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Foreign offers of aid in response to Morocco earthquake

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A rescue team from the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME) are seen boarding an Airbus A400 military plane at the Zaragoza air base to help in rescue operations in quake-hit Morocco on Sept. 10, 2023. (UME handout via AFP)
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People carry the remains of a victim of the deadly 6.8-magnitude September 8 earthquake, in the village of Imi N'Tala near Amizmiz in central Morocco on September 10, 2023. (Fadel Senna/AFP)
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People carry the remains of a victim of the deadly 6.8-magnitude September 8 earthquake, in the village of Imi N'Tala near Amizmiz in central Morocco on September 10, 2023. (Fadel Senna/AFP)
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People carry the remains of a victim of the deadly 6.8-magnitude September 8 earthquake, in the village of Imi N'Tala near Amizmiz in central Morocco on September 10, 2023. (Fadel Senna/AFP)
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Updated 10 September 2023
Reuters
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Foreign offers of aid in response to Morocco earthquake

Updated 10 September 2023
Reuters

Offers of aid and support from foreign governments started pouring in on Sunday for Morocco following the powerful earthquake that struck North African country Friday midnight.

The following are some of those who have responded so far to calls by the Moroccan government:

SPAIN
A Spanish military search and rescue unit with 56 officers and four sniffer dogs arrived in Morocco on Sunday, Spain’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles said. The unit from the Spanish Emergency Military Unit will work about 100 km (60 miles) south of Marrakech. A second team of 30 people and 4 dogs was heading to Morocco.
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said earlier that Spain had received a formal request for help from Morocco, in a call from his Moroccan counterpart.
UNITED STATES
The United States dispatched a small team of disaster experts to Morocco to assess the situation, identify unmet humanitarian needs and work with the government of Morocco to identify additional support. A US official said the team arrived on the ground on Sunday.

BRITAIN
Britain said it was deploying 60 search and rescue specialists and 4 dogs on Sunday, as well as a four person medical assessment team.

FRANCE
France said on Sunday it is ready to help Morocco and is awaiting a formal request for assistance.
“Moroccan authorities know exactly what can be delivered, the nature (of what can be delivered) and the timing ... We are at their disposal. We did everything we could do ... The second they request this aid, it will be deployed,” President Emmanuel Macron said during a news conference at the G20 Summit in New Delhi.
Separately, the Foreign Ministry said it was activating a fund of local government contributions to support solidarity actions. At this stage nearly 2 million euros ($2.14 million)have been pledged, it said. Additionally, many French companies have contacted the ministry to say they intend to contribute to France’s support efforts.
Telecoms group Orange said on Saturday that it would lift charges for its mobile clients for fixed and mobile calls as well as SMS to Morocco, until Sept. 16. Its units in Belgium, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have also announced free communications to Morocco for a week.

ISRAEL
Israel’s Magen David Adom national medical and disaster emergency service said on Saturday that its head contacted the president of Moroccan Red Crescent with an offer of help.
“Representatives from Magen David Adom are gearing up to depart within the next few hours,” it said in a statement. “They will be joining hands with delegations from the Ministry of Health and the Israel Defense Forces.”

ALGERIA
Algeria, which broke off ties with Morocco two years ago, said it would open its air space for humanitarian and medical flights to Morocco. In a statement on Saturday, Algeria’s presidency said it was ready to provide humanitarian aid and offer all its material and human capabilities in solidarity with the Moroccan people, if Morocco requests such help.
On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry said Algiers has prepared emergency and medical teams along with humanitarian aid, to be dispatched to Morocco if Rabat approved.

TUNISIA
Tunisia has assembled a team, which is waiting to depart pending authorization from Morocco, to support search and rescue efforts, a spokesperson for the country’s civil protection agency said on Sunday. Interior Ministry officials said earlier that the team had already arrived in Morocco. The team includes about 50 paramedics and personnel from a specialized unit, and search dogs, as well as advanced thermal monitoring devices, a drone to detect victims under the rubble and a field hospital.

TURKEY
Turkiye’s AFAD disaster management authority said on Saturday that 265 aid workers from AFAD, the Turkish Red Crescent and other Turkish NGOs were ready to travel to the quake region if Morocco calls for international assistance. It also said that Turkiye was ready to deliver 1,000 tents to the affected areas. By Sunday the team had not yet departed.

KUWAIT
Kuwait’s Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah directed the government to provide all necessary relief supplies for Morocco, the state news agency (KUNA) said on Saturday.

OMAN
Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al-Said of Oman ordered rescue teams and urgent relief and medical aid to be sent to Morocco, the Omani state news agency said on Sunday.

TAIWAN
Taiwan’s fire department said on Saturday it had put a team of 120 rescuers on standby to go to Morocco the moment they get instructions from Taiwan’s foreign ministry.

Topics: Morocco earthquake

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Erdogan ally wants pro-Kurdish party, jailed militant to talk

Updated 6 sec ago
Reuters
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Erdogan ally wants pro-Kurdish party, jailed militant to talk

  • The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
Updated 6 sec ago
Reuters

ANKARA: A key ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expanded on his proposal to end 40 years of conflict with Kurdish militants by proposing on Tuesday that parliament’s pro-Kurdish party holds direct talks with the militants’ jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, made the call a month after suggesting that Ocalan announce an end to the insurgency in exchange for the possibility of his release.
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Erdogan described Bahceli’s initial proposal as a “historic window of opportunity” but has not spoken of any peace process.
Ocalan has been held in a prison on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago.
“We expect face-to-face contact between Imrali and the DEM group to be made without delay, and we resolutely reiterate our call,” Bahceli told his party’s lawmakers in a parliamentary meeting, using the name of the island to refer to Ocalan.
Bahceli regularly condemns pro-Kurdish politicians as tools of the PKK.
DEM’s predecessor party was involved in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan a decade ago. Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, DEM’s parliamentary group chairperson, said it applied to the Justice Ministry on Tuesday for its leaders to meet Ocalan.
“We are ready to make every contribution for a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue and the democratization of Turkiye,” she said.
Turkiye and its Western allies call the PKK a terrorist group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
Growing regional instability and changing political dynamics are seen as factors behind the bid to end the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear as Ankara has given no clues on what it may entail.
The only concrete move so far has been Ankara’s permission for Ocalan’s nephew to visit him, the first family visit in 4-1/2 years.
Authorities are continuing to crack down on alleged PKK activities. Early on Tuesday, police detained 231 people of suspected PKK ties, the interior ministry said. DEM Party said those detained included its local officials and activists.
Earlier this month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities for similar reasons, in a move that drew criticism from DEM and others.
 

 

Topics: PKK Turkiye

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Algeria holds writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges: lawyer

Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
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Algeria holds writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges: lawyer

Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
“Boualem Sansal... was today placed in detention” on the basis of an article of the Algerian penal code, lawyer Francois Zimeray said
Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing“

PARIS: Algerian authorities have remanded in custody on national security charges prominent French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal following his arrest earlier this month that sparked alarm throughout the literary world, his French lawyer said on Tuesday.
“Boualem Sansal... was today placed in detention” on the basis of an article of the Algerian penal code “which punishes all attacks on state security,” lawyer Francois Zimeray said in a statement to AFP.
He added that Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing.”
Sansal, a major figure in francophone modern literature, is known for his strong stances against both authoritarianism and Islamism, as well as being a forthright campaigner on freedom of expression issues.
His detention by Algeria comes against a background of tensions between France and its former colony, which also appear to have spread to the literary world.
The 75-year-old writer, granted French nationality this year, was on November 16 arrested at Algiers airport after returning from France, according to several media reports.
The Gallimard publishing house, which has published his work for a quarter of a century, in a statement expressed “its very deep concern following the arrest of the writer by the Algerian security services,” calling for his “immediate release.”
A relative latecomer to writing, Sansal turned to novels in 1999 and has tackled subjects including the horrific 1990s civil war between authorities and Islamists.
His books are not banned in Algeria but he is a controversial figure, particularly since making a visit to Israel in 2014.
Sansal’s hatred of Islamism has not been confined to Algeria and he has also warned of a creeping Islamization in France, a stance that has made him a favored author of prominent figures on the right and far-right.
In 2015, Sansal won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy, the guardians of the French language, for his book “2084: The End of the World,” a dystopian novel inspired by George Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty Four” and set in an Islamist totalitarian world in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
The concerns about his reported arrest come as another prominent French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is under attack over his novel “Houris,” which won France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt.
A woman has claimed the book was based on her story of surviving 1990s Islamist massacres and used without her consent.
She alleged on Algerian television that Daoud used the story she confidentially recounted to a therapist — who is now his wife — during treatment. His publisher has denied the claims.
The controversies are taking place in a tense diplomatic context between France and Algeria, after President Emmanuel Macron renewed French support for Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara during a landmark visit to the kingdom last month.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is de facto controlled for the most part by Morocco.
But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, who are demanding a self-determination referendum and are supported by Algiers.
Daoud organized a petition signed by fellow literary luminaries published in the Le Point weekly calling for Sansal’s “immediate” release.
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” said the letter also signed by the likes of British novelist Salman Rushdie and Turkish Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk.

Winter rain piles misery on Gaza’s displaced

Updated 4 min 26 sec ago
AFP
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Winter rain piles misery on Gaza’s displaced

Updated 4 min 26 sec ago
AFP

GAZA CITY: At a crowded camp in Gaza for those displaced by the war between Israel and Hamas, Ayman Siam laid concrete blocks around his tent to keep his family dry as rain threatened more misery.

“I’m trying to protect my tent from the rainwater because we are expecting heavy rain. Three days ago when it rained, we were drenched,” Siam said, seeking to shield his children and grandchildren from more wet weather.

Siam is among thousands sheltering at Gaza City’s Yarmouk sports stadium in the north after being uprooted by the Israel-Hamas war.

He lives in one of many flimsy tents set up at the stadium, where the pitch has become a muddy field dotted with puddles left by rainfall that washed away belongings and shelters.

People in the stadium dug small trenches around their tents, covered them with plastic sheets, and did whatever they could to stop the water from entering their makeshift homes.

Others used spades to direct the water into drains, as grey skies threatened more rain.

The majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times.

With many displaced living in tent camps, the coming winter is raising serious concerns.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense agency, said that “tens of thousands of displaced people, especially in the central and south of Gaza Strip, are suffering from flooded tents due to the rains,” and called on the international community to provide tents and aid.

International aid organizations have sounded the alarm about the deteriorating situation as winter approaches.

“It’s going to be catastrophic,” warned Louise Wateridge, an emergency officer for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees currently in Gaza.

The rainy period in Gaza lasts between late October and April, with January being the wettest month, averaging 30 to 40 millimeters of rain. Winter temperatures can drop as low as 6 degrees Celsius. Recent rain has flooded hundreds of tents.

“The rain and seawater flooded all the tents. We are helpless. The water took everything from the tent, including the mattresses, blankets and a water jug. We were only able to get a mattress and blankets for the children,” said Auni Al-Sabea, a displaced person.

Topics: Palestine Israel winter

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Lebanese Prime Minister demands ‘immediate’ implementation of ceasefire

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Lebanese Prime Minister demands ‘immediate’ implementation of ceasefire

  • Mikati said the intense wave of Israeli air strikes on Beirut on Tuesday “reaffirms that the Israeli enemy has no regard for any law or consideration"
Updated 9 min 30 sec ago
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BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati demanded in a statement on Tuesday that the international community “act swiftly” to halt Israeli aggression “and implement an immediate ceasefire.”
His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address that his security cabinet would agree “this evening” on a truce deal in its war against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Mikati said the intense wave of Israeli air strikes on Beirut on Tuesday “reaffirms that the Israeli enemy has no regard for any law or consideration.”
“The international community is called upon to act swiftly to stop this aggression and implement an immediate ceasefire,” he said in his statement, which was issued before a strike hit the central Hamra commercial district.

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Israeli ‘aggression’ targets Syria’s Homs countryside, state news agency says

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Israeli ‘aggression’ targets Syria’s Homs countryside, state news agency says

  • Blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation
Updated 26 November 2024
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HOMS: Initial reports indicate that an Israeli “aggression” targeted two villages in northern and western areas of Syria’s Homs province, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday.
Earlier, Syrian state television said blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led militants.

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