‘Bring Julian home’: the Australian campaign to free Assange
Melbourne, Australia – At home in Australia, Julian Assange’s family and friends are preparing for his possible extradition to the United States, ahead of what could be his final hearing in the United Kingdom on Monday. Assange’s half-brother Gabriel Shipton, who spoke to Al Jazeera from Melbourne before flying to London, said he had already booked a flight to the US. A filmmaker who worked on blockbusters like Mad Max before producing a documentary on his brother, Shipton has travelled the world advocating for Assange’s release, from Mexico City to London and Washington, DC. Earlier this year, he was a guest of cross-bench supporters of Assange at US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. The invitation reflected interest in his brother’s case both in Washington, DC and back home in Australia. Biden told journalists last month he was “considering” a request from Australia to drop the US prosecution. Assange rose to prominence with the launch of Wikileaks in 2006, creating an online whistleblower platform for people to submit classified material such as documents and videos anonymously. Footage of a US Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, which killed a dozen people, including two journalists, raised the platform’s profile, while the 2010 release of thousands of classified US documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a trove of diplomatic cables, cemented its reputation. Shipton told Al Jazeera the recent attention from Washington, DC had been notable, even as his brother’s options to fight extradition in the UK appeared close to running out. “To get attention there on a case of a single person is very significant, particularly after Julian’s been fighting this extradition for five years,” Shipton told Al Jazeera, adding that he hoped the Australian prime minister was following up with Biden. “We’re always trying to encourage the Australian government to do more.” A test for US democracy Assange’s possible extradition to the US could see freedom of expression thrown into the spotlight during an election year that has already seen mass arrests at student antiwar protests. Shipton told Al Jazeera the pro-Palestinian protests had helped bring “freedom of speech, freedom to assembly, particularly in the United States, front of mind again”, issues he notes have parallels with his brother’s story. While Wikileaks published material about many countries, it was the administration of former US President Donald Trump that charged Assange in 2019 with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. US lawyers argue Assange is guilty of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a former army intelligence analyst, who spent seven years in prison for leaking material to WikiLeaks before former US President Barack Obama commuted her sentence. “It’s an invaluable resource that remains utterly essential to understand how power works, not just US power, but global power,” Antony Loewenstein, an independent Australian journalist and author, said of the Wikileaks archive. “I always quote and detail [Wikileaks’s] work on a range of issues from the drug war, to Israel/Palestine, to the US war on terror, to Afghanistan,” Loewenstein said, noting that Wikileaks also published materials on Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “It’s just an incredible historical resource,” he said. Loewenstein’s most recent book, the Palestine Laboratory, explores Israel’s role in spreading mass surveillance around the world, another issue Loewenstein notes, that Assange often spoke about. “One thing that Julian has often said, and he’s correct, is that the internet is on the one hand an incredibly powerful information tool… but it’s also the biggest mass surveillance tool ever designed in history,” said Loewenstein. Emma Shortis, a senior researcher in international and security affairs at the Canberra-based think tank The Australia Institute, told Al Jazeera that while she hoped Assange would not be extradited, if he was, his case might come to trial around November’s US election when Biden is hoping to beat off a challenge from presumptive Republican candidate Trump. Prosecuting a First Amendment case against an Australian while presenting the election as “an existential test for American democracy” would be “politically irreconcilable” for Biden, Shortis said. As the Biden administration struggles to attract young voters disenchanted over its support for Israel’s war on Gaza, Shortis noted that younger generations were aware of the underlying issues Assange’s case could bring up. “I think young people, in particular, are deeply aware of those contradictions and the way that American power functions and the way it selectively bestows rights on people,” she said. For Loewenstein, pursuing Assange would set “an incredibly dangerous precedent at a time where in so many countries freedom of the press is under attack”. “This is not by any means a defence of Biden, I’ve been critical of him for 20 years, but a second Trump term would be a real acceleration of that authoritarian turn, including against the press and journalists and freedom of information,” Loewenstein added. Demonstrators gather outside Australia House to protest against the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in London [Alberto Pezzali/AP] At home in Australia Assange’s supporters include the national journalist association the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and a cross-bench alliance of parliamentarians, including independent Andrew Wilkie. “Surely this man has suffered enough,” Wilkie implored the Australian parliament earlier this year. “Who could possibly forget the grainy image, provided to WikiLeaks by a brave whistleblower, that subsequently was released under the title ‘collateral murder‘?”, Wilkie said. “It was footage of a US attack helicopter gunning down and killing innocent civilians and Reuters journalists in a street in Iraq,” he added. Many of Assange’s supporters fear his possible extradition to the US could come with serious personal consequences. He was first arrested in London in 2010 on a Swedish warrant accusing him of sexual assault. Allowed bail pending the extradition case, Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s London Embassy in 2012 after a court ruled he could be sent to Sweden for trial. He spent the next seven years in the tiny embassy – during which Swedish police withdrew the rape charges – before UK police arrested
Who is Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi?
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has disappeared after the helicopter he was in went down in the country’s East Azerbaijan province. The 63-year-old political heavyweight has long been regarded as the natural successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran. An established presence with deep connections in the judiciary and religious elite, Raisi – a hardline and religiously conservative politician – first ran for the presidency in 2017 but failed. He was eventually elected in 2021. Early years Raisi began studying at the renowned Qom religious seminary at the young age of 15, and proceeded to learn under several of the top clerics of the time. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi went missing after a day in the country’s east where he visited the Qiz-Qalasi dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev [West Asia News Agency via Reuters] In his early 20s, he was appointed prosecutor in successive cities until he went to the capital Tehran to work as a deputy prosecutor. In 1983, he married Jamileh Alamolhoda, the daughter of Mashhad’s Friday Prayer Imam Ahmad Alamolhoda. They went on to have two daughters. For five months in 1988, he was part of a committee overseeing a series of executions of political prisoners, a past that has made him unpopular among the Iranian opposition and led to the United States imposing sanctions on him. In 1989, he was appointed prosecutor of Tehran after the death of Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Raisi continued to rise through the ranks under Khomeini’s replacement, Ayatollah Khamenei, becoming chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi, the biggest religious endowment in Mashhad, on March 7, 2016, which cemented his status in Iran’s establishment. Running for president Raisi first ran for president in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani, who was running for reelection. Rouhani had overseen the negotiation of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, restricting its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. A critic of the 2015 deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – Raisi came from a more hardline bloc than Rouhani, who was seen as a political moderate within Iran’s political system. After his defeat, Raisi began planning for his next presidential campaign. In June 2021, he won 62 percent of the vote, but the election was marred by a low turnout – 48.8 percent – after several reformists and moderates were prevented from standing. By then, the JCPOA was in shambles after the US – under former President Donald Trump – unilaterally withdrew and reimposed sanctions on Iran, severely affecting its economy. The COVID-19 pandemic made matters worse, with the death toll exceeding 97,000 by August 2021. Connections Raisi’s credentials in the religious establishment are strong, with solid relationships with the late Khomeini as well as with Khamenei, who has appointed him to several senior positions. He has also managed to maintain good relations with all branches of government, military and legislative as well as the powerful theocratic ruling class. However, Raisi has led Iran during a time of public anger over a deteriorating standard of living, partly due to sanctions and what critics say has been the prioritisation of defence over domestic issues. In late 2022, public anger erupted over the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police, who had arrested the 22-year-old as she left a metro station in Tehran with members of her family for alleged non-compliance with the country’s mandatory hijab rules. Protests roiled Iran for months, with women taking off or burning their hijabs and cutting their hair off in protest. The rallies came to an end in mid-2023 after some 500 people were killed when security forces moved in to break up the protests, according to foreign human rights organisations. Seven people were executed for their roles in the unrest. A United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in March this year that Iran committed crimes against humanity in the crackdown, including murder, torture and rape. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in late 2022 led to months of protests in Iran, which eventually ended in a violent crackdown [West Asia News Agency via Reuters] Stand-offs Raisi has not shied away from confrontation internationally either. Angered by the US’s stance towards the JCPOA and the inability of other signatories to save the pact, a defiant Raisi announced that Iran was stepping up its nuclear programme, but that it was not interested in a bomb. More recently, he led Iran through a standoff with Israel as the two countries squared off over Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza, now approaching its eighth month. Iran has been outspoken in its condemnation of Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians, as have its regional allies in the so-called “axis of resistance” to Israel and its Western allies. In early April, the Iranian consular building in Damascus was attacked in a strike blamed on Israel, killing seven people including a top commander and his deputy. For almost two weeks, Raisi’s every utterance was the subject of intense scrutiny as the world awaited Tehran’s response. On April 15, Iran launched a well-telegraphed attack that Israel’s chief military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said involved more than 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones and more than 30 cruise missiles with most intercepted outside Israel’s borders. Minor damage was reported in some areas of Israel, and the attack led to a token response. The regional rivalry between Iran and Israel could also be seen in Syria, where Israel has launched multiple attacks over the years, ostensibly targeting Iranian military capabilities there. People pray for Raisi’s wellbeing as news of the helicopter’s disappearance spreads [Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters] Iran has maintained a close relationship with Syria for years, backing President Bashar al-Assad since he ordered a violent response to peaceful protests in 2011, which led to 13 years of civil war. With military and tactical support, Iran has expanded its influence in Syria while the allied Lebanese group Hezbollah has also bolstered Assad’s forces. Between
At least 66 dead as new floods hit Afghanistan’s Faryab province
Flooding damaged more than 1,500 houses, swamped more than 400 hectares of agricultural land and killed livestock. Fresh floods have killed at least 66 people in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, says a provincial official, in the latest deadly string of disasters to hit the country in recent days. Heavy floods in multiple districts of Faryab province on Saturday night “resulted in human and financial losses”, Asmatullah Moradi, spokesman for the Faryab governor, said in a statement on Sunday. “Due to the floods 66 people were killed,” he said, adding that at least five people were injured and several others missing. The flooding damaged more than 1,500 houses, swamped more than 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of agricultural land and killed livestock in their hundreds, he said. Another 18 people had also died in floods in the same province on Friday, Moradi added. The latest disaster in Faryab came just a day after provincial authorities said 50 people were killed in flash flooding just south of the province in Ghor. According to the Kabul-based TOLONews, up to 80 percent of the city of Ferozkoh in Ghor was destroyed by the flooding. Afghanistan is prone to natural disasters, and the United Nations considers it among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Just over a week ago, more than 300 people were killed in flash flooding in northern Baghlan province, according to the UN World Food Programme and Taliban officials. The disasters are the latest to hit the impoverished country, which has seen above-average rainfall this spring. Even before the latest spate of floods, about 100 people had been killed from mid-April to early May as a result of flooding in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, authorities said. Farmland has been swamped drowning thousands of cattle in a country where 80 percent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive. The rains come after a prolonged drought in Afghanistan, which is one of the least prepared nations to tackle climate change impacts, according to experts. Amid the disaster, Afghanistan is also facing a shortfall in aid after the Taliban took over as foreign forces withdrew in 2021. Development aid, which formed the backbone of government finances, was slashed. The shortfall has worsened in subsequent years as foreign governments grapple with competing global crises and growing condemnation of the Taliban’s curbs on Afghan women. Adblock test (Why?)
Arsenal, Man City: All you need to know about the EPL final day title fight
EXPLAINER Al Jazeera’s Sohail Malik speaks to former Manchester City player Nicky Summerbee about what to expect on the final day. The Premier League title race comes down to the final day with Manchester City and Arsenal separated by only two points. We take a look at how the last match day of the season shapes up and what the permutations are. Who are Manchester City and Arsenal playing on the final day? Table-topping Manchester City host West Ham at the Etihad Stadium as they seek to secure an unprecedented four Premier League titles in a row. The Hammers will finish ninth in the league no matter the outcome of the match at City as they trail Manchester United in eighth by five points while they are four points clear of 10th-placed Bournemouth. One carrot dangling for West Ham is to help out their former midfielder Declan Rice, who switched the London Stadium for Arsenal last summer. The Gunners entertain Everton at the Emirates Stadium where the pressure, similar to the Hammers, is off the Toffees. The Merseyside club are 14 points clear of the relegation zone which had been a season-long battleground following their points deduction by an independent commission which found they had breached the league’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules. What do the title rivals need to do to be crowned Premier League champions? The equation for Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is quite simple: beat West Ham and they will retain the Premier League crown. Should City draw with West Ham, or worse, then the opportunity passes to Arsenal. The Gunners know that, with a two-point gap to City going into the game, they simply have to beat Everton. What Mikel Arteta’s north Londoners do have in their favour is a superior goal difference. So, should City draw and Arsenal win then the sides will finish level on points but the trophy will be heading to the Emirates for the first time in 20 years. Who will be next, @ManCity or @Arsenal? 🏆 pic.twitter.com/e9X0uFSjer — Premier League (@premierleague) May 17, 2024 How much does this title mean to Manchester City and Arsenal? It was hard to top Manchester City’s achievement in 2023, when they lifted five trophies. A domestic treble is still on the cards for the Cityzens this season, having already lifted the EFL Cup while an FA Cup final against rivals Manchester United awaits. The history that City would dearly love to make is that no side has ever won four consecutive Premier League titles. Should Guardiola’s side lose then it is an unprecedented achievement that even they could surely only ever dream of achieving in the future. So many of the greats of the game have won the three league times in a row – including Manchester United and Arsenal – but not have been able to secure a four-year stint as champions of England. For Arsenal, who won three in a row in the 1930s under Herbert Chapman, coming out on top of the table on Sunday would end a 20-year wait for a Premier League title. They last lifted the trophy under Arsene Wenger. It was the Frenchman’s third league title with the Gunners, who created their own piece of history by going through the season unbeaten when they lifted the second of Wenger’s three trophies. Has the Premier League come down to the final day before? There have been some thrilling final-day finishes in the title race, but the most famous example was Sergio Aguero’s late winner for Manchester City in 2011-12. The Argentinian netted a stoppage-time winner against bottom-of-the-table Queens Park Rangers to hand City their first league title since 1967-68. It denied Sir Alex Ferguson back-to-back titles that season and delayed the Scot’s retirement plans as he stayed on one more year to win back the trophy for a 13th and final time. The bad news for Arsenal is that no side has come from second to win the Premier League on the final day of the season. To that extent, they would create history themselves if they denied City the unprecedented fourth consecutive crown. Adblock test (Why?)
Helicopter carrying Iran’s president suffers ‘hard landing’: State TV
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Iranian state media say search operations are under way after incident near Jolfa in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has suffered a “hard landing”, state television reported, saying more details will follow soon as search operations are under way for the helicopter. Iranian state media said the incident occurred on Sunday near Jolfa in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. A day earlier, Raisi was in neighbouring Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam alongside President Ilham Aliyev. State-linked media said three helicopters were in the convoy, and the two others made it back safely. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Iranian supreme leader to the province, are believed to have been in the same helicopter as Raisi. Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Housing and Transportation Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash were in the other helicopters that made it back safely. People who were with the president inside the helicopter managed to make an emergency call, according to the semi-official Tasnim news website. Tasnim reported that the increased hopes that the incident can be concluded “without fatalities”. Adblock test (Why?)
UN says 800,000 people have fled Rafah as Israel kills dozens in Gaza
Nearly 800,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since Israel launched its offensive against the southern Gaza city last week, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said. Lazzarini decried the repeated displacement of Palestinians in the statement on Saturday. “Since the war in Gaza began, Palestinians have been forced to flee multiple times in search of safety that they have never found, including in UNRWA shelters,” Lazzarini said. “When people move, they are exposed, without safe passage or protection. Every time, they are forced to leave behind the few belongings they have: mattresses, tents, cooking utensils and basic supplies that they cannot carry or pay to transport. “Every time, they have to start from scratch, all over again. ” Saturday saw intense fighting across Gaza – not just in Rafah – with Israeli attacks killing dozens of Palestinians. The Ministry of Health in Gaza said early in the day that 83 Palestinians had been killed over the previous 24 hours. Later on Saturday, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail Alghoul reported that 40 bodies had reached the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza after Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp. At least 15 people were killed in one attack. Once again, nearly half of the population of Rafah or 800,000 people are on the road, having been forced to flee since the Israeli Forces started the military operation in the area on 6 May. In response to evacuation orders demanding people to flee to so-called safe zones,… — Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 18, 2024 The Wafa news agency also said four Palestinians were killed during Israel’s bombing of Khan Younis, north of Rafah, and three others were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The violence throughout the territory underscores humanitarian advocates’ warnings that there is nowhere safe for people in Rafah to flee to. Israel has faced international warnings, including by its top ally the United States, against invading Rafah. But the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be ignoring those calls and proceeding with the assault. Last week, Israeli forces seized the Rafah crossing that links Gaza to Egypt. The gate, which had served as a major artery for life-saving aid and an entry and exit point for humanitarian workers, has been closed since May 7. The closure of the Rafah crossing has trapped thousands of sick and injured Palestinians who may have had a chance to leave Gaza to receive treatment abroad. Before the assault began, Rafah was home to 1.5 million people, most of whom had been displaced from other parts of Gaza. Throughout the war, Israel has ordered Palestinian civilians in Gaza to move south as it invaded the territory from the north. Many residents were first displaced to the middle part of the enclave and then moved to the southern city of Khan Younis. They were ultimately forced to flee again to Rafah. Now people from Rafah are fleeing northward. Netanyahu has portrayed Rafah as the last Hamas stronghold in the territory. But as the Israeli army invades the city, fighting is raging in Jabalia and the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north of the enclave. Israel said in January that it had dismantled Hamas’s “military framework” in the north. On Saturday, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, claimed several attacks against Israeli forces, including targeting military vehicles with rocket propelled grenades in Rafah and Jabalia. The group also said it killed 20 Israeli soldiers in two separate operations in Rafah. For its part, the Israeli military announced that it recovered the remains of Israeli captive Ron Binyamin, whom it said was killed during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. Israel had said a day earlier found the bodies of three other captives based on new intelligence. But Hamas appeared to play down the significance of the Israeli announcement. “The enemy’s leadership is pushing its soldiers into the alleyway of Gaza to return in coffins, so they can look for the remains of some captives that it [Israel] targeted and killed earlier,” Abu Obaida, the Qassam Brigades spokesperson said in a statement. Adblock test (Why?)
Oleksandr Usyk beats Tyson Fury to become undisputed heavyweight champion
Ukraine’s Usyk beat UK’s’s Fury by split decision to become the first unifying title fighter since 1999. Oleksandr Usyk beat Tyson Fury by scoring a razor-thin split decision to win the world’s first undisputed heavyweight championship in 25 years, an unprecedented feat in boxing’s four-belt era. The United Kingdom’s Fury was the early aggressor but Usyk gradually took charge and the “Gypsy King” was saved by the bell in the ninth round before slumping to his first career defeat on Sunday. “It’s a great time. It’s a great day,” Usyk said. Ukraine’s Usyk joins the likes of Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Mike Tyson as the undisputed heavyweight champion, the first since boxing recognised four major belts in the 2000s. With the win, the former undisputed cruiserweight champion can legitimately claim to be the best of this era, although a rematch expected in October could provide another twist. Oleksandr Usyk celebrates with the belts after winning the fight to become the undisputed heavyweight world champion [Andrew Couldridge/Action Images via Reuters] The UK’s Lennox Lewis was the last man to unify the heavyweight belts – three at the time – after beating Evander Holyfield in 1999. Usyk got the better of the opening rounds before Fury hit his stride in the fourth, engaging in some showmanship as he started to catch Usyk with vicious body shots, but the Ukrainian battled back with several stinging reminders of his power. Usyk turned the tide in the eighth round and few would have been surprised had the referee stopped the fight in the ninth as the Ukrainian’s powerful punches to the head left Fury reeling. Usyk hurt Fury (34-1-1) with a left hand and eventually sent him sprawling into a corner in the final seconds of the round, getting credit for a knockdown right before Fury was saved by the bell. Fury struggled to mount a consistent attack after nearly getting stopped, and the knockdown turned out to be the decisive factor in the decision. “Thank you so much to my team,” Usyk said while fighting back tears in the ring after the win. “It’s a big opportunity for me, for my family, for my country. Slava Ukraini!” Oleksandr Usyk celebrates [Andrew Couldridge/Action Images via Reuters] Fury wants rematch Fury kissed Usyk on the head after the final bell. Fury also said he wants the rematch in October. “I believe I won that fight,” Fury said. “I believe he won a few of the rounds, but I won the majority of them, and I believe it was one of those what-can-you-do, one of them … decisions in boxing. We both put on a good fight, best we can do. “You know, his country is at war, so people are siding with a country at war. But make no mistake, I won that fight, in my opinion, and I’ll be back. I’ve got a rematch clause.” Usyk landed 41 percent of his 407 punches, while Fury landed just 31.7 percent of his 496 punches, according to CompuBox statistics. Usyk both threw (260 to 210) and landed (122 to 95) more power punches. Usyk has now joined the elite club of fighters who held every major world championship belt at heavyweight – and he is the first to do it in the four-belt era, which began in 2007. The list of undisputed champions includes Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson. Tyson Fury with Oleksandr Usyk after losing their fight [Andrew Couldridge/Action Images via Reuters] Stars line up at ring side Wladimir Klitschko was among the legends watching along with Saudi-based football stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar. Riyadh’s newly built, 22,000-capacity Kingdom Arena was packed when Usyk strode out for his ringwalk at 1:30am (22:30 GMT) wearing a green cossack coat and fur hat. Fury followed, dancing to Barry White and Bonny Tyler’s “Holding out for a Hero” in a green sleeveless jacket and back-to-front baseball cap. It set the stage for a clash of two fighters with impeccable pedigrees and very different approaches to the sport. In the co-main event, Australia’s Jai Opetaia won a unanimous decision over Mairis Briedis of Latvia to win the vacant IBF cruiserweight title. Meanwhile, Ireland’s Anthony Cacace scored a TKO win over Joe Cordina of Wales to retain his IBO super-featherweight title and claim the IBF belt. Anthony Joshua and Cristiano Ronaldo at of the fight [Andrew Couldridge/Action Images] Adblock test (Why?)
Can the world’s top court stop Israel’s offensive in Rafah?
Israel refutes South Africa’s accusation that its Gaza military campaign is a genocidal act against Palestinians. In its latest appeal, South Africa has called on the United Nations’s top court for urgent measures to order a halt to Israel’s assault on Rafah. Since early this month, Israeli forces have been pounding the southern city where more than 1.5 million Palestinians had taken shelter after escaping from other parts of Gaza. Hundreds of thousands are being forced to flee again. Israel says its operation is limited and aimed at targeting the last stronghold of Hamas in Rafah. South Africa calls it a genocidal act. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered some provisional measures since South Africa first filed a case in January. But Israel has largely ignored them. So can the ICJ enforce its orders? And will its decisions make any difference apart from affecting world opinion? Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam Guests: Toby Cadman, international human rights lawyer. Nour Odeh, political analyst Robbie Sabel, professor of international law at Hebrew University. Adblock test (Why?)
Are seed-sowing drones the answer to global deforestation?
Santa Cruz Cabralia, Bahia, Brazil – With a loud whir, the drone takes flight. Minutes later, the humming sound gives way to a distinctive rattling as the machine, hovering about 20 metres above the ground, begins unloading its precious cargo and a cocktail of seeds rains down onto the land below. Given time, these seeds will grow into trees and, eventually, it is hoped, a thriving forest will stand where there was once just sparse vegetation. That is what the startup which operates this drone, a large contraption that looks a bit like a Pokemon ball with antennae, hopes. The 54 hectares (133 acres) here which have been badly degraded by agriculture and cattle farming in the Brazilian state of Bahia are just the start. Franco-Brazilian company Morfo has set itself the target of restoring one million hectares of degraded land in Brazil by 2030, using seed-sowing drones and a rigorously researched preparation and monitoring process. Forest engineer Yan Marron e Mota loads seeds into a drone adapted for sowing [Constance Malleret/Al Jazeera] How big a problem is deforestation? Deforestation is a rapidly growing problem in many countries. In Brazil, for example, deforestation in the Amazon destroyed an area bigger than Spain between 2000 and 2018, a study by the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG) showed in 2020. Although preliminary data from the government’s space research institute (INPE) shows Amazon deforestation fell by 50 percent last year, forest loss continues to rise in other biomes, like the Cerrado. In Afghanistan, years of war and fighting have had a devastating effect on forests. Many have been completely destroyed. According to the research group World Rainforests, more than one-third of Afghanistan’s forests were destroyed between 1990 and 2005. By 2013, this had risen to half because of the additional problem of illegal logging. And, in Colombia, internal violence and displacement have pushed armed groups, farmers and cattle farmers into the forests, causing more deforestation. In 2016 alone, after a peace deal was rejected by some armed groups, deforestation rose by 44 percent. President Gustavo Petro has since overseen a decrease in forest loss, by as much as 49 percent in 2023 according to Global Forest Watch, but deforestation has increased in other Amazon countries like Bolivia. Wildfires in many parts of the world, notably Australia, California and around the Mediterranean in recent years, have also contributed to deforestation. Most recently, thousands of people have been evacuated in the past week because of wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta in Canada. Scientists check on progress one year after seeds have been sown in Bahia. The data collected will be used to design optimum sowing processes and monitoring systems [Pedro Abreu/Morfo/Divulgação] Why is forest restoration important? “Climate change is happening, temperatures are rising, it’s already too late. So we need to be planting [trees] now,” says Adrien Pages, Morfo’s co-founder and CEO. Healthy forests are a critical resource in the fight against climate change; they provide valuable ecosystem services such as carbon storage, temperature regulation, water resources and biodiversity conservation. Nearly one billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Simply conserving those forests which remain is insufficient, so the United Nations has urged countries to meet pledges to restore a combined one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030 to avoid large-scale ecosystem collapse. But that is a daunting task. Brazil, for example, has promised to reforest 12 million hectares by the end of this decade – a target which requires planting an area the size of England, or eight billion trees, according to ((o))eco, the Brazilian environmental journalism platform. Crispim Barbosa de Jesus, 51, a subsistence farmer in southern Bahia, supplements his income with seed collecting for the reforestation project here [Constance Malleret/Al Jazeera] How can drone technology help? Traditional reforestation, where seedlings are grown in a nursery and then planted by hand, is effective, but it is labour intensive and time consuming. Drones can help speed up the process and reach areas which are dangerous or inaccessible to humans. Morfo uses two drones which have been adapted to carry 10kg to 30kg of seeds and can sow up to 50 hectares per day, piloted automatically or manually depending on the terrain. The height at which the drone flies and the density and type of seeds it disperses all depend on a sowing plan, designed following an examination of the land’s environmental conditions. “For us, it’s not about the drone. The most important thing is the preparation and the seeds,” says Pages. With data from drone and satellite imagery as well as information collected by a team on the ground, data scientists use computer vision – a form of artificial intelligence – to develop models that can recognise trees and seed species. These are used to automate the creation of an optimal seeding strategy and to monitor results. “The scalability of the solution is what’s important to us. The starting costs of the project are going to be high, to allow for diagnosis, research, adequate preparation, but after that, costs per hectare are relatively low and fall as the area grows,” says Pages. Biodegradable seedpods have been specially developed to sow smaller and more fragile seeds [Pedro Abreu/Morfo/Divulgação] What sorts of seeds are used? “Seed availability is one of the biggest concerns. And the survival rate of seeds is low, so you need to have a lot of seeds,” says Mikey Mohan, the founder of ecoresolve, a US-based ecosystem restoration company. Morfo is working to address this. It has developed a biodegradable seedpod to sow smaller and more fragile seeds which have an 80 percent survival rate in the lab. The project in southern Bahia, a region where the Atlantic Forest began to be cleared for agriculture centuries ago and which is now overrun with monocultures of eucalyptus and sugarcane, is a testing ground for different seeding methods to work out how best to grow native species. It is also researching these species’
Violent protests rage in New Caledonia amid growing civil unrest
Mass protests erupted in New Caledonia this week after France’s parliament voted to allow French residents who have lived in the Pacific Islands territory for 10 years or more to vote in provincial elections. The French government has argued that these reforms uphold democracy in the archipelago. But local people – particularly those from the Indigenous Kanak community, who make up 40 percent of the islands’ population – fear this will undermine their efforts to win independence from France. France deployed troops to New Caledonia’s ports and international airport, banned TikTok as the government imposed a state of emergency on May 16. Anger among the Indigenous Kanak people has been simmering for weeks over plans to amend the French constitution, diluting a 1998 accord that limited voting rights. Hundreds of heavily armed French marines and police on Saturday patrolled the capital, Noumea, where streets were filled with debris following several nights of looting, arson and armed clashes in which six people have died. French officials have accused a pro-independence group known as CCAT of being behind the protests. Ten activists accused of organising the violence have been placed under house arrest, according to authorities. New Caledonia has been French territory since colonisation in the late 1800s. Centuries on, politics remains dominated by debate about whether the islands should be part of France, autonomous or independent – with opinions split roughly along ethnic lines. Adblock test (Why?)