World’s No. 1 Stock Owner Grapples With Child Labor Dilemma






Lars Erik Taraldsen and Leanne de Bassompierre
Mon, June 21, 2021,\

(Bloomberg) --

In Oslo, where the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund decides how to allocate $1.4 trillion, a huge contradiction lurks.

The fund is trying to reconcile a sustainable-investing mantra with the billions it owns in companies that source cocoa from regions where children pick beans that feed the world’s craving for chocolate. So far, it has chosen to stay involved rather than sell so it can push for positive change.

“We expect companies to work against child labor, but at the same time we recognize that child labor in supply chains and agriculture has complex underlying causes,” said Line Aaltvedt, a spokeswoman for the fund.

In a global financial world increasingly obsessed with ethical matters, the world’s biggest investors -- from BlackRock Inc. to Fidelity Investments -- are navigating gray areas and trying to figure out the best way to engage. While the Norwegian fund’s actions are primarily financial, as was the case when it sold $6 billion worth of companies that purely focus on oil exploration and production last year, ethical considerations increasingly play a part.

The stakes aren’t insignificant for Norway’s wealth fund, which according to its most recent filings owns shares valued at more than $16 billion in some of the world’s largest chocolate makers and confectioners, including Nestle SA, Hershey Co. and Barry Callebaut AG. The companies all acknowledge child labor exists in their supply chain, have explicit policies forbidding the practice and programs in place to mitigate the problem.

It’s the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, and the United Nations held its World Day Against Child Labor a week ago. Still, the practice remains hard to eradicate in the world’s cocoa farming regions. Just ask Nouffo.

He was rescued as part of a police operation to clamp down on child labor in Soubre, the heart of the Ivory Coast cocoa belt in early May. Nouffo said he was brought to the country from neighboring Burkina Faso by his father when he was 13 years old. He was left to work on his uncle’s plantation, where he was found splitting open cocoa pods with a machete.

“Two Ramadans have passed since I’ve been here,” said Nouffo in his limited French. That makes him 15 now.

Nouffo, who spoke while being held in a center in Soubre, said he worked seven days a week splitting open cocoa pods gathered by adult workers, drying them and then transporting them by motorcycle to buying centers. School was out of the question.

His uncle was among 24 people arrested as part of the two-day police raid in partnership with the National Committee for the Monitoring of Actions to Combat Child Trafficking, Exploitation and Labor, which is led by First Lady Dominique Ouattara.

Five of those arrested were sentenced to 20 years in prison for child trafficking, including Nouffo’s uncle, said Luc Zaka, the police commissioner in charge of the raid. Seventeen others were handed five years behind bars and two were released.

As supply chains in the cocoa market are difficult to track, it could not be established whether any of the world’s large chocolate makers were supplied by the farm Nouffo worked on.

Demanding Action

”We must increase the pressure on companies to force them to take responsibility, also for what happens further down the value chain,” Freddy André Ovstegard, a member of parliament for the Socialist Left Party who sits on the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs, said in an email. He said he lodged a request Monday with the “Minister of Finance to explain how these concerns have been followed up.”

Last year, the Norwegian fund conducted about 3,000 meetings with portfolio companies to discuss how ESG targets were being met. Children’s rights were the topic of 17 such meetings. In 2019, it initiated talks with nine companies in the cocoa business on the subject.

“Typically, the chocolate producers are in the fund, while the cocoa producers are private farms in West Africa,” said Eli-Ane Lund, a spokeswoman for the ethics council that makes recommendations to guide the fund.

The debate usually revolves around how patient investors should be with transition assets – those with a self-improvement plan – and when it’s time to punish companies through exclusion. When it comes to child labor, mostly in the cocoa business but also in the coffee, tea, cotton, seeds and palm oil trade, the Norwegian fund has often decided to stay involved.

Take Barry Callebaut, the Swiss chocolate maker that says it will probably continue to have child labor in its supply chain until 2025. It counted Norway’s wealth fund among its biggest shareholders, with a 1.4% stake, the latest filings show.

The fund, which also meets with non-governmental organizations as part of its environmental, social and governance investing strategy, is putting pressure on firms like Barry Callebaut to improve, Carine Smith Ihenacho, chief corporate governance officer at the Oslo-based fund, said in an interview.

In another example, Norges Bank’s executive board asked the fund in 2018 to address the risk of child labor at UPL Ltd., an Indian agro-chemicals maker, and its Advanta Seeds unit.

“In our dialogue with the company, we have, among other things, addressed the need to prevent child labor in the supply chain and the company’s approach to monitoring the supply chain,” fund spokeswoman Aaltvedt said.

That led to Advanta recently updating its agreements with farmers and further developing procedures for monitoring the supply chain to uncover possible child labor. It also has information activities aimed at farmers, suppliers and local authorities to prevent child labor.

“Child labor in the production of hybrid cotton seeds and other seed varieties was among the very first issues considered by the Council on Ethics, and this was an issue that the council worked on for many years,” said Eli-Ane Lund, a spokeswoman for the council.

The ethics panel, an independent body, has made three recommendations for observation or exclusion of companies on child labor grounds: Monsanto Co. in 2006, Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd. in 2013 and UPL in 2018. Of the three, only Zuari Agro Chemicals was actually excluded.

Global Footprint

With so much money to invest, Norges Bank Investment Management’s footprint spans the globe, and it owns close to 1.5% of all listed companies, making it the biggest stock owner in the world.

Other companies exposed to child labor that counted the fund as a shareholder as of the end of 2020 included Nestle, Hershey, Mondelez International Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., Starbucks Corp. and Lindt & Spruengli AG. The fund’s investments in those companies, including Barry Callebaut, amounted to more than $16 billion.

While some progress is being made, the task remains monumental.

Barry Callebaut says poverty is the root of the problem, and that it works to alleviate it, provide access to education and raise awareness. It has a code of conduct regarding human rights, forced labor and child labor that all employees are obliged to follow.

Working with the International Cocoa Initiative in 2019/20, the company monitored and took remedial action covering 113 farmer groups, including 39,909 farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana. It uncovered 22,965 cases of child labor.

“ESG has moved from a peripheral investment criteria to a central one,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Barry Callebaut welcomes the dialogue with its shareholders on ESG topics.”

Read more: Supreme Court Backs Nestle, Cargill on Child-Slavery Suit

Read more: Switzerland Inc. Sweats as Global Accountability Vote Nears

Cocoa-producing nations in West Africa have come under increased pressure to clean up the industry, with a report last year sponsored by the U.S. government showing that despite chocolate companies pledging to cut child labor, the problem actually got worse in the 10 years prior to the publication of the report.

Lagging ESG Standards

While the EU prepares to introduce stricter laws later this year, Europe remains the leading destination for Ivorian beans, accounting for 67% of its cocoa exports. As fund managers wait for global ESG standards, they’ve created their own methodologies to fill in the perceived gaps.

Norges Bank Investment Management says divestments tied to ESG standards are set to rise as it screens for wrongdoers.

The fund has set seven criteria for sustainable investing, according to Ihenacho. For the S in ESG, it looks at how well companies protect children’s rights and human rights, whether they’re transparent taxpayers, and whether they avoid corruption.

Over the past two decades, the ethics council has successively introduced socially responsible guidelines for the fund manager to follow, ranging from selling stakes in fossil-fuel companies to blacklisting firms that abuse migrant workers or dabble in corrupt practices.

After Walmart Inc. was beset by criticism for human rights violations in 2005, including the risk of child labor, the fund sold out. The retail giant cleaned up its act and was removed from the fund’s exclusion list more than a decade later, in 2019. Norway now owns a stake in Walmart valued at about $2.1 billion.

In a more recent instance, the fund has for two years voted in favor of a proposal at Facebook Inc. “to assess the risk of possible exploitation of children on the company’s platforms,” Aaltvedt said.

Measuring Misconduct

The fund says it’s harder to catch companies guilty of social misconduct than to identify climate sinners.

“It’s quite clear that the S is in many ways harder to quantify and measure” than the E in ESG, Ihenacho said.

Amnesty International in Norway, which follows the wealth fund closely, says the screening can be tightened up.

“It would have been better if the fund could have avoided investing in a company where there’s a high risk of breaching the ethics council’s framework,” said Hanne Sofie Lindahl, political adviser at Amnesty in Oslo. “Preemptive screening in countries where we know that there are widespread abuses of human rights could help strengthen the fund’s ethical framework.”

The fund’s chief executive officer, Nicolai Tangen, says databases with different sustainability targets now used on portfolio companies will be used to improve its screening of companies being considered for addition.

“You have good and bad companies in all countries, really,” Tangen said in a June 2 live-streamed discussion. “The goal is to keep the rotten apples out of the basket.”

(Adds comment from opposition lawmaker in 13th paragraph)


©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Thousands of people flocked to a South African village digging for diamonds, only to find out they were quartz

Ashley Collman
Mon, June 21, 2021




Thousands are seen digging for diamonds in KawHlathi village in South Africa last week. The stones found there have turned out to be only quartz. Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty


Thousands rushed to a rural South African village last week to dig for diamonds.


But government officials said Sunday that the stones found at the site were actually quartz.


The value of quartz is extremely low, especially compared to diamonds, the officials said.


The quartz found near KwaHlathi village actually has little to no value, officials said.


The hopes of thousands who rushed to a rural South African village last week in search of diamonds have been crushed, after government officials said Sunday that the stones were only quartz, which have little to no value.

According to Reuters, the diamond rush started when a herder found an unidentified stone in a field near the village of KwaHlathi, about 186 miles east of Johannesburg, and tipped off others.

Thousands of people traveled to the village to dig for stones themselves, prompting the government to send experts to take samples for testing, ABC Australia reported.

A boy holds an unidentified stone at KwaHlathi village, South Africa, on June 15, 2021. Phill Magakoe/AFP via GEtty

At a media briefing on Sunday, Ravi Pillay, provincial executive council member for economic development and tourism, said that the stones found there were only quartz.

"The tests conducted conclusively revealed that the stones discovered in the area are not diamonds as some had hoped," he said, according to Reuters.

"The value, if any, of the quartz crystals is yet to be established but it must be mentioned that the value of quartz crystals is very low compared to that of diamonds."

Quartz is second only to feldspar as one of the most abundant minerals on earth, according to the BBC.

A woman uses a pick axe to dig as others search for diamonds in rural South Africa on June 15, 2021. Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty

Pillay said he counted some 3,000 diggers when he visited the site, and said the diamond rush highlighted some of the socio-economic challenges of the area.

The region the quartz was found in earlier this month is one of the poorest in South Africa, the BBC reported.

South Africa has been dealing with high levels of unemployment for years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the country's economic situation.

The diggers remaining at the site have been asked to leave, since they are damaging the land and making it dangerous for cattle, according to Reuters.

Read the original article on Insider

Pakistani lawyer who represented Asia Bibi says he faces threats to his life

ASIA BIBI IS SAFE IN CANADA

Secunder Kermani - BBC News
Mon, June 21, 2021,

Saif ul Malook represented Asia Bibi in a blasphemy case that rocked Pakistan

A Pakistani lawyer who has successfully overturned a number of convictions for "blasphemy" has said he believes his life is in danger from extremists.

Saif ul Malook most recently oversaw the acquittal of a Christian couple who had been sentenced to death.

Mr Malook shared social media posts with the BBC which called for him to be "executed" for securing the acquittal.


Blasphemy is a deeply emotive topic in Muslim-majority Pakistan and is legally punishable by death.

While no one has ever been executed for the offence, dozens of people accused of blaspheming have been killed by vigilantes.

Human rights groups say the country's blasphemy laws often unfairly target religious minorities and can be used in personal feuds.

Earlier this month, the high court in Lahore quashed the convictions of Christian couple Shagufta Kausar and her husband Shafqat Emmanuel, citing a lack of evidence.

The pair were sentenced to death in 2014 for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages insulting the Prophet Muhammad. They insisted they were innocent. Ms Kausar's brother told the BBC last year he doubted the couple were literate enough even to have written the messages.

The couple's lawyer, Mr Malook, previously also represented Asia Bibi, a Christian villager who spent eight years on death row in a case that attracted international condemnation.

Pakistan overturns couple's blasphemy death sentences

Asia Bibi: 'I always believed I would be freed'

Ms Bibi was eventually acquitted by Pakistan's supreme court in 2018 and subsequently flown out of the country. The legal ruling led to large and violent protests by thousands of followers of a hardline cleric.

But Mr Malook, who is the most prominent lawyer defending blasphemy cases in Pakistan, told the BBC that he considered the current threats against him the "most dangerous" he had ever received.

"Even this was not done during Asia Bibi's case," he said. "Now they [the extremists] think I am the only hurdle in their way."

He criticised the government for not providing him with adequate security. "Not even a clerk from the Pakistani government has contacted me," he said. Pakistani officials did not reply to a request for comment.

It is not clear how serious the specific threats are to Mr Malook, but in 2014 a lawyer representing another blasphemy defendant was shot dead. Rashid Rehman was sitting in his office when he was shot and two of his assistants were injured.

Blasphemy convictions in Pakistan by lower courts are often overturned on appeal. Human rights activists say more junior judges are intimidated into convicting suspects despite flaws in their cases.

Hearings at Lahore High Court in the case of Ms Kausar, a caretaker at a Christian school, and her paralysed husband Mr Emmanuel, had been repeatedly delayed.

Mr Malook suggested the judges were concerned at the possibility of being targeted themselves if they acquitted the pair. In April, however, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging Pakistan to reform its blasphemy laws, citing concerns over the Kausar-Emmanuel case in particular.

Mr Malook told the BBC that had case had not been highlighted internationally, he feared the appeal would've been delayed indefinitely.

Nature bites back: Animals push human boundaries



Issued on: 22/06/2021 - 

Animals and humans are increasingly coming into close contact, as when an elephant burst into a house in Thailand

 Radchadawan PEUNGPRASOPPORN FACEBOOK/AFP

Paris (AFP)

The pandemic and climate change is testing as never before the delicate balance of human co-habitation with the natural world.

As an Australian prison is evacuated after it was overrun by the plague of mice ravaging the east of the country, we look at some of the most spectacular recent examples.

- Australia mice plague -

Battling a massive plague of mice after the end of a three-year drought, eastern Australia is seeing crops destroyed, grain silos and barns infested and homes invaded by the rodent that was first introduced to the country by European colonialists.

Skin-crawling videos of writhing rodent masses have been shared around the world along with reports of patients bitten in hospital, destroyed machinery and swarms running across roads en masse.#photo1

In the latest twist on Tuesday, mice forced the evacuation of hundreds of inmates from a jail after they gnawed through ceiling panels and wiring.

Experts warn that climate change could make such chronic infestations more regular.

Indeed the Gippsland region in the southeast of the country has been covered in a sea of spider webs after an invasion of sheet web spiders fleeing flooding in early June.

- China's herd -

A herd of elephants which has wandered off its reserve in Yunnan province in China has made headlines around the world, with 3,500 people in their path evacuated from their homes and hundreds of trucks deployed to keep them away from densely populated areas.#photo2

State broadcaster CCTV is carrying a 24-hour live feed of the migration which began late last year and which has so far cost farmers more than a million dollars in damage to crops.

- Elephant in the room -

An elephant stuck his head through Kittichai Boodchan's kitchen wall in western Thailand on Sunday night to nose through his larder for a midnight snack.

Kittichai lives near a national park and this was not the first such visit. Last month the elephant knocked a hole through the wall, creating an opening reminiscent of a drive-through restaurant window.

- Tough teen -

A California teenager became a social media sensation when a video of her shoving a large bear off her suburban garden wall to protect her dogs went viral earlier this month.#photo3

"The first thing I think to do is push the bear. And somehow it worked," said the 17-year-old, whose shove sent the bear falling off the low wall and retreating with her cubs.

- Conservation controversy -

But there was a grim end to another ursine encounter in Slovakia last week when a brown bear killed a 57-year old man outside Bratislava.

The death sparked fury from hunters who claim that bear numbers have become too high because of a ban on hunting to save the species.

The outcry echos similar debates in other countries over bear conservation.

- Wolves divide -

The protection of wolves is equally divisive, with an outcry in the US in March after licensed hunters in Wisconsin killed 216 wolves in 60 hours -- a fifth of the state's entire population.

Donald Trump lifted federal protection for wolves, exposing them to trophy hunting in several states.#photo4

A similarly heated debate is raging in France where the wolves have flourished since 1992, after being previously hunted to extinction.

While their numbers are only a fraction of those found in Italy, Spain, Romania or Poland, farmers baulk at the ban on killing the predator across most of the EU.

- Gatecrashing boars -

Wild boars also raise hackles across most of continental Europe, damaging well-manicured lawns and golf courses from the French Riviera to the Baltic, where they have become notorious for venturing into residential areas looking for food.#photo5

In one of the funnier incidents, a German wild boar stole a nudist's laptop last year by a lake in Berlin, with a video of the naked sunbather chasing after the animal clocking up millions of views.

- Lockdown liberty -

Pandemic lockdowns have brought a new-found freedom to many wild animals, allowing them to wander into the heart of cities.

With half the world's population locked down last year, social media was full of images of wildlife reclaiming the streets, from herds of wild sika deer wandering through metro stations in Japan to packs of jackals congregating in the centre of Tel Aviv in Israel.

UPDATED

UN Afghanistan official warns over Taliban gains

AFGHANISTAN DEFEATED THE BRITISH, RUSSIANS AND NOW AMERICA

Issued on: 22/06/2021

A top UN official has raised worries over Taliban gains in Afganistan

 Joël SAGET AFP/File

United Nations (United States) (AFP)

The head of the United Nations Afghanistan aid operation expressed strong concerns Tuesday over military gains by the Taliban insurgents as US and coalition forces pull out of the country.

"All of the major trends -- politics, security, the peace process, the economy, the humanitarian emergency, and Covid -- all of these trends are negative or stagnant," Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council in a video conference.

"The Taliban's recent advances are even more significant and are a result of an intensified military campaign," said Lyons, who leads the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

"For the Taliban to continue this intensive military campaign would be a tragic course of action," she said.

She said the Islamist insurgents have seized more that 50 of the country's 370 districts, mostly districts which surround provincial capitals.

That, Lyons said, suggests the Taliban "are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn."

She said if the insurgents continue their fight, the prolonged violence "would extend the suffering of the Afghan people and threaten to destroy much of what has been built and hard won in the past 20 years."

She expressed special worries for the rights of women as the ultra-conservative Taliban gain ground.

"Preserving the rights of women remains a paramount concern and must not be used as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table," she said.

In the same forum, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, stressed that the world would not accept the Taliban seizing control of Kabul and the government.

"The world will not recognize the establishment in Afghanistan of any government imposed by force, nor the restoration of the Islamic Emirate," Thomas-Greenfield said.

"There is only one way forward: a negotiated and inclusive political settlement through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process. "

UN Afghan envoy Deborah Lyons alarmed at Taliban gains


Tue, June 22, 2021

Afghan security forces said they would launch an offensive to reclaim lost territory

Taliban fighters have seized dozens of districts in Afghanistan as they step up attacks during the final withdrawal by foreign troops, the UN has warned.

The insurgents have taken more than 50 of 370 districts since May, UN special envoy Deborah Lyons told the Security Council, warning of "dire scenarios".

She said increased conflict "means increased insecurity for many other countries, near and far".


The US and Nato are still aiming for a complete troop pullout by 11 September.

However, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the situation remained "dynamic" and, although the Taliban gains had not changed the withdrawal, there was still the flexibility to alter its "pace and scope".

The hardline Islamist group's recent advances were the result of an "intensified military campaign", Ms Lyons told the the 15-member UN Security Council in New York.

The Taliban have stepped up their military campaign now foreign troops are leaving for good

"Those districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn."

The Taliban also captured Afghanistan's main border crossing with Tajikistan on Tuesday, officials said. The crossing stands in the northern province of Kunduz, where fighting has escalated in recent days.


'We have won the war, America has lost'


Have things got better in Afghanistan?


Who are the Taliban?

Taliban fighters say they have control of the whole province, with only the provincial capital - also named Kunduz - retained by the government. But the defence ministry in Kabul said Afghan forces had recaptured some districts and operations were ongoing.

Kunduz city is strategically significant, and briefly fell to the insurgents in 2015 and again a year later, before being retaken both times by Nato-backed government forces.

Afghan security forces pictured in the strategic city of Kunduz

Local media report that the Taliban have also seized large quantities of military equipment, and killed, wounded or captured dozens of troops. The group's own casualty figures are unclear.

Afghan security forces said they would launch a massive offensive shortly to reclaim lost territory.

"You will soon witness our advances across the country," said spokesman Gen Ajmal Shinwari.

US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in October 2001. The group had been harbouring Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the 9/11 attacks in the US.

US President Joe Biden says the American pullout is now justified as US forces have made sure Afghanistan cannot again become a base for foreign jihadists to plot against the West.

A senior United Nations official warned last year, however, that al-Qaeda was still "heavily embedded" within Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says government forces are fully capable of keeping insurgents at bay, but many believe the withdrawal could cast Afghanistan back into the grip of the Taliban.

How can the West fight terror after leaving Afghanistan?

20 years in Afghanistan: Was it worth it?

Mr Biden has pledged that the US will continue to support Afghanistan after pulling troops out, but not "militarily".

Afghanistan's leaders say Afghan security forces are capable of keeping the Taliban's fighters at bay

Writing in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said his country was willing to be a "partner for peace in Afghanistan" with the US, but would not host US bases.

He said Pakistan had previously made mistakes by choosing between warring parties in neighbouring Afghanistan, and pledged to work with anyone who enjoyed the confidence of the Afghan people.

Afghan leaders have long accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban. The country's co-operation is seen as critical to US withdrawal goals.

Mr Khan said recently that he would "absolutely not" allow the CIA into Pakistan to conduct cross-border counter-terrorism missions against al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group or the Taliban.

Taliban launch major offensives in northern Afghanistan


Afghan Commando forces are seen at the site of a battle field where they clash with the Taliban insurgent in Kunduz province

Tue, June 22, 2021

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents have conducted a wave of offensives in Afghanistan's north in recent days, moving beyond their southern strongholds as international forces withdraw.

The United Nations' envoy for Afghanistan said the Taliban had taken more than 50 of 370 districts and was positioned to take control of provincial capitals.

Fierce fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces has taken place on the outskirts of three provincial capitals in the northern provinces of Faryab, Balkh and Kunduz provinces in recent days, officials said.

Since the United States announced plans in April to withdraw its troops with no conditions by Sept. 11 after nearly 20 years of conflict, violence has escalated throughout the country as the Taliban seeks more territory.

Peace talks in Doha have largely stalled, officials say, though there have been meetings in recent days and the Taliban say they are committed to talks.

The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons urged the Security Council to do all it could to push the parties back to the negotiating table.

"Increased conflict in Afghanistan means increased insecurity for many other countries, near and far," she said.

The latest surge in the north is outside the Taliban's traditional strongholds in southern districts such as Helmand and Kandahar where major fighting had previously taken place.

"The Taliban's strategy is to make inroads and have a strong presence in the northern region of the country that long resisted the insurgent group," said a senior Afghan security official on condition of anonymity.

"They would face less resistance in other parts of the country where they have more influence and presence."

Local officials in Kunduz said the Taliban on Tuesday seized Shir Khan port, a commercial local town situated on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Ghulam Rabbani, a provincial council member, said fighting was also ongoing outside Kunduz's provincial capital and people were fleeing the city. The defence ministry said Afghan forces had recaptured key districts from the Taliban in Kunduz and operations were ongoing.

Local officials and Taliban members said the Taliban had reached the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh's capital, on Monday evening before retreating.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group's leadership had asked fighters to return after they reached the entrance of Mazar-i-Sharif as their top leadership did not want to seize provinces until all U.S. forces had left.

The United States began withdrawing troops on May 1 and has handed some bases over to the Afghan government, which has since given up some areas to the Taliban without a fight.

The government admits the Taliban have captured a number of districts and security forces have made "tactical retreats".

The crumbling morale of Afghan forces has raised fears of a Taliban military take over once the withdrawal of foreign forces is complete.

The security official said the government was not abandoning areas to the Taliban, but was retreating from some districts temporarily for tactical reasons as they sought to preserve stretched resources.

"Fighting has fiercely increased in recent weeks and now our main focus is to hold strategic areas and not to further stretch our forces," he said.

(Reporting by Kabul bureau; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York, Berlin bureau and Pakistan newsroom; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

US may slow Afghanistan withdrawal as Taliban win series of victories

Ben Farmer
Tue, June 22, 2021, 

Afghan Commando forces are seen at the site of a battle field where they clash with the Taliban insurgent in Kunduz province, Afghanistan June 22, 2021. REUTERS

America could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan amid rapid battlefield gains by the Taliban which have raised alarm in Nato capitals, the Pentagon said.

Ashraf Ghani's forces have been swept out of many rural areas since the insurgents launched a nationwide offensive at the start of May.

Joe Biden has promised all US troops will be out of Afghanistan by September, but in recent weeks officials had briefed that the pull out was ahead of schedule and could be complete as early as July.


John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman, said September remained the deadline and the pace could be adjusted by conditions.

"The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taliban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centres as well as the violence, which is still too high," he told reporters.

Afghan security forces have reportedly been surrendering in large number - Reuters

“If there needs to be changes made to the pace, or to the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that," he said.

"We're constantly taking a look at this, every single day: what's the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan and at what pace."

"All of these decisions are literally being made in real time," he added.

Afghanistan's main border crossing with Tajikistan was on Tuesday one of the Taliban's latest gains.

We are seeing mass surrenders of Afghan security forces," Kabul-based journalist Bilal Sarwary told the BBC. The Taliban have shared videos on their WhatsApp channels and websites showing government soldiers surrendering and being told to go home.

The onslaught had taken 50 of 370 districts in Afghanistan since May according to the United Nations special envoy.

Deborah Lyons told the U.N. Security Council that the announcement earlier this year that foreign troops would withdraw sent a "seismic tremor" through Afghanistan.

"Those districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn," the former Canadian diplomat said.

The seizure of Shir Khan Bandar, about 30 miles from Kunduz city, came a day after the Taliban had encircled the city.

"Unfortunately this morning and after an hour of fighting the Taliban captured Shir Khan port and the town and all the border check posts with Tajikistan," said Kunduz provincial council member Khaliddin Hakmi.

Separately, an army officer told AFP: "We were forced to leave all check posts... and some of our soldiers crossed the border into Tajikistan."

America has already turned over several of its last remaining bases to the Afghan forces and generals say more than half of the last stage of withdrawal is complete.

Mr Kirby said US forces continued to support Afghan troops in fighting the Taliban, but that would soon no longer be possible.

"So long as we have the capability in Afghanistan, we will continue to provide assistance to Afghan forces," he said

"But as the retrograde gets closer to completion, those capabilities will wane and will no longer be available."

New Zealand's Hubbard is first transgender weightlifter to compete at Olympics

Issued on: 22/06/2021 

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will become the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics at Tokyo 2020 © ADRIAN DENNIS AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES


Laurel Hubbard hefted 628 pounds (285 kilograms) in two lifts on the way to qualifying in the women’s super-heavyweight division for the Tokyo Olympics.

That's heavy. But it's nowhere near the figurative weight Hubbard has carried to become the first transgender athlete to compete at an Olympic Games.

Hubbard was among five weightlifters confirmed Monday in New Zealand's team for Tokyo. At 43, she will also be the oldest weightlifter at the games, and will be ranked fourth in the competition on Aug. 2 for women 87 kilograms (192 pounds) and over.

Hubbard won a silver medal at the 2017 world championships and gold in the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa. She competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games but sustained a serious injury that set back her career.

“I am grateful and humbled by the kindness and support that has been given to me by so many New Zealanders,” Hubbard said in a statement. “When I broke my arm at the Commonwealth Games three years ago, I was advised that my sporting career had likely reached its end. But your support, your encouragement, and your aroha (love) carried me through the darkness.


“The last eighteen months has shown us all that there is strength in kinship, in community, and in working together towards a common purpose. The mana of the silver fern comes from all of you and I will wear it with pride."

The additional burden Hubbard has had to carry is that her efforts have made her a flashpoint in the debate around the fairness of trans athletes competing in women’s events. She has faced anger, scorn and ridicule, and has been directly criticized by some opponents.

Competing as Gavin Hubbard, her birth name, Hubbard set national records in junior competition and had a best, combined snatch and clean and jerk total of 300 kilograms (661 pounds).

Hubbard transitioned eight years ago at the age of 35. She has since met all of the requirements of the International Olympic Committee’s regulations for trans athletes and fair competition.

The IOC policy specifies conditions under which those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the female category.

Among them is that the athlete has declared that her gender identity is female and that the declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.

The athlete must also demonstrate that her total testosterone level is below a specific measurement for at least 12 months prior to her first competition.

Hubbard met those standards.

The IOC policy also states: “the overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition.”

Yet some within the weightlifting community argue the policy does not guarantee fair competition. The determining criteria — a maximum reading of 10 nanomoles per liter of testosterone — is as least five times more than a biological woman.

Belgium's Anna Vanbellinghen, who will likely compete against Hubbard, said the New Zealander's presence would be “like a bad joke” for women competitors.

“I am aware that defining a legal frame for transgender participation in sports is very difficult since there is an infinite variety of situations and that reaching an entirely satisfactory solution, from either side of the debate, is probably impossible,” Vanbellinghen has said. “However, anyone that has trained weightlifting at a high level knows this to be true in their bones: This particular situation is unfair to the sport and to the athletes.

“Life-changing opportunities are missed for some athletes — medals and Olympic qualifications — and we are powerless. Of course, this debate is taking place in a broader context of discrimination against transgender people and that is why the question is never free of ideology.”

Similar sentiments have been expressed by other athletes and weightlifting officials, who claim Hubbard has a natural advantage in terms of physiology and strength.

But New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive Kereyn Smith said it's clear Hubbard has met all the criteria to compete in Tokyo.

“We acknowledge that gender identity in sport is a highly sensitive and complex issue requiring a balance between human rights and fairness on the field of play," Smith said. "As the New Zealand team, we have a strong culture of manaaki (hospitality) and inclusion and respect for all.

"We are committed to supporting all eligible New Zealand athletes and ensuring their mental and physical wellbeing, along with their high-performance needs, while preparing for and competing at the Olympic Games are met.”

Hubbard, whose father is a wealthy cereal manufacturer who became mayor of New Zealand’s largest city, seldom grants media interviews.

In 2017, she explained her approach to the criticism she faces on sporting and moral grounds to the New Zealand news website Stuff.

“All you can do is focus on the task at hand and if you keep doing that it will get you through,” Hubbard told Stuff. “I’m mindful I won’t be supported by everyone but I hope that people can keep an open mind and perhaps look at my performance in a broader context.

“Perhaps the fact that it has taken so long for someone like myself to come through indicates that some of the problems that people are suggesting aren’t what they might seem.”

(AP)

Raiders' Nassib comes out on Instagram, becomes first publicly gay NFL player

Issued on: 22/06/2021 - 02:31

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib celebrates at the end of the game against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, U.S. November 8, 2020. © USA TODAY Sports - USA Today Sports Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo

Text by: NEWS WIRES


Las Vegas Raiders' defensive end Carl Nassib said on Monday he was gay, making him the first active National Football League player to come out publicly.

"I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay," Nassib, 28, said in a video he posted to Instagram. "I've been meaning to do this for a while now but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest," he said.

Nassib added: "I'm a pretty private person so I hope you guys know that I'm not doing this for attention. I just think that representation and visibility are so important."

"I hope that one day videos like this and the whole coming out process are just not necessary."

In an effort to cultivate a more accepting and compassionate culture, he said he was donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention service for LGBT+ youth in the United States.

Nassib played at Penn State before being drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the third round of the 2016 draft. He played for the Browns and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before signing with the Raiders ahead of the 2020 season.

(REUTERS)

Raiders' Carl Nassib has top-selling NFL jersey after coming out as gay



Shawna Chen
Tue, June 22, 2021


In this article:
Carl Nassib
|DE|#94

Las Vegas Raiders player Carl Nassib is the top-selling NFL jersey across the Fanatics network after becoming the first active NFL player in history to come out as gay, ESPN reported Tuesday.

Why it matters: The popularity of Nassib's jersey signals overwhelming support for the player, who said he was coming out now because "representation and visibility are so important."

Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free


The vast majority NFL players who are in the LGBTQ community are closeted due to fear that their identity will negatively impact their career, former NFL player Ryan O'Callaghan told Reuters in 2019.


Worth noting: Nassib said he will be donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention service for LGBTQ youth in the U.S.

Hitler’s ‘war of annihilation’: Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on

Issued on: 21/06/2021

Picture released on June 22, 1941 of Soviet rocket launchers as Nazis attacked the USSR. © AFP Archives

Text by:Stéphanie TROUILLARD|Tom WHEELDON

Perhaps the most pivotal moment in the Second World War took place on June 22, 1941 when Nazi Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union – shocking the world and striking fear into Joseph Stalin’s heart, but sowing the seeds of Adolf Hitler’s downfall. FRANCE 24 looks back at Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on.

One of the most striking eyewitness testimonies from this extraordinary outburst of militarised violence – in which some five million people were killed in 200 days – comes from German soldier Alexander Cohrs: “Two villages were burning in front of us. Civilians were completely taken by surprise; they didn’t have time to flee. The most horrific images was a three-year-old child lying in the middle of the road with half its head missing.” *

Barbarossa shattered the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR signed in August 1939. Stalin was shocked; he had received a plethora of warnings of an imminent invasion – notably from Winston Churchill, informed by British intelligence briefings. The communist dictator had refused to believe them.

“It’s got to be a provocation from the German generals,” he told senior Soviet officials in the early hours of June 22. “I’m sure Hitler isn’t aware of this.” *

Hitler felt the need to act one year to the day after the French Armistice because his previous strategy – to knock the UK out of the war – had failed. After the Royal Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe in the 1940 Battle of Britain and Churchill had made it clear that the UK would remain a thorn in Hitler’s side, the Nazi dictator turned his attention to the USSR.

“Britain remaining in the war after the Fall of France effectively tore up Hitler’s strategy, so he had to devise a new plan – conquering the USSR to achieve his dream of German Lebensraum,” explained Jean Lopez, co-author of Barbarossa : 1941, La Guerre Absolue.

 

Wehrmacht Panzer III tanks in Poland ahead of Operation Barbarossa. © Bundesarchiv, Wikimedia

A shocked Stalin hesitates

Hitler had already expounded upon this concept of German “living space” carved out in Eastern Europe in Mein Kampf – but his failure to defeat Britain gave it a new impetus. “He wanted to use Lebensraum so he could successfully wage a long war against the UK and the US, because the Third Reich did not have enough resources without seizing those of the USSR,” Lopez put it.

More immediate geostrategic considerations in Eastern Europe also motivated Hitler, noted Richard Overy, professor of history at Exeter University and the author of numerous books on the Second World War including Russia’s War.

“Soviet expansion into the Baltic States, Romania and Poland, followed by requests in November 1940 for influence in Bulgaria and the Turkish Straits made clear to Hitler that Stalin posed a serious strategic threat, which had to be eliminated,” Overy said.

“The Soviet Union was also the home of Jewish-Bolshevism [a conspiracist canard at the heart of Nazi ideology] so that defeating Soviet forces would also eliminate the threat from communism hanging over Germany and Europe,” Overy continued. Hitler used a “cocktail of motives” at various points to “convince himself of the necessity and justice of war”.

Surprising their enemy played to the Nazis’ advantage as a flabbergasted Stalin floundered. “He spent a few hours hesitating, wondering if it was a real invasion, an attempt to force negotiations, or a mere provocation,” Lopez recounted.

Consequently, Soviet forces suffered colossal losses while the Wehrmacht tore into the USSR. Millions of soldiers were surrounded, stripped of supplies and forced to surrender.

The Stalinist regime also menaced Soviet troops. The fearsome secret police, the NKVD, was ordered to shoot dead any soldier suspected of “cowardice” – while people suspected of lacking patriotism were sent away for forced labour.

German soldiers drive down a road near Proujany, Belarus, June 1941. © Wikimedia

Grinding Wehrmacht down

Conditions on the frontline were brutal as 10 million men, 30,000 planes and 25,000 tanks clashed in a gigantic fight to the death. “Fanatics would shoot at us until the roofs collapsed over their heads and buried them in rubble,” German soldier Hans Rother remembered the fighting in Ukraine.*

It is a myth that the Wehrmacht was rampantly successful until the famous turning point at Stalingrad from August 1942 to February 1943, Overy said: “The Red Army was poorly prepared at the frontier and it proved very difficult to establish a solid or co-ordinated line of defence. Important tactical and technical differences maximised the impact of the German attack – for example, Soviet aircraft and tanks lacked radio communication; infantry tactics were also inept in 1941 and improved only later.

“German forces, however, soon ran into logistical difficulties, had to spend much time clearing up pockets of resistance from by-passed Red Army soldiers, and suffered from strategic confusion at Hitler’s HQ,” Overy continued. “There was enough of a difference to bring big early victories, but by November/December the hope for victory in a few weeks or months was completely dashed, and the momentum was never recovered.”

“There wasn’t a turning point as such; rather, a continuing process of wear-and-tear ground the Wehrmacht down,” Lopez added.

Masha Bruskina, a nurse and member of the Soviet resistance, is led through the streets of Minsk, Belarus, before she is hung on October 26, 1941. She was made carry a sign bearing the inscription "We are the partisans who shoot German soldiers". © Bundesarchiv, Wikimedia

A new stage in the Holocaust

Barbarossa failed because of fierce resistance from an enemy Nazi ideology had misleadingly cast as inherently weaker – as well as the logistical difficulties of invading Russia’s vast territories, especially in winter (the same problem that had cursed Napoléon Bonaparte’s invasion in 1812). But the Nazis’ cruelty to local populations also undermined Barbarossa.

Some people in occupied territories greeted the Wehrmacht as liberators from Soviet oppression. But this was soon revealed to be an illusion. German forces’ brutality against civilians became part of daily life. Millions of Soviet prisoners of war died because of horrific conditions in death marches from the frontline and in forced labour camps.

“Hitler launched a war of annihilation,” said Marie Moutier-Bitan, a historian specialising in the Holocaust and author of Les Champs de la Shoah. “Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command Wilhelm Keitel signed a decree on May 13, 1941 granting preventive amnesty for any crimes allegedly committed by German soldiers against civilians in Soviet territory. This decree also gave army officers the freedom to launch campaigns of reprisal and repression against civilians in response to the slightest suspicion, without any prior investigation.”

Operation Barbarossa marked a new stage in the Holocaust, as Jews were the prime target for German soldiers’ mass killings. “Pogroms and the Holocaust by bullets gathered pace during the invasion,” Moutier-Bitan recounted. “The SS Einsatzgruppen were tasked with eliminating the Nazis’ political opponents and Jews suspected of supporting the Soviet regime – but soon they started shooting large sections of the Jewish population.” More than 500,000 Jews were murdered between June 22 and the end of 1941 on territory captured in Operation Barbarossa.

Invading the USSR was just the very beginning of the end for Hitler. While Barbarossa was the act of hubris leading to the nemesis that brought down Nazism, the tide only turned decisively against Hitler when the USSR triumphed at Stalingrad amid unspeakable conditions and the British smashed Erwin Rommel’s forces at El Alamein in November 1942. Even after those Allied victories, it was more than two and a half years of death and suffering before the Soviet soldiers raised the red flag over the Reichstag, surrounded by the smoke and ruins of an exhausted, defeated Berlin.

* Quoted in Barbarossa : 1941, La Guerre Absolue by Jean Lopez and Lasha Otkhmezuri.

80 years ago, Hitler picked a fight that may have cost him World War II

Benjamin Brimelow
Tue, June 22, 2021

German troops in the Soviet Union in 1941. US National Archives


Early on June 22, 1941, the largest invasion in the history of warfare kicked off.


Millions of Axis troops crossed into the Soviet Union, marking the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.


Germans troops made it to the gates of Moscow, but the invasion was ultimately Adolf Hitler's undoing.

Just after 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in the history of warfare.

Over 3.5 million Axis troops, along with more than 3,400 tanks and 2,700 aircraft, blitzed across the 1,800-mile border separating the Axis powers from the Soviet Union.

Believing the Red Army to be weak because of its failures in Poland and Finland and because Josef Stalin's purges had largely rid it of competent leaders, Adolf Hitler reportedly told his generals, "We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

German troops with an infantry support gun crossing the Soviet border during Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. Johannes Hähle

The Germans divided their forces into three Army Groups.

The immediate objectives were for Army Group North to drive through the Baltic and take Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), while Army Group South would attack into Ukraine and take Kyiv and the Donets Basin.

Army Group Center, the largest of the three, would push through Minsk and Smolensk to take Moscow.

The ultimate goal was to conquer everything west of the A-A Line, a boundary between the cities of Arkhangelsk, on the White Sea near Russia's present-day border with Finland, and Astrakhan, on the Volga River near the Caspian Sea.

The area west of this line held the majority of the Soviet Union's population, infrastructure, and factories, which meant controlling it was tantamount to conquering the Soviet Union. German planners believed the entire operation would take only three months.

Stalin was warned repeatedly by military and intelligence officials that a German invasion appeared imminent in 1941, but he refused to act for fear of provoking the Germans.

Soviet and German planes destroyed on the ground during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Polish Archives

On the first day of the invasion, the Soviet air force lost more than 1,200 planes, most destroyed before they could get off the ground.

The damage was so severe that Maj. Gen. Ivan Kopets, commander of Soviet air forces on the Western Front, killed himself after observing the damage to his airfields.

The situation was just as bad for the Red Army. Its roughly 10,000 mostly outdated T-26 and BT-7 tanks were largely ineffective. German panzer groups punched through unprepared and weak Soviet lines, surrounding entire armies.

In little more than a week, Army Group Center had advanced 200 miles and had captured 300,000 Soviet soldiers in the Bialystock-Minsk pocket. By the end of July, it took Smolensk and captured another 300,000 Soviet soldiers.

Gen. Franz Halder, the chief of staff for the German Army High Command, wrote in his diary, "I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the campaign against Russia has been won in fourteen days."

'Resistance, permanent resistance'

Heinrich Himmler inspecting a prisoner-of-war camp in the Soviet Union in 1941. US National Archives

The Soviets launched desperate counterattacks to halt the German onslaught.

On its way to Kyiv, Army Group South ran into a massive force of more than 3,000 tanks near the Ukrainian city of Brody. But after a week of fighting, the Soviet force was virtually destroyed.

Army Group North was also running into counterattacks. At the Lithuanian town of Raseiniai, one lone Soviet heavy tank managed to slow the Wehrmacht's progress for a few days before being destroyed with almost all its crew.

The Soviets did have more modern tanks like the T-34 medium and KV-1 and KV-2 heavy tanks that proved to be almost impossible to kill. But they were few, and the Luftwaffe, with almost complete air superiority, methodically destroyed the Soviet supply lines needed to keep them running.

A German tracked vehicle crossing a stream in a Soviet village in 1941. Bundesarchiv/Bild 146-1982-184-32/CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Wehrmacht kept up its advance. In the south, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt encircled two Soviet armies in the Uman pocket, capturing 103,000 more prisoners by August 8. The Romanians and Germans also started laying siege to Odessa.

Though Soviet counterattacks were largely futile, with thousands of tanks destroyed or abandoned and even more soldiers killed, captured, or wounded, they drained Germany's reserves and strained supply lines.

One German soldier reportedly wrote, "We have no sensation of entering a defeated country, as we had in France. Instead we have resistance, permanent resistance, no matter how hopeless it is."

German infantry and armored vehicles during street fighting in Kharkov on October 25, 1941. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L20582/Schmidt/CC-BY-SA 3.0

By mid-July, a nervous Hitler was worried that Army Group Center was overextending itself and was out of sync with Army Groups North and South.

As a result, Hitler issued Directive Number 33, changing the objectives of the operation. Instead of pushing to Moscow, Army Group Center's panzer groups were diverted to Army Groups North and South to help capture Leningrad and Kiev, respectively.

The generals of Army Group Center were furious. They were less than 200 miles from Moscow and believed delaying the assault would drag the operation into the dreaded Russian winter. But Hitler was adamant, and the panzers were diverted.

Soviet planes flying over Nazi positions near Moscow in December 1941. RIA Novosti archive, image #2564/Samaryi Guraryi/CC-BY-SA 3.0

While Army Group Center fended off multiple counterattacks, Gen. Heinz Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group, along with Army Group South's 1st Panzer Group, attacked the area around Kyiv, trapping almost the entire Soviet Southwestern Front.

More than 450,000 Soviets were taken prisoner in what became the largest encirclement in history.

With the northern and southern flanks deemed secure, the Germans finally attacked Moscow. They had initial success, encircling Soviet forces in the Vyazma and Bryansk pockets, capturing more than 500,000 prisoners.

But by the time the Germans began their drive to Moscow in October, the seasons had caught up with them. Rains turned roads and battlefields into vast stretches of mud.

Supplies were having difficulty reaching the front. German losses - especially among critical panzer groups - were mounting. With November came the winter.
'We underestimated the Russian colossus'

German infantry in winter camouflage, some carrying MP-40 submachine gun, in a village east of Volkhov in the Soviet Union in November 1941. Polish National Digital Archives

Operation Barbarossa was now five months into what was supposed to be a three-month campaign. By their own calculations, the Germans should have reached the A-A Line and destroyed the Red Army.

But despite unparalleled losses, the Red Army was actually growing. At the start of the war, it was 5 million men. By the end of December, it had grown to 8 million.

This was unexpected. Halder even wrote, "It stands out more and more clearly that we underestimated the Russian colossus." If the Germans destroyed a dozen Russian divisions, Halder wrote, "then the Russians put another dozen in their place."

It was clear that this was a war of attrition and that taking Moscow wasn't possible. On December 2, three days before the end of offensive operations, a German reconnaissance unit reached the suburb of Khimki, just 8 miles from Moscow and less than 20 miles from the Kremlin.

German soldiers digging out a panzer stuck in the snow somewhere in the Soviet Union in December 1941. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-215-0354-14/Gebauer/CC-BY-SA 3.0

Operation Barbarossa had failed. Hitler's prediction of a Soviet collapse proved grossly incorrect. Almost 200,000 of his best soldiers were killed and more than 500,000 wounded. The Germans lost more than 2,500 tanks and almost 3,000 aircraft.

Soviet casualties were appalling; well over 500,000 soldiers had been killed in action alone. Millions more were wounded or sick, and tens of thousands of planes and tanks had been destroyed.

The Germans captured 3.3 million soldiers, and by February 1942, 60% of them had died in camps - the first Soviet victims in an extermination campaign unleashed by Hitler.

The Red Army's continued counterattacks and offensives meant the Germany military never had less than 75% of its forces stationed on the Eastern Front. Hitler had led Germany into a two-front war that it did not have the resources or manpower to win.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The scholar speaking out on China's crackdown on intellectuals

Issued on: 20/06/2021 - 

Wu Qiang was fired from the prestigious Tsinghua university shortly after he conducted fieldwork at the Occupy Central protests in Hong Kong LEO RAMIREZ AFP


Beijing (AFP)

In a small, book-strewn apartment in Beijing's outskirts lives one of the last Chinese academics who refuses to be silenced by the ruling Communist Party's relentless crackdown on intellectuals.

Wu Qiang, 50, once had an enviable career as political science lecturer at the elite Tsinghua University.

But he was dismissed in 2015 after conducting fieldwork at the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong a year earlier.

"This caused shockwaves at Tsinghua. I was cut off and they thought I was a troublemaker," he said, adding that the university instead gave an "obscure technical reason" for his dismissal.

Since then, Wu continues to speak to foreign media despite a nationalistic climate that is increasingly hostile towards outside views.

He also filed a labour lawsuit against Tsinghua earlier this year.

"I am still protesting against Tsinghua's illegal dismissal, just like how I am still resisting in my thoughts and my comments on politics," says Wu, a stocky, energetic man who rattles through Chinese Communist Party history as his cats weave between his feet.

"It is very important not to stop speaking out. You need to comment on politics and society; that's how you participate in it," he said.

He remains an anomaly. Since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China's vibrant intellectual circles gradually fell silent as Party critics were arrested, fired from their institutions or forced to flee abroad.

"Ten years ago, perhaps every weekend in every corner there would be a large number of salons and meetings (in Beijing)," he said.#photo1

"But now, this wonderful scene does not exist anymore... everyone always talks about one issue when we meet: who's disappeared or been detained recently. Everyone is waiting to see who will be next."

In a sign of the sweeping changes to come, a leaked 2013 internal communique -- known as Document No. 9 -- warned against promoting "false ideological trends" such as constitutional democracy, civil society and press freedom.

It has been likened to a gag order for universities.

Intellectuals, NGOs, civil rights lawyers and liberal media were the first in line to be targeted by successive state-backed purges of dissent, which reached a peak in the 2015 nationwide "709 crackdown" when over 300 lawyers and human rights activists were arrested.

In the past year alone, influential business tycoon Ren Zhiqiang was jailed for 18 years and legal scholar Xu Zhangrun was detained and sacked from Tsinghua after writings that criticised Xi's response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Meanwhile, former Central Party School professor Cai Xia fled to the US and was expelled from the Party last summer, after a recording of a lecture surfaced in which she likened Xi to a "mafia boss".

- 'Taste of freedom' -

The silencing of dissent comes as China, having successfully tamed the coronavirus, flaunts an unprecedented level of confidence on the global stage, sparring with Western countries who view it as a strategic threat.

The ruling Chinese Comunist Party is also about to celebrate 100 years since its founding with triumph.

"The anniversary is, to a large degree, to celebrate how China avoided the fate of many other Communist parties in eastern Europe, as well as the Soviet Union, that collapsed after the Cold War," Wu said.

"(The party) wants to deeply intertwine the CCP's survival with China and the Chinese people, to establish a sense of historical legitimacy for future rulers."#photo2

Within China, public intellectuals who voice liberal opinions or engage with foreigners are frequently trolled by ultra-nationalists - while those with strident pro-China views are promoted by the state.

Wu decries the "intellectual poverty" of Chinese scholars, whose foreign contacts and research areas are increasingly subject to official approval, leaving them isolated from the international community and locked in internal squabbles.

"Like how labourers derive meaning and self-actualisation through work ... my comments are my labour and the source of my fulfilment," Wu said.

"My generation experienced political opening and the short-lived freedom of 1989," he continued, referring to the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended with hundreds of students massacred by the army.

"You only need to have tasted freedom once to not give it up."

© 2021 AFP

Blue crabs: Alien stowaways in the Mediterranean

Issued on: 18/06/2021

By: Mairead DUNDAS

Pierre LEMARINIER|Antonia KERRIGAN|Julia GUGGENHEIM

Valérie DEKIMPE|Marie-Claire IDE

A captivating crustacean and a ferocious predator: in this edition we discover a transatlantic invader that's taking no prisoners in its quest for domination. Safe from its natural predators on the Atlantic coast of North America, the blue crab devours everything in its path, dealing a painful blow to an already fragile ecosystem.

Hitching a ride on boats

The blue crab is just one of around 900 alien species that have set up home in the Mediterranean Sea. They arrive here from foreign lands, often hitching a ride on boats. When shipping vessels leave a port they suck up water to help stabilise their load, known as ballast water, but also take with them a host of microorganisms, algae and fish eggs. This water is then released, along with its contents, when the boat reaches its destination. It's believed that the blue crab found its way to Europe in this way.

Biologist Pascal Romans points out that in an already polluted and overexploited sea, newcomers like the blue crab often prosper and flourish at the expense of the locals.

Fishermen to the rescue

The blue crab hasn't won yet, though, and fisherman Christophe Guinot is determined to preserve the biodiversity that has been key to his family’s livelihood for generations. While the species can never be eliminated from the Mediterranean, it can be controlled.

His answer? Fishing. Instead of the sustainable fishing encouraged for other species, the crab must be systematically removed and prevented from reproducing.

Global effort to control bio invasions

By the year 2024, the vast majority of boats in the world will be required to install systems that avoid the transfer of new species via ballast water.

Xavier Deval from BIO SEA oversees one technique that involves filtering the water and then passing it through UV lighting to neutralise the microorganisms. It's hoped that such measures will significantly reduce the quantity of this unwanted and potentially dangerous cargo.