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Category: France

  • Kurdish people gather in UK cities to remember those killed in the Paris attacks

    On Monday 9 January, people demonstrated in Cardiff and London to commemorate the three people killed by gunman William Malet last December at the Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris.

    The Canary recently reported that those who died on 23 December were “Abdurrahman Kizil, singer and political refugee Mir Perwer, and Emine Kara, a leader of the movement of Kurdish women in France”. Glen Black wrote:

    Police arrested Malet after the murders, and charged him on 26 December. Malet told investigators at the time that he had a “pathological” hatred for foreigners and wanted to “murder migrants”. As well as killing Kizil, Perwer, and Kara, Malet wounded a further three people. The suspect had a violent criminal history. At the time of the murders, he had just left detention for attacking a Paris refugee camp with a sabre in 2021.

    Thousands attended the funeral in Paris on 3 January, and French police attacked the mourners.

    The attack comes ten years after Turkish intelligence agent Ömer Güney assassinated Sakine Cansız (Sara), Fidan Doğan (Rojbîn), and Leyla Şaylemez (Ronahî) in a similar attack in Paris. Kurdish freedom movement news agency ANF Firat wrote that there has been no justice for Sara, Rojbîn and Leyla in the ten years since. According to ANF:

    justice remains far and so does truth

    London demonstrators demand action

    The Kurdish People’s Democratic Assembly of Britain (NADEK) held a demonstration outside the French embassy in London on 9 January, where they remembered both massacres.

    People tweeted news from the demonstration:

    NADEK said in a statement:

    Ten years on, there has been no justice for Sakine, Fidan and Leyla or any of the thousands of other women assassinated, raped, tortured and murdered by the Turkish state. We demand the UK, France, the European Union and international organizations take action to hold Turkey to account and to bring the real murderers to justice.

    The group demanded that:

    The UK, France, EU and the international community must launch a proper and thorough investigation into the chain of command which led to these deaths.

    “the second triple murder in 10 years”

    On the same day in Cardiff, around 40 demonstrators gathered to remember those who died in the attacks.

    A vigil was held in Cardiff city centre, and then the demonstrators moved to a statue of Lloyd George. The group explained why in a press release:

    Lloyd George, the Welsh prime minister of Britain was responsible for the partition of Kurdistan 100 years ago. The partition of Kurdistan, meant that in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran Kurds are being massacred to this day.

    Jill Davies from Kurdish Solidarity Cymru said:

    Kurds are being forcibly assimilated, murdered and tortured, this is happening not only in the middle east but also in Europe. This triple murder is not the first time for this to happen. France failed to protect its Kurdish born citizens that came to France to flee violence

    Wales is not innocent either, a Welsh prime minister was behind the partition of Kurdistan, and to this day we have statues of him in Cardiff and Caernarfon. There is even a Lloyd George museum that fails to mention his role in the partition that had lead to war that lasts to this day. There are 40 million Kurdish people worldwide, they are the largest nation without a state in terms of population.

    ‘Violence is following us here’

    Baris Rubar, a member of the Kurdish community in Wales said:

    We flee from our countries so that we can live in safety, only to have the violence follow us here. The European governments have a responsibility to protect its citizens. This is the second triple murder in 10 years in Paris of Kurdish activists. We believe there is something sinister going on and that the Turkish state should be investigated for these assassinations.

    Kurdish organisations have vowed to keep on organising until they get justice for those killed in the two Paris massacres. They deserve support and solidarity in their struggle.

    Featured image via Kurdish Solidarity Cymru (with permission)

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • France: 25,000 march in Paris to demand justice for assassinated Kurdish activists

    A large march took place in Paris, on January 7, to demand justice for three Kurdish female activists assassinated by a Turkish gunman in that city 10 years ago. Peter Boyle spoke to Kurdish solidarity activist and writer Sarah Glynn who participated in the march.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Thousands took to the streets of Paris for the funeral of three Kurds murdered by a racist gunman

    Kurdish people from across Europe travelled to the suburbs of Paris, France, on 3 January for the funeral of three Kurds murdered in a racist attack. Gunman William Malet killed two men and one woman on 23 December, in a attack on the Ahmet Kaya community centre in Paris’ 10th district.

    His victims were Abdurrahman Kizil, singer and political refugee Mir Perwer, and Emine Kara, a leader of the movement of Kurdish women in France.

    Organisers chartered buses to bring people from across France and some neighbouring countries to the ceremony in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, local sources said. Tears and cries of “Martyrs live forever!” greeted the coffins, wrapped in the flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish-controlled Rojava territory in northern Syria.

    The huge crowd followed the funeral on giant screens erected in a car park. The screens showed coffins surrounded by wreaths beneath a portrait of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

    Police arrested Malet after the murders, and charged him on 26 December. Malet told investigators at the time that he had a “pathological” hatred for foreigners and wanted to “murder migrants”. As well as killing Kizil, Perwer, and Kara, Malet wounded a further three people. The suspect had a violent criminal history. At the time of the murders, he had just left detention for attacking a Paris refugee camp with a sabre in 2021.

    A history of Turkish persecution

    Many Kurds in France’s 150,000-strong community refuse to believe Malet acted alone. They called his actions a “terrorist” attack, and pointed the finger at Turkey.

    Ten years ago, men believed to have ties with Turkey’s secret services shot dead three Kurds connected to the PKK. The murders took place in Paris’s 10th District. Coincidentally, their funerals were held in almost exactly the same spot as those of Kizil, Perwer, and Kara. More recently, the now-banned Turkish ultra-nationalist group Grey Wolves was blamed for an attack in Lyon. Members of the group beat men at the city’s Kurdish cultural centre in April 2022.

    Celik, a local who attended the 3 January funeral, said:

    We feel like they’re doing everything they can to crush us, whether it’s here or in Turkey.

    Malet’s murders led to confrontations between Kurdish people and French police in the streets of the capital.

    A chance to pay respects

    The Democratic Council of Kurds in France (CDKF) said the 3 January ceremony was an:

    opportunity for those who wish to pay their final respects… before the bodies are repatriated to their native soil [for burial]

    CDKF activists will lead a march on 4 January in tribute to the December victims. The route will include the street where the shootings took place.

    On 7 January, a “grand march” of the Kurdish community will set off from Paris’s Gare du Nord rail hub. Organisers had originally planned to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2013 shootings, but will now mark the most recent murders.

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse (AFP)
    Featured image via AFP, resized to 770*403

     

    By Glen Black

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 1668 journalists killed in past 20 years (2003-2022), says RSF

    Pacific Media Watch

    With murders, contract killings, ambushes, war zone deaths and fatal injuries, a staggering total of 1668 journalists have been killed worldwide in connection with their work in the last two decades (2003-2022), according to the tallies by the Paris-based global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) based on its annual round-ups.

    This gives an average of more than 80 journalists killed every year. The total killed since 2000 is 1787.

    RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

    “Behind the figures, there are the faces, personalities, talent and commitment of those who have paid with their lives for their information gathering, their search for the truth and their passion for journalism.

    In each of its annual round-ups, RSF has continued to document the unjustifiable violence that has specifically targeted media workers.

    This year’s end is an appropriate time to pay tribute to them and to appeal for full respect for the safety of journalists wherever they work and bear witness to the world’s realities.

    Darkest years
    The annual death tolls peaked in 2012 and 2013 with 144 and 142 journalists killed, respectively. These peaks, due in large measure to the war in Syria, were followed by a gradual fall and then historically low figures from 2019 onwards.

    Sadly, the number of journalists killed in connection with their work in 2022 — 58 according to RSF’s Press Freedom Barometer on December 28 — was the highest in the past four years and was 13.7 percent higher than in 2021, when 51 journalists were killed.

    15 most dangerous countries
    During the past two decades, 80 percent of the media fatalities have occurred in 15 countries. The two countries with the highest death tolls are Iraq and Syria, with a combined total of 578 journalists killed in the past 20 years, or more than a third of the worldwide total.

    They are followed by Afghanistan, Yemen and Palestine. Africa has not been spared, with Somalia coming next.

    With 47.4 percent of the journalists killed in 2022, America is nowadays clearly the world’s most dangerous continent for the media, which justifies the implementation of specific protection policies.

    Four countries – Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Honduras – are among the world’s 15 most dangerous countries.

    Asia also has many countries on this tragic list, including the Philippines, with more than 100 journalists killed since the start of 2003, Pakistan with 93, and India with 58.

    Women journalists also victims
    Finally, while many more male journalists (more than 95 percent) have been killed in war zones or in other circumstances than their female counterparts, the latter have not been spared.

    A total of 81 women journalists have been killed in the past 20 years — 4.86 percent of the total media fatalities.

    Since 2012, 52 have been killed, in many cases after investigating women’s rights. Some years have seen spikes in the number of women journalists killed, and some of the spikes have been particularly alarming.

    In 2017, ten women journalists were killed (as against 64 male journalists) — a record 13.5 percent of that year’s total media fatalities.

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

  • European Far Right Saw Electoral Wins in 2022. Reversing Them Will Not Be Easy.

    With the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, many of us hoped that the European far right would suffer a similar decline. In office, Trump had endorsed the post-fascist French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, sent U.S. diplomats to the U.K. to intercede on behalf of the jailed racist and far right activist Tommy Robinson, and inspired the growth outside the U.S.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Temaru accuses Tahitian minister of libel over China seabed deal claim

    RNZ Pacific

    French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has accused the environment minister of defamation over seabed mining.

    Last week, Environment Minister Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu claimed Temaru’s party Tavini Huiraatira did not support an assembly vote on a seabed mining moratorium because Temaru had signed a mining contract with China when he was president.

    Temaru denied this, saying it had never been a policy of Tavini Huiraatira party to “sell off the country or its soul”.

    The moratorium called for a block on any activity until more is known as there had to be evaluations to understand the risks seabed mining posed to the environment.

    Temaru said his party did not support the assembly’s moratorium text because it did not tie mining rights to decolonisation.

    The Tavini wants the moratorium linked to a 2016 UN resolution which urges the administering power to guarantee the permanent sovereignty of the people of French Polynesia over its natural resources, including marine resources and submarine minerals.

    While Temaru’s party wants to formalise recognition of the property rights of French Polynesia, France considers the exclusive economic zone of French Polynesia to be a French national asset.

    Huge economic zone
    French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is more than 4.7 million sq km and accounts for almost half of the water surface under French jurisdiction.

    Temaru said the UN process called on France to respect the territory’s right to sovereignty over all resources, including those at sea.

    He said under French law, the state could claim French Polynesia’s resources if they were declared of strategic value.

    Paris believes it has the rights to the territory’s seabed and continental shelves, which are thought to be rich in rare earths.

    Three years ago, France submitted a claim to extend the continental shelves in French Polynesia by almost a quarter of a million sq km.

    The submission had been made in New York at the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in the presence of Maamaatuaiahutapu.

    Obligations to indigenous
    In 2019, a lawyer of the group Blue Ocean Law Julian Aguon said that while France had designs to exploit seabed resources it also had fiduciary obligations as by law the indigenous people had permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

    He said France was a party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which were binding treaties.

    Aguon said a precedent was set by the International Court of Justice when it ruled in favour of Nauru which challenged Australia for breaching trusteeship obligations over phosphate mining.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

  • Baguette Listings: Why Food is Politics

    On November 30, the French baguette was formally added to the United Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage list.  The bureaucrats had finally gotten hold of a glorified bread stick, adding it to their spreadsheet list of cultural items worthy of preservation.  A delighted French President took the moment to gloat at the French Embassy in Washington.  “In these few centimetres passed from hand to hand lies the spirit of French know-how,” stated a glowing Emmanuel Macron.

    The list, for which UNESCO is responsible for observing, includes some 678 traditions from 140 countries. The Slovenians have beekeeping, for instance; Tunisia has harissa; Zambia can call upon the significance of the Kalela dance.  Such traditions can span several countries: the listing of states for the Lipizzan horse breeding tradition reads like an inventory of the lost Austro-Hungarian empire, echoing Joseph Roth’s Radetzkymarsch.

    The baguette, one of France’s grandest gastronative examples, is celebrated as a labour-intensive product marked by patience.  Lengthy periods of fermentation are required, including wheat of appropriate quality, leaving a distinct gold crispness.  Fats are eschewed, as are any improvers or additives, which are prohibited by the decree of September 13, 1993.  The characteristic cuts with 14 facets act like ceremonial scars.  It is also the hallmark of the traditional boulangeries, which are struggling, notably in rural areas, to survive.

    “Many have tried to make it; they just made something industrial which has no taste,” the grinning Macron exclaimed.  “And this ‘French touch’ we have in our baguette is the one we have in other sectors: It’s this additional know-how, this extra soul.  So, congratulations to our baguette for today.”

    Macron’s dig at the industrialised, quickly made baguette is well-founded, and it was appropriate for him to be doing it in the land of mass-industrialised food practices.  But the baguette has become, in time, a French imperial marker with local variations. The Vietnamese famously have their Bánh mì, which has become an international food presence across the global diaspora, though modifications in terms of part substitution of rice flour for wheat flour take place.  The influence in western and northern Africa is also clear.  The streets of Dakar are marked by baguette stands.

    As food is as much a political statement as a culturally boisterous one, political figures expressed their delight at the baguette’s listing.  Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak tweeted about the ubiquity of the baguette in terms of French habits: “morning, noon and evening, the baguette is part of the daily life of the French”.  The listing was “a great recognition for our artisans and the unifying places that are our bakeries.”

    Another important figure in promoting the baguette’s case for UNESCO recognition, Dominique Anract, called the announcement “good news in a complicated environment.”  As president of the National Federation of French Bakeries and Patisseries, Anract almost struck a wistful note about old habits.  “When a baby cuts his teeth, his parents give him a stump of baguette to chew off.”

    Much of this belies the fact that the French, as serious as they are about eating bread, consume less of it and are facing changing lifestyles and the hollowing out of its evocative rural villages.  Since 1950, the consumption of bread has fallen by a startling two-thirds.  But modern food politics demands modern laws; and a recent promulgation demands the use of certain percentages regarding the use of wheat. Eventually, much is at stake for the continued making and consumption of this thin bread morsel.

    For an individual such as Steven Kaplan, a Brooklyn-born historian who has spent almost all his academic life focused on bread, the UNESCO addition could only cause displeasure.  The ecstasy of French politicians about the baguette belies the fact that such a listing will simply serve to encourage inferior alternatives.  Under the generic term of “baguette de pain”, as opposed to “baguette de tradition”, the white flour baguette, “which is generally of very mediocre quality” is legitimised.  “For me, who has long campaigned for artisanal savoir-faire, this is an appalling regression.”

    Whenever a committee meets, politics will arise.  The decision making of UNESCO is no exception.  Was there a reason why Ukrainian borscht soup needed to make the list?  Yes, according to committee members, because of Russia’s warring efforts in Ukraine.  A gastronomic threat had been identified, with UNESCO claiming that “armed conflict has threatened the viability” of the dish, as “people not only cannot cook or grow local vegetables for borscht, but also cannot gather [to make the dish] … undermining the social and cultural well-being of communities.”

    Borscht brings its own brand of culinary politics, and charting countries which consume this soup is to revisit dead empires and their shadows: Imperial Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  Igor Bednyakov, chef at the Moscow restaurant Bochka, advises that the Cossacks cooked up the stew during the siege of Azov in 1637, a fascinating twist to the tale that has done little to neutralise Ukrainian-Russian debates on the issue.

    Ukrainian food nativists, for one, point to earlier dates and the addition of beetroot, while the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is adamant that borscht is a “symbol of traditional cuisine” and a “timeless classic” of Russian origin.  Not only do they want to steal our territory, comes the Ukrainian retort, but they want to appropriate our dishes.  Be that as it may, empires may perish but the dishes linger, their origins of necessity lost.

    The UNESCO listing of borscht was merely another front in the battle between Kyiv and Moscow.  “Victory in the war for borscht is ours!” exclaimed Ukrainian Minister for Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko.  Food, as the late Anthony Bourdain reminded us, really is politics.

    The post Baguette Listings: Why Food is Politics first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Gallic Rebuke: France and the US Rules-based Order

    Gérard Araud was not mincing his words.  As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough.  At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?”, Araud decried the “economic warfare” being waged by the United States against China, expressing the view that Europe was concerned by the evident “containment policy” being pursued.

    Araud is very much the diplomat establishment figure, having also served as French representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2014.  But despite his pedigree, he was most keen to fire off a few salvos against such concepts as the “rules-based order” so treasured by the Anglosphere and the “West” more broadly defined.  “To be frank, I’ve always been extremely sceptical about this idea of a ‘rules-based order’.”  Both he and the French in general loved the United Nations, “but the Americans not too much”.

    With unerring frankness, he also noted that the UN and broader international hierarchy was dominated by the US-European bloc.  The undersecretaries to the organisation reflected that fact, as did the stewardship of the World Bank and the IMF.  “So that’s the first element: this order is our order.”

    The second element was historical: the balance of power as it was in the war-ruined world of 1945.  “Really people forget that, if China and Russia are obliged to oppose [with] their veto, it is because frankly the Security Council is most of the time, 95% of the time, has a Western-oriented majority.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted elements of Araud’s thinking, notably regarding the problems and limits of US domination, while still reasserting the value of France’s own global imprint.  Such actions and sombre strategizing are taking place in the shadow of the West’s decline.  In a recent closed-door meeting with his top diplomats, Macron remarked that “the international order is being upended in a whole new way.  It is a transformation of the international order.  I must admit that Western hegemony may be coming to an end”.

    This theme of decline in Macron’s is an ongoing Spenglerian motif.  It surfaced at the end of the G-7 summit in 2019, where he reflected on the decline of Western dominance while pondering the finance-obsessed nature of the global market economy.  This was pretty rich coming from a banker, though he was certainly right on the issue of greater multipolarity.

    To his diplomats, Macron paddled in the waters of history, reflecting on French power in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution led by Britain in the 19th century, and the brute dominance of the United States from the 20th century.  With typically Gallic, broad stroke synthesis, he suggested that “France is culture, England is industry, and America is war.”

    Then came the finger pointing, sharply directed at the biggest of culprits and the underminers of the West.  “Within Western countries, many wrong choices the United States has made in the face of crises have deeply shaken our hegemony.”  It was not something that began with the Trump administration; previous US presidents “made other wrong choices long before Trump, Clinton’s China policy, Bush’s war policy, Obama’s world financial crisis, and quantitative easing policy.”

    To this swipe at Washington could be added the role of emerging powers, which were underestimated by the West “not just two years ago, but as early as ten or twenty years ago.”  He admitted that “China and Russia have achieved great success over the years under different leadership styles.”

    Despite such rueful admissions about decline, Macron is still keen to pursue a form of geopolitical balancing, notably in the Indo-Pacific.  This is code for the pursuing French interests in a region that is increasingly looking like exploding into a folly-driven conflict between the Chinese and US camps.  But Paris is hardly going to miss out pushing the credentials of its defence industry, which took a bruising with the scuppering of the Attack Class submarine deal with the Australian government in September last year.

    In February, Macron convinced Jakarta to ink a deal worth $8.1 billion for 42 Rafale fighter jets produced by Dassault Aviation.  Two diesel-electric Scorpène-class attack submarines produced by the Naval Group have also been added to the mix, along with ammunition, making the arrangements with Jakarta some of the most lucrative for France in Southeast Asia.

    On his current visit to Washington, Macron is facing those old problems of US power.  While Australia was designated assassin in killing off the submarine contract, the ammunition came from Washington as part of the AUKUS security pact, a spear pointing at China in the Indo-Pacific.  President Joe Biden has merely described the handling of the whole matter as “clumsy”.

    Then come such issues as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which gives advantageous climate subsidies to US companies over their European counterparts, and how the Ukraine War is to be addressed.  Biden has no inclination to speak to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, content to let the war rage as long as it bleeds Russia; Macron has been more than willing to keep the lines open, acknowledging that diplomacy, however frail, must at least be drip-fed.

    In his own reflections on what could be done regarding the US-Western parochialism of the rules-based order, Araud made the obvious point.  Any genuine international system purporting to be undergirded by rules had to integrate “all the major stakeholders into managing of the world, you know, really bringing in the Chinese, the Indians, and really other countries, and trying to build with them, on an equal basis, the world of tomorrow.”  What a daring idea, and one that is bound to avoid a global conflict.  For that reason, it won’t be embraced.

    The post Gallic Rebuke: France and the US Rules-based Order first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Israel strips Palestinian-French rights lawyer of Jerusalem residency

    Salah Hamouri expected to be deported after decision on grounds of ‘breach of allegiance’ to state

    Israel has stripped a prominent Palestinian-French human rights lawyer of his Jerusalem residency and is expected to deport him to France, a legal first that sets a dangerous precedent for other Palestinians with dual nationality in the contested city.

    Salah Hamouri, 37, had his Jerusalem residency revoked in October 2021 on the grounds of a “breach of allegiance” to the Israeli state, based on secret evidence. Israel alleges he is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel’s western allies.

    Continue reading…

  • Oceania Indigenous ‘guardians’ call for self-determination on West Papua day

    OPEN LETTER: The Ōtepoti Declaration by the Indigenous Caucus of the Nuclear Connections Across Oceania Conference

    On the 61st anniversary of the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence — 1 December 1961 — the Morning Star flag:

    We, the Indigenous caucus of the movement for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice, and demilitarisation of the Pacific, call for coordinated action for key campaigns that impact the human rights, sovereignty, wellbeing and prosperity of Pacific peoples across our region.

    As guardians of our Wansolwara (Tok Pisin term meaning “One Salt Water,” or “One Ocean, One People”), we are united in seeking the protection, genuine security and vitality for the spiritual, cultural and economic base for our lives, and we will defend it at all costs. We affirm the kōrero of the late Father Walter Lini, “No one is free, until everyone is free!”

    We thank the mana whenua of Ōtepoti, Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict and Kā Rakahau o Te Ao Tūroa Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago for their hospitality in welcoming us as their Pacific whānau to their unceded and sovereign lands of Aotearoa.

    We acknowledge the genealogy of resistance we share with community activists who laid the mat in our shared struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. Our gathering comes 40 years after the first Te Hui Oranga o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, hosted by the Pacific Peoples Anti Nuclear Action Committee (PPANAC) at Tātai Hono in Tamaki Makaurau.

    Self-determination and decolonisation
    We remain steadfast in our continuing solidarity with our sisters and brothers in West Papua, who are surviving from and resisting against the Indonesian genocidal regime, injustice and oppression. We bear witness for millions of West Papuans murdered by this brutal occupation. We will not be silent until the right to self-determination of West Papua is fully achieved.

    We urge our Forum leaders to follow through with Indonesia to finalise the visit from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua, as agreed in the Leaders Communiqué 2019 resolution.

    We are united in reaffirming the inalienable right of all Indigenous peoples to self-determination and demand the sovereignty of West Papua, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Bougainville, Hawai’i, Guåhan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Rapa Nui, Aotearoa, and First Nations of the lands now called Australia.

    Of priority, we call on the French government to implement the United Nations self-governing protocols in Mā’ohi Nui and Kanaky. We urge France to comply with the resolution set forth on May 17th, 2013 which declared French Polynesia to be a non-self-governing territory, and the successive resolutions from 2013 to 2022. The “empty seat policy” that the administering power has been practising since 2013 and attempts to remove Mā’ohi Nui from the list of countries to be decolonised have to stop. We call on France to immediately resume its participation in the work of the C-24 and the 4th Commission of the United Nations.

    Members of the Indigenous Caucus of the Nuclear Connections Across Oceania Conference
    Members of the Indigenous Caucus of the Nuclear Connections Across Oceania Conference. Image: Sina Brown-Davis/APR

    Nuclear justice
    We grieve for the survivors and victims who lost their lives to the nuclear violence caused by over 315 nuclear weapons detonated in Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati, Johnston Atoll and Mā’ohi Nui by the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France. The legacy and ongoing nuclear violence in our region is unfinished business and calls for recognition, reconciliation and reparations to be made by nuclear colonisers are long overdue.

    We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France to deliver fair and just
    compensation to Indigenous civilians, workers and servicemen for the health and environmental harms, including intergenerational trauma caused by nuclear testing programs (and subsequent illegal medical experiments in the Marshall Islands). The compensation schemes currently in place in all states constitute a grave political failure of these aforementioned nuclear testing states and serve to deceive the world that they are recognising their responsibility to address the nuclear legacy. We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia, and France to establish or otherwise significantly improve
    accessible healthcare systems and develop and fund cancer facilities within the Marshall Islands, Kiribati/Australia and Mā’ohi Nui respectively, where alarming rates of cancers, birth defects and other related diseases continue to claim lives and cause socio-economic distress to those affected. The descendants of the thousands of dead and the thousands of sick are still waiting for real justice to be put in place with the supervision of the international community.

    We demand that the French government take full responsibility for the racist genocidal health effects of nuclear testing on generations of Mā’ohi and provide full transparency, rapid assessment and urgent action for nuclear contamination risks. While the President of France boasts on the international stage of his major environmental and ecological transition projects, in the territory of Mā’ohi Nui, the French government’s instructions are to definitively “turn the page of nuclear history.” This is a white-washing and colonial gas-lighting attitude towards the citizens and now the mokopuna of Mā’ohi Nui. It is
    imperative for France to produce the long-awaited report on the environmental, economic and sanitary consequences of its 193 nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996.

    We proclaim our commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and call all states of the Pacific region who have not done so to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), namely Australia, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. We urge Pacific nations along with the world’s governments to contribute to the international trust fund for victims of nuclear weapons implemented by the TPNW. We urge Aotearoa/New Zealand and other states who have ratified the TPNW to follow through on their commitment to nuclear survivors, and to create a world free from the threat and harm of nuclear weapons through the universalisation of the TPNW. There can be no peace without justice.

    We oppose the despicable proposal of Japan and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to dump 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive wastewater next year in 2023, and support in solidarity with the citizens of Japan, East Asian states and Micronesian states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis. This is an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific. We call on the New Zealand government and others to stay true to its commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific and bring a case under the international tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the proposed radioactive release from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi planned from 2023 to 2053.

    Demilitarisation
    We condemn the geopolitical order forced upon our nations by imperial powers, who claim to be our friends, yet treat our islands as collateral damage and use financial blackmail to bully us into submission. We demand that the United States remove and remediate all military bases, infrastructure, debris and nuclear and chemical waste from the Pacific. Of priority is the US-owned nuclear waste storage site of Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll which threatens nuclear contamination of the ocean and marine-life, on which our lives depend. Furthermore, we call for all remaining American UXOs (unexploded ordnances) from World War II in the Solomon Islands, which cause the preventable deaths of more than 20 people every year to be removed immediately!

    We support in solidarity with Kānaka Maoli and demand the immediate end to the biennial RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercises hosted in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We urge all the present participating militaries of RIMPAC to withdraw their participation in the desecration and plunder of Indigenous lands and seas. We support in solidarity with the Marianas and demand an end to munitions testing in the Northern Marianas and the development of new military bases. We rebuke the AUKUS trilateral military pact and the militarisation of unceded Aboriginal lands of the northern arc of Australia and are outraged at Australia’s plans to permit further military bases, six nuclear-capable B52s and eight nuclear-powered submarines to use our Pacific Ocean as a military playground and nuclear highway.

    We call on all those committed to ending militarism in the Pacific to gather and organise in Hawai’i between 6-16 June 2024, during the Festival of the Pacific and bring these issues to the forefront to renew our regional solidarity and form a new coalition to build power to oppose all forms of military exercises (RIMPAC also returns in July -August 2024) and instead promote the genuine security of clean water, safe housing, healthcare and generative economies, rather than those of extraction and perpetual readiness for war.

    We view colonial powers and their militaries to be the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, the continued extractive mining of our lands and seabeds and the exploitation of our resources. These exacerbate and are exacerbated by unjust structures of colonialism, militarism and geopolitical abuse. This environmental destruction shifts the costs to Pacific and Indigenous communities who are responsible for less than 1 percent of global climate emissions.

    As Pacific peoples deeply familiar with the destruction of nuclear imperialism, we strongly disapprove of the new propaganda of nuclear industry lobbyists, attempting to sell nuclear power as the best solution for climate change. Similarly, we oppose the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) industry lobbyists that promote DSM as necessary for green technologies. We call for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty to be implemented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and for safe and equitable transition to better energy solutions. We reject any military solution for the climate crisis!

    We recognise the urgent need for a regional coordinator to be instituted to strategise collective grassroots movements for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice and demilitarisation.

    Our existence is our resistance.

    We, the guardians of our Wansolwara, are determined to carry on the legacy and vision for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • International troops quit Mali as violence and Moscow’s influence grow

    Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgency

    Thousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.

    On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned.

    Continue reading…

  • After 50 years, Le Pen’s party is more dangerous than ever

    It has been a year in which the far-right threat across Europe has been getting ever worse, writes John Mullen. Marine Le Pen’s party in France has had a series of successes and is hoping to build further in coming months. Determined opposition will be crucial.

  • “Nothing Works”: Europe Must Stop Blaming Others for Its Own Crises

    The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell is not particularly perceived by the EU’s political elite or mainstream media as a rightwing ideologue or warmonger. But seen through a different, non-western prism, it is hard not to mistake him for one.

    Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle” were duly condemned as ‘racist’ by many politicians around the world, but mostly in the Global South. Borrell’s remarks, however, must also be viewed as an expression of superiority, not only of Borell personally, but of Europe’s ruling classes as a whole.

    Particularly interesting about the EU top diplomat’s words are these inaccurate depictions of Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world: “We have built a garden”, “everything works” and “the jungle could invade the garden”.

    Without delving too deep into what is obviously an entrenched superiority complex, Borell speaks as if an advocate of the so-called ‘Replacement Theory’, a racist notion advocated by the West’s – Europe especially – rightwing intellectuals, which sees refugees, migrants and non-Europeans as parasites aiming to destroy the continent’s supposedly perfect demographic, religious and social harmony.

    If stretched further into a historical dimension, one also feels compelled to remind the EU leadership of the central role that European colonialism, economical exploitation, political meddling and outright military intervention have played in turning much of the world into a supposed ‘jungle’. Would Libya, for example, have been reduced to the status of a failed state if the West did not wage a major war starting in March 2011?

    The imagined ‘jungle’ aside, Europe’s past and present reality strongly negates Borell’s ethnocentric view. Sadly, Europe is the birthplace of the most horrible pages of history, from colonialism and slavery to the nationalistic, fascist and nihilistic movements that defined most of the last three centuries.

    Despite the desperate attempt to rewrite or ignore history in favor of a more amiable narrative focused on great splendors, technological advancement and civilizational triumph, Europe’s true nature continues to smolder underneath the ashes, ready to resurface whenever the geopolitical and socioeconomic factors take a wrong turn. The Syrian and Libyan refugee crisis, the Covid pandemic and, more recently, the Russia-Ukraine war are all examples of the proverbial wrong turn.

    In fact, Borrell’s words, aimed to reassure Europe of its moral superiority, are but a foolhardy effort meant to conceal one of the most dramatic crises that Europe has experienced in nearly a century. The impact of this crisis on every aspect of European life cannot be overstated.

    In an editorial published last September on the European Environment Agency (EEA) website, Hans Bruyninckx described the “state of multiple crises” that characterizes the European continent at the moment. “It seems as if we have been living through one crisis after another — a pandemic, extreme heatwaves and drought due to climate change, inflation, war and an energy crisis,” he wrote.

    Instead of taking responsibility for this impending catastrophe, Europe’s ruling elites choose a different, though predictable route: blame others, especially the inhabitants of the non-European ‘jungle’.

    Naturally, ordinary people throughout Europe who are already experiencing this harrowing reality hardly feel reassured by Borrell’s proclamation that “everything works”.

    The risk of the resurgence of the far-right movements in Europe is now a real possibility. This danger was relatively mitigated by the setback of the extremist ‘Alternative for Germany’ and the victory of the Social Democrats in last year’s elections. Germany, however, is not the exception, as the European far-right is now back, virtually everywhere, and with a vengeance.

    In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right party gained a record 41% of the total vote (over 13 million) in April. True, Emmanuel Macron managed to hold off the advance of Le Pen’s National Rally, but his coalition has lost its parliamentary majority, and his leadership has been significantly weakened. Currently, the country is rocked by massive rallies and strikes, all protesting the soaring prices and deepening inflation.

    Sweden is another example of the determined rise of the far-right. A right-wing coalition, which won the general elections last September, now dominates the country’s parliament. On October 17, it elected a new prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, whose government was made possible because of the support of the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots and a harsh anti-immigration agenda. SD was crucial in determining the victory of the coalition and it is now suited to play the role of the kingmaker in critical decisions.

    In Italy, too, the situation is dire. A future government is expected to bring together Giorgia Meloni – the leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) – former right-wing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia, and the extremist Matteo Salvini’s La Lega. Meloni’s party is rooted in the post-fascist tradition of the Italian Social Movement, which was formed in the aftermath of World War II by fascist politicians after their party was officially outlawed by the country’s progressive 1948 Constitution.

    The shifting political grounds in Germany, France, Italy and Sweden have little to do with the ‘jungle’, and everything with the illusory European ‘garden.’ Europe’s extremism is a by-product of exclusively European historical experiences, ideologies and class struggles. Blaming Asians, Arabs or Africans for Europe’s “state of multiple crises” is not only self-deluding, indeed spiritless, but also obstructive to any healthy process of change.

    Europe cannot fix its problems by blaming others, and the European ‘garden’, if it ever existed, is actually being ravaged by Europe’s own ruling elites – rich, detached and utterly dishonest.

    • Romana Rubeo, an Italian journalist, contributed to this article.

    The post “Nothing Works”: Europe Must Stop Blaming Others for Its Own Crises first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pro-independence Palika ready to join dialogue on future of Kanaky New Caledonia

    RNZ Pacific

    One of New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties, Palika, says it is prepared to meet the French ministers due in Noumea this month to follow up on the aftermath of the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    Among a dearth of formal contact this year, the Palika said the talks could be about a possible framework allowing for New Caledonia’s independence in partnership with France.

    Last week, Palika, along with the other parties making up the FLNKS movement, stayed away from what Paris called the Convention of Partners, hosted by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to discuss the future status of New Caledonia.

    The meeting was the first gathering involving the prime minister since last December’s third and last referendum, in which 96 percent voted against full sovereignty.

    The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process, calling instead for bilateral talks with the French government.

    A Palika spokesperson, Charles Washetine told La Premiere television that Palika wanted to attend the Paris talks but followed the stance of other FLNKS parties which had reneged on a commitment made in September to travel to France.

    Washetine said he was keen to start discussions as quite a bit was on the agenda for 2024 when the next provincial elections are due.

    Dealing with decolonisation
    He said for his side it was important to know how to deal with the decolonisation as outlined in the Noumea Accord, which is transitional in nature.

    At the heart of it, he said, was the transfer of power from France to New Caledonia, adding that work had to be done to complete the process.

    He said the outstanding powers, which include defence and policing, could be shared in a partnership with France.

    At last Friday’s Paris talks, attended by New Caledonia’s leading anti-independence politicians, Borne said they marked the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

    She added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco would visit Noumea in November.

    With a target date of mid-2023, Borne wants to conclude an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988.

    She said it was agreed with the anti-independence leaders in attendance that they would broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

    Equal opportunities
    These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

    Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner.

    Washetine said the pro-independence side would co-operate but added that amalgams should be avoided as some powers were within the competences of New Caledonia.

    This year, there has been little formal contact between the pro-independence leaders and the French government, with Paris being accused of being deaf to their demands.

    Washetine said if the referendum had been held under normal conditions, the situation would perhaps be different.

    In Paris, however, Borne said after meeting the anti-independence politicians that she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

    With talks now likely in New Caledonia, Washetine said he hoped that the upcoming period would deal with the fundamental questions, adding that “things can’t be done without the Kanak people”.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French PM meets New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris

    RNZ Pacific

    French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne says her meeting with New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris marks the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

    The meeting was called as the decolonisation process under the 1998 Noumea Accord had concluded with rejection of full sovereignty in last December’s third referendum on independence from France.

    All key parties were invited to chart the next step, but the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) — who reject the third referendum as they did not participate because of the covid-19 pandemic — stayed away from the gathering, labelled the Convention of Partners.

    In September, the Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco said the FLNKS would be at the Paris talks.

    French Junior Minister for Overseas Jean-Francois Carenco speaks during a session of questions to the government at The National Assembly in Paris on July 12, 2022. - French Prime Minister survived on July 11, 2022 her first no-confidence vote in parliament, which had been sponsored by the hard-left opposition. (Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP)
    French Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco . . . said the FLNKS would take part in the Paris talks. Image: RNZ Pacific/AFP

    In comments after the meeting, Borne said she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

    She said as a transition period begins, the delegates noted the need to base their reflections on the lessons of experience.

    Borne said they agreed to launch an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988 with regard to the international law.

    Broaden the discussions
    She said it was agreed to broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing the vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

    These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

    Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner in November.

    The work is expected to be concluded in mid-2023, with her adding that it would only succeed if all political forces contributed to it.

    Last year, Paris announced plans for a new referendum in June on a new statute, but the project has been deferred in the face of the pro-independence parties’ refusal to engage in the process outlined by France.

    To progress negotiations, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will travel to New Caledonia in November together with Carenco, who in September was the first French minister to visit Noumea since the formation of the Borne government in June.

    Got ‘best they could’
    One of New Caledonia’s members of the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, said they got the best they could in the absence of the pro-independence politicians.

    He said with a timetable and a working method, he hoped they would come back to the discussion table.

    Metzdorf said if they wanted to add working groups of their own, they had every opportunity to do so.

    None of the parties making up the FLNKS attended the talks in France because in part they refuse to recognise the vote as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

    The FLNKS has signalled that its discussions with Paris will have to centre on ways to complete the territory’s decolonisation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Haiti: The “Gardeners” are Coming Back to the “Jungle”

    Coups-d’etat, U.N. “humanitarian” massacres, a President assassinated by U.S.-trained, Colombian mercenaries, earthquakes, cholera… and even the “aid” of the Clinton Foundation! Now, the country ravaged by decades of natural and man-made disasters braces itself for a new “humanitarian” military invasion.

    *****

    In a recent speech, Josep Borrel, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained to the world how “Europe is a garden”, while the rest of the world is a “jungle” that “could invade the garden”. This is his solution:

    …gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.

    In reality, racist “gardeners” have been invading the “jungle” for centuries, plundering and scheming genocidal massacres, and Haiti knows it better than most countries. Their “gardening” has also ensured that the so-called jungle remains underdeveloped.

    In another recent speech, this time at the United Nations General Assembly, Colombian president Gustavo Petro apologized to Haiti. The first leftist head of state of the South American country – also ravaged by decades of hypocritical U.S. “war on drugs”– was referring to the assassination of Jovenel Moise during a July 2021 attack, perpetrated by a group of mostly Colombian ex-soldiers. It also included 2 Haitian-Americans. The foreign gang, trained in part by the U.S. Army, posed as a team of DEA officers to gain entry to the presidential compound.

    Since then, social unrest has severely increased all over the country, and there’s an almost complete breakdown of the rule of law and many basic social services. The Haitian elite — including its U.S.-approved, de facto President, Ariel Henry — is calling for another foreign “humanitarian intervention” (a.k.a. “gardening”). Western corporate media argue that Haiti is calling for such an intervention. By “Haiti”, they mean its corrupted and U.S.-aligned political and oligarchic elite. What many people on the streets of the convulsed country really demand — besides the ousting of Henry — is that foreign forces stay the hell out of Haiti.

    Regarding Western (U.S. and vassal states) support for Henry, who already received armored vehicles, let’s read what the U.S. representative to Haiti said after renouncing his post on September 22, 2021:

    Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto President Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his ‘political agreement’ over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society.

    The embassies referred to in his quote, as Canadian writer Yves Engler explains, compose the U.N.-approved Core Group, “made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, and the European Union.” The group, he adds:

    …has heavily shaped Haitian affairs ever since American, French and Canadian troops assisted in the overthrow of the country’s elected government in 2004 and installed a United Nations occupation force.

    What President Henry, himself a suspect in the killing of Moise, intend is for a foreign military or U.N. “peace-keeping” mission to enter the country and neutralize the gangs, particularly those not armed and directed by the government itself, as they currently control parts of the country and, most importantly, many vital highways and a sequestered oil refinery. Haitian gangs kidnap people to ask for ransom money, which then finances their criminal exploits, including the illegal trafficking of arms manufactured in the U.S. They have turned Haiti into the new kidnapping capital of the world. Murder and rape are widespread as well (more detail below).

    Despite the many suspects arrested so far, the situation surrounding Moise’s killing remains obscure: there’s still no mastermind identified as responsible for ordering the assassination.

    From the Brazilian Favelas to the Haitian Shantytowns

    The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004-2017) was purportedly intended to ameliorate the chaos that overtook the country after the aftermath of the foreign coup against the first democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which happened in February 2004, two hundred years after Haiti’s heroic independence from France. In 2004, as mentioned above, the U.S., Canada, and France collaborated in the ousting of the popular leftist politician and priest from the Fanmi Lavalas party.

    Conveniently, a group of Brazilian Army generals, many of them tied to the dictatorship that controlled their country until 1985, were placed in command of the U.N. mission, which was quickly associated with a handful of civilian massacres, particularly in the overpopulated slums of Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, where around 300,000 people live in extremely precarious conditions. Cité Soleil is also where thousands of Fanmi Lavalas Party supporters live. These criminal raids resembled police and military incursions into many Sao Paulo and Rio favelas. There, under the cover of fighting criminal gangs, racist state actors killed innocent civilians, including boys, and unleashed terror over thousands of mostly black men, women, and children.

    While the Haitian massacres were occurring, as documents released through the Freedom of Information Act attest, the U.S. and its intelligence services were aware of the brutality being unleashed over Cité Soleil. On their part, the most important human rights organizations –like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Organization of American States– “remained conspicuously disinterested and silent about the evidence”.

    Some of the pictures of the chaos and murderous actions of the MINUSTAH –comprised of soldiers from 13 countries– are too explicit to be shown here, but the reader can visit HaitiAction.net to understand the extent of the cruelty exerted by these “peace-keepers”, who didn’t care to shoot at women and children with high caliber guns, even from helicopters, another terrorist tactic used by Brazilian police and military over the favelas.

    The idea behind raiding Cité Soleil and other shantytowns around Port-au-Prince in reality was to eliminate and terrorize Aristide supporters, rightly infuriated by the 2004 brazen postcolonial coup d’etat ordained and executed by the usual “gardeners”. They demanded the return of their democratically elected President, forcefully exiled to Africa. Those demands would be a regular feature for many years after the coup.

    Only between July 8 and July 17 of this year, 209 people were murdered in Cité Soleil. Half of them were innocent bystanders, without ties to any gang, and the rest, according to the BBC, were gang members “or people with links” to them (whatever that means). Other sources refer to many of these gangs as “paramilitary forces”, a regular feature when the Western “gardeners” control a puppet third-world government immersed in violent conflict. Between January and March of this year, 225 persons were kidnapped, 58% more than during the same three months of 2021.

    The U.N. mission in Haiti was also accused of unleashing a plague of cholera by dumping infected waste into the tributary of an important river, killing more than 10,000 people. The U.N. blue helmets also stand accused of raping Haitian girls and women –or trading food for sex– leaving behind many “petit-MINUSTAH” as their abandoned offspring is often referred to.

    The Montana Accord

    Last September 29, in line with the Western “gardener” tradition, U.S. ambassador Pamela A. White said before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Haiti, that her country must put “boots on the ground right now!”

    If history offers any kind of lesson, her declaration should be more than enough to understand that nothing good is coming toward Haiti in the next months or years of foreign occupation, now a very probable outcome as the U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution “demanding an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and imposing sanctions on individuals and groups threatening peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation — starting with a powerful gang leader.”

    The gang leader referred to is the former police officer and “G9” gang boss Jimmy Cherizier, sanctioned by the U.S. and, now, also by the U.N. Despite the presence of many other gangs and their leaders, Cherizier, linked to various human rights violations he denies, is the only one to receive such sanctions so far. He is also the gang leader calling for revolution against the Henry regime.

    The U.N. Security Council resolution (October 21) opens the door for a second resolution, already in the making by the U.S. and Mexico, to authorize a “non-U.N. International Security Assistance Mission”, which is what the “gardeners” are desperately pushing for.

    The Washington Post Editorial Board, on its part, recently stated that the Montana Accord is “the right move for Haiti”. To be clear, the boots on the ground “right now!” option, in the form of a non-U.N. security mission, doesn’t exclude the Montana Accord, an assortment of Haitian political groups that include some shady characters. In fact, they are probably meant to work together, hand in glove.

    The putative leader of the Montana Accord is Magali Comeau-Denis, Minister of Culture under Gerard Latortue, de facto President of Haiti from 2004 to 2006 (right after the coup that ousted Aristide). As Haiti Liberté reported, she was harshly criticized for starting unilateral negotiations –after the U.S. pressured her to do so– with Ariel Henry, which led to other participants leaving the Montana Accord. According to the leader of the Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (MOLEGHAF), a revolutionary and progressive party from Port-au-Prince that left the coalition:

    MOLEGHAF agreed to sign and join the Montana Accord because we were supposed to find this ‘Haitian solution,’ without bowing to the dictates of (then U.S. Chargé d’Affaires) Kenneth Merten, (and former) U.S. State Department officer and current head of the U.N. Office in Haiti, Helen La Lime, or the French, Canadian, and U.S. Embassies.

    In other words, the accord supported by the Washington Post, a mouthpiece in the service of Western elites, marches on behind the façade of a “Haitian-led” solution but is nothing of the sort.

    Certainly, the Haitian gangs –some of them substantially supported by the Haitian government as a way to control society, and armed with guns that the U.S. seems surprisingly incapable of controlling– must be stopped. But thinking that the way to achieve this is by allowing another occupation of the country goes stubbornly (and disingenuously) against, at least, a few hundred years of recorded history. The racist and colonial mentality of the “gardeners” imply that Haiti cannot rule itself, so it must be controlled from Washington.

    The post Haiti: The “Gardeners” are Coming Back to the “Jungle” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism

    “The only way to save Haiti is to put it under UN control,” noted a recent Globe and Mail headline. Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, demonstrates a scarcity of imagination and knowledge in making his colonialist appeal.

    Highlighting an openly colonial streak in Canadian politics, prominent voices have repeatedly promoted “protectorate” status for Haiti. In 2014 right-wing Quebec City radio host, Sylvain Bouchard, told listeners, “I would transform Haiti into a colony. The UN must colonize Haiti.” During the 2003 “Ottawa initiative on Haiti” conference to plan the ouster of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide US, French and Canadian officials discussed putting the country under UN trusteeship while a 2005 Canadian Military Journal article was titled “The case for international trusteeship in Haiti”.

    In a Canadianized variation of the protectorate theme, constitutional law professor Richard Albert penned a 2017 Boston Globe opinion titled “Haiti should relinquish its sovereignty”. The Boston College professor wrote, “the new Haitian Constitution should do something virtually unprecedented: renounce the power of self-governance and assign it for a term of years, say 50, to a country that can be trusted to act in Haiti’s long-term interests.” According to the Canadian law professor his native land, which Albert called “one of Haiti’s most loyal friends”, should administer the Caribbean island nation.

    In a similar vein, L’Actualité editor-in-chief, Carole Beaulieu, suggested Haiti become the eleventh Canadian province. In an article just after the 2004 coup titled “Et si on annexait Haïti?”, she wrote “Canada should annex Haiti to make it a little tropical paradise.”

    At the less sophisticated conservative end of the political spectrum André Arthur, a former member of Parliament, labeled Haiti a “hopeless” and “sexually deviant” country populated by thieves and prostitutes that should be taken over by France as in the “heyday of colonial Haiti” (“belle époque de l’Haïti colonial”). “There is no hope in Haiti until the country is placed under trusteeship”, bellowed the Quebec City radio host in 2016. “We will never dare to do it, political correctness, it would be racism to say: So you say to France: … ‘For the next thirty years, you are the owner of Haiti, put it right. Kick the asses that need to be kicked.”

    In his Globe commentary Rotberg displays a startling level of ignorance about Haitian affairs. While writing that “Haiti needs to become a ward of the United Nations”, Rotberg fails to recognize that the UN and foreign powers have dominated Haiti over the past 18 years. Haitians widely view the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Helen LaLime, a US diplomat, as colonial overseer. In 2019 BINUH replaced the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which replaced La Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH) in 2017.

    MINUSTAH was responsible for countless abuses during its 13-year occupation, which consisted of 8,000 foreign troops and 2,000 police. After helping oust thousands of elected officials in 2004, 500 Canadian soldiers were incorporated into MINUSTAH as it backed up a coup government’s violent crackdown against pro-democracy protesters between March 2004 and May 2006. The UN force also killed dozens of civilians directly when it pacified Cité Soleil, a bastion of support for Aristide. The UN force was responsible for innumerable sexual abuses. The foreign forces had sex with minors, sodomized boys, raped young girls and left many single mothers to struggle with stigma and poverty after departing the country.

    Aside from sexual abuse and political repression, the UN’s disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left over 10,000 dead and one million sick.

    The 2004 coup and UN occupation introduced a form of multilateral colonial oversight to Haiti. The April 2004 Security Council resolution that replaced the two-month-old US, France and Canada Multinational Interim Force with MINUSTAH established the Core Group. (Unofficially, the Core Group traces its roots to the 2003 “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” meeting where US, French, OAS and Canadian officials discussed overthrowing Haiti’s elected government and putting the country under UN trusteeship.) The Core Group, which includes representatives of the US, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, OAS, EU and UN, periodically releases collective statements on Haitian affairs and meet among themselves and with Haitian officials. It’s a flagrantly colonial alliance. After President Jovenel Moise was killed 15 months ago, for instance, the Core Group effectively appointed Ariel Henry prime minister through a press release. Implicated in Moise’s assassination, Henry has overseen the country’s descent in chaos.

    Those calling for foreign control of Haiti ignore its loss of sovereignty since the 2004 coup. By what standards was the usurpation of Haitian sovereignty successful? By basically any metric, 18 years of US/Canada, UN, Core Group influence in Haiti has been a disaster. But imperialists don’t simply ignore the damaging impact of foreign intervention. In a stark demonstration of how power affects ideology, the more Haitian sovereignty is undercut the more forthright the calls to usurp Haitian sovereignty.

    As has been said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

    The post Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Tens of thousands march in Paris against cost-of-living crisis, climate inaction

    An estimated 140,000 people marched in Paris, France, on October 16 to demand greater investment in climate action, higher wages and an emergency freeze on the prices of groceries, rent, and energy, reports Julia Conley.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Fijiana hopes up with one game away from World Cup quarterfinals

    By Finau Fonua, RNZ Pacific journalist

    The Fijiana are one step away from reaching the quarterfinals of the Women’s Rugby World Cup — but they have to beat favourite France first.

    To qualify, they need to overcome the in-form French team at the Northland Events Centre in Whangārei on Saturday.

    It is an opportunity that has arisen as a result of a thrilling 21-17 last-gasp upset over favourites South Africa last weekend, with Fijiana stealing the game with a try scored in the final minute.

    Most commentators did not expect Fijiana to win, having entered the game off the back of an 84-19 thrashing at the hands of England in their opening game.

    “I have no words for it. I am just so grateful for the girls. We talked about leaving everything on the field and playing with our hearts,” Fijiana captain Asinate Serevi said.

    Vika Matarugu of Fiji scores a try during the Pool C Rugby World Cup 2021 match between Fiji and South Africa at Waitakere Stadium on October 16, 2022, in Auckland, New Zealand
    Vika Matarugu of Fiji scores a try during the Pool C Rugby World Cup 2021 match between Fiji and South Africa at Waitakere Stadium last Sunday. Image: Fiona Goodall/World Rugby/RNZ Pacific

    “One thing that Fijians are known for is that even with three or one minute left on the clock, we can still win a game — and that’s what we did,” Asinate added.

    “As a captain they made me look good, so I’m forever grateful for the game they put on.”

    First Pacific qualifier
    Being the first Pacific Island nation to qualify for the Women’s Rugby World Cup is an accomplishment, but for Fijiana, qualifying for the quarterfinals is the driving goal.

    Despite a disheartening loss to England, Senirusi Serivakula said Fijiana’s winning ambitions have never faltered.

    “The message was clear from the beginning, which was that we must beat South Africa. That was the message, that we are not going to walk away without a win over South Africa,” coach Senirusi Seruvakula said.

    “I’m proud that the girls stuck to it, and they played as a team to the last minute.”

    That message was delivered in a stunning fashion, with a last-minute try scored right between the posts by forward Karalaini Naisewa. The number eight had to crash through three tacklers to get the ball over the line.

    That try has since gone viral and Fijiana players have now become overnight celebrities in Fiji.

    The star of the team, prop forward Siteri Rasolea, was awarded player of the match. She relentlessly ploughed through South Africa’s forwards from beginning to end.

    Public admiration
    Rasolea had already won public admiration in Fiji after she turned down an offer to play for her home nation Australia, opting to represent her heritage nation Fiji.

    Rasolea said the team were still coming to terms with their accomplishment.

    “Our girls had to dig deep and really fight for each other,” said Rasolea.

    “I’m still in awe of it now. I want to dedicate this to everyone who supported me at home. It wasn’t easy leaving Australia to go to Fiji, so I fulfil my dreams.”

    Like Rasolea, many of Fijiana’s players flocked from overseas with the purpose of representing their heritage.

    Fijiana captain Asinate Serevi, who is the daughter of 7s legend Waisele Serevi, represented the United States for three years before switching to Fiji.

    “It means the whole world to me. I can’t thank God enough for all the support. My plan was just to play for Fiji and represent my country. And being named captain is honestly beyond dreams,” Serevi said.

    ‘Huge step to win’
    “It’s a huge step for us to win one game in the World Cup means to us like we’ve won the world cup already. We know France is going to be tougher and we have things to work on.”

    Regardless of Fijiana’s big win, France remains the overwhelming favourite, having easily defeated South Africa 40-5 and narrowly losing to England 13-7.

    However, they have been weakened by the loss of their staff halfback Laure Sansus, who is out if the World Cup due to a knee injury in the first quarter of the game against England.

    Sansus, the 2022 Women’s Six Nations Player of the Championship tore her anterior cruciate ligament and will be replaced by centre Marie Dupouy. However, she will stay on in New Zealand as France’s “chief fan”.

    Coach Seruvakula is optimistic that Fijiana can win if they play a perfect game.

    “I believe in the girls, that they’ll play to the last minute,” said Seruvakula.

    “If we want to play in the quarterfinals, we have to do right during training and through the process everything will take care of itself come game day against France.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow

    The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.

    A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with France and Russia per se. It focused mostly on China’s growing economic role and political partnerships on the African continent. For example, Beijing’s decision to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 signaled China’s major geopolitical move, by translating its economic influence in the region to political influence, backed by military presence.

    China remains committed to its Africa strategy. Beijing has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 12 years, consecutively, with total bilateral trade between China and Africa, in 2021, reaching $254.3 billion, according to recent data released by the General Administration of Customs of China.

    The United States, along with its western allies, have been aware of, and warning against China’s growing clout in Africa. The establishment of US AFRICOM in 2007 was rightly understood to be a countering measure to China’s influence. Since then, and arguably before, talks of a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ abounded, with new players, including China, Russia, even Turkiye, entering the fray.

    The Russia-Ukraine war, however, has altered geopolitical dynamics in Africa, as it highlighted the Russian-French rivalry on the continent, as opposed to the Chinese-American competition there.

    Though Russia has been present in African politics for years, the war – thus the need for stable allies at the United Nations and elsewhere – accelerated Moscow’s charm offensive. In July, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, fortifying Russia’s diplomatic relations with African leaders.

    “We know that the African colleagues do not approve of the undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites .. to impose a unipolar world order to the international community,” Lavrov said. His words were met with agreement.

    Russian efforts have been paying dividends, as early as the first votes to condemn Moscow at the United Nations General Assembly, in March and April. Many African nations remained either neutral or voted against measures targeting Russia at the UN.

    South Africa’s position, in particular, was problematic from Washington’s perspective, not only because of the size of the country’s economy, but also because of Pretoria’s political influence and moral authority throughout Africa. Moreover, South Africa is the only African member of the G20.

    In his visit to the US in September, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his country’s neutrality and raised objections to a draft US bill – the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act – that is set to monitor and punish African governments who do not conform to the American line in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    The West fails to understand, however, that Africa’s slow, but determined shift toward Moscow is not haphazard or accidental.

    The history of the continent’s past and current struggle against western colonialism and neocolonialism is well-known. While the West continues to define its relationship with Africa based on exploitation, Russia is constantly reminding African countries of the Soviet’s legacy on the continent. This is not only apparent in official political discourses by Russian leaders and diplomats, but also in Russian media coverage, which is prioritizing Africa and reminding African nations of their historic solidarity with Moscow.

    Burning French flags and raising Russian ones, however, cannot simply be blamed on Russian supposed economic bribes, clever diplomacy or growing military influence. The readiness of African nations – Mali, Central African Republic and, now, possibly, Burkina Faso – has much more to do with mistrust and resentment of France’s self-serving legacy in Africa, West Africa in particular.

    France has military bases in many parts of Africa and remains an active participant in various military conflicts, which has earned it the reputation of being the continent’s main destabilizing force. Equally important is Paris’s stronghold over the economies of 14 African countries, which are forced to use French currency, the CFA franc and, according to Frederic Ange Toure, writing in Le Journal de l’Afrique, to “centralize 50% of their reserves in the French public treasury”.

    Though many African countries remain neutral in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, a massive geopolitical shift is underway, especially in militarily fragile, impoverished and politically unstable countries that are eager to seek alternatives to French and other western powers. For a country like Mali, shifting allegiances from Paris to Moscow was not exactly a great gamble. Bamako had very little to lose, but much to gain. The same logic applies to other African countries that are fighting extreme poverty, political instability and the threat of militancy, all of which are intrinsically linked.

    Though China remains a powerful newcomer to Africa – a reality that continues to frustrate US policymakers – the more urgent battle, for now, is between Russia and France – the latter experiencing a palpable retreat.

    In a speech last July, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted a “rethink of all our (military) postures on the African continent.” France’s military and foreign policy shift in Africa, however, was not compelled by strategy or vision, but by changing realities over which France has little control. 

    The post The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso?

    Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.

    Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.

    On 30 September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré led a section of the Burkina Faso military to depose Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power in a coup d’état in January. The second coup was swift, with brief clashes in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou at the president’s residence, Kosyam Palace, and at Camp Baba Sy, the military administration’s headquarters. Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho declared on Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), the national broadcast, that his fellow captain, Traoré, was now the head of state and the armed forces. ‘Things are gradually returning to order’, he said as Damiba went into exile in Togo.

    This coup is not a coup against the ruling order, a military platform called the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (Mouvement patriotique pour la sauvegarde et la restauration or MPSR); instead, it stems from young captains within the MPSR. During Damiba’s brief tenure in power, armed violence increased by 23%, and he failed to fulfil any of the promises that the military made when it overthrew former President Roch Kaboré, an ex-banker who had ruled the country since 2015. L’Unité d’Action Syndicale (UAS), a platform of six trade unions in Burkina Faso, is warning about the ‘decay of the national army’, its ideological disarray manifested by the high salaries drawn by the coup leaders.

    Kaboré was the beneficiary of a mass insurrection that began in October 2014 against Blaise Compaoré, who had been in power since the assassination of Thomas Sankara in 1987. It is worth noting that in April, while exiled in Côte d’Ivoire, Compaoré was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for his role in that murder. Many of the social forces in the mass uprisings arrived on the streets bearing pictures of Sankara, holding fast to his socialist dream. The promise of that mass movement was suffocated by Kaboré’s limited agenda, stifled by the International Monetary Fund and hindered by the seven-year jihadist insurgency in northern Burkina Faso that has displaced close to two million people. While the MPSR coup has a muddled outlook, it responds to the deep social crisis afflicting the fourth-largest producer of gold on the African continent.

    Adokou Sana Kokouvi (Togo), L’un pour l’autre (‘For One Another’), 2020.

    In August 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Algeria. As Macron walked through the streets of Oran, he experienced the anger of the Algerian public, with people yelling insults – va te faire foutre! (‘go f**k yourself’) – forcing him to hurriedly depart. France’s decision to reduce the number of visas provided to Moroccans and Tunisians fuelled a protest by human rights organisations in Rabat (Morocco), and France was forced to dismiss its ambassador to Morocco.

    Anti-French feeling is deepening across North Africa and the Sahel, the region south of the Sahara Desert. It was this sentiment that provoked the coups in Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Guinea (September 2021), and then in Burkina Faso (January 2022 and September 2022). In February 2022, Mali’s government ejected the French military, accusing French forces of committing atrocities against civilians and colluding with jihadi insurgents.

    Over the past decade, North Africa and the Sahel have been grappling with the detritus produced by NATO’s war on Libya, driven by France and the United States. NATO emboldened the jihadi forces, who were disoriented by their defeat in the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) and by the anti-Islamist policies of Muammar Qaddafi’s administration in Libya. Indeed, the US brought hardened jihadi fighters, including Libyan Islamic Fighting Group veterans, from the Syria-Turkey border to bolster the anti-Qaddafi war. This so-called ‘rat line’ moved in both directions, as jihadis and weapons went from post-Qaddafi Libya back into Syria.

    Inoussa Simpore (Burkina Faso), Rue de Ouaga (‘Ouaga Road’), 2014.

    Inoussa Simpore (Burkina Faso), Rue de Ouaga (‘Ouaga Road’), 2014.

    Groups such as al-Qaeda (in the Islamic Maghreb) as well as al-Mourabitoun, Ansar Dine, and Katibat Macina – which merged into Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (‘Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims’) in 2017 – swept from southern Algeria to Côte d’Ivoire, from western Mali to eastern Niger. These jihadis, many of them Afghanistan War veterans, are joined by common cause with local bandits and smugglers. This ‘banditisation of jihad’, as it is called, is one explanation for how these forces have become so deeply rooted in the region. Another is that the jihadis used older social tensions between the Fulani (a largely Muslim ethnic group) and other communities, now massed into militia groups called the Koglweogo (‘bush guardians’). Drawing various contradictions into the jihadi-military conflict has effectively militarised political life in large parts of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. France’s involvement through Operation Barkhane, a military intervention into Mali in 2014, and its establishment of military bases has not only failed to contain or root out the insurgencies and conflicts; it has exacerbated them.

    The Union d’Action Syndicale has released a ten-point plan that includes immediate relief for the areas facing starvation (such as Djibo), an independent commission to study violence in specific areas (such as Gaskindé), the creation of a plan to deal with the cost of living crisis, and an end to the alliance with France, which would include the ‘departure of foreign bases and troops, especially French ones, from national territory’.

    Françoise Huguier (France), Pays Lobi, Burkina Faso (‘Lobi Country, Burkina Faso’), 1996.

    Françoise Huguier (France), Pays Lobi, Burkina Faso (‘Lobi Country, Burkina Faso’), 1996.

    A recent United Nations report shows that 18 million people in the Sahel are on ‘the brink of starvation’. The World Bank notes that 40% of Burkinabé live below the poverty line. Neither civilian nor military governments in Burkina Faso, nor those in other Sahel countries, have articulated a project to transcend this crisis. Burkina Faso, for instance, is not a poor country. With a minimum of $2 billion per year in gold sales, it is extraordinary that this country of 22 million people remains mired in such poverty. If this revenue were divided equally amongst the population, each Burkinabé citizen would receive $90 million per year.

    Instead, the bulk of the revenue is siphoned off by mining firms from Canada and Australia – Barrick Gold, Goldrush Resources, Semafo, and Gryphon Minerals – as well as their counterparts in Europe. These firms transfer the profits into their own bank accounts and some, such as Randgold Resources, into the tax haven of the Channel Islands. Local control over gold has not been established, nor has the country been able to exert any sovereignty over its currency. Both Burkina Faso and Mali use the West African CFA franc, a colonial currency whose reserves are held in the Bank of France, which also manages their monetary policy.

    The coups in the Sahel are coups against the conditions of life afflicting most people in the region, conditions created by the theft of sovereignty by multinational corporations and the old colonial ruler. Rather than acknowledge this as the central problem, Western governments deflect and insist that the real cause of political unrest is the intervention of Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group, fighting against the jihadi insurgency (Macron, for instance, described their presence in the region as ‘predatory’). Yevgeny Prigozhin, a founder of the Wagner Group, said that Traoré ‘did what was necessary… for the good of their people’. Meanwhile, the US State Department warned the new Burkina Faso government not to make alliances with the Wagner Group. However, it appears that Traoré is seeking any means to defeat the insurgency, which has absorbed 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory. Despite an agreement with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) made by Damiba and continued by Traoré that Burkina Faso will return to civilian rule by July 2024, the necessary conditions for this transfer seem to be the defeat of the insurgency.

    Francis Mampuya (Democratic Republic of Congo), Sankara, 2018.

    In 1984, President Thomas Sankara went to the UN. When he took power in his country the previous year, its colonial name was Upper Volta, solely defined by its geographical status as the land north of the Volta River. Sankara and his political movement changed that name to Burkina Faso, which means the ‘Land of Upright People’. No longer would the Burkinabé hunch their shoulders and look at the ground as they walked. With national liberation, the ‘stars first began to shine in the heavens of our homeland’, Sankara said at the UN, as they realised the need for ‘revolution, the eternal struggle against all domination’. ‘We want to democratise our society’, he continued, ‘to open up our minds to a universe of collective responsibility, so that we may be bold enough to invent the future’. Sankara was killed in October 1987. His dreams have held fast in the hearts of many, but they have not yet influenced a sufficiently powerful political project.

    In the spirit of Sankara, the Malian singer Oumou Sangaré released a wonderful song, Kêlê Magni (‘War Is a Plague’), in February 2022, which speaks for the entire Sahel:

    War is a plague! My country might disappear!
    I tell you: war is not a solution!
    War has no friends nor allies, and there are no real enemies.
    All people suffer from this war: Burkina, Côte d’Ivoire… everyone!

    Other instruments are needed: new stars in the sky, new revolutions that build on hopes and not on hatred.

    The post When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Black Ferns: a new dawn for global women’s rugby

    ANALYSIS: By Jamie Wall, RNZ sports writer

    The Blacks Ferns 41-17 win over the Wallaroos on the field at Auckland’s Eden Park last night was good, but the one off it was better.

    There had been a lot of conjecture going into the Rugby World Cup about just how people would respond, given the team’s recent history and the fact that women’s rugby has never really been a priority for those running the game in Aotearoa New Zealand.

    But it took a World Cup to finally get one thing right.

    The people in charge knew that the most important ones at a sporting event aren’t the players. They’re not the volunteers, or the entertainers, or even the guy cooking Fritz’s Wieners.

    It’s the ones who are there for the first time ever, most usually children but occasionally adults who are giving something new a go.

    They’re the most important because their entire experience could well mean they come back next time, and again and again until they call themselves true fans. They will bring their friends, their family and eventually their own children.

    If the sporting event can get it right, they lock in that person for life.

    Lacklustre experiences
    It’s something rugby hasn’t been very good at lately. Lacklustre game day experiences have played a huge role in crowds for everything below (and sometimes including) the All Blacks gradually declining, to the point where NPC attendances are pretty much non-existent. There is nothing unique, very little that’s special.

    Last night at Eden Park flipped that notion on its head. While there is a conversation to be had around just exactly how many fans were in attendance (43,000) and whether a clearly not full stadium can be described as “sold out”, in the end it didn’t really matter.

    Looking around showed a different sight than an All Black test match, far more children and families. Groups of people who were clearly drawn to women’s rugby and its World Cup for reasons they’d arrived at themselves.

    It was up to the day itself to carry them further.

    If it was their first time at a rugby game, what they got most definitely ensured that they’d be coming back. The wave ridden by new fans of a fixture that, for a while there, the Black Ferns had no right to win, is a wonderful and unique experience of its own.

    It was an evening of making sure the fan experience was paramount: from Rita Ora’s performance to affordable tickets to the Black Ferns making sure every single kid got a photo after the game – even if it meant they didn’t get into the sheds until well after 10pm.

    Black Ferns' Portia Woodman celebrates with fans after the match. Australia v New Zealand Black Ferns, Women’s Rugby World Cup New Zealand 2021 (played in 2022) pool match at Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday 8 October 2022.
    The Black Ferns’ Portia Woodman celebrates with fans after the match. Image: Photosport/RNZ

    The energy of the crowd was clearly different too to one usually found at Eden Park. For a start, there were no massive howls of protest at refereeing decisions. No one was getting rotten drunk either, despite it being Saturday night.

    Happy and safe
    The general feel was that this was an environment that you could feel happy and safe in, something that is less directly quantifiable than numbers but infinitely more valuable in the broader context.

    Does it mean that every Black Ferns test can be assured of a big crowd if they are held in a big stadium? Probably not, as the World Cup factor plays a huge role in getting people along.

    But it’s a new dawn for women’s rugby, this time with an actual professional NZ Rugby competition to follow it up and a commitment by World Rugby to continue the momentum in test matches. It is proof that if you do things right and invest properly, people will show up in numbers.

    From an elite level perspective, this all makes sense as it should have all happened years ago. But there was a sign during the week that the penny had finally dropped in regard to what it will mean in the long term.

    When asked about how the Black Ferns would inspire player numbers, coach Wayne Smith said that “the future generations will be inspired to play rugby, be fans and follow the game”.

    That’s the nail on the head, because it’s not going to matter whether those future fans are girls or boys. They will grow up and fill the seats at Eden Park and other stadiums.

    While the World Cup opener should rightfully be held up as a celebration of women’s rugby right now, years from now it will be remembered as an important day for the national game of New Zealand in general.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Red Roses hot favourite to win 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Sri Krishnamurthi

    The Red Roses of England are overwhelming favourites to win the 2022 Rugby World Cup being hosted by New Zealand starting on Saturday.

    While much of New Zealand’s parochial media is unashamedly giving wide coverage to the Black Ferns and little space to the other 11 teams in the tournament, it is England’s form that warrants them being taken seriously.

    How good are the Red Roses? Very good as they have won 25 tests on the trot, including beating the Black Ferns by record margins — 43-12 and 56-15 — in 2021 when New Zealand toured Europe.

    Not only that, but France who are in pool C with England, Fiji and South Africa, also beat the Black Ferns last year — in Castres 29-7 and in Pau 38-13 on that miserable tour for New Zealand.

    The Red Roses won the Grand Slam and the Six Nations this year when they beat France 24-12 in a come-from-behind win in front of a sold-out crowd at Stade Jean Dauger.

    The Red Roses form will come as no surprise when you realise the whole squad turned professional way back in January 2019, whereas the Black Ferns moved closer to fulltime rugby players this year with contracts worth $35,000.

    Those at the lower end of the Black Ferns contracts will make about $60,000 a year, with leading players earning in excess of $130,000.

    Triple header
    The tournament kicks off with a triple header at Eden Park on Saturday with France playing South Africa in pool C, then England playing Fiji — who will undoubtedly be the dark horses of the pool with many of the women coming from the victorious Fijiana Drua team that won the Women’s Super W Rugby title this year 32-26 over New South Wales.

    They will be captained by No 8 Sereima Leweniqila who hails from the Marist club in Fiji.

    As she says, “the most memorable game I played this year was beating the Waratahs in the Super W rugby final”. No doubt those memories will be enhanced should Fiji pull a David versus Goliath result when they take on the English juggernaut.

    The final game at Eden Park on Saturday features traditional foes New Zealand and Australia from pool A which also has Scotland and Wales.

    While the trans-Tasman rivals will be top dogs in the pool, they will be wary of their European rivals who could on their day cause an upset.

    The next day at the only other venue outside Auckland — the Northland Events Centre in Whangarei — Italy takes on USA in pool B followed by the other pool B game between Japan and the powerhouse of North America, Canada.

    Scotland and Wales do battle in the third game in Whangarei with the winners set to take points towards the quarterfinals.

    Titans of European rugby
    The following Saturday, October 15, the titans of European rugby — the Red Roses of England — face-off against France who are known for having a committed forward pack.

    “Where women’s rugby is now is just crazy compared to the first World Cup I played in,” says Sarah Hunter, England’s captain, as she prepares to feature in her fourth global adventure.

    With in excess of 35,000 people expected to pack Eden Park, it shows how much women’s rugby is being followed.

    As an aside, this month’s Rugby News has All Black winger Caleb Clarke on the cover so you would be forgiven for thinking misogyny is still alive in Aotearoa despite hosting the World Cup.

    In fairness to editor Campbell Burnes, he did put out special publication for the World Cup and has been an advocate for women’s rugby.

    As the England captain says, “Every World Cup has been special but I genuinely feel this World Cup will be the biggest and most competitive there has ever been.

    “And I genuinely don’t think we’ve realised the potential of this England team yet. The blend of youth and experience across the board, the versatility of the players — the talent in this side is incredible.

    ‘Exciting time’
    “It’s a really exciting time for English rugby.”

    England lost the last World Cup final to New Zealand 41-32 in Belfast in 2017 and are sure to be out for a measure of revenge against the Black Ferns should the two sides make the final, if not clashing in the previous knockout rounds of the tournament.

    The Black Ferns featuring the amazing Portia Woodman had to have a major rebuild this year with the affectionately dubbed “professor” Wayne Smith named as coach this year.

    Along with scrum guru Mike Cron they have halted the slide of the Black Ferns who face an almost herculean task if they are to win.

    They began the year winning the Pacific Four series against USA, Canada and Australia to show we are on the right track.

    They beat the USA 50-6, Australia 23-10 and Canada 28-0 then played Australia in home and away series winning 52-5 and 22-14 win in Adelaide.

    As England head coach Simon Middleton says philosophically, “we acknowledge that if we have a bad day and France, New Zealand or possibly Canada have a good one we could be in trouble.

    “If we play against France or New Zealand in the knockout stages we’re going to have to be at our very best. Any team coached by Wayne Smith and Mike Cron is going to be quite good, I reckon.”

    While Waitakere Stadium in West Auckland will also host games, the final will be played at Eden Park on Saturday, November 12.

    • Day 1 matches: 2.15pm: South Africa v France (Pool C), Eden Park
      4.45pm: Fiji v England (Pool C), Eden Park
      7.15pm: Australia v New Zealand (Pool A), Eden Park
    • Full match schedule

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Delegates from French Polynesia head to UN decolonisation committee

    RNZ Pacific

    Delegates from French Polynesia have flown to New York for the annual meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee.

    The veteran pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru is heading his team while the French Polynesian government has sent the Equipment Minister Rene Temeharo as its spokesperson.

    The territory was reinscribed on the list on non-self-governing territories in 2013, but France refuses to accept the inscription and engage in any UN-supervised process.

    Temeharo said the inscription occurred at a time of political instability and without putting the issue to the voters.

    He said French Polynesia was not a colony as it had a democratically elected territorial government.

    Head of the French Olympic Committee Denis Massiglia and the French Polynesia Sports Minister, Rene Temeharo.
    French Polynesian cabinet minister Rene Temeharo (right) … Tahiti “is not a colony”. Image: RNZ Pacific

    France has not responded to calls to hold a referendum on independence.

    The other main French territory in the Pacific, Kanaky New Caledonia, has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986, which France has recognised.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Human rights lawyer in Israeli prison goes on hunger strike

    Salah Hamouri stages protest against being imprisoned without charge for the last six months

    A prominent Palestinian-French human rights lawyer has gone on hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment without charge by Israeli authorities for the last six months.

    Salah Hamouri, 37, a father of two from occupied East Jerusalem, has been held in administrative detention since 7 March, and his detention order has been renewed until at least early December based on undisclosed evidence.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Killer Inside Me

    Both merciless and humane, Happening presents abortion in the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir in the Manifesto of the 343—as something necessary to allow women the ability to realize their full potential as citizens.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Will the United Nations Finally Deliver Justice for Palestine?

    In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member.

    Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the Palestinian Authority has lobbied for such a status. In September 2011, the PA’s quest for full recognition was stymied by the Barack Obama Administration, forcing Palestinians to opt for the next best option, a ‘symbolic’ victory at the General Assembly the following year. In November 2012, UNGA Resolution 67/19 granted the State of Palestine a non-member observer status.

    In some ways, the Resolution proved to be, indeed, symbolic, as it altered nothing on the ground. To the contrary, the Israeli occupation has worsened since then, a convoluted system of apartheid deepened and, in the absence of any political horizon, Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements expanded like never before. Moreover, much of the occupied Palestinian West Bank is being actively annexed to Israel, a process that initiated a slow but systematic campaign of expulsion, which is felt from occupied East Jerusalem to Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron hills.

    Proponents of Abbas’ diplomacy, however, cite such facts as the admission of Palestine into over 100 international treaties, organizations, and conventions. The Palestinian strategy seems to be predicated on achieving full sovereignty status at the UN, so that Israel will then be recognized as an occupier, not merely of Palestinian ‘territories’ but of an actual state. Israel and its allies in Washington and other Western capitals understand this well, thus their constant mobilization against Palestinian efforts. Considering the dozens of times Washington has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel, the use of veto is also likely, should Palestinians return to the UNSC with their full-membership application.

    Abbas’ international diplomacy, however, seems to lack a national component. The 87-year-old Palestinian leader is hardly popular with his own people. Among the reasons that resulted in his lack of support, aside from the endemic corruption, is the PA’s continued ‘security coordination’ with the very Israeli occupation that Abbas rages against in his annual UN speeches. These ‘coordinations’, which are generously funded by Washington, translate into the daily arrest of anti-occupation Palestinian activists and political dissidents. Even when the Donald Trump Administration decided to cut off all aid, including humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in 2018, the $60 million allocated to funding the PA’s security coordination with Israel remained untouched.

    Such a major contradiction has taught Palestinians to lower their expectations regarding their leader’s promises of full independence, albeit symbolic.

    But the contradictions did not start with Abbas and the PA, and certainly do not end with them. Palestine’s relationship with the world’s largest international institution is marred with contradictions.

    Though the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 remains the main historical frame of reference to the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist movement, United Nations Resolution 181 was equally, and to some extent, even more important.

    The Balfour Declaration’s significance stems from the fact that colonial Britain – which was later granted a ‘Mandate’ over Palestine by the League of Nations, the predecessor of today’s UN – has made the first officially written commitment to the Zionist movement to grant them Palestine.

    “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the text read, in part. This quest, or ‘promise’, as known by many, would have culminated to nothing tangible, if it were not for the fact that the Zionist movement’s other colonial, western allies successfully managed to turn it into a reality.

    It took exactly 30 years for the Zionist quest to translate the pledge of Britain’s Foreign Secretary at the time, Arthur James Balfour, into a reality. UN Resolution 181 of November 1947 is the political basis upon which Israel existed. Though the current boundaries of the State of Israel by far exceed the space allocated to it by the UN’s partition plan, the Resolution nonetheless is often used to provide a legal foundation for Israel’s existence, while chastising the Arabs for refusing to accept what they rightly perceived then to be an unjust deal.

    Since then, the Palestinians continue to struggle in their relationship with the United Nations, a relationship that is governed by numerous contradictions.

    In 1947, the United Nations “was largely a club of European countries, English white-settler states and Latin American countries ruled by colonial Spanish-descendant elites,” former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, Michael Lynk, wrote in a recent article regarding the partition of historic Palestine.

    Though the geographic and demographic makeup of the UN has vastly changed since then, real power continues to be concentrated in the hands of the former western colonial regimes which, aside from the US, include Britain and France. These three countries represent the majority of the UNSC permanent members. Their political, military and other forms of support for Israel remain as strong as ever. Until the power distribution at the UN reflects the true democratic wishes of the world’s population, Palestinians are deemed to remain at a disadvantage at the UNSC. Even Abbas’ fiery speeches will not alter this.

    In his memoir, referenced in Lynk’s article, former British diplomat, Brian Urquhart, ‘who helped launch the UN’, wrote that “the partition of Palestine was the first major decision of the fledgling United Nations, its first major crisis and, quite arguably, its first major misstep”.

    But will the UN’s current power paradigm allow it to finally correct this historic ‘misstep’ by providing Palestinians with the long-delayed justice and freedom? Not quite yet, but global geopolitical changes underway might present an opening which, if navigated correctly, could serve as a source of hope that there are alternatives to western bias, US vetoes and Israel’s historic intransigence.

    The post Will the United Nations Finally Deliver Justice for Palestine? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • NZ consul hails long-standing ties with New Caledonia

    RNZ Pacific

    The Consul-General of New Zealand for the French Pacific territories, Felicity Roxburgh, says New Zealand’s presence in New Caledonia is historical.

    She said she was looking to strengthen economic and political ties with the French Pacific territories.

    This comes as New Zealand marks 50 years of its consulate in New Caledonia, which also covers ties with French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.

    Felicity Roxburgh said her job is to take New Zealand’s relationship with the French Pacific to the next level.

    “This year is 50 years since New Zealand opened the consulate in Noumea, and it is also 80 years since New Zealand military presence which was here during World War Two,” she said.

    “Which is notably in Bourail, so there is a lot of history to the relationship. So my job is to try and deepen those connections and take our relationship with the French Pacific territories to the next level economically and politically.”

    Roxburgh also said her visit to French Polynesia showed her a deeper connection to the territory.

    First visit to Pape’ete
    She was appointed to the French Pacific position in June last year and has just recently made her first visit to Pape’ete.

    Roxburgh was unable to make the trip earlier due to the French legislative elections and the covid-19 pandemic.

    She said her visit to French Polynesia showed a deep connection to New Zealand whakapapa.

    “That’s been the case … there was the Polynesian connection, there is trade, there is tourism and there is also an important source of students from New Zealand and there is also a lot of whakapapa links with Tainui,” she said.

    “When I was over there they showed me the outlet where Tainui left with their waka.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • “I Do Not Think I Know”: Scott Morrison’s Submarine Deception

    When it was revealed that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not only shown contempt for his own government in secretly appointing himself, via the Governor-General’s approval, to five portfolios, the depths of deception seemed to be boundless.   His tenure had already been marked by a spectacular, habitual tendency to conceal matters.  What else would come out?

    The latest revelation in the Morrison Mendacity Roadshow came in a leaked document authored by a former Department of Defence deputy secretary, Kim Gillis, a key figure in submarine contract negotiations with the French Naval Group.  The contract to build twelve French-made diesel-powered Attack class submarines was spectacularly scuppered by the Morrison government with the announcement last September of the AUKUS security pact.  A key provision of that agreement between Canberra, Washington and London was that Australia would be acquiring nuclear-propulsion technology for submarines sourced from either the United Kingdom or the United States.

    France was kept in the dark of both the AUKUS negotiations and the fact that their treasured, lucrative submarine contract would cease to exist after September.  It ruined, for a time, the relationship between Australia and France, and led President Emmanuel Macron to publicly accuse Morrison of lying.  “I don’t think,” he memorably responded to a journalist’s question when asked about the conduct of Australia’s prime minister, “I know.”

    Morrison, in a poisonous spirit of retaliation, proceeded to leak the content of private text conversations conducted with the French president. The selective leaking purportedly showed Macron asking a mere two days before the AUKUS announcement whether he should “expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions”.  As ever, Australia’s duplicitous leader was attempting to restore his own tattered credibility by claiming that Macron should have had an inkling that something was rotten in the submarine project.

    The 10-page document by Gillies, designed as an explainer to staff, is something of a tell-all about a gross failure of planning and vision. He is understandably defensive about his pet project, insisting, from the outset, that the “cost and schedule blow outs” noted in the media were “wrong and devalues the achievements and the tremendous work by our teams in Australia and France”.  Estimates, for instance, that the submarine program would cost A$50 billion were deemed reasonable at the time, given inflation projects from the Department of Finnce (2.5% to 3%).

    Confusion on this point arose because of 2016 testimony given by Program Manager Rear Admiral Greg Sammut to Senate estimates, whose figure of $A50 billion was arrived at in constant dollars.  This was largely due to the fact that the production schedule had yet to be concretely ascertained, though the first class of submarine was intended to be delivered in 2032, and the last in the 2050s.  The larger sum of A$90 billion generated by the Department of Finance in 2017, because it incorporated inflation over the course of 35 years, was then misrepresented by both parliamentarians and the media as “cost blow out”.  This was, Gillis mockingly wrote, nothing more than a “factoid”, “an item of unreliable information that is reported and reported so often that it becomes accepted as fact”.

    Despite scepticism about a nuclear submarine model being retooled and adjusted to conventional parameters, Gillis was all praise for a design that “would be the most advanced lethal conventionally powered submarine ever built.”  Even “my American submariner colleagues who assisted in the evaluation concluded that the new Attack class would provide capabilities in a range of operational environments that would exceed some of the capabilities of the US nuclear boats.”

    The note also extols the merits of the Australian Defence Department’s own Project Team.  There is almost starstruck admiration for the ability of the Naval Group Australia section (NGA) “to develop the company, including all its policies, systems and processes, whilst executing one of the most complex and demanding programs in Australian Defence procurement history.”  There was little doubt, in the mind of this particularly dedicated public servant, that moves were being made to create “a truly sovereign capability to design, build and operate submarines” in Australia.

    While Gillis may be straying from hard-nosed reality into the realm of streaky hope, he is adamant that the behaviour of the Morrison government in ending the contract without the awareness of those intimately connected with the process was unpardonable.

    Special reference is made to the sidelined role of the Commonwealth contract manager, who was, at the time, Admiral Sammut.  “I believe it is totally unacceptable when the Commonwealth contract manager is excluded from discussions regarding the termination of the contract for what now appears to be six or more months.”  Critically, “there was an alternate strategy being developed behind closed doors and outside the accepted contractual processes.”

    On September 15, 2021, the day of the AUKUS announcement, the Naval Group Australia Board had received a letter from the Defence Project Office informing them that they “had met the final exit point to move on to the next phase of the project.”  There was no inkling on what would happen next.  Had it been otherwise, no agreements would have been reached to send staff to France the week prior to the “fateful decision”, nor enter into more subcontracts with new Australian companies.

    The calamitous episode prompted Gillis to come up with his own assessment about bureaucratic machinations.  While not quite in the same league of tormented language as the “known unknowns” of the late former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, the Naval Group submarine fiasco had given us a new argot: “[T]he phrase ‘I do not think I know’ will now become an integral part of the Australian vernacular.  It will relate to a lie or to a mistruth told by someone in high office.”

    The post “I Do Not Think I Know”: Scott Morrison’s Submarine Deception first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Standing Ovation Closes €12 Million Series A for Precision Fermentation Casein

    Standing Ovation dairy
    3 Mins Read

    Paris-based food tech company Standing Ovation has closed an oversubscribed €12 million Series A financing round to scale its animal-free casein and alt-cheese products. The new funding was led by Astanor Ventures, with participation from Peakbridge, Seventure Partners, Big Idea Ventures, and Good Startup, among others.

    Standing Ovation’s Series A funding comes less than two years after the company launched. It’s leveraging the raise to scale its technology and output to meet the growing demand for animal-free cheese.

    ‘Tremendous potential’

    “Standing Ovation’s technology has a tremendous potential,” Frederic Paques, CEO of Standing Ovation, said in a statement. “However, bringing the products rapidly to the market requires significant resources, and substantial funding had become necessary. Astanor Ventures, which had already supported us at an earlier stage, understood it as did the other participants in this round. We would like to thank all our investor partners for their support and their confidence in the team.”

    Standing ovation cheese
    Standing ovation cheese | Courtesy

    According to Romain Chayot, Scientific Director of Standing Ovation, in only two years, the company has developed a unique and highly technological process. “We are now in a strong position to build on this momentum and transition towards more logistically intensive stages, especially scaling up,” he said.

    “Standing Ovation’s technology represents a paradigm shift for the animal-free dairy market,” Eric Archambeau, co-founder of Astanor Ventures, said. “Casein is the holy grail for the production of alternative options that match conventional products in nutrition, taste and texture yet it has remained notoriously difficult to create. The founders’ experience in biotechnology enabled them to find the key to casein development, a step ahead of many companies. We are greatly impressed by the team’s advancements over the past year both in product and process development and are excited to support them in this next step of their journey.”

    Harnessing the power of casein

    Standing Ovation says its process is “simple but innovative” and harnesses the power of casein without any animal material. Casein is what gives cheese its melting and stretching properties. It says it’s proven that its fermented casein can be combined with other products to produce “true replicas” of both fresh and soft cheese.

    Nutropy cheese | Courtesy

    Last week, another Paris-based cheese startup, Nutropy, raised €2 million in a pre-seed round for its fermented cheese.

    Both companies are targeting French cheese and the increasing demand for more sustainable options. The country has been championing sustainability in its wine production in recent years as the impact of climate change has taken a toll on wine producers.

    Livestock production makes up about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and cattle is the leading livestock producer of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than CO2.

    The post Standing Ovation Closes €12 Million Series A for Precision Fermentation Casein appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.