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PM Modi Takes Dig At Opposition Alliance On No-Confidence Motion
In a swipe at opposition parties, the prime minister said their leaders speak of social justice but harmed it most with their dynastic, appeasement and corrupt politics.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that the Opposition brought the no-confidence motion against his government to test the confidence of its own alliance members in each other as the INDIA bloc is marked by distrust among its constituents.
In his address to BJP MPs at its parliamentary meeting, he described the opposition alliance as 'ghamandia' (marked by arrogance) and congratulated the party's Rajya Sabha members for the 'semi-final' win in voting on the Delhi services bill.
Modi, sources said, noted that some opposition members had described the voting in Rajya Sabha as a semi-final before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as he exuded confidence about the BJP's prospects in the national elections.
The Delhi services bill secured parliamentary approval on Monday after the Rajya Sabha passed it with the support of 131 MPs while 101 of them voted against the legislation that will give the Centre control over bureaucracy in the national capital.
The Modi government is now in its second term, with opposition parties forming the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to prevent the ruling BJP-led NDA from coming to power for a third term under him.
With the ruling party certain to defeat the no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha, where it enjoys a strong majority, Modi told party MPs to hit 'sixers' on the last ball before the 2024 polls.
He also referred to his 2018 speech in which he had wryly wished to the Opposition to bring a no-confidence motion against his government in 2023.
In a swipe at opposition parties, the prime minister said their leaders speak of social justice but harmed it most with their dynastic, appeasement and corrupt politics.
He reiterated his call for corruption, and dynastic and appeasement politics to quit India.
In his address, Modi also said that MPs will not have to push for railway ministry-related works during his third term after Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made a presentation, indicating that the ongoing development projects will take care of their demands. | India Politics |
Two days after the referendum on Essequibo, a territory disputed between Venezuela and Guyana, the government of Nicolás Maduro is moving forward to try to enforce what was approved Sunday in a vote that registered almost no participation in the streets but which Chavismo hailed as a victory with 10.4 million voters, reawakening a crisis of credibility in the country’s electoral authorities. In a television appearance Tuesday, Maduro presented a new official map of Venezuela with Essequibo incorporated, without the disputed delimitation, during a Council of State in which he announced a series of measures and upcoming legislation to cement Caracas’ possession of the territory and its resources. Earlier, Maduro had sent a military contingent to Puerto Barima on the Venezuelan Atlantic border, close to the limits of the area under claim.
The war of narratives has begun. A few weeks ago, Guyana raised a flag on a small hill in Essequibo. On the day of the referendum, the Venezuelan Ministry of Communication released a video in which Indigenous people lowered the Guyanese flag and raised the Venezuelan flag. Maduro is now counterattacking with everything at his disposal. Via a special law announced Tuesday, he will create a new province or state in the territory, having already appointed a single provisional authority: Major-General Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, a deputy for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who will operate from the mining community of Tumeremo in Bolívar state, barely 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the town of San Martín de Turumbang in the disputed area.
“We want the peaceful rescue of the Guayana Esequiba,” said Maduro. “Our Guayana Esequiba has been de facto occupied by the British Empire and its heirs and they have destroyed the area,” he added in reference to the agreements made during Hugo Chávez’s presidency, which created PetroCaribe. At the time, Venezuela offered discounted oil to the Caricom countries in exchange for diplomatic support for its Bolivarian revolution. However, in this historical dispute over Essequibo, those countries have traditionally supported Guyana.
Maduro has instructed the state oil company PDVSA to draw up a map of exploration and exploitation of the resources in Essequibo and ordered the National Assembly to draft a law prohibiting oil concessions granted by Guyana in the territorial sea to be delimited. The U.S. company Exxon Mobile has a maritime platform in the area. “We are giving three months to the companies that are exploiting resources there without Venezuelan permission to comply with the law,” he said. The Venezuelan president also asked the National Assembly to create environmental protection areas and national parks in the territory.
The dispute dates back to 1777, when the Captaincy General of Venezuela included the 159,500-square-kilometer (61,600-square-mile) region into a map of the country despite the territory not having been occupied by Venezuela either when it was part of the Spanish empire or after independence. In 1899, British Guiana managed to set limits in the Paris Arbitral Tribunal in a process that has been described as rigged. Two centuries later, the head of the Strategic Operational Command of the National Armed Forces, Domingo Hernández Lárez, posted images on social media of Venezuelan soldiers providing health care to the Indigenous communities living in the area. In one of the messages, he posted photos of trucks with construction materials and the message “Towards the Guyana Shield in support of the integral development of the nation.”
Guyana and its allies
“We are very concerned that President Maduro and the government of Venezuela can use their own internal scenario and internal politics to create an instability within our region, to create fear and terror within the hearts and minds of their neighbors,” said Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali Tuesday in an interview with France 24. Ali pointed out that both countries are bound to the process of the International Court of Justice, which resulted in the Geneva Agreement of 1966 by decision of the Secretary-General of the United Nations after decades of unsuccessful negotiations and despite the fact that Venezuela has insisted that the instance does not have jurisdiction to settle the dispute.
“The international community has a great responsibility to ensure that peace prevails. Many countries are supporting Guyana in a peaceful resolution that must come out of the ICJ process,” the Guyanese president said. “We are working with our partners in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense to ensure that Guyana is not caught off guard and is prepared, and also to act as a country that respects the rule of law and international order.”
Brazil, which shares a border with both Venezuela and Guyana, has also expressed concern over the escalation of the territorial dispute. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke with both Maduro and Ali and reinforced the military deployment on the border. The Ministry of Defense increased the contingent of the Boa Vista detachment in the state of Roraima from 70 to 130 uniformed personnel. Its mission is to “guard and protect the national territory,” according to a statement from the ministry. After the Venezuelan referendum, Lula also decided to send around 20 armored vehicles to the triple border.
“We are following the situation with concern, but I don’t think it’s going to come to that [an armed confrontation],” Ambassador Gisela Padovan, secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Reuters Tuesday, adding that she trusted Brazilian diplomacy and that of the rest of the neighboring countries will manage to “deflate the process.”
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By Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg Est. 4min 28-06-2023 (updated: 28-06-2023 ) Content-Type: News News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Denkov’s statement was made on the eve of his first Brussels visit. The new Bulgarian leader on Wednesday will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President Charles Michel and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He will also take part in the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. [EPA-EFE/VASSIL DONEV] EURACTIV is part of the Trust Project >>> Print Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram The radical pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane is a neo-fascist organisation because of the aggressive behaviour of its leader and supporters, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov declared on Tuesday (27 June), ahead of his first visit to Brussels. “A neo-fascist party is on the rampage in the National Assembly, it parades in the national media, a war has been declared on European values, which are also Bulgarian values. Bulgaria will lose the battle for its European identity without the courageous European position of the media,” said Denkov, his last words being a quote by the Bulgarian philosopher Prof. Georgi Fotev. Vazrazhdane and its leader Kostadin Kostadinov have been escalating their aggressive rhetoric recently. A Vazrazhadane-led protest vandalised the office of the EU in Sofia on 21 May, and Emil Yankov, an MP from Vazrazhdane, pledged to send political opponents to the communist-era concentration camp of Belene. Last week, Vazrazhdane supporters made death threats against opponents in front of the police in the largest Bulgarian city on the Black Sea – Varna. On Sunday, Kostadinov incited violence, calling his supporters to “annihilate” his party’s political opponents. This call was made in the context of the attempted putsch by the Russian private military group Wagner and was aimed at people who oppose Putin. Despite numerous incidents, Bulgarian police have failed to take any form of action against the party members. As a result, Denkov called on authorities to take action against, in particular, the recent call for violence. Denkov’s statement was made on the eve of his first Brussels visit. The new Bulgarian leader on Wednesday will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President Charles Michel and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He will also take part in the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. The elephant in the room As Denkov will meet von der Leyen, the elephant in the room will be the referendum Vazrazhdane has initiated against Bulgaria joining the eurozone. Legally the referendum cannot undo the commitment Bulgaria has taken under its EU accession treaty to join the eurozone, but Vazrazhdane wants the accession postponed until 2043, when the income of Bulgarians would be closer to that of the richer countries in the Union. The necessary signatures for the referendum have been gathered, and the risk that a majority would vote in favour of postponing the eurozone accession exists. Theoretically, the referendum could be held as early as this autumn, in parallel with the local elections. For now, there is no communication effort to explain to citizens the advantages of joining the eurozone, while Vazrazhdane’s campaign against the common EU currency is in full swing. According to EURACTIV sources, the EU executive would like the new Bulgarian government to defuse the referendum’s risk and be more active in countering Russian propaganda and disinformation. The new Justice Minister, Atansas Slavov, said that “as a democratic society, we cannot allow violence in a political process to become the norm because that means compromising the very idea of constitutional democracy.” He, too, called on the Bulgarian investigative authorities to start investigations against Vazrazhdane In response, Kostadinov requested television stations to give him more speaking time. On Tuesday, the Prosecutor’s Office of Sofia announced it launched an investigation against Kostadinov for inciting violence and hatred. The deadline for inspecting by law is up to three months, after which an assessment will be made as to whether there is sufficient data for a committed crime. The prosecutor’s office told EURACTIV that there were two case filing options. One is for inciting hatred and violence, and the other is for preaching fascist and anti-democratic ideology. If data is collected after the end of the investigation, the supervising prosecutor can open a case of fascist propaganda. (Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg) Read more with EURACTIV ECB president: nature of inflation is changing, ‘job not yet done‘ Print Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Topics Politics The Capitals | Europe Politics |
You’ve got to hunt for news about the most consequential election in Europe this year. Israel has pushed even the war in Ukraine far down the headline scroll.
But Sunday’s surprising vote in Poland deserves attention — for what it says about domestic small-d democratic politics and for what it means geopolitically for the U.S. and Europe.
Let’s start with the first and the man of the moment: Donald T. — T is for Tusk — who both shares some qualities with his namesake and represents a rejection of Trumpist politics.
Tusk led his center-right Civic Platform and two likely coalition partners to an unexpected victory over the ruling Law and Justice Party. Over eight years, PiS, as the governing party is known, blended social Catholic conservatism, nationalism bleeding into jingoism and state patronage. Its detractors saw in it an existential threat to Poland’s thirtysomething democracy and raised doubts about the election’s fairness.
We’ve become so downbeat that the outcome came as a shock. It shouldn’t have, and it’s instructive why.
Polish politics, like our own, are loud. Extremist voices break through most easily. But even though kinda-crazy works well online or on cable, it tends to lose appeal when people make serious choices about who should run the joint. High decibel levels obscure the deep pragmatic streak of most voters in countries that are stable and relatively well off. They also obscure another reality: Poland, even run by populists on the political right, is hardly an autocracy. PiS used state media and coffers to swing voters, stretching for sure the usual advantages of incumbency. But democracy worked.
The reasons start with the prosaic. Poland has been the fastest-growing economy in Europe since the Berlin Wall fell, and PiS was a decent steward and benefitted politically. Then inflation spiked and growth slowed, not surprisingly hurting the incumbents. Corruption scandals further soiled their reputation for decent, mostly clean governance. Draconian prohibitions on abortion were out of step with younger and female voters who mobilized to vote them out, just as the overturning of Roe v. Wade did in the U.S. last year.
The lesson here is similar to another one from the 2022 midterms: In national elections, voters gravitate to normalcy and competence. The ruling party went too far from both, and left the majority of Polish voters in the center, willing to take the available alternative. The three coalition parties walked away with 54 percent of the vote.
The other lesson is perennial. Never bet against the most talented politician in a race. Donald Tusk, in that sense, has Trumpian qualities: He’s a good communicator, connects with his voters, and knows how to navigate the media of modern politics. He parried attacks on him as a German and Russian stooge and “evil incarnate,” per the ruling party’s leader. When he left for a top job in Brussels, in 2015, the Civic Platform imploded. Now he’s back, they’re back.
Many of the leaders who are, quite more clearly than in Poland, chipping away at democracy also happen to be pretty good retail pols. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, who won mostly fair and square this year; Viktor Orban, in Hungary; India’s Narendra Modi. Take note, opposition parties: Poland reminds you it takes talent to win elections.
Now to the geopolitical implications, which are made larger by the war in Israel.
The coming change doesn’t move Poland on the war in Ukraine: For most of the past year-and-a-half, and setting aside some recent tensions over farm exports, Kyiv has had no closer ally in the world than neighboring Warsaw, where Poles see the conflict with Russia in existential terms almost as starkly as the Ukrainians do. Back during his time in Brussels, Tusk was called a “Russia hawk,” who tried to convince his friend and Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel to harden up on Moscow after Crimea was annexed in 2014. He failed then with costly consequences, not least to her legacy.
His electoral triumph matters for another reason: It could ease strains growing in Europe over Ukraine — especially at a time when American support for Kyiv and Europe’s defense grows precarious and the White House focus turns toward the Middle East.
Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, the most important capitals in the EU when it comes to security have been Paris-Berlin-Warsaw. For all those years, this was a broken axis. Warsaw’s PiS picked fights with Berlin over history. Merkel’s indulgence of Putin — summed up, naturally, in a German phrase Russlandversteher, understanding Russia — made most Poles nervous. France’s Emmanuel Macron began the war trying to pacify Putin, not helping him with the Poles, and hasn’t found a common language with Germany’s Olaf Scholz.
Tusk’s rise to prime minister, expected later this year, will change this dynamic immediately. He’ll look to rebuild ties with Berlin, where Russlandversteher is discredited, if not dead. Meanwhile, Macron is sounding tougher notes on defense and Russia, and he and Tusk are said to have a decent relationship.
This troika is the best hope the EU has to get serious about its security. Hard decisions loom to reorient the industrial complex for a long war. If American support for NATO and Ukraine sags, it’ll be Europe that will have to make up for it.
Europe has many times in the past promised to step up, at long last, and proceeded to plant face firmly on the ground. The turn in Polish politics is a new chance. If taken, it would help insulate European security and NATO from the two forces that currently imperil their efforts to defend themselves immediately against Russia and China beyond: Changing winds in American politics, and a major conflict brewing in the Middle East.
With a sprinkle of hyperbole, Tusk says his election saved Polish democracy. His larger legacy could be to strengthen European security. | Europe Politics |
The French government decided to shut down internet service in certain areas amid riots turned violent to prevent the spread of false information.
Police officials quoting France Interior Ministry said the ban on social media is to secure the life and property of the citizens.
The French Police said landline and mobile service will be restored.
Rioting across France was less intense overnight, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as tens of thousands of police were deployed following the funeral of a teenager of North African descent whose shooting by police has sparked nationwide unrest.
The government poured 45,000 police onto the streets to try to keep a lid on a fifth night of unrest after Saturday’s funeral of Nahel, a 17-year-old with Algerian and Moroccan parents, who was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Since then rioters have torched cars and looted stores, but also targeted town halls, police stations and schools - buildings that represent the French state.
President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that was due to have begun on Sunday to handle the worst crisis for his leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests paralysed much of France in late 2018.
He was due to meet his ministers on Sunday evening to review the situation, the presidency said, after the prime minister said on Friday the government’s “crisis unit” had been activated until further notice. | Europe Politics |
In Switzerland, women who want to terminate a pregnancy often face hurdles. Swiss sexual-health specialists and the World Health Organization (WHO) are calling for changes to the legal framework on abortion.
Abortion has resurfaced as a political issue in Switzerland in the last few years. Debate in many countries has intensified since the federal right to abortion in the United States was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022. The French parliament is bitterly discussing the introduction of a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. In Italy, the opposition is accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party of subtly curtailing access to abortion.
The right to abortion in Switzerland is still governed by the criminal code. In 2002, voters approved legalising the procedure during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy “on written request by the woman, who must confirm that she is in a state of distress”. After 12 weeks, a medical provider must prove the procedure is “necessary to avoid a serious risk of physical harm to, or a state of profound distress in, the pregnant woman”.
The Swiss law, however, does not meet the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), which were revised last year. The WHO recommends, among other things, that abortion be decriminalised completely and that it be legal at any stage of pregnancy.
In all 32 European countries – including France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom – have already passed abortion legislation outside the framework of criminal law.
Intense political debates
So far, the WHO recommendations have failed to win a political majority in Switzerland. In March, parliament rejected an initiative by left-leaning Green Party parliamentarian Léonore Porchet that aimed to remove abortion from the criminal code. The right-wing majority felt the current regulations, in existence for over 20 years, have proven satisfactory.
“It's absurd to think that women who terminate a pregnancy will no longer be stigmatised if we remove abortion rules from the criminal code and create a separate law,” said Swiss People’s Party parliamentarian Yves Nidegger during the debates.
Anti-abortion activists have also been unsuccessful in winning over a majority. As in most of Europe, pro-life movements have grown recently in Switzerland. They have campaigned cleverly over the last decade or so to restrict the right to abortion. Despite their efforts, however, they remain in the minority, and their initiatives have never won a popular vote.
Anti-abortion groups recently suffered another loss. In December 2021, two People’s Party parliamentarians launched two popular initiatives, drawn up by pro-life organisations, that aimed to restrict access to voluntary terminations. These initiatives failed to collect – by the June 21, 2023, deadline – the 100,000 signatures necessary to trigger a popular vote.
Review by parliament
The political stalemate may soon be broken. In late August, the Federal Council (the executive branch of the Swiss government) supported a requestExternal link to re-evaluate abortion law. Four parliamentarians – centre-right Radical-Liberal Susanne Vincenz-Stauffacher, left-wing Social Democrat Min Li Marti, Porchet of the Green Party, and centrist Liberal Green Melanie Mettler – had all submitted parliamentary initiatives. The initiatives request that the government re-evaluate the legal regulations governing abortion, review existing obstacles to voluntary terminations, and propose solutions.
“The testimonies we receive show that women who want an abortion in Switzerland still face numerous obstacles,” Porchet explained. She cited in particular the stigmatisation of women who terminate a pregnancy. She added that “the inclusion of abortion in the criminal code creates heavy pressure on healthcare professionals”.
The parliamentary initiatives were approved by all parties except the People’s Party and have a good chance of being taken up soon by parliament. Those who want to preserve the current system are unhappy with the intervention. Parliamentarian Benjamin Roduit, one of the only members of the Centre Party who has supported anti-abortion initiatives, feels there is no reason to re-open the issue.
“It’s not a priority for the population or for politicians,” Roduit said. In his opinion, the demands for complete decriminalisation are extremist. “If the law is respected, there should be no obstacles for women who want to have an abortion,” he said.
Pushing women to question their decision
Roduit’s claim does not, however, seem to reflect the experience of many women who have had an abortion.
Marine Ehemann, 32, lives in Lausanne and has a PhD in political science. “I realised that my gynaecologist refused to perform abortions during a conversation about contraception,” she said. This prompted her to switch doctors, although at the time she hoped never to need an abortion.
“I was shocked to learn my doctor’s position,” she said. “I had been her patient for a number of years. A refusal to perform this procedure should be clearly stated.”
Some time later, a pregnancy test confirmed that Ehemann was pregnant. “Even though I was in a stable relationship and had a steady job, it wasn’t the right time for me at all. I still had important things going on, including my thesis,” she explained. After intense and difficult reflection, she decided to have an abortion.
Ehemann was obliged to wait for two weeks, however, because her pregnancy was still too early to be confirmed by ultrasound. “The delay was painful, especially because I was developing pregnancy symptoms,” she confided. Although sure of her decision, she was nonetheless required to confirm it several times. “The process is long and pushes you to question your choice. It requires you to be strong,” she said.
Delays
Sexual-health specialists frequently hear stories similar to Ehemann’s. “Even if a woman is sure she wants to terminate her pregnancy, it's not uncommon for her to have to make a second appointment before her doctor will give her the first abortion pill. This amounts to an enforced reflection period,” said a sexual-health counsellor who wishes to remain anonymous.
Barbara Berger, the director of Santé Sexuelle Suisse (Swiss Sexual Health), notes the same difficulties. She also points out that a number of gynaecologists in Switzerland refuse to perform abortions because of their religious or ethical convictions.
In Italy, conscientious objectors are well documented: 64.6% of the country’s gynaecologists do not perform abortions, according to the latest dataExternal link published by the health ministry in 2020. Switzerland, however, has no comparable statistics.
“[Swiss] public hospitals are required to offer abortions. If someone refuses to perform terminations, someone else will have to do it for them. This can create delays,” explained Berger. Private clinics and practices are free to choose whether or not to offer abortions.
Decriminalise to destigmatise?
Berger believes abortion has a persistent stigma because it is regulated by the criminal code. “This kind of system puts a lot of pressure on medical personnel, who want to be sure that a woman makes a good decision. This invites moral commentary,” she said. She also criticises the current law for requiring women to prove they are in a state of distress.
Santé Sexuelle Suisse feels the solution is obvious: abortion should no longer be regulated by the criminal code but instead by public-health legislation, as in France. Berger believes this would allow a patient’s choice and her health to take centre stage. “Once a woman has made her decision,” she said, “abortion should be available to her without delay and without obstacles.”
Switzerland's abortion rate is very low
In Switzerland, just over six out of every 1,000 women of reproductive age have abortions, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Models from the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute – an American research organisation – show that Switzerland and Singapore are two of the countries with the lowest abortion rate.
In a previous SWI swissinfo.ch article, Clémentine Rossier, an associate professor at the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, attributed the low Swiss rate to “the excellent sex education” organised in schools from the earliest years and to the “very good network of family-planning centres”.End of insertion
Edited by Virginie Mangin & Samuel Jaberg. Translated from French by Katherine Bidwell/gw
In compliance with the JTI standards | Europe Politics |
Boris Johnson’s indecision over the Covid pandemic and his attitude towards the fate of older people were laid bare in evidence to the Covid inquiry on Tuesday.
Verbatim messages from the prime minister and his key advisers, including very coarse language, and other written and verbal evidence represent the most damning testimony to have emerged so far.
Here are some of the most striking examples.
Boris Johnson: ‘Covid is nature’s way of dealing with old people’
Notes from the former chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance in August 2020: [Boris Johnson was] obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going. Quite bonkers set of exchanges.”
In December 2020, Vallance noted: “Numbers are going up & up. PM told he has been acting early and the public are with him (but his party is not). He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’ Wants to rely on polling. Then he says, ‘We should move things to Tier 3 now.”
Vallance continued: “Cabinet. Agreed that things need to be scaled back. Christmas must be smaller, shorter & local … Chief whip says ‘I think we should let the old people get it & protect others’. PM says ‘a lot of my backbenchers think that & I must say I agree with them’ … He says ‘let’s put Berkshire into Tier 3 & then I can just travel there’. Before Cabinet I said to Gove ‘you did well not to say I told you so re putting London into Tier 3’. He grins.”
Johnson told Lee Cain, his director of communications, via WhatsApp in October 2020: “Jeeez. I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on covid fatalities. The median age is 82-81 for men 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get COVID and live longer. Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital (4 per cent) and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this nhs overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate. There are max 3m in this country aged over 80”.
Cain replied: “All understood – but how does this change the policy? Still not politically viable yet to change course – but maybe once mass testing up and running”.
Johnson said: “It shows we don’t go for nation wide lockdown.”
Dominic Cummings called for a reshuffle to remove ‘fuckpigs in charge’
WhatsApp from Cummings, Johnson’s chief adviser, to Cain on 23 August 2020: “Don’t think sustainable for GW [Gavin Williamson] to stay [at] dfe [Department for Education]. Think lee [Cain] needs to brief reshuffle after SR [spending review] ASAP. Will get people in line. Focus minds intensely for next 16 weeks, and you spell out explicitly to Cabinet when next meet – I’ve had enough of the leaks and briefing, there’ll be a reshuffle between SR and Xmas, I’m looking for quiet competence, not interviews and briefing and the usual gimmicks …
“if you dont get the CAB[inet] back into line you wil have months more of the mayhem briefing … leaking – this has seriously damaged your authority – you need to get this back, you need to read riot act to CAB and SW1 shd know theres a reshuffle coming between SR and Xmas.
“At the moment the bubble thinks youve taken your eye off ball, youre happy to have useless fuckpigs in charge, and they think that a vast amount of the chaotic news on the front pages is coming from no 10 when in fact it’s coming from the Cabinet who are ferral – if you maintain your approach of last few months, your authority will be severely weakened and you will lose good people cos they dont want to be part of something that looks like mayhem. I urge you to ponder on this this week. If we dont grip things over next month, things cd easily snowball out of control amid the disastrous con news – and there cd be talk of leadership challenges
“I also must stress i think leaving [health secretary Matt] Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or shd believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the cunt in charge of the NHS still – therefore we will back around that cabinet table with him and [the NHS chief executive Simon] stevens bullshitting again in Sep. Hideous prospect.”
Lee Cain replied: “Not sure when you think reshuffle should happen. Before sept to move Hancock? Or November?”
Cummings dismissed PM’s approach as ‘Jaws mode wank’
The inquiry was shown a foul-mouthed WhatsApp exchange between Cummings and Cain lamenting Johnson’s resistance to lockdown. Johnson had claimed that the real hero of the film Jaws was the mayor who kept the beaches open when there was a risk of a deadly shark attack.
On 19 March 2020, Cummings told Cain: “Sonic [nickname for another adviser] just been to CABOFF [Cabinet Office] on this shielding package, says clusterfuck, everyone babbling GDPR, arguing over who in charge of website etc, chaos. hes bringing em into no10 sounds like [w]ill have to read riot act 215 ish”.
1.22pm: “Get in here he’s melting down. Rishi saying bond markets may not fund our debt etc. He’s back to Jaws mode wank”.
3.36pm: “I’ve literally said same thing ten fucking times and he still won’t absorb it. I’m exhausted just talking to him and stopping the trolley”.
4.48pm: “I’ve had to sit here for 2 hours just to stop him saying stupid shit”.
Cain replied: “I’m exhausted with him.”
Cain cited a tweet from the Times reporter Steven Swinford that said: “Slightly confusing message from Boris Johnson At the beginning of his press conference we can turn the tide within [weeks]”. Cain wrote: “No words.”
Cummings replied: “what did i say - - it’s only a matter of time before his babbling exposes fact he doesnt know”.
Asked about this exchange, Cain told the inquiry on Tuesday: “Covid was the wrong crisis for this PM’s skill set, which is different from not potentially being up to the job of being prime minister.”
Lee Cain said it was a ‘huge blunder’ to ignore Marcus Rashford’s campaign on free school meals
In his written evidence to the inquiry, Cain said: “Another policy that came to the fore was the provision of free school meals to children from low-income families during the summer and Christmas holidays which had been advocated by [the Manchester United footballer] Marcus Rashford. I remember asking in the Cabinet Room of 20 people, how many people had received free school meals. Nobody had – resulting in a policy and political blind spot. This was a huge blunder. The PM (to some degree understandably) said we needed to draw a line in the sand on public spending commitments, but this was clearly not the place to draw that line – something the PM was told by his senior team of 20 people.”
Cummings complained the Cabinet Office was ‘terrifyingly shit’
On 12 March 2020, Cummings told Cain: “We got big problems coming CABOF is terrifyingly shit, no plans, totally behind pace, me and Warners [Ben and Marc Warner] and lee/slacky [No 10 aide James Slack] are have to drive and direct. Mark [Sedwill, the cabinet secretary] is out to lunch – hasnt a scooby whats going on and his own officials know he doesnt.
“We must announce TODAY – not next week ‘if feel ill with cold/flu stay home’. Some CABOFF want delay cost havent done the work and dont work weekends. We must force the face today, we are looking at 100-500 thousand deaths between optimistic / pessimistic scenarios. 1918 was 250k for comparison.”
Johnson’s approach to Covid would ‘oscillate’
Cain’s written evidence to the inquiry said: “Another challenge was that the prime minister would occasionally oscillate between lockdown and other potential policy options (a recurring theme during the critical decision points of Covid and, to some degree, understandable given the gravity of the decisions). The prime minister worried about the impact on the economy and questioned the modelling and demographics of the fatalities around Covid.”
Cain told the inquiry: “I think anyone that’s worked with the prime minister for a period of time will become exhausted with him. Sometimes he is quite [a] challenging character to work with, just because he will oscillate, he will take a decision from the last person in the room. I think that’s pretty well documented in terms of his style of operating.”
Referring to Johnson’s indecision, Cummings said: “Pretty much everybody called him the trolley.” | United Kingdom Politics |
At least 53 members of Burkina Faso’s security forces have been killed during heavy clashes with rebel fighters in the country’s north, according to the army.
Seventeen soldiers and 36 volunteers assisting the military were killed during an “attack” in Koumbri commune in Yatenga province on Monday, the army said in a statement on Tuesday.
The security forces had been deployed in the town to enable the resettlement of residents chased out of the area by the fighters more than two years ago, it added.
“This act of extreme cowardice will not go unpunished. Every effort is being made to disable the remaining terrorist elements on the run,” the statement said, adding that several dozen of the fighters were also killed and their combat equipment destroyed.
Operations in the area were still under way, the army said.
Burkina Faso has been ravaged by attacks linked to fighters affiliated with ISIL(ISIS) and al-Qaeda that have killed thousands, displaced more than two million people and pushed tens of thousands to the brink of starvation. Approximately half of the country is outside of government control, conflict analysts say.
The country of some 23 million people saw two military coups last year, triggered in part by insecurity.
The killings on Monday were one of the largest attacks since Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the second coup in late September.
Since the first coup in January 2022 the number of people killed by fighters has nearly tripled compared with the 18 months before, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
“This violence, coupled with the geographic spread of extremist activities effectively surrounding Ouagadougou, puts Burkina Faso more than ever at the brink of collapse,” the report said.
The fighters have also blockaded more than two dozen towns, cutting off nearly one million people from being able to easily access food and goods and move freely, the group said.
Short on troops and supplies, Burkina Faso’s authorities have turned increasingly to volunteer defence forces to help. These armed civilians, who help police the rural north, are frequently caught up in deadly assaults.
The security forces have also been accused by rights groups and analysts of killing civilians believed to be associated with the fighters.
The number of civilians killed by the military or volunteers since the first coup has more than tripled to 762 compared with the year and a half prior, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies said. | Africa politics |
JAKARTA, July 12 (Reuters) - Thailand's Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai on Wednesday said he had met with Myanmar's jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the first foreign official to be granted access to the Nobel laureate since her detention by the military two years ago.
The popular pro-democracy figure faces 33 years in prison for a multitude of convictions, and is being held in an annex of a prison in the capital Naypyitaw and has been denied visits, including from her legal team.
Don said Suu Kyi was in good health but gave no details of when or where the meeting took place.
He added the objective of seeing Suu Kyi was in line the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) plan to achieve peace in the conflict-ridden country.
Don caused a stir last month when he invited ASEAN counterparts to a meeting aimed at re-engaging with Myanmar's ostracised military rulers who have been barred from the bloc's high-level meetings.
ASEAN's so-called five-point consensus is the only official diplomatic process in play for achieving peace in Myanmar, but frustration is mounting in the bloc over the junta's failure to implement the agreement.
"(The meeting) is an approach of the friends of Myanmar, who would like to see a peaceful settlement," Don told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Jakarta.
Kanchana Patarachoke, a spokesperson for Thailand's foreign ministry, told reporters the private meeting was held on Sunday and lasted over an hour.
"She was in good health both physically and mentally. (Don) briefed ASEAN on the retreat this morning," she said.
Suu Kyi has been convicted of more than a dozen offences, ranging from incitement and election fraud to corruption and breaches of a state secrets law, in trials dismissed around the world as a sham.
She has called the charges absurd and is appealing the convictions at the Supreme Court.
The 2021 coup plunged Myanmar into political and social chaos, with the junta drawing global condemnation for its heavy-handed crackdown on opponents such as Suu Kyi.
At the ASEAN meeting on Wednesday, foreign ministers emphasised the need for unity on how to address the crisis in Myanmar, Indonesia's foreign minister Retno Marsudi said.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Asia Politics |
Russia said on Friday it had thwarted Ukrainian sea and air drone attacks on a naval base in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula.
The number of attacks in the sea has increased from both sides since Moscow exited a deal last month that had allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the shipping hub during the conflict between the two countries.
“Tonight, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the use of two unmanned sea boats, attempted an attack on the Novorossiysk naval base of the Russian Armed Forces,” the defence ministry said on Telegram.
Russian ships destroyed the naval drones, it said. It was the first such attack targeting the port city.
The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk hosts the terminus of a pipeline that carries most Kazakh oil exports through Russia.
The fuel artery’s operator Caspian Pipeline Consortium said it was continuing to ship oil to moored tankers at the terminal, Russian state media reported on Friday.
But “a temporary ban has been established on the movement of ships in the port”, said the company, as quoted by Interfax news agency.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been targeted since the beginning of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine more than a year ago, but attacks have increased in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said it foiled a Ukrainian drone attack targeting patrol boats in the Black Sea.
Three drones were trained on ships navigating in waters 340 kilometres southwest of Sevastopol, the base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
A similar attack was repelled a week earlier.
Crimea attack repelled
The ministry also said on Friday it had downed 13 drones over the Crimean peninsula. There were no casualties or damage in either attack, the ministry said.
Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has been targeted by Kyiv throughout Moscow’s Ukraine offensive but has come under more intense, increased attacks in recent weeks.
Ukrainian drone attacks on Crimea in July blew up an ammunition depot and damaged a strategic and symbolic bridge linking Russia’s mainland to the peninsula.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it plans to take back Crimea, which is a regular target for its forces.
On Sunday, Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said 25 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the peninsula.
Kyiv says Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s Odesa, a centuries-old city on the shores of the Black Sea and one of Ukraine’s main ports.
Frontline under microscope
Also announced on Friday was Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s visit to a combat zone in Ukraine to inspect a command post and meet senior military officers.
Shoigu got an update on the situation on the front and “thanked commanders and soldiers … for successful offensive operations” in Lyman in eastern Ukraine, the army said, without mentioning when the visit took place.
Shoigu last visited the front at the end of June after a failed rebellion by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner fighting along with Moscow’s forces in Ukraine.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that the counteroffensive was difficult, reporting “very violent” fighting in the key areas on the eastern and southern fronts.
Late summer and early autumn 2022, Ukraine retook swathes of territory around Kherson and Kharkiv in rapid counteroffensives.
But Ukrainian forces are now contending with well-entrenched Russian defensive positions built over several months. | Europe Politics |
BRUSSELS — EU leaders were ticking through their agenda items with alacrity on Thursday. Rumors were circulating they might even cancel Friday’s meeting, having nothing left to talk about.
Then Viktor Orbán stepped in.
Our approach to migration is unacceptable, the Hungarian leader fulminated. Exactly, echoed the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. We won’t move forward with the summit’s final statement until our concerns are addressed, they vowed.
In the end, they got their way — kind of. The entire summit stalled as the leaders of France and Germany, plus European Council President Charles Michel, negotiated with Hungary and Poland. Eventually, everyone just gave up. Shortly after 1 a.m., EU leaders called off the summit and went home, vowing to try again Friday morning.
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It was exactly what everyone had been hoping to avoid: Yet another migration mutiny.
The talks had been “difficult” and “complicated,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo conceded on his way out. “We hope the night brings some advice.”
In many ways, the failure to produce a final statement is merely cosmetic. The underlying reason behind Hungary and Poland’s 11th-hour intervention was a protest over a migration deal EU countries pushed through this month to relocate migrants across the Continent.
Statement or not, that deal will remain in place. Yet Hungary and Poland wanted to use the summit to express their discontent — and that, they certainly did.
The late-night obstruction, described to POLITICO by numerous diplomats familiar with the talks, is just the latest indication that migration is becoming an increasingly unavoidable subject at every EU summit. And with migrants continuing to arrive via dangerous Mediterranean routes and horrific tragedies like the recent migrant boat sinking off the Greek coast, the issue is not going away.
We’re always talking migration now
In the room, Dutch leader Mark Rutte suggested leaders discuss it again at their next summit, while De Croo argued it should simply always be on the agenda, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions who, like others, spoke anonymously to share details of the private talks.
Others pointed to the rise in anti-immigrant attacks in their home countries — including in places like Ireland which have traditionally escaped anti-immigration trends — as well as the rise in popularity of far-right parties, fuelled by xenophobic sentiment.
Migration has long been one of the thorniest issues for the EU. Since the 2015 migration crisis, the bloc has tried and failed to overhaul the bloc’s process for welcoming and relocating asylum seekers.
Until last month that is. In May, EU countries finally — after months of tense negotiations — reached an agreement that did both.
The deal, in a nutshell, would install a stricter asylum procedure at the border for migrants deemed unlikely to be accepted. It would also create a system that gives EU countries the choice of either accepting a certain number of migrants each year or paying into a joint EU fund.
Hungary and Poland detest the mandatory relocations and have vowed not to cooperate.
And at Thursday’s gathering, they also expressed anger that the deal was pushed through via majority support — not unanimity. They pushed to adopt a joint statement committing to making EU migration decisions only by consensus (even though the EU doesn’t require that).
The text of one potential compromise version of the statement, seen by POLITICO, calls for the EU to “find consensus on an effective asylum and migration policy.”
Despite Hungarian and Polish protestations, the deal is not going away.
“The migration deal stands,” Rutte said as he left the summit. “What has been the issue today was not the migration pact … but that Hungary and Poland don’t like the way the migration pact was decided.”
And that frustration spilled over into Thursday’s meeting.
“They’re so angry about this that they say that they want no conclusions [on migration] at all now,” Rutte said.
Moments after leaders broke up for the night, Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán, summed up the sentiment on Twitter: “Heavy fight against the pro-migration forces of Brussels!”
A sign of things to come
Summit organizers had been hoping to avoid such a prolonged conversation on migration, worried that it might turn heated.
They took several steps in the run-up to try and ensure the joint statement’s language placated everyone. To start, the drafts circulating ahead of time only indirectly referenced the migration agreement.
The drafts also tried to skirt another point of contention: a push from several hawkish countries to include a reference to finding “innovative solutions” on migration.
Though no one wanted to say it publicly, three officials familiar with the talks said the vague term included the prospect of sending asylum seekers to non-EU countries — a model akin to a controversial U.K. plan to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda. By coincidence, the U.K. proposal was dramatically struck down by the U.K. Court of Appeal Thursday just as EU leaders were arriving in Brussels.
Instead of mentioning the controversial phrase, drafters instead slipped in a reference to a letter EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s top executive, circulated to EU leaders this week, pledging that her European Commission was “ready to continue developing new ways of advancing on … objectives including through out-of-the-box thinking.”
The term “out-of-the-box thinking” — essentially a euphemism that keeps the door open for a range of migration options — got positive mentions from several leaders during Thursday’s meeting, according to the official familiar with the discussions.
One country that appeared satisfied all day: Italy.
Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has successfully pulled much of the EU in her direction on migration and was the clear victor of the recent migration deal.
“It was a unique approach that fixed everyone’s problems,” she said as she arrived at the summit.
And De Croo, the Belgian leader, even praised her role as an intermediary with Hungary and Poland on Thursday.
But it remains far from clear if leaders will be able to reach a deal after a night’s sleep.
“There is really, really, really a desire to be able to come to conclusions,” De Croo stressed. | Europe Politics |
Bare benches for beds in "suffocating", airless rooms. Little to no food. A child captive forced by Hamas to watch the carnage of 7 October on video.
Stories emerging from those freed from Gaza - mostly through their relatives - paint a picture of weeks spent in squalor, uncertainty and fear.
One hostage, Ruti Munder, 78, said she learned her son was killed in Israel by listening to a radio used by guards.
Deborah Cohen claimed her 12-year-old nephew was made to watch videos of the Hamas rampage through southern Israel.
More than 60 of the estimated 240 people taken hostage by Hamas have now been freed under the Israel-Hamas truce deal.
Few have spoken directly about their experiences, but those who have - either themselves or through their families - relay a captivity that has left a host of emotional and physical scars.
In an interview with French television channel BFM, Ms Cohen described the conditions that her nephew Eitan Yahalomi, 12, endured throughout his 52 days as a hostage.
"When he arrived in Gaza, all of the residents, all of them, beat him up. He's a 12-year-old child," she said, adding that any child who cried was "threatened with rifles".
Ms Cohen said that Eitan had told her that "Hamas forced him to watch horror videos" of the 7 October attacks, when at least 1,200 people were killed.
"Yesterday (when Eitan was released) we were so happy," Deborah Cohen told BFMTV, "but now that I know this I worry. It's unimaginable. I don't know who could do such a thing."
"I wanted to believe that Eitan would be well treated. Apparently not. Those people are monsters."
The Times of Israel reported that Eitan's father, Ohad, was shot and wounded in a gun battle and remains in captivity in Gaza.
Other hostages have told relatives of being kept in crowded underground hallways and rooms with little electricity.
They were strictly controlled by their guards - denied pens in case they tried to communicate covertly among themselves.
Ruti Munder, 78, was freed on Friday along with her daughter Keren, 54, and nine-year-old grandson Ohad Munder-Zichri.
She said her captors had forced her group to sleep on benches without mattresses, in a "suffocating" room with little fresh air.
She was fortunate to be given a sheet - many others including young girls and boys were not.
"We covered ourselves with a sheet. The boys slept under the benches, on the ground, because we wanted them next to us," she told Israel's Channel 13.
It also appears that Hamas split families up - with many left in the dark about what had happened to their relatives on 7 October.
In video footage released by Mrs Munder's family, a relative is heard saying that her husband Avraham, also aged 78, was still being held hostage. Keren Munder replies: "So he wasn't murdered."
Mrs Munder then describes how she had learned from listening to the radio in captivity that her son, Roy, had been killed by Hamas in Nir Oz kibbutz.
Food varied. The 78-year-old said she received chicken and rice at first, with tea twice a day.
"We were OK," she said, but added that what they were given soon changed when "the economic situation was not good, and people were hungry".
Another relative, Merav Raviv, described how Mrs Munder and her daughter had each lost around 7kg (15lb).
Others have spoken of a meagre, dwindling diet of canned hummus, pitta bread and salty cheese - towards the end some hostages said they received just two slices of bread a day.
Those involved in looking after freed children say that many are suffering effects of psychological strain.
A resident of Kibbutz Be'eri said two released girls were still speaking in whispers, after weeks of being told to keep their voices down by their captors.
Thomas Hand, the father of nine-year-old Irish-Israeli Emily Hand, who was released on Sunday, said that his daughter now cries herself to sleep at night.
"She's coming out slowly, little by little," he told US media.
"The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was that she was just whispering, you couldn't hear her. I had to put my ear on her lips," he said.
"She'd been conditioned not to make any noise."
Elma Avraham, 84, was released on Sunday and transferred immediately by helicopter to a hospital in Beersheba in a "serious and life-threatening" condition.
Her daughter Tali Amano said that Hamas had held her mother, who already suffered several serious medical conditions, in terrible conditions.
Vital daily medications were denied for some 50 days, she said, adding: "My mother arrived hours before we would have lost her."
Hagai Levine, the head of medical affairs from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, said that Mrs Avraham had been held "for 52 days ... in conditions that no human being should be kept in... without human dignity".
Yocheved Lifschitz, an 85-year-old hostage who was released weeks ago on 23 October, said at the time she had been through hell.
The grandmother and peace activist was kidnapped by Hamas on motorbikes, beaten with sticks and taken into a "spider's web" of tunnels under Gaza.
But she also describes hostages as being "treated well", with clean conditions and mattresses on the floor for them to sleep on.
"They made sure we wouldn't get sick, and we had a doctor with us every two or three days," she said. | Middle East Politics |
Lukas Coch/AP
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, at the left podium, is surrounded by members of the First Nations Referendum Working Group as he speaks during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, March 23, 2023.
Lukas Coch/AP
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, at the left podium, is surrounded by members of the First Nations Referendum Working Group as he speaks during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, March 23, 2023.
Lukas Coch/AP
CANBERRA, Australia — The Australian government on Thursday released the wording of a referendum question that promises the nation's Indigenous population a greater say on policies that effect their lives.
Australians will vote sometime between October and December on the referendum that would enshrine in the constitution an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
An emotional Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said such a body promoting Indigenous views to the government and Parliament was needed to overcome Indigenous disadvantage.
"We urgently need better outcomes because it's not good enough where we're at in 2023," Albanese told reporters.
Indigenous Australians from the Torres Strait archipelago off the northeast coast are culturally distinct from the mainland Aboriginal population. The two peoples account for 3.2% of the Australian population and are the nation's most disadvantaged ethnic group.
"On every measure, there is a gap between the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the national average," Albanese said.
"A 10-year gap in life expectancy, a suicide rate twice as high, tragic levels of child mortality and disease, a massive overrepresentation in the prison population and deaths in custody, in children sent to out-of-home care," he said.
"And this is not because of a shortage of goodwill or good intentions on any side of politics and it's not because of a lack of funds. It's because governments have spent decades trying to impose solutions from Canberra rather than consulting with communities," he added.
The wording of the referendum question that the Cabinet signed off on Thursday is similar to words proposed by Albanese last year.
The question will be: "A proposed law: To alter the constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?"
If the referendum succeeds, the constitution would state that the "Voice may make representations" to the Parliament and government "on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples."
The Parliament would make laws relating to the Voice "including its composition, functions, powers and procedures."
Opinion polls suggest most Australians support the Voice concept, which Albanese announced was a majority priority of his center-left Labor Party government during his election night victory speech in May last year. But deep divisions remain across Australian society.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said his conservative Liberal Party has yet to decide whether they would support the Voice and required more detail including the government's own legal advice.
The Nationals party, the junior coalition partner in the former government, announced in November they had decided to oppose the Voice, saying it would divide the nation along racial lines.
Australia is unusual among former British colonies in that no treaty was ever signed with the nation's Indigenous population. The constitution came into effect in 1901 and has never acknowledged the Indigenous population as the country's original inhabitants.
The term Great Australian Silence was coined late last century to describe an erasure of Indigenous perspectives and experiences from mainstream Australian history.
Changing Australia's constitution has never been easy and more than four-in five referendums fail.
Of the 44 referendums held since 1901, only eight have been carried and none since 1977. | Australia Politics |
From an Iraqi-refugee who spoke no English to a multi-millionaire businessman and cabinet minister, Nadhim Zahawi's story is one of the most compelling in Westminster.But questions about his financial affairs are now front and centre, having first gained prominence during the Stratford-on-Avon MP's short-lived campaign to become prime minister last summer.
The allegations centre on his links to a Gibraltar-based trust 'Balshore Investments Limited', of which his father Hareth Zahawi is a director.When Nadhim Zahawi co-founded the polling firm YouGov in May 2000, the trust was allocated shares in the company equalling the number given to the other co-founder Stephan Shakespeare.Asked about this by Kay Burley last year, the then chancellor said neither he nor his wife benefit from the Gibraltar trust and denied it was used to avoid tax, saying it was simply because his father "lived abroad". Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Speaking in July, 2022, the then Tory leadership contender told Kay Burley he was 'clearly being smeared' over tax claims The cabinet minister has also suggested the trust held the shares because his father was involved in setting up the company, had put money into it and had provided guidance.Those working at YouGov at the time said Hareth Zahawi was helpful, albeit in an informal way, while others at the firm said he was not involved beyond being a shareholder. More on Nadhim Zahawi Nadhim Zahawi says tax error was found to be 'careless and not deliberate' after calls for his sacking Nadhim Zahawi: Labour calls on PM to dismiss Tory chairman amid tax dispute claims and slams 'motley crew of scandal-ridden ministers' Nadhim Zahawi: 'Unanswered questions remain' over taxes as PM defends his party chairman Evidence from 2005 also appears to show - at that point, before he became an MP - Nadhim Zahawi was benefitting from this offshore trust.A financial document published by YouGov sets out that a dividend payment that was due to go to Balshore instead was used to pay off loans owed by Mr Zahawi. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Labour calls for Zahawi to be sacked Potential tax saving uncoveredMuch of this detail was first uncovered by Dan Neidle - a lawyer who used to work for a top corporate and now runs a not-for-profit focussed on tax policy.Tory sources have briefed that Mr Neidle - who is a Labour member - is a "Labour activist" and the allegations are merely taken from his "blog".This comes after lawyers acting for Mr Zahawi sent Mr Neidle a series of letters last year threatening legal action if he continued to publish analysis of the Tory MP's financial affairs.After digging through pages of documents, Mr Neidle had suggested there would have been a potential tax saving of several million pounds when Balshore sold its YouGov shares. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Zahawi asked if he settled with HMRC That's because they were held in an offshore trust rather than by Mr Zahawi directly, and hence not eligible for capital gains tax.It's this figure that is at the centre of the repayment to HMRC.On Friday, the Guardian newspaper suggested Mr Zahawi reached a settlement with the exchequer that reflected the fact he should have paid tax on the sale of these shares at the time.Read more:Analysis: What Sunak's slip-ups mean to his enemiesPM urged to sack Zahawi over tax claims Nadhim Zahawi's statement in full "As a senior politician I know that scrutiny and propriety are important parts of public life. Twenty-two years ago I co-founded a company called YouGov. I'm incredibly proud of what we achieved. It is an amazing business that has employed thousands of people and provides a world-beating service. "When we set it up, I didn't have the money or the expertise to go it alone. So I asked my father to help. In the process, he took founder shares in the business in exchange for some capital and his invaluable guidance. Twenty-one years later, when I was being appointed chancellor of the exchequer, questions were being raised about my tax affairs. I discussed this with the Cabinet Office at the time. "Following discussions with HMRC, they agreed that my father was entitled to founder shares in YouGov, though they disagreed about the exact allocation. They concluded that this was a 'careless and not deliberate' error. "So that I could focus on my life as a public servant, I chose to settle the matter and pay what they said was due, which was the right thing to do. "Additionally, HMRC agreed with my accountants that I have never set up an offshore structure, including Balshore Investments, and that I am not the beneficiary of Balshore Investments. This matter was resolved prior to my appointments as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and subsequently chairman of the party I love so much. When I was appointed by the prime minister, all my tax affairs were up to date." Tax affairs up to dateMr Zahawi has now confirmed that tax was repaid saying that HMRC had concluded his father was not entitled to the share allocation handed to him when YouGov was created.The Tory chairman said this was a "careless and not a deliberate error" and didn't confirm if any penalty was also levied.He also re-stated that he was not a beneficiary of Balshore Investments and had never set up an offshore structure.However, this intervention clashes somewhat with previous assertions that his tax affairs "were and are fully up to date".Read more: Nadhim Zahawi says HMRC concluded tax error was 'careless and not deliberate' Spreaker Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcastsIt also looks somewhat awkward given his attempts to silence those looking into his tax affairs and his statement to Sky News last year that people were trying to "smear" him over his business dealings.There are also still unanswered questions, including the pointed one of whether someone who was chancellor a matter of months ago was issued with a penalty by HMRC for failing to pay the right amount of tax. | United Kingdom Politics |
WASHINGTON – As Moscow claims Ukraine – with help from the West – was behind what it called an “assassination attempt” on Russian President Vladimir Putin, US officials say the Kremlin claim is the stuff of make-believe.
“There is no doubt that the Kyiv regime is behind these attacks,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday. “The silence on behalf of the collective West demonstrates its connivance with the terrorist methods employed by the neo-Nazi extremist regime in Kyiv.”
Despite Russia’s accusations, the so-called “drone attacks” on Putin were highly unlikely to have been conducted by Ukraine, according to US intelligence and defense officials, as well as lawmakers.
Here’s why:
The drones’ size
Video released Wednesday of the alleged attack appears to show a small drone – the kind available at a hobby store – swarming above the Kremlin before exploding in a bright flash of flame.
While it was unclear Thursday whether the explosion was caused by the drone’s detonation or a Russian missile, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier agreed with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the drones “do not appear to be the kind or size of weapon that could do significant damage to the Kremlin.”
Indeed, Moscow on Wednesday said the so-called attack caused minimal damage and no casualties.
The drones’ type
Berrier also said photos of the small drones indicated they “potentially” were a kind that would have required their operators to be physically in Moscow, roughly 300 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border.
“They appear to be the kinds of drones that would require a relatively close line-of-sight control,” Cotton agreed, “which means someone on the ground in Moscow, which is not known as an open and friendly city to people who are hostile to the Russian government.”
Kyiv’s response
After Moscow levied blame for Wednesday’s incident on Ukraine, Kyiv officials were uncharacteristically quick to deny any role in the attack.
“We fight on our territory; we’re defending our buildings and cities. We don’t have enough weapons for this,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday. “For us, that is a deficit – we can’t spend it. We didn’t attack Putin.”
The vehement denial stands in contrast to Ukraine’s prior ambiguity after earlier Russian accusations of Kyiv-directed attacks, US officials have said.
“In most attacks on Russian soil, Ukraine’s government has been ambiguous or silent about responsibility for the attacks,” Cotton said. “In this case, they’ve explicitly disclaimed any responsibility.”
Putin’s location
Moscow’s presumption that the drones’ operators were attempting to assassinate Putin is one of the more egregious claims.
Not only do the drones not appear to have been capable of carrying a significant payload, the attack happened well before sunrise Wednesday — when the Russian president was not at the Kremlin.
While the Kremlin is listed as Putin’s “official residence,” it is widely known that he does not actually live there. Thus, an attempt to target the strongman at the Russian government’s headquarters would be a fools’ errand, Cotton said.
“The Kremlin is not like the White House,” the lawmaker said. “In other words, it’s not the primary residence of the president of Russia.”
While Berrier told the committee that Russia’s claims are most likely “misinformation,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the US had not gathered enough information to make an official assessment of the incident. | Europe Politics |
Kirk Siegler/NPR
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A show at Red's, a juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss., where it's advertised that you can see live Blues seven nights a week.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
A show at Red's, a juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss., where it's advertised that you can see live Blues seven nights a week.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
CLARKSDALE, Miss. — Bluesman Robert Johnson played the guitar with such genius that legend has it his talent was a gift from the devil in exchange for the musician's soul. That deal was done, according to lore, at "the crossroads" in Clarksdale, Miss.
That exact crossroads, of U.S. Highways 61 and 49, is about an hour's drive south of Memphis in the huge, pancake-flat Mississippi Delta. It's the largely rural region in the northwest corner of the state that runs along the Mississippi River.
Walk down John Lee Hooker Lane in Clarksdale and visitors can admire the markers honoring the famous musicians who got their start here – from Johnson to Muddy Waters to Howlin' Wolf.
Now new local artists like Christone "Kingfish" Ingram are carrying on the tradition. And you can catch live music just about any night of the week at authentic juke joints such as Red's and the Ground Zero Blues Club.
Clarksdale has gone all in on blues tourism as a way of helping this long-struggling region's economy. And it's proven to be a business driver. In Coahoma County, home to Clarksdale, tourists spent more than $68 million in 2019, according to a state tourism report.
"Even though they're coming here for the blues, people are spending money everywhere," says Tameal Edwards, Ground Zero's booking manager.
The Mississippi Delta is world famous as the home of the blues. But less publicized is the fact that the region is also integral to America's civil rights story. Now some are hoping to tell both stories in a fuller way.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
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Clarksdale civil rights leaders Brenda Luckett and Jimmy Wiley began noticing a hunger for more context among blues tourists after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
Clarksdale civil rights leaders Brenda Luckett and Jimmy Wiley began noticing a hunger for more context among blues tourists after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
Trying to square blues tourism and blues history
With pandemic restrictions lifted, and live shows resuming at a fevered pace, Edwards is relieved.
On a recent night at her club, which was started by the actor Morgan Freeman in 2001, a riverboat load of seniors from Arkansas was sitting down to a catfish dinner. A musician warmed up her guitar during a soundcheck, the reverb echoing across the mismatched red tablecloths, worn sofas and walls adorned by vintage concert posters.
"Somebody told me there are two things that can unite people — music and food," Edwards says, beaming behind bright pink eyeglasses. "Here I truly see it every single day. It doesn't matter, rich, poor, old, young, Black, white, stateside, international. ... They're here."
And lately, Clarksdale elders have noticed that many of these tourists are hungry for more context.
"They come to the blues thing and they ask, 'Where is it? Where is the civil rights museum?" says Jimmy Wiley, president of the Coahoma County branch of the NAACP. "I guess they just assume we had one."
Wiley, who is 84, and his friend, retired teacher Branda Luckett, 64, are raising money to start a North Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Clarksdale.
"Civil rights, it's the next blues, as far as tourism is concerned," Luckett says.
For now, Luckett leads civil rights walking tours around town, taking tourists to the historic churches along Martin Luther King Blvd. where King met with Medgar Evers in the 1960s. But her tours also focus on less obvious, unmarked sites such as the old Paramount Movie Theater, where there's a still-intact rickety staircase up the back that looks like a fire escape – it was once the Black entrance. Nearby is the old Greyhound Bus station —now a fast food restaurant —where Black activists staged sit-ins to force desegregation.
Luckett and Wiley worry many who travel the Mississippi Blues Trail are only getting the warm and fuzzy version, with the difficult fuller history edited out — how blues was born from oppression and was instrumental in the fight for civil rights.
"At some point in time there must be a meeting of the minds between those who are advocating the Blues and those who are advocating civil rights," Wiley says.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
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The original Black entrance to the Paramount Movie Theater in Clarksdale, Miss., is still intact.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
The original Black entrance to the Paramount Movie Theater in Clarksdale, Miss., is still intact.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
This is "still the South"
There is one place in the Mississippi Delta where that connection between the blues and civil rights is explicitly laid out. Sixty miles to the south, in Indianola, is the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center where an entire gallery is devoted to the civil rights movement.
It's called "Turbulent Times."
"B.B. came from this," says the museum's executive director Malika Polk-Lee. "He came from plantations picking cotton. He lived through that time of Jim Crow."
In one video, King explains how his family warned him that breaking those strict segregation rules could get him killed.
"It's a very dark moment in our history, but it's a dark moment in America's history," Polk-Lee says. "I think the state is learning how to tell our own story."
Like in Clarksdale, Polk-Lee says visitors today are looking for a deeper understanding. The B.B. King Museum is also used as a community space where people can come together to heal, much like how King's music itself bridged racial divides during the civil rights era.
But there's a delicate balance to getting everyone to the table, according to Polk-Lee.
"We are still in the South and there's a political game that you play," she says. "You have to do it in a way not to offend and still be as truthful and honest as you can."
Kirk Siegler/NPR
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Some civil rights leaders in the Delta worry that most blues tourists aren't getting the full story about the artform's origins from oppression and the struggle for equal rights.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
Some think Mississippi isn't ready for a full-blown civil rights trail
All of this comes as lawmakers in conservative states like Mississippi are trying to restrict how the subject of race is taught in schools and there are renewed efforts to limit what history books are available in libraries. This is partly why people like Tim Lampkin think civil rights tourism on the scale of the blues trail in the Mississippi Delta may be premature.
"I don't know fully if we're ready because the groundwork, the conversations, the actual hard work has yet to be done," says Lampkin, CEO of Higher Purpose, a nonprofit that helps Black entrepreneurs in the Delta.
The Mississippi Delta is majority Black. But much of the region's wealth and land remain largely in white hands, the way it's been since the Civil War. And when it comes to the blues, there's been tension in the Delta around who is profiting and how. Some commercial gimmicks come across as tone deaf, like replicas of shotgun shacks tourists can stay in to experience a bit of sharecropper life.
"We have to wrestle and tackle the past and I don't think that has really happened in a very concerted way," Lampkin says.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
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In recent decades, Clarksdale, Miss., has gone all in on Blues tourism including portrait murals of blues legends including Muddy Waters.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
In recent decades, Clarksdale, Miss., has gone all in on Blues tourism including portrait murals of blues legends including Muddy Waters.
Kirk Siegler/NPR
A pledge to do better in telling the full story
Back in Clarksdale, there's growing acknowledgement that the full story hasn't always been told.
"We must do a better job teaching our own history to ourselves and to our children," says Jon Levingston, executive director of Crossroads Economic Partnership, a local economic development group. "Not the history the way we would like for it to have been, but the way it really was."
The blues and tourism dollars from it have helped spark the redevelopment of old buildings downtown into trendy hotels and cafes and brought new jobs. Thousands flock to the small city for juke joint festivals and its famous blues jams throughout the year. Figures from Visit Mississippi, the state's tourism agency, show that in 2019, the sector generated some $7 million in tax revenues.
At the Ground Zero juke joint, booker Tameal Edwards is proud to see the changes in the economy of her hometown.
"Mississippi has the worst rep for everything," Edwards says. "They say we have lower education. They say we're poor. They have all these negative things to say about us yet, we have so much good."
This story is the first in a two-part series. | Human Rights |
Chinese government officials have praised Elon Musk for his comments about Taiwan. Musk suggested that the country should become "a special administrative zone" similar to Hong Kong. China's ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, tweeted to thank Musk for the proposal. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. Chinese government officials have praised Elon Musk for suggesting that Taiwan should become "a special administrative zone" similar to Hong Kong.Musk proposed his solution to the China-Taiwan conflict during an interview with the Financial Times published on October 7. He added that the idea "probably won't make everyone happy," but that it was probable Taiwan could have an "arrangement that's more lenient than Hong Kong." Taiwan has seen itself as an independent country for decades, but Beijing has consistently claimed the country is a breakaway province and hopes to restore control of the island. China's ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, tweeted to thank Musk for his proposal to the conflict, saying: "Actually, Peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems are our basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question..."He added: "Provided that China's sovereignty, security, and development interests are guaranteed after reunification Taiwan will enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region, and a vast space for development."Foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, backed up the remarks in a statement to reporters on Sunday, Bloomberg reported. She said: "Provided that national sovereignty, security, and development interests are assured, Taiwan can adopt a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region." The day before, the Chinese government appeared to push back on Musk's comments. In answer to a question about Musk's comments on Saturday, Ning referred to the Taiwan issue as "China's domestic politics," adding that the country would "resolutely suppress interference by foreign forces," per Taiwan News.Representatives for Elon Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside normal working hours.This is far from the first time that Musk has weighed in on international politics. Last week, the billionaire faced criticism for suggesting Ukraine should concede land to Russia to end the conflict between the two countries. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, later mocked Musk with a poll posted to his Twitter page. | Asia Politics |
NEW DELHI, Sept 19 (Reuters) - India said on Tuesday it had expelled a Canadian diplomat with five days' notice to leave the country, just hours after Ottawa expelled the South Asian nation's top intelligence agent and accused it of a role in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader.
The development was the latest in an escalating row between the two nations, with Canada saying on Monday it was "actively pursuing credible allegations" linking Indian government agents to the murder in British Columbia in June.
The Canadian high commissioner, or ambassador, in New Delhi had been summoned and told of the expulsion decision, India's foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The decision reflects the government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities," the ministry added.
"The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days."
Earlier on Tuesday, India dismissed the Canadian accusation as "absurd and motivated" and urged it instead to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil.
Reporting by YP Rajesh; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | India Politics |
India Resumes Visas For Canadian Citizens As Tensions Ease
India has restored online visa services to Canadian nationals in a sign that relations are improving after the two countries sparred over the killing of a Sikh separatist leader.
(Bloomberg) -- India has restored online visa services to Canadian nationals in a sign that relations are improving after the two countries sparred over the killing of a Sikh separatist leader.
Canadian nationals can now apply for online visas, according to senior government officials in India, who asked not to be named discussing a sensitive subject. The online visas are issued for short visits to India and include tourist and business-related trips.
The resumption of visa services comes on a day when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to address a virtual meeting of the G-20 grouping that India chairs.
Relations between Ottawa and New Delhi plunged after Prime Minister Trudeau alleged that India was responsible for the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader in Canada. Nijjar is wanted in India for terrorism-related offenses and was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in suburban Vancouver on June 18.
Trudeau’s accusation sparked outrage from the Indian government, which has denied involvement in Nijjar’s death. Officials forced the North American country to reduce its diplomatic staff in New Delhi and also suspended visa services for Canadians.
India resumed issuing certain categories of visas for Canadian nationals in October but the applications for these were to be made through government-appointed outsourced agencies as against online applications.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | India Politics |
WASHINGTON — Thousands converged on the National Mall on Saturday for the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, saying a country that remains riven by racial inequality has yet to fulfill his dream.
''We have made progress, over the last 60 years, since Dr. King led the March on Washington," said Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. ''Have we reached the mountaintop? Not by a longshot."
The event is convened by the Kings' Drum Major Institute and the Rev. Al Sharpton 's National Action Network. A host of Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will rally attendees on the same spot where as many as 250,000 gathered in 1963 for what is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history.
Inevitably, Saturday's even was shot through with contrasts to the initial, historic demonstration. Speakers and banners talked about the importance of LGBTQ and Asian-American rights. Many who addressed the crowd were women after only one was given the microphone in 1963.
Pamela Mays McDonald of Philadelphia attended the initial march as a child. ''I was 8 years old at the original March and only one woman was allowed to speak — she was from Arkansas where I'm from — now look at how many women are on the podium today,'' she said.
For some, the contrasts were bittersweet. ''I often look back and look over to the reflection pool and the Washington monument and I see a quarter of a million people 60 years ago and just a trickling now," said Marsha Dean Phelts of Amelia Island, Florida. ''It was more fired up then. But the things we were asking for and needing, we still need them today.''
As speakers delivered messages they were overshadowed by the sounds of passenger planes taking off from Ronald Reagan National Airport. Rugby games were underway along the Mall in close proximity to the Lincoln while joggers and bikers went about their routines.
On Friday, Martin Luther King III, who is the late civil rights icon's eldest son, and his sister, Bernice King, visited their father's monument in Washington.
''I see a man still standing in authority and saying, 'We've still got to get this this right,''' Bernice said as she looked up at the granite statue.
Featured speakers include Ambassador Andrew Young, the close King adviser who helped organize the original march and who went on to serve as a congressman, U.N. ambassador and mayor of Atlanta. Leaders from the NAACP and the National Urban League are also expected to give remarks.
Several leaders from groups organizing the march met Friday with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the civil rights division, to discuss a range of issues, including voting rights, policing and redlining.
The gathering Saturday was a precursor to the actual anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe the march anniversary on Monday by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering. All of King's children have been invited to meet with Biden, White House officials said.
For the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, continuing to observe March on Washington anniversaries fulfills a promise he made to the late King family matriarch Coretta Scott King. Twenty three years ago, she introduced Sharpton and Martin Luther King III at a 37th anniversary march and urged them to carry on the legacy.
''I never thought that 23 years later, Martin and I, with Arndrea, would be doing a march and we'd have less (civil rights protections) than we had in 2000,'' Sharpton said, referring to Martin Luther King III's wife, Arndrea Waters King.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Washington remarks have resounded through decades of push and pull toward progress in civil and human rights. But dark moments followed his speech, too.
Two weeks later in 1963, four Black girls were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by the kidnapping and murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi the following year. The tragedies spurred passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And the voting rights marches from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama, in which marchers were brutally beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what became known as ''Bloody Sunday,'' forced Congress to adopt the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
''Unfortunately, we're living in a time when there's a younger generation who believes that my daddy's generation, and those of us who came after, didn't get enough done,'' Bernice King said. ''And I want them to understand, you are benefiting and this is the way you're benefiting.''
She added: ''We can't give up, because there's a moment in time when change comes. We have to celebrate the small victories. If you're not grateful, you will undermine your progress, too.''
Saturday's gathering gave Denorver Garrett, 31, hope.
He walked around the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, carrying a cross with names of victims of police brutality and gun violence. ''I've lost a lot of friends to gun violence and God put it on my heart to carry this cross and turn my pain into something,'' Garrett said. ''This fight though, has gotten very hard over time and hearing people who are united for the betterment of our people and communities—it's recharged me to continue and I'm glad I came.''
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Associated Press journalists Ayanna Alexander, Gary Fields, Jacquelyn Martin, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | Human Rights |
BERLIN - Germany and France on Saturday moved to reinforce security around Jewish temples, schools and monuments after the surprise attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel.
Germany tightened police protection of Jewish and Israeli institutions, as some supporters of the Palestinians took to the streets of Berlin to celebrate the attack.
France focused on Jewish temples and schools in cities across the country, as one Jewish leader expressed concern at the possibility the conflict might be imported there.
“In Berlin, police protection has been immediately stepped up,” Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Bild newspaper.
“The federal government and the regions are closely coordinating their actions.”
Germany’s authorities were also closely watching “potential supporters of Hamas in the Islamist sphere”, she added.
Berlin police posted photos on social media showing “people celebrating the attacks on Israel by passing out pastries” on Sonnenallee, the main avenue in city’s Neukoelln district.
Police had in some cases carried out identity checks and filed complaints, they added.
The German account of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network posted photos of the distribution of pastries on the streets of Berlin and a message celebrating “the resistance of the Palestinian people”.
Martin Hikel, mayor of the Neukoelin district, denounced “a horrible glorification of a terrible war”, in comments to Welt television.
He called on the government to ban “the disgusting terrorist propaganda of Samidoun”.
‘Shocked and worried’
In France, security had already been stepped up at synagogues in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg because of religious holidays observed since late September.
Interior Gerald Darmanin sent an urgent message to prefects running the country’s regions asking them to reinforce surveillance even further.
“At a time when terrorist attacks from Gaza are hitting Israel, I ask you to immediately step up vigilance, security and protection of Jewish community sites in France,” he wrote in a message seen by AFP.
He called for a “visible and systematic static presence”, and the use of soldiers from France’s Operation Sentinelle, a special force deployed across the country since the 2015 terror attacks.
The interior ministry will review the security situation at a special meeting Sunday.
In the east of France, increased surveillance of Jewish schools and synagogues in the city of Strasbourg was being organised, said Pierre Haas, of the Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF).
“We were very shocked and worried by this outburst of violence,” he told AFP.
Knowing the Israeli army would hit back, he said, “we’re not reassured by the possibility of the conflict being imported to France”.
In the southern port city of Marseille, the north of France and in the Paris region, police sources confirmed that security had been stepped up there too.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin has declared that the country is at war after the large-scale, surprise attack launched by Hamas out of Gaza.
About 80 people have been killed in Israel, medical services there said, while Gaza authorities released a death toll of 232 in the conflict’s bloodiest escalation in years. AFP | Europe Politics |
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward Japan on Monday, its second weapons test in three days, prompting Tokyo to call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
The missiles were fired around 7 a.m. (5 p.m. Sunday ET) from a town on North Korea’s west coast just north of the capital, Pyongyang, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. They flew between 210 and 250 miles at a maximum altitude of 30 to 60 miles before landing in waters off the west coast of Japan. Japan said both missiles had landed outside its exclusive economic zone and that no damage had been reported to aircraft or vessels in the area.
Japan and South Korea both condemned the launches as violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and Japan said it had lodged a protest through its embassy in Beijing. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that Tokyo had requested an emergency Security Council meeting.
“North Korea’s series of actions threaten the peace and security of our country, the region and also the international community, and they are absolutely unacceptable,” Hirokazu Matsuno, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said at a news briefing.
Matsuno said the Japanese government expected North Korea to continue conducting missile tests as well as a possible seventh nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017.
A record-breaking series of North Korean missile tests since last year, including ICBMs, has significantly raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader region. The U.S. and its allies South Korea and Japan have responded by expanding joint military drills that the North decries as a rehearsal for invasion, which the U.S. and other militaries deny.
On Friday, North Korea threatened “unprecedently” strong action against the U.S. and South Korea over planned joint military exercises. The next day, the North fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM in what it called a “sudden launching drill.”
In response to the weapons test on Saturday, North Korea’s first since Jan. 1, the U.S. military held bilateral air drills with South Korea and Japan on Sunday that involved strategic bombers.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the additional ballistic missile launches on Monday “highlight the destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s unlawful weapons programs. It said the launches did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory and that the U.S. commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remain ironclad.”
North Korea said the drill involved its 600-millimeter multiple-rocket launcher system and simulated strikes on targets up to 245 miles away. The launches demonstrated the Korean People’s Army’s “full readiness to deter and will to counter” U.S. and South Korean forces, according to North Korean state media.
In a statement after the launches, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned U.S. forces to halt military drills.
“The frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends upon the U.S. forces’ action character,” she said in a statement carried by North Korean state media.
It followed a similar statement from her on Sunday in which she said North Korea would take “overwhelming counteraction” against any perceived direct or indirect threat.
Kim Yo Jong also defended the North’s missile technology and capabilities, citing South Korean reports that it had taken more than nine hours for North Korea to launch the ICBM on Saturday after the written order was made.
Recent statements out of Pyongyang have shown disdain for international skepticism about North Korea’s weapons technology, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
“The Kim regime’s claims of short-notice launches are thus intended to demonstrate not only the development of strategic and tactical nuclear forces, but also the operational capability to use them,” he said in an email.
The ICBM launch came a day after Kim brought his daughter to a sports event in the first time she has been seen in a nonmilitary setting. The girl, who is believed to be about 10 years old and named Kim Ju Ae, has made a number of public appearances since last year, though South Korea says it is too early to determine whether she is being groomed as her father’s successor.
The sports event on Friday was held in celebration of a national holiday marking the birthday of Kim’s father and predecessor, the late Kim Jong Il. The ICBM test the next day may have been another way of honoring the elder Kim, in addition to backing up North Korean threats over U.S.-South Korean military cooperation, Easley said.
Kim has been developing his weapons programs even as North Korea faces serious food shortages, a situation South Korea said last week appears to have worsened. | Asia Politics |
Two ballistic missiles were fired from Houthi rebel-controlled Yemen toward a US warship in the Gulf of Aden, after the US Navy responded to a distress call from a commercial tanker that had been seized by armed individuals, the US military said Sunday.
The tanker, identified as the Central Park, had been carrying a cargo of phosphoric acid when its crew called for help that “they were under attack from an unknown entity,” the US Central Command said in a statement.
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that under international maritime norms and laws, when there is a distress signal, “all vessels in the vicinity, are required to come and help and support.” Though Ryder added that there were three Chinese Navy vessels in the vicinity that “did not respond.”
“Supposedly, those ships are there as part of a counter-piracy mission,” he said. “But they did not respond.”
The incident comes after Iran-backed Houthi forces launched numerous attacks against US interests in the region, and Israel, since the October 7 Hamas attacks, as fears continue to ripple across the region that the Israel-Hamas war could widen.
The Houthis are a Shia political and military organization in Yemen that have been fighting a civil war in the country against a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia. They have voiced support for the Palestinians and organized protests in Yemen against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Ryder told reporters on Monday that initial indications showed the attackers, who are currently being held on the Mason, are Somali.
The USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer, and allied ships from a counter-piracy task force that operates in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia responded to the call for help and “demanded release of the vessel” upon arrival, Central Command said.
“Subsequently, five armed individuals debarked the ship and attempted to flee via their small boat,” said the statement posted on social media platform X.
“The Mason pursued the attackers resulting in their eventual surrender,” the statement added.
The individuals “attempted to access and take control of the ship, but when the combined task force responded they essentially fled.” Ryder said a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) team from the Mason pursued the attackers and detained them, before going back to the Mason, clearing the ship and making contact with the crew ensuring they were safe.
Less than two hours after the Navy’s VBSS team cleared the Central Park – at 1:41 a.m. local time on Monday – two ballistic missiles were fired from areas controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen “toward the general location” of the USS Mason and Central Park, the statement said.
“The missiles landed in the Gulf of Aden approximately ten nautical miles from the ships,” the statement said.
The Mason was finishing its response to the Central Park’s distress call at the time of the missile launches. There was no damage or reported injuries from the Central Park or the Mason as a result, it added.
Ryder declined on Monday to say if the missiles were believed to be targeting the Mason and Central Park. He said that while the Mason was tracking the missiles, they did not attempt to shoot them down and they “landed harmlessly in the water.”
A statement from UK-based Zodiac Maritime, which manages the Central Park, said Sunday the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker was safe “and all of the crew, the vessel, and cargo are unharmed.”
The tanker appears to have links to an Israeli-owned company; Zodiac Maritime is listed as a business belonging to Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Ofer Global, though a spokesperson speaking on behalf of Zodiac Maritime, Janni Jarvinen, said Sunday that Zodiac “is not owned by Ofer Global.”
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, said in the statement on Sunday that maritime domain security ‘is essential to regional stability.”
“We will continue to work with allies and partners to ensure the safety and security of international shipping lanes,” Kurilla said.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel, the US has emphasized the priority of avoiding the conflict from spilling over into a broader conflict in the region, as US forces in Iraq and Syria have also been under regular attack by Iranian-backed groups. Among the groups Tehran supports, the Houthis are of particular concern as they are more independent of Iran than some others.
Despite the escalation of attacks in the region, however, CNN reported previously that intelligence showed Iran and its proxies have been thus far calibrating their responses to avoid direct conflict with US or Israel.
But, over the last several weeks, the US has intercepted a number of cruise missiles and attack drones fired by the Houthis toward Israel or US assets. Last week, the USS Thomas Hudner shot down multiple one-way attack drones launched from Yemen while it was patrolling in the Red Sea. On November 15, the Hudner also shot down a drone believed to have been heading toward the ship. Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it thwarted an aerial attack of ballistic missiles and drones launched against targets in Israel.
Houthi naval forces renewed a warning in a statement last week to ships in the Red Sea flying the Israeli flag, managed by Israeli companies or owned by Israelis.
The group declared its intent to persist in military operations against Israeli ships and interests until Israel’s “aggression against Gaza stops.”
The statement warned any military units providing protection to Israeli ships, stating that they would be considered legitimate targets for Houthi operations.
Ryder said Monday that the Pentagon still assesses that the Israel-Hamas conflict has not yet spread into the region despite the recent attacks.
“We largely see the conflict contained between Israel and Hamas. That’s not to say that you haven’t seen Iranian proxies attempt to take advantage to further their own goals,” Ryder said.
“In the case of Iraq and Syria, you know, we’ve known that these groups for a long time have wanted to see us forces depart. But … no, we do not see that this has become a regional conflict. Although again, tensions are high, and it’s something that we’re taking seriously and attempting to ensure does not happen.”
This is a developing story and has been updated with additional information. | Middle East Politics |
LONDON — Fancy a fetching pair of Keir Starmer brand flip-flops?
Britain’s Conservatives — and their enthusiastic chairman Greg Hands — have kept tabs on the mounting number of high-profile U-turns from the opposition Labour leader, who looks likely to lead the country’s next government.
While some see a willingness to sheer off unappealing or unrealistic bits of Labour’s program after a colossal defeat under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, others cry sellout as an opposition leader who once loyally served Corbyn shifts to unashamed centrist.
As the next U.K. election approaches, POLITICO has collated all of the Starmer U-turns so far in one place — and you may want to check for updates.
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Caveat alert: Britain’s Tories also love a good U-turn.
Bye Angela. Hi Angela
In a botched reshuffle following disappointing local election results and a major by-election defeat in Hartlepool, Starmer attempted to clip the wings of his deputy leader Angela Rayner, seen as being on the left of the party.
Rayner — whose deputy leader role is elected by members and therefore untouchable — was sacked from her role as party chair and national campaigns coordinator as Starmer’s team sought to blame her for the poor results.
But following a backlash from the Labour left and other senior party figures, Rayner ended up with several senior roles and a near-farcical list of job titles. So much for the power play.
Nationalize … nothing. Maybe the trains?
When he ran for the Labour leadership, Starmer pledged to bring public services — name-checking rail, mail, energy and water — into “common ownership,” seen by many as a clear nod to nationalization of utilities long in private hands.
But, as early as September 2021, Starmer ruled out nationalizing the big six energy companies.
Then, in July 2022, his Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour ditched its commitment to nationalize more public services, pointing to her shadow Treasury team’s strict fiscal rules — seen as crucial in convincing the public Labour can be trusted on the economy.
Starmer later suggested he sees a role for public ownership in the rail network (something the Conservatives themselves haven’t exactly been averse to) but otherwise he’s made it pretty clear he’s committed to Reeves’ rules.
Outsourcing is back in
One of Starmer’s other leadership pledges concerned stopping the involvement of the private sector in the U.K.’s publicly-funded National Health Service.
Starmer said he would “end outsourcing” in the NHS as he ran for leader.
But, in an interview in the summer of 2022, he said the party will “likely have to continue with” some level of private provision in the health service if he takes office.
Stand with trade unions. But not like that!
As public sector strikes hit Britain last summer, Starmer ordered his shadow ministers not to appear alongside workers on picket lines.
The Labour leader even sacked Sam Tarry, a left-wing MP and his shadow rail minister, for appearing with striking rail workers despite the order. Starmer’s team said Tarry was sacked for making up party policy in a TV interview.
All of that came despite Starmer promising that his Labour Party would “work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people” as he ran for leader.
(Un)free movement
Starmer pushed for a second referendum on Brexit before the 2019 election. When he ran for the Labour leadership, he didn’t renew that pledge — but he did vow to “defend free movement as we leave the EU.”
Once leader, he has sought to shed the perception that he is an EU flag-waving liberal. In a Mail on Sunday interview, he ruled out crossing the “red line” of accepting the return of freedom of movement for EU citizens.
No universal credit? … No, universal credit!
Starmer initially promised to abolish Universal Credit, the overarching — and famously complex — system for Brits who claim social security payments.
As of 2023, Labour policy was instead to “fundamentally reform” the system.
Starmer’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jon Ashworth said his party “actually agree[s] with the concept behind Universal Credit.”
Friendship ended with Jeremy … Now the Labour Right is my best friend
Back in the 2020 leadership contest, Starmer ran as a bit of a leftie, suggesting he’d continue the work of ex-leader Corbyn. He even described him as a “friend.”
It would all get a little bit high school a few years down the line, however.
As well as eventually barring Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate — over his views on antisemitism in the party — Starmer even U-turned on the tenor of their relationship, denying in an LBC interview that he and Corbyn had ever been mates.
Tuition fees
One of the key planks of Corbyn’s platform as leader was his pledge to abolish university tuition fees. Starmer inherited and reiterated this pledge when he ran for leader.
But he dropped the policy in May this year, admitting he is “likely to move on from that commitment” and blaming Britain’s pretty dire economic situation. The party has instead said it will focus on lowering graduates’ monthly payments.
£28 billion a year to save the planet… at some point
After months of internal and external pressure, Starmer’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves watered down an initial pledge, made in 2021, to invest £28 billion a year in green technologies.
In a media round planned to announce the partial reverse-ferret, Reeves said Labour would instead “ramp up” up their green spending towards that total in the second half of a parliamentary term — marking a significant reduction in the funds Labour would borrow for the pledge.
Not so universal
In an interview with the Sunday Times at the start of the year, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced Starmer’s ambitious childcare plans — pledging that the party would guarantee childcare from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school, NHS-style.
Fast forward *checks notes* less than six months and you’ll find the Guardian reporting that shadow ministers are exploring other options. A Labour spokesperson told the newspaper that “an expansion of childcare to all children is not Labour’s policy.”
Hey top earners
The first nine words of — you guessed it — Starmer’s list of 2020 leadership pledges couldn’t be clearer: “Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners.”
Three years down the line and Starmer was still being clear — but in the opposite direction.
Asked directly by the Telegraph if he would raise income tax for top earners, he said his principle was to “lower taxes,” and that he isn’t “looking to the lever of taxation.”
Rest easy, m’lords
Starmer pledged in his leadership campaign — where he said a lot of things, as you may have noticed — to abolish the U.K.’s unelected second chamber, the House of Lords. He has repeatedly reaffirmed this pledge, including as recently as November last year.
Some wondered about this commitment when Starmer’s spokesperson last week indicated the Labour leader may in fact appoint new peers to the chamber.
They were right to wonder. Labour’s Shadow Leader of the House Thangam Debbonaire confirmed at the weekend that the plans to abolish the Lords are likely to take a back seat as constitutional change “takes time and it drains energy.”
Taking on Big Tech, but not
Reeves announced a digital services tax plan in 2021. It would have seen Labour would increase the 2 per cent levy charged on the revenues of tech firms operating in the U.K. — think the likes of Amazon and Facebook — to 10 per cent. The shadow chancellor restated her commitment to the policy last September.
But some business figures have concerns about the plan, fearing retaliatory sanctions from the U.S.
In response to the Times on Monday, a Labour spokesperson confirmed the party now had “no plans to raise [the] digital services tax” — and argued Reeves’ previous position applied only to the years 2022/23 and 2023/24 … rather than any years the party could have possibly been in government.
No (rent) control
Britain’s sky-high housing costs are only climbing further. So a hint rents be capped by a Labour government certainly excited campaigners.
Asked about introducing rent controls in September 2022, Starmer’s Shadow Housing Minister Lisa Nandy said she was “personally very interested and attracted by the idea.”
“Doing nothing is not an option,” Nandy told a Labour Conference fringe event.
Turns out it might be. Speaking nine months later at an event this Wednesday, Nandy ruled out the policy — which she described as a “sticking plaster” that would only increase homelessness. | United Kingdom Politics |
By Kim Hyun-soo
SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- A civil defense siren was set to go off across the country on Wednesday, with vehicles on designated roads to be ordered to pull over and people to evacuate to shelters or underground facilities as South Korea holds the first air raid exercise in six years.
The 20-minute exercise, set to kick off at 2 p.m., comes a day before the beginning of an eight-day launch window for what North Korea claims will be a satellite-carrying space rocket launch that the outside world considers a test of long-range missile technology.
The air-raid alarm will remain in place for 15 minutes, after which people are allowed to move around.
Once the siren sounds, people are required to evacuate to air-raid shelters or underground facilities. Subway trains will remain in operation, but passengers are not allowed to leave stations even after getting off trains while the air-raid alarm remains in effect.
Vehicles on 216 sections of road across the country, including a boulevard leading to Seoul Station from the Gwanghwamun intersection at the center of Seoul, are required to pull over to the side of road and remain there for 15 minutes.
Around 480 multiuse facilities, including large supermarkets and movie theaters, plan to take part in the drill and guide customers to take shelter safely, but hospitals as well as subway, train, airplane and ferry services will operate normally.
A total of 57 regions designated as special disaster zones due to heavy rains last month and Typhoon Khanun will be exempt from the drill.
Around 17,000 locations, including apartment basements and subway stations, were designated as defense drill shelters last year.
The civil defense drills, organized to prepare the public for an air raid scenario, including missile provocations from North Korea, was not staged since August 2017, amid a thaw in relations with North Korea and COVID-19.
[email protected]
(END)
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The unexpected victory of far-right libertarian Javier Milei in Argentina’s primaries marks a crisis for both Peronism and its traditional conservative antagonists. No one knows exactly what will happen next.
Argentina’s primary elections of August 13 didn’t just trigger a crisis in the governing coalition, with Peronism recording its worst election in history, but also in the conservative coalition Juntos por el Cambio, which didn’t achieve its expected results. In the context of profound economic crisis, exacerbated by the devaluation of the Argentine peso earlier that week, the surprising victory of far-right candidate Javier Milei, of La Libertad Avanza, broke all predictions and created a new political situation for October’s general elections.
To analyze the situation created by the blanket primary, the motives that drove seven million people to support the aforementioned libertarian, and the election’s possible consequences, Jacobin spoke with economist and professor Claudio Katz.
How can we explain what happened with Javier Milei?
He used the messaging of the ultraright to channel the exasperation and frustration with the disaster facing the country. The same trend has taken place in numerous countries, but Milei was less predictable. He was created by the media and came to politics without previous experience. He’s not situated in a traditional party like Donald Trump, a social-ideological base like José Antonio Kast [in Chile], or the military-evangelical constituency of Jair Bolsonaro [in Brazil]. That eccentricity could damage him or catapult him. We still don’t know.
He has an ultraright discourse, but he found other followers through his posturing and various broadsides. Many of his own voters, responding to surveys, approved of public education and rejected airline privatization. He has created an illusion of recouping high wages through dollarization. He’s a character potentially more fragile or more dangerous than his counterparts abroad. These are open questions.
Many explanations of what Milei represents are making the rounds.
Yes, it’s true. Some interpretations emphasize the basis of success in significant changes in subjectivity, communication, and youth behavior. They’re interesting considerations, as long as we don’t forget that they emerge principally from the monumental decline in the standard of living. The government — which oversaw the fall in wages, labor precarization, and growing inequality — is responsible. Milei tapped into the malaise produced by material degradation.
And what about the traditional right?
The victory of Patricia Bullrich [over the more moderate Horacio Rodríguez Larreta] confirms the rightward turn of their coalition. That coalition traded [former president] Mauricio Macri’s false promises of prosperity for fiscal adjustment. The failure of Rodríguez Larreta shows that the center-right current has lost influence. It’s the same attrition that affected Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s party in Brazil in the age of Jair Bolsonaro.
Milei’s surge has created a more contradictory situation for the establishment. On the one hand, those in power celebrate the additional congresspeople they’d have to pass their agenda. On the other, the current path leads toward dangerous clashes that they’d prefer to avoid with the structural adjustment offered by “viceroy” [US ambassador] Marc Stanley. They’re also uncomfortable with the competition between Bullrich and Milei over the same conservative constituency.
What has happened to Peronism?
It suffered a more significant collapse than expected, coming in third place, the worst in its history, and even lost the historic governorship of Santa Cruz. Two possibilities could unfold in the coming months. If [current economic minister and Peronist “unity” candidate] Sergio Massa doubles down on the fiscal adjustment that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands, he’ll dig his own grave as the ruling party candidate. His burial already began with the currency devaluation he promised to sidestep but ended up accepting. He validated Washington’s blackmail to obtain the credit that the IMF uses to pay itself. Argentina will be subject to endless punishment for legitimating the fraud of national debt.
Massa’s image as a shrewd negotiator is prone to evaporate amid skyrocketing inflation, expected to pass double digits just this month. The government lost its authority to negotiate price controls, and the value of the dollar seemingly has no ceiling. Between a rock and a hard place, Massa returns to his so-called fiscal adjustment “nonprogram.” He devalues the peso without reserves while improvising measures that aggravate the economic crisis and the consequent government paralysis.
Could a worsening situation lead to an early transfer of power like former president Raúl Alfonsín (1983–89) confronted?
We’re witnessing a double tension. There are sectors that have encouraged a debacle of this kind. But at the same time, a large part of the economic elite wants to protect the big businesses of gas, lithium, and food that they look after. That’s why they supported the predictable fiscal adjustment of Larreta and Massa.
This contradiction has surfaced following the primaries. The rightward electoral lurch that should have delighted capitalists produced the opposite effect, with a sharp fall in Argentine bonds. There’s a climate of extreme tension, and if the bout of hyperinflation extends into the coming weeks, October’s outcome will be even more unpredictable.
Could the governing party rally before October?
It will depend above all on its ability to curb the derailment of the economy. That’s the requirement if they’re going to turn around the results of the primaries. They would need to win over those who didn’t vote and those who fear Milei and Bullrich. Additionally, they should mount a defensive resistance to the looming right-wing threat. That’s what happened recently in Spain, where Vox’s potential ascent was contained at the ballot box.
The respectable election of [Peronist governor of Buenos Aires Province] Axel Kicillof indeed put a brake on Milei’s surge.
Yes, but it was the only significant exception to the “violet wave.” It indicates that, in contrast to 2015, a right-wing president will have to wrestle with a bastion of opposition in Buenos Aires Province. That result also illustrates the paradoxical setback that Milei presents to the traditional conservative project.
In any case, Argentina now faces an unprecedented transformation.
It’s worth noting that there are two readings of what is happening. In the first, the situation has to do with the swinging of the political pendulum. There was a vote of thirds in the primaries, preceded by various provincial elections, during the course of which many voters seem to have changed their preferences. From this perspective, the ultraright vote was just a warning and could weaken come October.
The other view suggests that the political cycle of recent decades is ending, with the resulting exhaustion of its protagonists: Kirchnerism and Macrism. The decline of pairing, triggered by the ultraright, would spark a profound crisis for Peronism as much as its traditional antagonists.
This view is backed by the sudden resurgence of the cry that inaugurated our current period. Melei has adapted the call “Out with them all” into a furious challenge to “caste.” He’s transformed the galvanizing and hopeful slogan of 2001 into a thoroughly regressive motto.
Is the electoral victory of the Right enough to impose the fiscal adjustment that economic elites want?
No, it’s just the first step. The battle will be settled according to the dynamic of the resistance. The result will emerge from the confrontation between those who impose austerity and those who live under it. The popular reaction against this abuse is a serious concern on the Right. They’ve long questioned how to overcome pickets, break strikes, and prevent mobilizations. They’re obsessed with our people’s historical ability to resist.
Argentina has the largest labor movement and the highest rate of unionization on the continent. It has the largest organized group of the unemployed, and democratic forces have kept those guilty of genocide in prison. The Right will have to contend with this social resistance. This time they’re coming for everything, and they will try to eliminate our collective bargaining agreements and our compensation, pardon military criminals, and restrict abortion. They already practiced the criminalization of protest in Jujuy.
It’s clear that, under President Alberto Fernández, popular resistance has been limited. But unlike in Brazil, the Right would not come to power here in a state of descent and popular disintegration. In addition, for the time being, Milei and Bullrich have significant electoral support but not in the streets. They’re not accompanied by the pot-banging of the pandemic or the marches of the Alberto Nisman era.
How do you view the Left’s situation?
The Workers’ Left Front–Unity (FIT-U) obtained a similar percentage to those of recent elections. Its figures were low, but it stayed on the ballot for October’s races. Other groupings didn’t pass through the filter. With its small but solid base, FIT-U withstood the electoral whirlwind. Yet it will face difficulty given the ultraright’s capture of the protest vote. In addition, Peronism’s discontents were deferred by an alternative option to Massa [the challenge of left Peronist Juan Grabois], and the unfortunate internal situation of FIT-U was incomprehensible even to its own followers.
What kind of options exist for militancy right now?
For critical Peronism, the Left, and progressive forces, there are various issues at stake. The first is turnout on election day. Some currents favor casting blank votes, without considering the volatile meaning of that option. While in 2001 it formed part of the popular rebellion, it now expresses apathy and depoliticization. It’s a passive response to structural adjustment that doesn’t lay the ground for resistance. To the contrary, it reinforces hopelessness and boosts the misguided message that “all politicians are the same.”
The second issue is the congresspeople on the line. I think an expansion in the number of left-wing legislators would be very positive. Since fiscal adjustment is coming and we’ll have to resist it, that legislative support would be very advantageous. The same can’t be said of the candidates offered by Peronism, with numerous conservative figures and their suspect behavior in the face of protest. The strategic problems of FIT-U will remain, but its strength would provide support for the difficult struggle ahead.
Finally, the campaign to vote for Massa, as Grabois committed to when he announced his own candidacy, is a difficult pill to swallow. The day after Grabois presented to him a proposal to cancel the agreement with the IMF, the minister devalued the peso at the behest of the IMF. Grabois will have to decide whether to keep silent or denounce such moves.
The way to contain the Right electorally is through nuanced open debate, especially in the face of a runoff election. But the necessity of electing leftists to congress is an urgent priority.
- Alex Caring-Lobel
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate | Latin America Politics |
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — IDF soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip filmed Hamas terrorists surrounding themselves with children to prevent the IDF from firing at them. It is unclear from the picture who the children were and whether the terrorist had been using captives as human shields.Join our WhatsApp group
Leading social media activist Ella Kenan, who shared the photo, commented: “A photo taken today in Gaza shows how Hamas-ISIS terrorists walk the streets surrounded by children, which they use as human shields in order to prevent the IDF from attacking them!”
“This battle between these Jihadists, Islamic fundamentalists can’t be decided until Egypt and other countries around the world will take the people of Gaza and let Israel fight the Jihad terror.”
A photo taken today in Gaza shows how Hamas-ISIS terrorists walk the streets surrounded by children, which they use as human shields in order to prevent the IDF from attacking them!
This battle between these Jihadists, Islamic fundamentalists can’t be decided until Egypt and… pic.twitter.com/n9mU5J1zIQ
— Ella Travels (Ella Kenan) (@EllaTravelsLove) November 18, 2023
The Southern Command continued its operational activities in additional neighborhoods in Gaza city and conducted operational activity in the neighborhoods of Zeitun and Jabalya in order to target terrorists and strike Hamas infrastructure.
Troops of the 36th Division are operating against Hamas’ “Zeitun” Battalion, one of Hamas’ main battalions. At the same time, additional troops are operating on the outskirts of Zeitun, including Sheikh Ijlin and Rimal, clearing the areas from terrorists and striking terror infrastructure.
Troops of the 162nd Division are operating on the outskirts of Jabalya. The area is the site of the command and control center of the Northern Gaza Brigade and where one of the most significant terror strongholds are located, in which four Hamas battalions are operating.
Engineering forces, infantry, and armored corps of the divisions, assisted by the IAF, are encountering terrorists who intentionally operate from within civilian areas and attempt to attack the troops using anti-tank missiles and explosive devices.
During the encounters, numerous terrorists were killed and the troops struck a large number of terror infrastructures, including underground infrastructure and significant targets of the terrorist organization. | Middle East Politics |
Iranian journalists hijacked a World Cup press conference today to ask US players how they felt about 'representing a racist country' - before berating them for pronouncing the name of their country wrong.U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter and his captain Tyler Adams faced a barrage of politically-charged questions from reporters from Iran who seemingly had no interest in discussing the match set to take place in Qatar's Al Thumama stadium tomorrow night.Instead, the pair were intensely quizzed on systemic racism in America, strict U.S. visa rules in place against Iranian citizens and Uncle Sam's naval presence fleet in the Persian Gulf, to name a few subjects. Adams even faced flak from one journalist for his American pronunciation of 'aye-ran' during the half-hour press conference, from which the pair likely emerged feeling as though they had endured an interrogation.It comes after the U.S. soccer federation displayed Iran's national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic in support of anti-regime protests in the country, causing Iran's government to call on FIFA to expel Team USA from the tournament. USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter of the United States and player Tyler Adams attend a press conference on the eve of the group B World Cup soccer match between Iran and the United States in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Nov. 28, 2022Tyler Adams (L) and Gregg Berhalter (R) looked exasperated as they fielded a series of politically charged questions from Iranian reporters at their pre-match press conference Players of Iran celebrate victory after the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B match between Wales and Iran at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on November 25, 2022 in Doha, Qatar Iran demands the US is KICKED OUT of the World Cup after US Soccer Federation posted tweet of Iranian flag without Islamic Republic emblem The US soccer federation displayed Iran's national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic, saying the move supports protesters in Iran ahead of the two nations' World Cup match Tuesday.Iran's government reacted by accusing America of removing the name of God from their national flag and called for FIFA to kick the USA out of the World Cup with a 10-game ban from soccer. Tasmin news agency - associated closely with the Iranian regime - says Iran's soccer federation will make the request to FIFA, soccer's governing body. The symbol was later returned to the flag on the USA's website but the move by the US Soccer Federation adds yet-another political firestorm to the Middle East's first World Cup, one which organizers had hoped would be spared of off-the-field controversies.The US faces Iran in a decisive World Cup match on Tuesday, which was already freighted by the decades of enmity between the two countries and the nationwide protests now challenging Tehran's theocratic government.USA needs to win to advance into the last-16 of the tournament in Qatar while for Iran, a tie would get them into the knockout stage for the first time in its history as long as Wales doesn't surprisingly beat England. If Iran wins, Iran advances whatever happens with Wales and England.The US Soccer Federation said in a statement Sunday that it decided to forego the official flag on social media accounts to show 'our support for the women in Iran with our graphic for 24 hours.' The first question from an Iranian journalist immediately set the tone for what proved to be a highly charged encounter.The reporter asked Berhalter: 'What percentage of the world's population will be happy if Iran wins this match [versus a U.S. national team (USMNT) victory]?' forcing the coach to try and mediate the tension.'For us it's a soccer game against a good team - it's not much more than that,' Berhalter responded in an attempt to avoid the obvious political implications of the question.Unsurprisingly, the coach's efforts to refocus the line of questioning on the football were resoundingly ignored.Minutes later, a journalist from Press TV - an English language Iranian news organisation - said: 'First of all you say you support the Iranian people but you're pronouncing our country's name wrong. Our country is name Iran, not ''aye-ran''... 'Second of all, are you okay to be representing your country that has so much discrimination against black people in its own borders?' he asked pointedly.Adams, whose mother is a White American but whose biological father is African-American, responded cordially: 'My apologies on the mispronunciation of your country. That being said, there's discrimination everywhere you go... in the U.S. we're continuing to make progress every single day... as long as you make progress that's the most important thing.'Other journalists for their part tried to pull the conversation back towards the clash on the pitch, with one U.S. reporter specifying he intended to ask a 'soccer question' to offer a brief reprieve.But the next question from Iranian media immediately pulled back to the political issues, asking: 'Sport is something that should bring nations closer together and you are a sportsperson. Why is it that you should not ask your government to take away its military fleet from the Persian Gulf?' 'I agree, sport is something that should bring countries together... you get to compete as brothers' Berhalter said, drawing comparisons between the Olympics and the World Cup, but refused to touch on the fraught bilateral relations between U.S. and Iran. By the end of the conference it was clear Berhalter had grown tired of the questioning, responding to a query on strict U.S. visa laws for Iranian citizens with: 'I don't know enough about politics, I'm a soccer coach.'I'm not well versed on international politics so I can't comment on that.' Iran's Portuguese head coach Carlos Quieroz today told reporters he hoped the next World Cup would be more about the football and less about the politics USA's forward Christian Pulisic dribbles the ball during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 match between England and USAFor his part, Iran coach Carlos Queiroz today said he hoped the next World Cup would feature less about politics and more about the football, stressing there were better ways to use the sport as a force for good. Queiroz's team have been dragged into a political crisis at home, pressured by protesters seeking to challenge the legitimacy of Iran's clerical rulers to side with them publicly and condemn a deadly state crackdown.Speaking ahead of his team's Group B match on Tuesday against the United States, Queiroz was asked about the U.S. Soccer federation temporarily displaying Iran's national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic, in solidarity with the protest movement.'I still believe I can win games with those mental games,' he told a news conference.'Those events surrounding this World Cup I hope will be a lesson for all of us in the future and we learn that our mission is here to create entertainment and for 90 minutes make people happy.'For the USMNT, the task is clear when it plays Iran in its final Group B game: Win or go home.While many teams including Iran could still advance to the knockout phase of the tournament under several permutations, the Americans have no choice but to get the three points that come with a victory.'It sets up our first knockout game of the World Cup,' U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said.'We win or we're out of the World Cup. Anytime you're in a World Cup and you get to go into the last group game in control of your own destiny, that's a pretty good thing.' USA's midfielder Tyler Adams during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 - Group B match between England vs United States at Al Bayt Stadium on November 25, 2022 Roozbeh Cheshmi of IR Iran celebrates with teammates after scoring their team's first goal during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B match between Wales and IR Iran at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on November 25, 2022 in Doha, QatarThe USMNT sits third in the group with two points after tying Wales 1-1 and then England 0-0 in an impressive defensive effort. The top two teams advance.England has four points, Iran has three and Wales sits last with one point but is still alive in a long-shot scenario.Getting a goal, much less a victory, will be a challenge for the United States since Iran only needs a tie to advance as long as Wales does not upset England. Iran, which has never advanced out of the group stage, opened the World Cup with a 6-2 loss to England but rebounded for a 2-0 win over Wales.'I really have to thank the Iranian fans. They helped us play 90 minutes of beautiful football,' Iran coach Carlos Queiroz said. 'Now, we have to concentrate on the USA. We haven't finished yet.'The USMNT last reached the final 16 of the World Cup in 2014. The Americans did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup and their best finish was a spot in the 2002 quarterfinals.Iran defeated the U.S. 2-1 in 1998 in only World Cup meeting between the countries.Mehdi Taremi has two of Iran's four goals during this World Cup. Timothy Weah is responsible for the Americans' lone tally. | Middle East Politics |
Latest developments:
- The British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam has left the Russian and Ukrainian communities on either side of the flooded Dnipro “facing a sanitation crisis with limited access to safe water, and an increased risk of water-borne diseases.”
- French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iran on Saturday to "immediately cease” delivering drones to Russia, a violation of a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution on the Iran nuclear deal. The White House said Friday that Russia appeared to be deepening its defense cooperation with Iran and had received hundreds of one-way attack drones that it is using to strike Ukraine.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday he planned to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone soon to urge him to withdraw Russia's troops from Ukraine.
- German investigators are examining evidence suggesting a sabotage team used Poland as an operating base to damage the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. It has not been determined who is responsible for the attack.
Heavy fighting is taking place in eastern Ukraine, around Bakhmut and Maryinka, where Ukrainian forces reportedly have repelled Russian advances, Ukraine’s general staff said Saturday. Russian forces, it said, "continue to suffer heavy losses which they are trying to conceal."
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces carried out 66 airstrikes and launched 39 attacks from rocket systems.
"Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the civilian population, private houses and other civil and administrative infrastructure have been destroyed and damaged," the general staff said in its Saturday evening update, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that “appropriate counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine,” but he did not divulge any information on what’s happening on the battlefield.
However, he did exude optimism, saying his generals “are all in a positive mood, pass that on to Putin," he said during a news conference in Kyiv alongside visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In his nightly video address, he said, “Thank you to all those who hold their positions and those who advance," citing the eastern and southern fronts, where fighting is heaviest.
Russia says Ukraine is making a big offensive push this week, but that Kyiv's forces failed to breach Russian defenses and sustained heavy casualties.
The British Defense Ministry said Saturday that Ukraine has conducted significant operations in the last 48 hours in its eastern and southern regions. Ukrainian forces have “likely made good progress and penetrated the first line of Russian defenses” in some areas, the daily intelligence update said. In other areas, Ukrainian progress has been slower.
Independent media have not been able to confirm whether Ukraine was penetrating Russian defenses.
Canadian aid to Ukraine
During his visit in Kyiv, Trudeau announced new military aid for Ukraine.
“We will provide $500 million in new funding,” he said during a joint news conference with Zelenskyy. "We will be there with (you) as much as it takes, for as long as it takes."
Zelenskyy offered Canada assistance in extinguishing the wildfires raging there.
“Ukraine is ready to help extinguish fires if Canada needs such international assistance,” he said. And in his Saturday night video address, he thanked Trudeau and the Canadian people for their support.
Kakhovka dam ‘ecocide’
During his address, Zelenskyy thanked those who are helping support the communities devastated by the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, calling it an “ecocide and human tragedy caused by the Russian terrorist attack on the Kakhovka HPP.”
“As of now, over 3,000 people have already been evacuated in (the) Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. But again, it is only a free territory under our control,” adding that, in the occupied territory, it is only possible to help in some areas only as Russian shelling continues.
At least 700,000 people need drinking water after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, said U.N. Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths. The U.N.’s aid chief said the humanitarian situation in the country has gotten “hugely worse” since the rupture of the dam. He warned that the flooding in one of the world's most important breadbaskets will almost inevitably lead to lower grain exports, higher food prices around the world and less to eat for millions in need.
Clear signals have emerged that an explosion occurred at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine early Tuesday morning, the Norwegian seismic research foundation Norsar said. While Russians and Ukrainians have traded accusations over the destruction of the Soviet-era dam, it has been under Russian control since early in the invasion.
Black Sea grain deal
Russia could still walk away from the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Deal on July 17, when the agreement expires, if its demands are not met, said Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergey Vershinin. Vershinin made the comments Saturday after meeting with senior U.N. trade officials Friday, the TASS news agency reported.
Vershinin expressed his dissatisfaction with the way the memorandum is implemented.
"Barriers to our exports remain," he said.
The demands outlined by Moscow include the resumption of the transit of ammonia from Russia via Ukrainian territory to Pivdennyi port in Odesa, from where it is exported and the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT international payment system.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. | Europe Politics |
@centroliber
Valiéndose de sus facultades legislativas, el congresista de la República Paul Silvio Gutiérrez Ticona presentó el Proyecto de Ley 5617/2022-CR para modificar las causales de exoneración de alimentos e incorporar la exoneración automática de alimentos, luego que el Poder Judicial rechazara, hasta en tres oportunidades, sus demandas para suspender o quedar exonerado de la pensión alimenticia que mantiene con su hija.
El equipo de Centro Liber, en amparo de la Ley de Transparencia, logró documentar este caso que evidencia cómo el legislador intentó dejar sin efecto la pensión por alimentos de su hija, la cual asciende al 22% de su salario de parlamentario. Sin embargo, los jueces han rechazado sus recursos al considerarlos sin fundamentos. Tras fracasar en la vía judicial, ahora Gutiérrez Ticona hace uso de su prerrogativa legislativa para modificar la norma.
Demanda de alimentos
De acuerdo con los expedientes judiciales a los que accedió Centro Liber, el congresista Paul Gutiérrez mantiene una pensión de alimentos con su hija Linethe Angela Gutiérrez Moreano (24) desde el año 1999. Desde entonces, el parlamentario ha intentado entre suspender y exonerar la demanda, por lo menos, en tres ocasiones.
En el año 2009, Gutiérrez Ticona interpuso una demanda para “suspender” la pensión de alimentos de su hija ante el Poder Judicial, pero ésta fue declarada infundada.
Para agosto del 2021, luego de once años y ya siendo congresista de la República, Gutiérrez Ticona presentó una segunda demanda, esta vez, solicitando la “exoneración de alimentos” de Linethe Gutiérrez. El Tercer Juzgado de Paz Letrado de Tamburco declaró inadmisible su demanda por contener diferentes observaciones. Si bien el juzgado le otorgó el plazo de 3 días para subsanar las observaciones, el parlamentario no las realizó, por lo que su solicitud fue rechazada y archivada.
El legislador volvería a presentar otra demanda de exoneración de alimentos el 18 de enero de 2022. Esta vez, su demanda fue admitida y, en el mes de mayo de ese año, se realizó la audiencia única del caso, donde el congresista Gutiérrez argumentó que solicitaba la exoneración de alimentos ya que su hija cumplió la mayoría de edad, además de seguir estudios superiores con notas desaprobatorias.
Por su parte, su hija Linethe Gutiérrez sostuvo que sus calificaciones se deben a altibajos causados por la carencia de una figura paterna; problemas neurológicos y psicológicos; frustración personal por no estudiar la carrera deseada por falta de apoyo de su padre; entre otros motivos. Además, la hija de Gutiérrez también mencionó que en ese momento mantenía un promedio ponderado de 11,06.
Tras evaluar las pruebas de ambas partes, el Juzgado de Paz Letrado del Pueblo Joven de Centenario declaró infundada la demanda del congresista Gutiérrez, al considerar que Linethe Gutiérrez se encontraba desarrollando estudios con una nota que, en opinión del juzgado, era justificada. Además, de padecer un diagnóstico clínico que se tomó como justificante para las calificaciones expuestas.
Sentencia judicial, de fecha 13 de mayo de 2022, que declara infundada la última demanda de Paul Gutiérrez para la exoneración de alimentos de su hija.
Ante lo expuesto, el parlamentario ha visto frustrado sus intentos por liberarse de la pensión de alimentos de su hija en la vía judicial. Por lo que, ha trasladado sus esfuerzos a modificar las causales de la exoneración de alimentos regulado en el Código Civil. Lo que llama la atención, es que busca introducir en su iniciativa legislativa los argumentos utilizados en su última demanda, que fueron rechazados en el Poder Judicial.
Juez y parte
El 25 julio de este año, el congresista Paul Gutiérrez Ticona presentó ante la Comisión de Justicia y Derechos Humanos el proyecto de Ley N°05617/2022-CR, que plantea modificar el artículo 483 del Código Civil, cambiando las causales de exoneración de alimentos en las demandas e introduciendo la exoneración automática de alimentos.
Mediante esta iniciativa, el legislador pretende incluir entre las causales para la exoneración de alimentos que el alimentista (persona que es beneficiaria de una asignación para alimentos) no sea mayor de 25 años o no evidencie un promedio ponderado no menor a 13 en sus estudios superiores. Ambas condiciones, cabe destacar, han sido argumentos que el legislador ha utilizado en su demanda en instancias judiciales para dejar de pagar la pensión de alimentos a su hija.
A la izquierda, parte del proyecto de ley de Gutiérrez con las modificaciones sobre las causales para la exoneración de alimentos. A la derecha, los argumentos de la demanda de Gutiérrez para que lo exoneren de la pensión de alimentos de su hija.
En consecuencia, de aprobarse este proyecto de ley, el congresista autor de la misma podría beneficiarse en su intento por quedar exonerado de la pensión alimenticia de su hija. Cabe destacar que, de acuerdo con el artículo 103 de la Constitución, “pueden expedirse leyes porque así lo exige la naturaleza de las cosas, pero no por razón de la diferencia de personas”.
Centro Liber se comunicó con el despacho del congresista Paul Gutiérrez Ticona para consignar sus descargos. Asimismo, se le envió una serie de preguntas sobre el tema al encargado de prensa del congresista, pero hasta el cierre de este informe no se obtuvo respuesta del legislador.
Informe elaborado por Mario Tumba. | Latin America Politics |
DHAKA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - One police officer was killed in Bangladesh on Saturday and over 100 people injured during an opposition party protest demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and calling for a free and fair vote under a caretaker government.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets as clashes erupted when tens of thousands of supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) gathered in the capital Dhaka, chanting slogans against the government.
Dozens of vehicles, including police vans and ambulances, were set on fire, police and media said.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruq Hossain told reporters one officer had been killed and 41 others were injured in clashes with protesters.
Several journalists were attacked and injured while trying to cover the clashes, media reports said.
Security was tightened in the city in recent days as thousands of people arrived to attend the rally. Hundreds of opposition party activists have been arrested, BNP leaders said.
The party has been calling on Hasina to resign to allow elections scheduled in January to be held under a neutral caretaker government - a demand her government has so far rejected.
"Today's rally continued for hours in a perfectly disciplined and peaceful manner until all of a sudden the lobbing of tear gas shells started," senior BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan told Reuters.
"The intensity increased and violent attacks with sounds of blasts and shootings turned the whole place into a war zone."
The BNP has called for a dawn-to-dusk countrywide strike in protest against the police action.
"I came to protest the enforced disappearances, murders, and oppression that we have suffered for the past 15 years. This government is not safe anymore for even a second," BNP supporter Arif Khan said.
Hasina, who has maintained tight control since coming to power in 2009, has been accused of authoritarianism, human rights violations, cracking down on free speech and suppressing dissent while jailing her critics.
Her government is under pressure from the Western countries to hold "free and fair" elections.
In May, Washington said it would impose visa sanctions on Bangladeshis who undermine the democratic process at home, after accusations of vote-rigging and suppressing the opposition marred elections in 2014 and 2018. Hasina's government has denied the charges.
Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Mike Harrison
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Asia Politics |
Premier Dominic Perrottet says 'Labor has no plan' to grow the economy as NSW Liberal Party kicks off election campaign
In a major pitch to kick off the NSW Liberal Party election campaign, Dominic Perrottet has declared "we are not simply the clean-up crew for Labor’s financial mess".
Premier Dominic Perrottet has argued if Labor win over voters at the upcoming state election "it will only make things worse" for struggling Australians.
The NSW Liberal Party officially launched their election campaign on Sunday where Mr Perrottet pitched his vision for the state's future.
He argued that "Labor has no plan" to deal with the rising cost of living, citing rising interest rate rises and recession fears as key issues at stake.
“Their lack of economic discipline will only make things worse,” Mr Perrottet said.
“That won't just make things harder for families today, it will erode future opportunities for their children."
The Premier added that "only the Liberals have a long-term economic plan, that will grow our economy and create jobs now and into the future".
He cited the Perrottet government's “responsible, financial and economic management" during the bushfires and floods, and COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are not simply the clean-up crew for Labor’s financial mess."
Liberal Party heavyweights, candidates and supporters all flocked to the Liverpool Catholic Club in Sydney’s west to hear the Premier’s vision for the state’s future.
Mr Perrottet outlined several new policies in Sunday’s speech, promising $1.2 billion to build and upgrade public schools across the state if he returned to the top job on March 25.
He also announced the creation of a new selective school in the north-western Sydney suburb of Box Hill.
The Premier also promised to create a ‘future fund’ for every child in the state, which he described as a “down payment to secure the future dreams of our children”.
Under the proposed plan, all children under 10 are eligible for an account which would begin with a $400 contribution from the government.
Families are then invited to contribute into the fund themselves, with the government offering to match the contributions up to $400 annually.
Mr Perrottet claimed the fund could result in $28,000 by the time a child turns 18. | Australia Politics |
“Having assessed the situation, the command of the Dnipro group decided to move the troops to more advantageous positions east of the Dnipro,” the Russian media outlets TASS and RIA Novosti had written.
Similar language had been used to announce previous Russian troop retreats in the wake of Ukrainian attacks last year from parts of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions that Russia had occupied at the beginning of its February 2022 Ukraine invasion.
“After the regrouping of Dnipro, part of the forces will be released, which will be used for the offensive in other directions,” RIA Novosti had written.
But the announcement was swiftly retracted from both sites. The news outlets wrote that their earlier reports were “issued by mistake.”
The Russian Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosty, with reference to its source at RIA Novosti, wrote that the state news agency could have received information about the transfer of military personnel from a fake Ministry of Defense account “probably operated from the territory of Ukraine.”
Simultaneously, the chatter from Ukrainian Telegram channels was that there was probably a false start to the planned publications, and that the Russians did not have time to prepare public opinion and the troops for this planned maneuver.
“A similar situation was observed during the preparation of the Russians to escape from Kherson,” wrote the Telegram channel Ukraine Online, which has more than 1.2 million subscribers.
Ukraine’s National Resistance Center reported it had not seen any evidence of Russian troop movements in the area, saying: “Thus, we can conclude that an information operation against Ukraine is currently underway.”
Russia currently faces a challenging situation in the region as Ukrainian forces have managed to establish and hold a significant bridgehead on the left bank of Dnipro River in the Kherson region.
Kyiv’s nearly month-old presence held fast on Friday with the two sides trading air, mortar and artillery strikes.
Some Kremlin-associated bloggers declared that Moscow cannot eliminate the Ukrainian Marine-held bridgeheads without deploying reinforcements and especially ground assault troops.
Others meanwhile said Russian counterattacks had contained the bridgehead and were slowly eliminating it.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainian defense forces advanced to the town of Krynki – 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) northeast of Kherson city and 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) east of the Dnipro River – and are conducting offensive operations south of there, around the villages of Poima, Pishchanivka, and Pidstepne.
The ISW reported that the Russian military command will likely find it difficult to transfer combat-capable reinforcements to respond to the Ukrainian operations.
In an article for RBC-Ukraine, military expert Oleksiy Hetman stated that the Ukrainians’ presence on the occupied left bank of the Dnipro are confusing the Russians.
The ISW also previously reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are holding positions and expanding their presence on the left bank of the Kherson region.
At the same time, according to British intelligence, the Russian military's ability – or lack thereof – to intensively use artillery will be a decisive factor in the battle for the east bank of the Dnipro River.
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- Israel has seen a 70% spike in donations to Hamas-linked charities since the attack of Oct. 7, according to current and former Israeli officials.
- The war against Hamas is increasingly being fought through the world's financial systems.
- Stopping the charities is difficult, as many quickly change names and methods.
Financial investigators in Israel have identified a significant increase in donations to Hamas-linked charities since the group's deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to current and former Israeli officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss sensitive national security information.
"We saw a 70% increase in money given to Hamas-linked charities," said Uzi Shaya, a former high-ranking officer in Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.
In pure dollar amounts, this is equal to an increase of about $100 million in the past seven weeks, according to Israeli Defense and Foreign Ministry officials who requested anonymity.
CNBC could not independently confirm the amount of money flowing to Hamas-linked charities. But current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Israel is capable of tracking this data.
Since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel's retaliatory campaign has halted commerce in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, making international aid, which only recently started to flow, its only lifeline.
In addition to waging war on the land, sea and air, Israel is battling on a fourth front: the international financial system.
Stopping the inflows of money to Hamas is difficult, because the charity groups that collect the funds are scattered around the world and their structures can be fluid. Charities suspected of funneling money to Hamas often change their names, too, making them all the more difficult to monitor.
"We don't want to designate charities and cut off funding for things that are legitimate," a Foreign Ministry official told CNBC.
At Mossad, Shaya was responsible for stopping the flow of money to organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
Following the October attacks, he returned to work in Israel's security service, where he is once again following the money bound for organizations the U.S. and Israel consider terrorist groups.
Traditionally, he said, foreign money has flowed into Hamas accounts from one of three main sources: Iran, the Islamic person-to-person banking system known as Hawala, and cryptocurrency.
While Iran sometimes directly supplies allies with weapons, over the past four years, Iran has given Hamas between $70 million and $100 million annually in cash for guns, missiles, communication systems and other military purposes, Israeli officials said. This money is believed to have paid for many of the missiles and small arms used in the Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas also has siphoned off foreign aid from other countries earmarked for the citizens of Gaza and used the money to build a massive underground network of tunnels and bunkers that has stymied the Israeli army. Many of the hostages taken on Oct. 7 are believed to be held captive inside those tunnels.
Another significant source of funding comes from an ancient Islamic money transferring system called Hawala, which is based on trust rather than hard assets. Akin to a network of IOUs, Hawala helps money move from one party to another, bypassing Western-style banks.
Charitable money funneled to Hamas via Hawala is sometimes intended for legitimate humanitarian needs in Gaza such as medical care, food and education. But Israel says much of it ends up being spent by Hamas for military purposes.
The movement of money within Gaza's insular networks is both highly fluid and opaque, making the task of Israeli financial trackers that much more challenging.
"We recognize that people in Gaza are desperate, and that there is severe distress and difficulties," one Israeli official told CNBC. "The complication is making sure charity is going to the right places, because in the past that hasn't happened."
Israel's National Bureau of Counter Terror Financing maintains a list of charitable organizations that it accuses of directly aiding Hamas' military. Many of them prominently feature the crisis in Gaza on their home pages. One group even promises to match any donation, up to $1.5 million, that is made on Nov. 28, the global charity awareness day known as "Giving Tuesday."
Shaya said a third major source of funding for Hamas comes from both charitable and direct contributions through cryptocurrency.
He said officials in the U.S. and Israel haven't fully caught on to the extent of the transfers because Hamas and its donors don't use the same cryptocurrencies Western officials typically monitor, such as bitcoin and ethereum. Instead, Hamas' donor network uses smaller cryptocurrencies.
Shaya specifically cited crypto company Tron, which he accused of dodging requests from Israel to cut off accounts. Tron has recently emerged as a major crypto operator in Iran, according to a recent Reuters report.
Officials agreed that Hamas had become adept at raising and transferring money through crypto, but they also said most of the blockchain companies they had been in touch with were helpful in stopping financial transfers. They gave particular credit to Binance for complying with requests.
Not everyone thinks Binance deserves credit, however. On Nov. 21, U.S. authorities announced a massive $4.3 billion settlement with Binance over alleged violations that included "failure to implement programs to prevent and report suspicious transactions with terrorists — including Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades," according to a Treasury Department release.
Ensuring that individual Gazans have economic opportunity without simultaneously funding Hamas militants has proven to be a difficult challenge for Israel.
An Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza, imposed in 2007 when Hamas took political control of the territory, has kept the unemployment rate at around 47%, for the population of approximately 2 million people.
In recent years, Israel has provided a direct avenue for Qatari financial assistance for Gaza, enabling the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars into the region as part of a broader effort to ensure that Gazans could develop a functioning economy.
Israel feared that without one, Hamas would be more likely to resort to violence. Beyond direct funding, Israel also allowed 18,000 Gazans to enter Israel to work, again hoping that a stable economy would pacify Hamas. But these hopes were shattered on Oct. 7.
"We made a big mistake in thinking with Western values," Shaya said in a Zoom interview from his home in Israel. "We believed that Hamas was most interested in staying in power and staying funded; we forgot we don't live in the West."
Israeli officials believe that ever since Israel's bombardment of Gaza drove Hamas' leadership there into hiding, some funds have been diverted to Hamas in the West Bank. Still more money has been held up in various accounts around the world.
Even Iranian funding has dried up for now, the officials said, as Iran's leaders wait to see what happens in Gaza before they commit any more money to Hamas.
In the meantime, most of the West's financial leaders have been sympathetic to Israel's requests to cut off funding for Hamas, and many have taken action on their own. This includes the Treasury Department, which has imposed sanctions on several Hamas-linked organizations in recent weeks.
Still, Shaya said there is more the West can do.
"If the U.S. and the Europeans wanted to make a bigger statement, there should be a credible threat to cut banks, especially those in Turkey, Qatar and Malaysia, from U.S. correspondent banks," he said.
"That kind of pressure would make a real and immediate difference."
When the fighting eventually ends, Gaza will likely be rebuilt in one form or another, said Israeli officials. And for that, it will need billions of dollars worth of international aid.
When this process begins, they said, it will be crucial to account for every dollar to ensure that it goes directly to the reconstruction effort and not to rearming Hamas. | Middle East Politics |
- A Ukrainian military official said Russia's defensive lines have weak points.
- Russia constructed defensive lines known as "dragon's teeth" to protect its positions.
- In recent days, Ukraine has made some progress in its bid to breach them.
Russia's infamous "dragon's teeth" defenses were mocked by a Ukrainian former commander, who claimed they were easily breached by Ukraine's tanks.
The concrete pyramids, which stand about four feet tall, are meant to block and damage Ukrainian tanks and other armored vehicles.
Yevhen Dykyi, a former company commander of the Aidar Battalion, told Voice of Ukraine how Ukrainian forces had managed to breach Russia's first line of defense as part of a recent advance near Tomak, in Zaporizhzhya oblast, south Ukraine.
He said the "dragon's teeth" defenses, in particular, had been easy to overcome. "We have now reached the second line. And it includes the following," he said, according to a translation by Voice of Ukraine.
Watch:
"To begin with the amusing, it includes the so-called dragon's teeth. I think everyone has already seen photos or videos [of those]. These are white concrete pyramids that, in the Russian imagination, were supposed to stop our tanks, somehow."
"Why these pyramids were built, to be honest, is a mystery to me," said Dykyi. "The only rational explanation is that someone simply gobbled up the budget. Because there is absolutely no use from them as they don't stop tanks," he said.
"If you remember, maybe several years ago it was fashionable to put so-called energy pyramids on the tables, which were supposed to protect against negative energies. The use of these concrete pyramids is exactly the same."
In the interview, Dyki also described the challenge faced by Ukrainian forces in breaking through Russia's three defensive lines.
"It was very powerful," he said of Russia's first line of defense. "First of all, it included the largest minefield in general, perhaps in European history," he said, describing the densely packed minefields in front of Russia's defensive lines.
He described how Ukrainian forces then encountered "a dotted line of so-called strongholds was further behind this minefield."
He said that Russia's second defensive lines of trenches and concrete bunkers were protected by "dozens of separate minefields with passages between them" to enable Russian troops to move, which could be exploited by Ukrainian forces.
However, the third line did not present a formidable obstacle as it was mainly designed for resupplying the first two lines. "They (Russians) won't be able to hold it," he said.
This week Russian forces broke through the first line of Russia's defences, liberating the village of Robotyne, near Zaporizhzhya. They are seeking to break through Russia's second defensive line and retake Tomak as part of their drive toward the occupied city of Melitopol.
Dyki said that Russia realized that holding Tomak was vital if it was to stop Ukrainian forces from pushing on to the Sea of Azov and isolating the occupied Crimean peninsula.
"There are some grounds for cautious optimism," he said. | Europe Politics |
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YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Azerbaijan said it arrested the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government as he tried to cross into Armenia on Wednesday along with tens of thousands of others who fled the region following Azerbaijan’s 24-hour blitz last week to reclaim control of the enclave.
The arrest of Ruben Vardanyan was announced by Azerbaijan’s border guard service. It appears to reflect Azerbaijan’s intention to quickly and forcefully enforce its grip on the region after the military offensive that has prompted a rapid exodus of tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians.
READ MORE: Thousands of Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijani military reclaims control
Vardanyan, a billionaire businessman who made his fortune in Russia where he owned a major investment bank, moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as the head the regional government for several months before stepping down earlier this year.
Azerbaijan’s border guard service said Vardanyan was escorted to the country’s capital of Baku and handed over to “the relevant state bodies” that will decide his fate. It posted a picture of Vardanyan held by two border guards next to a helicopter.
Also Wednesday, Azerbaijan’s Health Ministry said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during the offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. One Azeri civilian also died in the hostilities, the ministry said.
Nagorno-Karabakh officials said earlier that at least 200 people on their side, including 10 civilians, were killed and over 400 were wounded in the fighting.
The 24-hour Azerbaijani blitz involving heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones forced the separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and sit down for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan and separatist officials have since held two rounds of talks, but no details have been made available and prospects of “reintegration” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population into the mostly Muslim country have remained unclear.
Despite Azerbaijan’s promises to respect the rights of the region’s residents, they have rushed to flee the region en masse fearing reprisals.
Over 47,000 people, or nearly 40 percent of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of 120,000, have left the region for Armenia as of early afternoon Wednesday, according to the Armenian authorities.
Stepanakert looked deserted on Wednesday as remaining residents who don’t have their own vehicles to leave the city gathered in the center, waiting for buses promised by the authorities. A horse and a donkey, apparently left behind by former owners, could be seen slowly walking together along an empty street.
Hours-long traffic jams were reported on Tuesday on the road out of Nagorno-Karabakh as residents hurried to leave, fearing that Azerbaijan could shut the only road leading to Armenia.
An explosion Monday at a gas station near the region’s capital Stepanakert, where people were queuing to fuel up their cars before leaving for Armenia, killed at least 68 people, according to Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan. Another 290 were wounded, and a total of 105 were considered missing as of Tuesday evening, he said.
The massive blast exacerbated already dire fuel shortages.
Tatev Mirzoyan, a 27-year-old citizen of Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional capital of Stepanakert who arrived in the Armenian city of Goris with her family after a 28-hour drive, said they used fuel they had stashed for emergency purposes.
“We were seven in one little car,” she said. “That was a horrible journey as people are in panic and nervous.”
Mirzoyan said she and her family are planning to stay with her sister who lives in Yerevan, adding that she doesn’t want to think about the future for now.
Some of her relatives are still searching for fuel to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, she added. “My cousin is still under siege in Martuni, she is waiting to be taken out to Stepanakert, and after that figure out what to do next.”
READ MORE: Talks on fate of Nagorno-Karabakh begin as Azerbaijan claims full control of that region
Azerbaijan’s swift onslaught followed a nine-month blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Armenia charged that the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents, while Azerbaijan countered by alleging that the Armenian government was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.
Anna Ayrapetyan, another Stepanakert resident who fled the region, said there was no alternative to leaving in the current desperate situation.
“People are suffering from hunger and the lack of electricity and gas,” she said. “Hungry children is the worst thing a person can imagine.”
She said she took only warm clothes and other necessities, leaving everything else behind.
Stepanakert is the “city where I was born and lived for nearly 25 years,” she said. “Leaving behind all your life, your friends is horrible.”
Grigory Sarkisyan, who lost his son in the fighting, said he only took some clothes and a pair of shoes. “We are leaving because Azerbaijanis have come to drive us from our homeland,” he said.
Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan during the Soviet times and it came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in a six-year separatist war that began in the waning years of the Soviet Union and ended in 1994.
Azerbaijan regained substantial territory, including parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020 that ended with a Moscow-brokered truce and the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to monitor the region.
Russia, which has been Armenia’s main sponsor and ally since the 1991 Soviet collapse, has also sought to maintain warm ties with Azerbaijan. But Moscow’s clout in the region quickly faded as Russia’s war on Ukraine diverted Moscow’s resources and made it increasingly dependent on Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the arrest of Vardanyan, who renounced his Russian citizenship after moving to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Associated Press writers Gaiane Yenokian in Yerevan, Armenia; Siranush Sargsyan in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh; and Aida Sultanova in London contributed to this report.
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Randall Robinson went from growing up in segregated Virginia to spending decades promoting equity for people of African descent from all over the world.
On March 24, Robinson died of aspiration pneumonia in the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts, his wife Hazel Ross-Robinson told CNN. He was 81.
“Apart from his work as a public figure, he was a very loving, dependable, protective, caring husband and father. He was a joy to know and a joy to love,” Ross-Robinson said. “He was as committed to being a source of stability and security to his family as he was to being a force for fairness and justice in the wider world. He shall be missed very, very much by me and by his family.”
Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1941, Robinson grew up experiencing racial discrimination and attended segregated schools. He graduated from Harvard Law School and became a civil rights attorney in Boston. For Robinson, those early years were the catalyst of a life dedicated to political activism and his fervent passion to speak up against racism.
“America has made me this way. Or, more accurately, White Americans have made me this way. They marred an otherwise unremarkable Southern childhood and, with the long-running effluvium of US attitudes and policies toward the Black nations of the world, preselected my adult career in global human rights advocacy,” Robinson wrote in his 1998 book “Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Robinson took his work to Washington D.C., where he founded the lobbying and research organization TransAfrica to influence US foreign policy toward apartheid — South Africa’s period of legislated segregation. At that time, Robinson became known for participating in a sit-in at the South African embassy to call for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
In the 1990s, Robinson advocated in favor of allowing Haitian refugees in the U.S. and published the book “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” which supported reparations for descendants of enslaved Black Americans.
After decades of work to achieve equity, Robinson decided to leave the US for St. Kitts, where he lived for more than two decades before his death. In his 2004 book “Quitting America,” he explains he relocated out of a need to find a more peaceful and welcoming place to live as a Black person.
Since Robinson’s passing, several U.S. lawmakers, foreign policy experts, human rights advocates and scholars have expressed their condolences to his family and praised his work toward social justice.
“Randall Robinson improved the lives of millions and advanced the cause of justice. In his memory, let us continue to fight to build an America worthy of his efforts — and never forget that people have the power to change the world. Today, Doug and my prayers are with his family,” Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted.
Janai S. Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, described Robinson as having an “unwavering commitment to achieving racial justice” and said he fueled an “inspiring fight for change.”
“He will be missed, and his example will echo across generations of the sacrifices from great men and women like him, who helped this nation live up to its best ideals,” Nelson said in a statement. | Human Rights |
Myanmar: Military’s obstruction of humanitarian aid could be international crime
Myanmar’s military is killing civilians, destroying food and homes, and keeping the most vulnerable from receiving lifesaving aid, according to a new report from the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
The chief of OHCHR’s Myanmar team, James Rodehaver, explained that since their February 2021 coup, the country’s military rulers have been instilling a “climate of fear” to subjugate the civilian population, restricting aid access and using “all means” at their disposal to clamp down on civil society.
Brutal tactics
He said the military’s tactics had included the use of heavy weaponry on civilian areas and airstrikes, the burning of villages, and the use of landmines to prevent those forced to flee from returning home.
“Another thing that they have done regularly has been to burn food stores, crops and seed stores, to destroy medical facilities and to target medical workers.”
The military imposed further restrictions on humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of deadly Cyclone Mocha in May, Mr. Rodehaver said.
Over 17.6 million people, or a third of the overall population of Myanmar need aid.
OHCHR Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani briefing in Geneva on the comprehensive human rights update for Myanmar, stressed that intentional obstruction or denial of humanitarian assistance may amount to serious violations of international law.
Aid workers treated as opponents
“The military has operated as if those providing aid are helping those opposed to their rule, rather than respecting their need for protection and facilitating their access and assistance to the civilian population in a time of crisis”, she said.
She cited the military’s “four cuts” strategy outlined in the report “to kill and injure thousands of civilians while destroying goods and infrastructure necessary for survival, including food, shelter, and medical centres”.
An estimated 1.5 million people have been internally displaced, and approximately 60,000 civilian structures have reportedly been burnt or destroyed, she said.
Between the overthrow of the civilian Government and April 2023, credible sources have verified that at least 3,452 people had died at the hands of the military and its affiliates, and 21,807 individuals had been arrested.
Dramatically worse
“Notably, our report says the security situation has dramatically worsened for humanitarian workers since the coup. Aid providers are consistently exposed to risks of arrest, harassment or other mistreatment, or even death”, Ms. Shamdasani added.
“In the context of armed conflicts, intentional obstruction or denial of humanitarian assistance may further constitute war crimes such as wilful killing, torture and other degrading treatment, starvation, and collective punishment”, she warned.
Intentional denial can also constitute crimes against humanity, she continued, such as murder, “extermination, torture and other inhumane acts, or persecution, when committed in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.” | Asia Politics |
- Summary
- Companies
- Missile hit busy market in Kostiantynivka on Sept. 6
- Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of firing the missile
- New York Times says evidence suggests Ukraine launched it
KYIV, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Evidence suggests a deadly explosion at a busy market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka this month was caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Ukraine has said the Sept. 6 blast, which killed at least 16 people, was caused by a Russian missile.
"Evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system," the newspaper reported.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
The press service of Ukraine's SBU security service, asked about the report, said that according to an investigation still underway, the Russians were responsible for the strike, which it said had involved a Russian S-300 missile system.
"This is evidenced, in particular, by the identified missile fragments recovered at the scene of the tragedy," it said, adding that the investigation was also examining other materials that pointed to Russian involvement in the shelling.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the circumstances were being studied by law enforcement agencies and that "the legal truth will be established".
'CONSPIRACY THEORIES'
He added that the publication of foreign media reports raising "doubts about Russia's involvement in the attack... entails the growth of conspiracy theories" and would require examination by the investigative authorities.
"In the meantime, we must not forget: it was Russia that launched the invasion of Ukraine and it is Russia that is responsible for bringing war to our country," he said.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday described the Sept. 6 blast as "a Ukrainian attack on its own city".
The New York Times report said security camera footage showed the missile flew into Kostiantynivka from the direction of Ukrainian-held territory, not from behind Russian lines.
It said that minutes before the strike, Ukraine had launched two surface-to-air missiles towards the front line from the town of Druzhkivka, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Kostiantynivka, and quoted a witness as saying they went in the direction of Kostiantynivka.
Holes caused by the explosion and fragments at the scene were consistent with the 9M38 missile fired by the mobile Buk anti-aircraft vehicle, it said. The Buk system is used both by Ukraine and Russia.
Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Europe Politics |
A deadly blast at the crowded Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City is feared to have killed hundreds of people.
The Hamas-controlled Palestinian authorities in Gaza immediately blamed Israel, claiming it was a deliberate air strike. Israel has denied involvement.
Amid the claim and counter-claim, getting to the truth is harder than ever.
BBC Verify is trying to unravel what is and isn't known - looking at video footage, still imagery and other evidence, including eyewitness accounts. In addition, a BBC journalist has been to the blast site, where there is limited access.
New information is emerging all the time, so we will continue to update this article as we learn more and talk to experts about the evidence.
It is also important to note that as well as the physical fighting, this conflict is playing out as an information war. This is not the first time authorities in Israel and Gaza have given completely different accounts of an explosion. We are also looking at their various claims and statements.
The blast
The explosion at the hospital happened at around 19:00 local time on Tuesday. A 20-second video which circulated on social media purporting to show the strike was the first significant piece of visual evidence to emerge of the incident.
In it, you can hear the whistling sound of an incoming projectile, followed by an explosion and a huge fire.
Live footage from the Al-Jazeera media network aired at 18:59 local time showed a bright light rising in the skies above Gaza. It is possibly from a rocket, which appears to explode or disintegrate. From the footage, a flash is seen far away, followed by a much larger explosion closer to the camera that we've geolocated.
Other footage which surfaced on social media channels showed what appears to be the same blast from different angles and distances.
We consulted experts to establish whether the available evidence - including the size of the explosion and the sounds heard beforehand - could be used to determine its cause.
So far the findings are inconclusive. BBC Verify has shown the evidence to a number of weapons experts, some of whom say it is not consistent with what you would expect from a typical Israeli airstrike.
J Andres Gannon, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, in the US, says the explosion appears to be small, meaning that the heat generated from the impact may have been caused by leftover rocket fuel rather than an explosion from a warhead.
Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) in the UK, agrees. While it is difficult to be sure at such an early stage, he says, the evidence looks like the explosion was caused by a failed rocket section hitting the car park and causing a fuel and propellant fire.
Mr Gannon says it is not possible to determine from the footage whether the projectile struck its intended target.
Several experts we spoke to were not willing to put forward a view on what happened.
Visual evidence from the blast site
The BBC was able to match details of buildings and the layout of the Al Ahli hospital site with publicly available satellite imagery, to establish the hospital was the scene of the blast.
Based on available evidence, it appears the explosion happened in a courtyard which is part of the hospital site. Images of the ground after the blast do not show significant damage to surrounding hospital buildings. What the images do show includes scorch marks and burnt-out cars.
The hospital is owned and run by the Anglican Church.
Canon Richard Sewell, the dean of St George's College in Jerusalem, told the BBC that about 1,000 displaced people were sheltering in the courtyard when it was hit, and about 600 patients and staff were inside the building.
What BBC reporter found
BBC reporter Rushdi Abualouf has been to the the Al Ahli Hospital this morning. Witnesses there report scenes of devastation, and say bodies are still being collected.
One man told him that women, children and elderly people were at the hospital when the explosion happened.
We are still analysing images and footage of the victims to determine what they can tell us about the blast from the nature of their injuries.
What we don't know yet
One of the most critical pieces of evidence is the nature of the crater left behind by the explosion.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) say that the absence of a large crater, or blast damage to adjacent buildings, proves that the explosion was not caused by its weapons.
You can see one small crater and we're seeing if any of the other marks represent other craters.
Another important part of missing evidence is missile fragments. Projectiles are often identifiable by the wreckage of their shell, and they can be used to determined the projectile's origin. But in this case, we have not seen that evidence.
Additional reporting by: Daniele Palumbo, Joshua Cheetham, Tom Spencer and Shayan Sardarizadeh | Middle East Politics |
Business NewsIndia Tells Canada To Remove 41 Diplomats As Spat Intensifies, FT Says
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India Tells Canada To Remove 41 Diplomats As Spat Intensifies, FT Says
India has instructed Canada to reduce the number diplomats in the South Asian country by two thirds as relations between the two nations continue to slide over the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify.
India Tells Canada to Remove 41 Diplomats as Spat Intensifies, FT Says
(Bloomberg) -- India has instructed Canada to reduce the number of diplomats in the South Asian country by two thirds as relations between the two nations continue to slide over the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify.
(Bloomberg) -- India has instructed Canada to reduce the number of diplomats in the South Asian country by two thirds as relations between the two nations continue to slide over the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify.
New Delhi has told Canada it must repatriate about 40 diplomats by Oct. 10 and has threatened to revoke the immunity of diplomats who remain after that date, the newspaper said. Canada has 62 diplomats in India and has been told to reduce that by 41, it said.
The Canadian foreign ministry and the Indian government declined to comment to the newspaper.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India’s government of involvement in the June killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada. India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who was in Washington last week, said he had discussed the issue with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and added that political assassination was “not consistent with our policy.”
India said last month it informed the Canadian government that there should be parity in the nation’s diplomatic presence in New Delhi and expects Canada to reduce its diplomats in the country. | India Politics |
Riots in France appear to be calming, after five days of violent protests in response to the shooting of teenager Nahel M during a police traffic stop.
More than 150 people were arrested on Sunday night, compared with more than 700 the night before.
On Sunday, a firefighter died trying to put out a fire after several cars were set ablaze, the interior ministry said.
Mayors have called for people to rally outside town halls on Monday to protest the violence and looting.
In a press release shared on Sunday, an association of the country's mayors notes that "communes everywhere in France are the scene of serious unrest, which targets republican symbols with extreme violence".
"We refuse to let our country succumb to chaos... Unfortunately, this situation does not come as a surprise, and for years France's mayors have been sounding alarm bells over the degradation in our society," the press release reads.
It also makes a reference to the attack on a suburban Paris mayor's home at the weekend, in which rioters fired rockets at the official's fleeing wife and children. The incident is being treated as attempted murder.
Rioters have damaged and attempted to set fires to several town halls across France since the start of the unrest.
On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron will meet the mayors of 220 townships that have been affected by the violence.
On Sunday, a 24-year-old fireman was killed while seeking to douse several cars which had been set alight in an underground car park in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, the Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
A spokesperson for the Paris fire brigade told the BBC that there is at this stage "no formal link" with the violence that has been rocked France, but the interior ministry said an investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the fire.
About 45,000 officers were deployed across the country for the third day running.
However, there are hopes that the unrest is subsiding as Sunday was a much quieter night.
At the weekend, the family of Nahel, the teenager who was killed by police, called for calm.
And his grandmother accused rioters of using Nahel's death as an excuse and urged them to stop destroying public goods.
She also said her "heart is in pain" about a GoFundMe page for the family of the police officer who shot Nahel, which as of Monday had raised more than â¬800,000 (£686,985). | Europe Politics |
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy’s recent appearance at a festival in Kuala Lumpur – where he criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage – has strongly angered conservatives in the country.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also expressed unease over his actions, fearing that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.
“He gets to fly out of the country and not face the consequences, while our people have to face the brunt of what just happened,” said the drag performer Carmen Rose, who described the speech as self-serving, adding that it risked undoing the work of activists.
The British pop-rock singer was headlining the Good Vibes festival when he criticised the country’s homophobic laws in a profanity-laden speech. He was holding what appeared to be a wine bottle and spat on the stage as he spoke.
He said: “Unfortunately you don’t get a set of loads of uplifting songs because I’m fucking furious. And that’s not fair on you, because you’re not representative of your government. Because you’re young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool.”
The comment was met with some cheers from the audience.
Healy then kissed the bass player Ross MacDonald as they played the song I Like America & America Likes Me.
About 30 minutes later the band walked off stage, with Healy announcing they were now banned.
The following day, organisers of the festival announced that the entire weekend event had been cancelled. The government has also said it will tighten entry requirements for foreign artists to perform in Malaysia, according to local media.
Dhia Rezki Rohaizad, the deputy president of Jejaka, a social support group for gay, bisexual and queer men in Malaysia, criticised the government’s handling of the situation, citing Healy’s right to freedom of expression.
But he added that Healy’s speech was not how many activists in the country would have wanted to highlight the issue. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on the ground, community organising, and having stakeholder meetings with local government agencies,” he said. “Doing it at this scale, with a lot of people who are not aware of the discussions going around with regards to queer activism, that is what is harmful.”
Malaysia’s federal penal code, first introduced during British colonial rule, punishes oral and anal sex with up to 20 years in prison. Each state and the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya also have sharia codes that generally criminalise gay sex and gender nonconformity.
Activists have warned of increased intolerance over recent years, citing in particular a raid on an LGBTQ+ Halloween party in Kuala Lumpur last year, when 20 people were arrested.
“For people who live in Kuala Lumpur, the raid was a very scary night and I think that since then a lot of us do live in fear,” said Mikhail Hanafi, a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “In a lot of other places in the world, queer nightlife is one of the places where at least a subset of queer people can feel safe and a sense of community.”
This was no longer the case in Malaysia, Hanafi said, adding that when the lights came on in a club at the end of the night, some friends immediately felt a sense of panic, fearing that this was the sign of another police raid.
There was value in foreign performers speaking out, said Hanafi. But he added: “They need to be mindful of how they speak. They need to speak to the community beforehand.”
Activists are especially concerned that Healy’s comments come just weeks before state elections. Campaigning often coincided with a rise in hate speech, said Thilaga Sulathireh, a founder of the group Justice for Sisters, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights.
On Monday, the national human rights commission of Malaysia said that while it “advocates equality for all and freedom of expression, it is important to stress that these rights must be practised responsibly and within any restrictions imposed by local laws and cultural considerations”.
Sulathireh said the statement illustrated why LGBTQ+ communities felt nervous. “It is really a testament to the protection that LGBT people have in Malaysia. Of course, folks are going to be concerned … if anything were to happen to them they feel completely unprotected.”
Carmen Rose says she is not able to advertise performances in Kuala Lumpur, due to pressure on the community. “Any foreign artist who comes here and who wants to advocate for us, they need to understand how to go about it,” she said. “What works in the west may not work here. They may actually do more harm than good.” | Human Rights |
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MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will no longer give the U.S. advance notice about its missile tests, a senior Moscow diplomat said Wednesday, as its military deployed mobile launchers in Siberia in a show of the country’s massive nuclear capability amid fighting in Ukraine.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies that Moscow has halted all information exchanges with Washington after previously suspending its participation in the last remaining nuclear arms pact with the U.S.
READ MORE: Russian forces carry out deadly attack on eastern Ukrainian city
Along with the data about the current state of the countries’ nuclear forces routinely released every six months in compliance with the treaty, the parties also have exchanged advance warnings about test launches. Such notices have been an essential element of strategic stability for decades, allowing Russia and the United States to correctly interpret each other’s moves and make sure that neither country mistakes a test launch for a missile attack.
The termination of missile test warnings marks yet another attempt by Moscow to discourage the West from ramping up its support for Ukraine by pointing to Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal. In recent days, President Vladimir Putin announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of Moscow’s ally Belarus.
Last month, Putin suspended the New START treaty, saying Russia can’t accept U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites under the agreement at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal. Moscow emphasized that it wasn’t withdrawing from the pact altogether and would continue to respect the caps on nuclear weapons the treaty set.
The Foreign Ministry initially said Moscow would keep notifying the U.S. about planned test launches of its ballistic missiles, but Ryabkov’s statement reflected an abrupt change of course.
“There will be no notifications at all,” he said in remarks reported by Russian news agencies when asked if Moscow would also stop issuing notices about planned missile tests. “All notifications, all kinds of notifications, all activities under the treaty. will be suspended and will not be conducted regardless of what position the U.S. may take.”
Ryabkov’s announcement followed U.S. officials’ statement that Moscow and Washington have stopped sharing biannual nuclear weapons data that were envisioned by the New START treaty. Officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department said the U.S. had offered to continue providing this information to Russia even after Putin suspended its participation in the treaty, but Moscow told Washington it would not be sharing its own data.
The New START, signed in 2010 by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The agreement envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.
The inspections have been put on hold since 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions on resuming them were supposed to have taken place in November 2022, but Russia abruptly called them off, citing U.S. support for Ukraine.
As part of the Russian drills that began Wednesday, Yars mobile missile launchers will maneuver across three regions of Siberia, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The movements will involve measures to conceal the deployment from foreign satellites and other intelligence assets, the ministry said.
The Defense Ministry didn’t say how long the drills would last or mention plans for any practice launches. The Yars is a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of about 11,000 kilometers (over 6,800 miles). It forms the backbone of Russia’s strategic missile forces.
A Defense Ministry video shows trucks carrying the missiles driving from a base to go on patrol. The maneuvers involve about 300 vehicles and 3,000 troops in eastern Siberia, according to the ministry.
READ MORE: U.S. sanctions Belarus election officials, President Lukashenko’s plane
The exercise took place days after Putin announced a plan to deploy the tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia’s neighbor and ally. Such weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a relatively short range and a much lower yield compared with the long-range strategic missiles fitted with nuclear warheads that are capable of obliterating whole cities.
Putin’s decision on the tactical weapons followed his repeated warnings that Moscow was ready to use “all available means” — a reference to its nuclear arsenal — to fend off attacks on Russian territory.
Ryabkov said Wednesday that Putin’s move followed the failure by Kyiv’s allies to heed previous “serious signals” from Moscow because of what he described as the “fundamental irresponsibility of Western elites before their people and international security.”
“Now they will have to deal with changing realities,” he said, adding: “We hope that NATO officials will adequately assess the seriousness of the situation.”
Russian officials have issued a barrage of hawkish statements since their troops entered Ukraine, warning that the continuing Western support for Kyiv raised the threat of a nuclear conflict.
In remarks published Tuesday, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, which Putin chairs, sternly warned the U.S. and its allies against harboring hopes for Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.
Patrushev alleged that some American politicians believe the U.S. could launch a preventative missile strike on Russia to which Moscow would be unable to respond, a purported belief that he described as “short-sighted stupidity, which is very dangerous.”
“Russia is patient and isn’t trying to scare anyone with its military superiority, but it has unique modern weapons capable of destroying any adversary, including the United States, in case of a threat to its existence,” Patrushev said.
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Bobbi Wilson holds her collection of spotted lanternflies as she is honored at the Yale School of Public Health on Jan. 20.
Andrew Hurley/Yale University
Bobbi Wilson holds her collection of spotted lanternflies as she is honored at the Yale School of Public Health on Jan. 20.
Andrew Hurley/Yale University
Nine-year-old Bobbi Wilson may be in the fourth grade, but last month the Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony honoring the budding scientist's recent work.
The university entered Bobbi's collection of 27 spotted lanternflies — an extremely invasive species that is harmful to trees and other plants — into the Peabody Museum of Natural History database. Bobbi was also presented with the title of "donor scientist" during the Jan. 20 ceremony.
"We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community," Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor at the school, said in a statement.
The accolades come just three months after Bobbi, who is Black, made headlines when former Caldwell city council member Gordon Lawshe, who is white, called local police on the girl.
She was collecting spotted lanternfly specimens. Her neighbor became frightened and called the cops
On Oct. 22, Lawshe was home, and things in the mostly white neighborhood seemed copacetic. But looking at the tree-lined street, Lawshe saw something scary. Recognizing it was not an emergency per se, he called the police department dispatcher instead.
"There's a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees on Elizabeth and Florence," Lawshe told the dispatcher, according to a call obtained by CNN.
"I don't know what the hell she's doing. Scares me, though," Lawshe added.
Outside, Bobbi, a petite child who wears pink-framed glasses, was doing her bit to comply with the state's Stomp it Out! campaign, which urges New Jersey residents to help eradicate the spotted lanternfly infestation. She'd learned about it at school and made her own version of an insect repellent she'd seen on TikTok. Making her way from tree to tree, Bobbi would spray the bugs, pluck them from the tree and drop them into a plastic bottle.
Bobbi was still at it when an officer arrived, curious about what she was doing. Body camera footage shows officer Kevin O'Neill approach the child before her mother, Monique Joseph, intervenes.
"Am I in trouble?" the small girl asks.
"No," Joseph and O'Neill respond simultaneously.
Joseph adds, "How many trees did you save?"
O'Neill explains that he was responding to a call made by Lawshe. The information appears to baffle Joseph, who has said that she has lived across the street from the 71-year-old for eight years and that they are on friendly terms.
Bobbi's mother and sister speak out about racial profiling
Unable to shake the gnawing feeling that things could have easily escalated and ended in tragedy, as they have in other circumstances involving Black children and law enforcement, Joseph decided to address the issue head-on at a Caldwell city council meeting a few weeks later. During the meeting, Joseph and her 13-year-old daughter, Hayden Wilson, called the episode an instance of racial profiling.
"She was not only doing something amazing for our environment — she was doing something that made her feel like a hero," Hayden said in her speech to the city council.
"What Mr. Gordon Lawshe did to my sister was extremely offensive, traumatic and scarring towards my family. I can confidently assure you guys that she will never forget this," she added.
Scientists and scholars rally around Bobbi
The outpouring of support for Bobbi and her love of science has been constant since the police stop hit the internet. She has received the Caldwell Environmental Commission's Sustainability Award for her contributions to improving the town's environment. At least one science writer has given Bobbi a collection of books and stickers to encourage her passion for learning. And there is the recognition from Yale.
"Yale doesn't normally do anything like this. ... This is something unique to Bobbi," Opara, the Yale professor, said. She helped organize the recent ceremony and previously invited Bobbi and her sister to the campus to meet "other successful Black female scientists and to counter the horrible memories of that day."
Shortly after the police encounter, Joseph told CNN that her 9-year-old hasn't been the same. But at the ceremony, she expressed gratitude for the community that has rallied around the entire family.
"You know, you hear about racism; you kind of experience it in your peripheral if you're lucky in your life. It doesn't come knocking on your door. That morning when it happened, my world stopped," Bobbi's mother said, according to the university.
She added: "The whole community, the science community, got together and said, 'She's one of us and we're not going to let her lose her steam for STEM. We're going to support the family, we're going to support this girl." | Human Rights |
NEW YORK -- World Bank President Ajay Banga, Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette and “The Mandalorian” star Pedro Pascal are on this year’s Great Immigrants list announced Wednesday by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Since 2006, the foundation has assembled an annual list of notable naturalized American citizens to celebrate the contributions immigrants make to the country and how they strengthen democracy.
“These are extraordinary people,” said Dame Louise Richardson, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and a native of Ireland who is a naturalized citizen herself. “Presenting all these amazingly positive stories of people who’ve contributed hugely to American life I think is important every year.”
However, she acknowledges that the issue of immigration has become more politicized.
“I do think there is a growing sense that the numbers of migrants are somehow getting out of hand -- and this is not unique to the U.S.,” Richardson told The Associated Press in an interview. “So, we are very keen to suggest looking at immigrants through a different lens.”
The 35 honorees on this year’s list hail from 33 countries on six continents and are leaders in everything from business and philanthropy to education and the arts.
Daniel Lubetzky, best known as the founder and former CEO of Kind Snacks, as well as his appearances as an entrepreneur on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” said he was proud to be on the list and an immigrant from Mexico.
“For me, the United States is a nation of immigrants and we need to remember that,” he said. “We need to celebrate that. And we need to contribute -- every one of us -- to keep that dream alive.”
Lubetzky, who sold Kind to food giant Mars for an estimated $5 billion in 2020, is working to do his part through his philanthropy. He focuses on reducing polarization through initiatives like the community-building movement Starts With Us and The Lubetzky Family Foundation’s Futures of the Free World program, which supports building democracy around the world.
“Authoritarianism and extremism are now rampant across the world, and the threats against democracy are the worst in my lifetime,” he said. “But I also have enormous conviction that it will turn around.”
Grammy-winning singer Angelique Kidjo, who fled the dictatorship in her homeland of Benin for France, said immigrants, especially those who have escaped repressive regimes, treasure the United States because they understand what is at stake.
“As imperfect as our democracy is in America, we have to work to make it better for everybody,” said Kidjo, who won the Polar Music Prize earlier this year for the global impact of her music. She said those who are willing to risk American democracy because they are angry or because of petty concerns is “insulting to the point of this country.”
“America would never have existed without immigrants,” Kidjo said.
She said she is happy to be honored as an immigrant, and now a naturalized citizen, but also feels a responsibility to use the award to make a difference.
“It’s always about trying to find and reach out to people that I can work with to advance women’s rights, human rights and our democracy,” she said.
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis unveiled his immigration plan which includes amending the U.S. Constitution to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to those born in the United States, an idea also proposed by former President Donald Trump. “Dangling the prize of citizenship to the future offspring of illegal immigrants is a major driver of illegal migration,” the Florida governor said in his “ Stop the Invasion ” plan. “It is also inconsistent with the original understanding of 14th Amendment, and we will force the courts and Congress to finally address this failed policy.”
Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that works to make people more accepting of immigration, said there are currently two very different narratives about immigration in the country: “It is an opportunity to strengthen the country,” and “It is a threat.”
“We talked to many Americans and they believe both those narratives,” Robbins said. “Most Americans believe that immigration has been great for America, but they’re nervous about the immigration that’s coming now.”
According to his group's research, immigrants to the United States launch businesses at a higher rate than the overall population, with 3.2 million immigrant entrepreneurs generating $88.5 billion in annual income.
Author Min Jin Lee, whose novel “Pachinko” was a National Book Awards finalist, said she was honored to be on the Carnegie list because “it’s an honest look at America.”
“There’s this thinking that immigrants are yellow, black, and brown people from somewhere else and ‘they have all these needs,’ rather than ‘they have all these assets,’ ” said Lee, who emigrated from South Korea with her family when she was a child. “I think that this list is a really good reflection of our assets, what we bring to the table, and how we make the team stronger.”
Lee said that anti-immigrant political rhetoric is essentially a distraction from economic inequality and ongoing systemic racism.
“Toxic rhetoric against immigrants really forgets the entire history of America, which is that without immigrants, we have nothing,” she said. “I’m really grateful that the Carnegie Corporation of New York is bringing back the centrality of immigration as a force for good in the United States.”
Robbins said the Carnegie list is important because compelling stories change more minds than economic data.
“Every year, Carnegie lifts up these stories,” Robbins said. “This is a person. This is their life. And it’s not just that they were successful, but America is stronger because of it. I think that is hugely powerful.”
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2023's GREAT IMMIGRANTS
The Carnegie Corporation of New York’s 2023 Great Immigrants are: Wesaam Al-Badry, photographer, originally from Iraq; Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University professor, Brazil; Kyriacos A. Athanasiou, University of California, Irvine professor, Cyprus; Ajay Banga, World Bank president, India; Jean-Claude Brizard, Digital Promise CEO, Haiti; Betty Kwan Chinn, Betty Kwan Chinn Homeless Foundation founder, China; Ghida Dagher, New American Leaders CEO, Sierra Leone; Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University chancellor, Germany; Miguel “Mike” B. Fernandez, MBF Healthcare Partners CEO, Cuba; Maria Freire, biophysicist, Peru; Nina Garcia, Elle editor in chief, Colombia; Timnit Gebru, Distributed AI Research Institute founder, Ethiopia; Karen González, immigrant advocate, Guatemala; Azira G. Hill, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Talent Development Program co-founder, Cuba; Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate, Poland; Guido Imbens, Stanford University professor and Nobel Laureate, Netherlands; Angélique Kidjo, singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Benin; Bernard Lagat, champion runner, Kenya; Min Jin Lee, author, South Korea; Ted Lieu, U.S. congressman, Taiwan; Karen Lozano, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley professor, Mexico; Daniel Lubetzky, Kind Snacks and Starts With Us founder, Mexico; J. Patrice Marandel, Los Angeles County Museum of Art former chief curator of European art, France; Stephen Michael, U.S. Army Brigadier General (ret.) and UBS senior executive, Guyana; Alanis Morissette, singer-songwriter, Canada; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Trade Organization Director-General, Nigeria; Pedro Pascal, actor, Chile; Susan Polgar, Chess Grandmaster, Hungary; Ke Huy Quan, actor, Vietnam; Helen Quinn, Stanford University professor, Australia; Julissa Reynoso, U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra, Dominican Republic; Oscar A. Solis, 10th Bishop, Diocese of Salt Lake City, Philippines; Ali Soufan, The Soufan Group CEO, Lebanon; Inge G. Thulin, former 3M Company CEO, Sweden; Ponsi Trivisvavet, Inari CEO, Thailand.
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The Carnegie Corporation of New York supports Associated Press coverage of education. Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. | Human Rights |
The Left (Lewica), which is part of the coalition likely to form Poland’s new government, announced two bills to liberalise the country’s strict abortion laws on the first day of parliament yesterday.
One would end the current near-total ban on abortion and instead introduce abortion on demand. The other would end the criminalisation of those who help women obtain abortions. However, it appears unlikely that the bills will enjoy support from more conservative elements of the new coalition.
Prawa kobiet naszym priorytetem! ♀️
Jako Lewica pozostajemy wierni naszym ideałom i postulatom, z którymi szliśmy do wyborów 15 października – dlatego też zgodnie z obietnicą składamy projekty ustaw liberalizujące prawo aborcyjne:
🔴 Legalna aborcja na żądanie do 12. tyg. ciąży… pic.twitter.com/PjYbpiH0Br
— Lewica (@__Lewica) November 13, 2023
“We will not back down from our demands regarding abortion,” the head of The Left’s parliamentary caucus, Krzysztof Gawkowski, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
“But we also know perfectly well that we need to talk with and convince our partners; we know that we need 231 votes,” he added, referring to the number needed to obtain a majority in the 460-seat Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament.
On its own, The Left, which performed below expectations in last month’s elections, has only 26 seats. Gawkowski claimed that the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), which has 157 seats, supports The Left’s abortion demands.
However, to obtain a parliamentary majority they would also need the voters of most MPs from the centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) group, which is the final member of the likely new governing coalition. It is much more conservative on abortion, and has called for a national referendum to decide the issue.
Poland's near-total ban on abortion is opposed by most of the public, according to polls, and two opposition parties have called for a referendum to change the law
We look at whether and how such a referendum could be called, and what the outcome might be https://t.co/sQWJUAiOkn
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 3, 2023
Under one of the bills proposed by The Left, abortion on demand would be allowed up to the 12th week of pregnancy. After that point, terminations would be permitted if the pregnancy posed a threat to the mother’s health or life, if it resulted from rape or incest, or if the foetus was diagnosed with birth defects.
In the latter two cases, abortions would be permitted up to the 24th week of pregnancy (or later if the foetus is found to have a defect leaving it incapable of life), reports news website OKO.press.
Those changes would not only overturn the current near-total abortion ban – which allows terminations only if the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or resulted from a criminal act – but would also create a much more liberal law than existed before that ban went into force in January 2021.
The bill would also seek to prevent hospitals from denying patients abortions by invoking the so-called “conscience clause” that allows doctors to refuse to offer them if it conflicts with their beliefs.
Under The Left’s proposed law, if a doctor refuses to terminate a pregnancy, the same healthcare facility must provide the patient with access to the procedure, either themselves or through a subcontractor. Any facility that does not do so could lose its state funding.
The second bill put forward yesterday would decriminalise the act of helping a woman obtain an abortion, which is currently a crime that can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
A man will face court for helping his partner to unlawfully terminate her pregnancy, a crime in Poland that can carry a prison sentence of up to three years https://t.co/NOGEUpa10h
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 26, 2023
The Left’s two proposals go much further than what was included in the coalition agreement they signed with Civic Coalition and Third Way last week. That mentioned only “the annulment of the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal (TK) ruling” that introduced the current near-total abortion ban.
One of The Left’s members, the Together (Razem) party, in fact refused to sign that agreement because it said that a number of its demands, including decriminalising abortion, had not been included.
Yesterday, the new speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia of Third Way, said that The Left’s abortion bills would be processed like any other, though added that because parliamentary committees are yet to be formed in the newly elected Sejm it would take a few weeks to begin.
Previously, a number of figures from the Polish People’s Party (PSL), a moderately conservative party that makes up one half of the Third Way alongside Hołownia’s Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), have made clear that they will not support an abortion law more liberal than the one that existed before the TK ruling.
The opposition groups likely to form the next government have signed a coalition agreement
They pledged to:
– restore rule of law
– annul the near-total abortion ban
– depoliticise public media
– prosecute anti-LGBT hate speech
– separate church and state https://t.co/lwQvGGok8s
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 10, 2023
Even if The Left’s bills – or any others liberalising the abortion law – were approved by the Sejm, they can be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who has voiced support for the fact that the TK ruling outlawed terminations in cases where foetuses were diagnosed with non-lethal defects.
Moreover, even once a new coalition takes power, the TK will continue to have a majority of judges appointed under the previous national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government. They could rule any effort to liberalise the abortion law unconstitutional.
Since PiS lost its majority at last month’s elections, a number of government figures, including Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, have admitted that pushing for the abortion ban was a “mistake” that contributed to their election result and could lead to the abortion law being liberalised under a new government.
Poland’s prime minister has admitted it was a “mistake” for the ruling party to push for the constitutional court to introduce a near-total abortion ban in 2020.
He claims “he has always been a supporter” of the abortion law that existed before the ruling https://t.co/QObza3Raxk
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 6, 2023
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Klub Lewicy/Flickr (under public domain)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. | Europe Politics |
Opposition Members Storm Out Of Lok Sabha Ethics Committee Meet Along With TMC MP Moitra
The committee chairman and BJP MP Vinod Sonkar, who continued the deliberations even after the walkout, later counter-accused the opposition members of behaving unethically and boycotting to detract from allegations against Moitra.
Opposition members of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Thursday stormed out of a meeting along with Mahua Moitra, accusing the panel's chairperson of asking the TMC MP personal and unethical questions.
The committee chairman and BJP MP Vinod Sonkar, who continued the deliberations even after the walkout, later counter-accused the opposition members of behaving unethically and boycotting to detract from allegations against Moitra.
Talking to reporters after the meeting ended, Sonkar alleged that objectionable words were used against the committee's functioning and against him.
"We found the ethics committee chairperson's questions to Moitra undignified and unethical," Congress MP and panel member N Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters after the walkout.
Opposition members of the committee, which had asked Moitra to depose before it in connection with allegations of 'gifts-for-query' against her, also questioned the manner in which the meeting was conducted.
After the meeting, BJP MP and panel member Aparajita Sarangi, however, said that Moitra behaved in an angry, rude and arrogant manner when she was asked about the affidavit submitted to the committee by businessman Darshan Hiranandani.
Moitra has been accused of asking questions, which were keyed in through her parliamentary account, at the behest of Hiranandani in return for bribes and favours from the Dubai-based scion of a well-known business family.
Moitra pleaded innocence to the allegations levelled against her and told the parliamentary committee that the charge is motivated by animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke her personal relations with him, sources said.
She was supported by opposition MPs, including Reddy and Danish Ali of the BSP, in the meeting while a few BJP members, including V D Sharma, wanted her to respond to the substantive part of the allegations and not make it all about the personal relationship going bad.
Sources said a large part of her deposition before the committee was about her relationship with Dehadrai as she appeared to blame him for the leaks and allegations.
Citing Dehadrai's submission, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had filed a complaint against her with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla who referred the matter to the committee.
Separately talking to reporters, Dubey said Moitra tried to create a wrong narrative about the proceedings and the opposition was perturbed that the ethics panel was headed by an OBC MP.
"No power can save Moitra after all evidences provided by me and others against her," he said. | India Politics |
ED Raids Premises Of Rajasthan Congress Chief, Summons Ashok Gehlot’s Son In FEMA Case
The agency also summoned the Rajasthan chief minister's son Vaibhav Gehlot for questioning in a case related to alleged contravention of the foreign exchange law.
Turning the heat on the ruling Congress in poll-bound Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday raided the premises of state Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra in Jaipur and Sikar as part of a money laundering probe into the alleged exam paper leak case and summoned Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son in a foreign exchange violation case.
Besides the premises of Dotasra, a former minister for school education, the agency is also searching the premises of party candidate from Mahua seat in Dausa, Omprakash Hudla, and some others, official sources said.
An armed escort of central paramilitary force CRPF accompanied the ED teams.
The Congress slammed the Centre over the ED's action against its leaders in Rajasthan and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of taking the help of probe agencies in fighting polls and said people would give the BJP a befitting reply.
Chief Minister Gehlot said the ED raids are being done everyday in the state "as the BJP does not want that Congress party's guarantees reach the women, farmers and the poor".
Elections for the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will be held on Nov. 25. The results will be declared on Dec. 3.
Dotasra is the party candidate from Lacchmangarh seat of Sikar against BJP's Subhash Maharia. He is also the sitting MLA from this seat while Hudla is an independent MLA and the Congress has fielded him from the Mahua assembly seat this time.
The money laundering case stems from FIRs filed by the Rajasthan Police against the accused.
The accused, "in connivance with each other leaked the question paper of general knowledge of senior teacher grade II competitive examination, 2022 which was scheduled to be conducted by RPSC (Rajasthan Public Service Commission) on 21.12.2022, 22.12.2022 and 24.12.2022 and provided it to appearing candidates for the consideration amount of Rs 8-10 lakh per candidate," the ED had said.
Former Rajasthan Public Service Commission member Babulal Katara and two other people identified as Anil Kumar Meena and Bhupendra Saran were arrested by the ED in this case.
The agency also summoned the Rajasthan chief minister's son Vaibhav Gehlot for questioning in a case related to alleged contravention of the foreign exchange law.
Vaibhav Gehlot has been asked to depose before the federal agency's office either in Jaipur or in New Delhi on Friday, the sources said.
The summons are linked to the recent ED raids against Rajasthan based hospitality group Triton Hotels & Resorts Pvt., Vardha Enterprises Pvt. and its directors and promoters Shiv Shankar Sharma, Rattan Kant Sharma and others.
The agency had searched the group and its promoters for three days in August at locations in Jaipur, Udaipur, Mumbai and Delhi.
Rattan Kant Sharma's alleged links with Vaibhav Gehlot are allegedly under the scanner of the ED and it is expected to question and record his statement under the Foreign Exchange Management Act.
Unaccounted cash of Rs 1.2 crore was seized by the ED after these searches.
Soon after the action against its leaders in Rajasthan, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that agencies such as the ED, Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax Department become the real 'panna pramukh (party workers)' of the BJP as soon as elections come.
"Seeing its certain defeat in Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Janata Party made its last throw of the dice! After Chhattisgarh, the ED has also entered the election campaign in Rajasthan and started action against Congress leaders," Kharge said.
"The dictatorship of the Modi government is fatal for democracy. We will continue to fight against the misuse of agencies, and the public will give a befitting reply to the BJP," the Congress chief said in a post on X.
Ashok Gehlot added that the Congress launched guarantees for women of Rajasthan on Oct. 25 and the ED action against Dotasra and Vaibhav Gehlot came just a day later.
"Now you can understand what I have been saying... ED's raids happen everyday in Rajasthan because the BJP does not want women, farmers and poor in the state to get the benefit of the guarantees given by Congress," Gehlot said in a post in Hindi on X.
Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera also lashed out at the Union government over the ED action.
"Just last week, Ashok Gehlot ji held a press conference in Delhi and raised questions on the role of central agencies in the elections. Today again, ED has become very active in Rajasthan. Modi ji, contest elections directly, stop taking the help of agencies," Khera said in a post in Hindi on X.
Senior Congress leader Gehlot last week alleged that the BJP-led Centre is misusing probe agencies to target opposition leaders even after the enforcement of the model code of conduct, and urged Modi and the Election Commission to intervene.
The Rajasthan chief minister had said the ED and Income Tax raids are being conducted against opposition leaders even after the announcement of assembly polls, and these agencies are losing credibility among people in the country. | India Politics |
President Emmanuel Macron has postponed a state visit to Germany due to the ongoing protests and riots across France.
More than 1,300 people were arrested during a fourth night of violent protests throughout the country following the death of 17-year-old boy Nahel Merzouk, who was shot by police during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb on Tuesday.
People have taken to the streets on four consecutive nights to protest, setting cars alight, throwing stones and fireworks, and ransacking shops.
A funeral for the teenager was held in Nanterre this afternoon, with family and friends viewing an open coffin before it was taken to a mosque for a ceremony and later burial.
Dozens of people were seen outside the entrance to the cemetery paying their respects.
The cancellation of Mr Macron's state visit is a clear sign of the significance of France's unrest given the importance of its relationship with Germany.
Mr Macron spoke with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier to brief him on the situation, a spokesperson for the German president said.
"President Macron has asked that the planned state visit to Germany will be postponed," the spokesperson added.
It is the second time in months French unrest has hurt Mr Macron diplomatically, after the King cancelled his first foreign visit as UK monarch because of protests over Mr Macron's pension reform plans.
Nahel's killing ignited long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination.
It has resulted in the worst riots France has seen in years and put pressure on Mr Macron, who has blamed social media for fuelling the violence.
Early on Saturday firefighters in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, extinguished blazes set by protesters that left the scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets, while in the neighbouring suburb of Colombes protesters overturned bins to use them as makeshift barricades.
On Friday evening looters broke into a gun shop and stole weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said.
Despite Mr Macron's appeal to parents to keep their children at home, street clashes between young protesters and police raged on, with authorities saying around 2,500 fires have been set and stores were ransacked.
Read more:
Witness says police threatened teen before fatal shooting
Macron faces backlash over attending Elton John gig during riots
Why is there a history of rioting in France's suburbs?
As the number of arrests increased the government suggested the violence was beginning to subside due to tougher security measures.
Since the unrest began on Tuesday night there have been 2,363 arrests - more than half of those in the fourth night of violence.
However, the damage has been widespread from Paris to Marseille and Lyon, and even further away in the French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.
France's national football team - including international star Kylian Mbappe, an idol to many young people in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods where the anger is rooted - pleaded for an end to the violence.
"Many of us are from working-class neighbourhoods, we too share this feeling of pain and sadness" over the killing of Nahel, the players said in a statement.
"Violence resolves nothing. There are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself."
They said it is time for "mourning, dialogue and reconstruction" instead. | Europe Politics |
KYIV, Ukraine -- Two foreign aid workers were reportedly killed in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Russian shelling hit a van carrying a team of four working with a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, while dozens of Russian drones targeted Kyiv and wounded at least one civilian.
The four volunteers from the Road to Relief group, which helps evacuate wounded people from front-line areas, were trapped inside the van as it flipped over and caught fire after being struck by shells near the town of Chasiv Yar, the organization said on its Instagram page.
Road to Relief said that Anthony Ihnat of Canada died in the attack, while German medical volunteer Ruben Mawick and Swedish volunteer Johan Mathias Thyr were seriously wounded, it said.
Road to Relief added that it couldn't trace the whereabouts of the van's fourth passenger, Emma Igual, a Spanish national who was the organization's director. Hours later, Spain’s acting Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told Spanish media that authorities in Madrid had received “verbal confirmation” of the 32-year-old Igual's death.
The volunteers were on their way to assess the needs of civilians on the outskirts of Bakhmut, Road to Relief said, in reference to the eastern town that saw the war's longest and bloodiest battle before falling to Moscow in May. Ukrainian forces have held on to Bakhmut's western suburbs and are pushing a counteroffensive in the area.
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian officials reported that Russia launched “dozens” of drones at Kyiv and the surrounding region early in the morning, wounding at least five civilians.
Ukraine's air force later said it had brought down 26 out of a total of 33 drones. The head of Kyiv's military administration, Serhii Popko, reported that debris from Iranian-made Shahed drones fell in several districts of the city and wounded at least one civilian. Popko said there was no risk to the person's life, and added that most of the wreckage fell in open ground, although one high-rise apartment was damaged.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko later confirmed that one civilian was wounded in the city's historic center and received help on the spot.
The governor of the Kyiv region, which surrounds but doesn't include the capital, also reported that the drone strike wounded four people across the province, one of whom had to be hospitalized. In a Facebook post, Gov. Ruslan Kravchenko said that the drones damaged an infrastructure facility as well as civilian buildings including homes and stores, a hospital, a rehabilitation center, a school and a kindergarten.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Sunday that Moscow's forces earlier destroyed three U.S.-supplied speedboats carrying Ukrainian soldiers that had been traveling toward Russian-occupied Crimea. The claim couldn't be independently verified. Earlier on Sunday, the ministry said in a separate statement that Russian air defenses shot down eight Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea, as well as another that flew over the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.
On Aug. 24, Ukrainian military intelligence said that its special forces landed in Crimea, which Moscow illegally took from Ukraine in 2014, and raised the Ukrainian flag along the peninsula's western shore before leaving “without casualties.”
Ukrainian army representatives on Sunday reported further small gains near Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where Kyiv has mounted a counteroffensive, days after Russian-installed authorities acknowledged that Russian forces had left the village.
Oleksandr Shtupun, a press officer for Ukraine’s Tauride Defense Forces, said on Ukrainian TV that Kyiv’s troops had retaken a further 1.5 square kilometers (0.6 square miles) near Rabotyne, and that heavy fighting is ongoing.
“The Russians are clinging to every meter of our Ukrainian land … however, the Ukrainian Defense Forces are trying to make it as difficult as possible to supply the Russian army, and in certain areas this is bearing fruit,” Shtupun said, without giving details.
Hours later, Ukraine’s General Staff said in the latest of its Facebook updates that its forces had “partial success” near Robotyne as well as Klishchiivka, a village 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) southwest of Bakhmut, dislodging Russian troops from their positions. It gave no further details, and the claim could not be verified.
A Washington-based think tank late on Saturday assessed, citing geolocated footage, that Russian forces had captured territory between Robotyne and two nearby villages: Verbove, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) east, and Novoprokopivka, 5 kilometers (3 miles) to the south.
The Institute for the Study of War also said in the latest of daily updates that Ukrainian forces had advanced along the border between the Zaporizhzhia region and the Donetsk province farther east, near Novomaiorske village. It acknowledged earlier Ukrainian claims of advances “south of Klischiivka,” but gave no evidence to support them.
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Associated Press writer Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | Europe Politics |
Democracy 1918, an Azerbaijani pro-democracy movement, has announced its intent to cease its activities citing continued government pressure against their members and a lack of resources.
Democracy 1918 announced that its congress voted on ceasing the movement’s activities on 10 September, stating that the ‘anti-democratic system’ in the country and the environment it created made political activity impossible.
‘Limited resources limit the possibility of an adequate response to make positive changes’, read the movement’s statement. ‘For all these reasons, the political goals and processes and organisation of any institution in the political scene are losing importance’.
‘We believe that after the objective and subjective reasons have matured, the organisations that will be the cause of political changes will emerge again’, concluded the statement.
The movement was founded in 2013 by political activist Ahmad Mammadli. Since its inception, Democracy 1918 has been engaged in political, student, and labour rights activism.
Mammadli told OC Media on Monday that he found political activity ‘senseless’ in Azerbaijan’s current political environment.
‘There is no space for the emergence of an opponent of the Aliyev regime’, he said. ‘The government’s pressure, arrests, and atmosphere of fear against the members of the Democracy 1918 Movement is [the government’s] current approach to stop the activity of the movement’.
Prominent members of the movement have been subjected to repeated detentions on charges they claim to be politically motivated. In August, Democracy 1918 members Afiaddin Mammadov, Aykhan Israfilov, and Elvin Mustafayev have all been placed under administrative arrest following their participation in protests organised by delivery couriers.
Mammadli says that the movement will continue some of its activities through public institutions established under Democracy 1918 such as the Student Desk and the Worker’s Table. | Asia Politics |
A senior Russian general has been killed in a missile strike in Ukraine, Russian sources have said.
Lt Gen Oleg Tsokov is said to have died in a strike on a hotel housing Russian military commanders in Berdyansk, on Ukraine's occupied southern coast.
Russia's defence ministry has not officially confirmed his death. But it was widely announced by Russian war channels on the Telegram messaging app.
TV host Olga Skabeyeva said "absolutely all media" were reporting it.
Lt Gen Tsokov was deputy commander of Russia's southern military district. Ms Skabeyeva who presents a talk show on the state-run Rossiya-1 channel said he was killed by a UK-supplied Storm Shadow missile.
Andrei Gurulyov, an MP and retired general who appeared on her popular 60 Minutes show on Tuesday, said the general had returned to Ukraine despite being badly wounded earlier in the conflict.
He was hit last September while commanding Russia's 144th Motorized Infantry Division in the Svatove area of occupied eastern Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, he died heroically. This man deserves huge respect," the retired general said.
Several Russian war accounts on Telegram also reported his death, including blogger WarGonzo and Military Informant, a channel with more than half a million followers.
In the absence of official comment from Moscow, military bloggers have previously proven an insightful source of information on the Russian side.
The BBC has not independently verified the death, which was also highlighted by Ukrainian officials.
Reports said he was caught up in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a hotel accommodating Russian military commanders in Berdyansk, a city in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia on the coast of the Azov Sea.
Images and video from various parts of Berdyansk have circulated on social media, but none show the exact site of the blast.
BBC Verify has confirmed that one photograph shows a column of smoke rising from the area where the Dune Hotel is located.
Russian local social media chatter suggested the strike occurred 0400 local time on 11 July.
Some users said the hotel had been completely levelled, affirming earlier comments from the Berdyansk city military administration, currently operating from Ukraine-controlled territory.
Although there is no confirmation that a Storm Shadow cruise missile was used, the UK government said in May that it had donated an undisclosed number of the missiles to Ukraine.
The Storm Shadow has a range of over 150 miles (240km) - triple that of the missiles Kyiv had previously been using, making it much easier to launch precision strikes.
Ukraine has claimed attacks on Russia's military commanders in Berdyansk before, however, there was initially some doubt that Lt Gen Tsokov was there.
Russia's defence ministry had given no official announcement that he had been promoted from his role as commander of the 144th Motorised Infantry Division in eastern Ukraine, to deputy commander of Russia's Southern Military District.
The military district has a far larger remit, including areas of southern Russia as well as occupied areas of Ukraine. The defence ministry has either been slow to detail changes in command or it has simply avoided announcing them altogether. | Europe Politics |
Religious discrimination in India, the world's largest democracy, has reached a "frightening" level, and some experts warn that the country must change its course or face targeted sanctions from the U.S. government.
"India has done better in the past and has to change course because the cycle of downward spiral in a country of that importance and the number of people who are involved. It is quite frightening," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, told lawmakers on Tuesday.
"Religious discrimination should not be a matter of national pride," he said.
The USCIRF has recommended that India, along with Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria and Vietnam, be added to the U.S. government's list of Countries of Particular Concern, or CPC, because of the worsening limits on religious freedom in these countries.
It also has called for targeted economic and travel sanctions against Indian government agencies and officials that are allegedly involved in violation of religious freedom.
The scathing criticism comes only weeks after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress.
In 2005, the U.S. State Department revoked Modi's tourist/business visa because of his alleged role in religious and communal violence in the Indian Gujarat state in 2002.
"So, we're hoping that now that the trip has taken place and the victory lap has been earned and taken, there will be a serious review," Cooper said.
Human rights groups have accused Modi's government of fostering discriminatory religious nationalism targeting Muslim, Christian and Sikh religious minorities.
Amid recurrent incidents of religiously inspired violence, 12 out of 28 states in India have passed legislation criminalizing religious conversion.
Under review
Known for his disdain for news conferences, Modi nonetheless appeared at a joint news conference with President Joe Biden at the White House on June 22 where he was asked about discrimination against religious minorities by his government.
"I'm actually really surprised that people say so," Modi responded, adding that India is governed under a constitutional democratic order.
"There's absolutely no space for discrimination," he emphasized.
Last year, the U.S. government did not list India as a country of particular concern despite a USCIRF recommendation to do so.
"We are beginning our process for determining [CPC] designations this year," Rashad Hussain, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom at the U.S. State Department, told the congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Hussain did not specifically say whether India would be designated a CPC this year.
The United States and India, both considering China as a strategic challenge, have expanded bilateral economic, military and political relations. With $120 billion in trade in 2022, the United States has become India's largest trading partner.
Global concerns
U.S. lawmakers express concerns about the worsening state of religious freedom worldwide, ranging from China to Nicaragua.
"Today, I am more concerned than ever about the further deterioration of religious freedom," said Representative Christopher Smith, pointing out that about half of the world's population is unable to practice faith freely.
Some lawmakers accused China of committing "genocide" against religious minorities, particularly the Uyghur Muslims — allegations the Chinese government has repeatedly denied.
While lawmakers called on the State Department to hold the perpetrator regimes accountable, experts said the U.S. should adopt a holistic approach and avoid worsening the plight of vulnerable religious communities in different parts of the world.
"It's critical [for] the U.S. to support vulnerable communities … Uyghurs in China, atheists in Pakistan and Baháʼís in Iran," said Susan Hayward, associate director of religion and public life at Harvard Divinity School.
"U.S. advocacy for religious freedom must be conflict-sensitive, so as not to render already vulnerable communities more vulnerable nor exacerbate religious dimensions of conflict," Hayward said. | India Politics |
On the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington this summer, a few Black queer advocates spoke passionately before the main program about the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. As some of them got up to speak, the crowd was still noticeably small.
Hope Giselle, a speaker who is Black and trans, said she felt the event's programming echoed the historical marginalization and erasure of Black queer activists in the Civil Rights Movement. However, she was buoyed by the fact that prominent speakers drew attention to recent efforts to turn back the clock on LGBTQ+ rights, like the attacks on gender-affirming care for minors.
And despite valid concerns around the visibility of Black queer advocates in activist movements, progress is being made in elected office. This month, Sen. Laphonza Butler made history as the first Black and openly lesbian senator in Congress, when California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to fill the seat held by the late Dianne Feinstein.
Rectifying the erasure of Black queer civil rights giants requires a full-throated acknowledgment of their legacies, and an increase of Black LGBTQ+ representation in advocacy and politics, several activists and lawmakers told The Associated Press.
"One of the things that I need for people to understand is that the Black queer community is still Black," and face anti-Black racism as well as homophobia and transphobia, said Giselle, communications director for the GSA Network, a nonprofit that helps students form gay-straight alliance clubs in schools.
"On top of being Black and queer, we have to also then distinguish what it means to be queer in a world that thinks that queerness is adjacent to whiteness — and that queerness saves you from racism. It does not," she said.
In an interview with the AP, Butler said she hopes that her appointment points toward progress in the larger cause of representation.
"It's too early to tell. But what I know is that history will be recorded in our National Archives, the representation that I bring to the United States Senate," she said last week. "I am not shy or bashful about who I am and who my family is. So, my hope is that I have lived out loud enough to overcome the tactics of today."
"But we don't know yet what the tactics of erasure are for tomorrow," Butler said.
Butler is a bellwether of increased visibility of queer communities in politics in recent years. In fact Black LGBTQ+ political representation has grown by 186% since 2019, according to a 2023 report by the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. That included the election of former Rep. Mondaire Jones and Rep. Ritchie Torres, both of New York, who were the first openly gay Black and Afro-Latino congressmen after the 2020 election, as well as former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
These leaders stand on the shoulders of civil rights heroes such as Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, and Audre Lorde. In accounts of their contributions to the Civil Rights and feminist movements, their Blackness is typically amplified while their queer identities are often minimized or even erased, said David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a LGBTQ+ civil rights group.
Rustin, who was an adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a pivotal architect of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, is a glaring example. The march he helped lead tilled the ground for the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation in the next few years.
But the fact that he was gay is often reduced to a footnote rather than treated as a key part of his involvement, Johns said.
"We need to teach our public school students history, herstory, our beautifully diverse ways of being, without censorship," he said.
An upcoming biopic of Rustin's life will undoubtedly help thrust the topic of Black LGBTQ+ political representation into the public conversation, said Shay Franco-Clausen, a city planning commissioner in Hayward, California.
"I didn't even learn about those same leaders, Black leaders, Black queer leaders until I got to college," she said.
The film, titled Rustin, debuts in select theaters Nov. 3 and on Netflix on Nov. 17.
Some believe the erasure of Black LGBTQ+ leaders stems from respectability politics, a strategy in some marginalized communities of ostracizing or punishing members who don't assimilate into the dominant culture.
White supremacist ideology in Christianity, which has been used more broadly to justify racism and systemic oppression, has also promoted the erasure of Black queer history. The Black Christian church was integral to the success of the Civil Rights Movement, but it is also "theologically hostile" to LGBTQ+ communities, said Don Abram, executive director of Pride in the Pews.
"I think it's the co-optation of religious practices by white supremacists to actually subjugate Black, queer, and trans folk," Abram said. "They are largely using moralistic language, theological language, religious language to justify them oppressing queer and trans folk."
Not all queer advocacy communities have been welcoming to Black LGBTQ+ voices. Minneapolis City Council President Andrea Jenkins said she is just as intentional in amplifying queer visibility in Black spaces as she is amplifying Blackness in majority white, queer spaces.
"We need to have more Black, queer, transgender, nonconforming identified people in these political spaces to aid and bridge those gaps," Jenkins said. "It's important to be able to create the kinds of awareness on both sides of the issue that can bring people together and that can ensure that we do have full participation from our community."
Black LGBTQ+ leaders are also using their platforms to create awareness about groundbreaking historical figures, especially Rustin. Maryland Delegate Gabriel Acevero and several LGBTQ+ advocates fought to get the only elementary school in his district named after Rustin in 2018. He has also urged Congress to pass legislation to create a U.S. Postal Service stamp depicting Rustin.
"Black queer folks have contributed to so many movements that we do not get acknowledgment for," Acevero said. "And this is why we should not only ensure that our elders get their flowers, but we should push to have their names and statues built ... so that they are not forgotten." | Human Rights |
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military says it fired warning shots to repel a North Korean patrol vessel that temporarily crossed the countries’ disputed western sea boundary while chasing a Chinese fishing boat.
The North Korean patrol boat crossed the so-called Northern Limit Line at around 11 a.m. Saturday while pursuing the Chinese boat in waters near South Korea’s Baekryeong island but immediately retreated after a South Korean naval vessel fired warning shots, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday.
While there were no exchanges of fire between the North and South Korean vessels, the South Korean high-speed vessel collided with the Chinese boat as it responded to the intrusion amid poor visibility, causing bruises and other minor injuries to some of the South Korean sailors.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean military is closely monitoring North Korean military activities while preparing for various possibilities of provocations.
South Korea’s navy has often fired warning shots to repel North Korean vessels crossing the countries’ poorly marked sea border, but there also have been some deadly clashes over the years. South Korea blamed North Korea for an attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors in 2010, but the North has denied responsibility.
Saturday’s intrusion came amid heightened tensions in the region as the pace of both North Korea’s weapons demonstrations and the U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises aimed at countering the North Korean threat have intensified in a cycle of tit-for-tat.
READ MORE: North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as U.S. sends aircraft carrier
The South Korean and U.S. militaries will conduct another large-scale joint exercise from next week involving some 110 warplanes, including advanced F-35 fighter jets. Seoul’s Defense Ministry said the aerial drills, which will be begin Monday and continue through April 28, are aimed at sharpening combined operational abilities and demonstrating the allies’ joint defense posture in the face of North Korean threats.
North Korea last week staged one of its most provocative military displays in years by test-launching what it described as a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, which if perfected could potentially give the North a more powerful and harder-to-detect weapon targeting the mainland United States.
South Korean officials also say North Korea has not been responding to South Korean calls on a set of cross-border inter-Korean hotlines for more than a week, which raises concerns about potential kinetic provocations as communications on those channels are meant to prevent accidental clashes along the rivals’ sea borders.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries conducted their biggest field exercises in years last month and separately held joint naval and air force drills involving a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group and nuclear-capable U.S. bombers. The exercises prompted fierce protests from the North, which describes those drills as invasion rehearsals while continuously using them as a pretext to push forward its own weapons development.
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has test-fired more than 100 missiles into the sea, including three different types of ICBMs and various shorter-range missiles it describes as battlefield nuclear weapons, as it tries to display a dual ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both the U.S. mainland and South Korea.
South Korea has patrolled waters around the Northern Limit Line for decades after it was drawn up by the U.N. command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea does not recognize the line and insists upon a boundary that encroaches deeply into waters currently controlled by the South.
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Ukraine says it has liberated three villages in the south-east of the country in the first victories of its much-anticipated counter-offensive.
Footage on social media showed Ukrainian troops celebrating in the neighbouring settlements of Blahodatne and Neskuchne in the Donetsk region.
Kyiv's deputy defence minister said nearby Makarivka was also taken.
On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the counter-offensive had begun.
These three settlements would be the first liberated since his comments, but not the first that Ukraine has recaptured since Monday, when pockets of its forces began to advance in the country's south.
Moscow has yet to confirm the fall of any of the villages, instead speaking of repelling Ukrainian assaults in the region.
Elsewhere, Ukraine says Russia has blown up another dam in the Zaporizhzhia region, following the destruction of the major Nova Kakhovka on Monday, which caused widespread flooding.
Ukraine says the dam was blown up by Russian forces, who have controlled it since February 2022.
Valeriy Shershen, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military, said Moscow's forces had chosen to blow up a second dam near the village of Novodarivka, which "led to the flooding on both banks of the Mokri Yaly river".
Mr Shershen said Russia was deliberately blowing up dams in the region to halt Ukraine's advance towards occupied areas.
Russia has denied it blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam and has blamed Ukraine instead.
'Under the Ukrainian flag again'
In footage shared by pro-Ukrainian accounts on social media, troops could be seen raising the Ukrainian flag outside a burned out building in Blahodatne.
And the state border guard published videos showing Kyiv's forces announcing that "Neskuchne of the Donetsk region is under the Ukrainian flag again", before shouting the now standard battle cry of "Glory to Ukraine".
Meanwhile, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar claimed in a Telegram video that Ukraine's forces had also taken the village of Makarivka.
An army spokesperson said the gains were the first localised victories of the counter-offensive.
While the capture of the three villages mark the biggest advances of recent days, the settlements are relatively small. Blahodatne had a pre-war population of just 1,000 residents.
The village, which has been the centre of intense fighting in recent days, sits on the road towards the city of Mariupol, and some analysts have suggested that Ukraine could seek to recapture the port city in the coming months.
Others have speculated that Kyiv wants to break the land bridge between occupied Crimea and Donetsk, isolating Russian troops on the peninsula.
Further east, Ukrainian troops are also said to have advanced near the ruined city of Bakhmut, the scene of a long and bloody battle between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops.
Senior officials in Kyiv have refused to comment on the specifics of the advance.
Ukraine's enigmatic head of intelligence Kyrylo Budanov released a video on Sunday repeating the catchphrase "plans love silence", which has symbolised the secrecy behind the counteroffensive.
The extent of Ukraine's operations remain unclear, but the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Saturday that Kyiv's forces were attacking in at least four front-line areas.
Ukraine has suffered some setbacks when probing Russian fortifications. A group of Ukrainian soldiers told the AFP news agency that they had lost several new American-made Bradley fighting vehicles in an attack in the southeast of Zaporizhzhia province on Thursday.
Six of the nine vehicles were wrecked, they said, adding that they feared someone had leaked information on their plans.
Analysts have highlighted the difficulties Ukraine faces in trying to pierce lines that Russia has been fortifying for months.
But in other areas Kyiv's troops are said to have breached the front lines in mechanised attacks over the weekend, with German Leopard-2 tanks said to have been deployed.
Meanwhile in Russia's Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, rail traffic was suspended after a freight train derailed on Saturday night. Belgorod's border areas have been hit by drones, shelling and cross-border raids in the past weeks.
Further north, the governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, said there had been two drone crashes - one near the village of Strelkovk and the other in a forest.
The BBC has not independently verified the incidents.
Additional reporting by Paul Adams. | Europe Politics |
Mexican authorities have announced that a series of roadside bombs in the western state of Jalisco have killed six security officials and injured 12 people, drawing attention to the country’s struggles with security and powerful criminal groups.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro called the overnight explosions a “brutal act of terror”. He blamed the act on an unnamed drug trafficking group.
“This is an unprecedented act that shows what these drug cartels are capable of,” Alfaro wrote earlier on social media. “This attack also represents an open challenge to the Mexican government on all levels.”
Alfaro stated that the attack took place after an anonymous caller told a volunteer search group helping locate the bodies of disappeared people that there was a hidden burial site near a road in Tlajomulco, near Jalisco’s capital of Guadalajara.
Eight improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were set up on the road, seven of which detonated as a police convoy passed.
“It was a trap,” Alfaro said, adding that he was temporarily halting police escorts for volunteer search groups.
Those killed in the attack include police officers and prosecutors agents. No members of the volunteer group appear to have been killed.
The incident is the latest to underscore the challenge that criminal groups pose to security in Mexico, where they wield substantial power.
The state where Tuesday late-night explosions took place is home to the Jalisco New Generation drug-trafficking group, a powerful organisation that frequently spars with other criminal groups.
The Jalisco group has been blamed for previous attacks using IEDs and bomb-carrying drones, a testament to the sophistication and deadly ingenuity of such groups.
In 2022, IEDs injured 10 soldiers and killed a civilian in the neighbouring state of Michoacan, and a suspected car bomb wounded several members of the National Guard in the state of Guanajuato last month.
More than 110,000 people remain missing in Mexico, a country where both state forces and criminal groups have long histories of carrying out enforced disappearances and rights abuses.
State security forces are sometimes entangled with the gangs they are tasked with combating. In February, for instance, the country’s former public security chief was found guilty of accepting bribes from drug-trafficking groups.
Tuesday’s attack is a blow to volunteer groups that attempt to locate the disappeared. Many of the volunteers are often mothers and relatives of the missing, and their groups sometimes rely on anonymous tips to find hidden burial sites.
Six volunteer activists have been killed in Mexico since 2021. | Latin America Politics |
Just before she left for school on the afternoon of 16 September last year, nine year-old Zin Nwe Phyo was thrilled to be given a new pair of sandals by her uncle.
She made him a cup of coffee, put on the shoes and headed off to school, a 10-minute walk away in the village of Let Yet Kone in central Myanmar. Shortly afterwards, her uncle recalls, he saw two helicopters circling over the village. Suddenly they started shooting.
Zin Nwe Phyo and her classmates had just arrived at the school and were settling down with their teachers, when someone shouted that the aircraft were coming their way.
They began running for cover, terrified and crying out for help, as rockets and ammunition struck the school.
"We did not know what to do," said one teacher, who had been inside a classroom when the air strikes began. "At first I did not hear the sound of the helicopter, I heard the bullets and bombs hitting the school grounds."
"Children inside the main school building were hit by the weapons and began running outside, trying to hide," said another teacher. With her class she managed to hide behind a big tamarind tree.
"They fired right through the school walls, hitting the children," said one eyewitness. "Pieces flying out of the main building injured children in the next building. There were big holes blown out of the ground floor."
Their attackers were two Russian-made Mi-35 helicopter gunships, nicknamed "flying tanks" or "crocodiles" because of their sinister appearance and protective armour. They carry a formidable array of weapons, including powerful rapid-fire cannon, and pods that fire multiple rockets, which are devastating to people, vehicles and all but the strongest buildings.
In the two years since Myanmar's military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, air strikes like this have become a new and deadly tactic in a civil war that is now a brutal stalemate across much of the country, conducted by an air force which has in recent years grown to about 70 aircraft, mostly Russian and Chinese-made.
It's hard to estimate how many have died in such air attacks because access to much of Myanmar is now impossible, making the conflict's true toll largely invisible to the outside world. The BBC spoke to eyewitnesses, villagers and families over a series of phone calls to find out how the attack on the school unfolded.
The firing continued for around 30 minutes, eyewitnesses said, tearing chunks out of the walls and roofs.
Then soldiers, who had landed in two other helicopters nearby, marched in, some still shooting, and ordered the survivors to come out and squat on the ground. They were warned not to look up, or they would be killed. The soldiers began questioning them about the presence of any opposition forces in the village.
Inside the main school building three children lay dead. One was Zin Nwe Phyo. Another was seven-year-old Su Yati Hlaing - she and her older sister were being brought up by their grandmother. Their parents, like so many in this region, had moved to Thailand to seek work. Others were horribly injured, some missing limbs. Among them was Phone Tay Za, also seven years old, crying out in pain.
The soldiers used plastic bin liners to collect body parts. At least 12 wounded children and teachers were loaded on to two trucks commandeered by the military and driven away to the nearest hospital in the town of Ye-U. Two of the children later died. In the fields skirting the village, a teenage boy and six adults had been shot dead by the soldiers.
This is a country that has long been at war with itself. The Burmese armed forces have been fighting various insurgent groups since independence in 1948. But these conflicts were low-tech affairs, involving mainly ground troops in an endless tussle for territory in contested border regions. They were often little different from the trench warfare of a century ago.
It was in 2012 in Kachin state - just after the air force had obtained its first Mi-35 gunship - that the military first used aerial weapons extensively against insurgents. Air strikes were also used in some of the other internal conflicts which kept burning throughout Myanmar's 10-year democratic interlude, in Shan and Rakhine states.
However, since the February 2021 coup, the army has suffered heavy casualties in road ambushes carried out by the hundreds of so-called People's Defence Forces, or PDFs - volunteer militias that were established after the junta crushed peaceful protests against the coup.
So it has relied on air support - bombing by aircraft suitable for ground attack; or air mobile operations like the one at Let Yet Kone, where gunships blast targets before soldiers arrive to kill or capture any opposition forces they find.
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There were at least 600 air attacks by the military between February 2021 and January 2023, according to a BBC analysis of data from the conflict-monitoring group Acled (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project).
Casualties from these strikes are difficult to estimate. According to the clandestine National Unity Government or NUG, which leads opposition to the military regime, air attacks by the armed forces killed 155 civilians between October 2021 and September 2022.
The resistance groups are poorly armed, with no capacity to fight back against the air strikes. They have adapted consumer drones to launch their own air attacks, dropping small explosives on military vehicles and guard posts, but to limited effect.
It is not clear why Let Yet Kone was targeted by the army. It is a poor village of around 3,000 inhabitants, most of them rice or groundnut farmers, set in the scrubby brown landscape of central Myanmar's dry zone, where water is scarce outside of the monsoon season.
It is in a district called Depayin where resistance to the coup has been strong. Depayin has seen many armed clashes between the army and PDFs, although not, according to residents, in Let Yet Kone. At least 112 of the 268 attacks recorded by the NUG were in southern Sagaing, where Depayin is located.
A spokesman for the military government said after the school attack that soldiers had gone to the village to check the reported presence of fighters from a PDF and from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and that they had come under fire from the school. This account is contradicted by every eyewitness who spoke to the BBC. The military has produced no evidence of insurgent activity at the school.
The school had been set up only three months earlier in the Buddhist monastery at the northern edge of the village. It taught around 240 pupils. Residents told the BBC that it is one of more than 100 schools in Depayin which are now being run by communities opposing military rule.
Teachers and health workers were among the earliest supporters of the civil disobedience movement. In one of the first and most widely-supported acts of defiance against the coup, state workers vowed to withdraw all co-operation with the new military government. As a result a lot of schools and health centres are now being run by communities, not the government.
Phone Tay Za's mother says she heard the shooting and explosions start about 30 minutes after she had seen her son off to school. But, like Zin Nwe Phyo's uncle, she assumed it could not be the target of the helicopter gunships.
"After the sound of the heavy guns firing died down I headed toward the school," she said. "I saw children and adults squatting on the ground with their heads lowered. The soldiers were kicking those who turned their heads up."
She begged the soldiers to let her look for her son. They refused. "You people care when your own get shot," one told her, "but not when it happens to us."
Then she heard Phone Tay Za calling out to her, and they let her go to him inside the ruined classroom.
"I found him in a pool of blood with eyes blinking slowly. He said, 'mom, just kill me please.' I told him he would be fine. 'You will not die'."
"I cried my heart out, shouting 'how dare you do this to my son'. The whole monastery compound was in absolute silence. When I shouted, it echoed through the buildings. A soldier yelled at me not to scream like that and told me to stay still where I was. So I sat there in the classroom for about 45 minutes with my child in my arms. I saw three children's dead bodies there. I did not know whose children they were. I could not look at their faces."
Phone Tay Za died shortly afterwards. The soldiers refused to let his mother keep his body and took it away. The bodies of Zin Nwe Phyo and Su Yati Hlaing were also taken by the military, before their families could see them, and later secretly cremated.
A thousand kilometres away in Thailand Su Yati Hlaing's parents were working their shifts in the electronic components factory when they heard that the military had attacked their village.
"My wife and I were in agony. We could not concentrate on our work anymore," her father said.
"It was around 2:30 in the afternoon so we could not leave. We kept working, with heavy hearts. Colleagues asked us if we were ok. My wife could not hold her tears anymore and started crying. We decided to not do the usual overtime that day and asked our team leader to go back to our room."
Later that evening they got a call from Su Yati Hlaing's grandmother telling them she had been killed.
The attack in Let Yet Kone drew international rebuke and horror, but the air strikes continued.
On 23 October air force jets bombed a concert in Kachin State commemorating the anniversary of the start of the KIA insurgency.
Survivors say three huge explosions ripped through the large crowd which had gathered for the event, killing 60 people, including senior KIA commanders and a popular Kachin singer. Many more are thought to have died in the following days after the army blocked the evacuation of those who had been seriously injured in the attack.
At the other end of the country the air force bombed a lead mine in southern Karen State, close to the border with Thailand, on 15 November, killing three miners and injuring eight others. The junta spokesman justified the attack on the grounds that the mining was illegal, and in an area controlled by the insurgent Karen National Union.
And only last month, the air force bombed the main base of the insurgent Chin National Front, next to the border with India. It also launched air strikes which hit two churches in Karen State, killing five non-combatants.
This increased capacity for aerial warfare is being sustained by continued support from Russia and China after the coup, despite many other governments ostracising Myanmar's military regime.
Russia, in particular, has stepped up to become its strongest foreign backer. Russian equipment, like the Mi-35 and the agile Yak-130 ground attack jets, are central to the air campaign against insurgents. China has recently supplied Myanmar with modern FTC-2000 trainers, aircraft which are also well-suited for a ground attack.
The high death toll in such attacks has drawn the attention of war crimes investigators. The Myanmar armed forces have often been accused of such crimes in the past - often abuses by ground troops, particularly against the Rohingyas in 2017. But the use of air power brings with it new types of atrocities.
For the survivors of Let Yet Kone, the nightmare did not end on 16 September.
They say many of the children and some of the adults are still traumatised by what they saw that day. The military has continued to target their village, attacking it again three more times, and burning down many of the houses.
This is a poor community. They do not have the resources to rebuild, and in any case they do not know when the soldiers will be back to burn them again.
"Children are everything for their parents," says one local militia leader. "By killing our children, the military has crushed them mentally. And I must say they have succeeded. Even for me, I will need a lot of motivation to carry on the revolutionary fight now."
Su Yati Hlaing's parents are still in Thailand, unable to return after their daughter's death. They cannot afford the cost of the journey, nor the risk of losing the factory jobs they had always hoped would give their little girl a better life.
"There were many things I had imagined," says her mother. "I imagined that when I finally went back I would live happily with my daughters, I would cook for them, whatever they wanted. I had so many dreams. I wanted them to be wise and educated, as much as we, their parents, are uneducated. They were just about to begin their journey. My daughter did not even get our affection and warmth closely, because we were away so long. Now, she is gone for forever."
The BBC analysed attack data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), which collects reports of incidents related to political violence and protests around the world. Aerial attacks have been defined as conflict events involving aircraft in specific locations either during an armed clash or as an independent strike. The data covers the period 1 February 2021 to 20 January 2023.
Additional reporting: BBC Burmese
Data analysis: Becky Dale
Production: Lulu Luo, Dominic Bailey
Design: Lilly Huynh | Asia Politics |
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, its neighbors said, ramping up testing activities in response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.
The North’s continuation of missile tests showed its determination not to back down despite the U.S.-South Korea exercises, which are the biggest of their kind in years. But many experts say the tests are also part of North Korea’s bigger objective to expand its weapons arsenal, win global recognition as a nuclear state and get international sanctions lifted.
READ MORE: N. Korea threatens ‘unprecedentedly’ strong response to S. Korea and U.S. military drills
The missile launched from the North’s northwestern Tongchangri area flew across the country before it landed in the waters off its east coast, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. They said the missile traveled a distance of about 800 kilometers (500 miles), a range that suggests the weapon could target South Korea.
The chief nuclear envoys from South Korea, Japan and the U.S. discussed the launch on the phone and strongly condemned it as a provocation that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the region. They agreed to strengthen their coordination to issue a firm international response to the North’s action, according to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.
South Korea’s military said it will thoroughly proceed with the rest of the joint drills with the U.S. and maintain a readiness to “overwhelmingly” respond to any provocation by North Korea. As part of the drills, the U.S. on Sunday flew long-range B-1B bombers for joint training with South Korean warplanes, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.
North Korea is highly sensitive to the deployment of B-1Bs, which are capable of carrying a huge conventional weapons payload. It responded to the February flights of B-1Bs by test-launching missiles that demonstrated potential ranges to strike some air bases in South Korea.
Japanese Vice Defense Minister Toshiro Ino said the missile landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone and there were no reports of damage to vessels or aircraft. He said the missile likely showed an irregular trajectory, a possible reference to North Korea’s highly maneuverable, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile that was modeled on Russia’s Iskander missile.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the latest launch doesn’t pose an immediate threat to the U.S. territory or its allies. But it said the North’s recent launches highlight “the destabilizing impact of its unlawful” weapons programs and that the U.S. security commitment to South Korea and Japan remains “ironclad.”
The launch was the North’s third round of weapons tests since the U.S. and South Korean militaries began their joint military drills last Monday. The drills, which include computer simulations and field exercises, are to continue until Thursday. The field exercises are the biggest of their kind since 2018.
The weapons North Korea recently tested include its longest-range Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the U.S. mainland. The North’s state media quoted leader Kim Jong Un as saying the ICBM launch was meant to “strike fear into the enemies.”
Thursday’s launch, the North’s first ICBM firing in a month, drew strong protests from Seoul, Tokyo and Washington. It was carried out just hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol flew to Tokyo for a closely watched summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
During the summit, Yoon and Kishida agreed to resume their defense dialogue and further strengthen security cooperation with the United States to counter North Korea and address other challenges.
Ties between Seoul and Tokyo suffered a major setback in recent years due to issues stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
But North Korea’s record run of missile tests last year — it launched more than 70 missiles in 2022 alone — pushed Seoul and Tokyo to seek stronger trilateral security partnerships involving Washington, which also wants to reinforce its alliances in Asia to better deal with China’s rise and North Korean nuclear threats.
North Korea has missiles that place Japan within striking distance. Last October, North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile over northern Japan, forcing communities there to issue evacuation alerts and halt trains.
After Sunday’s launch, Kishida ordered a prompt response, including working closely with South Korea and the U.S., according to Ino, the Japanese vice defense minister.
A day before the start of the drills, North Korea also fired cruise missiles from a submarine. The North’s state media said the submarine-launched missile was a demonstration of its resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful” force to the intensifying military maneuvers by “the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces.”
According to South Korean media reports, the U.S. and South Korea plan more training involving a U.S. aircraft carrier later this month after their current exercises end. This suggests animosities on the Korean Peninsula could last a few more weeks as North Korea would also likely respond to those drills with weapons tests.
Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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Israel And Occupied Palestinian Territories 2022
Israel’s continuing oppressive and discriminatory system of governing Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) constituted a system of apartheid, and Israeli officials committed the crime of apartheid under international law. Israeli forces launched a three-day offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip in August during which they committed apparent war crimes. This compounded the impact of a 15-year ongoing Israeli blockade that amounts to illegal collective punishment and further fragments Palestinian territory. Israel escalated its crackdown on Palestinians’ freedom of association. It also imposed arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement and closures that amounted to collective punishment, mainly in the northern West Bank, ostensibly in response to armed attacks by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers and settlers. The year saw a rise in the number of Palestinians unlawfully killed and seriously injured by Israeli forces during raids in the West Bank. Administrative detentions of Palestinians hit a 14-year high, and torture and other ill-treatment continued. Israeli forces demolished al-Araqib village in the Negev/Naqab for the 211th time. A further 35 Palestinian-Bedouin towns in Israel were still denied formal recognition and residents faced possible forcible transfer. Authorities failed to process asylum claims for thousands of asylum seekers, and imposed restrictions on their right to work.
Background
In March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the OPT determined that the “political system of entrenched rule” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip “satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid”. In November, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing reached the same conclusion in relation to Israel’s policies of home demolitions. Some states, including South Africa, condemned Israeli apartheid, echoing statements by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations. Despite this growing recognition, Israel continued to enjoy impunity thanks to the support of its key allies.
In October, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, concluded that the occupation of the OPT is unlawful due to its permanence and Israel’s measures to annex Palestinian land in law and in practice. In 2022, such measures included retroactive authorization of settlement outposts, including by the Israeli Supreme Court.
In November, Israel held its fifth elections in three years after the collapse of an ideologically diverse coalition government, which continued to discriminate against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. The vote was polarized between those supporting and opposing former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while consensus on maintaining Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories remained. The right-wing bloc, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and a religious-nationalist coalition, secured a majority of seats and formed a government in December.
Apartheid
In February, Amnesty International released a 280-page report showing how Israel was imposing an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it exercised control over their rights, fragmenting and segregating Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the OPT and Palestinian refugees denied the right of return. Through massive seizures of land and property, unlawful killings, infliction of serious injuries, forcible transfers, arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement, and denial of nationality, among other inhuman or inhumane acts, Israeli officials would be responsible for the crime against humanity of apartheid, which falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC.1
In March, Israeli authorities re-enacted the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (temporary order) that imposes sweeping restrictions on Palestinian family unification between Israeli citizens or residents and their spouses from the OPT to maintain a Jewish demographic majority.
In July, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a law authorizing the interior minister to strip citizens of their citizenship if convicted of acts that amount to “breach of allegiance to the state”. Since its enactment in 2008, application of the law has only been considered against Palestinian citizens. On 20 September, the Israeli Appeals Tribunal approved the revocation of stay or temporary residency permits of 10 Palestinians – four children, three women and three men – living in Jerusalem because they are distant relatives of a Palestinian assailant. On 18 December, Israel deported French-Palestinian human rights defender Salah Hammouri following the revocation of his East Jerusalem residency.2
Unlawful attacks and killings
Armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza
On 5 August, Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip targeting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its armed wing, destroying or damaging some 1,700 Palestinian homes and displacing hundreds of civilians. The Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups committed apparent war crimes during the three days of fighting. (See State of Palestine entry.)3
According to the UN, 49 Palestinians were killed, including 31 civilians. Amnesty International established that Israeli forces killed 17 of the civilians, including eight children. Seven civilians, including four children, were killed by a rocket that misfired apparently launched by a Palestinian armed group. On 7 August, an Israeli missile, apparently fired by a drone, hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabalia refugee camp, killing five children and injuring one, in an apparent direct attack on civilians or indiscriminate attack.
West Bank
Israeli forces killed 151 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and injured 9,875, according to OCHA-OPT, amid a surge of military incursions that involved excessive use of force, including unlawful killings and apparent extrajudicial executions.4 Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that Israeli forces or settlers killed 36 children across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
On 11 May, Israeli soldiers killed Shirin Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-US Al Jazeera correspondent, and injured her colleague, while they were covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin Camp. In September, the Israeli authorities admitted that an Israeli soldier “likely” killed the journalist but concluded that no criminal offence had been committed.
Right to truth, justice and reparation
Israeli authorities continued to refuse to cooperate with the investigation by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, despite a 2021 decision by the ICC to initiate an investigation into the situation in Palestine. The authorities also failed to adequately investigate violations and crimes under international law.
Freedom of movement
In the West Bank, 175 permanent checkpoints and other roadblocks, as well as scores of temporary irregular barriers and a draconian permit regime, supported by a repressive biometric surveillance system, continued to control and fragment Palestinian communities.
In October, Israeli authorities placed additional restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank reportedly in response to Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, through sweeping and arbitrary closures that severely disrupted everyday life and amounted to unlawful collective punishment. In April, the Israeli army closed checkpoints into Jenin in a move that appeared designed to stifle Jenin’s businesses and trade with Palestinian citizens of Israel. In October, Israeli forces re-imposed a closure on Jenin and closed off Nablus for three weeks, and Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem for over a week, gravely affecting the freedom of movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians living in those areas and restricting access to medical aid and other essential services.
According to COGAT, a unit of the defence ministry, Israel revoked the permits to work in Israel of 2,500 Palestinians as a means of collective punishment.
A new procedure issued by the Israeli military authorities came into effect in October, restricting the ability of foreign passport holders to live with their Palestinian spouses in the West Bank by limiting their visas to a maximum of six months, requiring couples to request permanent residency status in the West Bank, which is subject to Israeli approval.
In Gaza, the illegal Israeli blockade entered its 16th year. According to Gaza-based human rights organization Al-Mezan, nine patients, including three children, died while waiting for Israeli permits to receive life-saving treatment outside of the Gaza Strip, amid a complex bureaucratic entanglement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas administration.
The only power plant in Gaza was forced to shut for two days in August because of a week-long Israeli closure of all crossings, which prevented the delivery of fuel.
Forced evictions
Tens of thousands of Palestinians remained at risk of forced evictions in Israel and the OPT, including some 5,000 living in shepherding communities in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills. Israeli authorities demolished 952 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, displacing 1,031 Palestinians, and affecting the livelihoods of thousands of others.
On 4 May, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a decision to forcibly transfer over 1,000 residents of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills from their ancestral land, which Israel had designated as “firing zone 918”, a military training zone closed to Palestinian access.
In July, the Israeli Supreme Court legalized the settlement outpost of Mitzpe Kramim, built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, claiming that it was “purchased in good faith”. This reversed its 2020 decision that ordered the government to evacuate the outpost.
According to OCHA, 2022 was the sixth consecutive year that saw an increase in state-backed settler violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, reaching a peak in October during the olive harvest season. The Israeli army and police continued to fail to investigate complaints by Palestinians about such violence.
In Israel, the authorities continued to deny official recognition to 35 Palestinian villages in the Negev/Naqab, depriving them of essential services. In January, the Israeli Land Authority and the Jewish National Fund began planting trees on lands belonging to the village of Saawa al-Atrash in the Negev/Naqab to forcibly transfer its Palestinian population.
In December, Israeli authorities demolished tents and structures in al-Araqib for the 211th time since 2010.
Arbitrary detention
Israeli authorities increased their use of administrative detention, prompting a mass boycott of Israeli military courts by hundreds of detainees including Salah Hammouri, who went on hunger strike together with 29 others in protest at their detention without charge or trial. By 31 December, 866 individuals, all but two of them Palestinians, were administratively detained, the highest number in 14 years.
On 15 April, Israeli police arrested more than 400 Palestinians, including children, journalists and worshippers, during a raid on the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 152 Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets, live ammunition and stun grenades, and were beaten. Most were released after several hours.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Israeli forces continued to subject Palestinian detainees to torture and other ill-treatment. As in previous years, the internal investigation unit of the police, Mahash, failed to properly investigate complaints of torture. On 24 November, the Beersheba District Court extended, by four months, the solitary confinement of Ahmad Manasra, imprisoned as a 13-year-old in 2015 and held in solitary confinement since November 2021, an act that amounts to torture. The same court had rejected in September his appeal for early release on medical grounds despite his severe mental health condition.
Freedom of association and expression
On 18 August, Israeli soldiers raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations in Ramallah, vandalizing equipment, seizing files, and issuing closure orders based on the 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations.5
On 29 September, the Israeli Central Elections Committee disqualified the Palestinian party Balad from running in Israeli parliamentary elections because it called for a “state for all of its citizens”, in violation of Israel’s Basic Law. The Israeli Supreme Court reversed the decision in October.
On 24 November, the Israeli military renewed by 45 days and for the fourth time the detention of four Jewish Israeli teenagers – Einat Gerlitz, Evyatar Moshe Rubin, Nave Shabtay and Shahar Schwartz – who were first imprisoned in September for refusing, on grounds of conscience, to enrol in compulsory military service.
Failure to tackle climate crisis and environmental degradation
On 28 June, the government introduced a climate bill, which proposed to reduce Israel’s greenhouse gas emissions by 27% by 2030. The bill remained pending. Meanwhile, Israel’s military industrial complex, including its August offensive in Gaza, exacerbated environmental damage caused in previous attacks that Israel continued to disregard.
In March, Israeli planes resumed aerial spraying of herbicides on the buffer zone in the Gaza Strip, damaging Palestinian farmland.
LGBTI people’s rights
On 14 February, Israel’s health ministry published a circular banning medical practitioners from conducting medical “conversion therapy” to change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals, but failed to grant it legislative status.
Women’s rights
In Israel, marriage and divorce remained under the exclusive jurisdiction of religious courts, leading to systematic discrimination against women in personal status matters.
Despite legal protections against domestic violence, 24 women were killed by partners or relatives according to the Israeli police. Some 69 women were killed between January 2020 and August 2022. Of the 40 femicides against Palestinian women in Israel during that period, 58% were not resolved by the police while all 29 femicides of Jewish-Israeli women in the same period were resolved.
Refugees’ and migrants’ rights
Israel welcomed tens of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine and allowed thousands of Jewish Ukrainians to settle under the 1950 Law of Return, while continuing to deny Palestinian refugees their right of return.
Israel continued to reject asylum applications of nearly 30,000 African asylum seekers, primarily from Eritrea and Sudan. Following a 2021 court decision, over 2,000 Sudanese asylum seekers from Darfur, Blue Nile and the Nuba mountains were given temporary residence permits, including access to national health insurance and other benefits.
In October, a commission appointed by Israel’s minister of interior concluded that asylum seekers from Darfur and the Nuba mountains were no longer at risk of persecution on ethnic grounds and could be returned safely to Sudan’s capital Khartoum, amid concerns of a possible reversal of Israel’s general non-deportation policy.
Government regulations banning some 20,000 asylum seekers from work in 17 Israeli cities unless they seek employment in construction, agriculture, hospitality and institutional nursing, came into effect in October.
- Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity, 1 February
- “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: A perfect storm of apartheid policies led to Salah Hammouri’s deportation”, 21 December
- “They Were Just Kids: Evidence of War Crimes During Israel’s August 2022 Gaza Offensive”, 25 October
- Israel/OPT: Continuing patterns of unlawful killings and other crimes further entrench apartheid, 11 May
- “Israel/OPT: The stifling of Palestinian civil society organizations must end”, 18 August | Middle East Politics |
(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Afghan schoolgirls pose for a photo in a classroom in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. The country’s Taliban rulers earlier this week ordered women nationwide to stop attending private and public universities effective immediately and until further notice. They have banned girls from middle school and high school, barred women from most fields of employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) The Biden administration is reportedly internally divided over how to address the worsening political, security and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan. The debate essentially boils down to whether the U.S. should continue to let the Taliban dictate the terms of engagement while it eviscerates women’s rights and drags the entire country backward or whether the U.S. should instead set, and enforce, meaningful red lines with real consequences to modify the Taliban’s behavior. It is a debate that has far-reaching consequences, not only for the Afghan people but also for U.S. foreign policy. In recent weeks, the Taliban have become more brazen in their draconian rule over Afghanistan. Since December, the Taliban have imposed additional restrictions on women’s participation in the workforce, education and public spaces. The ban on women working for non-governmental aid agencies has been especially devastating, with many of the largest humanitarian NGOs making the difficult decision to suspend operations pending a change in policy. On Jan. 15, a leading women’s rights advocate and former member of the Afghan parliament, Mursal Nabizada, was gunned down in her home. The Taliban speak of finding the assassins, but this is akin to appointing an arsonist the fire inspector. The Taliban has been emboldened in this arrogant disregard for the norms of civilized behavior by the weakness of American policy. The U.S. has conditioned the Taliban to behave badly without fear of meaningful consequences. In addition to its blatant norm-breaking, the Taliban has violated nearly every tenet of the Doha Agreement, including by continuing to harbor members of al Qaeda, eschewing any form of representative or constitutional government and willfully immiserating the Afghan people. Those concerned about counterterrorism need look no further than the recent ISIS-K attacks to see the Taliban are either impotent, unwilling or both when it comes to stopping terror. Taliban protestations to the contrary, the privation of the Afghan people is not primarily driven by a lack of resources due to Western sanctions or the freezing of Afghan reserves. Since taking power, the Taliban have taxed their way to riches, collecting more than $1 billion in revenue, while the people of Afghanistan live in abject poverty. They have also benefitted from the diversion of humanitarian assistance intended for Afghanistan’s suffering population. Their lack of official recognition and legitimacy has not stopped the Taliban from striking mining and energy deals with U.S. adversaries including China, Russia and Iran. Aid and money continue to flow, as the Biden administration refuses to take punitive actions that could target those driving these destructive policies. What will it take for the U.S. to change direction and ensure there are consequences for the Taliban’s new reign of terror? The U.S. should start by giving the Taliban a taste of their own medicine. If women and women’s empowerment are anathema to the Taliban, then make women their kryptonite. First, the U.S., its allies and partners, United Nations funds and programs, and major humanitarian NGOs should only send women representatives to any meetings and/or negotiations with the Taliban. Likewise, any meetings organized internationally where Taliban representatives are present must also be attended by Afghan women representatives who are given the same status and protocol treatment. The U.S. should also allow the Afghan embassy to reopen and operate without restriction, under the leadership of Ambassador Adela Raz. Second, the U.S. and its partners should establish a grant system for the $3.5 billion Afghan Reserve Fund, with two caveats: First, funds can only be issued through entities that can certify they have no ties (financial or otherwise) to the Taliban; second, preference will be given to women-run organizations for distribution and programming. Following the recent U.N. Security Council statement calling the situation in Afghanistan “deeply alarming,” its next move should be to reinstate Afghanistan’s seat on the Commission for Status of Women, but not with a Taliban representative. Rather, the U.N. should credential one of the many senior women officials who have been forced to flee their homeland, such as former Minister for Women’s Affairs, Hasina Safi, who previously held the seat. Providing independent Afghan women leaders with this forum to speak out on behalf of their sisters living under Taliban rule would back up the Security Council’s denouncement of the Taliban with tangible action. Likewise, the U.S. and like-minded countries should support the U.N.’s credentials committee seating of an independent Afghan woman as a non-Taliban permanent representative in Afghanistan’s seat in the General Assembly. Ambassador Raz, former Deputy Permanent Representative Asila Wardak, or any of the many other Afghan women leaders now in exile could ably fill this post. American universities should also follow the United Kingdom’s lead and expand support for online schooling to ensure every Afghan girl has access to education as the U.S. builds a global coalition to personally sanction any member of the Taliban who is responsible for restricting equal access to educational and employment opportunities for Afghan girls and women of any age. The U.S. already provides administrative and monetary support for e-learning in numerous countries where educational opportunities are limited due to civil unrest or other factors. Additionally, making SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service available for Afghanistan, as has been done in Ukraine, would give women and girls access to these opportunities without relying on services currently under Taliban control. Finally, social media companies such as Twitter should implement a policy to identify and label members of the Taliban on their platforms, much as they do with other problematic account holders such as those who spread disinformation or foment violence and ban those who have been sanctioned by the United States, the U.N., or other credible authorities. Any account purporting to represent the Taliban should be automatically ineligible for Twitter verification as well. The Biden administration would make this task both easier and more compelling by formally designating the Taliban a Foreign Terrorist Organization, instead of pretending they are a U.S. counterterrorism partner. These recommendations are just a few of the necessary but insufficient steps the U.S. can take to show the Taliban that there is a price to be paid for its outrageous behavior. The U.S. and its allies must be clear through action, rather than just words, that Afghan women have rights that must be respected, and that the Taliban are not the legitimate representative of the Afghan people or the Afghan state. It is past time for the Biden administration to stop conditioning the Taliban to believe that the U.S. and its allies will keep rewarding their bad behavior with more concessions and complacency. Instead, we must start treating them like the aberrant criminals they are and do everything we can to weaponize their own misogyny against them. Failing to do what can be done for Afghan women is not only a missed opportunity to use an effective foreign policy strategy; it is also a gross moral failure, consigning a generation of Afghans to avoidable ignorance, deprivation and violence. While the Biden team understandably wants to avoid talking about Afghanistan, ignoring the problem through inaction and stasis will not relieve them of the harsh judgment of history. Rather, it will only make that judgment more severe. Kelley E. Currie is an international human rights lawyer and former U.S. State Department official. Amy K. Mitchell is a former senior advisor for the office of Global Women’s Issues and a former senior government official at the Departments of State and Defense. | Middle East Politics |
Videos shared on social media show Abdul Bari Omar, the director of Afghanistan's food and drug authority, speaking at the mosque on Thursday.
Germany's Foreign Ministry said it had not been informed about Omar's visit to the country and said it had not issued his visa.
"We strongly condemn the appearance of Taliban representative Abdul Bari Omar in Cologne," the Foreign Ministry said on social media on Friday.
"We are examining further measures in close dialogue with the interior authorities and partners."
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also criticized the incident, saying on Saturday that "nobody is allowed to offer radical Islamists a stage in Germany."
"We protect many refugees from Afghanistan from the oppression of the Taliban," she said. "Their functionaries have no business in Germany."
What do we know about the event?
Omar attended an event at the Chorweiler Mosque in the north of Cologne. The mosque belongs to the umbrella organization DITIB.
DITIB said it had allowed the local Afghan Cultural Association to organize a religious event.
"Contrary to the contractual agreement, it became a political event to which a speaker unknown to us was invited," said the local DITIB branch.
"We are deeply disappointed that our trust was exploited in this way," the organization added.
DITIB said that the Afghan Cultural Association has now been banned from the premises.
Prior to visiting Germany, Omar was in the Netherlands where he attended a World Health Organization conference in the Hague.
At the event, he was photographed alongside Dutch Health Minister Ernst Kuipers.
Following the scandal in Germany, Kuipers said he regretted the photo and added that he did not realize who Omar was at the time.
German authorities condemn Taliban representative
Serap Güler, a member of Germany's federal parliament from Cologne who is also on the parliamentary commission into the Afghanistan mission, said she was "stunned" by the incident.
"All the details of this matter must now be fully clarified," she told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
A spokesperson for the North Rhine-Westphalia administration also condemned the incident.
"The fact that members of a radical organization such as the Taliban are spreading their ideologies unfiltered on German soil is an unspeakable act," they told the city's Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper.
Germany's Foreign Ministry also said there would be no normalization with Taliban authorities if they continue to "exclude half of the Afghan population from participating in society and blatantly trample on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls."
zc/sms (dpa, epd, KNA)
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Congress On Course To Form Government In Telangana, Revanth Reddy Could Be State's Second CM
Telangana becomes the second southern state in Congress' kitty in 2023, after it emerged triumphant in Karnataka in May.
The Congress was on its way to achieve the magic mark of 60 seats on Sunday to form the first non-BRS government in Telangana, with the southern solace coming in the midst of a saffron sweep of the Hindi heartland where BJP wrested two states from its rival and retained one.
Telangana becomes the second southern state in Congress' kitty in 2023, after it emerged triumphant in Karnataka in May.
Having registered a virtually unassailable lead against the ruling BRS, the Mallikarjun Kharge-led party won 47 seats and was ahead in another 17, according to latest Election Commission figures.
The BRS, which has 101 members in the outgoing Assembly, emerged victorious in 22 and was leading in 17 others.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao submitted his resignation with the Governor following his party's poor performance.
Anumula Revanth Reddy, who led the Congress' charge, finds himself on the brink of a potential chief ministership. The 56 year-old leader met top police officials of the state and discussed the security arrangements for the swearing-in ceremony, likely on Dec. 4 or 9.
He welcomed the people's mandate in favour of the national party while BRS expressed disappointment over its failure to ensure a hattrick.
The KCR-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti formed the maiden government of the newly carved out Telangana in 2014 and emerged victorious in 2018 as well.
"It is a people's mandate. We need not (do) a postmortem. Everything goes well, then only you will get that magic number. The simple point is that they (people) wanted to change. They wanted to defeat KCR (CM Rao). They have defeated KCR. That's all," Reddy told reporters.
Reddy said the people have decided the role of the opposition, and Congress expects the BRS's cooperation in order to fulfil the people's aspirations.
"To revive democratic values, we are expecting that the BRS will come forward," he said.
It is the party's responsibility to fulfil Telangana people's aspirations after forming the government in the state, he said.
BRS working president and KCR's son K T Rama Rao said the assembly poll results were 'disappointing' though he was not "saddened".
"Grateful to the people of Telangana for giving @BRSparty two consecutive terms of Government. Not saddened over the result today, but surely disappointed as it was not in expected lines for us. But we will take this in our stride as a learning and will bounce back," he said.
"Congratulations to Congress party on winning the mandate. Wishing you Good Luck," the BRS leader further said.
Factors such as anti-incumbency, voter fatigue, and dissatisfaction among the youth contributed mainly to the poor showing of BRS.
Despite the towering image of CM KCR, along with the party's extensive grassroots network and welfare programmes, the perceived inaccessibility of its leaders contributed to the growing anti-incumbency sentiments.
Additionally, the opposition projection of what they called the BRS family rule in the state further exacerbated this sentiment.
The Congress had mounted a spirited election campaign with a view to unseat BRS, even as the BJP also launched a no holds-barred attack against the ruling dispensation.
The BJP bettered its tally, winning 6 seats and leading in 2 other segments, according to an EC update. It has 3 members in the outgoing Assembly. AIMIM won 5 seats and was leading in 2.
The Congress' good show sparked off celebrations by party workers.
Jubilant mood prevailed at the residence of Revanth Reddy and the party's state headquarters here.
Celebrations broke out at Gandhi Bhavan, the party office, where overjoyed workers were seen setting off crackers and raising 'Jai Congress' and 'Revanth Anna Zindabad' slogans.
Security was also stepped up at Revanth Reddy's residence with additional police personnel being deployed.
While the BRS has 101 members in the outgoing Assembly, AIMIM has 7, Congress 5, BJP 3. The All India Forward Bloc has one legislator. There is one independent while there is one vacancy. | India Politics |
Amid the controversy surrounding a G20 dinner invite that refers to President Droupadi Murmu as the "President of Bharat" instead of "President of India" and the opposition's claim that the Narendra Modi government is planning to change the name of India to Bharat, local media reports in Pakistan say the country may lay claim to the name 'India'.
A tweet from the X handle of South Asia Index read: "Pakistan may lay claim on name "India" if India derecongnises it officially at UN level. - local media."
"Nationalists in Pakistan have long argued that Pakistan has rights on the name as it refers to Indus region in."
An earlier tweet from the handle had claimed that the government in India is set to change the name of the country from India to Bharat in an attempt to "decolonise" India.
It is to be noted that the Indian government has not made any official statement on changing the name of the country.
The handle pointed out that the name Bharat has roots in Sanskrit.
"India refers to Indus region, basin of mighty Indus River, spanning much of modern day Pakistan," it read, adding, "Jinnah had objected to British India adopting "India" as its name for newly independent country & had suggested Hindustan or Bharat instead."
In 1947, a month after India's Independence, Muhammed Ali Jinnah had refused to accept an invitation from Louis Mountbatten to be the honorary president of an art exhibition because the invitation used India instead of Hindustan to refer to the country. âIt is a pity that for some mysterious reason Hindustan have adopted the word âIndiaâ which is certainly misleading and is intended to create confusion,â Jinnah had then written to Mountbatten.
South Asia Index, in the tweet, further claimed that Indian rightwing has long detested name "India."
Meanwhile, former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan claimed that the original name of the country was "unquestionably" Bharat and it was the British that started calling it India. | India Politics |
Israeli police assault Turkish journalists, break their camera with gun
Israeli police obstruct the TRT crew reporting on developments in occupied East Jerusalem, breaking camera with the barrel of a gun.
Israeli police has tried to obstruct Turkish journalists from covering events in occupied East Jerusalem's Old City, with one police officer breaking the journalists’ video camera.
The journalists from national broadcaster TRT news were reporting on Israeli forces blocking and using force against Palestinians heading to Al Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers.
The Israeli police physically interfered with the TRT news team, breaking their camera with the barrel of a gun as they were working to cover events in the volatile region.
Although the camera was damaged, the TRT reporter said they would continue covering ongoing attacks in Palestine. During the live broadcast, Israeli police threw tear gas into the area where the mosque is located.
A TRT correspondent noted how Israel bans gatherings for prayers outside Al Aqsa Mosque, decrying the pervasive obstacles facing peaceful Muslim worshippers.
Türkiye's Altun condemns the attack
Türkiye's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun has condemned the attack carried out by Israeli police targeting TRT journalists.
"Israel continues to violate international law with all its armed elements, from its military to its police, seemingly disregarding rules and principles," Altun wrote on X.
"Certainly, this ugly attack has been added to Israel's record of shame regarding press freedom."
Altun reiterated his country's call for the international community to speak out more against Israel, which continues its massacres without discrimination, targeting infants, women, the elderly, and the disabled, and obstructing the work of journalists.
He also extended good wishes to the TRT family.
İsrail, askerinden polisine tüm silahlı unsurlarıyla uluslararası hukuku çiğnemeye, adeta kural, ilke tanımamaya devam ediyor.— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) November 17, 2023
İsrail polisinin Kudüs'te TRT Haber ekibine saldırısını kınıyorum, TRT ailesine geçmiş olsun dileklerimi iletiyorum.
Hiç kuşkusuz bu çirkin saldırı,…
There have been numerous previous instances of Israeli forces trying to impede TRT crew from reporting in Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem.
This week, Israeli forces once again stood in the way of Friday prayers, imposing restrictions on Palestinians seeking to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem.
The prayers for peace take place as Israel’s recent offensive on Gaza, and a violent crackdown in the occupied West Bank, are over 40 days old.
At least 195 Palestinians have been killed and over 2,500 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on October 7.
At least 11,500 Palestinians have been killed, including around 7,900 women and children, and over 29,800 others injured, according to the latest figures from Palestinian authorities. | Middle East Politics |
Pakistan Dissolves Parliament As Election-Delay Speculation Mounts
Speculation is rife the federal and provincial polls could be shifted to next year.
(Bloomberg) -- Pakistan dissolved the lower house of the parliament as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif moves to hand over power to a caretaker government to lead the South Asian nation to elections that may get delayed due to a new population census.
Speculation is rife the federal and provincial polls could be shifted to next year after Sharif indicated they must be based on new population data showing a 16% increase in the last six years. Government officials have said it could take anywhere from two to six months to redraw constituencies and amend voter lists.
Ahead of the announcement on Wednesday, Sharif told lawmakers his government had to contend with the failures of Imran Khan’s administration after the former cricket star was ousted in no confidence vote last year as prime minister.
“I never had to go through such a difficult test before in my 38 year-long career as the country was mired in a severe economic crisis, oil prices remained high and there was political chaos,” Sharif said, according to local media.
Any delay will help Sharif’s ruling PML-N and allies gain ground among voters after Khan was sentenced to jail last week from hiding the proceeds from the sale of state gifts when he was in power. The firebrand politician, who was picked up last week and sent to a prison outside the capital Islamabad, has topped opinion polls in the past.
Pushing the elections down the road could also buy time for a caretaker administration to follow through with pledges to the International Monetary Fund for a loan to shore up an economy hit by record inflation and borrowing costs.
The focus now turns to naming a interim prime minister, especially if elections are not held within the stipulated 60 days of dissolving the legislature. Sharif told parliament he would meet the leader of the opposition on Thursday to discuss candidates.
Under the constitution, the two of them have to agree on a name within three days and if that fails, they have to submit their picks to a committee made up of government and opposition lawmakers.
Sharif will remain in charge of the country during the process of selecting an interim prime minister. If the committee of parliamentarians also fail to agree on the candidates, the list will be sent to the election commission, which will make a final decision in two days.
Investors are watching to see if the caretaker government will stick to the policies agreed with the IMF ahead of the elections given previous administrations have resorted to populist measures to win votes. Pakistan’s dollar bonds due 2031 advanced a third day on Thursday. The notes were indicated 0.2 cents higher to 50.50 cents on the dollar.
Pakistan has seen its National Assembly complete a five-year term just three times in its 76-year history though some commentators say there’s now growing distrust in the electoral system.
The elections are intended to bring an end to political volatility weighing on Pakistan since Khan’s ouster in April 2022. His party has come under a crackdown after Khan’s earlier arrest in May brought his supporters to the streets and triggered widespread protests and damage to state-owned property.
“The period of uncertainty which is very detrimental to the economy and the overall situation will extend,” Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency in Islamabad. “It will shake, to an extent, the public trust on the system and create disillusionment.”
--With assistance from Karl Lester M. Yap.
(Updates throughout)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Asia Politics |
A Philippine radio anchor is fatally shot while on Facebook livestream watched by followers
A radio anchor has been fatally shot by a man inside his southern Philippine station in a brazen attack that was witnessed by people watching the program live on Facebook
MANILA, Philippines -- A radio anchor was fatally shot by a man inside his southern Philippine station Sunday in a brazen attack that was witnessed by people watching the program live on Facebook.
The gunman gained entry into the home-based radio station of provincial news broadcaster Juan Jumalon by pretending to be a listener. He then shot him twice during a live morning broadcast in Calamba town in Misamis Occidental province, police said.
The attacker snatched the victim’s gold necklace before fleeing with a companion, who waited outside Jumalon’s house, onboard a motorcycle, police said. An investigation was underway to identify the gunman and establish if the attack was work-related.
The Philippines has long been regarded as one of the most dangerous places for journalists in the world.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. strongly condemned the shooting and said he ordered the national police to track down, arrest and prosecute the killers.
"Attacks on journalists will not be tolerated in our democracy and those who threaten the freedom of the press will face the full consequences of their actions,” Marcos said in a statement.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, a press freedom watchdog, said Jumalon was the 199th journalist to be killed in the country since 1986, when democracy returned after a “People Power” uprising toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the father of the current president, and forced him and his family into U.S. exile.
"The attack is even more condemnable since it happened at Jumalon’s own home, which also served as the radio station,” the watchdog said.
A video of the attack shows the bespectacled Jumalon, 57, pausing and looking upward at something away from the camera before two shots rang out. He slumped back bloodied in his chair as a background music played on. He was pronounced dead on the way to a hospital.
The attacker was not seen on the Facebook livestream but police said they were checking if security cameras installed in the house and at his neighbors recorded anything.
In 2009, members of a powerful political clan and their associates gunned down 58 people, including 32 media workers, in a brazen execution-style attack in southern Maguindanao province. It was the deadliest single attack on journalists in recent history.
While the mass killing was later linked to a violent electoral rivalry common in many rural areas, it also showcased the threats faced by journalists in the Philippines. A surfeit of unlicensed guns and private armies controlled by powerful clans and weak law enforcement in rural regions are among the security concerns journalists face in the poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country. | Asia Politics |
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not attend November 21 virtual summit of the “BRICS-Plus” grouping that is being held to discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict, officials confirmed, adding that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar would join the event instead. While the Prime Minister has declined attending the summit due to other commitments including campaigning for ongoing State Assembly elections in Rajasthan, the decision to miss appearing with other leaders from the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa grouping also indicates New Delhi’s discomfort with deliberations that would be critical of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Unlike all other countries in the grouping, India has taken a stand that is closer to that of U.S. and other western countries, by not demanding a ceasefire by Israeli forces, and abstaining at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) vote on a resolution that called for a ceasefire, that all other BRICS-Plus members voted for. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazil President Lula Da Silva are expected to attend the summit, as is UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The BRICS Plus meeting, to be held at 6.30 p.m. today, comes just a day ahead of PM Modi hosting the G20 Virtual summit, and all eyes will be on references to the Israel-Hamas conflict in that grouping as well.
The BRICS-plus meeting, an ‘Extraordinary Joint Meeting on the Middle East situation’, convened by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, will also include the soon-to-be inducted new members of the BRICS grouping that include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE. The meeting comes as South Africa and Israel stepped up a diplomatic war, with the South African government formally referring Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be investigated for alleged “war crimes” over its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.
After South Africa recalled all its diplomats from Tel Aviv, and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) supported a motion in Parliament calling for the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria to be shut down, Israel recalled its Ambassador to South Africa for “consultations” on Monday citing the “latest statements”. In contrast, India’s strongest comment by PM Modi thus far, made at the Voice of Global South last week was a “strong condemnation” of civilian deaths, and a call for an emphasis on “restraint, dialogue and diplomacy”.
The BRICS meeting also comes amidst moves by various members of the BRICS grouping to build pressure on the UN Security Council P-5 to pass a resolution that calls for a complete halt in bombing Gaza. Last week, the UNSC passed a resolution that called for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” and the release of hostages, but not for a ceasefire outright. Foreign Ministers of the Arab League and Organisation for Islamic Cooperation including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia and Jordan met in Beijing with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, calling for a halt in hostilities that have led to more than 12,000 people in Gaza, a third of them children, dead and about 1.7 million rendered homeless as hospitals and schools are amongst buildings bombed.
Israel, that lost about 1,200 citizens in the October 7 attacks, says it is seeking out Hamas command and control centres and a return of about 240 hostages that are still believed to be in Hamas custody. | Global Organizations |
The Australian trade minister is meeting with his Chinese counterpart for the first time in three years as Canberra continues to urge Beijing to remove tariffs and bans on key export sectors.
Don Farrell, who was in Canberra for the resumption of parliament, is meeting virtually with the Chinese commerce minister, Wang Wentao, on Monday.
The Australians were expected to use Monday’s meeting to push for the resumption of unimpeded trade. Canberra doesn’t believe the differences can be solved overnight, but sees the meeting as a step towards the goal.
At the height of diplomatic tensions between China and Australia in 2020, Beijing blocked phone calls and meetings between Australian government ministers and their direct counterparts as a result of the then-Morrison government’s early push for a Covid origins inquiry.
The Morrison government accused Beijing of engaging in “economic coercion” by rolling out tariffs or unofficial bans on a range of Australian exports, including wine, barley, red meat, lobsters and coal.
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Former Coalition trade ministers Simon Birmingham and Dan Tehan were rebuffed in their attempts to hold direct talks with China’s commerce minister.
Chinese officials had argued the Australian government must first take steps “to arrest the decline of the bilateral relationship” and create a better mood for talks.
Farrell, however, received a congratulatory letter from Wang shortly after being appointed as trade minister last year and responded to that correspondence.
Farrell has continued to push Australia’s largest trading partner to remove the trade “blockages”, arguing it would be in both countries’ interests to do so.
China has previously accused Australia of taking a hostile approach to Chinese investment in the country, including through the ban on Chinese telco Huawei in the 5G network.
The Albanese government maintains that it has not given ground on Australia’s national interests or policy positions, but it has pursued a deliberate effort to engage in dialogue with China to try to get the relationship on a better footing.
The government acknowledges stark differences will endure between the two countries, but believes these differences should be managed “wisely”.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, revealed last month that Chinese and Australian negotiators at the World Trade Organization in Geneva were engaged in talks in an effort to resolve their trade disputes.
After reports China was considering lifting its restrictions on coal imports from Australia from April, Xiao also expressed hope for an overall improvement in the trading relationship in 2023.
Both sides laid the groundwork for Monday’s meeting by holding talks between Australia’s assistant trade minister, Tim Ayres, and China’s vice-minister of commerce, Wang Shouwen, in Davos last month.
Australia is seeking rulings at the WTO against China’s tariffs on Australian wine and barley and, to date, it has signalled it is not ready to suspend or withdraw those applications.
Earlier on Monday, the Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, called on the US and China to remain in dialogue despite the flare up in tensions after the US shot down what it labelled a Chinese spy balloon that flew over American territory. | Australia Politics |
Morning everyone. The current news agenda certainly reflects Australia’s struggles with its past. As the Australian of the Year awards kicked off the pageantry, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was battling to shore up the voice to parliament, Indigenous leaders were bemoaning the plight of communities in Alice Springs, and people have begun marking Invasion Day. All that, plus pro-Russian protests at the tennis.AustraliaAnthony Albanese in Alice Springs. Photograph: Pin Rada/AAP ‘Door always open’ | Anthony Albanese has told critics of the voice to parliament campaign that his “door is always open” as he attempts to build support for a referendum win. It comes as Indigenous leaders said his suggestion of a total alcohol ban for Alice Springs would not fix the town’s social problems and that more fundamental problems such as the legacy of colonisation needed to addressed. AOTY winner | Taryn Brumfitt, a body image activist who directed a documentary about women’s body loathing and her path to accepting her own skin, has been named the 2023 Australian of the Year. “It is not our life’s purpose to be at war with our body,” she said. Tennis tension | Multiple spectators at the Australian Open are being questioned by Victoria police after they unveiled flags in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and then threatened security guards following the quarter-final match between Russia’s Andrey Rublev and Novak Djokovic. Health hazard | GPs are concerned serious conditions such as cancer could be missed if general practice is deprioritised under planned changes to Medicare funding. WorldGermany and the US have pledged to send tanks to support the Ukraine war effort. Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images Leopards unleashed | German will make 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks available for Ukraine’s war effort as Berlin overcame reluctance to supply heavy weaponry in what could be a big boost for Kyiv’s war effort. The US will send 31 of its Abrams tanks. But Ukraine will need more than just tanks to win. Taxing time | The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has faced tough questions about his own family tax situation as he struggles to shrug off the row over the controversial tax arrangements of former chancellor and Tory party chair, Nadhim Zahawi. Microsoft outages | Users of Microsoft products such as Teams and Outlook have been hit by outages around the world, sparking an investigation by the computing giant. Open secrets | Two more papers found in former US president Donald Trump’s storage last year were marked secret and classified documents have been found at his vice-president Mike Pence’s home as more doubts emerge about the classification system. Looking through you | Unseen portraits taken by Paul McCartney at the start of Beatlemania – and long thought lost – will go on show in London later this year. Full StoryAn Invasion Day rally Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesWesley Enoch on the Day of MourningPlaywright and Quandamooka man Wesley Enoch on the Day of Mourning that’s as old as Australia Day itself, and why we need to move beyond celebrating the “British colonial project”.Full StoryWesley Enoch on the Day of MourningSorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:22:14In-depthPaul Auchettl, Ballarat clergy sexual abuse survivor. Photograph: Lisa MartinWhen Ballarat abuse survivor, Paul Auchettl, flies to Sydney to tie ribbons to the fence outside St Mary’s Cathedral ahead of George Pell’s funeral, he will see it as “unfinished business”. He tells Christopher Knaus that the cardinal did not fulfill a promise to do more for victims and that they are still waiting for help.Not the newsHarry Shum Jr and Michelle Yeoh in a scene from Everything Everywhere All At Once. Photograph: Allyson Riggs/APFrom the blockbusters to the tiny indies to the short documentaries – this is how you can catch up with every Oscar-nominated release before the big day on 13 March. So whether it’s the much-fancied Everything Everywhere All at Once or Brendan Fraser’s controversial comeback as a morbidly obese English teacher in The Whale (due out a week today), we’ve got you covered.The world of sportNovak Djokovic hits a return against Russia’s Andrey Rublev last night. Photograph: Martin Keep/AFP/Getty Images Australian Open | Novak Djokovic swept aside his latest challenger, Andrey Rublev, in straight sets at Rod Laver Arena last night to reach his tenth Melbourne semi-final. Tommy Paul reached his first by beating fellow American Ben Shelton. Rugby league | NRL authorities and the players remain a long way from peace in protracted pay dispute, with a strike still a real possibility ahead of the new season. Golf | Rory McIlroy has tried to play down his personal spat with LIV breakaway player Patrick Reed after reports surfaced that the American had tossed a golf tee at the world No 1 in Dubai. The Australian says the nation faces a “triple rate rise threat” after yesterday’s jump in inflation, while the Australian Financial Review sees the rate rises behind a big drop in sales of new homes. The NT News says the hospitality industry thinks longer-term solutions are needed to fix the problems in Alice Springs – not just an alcohol ban – and an Age reporter goes on a night-time security patrol in the town. What’s happening today Invasion Day | Events protesting about the national day are taking place all over the country and we’ll be following them. Sailing | The Festival of Sails Passage race takes place between Melbourne and Geelong. Sport | Multiple top level sporting events take place including Melbourne Victory v Sydney FC in the A-league, and Australia v Pakistan in women’s T20. Sign upIf you would like to receive this Morning Mail update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here. And finish your day with a three-minute snapshot of the day’s main news. Sign up for our Afternoon Update newsletter here.Prefer notifications? If you’re reading this in our app, just click here and tap “Get notifications” on the next screen for an instant alert when we publish every morning.Brain teaserAnd finally, here are the Guardian’s crosswords and free Wordiply game to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply If you have a story tip or technical issue viewing this newsletter, please reply to this email.If you are a Guardian supporter and need assistance with regards to contributions and/or digital subscriptions, please email [email protected] | Australia Politics |
Poland’s Supreme Court has issued a request to the Dutch judicial authorities for information allowing it to ascertain whether a Dutch court that ruled against a Polish firm meets EU standards of independence.
The request comes after a number of similar moves in recent years by foreign courts towards their Polish counterparts, whose independence has been questioned at home and abroad following a radical overhaul of the judiciary by the Law and Justice (PiS) government.
One legal scholar, Laurent Pech, has called the Supreme Court’s actions “trolling” and an “abuse of [EU] case law”. He notes that the judges issuing the request were nominated by a Polish judicial body that has been found by national and European courts to have been rendered illegitimate by PiS’s reforms.
⚠️ #Poland's #ruleoflaw meltdown: PiS SCt #FakeJudges have decided to troll 🇳🇱 courts by abusing ECJ case law (which I criticised as deeply flawed i.a. due to this very potentiality) & asking 🇳🇱 MoJ/Judicial Council to answer their bogus Qs re nomination/independence of 🇳🇱 judges
— Laurent Pech 🇺🇦 (@ProfPech) July 1, 2023
The case in question relates to a Polish firm that sought to have a Polish court dismiss the enforcement of a November 2019 ruling by a Dutch court in the city of Roermond. The name of the firm and the nature of the case has not been revealed by the Supreme Court.
In July 2020, the district court in the Polish city of Poznań dismissed the firm’s case. That decision was upheld by the court of appeal in the same city in December 2020. The case was then brought to the Supreme Court
On 30 June this year, the civil chamber of the Supreme Court, reviewing the case, deemed it necessary “to determine whether the [Dutch] court that issued the ruling met the standards of independence” established under EU law as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Polish judicial reforms that introduced a tough new disciplinary system for judges violated European law, the EU Court of Justice has found.
The ruling ends a long-running case that has seen Poland fined over half a billion euros https://t.co/Sl9hZGwbAh
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 5, 2023
To this end, the Supreme Court requested that the Dutch Council of the Judiciary provide copies of documents concerning the nomination procedure of the Dutch judge who ruled against the company.
These are to include “the mode of his appointment with an indication of the competent authorities involved in the nomination procedure”, “an indication of the extent, if any, of the influence of legislative or executive representatives on the judicial appointment”, and details of possible activities by the judge of a political nature.
At the same time, the Supreme Court asked the Polish justice minister for information on Dutch law about the guarantees of the independence of the judiciary there, including the influence of the legislature or the executive on the appointment of judges and the existence of constitutional guarantees regarding the status of a judge.
Thirty judges on Poland's Supreme Court – almost a third of those working at the institution – have declared they will not adjudicate alongside colleagues appointed after the government's judicial overhaul, which they say rendered such nominations invalid https://t.co/jsFW62gWih
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 17, 2022
Those requests echo criticism levelled towards Poland’s judiciary by a number of domestic and international bodies, who note that the council responsible for nominating judges has been brought under the influence of the legislative and executive branches and accuse it of making politically motivated appointments.
Concerns about the independence of Polish judges have led some foreign courts, including in the Netherlands, to refuse to execute European Arrest Warrants issued by Polish courts.
The Supreme Court itself is led by a chief justice who was appointed in controversial circumstances and a majority of judges in its civic chamber were nominated after the government’s judicial reforms.
A growing number of courts around Europe have been reluctant to extradite suspects to Poland due to concerns over the rule of law.
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 11, 2021
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters. | Europe Politics |
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favour of a prominent Polish judge critical of the government, finding “multiple violations” of his rights to a fair trial, respect for his private life and his freedom of expression.
The Strasbourg court ordered Poland to pay the judge, Igor Tuleya, €30,000 in compensation and €6,000 in costs and legal fees. However, a Polish deputy justice minister has declared that the ECHR’s ruling has no binding effect.
— ECHR CEDH (@ECHR_CEDH) July 6, 2023
Tuleya has become a symbol of opposition to the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s overhaul of the judiciary. Meanwhile, he has been pursued by prosecutors seeking to bring criminal charges against him, was stripped of immunity, and barred from working as a judge.
As a result of his treatment, Tuleya filed a case to the ECHR arguing that his rights under various sections of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated. The court today ruled in his favour.
It found, first, that his right to a fair trial has been violated because the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court that lifted his immunity to face criminal charges was, as two previous ECHR rulings have found, not a “tribunal established by law”.
The ECHR noted that, despite the professional responsibility chamber – which replaced the disciplinary chamber after the latter was abolished last year – confirming in November 2022 that Tuleya had committed no criminal offence, the lifting of his immunity has not been overturned and he continues to face criminal proceedings.
The Supreme Court has ruled that judge Igor Tuleya – who has become a symbol of opposition to the government’s judicial policies – is not guilty of the crime prosecutors accused him of and that he can return to work after being suspended for over two years https://t.co/f1XVYr78vz
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 29, 2022
Second, the ECHR found that the measures taken against Tuleya had called his integrity and reputation into question, as well as preventing him from working for over two years, which in turn “had a significant impact on his private life”. This constituted a violation of his right to respect for his private life.
Third, the European court found that the judge’s right to freedom of expression had been violated because “the lifting of Mr Tuleya’s immunity had been a disguised sanction for his expressing criticism of successive judicial reform” and part of “a strategy aimed at intimidating (or even silencing) him for his views”.
“The Court could not accept that there had been any legitimate aim for the interference with Mr Tuleya’s right to freedom of expression,” wrote the ECHR. “He had steadily defended the rule of law and independence of the judiciary, without going beyond criticism from a strictly professional perspective.”
The treatment of Tuleya, noted the ECHR, would have discouraged not only him from speaking out but also other judges. Last year, the court ruled that the suspension of another judge who has opposed the Polish government’s judicial reforms, Paweł Juszczyszyn, violated his rights.
The suspension of a judge who questioned Poland's judicial reforms violated his rights, a European court has ruled
It also found that the disciplinary chamber which made the decision is "not lawful". But the government says it has "no competence" to do so https://t.co/9Dmoonkrkl
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 6, 2022
In response to today’s judgement, deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta noted that Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) last year ruled that the ECHR is not entitled to assess the legality of Polish judicial appointments.
“Therefore, the ruling issued today [by the ECHR] has no binding effect on Poland,” tweeted Kaleta.
However, the ECHR itself has found that the TK, a body widely seen as being under the influence of the PiS party, is not a “tribunal established by law” because it contains illegitimately appointed judges.
Mediom piszącym o przyznaniu sędziemu Tulei 36 tysięcy euro "zaadośćuczynienia" za to, że powołano ID SN przypominam, że rząd nie może mu wypłacić wskazanej kwoty z uwagi na brzmienie wyroku TK (K 7/21), który stwierdza, że ETPCz nie jest uprawniony do oceny legalności powołań…
— Sebastian Kaleta (@sjkaleta) July 6, 2023
Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters. | Europe Politics |
'Declinism about Britain is just wrong' - Hunt Turning to his economic plans, Jeremy Hunt says cutting inflation will "require patience and discipline" - as will increasing growth. But he says he has "optimism that we can get there". He pushes back against columnists who have talked about Britain "teetering on the edge" and says that "declinism about Britain is just wrong". "It has always been wrong in the past, and it is wrong today," he says. He continues: "Some of the gloom is based on statistics that don't reflect the whole picture. Like every G7 country, our growth was slower in the years after the financial crisis than before it."But since 2010, the UK has grown faster than France, Japan and Italy. Not at the bottom, but right in the middle of the pack."Since the Brexit referendum, we've grown at about the same rate as Germany. Yes, we've not returned to pre-pandemic employment or output levels, but an economy that contracted 20% in a pandemic, still has nearly the lowest unemployment for half a century."The chancellor says the UK is "powerfully positioned to play a leading role" in many sectors, including digital technology, fintech and life sciences. 'Best tax cut right now is a cut to inflation': Chancellor appears to rule out tax cuts Kicking off his speech at the Bloomberg headquarters, the chancellor appears to resist further calls for tax cuts. He says that while his party historically "understands better than others the importance of low taxes", he also needs to focus on providing the country with "economic and financial stability"."The best tax cut right now is a cut to inflation," he says - appearing to rule out tax cuts. He says this is the "only sustainable way to restore industrial harmony". Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is speaking now Watch live on the stream above and follow our updates here. Chancellor to give 'chipper' speech where he will 'cherry-pick' stats Our politics correspondent Rob Powell is looking ahead to the chancellor's upcoming speech and says he expects it to be "chipper". Jeremy Hunt will be speaking from Bloomberg's headquarters in London - a place where many chancellors and prime ministers have given major speeches from before. Most famously, David Cameron announced his intention to hold an EU referendum from the building almost 10 years ago. Now, Rob says Mr Hunt will be looking back over the past decade. The chancellor will likely put a "more optimistic gloss" on both what has happened and what might come, he says. He adds Mr Hunt will be "cherry-picking his own stats to present a rosy picture of what's to come".As for why the chancellor will be making this speech, Rob says it is partly driven by economics and business groups calling for a "clear-eyed vision" from the government on its plans for growth. But he says it is also driven by politics. MPs who had been supporters of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson have stayed silent in the months since Rishi Sunak became prime minister, but they are now starting to "convene and try and push this message that there needs to be a focus on economic growth". Rob says there is a general feeling from this corner that the government "can't just be fire fighting" and must be thinking about growth. Coming up soon... Chancellor to give major speech at 9.20am We'll be bringing you live updates as Jeremy Hunt makes a speech from Bloomberg's European headquarters in London. He's expected to express optimism for the economy and to continue resisting calls for tax cuts. Follow our updates here, or you can watch on the livestream above. Nadhim Zahawi's tax controversy explained Chief political correspondent Jon Craig explains the controversy surrounding Nadhim Zahawi's finances - and why there is mounting pressure for the former chancellor to resign.Video produced by Jasmine Kaur, digital politics producer 'If I had a pound for every time a Tory chancellor spoke about all these things, I could pay Nadhim Zahawi's tax bill' Labour's Andrew Gwynne has a scathing message for the government ahead of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's keynote speech today. Speaking to Sky News, Mr Gwynne said critics of the government were not "talking down the country" when discussing the economic outlook.Instead he said the Conservative government was "running down the country". "We've had 13 years of the same messaging. Tory chancellor after Tory chancellor has talked about the need for growth, the need for productivity, the need for investment over the long term, the need for infrastructure, the need for levelling up," he said. Mr Gwynne added: "If I had a pound for every time a Tory chancellor spoke about all these things, I could pay Nadhim Zahawi's tax bill." Chancellor to deliver keynote speech today - where he is likely to resist calls for tax cuts In the midst of a cost of living crisis, the chancellor's role is more in the spotlight than ever. Jeremy Hunt will be setting out his goals for the UK in a keynote speech at Bloomberg's European headquarters in London today, where he will strike an optimistic tone and dismiss "gloom" about British prospects. He is expected to say the UK is "poised to play a leading role in Europe and across the world in the growth sectors which will define this century". Mr Hunt will say that some of the "gloom" about the current economic outlook is based on statistics that "do not reflect the whole picture".However, he is likely to resist calls from some Tory MPs to set out tax cuts in his Spring Budget in March. Instead, he will say the UK should exploit the opportunities created by leaving the EU - and that the proceeds of growth should support public services. Both Mr Hunt and Rishi Sunak - a former chancellor himself - have emphasised that their priority is reducing inflation. Good morning and welcome to our live news coverage For all the latest politics updates, this is the place to be. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on... Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi remains under pressure due to a row over his tax affairs.Sky News understands Mr Zahawi paid a penalty to HMRC as part of a settlement over his taxes - reported to be as much as £4.8m, including a 30% penalty. Critics have been pressing Rishi Sunak to sack the Tory chairman, and when faced with reporters' questions yesterday, the prime minister did not give Mr Zahawi his full backing. Today, all eyes will be on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he delivers a keynote speech. He's expected to dismiss "gloom" about the UK's prospects and say the government will use "British genius and British hard work" to boost economic growth. Sunak fails to give full confidence to Zahawi over tax affairs Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has refused to give Nadhim Zahawi his full backing after being questioned by reporters. The Tory party chairman is facing an investigation over his tax affairs, and Sky News understands he paid a penalty to HMRC as part of a settlement over his taxes. The exact size of the settlement has not been disclosed, but it is reported to be an estimated £4.8m, including a 30% penalty.Earlier, HMRC boss Jim Harra told MPs there were "no penalties for innocent errors".
Asked at Chequers - where he has been holding an away day with his cabinet - whether he had full confidence in Mr Zahawi, the PM said: "What I believe in is due process and that's why I appointed an independent adviser to look into the questions that have been raised, investigate the situation fully establish the facts and provide advice to me on Nadhim Zahawi’s compliance with the ministerial code."I think that is the right thing to do to ensure we have integrity in politics, but to do that in a professional way and that is exactly what we are doing."Mr Sunak, who had previously backed his cabinet colleague before more details surfaced about the penalty, said "no issues were raised" to him before he appointed Mr Zahawi to his role. But he also said he would not "pre-judge the outcome of the investigation", adding: "It's important that the independent adviser is able to do his work."That's what he's currently doing, that's what I've asked him to do and I'll await the findings of that investigation."Read more here: | United Kingdom Politics |
Snowstorms and strong winds have left more than 2,000 towns and villages without power across many regions of Ukraine, local officials say.
They say 48 people, including children, have been evacuated from trapped vehicles in the worst-affected Odesa region in the south-west.
At least six people have suffered from hypothermia. Traffic is currently blocked on 14 motorways.
The storm is also battering Moldova, Russia, Georgia and Bulgaria.
In a statement on Monday morning, Ukraine's emergencies service said the bad weather left 2,019 settlements without power in 16 regions of the country.
It said 840 vehicles had to be towed away amid snow drifts reaching more than two metres (6.6ft) in some places. At least 1,370 cargo lorries are currently stuck.
The southern Mykolaiv region is also badly hit.
More than 1,500 rescuers are now deployed across the country in a massive clean-up operation. They are being helped by police, border guards and National Guard members.
In the capital Kyiv, the country's largest flag - measuring 16x24m - had to be taken down from a 90m pole after it was damaged by fierce winds. City officials said the flag would be replaced and raised again.
In Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula - illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 - Moscow-installed officials reported flooding in coastal areas. Fallen trees and other debris were seen on the streets of several towns.
About 800 exotic fish died when a historic museum-aquarium was destroyed by sea flooding in the port of Sevastopol, the museum director was quoted as saying by a local media outlet.
A state of emergency is now in place in several municipalities in Crimea.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry, said the storm "washed away trenches in occupied Crimea that Russian army dug out on the beaches".
Russia's military has not commented on the claim.
In Russia's Black Sea city of Sochi, footage has emerged purportedly showing a three-storey building collapsing. No injuries were reported.
Near the town of Anapa, also on the Russian Black Sea coast, a cargo vessel with 21 crew ran aground.
In the capital Moscow, the authorities had to deploy specialist machinery to clear the streets after a heavy snowfall.
The extreme weather comes amid reports that Russia is again preparing massive rocket and drone strikes on Ukraine's power grid and other critical infrastructure.
Last autumn and winter, Moscow carried out waves of such deadly attacks, leaving millions of people across Ukraine without electricity and heating.
Last Saturday, Russia launched its biggest drone strike on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian officials said. They said that 74 out of 75 of Shahed kamikaze drones were shot down around the capital. | Europe Politics |
The military junta in Niger has canceled the visa of the French ambassador and instructed police to expel him, after ordering the diplomat last week to leave the country.
In the letter shared by local media on Thursday and attributed to the Nigerien Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the junta said, “The diplomatic cards and the visas of the concerned person and the members of his family are canceled. The police services have been instructed therefore to proceed with his expulsion.”
The decision taken on August 25 regarding the ambassador’s accreditation is “irrevocable,” the junta added in the letter.
French envoy Sylvain Itte was told to leave by the junta for refusing to attend a meeting scheduled with Niger’s foreign minister, including “other actions by the French government that are against Niger’s interest,” the Nigerien foreign ministry said last week.
The junta also warned on Thursday that the ambassador “no longer enjoys the privileges and immunities attached to his status as a member of the diplomatic personnel of the Embassy.”
A spokesperson for the French presidency told journalists Thursday that the ambassador “remains in place” despite the junta’s demands.
CNN reached out to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment, who reiterated their statement from August 25 stressing that “the putschists do not have the authority to make this demand.”
“The ambassador’s accreditation comes solely from the legitimately elected authorities in Niger,” the statement added.
France does not recognize Niger’s military authorities and insists that deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in a coup last month remains the country’s only legitimate authority.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Itte will not leave Niger, despite the expiration of the junta’s deadline for his departure.
Up to 1,500 French soldiers are stationed in Niger, which has been a major partner of the French in the Sahel region. | Africa politics |
NT Country Liberal Party's rank and file urging party to officially oppose 'divisive' Voice to Parliament at weekend central council meeting
Sky News Australia has obtained motions drafted by three of the party's branches, all of which argue the party should oppose the Voice.
Rank-and-file members of the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party are urging the party to officially oppose an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Sky News Australia has obtained motions drafted by three of the party’s branches for debate at this weekend’s central council meeting.
The motions – from the Darwin, Alice Springs and Rural branches – all argue the party should adopt a formal position opposing the Voice.
“The money spent on this body, with the immense number of resources to support it would be better spent on programmes that actually assisted Aboriginal people,” the motion submitted by the Rural branch says.
“The Voice will not fix Aboriginal people’s health issues, poverty issues, housing and alcohol issues.
“Aboriginal people have a wide range of corporations, regional councils and land councils that give Aboriginal people opportunities to discuss Aboriginal issues with all tiers of governments in Australia.”
The Darwin branch argues the party should oppose the Voice due to a lack of detail and the “potential impact on the supremacy of our democratically selected parliament”.
“We support immediate frontline action to address issues impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, recognising the immense challenges impacting many Indigenous communities, including domestic and family violence, healthcare, substance abuse, child safety, education, housing and unemployment,” the branch’s motion says.
“The key to addressing these serious issues is by government delivering frontline evidence-based solutions which aim to lift Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people out of poverty and stimulate economic participation in Indigenous communities.”
The Alice Springs branch raises concerns the Voice would establish “another level of government”.
“The Voice goes directly against CLP ideologies and beliefs which are inclusive and do not differentiate Territorians based on race,” its motion says.
“With over 1100 Aboriginal funded organisations, land councils and other agencies and advisory bodies representing Indigenous Australians there is no merit to the suggestion that one Voice can represent all Indigenous Australians,” it says.
“Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Voice will support marginalised Indigenous Australians.
“What is needed are practical measures, not an ideal that lacks detail and dives us along the lines of race.”
The motions set up a showdown at this weekend’s meeting for the CLP, which remains the only party in the country to produce an Aboriginal leader of an Australian government.
The CLP’s Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price has been the highest-profile member of the national "No" campaign.
Senator Price, who sits with the Nationals in Canberra, last week told the ABC she expected the Country Liberal Party would soon adopt the same position.
“I think you will find in the coming weeks that is exactly the position they will hold,” she said.
But the CLP’s representatives in the Northern Territory are yet to take a firm position on the Voice.
“We’re not opposed to the Voice, what we care very much about is that the referendum is treated with respect,” Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said on Tuesday.
“We want to make sure that every single Territorian understands what they’re voting for, understands the detail behind it.
“We’re certainly open to what it is a Voice could do for the Northern Territory but the last thing we want it to be is people from Sydney and Melbourne dictating the lives of Territorians.”
Separate CLP sources told Sky News they had concerns the Labor Party could exploit any opposition to the Voice from the CLP at next year’s Northern Territory election, particularly in bush seats with a high percentage of Aboriginal voters.
The CLP’s Bill Yan won the central Australian seat of Namatjira by just 22 votes at the 2020 election.
Steve Edgington’s margin in the seat of Barkly was even smaller, winning for the CLP over Labor’s Sid Vashist by just seven votes.
“If they do this they can kiss Namatjira and Barkly goodbye,” one source said.
Asked on Wednesday if he was concerned Labor could use any opposition to the Voice against him in 2024, Mr Edgington said most of his constituents knew little about the proposal.
“My electorate is predominately Aboriginal people and what I’ve always said is I want my electorate to be fully informed of what the advantages and disadvantage of the Voice, but at the moment there’s been no engagement through the Australian government with people living in remote areas about what the Voice means to the people living in those areas,” he said.
Labor introduced a motion to the NT Parliament on Wednesday calling for the Parliament to support the Voice. That motion is expected to be debated on Thursday.
CLP president Lawson Broad was contacted for comment. | Australia Politics |
PANAMA CITY -- Protesters blocked streets across Panama on Monday, demanding the government rescind a contract to continue copper mining in a biodiverse region.
Teaching and construction unions led calls against the contract with environmentalists, saying continued development threatens forested land and crucial groundwater just 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of the capital, in the state of Colon.
Across Panama City, peaceful protesters handed out fliers, but in some areas on the outskirts of the capital police met protesters with tear gas. In anticipation of the largest marches since a cost of living crisis last July, both the Department of Education and the University of Panama cancelled classes.
The government used social media to highlight the “enormous contribution” the mine — Panama's largest private investment ever — makes to the country's economy.
In March, Panama's legislature reached an agreement with Canadian mining company First Quantum, allowing its local subsidiary, Minera Panama, to continue operating a huge open-pit copper mine in central Panama for at least 20 more years. The mine was temporarily closed last year when talks between the government and First Quantum broke down over payments the government wanted to receive.
Protests began after President Laurentino Cortizo signed off on that contract on Friday after it was approved by the congress.
The president acted surreptitiously, according to Fernando Abrego, leader of Panama's Association of Teachers union. “The government decided this confrontation by quickly and expeditiously approving a contract they know is rejected by the people,” he said.
Teachers were joined by construction workers, who are one of country's most powerful labor groups. “The people are in the streets in defense of sovereignty," said union leader Saúl Méndez, "in the face of a contract that cedes self-determination by devastating the environment to steal resources.”
It is unclear how persuasive these arguments will prove against the economic boon of a single mining site that already brings in 3% of the nation’s gross domestic product. Minera Panama says the mine will employ thousands of Panamanians and that its shipments make 80% of the country's total exports.
The new contract, initially slowed by labor disagreements, secures Panama at least $375 million a year from Minera Panama, over 10 times more than the previous deal. It represents one of the largest national mining contracts in a region where other countries like Costa Rica regulate the sector more stringently and El Salvador which banned metal mining in 2017.
For teachers, however, Abrego said concession was not an option, and that the teachers' union would hold an assembly to plan their next actions. “We will remain in the streets,” he said. | Latin America Politics |
SEOUL, July 25 (Reuters) - South Korea's top court on Tuesday ruled against a parliamentary vote to impeach the interior minister over what critics said was a botched response to a deadly Halloween crush in Seoul last year, provoking anger and dismay among victims' relatives.
Some relatives at the hearing broke down in tears after the Constitutional Court ruling, with two mothers collapsing and taken away by an ambulance, according to a Reuters witness. There was a heavy police presence at the court.
Lawmakers in February voted to impeach minister Lee Sang-min, urging him to take responsibility for the failure of the response to a crowd surge that killed 159 people, most of them young people celebrating Halloween, in Seoul's Itaewon nightlife district.
"This disastrous incident was not caused and exacerbated by a single cause or person," Lee Jong-seok, a justice at the court said, adding that different government agencies were not able to respond in a coordinated way to big disasters.
While the court found the minister had made inappropriate remarks about how the disaster unfolded, it said in a statement the comments did not amount to grounds for impeachment and ruled he had not neglected his duties. The decision was unanimous, the court said.
Lee, who did not attend the hearing, said later in a statement issued by his ministry that it was time to unite and stop "wasteful political strife" over the disaster.
Dozens of relatives and their supporters gathered in front of the court chanting "condemn the constitutional court that gave immunity to Lee Sang-min".
Choi Sun-mi, the mother of victim Park Ga-young, said the ruling as "truly devastating".
"Our children, young people, are living in a place that isn't safe to even walk in," said Choi, whose hands were shaking as she choked back tears.
President Yoon Suk Yeol had rejected an opposition demand that he sack Lee.
The president's office and the ruling party denounced their rival Democrats and accused the party of abusing its majority in parliament to push the impeachment.
Before the ruling, dozens of members of right-wing groups rallied outside the court, calling on it to dismiss the impeachment and branding it an opposition ploy.
In June, the opposition-led National Assembly decided to fast-track a bill aimed at an independent investigation of the crowd crush.
The Itaewon district is known as a place of fun and freedom but its narrow, steep streets and limited access points proved a lethal mixture for the partygoers who became trapped and crushed.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Asia Politics |
Australian Labor Party member Chris Minns will become premier of New South Wales after the party notched an historic election victory on Saturday. File Photo by Bianca De Marchi/EPA-EFE
March 25 (UPI) -- Australia's Labor Party is set to take power in New South Wales, the country's most populous state, for the first time in decades following historic election results on Saturday.
By the end of the vote tally, Labor had picked up six seats in New South Wales, meaning party leader and former firefighter Chris Minns will become the state's first Labor premier in more than two decades.
Labor, Australia's main center-left party, campaigned against a cap on public wages and the sale of public assets. The party also promised financing for healthcare and education.
"I'm proud to say today the people of NSW voted for the removal of the unfair wages cap," Minns said during a speech in Sydney following Saturday's election results.
He was joined by fellow Labor Party member and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. who called Minns "a leader whose vision is one that always has people at its heart."
As a result of the vote, Labor will hold at least 47 seats in the 93-member lower house -- marking only the third time since World War II it has gone from opposition into government in NSW, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Liberal Party leader Dominic Perrottet said he would step down during a concession speech after the vote tally.
"It is a time to reflect. It is a time to rethink and ultimately to renew. To renew as leader of the parliamentary Liberal party, I take full responsibility for the loss this evening," he said.
Perrottet praised his opponent, saying "I believe that he will lead with the same decent and the same integrity that he has led with so far." | Australia Politics |
Neither the war in Ukraine, nor climate change nor inflation: racism has been the central issue of political and media debate this summer in Finland. The government of the Nordic country, the most right-wing in its history, has been plunged in crisis since its formation at the end of June. The crisis has been triggered by racist comments made by several far-right ministers, one of whom has links to neo-Nazis groups. The comments were made in the past, but have come to light in recent weeks, pushing Prime Minister Petteri Orp’s four-party coalition to the limit. The scandals have also damaged the international image of a country considered a benchmark in equality, education and transparency.
“If we had been aware that such clearly racist language had been used in the past, we would not have entered the government,” said Education Minister Anna-Maja Henriksson, who is the leader of the Swedish People’s Party of Finland (RKP). In a bid to address the crisis, the four parties in government — the National Coalition Party (NCP), the Finns Party, the Christian Democrats and the RKP — announced last Thursday that they had agreed to a plan of 23 measures that will be debated next week in Parliament.
The measures include punishing discrimination against ethnic or religious groups in the workplace, a program to “fight hate speech,” criminalizing Holocaust denial and “studying the possibility” of banning the use of Nazi and Communists symbols, such as the swastika and the hammer and sickle. “For the RKP, whether or not to remain in the coalition depended on this pact. With this statement, it is clear that we are not going to tolerate racist attitudes of any kind,” said Henriksson.
Vilhelm Junnila was the first member of government to be caught in the eye of the storm. The politician has never hidden his links to xenophobic and neo-Nazi groups. As a deputy in the previous legislature, he was the main speaker at several events of the Nordic Resistance Movement, which was banned in 2020, and invited several of its members to a session in the chamber. In the electoral campaign for the April parliamentary elections, the far-right politician joked with references to the number 88, a figure that means Heil Hitler in neo-Nazi symbols.
After the first wave of opposition criticism, Junnila refused to resign and was able to survive a vote of no confidence. But less than 48 hours later, he was forced to step down due to a scandal that erupted over a Facebook post. In the post, Junnila said that he was still in favor of Finland encouraging “climate abortions” in Africa as a means to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. In other words, he supported abortions, so that there would be fewer people on Earth polluting. It was a plan he had even raised in Parliament four years ago.
The Christian Democrats, minority partners in the coalition government, tolerated Junnila’s neo-Nazi ties, but not his ideas to reduce birth rates in African countries. Under pressure from the five Christian Democrat deputies, Junnila was forced to resign as economy minister, a post he only held for 10 days. This makes him the second shortest-serving minister in the history of Finland. He is also the only minister to have shared photos of swastikas on social media, and to have posted a photo of a snowman with an obvious resemblance to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. After being expelled from the government, the Finns Party named him vice president of the parliamentary group.
“Spitting on beggars and hitting Black children”
The relative calm lasted for a few days, but was broken when racist comments made by Deputy Prime Minister Riikka Purra came to light. In a 2008 blog, the first woman to head the Finns Party wrote: “Anyone feel like spitting on beggars and hitting Black children today in Helsinki?” Purra apologized on social media for her “stupid comments from 15 years ago” and for “the damage they may have understandably caused,” but insisted that the media had “taken them out of context.” She claimed she was the victim of a “a witch hunt” and that the media treated the Finns Party — the second-biggest group in government — “as criminals.”
A few days later, other comments made by Purra made headlines. In this case, the statements were made in 2019 on her personal website, just before she was elected to parliament for the first time. Of the comments that were published in the media, the one that made the biggest impact involved the far-right leader ridiculing Muslim women in burqas. “Unidentified black sacks walk through the metropolitan area of Helsinki and can only be recognized as people because they usually drag children.” Almost 30 Finnish Muslim organizations issued a joint statement demanding her resignation.
Finnish foreign minister, the conservative Elina Valtonen, also had to apologize to her Turkish counterpart for the numerous times in which Purra referred to Turks as “monkeys” online. “I conveyed to [Turkish Foreign Minister] Hakan Fidan my apologies for the inappropriate comments made years ago by a member of the new government,” she said following a recent meeting in Brussels.
In the wake of the criticism, Purra has said that she has no plans to resign and that “neither the party nor its proposals on immigration, are racist.”
In choosing Junnila’s successor as economy minister, Orpo tried to ensure that there was nothing online or in archives that could characterize the new minister as racist. Even so, shortly after Wille Rydman’s appointment, the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat published messages that he sent seven years ago to his then girlfriend. In one of them, he referred to immigrants from the Middle East as “desert monkeys.” In another, he ruled out buying lilies as decoration because “they multiply and spread like Somalis.” Rydman refused to apologize for his comments, and instead criticized that his private messages were published without his consent.
The Finnish parliament returns next week after the summer recess. In addition to debating the anti-racism plan, several opposition parties will present no-confidence votes against Purra and Rydman. Despite the agreement reached last Thursday, the crisis in the government — and the internal crisis in the RKP — is far from being resolved. “The fights within the coalition between the RKP and the Finns Party are as fierce as those between the government and the opposition,” explained Henrik Jaakkola, the political coordinator of the Left Alliance, one of the five groups of the previous coalition government.
A few weeks ago, former prime minister Sanna Marin said that the revelations about the far-right ministers come as “no surprise,” warning that they “reflected the darkest and most dehumanizing side of Finnish politics.”
Tuija Parvikko, professor of Political Science at the University of Jyväskylä, says that such a crisis was foreseeable from the start. “Over the last 20 years, quite a few members of the Finns Party have been caught making racist comments, through their channels, on social media or even in statements to the press,” Parvikko told EL PAÍS by phone.
Local media has also highlighted several reports that warn of the seriousness of racism in Finnish society. A report from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, for example, that concludes that Finland is the EU country — among the 12 analyzed — in which discrimination against the Black community is most common. Another study from the Council of Europe that warned that “racist and aggressive language” was increasingly common among young people. And last spring, Amnesty International urged for “action to end structural racism in Finland.”
Jaakkola of the Left Alliance believes that racism “is a very serious problem,” and that the “government and its discriminatory policies are a threat to people of color in Finland.” For her part, Professor Parvikko believes that “part of Finnish society is unable to identify or admit its own racist behaviors, or to recognize the existence of structural racism.”
Since Orpo’s inauguration, several demonstrations have been held in Helsinki and other cities against the far-right groups in government. This Sunday, what will likely be by far the largest of all will take place in the capital. The organizers are confident that the march, to which hundreds of organizations have joined, will be “the largest protest in Finland in more than a decade.”
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition | Europe Politics |
Second Khalistan vote to be held in B.C. as Sikh diaspora members seek independent state in India
The vote, organized by U.S.-based Sikhs for Justice, is not legally binding in India
U.S.-based group Sikhs For Justice is holding a second round of voting in British Columbia for its unofficial referendum to create an independent Sikh state in India on Sunday.
The second stage of the vote is taking place at the Surrey, B.C., gurdwara where activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead on June 18.
Voting will take place at Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT. It is open to all Sikhs age 18 and over who have not yet voted on the matter.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the group's lawyer and spokesman, said organizers are expecting "thousands" of voters after the first vote in September drew such large crowds that a second day of voting was deemed necessary.
The previous vote on Sept. 10 came days before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were "credible allegations" of a potential link between the Indian government and Nijjar's killing.
The Indian government has denied involvement in Nijjar's death, calling the allegations "absurd."
Pannun says Canada's allegations about India's links to Nijjar's killing have significantly bolstered vocal support for the movement for Khalistan.
"The community has really taken it to a point where they have formed the belief that if they do not come out in large numbers, these killings will continue," Pannun said from Washington, D.C., where he was en route to Vancouver for this weekend's vote.
Nijjar had been wanted in India for what authorities say were links to terrorism, including an alleged attack on a Hindu priest, an allegation Nijjar denied.
The vote has been on a world tour since 2021 with more events planned to tap into separatist sentiments in the Sikh diaspora.
Nijjar was also a key organizer of the Canadian referendums. Organizers have conducted votes in London, Melbourne, Rome, Geneva and in Ontario, which attracted thousands of people in Brampton last year, and thousands in Mississauga this July. The group's ultimate goal is to hold a vote in Punjab in 2025.
However, the vote is not legally binding in India.
With files from The Canadian Press | India Politics |
ROME — Novel foods such as laboratory-produced “meats” risk undermining Italian culture, identity and civilization, Italy’s minister for food sovereignty and agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, warned on Thursday.
Speaking to POLITICO as the Italian parliament passed Europe’s first legislation banning lab-cultured meat, Lollobrigida said the measures were about “defending work, environment, culture and identity — which are rooted in food quality,” and that they were intended to “defend our civilization against a model driven by delocalization and long supply chains.”
The right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni has seized on novel foods to open a new front in the culture wars.
For Lollobrigida, cultured meat production is an existential threat to traditional meat farming and to a rural way of life lived in harmony with the land: “If you produce a food that has no relationship to man, land, work, you can move production to a place with lower taxes and less environmental standards, hurting jobs and the environment.”
The opposition has criticized the measures as “ideological propaganda” consistent with the hostility that Meloni’s party toward globalization and modernity, and its defense of a sometimes imagined traditional lifestyle and values.
Since coming to power a year ago as Italy’s first minister for food sovereignty, Lollobrigida, who is Meloni's brother-in law, has introduced a raft of patriotic measures defending Italian culture and culinary heritage.
In March the minister introduced measures requiring clear labeling and health warnings for flour derived from insects such as crickets and mealworm larvae. Insect flour, which is packed with vitamins, proteins and minerals, has been authorised by the EU.
Lollobrigida said he was “not against insects ... but for transparency. We guaranteed that citizens know if there is a scorpion or larva in their flour.”
Invasive species
Lollobrigida set his sights this summer on a foreign invasive species, the Atlantic blue crab, which is threatening Italian native clams and mussels. He shared an image of Meloni and a dish of crabs on a family holiday to persuade people to eat their way out of the crab crisis.
Italy has always been a staunch defender of its culinary heritage, and has more products with a protected Protected Designation of Origin (such as Parmigiano Reggiano) than any other country.
But for Lollobrigida, food sovereignty is not about protecting farmers but “the defense of a system that must be free to decide what to produce and what to eat.” Food sovereignty is a movement based on the right to consume food that is culturally fitting, as well as on local self-determination in food systems and support for traditional knowledge, rejecting technologies such as GM crops and synthetic pesticides.
The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated that strategic autonomy on food is critical, Lollobrigida said, as the reliance on long supply chains for energy, fertilizers and food have “left us at the whim of criminals and autocrats who can blackmail us on energy and fertilizers, and in the future could blackmail us on food.”
The lower house of parliament on Thursday approved Lollobrigida's bill banning the production and sale of synthetic meats.
The Italian Complementary Protein Alliance, a group representing companies and researchers with expertise in plant-based and cultivated meat proteins, said the bill “tells Italians what they can and can't eat, stifles innovation and likely violates EU law … Once famous for world changing innovations such as microchips and ground breaking fashions, Italian politicians are now choosing to go backwards while the world moves forwards.”
Ettore Prandini, the leader of farmers' association Coldiretti, said: "Italy which is the world leader in food quality and safety, has the duty to lead the way in policies to protect citizens' health," adding "the battle now moves to Europe."
Commentators have pointed out that Italy might not be able to oppose the sale of synthetic meat produced within the European Union, where the common single market allows the free movement of goods and services.
Lollobrigida responded that he did not expect problems from the EU, which “holds the principle that the identity of peoples must be preserved.” | Europe Politics |
According to senior Israeli officials, there is a strong possibility that the details of a hostage deal will be finalized in the coming hours, Israeli media reported.
The proposed agreement involved the release of approximately 50 Israeli children and their mothers in exchange for a four-day ceasefire. It will take place in a 1:3 format, three Palestinian prisoners for each hostage.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas has committed to locating the remaining children and mothers. In return, Israel has agreed to release women and minors from Israeli prisons who were involved in acts of terror.
Additionally, both parties are expected to confirm the provision of fuel and monetary assistance in the Gaza Strip.
Who will be released if the deal is to be finalized?
According to a CNN report, American officials hope that among the hostages that will be released is a 3-year-old American citizen.
The other hostages to be released are comprised of several different nationalities, and it is unclear of how many of each nationality would be released.
According to the report, the ceasefire has the potential to be extended to allow for the release of more hostages. Should a temporary ceasefire be reached, the IDF would stop flying surveillance drones for six hours daily over Gaza.
Joanie Margulies contributed to this report. | Middle East Politics |
An operation to evacuate people from Sudan has been "extremely successful", a government minister has said.
A deadline for UK nationals to reach an airstrip north of the country's capital Khartoum for the final rescue flights expired on Saturday.
"We can't stay there forever in such dangerous circumstances," said Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell.
It follows a government U-turn to allow NHS doctors to now catch evacuation flights out of Sudan.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the country since fighting between rival army factions engulfed Sudan two weeks ago.
The death toll is thought to be much higher than the most recent official figure of 459, and the United Nations fears hundreds of thousands could be displaced if the conflict continues.
A 72-hour ceasefire broke down on Saturday, with airstrikes reported and the Sudanese army claiming they had launched a new offensive from all sides on Khartoum.
The former prime minister of Sudan has warned that the conflict could become worse than those in Syria and Libya.
The government said 1,888 people have been evacuated on 21 flights, and the last flight was due to depart late on Saturday.
Other countries have been frantically evacuating their citizens, while some have fled via unofficial routes by boat and bus.
The UK government, which began evacuations last Tuesday, had faced criticism for not reacting quickly enough to help its citizens after it began its airlift after other European countries had rescued hundreds.
Last weekend, special forces troops were sent to evacuate UK diplomats from Khartoum after fighting broke out around the embassy, but it wasn't until a few days later that British passport holders would be rescued.
Speaking to the BBC in Nairobi, Mr Mitchell said it was right that the evacuation flights were ending.
"I don't think there's a single Brit in Khartoum who won't know about the evacuation and the flow of people who've been coming to the airport indicate that that is correct," he told the BBC.
Referencing a Turkish evacuation plane that was fired at when coming into land, Mr Mitchell described the situation at the Wadi Seidna airfield as "extremely dangerous".
He said the UK government was "looking at every single option to help British citizens who are caught up in this terrible crisis".
He added that he was concerned that the situation could become "incredibly serious" unless there was a permanent ceasefire.
"The whole international system is looking at ways of stopping this fighting" he said, "which after all is two generals slugging it out for power".
A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK's Sudan evacuation was "the largest of any western country".
Millions of people remain trapped in Khartoum, where there are shortages of food, water and fuel.
The Ministry of Defence has told the BBC flights will continue to leave Sudan until all those people who registered at the airfield before the deadline of midday local time (11:00 BST) have been evacuated.
It has now set up an office to help British nationals trying to flee the country at coastal city Port Sudan.
A British vessel, the RFA Cardigan Bay, is on its way to Sudan's east coast, the BBC has been told.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said earlier this week it could be deployed in future evacuation or humanitarian efforts.
More than 20 NHS medics were initially told they could not board flights because they were not British nationals, despite having UK work permits.
A change of heart came after the plight of Sudanese doctor Dr Abdulrahman Babiker came to light. He was in Sudan visiting relatives for Eid when the fighting broke out.
He was initially refused a place on a British evacuation flight but after media coverage and contacting his MP, the criteria was widened and he was allowed to join. He landed in the UK on Saturday afternoon. | Africa politics |
Llama la atención que, a pesar de haber existido sospechas del empleo de los grandes “cocedoras” (hornos) de la pesquera Arauco para hacer desaparecer cadáveres, nunca se realizó una investigación detallada sobre la macabra utilización de esta planta procesadora de pescado durante la dictadura.
Santiago de Chile, 15 de septiembre 2023 (Ecoceanos News).- Un reporte de la emisora alemana WDR reveló información inédita sobre el papel del nazi Walther Rauff en la desaparición de prisioneros políticos en Chile, aplicando la directiva conocida como “Nacht und Nebel” (“Noche y niebla), emitida por Adolf Hitler en 1941, la cual establecía los criterios y pasos para secuestrar y realizar desapariciones masivas.
Según el reporte, “Los padrinos alemanes de Pinochet”, el SS-Standartenführer y ex oficial de las SS -responsable del asesinato de medio millón de prisioneros en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz- introdujo inéditas prácticas de desaparición, cuando asesoraba a la Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) de la dictadura cívico-militar chilena entre 1973 y 1990.
Rauff llegó a Chile en 1958 después de haber conocido a Augusto Pinochet en Ecuador, donde éste era parte de una misión militar para reorganizar la Academia de Guerra ecuatoriana. En nuestro país se dedicó a administrar una planta pesquera procesadora de centolla a partir de la década de los 60´s, en Porvenir, provincia de Tierra del Fuego, región de Magallanes. En forma paralela ejerció como agente del servicio secreto alemán BND.
Pesquera Arauco: El Auschwitz de la dictadura chilena
Las empresas Pesquera Arauco Ltda. y Empresa Pesquera Chile Ltda. eran empresas filiales de la Corporación de Fomento Productivo (CORFO), y habían sido formadas por esta entidad dependiente del Ministerio de Economía y el Banco del Estado.
Después del golpe cívico-militar militar, la empresa pasó a ser administrada y dirigida por Manuel Contreras y miembros de la DINA, quienes asumieron como miembros del directorio, junto civiles de la dictadura. Los camiones frigoríficos, camionetas e infraestructura de la pesquera ubicada en San Antonio se emplearon como elementos logísticos claves en el accionar criminal de la DINA y la desaparición de prisioneros.
Llama la atención que a pesar de haber existido sospechas del empleo de los grandes “cocedoras” (hornos) de la pesquera Arauco para hacer desaparecer cadáveres, utilizando maquinaria de grandes dimensiones para elaborar harina de pescado, a través de un proceso de cocción a más de 90ºC, cuyo contenido se prensaba posteriormente para eliminar líquidos lixiviados, y obtener la «torta de prensado», nunca se realizó una investigación detallada sobre la macabra utilización de esta planta procesadora de pescado durante la dictadura.
El Plan Cóndor y el empleo de la pesquera productora de harina y aceite de pescado
En el reporte de la emisora WDR, a partir del testimonio de Jorgelino Vergara, miembro de la DINA, quien ha sido clave en diversos procesos judiciales para revelar la existencia de centros clandestinos de detención y exterminio, como el cuartel Simón Bolívar de Peñalolén, señaló “Todo llegó de Alemania. De los ex nazis. Ellos trajeron la tecnología para torturar, matar y hacer desaparecer a las personas”. Sobre Rauff dijo “A este señor le decían ‘El Chacal’. Era el encargado de hacerlos desaparecer enteramente”.
En el artículo “Emisora alemana WDR revela el papel del nazi Walter Rauff en “Los padrinos alemanes de Pinochet” del periodista Marco Fajardo de El Mostrador, incluye un detalle no contemplado en el reporte de la emisora alemana, al señalar el destino de los cuerpos de varios detenidos de calle Londres 38 y Villa Grimaldi tras ser llevados al puerto de San Antonio.
Un patrón criminal
“Respecto a los que pasaron por Londres 28, que son 85 personas, eran sacadas y trasladadas a distintos centros, notablemente Tejas Verdes y Santo Domingo, ubicados en San Antonio. Tenemos investigaciones que dan cuenta que trasladaban a personas en sacos ya muerta. Es decir, la responsabilidad de la pesquera es muy importante en relación a estas personas desaparecidas”, según el reporte.
Los prisioneros eran trasladados desde el centro de la capital hasta San Antonio a bordo de camiones frigoríficos adaptados para ese fin. Estos vehículos, consigna el documento, salían desde Rinconada de Maipú o desde el recinto de la empresa ubicado en Lo Valledor, en Santiago. Una vez que llegaban al “Cuartel Yucatán” (Londres 38) de la DINA, se leía la lista de detenidos que llevaban los conductores, y luego eran subidos a la parte posterior del camión completamente vendados.
“El itinerario de Santiago a San Antonio era por Melipilla. Y de Cucumén el camino a Lo Gallardo, camino malo, donde no había nadie, puros campesinos. Al lado del puente entre Santo Domingo y San Antonio hubo un puesto militar, donde cambiaron el chofer, para seguir rumbo a la pesquera que estaba puerto adentro. Este chofer de apellido ‘Tolosa’, un militar, era el único autorizado para entrar, nadie lo paraba. El camión demoraba dos a tres horas en regresar, vacío y limpiado”.
En el reportaje, un ex detenido en San Antonio cuenta sobre la presencia de Rauff en el lugar: “Y ahí había una bodega donde trabajan los rederos. Por estos lados se lo veía, donde las camionetas con los detenidos atrás. Es él que sale en la foto, sí. Con acento alemán y nazi malo”.
Citando a ex agentes de la DINA, el reporte indica que los detenidos eran asesinados en el lugar. El propio Vergara afirma lo que sucedía con sus cuerpos. “Al Rauff le dieron el cargo como director de la pesquera Arauco, de la dictadura. Los cadáveres fueron tirados a la trituradora de la pesquera Arauco. Quien lo hizo fue El Chacal, aunque no personalmente. Lo acompañaron agentes de la misma DINA”, quienes le dijeron a Vergara que “los tirábamos y se transformaron en harina de pescado”.
El Mostrador incluyó algunos testimonios de Vergara que no fueron parte del reporte radial. Entre ellos se menciona la participación de Rauff en la creación del Plan Cóndor –el sistema latinoamericano de represión para eliminar opositores políticos–, en una reunión secreta ocurrida en 1975.
“Yo acompañaba la bandeja donde se haría servicio de un café, un trozo de torta y pastelito para todos que estaban, eran más o menos entre 12 y 15. De acá fueron (Christoph) Willeke, quien fue director de la ENI, de la Escuela Nacional de Inteligencia y andaba este señor, El Chacal. Él estaba al lado de Manuel Contreras, y del otro lado estaba José María Verdeguer de Uruguay, el director de inteligencia de Uruguay. Allí fue donde acordaron el Plan Cóndor”, afirma Vergara.
Al ser consultado si Rauff estaba presente, responde: “Sí, estuvo presente. Él tuvo conocimiento de todo lo que se acordó. La persona estaba muy involucrada en los servicios de inteligencia”.
“La conexión alemana”
En los diversos procesos de desaparición de los cuerpos de los prisioneros en el mar frente a San Antonio, existe una marcada conexión con empresarios alemanes. Es el caso del empleo del remolcador “Kiwi”, perteneciente al consorcio marítimo Ultramar, de propiedad de los hermanos Sven y Wolf Von Appen. Con posterioridad esta nave fue trasladada a Perú donde la rebautizaron como “El brujo”.
El patriarca de esta familia , Julio Alberto Von Appen, llegó a Chile en la década de los 40, desempeñándose como líder de las operaciones de inteligencia nazi en Latinoamericana, para luego cimentar un exitoso camino en los negocios navieros. En 2013, se conoció que la familia Von Appen figuraba como financista de la Fundación Pinochet.
Según el autor del reportaje, después de 1945 unos mil oficiales de las SS, SA y la Gestapo llegaron a Chile, siendo llamados en la DINA “nuestra tropa alemana”.
La Pesquera Arauco y Pesquera Chile, contó con Hubert Fuchs, administrador y gerente legal de la empresa pesquera. Fuchs, marino en retiro, fue el nexo entre la DINA y la empresa Standard Electric, según consigna un reportaje de CIPER publicado en 2009. Fuchs fue un hombre clave en el entramado de financiero que sostuvo al aparato represivo en los primeros años de la dictadura.
La “solución final” y el crematorio de perros de Santiago
En el reporte alemán, Vergara cuenta además lo ocurrido en el crematorio de perros callejeros de la ciudad de Santiago, el cual hoy es el centro cultural “La Perrera”.
“Mira, mira, siempre me hablaban de los paquetes, los paquetes hay que eliminarlos, pero tenemos una cosa en Quinta Normal donde se puede hacer para no dejar evidencia y toda esa huevada: Exterminio de paquetes. El Rauff era el encargado de hacerlos desaparecer enteramente….Fue cruel, muy cruel. Se quemó gente, cuerpos humanos en la Perrera, sí. En Santiago, allí donde había más cadáveres los llevaban a la Perrera”. Al ser consultado sobre cuántos fueron, responde: “Mira, por darte un número: más de 300”.
Este testimonio fue confirmado por un ex trabajador del crematorio de perros callejeros la Perrera, quien desde el anonimato señaló. “Durante la dictadura venían vehículos extraños al lugar. No podíamos quedarnos cerca. Los extraños tiraban sacos a los hornos. Por lo que vi desde lejos, los cuerpos en los sacos eran más grandes que perros”.
“Simón”, quien cita a otro exmiembro de la DINA indica “Trabajaba en el CG (cuartel general) en este tiempo, y acompañó muchas veces al Willeke y Rauff visitando la Perrera en el Parque de los Reyes. Era para perros, pero ahora tenía que ser para seres humanos. El Rauff estaba en esta sección, no sé, tenía un nombre: sección para la “solución final” (sic).
Referencias | Latin America Politics |
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Djiboutian leaders and the president of Somalia in Djibouti on Sunday, marking his first trip to Africa as Secretary of Defense amid continued violence in the region. Later in the week, he will travel to Kenya and Angola.
Djibouti is home to the U.S. military’s major base on the continent, and Austin said Camp Lemonier was “critical” to “countering violent extremism and supporting security throughout the region.”
He added that the U.S. is proud to partner with Djiboutian forces and African Union forces in support of neighboring Somalia, where al-Shabab militants are increasingly resistant amid ongoing military operations against the group.
Al-Shabab is the main branch of al-Qaida on the continent.
Somalia faced recent setbacks in its fight against al-Shabab after a deadly attack on the town of Cowsweyne on August 26. The incident left dozens of government soldiers dead and resulted in a hasty retreat from front lines and towns previously captured from the militant group.
The setback was one of the reasons Somalia cited in requesting a “technical pause” to the military drawdown of African Union forces from Somalia. The drawdown, which started last week, is scheduled to see 3,000 AU soldiers transferring their forward operating bases to Somali soldiers by the end of this month.
“Unfortunately, on August 26, 2023 we have suffered several significant setbacks after the attack on our forces in Cowsweyne area, Galgudud region and the subsequent retreats by the forces from several towns that were recently liberated,” read the letter written by National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh-Ali. “This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed our vulnerabilities in our front lines.”
A U.S. defense official described al-Shabab as a “difficult challenge” and “not one that is going to stop overnight.”
“It’s one that’s going to continue to require consistent, sustained cooperation between us and our east African partners on this, including Kenya,” the official said.
The U.S. military has been “advising and assisting” Somali forces for years in the fight against al-Shabab, including the training of Special Forces and carrying out airstrikes against the group.
On Sunday, a senior U.S. defense official said that AFRICOM did not conduct an airstrike on September 22, 2023. The al-Shabab group via telegram message claimed that an AFRICOM strike killed eight members of the same family, including six children, on the same day. The Somali government reported that a senior al-Shabab commander identified as Isaaq Abdullahi, who was responsible for the group’s operations in Bakool region, and seven “bodyguards,” were killed in a targeted airstrike.
Meanwhile, the U.S. defense official confirmed that a U.S. contractor and a partner force member were injured after al-Shabab militants fired on a base staffed by Kenyan defense forces on Friday. Al-Shabab claimed the attack injured four U.S. soldiers and nine Kenyan troops. The U.S. defense official said the al-Shabab claim was “overblown.”
Thousands of Kenyan troops are in Somalia serving as part of the African Union Transition Mission, ATMIS. Kenya has also faced repeated attacks from al-Shabab, including the high-profile attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi 10 years ago that killed 67 people.
Austin will travel to Kenya and Angola later in the week. According to a senior U.S. defense official, this will be the first time a U.S. defense secretary has ever traveled to Angola and the first time since 1976 that an American defense chief has visited Kenya. | Africa politics |
Jeremy Hunt will claim the economy is "back on track" in an autumn statement that is expected to prioritise tax cuts and economic growth.
The chancellor is expected to say the government's plan for the economy is "working" but "the work is not done" as he unveils measures to boost business investment by £20bn a year, cut tax and get more people into work.
Mr Hunt will also set out decisions to grow the economy, reduce debt and return inflation to the Bank of England target of 2% - building further on Mr Sunak's pledge to halve inflation by the end of the year.
Politics news - latest: Tories 'running out of time' - so expect tax cuts
After keeping coy about the prospect of tax cuts, they now appear to be firmly on the table as Mr Hunt vows to "reject big government, high spending and high tax because we know that leads to less growth, not more".
But Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed the Tories were the party of "high tax", adding: "Nothing the chancellor says or does in his autumn statement can change their appalling record."
The hint of tax cuts comes after a Sky News poll of polls put the Tories 20 points behind Labour,
This is a worse margin than where Rishi Sunak was at the start of the autumn, when the Conservatives were an average of 18 points behind.
National insurance expected to be cut and national living wage increased
Among the key measures expected to be announced is a possible cut to national insurance contributions.
The government is also hoping to incentivise work by shaking up the welfare system and increasing the national living wage, which will rise from £10.42 to £11.44 from April and will benefit workers aged 21 and over, rather than 23 and over.
It will mean an £1,800 annual pay rise next year for a full-time worker on the living wage, while 18 to 20-year-olds will receive a £1.11 hourly rise to £8.60.
Mr Hunt is expected to say in his statement: "After a global pandemic and energy crisis, we have taken difficult decisions to put our economy back on track.
"We have supported families with rising bills, cut borrowing and halved inflation.
"The economy has grown. Real incomes have risen.
"Our plan for the British economy is working. But the work is not done.
"Conservatives know that a dynamic economy depends less on the decisions and diktats of ministers than on the energy and enterprise of the British people."
In total the chancellor is expected to announce 110 different growth measures for businesses, including plans to cut tax, remove planning red tape and speed up access to the national grid.
Meanwhile, there will also be support for entrepreneurs to raise capital policies to unlock foreign direct investment and to boost productivity.
"Taken together we will increase business investment in the UK economy by around £20bn a year over the next decade and get Britain growing," Mr Hunt will say.
The chancellor is expected to take advantage of headroom in the public finances - created as a result of higher wages and the freeze in income tax thresholds - to reduce taxes while also sticking to his fiscal rules.
They dictate that the government should have debt falling in the fifth year of the economic forecast and that borrowing should be less than 3% of gross domestic product (GDP).
In an interview with Sky News, former home secretary Dame Priti Patel expressed her desire to see tax cuts.
"This government has got the highest tax take in 70 years," she said.
"I am an absolute advocate of making sure that hard-pressed taxpayers can keep more of their money. And you know, that is through tax cuts.
"And there are ways in which that can be achieved through targeted tax cuts, such as addressing the conundrum of fiscal drag where so many more people get dragged into the higher tax."
Mr Hunt will also pledge to "reform welfare" in the autumn statement after already confirming a £2.5bn Back to Work plan, which aims to bring 1.1 million people back in the workforce.
Read more:
Autumn statement: Public have 'duty' to work, says minister - as benefits shake-up looms
A look at the polls might explain the Tories' new zeal for tax cuts | Beth Rigby
Measures in the plan including removing benefits such as free prescriptions and legal aid from job seekers who are judged not to be looking for work.
Ms Reeves said: "After 13 years of economic failure under the Conservatives, working people are worse off.
"Prices are still rising in the shops, energy bills are up and mortgage payments are higher after the Conservatives crashed the economy.
"The 25 Tory tax rises since 2019 are the clearest sign of economic failure, with households paying £4,000 more in tax each year than they did in 2010.
"The Conservatives have become the party of high tax because they are the party of low growth. Nothing the chancellor says or does in his autumn statement can change their appalling record." | United Kingdom Politics |
There is "growing concern" for the safety of Niger's democratically elected president who remains under house arrest amid an apparent coup there, according to the U.S. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller.
"We are greatly worried about his health and his personal safety and the personal safety of his family," Miller said during a press briefing on Wednesday. "As the time goes on, as he's held in isolation, it's a situation that's of growing concern to us."
Miller did not speak to the specific conditions of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum's confinement but said he had "no reason to dispute" reports that the politician is being denied access to running water, electricity and other supplies.
U.S. President Joe Biden has called for Bazoum's immediate release, warning in a statement last week that the West African nation is "facing a grave challenge to its democracy."
On July 26, a group of mutinous soldiers led by Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, the commander of Niger's presidential guard, placed Bazoum and his family under house arrest in the Nigerien capital of Niamey. They then announced on Nigerien state television that they have "put an end to the regime" of Bazoum due to "the continuing degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance."
The group, which calls itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, said "all institutions" have been suspended, aerial and land borders have been closed and a curfew has been imposed until the situation is stabilized. They declared Tchiani the new head of state and warned foreign governments "not to interfere."
Bazoum's apparent ousting marks the seventh attempted coup in West and Central Africa since 2020 and throws into question the future of Niger, a landlocked country that has had four coups since gaining independence from France in 1960. Bazoum was elected to office in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceful democratic transfer of power.
As military leaders seized control last month, the streets of Niger's capital erupted in chaos as hundreds of people marched in support of the president while chanting "No coup d'etat." Thousands of others came out in support of the junta, waving Russian flags and holding signs that read "Down with France." Protesters also burned down a door and smashed windows at the French embassy in Niamey before being dispersed by Nigerien soldiers.
France, along with several other countries, has since evacuated its citizens from Niger while the U.S. has evacuated some embassy employees and their families. Although the U.S. embassy in Niamey remains open for limited, emergency services to its citizens there, routine consular services are suspended and Americans are being advised not to travel to Niger, according to the U.S. Department of State.
The ordered temporary departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members from the embassy in Niamey has no impact on U.S. forces in Niger, according to U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional body comprised of 15 West African countries, announced sanctions against Niger on July 30 and threatened to use force if the coup leaders didn't reinstate Bazoum within one week. But the Nigerien junta has so far failed to comply and even announced on Wednesday that it has formed a new government.
Guinea, a nearby nation that has been under military rule since 2021, issued a statement on July 30 expressing support for Niger's junta and urging ECOWAS to "come to its senses." On July 31, the military-ruled governments of Burkina Faso and Mali, which share borders with Niger, released a joint statement denouncing the ECOWAS sanctions as "illegal, illegitimate and inhumane," refusing to apply them, and also warned that "any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali."
Meanwhile, Benin, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal -- all ECOWAS member states -- have indicated their willingness to send troops into Niger if the bloc decided to do so.
In a televised statement on Sunday night, hours before the deadline set by ECOWAS, a spokesperson for the Nigerien coup leaders announced that the nation's airspace will be closed until further notice due to “the threat of intervention being prepared in a neighboring country." The spokesperson warned that any airspace violation will be met with "an energetic and immediate response." At least 3,000 Nigerien troops have since been moved from the northern Agadez region to the country's southern border with Nigeria.
ECOWAS leaders met in Nigeria's capital of Abuja on Thursday for a second summit to discuss their options regarding the situation in Niger as the junta remains defiant.
Various sources told ABC News on Monday that an American delegation was also in Abuja to discuss a strategy to avoid neighboring Niger being overtaken by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, which could destabilize the entire region.
Bazoum's government has been a top ally to both the U.S. and Europe in the fight against violent extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Africa's Sahel region. The U.S. Department of Defense said it has provided $500 million in military assistance to Niger since 2012, "one of the largest" security assistance and training packages in sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. has freezed its funding to Niger amid the apparent coup.
There are currently 1,100 U.S. military personnel in Niger as part of a long-running counterterrorism mission that trains the Nigerien military and runs drone operations from a large base in the northern city of Agadez, located in the Sahara Desert. Those operations have been suspended in the wake of the apparent coup, namely the drone activity since Niger's airspace has been closed below 24,000 feet.
Other countries in the region, including Burkina Faso and Mali, have ousted the French military and instead enlisted the help of Wagner. In a voice message posted July 27 on social media channels linked to Wagner, the group's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared to endorse the coup in Niger and offer the services of his fighters to the junta.
ABC News' Aicha El Hammar Castano, Luis Martinez, Emma Ogao and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report. | Africa politics |
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North Korea displayed nuclear-capable missiles and new attack drones in a large military parade staged in Pyongyang for leader Kim Jong Un and visiting delegations from China and Russia, North Korean state media reported Friday.
The widely anticipated parade Thursday night commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, celebrated in North Korea as "Victory Day."
The Chinese and Russian delegations, including Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, were the first such visitors to North Korea since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Their appearance at events with the North's nuclear missiles -- which were banned by the United Nations Security Council with China's and Russia's support -- marked a contrast with previous years, when Beijing and Moscow sought to distance themselves from their neighbor's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development.
The parade included North Korea's latest Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to state news agency KCNA, which are believed to have the range to strike targets anywhere in the United States.
The event also featured a flyover by new attack and spy drones, KCNA reported.
In a speech at the parade, Defense Minister General Kang Sun Nam accused the United States and its allies of increasing tensions in the region.
Kim hosted a reception and had a luncheon with Shoigu, where the North Korean leader vowed solidarity with the Russian people and its military. Shoigu praised the North Korean military as the strongest in the world, and the two discussed strategic security and defense cooperation, KCNA said.
Washington has accused Pyongyang of providing weapons to Russia for its war effort in Ukraine. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday the U.S. was "incredibly concerned" about ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Pyongyang and Moscow have denied conducting any arms transactions.
But the Chinese and Russian presence at events with banned ballistic missiles cast doubts on those countries' willingness to enforce sanctions, said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
Russia and China have opposed U.S.-led efforts to impose further sanctions on North Korea over its continued pursuit of ballistic missiles, arguing existing measures should be eased for humanitarian purposes and to help entice Pyongyang to negotiate.
"It doesn’t help when two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council openly support a North Korean regime that violates human rights and flouts resolutions banning its nuclear and missile development," Easley said.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, "All members of (the) Security Council and, frankly, all member states of the U.N., share the same responsibility to uphold Security Council resolutions." | Asia Politics |
A new report by Crisis Group warns against international donors cutting aid to Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s curbs on women’s education and ability to work at NGOs, instead arguing for Western countries to find a “liminal space between pariah and legitimate status” to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The report, released on Thursday, focused primarily on two Taliban edicts announced in December – the first suspending female education at private and public universities, and the second banning Afghan women from working at local and international NGOs. The moves led to protests and global condemnation, while sounding a possible death knell for the Taliban’s initial openness to engage with the international community following its takeover of the country in August 2021.
Accompanying the Taliban’s clampdown has been a reassessment of international aid from key international government donors, according to the report’s authors. That aid, despite being immediately paused in the wake of the group’s rise to power, had resumed amid concerns over widespread hunger and poverty in the country of about 40 million.
“Donors are turning away from Afghanistan, disgusted by the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s basic freedoms,” Graeme Smith, Crisis Group’s Senior Consultant on Afghanistan, said in a statement accompanying the report.
“However, cutting aid to send a message about women’s rights will only make the situation worse for all Afghans,” he added. “The most principled response to the Taliban’s misogyny would be finding ways to mitigate the harms inflicted on women and other vulnerable groups.”
The report – which drew on dozens of interviews with “Afghan and international women activists, current and former Afghan officials, teachers, students, aid workers, human rights defenders, development officials, diplomats, business leaders and other interlocutors” – noted Western governments in the second half of 2022 warned aid agencies of a growing sense of donor fatigue towards Afghanistan. It did not name the governments to which it referred.
The authors further warned that following the most recent rights rollbacks, “many Western politicians fear voters will not accept the idea of their taxes helping a country ruled by an odious regime,” while adding that “consultations in January 2023 among major donors produced initial thinking that aid should be trimmed back to send a message to the Taliban, although the governments involved did not agree on which budgets to cut”.
Again, the report did not name the countries in question.
Western threats
The United Nations, which has already had to roll back some aid operations in the wake of the ban on NGO workers, has appealed for $4.6bn to aid Afghanistan. The sum is the largest request for a single country ever. The UN has warned that 28 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, accounting for two-thirds of the country’s population.
But Crisis Group warned that “Western governments seemed poised to fall significantly short” of that appeal.
The report authors added that options discussed in the wake of the December edict have included “deepening sanctions, cutting aid or levying other forms of punishment in response”.
They noted that the G7 grouping of the world’s most wealthy countries had said there would be “consequences for how our countries engage with the Taliban” in the wake of the December edicts. The grouping had provided $3bn in humanitarian funding for Afghanistan in 2022, the report noted.
In the United States, which imposed a raft of new sanctions on the Taliban in October over their treatment of women, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “There are going to be costs if this is not reversed”.
The report’s authors argued any approach that included short-term cuts to aid in the hopes of undermining the Taliban’s authority would further harm those targeted by the Taliban’s recent moves.
“Testing such assumptions would involve a high-stakes gamble with potentially millions of human lives. Win or lose, the costs of taking the gamble would be paid in large part by Afghan women, as the burdens of the crisis fall disproportionately on them,” the report said.
It noted that “women and girls often get the smallest share of food in Afghan families, which means that in times of scarcity they are most vulnerable to malnutrition and disease”, while child marriages tend to increase during times of increased hardship.
Change of approach
Instead, Crisis Group argued that continuing to offer humanitarian aid, while supporting longer-term development aid, would address the population’s immediate needs, while undermining the “Taliban’s overheated rhetoric about a titanic clash between Islam and the West”.
The authors further cautioned against expecting outside pressure to change the Taliban’s approach, highlighting the opaque nature of the group’s decision-making. They noted its reclusive leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has appeared to insist on the strict measures out of “personal conviction and to assert his authority over the movement and the country”.
“As the world considers its options, the idea of coaxing the Taliban into behaving like an internationally acceptable government should be set aside for the moment,” the report said.
There is little room for opposing views within the Taliban leadership, it added, and influence from outside Muslim figures has proven ineffective as “the Taliban’s policies are drawn not only from their atypical interpretation of Islam, but also from aspects of local culture”.
Meanwhile, political talks with the Taliban aimed at creating a “roadmap” to normalisation have all but stalled. It also remains unclear how much money the group may be earning from narcotics and other forms of smuggling, bringing into question how much sanctions will actually affect the upper echelons of leadership.
“Western policymakers must stand up for Afghan women and girls. At the same time, they should be careful to avoid self-defeating policies,” the report concluded.
“Practical steps that materially benefit Afghan women, improving their lives in tangible ways, would be superior to angry denunciations of the Taliban’s wrongheadedness.”
The authors added: “The Taliban should find a better way of making decisions, instead of following the whims of a leader who has proven his determination to oppress women and block the rebuilding of his country. Until that happens, the future of Afghanistan looks bleak.” | Asia Politics |
South Korea Warns Kim His Regime Would End If It Uses Nukes
South Korea is holding its first military parade in a decade in Seoul that features thousands of troops and its latest military hardware to celebrate Armed Forces Day, just as it bolsters security ties with the US and Japan.
(Bloomberg) -- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned North Korea its regime would be ended by Seoul and Washington if it used nuclear weapons, in a speech marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of his country’s military.
Yoon celebrated the long-standing alliance with the US to mark Armed Forces Day and agreements he reached with President Joe Biden to strengthen consultations on the deployment of American nuclear assets to the region to deter Kim Jong Un from trying to launch a strike.
“If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an end by an overwhelming response from the ROK-US alliance,” Yoon said Tuesday, referring to his country by its formal name. He also slammed Pyongyang for its pursuit of atomic arms, saying its people are paying the price.
“The North Korean regime’s obsession with the development of nuclear weapons aggravates the North Korean people’s suffering,” Yoon said. “The North Korean regime must clearly realize that nuclear weapons will never be able to guarantee its security.”
South Korea held its first military parade in a decade in Seoul to mark the anniversary, which featured thousands of troops and its latest military hardware such as domestically made long-range surface-to-air missiles. KF-21 fighter jets, next-generation light-armed helicopters that were supposed to be featured at an airshow beforehand, were grounded due to bad weather.
The parade began in the afternoon in the streets of a central Seoul area that has been home to massive protests and gatherings of hundreds of thousands to watch events such as World Cup soccer on big screen video monitors. Yoon was seen walking down a main road with the defense minister and other officials.
The event included displays of drones from a newly established unmanned aerial vehicle command and highlighted the country’s 70-year military alliance with the US.
Festivities at the airbase in the morning were attended by more than 10,000 people, including veterans of the 1950-1953 Korean War from 19 different countries and their families.
South Korea has held a parade every five years to mark its Armed Forces Day but it was not conducted under then President Moon Jae-in in 2018 as he sought rapprochement with North Korea. Pyongyang, for its part, has held several parades under Kim Jong Un, showing off its latest nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike South Korea and deliver warheads to the US mainland.
Biden was dealt a stronger hand in Asia when Yoon became South Korea’s president more than a year ago, backing hawkish security policies that brought Seoul closer to Tokyo while looking to diminish bickering between the neighbors.
Read: North Korean Nuclear Attack Would End Kim Regime, Biden Says
When Biden met Yoon at the White House in April, the US leader said a North Korean nuclear attack on the US and its allies would be the end of Kim’s regime as he announced new efforts with South Korea to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup.
North Korea has denounced Yoon as a “puppet traitor” and stepped up its provocations in displays of anger at joint military drills between the US and South Korea.
--With assistance from Shinhye Kang and Brian Fowler.
(Updates with details from parade.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Asia Politics |
Poland’s prime minister has admitted that it was a “mistake” for MPs from his ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to submit the application that led the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) to introduce a near-total ban on abortion in 2020.
Mateusz Morawiecki says that he “has always been a supporter” of the abortion law that existed before the TK ruling and he believes that tightening the law may have contributed to PiS losing its parliamentary majority at last month’s elections.
Powyborcze rozliczenia Mateusza Morawieckiego. "Wniosek do TK w sprawie aborcji był błędem" https://t.co/EVWL2gnGp4
— Onet Wiadomości (@OnetWiadomosci) November 4, 2023
In 2020, the TK ruled that abortions justified by the diagnoses of severe birth defects in the foetus – which had previously made up almost all legal abortions in Poland – violated the constitution.
That ruling was made in response to a request from a group of 199 MPs, the majority of whom were from PiS. The TK is also widely seen as being under the influence of PiS. Its chief justice, Julia Przyłębska, is a close personal associate of PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.
Senior PiS figures expressed their support for banning what they call “eugenic abortions”. In 2016, Kaczyński declared that he would “strive to ensure that even very difficult pregnancies, when the child is condemned to death, is severely deformed, will end in birth, so that the child can be christened, buried, given a name”.
However, the ruling was extremely unpopular among the general public. It prompted the largest protests since the fall of communism, with hundreds of thousands of Poles taking to the streets. Opinion polls have regularly shown that a large majority oppose the ruling.
In an interview with news website Interia published on Saturday, Morawiecki was asked if PiS’s disappointing election result last month was in part caused by residual anger over the abortion ruling.
“There were certainly mistakes on our part,” he agreed. “The application to the Constitutional Tribunal in this case was a mistake.”
“Regarding abortion, I will answer you directly: I have always been a supporter of the abortion compromise from 30 years ago,” he added. “Abortion compromise” is the term used in Poland to refer to the 1993 abortion law that existed before the TK ruling.
Support for allowing abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy has risen to 70% in Poland, the highest level ever recorded by @Ipsos.
Various polling shows that support for access to abortion has increased since a near-total ban on abortion was introduced https://t.co/gzzxQjHQyr
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 16, 2022
Morawiecki’s remarks are not the first time he has expressed such a position. In June this year, he told news weekly Wprost that he has “always been and still am a supporter of the abortion compromise”.
However, before the current election year, he has not explicitly spoken out against the abortion ruling. Indeed, soon after the TK abortion ruling was issued in October 2020, Morawiecki gave a speech that appeared to justify it as protecting unborn life.
“Freedom of choice is indeed a fundamental issue. But I think we all agree that to exercise this freedom, one must be alive. One who is dead cannot exercise it,” he said.
“Therefore, although freedom of choice is an important right, it is limited by the fundamental right to life, which determines whether freedom of choice can be exercised at all,”
— Rzeczpospolita (@rzeczpospolita) October 27, 2020
The prime minister’s latest declaration that he never supported the abortion ruling was met with ridicule from opposition figures.
“Now Morawiecki will say everything people want to hear, previously he only did what Kaczyński wanted,” said Tomasz Trela, an MP from The Left, quoted by news website Gazeta.pl. “A fraudster will always be a fraud.”
“When Isabella, Dorota and others died, he was silent,” tweeted Barbara Nowacka of the Civic Coalition (KO), referring to pregnant women who died in hospital, with protesters blaming their deaths on the abortion ban.
“When the police clubbed [abortion] protesters, when doctors and NGOs were intimidated, he remained silent,” she continued. “The prime minister could have prevented tragedies. Disgusting guy.”
Po porażce PiS notoryczny kłamca Morawiecki „zawsze byłem zwolennikiem kompromisu aborcyjnego sprzed 30 lat”
Gdy umarła Izabela, Dorota i inne milczał. Gdy policja pałowała protestujące, gdy zastraszano lekarzy i ngo – milczał. Premier, mógł zapobiec dramatom. Obrzydliwy typ.
— Barbara Nowacka (@barbaraanowacka) November 4, 2023
A coalition government made up of KO, The Left and another opposition group, Third Way (Trzecia Droga), is likely to take power this month or next. All three have expressed support for undoing the TK abortion ruling. However, they differ on how this should be done.
However, Third Way, which is more conservative than the other two groups, prefers a return to the pre-TK-ruling status quo. It has proposed holding a referendum to allow the public to decide the form of the new abortion law.
A further complication is that any attempt to liberalise the law could be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, who is a conservative and an ally of PiS, or deemed unconstitutional by the TK, where a majority of judges are PiS appointees.
We answer 12 questions about Poland's new government, including:
1. How will it be formed?
2. Will it be stable?
3. How will it tackle rule of law and abortion?
4. Can it unlock EU funds?
5. Will it face presidential vetoes?
Read our full analysis here⬇️https://t.co/oLK33waftV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 23, 2023
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. | Europe Politics |
The tents are so close to the border wall between Syria and Turkey, they are almost touching it.
Those living here on the Syrian side may have been displaced by the country's more than decade-old civil war. But they could also be survivors of the earthquake. Catastrophes overlap in Syria.
The earthquake, untroubled by international borders, has brought havoc to both countries. But the international relief effort has been thwarted by checkpoints. In southern Turkey, thousands of rescue workers with heavy lifting gear, paramedics and sniffer dogs have jammed the streets, and are still working to find survivors. In this part of opposition-held north-west Syria, none of this is going on.
I had just crossed the border from four days in the city of Antakya, Turkey, where the aid response is a cacophony - ambulance sirens blare all night long, dozens of earth movers roar and rip apart concrete 24 hours a day. Among the olive groves in the village of Bsania, in Syria's Idlib province, there's mostly silence.
The homes in this border area were newly built. Now more than 100 have gone, turned to aggregate and a ghostly white dust which gusts across the farmland. As I climb over the chalky remains of the village, I spot a gap in the ruin. Inside, a pink-tiled bathroom sits perfectly preserved.
The earthquake swallowed Abu Ala's home, and claimed the lives of two of his children.
"The bedroom is there, that's my house," he says, pointing to pile of rubble. "My wife, daughter and I were sleeping here - Wala', the 15-year-old girl, was at the edge of the room towards the balcony. A bulldozer was able to find her, [so] I took her and buried her."
In the dark, he and his wife clung to olive trees as aftershocks rocked the hillside.
The Syrian Civil Defence Force - also known as the White Helmets - which operates in opposition-held areas, did what they could with pickaxes and crowbars. The rescuers, who receive funding from the British government, lack modern rescue equipment.
Abu Ala' breaks down when he describes the search for his missing 13-year-old son, Ala'. "We kept digging until evening the next day. May God give strength to those men. They went through hell to dig my boy up."
He buried the boy next to his sister.
Bsania wasn't much, but it was home. Rows of modern apartment buildings, with balconies facing out across the Syrian countryside into Turkey. Abu Ala' describes it as a thriving community. "We had nice neighbours, nice people. [They] are dead now."
A deeply religious man, he is now bereft. "What am I going to do?" he asks. "There are no tents, no aid, nothing. We've received nothing but God's mercy until now. And I'm here left to roam the streets."
As we leave, he asks me if I have a tent. But we have nothing to give him.
I meet up with the White Helmets, expecting to find them looking for survivors. But it is too late. Ismail al Abdullah, is weary from effort, and what he describes as the world's disregard for the Syrian people. He says the international community has blood on its hands.
"We stopped looking for survivors after more than 120 hours passed," he says. "We tried our best to save our people, but we couldn't. No-one listened to us.
"From the first hour we called for urgent action, for urgent help. No-one responded. They were just saying, 'We are with you', nothing else. We said, we need equipment. No-one responded."
Apart from a few Spanish doctors, no international aid teams have reached this part of Syria. It is an enclave of resistance from Bashar al-Assad's rule. Under Turkish protection, it is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group that was once affiliated to al-Qaeda. The group has cut those links, but almost all governments have no relations with them. For our entire time in Syria, armed men, who didn't want to be filmed, accompanied us and stood at a distance.
More than a decade into Syria's stalled civil war, the 1.7m people who live in this area continue to oppose President Assad's rule. They live in makeshift camps and newly built shelters. Most have been displaced more than once, so life here was already very hard before the earthquake.
The international help that reaches this part of Syria is tiny. Many of the earthquake victims were taken to the Bab al-Hawa hospital, which is supported by the Syrian American Medical Society. They treated 350 patients in the immediate aftermath, general surgeon Dr Farouk al Omar tells me, all with only one ultrasound.
When I ask him about international aid, he shakes his head, and laughs. "We cannot talk more about this topic. We spoke about that a lot. And nothing happened. Even in a normal situation, we don't have enough medical staff. And just imagine what it's like in this catastrophe after earthquake," he says.
At the end of the corridor, a tiny baby lies in an incubator. Mohammad Ghayyath Rajab's skull is bruised and bandaged, and his small chest rises and falls thanks to a respirator. Doctors can't be sure, but they think he's around three months old. Both of his parents were killed in the earthquake, and a neighbour found him crying alone in the dark in the rubble of his home.
The Syrian people have been forsaken many times, and tell me they have grown used to being disregarded. But still there is anger that more help is not forthcoming.
In the town of Harem, Fadel Ghadab lost his aunt and cousin.
"How is it possible that the UN has sent a mere 14 trucks worth of aid?" he asks. "We've received nothing here. People are in the streets."
More aid has made it into Syria, but not much and it is too little, too late.
In the absence of international rescue teams in Harem, children remove rubble. A man and two boys use a car-jack to prize apart the collapsed remains of a building, carefully salvaging animal feed onto a blanket. Life isn't cheaper in Syria, but it is more precarious.
The day is ending and I have to leave. I cross the border back into Turkey and soon get stuck in a traffic jam or ambulances, construction equipment - the gridlock of a national and international aid response.
My phone pings with a message from a Turkish rescuer telling me his team found a woman alive after 132 hours buried under her home. Behind me in Syria, as darkness falls, there is only silence. | Middle East Politics |
One of Australia's highest-profile TV hosts, Stan Grant, has stood down from presenting a prime-time show after receiving "relentless" racist abuse.
Grant said he had always endured racism in his career but it had escalated after he covered the King's Coronation for national broadcaster ABC.
The veteran Aboriginal journalist had spoken during the coverage about the impact of colonisation on his people.
The ABC has called for the "grotesque" abuse against the host to stop.
But Grant also accused his employer of an "institutional failure" to protect or defend him.
Grant has won several journalism awards over a four-decade career and in 1992 he became the first Aboriginal prime-time host on Australian commercial TV.
But on Friday, he announced he was indefinitely stepping away from his roles hosting the ABC's flagship Q+A panel discussion show and writing a weekly column online.
"Racism is a crime. Racism is violence. And I have had enough," the Wiradjuri man wrote.
"I want no part of it. I want to find a place of grace far from the stench of the media."
Mr Grant said he was invited to be part of the ABC's Coronation coverage specifically to talk about the legacy of the monarchy.
During the segment, he said the symbol of the Crown "represented the invasion, the theft of land - and in our case - the exterminating war", referring to a period of martial law in 1820s New South Wales that was used to justify the killings of Wiradjuri people.
The discussion divided people online and some people made formal complaints to the ABC about its appropriateness.
On Friday, Grant accused some "people in the media" of distorting his words and depicting him as "hate filled", inflaming racist abuse against him.
He said he apologised if his own comments had caused offence but that the "hard truths" were spoken out of love for Australia.
"No-one at the ABC... has uttered one word of public support. Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me," he wrote.
In a statement, ABC News director Justin Stevens described Grant as "one of Australia's best and most respected journalists" and said his treatment had been "abhorrent".
Stevens did not address the frustrations Grant aimed at the organisation, but said "the ABC stands by him".
Of the Coronation segment, the news director added that it was "regrettable" that it had elicited "a strong response from some viewers".
"Any complaints, criticism - or vitriol - regarding the coverage should be directed to me, not to him," he said, adding the ABC would continue to refer threats to police.
Grant's announcement has triggered an outpouring of tributes from peers across the media industry.
"Stan Grant is an Australian icon, a serious journalist, a leader in this country. This is a sad and disgraceful result," newspaper columnist Sean Kelly wrote. | Australia Politics |
NEW DELHI, Nov 21 (Reuters) - India's anti-terrorism agency has filed a case against a Sikh separatist leader for warning Air India passengers that their lives were in danger and threatening not to let the flag carrier operate anywhere in the world.
The agency said security forces were on alert after the threats by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who acts as general counsel of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a group campaigning to establish an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan carved out of India.
The case against Pannun has been registered under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 and sections of the Indian Penal Code, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in a statement on Monday.
"Pannun threatened that Air India would not be allowed to operate in the world ... in his video messages, released on Nov. 4," it said, adding that he had urged Sikhs not to travel on Air India flights from Sunday, "claiming a threat to their lives".
Reuters has not independently verified the video messages, which were widely shared on social media this month.
Pannun told Reuters in an emailed response that his message was to "boycott Air India not bomb" and that the Indian government was engaging in a disinformation tactic to "crush freedom of expression".
He added that the "government can not stop SFJ from running secessionist Khalistan referendum, which is the real motive why NIA filed frivolous terror case."
Air India declined to comment on the matter. The NIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s by Sikh militants paralysed the northern state of Punjab, where Sikhs are a majority, for more than a decade.
India banned the SFJ as an "unlawful association" in 2019, citing that it was involved in "anti-national and subversive" activities.
It listed Pannun as an "individual terrorist" in 2020, stating that he was issuing appeals to "Punjab-based gangsters and youth" to fight for Khalistan.
The interior ministry said that year that Pannun, originally from a village in Punjab, was residing in the United States. Media said he has citizenship of U.S. and Canada.
Interpol has rejected two requests by India to issue a red corner notice against him, The Indian Express newspaper said in October last year. The SFJ says it has offices in Britain, Canada and U.S.
The threats come as Canadian agencies investigate allegations linking India's agents to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader there, which has frayed ties between the two countries. India has rejected Canada's suspicions.
In the wake of the threats, investigations have been launched in Canada, India and some other countries where the airline owned by the Tata Group conglomerate operates, the NIA said.
Air India has previously been targeted by Sikh militants, who were blamed for a bombing in 1985 of its Boeing 747 aircraft flying from Canada to India that killed all 329 people aboard off the Irish coast.
Pannun has also previously threatened to disrupt railways and thermal power plants in India, the agency said.
Reporting by Shivam Patel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | India Politics |
Freed hostage Ron Krivoi escaped the rubbles of a destroyed Gaza building where he was kept and attempted to escape the Gaza Strip on his own for days, his aunt revealed to Kan Reshet B on Monday morning.
Krivoi, a 25-year-old Russian-Israeli dual national, was released by Hamas on Sunday evening following the intervention of the Russian government, in addition to 13 other Israelis and three foreign hostages released on the third day of the ceasefire in Gaza.
Krivoi worked as a sound engineer at the Re'im music festival massacre, from which he was kidnapped on October 7.
According to his aunt Yelena Magid, Krivoi was taken by the terrorists and was kept in a residential building in the Strip. "Due to the bombings, the building collapsed and he managed to escape the rubble and break free.
"For a few days, he was hiding [in Gaza] alone," Magid said, adding that she held a 30-minute conversation with her nephew following his return.
She said that Gazan civilians located Krivoi and brought him back under Hamas captivity.
Gazan civilians located hostage during attempts to reach border
"He tried getting to the border. He did not have the capacity to understand where he was and where he needed to go, so he could not navigate the open field. He was alone," Magid added.
"I asked him today: 'How are you feeling? Do you have nightmares?' He answered: Yes, I have nightmares from the party and captivity, but that is good, it means I am handling it well."
Krivoi suffered head wounds during the collapse of the building he was kept in, the aunt further revealed. "He has some other injuries, he is OK. He is being checked," she said. | Middle East Politics |
Russia bombarded 118 Ukrainian towns and villages in 24 hours, more than on any other day this year, says Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
He said 10 of Ukraine's 27 regions had come under attack and the onslaught had caused deaths and injuries.
Many of the communities hit were near the front lines in the east and south.
Russia has for weeks trained much of its military firepower on Avdiivka, a strategically significant town in the eastern region of Donetsk.
"[Avdiivka] is being erased, shattered. There have been more than 40 massive shelling attacks against the territorial community in the past day," said local leader Vitaliy Barabash.
He said two civilians had been killed and warned that Russia was building up to a third wave in its offensive. Ukraine says Russia has been pouring reinforcements into the area in a bid to encircle and capture the town.
Twenty attacks in the Avdiivka area alone were repelled on Tuesday, Ukraine's armed forces general staff said.
Russia has also ramped up attacks on the town of Kupyansk in the north-eastern Kharkiv region and sought to stop Ukrainian forces from recapturing territory around Bakhmut.
There were also attacks away from the front lines, on a block of flats, shops and a pharmacy in the southern city of Nikopol on the bank of the Dnipro river, and in Kremenchuk, where a disused oil refinery was set on fire by a Russian drone.
The refinery, in the central region of Poltava, has been targeted several times by Russia and officials said it had come under attack throughout the early hours of Wednesday.
The Kremenchuk refinery was the biggest in Ukraine until Russian attacks put it out of action a few weeks into the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine's counteroffensive has so far made little headway in recapturing land occupied by Russian forces in the south and east, prompting fears of Western fatigue with the war.
One of the Ukrainian leader's closest allies, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, addressed the issue of fatigue during a hoax call from two Russian pranksters, widely known for targeting Kremlin opponents.
"I see there is a lot of fatigue, if I have to say the truth, from all the sides," she is heard to tell the pair, Vovan and Lexus. "We're near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out."
"The counteroffensive of Ukraine is maybe not going as they were expecting. It is going but it didn't change, I mean, the destiny of the conflict."
US President Joe Biden's administration has asked Congress to approve a $106bn package for both Ukraine and Israel. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned this week: "I can guarantee that without our support [Russia's Vladimir] Putin will be successful."
President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians in an overnight address on Tuesday that "we live in a world that gets used to success too quickly".
He reserved particular praise for the military's success in reducing Russia's control over the Black Sea: "The more protection we have along our coastline and in our sea, the more protection there is in the world."
Recent Ukrainian attacks have hit the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet prompting most of its ships to leave occupied Crimea.
Kyiv has tried to create an export corridor safe for civilian vessels to carry grain along Ukraine's Black Sea coast, via Romanian waters and on to the Turkish coast.
Although at least 700,000 metric tonnes of grain have evaded Russian bombardment in recent months, Ukrainian officials said war planes had dropped "explosive objects" on the expected paths of civilian ships. "However, the functioning of the navigational corridor continues under the aegis of the defence forces," said Ukraine's southern operational command.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Ukraine was losing the war despite supplies of new weapons from Nato.
He said that Ukraine was taking heavy losses as it tried to push into Russian-held areas of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Donetsk and "demoralisation of personnel is growing". He also claimed Russian units were advancing.
The BBC has no way of verifying such claims. | Europe Politics |
Reed, Whitehouse, Magaziner, & Colleagues Urge Departments of State and Treasury to Impose Sanctions on Azerbaijan Officials
Bipartisan, bicameral letter calls for accountability amid growing human rights violations in Nagorno-Karabakh
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and U.S. Representatives Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) have sent a bipartisan, bicameral letter to the Departments of State and Treasury calling for sanctions on individuals in the government of Azerbaijan who are associated with the military attacks against and brutal blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The signatories cited the discretionary authority of the leaders of both agencies under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to hold the perpetrators of the ongoing human rights crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh accountable.
“Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only route connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, depriving some 120,000 Armenians of freedom of movement and access to food, medication, hygiene products, and other commercial goods. The blockade’s effects are particularly acute for at-risk groups, such as children, elderly people, people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, whose access to healthcare services is severely limited or disrupted,” wrote the lawmakers.
“After over nine months of trying to starve out the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani military launched a full-scale assault on the region on September 19, resulting in a ceasefire and the capitulation of the local government on September 20,” added the lawmakers. “This attack has exacerbated concerns about the worsening of the humanitarian crisis, and statements from the government of Azerbaijan about ‘re-integration’ raise the specter of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.”
“America is a world leader on international human rights and must continue to serve as a mediating force and supporter of peace in the region,” they concluded.
The letter was cosigned by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Fetterman (D-PA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Representatives Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Donald Beyer (D-VA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Salud Carbajal (D-CA), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Jim Costa (D-CA), Danny Davis (D-IL), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Dwight Evans (D-PA), Charles Fleischmann (R-TN), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL), Daniel Goldman (D-NY), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Val Hoyle (D-OR), Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Daniel Kildee (D-MI), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Susie Lee (D-NV), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Tom McClintock (R-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Grace Meng (D-NY), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Katie Porter (D-CA), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Deborah Ross (D-NC), C. Ruppersberger (D-MD), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Bradley Schneider (D-IL), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Dina Titus (D-NV), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Norma Torres (D-CA), Lori Trahan (D-MA), David Trone (D-MD), David Valadao (R-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Susan Wild (D-PA) and Nikema Williams (D-GA).
The text of the letter is below and a PDF is available here.
September 26, 2023
Dear Secretaries Blinken and Yellen,
We urge the Departments of State and Treasury to immediately exercise discretionary authority to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Global Magnitsky Act, Title XII, Subtitle F of P.L. 114-328; 22 U.S.C. §10101 et seq.) on individuals in the government of Azerbaijan associated with the military attacks against and brutal blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh. These actions represent a gross violation of human rights and the perpetration of violent conflict, which both pose a direct assault on American values and interests. The perpetrators of these human rights violations must be held to account by the United States.
Since December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only route connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, depriving some 120,000 Armenians of freedom of movement and access to food, medication, hygiene products, and other commercial goods. The blockade’s effects are particularly acute for at-risk groups, such as children, elderly people, people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, whose access to healthcare services is severely limited or disrupted. Local journalists have reported a rise in miscarriages and premature births due to pregnant women not having access to proper nutrition and prenatal care. Azerbaijan has also undermined the region’s gas and electricity supply, impacting the functioning of medical and educational institutions and cutting heat as yet another winter approaches.
After over nine months of trying to starve out the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani military launched a full-scale assault on the region on September 19, resulting in a ceasefire and the capitulation of the local government on September 20. This attack has exacerbated concerns about the worsening of the humanitarian crisis, and statements from the government of Azerbaijan about “re-integration” raise the specter of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide. Additionally, an explosion at a fuel station killed at least 125 civilians and wounded nearly 300 as thousands of ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh in fear of violence from Azerbaijani forces. This horrific incident tragically underscores the urgent need for humanitarian aid and access.
America is a world leader on international human rights and must continue to serve as a mediating force and supporter of peace in the region. In order to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its actions in blockading and assaulting Nagorno-Karabakh, we respectfully request that your departments exercise existing authorities under the Global Magnitsky Act to impose targeted sanctions on the individuals in the Aliyev government that are responsible for or participated in the violation of human rights in Nagorno-Karabakh. | Human Rights |
One Dead, One Rescued After 'Dangerous And Dilapidated' Building Collapses In Dombivali
A 55-year-old man died and a woman was pulled out alive from the debris after a four-storey residential building that was dilapidated and declared dangerous by civic authorities collapsed in Dombivali East in Maharashtra's Thane district on Friday, an official said.
A 55-year-old man died and a woman was pulled out alive from the debris after a four-storey residential building that was dilapidated and declared dangerous by civic authorities collapsed in Dombivali East in Maharashtra's Thane district on Friday, an official said.
The building 'Adinarayan Bhuvan', located at Ayre village in Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation limits, had 44 tenements and occupants were being evacuated since Thursday after some part of the structure started sinking, he said.
At round 5:40 pm on Friday, it collapsed, and search and rescue teams pulled out the body of Sunil Birja Lodaya (55) from the debris at around 8pm, he said.
At 9:15pm, 54-year-old Deepti Sunil Lodaya was pulled out alive from the debris and was rushed to a nearby hospital, TMC disaster management cell chief Yasin Tadvi told PTI.
The rescue operations are underway since one more person is feared trapped, he added.
KDMC chief Bhausaheb Dangde said two persons, who are believed to be unwell, were feared trapped while all other occupants had been evacuated.
'The 50-year-old building was declared dangerous and a notice had been issued asking occupants to vacate. Many had vacated but some had returned to the building,' Dangde told reporters.
The structure was sinking and the process of evacuating occupants began on Thursday evening and was underway at the time it collapsed, he informed.
'It was an unauthorised building and tagged as a dangerous structure by the KDMC earlier,' another official said.
The search and rescue operation of the fire brigade and local disaster management cell was underway at the site under the supervision of Dangde and other senior officials.
Another civic official at the site said there were 40 buildings in the ward that had been declared dangerous, while there were 602 such structures under various categories in KDMC limits.
Replying to a query on civic action on such structures, Dangde said the immediate priority was the search and rescue operations at the site of the collapsed building.
Earlier, Thane Municipal Corporation disaster management cell chief Yasin Tadvi said a team of the Thane Disaster Response Force had also rushed to the site after it got an alert about the building collapse. | India Politics |
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