Haradinaj reportedly expressed his regrets over the incident, saying that his government would take all necessary steps to prevent such an incident from happening again.

On March 29, six Turkish nationals who work for a group of schools affiliated with the Gülen movement were abducted by agents of the Turkish intelligence service operating in Kosovo.

Hours later autocratic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the victims had been brought to Turkey in a joint operation conducted by the Turkish and Kosovar intelligence services.

The abductions sparked a political crisis in Kosovo. Kosovo Prime Minister Haradinaj on Friday dismissed the interior minister and the secret service chief. Haradinaj also said on Thursday that “the entire operation — revoking their residence permits, illegal detention, emergency deportation and the secret extradition to Turkey of the six Turkish citizens from Kosovo territory — was conducted without my knowledge and without my permission.”

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci also commented on the developments: “Today we are disappointed because our relevant institutions, for reasons that remain to be clarified to the end, have failed to defend these principles related to the human rights of foreign nationals who live and work in our country. I am informed by the competent authorities after the event that six citizens were deported today to Turkey on the grounds that they did not have a residence permit in Kosovo.”

However, President Thaci changed his tone on Saturday and said he was informed by the intelligence service that “their arrest and deportation is related to their illegal and dangerous activity in Kosovo.” He also hinted that he was not pleased with the dismissal of the interior minister and secret service chief.

President Erdoğan criticised PM Haradinaj on Saturday for dismissing the country’s interior minister and intelligence chief on Friday over their active role in the illegal abduction of the six Turkish nationals. According to a report by online news outlet Gerçek Gündem, Erdoğan also openly threatened him, saying, “You will pay the price for this.”

Speaking at the local congress of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Pendik district of İstanbul, Erdoğan said: “You saw it, our National Intelligence Organisation packed up six of these traitors in Kosovo and brought [them to Turkey]. Kosovo’s prime minister dismissed the interior minister and the person in charge of intelligence. Now I am asking: You, the prime minister of Kosovo, on whose instructions did you do such a thing? Since when do you protect those who attempted to carry out a coup in Turkey? You will pay the price for this. Politics cannot be done by remote control.”

Asking Haradinaj if he was aware that Turkey was the second country to recognize the independence of Kosovo, Erdoğan said: “You will pay for harboring those people who tried to perpetrate a coup against Turkey.” Erdoğan also said he was sure that Kosovars would hold Prime Minister Haradinaj accountable.

Leutrim Syla, lawyer for the six Turkish nationals — Cihan Özkan, Kahraman Demirez, Hasan Hüseyin Günakan, Mustafa Erdem, Osman Karakaya and Yusuf Karabina — said on Friday that his clients would most likely face torture or ill treatment and harsh punishment if they are deported to Turkey.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, on Saturday tweeted that six Turkish nationals who were arrested by Kosovar police on Thursday and apparently spirited out of the country by Turkish intelligence later in the day would face the risk of torture and abuse in Turkey.

“Beyond the complete lack of due process, the six Turks who may have been sent from Kosovo to Turkey would face severe risk of torture and abuse. Whereabouts unclear,” Roth said on his Twitter account.

Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and other civil servants since July 2016. Turkey’s interior minister announced on December 12, 2017 that 55,665 people have been arrested. On December 13, the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.

A total of 48,305 people were arrested by courts across Turkey in 2017 over their alleged links to the Gülen movement, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Dec. 2, 2017. “The number of detentions is nearly three times higher,” Soylu told a security meeting in İstanbul and claimed that “even these figures are not enough to reveal the severity of the issue.”

–

Source: stockholmcf.org

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Beijing has introduced duties of up to 25% on 128 American imports following President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on steel and aluminium.

China said the move was intended to safeguard its interests and balance losses caused by the new tariffs.

US stocks fell sharply and Asian shares traded lower as trade war fears mount.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 Index lost 2.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.9%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 opened down about 1.5% on Tuesday but recovered a little to close 0.45% lower. The Shanghai Composite was off 1% and the Hang Seng down by 0.6% in afternoon trading.

The White House reacted angrily to China’s move.

“Instead of targeting fairly traded US exports, China needs to stop its unfair trading practices which are harming US national security and distorting global markets,” spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.

She added; “China’s subsidisation and continued overcapacity is the root cause of the steel crises,”

The back-and-forth reflects rising tensions between the US and China, which President Trump has described as an “economic enemy”.

What is this fight about?

The US has taken two major steps on tariffs recently that have triggered tension with China, the first on steel and aluminium and the second on intellectual property.

The global steel and aluminium tariffs were announced on 8 March. The US is using national security laws to impose the tariffs, which it says are needed to protect US producers.

Certain allies such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union are in line for exemptions, pending talks.

China has challenged the US use of national security laws and announced retaliatory tariffs on $3bn (£2.1bn) worth of US products.

Those tariffs went into effect on Monday, targeting US goods including frozen pork, nuts, fresh and dried fruit, ginseng and wine.

The US tariffs related to intellectual property are expected to be set out this week.

They stem from a US investigation into the alleged theft of intellectual property and Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” programme, which the US says puts its firms at a disadvantage and unfairly pressures them to share technology, especially in fields such as robotics and telecommunications.

Up to $60bn in tariffs could be imposed on Chinese imports.

China’s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, warned Beijing would take counter-measures of “the same proportion”.

–

Source: BBC

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Her PA‚ Zodwa Zwane‚ confirmed the struggle veteran’s death on Monday afternoon. She said the family would be issuing a statement later in the day.

Born in Bizana in the Eastern Cape in 1936‚ she moved to Johannesburg to study social work after matriculating.

She met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957 and they were married a year later. They had two children together.

However‚ her marriage life with Mandela was short-lived‚ as he was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Mandela was eventually released in 1990.

During Mandela’s time in prison‚ Madikizela-Mandela was not spared the reach of the apartheid forces. She was placed under house arrest and at one time banished to Brandfort‚ a town in the Free State.

In 1969‚ Madikizela-Mandela became one of the first detainees under Section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act of 1967. She was detained for 18 months in solitary confinement in a condemned cell at Pretoria Central Prison before being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950.

Controversy

In 1991‚ she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault of Stompie Seipei‚ a young activist who was killed by a member of her bodyguards‚ the Mandela United Football Club.

Madikizela-Mandela’s bodyguards had abducted Seipei‚ 14‚ in 1989‚ along with three other youths‚ from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn.

Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.

Her marriage to Mandela began to flounder a few years after his release.

A letter she purportedly wrote to her young lover found its way into the newspapers.

“You’re running around f…ing at the slightest emotional excuse‚” she wrote.

“The fact that I haven’t been speaking to Tata [Nelson Mandela] for five months now over you is no longer your concern. I keep telling you the situation is deteriorating at home. You are not bothered because you are satisfying yourself every night with a woman‚” Madikizela-Mandela reportedly wrote.

In his book Odyssey to Freedom‚ veteran advocate George Bizos described how Mandela would not attend legal consultations Bizos had with Madikizela-Mandela during the Seipei trial.

“He drew the line at attending our consultations‚ primarily because these meetings were also attended by the young lawyer … her lover during the latter part of Nelson’s imprisonment and after he was released‚” Bizos wrote in his book.

The couple divorced in 1996‚ 37 years after their marriage.

After the first democratic election in 1994‚ Madikizela-Mandela became an MP and was appointed deputy minister of arts and culture. She was fired by Mandela after an unauthorised trip to Ghana.

She had been an MP ever since‚ despite limited appearances in Parliament in the past few years.

In 2016‚ she was conferred an Order of Luthuli in Silver during the National Orders Awards ceremony for her excellent contribution to the fight for the liberation of the people of South Africa.

–

Source: Herald live

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Speaking on state television after his swearing-in ceremony, Mr Ahmed called for an end to “years of misunderstandings”.

“I call on the Eritrean government to take the same stand,” he said.

The two countries have had poor relations since a two-year border war, which claimed 70,000 lives.

Mr Ahmed was chosen to lead the ruling coalition after the unexpected resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in February.

He is Ethiopia’s first Oromo leader – an ethnic group which has led anti-government protests for three decades.

State television channel ETV broadcast his speech live after he was sworn in.

Mr Ahmed said the country was ready to resolve differences between the two peoples, who are “not only intertwined in interests but also in blood”.

“We will stand by our African brothers in general and our neighbours in particular, during good and bad at times,” he said.

Mr Desalegn, while in power, had accused Eritrea of backing anti-government protests in the country.

Eritrea has made no comment since Mr Ahmed was nominated to replace Mr Desalegn.

Ethiopia has been hit by three years of protests against land grabs, human rights abuses and tightly controlled politics

The two countries fought a bloody two-year struggle between 1998 and 2000. Eritrea had previously fought a 30-year independence campaign against Ethiopia after its annexation in 1962.

Ethiopia still occupies land at the heart of the conflict, around the town of Badme.

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Source: BBC

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It re-entered the atmosphere around 00:15 GMT on Monday, China’s Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments.

It was part of China’s efforts to build a manned space station by 2022, but stopped working in March 2016.

What do we know about where it came down?

The rather vague “above the South Pacific” is the line from space officials.

US specialists at the Joint Force Space Component Command said they had used orbit analysis technology to confirm Tiangong-1’s re-entry.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tweeted that it appeared to have come down north-west of Tahiti.

Experts had struggled to predict exactly where the lab would make its re-entry – and China’s space agency wrongly suggested it would be off Sao Paulo, Brazil, shortly before the moment came.

The European Space Agency said in advance that Tiangong-1 would probably break up over water, which covers much of the Earth’s surface.

It stressed that the chances of anyone being hit by debris from the module were “10 million times smaller than the yearly chance of being hit by lightning”.

It’s not clear how much of the debris reached the Earth’s surface intact.

Why did the space lab fall like this?

Ideally, the 10m (32ft)-long Tiangong module would have been taken out of orbit in a planned manner.

Traditionally, thrusters are fired on large vehicles to drive them towards a remote zone over the Southern Ocean. This option appears not to have been available after the loss of command links.

Thirteen space agencies, under the leadership of the European Space Agency, used radar and optical observations to follow Tiangong’s path around the globe.

–

Source: BBC

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The tariffs affecting some $3bn (£2.1bn) of imports kick in on Monday.

Beijing said the move was to “safeguard China’s interests and balance” losses caused by new US tariffs.

China had previously said it did not want a trade war but would not sit by if its economy was hurt.

Mr Trump, however, has insisted that “trade wars are good”, and that it should be “easy” for the US to win one.

The American authorities have already announced plans for further targeted tariffs for tens of billions of dollars of Chinese imports, the BBC’s Chris Buckler reports from Washington.

They say that is in response to unfair trading practices in China that affect US companies but it raises the possibility of yet more action being taken in what has become a tit-for-tat trade battle, our correspondent adds.

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Source: BBC

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The ex-vice president took over on Sunday from Ian Khama, who stepped down after his term limit – 10 years – was reached. Elections are scheduled for next year.

In his first address to the nation, Masisi vowed to focus on tackling unemployment, which stands at about 20 percent.

“Botswana faces a myriad of challenges, such as unemployment, poverty, crime, HIV/AIDs, alcohol and drug abuse, amongst others,” he said.

“Therefore, my top priorities as a president of this country will be to address the problem of unemployment, especially among the young people who constitute to the majority of our population.”

Donald Rasikela, one of those unemployed listening to that speech, told Al Jazeera that he hoped the president would live up to his word.

“My expectation is that he will improve government efficiency in order to create job opportunities for the youth,” he said.

“I hope he will improve social services to deal with employment.”

Some opposition members of parliament skipped the event, partly because of a rare corruption scandal that involves the national petroleum fund.

Those who did attend say they need to keep the president and his government honest.

“We are going to continue playing our oversight role, continue to seek more clarity from the president in terms of the way forward … how he intends to deal with unemployment because this country has been experiencing what we call jobless growth,” Phenyo Butale, an opposition politician, told Al Jazeera.

Vote next year

Masisi has 18 months to assert his authority within the ruling Democratic party before national elections in October 2019.

Botswana gets to choose its members of parliament and then the party with the majority of votes in turn elects a president. Masisi hopes to be that man.

“Many people are saying that they don’t think that the new president is going to move very far from former president Ian Khama’s socialist policies,” said Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Botswana’s capital, Gaborone.

“Khama was concerned with poverty eradication particularly in rural areas. So people expect that President Masisi will keep in line with that but they also hope he’ll have his own ideas and vision.”

His first test will be this week when he names his vice president and cabinet.

Botswana has enjoyed strong economic growth and a stable multi-party system since gaining independence from the United Kingdom just over 50 years ago.

It is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds, but Masisi believes the country is too reliant on the gem and wants to diversify trade.

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Source: Aljazeera

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The 500t Marine 711 with about 40 Ghanaian and three South Korean sailors was boarded by the Nigerian pirates on 26 March.

The pirates seized the three South Koreans and escaped on a separate speedboat, with their current whereabouts unknown.

The Marine 711, registered in Ghana, later arrived at a port at Ghana where the Ghanaian sailors disembarked, according to the South’s Yonhap news agency.

South Korea’s military said the pirates had been identified as Nigerians, Yonhap reported.

According to the news agency, Munmu the Great, a South Korean warship that had been involved in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, had been sent to the nearby sea.

It’s expected to arrive at the destination near West Africa around April 16, carrying some 30 SEAL members.

The destroyer also carries Lynx multi-role choppers armed with 12.7-mm machine guns.

‘We are closely coordinating with local countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Togo and Benin as well as the US and the EU to locate our nationals and secure their release,’ the foreign ministry said.

The pirates have not yet demanded a ransom in return for the release of the abducted sailors.

In 2011, the Unit successfully carried out a gunfight operation to rescue the South Korean crew of a cargo vessel hijacked by Somali pirates.

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Source: AFP

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China’s space agency said the station will re-enter the atmosphere in the next 24 hours – in line with European Space Agency (ESA) predictions.

The Tiangong-1 was part of China’s ambitious space programme, and the prototype for a manned station in 2022.

It entered orbit in 2011 and five years later ended its mission, after which it was expected to fall back to Earth.

The latest projection from the Esa points to re-entry at 07:25 Beijing time (00:25 GMT) on 2 April, although the window is still “highly variable” – stretching from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning.

Most of the station is likely to burn up in the atmosphere but some debris could survive to hit the surface of the Earth.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office said on social media that falling spacecraft do “not crash into the Earth fiercely like in sci-fi movies, but turn into a splendid (meteor shower)”.

Where will it crash?
China confirmed in 2016 that it had lost contact with Tiangong-1 and could no longer control its behaviour, so we don’t really know where it will end up.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said re-entry “will take place anywhere between 43ºN and 43ºS”, which covers a vast stretch north and south of the equator.

Esa says this means the station could fall anywhere from New Zealand to the midwestern US.

The station is gradually coming close to Earth.

Its rate of descent “will continually get faster as the atmosphere that the station is ploughing through gets thicker,” Dr Elias Aboutanios, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research, told the BBC.

“The station will eventually start to heat up as it gets close to 100km [from Earth],” he says.

This will lead to most of the station burning up and “it is difficult to know exactly what will survive since the makeup of the station has not been disclosed by China”.

The station could reach speeds of up to 26,000km/h (16,156mph).

Should I be worried?
No. Most of the 8.5-tonne station will disintegrate as it passes through the atmosphere.

Some very dense parts such as the fuel tanks or rocket engines might not burn up completely. However, even if parts do survive to the Earth’s surface, the chances of them hitting a person are incredibly slim.

“Our experience is that for such large objects typically between 20% and 40% of the original mass will survive re-entry and then could be found on the ground, theoretically,” the head of Esa’s space debris office, Holger Krag, told reporters at a recent briefing.

“However, to be injured by one of these fragments is extremely unlikely. My estimate is that the probability of being injured by one of these fragments is similar to the probability of being hit by lightning twice in the same year.”

Does all space debris fall to Earth?
While debris regularly comes back down, most of it “burns up or ends up in the middle of the ocean and away from people,” says Mr Aboutanios.

Usually there is still communication with the craft or satellite. That means ground control can still influence its course and steer it to a desired crash site.

The debris is steered to crash near what’s called the oceanic pole of inaccessibility – the furthest place from land. It’s a spot in the South Pacific, between Australia, New Zealand and South America.

Over an area of approximately 1,500 sq km (580 sq miles) this region is a graveyard of spacecraft and satellites, where the remains of around 260 are thought to be scattered on the ocean floor.

What is Tiangong-1?
China was a late starter when it comes to space exploration.

In 2001, China launched space vessels carrying test animals and in 2003 sent its first astronaut into orbit, making it the third country to do so, after the Soviet Union and the US.

The programme for a space station kicked off in earnest with the 2011 launch of Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace”.

The small prototype station was able to host astronauts but only for short periods of several days. China’s first female astronaut Liu Yang visited in 2012.

It ended its service in March 2016, two years later than scheduled.

Currently, Tiangong-2 is in operation and by 2022, Beijing plans to have number 3 in orbit as a fully operational manned outpost in space.

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Source: BBC

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Aman Tuleyev said stepping aside from governing Kemerovo was “the right, conscious and only true decision” following the disaster.

He announced the move in a video address posted on the regional administration’s website.

Last month’s fire killed more than 60 people, most of them children.

Thousands of people protested in the aftermath of the tragedy over alleged safety failings at the Winter Cherry mall.

Investigators say the fire alarm was broken and exits were blocked – and that security guards, who were supposed to help with any emergency evacuation, were among the first to flee when the fire broke out.

Many children became victims because they were using entertainment facilities at the top of the mall, including a cinema whose doors are said to have been locked.

Investigators are looking at whether the fire could have been started by an electrical short-circuit or arson in the children’s play area.

President Vladimir Putin – who visited Kemerovo in the wake of the fire – blamed “criminal negligence” for the blaze.

Mr Tuleyev – whose niece was reportedly killed in the fire – had been governor of the coal-mining region since 1997, AFP news agency reports.

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