It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, November 08, 2023
Iran sentences Frenchman Louis Arnaud to five years on national security charges
An Iranian court has ordered a five-year jail sentence against a French national tried on national security charges, his family announced on Wednesday.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
This undated handout photograph released on January 26, 2023
by his family shows Louis Arnaud, detained in Iran since September 2022.
Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant, was detained in Iran in September last year and has been held in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Arnaud was handed the sentence by a Revolutionary Court on charges of making propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.
The family said Arnaud was innocent of all charges and denounced the verdict as “an attack on human rights and individual freedoms”.
The statement described Arnaud as a “passionate traveller” who had long wanted to visit Iran.
“Unfortunately, his dream turned into a nightmare when he was unjustly targeted, imprisoned, and now convicted on baseless charges, stripping him of his freedom and rights.”
It insisted he had “kept a distance from the social movements that were starting” while in Iran, in reference to the protest movement that erupted in September 2022.
“At no time did he act with political intentions or carelessness.”
Arnaud has lodged an appeal against the verdict, the family added.
Arnaud is a "passionate traveller" who had long dreamed of visiting Iran, according to his family
The verdict has so far not been reported by Iranian media or publicly confirmed by the Iranian judiciary
Arnaud is one of at least a dozen foreign nationals held by Tehran in what activists and Western governments have described as a deliberate hostage-taking strategy aimed at extracting concessions from the West.
Several foreign prisoners have been released in recent months, including five Americans freed in a complex exchange for billions of dollars in Iranian funds that had been frozen in a South Korean account.
In May, Iran freed French prisoners Benjamin Briere and Bernard Phelan, the latter also an Irish national, after their health deteriorated during hunger strikes. French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah finally returned to France in October after being held for four-and-a-half years.
But aside from Arnaud, three other French citizens are held by Iran: teacher Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris and a man identified only by his first name, Olivier.
(AFP)
NOT JUST PAKISTAN
Number of Afghans returning from Iran spikes: border official
Islam Qala (Afghanistan) (AFP) – The number of Afghans coming home from Iran has doubled in the past month, a top border official said Wednesday, with returnees reporting growing pressure to leave.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
Afghans deported from Iran carry their belongings to a registration centre near the Islam Qala border crossing in Herat province
The rise comes as Afghanistan's eastern border points with Pakistan have been inundated with returnees after Islamabad ordered 1.7 million Afghans it said were living illegally in the country to leave or face deportation.
"When Pakistan made the decision to deport our countrymen from their own land, the figures started to rise here," Qayomi said.
"The figures have doubled now as compared to one month ago," he told AFP this week, saying numbers leapt from 1,500-2,000 per day to 3,000-4,500.
"Iran has not announced it (that they are deporting Afghans) but continuously there is no decline in our figures, they are only increasing day by day," Qayomi said.
Afghans arriving at Islam Qala report being detained and deported, even if some of them had documents allowing them to be in Iran.
Abdul Rahim Ahmadi said he had been living in Iran for 11 years with proper documents but was arrested with his nephew and taken to a military base before being deported through Islam Qala on Monday.
"No questioning happened, they just brought us to the military base... and just like that I was deported," the 47-year-old told AFP.
"My wife and son are there in Iran, I have rented a house there. I don't know what to do."
Iran, which shares a 900-kilometre (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world, made up mostly of well-integrated Afghans who arrived over the past 40 years after fleeing conflict.
An estimated 4.5 million Afghans currently live in Iran, according to the International Organization for Migration, though Tehran estimates there are more than five million.
The agency said in a 2023 report the number of Afghans leaving Iran outstrips those entering, "mainly due to the systematic pushbacks" by the Iranian government.
Iranian officials did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the uptick in Afghan returnees in recent weeks.
But Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted a police official this month as saying more than 15,000 "illegal" Afghan citizens had returned over just four days, and some 328,000 were deported this year.
An Afghan delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund visited Tehran last week.
A statement from Afghan authorities said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian pledged to resolve "refugee-related issues" during discussions on boosting trade ties.
‘In the Rearview’: Filmmaker who drove hundreds to safety documents plight of Ukrainians
“In the Rearview”, about filmmaker Maciek Hamela’s efforts to rescue civilians stranded by war, is a gripping testimony to the plight of the millions of Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion. As the award-winning documentary opens in French cinemas on Wednesday, its Polish director hopes it will remind viewers of what is at stake in Ukraine – and of the suffering of refugees from all conflicts.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
Ukrainian civilians flee Russia's invasion in Maciek Hamela's "In the Rearview".
When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a mass exodus of refugees, Warsaw-based filmmaker Maciek Hamela joined thousands of fellow Poles in rushing to the border to offer what help he could. Within days, he was driving a van across the breadth of Ukraine, collecting civilians stranded by the conflict and driving them to safety.
Hamela soon realised that the intimacy afforded by the van provided a setting for poignant testimonies to the human toll of war, and began filming the exchanges. The result is a gripping, no-frills portrait of human displacement, shot over a period of six months and covering tens of thousands of kilometres in a country shattered by war.
As the film’s title suggests, Hamela’s on-board camera is focused on the passengers at the back of the 8-seater van, capturing their distress as they drive away from the fighting, leaving behind their sons, husbands and homes. Some passengers sit quietly, dumbstruck. Others recount tales of destruction, torture and death. There are light-hearted moments, too, when they open up to share their hopes and aspirations for the day the war ends.
“The sea! We’ll come back here when the war is over, right mum?” shouts a little girl as she marvels at the mighty Dnieper River, mistaking it for the sea. “Absolutely, I promise,” answers the weary mother.
At one stage, Hamela’s van turns into a makeshift ambulance to evacuate a Congolese woman with life-threatening wounds. Fellow travellers include a surrogate mother who is pregnant with the child of a Westerner; an elderly farmer whose eyes well up when talking about the beloved cow she left behind; and a little girl so shell-shocked she can no longer speak. Another child plays a game of rock-paper-scissors but replaces the latter with a pistol to ensure she wins – resulting in the film’s French title, “Pierre, Feuille, Pistolet”.
Sometimes the camera pans out, revealing burnt-out vehicles, gutted buildings and ominous dangers – mines across the road, a bridge collapsed by shelling – in a landscape of desolation.
The Polish-French-Ukrainian production premiered earlier this year at Cannes’ ACID sidebar, a parallel segment dedicated to independent cinema, and has since featured at multiple festivals. FRANCE 24 spoke to Hamela on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival and on the eve of the film’s French release after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The following interview has been condensed from those two discussions and lightly edited for clarity.
FRANCE 24: Can you talk us through the first days of the war and what led you to cross the border into Ukraine?
The moment the war began I started raising money for the Ukrainian army in Warsaw. Very few people believed Ukraine could survive the war. There was a mass exodus of refugees that landed all of a sudden at the border. It was freezing cold and there was no preparation from the Polish government. So on the third day of the war I bought a van and went to the border.
When I arrived I realised I was not the only one. There were hundreds of others like me who had the same idea. I picked up random people and took them to my apartment and those of friends. After a few days we got organised on [the messaging app] Signal, to find homes, humanitarian aid, transport, etc. I was fluent in Russian, so I went across the border.
From there it snowballed. My phone number appeared somewhere on Telegram and people started calling from all sorts of countries, asking me to go pick up their relatives stranded in Ukraine. I went closer to the front line and started doing shorter evacuations from villages to larger cities and evacuation trains.
How did you find your way around Ukraine?
The beginning of the war was very tricky. There was no information, no maps, no journalists; we did not know where the Russians were. You could drive 200 kilometres and find a bridge had been destroyed and then you had to drive all the way back to find another route. I relied on the people I met along the way for information about the roads, the checkpoints and the Russians’ whereabouts.
When and why did you decide to start filming your evacuations?
By the end of March, I decided I couldn’t keep going alone for much longer. It was wearing me down, especially the night driving. So I asked a close friend – who happens to be a director of photography and a good driver, too – to help me out and we decided to take a camera.
Poland's Maciek Hamela, 40, at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.
We didn’t know it was going to become a film. But I knew that what was being said in the car was a unique testimony to what these people are going through and to what the process of becoming a refugee looks like. Is it the moment you cross the border, or the last time you see your house? It’s in this moment of travel that you start realising – and this process is reflected in the conversations.
How did people respond to the camera?
I was very surprised by how the camera motivated some of these people to really tell their story. Some had been exposed night and day to Russian propaganda, particularly in the occupied territories. They had this urge to speak to the world and the camera was the world. There is a crescendo of danger as the proximity of war becomes increasingly apparent.
Just how frightening was it to be driving in a warzone?
There was a big question of how we could maintain the tension for the length of the film while being almost entirely in the car. So that’s why we built this crescendo, both in the structure and in the stories of the passengers. Of course there were many terrifying moments, but we decided to leave out the most dramatic. This is not a film about the dangers of driving through war-torn territories. I don’t wish to compare my experience to that of soldiers in a warzone.
There are very few markers of time and space in your film. Was it a deliberate choice?
This was a subject of discussion from the get-go. I could sense that for the Ukrainians in our team it was important to mention places and dates, to put a stamp on events. They also feared that by sidelining the actual fighting we would fail to convey the danger of the whole experience. But I think it was important to resist the temptation to name everywhere we went – including places that have since been largely obliterated, like Soledar [Editor’s note: a town in eastern Ukraine that was captured by Russian forces in January 2023 after a devastating battle].
Hamela's van is turned into a makeshift ambulance to transport a Congolese student with gunshot wounds.
We wanted to erase this notion of time and place, to make a film that is not only about the war between Russia and Ukraine but about the experience of war itself. What happens to the people in the van has a universal quality that can tell us something about what is happening to people in Gaza, Yemen or Sudan.
Were you surprised by the scale of the grassroots response in Poland?
I thing it surprised everybody. I thought I would be one of the few people at the border, but I saw long lines of cars, ordinary people who came to collect refugees and take them to their homes. It was pretty electric in terms of how energised and mobilised society was at the start of the war.
There is no special brotherhood between Poles and Ukrainians, we have had a sometimes difficult past. But we also have a common experience: for centuries, we lived in the shadow of a hungry neighbour, of an imminent danger that hangs over your head. It made us understand that this war is ours as well. Are you concerned that support for Ukraine is fading as ‘war fatigue’ kicks in?
It is shocking to see how quickly the world’s attention is drifting away from Ukraine, particularly since the recent events in Israel. There is certainly a form of fatigue. It has become much harder to collect and channel humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
At the start of the war, there was a massive, spontaneous popular movement in support of Ukrainians, but there comes a point when governments must take on the responsibility. They have to understand that we cannot freeze the conflict. Russia is playing a long game. It knows very well that without Western support Ukraine cannot hold out. Already we are seeing some governments – first Hungary, now Slovakia – refusing to support Ukraine. It’s a tragic mistake.
COWABUNGA, MAN
French Polynesia president backs Olympics surf venue rethink
Avarua (Cook Islands) (AFP) – The president of the French overseas territory of French Polynesia has suggested an alternative venue for the 2024 Olympics surf competition after plans for a gigantic tower at a planned venue in Tahiti site caused uproar.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
After protests, maybe a different spot can be found for the surfing competition
Surfers are due to catch the first waves of the Paris Games in nine months in Tahiti, some 15,000 kilometres (9,300 miles) from the French capital, but a plan to build a giant tower in a legendary surf spot is sparking resistance.
The organisers of the 2024 Games want to erect a 14-metre (46-foot) aluminium structure in the water for judges to better assess the competition.
Local associations have led protests against the tower, saying its installation would damage corals beyond repair.
Several hundred people recently joined a peaceful protest at the site near the village of Teahupoo –- one of the world's most famous surfing areas and the designated Olympic venue.
An online petition against the project has attracted close to 150,000 signatures.
Moetai Brotherson, President of French Polynesia -- which comprises more than 100 islands including Tahiti -- told AFP on Tuesday that he shared the environmental concerns, and suggested a different spot for the competition, without the need for a tower.
While less well-known than the original venue, the site at Taharuu Beach on Tahiti's west coast was more accessible and already had all the necessary infrastructure on land, he said on the sidelines of a Pacific islands forum on the Cook Islands.
Taharuu had been in the running previously but, Brotherson said, "that choice wasn't possible at the time".
However, he said, "given the stakes and the protests today, perhaps we could revisit that option".
He said drilling for the tower's foundations would not be possible without "breaking corals".
Brotherson, who supports independence from France, took up his post in the wake of elections this year won by pro-independence forces who want to negotiate a referendum with Paris on the archipelago's status.
French Polynesia is one of several French overseas territories that span the Caribbean and the Pacific and give Paris a global footprint unmatched by any other European nation.
Surfing made its bow as an Olympic sport at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games, when it was held on Tsurigasaki Beach on mainland Japan, and France was keen to keep it on the roster.
France's Atlantic coast hosts some of Europe's most famous surfing beaches and local officials had been hopeful of hosting the event.
When Tahiti was announced, dignitaries in coastal resorts like Biarritz were unimpressed –- not least because of the cost and the carbon emissions involved in putting a chunk of the Olympics on in the South Pacific.
The tower alone is expected to cost around 4.4 million euros ($4.7 million).
Darwin200 expedition: Darwin's voyage across 32 ports recreated by young environmentalists
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
01:41 Video by: Jean-Emile JAMMINE After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Darwin200 expedition has reached one of its most important destinations at Rio de Janeiro. For two years, the tall schooner Oosterschelde will stop at 32 ports visited by Charles Darwin and the Beagle. 200 young naturalists from around the world are expected to participate in the project.
NOV 11 UK police urged to ban pro-Palestinian rally
London (AFP) – British police came under mounting government pressure on Wednesday to ban a pro-Palestinian rally scheduled to take place in London on the day the country commemorates its war dead.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called the protest against the Israel-Hamas war scheduled for Saturday "provocative and disrespectful".
Organisers have resisted pleas from Sunak and London's Metropolitan Police to postpone the demonstration, when tens of thousands of people are expected to demand a ceasefire in the month-old conflict.
The force's chief, Mark Rowley, has said the rally does not meet the threshold for requesting a government order to stop it going ahead.
Rowley said such a ban was "incredibly rare" and a "last resort" where there is a serious threat of disorder.
"The events taking place this weekend are of great significance and importance to our nation," he said in a statement.
"We will do everything in our power to ensure they pass without disruption."
Sunak is to meet Rowley on Wednesday but ministers in the Conservative government suggested that the commissioner should think again.
"There is a legal threshold and the commissioner is of the view that that legal threshold has not been met," Health Secretary Steve Barclay told Sky News.
"Obviously, the Home Office and colleagues will discuss that over the course of the day."
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said in a radio interview that police should keep the protest "under review".
November 11 commemorates the end of fighting in World War I, and the sacrifice of armed forces in all conflicts since 1914.
Protest groups have not indicated they plan to march on Remembrance Sunday, when solemn ceremonies and two minutes' silence are held at war memorials up and down the country.
But some fear their Saturday protest will disrupt Sunday's commemorations.
Organisers have vowed to avoid the Whitehall area of central London where the Cenotaph -- the focal point of Remembrance Sunday -- is located.
London has seen large demonstrations on four successive weekends since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7 which Israel says left 1,400 people dead, mostly civilians. They also took 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Palestinian territory and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza saying more than 10,550 people have been killed.
Police have made dozens of arrests at the London protests, including for hate crimes.
Sunak's outspoken interior minister Suella Braverman has branded the protests "hate marches".
(Reuters) - Opposition troops have captured a town in central Myanmar that is a district administrative headquarters after beating back the military, the shadow government and local media said on Tuesday.
The shadow National Unity Government (NUG) hailed it as a key victory, although an analyst cautioned that the fighters may struggle to hold Kawlin, which has a population of around 25,000.
Myanmar's military is battling a surge in violence as forces opposed to it, including ethnic minority armies, have launched fresh attacks over two years after the generals unseated an democratically elected government in a 2021 coup.
Opposition troops attacked junta soldiers in Kawlin last week, before overpowering them on Monday and taking over the town, the NUG said.
Its defence ministry posted a video on social media of soldiers raising the flag of resistance groups aligned with the shadow government.
"A district level town is under our control now," NUG prime minister Mahn Winn Khaing Thann said on social media platform X. "What a groundbreaking victory!"
A junta spokesman did not respond to calls from Reuters.
The town fell after a small group of junta soldiers surrendered following fierce fighting, local media outlet Myanmar Now said, quoting a rebel fighter.
However, Richard Horsey, senior adviser for Myanmar at the non-profit International Crisis Group, said the resistance might find it difficult to maintain control over Kawlin.
"It's not that difficult to surge in and overrun a provincial town close to the mountains. But it will be difficult to hold it," he told Reuters.
A 28-year-old Kawlin resident, who declined to be named because of security concerns, said they left the town over the weekend after fierce fighting erupted between the rebels and junta soldiers backed by air support.
"Our neighbour's house was hit. There was no way to stay there safely," the resident said. "So almost everyone has left."
Resistance troops have taken over Kawlin's police station, district administrative office, bank and other key establishments, the NUG said.
The NUG, comprised of remnants of the administration of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others, has been engaging with democratic nations, including the United States, to rally support for its fight against the powerful military.
In a separate offensive, NUG said its troops and those of its allies had taken over another town in Sagaing division, where Kawlin is also located, in a district bordering India.
Besides the NUG, an alliance of ethnic minority armies late last month launched a series of surprise coordinated attacks on junta targets along areas abutting China.
Rights groups and U.N. experts have accused the military of committing atrocities against civilians in its efforts to crush the resistance. The junta says it is fighting "terrorists" and has ignored international calls to cease hostilities.
(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Alison Williams)
Junta-led Myanmar holds joint naval exercise with top arms supplier Russia
The military-run Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar is holding its first joint naval exercise with Russia, state media reported Tuesday, with the countries carrying out maneuvers in the Andaman Sea.
AFP Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of Myanmar's ruling military council, attends the start of the joint naval drills in Yangon, Myanmar, on November 6, 2023.
Reports in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that the maritime security exercise with Russia was being held until Thursday, 157 kilometers (85 miles) west of Myeik in Myanmar’s far south. Some Russian navy vessels sailed from Yangon to take part, state television MRTV reported.
The three-day joint drill involves aircraft and naval vessels and focuses on defending against threats from air, sea and land as well as other maritime security measures, the reports said.
Russia is a major supporter and arms supplier of Myanmar’s military government, which was installed after the army seized power and ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Russia defends Myanmar’s military government in international forums, and the ruling generals return the favor by generally supporting Moscow’s foreign policy agenda.
Myanmar has been treated as a pariah state by many Western nations since the military takeover and the violent suppression of protests against it, which has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and given rise to an armed resistance movement in many parts of the country.
The Global New Light of Myanmar said the head of the military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, met on Monday with Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the commander-in-chief of Russia’s navy, at Thilawa port in the southern part of Yangon. The Russian officer welcomed an inspection by the Myanmar leader, who reviewed a guard of honor and toured one of the Russian vessels.
Min Aung Hlaing was briefed on the capacity of Russian weapons, the installation of modern systems and an anti-submarine helicopter, the reports said.
Tom Andrews, the UN independent investigator on human rights in Myanmar, in a report in May to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council identified $406 million in weapons and materiel that went to the Myanmar military from Russia, $267 million from China, $254 million from Singapore, $51 million from India and $28 million from Thailand.
Since the 2021 takeover, the report said, 28 Russian private and state-owned companies have transferred fighter jets and their spare parts, advanced missile systems, reconnaissance and attack drones, attack helicopters and other systems to Myanmar's military.
As an example of what he called the military’s brutality, Andrews pointed to its April 11 air strike using a Russian Yak-130 fighter jet on a ceremony in northern Myanmar attended by some 300 opponents of army rule. It was quickly followed by an attack by Russian Mi-35 helicopters on those who came to help. He said at least 160 people were killed, including many children.
The joint exercises come at a time when Myanmar’s military is facing the coordinated offensives of the pro-democracy resistance fighters and ethnic minority armed organizations that have seized strategic towns in the northern region of Sagaing and Shan state in the east.
Russian-made fighter jets are used in attacks on both the resistance fighters and ethnic armed groups.
(AP)
ALL VIOLENCE IS STATE VIOLENCE
Bangladesh garment worker shot dead as wage protests turn violent A Bangladeshi woman was shot dead Wednesday in the latest violent protests by garment workers after they rejected a government wage increase offer, with the victim's husband blaming the police.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
Bangladeshi policemen patrol along a street in Ashulia on November 8, 2023.
The South Asian country's 3,500 garment factories account for around 85 percent of its $55 billion in annual exports, supplying many of the world's top brands including Levi's, Zara and H&M.
But conditions are dire for many of the sector's four million workers, the vast majority of whom are women whose monthly pay starts at 8,300 taka ($75).
A government-appointed panel raised wages on Tuesday by 56.25 percent to 12,500 taka, but striking workers demand a near-tripling of the wage to 23,000 taka.
"Police opened fire. She was shot in the head... She died in a car on the way to a hospital," said Mohammad Jamal, the husband of 23-year-old sewing machine operator Anjuara Khatun, a mother of two.
Jamal told AFP that police had fired on some 400 workers calling for wage increase in the industrial city of Gazipur, outside the capital Dhaka. "Six to seven people were shot at and injured," he said.
Bacchu Mia, a police inspector posted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the body was brought, confirmed the death but gave no further details.
Police said fresh violence broke out on Wednesday in Gazipur, home to hundreds of factories, after 4,000 people staged protests rejecting the wage decision.
"They (protesters) hurled bricks at factories, cars and police officers. We fired tear gas to disperse them," local police chief K.M. Ashraf Uddin told AFP.
Garment workers and activists take part in a protest in Dhaka on November 7 demanding higher wages
The minimum wage is fixed by a state-appointed board that includes representatives from the manufacturers, unions and wage experts. "The wage was low before, and it is still low after the new minimum wage announcement," said Mujahid Ahmed, 23, a sewing machine operator. "It is not enough to meet our basic demands."
Unions say their members have been hard hit by persistent inflation – which reached nearly 10 percent in October – and a cost-of-living crisis partly triggered by the taka depreciating about 30 percent against the US dollar since last year.
"I am widow, with two children. I get some 13,000 taka including overtime pay. How can I survive with this little income? My back is against the wall," said worker Shahnaj Akter, in the garment-producing town of Ashulia.
Wage protests pose a major challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2009. A resurgent opposition has challenged her rule as she readies for elections due before January.
Security has been tight in key industrial towns outside Dhaka after unions threatened to hold new protests over what they described as the "farcical" wage hike.
Police said around 600 factories that make clothing for many major Western brands were shuttered last week and scores were ransacked in the biggest wage protest in a decade.
Four factories were torched and at least two workers were killed in the violence, with tens of thousands of workers blocking highways and attacking factories.
Police said fresh violence broke out after 4,000 people staged protests rejecting the wage decision
France divisions exposed by march against anti-Semitism Paris (AFP) – A call for a weekend march in Paris against anti-Semitism sparked bitter squabbling between political parties Wednesday despite a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in the country.
Issued on: 08/11/2023 -
The march was called by the two speakers of the French legislature, Yael Braun-Pivet and Gerard Larcher
The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party said it would boycott the "great civic march" called by the speakers of the country's two houses of parliament for the French capital Sunday.
At the same time, the participation of the far-right National Rally (RN) is creating a headache for the left and centre-left, who argue that the renamed National Front (FN) founded by convicted Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen has no place in such a gathering.
Olivier Veran, the spokesman of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government, said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne would take part but insisted the RN "did not have a place" in the march.
Communist leader Fabien Roussel said he would "not march alongside" Marine Le Pen's RN, accusing it of being descended from people who were "repeatedly condemned for anti-Semitic remarks" and who "collaborated" with Nazi Germany.
"It's important that there is a march against anti-Semitism," Roussel told public broadcaster France 2.
"It is not a question of being absent from a march against anti-Semitism. We will perhaps march in another place, but not with them," he insisted.
The two speakers of the French legislature, Yael Braun-Pivet of the National Assembly and Gerard Larcher of the Senate, announced a "general mobilisation" late Tuesday against the upsurge in anti-Semitic acts in France.
But the LFI's firebrand leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, immediately dismissed the idea, describing it in a post on X, formerly Twitter, as a meeting of "friends of unconditional support for the massacre" in Gaza.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she would not be deterred from taking part.
"I call on all our members and voters to come and join this march," she said Wednesday.
"The more people there are, the better," she said, adding that she was ready to march "at the back" if her attendance was such a problem.
Tensions have been rising in Paris, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, in the wake of the attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7 which has been followed by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
France has recorded more than a thousand anti-Semitic acts since the deadly October 7 attack, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Sunday.
Mainers vote against new utility, approve restoration of tribal obligations to printed constitutions
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine voters turned down an attempt to oust the state’s corporate-owned electric utilities among several ballot initiatives Tuesday, and approved one to stop foreign spending in referendums.
Voters also decided to restore language about honoring obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of the state constitution. The off-year election saw consistent participation despite a lack of statewide offices on the ballot, the secretary of state's office said.
The state’s busy slate of referendums came a year before Maine will likely once again emerge as a battleground for a congressional seat and a presidential electoral vote in its more conservative 2nd Congressional District.
NEW POWER COMPANY
Maine voters rejected the proposed takeover of two investor-owned utilities that distribute 97% of electricity in the state.
Supporters said there was little to lose because of the utilities’ poor performance. Critics said there’s no guarantee the nonprofit utility would perform any better, while the move could spark lawsuits and buying out the existing utilities could cost billions — as much as $13.5 billion.
Related video: Maine is one of two states that lets incarcerated people vote (WMTW Portland ME) Duration 1:50 View on Watch
Willy Ritch, executive director of the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition, which opposed the takeover, said Maine voters “rejected billions of dollars in debt and they rejected the risk and uncertainty that came with it.”
The vote came amid intense criticism of Central Maine Power over its slow response to storm-related power outages, a botched billing system rollout and perceived roadblocks to connecting renewable power projects to the grid, among other things.
“Our grassroots campaign has talked with thousands of Mainers — it is clear that CMP and Versant are hurting people,” said Al Cleveland, Pine Tree Power's campaign manager, who also said the drive for a consumer-owned utility would continue.
A separate ballot question aimed at posing hurdle to creation of a new utility also was approved. The referendum requires voter approval for borrowing topping $1 billion, potentially crimping access to bonds that would be needed to buy out the existing utilities.
FOREIGN ELECTION INFLUENCE
Mainers voted to stop foreign government spending in local referendums, closing a loophole in federal election law that a Canadian utility giant exploited to protect its ventures in the state.
The Canadian-government-owned Hydro Quebec spent millions in a failed attempt to stop a proposal to halt a cross-border hydropower transmission project in which the utility stood to earn $10 billion.
Federal election law prevents foreign governments and entities from spending money to influence candidate elections, yet there’s no such ban covering state referendums.
Republican state Sen. Rick Bennett, who led the campaign to put the proposal on the ballot, praised voters for taking a common sense step toward “getting control” of money in politics.
“It’s one of the greatest scourges in politics,” Bennett said Tuesday evening. “We have to deal with that before we can deal with the other host of issues.”
With the approval, Maine becomes the 10th state to ban foreign spending in state ballot initiatives, said Aaron McKean, legal counsel for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C.
CONSTITUTION AND TRIBES
Voters decided to restore long-removed language about Maine’s obligations to Native American tribes to the printed versions of its constitution.
Maine inherited the treaties from Massachusetts when it became its own state more than 200 years ago. The language still applies, but it was removed from the printed constitution in the 19th century.
Members of Maine’s Native American tribes and others have said the restoration of the language to the printed constitution would make clear the state’s obligations to Indigenous groups. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills had opposed the measure, though, and has said she feared it could lead to lawsuits.
Maulian Bryant, Penobscot Nation ambassador and president of the Wabanaki Alliance, said that restoring the tribal treaties to the printed constitutions honors the tribes’ ancestors.
“It feels good that Mainers heard us and felt our message and agreed,” she said.
RIGHT TO REPAIR
Mainers approved a “right to repair” initiative designed to allow vehicle owners and independent repair shops access to on-board diagnostic systems in vehicles.
Massachusetts voters approved a right to repair proposal of their own in 2020. That proposal provided vehicle owners and independent repair shops with more access to mechanical data related to maintenance and repairs.
OUT-OF-STATE PETITIONERS
Maine voters rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution to take out provisions that require circulators of citizen’s initiatives to be state residents, but that follows guidance from federal courts that out-of-state circulators must be allowed.
The amendment's rejection will have no practical effect, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said.
“Even though I agree with the voters, my obligation under the constitution is to follow the direction of the courts,” Bellows said.
Patrick Whittle And David Sharp, The Associated Press
