Turkey-Syria earthquake: Assad agrees to expand UN aid access

Published

2 years ago

February 14, 2023

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Two new border crossings have been opened between Turkey and Syria to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid following last week’s devastating earthquake, the United Nations (UN) has said.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has agreed to allow UN deliveries to opposition-held northwest Syria through the crossings for three months, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced.

The crossings, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, will be opened alongside the Bab al-Hawa border crossing which the UN has been using since 2014 to deliver aid to millions of people.

“Opening these crossing points – along with facilitating humanitarian access, accelerating visa approvals and easing travel between hubs – will allow more aid to go in, faster,” Mr Guterres said.

The move comes a week after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, killing more than 37,000 people and destroying homes and infrastructure.

Turkey earthquake – latest: Search efforts in Syria ‘about to end’

While humanitarian help has flooded to the region as a whole, the rebel-held northwest of Syria has received comparatively little aid. The first UN convoy only reached the area on Thursday.

There has been criticism of the amount of aid reaching the country – the worst-affected area is largely controlled by an Islamist group that is wary of shipments from government-held areas.

President Assad’s government – which has long opposed aid deliveries to the areas through its border with Turkey, describing it as a violation of its sovereignty – has blamed difficulties in rescue efforts on the impact of Western sanctions imposed on the country.

But opposition leaders have criticised the president and urged him to focus on getting help to the region.

Idlib, one of the last pockets of Syria holding out against President Assad’s regime, is held by an armed group called Hayat Tahir al Sham (HTS), headed by Abu Mohammed al Jolani.

He was once a member of al Qaeda before falling out with the group and forming his own, fighting not only al Qaeda remnants but Islamic State cells and the Assad regime as well.

He’s still on a terrorist most-wanted list drawn up by a number of nations including the US.

He told Sky News, “the children being found under this rubble are not terrorists”, and called on the world to set aside politics and send help to the region.

Amid the criticism, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths met with the Syrian president in the capital Damascus on Monday.

Mr Griffiths had signalled at the weekend that he would seek Security Council authorisation for expanded access from Turkey if the Syrian government did not agree to it.

He also told Sky’s Kay Burley that extra border crossings from Turkey to Syria must be opened urgently “to save lives”, calling it “an open and shut case on humanitarian terms”.

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Syria’s UN Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh confirmed Syria would support the delivery of humanitarian aid through all possible points from inside Syria or across the border for three months.

He told reporters a council resolution was not needed because it was an agreement between Syria and the United Nations.

On Monday, the World Health Organisation said the earthquake had “overwhelmed everyone”.

Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s executive director, said it was “misleading” to compare the impact in both countries, with so much relying on the “extent of the earthquake” and “population density”.

“There’s no question, certainly on the side of Turkey, there’s a matter of experience in terms of search and rescue, in terms of disaster response,” he said.

“They have had their fair share of disasters in the past – but I think what’s clear is that this disaster has overwhelmed everyone.”

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

Published

11 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.

A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.

They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.

Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.

The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.

The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.

All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.

Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.

World

COP29: UN climate summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, warn leading figures

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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COP29: UN climate summits 'no longer fit for purpose', warn leading figures

UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and should only be hosted by countries who are trying to give up fossil fuels, veterans of the process have said.

An open letter to the United Nations, signed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, made a dramatic intervention in the 29th COP climate summit, under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Frustration over petrostate hosts – following last year’s summit in UAE – as well as the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, prohibitive costs, and slow progress have been mounting in recent years.

The letter acknowledges the strides COPs have made on ramping up climate policies.

“But it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said.

“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”

The letter’s 22 signatories also include former Ireland President Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate body (UNFCCC) that runs the annual COP summits.

It called for the process to be streamlined and for countries to be held accountable for their promises.

Sky News analysis has found only “marginal” progress has been made since the “historic” pledge from COP28 last year to transition away from fossil fuels.

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The letter also called for “strict eligibility criteria” for host countries to exclude those “who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.

This year’s host country, petrostate Azerbaijan, has been engulfed in controversy.

Its authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev used his opening address to criticise western hypocrisy and praise oil and gas as a “gift” from God. His criticism of France, with whom relations have long been tense, drove the French minister to cancel a trip to the summit.

While the government and its COP team run separate operations, host countries are supposed to smooth over disagreements and find consensus between the almost 200 countries gathered.

COP presidencies are also nominating themselves to be climate leaders and throwing their own countries under the spotlight.

Azerbaijan is a small developing country that relies significantly on oil and gas revenues. But it has made slow progress on building out clean power – getting just 1.5% of its energy from clean sources – and led a harsh crackdown on critics in the run up to the COP.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, its lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev was unable to say whether Azerbaijan preferred to extract all its oil and gas or seek another, cleaner economic pathway – hard though that would be.

In a news conference yesterday, Mr Rafiyev said the president had been “quite clear” and he would not comment further.

“We have opened our doors to everybody,” he added.

Some diplomats here have hinted that Azerbaijan’s presidency team mean well but might be a little out of their depth. They have never been out in front at previous COPs, but they also only had a year to prepare for their turn hosting the mighty summit.

“My sense of this is that they’re a little underprepared, a little overwhelmed and a little bit short,” said one, speaking anonymously, as is customary for diplomats trying to maintain good relations.

“But I’m not sure that that’s politics. It might just be bandwidth and preparation and things like that.”

Different regions in the world take turns to host a COP. This year it was up to Eastern Europe, but the selection process took longer than usual due to tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and between Azerbaijan and rival Armenia.

Achim Steiner of the UN Development Programme, called it “troubling” that some countries face questions over their host roles.

“Are there countries that are by definition good hosts and others are bad hosts?” he asked.

“In the United Nations, we maintain the principle of every nation, first of all, should have a right to be heard.

“Labels are not always the fairest way of describing a nation. Some of the largest oil producers have hosted this COP in the past, and seemingly this seemed to be a perfectly acceptable phenomenon.”

COP stands for “conference of the parties” and refers to countries (“parties”) who have signed the underlying climate treaty.

Azerbaijan’s COP29 team and the UN’s climate body have been contacted with a request to comment.

World

Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners

Published

18 hours ago

November 14, 2024

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Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to 'smoke out' thousands of illegal miners

A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.

The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.

Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.

It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.

The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.

Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.

A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.

It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.

Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.

In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.

Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.

Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.

The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.

Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.

Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.