Monday, December 04, 2023

40 years after ‘The Day After’

The film remains a devastating reminder that nuclear deterrence is a strategy that can and will fail someday

On Sunday, Nov. 20, 1983, I left my college dorm to visit my parents’ home in the suburbs of Oxford, Ohio. That evening, along with some 100 million other Americans, we witnessed two hours of stunning television that would mobilize the nation, as well as some of its leaders, to take meaningful steps to reduce the nuclear danger.

“The Day After,” shown on the ABC television network, took viewers into the lives of characters in typical towns and cities in the midwestern United States, not far from U.S. nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. Following a fictional NATO-Russia military confrontation that spun out of control, the film showed the shocking effects of an all-out nuclear exchange designed to hit “military and related-industrial targets” and the catastrophic aftermath.

The film remains a devastating reminder that nuclear deterrence is a strategy that can and will fail someday. It fueled criticism of the Reagan administration’s aggressive nuclear buildup and added momentum to the powerful public movement demanding that U.S. and Soviet leaders freeze and reverse the arms race. It spurred concerned citizens into action. It inspired me to help form a chapter of United Campuses Against Nuclear War at Miami University.

Four decades later, as a result of landmark bilateral nuclear arms reduction agreements, Russian and U.S. Cold War nuclear stockpiles have been reduced drastically, but continue to pose an existential danger. Russia and the United States still cling to Cold War-era nuclear doctrines and deploy thousands of high-yield nuclear warheads on hundreds of ICBMs, designed to annihilate each other’s military and command capabilities within 30 minutes of a presidential launch order.

A new study by Princeton University researchers in Scientific American this month documents the effects of a nuclear attack from Russia on the 450 U.S. ICBM silos located in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. These high-yield nuclear detonations would rain lethal fallout on several million people in the first hours, with tens of millions more people dying of radiation sickness thereafter—the same scenario as the 1983 film. Depending on weather patterns, more than 300 million people in the continental United States, the most populated areas of Canada, and northern Mexico would be at risk of lethal fallout.

The Pentagon’s official rationale for the U.S. ICBM arsenal is to force China or Russia to direct a large portion of their long-range nuclear forces at U.S. ICBMs to try to limit the damage that they would suffer from a U.S. nuclear counterstrike. Because the bulk of the U.S. ICBM force would be destroyed in a large-scale nuclear attack, it remains U.S. policy to keep the ICBMs on prompt alert to allow for “launch under attack.” This gives the president mere minutes to decide whether to authorize the use of ICBMs, which increases the risk that a false alarm or misinformation could trigger a nuclear catastrophe.

A large ICBM force hair-trigger alert is not only dangerous, but also pointless. The United States has more than 1,000 nuclear warheads on invulnerable strategic ballistic missile submarines at sea and long-range nuclear-armed bombers that can be airborne ahead of a surprise nuclear attack. Just one U.S. nuclear-armed submarine, carrying 160 thermonuclear warheads, each with an explosive yield of 100 kilotons TNT equivalent or more, could devastate a large country and kill tens of millions of people. The United States maintains eight strategic subs on continuous patrol. Furthermore, U.S. ICBMs, which likely are targeted against Russia’s land-based strategic rocket forces, would be hitting empty silos because Russia’s ICBM forces also would be launched on warning of a U.S. retaliatory attack if they were not already part of a Russian first strike.

Nevertheless, the United States has initiated a program to replace its existing Minuteman III missiles with 666 newly designed Sentinel ICBMs, 400 of which would be deployed through 2070 at a cost in excess of $150 billion. That assumes, incorrectly, that the United States needs to have 400 ICBMs for the indefinite future. Presidents can change outdated military requirements, and future arms reduction agreements certainly can reduce the number of ICBMs or, better yet, eliminate them altogether.

Amid the catastrophic destruction of “The Day After,” one character, a woman about to give birth, complains to her doctor, “We knew the score. We knew all about bombs. We knew about fallout. We knew this could happen for 40 years. But nobody was interested.”

We may not be so lucky to avoid nuclear Armageddon for another 40 years. Once again, our survival depends on more interest, more public engagement, and more pressure on policymakers to turn away from dangerous nuclear deterrence policies of the past. We must push leaders to reengage in disarmament negotiations to reduce the risks, the role, and the number of nuclear weapons, beginning with ICBMs.

This piece has been republished with permission from Arms Control Today.

Daryl G. Kimball has been Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) and publisher and contributor for the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, since September 2001.

Hong Kong: Drop legal threat against Hong Kong Free Press and ensure safety of missing journalist Minnie Chan

POSTED ON DECEMBER 04, 2023

On Friday, 1 December, Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post (SCMP) threatened legal action against Hong Kong Free Press in retaliation for the independent outlets’ coverage of the disappearance of SCMP defence correspondent Minnie Chan in China. The threat came in response to attempts to clarify her whereabouts but only targeted the smaller HKFP, although other international news outlets had also covered the story, including Al Jazeera and the Guardian. On 30 November, Kyoto News had first reported Chan missing since having travelled in late October to Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum, an annual security conference. The Hong Kong Journalist Association also issued a statement, that it was ‘very concerned about Chan’s safety and is asking SCMP for information about the incident’.

“That HKFP has been singled out with the threat of legal action has all the hallmarks of arbitrary litigation to silence and intimidate a free press performing its function as a public watchdog,” said Michael Caster, ARTICLE 19’s Asia Digital Programme Manager. “Rather than threatening legal action, South China Morning Post should be grateful for the outpouring of support and solidarity for its journalist”.

In response to the mounting coverage, SCMP responded Friday with a statement that Chan had taken personal leave in Beijing, but provided no further information on her fate or whereabouts. In an email response to HKFP Editor-in-Chief Tom Grundy, specifically, the Alibaba-owned outlet accused the independent press of ‘rushing to conclusions not supported by facts’ and held out that they ‘reserve[d] all rights to take legal action against any misreporting of this matter concerning the Post’.

Despite assurances from SCMP over Chan’s wellbeing, a friend of Chan’s told Al Jazeera that her WhatsApp account was last active only on 2 November—WhatsApp is blocked in mainland China—and that her recent Facebook activity had been ‘very strange’, with her posting selfies instead of the usual link to her articles and other commentary. Chan, reportedly, has also not responded to comments from her friends inquiring about her whereabouts on her last Facebook activity.

Concern for Chan’s disappearance is not unfounded in China, where arbitrary and secret detention is widespread, and effectively no one is immune. Jack Ma, once China’s richest person and founder of the tech titan Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post, himself vanished from the public for an extended period in 2020 following his criticism of Chinese authorities.

This is not the first time a reporter for SCMP has gone missing. Last year, a mainland China-based diplomacy correspondent for SCMP was held in incommunicado detention for a few months.

Chan has effectively gone missing following her attendance at the Xiangshan security conference in Beijing, noteworthy this year by the absence of China’s Defence Minister, Li Shangfu, who had been formally removed from his position just beforehand after himself having disappeared from view in late August.

Chan’s apparent disappearance also comes just over a month after Australian journalist Cheng Lei was finally released from three years of detention in China on vague national security charges. The Australian anchor for the state-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) had initially disappeared in August 2020 into the shadowy Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location system of administrative detention before being finally charged in February 2021.

At times, China has gone to lengths to mask otherwise secret detentions with carefully choreographed displays. In November 2021, for example, following tennis star Peng Shuai’s disappearance after she accused retired Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault, in an apparent ploy to placate global concern for Peng Shuai ahead of the Beijing Olympics, she inexplicably appeared in a seemingly-scripted interview with International Olympics Committee (IOC) President Thomas Back while no one else had been able to reach her independently at the time.

“That China has engaged in scripted attempts to cover up otherwise secret detentions in the past should raise alarm bells when friends of Chan point to her recent social media activity as strange for departing from its usual content to suddenly post holiday selfies, just the sort of potentially forced display of wellbeing one would instruct to try and prove Chan was not held against her will”, said Caster. “Chinese authorities must immediately disclose Chan’s whereabouts and ensure her wellbeing. Let’s hope she is merely on holiday, but China’s record of disappearances places a higher burden of proof on the State to disprove all such concerns”.

China ranks among the worst places on earth for press freedom and the harassment and arbitrary detention of journalists.

Michael Caster, Asia Digital Programme Manager, michaelcaster@article19.org.

A new world order: from warring states to citizens

It will take decades of intellectual effort, Paul Mason writes, before a new world order emerges from the cumulative chaos.

The units of a new world order can no long be states with their conflicting ‘national interests’ but citizens gelled by their universal rights

(oneinchpunch/shutterstock.com)

PAUL MASON

SOCIAL EUROPE

6th November 2023

First came Afghanistan—the sudden collapse of the government in August 2021, and with it 20 years of western ‘nation-building’. Then came Ukraine the following February—the first large-scale conventional war in Europe since 1945, with Russia unleashing 20th-century-style barbarity amplified by 21st-century information war.

And now comes the brutal Hamas attack of October 7th and Israel’s deadly response. The risk is not only that the Israeli invasion of Gaza will trigger regional war, with Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq co-ordinating their attacks. The strategic danger is that the power of the United States in the region will collapse. In the last analyses, each of these traumatic events is about US failure: as president, Donald Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban failed, Joe Biden subsequently failed to reverse it and he failed too to deter Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Now the US stands at risk of failure in the middle east—the primary region into which it had chosen to project power since its retreat from Vietnam in the 1970s. From Riyadh to Cairo, its leverage in the capitals that matter is weak, its reputation on the ‘Arab street’ in cinders. A Republican-led Congress cannot endorse basic spending appropriations for the conflict without offsetting cuts borne by the domestic tax agency, the Inland Revenue Service.

The massive naval force the US has assembled in the eastern Mediterranean is there to deter escalation by Iran and its supporters, to reassure allies in the region that the fundamental architecture—of US bases, listening posts and shabby agreements with autocrats—will hold. But in the dark fantasies of radical islamists it is now possible to imagine something that the west had made unthinkable—the defeat of Israel and the evaporation of US will to fight for it.
Disintegrating order

This is not how it was supposed to be. Smiling teenagers were not supposed to rip down posters of kidnapped Jews, while quoting Frantz Fanon. American presidents were not supposed to incite domestic insurrections. Kharkiv, Kherson and Odesa were supposed to be names associated with the horrors of the second world war, not the present.

We are living through the disintegration of an order. With it, the power of expertise is also disintegrating.

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When I sit in seminars with experts on the middle east, and observe their sudden exasperation and despair, it feels new to them but not to me. In February 2022 I attended seminars with equally famed Russia experts, as their long-held assumptions about the president, Vladimir Putin, and Putinism similarly evaporated.

Reaching further back, they remind me of the economists and civil servants I worked with during the global financial crisis of 2008. Suddenly all their knowledge was relevant only to what the novelist Stefan Zweig poignantly called ‘the world of yesterday’.
Fruitless debate

So the overarching struggle is for understanding. Only once we frame what is happening accurately, grasping the totality of these interlocked crises, can we design the action needed to defend what must be defended.

In international relations we are however trapped in a fruitless debate between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’. It is not even a debate—only the mutual statement of incompatible premises. If one side is right, thousands of PhDs and professorships on the other side become worthless.

To move forward, Benjamin Tallis of the German Council on Foreign relations proposes ‘neo-idealism’. This would reassert the humanitarian and universalist principles on which the United Nations was founded in 1945 and which underlie the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights—only this time without the compromises with dictatorships on ‘our side’ of the cold-war, geopolitical divide.

Tallis cites a new generation of political leaders, including Kaja Kallas, Sanna Marin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as embodying this new spirit. Meanwhile, he decries the lingering acquiescence of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to the realities of Russian power.

If I were to situate myself in this debate, I would say I was an idealist in a realist world. I want a rules-based global order, a universal concept of human rights and a body of international law that places the individual human being at its centre. But I know the existing order is disintegrating.
Systemic competition

There is, to borrow a metaphor from Karl Marx, a legal and geopolitical superstructure that can no longer be supported by its underlying economic structure, which has broken. The world economy is deglobalising into rival spheres; the global information space is Balkanised; Russia and China have launched a systemic competition against the west and are successfully recruiting oligarchies and failing democracies to their project.

Of course we should fight a rearguard action to uphold the global institutions—everything from the UN Relief and Works Agency under such pressure in Gaza to the International Criminal Court which could investigate war crimes there—just as our forebears did in the 1930s with the collapsing League of Nations. But we have to recognise the disintegration undermining their foundations.

The question we should be asking is not ‘how do we maintain the old world order’ but the one John Maynard Keynes at the British Treasury and his American counterpart, Harry Dexter White, asked in 1943-44: what should the world look like when we win? (Although the ‘we’ would now have to be the peoples of the whole world, not just ‘the west’.) In the 1930s, when the British Labour leader Clement Attlee abandoned pacifism and ‘non-intervention’ over the Spanish Civil War, and moved to active support for rearmament, he did so while insisting that the goal of any wartime coalition with his Conservative counterpart Winston Churchill would be a ‘world government’.

René Cassin’s achievement in drafting the universal declaration was the result of 20 years of legal scholarship, in which he and others established not just the idealism but the realism of the assertion that the ‘human person’ should be at the centre of international law—not the state—so that the individual subject could vindicate their rights. The post-1945 world was, in short, the product of long-nurtured visions in jurisprudence, economics and geopolitics.
Shifted centre of gravity

I do not want a return to the unipolar world of US power, nor to a multilateralism that leaves more than half the world’s population in poverty and in thrall to dictators. Any emerging legal order must be based on a recognition that the centre of gravity of the world has shifted south.

In 1948 there were 2.7 billion people in the world; today there are eight billion. in 1948, while Asia had the biggest population, Europe came second; today Africa, with its 1.5 billion people, is second, yet it has minimal agency in the international system.

If it seems that some in the global south are ready to rally behind dictators such as Putin and the crude anti-Semitism we are seeing across ‘social media’, it is because they do not like the existing global order and want a new one. So the new multilateralism has to be co-created with the progressive and humanistic traditions of China, the Indian sub-continent, Africa and Latin America, alongside those of the west. It must draw on their scholarship and embody their values—but it has to restate universalism and it has to cohere.

It took the wartime allies the best part of a decade to formulate a vision for the postwar world. That they did so while enduring the day-to-day agonies and technical challenges of wartime is what makes that generation ‘great’.

The lesson we should take from how the post-1945 order was created is that it required an intellectual effort, lasting decades and demanding critical innovations in western legal, political and economic thought—long before it was executed in laws and institutions.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

Paul Masonis a journalist, writer and filmmaker. His latest book is How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance (Allen Lane). His most recent films include R is For Rosa, with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. He writes weekly for New Statesman and contributes to Der Freitag and Le Monde Diplomatique.

Barking up the wrong European tree

A multi-level Europe of networks, Jan Zielonka argues, is the flexible alternative to brittle clashes over ‘sovereignty’.

During the ‘refugee crisis’, cities stepped up while EU member states could not agree on a sharing of responsibility—the facade of the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki in 2017 (The Art of Pics / shutterstock.com)

JAN ZIELONKA

4th December 2023

The European Parliament made headlines late last month by approving a package of more than 250 proposals for changes in the European Union treaties. Frothy coverage in the Eurosceptic media expressed outrage at the parliament’s suggestion of abolishing national vetoes almost everywhere, even in sensitive fields such as foreign policy.

The liberal media were however less excited, because treaty changes require the unanimous approval of member states not usually in the mood to give up control over European integration. Even liberal politicians such as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, or his potential Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, do not want their states to be outvoted in the Council of the EU. And they are afraid that any step towards a European federation would play into the hands of dangerous national opponents, such as (respectively) Marine Le Pen and Mateusz Morawiecki.

Undoubtedly, though, national vetoes lead to decision-making paralysis or, at best, wishy-washy policy solutions. A compromise amounting to the lowest common denominator can hardly solve any of the epochal challenges Europe is facing, from people movement to climate change.

Vetoes may also represent a security threat. As the European Parliament’s rapporteur on treaty changes, Daniel Freund, observed in a message to his network, ‘Putin only has to turn one government to block all of Europe. We have to stop this.’

Abolishing vetoes has not however been easy, even in the golden era of European integration. And we are in the midst of a sovereigntist turn, which aims to take power back to the nation-states from ‘Brussels’.
The statist fallacy

The debate, as always, is framed in statist terms: do we want a Europe of nation-states or a federal European state? Freund sees the proposed treaty changes as a step towards Föderalen Republik Europa and another EP rapporteur, Guy Verhofstadt, once wrote a book called The United States of Europe. Needless to say, this federal ambition is vehemently opposed by such sovereigntist leaders as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Giorgia Meloni in Italy or the winner of the recent Dutch elections, Geert Wilders.

The choice between the nation-state and a European one is false, however. We should rather ponder whether we want a dysfunctional Europe governed by an unruly group of states or a Europe in which power and governance is shared among European, national and local actors. Rather than a clear hierarchy, rooted in treaties, the latter envisages a Europe of flexible governance, with different actors stepping in depending on the nature of issue to be tackled.

Protagonists of the contrasting statist visions see such flexible pluralism as a recipe for chaos and freeriding—yet it is hard to image more of either than we have already. On such diverse issues as the rule of law, people movement or even the transit and storage of Ukrainian grain, member states do as they please in disregard of formal arrangements. Even if they could stop quarrelling one day, it would be hard to govern a highly diversified Europe in a centralised manner.

A rule of thumb of effective governance is that the more diversified the qualities to be governed, the more diverse the structures and mechanisms required. This is a clear endorsement of ‘multi-level governance’, in which neither nation-states, nor the EU nor various local actors possesses a monopoly on decisions and resources.
The sovereigntist fallacy

Informal multi-level governance has been practised successfully for many years. During the ‘refugee crisis’, while the member-states could not agree on a sharing of responsibilities, welcoming cities indicated their know-how and accommodated flows. And during the pandemic, the EU was in a better position than states to negotiate vaccines with the big pharmaceutical companies.

With this backdrop, how can we explain the current urge to define where absolute power lies? And why are populist politicians, who are calling for the return of ‘sovereign’ states, winning elections?

The reason seems simple: Europe’s postwar security, prosperity, social policy and cultural cohesion have become retrospectively identified with the renascence of nation-states. Although Europeanists are fond of arguing that les trente glorieuses of peace and prosperity were thanks to integration, many voters now blame the EU for porous borders undermining individual states’ ability to collect taxes, protect employment, offer decent wages and stem migration.

There is no doubt that the policy of open borders has produced many losers, who decided to back the sovereigntist agenda. But to blame the EU is barking up the wrong tree. In the last three decades, borders have indeed become fuzzy, but primarily for other reasons.

First, there was a geopolitical revolution caused by the fall of the Soviet Union. After 1989, people, ideas and even alliances started to shift across the continent with relative ease. Around the same time, the neoliberal revolution reduced public actors’ ability to control markets within and across state borders. The digital revolution, which also started three decades ago, represented a massive technological push towards a ‘flat’, and so borderless, world. And, more recently, the pandemic shattered any illusion that national borders are anything but redundant in combating deadly viruses.

The impact of European integration in that regard was minimal by comparison. In fact, the EU helped Europeans to cope with the effects of border erosion with active measures, from embracing the unstable post-Soviet states to creating amid the pandemic the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The Schengen external border has not proved effective—but that is because EU member states failed to endorse adequate common measures to combat the wellsprings of people movement, such as war, poverty and climate change.

The federalist fallacy

It is however not just sovereigntist Eurosceptics who bark up the wrong tree. Supporters of treaty changes with the aim to bring us closer to the prospect of European federation are also in error. Moving from nation-states to a European state is not likely to make us either more efficient or more democratic.

Size matters in politics, but any aggregate power wielded by a European federation may be only on paper, because it will suffer from bureaucratic overload, divided loyalties and a hazy common purpose. Brussels by nature is further away from problems and citizens in various European corners. Decisions made there risk ignoring local context and one-size-fits-all solutions are usually inadequate.

There is no guarantee that a state-like democracy can be applied successfully to Europe. After all, Europe has not yet manifested the ‘constitutional patriotism’ advocated by Jürgen Habermas. And the European Commission tends to treat regions, cities and nongovernmental organisations as clients rather than partners. Europe badly needs genuine multi-level governance—not another form of centralised statism.

A Europe of networks

Today, the real question is not whether states should decide in Europe on the basis of unanimity or qualified majority. The challenge is to make states co-operate with local and European actors, public and private. States insist on their sovereign powers, although their ability to deliver public goods is diminished. The EU, regions, cities and a plethora of NGOs, including trade unions and business associations, have manifested their abilities to help citizens but they are not given adequate powers and resources.

Some states not only ponderously obstruct common European endeavours but also criminalise NGOs and demonise networks of cities. They do it in the name of democracy, claiming that only nation-states are truly democratic. Paradoxically, this argument is voiced most loudly by states that are the least democratic.

States where democracy works are able to join hands with transnational and local actors for the benefit of citizens. Consider how differently Finland and Poland handled their redundant mines in Callio and Turów—the former a positive example of multi-level governance, the latter a negative instance of sovereigntism.

Only a Europe of networks will be able to secure public goods in the unbounded, digitalised and interdependent Europe of today. We in Europe would do well to think about how to make these networks transparent, purposeful, accountable, accessible and responsive. Clashes about sovereignty will only benefit nativists.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

Jan Zielonka is professor of politics and international relations at the University of Venice, Cá Foscari, and at the University of Oxford. His latest book is The Lost Future and How to Reclaim It (Yale University Press, 2023).

India: Is Legislature the Only Way to Legalise Same-sex Marriage?

Lakshita Bhagat
December 4th, 2023

The recent judgement by the Supreme Court of India to deny equal marriage rights to same-sex couples has re-opened the debate about the role of the judiciary, alongside the legislature, in protecting the rights of minorities, and ensuring equal rights for all citizens. Lakshita Bhagat examines the judgement in light of rights of same-sex marriage in other countries, as well as earlier interventions by the judiciary to ensure equal rights for minorities in India.

On 17 October 2023, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India headed by the Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, unanimously declined to legalise same-sex marriage. The Court delivered its judgement on the Supriyo & Supriya Chakraborty & Anr vs Union of India (2023) case after hearing a batch of petitions seeking to bestow on same-sex couples the right to marry on par with heterosexual couples. This post analyses how same-sex marriages have been legalised around the world, and where India stands on this issue.

The Legislature has not been the only way to bring marriage equality. In recent years, the Judiciary has played a proactive role in many countries in granting marriage equality to queer couples. The Indian Supreme Court, known for walking the extra mile to protect rights of marginalised citizens, lost a significant opportunity in this judgement.

Is legislature the only way towards marriage equality?

The short answer is ‘No’! Currently, 39 countries/territories recognise same-sex marriages, the newest additions being Estonia and Nepal (Table 1). While the legislative route has been followed by most countries to allow same-sex marriages, in eight countries the judicial intervention resulted in marriage equality.

Table 1: Countries/Territories where Same-sex Marriage is Legal
Country Year Procedure Comments
1 The Netherlands 2001 Legislature Same-sex partnerships recognised in 1998
2 Belgium 2003 Legislature
3 Spain 2005 Legislature
4 Canada 2005 Legislature
5 South Africa 2006 Legislature
6 Norway 2009 Legislature Same-sex civil unions allowed in 1993
7 Sweden 2009 Legislature
8 Argentina 2010 Legislature First country in Latin America to permit same-sex marriage
9 Iceland 2010 Legislature
10 Portugal 2010 Legislature
11 Denmark 2012 Legislature First country in the world to acknowledge same-sex civil unions in 1989
12 Brazil 2013 Judiciary In 2011, the country’s top court allowed same-sex couples to enter ‘stable unions’ akin to heterosexual marriages
13 England/Wales 2013 Legislature
14 France 2013 Legislature
15 New Zealand 2013 Legislature First country in Asia-Pacific to permit same-sex marriage
16 Uruguay 2013 Legislature Civil unions allowed previously
17 Luxembourg 2014 Legislature
18 Scotland 2014 Legislature Civil unions allowed previously
19 Finland 2015 Legislature
20 Ireland 2015 Popular referendum First country to legalise gay marriage by popular vote
21 USA 2015 Judiciary Before this decision, marriage equality varied across states
22 Mexico 2015 Judiciary The court declared the ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional, but it took several years for all states to comply; all the states legitimised same-sex marriages in 2022
23 Colombia 2016 Judiciary Civil unions allowed previously
24 Greenland 2016 Legislature
25 Australia 2017 Legislature Preceded by a postal survey that showed that the majority supported the idea
26 Malta 2017 Legislature
27 Germany 2017 Legislature
28 Austria 2019 Judiciary
29 Ecuador 2019 Judiciary
30 Taiwan 2019 Legislature Parliamentary approval came two years after the judiciary took an expansive view of marriage
31 Northern Ireland 2019 Legislature Legislation passed by UK Parliament during political vacuum in Northern Ireland
32 Costa Rica 2020 Judiciary Judiciary declared the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional in 2018; first Central American country to allow marriage parity
33 Chile 2021 Legislature Bill introduced in 2017; civil unions permitted since 2015
34 Switzerland 2022 Popular referendum Two-thirds majority voted in favour of legalisation
35 Slovenia 2022 Legislature Legalisation followed the decision of the country’s constitutional court that outlawed ban on same-sex marriages and adoption; first post-Socialist country to permit gay marriages
36 Cuba 2022 Popular referendum Two-thirds majority voted in favour of legalisation
37 Andorra 2023 Legislature Allowed same-sex marriage and adoption
38 Estonia 2023 Legislature Amended the 2016 Family Law Act, which recognised civil unions
39 Nepal 2023 Judiciary

Source: Compiled by Author.

After various failed attempts spanning two decades to bring a law on marriage equality between same-sex and different-sex partnerships, Brazil became the first country to legalise same-sex unions (and later, marriages) by judicial intervention in 2011 and 2013 respectively. These judicial decisions rest on a long history of legal change and jurisprudence, from outlawing colonial law criminalising gay sex immediately after their independence from Portugal in the 19th century to crafting a new legal notion of family based not just on biological ties but on affection and emotion (‘socio-affective family’) and then extending it to same-same families (‘homo-affective family’). However, the decisions legitimising same-sex families have been controversial and polarising in a country known for its rich religious and ethnic diversity.

Apart from Brazil, five other countries (USA, Colombia, Austria, Ecuador, and Costa Rica) have legalised same-sex marriage via judicial direction. Ireland, Switzerland and Cuba resorted to popular referendum to legalise same-sex marriages. While Mexico City was the first city across Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage through a legislative vote in 2009, the judicial ruling of 2015 paved the way for subsequent legalisation across all other states.

In countries where opinion on same-sex relationships is highly polarised and religiously opposed, stakeholders have often approached the judiciary for expansion and protection of their rights. For instance, the US Supreme Court, in their landmark ruling on Obergefell vs Hodges (2015), extended the right to marry to same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The same year, Mexico’s top court struck down a ban on same-sex marriages, calling it discriminatory and violative of the country’s Constitution. Recently, Sri Lanka and Nepal’s top courts have paved the way for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

The case of Nepal can serve as a notable example of how things might transpire when the country’s Judiciary rolls the ball into the Legislature’s court. So, in 2007, Nepal’s highest court instructed the government to form a committee to prepare a legal framework to facilitate non-heterosexual marriages. While the Committee submitted its report and recommended same-sex marriages in 2015, successive governments did not follow up with any legislation. Due to such political delays, the court allowed same-sex marriages from this year (2023). Importantly, Nepal and Sri Lanka are the only two countries that allow queer marriage in South Asia. India, despite its growing influence and aspirations in the region and globally, is being left behind by smaller countries that have taken a lead in collapsing the distinction between heterosexual and homosexual marriages.

Why did India’s Supreme Court lose this opportunity?

Putting the Supreme Court’s judgement into perspective reveals various significant insights. First, the Indian judiciary has, on earlier occasions, played an assertive role in filling legislative and policy vacuums to protect the rights of vulnerable people. The Vishaka Guidelines (Vishaka & Ors vs State of Rajasthan & Ors 1997) is one a shining example of judicial intervention, along with the Transgender Persons Protection Act (2019), and the declaration of ‘Triple Talaq’ as unconstitutional (2018), to name a few. By refusing to intervene and provide equal marital rights to the queer community, the Judiciary betrays its legacy of positive intervention and upholding the principle of equality.

Finally, it is important to note that family and marriage are not static institutions; they have varied over time and space, and evolved over centuries. It is through the state and legal framework that a specific type of marriage and family have come to be institutionalised, and ultimately legitimised. With changing circumstances, the understanding of marriage also requires revision. The Indian top court had an opportunity to push the narrow boundaries of definition of marriage and family. According to social historian Stephanie Coontz, ‘the institution of marriage has already been in a state of revolution for some time — and the same-sex-marriage movement is one step in a series of huge changes’. Everyone, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, must have the right to form emotional relationships and choose their partner. If not full mile, the Indian Supreme Court lost an opportunity to walk at least half a mile by recognising civil unions for the same-sex couples.

*

The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blogpost may not be reposted by anyone without prior written consent of LSE South Asia Centre; please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for permission.

Banner image © Sneha Sivarajan, Delhi, 2022, Unsplash.

About the author

Lakshita Bhagat
Dr Lakshita Bhagat is Assistant Professor in Public Policy at Amity University, Noida, India. Her areas of research interest include women’s and gender studies, demography, family sociology and work-family studies.
Posted In: India

Myanmar: The last days of the junta?

The rebels appear to hold all the initiative on the battlefield.

There is little love for the generals among the population

(Dita Alangkara via AFP/Getty Images)

RAHMAN YAACOB
Published 4 Dec 2023

Myanmar

The latest phase of military conflict in Myanmar pitting rebel forces against the Myanmar military, better known as the Tatmadaw, may herald a new political and security landscape in the war-torn Southeast Asian country.

Since October, three ethnic armed organisations under the banner of the Three Brotherhood Alliance have launched a coordinated offensive against the ruling military junta. Codenamed Operation 1027, the campaign has included the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Arakan Army, targeting Tatmadaw’s controlled areas and military outposts.

The success of the coordinated offensive has drawn support from other rebel forces among the milieu of local groups opposed to the regime, with the People’s Defence Force and the Communist Party of Burma’s People’s Liberation Army stepping up their fight against the Tatmadaw. In the past month, different rebel forces have overrun junta outposts and captured large swathes of land, including several towns and border crossings with India and China.

But two main factors will answer the question about how this latest fighting might shape the outcome of the battle against the junta: first, whether the rebel forces can maintain the pace of the offensive; second, how effectively the Tatmadaw can regroup with a counter-offensive.
There are reports of Tatmadaw units surrendering without fighting or offering only feeble resistance before giving up.

There are several indicators suggesting that the rebels hold advantages on the battlefield. Given the junta’s brutality, the rebels can expect to draw on popular support. The local population is critical in any insurgency campaign, as it can lead to tangible support such as intelligence, materials, and personnel.

Since the February 2021 coup, the junta has imprisoned nearly 20,000 people and caused nearly one million people to be internally displaced. The junta’s four-cuts strategy to stifle opposition terrorises the civilian population. To maintain power, the junta has unleashed its air force to strike against civilian targets, so there is little love for the generals.

Furthermore, the rebel’s rapid success in capturing several Tatmadaw outposts has enabled them to access additional weapons and ammunition. The latest pictures and videos from social media indicate that rebel forces have also captured armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. These could be turned against the Tatmadaw in future offensives.

Military weapons said to be confiscated by an armed group in Loikaw, Karenni State, 14 November

(Myo Satt Hla Thaw via Getty Images)

And the rebel forces have the initiative on the battlefield. The Tatmadaw has been forced to give up numerous positions and retreat across multiple fronts. Having the initiative is critical – military theory argues that freedom of action forces the enemy to conform to one’s objective and pace.

But theory can wilt when confronted by reality. Can the Tatmadaw regain the initiative to organise an effective defence, followed by counterattacks to recapture lost territory? For now, this seems an impossible task.

The Tatmadaw appears overstretched. Besides engaging the rebels, the junta has to contend with anti-junta forces in areas under its control, demonstrated by the reported assassination of one of the junta’s cronies in Yangon. A recent study estimated the strength of the Tatmadaw to be about 150,000 personnel, with 70,000 of them in combat units. To put the figures into context, the United States deployed nearly half-a-million troops in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam war. Even allowing that the two conflicts are not perfect historical comparisons, it helps to illustrate the scale of the junta’s challenge. Considering that Myanmar is geographically larger than Vietnam and dotted by thick jungles and mountains, the Tatmadaw is struggling against a simultaneous fight against rebel forces throughout the country.

Low morale is also evident. There are reports of Tatmadaw units surrendering without fighting or offering only feeble resistance before giving up. In other instances, Tatmadaw troops abandoned their posts and fled to neighbouring India. Recruitment to replenish losses is also a significant problem.

As the Tatmadaw losses mount, it may retreat to major population centres and military bases. The rebel forces, controlling much of the countryside, will likely be able to isolate Tatmadaw units defending these areas. The junta may use its airpower to push back the rebels, but airpower alone is insufficient to win an insurgency. Again, the Vietnam experience is illustrative – the United States dropped more than 5 million tonnes of bombs on Vietnam but still lost the war.

The junta could be staring at defeat should the rebel push continue. Been compelled to negotiate for a peaceful power transfer is far preferable to a drawn-out fight only to be overthrown. Myanmar has known bloodshed enough. The country deserves a chance for democracy to flourish.

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ASEAN governments need to act on Myanmar

China Coy on Support for Rebels Fighting Guerrilla War on Border

Dec 03, 2023
By Aadil Brar
China News Reporter

NEWSWEEK

China's involvement in Myanmar's internal conflict, particularly with certain ethnic rebel groups, may have become a strategic tool for Beijing to counter online scam operations originating from the country.

While China does not officially support these groups, their alliance has been instrumental in Beijing's crackdown on scams targeting Chinese citizens. Chinese officials, however, have not been forthcoming about their aims.

"Myanmar's most powerful ethnic armed organization, the United Wa State Army, has expelled two top officials wanted by Beijing for involvement in online scams targeting Chinese citizens," according to AFP.

The move by a significant rebel group in Myanmar indicated a level of cooperation with Chinese authorities against cybercrimes.

Morgan Michaels, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank outlined advancements made by rebel groups in their offensive against the country's military junta.

"On 27 October, three ethnic armed groups, known as the Brotherhood Alliance, launched a large-scale, coordinated offensive against military, police, and militia targets across northern Shan State," Michaels wrote.

The offensive marked their involvement in the post-coup conflict—begun as a response to the overthrow in 2021 of Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government—challenging Myanmar's military government.

"Beijing may also be behind the rise of some new armed groups, such as the People's Liberation Army, an apparent reboot of the former Communist Party of Burma," Michaels said of China's potential backing of new armed groups.

The involvement suggests a more complex relationship between China and the rebel groups in Myanmar than had previously been understood, one in which Beijing had a broader strategic calculus.

"China appears willing to endure increased border instability in the short term to secure its long-term economic and strategic interests," Michaels said.
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"Within just two weeks, the alliance, which includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta'ang National Liberation Army, and Arakan Army, captured over 100 regime positions and gained control of several towns, including key border crossings with China," he wrote.

It was unclear, however, whether Beijing considered the groups' significant and rapid gains.

Avinash Paliwal, a Reader in International Relations at SOAS, University of London, told Newsweek in a recent interview that Myanmar's civil war began as a "parochial interest" for neighboring China, but that it had since become more complex—not necessarily in the Chinese leadership's favor.

Chinese navy personnel aboard the the Chinese frigate Xiangtan, belonging to the People's Liberation Army Navy 23rd Escort Task Group, stand at attention during a departure ceremony at Thilawa port in the outskirts of Yangon on October 4, 2016. A 700-strong force from the PLA Navy called on Myanmar in late November, in a visit Beijing said was unrelated to the neighboring country's internal conflict.

ROMEO GACAD/AFP VIA GETTY

China's own People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy deployed naval assets to Myanmar late last month. The destroyer Zibo, frigate Jingzhou and supply ship Qiandaohu arrived with about 700 sailors on November 27.

Beijing said the four-day visit was unrelated to the neighboring country's internal conflict.

The Chinese military recently carried out military drills near the southern border with Myanmar, according to images released last week. China's Defense Ministry said the exercises were routine.

"The recent combat training activity by Southern Theater Command aims to test the troops' rapid maneuverability, border sealing and control, and firepower strike capabilities to maintain security and stability in border areas," said Beijing's defense spokesperson Col. Wu Qian.

"The Chinese military has always maintained a high degree of alert and will always be prepared to respond to various emergencies," Wu said.

On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin was asked about Beijing's support for the rebel offensive. He said: "China has always respected Myanmar's sovereignty and territorial integrity, sincerely hoped for stability and development, and firmly supported Myanmar in advancing the peace process."

"Any attempt to sow discord" or undermine the relationship wouldn't succeed, Wang said..

Where the Myanmar Junta Fears To Tread

Visits to four different locations in Myanmar, all in varying stages of control by resistance groups.

By Rajeev Bhattacharyya
December 01, 2023

A Chin National Army checkpoint on the road between Camp Victoria and Thantlang in Myanmar’s Chin State.Credit: Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing admitted in February 2023 that the regime only has full control of 198 of Myanmar’s 330 townships. Martial law has been imposed in 50 townships across Yangon, Mandalay, Sagaing and Magwe regions, as well as Chin and Kayah states, where the junta is fighting for control with resistance forces. In other areas, the junta has no meaningful presence at the moment. These are the regions considered “liberated zones” by the opposition, where an alternate administration, including education and health facilities, have been erected by the National Unity Government (NUG) and local groups.

The military regime’s position in the ongoing war has further deteriorated in the nine months since the junta chief’s admission. In late October, Operation 1027 was executed by a conglomerate of three ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) called the Brotherhood Alliance. The military offensive swept across northern Shan State, resulting in the capture of 126 military bases, 13 towns, the highways leading to the China-Myanmar border towns of Muse and Chinshwehaw, and an entire battalion. Sooner thereafter, in mid-November, another military offensive began in Rakhine State.

Some among the resistance groups active along the India-Myanmar border region are optimistic about the operation being extended to their areas in Sagaing Region and Chin State, which have been among the most affected zones in the conflict. True to their expectations, regime forces were driven out of Khampat early in November by a combined offensive executed by several groups.

Between January and March, The Diplomat covertly visited Haimual-New Haimual, Thantlang, Kalay, and Tamu in Chin State and Sagaing Region to gather information on the Spring Revolution. The conflict has developed its own characteristics in each locale, with the rebel groups and the military also adopting diverse tactics to clinch a victory. There are liberated zones where the junta does not have a presence and also areas where both sides are engaged in brutal contests for control of more territory.

Read the full story here, in The Diplomat magazine.

CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Assam in India’s northeast

Farmers in Thailand look indoors to plant strawberries, veggies and cannabis

The glowing pink window of Varmers' strawberry farm attracts passers-by along Bangkok's busy Sukhumvit stretch.

ST PHOTO: TAN TAM MEI

Tan Tam Mei
Thailand Correspondent

BANGKOK – In the past year, pedestrians in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road have been drawn to a pinkish hue from a large window on the busy street.

Many of them peer through the window and are surprised to see dozens of layers of strawberry plants stacked high behind the glass.

“People are attracted by the window, and they are more than welcome to come in and find out more about Varmers,” said Mr Geert Liezenga, founder and chief executive of the company that grows strawberries through vertical farming.

The 35-year-old serial entrepreneur moved to Thailand from the Netherlands about five years ago. and planted the first strawberries in the vertical farm in January 2023.

The farm adopts a direct-to-consumer model and delivers its strawberries to consumers, supermarkets and restaurants.

Varmers founder and chief executive Geert Liezenga began planting strawberries on his farm in the busy Sukhumvit stretch in January 2023.

ST PHOTO: TAN TAM MEI

The vertical farm, which is a little over 100 sq m in land area and stretches 11m vertically, is equivalent to a 4,800 sq m outdoor farm, and can produce more than 800,000 strawberries annually.

Despite being in production for less than a year, Varmers is already working on opening another similar facility and experimenting with other crops, says Mr Liezenga.

Indoor farming is the cultivation of crops in buildings or rooms with a controlled environment, and includes hydroponics. While it is still in its nascent days in Thailand, unlike in other countries such as Japan and Singapore, interest is growing.

The pressures of climate change and urbanisation, as well as technological advances and innovations, have pushed a new generation of local and foreign farmers in Thailand to experiment in this sector.

There are now about 50 start-ups on agricultural technology in Thailand, with a handful focused on novel farming systems like indoor farming, which is also termed “controlled environment agriculture”, or plant factories.

The market value of smart farming in Thailand has displayed potential, with global consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan estimating an increase of market value from US$106.9 million in 2017 to US$269.9 million (S$360.8 million) in 2022.

Over the years, indoor farms similar to the likes of Varmers are taking root in Thailand – utilising Bangkok’s urban metropolitan to grow crops, ranging from strawberries to cannabis.

The concept of farming in covered spaces like greenhouses is not new, but in recent years, growers have brought crops even closer to the consumers by using insulated spaces like warehouses, buildings and even shipping containers located smack in the middle of urban landscapes like Bangkok.

The more novel methods of indoor farming are bringing new meaning to the concept of farm to table. Varmers can go from receiving an order, harvesting the fruit, and delivering anywhere within Bangkok, in just 30 minutes.

“It doesn’t get any fresher than that,” said Mr Liezenga.

Another urban farmer is Dr Wilas Charmlertwat, 46, who is a software developer.

With no background in agriculture, he dabbled in indoor farming as a hobby about five years ago.

And today, he is one of the founders of noBitter, an indoor vertical kale farm that has a customer base of about 5,000 people.

Dr Wilas Chamlertwat started growing kale as a hobby. This has now evolved into the start-up noBitter, which has three vertical hydroponic farms in Bangkok and surrounding provinces.

ST PHOTO: TAN TAM MEI

There are now three noBitter farms in Bangkok and its surrounding provinces of Nakhon Pathom and Samut Prakan, and each can produce up to 20kg of leafy green kale a day.

Through the use of hydroponics, noBitter’s kale plants are not subject to pesticides and herbicides, or the unpredictable weather elements that plague outdoor-grown plants, said Dr Wilas.

“When you consume kale from our indoor farm, you can be confident that you are receiving the full nutritional benefits of this superfood,” said Dr Wilas, as he munches on a freshly harvested leaf. “You don’t even need to wash it.”

In the confines of an indoor farm like noBitter’s, temperatures, humidity, nutrients and the amount of sunlight can be controlled – same for the yield, appearance and even taste.

“We are able to eliminate the bitter taste associated with kale so we can enjoy its sweetness,” he said.

This is a promising solution for farmers as it addresses the threat of climate change, where drought, flooding or climate shock can damage crops on outdoor farms and result in lower yields and incomes.

The unparalleled control of indoor farming not only results in better quality and quantities produced, but also makes it possible to grow fruit all year round. This gives Varmers an edge over traditional outdoor strawberry farms in Thailand’s north that typically produce fruit for only five months – from November to March.

This precise control is also what allows Varmers to perfectly time seeding and harvesting periods based on customers’ orders, thereby providing more efficient supplies with lower chances of wastage, said Mr Liezenga.

“It takes 10 weeks for a strawberry to grow, and based on these timelines, we can grow on demand,” he said.

However, indoor farming has its challenges and trade-offs, such as high capital investment, time spent while experimenting and building the initial set-up, as well as higher consumption of water and energy. This means the resultant produce is more expensive.

With outdoor-grown kale of varying quality available for just 100 baht (S$3.80) per kg, it has been difficult for noBitter to compete in the mass market with its indoor-grown greens going for 700 baht per kg.

As a result, it is expanding its offerings to include a nutritional supplement made from kale and will soon be launching it, said Dr Wilas.

Despite the limited market and high investment costs of indoor farming, the owner of Elm Farm, Mr Ravin Seesod, counts the three million baht that he invested in his hydroponic weed farm well worth it, especially after one of his strains won first prize in a local competition in October.

“It proves that my experiment was successful,” said the 35-year-old.

“Competition judges said my weed had a fresher aroma and a cleaner taste. I also did not need to use pesticides on it,” said Mr Ravin, who grows about 140 cannabis plants in a building in Bangkok’s residential suburbs.

Elm Farm founder Ravin Seesod experimented with growing cannabis using a hydroponic set-up. He feels that the high investment costs have been worth it, especially after his weed won first prize at a local cannabis competition in October 2023.

ST PHOTO: TAN TAM MEI

It took him several failed attempts and almost a year of research and experimentation before he settled on the right parameters for growing cannabis in a hydroponic set-up. Now, his focus is on increasing his yield levels.

However, despite the growing numbers in Thailand looking to indoor farming, the bulk of agricultural activities will still use traditional farming methods, at least in the near future, said Assistant Professor Fa Likitswat from Thammasat University’s architecture and planning faculty.

Traditional farming now takes up nearly 25 per cent of the country’s total land area (11.9 million ha). The sector also remains one of the main sources of income for the Thai population, hiring about 12 million workers, or one-third of the total number of labourers.

However, the agricultural sector, which has long been a pillar of the Thai economy, has shrunk in the last decade, going from 11.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2012 to less than 9 per cent in 2022.

Still, with a large amount of resources dedicated to traditional farming, perhaps the best way to improve the agricultural sector will be to adopt a hybrid approach where certain parameters can be controlled while others are left to nature, such as using a greenhouse or labour-saving devices, or tapping big data, said Prof Fa.

Big data, in particular, can provide farmers with granular data on factors like rainfall patterns, field conditions and yield, which can help farmers make better decisions on farming activities.

Both public and private entities in Thailand have tried to improve the traditional farming sector in the hope of modernising certain elements. Efforts include introducing mobile apps that can help conventional farmers conduct weather analysis, and offering soft loans for the purchase of smart machinery like drones or monitoring systems.

But realistically, the industry is also battling more structural issues such as an ageing population, with younger generations turning away from farm work in favour of careers in cities, said Prof Fa, noting that she also expects to see farmland being developed as new opportunities emerge.

“Not all forms of farming need to go the route of high-tech indoor farming. Thailand will always have outdoor farming, so the problems have to be solved in that space,” she said.

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Fairytale of New York may finally reach the Christmas number one spot following death of Shane MacGowan

The Pogues’ festive classic was pipped to the UK top spot in 1987 by Pet Shop Boys, but is now in battle for pole position with Wham! and Mariah Carey

Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan: Fairytale of New York has never reached the top spot in the UK charts, peaking at number two. Photograph: Tim Roney/Getty Images

Naomi Clarke, PA Entertainment Reporter
Sun Dec 3 2023 - 20:18

The Pogues’ hit song Fairytale of New York is in a battle for number one in the UK charts against Wham! and Mariah Carey following the death of the band’s frontman Shane MacGowan, the Official Charts Company has said.

Originally released in 1987, the band’s gritty festive track has never reached the top spot in the UK charts, peaking at number two and beaten to the Christmas number one spot in the year of its release by the Pet Shop Boys’ Always on My Mind.

After the death of MacGowan aged 65 last Thursday, there have been calls from his fans and his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, for the track to finally claim the coveted Christmas number one title in a few weeks time.

Last Christmas by pop duo Wham!, which consisted of the late George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, is currently on track to take the top spot next Friday after climbing four spaces, according to the Official Chart Company’s first look.

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However, singing superstar Carey’s classic All I Want for Christmas Is You is less than 1,500 chart units behind at the moment, climbing from sixth to second.

[ Shane MacGowan funeral to take place on Friday ]

Fairytale of New York by The Pogues featuring the late Kirsty MacColl has seen an even greater surge up the charts following the death of MacGowan, rising 15 places since last week to claim the third spot.

Its jump in the last seven days puts it in contention for the Christmas title, which will be announced in less than three weeks on December 22nd.

Coral bookmakers is also placing it top of its predictions to achieve the festive number one with 1/5 odds ahead of Wham! and Carey’s festive juggernauts.

Fairytale of New York was written by MacGowan with fellow Pogues founder Jem Finer and later re-recorded to have MacColl duet with MacGowan, which led to the best-known version of the track.

It has returned to the UK Christmas top 40 every year since 2005 but never reached the top spot, according to the Official Charts Company.

MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday that she is in favour of the band’s best-known song reaching the milestone in his honour.

She said: “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It should be the Christmas number one, it absolutely should. I’m very much in favour of that.”

Media office says Israel committed numerous ‘massacres’ in all governorates of Gaza Strip over past 24 hours

Abdel Salam Fayez |04.12.2023 -

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Israel is escalating its genocidal war against the Gaza Strip and Palestinians are facing a “real humanitarian catastrophe on all levels,” the Gaza media office said Sunday.

“The Israeli occupation army deliberately inflicts the largest possible number of casualties through intense shelling of all provinces simultaneously using bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

“During the past 24 hours, the occupation committed numerous massacres in all governorates of the Gaza Strip through intense shelling of residents' homes without prior warning.”

The office said this comes “as part of the genocidal war committed by the occupation army against our Palestinian people, with the most heinous of these massacres being the Shujaiya massacre, during which 50 residential buildings and homes were bombed, resulting in hundreds of martyrs and wounded.”

On Saturday, the Palestinian Civil Defense Service in Gaza announced that its crews rescued and evacuated more than 300 Palestinians, including dead and wounded, due to Israeli shelling targeting the Shujaiya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.

The media office confirmed that the Gaza Strip is experiencing a “real humanitarian catastrophe on all levels” and called on “the international community, all organizations, and international entities to save 2.4 million people.”

It also called on “the international community and the United States to immediately stop the genocidal war being committed by the occupation army against children and women. The continuation of this war means there is approval and a green light for the continuation of brutal killing.”

The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian pause.

At least 509 Palestinians have been killed and 1,316 injured since Friday in Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surged to 15,523 since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged Palestinian enclave announced Sunday.

The number of wounded through the same period has risen to 41,316.

The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala

Gaza’s main Public library and dozens of hospitals destroyed in Israeli bombing

Authorities in Gaza announced on Monday that the pause in fighting has revealed that Gaza City’s main public library was among the many civilian buildings destroyed during the war.

NEWSROOM

DECEMBER 3, 2023

Authorities in Gaza announced on Monday that the pause in fighting has revealed that Gaza City’s main public library was among the many civilian buildings destroyed during the war.

Officials have decried the bombing of the building as a “deliberate attempt to destroy historical documents and books”.

Photos of the destroyed building, with books scattered around on the floor, were released by the Municipality of Gaza.

Video footage shared by Storyful, an intelligence agency and open source intelligence and verification platform, showed the destroyed building and the collapsed bookshelves inside.

Municipal authorities in Gaza have called for the intervention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to “intervene and protect cultural centres and condemn the occupation’s targeting of these humanitarian facilities protected under international humanitarian law”.

Literary Hub, a daily literary website launched in 2015, compared the bombing of the library to the 1992 attack on the library in Sarajevo, where Bosnian Serb forces, stationed in the hills above the city, razed the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the ground.

They added that Israel’s destruction of cultural and historical sites in Gaza was a “way for Israel to erase all evidence of Palestinian life and Palestinian humanity”.

While the bombing has destroyed 56,450 housing units, according to Euro-Med Monitor, places of worship, media offices, hospitals and universities have also been damaged.

The Islamic University of Gaza was one of the buildings bombed by Israel, which the Israeli army alleged was a “central training centre for Hamas engineers and a training institution for the development and production of weapons”.

Videos shared online showed Israeli military fighter jets targeting the Gaza City campus. According to Euro-Med Monitor, at least 266 schools have also been destroyed in the bombings.

The rights group highlighted that Gaza’s oldest mosque, the Al-Omari Grand Mosque, famed for its minaret dating back 1,400 years, has been damaged along with three historic churches, among them the Church of Saint Porphyrius, which was originally constructed in around 407 AD.

“Various cultural institutions have also been targeted by Israeli attacks, including at least six cultural centres and five bookstores which are now destroyed; most notably, these are the Orthodox Cultural Centre, Al-Qarara Cultural Museum (which was built in 1958), and the Rafah Museum,” said Euro-Med Monitor.

Medical facilities have become a central target of Israel’s war on Gaza, with the healthcare system in the besieged territory near total collapse after weeks of intense bombing and a total blockade on fuel, water, and aid.

For more than a week, Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital was the focal point of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed over 14,000 people – at least 5,800 of them children – in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas on southern Israel that left some 1,200 people dead.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 26 out of the 35 hospitals across Gaza are non-functional because of damage sustained during the Israeli military assault or the lack of power. There are nine hospitals and 18 primary healthcare centres that remain, mainly in the south, running under limited capacity, with barely sufficient medical supplies to sustain critical and lifesaving surgeries and provide care.

All hospitals in northern Gaza, where fighting has been most intense, have stopped functioning. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 164 “attacks on healthcare” in Gaza since 7 October.

“Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, posted on X last Wednesday.

Hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international humanitarian law and direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects are prohibited.

In addition, Israeli authorities ordered the evacuation last month of 23 hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza, despite medical professionals saying it was “impossible” to carry out safely. The WHO called the order “a death sentence” for the sick and injured, with operational hospitals in the south already running at full capacity.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israel has been strategically attacking healthcare facilities,” Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for Red Crescent, told TNA, expressing serious alarm. She explained that, as a humanitarian organisation, they are facing an “extreme challenge” in providing emergency services as there are few ambulances operating and highly restricted movement in northern Gaza.

Media office says Israel committed numerous ‘massacres’ in all governorates of Gaza Strip over past 24 hours

Abdel Salam Fayez |04.12.2023

Israeli air strikes leave Gaza's disabled population in dire conditions

As the world marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we turn our attention to Gaza. Israel’s continuous bombardment of the besieged Strip has resulted in a significant number of disabilities, creating further challenges for those with special needs. Escaping the bombings for many Palestinians with mobility issues and hearing impairments has become nearly impossible. Many with disabilities haven't been able to evacuate to the south of Gaza, leading to heightened struggles for survival in the north.

December 3, 2023 at 9:08 pm

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Monday, December 04, 2023

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Gaza’s main Public library and dozens of hospitals destroyed in Israeli bombing

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