AFP Asia Business

Appeal date set for French sportswriter jailed in Algeria: lawyer

The appeal trial of a French sports journalist jailed in Algeria on accusations of “glorifying terrorism” has been scheduled for December 3, his lawyer said Friday.A contributor to the magazines So Foot and Society, Christophe Gleizes, 36, was sentenced in late June to seven years in prison.”The case of French journalist Christophe Gleizes is scheduled for December 3, 2025, at the criminal appeal court in Tizi Ouzou,” 110 kilometres (70 miles) east of Algiers, his lawyer, Amirouche Bakouri, said on Facebook.Gleizes had travelled to Tizi Ouzou to write about the local football club Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie, named after Algeria’s Kabylia region, home to the Amazigh Kabyle people.He is accused by the judiciary of having been in contact with a local football figure prominent in the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), designated a terrorist organisation by the authorities in 2021.The press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders called on the appeal court to free Gleizes.”Christophe is guilty only of practising his profession as a sports journalist and loving Algerian football,” declared RSF Director-General Thierry Bruttin, according to an NGO statement.

Rubio seeks quick deployment of international Gaza force

Top US diplomat Marco Rubio voiced hope Friday of soon putting together an international force to police the ceasefire in Gaza, as Palestinian factions agreed that a committee of independent technocrats would run the post-war territory.The secretary of state visited Israel on the heels of Vice President JD Vance as part of an all-out effort by the United States to persuade both Hamas and Israel to respect the truce.Rubio said it was critical for the deal to create “the conditions for the stabilisation force to come in as soon as it possibly can be put together”.He expressed optimism for a durable end to the two-year Gaza war as he met Israeli, US and other Western forces monitoring the ceasefire from inside a vast converted warehouse in southern Israel.The deal, spearheaded by President Donald Trump, calls for an international force to oversee security after Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas, whose unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023 sparked a war that has left Gaza in ruins.The main Palestinian factions, including Hamas, said Friday they had agreed during a meeting in Cairo that a temporary Palestinian committee of independent technocrats would take over the running of Gaza. The committee would “manage the affairs of life and basic services in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions”, according to a joint statement published on Hamas’s website.The statement also urged a meeting of all forces and factions to “agree on a national strategy and to revitalise the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.Hamas is not part of the PLO, which is dominated by its longtime rival Fatah.Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, has already made it clear that it does not wish to govern the post-war territory, but it has pushed back against the insistence that it disarm its fighters.”We have agreed on the arrangements for the second phase of managing Gaza, affirming that it will be under Palestinian administration, with no separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement on social media.”The upcoming meetings will address the relationship with the occupation, the fate of the resistance’s weapons and discussions regarding the presence of international forces,” he added.- International force -In Gaza on Friday, families were still trying to return to their ruined homes — in many cases only to find they lie in areas controlled by Israeli forces beyond the so-called “Yellow Line”.”Some young men from our family risked their lives, they went to inspect the destruction in our area, and told us that my house was destroyed,” 42-year-old Hani Abu Omar told AFP.”All my life I’ve been working, earning, and doing everything I can to build a house.”Israel’s Gaza offensive has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, and left hundreds of thousands homeless and hungry.Fighting has died down since the October 10 ceasefire, but aid flows are still restricted.The arrival of an international security force may unlock reconstruction funds — US officials vow none will go to Hamas-held areas — but the troop-contributing countries have yet to be confirmed.    Rubio confirmed that Israel would enjoy vetoes on the force’s composition, amid reports Israel has objected to Turkey’s participation.”There’s a lot of countries that have offered to do it. Obviously as you put together this force, it will have to be people that Israel is comfortable with,” he said.Turkey, a NATO member and one of the region’s strongest militaries, was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel.But, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it has welcomed Hamas leaders and been a vociferous critic of Israel.Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, has said it is ready to send troops to Gaza. The United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020, has already been involved in ceasefire monitoring.Rubio said the United States may seek a UN mandate for the force, as some countries need the world body’s approval to deploy troops.But he again rejected any future role for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has banned from its territory.- ‘Clear guarantees’ -Some 200 US soldiers have deployed to the Civil-Military Coordination Centre, where uniformed troops from a dozen countries were seen mingling in the hastily assembled rented space. Overhead screens showed the staff’s latest findings, including what it said was a new abundance of fruit, vegetables, cheese and coffee getting into Gaza.Another projection showed words from Trump: “A new and beautiful day is rising. And now, the rebuilding begins.”The Trump administration has been increasingly firm with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the Israeli premier has sought to downplay any perception of tension with his most crucial military and diplomatic backer.Israel is still waiting for Hamas to return 13 more hostage bodies promised under the ceasefire.Hamas said Friday it had received “clear guarantees” from mediators Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that “the war has effectively ended”.

Gaza risks ‘lost generation’ due to ruined schools: UN official

With Gaza’s education system shattered by two years of gruelling war, UNICEF’s regional director says he fears for a “lost generation” of children wandering ruined streets with nothing to do.”This is the third year that there has been no school,” Edouard Beigbeder, the UN agency’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, told AFP in Jerusalem on Thursday after returning from the Palestinian territory.”If we don’t start a real transition for all children in February, we will enter a fourth year. And then we can talk about a lost generation.”The devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble, displaced the vast majority of its population at least once and crippled public services.The destruction “is almost omnipresent wherever you go,” Beigbeder said.”It is impossible to imagine 80 percent of a territory that is completely flattened out or destroyed,” he added.A US-brokered ceasefire which came into effect earlier in October has allowed UNICEF and other education partners to get about one-sixth of children who should be in school into temporary “learning centres,” Beigbeder told AFP.”They have three days of learning in reading, mathematics and writing, but this is far from a formal education as we know it,” he added.Beigbeder said that such learning centres, often located in schools or near displacement camps, consisted of metal structures covered with plastic sheeting or of tents.He said there were sometimes chairs, cardboard boxes or wooden planks serving as tables, and that children would write on salvaged slates or plastic boards.”I’ve never seen everyone sitting properly,” he added, describing children on mats or carpets.- ‘Inaccessible’ -Despite the ceasefire, Beigbeder said the situation for Gaza’s education system was catastrophic, with 85 percent of schools destroyed or unusable.Of the buildings still standing, many are being used as shelters for displaced people, he said, with the situation compounded by the fact that many children and teachers are also on the move and looking to provide for their own families.Gaza’s school system was already overcrowded before the conflict, with half the pre-war population under the age of 18.Of the schools managed by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority alone, Beigbeder said that some 80 out of 300 were in need of renovation.He said 142 had been completely destroyed, while 38 were “completely inaccessible” because they were located in the area to which Israeli troops have withdrawn under the ceasefire.The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on October 18 that it was launching a “new e-learning school year” with the aim of reaching 290,000 pupils.On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused UNRWA of being a “subsidiary of Hamas” and said it would play no role in post-war Gaza. Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the war in the Palestinian territory.- ‘Lost generation’ -Beigbeder said it was vital to put education “at the top of the agenda” and rebuild a sense of social cohesion for Gaza’s children, almost all of whom are traumatised and in need of psychological support.UNICEF said one of the priorities was getting permission at border crossings to bring in materials to set up semi-permanent schools, as well as school supplies which have been blocked as they’re considered non-essential. Israel repeatedly cut off supplies into the Gaza Strip during the war, exacerbating dire humanitarian conditions, with the UN saying it caused a famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.The World Health Organization said Thursday there had been little improvement in the amount of aid going into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold — and no observable reduction in hunger.”How can you rehabilitate classrooms if you don’t have cement? And above all, we need notebooks and books … blackboards, the bare minimum,” said Beigbeder.”Food is survival. Education is hope”.

Spain probes steelmaker for alleged trading with Israeli arms firm

Spain’s top criminal court said Friday it had opened an investigation into executives at steelmaker Sidenor for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity or genocide for trading with an Israeli arms company.Spain, one of the fiercest critics of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, said it had stopped exchanging weapons with the country after the conflict started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.The embargo formally became law this month as part of measures aiming to stop what Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calls a “genocide” in the devastated Palestinian territory.Sidenor’s chairman Jose Antonio Jainaga and two other executives are being investigated for having allegedly covertly sold steel to Israel Military Industries, the Audiencia Nacional court said.The Spanish firm sold the metal without requesting the government’s permission or registering the transaction, and knew the material “was going to be used for the manufacturing of weapons”, the court said in a statement.It said the company itself was not being investigated because of whistleblower employees who contributed to the complaint and helped “prevent the continuation of the allegedly criminal activity”.The investigating judge has summoned all three executives to testify on November 12 in the case, which was initiated after a complaint filed by a pro-Palestinian association.Sidenor said in a statement that it had “placed the matter in the hands of its lawyers and will follow their guidance to respond to the judge”.It pledged to provide “all the information it has at its disposal”.The 2023 Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Palestinian militants also abducted around 250 hostages, with the remaining captives still alive returned during a fragile truce that began this month.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 68,000 people in Gaza, mainly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers credible.UN investigators and several human rights groups, among them Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for suspected war crimes.