Ireland to ICJ: Israel exceeds reasonable use of force limits
NewsFeed Ireland argued before the International Court of Justice that Israel’s actions following the October 7 Hamas attacks exceed reason. In their argument to the hearing about legal consequences of Israeli occupation, Ireland added that it is dismayed by the current violence in Gaza and its wider implications for the peace process. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
‘Disillusioned about China’, more Chinese aim for US via risky Darien Gap
Necocli, Colombia – Shortly after 8am, about a dozen Chinese migrants rush out the doors of Mansion del Darien, a rundown hotel a few blocks from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and pile into three tuk-tuks waiting on the street. “We’re full of Chinese people every day,” said the receptionist, Gabriela Fernandez, scurrying past the front desk with a clipboard in hand. “All the time, big groups of them are arriving and leaving together. It’s been like this for months.” Behind her, signs explaining the hotel prices and policies are written in Mandarin. Pots of spicy instant noodles imported from China are for sale next to bottles of water. Payments via the Chinese social media app WeChat are accepted. “They move along in their own separate world,” Fernandez said. The group of middle-aged travellers, wearing hats and carrying tents and walking poles, are dressed for a trek. But not everything quite adds up. Many are wearing lightweight Crocs footwear, and their small backpacks are wrapped in plastic bags. It is here in Necocli, a beach town near the border with Panama, that marks the starting point for crossing the Darien Gap, a region of dense and inhospitable jungle that has become a major migration route for those trying to reach the United States. In 2023, more than 500,000 migrants crossed the treacherous Darien, which is the only overland route from South to North America, according to data collected by the Panamanian government. Just over 25,000 of those migrants were Chinese, making them the fourth largest overall nationality and the largest outside of the Americas to making the crossing. “This is a new element that was not there in previous years,” said Giuseppe Loprete, head of mission in Panama for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN body that provides information for migrants crossing the Darien. “It’s a lot of people, and it’s a long way to come. For the smuggling networks, it’s big business.” Chinese migrants – unlike many of the other most common nationalities in the Darien, such as Venezuelans and Haitians – often take special “VIP” routes across the jungle that are led by guides working for the Gulf Clan, Colombia’s largest drug cartel, and are quicker and less strenuous for higher prices than the most basic routes. Through a combination of boat journeys, hikes and, in some cases, horseback rides either along the Caribbean or Pacific coast, they are able to make the crossing in a couple of days rather than the weeklong trip that cheaper routes usually take. Traffickers in Necocli told Al Jazeera that while the cheapest routes across the Darien cost about $350, the more direct routes along the Panamanian coast through towns such as Carreto and Coetupo and arriving at one of Panama’s migrant reception centres cost $850. A line of Chinese migrants waiting to depart on boats in Necocli [Peter Yeung/Al Jazeera] But in some cases – with journeys to the island of San Andres, which is just a few hours by boat from Nicaragua – the price is as much as $5,000. It can bring in tens of millions of dollars per month for the cartel. After all that spending, the migrants must head north through the rest of Central America, contending with corruption, theft and violence as they make their way to the US-Mexico border. ‘Why we want to go to the United States’ During a two-day visit in Necocli, Al Jazeera observed dozens of Chinese migrants preparing for the journey, including engineers, teachers and computer programmers. Waiting on the beach to leave on a boat to Panama with a friend, Wu Xiaohua, 42, said he opted to take one of those quicker journeys because he is eager to arrive in the US and start work as soon as possible. Originally from Hunan province, Xiaohua moved to Shanghai to work as a taxi driver, but since the pandemic, life has been a struggle. “There are major problems in our country’s economy,” he said. ‘We have no choice but to survive. That’s why we want to go to the United States.” “Our requirements are very simple: We can afford medical treatment, have a place to live, our children can afford to go to school and our family can be safe.” One migrant, Huang, who asked to share only her surname, said she left Beijing two months ago after China’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns ended her employment as a masseuse, leaving her barely able to survive day to day. “I sold everything that I had,” Huang said. “We were treated like caged animals.” Chinese migrants are led in a group to begin the trek [Peter Yeung/Al Jazeera] The huge spike in Chinese people making the journey across the Darien – a journey now so popular it is known in Mandarin as “zouxian”, or walking the line — has been driven by the Chinese government’s COVID-19 lockdowns, increasingly rigid rule and the recent flatlining of China’s once-imperious economy. “It’s down to political and economic uncertainties,” said Min Zhou, a professor of sociology and Asian-American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “There has been a downturn in the Chinese economy. People have become unemployed, and there’s discontentment about the government’s tight policies.” Ai Weiwei, a dissident artist and activist who fled China in 2015 due to repression, told Al Jazeera that the phenomenon is a sign of declining trust in the government. “Normally in China, ordinary people are very reluctant to leave their homes,” he said. “This phenomenon of people going through the agony of climbing through the rainforest, dragging their children with them, is the first of its kind to be seen.” ‘Chinese migrants are particularly vulnerable’ More than 37,000 Chinese citizens were arrested for illegally crossing the southern border of the US in 2023, according to US Customs and Border Protection. That number is nearly 10 times the total in 2022 and more than double that of the entire previous decade. The journey from China can take months of cross-continental travel
Canadian white supremacist who killed Muslim family gets life sentence
The judge in the case said Nathaniel Veltman’s attack represented an act of ‘terrorism’. A Canadian white supremacist who deliberately ran over four members of a Muslim family has been sentenced to life in prison for the murders. Nathaniel Veltman, 23, was convicted in November of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for the attack that shocked Canada Salman Afzaal, 46; his wife, Madiha Salman, 44; their daughter Yumnah, 15; and Afzaal’s mother, Talat, 74, were killed. The couple’s nine-year-old son suffered serious injuries but survived. The family had been out for a walk near their home in the town of London, Ontario, at the time of the attack. The judge in the case said Veltman’s attack represented an act of terrorism, the first time that the term has been used to describe white nationalist violence. “I find that the offender’s actions constitute terrorist activity,” Judge Renee Pomerance of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said at this sentencing on Thursday. The 2021 attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since a man gunned down six members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017. Prosecutors noted Veltman had written a manifesto in which he outlined hatred of Islam and opposition to mass immigration and multiculturalism. Shortly after the assault, Veltman said, “I did it. I killed those people.” Veltman pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder. His defence, citing what it called Veltman’s mental challenges, said the actions amounted to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Adblock test (Why?)
Palestine: Transfer
People & Power investigates whether the permanent transfer of Palestinians from Gaza is Israel’s ultimate goal. Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced nearly two million Palestinians since October 2023. A majority of them are sheltering in the southernmost city of Rafah. Now, with the threat of an Israeli ground offensive on the area and calls by some Israeli politicians to permanently expel Palestinians from the Strip, fears are growing of yet another forced population transfer. An Israeli minister has even called the current war the “Gaza Nakba”, referring to the devastating forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948-1949. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank say the Israeli army and illegal settlers are waging a less visible but equally dangerous shadow war there. People and Power delves into the history of Palestinian displacement and asks whether population transfer is Israel’s ultimate goal. Adblock test (Why?)
China to ICJ: Palestine has ‘inalienable right’ to armed resistance
NewsFeed Palestinian ‘use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right’ and cannot be equated with terrorism. China used examples of international conventions to defend the Palestinian struggle for self-determination in its presentation to the UN’s top court. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
The trials of Julian Assange: A death sentence for democracy
In June 2022, when Russia’s foreign ministry announced that it was considering “stringent measures” against United States media outlets in response to US restrictions on Russian media, the US Department of State huffily complained that the Kremlin was “engaged in a full assault on media freedom, access to information, and the truth”. This sort of hypocrisy was nothing new; after all, the world’s self-appointed greatest democracy has long made it clear that basic rights and freedoms are things that only its enemies must abide by. The shameless double standard enables the US to do stuff like make a ruckus over Cuba’s political prisoners while simultaneously operating an illegal US prison on occupied Cuban territory – or call out China for an alleged “spy balloon” while simultaneously spying on China and everyone else on the planet. And on Wednesday, February 21, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange completed one last legal attempt to avoid extradition to the US, the country’s own “full assault on media freedom, access to information, and the truth” was once again on full display. If extradited, the Australian-born Assange faces up to 175 years in prison on spying charges – which again is pretty rich coming from a nation with an extensive history of illegally spying on its own citizens. In reality, Assange’s only “crime” was to utilise WikiLeaks to expose the truth of US military crimes, as in the notorious “Collateral Murder” video that was released in 2010. The video footage, which dates from 2007, shows a massacre of a dozen people in Baghdad by upbeat helicopter-borne US military personnel, who did not find it necessary to conceal the extent to which they were getting off on the slaughter. Among the murdered Iraqis were two staffers for the Reuters news agency. Talk about assaults on media freedom. The US insists that, by publishing such content, Assange actively endangered the lives of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. But as I have pointed out before, it would seem that one surefire way to not endanger innocent lives in such places would be to refrain from blowing them up in the first place. To be sure, it is common knowledge that the US has killed a whole lot of civilians in a whole lot of countries, although the official narrative still maintains that all killing is ultimately done in the name of freedom, democracy, and other noble goals – rather than for sport or fun, as might be suggested by the “Collateral Murder” production. So why, then, the need for such over-the-top pretences to secrecy and the super-vilification of the person of Julian Assange? In the end, the US can’t afford to have its global do-gooder disguise too relentlessly or thoroughly challenged – since too much “access to information and the truth” would relieve the nation of its alibi for wreaking havoc across the world. Regardless of the final outcome, the protracted US war on Assange has already set a chilling precedent in terms of press freedom and other essential liberties. Indeed, the calculated physical and mental destruction of Assange is meant to deter other publishers and journalists from the crime of pursuing the truth, as the US has effectively undertaken to classify reality itself. To that end, pending his extradition to the US, Assange has been held for the past five years in Belmarsh prison in southeast London, where the British government has proved faithfully complicit in the protracted efforts to bring about his demise. Shortly after Assange’s arrest and incarceration in 2019, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer warned that the man’s life was at risk, and that he exhibited “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture”. Melzer, who is now a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow, also remarked at the time that, “while the US Government prosecutes Mr. Assange for publishing information about serious human rights violations, including torture and murder, the officials responsible for these crimes continue to enjoy impunity.” Maybe Melzer should have been jailed, too? And as Assange’s extradition battle now comes to a close, it seems the US may at long last get to definitively kill the messenger – and not just metaphorically. As his wife Stella Assange recently told reporters, “If he’s extradited, he will die.” But Julian Assange’s persecution and torment also constitute a death sentence for any approximation of democracy and justice in the United States of America, a country whose constitution supposedly enshrines freedom of speech and the press. At any rate, injustice has already scored a major victory with the chronic underreporting in US corporate media of Assange’s trials, which National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has described as “the most important press freedom case in the world”. In other words, this should be major news for the news industry itself. But disappearing the truth is another way to kill it – and in that respect, Julian Assange is already dead. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
Ship crash causes bridge collapse in China
NewsFeed Two people have been killed after a cargo ship crashed into a bridge in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Vehicles, including a bus, fell off the Lixinsha Bridge as it collapsed into the river below. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Deadly collapse at illegal Venezuela gold mine
NewsFeed Video shows the moment part of an illegal gold mine collapsed in central Venezuela, where dozens of people are feared dead. Published On 22 Feb 202422 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
More than 14 million people fled homes in Ukraine since Russia invasion: UN
As second anniversary of conflict nears, millions remain displaced at home and abroad, with ‘no end in sight’ to war. The United Nations has said that more than 14 million Ukrainians were forced to flee their homes at some point in the two years since Russia’s invasion, as UN rights chief Volker Turk spoke of the “horrific human cost” of the conflict. As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its third year, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday that nearly 6.5 million people are now living outside the country as refugees. It said an estimated 3.7 million people are still displaced within Ukraine. Reflecting on the toll of the war, which started when Russia invaded its neighbour on February 24, 2022, IOM director general Amy Pope said: “The destruction is widespread, loss of life and suffering continues.” While a total of more than 14 million people – nearly one-third of Ukraine’s population – fled their homes at some point during the war, the agency said that more than 4.5 million people returned home to date, from either abroad or displacement within the country. The war has been devastating for the people of #Ukraine, but IOM staff have been tirelessly working to address urgent needs, build resilience, and enable recovery. Read more 👉https://t.co/ePsafhCKUG pic.twitter.com/MesDKBgPi0 — IOM – UN Migration News (@UNMigrationNews) February 22, 2024 Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned on Thursday that there was “no end in sight” to the war, which had inflicted “immense suffering on millions of civilians”. “[It] continues to cause serious and widespread human rights violations, destroying lives and livelihoods,” he said in a statement, as he renewed his call for Russia to end the conflict. “The long-term impact of this war in Ukraine will be felt for generations,” he said. In its latest report, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it been able to corroborate the conflict-related deaths of 10,582 civilians since February 2022. It had verified that 19,875 civilians had been wounded. “The actual numbers are likely significantly higher,” it said. Russia’s full-scale armed attack on #Ukraine enters its 3rd year with no end in sight, causing widespread human rights violations, & destroying lives & livelihoods.@volker_turk calls to immediately cease the attack & for all human rights violations to be investigated. — UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) February 22, 2024 Resources low The IOM reported it had supported 6.5 million people in Ukraine and across 11 countries in Eastern Europe that were hosting refugees. But, it pointed out, needs were continuing to grow, outpacing resources. Some 14.6 million people remain in need of some form of humanitarian assistance in 2024, IOM said. For those who return home, the challenges are immense. Federico Soda, director of the IOM’s humanitarian response and recovery department, said returnees faced “insecurity, loss of livelihoods, damaged housing and infrastructure, and strained services”. Since the start of the war, the agency has received $957m in donations. Overall, the UN says it needs $4.2bn this year to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine and to refugees who have fled. Adblock test (Why?)
Former Barcelona star Alves sentenced to four and a half years for rape
Former Brazil footballer Dani Alves found guilty of 2022 nightclub assault in Catalan capital. Brazilian footballer Dani Alves has been found guilty and sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022. The top court in Spain’s Catalonia region on Thursday also ordered Alves, who had maintained throughout that the sex was consensual, to pay 150,000 euros ($163,000) to the victim. “The sentence considers that it has been proven that the victim did not consent and that there is evidence, in addition to the testimony of the plaintiff, to consider the rape proven,” the Provincial Court of Barcelona said in a statement. The prosecutor had sought a nine-year prison term for Alves. The verdict may be appealed. The 40-year-old former Barcelona defender was arrested in January last year and has been held on remand since then. The case has attracted significant attention not only because of Alves’s profile but because gender violence has become an increasingly dominant topic in Spain’s public discourse. It has been one of the most high-profile trials in Spain since a law was passed in 2022 that made consent a key element in sexual assault cases and increased the minimum prison time for assaults involving violence. Alves’s lawyers were not immediately reachable for comment. “We are satisfied as the sentence recognises what we’ve been saying all along: that the victim was telling the truth and that she suffered,” lawyer David Saenz told reporters outside the courthouse, adding that his team would still analyse whether the sentence corresponds to the gravity of the crime. Alves won more than 40 trophies for Brazil and clubs that included Barcelona, Sevilla, Juventus and Paris St Germain. After his arrest, he was fired by his then-employers, the Mexican club Pumas UNAM. Adblock test (Why?)