1. Art and Diseño

REGION
12
OMAN TRIBUNE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015
Two rockets from
Syria smash into
Israeli-held Golan
ICC backers
to ignore
Israeli call
to cut funds
THE HAGUE
world, which is scared of
terrorism and extremism,
is that the delay in rebuilding Gaza and the continuing
blockade against it will make
it a ripe environment for the
spread of extremism and terrorism,” Khalil Al Haya told
a Gaza City meeting of the
movement’s representatives
in the Palestinian parliament.
Israel and Hamas, which
the Jewish state brands a terrorist organisation, fought a
July-August war that killed almost 2,200 Palestinians and
caused massive destruction.
Reconstruction has barely
begun, with experts saying it
will take years even if Israel
significantly eases its eightyear blockade. Israel maintains tight curbs on the entry
of building materials for fear
that militants could use them
for military purposes.
MANY LEADING BACKers of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) will
ignore Israel’s call for them
to cut funding in response
to an inquiry into possible
war crimes in the Palestinian territories, officials told
Reuters.
The continued support
from countries which provide more than a third of the
court’s cash, including Germany, Britain and France,
averts the risk of paralysis at
the world’s first permanent
war crimes tribunal.
The already financiallystretched court in The
Hague - set up to hold to account leaders responsible for
crimes that go unpunished at
home – could have been unable to pay salaries.
It would have struggled to
move ahead with cases such
as those against Kenyan
Deputy President William
Ruto, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and
Ugandan rebel commander
Dominic Ongwen.
Prosecutors
incurred
Israel’s wrath this month
when they said they would
examine any crimes that may
have occurred since June in
the Palestinian territories,
opening a path to possible
charges against Israelis or
Palestinians.
Israeli Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman said the
country was lobbying states
to cut funding to what he described as a political body. .
While few of the ICC’s
122 member-states welcome
the diplomatic complications
of a case dealing with the politically-loaded Middle East
conflict, many of the biggest
financial contributors said
they would maintain their
funding.
The bulk of the court’s
$158 million annual budget
comes from the advanced
economies of Europe and
North Asia.
Agence France-Presse
Reuters
Militias ‘kill’ 70 civilians in Diyala
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/
BAGHDAD
AT LEAST TWO ROCKets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
on Tuesday prompting Israeli
forces to return fire, the army
said. There were no immediate reports of casualties on
the Israeli side.
Separately, politicians
and tribal chiefs from Iraq’s
eastern Diyala province accused militias late on Monday of killing more than 70
unarmed civilians who had
fled clashes with Baghdadi
militia militants.
Israeli army spokesman
Peter Lerner said in a text
message the Syrian fire was
“intentional, not spillover
from the Syrian civil war” as
has sometimes been the case
in the past.
Tensions have soared
along the ceasefire line since
a January 18 air strike attributed to Israel killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian
general near Quneitra on the
Syrian-held side of the strategic plateau.
Israeli Defence Minister
Moshe Yaalon said on Friday
that Israel was prepared for
any retaliation by Lebanon’s
Hezbollah, which is operating in Syria in support of
President Bashar Al Assad.
“Israel will hold responsible governments, regimes
and organisations on the
other side of our northern
borders over any violation of
Israel’s sovereignty, or an attack on soldiers or civilians,”
he said during a tour of the
Golan and the nearby border
with Lebanon.
Israel has deployed its Iron
Dome missile defence system
in the north, where local media say it is amassing tanks
and infantry reinforcements.
The army said that after
Tuesday’s rocket attack it
evacuated visitors from the
Mount Hermon ski resort
near the armistice line and
security sources said farmers
were told to leave their fields
and go into bomb shelters.
Police said they had set up
roadblocks to stop civilians
entering the area.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry
spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan denied the
claims, saying Baghdadi mi-
FREE RUN
‘The militias are
acting above
the law. The
security forces
are unable to
restrain them.
We will defend
ourselves’
litia was trying to undermine
the reputation of Iraqi security forces.
A local official said it was
too soon to draw conclusions
and suggested the militia
could have been behind the
deaths in the eastern village
of Barwanah.
The accusations followed a
three-day offensive in which
Iraqi security forces and
militias captured two dozen
villages from the Baghdadi
militia fighters in Diyala.
The assault, which began
on Friday, enabled militias,
the Iraqi army and tribesmen
to push the militants out of the
Muqdadiya area, the closest
militia outpost to the Iranian
border 40km to the east.
Iraq’s government, backed
by US-led air strikes, has
been trying to push back
the Baghdadi militia since it
swept through northern Iraq
in June.
Diyala’s Governor Amir
Salman and Nahida Al Daini,
an MP from nearby Baquba,
called on Baghdad to intervene in Barwanah, 5km
northwest of Muqdadiya
where
pro-government
militias and some security
forces took control of about
two dozen villages from IS
fighters earlier on Monday.
“This evening the militias
entered the village of Barwanah and executed more than
70 residents. This is a real
massacre by the militias,”
Daini said.
Sagar Al Jabouri and
Ahmed Ibrahim, sheikhs
from Muqdadiya, confirmed
the reports. “The militias are
acting above the law. The
security forces are unable
to restrain them,” Jabouri
said. “We will defend ourselves. We are afraid we will
be next.”
“Daesh terrorists might
have killed those people because they refused to fight
with them,” said Amal Omran, a member of the Diyala
provincial council, using a
derogatory acronym to refer
to the Baghdadi militia.
Hadi Al Amri, head of
paramilitary group Badr
Organisation, told a news
conference broadcast on
state TV at least 58 soldiers
and pro-government fighters
were killed in the Muqdadiya
offensive and 247 wounded.
About 65 Bagahdadi militia fighters were killed, Sadiq
Al Hussaini, chairman of the
security panel of Diyala’s
provincial council, said.
Agencies
Hosam Katan/Reuters
Kurdish civilians in the Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood of Aleppo on Tuesday carry Kurdish flags and a picture of
Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as they celebrate after Kurdish forces took
control of the Syrian town of Kobani.
UN stops Gaza repairs as $5.4b
aid pledge fails to materialise
GAZA CITY
THE UN AGENCY FOR
Palestinian refugees said on
Tuesday that it cannot afford
to repair Gaza homes damaged in last year’s war with
Israel because donors have
failed to pay.
“The agency has exhausted
all funding to support repairs
and rental subsidies,” the
United Nations Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA)
said in a statement.
“$5.4 billion was pledged
at the Cairo (aid) conference
last October and virtually
none of it has reached Gaza.
This is distressing and unacceptable.
“It is unclear why this
funding has not been forthcoming,” it added.
UNRWA said that the
homes of more than 96,000
Palestine refugees were de-
stroyed or damaged during
the conflict.
They made up the vast
majority of the more than
100,000 homes that were
hit during the 50-day conflict
between Israel and Hamas.
UNRWA said: “Some
funds remain available to
begin the reconstruction of
totally destroyed homes.”
But it added that cutting subsidies to displaced
residents currently renting
alternative accommodation
could force large numbers
back to UN schools and centres which are already sheltering 12,000 people.
“UNRWA in Gaza has so
far provided over $77 million
to 66,000 Palestine refugee
families to repair their home
or find a temporary alternative,” it said.
“This is a tremendous
achievement; it is also
wholly insufficient... We
are talking about thousands
of families who continue to
suffer through this cold winter with inadequate shelter.
People are literally sleeping
amongst the rubble. Children
have died of hypothermia.”
Two babies died in Gaza
earlier this month as dozens
of homes were flooded in
brutal storms that brought
freezing rain and gale-force
winds.
Gaza’s sole power station,
which was damaged during
the war, is struggling with a
severe lack of fuel and is only
able to supply the enclave
with six hours of power a day.
A Hamas official warned
recently that the territory
could become a breeding
ground for extremism unless
promised reconstruction is
accelerated.
“Our message to the
Palestinians ‘should learn’ from India’s freedom struggle Cleric supports
OCCUPIED RAMALLAH
PALESTINIAN
PRIME
Minister Rami Hamdallah
who participated in a reception here to celebrate India’s
Republic Day, told his people
to learn from the Indian example of peaceful resistance.
Accompanied by four senior ministers, four gover-
nors, top officials and several
other Palestinian dignitaries,
Hamdallah joined a gathering
of around 250 people assembled to celebrate India’s 66th
Republic Day in West Bank
city of Ramallah.
Praising Mahatma Gandhi’s model of non-violent
movement against the British to attain India’s Inde-
pendence, he said that the
“Palestinians could learn
from the Indian example of
peaceful resistance”.
Hamdallah thanked India
for providing financial assistance in developing various
projects in the Palestinian
territories and also helping
to reconstruct Gaza.
“India has been consis-
tent in its support to the
Palestinians, diplomatically
and politically, and has been
also at the forefront of efforts
towards the reconstruction of
war-battered Gaza,” he told
the gathering congratulating
them on the occasion.
India had recently provided the Palestinian Authority with an assistance of
$4 million while pursuing
many other programmes
aimed at skill development among the Palestinian population.
Expressing India’s “unconditional and unwavering”
support for a just resolution
of the Palestinian problem,
Representative of India (ROI)
to Palestine Mahesh Kumar
One dies in Egypt
car bomb attack
CAIRO
ONE PERSON WAS KILLed by a car bomb, parked near
a police station by suspected
militants, in the Egyptian city
of Alexandria early on Tuesday, security sources said.
The attack in Egypt’s
second-biggest city also
wounded two people but
there were no immediate
details about the identity of
the victims.
Security sources also said
that unknown assailants had
attacked a police station in
western Alexandria with Molotov cocktails, setting it alight
but causing no casualties.
On Sunday, about 25 people were killed in anti-government demonstrations on
the anniversary of the 2011
uprising that ousted veteran
autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Activists accuse Presi-
dent Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of
returning Egypt to authoritarian rule since the army
removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013
and then mounted the biggest
crackdown against Islamists
in the country’s history.
Sisi says he is committed to
democracy in Egypt.
Militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers
since then-army chief Sisi
overthrew president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim
Brotherhood in 2013.
A law enacted during Sisi’s
rule severely restricted demonstrations, dramatically reducing unrest in Egypt.
However, signs of discontent emerged in the run-up to
the anniversary of the 2011
uprising that raised hopes of
greater freedoms in the most
populous Arab country.
outlined certain initiatives
taken by the new government
in India.
“Our economic engagement with Palestine has
enormous untapped scope
and potential. I, therefore,
invite my Palestinian friends
to avail the opportunity in
India,” Kumar said.
Press Trust of India
South Sudan
rebels free
child soldiers
JUBA
SOUTH SUDANESE REBels on Tuesday released 280
child soldiers, the first batch
of some 3,000 to be freed
but with thousands more still
fighting, the UN children’s
agency said.
Some 12,000 children,
mainly boys, have been
forcibly recruited by armed
groups across the country in
the past year alone to fight,
according to Unicef.
Those freed included some
as young as 11, who had been
fighting for up to four years.
“The first group of 280
children were released today,
at the village of Gumuruk in
Jonglei state” in the east of
the country, Unicef said.
The remaining children
will be released in the weeks
ahead.
Reuters
Agencies
Brotherhood
cadres’ arrest
SINGAPORE
EGYPT’S TOP CLERIC ON
Tuesday backed the arrest of
more than 500 supporters of
the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood following clashes over
the weekend on the anniversary of the country’s 2011
uprising.
“I am not sad for this outcome as such criminals ought
to be prosecuted,” Egypt’s
Grand Mufti Sheikh Shawky
Allam said in Singapore.
“I strongly condemn their
actions as they are crimes
that breach the laws of our
country,” said Sheikh Allam
during a four-day visit to the
Southeast Asian city-state
at the invitation of the local
Islamic Religious Council.
“Those that have been arrested will be prosecuted legally. The reason they have
been arrested is not political
because they have transgressed the law,” the cleric
said through an interpreter.
Egypt’s Interior Minister
Mohamed Ibrahim on Monday said Egyptian security
forces had arrested 516 “elements” of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were “involved
in firing ammunition, planting explosives and bombing
some facilities”.
The arrests come after 20
people were killed on Sunday
when protesters clashed with
security forces.
Islamists had called for rallies against President Abdel
Fattah Al Sisi’s government
as Egypt marked the fourth
anniversary of the toppling
of ex-strongman Hosni
Mubarak.
Supporters of Mubarak’s
successor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi,
have regularly clashed with
security forces since he was
ousted by then army chief Sisi
in July 2013.
More than 1,400 people
have been killed in a government crackdown targeting
Mursi supporters, while
over 15,000 have been imprisoned since he was ousted.
Rights groups have repeatedly denounced the use
of “excessive force” by the
authorities to crush opposition rallies.
Separately, Egypt’s cassation court rejected on
Tuesday an appeal by three
secular activists who had
spearheaded 2011 protests
against Mubarak, upholding
a three-year prison sentence.
April 6 youth movement
founder Ahmed Maher,
group spokesman Mohamed
Adel and blogger Ahmed
Douma were arrested for a
protest that ended in scuffles
outside a Cairo court in November 2013.
Agencies
Saudis pledge allegiance to Salman on Twitter
JEDDAH
DECADES AGO, SAUDIS TREKked across their desert kingdom to
pledge allegiance to their new kings
at their palaces. Now they are just using Twitter.
Thousands of Saudis have poured
into the palace of the Custodian of
the Two Holy Mosques King Salman
Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who acceded
the throne after the death of his halfbrother Abdullah last week.
Many others exercised the entrenched tradition at the palaces of
provincial princes. But thousands of
others have pledged their allegiance
to the new ruler online, taking advantage of social media networks.
Chief among them is Twitter,
whose popularity has exploded with
an astounding 40 per cent of Saudis
now using the website.
Saudi Arabia is governed by a strict
interpretation of Islamic sharia law,
but authorities have stopped short
of banning Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube, unlike in Iran.
Ultra-conservatives tweet as much
as liberals in the kingdom, with clerics attracting the most followers, like
Mohammed AlArefe who has 10.8
million of them. However several
users have faced jail over their posts
that have been deemed offensive to
the authorities or to Islam.
The king himself has an account
that saw its number of followers surge
to 1.6 million. A hashtag in Arabic
declaring ‘I pledge allegiance to King
Salman’ spread quickly among Saudi
tweeps after Abdullah died on Friday.
“I have pledged my allegiance
through Twitter because as we
progress technologically, we do not
abandon our identity and traditions,”
said Twitter user Salman Al Otaibi.
The pledge is both an Islamic obligation to provide the ruler with legitimacy and a commitment to obey
the new leader.
Agence France-Presse