The Graphic Truth: Who does China buy arms from & sell to?

March 17, 2022

Carlos Santamaria 

and 

Paige Fusco

 Paige Fusco

The US claimed earlier this week that Russia had asked China for weapons to fight in Ukraine. We still don’t know whether that was true or what came of the supposed request, but interestingly, China buys most of its arms from Russia and doesn’t sell any to Moscow. Here’s a look at Chinese weapons imports and exports.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

G7 nations strip Russia’s WTO trading privileges

Russia joined the WTO in 2012, but has had a rocky relationship with the organisation ever since.

By Theo Normanton in Moscow March 17, 2022

G7 nations have moved to strip Russia of its World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership privileges. The Group of Seven, comprising the world’s seven wealthiest liberal democracies, will no longer treat Russia as a “most favoured nation”.

This will mean that regulation will be re-introduced on Russian goods and services in western markets, and that preferential tariff regimes will be removed. In the long term, it will lead to a reduction in Russian trade with some of the world’s most lucrative nations.

The move comes after a fourth round of sanctions from the EU banned Russian steel imports and the UK added 361 additional individuals to its sanctions list on March 15.

In co-operation with the G7, the European Union will also revoke Russia’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis announced the move on March 15, saying: “this unprecedented decision sends a political signal of the highest magnitude. In practice, it deprives Russia of key trade advantages as a WTO member, by ensuring that the products of Russian companies no longer receive Most Favoured Nation treatment in our economies.”

“We will keep imposing sanctions on Putin’s regime, leaving no stone unturned as we ramp up the economic consequences for Russia of this brutal invasion,” Dombrovskis continued. “The only way Russia can avoid this financial, economic and reputational disaster is to immediately end its barbaric and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” he added.

The EU has also suspended Belarus’ accession to the WTO in retaliation for its participation in the invasion of Ukraine. Belarus’ border with Ukraine was used as a base from which Russian troops began their assault on Kyiv and Ukraine’s northern territories.

The move by the EU and G7 nations has a legal basis in the security exemptions of the WTO agreement on tariffs and trade, which asserts that “nothing in this agreement shall be construed to prevent any [member country] from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations.”

As well as the G7 nations and the EU, several other nations have supported the decision to stop treating Russia as an MFN, including Australia, Iceland, South Korea and Norway.

Russia joined the WTO in 2012, but violated its WTO commitments imposing tariffs on imports of paper, palm oil and refrigerators in 2014 as counter-sanctions following its annexation of Crimea.

This move by G7 nations, the EU and other allies will further exacerbate Russia’s economic isolation following four rounds of severe sanctions against Russian business, oligarchs and military-industrial complex by the US, UK, Canada, EU and others.

Russia rejects ICJ's ruling on Ukraine plea to halt war

Court must have consent of parties to make such decision, and 'there can be no consent' in this case, says Kremlin spokesman

News Service March 17, 2022

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Russia cannot take into consideration the ruling by the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ), directing Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

The court must have the consent of the parties to make such a decision, and in this case, "there can be no consent," Peskov said at a daily briefing in Moscow.

"No, we will not be able to take this decision into account. The International Court of Justice must have such a thing as the consent of the parties. There can be no consent here," the spokesman said.

On Wednesday, the ICJ announced its decision in response to Ukraine's application, demanding Russia to halt the war in Ukraine.

The ruling of the top UN court in The Hague was upheld by a vote of 13 to two.

Russia boycotted hearings on the Ukraine case, which sought an emergency order to halt hostilities in the country, with Kyiv arguing that Moscow falsely invoked genocide laws to justify beginning the war.

The ICJ was founded by the UN Charter in June 1945 as the primary judicial institution of the UN. It began operations in April 1946.

The court is made up of 15 justices who are elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for a nine-year term.

#NW0

Will Russia’s war in Ukraine spell the end of the Western axis?


Selçuk Türkyılmaz

14 March 2022

Will the U.S./U.K. axis lead to the collapse of the West-centered world system, or are the foundations of a new world order being established? The Ukraine war took the Western world by surprise as it deemed it inconceivable that such a conflict would take place in "the homeland of the blond-haired and blue-eyed." Although this war is being fought between Slavs, the location of the war was associated with the West in the past. Therefore, it should not come as a shock that a region previously dubbed as the "house of Europe" has become the stage of such undesirable events.

For this reason, claims that the Western-centered world is hurtling "toward collapse" should not be overlooked. By the same token, the same claim should not prevent us from pondering whether a new world order will be established in its wake.

After the First World War, the Soviets set off on a course that could potentially weaken Britain and France. I think there is benefit in comparing the ideas of the October Revolution with the changes brought about by the French Revolution. However, it is clear that drawing this comparison according to the metrics we are used to will not be useful in terms of making sense of what’s transpiring today.

Especially towards the 1930s, there was a significant change in the activities carried out to undermine the colonial hegemony of European countries. The Soviet experience, which ushered in a new era of fresh interpretations and ideas that would prompt nations to awaken, began to spread at an astonishing rate. The aftershocks caused by 1933 should thus not be confined to the rise of Hitler.

Despite Hitler's presence at the time, the anti-colonial struggle against Britain and France was also escalating. In this period, the rapprochement between the Soviets, on the one hand, and England and France, on the other, led to the establishment of a world order dominated by Paris and London.

However, the independence movement that emerged in African and Asian countries toward the end of the Second World War showed that a system that lasted for nearly five centuries could, indeed, collapse.

As a matter of fact, countries striving for independence have only become stronger over time. Although the colonial system showed signs of expansion with the presence of Israel during this period, the consequent changes that took place, especially in the Muslim region and India, laid bare the weaknesses of the Western system. It’s clear that common themes between communism, nationalism, and Islamism will make a good topic of research, especially when it comes to the Muslim region. In fact, we can even attribute the disintegration and conflicts within these movements to similar themes. This may also finally allow us to see the network of relations shaped according to the Western world for what it is.

Today, within the West-centered world, there is such a thing called the American and British axis.

In the second half of the twentieth century, it was extremely hard to distinguish between the U.S. and Europe. However, developments over time showed that the Western world was incapable of acting as a unified front in the face of challenges. This change is extremely significant, as the most important pillars of the West’s globalization were political, economic, and legal institutions.

These institutions practically functioned as the tools of a global sovereign’s hegemony. The American and European seizure of Russia's international assets during the Ukraine war is extremely crucial, as it points to the collapse of these institutions, and it helps us better understand the nature of the U.S./U.K. axis. By drawing analogies between Putin and Hitler, a liberal West-centered analysis can be made on the basis of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. This is not a new situation either. But as I was trying to say, this world is now collapsing. The most important piece of evidence of this is the disintegration of the Western world as it collapses from within.

The disintegration within the Western world is bound to have lasting consequences. Because those who direct the trajectory of this disintegration can also see the evidence of the change currently taking place in the world.

On a different note, one of the most important developments of the coronavirus pandemic is the crystalization of the Turkey and Azerbaijan axis. No one could have imagined such a development before the 1990s. Personally, I am trying to further understand what intellectual foundations this axis is built on.

Hiroshima's ex-mayor asks Putin to avoid using nuke in Ukraine

EVEN JUST A SMALL ONE

Tadatoshi Akiba of Japan invites world leaders to ‘learn about the damage a nuclear attack can bring’ amid Russia-Ukraine war

News Service March 17, 2022



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Anti-nuclear campaigner and the former mayor of Japan's nuclear-bombed Hiroshima prefecture on Thursday urged Russia's President Vladimir Putin not to use nuclear weapons in the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Tadatoshi Akiba's remarks came during a news conference in Tokyo, as Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine.

Akiba, who has initiated a petition against the use of nuclear weapons, has urged world leaders possessing nukes to visit the two Japanese cities to “learn about the damage a nuclear attack can bring.”

He also asked Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to meet Putin and other heads of nuclear-weapons states to “convey the convictions of 'hibakusha' (survivors of 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in World War II)” who are seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons, Kyodo News reported.

“The victims of the 1945 US atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki went through a ‘living hell’ and the despicable reality they somehow managed to survive,” said Akiba.

Moscow has put its nuclear forces on high alert after Russia declared war on Ukraine on Feb. 24.

It has drawn international condemnation, led to financial restrictions on Moscow, and spurred an exodus of global firms from Russia.

According to the UN, at least 726 people have been killed and 1,174 have been injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, while conditions on the ground make it difficult to verify the true figure.

More than 3.1 million people have so far fled to neighboring countries, said the UN refugee agency.

Akiba also criticized former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for "discussions about the possibility of a nuclear weapon sharing arrangement with the US."

Such conflict-inducing rhetoric should not be lightly expressed, especially by the former prime minister, he said.

The call by Abe was refused by Kishida, who himself is elected from an electoral constituency in Hiroshima and has campaigned for a world free of nuclear weapons.

During World War II, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by atomic bombs dropped by the US.

The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima – the site of the world's first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945 – and Nagasaki in 1945, which resulted in the deaths of at least 140,000 people by the end of that year.

High costs, unavailability of medicine, turn Ugandans to herbal cures

Experts say due to unaffordable medicine, expansive medical care, people fall prey to quacks, who sell them concoctions 

News Service March 13, 2022

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High cost of drugs and their unavailability in public hospitals is forcing people in Uganda to turn to herbal medicine. But, experts say it has also raised fears of people falling prey to fake so-called cures.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on the eve of World Medicine Day, which is being observed on Monday, Damali Nanfuka, a resident of capital Kampala, said doctors were charging her 100,000 shillings ($29) to treat her diabetes. She dropped plans to consult the doctor further and turned to an herbal medicine clinic.

“I went to an herbal medicine clinic where I was given medicine at only 40,000 shillings ($11),” she said.

Patrick Kasadha, a pharmacist at a government hospital in the eastern Uganda district of Iganga, said enough medicine was not stocked in government hospitals due to a paucity of funds. But the Health Minister Ruth Jane Aceng recently told the media that some medical workers were stealing medicine and selling it to private clinics.

The problem has taken such acute turns that two weeks ago Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni had closed all pharmacies operating in government hospital compounds, following reports that hospital authorities are stealing drugs and giving them to private pharmacies.

Abiaz Rwamwiri, a government official at the drug regulatory authority, said there are reports of people making fake herbal drugs.

"As national drug authority, we are mandated to regulate drugs made here or imported. In our country some people are making fake herbal drugs,” he said.

Isac Kiburaba, a pharmacist in Kampala, said some people simply mix conventional medicine with some concoctions from tree leaves to befool people. He said at some places it was seen that these people mix medicine meant for malaria with water and mango leaves.

Rwamwiri informed that his authority has so far certified 194 herbal drugs for medical use after testing them in laboratories.

- Concoctions calming cure for all

“There has been a fall back to herbal medicine. Due to many people turning to herbal medicine, many unscrupulous people are taking advantage and selling fake herbal medicine to unsuspecting people,” he said.

Just in the outskirts of capital Kampala herbal medicine shops sell different concoctions, claiming they cure cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, malaria, and all sexually transmitted diseases.

“We have medicine which relieves HIV Aids. We also treat toothaches without removing rotten teeth. We have medicine which makes barren women give birth and for weak men, we have medicine that makes them strong,” claims Nakakawa, who manages the shop.

She said that her boss Andrew Luwanga, who calls himself a doctor, has inherited the medical practice from his late father.

She said that they get many people who come to buy their herbal medicine for the treatment of various diseases because conventional medicine is very expensive.

She said that government hospitals either lack medicine or whatever little they have been are stolen by medical officers and sold to private pharmacies.

WATER IS LIFE 

Ugandan river slowly dies from pollution as world giants remain ignorant

Residents settling on Rwizi River’s banks has lead to land use activities, practices, causing pollution river’s death

News Service March 13, 2022

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The Rwizi River in western Uganda, with various tributaries crisscrossing different districts, pours its water into Lake Victoria, Africa's largest freshwater lake.

But the river is dying.

For World Rivers Day on March 14, with many people settling on the banks of the river, there has been an increase in land use activities and practices, some of which have affected the ecological situation, posing a risk of degradation.

Mustafa Kihogo from Mbarara said 20 years ago, it was hard to cross the river because of the huge volume of water, but today, the water has been significantly reduced.

The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) said about 60% of Rwizi River catchment has been degraded, resulting in reduced water volumes.

"Encroachment on wetlands and runoff from degraded hills due to poor agricultural practices have accelerated disposal of soil into the river, leading to silting up and reduced water volume," said Jeconious Musingwire, Mbarara's NEMA senior environment support officer.

A recent report by NEMA found that farming, bricklaying, open defecation and littering along Rwizi's banks have extensively polluted the river and caused clogging.

The biggest polluters include major industries, hotels and higher institutions of learning based in Mbarara, which pollute it with pesticides and agricultural wastes from farmers, industrial wastes from Coca-Cola, Nile breweries, waste products from the iron and steel industries and waste from Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, among others.

- Interventions

Musingwire said through stakeholder engagements, there are ongoing interventions to restore the river's catchment and water level.

He said Nile Breweries has erected gabion walls at its plant in Mbarara to stabilize the river banks and stop loose soils from collapsing into the river.

Nile Breweries' environment and safety manager at the Mbarara plant, Adam Emaru, confirmed the measure. "The gabions stabilize the banks to stop the silting and also stabilize the water levels to enable us to monitor its volume. We have as well erected metering pillars to monitor the water flow. Readings of the water levels are taken daily for analysis," he said.

Other partners like the World Wild Fund (WWF) are working to conserve the river. At least 1 kilometer of the river bank has been restored with planted bamboo as a sustainable land management intervention to reduce encroachment and degradation of the banks.

In addition, water conservation structures that include earth and stone bunds, retention beaches, gabions and trenches in the upland catchment areas of the river have been constructed to increase water storage in the soil so that water is available in wet and dry seasons.

Katongole Hadija, an environment lecturer at Kampala International University, told Anadolu Agency the steps could not be sustainable if there was no enforcement of laws and policies to protect the river.

"It is very important to educate people to understand the hazardous effects of polluting the river. Otherwise, they will not pay heed to prevent it. Once that is effectively done, the existing policies and laws on the management of water resources need to be strictly implemented. The river's catchment areas such as swamps, which have been destroyed by people in proximity to the river, should be reclaimed and put in place collaborative management to prevent a repeat of the same," she said.

- Government intervention

To save the river, the Ministry of Water and Environment has issued a buffer zone of 100 meters (328 feet) from the banks along its 25-kilometer (16-mile) stretch in Mbarara and other affected districts.

Ministry spokesman Charles Muwonge said the government has undertaken statutory decisions to fight further degradation of the environment and restore degraded areas across the country by way of canceling all land titles in wetlands.

#BDS IS NOT ANTI-SEMITIC
Jewish Google employee claims her anti-Israel activism got her job moved to Brazil

Ariel Koren says that after she lobbied against company’s contract with Project Nimbus cloud-based storage, her role was relocated from California headquarters to Sao Paulo

By ANDREW LAPIN

Today

A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2019. (AP/Jeff Chiu, File)

JTA — A Jewish Google employee who tried to pressure the company to end a contract to build cloud-based data centers for the Israeli government says the tech giant has retaliated against her activism — by asking her to relocate to Brazil.

Ariel Koren told the Los Angeles Times that after she criticized and lobbied other employees against Project Nimbus, a contract worth $1.2 billion that Google and Amazon Web Services jointly entered with Israel, Google responded by relocating her role from the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, to its office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In October, Koren had been one of two Jewish Google employees to spearhead an employee petition against Project Nimbus. The statement objected to the contract by saying the project, which will transfer the Israeli government’s data to cloud-based storage centers over a period of several years, “allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”

One month later, Koren said she was told her role would be relocating to Sao Paulo, and that she was given 17 business days to commit to move.

“It is clear that the relocation order was an act of retaliation,” Koren told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an email. “Our petition calling on Google and Amazon to end Project Nimbus has over 1,000 worker signatures but I was just one of two Google employees to speak out publicly.”

Koren has filed complaints with Google’s human resources department and the National Labor Relations Board. Google told the Los Angeles Times it has investigated the case and found no evidence of retaliation.

Koren, who co-founded a worker collective called Jewish Diaspora in Tech and has been active in progressive and anti-Zionist Jewish circles, has linked her activism against Project Nimbus to her Jewish background.

A petition signed by more than 500 Google employees in support of Koren accuses the company of “unjustly retaliating” against her. Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democratic member of Congress, also wrote a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai supporting Koren, saying, “employees have a right to voice their objections about the work of their employer, without facing risk of retaliation.”

Koren told JTA she’s “overwhelmed by the outpouring of support.”

Koren had previously worked out of Google’s Mexico City office on projects related to its education arm in Latin America, and had taken time away from her job to found the activist group Respond Crisis Translation, which provides translation services for asylum seekers. She also has family in Brazil and speaks Portuguese, along with nine other languages including Hebrew and Ladino. But she said a move to Brazil had never been on the table prior to her criticism of Project Nimbus, and that the required move is unnecessary given the remote nature of her job.

Koren remains employed by Google and based in San Francisco, according to the Los Angeles Times report. Project Nimbus remains on track, as well, which Koren continues to object to.

“It’s clear that Google’s contract with the Israeli military and government will directly harm Palestinians using the technology that Google employees are expected to create,” she told JTA. “That is why workers are calling on Google to cancel the contract.”

Farmers in Tanzania use technology to avoid human-wildlife conflict

Known for its massive annual migration of wildebeest and zebra, Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is also known for rising number of human-wildlife conflicts

News Service  March 17, 2022

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Farmers living along the fringes of Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania are being trained to coexist with wild animals, a move designed to reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Known for its massive annual migration of wildebeest and zebra, Serengeti National Park is also known for the rising number of conflicts, as stray lions and other animals attack livestock and in retaliation, angry farmers go after the endangered species.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Jenemary Ntalwila, a training facilitator from Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), said they have introduced modern technology to help communities surrounding the park and have also identified hot spot areas where violent encounters take place between humans and wild animals.

“We want to bring real-time information on the movement of angry animals to the villagers so that they are aware of the danger,” he said.

He said the villagers are taught to use special mobile devices, donated by the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), which can send information in real-time, as well as binoculars, torches, and vuvuzela.

Vuvuzela is a homemade trumpet that when blown produces a deafening sound enough to scare away wild animals.

“We hope this training will raise people’s awareness and help them prevent unnecessary clashes with wild animals,” said Ntalwila.

One can see, villagers using these techniques to scare away baboons and elephants, who often destroy crops. These gadgets also track the movement of lions to protect their livestock especially cows and goats.

Loseryan Kulangai, a resident of Nyichoka village, said the use of technology to track wild animals has simplified his work and has also helped him detect the presence of angry wild animals in the vicinity.


- Easy-to-use devices

“The devices are easy to use, and they have helped me and my friends track lions and also alert the community to take care of livestock,” Kulangai said.

Ntalwila said the initiative called the community coexistence training program has been designed to equip villagers with knowledge and necessary skills to prevent their conflict with wild animals.

The innovative early warning system provided by FZS helps in the early detection of lions and leopards.

It uses traditional infrared sensors and thermic sensors capable of detecting species both at night and in areas with dense vegetation.

Serengeti national park – a UNESCO world heritage site is home to Africa’s largest colony of lions, a species considered endangered with its population keeps on declining every year.

In the Serengeti district, as elephants lose their forest habitats, they often invade nearby villages and trample on crops even killing people.

Farmers, who exclusively rear cattle are being taught to protect livestock by building predator-proof bomas (livestock corrals) as well as engaging in daytime herding practices.

“We have told them never to poison lions in retaliation because doing so would harm other critically endangered species including vultures,” he said.

William Oleseki, the founder of Copelio, a local charity group, said while it is not easy to avoid all conflicts, conditions can be created where the interests of both people and wildlife are mutually satisfied.

He said lions can stray from the park for various reasons including dwindling prey, competition with other predators.

“The communities here are always vulnerable to this kind of conflict,” Oleseki said.

Although villagers have always used traditional methods to prevent the clashes, the methods have largely proven inadequate.

Death toll from Cyclone Gombe in Mozambique rises to 53

More than 400,000 people affected, infrastructure destroyed, official data shows

News Service  March 17, 2022

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The death toll from Tropical Cyclone Gombe in Mozambique’s northern Nampula province has risen to 53, authorities said Thursday.

Cyclone Gombe, which also hit Madagascar, the world's second-largest island country in the Indian Ocean, and Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, last week, made landfall in Mozambique last Friday, with winds exceeding 200 kilometers (125 miles) per hour.

The deaths recorded in the Nampula province were caused by collapsed houses and other damaged infrastructure, Mety Gondola, a senior provincial official, told reporters.

"At least 31 deaths were confirmed at the Lunga administrative post alone in the Mossuril district," he said, adding that "other deaths were recorded across other affected areas."

"Lunga is still cut off from the rest of the province due to the destruction of access roads. But local authorities are working to determine the final number of casualties," he added.

Officials believe that the death toll could be higher in the hardest-hit districts of Mogincual, Mozambique Island, Monapo, and Mossuril, as damage assessments continue.

At least 400,175 people were affected, corresponding to 77,279 families, and 74,952 houses were partially or totally damaged, according to data provided by Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction.

Bridges, water installations, 41 health units, 2,714 power stations, and 691 classrooms across 301 schools were also destroyed, affecting 75,607 students.

Meanwhile, the cyclone made its way to Malawi, killing five people, according to Malawi's Department of Disaster Management Affairs.

Four of the victims were from the Machinga district, and the fifth was a 28-year-old man from the Mangochi district who was reportedly washed away by a raging river.

The cyclone unleashed heavy rains on the country, causing floods and destroying several infrastructures.

Earlier last week before moving to Mozambique, the cyclone struck north of Madagascar, leaving two people dead and 935 affected.

InDeath toll from Cyclone Gombe in Mozambique rises to 53

More than 400,000 people affected, infrastructure destroyed, official data shows