Buenos Aires airport turns into unofficial homeless shelter

By VICTOR R. CAIVANO and NATACHA PISARENKO

TODAY

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Homeless men sleep below a photo of the Perito Moreno Glacier at the Jorge Newbery international airport, commonly known as Aeroparque, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 6, 2023. More than 100 homeless people sleep every night in a common area of the Aeroparque.

 (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — At the start of the long Easter weekend, the airport in Argentina’s capital is eerily quiet before dawn, hours before it will fill with travelers. About 100 people who sleep inside the facility are getting ready to start their day.

One of them is Ángel Gómez, who has been living in the Jorge Newbery International Airport for two years and has seen how the number of people joining him has soared.

“After the pandemic, this became a total invasion,” Gómez said early Thursday as he sat next to a sign advertising the Perito Moreno glacier, an iconic tourist attraction in the Patagonia region.

As passengers and staff start arriving early in the morning, dozens of people are still sleeping, some on chairs and others on the floor. Some have blankets, but many sleep directly on the floor, strewn across the airport with their few possessions close by.

The airport, known colloquially as Aeroparque, has practically become a homeless shelter at night. Once passengers start arriving, some of the overnighters head off to spend the day at soup kitchens, though others hang around the airport grounds begging for change at traffic lights and some stay seated in chairs blending in with the travelers.

It’s a stark reflection of the rising poverty in a country where one of the world’s highest inflation rates is making it difficult for many to make ends meet.

“If I pay rent, I don’t eat. And if I pay for food, I’m on the street,” said Roxana Silva, who has been living at the airport with her husband, Gustavo Andrés Corrales, for two years.

Silva gets a government pension of around 45,000 pesos, which is equivalent to about $213 at the official exchange rate and about half of that on the black market.

“I don’t have enough to live on,” Silva laments.She said that she and her husband take turns sleeping so someone is always watching their possessions.

More and more Argentines are finding themselves in Silva’s situation as inflation worsens, hitting at an annual rate of 102.5% in February. Although Argentina has been used to double-digit inflation for years, that was the first time the annual rise in consumer prices reached triple digits since 1991.

The high inflation has been especially pronounced for basic food items, hitting the poor the hardest. The poverty rate rose to 39.2% of the population in the second half of 2022, an increase of three percentage points from the first six months of the year, according to Argentina’s national statistics agency, INDEC. Among children under age 15, the poverty rate increased more than three percentage points to 54.2%.

Horacio Ávila, who runs an organization devoted to helping homeless people, estimates the number of people without a roof in Argentina’s capital has soared 30% since 2019, when he and others carried out an unofficial count of 7,251 people in this city of around 3.1 million.

Amid the increased cost of living and diminishing purchasing power, more people started to look to the airport as a possible refuge.

Laura Cardoso has seen this increase firsthand in the year she has been living in the airport “sleeping sitting up” on her wheelchair.

“More people just came in,” Cardoso said while accompanied by her two dogs that she says make it difficult for her to find a place to live because no one wants to rent to her. “It’s packed with people.”

Mirta Lanuara is a new arrival, living in the airport only about a week. She chose the airport because it’s clean.

Teresa Malbernat, 68, has been living in the airport for two months and says it’s safer than being in one of the city’s shelters, where she says she was robbed twice.

The Argentine company that operates the airport, AA2000, says it “lacks police power” and “the authority to evict these people” while also saying it has the obligation to ensure “non-discrimination in the use of airport facilities.”

For Elizabet Barraza, 58, the sheer number of homeless people living in the airport illustrates why she’s choosing to emigrate to France, where one of her daughters has been living for five years.

“I’m going there because the situation here is difficult,” Barraza said as she waited to board her flight. “My salary isn’t enough to rent. Even if they increase the salaries, inflation is too high so it isn’t enough sometimes to rent and survive.”

“I don’t want to come back,” Barraza said.

POSTMODERN ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLE

After Burkina Faso ousts French, Russia’s Wagner may arrive

By SAM MEDNICK
TODAY

 Supporters of Capt. Ibrahim Traore parade wave a Russian flag in the streets of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Oct. 2, 2022. Just weeks after Burkina Faso's junta ousted hundreds of French troops, there are signs that the West African country could be moving even closer to Russia, including the mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group.

 (AP Photo/Sophie Garcia, File)

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Just weeks after Burkina Faso’s junta ousted hundreds of French troops, signs appeared that the West African country could be moving closer to Russia, including the mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group.

One signal was Burkina Faso authorities requested in February, nearly $30 million in gold from its mines to be handed over for “public necessity.”

It’s unclear what the gold was used for but some suspect the gold could be used to hire mercenaries from the Wagner Group that already is entrenched in other troubled African countries like Mali and Central African Republic.

“It might be a coincidence that the Burkinabe demanded the purchase of the gold right after they kicked out the French and started moving closer to the Russians,” said William Linder, a retired CIA officer and head of 14 North Strategies, an Africa-focused risk advisory. “Still, it strikes fear among investors that the state will renege on existing agreements and disadvantage established industrial miners to pay for Russian military contractors.

Burkina Faso’s government denies hiring Wagner mercenaries but the government is expecting Russian instructors to come train soldiers on how to use equipment recently purchased from Russia, said Mamadou Drabo, executive secretary for Save Burkina, a civic group that supports the junta

“We asked the Russian government because of the bilateral collaboration between Burkina and Russia, that they send us people to train our men,” he said, adding that the instructors will teach soldiers about weapons, military techniques as well as culture.

The sale of arms and bilateral military cooperation agreements between Russia and some African countries have in some instances been a precursor to the deployment of Wagner’s mercenary troops, said a report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Observers say countries using Wagner Group fighters often refer to them as Russian instructors. Wagner, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian millionaire businessman with ties to President Vladimir Putin, has had about 1,000 forces in Mali for more than a year.

In January, Burkina Faso ordered the departure of some 400 French special forces based in the country, cutting military relations with France amid soaring jihadi violence that’s killed thousands and plunged the once peaceful nation into crisis.

In addition to ejecting the special forces, in February the government told all French military personnel working with Burkina Faso’s army and administration to leave, severing a military accord with France dating back to 1961, according to a confidential document by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seen by The Associated Press.

Anti-French sentiment in the former colony has grown since junta leader Capt. Ibrahim Traore seized power in September. Earlier this month, two French journalists were expelled from the country without reason. In March, French broadcaster, France 24, was suspended for interviewing a top jihadi rebel and months earlier the government suspended French broadcaster Radio France Internationale for having relayed an “intimidation message” attributed to a “terrorist,” according to a statement from the junta.

The anti-French sentiment coincides with increasing Russian support, including demonstrations in the capital, Ouagadougou, where hundreds of protesters have waved Russian flags.

France has had troops in West Africa’s Sahel region since 2013 when it helped drive Islamic extremists from power in northern Mali. But it’s facing growing pushback from populations who say France’s military presence has yielded little results as jihadi attacks are escalating. Burkina Faso’s junta says it has nothing against France but wants to diversify its military partners in its fight against the extremists and, notably, has turned to Russia.

“That’s what we’ve seen happening in country after country. We saw it in CAR, Mali. It’s just been dominos,” said Sorcha MacLeod, member of the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries.

“There’s a vacuum now where France used to be (and) Russia has imperialist ambitions in Africa,” she said. “It’s destabilizing for the region.”

If Wagner mercenaries arrive in Burkina Faso the risk increases of human rights atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, she said. Rights groups and communities have already accused the junta of committing more extrajudicial killings against civilians since Traore came to power in September.

Wagner Group mercenaries have established a foothold for Russia in at least half a dozen African countries. Earlier this year, the group was designated a significant transnational criminal organization by the United States and was sanctioned by the European Union for human rights abuses in Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali. African countries have often paid the Russian group for its mercenary fighters by granting Wagner access to natural resources, such as mining concessions.

Western countries say the use of Wagner mercenaries in Africa is a red line. French President Emmanuel Macron called the Wagner group “criminal mercenaries” and “the life insurance of faltering and putschist regimes.”

Burkina Faso’s government said it has no plans to contract Wagner. Instead it’s working to secure the country from jihadis by recruiting and arming tens of thousands of volunteer fighters, which it refers to as its own Wagner force.

“We already have our Wagners. The (civilian volunteers) who we are recruiting are our first Wagners,” said Traore during an interview on state media in February.

But for much of Burkina Faso’s population, this provides little comfort. Like Wagner, the volunteers who fight alongside Burkina Faso’s military, have been accused by civilians and rights groups of committing atrocities such as extrajudicial killings and abductions of people alleged to be working with the jihadis. An investigation by The Associated Press into a video circulating on social media, determined that Burkina Faso’s security forces killed children in a military base in the country’s north.

Many locals say they’d rather work with Western countries like France, than turn to forces like Wagner. But they say the French are unwilling to sell them the weapons they need, leaving them little choice.

“The French have everything, aircrafts, everything, but they don’t help us,” said a soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “They are here for their own business.”

___

Associated Press reporter Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.

King Charles III supports probe into monarchy’s slave ties


 (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP, File)
Britain's King Charles III stands in front of the plane after arriving at Berlin Airport in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. King Charles III for the first time has signaled support for research into the British monarchy’s ties to slavery. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson made the announcement Thursday, April 6 after a document showed an ancestor of his with shares in a slave-trading company.

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III for the first time has signaled support for research into the British monarchy’s ties to slavery after a document showed an ancestor with shares in a slave-trading company, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said Thursday.

Charles takes the issue “profoundly seriously” and academics will be given access to the royal collection and archives, the palace said.

The statement was in response to an article in The Guardian newspaper that revealed a document showing that the deputy governor of the slave-trading Royal African Company transferred 1,000 pounds of shares in the business to King William III in 1689.

The newspaper reported on the document as part of a series of stories on royal wealth and finances, as well as the monarchy’s connection to slavery.

Charles ascended to the throne last year after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. His coronation is planned for May 6.

Charles and his eldest son, Prince William, have expressed their sorrow over slavery but haven’t acknowledged the crown’s connections to the trade.

The king has said he’s trying to deepen his understanding of “slavery’s enduring impact” that runs deep in the Commonwealth, an international grouping of countries made up mostly of former British colonies

During a ceremony that marked Barbados becoming a republic two years ago, Charles referred to “the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history.” English settlers used African slaves to turn the island into a wealthy sugar colony.

The research into the monarchy’s ties to slavery is co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces and Manchester University and is expected to be completed by 2026.

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Arizona Supreme Court rejects bid to reschedule execution

By JACQUES BILLEAUD

yesterday

 Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, center, delivers her state of the state address at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on Jan. 9, 2023. The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that state law doesn’t require Gov. Katie Hobbs to carry out execution of a prisoner who is scheduled to be put to death on April 6 for his conviction in a 2002 killing. 

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court declined Wednesday to reschedule an execution initially set for this week that looked unlikely to be carried out after Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office said the state wasn’t prepared to enforce the death penalty.

In an order, the court rejected setting a May 1 execution date for prisoner Aaron Gunches for his murder conviction in the 2002 killing of Ted Price near the Phoenix suburb of Mesa. The execution was originally scheduled for Thursday.

Hobbs, who has ordered a review of Arizona’s death penalty protocols due to the state’s history of mismanaging executions, had vowed not to enforce any death sentences until there’s confidence the state can enforce the death penalty without violating the law.

In late March, the state Supreme Court rejected a request from Price’s sister, Karen Price, to order Hobbs to carry out the execution. The court concluded Hobbs wasn’t required to do so.

Price’s sister and his daughter, Brittany Kay, have since filed a lawsuit that seeks to force Hobbs to execute Gunches.

Colleen Clase, an attorney for Karen Price who focuses on crime victims’ rights, did not respond to an email and text request for comment Wednesday.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell had also asked the court to extend the execution warrant by 25 days. Representatives from her office also did not respond to an email request seeking comment.

Gunches had pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the shooting death of Ted Price, who was his girlfriend’s ex-husband.

Lawyers for Hobbs have said the state lacks staff with expertise to carry out an execution, was unable to find an IV team to carry out the lethal injection and doesn’t currently have a contract for a pharmacist to compound the pentobarbital needed for an execution. They also said a top corrections leadership position that’s critical to planning executions remains unfilled.

An email requesting a response from the governor’s office was also unanswered.

Some requirements for carrying out executions under the state’s death penalty protocol have not been met in Gunches’ case.

The corrections department said the warrant of execution issued by the state Supreme Court wasn’t read to Gunches. And Gunches wasn’t moved to a special “death watch” cell where he would be monitored around the clock and remain until his execution.

Arizona, which currently has 110 prisoners on death row, carried out three executions last year. That followed a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining execution drugs.

Since then, the state has been criticized for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner’s body and for denying the Arizona Republic permission to witness the three executions.

Gunches, who is not a lawyer, represented himself in November when he asked the Supreme Court to issue his execution warrant, saying justice could be served and the victim’s families could get closure. In his last month in office, Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked the court for a warrant to execute Gunches.

Gunches then withdrew his request in early January, and newly elected Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes later asked for the warrant to be withdrawn.

The state Supreme Court rejected Mayes’ request, saying that it must grant an execution warrant if certain appellate proceedings have concluded and that those requirements were met in Gunches’ case.

Gunches switched courses again, saying now that he wants to be executed and asked to be transferred to Texas, where, he wrote, “inmates can still get their sentences carried out.” Arizona’s high court denied the transfer.

Future of Borges estate in limbo as widow doesn’t leave will

By DANIEL POLITI

yesterday

Maria Kodama, widow and heiress of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges attends a press conference at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, July 30, 2012. Kodama has died on Sunday, March 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini, File)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The rights to the works of the late Jorge Luis Borges, considered Argentina’s most internationally significant author of the 20th century, have fallen into limbo because his widow died last month without a will.

The revelation this week surprised the country’s literary circles, because Borges’ wife, Maria Kodama, devoted much of her life to fiercely protecting his legacy. She set up a foundation under the writer’s name, but did not detail plans for what should happen after she died, even though she was battling breast cancer.

“If there really is no will, it’s surprising,” said Santiago Llach, a writer who is a specialist on Borges’ work. He said the announcement by Kodama’s longtime lawyer, Fernando Soto, that there was no will “generated buzz on social media and elsewhere.”

Borges died in 1986 at age 86 and left Kodama, a translator and writer whom he had married earlier that year, as his only heir. They never had children. She died March 26, also aged 86.

A day after Soto made his announcement, five of Kodama’s nephews went to court Tuesday to declare themselves her heirs, seeking to get ownership to all of her possessions, including the rights to Borges’ works and what are thought to be several valuable manuscripts.

Soto said he did not know that Kodama hadn’t arranged for a will to be drawn up. “It’s amazing,” he said.

“She didn’t like to talk about those issues,” the lawyer added. “She didn’t talk about her death.”

Soto said he once asked Kodama about what would happen with Borges’ rights after her death and “she told me she had everything arranged and it would be ‘someone stricter than me.’”

He recalled that Kodama said she would call on universities in Japan and the United States to “take care of the works,” but didn’t say what schools she had in mind. Soto noted she often gave talks at both Harvard University and the University of Texas.

Borges’ widow led a life apart from her family.

“She denied the existence of her family,” Llach said. “I have writer friends who knew her nephews and asked about them and she denied their existence. It was quite striking.”

Soto said he was “surprised to find out she had nephews,” adding that “it was a big relief because I didn’t want the state to keep everything.”

According to Argentine law, if there is no will and no natural heirs, a person’s estate is taken over by the state.

Some people have raised the possibility that a Kodama will may be found once an inventory of all her possessions is carried out, but Soto said he considers that as “absolutely impossible.”

“She would have never done that, she would have never written a will on her own,” he said.

Llach said that if in fact there is no will, the question becomes whether “it was just a simple oversight, a punk gesture of ‘I don’t give a damn about all of that,’ or perhaps also a way of repairing a non-relationship with her nephews and family.

In this April 20, 1980 file photo, Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, accompanied by his secretary Maria Kodama, arrives in Madrid, Spain to receive the Spanish literary prize "Miguel de Cervantes." Kodama has died on Sunday, March 26, 2023.

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.”

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AP writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

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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

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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.