Category Archives: Issues

Mother of Saudi man sentenced to crucifixion begs Obama to intervene

The Guardian reports: The mother of a Saudi protester sentenced to death by beheading and crucifixion has begged Barack Obama to intervene to save her son’s life.

In her first interview with foreign media, Nusra al-Ahmed, the mother of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, whose case has made headlines around the world, described the intended punishment as savage and “backwards in the extreme”.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Reprieve, the US talkshow host Bill Maher and the British prime minister, David Cameron, have all weighed in with calls for clemency to stop Nimr, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, from being beheaded and then crucified. [Continue reading…]

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Anger over Ankara response is a product of Turkish government’s past record

By Cemal Burak Tansel, University of Sheffield

Turkish voters will go to the polls on November 1, still reeling from the horrific bombings at a peace demonstration in Ankara on October 10.

The labour, peace and democracy rally in Ankara was planned as an intervention into the cycle of conflict that has engulfed the country since the parliamentary elections in June. Those who gathered did not get the chance to shout their calls for peace. A dual explosion went off, leaving at least 97 dead and more than 500 wounded.

In the aftermath of the attack, there have been mass protests against the government. The public anger, it seems, is being directed not at the perpetrators of the attack but at the people in charge of the country.

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Where are the anti-war protesters now?

Haid Haid writes: Russia’s recent military intervention in Syria doesn’t seem to have provoked the same reaction worldwide as the one the US faced against Assad in retaliation to the chemical gas attacks in Syria in August 2013. While the demonstration against the US airstrikes brought together the left and the right in major world cities, Russia’s intervention hasn’t prompted a strong reaction even from those who are considered ‘friends of Syria.’ This is not the first time that the reactions of anti-war coalitions and peace movements differ on the Syrian conflict, based on the actors calling for them. Iranian support to the Assad regime, for instance, with armed militias, weaponry, money, military experts, etc., has also gone unnoticed.

This selective approach by anti-war movements to foreign military interventions raises many questions about what they consider a war to be. Should we consider all military interventions bad? Does the actor’s identity matter more than the action itself? Can we be selective about acting upon our principles? When is it acceptable to favor someone’s interests over the miseries of others? [Continue reading…]

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ISIS is making these Afghans long for the Taliban

The Washington Post reports: When the Islamic State fighters seized the Mahmand Valley, they poured pepper into the wounds of their enemies, said villagers. Then, they seared their hands in vats of boiling oil. A group of villagers was blindfolded, tortured and blown apart with explosives buried underneath them.

“They pulled out my brother’s teeth before they forced him to sit on the bombs,” recalled Malik Namos, a tribal elder who escaped the valley along with thousands of other villagers. “They are more vicious than the Taliban, than any group we have seen.”

At war for more than three decades, Afghans are familiar with violence perpetrated by a raft of armies and militias. But even by their jaded standards, the emergence here of the Islamic State — the extremist organization that arose in the Middle East — has ushered in a new age of brutality. [Continue reading…]

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Too soon to claim ‘third intifada,’ Palestinian thinkers say

Al Jazeera reports: Protests in the last few weeks are a clear sign that a new generation of Palestinians is rising up against Israel’s occupation, Palestinian activists, politicians and scholars said this week — but they added that it’s too early to tell if the movement can be sustained.

“This phase of popular resistance broke out spontaneously, in reaction to months of fascist-leaning policies of the most racist, settler-dominated and far-right government in Israel’s history,” Omar Barghouti, a founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, told Al Jazeera in an email.

Whether this new uprising will be sustained or fizzle out depends on whether the various groups involved can develop a unifying vision and political leadership, said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. [Continue reading…]

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Education under occupation: everyday disruption at a Palestinian university

By Brendan Browne, Queen’s University Belfast

As the clock moves towards 12.45pm I begin to anxiously await the flurry of emails that I’ve come to expect in advance of my 2pm class. The class is on law and human rights. Students email to say that a deterioration in the security situation means they must stay within the relative safety of their own area, their parents naturally apprehensive that travel across the West Bank could potentially be dangerous.

This has become the everyday reality this semester for students attending Al Quds University, and Al Quds (Bard) University – a partnership with the American liberal arts institution.

The university soon gives the call for all staff and students to evacuate. In an entirely depressing but ultimately predictable scenario, Palestinian students will not be able to take their classes in literature, law, biology or media. Those on site make their way to the agreed “safe” area with alcohol-drenched cotton balls handed out by the ever vigilant staff of the Palestinian Red Crescent to ward off the effects of the inevitable deluge of tear gas.

The university has tried to continue life as normal. On October 13, Al Quds university welcomed the president of India, Pranab Mukherjee on campus with great pomp and splendour to receive an honorary degree. Indian flags adorned the beautiful campus grounds and academics dressed in ceremonial gowns to applaud the visit of the world leader.

Welcoming the Indian president on campus.
Brendan Browne., Author provided

But there were also protests from students angry at recent violence against them in Jerusalem, using this platform to draw attention to their ongoing suffering. Within 45 minutes of the Indian contingent leaving, Israeli forces stormed the campus and violently arrested eight students while simultaneously causing significant damage to property, according to the student group Mojama’a Alanshita which posted a video of some of the arrests on Facebook.

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KRG ruling party ejects rivals, escalating political crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraq Oil Report: The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) ruling party has begun using its control of security forces to unilaterally expel its most potent political rivals from government – dramatically destabilizing a region already roiled by war, economic crisis, and popular discontent.

Security forces answering to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani, who continues acting as president after the expiration of his term on Aug. 19, prevented KRG Parliament Speaker Yousif Mohammed, a member of the rival Gorran party, from passing a checkpoint into the Kurdish capital of Erbil on Monday. KDP-aligned forces also barred Gorran ministers from entering government offices.

“An effort has been orchestrated as a military coup d’état against the Parliament, a legitimate institution,” Mohammed said. [Continue reading…]

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GCHQ’s surveillance hasn’t proved itself to be worth the cost to human rights

By Fiona de Londras, University of Birmingham

The release of yet more of Edward Snowden’s leaked files reveals the still-astonishing scale and breadth of government surveillance after more than a year of revelations. These recent papers revealed to The Intercept website discuss a programme within Britain’s GCHQ known as “Karma Police”, in which the intelligence agency gathered more than 1.1 trillion pieces of information on UK citizens between August 2007 and March 2009.

Spurred on by the expansion of intercept warrants under the Terrorism Act 2006, this information is users’ internet metadata – details of phone calls, email messages and browser connections that includes passwords, contacts, phone numbers, email addresses, and folders used to organise emails, but not the actual content of messages or emails.

Metadata can help identify people of interest, build profiles, and assist with decisions to start or escalate surveillance of individuals. All this information can be collected often at a fraction of the cost of doing this through traditional methods. In other words, metadata is not insignificant – and this is precisely why governments are so committed to collecting and processing it. However, bulk metadata collection – where information is collected from everyone whether a “person of interest” or not – is rightly a source of deep anxiety from both security and human rights perspectives.

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Deforestation is altering the world’s climate

The New York Times reports: Like California, much of Brazil is gripped by one of the worst droughts in its history. Huge reservoirs are bone dry and water has been rationed in São Paulo, a megacity of 20 million people; in Rio; and in many other places.

Drought is usually thought of as a natural disaster beyond human control. But as researchers peer deeper into the Earth’s changing bioclimate — the vastly complex global interplay between living organisms and climatic forces — they are better appreciating the crucial role that deforestation plays.

Cutting down forests releases stored carbon dioxide, which traps heat and contributes to atmospheric warming. But forests also affect climate in other ways, by absorbing more solar energy than grasslands, for example, or releasing vast amounts of water vapor. Many experts believe that deforestation is taking place on such a large scale, especially in South America, that it has already significantly altered the world’s climate — even though its dynamics are not well understood.

“A lot of people are scrambling to make observations in the Amazon this year, with the expected big El Niño coming,” said Abigail L. S. Swann, an eco-climatologist at the University of Washington. “It’s expected to drive significant drought over the Amazon, which will change how much water trees have available.”

Humans have long settled in places where there is adequate and predictable precipitation, and large forests play a crucial role in generating dependable amounts of rainfall. Trees take up moisture from the soil and transpire it, lifting it into the atmosphere. A fully grown tree releases 1,000 liters of water vapor a day into the atmosphere: The entire Amazon rain forest sends up 20 billion tons a day. [Continue reading…]

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Amnesty: U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels may have committed war crimes in Syria

The Washington Post reports: A new report from human rights group Amnesty International suggests that Kurdish forces in northern Syria, among the most significant U.S. ground partners in the fight against the Islamic State, may have committed war crimes with a campaign of displacement and home demolitions aimed mostly at the local Arab population.

In the report released on Monday, Amnesty says it has found evidence that the local armed group known as the People’s Protection Units – better known by the acronym “YPG” – forced Arabs and Turkmen in northern Syria from their homes on behalf of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish political organization that has held de facto control of northern Syria’s so-called “Autonomous Administration” since January 2014.

“By deliberately demolishing civilian homes, in some cases razing and burning entire villages, displacing their inhabitants with no justifiable military grounds, the Autonomous Administration is abusing its authority and brazenly flouting international humanitarian law, in attacks that amount to war crimes,” Lama Fakih, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty, said in a statement. [Continue reading…]

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How pro-Kremlin tweeps are framing the Syrian debate

RFE/RL reports: Support among Russians for military intervention in Syria has more than doubled, to 31 percent in early October from 14 percent in September, according to independent pollster Levada Center.

The increase comes with coverage of air strikes filling Russian state airwaves, press, and the Internet, and social-media salvoes fired from both sides of the debate.

On social networks like Twitter, expressions of support for Moscow’s air raids appear to fit into three distinct categories: perceived cultural and historical affinities between Syria and Russia; purported Western helplessness in the face of the continuing Syrian crisis; and the conflation of any armed forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime under the “terrorist” banner. [Continue reading…]

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A peace prize for Tunisia and lessons for everyone else

Rami G Khouri writes: On Oct. 9, Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for shepherding the only successful transition to democracy in the Arab world since uprisings began in the region in 2010. The quartet’s importance goes far beyond its pivotal role in brokering a democratic transition in 2013 and 2014: It can provide important lessons for other Arab countries as well as foreign powers that remain perplexed about how to respond to continuing Arab struggles for freedom, dignity and democracy.

The quartet’s composition was the crucial starting point of its successes. It consisted of the country’s largest labor union (UGTT), its employers’ federation (UTICA), its lawyers’ association and the Tunisian Human Rights Association. The first two represented Tunisian workers and business owners, critical poles of the economy; the lawyers and human rights activists represented the rule of law, constitutionalism and citizen rights in the pluralistic democracy that would replace the old dictatorship.

These four organizations had the moral authority and political credibility required to achieve constitutional democracy, but they also took three practical steps to enable their success. They made regular compromises among those in authority, including rotating power and voluntarily relinquishing the premiership; ensured that major decisions reflected inclusive consultations among all political actors and the public; and patiently phased in all major steps toward their democracy. [Continue reading…]

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Iran lawmakers vote to implement nuclear deal

The New York Times reports: Iran’s parliament voted Tuesday to support implementing a landmark nuclear deal struck with world powers despite hard-line attempts to derail the bill, suggesting the historic accord will be carried out.

The bill will be reviewed by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, a group of senior clerics who could return it to lawmakers for further discussion. However, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on key policies, has said it is up to the 290-seat parliament to approve or reject the deal.

Signaling the nuclear deal’s likely success, a spokesman for moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s administration welcomed the parliament’s vote and called it a “historic decision.”

“Members of parliament made a well-considered decision today showing they have a good understanding of the country’s situation,” Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said. “We hope to see acceleration in progress and development of the country from now on.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who helped facilitate the nuclear talks, also praised the vote as “good news” in a message on Twitter.

In the parliamentary session carried live by state radio, 161 lawmakers voted for implementing the nuclear deal, while 59 voted against it and 13 abstained. Another 17 did not vote at all, while 40 lawmakers did not attend the session.

A preliminary parliamentary vote Sunday saw 139 lawmakers out of the 253 present support the outline of the bill. But despite getting more support Tuesday, hard-liners still tried to disrupt the parliament’s session, shouting that Khamenei himself did not support the bill while trying to raise numerous proposals on its details. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Tensions between the U.S. and Iran, rather than easing as a result of July’s nuclear accord, are increasing over a wide spectrum of issues tied to the broader Middle East security landscape and to domestic Iranian politics, current and former U.S. officials say.

Just in the past two days, Iran has test-fired a ballistic missile and announced the conviction of American journalist Jason Rezaian, fueling suspicions the historic nuclear agreement has allowed Tehran’s Islamist clerics to step up their long-held anti-U.S. agenda.

Washington’s closest Mideast allies, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia, are more broadly concerned about Iran’s ability to use the diplomatic cover provided by the nuclear accord—and the promised release of tens of billions of dollars of frozen oil revenues—to strengthen its regional position and that of its allies. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday banned any further negotiations between Iran and the United States, putting the brakes on moderates hoping to end Iran’s isolation after reaching a nuclear deal with world powers in July.

Khamenei, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic, already said last month there would be no more talks with the United States after the nuclear deal, but has not previously declared an outright ban. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: The Washington Post said on Monday that its correspondent Jason Rezaian, who has been jailed for 14 months in Iran on espionage charges, had been convicted after a trial that ended two months ago.

While the conviction could not be independently confirmed — a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said on Sunday that a verdict had been handed down, but he did not disclose specifics — Iran appeared to be moving on Monday to position Mr. Rezaian’s case as part of a broader effort to get the release of Iranians detained in the United States.

On Monday, a state television news channel accused Mr. Rezaian, a dual American-Iranian citizen, of providing information to the United States about individuals and companies who were helping Iran circumvent international economic sanctions.

Iranian leaders, including President Hassan Rouhani, have raised the idea of a prisoner swap, suggesting that Mr. Rezaian, 39, could be exchanged for people who Tehran says are being held by or on the orders of the United States for violating sanctions. [Continue reading…]

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Peace process over, it’s Year Zero for Israelis and Palestinians

Lisa Goldman writes: A month from now, Israel will mark 20 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who signed the Oslo Accord. The night he was shot by a Jewish nationalist, Yigal Amir, Rabin appeared onstage at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, where he joined singer Miri Aloni, delivering an off-key and embarrassed rendition of the famous 1960s anti-war song “Shir LaShalom” (“Song to Peace”). A blood-spattered leaflet bearing the song’s lyrics was found in his suit pocket and became an enduring metaphor for the tragedy.

Worse was to come: Thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis have been killed in the two decades of violence that followed — a cycle once again on the uptick. Today Aloni makes her living as a busker. Twice a week, she cradles her guitar on a stool outside Tel Aviv’s squalid Carmel Market and performs her golden oldies for spare change, yelling at people who try to take her photograph. Thus the fortunes of what was once known as Israel’s peace camp.

Two decades after Rabin’s assassination, the occupation that was supposed to be ended by the Oslo process has been deepened and widened. The physical restrictions under which Palestinians live are far more onerous today than they were in 1987, when the first intifada broke out. Back then, Palestinian residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem could still travel freely throughout the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. And there were several hundred thousand fewer settlers living in those occupied territories. Still, back then Palestinians were also jailed for involvement in any kind of political activity, even for waving a Palestinian flag. And, as today, those living under occupation had no democratic rights in the state that ruled over them and were denied civil liberties. One difference, of course, is that today there’s a willing Palestinian participant in that repression, in the form of the Palestinian Authority’s security services. [Continue reading…]

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Sheldon Adelson warms to Marco Rubio

Politico reports: Sheldon Adelson, one of the Republican Party’s most sought-after contributors, is leaning increasingly toward supporting Marco Rubio — and the Florida senator is racing to win the backing of other uncommitted megadonors who have the potential to direct tens of millions of dollars his way and alter the contours of the Republican primary fight.

Last week, during a campaign swing through Las Vegas, Rubio held a meeting in Adelson’s offices at the Venetian Las Vegas, one of a number of five-star luxury casinos the billionaire mogul owns around the world. Adelson, seated at the head of his conference table, heaped praise on Rubio’s performance while he discussed the dynamics of the 2016 race. Those briefed on the meeting described it as short but said it had an air of importance, with the two joined by Rubio’s campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, and a pair of senior Adelson advisers, Rob Goldstein and Patrick Dumont.

Those close to Adelson — who spent more than $100 million on Republican candidates and causes during the 2012 campaign and has been aggressively courted by most would-be Republican nominees — stressed that the 82-year-old gambling magnate had made no final decision on whom he’d support but said that momentum had strongly shifted to the Florida senator. A formal endorsement, they said, could come as soon as the end of the month — and with it, the potential for a multimillion dollar contribution. With a net worth of $25.7 billion, according to Forbes, Adelson can afford to spend freely. [Continue reading…]

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Oil unlikely to ever be fully exploited because of climate concerns, says BP

The Guardian reports: The world’s oil resources are unlikely to ever be fully exploited, BP has admitted, due to international concern about climate change.

The statement, by the group’s chief economist, is the clearest acknowledgement yet by a major fossil fuel company that some coal, oil and gas will have to remain in the ground if dangerous global warming is to be avoided.

“Oil is not likely to be exhausted,” said Spencer Dale in a speech in London. Dale, who chief economist at the Bank of England until 2014, said: “What has changed in recent years is the growing recognition [of] concerns about carbon emissions and climate change.”

Scientists have warned that most existing fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground to avoid catastrophic global warming and Dale accepted this explicitly. [Continue reading…]

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If you’re not paranoid, you’re crazy

Walter Kirn writes: I knew we’d bought walnuts at the store that week, and I wanted to add some to my oatmeal. I called to my wife and asked her where she’d put them. She was washing her face in the bathroom, running the faucet, and must not have heard me—she didn’t answer. I found the bag of nuts without her help and stirred a handful into my bowl. My phone was charging on the counter. Bored, I picked it up to check the app that wirelessly grabs data from the fitness band I’d started wearing a month earlier. I saw that I’d slept for almost eight hours the night before but had gotten a mere two hours of “deep sleep.” I saw that I’d reached exactly 30 percent of my day’s goal of 13,000 steps. And then I noticed a message in a small window reserved for miscellaneous health tips. “Walnuts,” it read. It told me to eat more walnuts.

It was probably a coincidence, a fluke. Still, it caused me to glance down at my wristband and then at my phone, a brand-new model with many unknown, untested capabilities. Had my phone picked up my words through its mic and somehow relayed them to my wristband, which then signaled the app?

The devices spoke to each other behind my back—I’d known they would when I “paired” them—but suddenly I was wary of their relationship. Who else did they talk to, and about what? And what happened to their conversations? Were they temporarily archived, promptly scrubbed, or forever incorporated into the “cloud,” that ghostly entity with the too-disarming name?

It was the winter of 2013, and these “walnut moments” had been multiplying—jarring little nudges from beyond that occurred whenever I went online. One night the previous summer, I’d driven to meet a friend at an art gallery in Hollywood, my first visit to a gallery in years. The next morning, in my inbox, several spam e-mails urged me to invest in art. That was an easy one to figure out: I’d typed the name of the gallery into Google Maps. Another simple one to trace was the stream of invitations to drug and alcohol rehab centers that I’d been getting ever since I’d consulted an online calendar of Los Angeles–area Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Since membership in AA is supposed to be confidential, these e‑mails irked me. Their presumptuous, heart-to-heart tone bugged me too. Was I tired of my misery and hopelessness? Hadn’t I caused my loved ones enough pain? [Continue reading…]

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Ankara bombs: Turkey is being torn apart by bad leaders and bad neighbours

By Alpaslan Ozerdem, Coventry University

It had already been a deadly summer of political instability in Turkey. And now this. Another bloody massacre – this time at the hand of twin bomb attacks on a peace rally in Ankara, which have killed at least 97 people.

It is the worst terror attack in Turkey’s history, and the culmination of a dreadful wave of violence. In just a few months, hundreds of civilians, Turkish security personnel and PKK members have been killed. Barely a single day passes in Turkey nowadays without some incident of lethal political violence.

Freedom from fear is the very basic principle of human security, which should be protected by any state that wants a true sense of legitimacy over its population and territory. In Turkey, that freedom is under enormous pressure from all sorts of internal and external forces.

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