South Africa's image suffers after anti-immigrant attacks

April 22, 2015

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Only a few kilometers (miles) separate Alexandra, a gritty Johannesburg township where South Africans attacked immigrants last week, from Sandton, a district jammed with high-end stores, restaurants and gleaming office towers symbolizing the upper reaches of the prosperity that attracted so many job-seekers to South Africa.

Adding to South Africa's allure was its image as a "rainbow nation" of diversity and inclusion after white racist rule ended in 1994. Now a nation that seeks to lead in Africa is struggling with perceptions that some of its communities breed intolerance toward foreigners, many from elsewhere in Africa.

The violence against immigrants and the looting of their shops that erupted this month in parts of Johannesburg and the coastal city of Durban appear to have abated after the deaths of three South Africans and four foreigners. On Tuesday, Alexandra was bustling as uniformed students walked home after school and a few police cars patrolled streets lined with shacks made of sheet metal.

The unrest, however, has been a public relations disaster for South Africa, a country that a visiting Zambian said had been perceived as a "heaven of Africa" because of its relative wealth, stability and freedom.

The Zambian, Dennis Nyati, was attending a Johannesburg conference hosted this week by African Monitor, a South Africa-based group that promotes development. Another delegate, Yoadan Workneh Shiferaw of Ethiopia, speculated that South Africans involved in the attacks had forgotten "how cruel it was during apartheid," when the country's white minority rulers harshly suppressed dissent.

She said: "Now they're doing it to someone else." The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday condemned "the wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa" and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

In a statement, he said he welcomes the public expressions of the many South Africans who have been calling for peaceful coexistence and harmony with foreign nationals. He also urged that all efforts are made to avert future attacks.

More than 2,000 Mozambicans have returned home from South Africa because of the violence, Mouzinho Saide, Mozambique's deputy health minister, said Wednesday. Hundreds of immigrants have also taken buses back to Malawi and Zimbabwe. As many as 7,000 immigrants are living in South African refugee camps after fleeing their homes, according to Doctors Without Borders.

In Nigeria, South Africa's diplomatic mission in Lagos decided to close for two days because of demonstrations against the anti-foreigner violence. More than 300 suspects in the unrest have been arrested, the South African government said, including several people accused of attacking a Mozambican man in Alexandra while a local photojournalist took pictures of the fatal assault.

Namibia's chamber of commerce and industry canceled a trip to South Africa that was scheduled for May because of the anti-immigrant attacks, the Namibia Press Agency reported. No official business delegation from Namibia will visit until "we are assured that the South African government is in full control of its unruly citizens," the agency quoted chamber head Tarah Shaanika as saying.

Many South Africans have organized marches, concerts and social media campaigns to condemn the violence. It is a bitter time for a country that was the focus of international attention in December 2013 when foreign leaders traveled to Johannesburg to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa's first black president, after he died at the age of 95.

"Our rainbow nation that so filled the world with hope is being reduced to a grubby shadow of itself more likely to make the news for gross displays of callousness than for the glory that defined our transition to democracy under Nelson Mandela," said a statement from a foundation named after retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah. Tutu and Mandela were both awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end apartheid.

South Africa's national parks service, a key driver in the tourism industry, said some bookings from neighboring countries had been canceled because of the anti-immigrant attacks. "A large proportion of guests to our national parks are international visitors and we appear to be sending a message that foreigners are not welcome in our country," the parks agency said in a statement.

Tensions with immigrants, accused by some South Africans in poor areas of seizing economic opportunities at their expense, set off attacks that killed about 60 people in 2008. Several people died in similar attacks in Johannesburg's Soweto area in January.

High unemployment, a deep gulf between rich and poor and one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world cause social tensions in South Africa, even though it has one of the biggest economies on the continent. The recent attacks mostly targeted low-income areas where immigrants are embedded in the communities, and wealthy areas such as Sandton were untouched.

Some South Africans wondered what happened to the early promise of post-apartheid South Africa, recalling a comment by Mandela during his inauguration in 1994. Mandela said at the time: "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world."

South Africa faces crisis over anti-immigrant attacks

April 18, 2015

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's president on Saturday canceled a foreign trip in order to deal with a wave of attacks on immigrants that have killed at least six people. In the latest violence, mobs attacked shops owned by foreign nationals in a poor area of Johannesburg.

President Jacob Zuma had been scheduled to leave Saturday evening for Indonesia to attend a meeting of African and Asian leaders, but will instead stay to campaign for a peaceful resolution to the unrest that has swept several areas of South Africa in the past week, his office said.

Zuma planned to visit immigrants staying in a camp in the Chatsworth area of the coastal city of Durban, where some of the worst violence has occurred. "These attacks go against everything we believe in. The majority of South Africans love peace and good relations with their brothers and sisters in the continent," Zuma said in a statement.

There was a heavy police presence in the Alexandra township of Johannesburg after rioters looted some shops, burned tires and built street barricades overnight, according to eNCA, a South African news outlet. Police fired rubber bullets in an attempt to stop the unrest, the report said.

Several shops and cars owned by immigrants were torched in downtown Johannesburg in recent days. Attacks on immigrants, many of them from other African countries, in and around Durban have subsided after the deaths of six people there, police said. Some 112 people were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal province, which includes Durban, during the riots there, according to authorities.

Some South Africans have accused immigrants of taking jobs and opportunities away from them in a country with high unemployment. The government has said it is addressing complaints about undocumented migrants, while noting that many foreign nationals are living legally in South Africa and contributing to economic development.

About 60 people died in similar unrest in South Africa in 2008. In January this year, four people died during a week of looting of foreign-owned shops and other violence in Soweto and other areas of Johannesburg.

The violence this month has prompted some African countries to make arrangements for the return of some of their citizens from South Africa. Many immigrants are from neighboring Zimbabwe. Its president, Robert Mugabe, said Saturday that he was glad that the South African government had denounced the violence. Mugabe is currently chairman of the African Union as well as a regional group, the Southern African Development Community.

"If there is any issue arising from the influx of Africans into any country, surely that can be discussed and measures can be taken and taken amicably to deal and address the situation," Mugabe said in remarks on the 35th anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence.

Associated Press writer Farai Mutsaka contributed from Harare, Zimbabwe.

Thailand's new constitution draft ready for council's review

April 17, 2015

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's constitution drafters have submitted the draft of a new national charter to an advisory council for review, nearly a year after the military took power from an elected government.

The military abolished an earlier constitution after the May 22 coup, and the government operates under a temporary charter. The junta later picked the drafters and a 250-member National Reform Council to help write a new constitution.

Constitution Drafting Committee spokesman Lertrat Rattanavanich says he hopes the new constitution will move the country past cycles of political conflicts. However, critics say the charter is aimed at preventing a political comeback by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in 2006.

The drafting committee will later submit the draft to the junta and the Cabinet for separate reviews.

A bear hug: Croat village shelters bears as good neighbors

April 18, 2015

KUTAREVO, Croatia (AP) — Usually in Europe, when bear cubs get used to humans, they cannot survive in the wild. And when they grow too big, they're shot.

But not in the remote mountain village of Kutarevo, Croatia. Here since 2002, retired social worker Ivan Crnkovic-Pavenka has provided a haven for brown bears that wander into villages in search of food and develop too strong a taste for human leftovers.

Two sanctuaries walled off with simple chain-link fences allow the eight resident bears to roam freely beside, but not into, the village. To the rear lies forest wilderness, where the domesticated bears would face risk of attack by wild bears. So the bears are confined to two enclosures approximately 150 meters (yards) wide each.

"We wanted to offer an alternative to killing orphan bear cubs that got attached to human civilization," Crnkovic-Pavenka said. Hundreds of volunteers worldwide come to Kutarevo annually to help Crnkovic-Pavenka. Visitors are advised to enjoy watching the bears, a mixture of juveniles and adults, play and eat and laze about.

While most of Europe's brown bears have been wiped out, Croatia's native population is estimated at 1,000. A volunteer from France, Amelie Jaquet, said other European countries should follow Croatia's lead if they have any native bears left.

"When you come here to help, you actually realize that something is wrong in your own country," Jaquet said. "We killed all the bears and we do not know how to live with nature anymore." Crnkovic-Pavenka says he's experienced just one life-threatening event in 13 years' work at the sanctuary, when rescuing a German volunteer who had wandered into an enclosure and started serenading the bears by guitar. The German was bitten but suffered no serious wounds, and the bear had to be shot to rescue Crnkovic-Pavenka.

Associated Press reporter Sabina Niksic in Sarajevo, Bosnia, contributed to this report.

UN chief set to nominate new special envoy to Yemen

April 17, 2015

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday is expected to nominate the head of the U.N. Ebola mission as the new special envoy to Yemen, the country's U.N. ambassador said Thursday.

Ambassador Khaled Alyemany told The Associated Press that Ismael Ould Cheikh Ahmed, of Mauritania, is the only candidate for the post after Jamal Benomar on Wednesday announced his intention to step down.

"The secretary-general has already made his decision," Alyemany said. "Ould Cheikh is a very good U.N. diplomat and expert," with experience leading U.N. humanitarian efforts in Yemen in recent years, he said.

Benomar's four years of efforts at a peaceful political transition in the Arab world's poorest country fell apart amid a Shiite rebel uprising, Saudi-led airstrikes and sharp criticism from Gulf countries.

Ban was expected to nominate Ahmed in a letter to the current Security Council president. The council must approve the nomination to make it official. Ahmed was in West Africa on Thursday and had no comment, his spokeswoman said.

There was no immediate comment from Ban's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, who has said Ban would consult the parties in Yemen and countries in the region before selecting a replacement, adding that it must be "someone who can talk to all parties."

Benomar's departure created a diplomatic vacuum in Yemen, where he had been the key international figure working to bring the feuding parties together, even after diplomats fled embassies and the U.N. staff pulled out.

But Benomar had come under criticism from some in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, as his recent efforts to broker peace yielded little success. "He had started to promote the Houthis, and we cannot accept that," Alyemany said Thursday. "He started really ignoring the government and ignoring the president."

The ambassador said he doesn't see any objection to Ahmed from the collection of Gulf countries that had pressed for Benomar's departure. Yemen is now under weeks of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition in an attempt to push back Shiite Houthi rebels who swept south and caused the Western-backed president to flee.

The U.N. said in its statement on Benomar late Wednesday that it will "spare no efforts to re-launch the peace process," but the challenge has grown as the fighting in Yemen has become a kind of proxy war between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies and Iran, a Shiite power that has supported the Houthis.

More than 700 people have been killed since the airstrikes began.

In Iraq, a historic Christian library saved from militants

April 03, 2015

MAR MATTI MONASTERY, Iraq (AP) — As Islamic State group militants advanced toward this monastery perched on a mountain in northern Iraq, the monks rushed to protect a cherished piece of their heritage: Their library of centuries-old Christian manuscripts. Dozens of the handwritten tomes were spirited to safety in nearby Kurdish-ruled areas.

There they remain, hidden in a non-descript apartment in the Kurdish city of Dohuk where Christians who have fled the extremists' onslaught are living and watching over them. The Associated Press was allowed rare access to the library, a collection of copies of Bibles and biblical commentaries, mostly written in Syriac — a form of the ancient Semitic Aramaic language — and mostly dating back 400-500 years. The oldest is a copy of the letters of Saint Paul, some 1,100 years old. The bound tomes, some with tattered pages written in black and red ink, lay on shelves.

Their rescue is a bright spot in the devastating onslaught by the Sunni extremists against Iraq's people — particularly religious and ethnic minorities — and Iraq's heritage, as they took over much of northern and western Iraq the past year.

When they captured Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and other parts of the north last summer, most Christians and other minorities fled the city and nearby towns for the Kurdish autonomous zone further north. The militants seized churches and monasteries in and around Mosul, removing symbols of Christianity like the cross and blowing some up. They have also attacked Sunni Muslim shrines they consider idolatrous. In recent months they have accelerated their campaign to destroy more ancient sites, like the 3,000-year-old ruins of Nimrud; they shattered artifacts in Mosul's museum and burned hundreds of books at Mosul's library and university, including rare manuscripts.

The Syriac Orthodox Christians of Mar Matti, a monastery that dates back to the 4th century, moved to rescue their library of around 80 manuscripts in August, at the height of the Islamic State group's blitz, when its fighters were bearing down from Mosul to the north, toward the monastery, 35 kilometers (20 miles) from the city. Their advance was halted by Kurdish pershmerga fighters, who now hold the road leading to the monastery.

That was a relief to the monastery's monks and their community. But they aren't taking any chances and are leaving the manuscripts where they are until the group is decisively defeated. "Thank God they were unable to reach the monastery," said Raad Abdul-Ahed, a local Christian who helped transport the library. But "we will keep it here until the crisis is over, until the situation is stabilized." Abdul-Ahed, who fled his hometown near Mosul, now lives in the apartment with the manuscripts.

Still, their absence leaves a void — sentimental and practical — for the handful of monks who continue to live at Mar Matti, along with seven Christian families who have taken refuge there after fleeing their nearby town of Bashiqa. They can still see their houses — just a 10 minute drive away down the mountain — but they can't return since it's still held by the Islamic State group's fighters.

The monastery used to get throngs of visitors — nearly 2 million a year from around Iraq, the monks say. Now it's too dangerous, and the only visitors are Kurdish fighters, taking a break from battle to take pictures of the site.

The Syriac Orthodox archbishop for northern Iraq, Saliba Shimon, now lives at the monastery after fleeing his home village outside Mosul. There, he teaches Syriac to students. Unfortunately, the rich trove of Syriac tomes is no longer there for him to use. He wanders through the empty library room, showing where the manuscripts used to be.

He says many other Christian manuscripts that were scattered in churches in villages around Mosul are now lost after the militants overran the areas. He and other bishops managed to bring only a few as they fled.

"Each manuscript has its own spiritual value," he said. "When we keep the manuscript, we are not doing it for the sake of its financial value, but rather because of its spiritual value."

Yacoub reported from Baghdad.

Iraq PM says Tikrit 'liberated' after month-long battle

Tikrit, Iraq (AFP)
March 31, 2015

Iraq said security and allied forces backed by US-led coalition aircraft "liberated" the city of Tikrit on Tuesday, its biggest victory yet in the fight against Islamic State jihadists.

The operation to retake the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein began on March 2 and had looked bogged down before Iraqi forces made rapid advances in the past 48 hours.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi "announces the liberation of Tikrit and congratulates Iraqi security forces and popular volunteers on the historic milestone," his official Twitter account said.

He was referring to paramilitary groups which played a major role in the fighting to retake Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city which IS had controlled since it captured swathes of Iraq in June.

A spokesperson for the US-led coalition told AFP however that "parts of the city remain under (IS's) control and there is still work to be done."

In a statement to AFP just minutes before Abadi's tweet, his spokesman Rafid Jaboori said: "Iraqi forces reached the center of Tikrit, raised the Iraqi flag and are now clearing the city."

The provincial government headquarters was retaken on Monday and on Tuesday the Iraqi tricolor replaced the black IS flag on the building.

In scenes captured in an AFP video, jubilant fighters can be seen tearing up the black flag amid the extensive destruction in the city.

"We are in the center of Tikrit. The city and all administrative buildings were completely liberated," said one of them, policeman Bahaa Abdullah Nasif.

Iraqi military officials have been saying since the start of the operation that IS fighters had laid thousands of bombs in streets, houses and tunnels to make their last stand.

- Political tension -

There no immediate information on how many fighters were killed, wounded or captured in the fighting.

The government has not provided any casualty figures since the operation started.

Iraqi army and police forces, as well as volunteers and Iran-backed Shiite militias, completely surrounded Tikrit within two weeks of launching the operation.

There was a lull in fighting when government and allied forces apparently balked at the number of snipers, booby traps, berms and trenches which IS was using to defend its city center redoubt.

Iran was Baghdad's top foreign partner in the early stages of the operation but Iraqi air force strikes were proving insufficient to break the back of IS resistance.

Abadi's government eventually requested strikes from the US-led coalition which has been assisting Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country since August last year.

US jets began bombing IS targets in Tikrit on March 25. France also took part in the campaign.

The move sparked a freeze in the participation of the Popular Mobilization units, an umbrella organisation for volunteers and militias which accounted for the bulk of the forces in Tikrit.

The Pentagon had expressed unease at the role played by Iran and its proxies in the battle and said it conditioned its intervention on regular forces taking the lead.

- Mosul next -

On Friday, it hailed the withdrawal from the fight of "those Shiite militias who are linked to, infiltrated by, (or) otherwise under the influence of Iran".

But after giving themselves political cover by declaring they do not want to work with each other, both sides took part in the operation this week.

Tikrit, once with an estimated population of about 200,000, had been largely emptied of civilians by the time the operation was launched.

The fate of those believed to have remained in the city was unclear, however.

Thousands of people displaced last year or more recently from Salaheddin province, of which Tikrit is the capital, have started returning to their homes in outlying liberated areas.

But the level of destruction and the threat posed by unexploded bombs mean residents could take longer to return.

Tikrit holds both strategic and symbolic importance.

It was the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, remnants of whose Baath party collaborated with IS last summer.

Iraqi forces had since June tried and failed several times to retake the city, seen as a key stepping stone to recapturing Mosul, the jihadists' largest hub in Iraq.

Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi met all his top commanders Tuesday to discuss preparations for an operation to retake the Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iraq_PM_says_Tikrit_liberated_after_month-long_battle_999.html.