BAD ZOO

Video of zebras being mistreated during journey to Iranian zoo sparks outrage

Issued on: 13/05/2021 

Left: The director of the Safadasht zoo beats zebras with a stick/ Right: A frightened zebra falls into a gutter after breaking their leg. © Observers

Text by: Alijani Ershad

People in Iran have been shocked and horrified by a video that emerged on social media on May 4, 2021 showing zebras being mistreated during their transfer from a zoo in Bulgaria to one in Tehran, Iran. One of the animals was beaten while another died. According to an animal rights activist, this video highlights the unscrupulous practices of Iranian zoos and the failure of Iranian officials to ensure animal welfare.

The video was filmed on April 24, 2021 in the customs area in Bazargan, located on the border between Iran and Turkey, but it was only posted online 11 days later.

The footage shows several men trying to transfer the zebras from the container they had been travelling in to a container belonging to the Iranian Department of the Environment, a government organisation, so that they could then be transported to a zoo in Tehran.

The footage shows one of the zebras, a female, falling into a gutter and breaking a hoof while the men around her beat her to force her back into a container.

zabra iran © Observers
Video of zebras being mistreated during journey to Iranian zoo sparks outrage (france24.com)
This video shows a zebra being mistreated. It was circulating widely on Telegram on May 4, 2021.

These animals were bound for Safadasht Zoo, which had acquired two female zebras and a male zebra. The idea was to breed them, thus increasing the number of zebras in the country. But the project collapsed when the only male zebra died a day after he arrived at the zoo. He had spent the seven previous days at Bazargan customs.

When the video showing the female zebra being mistreated appeared online, it sparked immediate outrage. Lots of people criticised the men who they said were not qualified to handle this transfer as well as the Safadasht Zoo itself. Others complained that Iranian authorities in general have little empathy for animals.

“They brought three zebras to Iran, they beat two and they killed the last one. That makes them laugh, are they human?” this Twitter user commented.


“An African zebra died after a week here. I’ve managed to survive [en Iran, NDLR] 28 years here".

Blame game between the zoo and Iranian customs officials

Neither officials at Safadasht Zoo nor Iranian customs officials have taken responsibility for the death of one zebra and the mistreatment of another.

After the video appeared online, the official zoo Instagram account started posting insults aimed at the people who had been critical of the footage. Shortly thereafter, they backtracked, claiming that their account had been pirated. Users however, took screengrabs of the original messages.

"A bunch of stupid people are tearing themselves apart because they paid for these animals. I bought them for you, worthless people. All your lives are worth less than what I paid for those animals", reads this message posted in Persan on the Safadasht Zoo Instagram account. © .

On May 5, Alireza Sharafi, the director of the zoo, gave an interview to Iranian state television, claiming that "homeless people” and “agitators” were to blame for beating the zebras. The Iranian police regularly use the word “agitator” to refer to the political opposition. He added that the long wait at Iranian customs had killed the male zebra. He also claimed that the zebra was dead before it arrived at the zoo.

Unfortunately for the zoo director, another video appeared online on May 7 showing him mistreating the zebras.

Alireza Sharifi, the director of Safadasht Zoo, is shown here beating a zebra. Sharifi wears a black shirt. This video was published on Telegram on May 7.

The Safadasht Zoo hasn’t published a single response since the new video emerged.

For their part, Iranian customs officials claimed that zoo staff hadn’t made an official request for the zebra’s transfer and hadn’t filled out the proper paperwork. The zoo denied this.

The Iranian customs’ Department of the Environment announced that they were launching an investigation into the video and the zebra’s cause of death.

“All the zoos in Iran should be closed”
Alireza Shahrdari is an animal rights activist based in Tehran:

“There are special protocols to follow when you are transporting animals. Clearly, in this case, those protocols were not respected. If the proper procedure had been followed, these animals wouldn’t have been abandoned for such a long time at customs and you wouldn’t have seen the behaviour on display in the video.

People need to have specialised training in order to know how to manage animals. These men clearly hadn’t been properly trained. They surrounded the animals, frightened them and then beat them.

But the problem goes much deeper than that. Safadasht Zoo doesn’t meet even the most basic standards. They don’t have qualified staff. They don’t have enough space to house the animals … and, despite all this, the Department of the Environment gave them a license, not just to run the zoo, but also to import animals. This department is also supposed to oversee the transportation of these animals, which it didn’t do, at least not properly.”

“The solution would be to ban zoos from buying new animals, especially breeding animals”

“These zoos have the money to buy animals and, so the Department of the Environment turns a blind eye. It’s all the more shocking because this zoo has killed other animals in the past few years: a giraffe in April 2019 and a tiger in January 2020.

But, in all honesty, there’s not a single zoo in Iran that respects basic standards. The situation is bad enough in Tehran and the surrounding areas but it’s literally horrible in the zoos outside of the capital.

However, shutting these zoos down isn’t really an option. If the government shuts them down, then the animals would need to be transferred to a suitable space, which doesn’t exist right now. So I believe the solution would be to ban zoos from buying new animals, especially breeding animals, and let the animals who are already living in the zoos finish their lives out. If zoos can’t get new animals, that will mean they’ll slowly shut their doors.

Quebec seeks to change Canadian Constitution, make sweeping changes to language laws with new bill

Kate McKenna 
POSTMEDIA

© Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press Quebec Premier François Legault, left, and Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for the French language, have spoken of the need to bolster laws to protect the French language.

The Quebec government has tabled a bill that seeks to change the Canadian Constitution to include a specific clause reiterating the Quebec nation's French-language rights.

That's one part of a sweeping new bill that, if passed, would become the most stringent law to bolster the status of the French language in Quebec since Bill 101 passed in 1977.

The latest bill, called Bill 96, includes the following proposed measures:

Adding clauses to the Canadian Constitution, saying Quebec is a nation and that its official and common language is French.

Applying Bill 101 to businesses with 25-49 employees and federal workplaces.
Forcing all commercial signage that includes non-French-language trademarks to include a "predominant" amount of French on all sign.

Capping the number of students in English CEGEPs at 17.5 per cent of the student population.
Giving access to French language training for those who aren't obligated by law to go to school in French.

Removing a municipality's bilingual status if census data shows that English is the first language for less than 50 per cent of its population, unless the municipality decides to maintain its status by passing a resolution to keep it.

Creating a French Language Ministry and the position of French-language commissioner, as well as bolstering the role of the French-language watchdog, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).

 
Provincially appointed judges will not be required to be bilingual.

Requiring that all provincial communication with immigrants is in French, starting six months after they arrive in Quebec.

Simon Jolin-Barrette, the province's minister responsible for the French language, tabled the bill this morning.

Both he and Premier François Legault have expressed concern about the decline of the French language in Quebec.

"For centuries, we've known that defending the French language is essential to the survival and development of our nation," Legault said during a news conference after the bill was tabled.
Invoking the notwithstanding clause

BEATS ALBERTA TO IT

The new bill pre-emptively invokes the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect it from legal challenges.

The notwithstanding clause, officially called Section 33, allows provincial or federal authorities to override certain sections of the charter for a period of five years.

"The notwithstanding clause is a legitimate tool that balances between individual rights and collective rights," Legault said.

"We have the right and we have a duty to use the notwithstanding clause when the basis of our existence as a francophone people on the American continent is at stake."

This is the second time Legault's government has used the notwithstanding clause. The CAQ government used it to shield its law barring some civil servants from wearing religious symbols, known as Bill 21, from legal challenges.

Decline of French in Quebec

The proposed legislation comes after a number of studies from Quebec's French-language watchdog, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), that found the French language is in decline in the province.

A 2018 study projected that the percentage of Quebecers who speak French at home will drop from 82 per cent in 2011 to about 75 per cent in 2036.

The second study, also completed in 2018, examined language spoken in workplaces.

It found that a quarter of Montreal employees surveyed said they use French and English equally at work, and only 18.7 per cent said they speak French exclusively at work.

Quebec's opposition parties have voiced their support for stronger language reforms.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the House leader for Québec solidaire, said the reforms are about protecting and promoting the French language — not picking on anglophone communities.

"The debate around French is not necessarily a divisive debate," Nadeau-Dubois said.

"It can be a unifying debate for Quebec society. I know that a lot of young anglophones in my generation totally agree with the spirit of Bill 101."

Bill 101 a 'watershed' moment

The original law, adopted in 1977 by René Léveque's Parti Québécois government, was a bid to bolster and protect the French language in Quebec.

Bill 101, or the Charter of the French Language, makes French the sole official language of the Quebec government, courts and workplaces.

It includes restrictions on the use of English on outdoor commercial signage and put restrictions on who could study in English in Quebec.

Lorraine O'Donnell, a Quebec historian who runs the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network, said the original Bill 101 has had a lasting impact.

"Bill 101 is seen as a watershed moment in Quebec history," she said. "It has marked the consciousness and the perspective of English-speaking Quebec."

HUMANITARIAN SERVICE 

China has used COVID-19 pandemic to improve its public image: Report

Devika Desai 

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck down the global economies, devastated healthcare systems around the world and destroyed the lives of millions. Surprisingly, it has also helped bolster China’s public image, a new report has found, in a turn of events that authors say could reflect Beijing’s increasing media superiority over national information systems.

© Provided by National Post This picture taken during a government organised media tour shows people visiting the Xibaipo Memorial Hall, southwest of the former site of Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in Pingshan county, some 70 kms from Shijiazhuang, in Hebei province on May 12, 2021, ahead of the 100th year of the party's founding in July.

The report , published by the International Federation of Journalists on Wednesday, found that international reporting of the country throughout the last year has become positive, with some countries even turning to China as a source of information on the coronavirus.

“Beijing’s tactics have been quite successful,” Louisa Lim, the lead author, and a former BBC and NPR China correspondent, told the Guardian .

She and two other authors, Julia Bergin and Johan Lindberg, gathered data from 54 journalist unions in 50 countries and territories across three continents between December 2020 and January 2021. Regions such as Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe, Latin America, North American and MENA — Middle East and North Africa — participated in the review.

Journalists from Serbia, Italy and Tunisia also consented to roundtable discussions to “build a more detailed picture of the contours of Chinese outreach.”

The data, according to the report, stated that 56 per cent of all countries showed an increasingly positive coverage of China since the start of the pandemic.

Furthermore, 76 per cent of countries reported that China had an established presence in their media reports, up from 64 per cent the previous year.

Countries were also asked to rate how coverage of China had changed since the pandemic on a scale of 1 to 10, which 1 being very negative and 10 being very positive. On average, countries reported an overall rating of 5.38, the report stated, with Europe noticing the most positive change to China’s coverage at a rating of 6.3 and North America noting the opposite with a low rating of 3.5.

“Overall there has been a shift over the last decade from defensive and reactive tactics to a far more assertive and proactive strategy, using content-sharing agreements, journalistic tours to China and memoranda of understanding with international journalism outlets or unions,” Lim said.

The findings, authors write, indicate a more active involvement by Beijing in the global media architecture, such as “training programs and sponsored trips for global journalists, content sharing agreements feeding state-sponsored messages into the global news ecosystems, memoranda of understanding with global journalism unions and increasing ownership of publishing platforms.”

Beijing, they wrote, would “seed positive narratives about China in national media” during the pandemic and used “novel tactics such as disinformation.”

Case studies also reflected a gap between what journalists thought of Chinese information tactics and what was being observed on the ground. Journalists, the report found, often assumed China’s influence on their domestic media is limited and criticized their methods as ‘clumsy and irrelevant’.

They were ‘confident that their own media literacy or political systems would protect the media ecosystem from Chinese encroachment,” the report stated. “But when viewed globally, the results looked very different,” it added.

Last year, Beijing also expelled and froze visa applications for several foreign journalists, which the report said, led to a “vacuum in China coverage, as some countries are left without resident journalists inside China.” As a result, journalists have increasingly relied on state-run Chinese outlets for coverage, leading to more “positive coverage overall.”

“In this way, the information landscape is slowly being massaged in a direction more positive towards Beijing,” authors wrote.

Since the start of the pandemic, China embarked on a “massive program of Covid diplomacy” in which it distributed aid to countries around the world — some journalists have opined that their actions are underlined by a image-focused agenda.

Journalists in Tunisia for example stated that China had constructed a hospital in the province of Sfax so as to “be seen as saviours.”

How much aid a country received from China during the pandemic has had a marked effect on the news coverage of China within that country. Out of all the countries that received aid, 63 per cent stated that China’s fast action against COVID-19 has helped other countries, as has its medical diplomacy.

In the meantime, only 25 per cent of countries who didn’t receive aid felt the same way, with 60 per cent saying that China’s coverup of the initial outbreak is to blame for the pandemic.

Fifty-seven per cent of countries that received the Chinese vaccine noted attempts by China to influence media narratives around the local politics in their own countries, compared to 34 per cent of non-recipient countries.

Recipient countries also stated that they noticed a slightly higher presence of Chinese state-run media on social media.

Maria Repnikova, who directs the Center for Global Information Studies at Georgia State University told the Guardian that she was not surprised by the findings, but added that it’s difficult to distinguish how much the positive coverage is due to the country’s information strategy or their performance during the pandemic, compared to the U.S..

“[Also], the report presents the Chinese state as somewhat monolithic and deliberate. In reality, much of Chinese communication work is decentralised, the quality of reporting and communication varies a lot even across Chinese media agencies, and there is a degree of improvisation that characterises all these efforts,” Repnikova said.

Hua Chunying, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson commented on their media strategy on Tuesday, the Guardian reported, reiterating Beijing’s argument that its voice needs to be heard even if perspectives differ from that of the West.

“The world is diverse and colourful. In the area of media, there should not just be the CNN and the BBC; every country should have their own voice,” she said, adding that China had an obligation to “tell the facts and truths of issues such as COVID-19 … this is the real responsible attitude of a responsible country.”

Tesla may be much worse off in China than anyone thought

By Chris Isidore and Laura He, CNN Business 

Tesla's Chinese sales last month were much weaker than they originally appeared.

© Costfoto/Barcroft Media/Getty Images SHANGHAI, CHINA - 

MAY 7, 2021 - A new energy electric car is seen at Tesla's flagship

 store in Shanghai, China, May 7, 2021. 

Tesla, the maker of new energy electric cars, is reported to have sold out of its production capacity in the second quarter.. (Photo credit should read Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Although Tesla does not report monthly sales or regional revenue, the China Passenger Car Association earlier this week estimated Tesla's Chinese sales were down 27% from March to just under 26,000 cars — much worse than the overall 10% decline in China's electric vehicle sales overall.

But that's not the full story: The trade group later clarified that its April figure includes sales of vehicles built in China but exported to other markets. More than half of the Teslas initially reported as Chinese sales — 14,174 — were exported.

That's potentially a serious problem for Tesla, which opened its second auto assembly plant in Shanghai in late 2019 specifically to serve the crucial Chinese market. China is the world's largest market for overall car sales, and electric vehicles make up a much bigger share of auto sales than in any other major market — about 4.5% in 2020, more than twice the EV share of the US car market last year.

Tesla's sales to Chinese buyers plunged by more than 60% between March and April, according to independent Chinese EV analyst Zhu Yulong. Newly insured Tesla vehicles fell to just under 12,000 vehicles in April from about 34,500 in March, Yulong reported. Those numbers correspond closely to the CPCA's non-export number in April, and total number in March.

Why Tesla sales are plummeting in China

Yulong believes that the drop in sales is due to bad publicity that Tesla has suffered in the Chinese market since the start of April.

Customers protested the company at China's largest auto show in Shanghai last month, complaining about problems with their cars. The company also has five Chinese regulatory agencies investigating the quality of its Shanghai-made Model 3 cars. Chinese media also reported that China's military had banned Tesla vehicles from entering its complexes, expressing concerns that onboard cameras could be used for spying — a charge Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied.

"Tesla has suffered really strong negative coverage recently. It has damaged its sales," Yulong wrote in a recent analysis.

Tesla critics in the United States were quick to point out that the weaker sales numbers represent a sign of trouble for the automaker's bottom line.

"Keep in mind that the negative state-affiliated media campaign inside China around Tesla's car quality didn't begin until late April," noted Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, one of the harshest critics of Tesla. "So the impact (whatever that may be) likely won't be seen until May/June 2021 sales figures are out."


Tumbling shares

Tesla shares have been falling this week on worries about its Chinese sales, and on a report from Reuters earlier that Tesla has decided not to buy land next to its Shanghai plant for possible future expansion.

Shares fell 2% on Tuesday when the initial figures from CPCA suggested a 27% drop in Chinese sales, and were down another 4% Wednesday, although they were slightly higher in pre-market trading Thursday.

A spectacular 743% share price gain in 2020 made Tesla to one of the most valuable US companies of any kind and by far the world's most valuable automaker, worth as much as the six largest automakers combined.

But after continuing that run in the first few weeks of 2021, shares topped out in late January after the company reported slightly disappointing fourth quarter earnings. Tesla shares have lost a third of their value through Wednesday's close from their record high close in late January, sending the stock into bear market territory.

Outcry over Brazil bill relaxing environmental rules

Issued on: 13/05/2021 -

This 2020 file photo shows a deforested area in Brazil, where lawmakers were being accused of further threatening the country's disappearing rainforests Florian PLAUCHEUR AFP/File

Rio de Janeiro (AFP)

Environmentalists accused Brazilian lawmakers Thursday of further threatening the country's disappearing rainforests after the lower house passed a bill relaxing environmental regulations for the agriculture and energy sectors.

The bill, which exempts 13 categories of projects from environmental permit requirements, passed late Wednesday in a 300-122 vote, and now goes to the Senate.

It eliminates environmental permitting for "small-scale" farms and projects such as installing low-tension electricity lines and water-treatment facilities.

It also creates a new type of permit that will be granted for roads and power lines in return for a written promise to follow all environmental norms.

"This is an affront to Brazilian society," Luiza Lima, public policy advisor for environmental group Greenpeace, said in a statement.

"This bill will create legal gray areas and increase the destruction of our forests and the existing threats to indigenous peoples and protected lands."

The legislation is one of two controversial bills currently working their way through Brazil's Congress.

The other, in the Senate, would extend an amnesty for farms, mines and logging projects illegally set up on protected lands and grant their owners legal title.

That bill led dozens of European food retailers last week to threaten a boycott of Brazilian agricultural products, saying the measure would fuel the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, a vital resource in the fight against climate change.

President Jair Bolsonaro has presided over a surge in deforestation in Brazil since taking office in 2019.

In the 12 months to August 2020, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased 9.5 percent, destroying an area bigger than Jamaica, according to government data.

Bolsonaro is pushing to open protected lands to agriculture and industry.

Experts and activists accuse him of gutting Brazil's environmental protection programs.

© 2021 AFP

Bolsonaro's approval falls to 24%, the lowest ever, says Datafolha poll

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Only about 24% of Brazilians think the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has been "good" or "great," his lowest popularity rating since taking office in 2019 and down from 30% in March.

© Reuters/ADRIANO MACHADO FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Bolsonaro looks on during a ceremony in Brasilia

Bolsonaro has been widely criticized for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including for opposing lockdown measures, downplaying the severity of the disease and not prioritizing the purchase of vaccines.

Brazil has the world's second largest death toll from COVID-19 that has killed more than 428,000 people as infections surged in recent months.

Approval of Bolsonaro's government slid from a high of 37% in December and its negative numbers have risen progressively since then. Now, 45% of Brazilians consider his administration "bad" or "terrible" compared to 32% at the end of last year, while 54% of those polled by Datafolha say they would never vote for Bolsonaro.

Results published on Wednesday showed that Brazil's former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would handily defeat Bolsonaro by 55% to 32% in a run-off vote if the 2022 elections were held today.

Lula, who recovered his political rights after corruption convictions against him were annulled this year, is expected to challenge Bolsonaro's re-election next year, although he has not declared he is running.

Datafolha polled 2,071 Brazilians in person Tuesday and Wednesday. The survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Chizu Nomiyam

LIVING IN AN APARTHEID STATE
Arabs of Israel, minority with deep-seated grievances

Issued on: 13/05/2021 - 
Arab Israelis shout slogans and wave Palestinian flags at the funeral of Mousa Hassouna in the central Israeli city of Lod near Tel Aviv, on May 11, 2021, after he was killed in clashes during an anti-Israeli protest - AFP

Jerusalem (AFP)

They call themselves Palestinian Israelis, Israel refers to them as Arabs. The latest crisis puts the spotlight back on the descendants of Palestinians who stayed put after the Jewish state was established.

The minority community's deep-seated grievances have resurfaced with the latest Israeli-Palestinian crisis ignited in Jerusalem before it sparked barrages of rocket fire between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Israel has some 1.8 million Arabs -- Muslims and Christians -- representing 20 percent of its population, according to official statistics.

Descendants of 160,000 Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, they have the right to vote and hold 12 of 120 seats in parliament.

No Arab party has, however, ever taken part in a coalition government since the creation of Israel.

Unlike their Jewish counterparts, Arab Israelis do not have military service.

Only 130,000 Druzes, a minority movement of Shiite Islam, are obliged under law to serve three years under the Israeli flag.

Half of Arab Israeli households live below the poverty line, against one-fifth of Israeli households, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network.

The unemployment rate for Arab Israeli men is twice that of Jewish men, while the rate for Arab Israeli women is three times higher than for Jewish women.

One of the hot-button issues concerns the confiscation by Israeli authorities of land in Arab municipalities to house Jewish immigrants from around the world.

Arab Israeli towns also receive much less public funds for development than Jewish municipalities, and planning permission is rarely granted.

In a landmark ruling published in July 2000, Israel's Supreme Court acknowledged the Arab minority was a victim of discrimination, especially regarding jobs.

The latest upsurge in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has spilt over into Israel itself, playing itself out in its mixed Arab-Jewish cities.

"For decades we've been protesting to cries of 'Palestine', 'Gaza', 'Al-Aqsa' (the revered mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem). For the first time we now shout 'Haifa'," tweeted Majd Kayyal, an Arab Israeli activist in the northern coastal city.

"Haifa is rising up to protect itself and defend Lod, Jaffa, Gaza and Jerusalem: this is the intifada (uprising) of unity."

In the industrial city of Lod, where Arabs make up 40 percent of the population, a 32-year Arab Israeli father was shot dead this week, with Jewish nationalists the key suspects.

Israel has this week faced conflict on two fronts, riots between Arabs and Jews on its own streets as well as deadly exchanges of fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza.

© 2021 AFP

 Jewish-Arab tensions inside Israeli civil society ‘quite unseen, worrying’ amid escalating violence

While the conflict between Israel and Gaza could be spiralling out of control, tension has also been rising inside of Israel, where towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations have been struck by some of the worse communal violence in decades. Hundreds of people have been arrested after mutual attacks. “This is quite unseen and worrying that the tension could be exploding in the very centre of the country”, specialist in Israeli civil society Jean-Marc Liling analyses from Tel Aviv.

The political calculations behind Hamas’s escalating conflict with Israel


Issued on: 13/05/2021

Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,

 giving a speech in 2018. © Anas Baba, AFP

Text by: Marc DAOU

Hamas is risking what the UN called “full-scale war” with Israel in order to present itself as the defenders of Palestinian interests in Jerusalem – a move experts say was motivated by political calculations.

Israeli-Palestinian fighting escalated once more on Thursday as the Israeli military continued to respond to Hamas rocket attacks with air strikes on the Gaza Strip, in the conflict’s worst violence since 2014.

But according to local media, the Israeli army did not expect such an escalation with the Islamist extremist movement that has controlled a blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007.

The clashes started proliferating in early May in East Jerusalem – the Palestinian area of the city occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War when Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, made a rare public statement on May 5, saying that Israel would “pay a heavy price” if it evicted Palestinian residents from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah. Deif said he was issuing a “clear, final warning” that Hamas would “not stand by helplessly”.

Until May 10, Israeli “defence officials thought Hamas had no intention of entering into another round of fighting with Israel”, Haaretz reported. Unlike the Jewish state’s intelligence agencies, senior officers in the Israeli Defence Force were convinced that Hamas would not provoke an escalation during the Muslim festival of Ramadan, which ends on Thursday.

But it seems that Israeli military officials also underestimated the symbolic importance for Hamas of the Temple Mount, or the al-Asqa Compound as it is known to Muslims. This is the holiest site in Judaism, where the Second Temple stood until the Roman Empire destroyed it in 70 AD. It is also the third holiest site in Islam, home to the Dome of the Rock and the al-Asqa Mosque.

'Saviours of Jerusalem'

Hamas saw the tensions in Jerusalem as an opportunity to return to the fore.

“Saying that they’re the people who can resist Israel is the card Hamas plays to win Palestinian support,” said Jean-Paul Chagnollaud, head of the Institut de recherche et d'études Méditerranée Moyen-Orient in Paris. “By playing this card, they’re presenting themselves as [potential] saviours of a Jerusalem shaken by clashes over threats of eviction of Palestinian families in a kind of new episode of Israeli colonization.”

The outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas, which is supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and is on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations, has emerged amid troubled situations in both Israeli and Palestinian politics.

“Hamas is taking advantage of a political vacuum created by the Palestinian Authority’s weakness,” Chagnollaud said. “President Mahmoud Abbas created a huge space for Hamas to occupy. He’s had little political standing for a long time, then he inflicted a kind of coup de grace on himself by cancelling impending elections he was likely to lose.”

The elections had been announced in early January as part of a “reconciliation” process between Abbas’s secular Fatah party and the Islamists Hamas, and would have been the first elections in the Palestinian Territories for fifteen years. But Abbas announced their postponement in April, blaming Israel for uncertainty over whether voting could take place in East Jerusalem.

This in turn prompted a sense of dismay amongst the Palestinian population that was ripe for Hamas to exploit, noted FRANCE 24 Jerusalem correspondent Gwendoline Debono.

“Hamas sensed the frustration of many Palestinians who’d been enthusiastic about their first chance ever to vote,” Debono said. “Then the Islamist movement rushed into the fray, making the tensions over Jerusalem their issue.”

>> Bolstered by Iran, Hezbollah 'capable of destruction on a whole new scale'

Burnishing images

Hamas is also very much aware of the vexed state of Israeli politics, hobbled by four inconclusive elections since 2019 as opposition parties repeatedly fail to dislodge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In this context, the beleaguered prime minister also saw a political opportunity in the burgeoning Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chagnollaud said: “The escalation has given Netanyahu the chance to regain his standing amid his long struggle to form a new government.”

Hamas, which has lost 16 senior figures to Israeli air strikes on Wednesday alone, according to Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, may have underestimated the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Chagnollaud said, “after this outburst of fighting it will definitely seek to present itself as the resistance organisation against Israel, just like Hezbollah did in Lebanon after the conflict there in 2006.”

And by firing more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, Hamas has shown that it still has the military capability to strike out against the Jewish state, despite the blockade and the Israeli Iron Dome missile defence system.

“Hamas’s strike force showed that it had prepared for the kind of episode we’re now seeing, and that it’s determined to fight against the Israelis,” Chagnollaud said. "It has the chance to make big political gains and to burnish its image as a major player in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

"However, these military escalations always lead to the same scenario – deaths, violence and a tragic political impasse.”

This article was translated from the original in French.

Arab countries allied with Israel ‘hostages of the conflict and its upheavals’

Issued on: 12/05/2021 - 

Palestinians clean Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque compound following renewed clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police. © Ahmad Gharabli, AFP

Text by: Marc DAOU

Arab countries that have normalised or eased relations with Israel have been uncomfortably witnessing the new escalation of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, which began last week. Given the situation, their diplomatic strategies have come under fire from many quarters. Karim Sader, a political scientist specialising in the Gulf countries, explains.

With the risk of a conflagration in the Middle East, where tension is not subsiding in Israel and the Palestinian territories, calls for calm from the international community have multiplied in recent days. But for now, they have had no effect on the escalation of violence.

While the US and European countries were swift to express dismay over this outbreak of violence after several days of clashes in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, the reactions of Arab diplomats have come under scrutiny.

Specifically, observers are watching the responses from those nations that have recently normalised relations with Israel, such as Sudan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – a rapprochement which, when it happened, provoked shock in the Arab world.

Understandably, Arab countries are uncomfortable with the images of clashes coming from the Al-Aqsa plaza, the holiest place for Jews and the location of the the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and the Prophet’s mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia.

The Emirates and Bahrain condemned the May 7 raid by Israeli security forces on the mosque and the crackdown on worshippers. Abu Dhabi also called on Israeli authorities to “take responsibility for a de-escalation” of violence.

Morocco, for its part, said it was following developments with “deep concern”, adding that King Mohammed VI considered “these violations inadmissible and fueling tensions”.

Saudi Arabia, which has not yet normalised relations but has given its Gulf allies the green light to move closer to the Jewish state, rejected “Israel’s strategy of evicting dozens of Palestinians from their homes”, referring to the threat of expulsion of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, which sparked the outbreak of violence.

These reactions were moderate in comparison to those of Iran and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said he would do “everything he can to mobilize the world, especially the Muslim world, to put an end to terrorism and the Israeli occupation”.

Public opinion sympathetic to Palestinians

For Karim Sader, a political scientist and consultant specialising in the Gulf countries, the countries that have initiated a rapprochement with Israel are under fire because of the strong emotions triggered by the violence on the mosque plaza. These nations are equally uncomfortable because the escalation of violence has put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back on the regional agenda.

“By going through a period of tension and escalation in recent days, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which has been low on the list of diplomatic priorities of the Gulf countries for several years, has once again become an embarrassing element for those involved in this process,” he told FRANCE 24.

“And when a holy place of Islam is at the heart of tensions, these countries are forced to react, but in terms that, because of their diplomatic approach, do not have the same rhetoric, nor the same weight as those of non-Arab powers, namely Turkey and Iran, which are at the forefront of reviving the Palestinian cause,” he added.

According to Sader, the protests that took place in Morocco and other countries and the discontent that can be perceived in the Gulf societies, “not in the street because of the closure of the political space but on social networks”, remind concerned Arab leaders “that the issue of the fate and rights of the Palestinians is still not resolved and that the public opinion is still sympathetic to [the Palestinians]”.

Rabat protesters defying ban in solidarity with Palestinians in Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/WURDqyYS1N— Mosa'ab Elshamy (@mosaaberizing) May 10, 2021

“This mobilisation and this anger are also proof of the fragility of the reconciliation processes and, by extension, proof that there is unlikely to be a peace agreement as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists,” he said.

“The 2002 Arab peace initiative, rejected by Israel, invariably linked the resolution of this conflict to coexistence between the peoples and a peace agreement. The Abraham Accords [the 2020 joint statement between Israel, the US and the UAE], on the other hand, sought to bypass these issues, with the ambition, and to some extent the naivety, of achieving political rapprochement with Israel without taking into consideration the Palestinian question.”

The 2002 initiative, which was endorsed by the Arab League at the Beirut Summit, proposed a peace that went so far as to envisage normalised relations with Israel. That was in exchange for the formation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and a “just solution” to the question of Palestinian refugees.

Saudis ‘ready to reconsider’?

On a security level, Sader said, because of the deterioration of the situation in the region, the countries that are most committed to the normalisation process – as evidenced by sending an ambassador to Israel, as the United Arab Emirates did – find themselves “hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its upheavals”, in the sense that “Israeli nationals and interests in the countries concerned are becoming potential targets for acts of retaliation”.

Nevertheless, unless there is a fatal escalation that jeopardizes the balance in the holy sites of Jerusalem, the situation is not likely to interrupt the existing rapprochement processes, experts say. That is particularly true for Qatar. On the other hand, these events “are likely to push some regional players, such as the Saudis, to reconsider their thinking”.

“The Emirates are certainly in an uncomfortable position today, but they can lie low because, unlike Saudi Arabia, guardian of the holy places of Islam, their role has a less symbolic scope in the region and because they have a certain flexibility in terms of diplomacy,” Sader said.

“This situation could, however, make the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, who has so far agreed to follow the advice of his father, reconsider his own stance,” Sader continued. “The king has been advising his son not to rush into an official honeymoon with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has engaged in a tacit détente with the kingdom. The crown prince has the latitude to decide not to follow the same path as his neighbours, as doing so could backfire on him.”

This article was translated from the original in French

ALL VIOLENCE IS STATE VIOLENCE

Thousands march in Colombia as

 anti-government protests enter third week


Issued on: 13/05/2021 - 04:54

Demonstrators take to the streets in anti-government protests in Bogota, 

Colombia, May 12, 2021. © Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: FRANCE 24

Union members, students, pensioners and workers marched in anti-government protests around Colombia on Wednesday, as President Ivan Duque urged citizens to reject violence and stereotypes about demonstrators and police alike.

The sometimes deadly demonstrations were initially fueled in late April by outrage at a now-canceled tax plan. But protesters’ demands have expanded to include an end to police violence, economic support as the COVID-19 pandemic batters incomes, and the withdrawal of a health reform.

Duque has offered dialogue, but many protesters have voiced skepticism government promises will lead to change and talks with union and student leaders have so far proved fruitless.

Smaller demonstrations and road blockades have continued daily around the country, leading to shortages of goods, stymieing the export of half a million 60 kilo bags of top crop coffee, and requiring the importation of tens of thousands of barrels of fuel from neighboring Ecuador.

“It is unjust to paint everyone who expresses themselves peacefully in the streets as a vandal or as a terrorist or as a criminal,” Duque said during a meeting with dozens of youth leaders in Bogota. “It is also unjust to generalize the behavior of all the members of the security forces.”


The comments were more conciliatory than Duque’s discourse earlier in the protests, when he decried incidents of looting and attacks on police.



The human rights ombudsman has received reports of more than 40 civilian deaths amid the protests, though it has said at least seven are unrelated to the marches themselves. One police officer was also killed.

Local and international rights groups allege the death toll may be higher and have blamed the police. So far three officers face murder charges.

In the western city of Cali, a hub of protest violence, a group of about 100 young people blocked a central highway.

“The government is censuring us, killing us, forcing a health reform, a pension reform,” said 19-year-old university student John, who declined to give his last name. “We will resist until there’s a change.”

In capital Bogota thousands marched to central Bolivar Square and the mayor urged people to return home early as demonstrators blocked mass transit routes.

Nurse Paula Garcia, 22, was confident the health reform – which critics say does not do enough to ensure the wider access to healthcare they are demanding – can be stopped after the tax reform’s withdrawal.

“If we unite, we can succeed,” she said.

Many Latin American countries – already deeply unequal and politically volatile – have been hit hard by the pandemic, which has rolled back recent anti-poverty strides.

Unemployment in Colombia reached nearly 17% in urban areas in April and the country looks set to lose its investment-grade credit rating amid falls in the value of its public debt, stock market, and peso currency.

Finance minister Jose Manuel Restrepo, who attended Duque’s meeting with youth leaders, said acts of vandalism and road blockades had cost the economy about $1.6 billion, while agriculture minister Rodolfo Zea said blockades had halted transport of 700,000 tonnes of food.

Protests have been successful at putting pressure on the government but unions want clear rules before entering talks, Francisco Maltes, president of the Central Union of Workers (CUT) said in a video posted on Facebook.

The protests go beyond the anger at inequality and the impact of COVID-19 seen elsewhere in the region, said Gimena Sanchez, Director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Colombia has struggled with decades of bloody civil strife and drug violence that a 2016 peace agreement has diminished but not ended.

“The Colombia protests are not just about COVID, they are about anger towards Duque for police repression from 2019 onwards, not advancing the 2016 peace accord, rising massacres and killings of social leaders and the perception by middle and working class Colombians that the government is only interested in advancing the economic and political elites’ agendas,” she said.

(REUTERS)

Colombia’s protesters keep pressure as President Duque urges rejection of violence after deaths




Video by: Simone BRUNO

Colombian union members, pensioners, students and workers took to the streets on Wednesday on a mass anti-government protest, making it the latest in demonstrations that have been going on for two weeks. These began due to a now-cancelled tax reform, but protesters demands have grown to include more economic support, the withdraw of a health reform and the end to police violence, as FRANCE 24’s Simone Bruno reports from the Bogota.

Thousands demand an end to police violence in Colombia in nationwide antigovernment protests

Issued on: 13/05/2021 


The protest movement in Colombia has entered its 3rd week, with no sign on abating. Human rights monitors say at least 42 people have died since the national street movement began. Demonstrators initially took to the streets to voice their anger over new taxes, but they are now focusing their anger on police, demanding its violence to stop. The government has offered to sit down with the movement’s leaders, but the latter say now is not the time for dialogue.

A perfect storm: What's behind the Colombia protests?

Albinson Linares, 

Noticias Telemundo / NBC

13/5/2021`

Colombia has been roiled by nationwide, antigovernment protests for more than two weeks, with the city of Cali emerging as the epicenter.

© Provided by NBC News

The demonstrations were initially sparked by anger over pandemic-related tax reforms, but have since intensified and spread, tapping into long-simmering fury over police violence amid growing inequality and disparity.

At least 42 people have died so far, according to Colombia's human rights ombudsman.

The president, Iván Duque, has blamed "drug trafficking mafias" for the acts of vandalism and offered a reward of up to 10 million Colombian pesos (about $2,600) to those who help identify and capture the perpetrators.

Social media, however, has made it possible to document the repression by security forces, particularly from the Colombian Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD), which has been singled out for various incidents, such as the death of 18-year-old Dilan Cruz during a November 2019 national strike, and more recently the death of Nicolás Guerrero, a 21-year-old activist who was shot in the head during demonstrations in Cali.

"There are completely unarmed people in the marches and they are confronted with officers armed to the teeth, practically military, and that has shocked the Colombian community in Florida, and throughout the world," said Carlos Naranjo, 37, an activist and member of the group Colombianos en Miami, or Colombians in Miami.
How did the demonstrations start?

The National Unemployment Committee, made up of unions and labor organizations, called for protests on April 28 against a tax reform proposed by Duque to address a deficit as a result of the pandemic. The proposal would have raised taxes on household products like milk, eggs and meat as well as gasoline and utilities. Those who earn more than 2.4 million Colombian pesos (about $624) a month would have had to declare income taxes starting in 2022.

The proposal generated outrage from unions and politicians, who said it would hurt the middle class and the most vulnerable.

The moment that sparked the most controversy was when Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla, one of those behind the proposal, mistakenly said during an interview that a dozen eggs cost 1,800 Colombian pesos, instead of 4,300. Many took it as proof of the disconnect between the ruling class and the reality that the country's working class live in.

The call for the strike was successful with huge marches in multiple cities that continue today. The protests now include demands for the government to solve the health care crisis, the scarceness of vaccines in the country, and the ever-deepening poverty and inequality.


Duration 1:01 Anti-government protests in Colombia enter third week with no sign of easing


What happened to the tax proposal?

Tax reform was proposed because the government needs to raise 25 billion pesos (about $6.85 billion) to correct its economic imbalance.

Lower and middle-class citizens have been outraged that they have to contribute to these new state revenues through taxes. The pandemic and lockdowns have affected people's incomes. Poverty in 2020 rose to 42.5 percent, up from 36 percent the previous year. In March the unemployment rate reached 14 percent, up from 12.6 percent in the same period last year.

Because of pressure from the protests, Duque withdrew the reform on May 2 and said he would seek a new plan through consensus. The next day, the finance minister resigned.

"The situation in Colombia is difficult, like everywhere else, but it can be easily solved if the government really cared about taxing people with money," said James A. Robinson, director of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago.

Why do the demonstrations continue?

Researchers have pointed out that inequality and undelivered promises on social issues are an explosive mix during moments of crisis. The conflict between guerrilla groups and the government made Colombia the scene of a low intensity war for over half a century.

The tax reform was the catalyst for the social unrest that has been fueled by violence, unemployment, noncompliance with a peace agreement, mismanagement of the pandemic and hunger.

"The causes of the mobilization range from poverty, the constant assassinations of social leaders, and problems that have not been resolved," said Juan Pablo Madrid-Malo, coordinator of the Foundation for Press Freedom in Colombia.

Robinson, of the University of Chicago, says the peace deal with the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia has created a space for new leftist politics to emerge that is more inclusive. "This is different," he said.

Duque's government began negotiations with the committee last week.

Police abuses

Human rights organizations have kept their own tally on the death count and called on the government to stop the use of excessive force.

In recent days, several cases of police abuse have been captured on video, including that of 17-year-old Marcelo Agredo, who kicked a policeman in Cali and was shot while fleeing. Agredo, a high school student, died shortly after.

Nicolás Guerrero, 27, a graffiti artist known as Flex, was also protesting in Cali when he died on the Puente del Comercio. A live broadcast on social media showed how his body was lying on the floor after shots were heard. The protesters hold ESMAD responsible for his death.

Santiago Murillo, 19, was returning home in Ibagué and was shot in the chest and killed as he went through a protest. He was two blocks from his house and the event was also recorded on video.

The United Nations and the European Union have warned about excessive use of force by police.

Accusations of violence and human rights abuses by the country's security forces are not new. Various organizations have denounced cases such as that of Dilan Cruz, who was shot in the head during a demonstration put down by members of ESMAD on Nov. 23, 2019; the death of nine young people during a fire at a police station in Soachá on Sept. 4, 2020; and at least 13 homicides allegedly committed by the forces of order last Sept. 9-10 in Bogotá.

"The demonstrations are taking other directions, not only because the power of citizen mobilization, but also because of the needs that afflict the country. One of these is police violence," said Sebastián Lanz, co-director of Temblores, an organization that has recorded more 1,200 cases of police violence and over 800 arbitrary arrests during the protests.

Lanz says that these detentions are irregular and "completely illegal" because people are transferred to centers where there are no public prosecutors to verify the human rights situation of the detainees. He says this is why "nobody knows what is going on in there."

What happens in Cali?

The city of Cali, in the country's southwest, with 2.2 million people, has been militarized since the government's order.

Analysts agree that Cali's geographic location makes it a hotspot for protests because of its proximity to areas affected by the conflict among guerrillas, paramilitaries and the military as well as drug trafficking and the displacement of people.

According to official data from 2019, Cali was the most dangerous city in the country, with 45.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Alfredo Mondragón, a human rights activist who lives in Cali, says the city has an economic structure that focuses primarily on services with few major industries. Displaced people from marginalized communities have been settling in the North and the South and they have a cultural tradition of Indigenous resistance.

"When you add to that the economic problems of the pandemic, a kind of social bomb is generated," Mondragón said.

Many protesters say they will continue to take to the streets because of their disagreement with government policies.

"In several areas the police shoot with firearms, and the plainclothes policemen appear in vans firing," said Michel Adolfo Torres Carmona, a protester from Cali. "There are many missing people. But we must continue the fight. The world must know what they are doing to us."

A version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo