Oil spills detected in Murmansk region

Authorities search for those responsible for the incident.


Representatives of the Russian environmental watchdog testing the waters of the Tuloma River that flows into the Barents Sea. 

Photo: Rosprirodnadzor Vkontakte

Text:
Elizaveta Vereykina
July 17, 2024

INDEPENDENT BARENTS OBSERVER

A large oil spill was detected in the Pervomaysky district of Murmansk city - the capital of the Russian Arctic. The spill has appeared in the very inner part of the Kola fjord - along the Tuloma River that flows into the Barents Sea, Russian environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor reported on July 15 in Vkontakte.

“Water samples have been taken, - the watchdog reported, - Significant excesses of the maximum permissible concentration for the pollutant “petroleum” have been established. The spill is spreading downstream towards the Barents Sea. Along the entire route of the pollution, saturated spots of oil products are observed on the shoreline of the Kola Bay.”

Representatives of the environmental watchdog testing the waters around Kola town. Photo: Rosprirodnadzor

Authorities have so far tested water in two locations - around the Kolsky bridge in the Pervomaysky district of Murmansk and around the bridge in the town of Kola in the Murmansk suburbs. The watchdog experts suggest the initial source of both spills is the same and is located further upstream.

“The area of ​​the polluted water was 591 square meters, - the watchdog reported in VKontakte, - The maximum permissible concentration for the pollutant “petroleum products” was found to be 400 times higher.”

Despite the fact that the spill was discovered on 1 July, the authorities are still trying to find those responsible for it and are calling on the public to help:

Murmansk is located a few kilometers away from the Barents Sea

Ella Marie: Oppressed people should resist - I think it's good for the soul

Sámi artist and activist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen was one of the artists performing at the Riddu Riđđu festival in Manndalen in northern Norway, which took place July 10-13. The Barents Observer met with her during the festival to talk about what fuels her activism and the key issues she sees facing the Sámi People right now.

Arms race gathers pace as Russia and US plan to redeploy once-banned weapons

Then US President Ronald Reagan (right) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in Dec 1987. 

JUL 17, 2024

LONDON – Four decades ago, the US deployed cruise and Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe to counter Soviet SS-20s, a move that stoked Cold War tensions but led within years to a historic disarmament deal.

“We can be proud of planting this sapling, which may one day grow into a mighty tree of peace,” Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told US President Ronald Reagan in December 1987, as they agreed to dismantle the rival systems under a treaty that scrapped all ground-based, shorter-range and intermediate-range (INF) nuclear and conventional weapons – those with ranges of between 500km and 5,500km.

The sapling survived until 2019, when Donald Trump, then US president, quit the treaty, citing alleged violations that Russia denied.


But the risky implications of the pact’s full unravelling are becoming fully apparent only now, as both sides set out their plans for new deployments.

On June 28, President Vladimir Putin said publicly that Russia would resume producing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles – something the West suspects it was already doing anyway – and take decisions on where to place them if needed.

Security experts assume these missiles, like most Russian systems, will be capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads.


On July 10, the US said it will start deployment in Germany from 2026 of weapons that will include SM-6s and Tomahawks, previously placed mainly on ships, and new hypersonic missiles.


These are conventional systems, but some could also, in theory, be fitted with nuclear tips, and security experts said Russian planning would have to allow for that possibility.

The decisions, taken against the background of acute tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and what the West sees as threatening nuclear rhetoric from Mr Putin, add to an already complex array of threats for both sides.

They also form part of a wider INF arms race with China.


“The reality is that both Russia and the United States are taking steps that they believe enhance their security, regardless of whether it comes at the expense of the other,” said Mr Jon Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists.

“And as a result, every move that the United States or Russia makes puts pressure on the adversary to respond in some way, politically or military. That’s the definition of an arms race,” Mr Wolfsthal, a former US arms control official, said in a telephone interview.
Strike scenarios

Mr Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, said the planned deployments created “more scenarios for direct military confrontation between Russia and Nato countries”, for which all sides needed to prepare.

Hypothetically, he said, these could include eventualities such as a Russian strike on a Polish base where Western weapons bound for Ukraine were being stored, or a US attack on a Russian radar or a command and control post.

He said each side already has the capability to carry out such strikes using sea- or air-launched missiles, but adding ground-based weapons would give them more options to conduct an attack and withstand the enemy’s response.

The US has said it will start deployment in Germany from 2026 of weapons that will include Tomahawks and new hypersonic missiles. 

The risk, the experts said, is that this fuels already-high tensions and prompts a further spiral of escalation.

Mr Wolfsthal said he saw the planned US deployments in Germany as a signal of reassurance to European allies rather than a step conferring any significant military advantage.

“My only concern about the deployment of these systems is they may not really add to our military capability, but they almost certainly add to the risk that a crisis could accelerate and grow out of control,” he said.

Mr Ulrich Kuehn, an arms control specialist at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, said in a telephone interview: “From a Russian perspective, if you deploy these kind of weapons in Europe, they can generate strategic (threat) effects – to Russian command centres, to political centres in Russia, to airfields, airstrips where Russian strategic bombers are placed.”

Russia might respond, he said, by deploying more strategic missiles that point at the continental US.

How would China respond?

Any deployment of Russian and US intermediate-range missiles could also prompt a further build-up by China, which was not bound by the 1987 Soviet-US treaty and so has been free to ramp up its own INF arsenal.

The US Defence Department said in a 2023 report to Congress that China’s rocket force has 2,300 missiles with ranges between 300km and 3,000km, and a further 500 that can travel between 3,000km and 5,500km.

Concern about China’s missiles was an important factor behind Trump’s decision to quit the treaty with Russia, and the US has already taken an initial step towards placing its own intermediate-range weapons in allied countries in Asia.

In April, it made its first overseas deployment of previously banned ground-launched missiles when it took part in a two-week military exercise in the Philippines.

“This will not be a two-party arms race between Russia and the United States and its allies, it will be a much more complex one,” Mr Kuehn said, with potential to involve China and other US allies in Asia such as South Korea and Japan.

All three experts said the chances of Russia and the US arriving at a breakthrough arms control deal of the kind that Mr Reagan and Mr Gorbachev struck in the 1980s were remote.

“Even if Russia and the United States would totally agree that ‘this whole thing is not helping anybody, let’s get back to the INF treaty’ or whatever, the US would not be able to do that because of China, because they really need those systems to match Chinese capabilities,” Mr Baklitskiy said.

The likelihood, he added, was that “we will just continue piling up those systems and targeting them at each other. So it doesn’t seem like we have a nice time ahead of us”. REUTERS

Exiled Chinese billionaire convicted of defrauding followers after fleeing to US


While in the US Guo Wengui developed a close relationship with Steve Bannon

Larry Neumeister

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (R) greets fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui before introducing him at a news conference on November 20, 2018 in New York (AFP via Getty Images)

Guo Wengui, a self-exiled Chinese business tycoon whose criticism of the Communist Party won him legions of online followers and powerful friends in the American conservative movement, was convicted by a jury on Tuesday of engaging in a massive multiyear fraud that ripped off some of his most devoted fans.

Once believed to be among the richest people in China, Guo was arrested in New York in March of 2023 and accused of operating a racketeering enterprise that stretched from 2018 through 2023.

Over a seven-week trial, he was accused of deceiving thousands of people who put money into bogus investments and using the money to preserve a luxurious lifestyle. He was convicted of nine of 12 criminal counts, including racketeering conspiracy

Guo's lawyers said prosecutors hadn't proven he'd cheated anyone. After the verdict, one of his attorneys declined to comment.

In a statement after the verdict, US Attorney Damian Williams said Guo's interrelated fraud schemes were “all designed to fleece his loyal followers out of their hard-earned money so that Guo could spend his days in his 50,000 square foot mansion, driving his $1 million Lamborghini, or lounging on his $37 million yacht.”

He added: “Thousands of Guo’s online followers were victimized so that Guo could live of a life of excess.”

Guo, who is also known by the name Miles Kwok, left China in 2014 during an anticorruption crackdown that ensnared people close to him, including a top intelligence official.

Chinese authorities accused him of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other crimes, but Guo said those allegations were false and designed to punish him for publicly revealing corruption as he criticized leading figures in the Communist Party.

He applied for political asylum in the US, moved to a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park and joined former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida.

While living in New York, Guo developed a close relationship with Trump’s onetime political strategist, Steve Bannon. In 2020, the two announced a joint initiative to overthrow the Chinese government.

Prosecutors say hundreds of thousands of people were convinced to invest more than $1 billion in entities Guo controlled. Among those businesses and organizations was Guo’s media company, GTV Media Group Inc., and his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange.

In a closing argument at the trial, Assistant US Attorney Ryan Finkel said Guo “spouted devious lies to trick his followers into giving him money.”

In this courtroom sketch, Guo Wengui, seated center, and his attorney, Tamara Giwa, left, appear in federal court (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

He said Guo made hundreds of broadcasts and videos in which he promised followers that they would not lose money if they invested with him.

“I’m rich. I’ll take care of you,” the prosecutor said Guo told them.

Then, he said, Guo spent millions from investors on a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family that included a $1.1 million tortoise-shell jewelry box and some candlesticks, a million dollar chandelier, $36,000 mattresses, a $40,000 coffee table and a $250,000 antique rug, items kept at a family home in Mahwah, New Jersey.

Defense lawyer Sidhardha Kamaraju told the jury that prosecutors had presented a case “long on rhetoric but short on specifics, long on talk, but short on evidence.”

Kamaraju said Guo was the “founder and face” of a pro-Chinese democracy movement that attracted thousands of political dissidents. Kamaraju urged jurors to think about whether Guo would intentionally cheat his fellow movement members for money. He said prosecutors had failed to prove that “Mr. Guo took a penny with the intent to undermine the political movement he invested so much in.”

The lawyer did not deny that his client lived lavishly, with a luxury apartment that took up an entire floor in Manhattan; a home in Greenwich, Connecticut; a yacht and a jet. But he said prosecutors wanted jurors to take “leaps in logic” to find Guo guilty.

“It’s not a crime to be wealthy,” Kamaraju said. “It is not a crime to live in luxury or to spend money on nice things. It’s not a crime to have a yacht or a jet or to wear nice suits. It may not be our lifestyle. It may be odd. It may even be off-putting to some, but it’s not a crime.”

The prosecutor, Finkel, said everyone agreed that Guo was targeted by China’s Communist Party, but that did not give Guo “a license to rob from these people.”

Finkel said Guo also created a “blacklist” of his enemies and posted their personal information online. When the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated him, Guo organized protests against the agency and claimed that it had been infiltrated by China’s Communist Party. And when a bankruptcy trustee was appointed by a judge to represent Guo’s creditors, Finkel said Guo’s followers protested outside the home of the trustee’s children and outside an elementary school where one of them taught.

New Research Finds Blood Cancer Cases at Malmstrom Air Force Base Likely Not ‘Due to Chance’


Country:
UNITED STATES
Author:
Thomas Novelly
GRANTEE




Bioenvironmental engineers from the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, or USAFSAM, and the 341st Operational Medical Readiness Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., assess environmental factors in a launch control center, June 22, 2023. Image courtesy of John Turner/U.S. Air Force.

Anew independent research report examining non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases among service members who worked with nuclear missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana suggests that it's very unlikely that the high rates of blood cancer would have occurred by chance.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the unpublished report, analyzed data provided by the Torchlight Initiative, a grassroots group of current and former missileers who have created a cancer registry for those who worked on intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. The report's findings, first provided to Military.com, showed that "the probability of 18 missileers within the study population being diagnosed with [non-Hodgkin lymphoma] is 2.1 in 1,000 trillion or extremely unlikely to be due to chance," the Torchlight Initiative said in a statement.

"This analysis underscored the exceptionally low likelihood of such events occurring purely by chance, suggesting potential underlying risk factors or exposures unique to this population," the findings of the research paper, shared by Torchlight on Monday, stated

The paper, titled "ICBM Community Cancer Registry Analysis: A Focus on Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Cases in Missileers," used the Torchlight registry -- which consists of more than 635 reported cancer cases among the community -- and compared it to national rates in the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program, or SEER. The new report was not authored or sponsored by the Department of Defense, the Air Force or the U.S. government.

Torchlight said the results show that non-Hodgkin lymphoma is occurring at higher rates and at younger ages than the national average.

"This decision-worthy evidence means that missileers are taking casualties at an unacceptable rate," Torchlight said in a statement. "Now that the community sees evidence of the problem at Malmstrom, steps need to be taken to understand the scope of the problem, the cause or causes, and to mitigate the risks immediately."

Concerns of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers among missileers and maintainers have been detailed in an ongoing Military.com investigative series examining how service members were working in conditions with known carcinogens and chemicals that they now believe contributed to the health issues.

While the university's report also states that the "modest population size constrains the power of our analyses," it also serves as the first independent analysis of cancer data released since the Air Force announced last year that it was probing the concerns among current and former members of the service's nuclear missile community.

That independent research matters a lot to former missileers such as 47-year-old Michael Yamzon, a recently retired missileer who was stationed at both F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Malmstrom in the 2000s. During his career, he started experiencing breathing problems and, last week, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which he attributes to his time in the Cold War-era facilities.

Yamzon said it's important for outside eyes to examine the cancer rates to come to a truly objective conclusion.

Military.com's investigation showed that prior studies by the Air Force in the early 2000s ignored potential warning signs of cancer clusters among the community, and that the military branches failed to account for known contaminants in the past.

"The Air Force is investigating itself. Are they really interested in doing a thorough investigation? Or is that contradicting. … There's always that doubt on the validity of the depth and the accuracy of the investigation," Yamzon said in an interview with Military.com. "Torchlight has nothing else better to gain other than the advocacy for the health of people, the missile community."

Torchlight's independent report comes as the Air Force is undergoing a massive cancer study of its own that began in 2023 -- after a former Malmstrom missileer and current Space Force officer created a presentation that showed an alarming number of cancer cases among those who served at the base.

Air Force Global Strike Command provided a statement but did not comment specifically on the new research shared by the Torchlight Initiative when reached by Military.com for comment on Monday.

"Our epidemiological study, based on tens of thousands of records, continues to move forward," said Charles Hoffman, a command spokesman. "We expect the results of the next phase of the study to be released at the end of summer."

So far, only preliminary data has been released from the service's study that points to some elevated levels of cancer among the missile community. But the Air Force is still working to gather data from Department of Veterans Affairs medical records, the Department of Defense cancer registry, and the VA cancer registry.

Last month, Air Force Global Strike Command detailed several changes coming during the course of the study, including new workplace inspections and having hazards and exposures added to missileers' records.

The Air Force has done testing at F.E. Warren, Malmstrom and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, as well as Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

While missileers and maintainers have told Military.com they were exposed to numerous substances, the Air Force has found only carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, above the Environmental Protection Agency's threshold in facilities at two of the bases, Malmstrom and Minot.

The launch facilities, the underground silos where the actual missiles themselves are kept, at the three operational bases -- F.E. Warren, Malmstrom and Minot -- had not been tested but are scheduled for testing this month.

"I want the Air Force to recognize what they are doing to their airmen," Yamzon said. "They are subjecting their people to an environment that is not acceptable, and they need to do something to remove those toxins to allow people to operate in an ideal condition."

Israeli high court orders govt explain conditions at facility where Palestinians 'raped, tortured'

Israeli human rights groups had filed a lawsuit against the government over the treatment of Palestinian detainees at the facility.

The New Arab Staff
17 July, 2024

Israeli prisons and detention facilities have come under scrutiny over alleged perpetration of human rights abuses [Getty]

Israeli high court justices have ordered the government to give answers over the conditions at Sde Teiman, a facility where thousands of Palestinians are being held in conditions that have been described as horrific.

Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman and justices Daphne Barak-Erez and Ofer Grosskopf issued the order on Monday after the government requested additional time on the closure of Sde Teiman.

According to Haaretz, the judges demanded the state answer "why the Sde Teiman detention facility is not operated in accordance with the conditions set forth in the law governing internment of unlawful combatants".

Attorney for the state Aner Helman said that a government committee on the issue would present its conclusions to Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi on Tuesday.

The order comes after the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a lawsuit claiming that the extent of the violations of detainees' rights at the facilities "may even amount to a war crime" and that holding detainees at Sde Teiman was unconstitutional.

On Monday, ACRI attorney Oded Feller said his group wanted the court to issue a provisional order.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had been required to move detainees out of the site before Monday's hearing, but has failed to do so. The Attorney-General of Israel, Gali Baharav-Miara has previously accused Netanyahu of obstructing the closure.

Khaled Mahajne, a Palestinian lawyer who visited the site, said it was "unlike anything I've seen or heard before".

Mahajneh had been at the prison to see journalist Mohammad Arab, who works for The New Arab's sister network Al-Araby TV.

Arab reported seeing cases of rape and torture of inmates at Sde Teiman, Mhajne told a press conference in Ramallah earlier this week.

Other Israeli facilities have also been subject to scrutiny for their harsh conditions, including the Ofer Military Prison where recently released Palestinian bodybuilder Moazaz Abayat lost half his weight after eight months of detention.

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who controls the prison service, has said that he has sought to worsen the conditions of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons

The systematic torture of Gazans in Israel's secret prisons

In-depth: Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians in makeshift detention centres and jails as part of its war on Gaza - and torture and abuse are rife.


Mohamed Solaimane
22 May, 2024

On 11 May, CNN exposed Israel’s harrowing treatment of dozens of Gazan prisoners held hostage in the Sde Teiman desert camp-turned-detention centre.

In the report, which stirred widespread condemnation, whistle-blowers revealed that Gazan hostages were subjected to “extreme physical restraint” and “stripped down of anything that resembles human beings”.

When The New Arab interviewed several of the 76 Gazan prisoners released just days after the CNN report was published, it became apparent that these abuses were not exclusive to that one prison.

Sami al-Ghoula, a 53-year-old father of eight, describes the torture to have been unending for the two months he was detained. Rounded up on 14 March from Al-Shifa Hospital where he and his family had been displaced, he was handcuffed and had his face covered before being shoved with other detainees into Israeli military vehicles and taken to warehouses made of corrugated iron, metal nets, and barbed wires - known locally as brixat.

“The torturing and beating started from the first instant and did not stop. I was tortured and severely beaten at all times: alone and in groups; with sticks, fists, and punches; electrocuted all over my body and attacked by dogs. I was subjected to insults and obscenities almost always. I had my hands tied and my face covered almost all the time,” al-Ghoula told TNA on the day of his release.

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Human rights organisations have for decades reported on Israel’s widespread use of torture of Palestinian prisoners. However, in the weeks and months following 7 October, leaked visual content and testimonies showed both a spike in arbitrary arrests and - according to Amnesty International - “gruesome scenes of Israeli soldiers beating and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blind-folded, stripped, with their hands tied, in a particularly chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees”.

The sheer number of arrests and brutality with which Israel treats Gazan prisoners is driven by “revenge, desperation and a frantic need for information”, Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, told The New Arab.

“The prisoners are subjected to the highest levels of torture and pain in order to obtain information which Israel has failed to obtain after eight months of war on Gaza.”


"The sheer number of arrests, and brutality with which Israel treats Gazan prisoners, is driven by revenge, desperation, and a frantic need for information"
Allegations of terrorism

Despite the countless critical reports of torture being used, Israeli authorities have always found a justification for their methods by referencing ‘terrorism’.

During a raid on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital in March, during which Al-Ghoula was detained, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency said they captured some 650 “terror suspects” including “very significant” senior members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. At least 358 of those detained, the IDF had said, confirmed they were "members of terror groups”.

Al-Ghoula was unaware of these accusations and claims but says he witnessed two prisoners - one in his forties and another in his fifties - die from torture in front of him. “They died early in the evening after a round of aggressive beatings and were collected from the cell the next morning. We do not know where they took their corpses,” he said wearily.

For the two months he was held, Al-Ghoula didn't know night from day. “We prayed based on rough speculations of the time and were only allowed between two to four hours of sleep every day,” he said in clear exhaustion. “We were made to sit on the ground in stress positions for hours, not allowed to interact with each other. Those who dared to move faced even harsher physical torture of all forms.”

Recounting the atrocities detainees faced in Israeli jails, Al-Ghoula said that for two months he was not seen by a lawyer, a doctor, or a family member. “I heard prisoners whimpering and moaning in pain from torture in Ofer Prison where I was kept. I saw a couple die. We were starved: the food we were given was not enough for people our age. We were humiliated in every possible way, and with no crimes committed.”


In the weeks and months following 7 October, there was a spike in arbitrary arrests and reports of torture and humiliation used against detainees. [Getty]

Torture in all Israeli prisons

Mohamed al-Shanar, a 33-year-old father of two who was rounded up while working in Israel on 9 October despite holding a work permit, said the mistreatment and abuse were systematic and not exclusive to one prison.

“I was held in the brixat for 12 days, then was transferred to Ofer Prison for what I think was three months, then to Nafha Prison until 6 May, before I was returned to the brixat until my release on 14 May,” he told TNA. “I was monstrously tortured in all of them.”


Describing his time in prison as “inhumane”, Al-Shanar said that beatings, humiliation, starvation, abuse, and torture were the norm. “Strikes with rubber sticks were exceptionally painful and were used often,” he said, his face cringing at the memory.

As for food, Al-Shanar said that it was poor in both quality and quantity. “We were given food insufficient to feed a four-year-old. At the time of my detention, I weighed 87 kilograms, of which I lost around a third of my weight,” he said, adding that he witnessed several deaths resulting from torture.


"I heard prisoners whimpering and moaning in pain from torture in Ofer Prison where I was kept. I saw a couple die. We were starved: the food we were given was not enough [...] We were humiliated in every possible way, and with no crimes committed"

Nemr al-Nemr, an 11-year-old boy, was detained with a friend of his fathers on 1 April in Beit Lahya while the three were attempting to collect humanitarian aid delivered by airdrops. The child, who waiting on an animal-drawn cart while his father hunted for food, was fired at by Israeli soldiers and shot in his stomach, back, and right leg.

“I was drugged for the majority of the 15 days I was arrested, moved from one hospital to the other, operated on, without any contact with my family and without anyone telling me what was happening to me or where I was,” the child told TNA by phone, clearly traumatised by the experience as he recalled the pain and fear he had felt for days on his own.

“I’d wake up from anaesthesia to find I had been taken to another hospital, or in an individual cell. I’d cry and ask for someone to speak to me,” he said, adding that no medical staff or lawyers spoke with him or explained where he was.

“One of the times I woke up from the drugs, I found I was transported to a prison where grown-up prisoners were held. They were blindfolded and tied up. No one was allowed to speak or move. I saw Israeli prison guards peeing on them, beating them, and dogs attacking them,” said al-Nemr.

Released at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, his uncle - with whom he is staying - says that al-Nemr has not yet reunited with his family as they remain in the north of Gaza.
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'Crimes against humanity'

Fares, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, said a multitude of crimes have been committed against Gazan prisoners, starting with enforced disappearance.

“These are not violations, but crimes. They are kidnapped, concealed from the world, and any source of information came either from a liberated prisoner speaking about them or through West Bank prisoners in Ofer Prison who reveal the presence of two sections for Gaza prisoners and how they’ve heard of Gaza prisoners facing assault,” he said.

He further explained that while administrative charges should technically enable a prisoner to be visited by a lawyer after 90 days of being held, down from the previous 120 days, in reality, this doesn’t happen.


“Israeli prison authorities demand receiving a hard copy of a direct power of attorney made for the lawyer, and signed by the detainee’s relatives in Gaza, which is impossible: the lawyer will not access Gaza, and the families of the prisoners cannot enter Israel. Having a power of attorney sent by WhatsApp or email is not accepted by Israeli authorities, and so prisoners aren’t allowed legal presentation, he said.

At least 27 Palestinian detainees from Gaza have died in Israeli jails since the war began. [Getty]


Stating that there are no official numbers for Gazan prisoners detained after 7 October, Fares cited Israeli claims of holding 900 prisoners. He added that - based on information from released prisoners - Gazans are held in four prisons.

“We are certain of two: Ofer and Ktzi'ot in the Negev, and those 900 prisoners are held here because they are under the administration of prisons,” he said. There are, he added, two other locations that have not been confirmed, including Sde Teiman, which is under the command of the Minister of Defence, located to the east of Beersheba.

“While Israel is classified as a state, it has disavowed all legal obligations or commitments, including announcing the numbers of those it detains, their names, the locations of their detention and their conditions,” he said, accusing the Israeli government, the army, the police, intelligence, and the judiciary of complicity.

“I can confirm that dozens of prisoners from Gaza were murdered in Israeli prisons, and hundreds were badly harmed and wounded as a result of physical torture. This is not an individual violation as claimed by Israeli authorities.”

Mohamed Solaimane is a Gaza-based journalist with bylines in regional and international outlets, focusing on humanitarian and environmental issues

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

Oman says crew member of capsized tanker found dead and nine rescued

By David Gritten, BBC News

Indian Navy
The Indian Navy released a photo showing a warship approaching a lifeboat in the Arabian Sea

Omani authorities say nine members of a 16-strong Indian and Sri Lankan crew have been rescued, after going missing when their oil tanker capsized off the coast of Oman on Monday. One other has been found dead.

The Indian Navy announced that eight Indians and one Sri Lankan from the Prestige Falcon had been found by the warship INS Teg in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday.

Oman’s Maritime Security Centre later confirmed that nine crew members had been saved, but added that “tragically, one crew member was found deceased.”

India and Oman are continuing the search for the remaining crew in what the navy described as “challenging weather conditions”, including rough seas and high winds.

The Comoros-flagged Prestige Falcon, which had 13 Indians and three Sri Lankans on board, capsized about 25 nautical miles (46km) south-east of the Ras Madrakah peninsula.

An Indian official told the BBC that the tanker had been on its way to the port of Aden in Yemen when it transmitted a distress call around 22:00 local time (16:30 GMT) on Monday.

Officials from Oman's Maritime Security Centre told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that the vessel remained "submerged, inverted" but did not confirm if it had stabilised.

Oman's defence ministry, which runs the centre, did not respond to the BBC's questions about whether the contents of the tanker had spilled into the sea.

The 117m (384ft)-long tanker was built in 2007, according to marinetraffic.com.

The area the ship capsized in falls in the province of Duqm in Oman, where the country has a major industrial port.

Indians form a majority of the global maritime workforce and are often the victims of accidents or piracy.

In April, 17 Indians, four Filipinos, two Pakistanis, one Russian and one Estonian national on board the MSC Aries, a Portuguese-flagged container ship, were stuck in Iran after Iranian troops seized the vessel. The crew were released the following month.

 

Stockholm tests electric ‘flying’ ferry

By

 AFP

One metre above the surface, a fully electric ferry is speeding across the waters of Stockholm as a Swedish company prepares to start taking its first regular passengers.

Equipped with three vertical wings, or hydrofoils, the craft is “able to fly out of the water when it’s going fast enough,” Andrea Meschini, head of R&D testing for the Candela P-12 ferry, told AFP.

“It’s amazing, it feels like the future,” Meschini said as he demonstrated the prototype off the coast of the Stockholm archipelago, adding that “it feels like a magic carpet.”

Thanks to sensors that constantly adjust the foils, the ferry maintains its stability. By levitating above the water it consumes “up to 80 percent less” energy than a regular boat, according to Meschini.

Since it minimises friction, the ferry is able to go much faster than conventional ferries with a top speed of 55 kilometres per hour (34 miles per hour).

The company, Candela, is due to start taking passengers between the island of Ekero and central Stockholm in October —  a busy route that should take 35 minutes with the new ferry, half the time it takes by land.

Under the agreement with SL — the Swedish capital’s public transport operator — Candela will only supply a single boat for the time being, with a capacity for 30 passengers.

Despite waves and the wakes produced by other boats passengers feel virtually nothing on board the shuttle.

Although the technology had already been developed — Candela produces smaller leisure flying boats — the larger ferry had to “fulfil a whole lot of standards to be seaworthy and safe for the passengers,” Karin Hallen, programme manager at Candela, told AFP. 

Candela is aiming to expand its technology on an international scale. 

According to Meschini, the sector has “a lot of potential because most of the big cities around the world are built around water.” 

“Yet it is not used and developed in terms of public transport. We want to fill the gap,” Meschini said.

Maritime transport is responsible for around three percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Tokyo airport trials driverless cargo vehicle

By

 AFP

Tokyo’s Haneda Airport is trialling a driverless vehicle to tow cargo containers in an attempt to get around labour shortages as the number of tourists flying into Japan soars.

The vehicle at one of the world’s busiest airports can tow up to 13 tons of containers, joint developers All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Toyota Industries said in a statement.

It can pull up to six containers at a time, trundling between aircraft and airport buildings over a distance of around two kilometres (1.2 miles) with no driver in the cab.

The Level 4 vehicle, meaning that it does not require human interaction in certain settings — although a human driver can still request control — has been in operation since July 1.

The trial, the first at a Japanese airport, is part of government-backed efforts to innovate the air transport industry, and the companies aim to make the vehicle fully operational by the end of next year, they said.

Another Japanese airport — Kansai, serving Osaka — claims never to have lost a bag, but the country faces major challenges as it seeks to double tourist numbers to 60 million by 2030.

The rapidly ageing country has the world’s second-oldest population and many sectors in the world’s number four economy are suffering worker shortages.

This year the country’s airports have reportedly already experienced aviation fuel supply problems, prompting the government last month to set up a task force.

Trials of autonomous vehicles have been implemented elsewhere in Japan, with the government allowing Level 4 self-driving vehicles on public roads since last year.

 

Snakes on a plate: pythons touted as protein alternative 

TELL FLORIDA CHEF'S

By

 AFP

In a warehouse in the lush humid farmlands of central Thailand, thousands of pythons lie coiled in containers, rearing and striking at the glass as people pass by.

They are being raised for their robust, diamond-patterned skins, which are sold to high-end European fashion houses for belts, bags and handbags, but some scientists and industry insiders believe the snakes’ true value could lie in their meat.

Demand for meat is growing globally, despite the carbon footprint associated with traditional livestock, and while a plant-based diet is often touted as the best alternative, some feel reptiles have been overlooked as an option.

Snakes can tolerate high temperatures and drought, reproduce quickly, and grow far faster than traditional sources of animal protein, while consuming a lot less food.

Researchers estimate that China and Vietnam alone have at least 4,000 python farms, producing several million snakes, mostly for the fashion industry.

“Python farming may offer a flexible and efficient response to global food insecurity,” concluded a study published earlier this year in the journal Nature.

The researchers spent a year studying nearly 5,000 reticulated and Burmese pythons at two commercial farms in Vietnam and Thailand.

“They can survive for months on end with no food at all and no water, and literally they won’t lose condition at all,” said Patrick Aust, director of the African Institute of Applied Herpetology and one of the scientists involved in the study.

The pythons were fed waste chicken and wild-caught rodents and offered a more efficient feed-to-meat ratio than poultry, beef and even crickets.

They also reproduce rapidly, Aust said, with female pythons laying between 50 and 100 eggs annually.

– ‘Complete waste’ –

That is music to the ears of Emilio Malucchi, whose farm in central Thailand’s Uttaradit houses around 9,000 pythons.

Malucchi, who moved to Thailand from Italy with his family more than four decades ago, has had little success convincing people to take up snake meat, and most of what he produces is either discarded or goes to fish farms.

“It’s a complete waste,” he told AFP.

“I eat my snakes because I know what they eat and how I raise them,” he said. 

Wild python has long been eaten throughout Southeast Asia, but the meat has yet to attract widespread international interest despite offering a chicken-like texture low in saturated fats.

“The problem is that there is no market for python flesh. We need to educate people about its possibilities,” said Malucchi.

The climate impact of meat has been extensively documented, with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noting that meat from grazing animals — mainly beef — has been “consistently identified as the single food with the greatest impact on the environment.”

That effect is both in terms of greenhouse emissions and land use change.

While the UN and climate activists advocate moving to a more plant-based diet, the OECD estimates demand for meat will increase 14 percent by 2032, driven by population growth in low-income regions and rising living standards in Asian countries.

Meanwhile, drought and extreme weather are making traditional farming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world where the need for protein is urgent. 

Protein-energy malnutrition, sometimes called protein-energy undernutrition, caused nearly 190,000 deaths globally in 2021, according to the Global Burden of Disease study.

– ‘Nice and crispy’ –

That paradox has spurred a push to explore meat alternatives, from edible insects to lab-grown meats.

But uptake of these alternatives has not yet been significant and commercial python farmers face strict processing standards that the industry complains are outdated.

Despite these challenges, Aust believes python farming has “huge potential” and is enthusiastic about its merits.

“You can barbecue it or eat it in curries and stews. I like to fry it in garlic butter until it’s nice and crispy,” he said.

“It’s a very versatile meat.”   

Animal welfare organisations are less impressed.

Earlier this year, animal rights group PETA accused Malucchi’s farm of cruelty after secretly documenting his pythons being killed with hammers before being skinned.

Malucchi has placed large posters on his walls on how to kill pythons “humanely” and said his industry is no different from other types of livestock farming.

“Farm animals are slaughtered all over the world,” he said.

“Pythons are no different.”

 

Tech firms slam job quota proposal in India’s Silicon Valley

By

 AFP

Indian tech companies on Wednesday slammed a proposal to reserve more than half of all private jobs for local hires in Bengaluru, a city that has powered the country’s growth into an IT powerhouse.

Known as India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru is home to Google’s national headquarters and those of local tech behemoths Tata Consulting Services and Infosys.

Its information technology sector draws top engineering talent from across the country and accounts for roughly a quarter of Karnataka state’s estimated $336 billion annual output, according to industry figures.

On Wednesday, the state’s chief minister Siddaramaiah said his government was finalising a new law that would compel companies to ensure more than half of their workforce was made up of applicants who speak Karnataka’s dominant language.

Siddaramaiah, who goes by one name, said in a post on X that the move was to make sure locals were not “deprived” of jobs and could “build a comfortable life in the motherland”.

Indian tech industry body Nasscom said it was “seriously concerned” by the proposal, warning the move risked upending the industry and driving out established players.

“It is deeply disturbing to see this kind of bill which will… hamper the growth of the industry, impact jobs and the global brand for the state,” it said in a statement.

Other leading figures from the industry also spoke out against the bill, including Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of pharmaceutical giant Biocon, who warned it could jeopardise Bengaluru’s “leading position in technology”. 

Former Infosys chief financial officer Mohandas Pai said the bill was “discriminatory” and “regressive”.

Nearly 5.5 million people work in information technology across India, with many of the most sought-after jobs in Bengaluru. 

But the influx of Indians from elsewhere in the country has become a growing source of resentment in the city, particularly around the locally dominant Kannada language. 

Around two-thirds of Karnataka residents speak Kannada but the language is barely used outside the state, while Hindi and English are the lingua franca of the city’s IT sector.

Regionalist activists in the state have in the past protested over the use of English on signboards, and Siddaramaiah’s government this year mandated that any public signage must be predominantly written in Kannada. 

Tensions over linguistic identities are common in India, which is home to hundreds of regional languages. 

Hindi, the most widely used of them all, is spoken as a first language only by 40 percent of the population.