IAEA board passes resolution calling on Russia to leave Zaporizhzhia

By REUTERS - Yesterday 

The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors on Thursday passed a resolution demanding that Russia end its occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, diplomats at the closed-door meeting said.

The resolution is the second on Russia's invasion of Ukraine passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors, and their content is very similar, though the first resolution in March preceded Russian forces taking control of Zaporizhzhia, Europe's biggest nuclear power plant.

Both resolutions were proposed by Canada and Poland on behalf of Ukraine, which is not on the board, the IAEA's top policy-making body that meets more than once a year.

The text, which says the board calls on Russia to "immediately cease all actions against, and at, the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant and any other nuclear facility in Ukraine", was passed with 26 votes in favor, two against and seven abstentions, the diplomats said.

Russia and China were the countries that voted against while Egypt, South Africa, Senegal, Burundi, Vietnam, India and Pakistan abstained, they added.

The board "deplores the Russian Federation's persistent violent actions against nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including the ongoing presence of Russian forces and (Russian nuclear body) Rosatom personnel at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant," the resolution's text reads.

Both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the plant.

Russia's mission to the IAEA said "the Achilles' heel of this resolution" was that it said nothing about the systematic shelling of the plant.

"The reason is simple - this shelling is carried out by Ukraine, which is supported and shielded by Western countries in every possible way," it said in a statement.

The resolution adds that Russia's occupation of the plant significantly increases the risk of a nuclear accident. Ukrainian staff continue to operate the plant in conditions that the IAEA has described as endangering the site's safety.

"This Board took up the issue in March and adopted a resolution that deplored Russia's violent actions and called upon Russia to immediately cease all actions against and at nuclear facilities in Ukraine and return control of them to the competent Ukrainian authorities," the US statement to the board said.

"The very next day, Russia spurned that call by seizing the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Russia is treating Ukraine's civilian infrastructure as a military prize, seeking to deprive Ukraine of control over its own energy resources and to use the plant as a base for military action against Ukraine," it added.

India Overtakes UK to Become Fifth Biggest Economy

Statista - Yesterday

Just a decade ago, Indian GDP was the eleventh largest in the world. Now, with 7 percent growth forecast for 2022, India's economy has overtaken the United Kingdom's in terms of size, making it the fifth biggest. That's according to the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund.

India's growth is accompanied by a period of rapid inflation in the UK, creating a cost of living crisis and the risk of a recession which the Bank of England predicts could last into 2024. This situation, coupled with a turbulent political period and the continued hangover of Brexit, led to Indian output overtaking that of the UK in the final quarter of 2021, with the first of 2022 offering no change in the ranking.

Looking ahead, the IMF forecasts this to become the new status quo, with India expected to leap further ahead of the UK up to 2027 - making India the fourth largest economy by that time, too, and leaving the UK behind in sixth.

This chart shows the GDP of India and the United Kingdom from 1980 to 2027.

gdp of india and united kingdom© Provided by Statista

SA Parliament names panel to probe Ramaphosa over farm scandal

Yesterday 

South Africa’s Parliament has appointed an independent panel to determine whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should face impeachment over the alleged cover-up of a heist at his luxury farmhouse.


South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa - then deputy president - arrives to attend the Stud Game Breeders auction at Mbizi Lodge outside Bela-Bela on September 6, 2014 wearing a cap customised for his Phala Phala game farm [File: Stefan Heunis/AFP]© Provided by Al Jazeera

National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula named the panel in a statement overnight Wednesday, according to local news outlet News24.

The three-man panel is headed by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo and includes a former High Court judge and a university professor. It will have 30 days to report its findings.

To remove a president requires a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly and that could be a tall order as Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party commands more than two-thirds of the seats.

But there has recently been division within the ANC’s ranks as some party members joined an anti-Ramaphosa rally in July, to demand his removal.

In June, legislators from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a leading opposition party, heckled the president as he delivered a speech in Parliament.

A small opposition party, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), set down the motion that led to the creation of the panel in Parliament on Wednesday.

The scandal around Ramaphosa erupted in June after South Africa’s former national spy boss, Arthur Fraser, filed a complaint with the police.

He alleged that robbers broke into the president’s farm in the northeast of the country, where they stole $4m in cash stashed in furniture.

Ramaphosa hid the robbery from the authorities and instead organised for the robbers to be kidnapped, questioned and then bribed into silence, Fraser said.

The president is also alleged to have enlisted the assistance of his Namibian counterpart, Hage Geingob, in apprehending one of the suspects who was a Namibian national and fled back home.

Ramaphosa has acknowledged a burglary but denies the accusations of kidnapping and bribery, saying he reported the break-in to the police.

He has also disputed the amount of money involved and said the cash came from legitimate sales of game from his animal-breeding farm.

In June, Ramaphosa suspended the country’s anti-corruption ombudswoman a day after she launched an investigation into the burglary. The public protector’s office had said it would invoke subpoena powers to get answers from the president.

Last week, the High Court dismissed the suspension, saying the “hurried nature” of the move “may have been retaliatory”.

Pressure has been piling on Ramaphosa in the run-up to an ANC conference in December where he is expected to seek re-election

In Hong Kong, mourning the Queen has another purpose: defying China

Kathleen Magramo - Yesterday

Thousands of people in Hong Kong have turned out to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II, in one of the largest public gatherings since China clamped down on shows of political dissent in the former British colony more than two years ago.

Crowds of more than 2,500 people of varying ages lined up for hours outside the British consulate Monday, enduring sweltering temperatures of 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit), to leave flowers, framed photographs and messages thanking the “boss lady” or “lady in charge” – as she was often known in Cantonese during the colonial years.

For some of them, this was not only a matter of mourning a monarch who had ruled over the city for 45 years, but a subtle form of protest at how China has tightened its grip on a once free-wheeling and boisterous city that critics contest has seen its civil liberties steadily eroded since the British handed sovereignty to Beijing 25 years ago.

Public gatherings have been rare since China imposed a national security law in June 2020 in an attempt to extinguish the increasingly forceful pro-democracy protests that had been rocking the city since 2019. That clampdown, together with coronavirus restrictions that critics claim are sometimes co-opted for political purposes have effectively silenced most overt forms of mass gathering or public dissent.


Mourners placed colonial flags and images of the Queen outside the British consulate in Hong Kong on September 12, 2022.

- Tyrone Siu/Reuters

But in celebrating the monarchy and its symbols, some Hong Kongers see an opportunity for a veiled dig at both the Chinese Communist Party, which has made no secret of its eagerness for Hong Kongers to forget the era, and local authorities who recently introduced school books that claim the city was never even a colony to begin with. The books instead refer to the period of British rule as a “forcible occupation.”

A retiree named Wing, who spoke to CNN outside the consulate on Monday but declined to give his full name, said it was “incredible” to be part of a mass gathering again.

“I feel angry that the Hong Kong government is not showing any respect properly (to the Queen). They’re scared of the Chinese government telling them off, but we were part of the colony,” said Wing, who was born in the 1960s.

Another, Sylvia Lee said she was saddened to hear of the Queen’s death, saying that she was a symbol of stability across the world.

“No one lives forever and we knew this day would come someday. She was a respected figure, and the government during the colonial period made many contributions to Hong Kong’s development, especially in the 70s and 80s,” Lee told CNN, referring to a period when governors appointed to the city built up its public housing and transport infrastructure.

A symbol of protest - and a complicated past

On the surface, mourning the Queen might not seem confrontational – especially given both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee (a former police officer who started his career with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in 1977) have sent their condolences” to the United Kingdom.

Related video: Hong Kong Consulate Sees Huge Lines Of People Paying Respects To The Queen

Duration 0:26  View on Watch

But the displays of affection are also a reminder of the city’s pro-democracy protests, during which demonstrators adopted the colonial flag as a sign of resistance to Chinese one-party rule.

At the height of the 2019 protests, anti-government demonstrators broke into the city’s legislative chamber, defacing it with graffiti calling for universal suffrage while hanging the colonial flag on the council president’s seat.

The sensitivities surrounding the city’s colonial era were highlighted on Thursday, when the Cantonese opera star Law Kar-ying apologized for leaving flowers outside the consulate, retracting a post on his Instagram page that had said he wanted to pay respects to the Queen because Hong Kong was a “blessed land” under her reign. Law said his words were “ill-thought” and asked people not to “over interpret” them.

“I am a long-time holder of a Chinese passport, which speaks for itself. I am Chinese and I will always love my motherland. I am sorry,” he said on the Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo.

It was not clear what prompted Law to issue the apology.

Britain’s ties to Hong Kong stretch back to the 19th century, when the empire’s desire to force opium on China – both in trade and through its population’s addiction to the illicit drug– resulted in two wars that forced China to cede land to the British.

Britain ruled Hong Kong for 156 years until it was handed back to China in 1997 as part of a longstanding agreement, but signs of British influence remain in the city’s English street names and use of the common law system.

Queen Elizabeth herself visited Hong Kong twice while the city was a British territory, while her son, now King Charles III, attended the handover ceremony.

Still, the city’s colonial past was far from peaceful nor was it without its critics. Riots broke out in the 1960s, when what started as protests against increases in ferry fares and demands for better labor rights spiraled into rampant strikes and bomb attacks that at times brought the city to a standstill.

Over 2,500 people lined up to offer condolences to Queen Elizabeth II

 outside the British consulate in Hong Kong on September 12, 2022.

- Jan Camenzind Broomby/ CNN

In the wake of the protests, the British colonial government introduced a series of welfare reforms, including public housing programs and compulsory free education.

But critics of the colonial era point out that even under British rule Hong Kongers did not have universal suffrage. And many felt London neglected its duty by failing to grant British citizenship to Hong Kongers at the time of the handover, instead offering most a limited passport that did not give them the right to live and work in Britain. Since the introduction of the national security law, Britain has created what it calls a path to citizenship via a new type of visa.

“It was (the Queen’s) empire that, in 1997, handed us over to China against our wishes,” said Jeffrey Ngo, a Washington-based activist who was born during the last few years of colonial Hong Kong.

Ngo said he was too young to remember life under British rule but said older generations of Hong Kongers look back on Queen Elizabeth II’s reign – especially her 1975 and 1986 visits – with tremendous fondness “because they associate that with a freer, simpler, happier bygone era.”

“The feeling is understandable, given that the intuitive point of comparison is Hong Kong under Chinese rule. I respect their lived experience, albeit it’s not something I share. For me, the monarchy’s wealth and prestige are impossible to disentangle from the empire’s violence and expansionism,” he said.

Ngo said the draconian laws being used by Beijing to prosecute pro-democracy activists today – such as colonial era legislation on sedition – were reminders that there was a darker side to Britain’s legacy too.

CNN’s Jan Camenzind Broomby contributed reporting.

Hong Kong actor apologises for praising British queen

AFP - Yesterday 

A veteran Hong Kong opera star apologised and declared his patriotism on Thursday after his praise for Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II sparked a backlash among nationalists in China.

Hong Kongers have queued for hours outside of Britain's consulate this week

© Peter PARKS

Thousands of Hong Kong residents have queued up outside the city's British consulate this week to sign a condolence book for the late monarch who died after 70 years on the throne.

Among the mourners was Law Kar-ying, a heavyweight of the Cantonese opera scene, who published a selfie on Instagram from the queue and a message that read: "Hong Kong was a blessed land during her reign."

Instagram is banned in mainland China but Law's post went viral on other social media sites, sparking anger and criticism among nationalists.

On Thursday, Law took to China's Twitter-like platform Weibo to post a video apologising for "making remarks of mourning without thinking them through".

"My original intention was to express condolences for a late elderly woman and I would like to appeal to everyone not to overly interpret what I said," the 75-year-old said in Mandarin Chinese.

"I can't possibly forget my origin and ancestry. That I have been keeping a Chinese passport says it all, I am Chinese and I love my motherland forever. I am sorry," he added.

Related video: Hong Kong Consulate Sees Huge Lines Of People Paying Respects To The Queen

Duration 0:26 View on Watch

His original Instagram post was deleted.

Hong Kong was a British colony for over 150 years and while the financial hub was returned to China in 1997, the past is engraved into its landscape, from street names and the ubiquity of English to the common law legal system.

While other former colonies have seen more muted reactions to Elizabeth II's death, about 6,700 Hong Kong residents, including some government officials, have signed the consulate's condolence book so far.

Queues have snaked through the business district and taken up to four hours.

Many mourners have expressed nostalgia for the city's colonial past at a time when China is seeking to purge dissent following huge democracy protests three years ago.

Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper which answers to Beijing's local Liaison Office, ran a commentary on Tuesday accusing "anti-Chinese elements and anti-China media" of "whitewashing colonial rule" by encouraging mourning of Elizabeth II.

Nationalism has surged under President Xi Jinping, China's most assertive and authoritarian leader in a generation.

Celebrities and businesses can find themselves facing huge consumer backlashes for any perceived slight to China or suggestion of disloyalty.

Many of the commenters underneath Law's Weibo video were not convinced by his apology.

Some told him to "learn from his wife" Liza Wang, a veteran actress who was a Hong Kong delegate to China's top political advisory body for two decades.

su/jta/axn

Russia's harsh purge against alleged 'Nazis' in occupied Ukraine follows Soviet playbook for rooting out real Nazis from Germany after WWII

Mikkel Dack, Assistant Professor of History, 

Rowan University - Yesterday 

THE CONVERSATION

Even as the Ukrainian military in September 2022 retook some territory lost to the Russian invasion, Moscow has been quietly fortifying the land it holds, which it intends to keep. Russian forces still control about 20% of Ukraine, and the Kremlin states it is not prepared to stop fighting.


Ukrainian advances have retaken some territory from Russia, but much is still under foreign control.© AP Photo/Kostiantyn Liberov

The approach President Vladimir Putin has taken – and looks likely to continue to pursue – is in keeping with his false claims that he is “denazifying” Ukraine. In fact, as a scholar of denazification, the current Russian plans are strikingly similar to those the Soviet Union used during its military occupation of Germany after World War II.

Russia conducted a smaller-scale version of the expected political and cultural purge after invading Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, immediately staging a rigged election that appeared to ask Russia to annex the region. A recently published report by government-run media outlet RIA Novosti lays out a similar plan for the rest of its Ukraine occupation.

Russia is following a Soviet-created playbook, and Moscow is likely to attempt to annex large swaths of eastern Ukraine, including most of the Donbas, and also install pro-Russian proxy officials in regions to the south.



After surrendering at a Mariupol steel plant in May 2022,

 Ukrainian soldiers sit on a bus awaiting transportation.

© AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov

Soviet occupation and denazification

After Germany fell in 1945, the four allied powers – the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union – divided and occupied the country’s territory and sought to drive out Nazis from power and influence. The Soviets controlled the northeastern quadrant of the country, which later became East Germany.

The Soviet denazification program was the most sweeping. Tens of thousands of German civilians were arrested and interned for their Nazi affiliations, some in “special camps,” where one-third of detainees died from starvation or disease. These were added to the 3 million German prisoners of war already held by Russian forces, many of whom were not released until 10 years after the war’s end.

Many more German citizens were subject to mass screening for employment. Upwards of 500,000 public and private workers – teachers, doctors, police officers, artists, managers – were summarily fired because of their membership in Nazi groups. Government officials at all levels were removed and replaced by trusted “anti-fascists,” many of them trained in Moscow. Around 850,000 Germans were convicted of political transgressions under so-called purification laws and made to face tribunals. Some lost their jobs, while others were imprisoned.

The military government seized private bank accounts and the assets of small-business owners, and industrial equipment was sent to the Soviet Union as economic recompense for the war. All the while, Russian soldiers terrorized the occupied population, including raping as many as 2 million German women.

In 1946, the Soviets launched a number of political reorientation projects. They established a nationwide “anti-fascist” school system, dismissed thousands of teachers, rewrote history textbooks to promote German-Soviet friendship, and forced German children to join political youth groups. Pro-Soviet monuments were erected in every town.

As the occupation dragged on into the late 1940s, the Russians permitted former Nazis to reapply for their jobs, as long as they joined the ruling communist party and accepted the authority of the Soviet forces. Thousands of Germans did so, as this was the only path to financial recovery.

Related video: Ukrainians find 'new normal' after six months of war

Garrett Platoff has been deejaying for hours in the daytime

Duration 2:54   View on Watch

By 1949, Moscow had completed its takeover of eastern German political and economic systems. Rigged elections led to the installation of a puppet dictatorship. Despite some major failings along the way, denazification proved an effective instrument of political control – East Germany remained the Soviet Union’s strongest ally throughout the Cold War.

Denazification by the American, British and French occupiers was similarly comprehensive, but more democratic in its nature and its methods. West German political and social institutions were ultimately granted autonomy and sovereignty.


In Germany after World War II, Soviet forces registered 

German citizens, arresting many of them.

© Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Russian ‘de-Ukrainianization’ campaign

An April 2022 report in Russian government-run media commemorated the Soviet purge in Germany, while also propagating a new definition of Nazism. According to the report, the modern Nazi is anyone who self-identifies as Ukrainian or who supports Ukrainian sovereignty. It also laid out a detailed plan for the systematic elimination of what it called Ukro-Nazism, which closely resembles the Soviet denazification effort 75 years ago.

Some of the initial steps include the creation of Russian-backed government administrations and police forces and the mass arrest of “Nazi collaborators.” There are also strict censorship laws and re-education programs, as well as investigations of individuals allegedly spreading Nazi ideology. Other measures include the establishment of memorials and monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism and the creation of permanent denazification bodies for a period of 25 years to investigate suspected Nazi activities.

The campaign is already underway. There are confirmed reports of Russian military authorities staging political show trials and carrying out mass deportations and job dismissals. Russian officials are also taking control of internet access, revising school textbooks and appointing Russian teachers, and deliberately destroying Ukrainian culture.

Each of these actions is part of a larger strategy to eliminate Ukrainian identity.


A group of Ukrainians take an oath of Russian citizenship before a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Melitopol, in southern Ukraine.

 This photo was taken during a trip organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

© AP Photo
The long occupation

In Russian-controlled territories, Putin appears to be following the playbook of the past. As that continues, we can expect an increase in political rhetoric and the further adoption of occupation tactics used in the past. Moscow has not only declared its intent to follow the Soviet playbook, but also demonstrated it, first in Crimea in 2014, and now in eastern and southern Ukraine.

A pattern has emerged, with predictable next steps. Using history as our guide, we can expect that additional security control measures will be taken, such as strict censorship and the disarming and incarceration of civilians. That will likely be followed by political and bureaucratic realignment – mass dismissals and appointments, police reforms and banning of political and social organizations.

And then will come social orientation projects – destruction of Ukrainian culture, historical revisionism in schools and museums and pro-Russian indoctrination of youth. All the while, Ukrainians will endure military-style terror and political tribunals.

The Russian state media will continue to label Ukrainian soldiers and civilians as dangerous Nazis to defend draconian policies and downplay atrocities. Manufactured evidence of Nazi infiltration will be paraded in front of domestic audiences in Russia to justify a costly war.

Guided by a revered historical precedent, Putin’s war against Nazism can be expected to gain more attention as the Russian occupation regime strengthens its foothold in the Ukraine territory it still holds.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Manifesto published in Russian media reflects Putin regime’s ruthless plans in Ukraine
Decrying Nazism – even when it’s not there – has been Russia’s ‘Invade country for free’ card

Egyptian researchers uncover 2,600-year-old cheese at ancient necropolis

The cheese was found during excavations at the Saqqara necropolis.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Published: SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Montgomery's cheddar cheese

Egyptian archaeologists uncovered blocks of white cheese that are over 2,600 years old, dating back to 664-525 BCE, Egypt's National News reported on Monday.

The report cited the Egyptian antiquities ministry as saying that the archaeological mission found several clay receptacles containing the cheese decorated with Demotic script, an ancient Egyptian writing form.

The mission also found other containers that are set to be opened soon.

PATRIARCHY IS MISOGYNY

Iranian woman in coma after morality police arrest: activists

AFP - Yesterday 

A young Iranian woman is in a coma and fighting for her life after being arrested in Tehran by the Islamic republic's morality police, campaigners said Thursday.


The Islamic hijab has been compulsory for women in Iran since 

shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution

© ATTA KENARE

The woman, named as Mahsa Amini, 22, was on a visit to the Iranian capital with her family when she was detained by the special police unit that enforces the strict dress rules for women, including the compulsory headscarf.

Her brother Kiaresh told the Iran Wire news website that while he was waiting outside the police station for her to be released an ambulance drove out taking her to hospital.

He was told that she had had a heart attack and a brain seizure and was now in a coma.

"There were only two hours between her arrest and being taken to hospital," he said.

Vowing to file a criminal complaint he added: "I have nothing to lose. I will not let this end without making a noise."

A statement by the Tehran police confirmed she had been detained for "explanation and instruction" about the dress rules, along with other women.

"She suddenly suffered a heart problem while in the company of other guided people (and)... was immediately taken to the hospital with the cooperation of police and emergency services."

It is not yet clear what happened between her arriving at the police station and her departure for hospital.

- 'Sickening' -

The 1500tasvir social media channel, which chronicles rights violations by the Iranian police, posted a picture of her in hospital with a tube in her mouth and said she was in a coma.

"Sickening," the Iranian-British actress and campaigner Nazanin Boniadi wrote on Twitter. "How many innocent young lives must be brutally robbed before we all rise?"

"Mahsa Amini's situation is an example of an intentional crime," the Iranian freedom of expression campaigner Hossein Ronaghi wrote on social media.

"The systematic suppression of Iranian women under the pretext of enforcing the hijab by the guidance patrol and the police force is a crime."

The incident comes as controversy grows -- both inside and outside Iran -- over the conduct of the gasht-e ershad (guidance patrol) who monitor and enforce the dress code in Iran.

The Islamic hijab has been compulsory for women in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.

Some women, encouraged by the US-based campaigner Masih Alinejad, have sought to protest the rule by removing their hijabs in public.

In mid-July, a young Iranian woman, Sepideh Rashno, disappeared in mid-July after becoming involved with a dispute on a Tehran bus with another woman who accused her of removing her headscarf.

She was held by the Revolutionary Guards and appeared on TV in what activists said was a forced confession.

She was released on bail in late August after about one and a half months behind bars.

sjw/jh/jj

Will Uber Eats Crack Down on U.S. Undocumented Migrants After French Purge?

Fatma Khaled - Yesterday 

This week, UberEats cracked down on undocumented delivery workers in France in a company effort to combat fraud by disconnecting the accounts of those with false IDs, raising questions about whether something similar might happen in the United States.


Pictured above, an Uber Eats delivery man rides a moped in Paris on March 22, 2020, as a strict lockdown is in effect to limit the spread of the COVID-19 caused by novel coronavirus in the country prohibiting all but essential outings.

© Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

When asked whether UberEats will look to remove the accounts of the company's undocumented workers in the United States, a spokesperson for the food-delivery platform told Newsweek on Thursday that the purge of accounts in France was part of fighting fraud and illegal account sharing as per a request by the French government.

What To Know As UberEats Purges Accounts Of Undocumented French Workers

View on Watch   Duration 0:40

Hundreds of undocumented UberEats workers protested on Monday in Paris against the crackdown, chanting "justice for couriers" and "documents for UberEats" after the company deactivated accounts that belonged to its workers, Wired reported.

UberEats deactivated the accounts of dozens of delivery workers in France earlier this summer, according to Jérôme Pimot, president of the Collective of Platform Couriers (CLAP), the union that organized the workers' protest in Paris.

The union president added that UberEats later announced that it had deleted 2,500 accounts, an action that Pimot described as "a massacre."

Protesters accused the company of taking advantage of undocumented workers and letting them go as demand increased and decreased. Undocumented workers found it easy to apply to work on the platform during the pandemic when demand for food deliveries were spiking as many were under lockdown.

However, delivery demand is now expected to continue to slide as consumers scale back on their spending amid high inflation, according to analysts, Reuters reported last month.

"Investors have written off food delivery as the next shoe to drop as consumers tighten up their wallets," Bernstein analyst Nikhil Devnani said, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, UberEats' latest financial results revealed that monthly users, basket size, and order frequency increased only between 1 and 3 percent over the three months leading to June, compared to last year.

"As part of our commitment to fight document fraud and illegal work, we conducted a thorough audit of Uber Eats courier accounts in France. We identified fraudulent uses of our application and have taken action by deactivating these accounts while setting up an appeal procedure for couriers who want their case to be re-examined," an UberEats spokesperson told Newsweek in an emailed statement. "We are determined to fight illegal work and open to discussion with all relevant stakeholders whom we have kept informed of our actions."

An external company specializing in document authentication audited 60,000 UberEats delivery workers in France and found that 4 percent of those accounts were either fraudulent or were linked to multiple courier accounts, according to Wired.

It is common for undocumented workers in France to use a work permit and documents that belonged to someone else to apply for jobs in the country and work under an alias.

"Every restaurant owner in Paris has someone working under an alias," Jean Ganizate, the cofounder of the Melt restaurant group, told Le Monde in June.

Many delivery workers who had their UberEats accounts deactivated had Italian ID cards which can't be used outside Italy, but the company in 2018 allowed workers to use this card to create an account, the president of the Independents Union, Thomas Aonzo, told Wired.

Newsweek has reached out to the White House and Uber for comment and additional information.

HINDUTVA IS RACISM, CASTISM, SEXISM
Bodies of teenage Dalit sisters found hanging from tree in India

Rifat Fareed - Yesterday 

There is uproar in India after the bodies of two sisters belonging to the marginalised Dalit community were found hanging from a tree in the northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Police suspect the two girls, aged 15 and 17, were gang raped and murdered in the Lakhimpur Kheri district. Six accused men have been arrested, they said.

Sanjeev Suman, the police chief in Lakhimpur Kheri, told reporters the two minors, residents of Tamoli Purva village in the district, were lured to a nearby field on Wednesday afternoon and allegedly raped by the accused.

“The men allegedly strangulated them with their scarf and hung them from a tree. The investigation is on,” he said.

Police identified the six accused as Chhotu, Junaid, Sohail, Hafizul, Karimuddin, and Arif. They said Chhotu is the victims’ neighbour and had introduced the two sisters to the rest of the men a few days ago.

Dalits, formerly referred to as the “untouchables”, fall at the bottom of India’s complex caste system. For centuries, they have been victims of discrimination and persecution by privileged caste groups despite laws in place for their protection.

Ram Gautam, the uncle of the girls and a construction worker in Lakhimpur Kheri, said the family is waiting for a postmortem report.

“We are shocked. The younger one was a high school student and the older one was a school dropout,” he told Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, the residents of Tamoli Purva village blocked roads in protest against the gang rape and killing of the two Dalit sisters.

Uttar Pradesh is considered one of the most unsafe Indian states for women. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that crimes against women in India’s most populous state increased by 15 percent in 2021 compared with the previous year.

The NCRB data also shows that there was a 45 percent increase in reported rapes of Dalit women between 2015 and 2020 in India.

In 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district. The incident sparked weeks of protests and outrage after the police were accused of forcibly burning the victim’s body in the dead of the night. A Muslim journalist on his way to report the crime was arrested.

In October last year, a similar incident was reported in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha district where a teenage rape survivor was murdered by the accused neighbour and her body hung on a tree. In the same state’s Badaun district in 2014, the bodies of two cousins were found hanging from a tree.


Women from various organisations protest in New Delhi against the alleged gang rape of a Dalit teenager in Uttar Pradesh state [

File: Money Sharma/AFP]© Provided by Al Jazeera

Opposition leaders and activists are demanding answers from the state government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also heads the federal government.

Senior Congress Party leader Priyanka Gandhi said the Lakhimpur Kheri incident was “heart-wrenching”.

“The relatives say that those girls were abducted in broad daylight. Giving false advertisements in newspapers and TV every day does not improve law and order. After all, why are heinous crimes against women increasing in Uttar Pradesh?” she asked in a tweet.

In response, Himanshu Dubey, the media incharge of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, told Al Jazeera there is “zero tolerance for crimes” in the state.

“The criminals have been nabbed. In Uttar Pradesh, no matter who the people are behind a crime, the government is tough against them,” he said.

New Delhi-based feminist and activist Kavita Krishnan said Uttar Pradesh since 2017 is being ruled by an “aggressive Hindu supremacist ruler whose rule has emboldened criminals, especially those who indulge in violence against oppressed caste, women and minorities”.

The state is ruled by the BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-clad Hindu monk known for his anti-Muslim hate speech and policies.

“Generally, it (state) has great lawlessness because he (chief minister) is someone who has made no secret of his contempt for the idea of respect for women’s rights and women’s equality,” Krishnan told Al Jazeera.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

The Caribbean People Who Were On Slave Ships But Never Enslaved

Stephen Nartey - Yesterday 

The Garifuna people, descendants of Carib, Arawak and West Africa have always fought for their place, cultural identity and heritage since the 1800s against colonial rule and discrimination.

They fought to survive when the slave ship transporting them got wrecked at sea. When they settled at St. Vincent in the Caribbean, they faced persecution and were eventually drove away by the British forces, but, they prevailed. They even pushed forcefully to have their culture accepted at their present settlement in Belize.

The Garifuna people had to stand up for themselves in Belize because even though they were accepted in the country, they were discriminated against by the indigenous settlers.

The formal language of communication among the Garifuna, which comes from the Arawak and Carib, were banned in basic schools and their religious practices were frowned by the local churches.

Tenacity and resilience is the character of the Garifuna people. When the Catholics discriminated against them, they socialized some catholic faithful in their religion and it survived. When they were barred from joining indigenous cities in the Caribbean, they created their own communities. When the school system discriminated against them, they trained their own to be teachers, lawyers and doctors to superintend over the system and controlled policies governing it.

H Gilbert Swaso, former mayor of Dangriga, told the BBC the Garifuna have mastered the act of being receptive to harsh circumstances and turning it into their advantage to survive without sacrificing their culture.

It is reminiscent of their journey to Belize in 1832 where they travelled from St. Vincent in the Caribbean after they were drove away three times by the British government before finally settling in Belize.

In 1660, they were settled in the Caribbean Island of St. Vincent after a British peace treaty granted them stay. But, a decade on, the British government broke the agreement and reclaimed the Island, not until military expedition that drove them away.

They suffered another revolt in Honduras in 1821 and they migrated once again until settling at Belize in 1832.

The former mayor said they requested to settle in Belize and were turned away three times. The Garifuna community rather grown on the fringes of the South and have now become a force to reckon with.

Oral tradition has it that the Garifuna people were involved in two ship wrecks in 1635 while on their way from the New World’s slave markets. That’s how they gained their freedom.

The enslaved who survived the storms of the oceans and swam to safety to the Caribbean island of St. Vincent were warmly received by the Carib and Arawak.

Each year, the Garifuna people commemorate this day by holding Garifuna Settlement Day on November 19.

They start the ceremony by re-enacting the boat landing, enjoy music, food and dance while making merry. It is a national holiday where unique cultural heritage is displayed.

Gilbert said the people Garifuna take pride in the history that they were never colonized or enslaved.

He said the national holiday is important because that is when they exhibit their food which is different from the rest of Belize. The uniqueness of the food lies in its simplicity and respect for nature.

According to him, the Garifuna food is organic and clean. He said Garifuna eat ingredients such as ripe and green plantains that are boiled and then beaten and then mixed together. They use coconut in making gravy which is spiced with basil, oregano and okra.