What to expect as Iran votes to elect parliament, religious leaders
Tehran, Iran – Iranians will head to voting stations on Friday for parliamentary elections and to vote for the political and religious leaders who will choose the next supreme leader. Tens of millions of people are eligible to vote, but voter apathy remains high in Iran as the country faces a multitude of challenges following a tumultuous period since the last parliamentary elections in 2020. Here are the essentials you need to know in advance of the polls. Who can vote and when does voting start? Voters must be at least 18 years old. More than 61.2 million people are eligible to vote in a country of roughly 85 million. Polls will open across Iran at 8am local time (04:30 GMT) and will remain open for 10 hours as per the law. In the past, time for voting has always been extended, sometimes going past midnight when there is demand. Authorities have said 59,000 voting stations will be operational across the country, with 5,000 in the capital, Tehran, and 6,800 in the wider province of Tehran, which includes several other cities as well. In 1,700 voting stations, voting will be carried out “completely electronically” with polling devices prepared to accommodate voters. The Interior Ministry has dispatched 250,000 security force personnel to oversee voting and make sure the elections are held safely. Law enforcement will be supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Basij forces, along with the army. More than 90 people were killed in early January in a twin bombing in Kerman that was claimed by ISIL (ISIS), so security is expected to be tight. Who is being elected? The votes cast on Friday will determine the 290 lawmakers who will make up the parliament for the next four years. Votes will also be cast for 88 clerics who will each take a seat for eight years at the Assembly of Experts, which is tasked with selecting the country’s supreme leader. All candidates have been vetted by the powerful constitutional body known as the Guardian Council before being deemed eligible to run. The council, half of whose members are directly selected by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also has to greenlight any law passed by parliament before it can move to the government for implementation. Will many people turn out to vote? The incumbent lawmakers – comprising mostly conservatives and hardliners – were elected to parliament in a February 2020 election that saw a 42-percent turnout, the lowest since the establishment of the Islamic republic after Iran’s 1979 revolution. While Iranian elections regularly saw turnouts of over 60 percent or even 70 percent in previous decades, a trend of apathy has persisted in more recent years. Only 48 percent of the electorate cast their votes in the 2021 presidential elections. Iranian Parliamentarians attend a parliament session in Tehran, Iran on August 13, 2023 [ISNA/WANA via Reuters] Why did voter turnout drop? Quite a few factors are believed to have combined to cause low turnout at the last parliamentary elections in 2020. Those elections came just more than a month after the United States assassinated Iran’s top general, IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Iraq. In the aftermath, at a time when war with the US seemed to be looming on the horizon, the IRGC downed a Ukraine National Airlines passenger flight with two missiles, killing all 176 on board in an incident it said was caused by a “human error”. Voting also came two days after Iran confirmed its first COVID-19 death after weeks of speculation that the virus was spreading across the country. The supreme leader in part blamed publicity surrounding the virus as a reason for lower-than-usual turnout. By 2020, it had also been two years since the US had reneged on Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, imposing harsh unilateral sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions remain in place and have continued to squeeze the country’s troubled economy, which continues to be dogged by its decades-long malaise of consistently high inflation – now at about 40 percent – and high unemployment. Iran’s national currency, the rial, has also been slipping since the start of 2024, and was trading at approximately 585,000 to the US dollar on Thursday, having lost more than 15 percent of its value this year. Moreover, the previous election came after major public protests that started in November 2019, while this year’s election is coming in the aftermath of the deadly September 2022 nationwide protests, which lasted for months and reverberated across the globe. The elections for the 12th parliament and the sixth Assembly of Experts on Friday are also taking place as Israel’s war on Gaza has openly pitted the “axis of resistance” of political and military groups across the region backed by Tehran against the US and its allies. Who is up for election? Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is expected to be re-elected. He has urged people to vote for his 30-strong list of allied candidates for Tehran, which includes a range of conservative and hardline candidates, including six women. The overwhelming majority of the rest of the seats in parliament are also expected to be won by such candidates, with all branches of power now dominated by these factions since the nuclear deal unravelled under former centrist President Hassan Rouhani in 2015 and pressures mounted on Iran. The Reformist Front, a coalition of groups that acts as the closest thing there can be to an opposition party in Iran, has said it refuses to take part in a “meaningless and non-competitive” election. But some reformist and centrist candidates have joined forces with others in an apparent effort to form at least a non-conservative minority in the parliament. Iran’s parliament has little say in the formulation of the country’s foreign policy and is mostly tasked with rules affecting local affairs, with issues related to the economy regularly at the top of the agenda. In recent months, it has also made headlines
Chadian opposition leader dies in gun exchange, state prosecutor says
The announcement comes a day after heavy gunfire erupts in N’Djamena near the headquarters of Yaya Dillo’s party. Chadian opposition politician Yaya Dillo has been killed during an exchange of fire with security forces, state prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye says at a news conference. Heavy gunfire was heard on Wednesday in the capital, N’Djamena, near the headquarters of Dillo’s party, a witness told the Reuters news agency said. The shooting erupted after several people were killed in earlier clashes near the National Security Agency building. “He didn’t want to surrender and fired on law enforcement,” Abderaman Koulamallah, the Chadian communications minister also told the Agence France-Presse news agency. On Thursday, there was heavy military presence in the capital and access to the presidential palace was blocked. Internet access, which was blocked a day earlier, had still not been restored, the Reuters witness said. The violence flared amid tensions ahead of a presidential election set for May and June that could return the Central African state to constitutional rule three years after military authorities seized power. Dillo, leader of the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF) and a cousin of transitional President Idriss Deby, had denied any involvement in the attack on the security agency. Speaking to the AFP, Dillo, who was planning to run in the coming election, dismissed the allegation as a “lie” and said it was politically motivated. Dillo also condemned accusations by the government of a PSF-coordinated “assassination attempt against the president of the Supreme Court”, which Dillo called “staged”. Adblock test (Why?)
Russian troops inch ahead as war in Ukraine barrels into third year
Ukrainian forces in the east struggled to find stable new defences during the past week, as Russian troops continued to advance after capturing Avdiivka – suggesting that artillery and other shortages were affecting Ukraine’s ability to hold the entire 1,000km (620-mile) front line. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Avdiivka on February 17, after a four-month Russian onslaught to take the town. On February 24, Ukrainian defenders also withdrew from the village of Lastochkyne, three kilometres (1.9 miles) west of Avdiivka, never having had a chance to build proper defences under fire. “There were no defences built there, and the fighters had to withdraw from the battles in Avdiivka and gain a foothold in the very process of hostilities,” one Ukrainian military reporter known as DeepStateUA wrote on Telegram to his 700,000 followers, predicting that the same would occur at other points of retreat. Three days later, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the villages of Stepove and Sieverne, north and south of Lastochkyne, after fierce overnight battles. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Tavria Group of Ukrainian forces, which is fighting in this area, said on February 27 that the line of defence had “stabilised” along Tonenke-Orlivka-Berdychi axis, a row of three villages immediately to the west of Lastochkyne, but even that assumption seemed precarious. Geolocated footage the following day showed Russian troops at the southeastern approaches to Orlivka. Tavria spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy said Russian forces had increased the size of attacking units from squads to platoons or even companies. A squad can be as small as half a dozen troops. Platoons can be as big as 50, and a company can reach 200 troops. [Al Jazeera] Russian troops also claimed on February 26 to have advanced to the outskirts of Ivanivske, a village west of Bakhmut, the last city to fall to Russian forces, in May. And Russian forces reclaimed Robotyne, a village Ukrainian troops recaptured during last summer’s offensive at the western end of the front, in Zaporizhia. Geolocated footage on February 24 showed Russian troops in the centre of Robotyne, where military reporters said they had secured the central fortified positions in the school and recreational centre. Russian troops also continued to assault Ukrainian positions in Krynky, on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson, without success. Control of the air One reason for Russian success in Avdiivka appears to have been the fact that Moscow’s forces secured local air superiority and used it to drop glide bombs – large, inert weapons fitted with fins to fly further and strike more accurately. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had dropped more than 3,200 glide bombs since the beginning of the year. Ukraine has targeted Russian bombers and the command planes that coordinate them. On February 27, Ukraine downed two Sukhoi-34 bombers, at least one of them in the east, which are used to drop glide bombs. More consequentially, on February 23 the Ukrainian military shot down a Russian A-50 early warning and control plane over the Sea of Azov coast. The A-50 is an airborne radar used to monitor enemy air activity and air defences. Russia has used them to feed target coordinates to fighters, bombers and long-range missiles. Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said the operation had left Russia with just six A-50 planes in the Ukraine theatre, and that more would be downed. [Al Jazeera] Zelenskyy told allies gathered in Paris that a strategic goal for this year was to deprive Russia of air superiority, just as it had been deprived of its control of the Black Sea and its superiority on land. Ukraine has long-targeted these planes, which are very difficult to replace. Russia only built 40 of them, and crew training takes years. Some reports suggest they will be vital to Russian efforts to shoot down Ukrainian F-16s, once they start flying. Western allies have promised to hand Ukraine at least two dozen. A year ago, fighters bombed the Machulishchi air base in Belarus, where Russia had parked an A-50, damaging it. On January 15, Ukraine downed an A-50 in the Sea of Azov, along with an Ilyushin-22 command plane. Ukraine also continued ranged attacks on Russian energy and defence infrastructure. On February 24, its military intelligence and security service said they had jointly organised a successful drone attack against the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant, in Lipetsk, 370km (230 miles) southeast of Moscow. The plant supplies steel for the manufacture of artillery, missiles and drones. Russia, too, continued its aerial campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure using missiles and drones. From February 21-28, Ukraine downed 79 Iranian-designed Shahed drones out of 98 launched, along with a number of missiles. What are Ukraine’s allies doing? Ukraine’s allies continued to pledge military assistance. Denmark announced a $228m military aid package including 15,000 rounds of ammunition. Germany announced a new military aid package that included 14,000 artillery rounds and reconnaissance drones. French President Emmanuel Macron gathered 20 heads of government, including 15 from the EU, in Paris on February 26, to discuss increasing the supply of artillery rounds to Ukraine. The European Union has said it will be in a position to manufacture a million artillery rounds a year by the end of 2024. Macron also called for the formation of a new alliance to supply “missiles and bombs of medium and long range to carry out deep strikes”. France and the UK were the first to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, with a 140km (87-mile) range, last May. Until then, the longest-range weapon Ukraine had was 80km (50-mile) range HIMARS rockets. The US is now reportedly thinking of supplying 300km range ATACMS missiles, and Ukraine claims it has developed a 700km range (435-mile) missile. [Al Jazeera] While there was “no consensus” on the sending of Western ground troops to Ukraine, “nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war,” Macron said. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded with a threat of nuclear war, should NATO members send troops to Ukraine.
Israel strikes Lebanon’s south, raising risks of escalation
Israeli strikes killed at least two people in Lebanon’s south on Wednesday evening, while Hamas fighters earlier fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel from Lebanon amid escalating cross-border clashes in recent days. Lebanon’s Hezbollah has exchanged near daily fire with the Israeli army since Tel Aviv launched a brutal war on Gaza on October 7. Palestinian groups in Lebanon have also occasionally claimed attacks. They have been demanding a ceasefire in Gaza where more than 30,000 people have been killed in four months of relentless Israeli bombardment. “Enemy warplanes raided the towns of [Seddiqine] and Kafra… killing two people from the town of Kafra and injuring 14,” Lebanon’s state-run national news agency (NNA) said. On Wednesday morning, Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades said in a statement it targeted two Israeli military sites with two barrages of Grad rockets. The attack from south Lebanon came in “response to Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip and the assassination of martyred leaders and their brothers in the southern suburbs” of Beirut, the statement added. The Israeli military said in a statement that “approximately 10 launches which crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel were identified”, adding that sirens had sounded in north Israel’s Kiryat Shmona area. Air defences “successfully intercepted a number of the launches”, the statement said, adding that the army “struck the sources of the fire in Lebanon”. Israeli police reported property damage in the Kiryat Shmona area but no wounded. A strike in January, which a United States defence official said was carried out by Israel, killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri and six others in south Beirut – the most high-profile Hamas figure to be killed during the war. The escalating cross-border exchanges since October 8 have stoked fears of all-out war on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The exchanges have killed at least 286 people on the Lebanese side. On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army. Thousands of people from border regions have been displaced due to the exchanges. Adblock test (Why?)
Teacher sets up Gaza tent school to keep Palestinian children learning
NewsFeed This teacher in Gaza has set up a tent school to offer displaced Palestinian children an education that would otherwise have stopped due to Israel’s war. Published On 29 Feb 202429 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst on Israeli massacre in Gaza
NewsFeed Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Israel’s massacre of hungry Palestinians waiting for food aid in Gaza was ‘state-sponsored terror’. Published On 29 Feb 202429 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
The industries profiting off Chinese asylum seekers in the US
101 East investigates alleged human traffickers, scammers and middlemen profiting from the desperation of Chinese asylum seekers in America. Reaching the United States has long been the dream for would-be migrants travelling across Latin America. Thousands of Chinese have embarked on the dangerous route this year. But reaching their final destination is no guarantee that their troubles will be over. In Part 2 of The Route, 101 East heads to the US to explore an industry that has mushroomed around the Chinese citizens desperately seeking asylum. From alleged human traffickers, scam artists and opportunists operating in Los Angeles, to the migrants who have been tricked, cheated and exploited, this undercover investigation explores the price of pursuing the so-called American Dream. Adblock test (Why?)
Chaotic scenes in Gaza hospital after aid delivery massacre
NewsFeed There were desperate scenes at a hospital in north Gaza where dozens of casualties arrived after the massacre of Palestinians waiting for food aid. The hospital’s director described the critical situation staff were facing. Published On 29 Feb 202429 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
As Texas Panhandle wildfires rage, what we know so far
The Texas Panhandle region of the state’s 26 northernmost counties is being ravaged by a series of what may soon become the state’s worst wildfires in recorded history. Here’s what we know so far about the wildfires, which have also spread to parts of Oklahoma, and are destroying homes and forcing residents to evacuate. When did the fires start and how have they spread? Multiple wildfires started on Monday afternoon and spread on Tuesday, raging through the Texas Panhandle region amid unusually warm, dry and windy weather. Despite the efforts of firefighters to contain them, the wildfires persisted and expanded on Wednesday. The worst among them is the Smokehouse Creek fire, which started on Monday at 20:20 GMT. Within 28 hours it had spread across 250,000 acres (101,171 hectares). So far, it has consumed more than 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares) of land. Observers noted that this is more than twice the size of London which is 159,000 hectares. This is more land than all of the state’s 2023 fires combined, and it is closing in on the largest fire on record in Texas: the East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned 907,245 acres (367,149 hectares) in 2006. According to local media reports, homes on the outskirts of Canadian, Texas, were also burned by the Smokehouse Creek fire. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties. He directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to dispatch more than 95 firefighters and deployed personnel to close roads, control traffic, offer medical aid and provide livestock support. Where are the wildfires? The Smokehouse Creek fire started on Monday in Hutchinson County in the Texas Panhandle region. On Tuesday, the fire crossed into Oklahoma and on Wednesday, Amarillo, Texas. Texas and Oklahoma were at the epicentre of some of the most dangerous conditions. The Texas A&M Forest Service said only about three percent of the flames had been contained. The next largest was the Windy Deuce fire, which, as of Wednesday night, had raged across 142,000 acres (57,465 hectares) and was 30 percent contained. Windy Deuce crept to within a few miles of the US Energy Department’s Pantex Plant, the nation’s primary nuclear weapons assembly facility, located near Amarillo, prompting officials to evacuate non-essential personnel and suspend operations. The Grape Vine Creek fire spread across 30,000 acres (12,140 hectares) southeast of Pampa and was 60 percent contained. The Magenta fire was burning in Oldham County, and it is estimated to have burned 2,500 acres (1,011 hectares), while 65 percent was contained. The 687 Reamer fire burned in Hutchinson County, affecting 2,000 acres (809 hectares) and 10 percent of it has been contained. What happened at the nuclear weapon facility near Amarillo? The Pantex Plant, northeast of Amarillo, evacuated non-essential staff and said operations had “paused until further notice” on Tuesday night when the fire came within a few miles. Pantex added that “all weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected”. By Wednesday the plant had returned to normal operations. “There is no imminent wildfire threat to the plant at this time,” Pantex officials said. Pantex is one of six production facilities in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nuclear Security Enterprise. The plant has been the main US site for assembling and disassembling atomic bombs since 1975. It produced its last new bomb in 1991 and has dismantled thousands of weapons retired from military stockpiles. Have there been any casualties? At least one person, an 83-year-old woman in Hutchinson County, was reported by local media to have died as a consequence of the Smokehouse Creek fire. She was identified by family members as Joyce Blankenship, a former substitute teacher. Her grandson, Lee Quesada, said he had posted in a community forum asking if anyone could try and locate her. Quesada said deputies told his uncle on Wednesday that they had found Blankenship’s remains in her burned home. Quesada said she had surprise him at times with funny little stories “about her more ornery days”. “Just talking to her was a joy,” he said, adding that “Joy” was a nickname of hers. Hemphill County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kendall described the charred terrain as being “like a moonscape. … It’s just all gone.” An 83-year-old grandmother has died in the massive Smokehouse Creek fire. Joyce Blankenship’s body was found in #Stinnett. She had lived in the Scotts Acres neighborhood & is the first confirmed fatality. 📸 by Nathan Blankenship [grandson]#Panhandle #SmokehouseCreekFire pic.twitter.com/y7jVT8SRSi — Tay Austin (@Jasamsdestiny) February 29, 2024 What has caused these wildfires? On Monday, unusually high temperatures were recorded reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) in Killeen, 93F (33C) in Dallas, and 82F in Amarillo (27C) – more than 20F higher than usual for February. This unprecedented heat is believed to have caused moisture to evaporate, depleting vegetation of humidity and making fuels susceptible to burn, according to local experts. As hot and dry winds swept in from the west, and Amarillo experienced gusts as strong as 62mph (100km/h) during the fires, the relative humidity plummeted to as low as 15 to 20 percent. Lower temperatures and a dip in wind speeds on Wednesday helped to slow the spread of the fires. Rain showers were forecast for Thursday which could help curb the fires further. However, higher temperatures and strong winds are expected to return at the weekend. The fact that we have had 132 February ALL-TIME RECORD HIGHS is just insane. pic.twitter.com/r6rj38FbhR — Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) February 28, 2024 What damage have the fires caused? More than 13,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power as of Wednesday morning, including more than 4,000 of those in the Panhandle region alone, according to data from PowerOutage. Hemphill County Judge Lisa Johnson said: “Homes have burned in almost every direction.” Meanwhile, farmland has been severely affected, with hundreds of dead cattle, a county official told the agricultural news publication, Farm Progress. “We’ve lost a lot of acres, a lot of cattle, and a lot of homes. So far, we
Texas battles its second largest wildfire on record
Wildfires have been raging across the US state of Texas, as firefighters struggled to control one of the largest blazes in state history, which has destroyed property and prompted evacuations. The Smokehouse Creek fire in Texas’s Panhandle, a flat northern area known for its prairies and smattering of small towns, was listed as only 3 percent contained by the Texas A&M Forest Service. An 83-year-old grandmother was confirmed dead, but with flames still menacing a wide area, authorities have yet to conduct a thorough search for victims or tally the numerous homes and other structures damaged or destroyed. The fire has expanded to more than 1,300 square miles (3,370sq km) and jumped into parts of neighbouring Oklahoma. The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned about 1,400sq miles (3,630sq km) and resulted in 13 deaths. Walls of flames were pushed by powerful winds while huge plumes of smoke billowed hundreds of feet in the air across the sparsely populated region. The smoke delayed aerial surveillance of the damage in some areas. Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes. Near Borger, a community of about 13,000 people, emergency officials at one point late on Tuesday answered questions from panicked residents on Facebook and told them to get ready to leave if they had not already. The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters – cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. Sustained winds of up to 45mph (72kmph), with gusts of up to 70mph (113kmph), caused the fires that were spreading east to turn south, threatening new areas, forecasters said. But winds calmed down after a cold front came through Tuesday evening, said Peter Vanden Bosch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Amarillo. Breezy conditions were expected again on Friday, and fire-friendly weather could return by the weekend, Vanden Bosch said on Wednesday. Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared a state of disaster for 60 counties, while blazes near the northern city of Amarillo temporarily caused the shutdown of a nuclear weapons plant. Adblock test (Why?)