AUSTRALIA

PM, state and territory leaders formally back Indigenous voice to parliament with statement of intent

Lorena Allam and Sarah Collard
Thu, 2 February 2023

Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

In a show of unity, the prime minister and state and territory premiers have officially backed an Indigenous voice to parliament after Friday’s national cabinet meeting in Canberra.

State and territory heads signed on to a “statement of intent”, formally supporting an Indigenous voice to parliament.

“Today all first ministers in recognition of our commitment for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australia’s first peoples and also with a voice to parliament being enshrined in our constitution,” Albanese said.

Related: Albanese says voice referendum will go ahead even if political dissent presents risk of failure

New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet speaking to reporters at a press conference after cabinet, said the voice should be “above politics” as the debate continues, seemingly at odds with federal Liberal politicians claiming a lack of detail from the government.

“It should be above politics … It should unite the country, not divide it,” Perrottet said.

Albanese said it was priority for all state and territory first ministers “to secure a successful referendum in the second half of this year”.

National cabinet has also recommitted to the Closing the Gap targets which were formally signed up on under the previous Morrison government.

Pat Turner, the lead convener of the Coalition of Peaks, which brings together Indigenous controlled organisations and peak bodies working with state and territory governments to address disadvantage, spoke at the national cabinet meeting, but Albanese acknowledged that the Closing the Gap targets were “failing” and that governments have failed.

“The gap which is there on education on health, life expectancy, on justice issues. In too many areas is not closing in accordance with the targets,” Albanese said.

He said that Turner believed that a successful referendum and voice to parliament would address systemic disadvantages facing too many Indigenous peoples: “She sees a direct link between constitutional recognition and respect and a voice in achieving better outcomes in the future.”

The government’s 60 member voice referendum engagement group is in the process of finalising education materials it will release during the national “week of action”, from 18 to 25 February.

Selwyn Button, a group member and chair of the Lowitja Institute, says they will soon release fact sheets and information in “very plain language” to help Australians understand the voice, the referendum and the timeline of the process.

“Our role is very much centred to go out and engage with the public and provide consistency of message, not only to our own people, but the general Australian public to make sure that people understand the benefits of the voice.”

“Fundamentally, our role is now to make sure that we can come up with some consistent messages.

“Now we’re getting to the crux of finalising some of that detail in terms of fact sheets and Q and A’s and simple information that we can hand to every engagement member, so they constantly walk into conversations and start talking about the benefits of the voice.”

Button, a Gunggari man, said “the opportunity to have the conversation more intensely about treaties will come up”.

Button says the Albanese government has committed to treaty processes after the voice referendum is successful.

“What we have now is a significant opportunity for structural reform in the Australian constitution, and that opportunity of structural reform will inform what treaties look like.

“Not just a single treaty, what treaties look like for First Nations people across the country.

“And that structural reform is the piece that we’ve got an opportunity to create, and to get in the constitution at the end of the year.

“So we need to focus on that opportunity first, and then treaties will follow.”

Button says Aboriginal people will need time to talk about multiple treaties – with governments, with each other. He says questions will need to be resolved about whether there is one or multiple treaties, who will negotiate those, and on whose behalf.

“It is very, very clear from the people that have been involved in those conversations is about treaties. Because it’s about a treaty between government and a nation of people. It’s not a collective of people.

“So in my case, as a Gunggari man from western Queensland, the conversation would be among Gunggari people about what a treaty looks like, not the collective Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander population.”

UK

Rishi Sunak Less Popular After 100 Days Than Last 5 PMs 

(Apart from Liz Truss, Obviously)

Ned Simons
Thu, 2 February 2023 


Rishi Sunak is less popular after his first 100 days in office than his five predecessors who made it that far.

According to analysis of polls by Britain Elects for the New Statesman, barely a quarter - 28% - of people approve of the job the prime minister is doing so far, compared to 46% who disapprove, giving him an overall score of minus 18.

The most popular PM of the last 25 years after 100 days is Tony Blair, who had an approval rating of plus 50.

David Cameron is next on plus 27, followed by Gordon Brown on plus 26.

Theresa May comes next on plus 19, well ahead of Boris Johnson, who was on minus 3.

Liz Truss is not included in the data because she only managed to cling on as prime minister for 49 days.

Trailing Labour in the polls ahead of the general election due next year, Sunak has not had an easy ride in his first months in No.10.

Questions over his judgment continue amid a series of scandals involving his ministers.

Gavin Williamsom was forced to resign just days after being appointed to the cabinet over bullying allegations.

Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab is also subject to a probe into multiple allegations of bullying by civil servants.

And on Sunday, the PM sacked Nadhim Zahawi as Tory chairman after his ethics adviser ruled he had broken the ministerial code several times by failing to reveal that his tax affairs were being investigated by HMRC.

Sunak is also having to deal with Johnson, who rather than keeping quiet as a former PM, is pilling on pressure for the UK to do more to help Ukraine.

Ben Walker, who compiled the figures for the New Statesman, said: “Rishi Sunak has calmed the markets and improved his party’s polling position.

“The problem is that he’s turned a 25 percentage-point gap with Labour under Liz Truss into… a 20-point gap. Were an election held today, Labour would win a landslide victory.

“This muted honeymoon for the new PM, who was the UK’s most popular politician as chancellor during the Covid crisis, doesn’t bode well for the Tories.”

This ancient Antarctic ice reveals 50,000 years of vital climate change history

Charlotte Elton

2 February 2023 

This massive cylinder of ice is a window into the past.

Scientists are collecting 50,000 year-old samples of ice from deep in the Antarctic ice-shelf.

The ice - collected from 808 metres below the surface - provides an insight into earth’s climate history, revealing past greenhouse gas levels and planetary temperatures.

The mission has been “fruitful,” says Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council.

“The team of 13 researchers was there for about 60 days and they were able to drill down to a depth of 808 metres, far beyond the expectation that we had at the beginning,” he explains.

“They could work in two shifts of about 8 hours each, from 8 o'clock in the morning to midnight, extracting ice cores of very high quality, so we are very happy for that."

London-sized iceberg breaks off Antarctica - but scientists aren’t worried

First ever footage of the Antarctic seabed reveals a thriving ecosystem threatened by ice melt

How deep do the researchers plan to go?

The scientists are working as part of the European research project 'Beyond Epica.’ This is their second drilling campaign in Antarctica - but it won’t be the last.

Glaciologists are aiming to reach a depth of 2,700 metres (1.6 miles) where they expect to find ice that’s 1.5 million years old.

Ice samples are an ingenious way to monitor earth’s climate history.

Antarctica's ice holds the keys to millions of years of climate history. - Canva

Ice is formed as layers of snow build up on top of one another, gradually compressing. The snow - which contains dissolved chemicals and particulates - acts as a window into the atmosphere at the time that it fell.

For example, some ancient ice cylinders boast dark black rings - indications that the falling snow was mixed with volcanic ash after a recent eruption.

The Beyond Epica project has received €11 million in funding from the European Commission and other nations sponsoring the mission, including France and Italy.

The study, underway since 2019, will last seven years.

UK

Who owns the major energy and water suppliers, and how much profit do they make?

Lowenna Waters and Nuray Bulbul
Thu, 2 February 2023 

Scottish Power has reported a 39 per cent decline in underlying profits (Alamy)

After energy prices soared last year as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, oil and gas company Shell announced record yearly earnings.

And it’s not only Shell, as most energy companies have experienced unprecedented profits since the rise in oil and gas prices following the invasion of Ukraine.

As individuals struggle with growing costs, pressure has been put on businesses to pay more in taxes. People have been left asking how much money energy firms are making and whether it’s really justified.

So, who owns the UK’s biggest energy firms, and how much profit are they making?

Here’s everything you need to know.

Who owns Shell and how much profit does it make?

Shell is a British-Dutch-owned company, headquartered in the Netherlands, and is incorporated in the United Kingdom. The company, which first sold antiques and seashells, was expanded by the Samuels brothers in the 1880s into an oil-exporting business.

The Samuels brothers achieved a revolution in the transport of oil by using a tanker called the Murex across the Suez Canal to transfer oil.

Shell supplied the British Army with the majority of its fuel during World War I and made all of its ships—including the Murex—available to the British Admiralty.

Recently, Ben van Beurden, who was CEO since January 1, 2014. was replaced by Shell's new CEO, Wael Sawan.

In Sawan’s previous role as the head of Shell’s integrated gas and renewables division, he oversaw Shell’s growth into low-carbon energies, as well as its giant gas business.

Shell reported a record $40 billion (£32.5 billion) profit in 2022, capping a turbulent year in which a rise in energy prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine allowed it to provide shareholders with unheard-of profits.

Who owns BP and how much profit does it make?

British Petroleum, better known as BP, is a British company founded in 1909.

The top five shareholders of BP are State Street, BlackRock, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Fisher Investments, and Menora Mivtachim.

With operations in nearly 80 countries, BP announced it made a quarterly profit of $8.2 billion (£6.6 billion) on November 2022.

Activists from Greenpeace set up a mock-petrol station price board displaying the Shell's net profit for 2022 (Daniel Leal / AFP via Getty Images)

Who owns Scottish Power and how much profit does it make?

Scottish Power is owned by the Spanish utility firm Iberdrola. The company was originally formed in 1990, in preparation for the privatisation of Scotland’s energy supply the year after, reports Berkshire Live.

In October 2021, Scottish Power reported a 39 per cent decline in underlying profits, at its division responsible for providing energy to domestic customers. It cited rising wholesale costs, as well as low wind volumes, as the key reasons for the drop in profit.

Who owns Southern Water and how much profit does it make?

Southern Water supplies water and sewerage services to customers across the south of England. It loses 88.1 million litres of water per day from the pipes in its network.

Its shareholders took home £622 million in profit between 2013 and 2017. In 2021, Southern Water was sentenced to pay £90 million in fines for widespread pollution after pleading guilty to 6,971 unpermitted sewage discharges, according to Gov.uk.

Who owns British Gas and how much profit does it make?

British Gas is owned by the company Centrica, which is the largest domestic gas supplier in the UK, and is also one of the largest electricity suppliers.

It was previously publically owned but, in December 1986, Margaret Thatcher privatised it.

Centrica owns British Gas and other energy companies, including Ireland’s Bord Gais

 Energy, and it reported an operating profit of £948 million in 2021 – a 44 per cent

 increase over the previous year.

Who owns EDF and how much profit does it make?

EDF Energy is owned by the French energy supplier EDF, which is itself owned by the French government. According to its own figures, it posted a loss of £154 million in 2020.

Who owns E.ON and how much profit does it make?

E.ON is owned by E.ON SE, an electricity supplier based in Essen, Germany. The company was formed in 1989 and was originally known as Powergen, before it was privatised in the 1990s.

The company also owns Npower, which it acquired in December 2018, and was previously owned by German multinational energy firm RWE.

In November 2021, its parent company reported a nine-month adjustment to earnings before interest and tax, of €3.93 billion (£3.29 billion), while its customer solutions arm more than doubled its profits to €910 million (£810.4 m).

Who owns SSE and how much profit does it make?

SSE’s retail business, which provides energy to household customers, was sold to OVO Energy in January 2020.

OVO Energy reported that it had significantly reduced its losses in 2020 to £7 million - down from £103 million the previous year. The company also reported a significant increase in revenues, from £1.5 billion to £4.5 billion.

Who owns Octopus Energy and how much profit does it make?

Octopus Energy is owned by Octopus Group, the fund-management company which founded the energy firm in 2015. Octopus Group has interests in venture capital, investment management, and real estate, as well as the energy sector.

In January, Octopus Energy announced an operating loss of nearly £85 million in 2021, after reporting a loss of almost £50 million in 2020, according to Reuters. However, the firm’s energy-supply revenues increased to £1.9 billion from £1.2 billion the previous year.

ILLEGAL ZIONIST OCCUPATION & ETHNIC CLEANSING
Palestinians face removal as far-right Israel vows expansion

By ISABEL DEBRE and SAM McNEIL

February 1, 2023

1 of 16

A view of the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. The long-running dispute over the West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which lost its last legal protection against demolition four years ago, resurfaced this week as a focus of the frozen Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's new far-right ministers vow to evacuate the village as part of a wider project to expand Israeli presence in the 60% of the West Bank over which the military has full control. Palestinians seek that land for a future state. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank (AP) — Protesters streaming up the windswept hills east of Jerusalem interrupted Maha Ali’s breakfast.

Palestinian chants of support for her West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, at risk of demolition by the Israeli army since it lost its legal protection over four years ago, drowned out the singing birds and bleating sheep.

While intended to encourage the village, last week’s solidarity rally unsettled Ali. Israeli politicians assembled on the opposite hill for a counter protest, calling for Khan al-Ahmar’s immediate evacuation.

“Why are they all back here now? Did something happen?” Ali asked her sister, gazing toward a swarm of TV journalists. “Four years of quiet and now this chaos again.”

The long-running dispute over Khan al-Ahmar has resurfaced as a focus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a legal deadline looming and Israel’s new far-right ministers pushing the government to fulfill a Supreme Court-sanctioned commitment from 2018 to wipe the village off the map. Israel contends that the hamlet, home to nearly 200 Palestinians and an EU-funded school, was built illegally on state land.

For Palestinians, Khan al-Ahmar is emblematic of the latest stage of the decades-long conflict, as thousands of Palestinians struggle for Israeli permission to build in the 60% of the occupied West Bank over which the Israeli military has full control.

After a spasm of violence last week — including the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank for two decades and the deadliest Palestinian attack on civilians in Jerusalem since 2008 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Saturday with a vow to strengthen Jewish settlements in the Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank, where little land is allocated to Palestinians.

The competition for land is playing out in the southern Hebron hills — where the Supreme Court has ordered the expulsion of a thousand Palestinians in an area known as Masafer Yatta — and across the territory. In unauthorized Palestinian villages — without direct access to Israeli power, water or sewage infrastructure — residents watch helplessly as Israeli authorities demolish homes, issue evacuation orders and expand settlements, changing the landscape of territory they dream of calling their state.

Last year, Israeli authorities razed 784 Palestinian buildings in the West Bank because they lacked permits, Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported, the most since it started tracking those demolitions a decade ago. The army tears down homes gradually, the group says, loathe to risk the global censure that would come from leveling a whole village.

News of Khan al-Ahmar’s impending mass eviction four years ago sparked widespread backlash. Since then, the government has stalled, asking the court for more time due to international pressure and Israel’s repeatedly deadlocked elections.

“They say the bulldozers will come tomorrow, next month, next year,” said Ali, 40, from her metal-topped shed, where she can see the red-roofed homes of the fast-growing Kfar Adumim settlement.

 “Our life is frozen.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli government requested another four months to respond to a Supreme Court petition by a pro-settler group, Regavim, asking why Khan al-Ahmar has not yet been razed. Far right lawmakers condemned the delay on Wednesday, with Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, demanding that the new Cabinet change the “floundering policies of the previous government.”

The Bedouins fear the brakes may be off now that Israel has its most right-wing government in history.

Regavim’s co-founder, Bezalel Smotrich, is now Israel’s ultra-nationalist finance minister. In a contentious coalition deal, he was given control over an Israeli military body that oversees construction and demolition in Israeli-administered parts of the West Bank.

At a Cabinet meeting last week, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that Khan al-Ahmar be demolished “just as the defense minister chose to destroy a Jewish outpost” built illegally in the West Bank.

“It’s not just about Khan al-Ahmar, it’s about the future of Judea and Samaria,” Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the parliament’s foreign and defense committee said during a visit to the village last week, using the biblical names for the West Bank.

Khan al-Ahmar’s leader, 56-year-old Eid Abu Khamis, said anxiety has returned to his cluster of shacks. “They want to empty the land and give to settlers,” he said.

Bedouins have made Khan al-Ahmar their home since at least the 1970s, though some, like Ali and Abu Khamis, say their parents lived there earlier. Israel has offered to resettle the villagers at another site several miles away. Palestinians fear Israel will use the strategic strip of land to slice Jerusalem off from Palestinian cities, making a future Palestinian state non-viable.

“We are trying to counter this in every way we can,” said Ahmad Majdalani, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of social development. “The new government will find itself in direct confrontation with us and the international community.”

During a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Tuesday, he expressed Washington’s opposition to Israeli demolitions and evictions — actions which, he said, put a two-state solution to the conflict “further from reach.”

The U.S. government has raised concerns about planned evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank with the Israeli government, said the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, referring to the cases of Khan al-Ahmar and Masafer Yatta in what is known as Area C.

The zone covers 60% of the West Bank designated as being under full Israeli control. This is in contrast to the remaining areas, including Palestinian population centers, where the Palestinian autonomy government exercises civil and partial security control.

This demarcation of different zones was part of the 1995 Oslo peace accords.

It was an interim agreement, meant to last five years pending a final peace deal.

“The intention was always that the lion’s share of Area C will be part of the Palestinian state,” said Yossi Beilin, an architect of those peace accords. “Otherwise, it’s like holding people in a prison, and eventually, there would be an explosion.”

Nearly three decades later, Area C is home to some half-million Israelis in dozens of settlements considered illegal under international law. They live alongside between 180,000-300,000 Palestinians, the U.N. estimates, who are almost never granted permits to build. When they build homes without permits, military bulldozers level them.

Netanyahu’s coalition partners have a radically different vision for Area C than the one drawn up in Oslo. They hope to boost the settler population, eliminate Palestinian construction and even annex the territory. The Cabinet announced a freeze on Palestinian building there as part of punitive measures against the PA last month.

Last May, Israel’s Supreme Court approved the expulsion of some 1,000 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, because the Israeli army declared it a restricted firing zone in the early 1980s. There and in surrounding encampments, Palestinians describe an Israeli campaign to make life so miserable they’re compelled to leave.

Last Wednesday, Luqba Jabari, 65, awoke to the rumble of bulldozers in Khirbet Ma’in, part of the Masafer Yatta area, where her grandparents were born. She and her 30 relatives rushed outside to watch the army reduce their home to rubble. The military toppled her family’s three other shacks and water tanks.

That night, she said, they would sleep in their cars, beside the debris of their family’s life together. For the past week, their neighbors have offered some spare rooms as a temporary refuge.

“This is our land,” Jabari said. “There is no place to go.”

Myanmar resistance steadfast against army rule 2 years later

By GRANT PECK and JERRY HARMER
February 1, 2023

7 of 15

Anti-coup protesters hold up signs as they march in Mandalay, Myanmar Sunday, March 14, 2021. The prospects for peace in Myanmar, much less a return to democracy, seem dimmer than ever two years after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, experts say.

BANGKOK (AP) — The prospects for peace in Myanmar, much less a return to democracy, seem dimmer than ever two years after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, experts say.

On Wednesday, legions of opponents of military rule heeded a call by protest organizers to stay home in what they termed a “silent strike” to show their strength and solidarity.

The opposition’s General Strike Coordination Body, formed soon after the 2021 takeover, urged people to stay inside their homes or workplaces from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Photos posted on social media showed empty streets in normally bustling downtown Yangon, the country’s largest city, with just a few vehicles on the roads, and there were reports of similar scenes elsewhere.

Small peaceful protests are an almost-daily occurrence throughout the country, but on the anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021, seizure of power by the army, two points stand out: The amount of violence, especially in the countryside, has reached the level of civil war; and the grassroots movement opposing military rule has defied expectations by largely holding off the ruling generals.

The violence extends beyond the rural battlefields where the army is burning and bombing villages, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in what is a largely neglected humanitarian crisis. It also occurs in the cities, where activists are arrested and tortured and urban guerrillas retaliate with bombings and assassinations of targets linked to the military. The military, after closed trials, have also executed activists accused of “terrorism.”

According to the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group that tracks killings and arrests, 2,940 civilians have been killed by the authorities since the army takeover, and another 17,572 have been arrested — 13,763 of whom remain detained. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher since the group does not generally include deaths on the side of the military government and cannot easily verify cases in remote areas.

“The level of violence involving both armed combatants and civilians is alarming and unexpected,” said Min Zaw Oo, a veteran political activist in exile who founded the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security.

“The scale of the killing and harm inflicted on civilians has been devastating, and unlike anything we have seen in the country in recent memory,” he said.

When the army ousted Suu Kyi in 2021, it arrested her and top members of her governing National League for Democracy party, which had won a landslide victory for a second term in a November 2020 general election. The military claimed it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud, a claim not backed up by objective election observers. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.

Shortly after the military seized power and quashed nonviolent protests with lethal force, thousands of young people slipped away to remote rural areas to become guerrilla fighters.

Operating in decentralized “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, they are proving to be effective warriors, specializing in ambushes and occasionally overrunning isolated army and police posts. They have benefited greatly from supplies and training provided by the some of the country’s ethnic minority rebels — Ethnic Armed Organizations, or EAOs — who have been fighting the army for decades for greater autonomy.

“That’s not only a very brave thing to do. It’s a very difficult thing to do,” Richard Horsey, an independent analyst and adviser to the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press. “It’s a very challenging thing to do, to take on, you know, a military that’s been fighting counterinsurgency warfare (for) basically its whole existence.”

David Mathieson, an independent analyst with over 20 years’ experience in Myanmar, said the opposition’s combat capabilities are “a mixed picture in terms of battlefield performance, organization and unity amongst them.”

“But it’s also important to remember, two years in, that no one was predicting that they were actually going to be as effective as they are now. And in certain areas, the PDFs have been taking on the Myanmar military and, in many respects, besting them on the battlefield in terms of ambush and pitched battles, taking over bases.”

He says the military’s heavy weaponry and air power push the situation into a kind of a stalemate in which the PDFs are not necessarily taking over large swaths of territory, but fighting back and prevailing.

“So no one’s winning at the moment,” Mathieson said.

The military government of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has an advantage — not just in arms and trained manpower, but also in geography. Myanmar’s main neighbors — Thailand, China and India — have geopolitical and economic interests in Myanmar that leave them satisfied with the status quo, which largely secures its borders from becoming a major supply route for weapons and other supplies for the resistance. And while much of the world maintains sanctions against the generals and their government, they can rely on obtaining arms from Russia and China.

Min Aung Hlaing’s government is also nominally pursuing a political solution to the crisis it caused, most notably in its promise to hold a new election this year. Suu Kyi’s party has rejected taking part, deriding the polls as neither free nor fair, and other activists are employing more direct action, attacking teams from the military government who are conducting surveys to compile voter rolls.

“The regime is pushing for an election which the opposition has vowed to derail,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The election won’t change the political status quo; instead, it will intensify violence.”

The planned polls “are being run by a regime that overturned the popularly elected government. They are clearly being seen by the Myanmar people for what they are: a cynical effort to overwrite those previous election results that gave a landslide victory to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, so these are not elections in any meaningful sense of the word,” Horsey said. “They have no legitimacy or credibility.”

In what amounted to an admission that it does not exercise enough control to stage the polls, the military government on Wednesday night announced it is further extending a state of emergency imposed when it seized power two years ago. That means, under Myanmar’s constitution, that it will be impossible to hold the election in August, a date that Min Aung Hlaing earlier said was under consideration.

State-run MRTV television said the state of emergency has been extended another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. It did not offer a date for when the polls might be held.

On the diplomatic front, the military government has thumbed its nose at international efforts to defuse the crisis, even those from sympathetic fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose harshest response has been to not invite Myanmar’s top military leaders to its meetings.

Myanmar’s army government rejects virtually all efforts at peacemaking as interference in its internal affairs.

The resistance, by contrast, has actively reached out for international support. It won small new diplomatic victories Tuesday as the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada announced new sanctions meant to squeeze the military’s revenue and supply lines. The British and Canadian sanctions are especially noteworthy, as they target the supply of aviation fuel, a move activists have been seeking to counter the increasing number of airstrikes that pro-democracy forces and their allies in ethnic minority rebel groups have been facing in the field.

“Currently, both sides are not ready to seek a political solution,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The military stalemate won’t shift significantly this year, despite more deaths and violence.”

Myanmar extends state of emergency, delaying expected polls

By GRANT PECK

February 1, 2023

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In this photo released from the The Military True News Information Team, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing talks during the National Defense and Security Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Myanmar’s military government announced Wednesday that is extending a state of emergency originally imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.

 (The Military True News Information Team via AP)

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government announced Wednesday that is extending a state of emergency it imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.

The announcement on state-run MRTV television said the National Defense and Security Council, which met Tuesday, extended the state of emergency for another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. The NDSC is nominally a constitutional administrative government body, but in practice is controlled by the military.

No exact date has been announced for the polls, though the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has suggested they could be held in August. Wednesday’s report said the election will be held after accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency.

The state of emergency allows the military to assume all government functions, giving Min Aung Hlaing legislative, judicial and executive powers.

The announcement, on the anniversary of the army’s seizure of power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, will be seen as an admission that the army has failed to quell widespread opposition to military rule, which includes increasingly challenging armed resistance as well as nonviolent protests and civil disobedience. State media said Tuesday’s NDSC meeting discussed how opposition groups are seeking to take power through “wrongful forcible means” including assassinations, bombings and destruction of state property.

The constitution stipulates that to hold an election, the military has to transfer government functions to the president, who heads the NDSC, six months before the polls, which in the current case would mean Acting President Myint Swe, an army ally.

A spokesperson for the opposition’s underground National Unity Government, which acts as a shadow government opposed to army rule, said the extension was no surprise because they had expected the military would take some action to cement its control on the anniversary of its takeover.

Nay Phone Latt said in a text message that his group and its allies have the support of the public, whose determination will continue until “revolution” is achieved.

The military said its 2021 takeover was prompted by massive voting fraud in a November 2020 general election, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory for a second term in the election, humiliating the military-backed opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Critics say the military-planned election will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party have been arrested or gone into hiding or exile. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.

Last week, the military government enacted a new law on registration of political parties that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to army-backed candidates in a general election.

The National League for Democracy declared last November that it will not accept or recognize the military-planned election, which it described as “fake.” It said the polls are an attempt by the military to gain political legitimacy and international recognition.

Opposition militants have been attempting to disrupt preparations for the election by attacking personnel of the military government who are conducting a population survey that could be used to assemble voter rolls.

“Upon accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency, free and fair elections will be held in line with the 2008 constitution, and further work will be undertaken to hand over state duties to the winning party in accordance with the democratic standards,” Min Aung Hlaing declared at a Jan. 4 celebration of Myanmar’s independence day in the capital, Naypyitaw,

MYANMAR


ASEAN foreign ministers meet under shadow of Myanmar crisis


Military places restive areas of Myanmar under martial law



Myanmar extends state of emergency, delaying expected polls


Australia targets Myanmar, Iran with economic sanctions

OOPS
Kurdish officials: Rockets hit Turkish base in northern Iraq
NOT US THEY SAY

By SALAR SALIM

February 1, 2023

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — A cluster of rockets targeted a Turkish military base in northern Iraq on Wednesday, officials from northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region said. An Iranian-backed militia promptly claimed responsibility for the attack.

A Turkish defense ministry official said there was no damage or injury at the base but did not provide further details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

According to a statement from the Iraqi Kurdish region’s anti-terrorism department, at least eight rockets were fired at Turkey’s Zilkan military base in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, with two hitting the base itself.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar dismissed the incident, saying the base comes under attack “from time to time,” prompting retaliatory fire. He said the Turkish soldiers were “fighting there with increased resolve and determination.”

Turkey has long been conducting military operations in northern Iraq, with both ground and air forces, to battle the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has been waging a decades long insurgency against Ankara.

The PKK maintains sanctuaries in the Kurdish region of Iraq and Turkish forces have frequently launched airstrikes targeting the PKK.

Separately from its operations against the PKK, Turkey was also part of the war against the Islamic State group — which seized control of much of the area in 2014 — and an ally in the U.S.-led anti-IS campaign.

Turkey has also set up several bases in the area — much to the displeasure of Baghdad officials and some in the regional Iraqi Kurdish government, which has not officially condemned the Turkish troop presence. The facilities have occasionally been targeted in rocket attacks.

Turkey established Zilkan base in 2015, during the war against IS. It is located close to the Iraqi city of Mosul, at the time a stronghold of the extremists.

The Iraqi government has frequently condemned Turkey’s military presence, often describing it as illegal.

Shortly after Wednesday’s attack, the Islamic Resistance Ahrar al-Iraq Brigade — which is part of Iraq’s pro-government, Iran-backed umbrella group of Shiite militias called the Popular Mobilization Forces — said it was behind the rocket fire.

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Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

 

Targeting Iran, US tightens Iraq’s dollar flow, causing pain

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and ABBY SEWELL

Security forces stand guard during a demonstration in front of the Iraqi central bank as currency plummets against the U.S. dollar, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. In recent weeks, Iraq's currency has taken a plunge as a result of newly imposed restrictions on dollar transfers from the U.S., leading to spiking food prices and political unrest. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)

BAGHDAD (AP) — For months, the United States has restricted Iraq’s access to its own dollars, trying to stamp out what Iraqi officials describe as rampant money laundering that benefits Iran and Syria. Iraq is now feeling the crunch, with a drop in the value of its currency and public anger blowing back against the prime minister.

The exchange rate for the Iraqi dinar has jumped to around 1,750 to the dollar at street exchanges in some parts of the country, compared to the official rate of 1,460 dinars to the dollar.

In Baghdad, exchange houses were closed on Thursday, while the Kurdistan Regional Government banned exchange companies in Sulaimaniyah from making transfers.

Mustafa Al-Karawi, a member of the parliamentary budget committee, told the state news agency that the Central Bank “must meet the requirements of the Federal Reserve to...reduce the scarcity of hard currency in the country.” He said new domestic procedures would be rolled out to improve access to currency, while a delegation of Iraqi officials will travel to the U.S. for negotiations next Friday.

The devaluation has already sparked protests. If it persists, analysts said, it could challenge the mandate of the government formed in October after a yearlong political stalemate.

US IMPERIALIST THEFT OF IRAQ'S SOVERIGN FUNDS

The dinar’s deterioration comes even though Iraq’s foreign currency reserves are at an all-time high of around $100 billion, pumped up by spiking global oil prices that have brought increasing revenues to the petroleum-rich nation.

But accessing that money is a different story.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq’s foreign currency reserves have been housed at the United States’ Federal Reserve, giving the Americans significant control over Iraq’s supply of dollars. The Central Bank of Iraq requests dollars from the Fed and then sells them to commercial banks and exchange houses at the official exchange rate through a mechanism known as the “dollar auction.”

In the past, daily sales through the auction often exceeded $200 million per day.

Ostensibly, the vast majority of the dollars sold in the auction are meant to go to purchases of goods imported by Iraqi companies, but the system has long been porous and easily abused, multiple Iraqi banking and political officials told The Associated Press.

U.S. officials confirmed to the AP that they suspected the system was used for money laundering but declined to comment in detail on the allegations or the new restrictions.

For years, large quantities of dollars were transferred out of the country to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Lebanon through “gray market trading, using fake invoices for overpriced items,” a financial adviser to the Iraqi prime minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The inflated invoices were used to launder dollars, with most of them sent to Iran and Syria, which are under U.S. sanctions, leading to complaints from American officials, he said.

In other cases, the currency is smuggled across land borders under the protection of armed groups that take a cut of the cash, said Tamkeen Abd Sarhan al-Hasnawi, chairman of the board of Mosul Bank and first deputy of the Iraq Private Banks League. He estimated that as much as 80% of the dollars sold through the auction went to neighboring countries.

“Syria, Turkey, and Iran used to benefit from the dollar auction in Iraq,” he said.

A member of one of Iraq’s Iran-backed militias, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said the majority of Iraqi banks are owned indirectly by politicians and political parties that have also used the dollar auction to their benefit.

Late last year, the Fed began imposing stricter measures.

Among other steps, at the request of the U.S., the Central Bank of Iraq started using an electronic system for transfers that required entering detailed information on the intended end-recipient of the requested dollars. One hundred Central Bank employees were trained by the Fed to implement the new system, the prime minister’s financial adviser said.

“This system started rejecting transfers and invoices that used to be approved by the central bank,” he said. “Around 80% of transactions were being rejected.”

The amount of dollars sold daily in the auction plummeted to $69.6 million on Jan. 31, from $257.8 million six months earlier, according to Central Bank records. Far fewer of the dollars are going toward buying imports as well, down to around 34% from 90%.

Even when transactions are approved, it takes banks up to 15 days to get the funds rather than two or three days, Hasnawi said.

Unable to get dollars at the official price through banks, he said, traders turned to the black market to buy dollars, causing the price to rise.

In November, the Central Bank of Iraq added four new banks to the list of those banned from dealing in dollars. Two U.S. officials confirmed that the Fed requested the four banks be blocked because of suspected money laundering. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the case.

A spokesperson for the New York Fed declined to discuss the specific measures taken with regards to Iraq. But the Fed said in a statement that it enforces “a robust compliance regime” for the accounts it holds. The statement said that this regime “evolves over time in response to new information, which we gather in the regular course of monitoring transactions and events that may impact an account and in communication with other relevant U.S. government agencies.”

The system of keeping Iraq’s oil revenues at the Fed was originally imposed by U.N. Security Council resolutions after the 2003 ouster of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by the U.S-led invasion. Later, Iraq chose to maintain the system to protect its revenues against potential lawsuits, particularly in connection to Iraq’s 1990s invasion of Kuwait.

The new U.S. restrictions come at a time of increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Negotiations over a nuclear deal are floundering. Washington has imposed new sanctions and condemned Iran for cracking down on protesters and providing drones for Russia to use in Ukraine.

Also, in Iraq, allegations came to light in October that over $2.5 billion in Iraqi government revenue was embezzled by a network of businesses and officials from the country’s tax authority

The case “brought (U.S.) attention to the scale of corruption in Iraq” and how the corruption can benefit Iran and other parties hostile to the U.S., said Harith Hasan, head of the Iraq unit at the Emirates Research Center, an Abu Dhabi-based think tank.

The new Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who came to power via a coalition of Iranian-backed parties, does not have a strong relationship with the U.S. that could have enabled him to soften the implementation of the new financial measures, Hasan said.

Al-Sudani has downplayed the current devaluation as “a temporary issue of trading and speculation.” He replaced the Central Bank governor and instituted measures intended to ensure a supply of dollars at the official rate.

Al-Hasnawi said the government’s recent measures will not stop the financial bleeding. If the current situation persists, he said, “within one year, most banks will declare bankruptcy” and there is likely to be mass civil unrest.

“This U.S. pressure impacts the Iraqi street in a clear manner, and we do not see clear solutions until now,” he said.

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AP staff reporters Samya Kullab in Baghdad and Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report. Sewell reported from Beirut.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
British Gas sorry its agents broke into customers’ homes


By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. government said Thursday it was responding to “deeply shocking” revelations that debt-collectors working for British Gas broke into customers’ homes to install prepay gas meters that left vulnerable people at risk of having their heating cut off.

British Gas’ parent company, Centrica PLC, said it had halted the “unacceptable” practice. The country’s energy regulator launched an investigation.

The Times of London reported that debt collectors obtained court warrants to enter the homes of people who had fallen behind on their energy bills. They installed meters that make customers pay upfront for their gas supply — if they don’t, they are cut off. The practice allows firms to get around rules that limit the circumstances in which they can cut off supplies to customers who are in debt.

The newspaper said an undercover reporter working for debt collection agency Arvato Financial Solutions accompanied agents to enter homes and “force fit” the meters. The newspaper said the customers included a single father with three young children whose door was forced open by a locksmith and a mother with a 4-week-old baby.

The Times said that in the first 11 months of 2022, energy firms applied for 345,000 warrants to force entry into U.K. homes.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, called the report “deeply shocking and concerning.”

“Vulnerable families should not be treated so poorly,” he said. Energy Minister Graham Stuart summoned British Gas representatives for a meeting on Thursday, the government said.

Britain’s energy regulator, Ofgem, said it was investigating what it called “extremely serious allegations.”

Centrica CEO Chris O’Shea said that “protecting vulnerable customers is an absolute priority, and we have clear processes and policies to ensure we manage customer debt carefully and safely.”

“The allegations around our third-party contractor Arvato are unacceptable and we immediately suspended their warrant activity,” he said.

Arvato Financial Solutions said it “acts compliantly at all times in accordance with the regulatory requirements in the areas in which we are operationally active.”

“We treat customers with whom we come into contact with respect and assess their individual needs at the time of our visit,” the company said in a statement. “If there has been any verbal or any other type of misconduct by individual employees, we deeply regret it.”

Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said that the report showed the need for “a formal inquiry into the prepayment meters scandal and the role of the courts in enabling this practice.”

Domestic energy bills in Britain skyrocketed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, and resulting Western sanctions on Moscow sent global oil and gas prices soaring. Wholesale gas prices have since fallen back, but critics say energy firms aren’t passing the benefit on to customers.

Shell reported Thursday that its annual profits doubled to a record high of $39.9 billion last year.

The U.K. government has given households at least 400 pounds ($500) off their energy bills for six months, but the support is due to be scaled back in April.

ZIONIST MURDERERS

Extremist Israeli group halts fund-raising effort in US

By URI BLAU of Shomrim and MIKE CATALINI 

of The Associated Press

yesterday

- Israeli Yosef Haim Ben David, convicted in the killing of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir, arrives to a court in Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 19, 2016. An Israeli group that assists Jewish prisoners convicted in some of the country's most notorious hate crimes has halted its fund-raising efforts through a U.S.-based Jewish charity following an investigation by The Associated Press and the Israeli investigative platform Shomrim. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, file)

LAKEWOOD, N.J. (AP) — An Israeli group that assists Jewish prisoners convicted in some of the country’s most notorious hate crimes has halted its fund-raising efforts through a U.S.-based Jewish charity following an investigation by The Associated Press and the Israeli nonprofit news organization Shomrim.

The fund-raising through the Lakewood, New Jersey-based World of Tzedaka had allowed American donors to make tax-exempt contributions to the hard-line Israeli group, and suggested that Israel’s far right was making new inroads into the U.S.

World of Tzedaka confirmed that it was no longer working with Shlom Asiraich, while a fund-raising link on the Israeli group’s website that connected donors to the American nonprofit has stopped working.

“We don’t do any business with them anymore, so we don’t have anything else to do with them,” said Yaakov Cohen, who identified himself as a manager for World of Tzedaka.

Shlom Asiraich, or “The Well-Being of Your Prisoners,” has been raising money in Israel since at least 2018. The group was officially registered as a nonprofit in 2020 by a group consisting mostly of Israelis from hard-line settlements in the West Bank.

According to its promotional materials, the group has provided assistance to Yigal Amir, who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995; Amiram Ben-Uliel, who was convicted in the 2015 murder of a Palestinian baby and his parents in an arson attack; and Yosef Haim Ben David, who was convicted of abducting and killing a 16-year-old Palestinian boy in Jerusalem in 2014. The group also assists an extremist ultra-Orthodox man who fatally stabbed a 16-year-old Israeli girl at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade in 2015.

A spokesman for Shlom Asiraich slammed down the phone twice when he was called by The Associated Press for comment on Thursday.

It’s not clear when the U.S. fundraising efforts on behalf of Shlom Asiraich began. Being a relatively new organization, the group’s official filing to Israel’s nonprofit registry provides little data and does not indicate how much money it has raised. But in its promotional flyers, recently broadcast by Israeli Channel 13 news, the organization indicated it has raised 150,000 shekels, or about $43,000.

It’s also not clear how much of that money was raised in the U.S. by World of Tzedaka, a group that assists Jewish families in distress, according to its website. Lakewood, New Jersey, is home to a sizeable Orthodox Jewish community.

Cohen, the World of Tzedaka representative, said his group had raised just $200 for Shlom Asiraich before the connection was halted, though that figure could not be verified.

“It didn’t really get off the ground that much. Then we started hearing some questionable information about them. Then rabbis advised to stop doing business with them, so we did,” he said.

Just when the break happened isn’t clear. Cohen said it happened “a few months” ago after “a few people locally” brought the connection to their attention.

But he couldn’t specify when, and a link on the Shlom Asiraich website that connects to the World of Tzedaka donation page was still working when the AP-Shomrim investigation was published on Jan. 24. Another link directly on World of Tzedaka’s website has also disappeared.

“We removed them from our website, and we asked them to remove our name from their website and whatever they had and we completely separated from them,” Cohen said.

Israeli universities, hospitals and charities often have fund-raising operations in the U.S., but activities like those of extremist groups like Shlom Asiraich are rare.

It is not known whether Shlom Asiraich or World of Tzedaka broke any U.S. laws. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s rules for fund-raising by nonprofit organizations are vague – saying the groups cannot exert political influence or benefit private interests.

The IRS declined to comment on the case. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports about Shlom Asiraich, but referred questions to the Justice Department.

“We condemn extremist violence in all its forms,” the State Department said.

The Justice Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government took office in late December, giving ultranationalists and extremist lawmakers unprecedented power. There is no direct link between Shlom Asiraich and the government, though its registration with Israeli authorities was handled by a top aide to Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

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This article was published in partnership with Shomrim, The Center for Media and Democracy in Israel. AP correspondent Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed reporting.