Category: 2. World

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Police in Sri Lanka arrested former President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday over allegations that the senior opposition politician misused public funds during his presidency, police said.

Wickremesinghe, who was president from 2022 to 2024, is accused of using the funds to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony in London after an official visit to the United States, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler told The Associated Press.

Wickremesinghe appeared for a lengthy hearing before a magistrate court in the capital, Colombo, and was ordered to be kept in custody until Aug. 26. He didn’t comment during the hearing, and there was no immediate statement from his office. A large crowd of Wickremesinghe’s supporters gathered outside the court to protest his arrest.

Wickremesinghe is the first Sri Lankan former head of state to be arrested and the most prominent leader under investigation for corruption under the government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who came to power last year on an anti-corruption platform.

Dissanayake won the presidential election in September when voters rejected an old guard accused of leading the country into an economic crisis. Two months later, his party won a landslide victory in the parliamentary election that enabled him to form a strong government.

Already more than a dozen former high government officials and political leaders are under investigation for alleged wrongdoing.

Wickremesinghe became president after Sri Lanka’s economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022.

Wickremesinghe was credited with stabilizing the crumbling economy. Under his leadership, inflation fell, the local currency strengthened and foreign reserves increased. But he faced public backlash over his government’s stringent austerity measures, including raising taxes and utility rates, imposed as part of a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund.

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 22 (APP):Speakers at a round table conference on Friday urged the international community, particularly the Muslim world, to take concrete legal, diplomatic and policy measures to counter the rising trend of Islamophobia across the globe.

The event, titled “The International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence based on Religion or Belief: Addressing Islamophobia”, was organized by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), said a press release.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram, in his remarks, called on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to formally define Islamophobia and pursue legal remedies at international forums. He also stressed the need for Class Act Suits against perpetrators capitalising on extra-territoriality and universal jurisdiction through an institutionalised support of the OIC.

Amb Akram said that Pakistan has led from the front at international forums and its initiative to mark a day against Islamophobia was initially opposed vehemently by the world community.

Yet, he said that it was a huge success that March 15 was marked as International Day against Islamophobia and the resolution was carried unanimously. He also called for protecting the Islamic heritage sites in India and elsewhere and to provide legal assistance to victims of Islamophobia through the OIC forum.

IPRI President Lt Gen. (retd) Majid Ehsan called for a thorough discourse on the soaring phenomenon of Islamophobia, and said that it has led to marginalisation and a sense of otherness globally.

He regretted that Islam has not been understood in its true essence, and there is an industry that is thriving on Islamophobia to the benefit of those who are crafting this narrative.

Brig Dr Raashid Wali Janjua, Director Research IPRI, expressed his displeasure at the term “Islamophobia,” and regretted that Muslims too have come to accept it as fait accompli. He said, while Islam is a religion of peace, then as to why there is a phobia associated with it? He coined the term ‘anti-Abraham-ism” to address it more comprehensively and logically.

Chairman Institute of Policy Studies, Khalid Rehman, said that the quality of governance at local or international levels has also contributed to the spread of Islamophobia. He also underscored the need for a debate in the realms of public policy discourse as to why this terminology and sense of otherness started in the 1990s. He pointed out that the Cold War issues were capitalism and communism, which had nothing to do with Islam. He, however, pointed out that in the 1990s, the narrative of Islamophobia began and then spread very fast in the 2000s, and it has much to do with the Afghan Jihad and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

“We too are to be blamed for this tendency because terrorism has been the foundation of Islamophobia. But there is no set definition of terrorism and anyone can mold the definition of it as they want. It has been established through media and movies, too, where Muslims are portrayed as terrorists. Terrorism existed before 9/11, too. And it used to be a crime that required investigation in the court of law. Now that the process of definition does not exist, then the issue of investigation remains a concern,” Rehman elucidated.

Dr Sadia Zahoor, an expert in public international law, touched upon the sensitivities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT, and observed that its content surprisingly is Islamophobic. She also mentioned how AI in the US military is targeting Muslim communities, especially the Palestinians. She said that globalization has amplified, and it has evolved a structured outcome from powerful actors against Islam. “Portraying Muslims as villains in video games, and the binary of otherness that has been created on the web are cases in point,” she added.

Dr Ayesha Khan of Bahria University said that the rise of Islamophobia is a very critical area and it needs to be understood with the evolving trends of globalisation. “Globalisation has contributed to prejudice and has multiplied fears. Global media has been prejudiced and has created the perfect storm for the rise and spread of Islamophobia. It started from colonialism and orientalism. Globalisation today has amplified Islamophobia. It is not neutral at all,” she explained.

The speakers also referred to a growing sense of discrimination based on religion in India, and how Muslim-phobia has become a state-centric issue. They lamented the so-called terminology and worries of Islamophobia and in the West against the fastest-growing religion, i.e., Islam. They said that the world is witnessing the worst manifestation of Islamophobia in Gaza, where more than 60,000 Muslims have been massacred, and the champions of civilization are silent spectators. Likewise, it is ironic that freedom struggles in Kashmir and Palestine are equated with Islamophobia.

It was also questioned as to what Western values are: whether it is the protests seen on the streets of Western capitals against barbarism and genocide in Gaza, or the acts of violence that elites and governments are perpetrating.

Speakers stressed the need to develop media literacy and improve ignorance at indigenous levels in Muslim societies so that the misperception of Islam can be addressed in a better way, and the menace of Islamophobia can be negated successfully.

Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested in connection with the alleged misuse of funds, police have said.

He faces three charges related to trips he took abroad while serving as president.

Wickremesinghe arrived at magistrates court in the capital Colombo on Friday, having already given a statement to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) earlier in the day.

He served as president from 2022 to 2024, stepping into the role after the country’s worst ever economic crisis triggered a popular uprising which caused his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee.

He was widely credited with helping put the island nation back on the road to economic recovery.

Wickremesinghe also served six separate terms as prime minister from the 1990s onwards.

According to BBC Sinhala, the 76-year-old made 23 foreign trips during his time as president, at a cost of more than Rs 600 million ($2m; £1.4m).

Friday’s arrest relates to a stop over made in the UK in 2023, on Wickremesinghe’s way back from a G77 summit in Cuba, news agency AFP reports.

On that occasion, he and his wife had attended a University of Wolverhampton ceremony.

Sri Lanka’s CID allege this was a private visit for which state funds were used – something Wickremesinghe has denied.

Their investigation was initially referred to a court in June.

Wickremesinghe, who is the first former president to be arrested in Sri Lanka, has been a feature of the island nation’s politics since he was first elected as MP in 1977.

A lawyer by profession, he comes from an affluent family of politicians and businessmen.

He was credited with cleaning up the image of the United National Party (UNP) after taking over its leadership in 1994 by bringing in a disciplinary commission to get rid of corrupt party members.

Over the years, he went on to make several bids to become president – only getting the role he had long-wanted in 2022 after Rajapaksa fled.

At the time his party was almost wiped out in the 2020 elections, and he was left as its sole representative in parliament.

He lost the 2024 election to the left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

An “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area, UN-backed experts have declared, in an escalation in the devastated territory’s humanitarian crisis.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognised organisation that classifies the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition, found that three key thresholds for famine had been met.

Only four famines have been declared by the IPC since it was established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year.

“This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report says. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that an immediate, at-scale response is needed. Any further delay – even by days – will result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality.

“If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health, nutrition and [sanitation and water] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.”

The IPC warned in July that a “famine scenario” was unfolding in parts of Gaza but had until now stopped short of making a formal declaration, citing a lack of hard data.

The organisation’s new report formally declares a famine in and around Gaza City, the biggest built-up area of the territory and currently home to between 500,000 and 800,000 people, many displaced and homeless.

The report also declares that the towns of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in the centre and south of Gaza are likely to experience famine “in coming weeks”.

The experts say the data is insufficient to declare a famine in the north of the territory, though aid officials say the conditions there are thought to be the most severe and have called for urgent steps to allow for a full humanitarian assessment.

In order to declare a famine, three strict criteria must be met: at least 20% of households face an extreme lack of food; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and two people for every 10,000 die each day due to “outright starvation”.

The declaration of famine in Gaza will increase pressure on Israel to ease the tight restrictions it has maintained on supplies since the beginning of the 22-month-old conflict.

Amjad Shawa, the director of the Gaza NGOs Network, who is based in Gaza City, said: “This is the worst, the most critical stage in the entire history of Gaza, not just in this war. We are in a very complicated situation. We feel very sick and very tired. We must get food otherwise we cannot imagine what will happen.”

Israel does not accept there is famine or widespread malnutrition among Palestinians in Gaza and is mobilising tens of thousands of troops for what it has said will be a massive operation in Gaza City within weeks.

Aid officials said any further offensives in Gaza would have catastrophic consequences for the population.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new Israel-backed organisation supposed to replace aid groups that previously distributed food to much of the population in Gaza, is failing to distribute sufficient food.

The UN and other organisations face massive logistical obstacles including widespread looting due to an almost total breakdown of the rule of law, ongoing Israeli combat operations, Israel’s administrative restrictions and bureaucracy and damaged infrastructure within Gaza.

The IPC report expresses grave concern at the continued and large-scale killing of civilians while trying to access food deliveries and the inadequate planning, implementation and monitoring of the privatised food distributions conducted by the GHF.

It calls for “urgent, comprehensive and sustained action to end the swiftly deteriorating and ever-expanding humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip”.

According to figures from Gaza’s health ministry, verified by the World Health Organization, deaths from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza have risen sharply. In the 22 months after the 7 October attacks by Hamas, 89 fatalities were attributed to malnutrition or starvation, mostly children under 18. In just the first 20 days of August there were 133 deaths, including 25 under-18s, the ministry said on Wednesday.

Israel disputes the hunger fatality figures given by the health ministry of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, arguing that the deaths were due to other medical causes.

Israeli officials said more than 220 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings on Thursday.

A famine has officially been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods, according to a UN-backed group.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.

These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.

Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.

Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.

Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.

Israel says no famine in Gaza

Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.

Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”

Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.

Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.

The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.

The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.

The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.

But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.

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GAZA CITY: The world’s leading authority on food crises said Friday the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it is likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said famine is occurring in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that it could spread south to Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

The IPC determination comes after months of warnings by aid groups that Israel’s restrictions of food and other aid into Gaza, and its military offensive, were causing high levels of starvation among Palestinian civilians, particularly children.

Gaza City offensive could exacerbate hunger

The grim milestone — the first time the IPC has confirmed a famine in the Middle East — is sure to ramp up international pressure on Israel, which has been in a brutal war with Hamas since the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Israel says it plans to escalate the war soon by seizing Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, which experts say will exacerbate the hunger crisis.

The IPC said hunger has been driven by fighting and the blockade of aid, and magnified by widespread displacement and the collapse of food production in Gaza, pushing hunger to life-threatening levels across the entire territory after 22 months of war.

More than half a million people in Gaza, about a quarter of the population, face catastrophic levels of hunger, and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes, the IPC report said. Last month, the IPC said the “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding in Gaza, but stopped short of an official determination.

Israel disputes report of famine

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied there is hunger in Gaza, calling reports of starvation “lies” promoted by Hamas. After the publication of images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of hunger-related deaths, Israel announced measures to let more humanitarian aid in. Yet the UN and Palestinians in Gaza say what’s entering is far below what’s needed.

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory rejected the report Friday, calling it “false and biased.” The agency, known as COGAT, rejected the claim that there was famine in Gaza and said that significant steps had been taken to expand the amount of aid entering the strip in recent weeks.

In a post on social media, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs also rejected the findings, saying the IPC report was “based on Hamas lies.” It said that more than 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, including a massive influx in recent weeks with staple foods.

“A rapidly increasing number of people, especially young children, are dying preventable deaths from starvation and disease because Israel made starvation a core part of its campaign to control the strip,” said Chris Newton, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Israel’s plan to escalate the war in Gaza City weeks after a warning that famine was beginning there demonstrates how “intentional the famine is and how Israel wields starvation,” he said.

Netanyahu says more military pressure is needed to achieve Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages held by Hamas and eliminating the militant group altogether.

How a famine is determined

Formal famine determinations are rare. The IPC has previously determined famines in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year.

The IPC, a coalition of monitors tasked by the UN to warn of impending crises, says a famine exists in an area when all three of the following conditions are confirmed:

At least 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving. At least 30 percent of children 6 months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, based on a weight-to-height measurement; or 15 percent of that age group suffer from acute malnutrition based on the circumference of their upper arm. And at least two people, or four children under 5, per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

Israel’s offensive and its restrictions on access to Gaza have made collecting data difficult.

The data analyzed between July 1 and Aug. 15 showed clear evidence that thresholds for starvation and acute malnutrition have been reached. Gathering data for mortality has been harder, but the IPC said it is reasonable to conclude from the evidence that the necessary threshold has likely been reached.

The IPC warned that a third of Gaza’s population could face catastrophic levels of hunger by the end of September, and that this is probably an undercount.

Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine” and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, said that had Israel allowed the IPC better access to collect data, a famine might have been determined months ago, which would have raised global awareness sooner.

“Sadly, it seems that it’s necessary for experts to shout ‘famine!’ before the world takes notice, by which time it is too late,” he said.

Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages.

Israel eased those restrictions in May and says there’s currently no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza. But it also pushed ahead with a new US-backed aid delivery system that requires Palestinians to travel long distances and pass through Israeli military lines to get aid.

The traditional, UN-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds overwhelm entering convoys.

Witnesses, health officials and the UN rights office say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid from both providers, while Israel says it has only fired warning shots and that the toll is exaggerated.

A parent in Gaza City watches his children waste away

On the eve of the war, Gaza City was home to some 700,000 people, about the population of Washington.

Throughout the conflict, it has been the focus of regular Israeli bombardment and ground operations. Several neighborhoods have been almost completely destroyed. Hundreds of thousands fled under Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war but many returned during a ceasefire earlier this year.

Doctors and nurses in Gaza in recent weeks have seen rising numbers of visibly malnourished patients.

Kirsty Blacka, an Australian emergency nurse who worked in Gaza City’s Al-Quds hospital through June, said emaciated men with no preexisting conditions were coming in looking like teenagers because they were starving.

She said the lack of food has been compounded by contaminated water causing diarrhea and infections, and that diseases are harder to recover from when people are malnourished.

If Israel evacuates people from the city ahead of its new offensive, thousands will be too weak to leave, said Blacka. “Because of the starvation it will put extra strain on already depleted bodies and will lead to the death of many of the Palestinians,” she said.

Families in Gaza City say they’re watching their loved ones waste away.

Yousef Sbeteh’s two teenage children were injured by shrapnel during an Israeli airstrike in June and have spent the last two months in the hospital. While there, they’ve both lost weight because there hasn’t been enough food, he said, adding that he can’t afford to buy more because prices at markets have soared. Doctors say the teenagers had no preexisting conditions.

His 15-year-old daughter Aya lost nearly 20 kilograms (44 pounds), or about 30 percent of her body weight, according to her doctors. Her 17-year-old brother Ahmad has lost about 15 kilograms (33 pounds). The lack of nutritional supplements and healthy food is slowing their recovery, doctors say.

“Doctors say she needs protein, meat and fish,” Sbeteh said while sitting beside his frail daughter. “But I can’t provide that now.”