The United Nations says the government of the African country of Burundi is condoning the torture and killing of its opponents security forces and government-allied militia. Investigators said state security agencies and the ruling party’s youth wing the Imbonerakure are continuously engaged in torture, rape, disappearances and murder of opponents.

Those crimes are fueled by hate speech” from government officials, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi said in a briefing to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday. The investigators said they recorded a “feeling of deep and widespread fear” in the hundreds of testimonies gathered from people who had fled to neighboring countries. “Today we can say that our initial fears concerning the scope and gravity of human rights violations and abuses in Burundi since April 2015 have been confirmed,” they said.

The investigators said they were struck by the cruelty and brutality of the perpetrators. “We most specifically gathered a number of testimonies alleging the use, during torture sessions, of clubs, riffle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains or electric cables, resulting in some cases in the breaking of bones of the victim or making them lose consciousness.

“Long needles stuck into victims’ bodies or unidentified products injected into them; nails ripped out with pliers; burns; and many abuses inflicted on male detainees’ genital organs,” they added. Fatsah Ouguergouz, chairman of the UN commission, said a woman in her fifties was raped by four members allegedly belonging to the Imbonerakure and wearing police uniforms, as a punishment for her children belonging to an opposition party.

The government, which has denied entry to Burundi to the UN officials investigating the allegations, rejected the charges. “We do not accept the content of this report,” said the country’s human rights minister Martin Nivyabandi, claiming the aim of the UN investigators was to discredit the country’s officials.

Burundi was thrown into a political crisis in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term that his opponents said was unconstitutional. Since then at least 500 people have been killed while over 400,000 have fled the country. The UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Burundi was established in September 2016 with the aim of investigating the alleged violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity. The commission’s final report is due to be presented to the Human Rights Council in September.

Source: Presstv

Qatar said Wednesday it has pulled all of its troops from the border of Djibouti and Eritrea, east African nations that have a long-running territorial dispute which Doha had helped mediate.

Qatar offered no explanation for the move, though it comes amid a diplomatic dispute with other Arab nations that have cut diplomatic ties and now are trying to isolate Qatar from the rest of the world.

While the dispute hasn’t escalated to a military confrontation, Qatar’s military is dwarfed by neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of its biggest opponents in the crisis.

The 450 Qatari troops controlled a mountainous border crossing between Eritrea and Djibouti, said Nasredin Ali, a spokesman for Eritrea’s biggest armed group, known as the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization. Eritrean forces moved in after the troops departed, Ali said.

Eritrea’s top diplomat to the African Union, Araya Desta, told The Associated Press the move came after Eritrea cut diplomatic ties to Qatar. However, Desta said his country wanted no confrontation with Djibouti.

“We don’t want to take any of Djibouti’s land,” Araya said. “The last time we had some skirmishes. It was unnecessary.” Doha mediated the conflict between the two countries in 2010. Persian Gulf nations have stationed troops in both African countries, using that as a jumping-off point for the ongoing Saudi-led war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and severed ties with Doha last week. Qatar denies the allegations, but its ties to Iran and embrace of various extremist groups have put the country under intense scrutiny.

(Source: AP)

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has released the names of and other information about the five Takfiri Daesh terrorists who carried out twin attacks in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on Wednesday. The Intelligence Ministry on Thursday released a statement detailing information on the five terrorists and “affiliated nuclei,” whose full identities it said had been determined after intelligence work by the Ministry.

The statement only released the first names of the terrorists and said that their last names were being withheld due to “certain social and security considerations.”

On Wednesday, gunmen stormed Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) and the Mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, in two coordinated attacks. At least 17 people lost their lives and nearly 50 others were wounded in the assaults, which involved shootings and blasts. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks. According to the Intelligence Ministry’s Thursday statement, the individuals involved in carrying out the attacks were five elements with a history of past terrorist activities and linked to Wahhabi and Takfiri groups.

They were identified as Seriyas, Fereydoun, Qayyoum, Abu Jahad, and Ramin. The statement said that the five had left Iran after being recruited by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and had participated in the group’s atrocities in the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqah.

It said they had entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the command of “Abu Ayesheh” — a high-ranking commander with the Daesh terrorist group — and planned to carry out terror attacks in religious cities in Iran, but “had fled the country following the full obliteration of the network and blows [dealt] to the case’s main elements, including the killing of Abu Ayesheh.”

Wahhabi terrorist groups are closely associated with Saudi Arabia, where government-sanctioned clerics preach the strongly intolerant pseudo-ideology of Wahhabism.

Earlier on Thursday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that it was still soon to judge whether Saudi Arabia had had a role in the attacks in Tehran.

He did say however that in the current month and in recent days, “we witnessed heavy pressure from terrorists, to the extent that we have been identifying and arresting two-member and three-member teams or single individuals every week.”

Earlier in May, the Saudi defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman, had threatened in opaque remarks to move “the battle” to Iran. While Iranian people have been mourning the victims of the terrorist attacks, there has also been a strengthened sense of unity among them.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the terror attacks in Tehran could not undermine the Iranian nation’s resolve in the face of threats. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned the attacks as “cowardly,” stressing that the country would crush enemy plots through unity and solidarity.

The attacks also drew strong international condemnation, with many heads of states extending condolences to the Iranian nation and government. Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) blamed the sponsors of the Takfiri Daesh for the attacks and pledged to retaliate.

The IRGC said the fact that the terrorist attacks had been carried out by Daesh just days after US President Donald Trump met with “the rulers of a regional reactionary regime,” which has been supporting Takfiri terrorists — a thinly-veiled reference to Saudi Arabia — indicated that “they have a hand in the bestial attacks.”

Source: Presstv

German officials say growing numbers of pregnant immigrant women are paying German men to pose as fathers so that they can qualify for residency. German broadcaster RBB found up to 700 cases in Berlin alone. “There are many unreported cases,” said Ole Schröder, a top interior ministry official.

There has been a rise in asylum requests from pregnant women from Vietnam, Africa and Eastern Europe. A new law is being drafted to tackle the fake paternity racket, RBB reports. Some pregnant immigrant women are reported to have paid fake fathers and solicitors as much as €5,000 (£4,356; $5,628) to get paternity registered. Once that is done, the baby automatically becomes a German citizen and the mother has the right to stay.

However, in 2013 a German Constitutional Court ruling said that even in suspicious cases it might not be worth contesting paternity, because the child could end up stateless and left in legal limbo. It is generally easier for refugees fleeing conflict to get residency in Germany than for economic migrants who have escaped poverty in Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe.

Germany has moved to tighten asylum rules since the 2015 influx of more than 800,000 migrants, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Immigration is a major issue ahead of parliamentary elections in September. The influx hit some local authorities especially hard, as they struggled to house and integrate the newcomers.

However, there was a sharp drop in the numbers claiming asylum in 2016, after barriers were erected on the Balkan migration route. Polls suggest that the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), opposed to mass immigration, has gained support and is on course to enter the federal parliament (Bundestag) for the first time.

Mr Schröder, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), said “we have a lot of evidence from the immigration authorities – fake fathers are making money out of this… in other words, this involves a considerable amount of criminality”. In one case reported by RBB, a far-right sympathiser, convicted for sporting neo-Nazi symbols, claimed to be the father of a Vietnamese child.

Martin Steltner, a state prosecutor in Berlin, told ARD television there were signs of widespread abuse involving paternity, for example one man claiming to be the father of 10 children. The fake fathers rarely pay any child support, as many are living off social welfare, ARD reports.

Source: BBC

The European Union says it plans to spend 50 million euros to finance the establishment of a joint African military force in the Sahel region with the declared aim of fighting terrorism, among other threats.

Announcing the bid in Mali’s capital of Bamako on Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says the bloc asserted that the funding will help pay for the troops battle illegal immigration, cross-border crime and militant activity.

“Stability and development of the Sahel region are crucial not only for Africa but also for Europe,” said the EU’s top diplomat, noting that “this contribution will arrive very quickly and I hope (it) will set out the right path to other partners of the Sahel G5.”

The military force will be made up of troops from Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger, known as the Sahel G-5. The group approved plans in March to build a contingent of 5,000 members made up of soldiers, police officers as well as civilians.

However, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop stated on Monday that leaders of the five nations had decided the new force would consist of up to 10,000 soldiers and police officers and become operational by the end of the year.

“The heads of state of the Sahel G5 who met in Riyadh, [Saudi Arabia] just a few weeks ago decided to bring the number from 5,000 men to 10,000 men. This really shows their engagement because this is a vast area,” Diop declared.

Neither Mogherini nor Diop, however, elaborated on the role of the Saudi kingdom in the establishment of the African military force.

The initial decision to establish the G5 Sahel force in the semi-arid region south of the Sahara was made in November 2015, during a summit in Chad’s capital of N’Djamena.

More than 3,000 French military forces as well as 12,000 UN troops have been engaged in Mali – a former French colony — since 2013, when al-Qaeda-linked elements and Tuareg militants waged an insurgency in the north of the country.

Although the militants were largely driven out by a French-led military operation in January 2013, they continue to wage attacks on the country’s military forces in the arid remote north.

Since 2015, the attacks have spread to the center and south of the impoverished nation, often spilling over into neighboring countries, including Burkina Faso and Niger.

Source: Presstv

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has made an impassioned appeal for the world to intensify action to combat climate change and implement the Paris Agreement to limit carbon emissions as President Donald Trump debates whether the US will withdraw from the accord.

Gutteres never mentioned the American leader by name in his speech at New York University’s Stern School of Business, his first major address on climate change since taking the reins of the United Nations on Jan. 1. But he said in response to a question afterward that the United Nations believes “it would be important for the US not to leave the Paris agreement.”

Even if Trump withdraws, Guterres said, “it’s very important for US society as a whole – the cities, the states, the companies, the businesses – to remain engaged.”

Trump, who was critical of the deal during his campaign for the presidency, is expected to make an announcement this week on whether the United States will remain a party to the climate accord that his predecessor, Barack Obama, strongly supported and signed. Nearly 200 nations agreed in 2015 to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As of Tuesday, 147 nations had ratified the Paris Agreement, representing more than 82 percent of global emissions, the UN chief said.

Guterres said their pledges to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius “are historic – but still do not go nearly far enough to limit temperature rise.” First, Guterres said he will immediately press for ratification of the Kigali Amendment agreed to in October by nearly 200 nations on limiting the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide that are depleting the ozone layer.

Unlike the Paris Agreement, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is legally binding. It caps and reduces the use of HFCs in a gradual process starting with action by developed countries in 2019, including the United States, the world’s second-worst polluter, and then by over 100 developing countries starting in 2024, including China, the world’s top carbon emitter.

Guterres said he will also rally countries to raise the bar on efforts to limit temperature rise and the United Nations system to promote climate action. Guterres also pledged to work with developing countries to mobilize resources to tackle the impact of climate change and strengthen efforts by small island states against “the existential threat” that global warming poses. He said he will strengthen North-South, South-South and other partnerships to implement the Paris Agreement. The secretary general announced that he intends to hold a climate summit in 2019 to review implementation of the Paris Agreement.

“The journey from Paris is well underway,” Guterres said. “The support across all sectors of society is profound. The transition in the real economy is a fact. There will be bumps along the path … but with everyone’s participation, the world can bring the Paris Agreement fully to life.”

(Source: AP)

The UN has warned that the tremendous level of killing, mutilation, torture, rape and pillage committed by successive governments and armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) may constitute crime against humanity. On Tuesday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) issued a 368-page report based on over 1,200 confidential and open sources in an attempt to help authorities identify cases as they establish a Special Criminal Court.

CAR has been the scene of a deadly violence due to political instability since March 2003 when General Francois Bozize overthrew former president Ange-Felix Patasse in a coup. The bloodshed deteriorated in March 2013 when the mainly Muslim coalition of ex-Seleka rebels overthrew Bozize from power.  Since 2003, anti-Balaka militias have killed and tortured civilians, mutilated victims and pillaged UN and other diplomatic facilities, in so-called “cleansing operations” against Muslims in retaliation for similar abuses by mostly Muslim rebels, the report said.

The report warned that despite a successful presidential election in 2016, retaliatory violence between the ex-Seleka militia and mainly Christian anti-Balaka rebels loyal to Bozize continues to take its toll on the civilians. Over the past two weeks alone, the clashes have killed about 300 people and displaced 100,000. The figure brings the number of internally displaced people in CAR to over 500,000.

On May 13, at least 108 people were massacred and 76 injured during an attack by several hundred fighters on Bangassou, a town near the DRC border.  Due to the constant insecurity and inefficient justice system, the perpetrators of the crimes from all sides have enjoyed near total impunity throughout the period, the report noted.

“Critical preconditions for an effective judicial process which functions in accordance with international human rights standards, are not yet in place… the rushed or ill-timed introduction of transitional justice measures … may prove counter-productive,” the UN said.

The UN called on CAR’s Special Criminal Court to maximize the use of foreign judicial personnel and cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has been investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity since 2012. The report suggested that a fact-finding committee document cases of violence, allow victims to tell their stories and help find underlying causes of the crisis.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva that more funds are urgently needed to help the displaced, noting that the UN has just received six percent of the $209 million it needs to provide aid in CAR in 2017. He also said that humanitarian access is excessively limited in many areas due to security concerns.

Source: Presstv

US Senators engaged in investigating President Donald Trump’s possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign and transition are locked in a battle for more information.

US Senate’s Judiciary and Intelligence committees are conducting separate probes to also investigate Russia’s alleged interference in the November vote as well as Trump’s dismissal of James Comey as he was heading a probe into the matter at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

With more revelations and leaks coming out on a daily basis, the senators are fighting for the same information.

So far, they have even failed to bring Comey (pictured below) in for a hearing.

“We’re trying to get [Comey] before the Senate Judiciary Committee but we haven’t had any luck,” the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, told reporters during a conference call. “Of course we could subpoena him but we don’t want to make that move until we have to.”

The committee, which oversees the FBI investigation, has called on the bureau to hand over Comey’s memos regarding the matter but to no avail this far.

“I think we perhaps need to do more than just invite [Comey]. I think it’s important that he come before the oversight committee … and at least do us the courtesy of appearing and that we should be able to look at his material and ask questions about them,” said the committee’s ranking member, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (pictured below).

According to Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the US House Oversight Committee, “the FBI is withholding those documents, citing to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special prosecutor.”

After dismissing Comey, Trump assigned the former head of the FBI as special prosecutor earlier this month. Both the president and the Kremlin have denied allegations of collusion and interference.

Source: Presstv

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says talks on climate change in a summit in Italy of the seven wealthy nations, known as the G7, were not successful as US President Donald Trump calls for more time to announce his position on the issue and whether Washington would remain committed to the landmark Paris Accord.

Merkel said on Saturday that Washington’s partners in the G7 all remained in the dark about Trump’s intention on climate change, adding that the debate at the summit in Sicily was “very unsatisfactory.” “Here we have a situation of six against one, meaning there is still no sign of whether the US will remain in the Paris accord or not,” Merkel said, adding, “The whole discussion on the topic of climate was very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory.”

The German chancellor, who spoke to reporters in Sicily after the summit, said the discussion on climate change was quite different than the one that happened on trade. She said the G7 member states clearly articulated that they would reject protectionism in trade policies. However, Merkel said the climate debate could not yield similar results as six governments agreed to endorse the Paris Agreement but Trump tweeted that he will decide next week.

“I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!” Trump tweeted. The final declaration of the G7 summit also reflected the differences between the United States and other members on the issue. “The United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics,” said the statement, adding that other members would “swiftly” begin to implement the Paris Agreement, which they said would be to the benefit of developing countries.

Trump had on several occasions during his presidential campaign criticized the accord, saying it could harm jobs inside the United States while being to the favor of countries such as China. The US president had even branded the agreement, which obliges parties to cut back on carbon emissions, a Chinese hoax. Like many other agreements signed under the administration of former US President Barack Obama, Trump has vowed that he would revise Washington’s commitments under the deals to ensure US interests are protected.

Source: Presstv

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI chief James Comey amounts to “obstruction of justice” and will lead to his “impeachment.”

Speaking to graduates at her alma mater of Wellesely College on Friday, Clinton, Trump’s major rival in the 2016 presidential election, said Comey’s dismissal was a step towards authoritarianism.

“When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” she warned. “That is not hyperbole; it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done.”

She then drew a parallel between Trump and former US President Richard Nixon, wrongly claiming that the latter was impeached over the Watergate scandal. This is while Nixon resigned from office after firing a special prosecutor overseeing the case.

“We were furious about the past presidential election, of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice, after firing the person running the investigation into him at the department of justice,” she said during the commencement speech. Trump fired Comey earlier this month, plunging the White House into chaos.

The former FBI director has been blamed for Hillary’s loss. He has also been accused of plotting against President Trump. Prior to the November 8 vote, Comey led a controversial probe into Clinton’s use of a personal server to exchange government emails while she was secretary of state.

After the election, he began investigating Trump’s alleged ties to Russia as well as a series of cyber attacks against Clinton’s campaign, which Democrats claimed were conducted by Russian hackers. Various administration officials like Vice President Mike Pence have tried to downplay the decision and deny its ties with the Russia probe.

However, Trump himself admitted that the “Russian thing” was indeed one of the reasons he took the decision.

Bill Clinton’s impeachment

Ironically, Hillary’s own husband, former US President Bill Clinton, is one of the only two US heads of state to have ever been impeached.

In fact, Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment was based on two charges of perjury and “obstruction of justice,” the very same reason Hillary thinks Trump will be impeached for.

The charges against the then-president stemmed from his extramarital affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Culled from Presstv