DHERYNIA: Cypriot officials opened two new border crossings Monday for the first time in eight years, the latest push for peace by the two sides after UN-backed talks collapsed last year.
Dozens of people from the island’s Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post, walking past United Nations peacekeepers into the breakaway Turkish-backed north.
At the same time, the Lefka or Aplici crossing opened in the northwest of the Mediterranean island.
“I am very pleased,” said 65-year-old Turkish-Cypriot Hasan Uzun about the move. “I am sick, but I wanted to come here and see this beautiful day with my eyes. I am very emotional now.”
Ahead of the reopening of the Dherynia crossing, soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire while a small group of riot police stood by.
Despite arguments breaking out among onlookers in the run-up to the midday (1000 GMT) opening, the crowd passed peacefully across the border.
The wreckage of a car could be seen off the main road in the UN-patrolled buffer zone, while nearby signs warned of mines beyond a barbed wire fence.
“Today is good day for Cyprus,” said Elizabeth Spehar, head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus.
“These crossing points will play an important role in helping to increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island.”
The development is also seen as a vital step to reviving peace negotiations, which collapsed in acrimony in July 2017.
“It’s another asset to the peace talks,” said Chris Charalambous, who was just 18 when war broke out more than 44 years ago.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece.
For the first time since fleeing the conflict, Charalambous was looking forward to seeing his house which now lies in a military zone beyond the border posts.
“I’m just going to walk down and then I walk back, I don’t know if I can stand spending time in the north,” he told AFP.
While houses still line the road to the north of the checkpoint where Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags fly, trees and bushes now cling to the abandoned buildings.
Goats were grazing in the former residential area, which remains fenced off behind wire and red military signs.
“All these houses are destroyed... time destroys everything, 44 years is too much,” said 72-year-old Iacovos Coshandis.
Before the war, he used to walk to school along the road and said he still hopes to see Cyprus reunited.
The island has been divided for more than four decades and the two communities lived isolated from one another until Turkish Cypriot authorities cleared the way for the free movement of people following a previous round of talks in 2003.
In 1996, Dherynia was the scene of riots when two Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish forces in one of the worst incidents on the cease-fire line.
But despite being pleased that the Dherynia crossing had been opened, resident Helen said she felt anxious about going to see the conflict-hit area she once traveled through daily.
“I think the political situation is the problem. The people, we are friends, because we are all Cypriots,” she said, declining to give her surname.
The decision to open the two border crossings came after President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met last month in the UN-protected area in the divided capital Nicosia.
Can Emre Cagin, a 21-year-old Turkish Cypriot, said he was feeling excited after waiting for years for the border crossing to open.
“I think this is a really important moment for us Cypriots,” he said, as he and his mother waited to have their documents checked.
“I’m going to see that side for the first time, and I’m going to live that peace feeling inside me.”
New border crossings open in divided Cyprus, first in 8 years
New border crossings open in divided Cyprus, first in 8 years
- Dozens of people from the island’s Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post
- At Dherynia soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire while a small group of riot police stood by
First Bangladeshi pilgrims ready to depart for Hajj
- The country’s quota this year is 127,000 pilgrims
- First flight leaves for Saudi Arabia on Thursday
DHAKA: Thousands of Bangladeshis are going to become some of the earliest Hajj pilgrims to arrive in Saudi Arabia this year, with the first batch scheduled to fly to Jeddah on Thursday.
This year, the Hajj is expected to start on June 14 and end on June 19.
While the pilgrimage itself can be performed over five or six days, pilgrims often arrive early, knowing that it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill their religious duty.
The first Hajj flight carrying 419 pilgrims is scheduled to leave for Jeddah from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Thursday morning.
“Our pilgrims will be the first batch of Hajj pilgrims from around the world who will arrive in the Kingdom,” Mohammad Matiul Islam, additional secretary at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told Arab News.
“Some pilgrims opt to travel earlier to the holy land, as it gives them spiritual peace. It’s the pilgrims’ choice to determine their time of travel.”
This year, Saudi Arabia granted Bangladesh a quota of 127,000 pilgrims to perform the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam. Because of the rising cost of airfares to the Middle East, fewer Bangladeshis than expected will be able to go.
Bangladesh, one of the most populous Muslim-majority countries, also struggled to meet the quota in 2023, when the minimum government rate for Hajj was $6,000.
To prevent the same scenario during the 2024 pilgrimage season, the Bangladeshi government reduced the cost by $1,000, but high inflation at home prevented a third of prospective pilgrims from registering.
“As we fell short of meeting the number, a quota of 41,000 is surrendered to Saudi Arabia,” Islam said. “The surrendering of this (remaining slots) will not affect the receiving of our Hajj quota next year.”
Saudi visa registration for Bangladeshis will end on Saturday, and most of them will be departing over the next few weeks from Dhaka, where they will be assisted by Saudi authorities under the flagship Makkah Route initiative.
The pre-travel program was launched by the Kingdom in 2019 to help pilgrims to meet all the visa, customs and health requirements at their airport of origin, and save them long hours of waiting before and upon arrival in Saudi Arabia.
From Wednesday, those flying in the next few days can wait for departure at a special Hajj camp near the airport in Dhaka.
“While staying at the Hajj camp, the pilgrims have their Bangladeshi immigration part done. Also, a part of Saudi immigration is being done here as the pilgrims leave their luggage here to Makkah Route authorities,” Islam said.
“The air-conditioned accommodation here is free of cost for the pilgrims ... We suggest the pilgrims from outside Dhaka be at the Hajj camp two days before their flight. The camp can hold more than 5,000 pilgrims at a time.”
Russia warns French troops legitimate targets if they are sent to Ukraine
- French president Emmanuel Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future
MOSCOW: Russia warned France on Wednesday that if President Emmanuel Macron sent troops to Ukraine then they would be seen as legitimate targets by the Russian military.
Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future. The French leader warned that if Russia wins in Ukraine then Europe’s credibility will be reduced to zero.
“It is characteristic that Macron himself explains this rhetoric with the desire to create some kind of ‘strategic uncertainty’ for Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“We have to disappoint him — for us the situation looks more than certain,” Zakharova said.
“If the French appear in the conflict zone, they will inevitably become targets for the Russian armed forces. It seems to me that Paris already has proof of this.”
Zakharova said Russia was already seeing growing numbers of French nationals among those killed in Ukraine.
Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
AstraZeneca says withdraws Covid vaccine ‘for commercial reasons’
LONDON: British drugmaker AstraZeneca said Wednesday that it has withdrawn its Covid vaccine Vaxzevria, one of the first produced in the pandemic, citing “commercial reasons” and a surplus of updated jabs.
“As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied,” an AstraZeneca spokeperson said.
3 Indian men charged with killing Sikh separatist leader in Canada appear in court
SURREY, British Columbia: Three Indian men charged with killing Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last year have appeared in court in the case that set off a diplomatic spat after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement.
Canadian police had arrested the three Indian men last week in Edmonton, Alberta, and they have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Mandeep Mooker said Friday that the investigation into whether the men had ties to India’s government was ongoing.
Nijjar, 45, was shot to death in his pickup truck last June after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland. India designated him a terrorist in 2020 and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.
India has denied involvement in the slaying. In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Tensions remain but have somewhat eased since.
The arrested men — Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28 — appeared in court Tuesday via a video link and agreed to a trial in English. They were ordered to appear in British Columbia Provincial Court again on May 21.
Brar and Karanpreet Singh appeared in the morning. Kamalpreet’s appearance was delayed until the afternoon as he waited to speak to a lawyer.
The small provincial courtroom was filled with spectators during the morning session. Others crowded into an overflow room to watch the proceedings via video.
Richard Fowler, the defense lawyer representing Brar, said the case will eventually be moved to the Supreme Court and combined into one case.
About 100 people gathered outside the courthouse waving yellow flags and holding photos of Indian government officials whom they accuse of being involved in Nijjar’s killing.
Canadian police say the three suspects had been living in Canada as non-permanent residents.
A bloody decadelong Sikh insurgency shook north India in the 1970s and 1980s until it was crushed in a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan homeland movement has lost much of its political power but still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. While the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback.
UN: Myanmar displaced now at 3 million
- An estimated one-third of those displaced are children, according to the UN statement
YANGON: The number of displaced people in Myanmar has reached three million, the United Nations said, the vast majority forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup.
Around 2.7 million have fled since the putsch that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s government after a short-lived experiment with democracy.
The coup sparked renewed clashes with established ethnic armed groups and birthed dozens of new “People’s Defense Forces” that the military has failed to crush.
“Myanmar stands at the precipice in 2024 with a deepening humanitarian crisis,” the UN’s resident coordinator in the country said in a statement released on Monday.
An estimated one-third of those displaced are children, according to the statement.
Around half of the three million have been displaced since late last year, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups launched an offensive across northern Shan state, the statement said.
The offensive seized swathes of territory and lucrative trade crossings on the China border, posing the biggest threat to the junta since it seized power.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to a plethora of ethnic armed groups, many of whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
The UN said a severe funding shortfall was hampering its relief efforts, particularly ahead of the May-June cyclone season.
Last year cyclone Mocha smashed into western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, killing at least 148 people.
More than 355,000 people are currently displaced in western Rakhine state, which has been rocked since November by clashes between the Arakan Army and the military, the UN said.
