PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Police investigating a suicide bombing that killed more than 100 people at a Pakistan mosque said on Tuesday that several people had been arrested, and they could not rule out the possibility that the bomber had internal assistance evading security checks.
The bombing was the most deadly in a decade to hit Peshawar, a restive northwestern city near the Afghan border, and all but three of those killed were police, making it most suffered by Pakistan’s security forces in a single attack in recent history.
The bomber struck on Monday as hundreds of worshippers gathered for noon prayers in a mosque that was purpose built for the police and their families living in a highly fortified area.
“We have found some excellent clues, and based on these clues we have made some major arrests,” Peshawar Police Chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters.
“We can’t rule out internal assistance but since the investigation is still in progress, I will not be able to share more details.”
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Investigators, who include counter-terrorism and intelligence officials, are focusing on how the attacker managed to breach the military and police checkpoints leading into the Police Lines district, a colonial-era, self-contained encampment in the city centre that is home to middle- and lower-ranking police personnel and their families.
[1/6] Rescue workers clear the rubble as they search for victims, after a suicide blast in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan January 31, 2023. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had said the bomber was in the first row in the prayer hall when he struck. Remains of the attacker had been recovered, provincial Police Chief Moazzam Jah Ansari told Reuters.
“We believe the attackers are not an organised group,” he added.
The most active militant group in the area, the Pakistani Taliban, also called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has denied responsibility for the attack, which no group has claimed so far. Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah had told parliament a breakaway faction of the TTP was to blame.
The blast demolished the upper storey of the mosque. It was is the deadliest in Peshawar since twin suicide bombings at All Saints Church killed scores of worshippers in September 2013, in what remains the deadliest attack on the country’s Christian minority.
Peshawar sits on the edge of the Pashtun tribal lands, a region mired in violence for the past two decades.
The TTP is an umbrella group for Sunni and sectarian Islamist factions opposed to the government in Islamabad. The group has recently stepped up attacks against police.
Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
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Trip postponed from July due to pope’s knee ailment
KINSHASA, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Pope Francis denounced the “poison of greed” driving conflicts in Africa as he began a visit to Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, saying the rich world had to realise that people were more precious than the minerals in the earth beneath them.
Many tens of thousands of people cheered as he travelled from the airport into the capital Kinshasa in his popemobile, with some breaking away to chase it while others chanted and waved flags.
But the joyous mood, one of the most vibrant welcomes of his foreign trips, turned sombre when the 86-year-old pope spoke to dignitaries at the presidential palace. He condemned “terrible forms of exploitation, unworthy of humanity” in Congo, where vast mineral wealth has fuelled war, displacement and hunger.
“Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hands off Africa. Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” Francis said.
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Congo has some of the world’s richest deposits of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum and lithium, but those have stoked conflict between militias, government troops and foreign invaders. Mining has also been linked to inhumane exploitation of workers, including children, and environmental degradation.
“It is a tragedy that these lands, and more generally the whole African continent, continue to endure various forms of exploitation,” the pope said, reading his speech in Italian while seated. People listening to a French translation applauded repeatedly.
“The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,” he said, referring to Congo specifically.
Compounding the country’s problems, eastern Congo has been plagued by violence connected to the long and complex fallout from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.
Congo accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebel group fighting government troops in the east. Rwanda denies this.
“As well as armed militias, foreign powers hungry for the minerals in our soil commit, with the direct and cowardly support of our neighbour Rwanda, cruel atrocities,” Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said, speaking just before the pope on the same stage on a hot, muggy afternoon.
The pope did not name Rwanda in his address or take sides in the dispute.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo rebuffed Tshisekedi’s comments. “It’s obvious that this ridiculous obsession with scapegoating Rwanda is President Tshisekedi’s electoral strategy – a distraction from the poor performance of his government, and failure to deliver to their citizens,” she told Reuters.
[1/9] Pope Francis sits next to Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi as he attends the welcoming ceremony at the Palais de la Nation on the first day of his apostolic journey, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, January 31, 2023. Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
‘DEVOURED BY VIOLENCE’
An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced in Congo and 26 million face severe hunger, largely because of the impact of armed conflict, according to the United Nations.
About half of Congo’s population of 90 million are Roman Catholics and the Church plays a crucial role in running schools and health facilities in the sprawling central African country, as well as promoting democracy.
The pope criticised rich countries for ignoring the tragedies unfolding in Congo and elsewhere in Africa.
“One has the impression that the international community has practically resigned itself to the violence devouring it (Congo). We cannot grow accustomed to the bloodshed that has marked this country for decades, causing millions of deaths,” he said.
Tshisekedi made a similar point: “While the international community has remained passive and silent, more than 10 million people have been horribly killed.”
First scheduled for last July, the pope’s trip was postponed because of a flare-up of a chronic knee ailment. Francis had originally planned to travel to Goma, in eastern Congo, but that stop was scrapped because of a resurgence in fighting between M23 rebels and government troops.
In an apparent reference to the M23 and other militias active in Congo’s eastern regions, the pope said the Congolese people were fighting to preserve their territorial integrity “against deplorable attempts to fragment the country”.
On Wednesday, Francis will celebrate Mass at a Kinshasa airport that is expected to draw more than a million people. He also will meet victims of violence from the east.
Francis will stay in Kinshasa until Friday morning, when he will fly to South Sudan, another African country grappling with conflict and poverty.
In a first, he will be accompanied for that leg of his journey by the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the global Anglican Communion, and by the Church of Scotland Moderator. The religious leaders have described their joint visit as a “pilgrimage of peace” to the world’s youngest nation.
South Sudan gained independence in 2011 from predominantly Muslim Sudan after decades of conflict. Two years later inter-ethnic conflict spiralled into a civil war that killed 400,000 people. A 2018 deal stopped the worst of the fighting.
Additional reporting by Justin Makangara, Benoit Nyemba, Sonia Rolley and Stanis Bujakera, and Philbert Girinema in Kigali; Writing by Estelle Shirbon and Philip Pullella; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Barbara Lewis and Mark Heinrich
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Schools, transport networks, refinery deliveries hit
Macron: Reform vital to ensure viability of pension system
SAINT-NAZAIRE, France, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Striking workers disrupted French refinery deliveries, public transport and schools on Tuesday in a second day of nationwide protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make people work longer before retirement.
Crowds marched through cities across France to denounce a reform that raises the retirement age by two years to 64 and which is a test of Macron’s ability to push through change now that he has lost his working majority in parliament.
On the rail networks, only one in every three high-speed TGV trains were operating and even fewer local and regional trains. Services on the Paris metro were thrown into disarray.
Buoyed by their success earlier in the month when more than a million people took to the streets, trade unions which have been battling to maintain their power and influence urged the public to turnout en masse.
“We won’t drive until we’re 64!” bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast, adding that many careers involved tough working conditions.
Others felt resigned ahead of likely bargaining between Macron’s ruling alliance and conservative opponents who are more open to pension reform than the left.
“There’s no point in going on strike. This bill will be adopted in any case,” said 34-year-old Matthieu Jacquot, who works in the luxury sector.
Unions said half of primary school teachers had walked off the job. TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) said 55% of its workers on morning shifts at its refineries had downed tools, a lower number than on Jan. 19. The hard-left CGT union said the figure was inaccurate.
For unions, the challenge will be maintaining a strike movement at a time when high inflation is eroding salaries.
At a local level, some announced “Robin Hood” operations unauthorised by the government. In the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne area, the local CGT trade union branch cut power to several speed cameras and disabled smart power meters.
“When there is such a massive opposition, it would be dangerous for the government not to listen,” said Mylene Jacquot, secretary general of the CFDT union’s civil servants branch.
[1/16] Protesters attend a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose the reform, but Macron intends to stand his ground. The reform was “vital” to ensure the viability of the pension system, he said on Monday.
A street march in Paris takes place later in the day.
‘BRUTAL’
The pension system reform would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.18 billion) in annual pension contributions, according to Labour Ministry estimates.
Unions say there are other ways to raise revenue, such as taxing the super rich or asking employers or well-off pensioners to contribute more.
“This reform is unfair and brutal,” said Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants’ UNSA union. “Moving (the pension age) to 64 is going backwards, socially.”
French power supply was down by 4.5% or 3 gigawatts (GW), as workers at nuclear reactors and thermal plants joined the strike, data from utility group EDF (EDF.PA) showed.
TotalEnergies said deliveries of petroleum products from its French sites had been halted because of the strike, but that customers’ needs were met.
The government made some concessions while drafting the legislation. Macron had originally wanted the retirement age to be set at 65, while the government is also promising a minimum pension of 1,200 euros a month.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said the 64 threshold is “non-negotiable”, but the government is exploring ways to offset some of the impact, particularly on women.
Hard-left opposition figure Jean-Luc Melenchon, a vocal critic of the reform, said parliament would on Monday debate a motion calling for a referendum on the matter.
“The French are not stupid,” he said at a march in Marseille. “If this reform is vital, it should be possible to convince the people.”
Reporting by Forrest Crellin, Benjamin Mallet, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Leigh Thomas, Blandine Henault, Michel Rose, Dominique Vidalon, Benoit Van Overstraeten; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough; Editing by Janet Lawrence
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WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a six-month tourist visa to remain in the United States, his lawyer said on Monday, despite calls for any U.S. visas held by Bolsonaro to be revoked following violent protests in Brasilia.
The United States received his application on Friday, his lawyer, Felipe Alexandre, said, adding that Bolsonaro will remain in the United States while his application is pending.
“He would like to take some time off, clear his head, and enjoy being a tourist in the United States for a few months before deciding what his next step will be,” Alexandre said in an email response to Reuters.
“Whether or not he will use the full six months will be up to him and whatever strategy we agree to embark on based on his plans as they develop,” Alexandre added.
The Financial Times first reported that Bolsonaro had requested a tourist visa.
A State Department spokesperson said visa records are confidential under U.S. law, adding that the department cannot discuss details of individual visa cases.
[1/2] Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looks on after a ceremony about the National Policy for Education at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil June 20, 2022. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Far-right Bolsonaro flew to Florida two days before his term ended on Jan. 1 and leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office, before the former president’s supporters stormed the country’s capital.
Supporters of Bolsonaro ransacked Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace, calling for a military coup to overturn the October election that Lula won.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has agreed to open an investigation into Bolsonaro for allegedly encouraging anti-democratic protests that ended in the storming of government buildings by his supporters in Brasilia.
Earlier this month, 41 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday to cooperate with Brazil’s investigation into violent protests in Brasilia and revoke any U.S. visas held by Bolsonaro.
The State Department has said repeatedly its policy is not to discuss specific visa cases.
The State Department has said it was incumbent on an individual who entered the United States on a so-called “A” visa reserved for diplomats and heads of state to depart the country within 30 days or apply for a change of immigration status if they are no longer engaged in official business. Bolsonaro is believed to have entered on such a visa.
Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Aurora Ellis
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Bomber breached highly fortified Red Zone compound
Up to 400 worshippers in prayer when bomber blew up
Majority of the dead were police officials
No immediate claim of responsibility for attack
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 30 (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a crowded mosque in a highly fortified security compound in Pakistan on Monday, killing 47 people, the latest attack by resurgent Islamist militants targeting police in the unstable country.
Police said the attacker appeared to have passed through several barricades manned by security forces to get into the “Red Zone” compound that houses police and counter-terrorism offices in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar.
“It was a suicide bombing,” Peshawar Police Chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters. At least 47 people were killed and 176 wounded, he said, many of them critically.
It came a day before an International Monetary Fund team mission to Islamabad to initiate talks on unlocking funding for the South Asian economy hit by a balance of payment crisis.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack.
Officials said the bomber detonated his load at the moment hundreds of people lined up to say their prayers.
“We have found traces of explosives,” Khan told reporters, adding that a security lapse had clearly occurred as the bomber had slipped through the most secured area of the compound.
An inquiry was under way into how the attacker breached such an elite security cordon and whether there was any inside help.
Khan said the mosque hall was packed with up to 400 worshippers, and that most of the dead were police officers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the worst in Peshawar since March 2022 when an Islamic State suicide bombing killed at least 58 people in a Shi’ite Muslim mosque during Friday prayers.
`ALLAH IS THE GREATEST`
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo TV that the bomber was standing in the first row of worshippers.
“As the prayer leader said ‘Allah is the greatest’, there was a big bang,” Mushtaq Khan, a policeman with a head wound, told reporters from his hospital bed.
“We couldn’t figure out what happened as the bang was deafening. It threw me out of the veranda. The walls and roof fell on me. Thanks to God, he saved me.”
The explosion brought down the upper storey of the mosque, trapping dozens of worshippers in the rubble. Live TV footage showed rescuers cutting through the collapsed rooftop to make their way down and tend to victims caught in the wreckage.
“We can’t say how many are still under it,” said provincial governor Haji Ghulam Ali.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable,” Sharif said. “This is no less than an attack on Pakistan. The nation is overwhelmed by a deep sense of grief. I have no doubt terrorism is our foremost national security challenge.”
Witnesses described chaotic scenes as the police and the rescuers scrambled to rush the wounded to hospitals.
Sharif, who appealed to employees of his party to donate blood at the hospitals, said anyone targeting Muslims during prayer had nothing to do with Islam.
“The U.S. mission in Pakistan expressed deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the horrific attack,” Washington’s embassy said a statement.
Peshawar, which straddles the edge of Pakistan’s tribal districts bordering Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, is frequently targeted by Islamist militant groups including Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban.
Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Asif Shahzad; Editing by Miral Fahmy, Simon Cameron-Moore, Bernadette Baum and Mark Heinrich
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WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – A top Republican in the U.S. Congress on Sunday said the odds of conflict with China over Taiwan “are very high,” after a U.S. general caused consternation with a memo that warned that the United States would fight China in the next two years.
In a memo dated Feb. 1 but released on Friday, General Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 members, saying, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
“I hope he is wrong. … I think he is right though,” Mike McCaul, the new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, told Fox News Sunday.
The general’s views do not represent the Pentagon but show concern at the highest levels of the U.S. military over a possible attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan, which China claims as a wayward province.
Both the United States and Taiwan will hold presidential elections in 2024, potentially creating an opportunity for China to take military action, Minihan wrote.
McCaul said that if China failed to take control of Taiwan bloodlessly then “they are going to look at a military invasion in my judgment. We have to be prepared for this.”
He accused the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden of projecting weakness after the bungled pullout from Afghanistan that could make war with China more likely.
“The odds are very high that we could see a conflict with China and Taiwan and the Indo Pacific,” McCaul said.
The White House declined to comment on McCaul’s remarks.
DEMOCRAT DISAGREES
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he disagreed with Minihan’s assessment.
Smith told Fox News Sunday that war with China is “not only not inevitable, it is highly unlikely. We have a very dangerous situation in China. But I think generals need to be very cautious about saying we’re going to war, it’s inevitable.”
Smith said the United States needs to be in a position to deter China from military action against Taiwan, “but I’m fully confident we can avoid that conflict if we take the right approach.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this month said he seriously doubted that ramped-up Chinese military activities near the Taiwan Strait were a sign of an imminent invasion of the island by Beijing.
A Pentagon official on Saturday said the general’s comments were “not representative of the department’s view on China.”
Reporting By Ross Colvin; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Mark Porter
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MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan 28 (Reuters) – The specialized police unit that included the five Memphis officers charged with the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols was disbanded on Saturday as more protests took place in U.S. cities a day after harrowing video of the attack was released.
The police department said in a statement it was permanently deactivating the SCORPION unit after the police chief spoke with members of Nichols’ family, community leaders and other officers. A police spokesperson confirmed all five officers were members of the unit.
Video recordings from police body-worn cameras and a camera mounted on a utility pole showed Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, repeatedly screaming “Mom!” as officers kicked, punched and struck him with a baton in his mother’s neighborhood after a Jan. 7 traffic stop. He was hospitalized and died of his injuries three days later.
Five officers involved in the beating, all Black, were charged on Thursday with murder, assault, kidnapping and other charges. All have been dismissed from the department.
Nichols’ family and officials expressed outrage and sorrow but urged protesters to remain peaceful. That request was largely heeded on Friday when scattered protests broke out in Memphis – where marchers briefly blocked an interstate highway – and elsewhere.
Cities across the United States saw renewed nonviolent demonstrations on Saturday. In Memphis, protesters chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” angrily catcalled a police car that was monitoring the march, with several making obscene gestures. Some cheered loudly when they learned of the disbandment of SCORPION.
[1/12] People protest next to a police car after the release of the body cam footage showing police officers beating Tyre Nichols, the young Black man who died three days after he was pulled over while driving during a traffic stop by Memphis police officers, in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., January 28, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis
Hundreds of protesters gathered in New York’s Washington Square Park before marching through Manhattan, as columns of police officers walked alongside them.
Taken together, the four video clips released Friday showed police pummeling Nichols even though he appeared to pose no threat. The initial traffic stop was for reckless driving, though the police chief has said the cause for the stop has not been substantiated.
The SCORPION unit, short for the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods, was formed in October 2021 to concentrate on crime hot spots. Critics say such specialized teams can be prone to abusive tactics.
Friends and family say Nichols was an affable, talented skateboarder who grew up in Sacramento, California, and moved to Memphis before the coronavirus pandemic. The father of a 4-year-old child, Nichols worked at FedEx and had recently enrolled in a photography class.
Nate Spates Jr., 42, was part of a circle of friends, including Nichols, who met up at a Starbucks in the area.
“He liked what he liked, and he marched to the beat of his own drum,” Spates said, remembering that Nichols would go to a park called Shelby Farms to watch the sunset when he wasn’t working a late shift.
Nichols’ death is the latest high-profile instance of police using excessive force against Black people and other minorities. The 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, galvanized worldwide protests over racial injustice.
Reporting by Maria Cardona in Memphis, Tennessee, and Diane Bartz in Washington; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Robert Birsel
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Diane Bartz
Thomson Reuters
Focused on U.S. antitrust as well as corporate regulation and legislation, with experience involving covering war in Bosnia, elections in Mexico and Nicaragua, as well as stories from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Nigeria and Peru.
Rockets from Gaza set off alarm in Israeli communities
Cross-border fire followed Israeli raid in West Bank
Israeli raid killed at least nine Palestinians
Violence has surged in West Bank in past year
JERUSALEM/GAZA, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Israeli jets struck Gaza overnight on Friday in retaliation for two rockets fired by Palestinian militants, further escalating tensions after one of the worst days of violence in the occupied West Bank in years.
The rockets fired from Gaza overnight set off alarms in Israeli communities near the border with the southern coastal strip controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas but there were no reports of casualties.
The cross-border fire came after an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians, including militant gunmen and at least two civilians, the highest single-day death toll in years.
Another man died in a separate incident in al-Ramm outside Jerusalem, bringing the Palestinian death toll so far in 2023 to at least 30.
The raid, the latest in a near-daily series of clashes in the West Bank over the past year, came days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to visit Israel and the West Bank.
Palestinian officials said CIA director William Burns, who was visiting Israel and the West Bank on a trip arranged before the latest violence, would meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday. No comment was immediately available from U.S. officials in Jerusalem.
The months of violence, which surged after a spate of lethal attacks in Israel last year, have drawn fears the already unpredictable conflict could spiral out of control, triggering a broader confrontation between Palestinians and Israel.
[1/2] Smoke and flames rise during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, January 27, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
The U.S. State Department issued a statement on Thursday saying it was “deeply concerned” with the violence in the West Bank and urged both sides to de-escalate the conflict.
The United Nations, Egypt and Qatar have also urged calm, Palestinian officials said.
In Gaza, large rallies were planned for the afternoon following Friday prayers as residents inured to years of exchanges of rockets and airstrikes between Israel and Hamas feared further clashes.
“We didn’t sleep the whole night, bombing and missiles,” said 50 year-old Abdallah Al-Husary. “There is worry and there is fear, any minute a war can happen. With any clash in the West Bank, there can be war along the borders in Gaza.”
In the aftermath of Thursday’s raid, the Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing powers in the West Bank, said it was suspending a security cooperation arrangement with Israel that is widely credited with helping to keep order in the territory and preventing attacks against Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to power this year at the head of one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history, said Israel was not looking to escalate the situation, although he ordered security forces to be on alert.
The Israeli Defence Force said Friday’s air strikes in Gaza targeted an underground rocket manufacturing site and a military base used by Hamas.
Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Edmund Blair
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Nidal Al-Mughrabi
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A senior correspondent with nearly 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including several wars and the signing of the first historic peace accord between the two sides.
SYDNEY, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Thousands of Australians marked the country’s national day celebrations on Thursday with rallies in support of Indigenous people, many of whom describe the anniversary of the day a British fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour as “Invasion Day”.
In Sydney, the capital of New South Wales – Australia’s most populous state – social media showed a large crowd gathered at an “Invasion Day” rally in the central business district, where some people carried Aboriginal flags and an Indigenous smoking ceremony took place.
Similar protests took place in other Australian state capitals, including in South Australia’s Adelaide where around 2,000 people attended, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Speaking at a flag-raising and citizenship ceremony in Australia’s capital, Canberra, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese honoured the nation’s Indigenous people, who have occupied the land for at least 65,000 years.
“Let us all recognise the unique privilege that we have to share this continent with the world’s oldest continuous culture,” Albanese said.
While it was a “difficult day” for Indigenous Australians, there were no plans to change the holiday’s date, he said.
An annual poll by market research company Roy Morgan released this week showed nearly two-thirds of Australians say Jan. 26 should be considered “Australia Day”, largely unchanged from a year ago. The rest believe it should be “Invasion Day”.
Amid the debate, some companies have adopted flexibility around observance of the holiday. Australia’s largest telecoms company, Telstra Corp Ltd (TLS.AX), this year gave its staff the option to work on Jan. 26 and take another day off instead.
[1/8] People participate in the ‘Invasion Day’ rally in Melbourne, January 26, 2023. AAP Image/Diego Fedele via REUTERS
“For many First Nations peoples, Australia Day … marks a turning point that saw lives lost, culture devalued, and connections between people and places destroyed,” Telstra chief executive officer Vicki Brady wrote on LinkedIn.
Many of Australia’s 880,000 or so Indigenous people out of a population of 25 million lag behind others on economic and social indicators in what the government calls “entrenched inequality”.
This year’s holiday comes as Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party government plans a referendum on recognising Indigenous people in the constitution, and requiring consultation with them on decisions that affect their lives.
The government plans to introduce legislation in March to set up the referendum that will take place later this year, as the Indigenous voice shapes as a key federal political issue.
The constitution, which came into effect in January 1901 and can’t be amended without a referendum, does not refer to the country’s Indigenous people.
One of the people at Sydney’s protest, Abi George, said it was not a happy day for all Australians, especially Indigenous people.
“Nobody’s got the right to celebrate genocide,” she said.
Another protester, Vivian Macjohn, said the rally against the national day was a show of support for Indigenous people.
“I think it’s important that we show up and we mourn with them and stand in solidarity,” she said.
Reporting by Sam McKeith and Cordelia Hsu; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Wednesday it will reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.
The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.
His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has yet to post there.
Free speech advocates say it is appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderating policies.
Meta said in a blog post Wednesday it has “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” wrote Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, in the blog post.
The decision, while widely expected, drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”
The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
Others said it was the right decision.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former ACLU official, defended the reinstatement. He had previously endorsed the company’s decision to suspend Trump’s account.
“The public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office,” said Jaffer. “It’s better if the major social media platforms err on the side of leaving speech up, even if the speech is offensive or false, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions.”
OTHER REACTIVATIONS?
The decision to ban Trump was a polarizing one for Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which prior to the Trump suspension had never blocked the account of a sitting head of state for violating its content rules.
The company indefinitely revoked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after removing two of his posts during the Capitol Hill violence, including a video in which he reiterated his false claim of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
It then referred the case to its independent oversight board, which ruled that the suspension was justified but its indeterminate nature was not. In response, Meta said it would revisit the suspension two years after it began.
Meta’s blog post Wednesday suggested it may reactivate other suspended accounts, including those penalized for their involvement in civil unrest. The company said those reinstated accounts would be subject to more stringent review and penalties for violations.
Whether, and how, Trump will seize upon the opportunity to return to Facebook and Instagram is unclear.
Trump has not sent any new tweets since regaining his account on Twitter, saying he would prefer to stick with his own app Truth Social. But his campaign spokesman told Fox News Digital last week that being back on Facebook “will be an important tool for the 2024 campaign to reach voters.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded to his reinstatement on Meta apps, saying: “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” He did not indicate if or when he would begin posting on Meta platforms again.
Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.
“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”
Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reporting by Greg Bensinger, David Shepardson, Kanishka Singh, Eva Mathews and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Kenneth Li and Rosalba O’Brien
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