Dozens arrested as Melbourne anti-war protests turn violent

A man waves a Palestinian flag as protesters confront police outside the Land Forces 2024 arms fair in Melbourne on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 11 September 2024
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Dozens arrested as Melbourne anti-war protests turn violent

  • Police were pelted with rocks, horse manure and bottles filled with liquid as they tried to protect attendees of the expo
  • Two dozen police officers required medical treatment and 33 people had been arrested for offenses

SYDNEY: Anti-war protesters and police clashed outside a defense exhibition in Australia’s second-largest city of Melbourne on Wednesday, with dozens arrested as police used sponge grenades, flash-bang devices and irritant sprays to control parts of the hostile crowd.
Police were pelted with rocks, horse manure and bottles filled with liquid as they tried to protect attendees of the expo, some of whom were assaulted by protesters, a Victoria state police spokesperson said in a statement. Two dozen police officers required medical treatment and 39 people had been arrested for offenses including assaulting, obstructing or hindering police, arson and blocking roads, Shane Patton Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police told a press conference.
Protesters lit fires in the street, disrupted traffic and public transport, while missiles were thrown at several police horses but no serious injuries were reported, police said.
Some police have been spat at by protesters, whilst other officers have been sprayed with a liquid irritant, some of which was identified as acid, Patton added. “This is the type of disgusting behavior that we saw today from a group who were intent on confronting us,” he said.
“If you wish to come and protest, do so peacefully. We will not tolerate criminal behavior.”
About 1,200 people attended the protest outside the venue hosting the biennial Land Forces International Land Defense Exposition, authorities said. Many chanted pro-Palestine slogans through loud speakers and waved Palestine flags while others had signs and flags representing other conflicts and causes, video showed. Dumpsters were pushed toward police lines and one protester climbed on top of a truck that was stopped at traffic lights.
Australian media reported it was the largest police operation in Melbourne since 2000 when Australia’s second-largest city hosted the World Economic Forum. About 1,000 exhibiting organizations from 31 countries are expected to attend the event through Friday, which the organizers said was Australia’s largest defense expo.
Some attendees were doused in a red liquid by protesters, ABC News reported.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said people had the right to protest but had to do it in a peaceful manner.
“You don’t say you’re opposed to defense equipment by throwing things at police. They’ve got a job to do and our police officers should be respected at all times,” Albanese told Channel Seven.


Philippines to pursue sustainability, halal sector projects with Saudi businesses

Updated 9 sec ago
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Philippines to pursue sustainability, halal sector projects with Saudi businesses

  • Top Philippine, Saudi business bodies signed an agreement to boost trade ties last week
  • The memorandum is ‘significant milestone’ in Saudi-Philippine relations, commerce body says

MANILA: The Philippines is seeking new partnerships with Saudi Arabia in the sustainability and halal sectors, the Department of Trade and Industry said on Monday after the two countries’ top business bodies signed an agreement to enhance economic ties.

The Federation of Saudi Chambers and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed a memorandum of understanding in Riyadh last week, aimed at boosting trade and investment between the two countries.

“The collaboration sets the stage for ongoing exchanges that will drive sustainable growth across sectors,” the DTI said in a statement of the PCCI pact.

The agreement was a “significant milestone” in Saudi-Philippine relations and will be “a foundation for projects aligned with both countries’ goal(s) in sustainable development, trade expansion, and cultural ties,” it added.

The PCCI was part of a DTI-led delegation comprising government agencies and business leaders, whose mission to the Kingdom will conclude on Tuesday.

The mission was organized to promote the Philippines’ halal industry, as Manila has set out to expand it significantly. This includes doubling the number of its halal-certified products and services, raise 230 billion pesos ($4 billion) in investments, and generate around 120,000 jobs by 2028.

To achieve those goals, the Philippines is also working to tap into the global halal market — estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion — through new collaborations with countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

“This is a good beginning where we can open the gate so that we could collaborate between two countries … we can restart and redevelop our business between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia,” Elsie Chua, business executive and co-chair of the Philippines-Saudi Business Council, told Arab News.

Chua said there were opportunities under the Saudi Vision 2030 plan, including in construction, food security and wellness.

“I can foresee we could reach not only in (halal) food … but also in cosmetics, etc.,” she said. “Next year, we will bring a bigger delegation to be led by our president of the PCCI … wherein we will also bring designers, architects as well as construction companies.”

Manila recorded a rise in Philippine-Saudi trade from 2022 to 2023. This followed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to Riyadh last October, during which a $4.26 billion investment agreement was signed with the Kingdom’s business leaders.


Germany’s top diplomat in Kyiv as Ukraine girds for impact of US election on the war

Updated 04 November 2024
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Germany’s top diplomat in Kyiv as Ukraine girds for impact of US election on the war

  • Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest weapons supplier after the US
  • Ahead of the US vote, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to lock Ukraine’s Western supporters into a long-term “victory plan”

KYIV, Ukraine: Germany’s top diplomat arrived Monday in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on an unannounced visit, in what appeared to be a show of European support for Ukraine on the eve of a US presidential election that could bring far-reaching changes in Washington’s policy toward Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.
Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest weapons supplier after the US, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed that Berlin’s backing would remain steadfast.
“Together with many partners around the world, Germany stands firmly by Ukraine’s side,” she said, German news agency dpa reported. “We will support the Ukrainians for as long as they need us so that they can continue on their path to a just peace.”
The war is at a critical moment for Ukraine, with the Russian army making creeping gains on the battlefield and another hard winter ahead after Russia relentlessly battered the Ukrainian power grid.
Ahead of the US vote, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to lock Ukraine’s Western supporters into a long-term “victory plan,” including a formal invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and permission to use Western long-range missiles to strike military targets in Russia, but the response was disappointing for Kyiv officials.
Russia is using its superior numbers to heap pressure on Ukrainian positions along the front line. Ukraine’s top commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Saturday his troops are struggling to hold back “one of the most powerful (Russian) offensives” of the war.
Russia is now adding to its offensive push what Western intelligence sources say is a force of about 10,000 North Korean combat troops sent by Pyongyang under a pact with Moscow.
That has deepened Zelensky’s frustration with Western help. On Saturday, he urged allies to stop “watching” and take steps before the North Korean troops reach the battlefield.
Zelensky said Kyiv knows at which Russian camps the North Korean troops are being trained but Ukraine can’t strike them without permission from allies to use the Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.
Baerbock arrived in Kyiv hours after debris from drones intercepted by air defenses fell in two districts of the city, starting small fires, officials said. No people or property were harmed, according to the head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko.
A Russian glide bomb attack on Sunday night injured 15 people in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, regional police said.
Russia fired some 80 Shahed drones at Ukrainian cities overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.


Pakistan anti-polio drive struggles against militants, mistrust

Updated 04 November 2024
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Pakistan anti-polio drive struggles against militants, mistrust

  • Cases in Pakistan are on the rise, with 45 registered so far this year, up from six in 2023 and only one in 2021

Peshawar: Militant attacks and suspicion stemming from misinformation are hampering Pakistan’s battle to eradicate polio, but teams of dedicated volunteer health workers are determined to fight on.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the debilitating virus remains endemic, the disease mostly affecting children under five and sometimes causing lifelong paralysis.
Cases in Pakistan are on the rise, with 45 registered so far this year, up from six in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Polio can easily be prevented by the oral administration of a few drops of vaccine, but in parts of rural Pakistan health workers risk their lives to save others.
Last week seven people including five children were killed when a bomb targeted police traveling to guard vaccine workers. Days earlier two police escorts were gunned down by militants.
“When we hear that a polio vaccination team has been attacked, it deeply saddens us,” said health worker Zainab Sultan, 28, as she went door to door in Panam Dehri in northwest Pakistan
“Our responsibility now is to continue our work. Our job is to protect people from disability, to vaccinate children, and to make them healthy members of society.”
In the past firebrand clerics falsely claimed the vaccine contained pork or alcohol, forbidding it for consumption by Muslims.
A fake vaccination campaign organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Pakistan in 2011 to track Osama bin Laden compounded the mistrust.
More recently, militant groups have shifted to targeting armed police escorts in their campaigns of violence against the state.
Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in attacks since the return of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021, with Islamabad claiming hostile groups are now operating from there.
“In our area, nearly half of the parents were initially resistant to the polio vaccine, believing it to be a ploy by the West,” said local resident Ehsanullah, who goes by one name.
“There was a lack of awareness,” he said. “If this disease is spreading because of our reluctance, we are not just harming ourselves but the entire community.”
From previously being blamed for the mistrust of polio vaccines, some religious leaders — who wield immense authority in Pakistan — are now at the forefront of the campaign to convince parents.
“All major religious schools and scholars in Pakistan have debunked the rumors surrounding the polio vaccine,” said Imam Tayyab Qureshi.
“Those who attack polio vaccination teams have no connection to Islam or humanity,” he said in the provincial capital of Peshawar, where Panam Dehri lies on the outskirts.
For one parent in Panam Dehri, the endorsement by religious chiefs proved pivotal.
“Initially I did not vaccinate my children against polio. Despite everyone’s efforts, I refused,” said 40-year-old Zulfiqar, who uses one name.
“Later, the Imam of our mosque came to explain the importance of the polio vaccine, telling me that he personally vaccinated his own children and encouraged me to do the same,” he said.
“After that, I agreed.”
Another impediment can be that parents in impoverished areas use the government’s eagerness to vaccine as a bargaining chip, attempting to negotiate investment in water and road projects.
“There are demand-based boycotts and community boycotts that we face,” lamented Ayesha Raza, spokeswoman for the government polio eradication campaign.
“Your demands may be very justified, but don’t link it to your children’s health,” she pleads to them.
For some health workers, the battle to eradicate polio is more personal.
Hobbling door-to-door in Panam Dehri, polio survivor Ismail Shah’s paralyzed leg does not slow his mission.
“I decided in my childhood that when I grew up I would fight against the disease that disabled me,” said the 35-year-old.
Shah is among 400,000 volunteers and health workers who spent the past week patiently explaining to families that the oral innoculation — administered in two doses — is safe.
Their goal is to protect 45 million children, but it’s far from straightforward. When Shah arrived in his patch of 40,000 inhabitants there were more than 1,000 refusals.
“Now, there are only 94 reluctant parents left, and soon I will persuade them as well,” he said.


Four wounded by axe in fight on Paris suburban train

Updated 04 November 2024
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Four wounded by axe in fight on Paris suburban train

PARIS: Four people were wounded, two of them seriously, by an axe wielded during a fight that erupted Monday on a suburban train outside Paris, a police source said.
One of the victims had a hand cut off and another had their skull split open, the source added, asking not to be named.
Two others were more lightly injured.
Several people, some of them minors, were involved in the fight that broke out around around 8:00 am (0700 GMT), the source added.
The incident happened while the RER suburban express train was at the station of Ozoir-la-Ferriere southeast of Paris.
Since the train was halted at a station, the violence did not affect traffic on the RER E line, which runs east-west through Paris and its suburbs, state rail operator SNCF said.


Russia to launch two Iranian satellites on Nov. 5, Tehran’s Moscow envoy says

Updated 04 November 2024
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Russia to launch two Iranian satellites on Nov. 5, Tehran’s Moscow envoy says

  • Russia launched an Iranian research-sensing satellite, Pars 1, into space in February using a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome

Russia will launch two Iranian satellites into orbit using a Soyuz launcher on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to Moscow said on Monday, as the two US-sanctioned countries deepen their scientific relationship.
“In continuation of the development of Iran-Russia scientific and technological cooperation, two Iranian satellites, Kowsar and Hodhod, will be launched to a 500 km orbit of earth on Tuesday, Nov. 5, by a Soyuz launch vehicle,” Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said in a post on X.
The development of Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite, is the first substantial effort by Iran’s private space sector, a report by Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim said last month.
Russia launched an Iranian research-sensing satellite, Pars 1, into space in February using a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.