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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22 2016 • T H I S D AY
INTERNATIONAL
US Supreme Court Declines to Revive Apartheid Claims against IBM, Ford The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a group of black South Africans seeking to revive human rights litigation aiming to hold Ford Motor Co and IBM Corp liable for allegedly conducting business that helped perpetuate racial apartheid. The justices left in place a 2015 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that favored the two companies. That court decided that the plaintiffs failed to show that there was a close connection between decisions made or actions taken by Ford and IBM in the United States to killings, torture and other human rights abuses that took place in South Africa from the 1970s to early 1990s. Ford was accused of providing military vehicles for South African security forces and
sharing information about anti-apartheid and union activists. IBM was accused of providing technology and training to perpetuate racial separation and the “denationalization” of black South Africans. Apartheid refers to South Africa’s former whiteminority government’s policy of segregating and oppressing the majority black population from 1948 to 1994. The plaintiffs, led by Lungisile Ntsebeza, sued more than a decade ago under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 U.S. law that lets non-U.S. citizens seek damages in American courts for human rights abuses abroad. But the U.S. Supreme Court significantly narrowed the reach of that law in 2013, leading U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in 2014 to dismiss the South African plaintiffs’ case. Germany’s Daimler
IS Militants Launch Counter-attacks on US-backed Forces, Syrian Army The Islamic State group launched a counter-attack against fighters trying to capture the Syrian city of Manbij on Monday, inflicting heavy casualties on the U.S.-backed forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the militants said. The monitor said the militants won back three villages south of the besieged city in a surprise assault against fighters from the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces. At least 28 SDF fighters were killed. Two years after IS proclaimed its caliphate to rule over all Muslims from swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, its many foes are advancing on a number of fronts in both countries. Their aim is to close in on its two capitals, Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. The SDF were poised to enter Manbij nearly three weeks after the launch of a major assault to regain the city backed by U.S. air power and American Special Forces, to seal off the last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier The alliance, formed last year by recruiting Arabs to join forces with a powerful Kurdish militia, fought to nearly 2 km (1.24 miles) from the city centre from the western side on Saturday before retreating. U.S-led coalition jets hit militants taking cover near a large wheat silo complex on the southern edge of the city that has been encircled by SDF forces. An SDF spokesman said forces succeeded in repulsing the militant attack and remained positioned on the outskirts of the city, most of whose residents
remain trapped inside due to mines planted by the militants, who have dug in to defend it. “The situation is under control. They have many bodies on the ground,” Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Syria Democratic Forces-allied Manbij Military Council, told Reuters. “We are at the four gates to the city. The whole city is boobytrapped. After 20 days of the campaign, we have yet to storm the city,” he added, adding that some 2,000 people had succeeded in fleeing the city. Islamic State militants were also able to roll back the Syrian army, which had reached as close as 10 km (6.2 miles) south of the strategic town of Tabqa, an Islamic State-held city on the Euphrates River, in Raqqa province. The town, some 50 km (30 miles) west of Raqqa city, the militant’s defacto capital, appears to be the first target of a major Syrian army assault in Raqqa province backeawith Syrian troops, told Reuters the militants had succeeded in regaining areas they lost near the oil field. He did not give figures on army casualties. “A very intense attack has targeted army and allied positions in Thwara field that led to the withdrawal of troops from areas they liberated... and their retreat,” al Hosain said. Amaq also said militants seized a Syrian army checkpoint near a strategic junction which leads to Raqqa city that the Syrian government forces and their allies had seized in the early phase of its Raqqa campaign. The monitor, which tracks vio-
AG and Rheinmetall AG were dismissed as defendants in the case
in 2013. Dozens of other companies were previously dismissed.
Apartheid ended in 1994 when South Africa held its first all-race elections,
bringing Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to power.
Pakistan Arrests Man for ‘Blasphemy’ over Hindu Symbol Pakistani police officers have arrested a Muslim man under the majority-Muslim country’s strict blasphemy laws for selling shoes with a sacred Hindu symbol, according to police and Hindu community leaders. Jahanzaib Khaskheli, the shopkeeper, was arrested on Monday in the southern town of Tando Adam and the shoes, which carried the “Om” symbol, were confiscated, said Farrukh Ali, the district police chief. Hindu community leaders
called for the shopkeeper to be punished. “The state must play a proactive role in punishing the culprits under the blasphemy laws,” Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, the patron of the Pakistani Hindu Council, said in a statement. Tando Adam, about 200km northeast of Karachi, is in Sindh province, where the vast majority of Pakistan’s approximately three million Hindus live. The blasphemy laws make it a crime to insult any religion and
have specific sections for defiling the Quran or insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that carry a life sentence and mandatory death sentence, respectively. If convicted, the shopkeeper faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, in addition to a possible fine. Ali, the police chief, said Khaskheli had cooperated with authorities and appeared not to have intended to inflame religious sentiment. “We will do this according to law, but prima facie it seems that he did
not have any intention,” he said. Ali said that the police were now investigating the supplier of the shoes, who is based in Punjab province. “The responsibility in this case will be with the people who actually manufactured the shoes ... they would probably have done it intentionally,” he said. Pakistani rights groups say Hindus are often at risk of discrimination and hate crimes, including forced conversions and economic discrimination.