Defense ministers from Iran, Russia and Syria are scheduled to meet in Tehran on Thurday to discuss the campaign against terrorism as well the recent developments in the Middle East. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and his Syrian counterpart Fahd Jassem al-Freij will participate in the meeting on the official invitation of their Iranian counterpart Hossein Dehqan.

The defense ministers are to exchange viewpoints on the latest regional developments and ways to strengthen and extend the fight against terrorism during the trilateral meeting, the IRNA news agency reported. In a speech to the newly-elected parliament in Syria on Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed gratitude for Russia, China, and Iran for the support they have provided to the Damascus government.

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An Egyptian passenger plane, en route from Cairo to Beijing, makes an emergency landing in Uzbekistan due to a bomb threat, a report says.State carrier Uzbekistan Airways said on Wednesday that there were 118 passengers and 17 crew members on board, all of whom were safely evacuated. Egyptian aviation sources said a false bomb threat forced the EgyptAir flight to make the emergency landing. The plane, an Airbus A-330-220, landed in Uzbekistan three hours after it took off from Cairo at around 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

It landed at the airport in the town of Urgench, about 840 kilometers (600 miles) west of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. Officials said an anonymous caller telephoned security agents at the Cairo airport to say that a bomb was on board the flight. The plane was searched after landing, but no explosives were found, they said. EgyptAir has received a number of bomb threats since one of its aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19, killing all 66 people aboard the Airbus A320 jetliner. All those threats have turned out to be hoaxes.

Egypt’s aviation industry has been under international scrutiny since Oct. 31, when a Russian Airbus A321 crashed in the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people aboard. The plane was traveling to St. Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Russia said the crash was caused by a bomb planted on the plane, and the local branch of Daesh claimed responsibility. The incidents have further damaged Egypt’s tourism industry which is already reeling from years of political turmoil.

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US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has won the number of delegates required to secure the party’s nomination. The Associated Press declared the former First Lady as the presumptive nominee after asking undecided superdelegates which candidate they were supporting. In its survey, AP confirmed that Clinton had enough support to reach the 2,383-delegate threshold needed for the nomination. The announcement came on the eve of six major primaries in Tuesday, including big states like California and New Jersey. Winning the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday put Clinton 19 delegates away from becoming the nominee.

The former secretary of state, however, was not too excited about theAP report, saying that there is still work left to do. “We are at the brink of a historic moment but we still have work to do,” she told at a campaign event on Monday. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, echoed the candidate, saying that while the AP call was “an important milestone” Clinton did not intend to declare victory until Tuesday night, when she “will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates.”

Meanwhile, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who is running against Clinton in the White House race took a dim view of AP’s math, saying that he would lobby Clinton superdelegates to shift their support to him by arguing that he is the party’s best chances to defeat the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. “It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, said in a statement.

To prove that he really stands a chance against Clinton, Sanders needs to bolster his campaign scoring a victory in California. The latest polls show Sanders and Clinton in a virtual tie in California, the country’s most populous state. A loss in California for Clinton would make a sour and deflating end to her primary campaign possible.

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Twenty four investigators from the National Gendarmerie and National Police Corps on June 3, 2016 in Yaounde completed a 12-day training in terrorist crime scene investigation. The training, carried out by several instructors deployed by the government of the United States of America (USA), was the second out of five modules related to the fight against terrorism.

After handing over end-of-course attestations to the trainees at the Judicial Police Training Centre of the National Gendarmerie, Yeyap Barracks last Friday, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence in charge of the National Gendarmerie, Jean Baptiste Bokam, expressed gratitude for the increasing multifarious assistance given by Cameroon’s strategic partner, the USA.

He expressed hope that the training, which started on May 23, 2016, will help alleviate several shortcomings observed in the handling of terrorist-related crime scenes since the country started receiving Boko Haram attacks. In this vein, US Ambassador to Cameroon, H.E. Michael Stephen Hoza, reassured that the training will enhance Cameroonian security services’ ability to investigate terrorist attacks and help the military and other branches of the government stop Boko Haram bomb makers and other threats. The US diplomat also handed over 24 sets of kits to the centre for training in counter-terrorism crime scene investigations.

Cameroon Tribune

The Libyan Red Cross says the bodies of 133 refugees, including five children, have been washed up on Libya’s western coast in recent days. Three-quarters of the dead refugees were women, said Red Cross spokesman, Al-Khalis al-Bosaifi on Sunday, noting that the bodies were found on the shore of the northwestern Zuwara City. Bosaifi added that no documents were found with the bodies to identify their nationalities but they were mainly sub-Saharan Africans.

A local official said the refugees were believed to have taken their journey from the Libyan city of Sabratha. People who hope to reach Italy from Libya pay a huge amount of money to human smugglers to give them places on their flimsy boats.The head of the EU’s Mediterranean naval mission recently said that human trafficking accounts for about 30 to 50 percent of the GDP in northwestern Libya.

The UN refugee agency said the route between North Africa and Italy is “dramatically more dangerous” than the route between Turkey and Greece.

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Preliminary statement of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) mission to Gabon

Libreville, June 3, 2016

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) deployed an international delegation to Gabon from May 29 to June 3. The purpose of the mission was to assess preparations for the 2016 presidential election and to support Gabonese efforts at ensuring a peaceful, transparent and credible election.

Traveling at the invitation of the Gabonese government and welcomed by all Gabonese political parties – from the majority and opposition – the delegation included political and civic leaders, and election and regional experts from North America, Europe and Africa. It comprised Right Honorable Joe Clark, former Prime Minister of Canada; Ambassador Maria Leissner, Secretary General of the Community of Democracies; Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Senior Associate for Africa at NDI; and Dr. Sophia Moestrup, Deputy Director for Central and West Africa at NDI.

During its stay in Gabon, the delegation met with election authorities, notably the Ministry of Interior, the election commission (CENAP), the Constitutional Court and the National Communications Council (CNC); members of the major political parties from ruling and opposition coalitions; the Council for Democracy (CND); representatives of civic organizations and labor unions; the Mediator of the Republic; and representatives of international development partners present in Libreville, to elicit their views on the electoral framework and political process. The team was also received by the Head of State. The delegation conducted its activities in conformity with Gabonese law and international standards as reflected in the 2005 “Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation.”

While awaiting a more detailed assessment report, the delegation offers its preliminary findings and recommendations on steps that could enhance confidence and participation in the election process.

Overview of the electoral context

The delegation observed that there is intense political debate around the elections with several political parties and grouping splanning to participate actively in the upcoming presidential race. The Gabonese expects the outcome of the electoral process to contribute significantly to the consolidation of peace and democracy in the country.

The delegation noted considerable concerns among many of its interlocutors pertaining to growing tensions andthe possibility of violence during the election period. These concerns derive in large part from the history of past presidential elections in Gabon, coupled with an increasingly polarized socio-political environment. Under these circumstances, concrete steps should be taken to increase transparency and calmtensions. Such actions would reassure citizens that disputes and acts of violence would be prevented before, during and after the election.

These tensions also stem from grievances about the constitutional and legal framework of elections in Gabon, including the electoral system, term limits and the representation of civil society on election management bodies; highly relevant questions on which Gabonese actors should be able to agree in order to consolidate democracy in the country. These differences of opinion are exacerbated by the lack of equal access to public media by opposition parties and the lack of professionalism in information dissemination by some private media outlets.

While many Gabonese political leaders call for dialogue, they each complain of the lack of good faith efforts on the part of their opponents. Although prior attempts at dialogue may not have succeeded, most Gabonese that met with the delegation would like to see those efforts pursued.

The delegation is aware that Gabon has some institutions that could play a catalytic role in fostering citizen participation in politics, such as the National Council for Democracy (CND) and the office of the Mediator of the Republic. These innovative institutions are assets for the consolidation of democracy in Gabon, and strengthening their capacity would provide additional platforms for Gabonese politicians and citizens by facilitating communications and regular interaction. Similarly, the delegation acknowledges early steps over the past few years to modernize the Gabonese electoral system and hopes those initiatives will be further perfected.

The delegation also heard concerns about potential shortcomings in the operationalization of the electoral framework that could undermine the inclusivity, peacefulness, transparency and credibility of the August 2016 presidential poll. These concerns touch on important aspects of the electoral process such as: the reliability of the voters list; the bi-partisan make-up of the CENAP national commission and its decentralized components; and the counting, compilation, centralization and announcement of election results. Under these circumstances, extraordinary steps should be taken beyond the letter of the law by election authorities in consultation with political actors to build citizen confidence in the election and its outcome.

Recommendations

In the spirit of international cooperation and the principles of the African Union Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, and taking into consideration the open-mindedness of the Gabonese with whom we met which aligns with their best national traditions, the delegation offers the following recommendations:

1. Political and civic leaders should be mindful that elections are a key pillar of democracy; and viewing them as a purely recurring administrative exercise would undermine the free expression of the will of the people.
2. Concrete steps should be taken to enhance confidence amongst candidates and political parties in the voters list, and could include a professional, public audit of the registry.
3. The election management body (CENAP) should take concrete steps to speed up the vote counting and transmission of election results. It should also emulate best global practices in the consolidation of results by releasing figures in both aggregated and disaggregated forms at each level of compilation in order to enhance transparency and confidence amongst voters, candidates and political parties.
4. The National Communication Council (CNC) should adopt measures in partnership with public media to guarantee equitable access to public media during the two-week election campaign as provided for by law. Additionally, the CNC should make accommodations to reflect the reality that the country is already in campaign mode.
5. The Code of Conduct recently adopted by the National Council for Democracy (CND) as a moral and ethics charter, should be publicly endorsed and implemented by all presidential candidates and party leaders in order to reassure the population of their commitment to contribute to peaceful, transparent and credible elections.
6. Steps should be taken to facilitate the optimum participation of civil society groups and enhance their capacity to recruit, train and deploy citizen observers to monitor all phases of the electoral process across the country before, during and after the election.
7. Political and civic leaders should manifest their commitment to peaceful elections by initiatinga high level dialogue as soon as possible in order to lower tensions in the pre- and post-election periods.

The delegation calls on all Gabonese leaders across the political spectrum from majority as well as opposition parties, heads of institutions, civil society, labor unions, the media, religious leaders and the population at large to consider upcoming elections as a historic moment to consolidate peace and democracy and preserve the highest interests of the country.

The delegation thanks all Gabonese with whom we met for their warm welcome.

The mission was funded by a grant from the Department of State under the Fundamental Freedoms Fund.

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NDI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

France has acknowledged that its soldiers deployed to the Central African Republic (CAR) under the pretext of quelling the bloody sectarian violence in the country, have committed physical abuse against civilians there, disciplining five servicemen. The French defense ministry announced on Saturday that it has disciplined five of the troops accused of engaging in physical abuse following their deployment to CAR, including sexual abuse of children, local press reports said.

The five are accused of physically abusing two Central Africans at a military outpost in the capital Bangui in 2014, the Ouest-Francenewspaper reported. There are currently three official probes under way into allegations that French soldiers sexually abused children in the country, but the latest case does not relate to sexual acts, said a ministry source cited in the report. “In view of the gravity of the facts, the five soldiers have been suspended,” said the defense ministry, noting, “Simultaneously disciplinary action has been launched… as a precursor to their eviction from the military.”

France launched the Sangaris military operation in 2013 in a bid ‘to maintain peace in its impoverished and chronically restive former colony’ after the outbreak of inter-communal violence between Muslim and Christian militias that has killed thousands. The military mission is due to conclude at the end of the current year, after a progressive draw-down. The United Nations announced in April that it has documented 108 new cases of sexual abuse committed by French troops mostly against minors, describing them as “sickening” and urging investigations that “leave no stone unturned.”

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US President Barack Obama has condemned the violence at a rally by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in San Jose, California. During a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Florida on Friday, Obama said that there’s no room for politics that ignores opposing opinions.

“It is very important for us to remind ourselves of who we are and what is best about American democracy and not slip into some of the bad habits that currently manifest themselves in the other party,” Obama said.

“We saw in San Jose these protesters starting to pelt stuff [at] Trump supporters. That’s not what our democracy is about,” he added. “That’s not what you do,” Obama said. “There’s no room for violence. There’s no place for shouting. There’s no room for a politics that fails to at least listen to the other side, even if you vehemently disagree. Because I believe if you’ve got the better argument, then you don’t need to do that. Just go out there and organize and persuade.”

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