HAITI'S FAUX PM

Haiti, Kenya sign agreement on police deployment to tackle gang violence

Kenya and Haiti signed a "reciprocal" agreement on Friday to deploy police from the East African country to lead a UN-backed law and order mission to the gang-plagued Caribbean nation, Kenyan President William Ruto said.


01/03/2024 - 

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry receives a gift from the Principal Secretary, State department for foreign affairs Dr. Abraham Korir Sing'Oei at a university in Nairobi on March 1, 2024. © Simon Maina, AFP


Ruto said he and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry had "discussed the next steps to enable the fast-tracking of the deployment", but it was not immediately clear whether the agreement would counter a court ruling in January that branded the deployment "illegal".

Haiti's government has pleaded for international help to confront violence that has cost thousands of lives, as armed gangs take over entire swathes of the country, leaving the economy and public health system in tatters.

Read moreGangs in Haiti attack Port au Prince neighbourhood, torching homes

Kenya had previously said that it was ready to provide up to 1,000 personnel, an offer welcomed by the United States and other nations that had ruled out putting their own forces on the ground.

But a Nairobi court said the decision was unconstitutional, in part because the two countries had not signed a reciprocal agreement on the issue.

On Friday, Ruto said he and Henry had "witnessed the signing" of a reciprocal agreement in Kenya's capital Nairobi. Details of the document have not been made public.

"I take this opportunity to reiterate Kenya's commitment to contribute to the success of this multinational mission. We believe this is a historic duty because peace in Haiti is good for the world as a whole," Ruto said in a statement.

The UN Security Council had approved the multinational mission in early October but the Kenyan court ruling threw its future into doubt.

Opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, who had filed the petition against the deployment, told AFP on Friday that he would lodge a case "for contempt of court".

"What is emerging is that William Ruto does not care about the rule of law or the constitution of this country," he said.

"We will question the validity of this secretive agreement."

'A helping hand'

In the face of criticism, Ruto had described the Kenyan undertaking as a "mission for humanity", in step with its long record of contributing to peacekeeping missions abroad.

Haiti, the Western hemisphere's poorest nation, has been in turmoil for years, and the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise plunged the country further into chaos.

No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant.

Thousands of protesters have demanded Henry's resignation in line with a political deal that required Haiti to hold polls and for him to cede power to newly elected officials by February 7 of this year.

The prime minister, who is on a visit to Nairobi, told an audience of university students on Friday he aimed to "have elections as soon as possible".

"We need elections to stabilise the country," he said, but offered no specific timeframe for the polls.

On Thursday, the Caribbean Community bloc said Henry had agreed to hold elections by 31 August 2025 following a regional summit this week in Guyana.

In January alone, more than 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in Haiti, according to the UN.

"In October 2022, we asked the world to give us a helping hand. President Ruto was the first one to agree to come to Haiti and we want to say thank you to him," Henry said.

"We thank Kenya for its active solidarity."

The multinational mission – initially approved for one year – had envisioned Kenyan police on the offensive with their Haitian counterparts, who are outnumbered and outgunned by gang members.

Five countries have agreed to join the Kenya-led multinational policing mission, including the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad.

Last year saw nearly 5,000 homicides counted in Haiti, more than double the number in 2022, according to a UN report.

(AFP)

Op-Ed: Propagandizing Millennial wealth — You’re all billionaires, right?

By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
February 29, 2024

Inside the Oculus at the World Trade Center in New York City. — © Digital Journal

They’re at it again. Everything’s great, according to somebody. Millennials will be the “wealthiest generation”. It’s Boomers versus Millennials in the housing market. Nothing happens outside of market samples.

Yeah, sure.

I’ve been watching stats and spin like these for decades. They’re always upside and always wrong. There are no gigantic socioeconomic disasters, just happy media, telling it like it isn’t.

Let’s translate the drivel:

Millennials will be the “wealthiest generation”. There is no massive disparity in wealth in that generation, unlike all others in recorded history. Everybody’s a billionaire.

Median incomes start at $50K No they don’t when you start at nothing or slightly less per hour.

Boomers versus Millennials in the housing market. Those who accidentally have capital vs those who are in a position to buy anything.

Nothing happens outside of market samples. No, it doesn’t, if you’re prepared to ignore all cost-of-living factors, massive homelessness, and evaporation of assets as a result of those things.

What’s wrong with this effervescent view of selective stats is that it’s entirely wrong. What’s worse is that it promotes political insularity. Decades of economic disasters starting with “trickle-down economics” and continuing with a total refusal to even mention core issues are the results.

Occasionally you’ll see a dissenting story among the hype. Something like “Millennials don’t want kids because they’re too expensive,” which doesn’t exactly vindicate the “richest generation” myth, does it?

Then there’s the very mixed bag of information about Millennial poverty. As usual, the media meeting-dwellers try to sanitize this nasty subject, but the contrary information is always there somewhere.

The question is why any of the “rich Millennials” stuff flies at all. Talking about questions, let’s ask some of the tonnage the wealth propagandists don’t:

Is wealth distributed equally?

Are the majority of any age demographic on Earth wealthy?

Do all Millennials come from rich families?

Can they all afford the qualifications they need to become rich?

Can they afford the health they need to stay alive?

Where are they supposed to live, while being so theoretically affluent? Mars? Because things are getting a bit pricey on Earth, y’know. People are having to innovate to keep a roof over their heads. …Or couldn’t our China hutch pundits be bothered finding out?

Do people making under $50K even get on the radar for this seemingly endless guided tour of Narnia? (There are a lot of those people.)

Millennials are the largest age group in the US workforce. Therefore, they’re all incredibly prosperous and have to use snow shovels to get the money out of the way before they can drive to work, right?

Most people with more than one job are trying very hard to make ends come anywhere near each other, if not meet. According to one set of stats for global Millennials, 26% of them have 2 or more jobs. Wealthy, you say?

The “rich” American Boomers are becoming homeless at rates not seen since the Great Depression. How’s that stat doing in Fantasyland?

The way I see it, none of these stats can survive for long, even if they were believable. This vision of unrestrained generational prosperity is ridiculous at best. Costs are rising so fast and for so long that there is no reason to believe that Millennials or anyone else is safe from them.

Here’s a theory – Propaganda doesn’t pay bills.


Op-Ed: ‘Rich renters’ — The new plague making it harder to rent

By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL

February 25, 2024


Even New Yorkers lucky enough to live in rent-stabilized apartments -- approximately one million units and two million tenants, according to city data -- are not immune to the growing housing crisis in their city. 

If you’re rich, renting is easy, right? Well, in theory. You’re spending a lot of money, but less than you would if you bought a house, right? You don’t mind being an easy target in an overheated market, either. Cute.

We’re not talking about the super-rich upper-bracket penthouse dwellers. These are middling to rich people who’ve moved into the mainstream rental market. They’re slowly but literally pushing everyone else out onto the street.

Rich renters are taking up a surprising amount of space in the global rental market. They used to be very much a minority. Now they’re pushing everyone else out of the market and prices are rising simply because they’re in the market.

Add to this the simple logic that people will usually pay a lot for their social pretensions. They like to live the image. There you have the basis of a market very like a drift net scouring the ocean floor.

A few points here:

Paying top dollar does NOT mean you’re getting a good deal by definition.

Leases and fees can be complex. You want a law degree to go with that condo? Maybe not.

Landlords, corporations, and their agents are not charities. You can get gouged as easily and as often as someone earning 5% of your salary.

Why exactly are you paying the equivalent of someone’s annual gross wage, and for what? If you answered, “Because I’m rich and I need to impress myself”, you’re well on the way to being a rich naïve broke person. Fools and their money are usually parted as soon as possible on that basis.

Having said that – It makes sense in terms of commercial realities for landlords. Who would you rather rent to, a rich person or someone who’s just scraping by? When was the last time you heard anyone say, “We’d like to make a lot less money this year”?

As a landlord, if you also don’t mind excluding yourself from the rather turgid mainstream rental market, it’s a good move, in theory. That’s not to say that someone pretending to be a rich renter won’t send you broke with non-payments, but hey, you need the excitement, don’t you?

Belong examined Census Bureau data to see which metros have renters who are putting the largest share of their income toward rent. – Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva

Of course, the property market image of itself is rarely related or even connected to the reality. This is a very greedy market. There’s a gibbering lunatic behind every spreadsheet in this market. Renters can often be on the wrong end of that endearing little phenomenon.

For instance – You’ll be hit for minor damage to anything and everything. You have to guess about the quality of the premises, regardless of looks. The floor may be held up more by innuendo than by support beams. Maintenance is likely to be an expensive issue. You’ll be surrounded by other rich people, with all the unmitigated bliss that entails. Want your bond back? Good luck. These are just the basics of any rental market, translated into rich-speak.

There is one aspect of rich renting that makes far more sense. It’s about staying out of the highly combustible property market. You could spend a not-very-high $240,000 a year on rent, for example. That’s the equivalent of a small price move in some of the upper echelons of the US property market.

The endless fluff about rising property prices isn’t entirely an illusion, but it’s truly expensive. Getting the price you want when you buy, or sell, isn’t something you can take for granted. Buying and selling in an overheated market isn’t too much fun. Renting is a less dangerous and far less expensive option.

The property markets have been going berserk for a very long time. Most of humanity now finds buying a house unaffordable. That can’t last, and it won’t. A lot of people are expecting a crash. Why buy a house for top dollar if you can wait for a much better deal?

You can afford it. You can also afford to haggle. Rich renters are in a much safer market position as buyers. They’re also safer as renters because they’re far less likely to be kicked out. They’re cash cows that can afford to be cash cows.

Meanwhile, inevitably, the rich renters have also scrambled the entire rental market for everyone else. They can outbid everyone else. Nobody else can dictate to this market, but they’re different.

They’re also renting from the rich, and the corporate sector, those saints who see them as ready-made revenue. The market caters for them, unlike any other renters.

The trouble with this idyllic scenario is that the rental market is now fully geared to achieving the worst possible social outcomes. Rich renters are helping keep rents high and indirectly property prices as well.

Mass homelessness isn’t a theory. It’s an obscene fact, worldwide. The sheer amount of money being gouged out of the economy is also destroying spending options. Costs of living at this level destroy savings and financial options.

Just one more thing – As a rich renter you may be sitting pretty relative to the poor, but that’s about all. You’ve signed up as a renter who’ll pay big money. Feeling lucky?

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/op-ed-rich-renters-the-new-plague-making-it-harder-to-rent/article#ixzz8TInhpxuu

Mexico election race heats up as two women vie for presidency

AFP

February 29, 2024

Opposition hopeful Xochitl Galvez (L) and ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum (R) are the frontrunners in the race for the Mexican presidency 

- Copyright AFP/File Rodrigo Oropeza, CLAUDIO CRUZ

Sofia Miselem with Jean Arce in Mexico City

Campaigning officially begins Friday for elections likely to produce Mexico’s first woman president — a watershed for a nation with a long tradition of macho culture.

Rival rallies were planned as the race heats up for the June 2 vote, including an opposition gathering after midnight in one of the country’s most violent states.

Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known by his initials AMLO, is representing the ruling Morena party.

Public opinion surveys show the 61-year-old scientist by training enjoys a significant lead with 63 percent support, according to a poll of polls by the Oraculus research firm.

Her main rival Xochitl Galvez, the 61-year-old candidate for an opposition coalition, has 31 percent support, while Jorge Alvarez, 38, of the Citizens’ Movement party is a distant third with just five percent, polls show.

“Sheinbaum is in a very strong position, with a significant lead in the polls over Galvez,” analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington told AFP.

“Although nothing is impossible in politics, with just over three months to go before the election, it is highly unlikely that Galvez will be able to gain enough ground to make it a competitive race. AMLO is too popular, and the government and party machinery is too formidable,” he added.

Sheinbaum is a staunch supporter and confidant of Lopez Obrador, a leftwing populist who enjoys an approval rating of nearly 70 percent according to Oraculus, but who is required by the constitution to leave office after one term.

The granddaughter of Bulgarian and Lithuanian Jewish migrants, Sheinbaum has vowed to continue Lopez Obrador’s policy agenda.

She is due to address supporters on Friday afternoon in Mexico City’s square, the heart of the city she governed from 2018 until last year when she stepped down to run for president.

– Focus on insecurity –

Galvez, a 61-year-old outspoken businesswoman with Indigenous roots, opted to put the focus on the country’s insecurity with a planned rally shortly after midnight in the city of Fresnillo in violence-wracked Zacatecas state.

She said that the choice of location was to send a “message of hope to all Mexicans that this long night of violence will end because we’re going to confront the criminals.”

It will be the first of several planned stops in cities considered by their residents to be among the most unsafe in Mexico, to highlight what Galvez says is the government’s failure to tackle spiraling violence.

Nearly 450,000 people have been murdered across Mexico since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006, according to official figures.

Lopez Obrador angrily denied recent claims in US media that drug traffickers helped fund his first presidential campaign in 2006, and that US law enforcement officials spent years examining allegations that people close to him took millions of dollars from criminal gangs.

Shifter thinks the accusations “certainly raise important questions but will probably not get much traction with most Mexicans and will not cut into Sheinbaum’s comfortable lead in the polls.

“On the contrary, AMLO could even get a boost by making the case that he is being persecuted by the foreign press,” he added.

Galvez represents an opposition coalition made up of the Institutional Revolutionary Party — which ruled the country for more than 70 years until 2000 — the conservative National Action Party and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.

But her background sets her apart from the traditional conservative opposition — she wears Indigenous clothing, uses colloquial language peppered with swear words and is known for traveling around Mexico City by bicycle.

Victims of Denmark’s adoption scandal demand answers


AFP
February 29, 2024

May-Britt Koed with her adoption papers in Copenhagen, Denmark 

- Copyright AFP/File Marty MELVILLE
Camille BAS-WOHLERT

“I don’t even know when I was born,” said May-Britt Koed, a Copenhagen restaurant owner and one of the quarter of a million South Korean babies sent abroad for adoption since the 1950s.

Her adoption files contain two different birth dates months apart, which Koed suspects means she may have been exchanged for another baby that did not survive.

Experts say even the chubby baby picture sent to her Danish adoptive parents may not have been of her.

All the 47-year-old knows for sure is that “I arrived in Denmark on May 17, 1977”.

Koed’s case is far from isolated. The growing scandal over falsified records has prompted South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look at hundreds of cases from the country’s “baby farm” adoption industry during the decades of dictatorship that ended in the late 1980s.

Koed said her Danish Korean Rights Group has seen hundreds of files containing falsified documents, with some babies arriving in Denmark six centimetres (two inches) shorter than they were in their South Korea files.

A January report for Denmark’s social affairs ministry found that some adoption agencies, operating under Danish state control, knew their South Korean partners were changing children’s identities in the 1970s and 1980s.

More worrying still, “it’s been documented that letters were being sent from (birth) parents who didn’t know where their children were”, said Marya Akhtar of the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

– ‘Why didn’t anything happen?’ –

“And allegedly it looks like they were in the possession of authorities in Denmark,” she added.

“Why didn’t anything happen? We call for a thorough examination,” Akhtar told AFP.

Danish adoption agencies also reportedly paid some 54 million kroner ($7.9 million) to Korean orphanages and other bodies over the years to facilitate the adoptions, according to media investigations.

Denmark suspended all international adoptions in January amid serious concerns over babies also brought from other countries including India and South Africa.

“It’s like opening Pandora’s Box,” Koed told AFP.

“We are at a point where we can see that the Danish government has been involved,” said Koed, whose group has called for an independent Danish commission into the trade.

“Everybody deserves to have that truth, especially the adoptees that are trying to piece together their own history,” she said.

“I haven’t searched for a biological family, I’m not sure I’m going to. I am doing this to discover the truth of what happened to all of us and to find out who is responsible,” she added.

Time is of the essence for those who want to trace their biological families, with some already learning that their parents are dead, she added.

Copenhagen’s freeze on international adoptions came after the last agency operating there closed down amid revelations of financial pressure and fraudulently acquired consent — not only in South Korea but also in India, Madagascar and South Africa.

Brothers and sisters were separated and sometimes adopted to different countries.

Danish social affairs minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil said there was “too high a risk of human trafficking or child theft”.

Last year she promised an inquiry into the history of international adoption procedures.

Legal expert Klaus Josephsen, a lecturer at the University of Aarhus, said there “hasn’t been enough control” of the system in Denmark.

“We have a private organisation, which has handled and taken care of those adoptions. They found children then created the papers and sent them to the Danish authorities,” he added.

“We will not see those organisations anymore, because the government doesn’t trust them. So I think we will get a new system, where the state will be active,” Josephsen said.

VOLCANO TOURISM

New Zealand volcano disaster victims win damages

By AFP
February 29, 2024

Steam rises from the White Island volcano following the December 2019 volcanic eruption that claimed 22 lives - 

Copyright AFP/File Marty MELVILLE

Ryland JAMES

The victims and families affected by the 2019 New Zealand volcano disaster, which claimed 22 lives, were awarded total damages of NZ$10 million (US$6 million) on Friday.

The sum must be paid by five companies that transported 47 tourists to the volcanic island on December 9, 2019, the day it erupted.

Many of the 25 survivors suffered terrible burns.

In addition to paying out reparations, the islands’ owners, Whakaari Management Limited, along with White Island Tours and helicopter firm Volcanic Air Safaris, who ran tourist trips to the volcano, were fined.

GNS Science, which monitors New Zealand’s volcanos, was also ordered to pay a fine.

At Auckland District Court, Judge Evangelos Thomas said the total damages were “no more than a token recognition” of the victims’ suffering.

The group had been “physically, mentally and emotionally” traumatised by the disaster, he said, with many still bearing the physical scars.

“Your stories have been heartbreaking and inspiring, it has been a humbling privilege to hear them,” Thomas told the victims in court.

He said the exact reparation amounts would be adjusted in some cases, especially in instances where victims had lost parents.

Each of the companies sentenced had failed in their duties to assess and mitigate risk, Thomas added. “That failure exposed others to risk of serious injury and death.”

Since the eruption, no boat or aircraft tours have been allowed to land on the island.

The eruption off the coast of the country’s North Island prompted a massive medical operation that saw victims treated in burns units across New Zealand and Australia.

Thomas said many victims have seen their livelihoods affected by their injuries.

When the trial opened last July, the court was shown video footage of people on the island trying to flee a massive, expanding cloud of volcanic ash, which quickly engulfed them.

Some stumbled in their desperation to flee.

The head of New Zealand’s health and safety regulator WorkSafe said the victim’s harrowing experiences showed the impact of the disaster was “far wider” than just affecting those on the island that day.

“Today belongs to the survivors, and the whanau (family) and friends of those who were harmed or lost their lives,” said WorkSafe chief executive Steve Haszard.

He described it as “one of the worst natural disasters” in New Zealand’s history.

All of the businesses that controlled the island, or transported tourists to it, had been convicted of safety failings, Haszard added.

He said the disaster had forced significant changes in New Zealand.

“One impact has been to raise our national understanding about the obligations on businesses to do everything they can to keep people safe,” he said.

“This is a catastrophic example of what can go wrong when they don’t.”

FARMERS PROTESTS

French farmers protest near Paris’s Arc de Triomphe

By AFP
March 1, 2024

Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks

 - Copyright AFP Thomas SAMSON

French farmers ringed Paris’s famed Arc de Triomphe monument with tractors on Friday, saying the protest was aimed “at saving French agriculture”, the Rural Coordination union said.

Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks over what they say are excessively restrictive environmental rules, competition from cheap imports from outside the European Union and low incomes.

The farmers held up banners and dumped stacks of hay around the monument on the Champs-Elysees avenue.

“The Rural Coordination takes over the Arc de Triomphe symbolically and peacefully,” said a statement on social media platform X.

French farmers have continued to block roads, set fire to tyres and laid siege to supermarkets, saying they need more measures, after the government promised reforms.

S. Korea police raid medical association office over walkout


By AFP
March 1, 2024

Nearly 10,000 junior doctors -- about 80 percent of the trainee workforce -- walked off the job last week - Copyright AFP/File Jung Yeon-je

South Korean police raided the offices of the Korean Medical Association on Friday, an officer told AFP, as the government contends with a doctors’ strike that has led to chaos in hospitals.

Nearly 10,000 junior doctors — about 80 percent of the trainee workforce — walked off the job last week. They are protesting government plans to sharply increase medical school admissions to cope with shortages and an ageing society.

The government had set a Thursday deadline for medics to resume work or face potential legal consequences, including suspension of medical licenses and arrest.

There is currently no official data on the number of doctors who have returned post-deadline, the health ministry told AFP, but South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said most striking doctors remained off the job on Friday.

The mass work stoppage has taken a toll on hospitals, prompting the government to raise its public health alert to the highest level.

Around half of the surgeries scheduled at 15 major hospitals have been cancelled since last week, according to the health ministry.

Under South Korean law, doctors are restricted from striking.

Earlier this week, the government requested police investigate people connected to the stoppage.

Seoul’s police confirmed that it raided the Korean Medical Association (KMA) on Friday.

In response to the Thursday deadline and initiation of a police probe, the KMA slammed the government for “intimidation tactics” and accused it of turning the country into a “totalitarian state”.

The government says it is trying to address one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed nations. It is pushing to admit 2,000 more students to medical schools annually from next year.

Doctors say the plan will hurt the quality of service and medical education, but proponents say medics are mainly concerned the changes could erode their salaries and social status.

The KMA said its members will hold a rally in Seoul on Sunday, with local reports saying around 25,000 expected to join.

Safety lapses blamed for Bangladesh fire as toll rises to 45

By AFP
March 1, 2024

Bangladesh firefighters say glaring safety lapses were responsible for a fire in a popular Dhaka restaurant that killed 45 people - Copyright POOL/AFP KIM HONG-JI
Shafiqul ALAM

Bangladesh firefighters said Friday that glaring safety lapses were responsible for a Dhaka restaurant blaze that killed 45 people, with more deaths likely among those rushed to hospital in critical condition.

Thursday night’s fire began at a popular biryani restaurant at the bottom of a seven-floor commercial property in the capital’s upscale Bailey Road neighbourhood.

The entire building, home to several other eateries, was soon engulfed by flames that took fire crews two hours to bring under control.

Fire service operations director Rezaul Karim told AFP the blaze had been made worse by numerous cooking gas cylinders stored haphazardly in stairwells and restaurant kitchens.

“People heard the explosions of several gas cylinders during the fire,” he said.

Main Uddin, the national fire services chief, said the building lacked safety measures.

“It did not have at least two staircases or fire exit,” he told AFP. “Most of the people died from suffocation.”

Fire officials earlier told reporters they suspected the inferno began when one of the gas cylinders accidentally caught fire.

Police inspector Bacchu Mia told AFP that another person had died on Friday morning while being treated in hospital.

“The death toll is now 45. The conditions of 15-16 injured people are critical,” he said.

Members of the public helped fire crews carry hoses and rescue survivors who clambered down the outside walls to safety as firefighters fought to bring the blaze under control.

“We were at the sixth floor when we first saw smoke racing through the staircase. A lot of people rushed upstairs,” Sohel, a restaurant manager who gave only his first name, told AFP.

“We used a water pipe to climb down the building. Some of us were injured as they jumped.”

– Poor safety record 


At one point at least 50 people were on the rooftop waiting to be rescued by fire cranes, Kamruzzaman Majumdar, an environmental science professor who was among the stranded, wrote in a Facebook post.

Police investigators were seen walking inside the gutted building and documenting the wreckage on Friday morning, hours after the government ordered an investigation into the fire’s origins.

Hundreds of anxious family members rushed to the nearby Dhaka Medical College Hospital overnight as ambulances brought the dead and injured to the clinic.

Explosions and fires are frequent in buildings and factories across Bangladesh, where safety standards are lax and corruption often allows them to be ignored.

Deadly blazes are typically sparked by gas cylinders, faulty air conditioners and bad electrical wiring.

Bangladesh’s worst fire took place in 2012, when a blaze ripped through a garment factory on Dhaka’s outskirts, killing at least 111 people and injuring more than 200 others.

At least 24 dead in migrant shipwreck off Senegal

By AFP
February 29, 2024

Senegal's coast is an increasingly common departure point for Africans fleeing poverty and unemployment - Copyright NTB/AFP Javad Parsa

At least 24 people seeking to reach Europe drowned off northern Senegal when their loaded vessel sank, the governor of the Saint Louis region told AFP on Thursday.

Governor Alioune Badara Samb said 24 bodies had been found since Wednesday when the boat got into difficulty in a particularly dangerous part of the northern coast. He added that 21 people had been rescued.

The Saint Louis estuary, where the Senegal River meets the Atlantic Ocean, is notorious for strong currents and areas of thick mud.

Samb did not say how many people were missing from the vessel, which witnesses said could have been carrying more than 300 people.

A number of survivors managed to reach shore and dispersed among locals on the sea banks, making it difficult to say exactly how many people were involved, he said.

Mamady Dianfo, a survivor from Casamance in the south, told AFP more than 300 people were on board when the boat left Senegal a week ago.

Another survivor, Alpha Balde, estimated there were more than 200 passengers.

Dianfo said the vessel reached Morocco, further north up the coast but the captain then said he was lost and could no longer continue the journey.

“We asked him to take us back to Senegal,” he said.

President Macky Sall on Thursday expressed his “deep sadness” following the “tragic capsizing” in a message on X, formerly Twitter.

He added that the relevant authorities had been deployed to offer support and assistance.

Senegal’s coast is an increasingly common departure point for Africans fleeing poverty and unemployment and heading to the Canary Islands, their port of entry into Europe.

European Union border agency Frontex says Senegal and Morocco are the most common countries of origin for migrants arriving on the Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic.

Of the more than 6,600 migrants who died or went missing trying to reach Spain last year, the vast majority were lost on the treacherous Atlantic route, according to Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras.

Iranians split on whether to vote or not in elections

Tehran (Iran) (AFP) – As Iranians cast ballots on Friday, many are preoccupied with a pivotal question, not about which candidate to pick, but whether to vote at all.

Issued on: 01/03/2024 

Khamenei had earlier warned that Iran's 'enemies want to see if the people are present,' in Friday's elections

 © ATTA KENARE / AFP

"It is a religious duty, it is a national duty, and it is the order of the supreme leader," said Afrasiabi, 43, while proudly displaying his ink-stained finger at a polling station south of Tehran.

Afrasiabi was among those who turned out on Friday to pick members of a new parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a body in charge of electing Iran's supreme leader.

More than 61 million people out of the Islamic republic's 85-million population are eligible to vote.

But fears of a low participation rate loomed large after a state TV poll found more than half of respondents were indifferent about the elections.

"I am not voting for two reasons. The first is that I want a lot of changes that are not possible with the current candidates," said 32-year-old Lida.

"Secondly, I have always voted for reformists, but none have been approved."

Jurists in charge of vetting approved 15,200 hopefuls to run for parliament and 144 candidates for the Assembly of Experts. Many moderate and reformist candidates were disqualified.

Some voters decried what they referred to as 'propaganda' campaigns outside Iran urging people not to cast their ballots 

© ATTA KENARE / AFP

Iran's present parliament is dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives, and observers expect a similar make-up in the new assembly.

Friday's elections are the first since Iran was rocked by mass protests triggered by the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women.
'Enemies of Iran'

Government employee Morteza, 40, says he voted "to try to improve the (political) situation".

"Boycotting the elections will not change anything," he said, referring to calls by some opposition figures and members of the diaspora.

"There is no advantage in not voting, but maybe there is an advantage in participation."

His wife, Akram, said voting was a way of not "letting foreigners interfere in the affairs of our country".

Khamenei had earlier warned that Iran's "enemies want to see if the people are present," adding that otherwise "they will threaten your security in one way or another."

Iran's 2020 parliament was elected during the Covid pandemic, with a voter turnout of 42.57 percent -- the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution 

© ATTA KENARE / AFP

Other voters decried what they referred to as "propaganda" campaigns outside Iran urging people not to cast their ballots.

"Those who do not vote have actually voted, they have voted for the enemies of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran," said a 50-year-old Shiite cleric on condition of anonymity.

He cast his ballot at a polling station in central Tehran where dozens of people queued to vote, though in lower numbers compared with previous elections.

Iran's 2020 parliament was elected during the Covid pandemic, with a turnout of 42.57 percent -- the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Pedram, a mathematics teacher living west of Tehran, said authorities in Iran "use votes for propaganda purposes".

They "consider each vote for a candidate and even blank votes as a vote for the entire system", he said.

© 2024 AFP

Iranian parliamentary election: what people are voting for and why it’s different this time


The people’s choice (although candidates for Iran’s parliamentary elections have all been pre-approved by the religious authorities). EPA-EFE/Abedin Taherkenareh

Published: February 29, 2024 
Author  Louise Kettle

Assistant Professor of International Relations, 

University of Nottingham
THE CONVERSATION

Iranian voters head to the polls on March 1 to elect the country’s next parliament and the powerful Assembly of Experts. The result is likely to be a foregone conclusion, given the tight control that the Islamic Republic holds over who can run for office. But the way the election plays out – and its significance – may be different to normal.

Every four years the public get to vote for the 290 members of the Iranian parliament (also known as the Islamic Consultative Assembly). The parliament is the legislature of the country, and its members are responsible for drafting legislation, approving the annual budget and any international treaties or agreements. It is not responsible for foreign or nuclear policy.

At the same time, elections are being held for the Assembly of Experts, which serves an eight-year term and is imbued under the Iranian constitution to monitor, dismiss and elect the supreme leader.

Despite Iranians being able to vote, there are a number of limitations to the democratic process in Iran. Most notably, all candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council – an unelected body – hence removing a significant element of choice.


Of the 49,000 people who registered to run for parliament this year, 14,200 applicants were approved. This has involved the disqualification of many reformist and centrist conservatives and has left mainly right-wing conservatives vying for posts.

In fact, only 30 reformists have been approved to run for office, leaving them to claim that the elections are “meaningless, non-competitive, unfair, and ineffective in the administration of the country”.

In the Assembly of Experts, 144 candidates have been approved to run for the 88 seats. But the centrist and reformist former president, Hassan Rouhani, has been banned from seeking re-election. This has further cemented the Assembly of Experts as a stronghold of conservatives and ultra-conservatives.

The names of the final candidates were also released very late – just two weeks before the election. This has allowed little time for campaigning or, more importantly, for the public to get to know who they are supposed to be voting for.
It’s different this time around

There are three important points to note about this election. First, this is the first election since the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini died in police custody in September 2022, at the age of 26, after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.

Her death led to widespread protests across Iran which were met with a brutal crackdown. And while these “woman, life, freedom” protests, may have largely died down after 18 months, they continue via online activism and civil disobedience.

Therefore, this election is likely to see some response from these events, with women and young people wanting to continue the protest through the ballot box.

Read more: Women's activism in Iran continues, despite street protests dying down in face of state repression

Second, there is expected to be a low turnout. Voting turnout has been on the decline in Iranian elections for some time, but increasing dissatisfaction with the voting choice, combined with apathy and frustration over the lack of change in the country means that many voters are planning to stay away from the ballot box.

Vote for me (or someone like me): Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urges people to cast their ballots.

 EPA-EFE/Iranian supreme leader's office

A recent poll suggested that national turnout is likely to be at 35% and only 18% in the capital, Tehran. By comparison, the turnout in 2020 was 42.5% – but this was the lowest it had been since 1979 and was during a global pandemic.
Succession question

A low turnout could be problematic for the political leadership, who rely on elections to provide a veil of legitimacy over their regime. As a result, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has started a dual pronged campaign of encouraging citizens to vote and blaming the west if they don’t.

Last month he tweeted: “Elections are the main pillar of the Islamic Republic, and they are the way to improve the country. For those who are seeking to solve the problems, the way to do this is the elections.”

He also attended a meeting with people from the East Azerbaijan province and used the opportunity to emphasise that it was the intention of what he called the “arrogant powers” and the US to encourage people to boycott the elections.

The third point is that the elections are likely to have a greater significance for the future of Islamic Republic than normal. Khamenei is currently 84 years old, so the election of the next supreme leader is likely to happen within the next eight-year term of the Assembly of Experts.

This is why it is thought that the Guardian Council has been so restrictive when it has come to this year’s candidate selection for the Assembly – because this election could secure Iranian succession.

The first results could emerge within 24 hours, although the full tally – and what it means for Iran’s future – may not be clear for some days.

Louise Kettle is an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute
University of Nottingham