INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRIES
Tokyo Protests to Beijing Over East China Sea Construction

May 21, 2022 
Agence France-Presse

This handout released on May 21, 2022, from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs taken on June 2014 shows a platform for gas extraction in disputed waters in the China East Sea.

TOKYO —

Japan has lodged an official protest with China after discovering what it claimed were efforts by Beijing to develop gas fields in disputed waters in the East China Sea.

Tokyo's foreign ministry said Friday it had confirmed that Beijing was building in the area -- where the two countries' exclusive economic zones (EEZ) overlap -- and submitted a complaint to the Chinese Embassy.

Japan "strongly urged an early resumption of negotiations over the implementation" of a 2008 bilateral agreement regarding the development of resources in the East China Sea, it added.

That agreement saw Japan and China agree to jointly develop undersea gas reserves in the disputed area, with a ban on independent drilling by either country.

But negotiations over how to implement the deal were suspended in 2010.

"It's extremely regrettable that the Chinese side is unilaterally proceeding with development in the waters," the ministry said.

"The borders of the economic exclusive zones and the continental shelf are yet to be settled in the East China Sea," it added.

Japan has long insisted the median line between the two nations should mark the limits of their respective EEZs.

But China insists the border should be drawn closer to Japan, taking into account the continental shelf and other features of the ocean.

Tokyo has accused China of positioning 17 suspected drilling rigs close to its de facto maritime border with Japan.

The rigs are on China's side of the border, but Tokyo fears gas on the Japanese side can also be extracted.

The two countries are embroiled in a separate row over disputed islands elsewhere in the East China Sea.

China claims the string of islands -- which Japan refers to as the Senkakus -- as its own, and regularly sends ships and aircraft into the area to test Tokyo's response times.

China also has disputes with several other nations in the South China Sea, which it claims in its entirety.

Sicily judge to weigh trial of migrant rescue NGOs

ByAFP
Published May 21, 2022

The charities are accused of coordinating their actions with smugglers just off Libya - 

Charities running migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean face a pre-trial hearing in Sicily Saturday over alleged collusion with people traffickers after a controversial probe that involved mass wiretapping.

Twenty-one suspects, including crew members of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and German NGO Jugend Rettet rescue ships, are accused of “aiding and abetting unauthorised entry into Italy” in 2016 and 2017.

“Our crews rescued over 14,000 people in distress from unseaworthy and overcrowded boats… and are now facing 20 years in prison,” Kathrin Schmidt, who sailed with Jugend Rettet’s ship Iuventa, said ahead of the hearing.

Trapani judge Samuele Corso must rule whether or not to proceed to trial after a five-year investigation mired in controversy for the mass wiretapping of charity workers, lawyers and journalists in what critics say is a politically-motivated bid to stop sea rescues.

Italy has long been on the front line of seaborne migration from Africa to Europe, with a record 180,000 arrivals in 2016, dropping to 120,000 in 2017.

It has registered some 17,000 arrivals so far this year, according to the interior ministry.

Prosecutor Brunella Sardoni told AFP she expected the preliminary hearings process to last “several months, considering the complexity” of a case file with some 30,000 pages and hundreds of CDs.

The charities are accused of coordinating their actions with smugglers just off Libya, returning inflatable dinghies and boats to them to be reused, and picking up people whose lives had not been in danger.

– ‘World’s deadliest’ crossing –

The rescuers say anyone attempting the Central Mediterranean crossing to Europe — the “world’s deadliest” according to the UN — on rickety boats or unseaworthy dinghies is at risk, and should be saved.

At least 12,000 people have drowned on this route since 2014. Many shipwrecks go unrecorded.

The charities also deny ever communicating with smugglers, who are sometimes armed and can be spotted loitering near rescues in the hope of retrieving valuable engines from migrant boats.

Save the Children told AFP it “strongly rejects” the accusations, as did MSF, which slammed a “period of criminalisation of humanitarian aid” it hoped would soon end.

The Iuventa was impounded in 2017 shortly after Jugend Rettet and others refused to sign a new and contentious interior ministry “code of conduct” accord, and as the European Union scaled up surveillance and policing in the Mediterranean.

“Despite the fact that mobile phones and computers were seized and analysed, not a single contact with Libyan smugglers… has been found,” said Nicola Canestrini, lawyer for the Iuventa crew members.

Pre-trial hearings are held behind closed doors, but representatives from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and Amnesty International have requested the judge allow them to sit in for transparency.

ECHR senior legal advisor Allison West has condemned “improper investigative practices” in the investigation, led by a prosecutors’ office more used to exposing Mafia crimes.

– Ex-cop sent allegations –

The probe was launched after ex-policeman Pietro Gallo, working as a security contractor on Save the Children’s Vos Hestia ship, sent allegations against the charities in October 2016 to Italy’s secret services, Canestrini told AFP.

He and a fellow ex-policeman also sent them to the head of the anti-immigration League party, Matteo Salvini, before reporting their suspicions to the police.

Gallo has since said in an interview that he regrets it. Asked if he ever saw any contact between the charities and traffickers, he replied “no, never”.

The damage was done. Police placed an undercover agent on the Vos Hestia in May 2017, who would provide information including elements used to charge the four Iuventa crew members, Canestrini said. Those included alleged hand signals between the crew and smugglers.

Iuventa’s case has been studied by Forensic Architecture, an agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, which uses advanced reconstruction techniques to investigate police, military and state facts.

It discredited the police theories for all three Iuventa rescues in question

Rights Groups Decry Taliban Shuttering of Human Rights Commission

 
May 21, 2022 

VOA Afghan Service

“I am dismayed at the reported decision of the Taliban to dissolve the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, shown on Feb. 28, 2022 delivering opening remarks in Geneva.

WASHINGTON —

The Taliban’s decision to dissolve Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission is a major setback for the country, say human rights groups and defenders.

Criticism came swiftly after Taliban authorities on Tuesday said the AIHRC and four other “unnecessary” departments had been axed in the face of a $500 million annual budget shortfall.

"Because these departments were not deemed necessary and were not included in the budget, they have been dissolved," Innamullah Samangani, the Taliban government's deputy spokesman, told Reuters.

“Nothing more than that can be expected” from the Taliban, which has a poor human rights record, said Mohammad Naim Nazari, former deputy head of the AIHRC.

“The Taliban do not recognize the rights of women, who constitute half of the population," he told VOA's Pashto Service. "They do not believe in freedom of speech and have imposed restrictions on media. … The Taliban do not recognize the rights of minorities.”

Calling Afghanistan's ruling Taliban “afraid” of human rights groups, Nazari described their style of governance as incompatible with formal humanitarian oversight.

The Taliban, however, defended Tuesday's decision, calling the department closures in keeping with a national budget "based on objective facts" and intended only for departments that had been active and productive.

Samangani, the Taliban spokesperson, also said the departments could be reactivated in the future "if needed."

But human rights advocates aren't optimistic. Many of them view Tuesday's announcement as a tragic reversal after 20 years of key improvements for human rights in the country.

“I am dismayed at the reported decision of the Taliban to dissolve the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in a prepared statement.

Calling it “a massive setback,” Richard Bennett, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, described the commission's role as an independent, domestic mechanism for documenting and monitoring complaints "critical for human rights protection in #Afghanistan.”



Andreas Von Brandt, the EU ambassador for Afghanistan, called the Taliban’s decision “a step in the wrong direction” for national institutions that serve as vital points of connectivity with the outside world.

"Those bridges are being increasingly destroyed,” he tweeted. Their dissolution, he said, “excludes #Afghanistan from universally agreed rights and principles and is also strange for a country which relies heavily on international #foodaid and support.”





Also dissolved was the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), the once high-powered National Security Council, and the commission for overseeing the implementation of the Afghan constitution.

The HCNR was last headed by the country’s one-time second-ranking government official Abdullah Abdullah, and was working to negotiate a peace between the U.S.-backed government of former President Ashraf Ghani and the then-insurgent Taliban.

Dissolving the institutions mean that thousands of professional Afghans have lost their jobs, said Abdul Qadir Zazai, a former member of the Afghan parliament, adding that “these people were trained for their jobs over the last 20 years.”

Founded in 2002 to document and report on human rights abuses throughout the country, the AIHRC lost seven of its employees “to violence and terrorism [most directly attributed to the Taliban] since its establishment,” tweeted former AIHRC chairperson Shaharzad Akbar.



The commission halted its activities after the Taliban regained power in 2021, and all its nine commissioners escaped the country fearing Taliban reprisals.

SEE ALSO:
Taliban Uncertainty Prompts Bid for Afghan Rights Body in Exile

Former AIHRC commissioner Shabnam Salihi told VOA that although human rights violations continue to be reported via foreign groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the dissolution of Afghanistan’s only independent rights commission means many more violations are now expected to be overlooked.

“We hear people are tortured and killed. We hear about war crimes. At such a time, there is no organization to watch on the [Taliban] government,” Salihi told VOA.

Although AIHRC was unable to work under the Taliban, “it was an important institution for Afghanistan,” Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch told VOA.

“The Taliban, by abolishing this office, are saying very openly that they don't intend to comply with human rights," she added. "They're not interested in respecting Afghanistan's obligations under international law. And they don't care if people whose rights are violated have nowhere to go for help.”

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 with an iron fist and implemented a harsh version of Islamic rule, including banning women from education and work. After taking over last year, the Taliban assured the world they would be more moderate.

However, they have yet to allow girls to restart secondary school education and have also introduced rules that mandate that women and girls wear veils and require them to have male relatives accompany them in public places.

This story originated in VOA's Pashto Service. Some information is from Reuters.

Police attack "No war – peace right now" demo in Istanbul


Under the slogan "No war - peace right now", a demonstration was staged in Istanbul on Sunday against the Turkish invasion of Southern Kurdistan. Several people were detained on the fringes of the demonstration.

ANF
ISTANBUL
Sunday, 22 May 2022,

In the western Turkish metropolis of Istanbul, hundreds of people took to the streets on Sunday in protest against the invasion of southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq). The demonstration was called by an alliance of women's groups and various parties united under the umbrella of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party).

"No war - peace now" was the slogan of the event, which began at the Tünel funicular stop in the central Beyoğlu district and continued along the Istiklal Avenue. Among the participants were especially many activists of the Free Women's Movement (TJA) and the Peace Mothers Initiative, as well as HDP deputies Sezai Temelli and Nejdet İpekyüz, DBP co-chair Keskin Bayındır, ESP leader Şahin Tümüklü and the HDK spokesman Cengiz Çiçek.

Police forces stopped the demonstration in front of the Russian Embassy. "War means death and leads to the impoverishment of entire societies. We call on the public and especially the political leadership in South Kurdistan to stand on the side of peace," Sezai Temelli said in the police encirclement. The crowd responded to attempts by security forces to stop the deputy's speech with slogans. Among other things, they shouted: "The tide will turn - The AKP will be accountable".

The activists demonstrated their solidarity with the Kurdish guerrillas by chanting "Long live the resistance in the Zap" or "Long live the struggle in Avaşîn" and dispersed in groups to several side streets, where the protest continued. Police assaults occurred at several points, and an unknown number of activists were taken into custody. Police detained some other people on İstiklal Avenue as well. Among those taken into custody are ESP Chairman Şahin Tümüklü and lawyer Veysi Eski, who is organized in the Libertarian Lawyers' Association (ÖHD). Meanwhile, the nearby headquarters of the Istanbul provincial association of the HDP is under siege by police.

Cambridge University astrophysicist loses space project role amid Brexit row


Nicholas Walton gives up leadership of €2.8m pan-European research after dispute over Northern Ireland protocol

Walton was to have led a doctoral network related to Esa’s Gaia mission that is mapping nearly 2bn stars in the Milky Way. 

Photograph: Chrispo/Alamy

Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent
THE GUARDIAN

Sat 21 May 2022 

A Cambridge University astrophysicist studying the Milky Way and hoping to play a major part in the European Space Agency’s (Esa) next big project has been forced to hand over his coordinating role on the scheme after the row over Northern Ireland’s Brexit arrangements put science in the firing line.

Nicholas Walton, a research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, reluctantly passed his leadership role in the €2.8m pan-European Marie Curie Network research project to a colleague in the Netherlands on Friday.

The European Commission had written notifying him UK scientists cannot hold leadership roles because the UK’s membership of the flagship £80bn Horizon Europe (HE) funding network has not been ratified.
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Walton was to have led a doctoral network related to Esa’s Gaia mission that is mapping nearly 2bn stars in the Milky Way.

He is one just one of a handful of British physicists approved for a HE grant but must now take a passenger seat in his own project.


Brexit row threatens £250m in UK research funding from EU

Carsten Welsch, a physicist at Liverpool University, who has won €2.6m in funding, also from the Marie Curie network, for long term research on a novel plasma generator, is also facing the same dilemma – move to the EU or hand over leadership to an EU institution to secure the research role.

“As the UK’s association to Horizon Europe isn’t completed, we are now at real risk of losing our leadership in this consortium and to be marginalised.

“This is really heartbreaking, given the long and extremely successful track record in scientific collaboration between the UK and EU,” he said.

Both Welsch and Walton say the loss of their roles in the research networks is only part of the picture. With Horizon Europe comes a ringside seat in bigger projects worth billions of euros involving networks of academia and industry.

“The damage is already being done … our influence is eroding,” said Welsch.

Walton’s coordinating role came with the opportunity to be part of the European team defining the science case for the €1bn successor to Gaia, Esa’s Voyage 2050 programme and to train a new cohort of astronomers.

“It is about jobs and the economy and ultimately this makes the UK a wealthier society,” he said.

Last week the EU’s ambassador to the UK, João Vale de Almeida admitted that British science could be a “victim of the political impasse”.

Sir Adrian Smith, president of the Royal Society said: “The window for association is closing fast, and we need to ensure that political issues do not get in the way of a sensible solution. We have always been very clear that association is the preferred outcome for protecting decades of collaborative research, and the benefits this has brought to people’s lives across the continent and beyond.”

Welsch is considering his options and said an offer by the UK to step in with alternate funding is “fantastic in principle”.

But he says it is not a replacement.

“While the UK Research and Innovation guarantee fund provides vital financial support and allows UK institutions to contribute as Associated Partners (without EU funding), it means that UK institutions can no longer lead projects, can no longer be in charge of project milestones, and overall it feels as if the UK is losing important leadership.”

Showdown with the ‘Anglosaksy’

by Stefano Caprio

05/21/2022
RUSSIAN WORLD


Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought a slew of accusations, many against the so-called Anglo-Saxons, a view repeated on several occasions by the Kremlin. Notwithstanding cultural juxtapositions, the expression reveals a strategy designed to drive a wedge among Russia’s enemies. Moscow wants to see the ongoing conflict end with a world in which Russia, the Anglosaksy, and Europe are well defined.

Some of the many accusations made since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in a period of long-term stalemate, are against the “Anglo-Saxons”, something often heard in statements by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who has often railed against the Anglo-Saxon media, which “are at the top of the list of the aggressor countries in the information war”.

Several other Russian politicians and officials are also increasingly using the term “Anglo-Saxon” in a derogatory way. According to the Russians, the Anglo-Saxons are the ones who “feed the hysteria” of international public opinion, as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his spokeswoman Maria Zakharova like to repeat.

In February, shortly before the invasion, the latter lashed out at a journalist who asked her about the deployment of troops on the Ukrainian border. “It is not up to you, who represent the Anglo-Saxon world, to count our weapons and judge how our troops move.”

Zakharova herself in recent days has come to the defence of Julian Assange, whose extradition to the United States has been decided by a British court, speaking of him as “a journalist poisoned by all the power of the Anglo-Saxon repressive machine”. In another statement, Peskov sarcastically referred to “the Anglosaksy [who] do nothing but raise tensions on the European continent”.

The use of the expression goes beyond the rivalry with the United States or “the Americans”, so typical of the Cold War, but underlines the Russian tendency to justify the ongoing conflict with historical-cultural reinterpretations that date back to a very distant past, back to the Middle Ages.

At the very beginning of the modern era, the Muscovy of Ivan the Terrible presented itself to the world as the new empire and the “Third Rome”, called to save peoples from all demonic dangers. The first Tsar of Moscow looked with interest at Queen Elizabeth of England, the one who laid the grounds for the British Empire beyond the seas.

The “Virgin Queen” (in whose honour the first American colony was named: Virginia) wrote to Ivan IV with admiration after he defeated the Kazan Tatars in 1557, paving the way for the conquest of the whole of Siberia: Asia became the Dalniy Vostok, Russia’s “Far East” with Cossacks pitted the Mongols, long before American cowboys fought the Indians for America’s “Far West”.

Since then, the two empires have opposed each other geographically (to the point of bordering each other) and ideologically; it is no accident that the symbolic letters of Russia’s war are the V of Vostok, and above all Z of Zapad (West) which suggests Za pobedu! (For Victory!).

The origins of this Nordic peoples, the Saxons, are rooted in the dominion they exercised over the British Isles between the 5th and 11th centuries, long before the baptism of Kievan Rus’ in 988 AD. The very term “Anglia” comes from one of these peoples, the Angles, who moved from the lands of present-day Denmark and Germany.

When Peskov and Zakharova take issue with the Anglosaksy, they are not going back to Europe’s Middle Ages, but are referring rather to much more recent issues, using a term that still resonates.

Strictly speaking, the Anglo-Saxon countries refer to those who have English as their national language: United Kingdom, United States, Canada (minus Quebec), Australia and New Zealand.

More than the origins or the language, what unites them most of all and differentiates them from the rest of the world are their political institutions and law, which make them bearers of freedom and democracy in the world, which the Russians intend to fight and defeat at all costs, as they are seen as cause of the loss of identity and sovereignty of all peoples.

One of the traits most criticised by the Russians is, for example, the “principle of precedent”, i.e., whereby a court decision is considered as the source of law, perhaps about the rights of ethnic or ethical minorities, and not the “sacred” laws defined by the constituted power, such as a Penal Code, as is traditionally the case in continental Europe.

The same goes for the flexibility of the system of higher education. Anglo-Saxon universities are mostly private, and not dedicated to mass education, a situation that is seen “as serving powerful castes, not the people”, as Vladimir Putin himself has repeatedly said in the past.

Above all, the Anglo-Saxons have a real devotion to the two-party system and alternation of power, which the Russians view as a way for the Antichrist to rule, based dividing the people.

In England, the Whigs were originally supporters of a parliamentary system, whilst the Tories remained loyal to the authority and power of the crown; from them, we have Labour and Conservatives in England, Democrats and Republicans in the US, Liberals and Conservatives in Canada, and so on.

Such a dialectic has been completely blocked in Russia since the first Putin presidency in 2000, whose system of power is on hierarchy and the stability of the “popular” majority, which requires at least 70-80 per cent of the vote; otherwise, society risks disintegration as was the case under President Yeltsin.

The Anglo-Saxon world also has racial and religious traits, namely White Anglo-Saxon Protestant"(WASP), today strongly questioned by cancel culture. By contrast, Orthodox Russia views itself as the bearer of an “inclusive culture” centred on the assimilation of other peoples, not on their subjugation, as its Western rivals do who today shed crocodile tears to wash their conscience.

If there is one thing the Russians absolutely do not intend to do is lustration (Lyustrátsiya), i.e., engage in historical revisionism about the faults of the past. There has been no criticism in Russia over working for the former Soviet regime; indeed, today’s ruling institutions and officials are throwback to that past, like the country’s Federal Security Service or FSB (Putin’s KGB) or Kirill’s Moscow Patriarchate, and other metropolitan bishops.

Comparison aside between Anglo-Saxon and Russian cultures, which shows not only rivalries but also many influences and imitations, the Anglosaksy cursed by the Kremlin are seen as the standard-bearers of a generic “collective West”, a simplification needed to justify destructive and apocalyptic actions.

The use of such terms by the Russians also reveals a subtle strategy, an attempt to drive a wedge among their enemies, getting the “non-Anglo-Saxon” nations to side with Russia.

On the eve of the Ukraine invasion, during a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, the director of the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardija), Viktor Zolotov, said that "we do not recognise any border with Ukraine; these borders were made by the Americans, who consider themselves the masters of that country and all the others as their vassals”.

Peskov went on to argue that “we Europeans must reflect on the fact that a country that is outside our continent, like the United States, comes to our home to create problems.”

This form of anti-American propaganda always has a great effect within Russia, echoing Stalin’s words in 1941, when he said “Russians were never friends of the Anglosaksy”.

When Russians stand as defenders of “traditional European values”, as in the “manifesto” of director Konstantin Bogomolov, it is always understood as a commitment to defend themselves from “foreign values, like those of the Anglo-Saxons”.

The Russian World is for all peoples, designed to defend Asia, Africa and Latin America from Western colonisation; one of its main purposes is to draw to it Europeans not closely affiliated with the United States or Great Britain, whose Brexit has provided excellent ideological support for Russia’s worldview.

Europe has very close economic ties with Russia, and cannot easily decouple itself, as evidenced by contradictory positions taken by Europeans in the recent debate over ending dependence on Russian gas.

Trade, not only in energy, is much more intense than that between Russia and the United States. Were it not for the war, Europeans would likely preserve these relations as much as possible; and no one is thinking about keeping Russian tourists away or halting forever cultural exchanges, the fate of McDonald’s and cars aside.

Russia and Germany have had special relations for a long period of time, based on exchanges in philosophy and literature. The same can be said for Italian art and music, not to mention France, whose language served as the lingua franca of the aristocracy of St Petersburg during the 18th century.

Russia wants to end the Ukrainian war not only with large territorial gains and control, from the Donbass to the Sea of Azov and Moldova. The goal is a plural world in which Russia, the Anglosaksy, and Europe are well defined, and so other eastern powers like Turkey, China and India, with Russia playing a key role in every international venue.

Paradoxically, the isolation imposed by sanctions is seen as a way to rise above quarrels and purify and sacrifice oneself for all whilst preparing for the future global showdown.

Taoiseach: UK Troubles amnesty proposals are ‘get-out-of-jail’ legislation for ex-paramilitaries


Its ‘unilateral strain’ on other issues also criticised as he meets local parties


Visit: Micheal Martin speaks to media in Belfast yesterday.

 Credit: Brian Lawless/PA

Allan Preston
May 21 2022

Taoiseach Micheal Martin has claimed UK plans to address the legacy of the Troubles amount to “get-out-of-jail” legislation for ex-paramilitaries.

On a visit to Belfast he also hit out at a “unilateral strain” in the UK Government over Northern Ireland issues.

Mr Martin was speaking following meetings with Stormont’s main parties yesterday.

Addressing the plans around legacy, he said: “I think it has united the families of many victims of terrible atrocities against the measures of the British Government.

“It’s a unilateral measure again and I have concerns about the unilateral strain within the current British Government towards aspects of the Good Friday Agreement.

“I don’t think that’s positive and I don’t think it’s helpful.”

He said previous London administrations had taken their role as a co-guarantor of the Agreement more seriously.

“Fundamentally, I’m very much opposed to what the British Government is proposing here in terms of essentially the guts of an amnesty for people who committed terrible crimes irrespective of whether they’re security forces or members of various paramilitary groups who committed terrible crimes.

“For many of those paramilitary groups, this is literally get-out-of-jail legislation from any further investigation.”

Regarding the protocol, Mr Martin said that “legitimate issues” had been raised but he was confident they could be resolved.

With many accusing the DUP of holding the Assembly to ransom, Mr Martin was asked if he supported changing the structures to avoid further crisis.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened… that’s not a satisfactory situation,” he said.

“The people have voted and I think that there’s a huge responsibility on all involved to respond to the vote of the people,” he added.

“I have a passionate belief in the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement which were hard won…. too much work has been put into this to allow the democratic institutions established in the Good Friday Agreement to just (end)”.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: “We have had what I would describe as a useful meeting with the Taoiseach.

“We spelled it out very clearly to him the problems with the protocol, the harm it is doing to Northern Ireland, and that we need a solution. We need decisive action to deal with these problems.”

Speaking before her meeting with Mr Martin, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill said the DUP was “denying democracy” over its Stormont boycott.

She added the Taoiseach had “a very significant role” to play as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.

“At a time where democracy is being denied, at a time where the DUP are continuing to prevent the facilitation of an Executive being formed, an Executive that could start to deliver for the public, I think it is important that he is here to assert his role and to listen to all of the parties.”

Meanwhile, an intervention by US Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the protocol row was described by Mr Donaldson as “unhelpful”.

Ms Pelosi said the US Congress will not support a free trade agreement with the UK if the Government persists with “deeply concerning plans to unilaterally discard the protocol”.

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie described Ms Pelosi’s remarks as “not just deeply regrettable and misinformed... but completely wrong”.

 

Ontario NDP, Liberals would bring in law to fight Islamophobia, other hate if elected

May 21, 2022 - 10:55 AM News Code : 1259283 Source : Toronto StarLink: 

Ontario’s New Democrats and Liberals committed Wednesday to bringing in a law to fight Islamophobia and other forms of hate if elected to form government next month.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Ontario’s New Democrats and Liberals committed Wednesday to bringing in a law to fight Islamophobia and other forms of hate if elected to form government next month.

Speaking to reporters in Kingston, Ont., NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said addressing racism and hate is a priority for people who have experienced hateful attacks based on their race, faith or any other part of their identities.

She said she is proud of her party’s work with the National Council of Canadian Muslims in bringing forward legislation earlier this year to help address Islamophobia in Ontario (Canadian province). That bill, tabled in February, did not pass before the election campaign began.

“There’s just too much hate out there,” Horwath said. “We have an obligation and a responsibility, leaders do, to take that on and to listen when (a)community says we don’t want to just hear the words. We want you to take action.”

Horwath said it was “extremely disappointing” that the governing Progressive Conservatives did not support the bill.

“It was disrespectful,” she said, promising that her party would re-introduce the legislation.

Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said his party would also pass the anti-Islamophobia legislation if elected on June 2.

“I said from the very beginning that we would move forward with legislation. I’ve already committed to moving as quickly as I can to pass the Our London Family Act,” he said at an unrelated announcement in Toronto on Wednesday.

Photo: Credited Toronto Star

Russia steps up its support for the military government of Mali
21 MAY 2022

Russia continues with its efforts to strengthen its position in the Sahel region of Africa. 

On Friday (20 May), foreign minister Sergei Lavrov received in Moscow his Malian counterpart Abdoulaye Diop with promises of Russian support for the the Malian military government across a range of areas, including defence, security and energy.

 Lavrov speaking at a press conference with Diop accused France of trying to dictate to Mali who they can or cannot communicate with. "This is unacceptable and does not make the French Republic or French manners look good", the Russian foreign minister said.

Mali witnessed a military coup in May 2021, its second in a period of nine months. Both coup efforts were orchestrated by Colonel Assimi Goita, who now serves as the country's transitional president.

Tensions between Goita and the French government resulted in president Emmanuel Macron announcing the withdrawal of all French forces from the country earlier this year. French troops were seen as pivitol in securing Mali against a jihadist insurgency which has claimed many lives, especially in the north of the country.

However, on the same day of the visit of the Malian foreign minister to Moscow, Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, voted to support redeployment of German troops in the West African country. Germany has had a military contingent in Mali for the past nine years, assisting with security operations amid an ongoing jihadi insurgency.

The Bundestag increased German participation in the UN peacekeeping force in Mali (MINUSMA), raising the maximum number of Bundeswehr soldiers to be deployed there from 1,100 to 1,400.

Germany will contribute to the peacekeeping force for another year, with 541 members of parliament voting for the measure and 103 voting against.

At the same time, Germany will draw down its forces deployed in the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) from a maximum of 600 German soldiers to 300. The vast majority of these troops will be stationed in Mali's neighbor, Niger.

The EU training mission aims to help Mali secure the country from terrorist threats and organized crime. Security forces in Burkina Faso and Mauritania will also be trained as part of Germany's mandate in the region.

A serious point of contention between EU countries and the Malian military authorities is the presence in the country of mercenaries from Russia's notorious Wagner Group, whose role appears to be to protect the Malian coup leaders. Wagner Group forces have been accused of civilian killings.

During a recent visit to Mali in April, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said there will be no co-operation with Russian actors in the country given the Kremlin's recent invasion of Ukraine

Lavrov earlier this month said Wagner Group mercenaries are in Mali on a "commercial basis," and their activities are not connected with the Russian government. But there is hardly anyone left in the world who believes this.

source: commonspace.eu with DW (Cologne) and the press service of the Russian foreign ministry (Moscow)

photo: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference with his counterpart from Mali, Abdoulaye Diop in Moscow on 20 May 2022 (picture courtesy of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

Biden risks troubled Americas summit in Los Angeles


By CHRIS MEGERIAN and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press - Friday

WASHINGTON (AP) — While President Joe Biden travels in Asia, his administration is scrambling to salvage next month’s summit focused on Latin America.

The Summit of the Americas, which the United States is hosting for the first time since the inaugural event in 1994, has risked collapsing over concerns about the guest list. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has threatened to boycott if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua aren’t included. Unlike Washington, which considers the three autocratic governments as pariahs, Mexico’s leftist leader maintains regular ties with them.


Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is decorated by his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz Canel with the Jose Marti order at Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, May 8, 2022.

 (Yamil Lage/Pool Photo via AP)

A hollow summit would undermine efforts by the U.S. to reassert its influence in Latin America when China is making inroads and concerns grow that democracy is backsliding in the region.

Now Biden is considering inviting a Cuban representative to attend the summit as an observer, according to a U.S. official who declined to be identified while speaking about sensitive deliberations. It’s unclear if Cuba would accept the invitation — which would be extended to someone in the foreign ministry, not the foreign minister himself — and whether that would assuage López Obrador’s concerns.


Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel, right, and his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, left, raise their arms during a ceremony to award the Jose Marti order to President Lopez Obrador, at Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, May 8, 2022.

 (Yamil Lage/Pool Photo via AP)

López Obrador reiterated Friday that he “wants everyone to be invited," but indicated that he was hopeful about reaching a resolution, adding that "we have a lot of confidence in President Biden and he respects us.”

Even if López Obrador attends, there could still be a notable absence in Los Angeles: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who leads Latin America’s most populous country, hasn't said whether he'll attend.

The uncertainty is a sign of chaotic planning for the summit, which is scheduled to take place in a little more than two weeks in Los Angeles. Normally, gatherings for heads of state are organized long in advance, with clear agendas and guest lists.

“There’s no excuse that they didn’t have enough time,” said Ryan Berg, a senior fellow in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This is our chance to set a regional agenda. It’s a great opportunity. And I’m afraid we’re not going to take it.”

The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment. Ned Price, speaking for the U.S. State Department, said the first wave of invitations was sent out Thursday, but there could be additions. He declined to say who had gotten invitations.

He said speculation about who was attending was “understandable,” noting that Biden will be the first U.S. president to attend the summit since 2015, when President Barack Obama went to Panama.

President Donald Trump skipped the next summit in Peru in 2018, sending Vice President Mike Pence in his place.

“Our agenda is to focus on working together when it comes to the core challenges that face our hemisphere,” Price said, including migration, climate change and the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuba’s participation is often a controversial issue for the summit, which has been held every few years and includes countries from Canada to Chile. The island nation was not invited to the first gathering in Miami, but Obama made headlines by shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro in Panama.

Questions about Biden's approach to Latin America are piling up when his attention has been elsewhere. He's taken a lead in responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, helping to forge an international coalition to punish Moscow with sanctions and arm Kyiv with new weapons.

Biden is also trying to refocus U.S. foreign policy on Asia, where he views the rising power of China as the country's foremost long-term challenge. He's currently on his first trip to the continent as president, visiting South Korea and Japan.

Berg argued that neglecting Latin America could undermine Biden's goals, since China has been trying to make inroads in the region.

“It’s always been difficult for Latin America to get its due," he said. "But we’re pretty close to being in a geopolitical situation where Latin America moves from a strategic asset for us to a strategic liability.”

Instead of putting the finishing touches on the schedule for the Summit of the Americas, administration officials have been racing to ensure it doesn't devolve into an embarrassment.

Chris Dodd, a former U.S. senator from Connecticut chosen by Biden as a special adviser for the summit, spent two hours on Zoom with López Obrador this week.

There's also been a steady drip of announcements adjusting U.S. policies toward the region.

For example, the U.S. is moving to ease some economic sanctions on Venezuela.

In addition, administration officials said they would loosen restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba and allow Cuban immigrants to send more money back to people on the island.

The discussion about Cuba's potential participation in Los Angeles reflects a difficult diplomatic and political balancing act.

Biden faces pressure to invite Cuba from his counterparts in the region. In addition to López Obrador, Bolivia’s President Luis Arce has threatened to skip the summit.

But Biden risks domestic backlash if Cuba is included, and not just from Republicans. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Cuban American Democrat from New Jersey who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is an outspoken critic of the Cuban government.

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Associated Press writer María Verza contributed from Mexico City, and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed from Washington.