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page 20 S/ARABIA Medina attack: Muslim world reacts after deadly blast The Muslim world has united to condemn a deadly attack at one of Islam’s holiest sites – the Prophet’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina. Setting aside differences, world leaders, politicians, groups and activists expressed their outrage on Tuesday, a day after a […]

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S/ARABIA

Medina attack: Muslim world reacts after deadly blast

The Muslim world has united to condemn a deadly attack at one of Islam’s holiest sites – the Prophet’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina.

Setting aside differences, world leaders, politicians, groups and activists expressed their outrage on Tuesday, a day after a suicide bomber killed at least four guards within striking distance of the Prophet Muhammad’s tomb. The blast followed two more attacks, in Jeddah and Qatif, also on Monday.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry described the triple bombings as “despicable acts that did not respect the sanctity of place, time and innocent people”.

Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia denounced the attack while Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister said “terror cannot be justified” and urged the public to remain calm but alert.

Foreign ministers of Turkey, Qatar and Iran, Melvut Cavusoglu, Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani and Javad Zarif respectively condemned the bombing in Medina and called for Muslim unity.

The governments of Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan also joined in the condemnation, while Iraq said the attacks amounted to “heinous crimes”.

Saudi Arabia’s supreme council of clerics said the blasts “prove that those renegades … have violated everything that is sacred.”

S/AFRICA

Mandela family angered by election ad

The Mandela family has reacted angrily after the former South African leader’s voice was used in an election advert for the country’s main opposition.

In the ad, posted on YouTube, a young woman is in a polling booth considering voting for the governing ANC.

As Nelson Mandela’s voice is heard calling for justice, peace, work and bread, she then decides to vote for the Democratic Alliance (DA) instead.

Chief Mandla Mandela accused the DA of abusing his grandfather’s name.

In other comments, Mandla Mandela, who is himself a member of parliament for the African National Congress (ANC), said the DA was seeking to “preserve white privilege” and demanded the ad be withdrawn.

The DA has defended using the voice of the former president, who was a long-standing ANC member, saying “this great man stood for a non-racial South Africa”.

UGANDA

Govt reconsiders pull-out from Somali mission

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni says his country will reconsider plans to pull its troops from Somalia if the AU stabilization mission there moves in the right direction.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a regional security summit in Kampala Monday, Museveni said the military mission in Somalia has not been working successfully.

“Our main reason for going to Somalia was to help the Somali people to create their own army, but after 9 years we have not created the army,” he said.

He added “We cannot support that type of thing, the type of poor planning is something that we don’t support.”

But he says he discussed the issue with AU and UN officials, adding that this time people are serious about building Somalia’s army and if Uganda sees the program is working it will support it.

TURKEY

Erdogan rules out Egypt thaw despite diplomatic blitz

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday ruled out a reconciliation with Egypt, despite a diplomatic blitz that has seen Ankara mend fences with Russia and Israel.

Ties between Turkey and Egypt ruptured in 2013 after the military ousted elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Erdogan’s AKP government.

Observers had suggested a rapprochement may be on the cards after last week saw Turkey restore ties with Russia and Israel following bitter diplomatic rows, seeking to boost trade and shore up its regional clout.

But Erdogan said Tuesday that a thaw with Egypt’s “oppressive regime” should not be expected any time soon.

“The context with Egypt is different from the approaches undertaken with Russia and Israel,” the Turkish strongman told journalists in comments cited by Dogan news agency.

He stressed that Turkey’s dispute was with Egypt’s government, not its people, and repeated his condemnation of the crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

AUSTRIA

Austria to re-run overturned presidential poll in October

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern says a re-run of the presidential election will take place on 2 October.

The date has to be confirmed by parliament, but that is a formality.

The 22 May vote was annulled last week, after a legal challenge from the far-right Freedom Party. It argued postal votes had been illegally and improperly handled.

Its candidate Norbert Hofer lost the election to the former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen by a sliver.

Mr Hofer garnered just 30,863 votes fewer than his rival – coming in at less than one percentage point behind.

The Freedom Party lodged a successful legal challenge to the results with the Constitutional Court – Austria’s highest court.

In two weeks of hearings, it argued that postal ballots were illegally handled in 94 out of 117 districts, thousands of votes were opened earlier than permitted under election rules, and some were counted by people unauthorised to do so.

The party also claimed to have evidence that some under-16s and foreigners had been allowed to vote.

IRAQ

Minister submits resignation over Baghdad bombing

The Iraqi interior minister has offered to resign after a massive suicide bombing in Baghdad earlier this week killed more than 200 people.

Mohammed al-Ghabban handed authority on Tuesday over to his deputy, until Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi makes a decision on who will become the next interior minister. Abadi’s office had no immediate comment.

Ghabban told reporters that the government “has failed in having the different array of security forces work under a unified plan in Baghdad.”

He called on the government to hand over the security inside Iraq’s cities solely to the Interior Ministry. Responsibility for the security in Baghdad is divided between the army, federal and local police. The Interior Ministry is in charge of the police.

UNITED STATES

FBI recommends no charges against Hillary Clinton over emails

The FBI has announced it will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of private email while she was secretary of state.

FBI Director James Comey said “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue a case but said the likely Democratic presidential nominee was “extremely careless” with classified information.

The decision ends the legal uncertainty that has dogged the Clinton campaign.

However, Mr Comey was highly critical of Mrs Clinton and her staff.

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” Mr Comey said.

“There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

CHINA

More than 120 dead in China floods

Heavy rain around China’s Yangtze river basin has left 128 people dead and scores missing, media said Tuesday, with more damage feared from a typhoon expected to land this week.

Flooding has forced some 1.3 million people to evacuate vast areas near China’s longest river and its connected waterways, the official Xinhua news agency cited the civil affairs ministry as saying.

Millions more are threatened by the continuing downpour, which began at the end of June and has already destroyed at least 41,000 homes, it said.

Water levels in Taihu Lake near Shanghai are at their highest level in decades, according to Beijing News, which said the area faces a serious risk of flooding if a typhoon hits Friday as forecast.

INDIAN

PM seeks to consolidate ties with Africa

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Africa on Thursday to consolidate ties with a resource-rich continent seen as crucial to New Delhi’s energy and food security. He will also pitch India as a development partner for Africa as it seeks to counter Chinese clout in the region.

The Indian leader’s five-day visit to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya follows a major summit in New Delhi last year with around 50 African heads of state.

“All these four countries, if you look at the map, are our maritime neighbours, all of them are gateways to the mainland, number of landlocked countries, which are also important partners,” said Amar Sinha who handles African affairs at the Indian Foreign Ministry.

GUINEA

Two sentenced over stealing Ebola money

Two Guinean officials have been sentenced for embezzling more than $56,000 (£42,000) of the country’s Ebola fund.

Ernest Paquille Guema, a senior member of the health ministry, was given a two-year sentence and Abdoulaye Sadio Fofana of the communications team on the Anti-Ebola commission received a one-year suspended sentence.

The money was originally set aside for educating traditional healers on the dangers of the Ebola virus.

Many healers believed that they could cure people affected by the disease and lost their lives whilst treating them.

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were all hit by the Ebola outbreak.