KURDISTAN

Paris rally: ‘Lift the state secret on massacres, free Abdullah Öcalan, delist the PKK’

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Paris against the massacres of 9 January 2013 and 22 December 2022, demanding the lifting of the state secret order on the investigation information and the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan.

ANF
PARIS
Saturday, 6 Jan 2024, 19:02
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Tens of thousands of people gathered in Gare du Nord Square against the Paris massacres and marched to Republique square in Paris today to demand justice for the PKK founding member Sakine Cansız (Sara), Fîdan Doğan (Rojbîn) and Leyla Şaylemez (Ronahî), who were murdered by the Turkish state in Paris on 9 January 2013, and for the three victims of the second Paris massacre, which claimed the lives of Emine Kara (Evîn Goyî), Mîr Perwer and Abdurrahman Kızıl on 23 December 2022.

Speakers addressing the crowd in Republique Square at a rally after the march demanded the lifting of the state secret order on the massacre cases, the removal of the PKK from the list of terrorist organisations and the freedom of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan.

TJK-E Spokesperson Ayten Kaplan thanked the participants of the march and rally and pointed out that those who ordered the massacre were protected. Kaplan said, "You did not accept France keeping this case in the dark. We appeal to the French state, we want justice to be done finally in this case. This massacre cannot remain in the dark. The killers are clear. Those who gave the instruction are clear. France must hold those responsible to account. Dirty games, dirty negotiations, dirty politics are being conducted. There are negotiations over the genocide of Kurds. These plans are being carried out by keeping Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish people, on Imrali Island. We will not stop. Our search for justice will continue. We will be on the streets. We will march until the end by claiming the legacy of the martyrs, and we will say justice until the end. Jin Jiyan Azadi!"

After Ayten Kaplan's speech, Hélène Bidard, a senator from the Communist Party of France, took the stage with the senators and addressed the crowd, stating: "The three women killed in the massacre represented three different generations. The massacre was carried out by Turkish intelligence. We want light to be shed on this incident. These women were feminists and were fighting for all women. 10 years later, three more Kurds were murdered in Paris. Evîn Goyî fought against ISIS. She was murdered in Paris just like her friends martyred 10 years ago. I would like to commemorate Jina Amini here. She fought for the Kurdish women's feminist struggle and for the women of the world. On behalf of the French Communist Party, I call for the lifting of state secrecy. We want the Anti-Terrorism Court to deal with the matter. The French state is protecting the criminals in the massacre. France must clarify its position for the freedom of Kurdistan. On behalf of the FKP, I also call on the European Union to implement the judgments of the ECtHR. France must protect the Kurds in the country. We are with you against the dark forces".

İbrahim Bilen, speaking on behalf of the families of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, Leyla Şaylemez, Evin Goyi, Mir Perwer and Abdurrahman Kızıl, said: "We bow with respect in front of all our martyrs. If we can speak our language freely today, it is thanks to our martyrs, Leader Öcalan and those who resisted on the war front. We are here thanks to those who fought for this cause. Claim your martyrs. We are here thanks to our leader. We will not step back. We exist, we will exist. We are bigger than dungeons and chemical weapons.”

After the speech on behalf of the families of martyrs, Evin Goyi's little nephew Meles Bilen sang a song dedicated to all the martyrs of Paris.

Pascal Torre, co-chair of the Coordination Nationale Solidarité Kurdistan (CNSK), emphasised in his speech that the massacres cannot be brought to light until the state secret order on the case files is lifted. Torre said: "Those who were martyred in the massacre were murdered by Turkish intelligence. For 11 years, the CNSK has been with the CDK-F. We are in solidarity with them. However, no steps have been taken to shed light on the massacre because of the 'state secret' decision. Erdoğan is responsible for the massacre, the embassy is guilty. A crime has been committed against the Kurds. Why didn't the French state lift the state secret? The French state works in harmony with Turkish intelligence.

We want those who planned the massacre to be brought to justice. We condemn the Turkish state. We must work for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. The PKK must be removed from the terrorist list. We condemn the bombing of Shengal by the Turkish state. France should support the Kurds.

Know that we will stand with you as the French committee of solidarity with Kurdistan. Long live the solidarity of peoples."

KCDK-E Co-President Zübeyde Zümrüt stated the following: "I bow with respect to the martyrs of the revolution in the person of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, Mîr Perwer and Evîn Goyî. As a Kurdish woman, I am grateful for their legacy. 11 years ago, Sakine Cansız, the pioneer of the Kurdish society, Leyla Şaylemez, the youth pioneer, and Fidan Doğan, a diplomat of the Kurdish people, were targeted. Kurdish women were targeted. For the second time in 10 years, we were murdered. We know our killers. The Kurdish people handed over those who played a role in both massacres to France. But the French state did not shed light on the massacre. We will not give up the search for justice. We will increase our struggle as much as our hatred. The French state closed its eyes. It swept the files under the carpet with state secrets. We will remove these secrets through people's struggle. We will be in action until we liberate Leader Öcalan."

Speaking after, KCDK-E Co-Chair Engin Sever said that the strongest response to the massacre would be the freedom of the Kurdish people's leader: “We have been massacred in Paris twice in 10 years. They wanted to keep the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle down. Leader Öcalan gave the greatest answer to them with the liberation of Rojava. In response to the second massacre, we will give the strongest response by liberating Leader Öcalan in 2024. These massacres were carried out by the Turkish state. The French state also has a hand. Both states are NATO members; it seems that there is a NATO finger in it. France is an EU member, there is an EU finger. Therefore, we must turn every area in Europe into a site of resistance.”

Mathilde Panot of the French Non-Submission Movement said in her speech: "I am a member of the Paris parliamentary group. The parliamentarians of our party are with us. Justice and truth have still not emerged. The Anti-Terrorism Court must be involved in this attack. We want to learn the details of this investigation. We support your struggle. We appeal to the French government. Lift state secrecy! We don't want people to be slaughtered in this city. We do not want this regime to commit massacres in Paris or elsewhere. The Kurdish people fought ISIS for the sake of all humanity. That is why every Kurd needs to be protected in this country. The Turkish state is using blackmail. We demand the release of political prisoners in Turkish prisons. We condemn the Turkish state’s bombing of Rojava, where a democratic, ecological, women's libertarian system is being formed there. Our struggle for justice and truth will continue."

Senator Remi Féraud, speaking on behalf of the municipality of Paris, also called for the lifting of the state secrecy on the massacre cases and stated: "I speak on behalf of the municipality of the 10th district of Paris and the municipality of Paris. I commemorate Sara, Rojbin, Ronahi once again. The state secrecy on the massacre cases must be lifted. These are political massacres committed in the centre of Paris. On behalf of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, I say that we do not want such massacres to happen in Paris. This should be labeled as a terrorist attack and an Anti-Terrorism Court should hear the case. We are in solidarity with Rojava and we are with the Kurdish people. We stand with all Kurds in the struggle for the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. We are fighting for justice and for the truth to be revealed."

KCK Executive Council member Zübeyir Aydar emphasised that the French state did not conduct an effective investigation into the massacre cases: "We are in search of justice. Last year, 3 more Kurds were massacred here. 11 years have passed but justice has not been done yet. This case has been covered up until now. The French state has not taken a positive step in this matter. It did not carry out an investigation. It was MIT that carried out this massacre. There are voice recordings, there is evidence; but still no case has been opened against the Turkish State. Once again, we do not accept it. We appeal to the French state. You are also responsible. Kurds will follow their cases. We will follow these cases."

Aydar further spoke about the isolation of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, the "Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, a Political Solution to the Kurdish Question" campaign initiated worldwide on 10 October, the hunger strikes started in Turkish prisons and the guerrilla resistance against the Turkish state attacks in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

"We are going through a very important process. We have not heard anything from Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of our movement and our people, for 34 months. No one is allowed to meet with him, neither his family, nor his lawyers, or anyone else. Our friends started a campaign on 10 October for freedom for Öcalan and a solution to the Kurdish question. We call on our people to embrace this campaign because the freedom of Leader Öcalan and the freedom of the Kurdish people are interconnected. On the other hand, thousands of prisoners are on hunger strike for over 40 days. We must take our place in this process. We must fulfil our duty towards the prisoners in Iran and Turkey. I salute them. In addition, let the friend and foe know that the caravan of freedom is marching. The caravan of freedom that set out 50 years ago is today marching to freedom in the north, south, east and west. That is why thousands of Kurdish youths are fighting in the mountains of Kurdistan in these cold days to protect the values of our people.”

Speaking on behalf of the National Women's Movement, Suzy Rothman stated the following: “In the first massacre which took place in 2013, and the second in 2022, we know that the Kurdish women's movement was targeted in Paris because the target was Kurdish women pioneers. These women were exiled to France because they struggled against the mentality of power, and they were murdered here. The Kurdish women's movement is a feminist movement, and we take to the streets together on 25 November and 8 March, fighting for the women of the world. We must show solidarity for the realisation of the democratic society project developed in Rojava. Our struggle is up-to-date. And we want the truth to be revealed. We want light to be shed on the massacres. We are with you for truth and justice."

Jean Christophe Sellin, National Coordinator of the Left Party, then took the floor and said: "For truth and justice, we demand the lifting of state secrecy on these cases. We support the YPG and YPJ fighters in Rojava. We are with you against the Paris massacres. We want the PKK to be removed from the terror list. We will continue our struggle for truth and justice.

We want the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan, Apo. And we believe that only Öcalan can develop a solution for the Kurdish people. The PKK and Kurdish parties are developing their project for democracy and ecological life. AKP is against this. We are with the Kurds in Rojava and with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Macron should lift the state secrecy on the case files and shed light on the Paris massacres. He should host the families of martyrs and do what is necessary.”

Oliver Besancenot, spokesperson of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, stated: "We must put pressure on the French state so that the state secret on the massacres is lifted. We send our greetings to the families of the martyrs. We stand with the Kurdish people. We are inspired by the project of democratic confederalism. We must fight together. Right-wing fascist governments are developing everywhere, in France too. These governments are not against Erdogan. France must do what is necessary to remove the PKK from the list of terrorist organisations. Political prisoners in Turkey and Öcalan must be released."

After the speeches, the message sent by the KJK Coordination was read to the participants, after which Denis Gravouil from the CGT union took the floor and said: “On behalf of the CGT union, we see very well that Kurdish people were murdered twice in Paris. These 6 people were murdered because they defended the Kurdish cause. We know that a fascist was responsible for the 2nd massacre, but he was used for other purposes. For this reason, the state secret on the massacres should be lifted and the Anti-Terrorism Court should hear the cases. The communes of the Kurdish people must be protected and those responsible must be put on trial. As CGT we want to show our solidarity. We demand truth and justice."

Jerome Gleizes, a member of the Paris Council for the Ecologists, said: "11 years ago Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, Leyla Şaylemez were murdered in Paris. A year ago, Evîn Goyî, Mîr Perwer, Abdurrahman Kızıl were murdered in Paris. We want you to know that ecologists are on the side of the Kurds. Erdoğan's Turkey is behind these massacres. Courts must be functional for truth and justice to emerge. Ecologists are with the Kurds. The Treaty of Lausanne, which has just marked its hundredth year, is a betrayal of the Kurds. There can be no solution without recognizing Kurdish rights. I believe that in the future we will find realistic justice."

René le Mignot called for a dialog with Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question. "Leyla Şaylemez was fighting for Kurdish youth. Fidan Doğan was conducting diplomacy for the Kurdish people. Sakine Cansız was a founder of the PKK and was fighting for the freedom of her people. That is why they were murdered. We have been calling for truth on this massacre for 11 years. All the evidence shows that the Turkish state is involved. Why wasn't the killer ever tried? If the killer was sick, why wasn't he out on trial earlier? We know that Erdoğan and the Turkish Embassy are behind this massacre. We reiterate our call upon the French state to lift the state secret on the massacre file. Because 10 years later another massacre was committed at a time when 60 Kurdish women activists were set to gather at the CDK-F. This attack was not a racist, but a terrorist attack. The Turkish state's war continues in a similar way in Rojava, Iraq and Iran. We know what the Kurdish people's leader is fighting for in the Middle East. Abdullah Öcalan, Kurdish politicians, and Selahattin Demirtaş must be released. We want the PKK to be removed from the list of terrorist organizations. As stated in the human rights convention, when the state attacks people, the people have the right to defend themselves. For a democratic solution to the Kurdish question, there must be dialogue between Abdullah Öcalan and the state,” said René le Mignot and ended her speech with a victory sign.

Lila Ayahalaa, on behalf of the Union Communiste Libertarie (Libertarian Communist Union-UCL), also called for the lifting of state secrecy on the massacre cases. In her speech, Lila Ayahalaa said: "Comrades, our organization stands with you today. The state secret on the 2013 attack must be lifted for the truth to be revealed. It is a political attack against the Kurdish people, against the peoples of Kurdistan. The strategy of the occupying Turkish state is the same. It attacks the Kurdish people everywhere. The enemies of women know very well that women's struggle brings revolution. Democratic confederalism inspires peoples all over the world. The PKK is waging a struggle of self-defense against fascism. Therefore, Abdullah Öcalan must be released. Revolution is universal."

The rally ended with a concert by TEV-ÇAND artists.

ECOCIDE

World War II-era munitions discovered in underwater dump sites off LA

By Angela Barbuti
Published Jan. 6, 2024

Marine researchers in California discovered World War II-era munitions, such as anti-submarine weapons and smoke device, in underwater dump sites.Getty Images/iStockphoto

They were a true blast from the past.

World War II-era munitions, such as anti-submarine weapons and smoke devices, were discovered in underwater dump sites off the Los Angeles coast, marine researchers announced Friday.

The munitions were first found through a survey of the areas by deep-water vehicles with sonar and video cameras on board back in April, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, which led the survey, explained via email.

The region was known for being a government-approved industrial and chemical waste dumping ground from the 1930s until 1972, when the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, also known as the Ocean Dumping Act, was enacted.

In 2021, a Scripps sonar survey using underwater drones located over 25,000 “barrel-like objects” on the sea floor off the Southern California coast near Catalina Island.

The objects may have contained DDT, an insecticide that was banned in 1972, and other toxic chemicals, which were found in marine mammals in the region, and linked to cancer in sea lions.

A Navy review will determine “the best path forward to ensure that the risk to human health and the environment is managed appropriately,” the military branch said.

With Post wires

AND THEN IT GETS EVEN WORSE 

Massive dumping ground of WWII-era munitions discovered off Los Angeles coast

Using advanced robotics and an underwater camera, scientists recently discovered World War-II era munitions littered across the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles. 

(UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

BY ROSANNA XIA

STAFF WRITER 

LA TIMES

JAN. 5, 2024

It’s not just toxic chemical waste and mysterious barrels that litter the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles. Oceanographers have now discovered what appears to be a massive dumping ground of military weaponry.

As part of an unprecedented effort to map and better understand the history of ocean dumping in the region, scientists have found a multitude of discarded munition boxes, smoke floats and depth charges lurking 3,000 feet underwater. Most appear to be from the World War II era, and it remains unclear what risk they might pose to the environment.

“We started to find the same objects by the dozens, if not hundreds, consistently… It actually took a few days to really understand what we were seeing on the seabed,” said Eric Terrill, who co-led the deep-ocean survey with Sophia Merrifield at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Who knew that right in our backyard, the more you look, the more you find.”

Scripps researchers were able to group most of the military waste that they found underwater into four general categories: munition boxes, smoke floats, and two types of WWII-era depth charges.
(UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

Among the munitions documented were Hedgehog and Mark 9 depth charges — explosives that were typically dropped from warships to attack submarines. Researchers also identified Mark 1 smoke floats — chemical smoke munitions that were dropped by ships to mark locations or to conceal their movements.

These findings, made public Friday, build on a stunning 2021 underwater sonar survey that identified tens of thousands of barrel-like objects between Los Angeles and Catalina Island. Merrifield and Terrill’s research team, assisted by a rare partnership with the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage, set sail again last year — this time with even more advanced sonar technology, as well as a high-definition deep-sea camera that sought to visually identify as many objects as possible.

Discarding military waste at sea was not uncommon in decades past, but this once-forgotten history of ocean dumping continues to haunt our environment today. (A WWII-era practice bomb, in fact, washed ashore just last week in Santa Cruz County after a particularly high tide.)

The U.S. Navy has confirmed that what the Scripps team discovered “are likely a result of World War II-era disposal practices” and noted in a statement that “disposal of munitions at sea at this location was approved at that time to ensure safe disposal when naval vessels returned to U.S. port.” Officials are now reviewing the latest Scripps findings and “determining the best path forward to ensure that the risk to human health and the environment is managed appropriately.”



Here’s what we know about the legacy of DDT dumping off L.A.’s coast
DDT was banned 50 years ago, but its toxic legacy continues to affect the California marine ecosystem and threaten various animal species.
Jan. 5, 2024

Public interest in the legacy of ocean-dumping in Southern California has intensified since the Los Angeles Times reported that as many as half a million barrels of DDT acid waste had been unaccounted for in the deep ocean, according to old shipping logs and a UC Santa Barbara study that provided the first real glimpse into how the Los Angeles coast became an industrial dumping ground.

Dozens of marine scientists and ecotoxicologists have since convened regularly to discuss the data gaps in our understanding of DDT, a pesticide (banned in 1972) that was largely manufactured in Los Angeles and was so powerful it poisoned birds and fish. Congress — at the urging of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — allocated more than $11 million to work on the issue, and Gov. Gavin Newsom also boosted further research with an additional $5.6 million.

In another recent plot twist, an exhaustive historical investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the pesticide waste had not actually been contained in barrels — rather, the chemicals were poured straight into the ocean from massive tank barges. In the process of digging up old records, the EPA also discovered that from the 1930s to the early 1970s, 13 other areas off the Southern California coast had also been approved for dumping of military explosives, radioactive waste and various refinery byproducts — including 3 million metric tons of petroleum waste.


History of DDT ocean dumping off L.A. coast even worse than expected, EPA finds
Aug. 4, 2022

“When the deepwater dumping was first uncovered in more detail by the team at UC Santa Barbara, the response was, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is the tip of the iceberg.’ And now we’re seeing just how big this iceberg is — we still don’t even know how big it is,” said Mark Gold, an environmental scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who has worked on the DDT problem since the 1990s.

“What’s scary — as if we needed it to be more scary — is that we’re now up to more than 100 square miles of contamination from this dumpsite, with high DDT concentrations at depths that nobody’s even ever looked before, and now we’re seeing all the other stuff that was dumped as well,” he said. “And it’s only what we see, from the standpoint of big munitions, as opposed to: How do we know there weren’t other chemicals that were dumped by the Department of Defense?”

David Valentine, the UC Santa Barbara scientist whose marine research team first came across dozens of eerie-looking barrels, also emphasized that the less-visible pollution is more cause for concern. The legacy of DDT contamination is still haunting sea lions and dolphins in mysterious ways, and fellow researchers have traced high concentrations of the forever chemical all the way up the marine food chain to critically endangered condors.


Scientists uncover startling concentrations of pure DDT along seafloor off L.A. coast
March 23, 2023

“We can’t lose sight of the 500-pound gorilla down there, which is the massive amounts of chemical waste that was dumped and spread all over the place,” said Valentine, who noted that the contents of the barrels his team discovered remain a mystery.

“Now that we know that the military had their thing going on, and that the chemical dumping was being bulk dumped, it really begs the question: So what else could have required being contained in these barrels?” he said.

Valentine, who has also been working with a number of scientists to piece together how DDT might be remobilizing from the seafloor, added that the latest high-resolution imaging from Scripps is instrumental in helping the entire research community understand what the seafloor actually looks like.

The deepest parts of the seafloor between Los Angeles and Catalina Island, in fact, had never been mapped before in this way. Locating specific objects across such a wide swath of seafloor has been likened to searching for the smallest needles in the largest haystack.

On the most recent expedition, a crew of nine Scripps researchers and 10 specialists from the Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage scanned the seafloor for more than 300 hours — capturing as many images as possible with high-resolution technology not typically available to scientists.

Patterns started to emerge. Object after object came into view, and the scientists found themselves processing and interpreting an overwhelming amount of data in live time.

Terrill, an oceanographer who also specializes in scouring the deep sea for downed military aircraft as a co-founder of the nonprofit Project Recover, tapped an underwater archaeologist on his team to help identify the vintage military debris.

Using an advanced deep-sea camera, Scripps researchers found numerous World War-II era munition boxes on the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles.
(UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

Another surprise for researchers was the discovery of scores of whale skeletons and carcasses, known as whale falls. Advanced sonar readings pinpointed potentially more than 60 whale falls, and researchers were able to visually confirm seven with their camera system.

Craig Smith, a professor emeritus of oceanography at the University of Hawaii who has dedicated much of his life to studying whale falls, noted that this finding is particularly groundbreaking in his field. Across the entire world, only about 50 naturally occurring whale falls have ever been identified, so locating 60 more off the coast of Los Angeles alone essentially doubles the number of known whale falls.

Many questions remain on why there appears to be such a high concentration of dead whales slowly decomposing off the coast of Southern California. Smith and his colleagues are eager to study this further.

In a recent underwater survey, researchers also came across numerous sunken whale carcasses, known as whale falls.
(UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

“When we do population-level calculations, we estimate there may be on the order of 600,000 or more whale falls in the global ocean. But they fall more or less randomly, so they’re hard to find,” said Smith, who noted that whale falls become fascinating yet elusive ecosystems for deep-sea critters.

Merrifield, the physical oceanographer who co-led the Scripps expedition, noted there remains an immense amount of new data to refine and analyze. Her team was able to capture high-resolution images of different seafloor textures, for example, as well as mounds that might indicate small burrowing animals that could stir up any chemicals half-buried in the sediment.

“New technologies are really changing the way we look at the seafloor, and there’s interdisciplinary problems from microbiology and remediation, to chemistry, to geology, to physical oceanography and transport that require all sorts of specialists to come together,” she said. “I hope the takeaway here is that maybe we didn’t find what we thought we were going to find, but we found a lot of really important objects and insights that will hopefully lead to really good scientific outcomes for the community.”

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENTCALIFORNIA

Rosanna Xia is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her first book, “California Against the Sea,” examines the future of our vanishing coastline in the face of rising water.

France Reports Record Number of Corporate Bankruptcies

TEHRAN (FNA)- More than 55,000 businesses were shut down in France in 2023, marking a record high for company closures since 2017, according to the data, compiled at the close of December by the Bank of France.

The statistics released by the regulator on Saturday shows that 55,492 companies, on average, faced bankruptcy or liquidation over the past 12 months, RT reported.

Although the recorded surge in closures was significant, the Bank of France noted that the level is still below the average annual bankruptcy filings of 59,342 scored between 2010 and 2019. The pandemic years saw a considerably lower number of companies going out of business, almost half of the current figures.

According to the report, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were bearing the brunt of the closures in 2023. Businesses, employing up to 250 people, accounted for vast majority of the total, with 55,435 closures.

Meanwhile, medium and large firms with over 250 employees, also saw an increase in closures, the regulator noted, adding that their numbers reached 57, doubling from 2022.

The negative trend became the most notable in the restaurant and hotel business, where the number of busts surged 44.6% year-on-year, while the sector of information and communication technologies saw an increase of 44.4%.

The country’s agricultural sector was the only one recording a drop of 1.3% in the number of bankruptcy filings.

In December, the Financial Times reported that the number of corporate bankruptcies across the world exceeded levels reached during the 2008 global financial crisis.

Analysts attribute the surge to higher key rates, as well as self-liquidation of so-called ‘zombie firms,’ which had pulled through the COVID era only thanks to government support.

WAIT, WHO?!

Ex-NRA official reaches settlement ahead of New York corruption trial

Mr Powell was ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution

Kelly Rissman

Just days before the corruption trial involving NRA leaders was set to begin, a former executive agreed to a $100,000 settlement with the New YorkAttorney General’s office.

Joshua Powell, the organisation’s ex-Executive Director of Operations, has admitted to the “claims of wrongdoing” brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James in her 2020 civil corruption suit. The trial is slated to begin on 8 January.

As part of the settlement, Mr Powell admitted misusing the nonprofit’s funds. He was ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution.

“Powell breached his fiduciary duties and failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care by…using his powers as an officer and senior executive of the NRA to convert charitable assets for his own benefit and for the benefit of his family members,” the stipulation of settlement filing states.

“Joshua Powell’s admission of wrongdoing and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation confirm what we have alleged for years: the NRA and its senior leaders are financially corrupt,” Ms James said in a statement.

“More than three years ago, my office sued the NRA and its senior management for decades of financial abuse and mismanagement. These are important victories in our case, and we look forward to ensuring the NRA and the defendants face justice for their actions,” she added.

The AG’s office wrote that as a nonprofit, the NRA “has legal obligations to use its funds for charitable purposes, not to support the lavish lifestyles of senior management and organization insiders.”

Mr Powell also served as the chief of staff for Wayne LaPierre, who served as the organisation’s CEO and executive vice president since 1991. Mr LaPierre announced last week that he was stepping down from his position, citing “health reasons.”

The lawsuit claims Mr LaPierre “routinely abused his authority,” accusing him of funnelling NRA funds for his own personal travel and luxurious gifts.

Following the announcement of his departure, Ms James said, “LaPierre’s resignation validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him or the NRA from accountability.”

Other members of the NRA’s leadership team are still set to stand trial. The other two defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit accuses Mr LaPierre of having “handpicked” certain employees “to faciliate his misuse of charitable assets

Ms James is seeking to dissolve the NRA, declaring that the nonprofit “has abused its powers” and that its leaders have “looted” the group’s charitable funds, removing Mr LaPierre from his position, and barring other defendants from serving in leadership positions in other nonprofit organisations in the state.

Myanmar confirms a key northeastern city on border with China has been seized by an ethnic alliance

This photo provided by Kyaw Ko Lin shows a view of Laukkaing city in Shan state, Myanmar, Nov. 20, 2023. An alliance of ethnic armed groups in northeastern Myanmar has reportedly achieved one of the main goals it set when … more >

By Grant Peck - Associated Press - Saturday, January 6, 2024


BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military government has acknowledged that it withdrew its forces from a key city on the northeastern border with China after it was taken over by an alliance of ethnic armed groups it has been battling for months.

The fall of Laukkaing late Thursday is the biggest in a series of defeats suffered by Myanmar’s military government since the ethnic alliance launched an offensive Oct. 27. It underlines the pressure the government is under as it battles pro-democracy guerrillas in the wake of a 2021 military takeover as well as ethnic minority armed groups across the country.

Ethnic armed organizations have battled for greater autonomy for decades, but Myanmar has been wracked by what amounts to civil war since the army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking nationwide armed resistance by pro-democracy forces.

Laukkaing is the capital of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone, which is geographically part of northern Shan state in Myanmar.

Myanmar government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told the Popular News Journal, a pro-army website, on Saturday that the military and its local commanders relinquished control of Laukkaing after considering many aspects, including the safety of the family members of the soldiers stationed there.


He said the military also took into consideration Myanmar’s relationship with China, which is just across the border from Laukkaing. China, which has good relations with both the military and the ethnic alliance, has been seeking an end to the fighting.

Beijing protested after artillery shells landed in its territory on Wednesday, wounding five people. Zaw Min Tun said the alliance had fired the shells and that it tried to blame the military in order to damage its relationship with China.

A statement posted by the alliance on social media late Friday declared that the entire Kokang region had become a “Military Council-free area,” referring to Myanmar‘s ruling junta,

It said 2,389 military personnel - including six brigadier generals - and their family members had surrendered by Friday and that all were evacuated to safety.

Video clips circulating on social media purportedly showed the soldiers and their family members being transported in various vehicles. The Shwe Phee Myay News Agency, an online news site reporting from Shan state, reported that many of them were taken to Lashio, the capital of Shan’s northern region, under an agreement with the MNDAA for their repatriation.

It’s unclear whether the Three Brotherhood Alliance will try to extend its offensive outside of Shan state, but it has vowed to keep fighting against military rule.

The alliance cast its offensive as a struggle against military rule and an effort to rid the region of major organized criminal enterprises. China has publicly sought to eradicate cyberscam operations in Laukkaing that have entrapped tens of thousands of Chinese nationals, who have been repatriated to China in recent weeks.

But the offensive was also widely recognized as an effort by the MNDAA to regain control of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone by ousting a rival Kokang group backed by the military government from its seat of power.

Peng Deren, the MNDAA commander, said in a New Year’s speech published by The Kokang, an affiliated online media site, that the alliance had seized over 250 military targets and five border crossings with China. He said more than 300 cyberscam centers were raided and more than 40,000 Chinese involved in the operations were repatriated.



Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC.

Bangladesh opposition starts 48-hour strike ahead of Sunday's election

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) cites concerns over the fairness of the election.



AFP

The Election Commission said ballot boxes and other election supplies had been distributed in preparation for the vote on Sunday in over 42,000 precincts. There are more than 119 million registered voters. / Photo: AFP

Bangladesh’s main opposition party has started a 48-hour general strike on the eve on a general election, calling on people to boycott the vote because it says the government of incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina can’t guarantee its fairness.

Hasina is seeking to return to power for a fourth consecutive term. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, has vowed to disrupt the election through the strike and boycott.

Detectives arrested seven men belonging to the BNP and its youth wing for their alleged involvement in an arson attack on a passenger train on Friday night in which four people were killed, the head of Dhaka's Detective Branch, Harun Or Rashid, said on Saturday.

They were arrested in separate raids in the city, he said adding that the suspects held a meeting online two days ago about committing such attacks on polling stations and trains.

Campaigning in the nation of 169 million people has been marred by violence, with at least 15 people killed since October. Bangladesh is a parliamentary democracy but has a history of military coups and assassinations.

On Saturday morning, a small group of BNP supporters marched across the Shahbagh neighborhood in the capital, Dhaka, calling on people to join the strike. Another rally by about 200 left-wing protesters took place outside the National Press Club to denounce the election.

The Election Commission said ballot boxes and other election supplies had been distributed in preparation for the vote on Sunday in over 42,000 precincts. There are more than 119 million registered voters.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a BNP senior official, repeated his party's demand for Hasina to resign, calling the election “skewed.”

“The government is again playing with fire. The government has resorted to its old tactics of holding a one-sided election,” he said.

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal told reporters on Saturday that the parliamentary election would be free and fair, adding, “We want our election to be observed not only nationally, but internationally as well.”

Responding to questions on the main opposition shunning the vote, Awal said that had the BNP participated, the election would have been “more competitive” and “more festive." He acknowledged that the recent violence may have a negative impact on voters turning up on Sunday.

On Friday, an apparent arson attack on a train in Dhaka killed four people. Mahid Uddin, an additional police commissioner with the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said the fire was “clearly an act of sabotage” aimed at scaring people ahead of the election.

He did not name any political party or groups as suspects, but said police would seek those responsible.

Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said in a statement on Saturday that the timing of the attack, just days before the election, was meant to hinder the democratic process. "This reprehensible incident, undoubtedly orchestrated by those with malicious intent, strikes at the very heart of our democratic values,” he said.

Police said a murder case was filed by a railway official on Saturday, accusing unidentified people as suspects.

Local media reported arsons targeting at least five polling stations outside Dhaka since Friday, with police calling them acts of sabotage.

Talha Bin Jasim, an official with the Media Cell of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka, told The Associated Press by phone on Saturday night that at least 18 arson attacks had been reported from across the country since Friday midnight.

He said a small fire was reported early Saturday at a Buddhist monastery at Ramu area in southern Cox's Bazar district. Local media, quoting police in the area, said that it was not clear if it was merely a fire incident or an act of sabotage. Local authorities said they would investigate.

The Election Commission has asked authorities to increase security around polling stations.

Faruk Hossain, a spokesperson of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Associated Press police had reinforced security across Dhaka and that railway transportation was back to normal following Friday’s attack.

Bangladesh's increasingly polarized political culture has been dominated by a struggle between two powerful women, Hasina and Zia.

Zia, head of the BNP, is ailing and currently under house arrest. Her party says the charges of corruption are politically motivated, an allegation the government denied.

Tensions have spiked since October when violence broke out at a massive anti-government rally demanding Hasina’s resignation and a caretaker government to oversee the election. Hasina's administration said there was no constitutional provision to allow a caretaker government.

Critics have accused Hasina of systemically suffocating the opposition by implementing repressive security measures. Zia’s party claimed that more than 20,000 opposition supporters have been arrested, but the government said those figures were inflated and denied arrests were made due to political leanings. The attorney general put the figure between 2,000-3,000 while the law minister said the numbers were a bout 10,000.

SOURCE: AP

PM Hasina set to extend tenure as main Bangladesh opposition boycotts election

A student holds a placard of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as they celebrate the formation day of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of Bangladesh Awami League, at the University of Dhaka, ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 4, 2024. 

REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

DHAKA - Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to win a fourth straight term and the fifth overall for her Awami League-led alliance in a general election on Sunday boycotted by the main opposition party and marred by violence ahead of the vote.

Voting will begin at 8 a.m. (0200 GMT) and end at 4 p.m. (1000 GMT). Counting will start soon after the end of voting, with initial results expected by early Monday.

Rights groups say the country of 170 million is headed for virtual one-party rule, after the boycott by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and some of its smaller allies.

The United States and Western nations, important customers of its garment industry, have called for a free and fair election - the country's 12th since independence in 1971.

About 120 million voters will choose from nearly 2,000 candidates for the 300 directly elected parliamentary seats. There are 436 independent candidates, the most since 2001.

The BNP says the Awami League has propped up "dummy" candidates as independents to try to make the election look credible, a claim the ruling party denies.

The BNP, which also boycotted the 2014 poll but took part in 2018, has asked people to shun the poll and called a two-day strike nationwide from Saturday.

Hasina, who has refused BNP demands to resign and cede power to a neutral authority to run the election, accuses the opposition of instigating anti-government protests that have rocked Dhaka since late October and killed at least 14 people.

With the ballot outcome all but assured and high risk of violence, turnout could be low on Sunday.

Violence erupted on the eve of the election, with a passenger train fire, which the government called arson, killing at least four people while several polling booths and institutions were set ablaze around the country.

Troops have fanned out across Bangladesh to maintain peace while nearly 800,000 police, paramilitary and police auxiliaries will guard polling booths on Sunday.

In her last 15 years in power, Hasina, 76, has been credited with turning around Bangladesh's economy and the garment industry. But critics have also accused her of authoritarianism, human rights violations, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.

Her main rival and two-time premier, BNP leader Khaleda Zia, is effectively under house arrest on corruption charges the opposition says have been trumped up.

Khaleda's son, Tarique Rahman, is the acting chairman of the party, but he is in exile, facing charges that he denies.

The economy has also slowed sharply since the Russia-Ukraine war pushed up prices of fuel and food imports, forcing Bangladesh to turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout of $4.7 billion last year. 

REUTERS

US Pressures Bangladesh as Opposition Boycotts Election

Arun Devnath and Eltaf Najafizada
Fri, January 5, 2024 




(Bloomberg) -- Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to extend her 15-year rule in a boycotted election on Sunday. The question now is whether Western governments led by the US will punish the country for its democratic backsliding and push it closer to China.

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The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the country’s largest opposition group, and its allies said they will boycott the polls, which they say are a sham. They’re concerned about vote-rigging and have been calling on Hasina to resign to make way for a caretaker administration that can oversee the election.

The US, the biggest buyer of Bangladesh’s exports, has become more vocal in its calls for a free and fair election, imposing visa curbs on members of Hasina’s ruling party and law enforcement officials in September. Hasina, 76, will need to prevent the US from taking harsher steps that could hurt the economy more directly and complicate the International Monetary Fund’s lending program.

“The US applied so much pressure on Bangladesh for free and fair elections, through both carrots and sticks, and for so long, yet to no avail,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center. “Consequently, there is a possibility that the administration could respond post-election with harsher steps.”

Those measures could be “punitive actions in the space that would hurt Bangladesh the most,” which is trade, Kugelman added.

About $9 billion, or roughly one-fifth, of Bangladesh’s clothing exports went to the US in 2022, with Walmart Inc. and Gap Inc. being the top buyers. The garment industry employs around 4 million workers and contributes about 10% to the $460 billion economy.

The political environment in Bangladesh has been tense for months. Opposition supporters have clashed with police in mass protests calling for Hasina to step down. Human Rights Watch said in a November report that almost 10,000 opposition activists were arrested since a planned rally by the BNP on Oct. 28. Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who Hasina views as an opponent, was this week given a six-month jail sentence by a Dhaka court in a case his supporters say was politically motivated.

Hasina said in a televised speech Thursday that her Awami League-led government has created stability over three terms, improving the quality of lives of people. The government believes in the principle of “friendship with all” at the international level, she said, and has improved institutions in the country to protect freedom and sovereignty.

The US has stepped up its calls for free and fair elections. In May last year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced new visa restrictions on any Bangladeshi citizens believed to be interfering in the elections, such as rigging votes or using intimidation or violence. In September, the US imposed visa curbs on unidentified officials of the ruling party, law enforcement and political opposition.

India has maintained strong ties with Hasina and is concerned that more assertive steps by the US will push Bangladesh closer to China, both of which already enjoy strong commercial and defense ties.

When India and US defense and foreign ministers met in November in New Delhi, Bangladesh’s elections and the US visa curbs figured prominently in the talks, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified since the discussions were private. India raised concerns with US officials that the sanctions could antagonize Hasina’s government, the people said.

Peter Haas, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, also made a quiet six-day visit to India in the last week of December, meeting senior officials in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, the people said.

On Friday, a State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the US-India talks. The spokesperson said Haas was on personal travel over the holiday and didn’t meet Indian officials.

In a regular press briefing on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US is watching the outcome of the Bangladesh elections “very closely” but wouldn’t speculate in advance on “what actions we may or may not take in response to any development.”

India and Bangladesh share a historic, cultural and linguistic ties, and New Delhi played a key role in the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971 by deploying troops in support of the Bengali resistance force.

“As a close friend and partner of Bangladesh we would like to see peaceful elections there and we will continue to support Bangladesh’s vision for stable, peaceful and progressive nation,” Arindam Bagchi, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said in his weekly press briefing on Dec. 29.

Economic Strains

Although still an impoverished country with 172 million people, Bangladesh has made economic progress under Hasina. The country is one of fastest-growing economies in Asia, poverty rates have steadily declined, and it has a higher per-capita income than India.

The pandemic and soaring commodity prices put the economy under strain in recent years, depleting its foreign exchange reserves and forcing Hasina to turn to the IMF for $4.7 billion in emergency loans. The economy is still facing dollar shortages, prompting Moody’s Investors Service and others to downgrade the nation’s credit ratings.

The currency fell almost 6% last year, among the worst performers in Asia. Stocks declined 5%. The country’s currency dealers currently set limits on the exchange rate.

“From the investor perspective, on top of the election outcome and post-election stability, eyes will be on the central bank’s action on stabilizing foreign exchange reserves and how the market responds,” said Salim Afzal Shawon, head of research at Dhaka-based BRAC EPL Stock Brokerage Ltd. “Investors will also assess how the US reacts after the election in terms of sanction possibilities.”

To keep the IMF funds coming, Hasina’s government has promised to raise taxes and interest rates. In December, the cash-strapped nation won approval from the IMF for the disbursement of $690 million in loans.

In its next review, “the IMF will likely be a bit more stringent with ensuring that the authorities meet the requirements,” Marcus Yiu, a Moody’s analyst, said in an interview. That would include fiscal reforms and freeing up the currency, he said.

The main opposition BNP said it will press on with its demands and urged supporters to avoid paying taxes in order to halt what they dub “farcical” elections.

With the opposition set to boycott the elections, Hasina’s win now looks inevitable and her ruling Awami League party will likely face off against independent candidates and parties such as the Jatiyo Party, which was founded by the late military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who took power in a coup in 1982.

Voters will elect 300 of the 350 seats in parliament in Sunday’s election. The remaining 50 seats are reserved exclusively for women and filled by a vote of 300 members, based on proportional representation.

If Hasina returns, as is likely, the risk is that she may “feel that she can conduct her governance in any way that she chooses, which leads to an abusive situation,” Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, said in an interview. “It leads to circumstances where there is no accountability whatsoever.”

--With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Iain Marlow, Karl Lester M. Yap and Swati Gupta.

(Updates with State Department response in 13th paragraph.)

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PM'S WIFE

UK Opposition Labour Party raises questions over Akshata Murty’s liquidated firm

The 43-year-old Indian businesswoman and daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had incorporated the venture in 2013 with her husband as one of the directors before he resigned in 2015

PTI London

 Published 06.01.24

Akshata MurtyFile


The UK’s Opposition Labour Party has got into campaigning mode for an expected general election later this year, with advertisements claiming British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is giving the British public a “raw deal” and also raising questions over his wife Akshata Murty’s recently liquidated investment venture Labour’s national campaign coordinator and shadow minister, Pat MacFadden, posted a letter on social media dated January 4 that he wrote to UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden questioning the circumstances surrounding Murty’s Catamaran Ventures being wound up.


The 43-year-old Indian businesswoman and daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had incorporated the venture in 2013 with her husband as one of the directors before he resigned in 2015. It had emerged in a financial statement last year that she had decided to wind down her firm as a going concern.

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“In the past few months, numerous reports about the business dealings of Catamaran Ventures have circulated,” reads MacFadden’s letter on X. “It was revealed that the firm run by the Prime Minister’s wife received GBP 2m through government Covid support schemes devised by Rishi Sunak himself. It then emerged businesses in which Ms Murty had invested went bust, costing taxpayers GBP 1m… Colleagues and I have written numerous correspondence to government ministers and bodies. Alongside the outstanding questions, the decision by Ms Murty to liquidate her company raises several others that I believe need to be clarified in the public interest,” it notes.


The letter goes on to question the impact the closure of Catamaran Ventures could have on government-backed education start-up Study Halls that it had shares in and any other companies it retained a stake in. It also questions the arrangements in place for the payment of tax owed to the HMRC, the UK tax department, and whether Catamaran Ventures would be “fulfilling all its liabilities to the British taxpayer?” A spokesperson for Murty confirmed to the British media that the Catamaran Ventures UK business was wound up by Murty on December 21, 2023. “As a result, a significant donation has been made to ShareGift, an independent UK-registered charity with experience accepting donations in the form of shares. Ms Murty has shortlisted several charities focused on veterans’ affairs and education for the ShareGift team to consider at the time of disbursement,” the spokesperson said.



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The personal finances of Sunak and his wife have previously also been under scrutiny when it was revealed that Murty had legal non-domicile tax status, which meant she did not have to pay UK tax on her Indian income. However, after an Opposition furore over this issue, she had relinquished her non-dom tax status and said she would pay all her tax in the UK to prevent the issue becoming a distraction for her husband's political career.


“My decision to pay UK tax on all my worldwide income will not change the fact that India remains the country of my birth, citizenship, parents’ home and place of domicile. But I love the UK too,” Murty had said in a statement at the time in April 2022.

Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

Heavy machinery remove the debris of the burned down Japan Airlines plane at Haneda airport in Tokyo Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024. A team of transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of the plane, … more >

By Mari Yamaguchi - Associated Press - Saturday, January 6, 2024

Transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane, seeking crucial information on what caused a collision with a small coast guard plane on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

On Saturday, heavy machinery worked for a second day to remove debris of the burned Airbus A350 for storage in a hangar to allow the runway to reopen. Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said officials were aiming to reopen the runway Monday. Wreckage of the Japan Coast Guard plane had been cleared.

Saito said the airport’s traffic control operation would create a new position for monitoring aircraft movement on runways beginning Saturday. There has been speculation traffic controllers might not have paid attention to the coast guard plane’s presence on the runway when they gave the JAL plane permission to land.

Six experts from the Japan Transport Safety Board on Friday walked through the mangled debris of the Airbus A350-900 that was lying on the runway searching for the voice data recorder.

JTSB experts have so far secured both the flight and voice data recorders from the coast guard’s Bombardier Dash-8 and a flight data recorder from the JAL plane to find out what happened in the last few minutes before Tuesday’s fatal collision.

All 379 occupants of JAL Flight 516 safely evacuated within 18 minutes of landing as the aircraft was engulfed in flames. The pilot of the coast guard plane also escaped, but its five other crewmembers died. The coast guard aircraft was on a mission to deliver relief goods to survivors of powerful earthquakes in central Japan that killed at least 100 people.

PHOTOS: Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

New details have also emerged from media footage at Haneda airport. NHK television reported footage from its monitoring camera set up at the Haneda airport showed that the coast guard plane moved onto the runway and stopped there for about 40 seconds before the collision.

RIP

Glynis Johns, ‘Mary Poppins’ Star, Dies at 100

January 05, 2024
Associated Press

 Actress Glynis Johns is shown, Sept. 11, 1982.

NEW YORK —

Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie Mary Poppins and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100.

Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. "Today’s a sad day for Hollywood," Clem said. "She is the last of the last of old Hollywood."

Johns was known to be a perfectionist about her profession — precise, analytical and opinionated. The roles she took had to be multifaceted. Anything less was giving less than her all.

"As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level," she told The Associated Press in 1990. "The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real."

Johns’ greatest triumph was playing Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony in 1973. Sondheim wrote the show’s hit song Send in the Clowns to suit her distinctive husky voice, but she lost the part in the 1977 film version to Elizabeth Taylor.

"I’ve had other songs written for me, but nothing like that," Johns told the AP in 1990. "It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the theater."

Others who followed Johns in singing Sondheim’s most popular song include Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Vaughan and Olivia Newton-John. It also appeared in season two of Yellowjackets in 2023, sung by Elijah Wood.

Back when it was being conceived, A Little Night Music had gone into rehearsal with some of the book and score unfinished, including a solo song for Johns. Director Hal Prince suggested she and co-star Len Cariou improvise a scene or two to give book writer Hugh Wheeler some ideas.

"Hal said 'Why don’t you just say what you feel,'" she recalled to the AP. "When Len and I did that, Hal got on the phone to Steve Sondheim and said, 'I think you’d better get in a cab and get round here and watch what they’re doing because you are going to get the idea for Glynis’ solo.'"

Johns was the fourth generation of an English theatrical family. Her father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as a character actor, and her mother was a pianist. She was born in Pretoria, South Africa, because her parents were visiting the area on tour at the time of her birth.

Johns was a dancer at 12 and an actor at 14 in London’s West End. Her breakthrough role was as the amorous mermaid in the title of the 1948 hit comedy Miranda.

"I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine; I swam like a porpoise," she told Newsday in 1998. In 1960’s The Sundowners, with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. (She lost out to Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry.)

Other highlights include playing the mother in Mary Poppins, the movie that introduced Julie Andrews and where she sang the rousing tune Sister Suffragette. She also starred in the 1989 Broadway revival of The Circle, W. Somerset Maugham’s romantic comedy about love, marriage and fidelity, opposite Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger.

"I’ve retired many times. My personal life has come before my work. The theater is just part of my life. It probably uses my highest sense of intelligence, so therefore I have to come back to it, to realize that I’ve got the talent. I’m not as good doing anything else," she told the AP.

To prepare for A Coffin in Egypt, Horton Foote’s 1998 play about a grand dame reminiscing about her life on and off a ranch on the Texas prairie, she asked the Texas-born Foote to record a short tape of himself reading some lines and used it as her coach.

In a 1991 revival of A Little Night Music in Los Angeles, she played Madame Armfeldt, the mother of Desiree, the part she had created. In 1963, she starred in her own TV sitcom, Glynis.

Johns lived all around the world and had four husbands. The first was the father of her only child, the late Gareth Forwood, an actor who died in 2007.

RIP

Flying Tiger and pioneer SIA pilot Ho Weng Toh dies, aged 103

From B25 Mitchell bombers to Boeing 737 passenger jets, Captain Ho's flying career spanned four decades. 

LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE PHOTO

Wallace Woon

SINGAPORE - One of the last surviving members of a group of World War II pilots dubbed the Flying Tigers, Captain Ho Weng Toh, died in the morning of Jan 6. He was 103.

Known affectionately as Winkie, Captain Ho’s death was announced in a Facebook post by his nephew John Ho.

Mr Ho said on Facebook: “My dearest uncle Winkie passed away this morning. He was a grand 103 years old. He lived a life many of us would dream of... A precious generation who had a much tougher and unpredictable life, who sacrificed so much so that my generation could live a peaceful and much easier life.

“To him, and the rest of that generation, I say thank you. ”

Born in Ipoh in 1920, Captain Ho attended university in Hong Kong when the Japanese invaded China in 1941.

He then signed up as trainee pilot with the Chinese-American Composite Wing, dubbed the Flying Tigers, and joined other Chinese and American pilots in Arizona where he received his flying training.

As a B-25 Mitchell bomber pilot, Captain Ho flew missions over occupied China during World War II and returned a hero in Ipoh.

In 1949, he married Augusta Rodrigues, who died in 1977 of lung cancer.

He then joined the now-defunct Malayan Airlines in 1951, and was then a founding pilot of the Singapore Airlines.

He retired three decades later as chief pilot of SIA’s Boeing 737 fleet.

Captain Ho Weng Toh, known affectionately as Winkie, was a chief pilot at SIA when he retired in 1980. LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE PHOTO

In 2019, Captain Ho published his autobiography, Memoirs Of A Flying Tiger, detailing his experiences.

Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean paid tribute to Captain Ho in a Facebook post on Jan 6.

He said : “Our long-time Pasir Ris resident, Captain Ho Weng Toh, 103, one of the last surviving Flying Tigers who flew bombers in World War II, passed on peacefully this morning. He was also one of our first Singapore Airlines pilots.

“May he rest in peace.”

THE FLYING TIGERS WIKIPEDIA