News in Brief

Date: 16 January 2022 - 21:44

News ID: ۹۸۹۴۷

Sarajevo (Dispatches) – The United Nations says it is “deeply concerned” over the rising hate speech and glorification of war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, three decades after an appalling war killed some 100,000 people. In a statement, Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the world body was worried by incidents that saw individuals “glorify atrocity crimes and convicted war criminals, target certain communities with hate speech, and, in some cases, directly incite violence.” She warned that people had chanted the name of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic as they were holding torchlight processions, singing nationalistic songs, and calling for the takeover of locations in the former Yugoslavia. The UN official also said at least in one incident, some people fired shots in the air outside a mosque. Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general, was sentenced to life in prison for war crimes in Bosnia, particularly for the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo. The genocide in Srebrenica occurred after Bosnian Serbs captured the eastern enclave in July 1995 and began executing Bosnian men and boys and dumping their remains into mass graves. The warning on Friday came as Bosnian Serbs on January 9 celebrated their prohibited state holiday, marking the creation of the so-called Republika Srpska (RS), a Serb entity of Bosnia’s that was declared three decades ago, following the breakup of Yugoslavia. The Bosnian War, which broke out in the first half of the 1990s, led to the division of Bosnia. Ethnic Bosnian Serbs secured half of the country and the other left to be governed by a Muslim-Croat federation.

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SRINAGAR (Al Jazeera) – Journalists have decried the “forcible and illegal takeover” of an independent media body by a group of journalists with the help of local administration in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Outgoing KPC members say that, on Saturday, a group of journalists barged into the KPC administration’s office in Srinagar, the region’s main city, and announced themselves “interim” office-bearers. “On January 15, the day when the administration had declared weekend lockdown in view of Covid surge, a group of journalists barged into the club office and forcibly took control of the club by keeping the office members hostage. A large number of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed beforehand for this highly condemnable and completely illegal move,” the outgoing KPC office-bearers said in a statement, calling the move a “dangerous precedent by the administration”. “This move, in which a group of journalists self-appointed itself as an ‘interim body’ is uncivil, illegal, unconstitutional and without any precedence.” The Kashmir Press Club (KPC), formed in 2018, is the largest independent media body in the Himalayan region, with at least 300 journalists as its members. The controversial move comes at a time when the press in Kashmir faces increasing curbs and free speech is under attack. Kashmiri journalists are often questioned and criminalized for their works.

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WASHINGTON (RT) – A monthly benefit introduced by the U.S. government in 2021 amid a sharp surge in the cost of living and the continued spread of COVID-19 saw its last payout in December, leaving millions of American families in a cleft stick. This weekend marks the first time in six months that families across the U.S. won’t get a monthly payment from the federal child tax credit program, RT reported. The legislation provided low- and middle-income parents with up to $3,000 for every child aged six to 17, and $3,600 for every child under age six. The payments were income-based and began to phase out for individuals earning more than $75,000 and married couples earning more than $150,000. The first half was delivered in monthly payments from July to December. Monthly child tax credits, worth up to $300 per child per month, expired after Congress failed to renew them with President Joe Biden’s social spending plan known as the Build Back Better Act. The legislation is stalled in the Senate. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), some 36 million families, or about 60 million children, received the payments each month.

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TOKYO (AFP) – Hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were advised to evacuate on Sunday as waves of more than a meter hit coastal areas, public broadcaster NHK reported, after the eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga triggered tsunami warnings. Around 230,000 people were advised to evacuate across eight prefectures due to the tsunami risk, NHK reported. The alert included areas hit by Japan’s deadly 2011 tsunami. Ten boats were capsized in Kochi prefecture on Shikoku island in southern Japan, NHK said, and Japan Airlines cancelled 27 flights at airports across the country. The overnight disruption caused delays to rail and postal services in some areas, Kyodo News reported, with some residents passing a cold night after evacuating to higher ground. A red tsunami warning - the second-highest in Japan’s domestic scale - for Iwate prefecture in northern Japan was lifted late morning, NHK reported, although a less severe yellow tsunami advisory remains in place along Japan’s eastern coast, with authorities continuing to urge caution. An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering warnings of 1.2-metre tsunami waves and evacuation orders on the shores of Tonga as well as several South Pacific islands. Footage on social media showed waves crashing into coastal homes. Tonga, an island nation with around 105,000 residents, lies 2,383 kilometers (1,481 miles) northeast of New Zealand. It remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

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KHARTOUM (AFP) – Sudanese doctors demonstrated Sunday in Khartoum to denounce attacks by security forces against medical personnel and doctors during pro-democracy rallies opposed to the October military coup. Carrying pictures of colleagues they say have been killed in the turmoil that has gripped Sudan over the past months, the doctors rallied dressed in their white uniforms, an AFP correspondent said. “During every protest they (security forces) fire tear gas inside the hospital where I work,” Houda Ahmad, a doctor who took part in the rally, told AFP. “They even attack us inside the intensive care unit,” she said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there have been 11 confirmed attacks on health workers and health facilities in Sudan since November. “Most of these attacks were committed against health care workers in the form of physical assault, obstruction, violent searches, and related psychological threats and intimidation,” a statement on Tuesday said.