JAKARTA: Indonesia said on Monday that Australia would be excluded from a list of 45 countries to be offered visa-free travel amid heightened tensions between the countries over the imminent execution of two convicted Australian drug traffickers.
Tourism Minister Arif Yahya told reporters the government would next month start waiving visas for citizens of several Asian and European countries and then ask for reciprocity, but that the same policy would not be applied to Australia.
“If we give visa-free travel to Australia, we have to be given the same thing,” Yahya said. “It cannot be that we give it to them first.”
Yahya denied the decision was tied to the planned execution of the two Australians, who are among a group of 10 convicts, mostly foreigners, due to face the firing squad for drug offenses.
“I can guarantee that if the Australian government wants to agree to visa-free travel, that the foreign minister and president will almost definitely want it too,” the minister said.
The planned executions sparked public backlash in Australia last month, including a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #BoycottBali calling on tourists to avoid traveling to the Indonesian resort island of Bali, a popular destination among Australians.
Australian tourists accounted for 12 percent of foreigners visiting Indonesia in 2014, according to the Indonesian statistics bureau, making them the third largest group after Singaporeans and Malaysians.
Indonesia overlooks Australia in visa-free travel list
Indonesia overlooks Australia in visa-free travel list
NATO takes over coordination of military aid to Kyiv from US, source says
- The headquarters of NATO’s new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a US base in the German town of Wiesbaden
BERLIN: NATO has taken over coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the US as planned, a source said on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against NATO skeptic US President-elect Donald Trump.
The step, coming after a delay of several months, gives NATO a more direct role in the war against Russia’s invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
Diplomats, however, acknowledge that the handover to NATO may have a limited effect given that the US under Trump could still deal a major setback to Ukraine by slashing its support, as it is the alliance’s dominant power and provides the majority of arms to Kyiv.
Trump, who will take office in January, has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly but not how he aims to do so. He has long criticized the scale of US financial and military aid to Ukraine.
The headquarters of NATO’s new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a US base in the German town of Wiesbaden.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters it was now fully operational. No public reason has been given for the delays.
NATO’s military headquarters SHAPE said its Ukraine mission was beginning to assume responsibilities from the US and international organizations.
“The work of NSATU ... is designed to place Ukraine in a position of strength, which puts NATO in a position of strength to keep safe and prosperous its one billion people in both Europe and North America,” said US Army General Christopher G. Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
“This is a good day for Ukraine and a good day for NATO.”
In the past, the US-led Ramstein group, an ad hoc coalition of some 50 nations named after a US air base in Germany where it first met, has coordinated Western military supplies to Kyiv.
Trump threatened to quit NATO during his first term as president and demanded allies must spend 3 percent of national GDP on their militaries, compared with NATO’s target of 2 percent.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration in Washington is scrambling to ship as many weapons as possible to Kyiv amid fears that Trump may cut deliveries of military hardware to Ukraine.
NSATU is set to have a total strength of about 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO’s military headquarters SHAPE in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania.
Russia has condemned increases in Western military aid to Ukraine as risking a wider war.
Cyclone Chido kills at least 34 people in Mozambique
MAPUTO: Cyclone Chido claimed at least 34 lives after sweeping across Mozambique, the National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management announced Tuesday.
The cyclone first hit the country on Sunday at the Cabo Delgado province, where 28 people were killed, the center said, releasing its latest information as of Monday evening. Three other people died in Nampula province and three in Niassa, further inland, it said.
Another 319 people were reported injured by the cyclone, which brought winds of around 260 kilometers (160 miles) an hour and heavy rainfall of around 250 millimeters (10 inches) in 24 hours, the center said.
Nearly 23,600 homes and 170 fishing boats were destroyed and 175,000 people affected by the storm, it added.
Chido struck a part of northern Mozambique that is regularly battered by cyclones and is already vulnerable because of conflict and underdevelopment.
The cyclone landed in Mozambique after hitting the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, where it is feared to have killed hundreds of people.
It moved to Malawi on Monday and was expected to dissipate Tuesday near Zimbabwe, which had also been on alert for heavy rains caused by the storm.
Pope reveals he was target of suicide bomb attempt during 2021 Iraq visit
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has revealed he was the target of an attempted suicide bombing during his visit to Iraq three years ago, the first by a Catholic pontiff to the country and probably the riskiest foreign trip of his 11-year papacy.
In an excerpt published on Tuesday from a forthcoming autobiography, Francis said he was informed by police after landing in Baghdad in March 2021 that at least two known suicide bombers were targeting one of his planned events.
“A woman packed with explosives, a young kamikaze, was heading to Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit,” wrote the pontiff, according to an excerpt from the book in Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “And a van had also set off at full speed with the same intent.”
Francis’ visit to Mosul was a key moment during his Iraq trip. Iraq’s second-largest city had been under the control of Islamic State from 2014 to 2017. The pope visited the ruins of four destroyed churches there and launched an appeal for peace.
During the trip, the Vatican provided few details about the security preparations for the pope. Many of the events during his visit, which took place as the COVID-19 pandemic was first easing, were open only to a limited number of people.
Iraq is known to have deployed thousands of additional security personnel to protect Francis.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for further details about the pope’s new comments.
Francis’ new autobiography, titled “Hope,” is due to be published on Jan. 14. The pope also published a memoir this March. In the excerpt published on Tuesday, Francis said the Vatican had been informed about the assassination attempt by British intelligence.
The pope said he asked a security official the next day what had happened to the would-be bombers.
“The commander replied laconically: ‘They are no more’,” wrote Francis. “The Iraqi police had intercepted them and blown them up.”
Father and stepmother jailed for 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s murder after UK trial
- Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking after ‘serious and repeated violence’
- The family fled to Pakistan after Sharif was killed, before they were arrested last year in September
LONDON: The father and stepmother of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in Britain, were on Tuesday jailed for 40 and 33 years respectively for her murder after a trial which heard harrowing details of Sara’s treatment.
Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors said was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence.”
The family fled to Pakistan immediately after Sara Sharif was killed, before they were arrested in September 2023 at London’s Gatwick airport after flying from Dubai.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors at the start of the trial that Sara had suffered injuries including burns, multiple broken bones and bite marks.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 43, and his wife Beinash Batool, 30, stood trial at London’s Old Bailey court charged with her murder, which they denied.
Last week, the jury convicted Urfan Sharif and Batool of Sara’s murder. Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of causing or allowing Sara’s death.
Sharif and Batool appeared in the dock at the Old Bailey, where they heard a statement read on behalf of Sara’s mother Olga Domin who called them “executioners.”
“You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you,” her statement read. “I would say you are executioners.”
Judge John Cavanagh sentenced Sharif to a minimum of 40 years in prison and Batool to a minimum of 33 years. Malik was sentenced to 16 years.
“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure,” Cavanagh said.
“It is no exaggeration to describe the campaign of abuse against Sara as torture.”
Father and stepmother jailed in UK for 10-year-old Sara Sharif's murder
- Sara Sharif was killed after campaign of 'serious and repeated violence'
- Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool jailed for 40 and 33 years respectively
LONDON: The father and stepmother of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in Britain, were on Tuesday jailed for 40 and 33 years respectively for her murder after a trial which heard harrowing details of Sara’s treatment.
Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors said was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence.”
The family fled to Pakistan immediately after Sara Sharif was killed, before they were arrested in September 2023 at London’s Gatwick airport after flying from Dubai.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors at the start of the trial that Sara had suffered injuries including burns, multiple broken bones and bite marks.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 43, and his wife Beinash Batool, 30, stood trial at London’s Old Bailey court charged with her murder, which they denied.
Last week, the jury convicted Urfan Sharif and Batool of Sara’s murder. Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of causing or allowing Sara’s death.
Sharif and Batool appeared in the dock at the Old Bailey, where they heard a statement read on behalf of Sara’s mother Olga Domin who called them “executioners.”
“You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you,” her statement read. “I would say you are executioners.”
Judge John Cavanagh sentenced Sharif to a minimum of 40 years in prison and Batool to a minimum of 33 years. Malik was sentenced to 16 years.
“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure,” Cavanagh said.
“It is no exaggeration to describe the campaign of abuse against Sara as torture.”
