‘Control of women is foundational to the Taliban’s project’

How life in Afghanistan has changed after the second Taliban takeover, Stanford University historian Robert Crews explains

INTERVIEW
SOCIETY

10 July 2023

Alyona Itskova, 

correspondent for Novaya Gazeta Europe

Afghan women during a rally to mark International Women's Day in Herat, Afghanistan, 08 March 2021. Photo by EPA-EFE/JALIL REZAYEE


LONG READ

After the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021 and re-established control over Afghanistan, they made a pledge to install a softer, more moderate regime compared to their first time in power in 1996-2001. Or at least, this is what the people wanted to hear.

Since then, however, the Taliban have been putting increasing pressure on half of the country’s population — the women. Over the course of the last two years, the Taliban have installed a mandatory head-to-toe cover up dress code for women, prohibited them from entering most public places including parks and sports centres, and banned young girls from going to schools and universities.

Most recently, the Taliban have ordered hair and beauty salons in Afghanistan to shut down, leaving even fewer job and leisure opportunities for women. The UN said all the progress that had been achieved in regards to female liberation during the 20-year-long US intervention in Afghanistan was erased after the Taliban takeover.

Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke with Stanford University historian and expert on Afghanistan Robert Crews about how the Taliban have changed during their second time in power and why the oppression of women plays a crucial role in their ideology and political project.

Robert Crews
Professor of History at Stanford University and editor-in-chief of the journal Afghanistan


Taliban is often mentioned alongside ISIS or North Korea to illustrate some sort of extreme conservative entity. But what exactly is the Taliban? Where is it placed on a political spectrum and how does it operate as a government?

Most reasonable people are critics of the Taliban because of their long record of human rights abuses, history of engaging in all kinds of atrocities against civilians, women, and marginalised groups. It’s tempting to put them in a camp alongside other “ideological enemies”. But it depends upon who’s doing the classification. Rather than think about ISIS or North Korea, a closer analogy is with Saudi Arabia. One thinks of a political structure whose architects imagine that they are implementing God’s law.

The framing the Taliban have primarily is that everything they do is about Islam. Understand it as a tradition which relies fundamentally on the centrality of religious law. It’s important to point out, however, that the Taliban have a very particular understanding of Islamic law and its relationship to politics.

The Taliban claim, in fact, that they are doing the work of early Islam, of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and really holding this era of the Prophet Muhammad as an exemplary model for their politics. But what we know is that the movement that they founded was shaped by the Cold War, when the United States fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union.

 

Cover of Global Jihad, A Brief History, by Glenn E. Robinson


The thinkers that are now the inspiration for the Taliban really only emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. They emerged from a global jihad, but also from a very distinctive milieu formed in refugee camps. It’s a very specific intellectual formation.

As much as the Taliban are a Cold War project, they are also a modern project. Their ideas have evolved in the last 20 years under the pressure of a war against the United States, a war against American hegemony.

One central kernel of the Taliban’s ideology is this very strong commitment to ordering the lives of women. I think much of what the Taliban are doing in their minds is a direct response to what the Americans did.

What they are doing with respect to women is a very intentional program to dismantle what the US, NATO, and various foreign actors did over 20 years.

What the Taliban understand by governance has historically been quite distinct from the global norms. They first came into power in some parts of the country in 1994 [during the Civil War] and their entry card into different geographic locales was to say: “We’re bringing order”. That meant Islamic law and a strong emphasis on what we would call judicial matters.

They claimed to bring law and order, disarming some people, imposing police presence, and putting a strong emphasis on sexuality, on the policing of morals as the foundation of public order. First, they struck their political opponents and then immediately after established a court system and a regulatory system that looked over family relationships, the conduct of wives and women in general.

For some Afghans, this was very attractive. Imagine you’re living in a place where there was a kind of strongman who ruled quite capriciously for his family, he ruled by the gun. He may have seized women or boys for his pleasure. Then you have Robin Hood-like figures, who come to town and claim in a of populist vocabulary that they are setting things right for the people.

From an outsider’s point of view, it’s a very minimalist understanding of government. But in their thinking, it’s already complete. It’s sufficient. It’s enough because God’s law accounts for everything, right? If we can bring morality to society, then that will affect things at the market. For example, when you go to the market, no one will overcharge you for bread because they’ll recognise that we live in a just moral order. So all the kinds of regulatory mechanisms that in a European setting would be within a social contract are already embedded in Islamic principles, the Taliban argue.

What degree of popular support does the Taliban government enjoy and is it possible to accurately measure it?

The Taliban rule by force, by the threat of violence. From a scholarly point of view, the forms of violence that they rely upon are interesting because they are very theatrical. I just saw a video recently of a truck driving around Kabul with a crane with bodies swinging from it.

When they were in power in the 1990s, they would bring people to the football stadium in Kabul and execute them there. Others watched it as entertainment. The Kabul Stadium killings in the 1990s were important because they were symbolic, it was like theatre. If you’ve ever been to the Red Square, you know there’s a place there where the executions happened. So it’s all very mediaeval and early modern.

Like I said, the Taliban rely on fear, but in Afghanistan there are people who, for various reasons, like the idea of law and order and like the idea of being on the right side of God. There are also people who were totally screwed over by the American presence. NATO forces killed tens of thousands of Afghans, so there has been a seething resentment against the foreign presence. The idea that Afghan nationalism is about opposing foreigners remains a strong one, all Afghans share it to varying degrees. So if you see the Taliban as your heroes who saved you from the evil Americans and if you’re not an adulterer, you’re not a thief, and you don’t run afoul of their morals, then their rule might not be so bad.

 

Afghan women protest against new Taliban ban on women accessing University Education on December 22, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Stringer/Getty Images

But can I tell you what percentage of the population that is? No. There’s also an ethnic dimension to that. The Taliban are almost exclusively an ethnic Pashtun movement. So are the vast majority of their supporters (Afghanistan consists of multiple ethnic groups, the Pashtun group is believed to be the largest one. — Editor’s note).

Ethnicity is also a very sensitive subject in Afghanistan. More and more people reject the idea that the Pashtuns are really the biggest group within the country. There’s a dark side to it.

The people who served in the Soviet army in the 1980s have since written memoirs about their time in Kabul. A lot of them try to understand why that [Soviet–Afghan] war was a failure.

They also write things like: “We backed the Pashtuns because historically they have been the dominant people”.

In almost every case, the Soviet experts and advisors said “We need to make sure we have a Pashtun on our side so that the Pashtun can control everyone.” Then the Americans came in and did the exact same thing. They thought that in order to install a new government in Afghanistan there needed to be a Pashtun at the top. And the other Afghans wondered why. Unfortunately, the Afghans are now spread all over the world and the tensions between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns are worse than ever.

Taliban was also in power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. How do the “old” and the “new” Taliban differ overall?

The Taliban did change a lot. They adapted to the new circumstances starting with the foundation — the violence. They modernised their military, they wear uniforms now, they have tanks and helicopters. The Taliban also adapted little things along the way, for example, the practice of suicide bombing which came from Iraq.

There was this idea that “the new Taliban” would be nicer, softer and more moderate but I think that’s what people “promised for them”. They became much more effective in communication, their propaganda became much more sophisticated. What they said consistently but in more sophisticated ways was: “We are for Islam, for the Afghan nation, and against the foreigners.”

Young Afghan men in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1996. 

Photo by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images


The images of the invaders, the crusaders, the outsiders, the foreigners were always a huge gift to the Taliban propaganda. Back in the 1990s, there was a debate within the Taliban whether to use modern mass media. This is crazy, but briefly in around 1999 they even had a website. They shut it down quickly but then put it back up in 2010.

That’s the weird thing about how the Taliban are. Many of them were sitting in Pakistan, they were young people. They went to school, they liked computer stuff. Then, like many other people in the world, they watched Hollywood movies. As a result, they started producing these very sophisticated videos that were essentially a blend of Hollywood cinematography with their core principles, for example, martyrdom. The Taliban have this idea that when you’re a martyr and you die fighting the Americans, your body doesn’t corrupt, it doesn’t tear up. So they make clips about that and some of it is homoerotic even, videos about young beautiful men turning into flowers.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOY BRIDES 

Women in Afghanistan

After coming to power, the Taliban made a pledge to install a less radical regime. After that, however, we’ve been seeing mixed messages about women’s rights in the country. Most recently, the supreme leader of the Taliban said “the status of women as a free and dignified human being has been restored”.

 What do all these claims mean?

These promises to liberate women mean very little, unfortunately. The Taliban are under significant international pressure to develop new policies towards women, but there’s no muscle behind. You see statements from some UN officials, but that’s it.

In the 1990s, the public infrastructure was already devastated as a result of the civil war. The questions arose — can women work in hospitals? What about widows? Can widows work in a factory or work in a bakery? The Taliban said no. Fast forward to 2021, the Taliban encounter a society in which many women have been working in all kinds of sectors. The Taliban then start to exclude women from public spaces once again.

How crucial is oppression of women to the Taliban’s ideology? Meaning, if the situation with women’s rights was to improve, would that weaken the whole regime?

Control of women is foundational to the Taliban’s political and religious project. If anything, it has become more central over the last 20 years as a direct answer to the alternative political order that the US and its allies established. Sure, it was important in 1995 as well but at the time the Taliban also had to win a war and take over the country.

But now imagine those same fighters in 2021. They rode into Kabul and they saw a society around them that demonstrated a complete rejection of the moral values that they held.

So the status of women became inseparable from what they think is their struggle against foreign influence and against the Americans. It’s not just about gender narrowly, but about their vision for the country.

The American project was so much about changing the status of Afghan women that what we see today with all the restrictions the Taliban have imposed is really an attempt to answer back to this project in a very specific way.

Demonstration and prayer in support of the Taliban on 17 September 2001 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo by William STEVENS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

20 years ago, the George W. Bush administration used women’s rights and empowerment as a one of justifications for its war in Afghanistan. Now the Taliban are back, women’s rights are at stake again, and the American campaign is seen by many as a failed one. How does that change the international community’s approach to put pressure on other states in the name of moral progress?

The women’s issues were used by the US as an instrument, a tool to get the progressives and liberals on board with this war. The very first people to make the statements were Laura Bush, George Bush’s wife, and Cherie Blair, Tony Blair’s spouse. They gave almost identical speeches within two days of September 11th.

For me as a historian, it seems to completely replicate what European colonial powers did very early on in the 19th century. There was this idea that Algerians should not rule themselves because of what they did to the women. Russians did this in Turkestan (during the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire. — Editor’s note). It was totally a European thing to place gender at the centre of these colonial relationships.

The cynicism of that didn’t totally destroy the aspiration, though. Politicians should be working toward gender equity. However, doing that at the point of a gun was always problematic and doomed to be illegitimate. But now the pendulum has swung another way, where no one cares about women.

How do Taliban’s numerous accounts of human rights abuse affect Afghanistan’s position and influence globally? We’ve seen countries that do some business with the state on the down-low, including China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

When the Taliban were in power in the 1990s, there was much more condemnation of their politics, especially of their gender policies. But today, most neighbouring states are more or less content to see them do their thing without any formal recognition.

First of all, no foreign country has given the Taliban diplomatic recognition. Even Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE, who recognised the Taliban the first time around, remember they got in a lot of trouble for that. But again, if you look at the map and start looking around, you see Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan. Everyone is going to Kabul. Russians never left their embassy. China never left their embassy. Pakistan, of course, has close relations. India is trying to play a bigger role. Afghanistan is so important to all these countries that they’re not really going to do too much to oppose the Taliban.

But the Taliban do enjoy a form of what I’d call a “soft recognition”. Iran and the Taliban have decent relations, despite occasional border skirmishes and disputes over water. The Saudis are very quiet, but behind the scenes they back them.

It’s very frustrating for the Afghan friends of mine. They try to do good things within the diaspora, but on the international level, I don’t see anything any country can do to change the Taliban’s conduct and policies unless there’s truly a global conversation which the US does not want to have with all these states like Russia and Iran. The US doesn’t care about the Afghan women and neither does Russia.


The Taliban don’t really face any pressure from the international community for a variety of reasons. For the regional powers there are all these economic relationships and money to be made [in partnership with the Taliban].


As for the US, recently Joe Biden said something along the lines of: I told you the Taliban would help us against al-Qaeda. That made Afghans who oppose the Taliban furious. They started wondering if Biden was admitting to an alliance with the Taliban. I think from the beginning this was part of the secret deal between the Americans and the Taliban. The agreement was to fight against their common enemy — al-Qaeda and the Islamic state (the hostile relationship between the Taliban and other terrorist groups has to do with a different understanding of Islam. — Editor’s note). I heard that the Washington officials have written off Afghanistan as a country but ready to deal with the Taliban as a new counter-terrorism ally.

People from Afghanistan form a large percentage of refugees entering Europe, but reports show that the vast majority of Afghans fleeing the country are men. Some believe this has to do with discrimination within Afghanistan as well — sending a woman on a dangerous journey is not seen as “economically reasonable”, as women, if they survive, still end up getting lower-paying jobs than men. How could the West aid Afghan women in escaping dire conditions?

I shouldn’t make predictions as a historian, but I think eventually there’ll be voices calling for a new war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. It’s just too easy. In the US, we never have enough enemies.

What one could do in a non-military way is facilitate legal migration. Instead of forcing people to make a dangerous journey, fly them out on planes. So they don’t have to get subjected to violence, smuggle themselves through Iran and Turkey and then drown in the Adrian Sea.

Given our inability to change Taliban behaviour, one thing to be done within my line of work is creating more spaces for the Afghan women to come to study here [in the US].

 

Afghan women hold up signs demanding their rights to education and employment. Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, 26 June 2023. Photo by EPA-EFE


What are the forces within Afghanistan fighting for women’s liberation? How do women show resistance on a personal, day-to-day level?

From early on, women-led resistance did a lot to liberate the Taliban’s policies. The Taliban were hesitant to introduce repressive measures right out of the gate [in 2021]. From the very beginning, it was consequential that women came out and engaged in street protests and held up signs in a variety of languages to speak to the world. I think that had a temporary effect in stalling some of the Taliban policies.

The other thing women are doing that is worth noting is engaging in a lot of underground activities. Especially with mutual support networks, running underground schools. But of course it’s hard to say how extensive that is.

That was a hallmark of the 1990s. There were some underground schools. Now there’s a lot more experience and in how to do that. But it’s not really sufficient to replace formal schooling for everyone.

One of the questions is “Where are the men? Why don’t they protest?”. There’s also a small armed resistance group around the Panjshir valley. There’s a lot of propaganda around what that looks like. Its backers want to say it’s a big military force that might succeed. But, unfortunately, two years into their resistance movement, it looks unrealistic.

So women are left with very few options. One is trying to leave the country and that’s very difficult. Where can you go? The other is to try to adapt and survive, which is getting more difficult as well. There isn’t really an avenue for women to change the system from within because they’re excluded from positions of power or even state authority.

It’s very frustrating. The Afghan society is so young, and here are all these people who are just deprived of a future. The rates of suicide are increasing, especially among young women, young girls. It’s a reflection of absence of hope.

Canadian Health Care Should Put Patients First by Ending Faith-Based Refusals

My Globe and Mail article

ERIC MATHISON
JUL 8, 2023


I have an article in The Globe and Mail today arguing that governments shouldn’t provide public funding for faith-based healthcare institutions that refuse to provide medical assistance in dying, abortion, contraception, and other essential services. If you have a Globe subscription, you can access the article here:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-canadian-health-care-should-put-patients-first-by-ending-faith-based/

Here’s an excerpt:


Acute care needs to change, but long-term care, hospice and other facilities also violate patient rights. The time has come for broad change: Provinces and territories should stop granting religious exemptions to health care organizations when they refuse to provide MAID and other medical interventions. If they want to receive public funding, they shouldn’t be allowed to refuse care on religious grounds.

And


Ethically speaking, the case for ending institutional faith-based refusals is easy. People shouldn’t have to worry that they’ll end up at the wrong place when they get in an ambulance, or that they’ll be told their request is immoral according to their nearest hospital. Health care in Canada should put the interests of patients first, which means ending faith-based refusals.

Many others have been calling for the end to forced transfers for years. I’m happy to see the B.C. government starting to take this issue seriously. Hopefully, more progress is on the way.

Ukraine war proves value of LNG Canada, CEO tells global gas conference in Vancouver

Canadian Press

Delegates are silhouetted before the start of the LNG2023 conference, in Vancouver, B.C., Monday, July 10, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck


VANCOUVER — Volatility in the supply and price of natural gas worldwide since Russia's invasion of Ukraine shows the value of the LNG Canada project as a source of "affordable, reliable" and "responsibly produced" liquefied natural gas, the project's CEO said.

"I can't think of any country better placed to supply Asia with exactly that than Canada," said Jason Klein of LNG Canada, the massive export facility currently under construction in Kitimat, B.C.

Uncertain demand clouds future of Canada's planned LNG exports, experts say


Klein said the $40-billion project is close to 85-per-cent complete and will aim to compete globally, not only on price but also its environmental and social track record.

Klein made the comments at the opening of the LNG 2023 conference in Vancouver, an event that was originally scheduled for last year in the Russian city of St. Petersburg before being moved to B.C. because of the war in Ukraine.

That situation, Klein said, may be the best example of the value of Canadian energy and its stability on the world stage.

"I think it's an amazing opportunity to reflect on the fact that the very act that causes us to be in Vancouver today is the same one that's upending global energy markets," Klein said.

The LNG 2023 conference runs until Thursday, drawing multinational energy corporations such as energy giants Petronas, BP and ConocoPhillips, as well as government representatives from key producing countries such as Qatar. The conference is held every three years.

Organizers said the discussion at the conference would be centred around economic consequences of market upheaval. The disappearance of Russia, the world's largest natural gas exporter, from Western supply chains was at the forefront of several conference panels.

Experts said that while Europe took the brunt of losing Russian gas supplies, Asia also suffered, because European buyers pushed up the prices for liquefied natural gas globally, and many countries struggled to secure supply.

Sarah Bairstow, president and chief commercial officer for U.S. LNG producer Mexico Pacific, said that was why the industry should keep its attention on Asia — which she described as the "demand engine" for the commodity

"What we've seen as a result of the last 12-15 months is Asia-Pacific buyers … they know they need baseline gas supply not only for their own generation, but also for their own energy transition goals," Bairstow told the conference. "And they are really seeking to get ahead of the curve of Europe."

Canadian organizers of the conference said that, in addition to stability, First Nations economic reconciliation is a major part of what the sector wants to present to the global natural gas industry.

First Nations LNG Alliance chair Crystal Smith told the conference that more extensive Indigenous community involvement is on the way in projects such as the planned Cedar LNG facility in Kitimat.

"I think about where our community was even 10 years ago in regards to our participation in our economies," Smith said of Haisla Nation's ownership of the project.

"We essentially sat on the sidelines and watched everybody in our territory and surrounding area proper … to now, I can't help but smile and get absolutely emotional at being majority owners of Cedar LNG."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Southwestern Manitoba archeology dig gives public a glimpse into the past

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Pottery and tools are among the artefacts unearthed in the Pierson Wildlife Management Area

Chelsea Kemp · CBC News · Posted: Jul 09, 2023

Brandon University archeologist Mary Malainey displays a farming hoe made out of a buffalo scapula during a tour of the archeological site in the Pierson Wildlife Management Area. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

You might get a glimpse at a 1,000-year-old artefact being unearthed, if you visit an archeological dig in southwestern Manitoba this month.

Archeologists discovered shards of an undated Indigenous artifact at the Pierson Wildlife Management Area on Saturday, during one of the site tours being offered in July. Artifacts found in the area include bones, stone tools, pottery, hearths and other items believed to have been left behind by Indigenous people for thousands of years.

Brandon University archeologist Mary Malainey, who led the tour, said the dig provides insights into how Indigenous people lived in the area before the arrival of European settlers. The site is on Treaty 2 lands, which are the traditional homelands of the Dakota, Anishanabek, Ojibway-Cree, Cree, Dene, and Métis peoples.

Malainey's been working at the site in a river valley and nearby fields, located south of Melita, about 350 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, for five years. 

"They had well-developed cultures," Malainey said of the people who lived there in the past. "They had well-developed rituals, they had belief systems and they lived on the land and they left traces and it's important for us to recognize that."

Jack Thorn holds a projectile made in a flint knapping demonstration. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

An area of discovery

The Pierson Wildlife Management Area has been a site of discovery for more than a 100 years. The earliest archeological work was conducted there in the 1900s. Multi-year studies have been taking place on and off ever since.

Archaeologists have been interested in the area because there's a concentration of burial mounds, Malainey said. 

Brandon University archeologist Mary Malainey displays pieces of pottery found at the archeological site. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

"There's so much to learn."

Recently they've discovered evidence of farming and horticulture.

"They could continue on … working in this area for probably another 20 years and still be learning new things because it's pristine," Malainey said of the site. "Everywhere we dig, it's like: 'Wow, this is really cool.'"

Gary Wowchuk shows how projectiles would have been made during a flint knapping demonstration. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

A bison scapula (shoulder blade) hoe found in 2018, provides evidence of horticultural activities in the area, Malainey said. The bison scapula was mounted on a shaft and used for gardening, "The same way you have a garden hoe."

At the top of the site is a horticultural area. Items found indicate farmers arrived there around the late 1400s to the early 1500s. They were there until the late 1700s to early 1800s. 

"Based on the posits that we found in the valley. It's ... a continuous occupation," Malainey said.

Bailey Palamar, a Manitoba Archaeological Society volunteer, shows the tour how to screen for artifacts. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

There is also evidence of an earlier occupation that looks to be about 2,000 years old.

"It's residential areas, so people were living there. We think those were the farmers … growing corn and beans and squash, maize beans and squash in the valley," Malainey said.

A glimpse into the past

Gary Wowchuk, a site volunteer, demonstrated the art of knapping — shaping flint into stone tools — for people on the tour.

It's important to give people an idea of how people lived on the lands for thousands of years, he said.

"In this area, we know that people have been here for 12,000 years. That's just amazes me and to think that they left these things behind that we can find now and they're telling us ... a story about their life," Wowchuk said. "That's the way we connect and I think it just brings a richness to all of us."

• Ancient hoes found in southwestern Manitoba could reveal more about Indigenous farmers, archeologist says

• How archeology helped this Cree museum curator connect to his family's past

• Ancient farming evidence found at Winnipeg museum site

Colleen Lamparski and her three children travelled from Killarney to visit the dig on Saturday.

It's the second year they've visited the site. They were inspired to return and learn more about archeology in their own "backyard" in Manitoba.

"I've always been interested in archeology, so it was just cool to see it actually happen," Lamparski said.

Malainey said outside of oral traditions, archeology is the only way to learn about the past. 

Malainey said the Pierson Wildlife site is one of two in the province with really good evidence of pre-contact Indigenous gardening or farming. There is also an archeological site in Lockport, about 30 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. However, it's been disturbed and eroded, making it tough for archeologists to glean information from what they've found there. 

Archeologists from Brandon University and the Manitoba Archaeological Society work 10-day shifts on the Pierson Wildlife site. And they offer tours in the summer. Last year, more than 220 people visited the site.

"We want all these people to appreciate what was here before and gain a better understanding of this," Malainey said.

BACKGROUNDER & UPDATES

Wagner Group’s Post-Mutiny Crack-Up Is a Threat to Afrika

Jason Nichols

 The Daily Beast.
Fri, July 14, 2023

Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

The Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded private military corporation filled with mercenaries and led by ignoble billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, entered the American consciousness with Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Even more people came to know them when Prigozhin staged a short-lived mutiny where his forces briefly took the city of Rostov in southwestern Russia. Putin was able to end the mutiny without any damage, except to his fearsome reputation.

Since then, Wagner fighters in the region have turned over their arms to the Russian military and have avoided being imprisoned or executed for their role in the mutiny. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has stated the paramilitary groups would train the Belarusian military in weapons and tactics.


How Did We Get Putin So Wrong?

What’s less discussed about the Wagner Group is their activities in other parts of the world—namely war-torn areas in the Middle East and Africa.

Wagner is known to have operated in many areas throughout the African continent, including Chad, Libya, Central African Republic, and Mali. (There are unconfirmed rumors they may be invited into Burkina Faso by its new military leadership.)

Many believe that Wagner’s purpose is not only to extract key valuable resources from the mineral and oil-rich continent, but to extend Russia’s diplomatic influence by supporting a bloc of African states militarily. With the whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin unknown and the status of Wagner unclear, their presence in these volatile areas present potentially grave security risks. In other words, having heavily armed soldiers of fortune open to the highest bidder and untethered to any nation-state in regions where human rights abuses are already common is incredibly dangerous.

Russia has assured some African leaders that they would not lose their fighting forces. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has promised the leadership in African nations like Chad and Mali that the “work will continue.” Russia extracts valuable resources from Africa as a result of Wagner’s presence.

However, questions remain about whether the loyalties of Wagner mercenaries are split between the Kremlin and Prigozhin. Though it has been reported that Prigozhin and Putin met in person days after the attempted mutiny—and more than likely worked out a deal for control of the Wagner Group—it is unclear how the mercenaries who are thousands of miles from the Kremlin feel about it.

Even if Putin is in charge, his image as a strongman was severely weakened by the mutiny attempt itself. Whether the Wagner mercenaries will accept his leadership without Prigozhin is anyone's guess.

America’s Tragedy Is Its Culture of Fear—Armed With Millions of Guns

Retired U.S. four-star General Robert Abrams told ABC News that he believes that Prigozhin is already dead and that the meeting between him and Putin was faked. While there’s no evidence to back up this assumption at the time, were it to be true, it’s unclear how Wagner mercenaries would accept their leader and cofounder being killed by the Russian state. The potential for desertion or illicit weapon sales rises as morale plummets.

Wagner already has a presence in the Central African Republic (CAR), a state whose political atmosphere was described by the United Nations as “fragile.” Religious-based sectarian violence has been commonplace since its independence in 1960. A Muslim rebel group called Seleka led a successful coup in late 2012. Seleka was disbanded soon after it gained control of Bangui, but violence between its former members and Christian “anti-balaka” fighters has continued. Both groups have since splintered off, causing more confusion and violence.

The Wagner Group has helped the CAR government to put down and deter insurgency efforts by these rebel factions. The CAR is one of the poorest nations in the world, with 71 percent of its population below the poverty line, but is home to an abundance of natural resources including oil, gold, and diamonds.

While it appears that some Wagner forces have left the country on planes, the government of CAR has said that these are rotations, and indicated that Wagner still has some structure despite the nebulous chain of command in Prigozhin’s absence. What is unclear is if CAR officials are bluffing about Wagner personnel rotations in order to deter the insurgents from mounting an offensive.

Debunking the Right-Wing Lie That Black Lives Matter Got $82 Billion From Corporations

If remaining Wagner mercenaries do not have a clear chain of command, or divided loyalties, or even lower morale since the removal of Prigozhin, they are more susceptible to offers from CAR’s many ex-Seleka and anti-balaka groups. (It is believed by the UN and human rights organizations that both ex-Seleka and anti-balaka groups have committed war crimes.)

Countries like CAR and Chad were violent and unstable and prone to coup attempts long before the arrival of Wagner. The west’s contributions to less stability and security in Africa also predate Russia and Wagner.

However, the potential human cost of an unstable mercenary group like Wagner in countries that are already struggling with Boko Haram and sectarian warring factions is very high.

While the world is rightly focused upon the unjust invasion of Ukraine, we must not lose sight of how the fallout could affect Africa and its people. We see how the developed world and its media has prioritized the lives of Ukrainians, it’s time they show the same regard for Black African lives.

Russia’s Wagner mercenaries hire Gurkha soldiers spurned by India

Samaan Lateef
Sat, July 15, 2023 

Nepal's young soldiers have begun looking elsewhere for employment since the launch of India's controversial Agnipath Scheme

Dozens of elite Gurkhas have joined Russia’s Wagner mercenary group after India tightened the rules governing the recruitment of Nepalese troops into its army.

Gurkha soldiers have shared videos online showing them training with firearms at bases in Russia and Belarus, dining in military canteens and discussing the potential risks of fighting in Ukraine.

The mercenary force’s new recruits have become a cause for embarrassment for the government in Kathmandu, which has come under fire for failing to stop Nepalese citizens from joining Russia’s war effort.

Kamal Acharya, 22, left the small Nepalese village of Chisapani for Moscow in early May to join the Wagner Group.


On May 29, he shared a picture of himself holding an assault rifle inside a Russian military installation. A later TikTok video shows him effortlessly disassembling and reassembling the weapon.

Footage of the Russian training sessions has been shared on TikTok

Umesh Shahi, a friend of Mr Acharya, told The Telegraph he had travelled to Russia after learning that Moscow was paying good salaries for mercenary fighters.

“He told us it’s a risk but the money lured him to go,” he said.

Other Gurkhas who have joined up with the Kremlin’s forces have done so after completing university studies in Russia.

“I had two choices after finishing my studies: to remain unemployed or to join the Russian Army,” one man, who completed his medical degree in Russia and joined its military instead of returning home, told Nepal TV.

The Gurkha said his physical fitness was key to his acceptance into the army after he applied to join at the end of May.

He said more than a dozen Nepali citizens were undergoing intensive training alongside other foreign fighters at a base near the border with Ukraine.

“Our training encompasses the use of advanced weaponry, and it spans throughout the day and sometimes extends into the night,” he said.

“After one year, citizenship is also available. If I don’t die in one year, I will live here,” he said, adding that he is receiving a monthly payment equivalent to 50,000 Nepalese rupees (£290), along with insurance coverage, during the rigorous training.

The young men are choosing to join Russia's mercenary troops

A former Nepali Army soldier from Karnali Province, who has joined the mercenary group, told Nepal TV that he had found out about “opportunities in the Russian Army” while working as a security guard in Dubai.

Now enrolled in the Russian military, he found his prior training in the Nepali Army to be advantageous, as it eased his transition into the Russian forces.

“We are more than two hundred foreign comrades and three Nepali friends,” he said.

He had considered joining the French Foreign Legion, but was put off by a lengthy and challenging recruitment process.

At least 50 Gurkhas are believed to have joined the Wagner Group since the beginning of the war, with as many as 200 Nepalese citizens travelling to Russia to join its army.

A source in the Nepalese government said it did not know exactly how many Gurkhas had joined the mercenary force, but said “we have identified some of these youths and contacted their families to persuade them to return home”.
‘It should be stopped’

The Gurkhas, renowned around the world for their combat prowess, have served in the British Army since 1815. Tens of thousands of Gurkhas also serve in the Indian Army.

But last year, India replaced long-term employment with shorter contracts and eliminated pension benefits through the controversial Agnipath Scheme.

In response, Nepal temporarily suspended the recruitment process under the 1947 Tripartite Treaty involving Britain, India and Nepal.

The disruption to the established recruitment procedure has pushed Gurkha fighters towards Russia, which has also loosened its requirements for citizenship in an effort to entice volunteer fighters to join its forces in Ukraine.

Now, Nepal’s government is being urged to take action to stop its elite warriors from joining the Russian military.

“A Gurkha joining a Russian mercenary army tarnishes the pride of my nation. It should be stopped,” said Prem Singh Basnyat, a retired Nepalese Brigadier General.

“They might have been lured with good money and joined the mercenary group in disregard of the national interest,” he told The Telegraph.

Retired Major General Binoj Basnyat, a strategic analyst for the Nepal Army, said: “The Nepalese government should take immediate action and implement measures to prevent its citizens from joining the Russian military.

“Such participation goes against Nepal’s foreign policy of neutrality and non-alignment.”

The disruption to recruitment opportunities in the Indian Army have played a significant role in influencing the Gurkhas’ decision to join the Wagner Group, he added.

The Indian government has also been criticised for failing to protect the recruitment process that has helped Gurkhas find their way into service abroad for centuries.

“Gurkhas are universally acknowledged to be among the finest soldiers in the world,” said Jairam Ramesh, a spokesman for India’s main opposition Congress party. “Yet the ill-conceived Agnipath Scheme has interrupted a 200-year-old recruitment process and no Gurkha soldiers will be entering the Indian Army in 2023.”

He added: “This disruption is leading to Gurkhas being recruited by private military companies like the Wagner Group.”

Ukraine, Poland say Wagner fighters arrive in Belarus


Wagner fighters are training Belarusian soldiers in Belarus

Reuters
Updated Sun, July 16, 2023

(Reuters) -Fighters from the Wagner group have arrived in Belarus from Russia, Ukrainian and Polish officials said on Saturday, a day after Minsk said the mercenaries were training the country's soldiers southeast of the capital.

"Wagner is in Belarus," Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border agency, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app. He said the movement of "separate groups" from Russia had been observed in Belarus.

Some Wagner fighters have been in Belarus since at least Tuesday, two sources close to the fighters told Reuters.

The Belarusian defence ministry released a video on Friday, showing what it said were Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian soldiers at a military range near the town of Osipovichi.

Wagner's move to Belarus was part of a deal that ended the group's mutiny attempt in June - when they took control of a Russian military headquarters, marched on Moscow and threatened to tip Russia into civil war - President Vladimir Putin said.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has not been seen in public since he left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don late on June 24.

Poland's deputy minister coordinator of special services, Stanislaw Zaryn, said Warsaw also has confirmation of Wagner fighters' presence in Belarus.

"There may be several hundred of them at the moment," Zaryn said on Twitter.

Poland said this month it was bolstering its border with Belarus to address any potential threats.

While not sending his own troops to Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 and has since let his country be used as a base for Russian nuclear weapons.

The Belarusian Hajun project, which monitors military activity in the country and which is viewed as an extremist formation by Belarusian authorities, said a large column of at least 60 vehicles entered Belarus overnight Friday from Russia.

It said the vehicles, including trucks, pickups, vans and buses, had licence plates of the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics in what is internationally recognised as eastern Ukraine. In a move widely condemned as illegal, Moscow moved last year to annex the republics, which have been Russian proxies since 2014.

Hajun said it appeared that a Wagner column was headed to Tsel in central Belarus, where foreign reporters were last week shown a camp with hundreds of empty tents.

Video shared by Russian war correspondent Alexander Kotz on Saturday evening appeared to show a convoy of trucks and military vehicles on a highway in southern Russia, some of which were flying the Wagner flag.

Reuters could not independently verify the Belarusian Hajun report. There was no immediate comment from Russia or Belarus on the reports.

(Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Mark Trevelyan in London; Additional reporting by Caleb Davis in Gdansk;)

Lukashenko's Calls To Prigozhin Tapped; But German Intel Failed To Predict Russian Mutiny I Details

According to a recent inquiry, the German intelligence service was aware of the Wagner insurrection before it happened. The German intelligence agency BND tapped the phone calls between Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko and Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. However, BND is under fire for learning too late about the recent Wagner Group coup attempt in Russia. Watch this video to know more. 

‘It is like a virus that spreads’: business as usual for Wagner group’s extensive Africa network

Story by Jason Burke • Jul 6, 2023

THE GUARDIAN

Photograph: AP© Provided by The Guardian

Four days after Wagner group mercenaries marched on Moscow, a Russian envoy flew into Benghazi to meet a worried warlord. The message from the Kremlin to Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled general who runs much of eastern Libya, was reassuring: the more than 2,000 Wagner fighters, technicians, political operatives and administrators in the country would be staying.

“There will be no problem here. There may be some changes at the top but the mechanism will stay the same: the people on the ground, the money men in Dubai, the contacts, and the resources committed to Libya,” the envoy told Haftar in his fortified palatial residence. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere.”

The conversation, relayed to the Guardian by a senior Libyan former official with direct knowledge of the encounter, underlines the degree to which the Wagner group’s deployments and its extensive network of businesses across Africa is yet to be hit by the fallout from the rebellion of its founder and commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The resilience of Wagner’s commercial operations despite the turmoil in Russia strongly suggests Vladimir Putin’s regime will seek to appropriate and exploit the lucrative web of hundreds of companies that Prigozhin built, rather than shut it down, experts believe.

Related: ‘He lived by the troll, he dies by the troll’: Putin takes on Prigozhin’s business empire

In Libya, there has been no abnormal movement of Wagner personnel, other than the redeployment of a small detachment of 50 closer to the border with Sudan.

The situation is similar elsewhere in the continent, according to sources in half a dozen African countries with knowledge of its operations.

“For the moment, it looks like Wagner’s operations are on hold. But they are successful and not so expensive, so it is very likely Wagner will be rebranded [by Moscow] while maintaining most of its assets and systems,” said Nathalia Dukhan, the author of a recent report on Wagner’s operations in Central African Republic (CAR) published by The Sentry, a US-based investigative organisation. “It is like a virus that spreads. They do not appear to be planning to leave. They are planning to continue.”

Though attention has mainly focused on Wagner’s combat role, particularly in Ukraine in recent months, analysts and western intelligence officials say that in Africa it is the group’s economic and political activities that are important to Putin’s regime.

“Since its first deployments in 2017, Wagner has really become much more widespread and high profile. Now the Kremlin certainly seems to be trying to emphasise continuity, if not immediate expansion,” said Julia Stanyard, an expert on Wagner at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, last week reassured allies in Africa that Wagner group fighters deployed to the continent would not be withdrawn. In an interview with Russia Today, Lavrov promised that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in CAR and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.



A demonstration in Bangui, Central African Republic, in support of the Russian offensive against Ukraine, in May 2022. 

Photograph: Carol Valade/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

The most developed commercial operation run by Wagner is in CAR, where the group’s mercenaries arrived in 2018 to bolster the regime of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, which was struggling to fight off a rebel offensive.

From multiple bases in and around Bangui, CAR’s capital, Wagner has run an extensive mining operation across the country. The group has also begun making and selling beer and spirits, and has been granted a hugely profitable concession to exploit rainforests in the south of CAR.

The biggest single project is the vast Ndassima goldmine, which has been taken over by Wagner and is being developed. Poor infrastructure is thought to have restricted output at Ndassima, however, forcing Wagner to seek profits through the takeover of smaller mines along CAR’s remote eastern frontier region. Last year, Wagner fighters launched raids on goldmines there that killed dozens of people, witnesses interviewed by the Guardian said.

These operations are thought to be the primary responsibility of a small detachment of Wagner fighters, which also oversees the smuggling of gold and much else into Sudan, where the Wagner group has close contacts with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo currently fighting for control of the state.

Last month the US Treasury imposed a new round of sanctions that aimed to “disrupt key actors in the Wagner group’s financial network and international structure”.

Three companies were targeted, all involved in Africa. One was Midas Ressources, a CAR-based mining company linked to Prigozhin, which the US Treasury said “maintains ownership of CAR-based mining concessions and licenses for prospecting and extracting minerals, precious and semi-precious metals, and gems”, including the Ndassima mine.



A man waves a flag thanking Wagner in Mali, where the military group has a growing presence. Photograph: Florent Vergnes/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

Related video: Wagner troops surrender arms after aborted mutiny (France 24)
Duration 1:51  View on Watch


A second company targeted was Diamville, described by the Treasury as “a gold and diamond purchasing company based in the CAR and controlled by Prigozhin”, which the US alleges shipped diamonds mined in the CAR to buyers in the UAE and in Europe, using a third company under sanctions called Industrial Resources.

Experts have said diamonds would be useful for evading sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. “You can buy any goods anywhere with diamonds,” Dukhan, the analyst, said.

An earlier round of US and EU sanctions targeted Wagner’s holdings in Sudan, in particular a company called Meroe Gold. Recent EU sanctions listed further companies alleged to be “illegally trading gold and diamonds looted by force from local traders”.

Until fighting between rival factions in Sudan broke out in April, Wagner operatives ran an office near the airport in the capital, Khartoum, with bullion flown out from an airbase a short distance away in the desert, local officials and diplomats told the Guardian last year. Bullion is sent to the United Arab Emirates and Moscow for sale on to international markets.

The conflict in Sudan is thought to have constrained – but not entirely halted – Wagner’s extensive operations there, which are focused on gold mining and refining in collaboration with the paramilitary RSF.

The small Wagner detachment in Sudan has also had sporadic contacts in recent months with RSF, and may have supplied them with weapons, according to local sources, but has otherwise stayed away from significant involvement in the fighting.

“The priority is basically to keep the gold moving,” said one western security source who was recently forced to leave Khartoum by the fighting.

Last weekend, observers with multiple sources on the ground in CAR said there had been no evidence of movement of Wagner personnel on any of the poverty-hit country’s few major roads, nor at its principal airport.

On the Sudanese frontier, it was “business as usual”, according to Enrica Picco, central Africa director of the International Crisis Group.


A truck belonging to the Wagner group at an abandoned military base in Bangassou, Central African Republic.

 Photograph: Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

In Mali, where Wagner’s commercial operation is less well-developed, the group is thought to have struggled to make significant profits since deploying in December 2021. Diplomatic sources told the Guardian that Wagner had experienced difficulty accessing the goldmines they were allowed to exploit under the deal struck with the regime of military ruler Assimi Goïta but had been paid handsomely by the military regime.

The US believes Mali’s transition government has paid more than $200m (£157m) to Wagner since late 2021, the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters last week.

Political dividends have also been significant. Last week, the UN security council voted to withdraw its peacekeeping mission in Mali after a decade, allowing the country to swing further under the influence of Moscow. Earlier this month, Mali had asked the UN peacekeeping force to leave “without delay”, citing a “crisis of confidence” between Malian authorities and the UN mission.

Kirby said Prigozhin had helped engineer the UN’s departure “to further Wagner’s interests. We know that senior Malian officials worked directly with Prigozhin employees to inform the UN secretary general that Mali had revoked consent for the [UN] mission,” he said.

Local sources in Mali said a routine rotation of Wagner staff had been completed without incident in the days after the mutiny and mercenaries had continued operations with Malian forces fighting insurgents across the centre and north of the country.

In Libya, another sizeable contingent of Wagner mercenaries is deployed in the eastern part of the country controlled by the warlord Khalifa Haftar. The deployment has earned hundreds of millions of dollars in direct payments since the group participated in an abortive offensive to seize Tripoli in 2019, but has also offered opportunities to engage in oil smuggling on a massive scale, potentially earning similar sums.

There have been no abnormal movements of Wagner personnel in Libya either, since Prigozhin’s “mutiny”, according to a well-placed former official and analysts. Low-level fuel and weapons trafficking is thought to be continuing across Libya’s vast and largely unpoliced southern borders.

Speculation has been rife on social media accounts used by Wagner fighters in Mali, CAR and elsewhere that the group’s employees would be offered new contracts with the Russian state.

However, any process of “nationalisation” could lead to tensions, analysts said. Alia Brahimi, an expert on mercenaries at the Atlantic Council, said: “In theory, this should be quite straightforward, given the Wagner group’s origins as the Kremlin’s creature. But the commanders who ran the day to day in Africa, like [Ivan] Maslov in Mali who’s been personally sanctioned, were elevated by Prigozhin.

“They will have to reconcile the personal debt they owe to Prigozhin and their tribal identity as private operatives rather than public soldiers with more centralised Kremlin control,” he added.

“From the Kremlin’s side, the whole point and draw of letting Wagner off the leash in Africa was that they were a deniable force. Now the horrific crimes and abuses, as well as the economic predation, will have a clear return address.”

The destabilising effects on local regimes are already evident. There have been public disputes in CAR between ministers over Wagner’s exact role there, and senior officials have sought assurances that Russia will continue its support for Touadéra’s campaign to change the constitution to allow a third term as president. A referendum is due next month.

US officials believe Wagner in Mali has been using false documentation to hide the acquisition and transit of mines, uncrewed aerial vehicles, radar and counterbattery systems for use in Ukraine.

As the head of Wagner in Mali, Maslov “arranges meetings between Prigozhin and government officials from several African nations”, sanctions documents claim.

In the weeks before Prigozhin’s mutiny in Russia, there was evidence that Wagner was committing new resources and reinforcements to Mali and CAR, where Moscow wants to ensure a successful result for Touadéra’s ally in a coming referendum. Officials and diplomats in CAR have described Russia’s plan for a new major base, with capacity for up to 5,000 fighters, which would be a launchpad for Moscow’s geopolitical interests and operations in the surrounding countries.

Two other targets for the Kremlin are believed to be Burkina Faso and Chad, but the biggest prize would be the vast and resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Last year, approaches were made by Wagner representatives to the president of DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, who eventually decided against hiring the group to fight against rebels in the vast country’s restive east in return for giving Wagner access to lucrative mining concessions. The bid to win new contracts and business opportunities in DRC was preceded by a significant influence operation masterminded by Prigozhin’s media specialists in St Petersburg.

Just four months ago, Wagner was mounting recruitment campaigns specifically for African operations, as evidence suggested deployments were being reinforced in CAR, Mali and elsewhere.

Wagner’s operations have always been closely aligned with Russia’s longer-term foreign policy objectives, analysts point out. In 2019, leaked memos obtained by the Guardian revealed the Kremlin’s aim to use clandestine influence operations in Africa to build relations with existing rulers, strike military deals, and groom a new generation of “leaders” and undercover “agents” in Africa. One goal was to “strong arm” the US and the former colonial powers the UK and France out of the region. Another was to see off “pro-western” uprisings, the documents said.

Climate Change: UBC researcher raises serious concerns about methane release from melting glaciers

A new international study in Norway has identified reservoirs of methane gas leaking from groundwater springs from melting glaciers.

Author of the article:Tiffany Crawford
Published Jul 09, 2023 

Proglacial icing formed in front of the rubble of a surging glacier on Svalbard, Norway.

 Photo: Gabrielle Kleber PHOTO BY GABRIELLE KLEBER /jpg
Article content

Shrinking glaciers caused by human-induced climate change are causing the release of tonnes of methane gas, according to a new international study that involves the University of B.C.

The study, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience and led by University of Cambridge and the University Center in Svalbard, Norway, raises serious concerns about hidden sources of emissions, and suggests these emissions be included in climate change calculations.

Co-author Dr. Hal Bradbury, a professor in UBC’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, says as the planet warms up, disappearing glaciers are causing the formation of bubbling groundwater springs, which are releasing trapped reservoirs of subsurface methane.

He said scientists are worried these emissions released by the Arctic thaw could exacerbate the climate crisis.

The researchers measured methane concentrations from 120 separate springs over three summers in Svalbard, and estimate emissions could exceed 2,000 tonnes annually just from Svalbard.

Bradbury says because this phenomenon occurs in areas with significant permafrost where glaciers are melting, this could also be a problem in the Canadian Arctic or the Russian Arctic.

“When the glaciers retreat due to the increasing temperatures, this leaves behind ground that is not frozen. And when this happens the methane that’s trapped in groundwaters beneath the glaciers then comes out under pressure in these groundwater springs,” Bradbury explained, in an interview Friday.

Co-author Dr. Hal Bradbury, a professor in UBC’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. 

Photo: Junyi Sun. PHOTO BY JUNYI SUN JUNYI SUN. /jpg

Previously, research has measured methane release from thawing permafrost but he said this study looked at permafrost and glacier melt and shows there are more sources for this mass methane leak.

“It takes quite a lot of heat to melt the permafrost in the soil. But the (glacier) bases are retreating much faster than the melting of the permafrost.”

Canada has about 40 per cent of its land area covered by permafrost, so while more research is needed, it’s likely that this methane release could be a significant problem in Canada as well as Norway, he added.

Their findings reveal that the climate-driven glacial melt causes widespread release of methane, creating a feedback loop that could exacerbate global warming.

“When we think about climate change we really need to be considering these feedback cycles. What we’re doing is releasing greenhouse gases, leading to increased temperatures, which causes glacier retreat, leading to more release of greenhouse gases,” said Bradbury.

Between 1936 and 2010, the Svalbard glaciers have overall lost 15 per cent of their mass, although some of the glaciers have lost 30 per cent of their total mass over this period, he said.

What concerns Bradbury the most is that, at this time, the only solution to preventing this massive methane release is to limit global warming, and the planet is not on track to reduce emissions to limit warming to 1.5 C above industrial times.

Bradbury said the amount of emissions being released in Svalbard in the study represents about eight per cent of Norway’s annual oil and gas related emissions.

“At the moment, it’s not a huge number. But one of the reasons why it’s important is that if this continues happening in other areas like Canadian Arctic or the Russian Arctic, we know that there are vast stores of methane in general in these areas. So if we continue having the melting of the glaciers this could potentially lead to much larger releases of methane into the future,” said Bradbury.

Gabrielle Kleber taking water samples for methane analysis on a glacier in Svalbard, Norway. 

Photo: Leonard Magerl PHOTO BY LEONARD MAGERL /jpg

Gabrielle Kleber, lead author of the research who is from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, said the springs are a potentially growing source of methane emissions, and “one that has been missing from our estimations of the global methane budget until now,” according to a statement posted by the university.