KDP/PUK IRAQI KURDISTAN

Iraq's highest court dissolves Kurdistan region's provincial councils due to 'constitutional violations'

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
25 September, 2023

The last time the Kurdistan region held provincial councils was in 2014. New elections were scheduled for 23 July 2018 but were postponed due to disagreements among Kurdish political parties on when to hold them. 

Iraq's Supreme Federal Court on Sunday, 24 September, dissolved the Kurdistan region's provincial councils, indicating that extending the councils' terms was "unconstitutional". [Getty]

Iraq's Supreme Federal Court on Sunday, 24 September, dissolved the Kurdistan region's provincial councils, indicating that extending the councils' terms was "unconstitutional".

"The Supreme Federal Court has ruled the unconstitutionality of Article (2) of Law number (2) of 2019, which is the first amendment to the law for the provincial councils in the Iraqi Kurdistan region number (3) of 2009, for its violation of the provisions of Articles (2 / first / b and c) and (6) of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq for the year 2005," the court said in a statement.

The last time the Kurdistan region held provincial councils was in 2014. New elections were scheduled for 23 July 2018 but were postponed due to disagreements among Kurdish political parties on when to hold them.

In 2019, the Iraqi Kurdistan parliament amended the law for the region's provincial elections, extending the councils' mandate beyond its four-year legal term.

"Based on the lawsuit we filed, the federal court has decided the unconstitutionality of extending the terms of the regional provincial councils," Srwa Abdulwahid, head of the New Generation opposition party in the Iraqi parliament, wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.

"These councils have been unlawfully receiving salaries for the past five years, so they must reimburse every penny they took from the people's resources without justification. We will not stop and will continue to expose the legal and constitutional violations of the ruling parties in the region," he added.

Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan region to be delayed, again

The New Generation, an opposition party in the Kurdistan region and Iraq was established by former businessman Shaswar Abdulwahid in the wake of the failed Kurdish referendum for independence from Iraq held on 25 September 2017.

"The ruling by Iraq's top court is consistent with the Iraqi constitution and laws, as the terms of the councils were identified for only four years as per law number (3) of 2009. Iraq's constitution stipulates that the right to vote is guaranteed for the Iraqis. Extending the councils without the will of voters is contrary to the principles of the constitution," Farman Hassan, a Kurdish lawyer and writer, told The New Arab.

He ruled out the Kurdish ruling parties from holding fresh provincial elections and stressed that council members should retire as per the court's ruling. He indicated that the councils' dissolution "is not in the interests of locals" but instead in the interests of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), arguing that the councils were regarded as some decentralization from the KRG.

The two main ruling parties in the KRG, Barzani family's the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Talabani's family the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), had already made the region's municipality councils as an illegal alternative for the region's provincial councils.

Iraq's top court annuls Kurdistan parliament extension

The terms of the region's municipality councils had already expired and the last election for the municipality councils was held in early 2000.

Iraq's Federal Supreme Court late in May ruled against extending the term of the Kurdistan region's parliament as contrary to the country's constitution, declaring the Kurdish legislature as terminated.

Iraqi Kurdistan elections were scheduled for late 2022, but disputes between the KDP and the PUK forced the assembly to extend its mandate for another year. Fresh general elections are expected to be held in February 2024.

Iraq is set to hold provincial elections on 18 December across 15 provinces, excluding four provinces in the northern Kurdish region. The regional councils are tasked with providing public services to locals. However, they have often been accused of corruption.

For the first time since 2005, the elections will also be held in Kirkuk's multi-ethnic and oil-rich province, in a constitutionally disputed area between the Kurdistan region and the federal government in Baghdad.

Israeli forces arrest leader of Palestinian Lions' Den group in West Bank raid

The New Arab Staff
22 September, 2023

Israeli forces arrest a leader in the Palestinian armed group "Lions' Den" (Areen al-Ossud), Khaled Tabila, also known as "Al-Baladi", in a raid in Nablus.

The Israeli military raid began with the infiltration of undercover agents backed by military reinforcements [Getty]

Israeli forces have arrested one of the leaders of the Palestinian armed group the Lions' Den (or Areen al-Ossud in Arabic), Khaled Tabila, according to a report by The New Arab's Arabic language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Friday.

Before his arrest, Tabila - also known as "Al-Baladi", was besieged in his home in Rafidia area west of Nablus city, northern West Bank, during an early morning raid, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

The Israeli military raid began with the infiltration of undercover agents backed by military reinforcements, who invaded Nablus, setting up several military checkpoints until they reached Tabila's house, the report said.

Tabila, in his 30s, is one of the founders of the the Lions' Den. He was a member of the Palestinian Presidential Guard before joining armed Palestinian groups two years ago.

Israeli forces have escalated raids into Palestinian cities since late 2021 as confrontations with Palestinians spiked.

In March 2022, the Israeli army launched operation 'Break the Wave' with the aim of crushing growing armed resistance, particularly in Nablus and Jenin, by carrying out near-daily raids, killings and arrests in the two northern West Bank cities.

In July, Israeli forces raided Jenin for 48 hours, destroying most of its infrastructure, killing ten Palestinians and forcing around 3,000 Palestinians to leave their homes.

Separately, a Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli forces early on Friday in the town of Kafr Dan in the Jenin, northern West Bank.

The boy was identified as 16-year-old Abdullah Imad Abu al-Hassan from the town of Yamoun, west of Jenin, local sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Since the beginning of 2023, Israeli forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians during deadly raids into occupied West Bank cities and refugee camps and have arrested more than 3,600.

Can we give plants advance warning of dangers by ‘talking’ to them?

Using light as a messenger, the researchers are developing tools that enable plants to communicate with humans, and humans to communicate with plants

Research has shown that a plant’s natural defence mechanism can be activated by using light

 (John Walton/PA)

FRI, 22 SEP, 2023 - 09:28
NINA MASSEY, PA SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

It may be possible to “talk” to plants and warn them of impending attacks or extreme weather, new research suggests

A team of plant scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) would like to turn this science “fiction” into reality by using light-based messaging to communicate with plants.


Early laboratory experiments with tobacco demonstrated that a plant’s natural defence mechanism (immune response) can be activated by using light as a stimulus (messenger).

Using light as a messenger, the researchers are developing tools that enable plants to communicate with humans, and humans to communicate with plants.

If we could warn plants of an impending disease outbreak or pest attack, plants could then activate their natural defence mechanisms to prevent widespread damage

In everyday human life, light is used for communication such as traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.

Lead researcher Dr Alexander Jones said: “If we could warn plants of an impending disease outbreak or pest attack, plants could then activate their natural defence mechanisms to prevent widespread damage.

“We could also inform plants about approaching extreme weather events, such as heatwaves or drought, allowing them to adjust their growth patterns or conserve water.

“This could lead to more efficient and sustainable farming practices and reduce the need for chemicals.”

Previously, the Cambridge researchers engineered a series of biosensors – devices that measure biological or chemical reactions – using fluorescent light to visually communicate in real time what is happening at the cellular level in plants.

These biosensors reveal how plants react to environmental stresses – plants communicating with humans.

The new study describes a tool called Highlighter, which uses specific light conditions to activate a specific gene in plants, for example to trigger their defence mechanisms – humans talking to plants.

Bo Larsen, who engineered Highlighter while at SLCU, has taken scientists a step closer to this goal of talking to plants by engineering a light-controlled gene expression system (optogenetics system) that is tailored for plants.

Optogenetics is a scientific technique that uses a light to activate or deactivate a specific process.

“Light stimuli are cheap, reversible, non-toxic and can be delivered with high-resolution,” Dr Jones said.

According to the study, when deployed in plants Highlighter uses minimally invasive light signals for activation and inactivation.

Dr Jones said: “Highlighter is an important step forward in the development of optogenetics tools in plants and its high-resolution gene control could be applied to study a large range of fundamental plant biology questions.

“A growing toolbox for plants, with diverse optical properties, also opens exciting opportunities for crop improvement.

“For example, in the future we could use one light condition to trigger an immune response, and then a different light condition to precisely time a particular trait, such as flowering or ripening.”

The research is published in the Plos Biology journal.

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ITALY
Man arrested for threatening to kill gay son

Foggia man, 57, told son and wife 'I'll cut off your head'

Redazione ANSA ROME
25 September 2023

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 25 - A 57-year-old Foggia man threatened to kill his 20-year-old son after the young man came out as gay, and threatened the life of his wife too after she supported his new life, sources said Monday.

"You're gay, I'll publish all your cross-dressing photos on Facebook, I'll make your life impossible, I'll kill you, I'll cut off your heard," said the man, according to the arrest warrant.

When his wife intervened to defend the young man, he reportedly told her too: "You're worthless, I'll kill you, I'll cut off your head," according to the police document.

 (ANSA).

HE TOLD HIS SON BETTER TO DIE A JIHADI 

ITALY
Students camp out to protest at astronomical rents
Protests all week in 25 cities

Redazione ANSAROME
25 September 2023

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 25 - Students were pitching tents outside university buildings all over Italy on Monday to protest at the astronomical rents they face when studying away from their home towns.

It is the latest in a series of camp protest students have staged to highlight the problem.
This one will last all week in 25 Italian cities.

"We are pitching tents at La Sapienza (University on Rome) again," said the Union of University Students (UDU).

"We decided to protest as the government continues to ignore the high cost of studying and the accommodation crisis, without implementing any concrete solutions".

 (ANSA).

Researchers say world’s mountain treelines are rising due to climate change

The closed-loop mountain treelines encircle a mountain and are less likely to have been influenced by human activities and land usage.

SEP 22, 2023,

BEIJING – Chinese researchers have shed light on the factors that drove the world’s mountain treelines to move upwards, providing new evidence for the impact of climate change on global ecosystems, according to a study published in the journal Global Change Biology.

Mountain treelines are sensitive to climate change. However, the way that climate impacts mountain treelines is not fully understood, as they may also be affected by human activities.

A research group led by Dr Zeng Zhenzhong from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, China’s Southern University of Science and Technology, established a global mountain treeline database by collecting high-resolution remote-sensing images of some 916,000km of closed-loop mountain treelines across 243 mountains around the world.

The closed-loop mountain treelines encircle a mountain and are less likely to have been influenced by human activities and land usage.

After analysing the database, the group found that temperature is the main climatic driver of treeline elevation in boreal and tropical regions, whereas precipitation is the main factor in temperate zones.

About 70 per cent of closed-loop mountain treelines have moved upward, with an average shift rate of 1.2 metres per year over the first decade of the 21st century, according to the study published in July this year and reported by China Science Daily on Thursday.

The study also found that treelines are shifting fastest in the tropical regions, with an average shift rate of 3.1 metres per year. For example, in Malawi, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, some treelines are moving upward at a rate of 10 metres per year.

While the upward movement of treelines means more trees can absorb more carbon from the atmosphere and expand the habitat of some forest species, it also poses challenges for fragile ecosystems at high altitudes, according to Dr He Xinyue, the first author of the paper.

Plants and animals at high altitudes are often very sensitive to environmental changes. As treelines moved up, they began to compete for space and nutrition, which could seriously threaten some endemic species, He added. 

XINHUA

South Korea's Yoon lambasts critics, calling them ‘communists’

FASCISTS CALL THEIR OPPONENTS COMMUNISTS

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's disapproval ratings stood at 59%, according to a recent poll, up from 37% when elected last year. | POOL / VIA REUTERS

BY HYUNSU YIM
REUTERS
Sep 22, 2023

SEOUL –

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's branding of critics as "communist totalitarian and anti-state forces" may rally his conservative base and distract from unease about some of his policies, but it risks fueling division and alienating some voters.

In South Korea, the label of communist carries higher stakes than in many Western democracies with the ongoing threat from ostensibly communist North Korea and Cold War-era laws that effectively ban activities deemed related to communism.

Yoon's remarks and the renewed public debate over communism come with his approval ratings slipping and political tensions rising ahead of a general election in April.

They also come at a time of a noticeable shift in Seoul's foreign policy as Yoon pushes for trilateral cooperation with the U.S. and Japan despite lingering public unease with Tokyo over historical issues, said Kevin Gray, a professor at University of Sussex.

"There is a legitimacy problem for Yoon in the sense that the gap between popular opinion in South Korea and what is being pursued internationally is increasing," Gray said.

"He has decided to take an approach not of trying to convince people but to label the opposition as being somehow an anti-state, communist totalitarian force."

In a speech earlier this month, Yoon said South Korea's freedom is "under constant threat" from "communist totalitarian and anti-state forces" who are critical of South Korea's deepening ties with the U.S. and Japan.

"The forces of communist totalitarianism have disguised themselves as democracy activists, human rights advocates and progressive activists," Yoon said in another speech for Liberation Day last month.

The liberal opposition party, which controls the National Assembly but is in disarray amid corruption charges against its leader, has criticized Yoon for wasting his term on an "ideological war” that deepens political divides and does nothing to address real problems.

"The president keeps emphasizing the threat from communist forces which don't exist," a spokesperson for the Democratic Party said at a briefing recently.

The presidential office declined to comment on Yoon's description of critics of his policies as "communists."

Sinking approval ratings

Yoon's disapproval ratings stood at 59%, according to a Gallup poll released on Friday, up from 37% when elected last year. Foreign policy, the government's economic management and stance on Japan's Fukushima wastewater release were the leading issues.

Given his low approval ratings, analysts say labeling his opponents as communists may still be useful for Yoon to hold onto his party's conservative base.

Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the legacy of the Korean War and North Korean infiltration into the South means "red-baiting" is still effective in demonizing opponents.

Earlier this year, four former officials at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the biggest umbrella union in the country, were charged over links to North Korean spies and violating the National Security Act.

"Unfortunately, such tactics only deepen political divides, contributing to nationalist polarization," Yeo said.

Benjamin Engel, a research professor at Seoul National University, said Yoon's approach risks alienating some more moderate voters.

"During his campaign, Yoon often used the phrase 'uniting the people.' But his recent policies, rhetoric, and appointments suggest he is moving away from uniting the people. The result will be some people who may have voted for him last year now feel alienated," Engel said.

The 'new right' movement

Yoon has aligned himself with the "New Right" movement which offers a more "charitable" view of the country's authoritarian past and its link to the Japanese colonial period, Yeo said.

Rhee Jong-hoon, a Seoul-based political commentator, sees Yoon's more right wing approach as being influenced in part by his late father who studied in Japan and once took part in a signature campaign linked to the New Right movement.

"Yoon has perhaps always warmed to and sympathized with the figures who his father had hung out with and are associated with the New Right movement," Rhee said.

"It would be difficult to imagine (his move) being driven without his own deeply rooted conviction," Rhee said.

UK

The National Trust, which has more than 250,000 hectares (almost 620,000 acres) of farmland in its stewardship, is a thorn in the side to the government and its masters in the oil-money funded Tufton Street thinktanks

Stewart Lee

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, 24 September 2023 

I love British traditions. Whose heart soars not upon seeing some drunk men chasing a cheese down a fatally steep Gloucestershire hill, or some drunk men burning their faces off carrying flaming tar barrels on their heads in a Devonshire village, or some drunk men dropping an enormous effigy of David Jason into a giant burning boozer made of straw in a Hertfordshire hamlet at midnight? In Spanish fire bull festivals, cruel peasants set fire to animals. Here, outside the EU, we merely set fire to ourselves.

But the nights are drawing in and soon it will be time for one of the oldest, and most enjoyable, British traditions of all. Because it’s that time of year when, in the run-up to the National Trust’s AGM on 11 November, the opaquely funded “anti-woke” pressure group Restore Trust, backed by Neil Record of the Tufton Street climate crisis denial bodies Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch, tries to have its own pod people planted on the board. Sing ye wassail! It’s that time again!!

The National Trust, which has more than 250,000 hectares (almost 620,000 acres) of farmland in its stewardship, is a thorn in the side to the government and its masters in the oil-money funded Tufton Street thinktanks. National Trust members actually vote for board members themselves, while cultural and environmental organisations that take public funding, such as the British Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum and Kew Gardens, use a supposedly unbiased public appointments process to nobble their nabobs. This unbiased public appointments process has recently seen GB News social affairs editor Inaya Folarin Iman and Boris Johnson’s Mustique holiday facilitator David Ross parachuted on to the board of the National Portrait Gallery, whose trustees have included the spectral courgette Jacob Rees-Mogg, and where doubtless they spend a lot of time wondering how the invention of photography impacted on representational art.

A bird in the hand isn’t worth any in the bush at all if all the bushes have burned down in the climate crisis

But does this apparent covert jerrymandering actually jeopardise the future of all life on Earth? The answer is, sadly, yes. For example, much as we all love birds, it’s simply not possible for our feathered friends to survive without an environment to fly around in, so it makes perfect sense for a charity that likes birds to be concerned about preserving the places they live. A bird in the hand isn’t worth any in the bush at all if all the bushes have burned down in a massive brush fire due to the climate crisis and there were no birds in them anyway because they were all dead. So it’s obvious that the RSPB should be interested in environmental issues, because to ignore them would be the equivalent of spending 10 hours making a luxurious soup, having previously smashed every bowl in your house into smithereens and melted all the spoons down into tiny effigies of Wycombe MP Steve Baker.

But, in August, when the RSPB called Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove and Thérèse Coffey “liars” for abandoning their environmental commitments, the RSPB’s own trustee Ben Caldecott helped to force a climbdown. Caldecott is, insanely, a senior fellow of the ExxonMobil-funded thinktank Policy Exchange, one of the Tufton Street gang of organisations, whose 2019 suggestion that the government should pass legislation to crackdown on Extinction Rebellion reportedly shaped Priti Patel’s draconian 2022 police bill. So last week, 68-year-old Trudi Warner was prosecuted for holding up a sign outside the Inner London crown court that said: “Jurors: you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.” It’s acts of environmental terrorism like this that must be clamped down on. No one wants to live in a world where old women hold up signs.

In the hallowed hall behind Warner, Judge Silas Reid had ruled that, during the trial of three environmentalists, environmental issues were not to be mentioned, presumably fearful that if the jury understood why the defendants had blocked the road, they’d let them off, and then we’d be in a nightmare dystopia that pitched morality against law and saw a load of old men who enjoy a few swift ones before the afternoon session out of a job for life.

The point being that the oil-smeared ghouls of Tufton Street and the Tory party have already gelded street protest with the police bill, and prevented public bodies from speaking out by stuffing them with their cronies, but the National Trust can only be infiltrated by Tufton Street should the members vote for the infiltrators. It’s a harder 18th-century walnut dresser to crack. So, every year, the ghostly astroturfed group Restore Trust emerges from the netherlands on social media and, in a campaign that appears coordinated with opinion piece writers at papers like the Times and the Daily Telegraph, attempts to get National Trust members to vote for its own plants, the usual mix of libertarians, cranks and arseholes.

This year’s star Restore Trust stooge is the historian and judge Lord Sumption, who, despite sounding like a character in a William Makepeace Thackeray novel who liked to either assume things or consume things or both, is a step up from Restore Trust’s star 2021 candidate, Stephen Green of Christian Voice, who, it would seem, once supported overseas laws proposing the execution of some gay people, though not necessarily on National Trust property, at least unless the events are properly stewarded.

On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak ripped up another raft of environmental commitments in a move so sudden that even the chair of Ford UK found herself suffering a moral whiplash injury as she veered suddenly away from the ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles she’d been steering towards. Street protest is now under threat to the point where the punk rock naturalist Chris Packham is wondering whether it’s morally just to ignore the law and protest anyway. And the government’s gagging of even the relatively innocuous RSPB means birdwatchers no longer have a voice. That’s why it’s important to join the National Trust, of all things, now and vote in its AGM before 11 November, for the candidates the council recommends. Save the National Trust. And the environment! Here today! Scone tomorrow!

• Basic Lee tour dates are here

Africa's coup epidemic: What's different this time around?

Radwa Saad
22 September 2023

Only through transnational alliances can power be reconfigured at the scale needed to generate meaningful change

Supporters of Niger’s military junta gather in Niamey on 10 September 2023 (AFP)

With eight successful coups in the past three years alone, many have expressed concerns over a recent “coup epidemic” in Africa. But the continent is no stranger to coups, having intermittently grappled with the rise and fall of military regimes since decolonisation. Roughly 44 percent of the 242 successful coups since 1950 have been in Africa.

The recent resurgence of coups undermines the “third wave of democratisation” that swept across much of Africa throughout the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War. It also comes at a time when the international community is concerned with “democratic backsliding”, manifested in the global erosion of democratic institutions, the rise of populism and an increase in anti-democratic attitudes.

Rather than being embraced as a set of principles with normative value, democracy is often marketed as merely a means to an end - one that has yet to deliver on the region’s pressing hopes for stability, economic development or even meaningful participation.

It comes as no surprise that six decades after independence, movements and populations are increasingly frustrated with democracy’s unfulfilled promises. From the streets of Mali to Gabon, citizens disenchanted by the current state of democratic politics have taken to the streets en masse to legitimise and celebrate military takeovers. But what have military regimes achieved in the past, and what possibilities do they hold today?

Scholars have struggled to devise any reliable theory that can predict the causes of coups, but a few broad trends can be extracted. Coups rarely occur in institutionalised democracies above a certain threshold of economic development. Once initiated, coups set a precedent for resolving power struggles between competing factions of the military and society at large.

This explains why the biggest indicator of whether a state is prone to coups is whether it has experienced one in the past. Many also note a regional spillover effect, which explains the African Union (AU)’s adamant anti-coup position, even where coup plotters have popular support. Combined, these factors leave much of the Global South vulnerable to military uprisings.

Corporate interests

While many factors contribute to a military’s decision to intervene politically, the most determinative is whether an existing regime threatens their corporate interests. The 2021 Guinea coup, for instance, occurred within weeks of then-President Alpha Conde's decision to slash the military budget, while Sudan’s military saw a 59 percent reduction ahead of its coup the same year. Military budgets almost inevitably increase following a coup.

A military’s corporate interests, however, go beyond monetary considerations. National armies command respect, and a regime that deploys the military against domestic opposition may threaten its legitimacy and internal cohesion. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring are prime examples.

Successive defeats in war that officers can link to intrusion in their affairs can also prompt coups. Coup-plotting officers in the Sahel have repeatedly cited their grievances over France’s imprudent counterterrorism military interventions in the region.

Militaries in Africa and the Middle East have expanded their power base through alliances with the working classes against aristocratic and feudal forces

Public opinion polls show that militaries consistently outrank other state institutions in terms of legitimacy, a trend that transcends regime types and geopolitical boundaries. This is partially because militaries tend to be more representative of a society’s demographics, and offer avenues for social mobility that other state institutions foreclose. Whether they will ultimately rule in favour of the working class, however, largely depends on the composition of the military.

The officer corps in most countries is predominantly drawn from middle-class elements of a society. They are thus inclined to preserve the interests of their class through alliances with other strata of society. Latin America, by virtue of its earlier and rapid exposure to modernity, is one region where the degree of politicisation and mobilisation among the lower classes has been high enough to challenge the military’s corporate and middle-class interests.

In some cases, this has led the military to act in alliance with the conservative class to overthrow pro-working-class elected coalitions. In Chile under dictator Augusto Pinochet, for instance, the military feared that a communist takeover would result in the substitution of the regular army with a people’s militia.

By contrast, militaries in Africa and the Middle East have expanded their power base through alliances with the working classes against aristocratic and feudal forces. Low degrees of working-class mobilisation and delayed exposure to modernity weakened the nature of the class struggle, allowing post-colonial military regimes to grant concessions to the working classes in the form of land reforms, subsidies and nationalisation of healthcare and education, without threatening their own position.

Such class alliances also explain the motives and support for subsequent military coups against Islamist elected coalitions in Algeria in the early 1990s and Egypt in 2013. An Islamist takeover threatened both the middle-class way of life and the military’s corporate interests.

Additional challenges

Yet, just because a military is more representative of a population, doesn’t mean it is better equipped to govern. A handful of charismatic military figures in the past - such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings and Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, to name a few - were able to carry out massive social transformations via “revolutions from above”.

These legacies remain deeply ingrained in the public imagination, reinforcing the allure of a military-dominated utopia. But decades of military rule have repeatedly shown that militaries rarely, if ever, perform better than their civilian counterparts in most areas of governance.

Africa coups: As France's influence teeters in the Sahel, can Turkey take advantage?

Read More »

On the contrary, military rule comes with an additional set of challenges: the reliance on coups for transfers of power, more allocation to defence budgets, the weakening of civil society, and a greater reliance on force to rule.

Militaries also tend to overestimate what they can accomplish through political intervention, while underestimating the challenges of governance. As the intractability of the problems they seek to resolve becomes clear, the combination of factionalism within army ranks and the threat of mass revolts compels them to return to the barracks - but only when they can ensure that the succeeding regime will protect their corporate interests.

Celebrations of military takeovers in the Sahel can be explained by people’s frustrations with developmental and political impasses, as well as the proliferation of transnational armed groups threatening state security. But unique to these demonstrations, especially those in the Sahel, is a staunch anti-imperialist undertone.

The connection between imperial processes of extraction, and elite capture of the state through flawed electoral processes and systemic underdevelopment, is becoming increasingly clear to citizenries. France’s neocolonial influence has been singled out as the primary impetus governing these challenges.
Neocolonial powers

These challenges, however, are not new. In the 1960s, Ghanaian politician and political theorist Kwame Nkrumah used the term “neocolonialism” to describe the final, most dangerous stage of imperialism. Neocolonialism is a system of economic domination upheld by western, capitalist powers that strategically reduces former colonies to sites of extraction for raw resources and markets for their manufactured goods.

Three elements sustain this system: uneven trade conditions in the global economy that reinforce the peripheral status of former colonies; the use of military force to re-subjugate or overthrow governments that threaten this order; and political intervention, typically in the form of bribes to public servants who act as agents or stooges of imperial interests.

These problems, Nkrumah warned, are global in nature. They are beyond the capacity of any single national government to confront unilaterally. Only through regional and transnational alliances can power be reconfigured at the scale needed to generate meaningful change and break this deeply entrenched cycle of dependency. Economic and political unity “is the first requisite for destroying neo-colonialism”, Nkrumah noted.

Sudanese protesters hold a demonstration against the October 2021 coup, in the capital Khartoum, on 2 January 2022 (AFP)

One may add that an anti-imperialist consciousness and mass awareness of neocolonial exploitation are a prerequisite for unity. Africa’s population is demonstrating this awareness, but the question remains whether militaries are positioned to reclaim control over countries’ resources and future. There are structural and strategic reasons to believe they are, but not without a cost.

Politics is a game of alliances. Prospects for meaningful change ultimately boil down to how effectively militaries can forge new domestic, regional and international alliances, while severing the previous alliances and pacts that reinforced France’s neocolonial stronghold in the region.

This is not an easy feat, but it remains possible. Militaries typically adhere to a unifying set of ideological values that stress merit, modernisation, rationalisation, and political order and stability. This, along with their rigid chain-of-command hierarchy, allows them to bypass the political stalemates and clientelism associated with electoral politics to foster radical and rapid change.
Strategic alliances

Africa’s military elites also tend to move fluidly between common networks by virtue of their training in similar institutions. All these factors increase the likelihood of transnational cooperation among members of new military regimes, such as the proposed regional partnership between Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea.

A joint military force could effectively clamp down on the movement and proliferation of armed groups weakening the Sahel’s collective security. These countries are also rich in resources, including diamonds, oil, uranium, gold and phosphates. New economic pacts could boost their bargaining power in the global economy, while putting an end to the privileges afforded to French companies in the extraction of these resources.

This wave of coups is far from over, with analysts predicting more to come

Strategic reasons also exist for military regimes to join forces. Regional and global powers are hostile to such regimes, viewing them as destabilising forces with negative implications for peace, security and democracy.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), for example, threatened to deploy troops in Niger to restore a democratically elected government. The decision was judiciously rejected by the AU, which is being forced to rethink its adamant anti-coup position.

In response, Mali and Burkina Faso have pledged to defend Niger against Ecowas intervention, deeming it a "declaration of war". In other words, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

This wave of coups is far from over, with analysts predicting more to come. Military leaders rarely have a long-term vision for governance, but through strategic alliances with civilian technocrats, they can effectively exploit the transition period to sever the economic and political arrangements undermining their countries’ autonomy, and lay out a new blueprint for transnational integration. Only then does democracy actually stand a chance of flourishing in Africa.

In essence, civil-military relations are most constructive when militaries focus on their role of protecting territorial sovereignty, but what is there to protect when national sovereignty is questionable to begin with?

Only when this fundamental issue is resolved can subordinate, democratic militaries become a reality in Africa.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Radwa Saad is a Ph.D. Candidate at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the politics of military conscription practices in Africa as well as Afro-Arab relations. She holds an MSc in Security Studies from King’s College London and previously served as a peace, security, and development fellow at the African Leadership Centre.
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UK

Boris Johnson should pay back his taxpayer-funded legal fees for the Partygate inquiry  Labour has said.

Aubrey Allegretti Senior political correspondent
Sun, 24 September 2023 

Photograph: Carla Carniel/Reuters

Boris Johnson should pay back his taxpayer-funded legal fees for the Partygate inquiry and an investigation into “issues” with the Cabinet Office’s sign-off process should be launched, Labour has said.

Pat McFadden, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the £265,000 bill should be looked into after a critical report was published this week by the National Audit Office.

The public spending watchdog found the proper process was not followed when the Cabinet Office agreed to cover Johnson’s legal bills last August, because the decision was not made by the correct accounting officer. It found the correct official did endorse the decision, but a month after it had already been taken.


The NAO also said the precedents cited by the government for covering the costs during the privileges committee’s inquiry were not “wholly persuasive”.

McFadden wrote to William Wragg, the Conservative MP and chair of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, calling for him to launch an inquiry into the process.

Highlighting the NAO’s finding that other legal cases where ministers had their legal costs covered were “substantively different” from the Commons probe, McFadden said: “I would very much agree.”

He added there were several “issues with Cabinet Office processes” identified and that there was “legitimate public interest in terms of the sums of money involved, their use and the approval processes for agreeing this”.

McFadden asked the committee, which examines the work of the Cabinet Office, to look at whether the use of taxpayers’ money was appropriate. He also said the committee should examine whether the flawed process was “inconsistent with good government practice” and “whether the funds should be returned, as we have previously called for”.

Johnson declined to comment. Since leaving No 10, he has made millions of pounds through a combination of speeches and books, and been gifted tens of thousands in-kind for hospitality and accommodation.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “There is an established precedent across multiple administrations based on the principle that former ministers, of all political colours, may be supported with legal representation after they have left office – when matters relate to their time and conduct as a minister of the crown.

“The government has been consistently clear that the contract award followed the proper procurement process.”

The cross-party privileges committee concluded in the summer that Johnson had misled parliament. Its findings prompted Johnson to quit as an MP before sanctions could be imposed.

Former ministers paid half a million in severance over past year

Genevieve Holl-Allen
Sun, 24 September 2023 

Liz Truss - Dominic Lipinski/PA

Ex-ministers have received more than half a million pounds in severance pay over the past year, new research has revealed.

The Department for Levelling Up paid out the most to former employees in severance of any Whitehall department, at more than £77,000 since 2022.

Ministers leaving the Home Office over the last year received £52,858, and the Department for Education handed out £49,495 in the same period in severance.


It comes as the Liberal Democrats, who conducted the research, call for the rules on severance pay to be changed to prevent disgraced MPs from being able to claim.

Chris Pincher, who resigned from Government after he was accused of drunkenly groping two men, received £7,920 as a so-called golden goodbye.

Chris Pincher - UK Parliament/PA

Wendy Chamberlain, Lib Dem whip, will today/MONDAY call for a major overhaul of the system, which would also see ministers having to serve in post for a “reasonable period” before being able to receive severance.

Liz Truss, who served as prime minister for 49 days, received £18,860 in severance, the same amount that Boris Johnson was awarded when he left office.

Her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, was paid £16,876 after just 38 days in office.

Ms Chamberlain described these golden goodbyes as “an outrage”.

“The cost of Conservative chaos is piling up for families across the country.

“The British public will never forgive this shambolic Conservative government.”

“Conservative ministers crashed the economy and then were rewarded for it. It is time to change the rules over ministerial severance pay for good to end these revolving door payouts - enough is enough.”

She will announce the new proposals on the third day of the Liberal Democrat autumn conference, taking place in Bournemouth.

Wendy Chamberlain - Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

The new proposals would also demand that payouts could not be claimed if they are reappointed to Government within a year.

Under current rules, ministers can claim severance pay of up to almost £17,000, and prime ministers up to £18,660, regardless of the reason for departure and length of time in post.

Whitehall departments gave out £530,000 in taxpayer-funded ministerial severance payments in the last year.

The Cabinet Office paid £75,585 in ministerial severance in the last year, and the Treasury gave out £45,000.

A Government spokesman said: “There are long-standing rules in place to determine what ministers are entitled to receive as severance pay. Under those rules, it is for ministers to decide whether they wish to accept it.”

A Conservative Party spokesman said of the proposals: “This is exactly the kind of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ policy that the nation expects from the Lib Dems.

“Severance payments have been made by successive administrations over several decades – including at the end of the Coalition Government in 2015.

“If their ministers were happy to accept payments then, they should pay them back to British taxpayer before attempting to score political points.”