The Boston Globe - 11.09.2019

A4 The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

The World

WARSAW — Armed and

masked Polish border guards

boarded a Greenpeace ship as

it was trying to block a deliv-

ery of coal to the port in

Gdansk, arresting activists and

seizing the vessel, the environ-

mentalgroupsaidTuesday.

Greenpeace said its activ-

ists had been holding a ‘‘cli-

mate emergency protest’’ to

push Poland to phase out its

heavy dependence on coal, a

fossil fuel that contributes to

global warming.

Marek Jozefiak, a cam-

paigner with the group, said

that the ship’s captain and one

activist remained detained,

along with the tall ship, the

Rainbow Warrior. He said the

border guards were armed and

broke a window to get inside.

Video footage from Green-

peace shows the armed men

breaking a window to get into

the captain’s bridge and shout-

ing that everyone should drop

to the floor.

Jozefiak expressed ‘‘sur-

prise’’ at the scope of the bor-

der guards’ action against

what he called a ‘‘peaceful ac-

tion in defense of the environ-

ment.’’

Jozefiak, who is coordina-

tor of Greenpeace’s Climate

and Energy campaign, said

that for several hours the ac-

tivists on board the Rainbow

Warrior and in smaller boats

had blocked a shipment of coal

from Mozambique from enter-

ing the Gdansk port. They had

painted ‘‘Stop Coal,’’ as well as

‘‘Poland Beyond Coal 2030,’’

and ‘‘No Future in Coal’ on the

cargo ship’s side.

Polish border authorities

said that 18 activists were

brought to their local head-

quarters on Monday night.

They said 22 people in all had

had their documents checked

and that two — the captain, a

Spaniard, and an Austrian ac-

tivist — remain detained on al-

legations of having violated

safe seafaring regulations.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Polish guards board Greenpeace ship

BANGKOK — A member of

Thailand’s Cabinet said Tues-

day that an Australian news-

paper report that he was im-

prisoned there for four years

on a drug smuggling convic-

tion was concocted by his po-

litical enemies, and he has no

plans to resign.

Deputy Agriculture Minis-

ter Thammanat Prompao was

responding to a report by the

Sydney Morning Herald, based

on court records and inter-

views, that he was arrested in

1993 and convicted of conspir-

acy to import heroin.

Rumors of Thammanat’s

arrest circulated in July before

he was sworn into his post in

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-

ocha’s government. He said

then that he had been inno-

cently caught up in a police

raid, was sent to prison for

eight months on a minor

charge, and then spent four

years as a free man working in

Australia.

The Sydney Morning Her-

ald report said Thammanat,

then using the name Manat

Bophlom, pleaded guilty in

1993 to involvement in traf-

ficking 7 pounds of heroin into

Australia. Three alleged ac-

complices — two Australians

and one Thai — were also

charged.

The newspaper said evi-

dence showed Thammanat

played a major part in the op-

eration. However, he was giv-

en a relatively lenient six-year

sentence after cooperating

with the police investigation, it

said. He was reportedly re-

leased after serving four years

and then deported.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thai minister denies drug report

BAGHDAD — A walkway

collapsed and set off a stam-

pede in the holy city of Karbala

on Tuesday as thousands of

Shi’ite Muslims marked one of

the most solemn holy days of

the year. At least 31 people

were killed and about 100 were

injured, officials said.

It was the deadliest stam-

pede in recent history during

Ashoura commemorations,

when hundreds of thousands

of people converge on the city,

some 50 miles south of Bagh-

dad, for the occasion every

year.

The stampede happened to-

ward the end of the Ashoura

procession, causing a panicked

rush among worshippers near

the gold-domed Imam Hussein

shrine, two officials said.

Afdhal al-Shami, a shrine of-

ficial, denied that there was a

collapse or any cracks in the

walkway. ‘‘It was a stampede

that led to this incident,’’ he

said.

Mohammed Shenin Jebir, a

pilgrim, said everything hap-

pened very suddenly.

‘‘Visitors suddenly fell on

the ground and there was a

strong stampede, there were

many pilgrims who all fell on

top of each other,’’ he said,

speaking after being treated at

the Hussein Medical City in

Karbala for cuts and bruises

above his right eye.

The somber day of Ashoura

commemorates the killing of

the Prophet Muhammad’s

grandson, the Imam Hussein,

by a rival Muslim faction in

Karbala in what is now Iraq, in

680 A.D. Hussein and his de-

scendants are seen by Shi’ites

as the rightful heirs to the

prophet. Hussein’s killing has

been attributed with cement-

ing the schism between Shi’ite

and Sunni Islam.

Tuesday’s commemorations

were peaceful until the walk-

way collapsed.

The officials said the stam-

pede took place during the so-

called ‘‘Tweireej’’ run, when

tens of thousands of people run

toward the shrine of Imam

Hussein in Karbala.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

31 Iraqi pilgrims reportedly dead after stampede during religious holiday

Her dream was to watch a

soccer match from a stadium

in Iran where women are

banned from attending most

sports events.

For this simple dream she

paid with her life.

Sahar Khodayari, 29, died

in a hospital in Tehran this

week from severe burns that

covered 90 percent of her

body. She had set herself on

fire in front of a courthouse on

Sept. 2, after being sentenced

to six months in prison.

Her crime was sneaking in-

to Azadi Stadium, Tehran’s

main sporting venue, in March

to watch her favorite team, Es-

teghlal, play against a United

Arab Emirates team.

Khodayari was arrested

and spent three nights in jail.

Her mobile phone was seized.

She was released on bail and

told to report to Revolutionary

Court in September.

In death, Khodayari’s name

has become an international

rallying cry for Iran to end its

discrimination against women

and allow them entrance to

sports events.

Many Iranians, including a

former captain of the national

team, are calling for a boycott

of soccer games until the ban

on women attending matches

is lifted.

NEW YORK TIMES

Female soccer fan in Iran dies of burns

GAZIANTEP, Turkey —

Turkey, which for eight years

has welcomed millions of Syri-

an refugees, has reversed

course, forcing thousands to

leave its major cities in recent

weeks and ferrying many of

them to its border with Syria

in white buses and police vans.

President Recep Tayyip Er-

dogan is pushing a radical so-

lution — resettling refugees in

a swath of Syrian territory con-

trolled by the United States

and its Kurdish allies. If that

does not happen, he is threat-

ening to send a flood of Syrian

migrants to Europe.

Erdogan has long demand-

ed a buffer zone along Turkey’s

border with Syria to keep out

Kurdish forces, whom he con-

siders a security threat.

But he has repackaged the

idea for the zone as a refuge

for Syrians fleeing the war —

pushing it as resentment

against Syrians in Turkey has

increased.

“Our goal is to settle at least

one million Syrian brothers

and sisters in our country in

this safe zone,” Erdogan told

leaders of his Justice and De-

velopment Party in Ankara on

Thursday. “If needed, with

support from our friends, we

can build new cities there and

make it habitable for our Syri-

an siblings.”

None of the other powers

involved in the war in Syria

has wholly agreed to the idea.

The European Union has

given Turkey about $6.7 bil-

lion since 2015 to help control

the flow of migrants. But Tur-

key says the migrant problem

is growing exponentially.

NEW YORK TIMES

Turkey to send refugees back to Syria

Daily Briefing

By David M. Halbfinger
NEW YORK TIMES
JERUSALEM — Prime Min-
ister Benjamin Netanyahu of Is-
rael said Tuesday that he would
move swiftly to annex nearly a
third of the occupied West Bank
if voters returned him to power
in the election next week, a
change that would dramatically
reshape the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
His plan to annex territory
along the Jordan River would
give the nation “secure, perma-
nent borders” to the east for the
first time in its history, he said.
But it would also reduce any
future Palestinian state to an
enclave encircled by Israel. And
Netanyahu’s rivals on the left
and right largely greeted the
announcement, made in the
heat of a campaign in which he
is battling for survival, as a po-
litical ploy.
Israel seized the West Bank
from Jordan in the 1967 war.
Most of the world considers it
occupied territory and Israeli
settlements or annexations
there to be illegal.
Netanyahu said he wanted
to capitalize on what he called
the “unique, one-off opportuni-
ty” afforded him by the Trump
administration, which has ex-
pressed openness to Israeli an-
nexationofatleastpartsofthe
West Bank.
“We haven’t had such an op-
portunity since the Six Day War,
and I doubt we’ll have another
opportunity in the next 50
years,” Netanyahu said at a
news conference in the Tel Aviv
suburb of Ramat Gan.
The White House said in a
statement that there was “no
change in United States policy
at this time,” and confirmed
that the administration’s long-
promised peace plan would be
released after the election.
In a dead heat or slightly be-
hind in the polls against Benny
Gantz, a centrist former army
chief of staff, Netanyahu has
tried mightily to shift the focus
of the election from the corrup-
tion cases against him to his
strong suit: national security.
He has highlighted Israel’s
increasingly overt military cam-
paign against Iranian expan-
sion and even unveiled a new
site where he said Iran had
once pursued nuclear weapons.
But Tuesday’s announce-
ment was a daring bid to bring
the Palestinian conflict back to
center stage in the election
campaign. The issue has largely
receded from electoral politics
because few voters believe a
peace process has any chance.
This was not the first time
Netanyahu has promised an-
nexation days before an elec-
tion. Before the previous elec-
tion, in April, in which he was
also fighting to shore up right-
wing support, he announced
his intention to apply Israeli
sovereignty to parts of the West
Bank, but he gave no specifics
and no timetable then.
This time, Netanyahu boast-
ed that thanks to “my personal
relationship with President

Trump, I will be able to annex

all the settlements in the heart

of our homeland.”

Netanyahu said that he

planned to annex all Israeli set-

tlements in the West Bank, and

that he would move immediate-

ly after forming a new govern-

ment to proceed in the Jordan

Valley, a strategic and fertile

strip of territory along the bor-

der with Jordan.

Palestinians see the valley as

their future breadbasket. Isra-

el’s critics say it has been steadi-

ly uprooting Arab farmers and

herders from the area.

Saeb Erekat, the longtime

chief negotiator for the Pales-

tine Liberation Organization,

warned Tuesday night that if

Netanyahu manages to put

through his plan, he will have

“succeeded in burying even any

chance of peace between Pales-

tinians and Israelis.”

Headdedunilateralannexa-

tion of occupied territory was a

war crime. “The Israeli, the in-

ternational community must

stop such madness,” he said.

In a possible sign of Palestin-

ian displeasure, rockets fired

from Gaza later Tuesday set off

alarms in southern Israel, in-

cluding in Ashdod, where Ne-

tanyahu was hustled offstage by

bodyguards to take cover in the

middle of a campaign speech.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former US

ambassador to Israel under Re-

publican and Democratic ad-

ministrations, said there was a

consensus within Israel’s na-

tional-security establishment

that Israel should retain control

of the Jordan Valley for some

period after a peace treaty is

signed, to ensure that the Pales-

tinians continue to cooperate

with Israel to maintain security.

But unilateral annexation

was another thing, he said. “If

Netanyahu now says forever,”

he said, “this clearly will not be

acceptable to any present or fu-

ture Palestinian leader.”

Daniel B. Shapiro, ambassa-

dor to Israel under President

Obama, warned that any cele-

bration of a Trump recognition

of Israeli sovereignty over the

West Bank would be short-

lived. “A Democratic successor

to Trump would certainly with-

draw US recognition,” he said.

Advocates of a two-state so-

lution to the Palestinian con-

flict, who have been warning

that annexation could be disas-

trous for Israel, said Tuesday

that a move like the one Netan-

yahu was proposing could be

enough to drive the Palestinian

Authority either to abandon its

security cooperation with Israel

on the West Bank or to fold up

its tents altogether.

Either action could lead to

violence that could force Israel

to send its troops back into ter-

ritory where Palestinians have

largely policed themselves un-

der the Oslo process, said Nim-

rod Novik, a veteran Israeli

peace negotiator.

“Unlike many of his coali-

tion colleagues, Netanyahu can-

not get a pass for not under-

standing the potentially devas-

tating consequences,” Novik

said. “Consequently, risking

chaos on the West Bank and

likely spillover to Gaza” is worse

than reckless. “It is stupid.”

Premier vows

to annex much

of West Bank

Netanyahu plays

to right in tough

bid for reelection

CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

MAKING NOISE —Fans shouted and sang in protest at halftime of a World Cup soccer qualifying match between

Hong Kong and Iran at Hong Kong Stadium Tuesday. Pro-democracy protesters have continued demonstrations across

Hong Kong despite the withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill as demonstrators call for the city’s chief

executive, Carrie Lam, to meet the rest of their demands, including an independent inquiry into police brutality, the

retraction of the word ‘riot’ to describe the rallies, and the right for Hong Kong to vote for its own leaders.A7.

ANMAR KHALIL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

People evacuated an injured man after a walkway

collapsed and set off a stampede in Karbala, Iraq, Tuesday.

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The billboard behind this bicyclist in Tel Aviv on Tuesday
shows President Trump shaking hands with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a flattering caption.