The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Two foreign U.N. workers killed in Somalia
- UK summons Myanmar envoy, calls for aid group access to Rakhine state
- Assad 'says fighting largely over by end of year' - former Russian PM
| Two foreign U.N. workers killed in Somalia Posted: 07 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) - A Briton and a Frenchman working for the United Nations were shot dead on Monday at an airport in north-central Somalia, officials said. A U.N. mission spokesman said it was not clear who was behind the killings. But one witness said the pair were attacked by a man in a police uniform while they sat in their car at Galkayo airport. Abdi Idris, an official in the semi-autonomous Puntland region which administers the airport, gave the nationalities of the two men and said they worked as consultants for the U.N. anti-drugs agency. The United Nations, which has spent billions of dollars in Somalia since the outbreak of civil war in 1991, has often been targeted by warring clan factions, most recently by al Qaeda-aligned Islamist group al Shabaab. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council both strongly condemned the attack on Monday and called on Somali authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. "The members of the Security Council are appalled that individuals working to support the people of Somalia have been killed as they sought to help Somalia progress towards peace and prosperity," the 15-member council said in a statement. Somalia's Puntland region has traditionally been more stable than the rest of the country but in recent months attacks there by al Shabaab militants have increased. The Islamist group "welcomed the killing" but declined to comment when asked if it was responsible. "We urge all Somalis to target the U.N.," a spokesman for the group, Ali Mohamud Rage, told Reuters. Local resident Cali Faratol, who was at Galkayo airport when the workers were attacked, said a man wearing a police uniform shot them. "Both men were in a car when he was shooting," Faratol said. Nicholas Kay, the U.N. special representative for Somalia, condemned the "callous" killing but said the organisation remained "committed to continuing our vital support to the Somali people as they emerge from decades of conflict." Al Shabaab gunmen in the capital Mogadishu used a car bomb to blow a hole in the U.N. compound's wall in June and 22 people, including U.N. staff, were killed in the ensuing firefight. In February, al Shabaab attacked a U.N. convoy with a remote-controlled bomb, killing at least seven Somalis. No U.N. staff were hurt in that attack. (Additional Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Drazen Jorgic, writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by James Macharia, John Stonestreet) |
| UK summons Myanmar envoy, calls for aid group access to Rakhine state Posted: 07 Apr 2014 08:10 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Britain summoned Myanmar's ambassador on Monday to call on the southeast Asian nation to allow aid agencies to resume their work in violence-torn Rakhine state, Britain's Foreign Office said. Aid agencies were forced to halt operations in Rakhine last month when hundreds of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists destroyed staff homes, offices and warehouses as well as boats used to transport supplies. Parts of the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist community have accused aid groups of favouring the mainly Muslim Rohingya people, who make up the vast majority of victims of ethnic and religious violence that has displaced more than 140,000 since June 2012. A spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign office said Hugo Swire, a junior minister responsible for Asia, had summoned the ambassador for Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. "We continue to be gravely concerned by the situation of the Rohingya in Rakhine State," she said. "(Swire) called on the Burmese government urgently to restore humanitarian access to all communities in need, and to ensure the security of humanitarian aid workers and all communities in Rakhine State." Swire said on Twitter that Britain also had deep concerns about the conduct of a planned census in Myanmar. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Andrew Osborn) |
| Assad 'says fighting largely over by end of year' - former Russian PM Posted: 07 Apr 2014 08:09 PM PDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad has forecast that much of the fighting in the Syrian civil war will be over by the end of the year, a former Russian prime minister was quoted on Monday as saying. "This is what he told me: 'This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended. After that we will have to shift to what we have been doing all the time - fighting terrorists'," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Sergei Stepashin as saying. Stepashin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former head of Russia's FSB security service, portrayed Assad as secure, in control and in "excellent athletic shape" after a meeting in Damascus last week. "'Tell Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) that I am not Yanukovich, I'm not going anywhere'," Stepashin quoted Assad as saying during their meeting, state-run news agency RIA reported. Yanukovich fled to Russia in February after he was pushed from power by protests that followed his decision to spurn closer ties with the European Union and turn to Moscow. Russian leaders have criticised him for losing control of his country. Stepashin suggested Assad faced no such threat and was likely to win a presidential election this year. "There is not a shadow of a doubt that he knows what he's doing," RIA quoted Stepashin as saying. "Assad's strength now lies in the fact that, unlike Yanukovich, he has practically no internal enemies. He has a consolidated, cleansed team. "Moreover, his relatives are not bargaining and stealing from the cash register but are fighting," he said, appearing to draw a contrast with Yanukovich and his family. "FIGHTING SPIRIT" Stepashin, who served as prime minister in 1999 under President Boris Yeltsin and now heads a charitable organisation called the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, added that "the fighting spirit of the Syrian army is extremely high". Russia has been Assad's most powerful supporter during the three-year-old conflict that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people in Syria, blocking Western and Arab efforts to drive him from power. Russia and the United States organised peace talks that began in January between Assad's government and its foes. But no agreement was reached and a resumption appears unlikely soon, in part because of high tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Russian officials say Moscow is not trying to prop up Assad and but that his exit from power cannot be a precondition for a political solution. Their assessments of his future have varied with the fortunes of his military. Assad has lost control of large swathes of northern and eastern Syria to Islamist rebels and foreign jihadis. But his forces, backed by militant group Hezbollah and other allies, have driven rebels back from around Damascus and secured most of central Syria. The head of Hezbollah said in an interview published on Monday Assad no longer faced a threat of being overthrown, and would stand for re-election this year. Stepashin predicted Assad would win. "The majority of the Syrian population will vote for him," Itar-Tass quoted him as saying. |
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