WORLD

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Nusra, IS to leave south
Damascus suburbs
DAMASCUS: Some 4,000 people,

half of them jihadist fighters,

will leave three besieged districts south of Syrias capital
at the weekend as part of a
landmark ceasefire, sources
told AFP on Friday.
Militants from the Islamic
State jihadist group and its rival, al-Qaedas Syrian affiliate
al-Nusra Front, will reportedly quit the districts of Qadam,
Hajar al-Aswad and the besieged Palestinian camp of
Yarmouk.
An agreement was reached whereby 4,000 fighters
and civilians, including members of al-Nusra and IS,
would leave the neighbourhoods on Saturday, one government official close to the
negotiations said.
They would then be transported to the northern cities
of Raqqa, held by IS, and Marea which is controlled by Islamists and Al-Nusra, the official said.
The second phase of the
deal would see government
institutions reopen in the
neighbourhoods and the necessities of daily life would be
secured, the official said.

COLOMBO: Fishermen from Jaff-

na have demanded that the Sri

Lankan government frame a
comprehensive scheme to
safeguard their interests when
they experience huge losses
caused by poachers.
The need for such a scheme
has been felt in the light of a recent incident near Neduntheevu or Deft Island in the Jaffna
district wherein 27 out of 30
nets belonging to a Karainagar-based fisherman were said
to have been damaged by trawlers run by unknown persons.
Insufficient insurance
On the same day, the Sri
Lankan authorities had apprehended four fishermen, hailing
from India, along with a trawler, for allegedly poaching in
Sri Lankan waters.
The fisherman concerned,
Loganathan, claims that even
his three other nets are of no
use as they too have suffered

It will be the first time in

more than two years that
market goods have been able
to be sent in to the three
southern districts, which
have been under a crippling
government siege. IS militants attacked the Yarmouk
Palestinian camp in April,
fighting al-Nusra units there
for control.
The ceasefire deal comes
after two months of intense
negotiations between Syria's
government and district leaders, the Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Speaking on condition of
anonymity, one local leader
in Qadam said every fighter
will be allowed to leave with
his family and one suitcase
and his personal weapon.
The areas are already in the
process of being demilitarised. AFP

LAGOS: Tens of people were

killed in a huge Christmas Eve
blast at an industrial gas plant
in southeastern Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari
said on Friday.
In an e-mailed press statement, Mr. Buhari said he was
greatly shaken and shocked
by such large scale loss of human lives in a single industrial accident.
The blast at the gas plant
happened
around
noon
Thursday, engulfing the
southeastern industrial city
of Nnewi in black clouds of
billowing smoke and leaving
some victims charred beyond
recognition. The fire raged
for hours, gutting surrounding buildings and cars, with
incinerated corpses later
found face down in the
smouldering rubble.
Nnewi resident Ilochonwu
Prince, who lives near the
plant, said he thought a house
had collapsed when he heard
the blast at around 11:30 am on
Thursday. When there is a
sound like that you run for
your life, the volume was so

irreparable damages. In monetary terms, his loss comes to

about SLR 2.5 lakh. I do not
know how I will be able to mobilise this much money and get
back to regular fishing, says
Mr. Loganathan.
Replying in the negative to a
query whether the government has got any scheme to
compensate fishermen who
are affected by acts of poachers, M.C. L. Fernando, Director
General of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, says fishermen can join insurance
schemes.
But, Mr. Rajachandran, secretary of Jaffna District Fisheries Cooperative Federation,
says fishing nets are left out of
the ambit of insurance
schemes, which cover boats
while Mr. Kannah points out
says there are genuine difficulties in providing the cover to
nets. This is why the government should come out with a
scheme that takes care of all
our losses, he added.

1 killed in Ahmadiyya mosque blast

ws killed and nearly 30 others

injured in a suicide bomb
attack in a mosque during
the Juma prayers in

Bangladeshs northern
Rajshahi on Friday. The police
said that the attack took
place at the mosque run by
Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat at
the Baghmara upazila of
Rajshahi on Friday afternoon.
The injured, at least five of
them in critical condition,
were rushed to Rajshahi
Medical College Hospital.
Haroon Habib

Okinawa countersues Japan govt.

TOKYO: The defiant southern

region of Okinawa
countersued Japans
government on Friday over
local resistance to a new U.S.
military base, the latest
chapter in deepening mistrust
between central authorities
and the strategic island. The
lawsuit by Okinawa
prefecture comes after the

Pak. Army chief

to visit Kabul

Many feared dead; fire engulfs southeastern industrial city of Nnewi in black clouds
To quit the districts
of Qadam, Hajar
al-Aswad and the
besieged Palestinian
camp of Yarmouk

The fire in Nnewi, Anambra, raged for hours, gutting surrounding buildings and cars, with
incinerated corpses later found face down. SCREENSHOT: RTV

high, Mr. Prince said to AFP.

It was the 24th, they wanted to buy gas that they would
use with their families for
Christmas, said the 26-yearold student, his voice shaking
with emotion.
Authorities have given varying tolls. It was a huge inferno, police spokesman Ali
Okechukwu told AFP. We
have found six bodies outside

central government sued it

last month . Okinawa
Governor Takeshi Onaga
renewed his pledge to
prevent the central
government from
constructing a U.S. Marine air
base in the remote Henoko
part of the island to replace
the existing Futenma facility .
AFP

the perimeter, two more bodies were found in the adjoining building, bringing the total number of casualties to
eight."
Mr. Okechukwu, who said a
further six people were injured, added that an investigation into the explosion was
under way.
The gas-fuelled fire spread
to a large surrounding area in-

stantly, National Emergency

Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman James Eze
told AFP. About 300 metres
from the gas line all the plants
there were burnt, houses
from 400 metres away were
affected, heavy machines
too, Mr. Eze said, speaking by
phone from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching
Hospital where victims of the

blast were taken for treatment. Mr. Eze put the total
number of casualties at four,
barring any missing people
who were burnt without any
trace.
The fire [was] so strong as
to burn the bones into ashes,
but nobody has come forward
with a missing person, Mr.
Eze said.
There were conflicting accounts too about the cause of
the explosion and the authorities have not explained what
triggered it. Some local reports said the blast occurred
after a truck was off-loading
butane cooking gas for customers stocking up on fuel for
Christmas festivities. Others
said it was set off when a leaking consignment of gas was
being moved to the company
dump.
The cause is yet to be determined. A few people lost
their lives. Some people suffered burns of various degrees, said Anambra State
Governor, Willy Obiano, who
visited the scene of the accident. AFP

Need for unity against terror atrocities

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis
urged the world in his Christmas message on Friday to
unite to end atrocities by Islamist militants that he said
were causing immense suffering in many countries.
Security was tight at the
Vatican as Pope Francis,
marking the third Christmas
since his election in 2013, read
his traditional Christmas Day
Urbi et Orbi (to the city and
the world) address from the
central balcony of St. Peters
Basilica. Tens of thousands of
people had to have their bags
checked as they entered the
Vatican area and then go
through airport-style screening if they wanted to enter St.
Peter's Square.
After calling for an end to
the civil wars in Syria and Libya, the Pope said: May the
attention of the international

Pope Francis delivers his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the
world) blessing from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica
at the Vatican on Friday. PHOTO: AP

community be unanimously
directed to ending the atrocities which in those countries,
as well as in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa,
even now reap numerous vic-

tims, cause immense suffering and do not even spare the

historical and cultural patrimony of entire peoples.
He called for peace between Israelis and Palesti-

nians in the area where Jesus

was born. He asked God to
bring
consolation
and
strength to Christians who
are being persecuted around
the world and called for peace
in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Burundi, South Sudan
and Ukraine.
The Popes words were
echoed by the Archbishop of
Canterbury in his Christmas
Day address, in which the
leader of the worlds 80 million Anglicans said Christians
in West Asia faced extinction
at the hands of Islamic State.
Archbishop Justin Welby
said IS was igniting a trail of
fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression. He
branded the group a Herod
of today, in a reference to the
ruthless king of Judea at the
time of the birth of Jesus
Christ. Reuters

General Raheel Sharif is to

hold talks with top Afghan
civil and military leaders.
FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

Pakistans army
chief General Raheel Sharif
will visit Kabul on Sunday to
hold talks with top Afghan
civil and military leaders, the
military said on Friday.
Afghanistan sees Pakistans
support as vital to resuming a
stalled peace dialogue with
the Taliban and recently both
countries have expressed resolve to work together in this
regard. COAS [Chief of Army
Staff] will visit Kabul on Sunday, 27th December, Pakistan
Army spokesman Lieutenant
General Asim Bajwa said on
Twitter.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani travelled to Pakistan
this month to open a conference that shored up international support for Taliban
talks. At the Islamabad conference, Mr. Ghani and Pakistani
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
vowed commitment to the
peace process, with the United States and China also offering support. The visit by the
Army chief to Kabul is a follow up of commitments made
by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani towards Afghan
peace at the Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad, said security analyst Imtiaz Gul.
Mr. Gul said that the resumption of dialogue with the
Taliban, action against Haqqani network and other militant
groups, as well as peaceful
border management were
likely to be discussed during
talks. AFP

ISLAMABAD:

Taliban chief Mullah Mansour

gets rebuked by religious leaders
MUJIB MASHAL
AND TAIMOOR SHAH

DHAKA: At least one person

THE HINDU SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2015

Christmas eve blast shakes Nigeria

Jaffna fishermen demand

compensation package
T. RAMAKRISHNAN

HYDERABAD

AIIB formally
established
The China-backed
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), viewed by
some as a rival to the World
Bank and Asian Development
Bank, was formally established on Friday, according to a
statement issued by Beijing.
It will be operational once
its board of directors and executive council have met for
the first time at an opening
ceremony scheduled for January 16-18, the ministry of finance said in a statement on
its official website. Beijing
will be by far the largest AIIB
shareholder at about 30 percent, according to the legal
framework signed by 50
founding member countries
in late June. With authorised
capital of $100 billion, it expects to offer its first batch of
project loans by mid-2016, according to the official Xinhua
news agency. AFP

BEIJING:

KABUL: In a sign of deep political tension within the Taliban,

a collection of religious leaders in the groups headquarters in Pakistan issued a letter
of rebuke this month to the
new insurgent leader for his
bloody crackdown on dissenting commanders.
It was unclear whether the
letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York
Times and confirmed in interviews with several Taliban
commanders, would amount
to more than a symbolic setback for the Taliban leader,
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad
Mansour. He has aggressively
consolidated power since he
was named leader in July.
Commanders say he has kept
a grip on the groups biggest
sources of income, including
the trafficking of opium.
The Taliban commanders
and members of the groups
ruling council at headquarters in Quetta, Pakistan, most
of whom spoke on condition
of anonymity to discuss inter-

Religious heads in
Quetta refuse to
grant legitimacy to
Mansours
leadership
nal negotiations, differed on
how much weight was carried
by the letter from the religious leaders. But they agreed
that it reflected unease over
infighting and deadly crackdowns ordered by Mansour,
including the deployment of
hundreds of fighters to kill a
rival senior commander this
month. The letter continued
an uncommonly public airing
of internal Taliban power
struggles since the revelation
this summer that the groups
founder, Mullah Muhammad
Omar, had been dead for at
least two years.
Still, though Afghan and
Western officials have sought
to portray the factional disputes as a sign of weakness for
the Taliban, there has been little evidence of that on the battlefield this year, where the
insurgents have made sweep-

ing gains. Instead, the letter

was a sign that little was forgiven between Mansour and his
biggest rival within the Taliban, Mullah Qayum Zakir, a
former detainee at Guantnamo Bay and an aggressive senior military commander.
Although Zakir has urged
unity within the Taliban and
told his commanders that he
and Mansour continued to
work together, he was reported to be highly disgruntled
over Mansours rise to power
this summer. And he cited the
religious councils letter in recent communication with his
commanders urging them to
refuse any orders to engage in
internal crackdowns, those
commanders said.
In the 15-page letter dated
Dec. 7, a group of about three
dozen religious leaders in
Quetta refused to grant religious legitimacy to Mansours
leadership. The collective
condemned his recent crackdowns, saying he still lacked
the stature to declare that dissenters were outlaws.
New York Times News
Service

Nothing like family to win over voters, unless your name is Bush
SABRINA SIDDIQUI

nors and keeping troops in

line as the former Florida Governors campaign has fallen in
dramatic fashion. But in public,
Mr. Bush has been reluctant to
embrace his legacy as the son
and brother of U.S. Presidents
number 41 and 43.
Even as Mr. Bush has professed his love for his family
his dad, he often says, is the
best man Ive ever met he
has repeatedly insisted, Im
my own man.

WASHINGTON: One closes every

speech with the heartfelt tale

of his bartender father; another invokes her newborn granddaughter while musing about
future generations.
And then there are the far
more famous father and brother who seldom get a mention
unless explicitly asked about.
Family members may not be
physically present for the most
part on the 2016 presidential
campaign trail, but their presence is routinely felt as candidates crisscross the country
seeking ways to resonate with
voters.
Rubios humble beginnings
An integral part of Marco Rubios pitch are his humble beginnings, as the son of Cuban
immigrants who worked as a
bartender and a maid struggling, like so many, to make
ends meet for their children.
That journey from behind
that bar to behind this podium
thats the essence of the
American dream, the Florida
CM
YK

Family tales are being used as a weapon in campaigns to humanise a candidate. George W. Bush and Jeb Bush; (right) Bill and
Hillary Clinton. PHOTOS: REUTERS, AP

senator says at the end of his

stump speech.
Texas senator Ted Cruz, also
Cuban-American, paints a similar picture for his audiences
with the story of his father, Rafael Cruz. He arrived with only $100 sewn into his underwear after fleeing the Batista
dictatorship, Mr. Cruz says, in
an ode to the promise of
America.
For Hillary Clinton, its
granddaughter Charlotte who

gets a starring role to show off

the Democratic frontrunners
more relatable side. There
have been references to babysitting and the many firsts that
Clinton says she and husband
Bill celebrate as though nobody has ever done it before.
And as a staple, she concludes many speeches by holding up Charlotte as a primary
source of concern for future
generations. You should not
have to be the grandchild of a

former President to know that

you can make it in America,
Ms. Clinton has said.
At a time when politicians
are more disliked than ever before, the family tales that might
seem trite to insiders are instead a campaigns best weapon to humanise a candidate.
Rather than seeming out of
touch, a frequent criticism of
those seeking the presidency,
relatives can be effectively deployed to persuade voters that

a candidate does, in fact, understand the struggles of everyday Americans.

At a recent event in Iowa,
Mr. Rubio rolled out a plan for
veterans with his brother a
former Army Green Beret
by his side. But not every sibling or parent is viewed as an
asset on the campaign trail.
Behind the scenes, Jeb
Bushs influential family have
rallied behind him in courting
an extensive network of do-

Ws troubling legacy
The implications of George W.
Bushs complicated record
were evident even before Jeb
Bush formally entered the race
notably when it took days
for the younger Bush to definitively state his view of the Iraq
war when asked if it was, in
hindsight, a mistake.
If Jeb would really rather
keep his family in the wings,
Mr. Cruz, the surging conservative seems sometimes at risk
of being overshadowed by his
own preacher father.
Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015
HY-HY