International Donors Pledge $3.8 Billion for Victims of Syrian Conflict

KUWAIT CITY – The international community pledged on Tuesday a total of more than 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) financial assistance to the victims of the Syrian crisis during the Kuwait III, the Third International Pledging Humanitarian Conference for Syria.

During the UN-backed conference held in Kuwait City, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that the United Nations would not allow criminals to go unpunished, while he expressed his general despair regarding the situation.

“I have only shame and deep anger and frustration at the international community’s impotence to stop the war,” he said.

The donations will be used in a transparent and responsible manner by UN humanitarian organizations and agencies, the UN secretary-general assured in the fundraiser’s final press conference.

Ban Ki-moon praised the amount of contributions raised during the conference, including the Kuwaiti donation upward of 465 million euros ($500 million) that kicked off the conference, and the 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in aid to Syria pledged by the European Union on behalf of its member states.

The Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, speaking to the audience at the conference’s commencement, reminded the invitees that only 90 percent of the commitments made during the 2012 conference had been fulfilled.

UN secretary-general also brought to light that both regime and opposition forces hinder the process of distributing aid to afflicted civilians, while he grieved the 69 rescue workers who were killed in Syria in 2014.

Other speakers at the fundraiser were equally somber about the Syrian crisis, as Valerie Amos, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, reminded that with each passing day the situation worsens in Syria.

In a press conference following the Kuwait III, the Third International Pledging Humanitarian Conference for Syria, Amos said that 12 million people are desperately in need of help inside Syria, and pointed out that four million refugees are in neighboring countries.

Amos equally stressed the need to support communities receiving refugees, referring also to the negative economic impacts resulting from high influxes of displaced refugees on host countries.

Syria is now entering its fifth consecutive year of loss and bloodshed, during which than 220,000 people, including civilians and combatants, have been killed in Syria since the outbreak of the conflict in March 2011, according to the United Nations.

Captive Prosecutor Freed, 3 Terrorists Killed in Turkey

ISTANBUL – Three suspected armed assailants from the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, were killed by Turkish police in an operation to free the Turkish prosecutor who had been taken hostage at an Istanbul courthouse on Tuesday, according to the Turkish daily Sabah.

The publication noted that the hostage was injured, and was transferred to the hospital after being freed.

According to Turkish Hurriyet daily newspaper on Tuesday, the hostage is prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, who is investigating the death of 14-year-old Berkin Elvan on March 11, 2014, 269 days after he was sent into a coma after being struck by a tear-gas canister during the Gezi Park protests, an incident which sparked a wave of indignation in the country.

A photo had been released earlier on Tuesday on social media showing a gun pointed at Kiraz’s head, with the flag of the Marxist, Leninist DHKP-C party hung in the background.

Mexican Authorities Close 3 Clinics Following Australian Woman’s Death

MEXICO CITY – Health officials closed three clinics and a hospital therapy center in Mexicali, the capital of the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California, in response to the death earlier this month of an Australian woman who underwent plastic surgery.

The medical facilities in the Valley of Mexicali were shut down after inspections discovered violations of the law, the Federal Commission for Health Risks Oversight, or Cofepris, said.

Eva Nicole Sarmonikas died on March 20 after undergoing liposuction on her abdomen and buttocks, the federal agency said.

Dr. Victor Manuel Ramirez Hernandez, who performed the procedures on the 28-year-old Australian woman, is under investigation by the Baja California Attorney General’s Office for possible negligence, the Cofepris said.

The medical facilities were cited for having expired medicines, poorly maintained and obsolete equipment, improperly handling biological waste and having undivided recovery areas, said the agency, part of the Health Secretariat.

Mexico -Kidnapped baby found alive 12 days later

 Kidnappings don’t often have happy endings. But a three-month-old baby abducted March 19 in León, Guanajuato, was discovered alive and well Sunday night.

Marco Iván Agustín Galindo was snatched from his mother’s arms by three men, one of them armed, in the Vibar neighborhood, a crime that subsequently provoked at least two protest marches by enraged mothers.

 Twelve days after Marco Iván disappeared, three young men heard a cry as they walked past a pile of garbage on the sidewalk in the city’s Valle del Real neighborhood.

On top of the garbage and wrapped in blankets was a baby.

The authorities were notified and the infant was identified soon after as the missing youngster. Marco Iván was reunited the same evening with his parents, who had spent nearly two weeks in anguish over their lost son.

A medical examination found the baby was in good health and bore no signs of maltreatment by his captors.

 

Iran - 3 Prisoners Hanged in Mashhad

Posted on: 31st March, 2015

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HRANA News Agency – Three prisoners were hanged in Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), on Thursday morning, 26th March, 3 prisoners in Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad were executed by hanging.

According to HRANA’s sources, the three men who had been convicted of drug crimes have not been identified yet and judiciary officials also have not given any information about them.

These executions are happening while, according to Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the death penalty in Iran over the past decade has been rising from 99 cases a year in 2004 to 687 in 2013.

Ahmad Shaheed in his latest report described the increasing rate of executions in Iran as “alarming” and urged to stop this process.

Iran news in brief, 30 March 2015

India halts Iran oil imports under U.S. pressure

India halted oil imports from Iran for the first time in at least a decade in March as New Delhi responded to U.S. pressure to keep its shipments from Tehran within sanction limits during the last month of negotiations on a preliminary nuclear deal.

India is second-biggest buyer of Iranian oil on an annual basis after China, yet it did not take any crude from Tehran in March, according to tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.

Refinery sources in New Delhi told Reuters  this was the first time in at least a decade that no imports were made over the space of a month - indicating how Washington is trying to maximise economic pressure on Tehran regime amid the talks aimed at stopping it from gaining the capacity to develop a nuclear bomb.

"There is pressure from the U.S. on all Asian buyers to stick to the sanctions regime," said Johannes Benigni, chairman of JBC Energy GmbH in Vienna.

The international sanctions aimed at pressuring the Iranian regime to stop nuclear activities currently restrict Iran's overall exports to 1 million-1.1 million bpd, with Asian buyers required to keep their purchases near end-2013 levels.