Mideast wildfires kill 3, force thousands to flee homes
State media and officials says wildfires around the Middle East triggered by a heatwave hitting the region have killed three people, forced thousands of people leave their homes and detonated landmines along the Lebanon-Israel border
11 October 2020, 02:04
2 min read
The Associated Press
In this frame grab from video, flames rise at the scene of forest fire in Ras el-Harf village, in the B...Read More
BEIRUT -- Wildfires around the Middle East triggered by a heatwave hitting the region have killed three people, forced thousands of people to leave their homes and detonated landmines along the Lebanon-Israel border, state media and officials said Saturday.
The areas hit by the heatwave are Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories. The fires come amid an intense heatwave that is unusual for this time of the year.
Wildfires spread across different areas of Israel and the West Bank for a second day Saturday, forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
Israeli Police said in a statement firefighters and police forces evacuated 5,000 residents from the city of Nof Hagalil in northern Israel.
One of the hardest hit countries is war-torn Syria where fires have killed three people and left dozens suffering from breathing problems over the past two days. The wildfires also burnt wide areas of forests, mostly in the central province of Homs and the coastal province of Latakia.
With fire fighters overwhelmed, some residents helped them using primitive methods such as carrying water in buckets and pouring them on the fire.
On Saturday, special rain prayers were held in mosques around different parts of Syria imploring God to send rain to ease drought and stop the fires.
Director of the Forestry Department in Latakia Agricultural Department, Bassem Douba, was quoted as saying by state news agency, SANA, that the number of fires reached 85 in different sites.
Also in Latakia province, fires in President Bashar Assad’s hometown of Qardaha heavily damaged a building used as a storage for the state-owned tobacco company, part of which collapsed.
In Lebanon, firefighters backed by army helicopters fought fires in the country’s north, center and south. A big fire in the southern village of Bater burnt hundreds of pine trees and was getting close to homes when it was put under control.
Along the border with Israel, fires were reported by Lebanon’s state news agency in several villages, some of them triggering explosions of land mines placed along the heavily-guarded front.
Belarus’ authoritarian president has visited a prison to talk to opposition activists, who have been jailed for protesting his re-election they saw as rigged
11 October 2020, 02:56
4 min read
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Huge protests flood Belarus’ capital again, defying crackdown
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell reports from Belarus, where 100,000 people marched in Minsk, on Pre...Read More
KYIV, Ukraine -- Belarus' authoritarian president on Saturday visited a prison to talk to opposition activists, who have been jailed for challenging his re-election that was widely seen as manipulated and triggered two months of protests.
President Alexander Lukashenko spent more than four hours talking to his jailed political foes at the Minsk prison that belongs to Belarus' State Security Committee, which still goes under its Soviet-era name, KGB.
Lukashenko's office said that “the goal of the president was to hear everyone's opinion." Among 11 jailed activists who attended the meeting were several members of the opposition's Coordination Council and Viktor Babariko, the former head of a major Russia-owned bank. Babariko aspired to challenge Lukashenko but was barred from the race and remained in jail since his arrest in May on charges he dismissed as political.
Lukashenko's landslide re-election in the Aug. 9 vote was widely seen as manipulated amid widespread public frustration with the Belarusian leader's 26-year authoritarian rule, his cavalier response to the coronavirus pandemic and the deteriorating economy.
A violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in the first days after the vote, in which thousands were arrested and hundreds were beaten by police, provoked international outrage and helped swell protesters’ ranks.
The main opposition challenger in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who left for Lithuania after the election under pressure from authorities, cast Lukashenko’s visit to prison as a result of continuing demonstrations and urged keeping up a push for new elections.
“With this meeting, Lukashenko recognized the existence of political prisoners whom he previously dismissed as criminals,” she said in a statement. “Today’s event is a result of our pressure.”
The European Union and the United States said the election was neither free nor fair. They have slapped scores of Belarusian officials with sanctions for their role in the alleged vote-rigging and the crackdown on protests, but didn’t target Lukashenko himself.
EU members Poland and Lithuania have been especially outspoken in their support for Belarusian opposition politicians, leading to diplomatic tensions that have included Belarus' government expelling Polish and Lithuanian diplomats. Those two countries responded by withdrawing their ambassadors to Minsk.
Late Friday, Britain temporarily recalled its ambassador to Belarus, Jacqueline Perkins, in response to the Belarusian government’s decision to expel the Polish and Lithuanian diplomats.
In a tweet, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned the decision, labeling it as “completely unjustified.” He said the temporary recall of the ambassador “for consultations on the situation in Belarus” was intended to show “solidarity” with the people in the country.
The government has sought to stifle protests by detaining hundreds of demonstrators, prosecuting some top activists and forcing others to leave the country. However, massive demonstrations have continued, reaching their peak numbers on Sundays when up to 100,000 flood the streets of the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Another big protest is planned for this Sunday.
Hundreds of women marched through the Belarusian capital on Saturday to protest against political repressions and demand a new election. Several participants in the rally were detained.
Pavel Latushko, a former culture minister and ambassador to France, who joined the opposition's Coordination Council and was pressured by authorities to leave the country, said that the meeting reflected the Belarusian leader's weakness.
“Lukashenko was forced to sit down at the negotiation table with the people whom he jailed,” Latushko said in a statement, demanding the release of all political prisoners.
Observers saw Lukashenko's visit to prison as part of his efforts to steal the protesters' thunder by offering vaguely-described reforms, such as his proposal to draft a new constitution. During the meeting in prison, Lukashenko emphasized that “the constitution can't be written in the streets,” his office said without offering other details of the meeting.
“After two months of protests and harsh repressions, Lukashenko is moving to de-escalate the situation,” said Valery Karbalevich, an independent Minsk-based political expert.
“The discussion of a new constitution is an attempt by the government to imitate a dialogue. It would allow Lukashenko to drown the protests in talks, reduce tensions and enforce his agenda both inside the country and to foreign players,” Karbalevich said.
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