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Category: United Nations

  • ‘Time Is Up’: Greenpeace Warns Global Ocean Treaty Under Threat of Failure



    Greenpeace warned Monday that nations are “once again stalling” as they enter the final week of talks on the United Nations Ocean Treaty, a pact the environmental group says would “safeguard marine life and be the biggest conservation victory for a generation” if negotiators get it right.

    A new draft of the landmark treaty “still contains major areas of disagreement,” said Greenpeace, whose activists displayed a large banner supporting the treaty outside United Nations headquarters in New York City on Monday.

    U.N. members are gathered inside in an effort to draft a unified agreement on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystems located outside national boundaries on the high seas—an area encompassing nearly two-thirds of the Earth’s oceans. A previous round of talks on the treaty last year failed to produce an agreement.

    According to Greenpeace:

    Finance remains a key issue. Global North countries like the U.K., U.S., and European Union member states must urgently put the money on the table for capacity building and implementing the treaty. They must also resolve the mechanics of sharing financial benefits from Marine Genetic Resources. China will play a critical role in the outcome of these negotiations. China led from the front at Biodiversity COP15 in delivering the 30×30 agreement, but here it is falling behind. China, along with the Global North, must show more flexibility, or these talks will fail.

    “We are now in the last week of negotiations for what we hoped would be a historic and ambitious treaty to protect the oceans and change the trajectory of life on this planet. Instead, we are once again on the brink of these talks falling apart as countries have chosen not to rise to the occasion as they quibble over minor points,” Greenpeace USA senior ocean campaigner Arlo Hemphill said in a statement.

    “Time is up,” Hemphill added. “Negotiations must accelerate, and member states should work harder to reach compromises, keeping in mind the big picture of what this could mean for our oceans, biodiversity, and the billions of people who rely on it for their lives and livelihoods.”

    Laura Meller, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, lamented that “negotiations have been going around in circles, progressing at a snail’s pace, and this is reflected in the new draft treaty text.”

    “It is far from where it should be as we enter the endgame of these negotiations,” she continued. “Negotiations must accelerate and Global North countries like the U.K., U.S., and European Union member states must seek compromises.”

    “China must urgently reimagine its role at these negotiations,” Meller added. “At COP15, China showed global leadership but at these negotiations, it has been a difficult party. China has an opportunity to transform global ocean governance and broker, instead of break, a landmark deal on this new Ocean Treaty.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Why Watering Down Palestinian Reality is a Crime

    On February 20, the United Nations Security Council approved a statement, described in the media as a ‘watered-down’ version of an earlier draft resolution which would have demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

    The intrigues that led to the scrapping of what was meant to be a binding resolution will be the subject of a future article. For now, however, I would like to reflect on the fact that the so-called international community’s relationship with the Palestinian struggle has always attempted to ‘water down’ a horrific reality.

    While we often rage against statements made by US politicians who, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, refuse to even acknowledge that Israel is occupying Palestine in the first place, we tend to forget that many of us are, somehow, involved in the watering down of the Palestinian reality, as well.

    While reports by B’tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, dubbing Israel an ‘apartheid state’, are welcome additions to a growing political discourse making similar claims, one must ask: why did it take decades for these conclusions to be drawn now? And what is the moral and legal justification for ‘watering down’ Israel’s apartheid reality for all of these years, considering that Israel has, from the moment of its inception – and even before – been an apartheid entity?

    The ‘watering-down’, however, goes much deeper than this, as if there is a conspiracy not to describe the reality of Palestine and the Palestinian people by its proper names: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, apartheid and more.

    I have spent half my life living in, and interacting with, western societies while lobbying for solidarity with Palestinians, and for holding Israel accountable for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people. Every step of the way, in every society, and on every platform, there has always been pushback, even by Palestine’s own supporters.

    Whether motivated by blind ‘love’ for Israel or by guilt over historical crimes against the Jewish people, or over the fear of ‘rocking the boat’, offending the sensibilities of western societies, or outright retaliation by pro-Israeli supporters, the outcome tends to be the same: if not unconditional support for Israel, then, certainly ‘watered-down’ statements on the tragic reality of the Palestinians.

    Naturally, a watered-down version of the truth is not the truth at all. Worse, it is unlikely to lead to any resolute moral stances or meaningful political actions. If, indeed, watering down the truth was of any value, Palestine would have been freed a long time ago. Not only is this not the case, but there also remains a true deficit of knowledge regarding the root causes, nature and consequences of the daily Israeli crimes in Palestine.

    Admittedly, the quisling Palestinian leadership exemplified in the Palestinian Authority, has played a significant role in watering down our understanding of Israel’s ongoing crimes. In fact, the ‘watered-down’ statement at the UN would not have replaced the binding resolution if it were not for the consent of the PA. However, in many Palestinian spaces in which the PA holds no political sway whatsoever, we continue to seek a watered-down understanding of Palestine.

    Almost every day, somewhere in the world, a Palestinian or a pro-Palestinian speaker, author, artist or activist is being disinvited from a conference, a meeting, a workshop or an academic engagement for failing to water down his or her take on Palestine.

    While fear of repercussions – the denial of funding, smear campaigns, or loss of position – often serves as the logic behind the constant watering down, sometimes pro-Palestine groups and media organizations walk into the ‘watered-down’ trap of their own accords.

    To protect themselves from smear campaigns, government meddling or even legal action, some pro-Palestine organizations often seek affiliation with ‘reputable’ people from mainstream backgrounds, politicians or ex-politicians, well-known figures or celebrities to portray an image of moderation. Yet, knowingly or unwittingly, with time, they begin to moderate their own message so as not to lose the hard-earned support in mainstream society. In doing so, instead of speaking truth to power, these groups begin to develop a political discourse that only guarantees their own survival and nothing more.

    In the Prison Notebooks, anti-Fascist Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci urged us to create a broad “cultural front” to establish our own version of cultural hegemony. However, Gramsci never advocated the watering down of radical discourse in the first place. He merely wanted to expand the power of the radical discourse to reach a much wider audience, as a starting point for a fundamental shift in society. In the case of Palestine, however, we tend to do the opposite: instead of maintaining the integrity of the truth, we tend to make it less truthful so that it may appear more palatable.

    While creative in making their messages more relatable to a wider audience, the Zionists rarely water down their actual language. To the contrary, the Zionist discourse is uncompromising in its violent and racist nature which, ultimately, contributes to the erasure of Palestinians as a people with history, culture, real grievances and rights.

    The same is true in the case of the pro-Ukraine and anti-Russian propaganda plaguing western media around the clock. In this case, there is rarely any deviation from the message, regarding who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.

    Historically, anti-colonial movements, from Africa to everywhere else, hardly watered down their approach to colonialism, neither in the language nor in the forms of resistance. Palestinians, on the other hand, subsist in this watered-down duplicitous reality simply because the West’s allegiance to Israel makes the truthful depiction of the Palestinian struggle too ‘radical’ to sustain. This approach is not only morally problematic but also ahistorical and impractical.

    Ahistorical and impractical because half-truths, or watered-down truths, never lead to justice and never affect a lasting change. Perhaps a starting point of how we escape the ‘watered-down’ trap we find ourselves in, is to reflect on these words by one of the greatest engaged intellectuals in recent history, Malcolm X:

    I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

    The truth, in its most simple and innate form, is the only objective we should continue to relentlessly pursue until Palestine and her people are finally free.

    The post Why Watering Down Palestinian Reality is a Crime first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Pompeo Says Bible Tells Him Israel Not Illegally Occupying Palestine



    Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—who once suggested that his boss, then-President Donald Trump, may have been sent by “God” to save Israel—waxed biblical again this week in defense of Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid regime in Palestine.

    Interviewed by Julia Macfarlane and Richard Dearlove for an episode of the “One Decision” podcast that aired Wednesday, Pompeo—a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate who also previously served in Congress and as CIA director—denied that Israel is even occupying Palestine.

    Mcfarlane noted that as secretary of state, Pompeo “undid the Hansel memo that called Jewish settlements in the West Bank against international law,” a U.S. position that had been in place since 1978.

    Under the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international law affirmed by numerous United Nations bodies, both Israel’s 52-year occupation and ongoing settler colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal.

    Pompeo—who played a leading role in negotiating the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and multiple Arab dictatorships—countered that Israel “is not an occupying nation.”

    “As an evangelical Christian,” he asserted, “I am convinced from my reading of the Bible” that “this land… is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”

    “I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” added Pompeo—who refused to say whether he supported a so-called two-state solution to the crisis caused by Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and ongoing usurpation of Palestinian land.

    According to a 2017 survey by LifeWay Research, a Christian polling group, 80% of U.S. evangelicals believe the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, largely through terrorism and ethnic cleansing, was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.

    Around two-thirds of respondents said that the Bible says “God” gave Israel to the Jews, while more than half said Israel is important for fulfilling biblical prophecy.

    Many evangelicals believe that Jews must rule Israel in order for Christ to return, but once he does nonbelievers including most Jews will be wiped out. Knowing this, numerous Jews and others have decried what has been called the “unholy alliance” linking Christian and Jewish Zionists.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • UN General Assembly to Vote on Resolution Pushing for ‘Just and Lasting Peace’ in Ukraine



    The United Nations’ 193 member countries are expected to vote on a resolution declaring “the need to reach, as soon as possible, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in Ukraine next Thursday, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

    Two days of speeches are planned leading up to the vote, which could be just the latest U.N. General Assembly (GA) resolution related to the war. While such measures would typically come out of the Security Council, it has been hamstrung because Russia is one of five countries with veto power in that United Nations body.

    A European Union diplomat told The Associated Press that Ukraine asked the E.U. to draft the resolution along with other member states to mark the anniversary of the invasion with a strong statement advocating peace, in line with the U.N. Charter.

    The U.N. Charter uses the term peace dozens of times and specifically states that “all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”

    As the AP detailed:

    Ukraine initially thought of having the General Assembly enshrine the 10-point peace plan that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced at the November summit of the Group of 20 major economies, U.N. diplomats said. But this idea was shelved in favor of the broader and less detailed resolution circulated Wednesday.

    As one example, while the resolution to be voted on emphasizes the need to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes committed in Ukraine through “fair and independent investigations and prosecutions at the national or international level,” it does not include Zelenskyy’s call for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes.

    The pending resolution reportedly calls for “a cessation of hostilities” and reiterates the GA’s earlier demand that Russia “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces” from internationally recognized Ukrainian territory.

    The draft resolution—which would not be legally binding, if passed—also urges United Nations members and global groups to “redouble support for diplomatic efforts,” including those of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to the AP.

    E.U. Ambassador Olof Skoog, who helped draft the resolution, told Reuters that “we count on very broad support from the membership. What is at stake is not just the fate of Ukraine, it is the respect of the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of every state.”

    Previous GA resolutions calling for the withdrawal of all Russian troops, demanding the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure, and denouncing Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of Ukrainian regions received at least 140 votes in favor.

    Two other resolutions in the assembly last year—one suspending Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council and another advocating Russian reparations to Ukraine over the war—garnered less support, with just 93 and 94 supportive votes, respectively.

    The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on Monday confirmed the war has killed at least 7,199 Ukrainian civilians and injured another 11,756, while also noting that actual figures are likely “considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Chagos islanders must get full reparations for forced exile, says NGO

    Human Rights Watch also demands trial for ‘appalling colonial crime’ of expulsion – and continuing ill treatment – of Chagossians

    The UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement of Chagos Islands inhabitants in the 1960s and 70s, an action that constituted a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said.

    The NGO said that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians when the UK retained possession of what it refers to as British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

    Continue reading…

  • Why a NZ pilot is a pawn in the West Papua conflict that the world ignores

    ANALYSIS: By Camellia Webb-Gannon, University of Wollongong

    “Phil Mehrtens is the nicest guy, he genuinely is — no one ever had anything bad to say about him,” says a colleague of the New Zealand pilot taken hostage last week by members of the West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPN-PB) in the mountainous Nduga Regency.

    How such a nice guy became a pawn in the decades-long conflict between West Papua and the Indonesian government is a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    But it is also a symbolic and desperate attempt to attract international attention towards the West Papuan crisis.

    A joint military and police mission has so far failed to find or rescue Mehrtens, and forcing negotiations with Jakarta is a prime strategy of TPN-PB.

    As spokesperson Sebby Sambom told Australian media this week:

    “The military and police have killed too many Papuans. From our end, we also killed [people]. So it is better that we sit at the negotiation table […] Our new target are all foreigners: the US, EU, Australians and New Zealanders because they supported Indonesia to kill Papuans for 60 years.

    “Colonialism in Papua must be abolished.”

    Sambom is referring to the international complicity and silence since Indonesia annexed the former Dutch colony as it prepared for political independence in the 1960s.

    Mehrtens has become the latest foreign victim of the resulting protracted and violent struggle by West Papuans for independence.

    Violence and betrayal
    The history of the conflict can be traced back to 1962, when the US facilitated what became known as the New York Agreement, which handed West Papua over to the United Nations and then to Indonesia.

    In 1969, the UN oversaw a farcical independence referendum that effectively allowed the permanent annexation of West Papua by Indonesia. Since that time, West Papuans have been subjected to violent human rights abuses, environmental and cultural dispossession, and mass killings under Indonesian rule and mass immigration policies.

    New Zealand and Australia continue to support Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua, and maintain defence and other diplomatic ties with Jakarta. Australia has been involved in training Indonesian army and police, and is a major aid donor to Indonesia.

    Phil Mehrtens is far from the first hostage to be taken in this unequal power struggle. Nearly three decades ago, in the neighbouring district of Mapenduma, TPN-PB members kidnapped a group of environmental researchers from Europe for five months.

    Like now, the demand was that Indonesia recognise West Papuan independence. Two Indonesians with the group were killed.

    The English and Dutch hostages were ultimately rescued, but not before further tragedy occurred.

    At one point, negotiations seemed to have stalled between the West Papuan captors and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which was delivering food and supplies to the hostages and working for their release.

    Taking matters into their own hands, members of the Indonesian military commandeered a white civilian helicopter that had been used (or was similar to one used) by the ICRC. Witnesses recall seeing the ICRC emblem on the aircraft.

    When the helicopter lowered towards waiting crowds of civilians, the military opened fire.

    The ICRC denied any involvement in the resulting massacre, but the entire incident was emblematic of the times. It took place several years before the fall of former Indonesian president Suharto, when there was little hope of West Papua gaining independence from Indonesia through peaceful negotiations.

    Then, as now, the TPN-PB was searching for a way to capture the world’s attention.

    Human rights researcher pleads for West Papuan rebels to free NZ pilot

    Losing hope
    Since the early 2000s, with Suharto gone and fresh hope inspired by East Timor’s independence, Papuans — including members of the West Papuan Liberation Army — have largely been committed to fighting for independence through peaceful means.

    After several decades of wilful non-intervention by Australia and New Zealand in what they consider to be Jakarta’s affairs, that hope is flagging. It appears elements of the independence movement are again turning to desperate measures.

    In 2019, the TPN-PB killed 24 Indonesians working on a highway to connect the coast with the interior, claiming their victims were spies for the Indonesian army. They have become increasingly outspoken about their intentions to stop further Indonesian expansion in Papua at any cost.

    In turn, this triggered a hugely disproportionate counter-insurgency operation in the highlands where Phil Mehrtens was captured. It has been reported at least 60,000 people have been displaced in the Nduga Regency over the past four years as a result, and it is still not safe for them to return home.

    International engagement
    It is important to remember that the latest hostage taking, and the 1996 events, are the actions of a few. They do not reflect the commitment of the vast majority of Indigenous West Papuans to work peacefully for independence through demonstrations, social media activism, civil disobedience, diplomacy and dialogue.

    Looking forward, New Zealand, Australia and other governments close to Indonesia need to commit to serious discussions about human rights in West Papua — not only because there is a hostage involved, but because it is the right thing to do.

    This may not be enough to resolve the current crisis, but it would be a long overdue and critical step in the right direction.

    Negotiations for the release of Philip Mehrtens must be handled carefully to avoid further disproportionate responses by the Indonesian military.

    The kidnapping is not justified, but neither is Indonesia’s violence against West Papuans — or the international community’s refusal to address the violence.The Conversation

    Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, lecturer, University of Wollongong, and author of Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonisation in West Papua. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  • UN Chief Unleashes on Fossil Fuel Giants: ‘Your Core Product Is Our Core Problem’



    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made clear Monday that securing a livable planet depends on stopping the “bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”

    In a speech to the General Assembly, Guterres called for an end to “the merciless, relentless, senseless war on nature” that “is putting our world at immediate risk of hurtling past the 1.5°C temperature increase limit and now still moving towards a deadly 2.8°C.”

    2023 must be “a year of reckoning,” the U.N. chief said as he outlined his priorities for the months ahead. “It must be a year of game-changing climate action. We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing.”

    Scientists have warned repeatedly that scaling up the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas is incompatible with averting the most catastrophic consequences of the climate emergency. Nevertheless, hundreds of corporations—bolstered by trillions of dollars in annual public subsidies—are still planning to ramp up planet-heating pollution in the years ahead, prioritizing profits over the lives of those who will be harmed by the ensuing chaos.

    “I have a special message for fossil fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits: If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business,” said Guterres. “Your core product is our core problem.”

    “We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence,” he added.

    In order to halve global greenhouse gas emissions this decade, the U.N. chief said, the world needs “far more ambitious action to cut carbon pollution by speeding up the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy—especially in G20 countries—and de-carbonizing highest emitting industrial sectors—steel, cement, shipping, and aviation.

    In addition, he continued, the world needs “a Climate Solidarity Pact in which all big emitters make an extra effort to cut emissions, and wealthier countries mobilize financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to keep 1.5°C alive.”

    “We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence.”

    “Climate action is impossible without adequate finance,” Guterres noted. “Developed countries know what they must do: At minimum, deliver on commitments made at the latest COP. Make good on the $100 billion promise to developing countries. Finish the job and deliver on the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in Sharm El-Sheikh. Double adaptation funding. Replenish the Green Climate Fund by COP28. Advance plans for early warning systems to protect every person on earth within five years. And stop subsidizing fossil fuels and pivot investments to renewables.”

    Like the 26 annual U.N. climate meetings that preceded it, COP27 ended last November with no commitment to a swift and just global phase-out of coal, oil, and gas.

    In an effort to avoid a repeat performance at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates this December, Guterres intends to convene a “Climate Ambition Summit” in September.

    “The invitation is open to any leader—in government, business, or civil society,” Guterres said Monday. “But it comes with a condition: Show us accelerated action in this decade and renewed ambitious net-zero plans—or please don’t show up.”

    “COP28 in December will set the stage for the first-ever Global Stocktake—a collective moment of truth—to assess where we are, and where we need to go in the next five years to reach the Paris goals,” he continued.

    Guterres added that “humanity is taking a sledgehammer to our world’s rich biodiversity—with brutal and even irreversible consequences for people and planet. Our ocean is choked by pollution, plastics, and chemicals. And vampiric overconsumption is draining the lifeblood of our planet—water.”

    In 2023, the world “must also bring the Global Biodiversity Framework to life and establish a clear pathway to mobilize sufficient resources,” said the U.N. chief. “And governments must develop concrete plans to repurpose subsidies that are harming nature into incentives for conservation and sustainability.”

    “Climate action is the 21st century’s greatest opportunity to drive forward all the Sustainable Development Goals,” Guterres stressed. “A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a right we must make real for all.”

    Guterres’ speech was not limited to the climate and biodiversity crises. He also emphasized the need for a “course correction” on devastating wars and raging inequality, calling for a new global economic architecture that foregrounds the needs of the poor instead of allowing the richest 1% to capture nearly half of all newly created wealth.

    “This is not a time for tinkering,” said the U.N. chief. “It is a time for transformation.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • BAP Opposes Apparent CELAC Support for Military Intervention into Haiti

    The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) vehemently protests CELAC’s (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños / Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) apparent support for multinational military intervention into Haiti, and strongly opposes CELAC including unelected Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in its recent summit in Buenos Aires. We deem such acts as betrayals of the Haitian people as well as the democratic and anti-colonial forces in the region.

    Founded in 2011, CELAC is a bloc of 33 Caribbean and Latin American countries. It has stated its mission as promoting regional integration and providing an alternative to U.S. power in the region, especially as that power is channeled through the multi-state entity, Organization of American States (OAS).

    At the conclusion of the summit, CELAC members released the Buenos Aires Declaration, a 28-page, 111-point document covering environmental cooperation, post-pandemic economic recovery, food and energy security. Included in that document was CELAC’s endorsement of the development of the region as a Zone of Peace, free of nuclear weapons and committed to non-militaristic solutions to intra-regional problems.

    Yet, CELAC’s commitments to peace as well as to other principles, such as “democracy; the promotion, protection and respect of Human Rights, international cooperation, the Rule of Law, multilateralism, respect for territorial integrity, non-intervention in the internal affairs of States, and defense of sovereignty,” are all directly undermined by its stance on Haiti. By inviting Henry, CELAC has legitimized an unpopular, Core Group-installed, de facto prime minister in Haiti. Henry has not only refused to hold elections, but he has presided over the departure from office of every single elected official in the country. Meanwhile, against the wishes of the Haitian masses and majority, he has begged for foreign intervention to shore up his power.

    The Haiti/Americas Team affirms the words of Ajamu Baraka, chairperson of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, who stated, “Solidarity has to be reciprocal. CELAC must commit itself to supporting the democratic struggles in Haiti against an illegitimate U.S. puppet [government]. Inviting the Haitian government to CELAC is like inviting Juan Guaidó to represent Venezuela.”

    Points 101 and 102 of the Buenos Aires Declaration directly address the situation in Haiti. Point 102 endorses the September 8 letter from the UN Secretary General to the President of the Security Council encouraging the organization of a “specialized multinational force” to intervene in Haiti. Nowhere in the Declaration do they mention the role of the international community in creating the current crisis in Haiti. Nowhere do they mention that the crisis is a crisis of imperialism, brought on by the United Nations, the Core Group (an alliance of countries as well as multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank), the United States, Canada, and other so-called “friends” of Haiti in the international community.

    If CELAC supports non-intervention in the internal affairs of independent states, how can they call for foreign intervention in Haiti? If CELAC promotes a Zone of Peace, how can they demand foreign military intervention? If CELAC is for regional sovereignty, how can they support an imperialist design, driven by the United States and others? If CELAC is an advocate for the people of the Caribbean and Latin America, how can they so brazenly ignore the wishes and demands of the people of Haiti?

    BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team suggests CELAC government leaders listen to the voices of the Haitian people, and their supporters in the region, as well as CELAC Social. This new entity of more than 200 organizations issued its own declaration demanding, in part, that the “region give its own response to the Haitian question, respecting the principle of non-intervention and the right of the people of Haiti to define sovereignly their destiny.”

    CELAC’s position on Haiti is ill-informed and dangerous, representing an all-too frequent, reactionary “Haiti exception” when it comes to the “progressive” governments of the Americas. Peace and solidarity in the region cannot be achieved at the expense of Haitian sovereignty. CELAC must avoid contributing to Haiti’s current crisis—the crisis of imperialism.

    The post BAP Opposes Apparent CELAC Support for Military Intervention into Haiti first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • ‘This Is a Winnable Fight’: Leaders Across Africa Pledge to End AIDS in Children by 2030



    Declaring the fight against HIV and AIDS infections in children “winnable,” public health officials from across Africa on Wednesday convened in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania to discuss the steps needed from policymakers and the healthcare sector to eradicate pediatric cases by 2030.

    Representatives from 12 countries including Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Cote D’Ivoire, and Cameroon were joined by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), UNICEF, and other global organizations at the first ministerial meeting of the Global Alliance to End AIDS in Children.

    The alliance was formed last summer, as the United Nations noted that just 52% of children living with AIDS are on lifesaving treatment and warned progress for preventing pediatric cases is stalling. Among adults patients, 76% are receiving antiretroviral treatments.

    The delegates unanimously agreed on Wednesday to the Dar es Salaam Declaration for Action. The declaration’s commitments include:

    • Providing access to universal testing and treatment for all children and adolescents living with HIV and support them to remain virally suppressed;
    • Ensuring access to treatment and care for all pregnant and breastfeeding women and support them to stay in care;
    • Harnessing digital technologies to reach adolescents and young people;
    • Implementing comprehensive, integrated HIV services;
    • Working with and for men, women, and adolescent girls to ensure that mothers are protected from acquiring HIV during pregnancy and breastfeeding;
    • Ending the stigma, discrimination, and gender inequities experienced by women, children, and adolescents affected by HIV; and
    • Working with communities including men to prevent gender-based violence and counter harmful gender norms.

    “We have the tools, the guidance, the policies, and the knowledge we need. Now we must make good on this commitment and move to action,” reads the declaration. “Together we will not fail.”

    “Closing the gap for children will require laser focus and a steadfast commitment to hold ourselves, governments, and all partners accountable for results.”

    The global alliance has stressed since its formation last year that ending pediatric AIDS and HIV infections is an achievable goal, noting the progress that has been made in several African countries with high HIV burdens.

    “By the end of 2021, 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa reached the target of 95% ART [antiretroviral therapy] coverage in pregnant women and Botswana was the first high prevalence African country to be validated as being on the path to eliminating vertical transmission of HIV,” reads a document released when the initiative was launched.

    Sixteen countries worldwide have also been “certified for validation of eliminating vertical transmission of HIV,” according to UNAIDS.

    But still, 160,000 children acquired HIV in 2021 and children accounted for 15% of all AIDS-related deaths that year, despite the fact that they only make up 4% of the total number of people living with HIV. Across the globe, a child dies of AIDS-related causes every five minutes.

    “Year on year, the same poor progress has been reported towards global and national targets for children and adolescents,” said the alliance last year. “Despite available, affordable, and highly effective tools and programming strategies to diagnose and treat HIV among children, adolescents, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, large service gaps for these populations remain.”

    By meeting the commitments laid out in the Dar es Salaam Declaration, officials said, they will promote active participation of national programs and affected communities, boost existing programs to end AIDS in children, and mobilize resources through “donor coordination and innovative financing.”

    “Closing the gap for children will require laser focus and a steadfast commitment to hold ourselves, governments, and all partners accountable for results,” said John Nkengasong, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator and leader of PEPFAR. “In partnership with the global alliance, PEPFAR commits to elevate the HIV/AIDS children’s agenda to the highest political level within and across countries to mobilize the necessary support needed to address rights, gender equality, and the social and structural barriers that hinder access to prevention and treatment services for children and their families.”

    Philip Mpango, vice president of the United Republic of Tanzania, said the host country “has showed its political engagement” regarding the issue.

    “Now we need to commit moving forward as a collective whole,” said Mpango. “All of us in our capacities must have a role to play to end AIDS in children. The global alliance is the right direction, and we must not remain complacent. 2030 is at our doorstep.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • 450+ Climate Groups to UN: ‘No COP Overseen by a Fossil Fuel Executive’ Can Be Legitimate



    A global network of more than 450 climate justice organizations said Thursday that the upcoming COP28 talks in United Arab Emirates will—like the United Nations climate conferences before it—end in failure as long as the fossil fuel industry is allowed to influence and dictate the terms of the event.

    The Kick Big Polluters Out network raised particular concern over the UAE’s recent appointment of Sultan Al Jaber, head of the country’s state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), to preside over the end-of-year talks—a decision that climate campaigners said throws the integrity and seriousness of COP28 into further question.

    “There is no honor in appointing a fossil fuel executive who profits immensely off of fueling the climate crisis to oversee the global response to climate change,” the network wrote in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell, and all parties to the UNFCCC.

    “That such a move could ever be seen to be legitimate amidst an intensifying climate crisis where millions of lives and ecosystems are on the line exemplifies just how insidious Big Polluters’ stranglehold over climate policy is,” continued the letter, which was spearheaded by four UNFCCC constituencies representing millions of people. “No COP overseen by a fossil fuel executive can be seen as legitimate. COP presidencies must be free and independent of fossil fuel influence. It’s time for the UNFCCC to deliver the long overdue equitable phaseout of fossil fuels.”

    The letter comes days after Politico reported that the U.N. is “querying the presidency of this year’s COP28 climate talks over its ties” to ADNOC, the 12th-largest oil company in the world by production.

    “The main COP28 team is using two stories of an 11-floor office building in Abu Dhabi also used by the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology located next to ADNOC’s headquarters,” Politico noted. “That prompted the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to send a series of questions to the presidency of the climate talks enquiring about whether the presidency will be independent of the oil company.”

    According to the outlet, which cited an unnamed source with knowledge of the matter, the questions raised by the U.N. “include whether there is a firewall between the two institutions; whether ADNOC has access to COP28 meetings and strategic documents; if the staff working on the climate conference are relying on the oil giant’s IT systems; if part of the work will be devoted to protecting ADNOC’s interests; and whether the climate team is being paid by the oil company.”

    “Polluters have a role to play: Stop polluting. They cannot be placed on a leadership pedestal.”

    Rejecting pressure to rescind his appointment, the UAE has said Al Jaber will stay on as head of ADNOC as he presides over COP28, a striking conflict of interest given the oil giant’s financial interest in limiting the scope of climate action.

    John Kerry, the United States’ special presidential envoy for climate, praised the selection of Al Jaber to oversee COP28, calling the oil company executive a “terrific environmentalist.”

    The UAE, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, has ratified the Paris climate accord, but experts say its policies are way out of alignment with the agreement’s critical 1.5°C warming limit.

    Cansın Leylim Ilgaz, associate director of global campaigns at 350.org, said Thursday that “letting petrostates host the U.N. climate talks is bad enough, but appointing a petrol company executive as president of COP28 is an effrontery several orders of magnitude beyond anything that happened before in the history of the U.N. climate process.”

    “Attempts to sugarcoat this scandalous decision only serve to undermine the huge efforts of everyone working to limit global heating,” Ilgaz added. “This brazen attempt of the dying fossil fuel industry to predetermine the outcome of COP28 will not stand.”

    But the Kick Big Polluters Out network stressed in its letter that the problem of fossil fuel influence on U.N. climate talks runs much deeper than Al Jaber.

    “Fossil fuel interests overrun the UNFCCC and threaten its credibility,” the network wrote. “At COP27 last November, more than 630 fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend the climate negotiations. The UAE, now hosting COP28, had more fossil fuel lobbyists on its delegation than any other country. The grim reality is that this appointment represents a tipping point in which the UNFCCC is rapidly losing any legitimacy and credibility.”

    To succeed at delivering “the needed climate equity and action to end the era of fossil fuels, and to rapidly and justly transition to a new global system,” the network said the UNFCCC must agree to four demands:

    1. Big Polluters cannot write the rules. Big Polluters must not be allowed to unduly influence climate policymaking. This allows them to continue to weaken and undermine the global response to climate change, and it’s why we are on the brink of extinction. The UNFCCC must urgently establish an Accountability Framework, including a regime-wide conflict-of-interest policy, that systematically ends this corporate capture.
    2. No more Big Polluters bankrolling climate action. No Big Polluter partnership or sponsorships of climate talks or climate action. Not now. Not ever. Major polluters must not be allowed to greenwash themselves and literally buy their way out of culpability for a crisis they have caused. The UNFCCC will always fail to deliver so long as this is deemed acceptable.
    3. Polluters out and People in. While civil society has always participated in the COP process, governments have made it more difficult each time for non-governmental organizations and climate justice movements to have their voices heard. We need
    equitable, meaningful inclusion of civil society. Climate action must center the leadership and lived experience of the people, especially those on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With frontline communities in the lead, we must end the funding and validation of dangerous distractions and false solutions that promote Big Polluters’ profits, enable their abuses, and guarantee decades more of fossil fuel use.
    4. Reset the system to protect people and the planet, not Big Polluters. Big Polluters are destroying life as we know it. It’s time to build a new way of living and collaborating that works for people, not polluters, and that restores, rather than destroys, nature. We
    need real, just, accountable, gender-responsive, community-led, nature-restoring, and proven and transformative solutions to be implemented rapidly and justly. We need a total and equitable transition off of fossil fuels. We need real solutions that center the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities, women, workers, and the protection of those speaking up for justice. We need an end to the impunity of corporate abuses

    “Polluters have a role to play: Stop polluting,” said Gadir Lavadenz of the global campaign to Demand Climate Justice. “They cannot be placed on a leadership pedestal and certainly not in a position to undermine and weaken policy. That is basically nonsense. The UNFCCC is not only reluctant to accept a straightforward conflict of interest policy, but it is undermining its already weak international trust year after year.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • UN states that climate breakdown is driving up human trafficking

    Evidence is emerging that climate-related disasters are becoming a cause of human trafficking as criminal gangs exploit a growing number of uprooted people, the UN said on 24 January.

    The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report that:

    Climate change is increasing vulnerability to trafficking.

    While a systematic global analysis of the impact of climate change in trafficking in persons is missing, community level studies in different parts of the world point at weather induced disasters as root causes for trafficking in persons.

    The report is based on data collected between 2017 and 2020 from 141 countries, and the analysis of 800 court cases.

    The collapse of livelihoods

    The impact of climate breakdown “disproportionally” affects poor farming, fishing, and other communities, the report said. This is due to their reliance on the extraction of natural resources for their livelihoods. Fabrizio Sarrica, the report’s main author, told a press briefing that once “deprived of their means of subsistence and forced to flee their community”, people were becoming easy prey for traffickers.

    In 2021 alone, climate-related disasters internally displaced more than 23.7 million people. Many others fled their countries altogether. Because entire regions of the world are at risk of becoming “increasingly uninhabitable” millions will face “high risk of exploitation along migration routes”, the UN report said.

    UNODC observers noted an increase in cases of human trafficking after natural disasters. This took place in Bangladesh and the Philippines after devastating cyclones and typhoons displaced millions, for example. Droughts and floods in Ghana, and hurricanes and rising sea levels in the Caribbean region, also forced many to migrate.

    War in Ukraine

    UNODC said the continuing war in Ukraine is also another risk factor for increased human trafficking. Most trafficking victims resulted from conflicts originating in Africa and the Middle East. However, a similar situation is also building up in Ukraine as millions flee the war-torn country.

    Ilias Chatzis, the head of the human trafficking and migrant smuggling section at UNODC, told Agence France-Presse (AFP):

    The challenge is how to deal with human trafficking arising from war and instability,

    He added that helping neighbouring countries and increasing support to the Ukrainian authorities is equally important.

    The report also said that the Covid-19 pandemic limited the ability to detect cases. This was especially true in low-income countries across Asia, South America and Africa. Faced with the closure of public venues such as bars and clubs due to health restrictions, certain forms of trafficking – in particular sexual exploitation – have been pushed into “less visible and less safe locations”.

    Featured image via Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)/Flickr

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    By Glen Black

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • January – February 2023 Deadlines: Call for Inputs by UN Human Rights Mechanisms

    The following calls for inputs have been issued by UN Human Rights Mechanisms with deadlines in January – February 2023 and law professors whose practice, research, and/or scholarship touches on these topics may be interested in submission: Office of the…

    This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.

  • Australia risks UN human rights blacklisting as states fail to meet prison obligations

    Deadline to meet anti-torture treaty obligations is Friday, but governments have yet to install watchdogs

    Australia risks being placed on a human rights blacklist alongside such countries as South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo by failing to meet its obligations in prison oversight under a UN anti-torture treaty.

    The UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (Opcat) was ratified under the Turnbull government in December 2017, but Australia has since requested two deadline extensions to meet its obligations.

    Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

    Continue reading…

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

  • ‘This Insanity Belongs in Science Fiction’: At Davos, UN Chief Rips Fossil Fuel Expansion

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a scathing address to corporate and political elites in Davos on Wednesday, ripping fossil fuel giants and governments for expanding oil and gas extraction in the face of increasingly devastating climate chaos across the globe.

    “The science has been clear for decades,” Guterres said at the World Economic Forum, an event attended by the top executives of major oil and gas firms including Chevron and BP. “I am not talking only about U.N. scientists. I am talking even about fossil fuel scientists.”

    Guterres was referencing a peer-reviewed study published last week showing that ExxonMobil—one of the world’s largest oil companies—accurately predicted planetary warming in its internal models as early as the 1970s, even as the company’s executives publicly denied the reality of climate change.

    “Just like the tobacco industry, they rode roughshod over their own science,” Guterres said Wednesday. “Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie. And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account. Today, fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is inconsistent with human survival.”

    “This insanity belongs in science fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact,” the U.N. chief continued. “We must act together to close the emissions gap. To phase out coal and supercharge the renewable revolution. To end the addiction to fossil fuels. And to stop our self-defeating war on nature.”

    “We are flirting with climate disaster. Every week brings a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and growing.”

    Guterres’ address came shortly after the International Energy Agency said oil demand is likely to rise to a record 101.7 million barrels a day this year due to a number of catalysts, including a “faster-than-anticipated reopening of China” and a “somewhat improved economic outlook.”

    Hundreds of fossil fuel giants around the world, meanwhile, are “taking active steps to bring 230 billion barrels of oil equivalent of untapped resources into production before 2030,” according to one recent analysis, imperiling hopes of slashing carbon emissions and curbing the runaway warming that is fueling increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events. Last year was one of the hottest years on record—and the hottest year on record for the world’s oceans—as greenhouse gas levels continued to surge.

    The oil and gas industry’s climate-wrecking expansion plans are made possible by generous funding from large financial institutions such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America, which have pumped billions into fossil fuel projects over the past two years even as they advertise their ostensibly climate-friendly net-zero pledges.

    “More and more businesses are making net-zero commitments,” Guterres said in his speech Wednesday. “But benchmarks and criteria are often dubious or murky. This misleads consumers, investors, and regulators with false narratives. It feeds a culture of climate misinformation and confusion. And it leaves the door wide open to greenwashing.”

    “The transition to net zero must be grounded in real emissions cuts—and not rely on carbon credits and shadow markets.”

    Later this year, Guterres is set to convene what he described as a “no-nonsense” Climate Ambition Summit in an attempt to jumpstart global climate action following two failed U.N.-hosted conferences—and ahead of COP28, which will be overseen by the head of the United Arab Emirates’ state-run oil company.

    “We are flirting with climate disaster,” Guterres said Wednesday. “Every week brings a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and growing. The commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is nearly going up in smoke. Without further action, we are headed to a 2.8-degree increase and the consequences, as we all know, would be devastating. Several parts of our planet will be uninhabitable.”

    “And for many,” he added, “this is a death sentence.”

  • Ardern won’t back down on Māori advance if co-governance made key election issue

    Whakaata Māori

    Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says her Aotearoa New Zealand government will not back down on advancing Māori issues, even if National frames co-governance as central to the 2023 general election.

    “You’ve got to be able to sleep at night, knowing that you’ve done your best and you’ve done what you’ve believed is right,” Ardern told TeAoMaori.news

    The Māori Health Authority, Three Waters and Māori seats on councils were achievements Ardern said the government was proud of.

    NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Harvard
    NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaking at Harvard University in Boston. … a standing ovation. Image: RNZ

    Ardern said she was “comfortable” the government was doing its best to fulfil obligations under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

    “We haven’t been perfect. But I am comfortable with what we’ve tried to do to make sure that we are fulfilling our obligations as the Crown, that we’re fulfilling our Treaty obligations.”

    Ardern said the Government was proud of the 6.8 per cent Māoriunemployment rate,although she conceded homeless families living in motels still needed tackling.

    “I don’t want anyone living in a motel. I want someone in a warm, dry, safe environment. But I also don’t want people living in cars. And so this has been a transition for us while we build more public housing, and we are,” she said.

    Mandate protests
    Reflecting on 2022, Ardern conceded it was another tough year, singling out the vaccination mandate protests on Parliament grounds as her biggest challenge.

    Ardern said the protests were upsetting for many in Aotearoa who saw vaccination as key to reopening the country.

    “For New Zealand, I think it deeply affected people,” Ardern said.

    There were moments she thought about talking to the protesters but a previous attempt during a government walkabout with vaccinators that was scuppered by protesters prevented that.

    “I did stop and try and have a conversation with the people there. And what became clear to me is that the starting point for that conversation was so different for me, and then that was very hard to cut through,” Ardern said.

    “I had a practice in the past of talking to protesters in fact. I remember very early on the DPS [the PM security team] having to learn, that was part of the way that I was going to do the job.”

    UN declaration
    Ardern was asked about comments from Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson that he would be pumping the brakes on co-governance initiatives set out by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous people (UNDRIP), signed by the National government in 2010, because several recommendations would not fly with certain Cabinet members.

    “Why is it someone in Cabinet is ‘not comfortable’ with co-governance? And should someone be in the Cabinet if they’re not comfortable with co-governance?” Ardern was asked.

    “What he’s talking about are some of the thoughts and debate around the UN declaration, the next stages of ensuring that we are doing our bit, as yes, the National government signed us up and then did nothing, and left us to figure out ‘how do we fulfil our obligations?’

    “What he’s [Jackson] talking about is through that process, there’s been a lot of ideas. Some of them, we can confidently say, New Zealand already does, othersare challenging. So he’s broadly discussing the next steps.”

    Ardern said that as she looked ahead to this year’s election, she had no interest in fighting it on race, saying she would campaign on the government’s record.

    “When there’s change… people will sometimes be confronted by that, and it’s our job to try and bring people with us, but that will sometimes be challenging,” Ardern said.

    “Our record is growing Māori housing. Our record is growing Māori employment opportunities. Now our record is growing the Māori economy. I will happily campaign on our record.”

    Republished from Whakaata Māori. First published in The New Zealand Herald.

  • Ben Gvir’s Provocation at Al Aqsa Strains Middle Eastern Relations

    On January 3, Israel’s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the fascist Jewish Power party visited the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, in an attempt to stir controversy. He succeeded.

    The United Nations Security Council called an urgent meeting on Thursday to discuss this incident, after many countries voiced their outrage. Even the United States had some mild criticism of Israel over this. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said:

    “The United States stands firmly for the preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem. We oppose any unilateral actions that undercut the historic status quo, they are unacceptable…We took note of the fact that Netanyahu’s governing platform calls for the preservation of the historic status quo with relation to the holy places. We expect him to follow through with that commitment… in word and in practice, that is what we will be watching for.”

    The U.K., France, Turkey, Jordan, Russia and other countries also criticized Israel for this provocation. But perhaps most noteworthy was the fact that, joining China, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority in calling for the Security Council meeting was none other than the United Arab Emirates, Israel’s new BFF in the Persian Gulf.

    Straining the Abraham Accords

    This shouldn’t have taken anyone by surprise. While the UAE has tried to embrace even this radically right wing government, their foreign minister also warned Benjamin Netanyahu back in September that a government this brazenly devoted to apartheid and overt, violent racism could make it difficult for the Emiratis to maintain their détente with Israel.

    The UAE’s statement on Tuesday objecting to Ben Gvir’s action was strongly worded, stating that they “strongly condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard.” it also hinted that the Emiratis were determined to hold on to the Abraham Accords if they could, stating that they “stressed the need to support all regional and international efforts to advance the Middle East Peace Process.”

    But this was far from the only stress on the Accords. Oman, which many analysts had thought might be the next Arab state to establish normal relations with Israel, instead passed a new law criminalizing all contacts with Israel. This not only dashed hopes in Jerusalem and Washington that Oman would join the Abraham Accords, it signaled a sharp reversal in policy for the Gulf sultanate.

    While Oman has never officially established normal relations with Israel, it became the first Gulf country to allow a visit from an Israeli prime minister when Yitzhak Rabin visited in 1994. It later hosted Shimon Peres and Netanyahu, the latter as recently as 2018. While Oman cut off communication with Israel in 2000 due to the second intifada, unofficial contacts continued.

    Sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East, Oman has long played the role of mediator, and, as a result, has worked to maintain lines of communications between adversaries in the Middle East. While it is close to its fellow Arab states in the Gulf, it also shares a crucial, and large, natural gas field with Iran. Last year, Iran and Oman agreed to jointly develop the field and this strengthened Oman’s strong desire to maintain good relations with Iran as well as with adversaries of the Islamic Republic. While that includes Israel, the value of Omani-Israeli relations to the sultanate pales before its relationship with both Iran and the Arab Gulf states.

    While the vote in Muscat coincided with Ben Gvir’s appearance at the Temple Mount, it had been in the works for several weeks, prompted by a desire “to distinguish [Oman] from the UAE and Bahrain,” although Oman also recently declared its continued support for a two-state solution in Palestine.

    Meanwhile, Morocco has been threatening to back off of its pledge to open an embassy in Israel if Israel does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. The previous Israeli government walked a fine line, hinting at support for Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara, (which has been under Moroccan occupation since 1975) and maintaining the international consensus on the issue, stating that it supported Morocco’s “autonomy plan,” which has never been accepted by the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara.

    The new government seems very likely to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, but the dispute demonstrates the pitfalls of the transactional nature of the Abraham Accords. Arab states must constantly weigh the benefits of normalization with Israel against the costs of betraying the Palestinians and thereby drawing the ire of their own populations and most of the Arab world.

    All of this occurs in the wake of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s discussion with new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen regarding how the U.S. might help expand the Accords. This seems to be another example of the detachment from reality that has characterized Blinken’s and Joe Biden’s approach to Palestine and Israel from the start of their administration.

    The goal for both Israel and the United States has been to get Saudi Arabia to join the Accords, but despite grandiose statements from Israeli leaders, the Saudis remain aloof from American and Israeli efforts to draw them into the Accords.

    The political winds are blowing against the idea of expanding the Accords. The ongoing protests in Iran continue to occupy the attention of the Islamic Republic’s leaders, and, contrary to the view of some western analysts, Iran does not have a history of trying to solve its domestic problems by launching attacks against other countries. That means that, at least for the moment, Iran is less of a concern for Gulf Arab states. That diminishes the incentive to expand cooperation with Israel.

    With Ben Gvir wasting no time in aggravating the one issue — the Haram al Sharif/Temple Mount — that is not only a sore point for the Palestinians but raises personal and direct concerns for people throughout the Middle East, and with it becoming clear that the existence of normalization agreements does not deter the Israeli radicals from taking such actions, there is even less reason for Arab states to cooperate with Washington in normalizing relations with Israel. To the contrary, these increasingly arrogant and provocative actions by Israel don’t merely raise serious concerns for the UAE and other Abraham Accords participants; it also raises worries anew in Egypt and, especially, Jordan. Both countries have maintained long term peace accords with Israel, against the wishes of the vast majority of their citizens.

    Biden will still have an opportunity to prevail upon his “good friend,” Netanyahu to rein in Ben Gvir and the other overt Kahanists in the Israeli government. But even if he’s willing to cooperate on that point, that’s not Netanyahu’s priority right now as he seeks to cripple the Israeli judiciary that is still trying to convict him for some of his crimes and harden Israel’s iron fist over the Palestinians.

    The future of the Accords

    In the end, this current crisis is likely to pass. Oman will continue to communicate with Israel clandestinely, and the UAE will try to get back to business as usual. But this new government, filled with characters, even beyond Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who delight in provoking violence and publicly expressing their racism, bigotry, and hate has made it clear it will continue doing what they love so much.

    On only the fifth day of 2023, Israel killed its third Palestinian youth. In its cabinet meeting yesterday, options were discussed for punishing the Palestinians for having pushed the UN to bring their case to International Court of Justice, a resolution which all of their friends among the Arab dictators supported.

    There will be no shortage of actions which will make it more difficult for the Abraham Accords to survive, let alone for them to expand. This demonstrates that the Accords are not related to peace, to improved relations in the region, or to stability. They can’t possibly have those goals in mind when they depend entirely on the Palestinians doing what they have never done: acquiescing to Israeli domination.

  • UN rights chief urges rapid inquiry after 28 die in Burkina Faso town

    Volker Türk says investigation launched by government into deaths in mainly Fulani and Muslim area should be rapid and open

    The head of the United Nations human rights office has called for a prompt, transparent investigation into the deaths of at least 28 people whose bodies were found in north-west Burkina Faso last month.

    Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it was encouraging that authorities had announced an investigation into the incident in Nouna town, a predominately ethnic Fulani and Muslim community.

    Continue reading…

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

  • War in Ukraine, Drought Pushed Global Food Prices to All-Time High in 2022



    Russia’s war on Ukraine, climate change-intensified drought, and other factors drove global food prices to a record high and worsened hunger around the world in 2022, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.

    The FAO Food Price Index—which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of grain, vegetable oils, and other commonly traded food commodities—averaged 143.7 points last year. That marked the highest level since records began in 1961 and an increase of 14.3% over the 2021 average, according to the Rome-based U.N. agency.

    As The Associated Press reported:

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February exacerbated a food crisis because the two countries were leading global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil, and other products, especially to nations in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia that were already struggling with hunger.

    With critical Black Sea supplies disrupted, food prices rose to record highs, increasing inflation, poverty, and food insecurity in developing nations that rely on imports.

    The war also jolted energy markets and fertilizer supplies, both key to food production. That was on top of climate shocks that have fueled starvation in places like the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya are badly affected by the worst drought in decades, with the U.N. warning that parts of Somalia are facing famine. Thousands of people have already died.

    In the month of December, the FAO Food Price Index fell to an average of 132.4 points, a slight decrease from the previous year. The U.N. attributed most of the decline to a recent drop in the price of palm, soy, rapeseed, and sunflower oils. Lower vegetable oil prices, which hit an all-time high in 2022, came as a result of reduced global import demand, expectations of a seasonal boost in soy oil production in South America, and declining crude oil prices, according to the FAO.

    While world prices of wheat and maize surpassed previous records in 2022, the price of both cereals declined slightly in December, the organization said, thanks to ongoing harvests in the Southern Hemisphere, which increased global supply.

    The price of rice, however, rose last month, as did the price of sugar and cheese, FAO noted. Beef and poultry prices fell slightly in December, but that came at the end of a year in which dairy and meat prices reached their highest levels since 1990.

    “Calmer food commodity prices are welcome after two very volatile years,” FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero said in a statement. “It is important to remain vigilant and keep a strong focus on mitigating global food insecurity given that world food prices remain at elevated levels, with many staples near record highs, and with prices of rice increasing, and still many risks associated with future supplies.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Biden’s Expansion of Title 42 Violates International Law: UN



    The United Nations refugee agency warned Friday that the Biden administration’s new expansion of Title 42, the Trump-era policy under which the U.S. government has expelled more than 2.5 million migrants, is “not in line with refugee law standards” that the administration is obligated to follow under international law.

    The White House announced on Thursday that it will be sending up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua to Mexico per month unless they arrive in the U.S. via a humanitarian parole program, while allowing 30,000 asylum-seekers from each of the three countries to live and work in the U.S. for two years if they meet certain requirements, such as being able to afford a plane ticket and finding sponsorship. President Joe Biden implored people not to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without being authorized to enter the country.

    Rights advocates have said the policy will leave the most vulnerable people without the option of finding safety in the United States, while the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reminded the administration that “seeking asylum is a fundamental human right.”

    “This week’s policy announcements are completely out of touch with the actual circumstances of people seeking asylum, many of whom arrive at our border fleeing imminent threats to their lives.”

    UNHCR spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov said Friday that while the U.N. applauded the administration’s plan to welcome tens of thousands of people into the country each month, the U.S. “must not preclude people forced to flee from exercising their fundamental human right to seek safety.”

    While U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday did not directly address Biden’s new measures, he appeared to comment on them indirectly on social media, tweeting, “Everyone has the right to seek asylum.”

    Melissa Crow, director of litigation for the U.S.-based Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, called the Title 42 expansion “reckless” and warned it will “exact a horrific human toll and leave a lasting stain on the president’s legacy.”

    “This week’s policy announcements are completely out of touch with the actual circumstances of people seeking asylum, many of whom arrive at our border fleeing imminent threats to their lives,” Crow said. “By doubling down on illegal, Trump-era asylum bans, the Biden administration totally disregards the United States’ legal obligations to protect people fleeing persecution and torture. It has been deeply disturbing to hear the president affirm that seeking asylum is legal, pledge to create a safe and humane process at the border, and then turn around and announce policies that further undermine access to the U.S. asylum process.”

    While Biden’s humanitarian parole program may help hundreds of thousands of people this year, said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, it “should not have come at the expense of barring others from exercising their rights to asylum.”

    “We are also extremely concerned that the new parole program will be inaccessible to the most vulnerable among us, particularly those en route to the U.S. border who will be ineligible for this program,” said Jozef. “We can have a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system that welcomes all with dignity and that is rooted in justice and language access.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • UN rights chief states that women’s rights are under systematic attack

    From Afghanistan and Iran to rampant misogynistic vitriol online, United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has said he was appalled at “systematic” efforts to strip women of their rights, but believed they would ultimately fail.

    In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), the UN rights chief said he wanted to visit Kabul and Tehran for direct talks with the authorities:

    Afghanistan is the worst of the worst.

    To repress women in the way that it is happening is unparalleled.

    Turk said it was deeply worrying that nearly 75 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, efforts to strip rights from women and girls were swelling:

    I am very concerned about the backsliding and the pushbacks.

    We see it in different ways, in insidious ways.

    While misogyny and efforts to halt the march towards gender equality are not new, he warned there was now:

    a more systematic, more organised way of countering women’s rights.

    ‘This cannot be the norm’

    In Afghanistan, the Taliban last month banned women from working in non-governmental organisations. The group had already suspended university education for women and secondary schooling for girls.

    The barrage of attacks on women’s rights by Afghanistan’s rulers, Turk said, should serve as a reminder:

    of what perverted thinking can lead to.

    This cannot be the norm in the future.

    Turk said he wanted to visit Afghanistan. When his predecessor, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, did so last year, she issued stinging criticism of the Taliban’s record.

    He said he would “find an opportune moment” to go, and would seek:

    discussions with the de facto authorities about how to ensure that they understand that development of their country… has to include women.

    ‘Discriminatory practices’

    Turk has also requested a visit to Iran, rocked by protests since Mahsa Amini died in custody in September after allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. He said the Iranian authorities had yet to respond.

    If able to go, Turk said he would again call for a repeal of “discriminatory practices against women and girls”. He also intends to raise the subject of the authorities’ brutal crackdown on the protests.

    Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights says nearly 500 people have been killed in the crackdown, and thousands have been arrested.

    In particular, Turk voiced alarm at the use of capital punishment in connection with the protests, with two such executions already carried out.

    The death penalty, he said:

    must absolutely not be used in this type of context under any circumstances.

    Patriarchy’s last gasp

    Beyond actions taken by states, Turk pointed to social media:

    where misogynistic, sexist comments seem to be allowed, … and thriving.

    He stressed the need for “guardrails” to ensure that social media platforms “don’t add fuel to the fire”.

    He stated that the algorithms such platforms use can:

    very quickly ensure that hate speech gets amplified in a way that is very dangerous.

    Shortly after taking office, Turk sent an open letter urging Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk to make human rights central to the platform.

    He told AFP he had initially planned to discreetly reach out to contacts in Twitter’s human rights department:

    but we couldn’t reach any of them, because they had just been fired.

    Since then, Musk has made numerous controversial moves, including reinstating people previously banned for misogynistic remarks and hate speech.

    While alarming, Turk said he saw the current pushback against women’s rights:

    as a last attempt by the patriarchy to show its force.

    For me, it is the old world that is dying.

    Additional reporting via AFP
    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0, resized to 770*403. 

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Culture of Hope: 2022 and the Margins of Victory in Palestine

    Another critical year for Palestine has folded. While 2022 has wrought much of the same in terms of Israeli military occupation and increasing violence, it also introduced new variables to the Palestinian struggle – nationally, regionally and internationally.

    Palestine, the War and the Arabs

    The Russia-Ukraine war starting in February pressured many political entities, including Palestinians, to take sides or, at least, to declare a position. Though the Palestinian Authority (PA) and various Palestinian political parties insisted on their neutrality, Russia’s deviation from the US-led political paradigm in the Middle East opened up new margins for Palestinians to explore.

    On May 4, a delegation of Hamas leaders met Russian officials in Moscow, and, a few months later, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas defied Washington by holding a meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Astana, Kazakhstan. Despite US anger at Abbas, Washington could do little to retaliate against the Palestinian leadership, considering the delicate geopolitical balances in the Middle East and around the world.

    The new political spaces created by global conflict also brought greater cohesion to the Arab position on Palestine, as articulated in a statement by the pan-Arab organization, the Arab League, in Cairo on November 29. Ahmed Aboul Gheit insisted on the Arab quest for a just peace and praised the ‘Algiers Declaration’ of the previous month. On October 12, 14 Palestinian political groups met in Algeria and signed a reconciliation agreement based on ending division through presidential and parliamentary elections.

    This was part of a year-long momentum where Arab governments revitalized their position in support of the Palestinians, both financially and politically through funding the Palestinian refugees agency, UNRWA, or supporting Palestine at the United Nations.

    On October 3, Arab representatives at the UN introduced Resolution A/C 1/77 L.2,  urging Israel to get rid of its nuclear weapons and to put “all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” The Resolution was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations General Assembly on October 28.

    UN: ‘Deadliest Year’

    Though no real action was taken by the UN to punish Israel for its ongoing military occupation and violations of Palestinian rights, several UN initiatives and resolutions continued to demonstrate the centrality of Palestine to the international agenda.

    Last August, the ‘UN Experts’ condemned “Israel’s escalating attacks against Palestinian civil society in the occupied West Bank”, stating that these actions mount to severe suppression of human rights defenders and are illegal and unacceptable”.

    In October, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, submitted a report to the UNGA, where she concluded that the realization of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination requires dismantling the Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid regime.

    On November 30, the UNGA also adopted a resolution to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands in 1948.

    Alas, none of these statements altered the violent nature of Israel’s attitude towards Palestinians. On October 29, the UN Mideast envoy, Tor Wennesland, said that 2022 is on course to be the ‘deadliest year’ for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the UN started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    Israeli Violence and the Lions’ Den

    Israel has killed over 200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza since the start of 2022, including 47 children. Only a few of them made headlines in mainstream media. However, the world still showed outrage following the cold blood murder of famed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, while she was covering the tragic events in Jenin. Widespread calls for an impartial investigation finally convinced the FBI to open a criminal probe into Abu Akleh’s killing.

    The Israeli killing spree was motivated by two reasons: first, the rise of armed resistance in the northern West Bank, and second, Israel’s chaotic political scene.

    Continued Israeli attacks on Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank towns and refugee camps resulted in the formation of a new Palestinian armed group known as the Lions’ Den. Unlike other groups, the Nablus-based movement was non-factional, which created new spaces for national unity among all Palestinians, regardless of their political or ideological backgrounds.

    The Israeli government quickly retaliated against the Lions’ Den. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz belittled the group’s appeal on October 13, announcing “Eventually, we will lay our hands on the terrorists”, estimating their number to be 30 fighters. “We will work out how to reach them and we will eliminate them,” Gantz said. The Israeli assessment has proven untrue as the brigade continued to grow, morphing into other brigades in Jenin, Al-Khalil (Hebron) and other West Bank regions.

    The killing of Palestinian fighter Oday Tamimi in a clash near the illegal Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim on October 19 further accentuated the boldness of the new Palestinian generation of resisters. Moreover, the televised execution of Ammar Mufleh in the town of Huwara on December 2 also illustrated Israel’s willingness to flout international law to end the ongoing armed rebellion in occupied Palestine.

    The Israeli violence is also directly linked to Tel Aviv’s own political crisis. Though Benjamin Netanyahu was ousted through an unlikely alliance among various Israeli political forces, which was led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in June 2021, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is slated for a comeback.

    Bennett resigned from his post on June 20, leaving the leadership to his coalition partner, Yair Lapid. New elections, the fifth in three years, were held on November 1. This time around, Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition won by a comfortable margin, introducing to Israel’s already extremist government such notorious personalities as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for their violent action and rhetoric against Palestinians.

    Though Washington had indicated on November 2 that it will not be working directly with Ben-Gvir, the US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, seemed to reverse that position by declaring that “no one hurts the unbreakable ties between Israel and the United States.”

    Keeping in mind that the increased violence in the West Bank was a direct result of the militant nature of the Bennet-Lapid government as it labored to demonstrate its toughness against Palestinian Resistance, the new government is expected to be even more violent, setting the stage for a wider confrontation in both the West Bank and Gaza.

    The brief but deadly Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip on August 5 resulted in the killing of at least 46 Palestinians and the injuring of at least 360, according to UN estimates. Despite the devastation resulting from the war, it could have been much worse, as not all Palestinian groups took part in the fighting and Israel seemed keen on ending its hostilities before a prolonged conflict resulted in a heavy political price. Netanyahu, too, is likely to resort to war on Gaza, should he need to create a distraction from future political difficulties or to keep his rightwing partners in line.

    Culture of Hope

    Despite the violence of the Israeli occupation and the hardship of isolation and siege, Palestinian culture continued to flourish with Palestinian artists, filmmakers, athletes, intellectuals and teachers continuing to leave their mark on the cultural scene in Palestine, in the Middle East and worldwide.

    In May, Mohammed Hamada, a 20-year-old weightlifter from the Gaza Strip, became the first Palestinian athlete to win gold and bronze medals at the weightlifting world championships held in Heraklion, Greece.

    In September, Palestinian-American systems engineer Nujoud Fahoum Merancy was appointed as one of the leaders of the Artemis missions, a program by NASA that aims to fly astronauts to the Moon.

    Palestinian Resistance and cultural achievements are constantly boosted by growing international solidarity with Palestine. Thanks to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the multinational company General Mills  nnounced in June that it is divesting entirely from Israel. This was one of many other achievements credited to the Palestine-led boycott movement, which included other companies, universities and churches.

    However, nothing compares to the endless stream of solidarity exhibited by Arab and international football fans in the Qatar World Cup 2022, which started on November 30. Although the Palestine national football team has not qualified for the world’s most important sports event, the flag of Palestine was the most visible among all other international flags. The iconic Palestinian Kufiyeh was also adorned by thousands of fans including world leaders, dignitaries and celebrities.

    2022 was another year of tragedy and hope for the Palestinians. It is this hope, buoyed by numerous little victories, that makes the struggle for Palestinian freedom possible. One wishes that 2023 will be a better year.

    The post Culture of Hope: 2022 and the Margins of Victory in Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • UN Votes for International Court of Justice to Examine Israeli Occupation

    It was a vote Israel and the U.S. moved heaven and earth to stall, but that took place anyway, with timing that couldn’t have been more apt. On the evening of December 30, two days after a declaration by the incoming government of Benjamin Netanyahu that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” including the illegally annexed Syrian Golan…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US, Israel Vote No as UN Approves World Court Resolution on Illegal Occupation



    The General Assembly of the United Nations on Friday approved a resolution that asks the International Court of Justice to issue an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

    The resolution passed with a final vote of 87 in favor, 26 opposed, and 53 nations abstaining. Among those opposed to the measure were the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

    Specifically, the resolution asks the ICJ to provide the United Nations with an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing “occupation, settlement and annexation” of the Occupied Territories, “including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”

    The official request to the ICJ also asks the body, known broadly as the World Court, how specific Israeli policies and practices “affect the legal status of the occupation” and to characterize any legal consequences for all the United Nations and its member states that stem from this status.

    Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Saturday that the vote signals that “the time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people.”

    Ahead of the vote, Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said in an address to General Assembly members: “We trust that, regardless of your vote today, if you believe in international law and peace, you will uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice when delivered and you will stand up to this Israeli government right now.”

    As Al-Jazeera noted, “The ICJ last weighed in on the issue of Israel’s occupation in 2004, when it ruled that Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal. Israel rejected that ruling, accusing the court of being politically motivated.”

    The Israeli government made its displeasure with the resolution known prior to the vote, with its U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan saying “[a]ny decision from a judicial body which receives its mandate from the morally bankrupt and politicized U.N. is completely illegitimate.”

    While the ICJ’s rulings have binding status, there is no legal mechanism to enforce its decisions and continued U.S. support for Israeli occupation means there is little hope for any consequences regardless of what the World Court puts forth.

    Mansour noted that Friday’s vote arrived just days following the swearing-in of the new far-right Israeli government, once again headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but now backed by a coalition even more hostile to Palestinian rights than previous iterations.

    Mansour warned that Netanyahu will now oversee an acceleration of the “colonial and racist policies” that have marked the Likud governments of the past.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • In New Year’s Address, UN Chief Says ‘We Need Peace, Now More Than Ever’



    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday beseeched humanity to “make 2023 a year when peace is restored to our lives, our homes, and our world,” a message that came as dozens of wars and armed conflicts rage around the world.

    “Every new year is a moment of rebirth. We sweep out the ashes of the old year and prepare for a brighter day,” Guterres said in his speech. “In 2022, millions of people around the world literally swept out ashes. From Ukraine to Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and beyond, people left the ruins of their homes and lives in search of something better.”

    “In 2022, millions of people around the world literally swept out ashes.”

    “In 2023, we need peace, now more than ever,” he insisted. “Peace with one another, through dialogue to end conflict. Peace with nature and our climate, to build a more sustainable world. Peace in the home, so women and girls can live in dignity and safety. Peace on the streets and in our communities, with the full protection of all human rights. Peace in our places of worship, with respect for each other’s beliefs. And peace online, free from hate speech and abuse.”

    “In 2023, let’s put peace at the heart of our words and actions,” Guterres added.

    In a speech earlier this month, Guterres noted that “geopolitical divides have made global problem-solving ever more difficult—sometimes impossible.”

    However, the U.N. chief stressed that “we can’t accept things as they are. We owe it to people to find solutions, to fight back, and to act” to tackle humanity’s biggest challenges, from wars to the climate emergency.

    Guterres continued:

    In Ethiopia, efforts by the African Union to broker peace are a reason for hope. A cessation of hostilities and implementation agreements are in place. A pathway to assistance in the northern part of the country is emerging.
    In the Democratic Republic of Congo, diplomatic efforts led by Angola and the East African Community have created a framework for political dialogue to resolve the crisis in the eastern region of the country.
    The truce in Yemen has delivered real dividends for people. Since then, even if very fragile, there have been no major military operations in a conflict where innocent people have been paying the highest price. Civilian flights have resumed from Sanaa. Vital supplies are finally getting through the port of Hudaydah.
    And even in the brutal war in Ukraine, we have seen the power of determined, discreet diplomacy to help people and tackle unprecedented levels of global food insecurity. Despite ongoing challenges, the Black Sea Grain Initiative to facilitate exports of food and fertilizers from Ukraine—and a memorandum of understanding for unimpeded exports of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets—are making a difference.

    “I am more determined than ever,” the secretary-general added, “to make 2023 a year for peace, a year for action.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘Every War Ends in a Diplomatic Way’: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Floats February Peace Summit



    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Monday that his government is aiming to hold a “peace summit” in February with the goal of ending Russia’s assault, which is now in its 10th month.

    “Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” Kuleba said in an interview with the Associated Press. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”

    Kuleba suggested the summit could be mediated by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, a vocal advocate of diplomatic talks to end an invasion that has killed thousands of civilians, devastated Ukraine’s infrastructure, and sparked a massive humanitarian crisis.

    “The United Nations could be the best venue for holding this summit, because this is not about making a favor to a certain country,” the foreign minister said. “This is really about bringing everyone on board.”

    But Kuleba added that Ukraine would only extend an invite to Russia if it first faced war crimes prosecution in an international court—a precondition certain to draw objections from Moscow. The International Criminal Court is currently investigating alleged war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine.

    Kuleba’s remarks came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is “ready to negotiate” an end to the war, though he has refused to discuss withdrawing forces from the territories he illegally annexed in September.

    Peace talks to end the war in Ukraine have been backed by dozens of countries around the world.

    During his visit to the United States last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a “just peace” would entail “no compromises as to the sovereignty, freedom, and territorial integrity of my country” and “payback for all the damages inflicted by Russian aggression.”

    Zelenskyy recently dropped his demand that Putin be removed from power before peace talks can resume.

    The Biden White House approved another $2 billion in military assistance for Ukraine during Zelenskyy’s visit, agreeing to send the war-torn country a Patriot missile system as well as so-called precision bomb kits.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Stopping the Sixth Extinction



    The words of United Nations Secretary General António Guterres couldn’t have been starker:

    “We are waging a war on nature. Ecosystems have become playthings of profit. Human activities are laying waste to once-thriving forests, jungles, farmland, oceans, rivers, seas and lakes. Our land, water and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics. The addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos. Unsustainable production and monstrous consumption habits are degrading our world. Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction…with a million species at risk of disappearing forever.”

    Respecting and following the leadership of Indigenous communities is the first step towards making peace with Mother Nature, while we still can.

    Guterres was opening the global summit of the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15 in UN parlance, which just wrapped up in Montreal. The convention was launched at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, alongside the UN’s better-known climate change negotiations.

    The biodiversity convention is the best hope we have to stop what has been called the sixth extinction, as human activities extinguish tens of thousands of species every year, never to return. The previous five extinctions occurred from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years ago. The most recent one happened 66 million years ago, when, scientists believe, a 6-mile-wide asteroid smashed into water off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The impact caused massive tsunamis, acid rain and wildfires, then blanketed the atmosphere with sun-blocking dust, lowering temperatures worldwide and wiping out the dinosaurs.

    We humans are now essentially doing to the planet what that asteroid did. As New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert eloquently describes in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Sixth Extinction, humans have evolved into a predator without equal. We overtake and destroy habitats with abandon, driving other species into permanent oblivion.

    Key agreements forged last week in Montreal were signed by 196 nations. The U.S., along with the Vatican, didn’t sign as neither is party to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

    A central achievement of the Montreal negotiations was the “30×30” pledge to protect 30% of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas and inland waters by 2030. Also agreed to was the creation of a fund to help developing nations protect biodiversity, slated to reach $200 billion annually by 2030, while phasing down harmful subsidies by $500 billion per year. A requirement for the “full and active involvement” of indigenous peoples was also written into the text.

    “It’s absolutely impossible to create a biodiversity agreement without the inclusion of Indigenous rights, because 80% of remaining biodiversity is Indigenous lands and territories,” Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “Some of the biggest challenges and risks that have come out of this COP is the fact that there aren’t any real mechanisms with real teeth, similar to COP27 [the recent UN climate summit in Egypt], that actually protect our rights, our culture, and our ability to advance our rights to say yes and no to these types of agreements.”

    Eriel Deranger first appeared on Democracy Now! while in Copenagen in 2009, attending a different COP15–the 15th meeting of the UN climate change convention. She was delivering a basket to the Canadian embassy in advance of then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s arrival for those pivotal climate negotiations:

    “Inside the basket were copies of the treaties that are being violated by the Canada tar sands, and copies of the Kyoto Protocol, which he signed onto, as well as a copy of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, to remind him that there is something else that he needs to sign onto in order to really fully respect indigenous people’s rights.”

    It was at that 2009 climate summit that wealthy nations pledged to create a $100 billion per year fund by 2020, to help poorer nations adapt to and mitigate climate change. To date, the fund has fallen far short of the pledge, and much of the money available is offered as loans, not grants. So activists like Eriel Deranger have reason to be skeptical of the $200 billion per year biodiversity pledge just made in Montreal.

    “They’re centering colonial economic ideals,” Deranger said this week. “They’re still giving national and colonial states the power to determine what Indigenous rights look like when they’re implemented in these agreements, and how lands will be developed, undeveloped, protected…In Canada, we are committing to ’30×30,’ millions and millions of dollars for biodiversity protection, Indigenous protection and conservation areas, yet we are not talking about ending the expansion of the Alberta tar sands.”

    Mass extinction will have far-reaching, potentially cataclysmic consequences for humankind. António Guterres was right: we are waging a war on nature. Respecting and following the leadership of Indigenous communities is the first step towards making peace with Mother Nature, while we still can.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘We’re Dying Here’: SOS Issued for Rohingya Refugees Desperately Adrift at Sea



    A United Nations refugee advocate on Friday joined human rights defenders in imploring South and Southeast Asian nations to rescue nearly 200 Rohingya refugees “on the verge of perishing” after drifting on the Andaman Sea for weeks—an ordeal that’s already reportedly claimed around 20 lives aboard the vessel.

    The refugees—who are fleeing ethnic cleansing and other severe state repression in their native Myanmar—have been packed aboard the unseaworthy boat for as long as a month without adequate food or water, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

    “While many in the world are preparing to enjoy a holiday season and ring in a new year, boats bearing desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children, are setting off on perilous journeys in unseaworthy vessels.”

    “It is devastating to learn that many people have already lost their lives, including children,” Indrika Ratwatte, UNHCR’s Asia and Pacific director, said on Friday, lamenting that the refugees’ plight has been “continuously ignored” by countries in the region.

    “This shocking ordeal and tragedy must not continue,” Ratwatte continued. “These are human beings—men, women, and children. We need to see the states in the region help save lives and not let people die.”

    Using his phone, the captain of the stranded boat told Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose sister and 5-year-old niece are on the vessel, that “we’re dying here.”

    Khan told The Washington Post on Friday that he has lost contact with his relatives aboard the vessel and that he is “very concerned” for their well-being.

    “I ask the international community to not let them die,” Khan added. “Rohingya are human beings. Our lives matter.”

    According to UNHCR:

    Since the first reports of the boat being sighted in Thai waters, UNHCR has received unverified information of the vessel being spotted near Indonesia and then subsequently off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India.
    Its current location is reportedly once more back eastwards, in the Andaman sea north of Aceh.
    UNHCR has repeatedly asked all countries in the region to make saving lives a priority and requested the Indian marine rescue center earlier this week to allow for disembarkations.

    While the Sri Lankan navy and local fishers acted rapidly to rescue over 100 Rohingya from a boat in distress in the Indian Ocean last weekend, no such assistance has been rendered to the vessel drifting in the Andaman Sea.

    “International humanitarian law requires the rescue of people at sea when they are in distress, and their delivery to a place of safety,” Amnesty International stressed in a tweet Thursday. “Further delays to alleviate this suffering or any attempts to send Rohingya back to Myanmar where they face apartheid are unconscionable.”

    Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese commercial ship en route to Myanmar rescued 154 Rohingya refugees from a sinking boat before turning them over to Burmese authorities, who reportedly arrested the migrants.

    On Thursday, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews said that nations in the region “should prevent any loss of life and urgently rescue and provide immediate relocation” to the stranded Rohingya.

    “Too many Rohingya lives have already been lost in maritime crossings.”

    “Too many Rohingya lives have already been lost in maritime crossings,” asserted Andrews, a former Democratic U.S. congressman from Maine. “Increasing numbers of Rohingya have been using dangerous sea and land routes in recent weeks, which highlights the sense of desperation and hopelessness experienced by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region.”

    UNHCR has reported a 600% increase of mostly Rohingya people endeavoring perilous sea journeys from Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2022. The agency says at least 119 people have died or gone missing this year.

    “While many in the world are preparing to enjoy a holiday season and ring in a new year, boats bearing desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children, are setting off on perilous journeys in unseaworthy vessels,” Andrews said.

    “The international community must step forward,” he added, “and assist regional actors to provide durable solutions for the Rohingya.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • What is the Rules-Based Order?

    Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder & political prisoner, epitomizes what the rules-based order means in the lexicon of US empire.

    In fits of, what might well be termed, masochism, some of us now-and-then tune in to the legacy media. When doing so, one is likely to hear western-aligned politicians rhetorize ad nauseam about the linguistically vogue rules-based order. Now and then, the word “international” is also inserted: the rules-based international order.

    But what exactly is this rules-based order?

    The way that the wording rules-based order is bandied about makes it sound like it has worldwide acceptance and that it has been around for a long time. Yet it comes across as a word-of-the-moment, both idealistic and disingenuous. Didn’t people just use to say international law or refer to the International Court of Justice, Nuremberg Law, the UN Security Council, or the newer institution — the International Criminal Court? Moreover, the word rules is contentious. Some will skirt the rules, perhaps chortling the aphorism that rules are meant to be broken. Rules can be unjust, and shouldn’t these unjust rules be broken, or better yet, disposed of? Wouldn’t a more preferable wording refer to justice? And yes, granted that justice can be upset by miscarriages. Or how about a morality-based order?

    Nonetheless, it seems this wording of a rules-based order has jumped to the fore. And the word order makes it sound a lot like there is a ranking involved. Since China and Russia are advocating multipolarity, it has become clearer that the rules-based order, which is commonspeak among US and US-aligned politicians, is pointing at unipolarity, wherein the US rules a unipolar, US-dominated world.

    An Australian thinktank, the Lowy Institute, has pointed to a need “to work towards a definition” for a rules-based order. It asks, “… what does America think the rules-based order is for?

    Among the reasons cited are “… to entrench and even sanctify an American-led international system,” or “that the rules-based order is a fig leaf, a polite fiction that masks the harsh realities of power,” and that “… the rules-based order can protect US interests as its power wanes relative to China…”

    China is aware of this, and this is expressed in the Asia Times headline: “US ‘rules-based order’ is a myth and China knows it.”

    The Hill wrote, “The much-vaunted liberal international order – recently re-branded as the rules-based international order or RBIO – is disintegrating before our very eyes.” As to what would replace the disintegrated order, The Hill posited, “The new order, reflecting a more multipolar and multicivilizational distribution of power, will not be built by Washington for Washington.”

    The Asia Times acknowledged that it has been a “West-led rules-based order” and argued that a “collective change is needed to keep the peace.”

    It is a given that the rules-based order is an American linguistic instrument designed to preserve it as a global hegemon. To rule is America’s self-admitted intention. It has variously declared itself to be the leader of the free world, the beacon on the hill, exceptional, the indispensable nation (in making this latter distinction, a logical corollary is drawn that there must be dispensable nations — or in the ineloquent parlance of former president Donald Trump: “shithole” nations).

    Thus, the US has placed itself at the apex of the international order. It seeks ultimate control through full-spectrum dominance. It situates its military throughout the world; it surrounds countries with bases and weapons that it is inimically disposed toward — for example, China and Russia. It refuses to reject the first use of nuclear weapons. It does not reject the use of landmines. It still has a chemical-weapons inventory, and it allegedly carries out bioweapons research, as alluded to by Russia, which uncovered several clandestine biowarfare labs in Ukraine. This news flummoxed Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. Dominance is not about following rules, it is about imposing rules. That is the nature of dominating. Ergo, the US rejects the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and went so far as to sanction the ICC and declare ICC officials persona non grata when its interests were threatened.

    *****
    Having placed itself at the forefront, the US empire needs to keep its aligned nations in line.

    Thus it was that Joe Biden, already back in 2016, was urging Canada’s prime minister Trudeau to be a leader for rules-based world order.

    When Trudeau got together with his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, they reaffirmed their defence of the rule-based international order.

    It is a commonly heard truism that actions speak louder than words. But an examination of Trudeau’s words compared to his actions speaks to a contradiction when it comes to Canada and the rule of law.

    So how does Trudeau apply rules based law?1

    Clearly, in Canada it points to a set of laws having been written to coerce compliance. This is especially evident in the case of Indigenous peoples.2

    It seems Canada is just a lackey for the leader of the so-called free world.

    One of the freedoms the US abuses is the freedom not to sign or ratify treaties. Even the right-wing thinktank, the Council on Foreign Relations lamented, “In lists of state parties to globally significant treaties, the United States is often notably absent. Ratification hesitancy is a chronic impairment to international U.S. credibility and influence.”

    The CFR added, “In fact, the United States has one of the worst records of any country in ratifying human rights and environmental treaties.”

    It is a matter of record that the US places itself above the law. As stated, the US does not recognize the ICC; as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US has serially abused its veto power to protect the racist, scofflaw nation of Israel; it ignored a World Court ruling that found the US guilty of de facto terrorism for mining the waters around Nicaragua.

    The historical record reveals that the US, and its Anglo-European-Japanese-South Korean acolytes, are guilty of numerous violations of international law (i.e., the rules-based, international order).

    When it comes to the US, the contraventions of the rules-based order are myriad. To mention a few:

    1. Currently, the US is occupying Syria and stealing the oil of the Syrian people;
    2. It attacked, occupied, and plundered Afghanistan;
    3. It has been carrying out an embargo, condemned by the international community, against Cuba and its people for six decades;
    4. The US has been in illegal occupation of Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay since 1903; even if deemed to be legal, it is clearly unethical;
    5. American empire has a history of blatant, wanton disregard for democracy and sovereignty;
    6. The US funded the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected president of Ukraine, leading to today’s special military operation devastating Ukraine, which continues to fight a US-NATO proxy war.
    7. Then, there is the undeniable fact that the US exists because of a genocide wreaked by its colonizers, which has been perpetuated ever since.
    8. Even the accommodations that the US imposed on the peoples it dispossessed are ignored, revealed by a slew of broken treaties.3

    The history of US actions (as opposed to its words) and its complicit tributaries needs to be kept firmly in mind when the legacy media unquestioningly reports the pablum about adhering to a rules-based order.

    1. See also Yves Engler, “Ten ways Liberals undermined international rules-based order,” rabble.ca, 17 September 2021.
    2. Read Bob Joseph, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, 2018.
    3. Vine Deloria, Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence, 1985. This governmental infidelity to treaties is also true in the Canadian context.
    The post What is the Rules-Based Order? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • UN Passes Resolution Condemning Death Penalty Despite US Opposition

    President Joe Biden’s stated opposition to the death penalty did not stop the United States from joining Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea in voting against a United Nations resolution supporting a worldwide moratorium on the practice on Thursday, leading critics to question once again whether the president will make good on his campaign pledge to eliminate capital punishment in his own country.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The Nakba Day Triumph

    The next Nakba Day will be officially commemorated by the United Nations General Assembly on May 15, 2023. The decision by the world’s largest democratic institution is significant, if not a game changer.

    For nearly 75 years, the Palestinian Nakba, the ‘Catastrophe’ wrought by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in 1947-48, has served as the epicenter of the Palestinian tragedy as well as the collective Palestinian struggle for freedom.

    Three decades ago, namely after the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian leadership in 1993, the Nakba practically ceased to exist as a relevant political variable. Palestinians were urged to move past that date, and to invest their energies and political capital in an alternative and more ‘practical’ goal, a return to the 1967 borders.

    In June 1967, Israel occupied the rest of historic Palestine — East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — igniting yet another wave of ethnic cleansing.

    Based on these two dates, Western cheerleaders of Oslo divided Palestinians into two camps: the ‘extremists’ who insisted on the centrality of the 1948 Nakba, and the ‘moderates’ who agreed to shift the center of gravity of Palestinian history and politics to 1967.

    Such historical revisionism impacted every aspect of the Palestinian struggle: it splintered Palestinians ideologically and politically; relegated the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, which is enshrined in UN Resolution 194; spared Israel the legal and moral accountability of its violent establishment on the ruins of Palestine, and more.

    Leading Palestinian Nakba historian, Salman Abu Sitta, explained in an interview a few years ago the difference between the so-called pragmatic politics of Oslo and the collective struggle of Palestinians as the difference between ‘aims’ and ‘rights’. Palestinians “don’t have ‘aims’ … (but) rights,” he said. “… These rights are inalienable, they represent the bottom red line beyond which no concession is possible. Because doing so will destroy their life.”

    Indeed, shifting the historical centrality of the narrative away from the Nakba was equivalent to the very destruction of the lives of Palestinian refugees as it has been tragically apparent in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria in recent years.

    While politicians from all relevant sides continued to bemoan the ‘stagnant’ or even ‘dead’ peace process – often blaming one another for that supposed calamity – a different kind of conflict was taking place. On the one hand, ordinary Palestinians along with their historians and intellectuals fought to reassert the importance of the Nakba, while Israelis continued to almost completely ignore the earth-shattering event, as if it is of no consequence to the equally tragic present.

    Gaza’s ‘Great March of Return‘ (2018-2019) was possibly the most significant collective and sustainable Palestinian action that attempted to reorient the new generation around the starting date of the Palestinian tragedy.

    Over 300 people, mostly from third or fourth post-Nakba generations, were killed by Israeli snipers at the Gaza fence for demanding their Right of Return. The bloody events of those years were enough to tell us that Palestinians have not forgotten the roots of their struggle, as it also illustrated Israel’s fear of Palestinian memory.

    The work of Rosemary Sayigh on the exclusion of the Nakba from the trauma genre, and also that of Samah Sabawi, demonstrate, not only the complexity of the Nakba’s impact on the Palestinian collective awareness, but also the ongoing denial — if not erasure — of the Nakba from academic and historical discourses.

    “The most significant traumatic event in Palestinian history is absent from the ‘trauma genre’,” Sabawi wrote in the recently-published volume, Our Vision for Liberation.

    Sayigh argued that “the loss of recognition of (the Palestinian refugees’) rights to people- and state-hood created by the Nakba has led to an exceptional vulnerability to violence,” with Syria being the latest example.

    Israel was always aware of this. When Israeli leaders agreed to the Oslo political paradigm, they understood that removing the Nakba from the political discourse of the Palestinian leadership constituted a major victory for the Israeli narrative.

    Thanks to ordinary Palestinians, those who have held on to the keys and deeds to their original homes and land in historic Palestine, history is finally being rewritten, back to its original and accurate form.

    By passing Resolution A/77/L.24, which declared May 15, 2023, as ‘Nakba Day’, the UNGA has corrected a historical wrong.

    Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, rightly understood the UN’s decision as a major step towards the delegitimization of Israel as a military occupier of Palestine. “Try to imagine the international community commemorating your country’s Independence Day by calling it a disaster. What a disgrace,” he said.

    Absent from Erdan’s remarks and other responses by the Israeli officials is the mere hint of political or even moral accountability for the ethnic cleansing of over 530 Palestinian towns and villages, and the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians, whose descendants are now numbered in millions of refugees.

    Not only did Israel invest decades in canceling and erasing the Nakba, it also criminalized it by passing what is now known as the Nakba Law of 2011.

    But the more Israel engages in this form of historical negationism, the harder Palestinians fight to reclaim their historical rights.

    May 15, 2023, UN Nakba Day represents the triumph of the Palestinian narrative over that of Israeli negationists. This means that the blood spilled during Gaza’s March of Return was not in vain, as the Nakba and the Right of Return are now back at the center of the Palestinian story.

    The post The Nakba Day Triumph first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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