to melt or be damaged by the heat. It does not necessarily mean it's becoming dangerous because it depends on how this is going to be contained by the containment of the reactor.

  "It could be that the reactor core could be completely damaged but there is no release of radioactivity and that's the important part."

• 
  
• Timestamp:

  5:10pm

  A Japanese man who was swept 15km out to sea by the tsunami has been plucked to safety after being spotted clinging to a piece of wreckage.

  60-year-old Hiromitsu Shinkawa was swept away along with his house on Friday and was rescued earlier today off Fukushima prefecture.

  "I ran away after learning that the tsunami was coming," Shinkawa told rescuers according to Jiji Press.

  "But I turned back to pick up something at home, when I was washed away. I was rescued while I was hanging to the roof from my house."

• Timestamp:

  5:03pm

  About 2.5 million people across Japan are without electricity and at least a million households have gone without water since the quake struck.

• Timestamp:

  4:43pm

  More astonishing footage has emerged of the moment the tsunami slammed into Japan's coastline. Houses were being crushed like tin cans and cars washed away by the massive wave.

• Timestamp:

  4:15pm

  NHK television quotes a police chief as saying more than 10,000 are feared dead in Miyagi prefecture. Our correspondent Wayne Hay, on the ground in Miyagi, said earlier that some buildings in the port town of Minamisanriku were moved 3km by the tsunami.

• Timestamp:

  4:05pm

  Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano warns of the risk of a second explosion at the Fukushima plant, but says reactor 3 could withstand it as reactor 1 did yesterday.

  "There is the possibility of an explosion in the third reactor, as in the case of the first reactor," he said, adding there would be no effect on the health of nearby residents.

• Timestamp:

  3:53pm

  The Japanese Meteorological Agency says that there is a 70 per cent chance of a major aftershock in the next three days of a magnitude of 7 or more.
• Timestamp:

  3:41pm

  This line just dropped from AP: "Japanese government spokesman warns of fresh threat from
  explosion at another nuclear unit". We'll of course let you know when we find out more. Don't forget that you can also watch our live stream.

• Timestamp:

  2:56pm

  Harry Fawcett wraps up the latest developments in Fukishima, where thousands are sheltering in evacuation centres.

• Timestamp:

  2:47pm

  AP news agency quotes police saying they have found another 200 bodies in Miyagi.

  The total death toll keeps changing as more bodies are recovered. One of the latest reports said 1,000 people are confirmed dead and hundreds more are missing.

• Timestamp:

  1:58pm

  CNN quotes experts saying the earthquake appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 2.4m and shifted the Earth on its axis.

  Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 10cm.

• Timestamp:

  1:31pm

  The Japan Meteorological Agency has revised the magnitude of Friday's earthquake to 9.0, up from 8.9.

• Timestamp:

  1:27pm

  Our correspondent Steve Chao was just reporting live for us in the town of Natori, where smashed cars and rubble are littered across big swathes of land. He says many bodies have been pulled out since floodwaters receded but there is yet no official count of the dead and injured. There is no electricity and phone lines are disrupted.

  

• Timestamp:

  1:12pm

  Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett, reporting from Motomiya, not far from the quake-hit nuclear plants in Fukushima, says residents are queuing up at local supermarkets, stocking up on food, and flocking to petrol stations to fill up the tanks ahead of any possible emergency.

• Timestamp:

  11:06am

  The Associated Press agency reports that the Japanese authorities have said another reactor at the quake-hit nuclear plant was in trouble after its cooling system also failed.
  
  "All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No. 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant," plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said, adding that pressure was rising slightly.

• Timestamp:

  7:15am

  More on the danger posed by that second developing problem at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. A Tokyo Electric Power Co spokesman said:

  All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No.3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No.1 plant.

  As of 5:30am, water injection stopped and inside pressure is rising slightly.

  An emergency report on the plant's condition has been filed with the government, he added.

  

• Timestamp:

  6:56am

  AFP says the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, where a second reactor system is overheating, says there is a risk of a second explosion. We'll keep you updated right here.

• Timestamp:

  6:51am

  The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission are sending a pair of its people to Japan. Chairman Gregory Jaczko said:

  We have some of the most expert people in this field in the world working for the NRC and we stand ready to assist in any way possible.

  The NRC is an independent agency mandated by Congress to regulate commercial nuclear power plants and other nuclear materials in the US, and said the pair were experts in boiling water nuclear reactors and were part of a broader US aid team sent to the disaster zone.

• Timestamp:

  6:37am

  Yesterday, we reported that three people had tested positive for elevated radiation levels. That number has now jumped to 160, says a Japanese nuclear safety official.

• Timestamp:

  6:29am

  Fukushima nuclear plant - where a huge explosion yesterday blew the outer walls and roof off the No.1 reactor building - faces a new problem.

  The emergency cooling system of No.3 reactor has now also stopped working, the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has announced.

  Sea water is being pumped into the No.1 reactor chamber to cool its fuel rods - and officials are scrambling to secure a means of of supplying water to the No.3 reactor.

• Timestamp:

  6:17am

  First it was 6,000 - then 45,000... Now about 140,000 people have been told to evacuate areas near the two Fukushima nuclear power plants following Friday's earthquake, said the UN atomic watchdog. The International Atomic Energy Agency said:

  Evacuations around both affected nuclear plants have begun ... but full evacuation measures have not been completed.

• Timestamp:

  6:12am

  After the devastating earthquake off the coast of north-east Japan damaged the cooling system of several reactors at Fukushima's nuclear power facility, a large explosion appears to have blown the external walls and roof off one of the reactor buildings.
  
  Al Jazeera's Sonia Gallego reports on what this means for the safety of the plant - and of the thousands of people who live nearby. Watch the footage of the explosion, and an explanation of what happened - and might happen next - below.

• Timestamp:

  6:00am

  Welcome to our new liveblog for March 13, keeping you up to date with the latest from Japan and around the Pacific Rim. If you've missed out on anything, catch up with the previous days' blog, which covers everything that's happened since the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck, by clicking here.

Fears of civil war in Cote d'Ivoire

Spectre of a full-fledged war looms as bloody battles for power renew in the West African country and top cocoa grower. Last Modified: 13 Mar 2011 08:24 GMT Security forces loyal to Cote d'Ivoire's disputed president, Laurent Gbagbo, have launched a fresh attack to drive fighters backing Alassane Ouattara, his rival for the presidency, out of a suburb of Abidjan, military officials said. Saturday's attack comes as Gbagbo continues to refuse to step down after a disputed November election which Ouattara won, according to UN-certified results. More than 400 people have been killed since the elections, and the fresh violence renews the spectre of the deadly civil war from 2002-2003, which divided the country into areas of rebel and government control. Nearly half a million Ivorians fled their homes. Gbagbo officials said several hundred soldiers, some armed with rocket-propelled grenades, were taking part in an operation backed by armoured vehicles and two reconnaissance helicopters. They said the operation was an attempt to bring peace to the restive Abobo neighbourhood, which has been the site of fierce fighting between the two sides in recent weeks. "There was firing all over the place around the Plateau-Dokui (a local square)," Idrissa Diarrassouba, a resident of Abobo said. "A child was hit in the hand by a bullet and houses were struck by bullets." However, Hamadoun Toure, UN mission spokesman, played down the extent of the assault, noting "there was some fighting in Abobo but they were just some skirmishes". Toure said a member of the 10,000-strong UN force had been wounded when pro-Gbagbo youths attacked him and burned his car at a supermarket in Abidjan. The United Nations has complained that Gbagbo supporters are whipping up local sentiment against the mission. Failed effort The African Union (AU) failed this week, in its latest effort, to broker a settlement in a country that was until recently one of West Africa's most stable and prosperous economies, and remains the world's top cocoa grower. Allies of Gbagbo, who contends that the results of the poll were rigged, refused to accept an AU proposal for a national unity government led by Ouattara. International sanctions such as a ban on European ships using Ivorian ports, together with the near-collapse of the local banking sector, mean supplies of the country's cocoa to world markets have virtually dried up. UN diplomats told the Reuters news agency on Friday, that there were discussions at the UN security council about setting up an escrow account for Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa revenues that would allow Ouattara to benefit from funding once the trade restarts. Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports from Abidjan, how a bloody battle for power is escalating in the West African nation of Cote d'Ivoire. Source: Al Jazeera