BELGRADE: Prosecutors in the Serbian city of Novi Sad have arrested 11 people in connection with the collapse of a railway station roof this month that killed 15 people and sparked a wave of protests.
The concrete awning of the recently renovated roof caved in on Nov. 1, killing 14 and injuring three. One of those hurt died of their injuries on Sunday.
Opposition leaders and the public have taken to the streets repeatedly, blaming the accident on government corruption and nepotism that resulted in shoddy construction.
The ruling coalition denies those charges, but President Aleksandar Vucic said those responsible must be held to account. The transport, construction and infrastructure minister, the trade minister and the head of state-run Serbian Railways have all resigned over the incident.
Novi Sad’s High Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that the 11 were arrested on suspicion of committing criminal acts against public safety. The statement only provided the initials of those arrested.
One set of initials on the list was GV. Local media reported that Goran Vesic, the former transport, construction and infrastructure minister, was among those arrested.
Vesic denied that in a Facebook post on Thursday, but said that he had met with law enforcement.
“I voluntarily responded to the call of police officers with whom I came to Novi Sad and made myself available to the investigative authorities,” the post said.
Opposition deputies protested in front of a courthouse in Novi Sad for the third consecutive day on Thursday, demanding that those responsible for the disaster face justice.
They also demanded that activists arrested in an anti-government protest over the disaster be released immediately.
Serbia arrests 11 over railway station roof collapse
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Serbia arrests 11 over railway station roof collapse
- The concrete awning of the recently renovated roof caved in on November 1
- Opposition leaders and the public have taken to the streets repeatedly
At least 38 killed as gunmen open fire on vehicles carrying Shiites in northwest Pakistan
- No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at least 38 people were killed in the “terrorist attack“
PESHAWAR: Gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s restive northwest on Thursday, killing at least 38 people, including six women, and wounding 20 others in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.
The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites have killed dozens of people in recent months.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack. It came a week after authorities reopened a key highway in the region that had been closed for weeks following deadly clashes.
Local police official Azmat Ali said several vehicles were traveling in a convoy from the city of Parachinar to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when gunmen opened fire. He said at least 10 passengers were in critical condition at a hospital.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at least 38 people were killed in the “terrorist attack.” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, and Sharif said those behind the killing of innocent civilians will not go unpunished.
A witness, 35-year-old Mir Hussain, said he saw four gunmen emerge from a vehicle and open fire on buses and cars.
“I think other people were also firing at the convoy of vehicles from nearby open farm field,” he said. “The firing continued for about 40 minutes.” He said he hid until the attackers fled.
“I heard cries of women, and people were shouting for the help,” he said.
Baqir Haideri, a local Shiite leader, denounced the assault and said the death toll was likely to rise.
Shop owners in Parachinar announced a strike on Friday to protest the attack.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million population of Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although they live together largely peacefully, tensions have existed for decades in some areas, especially in parts of Kurram, where Shiites are the majority. Nearly 50 people from both sides were killed over a land dispute in July when clashes between Sunni and Shiites erupted in Kurram.
Pakistan is tackling violence in the northwest and southwest, where militants and separatists often target police, troops and civilians. Most of the violence in these areas has been blamed on the Pakistani Taliban and the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army.
WHO chief released from hospital in Rio de Janeiro
- According to the hospital, Tedros was admitted on Wednesday afternoon
- He “underwent all the necessary tests, which confirmed clinical indicators with no signs of seriousness”
SAO PAULO: World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been released from Rio de Janeiro’s Hospital Samaritano Barra da Tijuca after spending the night under observation, the hospital said.
According to the hospital, Tedros was admitted on Wednesday afternoon and “underwent all the necessary tests, which confirmed clinical indicators with no signs of seriousness, and was discharged from hospital this morning.”
Local newspaper O Globo had reported earlier on Thursday that Tedros sought medical attention at the facility with “symptoms of labyrinthitis and an hypertensive crisis,” after showing signs of being unwell earlier this week on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
According to the report, Tedros was examined on Monday by health professionals on duty at the G20 summit and given medicine for high blood pressure, but was released once he was stable.
The G20 summit in Rio ended this week with calls for cooperation on climate change, poverty reduction and tax policy.
Sri Lanka’s new president to keep predecessor’s controversial IMF bailout program
- During election campaign, Dissanayake promised to renegotiate IMF deal because austerity measures burdened ordinary people
- In new policy statement he vows to increase welfare programs without derailing the IMF program
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka plans to finalize a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said during the first sitting of the new Parliament on Thursday, maintaining the bailout program secured by his predecessor.
A delegation from the IMF is in Colombo for the third review of its $2.9 billion program ahead of releasing a new tranche of funds to Sri Lanka’s battered economy.
The IMF loan was negotiated by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe early last year. It required the Sri Lankan government to introduce austerity measures that led to price increases in food and fuel and caused hardship to millions of Sri Lankans.
Dissanayake, who assumed the top job in September and further consolidated his grip on power after his National People’s Power alliance won a majority in the legislature last week, had earlier promised to renegotiate the targets set in the IMF deal, because it placed too much burden on ordinary people.
But in his first speech to the inaugural session of Parliament, the president said the economy was “hanging by a thread” — too fragile to take risks.
A country of 22 million, Sri Lanka was hit by the worst economic crisis in its history in 2022, when its defaulted economy shrank by 7.8 percent and 2.3 percent last year.
“The reality in front of us now is that we have no time to check whether these agreements are beneficial or harmful to us, as these are the results of nearly two years of discussions,” he said.
“We cannot go forward if we continue through another two years to study and renegotiate the previous agreement.”
The agreement would allow the release of $337 million to Sri Lanka under the IMF’s four-year loan program. Dissanayake said he expected the agreement to be signed on Friday.
As he outlined his government policy to legislators, he vowed to keep his key election pledges of reducing taxes and increasing welfare programs without derailing the IMF program.
His government is scheduled to present the interim 2025 budget in February.
UN to hold high-level conference on Rohingya crisis next year
- New UNGA resolution was tabled by OIC and EU, co-sponsored by 106 countries
- Muhammad Yunus previously urged international community to help solve Rohingya crisis
DHAKA: The UN General Assembly has adopted an Organization of Islamic Cooperation-sponsored resolution to hold a high-level conference next year to discuss solutions for Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and propose a timeframe to repatriate more than 1.2 million of the refugees from camps in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has hosted Rohingya refugees for decades, including the hundreds of thousands who fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape a brutal military crackdown and persecution.
They have since settled in squalid camps in Cox’s Bazar district, a coastal region in the country’s southeast that has become the world’s largest refugee settlement.
The third committee of the UNGA adopted the resolution on the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar by consensus on Wednesday.
Tabled by the OIC and the EU, the resolution that was co-sponsored by 106 countries decided to hold an all-stakeholder high-level international conference in 2025, aimed at reviewing the overall crisis and proposing a sustainable resolution.
“For us and for the sake of regional as well as international security, creating conditions for the safe, voluntary and dignified return of the Rohingyas to Myanmar is of utmost importance,” Bangladesh permanent representative to the UN, ambassador Muhammad Abdul Muhith, said after the resolution was adopted.
It follows an appeal made by the chief adviser of Bangladesh’s caretaker government, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, at the 79th UNGA in September, where he called for support from the international community to assist the Rohingya.
“We remain committed to supporting the forcibly displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar in Bangladesh. We need continued support of the international community toward the Rohingyas in carrying out the humanitarian operations and their sustainable repatriation,” Yunus said.
The return of the Rohingya to Myanmar has been on the agenda for years, but a UN-backed repatriation process had yet to take off until now, despite pressure from Bangladesh and international organizations.
The planned conference is taking place at a crucial time as refugee issues are rising in other parts of the world, said Dhaka-based migration expert, Asif Munir.
“Rohingya refugees issue needs more global attention at the moment as it requires more funds to manage this huge number of population,” Munir told Arab News on Thursday.
He estimated that about 40,000 children were born in the camps every year, while new refugees continued to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine State to escape the conflict.
“There are several priority concerns for Bangladesh, which include mitigating the dwindling financial crisis (and) finding a durable solution either in the form of a safe zone or third country resettlement,” he said.
The conference next year should also address the situation in Rakhine, where fighting has intensified between Myanmar’s ruling junta and the opposition ethnic-minority Arakan Army, amid rising concerns that the violence would trigger a new wave of refugees seeking safety in Bangladesh.
“Currently, human rights, protection, etc., are at stake in Myanmar,” Munir said. “In this context, what should be the role and commitment of the global leaders? This issue needs to be discussed in this upcoming high-level meeting.”
UN: Nearly 40% of 3.4 million displaced in Myanmar are children
- Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in 2021
- The fighting, as well as severe climate events like Typhoon Yagi, have had a ‘devastating impact’ on children
WASHINGTON: Children made up nearly 40 percent of the more than 3.4 million people in Myanmar displaced by civil war and climate change-driven extreme weather, the UN agency for children said Thursday.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in 2021 and launched a crackdown that sparked an armed uprising against the junta’s rule.
The Southeast Asian nation was also battered by Typhoon Yagi in September, triggering major floods that killed more than 400 people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
“The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is reaching a critical inflexion point, with escalating conflict and climate shocks putting children and families at unprecedented risk,” UNICEF deputy executive director Ted Chaiban said in a statement on Thursday.
“Over 3.4 million people have been displaced across the country, nearly 40 percent of whom are children.”
The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup, and its soldiers have been accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.
The fighting, as well as severe climate events like Typhoon Yagi, have had a “devastating impact” on children, Chaiban said, leaving them displaced, vulnerable to violence and cut off from health care and education.
He said seven children and two other civilians were killed on November 15 in a strike that hit a Kachin church compound where children were playing football.
Myanmar’s northern Kachin state is the homeland of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the various ethnic minority armed groups that hold territory in the north and are battling the junta.
At least 650 children have been killed or wounded in violence in the country this year.
Minors also made up about a third of the more than 1,000 civilian casualties from land mines and explosive remnants of war, according to Chaiban.
“The increasing use of deadly weapons in civilian areas, including airstrikes and land mines hitting homes, hospitals, and schools, has severely restricted the already limited safe spaces for children, robbing them of their right to safety and security,” he said.
Eleven people were killed last week when a teashop in Myanmar was hit by a military air strike in the town of Naungcho in northern Shan state, a local ethnic armed group said.
