Syria on my mind

Muna Khan 

 December 15, 2024 

DAWN

IN the mid-2000s, my sister was living in Damascus and I planned a visit to her and then a trip to Lebanon, together. But I could not secure a visa to Syria, ostensibly because I was a journalist, something I did not disclose in my application, choosing instead to describe myself accurately as a freelance writer. Someone from the embassy called. I had not submitted my CV, but he knew when I had worked at this newspaper as a leader writer. He said they’d get back to me. When I called to follow up, a very kind Pakistani staff member told me they did not grant visas to journalists, even to folks vowing not to practise again.

In an unfortunate turn of events, my sister could not apply for a visa to Lebanon, so we would joke about waving to each other across the border.

My sister and I wanted to inherit our parents’ love affair with the Levant, where it was easy to drive between countries without visa issues. My father, who experienced wars in Pakistan, considered buying a flat in Beirut in the 1970s because he described it as a peaceful country.

A few months after that trip to Lebanon, I moved to Dubai to work at a large Arab news organisation, managing their English-language operations. I landed at a crazy time — smack in the middle of the Arab Spring, months after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, then Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ouster, both events following mass civilian uprisings that would spread across the region, igniting hope and fury. I hit the ground running, relearning about the region from an Arab perspective, from various Arab colleagues, each with their set of ‘Great Game’ theories. I had to reset my language too, knowing who got to be called a rebel, terrorist, hero. Israel was always, and remains, the enemy.


They are mere pawns in someone’s theory.

The war in Syria was unfolding on our screens. Twitter was Twitter and not yet the cesspool of hatred it has become. NPR’s Andy Carvin was a legend for being a “one-man Twitter bureau” crowd-sourcing and verifying during this turbulent period in the Middle East. I’ve always wanted to meet him to discuss how he made the decisions he did to tweet out graphic images of children from Syria, for example. Social media disrupted our roles as the gatekeepers of information.

This is long before fake news or misinformation became common parlance. We’d post a video from Hama only to learn later it was from Homs. Verification often took a back seat to speed. We had to beat the other news media outlets in breaking news — the advantage was that ours were the few news organisations with a long presence in Syria, but this didn’t make working there easier. The Syrian regime was notoriously difficult to, and about, journalists. Reporters returning to Dubai were showing clear signs of PTSD and spoke of horrific things they’d seen, but were also keen to return to the war zone. They all worried about their Syrian colleagues and sources’ safety.

We heard about a producer in our TV newsroom who watched live as a reporter pointed to her aunt crying as she held the body of her son. She completed her shift. We all went the next day to condole with her and returned to our desks where my Syrian colleague said she dreaded the same happening to her. My colleagues from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Palestine often talked about families dying violent deaths. They’d barely get to mourn because someone had to take the news out.

Many people don’t fully grasp what it is like to work in a newsroom during war in your country or someone else’s. The constant exposure to violence, sounds of war, and also keeping your head above water as you wait to hear from your colleague with information, putting their well-being and yours aside to write the news while also navigating editorial policies of a fast-changing landscape, where changing leadership means a change in positions. Bashar or HTS or someone else was a necessary evil one day, and an inconvenient truth the next.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights in May said it documented the killing of 717 journalists and media workers since March 2011, including 53 who died due to torture.

We will hear about Syria as a chessboard of power and politics. Oded Yinon’s 1982 plan about a greater Israel has surfaced in some discussions. Everyone has an angle, a theory about this game or that, but the voices of the people most impacted by the decades of civil unrest don’t feature; they are mere pawns in someone’s theory.

I have no theory, but ask you to think about my former Syrian colleagues wherever they are, some celebrating this freedom, others uncertain, all mourning loved ones and afraid to hope that something better awaits.

The writer is a journalism instructor.
X: @LedeingLady
Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024

Israel approves plan aiming to double annexed Golan population

AFP

December 15, 2024 Updated about 6 hours ago

An Israeli army vehicle patrols near the fence leading into the UN-patrolled buffer zone which separates Israeli and Syrian forces near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on December 15. — AFP

The Israeli government on Sunday approved a plan to double the population of the occupied and annexed Golan Heights, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the prime minister’s office said.

The government had “unanimously approved” the 40 million shekel ($11 million) “plan for the demographic development of the Golan … in light of the war and the new front in Syria and the desire to double the population”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

Israel has occupied most of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau, since 1967 and annexed that area in 1981 in a move recognised only by the United States.

Netanyahu said, “The strengthening of the Golan is that of the State of Israel and it is particularly important at this time. We will continue to establish ourselves there, develop it and settle there”.


The occupied Golan Heights are home to about 23,000 Druze Arabs, whose presence predates the occupation and most of whom retain Syrian citizenship, as well as around 30,000 Israelis.

Last week, Netanyahu declared that the annexed Golan would be Israeli “for eternity”. That followed an order he gave for troops to cross into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces since 1974. Troops also seized areas beyond the buffer, including on Mount Hermon.

Israel portrayed the move, which drew international condemnation, as a temporary and defensive measure after what Netanyahu’s office called a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”, following Assad’s fall.

In the aftermath of Assad’s overthrow, Israel also launched hundreds of strikes on Syria — according to a war monitor — targeting strategic military sites and weapons, including chemical weapons.

On Sunday, the Israeli premier said his country had “no interest in confronting Syria. Israel’s policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground”.

In a video statement following a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump, Netanyahu said Syria had attacked Israel in the past and allowed others including Lebanese Hezbollah to do so from its territory.

“To ensure that what happened in the past does not happen again, we have taken a series of intensive actions in recent days,” he said. “Within a few days, we destroyed capabilities that the Assad regime had built over decades.”

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the head of the rebels who toppled Assad who now goes by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on Saturday accused Israel of “a new unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone.

However, he said, “The general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts”.

Washington in 2019 became the first and so far only country to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, during Trump’s first term.

PAKISTAN

Scientists introduce 3 new varieties of climate-resilient wheat in KP

Zahid Imdad

Published December 15, 2024 

DAWN

Image shows wheat variety seeds results on display — Author.

Scientists at the Agricultural Research Institute Tarnab (ARIT) in Peshawar have developed three new wheat varieties promising enhanced climate resilience and a threefold increase in per acre yield, offering a breakthrough for farmers facing climate challenges.

Climate-resilient crops are part of sustainable agriculture practices, which aim to meet current food needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own.

The researchers have also developed a new wheat seed variant suitable for rain-fed farming.

Image shows wheat variety seeds results on display — Author.

A report from ARIT, a copy of which was shared with the Dawn.com, showed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s wheat production was below par. It currently produces only 1.4 million tonnes of wheat while its annual consumption stands at 5m tonnes.

Moreover, farming is heavily dependent on rain, with nearly 51 per cent of the land contigent of rainfall, it showed.

Akhtar Ali, a senior agricultural scientist at the institute who was familiar with the work, told Dawn.com that climate change had critically impacted farming in the province over the last five years.

“Changes and delay in the rain patterns, including a delay in time intervals amongst seasons, has created new challenges and hardships for agriculture sector,” he said.

Ali said that the yield from the existing varieties of the seeds had dramatically decreased in the province due to climate change, adding that the institute had been working to develop new seeds over the past few years, which would be suitable for production in the current climate.

“After long experiments, we have introduced two types of seeds: one each for canal irrigated and rain fed lands,” Ali said, adding that the seeds meant for canal irrigated lands has potential to produce three times more yield per acre to existing ones.

Altaf Khan, another ARIT researcher, told Dawn.com that a sharp increase in production was a “difficult task to achieve”, mainly because of climate change and farmers still practicing outdated and conventional methods of farmers.

He said that it was time for the farmers to adopt scientific methods of farming. “The new seeds will only achieve the production goals when modern farming techniques are used,” he said.

The institute’s report further showed that wheat’s production and farming area had remained almost static in KP for nine years.

From 2015 to 2016, wheat comprised just 0.753 million hectares of the total area, while in 2022-2023, wheat comprised 0.770 million hectares. Meanwhile, wheat production had also been negligible, with it ranging from 1.247 to 1.47 million tonnes over the course of nine years — with farmers across KP complaining about the the crop dissappointing them last year.

Farmers voice concern

Image showing farmers working in a field. — Author.

While speaking to Dawn.com, Marwan Khan 35, a farmer from Charsadda district, said that the farmers struggled to meet the cost of wheat last year.

He noted that in 2023, he got a market rate of over Rs6,000 for 50 kg of wheat, highlighting that the fear of instability in the wheat market price compelled him to reduce the area for the crop by 20pc.

Ashfaq Ahmed, another farmer told Dawn.com, that conventional farming was not as efficient as it was two decades ago, and that they needed to use more fertilisers and pesticides today to meet their needs.

He said the prices of fertilisers, pesticides and seeds had quadrupled, which added to their worries.

Innovation and support

— Author.

The recent research and development work regarding the new variety of seeds are to meet the evolving needs of farmers in KP, which, in turn, also emphasises the role of the government to provide cost-effective seeds, fertilisers and pesticides to the farmers — in addition to raising awareness of the impact of climate change on agriculture so that farmers can adapt faster to the changing landscape.

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE ILLUSION oF AUTHENTICITY

Nadeem F. Paracha 

Published December 15, 2024 

DAWN

Illustration by Abro

'Authentic’ has become quite the buzzword — especially in the world of consumer brands, and even in politics. Apparently, Gen-Z is all about seeking ‘authenticity’ as well. The assumption is that people are in search of ‘authentic experiences’ in an inauthentic world.

But this isn’t a sudden occurrence. The context in which the word is being used was originally framed in the late 18th and 19th centuries, during the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, growing urbanisation and the demystification of religion. The desire to gain authentic experiences was firmly embedded in the so-called ‘Romantic Movement’ in various regions of Europe — especially among the middle classes. The aim of the movement was to escape the mechanised realm of factories, overcrowding, rising crime and also the stated supremacy of reason over emotion.

To the Romantics of 18th/19th century Britain, for example, the authentic experience lay in the countryside, where people lived simple, uncomplicated lives and retained their organic connection with nature. The Romantics yearned for a past that was apparently free from “the tyranny of the machine.” They went looking for it in the countryside. They produced paintings of rolling green landscapes, wrote odes to the birds, bees and the trees, and some even decided to settle there.

Yet, the fact was, the past that they were romanticising was brutal — populated by people with extremely short life-spans, incurable diseases, famines, superstition, illiteracy, religious exploitation etc. In her 1982 book Back to the Land, British scholar Jan Marsh wrote that some people tend to invest rural and more primitive societies with virtues they perceive as lacking in themselves.



The term ‘authentic’ has evolved from a Romantic ideal into marketing gimmicks and aesthetic trends. In many cases, both at home and abroad, the search for authenticity often masks privilege, nostalgia and myth-making

In the mid- and late-1980s, some of my friends and I often visited Bhit to attend the death anniversary [urs] of the 18th century Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif. Bhit is still a small town in Sindh’s Matiari District. We were idealistic young men. We were romantics. Attending the urs was a way to break away from our ‘inauthentic’ urban, middle class lives in Karachi and experience the ‘authentic’ spiritual connection between the common people of Bhit and the memory of the saint.

We always travelled by bus and, after attending the festivities at the shrine, we slept in the open fields just outside the shrine, amidst scorpions, snakes, ants, mosquitoes, heaps of cow dung, and the possibility of being ambushed by wolves. Such experiences can go a long way in shaping a deeper understanding of a people outside

of one’s own class. But the truth is, there was really nothing ‘spiritual’ about our experiences.

By 1990, I was convinced that spirituality, authenticity and virtues of simplicity that I was imagining in the common folk of Bhit, were actually misery and a reality that many young people in Matiari were desperate to escape.

It wasn’t a wonderful display of authenticity that I discovered there, but something a lot more inspirational and admirable: a burning urge in young, downtrodden Sindhis to gain modern education and demystify what us romantics had mystified. They desired to become what we had wanted to escape. They neither had the time nor the resources to indulge in any fanciful notions of ‘authenticity’. They lived it. But they could not understand why anyone with more privilege and resources would want to seek it.

I also came to believe that by romanticising the lifestyles of ‘simple’, underprivileged folk, one undermines their ambition to seek upward mobility. The privileged want the ‘simple folk’ to play out and perform the virtues that the seekers of authenticity have projected on them.

As life got more complex in the 20th century, the meaning of authenticity mutated. From a longing to become ‘one with nature’ (in the countryside), parts of it became a craving to create national wholes rooted in memories of a gallant past.

For example, to seek authenticity, all nationalisms are built on largely imagined and romanticised pasts. In Germany, for instance, the ultra-nationalists and then the Nazis painted a pre-modern past in which the Germanic people were noble, bold and ‘naturally’ superior. German nationalism became infatuated with ‘authentic’ manifestations of nationalism in which virtues — supposedly present in ancient Germanic people — were ‘revived’ in the shape of Nazism. Nazism became the ‘authentic’ German nationalism. How lovely.

‘Authenticity’ is being sought in cultural pursuits as well. One outcome of this has produced what is called “aesthetic poverty”, or “poor core”: well-off young people dressing like poor people. The clothes in this regard are designed and provided by high-end fashion brands. Examples include high-end fashion brands adapting the way 1960s’ hippies, 1970s’ Marxist revolutionaries, or 1990s’ scruffy grunge rock musicians looked. American media sarcastically dubbed this “radical chic.”

The same happened with men’s shalwar-qameez which, after it was declared the “awami libaas” [the people’s dress] by the Z.A. Bhutto regime and then something related to Islam (by the Ziaul Haq dictatorship), was adapted by high-end fashion brands so that politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, famous preachers and white-collar men could wear it and feel ‘authentic’.

Things evolve and mutate. If they don’t, they’ll stagnate and wither away. Nothing’s authentic as such. A well-known Pakistani chef once quipped on a TV show: “People ask me to prepare authentic Mughal nihari. I tell them, if I do, you will outright reject its taste. You’ll spit it out!”

On the one hand, authenticity is a marketing ploy and, on the other, a romanticised delusion. To truly experience authenticity, one will have to literally travel back in time. And if it is ‘authentic’ 17th century Mughal nihari they’re looking for, then they better make sure to carry with them a few boxes of packaged masala.

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 15th, 2024

Şîrîn Îbîş: We will resist and win!

Afrin refugee Şîrîn Îbîş said: "We will resist, because this land belongs to us."


NÛJIYAN ADAR
RAQQA
Sunday, 15 December 2024

Afrin resident Şîrîn Îbîş, displaced twice due to attacks by Turkish-backed forces, recounted her harrowing journey while affirming her unwavering hope for a better future. "Even in uncertainty, we won’t lose hope," she said, adding: "We will resist and win, because this land is ours."

On 29 November, the Turkish state’s Syrian National Army (SNA) launched an assault on Shehba. In response, the Afrin-Shehba Canton Assembly decided to evacuate residents to ensure their safety. One of those displaced, Şîrîn Îbîş, shared her story of loss and survival with ANF.


From Afrin to Shehba

Originally from the village of Ramudê in Afrin, Îbîş described the hardship and suffering brought on by war. In 2018, just three months into her marriage, she was living in Karababa when the Turkish army’s attacks on Afrinn upended her life. "Everything fell apart when the attacks began. – she said - We had to flee due to the shelling of our village. Without a car, my husband and I set out on a motorcycle. We reached Raco, but the situation there was equally dire. Airstrikes began before we could stay even a day, so we escaped to Afrin. But there, my husband and I were separated."

Her family lived in Jinderes, but also had to flee. "I had a brother and my mother there. We escaped to Shehba with the help of someone who had a car," she told ANF. Amid the chaos, the woman lost contact with her husband and moved in with her family. The occupation of Afrin by Turkey and its gangs devastated her mother, who passed away not long after. "My mother couldn’t bear the occupation of Afrin; she died from sorrow," she said.

Under threat in Tall Refaat

For seven years, Şîrîn Îbîş lived in Tall Refaat as a displaced person, enduring constant danger. "The attacks never stopped," she said, describing how a mortar shell recently struck near her house. "A few days ago, I was at home alone with my young child. Shrapnel entered the house, and I was trembling with fear."

The years of violence and displacement have left deep emotional wounds. Reflecting on her pain, she asked: "Why us Kurds? Why are we targeted? God created us as Kurds, but they want to erase us."

Despite her hardships, Îbîş remains determined to survive. "We don’t even know where we will go, but we are trying to hold on," she said.

Describing her family’s grueling journey, Îbîş said they walked to Fafîne, hoping to join relatives, but found themselves alone. "We had small children with us, and we were in terrible condition. Eventually, we managed to reach Tabqa."

"How will our women and children be safe?"

Even after reaching Raqqa, Îbîş and her family found little solace. "We are staying in a stadium now,” she said, detailing the immense struggles and uncertainties they face. “I don’t know what will happen to us. Everything feels like a nightmare. With each passing day, the weight of our losses grows heavier."

Once a landowner in Afrin, she mourned the loss of everything her family had built. "We had olive groves, a home, a life. Now we have nothing. How will women and children live safely in such conditions?"

Recalling the chaos as the attacks began, Îbîş described how the sound of gunfire forced them to leave their home. The decision to evacuate Shehba for safety was made quickly. "We went first to Fafîne, then to Ehdas Junction. People fled in panic, uncertain of what lay ahead."

"We barely escaped death"

Şîrîn Îbîş and her family narrowly avoided death. "Some good people tried to help us by giving us a ride, but armed groups pursued us. Their bullets came so close we could hear them whizzing by. My husband, my child, and I jumped on a motorcycle and barely escaped with our lives."

Although consumed by uncertainty, Îbîş refuses to let despair take hold. "Living in this state of limbo is eating away at us, but we will never lose hope," she said with determination.

Her voice resolute, she concluded, "We will resist, and we will win."

From Chiapas to Kurdistan: Solidarity with the resistance of the revolution in northern and eastern Syria


ANF
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS
Sunday, 15 December 2024


On 13 December, at the Sendas cultural center in San Cristobal de las Casas (Chiapas), about thirty people gathered to hear about the latest developments in Syria and Rojava.

The presentation put into context the revolution in Rojava and the democratic, ecological and women's liberation project within the framework of the struggle for the liberation of Kurdistan and the expansion of Democratic Confederalism as a solution to the crisis in the Middle East.

The latest developments in Syria were analyzed, presenting the international, regional and local actors and unmasking the jihadist groups that the Western media are trying to whitewash, such as HTS and its leader Jolani.

The neo-Ottomanist plans of Turkey and its expansion in the north and east of Syria to destroy the democratic project of DAANES were also discussed, as well as the atrocities, kidnappings, killings, looting and humiliations that the populations are suffering since the invasion of SNA/Turkey in Shehba, Tall Rifaat and Manbij. Particular emphasis was placed on the humanitarian crisis of the 120,000 displaced people who have arrived from these regions and the urgent need for financial support to the NGO on the ground, the Kurdistan Red Crescent.

There was also a video, sent directly from Rojava from one of the colleagues of the area of diplomacy and relations of Kongra Star, calling for internationalist solidarity from Abya Yala with Rojava and the north and east of Syria, calling for women and peoples in resistance to raise their voices in defense of the women's revolution in Rojava and the democratic and multiethnic project of DAANES.

Finally a video of solidarity with the resistance of the SDF/YPG/YPJ was made with all the participants, as well as we will seek to continue the internationalist solidarity with the peoples of northern and eastern Syria.

Erdoğan's government is caught up in the hysteria of destroying Kurds

Erdoğan's government aims to crush the Kurds by deploying SNA forces against them. But this is not enough. They are directly coordinating military operations, and inciting Arab populations in the autonomous regions to create instability."


ZEKI AKIL
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 15 December 2024, 

The Turkish press and circles close to the government have framed the developments in Syria as a personal victory. They are seizing the shifting balances and power vacuums to pursue the eradication of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and, ultimately, to "close the book" on the Kurds. There appears to be a complete mental paralysis when it comes to the Kurds. Can those who proclaim, "Kurds and Turks are brothers; we have lived together for a thousand years," genuinely celebrate the metaphorical burial of the Kurds with such enthusiasm? Is it normal for them to be so deeply invested in and leading such efforts? Those who question or critically reflect on this situation are conspicuously absent.

In Turkey, the Kurdish population is estimated to be in the tens of millions, although the exact number remains uncertain. These Kurds live alongside Turks, attending the same schools, serving in the military, and working together in various sectors. How can peoples who coexist so intimately tolerate such oppression and suppression of one another? How can they become complicit in enabling the war-mongering elites orchestrating even greater disasters for the Kurds? These are questions worth asking. From the perspective of those who respect history and the coexistence of peoples, this reflects a complete breakdown of rationality and morality.

What have the Kurds ever done to the Turkish state to warrant this hostility? What disasters or conspiracies have they orchestrated or participated in? None.

The Kurds have been divided between four states and stripped of their political will. They have endured systematic assimilation. In this context, the Kurds are undeniably a victimized and oppressed people. Their demands are straightforward: recognition of their existence and respect for their political agency. They have not sought to divide any state, nor do they currently advocate for establishing an independent state. Instead, they emphasize a shared will to live peacefully alongside the peoples with whom they coexist. Their demands are for peace and democracy, not only for themselves but for the broader region as well. Do such reasonable demands justify the level of hostility and aggression they face?

Those who claim, "Kurds and Turks are brothers, and we have lived together for a thousand years," are actively devising and executing catastrophic plans against the Kurds in Syria. The Turkish press and leadership, brimming with enthusiasm, celebrate the victories of the Syrian National Army (SNA) and urge them to escalate their attacks on the Kurds. But who are these forces labeled as SNA? Many of them are former members of DAESH (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, rebranded under new names and symbols. Among them are individuals involved in looting and atrocities, including foreign fighters who have engaged in widespread violence. They looted Afrin and played a significant role in ethnic cleansing. Reports from the United Nations and other human rights organizations document numerous war crimes committed by these groups. Despite this, the Turkish media and officials have glorified them as heroes. Their primary motivation for doing so is to use these forces as a tool against the Kurds and to further intensify their attacks.

The guiding principle of Erdoğan’s administration is clear: "As long as the Kurds gain nothing, let the world burn." Shouldn’t the Turkish press, political elites, and democratic forces be questioning this stance? Is it Turkey's role to whitewash the crimes of the SNA? Yet they celebrate attacks on Kurdish regions and the autonomous administration with great fervor. They seem consumed by a hysterical determination to ensure that the Kurds never benefit from the current situation—to destroy them, and to do so as quickly as possible.

Erdoğan's administration has also claimed a major victory following Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) consolidation of power, seeking to use it as a political weapon to suppress domestic opposition and distract from economic crises like hunger and poverty. Erdoğan is exploiting every opportunity to ensure his political survival, eyeing the chance to remain in power indefinitely.

When will the people of Turkey wake up from this spell and see reality? Is it truly in their interest to see a Taliban-like regime take root next door? The dynamics of the region are shifting rapidly, with unforeseen developments unfolding. Russia and Iran have been sidelined in Syria, while Israel is extending its influence deeper into Syrian territory, bombing strategic targets. Israel asserts that it is acting to ensure stability, claiming it does not want a strong and unpredictable regime on its border. Meanwhile, Erdoğan and his inner circle remain silent, even when it comes to groups like HTS. Now, Iraq and Iran appear to be next in line. Has Turkey aligned itself with U.S. and Israeli interests in this regard as well? What price will Turkey ultimately pay for allowing Erdoğan to meddle so deeply in Syria?

Erdoğan's government aims to crush the Kurds by deploying SNA forces against them. But this is not enough. They are directly coordinating military operations, providing air support, and inciting Arab populations in the autonomous regions to create instability and chaos. They view this as the weakest link in the Autonomous Administration and are exploiting it. Yet many voices around the world are calling for an end to violence and a resolution to the conflict. Turkey, however, is working tirelessly to destabilize the most democratic and stable autonomous regions, oppress the Kurds, and erase their political agency. They are unyielding in their hostility toward Kurdish existence. For them, principles like the fraternity of peoples, the rule of law, or moral standards are irrelevant.

Reports of massacres and revenge attacks against Alevis, Kurds, women, and prisoners in Syria are beginning to surface. It is not difficult to imagine that the reality is even worse than what has been reported. Can a democratic and stable Syria ever emerge from such a mentality?

In summary, the overarching policy toward the Kurds is one of genocide and eradication. There is no alternative discourse. The Kurdish people and democratic forces must recognize that Syria is heading toward an even darker and more uncertain future. Whatever must be done, it must be done without delay.

TURKIYE

Seven parties issue statement: The right to strike cannot be violated

A joint statement issued by seven political parties regarding the ongoing strike of metalworkers, underlined that the right to strike is a constitutional right and called for the intensification of workers' struggles.


ANF
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 15 December 2024, 13:35

The People's Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Parti), Workers' Movement Party (EHP), Labor Party (EMEP), People's Houses, Socialist Councils Federation (SMF), Turkey Workers' Party (TİP), and the Social Freedom Party (TÖP) released a joint statement addressing the workers' strikes. The statement reminded that workers from Hitachi Energy, Schneider Electric, GE Grid Solutions, and Arıtaş Cryogenic went on strike to demand their rights. "We reject strike prohibitions and stand in solidarity with the metalworkers in their rightful struggle!" the statement declared.

"The right to strike cannot be prohibited"

The joint statement underlined that strikes had been banned by a presidential decree and continued: "As always, the justification is 'national security.' With this decision, the one-man government and the People's Alliance have once again exposed their true anti-worker and anti-people face. This same one-man regime, which has disregarded the people's will by removing elected mayors and replacing them with appointed trustees, has now had the audacity to ban strikes that workers have freely decided. In doing so, they ignored the will of the Turkish working class."

"The right to strike is a constitutional right"

Citing the Constitutional Court's decisions regarding strikes, the statement noted: "The ban on the constitutional right to strike is unacceptable. This arrogance stems from the backing of imperialist forces and employers. Erdoğan, who will stop at nothing to serve the capital, seems determined to earn the dubious distinction of being the government that has banned the most strikes in history."

"Workers are being strangled"

The statement also pointed out the dire situation of workers: "In a country where the hunger threshold is 22,000 liras and the poverty threshold is 72,000 liras, metalworkers are forced to survive on wages just above the hunger line. With the OVP (Program for Economic Stability) and the 'Şimşek program,' the workers are being strangled. For these workers to exercise their constitutional right to strike in order to improve their living conditions and seek justice, to present this as a 'threat to national security,' is to be a sworn enemy of workers and a servant to the capital."

"We call to expand the struggle"

The statement said: "We will not accept this attack on the right to strike. The decision to ban the strike is illegitimate, and we reject it. We are fully aware that this decision is also a warning to the labor and democracy movements. No matter how aggressively the People's Alliance tries to extend its political life, it will inevitably face the steel will of the working class and the people. It will not escape the fate that awaits it. We announce our unwavering support for the United Metalworkers’ Union and metalworkers in their just cause. We call on the working class and the laboring people to join forces and strengthen this struggle together."

Trump’s "New" Middle East Project and the fall of Assad

An analysis by Tuncay Yılmaz argues that "with the "New Syria Plan," Trump primarily aimed to break Iran's Shia axis, cutting off its arms extending to Israel and the broader Middle East."


ANF
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 15 December 2024,

We publish an analysis by Tuncay Yılmaz, SYKP (Socialist Refoundation Party) founding co-chair.

As time passes, the details will become clearer, but it is likely that the decision to topple Assad was made jointly by Trump and Putin. Of course, other powers like Turkey and Israel, who wanted this outcome, were also part of the equation, but these aspirations materialized as a result of an agreement between the two major forces on the ground.

During the U.S. elections, Trump’s campaign promise of "I will not start wars; I will end them" referred not to Syria, but to Ukraine. The developments in Syria seem like the price to be paid for ending the Ukraine-Russia war, with Assad's fall becoming a minor detail within the "big picture."

Trump likely persuaded Putin to relinquish Syria in exchange for extracting Russia from the quagmire of Ukraine. Syria would be redesigned according to U.S. preferences (with Israel's security playing a decisive role in the new Syria’s design), and in return, Putin would retain the territories gained in Ukraine, bringing the Ukraine-Russia war to an end.

But the bigger picture doesn’t end there—there’s more.

Detaching Russia from the SCO

The greatest adversary of the U.S., represented by Trump, is the Chinese state and its economy. The war that will define America’s future is not with Russia, Iran, or Syria. When China’s rapid advancements in production technology, its potential for cheap labor, and its capacity to secure valuable minerals and energy resources worldwide converge with the "One Belt, One Road (OBOR)" project, it will become almost impossible for U.S. capital to compete with Chinese capital. Trump's and U.S. capital's entire strategy is built and advanced with this grand vision in mind.

From this perspective, it is not hard to see that Trump wants to pull Putin (and Russia) out of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), centered around China. Trump is likely trying to convince Putin to "be smart" and detach Russia from the Eastern bloc, moving closer to the Western bloc.

Why wouldn’t Putin give up on Assad in exchange for solving the Ukraine issue without retreating and reopening trade routes with Europe?

Before the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia’s gas flow to the EU was around 200 billion cubic meters. After the war, this dropped to 28.3 billion cubic meters. Apart from other trade items, Russia could earn €300 billion (at today’s prices) just from selling natural gas.

If Trump’s plan succeeds, Russia will be readmitted to the "Western rich club" while also being distanced from its alliance with China.

Neutralizing and Crippling Iran

In this compromise, Assad being “sold out” and Syria handed over to the U.S.-backed HTS gang would not even be up for discussion. Indeed, HTS and similar groups, which had been cornered in Idlib and losing ground for 14 years, managed to control all areas under Assad's regime (except the Mediterranean coastal strip) within 14 days.

With the "New Syria Plan," Trump primarily aimed to break Iran's Shia axis, cutting off its arms extending to Israel and the broader Middle East. He appears to have achieved this, at least for now, in Syria, as he had previously in Lebanon. The next step will likely involve dismantling the PMF in Iraq and neutralizing the Houthis in Yemen.

The U.S. “New Syria” operation seeks to tighten the circle around Iran, first rendering it ineffective in the region and then triggering dynamics from within and outside to overthrow the Iranian regime.

It is worth recalling that in 2021, Iran signed a 25-year "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement" with China. According to reports at the time, China would invest $400 billion over the period to modernize Iran's petrochemical, transportation, and manufacturing infrastructure in exchange for regular supplies of cheap oil. Revitalizing the One Belt, One Road project was part of the agreement.

A Russia severed from the SCO and distanced from China (which already faces many internal tensions) and an Iran whose regional influence is diminished, potentially facing regime change, would be very calculated moves to weaken China, the U.S.’s primary rival.

The move against Russia would disrupt China’s "Belt" plan through Mongolia, and the move against Syria-Iran would derail the "Road" plan via the Mediterranean and the Caucasus.

Encircling and Confining China to Asia

This way, energy and supply routes, belts, and bridges would remain under the control of the U.S. and its Western allies. With moves against Russia and China in West Asia, and alongside Japan in the Pacific, a besieged China would first be confined to Asia, and then efforts would be made to dismantle it.

The alternative to the One Belt, One Road Project—the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)—has already been announced.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S.’s "New Middle East Plan," driven by greed, left behind millions of dead and injured, destroyed cities, displaced people, and ravaged historical and cultural heritage in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the "Most Recent Middle East Plan," launched by Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza, will create a similar picture.

It is unrealistic to expect Netanyahu-led Israel, HTS remnants, Turkey-backed SMO gangs, Erdoğan and Bahçeli-led Turkey striving to crush Rojava—the oasis of democracy in the Middle East—and the U.S., which supports them all, to bring peace and stability to the Middle East.

Contours of the new Middle East

Abbas Nasir 

December 15, 2024

DAWN

HOW and why the Assad regime collapsed like a house of cards in a mere 11 days, after battling foreign-sponsored rebel groups, including IS and Al Qaeda, for some 13 years with the help of its own foreign friends, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, will remain the subject of debate and analysis, even speculation, in the coming months and years.

Perhaps a little understanding can be gained by the events since the exit of former strongman Bashar al-Assad. He succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, the founder of the Baath Party dynasty who came to power after a coup in March 1971, after the latter passed away in 2000.

Just last weekend (on Saturday) Bashar al-Assad was still in Damascus and there was speculation whether he’d be able to defy the odds again and remain in the saddle. A week on, he has been long gone, and is, probably, by the side of his wife Asma, who is being treated for ‘acute blood and bone marrow cancer’ in Moscow.

What was once a unified Syria is now fragmented, with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has its roots in Al Qaeda, in control of major cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs in addition to Idlib, that it has held for the longest time. This group has powerful backers in the US, Israel and most openly Turkiye, whose intelligence chief has already visited the Syrian capital, where he was driven around by HTS leader Al-Jolani.


The West and its key regional allies, Israel and Turkiye, have secured a huge win over the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’.

As Ibrahim Kalin arrived at the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus to offer prayers, memories were revived of the expanding Ottoman Empire in the early part of the 16th century. However, this time round, the push will stop in Damascus and not continue to Jerusalem. That is a certainty.

Elsewhere, Turkiye’s claim of the Syrian pie was meeting with stiff resistance by the Kurdish Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) in the oil-rich north-eastern, north-central swathes of the country, where US troops are also present.

This tense stand-off did not dissuade Turkiye’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar from saying that a gas pipeline project from Qatar to Turkiye via Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria could be revived now, that its main opponent in Syria has been ousted. He said if “Syria achieves its (territorial) integrity and stability, many other projects could be started too”.

On the other hand, the ‘liberators’ of Syria seemed content with having rid their country of the Assad regime and were celebrating their victory while Israel was rapidly moving to take over more (the remaining one-third) of the Golan Heights it captured in 1967 and illegally annexed in 1981.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted for genocide by the ICC, arrived at the Golan Heights the same day and claimed credit for the fall of Assad, which he attributed to his forces’ attacks on Hezbollah and Iran and not the militants who marched into Damascus.

This advance saw Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) overrunning the UN-supervised buffer zone and capturing the strategically important Mount Hermon which, at nearly 2,900 metres, towers over Damascus to its northeast and Lebanon in its north. Israeli troops have also taken over the Quneitra crossing further south.

Apart from its land grab, Israel’s air force has carried out some 450 bombing runs over Syria and claims to have destroyed the entire Syrian air force, navy, missile forces, chemical weapons, and defence production facilities. Syria’s electronic warfare capacity has also been denuded. The bodies of two murdered scientists working in the defence establishments have also been found.

This forced one commentator to remark: they have only left small arms, such as assault rifles and machineguns, that the disparate militant groups will use when they fight each other in a civil war. They have nothing left to threaten Israel with.

In other developments, some members of the pro-Israel Druze community straddling Israel, Syria and Lebanon have called upon Israel to create a (buffer zone) homeland for them in the Golan Heights so Israel’s security concerns are addressed adequately. The leader of the Israeli Druze community, which provides a large number of officers and soldiers to the IOF, also visited Abu Dhabi. It is not clear what was discussed.

What is clear is that the West and its key regional allies, Israel and Turkiye, have secured a huge win over the so-called Iran-led Axis of Resistance, which has been dismantled in Syria and weakened in Lebanon, with Israeli newspaper Haaretz reporting that Israel is to set up a military base in Somaliland, which is recognised by Israel, the UAE and two other countries, so that the Yemeni Houthis can be smashed.

For now, Iran can only issue bold and brave statements against the Zionist regime and its backers, as its options are severely curtailed. With Syria carved up to support the US-Zionist game plan in the region, and with plans to try and crush the Houthis from a base in the Horn of Africa looking more medium- to long-term, it is Iran which seems the next likely target of the West and Israel.

Much will depend on the incoming US president Donald Trump who, in the past, has had good relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, but has extended an invitation to the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to his inauguration in what some Washington commentators are ascribing to a US attempt to get China on board to isolate Russia. I doubt China will bite the bait.

With so much focus on these developments, Israel’s business as usual genocide in Gaza continues apace, with the pro-Zionist genocide Western powers and several OIC members happily playing their unconscionable part in this tragic, live-on-social media mass murder.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024

On the trail of France’s first female World War II correspondent

When General de Gaulle arrived in Paris on 25 August, 1944 to mark the French capital’s liberation from Nazi occupation, his official reporter was by his side to document the historic moment. That reporter was France's first female WWII correspondent, but her name was lost to history – until a fellow journalist brought her story to light.


Issued on: 14/12/2024 - 13:58
8 min

Marcelle Poirier, France's first female war correspondent, pictured in 1944. 

© AFP/Laurent Kalfala

By: Alison Hird
RFI/AFP

France’s news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), was founded 80 years ago on 20 August, 1944, just a few days before the liberation of Paris.

In October last year, AFP journalist and photo editor Laurent Kalfala was looking for ideas for ways to mark the anniversary.

Leafing through a history of the agency from the 1990s, he came across a small photograph of a young woman in uniform standing in front of a vehicle with the Cross of Lorraine – symbol of the French resistance and Charles de Gaulle’s Free French movement. The caption read: "1944, Marcelle Poirier, from AFP, first French female war correspondent."

“There were two or three lines in the book saying that she was with de Gaulle when he entered Paris in August 1944, and she also reported from Adolf Hitler's Eagle’s Nest in the Bavarian Alps," said Kalfala. “I found it strange I’d never heard of her before.”


Apparently neither had the organisers of the Bayeux War Correspondents awards, which in 2023 devoted an exhibition to the journalists who covered the Normandy Landings.

Kalfala recalls one of his journalism students returning from the exhibition and telling him she had done a report on female WWII correspondents. "I can picture her saying, you know what? There weren't any French women."

"So I took out my phone and showed her the photo of Poirier from the book and asked her if she was in the exhibition. She said no. I realised she had disappeared, something had happened."

He decided it was time to correct this injustice and put Poirier back in the picture.

Listen to an interview with Laurent Kalfala in the Spotlight on France podcast

Spotlight on France, episode 120 © RFI

'Equal in heroism'

His initial enquiries with older AFP journalists failed to deliver. Likewise, delving into the agency's extensive archives proved complicated since most agency journalists signed with their initials rather than their full name, and some of the archives from 1944 had been lost.

He trawled through AFP’s in-house magazines, but while there was "a lot about all the men who came from London, there was nothing about a woman. At one point, I said, OK, maybe she never existed".

Turning to the archives of the BNF – France’s national library – he finally began to come across articles by Poirier from 1944 and 1945. One in particular, dated September 1944, convinced him she was no ordinary journalist.

Entitled "Equal in heroism, women will now play a major role in French politics", it was written just a few weeks after Paris was liberated and only five months after French women won the right to vote.

Women's long battle to vote in France and the generations who fought it

“I was really blown away,” Kalfala recalls. “She was somebody – really tough, a feminist."

The internet proved to be a dead end but Kalfala was convinced that Poirier, as a journalist, must have written the story of de Gaulle’s arrival in Paris at some point, somewhere.

The discovery that she had been married to a Welsh journalist – who had been AFP’s bureau chief in Beijing, Hong Kong and Sydney – provided a pointer on the trail, and in December 2023 he found her story in a magazine in Australia.

As de Gaulle marched down the Champs-Élysées, 26 August 1944, Marcelle Poirier was certainly close behind. AFP

'Into Paris with de Gaulle'

The article, Into Paris with de Gaulle, had been published in 1984 for the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Paris.

Poirier describes following de Gaulle’s plush vehicle in an old van, from Brittany all the way to Paris.

“450 kilometres of crowds who flung flowers, kissed us, hugged us and wept over us. I kissed more babies than any political candidate has ever been called upon to do, and I could not stir without being mobbed, as I was the first French woman in uniform in these parts."

She describes church bells ringing out in each village, farm labourers running across newly liberated fields to see the General pass. "Crowds blocked the roads to stop the cars and force the General to get out and walk down village streets, where flags were hung out and the road was carpeted with flowers.”

“After a few words he would start the Marseillaise and there was not a dry eye anywhere – including his.”

Marcelle Poirier's report on accompanying de Gaulle in Normandy, Brittany and then Paris for the liberation, was published in an Australian journal in 1984. © AFP/Laurent Kalfala

Kalfala explains that while there were many correspondents in the press cortege, Poirier wrote about de Gaulle from a far more personal perspective. "She was a woman and she was telling things differently, she was talking about de Gaulle as a man, as very human,” he said.

She also described how dangerous the situation remained upon arriving in Paris on 25 August.

“The roar that went up as de Gaulle reached the place [near les Tuileries] was so loud that no one heard that first sniper’s shot from the Hotel Crillon. But Rob Reid [the BBC's correspondent] saw the smoke and pulled us down to the ground where we wriggled under a van.”

France remembers heroic liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation, 80 years ago
‘Smuggled into France’

So how did Poirier come to take part in "the triumphal drive from Rennes to Paris as official reporter attached to General de Gaulle’s cortege"?

Born to French and English parents, she grew up in the northern English city of Leeds and as a young journalist worked in both France and England.

When France capitulated to Germany in 1940, she took the last boat out of Le Havre and returned to Leeds to work for the respected daily newspaper The Yorkshire Post. A few days after D-Day she joined Gaulle’s Free French movement and began working in London as his press officer.

The only known photo of war correspondent Marcelle Poirier was published in the 1992 book "AFP, une histoire de l'agence France-Presse, 1944-1990". © AFP

In August 1944, as de Gaulle was preparing to return to France via Algiers, three French Independent Agency war correspondents left London to join him. But a few days later, their Jeep was found empty with dark stains on the seats. It was presumed the men had been ambushed and killed.

It was essential to have a French reporter to replace them so Poirier, as head of the press office of the Military Administrative London Mission, was the obvious choice.

“It was a good try, but no luck," she writes. "SHAPE [the Allied Command] rules did not allow women journalists within 50 miles of the front line. Not much good for an agency reporter.”

It was decided to incorporate Poirier into the French Army as an observer-officer, and she was promptly "smuggled into France” to join de Gaulle, but with no official role.

No sooner had she landed than she was arrested by the military police, and locked up in a convent in Bayeux, Normandy.

She escaped, hitched a lift with some female ambulance drivers and caught up with de Gaulle’s cortege.

Women War Photographers celebrated in key Paris exhibition
An eye for a human story

Poirier continued working for AFP after the liberation, becoming an official war correspondent.

She followed French troops to Germany, Vienna and Trieste, bringing out the human side to war stories, with a particular focus on women.

“I found quite a few articles about women," Kalfala says. "She was really telling the life of German women, of the French resistance. In Vienna, she wrote a very moving article about how people were getting into prostitution just to get a bit of food. And nobody cared. She describes Germany and Austria in a very human way."

American journalists Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller (C) and Tania Long covered the 6 June Normandy Landings and featured in the 2023 Bayeux exhibition "The Other Landings - war correspondents in Normandy". Marcelle Poirier did not. © RFI / Ollia Horton

There were many female war correspondents – around 200 of the 500 correspondents reporting on the Normandy landings were women – Kalfala explains. "But they were at the back, in the hospitals. They had the human stories. But the difference is that Marcelle Poirier was on the front line."

Poirier wrote other unusual war-related stories, including a 1946 portrait of Hitler’s wife Eva Braun, through the eyes of her butler.

Adolf Hitler with his wife Eva Braun in Berghof, around 1940. Wikipedia

But after 1946, the trail went cold. Until Kalfala landed on two articles published in a women’s magazine – one about how ladies in the future will no longer be chained to the kitchen sink.

“It was also a bit feminist, because she said new inventions shouldn’t be about building weapons, but to help women in the home," he said. “But it was a bit weird, after reporting on all these [war] stories, why did she work for a women’s magazine?”
'Men took the power'

Poirier had no children – had she been a mother this might have explained why she turned her back on war reporting. But Kalfala suggests that, instead, she may have been pushed aside.

A footnote to her Australian-published article noted that the three AFP war correspondents she had replaced had in fact "not been killed and the bloodstains in the Jeep were wine stains from bottles offered by people in the villages they had passed through. They had been ambushed, captured and transported to Germany by train".

The three men returned to AFP, and took up where they left off. Some then became directors. “The men took the power at AFP, like everywhere," Kalfala says. "So I think Marcelle Poirier was a bit pushed away, sidelined.”

Older AFP journalists also told Kalfala that since Poirier had married a bureau chief, there would probably have been pressure on her to sacrifice her career.

Kalfala’s documentary on Poirier, who died in 1992, has restored her name to the ranks of war-time reporters in France. But for him the real injustice is that “there was this trace of her, in the book. She wasn’t forgotten. Nobody cared, that’s the thing. And that's worse than being forgotten".

PAKISTAN

The Enduring Voice of a Community: Usman Arab Saati (1944-2024)

Shahid Saati remembers his father, Usman Arab Saati, Chief Editor, Vatan Gujarati.

Shahid Saati

Updated 2 days ago

On September 22, 2024, at the age of 80, the flame of my father’s life, Usman Arab Saati, flickered and gave out. My father was recognised by many as a seminal figure in the history of Gujarati literature and media, having vowed to keep the Gujarati language alive and in print in Pakistan. So dedicated was he that he did not hesitate to sacrifice his prime years to support this endeavour, seldom caring about what this effort would yield or the hurdles he would have to conquer.

Usman Arab Saati|Photo by author



My father began his professional career in September 1966 as a clerk for Dawn Gujarati‘s marketing department and went on to serve as the general secretary in 1974. A theatre aficionado at heart, he enjoyed reviewing stage plays in Karachi, particularly those in Memoni and Gujarati for the weekly ‘Rang Kala’ page in Dawn Gujarati. During his time at Dawn, he was also elected as the chairman of the All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation (APNEC) and served as a member of the Pakistan Herald Workers Union for 12 years. Upon his retirement from Dawn in 1983, he dabbled in advertising. When he learnt about Dawn’s decision to axe Vatan (formerly Dawn Gujarati), he was quick to negotiate and was successful in acquiring the rights for the newspaper so that it could be published independently, and continue to serve the Gujarati-speaking community of Pakistan and beyond.

In a casual conversation, I enquired why he continued to publish under the name ‘Vatan’ when he could have renamed the publication. In his great wisdom, my father explained that “after the Pakistan resolution was passed, Muhammad Ali Jinnah hoped his voice would reach all corners of India where Muslims were present and therefore felt the need to establish a Gujarati newspaper.” This led to the creation of Vatan Gujarati in March 1942. After Independence, the rights for Vatan Gujarati were acquired by Dawn Media (formerly known as the Dawn Group of Newspapers). Vatan became synonymous with the voice and identity of Gujarati-speaking people and is often credited as the first newspaper of Pakistan. This explains why my father chose to retain the name Vatan.

Shahid Saati with his father, Usman Arab Saati|Photo: Dawn

Just two days before he passed away, my father joyously celebrated the marriage of his grandson, Muhammad Amin Akhtar Saati. He departed, surrounded by dear friends and family who had travelled from far to attend the wedding and were able to participate in his funeral procession.

May he rest in peace, Ameen.

Muhammad Shahid Usman Saati is Editor, Vatan Gujarati.

Former admiral urges Australia to renege on Aukus deal and buy French subs

BEFORE TRUMP RENEGES ON AUKUS

An article published by an Australian think tank is calling on Canberra to back out of the controversial Aukus submarine deal – which annulled a contract to buy French nuclear submarines in favour of UK-manufactured ones.

Naval Group CEO Herve Guillou at the official launch of the French nuclear submarine Suffren at the naval base in Cherbourg, in July 2019. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

By: Jan van der Made

Issued on: 14/12/2024 - 

According retired Australian navy admiral Peter Briggs, the Aukus submarine plan is flawed, and the only chance Australia has to sustain its submarine fleet is to buy French vessels after all.

"The solution being pursued under the current Aukus plan is not going to work," said Briggs, former head of the Submarine Institute of Australia.

In the article published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), he paints a bleak future for Australia's submarine fleet.

The Australian navy's six current Collins-class conventional submarines – which are Australian-built – are to be replaced by eight nuclear attack submarines (Submersible Ship Nuclear or SSNs) of the United States-made SSN Virginia and the SSN Aukus class.

The latter will be jointly made by Britain's BAE Systems and Australia's ASC.

The plan is part of the Aukus alliance hammered out in 2021 between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US.

Pending construction of the new fleet, UK and US nuclear subs will increase their visits to Australia.

"The reality is that the US is unable to build enough submarines," Briggs told RFI.

He added that, given that Australia is a 'three ocean continent" it needs 12 submarines in order to properly defend itself, rather than the eight specified under the Aukus agreement.

France could build submarines for Australia, after all

A ferry passes Royal Australian Navy Collins-class submarine HMAS Waller, as it leaves Sydney Harbour in May 2020. REUTERS - Reuters Photographer

No submarines available

In September 2023, the US Congress introduced the "Aukus Undersea Defense Act" providing "for the transfer of not more than two Virginia class submarines" to Australia.

In December, Congress confirmed this in its 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

But according to Briggs, the US won't be able to sell these subs. "The US are 17 short of submarines now. They haven't ordered any extra to provide a surplus to allow the sale of some of their older submarines to us. So, the Virginias won't be available for sale. And our submarine capability will die with the Collins class".

On top of that, Briggs says, the projected SSN Aukus is "too big, too expensive". Manning an SSN Aukus requires some 130 people. "We cannot afford to operate 12 of these large submarines, which is the minimum we need for an effective deterrent".

His solution? Go back to the French, who were left high and dry by the Aukus deal.

We are heading on the current plan for a flawed conclusion. 03:35

INTERVIEW Peter Briggs 

Jan van der Made

France snubbed

In 2016, the Australian government and the French naval defence company Naval Group – which is majority state-owned – signed a €34 billion contract for the supply of 12 conventional Barracuda submarines, beating Japanese and German competition to the deal.

French commentators hailed it as "the contract of the century," which would provide thousands of jobs in France alone.

But in 2021, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he was terminating the contract, without notice – and that the US and the UK would supply the submarines instead, under the Aukus alliance.

His argument was that Australia would be better served by eight nuclear-powered submarines than the 12 conventional vessels ordered from the French.

Will Australia turn to France for backup amid Pacific arms race?
Room for manoeuvre

"The idea was cooked up by a very small team in Australia, not the normal defence process looking at requirements and how you might solve it," says Briggs. "The prime minister of the day, Mr. Morrison, got it wrong. There was never a chance that it was going to work."

He believes that Canberra should renege on the Aukus submarine plan, saying: "It remains in both countries' interests to reverse and overcome the issues of the past and get on and build additional Barracuda/Suffren-class submarines for Australia."

There may yet be room for manoeuvre for French and Australian policy makers.

In a meeting with current Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in July 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron – who was furious over the collapse of the previous deal – reportedly offered to supply Australia with four submarines.

Meanwhile, the Australian government agreed to pay €550 million in a settlement with Naval Group over the decision to scrap the French attack class submarine project.

India speeds up imports of French jets as part of Indian Ocean defence build-up
Paris - Canberra ties renewed

In September 2022, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles then travelled to France and met with France's Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu.

“[The] ministers [are] committed to developing projects that will further enable the French-Australian defence relationship,” Defence Australia said in a statement on the visit.

By December 2023, Canberra and Paris appeared to have buried the hatchet entirely, cutting a deal to grant reciprocal access to military bases, training facilities and increase intelligence sharing, with Australia given "enhanced" access to France's defence facilities in the Indo-Pacific region.

For Briggs, Australia needs to capitalise on this renewal of friendly relations in order to procure the subs it needs.

"We now need some political fortitude and courage on both sides to move past the bad decisions of the past and produce a winning project for France and Australia".

International report

Gaza’s powerful war narratives make their way to the Oscars


Issued on: 15/12/2024 -  RFI

As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, a collection of films titled From Ground Zero, created by Gaza-based filmmakers, has earned a place at the Oscars.

Rashid Masharawi and Laura Nikolov, producers of "From Ground Zero", in Paris on 7 November. © RFI/Melissa Chemam

The project, overseen by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, includes 22 short films spanning documentary, animation, and drama.

The films aim to share the voices of people living through the conflict in Gaza, offering a glimpse into their fears, dreams and hopes.

"The idea for From Ground Zero came immediately, in the second month of this ongoing war, to try to pick up films and stories from Gaza," Masharawi told RFI.

He explained that the goal was to give filmmakers in Gaza the chance to make their own films.

As a recent report from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) underlines the toll of the war on Palestinian journalists, RFI spoke with him and his team in Paris.

RSF says Israel responsible for one-third of journalist deaths in 2024

The shorts, ranging from three to six minutes, are "a mix between fiction, documentaries, video art and even experimental films," he said.

"We are filmmakers, we are dealing with cinema. Even if it's a catastrophe, it's very tough with all the massacres. But we were also trying to make cinema, to add life, to be optimistic and to add hope."

The 112-minute collection is presented as a feature film in two parts. Contributors include Reema Mahmoud, Muhammad Al Sharif, Tamer Nijim and Alaa Islam Ayou.

"From Ground Zero" was directed by Rashid Masharawi with 22 actors, directors, writers and collaborators from Gaza, over the past 12 months.

IT WAS CONFRONTED AT TIFF BY CANADIAN ZIONISTS WANTING A BOYCOTT OF IT

 © Ayloul Film Production

From film festivals to the Oscars

After premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September, From Ground Zero toured film festivals across Europe, North Africa and South West Asia in November and December.

Screenings have taken place at the French Arab Film Festival near Paris, the Bristol Palestine Film Festival and in London. Additional showings are scheduled for Morocco and Egypt.

Earlier this year, Masharawi held an outdoor screening of the film during the Cannes Film Festival to protest its exclusion from the event.

Now, the collection has been selected to represent Palestine at the Oscars in March 2025, with hopes of a wider release in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

UN rapporteur says Israel's war in Gaza is 'emptying the land completely'
Emerging voices

The project was made possible by the Masharawi Fund for Gaza Filmmakers, launched in November 2023 to support creative talent from the territory.

Masharawi, who is from Gaza, is one of the first Palestinian filmmakers to have directed cinema projects in the occupied Palestinian territories.

His first film, Travel Document, was released in 1986, followed by The Shelter in 1989 and Long Days in Gaza in 1991.

The executive producer of the film, Laura Nikolov, who is French and based in France, is travelling with Masharawi to promote the film around the world.

"It's a very unique project," she told RFI. "We have now translated it into 10 different languages. We made this to allow the voices of the Gazan people [to be heard] and it's working. I think we've reached more than 60, perhaps 80 screenings and festivals."

With its selection for the Oscars, Nikolov is hopeful that the film will reach even wider audiences.

"This means it will be shown in cinemas in the United States," she said, adding that they hope to expand its reach across Europe and the Middle East.
By:Melissa Chemam

France's Charlie Hebdo magazine holds 'funniest, meanest' God cartoon contest 10 years after attack


France's satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine is marking the 10-year anniversary of a deadly Islamist attack on its offices with a cartoon contest calling on readers to submit their most mocking takes on God.


Issued on: 15/12/2024 - 
By: NEWS WIRES
A woman walks past a mural by French street artist and painter Christian Guemy, known as C215, in Paris, on January 6, 2022, in tribute to members of Charlie Hebdo newspaper killed in January 2015. © Thomas Coex, AFP


Ten years after a deadly attack on its office that shocked France, Charlie Hebdo magazine is marking the anniversary with a cartoon contest mocking God.

The satirical weekly was targeted by two Islamic extremists on January 7, 2014, who gunned down eight members of staff including some of the country's most famous cartoonists inside its premises in central Paris.

The attackers – two brothers who were later killed by police – targeted Charlie Hebdo after its decision to publish caricatures lampooning the Prophet Mohammed, Islam's most revered figure.

In typically provocative style, the staunchly atheist magazine has invited cartoonists to submit the "funniest and meanest" drawings mocking God possible ahead of the anniversary.

Launched last month, it addressed a message to "everyone who is fed up with living in a society directed by God and religion. Everyone who is fed up with the so-called good and evil. Everyone who is fed up with religious leaders dictating our lives."

There was no immediate confirmation of how many had been sent for publication.
Free speech defence

The attack on Charlie Hebdo fuelled an outpouring of sympathy and wave of "Je Suis Charlie" ("I Am Charlie") solidarity with its editorial team and famed cartoonists Cabu, Charb, Honore, Tignous and Wolinski who lost their lives.

The massacre was part of a slew of Islamist-inspired plots that claimed hundreds of lives in France and western Europe over the following years.

Ahead of the 10th anniversary, the magazine has published a book featuring work by its deceased contributors and the day of the attack is likely to see public tributes.

Since its founding in 1970, Charlie Hebdo has regularly tested the boundaries of French hate speech laws, which offer protection to minorities and outlaw inciting violence but allow criticism and mockery of religion.

Free-speech defenders in France see the ability to criticise and ridicule religion as a key victory in a centuries-long battle within the country to escape the influence of the Catholic Church.

But critics argue Charlie Hebdo has been gratuitously offensive to believers and even Islamophobic, pointing to Prophet Mohammed caricatures that appear to associate Islam with terrorism.

It regularly publishes cartoons lampooning other religions, including Christianity.

A depiction of the Virgin Mary in August suffering from the mpox virus incited two legal complaints from Catholic organisations.

On the first anniversary of the attack, the weekly published a front-page cartoon of a bearded God-like figure carrying a Kalashnikov rifle under the title "One year after, the killer is still on the run".

(AFP)