Pakistan no longer a militant safe haven, is behind Afghan peace process: Imran Khan

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during an international conference on the future of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, organized by Pakistan and the U.N. Refugee Agency in Islamabad Monday. | REUTERS

AFP-JIJI
FEB 18, 2020


ISLAMABAD – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan insisted Monday that his country is no longer a militant safe haven, and said his administration fully supports the Afghan peace process.

Khan’s assertion was, however, challenged hours later, when a suicide bomber targeted a religious rally in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

His comments come as the U.S. and the Taliban appear on the brink of a deal that would see U.S. forces begin to pull out of Afghanistan. In return, the Taliban would enter talks with the Afghan government, stick to various security guarantees and work toward an eventual, comprehensive cease-fire.

Pakistan, which has long been accused of supporting the Taliban and other extremist groups along its border with Afghanistan, is seen as key to helping secure and implement any deal.

“I can tell you that there are no safe havens here,” Khan said at a conference in Islamabad.

“Whatever the situation might have been in the past, right now, I can tell you … there is one thing we want: peace in Afghanistan.”

His comments came after Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan’s second vice president, accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to recruit new fighters from Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.

On Monday evening, police said a suicide bomber had targeted a rally in the southwestern city of Quetta in Balochistan province. At least eight people — including two police officers — were killed.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province — bordering Afghanistan and Iran — remains home to Islamist, separatist and sectarian insurgents, even as violent incidents have dropped elsewhere in Pakistan.

Khan was addressing a conference marking 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees in his country.

While Pakistan cannot “completely guarantee” that no Taliban are hiding among the estimated 2.7 million Afghans living in the country, Khan said his government had done all it can to prevent attacks in Afghanistan, including by building a border fence.

U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has for more than a year led talks between the Taliban and Washington, also attended the conference. He said he was “cautiously optimistic” about progress toward an eventual deal.

The U.S. has “commitments from the Talibs on security issues,” he said.

The Taliban, Afghanistan’s security forces and the U.S. are supposed to be launching a seven-day “reduction in violence,” officials announced last week.

The move is part of a confidence-building measure ahead of the announcement of a fuller deal.

But bloodshed continued over the weekend, including a Taliban attack in Kunduz province.

Refugees began flowing into Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and continued to come during the Taliban regime.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is on a three-day visit to Pakistan, credited the nation for supporting Afghan refugees.

He also praised the “remarkable transformation” of Pakistan’s security situation.

Virginia lawmakers reject assault weapon ban after white supremacists said it would spark civil war


Democrat lawmakers helped reject the bill weeks after a gun rights demonstration took over Richmond

Associated Press reporters

WHITE PRIVILEGE 

Gun rights advocates holding semi-automatic weapons 

attend a rally in Richmond, Virginia ( Getty )
ARMED TERRORISTS 4 THE 2ND AMENDMENT

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's push to ban the sale of assault weapons has failed after members of his own party balked at the proposal.

Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.

Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday's committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.

The bill was a top priority for Northam, a Democrat who has campaigned heavily for a broad package of gun-control measures.

The legislation also engendered the biggest pushback from gun owners and gun-right advocates, who accused the governor and others of wanting to confiscate commonly owned guns and accessories from law-abiding gun owners. Northam has said repeatedly he does not want to confiscate guns, but argued that banning new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would help prevent mass murders.

Virginia is the current epicenter of the country's heated debate over gun control and mass shootings. Tens of thousands of gun-rights activists from across the country flooded the state Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and carrying military-style rifles.

Days before the rally, the FBI arrested a group of alleged white supremacists who were accused of planning to infiltrate the protest. They were allegedly caught saying they hoped the rally would cause 'civil war'.

Northam has been able to get much of his gun-control agenda passed this year, but struggled with the proposed assault weapon ban. Earlier proposals to ban possession of AR-15-style rifles or to require owners to register them with state police have been scrapped. The governor had hoped a watered-down would win over enough Democratic moderates for passage.

An estimated 8 million AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already advanced several other gun-control measures and should finalize passage in the coming days. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month, universal background checks on gun purchases, allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas, and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.

UK
Storm Dennis: Heavier rainfall is ‘100% for certain’ linked to climate crisis, experts warn

Minister admits government cannot protect every household from extreme weather

Conrad Duncan @theconradduncan

Heavier rainfall from storms is “100 per cent for certain” linked to climate change and brings an increased risk of flooding to the UK, experts have warned.

The warnings came as George Eustice, the new environment secretary, admitted that the “nature of climate change” means the government cannot protect every household from extreme weather, such as recent storms which have brought flooding to parts of the UK.


“We’ll never be able to protect every single household just because of the nature of climate change and the fact that these weather events are becoming more extreme,” Mr Eustice told Sky News

Research has previously shown that conditions in Storm Desmond, a winter storm in 2015, were made 40 per cent more likely due to climate change.

Over the weekend, Storm Dennis battered the UK with heavy rain and strong winds, just one week after Storm Ciara, with more than a month’s worth of rain falling in 48 hours in some places.

Storm Dennis in pictures
Show all 32





Dr Michael Byrne, a lecturer in climate science at the University of St Andrews, has warned that future storms will bring more rain due to climate change.

“These storms are nothing new, going back 100 years, but, because we are now more than 1C warmer as a whole versus pre-industrial times, every degree means 7 per cent more water in the atmosphere and more rain in these heavy rain events,” Dr Byrne said on Monday.

“When they come, they bring more rain, 100 per cent for certain, because of climate change.”

If temperatures rise by 3C - an increase that the world is currently on track for – storms could bring about 20 per cent more rain than they would have done without climate change.

This, Dr Byrne said, would put a huge strain on flood defences.

Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, also warned that the UK is “clearly not ready” for more extreme storms.

“These types of events are most likely a taster of what is to come and we should be paying very close attention to that,” Ms Cloke said.

“Clearly, we are not ready for them. We’ve always seen these big floods but we do keep seeing these records being broken, it’s very concerning.”

She added that there are now more people living in areas at risk and the UK needs to be “using the whole toolkit of things to prepare for floods”.

These measures include looking after soil so it can soak up water and does not run off the land to block watercourse, and putting in “leaky dams” made of wood in streams to slow the water’s flow down to the towns.

Ms Cloke also warned against building on flood plains and said that, where necessary, better joined-up planning was needed to protect homes from floods.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s only MP, has called for the government to “get real about investing in appropriate flood defences” following recent storms.

Storm Dennis: Boris Johnson accused of going 'missing in action' over failure to visit flood-hit areas

Prime minister remains at country residence in Kent as operations to deal with flooding underway

Boris Johnson has been accused of going “missing in action” after he chose to spend Monday at a government-owned Manor House in Kent rather than visiting flood-hit areas of Wales and the midlands.

The government has activated a scheme to provide emergency financial assistance to affected areas, as hundreds of homes remained flooded and the UK’s transport network struggled to cope with a third day of disruption from Storm Dennis.

But there were no plans announced to call a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergencies committee.

And the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said that extra cash announced by ministers in response to the flooding would not fill the gap left by cuts totalling £10m from rescue services in affected areas since 2016.

A rescue operation for a woman swept away by floodwater in Worcestershire was called off this morning, amid fears that she has become the fifth fatality of the bad weather that has lashed the UK for the second weekend in a row.

Over the weekend major incidents due to flooding were declared in south Wales, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.

As of 1pm on Monday, there were severe flood warnings, signifying potential danger to life, along the rivers Teme and Wye and 480 flood warnings and alerts in place across England – the highest on record. And streets in York were flooded as the River Ouse burst its banks.

Labour leadership contender Sir Keir Starmer said it was an “appalling” decision for the prime minister to remain at the foreign secretary’s country residence, Chevening, rather than summoning Cobra or travelling to flooded areas to meet those affected, as he did in the weeks before December’s general election.

“The recent flooding is a stark reminder that the government is not doing enough to get to grips with the climate crisis,” said Sir Keir. “Ministers should be taking a lead on this situation, not ducking their responsibilities.

“I would urge the prime minister to reconsider this decision and give communities the support they need to deal with the horrendous flooding.”

Ed Davey, the acting Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Boris Johnson’s response to these floods has been shocking. He seems determined to pretend they’re not even happening.

“Boris Johnson must take this crisis far more seriously and hold a Cobra meeting to coordinate the country’s response. We are facing a climate emergency and regrettably severe weather episodes like this are likely to become more common. The Conservative government has got to raise its game.”

And Luke Pollard, the shadow environment secretary, said: “It is a disgrace that Boris Johnson has refused to visit communities affected by the flooding, and that the government has not convened Cobra. That must be done immediately.

“The prime minister was slow enough to act during the general election, but now he is not campaigning for votes he is completely missing in action.”

A No 10 spokesperson said: “The prime minister is receiving regular updates on this. Defra (the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the relevant agencies, the police and the fire and rescue services on the ground continue to work on it.”

Flooding in Lower Bullingham, Hereford, in the aftermath of Storm Dennis (PA)

The spokesperson told a Westminster media briefing that Defra and the Environment Agency were “working closely with local communities” and have deployed 5km of flood barriers across the country.

The Environment Agency said around 1,000 staff were on the ground across the country operating flood defences and temporary pumps, clearing debris from rivers, inspecting flood defences and supporting affected communities. Flood defences have protected nearly 20,000 properties from the impacts of Storm Dennis, said the Agency.

Toby Willison, the executive director of operations, said: “Every home flooded is a tragedy for that family and our hearts go out to all those who have been flooded during Storm Dennis. 

“Our teams will continue to work 24/7, alongside the police, fire and rescue and local authorities, to reduce the risk of flooding and keep communities safe.”

Mr Willison said further bad weather was expected into the middle of the week, bringing a “significant” flood risk for the west midlands.

“With the effects of climate change, we are seeing more frequent periods of extreme weather,” he said. “It is important for people to be aware of their flood risk and stay safe by signing up for flood warnings, making a flood plan and remembering not to drive or walk through flood water – it’s not worth the risk.”

New environment secretary George Eustice admitted the government cannot protect every home.

George Eustice was appointed environment secretary last week (Reuters)

He said: “We have done a lot of work over the last five years to invest in flood defences – some £2.5bn, 600 projects protecting over 200,000 properties, and there is more work underway with £4bn committed in the next five years.”

Local government secretary Robert Jenrick announced the activation of the Bellwin scheme, allowing councils to reclaim the cost of their response to flooding in areas of Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

“By activating our emergency financial assistance scheme, we are making sure that those places hit the hardest will be able to access funding to help them deal with the aftermath of the storm,” said Mr Jenrick.

But Matt Wrack, the FBU’s general secretary, said that government funding for fire and rescue services in affected areas had been cut by £10.1m since 2016/17. This included £2.5m from budgets in Nottinghamshire, £2.3m in Derbyshire, £2.1m in Leicestershire, £1.3m in Shropshire and £1.9m in Hereford and Worcester.

“Robert Jenrick can praise emergency services all he likes, but he has made their job unimaginably harder,” said Mr Wrack.

“The minister and his predecessors have persistently attacked the fire and rescue services who are helping these communities, but he has the audacity to spin Bellwin funding as ‘supporting communities’. This is more government spin and won’t convince any of us.”

 Trump attends wedding of white nationalist aide Stephen Miller at his own hotel

'His white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology has no place in our country, let alone the White House', Kamala Harris says of Trump advisor


Mr Miller, who has maintained a presence in Mr Trump’s inner circle since his electoral campaign, has been behind some of the president’s most hard-line policy decisions ( Getty Images )

Donald Trump has attended the wedding of his top aide on immigration and national security just days after senators called for his removal after he was found to have been advancing white nationalist ideology.

Stephen Miller, the 34-year-old whose influence over the president has triggered controversy throughout his time in the White House, married Vice President Mike Pence’s spokeswoman Katie Rose Waldman, 28, at a ceremony in the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC on Sunday evening.

“The President is at Trump International Hotel for the wedding of Mr and Mrs Stephen Miller,” a White House statement said.

The event marked the end of a day for the president which saw him travel from his Mar a Lago golf resort, to the Dayton 500 speedway race where he rode in a lap of honour of the track before briefly returning to the Oval office.

Mr Miller, who has maintained a presence in Mr Trump’s inner circle since his electoral campaign, has been behind some of the president’s most hard-line policy decisions – particularly when it comes to immigration.

He is understood to have pushed for the policy that has seen children separated from their parents at the southern border, while also assisting in the formation of the president’s travel ban, which initially attempted to restrict travel from seven majority Muslim countries.

His wedding came just days after prominent Democratic officials called for him to be removed from the West Wing after it was revealed he had sought to advance white supremacist conspiracy theories while operating in politics.

Emails revealed by advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center showed him promoting white nationalist and racist books to a Breitbart editor in an apparent attempt to influence reporting.

Among the documents exchanged was the book The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America by James Simpson, which claims American sovereignty was being erased intentionally by people of colour through immigration programmes – while baselessly arguing migrant relocation is part of an intentional plan by the UN to “dilute” western culture.
Watch more

White House aide feared Dreamers would make US less American

Stephen Miller is white supremacist, says white supremacist journalist

Kamala Harris demands ‘immediate removal’ of Stephen Miller in letter

Jewish groups call for Stephen Miller's resignation over emails

Of the 900 emails sent by Mr Miller to editor Katie McHugh, who has since renounced the far right, 80 per cent are believed to have focussed on immigration and race.

On 13 February former presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Democratic representative for Texas Joaquin Castro brought forward a resolution in congress condemning Mr Miller and calling for his resignation.

“Stephen Miller is the hateful force behind the cruel and xenophobic policies that have defined the Trump administration”, Ms Harris said in a statement. “His white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology has no place in our country, let alone the White House.

“I'm proud to lead this effort on behalf of immigrant families in California and throughout the country.”

Mr Castro added: “Americans, and in particular the Latino community, will never forget it was President Trump and Stephen Miller’s hateful rhetoric that helped inspire the deadly attack in El Paso where 22 individuals were killed for being Latino.”

“When we see the families suffering at the border or being torn apart by ICE raids, we can look to Stephen Miller as the main architect of the Administration’s cruel anti-immigrant policies. He must be removed from the White House immediately to stop further damage to our country and our communities.”

UK 
Andrew Sabisky: Controversial Boris Johnson aide who suggested black people were mentally inferior resigns

No 10 initially declined opportunity to distance PM from remarks of adviser, recruited by Dominic Cummings

Lizzy Buchan Political Correspondent @LizzyBuchan
A controversial Downing Street aide who suggested black people were mentally inferior has resigned from his post.

Andrew Sabisky announced he was quitting his role as a contractor for No 10 following a major backlash over his past comments on eugenics, race and the enforced uptake of contraception.

Boris Johnson stood by Mr Sabisky initially in the face of widespread condemnation, with the prime minister’s official spokesman refusing to answer dozens of questions about the appointment.

The 27-year-old is understood to have been hired as part of Dominic Cummings‘ drive to recruit ”misfits and weirdos” to help shake up government.

In a post on Twitter, he said: “The media hysteria about my old stuff online is mad but I wanted to help HMG not be a distraction.
Watch more

New comments on ‘racial intelligence’ fuel row over Johnson aide

“Accordingly I’ve decided to resign as a contractor.

“I hope No10 hires more ppl [sic] w/ good geopolitical forecasting track records and that media learn to stop selective quoting.

“I know this will disappoint a lot of ppl [sic] but I signed up to do real work, not be in the middle of a giant character assassination: if I can’t do the work properly there’s no point, and I have a lot of other things to do w/ [sic] my life.”

His departure comes after the prime minister faced intense pressure to sack Mr Sabisky over historic comments, where he:

- Called for the young to undergo compulsory contraception to prevent the creation of “a permanent underclass”

- Disparagingly compared women’s sport to the Paralympics

- Suggested that black people were more likely than whites to be “close to mental retardation”

As the row deepened, Sky News found further comments under Mr Sabisky’s name in 2014, which suggested there could be “genetic reasons” for differences between the races in intelligence and suggested this could be taken into account in immigration policy.

The post said: “There are excellent reasons to think the very real racial differences in intelligence are significantly – even mostly – genetic in origin, though the degree is of course a very serious subject of scholarly debate.”

His appointment triggered public criticism from several Tory backbenchers as well as private disquiet among MPs.

Tory MP William Wragg said his presence was a “poor reflection on the government”, saying: “‘Weirdos’ and ‘misfits’ are all very well, but please can they not gratuitously cause offence.”


In a thinly-veiled jibe at Mr Cummings, he added: “I cannot be the only one uncomfortable with recent No 10 trends.”
Watch more

Adviser who slammed women’s sport hired after Cummings’ ‘weirdos’ call

Former Tory minister Caroline Nokes, chairwoman of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, said: “I don’t know him from a bar of soap, but don’t think we’d get on ... Must be no place in government for the views he’s expressed.”

Labour party chairman Ian Lavery welcomed his resignation but said the prime minister had questions to answer on the appointment and whether he agreed with Sabisky’s ”vile views”.

He said: “It’s right that Andrew Sabisky is no longer working in government. He should never have been appointed in the first place.

“After No 10 publicly stood by him today, Boris Johnson has serious questions to answer about how this appointment was made and whether he agrees with his vile views.”

Downing Street did not comment on Monday night but earlier, a No 10 spokesman said: “I’m not going to be commenting on individual appointments.”

The spokesman added: “The prime minister’s views on a range of subjects are well publicised and documented.”

A special adviser who really was a ‘weirdo’ too far

The appointment of a man who professes to believe in eugenics is raising eyebrows, writes Sean O’Grady – but he’s far from the first ‘irregular’ to offer a prime minister advice

@_seanogrady Tuesday 18 February 2020 00:00

Andrew Sabisky has caused controversy for his comments about eugenics and forced contraception

 ( BBC )

One thing we ought to remember at the outset when examining what we may come to know as the Andrew Sabisky affair, who abruptly resigned last night, and the Svengali personality of Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s special adviser: some of this is really nothing new. For more than a century, ever since the days of David Lloyd George, prime ministers, in particular, have called on the formal or informal, and the paid or unpaid services of any number of “irregulars”. They are people which might fit the description of “misfits and weirdos”, a sort of small auxiliary force offering different voices and views. Rarely have they been viewed with anything less than suspicion by the permanent civil service. Some “advisers”, stretching the point, happened to be the spouses of premiers, those with strong views of their own and whose influential pillow talk perhaps had some impact on the life of nation; Denis Thatcher, Cherie Booth, and maybe Carrie Symonds, might be such.

There have always been some weirdos and misfits with odd opinions around No 10; prime ministers attract them, and some prime ministers are attracted to them.

Let us pluck one example. If Johnson styles himself on his hero Winston Churchill, then we have a ready, albeit imprecise, precedent for Cummings/Sabisky in one of Churchill’s wartime confidants and his official scientific adviser; Frederick, or Freddy Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell. “Churchill’s professor” he was called, among many less complimentary sobriquets for this unusually well-connected Oxford academic physics. I can’t do better than the dry assessment of his Wikipedia entry: “A brilliant but arrogant intellectual, who quarrelled sharply with many respected advisers. His contribution to Allied victory lay chiefly in logistics. He was particularly adept at converting data into clear charts to promote a strategy. But despite his credentials, his judgment about technology was often flawed. He tried to block the development of radar in favour of infra-red beams. He discounted the first reports of the enemy’s “V” weapons programme. He pressed the case for the strategic area bombing of cities on a false premise about the impact of such bombing on civilian morale.” Apparently, Lindemann “held the working class, homosexuals, and blacks in contempt and supported sterilisation of the mentally incompetent”. Familiar ring, there. 

SEE MY PREVIOUS POSThttps://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/boris-johnson-told-to-sack-adviser-who.htmlWHICH INCLUDES INFO ON OSWALD MOSLEY AND BUF, BRITISH UNION OF FASCISTS

I warned about the spreading influence of eugenics – yet an advocate was able to work at Downing Street

Such language has no right being anywhere near the government – and needs to be condemned by Boris Johnson and his team

Louise Raw @LouiseRaw Author

There was more chance of the preserved corpse of philosopher Jeremy Bentham leaving its cupboard of its own volition than the dean of UCL coming out of his nearby office.

It was January 2018 and I’d joined protesters from the university’s BME Students’ Network. Their issue was neatly summarised on placards proclaiming “F*** Eugenics”. It had just been revealed that UCL had hosted, inadvertently, four “Conferences on Intelligence”.

Speakers had included blogger Emil Kirkegaard, who has advocated the rape of sleeping children by paedophiles as a way to relieve “urges” (he later said he did not support the legalisation of paedophilia but advocated “frank discussion of paedophilia-related issues”), and Richard Lynn, who has a long-term association with Mankind Quarterly, a journal that has been criticised for support eugenics .

The conferences had been booked, as external events, by UCL lecturer Dr James Thompson, and held in secret, until Toby Young – who has previously written about “progressive eugenics” – attended one and been told not to write about it, wrote about it.

UCL is home to the archive of the man who coined the term “Eugenics”, Frances Galton. Galton believed Black people were “naturally” lazy and “savage”, and hoped that “inferior” white people would die of poverty before reproducing, also suggesting “good” specimens be compelled to marry one another.

The latest outcry is about Andrew Sabisky, who was thought to have been contracted by Downing Street under Boris Johnson’s aide Dominic Cummings, apparently to work on special projects.

He announced he was quitting his role on Monday following a major backlash over his past comments.

In 2014, Sabisky, suggested on Cummings’s blog that the law could be used to mandate contraception to prevent “unplanned pregnancies creating a permanent underclass”.

On the same site Sabisky argued it was unclear if FGM was really “a serious risk to young girls...of certain minority group origins”. He has suggested African-Americans are “less intelligent” than white people, and compared women’s sports to the Paralympics (meaning this as an insult to both).

Sabisky is also listed as a speaker at the second Conference on Intelligence in 2015, on ‘The efficacy of early childhood interventions in improving cognitive outcomes’.

What sort of “childhood interventions” he might approve became clear the next year, when he was interviewed by Schools Week on the benefits of the drug modafinil being given to schoolchildren. Modafinil decreases the need for sleep and seems to improve brain function – although there is a risk of getting Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a life-threatening skin condition. “The benefits of giving everyone modafinil once a week are probably worth a dead kid once a year” Sabisky said.

Watch more

Transcript shows PM's spokesperson refuse to answer on eugenics views

Schools’ Week described Sabisky as a “polymath’, describing him as a ‘livewire on the education conference scene’, and let him expound his views at length: “Eugenics are about selecting ‘for’ good things...Intelligence is largely inherited and it correlates with better outcomes: physical health, income, lower mental illness. There is no downside to having IQ except short-sightedness.”

Sabisky asked the female interviewer whether she wouldn’t chose to become pregnant with an embryo selected to be the “smartest”, with “less propensity towards schizophrenia or depression”. School Week suggested he was “needling long-held ideas in education that many are too squeamish to address”.

You think all this might be enough for the government to issue a strong response, along the lines of Unite Against Fascism’s Weyman Bennett who told the Morning Star that the language of eugenics “has no place in government.”

“These people give a nod and a wink to the politics and ideology that led to the Holocaust,” he added, with 75 years between the enforced end of the genocidal eugenics programme of the Nazis seemingly not enough to end the conversation for good. Geneticist Adam Rutherfood tweeted that “Sabisky and indeed Cummings look bewitched by science without doing the legwork”. It is hard to argue.

Watch more

Geneticist condemns comments of Downing Street adviser

New comments on 'racial intelligence' fuel row over Johnson aide

No 10 refuses to say if PM thinks black people are mentally inferior

However, Downing Street appeared happy to say little. Johnson’s official spokesman refused to comment on Sabisky (and whether he held an official role), his controversial views, or whether the prime minister agreed with them. Others have not been so staid. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett and Labour MP David Lammy were among those calling for Sabisky to be sacked.

The spokesman said the “prime minister’s views are well publicised and well documented” but could not point to a single example. The spokesman is also said to have declined whether Johnson’s views on the issue were reflected in a magazine article in which the prime minister referred to black people as “picaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. That article had resurfaced during last year’s general election campaign.

That silence over those questions before he quit should tell us all we need to know.

Dr Louise Raw is a historian, broadcaster, author of ‘Striking a Light’ (Bloomsbury) on the 1888 Matchwomen’s Strike, and organiser of the annual London Matchwomen’s Festival

Eugenics only ‘works’ for delusional white men who think they’re superior – no surprise it’s infiltrated No 10, then

Andrew Sabisky’s comments have drawn forth the same old dreary people. The ones who like to think they are not afraid to speak the truth, when what they’re actually not afraid of is speaking complete, well, rubbish

Tom Peck @tompeck
14 hours ago

Years from now, when they ask us, “were the signs there?” it is disappointing that it probably won’t even be worth bothering to recall that, well, I write a daily column on politics and Boris Johnson’s new government was only on its second working day when the national conversation turned to the subject of eugenics.

We are, naturally, in this place, because the first of Dominic Cummings’ “misfits and weirdos” appears to have entered No 10, a 27-year-old man named Andrew Sabisky. Sabisky’s misfit and weirdo status is confirmed by various comments made online, which include arguing for enforced long-term contraception for all teenagers, to prevent what he calls a “permanent underclass”. In other words, to prevent the wrong’uns from breeding.

We also learn of his fierce interest in how higher numbers of black Americans than white suffer from “intellectual disability”, and are “close to mental retardation”.

Then there’s some stuff about how “women’s sport is more comparable to the Paralympics than it is to men’s”.

So, a lot to unpack there. For a touch of added spice, it can’t be ignored that the first comment, regarding enforced mass, temporary sterilisation, was made in 2014, as a comment on the blog of one Cummings, so it’s nice to see a little flash of nepotism to go with the eugenics.

Cummings has a longstanding interest in genetics and education, an interest that was made public shortly before David Cameron moved Michael Gove on from the Department for Education, for no greater reason than he and Cummings had made almost all of the nation’s teachers united in their hatred of them, which had potential consequences for such mundanities as having to win elections.

Seven years ago, in a lengthy blog post (is there any other kind?), Cummings sought to impress upon the nation that “genetics outweighs teaching” in education, and outlined several ideas that were very rapidly debunked by people who had actually had any education in the subject in question.

The first thing to say about eugenics is the same first thing you can say about almost anything, and it’s this: Cummings doesn’t know anything about it.

Genetics and eugenics are one of the many disciplines that drops into the “self-taught” box on the Cummings curriculum vitae, right next to maths, which he likes to claim he has brought himself up to postgraduate level. To which the only response is, yes dear. Course you did. And when I was 15, I could occasionally be heard telling people I was “grade 8 standard” at the violin, though the certificates in the folder in the drawer at home still come to a mysterious halt at five.

Which is why, in 2013, when he began attracting the attention of the then very young but already entirely objectionable Sabisky, Cummings pieced together such remarkable thoughts as how it would be entirely possible to segregate, from the age of 13, the most intelligent 2 per cent of the population, and “give this 2 per cent a specialist education, including deep problem-solving skills in maths and physics”.

Of course, we can only wonder whether Cummings himself would have qualified for such an education, and whether it might have been of a higher quality than his own, self-taught one, and thus prevented him reaching such absurd, comprehensively debunked conclusions. Tragically, such a thing never happened, and so we just have to make do with a very enthusiastic amateur at the controls of a machine he doesn’t even remotely understand, and hiring straightforwardly objectionable people like Sabisky to turn his deranged dreams into the rest of our’s nightmares.

Naturally, Sabisky’s comments, on the biological superiorities and inferiorities between the races, have drawn forth the same old dreary arguments and dreary people. The ones who like to think they are not afraid to speak the truth, when what they’re actually not afraid of is speaking complete, well, bollocks.

We must again entertain the contribution of Richard Dawkins, who took it upon himself to offer this searing insight over the weekend:

“It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs and roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.”

Read more

How eugenics is becoming a mainstream issue again

To which we must begin our discussions with the word, “work”.

Eugenics doesn’t work FOR cows or horses or pigs or dogs or roses. It works ON them. It works FOR the humans, who own them, control them, dominate them and enslave them for their own ends.

Which is why there is such righteously fierce resistance to even the tiniest sniff of a suggestion that it can be made to “work for humans”. Because, well, we’ve been here before, and it didn’t end well.

And however firmly you wish to believe that you’re just being brave enough to tell the truth, it categorically is not the case that eugenics would “work” for humans. It wouldn’t. It can’t. It’s a straightforward affront to everything humanity is. And that’s before we even get on to the unavoidably obvious fact that, well, it’s always the white guys who are brave enough to say it “works”, isn’t it? It’s never the black scientists who are brave enough to say that, it would “work” to selectively breed various types of people out of existence. How odd.

It’s all very simple. It isn’t a “well actually”. It isn’t a “nobody wants to hear this but”. It’s a straightforward no, no, no, no, no. And anyone who doesn’t have the brain to work that out is a very, very long way short of having anything to offer any government of a supposedly civilised country.

On Greek mainland, locals stonewall migrant relocations

Modified: 18/02/2020

Makrygialos (Greece) (AFP)

"We will not accept a single illegal coloniser," reads a banner in the small village of Makrygialos.

The village is one of many areas in mainland Greece where the government is locked in a tug of war with local communities over the housing of migrants.

Just months after the new conservative administration took over promising to get tough on migration, deadlock is rapidly emerging over where to accommodate tens of thousands of asylum-seekers currently languishing in overcrowded, unsanitary camps on five islands facing Turkey.

There are over 38,000 people in the camps on Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos despite an official capacity of 6,200.

Island officials and residents have told the government that after five years on the front lines of the European migration crisis, they are no longer prepared to accept thousands of asylum-seekers in their midst.

But while the administration of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tries to alleviate the problem by relocating thousands of migrants to other parts of Greece, many communities on the mainland are also stonewalling the move.

"We are determined to defend our homeland. We will do anything to keep them out," says Tasos Yiakoumis, a lawyer taking part in an anti-migrant protest in Makrygialos, a coastal village 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Athens.

Some 300 people have gathered to protest against plans to house 200 asylum-seekers in a disused former home for the mentally ill.

- 'This shall not pass' -

"We know their plan, they want to Islamicise the entire western world. This shall not pass," Yiakoumis shouts at the crowd through a microphone.

Another speaker claims that "refugees steal children" and that "most people coming to Greece have criminal records and are hunted in their home countries."

Other residents in the village of 1,000 say that the crime rate will increase in the village, which mainly lives on tourism.

"This is a tourist area. Which tourist would want to vacation next to a (migrant shelter)?," asks local mayor Anastasios Manolas, a former career army officer.

Similar protests have taken place in other parts of northern Greece in recent months, with locals banding together to keep out buses bearing asylum-seekers from the islands.

Last week, parents in a kindergarten in the village of Vrasna refused to share the building with a small number of refugee children, who were forced to seek schooling elsewhere.

Meanwhile, critics note that the conservatives only have themselves to blame by repeatedly describing asylum-seekers in negative terms. In November, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said refugees and economic migrants are "besieging" Europe.
The new conservative government which came to power in July has announced that the island camps on Lesbos, Samos and Chios are to shut down this year.

They are to be replaced with new, smaller facilities that are to be operational by mid-2020.

But the islanders say they will only accept small facilities where asylum-seekers are to be screened, and then either moved to the mainland, or sent back to Turkey outright.

The ongoing deadlock, five years after the height of the migration crisis, has caused exasperation among both island residents and asylum-seekers in the camps, where violence is rife.

After extended talks with officials on the islands led nowhere, the government last week caused further anger by announcing that land could be requisitioned for a three-year period to build the new facilities.

The islanders responded by taking their protest to Athens on Friday. On Monday, Mitarachi said the government would give island officials a week to suggest alternative locations for the new camps.

© 2020 AFP

Drought slashes Australian crop output to record low
Sydney (AFP) Issued on: 18/02/2020


Australia's hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record, according to official projections released Tuesday.

The country's agriculture department said it expects production of crops like sorghum, cotton and rice to fall 66 percent -- the lowest levels since records began in 1980-81.

"It is the lowest summer crop production in this period by a large margin," Peter Collins, a senior economist with the department's statistical body ABARES told AFP.

Early February downpours are likely to have come too late to help farmers.

Swathes of Australian farmland have suffered three or more years of drought. But 2019 saw rainfall below the previous record low set in 1902 and average temperatures 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above the previous warmest year in 2013.

The fall in the summer forecast follows a drop of winter crops -- which includes wheat, a major cash crop -- by an estimated five percent.

Australia is one of the world's leading agricultural producers, with the sector making up around three percent of total GDP.

The climate-change-fuelled drought also exacerbated a bushfire season that ripped through more than 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of tinder-dry landscape in Australia's south and east, killing 33 people.

© 2020 AFP

Timea will take your orders now: Kabul eatery first in Afghanistan to use robot

“Other restaurants may also introduce the same technology soon. Also, we have not fired any of our waiters to replace them with Timea.”

Weighing 30 kg, the petite 1.5-meter-tall robot has been designed to give the impression that she is wearing a headscarf. (AN photo by Sayed Salahuddin)
Short Url https://arab.news/8gfaf

Updated 16 February 2020

SAYED SALAHUDDIN
February 16, 2020

After taking an order and serving customers, Timea thanks them in audio messages

KABUL: A Kabul restaurant has become the first in Afghanistan to use a robot as its waiter, drawing flak from experts focusing on rampant joblessness in the country.

However, that hasn’t stopped regular and new diners from visiting the Times Restaurant, with its owners saying their cash registers haven’t stopped ringing since Timea began work last week.

Standing 1.5 meters tall and weighing 30 kg, the petite white and grey robot has been designed to give the impression that she is wearing a hijab or headscarf, and only serves women and families in the segregated section of the hotel, Mohammad Rafi Sherzad, the restaurant’s manager, told Arab News.

“It takes orders, processes it, serves food and delivers and bills the customers. It is a technological renovation here. We have regular customers, but new ones are also visiting to see the robot, too,” Sherzad said.

After taking an order and serving customers, Timea thanks them in audio messages that are prerecorded in Dari and Pashto, two of Afghanistan’s main languages.

And she doesn’t even take a tip.

“We usually go to other restaurants, but today came to see the robot,” said Mohammad Ajmal Raskh, a civil servant who visited the eatery with his wife and two children.

Another diner, school student Asadullah, said he was “thrilled” to see the robot in action.

“Hospitals and clinics could use this technology, too, based on their requirements,” he told Arab News.

However, in a country grappling with growing poverty, a high rate of joblessness and major power cuts, the use of the robot has drawn criticism, with experts saying it is a “ridiculous” move.

“This is unnecessary, perhaps, ridiculous and counter-productive, because 65 percent of people live below the poverty line, some barely live on a dollar a day, and the unemployment rate is very high. The restaurant owner should have dedicated it to a university for research,” Mohsin Amin, an analyst, said.

Sherzad, however, is taking the criticism in stride.

“Other restaurants may also introduce the same technology soon. Also, we have not fired any of our waiters to replace them with Timea.”

One fast-food restaurant in Afghanistan recently made a buzz by employing a robot as a waiter. Source: @IsmailHotak1

AFGHANISTAN - 02/17/2020
Afghanistan has its first robotic waiter – but is that a good thing?

One fast-food restaurant in Afghanistan recently made a buzz by employing a robot as a waiter. Many customers duly headed to the Times Restaurant in Kabul to see this high-end tech in action. Interestingly, just by having this robot in Afghanistan's capital as a waiter has highlighted some of the concerns among the country's conservative families. For example many of these families have not been happy with having male waiters, so this robot waiter has solved a problem.

Four months ago, Mohammad Naeimi opened the Times Restaurant in the Shahr-e-Now neighbourhood of Kabul. Then one month ago, he equipped his restaurant with a secret weapon: a robot.

'Everyone’s happy with this robot'

Naeimi claimed he imported this robot from Japan:

Our restaurant is not that big but we have 40 workers. Employing a robot was partly to attract the younger generation to our restaurant and to show them that it is possible to have new tech in Afghanistan too.

We wanted to familiarise them with new technolgies. This robot can welcome the customers, take their order, bring the order, give them the bill, receive the payment and also collect the dishes. It can manage eight tables at the same time, and it can speak in Persian, Pashtun and English. Its battery lasts for about 12 hours and then it has head to the charging station.
News about this robot has been everywhere on Afghan media and has even been covered by international media, such as Radio Free Europe. However many Afghans question the motivations behind employing a waiter robot in a country with 25 to 30 percent unemployment. The restaurant owner says he has not fired anyone for a robot’s job and it is just assistance to the restaurant's workers.

The Times Restaurant in Kabul. Source here

'With this robot, we no longer have unhappy conservative customers in our restaurant!'

Mohammad Naeimi continues:

The robot has also solved another problem that we had with conservative families. In many cases, they do not like that a male server approaches them to take orders or anything, so with this robot, we solved that problem.

When families are here with women with a hijab, we send our robot. So now they can eat our food and we have more customers. These customers can enjoy our restaurant without any problem. Everyone’s happy! So far everything is good. And we have customers who only come here to check out our robot.
Buy a robot or pay an Afghan worker for 10 years

However, many people havemade fun of this whole idea, saying it's not a good move. Others have suggested that the restaurant could employ a woman instead of the robot.

In addition, this robot came from China, not Japan. Its official name is “Amy” and it's produced by the Suzhou Pangolin Robot Corp. The price of this Chinese robotic waiter varies online from $6,000 to $7,500 (€5,537 to €6,921). This means that this robot costs between 463,000 and 579,000 Afghani, which is equivalent to a salary for eight to 10 years for an Afghan worker

Smog veils Central Asia cities as smoky stoves choke locals
Issued on: 18/02/2020


Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) (AFP)

Snow-capped peaks used to be clearly visible from the streets of Almaty and Bishkek, two of the largest cities in Central Asia that both lie in plains surrounded by mountains.

But now a heavy cloud of dark smog often blots out the view as air pollution regularly soars to levels comparable to those in New Delhi and Lahore, even though Almaty and Bishkek have fewer people and industries than their Indian and Pakistani counterparts.

In the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, a city of one million, and Kazakhstan's second city of Almaty, which is twice as large, the onset of winter prompts a surge in pollution as people burn coal and other dirty fuels in stoves to heat their homes.

One of those monitoring the situation is Kyrgyz environmental activist Kunduz Adylbekova, who experiences the problem firsthand.

In the area of small private houses where she lives on the outskirts of Bishkek, the air quality is particularly bad.

"The air here has a kind of heavy feel," said Adylbekova, a programme manager at Archa Initiative non-profit

Many locals use highly polluting stoves to heat their homes and boil water because they are not hooked up to mains gas. Large numbers of ageing cars and trucks exacerbate the situation.

In this district, readings of PM 2.5 -- a measure of fine particles in the air -- regularly reach levels that the United States Environmental Protection Agency defines as hazardous to human health.

Sometimes readings are four times higher than the EPA minimum "hazardous" level, Adylbekova said, with locals suffering the ill-effects.

"Residents are often ill, some suffer from lung problems."

- 'We feel and see it' -

The bowl-shaped topography of both cities helps trap pollution.

Even worse, both have coal-fired power stations that date back to the Soviet era.

But other factors have led to a massive increase in the smog problem over the last two decades.

In Almaty, where gleaming skyscrapers reflect the country's oil wealth, many cite the huge growth in the number of cars since the breakup of the USSR.

Zhalgas Jakiyanov, a marketing specialist who works in the business district, said the growing pollution is "already having an effect on our health."

"We don't just feel it -- we can see it," he added, pointing to the leaden smog cloud that hangs over the city.

"We need to switch to gas heating instead of using solid fuels. There needs to be more emphasis on spaces for pedestrians," Jakiyanov said.

Smog also afflicts the capitals of former Soviet republics to the south, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

- Declare an emergency! -

While environmental groups have long sounded the alarm, now that people can easily access real-time air quality measurements online, pollution has become a talking point, particularly on social media.

Governments have been slower to acknowledge the problem, however.

This month, an online petition demanding that Almaty's authorities declare the poor air quality as an emergency gained 17,000 signatures on the first day.

The city administration responded by saying that it is looking into ways to modernise the main coal-burning power station to make it less polluting. However it said no decision on the upgrade will be made until the end of the year and ignored calls for an independent assessment of the plant.

Power stations account for just over a quarter of total emissions, the city administration said, while exhaust fumes from vehicles make up some 50 percent.

In Kyrgyzstan, authorities rely on Russian energy giant Gazprom to expand its gas pipeline network into new areas of the capital in order to wean house-owners off domestic stoves.

But activist Adylbekova said her family had to pay around $500 to hook up to the network last November.

That is too much for many residents, she said.

So they continue to burn coal to heat their home and the sour smell of coal smoke lingers in the nostrils.

The city carries out regular raids on residents suspected of burning banned fuels, while Adylbekova argued this measure is "reactive, rather than a solution."

Kasymbek Kerimov, a senior inspector from Bishkek's sanitary department, led one recent raid.

He said that only residents burning toxic substances and used cooking oil -- not wood and coal -- are fined.

"These substances can cause real damage to the respiratory tract and cancers," Kerimov said.

His team fined one woman around $107 -- over half the average monthly salary -- for burning left-over fabric from the garment industry.

She complained that authorities are indifferent to the challenges faced by local residents.

"We have asked the government about (installing) mains gas and plumbing," said Baktygul Beishereva, a housewife who wore a surgical mask.

"But no one is looking out for us here."

© 2020 AFP

Anti-Islam Pegida rally meets resistance in Dresden

Members of the far-right xenophobic Pegida movement took to the streets of Dresden, but they didn't have the city to themselves. Thousands of counter-protesters gathered to stage a rival rally.

Thousands of people rallied in the eastern German city of Dresden on Monday to protest against Germany's anti-Islamic and xenophobic Pegida movement.

Pegida supporters, including Bjorn Hocke of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), gathered for the group's 200th demonstration in the city.

Hundreds of anti-Pegida demonstrators arrived in Neumarkt square, with posters carrying slogans such as "Red card for Nazis" and "Grandmas against the right."

Organizers of the counter-rally said earlier on Monday that they had expected around 1,000 people to attend, but 90 minutes into the event, they estimated that 2,500 people had arrived, according to German news agency DPA.

Local media reported that Pegida leaders complained and threatened to cancel planned speeches due to the level of noise from counter protesters.

Read more: Germany: Dresden declares 'Nazi emergency'

Nazi rhetoric

The Pegida movement, created in 2014, is led by Lutz Bachmann,who has previously been convicted for incitement.


Lutz Bachmann, who has been convicted for incitement, created the Pegida movement in 2014.

As one of the AfD's most contentious figures, Hocke has been accused of using Nazi rhetoric in his speeches.

tious figures, Hocke has been accused of using Nazi rhetoric in his speeches.

Pegida stands for "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West."

Local chapters of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the state of Saxony called for a counter-rally under the slogan "Democracy needs backbone."

Both parties have the support of Saxony's Association of Jewish Communities, the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church.

State premier Michael Kretschmer, and a number of his ministers, have offered their support in a private capacity.


Bjorn Hocke has been accused of using Nazi rhetoric in his speeches.

AfD presence

AfD executive board member Alexander Wolf told the DPA news agency that Hocke's rally attendance was risky ahead of elections in the northern German city of Hamburg on Sunday.

"As legitimate as the issue may be, a demonstration does always hold risks because you cannot control who takes part," he said.


Thousands of anti-Pegida protesters took to Dresden's Neumarkt square

The Pegida movement has also had the support of Hocke in the past. In 2016, he said in a speech that: "Without them, the AfD would not be where it is."

Pegida held its first rally in Dresden in October 2014, calling for an end to the "Merkel dictatorship" and protesting against Islam and refugees

During the movement's peak, tens of thousands of people participated in Pegida rallies.

mvb/rc (dpa, EPD)

France's Alstom agrees to buy Bombardier's train division

The move would create the world's second-largest train manufacturer and a potential competitor to China's state-owned rail manufacturing behemoth. However, EU competition regulators must first give the green light.

French transport manufacturer Alstom agreed Monday to buy the rail division of Bombardier, in a move that would create the world's second-largest train manufacturer.

Alstom, the manufacturer of France's high-speed TGV trains, offered to pay up to €6.2 billion euros ($6.8 billion) in a mix of cash and shares for the cash-strapped Canadian firm's rail division, according to a memorandum of understanding signed between the firms.

The acquisition must now be approved by EU competition regulators.

European train manufacturers have been trying to build scale to compete with China's state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), the world's largest train manufacturer.

Read more: German and French ministers issue manifesto for European industrial policy

Greenlight from Brussels?

Last year, Alstom tried to merge its rail manufacturing with that of German industrial giant Siemens, but Brussels put the brakes on the deal, ruling that a merged company would have dominated the European market at the expense of consumers.

This time around, Alstom Chief Executive Henri Poupart-Lafarge is optimistic, and said Monday that the Bombardier deal was different than that failed Siemens merger and that regulatory hurdles were "not a huge issue."

"If there are some issues, they will much easier to solve than the one we had with Siemens," he told Reuters news agency.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is due to meet with EU's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday to discuss the deal.

France was critical of the EU's decision to block last year's merger attempt, and supports the potential Alstom-Bombardier merger.

"This deal will allow Alstom to prepare for the future, against the backdrop of increasingly intense international competition," Le Maire said.

German labor union rejects merger 

Germany's largest labor union, IG Metall, condemned the potential merger in a press release, and said EU anti-trust regulators should evaluate the deal in the same manner as the attempted Alstom-Siemens merger.

Read more: No site closures at Bombardier in Germany

Germany's rail company, Deutsche Bahn, is a major customer of both Alstom and Bombardier.

If the deal goes through, the metalworkers union said it would "not accept unilateral consolidation" at the expense of German workers. 

"It's an effort to create  challenger to China's CRRC, which is a behemoth of a train make. A combination of Alstom and Bombardier would get close, becoming the second biggest train maker in the world with 15.3 billion euros in sales in 2018, not quite as big as CRRC at nearly 21 billion euros, but much closer."

The deal would also help Bombardier cope with a falling share price and rising debt, Winter added.

wmr/rc (Reuters, dpa, AFP)

Opinion: Declaration of moral bankruptcy in Idlib

The USA has largely withdrawn from Syria. Europe never really got involved. The consequences are terrible — for Europe too, writes Rainer Hermann of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a guest opinion.


A humanitarian catastrophe is taking place in Idlib, and the world is looking the other way. Photos like those taken towards the end of World War Two ought really to be a wake-up call: long treks of refugees moving northward through snow and frost to the Turkish border, where they hope to be saved. They have very few possessions still with them.

The Syrian regime, supported by Russian planes and pro-Iranian militias, is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy in Idlib. Helicopters drop barrel bombs on hospitals and schools, markets and homes. Large settlements have been depopulated and become ghost towns. The unmistakable message is: There will be no life here in future!

The Syrian war machine is driving hundreds of thousands of defenseless people before it like a steamroller. Aid organisations estimate that 290,000 of the displaced are children. Every night, some of them freeze to death. But to the Syrian regime, everyone in the province is a "terrorist." A great many of its inhabitants came to Idlib in recent years, fleeing Assad's army and henchmen. There's now no longer anywhere left for them to take refuge.

Read more: Idlib — The Syrian region abandoned by the world

Russian contempt for human life and Turkish fears

The Russian leadership is cynically participating in this contempt for human life and is permitting what Russia itself practiced in the Chechen capital, Grozny, to happen in Idlib. Meanwhile, the torture regime in Damascus has been completely discredited. Anyone who still believed they could negotiate Syria's political future with those in power there should finally ditch their naivety. Assad and the supporters of his regime want to bomb the country into one where only loyal Syrians still live, where all potential troublemakers have been driven out. But this won't bring peace to Syria.

Ankara fears that one in two of the current population of almost 4 million in the Idlib region may settle in Turkey if the border is opened. As things stand, the border is closed, sealed with a high wall. Because more refugees would destabilize Turkey — and because Europe also wants and needs to prevent another influx of refugees. This shows what power Russia has over Europe, when, as is now the case with Libya, it is sitting on a key point on a migration route.


Rainer Hermann is a political journalist at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily

Presidents Erdogan and Putin spoke again on Thursday, but the phone conversation brought them no closer. Turkey is embarking on a risky game. It's trying to drive the Syrian army back behind the 12 observation posts by military force. These posts were actually created to control a cease-fire for Idlib that was agreed on by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Read more: Over 60 Germans among Islamists in Idlib

Disingenuous complaint from Germany

Turkey is not doing only itself a service with this, but Europe as well. The complaint that German weapons may also be used in this operation by the Turkish armed forces is therefore disingenuous. And when Angela Merkel offered to build winter-proof housing for 100,000 refugees in Idlib, she found herself facing a storm of outrage. Once again, Europe is helpless and powerless, even though all the values the continent stands for are being brutally bombed.

Much here is reminiscent of the war in Yugoslavia, when Europe stood by helplessly, at a loss, and watched the Serbian massacres. Back then, it was only an ultimatum from the bullish American diplomat Richard Holbrooke to the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, and then targeted American bombing, that put an end to the murder of the people.

The daily actions of the Syrian regime show what happens when the United States withdraws as a force of law and order — and Europe, the self-proclaimed guardian of human rights, makes another declaration of moral bankruptcy.

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