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Officials in Hawaii have urged residents to submit DNA samples to help in the identification of human remains found in the ashes of a fast-moving wildfire on the island of Maui that killed at least 115 people earlier this month. According to authorities, at least 1,100 people are still missing, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking family members’ help in identifying the remains of the dead, the AFP reported. end of list Special Agent Steven Merrill told reporters on Tuesday, that the number of missing people was likely to rise. “We’re cross-referencing all the lists so that we can determine who in fact truly is still unaccounted for,” Merrill said. Investigators acknowledged the possibility that not all of the remains of victims from the fire that started on August 8 on Maui will ever be found. The tourist town of Lahaina, home to 12,000 people, was all but wiped off the map, with thousands of missing people initially appearing on lists maintained by various organisations, including the police, Red Cross and shelters. Video Duration 02 minutes 06Maui wildfire survivors decry lack of warnings as death toll rises Maui County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin, tasked with heading up the family assistance centre, said that he has spoken with experts who have handled DNA sampling in mass-casualty disasters elsewhere, and that he is seeing less willingness in Hawaii. “The number of family members who are coming in to provide DNA samples is a lot lower than they’ve seen in other disasters,” he said. Martin said he could not explain why people seemed less willing to provide DNA samples – so far 104 had been collected. He added that he hoped his reassurances that the DNA provided would only be used to identify remains, and would not be transferred to any law enforcement database or agency, would help more family members come forward. Investigators said the list of the approximately 1,100 missing people was a complex jumble that included some people identified by a single name, others with missing data like birth dates, some people whose genders were not clear and also that there were likely duplicate reports of the same people as the list is compiled from varied sources. They gave no forecast on when or if they might ever finish the task of accounting for everybody on the list. They also said they could not yet give an estimate on what the total number of people killed by the fire would eventually be. Maui police chief John Pelletier urged people to provide DNA and file a police report with as much information as possible if they have relatives unaccounted for. “If you feel you’ve got a family member that’s unaccounted for, give the DNA,” he said. “Do the report. Let’s figure this out. A name with no callback doesn’t help anybody.” Pelletier said authorities were refining the data and were hoping to publish a verified list of missing persons “in the next few days”. The devastation was so bad, though, that Pelletier warned that even after all the searching for remains is over, “I can’t guarantee … that we got everybody.” SOURCE:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/hawaii-officials-seek-families-help-in-identifying-remains-of-victims

After nearly 15 hours of effort, commandos of the Pakistan Army successfully rescued all eight people who were stuck inside a cable car after one of its ropes broke down in Allai Tehsil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar made the announcement on X, previously known as Twitter, saying: “Relieved to know that Alhamdolillah all the kids have been successfully and safely rescued. Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people.” Earlier in the morning, an open cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine and was hanging by a single cable after the other snapped, leaving eight people stuck inside for more than 15 hours. Before sunset, two of the children were rescued with the help of an army helicopter but the operation via copter was suspended due to darkness and the windy weather. The army later started a ground operation — led by SSG’s general officer commanding (GOC) — to retrieve the remaining five people on the cable car with alternative means. Another cable car — smaller in size — was hung on the same cable to retrieve the people and deliver food and water to them. The Pakistan Army also brought in a local cable crossings expert for help. Pakistan Army Aviation and the Pakistan Air Force participated in the rescue operation along with the SSG troops. The rescue mission had several complications including gusty winds in the area and the risk of the helicopter’s rotor blades further destabilising the lift. Political figures heap praise on army, locals Soon after the successful completion of the rescue mission, political leaders started heaping praise on the army’s rescue officials, locals and authorities involved in the risky operation. Initial report of incident An initial report of the incident says that seven schoolchildren and a local person were travelling in the cable car to go to the Batangi Government High School. According to the report, one cable of the lift broke at around 7:45am which led to the cable car being stranded mid-air. The cable car hands at a height of 6,000 feet. Abrar, Irfan, Usama, Rizwan Ullah, Ataullah, Niaz Muhammad, Sher Nawaz and Gul Faraz are stuck inside the lift. The report said that Battagram’s deputy commissioner contacted Hazara’s commissioner after he received report about the incident. The DC asked for the arrangement of a helicopter. Moreover, the SSG team based in Kaghan Valley was also contacted after which the helicopter reached the location at 11:45am. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) helicopter reached the site at 2pm. District administration, police, and two rescue teams are currently present at the location, the report said, adding that an emergency has been imposed at the nearby health centres and the District Headquarter Hospital (DHQ) Battagram has also been put on high alert. Punjab’s DG Rescue Dr Rizwan Naseer said that a height rescue team is also on standby and is ready for help. Army to ‘continue rescue operation till night’ According to Geo News, Army Aviation and SSG teams tried to conduct the rescue operation for the fourth time to rescue people inside the cable car. The operation had become very difficult as there was another cable 30 feet above the car which could have collided with the helicopter. However, the rescue operation was conducted with extreme caution. Moreover, the Pakistan Army also kept into consideration other options to continue the rescue operation after it becomes dark. Speaking to Geo News, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Nazeer Ahmed assured that the children inside the cable car were fine. He said that they were in continuous contact with them. Before two of the kids were retrieved, the rescue officials faced several difficulties due to gusty winds. When the Pakistan Army’s rescue helicopter approached the cable. it also started shaking which had led to the risk of the cable car losing balance. Other options to conduct the rescue operation, which is being deemed risky, were also under consideration including a sling operation by the SSG team. Wing Commander (retd) Asim Nawaz had said the sling operation should be started at the earliest. Sling operations are aerial operations where large loads are moved in geographically difficult terrains. “There is a possibility of bad weather in this area. It is better if the helicopter is 60 to 80 feet away from the cable car,” he had said. Speaking about the operation, the former military officer said that a commando will approach closer to the cable car during the sling operation. “A cable car stuck at a height of about 900 ft midway due to breakage in one of its cable in Battagram. 8 persons including 6 children [are] stranded,” the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in a statement. The statement said NDMA has provided coordination support to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). “After coordination Pak Army helicopter has been despatched for [the] rescue operation,” it added. The incident was confirmed by Mansehra Deputy Inspector General of Police Tahir Ayub who said there is no option but to rescue the stranded passengers through a copter. The cable hangs in the middle of a deep ravine surrounded by stunning mountains, where cable cars are frequently used to connect remote villages and towns. Syed Hammad Haider, a senior KP provincial official, said the cable car was hanging about 1,000 to 1,200 feet above the ground. “We have requested the KP government to provide a helicopter because the relief activity is not possible without the help of a helicopter,” he said. ‘Passengers stuck for several hours’ Gulfaraz, a 20-year-old who is currently present on the cable car, told Geo News over the phone that he and other passengers have been stuck for more than six hours. He shared that a 16-year-old passenger, who suffers from a heart condition, has been unconscious for the last three hours. Gulfraz shared that the teenager was going to the hospital through the cable car. “We don’t even have drinking water in the

Three snowboarders sustained injuries when a chairlift became detached due to an unexpected “gust of wind” at Thredbo Ski Resort, the location of Australia’s longest ski lift. Two women and a man in their 20s suffered back and facial injuries after one of the chairs detached from the Kosciuszko ski lift on Saturday afternoon. The snowboarders plunged to the ground while approaching the top of the mountain after the chair plummeted several metres onto the snow near Eagles Nest. Thredbo Ski Resort said the incident was an isolated accident and was caused by a “freak gust of wind”. “No other guests or chairs were affected. Thredbo is committed to the safety of our guests and our people,” it said in a statement. pan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say “The incident is currently being thoroughly investigated by SafeWork NSW and an independent engineer. Thredbo assures guests that their safety is paramount and that we will continue to apply our high standards of safety and risk management.” Images shared online showed injured people being assisted by the members of the ski patrol as the chair lay in the snow. Operations at the Kosciuszko chairlift — Australia’s longest at almost two kilometres — were temporarily halted for inspections. The chairlift was built 33 years ago to replace the old double chair in 1990. A wind gust reaching a speed of 65 km/h was registered just before the accident at the nearby weather station, situated close to the top station of the chairlift. The storm system dumped fresh snow across the ski fields. This marks the latest occurrence of a chairlift incident at Thredbo, which earned the title of Australia’s best ski resort for the fifth consecutive year in 2022. In 2019, a skier experienced minor bruising but remained otherwise unharmed when a chair detached from the Gunbarrel Chairlift, a four-seater similar to the Kosciuszko Chairlift. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/thredbo-chairlift-detach-kosciuszko-b2396162.html

A passenger bus in Pakistan’s Punjab province collided with a parked van carrying fuel drums, leading to a fire that claimed the lives of at least 18 people and left 13 others injured. The bus with more than 40 passengers was bound for Islamabad from Karachi when it met with the accident in the early hours of Sunday near Pindi Bhattian, Hafizabad district of eastern Punjab province. Senior police officer Fahad Ahmed said the bus rammed into the pick-up van that was carrying diesel drums, causing a massive blaze due to the impact of the collision and contact with fuel. Police said the van was parked on the shoulder of the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway when the accident happened. Mr Ahmed said 18 bodies that have been retrieved from the bus were badly charred and a DNA testing would be conducted to confirm their identity. The drivers of both vehicles died, police said, adding that some of the rescued passengers suffered severe burn injuries and some are in critical condition. Inspector general motorway police Sultan Khawaja said those who managed to jump from the windows of the bus managed to survive the deadly crash. “On the Pindi Bhatian section of the motorway, the bus hit a static van which was carrying a fuel tank. The bus hit it from the rear and both vehicles caught fire immediately, killing at least 18 passengers,” he said. He said the investigation will reveal “whether the bus driver fell asleep at the time of the accident or the crash took place because of over-speeding”. Visuals on social media showed the ashy skeleton of the bus standing on the highway as the fire continued to blaze through parts of it. Punjab caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi expressed grief over the accident and directed health authorities to ensure the best treatment for those injured. Deadly road accidents are a common occurrence on Pakistan’s highways, where safety norms are frequently overlooked and traffic rules are breached. Additionally, drivers often succumb to fatigue and doze off while driving on extended journeys. In July, a passenger bus carrying devotees met with an accident after the driver allegedly fell asleep in the Fazilpur area of Punjab’s Rajanpur district, killing five people and injuring 20 others. The tragic bus accident occurred on the same day as a militant attack in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, resulting in the death of 11 labourers, caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said on Sunday. A truck carrying the workers to a construction project site in Waziristan, near the Afghan border, exploded after a suspected improvised explosive device detonated, security officials said. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/pakistan-bus-fire-death-pindi-bhattian-b2396134.html

SITAPUR, Uttar Pradesh: Another discriminatory and horrific incident occurred with the largest minority in India—Muslims wherein an elderly Muslim couple was killed in Uttar Pradesh over their son’s relationship with a Hindu woman. The incident occurred in Sitapur city of UP. The couple—Abbas and his wife Kamrul Nisha—died on the spot in the attack and all the accused fled from the crime scene. Indian media reported that Sitapur Superintendent of Police (SP) Chakresh Mishra said a few years back Abbas’s son had eloped with a girl from the neighboring household. A case was registered in this regard and Abbas’s son was sent to jail, but as soon he came out of jail, some members of family planned the attack on the couple. Chakresh Mishra said, “According to the villagers, the son of the deceased couple, Shaukat, and Rampal’s daughter Ruby had an affair.” “Shaukat had abducted Ruby in the year 2020. At that time, Ruby was a minor and after registering a case, the police sent Shaukat to jail. He again abducted and married Ruby in June,” the Police said. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/muslim-couple-killed-sitapur-uttar-pradesh-india-b2396193.html

It’s Friday afternoon, August 18, two days after dozens of Christian homes and 19 churches in various neighbourhoods and villages of Faisalabad’s Jaranwala tehsil were vandalised and burned down by a mob over blasphemy allegations. Sayedwala Road, which cuts through Jaranwala city is lined with rows of prison vans and police vehicles. Law enforcement agencies are on high alert in surrounding cities, including Faisalabad, where most residents of Jaranwala had fled ahead of the attacks on their homes. They say they are expecting another mob attack after Friday prayers. Inside Jaranwala, the road leading from Sayedwala Road to Cinema Chowk is blocked with barbed wire and all entrances leading to the roundabout have been cordoned off. The alleged blasphemy incident occurred at Cinema Chowk, a few hundred meters from Jamia Masjid Mahtab, where the prayer leader made announcements, inciting the violence that followed. Additional police contingents from Faisalabad and Rescue-1122 fire engines dot all road entrances from Christian Town to Essa Nagri in Chak 127 on the fringes of Gogera Bank Canal, around two kilometres away, all the way to the Parish House, a further 2kms away. In the street next to Jamia Masjid Mahtab, two to three homes out of many are reduced to ashes. Here, a man sits outside his burned house on a chair and his neighbour, a woman, stands on the footsteps leading to hers. “Someone knocked on my door early in the morning and said everyone in Christian Town has left because of an impending attack and you need to hurry,” she says, reminiscing the ordeal matter-of-factly. The blasphemy suspects were residents of Christian Town, a crisscross maze of narrow streets and no sewage system, a few blocks behind Jamia Masjid Mahtab and adjacent to Chammra Mandi (leather market). An adjoining street carries a makeshift banner with the slogan of Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan. A makeshift banner of the TLP hangs in a street adjacent to Christian Town. All photos by author Tents and barbed wire secure the perimeters of the streets where the suspects lived and if those weren’t enough, policemen wade through overflowing gutter water to turn people away from the place. All the homes in those streets are almost burnt to ashes. But in the street next to the mosque where the lady lives, someone had to identify for the mob which of those homes belonged to Christian families. Pointing at her neighbour sitting outside his burned house, she says they only returned Friday morning at around 10am because officials of the building department were supposed to visit their homes to estimate damages. Valuables stolen from a trunk inside a home in Essa Nagri. The Punjab government is considering an offer of recompense for damages between Rs200,000 and Rs1 million, depending on the scale of the damage. On Friday, building department officials began visiting homes in various neighbourhoods to begin to devise a mechanism to estimate damages. “We will measure the size of these houses and arrive at an estimate based on what we can see,” said a building official, making the rounds in Essa Nagri. Irreplaceable losses In Essa Nagri, a member or two of each house that was torched also sit on chairs waiting for the inspection teams to arrive. In this neighbourhood, the boundary wall of the United Presbyterian Church, whose pink walls with painted Christmas ornaments still emanate heat, were broken down using hammers and set alight. The church leads into an extremely narrow street littered with the burned frames of cycles, furniture, and refrigerators. The first house on the right belongs to Allah Ditta and his mother. The 30-year-old was employed as a gardener at Jaranwala Assistant Commissioner Shaukat Masih’s home, who had to flee himself. Allah Ditta says his house was targeted because people in the vicinity knew of his employment. His mother walks me through the ransacked and burnt down rooms, but especially asks me to see the roof. Broken furniture inside a room in Allah Ditta’s home. Iron girders of the roof have melted to the ground inside a home that was vandalised by the mob. “My special needs son lived here,” she says, pointing at the scorched remains of a once bedroom. The iron girders of the roof have melted and fused with the floor. Charred remains of her son’s pigeons litter the ground. “They burned his pigeons,” she says, offering no other explanation. A few paces from her house, another resident, Sarfaraz Emmanuel Paul, stands outside his home surrounded by video loggers and journalists who want to film his burned down house and record his interview. His mother was a Sunday School teacher and in one of the rooms that was completely burned down, her Sunday School materials and hymn books were ripped apart and set on fire. As I walk through the streets, a couple sitting outside their home recognise me and call me over. They were members of our church once and had used all their retirement funds to move to Essa Nagri a few years ago to start a small prayer ministry. Their home, to the left of Pastor Saleem Arif’s All Evangelical Covenant Church near Gogera Branch Canal, was looted and burned to the ground. The pastor’s own home, on top of the church, was also looted and burned. The story is the same in every street of Essa Nagri as visitors — journalists, government officials, neighbours, NGO workers and members of the clergy — hug and cry with the residents, most of whom have returned that day and are seemingly apoplectic with shock. ‘Indescribable scenes’ Shahbaz Samuel Francis Masih, an elder (position of authority in church hierarchy) at the Catholic Church, describes how the violence played out in his street. According to him, Father Khalid Mukhtar called him and asked him to tell people to leave. He oversaw the exodus and sent those who couldn’t leave into nearby sugarcane fields. He points at an ‘alam’ (a black flag marking Shia place of residence) erected at a house in the distance. “I ran to my

Saudi Arabia has engaged in a large-scale and brutal killing of African refugees and migrants at its southern borders with Yemen that could constitute crimes against humanity, according to a prominent rights group. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented, in a report made public on Monday, “widespread and systematic” abuses committed by Saudi border guards against mostly Ethiopian refugees who flee armed conflict, economic hardships and droughts in their homelands. The nongovernmental New York-based organisation said hundreds, and likely thousands, have been murdered by Saudi border guards between March 2022 and June 2023, and killings are continuing. Witnesses said they were targeted by firearms, explosives, and artillery and mortar shelling from Saudi border guards when trying to cross. Some saw dozens killed in front of their eyes, while others experienced serious injuries like amputations, or saw refugees arrested. “I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined,” said Hamdiya, a 14-year-old girl who crossed the border in a group of 60 in February but was forced to go back to the Yemeni capital Sanaa after repeated attacks. “I saw 30 killed people on the spot.” A male minor interviewed by HRW said border guards detained their group of five men and two 15-year-old girls after killing many others, and ordered the men to rape the girls. One man refused and was shot and killed on the spot. “I participated in the rape, yes. To survive, I did it,” the boy said. “The girls survived because they didn’t refuse. This happened at the same spot where killings took place.” “Saudi Arabia’s abuses against migrants and asylum seekers, committed historically and detailed more recently in this report, have been perpetrated with absolute impunity. “If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” HRW said in its report, for which it interviewed dozens of Ethiopians and analysed videos, photographs and satellite imagery. Rights groups have documented abuses of refugees in Yemen by both the government and the Houthi armed group that took control of parts of the country since the war started in 2014 – and launched one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises – but HRW said the scale and intensity have only increased since. Seeking safety via the ‘Yemeni Route’ East African refugees, predominantly Ethiopians, begin their arduous journey to Saudi Arabia by taking on the Eastern Route, also known as the Yemeni Route, which goes through Djibouti then by boat across the Gulf of Aden. In Yemen, smugglers take them north by land, and the abuse begins. HRW said a network of smugglers, traffickers and authorities have for years kidnapped, detained and beaten Ethiopian refugees in Yemen, and extorted them or their families – mostly displaced women and children in dire straits themselves – for money. Female refugees are often at risk of being sexually assaulted by smugglers or other refugees, and two out of 10 interviewed by HRW said they became pregnant as a result. Refugees are often taken to one of two makeshift “camps” on the Yemeni side of the border, separated by ethnicity, ostensibly for language purposes. “There are no fewer than 50,000 people,” HRW quoted Berhe, an 18-year-old from southern Tigray as saying of al-Raqw camp where Tigrayan Ethiopians were taken. People interviewed by HRW confirmed that there were tens of thousands in the makeshift camps, waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia. The crossing is a mountainous border separating Yemen’s Saada governorate and Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province, which is documented to be littered with land mines. Refugees travel in groups that could range from a handful of people to several hundred. On the way, the refugees may be attacked with explosive weapons – including mortar projectiles – at times for hours on end, or days. The people who survive the attacks but do not manage to escape back into Yemen are detained by Saudi border guards. While the exact numbers of people killed were difficult to document, survivors were able to give HRW the number of people who returned to the camps in Yemen, between 4 and 10 percent of those who had set out. One of the people HRW interviewed said he had approached the border guards to retrieve the body of a girl from his village and found “her body was piled up on top of 20 bodies”. The group called on Saudi Arabia to immediately and urgently revoke any policy to deliberately use lethal force on refugees, asked concerned governments to impose sanctions on Saudi and Houthi officials, and said the United Nations should establish an independent investigation into the killings and abuses. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/hrw-report-details-saudi-arabian-guards-killing-refugees-at-yemen-border

Heavy rain has deluged parts of Southern California, with forecasters warning of a “potentially historic amount of rain” and severe flooding in the usually arid part of the United States, as Tropical Storm Hilary raced in from Mexico. One person died in Mexico amid reports of flash flooding in the Baja California peninsula, where some roads were swept away and images on social media showed torrents of water gushing down city streets that had been turned into rivers. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for much of Southern California, with flash flood warnings in effect throughout a region more accustomed to drought. In a White House statement, US President Joe Biden said the federal government had deployed emergency teams and resources ahead of the storm and his administration “stands ready to provide additional assistance as requested. I urge people to take this storm seriously, and listen to state and local officials”. In Palm Springs, about 160km (100 miles) east of Los Angeles, forecasters said the city could get between six and 10 inches (15-25 cm) of rain from the storm. The city usually gets about 4.6 inches (12 cm) of rain in an entire year. Newsom, on a tour of Southern California, said Palm Springs was dry when he left on Sunday but an hour later it had received “the most significant rainfall over a 60-minute period any time in the history of Palm Springs”. The streets were soon flooded. “That’s how quickly this system is moving. Take nothing for granted,” Newsom told a news briefing in Los Angeles after updating Biden on the situation. Floodwaters raced through the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River, which normally contains barely a trickle. Hundreds of flights in San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles were cancelled, professional sporting matches rescheduled and many schools cancelled Monday’s classes. Amid all the storm preparation, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake rocked the city of Ojai, about 129km (80 miles) northwest of Los Angles. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Hilary made landfall on Sunday in the northern part of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, where nearly 1,900 people were evacuated to shelters, according to the country’s army. The storm was especially dangerous in low-income areas where housing is often poorly built. “We’ve always been aware that it’s a risky area. A lot of water runs (nearby) but what are we going to do? It’s the only place we have to live,” said Yolanda Contreras, living in a flood-prone area of Rosarito, south of the US-Mexican border. Officials warned motorists of the dangers of driving through flood waters [Alan Devall/Reuters] Around the coastal town of Mulege, on the eastern side of the Baja California peninsula, one person died after his family was swept away while crossing a stream on Saturday. Phone lines and electricity were cut in several of the surrounding villages after lamp posts fell, the Mexican army said. Hilary was initially designated Category 4 – the second-most powerful on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale – but weakened as it headed towards the densely populated Mexican border city of Tijuana. Nancy Ward, the director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said Hilary could be one of the worst storms to hit the state in more than a decade. “Make no mistake,” she told a press conference on Saturday. “This is a very, very dangerous and significant storm.” Hurricanes hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Although the storms sometimes affect California, it is rare for them to strike the state with much intensity. Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as climate change makes the world warmer. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/tropical-storm-hilary-drenches-usually-arid-southern-california

Sweden’s government is mulling wider powers to police under some changes to its Public Order Act, to restrict acts of hate against religions, such as the burning of the Holy Quran, after recent Islamophobic incidents in the Scandinavian country stirred anger among Muslims, Reuters reported. However, the legal amendments will be done only if such incidents threaten national security, the government said on Friday. The Nordic country on Thursday heightened its terror alert level to four on a scale of five, after the Quran burnings drew angry reactions from the Muslim world, saying it had averted attacks triggered by the acts against Islam’s holiest text. Sweden’s far-reaching freedom of speech laws provides protection to the insults towards public figures or against religions. Though the government maintains a rigid stance against changing these laws, Minister of Justice Gunnar Strommer has said that a commission would be appointed to look into giving police wider powers to deny acts such as desecration of Quran. “Of course, general international dissatisfaction or vague threat should not be enough — it must be about serious and qualified threats,” Strommer told a news conference on Friday. He said that the move could allow the police to shift the protest to a different location or dissolve it. An Iraqi resident of Sweden has damaged several copies of the Quran in recent months that sparked an international response. Sweden was on the extremist group’s radar before the recent Quran burnings, with a media outlet linked to the militant group al Qaeda urging violent retribution against the country. Last week, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the Swedish embassy in Beirut though it did not explode, and at the weekend al Qaeda called for attacks against the Scandinavian nation. The decision to appoint a panel was met with immediate distrust from numerous political parties, including the government’s support party, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats. Sweden Democrats’ party leader Jimmie Akesson said Sweden Democrats “will never accept that we adapt to threats and pressure” from extremists and dictatorships, even if different values always need to be weighed against each other. Earlier on Friday, the government said it had tightened security at embassies and other missions due to an increase in threats against Swedish interests abroad. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1101706-sweden-considering-wider-powers-for-police-to-disallow-quran-burning

A senior political affairs officer at the United Nations has described how the sacrifice of colleagues who died in the attack on the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003, has been acknowledged by the UN’s continued presence in the country. The then New York-based Elpida Rouka had accompanied the Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq Programme on a mission to Baghdad and survived the deadly explosion which killed 22 of her UN colleagues. The 19 August attack is commemorated annually by World Humanitarian Day. “A young 25-year-old barely two years into the UN at the time, I was in equal measure bright-eyed and bushy tailed practically cajoling the Executive Director of the Iraq programme to take me along on that August mission to Baghdad. I was naive about the workings of the world, not always a pretty sight, and the organization’s role therein. UN Photo/Violaine Martin Elpida Rouka, survivor of the bombing of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 holds her damaged UN Laissez-Passer. Other than the personal cost, I suffered latent PTSD that manifested years later, and the personal cost to so many, I had not yet realized the cost to the organization. Baghdad changed everything for the UN. How we do things. Who we are. What the world thinks of us. What we think of us. I could not fathom why late Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not order the UN out of Iraq; years later, when I worked in his Cabinet, we made our peace. And yet I myself returned to Iraq four years on, not as an aid worker but as part of a political mission, a continuation of sorts of what Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN Special Representative in Iraq, who died in the attack, and his team had started that fateful summer. I had at last “consciously” embraced the UN blue. UN terrorist target Canal will always serve as a reminder, albeit a tragic one, of what the UN blue flag, for the first time a direct target of a terrorist attack, represents or must represent. I am now about the age many of those we lost on that day would have been. They embodied the spirit of the UN flag, defying risk, rising above politics, speaking up for those whose voices were silenced, talking truth to power, challenging more powerful groups when those are wrong, pushing against all odds and going back. They and everyone else we have lost and keep on losing since in too many conflicts where we have failed to bring about peace will continue to serve as a compass to course-correct, lest we forget that the oath of office encompassed the preamble of the UN Charter: “We, the peoples…” Several missions – Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria – and physical and emotional scars later, I continue to carry my scorched and shrapnelled UN laissez-passer from that August 2003 to remind me exactly of that. Changing nature of conflicts MINUSMA/Harandane Dicko Personal protective equipment (PPE) is widely used by UN staff for example in Mali (pictured). It is hard to tell whether 20 years on Canal has any meaning to the outside world or even to the younger generations of international civil servants, other than to the survivors. In many ways the nature of conflicts and UN engagement therein has changed significantly in two decades, with modern peace operations set in increasingly complex, constantly shifting, high-risk multipolar settings with involvement of non-State actors and violent extremists, asymmetry of use of force, spillover of conflict beyond borders, great power fallouts and ensuing deepening of global mistrust. Operating behind T-walls [protective concrete barriers that surround UN compounds in conflict-affected countries], out of sandbagged fortified compounds, in armoured vehicles, clad in PPEs [personal protective equipment] and wary of extended exposure to the locals is often considered the norm. © UNICEF/Diego Ibarra Sánchez In Iraq, children run with kites in Domiz Camp in Dohuk. At the same time, the organization is challenged to be accountable to its own and to those they serve. We still have many lessons to learn from Canal when it comes to the latter, for our missions to be fully prepared for the worst, for our staff to be conscious of the complexities of the places we are deployed in, and for our leadership to be able to clearly communicate what it is we are doing there. The same goes for the Member States which at times present us with impossible mandates. Yet the UN’s response to Canal was right in one major aspect: the UN did not abandon the Iraqis on that day, and in doing so it acknowledged the sacrifice of those who lost their lives in the pursuit of truth; those who remain a moral compass.” Source:https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1139597