It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, March 24, 2023
Iran mother's pain and hope in film on daughter's execution
ParisUpdated: Mar 24, 2023
Seven Winters in Tehran tells the story of a woman wronged by system. Photograph:(AFP)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Reyhaneh Jabbari was 26 when she was hanged for murder in 2014,
having become an international symbol of injustice in Iran.
She had spent seven years in prison for stabbing to death an
ex-intelligence ministry official,
Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.
She was executed for killing the man who was trying to rape her. Now the subject of a devastating documentary, her mother says there are seeds of hope in her terrible story.
Reyhaneh Jabbari was 26 when she was hanged for murder in 2014, having become an international symbol of injustice in Iran.
She had spent seven years in prison for stabbing to death an ex-intelligence ministry official, Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.
Despite being offered a reprieve if she retracted her rape allegation, she refused to lie -- even at the cost of her life.
Her courageous story and poetic diaries from prison are the subjects of a new documentary, Seven Winters in Tehran, which played at the Berlin Film Festival last month.
Somehow, Jabbari found the strength to forgive those who destroyed and ultimately took her life -- something her mother has never been able to do.
"Reyhaneh asked me to forgive the people who tortured her, and I tried for many years, but to this day, I cannot," her mother, Shole Pakravan, told AFP ahead of the film's release in France.
- 'Piece of hope'-
But unlike previous generations in Iran, too fearful to speak out, she has managed to use the tragedy to raise awareness.
"When I was young, I didn't know about the violence and executions in my country. It was hidden," said Pakravan, who now lives in exile in Germany. "Now with this movie, we are able to speak about these things and show it to the world."
The film's director, Steffi Niederzoll, said she was deeply inspired by the family's strength.
"They have fought to break the circle of violence in Iran," she said. "Reyhaneh forgave even the people who did this to her. She stayed with her truth, her dignity and asked her family to do the same. This creates a piece of hope in this very sad story."
The film was almost finished when protests broke out around the country in September over the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly breaching its strict dress code.
"I have hope in the people in these demos because the new generation are really fighting -- not like my generation," said Pakravan.
"Before people went to jail and came out and stayed silent. Now young girls are going to jail and being raped, and they still won't be silent." But she also fears for what comes next.
"I fight against execution and torture so when I see protesters calling for mullahs (religious leaders) to be hanged, it makes me worry," she said. "I don't know what system will come after this one, but I don't want it to use execution or torture."
Completing the film, and an accompanying book, has given her some relief after so many years of pain. "I did my responsibility to Reyhaneh, and it has made me free. I can see the world around me again."
Raccoon dog data sparks new debate about Covid origins
Daniel Lawler and Julien Dury,
Agence France-Presse Posted at Mar 24 2023 View of a raccoon dog or Tanuki (Nyctereutes procyonoides) at the Chapultpec Zoo in Mexico City . A month ago nine raccoon dog pups were born. This species is native from Japan and China, and the parents of the cubs were donated by Japan. AFP PHOTO / ALFREDO ESTRELLA
PARIS, France - New evidence that raccoon dogs were at the Chinese market where Covid is suspected to have first infected humans has reignited debate over the origin of the pandemic.
The researchers who unexpectedly stumbled over the genetic data say that it supports -- but cannot definitively prove -- the theory that the virus originated in animals, possibly first jumping over to humans at the market in the city of Wuhan.
The issue has proved divisive for the scientific community and even different US government agencies, with some maintaining that the virus likely leaked from a Wuhan lab -- a claim that China has angrily denied.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on Covid, said the new data "doesn't give us the answer of how the pandemic began, but it does provide more clues".
The data comes from swabs collected by a Chinese team in January and February 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of one of the earliest Covid clusters, before it was shut down and cleared of animals.
International researchers including Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist at France's CNRS research agency, were surprised to come across the data on the GISAID global science database earlier this month.
They managed to download the data before it was removed from GISAID at the request of the Chinese researchers who first posted it.
Debarre and colleagues informed the WHO about their discovery last week, when some media outlets started reporting on the data's existence.
'Piece of the puzzle'
This week the researchers published a report, which has not been peer-reviewed, saying that DNA from the samples shows that raccoon dogs, palm civets, Amur hedgehogs and bamboo rats were present at the market.
Raccoon dogs, whose closest relatives are foxes, are in particular known to be able to carry and transmit viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2, which causes the Covid disease.
That means they could have acted as an intermediary host between humans and bats, in which Covid is suspected to have originated.
Some of the samples containing raccoon dog DNA were also positive for SARS-CoV-2.
However because the samples were taken from sites at the market and not directly from the animals, it was not possible to prove the raccoon dogs had Covid.
Notably, there was very little human DNA in one of the positive samples, raising the likelihood that it was the raccoon dog that had the virus.
"We cannot rigorously demonstrate that the animal was infected, but it is a plausible explanation," Debarre told AFP.
Even if it could be proved that the raccoon dogs were infected, it would be difficult to show they gave Covid to humans -- and not the other way around.
The data is "one additional piece of the puzzle that supports an origin of the pandemic linked to Wuhan's animal trade," said virologist Connor Bamford of Queen's University Belfast.
But "it is unlikely to provide irrefutable evidence," he said on The Conversation website.
Data still missing
There have been increasing calls for all information on the origins of Covid to be publicly released.
US President Joe Biden signed a law earlier this week declassifying intelligence material on the subject, after his energy department concluded with "low confidence" that the virus probably came from a lab.
That assessment contradicted the conclusion of several other US agencies -- but not the FBI.
After being informed of the new Huanan samples, the WHO again called on China to release all its data from the early days of the pandemic.
"These data could have -- and should have -- been shared three years ago," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late last week.
Alice Hughes, an expert in biodiversity analytics at the University of Hong Kong, said that some researchers in China had known about the existence of the samples since April 2020.
Hughes told AFP this "critically important" information should have been made public earlier, adding that she believed it was "very likely that this is the source of spillover of SARS-CoV-2".
The authors of the new report said that more data was still missing.
There is "absolutely crucial data which sheds light on the start of the pandemic" that the researchers "cannot share because it's not ours," Debarre said.
"The more people who look into it, the more we will be able to extract information," she added.
Dominican government razes homes to erect wall on Haiti border
Esteban ROJAS Thu, March 23, 2023 Leocadio Guzman is one of dozens of residents of La Mara in the Dominican Republic whose house was torn down by the military.
Like many others in this impoverished neighborhood, his house stood in the way of an anti-migrant wall his government is erecting along the border with Haiti -- a country with which the Dominican Republic shares an island but very little else.
Where Guzman's house once stood there is now only a wooden plank on the ground with the code "MF 011-5" painted on it in red.
Locals presume the MF stands for "muro fronterizo" or border wall -- it is an abbreviation spray painted onto dozens of homes still in the crossfire of a mass demolition that started last November.
"When the military came, I was at work. I returned and found the house marked," the 41-year-old told AFP.
Guzman packed up his belongings, took his pregnant wife, and rapidly got out of the way -- moving to a small wooden shack he had built himself in preparation for this very day.
Like Guzman, about 30 families of the La Mara and La Bomba neighborhoods of Dajabon province have been uprooted by the state.
Another 50-odd households in the neighboring province of Monte Cristi are next in line to make way for the wall that is President Luis Abinader's signature project.
Abinader was elected in 2020 on a promise to curb immigration from Haiti -- a problem-laden neighbor with whom the Dominican Republic has a complicated relationship also tainted by xenophobia.
Some half-a-million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, a nation of some 11 million.
- 'By the grace of God' -
The cross-border migrant flow has increased with criminal gangs increasingly taking control of neighborhoods in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
On Abinader's watch, the Dominican Republic deported 171,000 Haitians in 2022 -- up from 85,000 a year earlier, according to the Support Group for Returnees and Refugees (GARR).
Seeking to stem the flow altogether, the government is now building a wall that will run along nearly half of the 380-kilometer (236-mile) border between the two nations on the island of Hispaniola.
The defense ministry, put in charge of the operation, announced in November that 79 million pesos (some $1.4 million) was available for compensation for people who had their homes or farmland expropriated in Dajabon and Monte Cristi.
"The money they gave me is not enough to get another house," Lidna Dorfinis, a 38-year-old Haitian who lives in La Mara, told AFP.
"Now I live by the grace of God," Dorfinis, who has a 12-month-old daughter, said through a translator.
She said she received the equivalent of about $4,500 for her house -- which was barely enough to buy a piece of land.
With no money left to buy materials for a new house, Dorfinis now has to pay rent of $60 a month to someone else -- a heavy blow for someone living in poverty.
- 'Had to accept it' -
Guzman, for his part, said he received about $4,200 from the government, which he used to build his new wooden shack.
"At least I had a place to lay my head," he told AFP.
The mayor of Dajabon city, Santiago Riveron, insisted the government had negotiated compensation with affected residents and "it was not traumatic."
People like Guzman disagree.
"I wasn't very happy, but I had to accept it," he said.
The house of a nearby neighbor, Quisqueya Estevez, also carries the dreaded "MF" marking.
For now, the house still stands. Part of it, anyway.
Estevez, 36, claims the section that used to contain her bathroom gave way due to landslides caused by the demolition work.
"We now poop in a bucket. It is not nice," she said.
In the working class sector of Pepillo Salcedo in Monte Cristi, the house Dominga Castillo shares with her mother and two children, is also in the crosshairs.
But the 41-year-old's concerns are not only about the money.
"I came here as a baby, still crawling," she recounted. "Starting all over again is very hard."
erc/jt/mbj/yow/mlr/tjj
The border between Quanamienthe in Haiti and Dajabon in the Dominican Republic bustles with activity
Quisqueya Estevez and Antonio Ramirez will lose their house too
Residents are receiving compensation for leaving their homes, but they say it is not enough
The wall is President Luis Abinader's signature project
Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party said Wednesday it would not field a presidential candidate in May elections, giving tacit support to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rival in the crucial vote.
The decision by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) reduces the possibility of a damaging split of the anti-Erdogan vote, boosting the chances of the opposition alliance's joint candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Winning more than 10 percent of the vote in the past three national elections, the HDP was widely seen as a kingmaker in the tightly contested race.
"We will not field a candidate in the presidential elections," Pervin Buldan, the party co-chairwoman, told reporters.
"We will fulfil our historic responsibility to end one-man rule in the coming elections," she said, condemning Erdogan's consolidation of power over his two decades as prime minister and president.
The HDP's decision strips Erdogan of a key voting bloc in what is widely seen as Turkey's most important election of its post-Ottoman history. Erdogan enjoyed some support from Kurdish voters earlier in his rule.
His government once worked with HDP politicians in an effort to put an end to a decades-long fight by Kurdish insurgents for an independent state that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. But he now accuses the HDP -- parliament's third largest party -- of being the political wing of the PKK militants.
The leftist party denies the charges and says it is being singled out for its fierce criticism of the government's social and economic policies. Erdogan and his far-right allies in parliament are now trying to dissolve the HDP over its alleged terror ties.
Turkey's Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected the HDP's request to delay the outcome of the case until after the May 14 election. The HDP was excluded from a six-party opposition alliance that has rallied around Kilicdaroglu's candidacy.
The anti-Erdogan alliance includes staunchly nationalist parties that refuse to work with the HDP. Meeting with HDP leaders on Monday, Kilicdaroglu promised to remove restrictions on the Kurdish language and address other Kurdish concerns.
Syria's War Shattered Their Lives, Turkey's Quake Crushed Their Hopes - Latest Tweet by Reuters
Mar 21, 2023
Unite says BP Petrofac workers to support North Sea strikes over pay
- UK's Unite the union on Wednesday said that its members at BP Petrofac sites have voted to support a strike over pay at oil and gas facilities in the North Sea.
"The vote will see the BP Petrofac workers join 1,400 others in dispute with their employers meaning 1,500 offshore workers across the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) could be on strike within weeks."
The BP Petrofac installations set to be hit by strike action include Andrew, Clair, Clair Ridge, ETAP, and the Glen Lyon floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.
"BP is aware of the outcome of this ballot and we continue to liaise with the employing company, Petrofac," the company said.
The union had announced on Monday that operators including BP, CNRI, EnQuest, Harbour, Ithaca, Shell, and Total will be affected by the strikes and apart from Petrofac, it would include workers at Bilfinger UK Limited and Stork construction.
(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Arpan Varghese; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan)
Trapped and Jobless, Gaza Youths Look for a Way Out
Wednesday, 22 March, 2023 - Palestinian fisherman Jihad al-Hissi and his sons work in their boat at the seaport in Gaza City on January 10, 2023. (AFP)
Asharq Al-Awsat
Sabreen Abu Jazar was only hours from completing the perilous journey from Gaza to meet her husband in Europe last month when her migrant boat flipped and sank 100 meters from the Greek coast. Her body was finally returned home this week.
"She phoned me just before travelling and asked me to pray for her," said her mother, sitting in a mourning tent in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
After leaving Gaza in February, via Egypt, Sabreen flew to Türkiye where she met her husband, who had migrated to Belgium years ago. They had planned to meet again in Greece, where he had promised a honeymoon, but Sabreen never arrived. Three other brides were on the boat.
On Tuesday, around three weeks after her death, Abu Jazar's body was brought home for burial in her town of Rafah.
"I celebrated her as a bride, now she's returned to me in a coffin," said her mother-in-law Buthayna Abu Jazar. "A wedding turned into mourning."
A rising number of Palestinians are making the perilous crossing to Europe, driven to escape repeated wars and the Israeli blockade that has left Gaza cut off since the Hamas movement assumed power in 2007.
UN figures show more than 2,700 Palestinians arrived in Greece by sea in 2022, making up 22% of total boat arrivals, the highest of any national group. European Union data from last year also shows a sharp rise in asylum applications by Palestinians in Greece, the main point of entry to Europe.
Not all reach their destination. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, more than 378 people have died or gone missing while attempting to migrate from Gaza since 2014. Three have died so far in 2023.
"Sabreen lived her 24 years amid a blockade and a bitter economic situation, and like any girl or a young man she quit Gaza hoping for freedom and a better situation," her uncle Alaa Abu Jazar said.
Political factions
Jobs in Gaza are scarce, for college graduates as well as others, and when a position arises, it often goes to someone with a connection to political factions.
Underlying the crisis is a 16-year-old Israeli-led blockade on Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, coupled with internal political divisions that have weakened Palestinians' political aspirations for statehood.
Ahmed Al-Deek, an official of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, urged Palestinians from Gaza and refugee camps in Arab countries to shun illegal trips but said the Israeli blockade was the prime reason for Gaza youth leaving for a better future abroad.
Deek also blamed the continued internal divisions between Fatah and Hamas and urged "all officials in Gaza Strip to shoulder their responsibilities and resolve the problem of youth and offer them dignified life."
Gazans say they are ruled by three governments: the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, who has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and which employs thousands of people in Gaza, Hamas, and Israel, the third entity that controls its de facto border.
Mohammad Kuhail, 26, a physiotherapy graduate, tried for six years to find a job in institutions run by Hamas, the United Nations or those affiliated with Abbas's Fatah movement.
"If I were from Hamas, they would have hired me," the 26-year-old said. "Fatah is the same, Fatah cares about Fatah people," said Kuhail, who whiles away his time in cheap cafes with other unemployed friends.
Six of his siblings are graduates, two of them engineers, and none of them has ever got a job, he said, leaving the family dependent on his father, a school guard.
Few jobs
According to Palestinian and United Nations estimates, youth unemployment in Gaza runs at about 70%, a figure which makes dreams of building any kind of future out of reach for most young people.
For its part, Hamas puts the blame for the dire economic situation on the shoulders of Israel, which has fought repeated wars with the movement while maintaining its blockade of the enclave.
"Our problem is the occupation and isn't an internal problem," Ehab Al-Ghsain, Hamas-appointed deputy of the Gaza Labor Ministry, told Reuters.
As part of its policy of ensuring a basic level of economic stability in Gaza, Israel offers some 20,000 permits to allow Gazans to work in Israel but, within Gaza, Hamas has struggled to provide work for more than a select few.
In 2022, Al-Ghsain's office created temporary jobs for 9,000 young people, a fraction of the 236,000 looking for work, he said. Even the 40,000 public servants it has hired in Gaza since 2007 have not received their full salaries.
In the heart of Gaza City, Saeed Lulu, a media graduate stands selling hot drinks to passersby and taxi drivers at a stall he calls "The Graduates Stall". He is the only breadwinner for a family of six.
"I graduated 16 years ago and so far, I have failed to find a job," he said.
In that, he is little different from other graduates. Maher Al-Tabbaa, a Gaza economic analyst, said fewer than 10% of around 14,000 students who graduate every year get jobs.
Standing outside Lulu's cafe, Majd Al-Jamal, 20, a college undergraduate, wondered whether she should complete her studies after seeing three of her siblings failing for years to find a job.
"I don't have much enthusiasm," she said. "We already know what is going to happen."
STORY: Sabreen Abu Jazar was hours from finishing the perilous journey from Gaza to Europe last month, when the migrant boat she was on overturned just off the Greek coast.
Sabreen was travelling - via Turkey - to meet her husband in Greece.
They were newly weds, and she was following him to Europe to build a life together.
She returned to Gaza in a coffin on Tuesday (March 21).
Her mother Suha's joy has turned to grief.
"I called her, by chance, and she raised her hands to the sky, like this, and said: "Pray for me mother, just pray for me." I did not know she was packed and ready to go. She said: "Goodbye, I am going away, I am travelling. I am leaving."
Sabreen was one of a rising number of people risking the migrant journey from Gaza to escape repeated wars and a punishing Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
Three other brides were on the same boat.
In the heart of Gaza City, Saeed Lulu, a media graduate, owns "The Graduate's stall" - serving drinks to passersby.
He is the only breadwinner for a family of six.
Jobs in Gaza are scarce. When one does arise, a degree don't always help but political connections do.
"We are lost, Mahmoud Abbas is the current (Palestinian) president and Hamas rules here, but neither Abbas nor Hamas are providing us with anything. On the contrary, the youth today are migrating because there are no opportunities for employment or hope. Our present is not clear, we are not able to see it."
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, since 2014, at least 378 people have died or gone missing attempting to migrate from Gaza.
Three have died so far this year.
Lebanese security forces fire tear gas at crowds protesting pound devaluation
Our kids are hungry. We’re hungry, 59-year-old who served in army for 32 years says
Protesters shove a section of the security fence outside the government palace headquarters in the centre of Beirut on March 22, 2023 during a demonstration by retired Lebanese army and security forces veterans demanding inflation-adjustments to their pensions.Image Credit: AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanese security forces on Wednesday fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters, mostly retired members of the security forces, who had gathered near government buildings in Beirut in anger at deteriorating economic conditions.
Crowds gathered in the streets of downtown Beirut between parliament and the government serail, carrying Lebanon’s tricolour or flags bearing the logos of security forces.
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They were outraged at the deteriorating value of state pensions paid in the local currency. The pound has lost more than 98 per cent of its value against the US dollar since 2019.
“Our kids are hungry. We’re hungry,” said Mohamad Al Khateeb, a 59-year-old who had served in the army for 32 years.
“We left the army with nothing. No healthcare, no welfare, our kids are out of school and prices are rising obscenely. What do you expect?” Khateeb told Reuters.
Some of the men tried to cross one of the checkpoints leading to a government building, prompting security forces to fire tear gas to keep them back, according to a Reuters witness.
Lebanese special forces soldiers remove their comrade who fainted from the tear gas during the protest,Image Credit: AP
Protesters dashed away from white clouds emanating from locations around the serail. One soldier was seen treating a young boy who was affected by the tear gas.
“If he fires on us, he’s firing on our rights and on his rights at the same time,” said army veteran Ahmad Mustafa, 60.
“He’s suffering just like me,” he told Reuters, clutching two of the tear gas canisters fired just moments earlier.
There was no immediate statement from the Lebanese army.
Lebanon’s economic meltdown began in 2019 after decades of profligate spending and alleged corruption. Its onset prompted the most wide-ranging protests the country had seen in years, but they fizzled out and rallies have been sporadic since.
The country’s top financial and political leaders have allowed the crisis to fester, with the Lebanese pound hitting an all-time low of 140,000 to the US dollar on Tuesday before an intervention by the country’s central bank.
Lebanon’s army troops and members of the security forces are receiving salary support in US dollars from the United States and Qatar for the first time.
Astronomers must fight ‘tooth and nail’ to protect dark skies, study says
Less than a month after astronomers found satellite trails scarring many images snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope, a new paper is urging scientists to “fight tooth and nail” to protect the night sky against rising light pollution.
“We are very pessimistic about the path being followed by an important part of the scientific community (and other actors) that works on and has responsibilities for these areas of research,” the authors wrote in the paper (opens in new tab), which was published Monday (March 20) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
UAE’s 1st long-duration astronaut marks the start of Ramadan in space
The first Emirati astronaut in space will witness the beginning of Ramadan with the arrival of the new moon as soon as tonight (March 22).
Astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi arrived in space on March 2 after launching into orbit aboard a SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in a Crew Dragon spacecraft. He is working aboard the International Space Station for the next half-year on the first-ever long duration mission flown by a United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut.
