الكاتب: kafej

Widodo calls for a ceasefire ‘for the sake of humanity’ as he sits down with US president at the White House.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pressed his United States counterpart Joe Biden to do more to end “atrocities” in Gaza and help bring about a ceasefire.

The two leaders’ talks on Monday were overshadowed by the month-long Israel-Hamas war in which the US has given Israel its full support.

Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi, attended a joint summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in Riyadh at the weekend which condemned Israel and called for a ceasefire.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country and has seen large protests in support of the Palestinians as well as a boycott of businesses seen as linked to Israel.

“Indonesia appeals to the US to do more to stop the atrocities in Gaza,” Widodo said in the Oval Office as the two presidents met in the White House in front of a roaring fire.

“A ceasefire is a must for the sake of humanity.”

Violence erupted on October 7 after the armed group Hamas, which controls Gaza, launched a surprise assault on Israel killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 captive. In response Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza and has been bombarding the Gaza Strip ever since, killing at least 11,000 Palestinians.

US officials have said Biden is keen for Indonesia to “play a larger role” in the Middle East, which could include the “ceasefire issue” but also long-term goals such as a two-state solution after the war and rebuilding Gaza.

While Washington has thrown its full support behind Israel, it has more recently begun calling for more restraint and “pauses” in the fighting that would allow the delivery of humanitarian aid or the release of the captives held by Hamas.

‘New era of relations’

The Jokowi-Biden meeting comes ahead of talks between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as a key summit of leaders from APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), which is taking place in San Francisco. China and Indonesia are both members of APEC.

The US aims to upgrade cooperation with Indonesia to a so-called comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest diplomatic level, as it deepens alliances in the Asia Pacific region. Biden unveiled a similar upgrade to ties with Vietnam on a visit to Hanoi in September.

“This will mark a new era of relations between the United States and Indonesia across the board, affecting everything,” Biden said as he sat next to Jokowi.

The deepening crisis in Myanmar was also up for discussion. The country was plunged into turmoil in February 2021, when the military seized power from the government of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Fighting between the military and armed groups fighting against the coup has intensified in the past couple of weeks.

The US and other mainly Western countries have imposed sanctions but the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while banning Myanmar’s top generals from its summits, has had little success in holding the military to account. Indonesia is the outgoing chair of the 10-member grouping that welcomed Myanmar as a member some 25 years ago with Laos next to take the helm.

“It’s going to be time soon for us to think about what our next steps are together to deal with a situation that is untenable,” the officials told Reuters.

Biden and Jokowi’s talks also covered new cooperation in areas of defence such as cybersecurity, and space as well as climate with the US due to announce steps with the Southeast Asian country on carbon capture and storage, supporting the electricity grid and improving air quality.

Amid rising geopolitical tension, Jokowi was keen to stress Indonesia’s long-held neutrality.

“Indonesia is always open to cooperate with any country, and not to take the side of any power, except to take the side of peace and humanity,” he said.

Authorities cite the popular Chinese video-sharing platform’s negative effects and ask internet service providers to close the app.

Nepal says it will ban TikTok, adding that social harmony and goodwill are being disturbed by “misuse” of the popular video-sharing app and that there is rising demand to control it.

Nepal’s Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma said the decision to ban TikTok was taken at a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Sharma said the decision was made because TikTok was consistently used to share content that “disturbs social harmony and disrupts family structures and social relations”.

“Colleagues are working on closing it technically,” she said, without specifying what triggered the ban.

TikTok has already been either partially or completely banned by other countries, with many citing security concerns.

More than 1,600 TikTok-related cybercrime cases have been registered over the last four years in Nepal, according to local media reports.

Nepal Telecom Authority chief Purushottam Khanal said that internet service providers have been asked to close the app. “Some have already closed while others are doing it later today [Monday],” Khanal told Reuters news agency.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. It has previously said such bans are “misguided” and that they are based on “misconceptions”.

Hours after the decision was made public, videos on the ban had thousands of views on TikTok.

Opposition leaders in Nepal criticised the move, saying that it lacked “effectiveness, maturity and responsibility”.

“There are many unwanted materials in other social media also. What must be done is to regulate and not restrict them,” said Pradeep Gyawali, former foreign minister and a senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).

Gagan Thapa, leader of the Nepali Congress party that is part of the ruling coalition, said the government’s intention seems to be to “stifle freedom of expression”.

“Regulation is necessary to discourage those who abuse social media, but shutting down social media in the name of regulation is completely wrong,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The decision comes days after Nepal introduced a directive requiring social media platforms operating in the country to set up offices.

TikTok, with around a billion monthly users, is run by the Beijing-based parent company ByteDance and is the sixth most used social platform in the world, according to the We Are Social marketing agency.

Multiple countries have sought to tighten controls on the app for allegedly breaking data rules and for its potentially harmful impact on youth.

Nepal’s neighbour India banned TikTok along with dozens of other apps by Chinese developers in June 2020, saying that they could compromise national security and integrity.

Another South Asian country, Pakistan, banned the app at least four times over what the country’s government terms its “immoral and indecent” content.

Parent company ByteDance rejects critics who accuse it of being under Beijing’s direct control.

Although it lags behind the likes of Meta’s long-dominant trio of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, its growth among young people far outstrips its competitors.

Vivian Silver, 74, had moved to Israel to advocate for peace, according to her family.

Vivian Silver, a Canadian-Israeli peace activist who went missing during Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, has been confirmed dead, her family have told Canadian media.

Silver, 74, was killed in the Palestinian armed group’s initial attacks on southern Israeli communities, Silver’s son, Yonatan Zeigen, told CBC News and CTV News on Monday.

He said his mother’s remains had been found earlier but were only identified more than five weeks after the attacks.

Silver, the founder of Women Wage Peace and the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, had been living in Kibbutz Be’eri, near Gaza, after relocating from Winnipeg in the early 1970s.

In an article earlier this month, the Washington Post described Silver as having spent “her entire adult life denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, lobbying for diplomatic solutions to the conflict, ferrying children from Gaza to Israeli hospitals”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly described Silver as a “proud Israeli-Canadian and lifelong advocate for peace”.

“I met her son in Tel Aviv, and he described her as kind, generous, and selfless,” Joly said on X, formerly Twitter. “Canada mourns her loss with him and her loved ones.”

John Lyndon, the executive director of the Washington, DC-based Alliance for Middle East Peace, said Silver had wanted Gaza to be “free and at peace”.

“Rest in power, Vivian,” he said on X.

The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg said it was “devastated” to learn of Silver’s death.

“Vivian was a civilian brutally taken from her home, and now we know, from all of us, forever,” the group said on Facebook.

“She was a renowned pacifist who tirelessly advocated for peace and the improvement of the quality of life for Palestinians. We are with heavy hearts as we learn of the impact of Hamas’ terrorist attack and as time passes, to learn of the identity of those massacred in Israel.”

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 others captive during the worst attack on Israel in decades, according to Israeli officials.

On Monday, Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said the armed group was prepared to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce, but that Israel was “procrastinating and evading” on the terms of a deal.

US president says he hopes to see ‘less intrusive action’ at Al-Shifa Hospital as patients and staff remain trapped inside.

United States President Joe Biden has said that Gaza’s largest hospital “must be protected” as Israeli tanks surround the facility with hundreds of patients and staff trapped inside.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Biden said he hoped to see Israel take “less intrusive action” at Al-Shifa Hospital, which medical staff say has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli bombing and snipers.

“My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.

“Also, there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that’s being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris … being engaged,” the US President added. “So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected.”

Biden’s comments came as medics warned of mounting casualties among patients, including newborn babies, at the hospital, which has been encircled by Israeli forces since Saturday.

Witnesses on Monday reported that tanks and armoured vehicles were positioned just metres from the gate of the medical complex, where staff say power outages, dwindling medical supplies and Israeli bombardment have made taking care of patients next to impossible.

At least 32 patients, including six premature babies, have died at the hospital since Friday, Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said on Monday.

Three nurses have also been killed at the facility, the UN relief agency in the occupied Palestinian territory said on Sunday.

Israel has claimed that Hamas operates a command centre under the hospital, which the armed group and hospital officials have denied.

Israel’s military said on Monday that its soldiers had discovered a weapons cache in a tunnel connected to Rantissi Hospital, a facility for treating children in northern Gaza, sharing a video of what it said were grenades, suicide vests and other explosives.

“Hamas hides in hospitals,” spokesman Daniel Hagari said during a nightly press conference. “Today, we will expose this to the world.”

Since Sunday, the Al-Shifa, Al-Quds and Kamal Adwan hospitals have suspended operations due to Israeli bombardment and dwindling supplies of fuel and medicines.

Israel has told civilians to leave Al-Shifa and medics to send patients elsewhere. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Khan Younis, said the “Israeli military is calling on patients to step out of the hospital with their hands above their heads”.

“But some of them need wheelchairs while others are disabled, hence cannot walk,” he said. “It’s hard to comprehend these are the demands of the Israeli military, while at the same time [it is] playing nice with the media, telling journalists ‘we are offering a safe corridor’.”

Israel has pledged to eliminate Hamas in response to the armed group’s October 7 attacks on southern Israeli communities, which Israeli officials say killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Israel’s bombardment and ground operation in Gaza since then have killed at least 11,240 Palestinians, including more than 4,600 children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-governed enclave.

As the war enters its 629th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.

Fighting

• A Russian rocket and artillery attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed two people and injured at least 11, damaging a hospital and more than a dozen homes. Local governor Oleksandr Prokudin said a family driving home from a medical appointment was also hit by artillery fire, leaving one man dead and a two-month-old baby injured.
• Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian troops had secured a foothold on the occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro river in the village of Krynky, about 35km (22 miles) upstream from Kherson. The Kremlin declined to comment on the situation. “We do not comment on the course of the special military operation itself, that is the prerogative of our specialists, our military,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The advance would be a significant breakthrough for Kyiv.
• Russia’s defence ministry said reports from two state news agencies – RIA Novosti and TASS – on troop movements in Ukraine were “false” and a “provocation”. The agencies reported that Russian troops were being moved to “more favourable positions” east of the Dnipro River, but quickly removed the alerts after publishing them.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Washington, DC and promised sustained US support for Ukraine. Blinken spoke to Yermak about “steps we can take together with Ukraine to harden its infrastructure for the upcoming winter,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “We, of course, in the last winter saw Russia trying to take down energy sites in Ukraine. They may very well do that again”.
• European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said officials were finalising the “last details” of a proposed 12th package of sanctions on Russia that will include a diamond ban. The European Commission, the EU executive, could approve the proposed package on Wednesday and it would then go to the Council of the EU, made up of the bloc’s 27 member countries, for discussion and approval.
• Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky has been formally notified that he is suspected of treason for allegedly spreading misinformation about the political leadership and cooperation with Russia’s military intelligence. Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said that a politician was under suspicion but did not name the suspect. He was later named by lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, who is the first deputy head of the parliamentary committee on anti-corruption policy, and another lawmaker, Oleksiy Honcharenko. Dubinsky was expelled from the ruling party in 2021 after he was put on a US sanctions list over alleged election meddling. He has denied the accusations.
• Lawyers for Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko, who faces as many as eight years in prison for replacing supermarket price tags with demands for an end to the war in Ukraine, told a court the 33-year-old would not survive a jail term and should be freed. Skochilenko, who is known as Sasha, has already spent more than 18 months in jail in St Petersburg and denies the formal charge of knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army.

Weapons

• Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the country will block the disbursement of the next tranche of military aid to Ukraine under the European Peace Facility (EPF) until Kyiv provides “guarantees” that OTP bank or other Hungarian firms will not be blacklisted as “international sponsors of war”.
• A report from the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security said Russia was making progress on the construction of a factory to mass produce Iranian-designed Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.