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IDF ‘neutralizes’ Palestinian woman who rammed
and stabbed Israeli troops in West Bank
16 Jun, 2021 12:26
Israeli-occupied West Bank, June 16, 2021. © REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said that one of their troops has been lightly injured after a Palestinian woman rammed Israeli soldiers near Ramallah before attempting to stab them. The woman was “neutralized,” the IDF said.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the IDF stated that an attack had taken place against Israeli troops near the village of Hizma, southeast of Ramallah, the main city in the West Bank.
The IDF described the event as a “combined car-ramming and stabbing attack” and said that “the assailant was neutralized at the scene.”
Another tweet added that a woman had “exited her vehicle with a knife drawn” after ramming troops and was then “neutralized” by IDF soldiers. “During the incident, an IDF soldier was lightly injured,” it stated but did not elaborate on the injuries sustained.
Photos from the scene show a damaged saloon car and Israeli troops holding positions around the supposed attack site.
On Wednesday morning, there were signs that the peace treaty agreed in May following the 11 days of fighting may be in danger as Israel, under the new government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, launched airstrikes on Gaza. The IDF said the airstrikes were “in response to the inflating of incendiary balloons into Israeli territory.”
The incendiary balloons, which caused a number of fires across Israel, were launched after Bennett’s government allowed right-wing settlers to march to the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem on Tuesday. The annual march marks Israel seizing East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day war.
Bennett was sworn in as prime minister on Sunday, replacing long-term leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and will lead the ‘Change Bloc’ consisting of right-wing, centrist and even Arab parties. Bennett has previously stood for and championed the rights of Jewish communities to settle in the West Bank.
Most Germans say freedom of speech is in jeopardy, many name Islam
and patriotism among topics they cannot speak freely about
16 Jun, 2021 20:27
A majority of German citizens believe that freedom of expression is in danger, the latest poll shows. ‘Patriotism’ and Islam were named among topics one should be particularly careful about.
Only 45% of Germans still believe they can express their political opinion freely, says a survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy – one of Germany’s oldest and most respectable polling agencies.
That is the lowest figure since 1953, when the institute started conducting such polls. Just a few years ago, two-thirds of Germans believed that nothing stops them from expressing their opinion freely.
Most believe that their freedom of expression is in danger, while 44% feel one had better be careful about what one says, according to the survey published in Germany’s FAZ newspaper on Wednesday.
Almost 60% of respondents named Islam as an issue to be particularly reserved about. “Patriotism” was named as another such controversial topic by 28% of Germans. Another issue many respondents reported feeling uneasy about was women’s rights, since 19% of the respondents named it a taboo topic.
Some other topics such as gender-neutral language or words considered to be politically incorrect were also perceived as sensitive, the Tagesspiegel newspaper said.
Supporters of various political parties also assessed the situation with freedom of speech in Germany differently. Those backing the left-leaning Green Party described it quite positively, as did the supporters of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Supporters of all other parties, including Merkel’s coalition partners – the Social Democrats – said they have to be rather cautious while expressing their opinions. Sympathizers of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party were the least satisfied with the present situation, since only 12% of them said they could freely defend their opinions in public.
Gunmen kill police officer, abduct students & teachers
from Nigerian school
17 Jun, 2021 19:19
Another group abduction occurred in Nigeria on Thursday, with militants killing a police officer and kidnapping five teachers and an unknown number of students in an attack on a school in the northwest of the country.
A gunfight erupted between the attackers and police outside a federal government college in the remote town of Birnin Yauri in the state of Kebbi. The militants eventually overpowered law enforcement, managing to make their way into the building before abducting a number of female students, local media reported.
Kebbi police have confirmed the attack, saying that one officer was shot dead in the gunfight. A student also suffered a bullet wound in the incident and was taken to hospital for treatment.
“We are still trying to ascertain the number of students kidnapped, but five teachers were kidnapped,” police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar told reporters. Security forces were searching a nearby forest in an attempt to track down the kidnappers and their victims, he added.
Panic broke out at the school as parents searched for their kids, eyewitness Atiku Aboki told Reuters. “When we got there we saw students crying, teachers crying, everyone is sympathizing with people,” he said.
More than 800 students have been kidnapped from schools in Nigeria since December. The authorities have blamed the raids on armed groups who are looking for ransom. Some of those students have been rescued by security forces or managed to escape, but many others remain missing. The Nigerian government has denied ever paying ransom for the return of the kidnapped.
The continuing spate of kidnappings sparked protests in the country’s Niger State in late May, with locals disrupting a major highway while demanding better security and protection from law enforcement.
Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi who killed 22 people
‘should have been identified as threat,’ inquiry finds
17 Jun, 2021 15:59
on May 23, 2017 in Manchester, England © Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The suicide bomber who killed 22 people and injured hundreds of others at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England should have been spotted as a threat, a public inquiry into the 2017 attack has found.
Inquiry chief John Saunders said there “were a number of opportunities which were missed” that should have “prevented or minimised the devastating impact” of Salman Abedi’s bomb attack.
In the first of his three reports, published on Thursday, Saunders was highly critical of the security arrangements at the Manchester Arena ahead of the attack by Abedi, who was said to have been inspired by the Islamic State terrorist group.
Abedi detonated the device, concealed in his backpack, in the venue’s foyer area as many parents waited to collect children after the show.
Those “principally responsible” for the missed opportunities were entertainment company SMG, which ran the arena, its contracted security firm Showsec, and the British Transport Police (BTP), Saunders said.
However, he also said there were “failings by individuals,” including that of Showsec security guard Mohammed Agha, which Saunders said was the “most striking” missed opportunity of all.
Agha had spoken to a concerned member of the public, Christopher Wild, who had confronted Abedi and asked what was in his bag just minutes before the bomb went off, the report said. In his evidence, Wild said he felt “fobbed off” by Agha after telling the security guard that he thought Abedi might “let a bomb off.”
Saunders said Abedi “should have been identified on May 22, 2017 as a threat by those responsible for the security of the Arena and a disruptive intervention undertaken.”
Had that occurred, I consider it likely that Abedi would still have detonated his device, but the loss of life and injury is highly likely to have been less.
Other failings identified in the inquiry’s report included SMG’s “inadequate” CCTV, which Saunders said had caused a blind spot that enabled Abedi to hide before his attack. The inquiry lead criticised stewards’ counter-terrorism training and the fact that there was no BTP officer stationed in the foyer area.
The inquiry chief also made nine recommendations, including that the government’s ‘Protect Duty’, which is currently still under public consultation, should be made into legislation to enhance security at venues.
Liberian rebel leader sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes
including cannibalism in first such trial by Swiss court
18 Jun, 2021 16:21
(Bundesstrafgericht) building in Bellinzona, Switzerland. © Reuters / Emma Farge.
Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah has been handed a 20 year prison sentence over charges of rape, killings and even cannibalism in the first war crimes trial in a civilian court in Switzerland.
On Friday, the Swiss Federal Court found Kosiah guilty on all but four of the 25 charges he faced for his alleged actions while in the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) rebel group. The court convicted him on war crimes including rape, killings and even cannibalism, after an incident in which he allegedly ate slices of a man’s heart.
The 46-year-old’s sentencing comes at the end of a seven-year legal process. Kosiah was first arrested in Switzerland, where he was living, in 2014 with Swiss authorities making use of a 2011 law that permits the prosecution of anyone for serious crimes, regardless of where they were committed.
The conviction marks one of the first successful prosecutions over the actions of rebel groups during the West African nation’s civil war, with Human Rights Watch (HRW) describing the judgment as a “landmark” event.
“Switzerland’s efforts on this case should help mobilize wider accountability in Liberia as this shows that these crimes can be prosecuted,” HRW’s Elise Keppler said following the sentencing.
Liberia has faced criticism for failing to hold people accountable for the crimes committed in the country between 1989 and 2003, when warring factions engaged in internationally-condemned actions, including using child soldiers. Activists within Liberia have expressed hope that, following Kosiah’s conviction and sentencing, the country’s government will establish a war crimes unit, as called for by the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
The ULIMO rebel group fought in the First Liberian Civil War from 1991 to 1994. Following internal divisions, it splintered into two factions, ULIMO-J and ULIMO-K, in 1994. Its fighters have been accused of committing numerous human rights abuses during the conflict.
20 years for 21 charges including rape, murder, and cannibalism is too short! It should be twice that if you are going to make any impression on those who commit war crimes. They should not have the luxury of having hope that they will be out while still young enough to continue their inhuman ways.
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