Pandemic agreement talks could continue for another year

By

 AFP

Negotiations towards a global agreement on how to handle future pandemics seemed on course Friday to be extended for up to a year as countries try to bridge their differences.

Nations meeting at the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva have been trying to work out the way forward, after two years of talks concluded last week without a deal.

In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by Covid-19 — which killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems — the WHA commissioned the drafting of an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The ambitious deadline was before the start of this week’s WHA, the gathering of the World Health Organization’s 194 member states and the UN agency’s top decision-making body.

On Tuesday, the assembly tasked South Africa’s Precious Matsoso and Roland Driece of the Netherlands, who co-chaired the two years of talks, to lead efforts to stake out the next steps. 

Matsoso updated the assembly late Friday, saying the wording for an extension had effectively been agreed.

“It is text that was greened”, meaning approved, “agreed to this morning”, she said.

Matsoso said that once additional operative paragraphs were finalised, the group would “present it formally as a resolution” on Saturday, the assembly’s final day.

– One more year –

Green-highlighted text seen by AFP showed countries had agreed “to extend the mandate” of the talks to finish “as soon as possible”, with the outcome submitted to the 2025 WHA, or earlier to a WHA special session, “if possible in 2024”.

During Tuesday’s debates, African countries wanted to seize the growing momentum and get the agreement finished in the coming months, while Washington urged more time to reach the best possible deal, saying up to two years might be needed.

The drafting group appeared to have managed a balancing act between those positions, NGOs said Friday.

“There is a decision which is basically postponing the negotiations for a year, because the deadline is to conclude by 2025,” K.M. Gopakumar, senior researcher with the Third World Network, told the UN correspondents’ association.

“The compromise is a reasonable one, given the differences.”

James Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology International, said it appeared negotiators “give themselves, depending on how things go, all the way until next year” at the next regular WHA.

The draft pandemic agreement, as it stands, has 34 articles, of which 17 have already been approved by countries.

“We need to retain the momentum, but at the same time allow for substantive discussion on some fairly complex and technical issues that still remain,” Norwegian ambassador Tormod Cappelen Endresen told AFP this week.

“It’s in everyone’s interest to have a more fair and equitable system for preparedness,” he said.

Love said many of the original ambitions in the agreement had been weakened over time with caveats. 

He urged strong provisions on transferring the technology to make counter-pandemic products to developing countries, to avoid another Covid-style “Hunger Games” scramble for vaccines, “bringing out the worst in everyone”.

“It’s one thing for people to say we’re going to hoard products, but it’s another thing for them to say we’re going to hoard the manufacturing know-how… when people’s lives are at stake,” he said.

– Revamped rules for emergencies –

Parallel talks have also taken place on revising the International Health Regulations, which are very close to completion.

First adopted in 1969 and last updated in 2005, the IHR constitutes the existing, legally binding framework for responding to public health emergencies.

But Covid-19 exposed flaws in the system, with countries failing to jolt into action when the WHO sounded the IHR’s highest available alarm in January 2020.

The proposed amendments include reforming the alert system so there are more, and clearer, levels of alarm, including adding a pandemic emergency level.

“We are on track for finalising the package,” IHR negotiations co-chair Ashley Bloomfield told the assembly late Friday.

“It’s the final few tricky issues but there is enormous hard work going on, great good will and great progress being made, and we’re celebrating every gain we make,” he said.

by Robin MILLARD

South African parties jostle to set terms of coalition talks

By

 AFP

South African parties jostled Friday to set out their stalls ahead of talks on sharing power, with the ruling ANC on course to lose the absolute majority it has enjoyed for three decades.

With more than 85 percent of the votes from Wednesday’s election counted, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress had only 41.12 percent support, a catastrophic slump from the 57.5 it won in 2019.    

This marks an historic turning point for South Africa as the party has enjoyed an absolute majority since 1994, when liberation leader Nelson Mandela led the nation out of white-minority rule and into democracy.

The African National Congress (ANC) is now all but certain to have to seek a coalition partner to secure enough backing to name a president and form a government.

“We have been talking with everybody even before the election,” ANC’s deputy secretary general Nomvula Mokonyane told AFP, saying the party’s decision-making body would set the course to follow after final results are announced. 

“Anything must be based on principles and not an act of desperation.” 

As votes continued to be validated, data from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) showed the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) held second place with 21.95 percent.

But it was not a surge by the DA that cut into the ANC’s vote share. 

In third place was former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) on 12.6 percent, a surprise score for a party founded just months ago as a vehicle for the former ANC chief.

The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was in fourth with 9.4 percent. 

The final results are expected at the weekend, but with the trends clear, politicians and pundits were turning their attention to the prospects of an ANC-led coalition.

– No pardon, no party –

The ANC has dominated South Africa’s democracy with an unbroken run of five presidents from the party, but if  President Cyril Ramaphosa is to remain at the helm he will have to decide whether to seek allies on his right or left.

There will be resistance within his movement to a tie-up with the second-placed DA, under white politician John Steenhuisen, whose free market programme of privatisations and an end to black economic empowerment programmes sits at odds with the ruling party’s traditions. 

Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, an outgoing ANC lawmaker, told AFP the DA held “different ideals” making it too difficult to partner with.

The radical left groups led by former ANC figures: firebrand Julius Malema’s EFF or Zuma’s MK, were more likely bedfellows, he said. 

But these options might also meet resistance within the more moderate sections of the ANC.  

Analyst and author Susan Booysen, said the EFF was perceived as “too erratic” and “unpredictable” in its demands. 

And the rift between Ramaphosa and Zuma — who has long been bitter about the way he was forced out of office in 2018 — was “too far reaching” to mend, she said. 

MK spokesman Nhlamulo Ndhlela seemed to agree. 

At a packed convention centre north of Johannesburg where the IEC is announcing the results, he said the MK “would not engage in a discussion with the ANC”, as long as Ramaphosa was leader.

“We will engage with the ANC but not the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa,” he said.

Any coalition partner should be willing to amend the constitution to enact radical reforms and grant Zuma, who has been declared ineligible over a contempt of court conviction, a pardon, he said.

“We will bring President Zuma back in his National Assembly (and) put him back as president, as simple as that,” he said.

– Ramaphosa at risk? –

That could pile  pressure on Ramaphosa. Some observers believe his position and authority within the ANC are in doubt. 

“His power is gone within the ANC,” said political analyst and business leader Sandile Swana. 

But Mokonyane dismissed the notion that Ramaphosa’s leadership was at risk, saying he “did very well” for the party.

“In the ANC we don’t work that way. It’s not a presidential election. It was an election that the ANC went in as a party and we are happy with it,” she said at the IEC conference centre, wearing green trousers and a yellow shirt — the party colours. 

The ANC retains the loyalty of many voters for its leading role in overthrowing white minority rule and its progressive social welfare and black economic empowerment policies are credited by supporters with helping millions of black families out of poverty.

But over three decades of almost unchallenged rule, its leadership has been implicated in a series of large-scale corruption scandals, while the continent’s most industrialised economy has languished and crime and unemployment figures have hit record highs.

by Umberto BACCHI

EU has no evidence of China supplying weapons to Russia

TEHRAN, Jun. 01 (MNA) – The European Union does not have evidence of Chinese weapons supplies to Russia, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at a forum in Singapore.

"China has committed not to supply arms [to Russia] and we don't have evidence that this is happening," he said, taking questions from participants in the Shangri-La Dialogue forum. "But there is not a clear border between arms and non-arms because there are things which can be dual-use," he added, TASS reports.

However, Borrell alleged that components made in Western countries, including the United States, Europe, and Great Britain, may be used in the production of Russian military equipment. "But the problem is not only China," he explained.

Beijing noted earlier that Washington’s shifting the blame for igniting the Ukraine conflict will not resolve the current crisis. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin has refuted accusations that China has been supplying weapons to Russia. "China has always handled the export of military products in a prudent and responsible way, and strictly controls the export of dual-use articles," he emphasized.

MNA/PR

ICC Men's T20 World Cup

CRICKET? CRICKET! WHO KNEW

PS THIS IS A FIRST IN NORTH AMERICA

Preview: USA vs Canada – ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 opening match

History, reputation and bragging rights will be on the line as USA host Canada in the opening match of the T20 World Cup in Dallas.

Monank Patel will lead USA in their debut ICC World Cup tournament when they co-host the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 [Robert Cianflone/Getty Images via AFP]

Published On 1 Jun 20241 Jun 2024

Who: USA vs Canada
What: ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Group A match
When: Saturday, June 1 at 7:30pm local time (03:30 GMT, June 2)
Where: Grand Prairie Stadium, Texas, United States

It’s finally here.

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The long-awaited arrival of cricket’s biggest party in North America is now hours away, and who better to kick things off than the two teams that played the first recorded international cricket match in history.

When USA host Canada in the opening match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 in Dallas, Texas on Saturday, a lot more than revenge for a century-old loss will be on the line.

ICC World Cup debutants USA will look to build on their recent dominance over their northern neighbours and get their tournament off to a winning start.

Canada, who have previously participated in ICC’s 50-over World Cup, will also make their debut in the T20 version of the tournament.

It is a landmark moment for the USA team to be in an elite competition after decades of being stuck in minor tournaments.

“We’ve been speaking over the last couple of years about playing in World Cups, about taking USA cricket to higher heights,” USA’s vice-captain Aaron Jones said ahead of the opening match.

“Playing [in] a World Cup is probably the highest height [so far].”

(Al Jazeera)

USA seek support from American born and raised fans

Jones says his team is determined to play a “fearless” brand of cricket.

There is pressure on the USA, as tournament co-hosts, with the West Indies, to deliver a strong showing on home soil.

The explosive, short format of the game is seen by cricket’s leaders as being the perfect version to capture the imagination of mainstream American sports fans and Jones says the team doesn’t want to be afraid of going on the attack.

“Fearless cricket, positive cricket, smart cricket. I think that’s what we’re really and truly trying to do,” Jones told a press conference.

“We don’t want to regret anything. If we come out on top, it’s great. If we don’t come out on top, that’s how cricket goes sometimes. But we don’t want to regret anything,” he added.

Jones was born in New York but raised in Barbados, which he represented earlier in his career, before moving back to the USA to be part of the team.

He acknowledges that the team has the added responsibility of being ambassadors for the sport when they play games in Texas, Florida and New York.

“What you do on the field is very important, but off the field stuff is very important as well, especially being a country that don’t really know much about cricket,” he said.

“We want to get the fans up; we want to get a lot more support from the American born and raised people and I think we could only do that by playing good and interacting with the fans or the growing fans off the field as well.”

Canada ready for ‘tough competition’

Meanwhile, Canada’s captain Saad bin Zafar believes his team are not under pressure and are equally excited to express themselves.

“Everybody’s itching to go, everybody’s in the performance mood,” Zafar told reporters on the eve of the match.

USA have had an upper hand over Canada in recent meetings and Zafar wants his team to come out on top in the tournament opener.

“We are rivals, we tend to play against each other a lot,” he said.

“There are a lot of friendships between the two countries as well at the same time,” Zafar added.

“And right now, because it’s a World Cup, it’s a grand stage, both countries want to have the best of them over their opponent.

“I believe we’re going to have a really good and tough competition and both teams will entertain the crowd.”

Head to head

The North American rivals have faced each other seven times in T20 matches, where USA have come on top on five occasions and Canada have won twice.

Four of these wins came in their recent five-match T20 series, which saw one match abandoned due to bad weather.

Form

USA enter the T20 World Cup on the back of a stunning 2-1 series win over Bangladesh, who were packed with big names such as Shakib al-Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman and captain Najmul Hossain Shanto.

Canada’s last T20 outing was against USA in the five-match series that they lost 4-0 and will look to set things right.

USA: L W W W W

Canada: L L A L L

(

Al Jazeera)

USA team news

The co-hosts go into the match riding on the wave of the success of their series win and will not be looking to tinker with the XI that brought them the 2-1 series win.

USA squad: Monank Patel (captain), Shayan Jahangir, Andries Gous, Nitish Kumar, Steven Taylor, Harmeet Singh, Corey Anderson, Milind Kumar, Nisarg Patel, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Ali Khan, Jessy Singh, Saurabh Netravalkar, Nosthush Kenjige.

Canada team news

Having only completed one of their two pre-tournament warm-up matches, Canada will hope the side that beat Nepal last week will put on an improved performance against their North American neighbours and get off to a winning start.

Canada squad: Saad bin Zafar (captain), Navneet Dhaliwal, Aaron Johnson, Ravinderpal Singh, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Shreyas Movva, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Rayyan Khan Pathan.

(Al Jazeera)

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIE

Dbeibah Stresses China’s Important Role in Reconstructing Libya

NATO'S ORPHAN, CHINA'S ADOPTEE

Dbeibah is seen at the opening of the inaugural Chinese-Libyan economic forum in Beijing. (GNU)

Cairo: Jamal Jawhar
1 June 2024 AD ـ 24 Thul-Qi’dah 1445 AH

Head of Libya’s interim Government of National Unity (GNU) Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah called on Chinese companies to complete their suspended projects in his country, underlining Beijing’s role in the reconstruction process underway in Libya.

Dbeibah was speaking at the opening of the inaugural Chinese-Libyan economic forum in Beijing. The GNU said on Friday that the meeting was attended by representatives from 84 Chinese companies.

According to a statement from his office, Dbeibah stressed the need to work with Chinese companies, saying that would mark the first phase in joint cooperation and noting that over 23,000 Chinese workers were currently in Libya – a leap from just 5,000 years ago.

The forum made several recommendations, including underscoring the importance of maintaining political and technical communication between Libya and China to address challenges that may impede the “complete return of Chinese” companies to the North African country.

It was agreed to hold the second edition of the forum in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in October.

The GNU also said Dbeibah discussed with Chinese officials the reopening of Beijing’s embassy in Tripoli.

In Beijing, he met with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

They discussed cooperation between their countries and ways to bolster it. They also tackled efforts to restore stability in Libya and hold presidential and parliamentary elections there.

‘Minority exclusion’: Are Indian Muslims facing voter suppression?

Claims of voter suppression are rising – from names missing from electoral rolls to physical violence and constituencies redrawn to reduce Muslim clout.

A Muslim woman arrives to cast her ballot at a polling station in Hyderabad [File: Noah Seelam/AFP]

By Arbab Ali and Nadeem Sarwar
Published On 1 Jun 2024

New Delhi, India – Daily wage worker Mustagir Qureshi decided to cast his vote early in the morning to avoid queuing up under the scorching sun in Uttar Pradesh state’s Sambhal district in northern India.

But as he reached the school-turned-polling station in his native Obri village on May 7 for the third phase of the staggered election, he saw dozens of men wearing skull caps and women in burqas fleeing to avoid blows from policemen carrying batons

Moments later, he heard from his neighbours that his 70-year-old father Raees Qureshi, who had rushed to the booth upon hearing of the commotion, was lying injured in front of the school. He had been hit on his chest by a police baton and had collapsed.

As Mustagir carried his injured father home, videos of the incident went viral on social media. In one of the videos, Mustagir and his younger brother, Alam, were seen carrying their wounded father as they argued with the police over the baton charge. At one moment, Mustagir puts Raees down on the road demanding an answer from the authorities.

‘They threatened to shoot me’

Three hours later, when Mustagir returned to the booth to cast his vote, a police officer summoned him. “They seized my voter slip and Aadhar card and tore it into pieces,” he alleged. A voter slip is issued to voters by the authorities to inform them of their nearest booth, while Aadhar refers to India’s biometric identity card, carrying of which is mandatory for a voter along with the voter identity card.

Mustagir, 30, said at least six police officers shoved him into a van as his younger brother Alam recorded a video of the detention on his mobile phone. He claimed he was beaten and abused inside the vehicle as the officers took him to Sambhal’s Asmauli police station.

“They said: ‘Mullah, you’ll vote for cycle?'” he told Al Jazeera. Mullah is a common pejorative term for Indian Muslims. The bicycle is the election symbol of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the main opposition party in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and politically crucial state that sends 80 members to the lower house of parliament, the most by any state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rules the state, as well as nationally.

Mustagir said he was taken to a nearby jungle and forced to record a video claiming he was misled by the villagers about the baton charge and that the police officers did not assault him or his father. “They threatened to shoot me in an encounter. I was kicked and punched, forced to say all that on camera. I made the video under their pressure,” he told Al Jazeera.

Later that day, that video was shared by the police on X to deny allegations of voter suppression and assault on the villagers in Obri. Yet, similar incidents of police attacks on voters were also reported from at least three other villages in Sambhal, about 187km (116 miles) from the national capital New Delhi.

Zia ur Rahman Barq, a member of the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly and the SP candidate from Sambhal, alleged that the local administration had colluded with the police to intimidate and stop Muslims from exercising their vote to help the BJP.

“I saw serious head injuries, fractured arms, and old men as well as children mercilessly beaten by the police,” Barq told Al-Jazeera. “They rained batons on the people lined up to cast their vote, snatched their ID cards and voter slips, and arrested many of our polling agents.”

Al Jazeera reached out to five senior police officers in Sambhal, but only one of them responded. “I have already given my statement in writing,” said Anuj Kumar Chaudhary, circle officer for the Sambhal subdivision, before disconnecting the call. Further attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. Barq accused Chaudhary of intimidating election officials and taking away voter lists from at least four polling stations

The Sambhal incident is only one among a series of allegations of vote suppression of India’s largest minority in the country’s mammoth election, which comes to an end with the final phase of voting on Saturday, June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4, when results will also be announced.

As India began voting on April 19 in the seven-phase election, there were several reports from across the country of Muslim names allegedly deleted from the list of voters, of attempts to disenfranchise them through intimidation, or of using the law to draw constituencies in a manner that dilutes the impact of the Muslim vote in areas where the community resides in large numbers.
‘My vote has become useless’

In the northeastern state of Assam, where nearly a third of the 35 million residents are Muslim, the demographic profile of several parliamentary constituencies has been altered through a process called delimitation. That refers to the process of election authorities redrawing the boundaries of some seats according to changes in the population.

The BJP has been in power in Assam since 2016.

Sanwar Hussain, a bus driver by profession, used to be a registered voter in Barpeta constituency. Now his name has been added to the voter list in Dhubri, about 130km (80 miles) from his home.

“Why should I have to vote for a place that is this far from my home? I have always been in Barpeta,” the 43-year-old told Al Jazeera.

The delimitation in Assam raised the number of Muslim voters in Dhubri but reduced it in Barpeta from 61 percent to 30 percent, according to Indian media reports. Chenga, a state assembly seat with more than 76 percent Muslims, used to be a part of the Barpeta parliamentary seat, but now falls under the redrawn Dhubri constituency.

Delimitation has similarly affected two other parliamentary seats in Assam: Kaziranga and Nagaon.

“I feel that my vote has become useless,” Barpeta resident Abdul Jubbar Ali told Al Jazeera.

Aminul Islam of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the state’s third-largest party after the BJP and the Congress, said delimitation has “ensured no Muslim candidate can win in the future”.

“It is meant to cheat Muslim voters,” Islam told Al Jazeera.

Pabitra Margherita, BJP spokesman in Assam and a member of the upper house of India’s parliament, told Al Jazeera the delimitation process was a routine exercise by the election commission and not aimed at impacting the influence of the Muslim vote to help the BJP win.

“Such allegations and this kind of propaganda,” he said, “hampers the social fabric of the state of Assam.”

Al Jazeera reached out to Assam’s chief electoral officer, Anurag Goel, for his response to the allegations by opposition parties and some voters that the delimitation exercise had rendered the Muslim vote in the state less relevant. He did not reply.

Political scientist Gilles Verniers described the Assam delimitation as “a case of minority exclusion”. He said the effect of such manipulations on the electorate is “compounded by a growing distress and distrust” the voters feel towards the election commission.

“What is really missing is a response from the election commission on these allegations and appropriate action to find solutions and to remedy them,” he said.

‘Our Muslim identity had a role to play’

In Modi’s home state of Gujarat on the other side of the country, Jukub Patel said he failed to get his voter slip despite repeated attempts.

Patel was among 600 Muslim fishermen whose homes in Navadra village in the coastal district of Devbhoomi Dwarka were razed by the state’s BJP government in March last year following allegations they were illegally built. Soon, his name was also allegedly deleted from the voter list.

Patel now lives about 50km (30 miles) away from his lost home.

Al Jazeera wrote to JD Patel, deputy district election officer of Devbhoomi Dwarka, on the alleged deletion of Muslim fishermen’s names from the voting lists, but received no response.

Manish Doshi, spokesman for the opposition Congress party in Gujarat, accused the BJP of exerting pressure on the administration to manipulate the election. He alleged that BJP workers threatened Muslim voters in the Muslim-majority localities of the main city of Ahmadabad, where many voters were not provided with voter slips. “This is how the BJP always wins the elections in this state,” he told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera reached out to five BJP politicians to seek their response to the allegation but did not receive a reply.

Verniers said the election commission is responsible for ensuring that citizens are not deleted from the voter lists and that there was sufficient history of the body being proactive in getting people registered. But, he added, that did not seem to be the case in Gujarat.
Bureaucratic hassles

Gujarat’s chief electoral officer, P Bharathi, told reporters that an objection should have been raised by the Muslim fishermen before them and new applications for a new voter ID card should have been made.

However, rights groups say that the process of getting new voter IDs at an applicant’s new address can be punishing, especially for people whose documents have been misplaced during the demolition of their homes. A local rights group, the Minority Coordination Committee (MCC), also wrote to the election commission on behalf of the fishermen but received no response.

“If the government pursues a policy of displacing Muslims from their land, citizens will be deprived of their fundamental rights,” said Verniers. “There are bureaucrats who are eager to do the bidding of the ruling party.”


The denial of voting rights can also happen because of reasons such as misspelled names on ID cards. But many Muslims said unlike them, their neighbours belonging to other religions did not seem to have a problem in getting their voter slips.

Mohammad Sabir, 78, a resident of Gali Ahiran in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura constituency, said his family of eight people could not vote during the second phase of the election on April 26.

“My wife went to the polling station. Her photo was there on her Aadhar card and her name was correct on the voter slip, too. But they refused to allow her to vote, saying her name and photo don’t match,” he told Al Jazeera. Sabir himself could not vote because he did not get his voter slip.

Syed Khalid Saifullah, a Hyderabad-based IT expert and activist, said the government has all the means and guidelines in place to ensure that citizens are not excluded from the voter list. Saifullah runs an app called Missing Voters, which helps get eligible voters back on the electoral list if they find that their names have been dropped.

“Almost everyone has access to a phone in their household. An automated call alerting them about their name being removed from the voter list shouldn’t be much of an effort,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the state has enough resources to tackle such issues.


“There are enough booth officers who can go house to house, and in due time, verify any discrepancies and ensure people are able to exercise their right to vote,” he said.
Alleged threats, detentions in Kashmir

But what happens in regions where the state suffers from a particularly high level of distrust from the population?

In Indian-administered Kashmir, where mainly Muslim voters in its valley areas have long boycotted India’s elections, this year was different as many thought casting their vote against the BJP was their only way to protest their loss of partial autonomy in 2019, when the region’s special status was scrapped.

But both major pro-India political parties in the disputed region – the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party – have accused the police of detaining and intimidating their workers and suppressing the votes of the people.

Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, the National Conference candidate in the main city of Srinagar, told Al Jazeera the police attempted to slow down voting by threatening voters at booths where people were voting for his party.


“Sometimes they would make excuses about how crowded the polling booth was and try to force voters to leave before voting. They were checking their IDs, which is the responsibility of the booth officer, not the police,” he said.

The police admitted to the detentions, saying its action was “regardless of any party affiliation” and targeted “miscreants and potential offenders with a background of linkages to terrorism and separatism”.

India has long considered a rebellion against New Delhi’s rule in Indian-administered Kashmir as a form of terrorism and has deployed millions of its soldiers in the region for decades. New Delhi claims the region as an integral part of the country.
‘Horrors and heartbreaks’

Down south, Madhavi Latha, a BJP candidate in Hyderabad, capital of Telangana state, was booked by the police on May 13 after a video of her allegedly intimidating Muslim voters went viral.

In the video, Latha was seen telling Muslim women to remove their veils as she checked their documents without any authority to do so.


Being a candidate, Latha argued, she had a right to verify the identity of voters. But election rules depute such duties to designated polling officers. They also recommend setting up an enclosure with female staff to verify the identity of women covering their faces.

M Aruna, the election officer at the booth, told Al Jazeera that in her decade-long experience overseeing election procedures, Latha’s was the first instance of a candidate entering a polling station and asking women to reveal their faces.

In the police report accessed by Al Jazeera, Aruna said one female voter left the polling station without casting her vote after being told to do so by Latha.

Jagdeep S Chhokar, founder of the Association for Democratic Reforms, which works on electoral and political reforms, said the opposition has complained of vote suppression in this election, but the election commission’s response had been “extremely subdued if it at all ever came”.

Back in Sambhal, Mustagir said the election, often called a “festival of democracy”, has been one of horrors and heartbreaks.


“I still have the fear that if I speak up, they might do something worse to me,” he told Al Jazeera.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

KEEP READING

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Darker days lay ahead for opposition, minorities after India’s election

India Lok Sabha election 2024 Phase 7: Who votes and what’s at stake?

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WAR PAST

Drawn By War: Crimea In The 1800s

May 31, 2024 
By Amos Chapple

During the Crimean War of 1853-56, a London printing house compiled one artist's paintings of Crimean towns and landscapes to satisfy British curiosity about the peninsula. Nearly 200 years later, many of the sites remain in the headlines amid the latest conflict over the territory.


1This painting of the beach at Eupatoria, western Crimea, is one of 52 illustrations of the peninsula made by Swiss-Italian artist Carlo Bossoli (1815-84).

2The ruins of an unidentified church in Crimea

Bossoli spent most of his youth in Odesa in what was then the Russian Empire. From 1840 until 1842, he traveled throughout Crimea to capture its culture and landscape before cameras were widely available.

3Crimean Tatars dancing in Massandra, southern Crimea

In 1853, war broke out on the Crimean Peninsula between Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, Britain, France, and Sardinia, sparking intense public interest in the little-known region.

4A view of the southern Crimean town of Yalta

With the war ongoing, a London publishing house approached the well-established Bossoli with an offer to reproduce his early Crimea paintings into a book with explanatory captions.


5A caravan of Tatars traveling across the plain of an unspecified region of Crimea

The book, titled Beautiful Scenery And Chief Places Of Interest Throughout The Crimea, was published in 1856. The same year, Bossoli's Crimea paintings were exhibited to a curious public in London.


6A Crimean Tatar school depicted at an unspecified location in Crimea

From around 500 copies of the book that were published, one is today held by the DeGolyer Library of the Southern Methodist University in Texas. The images inside are striking for the largely lost world they capture, as well as the continued geopolitical importance of many of the landmarks Bossoli painted.

7Snake Island depicted on a stormy day

The island became famous as the position of Ukrainian troops who defied a Russian warship at the opening of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, but its turbulent history stretches back to early Greek civilization.

A temple to Achilles once stood on the island, which was later fought over by the Ottoman and Russian empires, then controlled by Romania. The Soviet Navy captured the island in World War II, then Ukraine inherited it following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

8Sevastopol viewed from a “watchtower” in the center of the town

The port city has been under Russian control since Crimea was forcibly annexed in 2014 and has repeatedly been targeted by missile strikes since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

9The town of Bakhchysarai, which was the capital of the Crimean Khanate until the entity’s annexation by Russia in 1783

Bakhchysarai was emptied of Muslim Tatars after Stalin’s Soviet Union forcibly deported the ethnic minority en masse as collective punishment for some Tatars fighting on the side of the Nazis in WWII.


10A Crimean Tatar house in Alupka village

According to Bossoli, such village houses were often built against rocky outcrops that served as one wall of the residence.

“The roof is flat, and upon it, when the weather is fair, the inhabitants commonly assemble, working or enjoying one another's society,” the artist wrote.


11The tomb of Mithridates on the coast of Crimea near Kerch

This otherworldy chamber is believed to have been built for the remains of a king of the Spartocids, a Thracian dynasty who ruled the Crimean Peninsula around 2,200 years ago. By the time Bossoli painted it, it had long since been looted by tomb raiders.

12A view of Mt. Mithridates from a waterfront road through Kerch

From this viewpoint today, the Kerch Bridge to Russia would be visible at left, some 2.5 kilometers behind the mountain.

13A view over Kerch from Mt. Mithridates

The monument on the right was a mausoleum to Russian archaeologist Ivan Stempkovsky that was damaged in fighting, then demolished by the Soviets, after Kerch was recaptured from Nazi control in 1944.

14Bilohirsk, which was known by Crimean Tatars as Karasubazar, meaning “market on the Karasu river”

The Crimean name references the town’s bazaar that included a major slave market for kidnapped Slavs during the Crimean Khanate.

15Balaklava seen from the Genoese-era fortifications that overlook the natural harbor

Balaklava became emblematic of the Crimean War in Britain due to the costly battle fought for control of the bay.

16The Khan's Palace in Bakhchysarai

The book of Crimean paintings provided a payday for Bossoli, but probably did little to advance his standing in the art world. By the time his 1856 book was published, the artist's technical prowess had advanced significantly from his youthful Crimean work, as can be seen in this 1857 painting of Bakhchysarai. Bossoli died in 1884 and is buried in Lugano, Switzerland.

TENNYSON'S POEM; CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

  

The Charge of the Light Brigade


BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.



II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.



III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.



IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.



V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.



VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

n/a
Source: 2017-11-01

Scene from Charge of light brigade (1936) 

The Charge of the Light Brigade was a charge of British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. Lord Raglan, overall commander of the British forces, had intended to send the Light Brigade to prevent the Russians from removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions, a task well-suited to light cavalry.

However, there was miscommunication in the chain of command, and the Light Brigade was instead sent on a frontal assault against a different artillery battery, one well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. They reached the battery under withering direct fire and scattered some of the gunners, but they were forced to retreat immediately. Thus, the assault ended with very high British casualties and no decisive gains.

The events are best remembered as the subject of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's narrative poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854), published just six weeks after the event. Its lines emphasise the valour of the cavalry in bravely carrying out their orders, regardless of the obvious outcome. Blame for the miscommunication has remained controversial, as the original order itself was vague, and the officer who delivered the written orders with some verbal interpretation died in the first minute of the assault.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade: The Crimean War's Greatest Blunder |

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