Biden reestablishes US troop presence inside Somalia

A house destroyed when Al-Shabaab militants attacked a police station on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia in February 2022

(AFP/Hassan Ali Elmi) 

Sebastian Smith
Mon, May 16, 2022, 

President Joe Biden has ordered the reestablishment of a US troop presence in Somalia to help local authorities combat the Al-Shabaab militant group, a senior American official told reporters Monday.

The move reverses an order from Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, who in late 2020 pulled nearly all US forces from the East African nation as he sought to wind down US military engagements abroad during his final weeks in office.

Biden "approved a request from the Defense Department to reposition US forces in East Africa in order to reestablish a small persistent US military presence in Somalia," the official said.

Fewer than 500 troops will be involved, the official said, adding that it will "take a little bit of time to reach that" level in Somalia.


That is slightly smaller than the original footprint of 750 US soldiers who spent years in the country conducting operations against Al-Shabaab, but were then removed under Trump and rebased in neighboring countries Kenya and Djibouti.

In December 2020, just before he left office, Trump directed the withdrawal from Somalia "against the advice of senior US military leadership," the official said.

"Since then Al-Shabaab... has unfortunately only grown stronger," the official added.

- Support from Mogadishu -

The official suggested that Biden's decision had more to do with the security of US forces than with the election on Sunday of a new Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, after more than a year of political instability and a drought crisis.

Somalian leaders over recent years have been constant in their support for cooperation with the US military in battling Islamic extremists, the official said, adding that Washington remains confident the new administration will continue to do so.

Congratulating the newly elected president, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged him to develop "security forces to prevent and counter terrorism and assume full security responsibility from the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia."

By reinserting US troops, Washington will reduce the risks involved in back-and-forth mobilizations of forces that have been conducting counterterrorism operations inside Somalia.

The move would boost efficiency and the effectiveness of special operators, and allow for uninterrupted training periods with local partners.

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin viewed the current form of operations as "inefficient and increasingly unsustainable."

“The purpose here is to enable a more effective fight against Al-Shabaab by local forces... Al-Shabaab has increased in their strength and poses a threat," he said.

Kirby also insisted that the US forces will act as a supportive element and that Somali forces will continue to be responsible for directly battling extremists.

US troops "will continue to be used in training, advising and equipping partner forces to give them the tools that they need to disrupt, degrade and monitor Al-Shabaab," the Pentagon spokesman said.

"Our forces are not now, nor will they be, directly engaged in combat operations," he said.

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Sudan sanctuary offers haven for exotic birds
AFP - Yesterday

Tucked away east of Sudan's capital Khartoum, a sanctuary of lush green vegetation has been a haven for dozens of exotic birds from far and wide.


© -Over 100 birds of 13 different species currently inhabit the reserve

"I have a passion for birds," said Akram Yehia, owner of the Marshall Nature Reserve which covers 400 square metres (4,300 square feet).

"I wanted to create an ideal environment that simulates their natural habitat."

Yehia, 45, set up the huge caged aviary in his house's front yard four years ago, and has handcrafted dozens of birdhouses.

He created a habitat of trees, adding a garden pond and mist nozzles for cooling off against Sudan's scorching heat.

Over 100 birds of 13 different species currently inhabit the reserve.

Ring-necked parakeet, rosella birds, as well as Meyers and red-rumped parrots flit across branches and compete over birdhouses in the reserve.

"I have trained and tamed them over the years so they won't attack each another," he said.

Yehia says his favourite is an African grey parrot who answers to the name "Kuku" and has a knack for mimicking human sounds and movements as well.


Sudanese and foreign visitors are allowed to drop in for two to three hours a day only.

"It's only limited time so we don't disturb their habitat," said Yehia.

Business, however, has been impacted since an October military coup that has triggered regular mass protests met by a violent crackdown.

Visits often get called off on protest days as streets are blocked, making it hard to move around the capital.

"The tear gas fired during the protests is very dangerous for the birds," Yehia said.

"I know people living closer to large protest sites and who've lost all the birds they own."

Yehia has also been grappling with increasing expenses in Sudan, where the local currency has plummeted against the dollar, and food and fuel prices have soared.

"I want to expand the reserve but it's very expensive now," he said.

To visitors, the reserve is a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of Khartoum.

"I never knew that such a place exists in Khartoum," said Anna Shcherbakova, a visitor from Ukraine.

A local visitor, Hossameddine Sidahmed, said he hopes the reserve expands and grows "even more beautiful".

Egypt composer's star rises with 'Moon Knight' fame

eFollowing his score for the Pharaohs' Golden Parade last year, Egyptian composer Hesham Nazih was tapped to write the music for Marvel Studios' latest series, 'Moon Knight' 

(AFP/Khaled DESOUKI)


Bassem Aboualabass
Mon, May 16, 2022, 1

For nearly 30 years, his music has made its way to every young Egyptian's ringtone -- but it's the country's ancient history that recently propelled composer Hesham Nazih to the realm of superheroes.

Following his career-defining score for the Pharaohs' Golden Parade last year -- a grandiose spectacle that saw 22 mummies transferred across Cairo to a new museum -- Nazih was tapped to write the music for Marvel Studios' latest series, "Moon Knight".

The six-episode saga starring Oscar Isaac tells the story of a superhero who draws his powers from an ancient Egyptian god.

"Ancient Egyptian civilisation is extremely appealing for any composer, whether Egyptian or not," the 50-year-old composer told AFP from his studio in Cairo.

But while drawing inspiration from ancient heritage was "not an artistic goal" in and of itself for the musician, it has allowed him to realise his dream of transcending national boundaries.

- Drawing on heritage -

In April 2021, all eyes were on the globally streamed procession of mummies through the capital, when Egyptian soprano Amira Selim, clad in a full-length gown adorned with Pharaonic motifs, took the stage with a haunting performance of the Hymn of Isis.

The ode, the lyrics to which were taken from texts in the "Book of the Dead", was sung in phonetic ancient Egyptian and featured an arrangement of traditional folk instruments along with a classical orchestra, cementing the composer's genre-shattering prowess.

The result was a media fervour that took Nazih himself by surprise, with the piece being shared widely both in Egypt and abroad.

"The audience's reaction was very moving," he told AFP, adding that the parade "holds a special place in my heart" as it showcased the talents of Egyptian artists.

Riding the ancient Egypt high, the virtuoso was selected to compose the score for Marvel's Moon Knight, marking his first foray into Hollywood.

Helmed by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, the series has proven massively popular among his compatriots -- despite there being no way to legally stream the show there yet -- due in no small part to Diab's insistence on the production being an Egyptian affair.

In addition to a cast and crew that brings together the likes of Egyptian-Palestinian actress May Calamawy and Egyptian editor Ahmed Hafez, the series soundtrack has been peppered with popular Arabic songs, ranging from golden-era classics to modern electro street music known as mahraganat.

"I'm still processing all of it. Moon Knight is a whole other level for me," the composer said. "I was seeing reactions from so many different audiences and cultures."

But Nazih's latest experimentations with ancient Egypt weren't the first time he has drawn from Egyptian heritage.

For the 2014 thriller series "The Seven Commandments", Nazih wove in spiritual Sufi chants, to massive success. The soundtrack was a hit on social media, achieving a long-held dream for the musician.

When he was nine, he explained, he stopped halfway down a street in Alexandria to watch a Sufi ritual in a small mosque, and was haunted by the "majesty" of the scene.

Decades later, he was finally able to channel it into a composition.

- No formal training -

"Music doesn't communicate information, it's pure emotion," according to Nazih, and it was emotion that took him from a career as an engineer to creating more than 40 soundtracks for film and TV over the past three decades.

Having first felt the impact of a great score as a child, he has been chasing that high ever since. "I knew then that I wanted to go into this field, to make people feel what I felt," he said.

His music has defined famous films including 2003's "Sahar El Layali" ("Sleepless Nights" in Arabic), which was almost tipped as Egypt's submission for an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film that year.

In 2019, Nazih scored "Al-Fil al-Azraq 2" ("The Blue Elephant 2"), Egyptian cinema's highest ever grossing film, earning 100 million pounds ($5.4 million).

Over his career, he says he has seen the once-stringent boundaries between music and film begin to dissolve.

"Film composers aren't recognised as true filmmakers by directors because they're musicians, but they're not recognised as musicians by their peers because they belong to the world of cinema," he said.

But things might be changing. In 2018, Nazih was the first musician to receive the Faten Hamama prize at the Cairo International Film Festival, which is awarded to renowned figures in cinema, but had previously only ever gone to directors and actors.

Three years later, he was also recognised in the musical world, winning a lifetime achievement award at the Cairo Opera House Arabic Music Festival.

bam/sar/sbh/bha/jsa

Ukraine's museums eye Russian focus on east with suspicion


In WWII, the Soviet invaders 'acted like bulldozers', says architecture professor Mykola Bevz  AND WHAT ABOUT THE NAZI'S

(AFP/Yuriy Dyachyshyn)

Charlotte PLANTIVE
Tue, May 17, 2022

To get into the Potocki Palace, a gem of Ukrainian architecture, you have to show your ID, slip past the armed soldiers and duck under some scaffolding.

All that, just to see some bare picture rails.

Life has resumed a semblance of quasi-normality in Lviv, western Ukraine, since Russian forces pulled out of the Kyiv region to focus their offensive on the south and east.

But museums in the self-styled capital of culture only dare open their doors a chink, convinced the invaders will pillage Ukraine's culture as they have its villages.

"We'd like to open up a bit more but security is complicated," explained Vassyl Mytsko, deputy director of the Lviv National Gallery. Ukraine's largest fine arts museum has 21 sites, housing a vast collection of 65,000 works of art.

"How can we be sure the Russians aren't just gathering their strength again so they can chuck all their rockets at us?"

The staff of the National were taken by surprise when Russia invaded on February 24. "We didn't think the strikes would get this far" and threaten Lviv, Mytsko said.

The museum curators were "stunned" at first but soon got to work wrapping up sculptures and paintings -- some of which are worth millions -- and squirreling them to safety in secret locations, where they remain to this day.

The Potocki, opened exclusively for AFP, is no exception.

Workers are using the absence of its precious paintings to give the bare walls a coating of bright red paint following the removal of works including Georges de la Tour's "Payment of Taxes."

Since early May, two of the National's other sites more than an hour away from Lviv have started reopening to the public. On occasions.

There is no question, however, of the museums in the city itself unlocking their doors "until there is major change -- politically or on the ground", Mytsko said.

Kremlin troops have already bombed a museum near Kyiv dedicated to artist Maria Primachenko and another in Kharkiv about philosopher Grigori Skovoroda, so they remain a threat to Lviv, he said, adding: "They want to destroy Ukraine's identity and its European roots."

- 'Skilful' -

Roman Shmelik, head of the Lviv History Museum, is just as suspicious.

The museum's collection is spread across ten buildings, some dating back to the 16th Century, but only two opened on May 1 -- one to let people use its cafe, the other for a children's exhibition. The buildings were otherwise empty, their treasures under wraps elsewhere.

Shuddering, Shmelik recalled how the Soviets had taken control of Lviv in the Second World War and turned the museum into a "propaganda tool".

"They took out the permanent exhibition and replaced it with one glorifying the Red Army," he spluttered, still indignant.

Right across the country, the Soviets "acted like bulldozers", concurred Mykola Bevz, a professor of architecture at Lviv University who was instrumental in obtaining UNESCO heritage status for his city.

Lviv, with its 3,000 monuments, was nonetheless better able than other cities to fend off Soviet "urban planning", he opined.

Firstly, because the "cradle of Ukrainian patriotism" only belatedly fell into Soviet hands -- the east of Ukraine became part of the USSR in 1918 -- and secondly, because "there was an intellectual movement that mounted a skilful resistance".

In addition, the citizens of Lviv succeeded in saving a historic part of the city that was to be razed to make way for a huge square for military parades, Bevz added.

Mytsko said his predecessor at the National, Boris Voznitsky, had, by skilful ruses, succeeded in enriching the museum's collections of religious works, despite the official Soviet policy of atheism.

Shmelik, who identifies with these defenders of Ukrainian heritage, stressed the importance of protecting Lviv's museums "to contribute to the formation of our national identity".

His response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertion that there is no such thing as Ukrainian identity because Russians and Ukrainians are the same people?

"We're Ukrainian and we have nothing to prove," he sniffed.

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CONSCRIPTS

Young, poor and from minorities: the Russian troops killed in Ukraine




Russia has been remarkably tight-lipped on the number of its soldiers killed (AFP/SERGEY BOBOK)

Stuart WILLIAMS
Tue, May 17, 2022

The bulk of the thousands of Russian soldiers killed in Moscow's onslaught against Ukraine are very young, have poor backgrounds and many are from ethnic minority groups, observers say.

There has been close attention on the numbers of Russian generals and high-ranking officers killed since the invasion launched by President Vladimir Putin on February 24, which has proved far more costly than the Kremlin wished.

But with observers believing the Russian toll could now be exceeding the 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed during the 1979-1989 occupation of Afghanistan, the losses among Russian rank-and-file soldiers have been devastating.

Russia has been remarkably tight-lipped on the number of its soldiers killed, giving a toll of 498 soldiers killed on March 2 and updating this to 1,351 on March 25, with no more information since.

Ukraine puts the toll of Russian soldiers at 27,000 and while most Western sources find this high, they also give figures many times higher than the Russian estimates.

"Russia has now likely suffered losses of one third of the ground combat force it committed in February," the British defence ministry said Sunday, indicating that some 50,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded.

In a rare nod to the potential significance of the losses, though without going into any numbers, Putin paid tribute to those killed at Russia's Victory Day commemorations on May 9.

"We bow in front of our comrades in arms who died courageously in a just fight, for Russia. The death of every soldier and officer is a cause of grief for us and an irreplaceable loss for loved ones," he said, announcing a package of measures to help the families of those wounded or killed.

- 'Remember them' -

The Russian-language website Mediazona said it had been able to confirm the deaths of 2,099 Russian soldiers in action up to May 6 from open sources alone.

It said that the largest proportion of those killed where age was mentioned was among 21- to 23-year-olds, and 74 had not even reached the age of 20.

A regional breakdown showed most of the dead came from the south of Russia, including the mainly Muslim Northern Caucasus region, as well as central Siberia.

Only a handful of deaths were recorded of soldiers from Moscow and the second-largest city, Saint Petersburg, which are considerably more affluent than the rest of Russia.

The largest numbers of confirmed deaths (135) were of soldiers from the Muslim Northern Caucasus region of Dagestan followed by Buryatia, home to the Mongol Buryat ethnic group, in Siberia (98).

"The largest number of soldiers and officers within the ground troops comes from the small towns and villages of Russia. It is related to socio-economic and, consequently, educational stratification," Pavel Luzin, a commentator for the Riddle Russia online news site, told AFP.

"The requirements for military service in the ground troops are relatively low, and the best and educated soldiers and future officers go to other branches of the Russian armed forces like air and space forces, strategic rocket forces and navy," he added.

Local media and Telegram channels in Dagestan, which for years battled an Islamist insurgency and is one of Russia's poorest regions, have been filled with images of grieving relatives receiving condolences from state officials.

In one example, Kamil Iziiev, head of the Buynaksky district of Dagestan, on May 6 posted a video on his Telegram channel showing him giving posthumous state awards to families of five inhabitants of Dagestan killed in the war, accepted by wives and mothers wearing the Muslim headscarf.

"You have to live on as mothers of children whose fathers heroically gave up their lives. Dear relatives, I ask you to remember that a person is alive so long as they are remembered. So let's remember these guys," he said.

The very first Russian soldier officially confirmed by Moscow to have been killed was Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a young Dagestani who state media said died while saving fellow troops. He was posthumously decorated by Putin with the Hero of Russia award on March 4.

His death prompted Putin to publicly pay tribute to the role played by non-Russian ethnic groups in Moscow's assault, saying he was "proud of being part of this world, this powerful, strong and multinational people of Russia."

- 'Hidden resistance' -

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan sparked a national trauma –- chronicled in Nobel prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich's harrowing oral history "Boys in Zinc," named after the lining of the coffins in which the young soldiers came back –- and contributed to the collapse of the USSR.

The draconian censorship measures imposed by Moscow in the Ukraine conflict –- which mean that what the Kremlin terms a "special military operation" cannot even be called a war in Russia –- have kept dissent to a minimum, with few daring to express alarm over the losses.

A rare voice has been that of Natalia Poklonskaya, a former prosecutor in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea who became a Russian MP and Russian official after the annexation.

Taking issue with the use of the letter 'Z' by the Russian authorities as a propaganda image, she said it "symbolised a tragedy for both Russia and Ukraine. Why? Because Russian soldiers are being killed."

Luzin said the lack of open signs of protest in provincial Russia and ethnic minority regions over the losses did not mean that there would be no reaction in the future.

"But their reaction will not be an open resistance but a hidden one -- they will start to avoid conscription and contract military service," he said.

sjw/js/ach

NATO NATION BUILDING

Rival Libya government enters capital prompting clashes

In February, the parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk designated former Libyan interior minister Fathi Bashagha as prime minister. (AFP)

17 May 2022

Clashes break out between rival armed groups shortly after Fathi Bashagha enters the western city

TRIPOLI: The rival government appointed by Libya’s eastern-based parliament said Tuesday it had arrived in the capital, where the unity government has refused to cede power, prompting fighting between their militia backers.

Its press service announced “the arrival of the prime minister of the Libyan government, Mr. Fathi Bashagha, accompanied by several ministers, in the capital Tripoli to begin his work there.”

Clashes broke out between rival armed groups shortly after he entered the western city, an AFP journalist reported.

In February, the parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk designated former interior minister Bashagha as prime minister.

But he has failed to oust the Tripoli-based unity administration led by premier Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who has said repeatedly he will only cede power to an elected government.

Dbeibah’s government was formed in 2020 as part of United Nations-led efforts to draw a line under a decade of conflict since a NATO-backed revolt toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

Dbeibah was to lead the country until elections last December, but they were indefinitely postponed and his political opponents argue that his mandate has now finished.

The rise of Bashagha’s government gives the North African country two rival administrations, as was the case between 2014 and a 2020 cease-fire.

Indonesian farmers stage protests against palm oil export ban


PUBLISHED : 17 MAY 2022 
REUTERS

Indonesian palm oil farmers take part in a protest demanding the government to end the palm oil export ban, outside the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs office, in Jakarta, Indonesia on Tuesday. (Reuters photo)

JAKARTA: Hundreds of Indonesian smallholder farmers on Tuesday staged a protest in the capital Jakarta and in other parts of the world's fourth most populous country, demanding the government end a palm oil export ban that has slashed their income.

Indonesia, the world's top palm oil exporter, has since April 28 halted shipments of crude palm oil and some of its derivative products in a bid to control soaring prices of domestic cooking oil, rattling global vegetable oil markets.

Marching alongside a truck filled with palm oil fruit, farmers held a rally outside the offices of the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is leading the government policy.

"Malaysian farmers are wearing full smiles, Indonesian farmers suffer," one of the signs held up by protesters read. Malaysia is the second-largest producer of palm oil and has said it aims to supply markets left open by Indonesia's export ban.

In a statement, the smallholder farmer's group APKASINDO said since the announcement of the export ban the price of palm fruit had dropped 70% below the floor price set by regional authorities.

Meanwhile, APKASINDO estimated that at least 25% of palm oil mills has stopped buying palm fruit from independent farmers.

The protesters also planned to march to the presidential palace, the group said. Similar protests were also being held in 22 other provinces, it said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo imposed the export ban on palm oil and its derivative products used in the making of cooking oil after a series of policies failed to control the price of the basic household food item.

A survey this week showed the approval ratings for Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, hit the lowest level since December 2015 due to rising prices. Figures released by pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia showed that satisfaction with Jokowi fell to 58.1% in May to the lowest since December 2015 when the president's approval rating had slumped to 53%.

Chief Economics Minister Airlangga Hartarto has said the ban would stay in place until bulk cooking oil prices drop to 14,000 rupiah (33.2 baht) per litre across Indonesia.

Trade Ministry data showed as of Friday, bulk cooking oil was priced on average at 17,300 rupiah per litre as of Friday.

When it comes to war crimes, Britain looks the other way

David Hearst

Boris Johnson has called for an investigation into atrocities in Ukraine. But Britain has consistently subverted inquiries into its own offences

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons, 22 March 2022 (AFP)

There can now be not a scintilla of doubt that Russian troops have committed gross war crimes in Bucha, Irpin and Borodyanka. As more areas around the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv are liberated, more and more details of the carnage will emerge.

They dumped the bodies in wells and pits. They left bodies unburied for weeks. They threatened at gunpoint people trying to rescue their neighbours buried in the rubble of bombardment.

Russian troops shot village leaders who refused to collaborate, along with their families. They raped women, according to a Ukrainian MP. They used civilians as human shields.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine merits the closest of international legal scrutiny

Cars of families trying to flee with the word "dyeti" (children) taped on them were found riddled with bullets.

They treated the whole population as "Nazi". The evidence from intercepted communications alone between Russian commanders and their units is overwhelming.

Claims by the Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, that civilian deaths are faked, that bodies were brought in by Ukrainian soldiers and dumped on the streets after Russian troops left are simply not credible.

Russian units with no time to conceal their crimes in mass graves left ample evidence of them. Better to stay silent rather than to compound one lie with another. And it is also true that the only fit place to judge crimes of these dimensions is an international war crimes tribunal.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine merits the closest of international legal scrutiny.
Obstruction of justice

Calls are rightly multiplying for a war crimes investigation. There is one small problem.

Today, the very countries that are calling for international justice in relation to the behaviour of Russian troops are the same countries that have consistently subverted and delayed inquiries into the documented war crimes committed in their own name.

ICC war crimes unit still probing alleged offences by UK forces in Iraq

Read More »

Ukraine is exactly the reason why Nato allies - principally the US and Britain - should have been scrupulous about maintaining the framework of international justice when their troops were doing the invading and the bombing.

Not only did they fail to fully investigate their own crimes. They actively obstructed bodies like the International Criminal Court (ICC) from working. This obstruction of justice has lasted decades and continues to this day with all the vigour it can muster.

The spearhead of their assault on the international justice was former US president Donald Trump's decision to sanction the ICC's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, another senior prosecution official.

Trump declared their investigations into US war crimes in Afghanistan and Israeli crimes in Palestine "a national emergency". Additionally, Mike Pompeo, then secretary of state, announced that the United States had restricted the issuance of visas for certain unnamed individuals "involved in the ICC's efforts to investigate US personnel".

US President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions on the ICC, but his administration continues to condemn and oppose its investigation into war crimes committed by all parties Israeli and Palestinian.

International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (C) 

sits at the ICC's courtroom on 28 August, 2018 (AFP)

When the ICC at last confirmed it was opening an investigation into Israeli actions in Palestine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement: "The ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. Israel is not a party to the ICC and has not consented to the Court's jurisdiction, and we have serious concerns about the ICC's attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.

"The Palestinians do not qualify as a sovereign state and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state in, participate as a state in, or delegate jurisdiction to the ICC."

Blinken's tone is less abrasive and more thoughtful than Pompeo's, but the policy is unchanged.

Looking the other way

Mangling the Russian language, this week British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appealed directly to Russians about what was being done in their name in Ukraine. Johnson said it was a betrayal of the trust of every mother "who proudly waves goodbye to her son as he heads off to join the military".

This video was misconceived at every level.

Today, the very countries that are calling for international justice on the behaviour of Russian troops have consistently subverted and delayed inquiries into the documented war crimes committed by their troops

Conscription is feared and Russians will go to extraordinary attempts to avoid it. When the unavoidable moment comes, the parting is more like a funeral wake than a celebration.

Oblivious to real life in Russia, Johnson ended with the following warning: "Those responsible will be held to account and history will remember who looked the other way."

How does a prime minister of the UK expect to be taken seriously when Britain itself has "looked the other way" countless times?

The list is inexhaustible. Tony Blair rewarded the war crimes Putin committed in Chechnya from 1999 to 2003 by arranging for the blood-soaked Russian leader to meet the Queen. In Grozny, Russian troops cleared the cellars in which civilians were sheltering by throwing grenades into them. George W Bush even conscripted Putin's war against Chechnya into his own war on terror.

US-led coalition bombers in Iraq assaulted a whole population. They called it "shock and awe". Estimates of Iraqi deaths triggered by that invasion vary from under 300,000 to over a million. Brown University's Costs of War Project calculated that at least 500,00 people perished in the post 9/11 US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

Attempts to investigate the killing and torture of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq have been repeatedly undermined.

Investigation undermined

Abandoning its inquiry into claims that British troops committed war crimes in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, ICC prosecutor Bensouda noted that, despite a decade of domestic investigations, no charges had been brought against any soldiers - "a result that has deprived the victims of justice".

"The fact that the allegations investigated by the UK authorities did not result in prosecutions does not mean that these claims were vexatious. At most it means that the domestic investigative bodies could not sustain sufficient evidence to refer the cases for prosecution, or on cases referred there was not a realistic prospect of conviction in a criminal trial," Bensouda noted.

Wikileaks did more than anyone else to publicise war crimes in Iraq, notably releasing classified footage from an Apache helicopter on an attack on a dozen civilians, including two journalists, in a suburb of Baghdad. Julian Assange, the man responsible, is now in the UK's Belmarsh prison awaiting extradition to the US on charges of violating the Espionage Act.

Britain looked the other way when on 14 May 2018 more than 60 unarmed Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces as they demonstrated near Gaza's perimeter fence. War crimes are committed virtually every week when Palestinians are shot dead by Israeli troops.

Johnson branded the ICC investigation into the 2014 Gaza war and settlements building in the occupied West Bank, as well as Hamas's rocket attacks from Gaza, as "an attack on Israel"

.

August 2014: An Israeli air strike targets a house in Gaza City during Operation Protective Edge (AFP)

Britain actively participated in Barack Obama's drone strikes. The US president used them 10 times as often as his predecessor George Bush did. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama's two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush.

Between 384 and 807 civilians were killed in those countries, according to reports logged by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The UK continues, also, to look the other way in Yemen, where the projected death toll by the end of 2021 was 377,000. It refused to follow the US in stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Only after years of pressure and a letter from 100 MPs, did the UK agree to financially support witnesses in the Gambia's referral of the Myanmar genocide of the Rohingya to the ICC.

But the UK itself is still not a formal party to the proceedings.
The stain on our conscience

Of all the calls for a war crimes tribunal in Ukraine, the most obscene one comes from Israel itself.

It's a country built on war crimes. Even before the state was created, there was the Tantura massacre. Then came Kafr Kassim, Khan Younis, Sabra and Shatila, the wars in Lebanon, each operation in Gaza. The list of massacres perpetrated by Israeli forces is so long that it forms its own alphabet.

Of all the calls for a war crimes tribunal in Ukraine, the most obscene one comes from Israel itself

Only a year ago, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the ICC investigation into Israeli and Palestinian war crimes "antisemitic". Today, Yair Lapid, the foreign minister, broke the country's taboo on attacking Russia by accusing it of war crimes.

Without any intended irony, Lapid said: "A large and powerful country has invaded a smaller neighbour without any justification. Once again, the ground is soaked with the blood of innocent civilians."

How then can leading western nations hope to secure an internationally functioning justice? It is needed. Ukraine screams for it. How large is the stain on our conscience? And why is it that when the West talks about war crimes, few in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America listen anymore?

9/11 attacks 20 years on: How the 'war on terror' turned full circle

Read More »

What gives Britain the right to preach about a rules-based world order against autocrats, when its wars - done in the name of democracy and accountability - have visited such terrible damage on innocent people?

Under bombardment, civilians find it hard to be told they are dying in a just cause.

One Iraqi, speaking about the experience of "shock and awe" in his homeland, could just as easily be a Ukrainian speaking about the Russian invasion today:

"I call it really a dirty war because they want to get it over fast. So they are targeting either the water stations, electric station, and all the essential things for the people, which is - that's not good. Everywhere you live, at least there is something important to hit."

The world needs an international criminal court that functions in every war. To carry any credibility, a war crimes investigation needs to investigate the summary killings of both sides, Russian and Ukrainian.

To cast a wide net of impunity over the strongest armies in the world is to condemn the creation of the only coalition that matters, to bring those who break the rules of war to justice.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was The Guardian's foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

 

In a World of Great Disorder and Extravagant Lies, We Look for Compassion

The Nineteenth Newsletter (2022)

by Vijay Prashad / May 14th, 2022

Francisca Lita Sáez (Spain), An Unequal Fight, 2020.

These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), and to galvanise new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so.

Studies by the WHO have shown us that health care spending by governments in poorer nations has been relatively flat during the pandemic, while out-of-pocket private expenditure on health care continues to rise. Since the pandemic was declared in March 2020, many governments have responded with exceptional budget allocations; however, across the board from richer to the poorer nations, the health sector received only ‘a fairly small portion’ while the bulk of the spending was used to bail out multinational corporations and banks and provide social relief for the population.

In 2020, the pandemic cost the global gross domestic product an estimated $4 trillion. Meanwhile, according to the WHO, the ‘needed funding … to ensure epidemic preparedness is estimated to be approximately US$150 billion per year’. In other words, an annual expenditure of $150 billion could likely prevent the next pandemic along with its multi-trillion-dollar economic bill and incalculable suffering. But this kind of social investment is simply not in the cards these days. That’s part of what makes our times so upsetting.

S. H. Raza (India), Monsoon in Bombay, 1947–49.

On 5 May, the WHO released its findings on the excess deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the 24-month period of 2020 and 2021, the WHO estimated the pandemic’s death toll to be 14.9 million. A third of these deaths (4.7 million) are said to have been in India; this is ten times the official figure released by the Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has disputed the WHO’s figures. One would have thought that these staggering numbers – nearly 15 million dead globally in the two-year period – would be sufficient to strengthen the will to rebuild depleted public health systems. Not so.

According to a study on global health financing, development assistance for health (DAH) increased by 35.7 percent between 2019 and 2020. This amounts to $13.7 billion in DAH, far short of the projected $33 billion to $62 billion required to address the pandemic. In line with the global pattern, while DAH funding during the pandemic went towards COVID-19 projects, various key health sectors saw their funds decrease (malaria by 2.2 percent, HIV/AIDS by 3.4 percent, tuberculosis by 5.5 percent, reproductive and maternal health by 6.8 percent). The expenditure on COVID-19 also had some striking geographical disparities, with the Caribbean and Latin America receiving only 5.2 percent of DAH funding despite experiencing 28.7 percent of reported global COVID-19 deaths.

Sajitha R. Shankar (India), Alterbody, 2008.

While the Indian government is preoccupied with disputing the COVID-19 death toll with the WHO, the government of Kerala – led by the Left Democratic Front – has focused on using any and every means to enhance the public health sector. Kerala, with a population of almost 35 million, regularly leads in the country’s health indicators among India’s twenty-eight states. Kerala’s Left Democratic Front government has been able to handle the pandemic because of its robust public investment in health care facilities, the public action led by vibrant social movements that are connected to the government, and its policies of social inclusion that have minimised the hierarchies of caste and patriarchy that otherwise isolate social minorities from public institutions.

In 2016, when the Left Democratic Front took over state leadership, it began to enhance the depleted public health system. Mission Aardram (‘Compassion’), started in 2017, was intended to improve public health care, including emergency departments and trauma units, and draw more people away from the expensive private health sector to public systems. The government rooted Mission Aardram in the structures of local self-government so that the entire health care system could be decentralised and more closely attuned to the needs of communities. For example, the mission developed a close relationship with the various cooperatives, such as Kudumbashree, a 4.5-million-member women’s anti-poverty programme. Due to the revitalised public health care system, Kerala’s population has begun to turn away from the private sector in favour of these government facilities, whose use increased from 28 percent in the 1980s to 70 percent in 2021 as a result.

As part of Mission Aardram, the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala created Family Health Centres across the state. The government has now established Post-COVID Clinics at these centres to diagnose and treat people who are suffering from long-term COVID-19-related health problems. These clinics have been created despite little support from the central government in New Delhi. A number of Kerala’s public health and research institutes have provided breakthroughs in our understanding of communicable diseases and helped develop new medicines to treat them, including the Institute for Advanced Virology, the International Ayurveda Research Institute, and the research centres in biotechnology and pharmaceutical medicines at the Bio360 Life Sciences Park. All of this is precisely the agenda of compassion that gives us hope in the possibilities of a world that is not rooted in private profit but in social good.

Nguyễn tư Nghiêm (Vietnam), The Dance, 1968.

In November 2021, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research worked alongside twenty-six research institutes to develop A Plan to Save the Planet. The plan has many sections, each of which emerged out of deep study and analysis. One of the key sections is on health, with thirteen clear policy proposals:

1. Advance the cause of a people’s vaccine for COVID-19 and for future diseases.
2. Remove patent controls on essential medicines and facilitate the transfer of both medical science and technology to developing countries.
3. De-commodify, develop, and increase investment in robust public health systems.
4. Develop the public sector’s pharmaceutical production, particularly in developing countries.
5. Form a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Health Threats.
6. Support and strengthen the role health workers’ unions play at the workplace and in the economy.
7. Ensure that people from underprivileged backgrounds and rural areas are trained as doctors.
8. Broaden medical solidarity, including through the World Health Organisation and health platforms associated with regional bodies.
9. Mobilise campaigns and actions that protect and expand reproductive and sexual rights.
10. Levy a health tax on large corporations that produce beverages and foods that are widely recognised by international health organisations to be harmful to children and to public health in general (such as those that lead to obesity or other chronic diseases).
11. Curb the promotional activities and advertising expenditures of pharmaceutical corporations.
12. Build a network of accessible, publicly funded diagnostic centres and strictly regulate the prescription and prices of diagnostic tests.
13. Provide psychological therapy as part of public health systems.

If even half of these policy proposals were to be enacted, the world would be less dangerous and more compassionate. Take point no. 6 as a reference. During the early months of the pandemic, it became normal to talk about the need to support ‘essential workers’, including health care workers (our dossier from June 2020, Health Is a Political Choice, made the case for these workers). All those banged pots went silent soon thereafter and health care workers found themselves with low pay and poor working conditions. When these health care workers went on strike – from the United States to Kenya – that support simply did not materialise. If health care workers had a say in their own workplaces and in the formation of health policy, our societies would be less prone to repeated healthcare calamities.

There’s an old Roque Dalton poem from 1968 about headaches and socialism that gives us a taste of what it will take to save the planet:

It is beautiful to be a communist,
even if it gives you many headaches.

The communists’ headache
is presumed to be historical; that is to say,
that it does not yield to painkillers,
but only to the realisation of paradise on earth.
That’s the way it is.

Under capitalism, we get a headache
and our heads are torn off.
In the revolution’s struggle, the head is a time-bomb.

In socialist construction,
we plan for the headache
which does not make it scarce, but quite the contrary.
Communism will be, among other things,
an aspirin the size of the sun.

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Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

This article was posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2022 at 8:51am and is filed under COVID-19, Health Care Workers, Health/Medical, India, Pharmaceuticals, Public Health, World Health Organization (WHO).

The Ivorian artist transforming used phones into works of art

Ivorian artist Désiré Mounou Koffi -

 
Copyright © africanews

SIA KAMBOU/AFP or licensors
By Rédaction Africanews 

Stitching together discarded mobile phone keyboards to make art, Ivorian artist Mounou Desire Koffi hopes to raise awareness about pollution.

"I wanted to contribute something new," said the artist, whose work is on display in Abidjan until July.

In his studio in Bingerville, near the Ivorian business capital, the 28-year-old describes himself as "young contemporary artist" who wants to stand out from the crowd.

"I've been passionate about drawing since childhood. It was always me the teacher would send to the blackboard to illustrate lessons," he says.

When he decided he wanted to go to art school, his parents, who worked as farmers in southwestern Ivory Coast, had no idea what it was. His art teacher had to visit to persuade them to let him go.

After graduating at the top of his class from the Abidjan Art School, he started looking for old mobile phone keyboards and screens on roadsides, in gutters and in rubbish tips.

"Now I have a whole team that is paid according to the quality of what they turn up with," he says.

"I told them: 'Stop throwing things away. Bring them to me and we can work with them.'"

- 'Solve a problem' -

In his studio, someone has dropped off bags brimming with mobile phone spare parts. Koffi dives into a pile of keyboards and screens to find those he needs.

Placing them side by side on the canvas, he creates colourful human silhouettes in urban settings. Some of his works sell for up to $1,500.

He says the aim is to try to "solve a problem" in a country where rubbish sorting is almost non-existent, and most household waste ends up in piles in the street.

"Most of my works reflect man's day-to-day existence in society," he said.

"I think phones are the tools that are most close to us at the moment. We have almost everything stored in our phones."

The artist, who had exhibited his works in Morocco, Belgium and France, says his works seek to spark reflection about waste.

"We find all sorts of things in our dustbins... I'm trying to make people more aware."

Keen to reflect current debates, Koffi has in his paintings portrayed pollution, but also floods, traffic jams and child soldiers. One of his latest series, titled "Life here", recounts daily life in Abidjan.

After a first exhibition in the coastal town of Bassam, his work is now on show until July at the capital's Donwahi Foundation.

VIDEO

 https://www.africanews.com/embed/1933940