Tough choices for Hamas over Israeli annexation plans

Issued on: 28/06/2020 -

In recent weeks the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has seen almost daily protests against US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan which foresees Israeli annexation of its settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley SAID KHATIB AFP/File

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

Hamas has warned that Israeli annexation in the occupied West Bank would be a "declaration of war", but the Islamist group must weigh the cost of a new fight, analysts said.

In recent weeks, there have been almost daily protests in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan.

The proposals envisage Israeli annexation of its West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and located around 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the enclave of Gaza.


The Israeli government is expected to decide from July 1 on the implementation of the Trump plan and as the clock ticks Hamas, which has fought three wars against Israel since 2007, is seeking to define its strategy in the face of the latest challenge.

"There is no doubt that Hamas' options are complex because any response to the annexation will have consequences for the Gaza Strip," said Palestinian analyst Adnan Abu Amer.

Despite a 2018 truce, Hamas and Israel still trade fire from time to time, with rockets or incendiary balloons launched from Gaza and reprisal strikes by Israel.

"Tensions at the border fence may resume, with the launch of incendiary and explosive devices," said Mukhaimar Abu Saada, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

But he ruled out "the option of military activities" against Israel by Hamas, which rules over a territory already impoverished and under a crippling Israeli blockade.

The movement "does not want Gaza to pay the price, and wants to wait to see what is going on, organise popular protests and not have to engage in confrontation with Israel," he added.

On Friday Israeli air force jets struck Hamas positions in Gaza after rockets were fired from the territory towards Israel for the first time since early May.

The previous day, Hamas's military wing had warned that annexation would prompt a war.

"The resistance considers the decision to annex the West Bank and the Jordan Valley to be a declaration of war on our people," said spokesman Abu Ubaida.

And an Islamist official told AFP that Hamas was in talks with other factions in the coastal enclave to "coordinate the resistance and resume the 'return marches'".

- 'More pragmatic' attitude? -

In March 2018, the Palestinians launched weekly protests along Gaza's border with Israel calling for "the right of return" of Palestinians chased from their lands or who fled when Israel was created in 1948.

They also demanded the lifting of the strict Israeli blockade imposed by Israel over a decade ago on Gaza to purportedly contain Hamas.

Attendance at the rallies waned late last year, then restrictions related to the new coronavirus pandemic added further complications.

If Israel goes ahead with its annexation plan, Hamas may take a "more pragmatic" attitude and perhaps allow other factions to fire rockets at Israel or engage in clashes along the border, said analyst Abu Amer.

But it would do everything to prevent a major response from Israel, he added.

Abu Amer said that Hamas wants armed attacks against Israel in the West Bank instead, in order to spare the Gaza Strip.

But for that, there would need to be a dialogue between Hamas and the rival Fatah party of West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmud Abbas.

The two parties have been at loggerheads since the Islamist movement wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the PA in 2007 after a near-civil war, a year after winning parliamentary elections.

Since then, all efforts at inter-Palestinian reconciliation have failed.

In mid-June, a senior Hamas official, Salah al-Bardawil, called for Palestinian political unity.

"We call on our people to turn this ordeal into an opportunity to get the Palestinian project back on track," he said.

Abu Amer, however, said an agreement between the PA and Hamas is very slim, even "impossible because of the lack of confidence" on both sides.

"The Palestinian Authority continues to hunt down and arrest Hamas activists in the West Bank on a daily basis," fearing Hamas will resume operations in the West Bank and oust it, as it did in Gaza, he said.

© 2020 AFP

Millions of children in Yemen face starvation amid aid shortfall, UN says
Issued on: 27/06/2020

Yemeni men unload medical aid at a hospital warehouse in the war-torn country's second city of Aden in early May, 2020. © Saleh Al-Obeidi, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by:Luke SHRAGO

Millions of children could be pushed to the brink of starvation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across war-torn Yemen amid a "huge" drop in humanitarian aid funding, the U.N. children’s agency warned Friday.

The stark prediction comes in a new UNICEF report, “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and COVID-19.” It said the number of malnourished Yemeni children could reach 2.4 million by the end of the year, a 20% increase in the current figure.

“As Yemen’s devastated health system and infrastructure struggle to cope with coronavirus, the already dire situation for children is likely to deteriorate considerably,” warned UNICEF.

Yemen's poor health care infrastructure is unprepared to battle the coronavirus pandemic after five years of war between a Saudi-led military coalition and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The war, which has mostly stalemated, has also triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The conflict erupted in 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition stepped in on behalf of the internationally recognized government, which the Houthis had forced into exile when they overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north the previous year.

The situation in Yemen is only expected to get worse as donor countries recently cut back on aid. Yemen has officially recorded more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, including 275 deaths. However, the actual tally is believed to be much higher as testing capabilities are severely limited.

“If we do not receive urgent funding, children will be pushed to the brink of starvation and many will die,” said Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF's representative to Yemen. “The international community will be sending a message that the lives of children ... simply do not matter.”

Pledging conference raises $1.35 billion

UNICEF also warned that unless $54.5 million are disbursed for health and nutrition aid by the end of August, more than 23,000 children will be at increased risk of dying because of acute malnutrition. It also said that 5 million others under the age of 5 will not have access to vaccines against deadly diseases.

International relief agencies are alarmed by the significant decline in humanitarian funding promised earlier by donor countries. A virtual pledging conference for Yemen hosted by the U.N. and Saudi Arabia on June 2 saw 31 donors pledge $1.35 billion for humanitarian aid — a billion dollars short of what aid agencies needed and half of what countries had pledged in 2019.

UNICEF could only secure 40% of the $461 million it appealed for to cover its humanitarian response to the crisis in Yemen, and less than 10% of the $53 million it needs to handle the impact of COVID-19 on children, said the report.

“UNICEF is working around the clock in incredibly difficult situations to get aid to children in desperate need, but we only have a fraction of the funding required to do this,” said Nyanti.

The UNICEF report came on the heels of a warning by U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock who told a closed U.N. Security Council meeting that Yemen could “fall off the cliff” without massive financial support.

Lowcock added that COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across the Arab world's poorest country, killing about 25% of confirmed cases — five times the global average.

Half of Yemen’s health facilities are dysfunctional and 18% of the country’s 333 districts have no doctors. Water and sanitation systems have collapsed resulting in recurrent cholera outbreaks. Around 9.6 million children do not have sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene and two-thirds of the country’s roughly 30 million people rely on food assistance.

(AP)

'Ayouni', the documentary film that puts a face to Syria's forcibly disappeared

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

The bus of the NGO 'Families for freedom', which calls for the release of prisoners forcibly disappeared in Syria at the hands of the regime or various armed groups. © Ayouni, Yasmin Fedda 2020

Text by:Sarah LEDUC

Award-winning Palestinian director Yasmin Fedda's latest documentary, "Ayouni", sheds light on Syria's forced disappearances through the intimate stories of Noura, widow of cyber-activist Bassel Safadi, and Machi, sister of Italian priest Paolo Dall'Oglio, who was abducted in Raqqa in 2013 and whose whereabouts are unknown.

"I don't know if he's alive. I can't be sure he's dead. Until I see his body, I can't mourn him," said Noura Ghazi, who learned in August 2017 that her husband, Bassel Khartabil Safadi, had been executed, five years after he was detained in Damascus and two years after he disappeared. But she knows nothing else. Not where, nor when, nor how: "With a gun? Day or night?” she demanded. For years, the 38-year-old Syrian lawyer and human rights activist has been travelling around the world in search of answers and the "most basic right to say goodbye to my husband".

Ghazi shares the questions that haunt her in "Ayouni", Fedda's latest documentary, which will be available for streaming on July 1. The Palestinian filmmaker, nominated for a Bafta and the maker of several films about Syria, where she spent her childhood, filmed Ghazi in her quest to find answers about her absent husband. Fedda also followed Immacolata – known as "Machi", the sister of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio. The latter is the Italian priest who in the 1980s founded the Syrian Catholic monastery of Mar Mûsa, north of Damascus, and was later kidnapped in Raqqa by the Islamic State group on July 27, 2013. He has not been heard from since.

Like Safadi and Dall’Oglio, approximately 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared after being arrested by Bashar al-Assad's regime or abducted by various armed militias, including the Islamic State group, since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, according to Amnesty International.

""Machi" Dall'Oglio holds a photo of his brother, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, kidnapped in Syria in 2013 by the Islamic State group and missing ever since. © Ayouni, Yasmin Fedda 2020

An auteur's film about the complexity of emotions

For six years, Fedda filmed these two women, who did not know each other but were brought together by a common tragedy. "I had started a project on Father Dall'Oglio, a friend of mine, when we learned of his kidnapping. My film then took a different turn," the director told FRANCE 24. From Iraq to Italy through Lebanon and the United Kingdom, she recorded their secrets, their tears and their questions, and filmed their struggle for truth and justice.

"I tried to capture the complexity of their emotions. In six years, there have been different stages, ranging from anger to hope, but the search for truth has always kept them going," Fedda said. As Machi told her brother's kidnappers in a video posted in 2014, "we hope to hug Paolo, but we are ready to mourn his death."

Neither a journalistic investigation – although the facts are verified – nor a human rights campaign film - though the film’s release partners include Amnesty International and pro-democracy NGO The Syria Campaign, “Ayouni” is the film of an auteur. It is a thought-provoking documentary about war crimes seen through the lens of intimate stories.

"It's not just a film about Syria and forced disappearances, it's a film that touches on universal themes," said Fedda.

The "bride and groom of the revolution"

"'Ayouni' means eyes in Arabic," Fedda explained. "But it's also a term of affection for the people you love. It can therefore be read in two ways: either what people see or as a testimony of love.”

It’s this second meaning that unites Noura and Bassel, "the bride and groom of the revolution". The couple met in 2011 during an anti-Assad demonstration in Douma. Through video archives, Fedda introduces us to Bassel, a Palestinian-Syrian activist and open-source developer who played a leading role in the free Internet movement, notably by creating Arabic versions of Wikipedia and the Firefox web browser. "I wanted to make him a presence before filming his absence," she said.

The couple got engaged in 2011, before the revolution turned into war. Although Assad has already ordered his armies to fire on demonstrators, Noura and Bassel still believed in change. "We have come such a long way..." they said in archive footage. But in March 2012, Bassel was arrested by the regime. Nevertheless, the couple got married in Adra prison on January 7, 2013, hiding from the guards. Then Bassel disappeared from the radar in 2015, the year in which he was allegedly executed. Allegedly. Noura has learned to learn to live with the uncertainty but has been relentless in her attempts to find out what happened.

A plea against violations in Syria

Ghazi, a lawyer and founder of the NGO Nophotozone, which provides legal assistance to the families of the disappeared, has become the voice of tens of thousands of Syrian families who have seen their loved ones vanish into the jails of the Damascus regime. Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, an estimated 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared. On June 16, Ghazi pleaded their case again before the UN Security Council, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

"I'm here to tell you about the suffering of the families of the forcibly disappeared, mostly men, leaving us women to raise children without fathers," she said in a video conference. "I am here to talk to you about the violations of Bashar al-Assad who flouts our laws and our Constitution. (...) I am here to talk to you about the lack of political will to put an end to it. I demand justice and I am ready to pay the high price for it."

Fedda relayed the plea in her generous and empathetic documentary. "I would be happy if my film could make a modest contribution to making their struggle known," the director concluded.

This has been translated from the original article in French.

‘A woman’: Wikipedia page records trials and achievements of invisible women

Issued on: 19/06/2020 -

Masked protesters dressed as feminist icon Rosie the Riveter pictured in Paris on June 11, 2020. © Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP

Text by:Benjamin DODMAN

Building on the success of the hashtag #unefemme (a woman), which aims to call out everyday sexism in the media, a satirical Wikipedia page in French has begun recording the many accomplishments of women lumped together in news headlines under the anonymous label “a woman”.

It’s been a busy month of June for “a woman”, rich in thrills, debuts and promotions, judging by headlines in the French press.

A week after taking charge of France’s aviation academy, “a woman” piloted her first stealth aircraft into combat on June 12, the same day she was appointed head of NASA’s human spaceflight programme. Somehow, “a woman” still found time to lead a fire brigade in France’s rural Creuse department, preside over a Swiss cancer charity, become the world’s best paid executive and win the “young economist of the year” award, while also brewing “green tea-flavoured beer, 100% Catalan.”

These are just a sample of the most recent news headlines that defined their subjects as “a woman”, without naming them. They are catalogued in the French-language Wikipedia page “Une femme” (A woman), the latest in a string of recent online initiatives aimed at exposing and ridiculing sexism in the media.

Encore une période très faste pour « Une femme ».
Félicitations à elle. pic.twitter.com/o7VBECkT5l— Guillaume Blardone ☀️ (@gblardone) June 6, 2020

The satirical page “brilliantly exposes the absurdity of this situation,” says activist Sherine Deraz, who has authored a series of web-based videos on feminism. “After years of being silenced, the achievements of women are rendered invisible by the phrase ‘a woman’ (...). We never really get to know who has done what, and are therefore unable to give these women due credit.”

The page is “funny, original, clever and incisive,” adds Marlène Coulomb-Gully, a professor at the University of Toulouse who has written extensively about women in the media. “Humour has always been the tool of the oppressed, a means to wittily expose what cannot be said.”

‘Tragi-comic’

Wikipedia’s “a woman” has numerous nationalities, multiple professions and an array of skills that, in 2016, saw her head Germany’s best-selling Bild newspaper, lead Japan’s main opposition party and take over as minister of happiness in the United Arab Emirates, all at once. Her scientific achievements have earned her five Nobel prizes in medicine “but only one Fields Medal”, the top distinction for mathematics.

While little is known about her childhood, it appears her mother was also “a woman”. More recently, her CV has been embellished with a slew of prestigious postings, often bestowed by men. Thus, at the start of the year, “a woman” was appointed president of Greece, “on the suggestion of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mytsotakis”. As the French weekly that ran the story noted, her post is “essentially ceremonial” and “her dark hair is cropped into a bob”.

While adopting a tongue-in-cheek tone throughout, the Wikipedia page is deadly serious when it comes to the obituary section. “A woman”, it points out, dies every two and half days in France at the hands of her partner.

>> Tackling domestic violence: ‘If you ask the right questions at the right time, you will save lives’

According to activist Marion Vaquero, who launched the collective @pepitesexiste (sexist nugget) to call out sexism on social media, the “tragi-comic” tone of the page is “a useful way to expose the difference in the way women and men are treated in the media.” In an interview with Le Monde, she added: “While women are still under-represented, the fact that they are not named when referring to their accomplishments only makes them even more invisible.”

Anonymous trailblazers

“No one would ever dream of writing a headline that reads ‘A man elected president of so and so’, it would be seen as ridiculous,” adds Professor Coulomb-Gully. “That’s because women are always treated as having a specific quality, whereas men are seen as having a universal one,” she argues, noting that media headlines that comfort this specificity often do so involuntarily.

Many of the articles catalogued in the Wikipedia page adopt the traditional “First woman…” phrase, stressing the novelty of a woman’s breakthrough in a given field. In doing so, however, they risk reinforcing the notion of an exceptional occurrence, almost an anomaly, in a world dominated by men — while also rendering the person invisible.

“It’s a complex question, because in some cases ‘a woman’ can define and render invisible at once,” says Professor Coulomb-Gully. “Highlighting the role of female pioneers can have an educational utility, provided it is accompanied by an examination of the systemic nature of gender-based discriminations that explains why the wait for a female pioneer has been so long.”



#unefemme tant que ça reste en famille ça passe @lemainelibre

😤😤😤 pic.twitter.com/n3zYrwYuTm— Yves ⚫⚪ ❤💛 ⭐⭐ (@YvesVerfaillie) June 11, 2020

The trouble, says Deraz, is that most readers read no further than the title.

“News organisations quite rightly want to stress the fact that women have had to wait a long time for recognition, but they do so in a clumsy fashion,” she says, noting that many readers get their information from headlines alone. She believes the media should proceed the other way round, first naming the women and then providing context and analysis for those who wish to learn more.

#unefemme

Supposedly positive stories about women’s empowerment often come with a catch, the Wikipedia page points out, noting that newly appointed women are required to juggle between jobs and other chores, unlike their male counterparts.

“Much to the amazement of French media, in 2019 a woman is allowed to referee her first Ligue 1 football match ahead of the women’s football World Cup [organised on French soil],” the page reads. “She does so in a semi-professional capacity, which leaves her with three full days per week to fulfill her [other] professional obligations.”

Even before the page’s launch, Twitter users had adopted the #unefemme hashtag to draw a parallel between the numerous activities the media attribute to “a woman” and the disproportionately heavy workload bearing on women in general — an imbalance highlighted by the fallout from the latest iteration of the deadly coronavirus, which, the Wikipedia page notes, “a woman” first discovered back in 1964.

>> The women fighting Covid-19: Pandemic highlights lack of female representation

Already, there are signs the campaign is having some effect, as one Twitter user noted on Wednesday. Two days after running the headline, “A woman leads 850 firefighters in the Creuse”, local daily La Montagne quietly amended its title to give the titular protagonist her name and surname… followed by “a woman”.

Il y a quelques heures c'était "une femme", depuis celle-ci a un nom et un prénom ! Bravo pour la réactivité @lamontagne_fr Stéphanie Duchet, une femme à la tête de 850 pompiers en Creuse https://t.co/GQFCcW1qRD— Martin PIERRE (@MartinPIERRE14) June 17, 2020

‘They are human too’: Indonesia locals rescue Rohingya refugees barred by Covid fears

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

Rohingya refugees off the coast of Indonesia on Thursday, June 25, 2020. © AFP / FRANCE 24

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by:Sam BALL

Locals in Aceh province, Indonesia, rescued a group of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea on Thursday after authorities refused to let them come ashore for fear they may be carrying the Covid-19 coronavirus.

The 94 refugees, including 30 children, were reportedly found earlier this week in a sinking cargo ship, adrift in the water off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

They were initially rescued on Wednesday by local fishermen who brought them closer to shore. But authorities refused to let the boat they were in land and on Thursday morning said they would send the refugees back out to sea.

Locals then took matters into their own hands, however, towing the boat to shore and helping to carry emaciated passengers and small children to land.

“If the government is incapable, us the community will bring help to them, because we are human beings and they (the Rohingya refugees) are human too and we have a heart,” local resident Syaiful Amri told Reuters.

In the face of protests by angry locals, authorities then said the refugees will now be given temporary accommodation and health checks to make sure they are virus-free.

Indonesia is a common destination for Muslim Rohingya fleeing persecution in mostly Buddhist Myanmar and overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, and hundreds have died attempting perilous sea crossings in recent years.

The crisis has worsened this year with many countries shutting their doors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

MAURITANIA / POLICE BRUTALITY - 

Photo of a police officer pressing a knee into the neck of the “Mauritanian George Floyd” sparks anger

'Without George Floyd, this might have gone unreported'

06/26/2020 FRANCE24/OBSERVER 

People across Mauritania have expressed shock and outrage over a photo showing a police officer holding a man on the ground by pressing his knee into his neck – using the exact same move that a police officer used to kill George Floyd in the American city of Minneapolis, sparking a global movement against police violence and racism. This movement has had particular resonance in Mauritania, where the Black community has faced a long history of slavery, violence and oppression.The incident took place on June 21 in El-Minaa, a suburb located to the southwest of the capital, Nouakchott. The photo was taken by a witness who self-identifies as an activist on social media. It shows two Mauritanian police officers holding a Black man on the ground, facedown. One of the officers has his knee pressed into the man’s neck.

Bloggers sympathetic to the Mauritanian government claimed the man was a "thief", an “armed individual who had attacked the authorities”. However, none of the posts contained specific information about the crimes he was alleged to have committed.
On the other hand, many Mauritanian social-media users were quick to draw a parallel with how US police officer Derek Chauvin restrained and ultimately killed George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis. Many people denounced it as a racist act carried out in a suburb that is home to a majority Black community.

'An arrest using US police tactics, this is disrespectful treatment and must be condemned. Leadership within the (national) security forces should severely punish these two officers.'

'I think the only explanation is that the police planned this as a way to provoke the community'

Hamza Jaafar is a human rights activist and a member of the Sahel Foundation for Human Rights (in French: la fondation Sahel pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme). Jaafar says that there is nothing new about the Mauritanian police using excessive force towards civilians, especially if those civilians are Black.

In the midst of an international movement against racism and police violence, the police used the same method that caused George Floyd’s death in a community that is 90 percent Black. I think the only explanation is that the police planned this as a way to provoke the community.

Slavery wasn’t banned in Mauritania until 1980 and reports by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International show that it hasn’t been totally eradicated. And racism against the Black community in Mauritania is still rampant.

A few days before the incident, Mauritanian TV channel Al-Arabii broadcast a documentary about the enslavement of Black people, which is a sensitive topic in Mauritania. After the documentary was broadcast, the Minister of Culture contacted correspondents for international media outlets and told them that their work permits would be revoked if they reported on topics that “threatened social cohesion” in the country.

'Without George Floyd, this might have gone unreported'Jaafar believes that the ministry’s threat to correspondents proves that the authorities want to shut down any debate on this topic:

Without George Floyd, this incident might have gone unreported. The security forces here make a habit of assaulting citizens during arrests. Even this time, blogs with close links to the authorities justified this brutal arrest by saying that the man was a criminal who had attacked the officers before trying to flee. They even posted photos that they claimed showed how one of the officers had sustained a hand injury.
Hamid Oueld Mohammed, who has 38,000 Facebook followers, posted a photo that he claims shows the injured hand of one of the police officers who was allegedly attacked by the arrestee.

Other pro-authorities bloggers, like Mohamed Lamine Abd Eddayem, claimed that the security forces were victims of a smear campaign.

'Is this young man dead? No, he isn’t dead. This is [just] a method used to arrest thieves, whether they are white or black. It isn’t reasonable to compare this image with what happened to George Floyd. And it’s a crime to compare Mauritania with the United States,' reads a post written by a blogger who Jaafar says has close links to the police.
CLAIMS BY POLICE SUPPORTER THAT THIS IS A COPS INJURED HAND 

HE GOT IN THE INCIDENCE ALLEGEDLY

Police arrested the person who took the photo of the incident, according to Mauritanian news site Al-Akhbar.

“It’s a warning to anyone who tries to film similar scenes in the future,” says Jaafar.

The Mauritanian Ministry of the Interior sent the FRANCE 24 Observers team a document stating that the two officers had been transferred to the far east of the country in the wake of this brutal arrest.

According to a source in the same Ministry, who wished to remain anonymous, officials considered the incident an “internal affair” and their decision to transfer the officers to be just an "ordinary procedure".

Several social-media users with close links to the Mauritanian government, like Hamid Oueld Mohammed, posted on Facebook that the officers were jailed for three days before being transferred.

A document signed by the Director General of Mauritanian National Security, Mesgharou Ould Sidi, and published by the Mauritanian news site Nawafedh, states that the two police officers involved were transferred to districts in the far east of the country.

Article by Omar Tiss.

https://observers.france24.com/en/20200626-mauritania-photo-police-mauritanian-george-floyd-brutality

Bitter reminders of colonialism remain as Madagascar celebrates 60 years of independence

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by:FRANCE 24Follow

As Madagascar celebrates the 60th anniversary of its gaining Independence from France, some citizens still bear the scars of colonialism.

Randriamamonjy can point to the marks on his legs and back, reminders of the manual labour French and Senegalese riflemen forced him to perform as a 20-year-old in 1947, the year the Malagasy Uprising began. When he refused, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Others suffered worse fates. As many as 90,000 Malagasies died during the the two-year uprising, which was one of the earliest revolts in the French colonies and was brutally shut down. Madagascar wouldn’t gain its independence until 1960.

Some in the country say that with the nation’s dependence on France, Madagascar is still not free.

Germany: Catholic Church sees record drop in membership

More than half a million people officially left the Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany in 2019, new figures show. Just over half the population now belongs to one of the two main denominations.

Germany's top Catholic body said Friday that a record 272,771 people left the country's Catholic Church in 2019, and that the number of baptisms and weddings taking place in churches also dropped sharply.

The number compares with some 216,000 people canceling their membership in 2018, and beats the previous record of around 218,000 in 2014 by a large margin.

The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, said the statistics could not be made to look good in any way and that the drop in baptism and wedding ceremonies showed the "erosion of a personal attachment to the church" particularly clearly.

The German Protestant Church (EKD) also had cause to be concerned about its membership numbers, with 270,000 people leaving in 2019, an increase of 22% on the year before. The figure equals that of 2014.

Read more: German church at the center of over 100 coronavirus cases

Heinrich Bedford-Strohm (far left) and Bishop Georg Bätzing (far right) at a mass commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II
'Painful' losses

EKD head Heinrich Bedford-Strohm said that every person lost to the church was a painful blow, as church workers were all "highly motivated."

Churches in Germany also suffer financially when they lose members, as a church tax is deducted from people's incomes if they are registered as being either Catholic or Protestant.

Read more: Germany's churches reimagined: Practicing faith in a pandemic

No reason for leaving a church has to be given. Bedford-Strohm said the reasons for the increase in departures would be examined in a special study. Last year, both churches published a study in which they predicted that membership numbers would be halved by 2060.

With deaths outnumbering births in recent years, the fall in membership goes beyond the number of people leaving. There are now around 22.6 million Catholics in Germany, a drop of 400,000 in 2019, and 20.7 million Protestants, 427,000 fewer than the year before.

Altogether 52.1% of people in Germany still officially belong to one of the two main Christian denominations.

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Pandemic leads to rise in Canada fatal drug overdoses

Issued on: 28/06/2020

A pedestrian walks past a passed-out drug user on June 25, 2020 in Ottawa, Canada; an emergency government pandemic payment has been used by some addicts to buy drugs, and overdoses have surged Lars Hagberg AFP/File

Ottawa (AFP)

A homeless Canadian with a drug addiction, Luc Laplante has lost three friends -- Dave, Emily and Pat -- to opioid overdoses in the last three months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Partly to blame, he said, is a government emergency program that put temptation in the way of users by giving them a sudden cash infusion with few questions asked.

"People have been applying for the government COVID-19 aid, using it to binge on drugs and overdosing," he said, just hours after surviving a dangerously high dose of fentanyl himself.

It left him with a painful reminder: he fell while high, suffering a bloody scrape along the right side of his face.

Addicts and outreach workers say several factors have contributed to a surge in overdoses during the pandemic: physical isolation amid lockdowns, reduced access to addiction services such as safe injection sites, and shifts in health care resources from serving addicts to treating COVID-related illnesses.

- 'People went on benders' -

The Trudeau government introduced a monthly Can$2,000 ($1,500) emergency benefit in March to help Canadians left jobless by the pandemic, as businesses were ordered closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The government simplified the application process to quickly funnel payments to Canadians in need.

Applicants are required only to answer a few questions and certify their veracity.

"With Can$2,000 in their pocket, people just went on benders," Laplante said.

"They had access to quick cash and it killed them."

The Ontario coroner estimates fatal overdoses have shot up by 25 percent in the last three months. In British Columbia, deaths increased by 40 percent over the same period last year.

- Clusters of overdoses -
"Tragically, other jurisdictions across the country are reporting similar trends," Canada's chief public health officer Theresa Tam said last month.

She pointed to "clusters of overdoses due to unknown or unusual mixes of toxic illicit substances" in several cities, including Toronto and Calgary.

Bonnie Henry, the chief public health officer in British Columbia, broke down in tears at a recent briefing while describing a record 170 overdose fatalities in May, more than the number of coronavirus deaths in the province.

"COVID-19 is not our only health crisis," Henry said.

Three safe injection sites in Ottawa's Lower Town neighborhood slashed in half the number of spaces available to drug users, in keeping with new social distancing rules.

As a result, some people have been using drugs and overdosing in the streets.

- Outside a 'safe' site -

An AFP journalist observed paramedics responding to several overdoses right outside a safe injection site.

Laplante, 37, a bent cigarette dangling from his lips and with dirt wedged beneath his fingernails, said he was alone in an empty parking lot when he shot up Monday night.

He said he was looking to relieve pain in his knee, aggravated by walking around in poor footwear while lugging all his worldly possessions in a large backpack.

It was a "stronger batch of drugs" than he was used to that did him in, he insisted.

Luckily for him, a passerby spotted him lying on the ground and alerted paramedics.

"They got me back on my feet and sent me on my way. I rested up and did more drugs," he said.

Anne Marie Hopkins of Ottawa Inner City Health said some of her clients had used payments to rent hotel rooms and died of an overdose -- alone.

"It's very sad, and devastating for everyone involved," she told AFP.

"We were already dealing with a lot, with the opioid crisis, but we were making headway. And then the pandemic hit and it made things worse," she said.

A University of British Columbia study released Thursday found that a disproportionately high number of Canadians with mental health issues (59 percent versus 33 percent) had experienced a decline in their emotional, psychological and social well-being during the pandemic. Many have ended up homeless and addicted.

"People who were already experiencing mental health challenges and... marginalization appear to be the hardest hit," researcher Emily Jenkins said in a statement.

Hopkins said she fears people with drug addictions could suffer "severe withdrawal effects" when the government funds run out.

Too, some who had used the money for better housing could be back on the streets.

And if people are found to have wrongly tapped into the emergency benefit, the government might claw it back from future financial aid, she said.

"It's a frightening time for a lot of people already suffering from trauma in their lives," she said.

© 2020 AFP

 CANNABIS CANADA 

Cannabis pandemic sales uptick not enough to save struggling sector

Issued on: 28/06/2020 -
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A GAGGER

The sale of marijuana was classifed as an essential service at the start of Canada's coronavirus lockdowns Lars Hagberg AFP/File

Toronto (Canada) (AFP)

Canadian cannabis sales soared at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but not enough to bolster a sector in the throes of reorganization only two years after the drug was legalized.

Fearing a shortage of the dried flower, Canadians rushed to cannabis stores and websites to stock up ahead of what would turn out to be a three-month government-ordered lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Sales jumped almost 20 percent in March from the previous month and continued at a brisk pace through April, according to the government statistical agency.

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Classified as an essential service, pot stores remained open while online sales exploded.

Industry expert Bradley Poulos, who teaches at Ryerson University in Toronto, said the pandemic has had a positive effect in that the legal market has actually seen an uptick in business.

"We saw a transfer of some of the illegal (black market) business over to the legal market during this time," he told AFP.

But, he added, that hasn't been enough of a boost for an industry in trouble and still struggling to reach profitability.

Canada was the second nation, after Uruguay in 2013, to legalize the recreational use of cannabis.

Canadian firms -- including Canopy Growth, Aurora and Tilray -- quickly established themselves as industry leaders, expanding into foreign markets in anticipation of legalization spreading, for recreational or medical use.

They raised billions of dollars from investors, listing on the Toronto and New York stock markets.

But the buzz quickly faded.

- High hopes -

Overly optimistic projections, management issues and product flops left the sector with an overcapacity and deep in the red. Companies' valuations plummeted.

Also, said Richard Carleton, head of the Canadian Securities Exchange, "The legal market's ability to compete with the illegal market has been compromised or hampered by a number of the government regulations."

The junior stock exchange lists about 175 cannabis firms.

Carleton pointed to a ban on advertising modelled on restrictions for tobacco, and the slow rollout of retail stores across Canada for the industry's lacklustre performance.

Firms and investors, he said, had high hopes that the recent introduction of higher-margin drinks and edibles infused with cannabinoids would start to turn things around.

But the pandemic threw a wrench in product launches, he said.

"It's not the way that we drew up our launch plans for our cannabis drinks," said Canopy Growth spokesman Jordan Sinclair.

The epidemic has also weighed on pot producers' operations when most were undergoing a massive restructuring.

Over the past year, several firms have curtailed their operations and scaled back expansion plans in order to preserve cash, as some company founders were shown the door.

In March, Canopy Growth announced the closure of two greenhouses and laid off 500 workers.

On Tuesday Aurora became the latest to scale down, closing five greenhouses and letting go 700 staff.

Rishi Malkani, head of Deloitte Canada's cannabis practice, said cannabis firms are facing dire liquidity problems.

About 10 companies on the verge of failing have filed for bankruptcy protection since the start of the year, and more are expected to follow in the coming months, he predicted.

"It's very difficult for cannabis companies to raise capital in the current environment," Malkani said.

He predicted that this unprecedented health crisis will accelerate consolidation in the industry.

Despite all of its woes, Carleton said he expects the nascent cannabis industry to overcome and grow, noting that its labelling as an essential service during pandemic has "provided more legitimacy for the industry."

© 2020 AFP

Arrests made in theft of Banksy's Paris artworkFrench authorities say they've arrested six people in connection to a work stolen from the Bataclan night club in 2019. The image, stenciled on a door, turned up in Italy two weeks ago.



French authorities said on Saturday they had arrested six people in connection with the theft of an artwork by British street artist Banksy.

The stenciled image of a veiled girl with head bowed in mourning was first spotted on an emergency exit door at Paris' Bataclan concert hall in June 2018, and was stolen the following January.

The Bataclan was targeted by "Islamic State" (IS) extremists as part of a coordinated terrorist attack that killed 90 people at the club, and 130 in total during a series of attacks across Paris on November 13, 2015.

When the work was stolen, the Bataclan took to Twitter to announce "profound indignation," calling the piece "a symbol of memory and belonging for everyone — locals, Parisians, citizens of the world."

At a June 11 press conference, Italian authorities announced they had located the stolen mural at a farmhouse in the central Italian region of Abruzzo.

Door cut off hinges

Though it is known that a group of hooded individuals used portable angle grinders to cut the door off its hinges and speed it away from the concert hall in a waiting van, it is not known how the door made its way to the Italian farmhouse, or why.


French authorities say six individuals are currently being held in pre-trial detention after arrests in the southeastern French regions of Isere and Upper Savoy over the past week.

Two of the suspects are being held for the theft, while the other four stand accused of accessory to theft.

The search for the painting has been ongoing across Europe since its disappearance. Speaking with the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, Aquila District Prosecutor Michele Renzi said: "The discovery was made possible by investigations conducted by the district prosecutor in collaboration with the police and French investigators."

Banksy, an anonymous art world phenom, has created a number of murals around the globe, many of them in Paris. Though ostensibly a street artist, those works of Banksy's that do make it to auction have regularly sold for millions of dollars.

js/mm (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

France arrests six over theft of Banksy artwork from Bataclan
Issued on: 27/06/2020 -

Italian Carabinieri military police stand by a mural attributed to British street artist Banksy that was stolen from the Bataclan theatre in Paris, where Islamist militants killed 90 people in 2015, after it was found in a farmhouse in central Italy, in L'Aquila, Italy, June 11, 2020. via REUTERS - UFFICIO STAMPA CARABINIERI

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Six people have been arrested in France over the theft of an artwork by street artist Banksy commemorating the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks that was stolen from the Bataclan concert hall, sources said Saturday.

The suspects were arrested across France this week after the artwork, an image of a girl in mourning painted on one of the Paris venue's emergency doors, was found in Italy earlier in the month, judicial and police sources told AFP.

Two were charged with theft while the other four were charged with concealing theft, the sources added. All six were placed in pre-trial detention.

The door with the artwork was cut out and taken in January last year at the Bataclan, where Islamic State gunmen massacred 90 people in 2015.

French and Italian police said on June 10 this year that they found the work in an abandoned farmhouse in Italy's central east Abruzzo region.

Good news! A stolen #Bansky was just recovered!
Art should be accessible to all, not stolen.
In a tribute to the Bataclan victims in Paris, Banksy's art called for dignity & respect, not greed.
Join the fight against illicit trafficking https://t.co/HLHkjcgTJc #ShareCulture pic.twitter.com/dmlehCr8Rf— Lara Palmisano (@larapalmisano) June 26, 2020

One of the French policeman who intervened in the 2015 Bataclan attack was present when the door was found, and was overcome with emotion, according to the French crime unit.

Works by Banksy, known for their distinctive style, irreverent humour and thought-provoking themes, have been found on walls, buildings and bridges from the West Bank to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

At auction, they have sold for more than $1 million.

(AFP)