Dubai ruler's wife seeks UK forced marriage protection order for children

Yahoo – AFP, Robin MILLARD, 30 July 2019

Jordanian royal Princess Haya has long championed causes close to her
heart including youth and education

The estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai has applied for a UK forced marriage protection order relating to their children, a London court heard Tuesday.

Princess Haya, 45, a wife of 70-year-old United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, has applied for the order, as well as for wardship of their children, and a non-molestation order relating to herself, the High Court heard.

The couple are locked in a legal battle in London over the welfare of their two children.

At a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, judge Andrew McFarlane allowed media to report that Princess Haya, a Jordanian royal, had made the applications.

The court also heard that Sheikh Mohammed has applied to the High Court for the summary return of the children to Dubai.

Distinct from arranged marriages, forced marriages, in UK law, are those without the full and free consent of both parties.

A forced marriage protection order can be used to help someone who is being forced into marriage or who has been subjected to one, according to the government's official leaflet on the orders.

They can be applied for by the person in question, a relevant third party or anyone else with the permission of the court.

Applications must include details of how the applicant wants to be protected by the court, with the leaflet giving the example of stopping a person from being taken out of the UK to enter into a marriage without consent.

Foreign media excluded

After a previous hearing held in private in London, the couple issued a statement relating to the nature of the case.

"These proceedings are concerned with the welfare of the two children of their marriage and do not concern divorce or finances," it said.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (L) did not attend the court 

proceedings on Tuesday

It said the preliminary case management hearing would "deal with issues relating to how to proceed to a final hearing to determine the welfare issues".

Judge McFarlane -- who presides over the family division of the High Court of England and Wales -- decided Tuesday that only accredited journalists with media based within the jurisdiction of England and Wales were allowed to sit in on the proceedings.

Reporters from media organisations not based in the UK were in attendance but were told they could not hear the proceedings.

Princess Haya is a daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and a half-sister of King Abdullah II of Jordan.

The princess was in court for the proceedings while Sheikh Mohammed was not.

She left the court accompanied by her lawyer Fiona Shackleton who represented Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, in his divorce from Diana, princess of Wales.

Sheikh Mohammed is being represented by Helen Ward, who acted for Guy Ritchie in his divorce from pop star Madonna and for former Formula One motor racing supremo Bernie Ecclestone in his divorce.

A small anti-Sheikh Mohammed demonstration took place outside the courts complex.

The two-day preliminary hearing is set to continue on Wednesday.

Princess Haya is locked in a legal battle with the ruler of Dubai over the welfare of their two children

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (L) did not attend the court proceedings on Tuesday.

Princess Haya, who is battling her husband, Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, in a UK court, is the third princess who has sought to escape the Gulf emirate in recent years https://t.co/u2kIiH02Kc pic.twitter.com/Pbf5LGygPD

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 31 juli 2019

Princess Haya of Jordan -- embroiled in a bitter legal battle with her husband the ruler of Dubai -- has received support from her brother in the form of a photo on Twitterhttps://t.co/GhS2xMO2oJ

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 1 augustus 2019

New Zealand tightens gun laws again after mosque attack

Yahoo – AFP, 22 July 2019

Ardern said the March 15 killings had changed attitudes towards gun ownership
in New Zealand

New Zealand announced plans for a national firearms register Monday in its second round of gun law reforms following the Christchurch mosque attacks which killed 51 Muslim worshippers.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said regulations around who could hold firearm licences would also be tightened to "stop weapons falling into the wrong hands".

Ardern said the March 15 killings, when a gunman opened fire at two Christchurch mosques as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, had changed attitudes towards gun ownership in New Zealand.

"There is a new normal around firearms, it is a change of mindset," she told reporters.

"The most dangerous weapons are being taken out of circulation."

The government's initial response to the attack was an immediate ban on the military style semi-automatic rifles (MSSAs) used in the worst massacre in modern New Zealand history.

Police Minister Stuart Nash said the latest changes were needed to keep track of firearms in the community.

"Under the current law, we do not know exactly how many guns are in circulation, who owns them, who is selling them, who is buying them or how securely they are stored," he said.

The register, which is expected to take five years to complete, will contain details of the estimated 1.2 million firearms in New Zealand, for a population of around five million.

The second round of gun law reform also includes a ban on foreign nationals purchasing firearms -- the accused Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant is an Australian who allegedly bought an arsenal of rifles while living on the South Island.

It also bars people with convictions for violence, gang activity, drug or firearm offences from holding a licence.

A nationwide buyback scheme including 250 "collection events" run by police, was launched this month, allowing members of the public to hand in weapons before a six-month amnesty expires.

Nash said there had been a strong response during the first week of the buyback, with more than 11,000 prohibited firearms and parts handed in.

"Firearms owners want to do the right thing. Many events have seen people queueing before the doors open, ready to hand in firearms, parts and ammunition," he said.

Ardern said the March 15 killings had changed attitudes towards gun ownership in New Zealand.

Israel says hosting Iraqi, Saudi journalists in first

France 24 – AFP, 21 July 2019

The journalists are set to visit Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and
holy sites in Jerusalem AFP

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's foreign ministry said Sunday the country will this week host six journalists from Arab countries including, for the first time, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The visit comes as Israel seeks to improve ties with Gulf Arab countries, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

Those states have resisted offering Israel formal recognition due to its continuing occupation of Palestinian territory, but their relations have warmed of late, largely due to common concerns over Iran.

The journalists will visit Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, parliament and holy sites, among others, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said it had "the aim of exposing the journalists ?- some of whom come from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel -? to Israeli positions on diplomatic and geopolitical issues".

Jordan is also participating, the ministry said.

Jordan is one of only two Arab countries, along with Egypt, that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

In another recent sign of a thaw, a group of Israeli journalists attended the US-led economic conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Gulf state of Bahrain in late June.

The Palestinian leadership boycotted the conference, citing a series of moves against them by US President Donald Trump's administration.

On Thursday, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said that he had met his Bahraini counterpart publicly for the first time during a visit to Washington last week.

Katz also recently visited Abu Dhabi for a UN climate conference, where he met United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and an unnamed "high ranking UAE official".

Sri Lanka president vetoes military deal with the US

Yahoo – AFP, July 6, 2019

Sri Lanka's president Maithripala Sirisena is at loggerheads with his pro-Western
Prime Minister (AFP Photo/LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI)

Colombo (AFP) - Sri Lanka's President Saturday announced he will not allow his government to conclude a proposed military deal that would allow US troops free access to the island's ports.

Maithripala Sirisena said he was opposed to the draft Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the two countries are negotiating to further strengthen their military ties.

Sirisena is at loggerheads with his pro-Western Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

"I will not allow any agreement that undermines our independence and sovereignty," Sirisena told a public rally in the island's south. "Several agreements currently being discussed are detrimental to our country."

"I will not allow the SOFA that seeks to betray the nation. Some foreign forces want to make Sri Lanka one of their bases. I will not allow them to come into the country and challenge our sovereignty."

The SOFA seeks to ensure reciprocal access to port facilities and allow freer entry to military personnel and their contractors.

Sirisena said there will be no bilateral agreements "against Sri Lanka's national interest" as long as he was in office. His term ends in January.

He did not name the powers he accused of trying to gain a military foothold in his Indian Ocean island republic of 21 million people.

However, it was a thinly veiled reference to the US which is keen on strengthening their existing military cooperation.

A year ago, Washington announced it was granting $39 million to boost maritime security in Sri Lanka as China developed its strategic hold on the Indian Ocean island.

Increased US interest in Sri Lanka comes as China is upping investment in ports and other building projects on the island, which is a key link in Beijing's ambitious "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative.

The US had stopped arms sales to Sri Lanka during the height of the island's Tamil separatist war that ended in 2009. The global power has also been highly critical of the human rights record of the former government of strongman president, Mahinda Rajapakse.

Several senior military commanders from the Rajapakse regime have been denied visas to visit the US.

China has vowed to keep providing financial help, including loans, to Sri Lanka despite warnings about the island nation's mounting debt.

Sri Lanka in 2017 granted a 99-year lease on a strategic port to Beijing because of it could not repay Chinese loans for the $1.4 billion project.

The port in Hambantota straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route and also gives a strategic foothold to China in a region long dominated by India.

North Korea hails 'historic' Kim-Trump summit

Yahoo – AFP, Sunghee Hwang, July 1, 2019

Kim and Trump shook hands over the concrete blocks dividing North and South
before Trump became the first US president ever to set foot on North Korean soil
(AFP Photo/KCNA VIA KNS)

North Korea on Monday hailed the weekend meeting between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in the Demilitarized Zone as "historic", as analysts said Pyongyang was looking to shape the narrative to its own agenda.

The two leaders agreed to "resume and push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula", the official Korean Central News Agency said.

After a Twitter invitation by the US president on Saturday, the two men met a day later in the strip of land that has divided the peninsula for 66 years since the end of the Korean War, when the two countries and their allies fought each other to a standstill.

Kim and Trump shook hands over the concrete slabs dividing North and South before Trump walked a few paces into Pyongyang's territory -- the first US president ever to set foot on North Korean soil.

"The top leaders of the DPRK and the US exchanging historic handshakes at Panmunjom" was an "amazing event", KCNA said, describing the truce village as a "place that had been known as the symbol of division" and referring to past "inglorious relations" between the countries.

US President Donald Trump walks to the line of demarcation to meet North 

Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

The impromptu meeting in the DMZ -- where the US president said they agreed to resume working-level talks within weeks on the North's nuclear programme -- was full of symbolism.

Trump's border-crossing -- which he said was uncertain until the last moment -- was an extraordinary sequel to the scene at Kim's first summit with Moon Jae-in last year, when the young leader invited the South Korean president to walk over the Military Demarcation Line, as the border is officially known.

"It was an honour that you asked me to step over that line, and I was proud to step over the line," Trump told Kim.

Pictures from the meeting -- including a sequence of images from the two men emerging from opposite sides for a handshake and a skip across the border -- were splashed across the front page of the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which carried 35 images in total.

Shin Beom-chul, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said the KCNA report was "typical North Korean propaganda that glorified Kim as leading the tremendous changes in geopolitics".

After a Twitter invitation by the US president, the two leaders -- pictured on North 

Korean soil in the DMZ -- met a day later in the strip of land that has divided the 

peninsula for 66 years since the end of the Korean War (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

'Mysterious force'

Analysts have been divided by Sunday's events, some saying they spurred new momentum into deadlocked nuclear talks, while others described them as "reality show theatrics".

The first Trump-Kim summit took place in a blaze of publicity in Singapore last year but produced only a vaguely worded pledge about denuclearisation.

A second meeting in Vietnam in February collapsed after the pair failed to reach an agreement over sanctions relief and what the North was willing to give in return.

Contact between the two sides has since been minimal -- with Pyongyang issuing frequent criticisms of the US position -- but the two leaders exchanged a series of letters before Trump issued his offer to meet at the DMZ.

Regional powerhouse China on Monday said renewed discussions between North Korea and the United States are of "great significance".

History of relations between the United States and North Korea since 1945 (AFP Photo)

"It is hoped that all parties concerned will seize the opportunity, move in the same direction, actively explore effective solutions to each other's concerns and make progress on the peninsula," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing.

Trump's historic gesture came over a week after Xi Jinping made the first visit to Pyongyang by a Chinese president in 14 years -- a trip which analysts had said Xi may use as leverage in his own trade talks with Trump that concluded with a truce at the G20.

As well as the working-level talks, Trump also floated the idea of sanctions relief -- repeatedly demanded by Pyongyang -- and said he invited the North Korean leader to the White House.

Such a trip would have to come "at the right time", he added.

KCNA was less specific, saying Kim and Trump discussed "issues of mutual concern and interest which become a stumbling block".

Trump regularly calls Kim a "friend" and KCNA cited the North Korean leader as lauding their "good personal relations", saying they would "produce good results unpredictable by others and work as a mysterious force overcoming manifold difficulties and obstacles".

Vipin Narang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the North was portraying Kim as "being courted by Trump".