Tag: conflict

Eight countries push UN to take up Myanmar Rohingya crisis

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Britain, France, the United States and five other countries asked the UN Security Council on Wednesday to discuss the fate of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees driven from Myanmar, diplomats said. The council will hold a meeting on Tuesday to hear UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi report on the crisis sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August. Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Equatorial […]

Syrians suffer breathing difficulties after regime strikes

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Five people were treated for “suffocation” Sunday after Syrian regime air strikes on the northwestern town of Saraqeb, a monitor said, adding that 10 civilians were killed in southern Idlib province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a “foul smell after regime helicopters struck several areas of the town in Idlib province, causing five civilians to suffer from suffocation.” It quoted residents and medical sources as saying “toxic gas” […]

Arabs seek ‘multilateral’ process to revive Mideast peace talks

CAIRO, Egypt (AFP) — Arab foreign ministers on Thursday called for the creation of a UN-backed “multilateral mechanism” to help revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The appeal was issued at the end of a two-day meeting to discuss US President Donald Trump’s December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital which has sparked Arab anger. Trump’s decision also to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv triggered deadly clashes in Palestinian […]

Yemen govt warns of coup as separatists take over headquarters

ADEN, Yemen (AFP) — Yemen’s government accused southern separatists of an attempted coup on Sunday after they took over its headquarters amid fierce clashes in the city of Aden. The fighting, which killed at least 15 people, threw war-torn Yemen into further chaos and threatened to undermine President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who ordered his forces to stand down. Security sources and residents said clashes appeared to have spread to most of the city. The government […]

Erdogan vows no let-up in Syria campaign as US tensions rise

by Fulya Ozerkan with Raziye Akkoc in Ankara © Agence France-Presse ANTAKYA, Turkey (AFP) — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday vowed Turkey’s campaign against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria would press on for as long as required, after telephone talks with Donald Trump failed to douse soaring tensions with Washington. The six-day campaign against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) has seen Washington’s fellow NATO member Ankara attacking a US-allied force, even raising fears […]

Turkey in deadly Kurdish militia clashes as US sounds alarm

by Kadir Demir with Stuart Williams in Istanbul Agence France-Presse HASSA, Turkey (AFP) — The Turkish army on Tuesday clashed with Kurdish militia in Syria in an operation that has already left three of its soldiers dead, as the United States voiced alarm that the offensive could endanger attempts to end the Syrian civil war. Amid growing international concern over the four-day-old cross-border campaign into Turkey’s neighbour, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Ankara would emerge victorious. […]

US withholds $65 million from UN agency for Palestinians

by Dave Clark Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States held back $65 million meant for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians on Tuesday, two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened future payments. State Department officials insisted the decision was not taken to pressure Palestinian leaders, but because the US wants other countries to help fund a reformed UNRWA. But the call came after a behind-the-scenes tussle between hawks who want to cut […]

Nearly 100,000 displaced by fighting in northwest Syria: UN

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Nearly 100,000 people have been displaced since early December by fighting in northwestern Syria, where the regime is waging an offensive against jihadists, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Russian-backed regime forces launched an offensive at the end of 2017 on the edge of Idlib province, the last in the country still fully outside the government’s control. Idlib province is almost entirely controlled by a jihadist outfit known as Hayat Tahrir […]

When humans wage war, animals suffer too: study

by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS , France (AFP) — When humans wage war, they harm more than just one another. Wild animals suffer too, and some have verged on annihilation in Africa’s many anti-colonial and civil conflicts, researchers said Wednesday. More than 70 percent of the continent’s protected natural areas has been touched by war between 1946 and 2010, triggering a “downward spiral” for many populations of big plant-eating mammals, according to […]

Surrender or be shot in the face, senior US soldier tells IS

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US troops and their allies will shoot Islamic State jihadists in the face, beat them to death with shovels or drop bombs on them if they don’t surrender, the US military’s most senior enlisted member has said. In an eyebrow-raising set of postings on social media Tuesday, Command Sergeant Major John Troxell warned that IS members who refuse to quit will be dispatched with “extreme prejudice,” including via a small […]

North Korea says will attend Olympics in rival South

by Hwang Sunghee Agence France-Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea said it was willing to send athletes and a high-level delegation to the forthcoming Winter Olympics in the South on Tuesday as the rivals held their first official talks in more than two years after high tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Seoul urged that reunions of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War — one of the most emotive legacies of the […]

Seven decades of tensions between the two Koreas

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North and South Korea held their first talks for two years Tuesday, stirring hopes of a tentative rapprochement between the bitterly divided neighbors. Tensions soared last year as the North made rapid progress on its banned nuclear weapons programmes, while US President Donald Trump engaged in an increasingly bellicose verbal scrap with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-Un. Here are some key moments in the decades-long standoff between the two Koreas: War […]