Why four court cases could unleash a new crisis in Thai politics
EXPLAINER Courts due to hear cases on Tuesday on PM Srettha Thavisin, the Move Forward Party, former PM Thaksin Shinawatra and the Senate elections. The future of Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin as well as its leading opposition party looks set to be decided this week in four key court rulings that risk triggering a new political crisis. The courts are due to announce rulings in four cases on Tuesday involving Srettha, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the leading opposition Move Forward Party (MFP), and the election process for a new Senate. Thailand’s politics has been marred for years by a struggle between its military-backed conservative-royalist establishment, and populist and reform parties such as those backed by Thaksin and MFP, leading to mass protests and military coups. “These cases highlight the fragility and complexity of Thailand’s political climate,” ANZ Research said in a note, warning of the potential for renewed protests. What is the prime minister’s case? Srettha, who made a fortune in property before getting into politics, became prime minister last August after Pita Limjaroenrat, who led MFP to victory in the May 2023 elections, was blocked from forming a government. On Tuesday, he faces a decision – or potentially another hearing date – from the Constitutional Court on whether he breached the constitution by appointing someone to his cabinet who had a previous conviction. Srettha, who denies any wrongdoing, could face dismissal if the court rules against him. If he is removed, his Pheu Thai Party would need to propose a new candidate for prime minister and parliament would need to vote on their appointment. What is the case against MFP? A second case could lead to the dissolution of the reformist Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the most seats in last year’s election as well as the largest share of the vote. The Constitutional Court is due to announce its decision – or another hearing – on an Election Commission complaint that alleges MFP broke the law by campaigning for reform of the royal insult law. The party denies any wrongdoing. It dropped its calls for reform after the Constitutional Court ruled in January that the call amounted to an effort to overthrow the monarchy. Its predecessor, the Future Forward Party, was also dissolved by a court ruling after performing strongly in the 2019 election. What about Thaksin? Thaksin, the telecommunications tycoon who dominated Thai politics being removed in a military coup in 2006, returned to Thailand last year after Srettha’s government took office. On Tuesday, a Bangkok criminal court is likely to formally charge him with royal insult in connection with a media interview he gave in 2015. The court will then decide whether to grant bail to Thaksin, who has said he is innocent. “This case has no merit at all,” he told reporters earlier this month. Thailand’s lese-majeste law, one of the world’s toughest, carries a maximum jail sentence of up to 15 years for each perceived insult. The 74-year-old returned to Thailand to a rock star’s reception last August after 15 years of self-imposed exile. And the senators? The Constitutional Court will also deliver a decision on the ongoing selection of a new 200-member Senate, after accepting a petition questioning whether parts of the process, taking place over three successive weeks, were lawful. If the process is cancelled or delayed, it would temporarily extend the term of military-appointed lawmakers who played a key role in forming the latest government, including last year’s manoeuvre that blocked MFP. The current upper house was hand-picked by the military following a 2014 coup that removed an elected Pheu Thai government led by Thaksin’s sister, who still lives in self-imposed exile. The extended process to pick the next Senate began on June 9. Only candidates can vote in the process and they must all be over 40 years old with at least 10 years of experience in their field. Ten candidates will be chosen from each of 20 occupational groups with the results expected on July 2. Adblock test (Why?)
Will India’s Modi break the ice with Pakistan in his third term?
Islamabad, Pakistan – As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a third time as his country’s leader on June 9, seven counterparts from neighbouring nations joined a very select audience in marking the moment. The setting — a summer evening, with an orangish dusk sky, and handpicked leaders from the region in attendance — carried echoes of Modi’s first oath-taking ceremony as India’s premier in 2014, which was repeated in 2019. But there was one big difference from 2014: Missing from the lineup of visiting leaders was the prime minister of Pakistan. A decade ago, images of Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif clasping Modi’s hands during his visit to attend the swearing-in event signalled a fresh hope for long-tortured India-Pakistan relations — hope that subsequent setbacks to ties have all but extinguished. Now, as Modi begins his third term in office, with a sharply reduced mandate that has left him dependent on coalition allies to stay in power, analysts expect the Indian leader to pursue a tough posture towards Pakistan, with little incentive to seek any easing in tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours. “Modi will reach out to regional neighbours, all of whom were invited to his swearing-in. But not Pakistan,” said Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, United States and the United Kingdom. “His government is likely to continue its hard line towards Pakistan with which he has shown no interest to engage for the past five years. This is unlikely to change.” And early signs appear to vindicate Lodhi’s assessment. A message and an attack On the very day that Modi took oath, at least nine people were killed and more than 30 injured when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in the Reasi district of Indian-administered Kashmir fell in a gorge after it was targeted by gunmen. This was followed by three more incidents within a week in different areas of Indian-administered Kashmir in which security forces engaged with attackers, killing three while seven security personnel were injured. Indian security agencies have blamed Pakistani involvement. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch rejected the allegations on Thursday, and accused Indian authorities of a “habit of making such irresponsible statements”. “No one takes these allegations seriously,” Baloch said. Still, a day after the attack in Reasi, former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif tried to rekindle his past bonhomie with Modi. “My warm felicitations to Modi Ji (@narendramodi) on assuming office for the third time. Your party’s success in recent elections reflects the confidence of the people in your leadership. Let us replace hate with hope and seize the opportunity to shape the destiny of the two billion people of South Asia,” the three-time prime minister, and currently a member of the Pakistani parliament, wrote on June 10. The Indian premier, too, responded in kind, acknowledging the message by his former counterpart. “Appreciate your message @NawazSharifMNS. The people of India have always stood for peace, security and progressive ideas. Advancing the well-being and security of our people shall always remain our priority,” he wrote on X. Appreciate your message @NawazSharifMNS. The people of India have always stood for peace, security and progressive ideas. Advancing the well-being and security of our people shall always remain our priority. https://t.co/PKK47YKAog — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2024 By contrast, the congratulatory message from Pakistan’s current prime minister, Nawaz’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, was far more restrained. “Felicitations to @narendramodi on taking oath as the Prime Minister of India,” Sharif wrote from his account. Security concerns After the attack in Reasi on June 9, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah — widely seen as Modi’s deputy — pledged that those behind the attack would not be spared. India has long viewed Pakistan primarily through the prism of its security concerns. India accuses its neighbour of fomenting trouble in Indian-administered Kashmir, as well as of masterminding numerous violent attacks on Indian territory, charges which Islamabad has denied. Ajay Darshan Behera, a scholar of international studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, says that India’s policy towards Pakistan hinges on the issue of “terrorism”. “The previous Modi regime aimed to raise the costs for Pakistan for supporting terrorism. If there is no major terrorist attack in Kashmir, this Modi regime will likely maintain a policy of indifference towards Pakistan. It is doubtful that Prime Minister Modi will unilaterally initiate any re-engagement with Pakistan,” he told Al Jazeera. Shaping that approach is the spectre of violence that has always hovered over the relationship when the two sides have attempted peace overtures. Nawaz Sharif was Pakistan’s prime minister when he travelled to India in 2014 to attend Modi’s first oath-taking ceremony [Harish Tyagi/EPA] In late 2015, Modi paid a daylong surprise visit to Pakistan to attend the wedding of then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s granddaughter near Lahore. The visit resulted in hopes that the two countries might be forging a path of reconciliation but merely a week later, a group of attackers entered an Indian Air Force base, killing at least eight Indians, including security personnel. India blamed Pakistan for the incident and demanded that it arrest the perpetrators of the attack. India’s hardened stance towards Pakistan since then, said Lodhi, the former ambassador, had reaped “rich electoral dividends” for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — especially during the 2019 Indian elections. “Their Pakistan-bashing makes chances of any India-Pakistan thaw very slim,” she added. Salman Bashir, another senior diplomat and a former Pakistani high commissioner to India, said that India’s current position on Pakistan — effectively, a refusal to talk until its security concerns are addressed — is a relatively cost-free option for Modi, though he added that it might be premature to speculate on the Indian premier’s next steps. “There are no compulsions for Modi to try to mend relations with Pakistan. India stands to gain by continuing its adversarial policy towards Pakistan,” Bashir told Al Jazeera. 2019 turning point When Modi won the second term in the 2019 elections, the election
US falling far behind China in nuclear power, report says
The United States is between 10 and 15 years behind China in rolling out next-generation reactors, research institute says. The United States is falling far behind China in nuclear energy, with the world’s largest economy lagging behind the Asian giant by 10 to 15 years in rolling out next-generation reactors, a report has found. China has 27 nuclear reactors under development, with the average reactor taking seven years to come online – far faster than for most other countries, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in a report released on Sunday. Between 2008 and 2023, China’s share of nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent and the country now leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications, the Washington-based research institute said. Beijing’s rapid rise in the field has been due to a “coherent national strategy” to develop nuclear power, including low-interest financing, feed-in tariffs, and streamlined regulatory approval, the institute said. “China’s government has assigned considerable priority to domestic nuclear reactor construction as part of Beijing’s broader energy strategy,” the report said. “Looking ahead, China appears likely to use this established domestic capacity as a foundation for competitive reactor exports, much as its ‘dual-circulation’ strategy has accomplished in other areas, such as electric vehicles and batteries.” A common narrative that China is “a copier” and the US an “innovator” has encouraged a lackadaisical attitude towards industrial policy, according to the institute. “First, this assumption is misguided because it is possible for innovators to lose leadership to copiers with lower cost structures, as we have seen in many US industries, including consumer electronics, semiconductors, solar panels, telecom equipment, machine tools, and, as noted here, quite possibly, nuclear power. Second, it’s not clear that China is a sluggish copier and always destined to be a follower,” the report said. The US is still the top country for nuclear power generation, ahead of France and China, with its 94 reactors accounting for about one-third of global output. But the country has built only two new reactors in the past decade, both of which arrived years late and billions of dollars over budget. China in December unveiled the world’s first so-called fourth-generation nuclear plant at Shidao Bay in eastern Shandong province. Chinese state media has touted the plant’s reactors, which use gas for cooling instead of pressurised water, as being safer and more efficient than previous generations of nuclear technology. Adblock test (Why?)
England, Serbia fans clash ahead of Euro 2024 football game
England play Serbia in Group C of the UEFA European Football Championship in Germany. Police have rushed to separate brawling football fans ahead of the match between England and Serbia at the Euro 2024 football tournament in Germany. On Sunday, social media footage showed men throwing chairs at each other outside a restaurant festooned with Serbian flags in the western city of Gelsenkirchen. One group beat a hasty retreat as riot police arrived and wrestled at least one man to the ground. A Serbian fan told The Associated Press that a group of people had thrown glasses and stones at the area outside a downtown bar where he and others were sitting together drinking beer. “There was a clash and we are fine. So that’s it, we are going to the game, we hope we will win. This is about football,” said the man, who identified himself only as Vladimir and said he was from the Serbian capital Belgrade. Reporters who arrived shortly after the incident found the street littered with broken glass and tables as several dozen police officers stood by. The match on Sunday evening between England and Serbia has been tagged “high risk” by police over concerns over potential fan violence. “So far what ‘high risk’ means practically is that lower-alcohol drinks will be sold and no alcohol at all can be drunk inside the stands in the stadium,” Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane said, reporting from Munich. Only low-alcohol beer is being served in the Gelsenkirchen stadium in an attempt to reduce the potential for problems. “One complicating factor is that UEFA, the parent organisation of these championships, has said that the barriers inside the stadium have to be removed … that suggests the English and Serbian fans could be intermingling inside the stadium,” Kane noted, adding that the German police have been putting in a lot of effort to prevent such hooligan scuffles. About 20,000 England fans and 10,000 from Serbia are expected to converge on the city for the game. The match will be played at Arena AufSchalke and starts at 9pm local time (19:00 GMT). Adblock test (Why?)
Netanyahu opposed to Israeli military ‘tactical pauses’ for Gaza aid
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave. The military had announced the daily pauses from 05:00 GMT until 16:00 GMT in the area from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards. “When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him,” an Israeli official told the Reuters news agency. The military clarified that normal operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its ongoing assault in southern Gaza, where eight soldiers were killed on Saturday. Israel forces razed homes in the area and attacks there continued on Sunday, despite it being the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important Muslim celebration of the year. An Israeli attack on two homes in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed nine people, including six children, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa. Meanwhile, at least two Palestinians in Rafah’s western Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood were killed in another Israeli attack, which the military followed up by targeting an ambulance trying to reach the victims, according to Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondents on the ground. The Israeli military also announced the death of three soldiers, two of them reservists, in fighting on Sunday. Divisions among government, army Netanyahu’s opposition to the tactical pauses underlined political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organisations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis and looming famine. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the far-tight nationalist religious parties in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, denounced the idea of a tactical pause, saying whoever decided it was a “fool” who should lose their job. Far-right government ministers want to slash aid coming into Gaza further, even though it has been largely cut since Israel took over the vital Rafah border crossing. And for months, right-wing Israelis have been protesting and blocking roads to prevent aid shipments from reaching Gaza, further straining the flow of desperately needed aid to the territory. Prior to the May 6 seizure of the crossing, there was already an inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, especially into northern Gaza where famine has already taken hold. The spat was the latest in a series of clashes between members of the coalition and the military over the conduct of the assault on Gaza, now in its ninth month. It came a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no effective strategy in Gaza. The divisions were laid bare last week in a parliamentary vote on a law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant voting against it in defiance of party orders, saying it was insufficient for the needs of the military. Religious parties in the coalition have strongly opposed conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, drawing widespread anger from many Israelis, which has deepened as the war has gone on. Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the head of the military, said on Sunday that there was a “definite need” to recruit more soldiers from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community. Despite growing international pressure for a lasting ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since October 7, when Israel unleashed its most ruthless offensive in Gaza following Hamas attacks into southern Israel. Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 37,300 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of the enclave. Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government’s aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 captives who have been held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7. As fighting in Gaza has continued, a lower-level conflict across the Israel-Lebanon border is now threatening to spiral into a wider war as near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group have escalated. In a further sign that fighting in Gaza could drag on, Netanyahu’s government said on Sunday that it was extending until August 15 the period it would fund hotels and guest houses for residents evacuated from southern Israeli border towns. Adblock test (Why?)
Al-Qaeda affiliate claims responsibility for June attack in Burkina Faso
The attack on June 11 was one of the deadliest suffered by the West African nation’s army. An armed group linked to al-Qaeda, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), has claimed responsibility for what it said was an attack on June 11 that killed more than 100 Burkina Faso soldiers in the Mansila area near the border with Niger, the SITE Intelligence Group said. On Sunday, SITE quoted a JNIM statement as saying that five days ago “fighters stormed a military post in the town, where they killed 107 soldiers and took control of the site”. Several videos shared online by JNIM showed raging gunfire around the army base. Another video showed a display of ammunition and dozens of weapons, and at least seven captured Burkina Faso soldiers. June’s reported attack has been one of the deadliest suffered by the West African Sahel nation’s army. Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, told Al Jazeera that the government is trying to fight the armed groups but has not recruited professional soldiers to do so. “They recruited 50,000 volunteers, many of whom got only a short period of training. So they’re kind of vulnerable to losses and it is not very efficient, unfortunately. Almost every day now, there are incidents like this,” he said. “Right now you have 50-60 percent of [Burkina Faso’s] territory which is outside government control … The government is trying hard, they’re buying weapons, they have a military partnership with Russia but they’re not very successful.” Niger and Mali are also struggling to contain fighting linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). The unrest is also threatening the stability of the Sahel region as the armed groups, who control swathes of territories in Burkina Faso and Mali, use them as bases to target southern coastal countries. Laessing noted that while Mali and Niger have similar problems, their countries are much bigger. “Burkina Faso is the smallest of the three and very densely populated … Whenever the army attacks, you have many more civilian victims, that makes it so brutal,” he said. Over more than a decade, armed groups have killed thousands and displaced more than two million in Burkina Faso. Moreover, the country has topped the recent Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) list of the world’s most neglected displacement crises. The violence killed more than 8,400 people last year, double the number of deaths from the previous year, according to the NRC. About two million civilians were trapped in 36 blockaded towns across Burkina Faso by the end of 2023. Adblock test (Why?)
Divers find remains of Finnish WWII plane shot down by Soviets
The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than 80 years later. The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when it was downed just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane were killed including the two-member Finnish crew and the seven passengers — an American diplomat, two French, two Germans, a Swede and a dual Estonian-Finnish national. A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week it located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero, which is now Finnair. It was found off the tiny island of Keri near Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, at a depth of 70 metres (230 feet). “Basically, we started from scratch. We took a whole different approach to the search,” said Kaido Peremees, spokesperson for the Estonian diving and underwater survey company Tuukritoode OU, explained the group’s success in finding the plane’s remains. The downing of the civilian plane, named Kaleva, en route from Tallinn to Helsinki happened on June 14, 1940 — just three months after Finland signed a peace treaty with Moscow following the 1939-40 Winter War. The news about the fate of the plane met disbelief and anger by authorities in Helsinki who were informed it was shot down by two Soviet DB-3 bombers 10 minutes after taking off from Tallinn’s Ulemiste airport. “It was unique that a passenger plane was shot down during peacetime on a normal scheduled flight,” said Finnish aviation historian Carl-Fredrik Geust, who has investigated Kaleva’s case since the 1980s. Finland officially kept silent for years about the details of the aircraft’s destruction, saying publicly only a “mysterious crash” had taken place over the Baltic Sea, because it did not want to provoke Moscow. Though well documented by books, research and television documentaries, the 84-year-old mystery has intrigued Finns. The case is an essential part of the Nordic country’s complex World War II history and sheds light into its troubled ties with Moscow. But perhaps more importantly, the downing of the plane happened at a critical time just days before Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union was preparing to annex the three Baltic states, sealing the fate of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for the next half-century before they eventually regained independence in 1991. Crew of the Kaleva photographed in the spring of 1940 [File: Finnish Aviation Museum via AP] Retrieval by Soviet submarine The USSR occupied Estonia on June 17, 1940, and Kaleva’s doomed journey was the last flight out of Tallinn, though the Soviets had already started enforcing a tight transport embargo around the Estonian capital. American diplomat Henry W Antheil Jr, 27, was on board the plane when it went down. He was on a rushed government mission evacuating sensitive diplomatic pouches from US missions in Tallinn and Riga, Latvia, as it became clear Moscow was preparing to swallow the small Baltic nations. Kaleva was carrying 227kg (500 pounds) of diplomatic post, including Antheil’s pouches and material from two French diplomatic couriers — identified as Paul Longuet and Frederic Marty. Estonian fishermen and the lighthouse operator on Keri told Finnish media decades after the downing of the plane that a Soviet submarine surfaced close to Kaleva’s crash site and retrieved floating debris, including document pouches that had been collected by fishermen from the site. This has led to conspiracy theories regarding the contents of the pouches and Moscow’s decision to shoot down the plane. It still remains unclear why precisely the Soviet Union decided to down a civilian Finnish passenger plane during peacetime. “Lots of speculation on the plane’s cargo has been heard over the years,” Geust said. “What was the plane transporting? Many suggest Moscow wanted to prevent sensitive material and documents from exiting Estonia.” But he said it could have simply been “a mistake” by the Soviet bomber pilots. Various attempts to find Kaleva have been recorded since Estonia regained independence more than three decades ago. However, none of them have been successful. “The wreckage is in pieces and the seabed is quite challenging with rock formations, valleys and hills. It’s very easy to miss” small parts and debris from the aircraft, Peremees said. “Techniques have, of course, evolved a lot over the time. As always, you can have good technology, but be out of luck.” New video taken by underwater robots from Peremees’ company showed clear images of the three-engine Junkers’ landing gear, one of the motors and parts of the wings. Jaakko Schildt, chief operations officer of Finnair, described Kaleva’s downing as “a tragic and profoundly sad event for the young airline”. “Finding the wreckage of Kaleva in a way brings closure to this, even though it does not bring back the lives of our customers and crew that were lost,” Schildt said. “The interest towards locating Kaleva in the Baltic Sea speaks of the importance this tragic event has in the aviation history of our region.” Adblock test (Why?)
‘Double attack’: The curse of natural gas and armed groups in Mozambique
Palma, Mozambique – It was late afternoon and darkness was approaching when Awa Salama* heard pops of gunfire and explosions: The fighters were coming. As her neighbours made frantic telephone calls trying to warn loved ones before running wildly away, Salama locked the door to her house to keep looters out, took her children and fled. After several days of hiding in the wilds encircling Palma – a small town on the northern tip of Mozambique about 2,700km (1,700 miles) from the capital, Maputo – she decided to search for a way out. Salama crept through the forest with her children until she reached the towering gate of the Afungi facility, built to serve the French company TotalEnergies and its natural gas project. For 12 hours, she waited with thousands of other people hoping for passage on a ship that could ferry them away. It never came. A defeated Salama sought shelter at the nearby village of Quitunda, which had been constructed several years earlier to house 557 families displaced by the gas development. She spent the next day waiting at the gates of Afungi again, looking for an escape from Palma, but she still could not find one. That was in March 2021. Police speak to residents in Palma after an attack by armed fighters in the area in 2021 [Marc Hoogsteyns/AP] Three years later, sitting on the veranda of her new home in Quitunda, she is still nervous answering questions about the conflict and gas project and spoke to Al Jazeera on the condition that her name be changed. The 16 other Palma residents we interviewed about the intertwined spectres of the gas development and war also refused to be identified. “It is life-threatening,” Adriano Nvunga, a Mozambican activist and head of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, explained about the dangers of critical expression in the country. Hidden wealth Economists use the shorthand of “the resource curse” to describe how communities who live atop hidden riches not only fail to profit but also face peril. In 2009, prospectors from the Texas company Anadarko found some of the world’s largest stores of natural gas off the coast of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. The discovery of gas was at first a cause for celebration, especially because it promised to enrich one of the country’s poorest provinces. “You will be happy. You will be satisfied. Even your belly will come in front of you,” Salama said with a glint in her eye, imitating the words of energy workers. She shook her head as if to mourn their broken promises. The sheer volume of natural gas under the sea off Mozambique is dwarfed only by the amount of money that has been poured into getting it out. In 2019, TotalEnergies and its partners unveiled plans to invest $20bn in developing and extracting the gas in the largest foreign venture on the African continent. The Afungi site, where Salama had searched desperately for an escape route, has been cleared of 66sq km (26sq miles) of mudbrick houses, coconut palms and verdant farmland. The people who once made their homes and tended crops there were moved to Quitunda, where construction began in 2018. In place of levelled villages sit a port and an airport along with a power station, street grid, emergency room and hundreds of cabins built to enclose TotalEnergies managers and gas workers within fortress-like walls. Gas itself will be processed at an offshore facility. Named for the slim shape of the cape, Cabo Delgado may as well be a reference to the narrow margins on which people reliant on the land and the sea live. The province is known for its deep ruby pits and the illegal trade in ivory and timber. It is also where the war for independence against the Portuguese began in the 1960s and was a battleground in the Mozambican Civil War that followed. Another battle The development of the Mozambique Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Project has unfolded against the backdrop of another conflict, the same one that spurred Salama’s dash to the Afungi gate. These combatants call themselves al-Shabab, or “the youth” in Arabic, although they have no connection to the better known group with the same name in Somalia. The rebels launched a violent campaign in 2017 that has continued since. They say they are angry that Cabo Delgado’s people have been cut off from wealth and opportunity. Al-Shabab is notorious for its brutality, for beheadings and the abduction of women and children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves, according to Amnesty International. More than 6,000 people have been killed and a million have been displaced over the past seven years. The fighters have sworn allegiance to ISIL (ISIS), which often broadcasts its attacks. The presence of a major gas project in Palma contributes to this web of socioeconomic and political frustrations and heightens pressure on the Mozambican army and on international troops stationed in Cabo Delgado to guard the investment. When al-Shabab managed to take Palma in March 2021, more than 1,190 people were killed, making it the deadliest such attack to date on the African continent. In the aftermath, TotalEnergies declared force majeure on its project in Mozambique, enacting an ongoing suspension because of the conflict. The Afungi site, which is not yet operational, is currently guarded by private security companies and a joint task force made up of the Mozambican military and police. Until this year, this task force had a base within the Afungi site. Soldiers are seen near the Afungi natural gas site in 2021 [Baz Ratner/Reuters] The initial 2021 offensive in Palma went on for four days and is the same ambush from which Salama escaped. But the fighters continued to roam the area for several months, attacking anyone who tried to return home. After more than a week spent looking for a way out of the town, Salama said she finally managed to leave by plane going south. She spent a few years sheltering in
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 842
As the war enters its 842nd day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Sunday, June 16, 2024. Politics and diplomacy World leaders are gathering in Switzerland for the second day of a major peace conference to pursue a consensus on condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and underscoring concerns about the war’s human cost. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced hope of garnering international agreement around a proposal to end the war that he could present to Moscow. The circle of countries participating in the process of working towards a peace plan for Ukraine should be widened, French President Emmanuel Macron said during the opening of the peace summit. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described as “propaganda” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine effectively surrender before any peace talks. United States Vice President Kamala Harris announced another $1.5bn in assistance to Ukraine, as she pledged the US’s full support in backing Kyiv’s efforts to achieve “a just and lasting peace” in the face of the war with Russia. A draft of the final summit declaration reportedly refers to Russia’s invasion as a “war” – a label Moscow rejects – and calls for Ukraine’s control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and its Azov Sea ports to be restored, the Reuters news agency reported. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that Qatar had helped to mediate the return from Russia of 30 or more Ukrainian children to their families. Kyiv claims that as many as 20,000 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians since the war began. More than 90 countries are taking part in the summit, but China said it would boycott the event after Russia was frozen out of the process. Fighting The peace summit comes at a perilous moment for Ukraine on the battlefield, with Russian forces advancing against outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian units. Near Ukraine’s embattled eastern front, hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough are nearly nil. “I’d like to hope that it will bring some changes in the future. But, as experience shows, nothing comes of it,” Maksym, a tank commander in the Donetsk region, told the AFP news agency. Outside the peace summit venue in Switzerland, the wife of a Ukrainian soldier captured by Russia said she hoped the leaders could agree to “some exchange process for the prisoners of war”. “I want to see my husband,” Hanna, who fled her home in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and now lives in Sweden, told AFP. Meanwhile, Russian army defectors live in fear of reprisal from Moscow after abandoning their posts in the ongoing war with Ukraine. Many also feel abandoned by the West, as they do not have the necessary passports and only have documents allowing them to reach neighbouring Kazakhstan or Armenia. World leaders pose for a photo at the opening ceremony of the summit on peace in Ukraine held in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland [Denis Balibouse/Reuters] Adblock test (Why?)
UK royal Kate Middleton makes first public appearance since cancer revealed
Princess of Wales says she’s making progress as she undergoes preventive chemotherapy treatment. United Kingdom royal Kate Middleton made her first public appearance since announcing in March she is battling cancer. The princess of Wales, as she is officially known, appeared at the “Trooping the Colour” on Saturday, an annual military parade held in central London to mark King Charles’s birthday. The princess, whose husband Prince William is the heir apparent to the throne, was dressed in all white and stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the proceedings. She also joined her children – Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte – in a carriage during the parade portion of the event. In a message released on Friday, the royal said she was making “good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days”. Catherine arrives for the ‘Trooping the Colour’ parade that honours King Charles [Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters] “On those bad days, you feel weak, tired and you have to give in to your body resting. But on the good days, when you feel stronger, you want to make the most of feeling well.” She added that she’s “not out of the woods yet”. Cancer diagnosis The 42-year-old last appeared in public in December when she joined other senior royals for an annual Christmas Day church service. Three months later, as speculation grew over her absence from public view, Kate announced she had been diagnosed with cancer following abdominal surgery and had begun preventive chemotherapy. Kensington Palace declined to give further details about the type of cancer or her treatment. Speaking to Al Jazeera, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said the public appearance was “tremendously significant” as Kate and her children represent “the future of the monarchy”. The UK’s Anne, princess royal, William, prince of Wales, and Prince Edward, duke of Edinburgh, salute at the ‘Trooping the Colour’ parade [Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters] He noted King Charles, 75, also present at Saturday’s event, has also been battling his own cancer diagnosis. “Charles is himself fighting cancer,” Fitzwilliams said. “He’s done remarkably well recently and appeared at a large number of engagements.” Saturday’s event represented a bright spot for the royal family, which has contended with turmoil in recent years. That included the 2022 death of Queen Elizabeth II and a deep family rift surrounding the 2020 decision by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to abandon their royal duties. Adblock test (Why?)