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Author: AFP

  • Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    A passenger plane crashed on take-off in Kathmandu on Wednesday, with the pilot rescued from the flaming wreckage but all 18 others aboard killed, police in the Nepali capital told AFP.

    Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.

    The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew and 17 of the company’s staff members, Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

    “The pilot has been rescued and is being treated,” he added. “Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner. We are in the process of taking them for post-mortem.”

    The Civil Aviation Authority said the dead foreigner was a Yemeni citizen.

    A press release from the airport said the aircraft “veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway” shortly after take-off.

    The survivor was in serious condition in hospital, it added.

    Ram Kumar K.C., who runs a tyre store near the accident site, told AFP the plane caught fire after hitting the ground.

    “We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again,” the 48-year-old said.

    The flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority told AFP without giving further details.

    Images of the aftermath shared by Nepal’s military showed the plane’s fuselage split apart and burnt to a husk.

    Around a dozen soldiers in camouflage were standing on top of the wreckage with the surrounding earth coated in fire retardant.

    The aircraft crashed at around 11:15 am (0530 GMT), the military said in a statement, adding that the army’s quick response team had been lending assistance with rescue efforts.

    The plane was scheduled to fly on Nepal’s busiest air route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, an important tourism hub in the Himalayan republic.

    Saurya Airlines exclusively flies Bombardier CRJ 200 jets, according to its website.

    Plagued by poor safety

    Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.

    But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance — issues compounded by the mountainous republic’s treacherous geography.

    The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

    The Himalayan country has some of the world’s trickiest runways to land on, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

    The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.

    Nepal’s last major commercial flight accident was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.

    That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.

    Earlier that year a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.

  • Five French tourist attractions transformed into Olympic grounds

    Five French tourist attractions transformed into Olympic grounds

    1. Eiffel Tower

    The most famous of the Paris landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, will welcome beach volleyball. The action will take place in a temporary venue near the foot of the “Iron Lady”. Next door, the Champs de Mars park at the foot of the tower will host judo and wrestling.

    Reviled by some Parisians when it was unveiled in 1889 for the World Fair by engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower has become the capital’s symbol. Besides being one of the world’s top tourist attractions, pulling in seven million visitors a year, it is also a working telecoms tower, used for radio and TV transmissions.

    Winners at the Paris Games will all go home with a small part of the iron colossus. Each medal will contain an 18g crumb of original iron, removed during renovations, melted down and reforged.

    2. Grand Palais

    Fencing and taekwondo battles will take place in the opulent setting of the Grand Palais exhibition hall, a glass-and-steel masterpiece created for the World Fair of 1900. Its distinctive feature is its glass-domed roof, the largest of its kind in Europe, which covers a cavernous exhibition space of 13,500 square metres.

    During World War I, the Grand Palais put its art collection in storage and converted its galleries into a military hospital where soldiers were patched up before returning to the trenches. In the 21st century, the airy nave has hosted giant installations commissioned from some of the world’s leading artists. It has also been flooded to make the biggest ice rink in the world.

    3, Place de la Concorde

    The vast, paved square at the foot of the Champs-Elysees avenue, where heads rolled (literally) during the French Revolution, will serve as an urban sports hub.

    Skateboarding, 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle and, in its first Games appearance, breakdancing, will all take place on the elegant square by the Seine. Its harmonious name conceals a bloody past. King Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette were guillotined there in 1793 during the Reign of Terror that followed the 1789 French Revolution. The largest square in Paris is defined by its huge gold obelisk, one of a pair originally erected by Ramses II outside the temple in Luxor in Egypt. It was gifted to Paris in 1830.

    4. Palace of Versailles

    Dressage, showjumping and equestrian cross country will take place in the park of Versailles Palace, some 20 kilometres from Paris. It will also feature on the marathon circuit and host pentathlon events.

    In the 17th century, “the Sun King” Louis XIV transformed Versailles into a home of French royalty, where he resided with around 10,000 staff. The vast gardens include a mile-long canal that once hosted opulent parties. It has been a world heritage site since 1979 and is a firm favourite on the Paris tourist trail.

    5. Marseille

    The Olympics are spreading beyond the capital. Sailing contests will take place in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, France’s boisterous second city, better known as the home of Olympique Marseille football team.

    Over 300 sailors from across the world will battle it out on the sapphire Mediterranean waters off the city. A marina has been built along the scenic Corniche coastal road heading southeast out of the city. It’s unlikely they’ll have the sometimes ferocious mistral wind in their sails. It usually blows in winter and spring.

    Marseille, which will also host 10 football matches, was where the Olympic torch landed in France on May 8 on its relay to Paris.

  • Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    In front of a crowd gathered at the bullring in the capital Bogota, renamed the Santamaria Cultural Square, Petro on Monday celebrated ending the “right to kill” animals for entertainment.

    “Culture, and even less the justice (system), cannot say that it is culture to kill sentient beings, living creatures, for pleasure,” said Petro, in reference to a 2018 Constitutional Court ruling permitting bullfights in places with such a tradition.

    “If we have fun by killing an animal, we will have fun by killing human beings,” Petro said, addressing the crowd which included animal rights activists.

    Spectators chanted “No more ‘ole’!”, a slogan used during the legislative process by supporters of the law, which was passed by congress in late May.

    Luana Delgado, an influencer and anti-bullfighting activist, underlined the importance of the ban being enacted at Bogota’s bullring.

    “A place where you saw blood, where you saw death, now you will see culture,” she said.

    The nationwide legislation paves the way for bullrings to be transformed into cultural spaces or sports venues.

    Jesus Merchan, an animal rights campaigner, said to applause: “Today, we put an end to a long history of suffering.”

    The new law will be enforced from 2027, allowing time to convert arenas and provide alternative jobs to those who rely directly or indirectly on bullfighting.

    Colombia joins other Latin American countries that have outlawed bullfighting, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay.

    Bullfights are still held in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, as well as in European nations France, Spain and Portugal.

  • At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    The number of arrests in days of violence in Bangladesh passed the 2,500 mark in an AFP tally on Tuesday, after protests over employment quotas sparked widespread unrest.

    At least 174 people have died, including several police officers, according to a separate AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.

    What began as demonstrations against politicised admission quotas for sought-after government jobs snowballed last week into some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

    A curfew was imposed and soldiers deployed across the South Asian country, and a nationwide internet blackout drastically restricted the flow of information, upending daily life for many.

    On Sunday, the Supreme Court pared back the number of reserved jobs for specific groups, including the descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

    The student group leading the demonstrations suspended its protests Monday for 48 hours, with its leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood”.

    The restrictions remained in place Tuesday after the army chief said the situation had been brought “under control”.

    There was a heavy military presence in Dhaka, with bunkers set up at some intersections and key roads blocked with barbed wire.

    But more people were on the streets, as were hundreds of rickshaws.

    “I did not drive rickshaws the first few days of curfew, But today I didn’t have any choice,” rickshaw driver Hanif told AFP.

    “If I don’t do it, my family will go hungry.”

    The head of Students Against Discrimination, the main group organising the protests, told AFP in his hospital room Monday that he feared for his life after being abducted and beaten, and the group said Tuesday at least four of its leaders were missing, asking authorities to “return” them by the evening.

    ‘Killed at random’

    The authorities’ response to the protests has been widely criticised, with Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urging “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence” in a statement.

    The respected 83-year-old economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

    “Young people are being killed at random every day,” Yunus told AFP. “Hospitals do not reveal the number of wounded and dead.”

    Diplomats in Dhaka also questioned the government’s actions, with US Ambassador Peter Haas telling the foreign minister he had shown a one-sided video at a briefing to diplomats.

    Government officials have repeatedly blamed the protesters and opposition for the unrest.

    More than 1,200 people detained over the course of the violence — nearly half the 2,580 total — were held in Dhaka and its rural and industrial areas, according to police officials who spoke to AFP.

    Almost 600 were arrested in Chittagong and its rural areas, with hundreds more detentions tallied in multiple districts across the country.

    ‘Sheikh Hasina never flees’

    With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the June reintroduction of the quota scheme — halted since 2018 — deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

    With protests mounting across the country, the Supreme Court on Sunday curtailed the number of reserved jobs from 56 percent of all positions to seven percent, mostly for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” from the 1971 war.

    While 93 percent of jobs will be awarded on merit, the decision fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the “freedom fighter” category altogether.

    Late Monday, Hasina’s spokesman told AFP the prime minister had approved a government order putting the Supreme Court’s judgement into effect.

    Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s ruling Awami League.

    Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

    Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,”

    Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys. The announcement comes more than nine months into the genocide.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

    The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.

    Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers, including key Israeli backer the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends. As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.

    “The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.

    “Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said. China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”. Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

    Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

    Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since October 7, with violence also soaring in the West Bank, where Fatah is based.

    China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April, but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • What we know about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    What we know about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    Organisers of Friday’s opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics — the first time it will be held outside a stadium — have provided teasers for their spectacular plans but refused to give specifics.

    Here is what we know about the concept, the artists and music based on public statements over the last few months and press leaks:

    – What’s the concept? –

    Instead of using the main athletics stadium for the opening parade, as is customary, organisers have moved the event outside and into the heart of the capital — in keeping with their motto “Games Wide Open”.

    Around 6,000-7,000 athletes are set to sail down a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine from the Austerlitz bridge in the east to the Eiffel Tower, on 85 barges and boats.

    Up to 500,000 people are set to watch in person from specially built stands, where tickets have sold for up to 2,700 euros ($2,900), on the river banks for free and from the overlooking balconies and apartments.

    “Organising a ceremony on the Seine is not easier than doing it in a stadium… but it has more punch,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told AFP earlier this month.

    Because of the size and complexity of the parade, it has never been rehearsed in full.

    – What about the entertainment? –

    The show has been designed by prodigious theatre director Thomas Jolly, a 42-year-old known for hit rock-opera musical “Starmania”.

    He brought on board a creative team that includes the writer of French TV series “Call My Agent”, Fanny Herrero, as well as best-selling author Leila Slimani and renowned historian Patrick Boucheron.

    The show has been split into 12 different sections, with around 3,000 dancers, singers and entertainers positioned on both banks of the river, the bridges and nearby monuments.

    A tribute to Notre-Dame cathedral, in the process of being renovated after a devastating fire in 2019, is guaranteed, possibly with dancers on its scaffolding.

    Starting at 07:30pm (1730 GMT), two thirds of the ceremony will take place in daylight, then dusk — Jolly is hoping for one of Paris’s stunning summer sunsets — and will end with a light show.

    The music will be a mix of classical, traditional ‘chanson francaise’, as well as rap and electro.

    Franco-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura is widely tipped to perform despite criticism from far-right politicians, including Marine Le Pen who suggested an appearance by her would “humiliate” France.

    French electro superstars Daft Punk said they had turned down an invitation to play, while globe-trotting French DJ David Guetta has been overlooked — much to his irritation.

    – What’s the message? –

    Asked to sum up his message last week, Jolly said it was “love.”

    Despite the risk of irking conservatives, he said his work would be a celebration of cultural, linguistic, religious and sexual diversity in France and around the world.

    “I think the people who want to live together in this diversity, this otherness, are much more numerous, but we make less noise,” he told AFP.

    It is fair to assume it will be nothing like the widely panned retro-styled opening ceremony of last year’s rugby World Cup, which featured a succession of French cliches from baguettes to berets and the Eiffel Tower.

    Jolly’s team is also wary of over-emphasising France’s historic contribution to the development of democracy and the concept of universal human rights thanks to its Enlightenment philosophers and 1789 Revolution.

    “We wanted to avoid our natural tendency to lecture people,” Herrero told Le Monde newspaper recently.

    And don’t expect a three-hour tribute to French greatness to rival the nationalistic pageantry seen at the Beijing Games in 2008.

    “The opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008 was exactly what we did not want to do,” Boucheron told Le Monde.

    – What will be the big moments? –

    With so much still under wraps, it’s hard to predict.

    A performance by Aya Nakamura, after so much controversy about her role, would be a major moment so soon after parliamentary elections that saw the anti-immigration far-right gain a historic 143 seats in the national parliament.

    Jolly has strongly hinted that a submersible or submarine could emerge from the waters of the Seine at some point.

    “You have the sky, you have bridges, you have water, you have banks, you have so much space to make poetry,” Jolly told reporters last week. “So why not under the river also?”

    The biggest moment of all might simply be the end if everyone gets home safely.

    The ceremony has given French police cold sweats ever since it was unveiled in 2021 because of the difficulty of securing so many people over such a vast urban area.

    Around 45,000 members of the security forces will be on duty.

  • More than 500 arrested in Bangladesh capital over violence: police

    More than 500 arrested in Bangladesh capital over violence: police

    More than 500 people, including some opposition leaders, have been arrested over days of clashes in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka sparked by protests against job quotas, police said Monday.

    “At least 532 people have been arrested over the violence,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP.

    “They include some BNP leaders,” he added, referring to the opposition Bangladesh National Party.

    The detainees included the BNP’s third-most senior leader Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and its spokesman Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, he said.

    A former national football captain turned senior BNP figure, Aminul Huq, was also held, he added.

    Mia Golam Parwar, the general secretary of the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, was also arrested, Hossain said.

    He said at least three policemen had been killed during the unrest in the capital and about 1,000 injured, at least 60 of them critically.

    BNP spokesman A.K.M Wahiduzzaman told AFP that nationwide, “several hundred BNP leaders and activists were arrested in the past few days”.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Joe Biden quits the US presidential race, endorses Kamala Harris

    Joe Biden quits the US presidential race, endorses Kamala Harris

    Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee, in a move that upends the 2024 race for the White House.

    The 81-year-old Biden stepped aside after weeks of pressure from Demo­crats following a disastrous debate performance, throwing the election battle against Republican Donald Trump into unprecedented turmoil.

    “While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter on X while recovering from Covid at his beach house in Delaware.

    Biden said he would “speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision”. He later added that he was backing Harris, who is the first female, Black and South Asian vice president in US history, and will now be aiming to become its first female commander-in-chief.

    “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden said on X. “Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.” Biden is the first president in US history to pull out so late in an election race, and the first to bow out because of concerns over his mental acuity and health.

    Biden spent more than three weeks resisting calls to step down following the shock of the June 27 debate, at one point insisting that only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to back out.

    In a bid to show he was up to the job, he gave a number of interviews and what was billed as a “big boy” press conference in which he took numerous questions, but made further gaffes including calling Harris “Vice President Trump”. A tide of voices within his own party calling on him to go, starting with donor and actor George Clooney and ending with former president Barack Obama, sealed his fate.

    Chaotic period for US

    The end finally came shortly after Biden had been diagnosed with Covid, forcing him off the campaign trail and into isolation in Rehoboth Beach.

    Biden’s decision to pull out also caps a tense and chaotic period in the US election, with Trump having survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on July 13.

    Biden joins a small club of US presidents who have decided to throw in the towel after just one term, with the last being Lyndon Johnson in 1968 — a year also marked by political turmoil and violence.

    Johnson’s replacement as nominee, then-vice president Hubert Humphrey, went on to lose heavily to Richard Nixon. But Democrats are counting on Harris to fare better, and hoping that she can prevent convicted felon Trump from making a sensational comeback to the Oval Office.

    In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has reportedly been quietly carrying out a head-to-head survey of voters measuring how she matched up against Trump.

    While Harris struggled to make an impact in her first years in the White House, she has emerged in the last year as a strong performer on the campaign trail on key messages such as abortion rights. She has also made much of her life story as the first woman in US history to hold the vice presidency, as well as the first person of Black and South Asian origin.

    Barring opposition from her party, Harris is now set to be nominated at the Democratic National Conven­tion in Chicago on August 19 in what promises to be a dramatic moment — and a heartrending one for Biden.

    Biden took office in January 2021 pledging to heal the “soul of America” after four turbulent years under Trump and the shock of the January 6, 2021 Capitol assault by his supporters.

    Overcoming a reputation for verbal flubs, Obama’s former vice president pushed through a massive Covid recovery plan and a green industry scheme.

    US allies welcomed his pledge that “America is back” following Trump’s trampling on international alliances, and his strong support for Ukraine as it battled Russia’s 2022 invasion. But he faced criticism over the catastrophic US withdrawal from Afgha­nistan and inflation that meant overstretched Americans ignored otherwise positive economic numbers.

    Behind it all were the ongoing concerns about his age with a series of senior moments, including tripping up the stairs to Air Force One and falling off his bike, contributing to the doddery image played up by Republicans.

    Biden’s Letter

  • Pro-Palestinian Bella Hadid dropped from another ad campaign

    Pro-Palestinian Bella Hadid dropped from another ad campaign

    Adidas said Friday it had dropped vocal pro-Palestinian model Bella Hadid from an advertising campaign for retro sneakers referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, which were overshadowed by a massacre of Israeli athletes.

    The German sportswear giant recently relaunched the SL72, a shoe first showcased by athletes at the 1972 Olympics, as part of a series reviving old classic sneakers.

    Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer were killed at the 1972 Munich Games after gunmen from the Palestinian Black September group broke into the Olympic village and took them hostage.

    Hadid, who was born in the US but has Palestinian roots through her father, has been vocal about her support for Palestinian rights since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war in Gaza.

    Adidas said it would be “revising the remainder of the campaign” with immediate effect.

    “We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events — though these are completely unintentional — and we apologise for any upset or distress caused,” the company said in a statement sent to AFP on Friday.

    ‘Collective memory’

    A spokeswoman confirmed that Hadid had been removed from the campaign, which notes that the shoes were first introduced in 1972 but never mentions the terror attack on the Israeli athletes.

    Pictures of the American model wearing the retro Adidas shoes had caused an outcry among pro-Israeli groups.

    “Guess who the face of the campaign is? Bella Hadid, a model with Palestinian roots who has spread anti-Semitism in the past and incited violence against Israelis and Jews,” the Israeli embassy in Germany wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

    “How can Adidas now claim that the reference [to the events in Munich] was ‘completely unintentional’?” Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, said in response to the company’s climbdown.

    “The terror of 1972 is etched into the collective memory of Germans and Israelis,” he told Die Welt TV on Friday.

    A flood of social media posts meanwhile expressed support for Hadid, criticised Adidas for axing the model, and called for a boycott of the company.

    Pro-Palestinian demonstrations

    The Gaza war was triggered by the October 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

    Israel’s military retaliation to wipe out Hamas has killed at least 38,848 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

    Hadid has taken part in several pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the conflict and has described Israel’s offensive as a “genocide”.

    In 2021, Hadid, her sister Gigi Hadid and singer Dua Lipa were described as anti-Semitic in an advertisement published in The New York Times by a Jewish group called the World Values Network.

    Adidas said it would be continuing the SL72 campaign with other famous faces including footballer Jules Kounde, singer Melissa Bon and model Sabrina Lan.

    In late 2022, Adidas ended its contract with the US rapper now known formally as Ye after he triggered an outcry with a series of anti-Semitic social media posts.

    Germany’s response to the Hamas attack and ensuing war has been driven by guilt over its own dark past, and the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

    The country has steadfastly backed Israel in the conflict, but its unwavering stance has led to claims that Palestinian voices are being marginalised.

  • Why are thousands in Bannu protesting?

    Why are thousands in Bannu protesting?

    Thousands of people rallied on Friday against a planned operation by the Pakistan military to root out militants along the Afghan border, with at least one protester killed when gunfire broke out, officials and witnesses told AFP.


    More than 10,000 people waving white flags and calling for peace gathered for the rally in Bannu — 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Afghanistan — where a suicide bomber on Monday rammed an explosive-packed vehicle into an army enclave, killing eight Pakistani troops.


    “Military operations have been ongoing for 20 years, yet peace has not been established,” protester Jamaluddin Wazir told AFP.


    “Military operations can never be a substitute for peace.”


    Pakistan’s government announced earlier this year, without giving details, that the military would launch a new campaign to counter violence in areas along the border with Afghanistan, which has surged following the Taliban government’s return to power.


    Friday’s protest turned violent when crowds reached the walls of an army facility and gunfire broke out, witnesses and officials reported.


    “They chanted slogans against the army, and some started throwing stones at the facility’s wall. This led to firing in the air by the military, causing a stampede,” an intelligence official in the nearby city of Peshawar told AFP on condition of anonymity.


    At least one protester died, according to Pakhtun Yar, the provincial minister for public health, who was a speaker at the protest.
    He accused the military of opening fire on the protesters.

    For years the Pakistan Taliban — a separate group from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar ideology — waged a bloody campaign in the area, killing thousands of civilians and taking control of parts of the border region, before being pushed back by a military campaign that began in 2014.
    The clearance operation displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed countless homes and businesses, sparking a local backlash calling for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns to be protected.


    But protests against the powerful military, which analysts say holds large sway over the government and foreign policy, are rare and often brought down quickly.


    Former prime minister Imran Khan, who waged a campaign of defiance against army chiefs after being ousted from power, is currently in jail on charges of inciting protests against the military.


    His party has faced a major crackdown, with supporters and leaders rounded up last year for staging an unprecedented day of rallies against the military, accusing it of interfering in politics.


    Violence has surged along the border since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out groups taking shelter on Afghan soil while preparing assaults on Pakistan.


    The Taliban government insists it will not allow foreign militant outfits to operate from Afghanistan, but Islamabad-Kabul relations have soured over the issue.