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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৫ অক্টোবর, ২০১৮
বুধবার, ২৪ অক্টোবর, ২০১৮
সোমবার, ২২ অক্টোবর, ২০১৮
Khashoggi death: Saudi Arabia says journalist was murdered
Saudi Arabia has blamed the killing
of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on a "rogue operation", giving a new
account of an act that sparked a global outcry.
Foreign Minister
Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News "the murder" had been a "tremendous
mistake" and denied the powerful crown prince had ordered it.The journalist was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The Saudis, under intense pressure to explain the journalist's whereabouts, have offered conflicting accounts.
They initially said he had left the building unharmed on 2 October but on Friday admitted for the first time he was dead, saying he had been killed in a fight. This claim met widespread scepticism.
- The Jamal Khashoggi story so far
- Who's who in alleged Saudi 'hit squad'
- Khashoggi suspect had 'cyber spy' training
How has the Saudi version of events changed?
Adel al-Jubeir's comments, describing the incident as murder, are some of the most direct to come from a Saudi official."We are determined to find out all the facts and we are determined to punish those who are responsible for this murder," he said.
"The individuals who did this did this outside the scope of their authority," he added. "There obviously was a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up."
He also said that they did not know where the body was and insisted the action had not been ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, seen as Saudi Arabia's most powerful figure.
"Even the senior leadership of our intelligence service was not aware of this," he said, calling it a "rogue operation".
These remarks followed Saudi Arabia's admission on Friday that Khashoggi had died. A statement from the public prosecutor said he had been killed when a fight broke out with some of the people he was meeting inside the consulate.
Until this point - for 18 days - the authorities had maintained that the Saudi critic was last seen leaving the building alive.
They then said they had arrested 18 people, sacked two aides of Mohammed bin Salman and set up a body, under his leadership, to reform the intelligence agency over the killing.
Both King Salman and the crown prince called Khashoggi's son, Salah, on Sunday to express their condolences over his death, the Saudi Press Agency reports.
Salah Khashoggi resides in Saudi Arabia and, according to the Wall Street Journal, had been barred from leaving the country to visit his father who was living in self-imposed exile in the US.
Meanwhile, Jamal Khashoggi's fiancée. Hatice Cengiz, who raised the alarm about his disappearance after waiting for him for hours outside the consulate, was given 24-hour police protection, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reports.
How has the world reacted?
In a Washington Post interview on Saturday, US President Donald Trump said there had been "deception" and "lies" in Saudi Arabia's explanation, having previously said he found their narrative to be credible.He said he would "love" it if the crown prince was not responsible for the murder. The president has raised the possibility of imposing sanctions but said halting an arms deal would "hurt us more than it would hurt them".
The UK, France and Germany issued a joint statement expressing shock at the death and demanding a full explanation, saying: "Nothing can justify this killing and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will not allow arms exports to Saudi Arabia to continue given "the current circumstances", and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has threatened to cancel a multi-billion dollar defence contract with the kingdom over the affair.
রবিবার, ২১ অক্টোবর, ২০১৮
Taiwan train derailment in Yilan County kills at least 18
Taiwan train derailment in Yilan County kills at least 18
At least 18 people have been killed and 148 injured in a passenger train derailment in north-east Taiwan.
Railway
authorities say they are investigating the accident, which happened in
Yilan County at about 16:50 local time (08:50 GMT) on Sunday.A total of 366 people were on the train travelling between Taipei and the eastern county of Taitung when all eight of its carriages derailed.
Taiwan's Central News Agency reports that dozens may still be trapped.
The Puyuma Express 6432 service reportedly came off the tracks close to Xinma station, near the town of Su'ao about 70km (43 miles) from Taipei.
The deputy chief of the Taiwan Railways Administration, Lu Chieh-shen, told a news conference on Sunday that the train was only six years old and had been in "pretty good condition" before the accident.
It is not immediately clear what caused the train to derail, but witnesses told local media they heard a loud noise then sparks and smoke.
Emergency medical responders and firefighters are helping the injured and the defence ministry says it has sent 120 soldiers to help with rescue efforts.
Witnesses reported having to break windows to escape the carriages, and dozens of injured have been transported to local hospitals.
Photographs from the scene show seats upended, with parts of the railway tracks twisted through carriage windows in places.
Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen, described the accident as a "major tragedy" on Twitter.
"My thoughts are with all the victims and their families," she added.
Taiwan has an extensive train network and more than half a million passengers travel on the system every day.
The rail authority has said it is checking to see if any foreigners were on the train at the time.
Russia nuclear treaty: US warned over threat to scrap deal
Russia nuclear treaty: US warned over threat to scrap deal
Russia has
condemned US plans to withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons
treaty and threatened to retaliate for a "very dangerous step".
On
Saturday, President Trump said he intended to "terminate" the
three-decade-old 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.He said Russia had been "violating it for many years".
The deal banned ground-launched medium-range missiles, with a range of between 500 and 5,500km (310-3,400 miles).
In the last five decades the US and Russia have signed a range of joint agreements to limit and reduce their substantial nuclear arsenals.
Abandoning the INF - negotiated by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 - would mark a significant setback for arms control, analysts say.
It was signed near the end of the Cold War, a period of relations between the US and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1989 marked by intense international tension and overshadowed by the threat of nuclear conflict.
Speaking to Interfax on Sunday, Mr Gorbachev described Mr Trump's decision as a "mistake" and warned it would undermine disarmament efforts.
What exactly has Trump said?
President Trump said the US would not let Russia "go out and do weapons [while] we're not allowed to"."I don't know why President [Barack] Obama didn't negotiate or pull out," the president said of the INF treaty after a campaign rally in Nevada.
In 2014, President Obama accused Russia of breaching the INF after it allegedly tested a ground-launched cruise missile. He reportedly chose not to withdraw from the treaty under pressure from European leaders, who said such a move could restart an arms race.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton is expected to confirm the withdrawal during talks in Moscow later this week.
How has Russia responded?
"This would be a very dangerous step that, I'm sure, not only will not be comprehended by the international community but will provoke serious condemnation," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.Mr Ryabkov said Russia condemned US attempts to gain concessions "through a method of blackmail".
The minister also told the news agency RIA Novosti that if the US continues to behave "clumsily and crudely" and backs out of international agreements, "then we will have no choice but to undertake retaliatory measures, including involving military technology".
"But we would not want to get to this stage," he added.
'A significant setback'
Analysis by BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent Jonathan MarcusConcern about Russia's development and deployment of a missile system that breaches the INF treaty predates the Trump administration. But the president's decision to walk away from the agreement marks a significant setback for arms control.
Many experts believe that negotiations should have continued to try to bring the Russians back into compliance. It is, they fear, part of the wider unravelling of the whole system of arms control treaties that helped to curb strategic competition during the Cold War.
Other factors too may have played into President Trump's decision. This was a bilateral treaty between Washington and Moscow. China was free to develop and deploy intermediate range nuclear missiles. Some in the Trump administration feel that the INF treaty places them at a growing disadvantage in their developing strategic rivalry with Beijing .
Has Russia breached the treaty?
The US insists the Russians have, in breach of the deal, developed a new medium-range missile called the Novator 9M729 - known to Nato as the SSC-8.It would enable Russia to launch a nuclear strike at Nato countries at very short notice.
Russia has said little about its new missile other than to deny that it is in breach of the agreement.
Analysts say Russia sees such weapons as a cheaper alternative to conventional forces.
The New York Times reported on Friday the US was considering withdrawing from the treaty in a bid to counter China's expanding military presence in the western Pacific.
The country was not a signatory of the deal, allowing it to develop medium-range missiles without restraint.
What is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty?
- Signed by the US and the USSR in 1987, the arms control deal banned all nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with short and medium ranges, except sea-launched weapons
- The US had been concerned by the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 missile system and responded by placing Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe - sparking widespread protests
- By 1991, nearly 2,700 missiles had been destroyed. Both countries were allowed to inspect the others installations
- In 2007, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared the treaty no longer served Russia's interests. The move came after the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002
His administration's move to set up a missile shield in Europe alarmed the Kremlin, and was scrapped by the Obama administration in 2009. It was replaced by a modified defence system in 2016.
Tourists die as Costa Rica rafts capsize
- 21 October 2018
- From the section Latin America & Caribbean
Witches cast spell on Brett Kavanaugh
- 21 October 2018
- From the section US & Canada
Trump 'not satisfied' over Saudi's death
- 21 October 2018
- From the section Middle East
Elsewhere on the BBC
Saudi Arabia's Khashoggi story is preposterous, but MBS will get a pass
What do you give the man who has everything?
The answer, it seems, is an indemnity from the White House for complicity in an alleged murder.
Mohammed
Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, or MBS as he is known, is
widely believed to own a $500M mega-yacht, one of the world's most
expensive houses, a sumptuous chateau outside Paris and last year to
have set a new art world record for the most expensive painting,
Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi which he picked up for a snip at
$450M.
His minions, Saudi Arabia has now admitted, were involved in the demise of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi almost three weeks ago.
Today
though he needs nothing more, it would seem, than to be able to carry
on his extravagant life and one-man rule of the Middle East's richest
nation as if nothing has happened. And President Trump is helping.
Trump applauded MBS for
his moment of epiphany on Saturday, after his state news agency
admitted that 18 days after Khashoggi went missing, that he was in fact
dead, just as Turkish officials have believed all along.
Until Saturday, Saudi officials from MBS down had denied any knowledge of
what happened to Khashoggi. MBS told Bloomberg TV on the October 3, the
day after Khashoggi went in to the consulate to obtain paperwork that
would have allowed him to marry, "My understanding is he entered and he
got out after a few minutes or one hour. I'm not sure. We are
investigating this through the foreign ministry to see exactly what
happened at that time."
His statement didn't pass the sniff test then, and the flimsy confection of the latest explanation doesn't pass it now.
It's
not just that, in the state-run Saudi Press Agency's preposterous
telling, a mild-mannered 59-year-old somehow got himself into a fatal
fistfight with multiple Saudi officials. Or that MBS will be in charge of investigating his own intelligence agency that
is stuffed full of his hand-picked ultra-loyalists. Or indeed that some
of those loyalists are sidelined with no explanation. The whole
accounting, released in the dead of night in Riyadh, lacks even the
remotest hint of sincerity.
Part of
the statement expresses "deep regret" about "the painful developments."
Which raises the question: Why bury this announcement at 1 a.m. local
time Saturday, not within the usual working hours for the Saudi Attorney
General. And why with so much deep regret and sadness is the most
important and painful issue for Khashoggi's family and friends not
addressed, the whereabouts of his body or even a reason why this alleged
fistfight broke out.
Even when I
first met him 15 years ago, Khashoggi would have been ill equipped for
much more than a pillow fight with his children. The intervening years
were more than generous to his frame.
Whichever way you tap it, this cover story rings hollow.
Another part of the
statement would have us all believe Saudi Arabia was keen to help
Turkish investigators, almost from the get go. "The Kingdom took the
necessary procedures to clarify the truth and began by sending a
security team to Turkey on 6 October 2018 to investigate and cooperate
with counterparts in Turkey," the statement reads.
That
doesn't even begin to correlate with facts on the ground. Turkish
investigators weren't allowed in to the consulate until October 15,
almost two weeks after Khashoggi went missing. When they got in, they
discovered the Saudis had painted over some of what they needed to
examine, Turkish President Recip Tayip Erdogan said. That is not
cooperation by any stretch of the imagination, but this is what the
Saudis would have the world believe.
Nothing in the new Saudi narrative explains why the 15 Saudi men whom Turkey believes was a hit squad
came to Istanbul the day Khashoggi disappeared, spent the day in the
consulate and the nearby Consul General's house before leaving again the
same day.
There
is no mention if they are among the 18 people the Saudis claim to have
detained. Neither is there anything to plug one of the biggest holes in
the mystery: MBS' role in all of it.
All
power in Saudi Arabia passes through his hands. The subordinates of
those already sidelined would have dared not execute a mouse without his
say so, let alone a well-known and popular critic. It is hard to
imagine that the idea to neuter Khashoggi's criticism could not have
come to the desk of MBS at some point.
There
is the vaguest of hints in the Saudi statement that MBS was not aware
of any plans in relation to Khashoggi. Nothing there to box him too
heavily should more evidence, as it likely will, be presented.
One
of those relieved of his duties, Saud al Qhatani, his media
enforcer-in-chief, had personally argued with Khashoggi as recently as
last year when trying to lure him back to the Kingdom, according to a
source with knowlegde of the encounter.
"Do
you think I would create something out of the makings of my own mind
and without instruction? I am an employee and a faithful executor of the
orders of the King and His Highness the faithful Crown Prince," he
wrote in an October 17 tweet.
Turkey's President isn't buying the Saudi line.
"Turkey will shed light on whatever it is that happened. No one should
doubt this. We are moving forward with our own investigation," his party
spokesman said. Germany's Angela Merkel says the Saudi accounting
doesn't wash with her and British officials seem reluctant to buy it at
first blush too. The UK's Foreign Office saying it is "considering the
Saudi report" as it decides its next steps.
But
nowhere is MBS' future being more hotly debated than in the country he
most wants to curry favor with, the United States. And there, bipartisan criticism of the Saudi statement threatens to wreck the hitherto cosy alliance between him and President Donald Trump.
It's
a matter of prestige that the US backs Saudi above others in the
region, and MBS above all. He wears as a badge of honor the millions of
dollars spent fluffing his image and importance as bulk-buyer of US
weapons and like-minded strategic ally.
Trump
says the US hasn't finished its review of the Saudi investigation yet,
but as has shown all along he is predisposed to backing the young royal.
"It's early. We haven't finished our review or investigation but it's, I
think it's a very important first step," he said.
Trump appears to be giving MBS exactly what he wants, his blessing to carry on regardless.
It
is an incredibly dangerous signal, the most powerful man in the world
giving one of its most impetuous and imperious petty tyrants free reign.
MBS' iron grip on his Kingdom is tightening, already cowed critics
won't dare whisper, and no royal would risk his wrath stepping out of
line.
The implications for Trump and the region are clear. More chaos is coming.
