Stab attack on Salman Rushdie was ‘preplanned’, says prosecutor

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Nathaniel Barone, left, defense attorney for Hadi Matar, talks with his client following an arraignment at a courthouse in Mayville, New York, on Aug. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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Hadi Matar, the accused in the stabbing attack against Salman Rushdie, arrives for an arraignment at a courthouse in Mayville, New York, on Aug. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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Updated 14 August 2022
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Stab attack on Salman Rushdie was ‘preplanned’, says prosecutor

  • Suspect Matar joined a fitness boxing club for beginners on April 11 and cancelled his membership days before the attack, club manager says

MAYVILLE, New York: The man accused in the stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie pleaded not guilty Saturday to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called a “preplanned” crime, as the renowned author of “The Satanic Verses” appeared to show signs of improvement in hospital.
An attorney for Hadi Matar entered the plea on his behalf during an arraignment in western New York. The suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him held without bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr. Rushdie,” Schmidt said.
Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks.”
“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.
Matar, 24, is accused of attacking Rushdie on Friday as the author was being introduced at a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute, a nonprofit education and retreat center.
Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye. He was on a ventilator and unable to speak and in danger of losing an eye, his agent Andrew Wylie said Friday evening.

But in an update on Saturday, Wylie told the New York Times that Rushdie had started to talk again, suggesting his condition had improved.


ALSO READ: Background of Rushdie attacker sheds light on Khomeini sympathizers in US


The attack was met with shock and outrage from much of the world, along with tributes and praise for the award-winning author who for more than 30 years has faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses.”
Authors, activists and government officials cited Rushdie’s courage and longtime advocacy of free speech despite the risks to his own safety. Writer and longtime friend Ian McEwan called Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world,” and actor-author Kal Penn cited him as a role model “for an entire generation of artists, especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora toward whom he’s shown incredible warmth.”
President Joe Biden said Saturday in a statement that he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked and saddened” by the attack.
“Salman Rushdie — with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced — stands for essential, universal ideals,” the statement read. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are the building blocks of any free and open society.”
Rushdie, a native of India who has since lived in Britain and the US, is known for his surreal and satirical prose style, beginning with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” in which he sharply criticized India’s then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
“The Satanic Verses” drew death threats after it was published in 1988, with many Muslims regarding as blasphemy a dream sequence based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. Rushdie’s book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere before Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.
Khomeini died that same year, but the fatwa remains in effect. Iran’s current supreme leader, Khamenei, never issued a fatwa of his own withdrawing the edict, though Iran in recent years hasn’t focused on the writer.
Investigators were working to determine whether the assailant, born a decade after “The Satanic Verses” was published, acted alone.
District Attorney Schmidt alluded to the fatwa as a potential motive in arguing against bail.
“Even if this court were to set a million dollars bail, we stand a risk that bail could be met,” Schmidt said.
“His resources don’t matter to me. We understand that the agenda that was carried out yesterday is something that was adopted and it’s sanctioned by larger groups and organizations well beyond the jurisdictional borders of Chautauqua County,” the prosecutor said.
Barone, the public defender, said after the hearing that Matar has been communicating openly with him and that he would spend the coming weeks trying to learn about his client, including whether he has psychological or addiction issues.
Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey. Rosaria Calabrese, manager of the State of Fitness Boxing Club, a small, tightly knit gym in nearby North Bergen, said Matar joined April 11 and participated in about 27 group sessions for beginners looking to improve their fitness before emailing her several days ago to say he wanted to cancel his membership because “he wouldn’t be coming back for a while.”
Gym owner Desmond Boyle said he saw “nothing violent” about Matar, describing him as polite and quiet, yet someone who always looked “tremendously sad.” He said Matar resisted attempts by him and others to welcome and engage him.
“He had this look every time he came in. It looked like it was the worst day of his life,” Boyle said.
Matar was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, the mayor of the village, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press.
Flags are visible across the village of Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah and portraits of leader Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei, Khomeini and slain Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Journalists visiting Yaroun on Saturday were asked to leave. Hezbollah spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s theocratic government and its state-run media assigned no motive for the attack. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the attack on an author they believe tarnished the Islamic faith, while others worried it would further isolate their country.
An AP reporter witnessed the attacker stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 times. Dr. Martin Haskell, a physician who was among those who rushed to help, described Rushdie’s wounds as “serious but recoverable.”
Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to discuss the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.
A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to Rushdie’s lecture, and state police said the trooper made the arrest. But afterward some longtime visitors to the center questioned why there wasn’t tighter security given the threats against Rushdie and a bounty of more than $3 million on his head.
News about the stabbing has led to renewed interest in “The Satanic Verses,” which topped best seller lists after the fatwa was issued in 1989. As of Saturday afternoon, the novel ranked No. 13 on Amazon.com.
The book’s publication in 1988 sparked often-violent protests around the Muslim world against Rushdie, who was born to a Muslim family and has long identified as a nonbeliever, once calling himself “a hard-line atheist.”
At least 45 people were killed in riots, including 12 in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.
The death threats and bounty led Rushdie to go into hiding under a British government protection program, which included an around-the-clock armed guard. After nine years of seclusion, Rushdie cautiously resumed more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken criticism of religious extremism overall.
In 2012 he published a memoir about the fatwa titled “Joseph Anton,” the pseudonym Rushdie used while in hiding.
He said during a New York talk that year that terrorism was really the art of fear: “The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid.”
 


Afghanistan bets on ‘red gold’ for global market presence

Updated 23 November 2024
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Afghanistan bets on ‘red gold’ for global market presence

  • Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer, after Iran
  • Afghan saffron has been for years recognized as the world’s best

Kabul: As the saffron harvest season is underway in Afghanistan, traders are expecting better yields than in previous years, sparking hopes that exports of the precious crop, known locally as “red gold,” will help uplift the country’s battered economy and livelihoods.
Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer, after Iran, but it ranks first in terms of quality. In June, the Belgium-based International Taste Institute for the ninth consecutive year recognized Afghan saffron as the world’s best.
Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice, selling for about $2,000 per kilogram. Its exports provide critical foreign currency to Afghanistan, where US-imposed sanctions have severely affected the fragile economy since the Taliban took control in 2021.

With this year’s production expected to exceed 50 tons — about double that of the 2023 and 2022 seasons — the government and the Afghanistan National Saffron Union are trying to boost exports abroad.
“The harvest of saffron this year is good. During the first nine months (of 2024), Afghanistan exported around 46 tons of saffron to different countries,” Abdulsalam Jawad Akhundzada, spokesperson at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, told Arab News.
“Everywhere our traders want to export saffron, we support them in any part of the world through air corridors and facilitating the participation of Afghan traders in national and international exhibitions.”
Known to have been cultivated for at least 2,000 years, saffron is well suited to Afghanistan’s dry climate, especially in Herat, where 90 percent of it is produced. Most of the spice’s trade is also centered in the province, which last weekend inaugurated its International Saffron Trade Center to facilitate exports.
“The new international saffron trade center is established with global standards and will bring major processing and trade companies to one place providing a single venue for farmers to trade their products with the best possible conditions,” Mohammad Ibrahim Adil, head of the Afghanistan National Saffron Union, told Arab News.

The union’s main export market is India, where saffron is a common ingredient in food, followed by Gulf countries — especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“Saffron exports bring the much-needed foreign currency to Afghanistan contributing significantly to stabilization of the financial cycle in the country,” said Qudratullah Rahmati, the saffron union’s deputy head.
The union estimates that saffron contributes about $100 million to the Afghan economy a year.
Most, or 95 percent, of the workers are women, according to the saffron union.
“Saffron production is supporting many families, especially women, during the harvest and processing phase through short-term and long-term employment opportunities. There are around 80-85 registered small and big saffron companies in Herat and the small ones employ four to five people while the bigger ones have up to 80 permanent staff,” said Qudratullah Rahmati, the saffron union’s deputy head.
Harvesting the little purple saffron crocus flowers is heavily labor intensive, as each of them needs to be picked by hand. Once the flowers are picked, their tiny orange stigmas are separated for drying. About 440,000 stigmas are needed to produce one kilogram of the fragrant spice.
The harvest season usually begins between October and November are lasts just a few weeks before the flowers wilt.


Pressure ramps up at UN talks to reach a deal for cash to curb and adapt to climate change

Updated 23 November 2024
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Pressure ramps up at UN talks to reach a deal for cash to curb and adapt to climate change

  • The rough draft of a new proposal circulating in that room was getting soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states
  • The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said

BAKU: As nerves frayed and the clock ticked, negotiators from rich and poor nations were huddled in one room Saturday during overtime United Nations climate talks to try to hash out an elusive deal on money for developing countries to curb and adapt to climate change.
But the rough draft of a new proposal circulating in that room was getting soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States walked out because they didn’t want to engage with the rough draft.
The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said.
When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia environment minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: “I would call this dissatisfaction, (we are) highly dissatisfied.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed. The rough draft discussed on Saturday was for $300 billion, sources told AP.
Accusations of a war of attrition
Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way — and a small financial aid package — via a war of attrition. And small island nations, particularly vulnerable to climate change’s worsening impacts, accused the host country presidency of ignoring them for the entire two weeks.
After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the room for the European Union, Panama chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez had enough.
“Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said. “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”
With developing nations’ ministers and delegation chiefs having to catch flights home, desperation sets in, said Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow. “The risk is if developing countries don’t hold the line, they will likely be forced to compromise and accept a goal that doesn’t add up to get the job done,” he said.
Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States issued a statement saying they “were not part of the discussion that gave rise to these imbalanced texts” and asked the COP29 presidency to listen to them.
A climate cash deal is still elusive
Wealthy nations are obligated to help vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at these talks in Paris in 2015. Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
For Panama’s negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez even a higher $300 billion figure is “still crumbs.”
“How do you go from the request of $1.3 trillion to $300 billion? I mean, is that even half of what we put forth?” he asked.
On Saturday morning, Irish environment minister Eamon Ryan said that there’ll likely be a new number for climate finance in the next draft. “But it’s not just that number — it’s how do you get to $1.3 trillion,” he said.
Ryan said that any number reached at the COP will have to be supplemented with other sources of finance, for example through a market for carbon emissions where polluters would pay to offset the carbon they spew.
The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations — often considered a “core” — will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries drowning in debt.
Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said that in order to get a deal, “the presidency has to put something far better on the table.”
“The US in particular, and rich countries, need to do far more to to show that they’re willing for real money to come forward,” she said. “And if they don’t, then LDCs (Least Developed Countries) are unlikely to find that there’s anything here for them.”
Anger and frustration over state of negotiations
Alden Meyer of the climate think tank E3G said it’s still up in the air whether a deal on finance will come out of Baku at all.
“It is still not out of the question that there could be an inability to close the gap on the finance issue,” he said. “That obviously is not an ideal scenario.”
Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, the Sierra-Leone environment minister, echoed that sentiment, saying “a bad deal may be worse than no deal for us.”
Nations were also angry at potential backsliding on commitments to slash fossil fuels. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called out rich fossil fuel emitters who she said have “ripped off” climate vulnerable states.
“We are in the midst of a geopolitical power play by a few fossil fuel states,” Baerbock said. “We have to do everything to come toward the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 Fahrenheit) pathway” of keeping warming below that temperature limit since preindustrial times, she said.
But despite the fractures between nations, some still held out hopes for the talks.
“We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks standing negotiating committees.
When asked how, COP29 climate champion Nigar Arpadarai chimed in. “We have no choice,” she said, as the harms of climate change continue to worsen.


Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the land it held in Russia’s Kursk region, senior Kyiv military source says

Updated 23 November 2024
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Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the land it held in Russia’s Kursk region, senior Kyiv military source says

  • “At most, we controlled about 1,376 square kilometers, now of course this territory is smaller,” the source said
  • “Now we control approximately 800 square kilometers“

KYIV: Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults, a senior Ukrainian military source said.
The source, who is on Ukraine’s General Staff, said Russia had deployed some 59,000 troops to the Kursk region since Kyiv’s forces swept in and advanced swiftly, catching Moscow unprepared 2-1/2 years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“At most, we controlled about 1,376 square kilometers (531 square miles), now of course this territory is smaller. The enemy is increasing its counterattacks,” the source said.
“Now we control approximately 800 square kilometers (309 square miles). We will hold this territory for as long as is militarily appropriate.”
The Kursk offensive was the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War Two and caught Moscow unprepared.
With the thrust into Kursk, Kyiv aimed to stem Russian attacks in eastern and northeastern Ukraine, force Russia to pull back forces gradually advancing in the east and give Kyiv extra leverage in any future peace negotiations.
But Russian forces are still steadily advancing in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian General Staff source reiterated that about 11,000 North Korean troops had arrived in the Kursk region in support of Russia, but that the bulk of their forces was still finalizing their training.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Kyiv’s freshest assessment of the state of play in the Kursk region. Reuters could not independently verify the figures or descriptions given.
Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean forces in Kursk.
Ukraine’s armed forces chief said on Nov. 11 that its beleaguered forces were not just battling crack Russian reinforcements in Kursk but also scrambling to reinforce two besieged fronts in eastern Ukraine and bracing for an infantry assault in the south.

THREATENING RUSSIAN ADVANCE IN EASTERN UKRAINE
The General Staff source said the Kurakhove region was the most threatening for Kyiv now as Russian forces were advancing there at 200-300 meters (yards) a day and had managed to break through in some areas with armored vehicles backed by anti-drone defenses.
The town of Kurakhove is a stepping stone toward the critical logistical hub of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Overall Russia has about 575,000 troops fighting in Ukraine at the moment, the Ukrainian General Staff source said, and is aiming to increase its forces up to around 690,000.
Russia does not disclose numbers involved in its fighting, and Reuters could not independently verify those figures.
As Ukraine fights a bigger and better-equipped enemy, Kyiv has sought to disrupt Russian logistics and supply chains by hitting Russian weapons and ammunition depots, airfields, and other military targets well inside Russia.
Ukraine gained a freer hand to do so earlier this month after, according to sources familiar with the matter, President Joe Biden dropped his opposition to Kyiv firing US-supplied missiles at targets deep inside Russia in response to North Korea’s entry into the war. Last week Ukraine fired US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow
cruise missiles into Russia. One of the ATACMS targets was an arms depot about 110 km (70 miles) inside Russia. Moscow vowed to respond to what it sees as an escalation by Ukraine’s Western supporters. On Thursday, Russia launched a new medium-range ballistic missile into the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, in a likely warning to NATO.
Ukrainian officials are holding talks with the United States and Britain regarding new air defense systems capable of protecting Ukrainian cities and civilians from the new longer-range aerial threats.
The Ukrainian General Staff source said the military had also implemented measures to bolster air defenses over the capital Kyiv and planned similar steps for the city of Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the northeast, both near front lines. Russia now occupies a fifth of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin has said he wants Kyiv to drop ambitions to join the NATO military alliance and retreat from four Ukrainian regions that he partially holds, demands Kyiv has rejected as tantamount to capitulation.


UK police carry out controlled explosion near London Euston station

Updated 23 November 2024
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UK police carry out controlled explosion near London Euston station

  • LBC News reported earlier that the station had been evacuated

LONDON: British police carried out a controlled explosion near Euston railway station in central London after investigating a suspect package, they said on Saturday.
“A controlled explosion has been carried out by specialist officers and the police cordons have now been lifted,” the capital’s Metropolitan Police said on social media platform X.


LBC News reported earlier that the station had been evacuated.
In a previous statement, the police said they were aware of reports online about an incident “in the vicinity of Euston Station” and that cordons were in place as a precaution.
Those cordons have now been removed, they said in an update.


Afghanistan bets on ‘red gold’ for global market presence

Updated 23 November 2024
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Afghanistan bets on ‘red gold’ for global market presence

  • Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer
  • Afghan saffron considered world’s best by International Taste Institute

KABUL: With the saffron harvest season underway in Afghanistan, local traders are expecting better yields than in previous years, sparking hopes that exports of the precious crop, known locally as “red gold,” will help improve the country’s battered economy.

Afghanistan is the world’s second-largest saffron producer, after Iran. In June, the Belgium-based International Taste Institute named Afghan saffron as the world’s best for the ninth consecutive year.

Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice, selling for around $2,000 per kilogram. Its exports provide critical foreign currency to Afghanistan, where US-imposed sanctions have severely affected the economy since the Taliban took control in 2021.

With this year’s saffron yield expected to exceed 50 tons — roughly double that of the 2023 and 2022 seasons — the government and the Afghanistan National Saffron Union are looking to boost exports.

“The harvest of saffron this year is good. During the first nine months (of 2024), Afghanistan exported around 46 tons of saffron to different countries,” Abdulsalam Jawad Akhundzada, spokesperson at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, told Arab News. “Everywhere our traders want to export saffron we support them through air corridors and facilitating the participation of Afghan traders in national and international exhibitions.”

Known to have been cultivated for at least 2,000 years, saffron is well suited to Afghanistan’s dry climate, especially in Herat, where 90 percent of Afghan saffron is produced. Most saffron trading is also centered in the province, which last weekend inaugurated its International Saffron Trade Center to facilitate exports.

“The new center has been established in accordance with global standards and will bring major processing and trade companies to one place, providing a single venue for farmers to trade their products in the best possible conditions,” Mohammad Ibrahim Adil, head of the Afghanistan National Saffron Union, told Arab News.

The union’s main export market is India, where saffron is a common ingredient in food, followed by the GCC — especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“Saffron exports bring much-needed foreign currency to Afghanistan, contributing significantly to stabilization of the financial cycle in the country,” said Qudratullah Rahmati, the saffron union’s deputy head.

The union estimates that saffron contributes about $100 million to the Afghan economy a year.

Around 95 percent of the workers in the saffron industry are women, according to the union.

“Saffron production is supporting many families, especially women, during the harvest and processing phase through short- and long-term employment opportunities. There are around 80-85 registered saffron companies in Herat. The small ones employ four to five people while the bigger ones have up to 80 permanent staff,” Rahmati explained.

Harvesting saffron is difficult and time-consuming work. The flowers are handpicked, and their tiny orange stigmas are separated for drying. Roughly 440,000 stigmas are needed to produce one kilogram of the fragrant spice.

The harvest season usually begins sometime in October or November and lasts just a few weeks.