Boko Haram school kidnapping: An attack well-planned

Nigerians are demanding answers from their government after the recent Boko Haram kidnappings. (Reuters)
Updated 27 February 2018
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Boko Haram school kidnapping: An attack well-planned

KANO: Boko Haram’s abduction of more than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi, northeastern Nigeria, shows the militant group still has the ability and means to stage major attacks.
Since the raid last Monday, questions have been asked about how heavily armed fighters were able to storm the town in Yobe state without encountering any resistance, then disappear.
Nigeria’s military claims to have the region locked down, as part of a counter-insurgency effort against the group whose nearly nine-year campaign of terror has killed at least 20,000 people.
But witnesses in Dapchi and analysts told AFP that it was a “well-planned attack” that specifically targeted the state-run boarding school.
Residents in the dusty town near the border with Niger described seeing a convoy of at least 10 to 15 vehicles just as most people were at the mosque for evening prayers.
Civilians were not harmed and the armed men instead asked for directions to the girls school.
Hundreds of students at the Government Girls Science and Technology College fled in the dark into the surrounding bush; 110 have yet to return.
The attack and the confusion that followed recalled the abduction of 276 girls from Chibok, in neighboring Borno state, in April 2014.
That brought Boko Haram worldwide notoriety at a time when it controlled swathes of territory. Since early 2015, that strength has disappeared.
But Yan St-Pierre, a counter-terrorism specialist with the Modern Security Consulting group, said: “If they kidnapped more than 100 girls, that shows they have sizeable means at their disposal and a secure place to take them.”
Another worrying indication, according to the Yobe Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam is that soldiers stationed at strategic checkpoints in Dapchi, were redeployed last month.
That left ordinary uniformed police as the town’s only defense. One resident, Mohammed Adam, 27, said they were not effective: “They ran into the bush.”
Another Dapchi resident, who asked not to be identified, said he was concerned that Boko Haram sympathizers had secretly infiltrated the town.
“I believe informants tipped them off that the troops had withdrawn that allowed them to come in because this is the first time that we have come under attack from Boko Haram.”
Until last week, Dapchi had been spared from Boko Haram, even though the group repeatedly attacked Yobe. On Jan. 5, at least nine soldiers were killed in an attack on a military post.
That attack was claimed by the Boko Haram faction headed by Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi, whose leadership is recognized by Daesh.
Barnawi’s breakaway faction operates over a vast territory in and around Lake Chad and Niger, including Yobe state.
Fighters loyal to Boko Haram’s long-time leader, Abubakar Shekau, are more active in Borno state and along the Cameroon border.
Some analysts said Barnawi, rather than Shekau, was behind the Dapchi attack and may have taken hostages as human shields to mitigate military operations against them.


Austria to resume aid to UN agency for Palestinians

Updated 8 sec ago
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Austria to resume aid to UN agency for Palestinians

VIENNA: Austria said Saturday it will restore its funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after suspending it over allegations that staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Israel alleged in January that some United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employees may have participated in the Hamas attacks on October 7 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
In the weeks that followed, numerous donor states, including Austria, suspended or paused some $450 million in funding.
Many, including Germany, Sweden, Canada and Japan, had since resumed funding, while others have continued to hold out.
“After analizing the action plan in detail” submitted by UNRWA “to improve the functioning of the organization,” Austria has decided to “release the funds,” its foreign ministry said in a statement.
A total of 3.4 million euros ($3.7 million) in funds have been budgeted for 2024, and the first payment is expected to be made in the summer, the statement said.
“Some of the Austrian funds will be used in the future to improve internal control mechanisms at UNRWA,” it added.
Austria said it will “closely monitor” the implementation of the action plan with other international partners, noting that “a lot of trust had been squandered.”
The Alpine country said it has substantially increased support for the suffering Palestinian population in Gaza and the region since 7 October, making 32 million euros ($34.8 million) in humanitarian aid available to other international aid organizations.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has since killed at least 35,303 people, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Flash floods kill at least 50 people in western Afghanistan

Updated 1 min 33 sec ago
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Flash floods kill at least 50 people in western Afghanistan

  • Death toll was based on preliminary reports and might rise
  • Hard-hit province of Ghor has suffered significant financial losses

ISLAMABAD: Flash floods from heavy seasonal rains in western Afghanistan have killed at least 50 people and dozens remain missing, a Taliban official said on Saturday, adding the death toll was based on preliminary reports and might rise.
Afghanistan has been witnessing unusually heavy seasonal rains.
The hard-hit province of Ghor has suffered significant financial losses, said Abdul Wahid Hamas, spokesman for the provincial governor, after thousands of homes and properties were damaged and hundreds of hectares of agricultural land destroyed following Friday’s floods, including the capital city Feroz Koh.
The Taliban’s government chief spokesman posted on social platform X, mourning “the loss of our fellow Afghans,” and urged ” responsible authorities ... to provide all necessary support to alleviate the suffering.” He also called on “our benevolent donors” to help and humanitarian organizations to provide the affected communities with aid.
Last week, the UN food agency said the exceptionally heavy rains in Afghanistan have killed more than 300 people and destroyed thousands of houses, mostly in the northern province of Baghlan, which bore the brunt of floods on May 10th.
Survivors have been left with no home, no land, and no source of livelihood, the World Food Organization said. Most of Baghlan is “inaccessible by trucks,” said WFP, adding that it is resorting to every alternative it can think of to deliver food to the survivors.
The latest disaster came on the heels of devastating floods that killed at least 70 people in April. The waters also destroyed about 2,000 homes, three mosques and four schools in western Farah and Herat, and southern Zabul and Kandahar provinces.


Nearly 10,000 evacuated in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region: governor

Updated 37 min 5 sec ago
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Nearly 10,000 evacuated in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region: governor

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plays down Russia’s gains in the offensive
  • Moscow has been attacking several settlements including Vovchansk, just five kilometers from the border

KYIV: Nearly 10,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region since a ground attack launched by Russian forces on May 10, the regional governor said.
The assault may only be the first wave of a wider offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Over a week after its launch, “a total of 9,907 people have been evacuated,” governor Oleg Synegubov said.
They were fleeing Russian soldiers who managed to advance between five to 10 kilometers (three to six miles) along the northeastern border before being stopped by Ukrainian forces.
Synegubov said Ukraine’s armed forces had repelled two attempts to break through defenses overnight.
The situation was “under control” with “defenders in certain areas conducting assault... and combing operations.”
Moscow has been attacking several settlements including Vovchansk, just five kilometers from the border.
“In the area of the city of Vovchansk, Ukrainian troops are reinforcing their defense,” Synegubov said.
A day earlier, he said Russian forces have started to destroy Vovchansk and all but 200 of its residents have fled due to fighting.
Russian forces have taken 278 square kilometers (107 square miles) between May 9 and 15, their biggest gains since the end of 2022, AFP calculated using data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Russia’s offensive “could consist in several waves. There was the first wave” in the Kharkiv region, Zelensky said journalists.
Zelensky played down Russia’s gains in the offensive but added: “We have to be sober and understand that they are going deeper into our territory. Not vice versa. And that’s still their advantage.”
Speaking about the offensive during a visit to China on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was a response to Ukraine shelling border regions.


Nepal latest to ban Indian spice brands over safety concerns

Updated 18 May 2024
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Nepal latest to ban Indian spice brands over safety concerns

  • Hong Kong, Singapore last month banned products from Everest and MDH after tests detected presence of ethylene oxide
  • Besides its use as a pesticide, ethylene oxide is used to sterilize medical equipment and as a sterilising agent in spices

KATMANDU: Nepal has become the latest jurisdiction to ban the import and sale of two popular Indian spice brands after reports that some of their products contained a cancer-causing pesticide, officials said Friday.
Hong Kong and Singapore last month banned products from Everest and MDH — two brands popular in India and exported worldwide — after tests detected the presence of ethylene oxide, according to media reports.
Besides its use as a pesticide, ethylene oxide is used to sterilize medical equipment and as a sterilising agent in spices to prevent illnesses caused by salmonella and E. Coli bacteria.
Regular exposure to the colorless and odourless compound increases the “risk of cancers of the white blood cells,” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Matina Joshi Vaidya, chief of Nepal’s Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, told AFP that the Himalayan country had also decided to halt the sale of the spice blends.
“It is an issue of public health,” she said. “We have its banned import and sale from Thursday.”
Nepal has banned four products — three variants produced by MDH and one by Everest.
“We do not have the lab resources to run the tests in the country. The ban will be lifted when Indian authorities declare it safe,” Vaidya said.
Everest and MDH are India’s top two spice brands with a market share of 16 and 10 percent respectively in 2022, according to consumer research monitor Statista.
Both companies have put out statements denying their products pose a health hazard to consumers after the Singapore and Hong Kong import bans.
“We clarify and state unequivocally that these claims are untrue and lack any substantiating evidence,” MDH said last month on social media platform X.
India’s food regulation agency has asked for state authorities to carry out random testing of spice products, broadcaster NDTV reported.


Argentine president begins unusual visit to Spain, snubbing officials and courting the far-right

Updated 18 May 2024
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Argentine president begins unusual visit to Spain, snubbing officials and courting the far-right

  • The brash President Javier Milei has no plans to meet Spain's PM — nor any other government official
  • He will instead attend a far-right summit Sunday hosted by Sánchez’s fiercest political opponent, the Vox party

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Even before kicking off a three-day visit to Madrid on Friday, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei stirred controversy, accusing the socialist government of bringing “poverty and death” to Spain and weighing in on corruption allegations against the prime minister’s wife.

In such circumstances, a typical visiting head of state may strive to mend fences with diplomacy.
Not Milei. The brash economist has no plans to meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during his three days in the Spanish capital — nor the Spanish king, nor any other government official. Instead, he’ll attend a far-right summit Sunday hosted by Sánchez’s fiercest political opponent, the Vox party.
The unorthodox visit was business as usual for Milei, a darling of the global far right who has bonded with tech billionaire Elon Musk and praised former US President Donald Trump. Earlier this year on a trip to the United States, Milei steered clear of the White House and took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, where he railed against abortion and socialism and shared a bear hug with Trump.
Milei presented his 2022 book, “The Way of the Libertarian,” in Madrid Friday at a literary event organized by La Razón, a conservative Spanish newspaper.
The book — withdrawn from circulation in Spain earlier this month because the back-flap biography erroneously said Milei had earned a doctorate — traces his meteoric rise in politics from eccentric TV personality to national lawmaker and outlines his radical free-market economic ideas.
To thunderous applause, Milei condemned socialism as “an intellectual fraud and a horror in human terms.”
“The good thing is that the spotlight is shining on us everywhere and we are making the reds (leftists) uncomfortable all over the world,” Milei said.
He took the opportunity to promote the results of his harsh austerity campaign in Argentina, celebrating a decline in monthly inflation in April though making no mention of the Buenos Aires subway fares that more than tripled overnight.
Repeating a campaign pledge to eliminate Argentina’s central bank — without giving further details — Milei promised to make Argentina “the country with the most economic freedom in the world.”
At the event Milei gave a huge hug to his ideological ally Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right Vox party and the only politician with whom Milei has actual plans to meet in Madrid.
The Vox summit Sunday seeks to bring together far-right figures from across Europe in a bid to rally the party’s base ahead of European parliamentary elections in June. Milei described his attendance a “moral imperative.” He also has plans to meet Spanish business executives Saturday.
Tensions between Milei and Sánchez have simmered since the moment the Spanish prime minister declined to congratulate the libertarian economist on his shock election victory last November.
But hostility exploded earlier this month when one of Sánchez’s ministers suggested Milei had taken narcotics. The Argentine presidency responded with an unusually harsh official statement accusing Sánchez’s government of “endangering the middle class with its socialist policies that bring nothing but poverty and death.”
The lengthy government statement also accused Sánchez of having “more important problems to deal with, such as the corruption accusations against his wife.”
The allegations of influence peddling and corruption brought by a right-wing group against Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, had prompted Sánchez, one of Europe’s longest serving Socialist leaders, to consider stepping down.