Category Archives: Lands

Greece’s Syriza set to sweep election in anti-austerity triumph

Reuters: Greece’s leftwing Syriza looked set for a comfortable victory over the ruling conservatives, an exit poll showed, with a chance of winning a full majority to face down international creditors and roll back years of painful austerity measures.

Syriza could gain 35.5-39.5 percent of the vote, well ahead of the conservative New Democracy party of outgoing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on 23-27 percent, according a joint exit poll for Greek television stations issued immediately after voting ended. Other individual exit polls showed similarly strong leads for Syriza.

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Why the Greek election is so important

By Theo Papadopoulos, University of Bath

This Greek election is the most important in recent memory. If the pollsters are correct, Syriza will win by a large margin and end four decades of two-party rule in Greece.

Since 2010 – and as a result of austerity measures – the country has seen its GDP shrink by nearly a quarter, its unemployment reach a third of the labour force and nearly half of its population fall below the poverty line.

With the slogan “hope is coming” Syriza, a party that prior to 2012 polled around 4.5% of the vote, seems to have achieved the impossible: creating a broad coalition that, at least rhetorically, rejects the TINA argument (There Is No Alternative) that previous Greek administrations have accepted. In its place, Syriza advocates a post-austerity vision, both for Greece and Europe, with re-structuring of sovereign debt at its centre.

How significant is this victory for Europe and the rest of the world? Comments range from grave concerns about the impact on the euro and the global economy to jubilant support for the renewal of the European left. For sure, Syriza is at the centre of political attention in Europe.

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Egypt: Power, the January 25 revolutionaries, and responsibility

H.A. Hellyer writes: During the 18-day uprising in 2011, the revolutionaries gained a certain type of power. Their theoretical perspective, though imprecise, became manifest through popular mobilization. With that, the revolutionaries were able to fundamentally disrupt the workings of the state, provoking and forcing it to change direction, resulting in the removal of Mubarak. At the same time, they also missed the opportunity to harness and develop that power.

In 2011, when the military’s transitional road map was put to a referendum, the revolutionaries had considerable political capital. That capital, however, was not capitalized upon. Revolutionaries generally mobilized for a “no” vote, but provided little in the way of a plausible alternative. They lost the vote. Their failure to properly express a well-developed political vision meant they missed a key opportunity to set the agenda of the post-Mubarak period.

A year later, the revolutionaries had the option of coalescing around a single candidate for presidential elections. It is likely that such a candidate would have prevailed. Instead, the revolutionary vote was split, leading to a run-off between Mubarak’s last prime minister, and the non-revolutionary Muslim Brotherhood. Some will claim the revolutionaries played a critical role in that run-off, by ensuring the former regime candidate lost. They did – but the very occurrence of such an abysmal run-off would have been impossible had there been a single, pro-January 25 revolution candidate.

Arising from that election was a presidency that the revolutionaries eventually, and correctly, opposed. Pro-revolutionary figures were the first to demand presidential elections: a laudable, democratic escape route from the prevailing political impasse, with revolutionaries en masse endorsing the demand. There were, however, other, less scrupulous forces that opposed the Brotherhood’s presidency. The key political party opposition umbrella was the National Salvation Front, which later backed the Tamarod group that called for the June 30 protests. More of the revolutionaries should have focused more intently on pressing Front members to distinguish themselves and the Front from more insidious forces, as well as interrogating Tamarod and its backers.

In short, at a time that could have made a critical difference, the revolutionaries did not realize the need to take initiative. As the protests to fulfill the democratic demand for presidential elections drew nearer, it was only a small group of revolutionaries that were dubious about the outcome. The rest merely made various public calls against military intervention when they should have focused on holding the main umbrella group, the National Salvation Front, to that anti-intervention principle as a condition, and established protocols to be followed if that intervention happened. That was their only leverage. [Continue reading…]

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Journalist who broke news of prosecutor’s death flees Argentina

Reuters reports: The first journalist to report on the death of a Argentine state prosecutor, who was investigating the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, said on Saturday that he had fled Argentina fearing for his life.

“I’m leaving because my life is in danger. My phones are tapped,” Damian Pachter, a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald, told the website Infobae.

The website carried a photograph of Pachter, wearing a cap and carrying sunglasses, at the airport before he boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight.

Telam, an Argentine state-run news agency, reported that the flight was bound for neighboring Uruguay.

“I’m going to come back to this country when my sources tell me the conditions have changed. I don’t think that will be during this government,” Patcher told Infobae. [Continue reading…]

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Japanese reporter’s bid to save friend led to ISIS abduction

Before the apparent murder of the Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa, Reuters reported: It is an unlikely friendship that ties the fates of war correspondent Kenji Goto and troubled loner Haruna Yukawa, the two Japanese hostages for which Islamic State militants demanded a $200 million (132.34 million pounds) ransom this week.

Yukawa was captured in August outside Aleppo. Goto, who had returned to Syria in late October to try to help his friend, had been missing since then.

For Yukawa, who dreamed of becoming a military contractor, travelling to Syria had been part of an effort to turn his life around after going bankrupt, losing his wife to cancer and attempting suicide, according to associates and his own accounts.

A unit at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been seeking information on him since August, people involved in that effort said. Goto’s disappearance had not been reported until Tuesday’s video apparently showing him and Yukawa kneeling in orange t-shirts next to a masked Islamic State militant wielding a knife.

Yukawa first met Goto in Syria in April and asked him to take him to Iraq. He wanted to know how to operate in a conflict zone. They went together in June.

“He was hapless and didn’t know what he was doing. He needed someone with experience to help him,” Goto told Reuters in August.

Yukawa then returned to Syria in July on his own. Goto, 47, returned to Japan. Yukawa’s subsequent abduction haunted Goto, who felt he had to do something to help the man, a few years his junior. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS wants to swap this woman for Japanese hostage

Al Jazeera: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has reportedly demanded the release of an Iraqi woman detained in Jordan in exchange for a Japanese national they have held captive.

In a video recording posted online on Saturday, Kenji Goto, a freelance Japanese journalist abducted while reporting on Syria’s civil war last year, spoke of ISIL’s demand for a prisoner exchange to guarantee his release.

“They are just demanding the release of their imprisoned sister Sajida al-Rishawi. It is simple. You give them Sajida and I will be released,” Goto says in the video.

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The failure of the Free Syria Army

Loubna Mrie writes: Last year was disastrous for the original moderate, secular, democratic goals of the Syrian revolution.

As the Syrian civil war enters its fourth year, the revolution has shifted from a movement clamoring for social and political change to an all out sectarian conflict. In the process, it has become a proxy war pitting global and regional powers, frustrating diplomatic efforts to solve it.

Part of the blame for the war’s current messiness lies with the group that originally carried the banner of revolution – and citizens’ hope for a better Syria. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose coalition of moderate rebel brigades, has lost ground to both extremist organizations such as Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and more moderate Islamists. Increasingly, civilians are abandoning the FSA and embracing jihadist organizations, while FSA fighters are leaving to fight with other groups. The Free Syrian Army has found itself hamstrung by widespread corruption and an inability to provide basic public goods including humanitarian aid and law and order.

On all fronts, the organization is losing ground. Only a major overhaul can possibly save this endangered species. But before Syrians initiate any kind of overhaul – we need an analysis of what, exactly, went wrong with the FSA’s strategy. In other words, how did we get here? After conducting interviews and research in Syria for the past two years, I found that there are three factors that have lead to the FSA’s loss of credibility, which has, arguably, helped lead the war into its brutal stasis. [Continue reading…]

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After King Abdullah, continuity

Frederic Wehrey writes: A king has passed in Saudi Arabia. And yet, despite the breathless speculation over the seismic effects of succession, the kingdom’s foreign policies are likely to remain unchanged. What is often overlooked is that Saudi foreign policy has been remarkably consistent since the reign of King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz. The Al Saud family is a tightly knit, conservative coterie that shares a similar vision of the world and Saudi Arabia’s place in it.

There are several indications to suggest that the Saudi succession is unlikely to lead to major changes in policies over the short term. King Abdullah had been largely incapacitated before his death, functioning for, at most, a couple hours a day. The new king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, and Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz had represented King Abdullah at various functions in the past few years. The new head of the royal court is also the new defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman. At only thirty-four years old, he’s a young son of King Salman, but he has been head of Salman’s court as crown prince. As Salman’s health has deteriorated (he’s reportedly suffering dementia), Mohammed bin Salman has grown very powerful and influential over his father, which has made many Saudi royals very concerned about his power.

On particular issues, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to significantly change its policies with the death of King Abdullah. The general contours of U.S.-Saudi relations, particularly against the Islamic State, seem to be under the control of the new deputy crown prince, the Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The centerpiece of U.S.-Saudi relations has always been at the interior ministry–intelligence level. The elevation of Mohammed bin Nayef’s position to handle the Syria portfolio last year only cemented this bond. [Continue reading…]

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Shaima El Sabbagh and Sondos Reda Abu Bakr: Protesters killed in Egypt on eve of #Jan25 uprising anniversary

AFP: A female demonstrator was killed in clashes with Egyptian police during a rare leftwing protest in central Cairo Saturday, the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, an official said.

Shaima al-Sabbagh, who friends said was 34 and the mother of a five-year-old boy, died of birdshot wounds, a health ministry spokesman said.

Fellow protesters said she was hit by birdshot when police fired to disperse the march.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab said Sabbagh’s death was being investigated and vowed that “whoever committed a mistake will be punished, whoever he may be.”

A senior interior ministry official denied police had used birdshot to disperse the protest.

“No weapons such as birdshot or rubber bullets were used, it was a small protest that did not require the use of such weapons,” an aide to the interior minister, Abdel Fattah Osman, told AFP.

“Only two tear gas canisters were fired.”

The clash took place hours before state television aired a pre-recorded speech by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to mark the fourth anniversary of the popular uprising.

“I salute all our martyrs, from the beginning of January 25 (2011) until now,” said Sisi.

Al Jazeera: An Egyptian student was killed during clashes between anti-government protesters and residents in the coastal city of Alexandria, as demonstrations gathered pace days before the anniversary of the 2011 uprising.

The Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, identified the dead woman on Friday on its Facebook page as 17-year-old Sondos Rida Abu Bakr and accused security forces of shooting her during a demonstration, Reuters news agency reported.

A security official in Alexandria said several people were wounded on Friday in clashes between protesters and local residents but denied that security forces had opened fire to disperse demonstrators.

At least 20 people were also arrested in Alexandria on Friday and 68 the previous day, security sources said.

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Greece’s solidarity movement: ‘it’s a whole new model — and it’s working’

The Guardian reports: “A long time ago, when I was a student,” said Olga Kesidou, sunk low in the single, somewhat clapped-out sofa of the waiting room at the Peristeri Solidarity Clinic, “I’d see myself volunteering. You know, in Africa somewhere, treating sick people in a poor developing country. I never once imagined I’d be doing it in a suburb of Athens.”

Few in Greece, even five years ago, would have imagined their recession- and austerity-ravaged country as it is now: 1.3 million people – 26% of the workforce – without a job (and most of them without benefits); wages down by 38% on 2009, pensions by 45%, GDP by a quarter; 18% of the country’s population unable to meet their food needs; 32% below the poverty line.

And just under 3.1 million people, 33% of the population, without national health insurance.

So, along with a dozen other medics including a GP, a brace of pharmacists, a paediatrician, a psychologist, an orthopaedic surgeon, a gynaecologist, a cardiologist and a dentist or two, Kesidou, an ear, nose and throat specialist, spends a day a week at this busy but cheerful clinic half an hour’s drive from central Athens, treating patients who otherwise would not get to see a doctor. Others in the group accept uninsured patients in their private surgeries.

“We couldn’t just stand by and watch so many people, whole families, being excluded from public healthcare,” Kesidou said. “In Greece now, if you’re out of work for a year you lose your social security. That’s an awful lot of people without access to what should be a basic right. If we didn’t react we couldn’t look at ourselves in the mirror. It’s solidarity.” [Continue reading…]

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Syriza stretches poll lead as Greek election campaign ends

The Guardian reports: Greece’s anti-austerity party of the left, Syriza, has stretched its election lead to six points, putting it on course for a historic victory in Sunday’s crucial elections.

With the incumbent prime minister, Antonis Samaras, warning of economic catastrophe if Syriza prevails, and Europe looking on nervously, the shortest election campaign in Greek postwar history concludes on Friday.

Barely four weeks after the failure of parliament to elect a president, triggering the ballot, Greece’s fate now lies in the hands of 9.8 million voters. All the polls show, with growing conviction, that victory will go to Syriza. A poll released by GPO for Mega TV late on Thursday gave the far leftists a six-percentage-point lead over Samaras’s centre-right New Democracy, the dominant force in a coalition government that has held power since June 2012. A week earlier, GPO had the lead at four percentage points.

Buoyed by such figures, Alexis Tsipras, the young firebrand who has overseen Syriza’s meteoric rise from the margins of Greek political life, pledged “historic change” as he gave a triumphant speech to thousands of supporters in central Athens on Thursday night.

“History is knocking at our door,” he said, appealing to Greeks, young and old, to participate in the “overthrow” of an establishment widely blamed for bringing the bailed-out nation to the point of economic and social collapse. “Hope isn’t coming. It has arrived. Nothing can stop it now,” he said, attacking Samaras as “a merchant of fear”. [Continue reading…]

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Pentagon pretends its business as usual in Yemen — no interruption in drone strikes

The Guardian reports: The Pentagon and the White House are pushing back on reports that the Obama administration is pausing drone strikes and other counterterrorism operations in Yemen, amidst the abrupt collapse of a critical partner government.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said both “unilateral and partnered” operations conducted by the US in Yemen against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) “are not suspended”.

Continuing “partnered” strikes with the Yemenis provides a signal that the US still considers itself to have reliable allies on the ground to spot for drone strikes and aid in other attacks on an al-Qaida affiliate observers fear will capitalize on the unfolding unrest in the country.

Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said reports that counterterrorism in Yemen was on hold were “completely false”.

“As we have in the past, we will continue to take action to disrupt continuing, imminent threats to the United States and our citizens. We also continue to partner with Yemeni security forces in this effort,” Baskey said.

But as Houthi rebels marching on the capital of Sanaa have upended Yemeni politics and created uncertainty about continued cooperation with the US, Kirby said the military had “temporarily put on hold some training with the Yemenis”. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen: Thousands protest Houthis’ control of Sanaa

Al Jazeera: Thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets of Sanaa to protest against the Houthi group’s control of the capital, two days after President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s resignation left the country in political limbo.

The demonstration on Saturday came as regions in the formerly independent south stepped up their defiance after the Shia Houthi fighters, who hail from Yemen’s northern highlands, tightened their grip on Sanaa.

Witnesses said up to 10,000 people marched from Sanaa University towards Hadi’s home and back, repeating chants denouncing both the Houthi group and predominantly Sunni al-Qaeda.

“Down, down with the Houthis’ rule,” chanted protesters who rallied following a call by the Rejection Movement – a group recently formed in provincial areas to challenge the Houthi group.

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Argentina’s government claims former spy was involved in prosecutor’s death

The New York Times reports: Argentina’s government asserted on Friday that an ousted spymaster was involved in the murky events around the death of the prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center, with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s chief of staff claiming that the prosecutor did not even write a complaint accusing her and top aides of subverting his inquiry.

“It contains horrors that are impossible to commit from a legal point of view,” Aníbal Fernández, the president’s chief of staff, said in a telephone interview referring to the 289-page complaint filed by Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor found dead here from a gunshot wound to the head on Sunday, the day before he was to testify before lawmakers about his accusations.

The death of Mr. Nisman, 51, who had been investigating for a decade the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in which 85 people were killed, has upended Argentina’s political establishment, exposing Mrs. Kirchner to a barrage of criticism over the prosecutor’s accusations while revealing upheaval in Argentina’s main intelligence agency. [Continue reading…]

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Mosul residents describe ‘hell’ of ISIS occupation as Kurdish fighters close in

The Guardian reports: Few people dare talk to the media, and those who do speak only on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals against themselves and their families. Only a trickle of information comes out of Mosul besides Isis’s own slick propaganda.

Civilians inside the city – from taxi drivers to housewives, students to shopkeepers – paint a gloomy picture of life there. “All I can say is that life under Daesh [Isis] is hell, not heaven as they claim,” said Tariq, who used to study at a technical institute before Isis took over. “We can’t study and we don’t know what the future holds for us.”

A shopkeeper near Nabi Yunus mosque, which was destroyed by Isis last July, said he was weary of life under Isis but saw no way out. “If you want to leave Mosul you need three people to guarantee that you will come back after five days. If you don’t return, you put their lives at risk.”

The shopkeeper said many militants killed or injured fighting in Sinjar had been brought back to Mosul. “I have been forced to give blood three times,” he added. [Continue reading…]

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