Horror at deaths of 12 children unites Druze across borders. But Mideast's wars tear at their bonds

KAREEM CHEHAYEB and MELANIE LIDMAN
Sat, August 3, 2024 













Alma's father, Ayman Fakhr al-Din, shows one her favourite soccer jerseys, as he stands in his daughter's room at the town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

FARDIS, Lebanon (AP) — Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din, a lively 11-year-old who loved basketball and learning languages, was playing on a soccer field a week ago in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, when the rocket hit.

Running to the site, her father Ayman pleaded with emergency workers for information about his daughter. “Suddenly I went to the corner, I saw such a tiny girl in a bag,” he said. He recognized her shoes, her hand. “I understood that that’s it, nothing is left, she’s gone.” She was among 12 children and teens killed.

The shocking bloodshed unified the Druze across the region in grief – and laid bare the complex identity of the small, insular religious minority, whose members are spread across Israel, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and Syria.


Who are the Druze?

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. Outsiders are not allowed to convert, and most religious practices are shrouded in secrecy. There are just one million Druze – more than half of them in Syria, around 250,000 in Lebanon, 115,000 in Israel and 25,000 in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.

Separated by borders, each part of the Druze community has taken different paths, always with an eye on preserving their existence among larger powers. Druze in Lebanon and Syria adopted Arab nationalism, including support for the Palestinian cause. In Israel, Druze are highly regarded for their loyalty to the state and their military service, with many entering elite combat units, including fighting in Gaza. In the Golan, the Druze navigate their historically Syrian identity while living under Israeli occupation.

The communities have always kept up connections and tried to maintain civility over their differences. That, however, has been strained by 10 months of war in Gaza. Now after the Majdal Shams strike, many Druze fear even worse divisions if the region tips into all-out regional war.

“Our children”

After the attack, a string of Israeli politicians rushed to Majdal Shams to show solidarity with the grieving families and emphasize the strong connection between Israel and the Druze.

“These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, visiting the soccer field.

Netanyahu’s presence also sparked angry protests by some residents who accused officials of exploiting the tragedy for political purposes.

Many Druze in the Israeli-held part of the Golan have kept their allegiance to Syria. About 20% have taken Israeli citizenship, said Yusri Hazran of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, who is Druze and researches minorities in the Middle East.

In the past 15 years, that trend has increased, said Hazran, as Israel has more strongly integrated the Golan, whose 1981 annexation is not widely recognized.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Druze community, centered in the north of the country, tends to tout with pride their Israeli identity. Around 80% of the male Druze population enlists in the military, higher than the around 70% of Israeli Jews, according to official statistics. Ten Druze soldiers have been killed in the war in the Gaza Strip, a large proportion given their community’s size.

Sheikh Moafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze in Israel, said he wasn’t surprised by the wave of national compassion. “During the time of mourning, everyone is talking about support,” he said.

He hoped support would continue after the tragedy has faded from headlines.

“There’s so much that’s needed to fix here.” He pointed to the significant discrimination Druze faced in Israel. A third of Druze homes are not connected to electricity, he said. The community was furious over a 2018 Israeli law that defined the country as a Jewish state and made no mention of its minorities.

In the Golan, some still see their bond lying with neighboring Arab countries.

Hail Abu Jabal, an 84-year-old Druze activist in Majdal Shams, was detained by Israel in the past over his opposition to its rule.

Before European powers divided up the Mideast in the early 20th century, “this region was one region. The Druze were spread out in one country,” he said. “There is a kinship relationship, there is a marriage relationship, and there is a relationship of belonging."

Divided by borders

In the southern Lebanese village of Fardis, near the Israeli border, rocket fire echoed, part of the nearly daily exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah going on for months. From the home of Wissam Sliqa, charred trees were visible on the otherwise verdant mountains, signs of recent Israeli strikes.

Israel is “once again trying to plant the seeds of discord,” said Sliqa, the religious affairs adviser for Lebanon’s top Druze religious leader.

He urged Israeli Druze not to join the war in Gaza or the increasingly volatile confrontation across the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Druze of Syria and Lebanon tend to avoid criticizing their brethren in Israel. Though more are publicly encouraging Druze to refuse to serve in the Israeli military, they withhold judgment on those who do.

“They are behaving how they see is suitable to them,” Sliqa acknowledged. “We don’t dictate to them, and they don’t dictate to us.”

While most of Lebanon’s Druze live in the country's central mountains, Druze-majority villages are also scattered around the south next to Muslim and Christian neighbors.

Lebanese and Syrian Druze have historically been drawn to Arab nationalist movements. Many point to their role in Arab resistance to European colonial rule a century ago and their strong support for Palestinians today.

“The Druze never considered themselves an ethnic minority at all, but a part of the Arab and Islamic majority in the region,” said Lebanese Druze legislator Wael Abou Faour.

Walid Jumblatt, arguably the region's most powerful Druze figure, once led forces fighting alongside Palestinian factions against Israeli troops and their allies in Lebanon. He now leads the Druze in Lebanon’s volatile sectarian power-sharing politics, where his community’s power goes well beyond its size.

Last month, he and Tarif, Israel's Druze leader, engaged in a startlingly scathing exchange of open letters, airing differences over the Israel-Hamas war.

Jumblatt criticized Druze soldiers fighting in Gaza. Tarif in turn said his community was happy having the rights and duties of “citizens of a democratic state.” Jumblatt shot back denouncing Tarif for meeting with Netanyahu, calling the Israeli military offensive in Gaza “an aggression against humanity.”

“He lives in Lebanon, and he’s saying his opinion,” Tarif told The Associated Press. “We are Israelis, and we are proud.”

Despite differences, the various Druze communities maintain close ties and support each other on humanitarian issues, he said.

In the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaya, Sheikh Amin Khair, a Druze farmer, pointed to a cluster of trees and shrubs by his pear and pomegranate groves. In 1982, Druze fighters fired rockets at Israel from there, he said proudly. That year was the start of Israel's 18-year occupation of south Lebanon.

But rather than criticizing Druze in the Israeli army, Khair said he would rather speak positively of voices among Israeli Druze that have backed the Palestinian cause.

He recited a verse by writer Samih al-Qassam, an Israeli Druze and an Arab nationalist: “And until my last heartbeat … I will resist.”

Small white coffins

After the Majdal Shams strike, the Druze community’s tensions risk being pulled even more tightly if a full-fledged war erupts.

Israel accused Hezbollah of being behind the strike, saying the rocket type and trajectory point clearly to the Iranian-backed group. The Lebanese militant group offered a rare denial.

Lebanon’s Jumblatt is often politically at odds with Hezbollah, but this week he echoed its denial and accused Israel of fueling divisions by accusing the group.

On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut in retaliation. The next day, a blast in the Iranian capital killed Hamas' political chief Ismail Haniyeh. Iran has accused Israel of being behind the attack and vowed retaliation.

As the region awaits Hezbollah and Iran’s response, many Druze are pleading to stop the bloodshed.

“We reject shedding even a single drop of blood under the pretext of avenging our children,” the Golan Heights Druze religious committee said in a statement on Monday.

Hundreds of Syrian Druze who gathered in the nearby Syrian town of Quneitra to hold a memorial service for the children blamed Israel for the deaths.

Across Majdal Shams, there was raw pain as the community buried 12 small white coffins in the span of 24 hours.

“No one wins in war, there’s only losing,” said Majdal Shams resident Bhaa Brik.

___

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press reporters Alon Bernstein and Leo Correa contributed to this report from Majdal Shams, Golan Heights.

Chinese scientists claim Star Wars-like laser submarines can blast US satellites

Michael Peck
Sat, August 3, 2024 


Chinese researchers believe submarine-fired lasers could destroy satellites.


A laser could target more of the growing satellite networks essential to military operations.


But US experts are skeptical a scheme like this would work.

Chinese scientists claim that it's possible to destroy satellites — including SpaceX's Starlink system — using lasers mounted on submarines.

American experts question the feasibility of mounting a power-hungry energy weapon on a sub. But China and other potential American adversaries are looking for ways to destroy or degrade the satellite-based communications and targeting that has given the US military an edge, and researchers at the Chinese navy's Submarine Academy are confident that the submarines are the answer.

"A submarine with a megawatt-class, solid-state, laser weapon installed in its midsection could stay submerged while it raised a retractable, 'optoelectronic mast' to fire at satellites, before diving back down to depth," according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, citing the study, which was published in the Chinese defense magazine "Command Control & Simulation."


The Chinese researchers contrasted this approach with current anti-satellite weapons, which use ground-fired rockets to launch what is essentially a killer satellite that destroys its prey with an explosive warhead or projectile. The US government recently warned that Russia is also developing an anti-satellite with a nuclear warhead. A laser, by contrast, offers the potential to fire at many space targets but also comes with the many complexities of submarine operations.

These technologies, which began in the 1950s, were conceived for an era when satellites were big, expensive and few in number. They remain a threat to sophisticated spy and communications satellites, but the advent of cheap, expendable swarms of communications satellites, such as the Starlink commercial network, has vastly complicated anti-satellite efforts.

"Taking the satellites launched by the Starlink program as an example, they are numerous, densely packed and small in size, making the satellite network extremely resilient," the study noted. "Even if a significant number of satellites are destroyed, there are redundancies to replace them. Therefore, using missiles to attack such satellites is highly inefficient."

Satellite swarms are becoming a crucial part of warfare. They have enabled Ukraine, for example, to provide connectivity for its forces when existing Internet and satellite communications facilities were destroyed. Thus, there's a need for destroying or disabling many small satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Chinese researchers envision the solution as flotillas of mass-produced laser subs that could be dispatched to oceans around the world. They would wait for tracking data from other non-submarine platforms to determine when a target satellite is overhead.

"When the satellite enters the attackable range, the laser weapon is raised. Due to the limitations of the submarine's detection equipment, other forces are required to provide satellite position guidance for the submarine to attack the satellite. After the attack is completed, the submarine can submerge and wait for the next mission or return to the home port."

In addition to destroying satellites, these subs could also blast aircraft or land targets such as radars and oil refineries. The Chinese researchers estimated that "a modest 150-kilowatt laser weapon on a submarine can damage the photoelectric detection equipment on an anti-submarine aircraft in one-fifth of a second, with an effective range of more than 20 kilometers [12 miles]," the Post said. "Continuous firing could also penetrate the aircraft's fuselage."

Laser subs could also shield China's ballistic missile submarines from detection. "The escorting submarine can first use the laser weapon to interfere with or destroy overhead satellites in the sea area, making it difficult for the enemy's space-based surveillance system to function, thereby achieving the concealment of missile launches."

In 2019, the US Navy put out a research solicitation for electrical connectors that would allow submarines to transmit power — through the sub's hull — to an externally mounted laser. American submarines needed a towed power source to accomplish this, the Navy said at the time.

Still, the idea of a sub-mounted anti-satellite laser leaves American experts cold. "The submarine would have to be designed from the ground up to generate the many, many megawatts of electricity to power a laser shooting at an object 200-300 miles up, and that delivers about 10 kilowatts on target," Chris Carlson, a former Defense Intelligence Agency naval analyst, told Business Insider. "That would require an incredibly huge amount of volume."

Submarines would also have trouble aiming lasers. "A submarine at periscope depth is anything but a stable firing platform," Carlson said. "Just a little wiggle in pitch, roll, or yaw will yank the beam off target." In addition, targeting data would have to be transmitted to the sub so that it can assume a firing position when the satellite is overhead.

"Communications with a submerged submarine are difficult," said Carlson. "And after alerting the sub, it would still have to raise a mast with a data link to the tracking sensor before a separate tracking laser on the sub itself could acquire the target and point the laser weapon in the right direction."

"There are lots of ways for this to go wrong," Carlson said.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Use of Russian software on UK nuclear submarines sparks call for defence review

Camilla Turner
Sat, August 3, 2024 

The Vanguard-class nuclear submarine HMS Vengeance at Clyde, Faslane - Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Ministers have been urged to carry out an urgent review of defence supply chains in the wake of The Telegraph’s revelations about Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet.

The Telegraph disclosed that Britain’s nuclear submarine engineers are using software that was designed in Russia and Belarus.

The software should have been created by UK-based staff with security clearance, but the work was partially outsourced to developers in Siberia and Minsk, the capital of Belarus.


There are fears that further defence capabilities could have been compromised because it has emerged that a previous project was also outsourced to developers in Minsk.

Experts have warned that the UK’s national security risked being jeopardised if personal details of those with classified knowledge of Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet fell into the wrong hands, leaving them exposed to blackmail or targeted attacks.

The Telegraph understands that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) considered the security breach a serious threat to UK defence and launched an investigation.

The inquiry discovered that the firm that outsourced the work – on a staff intranet for nuclear submarine engineers – to Russia and Belarus initially kept it secret and discussed whether it could disguise where the workers were based by giving them fake names of dead British people.


Admiral Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy said he was “shocked” to read about these “extraordinary” revelations, and urged the MoD to carry out a review into supply chains to ensure they are secure.

“This whole area is an area that has been worrying me more and more. If you go back years ago there wasn’t the same reliance on coding and software and these sorts of things,” he said.

Lord West, who served as the First Sea Lord from 2002 to 2006, added that it can be “highly dangerous” now that everything was so reliant on software.

“This is a world where software can make such a difference. We have to have mechanisms where we can absolutely be certain that no one has broken into the supply chain, even at the lowest level, and that there is no one who hasn’t got the clearance to do the work,” he said.

“I think certainly the Ministry of Defence needs to look very, very closely at this and to make sure that [their supply chains] are absolutely secure. They need to make absolutely sure that every single supplier is secure and has signed the Official Secrets Act.”

The Telegraph revealed how Rolls-Royce Submarines, which designs and runs the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet on behalf of the Royal Navy, wanted to upgrade its staff intranet and had subcontracted the work to WM Reply, a digital consultancy firm.

WM Reply then used developers based in Belarus – Russia’s closest ally – one of whom was actually working from home in Tomsk, Siberia, according to documents submitted to the MoD’s inquiry.

The intranet system included personal details of all Rolls-Royce Submarines employees, as well as the organisational structure of those at the company working on the UK’s submarine fleet.



Ben Wallace, former defence secretary, said there must be “punitive action” for subcontractors who breach the terms of their contracts.

“There doesn’t seem to be a clear enough policy of penalties or punitive action should you not comply,” he said. “If a company realised they would be stuck off working from government contracts or named and shamed, I suspect they wouldn’t do it.”

Tom Tugendhat, a former security minister who is a Tory leadership contender, said that securing supply chains was important for “boosting our resilience and protecting our national security” and said the Government “must safeguard the defence sector skills, jobs, and capabilities” in the UK.

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: “We can categorically state that at no point was there any risk of data, classified or otherwise, being accessed or made available to non-security cleared individuals. It is not possible for non-security cleared individuals to access any sensitive data via our company intranet.

“All our suppliers comply with strict security requirements. Once we were made aware of these allegations that clearly breached these requirements, and following a rigorous internal investigation that concluded in 2021, Rolls-Royce Submarines ceased working with WM Reply. We have not awarded them any further contracts.”

A spokesman for WM Reply denied the claim that its actions could have endangered national security.

“WM Reply regularly reviews its delivery processes and procedures, respects the needs and processes of its customers and enjoys transparent and long-standing relationships with those customers,” they said.

Ukraine says it sank a $300 million Russian submarine in what could be another big blow to Putin's Black Sea Fleet


Cameron Manley
Updated Sun, August 4, 2024




• Ukraine says it sank a Russian Black Sea Fleet submarine n Crimea.

• The Kilo-class submarine Rostov-on-Don was hit in Sevastopol, Ukraine's military said.

• Ukraine has relentlessly targeted Russia's Black Sea Fleet since the war began.

Ukraine says it struck and sank a Russian Black Sea Fleet submarine and damaged a number of prized S-400 air defense systems in Crimea.

In a statement on Telegram, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-on-Don was hit in the port of Sevastopol.

"The boat sank on the spot," the General Staff said.

"The destruction of the Rostov-on-Don proves once again that there is no safe place for the Russian fleet in the Ukrainian territorial waters of the Black Sea," it added.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the claim. The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet commented.

The Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, posted on Telegram on Sunday morning but did not reference Ukraine's announcement.

"Everything is quiet in the city," he wrote, while also warning of an upcoming training exercise.

Ukraine's military said the B-237 Rostov-on-Don "is one of four Kilo-class submarines capable of using 'Kalibr' missiles."

It is not the first time that sub, which Ukraine says cost Russia $300 million, has been targeted in the conflict.

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in September that the submarine had "likely suffered catastrophic damage" following a missile strike on a shipyard in Sevastopol.

"Any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars," the MoD said at the time.

Despite having no traditional navy of its own, Ukraine has had huge success battling the Black Sea Fleet.

Many of the fleet's ships have been forced to relocate eastward from the naval base in Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, and it has also lost a number of key warships, including its flagship, the Moskva.

In addition to striking the submarine, the General Staff said Ukrainian forces had also severely damaged four S-400 antiaircraft missile launchers.

Frederik Mertens, a former strategic analyst at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, previously told BI that by targeting Crimea and defense systems such as the S-400, Ukraine was likely "preparing the ground" for the use of F-16 fighter jets, which arrived in Ukraine earlier this week.

AUSTRALIA

EPA deals ‘major blow’ to Woodside’s multibillion-dollar gas drilling plan at Browse basin

Adam Morton Climate and environment editor

THE GUARDIAN  AUS
Mon, 5 August 2024 

An aerial view of Scott Reef, which sits over the underwater Browse gas basin.Photograph: Greenpeace


A multibillion-dollar Woodside Energy gas export development off Western Australia’s north-west has been deemed “unacceptable” by the state’s Environment Protection Authority due to its impact on marine life at Scott Reef.

The EPA’s assessment of Woodside’s Browse liquefied natural gas (LNG) proposal was revealed in response to a freedom of information request by WAToday.

It follows scientists raising concerns that extraction at the Browse basin, about 300km off the Kimberley coast, could damage a coral reef ecosystem that is home to more than 1,500 species, many unique to the area. They identified risks to migrating whale species, the possible sinking of a beach used for nesting by endangered turtles and the potential of an oil spill in a pristine environment.


Related: Australia’s north-west reefs teem with life – but they are also at the centre of a massive fossil fuel expansion

The EPA refused WAToday’s request for information but said in its response it had told Woodside in February that its preliminary view was that “the proposal was unacceptable”.

Browse is Australia’s largest untapped conventional gas field. Woodside’s proposal involves drilling wells within about 3km of the reef and piping gas 900km for processing at the North West Shelf LNG processing plant at Karratha, on the Indigenous-heritage rich Burrup peninsula. It expects it to deliver 11.4m tonnes of LNG a year.

It is part of a proposed gas expansion that analysts say could be Australia’s greatest contribution to global heating if fully developed. Woodside’s “Burrup Hub vision” also includes the Scarborough gas field, the expansion of the Pluto LNG processing facility and extending the life of the North West Shelf plant by 50 years.

The plans have been broadly backed by senior members of the state and federal Labor governments, including the premier, Roger Cook, and the federal resources minister, Madeleine King, but some stages are yet to be approved under state and national environment law.

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The EPA position is not final; Woodside has an opportunity to provide more information. The authority will then make a recommendation to the state’s environment minister, Reece Whitby. The minister does not have to follow the EPA’s advice.

But the Conservation Council of Western Australia said even a preliminary view by the EPA that Browse should be rejected was a “significant and historic finding”. It said the authority had recommended against only two of 100 oil and gas proposals since the mid-1980s.

The council’s executive director, Jess Beckerling, said the revelation was “a major blow” to Woodside’s plan.

“The EPA has now said what we knew all along – the Browse project would be devastating for WA’s environment, and no government should let it proceed,” she said. “It is now incumbent on the WA and federal governments to respect this independent scientific advice and expert opinion, and refuse Woodside’s application to develop Browse.”

Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s chief, David Ritter, said the Burrup Hub was “an irredeemably bad project” and called on Plibersek to “put this project out of its misery, for once and for all”.

“This singular decision will come to define Labor’s legacy on environmental protection,” he said. “We urge Minister Plibersek to do the right thing and to choose a safe and sustainable future for our children over Woodside’s nature-wrecking pursuit of profit.”

Cook said the government wanted the Browse development to go ahead. He said it was a “difficult and complex” project and that conversations between Woodside and the EPA about addressing “issues of concern” were continuing.

“The EPA are there to assess these projects and make sure that we can mitigate against any negative impacts on the environment, and that’s why they are obviously in deep discussions with the government in relation to that project,” he said, according to the West Australian.

Cook said Browse would be “an important part of not only Western Australia’s gas supply, but making sure that we can assist our south-east Asian and north Asian partners to decarbonise their economies”.

A spokesperson for the federal environment department said it had paused assessment of the Browse project and the North West Shelf gas plant’s life extension until it received further information from the WA government and Woodside.

A Woodside spokesperson said Browse was “an important resource that could help address the shortfall of domestic gas in Western Australia forecast from the early 2030s and support energy security in Asia”.

“We continue to work with relevant regulators to progress environmental approvals for Browse,” they said.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis challenged the suggestion by Australian and Japanese leaders that the Asian country needed Australian gas to maintain its energy supply. The thinktank’s analysis found demand for gas had fallen in Japan over the past decade and the country was selling more LNG overseas than it bought from Australia.

ALL VIOLENCE IS STATE VIOLENCE

At least 91 killed as clashes rock Bangladesh, curfew imposed

PROPERTY DAMAGE IS NOT 'VIOLENCE'

Updated Sun, 4 August 2024

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) -At least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes in Bangladesh on Sunday as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse tens of thousands of protesters calling for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.

The death toll, which includes at least 13 policemen, was the highest for a single day from any protests in Bangladesh's recent history, surpassing the 67 deaths reported on July 19 when students took to the streets to demand the scrapping of quotas for government jobs.

The government declared an indefinite nationwide curfew starting at 6 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Sunday, the first time it has taken such a step during the current protests that began last month. It also announced a three-day general holiday starting from Monday.

The unrest, which has prompted the government to shut down internet services, is Hasina's biggest test in her 20-year regime after she won a fourth straight term in elections that were boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Critics of Hasina, along with human rights groups, have accused her government of using excessive force against protesters, a charge she and her ministers deny.

Demonstrators blocked major highways on Sunday as student protesters launched a non-cooperation program to press for the government's resignation, and violence spread nationwide.

"Those who are carrying out violence are not students but terrorists who are out to destabilize the nation," Hasina said after a national security panel meeting, attended by the chiefs of the army, navy, air force, police and other agencies.

"I appeal to our countrymen to suppress these terrorists with a strong hand."

Police stations and ruling party offices were targeted as violence rocked the country of 170 million people.

Thirteen policemen were beaten to death in the north-western district of Sirajganj, police said. Nine others were killed in the district, where two lawmakers' homes were set on fire.

At least 11 people, including two students and a ruling party leader, were killed and dozens injured amid fierce clashes in several places in the capital, Dhaka, police and witnesses said.

India's foreign ministry urged its nationals not to travel to Bangladesh until further notice.

BULLET WOUNDS

Two construction workers were killed on their way to work and 30 injured in the central district of Munsiganj, during a three-way clash of protesters, police and ruling party activists, witnesses said.

"They were brought dead to the hospital with bullet wounds," said Abu Hena Mohammad Jamal, the superintendent of the district hospital.

Police said they had not fired any live bullets.

In the northeastern district of Pabna, at least three people were killed and 50 injured during a clash between protesters and activists of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, witnesses said.

Eight each in Feni and Lakshmipur, six in Narsingdi, five in Rangpur, four in Magura and the rest in several other districts, hospital officials said.

"An attack on a hospital is unacceptable," said Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen after a group vandalised a medical college hospital and set fire to vehicles, including an ambulance, in Dhaka.

At least four garment factories were set on fire in Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka, police said.

For the second time during the recent protests, the government shut down high-speed internet services, mobile operators said. Social media platforms Facebook and WhatsApp were not available, even via broadband connections.

Bangladesh authorities instructed the country’s telecoms providers on Sunday to shut down 4G, effectively disabling internet services, according to a confidential government memo seen by Reuters.

GOVERNMENT ORDERS

“You are requested to shut down all your 4G services until further notice, only 2G will be effective,” said the document issued by the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center, a government intelligence agency.

Telecoms companies were previously told their licences would be cancelled if they did not comply with government orders, a person with direct knowledge told Reuters.

The telecom regulatory body did not respond to Reuters' calls.

Last month, at least 150 people were killed and thousands injured in violence touched off by student groups protesting against quotas for government jobs.

The protests paused after the Supreme Court scrapped most quotas, but students returned to the streets in sporadic protests last week, demanding justice for the families of those killed.

"I think the genie is out of the bottle and Hasina may not put it back in the bottle again," said Shakil Ahmed, associate professor for government and politics at Jahangirnagar University.

Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman on Saturday directed his officers to ensure the security of people's lives, properties, and important state installations under all circumstances, a statement said.

"(The) Bangladesh Army is a symbol of the people's trust. The army is always there and will always be there for the people's interests and for any needs of the state," the statement quoted him as saying.

Zaman will brief the media on Monday, an army spokesman said.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin; Editing by Christina Fincher and David Holmes)

At least 27 people killed in fresh violence in Bangladesh as protesters demand PM Hasina’s resignation

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Sun, 4 August 2024 

At least 27 people have been killed in Bangladesh over the weekend as anti-government protesters clashed with the police during fresh demonstrations.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters returned to the streets of the South Asian nation demanding the resignation of prime minister Sheikh Hasina after 200 people were killed earlier this month during anti-quota demonstrations that turned violent.

The government in July shut schools and universities across the country, blocked internet access, restricted social media platforms and imposed a shoot-on-sight curfew. The protests subdued for a few days after the Supreme Court scaled back the quota of government jobs reserved for families of the 1971 war heroes.

Buses are seen on fire at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University premises (Getty)

Since then at least 11,000 people have been arrested in recent weeks.

The protesters this week called for “non-cooperation”, urging people not to pay taxes and utility bills and not show up for work on Sunday, a working day in Bangladesh. Offices, banks and factories opened, but commuters in Dhaka and other cities faced challenges getting to work.

The Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, a major public hospital in Dhaka’s Shahbagh area, was set on fire along with an ambulance and several vehicles.

Protesters wave national flags as they stand over the Anti Terrorism Raju Memorial Sculpture in capital Dhaka, Bangladesh (Getty)

The police have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters across the country, leaving dozens of people injured in hospitals.

“An attack on a hospital is unacceptable,” said health minister Samanta Lal Senm adding that everyone “should refrain from this”.

Mobile internet services have been shut down in the country but broadband services remained active, according to reports.

The interior ministry declared an indefinite nationwide curfew starting at 6pm on Sunday, the first time it has taken such a step during the current protests that began last month.

Thousands pour onto the streets of Bangladesh in protest (Getty)

Critics of Ms Hasina, along with human rights groups, have accused her government of using excessive force to throttle dissent during the first phase of the anti-quota movement. She has denied the allegations.

Ms Hasina doubled down on her claims that her political opponents, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party were behind the protests that were the sternest challenge to her 15 years in power.

Two construction workers were killed on their way to work and 30 injured in the central district of Munsiganj, during a three-way clash of protesters, police and ruling party activists, witnesses said.

“They were brought dead to the hospital with bullet wounds,” said Abu Hena Mohammad Jamal, the superintendent of the district hospital, told Reuters.

Anti-discrimination student movement holds a rally at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka (Getty)

However, police have denied firing bullets at the protesters.

In the northeastern district of Pabna, at least three people were killed and 50 injured during a clash between protesters and activists of Ms Hasina’s ruling Awami League.

Two more were killed in violence in the northern district of Bogura, and 20 were killed in nine other districts, hospital officials said.

“Those who are protesting on the streets right now are not students, but terrorists who are out to destabilise the nation,” Ms Hasina said after a national security panel meeting. “I appeal to our countrymen to suppress these terrorists with a strong hand.”

The protests began last month as students demanded an end to a quota system that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.

As violence crested, the country’s Supreme Court scaled back the quota system to 5 per cent of jobs, with 3 per cent for relatives of veterans.


Bangladesh protesters demand PM resign as death toll mounts

Shafiqul ALAM
Sun, 4 August 2024


Chart showing selected jurisdictions on the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2023


Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign clashed with government supporters Sunday, with scores killed in one of the deadliest days since demonstrations began.

Rallies that began last month against civil service job quotas have escalated into some of the worst unrest of Hasina's 15-year rule and shifted into wider calls for the 76-year-old to step down.

At least 77 people were killed on Sunday alone, including 14 police officers, with the rival sides battling with sticks and knives and security forces firing rifles, taking the total killed since protests began in July to at least 283.

Local media reports citing law enforcement officials suggested Sunday's toll may have surpassed 90 deaths.

Police said protesters attacked their officers, including storming a station in the northeastern town of Enayetpur.

"The terrorists attacked the police station and killed 11 policemen," said Bijoy Basak, a deputy inspector general.

AFP journalists in Dhaka reported hearing sustained crackles of gunfire after dark on Sunday, with protesters defying a nationwide curfew.

At least 12 people were killed in the capital, police and doctors at hospitals said, with several of the victims suffering bullet wounds, while 18 died in Bangladesh's northern district of Sirajganj.

Mobile internet was tightly restricted countrywide.

"The shocking violence in Bangladesh must stop," United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement, emphasizing his concerns about further deaths ahead of a mass march on Dhaka planned for Monday.

- 'Final protest' -

In several cases, soldiers and police did not intervene to stem the protests, unlike the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.

In a hugely symbolic rebuke of Hasina, a respected former army chief demanded the government withdraw troops and allow protests.

Demonstrators in Dhaka, surrounded by a tightly packed and cheering crowd, waved a Bangladeshi flag on top of an armoured car as soldiers watched, according to videos on social media verified by AFP.

Asif Mahmud, one of the key leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign, called on supporters to march on the capital Monday.

"The time has come for the final protest", he said.

Troops briefly imposed order after violence erupted in July, but protesters returned to the streets in huge numbers this month in a non-cooperation movement aimed at paralysing the government.

- 'Brought to justice' -

Vast crowds of protesters, many wielding sticks, packed into Dhaka's central Shahbagh Square on Sunday, with street battles in multiple sites, police said.

"There were clashes between students and the ruling party men," police inspector Al Helal told AFP, saying two young men were killed in Dhaka's Munshiganj district.

"One of the dead was hacked in his head and another had gunshot injuries."

Another policeman, who asked not to be identified, said the city had "turned into a battleground".

Police and doctors also reported deaths in districts in the north, west, south and centre of the country.

On Sunday, India's foreign ministry said it "strongly advised" its nationals not to travel to neighboring Bangladesh until further notice.

Some former military officers have joined the student movement and ex-army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan turned his Facebook profile picture red in a show of support.

"We call on the incumbent government to withdraw the armed forces from the street immediately," Bhuiyan told reporters Sunday in a joint statement alongside other senior ex-officers, condemning "egregious killings, torture, disappearances and mass arrests".

"Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such an extreme misery will have to be brought to justice", he said.

- 'No longer about job quotas' -

Current army chief Waker-uz-Zaman told officers at military headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday the "Bangladesh Army is the symbol of trust of the people".

"It always stood by the people and will do so for the sake of people and in any need of the state," he said, according to an army statement, which gave no further details and did not say explicitly whether the army backed the protests.

The demonstrations have grown into a wider anti-government movement across the South Asian nation of about 170 million people.

It has attracted people from all strata of Bangladesh society, including film stars, musicians and singers. Rap songs calling for people's support have spread widely on social media.

A group of 47 manufacturers in the economically vital garment sector said Sunday they stood in "solidarity" with the protesters.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposi
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Demonstrations began over the reintroduction of the quota scheme, which reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups. It has since been scaled back by Bangladesh's top court.

sa/pjm/bjt/mlm

Welsh Labour meets with union on Tata Steel's future

Elizabeth Birt
Fri, 2 August 2024 


The First Minister met with union officials at Tata Steel (Image: Nathan Roach)


New Welsh Labour leader, Eluned Morgan, recently met with union officials at Tata Steel.

The meeting, held at the steelworks site in Port Talbot was aimed at discussing the future of thousands of workers.

Ms Morgan was joined by Welsh secretary Jo Stevens MP and Huw Irranca-Davies MS as well as representatives from GMB, Unite and Community.

The meeting came on the heels of the recent shutdown of one of Tata's two coal-fired blast furnaces at the plant.

This is a move towards embracing greener manufacturing as the company plans to transition to electric arc steelmaking, with the second coal-fired blast furnace to be switched off by September.

The shift, though beneficial in terms of decarbonisation, threatens to see up to 3,000 jobs lost across Tata's UK operations.

Ms Morgan said: "It was really important to me that one of the first meetings I had as Welsh Labour leader was with unions about the ongoing situation at Tata Steel.

"As First Minister, I will stand alongside workers to save as many steel jobs as we can, and to ensure that the transition to decarbonisation doesn't leave workers behind."

Mr Irranca-Davies added: "I know the workforce at Tata is facing a lot of uncertainty.

"Eluned and I are here to say the Welsh Government has your back."

Ms Stevens also spoke out saying: "Labour is committed to protecting and growing our steel communities in Wales.

"Eluned and I are clear that we will need more steel, not less, to achieve our ambitions for Wales and Britain.

"Both Labour governments will continue to listen to, engage and work with businesses and unions to forge a new partnership that kickstarts our national renewal."

This visit forms part of Ms Morgan's 'summer of listening' as she plans to venture across Wales to understand people’s priorities for the country.

World’s largest iceberg spins in the ocean, refusing to melt

Louise Watt
Sun, 4 August 2024


A23a is the world's largest iceberg, twice the size of Greater London - Chris Walton/BAS


The world’s oldest and largest iceberg is refusing to melt, say scientists.

A few months ago, the 1,500-square-mile floating mass of ice known as A23a was expected to drift to warmer waters and eventually dissolve.

But the trillion-ton iceberg, twice the size of Greater London and three times that of New York City, is instead stuck in an ocean vortex that could keep it in the same spot for years.


A23a, which once hosted a Soviet research station, broke away from the Antarctic coast in 1986. Almost immediately, it grounded on the seabed and was stuck for more than three decades. In 2020, it refloated.

A23a is trapped in a vortex created by ocean currents - Derren Fox/BAS

Late last year, it began migrating, exciting scientists who said it was rare to see an iceberg of such size on the move. Helped by strong winds and currents, it moved out of the Weddell Sea into the Southern Ocean, drifting – around walking pace – towards warmer waters.

In April, it entered a powerful ocean current, predicted to funnel it into the South Atlantic where it would break up. But, unexpectedly, it has stopped.

“Usually you think of icebergs as being transient things; they fragment and melt away. But not this one,” Prof Mark Brandon, a polar expert, told BBC News. “A23a is the iceberg that just refuses to die.”


The huge berg is now slowly spinning just north of the South Orkney Islands, a barren part of the British Antarctic Territory uninhabited except for an Antarctic exploration base.

The iceberg has stopped not because it has hit the seafloor, but because it is trapped in a vortex caused by the Pirie Bank, a bump on the ocean floor. As the current meets that obstruction, it separates into two flows, producing a rotating swirl of water in between.

“The ocean is full of surprises, and this dynamical feature is one of the cutest you’ll ever see,” Prof Mike Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey told BBC News.

A23a, which weighs nearly one trillion metric tons, could be stuck for years, scientists say.


An annotated aerial photograph shows A23a's position off the South Orkney islands


A map showing A23a's location

The iceberg’s continued survival comes as Antarctica loses ice, adding to rising global sea levels.

Last year, winter Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest level on record. There were more than two million square kilometres (800,000 square miles) less ice than usual, an area ten times the size of the UK, according to the British Antarctic Survey.

It said such a low level of ice was “extremely unlikely to happen without the influence of climate change”. Persistent low sea ice could have profound impacts on weather systems and Southern Ocean ecosystems, including whales and penguins.

A critical system of Atlantic Ocean currents could collapse as early as the 2030s, new research suggests

Angela Dewan and Angela Fritz, CNN
Sat, 3 August 2024 



A vital system of Atlantic Ocean currents that influences weather across the world could collapse as soon as the late 2030s, scientists have suggested in a new study — a planetary-scale disaster that would transform weather and climate.

Several studies in recent years have suggested the crucial system — the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC — could be on course for collapse, weakened by warmer ocean temperatures and disrupted saltiness caused by human-induced climate change.

But the new research, which is being peer-reviewed and hasn’t yet been published in a journal, uses a state-of-the-art model to estimate when it could collapse, suggesting a shutdown could happen between 2037 and 2064.


This research suggests it’s more likely than not to collapse by 2050.

“This is really worrying,” said René van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and study co-author.

“All the negative side effects of anthropogenic climate change, they will still continue to go on, like more heat waves, more droughts, more flooding,” he told CNN. “Then if you also have on top of that an AMOC collapse … the climate will become even more distorted.”

Like a conveyor belt, the AMOC pulls warm surface water from the southern hemisphere and the tropics and distributes it in the cold North Atlantic. The colder, saltier water then sinks and flows south. The mechanism keeps parts of the Southern Hemisphere from overheating and parts of the Northern Hemisphere from getting unbearably cold, while distributing nutrients that sustain life in marine ecosystems.

The impacts of an AMOC collapse would leave parts of the world unrecognizable.

In the decades after a collapse, Arctic ice would start creeping south, and after 100 years, would extend all the way down to the southern coast of England. Europe’s average temperature would plunge, as would North America’s – including parts of the US. The Amazon rainforest would see a complete reversal in its seasons; the current dry season would become the rainy months, and vice versa.

An AMOC collapse “is a really big danger that we should do everything we can to avoid,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany who was not involved in the latest research.

To reach their conclusions, the scientists from Utrecht used state-of-the-art models and for the first time identified an area of the South Atlantic Ocean as the optimal place to monitor for changes in the circulation and use observational data. They looked at temperatures and ocean saltiness there to firm up previous predictions on when the AMOC might reach its tipping point.

The emphasis in ocean research on the timing of the collapse is a relatively new development, said Rahmstorf. But it speaks to how far scientists’ understanding of the AMOC’s weakening has advanced.

“Until a few years ago, we were discussing whether it would happen at all, as a kind of low-probability, high-impact risk,” Rahmstorf told CNN. “And now it looks a lot more likely than just a few years ago that this will happen. Now people are starting to close in on when it will happen.”

Rahmstorf said that five or so years ago he would have agreed that an AMOC collapse this century was unlikely, though even a 10% risk is still unacceptably high “for a catastrophic impact of such magnitude.”

“There’s now five papers, basically, that suggested it could well happen in this century, or even before the middle of the century,” Rahmstof said. “My overall assessment is now that the risk of us passing the tipping point in this century is probably even greater than 50%.”

While the advances in AMOC research have been swift and the models that try to predict its collapse have advanced at lightning speed, they are still not without issues.

For example, the models don’t take into consideration a critical factor in the AMOC’s demise — melting Greenland ice. Massive amounts of fresh water are sloughing off the ice sheet and flowing into the North Atlantic, which disrupts one of the circulation’s driving forces: salt.

“You’re already getting a huge influx of fresh water into the northern Atlantic, which is going to completely disrupt the system,” Rahmstorf said.

This research gap means the predictions could underestimate how soon or fast a collapse would happen, Rahmstof said.

‘Astonishing’ Antarctica heat wave sends temperatures 50 degrees above normal

Mary Gilbert
Sat, 3 August 2024 

Temperature departures from normal are shown over Antarctica on August 1, 2024. Reds indicate warmer than normal conditions while blues indicate cooler than normal conditions. - Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu/Getty ImagesMore

A record-breaking heat wave unfolding at what should be the coldest time in Earth’s coldest place has scientists concerned about what it could mean for the future health of the Antarctic continent, and the consequences it could inflict for millions of people across the globe.

Temperatures since mid-July have climbed up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit above normal over parts of Antarctica and unseasonable warmth could continue through the first half of August.

The latest data shows high temperatures in portions of East Antarctica – where the most abnormal conditions are ongoing – that are typically between minus 58 and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit are now closer to minus 13 to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s cold, but Bismarck, North Dakota, has reached minus 20 degrees at least once a year in almost every year since 1875. Antarctica’s typical winter cold should be operating at a level unfathomable to most people in the US.

Summerlike heat in the dead of winter – even if much of the continent is still below freezing – is an alarming development for a place more capable than any other of generating catastrophic sea level rise as fossil fuel pollution continues to drive global temperatures upward.

Most of the planet’s ice is stored here, and were it all to melt, would raise average global sea levels by well over 150 feet. Even smaller icy features, like the so-called Doomsday Glacier, could raise sea levels by 10 feet if they were to melt – catastrophic amounts for the world’s coastal communities.

It’s possible more heat waves like this will happen in future winters, which could leave the icy continent less fortified for its hottest season – summer – and more vulnerable to melting during subsequent heat waves, said David Mikolajczyk, a research meteorologist with the Antarctic Meteorological Research and Data Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Increased Antarctic melting could also potentially alter global oceanic circulations, Mikolajczyk told CNN. These circulations play an outsized role in making the planet’s climate habitable.

“I’m sure more (impacts) will emerge with time as we understand (this heat wave) better, but at the moment, it’s just a case of astonishment really, what we’re seeing,” Thomas Bracegirdle, deputy science leader for the British Antarctic Survey’s Atmosphere, Ice and Climate team, said.

Temperature departures from normal are shown over Antarctica on August 1, 2024. Reds indicate warmer than normal conditions while blues indicate cooler than normal conditions. - Climate Change Institute, University of Maine

Bracegirdle told CNN the temperatures in this event were record-breaking and were an important signal of what could be coming in the longer term. Heat waves of this magnitude should be quite rare in Antarctica and scientists aren’t yet certain that they are occurring more frequently, but that may be changing.

“All we can say at this stage is that more high temperature extremes are what we expect (in Antarctica) under a changing climate, but for this particular event we’ll have to study more,” Bracegirdle said.

It also contributed significantly to Earth’s new hottest day on record in late June, according to an analysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

This is the second significant heat wave Antarctica has endured in the last two years. During the previous in March 2022, temperatures in some locations reached up to 70 degrees above normal, the most extreme temperature departures ever recorded in this part of the planet.

That unprecedented heat wave was made worse by climate change, according to a 2023 study published in Geophysical Research Letters. Climate change contributed 3.6 degrees of warming to the heat wave and could worsen similar heat waves by 9 to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, the study found.

While the current heat wave hasn’t seen temperature departures reach the level of 2022, it’s been much more expansive and long-lasting, according to Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

And the crucial differences between the two come down to what’s happening in the atmosphere.
‘A very unusual event’

The set of atmospheric conditions largely responsible for the ongoing heat wave – a breakdown of the southern polar vortex – is only expected to occur once every two decades on average, according to Bracegirdle.

“This is a very unusual event, from that perspective,” Bracegirdle added.

Just like the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere has a polar vortex – strong winds circulating high in the atmosphere that trap cold air in place.

But when the southern polar vortex gets disrupted, it releases cold air trapped over Antarctica and sends bursts of it farther north. This also leaves the door open for air to rush down from the upper atmosphere, warming along the way.

The southern polar vortex is disrupted much less frequently than its northern counterpart, which explains why such heat waves are much less frequent, according to Amy Butler, a research physicist at NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory.

This polar vortex disruption began in the second half of July and could continue through the first half of August, perhaps peaking in intensity in about a week, Butler told CNN. This will keep temperatures at the surface elevated.

At the same time, multiple surges of warm air from the southwestern Indian Ocean pushed over East Antarctica – which comprises about two-thirds of the entire continent. Each surge of warm air was followed by another so closely that the warming has been nearly continuous over the last few weeks, according to Scambos.

East Antarctica – home to the South Pole – is where the most frigid conditions on Earth are found and is typically protected from this kind of extreme warmth, according to Mikolajczyk. But that wasn’t the case in this event or in 2022’s.

It’s part of a larger trend with already measured consequences.

The South Pole warmed more than three times the global average rate from 1989 to 2018, a 2020 study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found.

West Antarctica and its Thwaites “Doomsday” Glacier have been a major focus of scientific research in recent years due to the catastrophic impact its collapse would have on sea level rise. But other research in the last few years has demonstrated that melting in East Antarctica, where this heat wave is happening, is becoming equally troubling.

The recent warmth has posed a significant problem to the continent’s crucial ice sheet. Antarctica lost a staggering 280% more ice mass in the 2000s and 2010s than it lost in the 1980s and 1990s, according to a 2019 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“In recent years, I would say that the feeling was that the Arctic is the place where all the rapid change is happening and (change) was happening quite slowly in Antarctica,” Mikolajczyk mused. “But this is just another event that’s showing (change) can also happen quickly in Antarctica.”

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Conservatives left UK wide open to far-right violence, says former adviser

Daniel Boffey Chief reporter
Sun, 4 August 2024 at 3:59 pm GMT-6·5-min rea
Dame Sara Khan said the Conservatives’ political turmoil had allowed extremist interests to thrive.Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA


The Conservative government left the UK wide open to the far-right violence erupting across parts of the country by ignoring red flags and stoking fires with a culture war agenda, a senior adviser on extremism to Tory prime ministers has said.

Dame Sara Khan, who was Rishi Sunak’s independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience until May this year and acted as counter-extremism commissioner under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, said the recent administrations had failed the British people.

Repeated and urgent counsel that far-right extremists were exploiting gaps in the law to foment violence on social media had been ignored while top-rank politicians in a series of administrations sought to gain advantage by waging culture wars, Khan said, in a damning intervention.

“The writing was clearly on the wall for some time,” Khan said. “All my reports have shown, in a nutshell that, firstly, these extremist and cohesion threats are worsening; secondly, that our country is woefully unprepared. We’ve got a gap in our legislation which is allowing these extremists to operate with impunity.

“Previous governments have astonishingly failed to address these trends, and they’ve taken instead, in my view, approaches that have actually been counterproductive and actually just defy any logical rationale.

“They scrapped the counter-extremism strategy [in 2021], including all the resources and funding for local areas across the country who are struggling with extremist activity and extremist actors. And the government, at that time, did not replace it with anything. They left local authorities struggling to deal with consistent extremist challenges in their area.

“Political leadership is really important and how our politicians behave is really, really critical, because I’ve seen, and I’m sure other people have seen, politicians who have actually, indirectly or directly undermined social cohesion because they’ve used inflammatory language.”

Related: Dozens arrested across UK as Cooper says ‘violent thugs will pay the price’ – as it happened

Khan, who has previously criticised those who described the pro-Palestine protests as “hate marches”, a formulation of words used by the former home secretary Suella Braverman, said the rhetoric used by some senior politicians in recent years had given a green light to those holding racist views.

She said: “I went to parts of the country where they were very upfront with me and just said: ‘Look, because of some of the inflammatory language used by politicians, the same language would then be co-opted by, you know, far-right extremists and others, who would then use that to undermine cohesion in a local area.’

“There’s a serious duty on our politicians to not engage in inflammatory language; to not use, for example, dehumanising language about asylum seekers, refugees and, you know, people who are coming to our country.

“Of course, there’s a legitimate debate about immigration, about numbers and all of those things, but there’s a way that you can talk about these issues without using dehumanising and inflammatory language. Because, by using that language, you just see extremists co-opting that. You see people saying, well, if politicians can use that language, why can’t we?”

Khan, a British Muslim raised in Bradford, who published a review for Michael Gove in March this year on social cohesion in the UK known as the Khan review, said there had been growing evidence in recent years of the far right spreading disinformation to cause unrest, with outbreaks of unrest in Oldham, Knowsley and Barrow.

Khan, who wrote a report in 2021 with the current Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, calling for a change in the law on extremism, said it remained the case that it was legal to stir up racial hatred that is not threatening, abusive or insulting.

“And that’s why we’ve seen lawful fascist and neo-Nazi organisations in this country who are doing precisely that,” Khan said. “There are claims about white genocide, promoting dangerous narratives, which is intended to stir up hatred against a racial and religious group.

“There is a kind of growth and influence, not only far-right influencers, but also other extremist actors. There is the use of disinformation on social media.

“Hateful extremism has evolved significantly in the last decade, and extremists have professionalised and coordinated, locally, nationally, transnationally, they’re using social media to spread their extremist ideology and spreading disinformation.

“Our rules have failed to evolve with this growing extremist threat, there are gaps in our legislation that is allowing them to, in effect, operate with impunity.”

Khan said the political tumult in recent years, with the country having five different prime ministers in seven years, had enfeebled the government.

She said: “I was dealing with three different home secretaries because of the kind of political instability you had. Home secretaries who had different interests and views about how to tackle this problem, and so some were very forthcoming and supportive, but I think others were less so.

“Why it was that they didn’t respond to the reports, ultimately, is a question for them, but it’s just astonishing that they didn’t do anything about it.”

There was also, she said, a lack of institutional knowledge about how to combat disinformation and protect vulnerable people.

She said: “What local authorities were telling me was that the far right would find out where asylum hotels would be before the local authority did, because the communication between the Home Office and them was just not working.”

On Sunday, police clashed with rioters outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham, with demonstrators chanting “Get them out” as they smashed the windows of the Holiday Inn Express.

Khan added: “They’ve (the Conservatives) actually failed those people in communities who are trying to protect cohesion, you know, who are trying to push back against extremist actors.

“Ultimately, unless we address these problems, it will get worse.”

A Conservative spokesperson said: “Rishi Sunak as prime minister made it clear that we must stand up to extremism in all its forms. The police must take a zero-tolerance approach to extremist tactics, and we set out reforms to how governments deal with extremists, redoubled our support for the Prevent programme and demanded that universities stopped extremist activity on campus.

“We must stand together to combat the forces of division and give the police the powers they need to protect our country and values.”

Keir Starmer decisive on mob violence but faces dilemma over Reform

Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, 4 August 2024 

Keir Starmer speaking in Downing Street on Sunday. Photograph: Ben Bauer/PA


Keir Starmer sounded uncharacteristically angry as he appeared in front of a podium in Downing Street on Sunday to condemn the violent mobs causing damage and spreading fear.

Just a few weeks into government, the prime minister has been confronted with an appalling triple murder of three young girls, followed by days of rioting whipped up by online disinformation that a migrant was responsible.

So far, he has taken a proactive approach to tackling the violent unrest – leading visibly from Downing Street rather than letting his home secretary, Yvette Cooper, front up the response.

In a statements on Friday and Sunday, Starmer has made it clear he wants the response to thuggery to be swift and decisive. He has called in the police to coordinate tactics, as well as delivering a message to Muslims and others frightened by the violence that this does not represent Britain. And he has named the forces he holds responsible – the far right exploiting a horrific tragedy to whip up disinformation and target migrants.

As a former director of public prosecutions, who was involved in the response to the 2011 riots, Starmer is well placed to deal practically with a crisis in the sphere of law and order.

He understands the importance of quick justice, both in getting criminals off the street to avoid prolonged violence and in deterring others from taking part when they see their fellow far-right rioters make life-ruining choices in less than week.

Related: The far right has moved online, where its voice is more dangerous than ever

There has also been little criticism of Starmer’s approach from the Conservatives, with former shadow home secretary David Davis saying: “Remember, the riots started with a lie, or three lies … I don’t have that many criticisms of the government or the police on this, to be honest.

“All what I would say is, perhaps they should have been faster to crush all that misinformation.”

However, a bigger difficulty for Starmer lies in the politics of the situation after the initial practical response, and how he reacts to Nigel Farage’s Reform party. Its politicians claimed over this weekend that the far right were not to blame for the riots, but discontent and unease about immigration.

Related: Watchdog should investigate Farage’s ‘dangerous comments’, says Liverpool MP

Labour sources say the view is that it is counterproductive to give Farage and his crew the oxygen of too much direct criticism, when the focus should be on the policing and tackling the rioters.

However, others within the party are worried that Labour failing to challenge Farage more comprehensively head-on allows his anti-migrant insinuations to become part of mainstream political rhetoric, especially when he now has five MPs and received 4m votes at the election.

Hostile language about migrants has become increasingly mainstream in the last five years, fuelled by those such as Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, referring to migrants as an invasion, and Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair turned Reform MP, talking of wanting asylum seekers to “fuck off back to France” and claiming baselessly that the Labour mayor of London was controlled by Islamists.

Starmer has taken the view that he needed to explicitly condemn the far right for being behind the violence – making it clear that whatever the underlying motive, causing fear, damage and disorder are never acceptable. But there may come a time soon when he needs to more strongly confront the anti-migrant rhetoric that lies behind the violence as well, whether it comes from protesters or politicians.