Arktikugol asks permission to relocate illegal orthodox cross at Svalbard

Norway has set June 10th as deadline to tear down the giant orthodox cross illegally erected last August in the Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden.


Bishop Iyakov of Naryan-Mar and Mezen proclaimed Pyramiden to be Russian as he blessed the ghost town with holy water. The Russian Orthodox cross erected on August 5, 2023, is decorated with St. Georg's Ribbon, a symbol widely associated in Russia with the commemoration of victory in World War II, patriotism and support to the war in Ukraine. Photo collage with screenshots from video by Trust Arktikugol

By Thomas Nilsen     
June 04, 2024
BARETS OBSERVER

Trust Arktikugol, the Russian state-owned company running Moscow’s activities in Barentsburg and Pyramiden, asks in a letter to the Governor of Svalbard for permission to move the cross to inside the regulated zone for buildings in Pyramiden. The Barents Observer has received a copy of the letter from the Governor’s Office.

“Because the case is of great public importance and extra resources is needed to move the cross, the Trust asks the Governor of Svalbard to come up with an answer by June 10th…,“ the letter, which is signed by Director Ildar Neverov, reads.

Screenshot of the letter

Attached to the letter is a map, suggesting the cross to be moved and re-erected. The new location is some 140 meters from the “Pyramiden-sign” between the port and the main buildings of ghost town. That is just within the boundary regulated for buildings.

It was bishop Iyakov of Naryan-Mar and Mezen who led the ceremony to erect the giant orthodox cross in Pyramiden, a Soviet ghost town at Svalbard. The bishop is well-known for pushing Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic by blessing polar outposts together with leaders of military and security structures.

Bishop Iyakov devoted his Svalbard cross to Georgy the Victorious, the saint seen in Russia as the protector of soldiers.

To underline the military message, a propagandistic St. George’s Ribbon decorated the cross. This ribbon is today a strong symbol of supporters of the Russian war against Ukraine.

Trust Arktikugol wants the cross erected some 140 meters Pyramiden sign, to the right of the abolished buildings in the background.

 Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Unlawful

Svalbard’s environmental protection and cultural act is strict and the Governor’s office underlines that erection of such a cross is not allowed without prior approval. “Trust Arcticugol is ordered to remove the cross that has been erected without permission in a cultural heritage, nature and outdoor area (KNF area) north of the harbor in Pyramiden,” the letter concludes.

In his appeal letter dated October 2, obtained by the Barents Observer, director Ildar Neverov draws historical lines back to the 16th century when the Pomors [Russian settlers living on the White Sea coasts] started to erect crosses along Arctic shipping lanes.

The appeal was turned down by the Ministry of Environment in Oslo and a deadline to demolish the cross was set to June 10th.

“Insanity and fear are growing.” Strong statement by wives of mobilized soldiers

Russia’s Justice Ministry on Friday added the Put’ Domoi (The Way Home), a group consisting of wives, mothers and sisters of soldiers, to the list of so-called ‘foreign agents’.


Демонстрация цветов 9 мая, в День Победы, была организована женами, матерями, сестрами и детьми мобилизованных солдат, отправленных на войну в Украину. Фото из Telegram-канала «Путь домой»

By Thomas Nilsen     
June 02, 2024
BARENTS OBSERVER


The movement consists of mostly wives and mothers of drafted soldiers. That said, more and more of them are becoming widows.

“After so many months of awkward threats and crap thrown at us in the media, the authorities have finally decided on their opinion about us,” the group wrote in its Telegram channel on June 1 after learning they were labeled as ‘foreign agents’.

“Now we are agents of the reptilians and enemies of the regime,” the text in the Telegram post said with irony. It added: “Insanity and fear are growing stronger.”

May 9th protest in Moscow organized by Put’ Domoi. Photo from Telegram

While the Ministry of Justice argues the movement creates a “negative image” of Russia and the Russian army, the women counter and says:

“Well, now we have entered the list of cultural representatives: actors, musicians, writers. Congratulations to us or something.” The text ends with a laughing emoji.

Put’ Domoi has on several occasions held protests calling for Putin to bring mobilized soldiers home from the war in Ukraine.

The group assures it has never received any funding from abroad, and says it doesn’t intend to stop protests.

The Telegram channel has 13,600 subscribers.

Half million casualties

It was in late September 2022, Vladimir Putin announced partial military mobilization. At least 300,000 young Russian men were in the following months sent to the bloody battlefields in Ukraine as part of the mobilization.

Russia maintains that the number of killed soldiers is not be made public.

British intelligence, however, estimates the total number of Russian casualties, killed and wounded, since the start of the war in February 2022 has now likely reached 500,000.

The losses increased in May to an average of over 1,200 casualties per day, the highest reported since the start of the war. There is no available way for independent media to confirm or not.

Artur Chilingarov has passed away at 84

The northern explorer-turned-sanctioned-lawmaker is likely most famous for his 2007 North Pole dive to 4,200 meters below the Arctic Ocean where he planted the Russian flag.


Polar explorer Artur Chilingarov (left) at his last visit to Tromsø. Here in conversation with Vyacheslav Pavlovsky, Moscow's former Ambassador to Oslo.

 Photo: Thomas Nilsen

By Thomas Nilsen     
June 02, 2024

BARENTS OBSERVER

Chilingarov became a legend far beyond the borders of Russia. In Soviet days, he led multiple polar expeditions, both in the Arctic and to Antarctica.

His first tour to the North Pole was onboard the Murmansk-based nuclear-powered icebreaker Sibir in 1987.

Twenty years later, in 2007, Chilingarov together with two others crewed the Mir I mini-submarine to 4,261 meters depth at the North Pole. The Mir-2 took part in the same dives, and the group became the first in history to reach the seafloor on the top of the planet.

Down deep, they planted the Russian flag in a similar symbolic act as Roald Amundsen placed the Norwegian flag on the South Pole in 1911.

In 2007, Artur Chilingarov took part on board as two mini submarines dived to the seafloor at the North Pole and planted the Russian flag.

Chilingarov was closely linked with Russia’s secret services. He flew to the South Pole together with FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev in 2007, becoming part of the first team to land helicopters at 90 degrees South.

Patrushev and Chilingarov traveled to several Arctic events together, including the 2017 meeting in Sabetta where they dressed up in indigenous-looks and discussed development of Arctic oil and gas resources.

Chilingarov entered politics after the breakup of the Soviet Union was elected to the State Duma (Russian Parliament) in several periods from 1994 to 2014, representing the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and later as a Senator form the Tula Oblast.

He became a member of Putin’s United Russia party in 2002. He again became member of parliament in 2016 and had a seat until his death on June 1, 2024.

In recent years, Chilingarov was Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic. He also served as a member of the board in Rosneft.

As a lawmaker, Artur Chilingarov was sanctioned by the United States for his role as a warmonger, voting in favor of the illegal annexation of eastern regions of Ukraine.

FINLAND

Sámi Parliament repeat election started: two candidates nominated thanks to court ruling

The court ordered repeat election of the the 2023 Sámi Parliament started. Five out of the 36 candidates running for parliament did not participate in the 2023 elections.

The Sámi Parliament gathering in Sajos, Inari in January 2024. 

Photo: Ville-Riiko Fofonoff / Sámediggi | Saamelaiskäräjät

Hannah Thule
 BARENTS OBSERVER
June 04, 2024

The repeat elections of the Sámi Parliament started Monday, June 3, and the voting ends July 1 at 6 p.m.

The Sámi Parliament is the supreme political body of the Sámi in Finland representing the Sámi in national and international connections. It consists of 21 members and four deputies.

As reported earlier by the Barents Observer, Finland’s Supreme Administrative Court annulled the Sámi Parliament election held last October. Contrary to the decision of the Parliament’s governing bodies not to recognize the individuals in question as eligible voters or candidates, the court ruled 65 persons to be included in the electoral roll and repeat elections to be held. All Sámi who are listed in the electoral register are entitled to vote and stand as candidates in the elections.

The current President of the Sámi Parliament, Piritta Näkkäläjärvi, called the ruling “devastating news” in her speech at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April. She stated that ”We [Sámi people] are forced to include outsiders as electors in the Sámi Parliament in Finland – a representative body that is supposed to for and by the Sámi”

.

Pirita Näkkäläjärvi, President of the Sámi Parliament in Finland called the court ruling “devastating news”. Photo: Ville-Riiko Fofonoff / Sámediggi | Saamelaiskäräjät

Five candidates who did not run for parliament in the 2023 election stand as candidates in the repeat election. They are Paavo Riihitammela, Kari Kyrö, Inka Kangasniemi, Marko Tervaniemi and Antti Sujala.

Kari Kyrö and Inka Kangasniemi were members of the Sámi Parliament during the term 2020-2023. Kyrö was not registered to the electoral roll in the election in October 2023.

Kari Kyrö confirms that he and Paavo Riihitammela were added to the Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll as a result of the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling.

In Yle’s questionnaire sent out to the Sámi candidates, both Kyrö and Riihitammela oppose the reform of the Sámi Parliament Act. In their answers, Riihitammela states that “Language alone does not define a person’s identity. Removing the “Lapp tax” clause would mean discriminating against thousands of Sámi people in Finland.” and Kyös says that “the new language criteria for selecting individuals for the electoral roll cannot in any way assist the Inari Sámi people… and that it will lead to further discrimination.”

Out of the 35 candidates running for the Sámi Parliament, 29 answered Yle’s questionnaire. Seven candidates oppose the reformed Sámi Parliament Act, 18 candidates support it and four candidates are neither for nor against.

Kari Kyrö, is one of two candidates added to the electoral roll as a result of the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling. Photo: Sámediggi/ Saamelaiskäräjät/ The Sámi Parliament

Long-drawn out debate

The debate over who to include in the electoral roll in the Sámi Parliament elections has been ongoing for many years. In 2019 and 2022 United Nation treaty bodies accused Finland of violating human rights conventions due to the Supreme Administrative Court’s involvement in deciding whom to enroll to the electoral roll. The UN treaty bodies obliged Finland to review the Sámi Parliament Act to ensure that the criteria for voting in Parliament elections respects the Sámi peoples’ right to self-determination.

One of the most contentious topics of the current law, and the reform, is who to include in the election roll. In the reformed act, the so-called “Lapp tax” clause is removed. According to the clause descendants of a person who has been marked in a taxation, land or population register as a mountain, forest or fishing ‘Lapp’ is allowed to vote and run for parliament. As a compromise to the removal of the “lapp tax”, the language criteria has been revised. Under the reform, it is sufficient if one’s great grandparent spoke Sámi as their first language, contrary to the current requirement stating that one’s grandparent needed to do so.

The long-delayed Sámi Parliament Act, which has failed to be passed by the three previous coalitions, was introduced by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government to parliament in February this year.

In desperate need for more Arctic tankers, Novatek sends 200 of its engineers to shipyard

According to newspaper Kommersant, Russia's biggest producer of LNG has decided to move 200 workers from its natural gas field in far northern Gydan Peninsula to the Zvezda Yard outside Vladivostok.

Atle Staalesen

     

June 06, 2024

Novatek’s grand pIans for liquified natural gas (LNG) production in the Arctic are crumbling under the weight of international sanctions.

The company appears paralysed in its Arctic LNG 2 project, and the construction of a new fleet of ice-class LNG carriers has almost come to a halt.

The company that is headed by Putin’s companion Leonid Mikhelson has now reportedly decided to move up to 200 of its engineers and workers to the Zvezda Yard. The work force is to help speed up the building of two LNG carriers currently under construction at the yard.

The workers will be moved from Novatek’s major natural gas field at Utrenneye in the Gydan Peninsula. At the Zvezda Yard, they are believed to engage mostly in electric installation works and test and commissioning, Kommersant reports.

Russian industry is currently experiencing a rapidly growing work force deficit triggered by the departure of men to the frontline and the Kremlin’s introduction of war economy.

The additional 200 workers at Zvezda could cover a labor shortage at the yard.

Novatek might also have decided to move the workers away from Gydan following the standstill at the Arctic LNG 2. The project that is built to be able to produce almost 20 million tons of LNG per year is today paralysed by sanctions.

 

The first of Novatek’s projected three Arctic LNG 2 production units in August 2023 arrived in Utrenneye, Gydan Peninsula. Photo: Belokamenka51 at VK

 

Despite the arrival of a 640,000 ton heavy production unit in Gydan in August 2023, Novatek has not been able to launch normal production on site.

In November 2023, Arctic LNG 2 was put on the U.S State Treasury’s sanctions list. Before that, the Saam, a 400 meter long vessel projected to serve as transshipment hub for the project, was also sanctioned. In early May 2024, the US Treasury took aim also at several heavy lift carriers of paramount importance for Novatek’s delivery of project components.

Sources affiliated with the plans argue that the 200 workers from Novatek will allow Zvezda to complete one tanker before the end of 2024 and another in 2025.

When in operation, the two carriers are believed to enable Novatek to ship up to 2 million tons of LNG per year to the market.

It remains a open question what will happen with the additional 13 tankers projected built by Zvezda. Novatek also ordered six tankers from Hanwha Ocean, the South Korean yard formerly known as Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.

The Sergei Vitte is one of the Arc7 LNG carriers under construction at Zvezda Yard. Photo: sskzvezda.ru

Death toll from goldmine collapse in Nigeria rises to 20

Progress to rescue others trapped since collapse of goldmine in Niger State on Monday is slow due to lack of equipment, says official

Timothy Olanrewaju |06.06.2024 


ABUJA, Nigeria

The death toll from a goldmine collapse in Nigeria's north-central state has risen to 20, a senior police official confirmed on Thursday.

The bodies of 20 miners were recovered on Wednesday, but progress to rescue others trapped since the collapse of a goldmine in Niger State on Monday is slow due to a lack of equipment, Ibrahim Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, told Anadolu by phone.

Earlier, a local official said dozens of miners were trapped inside a goldmine in the Galadima Kogo community in the Shiroro region on Monday.

However, information about the incident was not available until Wednesday due to the country's nationwide strike, which paralyzed all sectors and disrupted telecommunications systems. The strike ended at noon on Tuesday.

"The mine site is profound, and we have to be careful because there are miners underneath the tunnels and stones. There are heavy stones around, and the process is difficult," Husseini said.

Earlier in a statement, the Niger State’s Ministry of Mineral Resources released the names of the miners trapped in the collapsed site.

The minister blamed the mining company for failing to comply with the government's order, which had suspended all mining activities in the area.

It said on Wednesday, a miner’s body and six injured were pulled out of the collapsed mine site.

A Gaza shelter’s mission to rescue lost pets and stray animals amid war

Saeed Al Err and his skeleton team continue to offer care and support to Gaza’s injured or abandoned animals, even while their own lives remain at risk.

MARION FERNANDO



OTHERS

Now, there are at least 15 dogs, over 300 cats, three donkeys, and one horse under the shelter's care in Nuseirat. /Photo: Sulala Animal Rescue Instagram

On the streets of war-torn Gaza, where Israel's military aggression rages on, Saeed Al Err continues to lead efforts to save and care for cats, dogs, and other vulnerable creatures in the besieged enclave.

Al Err, 54, is the Palestinian founder of Sulala Animal Rescue that’s been running since 2006. It claims to be the first and only licensed organisation that works to rescue and protect stray animals in Gaza.

Before the war, Sulala housed over 400 dogs in a shelter in northern Gaza, roughly the size of a football field. There were also 120 cats, 40 of which found refuge in Al Err’s own home, also in the north.

Together with his wife and eight children, the animal rescue founder was forced to move several times since the latest war began in October last year. With each relocation, they could only take some of the animals they were caring for with them — in these instances, it was a hundred plus cats under the Sulala founder's care, and several dogs with missing limbs from a section in the shelter for disabled canines.



When the Israeli military ordered civilians to evacuate south back in October, Annelies Keuleers, who volunteers for Sulala from abroad in Belgium, tells TRT World the organisation had no choice but to abandon the shelter.


Kueleers has volunteered with Sulala since 2019, helping the organisation with communication in English and managing their social media channels. Due to unreliable internet connection across Gaza, Al Err has asked her to handle all interviews on behalf of him and the animal rescue shelter.


"Saeed is now in Nuseirat, in the central area of Gaza, and the shelter is in Zeitoun, which is in the north," Keuleers shares. "The north is completely cut off from the south. There's absolutely no way of going there," she added.


Many were forced to flee following the evacuation order, but she relates that an employee who lived close to the shelter offered to stay and care for the dogs despite the risks involved.


"Then a ground invasion started and he thought 'This is too dangerous, I have to go'," Keuleers explains. "So we opened all the doors and put like 30 bags of 20kg dog food and then we had to leave — that was at the end of October."


Nine of the dogs have thus far found their way back to Al Err, she adds, after walking more than seven kilometres in the weeks that followed. Now, there are at least 15 dogs, over 300 cats, three donkeys, and one horse under the shelter's care in Nuseirat.



"He [Al Err] has been really upset about the donkeys and the horses, you know, they have to work much harder because there's no more electricity, and they have to carry big barrels of water — you have to pull them with carts because there's no water coming out of the taps," says Keuleers.


"And, unfortunately, a lot of people are acting out their pain on the donkeys and the horses, so they're really being beaten pretty badly."


Duties amidst a genocidal war


Sulala had many other volunteers on the ground in Gaza, but since the war, Keuleers says, people have naturally been "busy surviving," making them difficult to contact and less involved. "At this moment, on the ground, there is a vet who is volunteering and another person who is an employee."


She adds, "We are in a WhatsApp group with veterinarians from around the world," which allows Al Err and the team to seek advice or more specialised expertise when needed.



Al Err's older children are also part of the crew assisting him with duties, Keuleer shares, while the younger ones, including Al Err's youngest, seven-year-old Diana, who they affectionately call Dodo, used to accompany them on rounds to feed stray animals.


Today, responding to cases of injured or abandoned animals seems like business as usual for the founder of Sulala, except he is getting it done whilst under constant state of peril.


"He always used to look so much younger than 54 and now he looks older," Keuleers reflects. "He has had more grey hair since the beginning of the war. I noticed he had a cough that started in December, which he still had in February, so I know he was a bit sick.


"There's also just the lack of sleep, you know? You can't sleep when they're bombing all the time. The stress of not being responsible for these animals and not being able to feed them was very difficult too," she shares about the challenges Al Err faces as operations at the shelter continue.



In a video shared in January, Al Err said, "We have reached the point in which the food we have for our animals is close to finished, and we bought fish food. We tried it, and the cats and the dogs ate it."

After waiting several months to receive animal food aid from a couple of donor organisations abroad, Sulala received supplies for the animals in April. But stocks are already diminishing, causing further concern, especially since the Israeli military took over and closed the Rafah border crossing on May 6.

Nevertheless, the Sulala founder has made up his mind to stay and take care of everything and just wait out the war. "He has always said from the beginning of the war that leaving is just not an option because the animals can't come."

Before the war, the team would respond to about 35 cases a day, according to Keuleers.

They still get calls and messages from displaced Palestinians across Gaza hoping Sulala can help rescue beloved pets they were heartbreakingly separated from, she adds, but notes they can only usually tend to, "maybe one case every two days or every three days because it's just more difficult to get around."



In late April, the team managed to get in touch with Kamal, a veterinary student they knew who used to volunteer with the rescue shelter before the war. He is now seeking refuge in a church in the north.

"We got in touch with our friend Kamal … and he bought me five bags [of animal food],” 25-year-old Sa'ed, Al Err's oldest son, says in a video update posted on social media. This was from stock that was already inside Gaza from before the war.

“I sent him the money via my bank app. He paid the seller there and brought the food with him, and the food is there in the church so that we can refer any citizen or volunteer to him, and he will give them food," he added.


For 'the weak and the vulnerable'


Kueleers says Al Err is, "just as upset about the humans as he is about the animals." In addition to donations to help feed animals and run Sulala, the rescue shelter has been raising funds to buy and distribute food to hungry residents in Gaza.

"He cares about the weak and the vulnerable, and he will even be really compassionate towards me, you know," the Belgium-native remarks. "I'm in a safe country. I don't have to fear for my life, and he'll still be like, 'You sound tired. You should really sleep a bit' or, 'Oh, you're under so much pressure.'



Kueleers shares that Al Err has lost many friends who were killed in this war. She checks on his and everyone else's wellbeing in Sulala as often as internet connection permits and relates a conversation she had with Al Err.

"I remember, when talking to him, saying, 'You really need some mental health treatment after this. And he said, 'Yeah, all of Gaza needs it.'"

SOURCE: TRT WORLD

Marion Fernando is a deputy producer at TRT World.

Wordpress.comgrupojovenfl.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/peter-singer-animal-liberation-1.pdf

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation - WordPress.com

One thing I wasn't expecting was that the book would be continuously in print for the next forty years! Nor, of course, was I expecting it to appear as an ebook ...

I was a journalist in Gaza. The place I call home is gone now.

 

 Palestinian journalist Abu Bakr Bashir, pictured on assignment for Japan's JIJI PRESS in Khan Yunis, Gaza, got his start in journalism covering the second intifada. He asks what will become of Gaza journalism after the war.

(Photo: Courtesy of Abu Bakr Bashir)

By Abu Bakr Bashir

 June 6, 2024

CPJ.ORG

I was 13 when my father moved our family from Libya back to my parents’ hometown of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. It was 1994, a time of optimism. Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization had signed the Oslo Accords and Palestinians were heading toward an independent state. Gaza, with its successful businesspeople and its young, skilled workforce, was a central part of that project.

Palestinians celebrating the signing of the Oslo Accord’s Gaza-Jericho implementation agreement surround an Israeli police car on May 4, 1994 as they wave flowers and olive branches. (Photo: Reuters)

But over my 25 years in Gaza – 15 as a journalist – I watched how years of blockade and war eroded life in the strip. Now, with the ongoing war, the place where I grew up, went to school, made friends, fell in love, formed a family, and buried my father has been destroyed. The one place I will always call home is gone

These days, I live and work in London, where I moved in 2019. Like most journalists, my biggest professional worry is meeting deadlines. It’s nothing like Gaza, where handling the stress of life and death calculations and maintaining balanced relations with all the conflicting parties in and around the strip were always my top priorities.

The conflicting parties were Israel, which maintained a stranglehold on Gaza despite the 2005 withdrawal of settlements and troops, and Hamas, the de facto government, which based its legitimacy on its victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections and its claim that it had pushed Israel out. After those elections, amid Western pressure, Hamas and its rival Fatah agreed to form a unity government. But in 2007, Hamas took over Gaza. The Fatah-run Palestinian Authority was yet another conflicting party as it continued to claim that it was the legitimate authority over Gaza and squeezed the strip economically.

Amid all this, I was taking my first steps in journalism. During the Palestinian uprising known as the second intifada, foreign journalists needed help arranging and translating interviews. A local fixer hired me to accompany foreign journalists for $50 per day – very good money for a person my age with no experience. I only worked one or two days a month, but I was learning.

I soon made contact with the local journalist community. I initially thought they were all as wealthy and influential as the foreign correspondents they helped and frequented expensive cafes and restaurants, but I was naïve: journalists in Gaza belonged to the middle class, if not the lower class. Meeting for knafeh, a local dessert, at the Saqallah shop was a luxury.

When the Abu Al Soud knafeh shop opened, I invited a local journalist there to show respect and admiration. But journalists mostly hung out at the Matouq restaurant, at cafes by the beach, and later at the Press House, a media development nonprofit headed by Bilal Jadallah. Jadallah was killed during the ongoing war and the Press House was flattened. So were the knafeh shops in Gaza City.

As a young reporter, it did not take me long to figure out that reporting about Israel-Palestine for foreign media outlets meant there were restrictions on criticizing Israel in terms of content and language. In almost every single article produced from Gaza, I had to include the lines “Hamas, seen as a terrorist group by the West,” or “Hamas took over Gaza by force,” or, “Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.” To my editors, these additions were simply part of the structure of any article on Gaza. To my local audience, which felt my reporting was too soft and failed to show the brutality and cruelty of the occupation, these lines amounted to bias. And to me, they were a perfect prescription for inducing stress. I soon became a regular customer for Hamas security having to explain my articles and defend myself.

Abu Bakr Bashir covered the 2018 Gaza border protests, known as the Great March of Return. During the protests an Israeli sniper killed his colleague, photojournalist Yaser Murtaja.

Ironically, the more times you meet the same people, the more “friendly” your relationships become. The challenge was how to make sure these relationships were as friendly as possible in order to save my life and career and to maintain open channels with the de facto authority. But I also had to keep them as formal as possible because I was reporting for international media, and I was not allowed to get too close to authorities.

My relationship with Abu Mustafa embodied this conundrum; he was the Hamas security officer who always questioned me about my reporting. We met so many times that we became “friends.” He was one of the first people I called every time I needed to avoid the chronic bureaucracy in Gaza; in particular, he helped me get permits for visiting foreign press as he had the authority to approve their entry over the phone in just a few seconds. However, Abu Mustafa was only his nickname. I never felt confident enough to ask his real name and he never shared it during all our years of contact.

In 2015, both NPR and the Wall Street Journal, my biggest clients at the time, invited me to visit Jerusalem. That meant I had to pass the Erez border crossing and meet Israeli security officials in person for the first time. I was very nervous as Israel, like Hamas and Gaza, was at the very center of my reporting. Just like Hamas, Israel had a say over my life and career. At that time, I had already lost several colleagues to Israeli fire in the 2014 war. I would go on to lose several more, including Yaser Murtaja, who got too near the border fence while pursuing a photograph during Gaza’s anti-Israel demonstrations in 2018. Yaser did not know he went too far; there were no signs or instructions warning him away. An Israeli sniper ended his life. In the current war, more than 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed, including Roshdi Sarraj, another colleague of mine and of Yaser Murtaja. So yes, Israel does have a say about the lives of journalists in Gaza and I had every right to fear for my life.

Hamas, too, has its own say on journalists’ lives, safety, and careers. In 2019, Palestinians took to the streets to protest the harsh economic conditions under its control. Hamas police cracked down on the protesters, and arrested and beat up the journalists covering the protests. As a journalist, I had no option but to report on the protests and on the Hamas assaults. It was just one more time when I had to put my life at risk for the sake of my reporting. I survived, but I couldn’t shake the stress for many weeks to follow.

Back to my 2015 trip to Jerusalem through Erez crossing. While I was looking over my previous reporting to prepare myself for potential questions from the Israeli officers at the checkpoint, Abu Mustafa gave me a call. He had seen my name on a list of Gazans planning to cross Erez. He put me in touch with a nameless colleague whose job was to guide people like me, who were making the journey for the first time. That was one of the weirdest situations ever, to be guided by a Hamas security officer whom I did not know or trust and who did not know or trust me. I am the last person to seek advice from Hamas, and yet here he was, advising me on how to deal with the Israeli security, intelligence, and military officers.

I was shocked to learn that everything this nameless man said happened in exactly the way he described it. I was strip-searched by two Israeli officers, and brought into a room with a woman who appeared to be Palestinian who said she wanted to talk to me. On the advice of the nameless man, I told her I was tired. I was later interviewed by a bald Israeli officer, one of the two people Abu Mustafa’s colleague said would interview me. The officer showed me photos of people on his computer and asked me about who they were. The nameless man’s advice was: once you are asked about someone, that meant they knew you had a relationship with them, so don’t lie but give general answers.

In the end, I made it to Jerusalem and back unharmed. I felt thankful for his guidance but also stressed over how much these two fighting parties seemed to know about each other — and about me. Both had the tools to make my life miserable if they wanted, and I only had my press card, a helmet, and a vest — materials that needed Israeli approval to enter Gaza and Hamas permission to be used there.

Palestinians shelter in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, Abu Bakr Bashir’s hometown, as people continue to flee Rafah due to an Israeli ground operation, on May 12, 2024. (Reuters/Ramadan Abed)

When I lived in Gaza, I was worried about my life and my children’s future. Now in London, I worry about Gaza and the future of journalism there. In addition to those journalists who have been killed, dozens have fled; these losses are catastrophic to the journalistic profession there. Eight months into the war, I have so many questions: Who will guide the young journalists entering the profession? How objective can they be given the brutal conditions and lack of guidance? Will the world listen to them, let alone believe their narrative? And at the end of this, will there be young men and women willing to go into journalism in Gaza? Who will tell Gaza’s story?

Abu Bakr Bashir is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, where he covered news for the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Japan’s JIJI PRESS. In 2019, he relocated with his family to London, where he worked for Qatar’s Al-Araby TV and the Palestinian Alghad TV channel before becoming London reporter for Egypt’s AlQahera News. He is covering the ongoing war in Gaza remotely for NPR and The New York Times.

UK

How Sunak came up with disputed claim about Labour tax plans – and the problems with using Treasury numbers like this

The Treasury distanced itself from the £2,000 claim. 

Alex Segre/Shutterstock

Published: June 6, 2024 

THE CONVERSATION

The first televised debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer was dominated by the prime minister’s claim that every working family in the country would be paying £2,000 more in tax if Labour win the general election.

It was a bold claim, which Sunak said was backed up by “official calculations” from the Treasury. Those calculations appeared in a document put out by the Conservatives which accused Labour of making billions of pounds worth of unfunded spending commitments.

Since the debate on June 4, the £2,000 figure has been subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. And it quickly became clear that it was full of holes.

The sums had not been endorsed by Treasury officials, and were based on projections which vastly increased the cost of Labour’s spending plans while underestimating the potential tax revenue Labour says it plans to raise.

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Put simply, the Conservatives said that a Labour government would have much less money than it expects to have, and that its spending projects will cost much more than they think.

Overall, some £20 billion (around a third) of the spending totals identified by the Conservative’s dossier appear to be substantially overstated.

The biggest spending item listed in the document is £18.9 billion for Labour’s “green prosperity plan”. But Labour has said that its new fiscal rules would allow it to borrow for investment, so this sum does not necessarily have to be offset against tax revenue.

Elsewhere, the document claims that Labour’s plans to reduce outsourcing, for things like IT systems, will add £6.5 billion to costs. But it gets to this figure by assuming that “insourcing” services is always 7.5% more expensive that using outside contractors. A recent report by the Institute of Government concluded that there is no definitive evidence that this is the case.

Separately, in costing Labour’s offer of free breakfast clubs in primary schools, the assumption is made that 50% of all children will take this up. It also claims that Labour will fully fund the cost of additional meals and staffing, bringing the total cost to £4.5 billion, which Labour denies.

Then there is the price of Labour’s plan to reform local bus services, which the Conservatives estimate to be £3.6 billion. But the small print explaining this figure reads: “This costing has been done at pace with limited data and therefore the uncertainty and risk of error is high.”

There are some unsurprisingly pessimistic assumptions in the revenue raising figures too. For example, the Conservatives say that raising VAT on private schools will raise substantially less than Labour’s estimate of up to £1.7 billion per year. They also suggest that Labour’s plan for taxing non-doms will raise very little (£100 million per year) after the first year.

Then finally, by choosing to add up these purported costs over four years rather than annually, the writers of the Conservatives’ dossier came up with a figure of £58.9 billion in new spending plans. They then subtracted projected revenues of £20.4 billion over the same period to produce a “black hole” total of £38.5 billion.

This big number was divided by the number of working adults (18 million) in the UK to reach the bill of £2,000 per family. (Some viewers might have assumed this was a yearly total rather than a cost over four years.)

But looking at it on a yearly basis, the supposed gap between extra revenue and extra spending is about £10 billion, which in fact is less than the amount of “headroom” that the next government is projected to have to meet its fiscal target.

And of course, if Rachel Reeves becomes chancellor, she will have the chance to set a budget for the next few years, and decide how much revenue to raise. She would also be carrying out a much delayed spending review that will set the targets for governmental spending over the next three years.

So there will be plenty of scope for trade-offs, both in spending and taxation.
A better system

Meanwhile, as Sunak’s £2,000 figure is investigated by the Office for Statistics Regulation, it’s worth remembering that this government is not the only one to try and predict the cost of the opposition’s policies before a general election. As far back as the 2005 general election, Gordon Brown claimed that there was a £35 billion black hole in Conservative spending plans.

And Labour has now accused the Tories of having a £71 billion black hole of their own, based on the assumption that they will immediately implement the chancellor’s wish to eventually eliminate national insurance (and possibly inheritance tax).

But surely there is a better way to inform the public in way that does not give the party in power a huge advance in crunching the numbers. Lord Gus O'Donnell, the former head of the Treasury as well as the civil service, called opposition costings “one of the grubbiest processes I’ve ever been involved in”.

He explained: “Ministers tell you to produce these costings on some assumptions they give you, which are dodgy assumptions designed to make the policy look as bad as possible.”

In the Netherlands, opposition parties can ask a government agency, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, for an official costing of their own proposals.

In the UK, it has been suggested that this could become part of the role of the OBR (although it would require greater resources and more access to government data). If it was, it might just reduce the fog that often clouds debates over spending – and potentially expose issues in the political plans of all parties that they don’t want to talk about.

Author

Steve Schifferes
Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City, University of London

Keir Starmer’s Trident triple lock: how Britain’s obsession with nuclear weapons has become part of election campaigns

Royal Navy Trident nuclear submarine Plymouth UK after a refit in 2015. 

Jonathan Somers / Alamy Stock Photo

THE CONVERSATION
Published: June 6, 2024 

With a campaign slogan of “change”, Keir Starmer is on a mission to persuade the electorate that the Labour party of 2024 is different to the one of 2019. Part of this is his unequivocal “triple lock” commitment to Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapon system.

At a time when the risk of a major European war is higher than it has been for decades, Starmer has reiterated his support for a massive programme to replace the Trident system (submarines, warhead, missiles and infrastructure), initiated by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, in 2006. The triple lock is a commitment to the current programme to build four new ballistic missile submarines, keep one of the four always at sea on operational patrol and keep the system up to date.

Starmer is pushing back against Conservative claims that Labour is “weak”, “cannot be trusted” and is a “danger to national security”, accusations that have plagued his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong opponent of nuclear weapons.

Ideas of British national identity and Britain’s place in the world connect to a commitment to nuclear weapons. This identity is also tied to the idea of Britain as a military power in Europe, and Labour’s current identity of being strong on defence.

Prospective prime ministers are effectively required to publicly declare that they would be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Commitment to nuclear deterrence has become a de facto criterion for entering No 10.

Corbyn found this out in 2017 when he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr he would never use nuclear weapons first, or perhaps ever, if he were prime minister. In an unprecedented intervention, serving and former chiefs of the defence staff said that Corbyn’s response showed he “should not be trusted … with the nation’s defence and security”, and was unfit to be prime minister. Corbyn’s opposition to Trident is still being used to attack Starmer and Labour years later.

Starmer first signalled his commitment to Trident in 2021. Two years later, shadow defence secretary John Healey and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy declared their “unshakable” commitment to nuclear weapons as part of “Labour’s heritage”. But concerns about the morality and efficacy of using nuclear weapons have long divided Labour.

This is quite different to how nuclear weapons, which are based in Scotland, are framed by the Scottish National Party. In their conception of an independent Scotland’s national identity nuclear weapons are associated with imposed, undemocratic, Tory “imperialism” in which Labour has been complicit, and contrary to the SNP’s version of progressive internationalism. The SNP has said they would remove nuclear weapons from Scotland in the event of Scottish independence.

The nuclear debate is also wrapped up in a gendered narrative that sees a commitment to nuclear weapons as strong, sensible, rational and masculine, and anything else as weak, irrational and feminine.

The nuclear ‘consensus’

This Whitehall nuclear consensus closes down democratic debate on if, how and why the prime minister might use nuclear weapons. But views in the country are far from settled.

Recent polling shows 53% supports or strongly supports the UK having nuclear weapons, with about 30% opposed or strongly opposed. For women, the split is 50:50. For under 25s, it is 28% in favour and 43% against. In Scotland it is 35% in favour and 41% against (the rest say they don’t know).

The UK prime minister is one of a handful of people in the world with the power to inflict truly catastrophic levels of violence upon another society. Nuclear weapons should therefore be subject to intense scrutiny and debate, especially in a liberal democratic society. Starmer should appreciate this as a human rights lawyer, since practically any use of nuclear weapons would transgress international humanitarian and human rights law.

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally against Trident. 

David Rowe/Alamy

The nuclear programme is also hugely expensive. At a time when public services including health and education are under serious pressure, this arguably makes democratic debate even more necessary.

In March 2024 the House of Commons public accounts committee reported that the cost of the Ministry of Defence’s 10-year equipment plan was over budget by £17 billion, despite a budget increase of £46.3 billion. The greatest cause of this was the nuclear programme, where costs have increased by £38.2 billion (62%) since the last plan. The nuclear programme is now 34.5% of the £288.6 billion defence equipment plan, which itself is 49% of the total MoD budget.

In particular, the programme to deliver the new Dreadnought ballistic missile submarines has become the MoD’s highest priority. The department will redirect funds from conventional military programmes to support it if it can’t get more money from the Treasury. Labour and the Conservatives have both committed to increase the defence budget, especially for conventional forces, but have not said where the money will come from.

There are other political reasons why Starmer has come out strong for Trident. In particular, the thousands of jobs that the production and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines supports in England and Scotland, and the power of the unions in the Labour party. The “triple lock” language also mirrors the triple lock commitment on pensions. This may appeal to older voters, who are more likely to vote (and vote Conservative).

Starmer’s “triple lock” might make sense politically from his perspective, but it is symptomatic of a nuclear consensus in Whitehall politics that brooks little dissent. The result is that debate on these difficult and serious security, economic, legal and moral choices on nuclear weapons routinely gets shut down and reduced to political performance. In the words of retired senior British Army officer General Sir Richard Shirreff, it infantilises a deadly serious issue.

Author

Nick Ritchie
Professor, Department of Politics & International Relations, University of York
Disclosure statement
Nick Ritchie has received funding from the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
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