Pro-Sadr protesters vow to remain inside Iraq parliament

AFP - 10h ago

Supporters of powerful Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr penetrated Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on Saturday, occupying parliament with no plan to leave.


© Ahmad Al-RubayeSadr supporters tear down a concrete barrier before breaching the Green Zone


© Ayman HENNASupporters of powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr gather at the end of a bridge leading to Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone" district of government buildings and foreign embassies.

In a deepening political crisis, it is the second time in days that Sadr supporters have forced their way in to the legislative chamber, months after elections that failed to lead to formation of a government.


© Ahmad Al-RubayeA man displays an Iraqi flag while supporters of the cleric Moqtada Sadr occupy the country's parliament

"The demonstrators announce a sit-in until further notice," Sadr's movement said in a brief statement to journalists carried by state news agency INA.

Supporters of Sadr, who once led a militia against US and Iraqi government forces, oppose the recently announced candidacy of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, a pro-Iran bloc's pick for prime minister.

"We don't want Mr Sudani," said one protester, Sattar al-Aliawi, 47, in the parliamentary gardens.

The civil servant said they were protesting "a corrupt and incapable government" and would "sleep here".

He added: "The people totally refuse the parties that have governed the country for 18 years," since a US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Demonstrators inside the legislature waved Iraqi flags and pictures of the cleric.

They crowded the chamber where some sat at lawmakers' desks while others milled about, raising their mobile phones to film the occupation.


© Ahmad Al-RubayeIt is the second parliamentary occupation in three days

- 'The people are with you' -

They entered after thousands of protesters had massed at the end of a bridge leading to the Green Zone before dozens pulled down concrete barriers protecting it and ran inside, an AFP photographer reported.


© Ahmad Al-RubayeSupporters of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr rest beside his picture after occupying parliament, where they vow to remain

Security forces had fired tear gas and water cannon near an entrance to the district, also home to foreign embassies and other government buildings.


© Ahmad Al-rubayeA Sadr supporter stands atop one of the watchtowers at Iraq's parliament

Some protesters on the bridge were injured and carried off by their fellow demonstrators.

The health ministry said at least 100 protesters and 25 members of the security forces had been hurt.

"All the people are with you Sayyed Moqtada," the protesters chanted, using his title as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

Sadr's bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction, but was still far short of a majority.

The mercurial Sadr, long a player in the country's politics, has a devoted following of millions among the country's majority Shiite population.

Supporters of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr bring down concrete barriers leading to the "Green Zone"

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His supporters oppose the candidacy of Sudani, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework's pick for premier.

The protests are the latest challenge for a country trying to overcome decades of war.

Despite oil wealth and elevated global crude prices, Iraq remains hobbled by corruption, unemployment and other problems which sparked a youth-led protest movement in 2019.

- 'Revolution' -

Saturday's demonstration came after crowds of Sadr supporters breached the Green Zone on Wednesday. They left two hours later after Sadr told them to.

After the latest occupation began, the Coordination Framework called on "the popular masses... to peacefully demonstrate in defence of the state and its legitimacy."

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said the "ongoing escalation" was deeply concerning.

"Voices of reason and wisdom are critical to prevent further violence," it said in a tweet.

The current Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi in a statement expressed regret that "political escalation increases tensions in the street."

"We are here for a revolution," said one protester, Haydar al-Lami.

In June, Sadr's 73 lawmakers quit their seats in a move seen as seeking to pressure his rivals into fast-tracking the formation of a government.

Sixty-four new lawmakers were sworn in later that month, making the pro-Iran bloc the largest in parliament, and triggering the fury of Sadr's supporters.

"We would have liked them to wait until the government was formed to evaluate its performance, to give it a chance and to challenge it if it is not," said Ammar al-Hakim, whose Hima movement is part of the Coordination Framework.

"The Sadrist movement has a problem with the idea that the Coordination Framework will form a government," he said in a recent interview with BBC Arabic.

Sadr supporters hold new protest in Iraqi capital


Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protest against corruption, 

in Baghdad, Iraq July 30, 2022. (File photo: Reuters)

AFP, Baghdad
Published: 30 July ,2022: 

Thousands of supporters of influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protested Saturday in a new show of strength three days after storming parliament in a country mired in crises.

Brandishing Iraqi flags and portraits of Sadr, the protesters gathered at the end of a bridge leading to Baghdad's heavily fortified “Green Zone” district of government buildings and foreign embassies, an AFP correspondent reported.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.


“All the people are with you Sayyed Muqtada,” the protesters chanted, using his title as a descendant of the prophet, while some of them climbed onto a concrete barrier.

Sadr's bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction, but was still far short of a majority and, 10 months on, deadlock persists over the establishment of a new government.

Supporters of the Shia cleric oppose the recently announced candidacy of Mohammed al-Sudani, a former minister and ex-provincial governor, who is the pro-Iran Coordination Framework's pick for premier.

The protests are the latest challenge for oil-rich Iraq, which remains mired in a political and a socioeconomic crisis despite elevated global crude prices.

Crowds of Sadr supporters on Wednesday breached the Green Zone despite volleys of tear gas fire from the police.

They occupied the parliament building, singing, dancing and taking selfies before leaving two hours later but only after Sadr told them to leave.

On Saturday, security forces shut off roads in the capital leading to the Green Zone with massive blocks of concrete.

“We are here for a revolution,” said protester Haydar al-Lami.

“We don't want the corrupt; we don't want those who have been in power to return... since 2003... they have only brought us harm.”

By convention, the post of prime minister goes to a leader from Iraq's Shia majority.

Sadr, a former militia leader, had initially supported the idea of a “majority government.”

That would have sent his Shia adversaries from the pro-Iran Coordination Framework into opposition.

The Coordination Framework draws lawmakers from former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's party and the pro-Iran Fatah Alliance, the political arm of the Shia-led former paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi.

But last month Sadr's 73 lawmakers quit in a move seen as seeking to pressure his rivals to fast-track the establishment of a government.

Sixty-four new lawmakers were sworn in later in June, making the pro-Iran bloc the largest in parliament.

Read more:

Protesters leave after storming Iraqi parliament

Riot police repel protesters at Baghdad's Green Zone

Iraqi protesters storm parliament for second time in a week

Supporters of Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr occupy parliament to prevent the nomination of a new PM.
Supporters of the Iraqi Shia leader al-Sadr raise portraits of their leader inside the country's parliament in the capital Baghdad's high-security Green Zone [Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP]

Published On 30 Jul 2022

Protesters have once again breached Iraq’s parliament in a show of support for influential Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, leaving at least 125 people injured and escalating a political standoff.

Saturday’s demonstration comes days after protesters stormed the legislative body and suspended a session to nominate a new prime minister.

Thousands of supporters rallied by al-Sadr and his Sadrist Movement tore down concrete barriers on Saturday and entered the Green Zone, which houses government departments and foreign missions, before breaking into parliament.

The scenes followed similar protests on Wednesday, although this time at least 125 people – 100 civilians and 25 members of the security forces – were wounded, according to the Ministry of Health.

Al-Sadr’s supporters threw stones and police fired tear gas and stun grenades.

“We are calling for a government free from corruption … and those are the demands of the people,” one protester, Abu Foad, told the Reuters news agency among crowds of protesters carrying placards with al-Sadr’s photograph and national flags.

The media office of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had issued a statement calling on security officers to guarantee the safety of state institutions.

Supporters of al-Sadr hold a picture of their leader inside the

 country’s parliament [Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP]

Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Baghdad, said that supports of al-Sadr “are now in full control of the headquarters of the parliament.

“What’s new this time is that they’re not planning to leave until, as they say, their demands are met,” Abdelwahed said.

Demonstrators oppose the candidacy of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, a former minister and ex-provincial governor, who is the pro-Iran Coordination Framework’s pick for the premier’s post.

A vote on appointing al-Sudani to the post of prime minister was scheduled to take place on Saturday, but the session was suspended after Wednesday’s events.

“They do not want parliament to accept al-Sudani … they believe [he] is a replica of Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister, whom they accuse of corruption,” Abdelwahed said. “Many of them accuse him of ruining the country for two terms when he was prime minister.

“[Protesters] wanted to storm the headquarters of the Supreme Judiciary Council, but they were instructed by one of the aides of al-Sadr at the last moment to back off, to keep it peaceful and keep it quiet.

“Despite all of these calls from politicians to keep it peaceful, to refrain from violence, it has been very chaotic and disorganised … the situation remains very tense,” Abdelwahed said.
Political deadlock

Al-Sadr’s bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction but still fell far short of a majority.

Ten months on, the deadlock persists over the establishment of a new government – the longest period since the 2003 invasion by the United States reset the political order in the oil-rich country.

Squabbling political parties failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pick a president – an important step before a prime minister can be selected. By convention, the post of prime minister goes to a leader from Iraq’s Shia majority.

After the negotiations stalled, al-Sadr withdrew his bloc from parliament and announced he was exiting talks on forming a government.
Al-Sadr’s withdrawal ceded dozens of seats to the Coalition Framework, an alliance of Shia parties backed by Iran.

Al-Sadr has since made good on threats to stir up popular unrest if parliament tries to approve a government he does not like, saying it must be free of foreign influence – by Iran and the United States – and the corruption that has plagued Iraq for decades.

Supporters of al-Sadr bring down concrete barriers leading to the capital Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone [Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP]

On Saturday, Al-Sadr’s supporters chanted against his rivals who are now trying to form a government. Many protested in front of the country’s Supreme Court, which al-Sadr has accused of meddling to prevent him from forming a government.

In response, the Coalition Framework called on Iraqis to protest peacefully “in defence of the state, its legitimacy and its institutions”, a statement read later on Saturday, raising fears of clashes.

The United Nations called for de-escalation. “Voices of reason and wisdom are critical to prevent further violence,” its mission in Iraq said.

Al-Sadr, whom opponents also have accused of corruption, maintains large state power himself because his movement remains involved in running the country. His loyalists sit in powerful positions throughout Iraqi ministries and state bodies.

Iraqis linked neither to al-Sadr nor to his opponents said they are caught in the middle of the political gridlock.

Mass mobilisation is a well-worn strategy of al-Sadr, a mercurial figure who has emerged as a powerful force with a nationalist, anti-Iran agenda.

Zeidon Alkinani, an analyst with the Arab Center in Washington, told Al Jazeera that “we shouldn’t be surprised that al-Sadr’s supporters are able to enter government premises, in contrast to the protests that began in 2019”.

Political movements such as the Sadrist movement “have infiltrated the ministry of interior affairs and of defence, meaning that it is very easy for them to bypass any security checkpoints,” the analyst said.

“Another layer to this crisis is the personal rivalry between al-Maliki – who is the most influential politician in the Coordination Framework – and al-Sadr,” Alkinani said.

“This rivalry has been going on since 2006. It’s an ideological and military rivalry that has been affecting the daily life of ordinary Iraqis.”

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Mass gathering in Iraq a potential sign of a summer of protests

Photos: Protesters storm Iraqi parliament in Baghdad

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

LGBTQ community confronts 'excruciating' monkeypox -- and its stigma

Paula RAMON
Fri, July 29, 2022 


The spread of the monkeypox virus and its prevalence among gay men has raised widespread fear, growing anger and a number of uncomfortable questions for a community still scarred by the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

While there is still widespread public confusion about the precise nature and spread of the disease, it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of monkeypox patients in the United States identify as LGBTQ and are male.

For some, the situation evokes dark parallels with the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS was stigmatized as a "gay plague," hospitals and funeral homes turned away patients and victims, and White House officials either cracked homophobic jokes or simply ignored the new virus.

At a meeting this week in West Hollywood, a hub for Los Angeles' LGBTQ community, actor Matt Ford received a standing ovation as he spoke openly about the "excruciating" symptoms he had endured when he contracted the disease -- an experience he has also shared online.

Afterward, he told AFP that he "definitely had doubts before coming out publicly about my experience."

"I was pretty on the fence prior to tweeting due to the potential for social stigma and people being cruel -- especially on the internet -- but thankfully the response was mostly positive," he said.

What pushed Ford to speak out was the urgent need to warn others about the disease in the days leading up to West Hollywood's major LGBTQ Pride celebrations.

While monkeypox has not so far been labelled a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and can infect anyone, the group currently most affected is men who have sex with men.

Spreading through skin-to-skin contact, the disease is most often transmitted through sexual activity, and the World Health Organization this week urged gay and bisexual men to limit their sexual partners.

"At the end of the day, it's not homophobic to say that certain groups are disproportionately impacted by the monkeypox outbreak," said Grant Roth, who is part of a network that collects information about the disease in New York.

"And right now it's about the queer community."

- 'Blame' -

While the notion of monkeypox affecting mainly the LGBTQ community raises fear of homophobia and stigmatization, it has also prompted anger that the US government is not taking the disease seriously enough.

A lack of available vaccines to meet demand has caused outrage across a country where some 4,900 cases have been detected -- more than any other nation.

On Thursday, San Francisco and New York state declared public health emergencies in order to bolster efforts to control the spread of monkeypox.

The US health department announced plans to allocate an additional 786,000 vaccine doses, which will take supply above one million -- but for many, the response has come too late.

"Why is the government not acting as fast as it should?" asked Jorge Reyes Salinas of Equality California, a coalition of LGTBQ activists and organizations.

"We need more resources, and we need more attention to this issue. It's not just an LGBTQ concern. It should not be painted that way."

The way the health emergency is being handled revives painful memories, he said.

"I think that's always gonna be a risk in the back of our minds because, again, of the HIV and AIDS pandemic."

Roth said a lot of "blame" has been placed on men who have sex with men, when in reality the government should have "secured the vaccines sooner, and made testing more widely available."
- 'Afraid' -

At the West Hollywood meeting Andrea Kim, director of Los Angeles County's vaccine program, said a mobile monkeypox immunization unit is due to arrive "soon."

Other speakers outlined measures that the community can take to protect itself until then.

Dan Wohlfeiler, who has worked with HIV and STI prevention for more than three decades, urged people to use the "lessons of Covid" to address the spread by temporarily narrowing social circles and creating bubbles, including for sexual activity.

"This event is yet another traumatic time for a lot of us. Hopefully vaccine access will significantly increase in the next six to eight weeks," he said.

"The more steps that we take as individuals starting now to protect ourselves and our partners, the sooner we can end this outbreak."

"I'm proud to belong to this city and to have this opportunity" to learn more about the disease, said a Latina trans woman after the meeting, who asked not to be identified.

"But how can we not be afraid, if historically we have been discriminated against?" she said.

"I hope this time it will be different."

burs-pr-amz/bfm

Treating monkeypox as an LGBTQ disease contributes to stigma and spread, say advocates

Gerard Yetman, seen in a file photo, says some media coverage of monkeypox has reminded him of the HIV/AIDS crisis. (CBC - image credit)

CBC

Fri, July 29, 2022

After Newfoundland and Labrador Public Health announced the first case of monkeypox in the province, some advocates are worried about potential stigma attached to the illness — especially for members of the LGBTQ community.

Gerard Yetman, executive director of the AIDS Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador, said some media coverage of monkeypox in Canada has reminded him of the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s.

"It reminded me of that because basically, once again, you know, HIV and AIDS was portrayed as a gay men's disease," he said Thursday.

During the HIV/AIDS crisis, people in LGBTQ communities across Canada faced discrimination, isolation and even violence because of the disease.

"A lot of people lost their housing and lost jobs, you know? Were really displaced within our society," Yetman said.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said Wednesday most cases in Canada have been reported in men who have sex with men; however, she cautioned against associating the disease with the LGBTQ community, noting that anyone can get it.

Yetman said he wants Public Health and the media to avoid past mistakes.

"I think Public Health really needs to do some very strong messaging and to ensure that people are aware that no matter what sexuality you are and no matter what gender you are, it has nothing to do with how you can contract monkeypox," he said.

Striking a balance

Newfoundland and Labrador was the sixth province in Canada to report a probable case of monkeypox, which primarily spreads through prolonged close contact with an infected person.

Newfoundland and Labrador's acting Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Rosann Seviour, said Thursday that Public Health is being careful to protect the identity of anyone who gets monkeypox in order to avoid the public shaming that occurred at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Danny Arsenault/CBC

Symptoms include a fever, aches and pains, a rash and lesions. Seviour said the disease usually doesn't require hospitalization, but can be extremely painful. If a person has symptoms of monkeypox they should self-isolate and call their physician or 811, she said.

Charlie Murphy, executive director of LGBTQ organization Quadrangle, said he believes Public Health is striking the right balance in its messaging so far but wants to see more resources in place — like vaccination clinics.

"This is the first initial case, but it's always better to be ahead of that curve," he said.

Seviour said Thursday that close contacts of monkeypox cases are being offered vaccines, but the province isn't yet setting up vaccine clinics like the ones seen in other areas, like Montreal.

Submitted by Nikki Baldwin

Nikki Baldwin, executive director of Planned Parenthood N.L., emphasized the disease is not spread solely through sexual contact, and is not specific to the LGBTQ community or gay or bisexual men.

"The fact that it is spreading through men who primarily have sex with men is because that's the community it's in. It's community spread. It's spread person to person with close contact," she said.

She said focusing on the LGBTQ community in public health messaging or education could leave the false impression that people outside that community can't get monkeypox.

"They may not recognize their symptoms or isolate properly, and that could increase the spread and that could be really detrimental to the whole public," she said.

Broken homes:
Ukrainians in east begin daunting rebuild



Galyna Kios had been surviving with family and neighbours in her gloomy basement, cooking on a makeshift wood-fired stove, when the Russians came.

The troops had been biding their time outside Mala Rogan, 32 kilometres (20 miles) from Ukraine's northeast border with Russia, but decided to take the village two weeks into the war.

"You have to leave because we need the whole street," Kios remembers the soldier telling her, just before the invading force took over her two-storey house.

The occupation was short-lived -- the invaders were driven out by the Ukrainian army after a fortnight of fierce fighting -- but it was enough time to leave Kios's street in ruins.

"I saw what they had done to my home, what remained of it. What emotions could I afford? Material possessions are not worth your life," the widowed mother-of-four, 67, told AFP.

"So I thought, 'I'm happy, that with God's will, I'm alive.' Everything lost is material, we can rebuild or renew it."

Since then she has been shovelling, sweeping, scouring and scrubbing -- sometimes with family but often alone -- like thousands of Ukrainians returning to liberated but ruined homes in the country's east.
- Scars of battle -

The Kharkiv region of 2.7 million people that includes Mala Rogan saw 90 percent of housing destroyed in areas taken back from the Russians, local media reported in May, quoting the governor.

There are fewer than a dozen properties in Kios's dusty road, and each bears the scars of battle -- roofs gone, facades pockmarked by shrapnel or rifle fire, chunks bitten out.

At the top of the hill one house is so badly scorched it looks volcanic, obsidian walls rising above piles of personal effects and Russian soldiers' boots.

Two houses have burnt-out armoured vehicles in their driveways, one spray-painted with "Death to the enemy" in Ukrainian.


Nearby, a Soviet-era T-72 tank with its turret blown off lies decaying in the road, the cadaver of a once-formidable beast, greedily picked clean and abandoned to the elements.

Six explosions of varying intensity -- almost certainly shell fire a few kilometres away -- rang out as Kios worked through lunchtime.

A few houses down, Nadia Ilchenko had brought her daughter and nine-year-old granddaughter out to Mala Rogan at the start of the war.

She reasoned that it would be safer than staying at their home a short drive away in Kharkiv city, but soon realised she had misjudged the situation.
- 'Burned down' -

Amid heavy shelling in the village, the 69-year-old sent them away again and fled with her husband on March 19.

During her exile, she glimpsed a video of her house smouldering, the garage destroyed along with a motorcycle and two kids' bikes.

"I came back on May 19, and my blood pressure is still high. We have spent almost two months, me and my husband, trying to clean it," she said.

Humanitarian volunteers helped out with removing the debris but the front of the property is still a mess and much work remains.

"The Russians were in our house and there is so much that was shot through, that burned down, that we cannot use anymore," she said.

"The only thing I like now, the only thing that makes me warm, is the flowers in the garden -- although they even parked a Russian tank on those."

Ilchenko described her granddaughter's traumatised reaction as they returned home.

"Why did they do this to you?" the young girl asked, surveying the mess before them.

"I told her I didn't know and my granddaughter went into hysterics," Ilchenko said.

"It was difficult to stop her crying, to stop her weeping."

ft/jbr/fg

Women at war: Life on eastern Ukraine's front lines

Cecile Feuillatre
Sat, July 30, 2022


Kateryna never takes pictures with comrades before going to the front line -- it's bad luck. Karina does not tell her mother she is going to the front. Iana uses social media to try and raise the morale at home.

On another day of war in eastern Ukraine, the three are resting with their unit in a village before another rotation.

They agree to talk about their lives on the front line of a war they were not expecting, which has lasted more than five months -- and felt like years.

Kateryna Novakivska, 29, is deputy commander of a unit in the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging.


The 29-year-old comes from Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, and had just graduated from an army academy when the war broke out. Her role is to provide the troops with moral and psychological support.

After speaking about the "satisfactory" morale among soldiers and the justness of Ukraine's cause, she talks more personally about life on the front.

"The hardest thing for them is losing comrades," she said.

For Kateryna, it is being able to distance herself from the soldiers' horrific stories.

"They talk more easily with me because there are a lot of things that they cannot tell their loved ones," she said.

Their biggest fear is being left behind on the battlefield -- dead or wounded.

She remembers one day, May 28, when 11 soldiers were killed and around 20 went missing. In the chaos of war, some troops disappear and nobody knows what has happened to them.

Kateryna's own greatest fear is being kidnapped by Russian soldiers, though she said she has "planned for everything".

She has a small scar on her nose -- left by an explosion in March.

The lotus flower tattoo on her forearm is a memory from her time in Volnovakha in 2017 -- a town now in Russian-occupied territory that Kateryna said "no longer exists".
- 'Keeping up morale' -

On social media, Iana Pazdrii plays on the stereotypes of being a soldier, showing off her perfectly manicured nails as she drives an armoured vehicle or clutches a Kalashnikov.

The 35-year-old has been fighting since the start of the invasion in Ukraine and, like all her comrades, has not seen her child for five months.

"I volunteered because I am a patriot and I felt I could be useful here and I am," said Iana, who speaks of the army as "a family".

Whenever she has time, she posts little glimpses of military life on Instagram or TikTok.

"Some soldiers have to live on 'line zero' under shelling," she said, using a term frequently used in Ukraine for the front line.

"I try to show that we are keeping up morale despite everything, to tell people not to be afraid and that the army is doing everything to defend the country.

"But to be honest, it's hard sometimes."

Dozens of soldiers are killed every day on Ukraine's eastern front, where Russian forces made major advances in May and June, taking over almost the whole of the Lugansk region.

Since then, the front line has moved little, but ruthless artillery battles between the two sides have intensified.
- 'Line zero' -

Karina, a former textile worker of Tajik origin who signed up to the army in 2020 on a two-year contract, drives her armoured vehicle back and forth from the front line.

"When we are in position, it's hard thinking about fellow soldiers, hoping that nobody will be killed or wounded, that you yourself will not come under attack," said the young woman, who is also a mechanic.

Her husband is anxiously waiting for her at home -- but she said "nobody tells me what to do".

When Karina calls her mother, she said: "I don't tell her I'm at line zero and she pretends to believe me".

Karina has no illusions -- she does not think the war will be over soon.

"The Russians have already taken a lot of territory" in Ukraine, she said.

Her sister-in-arms Iana insisted there was no option but victory.

"Whatever happens, we will win. We do not have the right to lose," she said.

After the war, Iana wants to travel to the Caribbean and South America.

"I need to fulfil my dreams. I think I deserve it," she smiled.

cf/dt/del/lcm

 

US House of Representatives passes bill banning certain semi-automatic guns

Issued on: 30/07/2022 - 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, July 21, 2022. © J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

|

Video by:FRANCE 24

The House passed legislation Friday to revive a ban on certain semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years and a direct response to the firearms often used in the crush of mass shootings ripping through communities nationwide

Once banned in the U.S., the high-powered firearms are now widely blamed as the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. But Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democratic-run House, saying the earlier ban “saved lives.”

President Joe Biden hailed the House vote, saying, “The majority of the American people agree with this common sense action.” He urged the Senate to “move quickly to get this bill to my desk.”

However, it is likely to stall in the 50-50 Senate. The House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Almost all Republicans voted against the House bill, which passed 217-213.

The bill comes at a time of intensifying concerns about gun violence and shootings — the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, N.Y.; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the July Fourth shootings of revelers in Highland Park, Ill.

Voters seem to be taking such election-year votes seriously as Congress splits along party lines and lawmakers are forced to go on the record with their views. A recent vote to protect same-sex marriages from potential Supreme Court legal challenges won a surprising amount of bipartisan support.

Biden was instrumental in helping secure the first semi-automatic weapons ban as a senator in 1994. The Biden administration said that for 10 years, while the ban was in place, mass shootings declined. “When the ban expired in 2004, mass shootings tripled,” the statement said.

Republicans stood firmly against limits on ownership of the high-powered firearms during an at times emotional debate ahead of voting.

“It’s a gun grab, pure and simple,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.

Said Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., “An armed America is a safe and free America.”

Democrats argued that the ban on the weapons makes sense, portraying Republicans as extreme and out of step with Americans.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the weapons ban is not about taking away Americans' Second Amendment rights but ensuring that children also have the right “to not get shot in school.”

Pelosi displayed a poster of a gun company's advertisement for children's weapons, smaller versions that resemble the popular AR-15 rifles and are marketed with cartoon-like characters. “Disgusting," she said.

In one exchange, two Ohio lawmakers squared off. “Your freedom stops where mine begins, and that of my constituents begins,” Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur told Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. “Schools, shopping malls, grocery stores, Independence Day parades shouldn’t be scenes of mass carnage and bloodshed.”

Jordan replied by inviting her to his congressional district to debate him on the Second Amendment, saying he believed most of his constituents “probably agree with me and agree with the United States Constitution.”

The bill would make it unlawful to import, sell or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons. Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said it includes an exemption that allows for the possession of existing semi-automatic guns.

Reps. Chris Jacobs of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania were the only Republicans to vote for the measure. The Democratic lawmakers voting no were Reps. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.

For nearly two decades, since the previous ban expired Democrats had been reluctant to revisit the issue and confront the gun lobby. But voter opinions appear to be shifting and Democrats dared to act before the fall election. The outcome will provide information for voters of where the candidates stand on the issue.

Jason Quimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement following the vote that “barely a month after” the Supreme Court expanded gun rights “gun control advocates in Congress are spearheading an assault upon the freedoms and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.”

He said the bill potentially bans millions of firearms “in blatant opposition to the Supreme Court’s rulings” that have established gun ownership as an individual right and expanded on it.

Among the semi-automatic weapons banned would be some 200-plus types of semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s, and pistols. The restrictions would not apply to many other models.

Democrats had tried to link the weapons ban to a broader package of public safety measures that would have increased federal funding for law enforcement. It's something centrist Democrats in tough re-election campaigns wanted to shield them from political attacks by their Republican opponents they are soft on crime.

Pelosi said the House will revisit the public safety bills in August when lawmakers are expected to return briefly to Washington to handle other remaining legislation, including Biden's priority inflation-fighting package of health care and climate change strategies making its way in the Senate.

Congress passed a modest gun violence prevention package just last month in the aftermath of the tragic shooting of 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde. That bipartisan bill was the first of its kind after years of failed efforts to confront the gun lobby, including after a similar 2012 mass tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

That law  provides for expanded background checks on young adults buying firearms, allowing authorities to access certain juvenile records. It also closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by denying gun purchases for those convicted of domestic abuse outside of marriages.

The new law also frees up federal funding to the states, including for “red flag” laws that enable authorities to remove guns from those who would harm themselves or others.

But even that modest effort at halting gun violence came at time of grave uncertainty in the U.S. over restrictions on firearms as the more conservative Supreme Court is tackling gun rights and other issues.

Biden signed the measure two days after the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down a New York law that restricted people's ability to carry concealed weapons.

(AP)

Yemen's ancient honey production a victim of war, climate change

Fri, July 29, 2022 a

For Yemeni beekeeper Mohammed Saif, honey production used to be a lucrative business but years of war and climate change have taken the buzz out of the family hives.

The business, handed down from father to son, "is slowly disappearing", Saif told AFP. "The bees are being hit by strange phenomenons. Is it due to climate change or the effects of war? We really don't know."

Yemen, one of the world's most impoverished countries, has been gripped by a deadly conflict since 2014, pitting the Iran-backed Huthis against government forces supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in fighting or through illness and malnutrition over the past eight years, and the country's infrastructure has been devastated.

But a fragile UN-brokered truce has held since April, bringing some respite to the country and its war-weary population.

In the southwestern region of Taez, Saif recently took stock of his hives in a rugged valley surrounded by mountains.

Before the war, Saif said, the family managed 300 hives, now only 80 are left.

Experts consider Yemeni honey some of the best in the world, including the prized Royal Sidr known for its therapeutic properties.

The United Nations says honey plays a "vital role" in Yemen's economy, with 100,000 households dependent on it for their livelihoods.

- Bee ecosystems battered -

But "enormous losses have been inflicted on the industry since the outbreak of the conflict", the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report in June.

"Armed conflict and climate change are threatening the continuity of a 3,000-year-old practice," the ICRC said.

"Successive waves of displacement to flee violence, the impact of weapon contamination on production areas, and the growing impact of climate change are pushing thousands of beekeepers into precarity, significantly reducing production."

Saif knows it all too well.

"Last year in our village a missile struck a beekeeper's hives. He lost everything," he said.

"The war has had a very bad impact on us. The fighters have targeted many zones where bees are found," he added.

The ICRC's Bashir Omar said the conflict had limited the ability of beekeepers to freely roam the land whenever flowers were in bloom to collect the honey.

Landmines and active front lines are among the challenges they face.

"To make matters worse, Yemen, like many conflict-affected countries, is disproportionately affected by climate change," the ICRC report noted.

"Temperature rises in recent years, combined with severe alterations caused to the environment, are disturbing the bees' ecosystem which is impacting the pollination process," it said.

"With water tables falling and increased desertification, areas previously engaged in agricultural activities and beekeeping no longer sustain these livelihoods."

The ICRC is providing financial support and training this year to beekeepers, after a similar initiative in 2021 that helped nearly 4,000 of them.

Nabil al-Hakim, who sells Yemen's celebrated yellow nectar in Taez shops, also recalled the golden days before the conflict ravaged his country.

"Before the war we could make a good living by selling honey... but honey has become rare and customers can no longer afford it," he said.

"Before, I used to sell up to 25 five-litre jars a month. Now I can't even sell one."

str-sy/saa/aem/hkb/pjm

The root causes of the attacks on reproductive rights: A Marxist analysis


by Karina Garcia
May 7, 2022
Breaking the Chains Feature Theory - Women's Oppression

Art courtesy of Breaking the Chains magazine.

Editor’s introduction: Women’s History Month is a time to recommit ourselves to the unfinished struggle for women’s liberation, and this year it is even more crucial than ever. The conservative leaning Supreme Court is considering gutting or even overturning Roe v. Wade, which would roll back women’s hard-won and fundamental right to abortion. The current attacks on abortion rights are the culmination of decades of reactionary organizing to establish extreme reproductive control by challenging birth control access, criminalizing miscarriage, undoing the right to abortion, and promoting abstinence-only sex (mis)education.

This article offers a Marxist analysis of why abortion rights are in peril today, and how the historical attempt to limit and control reproductive freedom stretches back to the very beginnings of class society. This article was originally published in the Autumn 2019 issue of Breaking the Chains magazine, titled “Not a Moral Issue.”
Introduction

Thirteen years ago, a speaker at a meeting, addressing the right-wing attacks on women’s rights in the context of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, emphasized how important it was to elect pro-choice Democrats. The speaker gave no further explanation to the attacks.

At the time, the right-wing was attacking the ACA because it would expand abortion and contraception access. A couple years after it became law, the Supreme Court had already restricted access to birth control to “respect the religious beliefs” of corporations vis-a-vis reactionary owners. And to pass the ACA, the Democrats gladly compromised on reproductive rights. Obamacare ultimately continued to deny federal funds for abortion coverage and required that every state offer at least one insurance plan that did not cover abortions.

At the meeting, a young socialist woman spoke from the floor and criticized the speaker for not raising the “systematic” explanation. She said that capitalism was behind these patriarchal policies. She said that the bosses—the capitalists—want to restrict birth control and abortion because they want the working class to produce more workers and thereby drive down wages. On top of that, they want to pay less in healthcare costs to cover their employees. I remember nodding in the moment that indeed there must be a deeper cause. I knew capitalism as a system was implicated. What she was saying had a logic to it. But when I went home it started to make a lot less sense.

Do the capitalists really need more workers? Millions of people are unemployed as it is and they are incarcerating the “surplus” population. Is it really possible that the capitalists would conspire in this way to restrict abortion rights, but none of them would ever slip up and admit it? Why is it that some Democrats support abortion rights then? They too represent the capitalist class’s interests. It can’t just be about forcing women to produce more workers.

And as for costs and profits, the Affordable Care Act was going to make insurance companies, the healthcare sector, and the banks mega-profits with or without abortion coverage, so why try to tank the bill on that basis? It wasn’t really only about profit either.

She was right that the attack was “systematic” and that these sexist policies are linked to capitalism, but there seemed to be more to the answer than she’d presented. I dove into the Marxist and historical writing about the anti-abortion movement because I wanted to understand this and be able to explain it—for myself and others.

The Marxist approach to women’s oppression and liberation is often misunderstood or mischaracterized. In university settings it is portrayed as “economic determinism” or “reductionism” — asserting that Marxists reduce every issue to economics. In a way, that’s what the socialist speaking from the floor was doing in that meeting. But that’s not an accurate description of the Marxist method.

It is true that Marxists emphasize the importance of the economic system, in that the mode of production plays a critical role in shaping the economic system and the structures of society. Marxists start by looking at how a society produces and reproduces itself and the norms, laws and relationships under which production and reproduction take place. That is what “economics” really means anyway. At its base, every society is engaged in producing and reproducing.

The ideas, laws, formal institutions, religions that justify, strengthen, and stabilize those underlying processes and relations at the base of production and reproduction is what Marx called the superstructure.
The capitalist mode of production and the family

So for instance, under capitalism, there are some people who own the means of production (land, factories, technology, etc.), while others go to work every day and work on those means of production. They generate profits that go back to the owners. That exploitation is at the base of society. But that arrangement would not last a single day if it was not backed up by the laws, the courts and the police—which protect the owners and landlords—and by the schools, media, politicians, and religious institutions that have taught us since day one that this is the normal and perfectly natural way of things.

The capitalist mode of production developed historically out of previous modes of production, including slavery and feudalism. Capitalism represented a major change in the dominant form of property and labor and many other things changed as a result of that. Racism and white supremacy are part and parcel of the foundation of modern capitalism. In the case of the United States, colonial dispossession and racialized chattel slavery are the foundations for the accumulation of wealth within the capitalist mode of production.

Capitalism did not simply erase the pre-existing world and start with a blank slate. Patriarchy has existed since the dawn of class society and is part of the fabric of the capitalist system. In pre-class society, before private ownership of property there was a much more diverse set of family arrangements and women generally played a leadership role for the community as a whole.

After those pre-class modes of production were overthrown, and eventually the forms of social and family organization alongside them, women were held in a subordinate position and male supremacy became the law. For thousands of years, women’s basic conditions and status were confined to the home. Law, custom, and ideology held women to a dependent status and entirely subject to the whims of the leading male in the family. Housework and child rearing, in addition to ongoing work in the fields (in the case of agricultural societies), were delineated as “women’s work.” This was a central element to modes of production based on private property.

In the United States, today, the capitalist mode of production has changed in many ways, as has the shape and detail of the superstructure. Yet core historic features persist. While women can enter the wage workforce and women can legally own property and have independent political and civil rights, the basic unit of what has been called social reproduction is the nuclear family. In that family, women carry out the vast majority of the labor in the household, in child rearing, and in elder care. Because this family form has been carried over in its essential characteristics, all the values, traditions, and cultural norms that developed to explain and justify male supremacy have been largely carried over, too.

While capitalism has broken down many of the economic relationships that were at the heart of a nuclear family, the family has not been abolished or collapsed entirely. The family unit has changed, but the precarious existence of workers under capitalism makes it necessary for most workers to have a family to survive. One income is not enough. Take, for example, the conditions of so many LGBTQ youth who have been rejected by their families. To not have a family is, in these instances, to be subjected to the worst forms of deprivation, homelessness, and brutality that capitalism has to offer.

For the purposes of the capitalist system, the family unit is highly valuable—especially as it relates to the reproduction and caring for the next generation of workers. Lisa Vogel highlights this in her social reproduction theory [1]. Others have taken it in different directions, highlighting the other forms of labor that are often unpaid or underpaid, but are nonetheless essential for reproducing a workforce that is healthy and stable enough to continue to come into work.
Reactionary worldview explains economic shifts

How does this relate to the attacks on women’s rights and attacks on women’s growing assertiveness in challenging sexual violence and sexist rhetoric? These don’t present themselves as issues of the basic functioning of the mode of production. They can appear distinct and separate, so people fighting for women’s rights on these fronts might not see the linkage to capitalism. And yet more and more activists are talking about systemic patriarchy. The Party for Socialism and Liberation banners, “The whole system is sexist! Fight for socialism!” have been very popular in these movements.

Here we are talking about struggles in the world of politics and culture, the superstructure [2]. They appear as fights within capitalism—in the sense that you should be able to fight for and achieve full abortion rights and other reproductive services under capitalism. In some countries that already exists. You should be able to reduce sexual harassment or violence or eliminate it altogether under capitalism. At least, in theory, it is not pivotal to the mode of production.

But if that is the case, why are those gains so hard to win? Why do socialists insist a revolution would be necessary to really achieve them? It’s because the domination of women remains a pillar of the U.S. capitalist class’s form of rule.

Abortion access became a major political issue starting in the late 1970s as a cornerstone of an emerging reactionary trend. A reactionary is someone who says that things were better in society before they changed. “Make America Great Again” is a true reactionary slogan. It implies we should return to the past. Big sections of the ruling class turn to a reactionary agenda when they feel that their social control is slipping in the face of a powerful social movement, or when capitalism itself has destabilized the economy and when life seems more uncertain for big sections of the population.

In the late 1970s, both were happening in the United States. The mass uprisings of the 1960s and early 70s with the struggles for women’s liberation, Black liberation, LGBTQ liberation, and the anti-war movement were powerful challenges to the U.S. capitalist status quo. The Vietnamese anti-colonial resistance defeated U.S. imperialism, dealing it a major blow while imperialism was engaged in constant heated confrontation with the socialist bloc.

The U.S. economy also went into a period of recession during which layoffs and unemployment increased, consumer spending decreased. Capitalist recessions are cyclical and occur regularly because of overproduction. From 1979 to 1984, approximately 11.5 million workers either lost their jobs or shifted to lower-paying service jobs. Most of the jobs that were lost were in manufacturing industries such as steel, auto, mining, electronics, and more.

The reactionaries have a very powerful appeal and socialists should understand how it works. They say essentially, “Your life used to be better, right? You’re feeling less sure about your future right? Well, that’s understandable because look at how much has changed. We’ve lost our way. And now we’re going to hell in a hand-basket unless we turn back.” Then they link that to whatever issue, whether it be abortion, sex education, gay rights, and so on. The reactionaries sometimes blame the “weak” government, which has bent to pressure and refused to defend “our values, while at other times attacking the government for being “too big.”

Another example is how the economic ravaging of whole Black communities is laid at the feet of Black women for “having too many children out of wedlock,” or at the feet of “absent” Black males. This reactionary worldview builds upon the extreme racist character of the U.S. capitalist system along with thousands of years of ingrained cultural indoctrination that with a “strong” family—that is with men and women in their “proper place”—everything will be fine.

This sort of reactionary worldview offers an all-purpose explanation for general problems or unsettling changes. Politicians then conveniently avoid discussion of the actual causes of social and economic distress, i.e., capitalist instability. It furthermore coincides with and makes use of the explanations being cultivated in conservative religious institutions, which tend to focus on going back to a more moral time, and theorize the problems of modern society as a reflection of an absence of godliness and values. So these ideas and theories are already circulating and can easily be picked up on by a politician who wants to present himself as a champion of “family values” while not actually doing anything to change families’ material conditions.

And so the “New Right,” ascending in the Republican Party in the late 1970s, started to really focus on abortion in the 1980s and 1990s. Abortion rights were identified as a weak spot for the women’s movement because it had been secured in the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade, not via legislation. There was existing opposition on religious grounds that they could mobilize, and there were big parts of the country where abortion rights had become law but the movement was weak.

Evangelical mega-churches and televangelists were entering politics in a big way—most famously in the “Moral Majority”—and eventually became significant power-brokers that handpicked and groomed elected representatives. They delivered considerable resources and a captive audience to enterprising politicians, as long as they took on their issues and their framing. The whole Moral Majority movement became a target base of support for hard-right capitalists who personally did not care much about abortion or other moral issues, but who wanted to turn back government regulations, social spending, and the power of labor unions. Over time, this relationship produced a major pipeline of campaign funds and airtime.

In short, abortion became a preferred electoral issue, quickly moving from local and state to federal politics. Right-wing politicians could portray pro-choice Democrats as ‘baby killers’ and link them to the “decline of the family.” It is not so much that these issues in and of themselves threaten capitalists profits, but that they offered a way for one sector of the capitalist class—leaning on the powerful institutions of the superstructure in their areas to consolidate political legitimacy—to distract constituents from social and economic concerns that the politicians have no desire to address.

It became a central political strategy for the conservative right. The Republican Party used to be considered just the “pro-business” and “law-and-order” party. Some were actually liberal on “social issues.” But as the party moved further to the right, that has changed.

In the United States, where money controls so much of politics, the agenda is set by the highest bidder. With the near obliteration of campaign finance laws, this has become more overt. A few billionaires could say, “These are my political interests, these are my priorities and I’m gonna throw my money around only to those who take on my agenda and my interests.” When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, they meant that ruling-class ideas were dominant because the ruling class “has the means of material production at its disposal” and therefore “has control at the same time over the means of mental production” [3]. Today ruling-class ideas become dominant because of the direct and explicit intervention of the most powerful capitalists and their politicians. In the absence of a fight-back movement, the reactionary obsessions of some really rich men can set the tone of politics, and actually can determine major issues for hundreds of millions of working-class women in the United States and worldwide.

The anti-abortion billionaires are not spending their money because it will help their immediate profits. If anything, they are spending significant parts of their fortunes on these right-wing causes. That is where capitalism comes back in at the systematic level. It is not as a conspiracy for profits, but as a form of political rule based on disciplining and intimidating one section of poor and working people, distracting and confusing others, and finally winning over and satisfying other layers.
True rights attainable only with a new mode of production

No mode of production based on extreme inequality and exploitation would be able to last long if it did not have ruling institutions, political systems, ideas, traditions, and so on, that protected and rationalized those economic processes. The ruling class does not just get to extract wealth; it also has to find stable ways to rule.

Forms of patriarchy operate powerfully at the base of capitalism, in how the system produces and reproduces itself on a daily basis. It also is a cornerstone at this superstructural level, and in particular, as a central element of the reactionary agenda. So how could patriarchy be ended under capitalism if it is so embedded at every level of the capitalist system? It is impossible.

Socialism, by contrast, eliminates the economic dependence on the family unit. Simply by changing who controls and owns the vast means of production, every person can now be guaranteed housing, food, healthcare, childcare, retirement, and other human needs as guaranteed rights. The gender pay gap and undervaluing of “women’s work” could essentially be overturned overnight. A government in the hands of class-conscious workers would also remove from power the lackeys of the billionaire bigots, and instead launch bold initiatives to advance women’s equality and liberation in the world of culture, ideology, education and politics.

This would be an ongoing process, of course, but it would be fundamentally different from the battle for women’s rights under capitalism. In the present, we fight for rights inside a system that reproduces patriarchal economic relationships daily, and under a ruling class that defaults to a reactionary agenda as a way to protect its exploitative rule. That is why “smashing the patriarchy” often feels so impossible. Under socialism, by contrast, the battle will be to win an egalitarian superstructure that will harmonize with a new economic system based on meeting the needs of all.

References

[1]See Dickinson, Hannah. (2019). “Social reproduction: A theoretical framework with organizing potential.” Breaking the Chains 4, no. 1.Also available here.

[2] Ford, Derek. (2021). “The base-superstructure: A model for analysis and action.” Liberation School, November 22. Available here.

[3] Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. (1964/1978). “The German ideology: Part I,” in R.C. Tucker (Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), 172.