Month: December 2023

Netanyahu, leader of Israel’s right-wing Likud party, is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, allegations he denies.

Minister David Amsalem of Likud called the resumption of proceedings during the unrest “a disgrace”.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Amsalem poised a question that right now the most important thing in this country is to “renew Netanyahu’s trial.”

 

Opposition leader reiterates call for PM’s resignation

Netanyahu and his allies have argued the accusations against him are politically motivated and had proposed a judicial overhaul that would have curbed some powers held by the courts.

The high-profile trial is expected to last several more months. An appeal process, if necessary, could take years.

In one of three cases the trial encompasses, prosecutors allege a plot between Netanyahu and the controlling shareholder of Israel’s Bezeq telecom giant to exchange regulatory favours for positive coverage on a news site owned by the firm.

A second case relates to Netanyahu’s relationship with Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and other wealthy personalities.

According to prosecutors, between 2007 and 2016 Netanyahu allegedly received gifts valued at 700,000 shekels ($195,000), including boxes of cigars, bottles of champagne and jewellery, in exchange for financial or personal favours.

Leave office

According to Al Jazeera report, the opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the time has come for the “one on whose watch the greatest calamity in the history of [Israel] occurred to leave us alone”, adding, “those who fail like this cannot continue”.

At the beginning of a meeting of the centrist Yesh Atid party, Lapid said: “It’s time for this government to release us from its punishment.”

Last month, Lapid had written on X: “We need to establish a national reconstruction government. Likud will lead it, Netanyahu and the extremists will be replaced, [and] over 90 members of the Knesset will be partners in the coalition for healing and reconnection.”

Netanyahu, who is Israel’s first sitting prime minister to stand trial, denies any wrongdoing, saying gifts were only accepted from friends and without him having asked for them.

Hundreds are still searching for 10 other hikers who went missing on Sumatra’s Mount Marapi.

The search was halted on Monday due to safety concerns as there were continual eruptions.

The volcano spewed a 3km (9,800ft) ash cloud into the air, dimming the sky and blanketing surrounding villages in ash.

Most of the 75 hikers in the area during the eruption were evacuated.

About 200 more people were deployed to help with the search on Tuesday morning, even as officials warned that the volcano is still erupting.

Ahmad Rifandi, an official at Marapi’s monitoring station, told AFP that he observed five eruptions from midnight till 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

“Marapi is still very much active. We can’t see the height of the column because it’s covered by the cloud,” he told the news agency.

Mount Marapi, which means “Mountain of Fire”, is among the most active of Indonesia’s 127 volcanoes and is also popular among hikers. Some trails reopened only last June due to ash eruptions from January to February. Marapi’s deadliest eruption occurred in 1979, when 60 people died.

Three people rescued near the crater on Monday, before the search was suspended, were “weak and had some burns”, said Abdul Malik, head of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency.

Forty-nine climbers were evacuated from the area earlier in the day, many of whom also suffered burns.

Authorities have not disclosed the identities of the hikers yet.

Video footage of Sunday’s eruption showed a huge cloud of volcanic ash spread widely across the sky, and cars and roads covered with ash.

Rescue workers took turns carrying the dead and the injured down the mountain’s arduous terrain and onto waiting ambulances with blaring sirens.

“Some suffered from burns because it was very hot, and they have been taken to the hospital,” said Rudy Rinaldi, head of the West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency.

 

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One of the hikers, Zhafirah Zahrim Febrina, appealed to her mother for help in a video message from the volcano. The 19-year-old student, whose nickname is Ife, appeared shocked, her face burnt and her hair matted with thick grey ash.

“Mom, help Ife. This is Ife’s situation right now,” she said.

She was on a hiking trip in Marapi with 18 school friends and is now in hospital receiving treatment.

Her mother, Rani Radelani, told AFP that her daughter underwent “tremendous trauma”.

“She is affected psychologically because she saw her burns, and she also had to endure the pain all night,” she said.

Another hiker moaned in pain and said “God is great” as a rescuer carried her on their back, AFP reported.

Marapi is located on Sumatra, the westernmost and third largest of Indonesia’s 18,000 islands. It stands 2,891m (9,485ft) high.

The Indonesian archipelago sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.

Additional reporting by Hanna Samosir in Jakarta

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A group of rescue workers carrying a survivor amid foliage, in Agam West Sumatra on 4 December

Rescue workers coordinated to evacuate survivors from the area
Sumatra’s Marapi volcano – a dangerous climb
By Frank Gardner

Sumatra’s “Gunung Marapi” volcano was deserted when we climbed it as teenage students in the 1980s. Foolishly, a university friend and I declined the offer of a guide from the village at the base of the slope and trekked up alone by a narrow path through the jungle.

The leeches soon found us, crawling into our socks and up our legs. We emerged at around 2,500m to find a world of blackened, twisted trees, scorched by a recent eruption. Clouds of sulphurous gases swirled around the crater and fissures opened up in the rock just metres away, revealing molten rock below.

Only then did we realise just how dangerous this volcano was – but by now it was getting dark, a freezing rain was falling and we couldn’t locate the path back down through the jungle, leaving us thrashing through foliage for hours. We sorely regretted not bringing a guide.

 

MPs – including 22 Conservatives – voted to back an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

It requires ministers to establish a “body to administer the compensation scheme” within three months ofthe bill becoming law.

MPs cheered when the proposal by Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson was approved.

The Haemophilia Society said thousands had waited far too long for justice and Rishi Sunak “should be ashamed” it had taken cross-party pressure and public opinion to force him “to do the right thing”.

It is the first defeat in the House of Commons on a whipped vote since the last general election in 2019.

The legislation – passed by 246 votes to 242 – has cleared the House of Commons, but it also needs to be approved by the House of Lords before becoming law.

Justice minister Edward Argar said the government would try to amend the bill in the Lords to clarify when the body to provide compensation to infected blood victims would be delivered.

The government has said there is a moral case for compensating victims of the scandal.

It has agreed to make the first interim payments of £100,000 each to 4,000 surviving victims and bereaved partners.

However, it said it wanted to wait for the infected blood inquiry to conclude before setting up a full scheme.

Earlier this year, Sir Brian Langstaff, who is chairing the inquiry, called for a full compensation scheme to be set up immediately. He also said it should be widened to include orphaned children and parents who lost children.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, up to 30,000 people were given contaminated blood products.

More than 3,000 people died after contracting HIV or hepatitis C after receiving a blood transfusion on the NHS or a treatment made from contaminated blood.

Justine Gordon-Smith
Image caption,
Justine Gordon-Smith had to put her career on hold to care for her father
Justine Gordon-Smith, whose dad died after being given infected blood, told BBC Newsnight she was “stunned” by the result but was concerned what the government “might try to do to limit things now”.

Her father Randolph Peter Gordon-Smith, who had haemophilia, learned in 1994 that he had been infected with hepatitis C. He later died in 2018.

“When he was infected – he lost everything,” she said. “He lost his home, his job, his wife, his health – everything – and he became a recluse.”

She said compensation was not just about recognition, but “repairing the damage that’s done to your life”.

“The huge hole, the entire career, everything that our dad lost – that’s the big issue. Then there’s all the time and years of life we’ve lost,” she added.

What is the contaminated blood inquiry?
How 175 children were infected with HIV
Hunt says compensation bill may be very large
Sir Brian’s inquiry had been due to publish a final report in November, but has been pushed back to March 2024.

In an attempt to speed up efforts to compensate victims, Dame Diana Johnson – who leads the All-Party Parliamentary group on Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood – put forward the amendment.

She told MPs that Sir Brian had already made clear his inquiry’s recommendations on compensation and that the government did not need to wait for his final conclusions before setting up a scheme.

The Kingston Upon Hull North MP also noted that victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal had been awarded compensation before the inquiry’s final report had been published, and argued the same should apply to those affected by infected blood.

Her amendment was backed by her own party, with shadow minister Kevin Brennan saying there was “no reason for the government not to move forward on this issue”.

Conservative MP Rehman Chishti was among those who gave his support, saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied – we should not delay any further.”

The voting list showed Mr Chishti was joined by a number of former Tory ministers, including Sir Robert Buckland, Damian Green, Dame Andrea Jenkyns and Chloe Smith.

The defeat came despite a last-ditch attempt by the government to offer concessions in an attempt to placate MPs.

Justice minister Edward Argar had said the government would amend the Bill in the Lords to establish the necessary structure and timescales for a delivery body to provide compensation.

Andrew Evans, chairman of Tainted Blood, a campaign group which represents contaminated blood victims, said the government had promised “a future amendment to buy off Tory MPs, a move which thankfully has failed”.

Mr Evans said any attempts to reverse the amendment when the bill goes to the Lords “would heap yet more misery on those who have already suffered so much for four decades”.

GAZA: Israeli forces overran nearly all parts of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, as more than 700 Palestinians were reported to have been killed after Tel Aviv ended a week-long truce.

A statement from Israeli Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi said that his forces were operating across north and south Gaza, with tanks and soldiers seen moving through the besieged territory over the weekend.

The death toll from Israel’s relentless bombing has climbed above 15,500, including 280 medical staff, in more than eight weeks of Israeli aggression.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk voiced alarm that hundreds of thousands of Gazans “are being confined into ever smaller areas” in the southern of the territory.

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

UN-OCHA said at least 160 Palestinian deaths were reported in two incidents in northern Gaza on Saturday: the bombing of a six-storey building in Jabalia refugee camp, and of an entire block in Gaza City.

In a new estimate, OCHA said around 1.8 million people in Gaza, roughly 75 per cent of the population, had been displaced, many to overcrowded and unsanitary shelters.

Jumana Murad said her son Mohammad, 19, was killed as he tried to help women and children out of a tent inside a school.

“A piece of shrapnel hit him in the head,” she told AFP before bursting into tears.

Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis overflowed with both the wounded and the dead.

Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have descended into chaos since the resumption of hostilities, and WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that some patients there were being treated on the floor, in conditions “unimaginable for the provision of health care”.

He said he was unable to “find words strong enough” to express his concerns about the conditions there.

Members of a WHO team who visited the hospital, found it packed with 1,000 patients, three times its capacity.

Patients were being treated on the floor “screaming in pain”, with “countless people… seeking shelter, filling every corner”, the WHO chief wrote. Gazans are short of food, water and other essentials, and the aid reaching them is “a drop in the ocean of needs,” said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

 

On Sunday, Israeli air and artillery strikes hit Gaza’s northern frontier, throwing thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky.

The Israeli military also claimed it had located more than 800 shafts to Hamas tunnels and “destroyed” about 500 of them, adding that many were near or inside civilian buildings such as schools and mosques.

Separately, fighting also flared on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had launched artillery strikes in response to cross-border fire, and its fighter jets hit a number of targets linked to Hezbollah.

Hamas, meanwhile, said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops about 2km from the southern city of Khan Yunis, as residents said they feared a fresh Israeli ground offensive was building there.

The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Hamas-ruled enclave was among the sites hit reported hit from the air. A Gazan health ministry spokesperson said several people were killed by an Israeli air strike.

The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate several areas in and around Khan Younis. It posted a map highlighting shelters they should go to west of Khan Yunis and south towards Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

But residents said that areas they had been told to go to were themselves coming under attack.

“I am a resident of Gaza City, then we moved to Al-Karara in southern Gaza Strip and yesterday we fled to deeper shelter in Khan Yunis and today we are trying to flee under the bombardment to Rafah,” he said.

ISLAMABAD: The European Union (EU) has communicated to the government that due to a lack of time, it will not be able to send a full election observation mission, as it did in the 2018 polls, and will also be unable to provide recommendations after the conclusion of February 8 elections, reported The News on Monday.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has invited observation missions for next year’s election. The EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) has monitored polls in the country five times.

During the last elections in 2018, EU EOM comprised a core team of 10 analysts and 60 long-term observers across the country. On the election day, it deployed a total of 122 observers.

Later, in October 2018, the mission shared its final report with the Pakistani authorities with 30 recommendations to improve future electoral processes. Out of the 30 recommendations, at least 8 were identified as priority.

“Only a small mission of experts will visit Pakistan during the elections 2024, while no recommendations or political assessment of the voting will be presented to the Pakistan government. The EU will not be sending a full-blown election observation mission. Those need several months in advance to plan and budget for,” EU Ambassador to Pakistan Ms Riina Kionka told The News.

The envoy stated that they had conveyed their position to different government officials whom she had met recently.

When the spokeswoman at the Foreign Office was asked about the EU mission or whether the ministry had issued any invitations to election observers from individual countries or international organisations, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: “I do not have that data with me. So, I’ll have to take it back and maybe respond at some other occasion.”

The ECP has urged the Foreign Office to take essential measures to invite international observers to monitor the transparency of the upcoming general elections, and a code of conduct for international observers will also be published.

The ECP says it has informed the Foreign Office that it believes in an open-door policy and welcomes observation missions for the upcoming general elections at the earliest as required.

At least 11 climbers were found dead in Indonesia on Monday following the eruption of the Mount Marapi volcano in West Sumatra, according to a rescue official.

Meanwhile, the search for the 12 missing climbers was temporarily suspended due to safety concerns.

According to Jodi Haryawan, a spokesman for the search and rescue team, three survivors and the remains of the 11 climbers — among the 75 people in the region at the time of Sunday’s eruption — were discovered on Monday.

The 2,891-meter (9,485-foot)-tall volcano erupted on Sunday, shooting ash up to 3 kilometres into the sky.

Following the eruption, authorities issued a second-highest level alert and restricted residents from within 3km of a crater due to a massive cloud of volcanic ash and ash-covered cars and roads.

A small eruption on Monday prompted the search to be suspended, Jodi said.

“It’s too dangerous if we continue searching now,” he said.

There were 49 climbers evacuated from the area earlier Monday and many were being treated for burns, he said.

Mount Marapi is one of the most active volcanoes on Sumatra Island and its most deadly eruption was in April 1979, when 60 people died, Reuters reported.

This year, it erupted between January and February and was spewing ash around 75 metres-1,000 metres from the peak.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific’s so-called “Ring of Fire” and has 127 active volcanoes, according to the volcanology agency.