Tag Archives: United Nations

U.S. withdrawal leaves vacuum at U.N. rights forum

The name place sign of the United States is pictured one day after the U.S. announced their withdraw during a session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland June 20, 2018. Picture taken with a fisheye lens. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – China, Britain and the European Union lamented on Wednesday Washington’s decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council as Western countries began looking for a substitute for the coveted seat.

The United States withdrew on Tuesday from what it called the “hypocritical and self-serving” forum over what it called chronic bias against its close ally Israel and a lack of reform after a year of negotiations.

Washington’s retreat is the latest U.S. rejection of multilateral engagement after it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“It is bad news, it is bad news for this Council, it is bad news I think for the United Nations. It is bad news, I think for the United States, it is bad news for everybody who cares about human rights,” Slovenian President Borut Pahor told the 47-member forum in Geneva where the U.S. seat was empty.

The European Union, Australia and Britain echoed his comments.

“We have lost a member who has been at the forefront of liberty for generations. While we agree with the U.S. on the need for reform, our support for this Human Rights Council remains steadfast, and we will continue to advance the cause of reform from within its ranks,” Britain’s ambassador Julian Braithwaite said.

Bulgaria’s Ambassador Deyana Kostadinova, speaking on behalf of the EU, said that the United States had been a “strong partner” for many years at the talks. Its decision “risks undermining the role of the U.S. as a strong advocate and supporter of democracy on the world stage,” she added.

China’s foreign ministry expressed regret, with state media saying the image of the United States as a defender of rights was “on the verge of collapse”.

Diplomats have said the U.S. withdrawal could bolster Cuba, Russia, Egypt and Pakistan, which resist what they see as U.N. interference in sovereign issues.

Once the Trump administration formally notifies it of its decision, the U.N. General Assembly will organize elections for a replacement to assume the U.S. term through 2019.

The Western group of countries in the council is expected to discuss the issue at their weekly meeting on Thursday, diplomats said.

When the council was created in 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration shunned the body.

New Zealand, which stepped aside to allow the United States to win election to the Council in 2009 under President Barack Obama, may be a good choice as a replacement, two diplomats said. “There would be a certain symmetry,” one told Reuters.

Canada and the Netherlands were other possibilities, although no country has stepped forward yet, they said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. decision.

Senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hanan Ashrawi, said Washington’s justification for withdrawal was “both deceptive and blatantly untrue”.

In a statement, she accused the United States of “subverting international law…for the sake of maintaining the impunity of Israel, the only remaining military occupation in the world”.

(additional reporting by Christian Shepherd and Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Alison Williams and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Human Rights Watch: Turkey-backed forces seizing property in Syria’s Afrin

Men walk through debris in the center of Afrin, Syria March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Turkey-backed rebels in northwest Syria’s Afrin have seized, looted and destroyed Kurdish civilians’ property after taking control of the region in March, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

Turkey’s military and its Syrian rebel allies launched a cross-border operation into Syria earlier this year and drove fighters from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia out of the town of Afrin and the surrounding area.

Ankara sees the YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency on Turkish soil. Turkey has threatened to drive the YPG from the entire length of its border.

The United Nations said 137,000 people were displaced by the Afrin offensive, another large population movement in the seven-year long Syrian conflict which has forced more than half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.

Rights group HRW interviewed people who had been displaced from Afrin. They accuse Turkey-backed forces of moving their fighters and people from other parts of Syria into vacated homes and of taking over business premises without paying compensation.

One interviewee, Roni Seydo, left Afrin in March but was told by a friend that an armed group had taken over his house, painting the word “seized” on the outside wall.

He said his neighbors were questioned about his family and it possible links with the PKK.

Another former Afrin resident, photographer Ser Hussein, said one of his two studios was burned down and the other turned into a butchers shop.

“Those who made the decision to take over Afrin also took on the responsibility of ensuring that both the residents of Afrin, and people there who have been displaced elsewhere have basic shelter in a way that doesn’t infringe on either of those groups’ rights,” HRW’s acting emergencies director Priyanka Motaparthy said in a report.

“So far it seems that they are failing to do the right thing by either group.”

Under the laws of war, pillaging, or forcibly taking private property for personal use is prohibited and can constitute a war crime, HRW said. The laws of war also prohibit destruction of property not justified by military necessity.

HRW said owners should be compensated for the use and damage of their property and the rights of rights of owners and returnees should be guaranteed.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach the rebel groups for comment.

HRW said the Free Syrian Army rebel umbrella group issued a statement on March 9 inviting Afrin residents to submit complaints to the military headquarters in Azaz to claim their looted property.

HRW also said rebel faction Ahrar al-Sharqiyah issued a statement on April 20 denying responsibility for property violations and looting and saying it had arrested several people who may have been involved in such acts.

Turkish officials in March said they were looking into allegations of looting and property seizure and that they would ensure Afrin would be a safe place for residents to return to.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Arab states launch biggest assault of Yemen war with attack on main port

By Mohammed Ghobari and Mohamed Mokhashef

ADEN (Reuters) – A Saudi-led alliance of Arab states launched an attack on Yemen’s main port city on Wednesday in the largest battle of the war, aiming to bring the ruling Houthi movement to its knees at the risk of worsening the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Arab warplanes and warships pounded Houthi fortifications to support ground operations by foreign and Yemeni troops massed south of the port of Hodeidah in operation “Golden Victory”.

Fighting raged near Hodeidah airport and al-Durayhmi, a rural area 10 km (6 miles) south of the city, media controlled by the Arab states and their Yemeni allies reported.

The assault marks the first time the Arab states have tried to capture such a heavily-defended major city since joining the war three years ago against the Iran-aligned Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and most of the populated areas.

The United Nations says 8.4 million Yemenis are on the verge of famine, and for most the port is the only route for food supplies.

The U.N. Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Thursday – at the request of Britain – over the attack on Hodeidah, diplomats said.

The Houthis deployed military vehicles and troops in the city center and near the port, as warplanes struck the coast to the south, a resident speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters. People fled by routes to the north and west.

Residents emerged from homes in the late afternoon to shop for food before the breaking of the Ramadan fast, he said.

CARE International, one of the few aid agencies still there, said 30 air strikes hit the city within half an hour. “Some civilians are entrapped, others forced from their homes. We thought it could not get any worse, but unfortunately we were wrong,” said CARE’s acting country director, Jolien Veldwijk.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV quoted witnesses describing “concentrated and intense” bombing near the port itself.

“Under international humanitarian law, parties to the conflict have to do everything possible to protect civilians and ensure they have access to the assistance they need to survive,” said Lise Grande, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

CALLS FOR RESTRAINT

The U.N. special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said the world body was talking to both sides to try to avert a battle. “We call on them to exercise restraint & engage with political efforts to spare Hodeidah a military confrontation,” he tweeted.

U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi said there was a danger Yemenis might try to flee across the sea to Somalia or Djibouti.

The Arab states say they will try to keep the port running and can ease the crisis once they seize it by lifting import restrictions they have imposed. Port workers told Reuters five ships were docked at Hodeidah port unloading goods, but no new entry permits would be issued on Wednesday.

Western countries have quietly backed the Arab states diplomatically, while mostly avoiding direct public involvement in the conflict. A major battle could test that support, especially if many civilians are killed or supplies disrupted.

The United States, Britain and France all sell billions of dollars of weapons a year to the Arab countries. Aid agencies urged President Emmanuel Macron to cancel a planned Paris conference on Yemen co-chaired with Saudi Arabia.

The operation began after a three-day deadline set by the United Arab Emirates for the Houthis to quit the port.

“The liberation of the port is the start of the fall of the Houthi militia and will secure marine shipping in the Bab al-Mandab strait and cut off the hands of Iran, which has long drowned Yemen in weapons that shed precious Yemeni blood,” Yemen’s Arab-backed government-in-exile said in a statement.

Its leader, exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, said his government had proposed compromises but would not let the Houthis hold the Yemeni people “hostage to a prolonged war which the Houthis ignited”.

A Yemeni anti-Houthi military official said the alliance had brought to bear a 21,000-strong force. It includes Emirati and Sudanese troops as well as Yemenis, drawn from southern separatists, local Red Sea coast fighters and a battalion led by a nephew of late ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, who has threatened attacks on tankers entering the Red Sea, warned the alliance not to attack and said on Twitter his forces had struck a coalition barge. There was no immediate confirmation from the coalition.

The Sunni Muslim Arab states see the Houthi rise as expansionism by their Shi’ite foe Iran. They aim to restore Hadi, who was driven into exile in 2014.

The Houthis, from a Shi’ite minority that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in Yemen until 1962, say they took power through a popular revolt and are now defending Yemen from invasion.

Yemen has been in crisis since 2011 mass protests that ended Saleh’s 33-year rule. Hadi came to power in a Saudi-brokered transition, but the Houthis drove him out. For a time Saleh joined forces with the Houthis, but they turned on each other last year and Saleh was killed.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Hesham Hajali in Cairo and Hadeel Sayegh in Dubai; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous and Peter Graff; Editing by David Stamp and Rosalba O’Brien)

Syria tells Lebanon it wants refugees to return

Lebanese general security member holds Syrian refugee children, who fled to Lebanon, as they wait for buses to go back to Syria from the southern village of Shebaa, Lebanon April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria has told Lebanon it wants refugees to return to help rebuild the country, its envoy to Lebanon said on Monday, after Beirut expressed concern that a new land redevelopment law could discourage them from going home.

Lebanon, which is hosting some 1 million registered Syrian refugees, wrote to the Syrian government last month over “Law 10”, which aid and rights groups fear could result in Syrian refugees losing their property in the country.

“Law 10” came into effect in April as the army was on the brink of crushing the last insurgent enclaves near Damascus, consolidating President Bashar al-Assad’s grip over nearly all of western Syria. The law has yet to be applied.

One of big concerns with the law is that it gave people just 30 days to stake ownership claims once an area is designated for redevelopment, according to rights activists and aid groups. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mualem said on Saturday this time period had been extended to one year.

Gebran Bassil, the foreign minister in Lebanon’s caretaker government, had expressed concern over the limited time frame in a letter to the Syrian government last month.

Ali Abdul Karim, the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, delivered a letter from Mualem to Bassil, foreign minister in Lebanon’s caretaker government, on Monday.

Abdul Karim told reporters that the letter responded to questions posed by Bassil. The letter said that “Syria is in need of … all its sons and is eager for the return of all its sons”, he said.

Last week, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, a top Lebanese state figure and head of the General Security agency, said Beirut was working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to go back to Syria.

A conference on Syria hosted by the European Union and co-chaired by the United Nations in April said conditions for returns were not yet fulfilled, and that present conditions were not conducive for voluntary repatriation in safety and dignity.

President Michel Aoun has called the large numbers of Syrian refugees an existential danger to Lebanon, reflecting a view that the presence of the mainly Sunni Syrian refugees will upend the fragile balance between Lebanese Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shi’ite Muslims and other sectarian groups.

Amnesty International has said “Law 10” effectively deprives thousands of people of their homes and land. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the law is not about dispossessing anyone.

(Reporting by Beirut bureau; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Ukraine defends ruse faking journalist’s murder, others criticize alarmist stunt

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko meets with Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was declared murdered and then later turned up alive, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and head of the state security service (SBU) Vasily Gritsak in Kiev, Ukraine May 30, 2018. Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

By Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine on Thursday defended the action of its state security services in faking the death of a Russian dissident journalist after international criticism, saying the bizarre ruse had been essential for protecting him.

Ukraine revealed on Wednesday that it had stage-managed the fake murder of Arkady Babchenko, a critic of the Kremlin who they said had been targeted by hit-men hired by Russia, in order to trace a trail back to Russia and expose plans for his, and other, state-sponsored assassinations.

But some criticized the incident, which involved the phoney distribution of lurid details about his shooting and photographs showing him apparently lying in a pool of blood, as a stunt in poor taste which had sparked a false outpouring of grief and finger-pointing at Russia.

Some said the operation had hurt Kiev’s credibility and played to Russian prejudices about Ukraine.

“Relieved that Arkadiy #Babchenko is alive!” the office of the OSCE’s Harlem Desir tweeted. “I deplore the decision to spread false information on the life of a journalist. It is the duty of the state to provide correct information to the public.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom who had expressed horror at Babchenko’s earlier reported murder, tweeted: “I am of course relieved that Arkady Babchenko is alive and well. Others are better placed to comment on the operation conducted by the Ukrainian Security Service.”

Michael Carpenter, the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote on Twitter that “the cost in terms of the credibility of gov institutions is huge. Russia will exploit the hell out of this.”

However, he later added: “If the operation helped expose the chain of Russian intelligence operatives involved in this plot, it was well worth it.”

President Petro Poroshenko was among those who defended the ruse. In a video showing him greeting Babchenko, he said: “I am absolutely convinced there was no other way. You’re a great guy.”

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, in a sharp reaction, said he was surprised and shocked by “pseudo-moral” criticism from abroad and he defended a successful operation to save Babchenko’s life.

“If it had been possible to do such operations on other occasions we would do it. We saved a life, broke a potential network … that’s enough for us to be satisfied,” he told journalists.

Ukraine’s embassy in London, in a comment, asked for understanding from its international partners even when it took “unorthodox approaches” to fend off Russia’s hybrid attempts at destabilization.

Babchenko himself, who was greeted with a hug by Poroshenko on Wednesday night, thanked the security service for saving his life and was robust in defending their actions.

“The English press says operation has done more harm than good?” he said on Facebook. “You want good? Give me a UK passport and protection. And then you can lecture me how to save my family.”

“LIKE SHERLOCK HOLMES”

Anton Gerashchenko, a prominent lawmaker and adviser to the interior minister, who provided details of Babchenko’s “murder” on Tuesday night said he had been shot in the back by a man hiding in a stairwell, after returning home in Kiev from buying bread. His wife, it was said, found him in a pool of blood.

Gerashchenko reappeared on Wednesday explaining that a cloak-and-dagger operation had been necessary to trace the trail from the would-be assassin to his handlers.

They had to believe the plan to kill Babchenko had succeeded “and force them to take a number of actions that will be documented by the investigation,” he wrote on Facebook.

“After all, Arthur Conan Doyle’s hero Sherlock Holmes successfully used the method of staging his own death for the effective investigation of complex and intricate crimes. No matter how painful it was for his family and Dr. Watson.”

Very few people knew about the plan, in order to prevent any information leaking, he said. A picture of Babchenko lying in a pool of blood was released, police made a series of statements about their investigation and issued a sketch of the killer.

The head of the Ukrainian state security service (SBU), Vasyl Hrytsak, said on Wednesday that it had received information about a plot to kill Babchenko.

The SBU’s covert operation allowed it “to gather irrefutable evidence of the terrorist activities of Russian special services on the territory of Ukraine.” The security service detained a Ukrainian citizen who it said was recruited by Russia to find someone to kill Babchenko.

He also made clear that Babchenko’s wife had prior knowledge about the operation. “His family knew what measures we were taking, Arkady was warned in advance. He was under our control. The family also knew about everything.”

After Babchenko’s reported murder, the Ukrainian Prime Minister condemned the Russian state and a string of friendly countries produced statements in sympathy. Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who said he was not kept in the loop, spoke about the murder at the United Nations in New York.

Desir, the office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on media freedom, flew to Kiev to meet Babchenko’s colleagues in a show of solidarity.

Babchenko on Wednesday recounted how the SBU had approached him a month ago to say someone had been paid $40,000 to carry out a hit job on him. They showed him documents that the would-be killers had, including his photo and passport details.

The Russians pressed the would-be assassin to carry out the order quickly but the Ukrainians managed to get the operation delayed with a series of obstacles, such as pretending that Babchenko had broken his leg or had on a trip abroad, he said.

They managed to delay the Russian attempt on Babchenko until after the Champions League soccer final, which Kiev hosted last weekend, the authorities said.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Afghan women denied justice over violence, United Nations says

Afghan women look down at part of the city from a hill top in the early morning hours in Kabul, Afghanistan July 30, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

KABUL (Reuters) – A law meant to protect Afghan women from violence is being undermined by authorities who routinely refer even serious criminal cases to traditional mediation councils that fail to protect victims, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law, passed in 2009, was a centerpiece of efforts to improve protection for Afghan women, who suffer widespread violence in one of the worst countries in the world to be born female.

But its effectiveness has been weakened by continued reliance on mediation by local elders to resolve violent crime.

“The wide use of mediation when a woman or girl has been beaten, mutilated or murdered, or when she has been the victim of that awful concept of ‘honor killing’, normalizes such violence and makes it much more likely to recur,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“To use mediation for such offences is at its core a human rights violation by the State,” Al Hussein said in a statement accompanying a United Nations report, entitled “Injustice and Impunity: Mediation of Criminal Offences against Women”.

In many remote parts of Afghanistan, where the formal legal system has no sway, mediation is the only form of justice, but the U.N. report focused on cases reported to the authorities.

No comment was immediately available from the office of Afghanistan’s attorney general.

Improving the situation of women in Afghanistan has been a priority for Western donors, who have pumped billions of dollars into the country.

But more than 17 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the report underlines the still-dire situation facing many women in Afghanistan, which ranks near the bottom of the United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index.

Tuesday’s report was based on 237 cases of violence against women and 280 cases of murder in 2016 and 2017, including murders within families sometimes called “honor killings”.

It found such crimes appeared to enjoy “de facto immunity”, fostered by a reliance on mediation, with just 18 percent of cases ending in conviction and a prison sentence.

“The resolution of such cases by mediation must never occur; and cases should be prosecuted under the applicable general murder articles in order to end impunity,” it said.

The report highlighted problems successive Afghan governments have had in building a functioning judicial system in a country that has traditionally relied heavily on religious leaders or elders to settle disputes.

It said many women faced pressure from family members and even some legal groups set up under the EVAW law to withdraw complaints or accept mediation. Victims’ rights were not a priority, and were even disregarded outright.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Venezuelans buy bus tickets out after Maduro wins re-election

People wait in line to buy bus tickets at a bus station in Caracas, Venezuela May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Luc Cohen

CARACAS (Reuters) – Betsabeth Casique saved for eight months for bus tickets out of Venezuela for herself and her three children. At 1.4 million bolivars each, they are worth what she earns in a month working as a nurse.

It is less than two dollars at the black market exchange rate.

When socialist President Nicolas Maduro won re-election to a six-year term on Sunday in a vote the opposition and foreign governments called illegitimate, Casique decided to leave, first for the western city of San Cristobal and from there to Cucuta, Colombia.

Bags and suitcases are seen at a bus station in Caracas, Venezuela May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

Bags and suitcases are seen at a bus station in Caracas, Venezuela May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, what pushed me to do it faster,” Casique, 29, said while charging her cell phone outside the Aeroexpresos Ejecutivos terminal in Caracas, where she was planning to buy tickets for a bus leaving on Tuesday.

Ninety-nine people bought tickets on Monday morning for that trip, said Greberli Rojas, a passenger who displayed a handwritten wait-list she was keeping to avoid disputes between passengers trying to fit on the bus.

Rojas, a 29-year-old accountant who arrived from the town of Barlovento in Miranda state and bought her ticket early Monday, planned to spend the night at the station to avoid losing her spot.

“I’m prepared to sell coffee because us migrants have to be prepared to start from the bottom,” said Rojas, who plans to settle in Lima, Peru.

It appeared the emigration crisis Venezuela had experienced in recent years as its economy collapsed would continue since Maduro’s government was unlikely to change policies that led to hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages and rising crime.

The United Nations has estimated that nearly 1 million Venezuelans the country left between 2015 and 2017.

Over the past weekend, migrants streamed across the border, skeptical that their votes would change anything in an election many thought would be rigged. Mainstream opposition called for a boycott and turnout was 46 percent compared with 80 percent in 2013’s presidential election.

“We expected that the incumbents would win, so we decided to leave,” said Jorge Hernandez, a 23-year-old engineering student who sold his Toyota Avalon to buy tickets for himself and his mother to leave Caracas from the Rutas de America terminal on Monday morning.

He brought bread and crackers for the 36-hour trip to Trujillo, Peru, where his sister has been waiting tables for two-and-a-half months.

“This government has been in power for 18 years and things have gone from bad to worse,” he said.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

U.S. Jerusalem embassy lies ‘at the end of the world’

FILE PHOTO: Construction site is seen near the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo

By Stephen Farrell and Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – “On the edge of wilderness.” That is how one of Israel’s most famous authors once described the area where the new U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem on Monday. Others remember it very differently.

Standing in the valley below the hillside where Israeli and U.S. flags were being hoisted, Palestinians said the land used to be the fields of Arab villagers, who grew fig trees, grapes and wheat there.

Everything about Jerusalem is contested, and always has been. The status of the holy city is at the heart of a bitter conflict.

Upon one thing Israelis and Palestinians are agreed: the decision of a global superpower to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – on Israel’s 70th anniversary – is a definitive moment. But there agreement ends.

Israelis believe that President Donald Trump’s administration lends weight to their long-held position that Jerusalem is the ancient capital of the Jewish people, and home to sacred sites such as the Western Wall and the Jewish temples of antiquity.

But Palestinians are outraged at the U.S. stance on a city that is home to more than 300,000 Arabs, and is the third holiest city in Islam.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to meet American officials, and said the United States can no longer be regarded as an honest broker.

And as a microcosm of the wider argument the little patch of land chosen for the embassy has its own bundle of complexities, sitting as it does in Arnona, now a mostly Jewish neighborhood south of Jerusalem’s Old City.

FILE PHOTO: A worker on a crane hangs a U.S. flag next to an Israeli flag, next to the entrance to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, May 7, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A worker on a crane hangs a U.S. flag next to an Israeli flag, next to the entrance to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, May 7, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

NO MAN’S LAND

The site straddles the line between West Jerusalem and an area known as No Man’s Land, which was created at the end of the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

After a 1949 armistice Israeli forces pulled back to the west of an agreed line, and Jordanians to the east. In some areas there was a space in between that became known as No Man’s Land.

One of those areas was an enclave between the Jewish neighborhood of Talpiot and Arab villages to the east.

The area remained a demilitarized zone until the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, later expanding the limits of Jerusalem and annexing some of the Arab villages into the city.

The move was not recognized internationally and the Palestinians continue to claim East Jerusalem, demanding that it should be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

In February, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert conceded that the embassy site “is located partly in West Jerusalem and what’s called the no man’s land”.

This was confirmed by a senior United Nations official, who was not authorized to speak publicly given the sensitivity of the issue.

“There is some uncertainty about exactly where the line runs through the property, but I don’t think there is any uncertainty about the fact that the line runs through it,” he told Reuters.

“Under international law it is still occupied territory, because neither party had any right to occupy the area between the lines.”

When Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital he left the door open for Israel and the Palestinians to divide the city between them by stating he was not taking a position on “the resolution of contested borders”.

But Nabil Shaath, a veteran Palestinian diplomat, said the embassy’s relocation could complicate future peace talks. “Setting the embassy on No Man’s Land is really a violation of the demographic and geographic division of Jerusalem,” he said last week.

However Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the location of the embassy would be inconsequential were Palestinians and Israelis to revive the peace process.

“Ultimately if we have to reach arrangements in Jerusalem, as I hope we will do, then we will have to set a very precise line and we will have to compensate,” Beilin told Reuters.

END OF THE WORLD

On a clear day, the Dead Sea and Jordan can be seen from the street that runs above the embassy compound.

That street was once the edge of Talpiot, a neighborhood built in the 1920s by newly arrived Jewish immigrants and which housed such figures as S.Y. Agnon, the father of modern Hebrew literature and a Nobel Laureate in 1966.

Decades later, one of Israel’s most famed writers, Amos Oz, wrote in his 2002 autobiography, ‘A Tale of Love and Darkness’ of his own childhood memories of Talpiot.

There Oz visited his uncle Joseph Klausner, a prominent scholar and rival of Agnon, and describes his aunt and uncle on a Saturday evening walk down their street standing above the valley:

“At the end of the cul-de-sac which was also the end of Talpiot, the end of Jerusalem, and the end of the settled land: beyond stretched the grim, barren hills of the Judean desert. The Dead Sea sparkled in the distance like a platter of molten steel … I can see them standing there, at the end of the world, on the edge of wilderness.”

But Mohammad Jadallah, 96, a Palestinian from the village of Sur Baher – across the valley from the site – says he remembers his father’s generation tending the soil on that spot.

“Everything has changed. Now, it’s the existence of the U.S. embassy here – they are against the Arabs and the Palestinians,” he said.

(For a graphic on ‘U.S. embassy site in Jerusalem’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2wtlDCi )

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by David Stamp)

Insurgents start leaving south Damascus pocket, release hostages

A soldier loyal to Syria's President Bashar al Assad forces talks to a woman in a bus after they were released by militants from Idlib, Syria May 1, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of hostages held by militants in northern Syria reached army lines on Tuesday, launching a deal for insurgents to quit an enclave south of Damascus, state media and a monitor said.

State news agency SANA said 42 people were freed in the first step of the agreement, arriving in government territory at a crossing near Aleppo city.

Soldiers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al Assad are seen near a bus carrying rebels from Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, Syria April 30, 2018. SANA/ via REUTERS

Soldiers loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al Assad are seen near a bus carrying rebels from Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, Syria April 30, 2018. SANA/ via REUTERS

Women, children, and men including some soldiers wept and hugged on the bus, live on state TV. Islamist rebels had kidnapped the people in a village in rural Idlib as they swept into the province three years ago.

South of Damascus, buses shuttled 200 fighters and relatives out of the Yarmouk enclave under the swap between the government and insurgents, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The fleet arrived at the same crossing near Aleppo in the early hours, the UK-based war monitoring group said. The fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly linked to al-Qaeda, would go to Idlib in the northwest near the Turkish border.

President Bashar al-Assad’s military and its allies have pushed to crush the last insurgent footholds around the capital Damascus through a string of offensives and withdrawal deals.

The pocket south of Damascus includes zones held by Islamic State and others by rebel factions, which have fought each other. It has been the focus of intense fighting since the Syrian army recaptured eastern Ghouta last month with Russian and Iranian help.

Bombing has left parts of the once-teeming Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in ruins, and the United Nations raised warnings over the fate of civilians still stuck there.

The evacuation deal for Tahrir al-Sham to surrender also includes allowing people to leave two pro-government Shi’ite villages, which the insurgents have encircled in Idlib.

State media said ambulances carried some critically ill patients out of the villages, al-Foua and Kefraya, on Tuesday morning in the first step of the agreement.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis, Editing by William Maclean)

Dentists, soldiers mix cocktails to leave crisis-hit Venezuela

Carlos Alzaibar takes documents as he packs his suitcase at his home in Caracas, Venezuela March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Andreina Aponte and Liamar Ramos

CARACAS (Reuters) – Like many young Venezuelans in recent years, dentist Carlos Alzaibar felt forced to leave the country when he could scrape together only a few dollars equivalent each month doing two jobs.

So on a recent day, just before flying to Madrid, he was sadly packing a red suitcase – while stacking diplomas from a half a dozen trades he picked up in the last year from bakery and bartending to photography and burger-flipping.

Those, he hoped, would help him find work in Spain and fund the medicines his mother needs for a kidney transplant.

“If not, she’s going to die,” Alzaibar, 28, said, folding socks and shirts in his family’s middle-class Caracas apartment.

Droves of Venezuelans, including professionals like Alzaibar and even retired soldiers and prosecutors, have been taking short courses to prepare for life abroad.

Suffering a severe economic crisis that has left many people short of food and basics, nearly a million Venezuelans have departed since 2015, according to the United Nations.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, calls it one of the biggest population flows in its nearly 70-year history.

The OPEC nation sits on the world’s largest oil supplies, but has seen annual production slump to a three-decade low, along with a four-year economic recession.

COCKTAILS AND COFFEE

Valentina Maggi, 22, studied graphic design and dreams of illustrating children’s stories, but has followed in friends’ footsteps to learn how to mix cocktails at the National Bartender Academy.

“I have many friends who have left the country and have told me to do this type of course because when you get there, you have more work options,” she said in a room with a long table where she had just completed her final test: a Gin Fizz made from gin, lemon, sugar and soda water.

At the academy, 6,000 students are expected to graduate this year – up from 4,500 a couple of years ago.

With Maggi were a 60-year-old retired military officer and a 52-year-old former Supreme Court prosecutor, both hoping to land work at bars in the United States and Argentina respectively.

Asking not to disclose his name for fear of reprisal, the former soldier said his monthly pension of some $5 at the black market exchange rate, left nothing for food after paying for his two sons’ schools.

Venezuela’s economic meltdown is one of the worst slumps in modern Latin American history.

Gross domestic product is shrinking on a scale akin to that of the United States during the Great Depression and inflation is the highest in the world, nearly 9,000 percent annually, according to National Assembly data.

A monthly minimum wage is worth less than a carton of eggs.

While critics lambaste President Nicolas Maduro for failed socialist economic policies and corruption, he says a U.S.-led “economic war” including financial sanctions are to blame.

“From six or eight months ago, everyone’s getting ready to go,” said Pietro Carbone, surrounded by the aroma of freshly crushed coffee beans at his barista training center where places are fully booked for the next three months.

(Reporting by Andreina Aponte and Liamar Ramos; Additional reporting by Efrain Otero; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Peter Cooney; Twitter: @ReutersVzla, @jammastergirish)