Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) has continued to target a Tamil journalist, summoning his brother for investigation on Sunday, after a friend was also summoned and investigated last week.
Prominent Jaffna journalist Uthayarasa Shalin was summoned by the TID in August, along with five others, in relation to the display of a map of the Tamil homeland during a festival at the journalist’s local temple in Aanaikottai, Jaffna.
Shalin had raised questions about his summoning, stating that he was not a member of the temple’s board. He was questioned in Colombo for several hours about his work and his personal life.
On Sunday, Shalin’s brother, Uthayarasa Jelsin, was issued a summons to appear at the TID headquarters on October 17. Jelsin is also not a member of the temple’s board.
Tamil News
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Two Tamil university students shot and killed by Sri Lankan police two years ago were remembered by their peers at the University of Jaffna on Saturday.
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The Tamil journalist, Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, was remembered today in Jaffna on the 18th anniversary of his assassination.
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Sri Lanka’s president has stepped up his personal security after he claimed there had been an alleged plot to assassinate him and Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
“The president is very serious about this,” Shiral Lakthialaka, one of Maithripala Sirisena’s advisers, told reporters in Colombo.
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The Sri Lankan government announced it had reversed a decision to award China a $300m housing deal, and has instead chosen to pursue a joint venture with an Indian company.
The announcement comes as Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits new Delhi, where he will meet Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Saturday.
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Sri Lanka’s president called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week, where he denied reports that he had told a cabinet meeting that Indian intelligence agencies were involved in an alleged plot to assassinate him.
In a press release by the Indian prime minister’s office, Sri Lanka’s Maithripala Sirisena reportedly stated...
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Seven Tamils who were arrested in relation to the alleged possession of an LTTE flag and ammunition in Oddusuddan have had their charges dropped by the Mullaitivu court.
A total of 19 Tamils were arrested over the incident in which an LTTE flag and ammunition were allegedly transported in a three-wheeler.
Of these, 7 have had their charges dropped by the Mullaitivu court.
The remaining 12 have had their remand extended until October 29.
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Joint Opposition parliamentarian and leader of the National Freedom Front Wimal Weerawansa claimed that the Tamil diaspora are working with India intelligence series, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), to “conspire in Sri Lanka”.
His comments come after Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department announced it was investigating allegations that an Indian national was involved in a plot to assassinate current Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena and former defence secretary...
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Union Minister of State and BJP representative in Tamil Nadu Pon Radhakrishnan said that the prospect of LTTE leader Veluppillai Prabhakaran being alive would make Tamil society “immensely happy” this week, ahead of reports that his party is looking to partner with the AIADMK.
His comments come after current Madurai-based Tamil nationalist leader Pazha Nedumaran claimed that LTTE chief Prabhakaran was "very much alive and will soon make a public appearance, at an appropriate time".
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A contingent of Sri Lankan naval troops have returned from a military training exercise in India last week, as Colombo continues to expand its military relations despite concerns over human rights abuses.
Both Sri Lankan naval ships Sagara and Suranimala took part in exerecises with Indian...
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Sri Lanka’s Central Bank announced that it had secured a USD $1,000 million loan from the China Development Bank (CDB) on Wednesday, just days after the prime minister warned that the island’s economic crisis will worsen.
In a press release earlier today, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said that after a “a strict evaluation and negotiation process” an offer from the CDB was accepted “arranger based on least cost and...
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The Sri Lankan President’s Media Division issued a statement this morning, dismissing reports that Maithripala Sirisena had told a cabinet meeting that Indian intelligence agencies were involved in an alleged plot to assassinate him.
The press release claims that Sirisena “has not mentioned any involvement of an Indian intelligence service” and instead he had “emphasized the need to conduct a comprehensive...
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The Sri Lankan military held a series of events across the heavily militarised North-East this month, as it marked the 69th anniversary of the army.
Thousands of troops took part in all the events that the military organised, in particular lavish Buddhist...
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Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena told his cabinet of India’s involvement in an alleged assassination plot to murder him and former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, reports EconomyNext.
“The president said that RAW (India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing) was behind the plot,” a minister, who declined to be...
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet with his counterpart Sri Lanka's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in New Delhi later this week.
Wickremesinghe’s office confirmed the visit to the Hindu, adding that he is set to take part in high-level meetings on October 19 and 20.
Though the agenda that has been set for the talks has not been released, Indian projects on the island are reportedly going to be discussed, including the Palaly airport in Jaffna which India is...
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The Sri Lankan military collaborated with a Jaffna-based company to hold job interviews for unemployed Tamils in Kilinochchi this week, as the armed forces continue to interfere with civilian life in the Tamil North-East.
The military announced that the “conduct of interviews [were]...
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The deportation of a Tamil man deemed so ill that he will require medics to accompany him on his flight, has been temporarily halted after his family refused to board a plane taking him to Australia yesterday.
Sangarapillai Balachandran was due to be deported from the UK to Australia, where he holds citizenship, despite fears over his health and fitness to fly. Balachandran has had three increasingly serious strokes and is known to have raised blood pressure. Long flights increase the...
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Batticaloa residents continued clearing the destroyed Mavadi Munmari thuyilum illam (LTTE cemetery) in preparation for Maaveerar Naal.
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Sri Lankan police have threatened traders in a Vavuniya village against carrying out work for an ancient Tamil temple, after enforcing a ban by the archaeology department on work being done to the temple.
Administration of the ancient Athi Aiyyanar temple on Vedukkunari malai (mountain) in Olumadu-Nedunkeni have said the ladder leading to the temple, the only safe way to access the rocky hollow where the shrine is located, has disintegrated and needs repair or replacement.
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The Sri Lankan army is cutting off a vital water supply to Tamil-owned cultivation land in Poonakary, Kilinochchi, locals have said.
Residents of Arasapuram in Poonakary said the tank which they use to provide water for their crops is being closed up by the army as it fortifies the boundary fences of a camp adjacent to the tank.
Troops have been filling the tank with saline soil, both restricting the water supply and making it potentially harmful for crops, local farmers said...
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The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) said it would seek legal assistance at the Court of Appeal against the Tamil UNP MP Vijayakala Maheswaran, saying that the police have mishandled her case in allowing her bail.
Maheswaran was arrested last week over a speech she gave earlier this year in which she said rising crime rates in the North-East made Tamils long for the return of the LTTE. The MP was released on bail the same day.
Listing the legal provisions that Maheswaran’s speech...
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The Sri Lankan navy evicted Mullikulam residents from their temporary huts on Sunday causing tensions between the villagers and the forces.
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A Tamil man from Kilinochchi has been arrested for drug trafficking according to Vavuniya police.
The police said they arrested the man on a Jaffna-Kandy bus which they had stopped and searched in Nochimoddai in Vavuniya around 5.30am on Sunday.
He was in possession of 9.314kg cannabis (Kerala ganja) the police said.
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At least 41 were people have been arrested by the Sri Lankan police in Jaffna on Sunday, after a series of search operations conducted in the region.
Searches were carried out in Jaffna town, Mannipay, Chunnakam and Koppay.
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Sri Lanka’s notorious Police Special Task Force (STF), which has been accused of committing human rights abuses, has taken over security across the island’s prisons as of today.
The Senior Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms, Bandula Jayasinghe said that initially 300 STF personnel would be deployed across Welikada and Magazine prisons, and the Angunakolapelessa prison before expanding to others.
He claimed that the move would result in less “...
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Sri Lanka’s former cricket captain and former deputy minister Sanath Jayasuriya has been charged by the International Cricket Council (ICC) with two counts of breaching the Anti-Corruption Code.
Jayasuriya is accused of failing to co-operate with the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit investigation on the island and of obstructing the investigation by "concealing, tampering with or destroying evidence".
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Britain’s Home Office have ordered at least four medics to accompany a Tamil man who is due to be deported to Australia later today, despite the fact that other doctors have ruled the man “unfit to fly”.
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The home of a priest in Chavakachcheri was robbed by an armed gang this weekend, as crime across Jaffna continues despite the heavy military presence in the peninsula.
At least 8 masked men armed with swords broke into the home in the early hours of Saturday morning. The residents of the house were all threatened and locked in a room, whilst the gang burgled the property, stealing gold jewellery belonging to the family.
The Sri Lankan police say they are investigating the...
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Residents of Kanchirankuda in Amparai district remembered the massacre of seven Tamil students, shot and killed by Sri Lankan special task force (STF) troops in 2002.
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Sri Lanka’s prime minister warned that the island’s economic crisis will worsen, just days after the finance minister attempted to allay fears over the state of Sri Lanka’s economy.
Ranil Wickremesinghe told an audience that “economic sanctions imposed on Iran by USA and the high demand for oil as winter season approaches had also contributed to the crisis”.
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Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) has continued to target a Tamil journalist, summoning his brother for investigation on Sunday, after a friend was also summoned and investigated last week.
Prominent Jaffna journalist Uthayarasa Shalin was summoned by the TID in August, along with five others, in relation to the display of a map of the Tamil homeland during a festival at the journalist’s local temple in Aanaikottai, Jaffna.
World News
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Punjab’s chief minister, Amarinder Singh has confirmed the deaths of 59 people and the injuries of 57 in a railway incident on Friday.
On that day a train ran over a large crowd which had gathered to celebrate a major Hindu holiday.
Chief Minister Singh has thus far declined to comment on the reasons behind the accident and has told reporters on Saturday that an official inquiry would be undertaken and completed within four weeks.
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For the first time Saudi Arabia has confirmed the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi after initially providing strenuous denials.
Khashoggi, a journalist for the Washington Post and US resident, initially arrived in Saudi Arabia’s consulate to file in documents certifying that he had divorced his ex-wife so that he could remarry.
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The United States and either other governments have requested the United Nations fact-finding mission that investigated atrocities committed by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims brief the UN Security Council this week.
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The Chief Executive and chairman of Swedish group Lundin Oil may face charges of war crimes, after the Swedish government paved the way for an indictment to be issued this week.
Alex Schneiter, the current CE of Lundin Oil and Ian Lundin, the chairman of the board, may be indicted, for war crimes committed in Sudan. Lundin Oil is accused of bankrolling the Sudanese army and several paramilitary groups that drove away locals from areas where the company planned to carry out oil...
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The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has warned the Israeli government over the “imminent” planned eviction of the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, in the West Bank.
“I have been following with concern the planned eviction of the Bedouin community,” said ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. “Evacuation by force now appears imminent, and with it the prospects for...
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Three senior Afghan officials have been killed and two American officials injured, in a Taliban attack in Kandahar on Thursday that narrowly missed the top US commander in Afghanistan.
Police Chief, General Abdul Raziq; the provincial governor of Kandahar, Zalmai Wesa; and, intelligence chief General Abdul Mominera were killed in the attack. Two American officials were injured but US General Austin Miller, commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, managed to survive without...
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Thousands participated in an anti-Indian protest in the city of Srinagar in Kashmir, following a joint funeral commemorating those who died during the shootout with the Indian security forces.
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Police have arrested at least 26 people during anti-government protests in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua on Sunday. These protests were organised by an alliance of 40 opposition groups calling on President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, to resign.
The current demonstrations began in April of this year and demanded that proposed changes to the nation’s pensions schemes be scrapped. However following heavy handed and sometimes violent state repression of the...
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The United States Senate passed a resolution this week, recognising the Ukraine famine of 1932-33 as a genocide, committed by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
Millions of people were killed in the famine, also known as the Holodomor famine, in which the Soviet regime is thought to have engineered conditions leading to devastating shortages of food.
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The election of human rights abusing countries to the UN Human Rights Council, where the likes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt already have seats, has drawn criticism from human rights groups.
The Philippines and Eritrea were elected to the council on Friday, despite campaigners urging UN members to oppose their candidacy.
Bahrain and Cameroon were also elected.
The council was established in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights, with a purpose to promote and...
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Canada will maintain pressure on Saudi Arabia over human rights despite a diplomatic row between the two countries, the Canadian prime minister has said.
“We have been engaged in a significant diplomatic effort with Saudi Arabia for many years now on ... the issue of human rights. We continue to bring it up any time I have the opportunity to meet with Saudi leadership,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Yerevan, Armenia.
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The Chinese regional government in Xinjiang has legalised “re-education centres” for local Uighur Muslims after denying their presence as interment camps.
In August, China had denied the allegations of mistreatment and the detention of Muslim Uighurs, however the United Nations currently estimates that as as many as 1 million Uighurs have been detained. The Chinese government maintains that these education centres are crucial in their effort to stamp out religious extremism and...
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Professor Maurice Kamto, leader of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement's (CRM), claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential election despite the constitutional council not yet proclaiming the official results and a massive boycott from conflict-ridden Anglophone regions.
Supporters of Kamto took to the streets of the capital Yaoundé to celebrate his victory on Monday, despite the lack of official declaration of the results. This ends reign of Africa’s oldest leader President Paul Biya who...
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Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador warned pharmaceutical companies in the country that if they did not contain their prices he would seek business elsewhere, stating that they were paying too much for medicine.
During a speech in Morelia, Obrador said that his budget would provide the public with free medicine and would bring an end to what he termed “corruption” from pharmaceutical companies, reports Reuters.
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The president of Interpol, who disappeared 12 days ago, has resigned from his position with immediate affect after reports he was detained in China.
Chinese authorities said the president Meng Hongwei, a native of China, was under investigation for unspecified violations of Chinese law.
His disappearance was originally reported to French police by his wife who said she had not heard from his since she travelled to China.
The international police agency said it was using...
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Opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif was arrested by Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday ahead of by-elections in the country.
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Hong Kong’s government has rejected a visa for Financial Times editor Victor Mallet, following a talk by an independence activist in the city last month.
“This is the first time we have encountered this situation in Hong Kong,” the Financial Times said on the visa rejection. “We have not been given a reason for the rejection.”
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A prominent Saudi journalist who disappeared last week in Istanbul was killed inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in the city according to a probe by Turkey.
Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist and columnist for the Washington Post did not return home after going to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Turkish authorities said the journalist never left the consulate.
According to the Washington Post’s report, Turkish investigators believe a team came from...
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At least 13 people were killed and another 25 wounded in a suicide bombing during an election rally in the eastern Afghanistan province Nangarhar on Tuesday.
The rally was held for the candidate Abdul Nasir Mohmmand in the Kama district outside the provincial capital of Jalalabad. According to Shoran Qaderi, a member of the provincial council stated that approximately 250 people were attending at the time of the bombing.
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Incumbent Catalan president, Quim Torra, has threatened to withdraw further parliamentary support to Spain’s minority government unless a plan for regional independence is offered by the end of the month.
The ultimatum came as over 180,000 Catalans marched through the region’s capital of Barcelona to mark the 1 year anniversary of the independence referendum, a move that was ruled illegal by Spanish courts.
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Amnesty International has launched a campaign titled “Egypt, an Open-Air Prison for Critics,” which aims to highlight the government’s repression of free speech.
This comes in response to the arrest of at least 111 people since December who had criticised Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi or the current human rights situation within Egypt. In response to this criticism of the crackdown, the government maintains that its chief priorities are “security, stability and improving the...
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Namibian President, Hage Geingob, has expressed the need to expropriate land and redistribute it to the majority black population.
The current proposal aims to “transfer 43 percent, or 15 million hectares (58,000 square miles) of its arable agricultural land, to previously disadvantaged blacks by 2020. At the end of 2015, 27 percent has been redistributed, according to the Namibia Agriculture Union”.
In a similar vein, South Africa, Namibia’s neighbour and regional economic...
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Leaders from the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee have called on the US government to formally acknowledge crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar as a genocide.
“Making a formal determination of genocide must be the next step for the US,” said Representative Ed Royce, the committee’s chairman, as he spoke at a hearing on the issue last week. “Defining these atrocities for what they are is critical to building international public awareness – and...
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An Egyptian actor and activist has been jailed for uploading a Facebook video in which she described sexual harassment she experienced and criticised Egyptian public services.
Amal Fathy uploaded a video on Facebook in which she criticised “poor public services at a local bank, heavy traffic, sexual harassment by a taxi driver and over a general deterioration in living conditions”. She was arrested two days later by Egyptian security forces who arrived at her door and arrested her...
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A Canadian government decision to strip citizenship from a former member of a Nazi death squad was reasonable, a federal court judge has ruled.
The ruling could make way for the 94-year-old to be deported and tried for war crimes charges, although appeals are still possible.
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Guatemala’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity during the country’s 36-year war, a court has ruled, while acquitting the former intelligence chief of all charges.
Guatemalan judges on the tribunal ruled unanimously that the military forces had committed genocide, however the intelligence chief Jose Mauricio Rodriguez was acquitted in a 2-1 decision, Al Jazeera reports.
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Hundreds have gathered in India's capital to protest against the continued practice of manual scavenging, after the deaths of sewage cleaners, who are from a 'low-caste' background and forced to enter the sewers to unclog drains and remove human waste with their bare hands.
The Indian government's statistics indicate that “at least one Indian worker has died while cleaning sewers or septic tanks every five days since the beginning of 2017”.
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The Hong Kong government’s decision to ban the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party is a grim sign for human rights in the territory, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
Hong Kong’s secretary for security told the party’s convenor that the party’s promotion of Hong Kong independence was a “blatant violation” of Hong Kong’s functional constitution.
The party’s alliance with pro-Tibet and pro-Taiwan independence groups also came under fire.
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Canada’s House of Commons has unanimously voted to recognise the crimes committed by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims as genocide this week.
In a motion, Canadian legislators said they "recognise that these crimes against the Rohingya constitute genocide" and called on the UN Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court.
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Israel has ordered villagers in a Bedouin village, Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank to leave their homes as it plans to demolish their village within the next eight days.
The decision has been deeply criticised by EU countries, namely France, Poland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy.