Saturday, December 31, 2016
What You Need To Know Today
2016: The year of anger
Does one emotion above all hold the key to understanding a year of tumultuous political change?
I got it from both sides: eardrum-denting yells of fury, which managed to break through the noise of surrounding protestors.
This was April in Brazil, with the country's President Dilma Rousseff facing what would eventually be a successful attempt to impeach her. Both opponents and defenders had taken to the streets.
South Korea pulls website mapping women of prime age to have children
Interior ministry takes site offline after being accused of trying to blame women for the country’s low birth rate
South Korea has closed a government website showing the number of women aged between 15 and 49 – of childbearing age – by city district and region after a public outcry.
The Ministry of the Interior launched the site, which features a pink-coloured “birth map” on Thursday. On Friday, a notice on the site said it was undergoing corrections to reflect public opinion.
Nothing says misogyny like this says misogyny What one journalist’s time in an Egyptian prison tells us about the fight against Islamist jihad
On arrival in his cell, the Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Fahmy discovered that he was imprisoned with men whom he had interviewed only a few months earlier as members of the Morsi government
Staff picks: Our favourite stories from 2016
In 2016 we’ve published hundreds of articles on topics ranging from Saudi booze hacks, the blue-eyed boy of Pakistan, a travelling bike cinema in Senegal, to the Hungarian mayor hunting migrants or the mass grave found in Mozambique. Our Paris team looked back at our favourite stories of the year.
Best of 2016 on Al Jazeera
Find out which were our most read stories from this year and which stories our editors liked the most.
Top 5 most read news stories
UpFront: Highlights from 2016
As 2016 comes to a close, in this UpFront year-end special, we take a look back at the past 12 months with a compilation of some of our interviews and debates.
Highlights: Headliners
Over the past year, UpFront guests have included foreign ministers, ambassadors and former presidents.
In a February interview, Mehdi Hasan pressed Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely on whether she supported a Palestinian state.
In March, we asked the Saudi ambassador to the UN, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, why his government supported the idea of a democratically elected government in Syria, but not at home.
Six In The Morning Saturday December 31
Merkel: Islamist terror is 'greatest threat' to Germany
Islamist terrorism is the biggest challenge facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in her New Year message.
Referring to the deadly truck attack in Berlin by a Tunisian asylum seeker, she said it was "sickening" when acts of terror were carried out by people who had sought protection.
She said 2016 had been a year of "severe tests".
But she also said she was confident Germany could overcome them.
"As we go about our lives and our work, we are saying to the terrorists: 'You are hate-filled murderers, but you do not determine how we live and want to live. We are free, considerate and open'," Mrs Merkel said.
Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive and in charge, says Pentagon
'If we get the opportunity, we would deliver him the justice he deserves,' says spokesman
Isis chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdidi is alive despite numerous attempts on his life, the Pentagon has confirmed.
Rumours swirled earlier this month that the terror group's leader had been killed after activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London, reported that senior Isis figures had gathered for an emergency meeting in Iraq.
At the time it was speculated that he might have been killed, although this was never officially confirmed.
Six data visualizations that explain the plastic problem
Tiny particles, bags, bottles: When plastic lands in the ocean, it harms wildlife and the environment. But how much plastic does end up there, and where does it come from? An overview of problems and solutions.
Every single piece of plastic that has ever been produced still exists today. It isn't in the same place anymore, and probably unrecognizable - but it's certainly still there, just no longer visible to most of us. As the global production of plastic increases, so does the amount of "invisible" plastic garbage somewhere in the world.
Five 2016 projects to revive your faith in humanity
The year 2016 was full of political upheaval across the world. However, many individuals, organisations and small businesses took small steps to make the world a better place. As the year comes to a close, we take a look back at five projects led by individuals in different countries who took action to protect the environment, develop their local economy and help their community. We featured all these projects — which are from Africa, Latin America and Asia — in our “Observers Take Action” section in 2016.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team launched Observers Take Action this year, in order to shine a light on small-scale, local initiatives that have a positive impact on the environment, the local economy and/or society.
Nearly 100 journalists killed worldwide in 2016: IFJ
Iraq and Afghanistan deadliest countries for journalists in 2016, IFJ says, as it deplores impunity for killings.
Ninety-three journalists and media staff were killed around the world in the course of their work in 2016, with Iraq and Afghanistan the deadliest countries, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has said.
The IFJ said on Friday the number included those killed in targeted attacks, bomb blasts or caught in the cross-fire. A further 29 died in plane crashes in Colombia and Russia.
China Bans Its Ivory Trade, Moving Against Elephant Poaching
China announced on Friday that it was banning all commerce in ivory by the end of 2017, a move that would shut down the world’s largest ivory market and could deal a critical blow to the practice of elephant poaching in Africa.
The decision by China follows years of growing international and domestic pressure and gives wildlife protection advocates hope that the threatened extinction of certain elephant populations in Africa can be averted.
Friday, December 30, 2016
What You Need To Know Today
France, Germany and the Netherlands: The elections that could derail the EU in 2017
After Brexit rattled the European Union in 2016, a string of high-stakes elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands – along with possibly Italy – could bring even greater uncertainty to the bloc in the year to come.
People kindle light of hope for 2017 |
By Kim Bo-eun
|
The year 2016 will go down in history as the year of the "candlelight revolution" that ignited a drive to unseat President Park Geun-hye and make Korea a more democratic nation.
Despite the people's disappointment with the scandalous Park administration, hopes abound for the New Year. |
Global Press Freedom Has Taken An ‘Unbelievable’ Hit This Year
At least 53 journalists have been murdered in 2016 for doing their jobs.
Thus far in 2016, 57 journalists have been killed in connection with their work, 187 remain imprisoned and 44 are currently being held hostage, according to the organization’s latest December tallies. These figures represent professional journalists only. When including media netizens and citizen reporters, the numbers of those slain, detained and held for ransom climb to at least 74, 348 and 52, respectively.
FamilyMart compensates family of ex-franchise employee who died from overwork
Convenience store operator FamilyMart Co. has agreed to pay out a 43 million yen settlement to the bereaved family of a man who died from working excessive overtime at a franchise store in the city of Daito in Osaka Prefecture.Commission clears draft expanding Erdogan's power
Draft constitutional amendments will abolish prime minister's post to hand full executive powers to the presidency.
A Turkish parliamentary commission has approved draft constitutional amendments that introduce a new executive presidential system, giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers.
Will Japan's overwork culture change?
When the 24-year-old woman jumped to her death in December last year, she left a note for her mother.
"Why do things have to be so hard?" she asked. She had been working about 100 extra hours a month.
Her company - advertising group Dentsu - is under pressure to reduce the amount of overtime its employees do.
In November, it was raided by labour regulators. The government ruled the woman's death was due to overwork.
About 2,000 Japanese people a year take their own lives for the same reason.
Six In The Morning Friday December 30
Truce 'holding' despite isolated clashes in Idlib, Hama
Monitor says calm prevails as ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia gets under way but reports isolated clashes.
A nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russia and Turkey was in effect early on Friday, a potentially major breakthrough in the nearly six-year conflict, despite reports of isolated clashes.
While the truce was standing in most parts of the country, some fighting broke out near a Christian town in central Hama province between rebels and Syrian government, according to a monitoring group.
Nobel laureates warn Aung San Suu Kyi over 'ethnic cleansing' of Rohingya
Letter says Myanmar’s leader and peace prize winner has failed to act as ‘grossly disproportionate’ crackdown on minority Muslim group kills hundredsMore than a dozen fellow Nobel laureates have criticised Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, for a bloody military crackdown on minority Rohingya people, warning of a tragedy “amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.
The open letter to the UN security council from a group of 23 activists, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, warned that the army offensive had killed of hundreds of people, including children, and left women raped, houses burned and many civilians arbitrarily arrested.
It was delivered as Bangladesh announced around 50,000 RohingyaMuslims have fled the violence across its border.
Serbia: The land of guns
Serbia's citizens are stockpiling more guns than in any other European country. Most come from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and are still used to commit crimes today.
"What do you mean, 'Where did I get the gun?'" Mladen can't really understand why I would ask that question. He is almost 30 and the pistol has been among the household effects of his Belgrade apartment since he can remember. It is an old Yugoslavian version of the famous Soviet Tokarev TT-33, with a communist star engraved in the grip. "The pistol is from the front. My old man was in the army and got it as a present. He didn't have a gun permit, but who had something like that in the 1990s? Those were hard times, you always had to carry something for protection," explains Mladen, who doesn't want to read his real name in the news.
Jeddah party-goers arrested by Saudi police
The video shows young people dancing, laughing and drinking alcohol on top of a building. Young women in Western-styled clothing laugh as dance music plays in the background. What’s surprising about this video, which was posted on YouTube on December 20, is that this raucous party took place in Jeddah, a city in the ultra-conservative country Saudi Arabia. And when the video started circulating online, the Saudi religious police were not amused.
Both alcohol and mixed parties (with both men and women in attendance) are banned in Saudi Arabia, which is a country governed by strict morality laws. The video was quickly discovered by the police, and soon after, the host’s home was identified because of a well-known tower that can be seen in the video. The Jordanian man who hosted the party was arrested when he tried to flee the country. A Lebanese woman and her friends who were guests at the party were also arrested. The muttawa, the Saudi religious police, said they were searching for the other guests.
Killer with a conscience: Could this former death squad member bring down Duterte?
Updated 0830 GMT (1630 HKT) December 30, 2016
Edgar Matobato's days are spent -- for now, at least -- in a verdant, bucolic compound some way outside Manila.
Chickens, ubiquitous in the rural Philippines, scratch in the dirt and there is a sizable supply of food stacked up on the porch of one of the small structures that make up the compound.
It's a far cry from his nightmarish former life as a self-described death squad lieutenant in the southern city of Davao.
Regina Ip: The 'Iron Lady' who wants to lead Hong Kong
Regina Ip wants to become Hong Kong's most powerful politician - and she's not shy about it. The BBC's Helier Cheung profiles the straight-talking "Iron Lady" as part of a series on the Asian women likely to make the news in 2017.
Her uncompromising stance and her former role as Hong Kong's first female secretary for security is what prompted the media to nickname 66-year-old Regina Ip the "Iron Lady".
While many of her likely competitors have been coy about their aspirations, Ms Ip has been openly ambitious for years. But then, she's always been more colourful - and confrontational - than many politicians.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Piracy in Nigeria
People and Power investigates the rise of piracy in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
The event followed a now familiar pattern: a small convoy of dusty 4x4 vehicles drove on to the edge of the airstrip at Galkayo in Puntland, north-central Somalia; armed security guards took up watchful positions nearby and a number of bemused-looking men stepped gingerly from the cars and lined up to have their photographs taken by the media.
On this occasion there were 11 of them; all had been hostages until that morning. They were sailors from a Malaysian cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates a few years ago and held until a ransom was paid for their release.
Six In The Morning Thursday December 29
Fate of nationwide truce plan for Syria remains unclear
Opposition bloc tells Al Jazeera it has yet to receive a draft of a Russia-Turkey-brokered ceasefire plan.
The fate of a nationwide truce for Syria remains unclear with the Syrian National Coalition, the country's main political opposition bloc, telling Al Jazeera that it has still not received a draft plan from either Turkey or Russia.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency had reported on Wednesday that a ceasefire plan had been submitted to Syria's rival parties and could come into force as early as midnight.
Sikh campaigners seek release of UK files on Golden Temple assault
Indian government’s attempt to clear militants from Sikh religion’s holiest site in 1984 resulted in hundreds being killed
Secret government files said to hold details of British involvement in an assault on Sikhism’s holiest shrine that killed hundreds of people should be released to the public, campaigners have urged.
Members of the Sikh Foundation believe the documents will show there was a greater level of cooperation between the British and Indian governments over the latter’s attempts to clear militants from the Golden Temple in the summer of 1984 than has previously been acknowledged.
Kim Jong-un has executed more than 300 people since he took power, report claims
Despot uses 'extreme' brutality to retain grip on powerJon Sharman
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has ordered more than 300 people to their deaths in the five years since he took power.
Mr Kim has used the executions to tighten his hold on power, according to the South Korean think-tank the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS).
Some 140 of the 340 killed since 2011 were senior government officers.
In August two officials were reportedly executed with an anti-aircraft gun on Mr Kim's orders - one for falling asleep in a meeting and the other for proposing a project the despot believed would challenge his authority.Colombia Congress approves amnesty for thousands of FARC rebels
Latest update : 2016-12-29
Colombia's Congress on Wednesday passed a law granting amnesty to FARC rebels as part of the country's peace deal, a development the government hailed as "historic."
"Thanks to the Congress which in a historic vote approved the amnesty law, first step toward consolidating peace," President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.
The measure grants special legal treatment, amnesty and pardon to members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) accused of political and related crimes.
The Senate passed the bill 69-0, after the House of Representatives approved it 121-0.
Africa in 2017: Fighting drought, demanding good governance
JOHANNESBURG—For several years now, it’s been a popular trope of the Western press to make sweeping statements about Africa’s collective future – the continent is tumbling, no it’s rising, or maybe, as The New York Times put it earlier this year, Africa – all 50 some countries and 1.2 billion people of it – is just “reeling.”
In truth, like everywhere in the world, the future you see here depends on where you stand – and where you look.
In 2016, I reported on violence, starvation, and corruption across Africa. I also wrote about a pioneering African astronomer, the continent’s refugee Olympians, and how Africa’s female politicians have set a global model for gender equity in governance.
9 questions about the UN vote on Israeli settlements you were too embarrassed to ask
Updated by
A controversial new United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory has triggered a brutal and messy diplomatic fight between President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and now President-elect Donald Trump.
The war of words got even nastier Wednesday, when Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a high-profile speech warning that Netanyahu’s settlement policy could doom any chance at a peace deal and threaten Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
What's next for South Korea?
The head of the state-run pension fund is detained deepening the political crisis in South Korea.
South Korea's had a difficult year.
Months of the biggest protests ever seen there, then parliament voting for the first time ever to impeach the president.
The corruption scandal surrounding her now ensnares the head of the state-run pension fund - who is also a former health minister.
He has been detained for questioning by fraud investigators trying to track the movement of huge amounts of money - and whether massive bribes were paid.
The expanding probe into the corruption scandal is splitting the Saenuri Party of President Park Guen-hye. The 29 anti-Park MPs have defected to form a new conservative party which will campaign for reform.
The Saenuri party has been demoted to the second-largest in parliament.
What You Need To Know Today
100 Women 2016: Saikal - Kyrgyzstan's original nomad warrior woman
Kyrgyzstan's national hero Manas once fell in love with and fought the daughter of a nomad chief. Her name was Saikal and this is her story.
Paris estate agent advertises flat with 'no blacks' allowed
Levallois-Perret say a 'naive' staff member had copied out what a homeowner had said 'without knowing'
A Parisian estate agency has been accused of racism after it specified “no blacks” on a rental advert.
Laforêt advertised for the apartment in the Levallois-Perret suburb of the capital but warned that the renter must be a French national and “no blacks” were allowed.
It wasn't a mistake. They're a Marine Le Pen supporter
A guide to the most powerful jobs in the Trump administration — and the people filling them
Updated by
It's really a guide to America's descent into an authoritarian kleptocracy
Director Shinkai overwhelmed by success of 'your name.'
Makoto Shinkai has a problem, a big problem. His mystical teenage body-swap movie “your name.” has become such a massive hit it’s beginning to worry him. “It’s not healthy,” the boyish director told AFP. “I don’t think any more people should see it.”
Every week it gets closer to being the biggest Japanese animated film of all time.
And now there’s talk of Oscars. “I really hope it doesn’t win,” he added.
Dentsu president to resign due to overwork-related suicide of employee
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Dentsu Inc. President Tadashi Ishii said Wednesday he will step down in January to take responsibility for an alleged overwork-related suicide of a 24-year-old employee at the advertising agency.
He'll resign and retire with a nice pension While the work culture at Dentsu which led to that woman's death will remain
Standing Rock and the Battle Beyond
An insight into the battle for Native American land rights as protests continue against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
For months, Native Americans have been protesting against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, a multibillion-dollar construction project that tribal leaders say is threatening sacred sites, as well as the tribe's source of drinking water.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says the federal government failed to properly consult with them before issuing permits for the pipeline.
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