Dag Hammarskjold Mystery

Q&A with Ravi Somaiya, author of ‘The Golden Thread’





Randy Dotinga
Mon, December 14, 2020

Journalist Ravi Somaiya suggests in his new book that the United Nations secretary-general in the 1960s, Dag Hammarskjöld, paid a terrible price for his efforts to broker a cease-fire in the bloody civil war in Congo. Mr. Somaiya spoke with Monitor correspondent Randy Dotinga.

Q: What drew you to this story?

I came across this in an archive, and I just was just blown away. It’s a ripping mystery, and I love stories where people aren’t entirely good or entirely bad. It becomes so much more interesting when the characters are ambiguous.


Q: How did Congo become such a global hot spot?

It had the world’s most desirable uranium for purposes that both the Soviets and the West had in mind, and there were other vital minerals there. Then, it came to be strategically vital as the Cold War developed. It borders nine other nations and is really the heart of Africa.

Q: Hammarskjöld tried to bring peace to the region. What was his vision?

He felt that the Black majority deserved to rule after many decades of [colonial] oppression and brutality. It’s amazing to me just how incendiary a position that was in 1961 and how much it drove everyone absolutely crazy. He managed to annoy an enormous number of very powerful people.

What I love about him is that he’s one of the purest idealists I’ve come across in any position of power. It’s very rare. He genuinely tried to do good and was also quite effective. You’ve really cracked something if you can manage to apply idealistic principles in a meaningful way when surrounded by segments who oppose you.

Q: How did this Swedish economist become the head of the United Nations in the first place?

He didn’t seem like any sort of threat, and U.N. leaders just said, “Great, shove that guy in, he’s not going to cause us any trouble.” But in the end, he was both principled and willing to fight for his beliefs. Now, many diplomats say he represents the best of the U.N.

Q: What do you think would have happened in Congo if Hammarskjöld had lived?

I like to hope that we might have had a more peaceful resolution. To me, it’s about the original sin of colonialism. You can’t have that much murder and brutality and oppression without having some rage and division to overcome afterward. There’s still a lot of healing left to be done in the Congo.

Q: What is his legacy?

Moral leadership is principled leadership and idealistic leadership. Sometimes it’s OK to do the right thing. But I look around the world, and everyone seems to be trying to do what’s expedient. Our leaders seem to check the polls before making a decision.

Q: How close to the truth is your book in answering whether Hammarskjöld was murdered or died in an accident?

You can’t really know for sure until everything’s been revealed. Governments are still holding onto documents, and I can’t imagine why. I’m sure it’s for some silly reason like petty embarrassment.

Q: But we are getting closer, correct?

Reports from the U.N. coming out later this year are going to reveal more, and I’m also going to keep pushing. We’ve gotten nearly all the way there. I don’t know if one can ever discover the truth in capital letters, but we can have the most honest, accurate accounting of what happened

Dag Hammarskjöld - Wikipedi
 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. As of 2020, Hammarskjöld remains the youngest person to have held the Secretary-General post, having been only 47 years old when he was appointed in 1953.

Race's Role in the Cold Case of Dag
Oct 11, 2019 — Dag Hammarskjold, the late United Nations secretary-general killed in a 1961 plane crash, may have been murdered, his aircraft shot out of the ...

UN Leader Dag Hammarskjold Died in Mysterious ...
www.history.com › dag-hammarskjold-death-plane-crash
Aug 16, 2019 — Shortly after midnight on September 18, 1961, a chartered DC-6 airplane carrying United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold on a ...
Place of death: Ndola
Board member of: United Nations
Country of nationality: Sweden
Nationality: Sweden

Biden, Harris Call for Gun Reforms to ‘Honor’ Sandy Hook Victims


Brittany Bernstein  NATIONAL REVIEW
Mon, December 14, 2020,


President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Monday called for “common sense” gun reforms in honor of the eight-year anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that killed 20 children and six adults.

Biden, who was vice president when the shooting occurred in 2012, called it the “saddest day we had in the White House.”

The president-elect said in a statement that he remains in awe of the “grandparents, parents, siblings, children, spouses, and fellow broken and healing hearts of Sandy Hook.”


“I have heard from and watched as so many of you turned pain into purpose, working to change our laws and our culture around gun violence and how we protect and nurture our children,” he said.

He praised those who became activists in the wake of the shooting, saying they “helped us forge a consensus that gun violence is a national health crisis and we need to address its total cost to fully heal families, communities, and our nation.”

“Eight years later, there have been plenty of thoughts and prayers, but we know that is not enough,” Biden said. “Together with you and millions of our fellow Americans of every background all across our nation, we will fight to end this scourge on our society and enact common sense reforms that are supported by a majority of Americans and that will save countless lives.”

In a tweet Vice President-elect Kamala Harris called for gun reform to “honor” the victims of the shooting.

Today marks 8 years since 20 first-graders and 6 educators were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

To honor the lives lost in this terrible tragedy, it’s past time we implement common-sense gun safety reforms to keep our children safe. pic.twitter.com/YmsIWM6dDG

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 14, 2020

“To honor the lives lost in this terrible tragedy, it’s past time we implement common-sense gun safety reforms to keep our children safe,” she said.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting — which was the second-deadliest school shooting and the fourth-deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history — more than 20 state legislatures have expanded background check requirements on some types of firearms, according to The Hill.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.,) said in a tweet that the victims should be honored with “positive action” and to “redouble efforts against gun violence under a new administration.”

We mark this painful 8th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook with renewed resolve—to honor the beautiful lives lost with positive action, & redouble efforts against gun violence under a new administration.

— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) December 14, 2020

“We mark this painful 8th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook with renewed resolve—to honor the beautiful lives lost with positive action & redouble efforts against gun violence under a new administration,” he wrote.

RIGHT WING CONVERVATIVE NATIONAL REVIEW OBVIOUSLY EXPECTS ITS READERS TO UNDERSTAND THIS AS THE COMING WAR ON GUNS BY THE BIDEN HARRIS ADMIN AND THE PENDING ABOLISMENT OF THE SECOND AMEDMENT 

USA
How we get to civil war

Damon Linker
Mon, December 14, 2020

It's a tense moment in American politics.

Democrat Joe Biden won the presidential election, and it wasn't especially close. Yet President Trump has not only refused to concede the election. He has repeatedly insisted, without evidence, that he won in a landslide that was denied to him and his supporters by systematic voter fraud. It would be one thing if these were the delusional rantings of a lone sociopath. When the village idiot proclaims himself to be Napoleon Bonaparte and no one recognizes him as such, he's just a lunatic. But when a large faction of the village affirms that he is in fact a Corsican general, things get more complicated.

That's where we are now, with 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives insisting, in an amicus brief filed in support of a lawsuit dismissed by the Supreme Court last week, that the election in four crucial swing states was stolen by the Democrats.

This combination of events — the courts rejecting legally frivolous efforts to overturn election results while significant numbers of Republican officeholders (and voters) continue to cheer on the conspiracy — shows that the primary danger of this moment isn't and never was that Trump would succeed in his hapless coup attempt. The primary danger was and is that Trump would shape public opinion in an explicitly anti-democratic direction, creating a large constituency in the country for rejecting election results that don't deliver partisan victories. Trump is cultivating an appetite for one-party rule, and setting the country on a path that could produce constitutional breakdown and civil war.

How far are we from such a catastrophic turn of events? There was some street violence in Washington, D.C., on Saturday evening after an hours-long deranged rally by Trump supporters. But it didn't escalate. And the fact is that, so far at least, members of the Trumpian right have accepted court decisions that have disappointed their hopes. Which means they still recognize the authority of the judicial branch. As long as that persists, the chance of widespread civil unrest will remain remote.

But will it last? That isn't a question that can be answered by looking only to the right.

It takes two sides (at least) to fight a civil war. For significant violence to break out, Democrats would have to play a role, responding to Republican provocations in a way that shreds our remaining deference to institutional authority and norms of restraint, moving the country well beyond the bounds of normal politics into the twilight realm of extra-constitutional action.

Unfortunately, there are signs that some on the left are eager to make precisely such a move.

Last week, in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) proposed that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment empowers her to block the 126 House Republicans who signed on to the failed lawsuit from taking their seats in the 117th Congress, on the grounds that they are traitors to the country and the Constitution, much like the Confederates who waged war against the Union in the 1860s. A handful of political commentators have echoed these and related arguments.

Leave aside for the moment the near certainty that Pelosi will reject such advice. It's important to think through precisely why this is such a terrible idea.

The language to which Pascrell is appealing was adopted and imposed after the Confederacy had been decisively defeated in the Civil War. That gave the North considerable leverage to impose its will on the vanquished traitors of the seditious South. And yet even so, Reconstruction failed. The South ultimately refused to accept the North's terms and wore it down, first through terrorism, then through the imposition of state-sponsored apartheid. Is an analogous approach really supposed to be considered a viable plan today, when Democrats have only a razor-thin majority in the House for leverage?

Even if Reconstruction had been a smashing success a century and a half ago, it couldn't possibly be useful for anything today besides throwing off a spark that ignites a civil conflagration. By calling the 126 recalcitrant Republicans traitors and refusing to seat them, Pelosi would be unilaterally setting up the Democratic Party in the House as a regime-level authority empowered to render summary judgment of fundamental political disputes.

The almost certain result of such a move would be to split the legislative branch, with the excluded Republicans setting up an alternative Congress independent of the Democrats and the remaining Republicans in the House and Senate forced to choose which side to join. The same process of choosing would take place across the country, with individuals, legislatures, governors, civil servants, courts, and ultimately, state and federal troops lining up on opposing sides, ready to accept or reject legislation passed by one or the other Congress.

It is in trying, and failing, to adjudicate the rapidly multiplying conflicts among competing sources of authority that an actual civil war would likely begin.

How likely is any of this to happen?

At the moment, not very. Pascrell is just one member of Congress, and Pelosi is much too politically prudent to follow his lead.

But what happens if Republicans act out on Jan. 6? That's when both houses of Congress convene for a ceremony during which the sitting vice president is supposed to tally the Electoral College votes and declare Joe Biden the official winner of the election. Will Mike Pence turn on Trump to do this? Even if he does, things could get messy if even one member of the House and one from the Senate raise objections about a state's vote totals. In that case, the two houses of Congress would return to their chambers for a two-hour debate and then votes on whether to disqualify the results of any state about which an objection was raised.

None of this is at all likely to change the ultimate outcome. Too many Republican senators have made clear their intention to stand behind the certified vote tallies and Electoral College results. Putting them together with Democrats will ensure that Biden's win will stand in the Senate.

But how will Democrats in the House respond to a two-hour circus potentially involving dozens of their Republican colleagues making outrageous accusations of voter fraud? And how will that anger and bitterness affect the outcome of the race for House speaker, which will be heating up at roughly the same time? Might Pelosi find herself facing a formidable challenge from her left — from members of her caucus eager to lash out with more than words at the Republican side of the aisle, perhaps by locking out members of the GOP who actively tried to overturn the election?

As I said, it's a tense moment. But that doesn't release officeholders and analysts from the burden of acting responsibly. On the contrary, the stakes increase that burden. It may feel good to contemplate lashing out at one's enemies. But actions have consequences, and they can be truly awful. Instead of bringing an easy and satisfying victory, rash moves in the pressure-cooker of the present could easily send us down a path of outright constitutional breakdown and an outbreak of violence the likes of which this country hasn't seen in over 150 years.

Those who advocate for such actions had better do so with eyes wide open.

#ISRAEL #APARTHEID  

After 60 years, East Jerusalem Palestinians face eviction under Israeli settler rulings




Palestinian Nabil Al-Kurd stands outside his home in east Jerusalem

By Suheir Sheikh and Rami Ayyub
Tue, December 15, 2020, 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - For Nabil al-Kurd, being forced out of the East Jerusalem home he has lived in since the 1950s would be a fate worse than death.

But the 76-year-old and his wife and children are among dozens of Palestinians under threat of eviction from two districts of the disputed city, after an Israeli court ruled their properties are built on land belonging to Jewish settlers.

"This is my motherland. All my memories are in this house," Kurd told Reuters. "I won't leave unless it is to the cemetery."

The ownership claims against him and others in Sheikh Jarrah and a second neighbourhood, Batan al-Hawa, are a focal point of settler development plans in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a war in 1967.

Kurd was ordered evicted in October, within 30 days.

He has appealed to the Jerusalem District court, though Hagit Ofran, project coordinator for Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, says he has little chance of overturning the ruling.

That same court has this year upheld several settler claims, based on 19th- and early 20th-century documents, drawing censure from the European Union, whose representative in Jerusalem says 77 Palestinians are at risk of forced transfer.

CITY AT THE HEART OF CONFLICT

The status of Jerusalem, a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians want the capital of their would-be state to be East Jerusalem, and most countries regard settlements that Israel has built there as illegal.

Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical links to the territory, as well as security needs and legal arguments.

Many of the Palestinians facing eviction were refugees like Kurd or their descendants, who came to the area more than half a century ago, Peace Now said.

The settlers in Kurd's case bought the land from two Jewish associations that claimed to have purchased it at the end of the 19th century, the group said.

A lawyer who represented the settlers claiming Kurd's property declined to speak with Reuters.

Peace Now says some 14 families have been evicted from Batan al-Hawa since 2015 and 16 from Sheikh Jarrah since the late 1990s in such cases.

Evictions are typically stayed while appeals are heard, and some of the residents have appealed their cases to Israel's Supreme Court, but Kurd's family is taking no chances.

"My family has prepared luggage of the important things we need so that if they come in any second, we will be ready," said daughter Muna al-Kurd.

"...We have a camera at the house, four cameras that show the street, and dad stays up until two to three in the morning just watching if they are coming to evacuate us."

(Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and John Stonestreet)

Fauci: 'Something very strange' about COVID
Mon, December 14, 2020, 1:33 PM MST

"I have not seen anything where you have a virus that in 40% of the people has no symptoms, and those who have symptoms, 80% of them have very mild to moderate symptoms that don't require any significant medical intervention. And then you have 20-25% of people who are devastated," Fauci told The Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) Senior Vice President Stephen Morrison on Monday.

"There's something very strange about a virus that in most people barely bothers them, and in others it kills them. We still don't know why that's the case right now. We need to find that out," he added.

Fauci's remarks came after some of the first U.S. healthcare workers received doses of the coronavirus vaccine and as the death toll in the U.S. crossed 300,000.
Video Transcript

STEPHEN MORRISON: We started with zero knowledge of this virus. OK, what did we learn?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, we've learned that this is one of the most, if not the most, unusual virus that any of us have ever dealt with. Certainly, in my 36 years as director of the Institute, I have not seen anything where you have a virus that in the-- 40% of the people has no symptoms, and those who have symptoms, 80% of them, have very mild to moderate symptoms that don't require any significant medical intervention. And then you have 20% to 25% of people who are devastated, as attested by the almost 300,000 deaths.

There's something very strange about a virus that in most people barely bothers them and in others it kills them. We still don't understand why that's the case. Right now, we need to find that out.

STEPHEN MORRISON: So do you anticipate next fall that most people will be back in classrooms, people will be eating in restaurants, people will be traveling on planes to take vacations or engage in business?

ANTHONY FAUCI: It's a big if, and the if is is it's up to us. If we get 75%, 80% of the population vaccinated, I think that's eminently doable, what you've just said, by the fall. Because we will start vaccinating the general population people, who don't fall in any of the high priority groups, probably as we get into April. We'll have April, May, June, and July. We'd have three months, four months of vaccinating everybody with a prime and a boost.

By the time you get into the fall, September and October, if we get that proportion of the population vaccinated, we should be able to clearly be feeling very comfortable about schools, as well as getting some of the other functions that we have withheld up to now, theaters, restaurants, things like that.

I don't believe we're going to be able to throw the masks away and forget about physical separation in congregate settings for a while, probably likely until we get into the late fall, and early next winter, but I think we can do it. The numbers will guide us.

So I don't think it's going to be subtle. We're going to see a dramatic change in the dynamics of the outbreak, and when we do, then we've got to cautiously and prudently begin to pull back a bit on mitigation methods, not just abandoning them all, but gradually and prudently pulling back.

Head of White House security office has his right foot amputated because of severe COVID-19 and is facing 'staggering medical bills,' new report says

Eliza Relman
Mon, December 14, 2020, 


The head of the White House security office, Crede Bailey, had a part of his lower right leg and the big toe of his left foot amputated because of COVID-19, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Bailey has been hospitalized with a severe case of COVID-19 for three months but is said to be recovering.

Friends of Bailey's have raised over $35,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his rehabilitation and "staggering" healthcare costs.


Crede Bailey, who heads the White House security office, lost part of his lower right leg, including his foot, and a toe of his left foot during a months-long battle with COVID-19, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Bailey, whose office handles White House credentials and works with the Secret Service, contracted the coronavirus in September. He's been hospitalized for three months but is said to be recovering from the illness.

Friends of Bailey's have raised more than $35,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his rehabilitation and healthcare.

"Crede beat COVID-19 but it came at a significant cost: his big toe on his left foot as well as his right foot and lower leg had to be amputated," Dawn McCrobie, who organized the fundraiser, wrote in an update last week.

A White House representative declined to comment about Bailey's condition to Business Insider. Bloomberg reported that Bailey's family requested that the White House not publicly acknowledge his illness.

McCrobie wrote last month that Bailey's family "has staggering medical bills from a hospital stay of 2+ months and still counting in the ICU and a long road ahead in rehab before he can go home." She added that Bailey would need to pay for alterations to his home and a car he could operate to accommodate his disability.

Dozens of top administration officials and people tied to the White House have contracted COVID-19, and President Donald Trump has consistently downplayed the threat the virus poses. The president, who contracted the virus and was hospitalized for several days in October, has told Americans not to be afraid of COVID-19, mocked those who wear face masks, and condemned states' aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Ten years on, anger grows in Tunisian town where 'Arab Spring' began

Philosophy teacher Athmouni looks on as he stands along a street in Sidi Bouzid

By Angus McDowall and Tarek Amara
Tue, December 15, 2020,

SIDI BOUZID, Tunisia (Reuters) - Ten years ago, a fruit seller set himself ablaze in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid after an altercation with a policewoman about where he had put his cart.

Word of Mohammed Bouazizi's fatal act of defiance quickly spread, sparking nationwide protests that eventually toppled Tunisia's long-serving leader and helped inspire similar uprisings across the region - the so-called "Arab Spring".

Huge demonstrations broke out in Egypt and Bahrain, governments fell and civil war engulfed Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Tunisians are now free to choose their leaders and can publicly criticise the state. Yet for all the chaos they have been through, many people look back on the events of 2010 and regret that their dreams remain unfulfilled.

"Something went wrong in the revolution," said Attia Athmouni, a retired philosophy teacher who helped lead the uprising after Bouazizi's death by standing on the fruit seller's abandoned cart to address the crowd the night he died.

Protests have flared again in recent weeks across Tunisia's poorer southern towns against joblessness, poor state services, inequality and shortages.

The scramble to get enough cooking gas to provide for families underlines the hardships ordinary people face in a country where the economy has stagnated, leaving the public as angry as it was a decade ago.

Near Sidi Bouzid last week, a crowd placed large stones across the tarmac to block a main road. They wanted trucks taking cooking gas cylinders to the town to offload them in their village instead.

Supplies have been in short supply in Tunisia since people living near the main state-run factory producing the gas closed the plant several weeks ago to demand more local jobs.

Outside the main outlet for cooking gas in Sidi Bouzid, three riot police vans guarded the gate as hundreds of people waited to get their hands on full cylinders.

A woman at the front of the crowd said she had had no gas for three days and her family had been eating only cold food. She had queued for six and a half hours.

REVOLUTION

Bigger demonstrations may take place in Tunisia on Thursday, the anniversary of Bouazizi's self-immolation after his fruit cart was confiscated when he refused to move off an unlicensed pitch.

Slimane Rouissi, another Sidi Bouzid activist and former teacher who knew Bouazizi's family, said the young man had endured a string of disappointments before the final confrontation.

He drenched himself in petrol and killed himself in front of the local governorate office.

When Athmouni, the retired teacher, heard about the incident, he dismissed his class and told his students to start protesting.

That night, as hundreds of people gathered outside the governorate and chanted slogans, he heard the words "the people want the fall of the regime" - soon to be the catch phrase of Tunisia's revolution - for the first time.

Over the coming weeks the protests grew. By January, 2011, thousands were marching in Tunis and President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, in power for 23 years, realised the game was up. He fled to Saudi Arabia where he died in exile last year.

Tunisia's revolution spread. In Egypt the crowds forced Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years as president. Uprisings shook Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.

Hope for a new democratic future soon turned to bloodshed, particularly in Syria, Yemen and Libya, where civil wars pulled in major powers fearful their regional foes would gain an advantage.

Though Tunisia's path to democracy has been far smoother, its economy has deteriorated and political leaders appear paralysed.

Last year's election delivered a bitterly fragmented parliament unable to produce a stable government, with parties bickering over cabinet seats and putting off big decisions.

More Tunisians are trying illegally to leave the country than ever, while visions of jihad lure alienated, jobless youth. Both dynamics were evident in the recent attack in Nice by a young Tunisian migrant who killed three people in a church.

"There is a rupture between the politicians and the people now because the system cannot understand the demands of the street," Athmouni said bitterly in a Sidi Bouzid cafe full of unemployed young men.

NO INVESTMENT

In the streets near Bouazizi's old home - a shabby single-storey building behind a dented metal gate - a group of young men stood chatting on a street corner.

Sabri Amri, 26, laughed when asked if he had voted in any of Tunisia's post-revolution elections. All he and his group of friends want is to emigrate, he said. There is no work and young people spend their time drinking or taking drugs, he added.

"We have geniuses here - doctors, engineers. I know a guy who is a mechanical engineer. What does he do now? He sells weed just to live," said Abdullah Gammoudi, a qualified sports teacher who does not have a job.

In Sidi Bouzid, the only tangible signs of investment since 2011 are a new building outside town to replace the governorate headquarters where Bouazizi died, and his memorial - a stone fruit cart scrawled with graffiti saying: "The people want..."

Mohammed Bouali, 37, stood behind the government offices off Sidi Bouzid's main road, his cart full of oranges, apples and bananas. He and Bouazizi used to work on the same street.

Though his work - weighing out fruit for customers with a small hand-held scale - does not make enough to support his two children, he has few other options.

"The government won't provide anything," he said.

The policewoman who confiscated Bouazizi's cart 10 years ago still patrols the same streets, moving unlicensed vendors from their pitches.

Athmouni believes the answer is more protests. Mass uprisings in Algeria and Sudan ousted entrenched leaders there only last year.

"I'm convinced the revolution is continuous," he said. "This year the anger is bigger than in the past."

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

'We have no oxygen': First journalist to access Yemen after Covid discovers major cover up in country of her birth


Nawal Al-Maghafi
Mon, December 14, 2020, 
Gravediggers in Alradhwan Cemetery in Aden told the BBC they did not have time to eat during the Coronavirus outbreak they had so many bodies to bury - BBC News Arabic/BBC

Like many others in March I was spending my days locked down in my London flat, listening to reports about how overwhelmed the NHS was and the struggle to get essential supplies.

However where I differed is that all I could think about was Yemen.

I am British, but I’m originally Yemeni, and regularly report from it for BBC News and the World Service.

If the UK was struggling to cope, I thought to myself, just how would the authorities in Yemen fare?

I was terrified for them: my family, my friends, the nation. But I mainly feared for my grandmother. She is in her late 70’s and ticked all the vulnerable categories.

I began calling my sister who lives in northern Yemen every day asking her if there were any cases. But while I was terrified, she, like so many others in the war-torn country was oblivious to the threat.

The Houthi authorities in the north hadn’t announced a single case.

From London I set about trying to find out what was truly happening, but it was near impossible. The Houthis had imposed a blanket restriction on all Covid reporting from areas they control.
Nawal Al-Maghafi in Yemen for BBC News Arabic - BBC News Arabic/BBC

Instead they were broadcasting propaganda videos about how they were disinfecting neighbourhoods to keep the virus at bay.

Undeterred, I spoke to Yemen’s UN humanitarian coordinator, and learnt that the entire country only had 200 ventilators. I was told that with world powers buying up all the supply, Yemen was at the bottom of the queue.

I immediately called my grandmother.

Over the phone from London I implored her to believe she was in danger, begged that she stop seeing anyone, cook for herself, and stay in her flat, alone.

The hardest part for her was sending my cousins back when they came to visit her. “We will meet after corona”, she would tell them.

By then I had collated hundreds of posts from Facebook showing how Covid was exacting its deadly toll. My father was mourning dozens of his friends who had died, and I was receiving news that members of my extended family had fallen ill with “flu like symptoms” and passed away.

I was desperate to get to Yemen to document what was happening. But with the world at a standstill it took weeks to find a way. Finally, in July, I was on one of the first flights in since Covid had hit.

I arrived in Sanaa, my home town; and a city in mourning.

A funeral procession through the northern city of Sanaa - BBC News Arabic/BBC

It took me two weeks to negotiate gaining access to hospitals, such was the resistance to coverage. But finally, with 6 Houthi minders in tow, I did it.

In the first one I went to, the doctor there wasn’t even allowed to tell me the exact number of deaths, but she said the hospital was overwhelmed. In most countries young people are considered to be at low risk – but not in Yemen.

“We started to get really young patients, 25, 30, 35, 40 years old”, she told me. “They had no underlying health issues. They would deteriorate quickly, they wouldn't last 1 to 2 weeks.”

Throughout my 2,000km trip, I worried desperately about the people I left behind me at each juncture – it wasn’t just the virus that endangered them.

Airstrikes and fighting continued throughout the pandemic. During my trip I visited the site of an attack which had hit a civilian home killing nine children.

Back in another Yemeni hospital, I also observed the impact of the US withdrawal of 73 million dollars worth of aid.

I met a doctor, Tariq Qassem, facing the task of treating Covid amidst these cuts.

He was just 26 years old, and told me the majority of the deaths were a result of the hospital lacking oxygen supplies.

Nawal at Alkuwait hospital in Sanaa - BBC News Arabic/BBC

“When the oxygen runs out, that's it, we watch them die”, he said.

Despite knowing that Yemen was ill prepared for Covid, I was still stunned to hear that he and his colleagues were working in the ICU with no protective gear.

He caught Covid, but he kept working – until he needed to be put on oxygen himself.

Tariq survived. But seeing all of this, I couldn’t stop thinking about my grandmother, hoping she was doing as I’d told her to over the phone from London.

At the end of my trip I decided I would visit her - from a safe distance. We sat metres apart in her garden. I complained to her about all the gatherings I’d seen still taking place - the weddings, the funerals.

But her response? “The people in this country have died many times: war, starvation, disease,” she said.

“Corona is the least of their worries”.

5 years and counting: Ex-treasure hunter still stuck in jail

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Mon, December 14, 2020, 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former deep-sea treasure hunter is about to mark his fifth year in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of 500 missing coins made from gold found in an historic shipwreck.

Research scientist Tommy Thompson isn't incarcerated for breaking the law. Instead, he's being held in contempt of court for an unusually long stretch — well past the normal maximum limit of an 18-month internment in cases of witnesses refusing to cooperate.

But nothing is usual about Thompson's case, which dates to his discovery of the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.

Despite an investors lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won't cooperate with authorities trying to find those coins, according to court records, federal prosecutors and the judge who found Thompson in contempt.

“He creates a patent for a submarine, but he can’t remember where he put the loot,” federal Judge Algenon Marbley said during a 2017 hearing.

Thompson's legal troubles stem from the 161 investors who paid Thompson $12.7 million to find the ship, never saw any proceeds and finally sued.

Back in 2012, a different federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the coins' whereabouts. Instead, Thompson fled to Florida where he lived with his longtime female companion at a hotel where he was living near Boca Raton. U.S. marshals tracked him down and arrested him in early 2015.

Thompson pleaded guilty for his failure to appear and was sentenced to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Thompson's criminal sentence has been delayed until the issue of the gold coins is resolved.

That April 2015 plea deal required Thompson to answer questions in closed-door sessions about the whereabouts of the coins, which the government says are worth $2 million to $4 million. Importantly, he must also “assist” interested parties in finding the coins under that deal.

Thompson refused several times, and on Dec. 15, 2015, Marbley found Thompson in contempt of court and ordered him to stay in jail — and pay a $1,000 daily fine — until he responds.

In late October of this year, Thompson appeared by video for his latest hearing.

“Mr. Thompson, are you ready to answer the seminal question in this case as to the whereabouts of the gold?” Marbley said.

“Your honor, I don’t know if we’ve gone over this road before or not, but I don’t know the whereabouts of the gold,” Thompson responded. “I feel like I don’t have the keys to my freedom.”

And with that, Thompson settled back into his current situation: housed in a federal prison in Milan, Michigan, he’s now spent more than 1,700 days in jail and owes nearly $1.8 million in fines — and counting. Thompson's attorney declined to comment.

Thompson, 68, has said he suffers from a rare form of chronic fatigue syndrome that has created problems with short-term memory. He’s previously said, without providing details, that the coins were turned over to a trust in Belize.

The government contends Thompson is refusing to cooperate and that there’s no connection between his ailment and his ability to explain where the coins are.

A federal law addresses individuals like Thompson, known as “recalcitrant witnesses.” The law holds that 18 months is generally the limit for jail time for contempt of court orders. But a federal appeals court last year rejected Thompson's argument that that law applies to him.

Thompson hasn't just refused to answer questions, the court ruled: He's also violated the requirement that he “assist” the parties by refusing to execute a limited power of attorney to allow that Belizean trust to be examined, as required under his plea deal.

“The order isn’t intended to solely seek information, it’s to seek information for the purposes of recovering these unique assets,” said law professor and legal analyst Andrew Geronimo, director of Case Western University's First Amendment Clinic.

Earlier this year, Marbley denied Thompson's request for release over concerns he's at risk for contracting the coronavirus behind bars. Marbley said Thompson didn't present proper evidence for his risk level, and also noted he remains a flight risk.

The investors still looking for their money say Thompson has no one but himself to blame for his incarceration.

“He would be out of prison by now if he had simply complied with his plea agreement and cooperated in locating missing assets when he was supposed to,” attorney Steven Tigges said in a March court filing.

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This story has been corrected to show that the S.S. Central America sank in 1857, not the S.S. America.

30 US congressmen call for urgent action on UAE and Middle East Human Trafficking

International UN Watch
Mon, December 14, 2020

US lawmakers issue dear Colleague letter calling for urgent action on human trafficking
30 US congressmen call for urgent action on UAE and Middle East Human Trafficking

International UN Watch

London, UK, Dec. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Washington, London - On Human Rights Day, thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a “dear colleague” letter to the U.S. government calling for an end to human trafficking and labor exploitation in the Gulf region of the Middle East. Representative Raúl Grijalva, who serves as Vice Chair in the International Workers’ Rights Caucus, led the effort. “I led my colleagues in a letter urging Sec. Pompeo to urge the Gulf States to uphold human rights for migrant workers and abolish the discriminatory Kafala System,” he tweeted. The letter was supported by International United Nations Watch, Just Foreign Policy, Amnesty International, Freedom Forward, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Freedom Initiative, the Saudi American Justice Project, Win Without War, GLJ-ILRF, and Demand Progress.

In addition to highlighting on GCC region, the letter made particular focus on both Saudi Arabia and UAE due to the high levels of human rights abuses regarding the Kafala System (Modern Slavery) and human trafficking of female victims from east Europe to UAE.

“In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the number of sex trafficking prosecutions and convictions increased, yet authorities allegedly jailed unidentified trafficking victims for offenses of prostitution, extramarital sex, or absconding from their employers. Furthermore, there were no reported convictions of labor traffickers during the period of the recent TIP report, and cases of labor violations and forced labor were not treated as trafficking offenses. While labor trafficking offenses remain a primary concern in the country, the government took no “new steps to dismantle the [Kafala] sponsorship system.” In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch and other prominent organizations expressed their concern about vulnerable low-paid migrant workers in the UAE and the cramped and unhygienic conditions of detainees. The UAE upheld a policy of no minimum wage for migrant workers, who comprise 90% of its population” said the letter

The letter which was signed by 30 congress members stated, “In Saudi Arabia, the Kafala system ensures that a migrant worker cannot leave the country without permission from their sponsor, paving the way for exploitative practices. The government continues to “fine, jail, and/or deport migrant workers for prostitution or immigration violations,” pertaining to cases of unidentified victims of labor or sex trafficking. Saudi Arabia miscategorized trafficking cases as administrative violations rather than criminal offenses. The TIP report further asserts that Saudi Arabia’s Kafala system has “continued to exacerbate trafficking vulnerabilities in the large migrant worker communities.”During the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia also increased penalties and taxations imposed on migrant workers.”

It also added, “Similar requests have been recently spearheaded in the European Parliament and the U.K. Parliament. The United States and the international community must uphold human rights across the globe and protect victims of trafficking and exploitative working conditions in the Gulf. This letter requests that the Department of State urge the GCC to make significant and lasting improvements in regards to legal protections, gender equality, labor rights for migrant workers, and to completely reform or abolish the Kafala system in the region.”

Maya Garner, spokesperson for International United Nations Watch, stated: “It is encouraging to see progressive members of Congress stand up to human trafficking and labor exploitation in the Gulf Region. This letter is important for directly addressing the Kafala sponsorship system as a root cause of this abuse, and for looking at the contributing factors of gender inequality, and labor and migrant rights violations. Widespread reform is urgently needed, as is respecting the rights of domestic workers. I hope to see more members of Congress and American civil society urge GCC member states to fully comply with international human rights standards.”

The letter was initiated by International United Nations Watch is a London-based monitoring organization which issued a report “A Journey to the Unknown: Trafficking from the Fringes of Europe” which focused specifically on case studies of the sex trafficking of Moldovan women to the UAE, petitions in the EU parliament, UK parliament, as well as the French, German, Belgium, Danish and Swedish parliaments have accumulated more than 100 signatures from parliamentarians.

According to Amnesty International,” women continued to face discrimination in law and in practice. For example, the Personal Status Law of 2005 states that “a husband’s rights over his wife” include the wife’s “courteous obedience to him” (Article 56), and places conditions on a married woman’s right to work or leave the house (Article 72). Under Article 356 of the Penal Code, “debasement of honour with consent” is punishable by one year or more in prison. On the basis of this law, a Swedish-run hospital in Ajman Emirate was forced to report pregnant, unmarried women to the police. In some cases these referrals have led to prosecution and deportation. The government failed to adequately protect women from sexual and domestic violence. Under Article 53 of the Penal Code, “a husband’s discipline of his wife” is “considered an exercise of rights”, language that can be read as official sanction of spousal abuse.”

Letter endorsed by:

Lead: Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva

Co-signers:

Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky

Rep. Barbara Lee

Rep. James P. McGovern

Rep. Jamie Raskin

Rep. Jim Cooper

Rep. Deb Haaland

Rep. Hank Johnson

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Rep. Ro Khanna

Rep. Jared Huffman

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney

Rep. Steve Cohen

Rep. Alan S. Lowenthal

Rep. David N. Cicilline

Rep. Ayanna Pressley

Rep. Mark Pocan

Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García

Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Rep. Bobby L. Rush

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman

Rep. Joe Neguse

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson

Rep. Peter Welch

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici