BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of senior Kurdish officials responsible for organizing an independence referendum, in the latest salvo by the central authorities over the disputed vote.
The decision ratchets up pressure on Iraqi Kurdistan just over two weeks after voters in the autonomous region overwhelmingly backed independence in the non-binding ballot slammed as illegal by Baghdad.
Acting on a request from the National Security Council headed by Iraq’s prime minister, a court in east Baghdad issued warrants against the chairman of the vote’s organizing commission Hendren Saleh and two other members, Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar told AFP.
It ruled that the three “organized the referendum in contravention of a ruling by the Iraqi supreme court,” which had found the vote unconstitutional and ordered it called off.
The supreme court ruling came one week before the September 25 referendum, but the organizers went ahead with it regardless.
In retaliation the central authorities have already severed ties between the region and the outside world by cutting international air links, while neighboring Turkey and Iran have threatened to close their borders to oil exports.
The court’s arrest order is part of a broader legal onslaught from the central government.
The National Security Council on Monday said “a list of names” of Kurdish officials who helped organized the referendum had been compiled and “judicial measures have been taken against them.”
Iraq has also launched a probe into Kurdistan’s lucrative oil revenues and pledged to expose “corrupt” officials in the region who might have illegally monopolized the market.
Baghdad — which has already demanded to take over Kurdistan’s airports and borders — is looking to reclaim control over mobile phone companies in the region, including two of the largest providers in Iraq.
The authorities also announced Tuesday that they are looking to reopen a key oil pipeline to Turkey that would rival a competing Kurdish export route.
The Iraqi pipeline was cut off after the Daesh group seized swathes of the country in 2014, halting a flow of oil to Turkey of up to 400,000 barrels a day.
The angry dispute over the referendum — also rejected by the United States — is the latest twist in the decades-long movement by Iraq’s Kurds to break away from Baghdad.
Iraq is pushing Turkey and Iran — which both opposed the ballot over fears of fueling demands from their own sizeable Kurdish communities — to close their border posts with Kurdistan and stop all trade with the region.
Washington warned the referendum could “increase instability” in the region and have an impact on the battle against Daesh, in which Kurdish fighters have been a key force.
Iraq court orders arrest of Kurd independence vote organizers
Iraq court orders arrest of Kurd independence vote organizers
LeBron James picked for 21st straight All-Star Game, extending NBA record
- James is now officially an All-Star for the 21st year
The NBA revealed the starters — some of them, anyway — for the revamped All-Star Game on Thursday night, and there wasn’t much in the way of surprises. James is now officially an All-Star for the 21st year, and Antetokounmpo is now the ninth player to win the fan vote in back-to-back seasons.
The other starters:
— New York’s Jalen Brunson and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell as the Eastern Conference guards.
— Boston’s Jayson Tatum and New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns as the East frontcourt players alongside Antetokounmpo.
— Golden State’s Stephen Curry and NBA leading scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as Western Conference guards.
— Phoenix’s Kevin Durant and Denver’s Nikola Jokic as the West frontcourt players alongside James.
The starters were picked through a system of weighted balloting: 50 percent was fan voting, 25 percent was a media panel and 25 percent was voting by current players.
There are 14 more All-Stars yet to be announced, and they’ll be chosen in a vote of the league’s head coaches. That list will be revealed on Jan. 30, and the All-Star Game — now games, really — happens in San Francisco on Feb. 16.
Among the candidates for those reserve spots: San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, the Lakers’ Anthony Davis, Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Dallas teammates Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, reigning All-Star Game MVP Damian Lillard of Milwaukee, Miami’s Tyler Herro, Atlanta’s Trae Young and Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball — who led East guard fan voting.
There will be at least 15 different players who “start” at the All-Star Game this season. It’s the first year of a new All-Star format, with three games. The 24 All-Stars will be drafted into three teams of eight players apiece by TNT personalities and former NBA greats Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith.
Those three teams will be entered into a four-team tournament, with the remaining squad made up of NBA rookies and second-year players from the Rising Stars event on All-Star Friday. There are two semifinal games, with the winners meeting in a championship game. The games should go quickly; the first team to reach 40 points wins.
Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault and an assistant from his staff will coach two of the teams, and Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson and one of his assistants will lead the others.
The last two All-Star Games rewrote the offensive record books. Boston’s Tatum set an individual record with 55 points in 2023, and last year’s final score was 211-186 — the highest-scoring All-Star Game ever.
LeBron at 40
James is now in line to become the third player to appear in the All-Star Game after turning 40. The others: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who did so at 40 and 41, and Dirk Nowitzki, whose All-Star finale came when he was 40.
James — a pick for 21 straight years — now has two more All-Star selections than anyone else in NBA history (Abdul-Jabbar was a 19-time pick) and is three years clear of anyone else for the longest streak of consecutive selections. Kobe Bryant was picked for 18 consecutive All-Star Games, the second-longest such streak.
James is also set to start for the 21st consecutive year. The second-longest streak of All-Star starts is 13, by Boston’s Bob Cousy.
Antetokounmpo gets 4.4 million fan votes
Antetokounmpo led the way with more than 4.4 million fan votes, giving him the most in that department for the second consecutive year.
The other players who have been the overall top fan choice in back-to-back seasons: James, Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Vince Carter, George Gervin, Magic Johnson, Grant Hill and Yao Ming.
Kobe Bryant led the fan voting four times and Dwight Howard did twice, but neither of those players ever did it in back-to-back years.
Philippine military says US missile deployment to boost readiness, help regional security
- Spokesperson: ‘The primary objective of this deployment is to strengthen Philippine military readiness’
MANILA: The deployment of the US military’s Typhon launchers in the Philippines was in line with Washington’s longstanding defense ties with the country, the Philippine armed forces said on Friday.
“The primary objective of this deployment is to strengthen Philippine military readiness, improve our familiarization and interoperability with advanced weapon systems, and support regional security,” armed forces spokesperson Francel Margareth Padilla said in a statement.
Her remarks came after a Reuters report that the US military has moved the launchers to another location in the Philippines.
Freedom is bittersweet for Palestinians released from Israeli jails
- Since the start of the war the number of Palestinians in Israeli jails has doubled to more than 10,000
- Many prisoners are never told why they were detained
RAMALLAH: When Dania Hanatsheh was released from an Israeli jail this week and dropped off by bus into a sea of jubilant Palestinians in Ramallah, it was an uncomfortable déjà vu.
After nearly five months of detention, it was the second time the 22-year-old woman had been freed as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas to pause the war in Gaza.
Hanatsheh’s elation at being free again is tinged with sadness about the devastation in Gaza, she said, as well as uncertainty about whether she could be detained in the future — a common feeling in her community.
“Palestinian families are prepared to be arrested at any moment,” said Hanatsheh, one of 90 women and teenagers released by Israel during the first phase of the ceasefire deal. “You feel helpless like you can’t do anything to protect yourself.”
Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are to be released as part of a deal to halt the fighting for six weeks, free 33 hostages from Gaza, and increase fuel and aid deliveries to the territory. Many of the prisoners to be released have been detained for infractions such as throwing stones or Molotov cocktails, while others are convicted of killing Israelis.
Hanatsheh was first arrested in November 2023, just weeks into the war triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel. She was freed days later during a weeklong ceasefire in which hundreds of Palestinians were released in exchange for nearly half of the roughly 250 hostages Hamas and others dragged into Gaza.
She was detained again in August, when Israeli troops burst through her door, using an explosive, she said.
On neither occasion was she told why she’d been arrested, she said. A list maintained by Israel’s justice ministry says Hanatsheh was detained for “supporting terror,” although she was never charged or given a trial and doesn’t belong to any militant group.
Her story resonates across Palestinian society, where nearly every family — in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem — has a relative who has spent time in an Israeli jail. This has left scars on generations of families, leaving fewer breadwinners and forcing children to grow up without one or both parents for long stretches.
Since the start of the war 15 months ago, the number of Palestinians in Israeli jails has doubled to more than 10,000, a figure that includes detainees from Gaza, and several thousand arrested in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to Hamoked, an Israeli legal group.
Many prisoners are never told why they were detained. Israel’s “administrative detention” policy allows it to jail people — as it did with Hanatsheh — based on secret evidence, without publicly charging them or ever holding a trial. Only intelligence officers or judges know the charges, said Amjad Abu Asab, head of the Detainees’ Parents Committee in Jerusalem.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Palestinian prisoners released by Israel cannot be later rearrested on the same charges, or returned to jail to finish serving time for past offenses. Prisoners are not required to sign any document upon their release.
The conditions for Palestinian prisoners deteriorated greatly after the war in Gaza began. The country’s then-national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasted last year that prisons will no longer be “summer camps” under his watch.
Several of the prisoners released this week said they lacked adequate food and medical care and that they were forced to sleep in cramped cells.
Men and women prisoners in Israel are routinely beaten and sprayed with pepper gas, and they are deprived of family visits or a change of clothes, said Khalida Jarrar, the most prominent detainee freed.
For years, Jarrar, 62, has been in and out of prison as a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist faction with an armed wing that has carried out attacks on Israelis.
Human Rights Watch has decried Jarrar’s repeated arrests — she was last detained late in 2023 — as part of an unjust Israeli crackdown on non-violent political opposition.
At an event in Ramallah to welcome home the newly released prisoners, Jarrar greeted a long line of well- wishers. But not everyone was celebrating. Some families worried the ceasefire wouldn’t last long enough for their relatives to be freed.
During the ceasefire’s first phase, Israel and Hamas and mediators from Qatar, the US and Egypt will try to agree upon a second phase, in which all remaining hostages in Gaza would be released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.” Negotiations on the second phase begin on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire.
For Yassar Saadat, the first release of prisoners was a particularly bittersweet moment. His mother, Abla Abdelrasoul, was freed after being under “administrative detention” since September, according to the justice ministry, which said her crime was “security to the state — other.” But his father — one of the most high-profile prisoners in Israel — remains behind bars.
“We don’t know if he’ll be released, but we don’t lose hope,” he said. His father, Ahmad Saadat, is a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was convicted of killing an Israeli Cabinet minister in 2001 and has been serving a 30-year sentence.
It’s unclear if he’ll be released and, even if he is, whether he’ll be able to see his family. The ceasefire agreement says all Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks who are released will be exiled, either to Gaza or abroad, and barred from ever returning to Israel or the West Bank.
The release of some convicted murderers is a sore spot for many Israelis, and particularly those whose relatives were killed.
Micah Avni’s father, Richard Lakin, was shot and stabbed to death by a member of Hamas on a public bus in 2015 and his killer’s name is on the list of prisoners to be freed in phase one. While Avni is grateful that more hostages in Gaza are beginning to come home, he doesn’t believe it’ll lead to long-term peace between Israel and Hamas.
“These deals come with a huge, huge cost of life and there are going to be many, many, many more people murdered in the future by the people who were released,” he said.
Israel has a history of agreeing to lopsided exchanges. In 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, taken hostage by Hamas.
One of the prisoners released during that deal was Hamas’ former top leader, Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack who was killed by Israeli troops in Gaza last year.
Some Palestinians said the lopsided exchanges of prisoners for hostages is justified by Israel’s seemingly arbitrary detention policies. Others said, for now, all they want to focus on is lost time with their families.
Amal Shujaeiah said she spent more than seven months in prison, accused by Israel of partaking in pro-Palestinian events at her university and hosting a podcast that talked about the war in Gaza.
Back home, the 21-year-old beamed as she embraced friends and relatives.
“Today I am among my family and loved ones, indescribable joy ... a moment of freedom that makes you forget the sorrow.”
Syria’s economic pains far from over despite Assad’s ouster
- Wealthy Gulf countries have pledged to build economic partnerships with Syria’s new interim rulers
- The United Nations in 2017 estimated that it would cost at least $250 billion to rebuild Syria, now number could reach at least $400 billion
DAMASCUS: Samir Al-Baghdad grabbed his pickax and walked up a wobbly set of stairs made of cinderblocks and rubble.
He is rebuilding his destroyed family house in the Qaboun neighborhood near Damascus, Syria ‘s capital.
The traditional building, which once housed his family, parents and some relatives, had a courtyard decorated with plants and tiled floors where guests were received. But the house, like scores of others nearby, has been reduced to heaps of rubble during years of civil war.
Al-Baghdadi can’t afford to hire workers or rent a bulldozer to clear the debris and fix the house. He makes just about enough money as a mechanic to feed his family. But he’s desperate to rebuild it because he is struggling to pay skyrocketing rent for an apartment.
“Economic opportunities are basically nonexistent,” Al-Baghdadi said, sitting on a pile of rubble and debris where the house’s entrance used to be. “So we’re going to slowly rebuild with our own hands.”
Although Syrian President Bashar Assad was toppled last month in a lightning insurgency, the country’s dire economic conditions that protesters decried have not changed.
The economy has been battered by corruption and 13 years of civil war. Coupled with international sanctions and mismanagement, inflation skyrocketed, pulling some 90 percent of the country into poverty. Over half the population — some 12 million people — don’t know where their next meal will come from, according to the UN World Food Program.
With no sign of a full-scale withdrawal of international sanctions and continuing caution among potential overseas investors, the honeymoon period for the country’s new rulers could be short-lived.
Qaboun, just a stone’s throw away from the city center, and other eastern Damascus neighborhoods became rebel strongholds in 2012, when the country’s mass protests against Assad spiraled into all-out war.
It suffered government airstrikes and artillery fire, and at one point Daesh group extremists. In 2017, government forces reclaimed the neighborhood, but when Al-Baghdadi tried to return in 2020, security forces kicked him out and forced him to sign a pledge to never return, saying it was a security zone that was off limits.
After Assad’s fall, Al-Baghdadi was finally able to return. Like many, he was euphoric and hoped it would pave the way for better times despite the many challenges that lay ahead, including rampant power cuts and fuel shortages.
For years, Syrian families have relied on humanitarian aid and remittances from family members living abroad to survive. On top of the gargantuan costs of rebuilding the country’s destroyed electricity, water and road infrastructure, money is needed to restore its battered agriculture and industrial sectors to make its hobbled economy productive again.
The United Nations in 2017 estimated that it would cost at least $250 billion to rebuild Syria. Some experts now say that number could reach at least $400 billion.
Wealthy Gulf countries have pledged to build economic partnerships with Syria’s new interim rulers, while Washington has eased some restrictions without fully lifting its sanctions. The US Treasury Department issued a six-month license authorizing some transactions with Syria’s interim government. While it includes some energy sales, Syrians say it isn’t enough.
Sinan Hatahet, an economic researcher at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank, said the US actions were the “bare minimum” needed to show good faith to Damascus and aren’t enough to help Syria jumpstart its economy.
“It doesn’t help the private sector to engage,” Hatahet said. “The restrictions on trade, the restrictions on reconstruction, on rebuilding the infrastructure are still there.”
While countries are hesitant to make more impactful decisions as they hope for a peaceful political transition, many Syrians say the economy can’t wait.
“Without jobs, without huge flows of money and investments … these families have no way of making ends meet,” Hatahet said.
The executive director of the World Food Program echoed similar sentiments, warning Syria’s neighbors that its food and economic crisis is also a crisis of security.
“Hunger does not breed good will,” Cindy McCain said in an interview during her first visit to Damascus.
In the Syrian capital’s bustling old marketplace, crowds of people pack the narrow passageways as the country’s new de facto flag is draped over the crowded stalls. Merchants say the atmosphere is pleasant and celebratory, but nobody is buying anything.
People stop to smell the aromatic and colorful spices or pose for photos next to masked fighters from the ruling Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group guarding the market’s entrances.
“We’re very happy with our liberation, thank God, but there are few jobs,” said Walid Naoura, who works with his father at a clothing shop. “Yes, we’ve been relieved of thuggery and oppression, but all these people here have come to celebrate but not to buy anything because things are expensive.”
Nearby, Abou Samir, a carpenter, saws a piece of wood as he assembles a chest of drawers. There is no electricity to power his machinery, so he’s doing it by hand.
“I’m working at a loss … and you can’t make larger workshops work because there is no electricity,” he said.
His sons live abroad and send money to help him get by, but he refuses to stop his carpentry work which has been his livelihood for 50 years.
In Qaboun, Al-Baghdadi sips tea on a makeshift porch overlooking his neighborhood, which has turned into empty plots and a gathering point for local buses and minivans. It was a successful day because he managed to connect an electric cable to power a single light bulb — but part of his roof collapsed.
He still hasn’t been able to secure running water but hopes that he and his family can move into the house with its many memories before summer, even if it is far from completion because of his financial situation.
“I prefer that to living in a palace elsewhere,” Al-Baghdadi said.
Djokovic retires in Australian Open semifinals against Alexander Zverev
- Novak Djokovic hurt his left leg during his quarterfinal victory against Carlos Alcaraz
MELBOURNE: An injured Novak Djokovic quit after dropping the first set of his Australian Open semifinal against Alexander Zverev on Friday.
Djokovic lost the opener 7-6 (5) in a tiebreaker and immediately walked around the net to concede the match to Zverev. Fans booed as Djokovic walked off toward the locker room, and he responded by giving two thumbs-up.
Djokovic, who was bidding for an 11 championship at the Australian Open and record 25th Grand Slam title overall, hurt his left leg during his quarterfinal victory against Carlos Alcaraz.
The No. 2-seeded Zverev reached his first title match at Melbourne Park and will face the winner of Friday’s second semifinal between No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy, the defending champion, and No. 21 Ben Shelton of the United States.
Zverev is a two-time runner-up at other major tournaments.
The men’s final is Sunday. In Saturday’s women’s final, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will try to become the first woman since 1999 with three consecutive Australian Open titles when she faces Madison Keys of the United States.
