Modern Sinbad

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

German anti-Islam PEGIDA leader summoned on hate speech charges

© DPA/AFP/File | Lutz Bachmann, a leader of the PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) speaks to protestors during a rally in Leipzig on March 7, 2016

BERLIN (AFP) - The founder of Germany's xenophobic and anti-Islam group PEGIDA has been summoned to court on hate speech charges for describing refugees as "cattle" and "scum", a court in Dresden said.
Lutz Bachmann, 43, was charged with inciting hatred in October for a series of widely shared posts on the PEGIDA Facebook page, which stands for "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident".
A court date has been set for April, with two further hearings in May.
The court said Bachmann's comments "disrupted public order" and constituted an "attack on (the refugees') dignity".
PEGIDA started life in October 2014 as a xenophobic Facebook group, initially drawing just a few hundred protesters to demonstrations in the eastern city of Dresden before gaining strength, peaking with turnouts of 25,000 people.
Interest subsequently began to wane following Bachmann's overtly racist comments and the surfacing of "selfies" in which he sported a Hitler-style moustache and hairstyle.
But the group has seen a revival with the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers, many fleeing war in mostly Muslim countries like Syria and Iraq. They are part of an unprecedented influx of newcomers to Germany, which took in more than a million migrants and refugees last year.
The populist right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made surprise gains in weekend regional polls in what was widely seen a protest vote against Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy on refugees.

Iran FM says Russian pullout of Syria 'positive' for ceasefire

© AFP | Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (L) speaks with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif before a meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on March 15, 2016

CANBERRA (AFP) - Russia's move to begin withdrawing from Syria should be seen as a positive sign for the ceasefire, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tuesday.
Speaking in Canberra after meeting with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop, Zarif underlined Iran's stance on the need for a ceasefire and a political solution in Syria.
"The fact that a semi-ceasefire has been holding in Syria is welcome news, it's something that we've been asking for at least two-and-a-half, three years," he said.
"The fact that Russia announced that it's withdrawing part of its forces indicates that they don't see an imminent need for resort to force in maintaining the ceasefire.
"That in and of itself should be a positive sign. Now we have to wait and see."
Zarif said while the ceasefire did not include Daesh, the so-called Islamic State group, and the Al-Qaeda linked extremist group Al-Nusra Front or their collaborators, the international community was united against them.
"The message that the international community has been sending to Daesh, and should be sending to Daesh and other extremist organisations, is that our fight against them is relentless," Zarif said.
"We will not stop and I believe the entire international community is united in that."
Zarif said he did not think anybody should consider Daesh or other extremist organisations as a leverage "even for temporary political gains".
"And I hope that message can be driven home everywhere in the region, particularly as we see more and more instances of carnage in terrorism in our region carried out by Daesh," he said.
President Vladimir Putin called long-standing ally Bashar al-Assad on Monday to inform him that Moscow will withdraw the bulk of its forces from Syria, a move hailed by the United Nations Security Council as a "positive step" for the fraught peace negotiations.
But hopes for a breakthrough at the Geneva talks remain remote with both sides locked in a bitter dispute over the future of the Syrian president.

Niger fights back against 'curse' of fistula

NIAMEY (AFP) - "I was at death's door. I'd just lost my child who was stillborn and my husband abandoned me," recalls Hadiza Zakaria who suffered a fistula while pregnant -- a condition seen as a curse in Niger.
Obstetric fistula is a childbirth injury caused by a complicated labour which can leave victims with chronic incontinence and often results in them becoming social outcasts.
A preventable condition, it affects around a million of the world's poorest women, and is widespread in this west African nation which has the highest birthrate in the world.
"It's a public health problem whose scope is beyond us," says Dr Abdou Amada Traore, who volunteers to help women suffering from the condition he describes as a national "scourge".
The condition arises from a complicated labour where a woman can struggle for days without giving birth, with the pressure of the baby's head cutting off blood supply to delicate tissues, causing a hole to form between the vagina and the bladder or rectum.
Although such complications could be solved by a Caesarian section, for those without access to emergency medical care, the result can be devastating -- the baby often dies and the mother develops a fistula which causes urinary or rectal incontinence.
One of the groups at the heart of the struggle is Dimol, a local NGO which is dedicated to the prevention of fistula, to treating the victims and to helping them be reintegrate back into society.
Funded entirely from donations, the charity helps around 60 women a year at its centre in Niger's capital, Niamey, helping them both prepare for and recover from corrective surgery.
Although an obstetric fistula is treatable through surgery, the social ostracism often takes much longer to heal.
- 'Seen as a curse' -
Once a housewife in a remote village, Zakaria, 48, now makes a living selling 'boule', a traditional grainy porridge-like dish which she prepares.
She is a frequent visitor to Dimol where she offers support to younger women, telling them her story of complications in labour which resulted in her losing the baby.
She ended up with urinary incontinence and her husband left her. Eventually, she found help through Dimol where she underwent surgery and started rebuilding her life.
"One of the problems with a fistula is that it's often seen as a curse," explains Imorou Nafissatou, who works with the charity.
"Because of the smell, people believe the woman's being punished, that it's witchcraft or that she's committed adultery... She's often shunned and rejected. She herself doesn't understand what's happening to her."
Often the women become depressed and can even develop dementia, she says.
Some 20 veiled women and a gaggle of children live in the small house run by Dimol on the outskirts of Niamey, where a teacher regularly visits to give them basic literacy classes.
They also work on old pedal sewing machines.
"That's part of their treatment -- it forces them to move their legs and get the blood circulating," explains Dimol's Sana Ousmane.
- Children giving birth -
A "social disease", the condition is symptomatic of "poverty and often a consequence of teenage marriage," Nafissatou explains.
In Niger, one of the world's poorest countries, young women in rural areas often go without pre-natal consultations, says Dimol founder Salamatou Traore.
Girls also marry very young, often giving birth before their bodies are ready for it, with UN figures showing one in three girls in Niger are married off before age 15 and three quarters before the age of 18.
"We sometimes have girls who give birth without having had their periods -- children of 12."
The result?
"We have very young girls giving birth who are not morphologically or anatomically ready to do so," says Dr Abdou.
"I often say that ending up with fistula is lucky. Often they die," he says.
- Reintegration is key -
One of the victims is 16-year-old Hadjura Zerifili, who was married at 12 and lost her baby several months ago.
"At the start, I was ashamed (at becoming incontinent). My parents initially thought I was doing it on purpose but later they understood," she says.
"All I want is to have my health back. Since I arrived here I feel better. I see other women here and that reassures me," the teenager says.
Maimouna Moukaila Salman, 20, is all smiles. She has been through her surgery and is now getting ready to be "reintegrated" into her village.
"I am cured. I want to go home to my husband," she says.
But first, she will have to spend several months with her family to allow the scars to heal before heading home.
Reintegration is very important, Traore says.
"We hold a ceremony which allows us to pass on a message to other women who might have a fistula to show that they can be healed," she says.
"The women who return are much more fulfilled," she says.
"They have more self-confidence and they can serve as an example."

by Patrick Fort

Bangladesh central bank governor quits over $81 mn heist

© AFP/File | Bangladesh Bank Governor, Atiur Rahman, speaks during the IMF?World Bank Annual Meetings, in Washington, DC, in 2014

DHAKA (AFP) - Bangladesh's central bank chief resigned on Tuesday, the finance minister said, after hackers stole $81 million from the nation's foreign reserves in an audacious cyber-heist that has hugely embarrassed the government.
"He called me yesterday and I've asked him to resign. And he has resigned today," minister A.M.A Muhith told AFP, referring to the Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman.

'Forced labour' for thousands of maids in Hong Kong: report

© AFP/File | Tens of thousands of foreign maids in Hong Kong are in "forced labour", according to a new report

HONG KONG (AFP) - Tens of thousands of foreign maids in Hong Kong are in "forced labour", according to a new report that fuels growing criticism of the city's treatment of its army of domestic workers.
The study by the Justice Centre estimates that one in six, or 50,000 of Hong Kong's more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers -- mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines -- fell into the "forced labour" category.
Its findings come after a report by the UN Committee Against Torture in December urged Hong Kong authorities to reform laws in order to protect victims of forced labour and trafficking.
The plight of the city's domestic workers was also thrown into the international spotlight by the high-profile abuse case of Indonesian maid Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, whose Hong Kong employer received a six-year jail sentence last year.
The new report defined forced labour as employment for which the worker had not been recruited freely, was not doing the job freely, or could not walk away from work.
Fourteen percent of those in forced labour had been trafficked into the city, it said.
"Hong Kong must come clean and acknowledge these problems. It can no longer afford to sweep them under the carpet," said Piya Muqit, executive director of Justice Centre, a non-profit rights group.
"Current regulations can actually increase the vulnerability of workers to exploitation and victims face very real barriers in seeking assistance and justice," she said.
Debt incurred by unscrupulous employment agencies both in Hong Kong and the workers' home countries also played a major role in trapping workers in their jobs, the report found.
"Forced labour does not always involve physical violence, there are many tools of coercion and deception," said Victoria Wisniewski Otero, co-author of the study that interviewed more than 1,000 workers.
One Indonesian maid named as Indah told researchers she felt she had no choice but to continue working because of the debt she had incurred.
She also said she had no access to her passport, which was being held by her employer.
The study found migrant domestic labourers worked an average 70-hour week and more than a third were not given the full 24-hour rest period required under Hong Kong law.
The report called on the Hong Kong government to review legislation, improve workers' living and working conditions, and penalise agencies that overcharge.
Rules that say foreign maids must live with their employers and leave the city within two weeks of terminating an employment contract must also be scrapped, it said.
"The government will have to be pushed and pulled into doing something," said legislator Emily Lau, head of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, who also called for workers' home countries to take action.
Hong Kong's labour department had no immediate response to the report.

Russia, Tajikistan hold huge military drills near Afghan border

© AFP/File | Russia and Tajikistan have begun large-scale military drills close to the Central Asian state's restless border with Afghanistan

DUSHANBE (TAJIKISTAN) (AFP) - Russia and fragile ex-Soviet ally Tajikistan have begun large-scale military drills close to the Central Asian state's restless border with Afghanistan, a Tajik military official confirmed Tuesday.
A spokesman for Tajikistan's defence ministry said the drills involved about 50,000 Tajik troops and 2,000 Russian troops, including paratroopers flown in from Russia.
"The manoeuvres involve around 1,000 armoured vehicles, artillery, and 32 combat and transport aircraft," spokesman Faridun Makhmadalizoda told AFP, adding that they would continue until the end of the week.
This is the first time troops from Russia's Central Military District have been involved in exercises in Tajikistan, highlighting Moscow's growing unease over chaos in Afghanistan's northern provinces.
The other Russian troops engaged in the exercises are from Moscow's 201st military base in Tajikistan, the spokesman confirmed.
Last year a contingent of 2,500 troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military bloc led by Russia and including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, also staged military exercises in the country.
Afghanistan's northern provinces have been rattled by militancy amid government infighting in Kabul and the drawdown of the US-led military presence.
Skirmishes along the porous 1300-kilometre (810 mile) frontier Afghanistan shares with Tajikistan occur frequently.
Earlier this month the Tajik border service confirmed that one of its officers and a militant had been killed in a shootout after an armed group crossed into Tajikistan from Afghanistan.

Russia pullout 'significant development' for Syria talks: UN envoy

© AFP | UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura hosted a fresh round of peace talks in Geneva, on March 14, 2016

GENEVA (AFP) - The UN envoy for Syria on Tuesday hailed Russia's partial military withdrawal from the war-ravaged country, describing the move as a "significant development" and voicing hope it could positively influence peace talks.
"The announcement by President (Vladimir) Putin on the very day of the beginning of this round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva is a significant development, which we hope will have a positive impact on the progress of the negotiations in Geneva aimed at achieving a political solution of the Syrian conflict and a peaceful political transition in the country," Staffan de Mistura said in a statement.