With U.S.-Turkish relations at their lowest ebb in decades, the future of a critical American air base in Turkey is increasingly in the spotlight. The vast Incirlik Air Base, located in southern Turkey close to Syria, has been a longstanding symbol of U.S.-Turkish cooperation. At the height of the Cold War, it underscored America’s commitment to its NATO partner against the Soviet Union.”We have to underline the Incirlik is one of the most important bases in the Middle East with the placement of tactical nuclear weapons at the base,” said professor Mesut Casin, a Turkish presidential foreign policy adviser. “This shows Turkey continues to support the value of the NATO organization.”It’s widely reported that the United States retains around 50 nuclear free-fall bombs at the facility. During the Cold War, the weapons were relied on to deter vast Soviet ground forces massed on the Turkish border.However, with Ankara and Washington at loggerheads over a myriad of issues, including Turkey’s deepening ties with Russia and the removal of Turkey from a U.S. jet fighter program, the future of Incirlik is increasingly murky.
The Countering Turkish Aggression Act, a bipartisan bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate, would require the Trump administration to consider alternative bases for “personnel and assets” deployed at Incirlik. The bill comes in response to Ankara’s offensive into Syria against a Kurdish militia, which is an ally in Washington’s war against Islamic State.FILE – A service vehicle with a sign reading ‘Welcome to Incirlik’ is pictured at Incirlik Air Base, near Adana, Turkey, Jan. 21, 2016.House Armed Services Committee member Representative Kendra Horn tweeted last month that she is “deeply concerned that strategic nuclear weapons remain on an air base within Turkish borders.” Horn later removed the tweet.”They (Congress) are talking about removing the nuclear arsenal from Incirlik,” said former Turkish ambassador Mithat Rende. “If they (nuclear weapons) are removed, that would be a sign of a huge lack of confidence (by Washington in Ankara).””There would be a trust problem, and relations might unravel if you withdraw the nuclear arsenal from Turkey,” he added. “And you would expect an overreaction from the Turkish side if the U.S. pulls out its nuclear arsenal.””Turkey-U.S. relations cannot continue in this climate of threats,” warns Casin. “Turkey has a long history of being the United States’ best ally in the region. Who is the winner of this present situation, Russia and China.”Analysts warn Moscow will be eager to take advantage of any U.S. reduction in Incirlik.”If the Americans take their nuclear weapons, then I can tell you if they do, then the Turks will take Russian missiles there,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “Then the Russians will have much more free hand to gain Turkey. So the architect of a lost Turkey will be American policy, and the winner will be (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”
“Turkey is not on the defensive anymore,” he added.” The more the Americans make pressure, the more Turkey will work closely with Russia — this is a historical change in Turkish foreign policy.”Russian President Vladimir Putin has carefully cultivated a relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as relations with Ankara’s traditional western allies deteriorate.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands after their joint news conference following their talks in the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Oct. 22, 2019.While Incirlik has been pivotal to U.S. strategic operations, including a significant withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, Ankara’s imposing restrictions on the base’s use in Syrian operations is, analysts say, a point of tension. Last month’s American operation to kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria saw U.S. forces use a base in Iraq instead of the much closer Incirlik, requiring a round trip of many hours.Other allies, too, have expressed frustration about Turkish operational demands. In 2017, Germany removed its forces from Incirlik because of a diplomatic spat with Ankara, relocating to Jordan.American armed forces appear to be already taking steps to diversify their dependence on Incirlik. The U.S. has spent over $150 million in the last two years improving Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, while American bases are reportedly being considered to be established in Turkey’s neighbors, Greece and Cyprus.Observers claim, given Incirlik’s size and location, no base in the region can replace it. But Washington could be calculating that a combination of bases across the region could provide a patchwork alternative to Incirlik.Such efforts are likely to continue, given a continued current downward spiral in U.S.-Turkish relations. However, analysts warn, abandoning Incirlik will not be without consequences.”So American has to choose between losing Turkey or not losing Turkey. At the moment, they are more intending to lose Turkey,” said Bagci.
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Month: November 2019
Cameroon Warns Opposition Parties Against Election Boycott
Cameroon has warned opposition political parties against any acts that may jeopardize its local council and parliamentary elections in February. The warning comes after opposition party leader Maurice Kamto, who claims President Paul Biya stole last year’s October election, called for a boycott of the polls. FILE – Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, speaks in Garoua Boulai, Cameroon, Oct. 23, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)Cameroon territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji says the government will not tolerate any acts that disturb the free conduct of February’s local and parliamentary elections.
“Politicians specialized in hate speech, manipulation and provocation, as well as defiance of state authority should know that they will face the heavy arm of the law in case of any misconduct,” he said. “I want to make it very clear. Promoters of political parties will henceforth be held accountable in case of any disruption of public order related to political parties.”
Nji’s warning came after opposition leader Maurice Kamto at a Monday press conference announced a boycott of the February polls.
Kamto had planned to run for office but changed his mind and accused authorities of trying to destroy his party, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM). FILE – Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto (L) sits in the back of a car as he is driven away on Oct 5, 2019, the day of his release from prison in Yaounde.Kamto says he does not doubt that the objective of, what he calls, the illegitimate Yaounde regime, in collaboration with the ministry of territorial administration and the different state services, is to destroy the CRM party. He says they want to eliminate the party from the political map and terrorize the Cameroonian people to keep the ruling class in power.
Kamto accuses Nji of scheming with Cameroon’s elections management body (ELECAM) to fix last year’s presidential election to re-elect long-serving President Paul Biya.
The election authorities and Nji deny the polls were anything but free and fair.
Kamto said his boycott was based on electoral laws that favor Biya’s ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and the ongoing separatist conflict.
His call for an election boycott received mixed views from opposition supporters like 30-year-old Justin Alega.
He says Kamto has betrayed his supporters and is plugging his political party into the group of losers. Because, when they are not represented at the national assembly, says Alega, they will no longer have a platform for their voices to be heard. He says if Kamto wants to change Cameroon’s laws he says are bad, he should do everything to be voted-in as a lawmaker.
31-year-old Kamto supporter Anabel Mbi, however, says he supports the decision to boycott the elections.
“There is no need going for an election when you know that your victory will be stolen and often when you protest you are arrested. This is dictatorship,” he says.
Political analyst at the University of Yaoundé Divine Kweh says the opposition MRC should fight for political change from within, as the new parliament’s mandate will last five years.”The meaning is that for the next five years, MRC will only make their voices heard through street protests because they will not participate at decision-making circles directly,” says Kweh. “Kamto should have gone in for the elections and try to effect changes from within parliament.”
Kamto called on Monday for other opposition parties, civil society, and religious groups, to join in boycotting the elections.
Territorial Administration Minister Nji warned he would arrest Kamto, or anyone else, who staged unauthorized protests against the elections.
Kamto and more than 400 of his supporters spent nine months in prison for street protests over the October 2018 presidential election results.
Authorities released Kamto in October for a national dialogue on the separatist conflict in Cameroon. But he was banned from holding public events.
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Violence Forces DRC Ebola Responders Out of Critical Areas
More than one-third of the United Nation’s Ebola responders in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Beni were relocated Tuesday amid growing insecurity in the area, while the other responders remained to help combat the deadly outbreak.The World Health Organization said a surge in violence in Beni forced 49 “non-critical” staff members to be moved south to Goma.Seventy-one essential staff remained to harness the outbreak in Congo that has left some 2,200 dead, the U.N. health agency said.Violence has hindered efforts to rein in the outbreak that began in August 2018.The military said at least four protesters were killed Monday when they stormed a U.N. compound over a perceived failure of U.N. peacekeepers to prevent attacks by rebel militia groups.Seventy-seven civilians have been killed in the recent surge in violence since November 5, according to the non-profit Congo Research Group.WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier acknowledged the spike in violence Tuesday at a news conference in Geneva, but emphasized Ebola responders were not targeted as they were during previous violent outbreaks.Health workers have worked to halt the spread of the virus through vaccinations and by tracking anyone who has been in contact with infected people. Lindmeier said health workers tracked only 17 percent of those contacts on Monday, dramatically fewer than the 90 percent who are typically tracked.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Monday evening that every day Ebola responders “don’t have full access to affected areas” is a “tragedy” that prolongs the second worst Ebola outbreak in history.Each day that we don’t have full access to all #Ebola-affected areas in #DRC we cede ground to the virus, prolonging the outbreak.This is a tragedy because it will only add to the suffering of already overburdened communities.— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 26, 2019
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Dresden Officials: Jewel Thieves Stole Less Than Feared
Dresden museum officials say thieves got away with less than initially thought in their robbery of the Green Vault’s collection of 18th century jewels.
Green Vault Director Dirk Syndram told reporters Tuesday the thieves who broke into the museum early Monday seem to have only snatched what they could reach through holes punched with an ax into three display cabinets.
He said the thieves, who haven’t been caught, did take a large diamond broach, a diamond epaulette, and other treasures. Syndram didn’t give a complete list of what was gone and has only said the losses were culturally “priceless.”
Of some 100 dazzling pieces, he said many were left behind, including diamond-encrusted shoe buckles and buttons, the queen’s pearl necklaces, and a diamond-studded sword.
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Cuba Accuses US of Violating Vienna Conventions
Cuba’s foreign minister on Tuesday accused the United States of violating the Vienna Convention and the deal re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.Soon after, the United States announced a new sanction on Cuba meant to cut off the island’s supply of petroleum from Venezuela.In two tweets, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said unspecified “illegal actions” by the U.S. Embassy in Havana violated both the international codes of conduct for diplomats and the agreement to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana in 2015.“Illegal actions by #US embassy in #Cuba are interference in the internal affairs of the country and are intended to attack our constitutional order,” Rodríguez tweeted. “They violate the Vienna Convention, the agreement for the re-establishment of relations and Cuban and US laws.”The U.S. Treasury said it was designating the Cuban company Corporacion Panamericana S.A. as a violator of American sanctions on Venezuela. Such designations make it difficult for companies like Panamericana to do business even outside the United States due to third parties’ fears of repercussions for dealing with a sanctioned entity.The Treasury Department said that after the U.S. sanctioned the state-owned oil importer Cubametales, Cuba moved employees and contracts over to Panamericana, which was not yet sanctioned.In one example that occurred over the summer, Cuba shifted its dealings with a North African oil provider from Cubametales to Corporacion Panamericana, the Treasury Department said.A Cubametales official who also worked in a similar position at Corporacion Panamericana negotiated a deal to buy gasoline from a European company, the Treasury statement said.The announcement comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Cuba over Washington’s steadily increasing pressure on the communist government.The U.S. has prohibited cruise travel to Cuba, U.S. flights to cities outside Havana and support for Venezuela oil shipments to the island. The Trump administration says it hopes to cripple the Cuban government’s ability to support Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
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Afghan Intelligence Admits Detaining Activists Who Flagged Abuse
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency has publicly acknowledged that it is holding two activists who exposed allegations of sexual abuse of children in eastern Afghanistan.Human rights groups and others have been pointing fingers at the National Directorate for Security since the activists, Musa Mahmoudi and Ehsanullah Hamidi, disappeared on November 21.The two had revealed that at least 546 boys from six schools in Logar province were abused by a pedophile ring that included teachers and local government officials.Their organization, the Logar Youth, Social and Civil Institution, discovered more than 100 videos on Facebook that showed the abuse.The government is under intense pressure from activists and influential politicians, like former president Hamid Karzai, to release the activists.The “Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission is deeply concerned about the illegal detention of civil society activists, Mr. Musa Mahmudi and Ehsanullah Hamidi, who were investigating the cases of alleged child sexual abuse in Logar province,” tweeted Afghanistan’s human rights body. In its statement Tuesday, the NDS claimed the two were moved to a safe location for protection against threats to their lives. The agency also claimed that the two had revealed during interrogations that they made up the child abuse allegations, in order to get asylum in a foreign country. The agency also released a video of the two in which one of the activists, Mahmoudi, was seen confessing that his research was incomplete and apologizing to the people of Afghanistan and particularly of Logar province. Without naming the two, President Ashraf Ghani said Monday that it was not acceptable for asylum seekers to undermine the dignity of Afghans.Human rights groups are rejecting the government’s account.”Instead of punishing them for speaking out against the sexual abuse of children, the authorities should praise them and hold the perpetrators accountable” tweeted Amnesty International’s South Asia office.Before their detention, the activists had reached out to rights groups and some journalists, expressing concern for their safety.”Hours before his detention, Mussa told the Guardian (newspaper) how he had been receiving threats and believed he was under surveillance by Afghan security services,” reported The Guardian Monday.According to The Guardian, which broke the story earlier this month, multiple victims have since been murdered, sometimes by their own relatives.”Five families killed their sons after their faces were seen on videos posted to social media. Two other boys a 13 and 15-year-old were killed last week, although the perpetrators are unknown,” the Guardian story said.
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Americans, Germans Far Apart in Views of Bilateral Relations
Almost three years into the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, Germans and Americans continue to have notably different perspectives on the relationship between their two countries, with Americans much more optimistic than their European counterparts, a study said Tuesday.The Pew Research Center and the Koerber-Stiftung foundation said in the joint report that three-quarters of Americans surveyed characterized the relationship with Germany as good, while nearly two-thirds of Germans polled saw relations as bad. Only 2% of Germans said the relationship with the U.S. is very good, compared with 13% of Americans.Despite this disconnect, views have become more positive in Germany over the past year: The share of Germans who said the relationship between the United States and Germany is good rose from 24% in 2018 to 34% this year.The United States had been the Germans’ most important trans-Atlantic partner from the end of World War II through the Cold War. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall three decades ago and German reunification in 1990, Germany began focusing more on its partners in the European Union.The relationship between Germany and the U.S. also took a hit after Trump became president in 2017 and is mirrored in the strained relations of Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Tempers flared this week after Economy Minister Peter Altmaier on a talk show defended the government’s decision not to ban Huawei from competing for contracts to build the country’s 5G mobile networks, instead agreeing that companies must meet strict standards — which still could end up excluding the Chinese firm.Altmaier noted Germany hadn’t boycotted the U.S. after it was revealed the National Security Agency had listened in on Merkel’s phone, and said that Washington also demands that American companies “pass on certain information needed to fight terrorism.”U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, a Trump appointee, responded that “the recent claims by senior German officials that the United States is equivalent to the Chinese Communist Party are an insult to the thousands of American troops who help ensure Germany’s security.”Despite the tensions under Trump, however, Americans’ view of the bilateral relationship is at its highest point in three years of surveys, rising from 68% in 2017 to 75% this year.Germans were more likely to see the U.S. as an important partner than Americans were to consider Germany as one.Among the Germans polled, 42% said the United States is the most important foreign partner, second only to France, which was deemed most important by 60%.In comparison, only 13% of Americans said Germany is the United States’ most important partner abroad, ranking it fifth after the United Kingdom (36%), China (23%), Canada (20%) and Israel (15%).Nonetheless, U.S. poll respondents ranked improving cooperation with Germany more highly than German respondents did, with about 69%, compared to half of Germans. German respondents placed more importance on greater cooperation with France and Japan: 77% and 69%, respectively.An overwhelming percentage of Americans polled, 85%, said they viewed the U.S. military presence in Germany as very important to American national security, while only 52% of German respondents did. The U.S. currently operates several military bases in Germany, with approximately 35,000 active duty American troops, a legacy of World War II and the continued NATO presence in Europe.The Pew Center interviewed 1,004 people in the U.S. from Sept. 17-22. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.In Germany, the survey of 1,000 people was conducted from Sept. 9-28 by the Kantar agency for Koerber-Stiftung. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says He Discussed Gas Contract With Putin
Ukraine’s president says he has discussed a new contract for natural gas supplies from Russia during a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the gas deal with Putin during Monday’s phone call. Zelenskiy said Tuesday that the deal is a priority for Ukraine and important for Europe’s energy security.Talks on a replacing a contract expiring this year have dragged, raising fears of disruptions of Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine.Price and debt disputes led to disruptions of Russian gas deliveries to European customers during the winters of 2006 and 2009.Relations between Russia and Ukraine have remained badly strained since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
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13 French Soldiers Killed in Helicopter Collision in Mali
Two helicopters collided in midair and killed 13 French soldiers fighting Islamic extremists in Mali, France said Tuesday, in its biggest loss since its mission in West Africa’s Sahel region began in 2013.
The deaths draw new attention to a worrying front in the global fight against extremism. Attackers linked to the Islamic State or al-Qaida this month alone have killed scores of local troops in the region and ambushed a convoy carrying employees of a Canadian mining company, leaving at least 37 dead.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “deep sadness” after the Monday evening crash. “These 13 heroes had only one goal: protecting us,” he tweeted.
The French military said both helicopters were flying very low when they collided and crashed in Mali’s Liptako region. No one on board survived.
The helicopters were supporting French commandos on the ground who were pursuing a group of extremists. French defense minister Florence Parly said an investigation has been opened into the accident.
France’s operation in West and Central Africa is its largest overseas military mission and involves 4,500 personnel. France intervened in 2013 after extremists seized control of major towns in northern Mali and implemented a harsh version of Islamic law. They were forced back into the desert, where they have regrouped and moved south into more populated areas.
Since 2013, at least 44 French soldiers have died.
A new surge in extremist attacks in Mali has killed well over 100 local troops in the past two months, with IS often claiming responsibility. The extremists loot military posts and profit from mining operations while finding refuge in forested border areas.
Before his death this year, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi congratulated “brothers” in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso for pledging allegiance.
Public outrage in Mali over the latest attacks also has been directed in recent weeks against France, the country’s former colonizer.
Mali’s Liptako region near the border with Niger and its Gourma region near the Burkina Faso border have become strategic crossings for extremist groups as they are largely unguarded, the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote last month.
France’s operation became involved in the Liptako area in 2017 and this year it built a new base in Gossi in the Gourma region, IISS said.
“Despite increased French presence in this zone, military gains remain limited. Both sides barely ever engage in direct confrontation. Militants use guerrilla tactics, rely heavily on improvised explosive devices and hide within the civilian population before and after launching attacks,” it added.
France’s Barkhane military operation is one of multiple efforts against the growing extremist threat in the Sahel including a five-nation regional counterterror force that struggles to secure international funding and a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali.
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Anti-Doping Investigators Recommend Four-Year Ban on Russia
Russia faces a four-year ban from global sporting events, including next year’s Tokyo Olympics, because of a continued failure to cooperate with anti-doping investigators.The ban recommendation made Tuesday by the compliance panel of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), came after investigators found evidence of a further drug cover-up by Russian officials, who are alleged to have deleted and tampered with positive drugs tests from a database at a Moscow laboratory earlier this year.The executive committee of the anti-doping agency will decide at a meeting in Paris scheduled for December 9 whether to approve the sanction, including stripping Russia of sporting events already awarded to the country “unless it is legally or practically impossible to do so.” Russian government officials would also be barred from attending events for the next four years and the country’s flag wouldn’t be flown at World sporting tournaments for the ban’s period.Russia was banned from sending a team to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea but individual athletes from the country were allowed by the International Olympic Committee to compete, if they passed strenuous doping tests. The new ban recommendation is the latest twist in a saga of state-sponsored doping stretching back to before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and which is said to rival in its magnitude the extensive and notorious East German drug program of the Cold War years.Flag bearers from various nations attend the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Feb. 25, 2018.The expert panel’s advice would include banning Russia’s team from competing in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but Russia would still be able to host four games from the 2020 European Championship in St Petersburg because it is a regional football tournament and not a World competition.US Anti-Doping Agency head Travis Tygart welcomed the sanctions recommendation saying it “recognized the egregious conduct of Russia toward clean athletes and now let’s all hope the Wada executive committee uses the same resolve to ensure clean athletes are not again sold down the river and actually supports this unfortunate but necessary outcome.”Rusada was initially declared non-compliant in November 2015 after a report by sports lawyer and academic Richard McLaren found widespread evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russian track and field athletics. A subsequent report in 2016 commissioned by WADA accused Russia of operating a state-sponsored doping program for four years across the “vast majority” of summer and winter Olympic sports. Last year the country sport bodies were declared compliant after the release of data from its main Moscow anti-doping laboratory but data handed over in January proved to be “inauthentic” according to investigators.The compliance panel says a forensic review found serious inconsistencies, saying investigators had uncovered “an extremely serious case of non-compliance with the requirement to provide an authentic copy of the Moscow data, with several aggravating features.”More than 2000 samples supplied by the Moscow laboratory had been tampered with, the compliance panel says. The huge scale of Russian doping first came to light in 2015 when Grigory Rodchenkov, who for a decade was Russia’s anti-doping lab chief, fled to the U.S..McLaren’s report confirmed the allegations made by Rodchenkov, concluding that more than a thousand Russian athletes had been doping up between 2012 and 2015 and that Russian officials, the country’s sports ministry and Russia’s FSB security agency had conspired in a “cover-up that operated on an unprecedented scale.”Russian officials say a four-year ban would be devastating and unfair, pointing to an acknowledgement by the compliance panel that aside from the alleged Moscow laboratory tampering Russian officials are being cooperative. Russian sport official Yuri Ganus told local media it would be a “tragedy,” if Russian athletes faced a suspension.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday ahead of the ban recommendation: “Our sports authorities have been in close contact with WADA and will continue cooperating with the body and international sports community.” He added: “No decisions have been made so far. You know that the Russian Federation provided all necessary information. Let’s wait for results and analyses of reports provided by the Russian side.”In October Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an international forum that Russia was keen to overcome the doping controversies. “We want our athletes to be fully represented in international events where they can demonstrate their talent without any restrictions. We want them to become role models for amateur sports lovers and professionals, first of all for our young generation,” he said.
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Deadly Earthquake Hits Albania
A strong earthquake struck the area of Albania’s capital early Tuesday, killing at least six people and injuring hundreds.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was a magnitude 6.4 with an epicenter 30 kilometers northwest of the capital, Tirana.Rescue crews worked to find and free people from damaged and destroyed buildings.A Defense Ministry spokeswoman said the bodies of three people were found in the rubble of an apartment building in the city of Durres.Crews found the bodies of two other people in the remains of a collapsed building in the village of Thumane, while another person died after jumping out of a building in Kurbin.
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Pakistan’s Top Court Blocks Military Chief From Serving Another Term
Pakistan’s highest court has temporarily suspended a government notification that allowed the country’s powerful military chief to serve another full three-year term.Tuesday’s unprecedented move by the Supreme Court came several months after Prime Minister Imran Khan issued the extension order for the chief of army staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who is due to retire later this week. The court will hear the case again on Wednesday to determine whether the government’s action was in line with legal requirements.Khan’s aides have been defending Bajwa’s extension citing, among other security challenges, heightened military tensions with rival India over the disputed Kashmir region.However, Tuesday’s temporary court order has surprised many in Pakistan which has experienced several military coups and where extensions given to army chiefs in the past have been overlooked by the judiciary.The Supreme Court had sided with and provided legal cover to the last military coup in 1999 that ousted the elected government of former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
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Turkish Riot Police Break Up Women’s Protest
Turkish riot police used force to break up a march by thousands of women calling for what they call an “end to impunity” for men guilty of violence against women.Police stopped more than 2,000 from marching up Istikal Street in Istanbul’s main shopping district.Police fired pepper spray at the protesters with some witnesses reporting the use of tear gas and plastic bullets. No casualties or arrests were reported.March organizers say they are tired at what they believe are the relatively light sentences handed out to husbands and boyfriends who murder or abuse women.Women at the front of Monday’s march spread out a banner reading “We cannot tolerate the loss of one more woman.”A Turkish women’s rights group says nearly 380 women have been killed so far this year.A Turkish court recently sentenced a man to life in prison for slashing his ex-wife’s throat in front of their 10 year-old daughter in August.The murder was caught on video and sickened nearly everyone who saw it.
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Lebanese Millionaire Donates Hitler’s Hat to Israeli Group
A Lebanese-born business tycoon says he is donating Hitler’s top hat and other Nazi memorabilia he won at an auction to an Israeli Jewish group to keep the stuff out of the hands of neo-Nazis.Abdallah Chatila, who made his fortune in diamonds and Swiss real estate, paid $660,000 for the items last week.He says he bought the the hat and memorabilia intending to destroy it, but decided it was better to hand it over to the Keren Hayeson-United Israel Appeal.Along with the Nazi dictator’s hat, the items include a silver plated edition of “Mein Kampf,” and a typewriter used by Hitler’s secretary.Although Chatila says some Lebanese are criticizing him for helping the so-called enemy, his act was totally non-political. He said he “wished to buy these objects so that they could not be used for the purpose of neo-Nazi propaganda.”The European Jewish Association, which had originally protested the auction, is now applauding Chatila.”Such a consequence, such an act of selfless generosity to do something that you feel strongly about is the equivalent of finding a precious diamond in an Everest of coal,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote in a letter to Chatila.It is unclear what the Jewish group plans to do with the objects.
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Indian Troops Destroy Live Mortar Found in Kashmiri Border Town
Officials in India say troops have destroyed a live mortar shell that villagers discovered in their Kashmiri border town.Indian police in the Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir said Monday they coordinated with the army after villagers alerted them to the live mortar.They said army troops brought in a bomb-disposal squad to set off a controlled explosion to deactivate the device.Mortars are often fired in the region between troops of neighboring rivals India and Pakistan. If the mortars do not explode on impact they can lie hidden in fields or hills and will pose a danger to passerby, especially children.Indian-administered Kashmir remains tense and continues to have a heavy military presence three and-a-half months after India’s central government abruptly stripped the region of its autonomy, cut off internet service and censored media coverage of the situation.Pakistan, which also lays claims to Kashmir, protested the move, downgrading its diplomatic ties with India and suspending trade.New Delhi blames Islamabad for fomenting a violent three-decade separatist insurgency in the Himalayan region.
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UN: Sexual Violence Affects 1 in 3 Women Globally
At 15 years old, Ajna Jusic finally learned the truth about the father she never knew.”I spent nights thinking about my father,” said Jusic, now 26 years old. “I made so many scenarios in my mind, but not just the one where I was born as the result of war rape.”Jusic is one of thousands of children born of the genocidal rape of between 20,000 and 50,000 Bosnian Muslim women and girls by Serbs during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s. Today she heads the Association of Forgotten Children of War in Bosnia, which seeks to get these young people the services they need, including help with education costs and psychological and legal support.”I cannot live in (the) dark, in invisibility anymore,” Jusic said. “I need to scream and tell society I’m here, please don’t call me a child of hate, because I love and I want to be loved.” Jusic addressed a U.N. meeting Monday on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.Sexual violence against women is endemic, affecting one in three women globally.Passers-by walk past dozens of red painted shoes placed on the ground as a part of an installation against violence against women in Brussels, Nov. 25, 2019.”Sexual violence continues to be used to spread fear and assert control,” said Pramila Patten, the U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. “It remains a cruel tactic of torture, terror and political repression, a brutally effective tool of displacement and dehumanization. The response continues to be slow; impunity remains the rule and justice the rare exception.”StigmaShe said services for survivors are inadequate and the stigma so intense that in some places, women choose to live with their abusers rather than face families and communities that shame them because they were raped.”We need to shift the stigma away from the survivor and put it on the perpetrator,” Karen Naimer of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) told the gathering to loud applause.Changing community and cultural mindsets is a priority.Chinyere Eyoh, herself a survivor of sexual violence, is now the Executive Director of Sexual Offenses Awareness and Victims Rehabilitation Initiative (SOAR) in Nigeria.”It is important that communities get to understand that sexual violence is a crime and the people who commit these crimes are the perpetrators,” she said.Men as alliesEyoh noted that in Africa, engaging men as their allies in education and awareness has been effective.”You find out that other men tend to listen to men when they talk about this issue, rather than women speaking for themselves,” she said.On Monday, the U.N. launched a 16 days of activism event to highlight gender-based violence. It will end on Dec. 10 — Human Rights Day. This year’s theme is “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands against Rape!” Orange is the campaign’s signature color and Generation Equality refers to the fight for gender equality as part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.”Today, we are also calling on governments and services to take the positive steps necessary to scale-up the response, which must include increasing accountability — by making rape universally illegal, including in those countries that still allow marital rape, and holding rapists to account in every country that is a member of the United Nations,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of U.N. Women.
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