Tag Archives: Jordan

Obama Gives His Final Presidential Medals Of Freedom To Diana Ross, Jordan, De Niro, Springsteen, Others

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Basketball star, Michael Jordan, actor Robert De Niro and music legend, Bruce Springsteen, were among the 21 people honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outing President Barack Obama.

During a ceremony at the White House, President Obama gave out the awards which is the nation’s highest civilian honour – for his last time to a diverse group of sports stars, scientists, artistes and philanthropists.

“Everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful personal way,” Obama said. “It’s useful when you think about this incredible collection of people to realise that this is what makes us the greatest nation on earth.

“Not because of what we are, not because of our differences, but because in our differences we find something common to share.”

According to AFP, the star-studded group included actors Tom Hanks and Robert Redford, basketball great, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, cultural icon, Diana Ross and comedian and talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres.

While speaking on the accomplishments of DeGeneres, Obama lauded the comedian’s courage for coming out as a gay.

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Jordan Still Holding Prisoner Demanded By Islamic State As Deadline Passes

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The fate of a Jordanian pilot and a Japanese journalist remained unclear as a deadline passed for Jordan to release an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL).

Japanese officials had no new progress to report on Friday after a late night that ended with the Jordanian government saying it would only release an al-Qaeda prisoner from death row if it got proof the airman was alive.

“There is nothing I can tell you,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Friday. He reiterated Japan’s “strong trust” in the Jordanians to help save the Japanese hostage, freelance journalist Kenji Goto.

Suga said the government had been in close contact with Goto’s wife, Rinko Jogo, who released a statement pleading for her husband’s life.

“I fear that this is the last chance for my husband, and we now have only a few hours left,” Jogo said in a statement released through a London-based organisation for freelance journalists.

“My husband and I have two very young daughters. Our baby girl was only three weeks old when Kenji left. I hope our oldest daughter, who is just two, will get to see her father again. I want them both to grow up knowing their father.”

An audio message purportedly from Goto said Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Moaz al-Kasasbeh would be killed unless Jordan freed Sajida al-Rishawi, who is on death row for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people in Amman.

Earlier, a spokesperson for Jordan’s government demanded proof of life for their pilot before moving ahead with any possible swap to bring about his release.

“We want to see a proof of life of the Jordanian pilot and then we can talk about the exchange,” Mohammed al-Momani said.”

See “Imprisoned Sister” ISIS Demands for Japanese Hostage

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Rishawi has been held by Jordanian authorities since 2005, and has not been seen publicly in about nine years. She was arrested and later sentenced to death “for conspiracy to carry out terror acts” after a triple bomb attack on the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman, the Jordanian capital, in November 2005.

Now believed to be in her early-40s, Rishawi was arrested four days after the attack, in which her husband, Ali Hussein al-Shammari, and two other Iraqis, blew themselves up. In a television confession after her arrest, she said that she too had tried but failed to activate her explosives at a wedding reception. Sixty people died in the attack.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to ISIL, claimed responsibility for the bombings. “A group of our best lions launched a new attack on some dens … After casing the targets, some hotels were chosen which the Jordanian despot turned into a backyard for the enemies of the faith,” a statement on a website usually used by the group said.

ISIS has released several videos of executions of captured enemy fighters, activists and journalists. The armed group has taken large parts of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate in territory under its control in June. Since then it has fought the Syrian and Iraqi governments, other armed groups and Kurdish forces.

Credit: Aljazeera

ISIS Executes Japanese Hostage, Demands Exchange of Prisoner with Other Captive

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The Islamic State group said Sunday it executed one of two Japanese hostages it has been holding, in an apparent beheading branded “outrageous and unforgivable” by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The claim comes a day after the release of a video announcing the murder of security contractor Haruna Yukawa by the jihadist group which has beheaded five Western hostages since August last year.

It sought to raise the pressure on Japan by saying the fate of the other captive, freelance journalist Kenji Goto, depended on the release of an Iraqi would-be female bomber who is on death row in Jordan. “The Islamic State has carried out its threat… it has executed Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa after the expiry of the deadline given,” the jihadist group said on its Al-Bayan radio.

“The second hostage is calling on his relatives to put pressure on the (Japanese) government for the release of our sister Sajida al-Rishawi, held in the jails of the oppressors in Jordan, in exchange for his release.”

Rishawi was sentenced to death by a Jordanian court in September 2006 in connection with triple hotel bomb attacks in Amman the previous year that killed 60 people. Her name emerged Saturday in an IS video that showed Goto holding what appears to be a photograph of Yukawa’s slain body.

The video came with an audio recording in which a man claiming to be Goto says Yukawa was killed because Japan had failed to pay a $200 million ransom within a 72-hour deadline announced Tuesday. The video unleashed a tide of global revulsion while Yukawa’s father voiced horror and shock. “I thought ‘Ah, this finally happened’ and was filled with regret,” said Shoichi Yukawa.

“I went totally blank, I was only sorry… I had no words,” he said. “In my mind I wish very much that this wasn’t true.”

Abe branded the murder of Yukawa as “outrageous and unforgivable” and called for Goto’s immediate release. “I condemn it strongly and resolutely,” said the Japanese leader.

Credit: Yahoo News

Arab League Chief Says Confront ISIS “Militarily & Politically”

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The head of the Arab League Nabil Elaraby, urged its members Sunday to confront Islamic State extremists “militarily and politically,” issuing an apparent call to arms. He said that what is needed from Arab countries is a “clear and firm decision for a comprehensive confrontation” with “cancerous and terrorist” groups. The Arab League includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

It wasn’t immediately clear what steps the Arab League would take in supporting the West’s campaign against the Islamic State. Reaching a consensus on how to move could be complicated by Arab world rivalries and member countries’ different spheres of influence.

Elaraby himself noted that the Arab League’s member states have failed to help each other in the past when facing local armed groups, often because of disagreements and fear of being accused of meddling in one another’s affairs. He called the Islamic State a threat to the existence of Iraq and its neighbors. It is “one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably, has not been able to confront,” he said.