"We are saddened that a slander against our country is being accepted
by a country’s parliament. We would consider this
accusation the biggest insult towards our nation."
"[The step to consider the events as genocide] does not
count for anything. [American lawmakers
acted] opportunistically [to pass the bill at a time when Turkey is
being widely criticized for its incursion into Syria]." "We will never accept those who attack Turkey and myself for the sake of
supporting the PKK, which is a terror organization that is the killer
of tens of thousands of people." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President Erdogan assured his Justice and Development party that the U.S. House resolution to finally recognize the mass killings of Armenians -- widely viewed as the 20th Century's first genocide, which was said to have inspired Adolf Hitler, recognizing the world's shrug of disinterest and realizing that the same indifference would be evinced by the world community with the planned extermination of Europe's Jews -- was meaningless, simply a spiteful move on the part of a world that condemned Turkey for protecting itself from the violence of Kurdish 'terrorists'.
The bill recognizing the Ottoman Empire's deliberate and pitiless mass killings of Armenians as a genocide saw it pass with 405 for and 11 against its support. Turkey, according to its president, also "strongly condemns" the partisan bill sanctioning senior Turkish elites and the Turkish army which its president ordered to invade and occupy northeastern Syria, the homeland of the Syrian Kurdish population, with the intention of expelling or killing the Peoples Protection Army (YPG) fighting with the Syrian Democratic Forces, while its associated Sunni militias committed atrocities against Kurdish civilians.
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian
Democratic Forces.
AFP via Getty Images
In the process, the world has seen the global refugee community swelled by another 300,000 desperate people as Kurdish civilians fled their towns and villages for safety, only to find the areas where they thought they had found temporary safe haven were next in line for Turkish occupation.Turkey's relations with its partners in NATO has taken a rather unhealthy, albeit unsurprising turn. Its more recent alliance with Russia and insistence on arming with Russian-produced military hardware inconsistent with NATO military gear has given ample indication, if any more were needed, that Turkey's values and its military intentions fail to reflect those of NATO and its members.
The stiffening of the United States and the European Union in outrage over Turkey's invasion of Syrian Kurdish enclaves to create a 'safe corridor', free of the presence of Kurds and the proposed forced repopulation of the area with Syrian refugees living in squalid refugee camps in Turkey has left Erdogan isolated and shunned by the West. But the situation is such that the general Turkish population sees themselves as Erdogan describes it, as victimized by Western perfidy.
His standing at home has not appeared to have suffered any kind of condemnation such as that from abroad, where a heightened state of nationalism has arisen in support of Ankara's claims that it must protect Turkey from the terrorism of the Kurdish militias across the border in Syria. Turks view their president as intent on breaking the positions of a hostile Kurdish terrorist militia threatening them on the border, just incidentally fracturing the alliance between their Kurdish opponents and the United States.
Their own government, intent on removing the threat to Turkey's population and its government. Erdogan's narrative that Turkey has become victimized by an international conspiracy of "Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Arabs -- all united against Turkey", according to the front page of Sozcu, an Erdogan-aligned newspaper, resonates with most Turks, if not exactly with the Turkish political opposition which finds itself stranded in public opinion.
Even the national soccer team has demonstrated its loyalty to the Syrian campaign, proffering military salutes at soccer matches. Claiming the YPG is an offshoot of the PKK, the Kurdish insurgents in Turkey agitating for recognition of a Kurdish state in traditionally heritage Kurdish geographical areas within Turkey's early 20th-Century established borders, Erdogan says he is justified, in protecting Turkey's interests, in fighting to kill as many Kurdish militia operatives as his troops and aligned Sunni militias can manage.
Turkish soldiers at Syrian town of Ras al-Ain Credit:NAZEER AL-KHATIB/AFP
Although Turks are facing a grim economic situation as fall-out from a failing financial crisis in the country and the addition of sanctions, their collective faith in the Erdogan government has been restored in the face of a national emergency sketched out by their president as a national crisis of security requiring an armed incursion across the border into Syria to destroy the terrorist potential of the Kurdish militias intent on destroying Turkish unity.
The embargoes on arms sales to Turkey by several European countries, the raised trade tariffs on Turkish steel by the United States, and additional factors placing Turkey under Erdogan in an outcast situation has given Erdogan the impetus of support by a newly-engaged Turkish public determined not to allow the outside world to destroy their cohesion and economic prospects under a president that has brought Turkey to its virtual knees based on his vehement rage against the Kurds and his arrogant desire to become the caliph of a rising neo-Ottoman empire.
A file photo taken from Turkey's Sanliurfa province, shows smoke rising
after Turkish Armed Forces hit targets in Rasulayn town [Arif Hudaverdi
Yaman/Anadolu Agency]
"Ethawi gave valuable information which helped the Iraqi multi-security agencies team complete the missing pieces of the puzzle of Baghdadi's movements and places he used to hide." "Ethawi gave us details on five men, including him[self], who were meeting Baghdadi inside Syria and the different locations they used." Iraqi security official
"They gave us all the locations where they were meeting with Baghdadi inside Syria and we decided to coordinate with the CIA to deploy more sources inside these areas." "In mid-2019 we managed to locate Idlib as the place where Baghdadi was moving from village to village with his family and three close aides." "We passed the details to the CIA and they used a satellite and drones to watch the location for the past five months." Iraqi security official
"The test results gave certain, immediate and totally positive identification. It was him." "We were in the Situation Room. And the commander of the mission called and said, '100% confidence, Jackpot." "We're thinking about it [declassifying and releasing part of the Saturday raid video]. We may. We may take certain parts of it and release it." U.S. President Donald J. Trump
Baghdadi
According to Ismael al-Ethawi, the Islamic State caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi held strategic talks with his commanders within moving minibuses packed with vegetables in an effort to avoid detection. This was the insider who gave information to the Iraqi security forces after being arrested by Turkish authorities and given over to the Iraqis. Earlier, a joint operation with the U.S. Turkish and Iraqi intelligence agents saw senior ISIL leaders captured.
An Iraqi man had been spotted by informants in Syria. He was wearing a checkered headdress while at a marketplace in Idlib. The informants had recognized him from a photograph, according to officials. And this was Ethawi. They followed him to the home where Baghdadi was staying at that time. And this 'humint' intelligence was then conveyed to the CIA. Two days ago Baghdadi vacated that location along with his family, travelling to a nearby village, by minibus. "There it was his last moment to live", observed the intelligence official. It was not only the U.S., Turkey, Russia, Iraq after the mass murderer, but his ideological opponents as well. As, for example, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, now named Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose jihadist territory Idlib had become. Islamic State and the Nusra Front had had a falling out, then fought against each other. Once al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front broke away in 2016.
Another aide to Baghdadi had fallen into the hands of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham recently. This was Abu Suleiman al-Khalidi, a close confidant of Baghdadi and assumed to be his successor. His capture was considered "the key" according to the Iraqi intelligence commander, in the search for Baghdadi. President Trump also acknowledged "helpful information" from the Kurds on the whereabouts of Baghdadi, beginning a month earlier, enabling U.S. intelligence to "scope out" the exact location of the terrorist caliph two weeks ago.
U.S. military personnel and military dogs lifted off in eight helicopters from a base about an hour and a half distant from their target, flying over airspace secured by Turkey, Iraq and Russia whom they had earlier alerted in broad terms without divulging the nature of the mission. The Delta Force special unit focused on counterterrorism represented the onboard personnel. As they approached the compound holding Baghdadi the helicopters came under fire from the ground, responding swiftly to neutralize the source.
The soldiers rappelled down to surround the compound, sidestepping the main booby-trapped front gate, and blowing holes in the side of the building to storm through just as Baghdadi fled into a tunnel, pulling three of his young children along with him. Confronted by a dead end, hearing the dogs in full chase and the special agents right behind, Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest, bringing the tunnel down on himself and his three children. His mutilated body, dug out of the rubble, underwent an immediate DNA test to verify his identity.
"The disposal of his [Baghdadi's] remains has been done and is complete and was handled appropriately." Army General Mike Milley, chairman, U.S. Joint chiefs of Staff
People walk on rubble at the site of the US raid. Photograph: Yahya Nemah/EPA
"We teach them that Islam is a peaceful religion an that jihad is about building, not destroying." "It's natural for the children to want revenge for their parents' deaths." "They were taught to hate the Indonesian state because it is against the caliphate." Khairul Ghazali, terrorism renounced in favour of rehabilitation, Medan, Indonesia
"We spend all this time working with them, but if they go back to where they came from, radicalism can enter their hearts very quickly." "It makes me worried." Sri Musfiah, senior social worker, Indonesia
This picture taken on May 10, 2019 shows children, whose parents were
suicide bombers or involved in terror plots, in a mosque at a safe house
in Jakarta. AFP
Following the U.S. special forces raid on the Islamic State leader Baghdadi's compound in northern Syria just across the border from Turkey, before the successful, retreating U.S. forces took to their helicopters with the corpse of the terrorist leader to bury him at sea as they had done Osama bin Laden, they had with them eleven children plucked from the compound before it was destroyed. Their mothers had been discovered, dead, shot in the head, their suicide vests not detonated. Their father dead as well, they are orphans.
More orphans to add to the toll of the Islamic State stalwarts who have died over the years while faithfully carrying out the instructions of Islamic State to butcher and rape. And what to do with children whose parents have been committed Islamists who taught their offspring the sterling qualities of violent Islamist jihad, children who absorbed the ideals of terrorism believing it to be fulfilling the sacred instructions handed down to their parents and all self-respecting Muslims to obey the commands of Islam, beginning and ending with jihad?
There are some countries like Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia that have developed deprogramming missions in the hope of being able to turn adults, much less children, away from their chosen path of violent extremism. Their record is a mixed one of partial success. In the instance of children whose loving parents whom they trusted and looked to for emotional support, how successful can it be to institute a learning program teaching children their parents' example was wrong, and those who fought them are intent on teaching them otherwise?
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority nation, where many of its nationals saw fit to travel to Syria to join Islamic State, while many others remained right in Indonesia to do Islamic State work in the country itself, has seen a number of specialized 'schools', madrasas, open with a mission to deradicalize the children of militants. Like the little girl who at age 7 was bundled on a motorcycle with her mother and brother, her father and other brother on another motorcycle, both equipped with bombs the children were told were coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves.
Driving toward a police station in the Indonesian city of Surabaya where other faiths besides Islam are practised, the bombs were set off at the gate of the police station, killing the family, but no one else, while sparing the life of the little girl. Catapulted from the motorcycle the child emerged alive, unhurt, an orphan. She is now enrolled in a deradicalization program operated by the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs in Jakarta. Her schoolmates are other children similarly left orphans.
In Indonesia, the reality is that thousands of vulnerable children indoctrinated by their parents, now dead, but many more alive, call out for a solution. Khairul Ghazali, five years imprisoned for terrorism-related crimes renounced violence and now respectably operations an Islamic school in Medan, on Sumatra. He draws on experience as a former extremist to help him in his mission to deradicalize the children of terrorists. A mere one hundred children have thus far attended formal Indonesian deradicalization programs.
His own madrasa which receives significant government support for its work, is able to teach only 25 children at a time, up through middle school. Follow up by government is minimal. "The children are not tracked and monitored when they leave", noted Alto Labetubun, a terrorism analyst in Indonesia. Indonesian counterterrorism police had tangled with about half of Mr. Khairul's students' parents, killing them.
One day, some boys spoke of their worldview at Mr. Khairul's Medan madrasa, with all the boys in the class agreeing that Indonesia should be an Islamic state. They were asked what about the churches among the mosques in mixed-religion Medan? A 12-year-old boy raised his hands to mimic the shock of an explosion, and he said "Bomb".
"It hasn't been easy dealing with [the children] because they
believed in radicalism... and that bombing was a good thing."
"They were taught that jihad was essential to go to heaven and that
you must kill non-believers. It was very hard to change that mindset." Neneng Heryani, head, safe-house, Jakarta
An Indonesian family who escaped from the Islamic State group in
Raqqa gather inside their tent at a refugee camp in Ain Issa in
northeastern Syria, July 24, 2017.
"There was a bang and we turned and saw sparks flying out like shooting stars, and then white steam and black smoke mixed together." "A column of light was visible, neon blue. We thought it was a hydrogen explosion -- anything but the reactor." "They told us our reactor was the safest in the world." Sergei Parikvash, Chernobyl employee
"We shouldn't be making a show out of this." "It's a place of tragedy that needs further study rather than people jostling around." Dr.Yury Bandazhevsky
"Every third person comes because of the TV show." "I know because no one used to ask about the 'bridge of death', before." Svetlana Sklyarenko, guide, Chernobyl tours
"It's good when people find out about the tragedy for themselves." "Don't we visit monuments to soldiers who died in the Second World War?" Oleksiy Ananenko, depicted in the HBO mini series
After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, 54 people were known to have immediately died. Among them Valery Khodemchuk, a pump operator. His body remains somewhere in the fourth reactor block to this day. On April 26, 1986 the nuclear catastrophe of the Chernobyl power plant arrested the world's attention. Now, almost 30 years later, the plant has become a tourism site; irresistible to some people who feel drawn to the drama of the unprecedented and deadly event.
The popular HBO mini-series has stirred up international interest in the plant, attracted to Reactor 4 which the series focuses its drama on. The explosion caused by design flaws and human error had wide and deadly repercussions. Now, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, with his own experience in show business, has vowed to transform the giant crypt into a "scientific and touristic magnet".
Travelers can visit 300 meters away from the New Safe Confinement.
Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
The 1,000 square mile exclusion zone is opening, with 21 new tourist routes. With soaring visitor numbers his dream may reach fruition to help the struggling Ukrainian economy move forward, in a world where world-class destructive man-made catastrophes are equal in popularity to anything that nature herself can stage. Celesium-137 was scattered along with other radioactive isotopes after the explosion and fire, as far as Sweden, while areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia saw hugely elevated rates of birth defects and cancer materialize.
The 36,000-ton safe confinement arch representing the largest movable structure ever built and placed over reactor block No.4 in 2016 has resulted in background radiation in most of the exclusion zone lower than what exists in many cities across the globe. In defiance of the ban, a hundred elderly "resettlers" returned to remain in their rural homes. Around the ghost town Pripyat contaminated hot spots remain, long after its 50,000 residents were expelled the day following the explosion.
Sergei Parikvash, then an employee of the plant, was fishing in its cooling pond when the explosion occurred. He simply carried on fishing after the blast. And then when a radioactive graphite film began forming on the water, it dawned on him that something had gone terribly wrong. Tourists surreptitiously enter the off-limits Pripyat Cafe, and then are hunted down as "stalkers", those entering Chernobyl without permission.
Visitors pass through a radiation control checkpoint.
Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
After the explosion, Dr. Yury Bandazhevsky found hormonal changes in close to half the 4,000 children in areas next to the exclusion zone. The effects of the Chernobyl blast are not fully understood yet. But the plant insists its procedures ensure that visitors are safe. They are checked for contamination at the entrance, put on scrubs, gloves, shoes, disposable dust mask and a hard hat; everything white to show up any possible contamination stains.
There are 2,900 employees remaining at Chernobyl who maintain the plant. It has one of the largest storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel in Europe. Tours take place almost daily. The exclusion zone, according to the state agency managing it, expects up to 120,000 visitors this year, an increase over last year's 72,000, where foreigners are charged $130, generating hundreds of thousands in income for private companies and the state budget.
Residents of Slavutych, a town built for those who cleaned up after the explosion, called "liquidators", wonder when funding would begin to trickle into their community. "Some of this money should go toward treating sick kids in Slavutych and elsewhere", said Viktor Kharin whose wife and daughters have developed cancers he attributes to radiation exposure after the Chernobyl explosion.
The actual No. 4 reactor where the explosion occurred is completely covered to stop more radiation from leaking into the air. Photo Ben Smithson
"When you mention Colombia, unfortunately, some people relate that name with illegal drugs." "We have an opportunity here to take a controlled substance and change that reputation, to bring health to people and development to our country." "I feel great about doing this [producing cannabis for the medical cannabis company Clever Leaves he co-founded in 2016]." "This is the right way to use controlled substances." "Pharmaceuticals always come from the global north to South America to
Africa to Asia." "This is something that is changing that
model. This is from Colombia to the world." Julian Wilches, formerly director of drug policy, Justice Ministry, Colombia
"The cannabis industry in the last three months has faced a reduction in investment, but the interest in Colombia is still very promising." "Colombia in the near future will become a centre for development and research for the industry."
Juan Diego Alvarez, vice-president regulatory affairs, Khiron Life Sciences Corp.
Workers prune marijuana plants at a Clever Leaves
greenhouse in Pesca, Colombia. The company employs over 450 people.
Courtesy of Clever Leaves
Colombia has had a lot of experience with narcotics production, all illegal, all leading to human tragedy, violence, laying waste whole communities, while marking the country as a narco-trafficking distribution centre. Suddenly all that has changed, the country has become respectable after its struggle to cope with cocaine marketing, violence, and just incidentally its battles with FARC, the anti-government guerrilla group.
Now the country has adopted the medical cannabis industry as a legitimate, money-making scheme in a world where there are never enough recreational drugs to make everyone happy. In Bogota, the word is that Colombia's time has come, as marijuana has been embraced around the world as a drug that can be usefully harnessed for medical uses. Even as various governments have legalized recreational cannabis, and more are following.
Investment from growers in Canada and the United States among others have placed a half-billion dollars into the country to buy up farmland, build greenhouses and produce oils, creams and associated products containing cannabidiol (CBD) in new operating laboratories, to treat chronic pain, insomnia and everything in between. None of these operations are purportedly interested in growing THC-infused cannabis for smokers' highs.
The narco state of Pablo Escobar is no more, in lock step with the growing, glowing cannabis market with an estimated value of over $50 billion by 2025. Colombia sees itself as the centre of production, exporting product worldwide where cannabis use is being legalized. Oddly, Colombia itself has not yet seen fit to legalize cannabis beyond modest quantities for personal use.
An aerial view of the Clever Leaves plantation in Pesca.
It currently covers 37 acres and plans to expand cultivation to over
200 acres of marijuana plants by 2021.Courtesy of Clever Leaves
Clever Leaves' greenhouses located on a huge farm in a valley in the Andes some eight thousand feet above sea level, is producing roughly25 tonnes of dried cannabis annually. An expansion will see production rise to around 324 tonnes by 2020, when it will become one of the world's largest growers. Cannabis cultivation is legal under permit since 2016. The country, close to the equator, has a guaranteed 12 hours of sunlight all year. No artificial light required.
A grab-bag of Canadian, publicly traded companies have been attracted to Colombia, names such as Canopy Growth Corp., PharmaCielo Ltd., Khiron Life Sciences Corp., Aurora Cannabis Inc., and Aphria Inc., among the largest in the global industry. This, despite emerging concerns over lung illnesses and deaths related to vaping in the United States. Profit for the industry's largest concerns has not yet materialized; they're gambling on future stakes.
A legal cannabis grow operation in Colombia
Javier Hasse
Revenue from the cannabis sector in Colombia is forecast to swell to $791 million by 2025 from its current $99 million, with researchers estimating the U.S. market alone for CBD to the value of close to $23 billion by 2023. Colombia's President Ivan Duque has promised to cut bureaucracy and that his government is prepared to give its full support to the industry.
Even as Colombia anticipates increasing exports to the U.K., Poland and Germany once EU approval is given, other Latin American countries from Mexico to Argentina are putting laws in place enabling industries to develop there.
"We have arrested the lorry driver in connection with the incident who remains in police custody as our enquiries continue." "This is a tragic incident where a large number of people have lost their lives. Our enquiries are ongoing to establish what has happened." Essex Chief Superintendent Andrew Mariner
"[I am] appalled by this tragic incident in Essex." "I am receiving regular updates and the Home Office will work closely with Essex Police as we establish exactly what has happened." "My thoughts are with all those who lost their lives and their loved ones." "We know that this trade is going on - all such traders in human beings should be hunted down and brought to justice." British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
"Sadly, this is not the first time that we have found people in metal containers in my constituency." "We're really sorry to say it's all too regular an occurrence and it was only a matter of time before that would end in tragedy." Jackie Doyle-Price, Conservative Member of Parliament
"Potential victims of human trafficking were reported from 130 different nationalities in 2018 [and] Albanian and Vietnamese nationals were the most commonly reported." "[Victims are assigned to forced labour, in the sex industry and other fields]." British National Crime Agency
Leon Neal / Getty Images The tractor part of this unit where 39 bodies were found Wednesday is felt to have originated in Northern Ireland
Human trafficking and modern-day slavery are, unbelievably, on the rise world-wide. According to Britain's National Crime Agency, 6,993 victims of this crime had been referred to the government's program whose purpose is to identify and support victims, representing a 36 percent increase from 2017. Additionally, most fatal situations where victims of trafficking perished trapped inside shipping containers and trucks have been migrants, in recent years.
The bodies of 58 Chinese immigrants were discovered in June of 2000, in the back of a truck container in the port city of Dover, while in August of 2015, 71 bodies were found on a highway in Austria, trapped within a hermetically sealed and locked freezer truck. Most of those victims had come from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, at the peak of Europe's influx of refugees and migrants.
German public television and the Sued-deutsche Zeitung newspaper revealed afterward that Hungarian officials had tapped the phones of the traffickers, according to their research, but had failed to intervene in a timely manner that might have, if such intervention had occurred, saved those lives. The E.U. Law enforcement Agency (Europol), after the 2015 event, added a dedicated European Migrant Smuggling Centre to its law-and-order enterprise.
This year Europol published a report reflecting that the centre had discovered the most common method of smuggling relates to people being concealed in cars, or inside vans or trucks. Managing Director Rod McKenzie of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association explained that the journey for people in the truck from Bulgaria would have been "hellish". From photographs that emerged it was clear the truck was equipped with a refrigerated unit, with temperatures dipping as low as -25C.
This, in relation to one of Britain's largest murder investigations when 39 bodies were found within a tractor-trailer parked on an industrial estate in southeast England. The driver, a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, is under arrest on suspicion of murder. The dead, comprised of 38 adults and a teenager, were discovered at Waterglade Industrial Park in the town of Grays, Essex, some 32 kilometres east of central London.
The truck was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, a port city on the coast of the Black Sea, to a company owner identified as an Irish woman. Since Bulgarian citizens as part of the European Union, and can travel freely to Britain, it was assumed originally that the truck occupants may have derived from elsewhere, confirmed when all the dead were identified as Chinese nationals. The truck had been driven from Belgium to a small town in Essex on the Thames.
Thirty-five minutes after the truck left Purfleet on Wednesday, police responded to an alert from local ambulance services who were at the container.
It was surmised by Mr. McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association that whoever sent the trailer through Essex might have favoured the route in avoidance of strict checks at the popular Calais, France crossing to Dover where authorities use sniffer dogs and monitors capable of detecting heartbeats, heat and C02 levels. "Purfleet, however, doesn't have that level of technology to screen lorries".
"According to this agreement, Turkey and Russia will not allow any separatist agenda on Syrian territory." Recep Tayyip Erdogan
A Turkish army officer jumps from his tank moving to its new position on
the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Sanliurfa
province, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019.
"The sanctions will be lifted unless something happens that we are unhappy with." "[There has been a major breakthrough in a better future
for Syria and for the Middle East.] It's been a long time." "[The cease fire has held] well - beyond
most expectations [although some patients were photographed showing
horrendous injuries sustained during the period]."
"'A small number of US
troops will stay in the area where they have the oil, and we will be
protecting it."
"We were supposed to be there for 30 days ... they stayed for almost 10 years. This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else,
no other nation, very simple. And we're willing to take blame and we're
also willing to take credit. This is something they've been trying not
do for many many decades."
U.S. President Donald J.Trump
"The United States was the closest ally of
the Kurds over the past few years. But in the end, the U.S. abandoned the
Kurds, actually betraying them."
"The U.S. opted to abandon the Kurds on the border, almost forcing them to fight against the Turks."
Russian presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov
Medics wipe a man's face after he was injured in the blast in Ras al-Ain
- which took place despite Turkey's claims that it has stopped its
military offensive
Where the United States moved out, Russia moved in, because as everyone knows, nature and the fortunes of conflict abhor a vacuum. Leaving Russia to negotiate between Turkey and Syria for a ceasefire of Turkish troops against the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, abandoned by the U.S. military on orders from the White House, leaving an estimated 300,000 Kurdish civilians to flee their towns and villages. The vile atrocities committed by the Shiite militias in league with Turkey fully equal those of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, now once again gathering steam.
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Turkish and Kurdish forces was preparing to expire, though it was a ceasefire in name only, shattered countless times by the proxy militias serving under the Turks. Talks between Vladimir Putin and Erdogan in Sochi, Russia concluded with an agreement where all Kurdish forces would retreat 29 kilometres from the Syrian border over the next six days. The towns and villages already taken by the Turks will remain in their hands, an outcome surely not welcomed by Syria's Bashar al-Assad.
Joint military patrols by Russian and Turkish troops are scheduled to be launched in the area to make certain of implementation of the agreement, though Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces stated no immediate response to the agreement. For the time being at the very least, Ankara has agreed its military offensive is at a standstill. Russian forces are prepared to guard areas where U.S. troops were patrolling a few weeks earlier.
Putin and Erdogan, Sochi, Oct. 22.
SERGEI CHIRIKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Turkey is to maintain continued control in those areas it has taken possession of while it appears that Syrian regime forces are set to hold the remainder of the border. The Kurds are slated, according to the agreement, to withdraw from two towns in Western Syria, Kobani and Tel Rifaat. As usual, the world looks on as Kurdish life, culture, geography and heritage are once again being looted, their hard-fought territorial geography yanked out from under repeatedly, their human rights abrogated.
The announcement that up to 500 Islamic State terrorists had made good their escape from Kurdish-operated prison camps in northeast Syria hardly comes as a surprise, given the chaos resulting from the Turkish offensive, effectively calling away Kurdish fighters to the more urgent existential protection of their homeland, their towns, their people.
As for the withdrawn U.S. troops which Washington had intended to deploy to Iraq, its government has stated it had not agreed to extend permission to the retreating troops to remain in Iraq. The ultimate ignominy visited upon the American troops reluctant to abandon their Kurdish counterparts with whom they have shared the stresses and dangers of the battlefield, forging a bond that a casual decision by their president has summarily sundered.
"Now I have just spoken with Prime Minister Trudeau to
congratulate him on winning the most seats —and my message tonight is
that the strength of our democracy is not only measured by the ballots
we cast, but also by how we move forward after their counting."
"And
while tonight’s result isn’t what we wanted, I am also incredibly
proud. Proud of our team, proud of our campaign, and proud of the bigger
and stronger Conservative team that we will send to Ottawa. Now, there
are still a number of really close races, so we don’t know for sure how
many more Conservatives Canadians will send to Ottawa tonight, but what
we do know is that after the 2015 election, when Justin Trudeau looked
unstoppable, when all the pundits and experts said it was the beginning
of another Trudeau dynasty, that he would have eight or even 12 years in
power. But tonight, Conservatives have put Justin Trudeau on notice.
And Mr. Trudeau, when your government falls, Conservatives will be ready
and we will win." Andrew Sheer, Leader, Official Opposition, Conservative Party of Canada, Parliament of Canada
So, it's over. And Canada's 43rd Parliament is slated to begin,
returning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to his second term, reduced from
his 2015 election's majority to the current 2019's minority government.
To people who voted in a majority Liberal government in 2015, viewing
Justin Trudeau as a breath of fresh air, who just incidentally was
telegenic, charismatic, youthful, inherited a famous name in Canadian
politics and promised electoral reform, along with a more open
government prepared to do the business of administering Canada fairly
and honourably, and to bring civility to Parliament, he was their man.
During the 2015-6 honeymoon period they lavished love on their champion
of women's rights, of LGBTQ2 rights, workers' rights, whose flashy style
they just adored. Many may have been disappointed when Trudeau decided
to ditch the electoral reform promise, and they shrugged when the
enquiry into Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women went nowhere, and
they lauded him when he made public apologies for episodes in Canadian
history that occurred a century ago. They did a double take when
theatrical-adoring Trudeau out-dressed Indians on the sub-continent when
he visited and welcomed a convicted Sikh separatist who had attempted
to murder a visiting Indian minister in Canada.
Revelations of his having groped a female news reporter in Vancouver
before he entered politics was dismissed by him as people experiencing
things 'differently', depending on gender, and ain't that just so? Who
knew that this man had a streak of mean vengeance in him, other than
former Admiral Mark Norman who was put through hell on Earth though he
was second-in-command of the Canadian Armed Forces, when Trudeau decided
he would ruin the man, charging him with having betrayed 'national
secrets' by embarrassing Trudeau, with respect to commissioning a Naval
supply ship Trudeau wanted to contract out to a rival shipyard.
But the revelations that the PMO under Trudeau's direction harassing and
continually interfering with the decision of Jody Wilson-Raybould with
respect to the Prosecutor General refusing to give SNC Lavalin, an
influential, Liberal-friendly Montreal engineering company, a free pass
on charges relating to corrupt activities, removing her as Canada's
Minister of Justice and Solicitor General for insubordination when he
and his acolytes unethically interfered in the administration of
justice, which was found by Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion to be illegal
should have been grounds to voluntarily step down from office.
During the election campaign there were revelations, complete with
incriminating photographs that Justin Trudeau relished the challenge of
posing himself as other than what he is; a privileged-by-birth white
elite, by dressing up in blackface at festive, celebratory events on at
least three occasions. He excused his penchant for mockery and racism by
blaming his privileged upbringing, and ceding that he had no idea at
the time -- when he was 29 years old -- that what he was doing was
racist, pure and simple.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is shown in a 2001 photo
published in the yearbook of West Point Grey Academy, a private school
where Trudeau was teaching at the time. (Time.com)
Anyone else would have paid the consequences for these and too many
other acts of malfeasance that would have sunk anyone else. In fact,
anyone else, would have been genuinely embarrassed by their own
demonstrated stupidity and arrogance, apologized without reservation,
and stepped aside from public office. Mr. Trudeau believes he can do no
wrong, that anything he does that might be of questionable taste
bordering on immoral or unethical or even worse, is to be overlooked in
favour of acknowledging his exceptionality.
So exceptional that he saw fit to exclude church groups from submitting
applications for summer employment for interns through a federal
government summer grant-hiring program, if the groups in question would
not, or could not attest that they would support a woman's right to
abortion. This is the same man who took disallowed/illegal under
parliamentary rules, gifts from wealthy patrons known to lobby
government for special considerations and project funding. And was duly
censored for so doing by the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner.
This man has single-handedly alienated Western Canada, thanks to his
commitment to his version of responsible environmentalism, where it is
perfectly sane to import Saudi Arabian oil to Canada, a country that has
its own vast oil resources, in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. A
vital oil industry resource is being forcibly neglected due to the
disinterest of the Liberal government in opening up the oil fields to
full extraction and refining, and shipping fossil fuels by pipeline to
eastern Canada and to tidewater to be shipped abroad as a valuable and
saleable resource.
"A few days ago, I found in my mailbox an invitation that
was probably sent to me by mistake. The President of the World Jewish
Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, and the President of the Jewish Community of
Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, are ‘honored’ to invite
me to a festive dinner on the occasion of Her Excellency the Chancellor
of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel receiving the Theodor
Herzl Award." "Why is Merkel being given the Theodor Herzl Award? Because her
representative at the United Nations abstains in anti-Israel resolutions
— and thereby de facto supports them? The same official who equates
Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with Israel’s demolition of
the homes of Palestinian terrorists? For not relocating the German
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the United States did, and also
warning other countries against taking such a step? For all this, she
gets the Theodor Herzl Award?"German political commentator Henryk Broder
"The
Zionist Organization of America opposes the World
Jewish Congress’s decision to honor German Chancellor Angela Merkel with
the Herzl Award. The ZOA firmly believes that a foreign leader who
continues to support the disastrously flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal,
which will enable the Iranian regime in time to become a nuclear weapons
state, is a singularly inappropriate recipient of the WJC’s most
prestigious
award."
“By any reasonable yardstick, Chancellor Merkel has done
little if anything to justify the bestowal of this award and a great
deal that should disqualify her as a candidate for this
award."
"Which policy she has pursued does the WJC believe distinguishes
Chancellor Merkel as a worthy recipient of this award? Her refusal to
close down the operations in Germany of the vicious blood-soaked
terrorist group Hezbollah? Her opposition to recognition of Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel? Her stubborn support for the Iran nuclear deal
that is opposed on bipartisan basis in Israel? Her unabashed claim that
Iran is not anti-Semitic, despite its repeated calls for the Jewish
State’s
destruction."
"Whatever else may be said of Chancellor Merkel, she is an entirely
inappropriate recipient of an award adorned with the name of the
founding father of Political Zionism."Morton Klein, President, Zionist Organization of America
(Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
"It seems paradoxical that Germany — as a country that is said to have
learned from its horrendous past and which has a strong commitment to
fighting antisemitism — is one of the strongest economic partners of a
regime [The Islamic Republic of Iran] that blatantly denies the Holocaust and commits human rights
abuses on a daily basis. Germany has included Israel’s security as a
part of its raison d’être. As a matter of course this should exclude
doing business with a fanatic dictatorship that is calling for Israel’s
destruction, pursuing nuclear weapons and financing terror organizations
around the world." Dr. Josef Schuster, President, Central Council of Jews, Germany
Just about unanimous, the response of major Jewish organizations to the
decision of the World Jewish Congress to honour German Chancellor Angela
Merkel with the presentation of its prestigious Theodor Herzl Award for
Zionism. Frau Merkel is beloved by her German subjects, and perhaps
many Jews are among them, but it is her policies and that of her
political ruling party that has made life for German Jews untenable in
Germany. She and her party have expressed their deep shame and regret at
Germany's Nazi past and its hugely successful efforts to annihilate
European Jewry.
While expressing themselves as champions of Israel and good friends of
the Jewish State, Germany also appears to subscribe to the much-mooted
theory that good friends are permitted to be critical of the values
and/or policies of their closest friends because they feel it is in the
very best interests of friends to genuinely express opinions reflecting
their perspectives for the greater goal of guiding them toward preferred
options. Germany prefers two states side by side, an Israeli next to a
Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority, on the merits of its decision making in the
past, turning down one goodwill offer after another to negotiate with
Israel, and appears to favour a one-state policy; the obliteration of
Israel, with the Jews being absorbed into a Palestinian state. This,
from the PA which has already repeatedly stated unequivocally that no
Jews would be permitted to live within a Palestinian State; so the
take-home solution is a Juden-rein, one-state dedicated to the
Palestinians alone, thank you very much.
Somewhat reminiscent of Nazi Germany which had resolved to initiate and
carry through to fruition a Juden-rein Germany, to be followed by a
Juden-rein Europe, and once the Thousand-year Reich was achieved,
presumably, a Juden-rein world community. What Nazi Germany failed to
fully accomplish, it seems that the German Democratic Republic has put
into motion in Germany once again. The six million European-Jewish lives
that were lost in the Holocaust have now been replaced by the presence
in Germany of six million Muslims who have brought with them their own
brand of viral anti-Semitism.
Germany had, over the past post-war years, absorbed a Turkish expatriate
population that had come to the country as temporary foreign workers
and eventually achieved citizenship, to be joined eventually by others
from the Middle East. When Chancellor Merkel decided Germany would
generously open its borders to a million irregular arrivals, migrants
and refugees, they joined the already-present five million Muslim
German citizens. Jews who had lived in Germany for hundreds of years
began to once again suffer a rising tide of anti-Semitism and violence.
Germany financially and philosophically supports various groups that
promote Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment programs. Germany approved a
UN resolution in May of 2016 -- at the annual assembly of the World
Health Organization -- co-sponsored by the Arab League and the
Palestinian delegation, singling Israel out as the world’s nonsensical
sole violator of "mental, physical and environmental health".
Unsurprisingly, and ironically, the German political party Alternative
for Germany (AfD), labelled a "far-right" group that wants to halt
Muslim immigration to Germany, has attracted the attention of German
Jews
A 69-year-old German Jew, Emanuel Bernhard Krauskopf, joined the AfD in 2013, founding an offshoot, Juden in der AfD(Jews in the AfD, or JAfD). This was in reaction to Germany’s mainstream parties' inattention to anti-Semitism. "Every Jew who has been murdered in
Europe since 2000 has been killed by Islamofascists",
stated Mr. Krauskopf, who lost 50 family members in Nazi concentration
camps. Many Jews in both eastern and western Germany were embracing the
AfD ,
believing that continued mass migration poses a threat to the
future of Jews in Germany. His detractors accuse him of being a "Jewish Nazi".
Demonstrators carry a banner that reads “Against any kind of
anti-Semitism” during a rally against the annual al-Quds Day march in
Berlin, July 11, 2015. Anti-Israel rallies are held annually on the day.
(Gregor Fischer/picture alliance via Getty Images)
"Look, when the media tells you that the AfD is a Nazi party, and when
the media looks for some Nazis [in AfD], which we have – like ALL the
parties in Germany – this is nothing special about the AfD. The Left
consists of Jew-haters, not all of them. Yes, we have some
[‘Jew-haters’]. We try to get rid of them. It's not so easy because we
have free speech." "To import Jew haters into Germany while knowing it is an anti-Jewish
act that's not just you know, some memorial. This is reducing our
security in Germany by the chancellor of Germany herself." "They [Berlin] are playing it down [the threat from Muslim immigration]. They're lying. No other word. They are
lying about it. So, there are lots of excuses and the
situation gets worse every day. Because the government has lost control.
Jew-haters have been imported." "[The German government knows] these are
Jew-haters, so now you have no excuse like the normal excuse was after
World War Two: ‘Yeah, but we didn’t know that this would happen, we
didn‘t know...’ You know it now." Bernhard Kraukopf
"The personnel fired back and took control of the house, in which they found four occupants." "During that action, one of them was identified as Ovidio Guzman Lopez. This resulted in various groups of organized crime groups who surrounded the house with a greater firepower than that of the patrol." "In addition, other groups carried out violent actions against residents in various parts of the city, creating panic." Alfonso Durazo, Mexican secretary of public security
"In my 21 years of covering crime at the heart of the drug world, this has been the worst shootout and the most horrible situation I have ever encountered." "The sound of the bullets was so strong, I could almost smell the gunpowder." Ernesto Martinez, local crime reporter "[Mexico resembles a nation in] the throes of war." "What is incontrovertible is that the Sinaloa Cartel won yesterday's battle." "Not only did they get the government to release Ovidio, they demonstrated to the citizens of Culiacan as well as the rest of Mexico who is in control." Gladys McCormick, security analyst, Syracuse University
The authorities say they are working to restore order in the city Reuters
Theee was raw terror in the Mexican city of Culiacan on Thursday after soldiers and police launched a raid with the intention of bringing in one of the sons of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, now serving prison time for life in a high-security U.S. lock-up. While state forces advanced toward their target in Culiacan, a city of a million people, they met with resistance from the Sinaloa Cartel hoisting an array of military-type weapons, and it wasn't the Mexican military that came out smelling like roses.
Ovidio Guzman
They did manage to hold Ovidio Guzman, one of El Chapo's sons, reputed to have taken over the lead after his father's 2016 arrest, but only briefly. Before the shootout between the two forces, the cartel freed dozens of prisoners from a local city jail, torched a number of vehicles and transformed Culiacan into an incendiary shooting gallery. The obvious threat to peace and good order convinced Mexican authorities to swallow their pride and release Guzman -- with the objective, according to Security Minister Alfonso Durazo, of protecting civilian lives.
Although the government denied them, there were reports that the cartel had taken government soldiers hostage. Their lives for Guzman's release. In the violence that ensued, eight people were reported killed, among them five suspected gang members. The government of Mexico under its new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was forced to free from immediate custody a drug trafficker indicted by the U.S. Justice System. Putting on full display the power of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The initial description of the scene were agents on a routine patrol came under attack by armed men from a house in Culiacan and that state forces were overwhelmed, has since been retracted. "My suspicion is that they went after him (Guzman) and they lost", scoffed Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City. Which helped lead President Obrador to the admission the event was no random incident, but a raid by security forces attempting to capture Guzman for whom a judge had issued an arrest warrant for extradition to the U.S.
The Sinaloa state government told residents to stay off the streets EPA
"The officials who took this decision (to release Guzman) did well", President Obrador insisted. "We're doing really well in our strategy. Capturing a criminal can't be worth more than people's lives", he stressed, referring to his election promise to pacify the country after a decade of gang violence. His strategy is to turn police away from their aggressive military-type strategy, rejecting the critics that his government had behaved out of weakness, insisting that his predecessors' tactics had turned Mexico into a "graveyard". "It was done hastily, the consequences were not considered, the riskiest part was taken into account", countered Defence Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval of the bungled capture operation. The carnage that had ensued with the ill-planned arrest of Guzman had its shock value. Images on social media reflected the mayhem that ensued on the streets of Culiacan with videos showing heavily armed civilians firing machine guns mounted on pickup trucks, a cartel man lying on the road firing a 50 calibre machine gun on a tripod.
Sinaloa public security director Cristobal Castafieda spoke of between 20 and 30 prisoners escaping a local jail. The cartel constructed improvised roadblocks, set vehicles afire, and people sprinted through the streets grasping children trying to move speedily for safety from one building to another, hoping to avoid the gunfire. It all began around 3:30 p.m. and was still going strong when 9:00 p.m. agonizingly arrived.
At least eight people were killed
Thursday as Sinaloa cartel gunmen and federal forces fought in Culiacan,
one of Mexico’s largest cities. (EPA-EFE/REX)
The Maduro dictatorship is committing crimes against humanity in #Venezuela. Yet, they are slated to win a seat to the UN Human Rights Council in today's elections. The process is a sham, its results bring shame. Praying a community of conscience will mobilize for justice.
The update to human rights activist Irwin Cotler's dismay at the unbelievable prospect of Venezuela obtaining a seat once again on the 47-member Human Rights Council associated with the United Nations, is that the unthinkable has become reality. President Nicolas Maduro can smirk with satisfaction that his socialist ideal and his gross mismanagement has ruined Venezuela, caused the deaths of all too many people, fractured the nation, created a crippling shortage of basic goods, and created 4.5 refugees. And the world looks away.
The regime's intimidation, torture, imprisonment and murder is notorious. The plight of Venezuelans has transfixed the world, even while those throughout the world who still espouse the socialist ideal remain convinced that there is nothing whatever awry in Venezuela. Its neighbours, however, know otherwise; many, like Colombia, hosting untold numbers of Venezuelans escaping starvation, threats and privation under the Maduro regime.
An estimated fifty nations around the world no longer recognize the Maduro government as legitimate. Because of the general bad odour in which the administration is held, its bid for a seat on the HRC was generally recognized as an attempt to prove that it is not internationally isolated as a pariah state. And with that seat on the council it would be highly unlikely that the council would initiate an investigation into human rights abuses of one of its own.
Of the two Latin American seats open for election, Brazil, with human rights abuses of its own, though not in the same league as Venezuela's, was also elected. Costa Rica had declared its own candidacy with the intention of denying a three-year term to Venezuela, but it was unable to muster the kind of support that Venezuela was given by China, Russia Cuba and other socialist allies to hand the seat to Venezuela.
That nations like Venezuela, are able to mount a candidacy on a tribunal such as the Human Rights Council which sits in judgement of purported human rights abusers across the globe, while its own members reflect the most deep-rooted and institutionalized abuses of human rights is despicable. Yet the council prides itself on promoting human rights and highlights and pinpoints where they are abused, and undertakes the investigation of alleged violations. All of which is a sham; the focus is on one state alone, Israel where human rights abuses are imaged, not real.
Within the corridors of the United Nations, twisted and tortured power plays by self-serving cliques represents the order of the day, every day, in an institution formed for the express purpose of fostering an overall global community of human-right-defending states, for whom opportunity and equality are held to represent the aspirations of just societies. Venezuelans can be forgiven in despairing that the world has no interest in their dire straits, not will it so much as protest the regime of a tyrant like Maduro.
A protester throws a petrol bomb while clashing with
security forces during a rally against President Nicolas Maduro in
Caracas, Venezuela, in May 2017. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
![A file photo taken from Turkey's Sanliurfa province, shows smoke rising after Turkish Armed Forces hit targets in Rasulayn town [Arif Hudaverdi Yaman/Anadolu Agency]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/10/16/bb5cd290568d497592d4f00bfd59b3b9_18.jpg "US House advances bill imposing sanctions on Turkey over Syria")
