UN: Ban on Afghan female staffers by Taliban unacceptable

By RAHIM FAIEZ and EDITH M. LEDERER

yesterday

 Afghan women chant and hold signs of protest during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 26, 2022. The U.N. said Wednesday, April 5, 2023, that it cannot accept a Taliban decision to bar Afghan female staffers from working at the agency, calling it an “unparalleled” violation of women's rights. 

(AP Photo/Mohammed Shoaib Amin, File)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United Nations said Wednesday it cannot accept a Taliban decision to bar Afghan female staffers from working at the agency, calling it an “unparalleled” violation of women’s rights.

The statement came a day after the U.N. said it had been informed by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban that Afghan women would no longer be allowed to work for the world body. That announcement came after the U.N. mission in the country expressed concern that its female staffers were prevented from reporting to work in eastern Nangarhar province.

Prior to Tuesday, Afghan women were already barred from working at national and international non-governmental organizations, disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid. But the ban did not cover working for the U.N.

That changed this week. On Wednesday, the U.N. mission said that under the Taliban order, no Afghan woman is permitted to work for the U.N. in Afghanistan, and that “this measure will be actively enforced.”

The ban is unlawful under international law and cannot be accepted by the United Nations, the statement said.


The Taliban decision is “an unparalleled violation of women’s rights, a flagrant breach of humanitarian principles, and a breach of international rules,” Wednesday’s statement said.

The Taliban have not commented publicly on the ban.

The U.N. statement said several U.N. national female personnel have already experienced restrictions on their movements, including harassment, intimidation and detention.

“The UN has therefore instructed all national staff — men and women — not to report to the office until further notice,” the statement said.

The Taliban decision drew condemnation from the world’s most recognized organizations. A joint statement singed by the Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, Danish Refugee Council, INTERSOS, Action Against Hunger, and World Vision urged the lifting of the ban on Afghan women aid workers that has been extended to U.N. agencies.

“Without our female staff, the humanitarian community cannot effectively reach women and girls. With more than 28 million people in desperate need of aid to survive, this act will cut off people’s lifelines,” said the statement.

“We call on the De Facto Authorities to lift the ban and allow all female aid workers in Afghanistan to return to work immediately,” it said. “With Afghanistan facing record levels of hunger, the cost of this ban will be measured by lives lost.”

Separately, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than 28 million people, including over 15 million children, need humanitarian and protection assistance this year — a staggering increase of 4 million people over 2022. Hunger and disease are lurking and the economy is in tatters.

“Yet despite this devastating situation, the de facto authorities have taken the unconscionable and confounding decision to ban Afghan women from working with the United Nations in Afghanistan, including UNICEF,” Russell said in a statement. “Coming on the heels of the decree banning Afghan women from working with NGOs, this decision is yet another affront to women’s fundamental rights and further undermines the delivery of humanitarian assistance across the country.” She said Afghan women are the lifeblood of the humanitarian response. They are highly skilled and uniquely placed to reach the most vulnerable Afghans, including children and women, the sick and elderly, and those living with disabilities.

“They have access to populations that their male colleagues cannot reach,” she said.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during its previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since taking over the country in 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades of war.

Girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade. Women are barred from working, studying, traveling without a male companion, and even going to parks. Women must also cover themselves from head to toe.

The secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, was engaging Taliban authorities to convey the U.N.’s protest and to seek an immediate reversal of the order. The U.N. said it is also engaging member states, the donor community and humanitarian partners.

“In the history of the United Nations, no other regime has ever tried to ban women from working for the Organization just because they are women,” said Otunbayeva. “This decision represents an assault against women, the fundamental principles of the U.N., and on international law.”

Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan, said at a news conference in New York that both male and female Afghan national staff have been asked to stay home until they can return to work under “normal conditions.”

“We will not have a situation where we are only working with all-male teams,” he said.

The U.N. has a staff of about 3,900 in Afghanistan, including approximately 3,300 Afghans and 600 international personnel. The total also includes 600 Afghan women and 200 women from other countries.

Alakbarov said this means all 3,300 U.N. national staff will stay home until the women can return to work, and they will be paid.

He said the ban doesn’t apply to international female staff and they are able to move freely and provide aid. But he said they are only about 30% or less of the total U.N. Afghanistan staff.

Alakbarov said the new U.N. policy in the country will be revised depending on what sort of exemptions or operational environment can be negotiated. However, he said there is no scenario in which the U.N. would provide aid in the country with men only.

“It is not possible to reach women without women. And without women, they will not be reached. And that’s the unfortunate reality,” he said.

Alakbarov said U.N. officials led by Otunbayeva met Tuesday with the Taliban’s foreign minister and they were told “there will be no additional order because the order was already issued in December,” apparently a reference to the Taliban decision that month to bar women from working for NGOs.

Taliban restrictions in Afghanistan have drawn fierce international condemnation. But the Taliban have shown no signs of backing down, claiming the bans are temporary suspensions in place allegedly because women were not wearing the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, correctly and because gender segregation rules were not being followed.

___

Lederer reported from the United Nations.

U$ NATION BUILDING

Thousands still missing from 20 years of Iraq’s turmoil

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB

yesterday

Nidal Ali, right, and Nawal Sweidan hold photos of their missing sons in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Their sons were both kidnapped by extremist groups in 2014. Though active conflict in Iraq has largely subsided, many are still waiting to learn the fate of missing loved ones who disappeared during the US invasion, the subsequent civil war, or during the war against the Islamic State. 

Nawal Sweidan holds a photo of her missing son in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Their sons were both kidnapped by extremist groups in 2014. Though active conflict in Iraq has largely subsided, many are still waiting to learn the fate of missing loved ones who disappeared during the US invasion, the subsequent civil war, or during the war against the Islamic State. 

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

BAGHDAD (AP) — Nawal Sweidan quietly folded her son’s clothes and straightened the bedsheets in his room as she always used to do when he was out at work or at university. She still does it regularly, even though he hasn’t been home for almost 10 years since he was taken away by militiamen.

Her son Safaa vanished in late July 2014. At around 1:30 a.m., just days before the holy month of Ramadan was to end and holiday celebrations were to begin, a group of men showed up at the family’s doorstep and asked for Safaa, a law student and postal carrier in his early 20s.

“They told us they just wanted to question him and will return him soon,” Sweidan said.

Twenty years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, much of the conflict and sectarian bloodletting it unleashed has subsided. But those years left a legacy of thousands of people — or perhaps tens of thousands, like Safaa — who went missing, and their families feel forgotten as they seek answers about their loved ones’ fates. As it tries to turn the page on Iraq’s troubled past, the government has not established a commission to look into the missing — in part, rights workers say, because politicians are intertwined with armed groups involved in kidnappings and killings.

Sweidan’s hometown, Mahmoudiya, was repeatedly an epicenter of sectarian violence over the past two decades. Situated along the main road that Shiite pilgrims take to reach the holy city of Karbala, it is a mixed town of Sunnis and Shiites. Residents say they generally coexisted before the 2003 invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Post-2003, it became part of the notorious “Triangle of Death” as Sunni and Shiite extremist groups targeted each other’s communities with vicious killings and Sunni al-Qaida insurgents attacked American forces. Sweidan’s daughter was killed in 2004 by a roadside bomb that tore through the town’s marketplace.

Safaa disappeared amid another wave of sectarian reprisals and tit-for-tat kidnappings in 2014. At the time, the Islamic State group surged nearby and seized areas as close as 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mahmoudiya, bringing a backlash from Shiite militias. Sweidan’s family are Sunnis, and while Sweidan would not comment on who took her son, one relative said she believes it was Shiite militiamen.

For years, Sweidan looked through prisons across several cities and spoke to officials and whoever might give her clues. Whenever news came of prisoners being released after doing time, Sweidan would rush to the prison to see if her son was among them.

“Everywhere I looked, he just wasn’t there,” she said, struggling to hold back her tears. “So I’ve sat quietly ever since and decided to leave it in God’s hands.”

Sweidan’s next-door neighbor, Nidal Ali, is Shiite and faces the same pain. Her son Ammar was kidnapped around the same time.

“They took him and said he will be back in five minutes,” Ali said, holding a portrait of her son close to her chest. She believes his abductors were Sunni extremists. “They took six people from our area. They were all young and poor.”

She, too, searched prisons and towns across the country and paid scammers who claimed they could get inside information about his whereabouts. Ammar was almost 40 when he was kidnapped, leaving behind his wife and five children. His youngest son, Mohammad, was a toddler at the time; now 11, he sat quietly next to his grandmother.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it has received 43,293 cases of people who disappeared since 2003. Of those, more than 26,700 cases remain unresolved. That is far higher than the Iraqi government estimate of 16,000 Iraqis who have gone missing over the same period.

The ICRC numbers include more categories of missing and are likely more accurate than the government’s, said Raz Salayi, Iraq researcher at international human rights organization Amnesty International. Neither estimate includes the missing from conflicts prior to 2003, or those who disappeared into Saddam’s prisons.

The Geneva-based ICRC every year continues to receive requests from families asking for help in finding missing relatives. In 2022, it received almost 1,500 new requests.

“It probably is just the tip of the iceberg and doesn’t represent the real numbers of the missing,” said Sara al-Zawqari, a spokesperson at the ICRC’s Baghdad.

Iraqi families are not the only ones left without answers in a region where several countries have been torn apart by war and sectarian strife. The fate of over 17,000 missing during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war remains unknown. The Lebanese government formed a national commission in 2020, under pressure as a growing number of relatives died without learning their loved ones’ fates. In Syria’s conflict, now in its 13th year, families of the disappeared are urging the United Nations to open an independent inquiry into as many as 100,000 missing people.

Salayi, the Amnesty researcher, said the Iraqi government’s lack of initiative towards the missing is unsurprising, given political parties’ links with militias accused of kidnappings and tit-for-tat violence over the years.

“How can a government that allows perpetrators of gross human rights violations to run for office hold itself accountable?” Salayi said. “There is no logic to it.”

An Iraqi Justice Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, would say only that political tensions and sectarian sensitivities are obstacles for any state inquiry into the missing.

Sweidan, Ali and other relatives of those missing said their loved ones could be among the large numbers of people swept up in mass arrests carried out over the years in response to militant and sectarian violence. They hold out hope for answers if the government grants amnesty to those long held without charge or evidence, but the authorities have not been cooperative.

Mass graves are regularly found, but it can take years to identify remains, said al-Zawqari of the Red Cross. In a further complication, there are multiple eras of mass graves. Remains of people missing since the war with Iran in the 1980s continue to be discovered. “The more time passes, the more challenging the search becomes,” she said.

There haven’t been any leads about Safaa’s whereabouts, but Sweidan believes that he is alive and that it’s only a matter of time until they are reunited.

“Sometimes, when I am asleep, I hear his voice saying ‘Mama’, and I wake up.”

___ Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Most Americans oppose Social Security, Medicare cuts: AP-NORC poll

By AMANDA SEITZ and HANNAH FINGERHUT

today

A Social Security card is displayed 

 Most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation's highest earners to keep Medicare running as is. The new findings, revealed in a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, come as both safety net programs are poised to run out of enough cash to pay out full benefits within the next decade.

 (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners to keep Medicare running as is.

The new findings, revealed in a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, come as both safety net programs are poised to run out of enough cash to pay out full benefits within the next decade.

Few Americans would be OK with some ways politicians have suggested to shore up the programs: 79% say they oppose reducing the size of Social Security benefits and 67% are against raising monthly premiums for Medicare. About 65 million older and disabled people access government-sponsored health insurance through Medicare and rely on monthly payments from Social Security.

Instead, a majority — 58% — support the idea of increasing taxes on households making over $400,000 yearly to pay for Medicare, a plan proposed by President Joe Biden last month.

Ninety-year-old Marilyn Robinson disagrees with nearly everything the Democratic leader says, but she thinks his plan to increase taxes on wealthy Americans to pay for the health care program’s future makes sense.

She doesn’t know anyone in her rural, farming town of White Creek, New York, who makes that much money. Robinson herself, who has been on Medicare for the past 25 years, receives just $1,386 in Social Security and pension checks every month.

“I can survive on that much money,” she said. “But if you’re talking about $400,000, you’re just in another category. There’s nobody around here making money like that.”

That’s about the only change to the entitlement programs that most Americans say they would support.

One way or another, changes are in store for the programs. Last week, the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released Friday warned that Medicare will only have enough cash to cover 89% of payments for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031. Just two years later, Social Security will only be able to pay 77% of benefits to retirees.

The poll found that many Americans have doubts about the stability of both programs: Only about 2 in 10 are very or extremely confident that the benefits from either program will be available to them when they need them, while about half have little or no confidence.

Republican and Democratic leaders have publicly promised not to cut benefits for Social Security or Medicare. Some Republicans, however, have floated the idea of raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to keep the programs flush.

But a majority of Americans overwhelmingly reject that, too. Three-quarters of Americans say they oppose raising the eligibility age for Social Security benefits from 67 to 70, and 7 in 10 oppose raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits from 65 to 67.

U.S. lawmakers who support raising the eligibility to keep those programs afloat may have been given a preview of the difficult road ahead in France, where the president’s proposal to increase the country’s pension retirement age from 62 to 64 has been met with violence and demonstrations by 1 million people.

Back in the U.S., 29-year-old James Evins in San Francisco says he doesn’t worry much about the future of Social Security or Medicare programs. As a middle school language arts teacher, he thinks he’ll have enough money saved in the state’s retirement program down the road.

“Couldn’t they raise more money for the fund?” asked Evins, who added that raising Medicare taxes on those making $400,000 or more is a better option. “That sucks for people who are trying to retire. To me, 65 is so late.”

Just 10 years out from his planned retirement, 55-year-old Mark Ferley of Chesapeake, Virginia, is worried about the future of the programs — and that he won’t get back the money he paid in. He supports raising the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare to 70. Ferley, who said he leans conservative, also believes that taxes should be raised on households earning $400,000 or more to keep the social programs solvent.

While most support increasing taxes on households earning more than $400,000 a year to pay for Medicare, the poll shows a political divide on doing so: 75% of Democrats support the tax but Republicans are closely divided, with 42% in favor, 37% opposed and 20% supporting neither.

While the American public may be in agreement on solutions for the programs, Ferley worries that elected officials won’t come up with a plan to fix the program.

“Until our leadership determines that the term compromise is no longer a dirty word, I don’t have a whole lot of optimism,” he said.

His concerns are valid, said Paul Ginsburg, a professor of health policy at the University of Southern California. Most legislators are not taking dire warnings about the future of Social Security and Medicare seriously. Instead, the federal government is coming up with short-term solutions to keep the programs extended for a few more years.

“People are just going to go back to business as usual and not worry about it,” Ginsburg said Friday, after the latest trustees’ report warned of Social Security and Medicare shortfalls on the horizon. “It’s particularly problematic for Social Security. In Social Security, you have a situation where if you make changes now, they can be quite modest. If you wait until 2035, they’re going to be draconian.”

___

AP writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The poll of 1,081 adults was conducted Mar. 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

Indian opposition lawmakers rally against Modi government

By ASHOK SHARMA

yesterday

1 of 8
Opposition Lawmakers carry big national flag take out a protest march from Indian Parliament House, in New Delhi, India, Thursday, April 6, 2023. Over 100 Congress and other opposition lawmakers hold a protest march as the Indian Parliament's budget session ends, marred by shouting and disruption of proceedings in a standoff with the Modi government. They chant slogans warning India's democracy is in danger and accuse the Modi government of "misusing" government-run investigating agencies to intimidate opposition leaders

(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

NEW DELHI (AP) — More than 100 Indian opposition lawmakers, including members of the Congress party, staged a protest march Thursday after the end of a parliamentary budget session that was marred by shouting and disruptions to proceedings amid a standoff with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The demonstrators carried big national flags and chanted slogans warning that India’s democracy is in danger, and accused Modi’s administration of “misusing” government-run investigation agencies to intimidate opposition leaders.

They were blocked by police after walking a short distance from the Parliament building and forced to disperse. The opposition leaders from more than a dozen parties ended the protest with a news conference.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress party chief, criticized the disqualification of his party’s leader, Rahul Gandhi, as a member of Parliament less than 24 hours after his conviction by a court in a defamation case.

Gandhi is expected to lead the opposition’s challenge against Modi in the 2024 national elections. Gandhi challenged his conviction in an appeals court on Monday.

The court has suspended a two-year prison sentence for Gandhi following his appeal against a criminal conviction for mocking the prime minister’s surname.

“The parliamentary budget session was a washout with the government getting the budget for 2023-24 approved within 12 minutes without a proper debate,” said Kharge.

Law Minister Kiran Rijiju blamed the opposition for disrupting the parliamentary proceedings.

Meanwhile, Modi said his party would be voted to victory for a third straight five-year term “in next year’s national elections given its popularity among people.”

He told his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party workers celebrating the party’s foundation day that Indian people backed the BJP for bringing in a new political culture, while opposition parties were mostly run by political families.

Gandhi said last month he was being targeted because he has raised serious questions about Modi’s relationship with Gautam Adani, who heads the Adani Group.

Gandhi said the objective of his expulsion from Parliament was to prevent him from speaking in the legislature about his allegation of an infusion of an unaccounted $3 billion into shell companies owned by the Adani Group, headed by Gautam Adani.

India’s top court recently ordered an expert committee to investigate any regulatory failures related to the Adani Group.

The investigation was prompted by allegations made by U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research in a report that accused Adani companies of engaging in market manipulation and other fraudulent practices.

Shares in the group’s flagship, Adani Enterprises, and other affiliated companies have lost tens of billions of dollars in market value since Hindenburg issued its report.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Formal results confirm Milatovic win in Montenegro election

By PREDRAG MILIC

yesterday

Jakov Milatovic, center left, leader of the Europe Now movement celebrates in his headquarters in Montenegro's capital Podgorica, Sunday, April 2, 2023. Milatovic, an economy expert and political novice, won the presidential runoff election on Sunday, defeating the pro-Western incumbent who has been in power for more than three decades in the small NATO member nation in Europe, the candidates and polls said.(AP Photo/Risto Bozovic)

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Official results released Thursday confirmed a crushing defeat for Montenegro’s long-time leader Milo Djukanovic in a weekend presidential election, signaling his departure from the small Balkan state’s political scene after more than 30 years in power.

Economic expert Jakov Milatovic, a political novice, won Sunday’s presidential runoff with around 59% of the vote, according to the final official results.

Djukanovic led Montenegro to independence from much larger Serbia in 2006 and to NATO membership in 2017.

Milatovic’s victory reflected voter fatigue with Djukanovic — who has served as president twice and prime minister seven times — as well as disillusionment with established politicians. Although the presidency is largely a ceremonial position in Montenegro, it influences the political trends in the country.

Djukanovic tendered his resignation as president of Montenegro’s largest party, the centrist Democratic Party of Socialists. The party, which Djukanovic led for 25 years, on Thursday named an interim leader.

Djukanovic told a party meeting that he would stay on as a member. He said the party’s election performance was “unsatisfactory” but not so low given what he called “the influence of certain factors from outside Montenegro” - a reference to negative propaganda against him from Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church during campaigning.

This was Djukanovic’s first loss in an election since he entered politics in the former Yugoslav republic in the early 1990s. During his decades in power, the 61-year-old switched from being a pro-Serbian communist to a pro-Western politician.

Milatovic, 36, first entered politics in 2020 after finishing his education in Britain and the United States.

The outcome of Sunday’s election is likely to impact on an early parliamentary vote set for June 11. That vote was scheduled because of a monthslong government deadlock that stalled Montenegro’s pending European Union membership and alarmed the West as war rages in Ukraine.

Though Milatovic’s Europe Now group isn’t formally part of the country’s ruling coalition, his presidential candidacy won backing from the shaky alliance that includes parties advocating closer ties with neighboring Serbia as well as Russia.

Milatovic has denied Djukanovic’s allegations that the governing coalition is pushing Montenegro back under Serbian and Russian influence.

Since the election, Milatovic has pledged to keep the country on course for EU membership strengthen NATO ties and adhere to international sanctions against Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. Those positions have angered Serbian nationalists who had hoped he would turn away from Djukanovic’s pro-Western policies and align the small Balkan state with Serbia and Russia.

Sweden: State actor likeliest culprit for pipeline sabotage

By JARI TANNER

yesterday

In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, on Sept. 28, 2022. The U.N. Security Council on Monday, March 27, 2023, declined a Russian request to investigate the blasts on the pipelines that move natural gas from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea. The pipelines, known as Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, are majority-owned by Russia’s state-run energy giant Gazprom. 

(Swedish Coast Guard via AP, File)

HELSINKI (AP) — Swedish prosecutors said Thursday a state actor was the most likely culprit for the explosions that incapacitated the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, an act deemed as sabotage. However, they cautioned that the identity of the perpetrator was still unclear and hinted that it was likely to remain so.

Public prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist from the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement that his office’s investigation is focused on examining if Swedish interests or Swedish security were threatened by the act.

The Swedish authorities are also keen to find out whether the explosions were prepared on their territory. “Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime” but “it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances,” Ljungqvist said.

Last month, a German media investigation quoted unnamed officials as saying that five men and a woman used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attack. The Ukrainian government has denied involvement.

Ljungqvist stressed that the case - labeled by Swedish prosecutors as “gross sabotage” - is complex, and hence time-consuming to investigate. The prosecutors’ office gave no estimate on when the Swedish investigation would wrap up.

“This concerns a crime whose circumstances are difficult to investigate. The detonations took place 80 meters (262 feet) under the water on the ocean floor in the Baltic Sea,” Ljungqvist said.

Separately, he told Swedish media that prosecutors’ main line of investigation is on whether a state actor was behind the explosions, given the substantial resources and skills needed to carry out such an attack.

“We aren’t ruling out that there could be non-state actors capable of doing this,” Ljungqvist told the Swedish news agency TT. “But then we’re dealing with very few companies or groups. Considering all the circumstances, our main (investigation) track is that it is a state that is behind it.”

A total of four leaks were discovered on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines that run from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, on Sept. 26 and 27 respectively.

Two of the leaks were in the Swedish economic zone, northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, and two in the Danish economic zone, southeast of Bornholm. Both Swedish and Danish seismic measurements showed that explosions took place a few hours before the leaks were discovered.

Authorities and investigators in Denmark, Sweden and other countries early on suspected the explosions were deliberate attacks and consider them sabotage. The pipelines were not operational at the time, due to disputes between Russia and the European Union amid the war in Ukraine.

The United States and some of its allies have long criticized the pipelines, warning that they posed a risk to Europe’s energy security by increasing the continent’s dependence on Russian gas.

Why are French workers angry about raising retirement age?

By THOMAS ADAMSON

yesterday

A woman holds a sign reading "France says no" during a demonstration in Marseille, southern France, Thursday, March 16, 2023. With President Emmanuel Macron thousands of miles away in China, French protesters and unions returning to the streets continue to reveal cracks in his domestic political authority. Hundreds of thousands are expected again for the 11th day of nationwide resistance to raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 Thursday, April 6 as the controversial law is being considered by the Constitutional Council. 

(AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

PARIS (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people have filled the streets of France in the 11th day of nationwide resistance to a government proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. The furious public reaction to the plan has left French President Emmanuel Macron cornered and weakened.

France’s highest council on constitutional affairs is examining the bill to see if it’s constitutional. It will issue a ruling next week — and Macron’s opponents hope the council will severely limit his proposal.

IT'S A FIGHT TO KEEP A SOCIAL BENEFIT FOUGHT FOR BY WORKERS

PENSIONS ARE WORKERS CAPITAL AN INVESTMENT DEVICE FOR THE FUTURE

In many countries, raising the retirement age by two years wouldn’t throw the nation into such disarray. But the French public is overwhelmingly against pension reform, and unrelenting demonstrations against it have morphed into wider anger against Macron’s perceived top-down style of leadership.

HOW ANGRY ARE PEOPLE?

Mounds of up to 10,000 tons of trash piled up on the streets of Paris during a weekslong strike by sanitation workers over a plan that would push their retirement age from 57 to 59 — lower than the national age because their jobs are physically harder.

“People are angry,” said Jerome Villier, a 43-year-old doctoral researcher in Paris. “It’s obvious.”

Many governments in the developed world are in similar situations. Population growth is down, people are living longer, medicine is better and benefits cost more. Democracies’ attempts to balance budgets by cutting benefits, particularly in countries with generous plans like France’s, put administrations at risk. Many agree that Macron that has made some fundamental missteps.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION

Fearing he might not get enough votes in parliament to pass the bill, Macron resorted to the “ nuclear option ” by using a special article of the French constitution allowing the government to force the bill through without a vote. That prompted outrage across France that further fueled discontent, diminished his popularity, and galvanized his critics’ image of him as a monarchical leader.

Macron lost his majority in parliament last year and his government survived two no-confidence votes last month — one by only a razor-thin nine votes — after he angered the nation by ramming the reform through parliament.

Experts say the protests show that Macron was re-elected because of antipathy for far-right contender Marine Le Pen more than enthusiasm for him. And even if the protests die down, the French president will still have sustained a political bloody nose and a permanent stain on his authority.

“I’m worried for France. Because people really hate Macron — we hate him — and we’re only at the beginning, we have four more years,” said insurance salesman Mohamed Belmoud, 28. “He continued being top-down. The French need to see more compromise.”

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

The pensions law needs a green light from the Constitutional Council on April 14. The Paris trash collectors’ union has called for fresh strikes April 13, with other unions pledging to keep resisting until the controversial law is canceled. Some predict the French public’s enthusiasm — and resources — for protests and strikes is dwindling.

“Going on strike is an expensive affair so you can’t do it forever,” said Jean-Daniel Levy, deputy director of Harris Interactive polling. And diminished spending power is a real issue, leaving many unable to afford to strike more, he said.

Others say violence seen in the nationwide protests, with dozens of demonstrators and police hurt, has turned off regular people.

“The demonstrations have become more violent as they’ve gone on. That means many in France are now staying away,” Luc Rouban, research director of the CNRS at Sciences Po.

A demonstrator has a poster mocking French President Emmanuel Macron over his head during a demonstration Tuesday, March 28, 2023 in Paris. With President Emmanuel Macron thousands of miles away in China, French protesters and unions returning to the streets continue to reveal cracks in his domestic political authority. Hundreds of thousands are expected again for the 11th day of nationwide resistance to raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 Thursday, April 6 as the controversial law is being considered by the Constitutional Council. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

HOW IMPORTANT ARE THESE PROTESTS?

France’s highest constitutional court is made up of judges called “the wise ones” and presided over by former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. If it decides that part or all of the law is out of step with the constitution, or the scope of the law’s intentions, the council can strike it down. The “wise ones” will also rule on whether the law’s critics can move ahead with their attempts to force a nationwide referendum on the pension change.

While the council is meant to rule on purely constitutional grounds, experts say it tends to take public opinion into account.

“Polls still show that an overwhelming majority of the French are against the pension reforms, so one likely scenario is that the council could scrap parts of the bill,” said Dominique Andolfatto, professor of political sciences at the University of Burgundy.

“There’s a certain hatred in the air that we’ve rarely seen against a French leader,” he said. “This is uncharted water.”

 Railway workers hold a banner reading 'Until withdrawal' during a demonstration in Lyon, central France, Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

(AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)

UK criticized for failures in Windrush immigration scandal

By BRIAN MELLEY

yesterday

From left, Windrush campaigners, Auckland Elwaldo Romeo, Glenda Caesar and Patrick Vernon hand in a letter to Downing Street, Thursday April, 6, 2023. The Black Equity Organisation submitted a petition signed by more than 50,000 people that criticized the “painfully slow” response to the scathing 2018 report and the decision by Home Secretary Suella Braverman to scrap several recommendations her predecessor accepted. “We urge your government to stick to the promises made — there is still an opportunity to show that you and your ministers are serious about righting past wrongs," a letter to Sunak said. 

(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

LONDON (AP) — A civil rights group urged U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday to follow through on promises made to thousands of people of Caribbean descent who were wrongly targeted as illegal migrants in the so-called Windrush scandal that emerged five years ago.

The Black Equity Organisation submitted a petition signed by more than 50,000 people that criticized the “painfully slow” response by the government and the decision by Home Secretary Suella Braverman to scrap several recommendations for immigration agency improvements that her predecessor accepted.

“We urge your government to stick to the promises made — there is still an opportunity to show that you and your ministers are serious about righting past wrongs,” a letter to Sunak said. “To do anything less sends a clear message that the suffering of the Windrush generation was in vain and the hostile environment still exists.”

The group is named for the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought the first 500 Caribbean migrants to British shores in 1948 to help rebuild after World War II. Tens of thousands of migrants from the region who arrived legally in the U.K. until 1973 later found themselves facing a government crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Scores lost jobs, homes and the right to free medical care because they didn’t have the paperwork to prove their status. Some were detained and others deported.

From left, Windrush campaigners Michael Anthony Braithwaite, Janet Mckay-Williams, Auckland Elwaldo Romeo, Glenda Caesar, Patrick Vernon and Dr Wanda Wyporska pose for photograph as they hand in a letter to Downing Street, in London, Thursday April, 6, 2023. The letter signed by survivors and famous faces describes the axing of recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review in 2020 as a "kick in the teeth to the Windrush generation, to whom our country owes such a huge debt of gratitude". HMT Empire Windrush arrived in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948 with immigrants to help rebuild the post war economy of Britain. 

(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

After British news media uncovered the scandal in 2018, the government apologized and offered compensation, but the group said payments are inadequate for the harm done and the process is “bureaucratic and overly complicated.”

“It is unconscionable that some Windrush victims who should have been compensated died before their cases were resolved and payments made,” the group said. “Many others are still fighting to receive their payments.”

The Home Office said it remains “committed to righting the wrongs of Windrush” and has paid or offered more than 64 million pounds ($80 million) to people affected.

A government watchdog in 2020 found “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” were partly to blame for the scandal and made 30 recommendations to improve the office overseeing immigration.

Braverman said in January that she said she would scrap two recommendations that would increase independent scrutiny of migration policies and a third to hold reconciliation events with Windrush survivors.

The Conservative government has been under fire from human rights groups for its controversial migration bill that would bar asylum claims by anyone who reaches the U.K. by unauthorized means and would deport migrants back home or to a third country.

MACRON EFFECT
Chinese President Xi calls for Ukraine peace talks

MACRON MAKES XI SMILE

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French President Emmanuel Macron, bottom left, chats with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony held outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, April 6, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, Pool)

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping called Thursday for peace talks over Ukraine after French President Emmanuel Macron appealed to him to “bring Russia to its senses,” but Xi gave no indication Beijing would use its leverage as Vladimir Putin’s diplomatic partner to press for a settlement.

Xi gave no sign China, which declared it had a “no limits friendship” with Moscow before last year’s invasion, had changed its stance since calling for peace talks in February.

“Peace talks should resume as soon as possible,” Xi said. He called on other governments to avoid doing anything that might “make the crisis deteriorate or even get out of control.”

Beijing, which sees Moscow as a partner in opposing U.S. domination of global affairs, has tried to appear neutral in the conflict but has given Putin diplomatic support and repeated Russian justifications for the February 2022 attack. Xi received an effusive welcome from Putin when he visited Moscow last month, giving the isolated Russian president a political boost.

The Chinese leader said “legitimate security concerns of all parties” should be considered, a reference to Moscow’s argument that it attacked Ukraine because of the eastward expansion of NATO, the U.S.-European military alliance.

During talks earlier, Macron appealed to Xi to “bring Russia to its senses and bring everyone back to the negotiating table.”

Macron pointed to Chinese support for the United Nations Charter, which calls for respect of a country’s territorial integrity. He said Putin’s announcement of plans to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus violated international agreements and commitments to Xi’s government.

“We need to find a lasting peace,” the French president said. “I believe that this is also an important issue for China.”

Macron was accompanied to Beijing by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a show of European unity.

Von der Leyen said she encouraged Xi to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the Chinese leader “reiterated his willingness to speak when conditions and time are right.”

“I think this is a positive element,” von der Leyen said.

Fighting in Myanmar sends thousands fleeing to Thailand

By JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI

yesterday

Residents from eastern Myanmar are seen after fleeing into Thailand's Tak Province from Myanmar's Myawaddy district, Thursday, April 6, 2023. More than 5,000 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand in recent days as combat between Myanmar’s army and its allies against armed resistance groups has intensified in the border area, Thai media and officials said Thursday.

 (AP Photo/Chiravuth Rungjamratratsami)

BANGKOK (AP) — More than 5,000 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand in recent days as fighting between Myanmar’s army and armed resistance groups has intensified in the border area, Thai media and officials said Thursday.

At least 5,428 civilians, including more than 800 children, crossed the border by Wednesday night from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district to seek refuge in Thailand’s Tak province, public broadcaster Thai PBS reported, citing an unidentified security official.

It said they fled as ethnic rebels from the Karen minority, allied with guerrillas of the pro-democracy People’s Defense Force, attacked two Myanmar government outposts near the border. The army’s regular soldiers are assisted by members of the Border Guard Force, composed of militias of ethnic minority groups allied to the military government.

Myanmar’s ethnic minorities have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades, but armed conflict in the country escalated sharply after Myanmar’s army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Widespread opposition to the takeover shifted to armed resistance in many parts of the country as pro-democracy forces joined hands with several armed ethnic minority groups.

Clashes and air strikes along the border have triggered a sporadic exodus of Myanmar villagers into Thailand’s border provinces, where they are often offered temporary refuge before being sent back home. India has also seen streams of refugees from western Myanmar.

An official from the Thai border district of Mae Sot told The Associated Press that clashes on Myanmar’s side of the border were continuing Thursday and gunfire could be heard from the Thai side. The official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release information, estimated the number of refugees currently under the care of Thai authorities to be at least 5,000.

“We are providing shelter, food and water to them on humanitarian grounds,” he said. “We will wait until the situation cools down. When the clashes stop, we will send them back.”

The Bangkok Post newspaper said more than 1,000 people fled across the border into Thailand at two locations on Thursday.

A statement issued a day earlier by Thailand’s Thai-Myanmar Border Command Center said the authorities in Tak province had provided 10 temporary shelters to host refugees in two border districts, including Mae Sot, a major crossing point.

Tak province’s Public Relations Department said on Facebook that the clashes occurred at two sites inside Myawaddy province about 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the border, causing “several injuries and deaths for soldiers on both sides.”

The website of Myanmar’s Eleven Media Group reported that according to sources on the Thai side, more than 3,000 people had fled across the Moei River — which marks the border — to escape fighting on Wednesday.

It said they were trying to escape fighting in Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko region, which houses a semi-autonomous economic zone hosting a casino and alleged criminal operations where people who have been tricked into working are employed in large-scale internet scams.

Its report said the current round of fighting in the area started on March 25.