Joint Statement on Canada-Mexico-United States Cooperation
From: Global Affairs Canada
MEDIA NOTE
OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON
JUNE 10, 2022
Canada, Mexico, and the United States share a close relationship based on shared values and priorities. We acknowledge that working together as North America we can bring new ideas and energy to the hemisphere, and we commit to reinvigorating how we address together the issues of our time. As three likeminded countries, we affirm our strong commitment to democratic principles and intend to cooperate closely to stand up for multilateralism and the rules-based international order, support the rule of law, promote inclusive growth, invest in the development of communities, protect and promote human rights, advance gender equality, and reinforce democracy at home and inspire democratic development around the world. We worked together towards ending the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to create the conditions for equitable growth and strengthening North American competitiveness. On the occasion of today’s North American Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Los Angeles, our three countries commit to further enhancing our deep partnership and to continue working together in support of peace and prosperity around the globe.
We reaffirm our support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its sovereign and democratic neighbor in violation of international law. Canada, Mexico, and the United States have repeatedly condemned civilian deaths resulting from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and stated the importance of upholding international law, including the UN Charter. We also emphasize the urgent need to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need. These are principles that sustain our rules-based order. We affirm the need to ensure accountability in relevant national and international courts for crimes committed, without exceptions, and support the work of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine established by the Human Rights Council. We are united in our continued support for the people of Ukraine. We also express our commitment to work together in support of those suffering around the world from the global impacts of this invasion, particularly vulnerable populations now experiencing greater food and economic insecurity.
Our coordinated responses to Russian aggression against Ukraine, including calls to establish a diplomatic path forward, demonstrate the importance of North American solidarity. We call on the Russian Federation to withdraw immediately all its military forces and equipment from within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine and return to a path of dialogue and diplomacy. Canada,
Mexico, and the United States – as close hemispheric partners and friends – are committed to further strengthening our relations, which is key to our collective security and prosperity.
We reaffirm our commitment to addressing the root causes of irregular migration and poverty and to investing in the region – prioritizing cooperation for development to create economic opportunity for all. In particular, the three governments are united in efforts towards investing in initiatives that directly benefit the most marginalized communities. We support multilateral efforts to develop value chains and physical infrastructure in the Americas that will generate employment and equitable growth. We acknowledge that addressing irregular migration in the region requires a coordinated approach, and we support the Regional Conference on Migration, the Comprehensive Regional Protection and Solutions Framework and the vision of the Global Compact on Migration.
We celebrate the tradition of our region in welcoming refugees and migrants, and we recognize the positive contributions of refugees and migrants to the socio-economic development of their host communities. We applaud the sustained efforts of States in our hemisphere in ensuring safe, orderly, and regular migration by hosting refugees, providing regular migration pathways, promoting local economic and social integration, facilitating voluntary return, and supporting the reintegration of returnees. We remain committed to collectively leveraging the benefits of migration while addressing its challenges in countries and communities of origin, transit, destination, and return.
We are committed to continuing our cooperation to support and strengthen Haiti’s democratic process, including through our collective efforts to promote an inclusive, Haitian-led political path forward. We are also committed to working closely with the United Nations and other regional partners to promote peaceful, fair, and sustainable growth throughout the hemisphere.
We reaffirm our commitment to protect human rights, particularly for members of vulnerable and historically marginalized communities, like the LGBTQI+ and two spirit community, and afro-descendant communities, as well as the rights of Indigenous peoples. We also stress the importance of individual freedom of expression and media freedom, and together advocate for addressing impunity and inequality.
We collectively commit to taking bold, swift, and coordinated action to address the climate crisis. Climate change threatens our economies and our communities, especially those who are vulnerable and underserved. As we work to address the climate crisis, we recognize the tremendous opportunity to build back better, to create well-paying and reliable jobs in ever-growing markets, and to position North America as a global leader in clean energy solutions.
As partner countries in championing development in the Americas, we reaffirm our commitment to advancing feminist approaches, eliminating structural and indirect barriers for women, girls and marginalized people, and to integrate gender perspectives in our shared priorities. We continue to advocate for feminist approaches for a more effective, fair, relevant and accountable United Nations in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.
We recognize the integral place of Indigenous peoples in North America, and their contributions to the diversity and richness of our culture and society. We acknowledge that cultural diversity and linguistic plurality are part of the heritage of humanity, so we place great value in the historical and cultural legacy of indigenous communities in the region.
By recognizing the historical legacy towards indigenous communities, our vision aims to achieve real progress towards reconciliation and a renewed relationship based on respect, truth, cooperation, partnership, and in recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples. We reiterate our unwavering commitment to ensure that Indigenous rights, interests, and aspirations are recognized in decision-making. We intend to work together, in partnership with Indigenous peoples from our three countries, to attain our goals of safety, security, well-being, socio-economic development, and empowerment for all Indigenous peoples. We also recognize that ending violence against Indigenous women and girls requires a holistic, multidimensional, and multi-sectoral approach.
During our meeting today, we also discussed planning for the next North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico in December.
We look forward to our increased cooperation in the years to come.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
China’s CPEC damaging environment in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit Baltistan [PoK], June 11 (ANI): Although Pakistan termed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC as a game-changer for the country’s ailing economy but the fact of the matter is that Chinese mega projects are showing an adverse impact on Gilgit-Baltistan’s environment leading to uncontrollable pollution and irreversible depletion of aquatic ecosystems.
Under the banner of CPEC, Pakistan and China are initiating work on mega-dams, oil and gas pipelines, and uranium and heavy metal extraction in Gilgit-Baltistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is also providing over half of its drinking and irrigation water to Pakistan and Chinese mega projects but these projects are showing an adverse impact on the local climate leading to uncontrollable pollution and irreversible depletion of aquatic ecosystems, Global Order reported.
Recently, Pakistan’s Hasanabad had witnessed a glacial lake burst which washed away houses and razed a major bridge on the Karakoram Highway and the biggest reason behind this is climate change.
Looking at climate change, the World Bank warned that one-third of these glaciers will disappear by the end of this century causing famine of great magnitude in Pakistan. Melting ice sheets would also release viruses locked away for thousands of years causing an unprecedented rise in occurrences of rare diseases.
Meanwhile, the United Nations claimed that climate disasters could kill over 300,000 people in Pakistan in the next three decades and the alarming numbers would reach manifolds if we include the anticipated deaths from novel pandemics.
According to the publication, deforestation is the major cause of landslides in Gilgit-Baltistan. Plantation could reverse the climatic issue and even former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the ten billion tree tsunami” is a good initiative but no such development took place. Even the forest land was given to Chinese hydroelectric projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
Pakistan Army instead of protecting the locals’ interests, snatched their indigenous lands and imposed Chinese interests on them.
Despite repeated warnings from locals, the military has confiscated hundreds of thousands of acres of private land in places like Diamer, Shigar, Ghizer, Gilgit and Hunza and awarded them to the Chinese companies. In one instance, the army bulldozed and flattened homes in Makpondas to grant private land to a Chinese company to build a CPEC-related economic zone, according to the publication.
Experts claim that by 2030, China will be able to produce twelve gigawatts of electricity for Pakistan from the ongoing hydro-projects in Gilgit-Baltistan. One of those projects is Diamer-Bhasha, the largest roller compact concrete dam in the world. However, the Diamer dam is being built in a geologically volatile territory where earthquakes are a daily phenomenon.
Looking at such situations, locals have raised their voices against the construction of CPEC but the government doesn’t listen to a single sound of it. The Pakistani Army is filing the case against those people who raise their voices against land theft and environmental destruction. The locals argued that the establishment is committing real treason and terrorism by sacrificing the well-being of locals for China.
Like elsewhere, the Chinese model of extraction and development is a toxic ‘friendship’ for Gilgit-Baltistan as its fragile ecology is ravaged. (ANI)
This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Source: The Print
NOT THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Elusive Plane Puzzled European Air Defenses, Then Its Crew Vanished
The anonymous plane is making headlines for its mysterious expedition, and European air defenders still aren’t exactly sure what to make of it.
Elusive Plane Puzzled European Air Defenses, Then Its Crew Vanished
The anonymous plane is making headlines for its mysterious expedition, and European air defenders still aren’t exactly sure what to make of it.
JUN 10, 2022
THE WAR ZONE
via Euractiv
EMMA HELFRICH
THE WAR ZONE
via Euractiv
EMMA HELFRICH
View Emma Helfrich's Articles
An unidentified aircraft flew through airspaces belonging to multiple countries, almost all of them NATO members, without any official dispatch or approved flight plan. The illegal journey, which began in Lithuania, was monitored closely by all nations involved without any communication from the pilot. The plane was eventually found in Bulgaria covered in canvas without any trace of its crew.
The plane is reported to have initially departed from an undisclosed airport in Lithuania and then proceeded to fly over Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania before entering Bulgaria through the northern city of Vidin. With the exception of Serbia, all of the nations are part of the NATO alliance.
The plane reportedly finally landed in a small abandoned Bulgarian airfield known as the Targovishte Airport near the village of Buhovtsi between Targovishte and Shumen. The airport is purported to have not accepted a plane for many years, and locals have begun utilizing it in the summer months for agricultural purposes. European news source Euractiv states that when the plane was discovered, its engine was still warm.
Satellite image of the Targovishte Airport. Google Earth
The kind of plane used to carry out this dramatic excursion has been debated. While the majority of European news coverage is reporting it to be a two-seated, twin-engine Beechcraft plane, Lithuanian media has cited what they are claiming to be the plane’s official registration number. The LRT.It article claims that it was registered as LY-LOO, which is a registration number held by the 1962 PA-23-250 Aztec aircraft manufactured by Piper Aircraft but is apparently no longer valid. In the image posted at the top of this story and by Bulgarian TV via Euractiv.com, the plane in question looks exactly like an Aztec.
An unidentified aircraft flew through airspaces belonging to multiple countries, almost all of them NATO members, without any official dispatch or approved flight plan. The illegal journey, which began in Lithuania, was monitored closely by all nations involved without any communication from the pilot. The plane was eventually found in Bulgaria covered in canvas without any trace of its crew.
The plane is reported to have initially departed from an undisclosed airport in Lithuania and then proceeded to fly over Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania before entering Bulgaria through the northern city of Vidin. With the exception of Serbia, all of the nations are part of the NATO alliance.
The plane reportedly finally landed in a small abandoned Bulgarian airfield known as the Targovishte Airport near the village of Buhovtsi between Targovishte and Shumen. The airport is purported to have not accepted a plane for many years, and locals have begun utilizing it in the summer months for agricultural purposes. European news source Euractiv states that when the plane was discovered, its engine was still warm.
Satellite image of the Targovishte Airport. Google EarthThe kind of plane used to carry out this dramatic excursion has been debated. While the majority of European news coverage is reporting it to be a two-seated, twin-engine Beechcraft plane, Lithuanian media has cited what they are claiming to be the plane’s official registration number. The LRT.It article claims that it was registered as LY-LOO, which is a registration number held by the 1962 PA-23-250 Aztec aircraft manufactured by Piper Aircraft but is apparently no longer valid. In the image posted at the top of this story and by Bulgarian TV via Euractiv.com, the plane in question looks exactly like an Aztec.
PA-23-250 Aztec in flight. Wikimedia Commons
Dehir, a Hungarian news source, spoke with Janos Vajda, managing director of Debrecen International Airport in Hungary, who said that although the plane was recorded to have taken off from a nearby area, he insisted that it was not from the Debrecen Airport. It was later confirmed by Istvan Juhos, director of Aero Club Hajduszoboszlo, who operates a flying club in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary, that a plane coming from Lithuania did land in Hajduszoboszlo without authorization and a number of people then exited the plane and are presumed to have refueled it. Because of the illegality of the situation, airport officials contacted local police who attempted to respond but failed to arrive before the plane departed the airport.
Before ultimately touching down in Bulgaria, though, the plane is said to have been escorted by up to six fighter jets until it entered Bulgarian airspace. The U.S. Air Force, Hungarian Air Force, and Romanian Air Force were alerted of the unauthorized flight over Europe, and each is said to have deployed two fighter jets to intercept the plane. Two USAF F-16s, two Romanian F-16s, and two Hungarian Gripens chased the plane down at various points in its flight path, however, it purportedly did not respond to radio calls or visual signals.
Dehir, a Hungarian news source, spoke with Janos Vajda, managing director of Debrecen International Airport in Hungary, who said that although the plane was recorded to have taken off from a nearby area, he insisted that it was not from the Debrecen Airport. It was later confirmed by Istvan Juhos, director of Aero Club Hajduszoboszlo, who operates a flying club in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary, that a plane coming from Lithuania did land in Hajduszoboszlo without authorization and a number of people then exited the plane and are presumed to have refueled it. Because of the illegality of the situation, airport officials contacted local police who attempted to respond but failed to arrive before the plane departed the airport.
Before ultimately touching down in Bulgaria, though, the plane is said to have been escorted by up to six fighter jets until it entered Bulgarian airspace. The U.S. Air Force, Hungarian Air Force, and Romanian Air Force were alerted of the unauthorized flight over Europe, and each is said to have deployed two fighter jets to intercept the plane. Two USAF F-16s, two Romanian F-16s, and two Hungarian Gripens chased the plane down at various points in its flight path, however, it purportedly did not respond to radio calls or visual signals.
Two Hungarian Gripens in flight. Wikimedia Commons
Because the plane had its transponder switched off and was apparently flying at altitudes low enough to make a successful interception by the fighter jets difficult to achieve, the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense decided that the plane did not pose a threat to civilian or military infrastructure. The ministry went on to claim that close monitoring continued in spite of what they seemingly decided to be a suspicious flight that didn’t present any imminent danger.
The Dehir article also reports that the Romanian Ministry of Defense shared a similar mindset about the incident and approached it with an attitude more of staunch curiosity as opposed to active defense. The article explains that the Romanian government did not think the small plane was behaving in a dangerous manner, but noted the concern grew after it failed to respond to international radio signals.
LRT.It also spoke to Bronius Zaronskis, pilot and director of Nida Air Park in Lithuania, who claims that he had recently sold the aircraft to an undisclosed organization. He notes that prior to the sale, three foreign men came to inspect the aircraft, one of which was communicating with Zaronskis in Russian. He said he did not manage to record their names.
“They were not Lithuanians. I cannot say which country they were from, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Romanians, or Bulgarians. One man and I communicated with each other in Russian…I don’t know the names of these men. I wasn’t interested,” Zaronskis told LRT.lt.
“I sold it and said goodbye to that plane. I was trying to sell it for many years. I had nowhere to put it, so I am glad that they bought it...I don’t remember which organization bought it. It was written in a foreign language,” Zaronskis added.
This bizarre flight, which happened at a time of high tensions and increased security scrutiny in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, did not occur without precedent. For example, in March of this year, a Tu-141 "Strizh" high-speed drone armed with a bomb crashed in Croatia’s capital and prompted a discussion about just how secure NATO’s airspace in Europe may be. Whether or not this recent instance is one of criminality doesn’t change the fact that this will surely add to the debate.
Yet as more context is added to this strange incident, the more convoluted it seems to get. Certainly, some of these details are bound to change. Hopefully, a clearer picture will be painted as each country’s internal investigations are carried out, and The War Zone will try to update this report as developments continue to unfold.
Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com
Because the plane had its transponder switched off and was apparently flying at altitudes low enough to make a successful interception by the fighter jets difficult to achieve, the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense decided that the plane did not pose a threat to civilian or military infrastructure. The ministry went on to claim that close monitoring continued in spite of what they seemingly decided to be a suspicious flight that didn’t present any imminent danger.
The Dehir article also reports that the Romanian Ministry of Defense shared a similar mindset about the incident and approached it with an attitude more of staunch curiosity as opposed to active defense. The article explains that the Romanian government did not think the small plane was behaving in a dangerous manner, but noted the concern grew after it failed to respond to international radio signals.
LRT.It also spoke to Bronius Zaronskis, pilot and director of Nida Air Park in Lithuania, who claims that he had recently sold the aircraft to an undisclosed organization. He notes that prior to the sale, three foreign men came to inspect the aircraft, one of which was communicating with Zaronskis in Russian. He said he did not manage to record their names.
“They were not Lithuanians. I cannot say which country they were from, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Romanians, or Bulgarians. One man and I communicated with each other in Russian…I don’t know the names of these men. I wasn’t interested,” Zaronskis told LRT.lt.
“I sold it and said goodbye to that plane. I was trying to sell it for many years. I had nowhere to put it, so I am glad that they bought it...I don’t remember which organization bought it. It was written in a foreign language,” Zaronskis added.
This bizarre flight, which happened at a time of high tensions and increased security scrutiny in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, did not occur without precedent. For example, in March of this year, a Tu-141 "Strizh" high-speed drone armed with a bomb crashed in Croatia’s capital and prompted a discussion about just how secure NATO’s airspace in Europe may be. Whether or not this recent instance is one of criminality doesn’t change the fact that this will surely add to the debate.
Yet as more context is added to this strange incident, the more convoluted it seems to get. Certainly, some of these details are bound to change. Hopefully, a clearer picture will be painted as each country’s internal investigations are carried out, and The War Zone will try to update this report as developments continue to unfold.
Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com
‘Hedgehogs’ dug in and kept out Putin’s forces
‘Dad’s Army’ to head to front after defending Irpin
‘Dad’s Army’ to head to front after defending Irpin
An emptied cluster munition container is seen stuck in the ground following a Russian military strike on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine. AGAINST THE GENEVA CONVENTION
Photo: Reuters/Ivan Alvarado
Nicola Smith and Illia Novikov
June 11 2022
Armed with AK-74s and clad in mismatched uniforms, the husbands and fathers of Irpin still patrol near the town’s shattered bridge.
It was here, early in the war, that Russian shelling killed dozens of fleeing civilians, turning the crossing into a symbol of human suffering.
The men’s patrols are voluntary but foreshadow what may still come for citizens of Irpin – a once idyllic commuter town on the outskirts of Kyiv – who could be called up at any time to serve in the devastating war of attrition on the eastern front with Russia.
When Moscow unexpectedly launched a barbaric assault on the towns surrounding the Ukrainian capital in February, neighbours banded together and picked up hunting rifles, shotguns and literally any weapons they could find to fight Russian soldiers back from their families’ doorsteps.
Hulk, Doberman, Beard and Armenian became the nicknames of one “Dad’s Army” who forged a dogged camaraderie in the ashes of their homes.
The men, who did not wish to reveal their full names, called their ad hoc unit the Hedgehogs as a nod to their strategy of making their neighbourhood too difficult for the Russians to touch.
Peace has returned to Irpin, but their families have not returned to the ruins from their scattered refuges. The Hedgehogs, who have since forged links to the local Territorial Defence Forces, say they are training to go to the eastern front and see the war through to its bitter end.
“If our guys in the East need back-up and support, we are ready to do that,” said Hulk, 35, who in peacetime managed nightclubs and a furniture business. “We are defending our land. It’s important that we didn’t go to anyone else’s country. They came here and they are killing our women and children. So we are ready to fight and defend to the last one of us.”
Their determination defies the horrific admission this week by Ukrainian government officials that the brutal battle over the strategic industrial town of Severodonetsk is costing Ukraine up to 200 military casualties every day, as Russia pummels defending forces with superior long-range weaponry.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has warned the fate of the entire Donbas region hangs on victory in the fight over the embattled city.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian and western intelligence dossier suggested there was a growing risk of demoralised Ukrainian soldiers deserting their ranks, The Independent reported. The Ministry of Defence refuted the report as untrue and likened it to “Russian propaganda”.
There was no sign of the dossier’s pessimism among the Hedgehogs: men who survived the Russians laying waste to their hometown in March and who are now prepared to face another hellscape in Donbas.
The fight is very personal. Doberman, 33, a former salesman, said he cried after he “lost his dream” to hold his first child, William, who was born last week in Canada rather than at home in Irpin.
Beard, 36, a truck driver, also forced his wife to flee to safety with their seven-year-old son and two-month-old daughter after their apartment building was hit by a mortar.
He still guards the street next to the blackened, charred remains of their flat in a once child-friendly cul-de-sac now pockmarked by shell craters.
At of the end of May, President Zelensky said some 700,000 military personnel were defending the country.
Official recruitment statistics are hard to nail down, but reports suggest Ukrainians are still lining up to join the fight – many motivated by a higher cause of defeating the advance of an authoritarian aggressor.
Konrad Muzyka, founder of Rochan Consulting, an independent defence consulting firm, told The Economist the number of would-be recruits for the armed forces is so high that there is a month-long waiting list to be inducted.
The more pressing challenges appear to be a lack of experience and training, and, in recent months, some shortfalls in protective gear like flak jackets, helmets, ear and eye protection.
Matthew Robinson, 39, from Yorkshire, is one of about 40 international ex-military trainers working with the Georgian Legion in Kyiv to teach recruits the basics of battle tactics and weapons handling.
But as the battle rages in the East, time is impossibly short.
He said a training session this week was abruptly called off by the military, with the message that “they are already being sent to the front, so we are cancelling the exercises”.
Mr Robinson, who said he had trained some 2,000 “completely inexperienced” volunteers, including the Hedgehogs, expressed frustration that so many were being deployed “ill-trained” and “ill-equipped” with a “hodge-podge” of body armour, firearms with no optics, and sub-optimal ammunition.
“They have big shopping lists of everything they need. It’s horrifying. I look at these men and think ‘a third of you are not going to live’,” he said.
“You do not have enough time to thoroughly drill these guys on the basic principles. You have to go through the motions and hope that they live and learn but it’s horrifying to see they are sending these men out to the front with these issues.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, said soldiers did receive proper training and refuted claims that front-line soldiers do not have body armour, although he has repeatedly stressed the terrible death toll inflicted by Russian artillery.
Experts also present a more complex overview of the state of Ukraine’s forces, stating that despite wartime chaos, the country has held off an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
“It seems that we were underestimated, and they were overestimated,” said Ruslan Kavatsiuk, a Ukrainian adviser for Spirit of America (SOA), a US non-profit that is one of several groups distributing non-lethal military gear to Ukrainian front lines.
It has engaged a network of military commanders to donate nine busses and 155 tons of supplies including bulletproof vests, ballistic helmets and first aid kits to Ukraine’s forces, transported “invisibly” in vans and cars to where it is most needed.
This was not a war effort that had been forced to embrace recruits with a vastly different range of experience, he said.
The Russian “professional army is losing to all of these people”, he said, pointing to the deaths of multiple high-ranking Russian officers, including 12 generals.
“Russians don’t understand how bees operate. It looks like chaos but, in the end, they get the job done,” he said.
Matt Dimmick, SOA’s regional programme manager for Europe and previous director for Russia and Eastern Europe on the US National Security Council, said that while the Russians were bleeding the Ukrainians with artillery, Moscow, too, was being worn down by battle.
“The Russians have put everything they have into the fight,” he said. “They don’t have a renewable resource when it comes to their own troops and capabilities.”
While they could become entrenched and hard to root out, they may have reached their limits of advancing, he added.
They could make limited gains in some areas where they focused artillery power but would “probably suffer equal or more losses” where they did not have similar resources.
“The Ukrainians will sniff that out and make the Russians pay for it.” (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2022)
Nicola Smith and Illia Novikov
June 11 2022
Armed with AK-74s and clad in mismatched uniforms, the husbands and fathers of Irpin still patrol near the town’s shattered bridge.
It was here, early in the war, that Russian shelling killed dozens of fleeing civilians, turning the crossing into a symbol of human suffering.
The men’s patrols are voluntary but foreshadow what may still come for citizens of Irpin – a once idyllic commuter town on the outskirts of Kyiv – who could be called up at any time to serve in the devastating war of attrition on the eastern front with Russia.
When Moscow unexpectedly launched a barbaric assault on the towns surrounding the Ukrainian capital in February, neighbours banded together and picked up hunting rifles, shotguns and literally any weapons they could find to fight Russian soldiers back from their families’ doorsteps.
Hulk, Doberman, Beard and Armenian became the nicknames of one “Dad’s Army” who forged a dogged camaraderie in the ashes of their homes.
The men, who did not wish to reveal their full names, called their ad hoc unit the Hedgehogs as a nod to their strategy of making their neighbourhood too difficult for the Russians to touch.
Peace has returned to Irpin, but their families have not returned to the ruins from their scattered refuges. The Hedgehogs, who have since forged links to the local Territorial Defence Forces, say they are training to go to the eastern front and see the war through to its bitter end.
“If our guys in the East need back-up and support, we are ready to do that,” said Hulk, 35, who in peacetime managed nightclubs and a furniture business. “We are defending our land. It’s important that we didn’t go to anyone else’s country. They came here and they are killing our women and children. So we are ready to fight and defend to the last one of us.”
Their determination defies the horrific admission this week by Ukrainian government officials that the brutal battle over the strategic industrial town of Severodonetsk is costing Ukraine up to 200 military casualties every day, as Russia pummels defending forces with superior long-range weaponry.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has warned the fate of the entire Donbas region hangs on victory in the fight over the embattled city.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian and western intelligence dossier suggested there was a growing risk of demoralised Ukrainian soldiers deserting their ranks, The Independent reported. The Ministry of Defence refuted the report as untrue and likened it to “Russian propaganda”.
There was no sign of the dossier’s pessimism among the Hedgehogs: men who survived the Russians laying waste to their hometown in March and who are now prepared to face another hellscape in Donbas.
The fight is very personal. Doberman, 33, a former salesman, said he cried after he “lost his dream” to hold his first child, William, who was born last week in Canada rather than at home in Irpin.
Beard, 36, a truck driver, also forced his wife to flee to safety with their seven-year-old son and two-month-old daughter after their apartment building was hit by a mortar.
He still guards the street next to the blackened, charred remains of their flat in a once child-friendly cul-de-sac now pockmarked by shell craters.
At of the end of May, President Zelensky said some 700,000 military personnel were defending the country.
Official recruitment statistics are hard to nail down, but reports suggest Ukrainians are still lining up to join the fight – many motivated by a higher cause of defeating the advance of an authoritarian aggressor.
Konrad Muzyka, founder of Rochan Consulting, an independent defence consulting firm, told The Economist the number of would-be recruits for the armed forces is so high that there is a month-long waiting list to be inducted.
The more pressing challenges appear to be a lack of experience and training, and, in recent months, some shortfalls in protective gear like flak jackets, helmets, ear and eye protection.
Matthew Robinson, 39, from Yorkshire, is one of about 40 international ex-military trainers working with the Georgian Legion in Kyiv to teach recruits the basics of battle tactics and weapons handling.
But as the battle rages in the East, time is impossibly short.
He said a training session this week was abruptly called off by the military, with the message that “they are already being sent to the front, so we are cancelling the exercises”.
Mr Robinson, who said he had trained some 2,000 “completely inexperienced” volunteers, including the Hedgehogs, expressed frustration that so many were being deployed “ill-trained” and “ill-equipped” with a “hodge-podge” of body armour, firearms with no optics, and sub-optimal ammunition.
“They have big shopping lists of everything they need. It’s horrifying. I look at these men and think ‘a third of you are not going to live’,” he said.
“You do not have enough time to thoroughly drill these guys on the basic principles. You have to go through the motions and hope that they live and learn but it’s horrifying to see they are sending these men out to the front with these issues.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, said soldiers did receive proper training and refuted claims that front-line soldiers do not have body armour, although he has repeatedly stressed the terrible death toll inflicted by Russian artillery.
Experts also present a more complex overview of the state of Ukraine’s forces, stating that despite wartime chaos, the country has held off an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
“It seems that we were underestimated, and they were overestimated,” said Ruslan Kavatsiuk, a Ukrainian adviser for Spirit of America (SOA), a US non-profit that is one of several groups distributing non-lethal military gear to Ukrainian front lines.
It has engaged a network of military commanders to donate nine busses and 155 tons of supplies including bulletproof vests, ballistic helmets and first aid kits to Ukraine’s forces, transported “invisibly” in vans and cars to where it is most needed.
This was not a war effort that had been forced to embrace recruits with a vastly different range of experience, he said.
The Russian “professional army is losing to all of these people”, he said, pointing to the deaths of multiple high-ranking Russian officers, including 12 generals.
“Russians don’t understand how bees operate. It looks like chaos but, in the end, they get the job done,” he said.
Matt Dimmick, SOA’s regional programme manager for Europe and previous director for Russia and Eastern Europe on the US National Security Council, said that while the Russians were bleeding the Ukrainians with artillery, Moscow, too, was being worn down by battle.
“The Russians have put everything they have into the fight,” he said. “They don’t have a renewable resource when it comes to their own troops and capabilities.”
While they could become entrenched and hard to root out, they may have reached their limits of advancing, he added.
They could make limited gains in some areas where they focused artillery power but would “probably suffer equal or more losses” where they did not have similar resources.
“The Ukrainians will sniff that out and make the Russians pay for it.” (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2022)
ANOTHER WATERSPORT POLITICIAN
UK parliament won’t reveal porn data, saying it risks national security
UK parliament won’t reveal porn data, saying it risks national security
Neil Parish stepped down as an MP after he was caught looking at porn at work.
Photo: Chris McAndrew/UK Parliament
Jon Stone
June 11 2022
British Parliamentary authorities have refused to reveal how much porn MPs and their staff are trying to look at on work computers, citing “national security”.
The refusal to disclose the information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act comes after Tory MP Neil Parish quit as an MP after he was caught looking at porn at work in a “moment of madness”.
But ahead of the by-election to replace Mr Parish later this month, authorities rejected an FOI request by The Independent, citing Section 24 (1) of the act. Section 24 says information does not have to be disclosed if secrecy is “required for the purpose of safeguarding national security”.
The refusal is a change in policy for the Commons, which has previously disclosed how many porn sites were blocked on work computers on at least three separate occasions.
In 2013, parliament disclosed under FOI that computers on the parliamentary network had been blocked trying to access explicit content 309,316 times in the previous year.
In 2015, a similar disclosure revealed nearly 250,000 requests, and in 2018 the figure had fallen by around 24,000.
But the Commons authorities told The Independent that it had not only blocked the latest FOI request, but retroactively deleted the previous disclosures from its website.
As well as the national security exemption, authorities cited Section 31(1)(a) and (b), which says information can be exempted if required for “the prevention or detection of crime” and “the apprehension or prosecution of offenders”.
In its FOI response letter, authorities accepted that there was “a legitimate public interest in the House of Commons being open and transparent” but that “disclosure of this information would cause substantial risks to the parliamentary network as it would aid malicious groups in their efforts to target the network” as “both the disclosure of either specific web addresses, categories that are blocked, or totals relating to attempts or access, could provide valuable information to those wishing to bypass our security systems”.
This is because releasing the data “would make the extent of the Parliamentary Network’s blocking and filtering policies public knowledge”.
Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said the block appeared to be part of a wider pattern.
“It seems that guidance has been issued to public authorities advising them not to release details of their monitoring of internet usage for fear of helping criminal, malicious or hostile users target these systems,” he said.
“Given past disclosures that hundreds of thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites have been made annually from parliament, it’s impossible to believe that hostile users don’t know this, particularly after an MP was found accessing pornography while actually in the Commons chamber.”
He added: “They will also know that the parliamentary authorities must be taking steps to block such access. Revealing the number of attempts to view explicit material tells us something significant about parliament, but little about its internet security vulnerabilities.”
A spokesperson for the Commons authorities said: “The House of Commons did previously release information on web-access requests.
“However, after reassessing cyber risk in 2017, it was determined that it presented a security risk and exposed the parliamentary network to an unacceptable amount of risk, and future requests were subsequently exempted under grounds of national security and law enforcement.
Jon Stone
June 11 2022
British Parliamentary authorities have refused to reveal how much porn MPs and their staff are trying to look at on work computers, citing “national security”.
The refusal to disclose the information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act comes after Tory MP Neil Parish quit as an MP after he was caught looking at porn at work in a “moment of madness”.
But ahead of the by-election to replace Mr Parish later this month, authorities rejected an FOI request by The Independent, citing Section 24 (1) of the act. Section 24 says information does not have to be disclosed if secrecy is “required for the purpose of safeguarding national security”.
The refusal is a change in policy for the Commons, which has previously disclosed how many porn sites were blocked on work computers on at least three separate occasions.
In 2013, parliament disclosed under FOI that computers on the parliamentary network had been blocked trying to access explicit content 309,316 times in the previous year.
In 2015, a similar disclosure revealed nearly 250,000 requests, and in 2018 the figure had fallen by around 24,000.
But the Commons authorities told The Independent that it had not only blocked the latest FOI request, but retroactively deleted the previous disclosures from its website.
As well as the national security exemption, authorities cited Section 31(1)(a) and (b), which says information can be exempted if required for “the prevention or detection of crime” and “the apprehension or prosecution of offenders”.
In its FOI response letter, authorities accepted that there was “a legitimate public interest in the House of Commons being open and transparent” but that “disclosure of this information would cause substantial risks to the parliamentary network as it would aid malicious groups in their efforts to target the network” as “both the disclosure of either specific web addresses, categories that are blocked, or totals relating to attempts or access, could provide valuable information to those wishing to bypass our security systems”.
This is because releasing the data “would make the extent of the Parliamentary Network’s blocking and filtering policies public knowledge”.
Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said the block appeared to be part of a wider pattern.
“It seems that guidance has been issued to public authorities advising them not to release details of their monitoring of internet usage for fear of helping criminal, malicious or hostile users target these systems,” he said.
“Given past disclosures that hundreds of thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites have been made annually from parliament, it’s impossible to believe that hostile users don’t know this, particularly after an MP was found accessing pornography while actually in the Commons chamber.”
He added: “They will also know that the parliamentary authorities must be taking steps to block such access. Revealing the number of attempts to view explicit material tells us something significant about parliament, but little about its internet security vulnerabilities.”
A spokesperson for the Commons authorities said: “The House of Commons did previously release information on web-access requests.
“However, after reassessing cyber risk in 2017, it was determined that it presented a security risk and exposed the parliamentary network to an unacceptable amount of risk, and future requests were subsequently exempted under grounds of national security and law enforcement.
Friday, June 10, 2022
GANGSTATE
Haiti gangs attack buses, kidnap dozensThe mass kidnapping came as Haiti finds itself in the grip of armed gangs, whom police have failed to confront.
In the month of May alone, at least 200 kidnappings were recorded by the UN, overwhelmingly in Port-au-Prince. (AP)
Gang members in Haiti on Friday kidnapped 38 people as they were riding in minibuses out of the capital Port-au-Prince, bound for the south of the country, the head of a drivers' association told AFP news agency.
"Two buses had just been filled with passengers bound for Miragoane," a town some 62 miles (100 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, "when the guys from Village de Dieu seized them," said Mehu Changeux, president of the association of owners and drivers of Haiti, referring to one of the capital's slums controlled by a powerful gang.
"Each bus had 18 people, in addition to the drivers," Changeux said, without saying if ransoms had been demanded.
The mass kidnapping came as Haiti finds itself in the grip of armed gangs, whom police have failed to confront.
Since June 1, 2021, Haitian authorities have lost control of the only road connecting Port-au-Prince to the southern half of the country, with a section of some 1.5 miles (two kilometers) under the sway of armed gangs.
It was on this road, at the western exit of the Haitian capital, that the 38 people were abducted. Changeux insisted his organization "always asks drivers not to take this road until the state has restored security."
READ MORE: UN: Dozens killed in recent Haiti gang fight
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But that caution is a luxury that the city's poorest inhabitants cannot afford, since traveling by the only alternative route, which is not suitable for motor vehicles, costs much more, in particular because of unofficial tolls.
"There continue to be some buses that take the risk because some passengers do not have the economic means to pay for transport by the mountain road," said Changeux.
Last weekend, three young Turkish women were released after a month in captivity. They had been kidnapped by the criminal gang that controls the entire region east of Port-au-Prince, up to the border with the Dominican Republic.
This gang, which hijacked the bus in which they were traveling from Santo Domingo, still holds five other Turkish nationals.
In the month of May alone, at least 200 kidnappings were recorded by the UN, overwhelmingly in Port-au-Prince.
READ MORE: Several Turks among dozen kidnapped by 'Haiti armed gang'
For the Peoples of our Region, the Failure of Biden’s Summit of the Americas Would be a Welcome Event
The Summit of the Americas is not the property of the host nation. The U.S. has no right to exclude, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but has done so in disregard of their sovereignty. The U.S. is not fit to judge others or to be responsible for bringing nations together. Every leader in the hemisphere should boycott what has become a farcical event.
I applaud the decision by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to attend this week’s so-called Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and hope that by Wednesday a majority of the nations in our region would have joined him. However, I am hoping that unlike President Lopez Obrador who is still sending the Mexican foreign minister, other nations demonstrate that their dignity cannot be coerced and stay away completely. Why do I take this position?
If the threat by the Biden Administration as host of the Summit not to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all sovereign nations in the Americas’ region, was not outrageous enough, the announced rationale that the administration did not invite these nations because of their human rights record and authoritarian governance is an absurd indignity that cannot be ignored.
I firmly believe that the U.S. should not be allowed to subvert, degrade, and humiliate nations and the peoples of our region with impunity! A line of demarcation must be drawn between the nations and peoples who represent democracy and life and the parasitic hegemon to the North which can only offer dependence and death. The U.S. has made its choice that is reflected in its public documents. “Full spectrum dominance,” is its stated goal. In other words – waging war against the peoples of our regions and, indeed, the world to maintain global hegemony. It has chosen war, we must choose resistance – on that, there can be no compromise!
The peoples of our region understand that. It is historically imperative that the representatives of the states in our region come to terms with that and commit to resistance and solidarity with the states that are experiencing the most intense pressure from empire. The rhetorical commitment to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is not enough. The people want actions that go beyond mere denunciations of imperialism. The people are ready to fight.
And part of this fight includes the ideological war of position. We cannot allow the U.S. to obscure its murderous history by dressing that history up in pretty language about human rights.
The idea that the U.S., or any Western nation for that matter, involved in the ongoing imperialist project, could seriously see itself as a protector of human rights is bizarre and dangerous, and must be countered. The fact that the U.S. will still attempt to advance this fiction reflects either the height of arrogance or a society and administration caught in the grip of a collective national psychosis. I am convinced it is both, but more on that later.
A cognitive rupture from objective reality, the inability to locate oneself in relationship to other human beings individually and collectively in the material world are all symptoms of severe mental derangement. Yet, it appears that this is the condition that structures the psychic make-up of all of the leaders of the U.S. and the collective West.
It is what I have referred to as the psychopathology of white supremacy:
A racialized narcissistic cognitive disorder that centers so-called white people’s and European civilization and renders the afflicted with an inability to perceive objective reality in the same way as others. This affliction is not reducible to the race of so-called whites but can affect all those who have come in contact with the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.
How else can you explain the self-perceptions of the U.S. and West, responsible for the most horrific crimes against humanity in the annuals of human history from genocide, slavery, world wars, the European, African and Indigenous holocausts, wars and subversion since 1945 that have resulted in over 30 million lives lost – but then assert their innocence, moral superiority and right to define the content and range of human rights?
Aileen Teague of the Quincy Institute points out that the U.S. position on disinviting nations to the Summit of the Americas because of their alleged “authoritarian governance,” is “hypocritical” and “inconsistent,” noting the U.S. historical support for Latin American dictators when convenient for US policy.
Yet is it really hypothetical or inconsistent? I think not. U.S. policymakers are operating from an ethical and philosophical framework that informed Western colonial practice in which racialized humanity became divided between those who were placed into the category of “humans” which was constitutive of the historically expanded category of “white” in relationship to everyone else who was “not white,” and therefore, not fully human.
The “others” during the colonial conquest literally did not have any rights that Europeans were bound to recognize and respect from land rights to their very lives. Consequently, for European colonialists they did not perceive any ethical contradictions in their treatment of the “others” and did not judge themselves as deviating from their principles and values. This is what so many non-Europeans do not understand. When Europeans speak to their “traditional values,” it must be understood that those values mean we – the colonized and exploited non-Europeans are not recognized in our full humanity.
Is there any other way to explain the impressive solidarity among “white peoples” on Ukraine in contrast to the tragedies of Yemen, the six million dead in the Congo, Iraq – the list goes on.
That is why it was so correct for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) to call for a boycott of the Summit of the Americas by all of the states in our region. BAP argued that the U.S. had no moral or political standing to host this gathering because it has consistently demonstrated that it did not respect the principles of self-determination and national sovereignty in the region. But even more importantly, it did not respect the lives of the people of this region.
A boycott is only the minimum that should be done. However, we understand it will be difficult because we know the vindictiveness of the gringo hegemon and the lengths it will go to assert its vicious domination. In the arrogance that is typical of the colonial white supremacist mindset, the Biden White House asserts that the “summit will be successful no matter who attends.”
Yet, if Biden is sitting there by himself, no manner of will or the power to define, will avoid the obvious conclusion that the world had changed, and with that change, the balance of power away from the U.S.
And the people say – let it be done!
Polar Scientist Explains Peril of Thwaites
Ted Scambos, a polar scientist with 20 trips to Antarctica under his belt, makes a living trekking across glaciers, measuring the speed, thickness, and structure of ice. Dr. Scambos (University of Colorado/Boulder) recently penned an article: “Ice World: Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier is Under Assault From Below and Losing Its Grip”. The Conversation, June 7, 2022.
Scambos is a lead principal investigator for the Science Coordination Office of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (SCO project). How many glaciers in the world have a team of scientists dedicated to an international collaborative research effort?
Answer: Thwaites is the single most dominate factor influencing the integrity (survival) of every coastal city in the world, and it is clearly at risk.
According to Scambos: “Antarctica is a continent comprising several large islands, one of them the size of Australia, under a 10,000-foot-thick layer of ice… Its glaciers have always been in motion, but beneath the ice, changes are taking place that are having profound effects on the future of the ice sheet – and on the future of coastal communities around the world.”
Significantly, the ice sheet was “nearly in balance as recently as the 1980s,” meaning annual snowfall replaced annual ice flows. As a result, the early ice research in Antarctica involved trying to find any kind of dramatic changes but with little success.
However, within only a couple of decades in the context of thousands of years of stability, everything suddenly changed. According to Scambos: “But now, as the surrounding air and ocean warm, areas of the Antarctic ice sheet that had been stable for thousands of years are breaking, thinning, melting, or in some case collapsing in a heap. As these edges of the ice react, they send a powerful reminder: If even a small part of the ice sheet were to completely crumble into the sea, the impact for the world’s coasts would be severe.”
West Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier is the continent’s prime candidate for a major collapse. In contrast to East Antarctica’s solid core of small mountain ranges underneath the ice bed, West Antarctica was once the ocean bottom. Its ice gets warmer and moves much faster. Only 120,000 years ago it was likely an open ocean and definitely 2 million years ago. Accordingly: “This is important because our climate today is fast approaching temperatures like those of a few million years ago… The realization that the West Antarctic ice sheet was gone in the past is the cause of great concern in the global warming era.” (Scambos)
Thwaites is the “big boy” glacier of West Antarctica. It is the widest glacier on the planet at 70 miles across. At issue, recent changes on the vast continent have been sudden and fast, much faster than ever expected. As for Thwaites in particular: The height of the surface has been dropping by up to three (3) feet each year. Huge cracks are forming at the coast, and ice now flows at over a mile per year. That flow rate has doubled since 1990.
The net result is a new era of geologically rapid ice flow officially underway for the 21st century. This is not a welcomed event. Nobody knows for sure how it will play out or how soon, but the risk is unfathomably scary, punctuated by the dispiriting fact that scientists’ models that predict future climate change are almost always late to the party. This makes it nearly impossible to plan for the next catastrophe, like Thwaites glacier.
As further explained by Scambos: Under the ice the geological structure of Thwaites is “a recipe for disaster.” Until only recently, Thwaites had not measurably changed since it was first mapped in the 1940s. All of that has changed now that global warming has intervened. It’s what’s happening hidden underneath that spooks scientists: “Ocean water well above melting point is eroding the base of the ice.”
All of which impacts the entire structure. Mapping of Thwaites now exposes fractures and huge cracks along with the speed of flow all-in suggesting the monster may ‘give way’ within only a few years, which would be a horrendous step towards more rapid ice flow to the sea.
Bottom line: “West Antarctica could soon begin a multi-century decline that would add up to 10 feet to sea level. In the process, the rate of sea level would increase several fold, posing large challenges for people with a stake in coastal cities.” (Scambos)
But, when does the first foot of sea level register on shorelines? Nobody really knows for sure.
Meantime, as the world wonders aloud why and how the planet’s solidest long-standing ice sheet is ever closer to crumbling, it’s frankly disgusting and outrageous that it’s even an issue, especially considering decades of warnings by scientists about the risks of fossil fuels that spew CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, blanketing heat. Now, because of human recklessness in the face of warning after warning, an ominous horrific cycle of meltdown has already started at the worst possible location on the planet where 150-to-200 feet of water has remained frozen in time throughout all of human history… until now.
Forthwith, it’s payback time after decades of human stupidity bordering on lunacy in the face of science that has been right all along. Smart people know to adhere to the science.
Recommended reading: “How Trump Damaged Science – and Why it Could Take Decades to Recover”, Nature, October 5, 2020.
Fighting the First UK-Rwandan Refugee Flight
June 10 bore witness to a valiant effort on the part of refugee groups and a trade union to stop what promises to be the first journey of many as part of the UK-Rwanda plan. Their attempt to seek an injunction failed to convince the High Court. Next Tuesday, the first flight from the UK to Rwanda filled with asylum seekers will, unless the Court of Appeal rules otherwise, take off. Some 31 people of Iraqi and Syrian background have been told they will be on board with one-way tickets.
The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership, hammered out by the Home Secretary Priti Patel and her counterparts in Kigali, has one central purpose: to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat across the English Channel. Its genesis lies in a range of sources, none more insidious than the Australian model of offshore processing. At its core is a rejection of international refugee law and its obligations. In its place is the sentiment of convenience, callousness and cruel stinginess.
This conduct is only appealing to the insecure and the smug. In a piece by Sam Ashworth-Hayes, a former director of studies at the conservative Henry Jackson Society, we see the old nostalgic refrain that Britain is glorious, people want to travel there, but that, unfortunately, transport has become easier and cheaper in a world where refugee laws simply have not kept up. Borders needed to be firmed; regulations tightened. And praise be showered upon Rwanda, who can profit from the refugee industry and market model so maligned by Patel. The plan had to “surely rank as among the most generous development aid schemes ever devised.” Apart, of course, for those unfortunates seeking asylum.
The policy has irked a goodly number, and not just the steadfastly committed campaigners. The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, has made mutterings about it, expressing the view that the “whole approach is appalling.” Admittedly, this revelation was spilled by an anonymous source to the Daily Mail and Times. When asked for comment from Clarence House, a spokesperson said that: “We would not comment on supposed anonymous private conversations with the Prince of Wales, except to restate that he remains politically neutral. Matters of policy are decisions for the government.”
Multinationals, on even more slippery ground, have also taken issue with the policy. Ben and Jerry’s took to Twitter to stormily urge “folks” to “talk about Priti Patel’s ‘ugly’ Rwanda plan and what this means.” The dispenser of ice cream products took issue with the UK’s “plan to forcibly send people to a country thousands of miles away, simply for seeking refuge in the UK” as “cruel and morally bankrupt.”
In the High Court, various arguments by the legal team representing the charities Detention Action, Care4Calais and the PCS Union were made hoping to block the first flight scheduled to leave on June 14, calling the plan unsafe and irrational. According to the court submission from Raza Hussain, the barrister representing the three groups, Patel’s “assessment … that the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees] is giving this plan a green light is a false claim.”
Government lawyer Mathew Gullick countered the criticisms of the UK-Rwandan arrangement. They were “backward-looking” and did not genuinely take into account the way migrants were to be treated. Deterring illegal immigration was a matter of “important public interest”.
Husain’s point was confirmed by a last minute intervention from the UNHCR, which argued in its submission to the court that the UK-Rwanda scheme failed to meet the standards of “legality and appropriateness” in terms of transferring asylum seekers from one state to another. Laura Dubinsky, QC, representing the UNHCR, told the court that the agency believed there were “risks of serious irreparable harm to refugees” inherent in this “unlawful” plan. The UK Home Office has peddled “inaccuracies” in claiming that the agency endorsed the scheme.
The court document from the UNHCR revealed “serious concerns that asylum seekers transferred from the UK to Rwanda will not have access to fair and efficient procedures for the determination of refugee status, with consequent risks of refoulement.”
Refoulement, a term Patel breezily buries when considering asylum seeker claims, remains a canonical precept of refugee law outlined in Article 33 of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Contracting states have an obligation not to “expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in a manner whatsoever to the frontiers or territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
In the agency’s view, there was also a grave risk “that the burden of processing the asylum claims of new arrivals from the UK could further overstretch the capacity of the Rwanda national asylum system, thereby undermining its ability to provide protection for all those who seek asylum.”
The UNHCR was being fleet footed in avoiding any description of Kigali’s less than impressive record on refugees and human rights. In its 2022 report on Rwanda, Human Rights Watch noted the iron hand of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in stifling dissent and criticism, the detention and disappearing of opposition members and critics, the liberal use of torture, arbitrary detention and a scanty observance of the rule of law.
Disturbingly enough, Rwanda has produced its own refugees and asylum seekers, who continue being threatened, harassed and, in some instances, “forcibly disappeared and returned to Rwanda, or killed.”
None of the arguments were enough to convince Judge Jonathan Swift in his June 10 decision to reject the application to block the removal of the asylum seekers. There was a “material public interest in the Home Secretary (Priti Patel) being able to implement immigration decisions.”
Resorting to that ancient method of reasoning when faced with a tight conundrum, Judge Swift could only dismiss the concerns voiced by the applicants as insignificant or lying “in the realms of speculation”. In their submission to the Court of Appeal, and in the fuller judicial review of the plan to take place later in the month, the appellants have much to prove otherwise.
What do you REALLY know about student loan forgiveness?
(As always, most news is fake news)
The debate [sic] related to student loan forgiveness is almost always based on media lies and carved-in-stone ideological identities. For example, if you see yourself as left or liberal, you salivate each time Bernie Sanders evokes the specter of 100 percent forgiveness. Conservatives reflexively grumble about “big government” and/or “work ethic” without doing any real investigation.
Hey, who needs facts when we have our [sic] manufactured opinions?
As is my style, I’m here to fill in a few of the blanks. Once again, the goal is not to change your mind. I’m just trying to increase the likelihood of having discussions founded on accuracy.
How Big is the Problem?
Never would I downplay the holistic stress of being in debt. I get it. But, for this specific issue: 18 percent of borrowers owe less than $5,000 in student loan debt. Only 6 percent of those with student debt owe more than $100,000. They make up one-third of the outstanding $1.5 trillion of debt.
It’s a problem, sure, but what about all those with medical debt or mortgages or credit card debt accrued due to the conscious destruction of our economy over the past two years?
For context:
- Student debt has risen in the U.S. for two main reasons: more people attend college now than ever before and college tuition has increased by 169 percent since 1980. As a result, about 14 percent of all American adults report they have outstanding undergraduate student debt.
- Although the total is much lower than student debt, roughly 50 percent of Americans carry medical debt
- 43 million U.S. borrowers owe nearly $1.6 trillion altogether in federal student loans
- The total home mortgage debt is about (wait for it) $10 trillion
Who decides which issues make headlines and which issues get buried by algorithms? .
Who Pays For This Gesture?
Fourteen percent of Americans carry student loan debt. Then there’s the top 5 percent that pays ZERO taxes. That leaves about 80 percent of Americans to foot the bill while also trying to manage their finances and do more than “just get by.”
Translation: Lower- and middle-class taxpayers will bear the brunt of the student loan forgiveness stunt. Sure, it’s better than paying taxes to fund arms shipments to Neo-Nazi transhumanists in Ukraine but we don’t get to make that choice. Plus, why should we be forced to pay for either?
Side note: People who have already paid off their student debt would now be helping to pay off the student debt of others who didn’t. Where’s the “social justice” in that?
Who Does It Help?
The yearly median income of households with student loans is $76,400. Remind me: Why is this the issue that “progressives” swoon over?
Food stamps serve households with a median income of about $19,000 a year. Half of the recipients live below the poverty but the government only provides $2,300 annually for the average household.
Even if student debt forgiveness was capped at $50,000, that would send an average of $26,000 to eligible households. Meanwhile, families on food stamps would need 11 years to receive that much support. Where’s the #woke crowd on this issue?
Another group that will be helped by student loan forgiveness is colleges and universities. They can raise tuition even more now because they know the taxpayers will assume the financial burden through higher taxes. You might even call it the Academic-Industrial Complex.
This dynamic will result in fewer students being able to go to college in the future and if they try, the debt burden returns so the cycle can start again.
Why Does This Make No Sense?
It made no sense when mom-and-pop stores were shuttered while Target and Wal-Mart stayed open in 2020. It made no sense when you had to wear a mask to enter a restaurant but could take it off once you sat down.
I could go on but remember: It all makes sense to the powers that (shouldn’t) be. Everything being pushed on us is another step toward the Great Reset and other World Economic Forum goals.
In a nutshell: Their goal is to forgive all debt (especially their own, of course) and force us into a digital, cashless, social credit society in which we “own nothing” but “will be happy.”
So, please stop delegating all your energy to media-generated “debates” like student debt, guns, abortion, etc. Use some of that time to instead focus on self-education. Then, armed with knowledge, connect with others who are also dedicated to stopping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
But if you really, really can’t stop yourself from posting about how you do or don’t support student loan forgiveness, can you please at least do a little homework to understand the damn issue? (Scroll up and re-read, for starters.)
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