Firebrand leftist accused of pushing conspiracy theories over French elections

THE RULING CLASS CONSPIRES TO KEEP POWER

Issued on: 08/06/2021 

Veteran leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon is known for his frequent outbursts. © Lionel Bonaventure, AFP

France's hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon was accused of reckless speech and fuelling conspiracy theories on Monday after he predicted there would be a "serious incident or murder" designed to manipulate voters ahead of next year's presidential election.

In controversial remarks made on a political talk show, Mélenchon pointed to a pattern of violent incidents dominating headlines in the run-up to recent presidential contests.

"You'll see, in the last weeks of the presidential campaign, we'll have a serious incident or a murder," the fiery head of the France Unbowed party warned, citing earlier examples.

Mélenchon referred to the killing of a police officer on the Champs-Elysées just ahead of the 2017 election and Mohamed Merah's terrorist killing spree – including his attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse – before the 2012 vote.

The hard-left leader also cited an attack against a retired man in his home in 2002 that stirred much public debate and was widely blamed for helping former far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen reach an unlikely presidential runoff that year

Mélenchon, who took 19% of the ballot in the 2017 presidential race, also drew criticism for pushing the theory that President Emmanuel Macron was an invention of shadowy and powerful interests who control the country and that next year's election had been "written in advance".

Referring to Macron's surprise victory four years ago, he said: "In every country of the world, they've invented someone like him, who comes from nowhere and who's pushed by the oligarchy."

'Disaster'

Government ministers lashed at Mélenchon on Monday, with Junior Interior Minister Marlène Schiappa slamming a "mix of paranoia and conspiracy theories", while Digital Affairs Minister Cédric O lamented a "political and republican disaster".

Current far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has frequently courted Mélenchon's supporters, also pounced on the occasion, suggesting the veteran leftist was "on the loose" and expressing her "sadness for his voters who certainly do not recognise him".

There was also criticism from prominent campaigner Latifa Ibn Ziaten, the mother of one of Merah's victims, who blasted Mélenchon's "unacceptable" comments.

The France Unbowed party, however, stood by its leader.

Clémentine Autain, the party's candidate in upcoming regional elections in the Paris area, insisted Mélenchon was "not a conspiracy theorist" but wanted to highlight how crime is used as a political tool by the right and far-right.

Mélenchon himself denounced an "odious manipulation" of his words.

'I'm the Republic'

A fiery orator, the 69-year-old former Socialist Party member is known for his outbursts and controversial statements.

In 2019, he received a three-month suspended jail term after shoving a police officer during a raid on his office and shouting, "I'm the Republic!"

Polls suggest next year's president election is likely to come down to a repeat of the face-off between Macron and Le Pen, although analysts say the political climate is highly unpredictable.

Mélenchon came fourth in the first round of voting in 2017, less than two percentage points behind second-placed Le Pen.

While his popularity has taken a hit since then, the hard-left leader is known to be a formidable campaigner and is still seen as the left's best chance of reaching a presidential runoff next year.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CONSPIRACY 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CONSPIRACY THEORY 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ISHMAEL REED 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FALSE FLAG 

Huge changes for internet and Big Tech under US antitrust proposal

Issued on: 20/06/2021

Dominant Big Tech firms could be forced to make major changes to their business practices if US lawmakers approve a proposed package of antitrust legislation

 DENIS CHARLET AFP

Washington (AFP)

The antitrust overhaul package unveiled in Congress targeting Big Tech, if enacted, could have far-reaching effects on how people use the internet and on America's biggest and most successful companies.

The five bills, due for a committee vote on Wednesday, could pave the way for a reorganization or breakup of giants such as Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon while reshaping the entire internet ecosystem.

The measures would stop tech giants from operating a platform for third parties while offering competing services on those platforms, dealing a major blow to the likes of Apple and Amazon.

Lawmakers also are seeking to ban tech firms from prioritizing their own products or services, with Google clearly in mind.

Another measure would require data "portability" and "interoperability," which could make it easier for people to quit Facebook, for example, while keeping their data and contacts.

The largest tech firms additionally would be barred from acquiring competitors under the package, which would also add funds for antitrust enforcement.

Fiona Scott Morton, a Yale University professor and former US official who has written extensively on Big Tech, said the legislation stems from the failure of antitrust enforcement in the US and elsewhere to make a dent in the dominance of major technology firms.

"This is regulation, it's not antitrust anymore," Morton said.

If the bills are enacted, she noted, Apple might have to sell or shut down its music service so that it doesn't discriminate against rivals such as Spotify.

"Apple would have to choose," she said.

An interoperability requirement "would be very profound for consumers because it would let people join social networks other than Facebook and (Facebook-owned) Instagram and stay in contact with their friends," Morton noted.

The package comes amid signs of a more aggressive posture by Washington against dominant tech firms, including President Joe Biden's nomination of Lina Khan -- a prominent advocate of breaking up Big Tech -- to head the Federal Trade Commission, one of the agencies charged with antitrust enforcement.

- 'Risky' path -

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote Wednesday on the package, which has some support from Republicans in addition to the Democratic leadership, signaling a likelihood of passage in the full House of Representatives. The fate in the Senate is less clear.#photo1

The measures come following a 16-month investigation in the House led by antitrust subcommittee chairman David Cicilline which concluded that tech giants were abusing their dominant positions and had too much power in the economy.

Christopher Sagers, a Cleveland State University professor specializing in antitrust law, said the package represents a radical approach to dealing with tech firms' growing power.

The bills "would make the platforms operate more like airlines or utility companies, which have to provide their services to anyone who wants them, and not give anyone (or themselves) discriminatory advantages," Sagers said.

"These laws also could bring an end to some products that are very popular," he added.

"I'm not sure how Apple could continue even selling its own mobile software, for example, if iOS devices or the App Store were denominated 'covered platforms,' and there could be consequences for products like Amazon Prime, Google Maps, books digitized in the Google Books project, and who knows what else."

But Sagers said the impact might not be bad in the long run because "markets rearrange themselves and new competitors turn up to replace them... But it is to say that these laws seem risky and I find their consequences hard to predict."

- Blank smartphones? -

Other analysts offered stark warnings against unforeseen consequences of upending the massively successful firms on which many consumers rely in their daily lives.#photo2

Iain Murray, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the measure might mean a firm such as Apple would need to shut its App Store, ship "blank phones" without any apps, or spin off its phone division.

"For the most part, the average consumer will see her user experience severely degraded," he said in a statement.

The legislation mirrors Europe's Digital Markets Act and is likely to "distort" competition, according to Aurelien Portuese of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank which often reflects the industry's views.

Portuese said the legislation comes amid a wave of resentment toward Big Tech but may ultimately hurt consumers by allowing less efficient firms to gain in the marketplace.

"Consumers may no longer be able to benefit from large companies' economies of scale," Portuese said in a statement.

The legislative package "reveals a profound lack of practical understanding of how the tech industry operates, and needs to operate, in order to remain competitive, relevant, profitable and innovative," said analyst Olivier Blanchard at Futurum Research in a blog post.

"Do Big Tech companies hold too much power? You could argue that, sure.

"But if the objective is to keep very large, very powerful companies in check, Congress could approach the problem by establishing guardrails that protect consumers and competition without taking a wrecking ball to an entire system."

The rise of Lina Khan, a Big Tech critic who just assumed the helm of the country's most powerful antitrust enforcement agency

insider@insider.com (Katie Canales)

© Provided by Business Insider Lina Khan speaks during an April Senate meeting. SAUL LOEB/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

FTC chair Lina Khan is a graduate of Yale Law School and the author of "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox.

Her paper and other government work have cemented her as a vocal critic of Big Tech.

Khan helped the House investigate Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook over online competition.

Lina Khan has been one of Big Tech's biggest critics - and she just took the reins of the government agency empowered to enforce antitrust laws against them.

At 32-years-old, Khan is the youngest person to be appointed as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. She was confirmed to the post on June 15 as one of the agency's five commissioners.

Khan has a rare background for someone assuming such an influential role in US government: an extensive knowledge of tech companies and how complex antitrust laws could apply to them. Some pro-Big Tech players already appear concerned, Vox reported, as the industry has long operated without strict regulation.

Khan attended Yale Law School and has been critical of Amazon

Lina Khan in her home in 2017, the year she published her paper entitled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox." An Rong Xu for the Washington Post/Getty Images

Khan was born in the UK and moved to the US when she was 11. She initially wanted to be a journalist but delved into examining corporate monopolies and antitrust laws after graduating from Williams College in Massachusetts. Khan became a policy researcher at an antitrust think tank in Washington in 2011.

She told the BBC in January that she realized "markets had come to be controlled by a very small number of companies" and said that trend was "systemic" in the US.

"I think there is a very coherent story to be told about how market power is harming us as a whole in all these bizarre ways that are not readily apparent," she told Time in 2019.

She later decided to study law at Yale Law School. In 2017, during her time as a student there, Khan published a paper called "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," drawing attention to the current "unequipped" and unnuanced antitrust framework. She wrote that it enabled the tech giant to evade antitrust scrutiny.

Video: Lina Khan to be named Federal Trade Commission chair, source says (CNBC)


She specifically said Amazon has focused on growing rapidly and using predatory pricing, which has helped it evade government scrutiny since the consumer stays unharmed.

Current US antitrust law stipulates that companies should be scrutinized when their bloated market power directly harms consumers, like if prices increase for them. But Khan instead says there are other, less obvious negative side effects that result from a small number of monopolies holding so much dominance - even if the consumer goes unharmed - like firms harnessing their market power to squeeze out smaller competitors.

The paper was widely publicized and cemented Khan as "Amazon's antitrust antagonist," as The New York Times wrote in late 2018.

She's also become a vocal critic at large of big players in the tech world and has advocated for stronger anticompetitive regulation, an issue that has bipartisan support.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the tech industry should abide by a set of rules, though each party has its own motivations to strengthen regulation.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, have supported her ideology, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota was one of the 21 Republicans that backed her FTC confirmation, as NBC reported.
She's already been helping the US crackdown on Big Tech

Lina Khan during a Senate meeting in April 2021. 

Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images

Khan was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on antitrust, commercial, and administrative law while the group was investigating Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon over their role in online market competition. Khan sat behind lawmakers as they questioned the CEOs of the Big Four in a high-profile late July 2020 hearing.

House lawmakers released a report shortly after their months-long probe was complete calling tech companies "the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."

She also was a legal adviser to now-fellow FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra.

Khan became an associate professor of Law at Columbia in late 2020. Her faculty page now reads that she is "currently on leave serving in the federal government."
Read the original article on Business Insider

ANOTHER NATO SUCCESS STORY
Squatters fill Kadhafi compound as Libya housing crisis bites

Issued on: 20/06/2021 -

A man walks past a destroyed building at Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi's former headquarters in Tripoli in a picture taken in 2012, one year after the ruler was ousted and killed in a NATO-backed uprising GIANLUIGI GUERCIA AFP/File

Tripoli (AFP)

Before Moamer Kadhafi's ouster, Libyans steered well clear of the Bab al-Aziziya compound from where the dictator ruled, but a housing shortage in Tripoli has forced squatters to move in.

Satellite dishes and water tanks now fill the grounds of the once feared fortified complex in a southern suburb of the capital, as young boys kick balls and cars drive in and out of the main gate.

Much of the sprawling compound was destroyed in NATO bombardments during the 2011 uprising against Kadhafi and then rebels went on the rampage, ransacking it.

Now dozens of families have moved into the small houses once allocated to soldiers and the villas that were home to high-ranking army officers.

Bashir, 68, has been squatting in a 400-square-metre (4,300-square-foot) villa since 2012, one year after Kadhafi was captured and killed by rebels in Sirte, the coastal Mediterranean city that was his hometown.

"Hundreds of Libyans have come to live here," he said, puffing on a cigarette.

"The villa had been set ablaze and it took me a year to renovate it, at great expense," said Bashir. "But I'm not complaining."

The complex, complete with bunker and a warren of underground tunnels, was Kadhafi's home and the site from where he ruled Libya for four decades.

Built in the 1980s, it was reinforced following a US air strike in 1986 in response to an attack on US servicemen at a Berlin nightclub, for which Washington held Tripoli responsible.

- 'I will not leave' -

In its heyday, Bab al-Aziziya, which covers six square kilometres (two square miles), housed a zoo, an indoor pool, countless murals and a fairground in its gardens.

Kadhafi had expanded the grounds by knocking down adjacent neighbourhoods.#photo1

After the uprising, Libyan authorities considered turning Bab al-Aziziya into a "green zone", an amusement park or a memorial for the "martyrs" who had fallen in the conflict to oust Kadhafi.

None of those projects has materialised.

But according to information obtained by AFP, authorities are planning to turn Bab al-Aziziya into a park as part of a wider campaign to beautify Tripoli.

If so, the new residents of the once feared Kadhafi headquarters could face eviction.

"I will not leave my house," said a man who gave his name as Hassan, declining to reveal his true identity for security reasons.

His squat "was in an appalling state, there were no doors or windows", said Hassan, who claims to have spent the equivalent of $32,100 on repairs.

- 'Decent housing' -

Ten years since the uprising that toppled Kadhafi's regime, many Libyans who used to receive government grants and subsidies are struggling to make ends meet.

The oil-rich country descended into chaos after the dictator's fall and still faces a host of political and economic crises, including chronic power cuts, petrol shortages and derelict infrastructure.

Years of conflict in post-Kadhafi Libya have resulted in tens of thousands of people being displaced, with many seeking refuge in big cities like Tripoli, creating a housing shortage.#photo2

"Before the revolution, you could find houses and there were less people (in Tripoli). But now finding an affordable house is rare, prices have skyrocketed," said Bashir.

"Today, a small apartment costs around 400,000 dinars ($83,000). Where can I find money like that?"

The minimum monthly salary ranges between 450 and 600 Libyan dinars ($90 and $120), civil servants often go months without pay, and bank loans are almost impossible to obtain.

Economist Kamal al-Mansouri said insecurity has forced "foreign construction firms to pack up and go, leaving behind 200,000 unfinished homes".

"Population growth and the displacement of Libyans due to conflict, with many people moving to big cities, means that finding decent housing is hard," he said.

"And rents have doubled in the past 10 years," said Tripoli-based real estate agent Ali Kelfat.

© 2021 AFP

NATO OVERTHREW GADDAFI FOR THIS
Libyan guards accused of sexually assaulting minors
By SAMY MAGDY and RENATA BRITO

June 20, 2021

FILE - Migrants and refugees from different African nationalities react on an overcrowded wooden boat, as aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms approach them in the Mediterranean Sea, international waters, off the Libyan coast, in this Friday, Jan. 10, 2020, file photo. When Libyan security forces rescued her earlier this year, a young Somali woman thought it would be the end of her suffering. For more than two years, she had been imprisoned and sexually abused by human traffickers notorious for extorting, torturing and assaulting migrants like her trying to reach Europe. Instead, the 17-year-old said, the sexual assaults against her have continued, only now by guards at the government-run center in the Libyan capital Tripoli where they are being kept. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios, File)


CAIRO (AP) — When Libyan security forces rescued her earlier this year, the young Somali woman thought it would be the end of her suffering. For more than two years, she had been imprisoned and sexually abused by human traffickers notorious for extorting, torturing and assaulting migrants like her trying to reach Europe.

Instead, the 17-year-old said, the sexual assaults against her have continued, only now by guards at the government-run center in the Libyan capital Tripoli where they are being kept.

She and four other Somali teenagers undergoing similar abuses are pleading to be released from the Shara al-Zawiya detention center. It is one of a network of centers run by Libya’s Department for Combating Illegal Immigration, or DCIM, which is supported by the European Union in its campaign to build Libya into a bulwark against mainly African migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

“While it is not the first time I suffer from sexual attacks, this is more painful as it was by the people who should protect us,” the 17-year-old said, speaking to The Associated Press by a smuggled mobile phone.

“You have to offer something in return to go to the bathroom, to call family or to avoid beating,” she said. “It’s like we are being held by traffickers.” The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault, and the young woman also asked not to be named, fearing reprisals.

Smugglers and traffickers in Libya — many of them members of militias — have long been notorious for brutalizing migrants. But rights groups and U.N. agencies say abuse also takes place in the official DCIM-run facilities.

“Sexual violence and exploitation are rife in several detention centers (for migrants) across the country,” said Tarik Lamloum, a Libyan activist working with the Belaady Organization for Human Rights.

The U.N. refugee agency has documented hundreds of cases of women raped while in either DCIM detention or traffickers’ prisons, with some even being impregnated by guards and giving birth during detention, said Vincent Cochetel, the agency’s special envoy for the Central Mediterranean.

The group of teens are the only migrants being kept at Shara al-Zawiya, a facility where usually migrants stay only short periods for processing. Human rights organizations say they have been trying to secure their release for weeks.

After their rescue from traffickers in February, the 17-year-old was brought along with eight other young female migrants to Shara al-Zawiya. Four of the others were later released under unclear circumstances.

One night in April, around midnight, she asked a guard to let her go the bathroom. When she finished, the guard attacked her and grabbed her breasts forcefully, she recalled.

“I was petrified and didn’t know what to do,” she told AP. The guard touched the rest of her body including her intimate parts, then unzipped his pants and tried to strip her clothes in an attempt to rape her, she said. He continued his assault while she cried, struggled and pleaded for him to get off her.

“He only stopped when he was done on my clothes,” she said. “I was lucky that he was done quickly.”

The guard then ordered her to clean her clothes that had been covered in his semen, she recalled, breaking down in tears.

Terrified, she returned to her cell and told one of the other girls what had happened. She soon learned she wasn’t the only victim. All the girls, aged 16 to 18, had experienced similar or worse abuse by guards, she said.

A 16-year-old in the same cell told the AP she started coming under sexual harassment a few days after arriving at the center. When she pleaded with a guard to call her family, he gave her a phone and let her out of her cell to call her mother. Once she hung up, he stood behind her and grabbed her breasts, she said.

She removed his hands and started to cry. The guard only stopped after realizing other employees were at the center, she said.

“Every day they do this,” she said. “If you resist, you will be beaten or deprived of everything.”

The Libyan government has not responded to requests for comment by the AP.

At least two of the girls attempted to kill themselves in late May following alleged beatings and attempted rapes, according to local rights group Libyan Crimes Watch and U.N. agencies.

One of them, a 15-year-old, was taken to the hospital on May 28 and treated by the international aid group Doctors Without Borders only to be returned to the detention center.

Maya Abu Ata, a spokeswoman for MSF Libya, confirmed that the group’s staff treated the two at its clinic. MSF is the abbreviation for the French name of the group, Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The MSF teams “advocated for their release from detention and lobbied protection actors and different interlocutors, however, these attempts were unsuccessful,” she said.

The UNHCR said it was working with Libyan authorities for the release of the five young women still held at Shara al-Zawiya and their subsequent evacuation from Libya.

The case of the teens in Shara al-Zawiya also renews questions about the EU’s role in the cycle of violence trapping migrants and asylum seekers in Libya. The EU trains, equips and supports the Libyan Coast Guard to intercept people trying to cross the Central Mediterranean to Europe. At least 677 people are known to have either died or gone missing taking this route on unseaworthy boats so far this year.

Nearly 13,000 men, women and children have been intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard and returned to Libyan shores from the start of the year up to June 12, a record number. Most are then placed in DCIM-run centers.

At some of the 29 DCIM-run centers around the country, rights groups have documented a lack of basic hygiene, health care, food and water as well as beatings and torture. DCIM receives support, supplies and training, including on human rights, through the EU’s 4.9 billion-euro Trust Fund for Africa.

Libya has been applauded by the West for a cease-fire reached last year and the appointment of an interim government earlier this year, prompting visits by European leaders and the reopening of some embassies. Despite seemingly growing political stability, activists and human rights organizations say their access to migrants in detention centers is becoming more restricted.

“The guns are silent, a cease-fire is in place ... but human rights violations are continuing unabated,” said Suki Nagra, representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Libya, who is following the reports of abuse at Shara al-Zawiya.

Even when cases are documented and alleged perpetrators arrested, they are often released due to the lack of witnesses willing to testify for fear of reprisals. For example, Abdel-Rahman Milad, who was under U.N. sanctions and was arrested last year on charges of human trafficking and fuel smuggling, walked free in April without trial.

___

Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Women migrants reduced to sex slaves in Libya 'hell

Issued on: 20/06/2021 - 05:36

Aisha, a migrant from Guinea, plays with her baby daughter at a park in the Tunisian town of Medenine FATHI NASRI AFP

Medenine (Tunisia) (AFP)

For Aisha, sexual slavery was something you only heard about happening to others in television reports, until she found herself locked in a living "hell" in Libya.

"I had left a nightmare only to fall into hell," said the migrant from Guinea, lured to the North African country that criminal gangs have turned into a den of racketeering.

Aisha fled her home country after five miscarriages: for her in-laws and the neighbourhood, she was either sterile or a witch.

But the young woman was simply diabetic.

"I just wanted to disappear from my country," said Aisha, a graduate in hotel management.

She contacted a former classmate who appeared to have made a life for herself in neighbouring Libya and who lent Aisha money to join her.

"I didn't even see the country. As soon as I arrived, I was locked up, I was a slave. She brought men to me and she got the money."

Locked in a room with a toilet, she only saw the "friend" who had duped her when she was brought in food, "like a dog".

"The men came drunk. I'd rather not remember it," said Aisha, still trembling. "I thought my life was over."

- 'Wouldn't wish that on worst enemy' -

After three months, a Libyan man took pity on her, threatened her captor and put Aisha on a bus to Tunisia with 300 Libyan dinars ($65) in her pocket.

After her diabetes was treated, she even gave birth to a baby girl late last year.

She now dreams of Europe, but returning to Libya is out of the question.

"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

For the past two years, she has lived with other migrant women in Medenine, southern Tunisia.

Most of the others who'd experienced Libya had also been forced into prostitution, raped or sexually assaulted, said Mongi Slim, head of the local Red Crescent.

"Some of them, if they had the protection of a man, they fared better. But for single women, it's almost systematic," said Slim.

Some migrants said they had been advised to take a three-month contraception jab before departure, and some travel with morning-after pills, according to UN reports.

Mariam, an Ivorian orphan, left with 1,000 euros ($1,200) to pay for the crossing from Abidjan to Libya via Mali and Algeria.

She hoped to earn enough in Libya to reach Europe.

But she ended up spending most of her year there in prison, where she was sexually exploited, before fleeing to Tunisia in 2018.

"I worked for six months with a family, then I set off by sea from Zuwara," a port in western Libya, said Mariam, 35.

"Armed men caught us, took us to prison and abused us," she said.

Mariam said she had fallen into the hands of militiamen who run illegal migrant camps where extortion, rape and forced labour are common.

Official centres under Libyan government control, and where the European Union-funded coastguard transfers would-be exiles it intercepts, are also riddled with corruption and violence, including sexual assault, according to the United Nations.

- 'Impunity' -

"Every morning, a chief would make his choices and send the chosen girls to Libyans who had rented special rooms," said Mariam.

"They fed me bread, sardines and salad. I stayed there a month until they moved me to another place," she recalled, her voice spiked with anger.

"They were armed, they smoked drugs, they paid the chief but not me."

According to rights groups, men and boys are also sexually abused.

"Sexual violence continues to be perpetrated with impunity by traffickers and smugglers along migration routes, in detention centres, judicial police prisons, and against urban migrants by militants and armed groups", the United Nations said in a 2019 report.#photo1

Such criminality increased with the intensification of the Libyan conflict from 2014.

Three migrant detention centres in Libya were closed in mid-2019 and the establishment in March of a new UN-sponsored transitional government has raised hope of a decline in impunity and violence.

The UN decided last year to deploy protection officers to combat sexual crimes.

But they have yet to even be recruited, and intercepted migrants are still turned back to Libya, to the dismay of international organisations.

On June 12, a record of more than 1,000 people caught at sea were sent back to Libyan jails, according to the UNHCR.

Taliban say 'Islamic system' only way to Afghan peace, women's rights

THE AMERICAN VICTORY IN AFGHANISTAN 

LEAVES THE TALIBAN IN POWER

Issued on: 20/06/2021 

Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (C) has said the group remains committed to peace talks but that a 'genuine Islamic system' is the only way to end the war Alexander Zemlianichenko POOL/AFP/File
Kabul (AFP)

The Taliban said Sunday they remain committed to peace talks but insisted a "genuine Islamic system" in Afghanistan was the only way to end the war and ensure rights -- including for women.

Talks between the militants and the Afghan government have been deadlocked for months and violence has surged across the country since May when the US military began its final withdrawal.

Fears are also growing that if the Taliban return to power they will reimpose their harsh version of Islamic law, under which girls were banned from school and women accused of crimes such as adultery were stoned to death in stadiums.


Despite the rise in violence, Taliban co-founder and deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar said Sunday that the group was committed to the peace talks.

"Our very participation in the negotiations... indicates openly that we believe in resolving issues through (mutual) understanding," Baradar said in a statement.

He said the only way to end the conflict in Afghanistan was to establish an Islamic system after the departure of all foreign forces.

"A genuine Islamic system is the best mean for solution of all issues of the Afghans," Baradar said.

His statement acknowledged the fears in Afghanistan and abroad about the kind of system that would emerge -- and its impact on women -- saying that fell "within the ambit of the intra-Afghan negotiations".

Baradar also assured that the rights of all Afghans including women would be accommodated in that system, according to "the glorious religion of Islam" and Afghan traditions.

- 'Taliban destroying Afghanistan' -

But many fear that the Taliban's interpretation of rights will clash with the changes that have happened in Afghan society since 2001.

In May, a US intelligence report said the gains made over the past two decades on women's rights would be rolled back if the militants returned to power.

As the US military presses ahead to meet the September 11 deadline to complete the troop withdrawal, the Taliban have fought daily battles with government forces and claim to have captured 40 districts.

The growing fear and uncertainty about the future have forced many Afghans to try and leave, including thousands of men and women who fear reprisals because they worked with foreign forces.

Baradar called on Afghan youths to not leave the country, and also stressed that the Taliban would ensure that minorities, humanitarian organisations and diplomats had nothing to fear.

The recent losses faced by government troops have forced President Ashraf Ghani to change his defence and interior ministers.

On Saturday, he announced the changes and called on the Taliban to make a choice between peace and enmity with the government.

"If they choose enmity then the people will respond to them decisively," he said late on Saturday in a statement issued by the palace.

Ghani blamed the Taliban for starting the war and accused them of failing to come up with a plan to establish peace.

"As officials of a legitimate government, we are committed to all the humanitarian laws in the war, but the Taliban are violating these laws and are destroying Afghanistan," he said.

© 2021 AFP

A WEEK AFTER PUTIN MET BIDEN

Myanmar junta leader in Moscow for second trip abroad since coup

PUTIN'S DANCE CARD IS GETTING FULL

Issued on: 21/06/2021

Myanmar has been in turmoil since a military junta led by Min Aung Hlaing (R) overthrew civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy government in February 2021 Lillian SUWANRUMPHA, STR AFP/File

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Myanmar's junta chief arrived in Moscow on Sunday to attend a security conference, marking only his second known trip abroad since he seized power in a coup.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) government in February.

Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing left the capital Naypyidaw Sunday on a special flight to attend the Moscow Conference for International Security, state-run MRTV said.

He was attending at "the invitation of Russian Defence Minister," it said, adding he had been "greeted" by the Russian ambassador to Myanmar at the airport.

It did not give details on how long he was expected to stay in Russia, an ally and major arms supplier to the Myanmar military.

Myanmar's embassy in Russia later confirmed Min Aung Hlaing's arrival to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

"The commander-in-chief has arrived in Moscow," an embassy spokesperson was cited by the news agency as saying.

The junta's brutal crackdown on dissent has since killed at least 870 civilians, according to a local monitoring group.

In May local media reported the chief of Myanmar's air force attended a military helicopter exhibition in Moscow.

Min Aung Hlaing's visit comes after the UN General Assembly took the rare step on Friday of calling on member states to "prevent the flow of arms" into Myanmar.

Russia abstained from the vote.

The resolution -- which did not go so far as to call for a global arms embargo -- also demands that the military "immediately stop all violence against peaceful demonstrators."

It was approved by 119 countries, with 36 abstaining including China, Myanmar's main ally. Only one country, Belarus, voted against it.

Min Aung Hlaing attended crisis talks with leaders of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc in Jakarta in April -- his first overseas trip since he seized power.

The meet produced a "five-point consensus" statement that called for the "immediate cessation of violence" and a visit to Myanmar by a regional special envoy.

But the general said in a later television interview that Myanmar was not ready to adopt the plan.

A special envoy has yet to be appointed, and violence has continued across the country.

(AFP)

A conspiracy theory about the Amazon forest echoes in Bolsonaro's policies today

Analysis by Luiz Romero 

CNN

 JUNE 22,2021

In 2000, when the internet in Brazil was still in its infancy, an email with an alarming message about the Amazon went viral. It claimed that the United States and the United Nations had taken the forest from Brazilians and transformed it into a protected area -- a falsehood, but one that reflected a long-running conspiracy theory still promoted today by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

 Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images Aerial view of a burning area of Amazon rainforest reserve, south of Novo Progresso in Para state, on August 16, 2020.

The email described a purported geography textbook being used in "important American schools," which labeled the Amazon as an "international control zone." Next to a map, a misspelled text said that the forest was "surrounded by irresponsable, cruel, and authoritary countries" and that the United States and the United Nations, with the backing of the "G23," transformed it into "an international park with very severe rules of exploration."

© Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images Activists call for the end of oil exploration in the Amazonia region in front of the Leblon Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 04, 2020.

"The value of this area is unable to calcule," it continued, "but the planet can be cert that The United States won't let these Latin American countries explorate and destroy this real ownership of all humanity."

Despite the multiple signs that the textbook was fake -- the writing was riddled with mistakes, the map looked doctored, and the obvious fact that the Amazon had not been turned into an international reserve -- the rumor touched a chord with Brazilians, circulating so widely that both the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the American embassy in Brasília tried to debunk it. "The idea is so hilarious that I feel silly to have to talk about it," Anthony Harrington, the American ambassador in Brazil, said at the time, according to news website G1

.

 Tarso Sarraf/AFP/Getty Images A vessel transports logs on a raft along the Murutipucu River in the municipality of Igarape-Miri in the region of Baixo Tocantins, northeast of Para, Brazil, on September 18, 2020.

But the viral image also illustrates a pervasive fear that grips Brazil and that has profound consequences for the forest.

President Bolsonaro has repeatedly invoked the idea that the Amazon is under threat from a foreign takeover as he pushes back against foreign leaders, indigenous groups, and environmental organizations when they show concern for the forest, demand more reservation areas, or denounce environmental destruction.

In May 2018, during his campaign for president, President Bolsonaro hinted at the conspiracy theory: "The Amazon is not ours," he claimed. "I say that with a lot of sadness, but it is a reality." Later that year, after being elected but before taking office, he threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, claiming that it weakened Brazilian control over the Amazon.

And in April 2019, already in power, he spoke openly about a murky plot to steal the forest from Brazil that involved the creation of indigenous reserves. "If we don't change our policies, we will lose the Amazon," he said in a radio interview with Jovem Pan. "The United Nations has been discussing, for a while now, that through the auto-determination of indigenous peoples, you could have new countries here inside," he added. "That could happen."


A fear with roots in the military

Fears of foreign meddling in the Amazon are not entirely unfounded. Two years ago, Stephen Walt, a respected professor of international relations at Harvard University, wrote an article for Foreign Policy, a respected publication on international politics, titled "Who Will Invade Brazil to Save the Amazon?" The title, which the scholar said on Twitter had not been written by him, was later softened to "Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?"

© Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's president, speaks during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019.

Walt's article started with a hypothetical description of an American president ordering an invasion of Brazil due to environmental breaches. "The president's decision came in the aftermath of a new United Nations report cataloging the catastrophic global effects of continued rainforest destruction," Walt fantasized. It continued with a discussion of the merits of that move, including the international mechanisms and historical precedents that would allow it to happen.

It is also true that foreign leaders have repeatedly made statements that could be perceived as questioning Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon. They include former vice president Al Gore, then a senator, ("Contrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it belongs to all of us"), then French president François Mitterrand (Brazil should accept a "relative sovereignty" over the forest), and then British prime minister John Major (who threatened military action to expand the rule of law "over what is common to all in the world").

But as with other conspiracies, that germ of truth has been extrapolated into absurdity. The rumor about the textbooks is a good example of that. It actually started in the armed forces, as a short text in a small independent website kept by retired military officers in Brazil, according to a dossier compiled by Paulo Roberto de Almeida, a diplomat at the embassy in Washington in the early 2000s, when the email went viral for the first time.

The title of the website -- "Brazil, Love It or Leave It" -- is a slogan of the military dictatorship, and its content is nationalistic. Its stated goal is to fight disinformation, but it actually features a multitude of conspiracies, many referring to the Amazon.

The authors of the website see foreign leaders' disparaging remarks about Brazil's guardianship of the Amazon as attempts to weaken Brazilian sovereignty over the forest, and as a means to open it for interference, exploitation, and invasion.

One article claims that a reserve granted to an indigenous group was a "nation within the nation" with covert separatist intentions. Another claims that an "ecologist hysteria," fueled by foreign-sponsored activists and journalists, were part of a plot to internationalize the Amazon, "taking away from Brazil the right to use its wealth."

"We are undergoing a process in our country that is beyond logic," the authors of the website explain in an editorial. Rich countries are using globalization, environmentalism, and humanitarianism to force poor nations to open their markets, politics, and territories to foreign interference. Brazil is failing to fight that invasion, the editorial claims. "A full opening is underway," and the forest is central to that process.

The authors, whose full names are not displayed on the website, did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

To defend, but not to protect

President Bolsonaro, a military man himself, is no stranger to such fears of encroachment on Brazilian sovereignty. Since he reached power two years ago, he seems to have been fighting some of the internal enemies identified by the creators of the rumor about the textbook -- indigenous peoples and environmental groups.

Not a single indigenous reservation was created during his first two years in power, a considerable drop compared to predecessors. Right-wing president Fernando Henrique Cardoso approved an average of 36 indigenous reservations every two years during his presidency in the 1990s. Left-wing president Lula da Silva approved an average of 22 per two years. Now, approvals of indigenous reservations have fallen to zero, according to newspaper O Globo.

The Bolsonaro administration has also frozen some state funding that supports environmental groups, a move that O Globo described as "a declaration of war on NGOs." Bolsonaro later claimed that environmental organizations were setting fires to the Amazon, recording them, and sending the images abroad to make him look bad to international audiences.

The president has also aimed fiery statements at the foreign enemies supposedly plotting a takeover of the Amazon in collusion with international organizations.

"We saw recently a great candidate for head of state say that if I don't put out the fire in the Amazon, he will put up commercial barriers against Brazil," he said in 2020, referring to comments made by Joe Biden during a presidential debate.

"How can we deal with all that? Just diplomacy is not enough," he said. "When saliva runs out, one has to have gunpowder."

In August 2019, following an infamous fire season in the Amazon, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to pressure Brazil into improving environmental protections. "Our house is burning," he tweeted ahead of the 2019 G7 summit, urging his fellow leaders to discuss the "emergency." During the summit, he made a reference to Brazilian control of the forest. "The Amazon forest is a subject for the whole planet," he said. "We respect your sovereignty", he added, "but we cannot allow you to destroy everything."

The following month, during a meeting with presidents of South American countries that include portions of the Amazon, President Bolsonaro criticized Macron's remarks, making clear that he saw in them a potential plan to wrest the vast forest from Brazil. "A plan to turn this large area into a world heritage site is still on the table," he said at the time.

Colombian President Iván Duque, the host of the meeting, said Amazon states needed to better coordinate their actions to stop the cutting and burning of trees. Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno sang a song about environmental preservation. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, insisted that the summit's final declaration mention sovereignty.

"We have to say that the Amazon is ours," he said. "We have to take a firm position in defense of our sovereignty, so that each country can, within its land, develop the best policy for the region, and not let that this policy be dealt with by other countries."

The Brazilian President's fears of a foreign takeover of the Amazon might be irrelevant if they did not pose a material effect on the forest itself.

If history is any indication, the effect might be catastrophic. The Amazon was a central concern of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between the 1960s and 1980s. The officers in power believed that the region was highly vulnerable to foreign interference, being too vast, too isolated, and too precious for its own good. They tried to end that vulnerability by encouraging people to move there, stimulating agriculture, ranching, and mining, paving the forest with highways, and building ports, mines, refineries, and dams. These initiatives were devastating, and deforestation spiked in the period between 1965 and 1985.

In early 2019, the Bolsonaro administration sketched an ambitious development project guided by similar ideas. The Baron Rio Branco Plan, created by retired military general Maynard Marques de Santa Rosa, then a member of the administration, aimed at building a dam and a bridge over two Amazon rivers, expanding an existing highway all the way to Suriname, and incentivizing mining and farming. Indigenous peoples and environmental groups issued statements repudiating the project, in part because the expanded highway would pass through multiple areas of protected forest.

In late 2019, Santa Rosa left the government and the plan lost strength, but specific parts, like the highway, are still planned by the government and could still become a reality.

Bolsonaro's goals to protect the Amazon hint at tragic outcomes. His first two years in office have only ushered in more destruction of the forest. His attacks on indigenous peoples, and the organizations that support them, weaken the most efficient guardians of the forest. And his plans to "develop," "colonize," and "integrate" the Amazon, like the plans of the military officials who preceded him, risk accelerating its disappearance.

In trying to protect the forest from imaginary enemies, the President leaves it vulnerable to perhaps its greatest threat: himself.

Editor of paper that endured newsroom shooting says goodbye

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The editor of the Capital Gazette, which won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its newsroom, is leaving the Maryland newspaper

.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

Rick Hutzell, who worked at the Annapolis paper for more than three decades, authored a farewell column that was published on the paper's website Saturday morning.

Hutzell said he took a buyout that was offered by the newspaper's parent company. The Capital Gazette was owned by Tribune Publishing until it was purchased last month by Hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

Hutzell was editor of the paper when five employees were shot to death in the newsroom in 2018.

“The murder of my five friends, Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, Wendi Winters, John McNamara and Rebecca Smith, changed me,” he wrote on Saturday. “I always enjoyed the job. But I became consumed with the notion that it was my purpose to save the paper. A man with a shotgun tried to kill us — to kill me and the newspaper I’ve poured my life into for 33 years. I wasn’t going to let it die.”

“Of course, it wasn’t my responsibility alone,” he continued." “Together with a group of very talented journalists and other employees in Annapolis, Baltimore and across Tribune Publishing, we kept publishing.”

The paper published on schedule and won the Pulitzer citation.

The man behind the attack, Jarrod Ramos, had a long-running grudge against the newspaper. He has pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible due to insanity. A trial to determine whether he is criminally responsible is set to begin later this month.

Hutzell said he’s not sure what’s next. But he said the buyout represented a chance for something new.

“I came to The Capital in October 1987, and promptly told Managing Editor Tom Marquardt I planned to stay for two years and then join the Associated Press and see the world,” he wrote. "One love of my life, Chara, two kids, two houses, four dogs, two convertibles and one Pulitzer Prize later, it’s clear I had no idea what I was talking about.

"I wish I could say it’s all been grand, and I’m headed off to retirement. But it hasn’t, and I’m not."

The Associated Press

Australia accused of ‘excessive and unnecessary’ secrecy
By ROD McGUIRK

June 20, 2021

Demonstrators hold a banner during a protest outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 17, 2021 against the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Collaery whose picture is on the demonstrator's shirt. Critics of the secret prosecutions of a former Australian spy and his lawyer argue they are another example of a government concealing political embarrassment under the guise of national security. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s suppression of information seen as pivotal to a free and open media is at the center of accusations that the country has become one of the world’s most secretive democracies.

Last week, a former Australian spy was convicted over his unconfirmed role as a whistleblower who revealed an espionage operation against the government of East Timor.

It’s the latest high-profile case in a national system in which secrecy laws, some dating back to the colonial era, are routinely used to suppress information. Police have also threatened to charge journalists who exposed war crime allegations against Australian special forces in Afghanistan, or bureaucrats’ plan to allow an intelligence agency to spy on Australian citizens.

Australians don’t even know the name of the former spy convicted Friday. The Canberra court registry listed him as “Witness K.” His lawyer referred to him more respectfully as “Mr. K” in court.

K spent the two-day hearing in a box constructed from black screens to hide his identity. The public and media were sent out of the courtroom when classified evidence was discussed, which was about half the time.

The only sign that anyone was actually inside the box was when a voice said “guilty” after K was asked how he pleaded.

The Australian government has refused to comment on allegations that K led an Australian Secret Intelligence Service operation that bugged government offices in the East Timorese capital in 2004, during negotiations on the sharing of oil and gas revenue from the seabed that separates the two countries.

The government canceled K’s passport before he was to testify at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2014 in support of the East Timorese, who argued the treaty was invalid because Australia failed to negotiate in good faith by engaging in espionage.

There was no evidence heard in open court of a bugging operation, which media reported was conducted under the guise of a foreign aid program.

K was given a three-month suspended sentence. If he’d been sent to prison, there were court orders designed to conceal his former espionage career by restricting what he could tell friends and associates to explain his predicament.

He had faced up to two years in prison. Since his offense, Australia has continued to tighten controls on secrecy, increasing the maximum sentence to 10 years.

As lacking in transparency as K’s prosecution was, it was a vast improvement on Australia’s treatment of another rogue intelligence officer known as Witness J.

J has been described by the media as possibly the only person in Australian history to be tried, sentenced and imprisoned in secret. But no one seems to know for sur

As with K, it is illegal to reveal J’s identity.

J pleaded guilty in a closed courtroom in the same Canberra court complex in 2018 to charges related to mishandling classified information and potentially revealing the identities of Australian agents. He spent 15 months in prison.

The secret court hearing and imprisonment only became public in late 2019 because J took court action against the Australian Capital Territory government, claiming his human rights were violated by police who raided his prison cell in search of a memoir he was writing.

Outraged lawyers then called for the first major review of the nation’s secrecy laws since 2010. Whistleblowers as well as journalists currently are under threat from more than 70 counterterrorism and security laws passed by Parliament since the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.

Andrew Wilkie, a former government intelligence analyst whistleblower who’s now an independent federal lawmaker, is a vocal critic of national security being used as an excuse to pander to paranoia and shield embarrassment.

Wilkie opposed the prosecution of K and his former lawyer Bernard Collaery. Collaery is fighting a charge that he conspired with K to reveal secrets to East Timor, and wants his trial to be open.

“I am in no doubt that one of the reasons for the secrecy around the K and Collaery matter is the enormous political embarrassment that we were spying on one of the poorest countries in the world to get an upper hand in a business negotiation,” Wilkie said.

Wilkie quit his intelligence job in the Office of National Assessments days before Australian troops joined U.S. and British forces in the 2003 Iraq invasion. He publicly argued that Iraq didn’t pose sufficient threat to warrant invasion and that there was no evidence linking Iraq’s government to al-Qaida.

“I basically accused the government of lying,” Wilkie said.

Although the government attempted to discredit him, Wilkie said he was never threatened with prosecution for revealing classified information.

For many, Australian authorities took a step too far in June 2019 in their bid to chase down whistleblowers, intimidate journalists and protect government secrets.

Police raided the home of News Corp. journalist Annika Smethurst, and the next day the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Both media outlets had used leaked government documents as the basis of public interest journalism.

The search warrants were issued under Section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914, which prohibited a government employee from sharing information without a supervisor’s permission.

That section has since been replaced under national security legislation that expanded the crime to include a government employee sharing opinions or reporting conversations between others.

Media law experts Johan Lidberg and Denis Muller said Australia is the only country within the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance – which includes the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand – that gives its security agencies the power to issue search warrants against journalists in the hunt for public interest whistleblowers in the name of national security.

Police decided in May last year that they had insufficient evidence to charge Smethurst, the journalist, over an article published in April 2018. She had reported that two government department bosses planned to create new espionage powers that would allow an intelligence agency to legally spy on Australian citizens.

Prosecutors also decided in October last year that the “public interest does not require a prosecution” of ABC reporter Dan Oakes over a television investigation broadcast in July 2017 that alleged Australian troops killed unarmed men and children in Afghanistan in potential war crimes.

But David McBride, a former Australian army lawyer who admits leaking classified documents to the ABC, is fighting multiple charges. He calculates he faces up to 50 years in prison for being a whistleblower.

There have been two parliamentary inquiries into press freedom since the police raids, but progress toward change has been criticized as slow and weak.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which has rubber-stamped many of the problem security laws, said many submissions for change warned that “the balance in legislation and culture within the Australian government has tipped away from transparency and engagement to excessive and unnecessary secrecy.”

A Senate committee inquiry into press freedom last month made several recommendations, mostly for more government investigation. The committee asked whether secret information offenses should be amended to include a harm requirement, and whether journalists should still have to prove that an unauthorized disclosure was in the public interest.

Wilkie, the lawmaker, argues Australia has drifted into becoming a “pre-police state” through its embrace of secrecy.

“It’s now unremarkable when a government cloaks something in a national security need for secrecy,” Wilkie said. “We don’t bat an eyelid anymore. We should be outraged.”