Japan pledges $200m to Mideast to fight ISIS
Reuters, Cairo :
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned on Saturday that the world would suffer an “immeasurable loss” if terrorism spreads in the Middle East and pledged about $200 million in non-military assistance for countries battling Islamic State.
The threat of Islamist militancy has come into sharp focus outside the Middle East after gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence in Paris that began on January 7 with an attack on the offices of a newspaper that had published satirical images of the Prophet Mohammad.
“Should we leave terrorism or weapons of mass destruction to spread in this region, the loss imparted upon the international community would be immeasurable,” Abe said in Cairo at the start of a regional tour. Highlighting his concern, he told a meeting of the Japan-Egypt business committee that Tokyo would provide non-military financial backing for countries fighting Islamic State.
The al-Qaida breakaway group controls large parts of OPEC oil producer Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has declared a caliphate and wants to redraw the map of the Middle East, a region vital for Japan’s energy needs.
“I will pledge assistance of a total of about 200 million US dollars for those countries contending with ISIL, to help build their human capacities, infrastructure, and so on,” said Abe. In addition to the $2.2 billion in assistance Japan pledged for the Middle East two years ago, Abe said his government would provide another $2.5 billion in non-military assistance in fields such as humanitarian assistance and infrastructure.
Washington report adds: Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not “simply respond with a hammer,” US President Barack Obama said on Friday in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in France.
“Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations – they feel themselves to be Americans,” Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“There are parts of Europe in which that’s not the case. And that’s probably the greatest danger that Europe faces… it’s important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems.”
Meanwhile, Islamist radicals are at war with the US and the Obama Administration has refused to recognize the “enemy”, America’s first-ever Hindu lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has said. “What is so frustrating now as we look at the situation there, our administration refuses to recognise who our enemy is. And unless and until that happens, then it’s impossible to come up with a strategy to defeat that enemy,” Ms Gabbard, who recently returned from a two-week trip to India, told the CNN in an interview.
“We have to recognise that this is about radical Islam, this is as much a military war as it is an ideological war, and we’ve got to understand what that ideology is and challenge it, understand it so that we can defeat it and protect our citizens, protect the American people,” she said.
“That’s something that has to be done in order for us to look at places like Iraq, places like Syria, and places really, in different parts of the world, North Africa, Nigeria,” added Ms Gabbard, who was sworn-in for her second term in the House of Representative last week.
She said this was not only about ISIS or al-Qaeda, but about an “overall threat” posed by the radical Islamist agenda that exists all around the world.
Ms Gabbard said she was upset that the President and the White House are not actually saying that this is a war that the Islamist extremists are posing against the US and against the West.
“We recognise who our enemy is, and come up with a strategy to defeat that enemy. Unless and until you recognize who our enemy is and understand them, then we won’t be effective in defeating that threat and we’re going to continue to see the kinds of tragic incidents that we’ve seen most recently in Paris,” she said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned on Saturday that the world would suffer an “immeasurable loss” if terrorism spreads in the Middle East and pledged about $200 million in non-military assistance for countries battling Islamic State.
The threat of Islamist militancy has come into sharp focus outside the Middle East after gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence in Paris that began on January 7 with an attack on the offices of a newspaper that had published satirical images of the Prophet Mohammad.
“Should we leave terrorism or weapons of mass destruction to spread in this region, the loss imparted upon the international community would be immeasurable,” Abe said in Cairo at the start of a regional tour. Highlighting his concern, he told a meeting of the Japan-Egypt business committee that Tokyo would provide non-military financial backing for countries fighting Islamic State.
The al-Qaida breakaway group controls large parts of OPEC oil producer Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has declared a caliphate and wants to redraw the map of the Middle East, a region vital for Japan’s energy needs.
“I will pledge assistance of a total of about 200 million US dollars for those countries contending with ISIL, to help build their human capacities, infrastructure, and so on,” said Abe. In addition to the $2.2 billion in assistance Japan pledged for the Middle East two years ago, Abe said his government would provide another $2.5 billion in non-military assistance in fields such as humanitarian assistance and infrastructure.
Washington report adds: Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not “simply respond with a hammer,” US President Barack Obama said on Friday in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in France.
“Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations – they feel themselves to be Americans,” Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“There are parts of Europe in which that’s not the case. And that’s probably the greatest danger that Europe faces… it’s important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems.”
Meanwhile, Islamist radicals are at war with the US and the Obama Administration has refused to recognize the “enemy”, America’s first-ever Hindu lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has said. “What is so frustrating now as we look at the situation there, our administration refuses to recognise who our enemy is. And unless and until that happens, then it’s impossible to come up with a strategy to defeat that enemy,” Ms Gabbard, who recently returned from a two-week trip to India, told the CNN in an interview.
“We have to recognise that this is about radical Islam, this is as much a military war as it is an ideological war, and we’ve got to understand what that ideology is and challenge it, understand it so that we can defeat it and protect our citizens, protect the American people,” she said.
“That’s something that has to be done in order for us to look at places like Iraq, places like Syria, and places really, in different parts of the world, North Africa, Nigeria,” added Ms Gabbard, who was sworn-in for her second term in the House of Representative last week.
She said this was not only about ISIS or al-Qaeda, but about an “overall threat” posed by the radical Islamist agenda that exists all around the world.
Ms Gabbard said she was upset that the President and the White House are not actually saying that this is a war that the Islamist extremists are posing against the US and against the West.
“We recognise who our enemy is, and come up with a strategy to defeat that enemy. Unless and until you recognize who our enemy is and understand them, then we won’t be effective in defeating that threat and we’re going to continue to see the kinds of tragic incidents that we’ve seen most recently in Paris,” she said.
