Euro 2020: Belgium Into Quarter-Finals After Beating Holders Portugal

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June 27, 2021

Donald Trump has held his first campaign-style rally since leaving the White House, repeating his election grievances and baseless claims of fraud as he urged his supporters to help Republicans win back majorities in the United States Congress.

Saturday’s rally in Ohio – a state the former president carried in the 2020 election – marks a return to the kind of freewheeling mass gatherings that have been critical to retaining the support of his base.

It was held to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican Representative Anthony Gonzalez for his congressional seat. Gonzalez was one of 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in the wake of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has pledged to back those who challenge the 10 legislators in the upcoming Republican primaries.

The Democratic Party’s razor-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress will be on the line in the 2022 mid-term elections and history favours Republicans’ chances of gaining seats in those contests.

“We will take back the House, we will take back the Senate, and we will take back America, and we will do it soon,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds.

So far, nine of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment have drawn primary challengers.

The former president has offered to support anyone who steps forward to challenge the remaining candidate, Representative John Katko of New York.

Trump has also endorsed a challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, the only one of the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his January impeachment trial who is up for re-election in 2022.

One Of World’s Toughest Races Return To Kenya After 19 Years

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June 27, 2021

After a 19-year absence, Kenya is hosting this week the World Rally Championship (WRC), with thousands of fans attending the renowned Safari Rally, known to be one of the toughest races in the world.

Starting on Thursday, the rally will run until June 27.

“We are following the event, every aspect of it. We are here for it, because it’s an event we actually longed for,” a young spectator told Al Jazeera at the first stage held in the capital, Nairobi.

The Safari Rally was first held in 1953, an epic marathon of nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) on often unforgiving terrain.

While international standards developed, the Safari Rally remained unchanged, leading to the WRC parting ways with it decades later.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to bring the event back after taking office eight years ago. On Thursday, he officially flagged it off.

“Everything’s organised to international standards,” Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb reported from the event.

Speaking to Newsmen from the trackside, Kimathi Maingi, a former Safari Rally driver, said: “When we used to rally before, we didn’t need to wear the safety clothes. You could have your T-shirt; it was an option of whether to wear gloves or not.

“But now, they are supposed to wear the fireproof protection; they’re supposed to have a helmet. Everything is compulsory.”

In total, there are 18 stages of rough dirt roads through bush, forest and savannah.

By the end of Friday, Belgian Thierry Neuville of Hyundai was leading the way in the race.

Thierry Neuville (BEL/Hyundai) 1hr 23min 19.1sec
Takamoto Katsuta (JPN/Toyota) at 18.8sec
Ott Tanak (EST/Hyundai) 55.8
Sebastien Ogier (FRA/Toyota) 1:49.4
Gus Greensmith (GBR/M-Sport Ford) 1:56.1
Adrien Fourmaux (FRA/M-Sport Ford) 2:19.1

There will be six special timed stages on Saturday, with five more slated for Sunday.

Polish Bill On Jewish Property Causes Row With Israel

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June 27, 2021

Israel has summoned Poland’s ambassador to express its “deep disappointment” over a Polish bill that critics say will make it harder for Jews to recover property they lost in World War II, a move that triggered a reciprocal reaction from Warsaw.

Poland’s lower house of parliament on Thursday passed a draft bill introducing a statute of limitations on claims for the restitution of property, drawing a furious response from Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who labelled it a “disgrace”.

A statement from the Israeli foreign ministry on Sunday said the legislation could affect up to 90 percent of property restitution requests from Holocaust survivors and their descendants.

“This is not a historical debate about responsibility for the Holocaust but a moral debt of Poland to those who were its citizens and whose property was looted during the Holocaust and under the communist regime,” the statement said.

The Polish foreign ministry, in turn, summoned Israel’s charge d’affaires in Warsaw on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski said on Sunday.

Jablonski said Warsaw would like to set the record straight about the legislation.

Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon, the Israeli charge d’affaires, “has been summoned and we will explain to her in a decisive and factual way what it’s about”, the Polish diplomat told state television TVP.

“We believe that unfortunately what we’re dealing with here is a situation that certain Israeli politicians are exploiting for internal political purposes,” he added.

The Israeli embassy in Warsaw tweeted on Thursday that “this immoral law will seriously impact relations between our countries.”

Poland’s foreign ministry said on Friday the introduction of time limits would “lead to the elimination of fraud and irregularities, which occurred on a large scale”.

“The new regulations do not in any way restrict the possibility of bringing civil suits to seek damages, irrespective of the plaintiff’s nationality or origin,” it added.

Polls Show Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party Loses Key Battleground States

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Precious Obazee

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June 27, 2021

France’s far-right National Rally (RN) look to have failed in their bid to win their first ever region, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, which was a target for Marine Le Pen’s party.

Exit polls suggest their candidate, Thierry Mariani, took only 43% of the vote and lost to the centre-right Republicans.

The election which saw a record low turnout of less than 30%, also brought disappointment for President Emmanuel Macron.

His centrist party, La République En Marche (LREM), also failed to win control of any region after performing badly in the first round, which was held last week.

It is the first time President Macron’s party is taking part in regional elections, as it did not exist the last time they were held in 2015.

Other early results from the second round suggest wins for traditional centre-right parties, and for the left.

The Hauts-de-France region around Calais in the north had also been earmarked as a potential gain for Le Pen’s RN, but was won by conservative Xavier Bertrand.

Bertrand told his supporters after the polls closed that the far-right ” has been stopped in its tracks and we have pushed it back sharply.”

Meanwhile Le Pen has accused her rivals of forming “unnatural alliances” to block her and her party from power.

Report – Classified UK Defense Papers Found At Bus Stop

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June 27, 2021

Sensitive defense documents containing details about the British military have been found at a bus stop in England, according to a BBC report released Sunday.

The papers reportedly included plans for a possible U.K. military presence in Afghanistan, as well as discussion about the potential Russian reaction to the British warship HMS Defender’s travel through waters off the Crimean coast last week.

The broadcaster said a member of the public who wanted to remain unnamed contacted it when they found the pile of documents in a soggy heap Tuesday behind a bus stop in Kent, southeast of London.

The Ministry of Defense said an employee had reported the loss of the documents last week.

It said in a statement that the department takes the security of information extremely seriously and an investigation has been launched.

Retired Israeli S’Court chief to head inquiry on stampede

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June 27, 2021

A former president of Israel’s Supreme Court was on Sunday appointed to head its state commission of inquiry into a stampede at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April that killed 45 people, among them U.S. and Canadian citizens.

Retired Chief Justice Miriam Naor will be joined on the panel by Rabbi Mordechai Karelitz, a former mayor of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish city of Bnai Brak, and retired Israeli army general Shlomo Yanai, a courts spokesman said in a statement.

Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews thronged to the Galilee hillside tomb of 2nd-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on April 30 for the annual Lag B’Omer festival that includes all-night prayer.

During the ceremony, part of the crowd surged into a narrow tunnel and 45 men and boys were asphyxiated or trampled to death. Israeli media said at least six of the fatalities had U.S. citizenship and two had Canadian citizenship.

Ordering the inquiry last week, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it would help safeguard other mass-attendance events in Israel, which has sites sacred to Christianity and Islam as well as to Judaism.

Iran Refuses To Give Nuclear Site Images To IAEA|

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June 27, 2021

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The speaker of Iran’s parliament said on Sunday Tehran will never hand over images from inside of some Iranian nuclear sites to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

A spokesman, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said any of the information recorded will never be given to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the data and images will remain in the possession of Iran

The announcement could likely complicate talks between Iran and six major powers on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal.

Three years ago then U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran; Iran reacted by violating many of the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear programme.

According to the state-run Tehran Times, a spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee warned that “Iran will also turn off the IAEA cameras if the United States fails to remove all sanctions.

The IAEA and Tehran struck the three-month monitoring agreement in February to cushion the blow of Iran reducing its cooperation with the agency, and it allowed monitoring of some activities that would otherwise have been axed to continue.

Under that agreement, which on May 24 was extended by a month, data continues to be collected in a black-box-type arrangement, with the IAEA only able to access it at a later date.

On Friday, the IAEA demanded an immediate reply from Iran on whether it would extend the monitoring agreement, prompting an Iranian envoy to respond that Tehran was under no obligation to provide an answer.

Iran said on Wednesday the country’s Supreme National Security Council would decide whether to renew the monitoring agreement only after it expires.

Fighting Between Government Forces and Taliban Fighters Continue

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June 27, 2021

About 5,000 Afghan families have fled their homes in the northern city of Kunduz after days of fighting between Taliban fighters and government forces, officials said on Saturday, as the deadline looms for US-led troops to withdraw.

Heavy fighting has also been reported in the provinces of Kandahar and Baghlan, where the Afghan forces claimed to have retaken areas from Taliban control but the armed group still held on to parts of Pul-e-Khumri area in central Baghlan, according to local media.

The Afghan group, which has been waging an armed rebellion since it was toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion, continues to surround Kunduz city.

The Taliban briefly seized the city twice in recent years but has now captured the surrounding districts and a nearby border crossing with Tajikistan.

Rahmatullah Hamnawa, a journalist based in Kunduz, said he was forced to move his family from one area of the city to another amid the conflict.

“We hear gunfire and fighting all night,” he said, adding that it has been at least a week since the fighting flared in parts of the city and the nearby areas.

“People fleeing Kunduz have been forced to take a circuitous route through Samangan province to Mazar-e-Sharif, about 110km (68 miles) away to the southwest. The shorter road is unsafe and dotted with checkpoints and mines,” Hamnawa said.

“But even the Samangan province, which used to be one of the safest in the country, is no longer free from violence. Hence a three-hour journey via Samangan can take up to seven now, if not more.”

Many people took refuge in a school in the city and had been provided with food and other relief items, Kunduz provincial council member Ghulam Rabbani said.

Another 8,000 families have been displaced across the Kunduz province following a month of sporadic clashes between the Taliban and government forces, Rasouli said.

He said authorities were unable to provide relief items to all the displaced families across the province.

Russia Launches Largest Submarine Built In 30 Years

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June 27, 2021