President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree merging the Crimean Peninsula, which separated from Ukraine and rejoined Russia two years ago, into the mainland’s southern region. “Reorganize the Southern Federal District and the Crimean Federal District into the Southern Federal District,” read the decree published on the Kremlin’s website on Thursday. The Russian leader also appointed Vladimir Vasilyavich Ustinov as the presidential commissioner to the Southern Federal District in the decree.

Putin further submitted corresponding legislation amendments to the State Duma. The decree angered Ukraine, with its UN Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko rejecting the order as “null and void as any other decision taken by Crimea so far.” He asked the UN Security Council to issue a statement in response to Putin’s decree.

The ambassador circulated a draft statement calling on the 15-member council, to express its “deep concern” over Putin’s decision and to assert its “full respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Yelchenko however said he expected Russia, one of the five countries with veto power on the council, to block the statement. Diplomatic sources have already confirmed that it was rejected by Moscow.

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The United Nations (UN) has voiced concern about alarming conditions in the Lake Chad region, where it says more than nine million people are in dire need of food aid due to militancy by a Takfiri terrorist group. UN humanitarian aid chief Stephen O’Brien said on Wednesday that militant activities by the Takfiri Boko Haram group has left over nine million people in need of urgent food aid in the region. Seven million of them, he said, are in Nigeria.

The four countries of Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria are located in the Lake Chad region. He said more than 2.8 million people have been displaced in northeastern Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad and Niger, following attacks by Boko Haram, which is based in Nigeria. “If we do not act now, the human suffering will only get more extreme,” O’Brien said, adding that, “We have to stop this — we can with will, money, urgency and coordination.”

The UN humanitarian aid chief said that the violent campaign by the Takfiri group “is as much or now even more a humanitarian catastrophe as it is a security priority.” Boko Haram has coerced more than 50 children to carry out suicide bombings from January to June of this year, O’Brien said.

Boko Haram started its campaign of militancy in 2009 with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria. The terrorist group has expanded its attacks into neighboring countries, notably Cameroon and Chad, in a conflict estimated to have claimed a total of 17,000 lives and forced over 2.6 million others from their homes. The group has pledged allegiance to Daesh, another Takfiri terrorist group mainly operating in Syria and Iraq.

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China has unveiled the world’s largest production amphibious aircraft after seven years of work, which it plans to use to perform marine rescue missions and fight forest fires, the Xinhua news agency has reported. The AG600, which is about the size of a Boeing 737 and was developed by state aircraft maker Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), rolled off a production line in the southern city of Zhuhai on Saturday, Xinhua said quoting the firm. AVIC deputy general manager, Geng Rugang, said the plane was “the latest breakthrough in China’s aviation industry.” A plan for the development and production of the AG600 received government approval in 2009.

The aircraft has a maximum flight range of 4,500 km and can collect 12 tonnes of water in 20 seconds. It has a maximum take-off weight of 53.5 tonnes, Xinhua said. China has been ramping up research into advanced new military equipment, including submarines, aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles, which has rattled nerves regionally and in Washington as China takes a more muscular approach to territorial disputes in places like the South China Sea. In June, it put into service a new domestically-developed large transport aircraft, the Xian Y-20, powered by four jet engines.

Reuters

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has announced the disbanding of the country’s presidential guard following the recent failed coup. “There will not be any presidential guard as we do not need it anymore,” told Turkey’s A Haber TV channel on Saturday. Earlier in the day, authorities arrested 283 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s guard over alleged affiliation to failed coup.

Turkey has launched a large-scale crackdown following the July 15 attempted coup d’état. A three-month state of emergency has also been declared in Turkey. Meanwhile, the key aid of US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen (seen below), who Erdogan blames for the coup attempt, has been arrested. According to a source in the Turkish presidential office, Halis Hanci arrived in Turkey two days before the coup.

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Algeria is the most racist country in the world, according to a study conducted by several organizations including Open Borders for Refugees and Stop Dis Stop Crime in Nations. The North African nation won the first place  following more than 1,248 respondents in which over 75% of its citizens admitted to haven racist ideas or very extreme.

The population of Algeria is composed of 99% Arabs and 1% of Europeans (according to official sources), because the black skin individuals are not counted. Algeria has blatantly refused to host any migrant from Iraq and Syria.

91% of Arab Algerians have reportedly demanded the immediate expulsion of blacks in the country (which are not up to 100,000 people. 83% of those surveyed would prohibit Christianity and 61% would ban Judaism. More than half is against the admission of refugees, not because of the jihadist threat but because of the ethnicity of the migrants. 95% of Algerians would ban visas for Chinese immigrants.

Algeria is the country with the most racist crimes on the road; over 21,000 road deaths in 2015 and more than 60,000 wounded with the victims mostly black, Europeans or Asians, according to the study.

Chi Prudence Asong (Cameroon Concord News Group)

British MPs  have been given a date in September to debate a motion in the House of Commons to find former prime minister Tony Blair in contempt of parliament for involving the UK in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The date was agreed on Wednesday by the speaker and MPs from across seven parties led by Scottish National Party’s Alex Salmond.

The motion will say that former Labour prime minister had given “seriously misleading” statements in the House of Commons in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and should be therefore held in contempt. The motion was launched after the Chilcot inquiry into the role of the UK in the Iraq war released a report on July 6.

Even if the motion was passed, it would be mainly symbolic as the House of Commons has not used its power to punish non-MPs for several years. The Chilcot report offered a scathing critique of the UK government’s involvement, under Blair, in and after the invasion of Iraq.

The report said Blair had overstated the threat posed by Saddam’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), deployed ill-prepared forces to the Arab country and had “wholly” inadequate plans for after Saddam’s ouster.

The report concluded that Blair’s decision to join the US-led war in Iraq was made “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.” A spokesperson for the group of MPs who launched the motion said families of British soldiers killed in Iraq were also planning legal action against Blair that would proceed separately.

The inquiry revealed that “Blair was promising US President George W Bush in private memos while he was telling Parliament and people something entirely different in public statements,” the spokesperson also said.

“If we are to prevent such a catastrophe happening again it is essential that parliamentarians learn to hold the executive to critical examination in a way that Parliament failed to do in 2003,” the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, families of dead soldiers have launched an appeal to raise£150,000 to pay for a legal assessment of the Chilcot report to determine whether they could pursue private prosecution of Blair. The appeal, known as the Crowd Justice, said in a statement on its website that the report has confirmed that there were“serious failings” before and after Iraq war.

“Our armed forces must never again be so callously sacrificed by political ambition and the irresponsibility and failings of Government and Whitehall,” the statement also said. “Those responsible should be held to account. Now it is down to us, the families, to ensure that justice is done,” it added.

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The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will vote behind closed doors on Thursday in order to select the next secretary-general to the world body out of a dozen officially proposed contenders.

Representatives of the 10 non-permanent member states along with those of powerful permanent five – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – will huddle together on Thursday to choose the ninth officeholder of the UN, a successor to the incumbent Ban Ki-moon.

Each member state will rate the 12 candidates with a ballot marked “encourage,” “discourage” or “no opinion,”, and the contender with the most secured “encourage” ballots will be nominated for the job and introduced to the General Assembly for the final vote.

The selection process, however, is not that straightforward and is hugely overshadowed by the unique and highly controversial privilege of the five permanent members to veto.

Not only can the five permanent members veto any resolution but can block any candidate as well. As a result, the selection is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Of the 12 candidates, six are women, from three different continents. If one of them is selected as the next leader of the UN, she will be the first ever officeholder of the world body, since there has never been a female secretary-general so far.

Moreover, the bulk of the candidates – eight – are from Eastern Europe, a region which has had no representatives in the top job since the creation of the UN in the final year of the Second World War.

Among the top contenders vying for the job are Argentina’s Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra, Slovenia’s former president Danilo Turk, New Zealand’s former premier Helen Clark, and Antonio Guterres, who served as Portugal’s prime minister.

Ban took office for his first five-year term on January 2007 and was re-elected to a second term on June 2011, after his first one expired on December 2011. He will leave office at the end of the year and will be replaced by the new leader on January 2017.

The UN is under fire for years by member states not only for the unrivaled ability of veto, enjoyed by the permanent five members, but also for its secretary-generals, who are chosen not for their abilities to run the world body and serve all member states, but to serve the permanent five members.

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France’s defence ministry says three of its soldiers have died in Libya, reportedly after their helicopter was shot down. A short statement said the soldiers died “while on mission”.

Earlier on Wednesday, ministry spokesman Stephane Le Foll confirmed for the first time that French special forces were in Libya. On Tuesday, Associated Press quoted Libyan officials as saying an Islamist militia shot down a French helicopter. The attack on Sunday happened near the city of Benghazi, and left no survivors, AP reported.

BBC

Russia has reportedly delivered the first missiles of the advanced S-300 long-range air defense system as part of a military contract between Moscow and Tehran. According to a report published by Tasnim news agency on Monday, the first shipment of the missiles was delivered to Iran “recently.”

Russia had committed to delivering the systems to Iran under an 800-million-dollar deal in 2007. It, however, refused to deliver the systems to Tehran in 2010 under the pretext that the agreement was covered by the fourth round of the United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Following Moscow’s refusal to deliver the systems, Tehran filed a complaint against the relevant Russian arms firm with the International Court of Arbitration in Geneva. In April 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a presidential decree, paving the way for the long-overdue delivery of the missile defense systems to Iran.

The decision to deliver the S-300 long-range air defense system came after Iran and the P5+1 group of countries — the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia plus Germany — reached mutual understanding on Tehran’s nuclear program in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2, 2015.

Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said on July 1 that the S-300 missile defense system is to go operational in Iran by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (ending on March 20, 2017).

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to condemn the recent botched military coup attempt in Turkey and express hope that the country would soon embrace stability. In the phone call on Sunday, Putin described as categorically unacceptable the “anti-constitutional acts and violence” in the life of a state, saying that he “wishes for a speedy restoration of strong constitutional order and stability in Turkey.”

The Kremlin said in a statement that the Russian leader also offered condolences on the death of 161 troops and civilians killed during the coup attempt.  The Turkish government and the military say more than 100 coup plotters were also killed in the course of state action against the military intervention which unfolded late Friday and was declared as failed a day later.

Russia and Turkey last month restored ties which had been badly strained following Ankara’s shooting of a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border last year. The restoration came after Erdogan apologized to Putin over the incident and passed on his condolences to the families of the jet’s pilot and the crew member killed after the downing.

The Kremlin said the two leaders also confirmed during the Sunday phone call plans for a personal meeting in the nearest future. Turkish officials said earlier this month that Erdogan would fly to the Russian resort of Suchi to meet Putin in August. The Sunday statement said Erdogan also vowed to take “all necessary steps” to ensure the safety of Russian tourists visiting Turkey. Later on Sunday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting presidential sources, reported that Erdogan and his Russian counterpart will meet in the first week of August.

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