International Olympic Committee issues new guidelines on transgender athletes

Athletes will no longer be required to undergo “medically unnecessary” hormone treatments to compete, the IOC said.

Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand during the women's weightlifting competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games on Aug. 2.Chris Graythen / Getty Images file

 Updated Jan. 2, 2024, 5:43 PM MST
By Matt Lavietes

The International Olympic Committee announced a new framework for transgender and intersex athletes Tuesday, dropping controversial policies that required competing athletes to undergo "medically unnecessary" procedures or treatment.

In a six-page document, the IOC outlined 10 principles, which it described as "grounded on the respect for internationally recognised human rights," that sports competitions should follow. It also said it will no longer require athletes to undergo hormone level modifications to compete.

"This Framework recognises both the need to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their gender identity or sex variations, can practise sport in a safe, harassment-free environment that recognises and respects their needs and identities," the committee said.

June 2021: New Zealand weightlifter becomes first transgender athlete to go to Olympics

JUNE 21, 2021   00:21

The new framework is not legally binding and was developed following an “extensive consultation” with athletes, other sports organizations and experts in the fields of human rights, law and medicine, the IOC said. It comes just three months after the Tokyo Olympics, which saw the first transgender and intersex athletes compete in the Games' history.

Tuesday's framework replaces guidelines the IOC released in 2015, which put a limit on athletes' testosterone levels that required some of them to undergo treatments the IOC now describes as "medically unnecessary." Before 2016, the IOC required athletes to undergo genital surgery.

Chris Mosier was the first out trans athlete to compete on a U.S. national team, in the 2016 world championship for the sprint duathlon, and has challenged some of the previous guidelines. Mosier applauded the release of the new framework, writing on Twitter that it “takes the next step in centering human rights as the foundation of sport.”

“The new IOC Framework makes clear that no athlete has an inherent advantage & moves away from eligibility criteria focused on testosterone levels, a practice that caused harmful & abusive practices such as invasive physical examinations & sex testing,” he wrote.

Canadian soccer gold medalist Quinn, who in July became the first openly transgender athlete to participate in the Olympics, also chimed in, calling the new framework "groundbreaking."

“Far too often, sport policy does not reflect the lived experience of marginalized athletes, and that’s especially true when it comes to transgender athletes and athletes with sex variations,” Quinn said in a statement. “This new IOC framework is groundbreaking in the way that it reflects what we know to be true — that athletes like me and my peers participate in sports without any inherent advantage, and that our humanity deserves to be respected.”

Quinn of the Canada women's soccer team poses with their gold medal in Yokohama, Japan, on Aug. 6.

Naomi Baker / Getty Images

LGBTQ advocates welcomed the IOC's new guidelines but stressed that following the implementation process is necessary.

“As with any set of guidelines, the success of this new framework in ensuring a safe and welcoming environment within the Olympic movement will largely depend on the education and implementation process with national governing bodies, international federations, and other key stakeholders,” Anne Lieberman, the director of policy and programs at LGBTQ advocacy group Athlete Ally, said in a statement.

Some advocates argued that while the IOC's new framework is intended for elite athletes, it bolsters their case in their fight against state bills in the United States that restrict transgender students' participation in school sports.

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"On the heels of the most anti-LGBTQ legislative session in history with the majority of bills targeting trans youth in sports, every state and lawmaker should listen to the experts from the world of sports, medicine, and athletes themselves to allow transgender youth the same opportunities to play with their friends, have fun, learn, grow, and benefit from the lasting life lessons and supportive community sports can provide," Alex Schmider, the associate director of transgender representation at LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said in a statement.

Ten U.S. states have enacted laws restricting trans students’ participation in school sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. An additional 21 states have considered similar bills in 2021, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

CORRECTION (Jan. 2, 2024, 7:40 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the year that the IOC's surgical guideline changes went into effect. It was 2016, not 2015.

 How misinformation works on the brain, according to a psychologist

CBS News

With the 2024 elections less than a year away, a recent survey found 53% of Americans say they see false or misleading information online every day. Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, joins CBS News to unpack why people fall for misinformation -- and what it's doing to our brains.

Palestinian Performance Art Reflects The Fighting Spirit Of A Besieged Nation

Divided by apartheid walls and censorship, Palestinian performing artists explore the metaphysical to capture the realities of constant war and life in the 'world’s largest open-air prison'

Palestinian female artist is seen drawing a picture titled 'GAZA 2024' on the concrete of the rubble 

Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images

Outlook Web Desk
UPDATED: 04 JAN 2024

"A dancer in Gaza is always at the risk of arrest…,” says 22-year-old Rahman, a performance artist in Bethlehem. This is true more than ever today in Gaza, which has been under attack from Israeli armed forces since October 7. While Palestinian civil society including artists is used to the risk of Israeli backlash, the months after the Hamas attack in Israel followed by the escalation of violence in Gaza has seen an intense crackdown on Palestinian civil society, especially artists who have been facing detention, arrests, harassment and violence for raising their voice in support of Palestine and standing up against what many have dubbed a “genocide” in Gaza.

Rahman, a dabke dancer from West Bank, and many like him, have to wade through an oppressive milieu of armed checkpoints and hostile forces everyday, and live a life of secrecy, just to continue practicing their art. It’s risky but for Rahman, it’s important because for him and a majority of Palestinians, art is a means of protest. He says that art has always been a vital element of the Palestinian resistance movement and an instrument to reaffirm political existence by way of preserving the cultural identity of the nation. Performance art forms like traditional dances, can also be a means to bypass oppressive censorship and surveillance and take the message of Palestinians to the masses across the world.

But such work comes with a heavy price for the artists themselves who often have to risk their own lives to continue their art. Since October 7, multiple Palestinian artists across the world have faced censure, or have been suspended from their employment, for taking a stand on Gaza and interpreting the ongoing violence and bloodshed in creative ways.

Artists posting pro-Palestinian works on social media have alleged facing “shadow bans” being implemented by the platforms to silence Palestinian voices and calls for ceasefire. Dozens of Arab citizens of Israel have been arrested in connection with social media posts about the war in Gaza. Among them is a well-known singer and influencer from Nazareth, Dalal Abu Amneh, who is known to talk about Palestinian heritage through her songs, was held in police custody for two days before being released on bail. Palestinian artists like Berlin-based Jumana Manna, artistic director Ahmed Tobasi, and producer Mustafa Sheta have also faced detainment and harassment, among others.

Internationally renowned artists like Chinese contemporary artists Ai Weiwei, South African artist Candice Breitz, curator Anaïs Duplan, have faced consequences like show cancellations and social media trolling following their vocal support for Palestine.

In November, over 1300 artists including visual artists, actors, filmmakers, writers, musicians and performers wrote an open letter accusing Western media and institutions of “silencing and stigmatising” Palestinians voices and perspectives.

In another incident deemed as “cultural genocide,” Israel sparked widespread criticism after raiding the Freedom Theatre, a community theatre based in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, detaining three of its artists and brutally beating them later, according to reports.

Many in Palestine and the besieged Gaza feel that the crackdown on artists is not just to control dissent and information blackout in Gaza but also an attempt, aided by Western powers, to completely erase Palestinian cultural identity. It a way to dehumanise Palestinians.

The Palestinian fighting spirit nevertheless remains strong as can be seen in the ever-mounting body of resistance art. Even amid internet shutdowns, airstrikes, bombings, and constant rubbles restricting their movements, Palestinian artists like Rahman have not given up and continued to find creative and ingenious ways to artistically translate and showcase the historical suffering of Palestinians.

From graffiti to skateboarding, traditional music, embroidery styles like Tattreez, dance forms like Dabke, or Palestinian food recipes, Palestinian artists have found their way to connect and share experiences and ensure that their culture and identity are not erased. In its anniversary issue, Outlook brings together testimonials from Palestinian artists who continue to showcase the realities of war and life in the world’s “greatest open air prison”.

Claudine Gay says exit from Harvard University rooted in 'lies and insults'

Former president of elite American university says she was targeted by "recycled racial stereotypes" about Black talent, following her response to pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus, which was dubbed as "anti-Semitism" by American right-wingers.



AFP

Gay, who made history as the first Black person to be president of Harvard, says she was targeted because she believed "that a daughter of Haitian immigrants has something to offer to the nation's oldest university." / Photo: AFP


Harvard University's former president has said following her resignation that she made mistakes but insisted she was the target of a sustained campaign of lies and personal insults.

"Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument," Claudine Gay wrote in The New York Times on Wednesday.

"They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence."

"It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution. Someone who views diversity as a source of institutional strength and dynamism."

Gay was criticised in recent months after reports surfaced alleging that she did not properly cite scholarly sources. The most recent accusations came on Tuesday, published anonymously in a conservative online outlet.

Gay stepped down on Tuesday after coming under ferocious attack over her response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus, which was dubbed as "anti-Semitism".



Resignation not enough

Gay was engulfed by scandal after she declined to say unequivocally whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard's code of conduct during testimony to Congress alongside the heads of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania last month.

Gay, who made history as the first Black person to be president of Harvard, said she was targeted because she believed "that a daughter of Haitian immigrants has something to offer to the nation's oldest university."

Gay, 53, was born in New York to Haitian immigrants and is a professor of political science.

Her downfall comes after the powerhouse university in Cambridge, Massachusetts's governing Harvard Corporation, had initially backed her after the public relations disaster of the congressional testimony.

The university's governing Harvard Corporation said that Gay had "shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks."

The House Republican who challenged Gay out during her testimony with the question about whether free speech extended to calling for the genocide of Jews has now called for members of the Harvard Corporation to apologise.

"Neither the resignation from Claudine Gay nor the statement from the Harvard Corporation included any apology for the morally bankrupt testimony," she wrote on social media.

At the heart of the crisis

Students and professors at Harvard were targeted after allegations of anti-Semitism linked to fury over Israel's brutality in besieged Gaza ripped through the famous institution and other elite US universities.

The historical campus in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was roiled in October by pro-Palestinian marches. The anger mirrored widespread concern among young, liberal American students over the civilian costs of Israel's war against Gaza.

However, the protests quickly sparked alarm, promoted by American far-right and Zionist groups, that anti-Semitism was flourishing in Harvard and other Ivy League universities, which host top students from around the world.

Protestors' banners called for a ceasefire in the bloody war gripping Gaza and proclaimed that accusing Israel of genocide is not the same as anti-Semitism.

A conservative Jewish group called the Jewish National Project drove a billboard truck around Harvard emblazoned with messages accusing Gay of anti-Semitism and being a "national disgrace."
SOURCE: TRTWORLD AND AGENCIES

Japan's major earthquakes since the 1995 Kobe disaster

Road cracks caused by an earthquake is seen in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan Jan 1, 2024, in this photo released by Kyodo.
PHOTO: Kyodo via Reuters

PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 03, 2024

TOKYO — A powerful earthquake struck central Japan on Monday (Jan 1), killing at least six people, destroying buildings and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes.

Situated on the "Ring of Fire" arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater, and each year experiences up to 2,000 quakes that can be felt by people.

Following are some major Japanese quakes in the last 30 years:

- On Jan 16, 1995, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 hit central Japan, devastating the western port city of Kobe. The worst earthquake to hit the country in 50 years killed more than 6,400 and caused an estimated US$100 billion (S$132.96 billion) in damage.

- On Oct 23, 2004, a 6.8 magnitude quake struck the Niigata region, about 250 km north of Tokyo, killing 65 people and injuring 3,000.

- On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck northeast Japan, killing nearly 20,000 people and causing a meltdown in Fukushima, leading to the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.


- On April 16, 2016, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck in Kumamoto on the southern island of Japan, killing more than 220 people.

- On June 18, 2018, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in Osaka, Japan's second-biggest metropolis, killed four people, injured hundreds more and halted factory lines in an industrial area.

- On Sept 6, 2018, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake paralysed Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, killing at least seven people, triggering landslides and knocking out power to its 5.3 million residents.

- On Feb 13, 2021, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Fukushima in eastern Japan, injuring dozens of people and triggering widespread power outages.

- On March 16, 2022, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the coast off Fukushima again, leaving two dead and 94 injured and reviving memories of the quake and tsunami that crippled the same region just over a decade earlier.

ALSO READ: Japan in 'battle against time' to rescue New Year's Day quake survivors

Source: Reuters

Malawi Sends Workers to Israel as Critics Call for Transparency

January 04, 2024

Malawi’s government is sending young people to work on Israeli farms amid the conflict with Hamas. Critics say the program is shrouded in secrecy and has exposed unemployment issues in the country. Human rights activists say young people are willing to take opportunities abroad, despite the risks.

Scotland's critical Cold War role to be focus of major exhibition


Russell Leadbetter
Thu, 4 January 2024 

An Air Attack Panel from the Combined Operations Centre, Leuchars (Image: Image copyright National Museums of Scotland)

SCOTLAND’S critical front-line role in the Cold War – and the fears and the protests that it gave rise to – will be the subject of a major exhibition opening in Edinburgh this summer.

Some 190 objects, many on display for the first time, will be brought together by the National Museum of Scotland in ‘Cold War Scotland’, which will narrate the stories of the Scots at the centre of this global conflict.

The Herald: An anti-Polaris demonstration in the Holy Loch, February 1961

An anti-Polaris demonstration in the Holy Loch, February 1961 (Image: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy)


Atomic power brought jobs and investment to some of the country’s most remote areas, but as global tensions mounted, the threat of attack or nuclear disaster became part of everyday life. The exhibition, which opens on July 13, will “explore the visible and invisible legacies of the war in Scotland”.

'Polaris spells doom': Holy Loch protesters confronted the US navy

It will also reveal the physical remains of the Cold War - the ruined bases, forgotten bunkers and decommissioned nuclear power stations still evident across the Scottish landscape. This infrastructure became part of the fabric of local communities, particularly the US-controlled radar base at Edzell in Angus, now commemorated with its own bespoke tartan.

The exhibition will also look at the sustained CND protests against the controversial arrival in the Holy Loch in 1961 of US nuclear submarines armed with Polaris missiles.

The extent of Scotland’s role in the Cold War has been described by the prominent author and broadcaster Trevor Royle in his book, Facing the Bear: Scotland and the Cold War.

The canoe versus the submarine...the first US vessels arrive at Holy Loch 61 years ago

For much of the period, he writes, Scotland was on the front line, mainly due to its presence on NATO’s ‘northern flank’ – the waters of the north-east Atlantic and the Norwegian and Barents seas with the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap “through which Soviet nuclear-armed submarines and strategic bombers would have attacked in an outbreak of hostilities”.

Adds Royle: “That made Scotland the first major obstacle: it would have been in those northern seas and over Scottish skies that the first battles would have been fought.

“That accounted for the build-up of sophisticated anti-submarine warfare facilities and air defences in Scotland and it was from the American and British bases on the Clyde that the strategic submarines would have launched the response by way of Polaris and Poseidon missiles, each of them capable of destroying Hiroshima several times over”.

The impact of the war lingers in Scottish politics, culture and memory. Scots played an active role in the global conflict as soldiers, for example, within intelligence services and as part of voluntary civil defences.

When Polaris arrived, the key question was still unanswered

The exhibition will also draw on Scotland’s rich history of Cold War-era protest and activism. First-hand accounts include a young mother who decorated her daughter’s pram with CND badges. A rattle made from an old laundry detergent bottle emblazoned with the CND logo was given to her baby during the Peace Marches of the early 1980s and will go on display in the exhibition.

Meredith Greiling, Principal Curator of Technology at National Museums Scotland, said: “From nuclear submarines to lively peace protests and observation stations perpetually monitoring for devastating attack, the Cold War permeated every aspect of life in Scotland for decades.

“This conflict is so often remembered on a global scale, but this thought-provoking exhibition will offer a Scottish perspective of the period, allowing Scots from all walks of life to tell their remarkable stories for the first time.”

Help for Edzell

Further highlights of the exhibition include artwork from Glasgow’s 1951 Exhibition of Industrial Power and a toy nuclear power station, operated by steam and hot to the touch when played with. Both these examples highlight the spirit of optimism, progress and modernity associated with atomic energy in post-war Britain.

In contrast, a Geiger counter used by farmers in East Ayrshire to test for radiation in sheep following the Chernobyl Disaster illustrates the enduring but unseen impact of the Cold War on Scotland’s landscape.

The Herald: A anti-Trident protest rattle made from an old detergent bottle

A anti-Trident protest rattle made from an old detergent bottle (Image: Copyright National Museums of Scotland)

The exhibition is an output of Materialising the Cold War, a collaborative research project between National Museums Scotland and the University of Stirling, and funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Cold War Scotland will be at the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, from July 13, 2024 to January 26, 2025. Admission free.

New Mexico regulators reject utility’s effort to recoup some investments in coal and nuclear plants


The Four Corners Power Plant in Waterflow, N.M., near the San Juan River in northwestern New Mexico, is viewed in April 2006. Regulators have rejected an effort by New Mexico’s largest electric utility to recoup from customers millions of dollars of investments made in a coal-fired power plant in the northwestern corner of the state, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
January 3, 2024

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Regulators rejected on Wednesday an effort by New Mexico’s largest electric utility to recoup from customers millions of dollars of investments made in a coal-fired power plant in the northwestern corner of the state and a nuclear power plant in neighboring Arizona.

The Public Regulation Commission’s decision means Public Service Co. of New Mexico customers will not have to bear some costs associated with PNM’s stake in the Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington or in the Palo Verde Generating Station outside of Phoenix. Commissioners said those investments were not prudent.

Overall, residential customers will see a decrease in rates instead of the 9.7% increase that the utility was seeking.

The commission said in a statement that PNM still will be able to collect a reasonable return on its investments while providing reliable service to more than 500,000 customers around the state.


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PNM filed a request for its first rate hike in years in late 2022, saying the nearly $64 million in additional revenue was needed as part of a long-term plan to recoup $2.6 billion in investments necessary to modernize the grid and meet state mandates for transitioning away from coal and natural gas.

The utility also had cited the expiration of lease agreements for electricity from the Palo Verde plant and the desire to refinance debt to take advantage of lower interest rates.

Hearing examiners with the Public Regulation Commission who reviewed the case recommended in December that the commission reject costs associated with the sale of leases at Palo Verde to a third party. They also said PNM’s 2016 decision to invest in extending the life of the Four Corners plant wasn’t prudent.

PNM officials said late Wednesday that they were reviewing the commission’s order. The utility has until Feb. 2 to seek a rehearing before the commission.

Consumer advocates and environmental groups were pleased the commission opted to reject some of the costs associated with PNM’s investments.

“The commission recognized that PNM failed to do its due diligence before reinvesting in Four Corners after 2016, when there were clear signs that coal is a costly and deadly fuel,” said Matthew Gerhart, a senior attorney with Sierra Club.

The utility had tried to divest itself from Four Corners by transferring its shares to a Navajo energy company. However, regulators rejected that proposal, a decision that was later upheld by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Located on the Navajo Nation, the Four Corners plant is operated by Arizona Public Service Co. The utility owns a majority of shares in the plant’s two remaining units.

Navajo Transitional Energy Co. had sought to take over PNM’s shares, saying that preventing an early closure of the power plant would help soften the economic blow to communities that have long relied on tax revenue and jobs tied to coal-fired generation.

The nearby San Juan Generating Station was shuttered in 2022, sending financial ripples through the surrounding communities. PNM had operated that plant for decades.

Proposed merger of New Mexico, Connecticut energy companies ends; deal valued at more than $4.3B

Officials with New Mexico’s largest electric utility say a proposed multibillion-dollar merger with a U.S. subsidiary of global energy giant Iberdrola has ended

Via AP news wire
2 days ago

Officials with New Mexico’s largest electric utility said Tuesday that a proposed multibillion-dollar merger with a U.S. subsidiary of global energy giant Iberdrola has ended.

Under the proposal, Connecticut-based Avangrid would have acquired PNM Resources and its two utilities — Public Service Co. of New Mexico and Texas New Mexico Power.

The all-cash transaction was valued at more than $4.3 billion and would have opened the door for Iberdrola and Avangrid in a state where more wind and solar power could be generated and exported to larger markets.

“We are greatly disappointed with Avangrid’s decision to terminate the merger agreement and its proposed benefits to our customers and communities,” PNM president and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn said in a statement.

PNM officials previously said the proposed multimillion-dollar merger with Avangrid would have helped create jobs, serve utility customers and boost energy efficiency projects in New Mexico.

They said being backed by Avangrid and Iberdrola would provide the New Mexico utility greater purchasing power and help move it closer to its carbon-free goals.

The multimillion merger plan was originally crafted in 2020.

Last January, PNM Resources filed a notice of appeal with the New Mexico Supreme Court after regulators rejected the proposed merger. The court heard oral arguments last fall but has yet to issue a ruling.

Officials with Avangrid, which owns New York State Electric & Gas and other utilities in the Northeast, said Tuesday that there is no clear timing on the resolution of the court battle in New Mexico nor any subsequent regulatory actions.

The Public Regulation Commission had said it was concerned about Avangrid’s reliability and customer service track record in other states where it operates.

The elected commissioners also pointed to the company initially withholding information during the lengthy proceeding, a move that resulted in a $10,000 penalty.

Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy and a critic of the proposed merger, said Tuesday that Avangrid and Iberdrola’s customer service record and attitude toward regulatory oversight caused New Mexico regulators to reject the proposal.

“Their continuing failure to properly serve their customers is proof positive that the PRC made the right call,” she said, adding that New Mexico escaped a multinational corporate takeover of what she described as an essential piece of infrastructure for the rural state.

Arab League, US condemn Ethiopia-Somaliland Red Sea deal

Cairo-based League says the deal, which gives Addis Ababa long-sought access to Red Sea, "threatens" territorial integrity of Somalia.


Somali people march against the Ethiopia-Somaliland port deal, in Mogadishu 

/ Photo: Reuters


The Arab League and the United States have rejected a Red Sea access deal between Ethiopia and Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland, saying the pact violates Somalia's sovereignty.

The League "rejects and condemns any memorandums of understanding that violate Somalia’s sovereignty or attempts to benefit from the fragility of the Somali internal situation and faltering Somali negotiations," the Cairo-based group said in a statement on Wednesday.

It warned against exploiting conditions "to extract part of Somali territory in violation of the rules and principles of international law, and in a way that threatens the territorial integrity of Somalia as a whole."

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on Monday between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, giving Ethiopia access to Red Sea ports.

Abiy's office hailed the pact as "historic" and said it is "intended to serve as a framework for the multi-sectoral partnership between the two sides."

But Somalia rejected Ethiopia's Red Sea port deal with Somaliland on Tuesday and called the agreement a threat to good neighbourliness and a violation of its sovereignty.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called his Egyptian counterpart late on Tuesday in the wake of the tensions between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa concerning the deal.

US says no recognition for breakaway Somaliland

The United States rejected international recognition for breakaway Somaliland and called for calm after the region's leaders signed a deal with Ethiopia.

"The United States recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia within its 1960 borders," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

"We join other partners in expressing our serious concern," he said, "about the resulting spike in tensions in the Horn of Africa."

"We urge all stakeholders to engage in diplomatic dialogue," he said.

Somaliland, a former British protectorate of about 4.5 million people, declared independence from Somalia in 1991, a move not recognised internationally and staunchly opposed by Mogadishu.

Somaliland President Abdi, who signed the deal with Ethiopian PM Abiy, said that in return for providing sea access, Ethiopia would "formally recognise" Somaliland.

The Ethiopian government has not confirmed that it would recognise Somaliland. Somalia has withdrawn its ambassador from Addis Ababa and vowed to defend its sovereignty.

But Somalia has been in near constant chaos the past three decades. Somaliland has been seen as offering an oasis of stability, although it has failed to achieve international recognition.

Ethiopia was cut off from the coast after Eritrea seceded and declared independence in 1993 following a three-decade war, forcing Africa's second-most populous nation to channel commerce through an expensive arrangement with Djibouti.

NAKBA II

Israeli defence chief's post-war plan does not say if displaced Gazans may return home

IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING


Issued on: 05/01/2024 - 

03:02
Video by :Andrew HILLIAR

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant's plan for the administration of the Gaza Strip after the conclusion of the Israel-Hamas war, which he submitted to the press on Thursday, says that Palestinian organisations should run the territory, but does not specifiy which. The plan also doesn't mention whether Gaza residents who left their homes in the north of the enclave to find temporary refuge in the south will be able to return. FRANCE 24's Andrew Hilliar reports from Tel Aviv.

 

Israeli calls for Gaza’s ethnic cleansing are only getting louder

Columnist
January 5, 2024 

Nearly three months of war have left Gaza in ruins. Israel’s quest to eradicate militant group Hamas after it carried out its deadly Oct. 7 attack looks far from finished, no matter the skyrocketing death toll for Palestinians. More than 20,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardments and the ongoing offensive. A sprawling humanitarian crisis has seen close to 90 percent of Gazans displaced and the majority of the embattled territory’s more than 2 million population teetering on the brink of famine.

“I’ve been to all kinds of conflicts and all kinds of crises,” Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.’s World Food Program, told the New Yorker this week. “In my life, I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of severity, in terms of scale, and then in terms of speed.”


The human misery unfurling across Gaza finds little sympathy in the Israeli public discourse, where the priority remains the vanquishing of Hamas — perpetrators of the single bloodiest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the freeing of hostages held in Hamas’s Gazan redoubts. Indeed, a steady drumbeat of sound bites from Israeli lawmakers and other politicos has urged an even more devastating fate for the territory.

As Gazans return to destroyed homes, Israeli ministers push resettlement

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have called for the dropping of a nuclear bomb on densely-populated Gaza, the total annihilation of the territory as a mark of retribution, and the immiseration of its people to the point that they have no choice but to abandon their homeland.

This week alone, a parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s Likud party went on television and said it was clear to most Israelis that “all the Gazans need to be destroyed.” Then, Israel’s ambassador in Britain told local radio that there was no other solution for her country than to level “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to degrade Hamas’s military infrastructure.

This accumulating rhetoric forms part of the 84-page application filed by the government of South Africa at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of actions that amount to genocide or failure to prevent genocide. Though it condemns Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, the South African case argues “no armed attack on a State’s territory no matter how serious — even an attack involving atrocity crimes — can … provide any possible justification for, or defense to, breaches” of the Genocide Convention. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, it explains, has already “laid waste to vast areas of Gaza, including entire neighborhoods, and has damaged or destroyed in excess of 355,000 Palestinian homes,” rendering swaths of the territory uninhabitable for a long period of time to come. Israeli authorities, claimed the South African complaint, have failed to suppress “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” from a host of Israeli politicians, journalists and public officials.

That includes far-right figures like finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who do little to hide their vision of an ethnically-cleansed Gaza. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Smotrich said in an interview Sunday with Israeli Army Radio. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different.” Ben Gvir separately called for the de facto forced migration of hundreds of thousands out of Gaza.

U.S. and other Western officials condemned these statements as “inflammatory and irresponsible.” But such pushback is doing little to change the tone of the conflict. Netanyahu himself, according to my colleagues, tried to cajole Egypt and other Arab governments and states elsewhere into taking Gazan refugees — a non-starter for many in the Middle East, who fear further Palestinian dispossession of their lands.

Tensions in the Middle East are rising beyond Israel. Here’s where.

Israeli calls for de facto ethnic cleansing and potential Israeli settlement of Gaza may not reflect the actual position of Israel’s wartime cabinet. “In private, Israeli officials say the proposals [to relocate Gazans] stem from the political imperatives of Netanyahu’s coalition and his dependence on far-right parties to maintain power,” my colleagues reported.

“The professionals in the military and the security establishment know this is not even in the realm of possibility,” a person directly familiar with conversations inside the Israeli government told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “They know there is no future without Gazans in Gaza and the [Palestinian Authority] as part of the government.”

Palestinians are reflected on a damaged TV screen while searching the rubble of a building following Israeli bombardment in Rafah on Dec. 26. (Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

But Netanyahu and his allies remain conspicuously vague about their imagined endgame for Gaza. That uncertainty, analysts contend, only deepens concerns about Israel’s intent among its Arab neighbors, including Gulf monarchies that were warming to the Jewish state.

“Nobody is going to take the steps that would precede new normalization agreements when Netanyahu is rebuffing Arab states demands on a two-state political process and also insisting that they should fund Gaza reconstruction with no questions asked or strings attached,” wrote Michael Koplow and David Halperin of the Israel Policy Forum.

“Iran and its proxies are not going to be deterred when visiting high-ranking U.S. officials repeatedly lay out their vision for a postwar Gaza and Israeli cabinet members fall over each other in their rush to the television studios to offer public rebuttals,” they added, arguing that it was vital for the Biden administration to push the Israelis to face up to these realities.

Meanwhile, a group of prominent Israelis, including former lawmakers, top scientists and intellectuals, wrote a joint letter Wednesday condemning Israel’s judicial authorities for not reining in the genocidal rhetoric widely on show. “For the first time that we can remember, the explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes, as stated, against millions of civilians have turned into a legitimate and regular part of Israeli discourse,” they wrote. “Today, calls of these types are an everyday matter in Israel.”



By Ishaan TharoorIshaan Tharoor is a foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post, where he authors the Today's WorldView newsletter and column. In 2021, he won the Arthur Ross Media Award in Commentary from the American Academy of Diplomacy. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York. Twitter