ICYMI

Vietnam farmers struggle for fresh water as drought brings salinisation

Bến Tre (Vietnam) (AFP) – Every day, farmer Nguyen Hoai Thuong prays in vain for rain to fall on the cracked dry earth of her garden in Vietnam's Mekong Delta -- the country's "rice bowl" agricultural heartland.


Issued on: 20/03/2024 - 

A farmer sits in a drought-stricken rice field in Vietnam's southern Ben Tre province, which is plagued by intruding salt water 

© Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

A blazing month-long heatwave has brought drought, parching the land in Thuong's home of Ben Tre province, 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of business hub Ho Chi Minh City.

The area is crisscrossed by waterways, but the prolonged heatwave and lack of rain are causing salinisation -- the intrusion of salt water from the sea -- badly affecting crops in a region vital to feeding the nation of 90 million people.

"It's a waste leaving the rice field empty like this because we don't have fresh water. I have to change to raising cows instead," 31-year-old farmer Thuong told AFP from her burning hot village, where ground that should be lush wet rice paddy stands cracked and dry.

Without rain, her family has no fresh water for even domestic use, and last month she was forced to buy some from her neighbour for 500,000 dong ($20).

"We don't have a fresh underground water source to use while the surface water is salty," she said as her father pumped water from a mobile container into the family's 1,000-litre storage tank.

Once lush rice paddies in southern Vietnam now stand cracked and dry amid a blazing heatwave

 © Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

The water Thuong bought is strictly for domestic use, from drinking, cooking to bathing, not for the crops.

The Mekong Delta faces saltwater intrusion every year, but more intense hot weather and rising sea levels -- both driven by climate change -- are increasing the risk.

Weather officials say the delta is suffering an unusually long heatwave this year, leading to drought in several areas, low water levels in canals and saltwater intruding -- and they warn the worst may yet be to come.
$3 billion in crops lost

Saltwater levels are often higher in the dry season but they are intensifying due to rising sea levels, droughts, tidal fluctuations, and a lack of upstream freshwater.

A young boy collects fresh water from a tank in Ben Tre province, where some are now forced to buy water for even domestic needs 

\© Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

Research published last week said the delta, which provides food and livelihoods for tens of millions of people, faces nearly $3 billion a year in crop losses as more saltwater seeps into arable land.

Around 80,000 hectares of rice and fruit farms could be impacted by salinisation, according to the study from the Water Resources Science Institute under the environment ministry.

Ben Tre province, where Thuong's village is located, suffered about $472 million in losses each year from 2020 to 2023, according to the study.

"I had to reduce cultivation from three to only two rice crops each year. All water in my area has been too salty to be used for anything," farmer Phan Thanh Trung told AFP from one of his fields.

His neighbour Nguyen Van Hung is luckier -- he has an abundant underground source for fresh water he can use to make money.

"During time of drought and saline intrusion, I sell my fresh water to the neighbours. But to tell the truth, I am not happy," Hung said.

"Adverse weather patterns have really hit us hard."

tmh-nhac/pdw/cwl

© 2024 AFP

Planet 'on the brink' as UN agency warns new heat records are likely in 2024

Global temperatures "smashed" heat records last year, as heatwaves stalked oceans and glaciers suffered record ice loss, the United Nations said Tuesday – warning 2024 was likely to be even hotter.


Issued on: 19/03/2024 - 

01:32The World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded. 

By: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Antonia KERRIGAN

The annual State of the Climate report by the UN weather and climate agency confirmed preliminary data showing 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded.

And last year capped off "the warmest 10-year period on record", the World Meteorological Organization said, with even hotter temperatures expected.

"There is a high probability that 2024 will again break the record of 2023", WMO climate monitoring chief Omar Baddour told reporters.

Reacting to the report, UN chief Antonio Guterres said it showed "a planet on the brink".

"Earth's issuing a distress call," he said in a video message, pointing out that "fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts", and warning that "changes are speeding up".

The WMO said that last year the average near-surface temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – dangerously close to the critical 1.5-degree threshold that countries agreed to avoid passing in the 2015 Paris climate accords.

'Red alert'

"I am now sounding the red alert about the state of the climate," Saulo told reporters, lamenting that "2023 set new records for every single climate indicator".

The organisation said many of the records were "smashed" and that the numbers "gave ominous new significance to the phrase 'off the charts'."

"What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern," Saulo said.

Read more‘Every tenth of a degree matters’: UN climate report is a call for action, not despair

One especially worrying finding was that marine heatwaves gripped nearly a third of the global ocean on an average day last year.

And by the end of 2023, more than 90 percent of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year, the WMO said.

More frequent and intense marine heatwaves will have "profound negative repercussions for marine ecosystems and coral reefs", it warned.

Meanwhile key glaciers worldwide suffered the largest loss of ice since records began in 1950, "driven by extreme melt in both western North America and Europe".

In Switzerland, where the WMO is based, Alpine glaciers lost 10 percent of their remaining volume in the past two years alone, it said.

The Antarctic sea ice extent was also "by far the lowest on record", WMO said.
Rising sea levels

The maximum area at the end of the southern winter was around one million square kilometres below the previous record year – equivalent to the size of France and Germany combined, according to the report.

Ocean warming and the rapidly melting glaciers and ice sheets drove the sea level last year to its highest point since satellite records began in 1993, WMO said.

The global mean sea level rise over the past decade (2014-2023) was more than double the rate in the first decade of satellite records. 

© Luis Robayo, AFP file photo

The agency highlighted that the global mean sea level rise over the past decade (2014-2023) was more than double the rate in the first decade of satellite records.

The dramatic climate shifts, it said, are taking a heavy toll worldwide, fuelling extreme weather events, flooding and drought, which trigger displacement and drive up biodiversity loss and food insecurity.

"The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis," Saulo said.
'Glimmer of hope'

The WMO did highlight one "glimmer of hope": surging renewable energy generation.

Last year, renewable energy generation capacity – mainly from solar, wind and hydropower – increased by nearly 50 percent from 2022, it said.

The report sparked a flood of reactions and calls for urgent action.

"Our only response must be to stop burning fossil fuels so that the damage can be limited," said Martin Siegert, a geosciences professor at the University of Exeter.

Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, stressed that the dramatic climae shifts "do not connote the inevitable doom of civilisation".

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo presented the organisation's annual state of the climate report. © Fabrice Coffrini, AFP

The outcome, he said, "depends on how people and governments change or don't change behaviours".


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Saulo acknowledged that the cost of climate action might seem high.

"But the cost of climate inaction is much higher," she said. "The worst thing would be to do nothing."

Guterres also emphasised that there was still time to "avoid the worst of climate chaos".

"But leaders must step up and act – now."

(AFP)

European plastics industry 'in trouble' as market share falls

Paris (AFP) – Europe's share of global plastics production has fallen while China's output now accounts for a third, an industry report showed Tuesday.

Issued on: 19/03/2024 - 

Europe produced 58.8 million tonnes of plastics in 2022 

© Thomas SAMSON / AFP/File

Europe's share of global production fell from 22 percent in 2006 to 14 percent in 2022, according to an annual report by Plastics Europe.

China's share jumped from 21 percent to 32 percent over the same period, the report showed.

"Our European plastics industry is in trouble," said Jean-Yves Daclin, the head of Plastics Europe operations in France.

The group's "Circular Economy for Plastics" report warned of a "a growing competitiveness gap between Europe and the rest of the world".

The decline is linked to rising imports from China and the United States in recent years, Daclin said.

The European Union's 27 member countries, together with Britain, Norway and Switzerland, produced 58.8 million tonnes of plastics in 2022.

North America's global share has also fallen, dropping from 24 percent in 2006 to 17 percent in 2022.

Excluding China and Japan, the rest of Asia, Oceania, Turkey and Ukraine accounted for 19 percent of the global market in 2022 compared with 14 percent in 2006.

The Middle East and Africa regions have also taken a bigger slice, rising from a combined six percent to nine percent.

Japan's share fell by half to three percent while Latin American dropped slightly to four percent.

The Plastics Europe report also said that 26.9 percent of European plastics waste is now recycled.

Some 175 countries have agreed to conclude by 2024 a binding agreement to combat plastic pollution.

Kenya hosted the latest negotiations in November, which ended with disagreement about how the pact should work and frustration from environment groups over delays and lack of progress.

© 2024 AFP

Renault CEO urges 'Marshall Plan' for Europe electric vehicles

ALL CAPITALI$M IS STATE CAPITALI$M

Paris (AFP) – The chief executive of French automaker Renault called Tuesday for a European "Marshall Plan" to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and reduce carbon emissions in the face of Chinese competition.

Issued on: 19/03/2024 -

Renault is already pushing strongly into the small electric vehicle segment with the launch of its retro R5 E-Tech model 

© Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP/File

The post-WWII US programme helped rebuild Western European economies, and Luca de Meo argued for a similar effort in a series of proposals made to launch a policy debate ahead of European parliamentary elections in June.

"A European Marshall Plan could be put in place to accelerate parc renewal and thus drastically reduce CO2 emissions," he wrote.

He likened it to the EU's post-Covid recovery plan, saying a special European fund could finance incentives for the purchase of new or used electric vehicles (EVs).

Europe aims to phase out the sale of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 as part of its efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

But with "an onslaught of electric vehicles from China", de Meo said the European automotive sector needed the EU to develop an industrial strategy, much like it did to encourage the development of planemaker Airbus, and as the Chinese have done for EVs.

In particular he called for the creation of "green economic zones" like China's special economic zones, with companies receiving additional subsidies and tax breaks to encourage the rapid development of EVs.

He also called for cooperative efforts to build small and affordable vehicles in Europe.

"These cars would also significantly improve air quality in cities," wrote de Meo, noting that one city in four suffers from poor air quality, with 39 percent of emissions being caused by road traffic.

Size also matters, both in terms of environmental impact and cost.

"Driving around every day in an electric vehicle weighing 2.5 tonnes is clearly an environmental nonsense," de Meo said.

Meanwhile, compact cars are 20 to 30 percent cheaper to build, he added.

But efforts to lower the prices of small city cars are needed, as they have more than doubled over the past two decades while wages have risen much less, as are incentives and financing options to ensure consumers can switch to EVs.

He also suggested that Europe's 200 largest cities adopt incentives like offering free access for small zero-emission cars and vans, while making other vehicle owners pay.

© 2024 AFP

Two years on, what does the Ukraine war mean for the Middle East?

Analysis: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has accelerated East-West bifurcation in an increasingly multipolar world, with Arab states striking a delicate balance

The deadliest conflict in Europe since 1945 rages on in its third year. So far, tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives in this war.

Many Ukrainian cities are destroyed while millions of displaced Ukrainians live as refugees in other countries. Moscow remains committed to achieving its objectives in this war while Washington’s continued military support for Ukraine is in question amid an election year in the US.

For Arab states, Russia’s overt invasion of Ukraine has represented both challenges and opportunities. This war has served to accelerate East-West bifurcation in an increasingly multipolar world, requiring Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members to strike delicate balancing acts when navigating shifts in the global geopolitical order.

The conditions created by the shock of 24 February 2022 empowered GCC states in various ways. Their economies benefited from record revenues attributed to high oil prices.

Furthermore, the challenges before Western policymakers reinforced the centrality of Gulf Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia in terms of global energy, security, and geopolitics, underscoring Washington, London, and European capitals’ need to involve Riyadh in the formulation of their responses to global challenges of the 21st century.

"For Arab states, Russia's overt invasion of Ukraine has represented both challenges and opportunities"

In November 2019, Joe Biden, as a presidential candidate, called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and he refused to speak directly with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) throughout the start of his term. Yet, by July 2022 Biden controversially visited Jeddah to meet with MbS.

One of the White House’s objectives behind that trip was to try to pull Saudi Arabia away from Russia’s orbit of influence several months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is reasonable to interpret Biden’s decision to go to Jeddah within the context of Saudi Arabia being successful in terms of maximising the benefits afforded to the Kingdom in an increasingly multipolar world defined by great power competition.

Put simply, the Ukraine war helped the Saudis make Washington view the US-Saudi partnership differently. Rather than assuming that Saudi Arabia depends on the US, and that Washington can make demands of Riyadh, multipolarity has afforded Saudi Arabia the means to do more hedging amid a time of intensifying East-West animosity while reinforcing to the US how much Washington needs Riyadh - arguably as much as vice versa.

At the same time, the Ukraine war also created instability that negatively impacted GCC members. For example, massive interruptions to supply chains posed serious challenges to the Gulf Arab states, especially concerning food security.

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Divergent positions within the Gulf

The six GCC states have not all had identical responses to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. On one side of the spectrum, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have been most accommodating of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government since February 2022.

On the opposite side, Kuwait and Qatar have been most critical of Russia’s violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights. Oman and Bahrain have been in the middle. Nonetheless, all six GCC members have spent the past two years attempting to maintain their close relations with both Moscow and the West.

“Given its history, it is unsurprising that Kuwait has been the most outspoken against Russia's invasion of Ukraine and most supportive of Western states' responses,” Dr Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, said in an interview with The New Arab.

“Similarly, Qatar has taken a strong position in favour of Ukraine. For the other GCC states, however, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is ‘somebody else’s issue’- it is either seen as a European or NATO issue and one that does not directly affect the Gulf, though the consequences of the invasion, of course, have been felt all over,” he added.

“The Gulf states do not subscribe to Western narratives about Russia’s move posing a challenge to the rules-based order or see it to be of major consequence and this should be no surprise, as the region has experienced punishing wars and occupations for the past 100 years and more. Consequently, it is just another war.”

No GCC state has implemented any of the West's sanctions on Russia since Moscow's invasion. 

A careful balancing act

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UAE joined China and India on 25 February 2022 in abstaining on a US-drafted resolution condemning Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine.

Nonetheless, all six GCC members have consistently voted with the West in UN General Assembly resolutions that called out Moscow for its invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukrainian territory.

Gulf Arab officials have also diplomatically engaged their Ukrainian counterparts, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and given Ukraine much humanitarian and non-lethal assistance over the past two years. Indeed, Zelenskyy’s been in Saudi Arabia more than once since the full-fledged Russian invasion and many important officials from GCC states have come to Kyiv amid this war.

At the same time, no GCC state implemented any of the West’s sanctions on Russia. The UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed along with other leaders and high-ranking officials from Gulf Arab states have made trips to Moscow since February 2022. Late last year, Putin was a welcome guest in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

"The Gulf states do not subscribe to Western narratives about Russia's move posing a challenge to the rules-based order or see it to be of major consequence"

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, in particular, have maintained close working relations with Moscow across a host of domains. Saudi-Russian energy cooperation via OPEC+ is a case in point. The UAE also played a major role in enabling Russia to weather the West’s financial warfare. Since February 2022, Emirati authorities have permitted Russian oligarchs and Kremlin-linked figures to park their wealth in Dubai.

As the most Russia-friendly GCC member, the UAE’s willingness to play this role in helping Moscow withstand Western pressure stands to contribute to the long-term strengthening of the Abu Dhabi-Moscow partnership.

“From the onset of the Ukraine war, Gulf States - individually, not collectively - had made conscious and calculated decisions to not take strong positions on the conflict,” Dr Mira al-Hussein, an Emirati sociologist and research fellow at the Alwaleed bin Talal Centre, University of Edinburgh, told TNA.

“As the US’ focus on the region began to gradually wane, Gulf states continued to wisely hedge on other regional powers, while simultaneously attempting to re-engage the US and ensure a prolonged security commitment to the region,” she added.

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“If there is a shift in the balance in Moscow's favour because of diminishing Western support for Ukraine, then Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will feel vindicated for hedging against US commitment to their security,” said Dr Quilliam.

“At the same time, it will reinforce the idea that Russia is a dependable and enduring partner and that it has been seen to support its allies, such as Syria, through thick and thin. In other words, a shift in the balance in Moscow's favour would only serve to reconfirm Gulf Arab leader fears that they can no longer rely upon the US and encourage them to hedge further with Russia and China.”

Although Washington and some other Western capitals sought to bring GCC members into closer alignment with NATO and Ukraine against Russia, Gulf Arab officials seem to have played their cards wisely from a strategic standpoint.

With the war in Ukraine now essentially a stalemate with neither side having achieved a decisive victory, staying relatively neutral seems to have been a decision that served the long-term national interests of GCC states.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been most accommodating of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government since Moscow's invasion. 


As Dr al-Hussein explained, the Gulf Arab leaders and policymakers look at the current state of this war in Ukraine and are “reassured that their choice to remain neutral was rational and wise”.

Despite the GCC states remaining relatively neutral in this conflict, it can be said that these six Arab countries have had no choice but to view Russia as a global power with nuclear weapons and Ukraine as a much less powerful country on the international stage.

The foreign policy strategies of the GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, vis-à-vis the Ukraine war have reflected their vested interests in deepening ties with Moscow. Officials in Kyiv have taken note of this, which has probably left Ukraine somewhat suspicious of GCC states - particularly those which most accommodated the Kremlin after the shock of 24 February 2022.

That said, Kyiv has joined the West in taking advantage of Saudi and Emirati diplomatic bridges to Moscow throughout this conflict. Underscored by Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Riyadh’s mediation roles in the December 2022 Brittney Griner-Viktor Bout exchange, prisoners of war swaps, and the reunification of families, Gulf capitals have leveraged their relative neutrality to help the West, Ukraine, and Russia.

“The GCC countries have used their balancing act between Moscow and Kyiv to boost their strategic autonomy versus the US and present themselves as a mainstay for multipolarity,” Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with the Chatham House and a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council, told TNA.

“The past two years have been remarkable in the sense that they helped GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, to learn to deal with both sides of the conflict and build political clout on both sides that allows these countries to bring both to a middle ground on peripheral issues such as prisoner swaps,” he added.

"The GCC countries have used their balancing act between Moscow and Kyiv to boost their strategic autonomy versus the US and present themselves as a mainstay for multipolarity"
Balancing ties with Russia and the West

Despite Saudi Arabia and the UAE helping their Western partners with prisoner swaps and hostage releases, their overall accommodation of Russia since February 2022 has fuelled a degree of tension between those two Gulf states, on one side, and the US and other western powers, on the other. However, such tension related to the Ukraine war has not led to any major crisis in either Saudi Arabia or the UAE’s relationship with Washington.

“The US understands the rationality behind Gulf states’ neutrality on this war. There has not been any real effort on Washington’s part to penalise those who facilitate Russia's sanction avoidance, which calls into question the extent to which the US and Europe are interested in isolating Russia, or their desire to further antagonise Gulf states,” Dr al-Hussein told TNA.

Throughout the future, however, there might be some lasting bitterness in the West about these GCC members taking relatively non-aligned positions toward Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. But given how quickly new developments on the international stage unfold and how short attention spans are in Washington and other Western capitals, it is not clear how long that bitterness will last.

At the end of the day, the US and other Western countries have to worry about more than Ukraine, and they count on their relationships with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for help with countless international challenges from Afghanistan to Sudan.

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Giorgio Cafiero

Gulf Arab statesmen focus on Gaza, not Ukraine

Gulf Arab policymakers are currently much more concerned about the Israeli war on Gaza than Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. The mayhem in Gaza is impacting Arab societies in ways that Russia’s brutality in Ukraine does not.

Israel-Palestine is also much geographically closer to the Gulf than Ukraine, and for all GCC states the stakes are extremely high when it comes to the Gaza war’s spillover into Yemen, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden.

Israel’s actions in Gaza have the potential to bring GCC states closer to Russia. This is mostly due to how easy it is for Moscow to present itself to the Arab-Islamic world as a power which differs from the US.

The Ukraine war has not led to any major crisis in either Saudi Arabia or the UAE's relationship with Washington. 

Instead of vetoing UN Security Council resolutions to spare Israel from any form of accountability for its crimes, Russia is busy depicting itself as a defender of the Palestinian cause.

“If anything, the war in Gaza accelerated the push for multipolarity as the US credibility and reliability received a blow in the region. While the US will remain the GCC’s main security partner, the double standards and reluctance to revamp its support to Israel creates an opening for Russia and China to advance their standing and rhetorical appeal in the Middle East and the Global South. This will not alter the regional status quo anytime soon, but it will pave the way for deeper ties with Moscow,” said Aboudouh.

As Dr al-Hussein told TNA, “Russia’s statements in support of Palestine in the UN Security Council meetings may serve as good PR for local Gulf consumption to promote Russia as a moral counterpart to the US, if necessary”.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero

TikTok: Why people think the US bill to ban app is linked to pro-Palestine content

Journalists, rights experts and social media users say move to ban TikTok is being pushed by pro-Israel lawmakers

Representative Robert Garcia (D) speaks at a news conference about TikTok, on 12 March 2024 in Washington DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 18 March 2024 

After a bill in the US Congress was overwhelmingly passed to ban the social media app TikTok, social media users expressed outrage online and linked the move to pro-Israel groups trying to curb the surge of pro-Palestinian content on the platform.

The bill, which passed in the House by a 352-65 vote, requires that TikTok be sold to an American company or face a ban in the US.

To become law, it still needs to be passed by the Senate, which the Biden administration has been pushing to happen quickly.

The legislation was the culmination of a year-long effort and has been largely attributed to lawmakers with hawkish views on China.

TikTok was created by ByteDance, a company founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. While the app is owned by TikTok LLC, a company headquartered in the US, TikTok's ownership falls under ByteDance.


Sign up to get the latest alerts, insights and analysis, starting with Turkey Unpacked

While US opposition to China helped launch the bill, journalists, experts, and social media users pointed to several issues since October that they say show pro-Palestinian content was a part of the issue behind the bill's resurgence.

"The deranged hysterical push to ban TikTok is driven by the Zionist propaganda complex," said one user on X.

One of the instances they pointed to was a reportedly leaked recording of Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, in which he said, "We really have a Tik-Tok problem."

Another example users cite is that one of the major donors for Mike Gallagher, the Republican congressman who introduced the bill, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).

The Wall Street Journal also reported last week that there was "new momentum in part because of anger over TikTok videos about the Israel-Hamas conflict".

In another report by the WSJ, Democrat Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said it was the war in Gaza that led him to support a ban on TikTok.

Krishnamoorthi said: “Oct 7 really opened people’s eyes to what’s happening on TikTok.”

Republican Senator Josh Hawley sent a letter to the Biden administration in November calling for the ban of TikTok. In the letter, he specifically cited the "ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok" as one of his main reasons for advocating for the ban.

"Every serious news account of how this 'ban TikTok bill' suddenly gained momentum - seemingly out of nowhere - emphasizes Oct. 7, when Bipartisan DC became enraged so many Americans were allowed to criticize Israel," said Glenn Greenwald, a US journalist and co-founder of The Intercept.

He is now the host of an independent news programme called System Update.

Others pointed to the idea that the goal of pro-Israel groups is not to ban the social media giant, but for a pro-Israel entity to purchase the application.

Last week, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is putting together a group of investors to try and buy TikTok.

"They are not trying to ban #TikTok. They are trying to use government power to force TikTok to be taken over by pro-Israel ownership to silence criticism of #Genocide and #apartheid," said Craig Mokhiber, the former director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Analysis

Will Britain hold its armed forces accountable for alleged war crimes in the Middle East?

In-depth: Britain's secretive special forces have operated across 19 countries, including the Middle East, but there's been a lack of government accountability.




Jonathan Fenton-Harvey

The New Arab.
13 March, 2024

Last week, five British special forces soldiers were arrested for alleged war crimes during their deployment in Syria two years ago.

They stand accused of using excessive force in the killing of a suspected militant, found with a suicide vest nearby, although the suspect was reportedly not wearing it when killed. The five soldiers deny these charges, saying they believed he posed a genuine threat.

The soldiers will be investigated by the Defence Serious Crime Unit (DSCU), which focuses on allegations of criminal activity by British armed forces.

In the past, Britain’s record of investigating alleged war crimes committed by its forces has been woeful, with ministers and senior military officials accused of covering up extrajudicial killings and other crimes, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there's been a glaring shortfall in how the UK authorities held members of the military to account over horrific alleged misconduct, and this must not be repeated with Syria"

Only one soldier has ever been prosecuted over an unlawful killing in Iraq, despite increasing indications of war crimes. That record has triggered mounting calls for independent judicial oversight to bring justice for the victims.


“In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s been a glaring shortfall in how the UK authorities held members of the military to account over horrific alleged misconduct, and this must not be repeated with Syria,” Kristyan Benedict, Crisis Response Manager for Amnesty International UK, told The New Arab.

A damning indictment

The arrests follow a public inquiry last year over allegations of special forces committing war crimes in Afghanistan. A series of damaging media reports and a legal challenge lodged by several Afghan families, who say dozens of their relatives were unlawfully killed in raids between 2010 and 2013, prompted that investigation.

Since the Afghanistan tribunal commenced, with the Ministry of Defence, or MoD, naming special forces for the first time, more allegations have surfaced.

In 2011, Gen. Gwyn Jenkins, who is now the second most senior officer in the British armed forces, received warnings that Special Air Service, or SAS, soldiers may have executed handcuffed detainees in Afghanistan, thus committing a war crime.

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While legally obliged under British law to report any evidence suggesting a war crime to the military police, Jenkins instead opted to “lock up” this disturbing evidence within a classified dossier, according to the BBC Panorama investigation, effectively silencing these allegations.

It also emerged that the special forces blocked applications from eight Afghan commandos who had fought alongside British troops to relocate to the UK. Some Afghan forces had witnessed alleged war crimes, triggering fears that these commandos may provide evidence in the public inquiry, according to the BBC.

As King’s College London researcher Elizabeth Brown wrote, the inquiry suggested a failure to investigate deaths promptly and attempts to cover up the incidents, with patterns indicating extrajudicial killings had occurred.

The investigation also includes reports that weapons were planted alongside victims who were unarmed civilians, while soldiers had turned off their cameras before raids.

According to Brown, if only some of the allegations presented were true, “they would represent a damning indictment of Britain’s Special Forces, and of the wider British armed forces’ ability to self-police”.

Britain's record of investigating alleged war crimes has been woeful, with ministers and senior military officials accused of covering up extrajudicial killings and other crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Operating in the shadows

Britain’s military forays into Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are well known. Yet traditionally, the UK has refused to comment on special forces’ activities, leaving much of the public in the dark about their operations.


These elite teams operate in the shadows of Britain’s geopolitical aims, with a degree of operational autonomy compared to other branches of the army. The MoD has also traditionally upheld a policy of not commenting on SAS activities.

When they do attract attention, it’s often when they’re involved in controversy or when operations go wrong.

According to Iain Overton, Executive Director at Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), the use of special forces represents an attempt to “be everything, everywhere, all at once,” underpinning London’s ambition “to appear to be a power worth its seat at the UN Security Council,” despite having relatively limited resources.

"Given the SAS has been operational in at least 19 countries in the last decade, this is clearly an unacceptable lack of accountability and oversight, a failure that is now being seen in arrests and inquiries"

“It’s a post-colonial legacy that is, at best, an overstretch and one that appears invariably to lead to ill-defined policy goals. At times, it seems to be more about bombast than effectiveness,” he told The New Arab.

The recent Syria arrests have spotlighted special forces’ role in that country. During Syria’s war, not only did special forces join the fray to back up British airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS), but they also previously assisted anti-Assad rebels in 2012 – even before the British parliament voted against putting British troops on the ground against Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in 2013, to deter the use of chemical weapons.

The fixation on operational secrecy was so intense that when SAS sniper Matt Tonroe was killed in Syria in 2018 due to an accidental grenade detonation from a US ally, his official designation was stated as a member of the Parachute Regiment.

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In-depth

A Yemeni journalist

Their actions didn’t end there. In Yemen, special forces had advised Saudi-led coalition operations against the Houthis, while later dropping humanitarian aid for impoverished civilians.

Stepping up their actions, around 40 SAS forces were deployed in August 2021, to hunt down Houthi rebels following a reported drone attack by the faction on the Israeli-operated “Mercer Street” oil tanker.

As Yemen once again comes into focus, following UK-US airstrikes on Houthi targets as they step up attacks on Red Sea shipping, the use of special forces was tabled for possible missions such as disabling the engines of Houthi boats.

Traditionally, the UK has refused to comment on special forces' activities, leaving much of the public in the dark about their operations. [Getty]

Lack of transparency

While the use of special forces to assist the Saudi-led coalition raised further concerns that the UK was “taking sides” in the war, they also triggered criticisms in parliament that British troops may have fought alongside child soldiers recruited by the Coalition, many as young as thirteen, highlighting the lack of parliamentary oversight.

And during the 2011 revolution in Libya, not only did special forces assist in hunting down Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed by Libyan rebels, they remained in the country until 2019 to support countering IS which had emerged post-revolution, while 20 troopers were deployed to Tunisia to preventing illegal crossings from IS in Libya.

After special forces fired a missile which blew up an IS-owned truck packed with explosives, then-chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee Crispin Blunt called for “proper accounting” and “clarity” over what the special forces were doing in Libya, despite stressing the need to support Libya’s post-revolution government.

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In-depth

Jonathan Fenton-Harvey

Also operating in Ukraine, Sudan and Somalia, SAS forces were also recently on ‘standby’ in Cyprus to assist Israel’s assault on Gaza, with the stated aim of rescuing British national hostages taken by Hamas. Although the MoD declined to give any details on possible SAS operations in that context.

With aims to punch above its weight in terms of resources, the use of special forces to project power on a budget has inevitably led to blowback.

“The government still refuses to speak about Special Forces' actions in parliament and there is no oversight by any select committee,” said Iain Overton.

“Given the SAS has been operational in at least 19 countries in the last decade, this is clearly an unacceptable lack of accountability and oversight, a failure that is now being seen in arrests and inquiries,” he added.

"The UK needs to demonstrate that it can hold members of its own forces accountable, especially for crimes committed overseas"
The need for accountability

Despite efforts to project a positive and pro-rule-of-law image of its foreign policy, a primary concern remains the pervasive political will to avoid holding its armed forces accountable.

This pattern is historical. A notorious instance is the 1919 Amritsar Massacre in British-ruled India. In that dark episode, Colonel Reginald Dyer, who ordered his troops to open fire on a peaceful Indian gathering, killing and injuring thousands of men, women, and children within ten minutes, escaped prosecution and was merely dismissed from his position.

Even after the dissolution of Britain as a colonial power, that trend persisted as Britain followed the United States into various wars, including Iraq.

An International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation concluded in 2020 that war crimes were committed in Iraq, as dozens of Iraqis reported torture, assault, deliberate hydration and starvation, and religious and sexual degradation. However, the court didn’t take any action, nor did Britain.

On the contrary, the government pursued its Overseas Operations Act following the investigation, which in its final form prevents the prosecution of soldiers if they took place over five years ago, while limiting the time to bring a claim for personal injury or death to six years. That bill would have made prosecutions virtually impossible.

Yet advocacy from rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Freedom from Torture, as well as opposition in the House of Lords, ensured the original bill was watered down, ensuring that time limits would not apply to war crimes, torture, and genocide.

However, legal experts and rights groups still feel there is room for improvement.

“The justice system has a lamentable track record of applying the principle of command responsibility,” Clive Baldwin, Senior Legal Advisor at Human Rights Watch, told The New Arab. “The UK needs to demonstrate that it can hold members of its own forces accountable, especially for crimes committed overseas,” he added.

"Military investigations need to be completely independent and outside of the chain of command, as well as beyond governmental influence. Preventing criminal investigations is also a crime under human rights law,” Baldwin said.

“Independent judicial oversight is necessary to ensure justice is delivered for alleged victims, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria.”

Legal advocacy and media pressure have driven a shift towards transparency. It will be prudent to monitor whether recent investigations, including those concerning Syria and Afghanistan, will ensure accountability is upheld.

“The recent scandals should be a wakeup call for future governments to ensure that the SAS are not only held to account but reined in and reformed.”

Jonathan Fenton-Harvey is a journalist and researcher who focuses on conflict, geopolitics, and humanitarian issues in the Middle East and North Africa.

 

In Iraq, Kurds digitise books to save threatened culture

The Kurdish language was mostly marginalised until the Kurds’ autonomous region in the north won greater freedom after Saddam’s defeat in the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

Wednesday 13/03/2024

A member of the Kurdistan Centre for Arts and Culture inspects an old book before making a digital copy, in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, February 13, 2024. (AFP)

DOHUK, Iraq-

Huddled in the back of a van, Rebin Pishtiwan carefully scans one yellowed page after another, as part of his mission to digitise historic Kurdish books at risk of disappearing.

Seen as the world’s largest stateless people, the Kurds are an ethnic group of between 25 and 35 million mostly spread across modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

In Iraq, the Kurds are a sizeable minority who have been persecuted, with thousands killed under the rule of late dictator Saddam Hussein and many of their historic documents have been lost or destroyed.

“Preserving the culture and history of Kurdistan is a sacred job,” said Pishtiwan, perusing volumes and manuscripts from Dohuk city’s public library in Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdistan region.

“We aim to digitise old books that are rare and vulnerable, so they don’t vanish,” the 23-year-old added, a torn memoir of a Kurdish teacher published in 1960 in hand.

In Iraq, the Kurdish language was mostly marginalised until the Kurds’ autonomous region in the north won greater freedom after Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

After the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled the Iraqi leader, remaining documents were scattered among libraries and universities or held in private collections.

Once a week, Pishtiwan and his two colleagues journey in their small white van from the regional capital Erbil to other Kurdish towns and cities to find “rare and old” books.

They seek texts that offer insights into Kurdish life, spanning centuries and dialects.

‘Property of all Kurds’

In Dohuk’s library, the archiving team scours the wooden bookshelves for hidden gems.

With the help of the library’s manager, they carefully gather an assortment of more than 35 books of poetry, politics, language and history, written in several Kurdish dialects and some in Arabic.

Pishtiwan holds up a book of old Kurdish folk stories named after 16th-century Kurdish princess Xanzad, before gently flipping through the fragile pages of another religious volume, tracing the calligraphy with his fingers.

Back in the van, equipped with two devices connected to a screen, the small team starts the hours-long scanning process before returning the books to the library.

In the absence of an online archive, the Kurdistan Centre for Arts and Culture, a non-profit founded by the nephew of regional president Nechirvan Barzani, launched the digitisation project in July.

They hope to make the texts available to the public for free on the KCAC’s new website in April.

More than 950 items have been archived so far, including a collection of manuscripts from the Kurdish Baban principality in today’s Sulaimaniyah region that dates back to the 1800s.

“The aim is to provide primary sources for Kurdish readers and researchers,” KCAC executive director Mohammed Fatih said.

“This archive will be the property of all Kurds to use and to help advance our understanding of ourselves.”

A member of the Kurdistan Centre for Arts and Culture retrieves old books from the shelves in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, February 13, 2024. (AFP)

Out of print

Dohuk library manager Masoud Khalid gave the KCAC team access to the manuscripts and documents gathering dust on its shelves, but the team was unable to secure permission from the owners of some of the documents to digitise them immediately.

“We have books that were printed a long time ago. Their owners or writers passed away and publishing houses will not reprint them,” Khalid said.

Digitising the collection means that “if we want to open an electronic library, our books will be ready”, the 55-year-old added.

Hana Kaki Hirane, imam at a mosque in the town of Hiran, unveiled a treasure to the KCAC team, several generations-old manuscripts from a religious school established in the 1700s.

Since its founding, the school has collected manuscripts but many were destroyed during the first war pitting the Kurds against the Iraqi state between 1961 and 1970, said Hirane.

“Only 20 manuscripts remain today,” including centuries-old poems, said the imam.

He is now waiting for the KCAC website launch in April to refer people to view the manuscripts.

“It is time to take them out and make them available for everyone.”

Iraq bans PKK after high-level security talks with Turkey

Turkish foreign and defence ministers Hakan Fidan and Yasar Guler as well as intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin held counterterrorism talks with their counterparts in Baghdad.

Friday 15/03/2024

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein (R) receives his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Baghdad, March 14, 2024. (AFP)

BAGHDAD –

Iraq’s National Security Council has banned the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed campaign against the Turkish forces for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey.

The decision was disclosed on Thursday in joint Iraqi-Turkish statement issued after a high-level security meeting in Baghdad.

“Turkey welcomes the Iraqi National Security Council’s decision to designate the PKK as a banned organisation in Iraq,” said the statement shared on both the Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministries’ websites.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

The conflict was long fought mainly in rural areas of southeastern Turkey but is now more focused on the mountains of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, where PKK militants are based.

Turkish foreign and defence ministers Hakan Fidan and Yasar Guler as well as intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin on Thursday held counterterrorism talks with their counterparts in Baghdad.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Mohammed Hussein, Defence Minister Thabet al-Abbasi and other high-level Iraqi officials along with Kurdistan Regional Government’s Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed joined the talks, according to the statement.

Fidan’s chief adviser Nuh Yilmaz hailed the move as a “turning point.”

Turkey and Iraq “decided for the first time to jointly fight against PKK terrorism,” he wrote on X. “A decision that will mark a turning point! We will see the results gradually!”

The parties also agreed to set up joint committees to “work exclusively in the fields of counterterrorism, trade, agriculture, energy, water, health and transportation,” the statement said.

Speaking earlier this week, Guler said his country offered to establish “a joint operation centre” to strengthen the two countries’ coordination in Turkey’s fight against the PKK but they had failed to achieve progress on the matter.

Ankara has long been pressing Baghdad to designate the armed group a terrorist organisation. But the central Iraqi government has deemed Turkey’s operations against the group and its military outposts in the Iraqi territory as a violation of its sovereignty.

“The parties stressed the importance of Iraq’s political unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” Thursday’s statement said. “They have also stressed that the PKK constitutes a security threat for both Turkey and Iraq.”

Ankara has ramped up cross-border operations against the PKK which is based in northern Iraq’s mountainous regions, and warned of new incursion to the region.

A Turkish defence ministry official said that officials from the Turkish army held talks with Iraqi counterparts over the weekend to discuss “measures to increase security of the civilians” in the region where Turkey is conducting operations.

Turkey has, since 2019, conducted a series of cross-border operations in northern Iraq against the PKK, dubbed “Claw.”