Sierra Leone abolishes the death penalty

BEFORE THE USA DOES

Sierra Leone's president said he would sign the abolition of capital punishment, fulfilling a personal campaign pledge. Some 99 people in the country are currently sitting on death row.



Sierra Leone's 1991 constitution had allowed the use of the death penalty for aggravated robbery, murder, treason and mutiny

Lawmakers in Sierra Leone voted on Friday to abolish the death penalty, becoming the latest African country to ban the practice.

Sierra Leone's 1991 constitution had allowed the use of the death penalty for aggravated robbery, murder, treason and mutiny.

After Friday's vote, capital punishment will now be replaced with life imprisonment or a minimum 30-year jail term.

The move to end the death penalty will affect some 99 people who were sitting on death row as of June 2021.

'An affront to civilized society'

Although no execution has been carried out in Sierra Leone since 1998, with death sentences often commuted, the country had frequently come under fire from rights groups for not completely abolishing the practice.

"Today, I have fulfilled a governance pledge to permanently abolish the death penalty in Sierra Leone. I thank citizens, members of Parliament, development partners, and rights groups that have steadfastly stood with us to make history," President Julius Maada Bio said on Twitter.

The diamond-rich former British colony has been ravaged by poverty and a 1991-2002 civil war that claimed 120,000 lives. In 2006, a truth and reconciliation commission set up to investigate the conflict had called for abolishing the death penalty, saying it was "an affront to civilized society."
Death penalty in decline in Africa

According to Amnesty International, some 108 countries across the world had completely abolished the death penalty by the end of 2020, while 144 had abolished it in law or in practice.

Two other countries in Africa abolished the death penalty recently; Malawi banned it in April this year, while Chad ended the practice last year.

In practice, capital punishment is on the decline in Sub-Saharan Africa, with recorded death sentences falling by 6%, from 325 in 2019 to 305 last year, while executions were down 36%, falling from 25 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.

jcg/sri (AFP, Reuters)

Watch video 02:35 Child marriage on the rise in Sierra Leone

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Amnesty 'categorically' backs Pegasus findings amid denials

An Indian minister has slammed the leaked surveillance list as "fake news." Kazakhstan said there was no "evidence" and Morocco said it planned to sue, as the Pegasus fallout showed no signs of easing up.

 

Amnesty is standing by the findings of the Pegasus project

Amnesty International stood by its investigation over governmental abuse of spyware on Friday, as countries continued rushing to dispute the claims made.

The deputy head of Kazakhstan's presidential administration, Dauren Abayev, said media reports on the list of targets leaked to rights groups were no more than "rather intriguing information without any evidence."

A federal minister in the External Affairs Ministry of India called the Pegasus list "fake news" and said the index, which includes hundreds of Indian politicians and journalists, is being used to undermine the democratic institutions of the country.

Meenakshi Lekhi, recently appointed as Minister of State, blamed opposition parties, many of whose members are on the leaked surveillance list.

And Morocco has instructed a lawyer to file a defamation case over the investigation.

But Amnesty released a statement saying it "categorically" stood by its investigation.

"The data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware. The false rumors being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlawful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pegasus Project has revealed," it said.

What is the Pegasus list?

The index identifies persons of interest to clients of Israeli spyware firm NSO. Those clients included governments from around the world, who, in turn, were able to gain access to information via a targeted individuals' mobile phone.

The software is able to switch on a phone's camera or microphone and harvest its data and is now at the center of a growing storm after a list of about 50,000 potential surveillance targets was leaked.

Amnesty, which led the investigation with Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based non-profit organization, shared its information with several media outlets, publishing the reports last weekend.

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, has changed his cellphone and number after a French media report said he was potentially targeted by the Pegasus spyware, a presidency official said Thursday. 

Global: Scale of secretive cyber surveillance 'an international human rights crisis' - new briefing

NSO Group is complicit, as their technology enabled violations revealed in the Pegasus Project

“This is a dangerous industry that has operated on the edges of legality for too long, and this cannot be allowed to continue” – Agnès Callamard

The vast scale of violations perpetrated through secretive cyber surveillance has exposed a global human rights crisis, Amnesty International warned today, in a new briefing published following the revelations of the Pegasus Project investigation.

The briefing, Uncovering the Iceberg: The Digital Surveillance Crisis Wrought by States and the Private Sector, reveals the devastating impact of the poorly-regulated spyware industry on human rights worldwide.  

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:

“In the last few days, the world has rightly been outraged by the systematic targeting of human rights activists, journalists and lawyers revealed by the Pegasus Project.

“Not only does it expose the risk and harm to those individuals unlawfully targeted, but also the extremely destabilising consequences on global human rights and the security of the digital environment at large.

“NSO Group is just one company. This is a dangerous industry that has operated on the edges of legality for too long, and this cannot be allowed to continue.

“Now, we urgently need greater regulation over the cyber surveillance industry, accountability for human rights violations and abuses, and greater oversight over this shadowy industry.”

State and corporate responsibility

For years, Amnesty has warned of the dangers to human rights posed by the  surveillance industry generally, and the specific cases of unlawful targeted surveillance facilitated by NSO Group specifically. 

States have binding obligations under international human rights law to protect human rights from abuse by third parties, including private companies that operate outside their borders. 

According to international legal standards, a company may be complicit in human rights violations if it meets two main criteria: that through its business activities it helped in the commission of the violation, and that the company knew or should have known that its acts would help in furthering the violation. 

It is clear that NSO technology enabled the violations revealed in the Pegasus Project, and especially given that targeting has been found linked to the same countries in which NSO has previously been found, a reasonable person ought to have known the abuses were likely.

Agnès Callamard added: “Private companies like NSO Group have shown they will flout their human rights responsibilities with impunity, all the while profiting from human rights abuse.

“By allowing NSO software to be used without taking adequate steps to protect our rights, states worldwide have allowed an unlawful system to flourish resulting in rampant human rights violations and abuses on a grand scale.

"The fact that world and other political leaders themselves may have come into the spyware technology’s crosshairs will hopefully serve as a long overdue wake-up call for them and states worldwide to step up and regulate this industry.

“If world leaders are being targeted in this way then it further confirms that everyone’s rights, including human rights activists, journalists and lawyers, are at risk.

“Meaningful control of the spyware industry is now urgently needed to stop further violations. All legal steps must be taken to unveil the full extent and nature of NSO complicity in human rights abuses.”

Amnesty is calling for an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology until there is a human rights-compliant regulatory framework in place.

NSO Group is licensed to export Pegasus software by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. Amnesty is calling on the Israeli government to revoke existing export licenses to NSO Group, given the risk its spyware could be used for human rights violations. In addition, NSO Group should immediately shut down clients’ systems where there is credible evidence of misuse.

Amnesty is also calling on NSO Group to publish a human rights compliant Transparency Report that discloses incidents of misuse of their products, destination countries, contracts, and other information necessary to fully investigate the possible occurrence of human rights abuses linked to their business.

Background

The Pegasus Project is a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organisations in 10 countries coordinated by Forbidden Stories, with the technical support of Amnesty who conducted cutting-edge forensic tests on mobile phones to identify traces of the spyware.

NSO Group has insisted that Pegasus software is legally used to “collect data from the mobile devices of specific suspected major criminals”. However, our recent investigation has proven that there is parallel use of the tool against civil society that is in clear violation of international human rights law.  

NSO Group’s targeted digital surveillance tool is inherently prone to human rights violations, given its design and the lack of checks in place to ensure its proper deployment. States have wilfully used Pegasus to unlawfully target individuals, completely violating their right to privacy.

Pegasus severely impacts the right to privacy by design: it is surreptitious, particularly intrusive, and has the capacity to collect and deliver an unlimited selection of personal and private data.

NSO Group has not taken adequate action to stop the use of its tools for unlawful targeted surveillance of activists, lawyers and journalists, despite the fact that it either knew, or arguably ought to have known, that this was taking place.

NSO Group said in a series of statements that it “firmly denies… false claims” in the report. It wrote that the consortium’s reporting was based on “wrong assumptions” and “uncorroborated theories”, and reiterated that the company was on a “life-saving mission”. A fuller summary of NSO Group’s response is available here.

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GERMANY
The history of Nord Stream

The Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany has caused much transatlantic strife in its two-decade history. But Angela Merkel's dogged separation of trade and politics won out in the end.


Schröder (far left), French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Merkel, Medvedev, and others open the Nord Stream pipe in 2011

Ten days before the German election in 2005, as the race between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel was reaching its climax, the chancellor decided to hold a meeting with a man who had become a good friend: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As Die Zeit newspaper reported at the time, there was a very good reason why Schröder had decided to leave the heat of campaigning just before the election: He was no longer sure he was going to win, and he had some urgent business to sort out that he did not trust his successor to get done.

An idea that had first been floated in the mid-1990s was therefore finally sealed on September 8, 2005, with the joint declaration of intent signed by the German and Russian heads of government. There would be a new natural gas pipeline running directly from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing all the transit countries that had been irritating Russia with their demands up till then. Russia would now be free of the transport fees charged by Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic nations for the pipelines crossing their territory — and also of the leverage those countries might have over Russia.

Schröder promptly lost the election, and a few days after his chancellorship ended, he joined the board of directors of the pipeline's new operating company, which would soon be renamed Nord Stream. "This is, so to speak, a baby of the special friendship between Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin," as Anna Kuchenbecker, senior director and strategic partnership specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), put it.

Some describe Nord Stream as a project 'born of this friendship'

Complex motivations

So it was left to Schröder's successor to oversee the completion of the project, though the ensuing diplomatic strife appears to have been worth it, because it was under Merkel's tenure that the project was doubled in 2015, with the beginning of Nord Stream 2.

The two pipelines represent a vast undertaking. Nord Stream is now the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world, stretching 1,224 kilometers (760 miles) from the northern German town of Greifswald to the Russian port of Narva Bay. The first pipe was inaugurated in 2011, and pumps 55 billion cubic meters (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas to Europe every year. The second project, Nord Stream 2, began construction in 2018 and was completed this year, doubling that capacity.

For Germany, the economic benefits are not as obvious as they are for Russia, but still real enough. Industry leaders could rely on a steady energy supply (some feared that Ukraine's infrastructure might not hold up), and the German energy companies who took part, like E.ON, were rewarded with excellent relations to Gazprom and so the hope of being involving the exploitation of natural gas in Siberia.

Watch video04:24 German transatlantic coordinator: Nord Stream 2 deal a 'good sign'

Diplomatic headaches

But it came with strife for Germany — especially the security concerns of Ukraine and the Baltic nations, and the ties with the US. For Sascha Lohmann, a researcher in transatlantic relations at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the Nord Stream story has always been tied to the US perception of Russia as a threat.

"On the US side what has remained constant is the perception that the potential to use this economic interdependence as a weapon has been there since the early days of the Cold War, and basically hasn't changed," he told DW.

In the early 2000s, however, German politicians had developed a contrary, more liberal theory — that more economic interdependence between Russia and western Europe would create peace in the long run. As trade increased, democracy would inevitably prevail.

That notion was debunked in the second decade of the 21st century. In 2012, Putin switched roles again with the more liberal Dmitry Medvedev and returned to the Russian presidency. Then in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, sparking a war in eastern Ukraine. The subsequent decimation of Russia's opposition and human rights activists have only underlined this new approach. That changed western attitudes, most notably in the US Congress. "Congress became much more active after the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine," said Lohmann.

The US attitude to Nord Stream has been guided by its perception of Russia as a threat

While both the administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump were reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia, Congress "was in the driving seat" on US sanctions policy, said Lohmann. "What has changed is the threat perception of Russia among the policy-makers in Washington," he said.

Idealism out, compartmentalization in

Against the increasing threat of US sanctions, it seems odd then that Merkel's administration blessed the deal to build Nord Stream 2 in June 2015. "I find that actually harder to explain than Nord Stream 1," said Kuchenbecker. But by then, too, Germany had potentially more acute energy worries: the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan in 2011 precipitated the country's decision to phase out nuclear power.

"I also think that in Merkel's politics, in light of the role of Germany as a super-export nation, also pushed for so-called compartmentalization — the idea that trade and politics should be separated," added Kuchenbecker.

On top of that, while Obama was in power, Merkel had a friend in the White House who could be counted on not to push too hard against Nord Stream 2. That changed with the openly hostile attitude adopted by Donald Trump and his ambassador in Germany, Richard Grenell, who in January 2019 went so far as to send threatening letters to German companies involved in the pipeline.

Merkel's stance since 2015 remained the same however: Nord Stream 2 might have geopolitical implications, but it was basically an economic project. And by and large, the latest compromise suggests that Germany's economic interests have prevailed.

‘The greatest honor’: Osaka lights Olympic cauldron

By ANDREW DAMPF






TOKYO (AP) — What a moment for Naomi Osaka. For the new Japan. For racial injustice. For female athletes. For tennis.

The four-time Grand Slam winner lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday.

It was a choice that could be appreciated worldwide: In Japan, of course, the country where Osaka was born and the nation that she plays for; in embattled Haiti because that’s where her father is from; and surely in the United States, because that’s where the globe’s highest-earning female athlete lives and where she has been outspoken about racial injustice.

Plus, everywhere in between, because Osaka is a superstar.

But she has often received an uncomfortable welcome in Japan because of her race, with her family having moved to the U.S. when she was 3. Her emergence as a top tennis player has challenged public attitudes about identity in a homogeneous culture that is being pushed to change.

It’s always a mystery until the last moment who gets the honor of lighting the cauldron.

Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui were among the baseball greats who took part in bringing the flame into the stadium. And in a country where baseball is the No. 1 sport, Osaka was not necessarily expected to be given the ultimate honor.

But there she was at the center of the stage when a staircase emerged, the cauldron opened atop a peak inspired by Mount Fuji and Osaka ascended with the Olympic and Japanese flags blowing in the breeze off to her left. She dipped the flame in, the cauldron ignited and fireworks filled the sky.

“Undoubtedly the greatest athletic achievement and honor I will ever have in my life,” Osaka wrote on Instagram next to a picture of her smiling while holding the flame. “I have no words to describe the feelings I have right now, but I do know I am currently filled with gratefulness and thankfulness.”

It capped quite a series of events over the past two months for the 23-year-old Osaka.

Going into the French Open in late May, Osaka — who is ranked No. 2 — announced she wouldn’t speak to reporters at the tournament, saying those interactions create doubts for her.

Then, after her first-round victory, she skipped the mandatory news conference.

Osaka was fined $15,000 and — surprisingly — publicly reprimanded by those in charge of Grand Slam tournaments, who said she could be suspended if she kept avoiding the media.

The next day, Osaka withdrew from Roland Garros entirely to take a mental health break, revealing she has dealt with depression.

She sat out Wimbledon, too. So the Tokyo Games mark her return to competition.

“The Olympics are a special time, when the world comes together to celebrate sports. I am looking forward most to being with the athletes that had waited and trained for over 10 years, for celebrating a very hard year (2020) and having that happen in Japan makes it that much more special,” Osaka wrote in an email interview when she was selected as the 2020 AP Female Athlete of the Year. “It’s a special and beautiful country filled with culture, history and beauty. I cannot be more excited.”

There was a big hint that Osaka might have an important role in the ceremony when her opening match in the Olympic tennis tournament was pushed back from Saturday to Sunday without an explanation earlier in the day.

She was originally scheduled to play 52nd-ranked Zheng Saisai of China in the very first match of the Games on center court Saturday morning. But clearly by lighting the flame as midnight approached, she wouldn’t have had enough rest for an early morning match.

Osaka became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron. She’s also one of the few active athletes to be given the honor. Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron for the 2000 Sydney Games and went on to win gold in the 400 meters.

Osaka — along with top-ranked Ash Barty — is a favorite to win the women’s singles title in a tennis tournament that also features Novak Djokovic aiming to become the first man to win a Golden Slam by holding all four Grand Slam trophies and Olympic gold in the same year.

Whatever the final results on the court, Osaka has already become part of Olympic history.

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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

At Tokyo Olympics, a debt to ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘E.T.’

By JOHN LEICESTER

1 of 12

TOKYO (AP) — Although the name Marty McFly won’t be on the start list for the first Olympic skateboarding competition, the “Back to the Future” character who inspired the immortal lines “What’s that thing he’s on? It’s a board, with wheels!” was a landmark personality for the sport in its groundbreaking journey to the Tokyo Games.

The Olympic debut in Tokyo of BMX freestyle also owes a debt to Hollywood, because it was Steven Spielberg’s movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” that showcased the acrobatic sport’s wow factor to mainstream audiences.

So Tinseltown, take an Olympic bow. Skateboarding starts Sunday with the men’s street competition. The men and women’s medal events in BMX freestyle are on the second Sunday, Aug. 1. Back when the movie blockbusters hit screens in the 1980s, McFly would have needed a time-traveling DeLorean to foresee that these counterculture activities would be welcomed into the Olympic extravaganza unfolding in Tokyo.

“The skateboard associations and the BMX associations should be giving Bob Zemeckis, myself and Steven Spielberg lifetime achievement awards,” joked “Back to the Future” screenwriter Bob Gale in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the competitions.

Gale co-created and cowrote the hit series with director Robert Zemeckis. They imagined McFly as a skateboarder to help make the character — played by actor Michael J. Fox — stand out.

“Marty McFly was always supposed to be kind of this rebellious kid,” Gale recollected. “We thought it was appropriate that he might still be using the skateboard or may have decided to use a skateboard because everybody told him not to.”

In one of the movie’s signature scenes, McFly uses a makeshift skateboard to outrun and outfox the villainous Biff Tannen. McFly soars on his board over a hedge and races around a town square, sparks flying. Biff and his gang of bullies are humiliated, ending up neck-deep in dung after crashing into a manure truck.

Skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk was 17 and already a pro when the time-travel movie was released in July 1985. He credits “Back to the Future” for luring a whole generation of kids to skating.

“There are plenty of legendary pros that I know of that started skating because they saw that,” Hawk said in an AP interview.

Skateboarding featured again as an outcast activity two years later in “Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.” Hawk was part of the stunt crew that skated around downtown Toronto performing jumps and tricks for that movie.




“Back to the Future” was also pivotal for Josh Friedberg, the CEO of USA Skateboarding, who is leading the U.S. team of 12 skaters in Tokyo. The movie and a friend’s return to their Kansas hometown from Florida with a skating video and a board all combined to hook Friedberg for life.

“My head exploded,” he said in an AP interview. “I fell in love with skateboarding that summer and there are billions of kids my age (for whom) the same exact thing happened.

“That movie was fascinating to me as a 13-year-old, with Michael J. Fox skating on his tail and making sparks and escaping the bad guys,” Friedberg added. “There is an entire generation of skateboarders that are the ‘Back to the Future’ generation.”

For the movie’s makers, long before skateboarding was Tokyo-bound and plastered all over the internet and social media, one of the challenges was finding skaters good enough to carry the scenes.

“The stunt guys didn’t know how to skateboard,” Gale recalled.

The hunt took him on a Sunday morning to Los Angeles’ Venice Beach, a cradle for the skating culture that Olympic organizers now hope will entice young audiences to tune in to Tokyo.

“Sure enough, there were these two guys that were just doing these outstanding skateboard tricks,” Gale said. “So I went up to them and I said, ‘I know you are going to think that I am full of it, but I am actually producing a movie and I need a couple of guys.’”

Freestyle BMX pioneer Bob Haro had a similar experience: An out-of-the-blue phone call offering him work as a stuntman on “E.T.,” released in 1982.

Among those inspired by Spielberg’s blockbuster about a stranded alien was future Olympic track cycling champion Chris Hoy. Then only 7, Hoy was instantly smitten by its thrilling chases and took up BMX racing before later switching to track, where his six gold medals made him Britain’s most decorated Olympian.

In the movie’s climactic chase scene, Haro jumped his BMX bike onto the roof and hood of a police vehicle, knocking off its flashing red light.

“It turned, again, millions of kids onto BMX,” Haro said in an AP interview. “Really great timing, too, because the sport of BMX was blowing up at that time and they capitalized on it in a good way.

“For the younger generation, a lot of them, that’s a long time ago,” he acknowledged. “They are having their moment, which is great.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

 

  

Ocean Viking: Life and death in the Mediterranean

At least 17 migrants have drowned off the coast of Tunisia after their boat sank in Libya, the Tunisian Red Crescent said Wednesday. Since the beginning of the year, nearly 800 people have died in the central Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. FRANCE 24's Emmanuel Chaze reports on the migration situation in the Mediterranean.

Iran's new oil terminal aims to bypass Gulf chokepoint, say analysts

Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

Iran opens new oil export terminal Patricio ARANA AFP


London (AFP)

A new Iranian oil terminal that opened this week is a strategic move that enables the major crude exporter to bypass a global chokepoint and boost sales if punishing US sanctions are lifted, analysts say.

Tehran inaugurated Thursday the terminal in Jask, on the Gulf of Oman, allowing tankers to avoid the Strait of Hormuz -- a passage less than 40 kilometres (25 miles) wide at its narrowest point, and where US and Iranian naval vessels have faced off in the past.

Commentators contend the move might not curb global price volatility but could help Tehran ramp up exports if damaging US sanctions are lifted, a move that depends on the future of a 2015 nuclear deal that currently hangs by a thread.

Simmering tensions in the Strait -- a vital shipping lane for about one fifth of world oil -- sparked surging prices early last year before the coronavirus pandemic crushed the market.

Prices then crashed and even briefly turned negative, before rebounding sharply on resurgent demand as economic activity recovered.

If Iran can export oil via Jask it will reduce the number of tankers that pass through "the world's most important chokepoint for waterborne crude," Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen told AFP.

"This (new terminal) may reduce the risk premium of crude prices," noted Tonhaugen.

"Iran has now a strategic ability to keep some of its oil exports to the world market running in... an extreme event."

But, he cautioned, this in itself will not dampen disruption to the world oil market, as most of the other countries in the Gulf export via oil from terminals located on the inside of the Strait.

Iran is the fourth biggest crude producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

- Sanctions issue -

Iran built a 1,000-kilometre (625-mile) pipeline to carry oil from Goreh in the southwestern Bushehr province to Jask.

Its other main terminal is in the Gulf port of Kharg, which is accessed via the Strait.

Iran, at odds with the United States since its revolution in 1979, has faced punishing US sanctions since former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Their forces have been on the brink of conflict twice since June 2019 amid heightened tensions in the Gulf.

But, say analysts, some prospects have emerged for a deal, and this could be another factor behind the Jask terminal.

Tehran has held talks since April in Vienna with the agreements other state parties -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- and Trump's successor Joe Biden has signalled he is ready to return to the accord.

"Iran's oil industry is eyeing an end to sanctions," said PVM Associates analyst Stephen Brennock.

"The fact it is opening (the Jask terminal) now could be a signal to the market that Iran can ramp up quickly once sanctions are removed," remarked analyst Chris Midgley at S&P Global Platts.

burs-bp/rfj/bcp/wai/ri

Cleveland Indians change name to Guardians, after years of uproar

OVER IT'S RACIST BRAND


Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

Cleveland's Major League Baseball team is dropping its controversial century-old Indians name and rebranding the team as the Guardians -- Chief Yahoo, the mascot seen here, was seen as particularly offensive Jason Miller GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announced Friday it is renaming itself the Guardians, dropping the more than century-old moniker of the Indians, which Native Americans and other critics saw as racist.

The team made the announcement that it would dump the name it has used since 1915 in a video narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks.

It is the latest in a series of professional or university sports teams in the United States to yield to public pressure over offensive names and logos -- ditching ones such as Redskins, Savages or Redmen -- amid a national reckoning about racism and discrimination.


"It has always been Cleveland that is the best part of our name," Hanks says in the video, which describes the Ohio city as proud of its sports heritage and eager to protect it.

"And now it's time to unite as one family, one community -- to build the next era for this team and this city," he says.

"This is the city we love. And the game we believe in. And together we are all Cleveland Guardians," it says, unveiling the new team logo, with music in the background from the Black Keys, a rock band formed in nearby Akron.

The change will take effect after the 2021 season ends.

The team first announced last summer that it would talk to local community members and Native American groups about the possibility of a name change. In December, it formally said it would drop "Indians" and started a search for a new nickname.

As part of this process, more than 40,000 fans were surveyed.

The new name Guardians reflects a bit of local lore -- so-called Guardians of Traffic carved into pylons at either end of a bridge over the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland.

Native American groups welcomed the name change.

"With today's announcement, the Cleveland baseball team has taken another important step forward in healing the harms its former mascot long caused Native people, in particular Native youth," said Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians.

The most prominent name-changing case of late prior to this was the Washington team in the National Football League, which in 2020 dumped the nickname Redskins and its Indianhead logo. The team has yet to settle on a new name.

Despite the move toward jettisoning names criticized as racist, many persist in big league sports in America, such as the Braves (baseball), Seahawks (football) and Blackhawks (hockey).

© 2021 AFP

UN Security Council slams Turkish plan to reopen disputed Cyprus resort

Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

People on a beach inside an area fenced off by the Turkish military since 1974 in the abandoned coastal area of Varosha, in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus, October 8, 2020. © Harun Ucar, REUTERS

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The United Nations Security Council on Friday condemned a plan by Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaders to partially reopen the abandoned resort of Varosha and called for an immediate reversal of the decision.

Turkish Cypriots, backed by Ankara, said on Tuesday that part of Varosha - now a military zone and an area touted in the past to be returned to rival Greek Cypriots - would come under civilian control, and be open for potential resettlement.

"The Security Council calls for the immediate reversal of this course of action and the reversal of all steps taken on Varosha since October 2020," the 15-member body said in a statement on Friday.

The move by the Turkish Cypriots triggered an angry reaction from Cyprus's internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government, and a chorus of disapproval from Western powers, led by the United States which called the move "unacceptable."

Turkey has shrugged off the criticism.

"The Security Council underscores the need to avoid any further unilateral actions not in accordance with its resolutions and that could raise tensions on the island and harm prospects for a settlement," the council said.

Cyprus had appealed to the Security Council on Wednesday over the decision by Turkish Cypriot authorities.

Turkey's foreign ministry rejected the council's statement and statements by some countries, saying they were based on unfounded claims, inconsistent with the realities on Cyprus.

"These statements are based on Greek-Greek Cypriot black propaganda and groundless claims," the statement said.

It said Varosha was part of the territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only recognized by Ankara, and that it had not been opened to settlement.

All TRNC decisions respect property rights and are in full compliance with international law, it added.

The east Mediterranean island was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a Greek-inspired coup. Peace efforts have repeatedly failed.

An estimated 17,000 Greek Cypriot residents of Varosha fled the advance of Turkish troops in August 1974. It has remained empty ever since, sealed off with barbed wire and no-entry signs. U.N. resolutions have called for the area to be turned over to administration by the international body.

"The Security Council stresses the importance of full respect and implementation of its resolutions, including the transfer of Varosha to U.N. administration," it said on Friday.

Under the terms of a 2004 U.N. reunification blueprint, Varosha was one of the areas which would have been returned to its inhabitants under Greek Cypriot administration. The plan, which detailed reunification under a complex power-sharing agreement, was rejected in a referendum by Greek Cypriots.

(REUTERS)

UNSC condemns plan to reopen Northern Cyprus resort Varosha

UN Security Council calls for ‘immediate reversal’ of decision by Turkey and Turkish Cypriots to reopen part of Varohsa.

In this file photo from October 2020, people walk on a beach inside an area fenced off by the Turkish military in the abandoned coastal area of Varosha [File: Harun Ucar/Reuters]

23 Jul 2021

The UN Security Council has condemned the decision by Turkey and Turkish Cypriots to reopen a residential section of an abandoned suburb and called for “the immediate reversal” of this unilateral action, warning that it could raise tensions on the divided Mediterranean island.

A presidential statement approved by all 15 council members at an open meeting on Friday reiterated that any attempt to settle any part of the Varosha suburb “by people other than its inhabitants is inadmissible”.
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“The Security Council calls for the immediate reversal of this course of action and the reversal of all steps taken on Varosha since October 2020,” the 15-member body said in a statement on Friday.

The statement’s adoption followed a closed-door briefing to the council Wednesday by the outgoing UN special representative that focused on Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s announcement Tuesday that a 3.5 square-kilometre (1.35 square-mile) section of Varosha would revert from military to civilian control.

He made it ahead of a military parade attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

On a trip to the north of divided Nicosia on Tuesday, Erdogan declared that a half-century of UN efforts had failed and that there should be “two peoples and two states with equal status”.



The United States voiced concern that his remarks would have a “chilling effect” on UN-led efforts for a solution in Cyprus.

“The Security Council underscores the need to avoid any further unilateral actions not in accordance with its resolutions and that could raise tensions on the island and harm prospects for a settlement,” the council said.

People spend time at the seaside in the fenced-off area of Varosha in Famagusta town in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) of the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus [File: Iakovos Hatzistavrou/AFP]

Ankara shrugs off condemnation

Turkey’s foreign ministry rejected the council’s statement and statements by some countries, saying they were based on unfounded claims, inconsistent with the realities on Cyprus.

“These statements are based on Greek-Greek Cypriot black propaganda and groundless claims,” the statement said.

It said Varosha was part of the territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only recognised by Ankara, and that it had not been opened to settlement.

All TRNC decisions respect property rights and are in full compliance with international law, it added.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to an abortive coup engineered by the then military in Athens that aimed to unite the island with Greece.

An estimated 17,000 Greek Cypriot residents of Varosha fled the advance of Turkish troops in 1974. It has remained empty ever since, sealed off with barbed wire and no-entry signs. UN resolutions have called for the area to be turned over to administration by the international body.

“The Security Council stresses the importance of full respect and implementation of its resolutions, including the transfer of Varosha to UN administration,” the council said on Friday.

Under the terms of a 2004 UN reunification blueprint, Varosha was one of the areas which would have been returned to its inhabitants under Greek Cypriot administration.

The plan, which detailed reunification under a complex power-sharing agreement, was rejected in a referendum by Greek Cypriots.

THE WEAPON OF DAVID AGAINST THE IDF GOLIATH 

Clashes erupt in flashpoint West Bank village, injuring 140 Palestinians
Issued on: 23/07/2021 -

A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to hurl rocks at Israeli forces during confrontaions in Beita in the West Bank on July 23, 2021. 

© Jaafar Ashtiyeh, AFP

More than 140 Palestinians were hurt Friday in clashes with Israeli troops in the flashpoint West Bank village of Beita, medics said, during protests against an illegal Israeli settlement outpost.

The Israeli army said two soldiers were also "lightly injured" in the violence.

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in Beita, located in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to protest against the nearby outpost of Eviatar, an AFP correspondent said.

The area has seen regular demonstrations against settlement expansion on Palestinian land.

The Israeli army said that "over the last several hours, a riot was instigated in the area of Givat Eviatar outpost, south of Nablus".

"Hundreds of Palestinians hurled rocks at IDF (army) troops, who responded with riot dispersal means," it said in a statement, adding that the two "lightly injured" soldiers were taken to hospital.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 146 Palestinians were hurt during the clashes, including nine by live fire, 34 by rubber-coated bullets and 87 by tear gas.

Jewish settlers set up the Eviatar outpost in early May, building rudimentary concrete homes and shacks in a matter of weeks.

The construction came in defiance of both international and Israeli law, and sparked fierce protests from Palestinians who insisted it was being built on their land.

But following a deal struck with nationalist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's new government, the settlers left the outpost on July 2, while the structures they had built were to remain under army guard.

Israel's defence ministry said it would study the area to assess whether it could, under Israeli law, be declared state land.

Should that happen, Israel could then authorise a religious school to be built at Eviatar, with residences for its staff and students.

Around 475,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

(AFP)

Over 140 Palestinians hurt in clashes with Israel troops: medics

Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

Palestinian protesters help a man who was wounded during clashes with the Israeli army in the village of Beita in the occupied West Bank JAAFAR ASHTIYEH AFP

Beita (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

More than 140 Palestinians were hurt Friday in clashes with Israeli troops in the flashpoint West Bank village of Beita, medics said, during protests against an illegal Israeli settlement outpost.

The Israeli army said two soldiers were also "lightly injured" in the violence.

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in Beita, located in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to protest against the nearby outpost of Eviatar, an AFP correspondent said.

The area has seen regular demonstrations against settlement expansion on Palestinian land.

The Israeli army said that "over the last several hours, a riot was instigated in the area of Givat Eviatar outpost, south of Nablus".

"Hundreds of Palestinians hurled rocks at IDF (army) troops, who responded with riot dispersal means," it said in a statement, adding that the two "lightly injured" soldiers were taken to hospital.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 146 Palestinians were hurt during the clashes, including nine by live fire, 34 by rubber-coated bullets and 87 by tear gas.

Jewish settlers set up the Eviatar outpost in early May, building rudimentary concrete homes and shacks in a matter of weeks.

The construction came in defiance of both international and Israeli law, and sparked fierce protests from Palestinians who insisted it was being built on their land.

But following a deal struck with nationalist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's new government, the settlers left the outpost on July 2, while the structures they had built were to remain under army guard.

Israel's defence ministry said it would study the area to assess whether it could, under Israeli law, be declared state land.

Should that happen, Israel could then authorise a religious school to be built at Eviatar, with residences for its staff and students.

Around 475,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

© 2021 AFP