Ukraine says it uncovers $40m arms corruption scheme
The Security Service of Ukraine says five charged over plot to embezzle funds earmarked to buy 100,000 mortar shells. Employees from a Ukrainian arms firm conspired with Ministry of Defence officials to embezzle almost $40m earmarked to buy 100,000 mortar shells for the war with Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported. The SBU said late Saturday that five people have been charged, with one person detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border. If found guilty, they face up to 12 years in prison. The announcement, which was confirmed by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, will have a deep impact on a country beleaguered by Russia’s nearly two-year-old invasion. The SBU said an investigation had “exposed officials of the Ministry of Defence and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal, who stole nearly 1.5 billion hryvnias [$40m] in the purchase of shells.” “According to the investigation, former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence and heads of affiliated companies are involved in the embezzlement,” the SBU said. The deal involved the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells for the military, with a contract secured in August 2022 and payment made in advance. But no arms were ever provided, the SBU statement said, with some funds then moved to other foreign accounts. Five people have been given “notices of suspicion” – the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings – both in the ministry and the arms supplier, according to the security service’s statement. One suspect, the SBU said, was detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border. Officials accused of participating in the scheme include the current and former heads of the defence ministry’s Department of Military and Technical Policy, Development of Armaments and Military Equipment, as well as the head of Lviv Arsenal. According to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, the stolen funds have been seized and will be returned to the defence budget. Corruption within Kyiv’s military has been a thorny issue both as it tries to maintain wartime public morale and present its case to join the European Union. Last September, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov was dismissed amid various corruption cases. Russia strikes wide swathes of Ukraine The announcement came as Russia launched drone and missile attacks hitting both civilian and critical infrastructure across Ukraine, Kyiv’s Air Force said on Sunday. The Air Force said Moscow attacked the central Poltava region with two ballistic missiles fired from its Iskander ballistic missile system. It also launched three surface-to-air missiles over the Donetsk region in the east. In the southeast Zaporizhia region, Governor Yuri Malashko said an infrastructure site had been hit in a drone attack. Filip Pronin, governor of the Poltava region, wrote on Telegram that the attack there hit an industrial site in the city of Kremenchuk, igniting a fire. There were no preliminary reports of casualties, Kyiv said. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Thrown like animals’: Georgians identify victims in Stalin’s mass graves
Batumi, Georgia – Natalia Kuznetsova stares tight-lipped at the abandoned house her grandfather Hasan Dishli Oglu built in the 1930s. Her father was just a toddler in 1937 when Hasan, then 33, was arrested by the Soviet secret police. He was never heard from again. “When my father was dying, in his final days, he kept talking about my grandfather, asking why he was shot, where he was taken,” Natalia, 48, recounts. “‘I don’t know where Hasan is’, my father would say. ‘He was thrown somewhere like a dog.’” Scorched and deserted after a recent fire, the house is a forlorn structure standing in a large plot behind the family home in a village not far from the southwestern Black Sea port city of Batumi. For Natalia’s father, Iakob Kuznetsov, the house was a daily reminder of Hasan’s disappearance more than 80 years ago, and a symbol of intergenerational grief passed on to Natalia from his deathbed. Hasan was among the thousands of people rounded up by the Soviet secret police and accused of being “enemies of the state” in a campaign known as the Great Terror. Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, mass executions of innocent citizens were committed across the Soviet Union in successive waves of repression, and vast numbers of people were deported or sent to prison camps. Many families of those executed never found out what happened to their loved ones. In Georgia, almost 15,000 people are believed to have been killed. In the absence of a committed national effort to investigate Soviet crimes and revisit official history, sociologists point to widespread amnesia, ambivalence and even denial among Georgians that such executions took place. Since Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgian-born Stalin has achieved mythic status in the imagination of many of his compatriots. He remains a powerful and divisive figure, remembered both as a brutal dictator, and as a national hero who led the USSR to victory over Nazi Germany. With Georgians still struggling to come to terms with their past, efforts to investigate Stalin’s Terror, and locate victims, are gathering momentum. Forensic experts, historians and the families of those who went missing are taking it upon themselves to heal a national trauma. Through detective work and public awareness raising, they are attempting to find and identify the victims of decades-old atrocities. Natalia Kuznetsova stands outside the family house that was built by her grandfather Hasan Dishli Oglu and that was destroyed in a fire [Iago Gogilashvili/Al Jazeera] Boxes of bones A musty smell emanates from a basement room at Tbilisi State Medical University. It is the smell of earth and of something else. Inside, Meri Gonashvili from the Georgian Association of Forensic Anthropology (GAFA) is dressed in black theatre scrubs and surgical gloves. “This is Georgia’s first forensic anthropology laboratory,” says the 35-year-old with pride. Dozens of boxes of human bones are stacked in rows against a wall, each labelled with a unique code. They are the source of the distinctive odour. Meri lifts a large cardboard box onto a foldaway table containing the bones of a single human skeleton. She removes fragments of skull from a brown paper bag, and begins to carefully reassemble the pieces with adhesive tape. The victim died from a single shot to the head, a perfect circular hole at the back of the skull marking the bullet’s entry, and a jagged cavity above the right eyebrow indicating its exit. “We see evidence of trauma,” the forensic anthropologist states matter-of-factly. “Especially occupying the occipital region and posterior aspect of the parietals.” For Meri, this medical lexicon helps serve as an emotional firewall against the tragedy of this person’s violent death at the hands of Soviet Georgia’s secret police. “It is impossible for such kind of tragic events that happened to your society not to affect you mentally,” admits Meri. “But you should bury this kind of emotional things with your mind and just keep working.” From another box Meri pulls out a series of artefacts found at gravesites. “This shoe is very common,” she says, turning a flattened galosh over in her hands, “and underneath is printed the stamp USSR in Cyrillic, and a number, 37. This could be the year of manufacture. Not the shoe size.” Meri Gonashvili holds up a galosh recovered from a mass grave in southwestern Georgia [Iago Gogilashvili/Al Jazeera] ‘We do it for the families’ In what became known as the Great Terror or Purge, Stalin authorised the arrests of anyone suspected of plotting against him, following the assassination of senior Bolshevik leader Sergei Kirov in 1936. Coordinated by the secret police, the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), what began with the targeting of high-ranking party officials quickly expanded to rounding up ordinary citizens. In the late 1930s, anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities was targeted, from educated and respected village elders to clergy, writers, workers and peasants. Between 1937 and 1938, the NKVD executed an estimated 700,000 to 1.2 million Soviet citizens. GAFA’s laboratory contains the first victims to have been exhumed in Georgia – the skeletal remains of approximately 150 people – from a series of mass graves at a military base close to Batumi in the autonomous Adjara region. Meri is facing a task that could last a lifetime: Locating and identifying the thousands of Georgians tried and shot during this period. “Everybody just talks about DNA, DNA, but before DNA, we need laboratory work and forensic anthropological analysis,” she cautions. “If you incorrectly assemble one individual then you can send the wrong sample to the DNA lab.” Then, her composure breaks, and her voice trembles. “We do it for the families,” she says. “We owe it to these people, to the victims, to do everything in our capacity to return them back to their families.” [embedded content] Muslim victims In 2019, the Georgian Orthodox Church announced it had completed excavations of the first of Stalin’s victims in the country at a site locals had suspected
Climate activists throw soup at the Mona Lisa in Paris amid farm protests
In a video posted on social media, two women are seen throwing soup at the glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s piece. Two climate activists have thrown soup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris and shouted slogans advocating for a sustainable food system amid farmers’ protests demanding the government address low wages and other problems. The 16th-century painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci was not damaged. In a video posted on social media, two women with the words ‘Riposte Alimentaire’ (food response) written on their T-shirts can be seen throwing soup at the glass protecting one of the world’s most famous paintings and passing under a security barrier to get closer to the painting. “What’s the most important thing?” they shouted. “Art, or right to a healthy and sustainable food?” “Our farming system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work,” the added. The Louvre employees could then be seen putting black panels in front of the Mona Lisa and asking visitors to evacuate the room. This screen grab taken from footage shows the activists throwing soup [David Cantiniaux/AFPTV via AFP] ‘Civil resistance’ On its website, the “Food Riposte” group said the French government is breaking its climate commitments and called for the equivalent of France’s state-sponsored healthcare system to be put in place to give people better access to healthy food while providing farmers with a decent income. In a statement sent to the AFP news agency, they said the soup throwing marked the “start of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand… of the social security of sustainable food”. Angry French farmers have been using their tractors for days to set up road blockades and slow traffic across France to seek better remuneration for their produce, less red tape and protection against cheap imports. On Friday, the government announced a series of measures they said do not fully address their demands. Some farmers threatened to converge on Paris, starting Monday, to block the main roads leading to the capital. Adblock test (Why?)
England stun India in thrilling 28-run victory in first Test in Hyderabad
England beat India by 28 runs in the first Test in Hyderabad as Hartley takes seven wickets on debut. Ollie Pope and Tom Hartley scripted a remarkable turnaround for England to set up a thrilling 28-run win in the first Test match against India. England’s win at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday was hailed as one of their “greatest ever” and gives them a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. India had looked to be in the box seat after taking a lead of 190 in their first innings, but Pope’s epic innings of 196 runs resuscitated England, who posted 420 all out in their second innings to roar back into the contest. That left the hosts needing 231 to win the match. But slow left-arm bowler Hartley’s 7-62 in his debut Test wrecked India, who were all out for 202 in an extended final session on the penultimate day. India captain Rohit Sharma’s 39 was the top score by an Indian batter in the second innings as the hosts lost 4-24 in a mid-innings collapse. Ravichandran Ashwin (28) and Srikar Bharat (28) added 57 runs for the eighth wicket to try to take the match into its final day, but that was not to be. The match went into the extra half hour of the day with both sides closing on victory and India trying to avoid only a fourth home defeat in 47 Tests. England captain Ben Stokes said he was “incredibly proud” of the performance. “Before the series started, we knew how much of a beast India are at home. But the way we responded to being so far behind, it was testament to everything we have said and lived and breathed over the last two years,” he told TNT Sports after the match. “We’ve got four Tests left. It’s about backing up this performance now. We know that India are going to come back hard at us. They are an incredibly tough team, but if we can keep standing up to them, it’s a good sign for us. “It’s very early days, we are very proud to be 1-0 up, but there is a long way to go.” GET IN! 🦁 🏴 This team ❤️ One of our greatest ever wins 🙌 From a 190-run deficit, to victory! Match Centre: https://t.co/s4XwqqpNlL pic.twitter.com/45dw0Qiori — England Cricket (@englandcricket) January 28, 2024 ‘Stunning win’ Former England spinner Graeme Swann hailed the result as a “stunning win” for the visitors and termed Pope’s innings “magnificent.” A stunning win for England in Hyderabad. Magnificent from Ollie Pope and extraordinarily magical for Tommy Hartley. I’m thrilled to bits for the boys @englandcricket — Graeme Swann (@Swannyg66) January 28, 2024 Cricket writer Andy Zaltzman said it was one of England’s greatest Test wins, while former fast bowler Derek Pringle made a reference to England’s coach Brendon McCullum and said it “continues to defy convention.” Incredible victory by England in Hyderabad. No team visiting India has overcome such a big 1st inns deficit (190) to win. Bazball continues to defy convention….. — Derek Pringle (@derekpringle) January 28, 2024 Former England spinner Robert Croft said the hosts may be regretting the type of surface they produced at Hyderabad. “It will be interesting to see if India stick with pitches that turn this much as it brings spinners of all levels into the game,” he said in a post on X. The second match of the five-test series, in Visakhapatnam, begins on Friday. India remain without the services of Virat Kohli, who announced he would miss the first two Tests of the series due to personal reasons. Adblock test (Why?)
I dig up skeletons of Stalin’s victims to give families closure | Close Up
“When you open a gravesite, the bodies, how they are organised, they tell the stories by themselves… they can tell us about how they disappeared, how they were killed,” says forensic anthropologist Meri Gonashvili. Gonashvili is a woman on a mission. Through detective-like work, the young Georgian anthropologist at Tbilisi State Medical University is hoping to identify victims executed by the Soviet secret police during the Reign of Terror, also known as the Great Purge of 1936-1938. The totalitarian campaign led by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin targeted anyone accused of plotting against the state. Many ordinary citizens were exiled, imprisoned or executed.At least 700,000 are estimated to have been executed throughout the USSR including some 15,000 in Soviet Georgia. “For this regime, human life didn’t have any value,” says Meri as she reconstructs the skeleton of a victim shot in the head. Most families never knew what happened to their loved ones. But now, six mass graves containing the remains of people executed during Stalin’s Reign of Terror have been discovered in western Georgia. The families of the missing have teamed up with Gonashvili and other experts to find and identify the victims of Stalin’s ruthless operation. Will Meri be able to identify some of the victims who disappeared during Stalin’s Great Purge and reunite their remains with their living relatives? Watch Georgia’s Missing People by Robin Forestier-Walker to find out. Credits A film by: Robin Forestier-Walker Producer: Nino Shonia Cinematographer: Iago Gogilashvili Editors: Robin Forestier-Walker, Antonia Perello Sound Editor & Mixer: Linus Bergman Senior Editor: Donald Cameron Executive Producer: Tierney Bonini Special Thanks: Special Thanks: Rustavi 2, IDFI & SovLab Adblock test (Why?)
Denmark: The future of tech and mental health
Mindset visits Denmark, where innovative technologies such as AI and VR are being used for mental health. Denmark is one of the world’s most digitised societies. It’s also known as a hub of technological and medical innovation in Europe. The country is leading research and development in fields like virtual reality and artificial intelligence for mental health. But the rise of disruptive new technology comes with concerns around data privacy, displacement of mental health workers and diminishing human connection. In this episode, Mindset visits Denmark to explore how technology is providing new solutions to the mental health crisis. Adblock test (Why?)
Which countries have cut funding to UNRWA, and why?
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), considered a lifeline for two million people in the besieged enclave, has suffered funding cuts after several of its staff were accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attack. The UN on Saturday said that it had terminated nine out of 12 staff over the allegations and vowed to hold its employees accountable, but expressed its shock at the swift funding cut by several Western countries amid a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, which has been devastated by nearly four months of Israel’s aerial and ground war. “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an Agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA chief, said in a statement on Saturday. The UN and Palestinian officials have called for continued funding for the agency’s “crucial work” since the announcement of the claims on Friday. Here is what you need to know about the controversy. What is UNRWA and who funds it? The acronym stands for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It was established in 1949 to cater to tens of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes by Jewish militias from areas that currently form part of Israel. The UN agency operates in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – the neighbouring countries where the Palestinian refugees took shelter after their violent expulsion known as the Nakba or catastrophe. According to its website, the UN agency supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, working in a number of areas. Examples of these fields are primary and vocational education, primary healthcare, relief and social services, infrastructure and camp improvement, microfinance, and emergency response. The agency is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions apart from a limited subsidy from the UN, which is used exclusively for administrative costs, according to UNRWA. The work of UNRWA could not be carried out without sustained contributions from countries worldwide and the European Union, which represented 94.9 percent of all contributions in 2022, the agency says. In 2022, 44.3 percent of the agency’s total pledges, or $1.17bn, came from the EU member states, who contributed $520.3m, including funds allocated by the institution via the European Commission. The United States, Germany, the EU and Sweden were the largest individual donors in the year in question, contributing 61.4 percent of the agency’s overall funding in total. Chris Gunness, a former UNRWA spokesman, said the UN agency has weeks only before it runs out of money for its crucial aid work to save Palestinian lives in Gaza. More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on October 7. “My message to the Arab world, particularly to the Gulf, is where are you? Because they’re making billions each day on oil revenues. A tiny fraction of those oil revenues would see UNRWA’s financial problems disappear overnight. This unconscionable gap inflicted by these Western countries would be filled very quickly,” Gunness told Al Jazeera. “Some of the most desperate people in the Middle East are now facing starvation, they’re facing famine, and the Arab states need to step up to the plate.” What are Israel’s allegations against UNRWA staff? The UNRWA said on Friday that the Israeli authorities have provided the agency with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the October 7 attack. Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA, said that he immediately terminated the contracts of these staff members and launched an investigation to establish the truth without delay. The US Department of State said it was extremely troubled by the allegations, which it said pertained to 12 UNRWA employees. The UN agency has long been under attack from Israel. On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on Lazzarini to quit his post. “Mr Lazzarini please resign,” Katz wrote on social media platform X in response to the UNRWA chief’s warning over the consequences of funding cuts. Gunness, the former UNRWA spokesman, said there is a “coordinated political attack” on the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. “The Israelis have said they cannot win the war on Gaza unless UNRWA is disbanded. So what clearer signal do you want?” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday. (Al Jazeera) How crucial is UNRWA and what did UN officials say? The UNRWA is the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza and some 3,000 of its core staff out of 13,000 in Gaza continue to report to work despite the war, according to the agency. UNRWA’s Lazzarini said two million people out of about 2.3 million population in Gaza depend on the agency’s humanitarian operation. “I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms,” the UNRWA chief posted on X. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment. This stains all of us.” The UN official added that the agency runs shelters for over one million people and provides food and primary healthcare even at the height of the hostilities. Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres said that the tens of thousands of people who work for the UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations, should not be penalised because of the recent allegations. “The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met,” he said. UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency. Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a… — Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) January 27, 2024 Which nations have cut funding for UNRWA? Which have not? The wave of suspensions of funding started with the US
‘War criminal’: Arab Americans rebuff Biden campaign outreach over Gaza
Arab Americans are angry. And they let United States President Joe Biden know it when they shunned his campaign manager as she visited Michigan to reach out to their communities this week. Many elected Arab-American officials, including municipal leaders and state legislators, declined to meet with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, arguing that as long as there are mass killings in Gaza, they will not discuss the elections. “It’s unfathomable at this point in time that we’re trying to talk about electoral politics with a genocide unfolding,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb. “This is not a time to talk about politics. This is a time for our humanity to be recognised, and for us to be sitting down with decision-makers and policymakers to talk about a change of course of what’s unfolding overseas. And it does not happen with campaign staff.” Arab-American local officials in Southeast Michigan told Al Jazeera that their constituents are furious and frustrated with Biden’s policies in Gaza – anger that could prove detrimental to the president’s reelection chances. Dearborn – home to large Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni and Iraqi communities – is known as the capital of Arab America. Hammoud noted that all four countries are being bombed by the US and its Israeli allies. The mayor added that Arab Americans and the broader community in Dearborn feel “betrayed” by Biden’s unwavering support for Israel. “I have residents who have had to dig their grandmothers up from under the rubble after Israeli fighter jets bombed their homes,” Hammoud told Al Jazeera. “We have residents who hail from Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, which is being ethnically cleansed. What do I tell them? What is the message to them?” Abdullah Hammoud became Dearborn’s first Arab-American mayor in 2022 [Paul Sancya/AP] Michigan’s importance The meeting that was being organised between Arab-American leaders and Chavez Rodriguez was subsequently cancelled after pushback from the community, several officials told Al Jazeera. Arab Americans in Dearborn and other Michigan cities could play an outsized role in the US presidential elections, where the system is based on winning individual states. Michigan, home to more than 10 million people, is a key “swing state” – not guaranteed to vote Republican or Democrat – and it is often won by fine margins. In 2016, former President Donald Trump beat his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the Midwestern state by fewer than 11,000 votes. So the estimated hundreds of thousands of Arab Americans in Michigan could sway the outcome of the election. In recent election cycles, presidential candidates, particularly Democrats, started acknowledging the importance of the Arab vote: running ads in Arabic, meeting with community advocates and addressing Arab Americans’ specific concerns. In 2020, Biden released a platform for Arab-American communities, promising to recognise the equality of Palestinians and Israelis and protect civil rights at home. He also sent his wife Jill Biden and running mate Kamala Harris to Dearborn to reach out to the Arab community there. Despite grievances with his staunch support for Israel, Arab voters appeared to back Biden overwhelmingly. For example, in predominantly Arab polling locations in Dearborn, Biden won more than 80 percent of the votes, city data shows. That support helped him reclaim Michigan for the Democrats. But as we head to the 2024 elections in November, which will likely be a rematch between Biden and Trump, Biden’s popularity among Arab Americans is tanking. An Arab American Institute poll in October showed Arab American support for Biden plummeted to 17 percent after the war and some activists suspect that it may have sunken even further since then. While Arab-American advocates stress their communities are not driven by a single issue, they say the scale of the carnage in Gaza and Biden’s uncompromising role in it makes it difficult – if not impossible – to support the 81-year-old president again. “Arab Americans will not vote for Joe Biden, no matter what. That’s it. They’re done with Biden,” Sam Baydoun, a Wayne County commissioner who also declined to meet with Chavez Rodriguez, told Al Jazeera. “That’s the bottom line. Joe Biden is not going to be able to regain the trust of the Arab-American community.” Biden’s support for Israel Biden has provided unconditional political and financial support to Israel since it started its war on Gaza on October 7. The president is requesting more than $14bn in additional aid for the US ally and the White House is still working with Congress to secure the funds. Moreover, Palestinian rights advocates have accused him of contributing to the dehumanisation of Palestinians. In October, Biden described the thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza as “the price of waging war”. In a statement marking the 100th day of the conflict earlier this month, the US president focused on Israeli captives in Gaza, failing to mention Palestinians altogether. The Biden administration has also vetoed two United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for de-escalation in Gaza where more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. This week, the Biden administration also suspended funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on unconfirmed Israeli allegations that some UNRWA workers participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel. At the same time, Washington has categorically ruled out halting or conditioning aid to Israel, even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly defied Biden in rejecting the two-state solution. Still, the Biden administration argues that it is pushing Israel to minimise civilian casualties and trying to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza where the population is on the verge of famine according to rights groups. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the Michigan House of Representatives, dismissed Washington’s claims that it is trying to help the people of Gaza. “‘Trying’ has led to nearly 30,000 dead, massive destruction of civilian infrastructure and a more emboldened far-right, fascist government in Israel. So if the United States is ‘trying’, I would be afraid of what it would look like if the US wasn’t trying,” Aiyash, who is
‘Stop killing us!’: Thousands march to protest against femicide in Kenya
Thousands of people have gathered to protest in cities and towns in Kenya against the recent slayings of more than a dozen women. The anti-femicide demonstration on Saturday was the largest event ever held in the country against sexual and gender-based violence. In the capital, Nairobi, protesters wore T-shirts printed with the names of women who became homicide victims this month. The crowd, composed mostly of women, brought traffic to a standstill. “Stop killing us!” the demonstrators shouted as they waved signs with messages such as “There is no justification to kill women.” The crowd in Nairobi was hostile to attempts by the parliamentary representative for women, Esther Passaris, to address them. Accusing Passaris of remaining silent during the latest wave of killings, protesters shouted her down with chants of “Where were you?” and “Go home!” “A country is judged by not how well it treats its rich people, but how well it takes care of the weak and vulnerable,” said Law Society of Kenya President Eric Theuri, who was among the demonstrators. Kenyan media outlets have reported the slayings of at least 14 women since the start of the year, according to Patricia Andago, a data journalist at media and research firm Odipo Dev who also took part in the march. Odipo Dev reported this week that news accounts showed at least 500 women were killed in acts of femicide from January 2016 to December 2023. Many more cases go unreported, Andago said. Two cases that gripped Kenya this month involved two women who were killed at Airbnb accommodations. The second victim was a university student who was dismembered and decapitated after she reportedly was kidnapped for ransom. Theuri said cases of gender-based violence take too long to be heard in Kenyan court, which he thinks emboldens perpetrators to commit crimes against women. “As we speak right now, we have a shortage of about 100 judges. We have a shortage of 200 magistrates and adjudicators, and so that means that the wheel of justice grinds slowly as a result of inadequate provisions of resources,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
US, Iraq begin formal talks on winding down US-led military coalition
Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to help defeat ISIL. The United States and Iraq have held a first round of talks on the future of US and other foreign troops in the country, with Baghdad expecting discussions to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as well as top-ranking officials from both the Iraqi armed forces and the US-led coalition met in Baghdad on Saturday. The joint commission began “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the Coalition in Iraq”, Al-Sudani’s office said in a statement. “Military experts will oversee ending the military mission of the Global Coalition against Daesh [ISIL], a decade after its initiation and after its successful achievement of its mission in partnership with Iraqi security and military forces,” it added. Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition that was formed in 2014 to help the Iraqi government defeat ISIL. The US says its aims to set up a committee to negotiate the terms of the mission’s end were first discussed last year. But as Israel’s war on Gaza ramps up, US forces in Iraq and Syria have faced frequent attacks by Iran-allied groups, resulting in US retaliatory attacks and Iraqi complaints of US “aggression” against its territory. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani at the first session of negotiations between Iraq and the US on the future of foreign troops in Iraq [Hadi Mizban/Pool via Reuters] Since ISIL lost its hold on Iraq, officials have called for the withdrawal of coalition forces, especially after a US air strike in January 2020 killed Iranian top commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside Baghdad airport. Iraqi officials have complained that the US attacks violate its sovereignty. On Thursday, Washington said it agreed with Baghdad on the launch of “expert working groups of military and defence professionals” as part of the joint commission. The three working groups would investigate “the level of threat posed by ISIS [ISIL], operational and environmental requirements, and strengthening the growing capabilities of the Iraqi security forces”, al-Sudani’s office said. US Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrin Singh also acknowledged that the US military footprint in the Arab country “will certainly be part of the conversations as it goes forward”. While the US has said the decision to discuss withdrawal from Iraq was decided upon before October 7, ISIL in Iraq took credit for the decision and said in a statement that it “proves that the Americans only understand the language of force” and promised to continue its attacks. Adblock test (Why?)