Archive for month: September, 2014

Spain’s constitutional court has decided to suspend Catalonia’s referendum on independence following a request from the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

According to a court spokeswoman on Monday, 12 judges reached the decision to suspend Catalonia’s November independence referendum after an hour long emergency meeting.

Earlier on Monday, the Spanish government lodged a formal appeal with the constitutional court, asking it to declare the independence referendum illegal.

Rajoy told reporters that the independence vote was not “compatible with the Spanish constitution,” adding, “Nobody and nothing will be allowed to break up Spain.”

The Spanish premier also expressed regret over a recent decision by Catalan President Artur Mas to call for the November 9 vote, which is designed to allow the region to declare its independence from Madrid.

On September 27, Mas formally made the call, defying warnings from Madrid to block the vote in courts.

Catalonia’s regional parliament has approved a law that allows its leaders to hold consultations on independence. However, a ‘Yes’ vote for independence in the referendum will not automatically lead to the secession of the region. The vote would only give Mas the mandate to negotiate independence with the Spanish administration.

Catalonia, a wealthy northeastern region of Spain, has a population of 7.6 million people, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the country’s economy, and has been seeking independence for years.

Polls indicate that a huge majority of Catalans demand an independence referendum, encouraged by a similar referendum in Scotland earlier this month.

SRK/MAM/AS

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has slammed remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his address at the United Nations.

A senior member of the organization reacted to Bibi’s comments at the 69th annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday.

PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi released a statement calling Netanyahu’s address misleading.

She said that the Israeli premier manipulated facts when he compared the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas with the ISIL terrorist group.

“Netanyahu’s speech at the UN was a blatant manipulation of facts and attempted at misleading the audience through a combination of hate language, slander and argument of obfuscation,” Ashrawi said.

During his speech, Netanyahu likened Israel’s deadly war on the beleaguered Gaza Strip to US-led airstrikes against the ISIL militants in Iraq and Syria.

“Obviously Netanyahu has lost touch with reality, particularly in refusing to acknowledge the fact of the occupation itself or the actions of the Israeli army of occupation in committing massacres and war crimes,” the PLO official said.

“The UN podium would have been the most appropriate place for Netanyahu to announce his acceptance of all relevant UN resolutions and his adherence to international law and universal human rights,” she noted.

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Tel Aviv, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds.

NT/MAM/AS

A new poll shows that 80 percent of Gazans favor the resumption of rocket attacks on Israel if the Tel Aviv regime does not end the siege on the Gaza Strip.

As many as 12,000 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank participated in the survey which was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

The poll comes a month after Israel’s 50-day devastating war on Gaza ended. Israel unleashed aerial attacks on Gaza in early July and later expanded its military campaign with a ground invasion into the Palestinian territory. Over 2,130 Palestinians lost their lives and some 11,000 were injured. According to Israeli sources, more than 70 Israeli were also killed. Palestinian officials put this number at more than 150.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement said late in August that it fired over 3,000 rockets on dozens of Israeli cities during the war Tel Aviv imposed on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The resistance group said that over 60 of these projectiles fired by its al-Quds Brigades landed in main Israeli cities including Tel Aviv, al-Quds (Jerusalem), Dimona and Netanya. It also said they have targeted Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ofkim with over 660 grad rockets.

The group added that Israeli camps and soldiers have also been targeted with these rockets. It said al-Quds Brigades attacked Israeli tanks along Gaza borders with nearly 900 mortar shells.

Gaza has been blockaded by the Israeli regime since June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

The apartheid regime of Israel denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs that pay proper wages, and adequate healthcare and education.

IA/MAM/AS

The United Kingdom is considering women-only carriages on its trains following a rise in the number of railway related sexual offenses.

British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport Claire Perry made the announcement on Monday at a conference in Birmingham.

Perry also said that she was “absolutely determined,” to do whatever was necessary to rise commuter safety and lower the number of assaults.

While asked about women-only carriages she said, “It is a very interesting question and I will look at all ideas.”

“They have introduced women-only seating in Japan because there is a particular problem with groping and low-level violence,” she said.

Also in countries such as Thailand, India and Brazil women-only cars can be found on selected trains.

According to the British Transport Police (BTP)’s latest figures, there has been a sharp rise in the number of railway-related sexual offences over the past few years.

The BTP said that they had recorded 1,117 accounts of sexual assault in 2014, a 21 percent rise on the 925 accounts compared to 2013.

SRK/MAM/AS

Kurdish Peshmerga forces, fighting against the ISIL Takfiri group along with the Iraqi army, say the US-led airstrikes will not defeat the terrorist group, Press TV reports.

Kurdish officials say although the US-led airstrikes have been hitting the positions of the Takfiri group, it is the operations on the ground by the Kurdish forces and Iraqi army which have been gaining grounds against the terrorist group.

“The airstrikes by the coalition led by the United States … cannot stop the ISIL,” Anoo Abdoka, from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said.

“The Peshemrga and the Iraqi army are… the basic powers and troops who are fighting the ISIL now,” he added.

The Kurdish forces are currently blocking advances by the Takfiri group towards Erbil from its western gate.

Since September 22, the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan, have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The airstrikes are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against ISIL positions in Iraq.

While most European governments have refrained from joining the US-led air campaign in Syria, a number of countries such as France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Britain are contributing to the US campaign.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed.”

The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

IA/MAM/AS