POST WAGNER GROUP

Russian military instructors, air defence system arrive in Niger amid deepening ties

Russian military instructors have arrived in Niger with an air defence system and other equipment as part of the West African nation’s deepening security ties with Moscow, state television announced late Thursday.


Issued on: 12/04/2024 

An image from video shown on Nigerien state TV reportedly showed Russian military trainers speaking to the media next to an airplane in Niamey, Niger on April 10, 2024. © RTN handout via Reuters

Niger’s military government agreed in January to step up security cooperation with Russia, after expelling French forces that were helping fight jihadist rebellions in several Sahel nations.

On Friday, African Corps—seen as the successor of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group in Africa—confirmed it had arrived in Niger.

The Tele Sahel broadcaster showed a Russian transport plane arriving at Niamey airport on Wednesday night.

It said “the latest military equipment and military instructors from the Russian defence ministry” had arrived.

Russia will help “install an air defence system... to ensure complete control of our airspace”, the report said.

One instructor was quoted as saying that “We are here to train the Niger army and help it use the equipment that has just arrived. The equipment is for different military specialities.”

“The first flight of African Corps troops and volunteers has arrived in Niger,” the group wrote on Telegram.

The Wagner mercenary group had unofficially served the Kremlin’s aims in Africa since the 2010s.

Rebranded African Corps and reorganised following the August 2023 death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in a mysterious plane crash, the group is now under the Kremlin’s umbrella, signalling a formal acknowledgement of Russia’s role in the Sahel.

The head of Niger’s military government, General Abdourahamane Tiani, spoke by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 26.

The two leaders discussed security cooperation as well as “global strategic cooperation” against “current threats”, authorities said at the time, without elaborating.


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Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, had been a frontline partner of the West in battling jihadists in the Sahel but has turned to Russia since the elected president was ousted last July.

Niger has also joined neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso—also ruled by military leaders after coups—to create a joint force to battle long-running jihadist insurgencies.

The junta kicked out forces from former colonial power France, whose 1,500 troops had left Niger by the end of last year.

The military also announced it was breaking off a 2012 agreement with the United States, which has built a desert drone base at a cost of $100 million in northern Niger and has some 1,000 troops in the country.

(AFP)

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NAKBA 2.0
Israeli forces kill 2 in West Bank: Palestinian agency

Tubas (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians early Friday in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, but the military said it "eliminated" two militants including a Hamas member.

Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Palestinians check a bullet-riddled car following the raid by Israeli forces near Tubas in the occupied West Bank

 © Zain JAAFAR / AFP


One man was killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on his vehicle in the city of Tubas, Wafa reported.

Another Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli gunfire when troops raided Al-Fara refugee camp near Tubas, the agency said.

Israel's military, contacted by AFP, said its forces had killed Mohammad Omar Draghmeh, and described him as "a central figure" in planning Hamas attacks.

"During the counter-terrorism activity, the terrorist shot at security forces who responded with fire and eliminated him," the military said, adding that troops found weapons in his vehicle.

Soldiers in the Tubas area also came under attack and returned fire, the army said. One militant was killed and two wanted suspects were arrested.

The area around Tubas in the northern West Bank is a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups and the frequent target of Israeli military incursions.

The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence since early last year, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza on October 7.

At least 461 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according to official Palestinian sources.

The war in the Gaza Strip erupted after Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,634 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

© 2024 AFP

TARGETED

Over 60 members of Gaza family killed in separate Israeli strikes

Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza's Tabatibi family is in mourning for the second time in less than a month, after separate Israeli bombardments on buildings they were sheltering in killed more than 60 of their kin.


Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

The rubble of the Tabatibi family home after it was struck last month

 © - / AFP/File

The latest strike occurred in the early hours of Friday in Gaza City's densely populated Daraj neighbourhood, killing at least 25 members of the family, a relative told AFP.

In a narrow street, the six-storey building where the Tabatibi family had been staying was still standing on Friday, balconies barely hanging to its facade, the ground floor charred and its inside strewn with rubble.

"We didn't hear a missile come down or anything, we were all asleep", Khaled al-Tabatibi, a surviving member of the family, told AFP.

"Our house, my sisters, their children, their daughters, all of them are martyred, all of them are in pieces," he said through tears.

"When the occupation aircraft bombed the house, we were asleep. We don't know why they targeted the house, it's a massacre, annihilation."

Ziyad Dardas, a neighbour whose brother was injured in the strike, was at a loss for words.

"This is madness, this is the peak of crime from our leaders and Israeli leaders", he told AFP.

"To the (Palestinian) Authority, to Hamas leaders, I say why is this not enough?"

The dead and injured were reportedly taken to Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, which was mostly destroyed in a recent Israeli military operation.
House bombed 'while we were in it'

The Tabatibi family, which has been displaced by Israeli bombardments on several occasions, had already been in mourning.

On March 15, the family had gathered in central Gaza to eat together during the first Friday night of Ramadan, a reunion that soon turned into a bloodbath.

An air strike hit the building where they were staying as women prepared the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 members of the family, witnesses told AFP at the time.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which provided the same death toll, blamed Israel for the strike in the city's Nuseirat area, as did survivors.

Asked about that strike, the Israeli military said it targeted two "terror operatives" in Nuseirat "throughout the night," without elaborating.

"They bombed the house while we were in it. My mother and my aunt were preparing the suhoor food. They were all martyred," Mohammed al-Tabatibi said at the time at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, before the bodies of his relatives were stacked on a truck to be driven to a cemetery.

The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 33,634 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

© 2024 AFP

Ex-Resistance Olympic torch-bearer still wants to 'change the world'

Saint-Étienne (France) (AFP) – At the age of 102, Melanie Berger-Volle will carry the Olympic torch as high as she can, despite her fragile shoulder, to champion the values of friendship between peoples that she defended during her time with the French Resistance in the Second World War.


Issued on: 12/04/2024

Melanie Berger-Volle will carry the Olympic torch in Saint-Etienne in June at the age of 102 © JEFF PACHOUD / AFP

A "woman in the shadows" during the Occupation (1940-1944), Berger-Volle was thrilled to be chosen to carry the torch as it passes through Saint-Etienne on June 22 on its way to Paris for the start of the Olympic Games.

The weight of the torch has been a concern but there was never any question of turning it down.

"I've always loved sport," says the sprightly centenarian who until recently enjoyed an hour's walk a day.

Grandmother of the gymnast Emilie Volle, who took part in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, she also wants to be a symbol for women "who have fought to play sport like men".

"My ideal has always been to unite the world," she says. "And the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to get to know other human beings."

- 'Mistreated' -

Born in Austria in 1921 into a Jewish working-class family, Melanie Berger began her activism as a teenager in an extreme left-wing group.

"We were atheists and when I started fighting it wasn't for religious reasons, it was political," she says. "I'm against all dictatorships."

After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, she left her country, went to Belgium and then arrived in France, in Paris in the spring of 1939, disguised as a boy.

When France went to war later that year, all Austrians, even refugees, were seen as enemies and the authorities put her on a train to a camp near Pau.

At Clermont-Ferrand station, she "jumped out" of the carriage.

She was on her own as the other girls did not dare follow her.

"They weren't political, they didn't know what a camp was," she shrugs.

On the contrary, the young activist was well aware that "when you get a chance, you can't let it go by".

In 1940 after the French surrender to the Nazis, she found herself in Montauban, where a group of Trotskyist militants she had belonged to before the war was beginning to reform.

"With my French-sounding name, I rented a flat in a dilapidated house, and from there we were able to start work."

Discreetly, the group drafted and distributed German-language leaflets aimed at turning Reich soldiers.

In January 1942, however, that all came to an end when the police raided the house and she was arrested and brutally interrogated.

"I was mistreated, men beat me," she says quietly. "The after-effects are still with me. But I'm still here."

She avoided a death penalty and after 13 months in detention in Toulouse, the 22-year-old Berger was transferred to the Baumettes prison in Marseille.

Members of her group, together with the Resistance, prepared her escape.

- 'No' to Nazism -

On October 15, 1943, they came to get her, accompanied by a German soldier who had taken up the cause, while she was in hospital with jaundice.

"I escaped in my nightdress," she laughs.

Once recovered, she campaigned under false identities until the liberation in the summer of 1944.

After the war, she married Lucien Volle, another Resistance fighter who had taken part in the liberation of Le Puy-en-Velay.

Together, the couple began to devote themselves to the work of remembrance.

"We fought constantly to explain. Not what we had done but why we had done it," she says.

Melanie Berger-Volle said 'No' to Nazism © JEFF PACHOUD / AFP

She has since been awarded a number of decorations, including the Legion d'Honneur.

"I didn't do much," she says. "But I did say 'no' to Nazism."

Worried again about the return of extremes in Europe, Berger-Volle hopes that young people will in turn be able to defend democracy.

And despite her advanced age, she intends to use the Olympics to get her message across.

"I wanted to change the world," she says with a smile. "And I still want to change it."

© 2024 AFP

Mayor orders 'mass evacuations' in Russia flood city

Moscow (AFP) – Flooding in the Russian city of Orenburg became "critical" Friday forcing "mass evacuations" as the Ural river level rises, the mayor said.

Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Flooding in Russia's West Siberia region has now reached 'dangerous' levels in some cities, authorities says 

© Handout / Kurgan region branch of the Russian Orthodox Church/AFP

Fast-rising temperatures have melted snow and ice, and along with heavy rains have caused a number of major rivers that cross Russia and Kazakhstan to overflow.

"Sirens are sounding in the city. This is not an exercise," Orenburg Mayor Sergei Salmin said on Telegram.

"Mass evacuations are ongoing," he said. "The situation is critical, do not waste time," he said, calling on people in several city districts to evacuate.

The Ural river has flooded much of Orsk, and Orenburg -- the regional capital -- has been preparing for the peak of the rising water.

The city has a population of some 550,000 people.

"In the last 10 hours the level of water on the Ural river rose by 40 centimetres (15.7 inches)," Salmin said, describing the situation as "dangerous".

Authorities have said that around 2,500 Orenburg houses have been affected by the water and almost 5,000 allotments.

Images on Russian state media showed an alley leading up to a monument that marks the border between Europe and Asia flooded, with lamp-posts partly submerged. They also showed water reaching many houses.

In Western Siberia, the Ishim river has also risen to dangerous levels, according to authorities in the Tyumen region. Officials have predicted that the Ishim and Tobol rivers will only reach a peak level around April 23-25.

A regional official, Sergey Balykin, told the RIA Novosti state news agency that the peak in Orenburg would come only on Friday or Saturday.

Russia has evacuated around 10,000 people from rising water, mostly from the Orenburg region.

Several villages have also been evacuated in the Kurgan and Tomsk regions further east.

Authorities said however that conditions had improved in Orsk, which was badly hit after dam breached. Officials said water levels were falling again.

Kazakhstan has evacuated more than 96,000 people, with the city of Petropavlovsk also bracing for the worst of the flooding.

No direct link has been made between the floods and global warming. But experts say the higher temperatures across the planet will cause the heavy rains blamed for the flooding.

© 2024 AFP

WAR IS ECOCIDE

IEA: Drone Attacks on Russian Refineries Could Upset Global Fuel Markets

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Apr 12, 2024

The drone attacks from Ukraine on Russian refineries could disrupt fuel markets globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday, estimating that up to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Russia’s refinery capacity could be offline in the second quarter.

Global markets “rely on Russian exports of diesel, naphtha and jet fuel, while refining systems in Asia absorb substantial quantities of the country’s straight-run and cracked residue to boost upgrading unit feedstocks,” the IEA said in its monthly Oil Market Report today, as carried by Bloomberg.

The agency lowered by 160,000 bpd its forecast of global refinery throughputs this year and now sees these rising by 1 million bpd to 83.3 million bpd, due to lower Russian refinery runs, unplanned outages in Europe, and still-tepid Chinese activity.

Russian refinery outages have added to the unease in the global product market, the IEA said in the report.

In recent months, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on oil refineries in Russia, which have reduced Russian refining capacity, and which, reportedly, have the White House concerned about rising international prices.

The United States has repeatedly urged Ukraine to halt its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries due to Washington’s assessment that the strikes could lead to Russian retaliation and push up global oil prices, the Financial Times reported last month, citing sources familiar with the exchange.

According to Reuters estimates, the amount of Russian oil refining capacity that has been taken offline due to Ukrainian drone strikes is 14% of Russia’s total refining capacity.

Due to refinery damage as a result of the drone attacks, Russia’s gasoline production fell by 12% in the last week of March compared to the February average, Russian daily Kommersant reported last week, quoting the Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat. The domestic market hasn’t felt the impact, yet, also thanks to higher fuel imports from Belarus, Kommersant notes

Ukraine says Russian drones damaged energy infrastructure in south

Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Attacks by Russian drones in southern Ukraine overnight caused a fire at an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk region and damaged critical infrastructure in Kherson region, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday. Ukraine forces shot down 16 out of 17 drones. Russia also used one Kh-59 guided air missile for the attack, the Ukrainian military said via Telegram messaging app. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Video by: Emmanuelle CHAZE

 

Putin says Ukraine energy site strikes aim to 'demilitarise' country


Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Video by :Douglas HERBERT

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that recent airstrikes on Ukraine's energy grid, which have caused huge blackouts, are part of the Kremlin's "demilitarisation" of its neighbour. "We assume that in this way we have an influence on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex," said Putin, adding that the strikes were also in response to Kyiv targeting Russia's energy infrastructure.

Truth Social shares hit grim milestone as price sinks again

Brad Reed
April 12, 2024 

Truth Social App (AFP)

Share prices for the Trump Media and Technology Group Corporation sank yet again on Friday, marking the fifth straight day this week that the value of former President Donald Trump's social media venture has continued to slide.

CNBC reports that shares in Trump Media dipped below $30 on Friday, a grim milestone for the company that signals it has lost more than half of its market cap since the company went public.

Although prices have moderately recovered since going below $30 on Friday, as of noon E.T. they were still trading at roughly 4 percent lower than on Thursday's closing price.

And in just the last week, shares in the Truth Social parent company have fallen by nearly 25 percent, erasing billions of dollars off what was once a market cap north of $7 billion.

CNBC notes that this ongoing crash has had a major impact on Trump's net worth given that he "is the biggest shareholder in the company, owning nearly 60 percent of its stock."

Despite all of that, Trump on Friday posted a message on his personal Truth Social account hyping the value of the network, which lost $58 million last year and generated a paltry $4 million in revenues.

"I am so proud of Truth Social, because I believe it represents the Make America Great Again Movement, and it shows the Spirit and Love of our Country," wrote the former president, who goes on trial Monday for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star.

"If people who believe in putting America First and want to Make America Great Again, support TRUTH, we will be your Voice like never before, and a Real Voice is what our Country needs, because we are in decline, and must bring America to Greatness. Think of this as a Movement, the Greatest Movement in the History of our Country. We are going to Save our Country, and Make America Great Again, GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!"

'Poor Marge': MTG mocked after report suggests she lost $32K by investing in Trump Media

Sky Palma
April 12, 2024

RAW STORY

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 30: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks during a hearing with the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill on January 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee met to mark up Articles of Impeachment against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. 

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The media company with ties to Donald Trump's Truth Social platform is seeing its value tank more each day. Now, years after she purchased shares in the company, Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not willing to talk about the state of her stocks.

Greene wouldn't respond to questions from CNBC or NBC News about her holdings in Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), which merged with Trump Media and saw its share price drop at least 45 percent to date, NBC News reported.

Greene, along with Indiana GOP Rep. Larry Bucshon, revealed they bought stock in the company in October 2021 — the same month it announced the merger with Trump Media.

Just days after the announcement, Greene bought shares of DWAC ranging from $15,000 to $50,000. As NBC News points out, if Greene is still an investor in the company, she would have lost up to $32,000. Bucshon could have lost up to $8,900.

A spokesman for Bucshon responded to inquiries and revealed that the lawmaker is still an investor in the company, but Greene has chosen to stay mum and public disclosures have not shown that she's sold any stock related to DWAC or Trump Media. Greene spokesman Nick Dyer told NBC News that Greene “holds no stocks at this time as reflected in her financial disclosure.”

When asked by NBC News on Wednesday what happened to her Trump Media stock, Greene replied, “This is a waste of time. I think you can read my reports and see what I own."

But according to Campaign Legal Center general counsel Kedric Payne, if the value of Greene's stock drops below $1,000, she's not required to disclose any information.

Experts say another possibility is that Greene recently sold her stock, giving her a period of up to 45 days where she doesn't have to disclose anything. As NBC News points out, lawmakers "aren’t prohibited from trading or holding individual stocks and other investments. But under the STOCK Act, members of Congress must report any trades within 45 days."

But the news elicited little sympathy online.

"Awwwwe—poor Marge," wrote an X user called Pink Freud. And ctwin wrote: "Hoping like @mtgreenee the stock has no low to which it can sink."

Trump shares post slamming stock market for not getting his 'Michelangelo'-level genius

Kathleen Culliton
April 12, 2024 


Former President Donald Trump Friday made a new addition to his list of institutions that are conspiring against him: the stock market.

Trump shared this viewpoint on Truth Social, the social media site whose parent company has seen its value plummet after news hit it lost $58 million in 2023, in the form of an editorial from a writer whose credentials include “Author of President Trump's favorite Substack.”

“The Trump brand should be worth tens of billions of dollars more than what it is currently being traded at on the Nasdaq, given its uniqueness as combining the best of politics and business,” writes Paul Ingrassia.

“In the same vein in which DaVinci’s paintings and Michelangelo’s sculptures would be valued in the billions if ever sold on the open market today, Donald Trump’s creative visions equate to exceptional valuations — because of the rarity of his skillset and gifts.”

Ingrassia's online profile shows he is a communications director for a nonprofit that positions itself as “the answer to the useless and radically leftist American Civil Liberties Union,” a New York Young Republican Club member, and a recent graduate of Cornell Law School.

The common thread of his substack does not appear to be financial analysis, but commentary on the multiple legal woes facing Trump

Titles published by Ingrassia include, “MAGA Beauty Isabella DeLuca’s Arrest Is Proof Positive That Biden’s Weaponized Justice System Has Become Outright Despotic Against Political Dissidents.”

Ingrassia opens his think-piece by deriding New York civil court Justice Arthur Engoron and Attorney General Letitia James — the judge and prosecutor in Trumps’ $464 million civil fraud case — both of whom he accuses of fraud.

“The fraud is found in the courtrooms – and it is a fraud on the American public, as well as the rule of law – not just in New York, where the dangerous precedent is being set by radical and illegitimate operatives like Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron,” he writes.

“The people who increasingly hold the levers of power, like James and Engoron – and by extension, Joe Biden and Merrick Garland.”

ALSO READ: A criminologist explains why keeping Trump from the White House is all that matters

It’s worth noting that both Engoron and James were elected by the people of New York and their state-level positions are not connected to the federal Justice department.

This may be why Ingrassia next takes aim at all “institutions” he blames for the ruling in the Trump Organization civil fraud case.

“No matter how otherwise communistic our institutions may become, fortune, nature, (and God) invariably favors bold, original thinkers – especially in our age that suffers a pandemic of unoriginality and laziness,” he writes.

“Obviously, with the public listing of President Trump’s media company, his net worth is higher than ever before, placing him on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s top 500 billionaires, for the first time.”

Since the publishing of the Hill report Ingrassia shared, Trump has been bumped from the list.

As final proof to his billion-dollar value theory, Ingrassia points to the quality of Trump products.

“President Trump’s eye for discernment is why he has been able to build some of the most stunning golf courses seen anywhere in the United States,” writes Ingrassia.

“The Trump Brand is one of if not the world’s most recognizable brands. Whether pertaining to real estate, or politics, or media and entertainment, the Trump namesake is ubiquitous the world over, and is demarcated for its luxury and quality of content.”

Other Trump-branded items have included Trump Vodka, Trump Steak, Trump Magazine and Trump Mortgage, all of which appear in a round-up of the former president’s failed business ventures.

Trump shared Ingrassia’s analysis the same day financial experts reported Trump Media’s stock had lost half their value since hitting the market in late March, and followed it up with a post about Truth Social.


“If people who believe in putting America First and want to Make America Great Again, support TRUTH, we will be your Voice like never before, and a Real Voice is what our Country needs,” Trump wrote. “Because we are in decline.”On Friday, Trump Media stock values dipped below $30, Yahoo Finance data show.

Beijing slams US-Japan-Philippines summit, says South China Sea actions ‘lawful’

Reuters Published April 12, 2024

US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida take part in an official White House State Arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10. — Reuters

Beijing on Friday criticised the United States, Japan and the Philippines and defended its actions in the South China Sea as “lawful” after US President Joe Biden hosted a trilateral meeting in Washington.

Biden on Thursday pledged to defend the Philippines from any attack in the South China Sea at the White House summit, which came amid repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed waterway that have raised fears of wider conflict.

A joint statement issued by the leaders of the trio of nations voiced “serious concern” over Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea, slamming its behaviour as “dangerous and aggressive”.

Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines.

On Friday, China hit out at the joint summit in Washington, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying Beijing “firmly opposes the relevant countries manipulating bloc politics, and firmly opposes any behaviour that provokes or lays plans for opposition, and hurts other countries’ strategic security and interests”.

“We firmly oppose engaging in closed cliques that exclude others in the region,” Mao told a regular press conference.

“Japan and the Philippines can of course develop normal relations with other countries, but they should not invite factional opposition into the region, much less engage in trilateral cooperation at the cost of hurting another country’s interests.

“If these are not wanton smears and attacks on China, what are they?” she said.

“China’s actions in the East China Sea and South China Sea are appropriate and lawful, and beyond reproach,” Mao added.
‘Ironclad’

On Thursday, Biden told Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that the United States’ defence commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are “ironclad”.

As they met around a horseshoe-shaped wooden table in the grand East Room of the US presidential residence, the US, Japanese and Philippine leaders hailed the meeting as “historic”.

Without mentioning China by name, they painted their alliance as a bedrock of peace and democracy in the Asia-Pacific region in contrast to authoritarian Beijing.

Marcos, seen as closer to Washington than his more China-leaning predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, said they shared an “unwavering commitment to the rules-based international order”.

Kishida said that “multi-layered cooperation is essential” and that “today’s meeting will make history”.

Biden, 81, also held separate talks with Marcos, 66, the son and namesake of the country’s former dictator.

Heatwaves put millions of children in Asia at risk: UN

AFP Published April 11, 2024 

People walk under the shadow at a street market during a heatwave in Yangon on April 2, 2024. — AFP

Massive heatwaves across East Asia and the Pacific could place millions of children at risk, the United Nations warned on Thursday, calling for action to protect vulnerable people from the soaring temperatures.

Global monitors have warned that 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record, marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Data from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) showed over 243 million children across the Pacific and East Asia were estimated to be affected by heatwaves, putting them at risk of heat-related illnesses and death.

Several countries in the region are currently smouldering in the summer heat, with temperatures nearing record levels as they regularly hit over 40 degrees Celsius. Local forecasters are predicting steeper rises in the coming weeks.

Some Philippine schools suspended in-person classes in April, with the state weather forecaster saying temperatures could reach a “danger” level of 42 or 43 degrees Celsius in parts of the country.

In Thailand, a temperature of 43.5C was recorded in the northern province of Mae Hong Son earlier this week — just a few degrees shy of the record 44.6C. Around 40 people die from heat-related illnesses annually, according to the Thai Ministry of Health.

In February, neighbouring Vietnam endured a monster heatwave in its southern “rice bowl” when temperatures reached up to 38C — an “abnormal” high for the period.

According to the Unicef report, children are more at risk than adults as they are less able to regulate their body temperature.

“Children are more vulnerable than adults to the effects of climate change, and excess heat is a potentially lethal threat to them,” said Debora Comini, Director of Unicef’s Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific.

The report said that heatwaves and high humidity levels — commonly experienced in the region — can have a deadly effect as the heat will “hinder the body’s natural cooling mechanisms.”

“We must be on high alert this summer to protect children and vulnerable communities from worsening heatwaves and other climate shocks,” Comini said.

The UN projected that over two billion children are expected to be exposed to heatwaves by 2050.

Charity for change

Editorial 

DAWN

Published April 10, 2024 

PAKISTANIS are large-hearted people who empty their pockets at the slightest hint of another’s need.

The Stanford Social Innovative Review reported a few years ago that the country contributed over 1pc of its GDP towards philanthropy. A study by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy said that approximately $2bn is donated by Pakistanis per year.

Today, as Pakistanis celebrate Eid, it is apt to recall that the collective culture of compassion is rooted in the tradition of ‘giving’ in the Muslim faith, and it takes on various forms: zakat — a mandatory duty on a Muslim’s assets for other needy Muslims — fitra, qarz-i-hasana, sadqa, infaaq, khairaat, etc.

Moreover, religious tradition also mandates discretion in charity with the intention of protecting the identity and dignity of every beneficiary. While most Muslims are particularly generous during the holy month of Ramazan, the irony of crippling price hikes in the same period — a problem the country has to contend with every year — is not lost on anyone.

The patterns of giving, however, have altered over the years: people now prefer to help individuals, trusted religious charities, medical institutes and schools instead of state-sponsored donation drives due to the absence of government accountability and a resounding trust deficit. When the state is involved, the donors question where the funds are going.

The fusillade of appeals for funds and advertisements fill our screens and newspapers while the cityscape reflects destitution — women, children and the elderly, crowding streets, soup kitchens and shrines. There is then a need to reimagine altruism for sustained social change and justice, particularly in the midst of extreme economic misery. For this, the philanthropic sector ought to find channels to redistribute wealth and provide a strong overarching structure for charity to reach causes such as gender justice, climate refugees, healthcare, education, amenities and housing with the aim of amplified, long-term impact.

In the absence of a trusted state mechanism, charities can collaborate and identify the areas of greatest need. Concrete steps can include the expansion and transparency of income support schemes, job opportunities and financial cover for households and the homeless who are either living a hand-to-mouth existence or have nothing. It is time to donate with justice. The state, meanwhile, can play a role to ensure donations are not ending up in the pockets of extremists.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024

The professor’s delinquent students

Jawed Naqvi 

DAWN

Published April 9, 2024

THE zero from the large ‘G20’ image created with a mesh of wires has vanished. It was placed ambitiously over a tall footbridge near the venue where the G20 summit took place last September.

Whether someone took it away as a memento or sold it as scrap, or if the hastily minted zero flew away on a windy day, hardly matters. With a bevy of pliable TV channels, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could verily interpret the remaining G2 image as something more exclusive than G20.

He has already conjured a diplomatic advantage from the routine annual event, which nobody other than some ministers and his avid party supporters are able to divine. G20 summits happen annually in different member countries, the next one being scheduled without the needless fanfare in Lula da Silva’s Brazil.

Mr Modi, however, shrewdly used his turn as host to flaunt India as a Vishwa guru, a global professor, as it were, and there are not just a few that see the self-congratulatory boast as a national triumph. However, a strange problem has arisen for the global professor over his 10 years in office. The entire neighbourhood has fled the class. He seemed to have been an agreeable yoga teacher, but after they saw him asking people to bang their kitchen utensils to drive away the Covid virus, the children turned their interest to less contrived Confucius.

Foreign policies of nations are an extension of their domestic truth, the adage goes. Among the reasons, other than the unconvincing one about corruption, for which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was thrown into prison is that he told the packed Delhi assembly before his arrest the story of a fourth class pass king who, because of his poor education, pushed terrible policies like demonitisation that crippled his country’s economy. Kejriwal likened the allegorical king to the mediaeval Tughlaq sultan of Delhi, and this barb must have rankled the professor.

The fact is that every leader in South Asia, except perhaps those ruling Afghanistan, has a verifiable educational degree to back their claim to acceptability. The prime minister of Pakistan is a graduate from Lahore’s Government College University, while his Bangladesh counterpart graduated in Bengali literature from a reputed institute in Dhaka.

The leader of Sri Lanka is a law graduate, and the Maldives president studied civil engineering in the UK. The King of Bhutan went to Oxford, and Nepal’s Maoist prime minister has a diploma in agricultural science. Among Indian leaders, Nehru wrote numerous fabulous books, including a couple on world history, during his imprisonment. Indira Gandhi could give a polished interview in French, English and flawless Hindustani, while her son was a well-regarded commercial pilot who initiated India’s move into the digital era.

China being the elephant in the room is not a fact that Mr Modi readily acknowledges.

Mr Modi is usually projected by his fawning TV anchors as the greatest orator India has ever had. He can be quite compelling, true, but only if a better speaker like Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party or Lalu Yadav of Bihar are locked up, or if Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra of Mamata Banerjee’s party are arbitrarily suspended from parliament.

Who are the Confucius-hugging leaders that have shunned the professor’s lure? Pakistan is an old suspect. Sri Lanka has had its links with Beijing at least since Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s days. She told me of her affection for Marshal Tito and Zhou Enlai even as she cultivated cordial relations with Nehru and later with his daughter. Nepal always had flourishing ties with China, even as relations with India were rocky. Proximity to China has never not been a concern in New Delhi with Bangladesh. The new neighbours to court the professor’s bête noire are the Maldives and, more worryingly for him, tiny Bhutan, an erstwhile pocket borough.

Like the last elections, when it was the run-in with Pakistan that helped spur Mr Modi to victory, he seems to be searching for a handy stand-off in the neighbourhood.

A hot pursuit warning to Pakistan induced by the election season from Modi’s defence minister is an example of domestic exigencies framing foreign policy. A truer challenge comes from China, which recently renamed 30 cities and villages in India’s northeast to accord with its claim to sovereignty on Arunachal Pradesh. Mr Modi has curiously denied common lore that China recently took away a chunk of Indian territory.

China being the elephant in the room is not a fact that Mr Modi readily acknowledges, and that explains his raising of the issue of a miniscule island that Indira Gandhi conceded to Sri Lanka in 1974.

Kachchathivu is a barren uninhabitable real island comprising 285 acres spread between 1.6 kilometres length and 300 metres width. There has never been a record of India’s claim to the place, and the subject was discussed in 1921 without conclusion. According to the documents published last week by The Hindu, then foreign secretary Kewal Singh briefed former chief minister of Tamil Nadu K. Karunanidhi (father of the current one opposed to Mr Modi) about Mrs Gandhi’s decision to concede the island.

Three reasons were cited. There was no evidence of Indian claim on it. There was oil, which India had secretly assessed the prospects of, in a nearby area which Delhi would get in a settlement. A delay could alert Sri Lanka about the secret. Possibly the most compelling reason given by Mr Singh was the fear of Sri Lanka being driven closer to China if India persisted with a case it had no solid basis to defend.

Colombo was officially phlegmatic. The foreign minister ignored the barb saying it was prompted by India’s domestic politics. Besides, an international pact doesn’t just get wished away.

Did the global professor nevertheless succeed in denting the image of Indira Gandhi, seen by most Indians as a woman of steel? Probably not. But the Sri Lankan media decided to bunk his class anyway.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2024