Transactional diplomacy in which prices are paid is not inherently bad. Countries do it all the time. But when the United States pays such a price, it ought to be in return for something in U.S. interests, or in the more general interest of peace. It ought not to serve instead the territorial ambitions of a foreign state.by Paul R. Pillar
For Americans, the Western Sahara is a faraway land about which they know little. There is no good reason for the United States to separate itself from the mainstream of international opinion about the long-running conflict in that territory. There is even less reason for the United States to support the claim of a neighboring state that, enjoying local military dominance, wants to annex the territory. Yet that is what the administration of Donald Trump, acting very much alone, has done by recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.
Conflict in the Western Sahara dates back to local resistance against Spanish colonial rule, eventually led by what became known as the Polisario Front. When Spain, in Francisco Franco’s dying days, pulled out of the territory in 1975, the Polisario Front’s struggle became one against the bordering states of Morocco and Mauritania. Mauritania, the weaker of these two states, stopped contesting the territory in 1979, and the war became one between the Polisario Front and Morocco.
A cease-fire in 1991 left Morocco in control of more than three-fourths of the Western Sahara. The Moroccans constructed a long earthen berm to separate what they control—which includes the territory’s economically important phosphate deposits—from the remaining desert that is left to the Polisario. The most significant breach of the cease-fire occurred just last month, touched off by Moroccan military movements near a border post that followed nonviolent protests obstructing truck traffic to Mauritania.
Various peace efforts through the years, including one led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker acting as a United Nations envoy, have centered on the concept of self-determination for the Sahrawi people, with a referendum to determine the will of those people. Disagreement over who ought to be on the voter rolls has prevented any referendum from being held.
The prevailing international perspective toward the conflict is very much in line with the concept of Sahrawi self-determination, and not at all in line with Moroccan annexation. The United Nations considers the Western Sahara to be a non-self-governing territory and the Polisario Front to be the “sole legitimate representative” of the Sahrawi people. Forty countries recognize the “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic” that the Polisario Front declared in 1976. SADR is a full member of the African Union. Morocco has not received comparable support for its claims from the Arab League, which has offered only a vague statement about respecting Moroccan territorial sovereignty.
The Trump administration’s move does nothing for the people of the Western Sahara, nothing for the cause of self-determination, and nothing for efforts to resolve the Western Sahara dispute. It can only make resolution of the conflict less, not more, likely than before—especially coming amid a breakdown of the cease-fire between Morocco and the Polisario. It also increases U.S. isolation on yet another international issue, identifying the United States with a might-makes-right approach to territorial control.
And what did the administration get in return for incurring these costs? Nothing for the United States. Instead, the deal reached with the Moroccan regime of King Mohammed VI was part of the administration’s campaign on behalf of the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu to get Arab states to upgrade their relations with Israel. It is transactional dealing in support of Likud.
The upgrade deals that the administration has struck with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and now Morocco are not “peace” agreements, much less the “breakthroughs” that the administration likes to describe them as. None of these states was at war with Israel. Instead, they already had extensive cooperation with Israel, including on security and defense matters. Morocco even had previously exchanged diplomatic liaison offices with Israel following the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, although those offices were closed after a new Palestinian uprising in 2000. This month’s deal merely reopens those liaison offices.
Netanyahu’s government strongly wants more extensive relations with Arab states as a way of having its cake and eating it too—that is, as a way of losing its pariah status while continuing its occupation of Palestinian territory. Far from advancing peace, this process sets back any prospects for peace. It reduces further any incentive for the Netanyahu government to make the sort of policy changes necessary for resolving the conflict with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has paid other peace-eroding prices in its campaign on behalf of the Israeli government. F-35 stealth jets and other advanced military hardware were part of the price paid to the UAE—a transaction that, thanks partly to Trump’s veto threat, evidently will be completed despite significant congressional opposition. The deal risks stoking an arms race in the Persian Gulf, and at a minimum intensifies the lines of conflict in that region. It also provides advanced weapons to a regime that has used the military aircraft it already has for such destabilizing activities as intervening in Libya’s civil war and adding significantly to the death and destruction there.
The Trump administration’s motives in all this clearly have to do with catering to those domestic political elements, consisting mainly of the Christian evangelical part of Trump’s base, that see as good anything that conforms with the wishes of the Israeli government. More personal urges may be in play as well, especially for Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, who reportedly was in the middle of the deal-making with Morocco.
Transactional diplomacy in which prices are paid is not inherently bad. Countries do it all the time. But when the United States pays such a price, it ought to be in return for something in U.S. interests, or in the more general interest of peace. It ought not to serve instead the territorial ambitions of a foreign state.
The transaction with Morocco has a perverse symmetry. A deal in which one side’s motivations involve sustaining occupation of a territory and subjugation of its people (the Palestinians) helps the other side sustain another occupation and subjugation of a people (the Sahrawis). The connection is notlost on foreign observers.
Paul R. Pillar is a Contributing Editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World.
Seventeen years ago today, a man responsible – by the permission of Allāh – for saving countless lives, lost his own. After a life of difficulty, war, imprisonment, and activism, Alija Izetbegović (rahimahu Allāh) took his final breath and returned to the mercy of Allāh on the 19th of October 2003.
The former 1st Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina steered his people through their darkest times, and indeed some of the darkest times for the entire Muslim Ummah.
His funeral in the capital Sarajevo was attended by thousands. World leaders across the globe expressed their condolences at his loss.[1] His grave is often visited by notable leaders paying their respects.[2]
Izetbegović was an immensely influential politician, lawyer, and author who lived to write several books on Islamic politics. His book Islam Between East and West and his essay The Islamic Declaration carried his views on the place of Islam in the modern and westernised world. Today, almost two decades after his death, it is worth revisiting how this great man lived.
Alija Izetbegović was born on 8th August 1925 in the town of Šamac, only two years after the official end of the Ottoman Empire.[3] Izetbegović was born in the family of a bey (the Ottoman aristocracy). [4] Originally from Belgrade, his family moved to Šamac, where Izetbegović’s grandfather became a mayor who was highly regarded for his honesty and fairness.
Alija Izetbegović’s father, who fought in the First World War for the Austro-Hungarian army on the Italian front, was a merchant and banker. When Alija was around two years old, his father moved the family to Sarajevo.
Alija’s mother, Hiba, was said to be a pious woman, and Alija stated that it was her influence that planted in him the seeds of his religious convictions.
In his teens, Izetbegović attended the First Boys’ Grammar School, where he was exposed to new influences from his teachers and peers. During this time, he passed through a phase exploring the merits of communism, philosophy, and various ideologies. However, after a few years of spiritual and intellectual exploration, Alija returned to Islam with new strength and a deeper understanding of the world around him, having been well-read in the philosophical works of Hegel, Spinoza, Kant, and others.
It is worth noting here that it was this period in his intellectual development that Izetbegović would later credit for his firm conviction in Islam throughout his life, and for his rejection of atheism. In his memoirs, Izetbegović wrote: “The universe without God seemed utterly pointless to me.”
Such a phase is not unique to Izetbegović. Many great Muslim thinkers throughout the history of Islam passed through a period of exploration where they would delve into the sciences of contradictory ideologies only to come through with Islam as the champion of their hearts and minds.
Even ‘Umar b. Al-Khattab predicted in his time that the Ummah would face challenges from those who were raised only in Islam and had never seen the true nature of jāhiliyya and its evils.[5]
Izetbegović lived to see his home invaded during the Second World War. The Ustaše, a Croatian ultranationalist terrorist organisation that invaded Sarajevo, enforced a harsh Nazi regime. The invaders forced many young men into military service, but Izetbegović dodged the draft and spent most of 1944 in hiding, before escaping to his native Sava valley region.
During the war, Izetbegović joined an organisation called Mladi Muslimani, or the ‘Young Muslims’. This was a social movement focused on political and spiritual issues faced by the collapsed Muslim Ummah at the time. The group aimed to uplift the Muslim community in Bosnia and to reconnect them with their identity. The group believed that “the state of politics in the Muslim world is wretched and unsustainable, while Islam is a living idea that can (and should) be modernized, without losing any of its essence.”[6]
After World War II, Izetbegović graduated from the University of Sarajevo’s Faculty of Law with a degree in law.[7] During this time, his activism earned him a reputation as a staunch anti-communist.[8]
It was around this time in 1946, when Alija was in his early twenties, that he was first arrested for calling for religious freedom and human rights. His political stance – in contradiction to the communist authorities – earned him a sentence of three years. Three years later, Izetbegović was imprisoned again for a further five years due to his active support for the Young Muslims.[9]
After enjoying a period of growing popularity, the Young Muslims eventually split into two factions: one in support of the Handschar Division of the Waffen-SS, and the other siding with the Yugoslav communists.
Although the reality of Alija’s political views are to this day entrenched in his writings, his reputation was still smeared by the baseless accusation that he had joined the SS. This resulted in his arrest by the Yugoslav communists. A controversial article in the New York Times[10] made the unfounded claim that Alija had joined the Nazi sympathetic Ustaše movement, in spite of his well-documented flight from the invasion. Alija’s family have strongly denied these claims,[11] and his arrest was in fact due to his political opposition to the communists and the sharing of his own political views.[12]
Allāh decreed that Alija Izetbegović would spend a significant portion of his youth (and indeed much of his life) behind bars. However, it is perhaps in these times that he cultivated and refined his political vision for the future for Bosnia.
His history on the frontline of civil rights activism, his education, and his first-hand experience in the dynamic world around him led Izetbegović to publish his pollical manifesto The Islamic Declaration in 1970. In this work, Izetbegović explores the nature of Islamic politics in the context of modern Western scholarship, discussing the nature between Islam, the Ummah, legislation, economics, and governance.
In The Islamic Declaration, Izetbegović makes it clear that true Islamic governance can only exist in a majority Muslim nation: “Islamic order can be realized only in those countries in which Muslims represent the majority of the population … Muslim minorities within non-Islamic communities, conditional on a guarantee of religious freedom and a normal life and development, are loyal and duty bound to observe every obligation to that community with the exception of those harming Islam and Muslims.”[13]
In no uncertain terms, Izetbegović stated that his writings were hypothetical in nature. However, Izetbegović’s manifesto – commended by Western diplomats for its refinement and thoughtfulness – was interpreted by the former communist authorities of Yugoslavia as a call for ‘implementing Sharia law’ in an ‘ethnically pure’ Bosnia-Herzegovina[14] (an unfounded accusation faced by Western Muslims to this day).[15] As a result, Izetbegović’s writings were banned and he once again found himself sentenced behind bars, this time for 14 years. But Alija ended up spending less than half of that time in prison as he was released in 1988 while communist rule began to fall apart.
Within a year of his release, and as Yugoslavia transitioned into a multi-party system, Izetbegović founded the Party of Democratic Action, or Stranka Demokratske Akcije, which became the largest Muslim majority political party in the country and still holds that title today.[16] At the time, the Bosnian constitution stipulated that each of the constituent nations would have a representative elected to a rotating presidency in a seven-member multi-ethnic cycle. With a Croatian as prime minister and a Serbian as president of the Assembly, the Bosnian representative Izetbegović – after a life of marginalisation and political exclusion – became the first Chairman of the Presidency.
Sadly, however, this milestone was overshadowed as ethnic tensions grew. The breakout of violence between Serbs and Croats in neighbouring Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 lead to a breakdown in the multi-ethnic government. It was clear that it would only be a matter of time before the bloodshed came to Bosnia.
In pursuit of a united Bosnian state, and in hopes of preserving peace, Izetbegović led his people to an independence referendum held on the 29th of February, and again on the 1st of March 1992.[17] The vote was a landslide, with a 64% turnout and a 99.7% majority voting for independence. Just over a month following the referendum, the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina became internationally recognised. [18]
However, this independence was rejected by the Serbian leadership, and the looming civil war came to Sarajevo at last. What followed was the one of the most brutal conflicts of the century, with the longest siege on a capital city in modern history.
On the 11th of July 1995, Serbian troops slaughtered more than 8000 Muslims at Srebrenica in a disgraceful genocide, the harrowing details of which have been covered in previous Islam21c articles.[19]
It was during this horrifying time that Izetbegović held his nation together, leading the Bosnians through the storm. Yet in spite of the brutality faced by the Bosnian people, Izetbegović remained a humanitarian at heart, with an immensely honourable reputation among world leaders globally.
In the words of the late British political giant Paddy Ashdown: “I first met Alija Izetbegović in July 1992. I met him regularly during the war years, frequently in the shell-battered presidency building in Sarajevo. Since May 2002, when I began my work as the International Community’s High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have asked him for help as one of the key figures in this country’s fitful reconstruction. That request was never denied. We did not always agree, but I know that he was committed to the peaceful reconstruction of a Bosnia-Herzegovina which could be part of Europe and in which all its citizens could feel at home.”
“He was tough, scholarly and serious. He lived a simple life and he had little of the opportunistic charm or coarse joviality that are hallmarks of political operators in the Balkans and elsewhere,” Ashdown added, “Izetbegović, of all the leaders I dealt with during the war, was a man who conveyed only angst when confronted by the tragedy of conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina – he was devoid of the cynicism or vanity that marked other war leaders. History will no doubt say that not all his decisions were right, but more than anybody else he was responsible for the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina survived.” [20]
After great human efforts on the negotiation tables, the Dayton Agreement was finally signed on the 1st of November 1995. This put an end to three and half years of bloody conflict, but it was only the beginning for Izetbegović, who was now faced with the momentous task of rebuilding Bosnia.
Following the conflict, Bosnia was devastated and left with a complicated political system in need of reform. At the first post-war elections, Izetbegović was once again elected a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served his nation for five more years before stepping down in October 2000 at the age of 75 due to his deteriorating health. Almost three years after his resignation, Izetbegović passed away.
Izetbegović is fondly remembered by his people by the name ‘Dedo’, which means grandfather in Bosnian. His mark on the nation will never be forgotten, and his reputation and legacy are honoured around the world. Izetbegović lived a hard life and experienced some of the worst periods in modern history, yet he never spent time feeling sorry for himself. He remained focused, determined, and hardworking all of his life.
It is easy for minorities who face hardship and persecution to adopt a hopeless mentality of victimisation and weakness. But this has never been the way of the prophets or the great men of our Ummah. All hardships we face are a challenge through which Allāh is giving us no option but to grow and be stronger.
In Sahīh al-Bukhāri, it is recorded that the Companion Khabbāb b. Al-Arat, who was known for the horrendous scars he bore from torture at the hands of the polytheists, narrated:
“We complained to Allāh’s Messenger (sall Allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) [of the persecution inflicted on us by the infidels] while he was sitting in the shade of the Ka`ba, leaning over his burd [covering sheet]. We said to him, “Would you seek help for us? Would you pray to Allāh for us?” He said, “Among the nations before you was a [believing] man who would be put in a ditch that was dug for him, and a saw would be put over his head and he would be cut into two pieces, yet that [torture] would not make him give up his religion. His body would be combed with iron combs that would remove his flesh from the bones and nerves, yet that would not make him abandon his religion. By Allāh, this religion [Islam] will prevail until a traveller from Sanaa to Hadramawt will fear none but Allāh, or a wolf as regards his sheep, but you [people] are hasty.”[21]
We are not from the people going through the hardest of times. We are not going through what the Companions went through, nor are we facing, by the mercy of Allāh, the hardships faced by our Muslim brothers and sisters in the past and present. We are simply witnessing the hardships of others. We have no excuse to sit by and do nothing while we feel sorry for ourselves. Our responsibility is simply to reject injustice, by hand if possible, by our words if not, and at the very least to oppose them in our hearts.
Izetbegović is known to have said: “My life was so fast, so eventful. I’ve done so many things. In hindsight, I have the feeling of having lived three lives. It’s too much for one man.”
“If I were offered the chance to live again, I would refuse it. But if I were to be born again, I would choose my life exactly as I’ve lived it.”[22]
We ask that Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) grants Alija Izetbegović (rahimahu Allāh), and all those who were killed unjustly Jannat al-Firdaus and that He brings about much greater good for their people in this world and the next.
By Majdi Khaldi Global Research, October 19, 2020 WAFA 17 October 2020
When you ask any Israeli government official or diplomat about the borders and map of the State of Israel, surely you will not get a clear answer. Successive Israeli governments, backed up by the Zionist movement worldwide, have ambitions to gain control of most of the occupied Palestinian territory, far exceeding the armistice lines of 1949.
Israel is carrying out this enterprise by strategically confiscating C classified areas amounting to 60% of the West Bank, in addition to its complete control over the city of East Jerusalem, which has been occupied since 1967, and keeping the Gaza Strip separate from the distant Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank.
The announcement by the Israeli government, on the day of the ratification by the Israeli Knesset of normalization agreements with Arab countries, of the plan to build five thousand new settlement units, and the statements of its Prime Minister and his Cabinet Members that the land- for peace formula has fallen, and that an independent Palestinian State will not be established alongside the State of Israel, and that unified Jerusalem, with all its sanctities, will remain fully united under Israeli sovereignty, is the best evidence of the occupation state’s determination to go ahead with its colonial plans, as it no longer fears anyone and acts as an authority above international law, because it is simply not afraid of the consequences, but rather gets rewards through “opening doors” to it in some countries of the world, and some Arab countries respond to it by establishing normalization relations under pretexts, all of which are not convincing.
Israel’s continuation of settlement and annexation plans will inevitably undermine the two-state solution according to the 1967 borders, and will lead to the one-state reality under an apartheid regime, which will not bring security, peace and stability to the Middle East and the world.
The pretext of Israel, which has a nuclear arsenal, F-35 aircrafts, and other modern types of weapons that it will not withdraw from the Palestinian areas in the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, which is about a quarter of the area of the West Bank, under the false pretext of security, is aimed at maintaining its occupation and continuing its settlement program and annexation plans that it has not abandoned.
If Israel is not stopped and obligated to conclude a peace agreement with the State of Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders in accordance with the two-state solution and international legitimacy decisions, then its expansionist ambitions at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people and the occupied Palestinian land will not stop, but will extend to the extent of extending its influence and control to its neighboring states under its dream of a “Greater Israel”.
But the bigger question remains: What can be done to oblige Israel to respect international legitimacy and international law to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, at a time when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is showing the Palestinians’ willingness for serious negotiations on the basis of international legitimacy, and has invited the Secretary-General of the United Nations to organize an international peace conference early next year? The answer to what can be done consists of several points:
All states have to affirm that the two-state solution is based on the 1967 borders in accordance with international legitimacy and international law, and that Israel must withdraw from all occupied Palestinian lands, including East Jerusalem and not accept settlements and annexation plans, and affirm that this is the only way to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Second, world countries must refrain from concluding any agreement that involves any portion of the Palestinian occupied territory since 1967 and a special clause to confirm this must be added in any agreement.
Linking the development of relations with Israel to the extent of its commitment to international law, and that violating this will have consequences or a reduction in the level of relations.
As a matter of justice and preserving the two-state solution, the states that recognize Israel and have not yet recognized the State of Palestine, should recognize the Palestinian State on the basis of the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in order to preserve what remains of a slight chance to reach the existing just and comprehensive peace based on the international legitimacy and international law, in a manner that guarantees security, stability and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, the region and the whole world.
Finally, in order to erase the Sykes-Picot and Balfour Declaration stigma and put an end to Jewish emigration to Palestine and Palestinian expulsion from their homeland, countries who have been directly or indirectly responsible for that stigma must voluntarily assist the Palestinian people to obtain their right for self-determination. These countries must as well recognize the State of Palestine on pre-June 1967 borders and find a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem that has been in existence for more than 72 years, in accordance with international legitimacy.
The Palestinian cause is a just cause, and for this reason, it has gained international support since its inception. Several UN resolutions have been issued in its favor awaiting implementation. We need to build on the brave voices that have stood with justice, freedom and peace, and denounced the Israeli practices, including the Israeli annexation plan. Those voices have unequivocally called upon Israel to abide by international legitimacy as a foundation for resolving the Palestine-Israeli conflict.
The voices include that of the EU calling for the two-state solution and labeling Israeli settlement products. There is also the voice of the brave Indonesian government that based its relations with Australia on the latter’s decision whether to move its embassy to occupied Jerusalem.
In addition, we have the statement of His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan calling for the establishment of relations with Israel based on the level of Israel’s commitment to the realization of peace. Moreover, there is the article of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in which he calls on Israel to refrain from the annexation process because it contradicts international legitimacy. Furthermore, there is the decision of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to name the Dhahran summit the “Jerusalem Summit”, and the Algerian President Abdel Majid Taboun strong stance rejecting all forms of normalization with Israel and reaffirmed his support to the Palestinian people.
Lastly, the EU, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, China, Russia, Japan, India, Egypt, South Africa and other major countries have supported and called for the implementation of UN resolutions in order to speed up the realization of peace and grant the Palestinian people their right to freedom, independence and self-determination.
Within the same context, we would like to caution countries, eminent personalities, students and business people who are invited to take part in conferences or open offices in the city of Jerusalem, to be aware lest they become partners with the Israeli occupying forces in their plans for annexation and illegal practices. In this context, it is possible to build on many positive models that stand firmly for justice, truth and freedom.
Currently, the entire world is unified in its fight against global warming. International decisions and warnings have been issued to limit heat emissions and mobilize efforts to measure international performance in order to preserve our planet. The same kind of measurement can be carried out with regard to the implementation of international law and concerning the Palestinian just cause that has been victim of historical injustice, distortion and falsification of factual narrative.
Accordingly, if serious steps are not taken and energies are not mobilized to stop the occupation from continuing its incursion on the Palestinian people, and its violation of international law we might reach a catastrophe the results of which can be devastating.
Therefore, we need to make up for the lost time. Unless we take collective measures to stop Israel, demand an end to its occupation and draw up its borders with the State of Palestine, there will be disastrous consequences on the international theater and not only on the Middle East.
There are 13 million Palestinians around the world of whom 5 million suffer under the fire of the Israeli military forces, while the rest are refugees or are living in the diaspora, dreaming of the time when their flights would land them at the airport of their country and their hearts beat with hope for peace and freedom like all other nations in the world.
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Majdi Khaldi is Senior Diplomatic Advisor to Palestinian President.
It begs the question: how long do batteries in plug-in vehicles last? A Canadian firm collects data on battery degradation on electrified cars and says that on average they shed two per cent of their performance after 12 months – we’ve listed the UK-available models in order of how rapidly capacity declines.
With the ban on petrol, diesel ans hybrid cars potentially being fast-tracked by a decade to 2030, demand for electric vehicles is unquestionably going to spike.
Various studies have analysed consumer appetite for EVs, with the latest being a What Car? poll of 12,029 in-market car buyers.
It found that three in five (59 per cent) are now considering an electric or a hybrid vehicle as their next motor.
The results come after the UK automotive trade body revealed that electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle registrations had risen by 157 per cent and 68 per cent year-on-year, respectively in the first eight months of 2020.
But one of the big questions on the minds of drivers is how long the batteries will last – and how quickly they will lose performance.
It claimed that after seven years of use – and repeat charges – the batteries will have 93 per cent of its original capacity remaining after seven years, suggesting it loses just one per cent a year.
However, Canadian company Geotab says that, on average, drivers should expect electric vehicle batteries to degrade almost twice as rapidly.
Its EV Battery Degradation Tool assesses the average depletion in capacity of electric vehicle batteries over time by measuring the performance of 6,300 fleet and consumer plug-in cars.
Select Car Leasing has reviewed its database of information, identifying which models are sold in the UK and ordered the cars by how quickly capacity disappears in the first 12 months of use.
Electric and plug-in hybrid cars ranked by calculated battery degradation after 1 year
1. Audi A3 Sportback e-Tron (2017) 0.3%
2. Tesla Model 3 (2019) – 0.6%
3. Tesla Model X (2019) – 0.7%
4. Nissan Leaf (2019) – 0.8%
5. BMW i3 (2019) – 0.9%
6. Ford Focus EV (2017) – 1.1%
7. Tesla Model S (2019) – 1.1%
8. Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive (2018) – 1.2%
Many people are still confused by what is 5G and what it means for them. With cities like London, New York or San Francisco now plastered with ads, talks about national security, and the deployment of 5G protocols being treated like an arms race, what happens to our privacy and security?
5G is the next generation of mobile networks, which is meant to be an evolution of the current 4G protocols that mobile providers have deployed over the last decade, and there are already several explainers that analyse the technology.
For the sake of this piece, we will focus on the technology’s main features: 5G will enable higher download and upload rates, lower latency, and more connection density. This means that users will be able to download more megabytes per second, with less delay in the connections, and with more users being connected at the same time in a single geographical point (so mobile data will actually work in crowded places.)
The attack surface is not really being reduced
First of all, we need to clarify what isn’t changing with 5G, and the most important aspect of this is that the underlying physical infrastructure of the Internet will remain the same. In other words, 5G antennas will still need to be connected to the internet through fibre optics cables, which are typically run by internet service providers, which are interconnected with other ISPs and the broader Internet through more fibre optic cables.
What does it mean? In practice, whatever exploitation of our data governments or companies are currently capable of doing will remain possible, including communications surveillance, data retention, information sharing or traffic analysis, amongst many others exploitative techniques.
On the security side, 5G protocols have upgraded standards to protect the communication between the devices and the antennas, bringing some improvements that should prevent the abuse of signalling protocols (necessary for roaming) or the deployment of IMSI catchers to gather metadata, bringing some needed improvements.
But the story is not that simple, since new protocols like 5G will need to coexist with older ones, such as 4G, 3G or even 2G. Those protocols are still vulnerable, resulting in security risks for devices still operating on older networks. This happens either because of a downgrade attack, where devices are tricked into operating in older protocols, or because of the lack of availability of 5G networks, or finally, because some devices are actually designed to operate on older networks, like payment devices or industrial control systems.
On top of that, there is another problem to consider: with 5G, most antennas will have much shorter distance range, meaning that pinpointing the geographic location of specific users within a mobile network will be much more precise, adding significant privacy and security risks to users, particularly those already vulnerable.
Your device is out of control (and other security risks)
The adoption of 5G networks will likely generate risks on its own. Most of them are not exactly fault of the new protocol itself, but rather a consequence of the increased speed and lower latency that 5G affords. This will very likely lead to an expansion of connected devices, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, with many of them being directly connected to the network, without any intervention of the user.
As has been well documented by researchers on the privacy and security risks of IoT, a widespread adoption of the Internet of Things under current regulatory frameworks, will likely come at a huge risk for consumers. That means that many devices will be connected by design and by default, without user intervention, like some cars are already today. One of many problems is that many devices will not have the same level of attention and level of technical support that a car manufacturer has, and the widespread adoption of devices connected without user intervention could lead to a security nightmare.
In this security nightmare, we can envision an exponential increase of design flaws, from hardcoded credentials, where some devices have a ‘master password’ that anybody can exploit (see: Mirai), to unpatched vulnerabilities that allows skilled attackers to control devices regardless how it is being configured (See: Wannacry).
All of this would happen with us not being able to control our devices, disconnect them from a wi-fi network, and not even the option to install a firewall to protect them, since the device will be directly connected to the internet.
A dream come true for corporate exploitation
On top of all the security risks, another huge issue derived from having connected-by-default devices is the issue of not being in control of them. There is the risk that always-connected devices could translate into powerless users, putting us in risk of abuse.
One of the problems has to do with increasing the indiscriminate data collection and transmission that is currently taking place. The ability to have everything directly connected without connection density issues, could lead device manufacturers into negotiating the connectivity of their devices directly with mobile providers, and people would lose even more control over whether their devices are connected and what they can do.
But losing control of devices could also happen in a very literal way: devices will work (or not) outside of the control of a given user. A house appliance we buy using credit instalments, might decide not to work unless we are up to date with its instalments. 5G could be the gateway for new and dystopic future in which the meaning of property has radically changed, leading to an era where we don’t really own our devices, but instead possess a device that works as a service.
5G can also make power abuse even worst, with devices controlled by people outside the household, including gender and domestic violence and users – and victims! – not being allowed to disconnect those devices, or maybe not even aware of their existence, since they could be easily be concealed and remain connected, sending data to somebody else.
Wait… there’s more!
Even though it isn’t necessarily a privacy or security issues by itself, we need to make clear that 5G might not be able to fulfill the promise for more connectivity. As mentioned before, antennas will have shorter reach, so its main use-case is not to increase connectivity in rural areas that are in need of Internet access: 5G is rather designed for densely populated cities. As a result, rural areas will remain underserved, and probably will still be operating under current 3G-4G protocols, which will remain vulnerable to known attacks.
In addition to that, mobile communications do need spectrum to work, which is a limited resource, and each part of the spectrum has different abilities, so every time a new mobile generation is implemented, there is the need to assign that spectrum, which require solid public policies to guarantee a fair distribution of that resource, keeping in mind its impact on community owned networks and even the ability to do reliable weather forecasting.
At Privacy International, we have also compiled a list of examples of abuse related to the Internet of Things. Many of those examples should be of use to demonstrate its risks and how much worse they can become when users have even less control over those devices.
Is there a way forward? (Spoiler: maybe)
In general, the debate around the risks of new communication protocols would be way more productive if we started by focusing more on the actual risks for users and less around geopolitical speculation around countries and companies.
In any case, there are some valid concerns about countries with a dubious human rights record taking over the deployment of new protocols. And we are not only talking about China, likely the biggest offender, but also about the United States as well as other countries and companies. In an ideal world, tech companies would be transparent about their governance and practices (ahem, Huawei), and governments should allow and encourage the use of secure communications protocols, including the use of solid encryption standards.
But the truth is that poorly designed protocols and software are as risky for users as hypothetical ‘super-secret cyber backdoors’ installed by governments or their companies. And whilst finding those backdoors is like finding a needle in a haystack, implementing measures that empower users and people, especially those at risk, can be a more sensible approach and benefit us all.
We also need to keep in mind that despite the focus of this article, many of the risks derived from 5G are not necessarily because the protocols are at fault, but because they need to coexist in a complex ecosystem with multiple fabricants, vendors, governments and users.
How to move forward, then? Here are some suggestions:
For corporations:
Implement a holistic approach to digital security, considering the protection of people, devices and networks.
Improve corporate transparency and human rights due diligence in the assessment and adoption of new communication protocols.
Conduct privacy and security assessments according to the highest possible standards, minimising the data they collect and retain, and testing their security measures before the launch of their products, monitoring them through their lifecycle.
Give users enough information and control over how their devices work, including indicators and interface elements that allow them to know and control their connection status, without regard as to where the devices operate.
For governments and policy making bodies:
The focus on 5G should start from privacy and security considerations, and national security debates should be conducted from a human rights perspective and based in available evidence and risk assessments.
Data Protection Authorities should issue guidelines and conduct investigations on the functionality of connected devices and their data processing activities.
Cybersecurity bodies should support the adoption of strong security standards for always-connected devices, and abstain from recommending any measure that could weaken it, such as the establishment of legal requirements for government access or mandated backdoors.
Review digital privacy legislation, including provisions that guarantee the security and confidentiality by design and by default of machine-to-machine communications.
In case there is any, removing legal and policy barriers for security research, such as cybercrime laws that criminalise ethical hacking.
Consumer Authorities should issue guidelines and conduct investigations on the functionality of connected devices, and its potential harms on consumers.
Telecommunications regulators should conduct oversight over how companies are providing connectivity to IoT producers, in order to guarantee that minimum standards are in place and that end users have control over their devices.
Given its improved accuracy, the sale of location data should be banned, and its access by law enforcement bodies should be restricted solely to judicial authorisation.
Samsung now offers 3 years of support for their most expensive models, but cheaper phones are still left out of the equation.CONTINUE READINGNEWS & ANALYSIS
Those in a vulnerable situation – including human rights defenders – are not necessarily in a safer position during lockdown or quarantine measures due to greater exposure to the threats they are already facing, or due to their own activities.CONTINUE READINGLONG READ
Africa is a testing ground for technologies produced elsewhere: as a result, personal data of its people are increasingly stored in hundreds of databases.CONTINUE READINGNEWS & ANALYSIS
Privacy International calls for the Swedish draft proposal conferring government hacking powers to law enforcement authorities to be rejected.CONTINUE READING
Release Date –May 2020 Pages –42 ISBN 978-0-87609-098-5
The United States should respond to the COVID-19 reordering moment and stop deterioration in the balance of power with China, bolster relations with India and Europe, and reform the way it deals with allies and partners.
“Along with U.S.-Soviet competition during the Cold War, COVID-19 is one of the two greatest tests of the U.S.-led international order since its founding,” warn Robert D. Blackwill, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow, and Thomas Wright, Brookings Institution senior fellow. “Nothing else since that time approaches the societal, political, and economic effects of the virus on populations around the world.”
In a new Council Special Report, The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy, Blackwill and Wright seek to “place the plague in global context,” by analyzing the evolution of world order before COVID-19, and offer a roadmap for U.S. foreign policy in the face of “radical international uncertainty.”
The authors contend that world order “weakened after 9/11 and ended over the past decade, driven by a combination of great power ambition, American withdrawal, and transformational changes that left many nations unmoored from old certainties.”
“The fundamental strategic problem the United States faces with respect to world order is how it should respond to the breakdown in agreed arrangements between the major powers,” say Blackwill and Wright. For the United States to “preserve its national interests and its own notion of international order” in the wake of COVID-19, the authors argue that the United States should
“create a persuasive model of competent U.S. governance, which will in turn reinforce America’s international leadership;”
“revitalize North American collaboration;”
“fundamentally reform the way the United States deals with its treaty allies and partners;”
“increase ambitions with Europe;”
“strengthen relations With India;”
“invest in international institutions;”
“condition engagement with Russia;”
“reduce involvement in the Middle East;”
“stop deterioration in the balance of power with China;”
“compete with China” but “compartmentalize transnational challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and international terrorism;” and
“work with other countries so that the rebuilding of national economies is consistent with maintaining an open and mutually beneficial global economy.”
“With COVID-19, the reordering moment is here,” Blackwill and Wright conclude. “Avoiding dangerous confrontations with rivals is possible, but only if the United States is up to that diplomatic challenge, based on U.S. national interests and democratic values. Through wise and steady international leadership, Washington can also implement adroit and consistent policies that substantially shape international order in line with its preferences.”
This previously classified film provides a new and fascinating glimpse into the 50-megaton Cold War nuclear test that occurred nearly six decades ago.
The nuclear bomb, codenamed “Ivan,” that was dropped by the Soviet Union over Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961, was the largest device of its kind ever detonated. The monstrous weapon had a yield of around 50 megatons — equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT. Until now, the available imagery of that test has been strictly limited, consisting of short, grainy clips and poor-quality stills.
The colossal Ivan device was developed under a program known as izdeliye 202 (meaning “product 202”, otherwise known simply as “V”). Years later, when more details became known about it in the West, the weapon would be dubbed “Tsar Bomba.”
On August 20, 2020, the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation — the Russian state concern responsible for nuclear enterprises, including nuclear weapons — released a 30-minute documentary film on its official YouTube channel showing the test in unprecedented detail, from the initial transport of the device itself to the mushroom cloud that later rose some 6.2 miles over the Arctic archipelago. The release of the film coincides with the 75th anniversary of Russia’s nuclear industry — although a thermonuclear bomb popularly described in the West as a “doomsday weapon” was perhaps an unusual choice for the commemoration. Regardless, it was a remarkable technological achievement.
While the style of the documentary is pure Soviet propaganda, it reveals plenty of fascinating details about the test. After the “Top Secret” titles, one anachronistic scene shows the fully assembled Ivan bomb moved at one stage by a steam train. Its destination was Olenya Air Base near Olenegorsk on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia, where the bomb was unloaded and then moved onward by truck. Remarkably, variants of the four-engine Tu-95 Bear bomber, the type that carried the devastating cargo aloft for the flight over the Barents Sea, remain in service today, though in much-modernized form. The particular aircraft used for the October 1961 test was the Tu-95V, a special adaptation of the first-generation Bear-A nuclear bomber, with an enlarged and reinforced bomb bay for semi-recessed weapon carriage. Like many other strategic bombers of its era, the Tu-95V featured an anti-nuclear-flash white scheme, although in this case it was extended to cover the propeller blades, too.
The documentary shows us inside the cockpit of the Tu-95V, where aircrew don protective goggles before we see the 26.5-ton bomb falls away gently under a parachute towards its intended target — the Russian Defense Ministry’s State Testing Site No. 6 — close to Novaya Zemlya’s Matochkin Strait. The detonation itself is recorded from several different aspects, including from the air. The Tu-95V was accompanied for at least some of its mission by at least two other aircraft, including a twin-jet Tu-16 bomber serving as a “flying laboratory,” equipped with cameras, radio-telemetry equipment, oscilloscopes to determine the power of the explosion, and pressure recorders to measure the intensity of the shock wave. Other measuring equipment was installed on the Tu-95V itself, including sensor probes that replaced the usual tail gunner’s position. One scene from the documentary shows a model indicating a formation of five aircraft in total, at least at the start of the mission.
The mission itself was controlled from an underground bunker at Belyusha Bay, 162 miles south of the test site. Closer to the site of the detonation itself was D-8, 56 miles from the test area, which housed further measuring and recording equipment, plus an underground command post, with warships being used as a communications relay between the two stations. State Testing Site No. 6 itself didn’t feature any buildings or vehicles to assess the damage, but was equipped with additional automated testing gear: cameras and filming equipment, and below-ground oscilloscopes.
The bomb was dropped from the Tu-95V flying at an altitude of 34,449 feet, and detonation occurred at 13,123 feet above the ground — an airburst — which would have substantially reduced the radiation produced, and this may be the reason the documentary refers to the weapon as a “clean hydrogen bomb.” But of course, everything is relative when it comes to the world’s most powerful nuclear device.
According to the video, the Tu-95V was 28 miles away from the release point, and the detonation produced a fireball visible 621 miles away, despite cloudy conditions. “The explosion was accompanied by a bright flash of unusual strength,” the narrator explains. Within seconds, a column of dust had risen to a height of around 6 miles.
The footage then returns to the aircraft, at a distance of 155 miles from the detonation and we see the huge fireball, rising slowly and expanding to reach a maximum of 12 miles across. Forty seconds after the detonation, the fireball has reached a height of approximately 19 miles, after which a mushroom cloud begins to form, reaching a maximum height of 37-40 miles and a diameter of 56 miles.
We see the Tu-95V returning home, with the mushroom cloud still visible at a distance of 497 miles, before we take to the ground “a few hours” after the explosion, to see the destruction wrought on Novaya Zemlya. Scientists are seen arriving onboard a specially-equipped Mi-4 helicopter radiation reconnaissance systems, disembarking unprotected, since “even in the very center of the site, [radiation] was insignificant.” Some of the team then put on protective gear and head by closer to the center of the test site, apparently using a GT-series tracked vehicles designed primarily for operations in snowy conditions. Here, for “dozens of kilometers” in every direction, the earth has been scorched, most of the snow vaporized, and the few structures that existed above the surface have been obliterated.
The Soviet Union’s path towards the 50-megaton test of October 1961 had begun with the country’s first nuclear detonation, which took place on August 29, 1949, involving an experimental device known as the RDS-1. This was followed by a first air-delivered bomb, the 30-kiloton RDS-3 Maria, dropped on October 18, 1951, by a specially adapted Tu-4 bomber, itself an unlicensed copy of the B-29 Superfortress.
By 1953, the Soviets had developed nuclear bombs for larger-scale production and was able to field the 30-kiloton RDS-4T Tatyana that could be carried by a twin-engine Il-28 Beagle jet bomber. The same year, the Soviet Union detonated its first thermonuclear bomb, the RDS-6S Sloyka, in a ground test that took place on August 12.
Ivan was the brainchild of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and was authorized in July 1961 at an especially frosty period in East-West relations that culminated in the Berlin Crisis and the city’s permanent partition by the Berlin Wall.
With typical bombast, Khrushchev had demanded his engineers develop a thermonuclear weapon with an unprecedented yield of 100 megatons, requiring a three-stage warhead, rather than the usual two. It seems the team responsible had concerns about the radiation risk and decided to reduce the yield to 50 megatons — still equivalent to around 3,800Hiroshima bombs. The documentary notes that the bomb casing itself was sized to carry a 100-megaton charge.
By contrast, the largest nuclear device ever detonated by the United States was the one it set off during the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific on March 1, 1954. Unlike the Soviet test, this yield was achieved by accident, after a miscalculation by the designers. Nevertheless, the yield produced — 15 megatons as opposed to the planned 5-6 megatons — still fell well short of the Ivan test. The Castle Bravo device was mounted in a “shot cab” on an artificial island, rather than being air-dropped, but it was later developed into the Mk 21 bomb that could be carried by a U.S. Air Force B-36 Peacemaker or B-47 Stratojet bomber.
Meanwhile, Ivan’s detonation was destined to be a high watermark in atmospheric nuclear testing. Amid mounting concern about the fallout generated by above-ground tests, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963 by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Thereafter, all tests were required to be conducted underground.
The Ivan bomb was ultimately too large to be of practical military use — both in terms of delivery and finding targets that warranted its use. However, the Soviet Union remained heavily engaged in developing freefall nuclear bombs alongside missiles and other delivery systems.
Nuclear weapons are still assigned considerable importance for today’s Russian armed forces and most Russian combat aircraft are capable of delivering nuclear bombs. While details of modern Russian freefall nuclear bombs remain highly classified, their equivalent practice bombs provide some indication of their appearance and are issued to tactical fixed-wing units for use in exercises. The release of this Cold War-era documentary is a sobering reminder of the lingering presence of these weapons and their awesome destructive power.
Summary note : “And the shock wave of the explosion lifts an 8 kilometer-long fireball about ten thousand feet high, with flashes visible about a thousand kilometers away. The mushroom-shaped cloud created by the explosion reaches seven times the height of Everest, that is, into the mesosphere. The front of this cloud extends about 5 km. The impact of the explosion in the surrounding area was devastating. About 55 km from the test site, all the timber and stone houses, and installations of Severi Island are destroyed. Although the island was already deserted.
The explosion happens above 4km high from the ground although the shock wave made an earthquake in 4-4.35 scale, which was powerful even after circling the globe about three times.”
MT- Mega Tons (Million), KT -Kilo Tons (Thousand) The actual comparison in explosive force and mushroom cloud between Tsar Bomba and the Nagasaki A-Bomb in this picture is inaccurate, it is to the factor of 3,800 (The explosionin this picture would only register a small pin of light.)
In one instance, the brothers allegedly sent 7,000 toothbrushes to Amazon despite the e-commerce giant requesting for one case of disinfectant spray.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has laid charges on four individuals over allegations that they fraudulently induced Amazon into providing millions of dollars in additional payments.
By executing the scheme, the charged individuals allegedly obtained $19 million and had attempted to fraudulently obtain around $32 million in total.
The four individuals — brothers Yoel Abraham, Heshl Abraham, Zishe Abraham, and Shmuel Abraham — allegedly manipulated Amazon’s invoicing systems and billing procedures through a practice known as overshipping in order to compel the e-commerce giant to pay more money than it had agreed to.
Overshipping entails a wholesaler shipping, invoicing, and receiving payment for goods that a retailer — such as Amazon — had not agreed to purchase.
According to the DoJ’s complaint, the brothers frequently shipped and invoiced for more than 10,000 units of an item despite Amazon requesting — and the brothers agreeing to ship — fewer than 100 units.
One of the overshipping examples in the complaint is that Amazon and the charged individuals allegedly agreed to a purchase order for one case of disinfectant spray worth $94. Rather than sending the disinfectant spray, the individuals sent 7,000 toothbrushes — priced at around $94 each — and invoiced Amazon for over $658,000.
When Amazon detected a pattern of fraudulent overshipping, the company would suspend the vendor accounts. In response, however, the four brothers would allegedly open new vendor accounts and disguise their identities by registering them with fake names and email addresses.
The brothers also allegedly used VPNs to obfuscate their connection to previously suspended accounts, the DoJ wrote in its complaint.
“The indictment alleges that Yoel, Heshl, Zishe, and Shmuel Abraham came up with a new twist on an old trick, but the use of complex technology did not hide the simple fact that the defendants were bilking Amazon for goods they never provided,” acting Manhattan US attorney Audrey Strauss said.
The four accused individuals have each been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
The trial will be conducted later this year at the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The action was taken against a website that DoJ said falsely claims to offer vaccine kits from the World Health Organization (WHO) in exchange for a $4.95 shipping charge. When unsuspecting victims order the fake vaccine kit, the website asks for the victim’s credit card information.
There are currently no legitimate COVID-19 vaccines and the WHO is not distributing any such vaccine
DOJ , US Attorneys Office, Southern District of New York
STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Four Individuals Charged With $19 Million Fraudulent Invoicing Scheme Targeting Amazon’s Vendor System
Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Peter C. Fitzhugh, Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), announced the indictment and arrest today of YOEL ABRAHAM, HESHL ABRAHAM, ZISHE ABRAHAM, and SHMUEL ABRAHAM, who are brothers, on charges of engaging in a scheme to systematically defraud Amazon.com, LLC, (“Amazon”), an online retailer and e-commerce platform. Through the course of the scheme, the defendants manipulated Amazon’s vendor system in attempts to fraudulently induce Amazon to pay for goods that Amazon had not ordered. In executing the scheme, the defendants fraudulently attempted to obtain at least approximately $32 million and successfully obtained at least approximately $19 million. YOEL ABRAHAM, HESHL ABRAHAM, ZISHE ABRAHAM, and SHMUEL ABRAHAM were arrested this morning and will be presented and arraigned later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams.
Yoel Abraham, Heshl Abraham, Zishe Abraham and Shmuel Abraham — were picked up in various homes throughout the area the alleged fraud ring was being run out of the basement of a home in Monsey.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “The indictment alleges that Yoel, Heshl, Zishe, and Shmuel Abraham came up with a new twist on an old trick, but the use of complex technology did not hide the simple fact that the defendants were bilking Amazon for goods they never provided. The more our economic life moves online, the more we must ensure the integrity of our digital markets, which my Office is committed to doing.”
HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh said: “The four charged today allegedly attempted to defraud Amazon out of tens of millions of dollars though a sophisticated and layered fraudulent invoicing scheme. Invoice fraud is not a victimless crime. Millions of dollars in lost revenue negatively impacts a company’s ability to provide cost effective services to legitimate customers who use the vendor’s platform. HSI works closely with our private partners to ensure that this type of fraud is mitigated, and those criminals are prosecuted for their actions.”
According to the Indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:[1]
The defendants, who purportedly operated wholesale businesses, opened vendor accounts with Amazon to sell the company small quantities of goods. By accepting a purchase order, the defendants agreed to supply specific goods, at specific prices, in specific quantities. Instead, they manipulated Amazon’s vendor system, and then, in the most egregious iteration of the scheme, invoiced the company for substitute goods at grossly inflated prices and excessive quantities. The defendants frequently shipped and invoiced for more than 10,000 units of an item when Amazon had requested, and the defendants had agreed to ship, fewer than 100.
The defendants communicated about the scheme, extended help and advice to one another, and helped one another evade detection using an encrypted group texting chain on WhatsApp, a messaging application. For example, on or about May 1, 2018, YOEL ABRAHAM, the defendant, stated to the group “I’m so in the mood to fuck Amazon,” and asked “Did anyone try to overship and make a million profit in a week?” ZISHE ABRAHAM, the defendant, asked how YOEL ABRAHAM would do it (“Come in [sic] how to do it?”). SHMUEL ABRAHAM, the defendant, offered his advice on how to carry out such a large fraudulent transaction, noting he “didn’t tried this yet but tried already different things and it worked.” SHMUEL ABRAHAM cautioned, however, “[j]ust make sure you have another account. But you can fuck them a lot. When it’s to [sic] big numbers fast they will lock you out.” ZISHE ABRAHAM, the defendant, also offered his thoughts on how best to perpetrate such a large overshipment.
Once Amazon detected the pattern of fraudulent overshipping, it suspended the vendor accounts engaged in the fraud; in response, the defendants tried to open other vendor accounts and disguise their identities by registering them in fake names, using different email addresses, and using virtual private servers (“VPSs”) to obfuscate their connection to previously suspended accounts and frustrate Amazon’s ability to detect and mitigate their fraudulent activity. For instance, on or about November 1, 2018, the defendants discussed that Amazon’s increasing enforcement was going to force them to give up the fraudulent invoicing scheme altogether and go into a legitimate line of business (YOEL ABRAHAM: “This shit is massed up, looks like will have to build a legit business”). They also discussed new ways to evade detection and how to continue to perpetrate the fraud (YOEL ABRAHAM: “Open account under dummy names and they can go look for no one.” ZISHE ABRAHAM: “Yup need to do that. . . . The problem the first accounts was under real names.”). A few days later, HESHL ABRAHAM circulated a link to a “VPS company I use now. . . . This is how I know because they linked both of my vendor accounts.”).
* * *
YOEL ABRAHAM, 28, of Suffern, New York, HESHL ABRAHAM, 32, of Spring Valley, New York, ZISHE ABRAHAM, 30, of Spring Valley, New York, and SHMUEL ABRAHAM, 24, of Airmont, New York, are each charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and money laundering carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The maximum potential sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.
Ms. Strauss praised the work of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, the New York City Police Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department, and the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, and thanked Amazon for its cooperation with the investigation.
This case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jilan J. Kamal is in charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Indictment and the description of the Indictment set forth herein constitute only allegations and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.
The legacies of a war that covered vaster geographies than any other are still apparent 75 years later By ANDREW SALMON
Allied and American warships at anchor in the Bay of Tokyo, for the signing of the Japanese surrender, September 2, 1945, aboard
the battleship “Missouri”.
Five battleships (to the right and center) and several cargo ships (to the left) can be seen in the photo.
“The Pacific War” which ended 75 years ago this weekend, was not a single entity: It comprised a maelstrom of conflicts that were sparked by Japanese expansionism and were fought over the widest fronts in the history of warfare.
Though widely seen as the “Asian” sphere of World War II – militaristic Japan was, indeed allied with Fascist Germany and Italy in the wartime Axis – there was minimal correspondence between eastern and western theaters. Essentially, Japan fought an entirely separate war.
Following her remarkable 19th century Meiji era-modernization, a newly empowered Japan embarked upon an Asian manifest destiny, defeating China in 1894-1895, then Czarist Russia in 1904-5. Those victories won Tokyo control over Taiwan and Korea. Subsequently, alliance with the Western powers in World War I won Tokyo German possessions in China. In 1931, Japan advanced into Manchuria, establishing the puppet state of Manchukuo.
With Manchuria as resource base and assault balcony, Japan kicked off what many insist was the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1937, with her invasion of China. That thrust the Imperial Japanese Army into a huge deep quagmire. The storm on China, and Japan’s advance into French Indochina in 1940, worsened already dire relations with the USA – which had sought, via various machinations since the 1920s, to keep Japan’s rising power in check.
After Washington froze Japanese assets and emplaced energy sanctions on Tokyo in summer 1941, Japan massively expanded hostilities in December, when the Pacific War is generally agreed to have ignited. In one of the most brilliantly coordinated series of operations ever, Japanese forces struck the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, while also seizing the white-controlled colonies in Southeast Asia and their rich natural resources.
At the peak of Japan’s imperium, the Rising Sun flag fluttered from Papua New Guinea, across the vastness of the Pacific, through Korea, Manchuria and Southern China, to all of Southeast Asia (bar neutral Thailand) and to the gates of India.
This vast mass could not hold. Chinese forces continued to fight. Anglo-British forces defeated Japan’s last offensive – the 1944 invasion of India – and routed Tokyo’s armies in Burma. Meanwhile, US naval forces were smashing the Imperial Japanese Navy in battle after battle, while Marines fought a masterly “island hopping” campaign across the Pacific
Japanese troops battled with a fanatical courage history had never seen before: last stands, banzai charges and kamikaze attacks. But they also engaged in abominable cruelty- the Rape of Nanjing, the biological warfare activities of Unit 731, the “Three Alls’ (“Kill all, burn all, destroy all”) policy, and mistreatment of POWs, civilian labor and “comfort women.”
After Germany’s defeat, all Allied resources re-focused upon Japan. The firebombing and atomic bombing of Japan’s cities, and the last-minute Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Korea, forced surrender. The Land of the Rising Sun had been extinguished; a nation that had sought to lead Asia was shattered both physically and morally.
In the decades since, who have emerged the winners? And who the losers? As in most wars, the latter outnumber the former.
A Japanese “tokko” (“special attack”) pilot ties on a bandana before boarding his aircraft. The use of “kamikaze” or suicide, tactics, was illustrative of the desperation of Imperial Japan in the final months of the Pacific War. Photo: AFP
THE LOSERS
White Imperialism in Asia: Japan’s “Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere” (formally announced in Tokyo in 1940) was a combination of pan-Asian idealism and resource grab. While Japan exploited its conquests ruthlessly, there is not question that the prestige of white rule was shattered by the totality of Japanese power in Southeast Asia.
French Indochina fell under Japanese rule with barely a squeak, while Britain was humiliated by the loss of Malaya and Singapore – the worst defeat in that nation’s centuries-long military history – and the Dutch were overwhelmed in the East Indies (today, Indonesia). Even future Singaporean leader Lee Kuan-yew- who as a Chinese, had no love of Japan – would state the invasion sounded the death knell for British rule.
During the war, Japan nurtured a range of independence leaders – notably Indonesia’s Sukarno, Burma’s Aung San and Ba Maw and Indian firebrand Subha Chandra Bose – who were determined that pre-war colonial normality would not be re-imposed. It was not.
Burma, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and eventually Indochina would be freed of colonial rule, post- Pacific War. The only white imperial power to retain territory in East Asia today is Russia, with its Czarist outpost in Vladivostok the crown jewel of its resource-rich, but human-resources poor, Russian Far East.
In the European theater of World War II there was a considerable irony: It took a totalitarian nation, the Communist USSR, to defeat totalitarian nation, Nazi Germany. In the Asian theater, the irony was equally great: It took the yellow imperialism of Japan to dismantle the white imperialism of France, Netherlands and the UK.
British troops is Singapore surrender to a Japanese force, that, despite being outnumbered, outfought them down the length of the Malay peninsula. Photo; Public domain
Yellow Imperialism in Asia: While Japan may rightfully claim the moral high ground of smashing white colonialism in Southeast Asia and various parts of China, it cannot ignore its own imperial activities. Japan’s Imperium was built from the late 19th century, and in late-war discussions in Tokyo, some officials hoped to retain Manchuria and Korea in peace negotiations. In the event, the empire was was lost.
So, too, Japan’s role as a military, political and diplomatic player beyond its own borders largely evaporated for the rest of the 20th century.
Today Japan still has an emperor, but his empire is much compressed. Like fellow monarchy the UK, which now presides over such tiny territories as Bermuda and the Falkland Islands, Japan’s empire includes just the Ryukyu (notably, Okinawa) and Nanpo (notably, Iwo Jima) island chains.
But a long-latent Asian imperialism may be reviving. A newly confident and navally empowered People’s Republic of China has seized maritime territories in the South China Sea, is probing in the East China Sea and clearly seeks to take a larger and larger role in regional and global affairs.
Victorious Japanese infantry march into Manila in 1941, following their defeat of US troops. Photo: AFP
Japan: In addition to physical losses of blood, brick and gold, Japan lost the moral fight. Today, along with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan is painted as one of history’s greatest villains for (1) igniting the war(s); and (2) fighting them with extreme cruelty. Moreover, there is a widespread belief that while modern Germany – politically unshackled from the creed of Nazism – has atoned for its past, Japan – which continues to be led by the Imperial house which led it into the abyss – fudges its war guilt. In terms of official penance, public education, and, perhaps, public acknowledgment, Japan lags behind Germany.
Yet, unlike Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan never committed genocide. While Tokyo’s campaign in China was callous and murderous, no extermination camps existed in the Japanese Empire. Moreover, this writer knows of no former colonial power that has offered as many apologies, or offered as much remuneration, as Japan has to South Korea.
Nevertheless, in the global popular mind – and to the dismay of the current government in Tokyo – the label of super villain continues to stick to Japan. This label has granted governments around the region, notably in Seoul and Beijing, occasion to aim serious criticism at Japan in the global space, and to indulge in populist grandstanding at home.
A naval veteran hoists an ensign at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo in 2005. A perceived failure to repent has roiled emotions in countries that fell under the Japanese jackboot. Photo: AFP
Korea: Korea, which was colonized by Japan in 1910, and liberated as a byproduct of Allied victory in 1945, did not have a bad World War II. During the years of fighting, the peninsula was a backwater; a huge Japanese rear-area logistic and human resource base physically removed from combat.
Though Korea was a massive industrial base – and a setting for Japan’s late-stage atomic weapons research – it was not subjected to the mass aerial bombardment that devastated so much of Europe and Japan. And unlike in the USSR, Yugoslavia, Greece and parts of Western Europe, there was no domestic insurgency, hence no liquidation of civilians.
But by great power fiat – and without a single Korean voice being represented – the peninsula was divided between US and USSR at war’s end. Subsequently, two competing states, sponsored by the Cold War foes, arose on the peninsula. In the 1950-53 Korean War, the devastation the peninsula had swerved in World War II was delivered – in spades.
National division is now set in stone and barbed wire, while the war simmers on to this day. There is no end in sight to this Pacific War legacy that today casts a long nuclear shadow across the region.
A tragic image from the Korean War: A young girl, likely orphaned, with her baby sibling strapped to her back, Photo: State Library of Victoria
USA: Could the US – which emerged as the pre-eminent victor in the Pacific War – be considered a loser? If we extend our horizons far enough – yes. World War II left the US a de facto Asiatic power, anchored to the region as occupier, protector and re-maker of Japan.
With European imperialists departing, Washington became the new standard bearer of the West in the East. But, lured ever-deeper into the continent as the Cold War intensified, American subsequently fought wars in Korea (1950-the present) and Vietnam (1965-75).
While Korea would eventually produce one of America’ greatest ever foreign policy successes – the establishment of prosperous, stable and democratic ally – Vietnam would not. American failure to prevail in that conflict created a crisis of confidence that overshadows Washington decision-making to this day.
The standout US weaknesses of our time is that, despite being possessed of hugely expensive, battle-winning armed forces, Washington has lost the iron will essential to prevail in long-term, expeditionary conflicts. Recent events in the Middle East indicate this weakness has contaminated the other liberal Western democracies.
Moreover, despite the presence of three prosperous, powerful democratic states in the region – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (which are all national legacies of the Pacific War, for one reason or another), US diplomacy has proven utterly incapable of creating a trilateral alliance in East Asia.
An evacuation at Quang Ngai airstrip, April 1965 – just one tragedy of millions in the Vietnam War. Photo: Tim Page
THE WINNERS
US: America, whose homeland was physically unscarred by war, won a victory on multiple fronts that extend beyond the military space. First, it won the leadership of the West. With the UK bankrupt from war, in hock to Washington and on course for retreat from empire, US power became pre-eminent. Since 1945, London has largely (though not entirely) fallen in behind Washington.
Other European powers largely departed Asia, leaving the US the only significant Western military force in situ, sternly monitoring a new Pax Americana – a place/era of free(ish) trade under which one Asian nation after another would win economic “tiger” status. Secondly, in Japan, the USA created a powerful Asiatic ally that is a G3 economy and a democracy of 126 million souls.
Thirdly, America’s power was not restricted to the “hard” sphere. Thanks to the soft power juggernaut that is Hollywood, America’s victories in the war were magnified. This has massively influenced global public opinion – to the point where many people, not just Americans, may well believe only the USA defeated Japan. And in the ethical sphere, despite controversies over its area bombing of Japan in the closing months of the war, it won it with a largely clean moral slate.
US Marines battle inshore on the island of Iwo Jima. Photo: AFP
Russia: The Soviet Union was the only pre-war power in the region to emerge with an empire that was (1) intact, (2) in no danger of independence movements, and (3) actually expanded with new, 1945-era territorial gains. In order to avoid two-front wars Tokyo and Moscow had signed a 1941 non-aggression pact, but as the price for joining their war against Japan, the Western Allies in 1945 granted Stalin full control over the huge Sakhalin island, and the Kuril chain. These continue to be thorns in Moscow-Tokyo ties to this day.
Soviet tankers halt their advance in Manchuria in the final days of World War II to chat with locals. Photo: AFP
Japan: It may seem odd to dub Japan a winner of the Pacific War. After all, from August 1945 and for the remainder of the 20th century, it largely lost its global influence in anything other than commerce, while its US-authored constitution limited its armed forces to purely defensive roles.
Only today, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe beefing up the Self Defense Force and US President Donald Trump demanding that Japan pay more for the alliance, is a paradigm that has largely held since 1945 shifting. But these disme-powering factors also worked in Japan’s favor.
Post-war, under America’s aegis, Japan – which had formerly expended massive national energies on overseas expansion – was freed to concentrate its full animal spirits upon building its infrastructure and economy. Soon, instead of invaders, Japan was exporting products. And superbly crafted products – from transistor radios, to automobiles to supertankers.
So successful was the process that, just four decades after the end of the Pacific War, Japan was a G2 economy and its benefactor, America, felt threatened by Japan Inc’s industrial muscle. Today, Japan is a G3 economy, having been overtaken by its erstwhile wartime victim, China.
However, unlike China, Japan has also emerged as a major soft power force. In combination with its export and high-tech leadership, Japanese culture – from Akira Kurosowa films to anime fantasies; from the quirkiness of Godzilla to the kitsch of Hello Kitty; and from the martial art of karate to the joys of sushi and sake – went global. This bright trend has done much, in modern times, to outshine Japan’s dark reputation as the villain of the Pacific War.
Lots of people are seen at Kabukicyo area in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo on July 3, 2020, amid continuing worries over the new coronavirus COVID-19. In Tokyo, 107 infected people were confirmed for the first time in two months on July 2nd, and 124 infected people were confirmed on July 3rd. The Japanese government has efforted to explore a “new normal” by striking a balance between resuming activities and preventing infections. The Japanese government declared that all state of emergency issue was lifted on May 25th, and has continued to request people to avoid three Cs: Closed spaces, Crowded spaces, Close-contact settings across the nation. Tokyo Metropolitan and other prefectures eased the restrictions on schools, restaurants, museums, fitness clubs and other events to proceed to “new life style with coronavirus.” ( The Yomiuri Shimbun )
President Macron trying out the seat of General Henri Gouraud for size
Nearly 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for their country to be placed under a French mandate for the next 10 years. The move follows the massive explosion that rocked the capital Beirut on Tuesday.
The petition calls for the imposition of a French mandate because of the current political and economic crisis, for which the ruling elite is being blamed.
“Lebanon’s officials have clearly shown a total inability to secure and manage the country,” says the petition. “With a failing system, corruption, terrorism and militia the country just reached its last breath. We believe Lebanon should go back under the French mandate in order to establish a clean and durable governance.”
The popular petition was started after French President Emmanuel Macron visited Beirut yesterday and walked along some of the most damaged streets close to the site of the explosion. He was accompanied by his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Aoun. (see Arab reactions)
Hundreds of people gathered to greet the French president, denounce the government and plead with Macron to send aid directly to NGOs such as the Lebanese Red Cross rather than through politicians, who they believe are corrupt. Protests in downtown Beirut saw demonstrators clash with security forces while calling on the government to resign.
The ammonium nitrate arrived in Beirut in 2013 on board a Moldavan-flagged cargo ship which made an unscheduled stop because of technical problems. The head of the port customs later pleaded with a “judge of urgent matters” to re-export or sell the explosive substance, according to Associated Press (AP), but the pleas fell on deaf ears.
As far as many Lebanese are concerned, the chain of administrative mistakes which led to such volatile material being stored improperly within 100 metres of residential buildings is emblematic of the government’s failings. Moreover, a report by France24 said that locals have taken to the streets voluntarily in their hundreds carrying brooms and dustpans in a community driven effort to clear debris. The authorities and officials have been noticeable by their absence.
Lebanon has received four field hospitals from Qatar, Iran and Jordan on Wednesday, in addition to urgent medical assistance to help deal with the aftermath of the Port of Beirut explosion, Anadolu Agency reported.
According to Anadolu Agency, Qatar sent two field hospitals with a capacity of 500 beds for each, as well as Iraq and Jordan sending one field hospital each.
An Amiri Air Force aircraft carrying two field hospitals and other medical supplies reached the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut arriving from Qatar on Wednesday. Additionally, upon the instruction of King Abdullah, a field hospital including all medical supplies and necessary personnel arrived in Lebanon to provide medical aid.
Meanwhile, Lebanese mass media reported that the country has received oil supplies to continue until the country recovers from the tragedy.
The Iraqi oil minister informed Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab that Baghdad will provide fuel assistance to Beirut, according to a statement issued by the Lebanese government.
Lebanese media also reported that shipments of wheat will arrive on Friday from Iraq after the blast left the Lebanese capital with wheat shortages, according to Al Jazeera.
Local Lebanese media indicated that France has also sent assistance to Lebanon, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri that his country would dispatch urgent assistance to Lebanon.
Lebanon is currently suffering severe economic and political crises, and it is feared that it would never recover from the consequences of the explosion without international support.
History
French Colonialism
Commander of the French Army in the Levant, General Henri Gouraud attending the Proclamation of the state of Greater Lebanon in Beirut, along with Grand Mufti of Beirut Sheikh Mustafa Naja, and on his right is the Maronite Patriarch Elias Peter Hoayek; September 1920.
Initially during World War II, Lebanon was administered by Vichy France, however, by 1942, the territory came under Free France. In August of that same year, General De Gaulle returned to Lebanon to meet with the occupying British forces who entered the territory to prevent German advances into the levant. In March 1943, using the 1932 census, France distributed seats in the Lebanese parliament on a ratio of six-to-five in favor of Christians. This was later extended to other public offices. The president was to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shia Muslim. In January 1944, France agreed to transfer power to the Lebanese government, thus granting the territory independence.
French legionnaires on guard during the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut; 1982.
After 1990, France continued to give Lebanon a modest military assistance. Since the end of the Lebanese civil war, relations between both nations have improved and strengthened. With regards to policy of cooperation and development between both nations, there are five main objectives: the consolidation of the rule of law, economic and social development, protection of the environment and heritage, university cooperation and research, cultural exchanges and the debate of ideas. There have been numerous high-level visits between leaders of both nations. After the Cedar Revolution in 2005, Syria withdrew its troops from the country. In April 2009, French and Lebanese officials approved the framework of a security agreement that besides improving bilateral relations include drugs and arms trafficking, illegal immigration and cyber-crime.
On 4 November 2017, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned in a televised statement from Saudi Arabia, citing Iran’s and Hezbollah’s political over-extension in the Middle East region and fears of assassination.Later that month, with the intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron, Hariri was allowed to leave Saudi Arabia (where he also holds citizenship) and travelled to Paris. On 5 December 2017, Hariri rescinded his resignation and stated:
All (the government’s) political components decided to dissociate themselves from all conflicts, disputes, wars or the internal affairs of brother Arab countries, in order to preserve Lebanon’s economic and political relations.
French President Emmanuel Macron intervention was in aims in part to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and Iran to desist from interference in Lebanon.
The oppression in Xinjiang is a test as to whether nations actually adhere to the principle of Responsibility to Protect.
By Pierfilippo M. Natta August 08, 2020 – The Diplomat
In recent weeks, attention pivoted toward the so-called “voluntary education and training” camps located in China’s Xinjiang region. World governments have raised restrained concerns over the treatment of China’s minority Uyghur population since 2019. While sanctioning government officials and measures that limit trade are effective means to economically impact China, far more substantial action is needed to alter Beijing’s calculus and end its most egregious human rights violations.
The United States has led efforts to condemn the Chinese treatment of Uyghurs by enacting legislation and policy specifically tailored to Xinjiang. In January 2020, the U.S Department of Homeland Security issued a formal strategy to halt the importation of goods suspected to be produced with forced labor and the United States is the only country that imposes civil and criminal penalties linked to the importation of such goods. In June 2020, President Donald Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 into law, which imposes sanctions on foreign individuals and entities who engage in human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. Even U.S. mega-corporations such as Coca-Cola and Nike were called out in a report issued by the Congressional-Executive Committee Commission of China, where they were “suspected of directly employing forced labor or sourcing from suppliers that are suspected of using forced labor.”
In July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated, “the United States will not stand idly by as the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] carries out human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang.” Pompeo proceeded to place visa restrictions on three CCP officials, pursuant to Executive Order 13818, “Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption,” which was enacted in December 2017.
These U.S. actions may appear strong on their surface, but they fail to alter Beijing’s political calculation. Following Pompeo’s issuance of visa restrictions, new videos emerged identifying Uyghur citizens forced to produce face masks and medical supplies in what appears to be forced labor conditions as defined by international law. This demonstrates that China places a greater importance on the perceived political threat of its minority populations in far-flung regions than the economic consequences of systematic human rights abuses.
The days where President Bill Clinton ordered a NATO intervention in a sovereign state to stop mass atrocities are long gone. The outcomes of subsequent and comparatively unilateral U.S. interventions have proved dismal. President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011 left the country deeply unstable, and while the United States’ intervention in Syria weakened the Islamic State, a long-term solution to the conflict escapes all parties. However in this case, the goal of U.S. action would be alter Beijing’s calculation through holding a mirror to its actions on the international stage. The international community has time to prepare coordination efforts before engaging with the Chinese government. Will shaming the government in the international arena lead to change? Or will a permanent coalition set up by the international community need to be established to ensure that the Chinese government addresses all violations over an extended period of time?
The current response of the United States appears to be a mere extension of its trade war with China. However, real U.S. leadership on the Xinjiang issue requires the formation of a coalition of countries. In the early 1990s the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) emerged in international law following the atrocities in Rwanda and the Balkans. This eventually led to the 2005 World Summit outcome adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Heads of state affirmed that there was a “Responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.” They further agreed to be “prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, […] should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from […] ethnic cleansing.”
In Xinjiang, the Chinese government has systematically destroyed neighborhoods and sites that are important to the native Uyghur population. Since 2014, the Chinese government has used terrorism to justify their erasure of Uyghur culture and named this effort the “Strike Hard against Violent Terrorism Campaign.” This campaign transformed the Xinjiang region into a forced labor production supply chain. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted that “more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.”
The United States should provide evidence of Chinese ethnic cleansing to other nations and request that they join forces to invoke the principle of R2P. This would require the Trump administration to set aside its ambivalence toward international law and multilateralism, decouple the Uyghur issue from its broader trade war, and focus on using political means to motivate Beijing to alter its behavior.
A pragmatic suggestion was proposed on July 28 by France’s foreign minister, Jean Yves Le Drain. He called for a U.N.-led observer mission headed by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to assess the Uyghur situation in Xinjiang. This is the first case in which a Western democracy proposed any form of intervention within Chinese borders.
The U.N. has launched a number of country visits as part of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Right’s mandate. A special rapporteur generally leads the mission and brings a team of experts with them. A strict agenda is maintained and shared with the receiving government, who in turn should facilitate the mission by granting access to the areas, which are often difficult to reach. The report produced by the Special Rapporteur is then presented to the Human Rights Council. In this case however, it would be best to present the report to the General Assembly as it would call for publicly shaming a nation that is committing serious human rights violations and is part of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
What next? The U.N. mission would undoubtedly find convincing evidence that there are signs of widespread, systematic human rights violations linked to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity as reported by Adrien Zenz. Such a scenario would warrant the Western world issuing an ultimatum to China. Although a situation as the one highlighted would be difficult to achieve given that China holds veto power within the Security Council, this may be the first time in history where we see the international community adopt new measures against a permanent member. This is the international community’s chance to set reverse the precedent of inaction that it set during Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The devastating explosion in Beirut reminds us how vulnerable Southeast Asian ports might be.
By Christian Bueger and Scott Edwards August 07, 2020
Beirut aftermath
The explosion that has devastated Beirut should serve as a timely reminder that Asian ports are also vulnerable to the neglect of hazardous materials. Safely handling chemicals and other material, such as the fertilizer that caused the Beirut disaster, is a key challenge in the region. This is made more difficult as often hazardous materials are abandoned in Asian ports and are not controlled, as they come from illicit sources. Efforts to address this are not yet sufficient.
As of this writing, at least 154 people have been confirmed dead and a further 5,000 have been wounded following the explosion in the Port of Beirut on August 4. The fallout will go beyond the loss of life, as the explosion has also crippled Lebanon’s major port, with further economic woes on the horizon.
While the actual cause of the fire remains uncertain, the dramatic explosion appears to have been fueled by 2,750 tons of the highly reactive chemical ammonium nitrate. The chemical ended up stored in the port after it was unloaded from a ship, the MV Rhosus, in 2013. The ship had been stopped in the port due to technical issues and a lack of seaworthiness. Once the ship and cargo owner abandoned it, the hazardous ammonium nitrate lay neglected for seven years within Beirut’s port, awaiting disposal until the disastrous explosion.
The consequences are extremely tragic for Lebanon, and they should be taken as a warning for Southeast Asian states. Their ports also need to re-focus on the management of hazardous materials – especially waste, which poses even greater complexities than the licit ammonium nitrate in Beirut.
Southeast Asia’s Hazardous Material Problem
110 abandoned ‘in-transtit’ containers “electric arc furnace” (EAF) dust originating from Romania were discovered at PTP
Southeast Asian ports handle hazardous materials daily. Industrial chemicals, such as fertilizers, are heavily regulated and often well controlled. Yet many hazardous materials reach Asia through the global waste trade.
Illicit and toxic waste presents a particular risk, as it is clandestine and therefore more difficult to regulate and control than the ammonium nitrate that proved so damaging to Beirut. From plastics to toxic metals, household waste to e-waste, every year the region’s national papers report dozens of cases in which hazardous materials are found abandoned. With waste sitting in containers in the ports of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, it takes often months, if not years, to detect these potentially dangerous goods.
In July this year, Malaysian authorities found 110 containers of hazardous heavy metal abandoned at the Tanjung Pelepas port. Even now, 1,864 tonnes of electric arc furnace dust containing heavy metals like zinc, cadmium, and lead continue to sit in the port while Malaysia tries to arrange its repatriation to Romania and enlists the help of Interpol for further investigations.
On 20.Jan/20 150 containers were returned back to 43 from France, 42 to UK, 17 USA, 11 to Canada, 10 to Spain, and the remaining Jepun, Singapura, Portugal, China, Bangladesh dan Sri Lanka
The illicit waste trade is a global problem and Western countries are often the source. Waste is shipped to destinations in Asia since the prices to treat or dispose them are a lower. There are also more opportunities to abandon such illicit freight in ports.
In a way, this is more difficult to solve than licit hazardous materials. As Beirut shows us, even when the owner, signatories, and creditors that claim ownership of the cargo are known, it can be extremely difficult to repatriate materials if they feel no obligation to take it.
This is more difficult in the case of illicit hazardous material, as the use of fraudulent papers, brokerages, flags of convenience, and shell companies make it impossible to track down the original owner. Its return to the origin country then requires diplomatic efforts, something that is often beyond the agencies operating in the port and maritime sector.
The Dangers
Many of these materials do not pose the same risk that the explosive ammonia nitrate in the port of Beirut did. But various hazardous materials entail other insidious dangers.
If laying abandoned and undetected, containers of waste can leak and poison ground and surface water and threaten public health. While many ports, such as the above-mentioned Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, are a safe distance from population centers, some of Southeast Aisa’s largest ports border massive residential areas.
Tanjung Priok, Indonesia’s largest port, is in North Jakarta, with a population of just under a million and a half people. The Philippines’ Port of Manila is also close to residential areas serving just under 2 million people. Their health and lives are directly at risk from hazardous materials if not managed correctly.
When leaving the port and disposed of, such waste can still cause massive problems. E-waste, as seen in Vietnam or Thailand, can be highly dangerous for the workers who dismantle it for precious materials without the required safety equipment. The leftovers are often discarded in environmentally unfriendly ways.
Plastic waste is often treated informally and dumped in inappropriate sites. Indonesia’s evolving plastic crisis is a case in point. 270 to 590 thousand tons of plastics end up in Indonesian seas annually as it is dumped in rivers and coastal waters. This is destroying ecosystems and also the livelihoods of coastal communities.
Capacity Building
To stop the illegal waste trade, ports are the first line of defense. Authorities need to be well-equipped in the interception, management, and repatriation of hazardous materials before they have a chance to cause significant damage. Recent discoveries of hazardous materials such as illegal waste, as well as its repatriation, demonstrate that this challenge is being taken more seriously.
With claims that thousands of containers remain abandoned, however, and the continuing flow of illicit materials, much more needs to be done.
Hazardous materials pose a particular problem as their detection and handling require highly specialized skills and training. Customs and police in particular often lack such expertise. They mainly focus on other forms of criminality and goods, in particular narcotics. The sheer amount of containers being transported through ports daily makes detection of illicit hazards an exorbitantly difficult task.
In other cases, the control and inspection of waste and hazardous materials are delegated to environmental agencies. These often find themselves under-resourced or lack authority. Gaps in inter-agency coordination prevent them from working with their better-resourced counterparts effectively. In Beirut, port authorities could not get the required permits to dispose of the hazardous material, which demonstrates the importance of working with other agencies and authorities beyond the port in order to handle hazardous material safely.
Capacity building is key to strengthen enforcement against this issue. As China has demonstrated with its Operations Green Fence in 2013 and Blue Sky in 2018, a strong focus on the issue, greater degrees of coordination between agencies, and deepening international cooperation can lead to massive seizures and interceptions, providing a strong deterrent effect.
Southeast Asian ports have not fully developed the capacity to follow this example. Without capacity building and a stronger focus from governments, it is unlikely that they will be able to.
Southeast Asian ports are not only vulnerable, but they face similar challenges to the ones that led up to the Beirut disaster. Undetected hazardous materials accelerate the problem. While a tragedy similar to Beirut is unlikely, tackling the risks and handling daily management is key to prevention.
MNA – The Secretariat of World Assembly of Islamic Awakening (WAIA) issued a statement, calling the reopening of Hagia Sophia Mosque in Turkey after 86 years as a courageous step taken in return of Islamic heritage to Islamic World.
The full text of the statement is as follows,
The Crusades coincided with a period in history that many thinkers such as French Gustave Le Bon confess that East is the Cradle of Civilization and coincided with the heyday of Islamic civilization, the Crusades were detrimental to Muslims throughout the world due to lack of culture and Crusaders’ lack of enjoyment of manifestation of civilization.
At the same time, the fertility of the tree of culture and civilization among the Islamic nations caused Europeans to return home with a hand full of knowledge and progress but in the face of, perhaps, the most important consequence of the Crusades was the domination of their soft power over Islamic societies. Their crimes in capturing Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroying mosques and burning relics of Islamic civilization and looting the wealth of Muslim nations, as well as the massacre of tens of thousands of Muslims in a long history of about one hundred and eighty years and in eight periods of invasion of Islamic lands have been a part of this historical disgrace inflicted to the Crusaders.
Despite these crimes and destruction of the vast infrastructure of the Islamic world by the West in the Crusades, Islam not only did not destroy the relics of Western civilization in these wars but also preserved cultural activity by preserving churches and turning them into Islamic places of worship. In general, Islam contributed to cultural interaction and the continuation of human civilization greatly.
The 1,500-year-old Church of Hagia Sophia is a remnant of the Byzantine Empire and one of the architectural symbols of the Eastern Roman period. After the early developments of the Renaissance and the conquest of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) by Sultan Muhammad the Conqueror in 1452, the Hagia Sophia Church was turned into a mosque and place of worship for Muslims while respecting the rights of all Christians in the world and people of the Roman Empire, among whom Islam had gradually been spread.
For five centuries, the Hagia Sophia was one of the most important cultural heritage sites in the Islamic world but the British colonialism, which had been inflicted a severe blow by Muslims in these five centuries, turned place of worship of Muslims into a museum.
According to the divine laws and traditions, the enemies sought to extinguish the divine light which returned to the Muslims with the growth of Islamism and Islamic awakening in the second and third waves and raising awareness and insight.
In the blessed days of the first decade of Dhu al-Jijjah, when pilgrims seek to revive their nature, the Turkish government and especially President of this country Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a courageous and praiseworthy act made up his mind to revive Islamic identity and restore the Islamic heritage to the Islamic World.
While supporting the intelligent action which is a sign of wisdom and confronting the cultural domination of the West, the World Assembly of Islamic Awakening respects the revival f the Muslim entity, preservation of dignity and cultural heritage and cordially requests all Muslims around the world to support and back this wise move taken wholeheartedly.
Ruined mosques expose hypocrisy of Greece, a major critic of Hagia Sophia’s reversion
Sultan Hortac Mosque in Greece Thessaloniki, which is not opened for worship deste its good condition
Even though Greece has criticized Turkey for reopening Istanbul’s historic Hagia Sophia as a mosque, the situation of Ottoman-era monuments in Greece tells a different story, with most of them neglected, ruined or used for other purposes, which completely disregards their history.
Some mosques were converted into churches through renovations, while others were used as bars or movie theaters for “adult” films.
It is estimated that there are over 10,000 artifacts and monuments from Turkish-Islamic architecture in Greece.
While intense criticism was made by Greece over the opening of the Hagia Sophia for worship, the situation of Turkish-Islamic structures in the country merits attention.
On Friday, Turkey’s Council of State annulled a 1934 Cabinet decree that had turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, paving the way for its use again as a mosque after an 85-year hiatus. Before that, it had been a mosque for nearly 500 years.
Built in 1468 in Thessaloniki, Hamza Bey Mosque was used as a place of worship for a while after Greece gained its independence. In the following years, the minaret of the mosque, made of cut stone, was destroyed, the pencil works on the dome and the writing plates were removed, and the interlocking wooden pulpit inside was destroyed.
The mosque, owned by the National Bank of Greece in 1927, was later sold privately, divided into a shop and a cinema and used for showing adult movies until the 1980s.
The Faik Pasha Mosque in the city of Narda (Arta) in the Ioannina region was turned into a church after the population exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923. It is known that the mosque, which was later abandoned, was used as a bar-pavilion in the 1970s. The mosque, which seems to have been built as the center of a complex in the 15th century, is now in ruins.
On the other hand, mosques and historical buildings in many important cities, including the capital Athens, Ioannina, Giannitsa, Crete, Larisa and Kavala, continue to share the same fate.
In Athens, where there is no official mosque open for worship, the oldest mosque, Fethiye Mosque, was used for many different purposes such as a military prison and warehouse after the end of the Ottoman administration in the city.
The Fethiye Mosque is a 17th-century Ottoman mosque in Plaka, in the historical center of Athens. It is located on the northern side of the ancient Roman Agora near the Tower of the Winds
The mosque, located in the Roman Agora on the outskirts of the city’s Acropolis within the archaeological area, is believed to have been built during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II and was used as a storehouse for historical artifacts until 2010. Fethiye Mosque is now used as an exhibition hall since the restoration works ended in 2017.
The Cizderiye Mosque, located a few hundred meters from the Fethiye Mosque, is in Monastiraki Square, one of the touristic places of the city. The mosque is kept closed for most of the year, serving as a ceramics museum for visitors from time to time.
There are no traces of buildings such as the Yeni (New) Mosque, Domed Mosque, İç Kale Mosque, Hüseyin Efendi Dervish Lodge and Hacı Ali Bath, which are among the Turkish-Islamic works in Athens and registered in the Ottoman archives as well as yearbooks.
Spain’s mosques used as churches
A similar situation has also occurred in Spain, a country with a rich Islamic heritage due to the rule of Muslims between 8th and 11th centuries, known as Al-Andalus.
Especially the Mosque of Cordoba, also known as The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, which is one of the most important Islamic heritages in the world, is currently being used as a monument while the cathedral part has the right to hold church services on certain days.
The mosque was built between the years of 786-933 by the Umayyad Caliphate. Once the biggest mosque in the world, the building was converted into a church and then a cathedral in the 13th century when Christians once again established their rule over the region. Over time, the mosque suffered significant damage with a major part of its minaret broken down and turned into a bell tower. Listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984, the structure was rebranded as the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba and started to be used as a touristic spot with monumental status, while the cathedral part is still being used for church services from time to time.
Although the Muslim community in Spain has expressed demands to reopen the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba for Muslim worship as well, these demands remained unanswered.
Another Islamic heritage site in Spain that was taken away from the Muslims for worship was a mosque in Alhambra Palace in Granada, one of the most visited historic sites in the country. Built in 1308, the mosque was converted into a church in 1492 and is still open to worship for Catholic Christians to this day.
Masjid al-Murabitin, one of the oldest mosques in the country located in Granada, was also damaged heavily in the 16th century and eventually reconstructed as a church named Alminar de San Jose. The minaret of the mosque was also turned into a bell tower during its reconstruction.
Catedral de Sevilla, aka the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, located in the Seville province, which is known as the biggest cathedral in the world, also hosts the ruins of Almohad Mosque, which was built in 1182 but destroyed in 1433 when the region was recaptured by the Christians.
Bab Mardum Mosque, also known as the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz, which was built in Toledo in 999, was also converted into a church in 1085 and currently is being used as a touristic monument.
(ARAB NEWS is a Saudi Arabia based news portal. So their post are to be taken with an open mind and some of your own research. Notto forget that KSA sold out the Palestine cause and the 3rd Holy Mosque – Al-Aqsa)
Pilgrims gather at the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Makkah, July, 1889
The most important issue that Turkish historian Zakaria Qurshon falsely believed to be important to his historical discourse in his recent series of articles was the issue of the Two Holy Mosques and the Ottomans’ service of them. As usual for the Turks and the historians who follow their path, it revolves around a positive view of the rule of the Ottomans over the Two Holy Mosques, despite the Ottomans’ shameful historical issues in the Hijaz in general. Some historians have struggled to conceal such issues and they have not been able to obliterate the historical sources that discussed them.
I think that the biggest problem of the Turkish historians lies in what was mentioned in the sources, more than their problem with the Arabs themselves, because these sources cannot hide the frank topics that condemn the Ottomans and their rule of the Hijaz.
Qurshon’s suggestion regarding the Two Holy Mosques is based on the fact that the Ottoman sultans had the title of “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.” However, they were not the first to have that title; rather, Saladin (Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi) preceded them by claiming the title for himself.
Masjid Nabawi , Madinah al Munawarah.
The discussion of this issue comes in the context of the attempt to undermine the Saudi service to the Two Holy Mosques and its successive accomplishments, which have become a source of confusion for the Turks. This presupposes a comparison between the two authorities in their service and, naturally, the comparison is decisive because the Saudis carry out their mission from three noble premises, the first of which is the pure Islamic law that prompts service to the holy places in the Two Holy Mosques. The second noble premise is to serve the Islamic world and all Muslims all over the world. The third is to consider the Two Holy Mosques as important national parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
On the contrary, the Ottoman Empire served the two sanctuaries with the sole aim of using them for political propaganda, based on which it imposed its authority over a large part of the Islamic world and sought to give its authority a sacred character. However, those who want historical proof should envision how most of the Arab world — including the Arabian Peninsula — was suffering from political and economic neglect. The Arabian Gulf was left to European colonial ambitions, while Andalusia cried out to the Ottomans without serious moves from the Ottoman state to protect it. While these events were taking place during different historical periods, the Ottoman Empire sought to achieve its policies in Europe and formulate its diplomacy in France and elsewhere, without seriously dealing with the advancement of the places it claimed to control and protect.
Therefore, the Arab peoples, including the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, were well aware of the reality of the Ottoman Turks and their crimes in the depletion of their homelands. Therefore, the people of the Arabian Peninsula stood against the Ottoman project and rejected solutions that imposed Ottoman domination by supporting the national legitimacy represented by the imams of the Saudi state — including at the end of the era of the first Saudi state, in the period between the first and second states, and later during the era of the second Saudi state and the era of King Abdulaziz. Even when the Ottomans tried to achieve their project through letting a member of the ruling family of the second Saudi state rule the country in their name, they failed because the population did not comply with them or their representatives, and their colonial projects failed one by one.
Omar Fahreddin Pasha and Arab Sheikhs, The Defender of #Medina (#Medine Müdafii Fahreddin Paşa)
To further stress the fact that the Ottomans did not serve the Two Holy Mosques in a manner that implied a strong desire to serve the Islamic religion, it is notable that none of their sultans visited the mosques or performed Hajj. The service of the Two Holy Mosques requires the care of the ruler, who should visit them to find out the quality of services offered, as he is directly responsible for them.
To realize that a political view dominated the Ottomans’ outlook toward their control of the Two Holy Mosques, we should recognize that they did not deal with the first Saudi state, which they sought to undermine, except when it included the Two Holy Mosques. Qurshon himself demonstrated that the Ottomans only moved against the first Saudi state after its annexation of Makkah. He says: “The Ottoman Empire was outraged by their (the first Saudi state) seizure of Makkah, and they (the Ottomans) immediately took the initiative to inform the governors neighboring the region of what had happened and sent them strict orders to move and take the necessary measures.”
It is worth noting that the Ottomans sought to collaborate with foreign powers, including Britain, to topple the first Saudi state. This is evidenced by the visit of the British Capt. George Foster Sadleir to the camp of Ibrahim Pasha in 1819 to congratulate him on the ouster of the Saudi state and discuss with him the mobilization of local and regional powers to carry out a joint Ottoman-British attack on the last loyalists of the first Saudi state in Ras Al-Khaimah and Sharjah. Sadleir wanted to take advantage of the Ottomans’ services and coordinate with them.
The Ottomans’ hatred for the Saudis had reached its peak, as Harford Jones-Brydges explained: “This is how the government established by the people who turned from weakness to strength and caused panic for the Turkish pashas in Asia and their authority in Constantinople ended. The Wahhabis also were deceived by the extent of their true strength and imagined that they could challenge the British government.” This proves that Britain stood with the Ottomans to topple the first Saudi state.
As for the title of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, which Selim I claimed, it is amusing to say with pride that he was the first to hold it, while at the same time adding: “After Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi.” How could he say that Selim I was the “first one” to hold the title? Anyone can boast of being the first after the one before him. Most importantly, serving the Two Holy Mosques is not about titles and precedence, but actions and historical evidence.
The Ottomans provided some services to the Two Holy Mosques, but this was not done perfectly, as Qurshon described. Selim I declared himself a servant of the Two Holy Mosques in 1516, before he defeated the Mamluks and announced that his goal was to capture the Two Holy Mosques.
What Qurshon overlooks on the subject of the Ottoman seizing of the Hijaz is that Selim I intended to launch a military campaign to achieve this, contrary to Qurshon’s claim that the Sharif of Makkah voluntarily sent his son. Al-Sanjari reported in “Manayih Alkaram” that Selim I would have sent his army had it not been for a group of people from the Hijaz, who were in Egypt after the overthrow of the Mamluks. They advised him to write to the Sharif and ask him to send his son to Selim and declare loyalty.
When the Ottomans seized the Hijaz, they only established a directorate in Jeddah to monitor Makkah, which remained under the self-rule of the Ashraf (descendants of Hasan ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson). The interests of the Ottomans in the Two Holy Mosques were within the framework of propaganda, through some material aid, and establishing the sultanate’s official sect by reconstructing the shrine of the Hanafi school in the Grand Mosque of Makkah.
Nine years after their seizure of the Hijaz, in the year 1525, the Ottomans violated the Grand Mosque. Ibn Fahd described the incident by saying: “They committed outrageous acts in Makkah. They attacked people’s homes and kicked them out with their women, seized and destroyed their belongings. People called for help but did (not) find anyone to help them except God Almighty. They (the Ottomans) did a lot of harm, sexually harassed women openly and took food from the market cheaply, and some of them paid nothing.”
What sort of service starts with repression? After that, many events took place in which the Ottomans violated the sanctities, as detailed in historical sources. Moreover, what the Ottomans and their historians claim regarding the development of the Two Holy Mosques was carried out with the desire and insistence of the Ashraf. Restoration and construction were carried out within the strictest limits and — especially in the 10th century AH — with great caution, since the Ottomans’ Sufi extremists looked at the construction works from an unrealistic viewpoint, insisting that the honorable structure be preserved and that there was no need to tamper with the sites by way of construction or maintenance. Therefore, any construction work, maintenance or urban development was carried out within minimal limits and after many deliberations, meetings and conflicts between different currents.
Accordingly, the Turkish rant about serving the Two Holy Mosques and the Ottomans’ provision of assistance are full of disadvantages and calamities, and cannot be compared to the level of service of the Two Holy Mosques in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is not to mention the violations of the sanctity of the two mosques during many historical events, such as by Fakhri Pasha in Madinah during Seferberlik (Ottoman mobilization), when he expelled its inhabitants and imprisoned about 170 of its scholars and leaders. He expelled them to the Levant and Anatolia and they became like prisoners during the First World War, suffering forced alienation, displacement and distress. He did not care about the tragic fate of the inhabitants of Madinah, who were arrested by his soldiers in the streets without taking into account whether they were a woman, child, incapacitated, or the head of a family. The tragedies described by the people of Madinah are numerous and cannot be forgotten in the history of Fakhri Pasha and the Ottomans.
Every time Fakhri Pasha preached in the Prophet’s Mosque, he cursed and insulted the Arabs, accusing them of treason. He packed the Prophet’s chamber, the Prophet’s tomb and the grounds of the Prophet’s Mosque with explosives when he was surrounded during the Siege of Madinah and threatened to blow up the area. Before that, he stole the contents of the Prophet’s chamber and, because of his tyranny, Madinah reached the extent of famine and people were forced to eat cats and dead bodies.
The final days of the Ottomans witnessed the most aggressive attack on the Grand Mosque in Makkah in the modern era. When the revolution of Sharif Hussein bin Ali was announced in 1916, the Ottoman garrison trained its artillery on the Grand Mosque from Ajyad Fortress. Their artillery shells hit the Kaaba above the Black Stone, set fire to the Kiswah (the cloth that covers the Kaaba), and hit the corridors of the mosque.
Indeed, if we review the Ottoman control of the Two Holy Mosques, we will find a lot that contradicts what is reported in many books, researches and studies that maximize the Ottoman services. In fact, they did not respect the sanctity of the mosques and they did not hesitate to carry out forbidden acts and violate the holy places. In what we have covered above, there are enough examples to contradict the claims of the Ottomans and their supporters, while a historical review would reveal even more Ottoman calamities concerning the Two Holy Mosques.
In Makkah alone — not to mention Madinah — the Ottomans did more than Abraha Al-Habashi before Islam, when he and his army attacked the Kaaba. They did more than Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf did when he bombarded the Kaaba using catapults. And they behaved like the Qarmatians when they took pieces of the Black Stone during the era of Suleiman the Magnificent.
The Ottoman Empire served the two sanctuaries with the sole aim of using them for political propaganda.
Prof. Taka Al-Torifi
Therefore, I hope that Qurshon reads history well. He should not content himself with what is written in the official Ottoman papers, since boasting about them does not reflect historical reality. Their documents and writings represent the official viewpoint, not historical reality, and they describe the history they want to show, not the history they want to hide.
What Qurshon and others are doing is attempting to spread a history that has been contaminated by calling on old heritage, producing a political force according to an ideology that dispels part of the natural system. They want to live according to an aristocracy that distinguishes the Turks from other peoples, including the Arabs, and to return to living without work, as the Ottomans did by relying on the wealth of others.
Prof. Taka Al-Torifi is a Saudi academic and media specialist.
Hindutva is a form of Hindu nationalism that proposes an India where the native religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism only – Islam and Christianity are seen as foreign and alien to India.
Hindutva was popularised as an ideological term by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and championed by Hindu nationalist organisations such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), and other Hindu nationalist parties and organisations collectively called the Sangh Parivar. This religious supremacy of Hindutva has led to innately discriminatory policies and attitudes towards people of various faiths.
However, Savarkar himself saw Muslims as a particular threat, given that their internationalist outlook was at odds with his national idealism. This is a trend that has shaped the way Indian Muslims have been made to prove their loyalty to a country that constantly views them as irredeemable.
Since Narendra Modi came to power, there has been an explosion of anti-Muslim violence. “Cow-vigilante” gangs have lynched traders indiscriminately, and a raft of legislation has targeted the Indian Muslim population specifically.
There are many in India who have fought for a “secular” India where everyone has religious equality. Even before the departure of the British Raj, many Muslims allied themselves with Gandhi towards a vision where religious plurality would be respected.
However, the Islamophobia, xenophobia, and neo-Nazi politics of Hindutva has meant that Hindu fanaticism in mainland India and Kashmir has stayed alive and kicking well after partition.[1] Whether it is the subjugation of Kashmir, the Gujarat riots, or the more recent Citizenship Amendment Act aiming to make Muslims stateless and devoid of any rights, the BJP, RSS, and other Hindutva-aligned organisations have played centre stage.
And the problem is widening to the global stage.
Copycat Zionism
Since his second term as Prime Minister, Modi has pushed to bring Israel, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, closer to India. In 2018, Netanyahu visited India as a guest of the state, one year after Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel.
Narendra Modi’s victory speech delivers visions of a Hindu nationalist ascetic
On that six-day visit with a 130-member business delegation, the two leaders signed a deal to cooperate on cyber-defence, security, and science.[2] And just like in Israel, Modi made the same political proclamations of how both countries struggle against the threat of terrorism. The usual Islamophobic trope was made all the more ironic given both leaders have a history of genocidal acts on Muslims.
India has been reluctant to endorse Israel to this level in the past as it is dependent on oil from the Arab states. However, political attitudes from the Gulf have given a big window for Modi and Netanyahu to embrace their ideological counterpart.
Over the same period, we have seen Hindu nationalists use copycat Zionism methods to push their agenda. Whether it is revoking Article 370 and enabling settler colonialism in Kashmir, or the construction of a global movement to politically support their nationalist ideology, or rendering criticism of Hindutva followers as “Hinduphobia”, it is crystal clear that the Hindutva movement is copying and pasting the Zionism model, hoping for equal levels of success.
Same Problem, Different Beast
Almost everyone who lives in Israel is invested in the concept of Zionism on some level, whether as a one-state or two-state solution. But the situation is not the same in India. Not everyone who lives in India is invested in the Hindutva ideology. Large masses of Indian Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus are diametrically opposed to the ideals and ambitions of the BJP, seeing them as a threat to not only their vision for India but also their own lives and futures.
Although there was an escalation of tension and violence in the Partition of India, the creation of modern India (unlike Zionism) did not fundamentally come from the idea that one people is superior to another.
These two realities need to be factored into the strategy we as Western Muslims take. With Israel, the focus is Zionism and its product: Israel – a racist apartheid state. Similarly, the focus should be Hindutva, which is wrestling for the future of India. Hindutva has not created India in its own image. Therefore, India itself is not a problem – at least not yet. We need to focus on their current manifestations, largely, the BJP and their paramilitary wing, the RSS.
In addition, if there was a push for an India-wide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, it could harm innocent people who are not inherently part of the problem. Such a movement would probably not do much damage to the richest who have invested into Modi’s politics. Instead, the point of a BDS movement would be to divest from the BJP political and social system itself, rendering it unprofitable and unworkable. With this focus, we are far more likely to target those who are responsible for the recent surge of Hindutva politics and avoid impacting innocent parties.
Similarly, if we as Western Muslims respond to this as an Indian or Hindu problem, it can cause a Muslim-Hindu division on this side of the world that the BJP will thrive on, and so will other nationalist parties in the West.
But if we can unite and focus on those that profit from the division and suffering, we can reverse the tide that will make us all invariably the losers.
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK) and the volunteers we are working with are already mapping out the connections between multinationals and Hindutva entities.
For example, OpIndia is a well-known US propaganda platform for Hindutva that aims to influence the dialogue of how Hindutva (especially the BJP) are perceived in the West. OpIndia also creates fake news stories of Muslims and anti-CAA activists in India, which has consistently led to such activists being arrested by Indian police. The latest example was Shajeel Usmani, but there have been many more before him. OpIndia is so infamous that Wikipedia has banned them as a source of reliable news.[3]
OpIndia is owned by Aadhyaasi Media, which was acquired in October 2016 by Kovai Media Private Limited, which also owns the right-wing magazine Swarajya.[4] The two most prominent investors of Kovai Media were T. V. Mohandas Pai, a former director of Indian tech multinational giant Infosys, and Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the same multinational. Both Pai and Murthy also have a 3% and 2% stake in Kovai Media, respectively. Interestingly, Murthy is also the father-in-law of Rishi Sunak, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In January 2019, Aadhyaasi Media was acquired by Kaut Concepts Management Pvt Ltd with a 98% ownership. Kaut Concepts also has a 26% stake in TFI Media Pvt Ltd, the operator of TFIpost, a Hindu nationalist website also known as The Frustrated Indian. Kaut Concepts is directed by Ashok Kumar Gupta, who is associated with the RSS and campaigns for the BJP.
Renault famously divested from Republic Bharat TV after a consumer-led campaign. However, other brands are known to advertise with the channel, such as Microsoft, Nissan, Yes Bank, Jio Digital Life (a subsidiary of Indian multinational, Reliance) and others. There is already a precedent for a successful campaign on this front – we just need to make it mainstream and global.
BDS is not just about making sure your money does not go towards certain companies, it also involves making a political brand toxic enough to make it a liability. The BDS movement is all about the public setting of narratives that illustrate the “why” of boycotting and calling for divestment and sanctions.
It is the narrative that causes the real damage. The campaign carries the narrative and makes room for it to be discussed and heard. Boycotts make it easy for everyone to get involved and make noise about the “why”. Whilst nation-states are paralysed into taking stronger action, we need mechanisms for the masses to organise towards effective action. The right BDS campaign can do just that with the right collaboration.
Truly a Global Problem
With the South Asian diaspora now present in many places around the world, the politics is centred in India and will continue to have an impact on those diaspora communities.
We have seen how Hindu nationalists have mobilised to support other nationalist and racist political parties, such as the Tories in the UK and Donald Trump in the US. This is not only a threat to the people of India, but a threat to us all. These parties have a vested interest in the rising trend of far-right politics and on the collective ethno-nationalist worldview on which they unite and collaborate.
The more successful this political trend, the more the investment from people, businesses, and nation-states. It will increasingly become the new normal of our global reality.
Likewise, the more unsuccessful far-right nationalism is, the less this worldview will be adopted by the world, becoming less tolerant and more likely to challenge other forms of nationalism such as Zionism and white nationalism. In this fight for the future, the BDS movement is a means with which sympathetic people can impact the politics that are so far away from them but that still affect their reality intimately, whilst supporting those on the ground who are increasingly becoming subjugated and oppressed beyond sympathy and prayer.
There are other BJP affiliated companies and bodies other than OpIndia and Republic Bharat who are supported by big money. Infosys, Reliance, Nissan and Microsoft et al are just the tip of the iceberg. MPACUK and our partners will continue to research and map out their network. If you want to volunteer and help out or just reach out and collaborate, click here. We will be in touch. Stay tuned to islam21c for updates and announcements.
Herzl seen traveling to Palestine, 1898. (Central Zionist Archives)
In late June, The Forward published an article by Moshe Daniel Levine under the headline “Zionism Is the Jewish Black Lives Matter.” In the article, Levine, the senior Jewish educator at Orange County Hillel, calls on Jews to support the Black Lives Matter movement as an extension of their Zionism. According to him, Jews traditionally preached a universal message that “all lives matter,” until Theodor Herzl — the so-called founding father of Zionism — realized in the late 19th century that antisemitism would not cease without a state for the Jews.
Zionism is, therefore, Levine writes, “the ultimate claim that Jewish lives matter. Jews have come to the difficult but important realization that we need to occasionally thrust aside universalism in favor of particularism. We understand that while we need to be constantly dedicated to global and universal issues, Jewish-specific education and protection is paramount to our well-being.” What Levine is arguing, in short, is that Jewish support for Black Lives Matter is an imperative, precisely because Jewish support for Zionism is an imperative.
But Zionism has nothing to do with calling on Jews — and rightfully so — to support black lives. I, too, believe we should. The problem is that Levine’s reasoning effectively legitimizes a slew of racist practices that Zionism enabled — practices that devalued the lives of others. Levine is, in other words, whitewashing history.Get Our Weekly NewsletterSign upHundreds of Jews take part in a protest in support of Black Lives Matter, New York City, August 11, 2016. (Gili Getz)
In particular, his description misses out one crucial factor: Herzl’s admiration for colonialism. Today, any association of Herzl and colonialism is likely to raise strong objections from Zionists such as Levine. Yet Herzl’s Zionism was indeed rooted in his wish to imitate the European colonialism of his period.
Herzl’s diary mentions a letter that he sent to Cecil Rhodes in 1902, a British businessman and one of the most famous colonialists of his period. Rhodes was the founder of the De Beers mining company that took control of South Africa‘s diamonds. Work conditions in De Beers’ mines were exploitative and dangerous; some of the work was conducted by unpaid prisoners, while even paid workers were not allowed to leave their compounds. Before founding this company, Rhodes was the owner of the British South Africa Company, which controlled gold mines there and similarly exploited African workers.
In his letter, Herzl writes to Rhodes: “You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”
Apologists for Herzl may well argue that he was a man of his time. Yet colonialism was, in fact, considered controversial even as it was unfolding — not just retroactively, and not just among its victims. In 1901, Mark Twain wrote essays in support of the American Imperialist League, which opposed the American annexation of the Philippines. The following year, famed British economist John A. Hobson published “Imperialism,” which tied together capitalism and colonial expansion — a work that grew out of his critique of Rhodes’ actions in South Africa.Cecil Rhodes (left) and British gold and diamond magnate Alfred Beit.
Herzl’s decision to approach Rhodes was far from coincidental. Levine is correct in suggesting Herzl believed a Jewish state would be the solution to antisemitism in Europe, yet he neglects to mention how Herzl thought this would be achieved. In his 1896 pamphlet “The Jewish State,” Herzl’s plan for the creation of the state hinges on the creation of a “Jewish Company.” To explain how this company would function, Herzl asks:
What is gold-digging like in the Transvaal [area of South Africa] today? Adventurous vagabonds are not there; sedate geologists and engineers alone are on the spot to regulate its gold industry, and to employ ingenious machinery in separating the ore from surrounding rock. Little is left to chance now.
Thus we must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient.
The model for the operation of Herzl’s Jewish Company turns out to have been Rhodes’ British South Africa Company, the major party responsible for gold-digging in the Transvaal region of South Africa — at the expense of Africans and their resources.
The adoption of a colonialist model had other effects. In “The Jewish State,” Herzl explains why the permission of a European power was necessary to allow Jewish immigration and colonization of the territory intended for the state:
[T]wo territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentina. In both countries important experiments in colonization have been made, though on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. An infiltration is bound to end badly. It continues till the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the Government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration.
The “native population” would not be the one to grant the sovereign right to colonize their country. Just as Queen Victoria gave the British South African Company a charter to mine minerals in South Africa in 1889, so did Herzl plan for his initiative to start out “under the protectorate of the European Powers.”
Finally, it is important to point out that the choice of Palestine as a target of colonization wasn’t essential for Herzl’s project. His reasons for considering Palestine (as opposed to Argentina) were that many Jews had already immigrated there; that more Jews would endorse Zionism for religious reasons (“The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency”); and that “we should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”
Under Herzl’s plan, native Palestinians, or whoever happened to live in the territory chosen for colonization, would be forced to forgo their land, just as South African minerals ended up in the hands of Rhodes. Herzl predicted that the natives may “feel threatened” by this arrangement, but put his trust in a European power to resolve the issue.
It is completely possible to claim Black Lives Matter without devaluing the lives of any other group. Yet, unlike what Levine claims, Zionism was never simply about the idea that Jewish Lives Matter: from the beginning, it meant the lives of Jewish colonists would be valued more than the lives of indigenous groups — from Herzl’s time, until today.
Remarks this is another article about Dyatlov Pass mystery that complements my earlier article on this incident. Here is the previous article.
The gruesome, unexplained deaths of 9 Soviet hikers at the Dyatlov Pass in 1959 have inspired countless theories about UFOs and even secret military tests. Now, Russian sleuths have revealed that nature’s wrath killed the group.
Nine graduate students from a local technical university in the Urals region, led by Igor Dyatlov, embarked on their ill-fated hiking trip in February of that year. Being experienced and well-equipped for the journey, they were planning to cover 350km on skis through extremely harsh terrain in the northern Ural Mountains.
It was all going fine initially and many happy photos left by the group attest to this. But the hikers failed to send a signal from their scheduled endpoint, triggering a rescue operation.
When they were finally found it was a shocking and truly puzzling sight. Their tent was discovered on a slope, which locals would later call ‘The Mountain of the Dead.’ It was empty, cut open from the inside by some sharp object. All the students’ belongings, including shoes, had been left there, intact.
The bodies of two of the hikers, dressed only in their underwear, were found lying under a pine tree more than a kilometer away from the tent. Some of the hikers sustained massive internal injuries, skull fractures and chest damage. One woman was found with her eyes, tongue and part of her lips missing.
A probe ordered by the top Soviet agency did not reach any conclusion, merely saying that the students had been killed by “an unknown overwhelming force.”
However, an investigation into the tragedy, one of the greatest mysteries of the Soviet era, which even inspired Hollywood thriller ‘Devil’s Pass’ in 2013, was relaunched last year.
The assumption that an avalanche had caused the death of the nine young hikers in a remote area in the Ural Mountains “has found its full confirmation,” Andrey Kutyakov, the deputy head of Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office branch in the Urals, said, as he announced the results of the new probe.
After the snow slide, the hikers cut their tent open and got outside, retreating towards the nearby stone ridge, which was holding the avalanche off. “It was the right thing to do, but there was another reason why they were already condemned to death,” Kutyakov revealed.
When the students tried to find their tent, they couldn’t see it anymore. “The visibility was around 16 meters, but the tent was 50 meters away.”
The group descended further down the slope and lit a bonfire, before making another fruitless attempt. With no chance of surviving, people eventually froze to death at temperatures of up to minus 45 Celsius.
It was a heroic struggle. There was no panic. But they had no chance to save themselves in those circumstances.
As the true cause of the high-altitude incident remained unknown for decades, countless theories popped up, attempting to explain the tragic events at the Dyatlov Pass. Some said that an alien intervention or some other paranormal activity could’ve been involved; others argued that the hikers were unlucky to walk into a Soviet military testing site. There was also a suggestion that the killing was revenge from shamans for entering a sacred site.
Whether the explanation from the prosecutors will make those theories go away, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, RT’s Ruptly video agency has dedicated a major cross-platform project to the tragedy at the Dyatlov Pass. It thoroughly retraces the group’s journey, using photos taken by the hikers, documents from the official investigation, interviews and contemporaneous footage made at the site, to give every viewer a unique chance at trying to solve the mystery of the deaths.
The children of ISIS supporters are first and foremost a vulnerable group in need of urgent assistance due to their location in a volatile and war-torn region. The urgency of the question of how to manage their cases cannot be overstated, given the current instability in the region and the ongoing threat posed by COVID-19. Left undealt with, the challenge these children present runs a serious risk of developing from an easily solved welfare issue into a potential security and counterterrorism issue. It is in European countries’ short- and long-term interests to take action on the children left behind in region once held by the vanquished “caliphate.” Moreover, it is both ethically and legally a certain and necessary course of action. Under international law, children are the responsibility of their home countries, which need to address their future welfare and rehabilitation prospects.
This report offers perspective on the children and their current plight and suggests immediate action to assist them. First, diplomatic and financial resources need to be invested into developing infrastructure for the remaining populations in the camps until a long-term solution has been determined (healthcare, housing, clothing, food, etc). Such small investments should be seen as the first step to prevent the expenditure of greater resources, such as potential military action, expensive repatriations and incarceration, in the future. Second, the creation of a pan-European investigative body to investigate the actions of ISIS supporters would benefit these children. The body would serve to share information about suspects and would work closely with country-based child protection services to determine the best outcome for the children.
Third, the children of ISIS supporters must receive secular education, as per international law, to ensure that they have a viable future. Religious education must be provided by Muslim led welfare groups to reinforce a positive religious identity (to counter propaganda) and a sense that detainees do not need to renounce their religion in order to move forward with their lives (as per ISIS propaganda). Finally, juvenile rehabilitation facilities already operating in northeastern Syria need resources and expertise from donor states and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These facilities offer a way to immediately reduce the risks to European children while efforts toward longer-term solutions, like repatriation, continue. Several NGOs are already carrying out safeguarding and rehabilitation efforts in neighboring countries, including Iraq and Turkey. International support would vastly increase the facilities’ capacities.
The police killing of George Floyd and the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on communities of colour has focused the world’s attention on structural racism and inequality. Black Lives Matter can no longer be dismissed as a fringe movement – it has become a global rallying cry in the wake of Floyd’s death.
In this unique moment of solidarity and introspection, hundreds of organisations within Washington’s national security community have committed to improving racial diversity in their ranks. And as US rivals seize on anti-racism protests for political gain, some national security experts have highlighted the need to recognise racial injustice at home as a barrier to America’s moral authority on the world stage.
Yet it would be a mistake to limit our critical self-reflection to promoting diversity and inclusion within the national security workforce: we must have an open and honest debate about the ways race and racism have influenced America’s foreign policy for centuries, perpetuating racial injustice and inequality abroad in the name of national security.
Of course, the underrepresentation of minorities in the national security community is a serious problem that must be redressed. Despite efforts in recent years to increase diversity, people of colour at the State Department and USAID remain disproportionately represented, especially at senior levels, and are less likely to be promoted than their white counterparts, according to the US Government Accountability Office.
But as important as it is to improve racial equity in public service, these efforts do not automatically translate to fewer wars against predominantly black and brown countries, so long as the connection between race and foreign policy remains largely ignored.
As political scientists Kelebogile Zvobgo and Meredith Loken observe, the role of race is strikingly absent in mainstream international relations scholarship. This is because the major theories of international relations – realism, liberalism, and constructivism – view political events through a Eurocentric perspective that justifies western dominance. After all, the study of international relations, as the late Stanley Hoffman famously said, is an “American social science” whose development roughly coincided with the emergence of the US as a global hegemon.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the paradigmatic work of international relations, mostly written by western white male scholars, ignores the issue of race in foreign policy.
Still, history is replete with examples of how race and racism have influenced America’s role in the world. The racism that permeates our foreign policies today is an extension of the belief in white supremacy that shaped the territorial and ideological boundaries of our nation from its inception.
The United States was built on the backs of black slaves and consolidated through Manifest Destiny-era policies that denied indigenous peoples the right to own and cultivate their own land. This legacy has found expression in America’s interventions abroad, from Theodore Roosevelt’s expansionist doctrine to support for CIA-backed coups across what was then referred to as the ‘third world’ during the Cold War.
For many in the black freedom movement, the struggles for racial justice in the United States and global peace have always been closely intertwined. In his essay, “The Color Line Belts the World,” W.E.B. Du Bois articulates an internationalist vision of racial equality, emphasising that the challenges that black Americans faced at home were “but a local phase of a world problem.”
Expressing solidarity with people of colour worldwide, figures such as Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson explicitly linked race and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. As Hughes muses, perhaps the US waited until after V-E Day to drop the bomb on Japan, a nation of “coloured” people, rather than on the white Germans.
The pernicious effects of racism have also shaped the prosecution of America’s endless wars. African Americans were disproportionately drafted and killed in Vietnam: in 1967, blacks accounted for 16 percent of all draftees and 23 percent of all combat troops, but represented only 11 percent of the civilian population.
Today, African-Americans account for 18 percent of active duty enlisted personnel that are sent into harm’s way – still higher relative to their number in the US population. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, endless war endangers incremental progress on civil rights because the “triple evils” of racism, poverty, and militarism are inextricably linked and must be defeated together.
Dr King’s words ring loudly today. Last year, the US dropped more bombs on Afghanistan than in any previous year since the Pentagon began to keep a record. Although the United Nations has called for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic, the US continues to drop bombs in Iraq, as it has done every year since 1991.
The Trump administration is also reportedly considering an end to the congressional review of arms sales to the Saudi-backed war in Yemen, deepening the “worst humanitarian crisis” in one of the poorest countries in the world. And on the African continent, the US has drastically increased its counterterrorism operations. Somalia alone has suffered from a threefold increase in the number of drone strikes under the Trump administration.
Crucially, the US remains an outlier in international human rights law given its refusal to adopt the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, thus skirting international legal obligations concerning genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
In fact, the US has not only failed to adopt the Rome Statute, the Trump administration is going a step further in the wrong direction by sanctioning ICC officials because of their intention to investigate war crimes on all sides of the war in Afghanistan. Racial justice at home simply cannot be realised without securing justice and accountability for breaches of international law.
As we look inwards to dismantle America’s legacy of racism that pervades the law enforcement and national security apparatuses, we must also recognise that racism and militarism are mutually reinforcing.
The militarisation of police occupying American cities and communities is inseparable from the militarisation of American foreign policy that has put the US on a war footing in the Middle East and Africa. Moral outrage over racial injustice and inequality should not stop at the water’s edge – the colour line that divides our domestic politics extends to our foreign affairs.
Nima Gerami is a Visiting Scholar at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow with the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. He is also an expert consultant at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC.
Source:Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg July 9, 2020
Common domestic cats, as we know them today, might have accompanied Kazakh pastoralists as pets more than 1,000 years ago. This has been indicated by new analyses done on an almost complete cat skeleton found during an excavation along the former Silk Road in southern Kazakhstan. An international research team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Korkyt-Ata Kyzylorda State University in Kazakhstan, the University of Tübingen and the Higher School of Economics in Russia has reconstructed the cat’s life, revealing astonishing insights into the relationship between humans and pets at the time. The study will appear in the journal Scientific Reports.
The tomcat — which was examined by a team led by Dr Ashleigh Haruda from the Central Natural Science Collections at MLU — did not have an easy life. “The cat suffered several broken bones during its lifetime,” says Haruda. And yet, based on a very conservative estimate, the animal had most likely made it past its first year of life. For Haruda and her colleagues, this is a clear indication that people had taken care of this cat.
During a research stay in Kazakhstan, the scientist examined the findings of an excavation in Dzhankent, an early medieval settlement in the south of the country which had been mainly populated by the Oghuz, a pastoralist Turkic tribe. There she discovered a very well-preserved skeleton of a cat. According to Haruda, this is quite rare because normally only individual bones of an animal are found during an excavation, which prevents any systematic conclusions from being drawn about the animal’s life. The situation is different when it comes to humans since usually whole skeletons are found. “A human skeleton is like a biography of that person. The bones provide a great deal of information about how the person lived and what they experienced,” says Haruda. In this case, however, the researchers got lucky: after its death, the tomcat was apparently buried and therefore the entire skull including its lower jaw, parts of its upper body, legs and four vertebrae had been preserved.
Remains of the cat found in Dhzankent. Credit: Ashleigh Haruda / MLU
Haruda worked together with an international team of archaeologists and ancient DNA specialists. An examination of the tomcat’s skeleton revealed astonishing details about its life. First, the team took 3D images and X-rays of its bones. “This cat suffered a number of fractures, but survived,” says Haruda. Isotope analyses of bone samples also provided the team with information about the cat’s diet. Compared to the dogs found during the excavation and to other cats from that time period, this tomcat’s diet was very high in protein. “It must have been fed by humans since the animal had lost almost all its teeth towards the end of its life.”
The cat’s remains were found during an excavation in the settlement of Dhzankent in Kazakhstan. Credit: Ashleigh Haruda / MLU
DNA analyses also proved that the animal was indeed likely to be a domestic cat of the Felis catus L. species and not a closely related wild steppe cat. According to Haruda, it is remarkable that cats were already being kept as pets in this region around the 8th century AD: “The Oghuz were people who only kept animals when they were essential to their lives. Dogs, for example, can watch over the herd. They had no obvious use for cats back then,” explains the researcher. The fact that people at the time kept and cared for such “exotic” animals indicates a cultural change, which was thought to have occurred at a much later point in time in Central Asia. The region was thought to have been slow in making changes with respect to agriculture and animal husbandry.
The Dhzankent settlement, where the remains of the cat were found, was located along the Silk Road, an ancient network of important caravan routes that connected Central and East Asia with the Mediterranean region by land. According to Haruda, the find is also an indication of cultural exchange between the regions located along the Silk Road.
Islam at End Times 
