Month: June 2021

Noul Pat al lui Procust şi noua morală politică europeană

Ciudate timpuri trăim şi stranii perspective ni se deschid în faţa existenţei europene, în condiţiile în care liderii politici nu încetează să pledeze electoral despre nevoia de solidaritate europeană. Departe de a mai convinge pe cineva, efectul începe să fie chiar o afundare în ridicol şi desuetudine (ceea ce nu ar fi ceva nou în cazul multora dintre ei) şi o demonstraţie a faliei care începe să se confirme la nivelul construcţiei europene.

Child soldiers carried out Burkina Faso massacre, says government

A massacre in northeast Burkina Faso in which more than 130 people were killed this month was carried out mostly by children between the ages of 12 and 14, the government said.

Armed assailants raided the village of Solhan on the evening of June 4, opened fire on residents and burned homes. It was the worst attack in years in an area plagued by jihadists linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura said the majority of the attackers were children, prompting condemnation from the U.N.

“We strongly condemn the recruitment of children and adolescents by non-state armed groups. This is a grave violation of their fundamental rights,” the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said in a statement on Thursday.

Despite interventions from U.N. peacekeepers and international armed forces, attacks by Islamist extremists continue unabated across West Africa’s Sahel region, including neighbouring Mali and Niger.

Local officials in Burkina Faso’s north, where jihadists control large areas, said child soldiers have been used by Islamist groups over the past year, but this month’s attack was by far the highest profile case.

It represented a new low for the impoverished West African country that since 2018 has seen a sharp rise in attacks on civilians and soldiers.

Hundreds of people have been killed and more than 1.2 million are displaced, UNICEF said, many of whom have been forced into makeshift camps dotted across the arid north, east and centre. Over 2,200 schools have been closed – about one in ten – affecting over 300,000 children.

Northeast Nigeria conflict killed more than 300,000 children: UN

A study published by UNDP finds death toll caused by 12 years of violence is 10 times higher than previous estimates.

A 12-year-old conflict in northeast Nigeria has caused, directly and indirectly, the deaths of some 350,000 people, the vast majority of which are children below the age of five, the United Nations found in a new report.

Nigeria’s human rights record ‘very poor’, worse than average in sub-Saharan Africa

The report, which tracked the human rights performance of most countries, stated that Nigeria’s mismanagement of resources is largely responsible for the country’s rarely improving human rights crises.

Nigeria’s human rights record is “very poor” and is “worse than [the] average in sub-Saharan Africa,” a new report by an international organisation states.

Libya conference: Russia, Turkey to start removing their foreign mercenaries

Libya’s transitional government renewed its commitment to holding elections in December at a UN-sponsored conference in Berlin, where Russia and Turkey reached a tentative plan to start withdrawing their foreign mercenaries from Libya.

At the Berlin conference on Wednesday, Libya’s transitional government underlined its commitment to holding elections on 24 December, and Germany said it would continue keep up pressure until all foreign forces have been withdrawn from Libya.

Libya’s transitional leadership was joined at the conference by foreign ministers from France and Germany, as well Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and Italy, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and senior officials from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and others.

Though a final communique specified no concrete new measures, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush said the transitional government came “with a vision of how best to re-establish stability in our country and pave the way for free, inclusive and safe elections on 24 December”.

She was hopeful that there would finally be progress on a key pledge from a previous conference, held in January 2020, for foreign fighters to pull out of the country.

“We have a progress in terms of mercenaries, so you know hopefully within coming days, mercenaries from both sides [are] going to be withdrawing and I think this is going to be encouraging,” she told reporters in Berlin.

Russia and Turkey back opposing sides in Libya, which has been split between two rival administrations backed by foreign forces and countless militias.

The internationally-recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli is supported by Turkey, which in October helped it repel an offensive from Khalifa Haftar, who rules large parts of the east of Libya, and is backed by Rusisa, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

In October the two sides agreed a ceasefire in Geneva. The agreement involved the withdrawal of all foreign mercenaries by January.

Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner company, along with fighters from Sudan, Chad and Syria, support Haftar in the east of Libya. Turkey has advisers in Tripoli, supported by allied Syrian fighters.

None have left, as both sides argue over which group should leave first.

Two diplomats said France had prepared proposals for a sequenced withdrawal of foreign forces from Libya that was discussed with both Turkey and the US, and a senior US State Department official said Wednesday that Turkey and Russia had reached an initial understanding to each pull out 300 of their Syrian mercenaries.

It is not a large number of the estimated 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, but it would signal the start of a process in which all armed groups would eventually be brought under a joint military command.

Refugee influx chokes East and Horn of Africa

In 2020, Uganda hosted the largest number of refugees in the region, with South Sudan accounting for 1.4 million of displaced persons.

According official data, South Sudan remains the biggest originator of displaced people in the region accounting for 2.2 million refugees out of the total 82.4 million globally.

Καλώς να ‘ρθουν τα ευρώ

Είναι καλό, είναι χρυσό, έχει τις χάρες όλες, θα μπορέσει να προσφέρει χιλιάδες θέσεις εργασίας και 7 μονάδες μπόνους στο ΑΕΠ, θα αλλάξει το αναπτυξιακό μοντέλο, θα γίνει «update στο λειτουργικό της χώρας», θα βελτιωθούν οι εργοστασιακές της ρυθμίσεις. Πατήστε εδώ για αναβάθμιση και να σου πετιέται η άνθιση;

États-Unis: une armée d’un autre genre?

C’est l’une des premières mesures prises par Joe Biden : annuler l’interdiction édictée par Donald Trump de s’engager dans l’armée sous une “identité de genre”, celle que les transgenres peuvent faire reconnaître à l’état-civil. Les soldats qui n’auraient pas passé le cap peuvent aussi, désormais, se faire opérer aux frais de l’institution.

À peine finie la cérémonie de son investiture, qui a nécessité le déploiement de 25 000 soldats de la garde nationale le 20 janvier 2021, Joe Biden, le nouveau président américain et commandant en chef des armées, a pris une décision : celle d’annuler l’interdiction pour les personnes transgenres de s’engager sous leur « identité de genre » (celle qu’ils ont choisie). Cet interdit édicté par Donald Trump dès 2017 avait été validé par la Cour suprême en 2019.

How China Sees It

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has much to lose, both domestically and internationally, if the truth comes out. A muddled debate about the origins of the virus serves China just fine. Evading accountability — and suffering no little negative fallout — for unleashing a pandemic on the world that killed millions of people is not a bad outcome. And the economic results may even be better for China than for the rest of the world, thereby strengthening the CCP further.

Bennett appears to hint at Israeli involvement in attack on Iran nuclear site

In one of his first speeches as PM, leader says that while Israel will defend itself, it will also work with allies to block an Iranian bomb, breaking from Netanyahu’s policy

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appeared to hint at Israel’s role in a recent attack on an Iranian nuclear site during a speech at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots on Thursday.