The Kurdish-led administration in North and East Syria hit back after Sweden’s foreign minister implied he would distance his country from the self-governing region in order to appease Turkey, reports Medya News.
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Various Ukrainian feminist activist groups and NGOs have signed a statement expressing their solidarity with the Iranian uprising.
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Thousands of people are attending weekly rallies in Brisbane in solidarity with the uprising in Iran writes Alex Bainbridge.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Five Palestinians were killed during an Israeli assault targeting the Lions Den resistance group in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on October 25, reports Tamara Nassar.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Ahead of the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) on November 6, governments are making a big deal of their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, even if all the pledges were kept, global warming would still reach catastrophic levels by the end of the century, argues Ben Radford.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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The kicking of the first ball in Qatar will induce a collective sporting amnesia for which the Socceroos will be complicit, argues Binoy Kampmark.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Iranian teachers staged a two-day strike on October 24, as anti-government sentiment continues to grow, reports Susan Price.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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The United States public relations firm helping Egypt organise COP27 also works for major oil companies and has been accused of greenwashing on their behalf, report Ben Webster and Lucas Amin.
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DOHA: Phool Patti – a social enterprise and entrepreneur project is all set to showcase Pakistan’s rich cultural heritage through ‘truck art’ during the FIFA World Cup-2022 in Qatar, as millions of football lovers across the globe will visit Doha to watch the high profile event in November.
As per details, on invitation from the Qatar museum to enter into an official partnership with Jedariart, a 2022 focal program in Doha, the Phool Patti team, comprised of its founder/Creative Director Ali Salman Anchan, Mumtaz Ahmad and Muhammad Amin, unveiled an awe-inspiring mural to the delight of everyone who has had the opportunity to see it.
The truck art mural was completed just ahead of the FIFA World Cup. The best part is the timing of this project as millions of people will witness the marvelous truck art murals — a beautiful and vibrantly colored style of art.
The mural size is around 23×33 feet and painted at Al Mansoura metro Station # 1 Doha.
This truck art mural features typical depictions including peacocks, falcons, Chakoor, jasmine, and rose flowers.
The mural also features the Qatar desert and the Pakistani northern area mountains, and other important Pakistani elements. The bottom of the mural which is highlighted with the truck art famous line “Dekh Magar Pyaar Say” (Look but only with Love) in Urdu and in English is complimented by the top portion which states “Qatar Pakistan Friendship” encircled in English and Urdu.
In addition to completing this truck mural masterpiece, Phool Patti was invited by Qatar Museum to speak about truck art at the fire station art gallery.
Anchan explained Pakistan’s world famous and unique truck art to the attendees. Phool Patti impressed the crowds with its success story and all of its project’s achievements.
An Indian participant from all India permit explained how they are trying to revive their art in India they also painted murals in typography which they use on some of their trucks.
Ali Salman Anchan said the best part of Jedariart is the Pakistani truck art mural and the Indian Truck Mural is painted side-by-side and people can actually get a better idea of both countries’ truck art.
This comparison needs no words to explain why Pakistan truck art is famous and why everyone loves it. Very positive feedback has been seen from people from every walk of life from all over Doha. also thank to the Qatar Museum for beautiful oppunitines
The Jedari Art program is an annual event that Qatar Museum organizes to add more life and color to the city, through well-designed murals and street art.
The Phool Patti team is promoting the unique and vibrant Pakistani Truck Art globally.
This post was originally published on VOSA.
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Following its liberation from Islamic State, Raqqa is rebuilding its damaged infrastructure, economy, health and education sectors, and constructing a pluralistic, grassroots democracy, reports ANF English.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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The streets rang out with chants of “Be our voice”, “Woman, Life, Freedom” and “One solution: revolution” as thousands marched through Brisbane rain on October 22, reports Alex Bainbridge.
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Shocking video footage was released on October 18, showing the painful death of two young Kurdish freedom fighters, who were among 17 people recently killed in a chemical weapons attack by Turkey, reports Peter Boyle.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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For the first time since the Islamic revolution, Iranians are united and are targeting the central pillars of the Islamic republic, including the concentration of power and authority in the hands of the ruling clergy, reports *Suzan Azadi.
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ANALYSIS: By Tony Walker, La Trobe University
As protests in Iran drag on into their fourth week over the violent death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, there are two central questions.
The first is whether these protests involving women and girls across Iran are different from upheavals in the past, or will simply end the same way with the regime stifling a popular uprising.
The second question is what can, and should, the outside world do about extraordinarily brave demonstrations against an ageing and ruthless regime that has shown itself to be unwilling, and possibly unable, to allow greater freedoms?
- READ MORE: The Iran nuclear talks are resuming, but is there any trust left to strike a deal?
- 3 ways these latest Iran demonstrations are different to past protests
The symbolic issue for Iran’s protest movement is a requirement, imposed by morality police, that women and girls wear the hijab, or headscarf. In reality, these protests are the result of a much wider revolt against discrimination and prejudice.
Put simply, women are fed up with a regime that has sought to impose rigid rules on what is, and is not, permissible for women in a theocratic society whose guidelines are little changed since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
Women are serving multi-year jail sentences for simply refusing to wear the hijab.
Two other issues are also at play. One is the economic deprivation suffered by Iranians under the weight of persistent sanctions, rampant inflation and the continuing catastrophic decline in the value of the Iranian riyal.
The other issue is the fact Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death sparked the protests, was a Kurd.
The Kurds, who constitute about 10 percent of Iran’s 84 million population, feel themselves to be a persecuted minority. Tensions between the central government in Tehran and Kurds in their homeland on the boundaries of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are endemic.
A BBC report on the Mahsa Amini protests.Another important question is where all this leaves negotiations on the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA had been aimed at freezing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
Former President Donald Trump recklessly abandoned the 2015 agreement in 2018.
The Biden administration, along with its United Nations Security Council partners plus Germany, had been making progress in those negotiations, but those efforts are now stalled, if not frozen.
The spectacle of Iranian security forces violently putting down demonstrations in cities, towns and villages across Iran will make it virtually impossible in the short term for the US and its negotiating partners to negotiate a revised JCPOA with Tehran.
Russia’s use of Iranian-supplied “kamikaze” drones against Ukrainian targets will have further soured the atmosphere.
How will the US and its allies respond?
So will the US and its allies continue to tighten Iranian sanctions? And to what extent will the West seek to encourage and support protesters on the ground in Iran?One initiative that is already underway is helping the protest movement to circumvent regime attempts to shut down electronic communications.
Elon Musk has announced he is activating his Starlink satellites to provide a vehicle for social media communications in Iran. Musk did the same thing in Ukraine to get around Russian attempts to shut down Ukrainian communications by taking out a European satellite system.
However, amid the spectacle of women and girls being shot and tear-gassed on Iranian streets, the moral dilemma for the outside world is this: how far the West is prepared to go in its backing for the protesters.
Since the Iranian protests began there have also been pro-government rallies in response. Image: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/AAP It is one thing to express sympathy; it is another to take concrete steps to support the widespread agitation. This was also the conundrum during the Arab Spring of 2010 that brought down regimes in US-friendly countries like Egypt and Tunisia.
It should not be forgotten, in light of contemporary events, that Iran and Russia propped up Syria’s Assad regime during the Arab Spring, saving it from a near certain end.
In this latest period, the Middle East may not be on fire, as it was a decade or so ago, but it remains highly unstable. Iran’s neighbour, Iraq, is effectively without a government after months of violent agitation.
The war in Yemen is threatening to spark up again, adding to uncertainties in the Gulf.
In a geopolitical sense, Washington has to reckon with inroads Moscow has been making in relations with Gulf States, including, notably Saudi Arabia.
The recent OPEC Plus decision to limit oil production constituted a slap to the US ahead of the mid-term elections in which fuel prices will be a potent issue.
In other words, Washington’s ability to influence events in the Middle East is eroding, partly as a consequence of a disastrous attempt to remake the region by going to war in Iraq in 2003.
The US’s ability to influence the Middle East is much weaker than before it went to war in Iraq in 2003. Image: Susan Walsh/AP/AAP A volatile region
Among the consequences of that misjudgement is the empowerment of Iran in conjunction with a Shia majority in Iraq. This should have been foreseen.So quite apart from the waves of protest in Iran, the region is a tinderbox with multiple unresolved conflicts.
In Afghanistan, on the fringes of the Middle East, women protesters have taken the lead in recent days from their Iranian sisters and have been protesting against conservative dress codes and limitations on access to education under the Taliban.
This returns us to the moral issue of the extent to which the outside world should support the protests. In this, the experience of the “green” rebellion of 2009 on Iran’s streets is relevant.
Then, the Obama administration, after initially giving encouragement to the demonstrations, pulled back on the grounds it did not wish to jeopardise negotiations on a nuclear deal with Iran or undermine the protests by attaching US support.
Officials involved in the administration, who are now back in the Biden White House, believe that approach was a mistake. However, that begs the question as to what practically the US and its allies can do to stop Iran’s assault on its own women and girls.
What if, as a consequence of Western encouragement to the demonstrators, many hundreds more die or are incarcerated?
What is the end result, beyond indulging in the usual rhetorical exercises such as expressing “concern” and threatening to ramp up sanctions that hurt individual Iranians more than the regime itself?
The bottom line is that irrespective of what might be the desired outcome, Iran’s regime is unlikely to crumble.
It might be shaken, it might entertain concerns that its own revolution that replaced the Shah is in danger of being replicated, but it would be naïve to believe that a rotting 43-year-old edifice would be anything but utterly ruthless in putting an end to the demonstrations.
This includes unrest in the oil industry, in which workers are expressing solidarity with the demonstrators. The oil worker protest will be concerning the regime, given the centrality of oil production to Iran’s economy.
However, a powerful women’s movement has been unleashed in Iran. Over time, this movement may well force a theocratic regime to loosen restrictions on women and their participation in the political life of the country. That is the hope, but as history has shown, a ruthless regime will stop at little to re-assert its control.
Dr Tony Walker is a vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Susan Price spoke to a Hazara woman living in Kabul about the attack on Hazara school children, the protests and response by the Taliban.
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People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Foreign Affairs Commission co-spokesperson Hişyar Özsoy discusses Turkey’s growing international presence, domestic politics, and how the party is preparing for next June’s elections.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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The 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly was, in many ways, similar to the 76th session and many other previous sessions: at best, a stage for rosy rhetoric that is rarely followed by tangible action or, at worse, a mere opportunity for some world leaders to score political points against their opponents.
This should surprise no one. For many years, the UN has been relegated to the role of either a cheerleader for the policy of great powers, or a timid protester of sociopolitical, economic or gender inequalities. Alas, as the Iraq war proved nearly thirty years ago, and as the Russia-Ukraine war is proving today, the UN seems the least effective party in bringing about global peace, equality and security for all.
As is often the case, voices like those of Antonio Guterres – who called for “achieving and sustaining peace” – were drowned by those with the big guns and financial means to turn the Ukraine war into a long-drawn battlefield for their own strategic reasons.
Similar to Guterres, the words of the new UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi seemed least practical or, sadly, even relevant.
“Responding to humanity’s most pressing challenges demands that we work together, and that we reinvigorate inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism and focus on that which unites us”, Kőrösi said in his speech at the opening session on Tuesday, September 20.
Kőrösi’s frame of reference to what, at least for now, seems like wishful thinking, is his understanding that the UN was created out of the “ashes of war” with the intention of being a “well of solutions”.
In truth, the UN Charter was signed in June 1945 to reflect an emerging new power paradigm that resulted from World War II. The UN power structure simply confirmed the gains of the victors of that war and granted the victorious countries far greater influence through their permanent membership in the UN Security Council and veto power, than the rest of the world combined.
This was not a deviation from the historical norm. After all, the League of Nations, the predecessor of the current UN, was founded in 1920 to confirm the new geopolitical realities that resulted from World War I.
The League of Nations was scrapped as it was deemed ‘ineffective’. This, however, was not the real reason behind its dismissal. In actuality, the League’s old structure and makeup simply did not correspond to the new power formations resulting from the Second World War, where old enemies became new friends and old friends became new enemies.
Effectiveness had little to do with the switch from the League to the UN, as the latter hardly managed to seriously address or resolve major political issues, from Palestine, to Kashmir, to Sudan, Mali, Afghanistan, and numerous other conflicts, including today’s war in Ukraine.
Even the hype over the UN’s role in addressing the climate change crisis, arguably the most pressing for all of humankind, has petered out quickly. Thanks to the polarization and self-serving ‘diplomacy’ generated by the Ukraine crisis, many countries that led the way in the use of clean energy are now backtracking.
Indeed, the environmental crisis has now been moved to the back burner, to the extent that US President Joe Biden has reportedly skipped the roundtable talks on climate action, which were scheduled to take place in New York on September 21. A year ago, this would have generated much discussion and even anger among US environmentalists. Now it seems a trivial and politically inconsequential issue.
Still, despite its many contradictions, and overall failure to deliver on its promises of peace and security, the UN continues to serve a role. For the US and its western allies, it remains a stage for their political power, which they have inherited from the legacy of WWII.
However, for smaller countries – in Africa, the Middle East and much of the Global South – the UN gives them a voice, albeit barely audible, and grants them an occasional chance at relevance. This relevance, however, is temporary and ultimately intangible. After all, all the fiery, impassioned, and articulate speeches of all the leaders of the Global South combined hardly ever influenced outcomes, discouraged neocolonialism, economic exploitations, racism, military interventions or political meddling.
In an open letter on September 20 addressing world leaders, over 200 humanitarian organizations, including OXFAM and Save the Children, stated that one person is likely to be dying every four seconds as a result of the “spiraling global hunger crisis”.
This crisis is more palpable in Africa than on any other continent. Though food shortages in Africa are an ongoing challenge, many signs have already indicated that an unprecedented crisis is looming, initiated by climate change, worsened by the Covid pandemic, and further accentuated by the Ukraine war and the disruption of critical supply routes.
Despite repeated pleas by UN organizations to prioritize Africa in terms of food shipments, the opposite became true. This begs the question: If the UN does not have the means and power to provide life-saving food to starving children, isn’t it, then, time to question the very mission, structure, and mechanisms of the world’s largest organization?
True, there has been talking about urgent and long overdue UN reforms. Some want the UN to be reformed to reflect new democratic or economic realities, while others feel deserving of being permanent members of the UNSC. The West, of course, wants to keep the convenient power distribution in place as long as possible.
However, for a reformed UN to serve a noble mission and to live up to its lofty promises, the new power distribution should allocate places for all, regardless of military power or economic might. Till then, the UN will remain a sad expression of the world’s existing problems, not, in the words of Kőrösi, a “well of solutions”.
The post “Well of Solutions” or Problems: Why Reforming the UN is Critical first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The uprising in Iran sparked by the murder of Mahsa (Jina) Amini continues to spread across the country and international support for the Iranian people’s resistance to the regime is growing, reports Kerry Smith.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Following a blast in a predominantly Hazara majority area, which killed 43 and injured 82, women from the ethnic minority community demonstrated against the attacks, demanding the genocide end, reports Peoples Dispatch.
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The uprising in Iran following the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini by the “morality police” has been going for 13 days. Dr Kamran Matin discusses the situation.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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What began as a calm Wednesday morning soon turned into a terrifying ordeal in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, on September 23, when missiles launched by Iran rained down on across the region, reports Marcel Cartier.
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Nilüfer Koç, spokesperson for the Commission on Foreign Relations of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) discusses the country-wide protests against the torture and killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini with Medya News podcaster Matt Broomfield.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Days of protests have erupted across Iran after Mahsa Amina, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after being arrested and tortured by the Islamic fundamentalist state’s “morality police”, reports Peter Boyle.
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Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP Semra Güzel, a 38-year-old medical doctor, became the latest elected representative of this major left-wing party to be jailed in Turkey, reports Peter Boyle.
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Frustrated by its inability to get support for a full-scale invasion, Turkey has escalated its killer drone attacks and shelling of border cities and towns in Rojava, reports Peter Boyle.
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As Turkey escalates its military attacks on the Kurds, ahead of a possible full-scale invasion of North and East Syria — the region known as Rojava — the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) issued an urgent call for a no-fly zone, reports ANF English.
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Chants of “Free Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea” were heard around Sydney Town Hall on August 13, where more than 100 protesters stood in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Isaac Nellist reports.
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Saudi Arab: As Muharram – the first month in the Islamic calendar has kicked off, pilgrims from all over the world including Pakistan and the United States (US) have started arriving in the holly Makkah to perform the Umrah rituals, with religious devotion and fervor.
Since the Saudi’s Hajj and Umrah ministry has announced the start of the Umrah season on Muharram 1, as many as 6,000 visas have been issued to pilgrims from 46 countries, according to Saudi officials.
A large number of Iqama holders, including Saudi citizens, are also enjoying the blessing of Umrah.
While the number of visas is being increased every day, Pakistani and other foreign Iqama holders are also reaching Makkah in large numbers from all over Saudi Arabia.
After the Hajj season, once again the splendor of Madinah Munawarah and other places including Taif has been reopened, while the pilgrims are shopping at the stalls of Ihram sellers, and they are heading towards Makkah after tying Ihram.
Mataf corridor in Masjid al-Haram has been allocated for Umrah pilgrims and the provision of Zamzam water is also being ensured for the convenience of the visiting pilgrims.
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Jiyan Tolhidan (Salwa Yusuf), a leader of the Syrian Defence Force (SDF) Counter Terrorism Units, and who led the fight against ISIS, was murdered by Turkey in a drone strike on July 22, reports Sarah Glynn.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
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Australian cinematographer Jake Lloyd Jones talks to Peter Boyle about the ongoing “David and Goliath struggle” between the Kurds and the Turkish state from Bashur (South Kurdistan) in northern Iraq.
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