Habib Siddiqui

Protesters angry after police fatally shot a 17-year-old boy set cars and public buildings ablaze in Paris suburbs and unrest spread to some other French cities and towns, despite increased security efforts and the president’s calls for calm. The killing of 17-year-old Nahel during a traffic check Tuesday, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. "What I see on this video is the execution by police of a 17-year-old kid, in France, in 2023, in broad daylight," said Greens party leader Marine Tondelier. Clashes first erupted Tuesday night in and around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where Nahel was killed, and the government deployed 2,000 police to maintain order Wednesday. But violence resumed after dusk. Police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish numerous blazes through the night that damaged schools, police ...

  The raging   violence in Manipur   appears to have effectively ended the Catholic Church’s relationship with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala. Interestingly, it is once again the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Thalassery Archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church Mar Joseph Pamplany, earlier accused of co-opting the national party on the pretext of ensuring better prices for rubber, who has taken the plunge by openly disapproving the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Manipur.

  An imprisoned Egyptian lawyer and human rights defender was in a coma for two days before he was transferred to an intensive care unit where he died earlier this month, human rights groups   told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper . Ali Abbas Barakat had been in prison since 2016. He had been convicted in multiple court cases, but had appealed and been acquitted on each account, including his latest acquittal in May 2022. On 17 June last year he was transferred from prison to a police station in preparation for his release, but instead, he disappeared. On 7 July, he reappeared at the Supreme State Security Prosecution in Cairo where he was accused of joining a terrorist group.  Lawyers supporting Barakat have said he was tortured during his period of disappearance and have demanded an investigation into his detention and disappearance which they say was without any legal basis. Stay informed with MEE's newsletters Sign up to get the latest alerts, insights and analy...

  PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's government labelled two Serb groups as terrorist organisations on Thursday in a move that could fuel further tensions in country's volatile north which has seen the worst ethnic violence since the 2008 declaration of independence. Prime Minister Albin Kurti told a session of the cabinet that Civil Protection (Civilna Zastita) and the North Brigade (Severna Brigada) posed a high level of "threat and danger". He said the two groups had been "recruiting and training members how to use weapons and carry other combat methods in military bases in Serbia in order to carry out attacks on local and international institutions in Kosovo". Serbs, who form the majority in the north of Kosovo, say that Civilna Zastita was dissolved in 2015 when Serbs agreed to join Kosovo institutions including police and judiciary and participated in the local election for the first time. It is not clear who the Severna Brigada represents, when it was esta...

  Violent protests broke out across   France   in the early hours of Thursday, in a second night of unrest over the police killing of a French- Algerian   teenager.  Cars were set ablaze and fireworks were shot towards police officers in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where Nael M, 17, was shot dead on Tuesday morning.  There were confrontations between police and protesters in other French cities, including Toulouse, Lille, Dijon and Amiens.  Overnight police arrested 150 people, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.  "A night of unbearable violence against symbols of the Republic: town halls, schools and police stations set on fire or attacked," he  tweeted .  Stay informed with MEE's newsletters Sign up to get the latest alerts, insights and analysis,  starting with Turkey Unpacked   "Support for the police, gendarmes and firefighters who face up with courage. Shame on those who did not call for calm."...

  Saudi Arabia ,   Iran ,   Iraq ,   Turkey ,   United Arab Emirates  and   Egypt   were among many Muslim-majority countries to condemn the burning of the Quran by a man in Sweden during the festival of   Eid-al-Adha   on Wednesday.  Morocco  recalled its ambassador to Sweden following the incident in Stockholm, and summoned Sweden's chargé d'affaires in Rabat to express its "strong condemnation of this attack and its rejection of this unacceptable act". The UAE also summoned the Swedish ambassador in protest. Iraq and neighbouring Jordan also both summoned Sweden's top diplomats in their countries.  Salwan Momika tore up several pages of the holy book, stomping on it and setting pages alight outside the largest mosque in the Swedish capital. Momika carried out the provocative act under heavy police presence after being granted permission to do so by Swedish authorities. Despite allowing it on free speech ground...

by  Ramzy Baroud   Posted on On June 19, a large Israeli military force  raided  the northern Palestinian town and refugee camp of Jenin from multiple directions. Not only did the raid fail, it backfired, and it also created a precedent in Israel’s decades-long war on the ever-rebellious Palestinian region. Israel  killed  eight Palestinians and wounded 91 more, following hours of clashes involving Israeli soldiers, on the one hand, and unified Palestinian Resistance groups, on the other. Israel only  admitted  to the wounding of eight of its soldiers, with some Israeli media outlets speaking of critical injuries among the invading troops and others claiming only moderate wounds. The reality on the ground, however, suggested that an extraordinary battle had taken place. Locally produced videos  showed  Israeli military vehicles blown up, engulfed in clouds of fire and smoke, among them the Panther troops carrier – known as Nimr – a monst...

Biden recently acknowledged the balloon was blown off course and was not intentionally flown over the US by Dave DeCamp   Posted on June 29, 2023 Categories News Tags China The Pentagon said Thursday that the Chinese balloon that wound up over the US in February did not collect data while it flew over US territory. “We believe that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts that we made contributed, I’m sure,”  said Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder. Ryder made the comments when asked about  a  Wall Street Journal  report  that said the balloon contained US-made equipment. “I don’t have any specifics to provide as it pertains to the [People’s Republic of China] high altitude balloon and any potential US components,” he said. For their part, Beijing has said the balloon was a civilian weather research device, while the Biden administration says it was a surveillance device. A...

  GUWAHATI, India, June 29 (Reuters) - Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was stopped by local police on Thursday and teargas fired near his convoy when the 53-year old scion of the Congress party was on his way to visit the violence-hit northeastern Manipur state. At least 80 people have been killed and more than 40,000 have fled their homes since clashes broke out in Manipur in early May between ethnic groups. Sporadic incidents of violence and arson still occur despite the heavy presence of security forces in parts of the remote state, which borders Myanmar. Gandhi was travelling to Churachandpur district, one of the worst affected areas in the violence, when security forces stopped his convoy at Bishnupur, about 20 kms from the capital Imphal, citing security fears. Teargas shells were then fired to disperse a crowd that had started gathering in the area. "Seeing the ground situation, we stopped him from moving forward and advised him to travel to Churachandpur via helicopt...

By  Su Myat Mon  and  Helen Regan , CNN Published 12:44 AM EDT, Thu June 29, 2023 The aftermath of an airstrike on Nyaung Kone village, in Pale township, Myanmar's Sagaing region, on June 27.  From Zaw Htet/Facebook   CNN —  Ma Khin Hla and her five siblings didn’t have time to run when a fighter jet buzzed over their village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region.   “We six siblings were sitting and talking at home as our brother monk was visiting us from town,” said Ma Khin Hla, 67, who asked to use a pseudonym for security reasons. “We first heard the noises from a jet fighter. We didn’t get to run as it immediately dropped bombs.” When she opened her eyes after the strike on Tuesday, Ma Khin Hla said she saw her siblings’ bodies scattered around her. “All were lying dead nearby me,” she said. “My entire body is shaken by rage and numb in sadness to see my siblings killed.” At least 10 civilians died in the airstrike and mo...