Syria government and opposition to begin drafting charter, says UN

Thirty representatives and 15 members of society will meet UN's Syria envoy in Geneva


Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, announces the sixth session of the Syrian constitution committee from the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sunday. EPA

Soraya Ebrahimi
Oct 17, 2021

Syria’s government and opposition have agreed to start drafting constitutional reforms, the UN envoy to Syria announced on Sunday, in a major step after a nine-month hiatus in talks.

UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen did not say what was behind the agreement or offer details of what comes next. The drafting sessions formally begin on Monday.

Mr Pedersen on Sunday met the co-chairs of a committee that includes figures from President Bashar Al Assad’s regime, the opposition, exiles and civil society representatives.

They sat together for the first time to discuss how to proceed and plans for the week ahead, he said.

READ MORE
The questions around Rifaat Al Assad's return to Syria

Thirty representatives divided between the two sides, along with 15 members of civil society, will be meeting with Mr Pedersen in Geneva until Friday.

“I have been negotiating between the parties to establish a consensus on how we are going to move forward," he said. "I am very pleased to say we have reached such consensus.

“My appeal for the 45 is that we work as we have agreed to, and that we now start the drafting process of the constitutional committee,” he said.

The last round of talks ended in January without progress. Mr Pedersen announced late in September an agreement on “methodology” for a sixth round.

It is based on three pillars: respect for rules of procedure; the submission of texts of “basic constitutional principles” before the meeting; and regular meetings of the co-chairs with him before and during the meeting.

Syria’s 10-year conflict has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced half of the country’s 23 million population, including more than 5 million refugees now mostly in neighbouring countries.

At a Russia-hosted Syrian peace conference in January 2018, an agreement was reached to form a 150-member committee to draft a new constitution.

The 2012 UN road map to peace in Syria calls for the drafting of a new constitution and ends with UN-supervised elections with all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, eligible to participate.

After the fifth round of negotiations failed late in January, Mr Pedersen hinted that the Syrian government delegation was to blame for the lack of progress.

The US and other western allies accused Mr Al Assad of deliberately stalling and delaying the drafting of a new constitution until after presidential elections, to avoid a UN-supervised vote as called for by the Security Council.

Late in May, Mr Al Assad was re-elected in what the government called a landslide for a fourth seven-year term. The West and his opposition described the election as illegitimate and a sham.

Mr Pedersen said the need for “a genuine intra-Syrian dialogue” was reportedly discussed by Mr Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin recently in Moscow, “and through this, a genuine process of Syrian political reform".

Updated: October 17th 2021

China slams US, Canada for sending warships through Taiwan Strait


Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

This US Navy photo obtained October 23, 2018 shows the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54)as it pulls in to port at the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy base in Jeju, South Korea on October 12, 2018.

 © William Carlisle, US Navy, AFP
Text by:NEWS WIRES
1 min
Listen to the article

The Chinese military on Sunday condemned the United States and Canada for each sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait last week, saying they were threatening peace and stability in the region.

China claims democratically-ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and has mounted repeated air force missions into Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the past year, provoking anger in Taipei.

China sent around 150 aircraft into the zone over a four-day period beginning on Oct. 1 in a further heightening of tension between Beijing and Taipei that has sparked concern internationally.

The U.S. military said the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Dewey sailed through the narrow waterway that separates Taiwan from its giant neighbour China along with the Canadian frigate HMCS Winnipeg on Thursday and Friday.

"Dewey's and Winnipeg's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the commitment of the United States and our allies and partners to a free and open Indo-Pacific," it added.

China's People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command said its forces monitored the ships and "stood guard" throughout their passage.

'Provocations'

"The United States and Canada colluded to provoke and stir up trouble... seriously jeopardising peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait," it said.

"Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. Theatre forces always maintain a high level of alert and resolutely counter all threats and provocations."

U.S. Navy ships have been transiting the strait roughly monthly, to the anger of Beijing, which has accused Washington of stoking regional tensions. U.S. allies occasionally also send ships through the strait, including Britain last month.

While tensions across the Taiwan Strait have risen, there has been no shooting and Chinese aircraft have not entered Taiwanese air space, concentrating their activity in the southwestern part of the ADIZ.

While including Taiwanese territorial air space, the ADIZ encompasses a broader area that Taiwan monitors and patrols that acts to give it more time to respond to any threats.

Taiwan's defence ministry said on Sunday that three Chinese aircraft - two J-16 fighters and an anti-submarine aircraft - flew into the ADIZ again.

(Reuters)

Hundreds pose nude for Tunick shoot in Israel near Dead Sea

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Models pose nude for American art photographer Spencer Tunick in the desert landscape surrounding the southeastern Israeli city of Arad, near the Dead Sea 

Menahem KAHANA AFP


Arad (Israel) (AFP)

Hundreds of models wearing only white body paint walked Sunday across a stark desert expanse in southern Israel near the Dead Sea, part of the latest photography project of American artist Spencer Tunick.

As for Tunick, dressed, in black, he stood on the roof of a recreational vehicle and issued commands on a megaphone.

"Everyone put your feet together," he said. "Hands down."

The 54-year-old photographer visited Israel as a guest of the tourism ministry to portray for the third time the shrinking Dead Sea via nude subjects.

"For me the body represents beauty and life and love," said Tunick, who has staged dozens of large-scale nude shoots around the world.

Tunick depicted more than 1,000 nude models a decade ago on the shores of the salty Dead Sea, which is receding at about a metre (yard) a year.

Israel and Jordan have diverted much of the upstream water for agriculture and drinking water, while mineral extraction and evaporation accelerated by climate change have made the problem worse.

By the time Tunick returned five years later, the placid waters of his first shoot had receded, leaving behind crusty sand and gaping sinkholes.

On Sunday, Tunick posed his subjects on stony brown hills overlooking the turquoise lake. About 200 people followed his directions, both men and women, standing straight and stooped, some thin and some rotund.

He said he chose to cover the models in white paint to evoke the Biblical story of Lot's wife, who was said to have turned into a pillar of salt.

Doctoral student Anna Kleiman, 26, said she joined the shoot to bring awareness to the environmental crisis.

"It feels really natural, once you take your clothes off," she said. "You kind of don't want to put them back on. I think we just struggled with the rocks a little bit."

American art photographer Spencer Tunick during the shooting of a photo installation in the desert landscape surrounding the southeastern Israeli city of Arad, some 15 kilometre west of the Dead Sea Menahem KAHANA AFP

- 'Lucky... it's not too hot' -

Israel's tourism ministry bankrolled Tunick's flight and ground expenses, said Hassan Madah, the ministry's director of marketing for the Americas.

The city of Arad contributed staff and other expenses, said mayor Nisan Ben Hamo.

Some conservative leaders in Israel opposed Tunick's project, with one lawmaker demanding the tourism ministry withdraw its sponsorship of the "event of mass abomination"

The nude photo installation was designed to draw world attention to the importance of preserving and restoring the Dead Sea, a unique natural resource 

Menahem KAHANA AFP

Ben Hamo said he saw the project as an affirmation of Arad "as a liberal city".

He hopes the shoot might bring more visitors and help raise funds for a new museum about the Dead Sea.

Engineer Gil Shavit, 63, spoke to reporters after the shoot, photographers carefully filming from his shoulders up to avoid his painted private parts.

"We're lucky to have clouds today so it's not too hot," Shavit said.

He said he posed for Tunick's 2011 Dead Sea project and was grateful to return.

"It's fascinating to see," he said, adding, "Spencer can't do his work without us."

© 2021 AFP

UPDATED

How a massacre of Algerians in Paris was covered up

By Ahmed Rouaba
BBC News

The words "Here we drown Algerians" were scrolled on the embankment of the River Seine

"It was a miracle I was not thrown into the Seine," Algerian Hocine Hakem recalled about an infamous but little-known massacre in the French capital 60 years ago.

Around 30,000 Algerians had taken to the streets of Paris in a peaceful protest against a curfew, and calling for independence nearly seven years into the war against French rule in North Africa.

The police killed hundreds of protesters and dozens of others were thrown into the River Seine, making it one of the darkest pages of France's chequered colonial history.

Mr Hakem was 18 at the time and was telling his story to the L'Humanité newspaper decades after the event, which was little reported at the time. He was among about 14,000 Algerians arrested during the operation.

The government of the day censored the news, destroyed many of the archives and prevented journalists from investigating the story. Contemporary news bulletins reported three deaths, which included a French national. It was not covered in the international press.

Brigitte Laîné, who was a curator at the Parisian archives, said in 1999 that some official documents survived revealing the extent of the killings. "There were a lot of bodies. Some with the skulls crushed, others with shotguns wounds," she said.

One photo captured the chilling sentiments of the time, showing graffiti scrawled along a section of the Seine's embankment saying: "Here we drown Algerians."

This is the title of French historian Fabrice Riceputi's new book which details how one man - researcher Jean-Luc Einaudi - tirelessly sought to gather eyewitness testimony, publishing his account 30 years after the police massacre.

It is now believed that between 200 and 300 Algerians were killed that day.

A total of 110 bodies washed up on the banks of the River Seine over the following days and weeks . Some were killed then dumped, while others were injured, thrown into the cold waters and left to drown.

The youngest victim was Fatima Beda. She was 15 and her body was found on 31 October in a canal near the Seine.

Anti-Arab racism

One of the earliest descriptions of the event was published in 1963 by African-American writer William Gardner Smith in his novel Stone Face - though it is a fictionalised account, which has never been translated into French.

It shows the stark anti-Arab racism of the day.

About 30,000 Algerians came into Paris to protest about the curfew which they said was racist

Mr Riceputi believes the French state is still refusing to face up to this racist heritage.

As the 60th anniversary of the killing approached, the often testy relations between France and Algeria - which had been undergoing a slow rapprochement - have once more hit the buffers.

The spat began last month when France slashed the number of visas granted to Algerians, accusing its former colony of failing to take back those denied visas.

But it was an audience President Emmanuel Macron held with young descendants of those who had fought in the Algerian War that has prompted the most anger.

He questioned whether the Algerian nation would exist if it hadn't been for French colonisers.

It may have been meant in the spirit of debate but it has provoked a backlash from Algerians who see it as symptomatic of France's insensitivity and the cover-up of colonial crimes.

No apology

When it comes to the Paris massacre, the state has done very little.

In 2012 François Hollande recognised that it had happened - the first time a French president had done so.

A commemorative plate dedicated to the victims of the massacre was unveiled in 2019 on the banks of the Seine

In a statement to mark the 60th anniversary of the massacre, President Macron said that crimes committed under the authority of the police chief were "inexcusable".

Yet both have fallen short of the expectations of those who have been calling for an apology and reparations - and neither acknowledged how many people died or the state's role.

French left-wing parties, who were in opposition at the time, have also come in for criticism for not condemning the massacre. They have been seen as complicit in the cover-up given that they filed a law suit against the police for opening fire on mainly French anti-war protesters, killing seven, a few months later, and yet remained silent about the massacre of Algerians.

Mr Riceputi says the racist nature of the operation cannot be ignored - every person who looked Algerian was targeted.

Thousands of Algerians were rounded up and illegally deported

The campaign waged against Algerians in Paris was unofficially called the "ratonnade", meaning "rat-hunting".

The search for Algerians continued for days after 17 October, with the police making arrests on public transport and during house searches.

It was reported that Moroccans had to put up the sign "Moroccan" on their doors to avoid being harassed by repeated police raids.

Portuguese, Spanish and Italian immigrant workers with curly hair and dark complexions complained about systematic stop and searches as they were mistaken for Algerians by the police.

Researchers also say that it was not only the police and security forces who took part in the operation - firefighters and vigilantes were also involved.

Thousands were illegally deported to Algeria where they were detained in internment camps despite being French citizens.

Fearsome reputation

At the time President Charles de Gaulle was in advanced negotiations with Algeria's National Liberation Front (FLN) to end the war and agree to independence. The war ended five months later and independence followed in July 1962.

But in 1961, tensions were running high and on 5 October the Parisian authorities banned all Algerians from leaving their homes between 20:00 and 05:30.

It is only in the last 30 years that details about the massacre have come to light

The march was called in protest at the curfew. The organisers wanted to ensure it was peaceful and people were frisked before boarding trains and buses from the run-down suburbs to go into central Paris.

It has not yet been established what exact instructions were given to the security forces, but the Paris police chief at the time, Maurice Papon, had a notorious reputation.

He had served in Constantine in eastern Algeria where he supervised the repression and torture of Algerian political prisoners in 1956.

He was later convicted in French courts of overseeing the deportation of 1,600 Jews to Nazi concentration camps in Germany during World War Two when he was a senior security official under the Vichy government.

It was this prosecution - that took place between 1997 and 1998 - that lifted the lid on some of the classified archives relating to the 17 October massacre, and paved the way for extensive research into the extraordinary cover-up.

Preliminary official inquiries into the events were made - and a total of 60 claims were dismissed.

No-one was tried as the massacre was subject to the general amnesty granted for crimes committed during the Algerian War.

For Mr Riceputi the hope is that this 60th anniversary will help with efforts to establish the truth and determine the responsibility for one of the bloodiest police massacres in France's history.

More on Franco-Algerian relations:

VIEWPOINT: What Macron doesn't get about colonialism

BACKGROUND: The tale of Algeria's stolen cannon and France's cockerel

Macron’s condemnation of 1961 massacre in Paris ‘not enough’, historians say


Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

French President Emmanuel Macron lays a wreath of flowers near the Pont de Bezons (Bezons Bridge), on October 16, 2021 in Colombes, near Paris. 

© Rafael Yaghobzadeh, Pool/AFP

Text by: FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by: Luke SHRAGO

Historians and activists in France have expressed disappointment that President Emmanuel Macron did not go further in his condemnation of the deadly crackdown in 1961 by Paris police on protest by Algerians, the scale of which was covered up for decades.

The president “recognised the facts: that the crimes committed that night under [Paris police prefect] Maurice Papon are inexcusable for the Republic," said a statement from the Elysée Palace.

“It’s not enough", lamented Rahim Rezigat, 81, former member of the France federation of the National Liberation Front (FLN).

Macron “is playing with words, for the sake of his electorate, which includes those who are nostalgic for French Algeria", said Rezigat, who attended an event organised in Paris on Saturday by the anti-racism NGO SOS Racisme, bringing together activists and youths from the Ile-de-France region to commemorate that deadly night.

On October 17, 1961, some 30,000 Algerians demonstrated peacefully at the call of the FLN resistance movement in response to a strict 8:30pm curfew imposed on Algerians in Paris and its suburbs.

Ten thousand police and gendarmes were deployed ahead of the demonstration. The repression was bloody, with several demonstrators shot dead, some of whose bodies were thrown into the River Seine. Historians estimate that at least several dozen and up to 200 people were killed, but the official toll is three dead and 11,000 wounded.

>> Webdoc - October 17, 1961: A massacre of Algerians in the heart of Paris

‘A state crime’

Critics of Macron’s declaration Saturday say it did not go far enough and that pinning the blame solely on Papon is downplaying the state's in the massacre.

“Believing or expecting others to believe for one second that Maurice Papon could have acted of his own initiative throughout the month of October 1961, and especially on October 17, 1961, and that then interior minister Roger Frey and the entire government headed by Michel Debré were not responsible, is a fairy tale, and a bad one at that,” political scientist Oliver Le Cour Grandmaison, told FRANCE 24 on Sunday.

Knowing that power is exercised vertically in France's Fifth Republic, Le Cour Grandmaison said, “we consider that this was a state crime and therefore, we could have expected Emmanuel Macron’s declaration to reflect that. But there was no recognition, no law, no reparations. There wasn’t even a declaration. Macron didn’t speak,” he said, referring to the fact that the declaration was issued as a statement from the Elysée.

Gilles Manceron, a historian specialising in France’s colonial history agrees.

“This is a state crime, it is not a prefectural crime. It was a state crime that implicated a number of state officials and General De Gaulle, even though he did not direct the events himself and would also express his dissatisfaction with them, reportedly saying they were inadmissible – though secondary,” Manceron told FRANCE 24. “He didn’t direct the violence, and regretted it, but he covered it up with silence. Which contributed to the decades of silence that followed.”

Access to archives restricted

Human rights and anti-racism groups and Algerian associations in France staged a tribute march in Paris on Sunday afternoon. They called on authorities to further recognise the French state's responsibilities in the “tragedies and horrors” related to Algeria's independence war and to further open up archives from that period.

Earlier this year, Macron announced a decision to speed up the declassification of secret documents related to Algeria’s 1954-62 war of independence from France. The new procedure was introduced in August, Macron's office said.

The move was part of a series of steps taken by Macron to address France's brutal history with Algeria, which had been under French rule for 132 years until its independence in 1962.

But Le Cour Grandmaison, who heads an association for the commemoration of the October 17, 1961 events, said the archives were still very difficult to access.

“If you want to access the police archives, you have to ask the police prefecture, who is both judge and party to the events,” he told FRANCE 24. “Access to archives in France, compared to other democratic countries, is extremely restricted.”

Mancheron explained that “theoretically, French law dictates that archives should be communicable after a period of 50 years. But when the 50-year period was about to end concerning the archives of 1961, an interministerial directive was issued, saying a specific green light would be needed in order to open up certain archives. Which resulted in access being limited, even though it was permitted by law.

“Hence the mobilisation of historians and archivists and of a certain number of associations which last July led to the highest French court ruling that the interministerial directive of December 2011 was illegal, illegitimate, that it should not have been allowed, and it was canceled.”

>> Interview - 'We did our job, nothing more': The archivists who proved 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians

During the commemoration event Saturday night, SOS Racisme put on a pyrotechnics display at Pont Neuf, a bridge crossing the River Seine in the centre of Paris. The fireworks mimicked the bullets fired by the police 60 years ago as the Seine lit up and Algerian irises were thrown symbolically into the water.

On Sunday morning, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo attended a tribute ceremony at the Saint-Michel bridge, in the capital's centre, and the Paris police prefect, Didier Lallement, laid a wreath of flowers at the site.

It was the first time a Paris police prefect paid tribute to the victims of October 17, 1961. Though he did not speak at the event, bells tolled and a minute of silence was observed.

Criticised on the right

Macron's political opponents from the right also criticised his declaration – this time for going too far.

“While #Algeria insults us every day, Emmanuel #Macron continues to belittle our country,” far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen tweeted on Saturday.

The sentiment was echoed by another far-right presidential hopeful, Nicolas Dupont Aignan, who tweeted, “Algeria spits on France and Emmanuel Macron does penance. The head of state must inspire pride, not shame in being French. Otherwise, how can we be surprised that immigrant populations do not wish to assimilate?”

And centre-right Les Républicains MP Eric Ciotti tweeted, “President Macron’s vicitimised anti-French propaganda is indecent. We’re still waiting for the president to commemorate the July 5, 1962 Oran massacre, when the FLN massacred several hundred pieds noirs and harkis [pro-French Muslims] loyal to France.”

In a message marking the 60th anniversary of the deadly crackdown, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called Saturday for an approach free of "colonialist thought" on historical issues between his country and France.

"I reaffirm our strong concern for treating issues of history and memory without complacency or compromising principles, and with a sharp sense of responsibility", free from "the dominance of arrogant colonialist thought", he said.

The message came shortly after Tebboune declared that Algeria would observe a minute's silence each October 17 in memory of the victims.

Relations between Paris and Algiers have been strained amid a diplomatic spat fuelled by a visa row and comments attributed to the Macron describing Algeria as ruled by a "political-military system" that had "totally rewritten" its history.

Algeria has recalled its ambassador from Paris and banned French military planes from its airspace.

Tebboune has demanded France's "total respect".

"We forget that it (Algeria) was once a French colony ... History should not be falsified," he said last week.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

  

Blood and beatings: 1961 Paris Algerian massacre recalled

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Rabah Sahili, who lived through the events of October 17, 1961 when dozens of Algerians were massacred in the middle of Paris, is pictured during an interview in Algiers on October 16, 2021 

Ryad KRAMDI AFP

Algiers (AFP)

Rabah Sahili had just turned 19 when he arrived in central Paris for a peaceful demonstration by Algerians 60 years ago.

What he witnessed, he told AFP in an interview, was police savagery in a crackdown which killed dozens and perhaps as many as 200, according to historians' estimates. The official death toll at the time was three.

President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday condemned as "inexcusable" the crimes committed on October 17, 1961.

"The police and gendarmes showed atrocious brutality. They were raging to inflict harm," Sahili said, his voice breaking.

More than 30,000 Algerians had gathered to protest in Paris a decision to impose a curfew solely on the country's French Algerian minority.

The rally was called in the final year of France's increasingly violent campaign to retain Algeria as a north African colony. This coincided with a bombing campaign targeting mainland France by pro-independence militants.

On Saturday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced that a minute of silence would be held the following day -- and each October 17 to commemorate the "martyrs" of the 1961 events.

Some were shot dead. Others had their bodies thrown into the River Seine.

The pro-independence National Liberation Front (FLN) had called on Algerian migrants from the capital's working class western suburbs to rally at a landmark square in Paris.

Other demonstrations were planned elsewhere in the city, and 10,000 policemen and gendarmes were deployed.

Sahili was arrested as he stepped off a train that arrived in Paris from Hautmont in the north, where he and his parents had lived for years.

"We had to meet at the Place de l'Etoile to start our peaceful demonstration. We had a single task: to make sure none of the demonstrators had any blunt instruments," he said.

Rabah Sahili said his cousin suffered a broken leg from police blows, while trying to protect him

 Ryad KRAMDI AFP

- 'It was savage' -

"I was with a cousin when the police descended upon us. Because he was stronger, he tried to protect me, but he received an avalanche of blows using the butts of guns and batons that caused his leg to break," Sahili recalled.

He said that people were being detained based solely on whether they appeared to be Algerian.

"All the Algerians coming out of the metro were arrested... even some Italians, Spanish people and South Americans" were held, he continued.

He noted that police and gendarmes were acting on firm instructions to target French Algerians.

Sahili said they were all driven "using batons" to a nearby car park, while trying to avoid being struck on the head.

"They had such a ferocity... It was savage, no more, no less," said the former FLN member.

"At midnight, we were moved to the Palais des Sports, where we remained for three days, under the watch of the police and harkis (auxillary forces)," he recounted.

The 9,000 people who, according to Sahili, were held in the sports dome were offered no more than a bottle of water and a snack.

Then they were taken to a "sorting facility" in the suburbs.

- 'Freezing cold' -

"The camp was devoid of absolutely all services: no beds, no toilets. We slept on the floor in the freezing cold," Sahili said.

"I stayed there for a fortnight before I was allowed to return home."

"During the arrests, I saw about 20 people lying on the ground bleeding near the Place de l'Etoile. There were many police and they behaved like ferocious beasts," he said.

Bodies were thrown into the River Seine, here illuminated in red after a ceremony to commemorate the brutal repression of October 17, 1961

 JULIEN DE ROSA AFP

"Algerians were also thrown, some alive, into the Seine by the police, but we will never know the exact number of bodies taken by this river," Sahili recalled.

According to him, even before the events of October 17 a good number of Algerian activists "ended up in the waters of the Seine" during police raids.

He recalled participating in the rescue of a young activist thrown into the Seine, saying he was found "at the last minute" and would have died were it not for his youth and health.

Following the independence of Algeria in 1962, Sahili remained in France for another two years before returning to his home country, where he built a career with national airline Air Algérie.

For decades, French authorities covered up the events of 1961 but Macron was the first president to attend a memorial for those who died on the day that Sahili cannot forget.

© 2021 AFP

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/10/macron-marks-60-years-since-paris.html

Two years after October 17 protests, Lebanon's economic crisis worse than ever

FRANCE 24's Claire Paccalin interviews Lynn Harfoush, an executive committee member of Lebanon's secular National Bloc party, in Beirut on October 17, 2021.

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Text by :FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by: Claire PACCALIN

Two years after Lebanon's so-called October 17 movement began with major nationwide protests, disillusionment and fear prevail in the country. Several prime ministers have come and gone since 2019, but the protesters’ demands have not been met. FRANCE 24's Claire Paccalin speaks with Lynn Harfoush, an executive committee member of the National Bloc political party, who remains undeterred.

Turnout was small at the October 17 demonstration this year, but Harfoush, an executive committee member of Lebanon's secular National Bloc party said there was still reason for hope.

“It is a bit disappointing, but at the same time, it’s something we understand,” Harfoush said of the low turnout. “The crisis has grown much bigger. Some people are even unable to commute to come here. But what we are sure of, and the reason that we still believe in the October 17 revolution, is that it did light this flame of change in a lot of people’s hearts.”

Harfoush said the economic situation was worse than ever. “We’ve moved from worrying about how we were going to spend our days to worrying about whether we would find any gas, electricity, water … we’ve moved to worrying about our minimum needs. Gas has become very expensive, while the minimum wage is still very low,” she said, adding that many Lebanese have lost their jobs and were worried about the inflation crisis.

Harfoush said the protest movement was also demanding progress in the investigation into the August 4, 2020 explosion at Beirut Port. “It is a very big date for us, because it proved to the people that the political class is not only unable to provide for their needs but it is also unable to protect them.” Bringing those responsible for the blast, which claimed the lives of more than 217 people and destroyed the port and a large part of the city “has become a top demand of all the October 17 revolution movements", she said.

Harfoush said it might take a long time, but her party and other participants in the protest movement would continue working. “There’s a lot for us to do. There’s this whole political class that we need to overcome,” she said.

Click on the video player to watch the full report.

Low turnout as Lebanese mark two years of protests

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Dozens of protesters marched in the Lebanese capital Beirut on October 17, 2021 to mark the second anniversary of the start of the now defunct protest movement 

ANWAR AMRO AFP

Beirut (AFP)

Lebanon marked the second anniversary of its defunct protest movement with a low-key demonstration in Beirut Sunday, while many stayed away amid grinding economic woes and deadly tensions over a port blast probe.

Dozens marched under rain clouds towards Martyrs' Square in central Beirut, an AFP photographer said.

Mass protests bringing together Lebanese from all backgrounds erupted on October 17, 2019, denouncing deteriorating living conditions as well as alleged official graft and mismanagement, after the government announced a plan to tax phone calls made over messaging service WhatsApp.

Cross-sectarian demonstrations swept the country, demanding the overthrow of political barons in power since at least the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

Two years on, Lebanon is mired in a ballooning financial crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, and battered by a devastating explosion at Beirut's port on August 4 last year.

Draconian banking restrictions have prevented many Lebanese from accessing their savings, while the local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value to the dollar on the black market.

Almost 80 percent of the population live in poverty, struggling to put food on the table in the face of endless price hikes, fuel shortages and power cuts.

One who did protest on Sunday, Rabih Zein, said it was not just previous police crackdowns that had kept demonstrators away.

"If anyone is wondering why there are not many people, it's because they've deprived us of petrol, electricity and the money we put in banks," he said.

Each person marching represented many more who were forced to stay at home, Zein claimed.

"Today is a symbolic stand. God willing, we will move towards change at the parliamentary elections" next spring, said the 37-year-old television producer from the northern city of Tripoli.

The protest movement has given birth to a flurry of new political groups, which many hope will run in the upcoming polls.

The port blast killed more than 210 people and wrecked swathes of Beirut. But no one has yet been held accountable in a domestic investigation which top politicians have tried to hamper at every turn.

On Thursday, seven people were killed in central Beirut during gunfire following a rally by supporters of the country's two main Shiite parties calling for the dismissal of the lead investigator in the case.

Fatima Mahyu, a protester from Beirut, said some people were likely too scared to come out on Sunday.

"There is fear and weariness," said the mother of two, both of whom have emigrated. "People are exhausted."

Another protester, Micheline Abu Khater, a history teacher, said she was staying in Lebanon for the upcoming elections.

"I am full of hope for change," she said.

© 2021 AFP

Draft 'Asterix' story revealed by author's daughter

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Comic books featuring Asterix and sidekick Obelix have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide BERTRAND GUAY AFP/File

Berlin (AFP)

The daughter of Rene Goscinny, one of the duo behind indomitable French comic-book star Asterix, has revealed that her father left a draft story featuring the Roman-bashing Gaulish warrior unfinished.

"I often think about it, it's 20 pages, half a comic book," Anne Goscinny told German weekly Der Spiegel in a weekend interview.

Typewritten by Rene Goscinny, the script titled "Asterix at the Circus" was found in the family archives, looked after by Anne

But she said that completing the story without her father would be a "very complicated" task.

"We'd have to get a lot of people around the table, immerse ourselves in the story and find (Rene's) voice again," she said, adding, "it's as if there were a hole in a painting by Goya".

"One day we'll give it a try, it would be an extraordinary adventure," Anne added.

Asterix -- defender of the last Gaulish village holding out against the Roman empire -- was dreamed up in 1959 by Rene Goscinny, who died in 1977, and Albert Uderzo, who died last year.

The comic books have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide.

Before the Asterix series, there was no history of comics having a scriptwriter.

© 2021 AFP

One month on, still 'no signs' that La Palma volcanic eruption will end soon

Issued on: 17/10/2021

Members of the GIETMA (Technological and Environmental Emergencies Intervention Group) of the UME monitor the evolution of a new lava flow, following the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the Canary island of La Palma on October 16, 2021. 

© Luismi Ortiz, UME, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

There's no immediate end in sight to the volcanic eruption that has caused chaos on the Spanish isle of La Palma since it began about a month ago, the president of the Canary Islands said on Sunday.

There were 42 seismic movements on the island on Sunday, the largest of which measured 4.3, according to the Spanish National Geographical Institute.

"There are no signs that an end of the eruption is imminent even though this is the greatest desire of everyone," President Angel Víctor Torres said at a Socialist party conference in Valencia, citing the view of scientists.



Streams of lava have laid waste to more than 742 hectares (1833 acres) of land and destroyed almost 2,000 buildings on La Palma since the volcano started erupting on Sept. 19.

About 7,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on the island, which has about 83,000 inhabitants and forms part of the Canary Islands archipelago off northwestern Africa.

Airline Binter said it had cancelled all its flights to La Palma until 1 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Sunday because of ash from the volcano.

Almost half - 22 out of 38 - of all flights to the island on Sunday have been cancelled, state airport operator Aena said, but the airport there remains open.

(REUTERS)

Climate change a double blow for oil-rich Mideast: experts



Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

Sun-baked farmland in eastern Iraq's Saadiya area, north of Diyala, pictured on June 24, 2021 amid a blistering summer heat wave and water shortages that killed fields and livestock 

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE AFP/File

Paphos (Cyprus) (AFP)

The climate crisis threatens a double blow for the Middle East, experts say, by destroying its oil income as the world shifts to renewables and by raising temperatures to unliveable extremes.

Little has been done to address the challenge in a region long plagued by civil strife, war and refugee flows, even as global warming looks likely to accelerate these trends, a conference heard last week.

"Our region is classified as a global climate change hotspot," Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades told the International Conference on Climate Change in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.

Home to half a billion people, the already sun-baked region has been designated as especially vulnerable by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UN's World Meteorological Organization.

Yet it is also home to several of the last countries that have not ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement -- Iran, Iraq, Libya and Yemen -- weeks before the UN's COP26 climate conference starts in Glasgow.

A Lebanese army helicopter drops water on a forest fire in the Qubayyat area of northern Lebanon's remote Akkar region during a heat wave on July 29, 2021

 JOSEPH EID AFP/File

When it comes to climate change and the Middle East, "there are terrible problems," said Jeffrey Sachs, who heads the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

"First, this is the centre of world hydrocarbons, so a lot of the economies of this region depend on a fuel that is basically anachronistic, that we have to stop," said Sachs of New York's Columbia University.

"Second, obviously, this is a dry region getting drier, so everywhere one looks, there is water insecurity, water stress, dislocation of populations," he told AFP.

Sachs argued that "there needs to be a massive transformation in the region. Yet this is a politically fraught region, a divided region, a region that has been beset by a lot of war and conflict, often related to oil."

In this file photo taken on October 3, 2021 a man wades through a flooded street amid cyclone Shaheen in Oman's capital Muscat 

Haitham AL-SHUKAIRI AFP/File

The good news, he said, is that there is "so much sunshine that the solution is staring the region in the face. They must just look up to the sky. The solar radiation provides the basis for the new clean, green economy."

- Like 'disaster movie' -

Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who oversaw the Paris Agreement, pointed out that in this year's blistering summer, "we had catastrophic wildfires in Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon".

The greenhouse effect Gal ROMA AFP

"There were temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran. We have drought in Turkey, water stress in different countries, particularly Jordan.

"These tragic events are not from a disaster movie, they are real and present."

Cyprus, the EU member closest to the Middle East, is leading an international push involving 240 scientists to develop a 10-year regional action plan, to be presented at a summit a year from now.

The two-day conference last week heard some of the initial findings -- including that the greenhouse gas emissions from the region have overtaken those of the European Union.

Already extremely water-scarce, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been warming at twice the global average rate, at about 0.45 degrees Celsius per decade, since the 1980s, scientists say.

Flood damage in Yemen's Mukalla in the southern Hadramawt province after Cyclone Shaheen hit the region and neighbouring Oman in October 2021 - AFP/File

Deserts are expanding and dust storms intensifying as the region's rare mountain snow caps slowly diminish, impacting river systems that supply water to millions.

By the end of the century, on a business-as-usual emissions trajectory, temperatures could rise by six degrees Celsius -- and by more during summertime in "super- or ultra-extreme heatwaves" -- said Dutch atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld.

- 'Future conflicts' -

"It's not just about averages, but about the extremes. It will be quite devastating," Lelieveld of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry told AFP.

In this file photo from July 3, 2021 a giant fire rages in the Troodos mountains of Cyprus, the worst blaze on record on the Mediterranean island 

Georgio PAPAPETROU AFP/File

Peak temperatures in cities, so-called 'heat islands' that are darker than surrounding deserts, could exceed 60 degrees Celsius, he said.

"In heat waves, people die, of heat strokes and heart attacks. It's like with corona, the vulnerable people will be suffering -- the elderly, younger people, pregnant women."

Fabius, like other speakers, warned that as farmlands turn to dust and tensions rise over shrinking resources, climate change can be "the root of future conflicts and violence".

The region is already often torn over freshwater from the Nile, Jordan, Euphrates and Tigris river systems that all sustained ancient civilisations but have faced pressure as human populations have massively expanded.

Sachs pointed to the much-debated theory that climate change was one of the drivers behind Syria's civil war, because a 2006-2009 record drought sent more than a million farmers into cities, heightening social stress before the uprising of 2011.

Solar panels on rooftops in Binnish in Syria's rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, which has had no reliable state supply since Damascus pulled the plug in 2012

 Omar HAJ KADOUR AFP/File

"We saw in Syria a decade ago how those dislocations of the massive drought spilt over, partially triggered and certainly exacerbated massive violence," he said.

Some of the MENA region's highest use of solar power is now seen in Syria's last rebel-held area, the Idlib region, which has long been cut off from the state power grid and where photovoltaic panels have become ubiquitous.

© 2021 AFP

Space tourism may be taking off, but critics not taken with its aims

CBC/Radio-Canada 13 hrs ago

A handful of billionaire-backed ventures are proving that space tourism could be a part of our future, but some critics say those resources would be better directed toward solving the problems we face on Earth today.

"We need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live," as Prince William put it this week, summing up a less-than-laudatory attitude among critics watching the tourism-minded space race of our times unfold.

Since the summer, space tourism companies have taken passengers on brief journeys above the Earth and garnered a lot of attention for doing so — in part because of the people they took with them.
Rivals ride rockets in same month

Billionaire Jeff Bezos went to space in July, along with three other passengers, on a Blue Origin spacecraft. The company sent four more people to space this past Wednesday — including William Shatner, best known for playing Star Trek's Capt. James Kirk.

"What you have given me is the most profound experience," Shatner told Bezos after his ride to space.

And yet for all the coverage that Bezos has received, he wasn't even the first billionaire to go to space this year — Richard Branson got there first, on a Virgin Galactic flight that carried six passengers, nine days before his Blue Origin competitors.

"The whole thing, it was just magical," Branson said after the flight.

© Joe Skipper/Reuters Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity is seen descending after reaching the edge of space on July 11, 2011.


What about the planet?

But not everyone is applauding. Ryan Katz-Rosene, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies, said these recent space tourism efforts and the competition to claim achievement from them are "completely tone-deaf to the realities of the sustainability challenges" the planet is facing.

"I don't think we should be spending so much focus and effort and attention and money into private space travel," he said.

Yet Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, says this kind of space tourism could end up driving support for the problems at home. Astronauts and the like often say the experience of seeing the Earth from above left them with a renewed appreciation for environmentalism.

Metzger predicts that having more people see the Earth from above will drive a greater marshalling of "resources and talents towards protecting the Earth."
Possible benefits

Chris Hadfield, the retired Canadian astronaut, sees what Prince William and like-minded critics are getting at — acknowledging there's some justification for their concerns about the problems on Earth.

But he said the push to explore is what inspires the discovery of new ideas and new technologies — including some of the satellite tools we now use to measure and observe the parts of our planet and the problems it faces.

"That technology doesn't just instantaneously appear," said Hadfield. "You have to inspire people, they have to develop it."

As for the future of a broader world of space travel, Hadfield said "it opens up so much opportunity and I think that's the part that's worth focusing on."

© Mikhail Metzel/Reuters Chris Hadfield is shown after landing back on Earth, via a Soyuz space capsule, in central Kazakhstan in May 2013.

Coast Guard investigates vessel following California oil spill


The owner and operator of a ship will be questioned as part of another marine casualty investigation after a pipeline leaked thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The agency has designated the MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, the owner of the MSC DANIT, and the Dordellas Finance Corporation, the operator of the vessel, as parties of interest into the investigation into a Jan. 25 incident in which an anchor was dragged during a heavy weather event that impacted the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

MORE: Criminal investigation launched into Amplify Energy after oil spill off California coast

The incident occurred in "close proximity" to the underwater pipeline known as Elly, which was the source of the leak that spilled up to 144,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean, according to the Coast Guard

.

© Paul Bersebach/The Orange County Register via AP Workers with Patriot Environmental Services pick up oil-contaminated sand and plants south of the pier in Huntington Beach, Calif., Oct. 8, 2021.

Investigators from the Coast Guard boarded the container ship at the Port of Long Beach on Saturday as part of the probe, authorities said. The "party in interest" designations provide the owner and operator of the MSC DANIT the opportunity to be represented by counsel, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to call witnesses who are relevant to the investigation, according to the Coast Guard.

© Ringo H.w. Chiu/APMORE: Huntington Beach oil spill: Officials raise potential oil spill amount to 144,000 gallons amid cleanup efforts

The investigation into the oil spill is ongoing.

The pipeline was split open after a section measuring about 1 mile long was pulled along the ocean floor after it was hit by a shipping container, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to call witnesses who are relevant to the investigation, the Associated Press reported.

© Ringo H.w. Chiu/AP Oil washes up on Huntington Beach, Calif., Oct. 4, 2021.

Cleanup crews are continuing to remove crude oil from California's southern coast after thousands of gallons were leaked from a broken pipe earlier this month.MORE: Risk of oil spills may rise as climate change creates more monster storms

The U.S. Coast Guard has removed about 1,281 gallons of an "oily water mixture" from the Pacific Ocean since the pipeline operated by Amplify Energy about 4.5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach since the leak was reported on Oct. 2.

Thousands of gallons of oily water mixture have been recovered from the water and beaches by the Coast Guard and other response teams. Dozens of oiled wildlife have also been treated by veterinarians.

ABC News' Will Gretsky contributed to this report.