Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.

The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.

• READ MORE: Ramzy Baroud: The fallout — winners and losers from the Israeli war on Iran
• Caitlin Johnstone: The fictional mental illness that only affects enemies of the Western empire
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth.  Iran is the weakest.  If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.

Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.

“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.

US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.

In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.

With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years.  A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.

Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.

Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.

Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.

Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.

Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.

The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.

• READ MORE: Ramzy Baroud: The fallout — winners and losers from the Israeli war on Iran
• Caitlin Johnstone: The fictional mental illness that only affects enemies of the Western empire
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth.  Iran is the weakest.  If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.

Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.

“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.

US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.

In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.

With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years.  A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.

Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.

Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.

Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.

Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.

Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Photo Source: Office of Speaker Mike Johnson – Public Domain

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are making corruption and graft the main business of the US government. They have fired all the cops who might try to rein them in and attacked any of the judges, politicians, or reporters who object to them stealing everything in sight.

In this vein, it was entertaining to see reports that Elon Musk has plans to bid on, and presumably get, the contract for building Donald Trump’s “Iron Dome” system for the United States. Before discussing Elon Musk’s latest scheme for getting richer, it is worth noting that there is no obvious need for an Iron Dome-type system in the United States.

Donald Trump may not have noticed, but we have not had a problem of missiles raining down on the United States from other countries. But that’s okay in Donald Trump’s MAGAland. We also didn’t have a problem of pet-eating migrants in Springfield, Ohio, but that didn’t stop Trump and Vance from putting this “crisis” at the center of their campaign.

Donald Trump’s solutions don’t have to bear any relationship to real world problems. He assumes that his supporters will be just fine with spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a weapon system we don’t need, and at least for Republican members of Congress, he is probably right. Needless to say, the “Department of Government Efficiency” won’t be bothered by this waste.

But the potential waste here is even more than it first appears. In Musk’s scheme he won’t be selling the US government the Iron Dome system, he will be “licensing” it. That would mean that Musk maintains ownership of the system, allowing him to sell it to others, and just charges us an annual fee for its use.

There are obvious political issues with this scheme. For example, will Musk shut it down if we have a government that is not sufficiently far-right for his tastes? Suppose the government decides to let trans athletes compete in high school sports; will Musk take away its missile defense system?

But the issues go beyond just political considerations. There is a serious economic issue at stake. There is not currently a mass market for continent-wide anti-missile systems. If Trump decides to pay for the development of one, it will give it developer access to a potentially very valuable technology. It is hard to see how anyone with any business sense at all would hand that asset over to Elon Musk or anyone else.

There are actually some precedents for this sort of transfer of valuable ownership rights. The most famous is when IBM contracted with Bill Gates to design an operating system for its computers in 1981.

At that time IBM was by far the world’s leader in producing personal computers and the computer industry more generally. Microsoft was still a relatively small start-up. But because IBM allowed Gates to maintain ownership of the operating system, Microsoft quickly catapulted past IBM in profitability and market value. It is unlikely Microsoft ever would have become one of the largest companies in the world, if IBM had made ownership of the system a condition of its deal with Microsoft.

To take a more recent example, after the COVID pandemic hit the United States, the government initiated “Operation Warp Speed” to develop vaccines and treatments for the disease. One of the first deals arranged by the program was with Moderna to develop a mRNA vaccine to protect against COVID. Under the contract, the government paid for the research needed to develop the vaccine; it then paid for the clinical trials needed to establish its safety and effectiveness.

However, despite paying the bulk of its development and testing costs, the government handed control over the vaccine to Moderna, which subsequently made tens of billions of dollars selling it in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Instead of making the vaccine a generic that would likely sell for around $5 a shot, Moderna was charging up to $130 a shot for its boosters. Yeah, that deal was signed by Donald Trump.

So, paying for the development of technology, and then giving it away, is not something new for Trump, but the sums involved are likely to be at least an order of magnitude higher for the missile defense system designed by Musk’s team. The economy and financial markets have looked very shaky lately with Donald Trump’s stop/go tariffs, as well as his mass firings and cancellations of government contracts. But there is still at least one investment that is secure in MAGA America: a payment to Donald Trump.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post Iron Dome Technology: Elon Musk’s License to Steal Taxpayers’ Dollars appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

Mediawatch on RNZ today strongly criticised Stuff and YouTube among other media for using Israeli propaganda’s “Outbrain” service.

Outbrain is a company founded by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) military and its technology can be tracked back to a wealthy entrepreneur, which in this case could be a euphemism for a megalomaniac.

He uses the metaphor of a “dome”, likening it to the dome used in warfare.

• LISTEN: The RNZ Mediawatch broadcast on Outbrain
• READ MORE: Outbrain Discovery Outperforms Search and Social for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism
• Israel’s image crisis and the limits of propaganda – AJ Listening Post
• Israel boosts propaganda funding by $150m to sway global opinion against genocide
• Outbrain’s $1 billion Teads deal: The latest in Israel’s high-stakes acquisition spree
• Other propaganda reports

Outbrain, which publishes content on New Zealand media, picks up what’s out there and converts and distorts it to support Israel. It twists, it turns, it deceives the reader.

Presenter Colin Peacock of RNZ’s Mediawatch programme today advised NZ media to ditch the propaganda service.

Outbrain uses the media in the following way. The content user such as Stuff pays Outbrain and Outbrain pays the user, like Stuff.

“Both parties make money when users click on the content,” said Peacock.

‘Digital Iron Dome’
The content on the Stuff website came via “Digital Iron Dome” named after the State of Genociders’ actual defence system. It is run by a tech entrepreneur quoted on Mediawatch:

“Just like a physical iron dome that scans the open air and watches for any missiles . . . the digital iron dome knows how to scan the internet. We know how to buy media. Pro-Israeli videos and articles and images inside the very same articles going against Israel,” says the developer of the propaganda “dome” machine.

Peacock said the developer had stated that the digital dome delivered “pro-Jewish”* messages to more than 100 million people worldwide on platforms like Al Jazeera, CNN — and last weekend on Stuff NZ — and said this information went undetected as pro-Israel material, ensuring it reached, according to the entrepreneur: “The right audience without interference.”

According to Wikipedia, Outbrain was founded by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav, officers in the Israeli Navy. Galai sold his company Quigo to AOL in 2007 for $363 million. Lahav worked at an online shopping company acquired by eBay in 2005.

The company is headquartered in New York with global offices in London, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Cologne, Gurugram, Paris, Ljubljana, Munich, Milan, Madrid, Tokyo, São Paulo, Netanya, Singapore, and Sydney.

Peacock pointed out that other advocacy organisations had already been buying and posting content, there was nothing new about this with New Zealand news media.

But — and this is important — the Media Council ruled in 2017 that Outbrain content was the publisher’s responsibility: that the news media in NZ were responsible for promoted links that were offered to their readers.

“Back then publishers at Stuff and the Herald said they would do more to oversee the content, with Stuff stating it is paid promoted content,” said Peacock, in his role as the media watchdog.

Still ‘big money business’
“But this is also still a big money business and the outfits using these tools are getting much bigger exposure from their arrangements with news publishers such as Stuff,” he said.

He pointed out that the recently appointed Outbrain boss for Australia New Zealand and Singapore, Chris Oxley, had described Outbrain as “a leader in digital media connecting advertisers with premium audiences in contextually relevant environments”.

The watchdog Mediawatch said that news organisations should drop Outbrain.

“Media environments where news and neutrality are important aren’t really relevant environments for political propaganda that’s propagated by online opportunists who know how to make money out of it and also to raise funds while they are at it, ” said Peacock.

“These services like Outbrain are sometimes called ‘recommendation engines’ but our recommendation to news media is don’t use them for the sake of the trust of the people you say you want to earn and keep: the readers,” said Peacock.

Saige England is a journalist and author, and member of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

* Being “pro-Jewish” should not be equated with being pro-genocide nor should antisemitism be levelled at Jews who are against this genocide. The propaganda from Outbrain does a disservice to Palestinians and also to those Jewish people who support all human rights — the right of Palestinians to life and the right to live on their land.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Authorities have ordered the operation run by Tienhao Kaobang Co. to remain closed until the washing reservoir has been repaired, said people who live in Viengxay district of Houaphanh province and who have complained about pollution in the Nam Xang and Nam Poon rivers.

“The company is not allowed to operate until the reservoir repair is completed,” said a resident who declined to be identified out of fear of retribution.

The wastewater released discolored and muddied the water in the rivers and killed fish, he said.

Affected villagers said they are concerned that the contaminated water will affect their rice production and livestock that drink from the two rivers.

The mining industry has been a key driver of economic growth in the small, landlocked Southeast Asian nation for years, but it has had negative environmental impacts.

If tailings — leftover material from the processing of iron ore that can contain potentially toxic elements — are not properly managed and contained in washing reservoirs, they can pollute water sources, affect soil quality, harm aquatic life, and potentially pose health risks to humans.

Complaints

Villagers from seven communities downstream from the mine and their respective chiefs complained to district officials after the incident occurred on Jan. 12, the head of one village told Radio Free Asia.

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On Monday, Outhone Bounvilay, head of the Natural Resources and Environment Office of Viangxay district, told Lao National Radio that the discoloration was caused by an overflow of wastewater from the iron ore washing reservoir in Fongxang village.

He also said Lao officials have an agreement with the company to temporarily stop its operations until the problem is resolved.

When RFA called the Natural Resources and Environment Office to ask about compensation for villagers whose water resources are now polluted, a staffer said investigators were collecting water samples to analyze.

Another villager said she saw a post saying that the company would compensate residents, but it gave no further details.

Both district officials and the company are collaborating with local villages, including six situated along the Nam Xang River, to evaluate the impact and ensure fair compensation, the online Laotian Times said.

In a December 2024 incident, wastewater leaked from the same mining operations into the Nam Xang River, prompting authorities to urge the company to adopt stricter measures to prevent other incidents, the news outlet said.

Translated by Khamsao Civilize for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

He also has the UK military helping to protect Israel from Iran’s rockets while doing nothing to defend unarmed Palestinian women and children from the daily carnage inflicted by Israel’s “most moral” military.

He refers to Hamas’s murderous breakout last October 7 but never mentions Israel’s massacres and other atrocities against Palestinians in the decades leading up to October 7. Yet he practised as a human rights lawyer and was Director of Public Prosecutions. Would you believe it?

So what makes Western leaders abandon all sense of justice, all common sense and all norms of human decency in order to support, protect and supply a rogue regime in its lust to dominate, oppress, steal and butcher? Why such adoration for Israel in our corridors of power? Nobody I’ve spoken to can understand it.

But it looks like the culprit could be America’s QME doctrine. In 2008 Congress enacted legislation requiring that US arms sales to any country in the Middle East other than Israel must not adversely affect Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME).

Ensuring the apartheid state always has the upper hand over it neighbours

Legislation defines QME as “the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from nonstate actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or nonstate actors.”

In a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on 4 November 2011, Andrew Shapiro (Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department), enlarged on QME saying: “As a result of the Obama Administration’s commitment, our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper and more intense than ever before. One of my primary responsibilities is to preserve Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge, or QME. This is not just a top priority for me, it is a top priority for the Secretary and for the President.

“It is widely known that our two countries share a special bond that is rooted in our common values and interwoven cultures…. We are committed to that special bond, and we are going to do what’s required to back that up, not just with words but with actions.’

“The cornerstone of America’s security commitment to Israel has been an assurance that the United States would help Israel uphold its qualitative military edge. This commitment was written into law in 2008 and each and every security assistance request from the Israeli Government is evaluated in light of our policy to uphold Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.”

‘Strongly in sync’

Shapiro explained how, for three decades, Israel had been the leading beneficiary of US security assistance through the Foreign Military Financing programme (FMF) which was providing $3 billion per year for training and equipment. A 2007 memorandum of understanding provided for $30 billion in security assistance over 10 years, allowing Israel to purchase the sophisticated defence equipment it needs to maintain its qualitative military edge. 60 percent of US security assistance funding to some 70 countries went to Israel.

And here’s the funny bit. Shapiro claimed: “Our support for Israel’s security helps preserve peace and stability in the region. If Israel were weaker, its enemies would be bolder. This would make broader conflict more likely, which would be catastrophic to American interests in the region. It is the very strength of Israel’s military which deters potential aggressors and helps foster peace and stability. Ensuring Israel’s military strength and its superiority in the region, is therefore critical to regional stability and as a result is fundamentally a core interest of the United States.”

That’s worked well, hasn’t it?

“The United States also experiences a number of tangible benefits from our close partnership with Israel. For instance, joint exercises allow us to learn from Israel’s experience in urban warfare and counterterrorism.” Yes, gained from decades of assaults, bombardments and brutal persecution of the captive Palestinian people under Israeli military occupation.

“Israeli technology is proving critical to improving our Homeland Security and protecting our troops. One only has to look at Afghanistan and Iraq…..

“Israel is a vital ally and serves as a cornerstone of our regional security commitments. From confronting Iranian aggression, to working together to combat transnational terrorist networks, to stopping nuclear proliferation and supporting democratic change and economic development in the region – it is clear that both our strategic outlook, as well as our national interests are strongly in sync…. Our security assistance to Israel also helps support American jobs, since the vast majority of security assistance to Israel is spent on American-made goods and services.”

It was then time for him to demonise Iran. “The Iranian regime continues to be committed to upsetting peace and stability in the region and beyond. Iran’s nuclear program is a serious concern, particularly in light of Iran’s expansion of the program over the past several years in defiance of its international obligations.”

Speaking of international obligations, how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes? Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Why hasn’t Israel signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why has it signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention?

Shapiro went on: “Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas enables these groups to fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli population centers.” A bit like America’s support for the Israeli Offence Force then. “Iran’s extensive arms smuggling operations, many of which originate in Tehran and Damascus, weaken regional security and disrupt efforts to establish lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. As change sweeps the region, Iran has and should be expected to continue its attempts to exploit much positive change for its own cynical ambitions.”

And are we to believe that Israel’s long-term illegal occupation of its neighbours’ territories such as Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms has nothing whatsoever to do with the Zionists’ “cynical ambitions”? Has it never occurred to the Americans that Israel’s QME — all that power in the hands of an abusive regime — makes peace impossible? It is deeply worrying that successive US administration don’t seem to realise that Israel doesn’t want peace and never has — that peace gets in the way of its territorial ambitions. Or has America indeed realised this and made it part of the US’s “cynical ambition”.

Shapiro complained that despite its instability Syria was still providing Hezbollah with critical military and logistical support and that Syria might be supplying sophisticated missile technology. Perhaps he forgets that Hezbollah was set up in 1982 by Muslim clerics to fight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

“For six decades, Israelis have guarded their borders vigilantly,” he said. But he surely knows that Israel has never declared its borders for the simple reason it intends to constantly expand them.

“We are taking steps to help Israel better defend itself from the threat of rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas. This is a very real daily concern for ordinary Israelis living in border towns such as Sderot, who know that a rocket fired from Gaza may come crashing down at any moment.” Funny he should mention Sderot, now home to Israeli land-grabbers. It is built on the lands of a Palestinian village called Najd, which was ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists in May 1948 before Israel declared itself a state. The 600+ villagers, all Muslim, were forced to flee for their lives.

Najd was not allocated to the Jews in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, they stole it using armed force. Britain, the mandated government, was in charge while this and many other atrocities were committed by rampaging Jewish militia, Najd being one of 418 Palestinian villages and towns they wiped off the map. Its 82 homes were bulldozed and their inhabitants, presumably, became refugees in nearby Gaza. Their families are probably still living in camps there. The sweet irony is that some of them are quite likely manning the rocket launchers.

Being a target for Gaza’s rockets and only a mile from the prison camp fence, Sderot has become known as ‘the bomb shelter capital of the world’, residents having little time to take cover. It is now a major propaganda asset of the Israeli regime and a compulsory stop on the brainwash tour for gullible politicians and journalists. When Barak Obama visited in 2008 he said: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing.” Yes, Mr Obama. But hopefully you wouldn’t be such a plonker as to live on land stolen from your neighbour at gun-point.

Shapiro revealed that the funding for Iron Dome was above and beyond the $3 billion from FMF. He also remarked that “many Israeli officers and enlisted personnel attend US military schools such as the National War College. These personnel exchanges allow Israel’s future military leaders to acquire essential professional skills, as well as build life-long relationships with their U.S. military counterparts.”

So it really is a cosy setup.

Additionally, “Israel benefits from a War Reserve Stockpile that is maintained in Israel by US European Command. This can be used to boost Israeli defenses in the case of a significant military emergency…. Israel is also able to access millions of dollars in free or discounted military equipment each year through the Department of Defense’s Excess Defense Articles program.”

Sheer bribery

Shapiro also touched on how the US keeps other nearby nations sweet. “Our longstanding friendship and our extraordinary relationship of cooperation is reflected in the more than $300 million in security assistance that we provide Jordan annually…. For the past 30 years, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has served as the basis for the $1.3 billion in annual Foreign Military Financing (FMF) that we provide Egypt. This assistance helps Egypt maintain a strong and disciplined professional defense force that is able to act as a regional leader and a moderating influence. Our assistance helps build ties between militaries, ensures that foreign militaries conduct themselves in restrained and professional ways, and creates strong incentives for recipient countries to maintain good ties with the United States.

“We have continued to rely on Egypt to support and advance US interests in the region, including peace with Israel, confronting Iranian ambitions, interdicting smugglers, and supporting Iraq.”

Shapiro was also aware of diplomatic efforts from some quarters to question Israel’s legitimacy. “As the President has said, Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate. We have consistently opposed efforts to isolate Israel. We have stood up strongly for Israel and its right to defend itself…. We have refused to attend events that endorse or commemorate the flawed 2001 World Conference Against Racism, which outrageously singled out Israel for criticism. This Administration has also made clear that a lasting and sustainable peace can only come though negotiations and remains firmly opposed to one-sided efforts to seek recognition of statehood outside the framework of negotiations, whether in the UN Security Council or other international fora.”

QME’s collision with international law

He was referring, presumably, to those same old lopsided negotiations that have led nowhere. Israel has no claim to self-defence against a threat emanating from a territory it belligerently occupies. That has been made perfectly clear by the UN and other authorities. It’s the Palestinians who have a cast-iron right to self-defence, using “armed struggle” if necessary, against Israel’s illegal military occupation and murderous oppression (UN Resolutions 37/43 and 3246). UN Resolution 3246 also calls for all States to recognize the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subjected to colonial and foreign domination and to assist them in their struggle.

Furthermore Palestinians should not have to negotiate their freedom and self-determination – it’s theirs by right and doesn’t depend on anyone else, such as Israel or the US, agreeing to it. The US, UK and Israel (the latter stating repeatedly that it will not allow a Palestinian state to be created) arrogantly ignore the rights of others. But legal opinion (Wilde) has it that when 138 of the world’s states at the UN General Assembly voted in 2012 to re-designate Palestine’s status from ‘non-member Entity’ to ‘non-member State’, this had the effect of establishing statehood.

Seriously, could no-one see that America’s crooked QME doctine would clash with justice and international law?

A further boost to this US-Israel love affair came in July 2012 with an Act called the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012. It included the following policy statement:

(1) To reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. As President Barack Obama stated on December 16, 2011, ‘‘America’s commitment and my commitment to Israel and Israel’s security is unshakeable.’’ And as President George W. Bush stated before the Israeli Knesset on May 15, 2008, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, ‘‘The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friend ship runs deeper than any treaty.’’.

(2) To help the Government of Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political trans-formation.

(3) To veto any one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council.

(4) To support Israel’s inherent right to self-defense.

(5) To pursue avenues to expand cooperation with the Government of Israel both in defense and across the spectrum of civilian sectors, including high technology, agriculture, medicine, health, pharmaceuticals, and energy.

(6) To assist the Government of Israel with its ongoing efforts to forge a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that results in two states living side-by-side in peace and security, and to encourage Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

(7) To encourage further development of advanced technology programs between the United States and Israel given current trends and instability in the region.

Policy (6) is nonsensical given the Israelis’ continuing refusal to recognize Palestine’s right to statehood, the recent passing of nation state laws reinforcing Israel’s apartheid, and the sidelining of international law and justice in seeking instead to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by arm-twisting negotiation.

Need to eliminate the Zionist Tendency

As Shapiro reminded his audience, President Truman famously took just 11 minutes to extend official, diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel when it was founded in 1948. He didn’t even have the sense to sleep on it, and the US’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security has been one of the fundamental tenets of America’s national security ever since. While Truman, a self-declared Zionist, felt sorry for “the victims of Hitler’s madness” his hasty decision created millions of victims of Israel’s evil intent, which was so obvious from the start and is now laid bare for all to see.

It seems as if the UK has been roped in and superglued to America’s ridiculous infatuation with the apartheid regime and its genocidal maniacs. Here it’s a criminal offence to show support for Hamas or Hezbollah, but it’s business as usual with the loathsome regime in Israel. Clubs supporting Israel are still allowed to flourish at Westminster.

Our new trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds is reported to be in talks with a minister in Tel Aviv, Nir Barkat, who is one of the more extreme proponents of Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. The department says: “Our teams will be entering negotiating rooms as soon as possible, laser-focused on creating new opportunities for UK firms”, while British embassy officials in Israel talk about the “tremendous opportunity for collaboration between Israeli and British companies”.

Reynolds was responsible for the decision to end a mere 30 out of the 350 arms export licences to Israel, which was widely considered insufficient for sending the right message. Unsurprisingly Reynolds is a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel. As such he appears to be in breach of the Government’s Ministerial Code and Principles of Public Life which state that “holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work….. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.” But people with such dangerous affiliation are allowed to occupy many senior Government positions.

The influence of the Israel lobby is so strong, and its enforcers so enmeshed in the fabric of Westminster politics, that politicians feel they must join their party’s Friends of Israel group and undergo indoctrination to qualify for a senior position.

With American presidents and senior politicians “either side of the aisle” so firmly shackled to Israel’s nauseating ambitions, it’s no surprise that their poodle, the UK, is similarly compromised. Successive prime ministers and their foreign secretaries have been amazingly keen to endorse Israel’s sense of impunity and grovel to its stooges inside and outside Westminster. How are we to rid ourselves of this malign influence?

One of the first tasks in securing peace is to purge the ‘Zionist tendency’ from all corridors of power in the West. This is where the problem lies. These are Israel’s pimps and stooges who identify with Zionism and promote its sinister and unlawful ambitions inside the UK and other Western parliaments. They are the root cause of strife in the Middle East. Time they were removed.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

Because southern Laos doesn’t have a processing plant, the government must allow investors to ship their raw minerals through two overland border crossings with Vietnam, the official who works in Sekong province said.

“All of these minerals have to be exported to other countries,” she said.

The minerals are then sent from Vung Ang seaport in Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province to China’s Qingdao seaport – one of the busiest ports in the world. 

Australia’s ambassador to Vietnam, Andrew Goledzinowski, tweeted about the truck shipments during a visit to Ha Tinh last week. He noted in a follow-up tweet that a railway between Laos and the Vung Ang port is under consideration.

Until recently, most raw materials from Laos’ numerous Chinese-funded mining projects have been carried overland to China. Laotians have spoken frequently about seeing large, mineral-loaded trucks heading north on dirt roads and paved highways toward the Boten border checkpoint with China’s Yunnan province.

The mining projects have also prompted complaints that they don’t employ enough Lao workers and that nearby residents are often left without farmland or drinkable water.

Shipments in the north

Last year, National Assembly lawmaker Hongkham Xayakhom urged the government to reconsider its policy of allowing so much mining.

“The economic and financial conditions of our country have not improved,” she said at an Assembly meeting. “Most people are still struggling and our debt is still high.”

In March, Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone directed the Ministry of Energy and Mines to require mining companies to process raw minerals in Laos before export.

A ministry official told RFA at the time that companies should comply with the requirement “as soon as possible.” 

Meanwhile, some shipments of raw minerals from Laos’ northern provinces are being sent to China through the Laos-China railway, an Attapeu province official told RFA. The railway opened in December 2021.

The shipment of raw minerals from Laos to China has the full support of the Lao government, according to the Attapeu official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity to speak freely about government decision-making.

There are government committees appointed to inspect and weigh every truck loaded with raw minerals, he said. Officials must confirm that the mining companies are exporting the proper amount granted to them under the concession quotas, he said.

Minister of Energy and Mines Phoxay Xayasone told lawmakers last month that mining excavation generated US$2.4 billion for investors in 2023, which brought in US$322 million in tax revenue for the Lao government.

Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

Image by Sohaib Al Kharsa.

It seemed strange, if not out of context, when Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore”.

Feiglin’s comments were made on October 25, less than three weeks following the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the genocidal Israeli war which followed.

The former Knesset member who, in 2012, challenged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud party, proposed, in the same interview that, in order for the Muslims’ fear to be restored, the Israeli military has to turn “Gaza to ashes immediately”.

Feiglin perceives Gaza as something much larger than the 365 km² of land mass. He understood, rightly, that the war is not just about firepower but perceptions, and not only those of Gazans, Palestinians and Arabs, but all Muslims, as well.

The events of October 7 have exposed Israel as an essentially weak and vulnerable state, thus conveying the idea to Arabs, Muslims – in fact, the rest of the world – that the perceived power of Israel’s ‘invincible army’ is but an illusion.

Currently, the problem of perception is Israel’s greatest challenge. Feiglin has expressed this dichotomy in his usual far-right extremist language, but even the most ‘liberal’ of Israel’s leadership shares his anxiety.

When Israeli President Isaac Herzog, for example, declared on October 16 that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza”, he was not only preparing his society and US-Western allies for one of the greatest acts of military revenge known in history. He, too, wanted to restore fear in the hearts of Israel’s perceived enemies.

In a more recent statement, on February 1, former Shin Bet chief Carmi Gillon asserted, in an interview with Channel 12, that Palestinians will not be able to carry out another October 7-like attack.

Gillon’s comments could easily be mistaken for a rational military assessment. But this cannot be the case, simply because Israel has failed miserably to prevent the Al-Aqsa Flood operation in the first place.

Gillon was speaking of psychology. In his mind, the war on Gaza has always been a revenge war, one that aimed at extracting the very idea from the collective mind of Palestinians that they can stand up to Israel.

To understand the relationship between Israel’s existence and the power – or the perception of power – of its military, one must examine the early political discourse of Zionism, Israel’s founding ideology.

Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party is the direct heir of the right-wing, in fact fascist, ideology that was largely articulated by early Zionist thinker, Vladimir Jabotinsky. Though Jabotinsky’s politics is deeply nationalistic, his ideas ultimately branched into, or at least inspired, the ideological school of religious Zionism.

Unlike more liberal leaning Zionists of that era, Jabotinsky was straightforward regarding the Zionist intentions and ultimate objectives in Palestine.

“A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question, either now or in the future,” he wrote in his book The Iron Wall in 1923, adding, “If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison on your behalf.”

For Jabotinsky, it all came down to this maxim: “Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force”. Since then, Israel continues to invest in building ‘iron walls’, real or imagined.

In fact, Jabotinsky’s iron wall was a symbolic one. His was an impenetrable fortress of military power, cemented through violence, the relentless subjugation of the natives, which is designed for the purpose of their expulsion.

The fact that Israeli ministers and other leading politicians quickly began advancing plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza immediately after October 7, indicates that Zionism has never abandoned those early ideas. Indeed, the genocidal language in Israel is older than the state itself.

But, if Jabotinsky was still alive, he would be utterly ashamed of his descendants, who allowed their personal interests to trump their vigilance in keeping the Palestinians caged in, crushed by an ever-expanding iron wall. Instead, the wall has been breached, physically, on October 7, and psychologically, ever since. While physical damage can be easily repaired, psychological damage is hard to fix.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a desperate Israeli attempt at raising the costs for Palestinian resistance, so it may reach the future conclusion that resistance is, indeed, futile. This is unlikely to work.

But can Israel re-implant the fear in the collective heart of the Palestinian people? And why is such a fear a prerequisite for Israel’s survival?

Peace “will only be achieved when the hope of the Arabs to establish an Arab state on the ruins of the Jewish state is dashed,” Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted on February 1.

Even though the ‘Arabs’ are not calling for the destruction of anyone, Smotrich believes that the very idea of a Palestinian state will automatically lead to the destruction of the Zionist fantasy of racial purity.

Note how the Israeli politician did not speak of the Arab political discourse but rather of Arab ‘hope’. It is a different way of saying that the problem is the collective perception of Palestinians and Arabs that justice in Palestine is possible.

Again, this notion has nothing to do with October 7. In fact, three months before the war, precisely on July 1, Netanyahu was even more blunt in his description of the same idea, when he said that Palestinian hopes of establishing a sovereign state “must be crushed”.

This ‘crushing’ has been underway in Gaza and the West Bank for several months now.

This time around, Israel is adopting an even more extreme version of Jabotinsky’s ‘iron wall’ strategy because Israel’s ruling classes truly believe, in the words of Netanyahu, that “Israel is in the midst of a fight for (its) existence”.

By existence, Netanyahu is referencing Israel’s ability to maintain its status of Jewish racist supremacist, settler-colonial expansion and monopoly over violence. Israel calls this deterrence. Many countries and legal experts around the world refer to it as genocide.

In truth, even this genocide will hardly change the new perception that Palestinians have the kind of agency that will allow them, not only to fight back but, ultimately, win.

The post Breaching the ‘Iron Wall’: How Palestinians Crushed Jabotinsky’s Century-Old Ideas appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Given the unholy dissonance, Bethlehem's usual celebration of the birth of a Palestinian Prince of Peace was cancelled this year as Gaza endured - and an indifferent West watched - genocide unfold beneath pitiless Israeli airstrikes. Along with a "Liturgy of Lament," the Rev. Munther Isaac created a nativity scene for the times: Baby Jesus lying amidst the rubble. Meanwhile, rescue workers still struggle to dig, pull, save children from it. Peace on earth, indeed.

Now more than ever, "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history" has leveled Gaza to a hellscape where, per Doctors Without Borders, "no one and nowhere is safe." Over the holiday weekend, 90 people were killed in strikes on Gaza City, including 76 members of one extended family and a longtime UN official alongside his wife and five children, and a "Christmas Eve massacre" saw over 100 killed in Khan Younis, Bureij refugee camp and Al-Maghazi refugee camp, about half women and children. In a genocidal crusade where "everything is intentional," such collateral damage is no concern to Netanyahu; after griping critics are "unjustly blaming Israelis for these casualties," he proclaimed, "We have no choice (but) to continue to fight... We are not stopping."

Appalled by the ongoing carnage, Bethlehem officials cancelled traditional Christmas celebrations in the presumed place of Jesus' birth. At the Church of the Nativity, a searing sculpture depicts a bombed-out version of the nativity scene with debris, barbed wire, and angels representing the souls of too many murdered Palestinian children. At the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rev. Munther Isaac set up a creche with baby Jesus in a Palestinian keffiyeh - "A Jewish infant. A homeless infant. A refugee infant" - lying in the concrete remains of a building. "We are angry. We are broken. This is an annihilation," he said in his sermon, Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament. "If Christ were born today, he would be born under the rubble. This is where we find God right now.”

Honoring a Jesus "born among the occupied and marginalized...in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness," Isaac also blasted the hypocrisy of a Western world that "sent us bombs whilst celebrating Christmas." "They sing about the Prince of Peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land," he said. "Your charity, your words of shock after the genocide won’t make any difference. Words of regret will not suffice...I want you to look at the mirror (and) ask: Where was I?" The Intercept echoes him, wishing us "Merry Christmas!" while noting that, "in any just universe," we should all be imprisoned at the Hague for our failure to act on ills from the "junkyard of the U.S. war on terror" to "the Palestinian nightmare." Hillel the Elder: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow."

In Gaza, for now, 14,000 rescue workers making up civil defense teams across the enclave daily toil to save lives in an apocalyptic landscape where, "Everyone is a target." "I cannot sleep," says Ibrahim Musa, 27. "I am constantly haunted by the voices and screams of people under the rubble as they beg us to pull them out..These are our children, our siblings, our families whom we are saving." After each airstrike, they arrive at the scene and quickly try to determine what lies under the tangle of wire and concrete: "We scream until someone hears us." Often, as they begin to dig, they must calm children trapped beneath, asking about their families: “We sometimes lie and tell them everyone is okay so they don’t go into shock...This is our work."

At a bombing in southern Al-Qarara, Ahmed Abu Khudair recalls hearing moaning, starting to dig, finding "two stuck legs." He frees a 12-year-old girl named Aisha, who says eight members of her family are buried there with several other families, including nine children. But without equipment, they cannot reach them. This is their ultimate horror: "Leaving a place knowing there are people alive under the rubble, but you cannot do anything for them." From poet Nasser Rabah: "When I return from the war, if I do/don't look into my eyes/do not see what I saw...If war knew/that it made good poets/it would shoot itself." Yet life goes on. In this world, we wish you a holiday season of peace, joy, family, compassion and no savage military incursions. We are unfairly blessed.

A doll representing Baby Jesus lies in the unholy rubble of Palestine Photo by HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon 1971 www.youtube.com

— (@)

— (@)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

By Antony Loewenstein

The Israeli defence industry inspires nations across the globe, many of which view themselves as under threat from external enemies.

The Taiwanese foreign minister, Joseph Wu, recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that: “Every aspect of the Israeli fighting capability is amazing to the Taiwanese people and the Taiwanese government.”

Wu explained that he appreciated how Israel protected its own country because, “basically, we [Taiwan] have barely started. The fighting experiences of Israel are something we’re not quite sure about ourselves. We haven’t had any war in the last four or five decades, but Israel has that kind of experience”.

• READ MORE: Antony Loewenstein: Palestine a testing ground for war tech
• Antony Loewenstein’s website

Wu also expressed interest in Israeli weapons, suggesting his country had considered their usefulness in any potential war with China.

“Israel has the Iron Dome,” he said, referring to Israel’s defence system against short-range missiles. “We should look at some of the technology that has been used by the Israelis in its defence. I’m not sure whether we can copy it, but I think we can look at it and learn from it.”

It isn’t just Taiwan imagining itself as akin to Israel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in April 2022 that his vision for his nation was to mimic “the Jewish state“.

Two months after Russia’s illegal invasion of its territory, Zelensky, who is a long-time supporter of Israel, argued that “our people will be our great army. We cannot talk about ‘Switzerland of the future’ — probably, our state will be able to be like this a long time after. But we will definitely become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”

Zelensky went on to explain that what he meant was the need in the future to have “representatives of the armed forces or the national guard in all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas; there will be people with weapons.”

The Palestine laboratory
This admiration for Israel is both unsurprising and disturbing. The praise for Israel almost always completely ignores its occupation of Palestinian territory — one of the longest in modern times — and the ways in which this colonial project is implemented.

When Taiwan, Ukraine or any other country looks to Israel for innovation, it’s a highly selective gaze which completely disappears the more than five million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The appeal of the Palestine laboratory is endless. I’ve spent the last years researching this concept and its execution in Palestine and across the globe.

My new book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, uncovers how Israel has used the occupied Palestinians as the ultimate guineapigs when developing tools of repression, from drones to spyware and facial recognition to biometric data, while maintaining an “enemy” population, the Palestinians, under control for more than half a century.

Israel has sold defence equipment to at least 130 countries and is now the 10th biggest arms exporter in the world. The US is still the dominant player in this space, accounting for 40 percent of the global weapons industry.

Washington used its failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a testing ground for new weapons. During the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war has been a vital “beta test” for new weapons and sophisticated forms of surveillance and killing.

But Israel has a ready-made population of occupied Palestinians over which it has complete control. For more than five decades, Israeli intelligence authorities have built an NSA-level system of surveillance across the entire occupied Palestinian territories.

Nowhere is completely immune from listening, watching or following.

In the last decade, the most infamous example of Israeli repression tech is Pegasus, the phone hacking tool developed by the company NSO Group. Used and abused by dozens of nations around the world, Mexico is its most prolific adherent.

I spoke to dissidents, lawyers and human rights activists in Togo, Mexico, India and beyond whose lives were upended by this invasive, mostly silent tool.

Israeli state and spyware
However, missing from so much of the western media coverage, including outrage against NSO Group and its founders who were Israeli army veterans, is acknowledgement of the close ties between the firm and the Israeli state.

NSO is a private corporation in name only and is in fact an arm of Israel’s diplomacy, used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad to attract new friends in the international arena. Despite being blacklisted by the Biden administration in November 2021, the company still hopes to continue trading.

My research, along with that of other reporters, has shown a clear connection between the sale of Israeli cyberweapons and Israel’s attempts to neuter any potential backlash to its illegal occupation.

From Rwanda to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to India, Israeli spyware and surveillance tech are used by countless democracies and dictatorships alike.

Beyond Pegasus, many other similar tools have been deployed by newer and lesser-known Israeli companies, though they’re just as destructive. The problem isn’t just Pegasus — it could close down tomorrow and the privacy-busting technology would transfer to any number of competitors — but the unquenchable desire by governments, police forces and intelligence services for the relatively inexpensive Israeli tech that powers it.

India is even looking for alternatives to NSO Group with a less controversial history.

The Palestine laboratory is so successful because nobody wants to seriously regulate the fruits of its labours.

Ideological alignment
The extent of Israeli collusion with 20th and 21st century repression is overwhelming.

Perhaps the most revealing was the deep relationship between apartheid South Africa and Israel. It wasn’t just about arms trading, but an ideological alignment between two states that truly believed that they were fighting for their very existence.

In 1976, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin invited South African Prime Minister John Vorster, a Nazi sympathiser during the Second World War, to visit Israel. His tour included a stop at Yad Vashem, the country’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

When Vorster arrived in Israel, he was feted by Rabin at a state dinner. Rabin toasted “the ideals shared by Israel and South Africa: the hopes for justice and peaceful coexistence”. Both nations faced “foreign-inspired instability and recklessness”.

Israel and South Africa viewed themselves as under attack by foreign bodies committed to their destruction. A short time after Vorster’s visit, the South African government yearbook explained that both states were facing the same issue: “Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.”

A love of ethnonationalism still fuels Israel today, along with a desire to export it. Some arms deals with nations, such as Bangladesh or the Philippines, are purely on military grounds and to make money.

Israel places barely any restrictions on what it sells, which pleases leaders who don’t want meddling in their actions. Pro-Israel lobbyists are increasingly working for repressive states, such as Bangladesh, to promote their supposed usefulness to the West.

Israel and the global far right
But Israel’s affinity with Hungary, India and the global far right, a group that traditionally hates Jews, speaks volumes about the inspirational nature of the modern Israeli state. As Haaretz journalist Noa Landau recently wrote, while explaining why Netanyahu’s government defended the latest arguably antisemitic comments by Elon Musk about George Soros:

“The government’s mobilisation in the service of stoking antisemitism is not surprising. It is the fruit of a long and consistent process in which the Netanyahu government has been growing closer to extreme right-wing elements around the world, at the expense of Jewish communities it purports to represent.”

It’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on this undeniable reality. Israel, which claims to represent global Jewry, is encouraging an alignment between itself and a hyper-nationalist, bigoted and racist populism, regardless of the long-term consequences for the safety and security of Jews around the world.

Israel has thrived as an ethnonationalist state for so long because the vast bulk of the world grants it impunity. European nations have been key supporters of Israel, willing to overlook its occupation and abuse of Palestinians.

According to newly declassified documents from the files of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, between 1967 and 1990 it’s clear that West Germany was becoming more critical of Israel’s settlement project in Palestine, but the main concern was protecting its own financial interests in the region if a regional war broke out.

In a document written on 16 February 1975 to the deputy director of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Western Europe, Nissim Yaish, before Israel’s Foreign Minister Yigal Allon’s visit to West Germany, Yaish explained the thinking in his country’s diplomatic bureaucracy:

“There is unanimity that this time such a war will have a far-reaching impact on all its affairs internally and externally and that it could wreak a Holocaust on the German economy. Based on this attitude, West Germany is interested in rapid progress toward a [peace] agreement.”

Western silence
But there has rarely been any serious interest in pursuing peace, or holding Israel to account for its blatantly illegal actions, because the economic imperative is too strong. Even today, when another Nakba against Palestinians is becoming more possible to imagine, there’s largely silence from Western elites.

Germany has banned public recognition of the 1948 Nakba and criminalised any solidarity with the Palestinian people. Germany is also keen to buy an Israeli missile defence system, confirming its priorities.

This is why Israeli apartheid and the Palestine laboratory are so hard to stop; countless nations want a piece of Israeli repression tech to surveil their own unwanted populations or election meddling support in Latin America or Africa.

Without a push for accountability, economic boycotts and regulation or banning Israeli spyware — the EU is flirting with the idea — Israel can feel comfortable that its position as a global leader in offensive weapons is secure.

This article was first published in the Middle East Eye.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ANI Digital tweeted the image with the above claim. In their article titled ‘Pakistani parents lock daughters’ graves to avoid rape’, they cited a Daily Times article to report that parents in Pakistan guarded their dead daughters against rape by putting padlocks on their graves. The viral picture has been used in the ANI article with the caption, ‘Pakistani parents locking up graves of daughters to protect their dead bodies from getting raped’ and they have credited Twitter for the image. (Archive)

Pakistani parents lock daughters’ graves to avoid rape

Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/2vbtYavyj5#Pakistan #necrophiliacases #sexualharassment #crime pic.twitter.com/1AndHMUXlZ

— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) April 29, 2023

Several major news media outlets published ANI’s report from their syndicated feed, the Times of India being one of them. TOI used the same image as ANI. (Archive)

Pakistani parents lock daughters’ graves to avoid rape https://t.co/YarziUwwWI

— The Times Of India (@timesofindia) April 29, 2023

NDTV used the image in their report as well. This story, too, is from a syndicated feed which means that NDTV, too, cited the same Daily Times article as ANI. (Archive)

Zee News published a video report where they used the same image. (Archive)

In a now-deleted article, Hindustan Times reported this news with the same picture.

Other media outlets including Mirror Now, ThePrint, India Today, Wion, IndiaTV, Times Now, DNA India, OpIndia Hindi, News24, ABP News, Amar Ujala, News18, Firstpost and Jagran used the same image in their respective reports. Most of these stories were from the syndicated feed of ANI.

Harris Sultan, who is the author of the book ‘The Curse of God – Why I Left Islam’, tweeted the same image and claimed that it was clicked in Pakistan which had a “horny, sexually frustrated society”. He added, “…..When you link the burqa with rape, it follows you to the grave”. A number of the news media outlets mentioned above have used Harris’ tweet in their reports. (Archive)

Pakistan has created such a horny, sexually frustrated society that people are now putting padlocks on the graves of their daughters to prevent them from getting raped.

When you link the burqa with rape, it follows you to the grave. pic.twitter.com/THrRO1y6ok

— Harris Sultan (@TheHarrisSultan) April 26, 2023

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, tweeted the image with the caption ‘Pakistan: Parents padlock graves of deceased daughters to prevent necrophilia’. (Archive)

Pakistan: Parents padlock graves of deceased daughters to prevent necrophilia https://t.co/433z7lAolW pic.twitter.com/rZ1xQ1RSr6

— Robert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) April 29, 2023

Other users, including Twitter Blue subscribers @MrSinha_, @instablog9ja, @ImtiazMadmood, Pakistan Untold and @TheSkandar, have also tweeted the same image and linked it to Pakistan’s rising cases of necrophilia.

Fact Check

To begin with, we noticed that the Daily Time article mentioned in the ANI story did not have an image.

Alt News then came to know that the image used by the media outlets was actually from a cemetery in Hyderabad. The cemetery is located opposite Masjid E Salar Mulk, a mosque in Darab Jung Colony, Madannapet, Hyderabad. Below is an image of the Google Street View of the cemetery where the padlocked grave is clearly visible.

We have also screen-recorded how to find the cemetery from the Masjid E Salar Mulk on Google Street View for the advantage of the reader.

Alt News contacted a social worker named Abdul Jaleel who is a resident of Hyderabad. On being requested by us, he visited the spot and provided us with photographs of the grave in question.

A comparison of these images with the viral image establishes that they depict the same grave. Apart from the green padlocked gate, the tombstone and the positioning of the grave are also the same.

Jaleel spoke to Muqtar Sahab, who is the Muazzin of the Masjid E Salar Mulk. Muqtar Sahab said that the padlocked grave, which was approximately 1.5 to 2-year old, was constructed without the permission of the concerned committee. It is located right in front of the entrance thus blocking the pathway. This issue was discussed among the Masjid committee members for eight days.

Explaining the reason behind the grille or jaali as Muqtar Sahab called it, he added, “A lot of people come here and bury bodies over the old graves without permission. The people who already have their close ones resting here have had complaints since they come here to read Fateha. In order to prevent others from burying any bodies further, the families have put the grille there.”

On being informed about the image of this grave being circulated with the claim that it is from Pakistan, Muqtar Sahab refuted it and added that the grille was constructed also with a view to preventing people from stamping on the grave since it was right in front of the entrance. Muqtar Sahab corroborated the address of the cemetery as Madannapet, Darab Jung colony, which matched Alt News’ findings as stated earlier.

Alt News also spoke to a local resident whose house is near the mosque. He informed us that the grave belonged to an aged woman who had passed away in her seventies. Her son constructed the grille over the grave about 40 days after she had been buried.

Thus, an image of a padlocked grave is viral on the internet with the claim that it is from Pakistan where parents are locking their daughters’ graves in fear of their bodies being raped. Several major news media outlets like the Times of India, News18, Times Now, NDTV and ThePrint have published syndicated reports with the viral image after ANI’s reportage. In reality, the grave is located in a cemetery in Hyderabad’s Madannapet. Alt News found that the padlock had nothing to do with necrophilia or Pakistan.

The post Media misreport: Viral photo of grave with iron grille is from Hyderabad, not Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

The rivers that run through the steep valleys and rocky cliffs of the Laponian Area are fed by crystalline alpine lakes and glacial streams. Many of the forests that tower over the land have stood for more than 700 years and teem with wildlife. In the spring and summer, when the midnight sun traces wide circles across the bright blue sky, crowberries blanket the meadows and yellow globe flowers dot the snow-capped peaks.

In those warm months, this region in the far north of Sweden provides a bounty for large migrating herds of reindeer: grass, birch, and herbs. Snow patches in the high mountains provide relief from insects on hot days, and the verdant lowland provides ample grazing as the nights cool. When winter arrives, rivers and marshes ice over, and the reindeer venture south beyond the Laponian Area along well-worn pathways, traveled by generations of Sámi reindeer herders, to winter grazing lands. This migration of both the reindeer and the Sámi who tend to them, reveals an ancient relationship with the land that persists to this day.

“It is the variation of landscape that makes the area so good,” said Helena Omma, who is Sámi and president of the Association of World Reindeer Herders. “Reindeer use all these landscapes during different times and conditions.”

Nestled deep in the heart of Sápmi, the traditional homelands of the Sámi, the Laponian Area covers nearly 4,000 square miles. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, considers it a place of “exceptional beauty” and its stewardship by Sámi hunters, fishers, and herders “an outstanding example” of traditional land use. That combination of natural and Indigenous values was essential in the agency’s decision to declare it a World Heritage Site. 

Since earning that designation in 1996, Sámi leaders and the Swedish government have, for the most part, enjoyed a successful and cooperative relationship managing the area. But an iron mine, recently approved on land barely 20 miles south of the Laponian Area’s border, is straining that collaboration. If the British-owned Kallak mine is built, it will impede the migration of reindeer to critical winter grazing lands and sever routes Sámi families and villages have relied upon for centuries. 

“We need the lands outside of Laponia to ensure that the Sámi culture within Laponia can survive,” said Omma, who is also co-chair of the Laponiatjuottjudus Association, the administrative body that oversees the World Heritage Site. “We want to protect the land because the reindeer need the land, and we need the land.”

To protect the Laponian Area, their culture, and their livelihoods, Sámi leaders say Sweden must stop the mine. By threatening their way of life, they argue, the mine threatens the Laponian Area’s status as a UNESCO site.

These tensions highlight growing international concerns about UNESCO’s treatment and inclusion of Indigenous communities in establishing and managing World Heritage Sites. Although this occurs around the world, it is perhaps most explicit in Thailand and Tanzania, where violent evictions and killings define relations between Indigenous peoples, governments, and the U.N. agency’s reputation.

The issue, which has unfolded over decades, could grow more widespread. World Heritage Sites, which are protected by the United Nations, are rich with biodiversity, making them a small, but essential, part of the successful implementation of the global conservation program 30×30. That ambitious effort calls for setting aside 30 percent of the world’s land and sea for permanent protection against development by 2030. Given that Indigenous territories comprise almost 20 percent of Earth’s land and shelter almost 80 percent of its remaining biodiversity, human rights experts worry that a history of systemic mistreatment of Indigenous peoples coupled with so rapid a timeline could be detrimental — even deadly — if it does not specifically include and respect those communities and their knowledge. 

“UNESCO cannot turn away from its obligations,” said Lola García-Alix, senior adviser on global governance at the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, or IWGIA, a human rights advocacy organization. “States can, but not UNESCO, and we should not allow it to do so.”

When Sweden sought World Heritage Site status for the Laponian Area, its application was based solely on the region’s natural beauty. UNESCO rejected that application, saying Laponia’s splendor was not unique enough to warrant protection. However, the committee said the inclusion of its cultural values in a subsequent application could reopen the process. The country followed that guidance, and in 1996, with essential help from Sámi reindeer herders, secured the land’s protection. It remains just one of a few World Heritage Sites with an internationally recognized connection to living Indigenous cultures, effectively making the Sámi true stakeholders with authority over its management. 

The Laponian Area is one of the 1,157 World Heritage Sites worldwide. The U.N. established UNESCO in 1959 after Egypt proposed building a dam that would flood the valley containing the Abu Simbel temples and other antiquities. The campaign saved those treasures, leading to similar efforts in Italy, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Today, 167 countries have at least one place on the list, ranging from iconic locales like the Taj Mahal and Chichen-Itza to smaller gems like the Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley in Andora, which provides, in the words of UNESCO, “a microcosmic perspective of the way people have harvested the resources of the high Pyrenees over millennia.”

Such a designation often brings a boom in tourism. Worldwide, these sites attract some 8 billion visitors per year and generate as much as $850 billion in revenue. But the infrastructure needed to handle those tourists often strains the very places and ecosystems UNESCO hopes to protect. Angkor Wat, which was designated a World Heritage Site in 1992, in Cambodia, for example, saw tourism increase 300 percent between 2004 and 2014 alone. Beyond the on-site human impact, places like the Great Barrier Reef, near Australia, and the city of Venice, Italy, face mounting threats from climate change. 

Yet many of these cherished places could prove essential to the planet’s survival. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which advises UNESCO, estimates that two-thirds of natural World Heritage Sites are crucial sources of water, while those in tropical regions store nearly 6 billion tons of carbon. These locations make up more than 1 million square miles of protected terrain and represent approximately 8 percent of all protected areas worldwide. However, only 48 percent of them are considered by the Union to have effective protection and management while nearly 12 percent raise serious concern.

Sámi communities tended the Laponian Area centuries before the Kingdom of Sweden in 1532. That kind of history is not uncommon across the UNESCO system; many World Heritage Sites are near, or overlap, traditional Indigenous territories. What is uncommon is how it has been managed.

It took more than a decade after its inscription as a World Heritage Site to establish Laponia’s oversight board, Laponiatjuottjudus. “It started when I was a child, in ’96, ” said Omma. “It was a 15-year-long struggle where the Sámi’s really worked hard to get a majority on the board, to create consensus-based decision-making processes, and to get reindeer herding rights respected within the Laponia site. It was a long, long struggle against authorities.”

Today, Laponiatjuottjudus is legally responsible for managing the entire region. Representatives of nine Sámi villages work with local and county officials and the national Environmental Protection Agency to manage and maintain the area. Decision-making is grounded in Sámi cultural values and the collaboration has been so successful that the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples lauded the relationship.

But Indigenous peoples worldwide have long raised concerns about violations of their rights within UNESCO sites. Three U.N. special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples — independent human rights experts appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights — have reported recurring problems at World Heritage Sites, including a lack of Indigenous participation in the nomination, declaration, and management process of sites; significant restrictions on access to resources and sacred sites; and harassment, criminalization, violence, and killings of Indigenous peoples.

As a United Nations agency, UNESCO must comply with international obligations, including the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Traditionally, the challenge has been doing so in countries where the government regularly mistreats, or even refuses to recognize, Indigenous peoples and declarations of their rights. The United Nations has no punitive tools for dealing with such cases, and UNESCO can only threaten to delist a site — something that has happened only twice in the last 50 years, and never as retribution for human rights violations. 

Putting aside that serious shortcoming, UNESCO fails to consider Indigenous communities in even the most fundamental tasks, like telling people the land they’ve lived on for centuries is slated for conservation.

“Many Indigenous peoples are not aware that there will be a World Heritage Site perhaps until they are in a World Heritage Site,” said García-Alix of the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. “They have never been informed. Information is not publicly available.”

Currently, 186 proposed World Heritage Sites are pending review, and although UNESCO’s website states that fact, it offers no details about how they are considered. Evidence suggests the process is increasingly politicized. One study found that political or economic factors played heavily in cases in which the World Heritage Committee ignored recommendations that it decline designation or defer a decision pending additional information. 

In other cases, the body seemingly overlooks any consideration of the communities impacted by its decision. Such was the case in 2021, when the World Heritage Committee ignored reports of human rights violations in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, and inscribed it to the World Heritage List despite pleas from the Indigenous Karen communities within the park, a U.N. human rights panel, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to defer the nomination.

“Kaeng Krachan is a stain on the whole U.N. system,” said García-Alix. “It raises questions about the accountability of UNESCO as a U.N. organization.”

The Karen have for hundreds of years lived as gatherers and farmers in what is now known as the Kaeng Krachan Forest. In 1981, the Thai government named the area a national park and began relocating the Karen communities from the upper Bangkloy to the Pong Luik-Bang Kloy in 1996. In exchange for voluntarily leaving their traditional homeland, they would receive land to farm and financial support. 

Many of them agreed, but upon arriving at their new homes, some families found only sandy, rocky land unfit for farming. What’s more, the support the Thai government promised never arrived, or very little did. The Karen immediately demanded authorities follow through on their promises. When good land and support failed to materialize, communities faced two options: return home or migrate to towns looking for jobs.

“When we talk with the Karen people who live there, they say that they are not against the World Heritage Site, but their concerns and issues need to be resolved,” said Kittisak Rattanakrajangsri, who is Mien and chairs the Council of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand. “The land issues remain. That’s why they decided to go back to their homelands again.”

The Karen have tried to return home at least three times. Each time, Thai authorities responded with violence, harassment, and forced evictions. Park officials have burned homes and rice barns, confiscated ceremonial items, seized fishing nets, and arrested Indigenous residents and activists.

At least two human rights defenders have been killed. Tatkamol Ob-om, who was helping the Karen report illegal logging and human rights abuses, was shot by an unknown assassin in 2011. Three years later park officers arrested Por La Jee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, who assisted affected villagers to file a legal complaint against park officials over the destruction of Karen housing. He vanished until 2019, when Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation identified his remains after discovering a burnt skull fragment in an oil barrel at the bottom of a reservoir. This had no impact on the World Heritage Committee’s decision to add the site to the list.

Rattanakrajangsri says there will be a review of the site’s World Heritage status every five years. “If the independent study shows that the situation is not getting better, and on the contrary, is getting worse, I think that it sends a strong message to UNESCO and other conservation agencies,” he said.

Such abuses, and what appears to be a history of indifference to them, go back decades. The Maasai of Tanzania have faced repeated violent evictions from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO site since 1979. The Maasai, mobile pastoralists much like the Sámi, have moved through the region for centuries, and although UNESCO has insisted that it never called on Tanzanian authorities to expel them from the park, it has done little to address the tens of thousands of Maasai who have been forced from their homelands, injured, and even shot and killed. In the last year alone, nine U.N. human rights experts and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature have called on Tanzanian officials to halt relocation until consulting with the Maasai. Human rights defenders have demanded UNESCO sever ties with the Tanzanian government.

“The World Heritage Committee is closely monitoring the state of conservation of the mentioned properties,” said a spokesperson for the World Heritage Centre. “Including the issues related to the rights of the Indigenous peoples.”

The agency could begin to address such injustices by establishing a mechanism under which Indigenous peoples and human rights watchdogs could bring evidence of violations to its attention, said Nicolás Süssmann, conservation and Indigenous peoples project director with Project Expedite Justice, a human rights organization. He also says UNESCO could be more open and clear in its handling of human rights complaints.

“The consequences cannot just be removing or firing an eco-guard who conducted an operation,” he said. “This is not a problem of rogue eco-guards. This is a problem with a conservation model that is incompatible with Indigenous peoples.”

But that conservation model has been the global standard for more than a century, and with more than 100 countries expressing support for 30×30, Süssmann and other human rights experts say the situation will get worse. “You can say you respect Indigenous peoples,” said Süssmann, “but when you have a deadline and you’re used to doing things without Indigenous peoples’ real, and meaningful, involvement, you’re not going to change the way you do things if you don’t have to.”

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Süssman says this is especially true when you read the fine print: Under 30×30, countries don’t have to preserve 30 percent of their own lands and waters by 2030. The plan calls only for preserving 30 percent of the world’s land and waters by then. “Nobody is going to demolish a couple of buildings near Central Park to make it bigger,” said Süssmann. “They’re going to get that 30 percent from other parts of the world.”

Much of that land will, almost inevitably, encompass Indigenous territories, which make up nearly a quarter of the planet. In 2016, human rights experts estimated that 50 percent of protected areas worldwide encompassed traditional Indigenous lands covering more than 6 million square miles. Today, protected areas comprise nearly 9 million square miles – an area roughly the size of China, India, Mongolia, and the United States combined. To reach 30% by 2030, more than 15 million square miles must be protected – an area nearly the size of Russia.

All told, protected areas represent just 16 percent of the Earth’s surface, and while there is no disagreement that safeguarding biodiversity is critical to planetary survival, advocates say failing to make human rights foundational to global conservation efforts may continue to drive evictions, violence, and killings in Indigenous territories.

“World Heritage Sites, which are U.N. protected areas, at the minimum, should be the ones who respect and protect Indigenous people’s rights,” said García-Alix. “If I have to be diplomatic: UNESCO has a lack of sensitivity about human rights issues, particularly when it comes to World Heritage.”

Beyond ensuring Indigenous rights and traditional knowledge are respected, such arrangements could advance UNESCO’s preservation goals and help mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

A rapidly expanding body of science shows that working with Indigenous communities can accelerate conservation efforts. Legal recognition of Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest have led to increased reforestation. Studies show that the world’s healthiest forests often stand on protected Indigenous lands, and sustainable pastoralism, like that of Maasai or Sámi herders, offers benefits ranging from preserving soil fertility to maximizing genetic diversity. Formal recognition of territory and rights also creates legal pathways to stopping the development of extractive industries: Indigenous resistance to fossil fuel projects in North America is thought to have stopped or delayed the creation of greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least 25 percent of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions. That resistance, however, is often criminalized by state authorities.

Humans have shaped and sustained landscapes for more than 12,000 years, and Indigenous communities continue to care for the territories that have sustained them for generations. Embracing and applying that knowledge – and the understanding that Earth is an interconnected system of physical, biological, cultural, and spiritual networks that extend beyond borders — could go a long way toward addressing the climate crisis. In some cases, like the Kallak iron mine, it even means the difference between life and death.

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“We know how this will affect our culture and our livelihoods,” said Omma. “But it’s very common that our knowledge is viewed as opinions, not as knowledge.”

Human rights experts continue to urge Sweden to stop the project, and the World Heritage Centre says a report on its potential impacts will be presented to the World Heritage Committee at its annual conference this September. The committee will then offer recommendations to the Swedish government. For the Sámi, there can be one way forward.

“You can’t coexist with a mine,” said Omma. “It’s not possible.”

But to Indigenous communities like the Sámi, the issue is so much bigger than one mine. Truly protecting a place goes beyond preserving its landscapes and historic sites. It must include the protection, respect, and participation of the people who have, for millennia, lived in good relation with that land and know, perhaps better than anyone, how to protect it for future generations.

“Protection of land is good,” said Helena Omma, “if Indigenous peoples are part of that protection.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Sweden, a proposed iron mine threatens a World Heritage Site, and the culture that made it on Apr 18, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tristan Ahtone.

Social media users have shared an image that claims to be of the iron pillar in the Qutub complex. The pillar has the names of Hindu rulers engraved on it. Some users claimed these Hindu rulers were the ancestors of the Mughals who ruled a large part of India in the 16th and 17th centuries.

A Twitter handle named @Sarvesh38453373 shared this image with the aforementioned claim. The tweet has over 8000 views at the moment.

कुतुबमीनार मुगलों ने बनाया था, सबूत के तौर पर कुतुबमीनार के लोहस्तंभ पर देखो मुगलों के बाप दादाओं के नाम लिखे हैं। pic.twitter.com/ZBbZNV3SwU

— S.K (@Sarvesh38453373) February 19, 2023

Another Twitter handle by the name @4Pradeepthakur, shared this image with a similar claim. The tweet has over 3228 views at the time of the writing of this article.

कुतुबमीनार मुगलों ने बनाया था, सबुत के तौर पर कुतुबमीनार के लोहस्तंभ पर देखो मुगलों के पूर्वजों के नाम लिखे हैं, विश्वास नहीं हो रहा तो zoom करके देख लो pic.twitter.com/8dRLOVRoHq

— ठा. प्रदीप कुमार सिंह (@4Pradeepthakur) February 20, 2023

The image has gone viral on both Twitter and Facebook with multiple accounts sharing the image with similar claims.

Fact Check

By simply reverse-searching the image on Google Lens, we found that the image is not of the iron pillar in the Qutub Complex in Delhi. The image is of the Loha Stambha of Jawahar Burj in the Lohagargh Fort in Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

We also found similar images of the monument on Alamy.

According to the Archeological Survey of India‘s website, this iron pillar bearing the genealogy was recently erected by Maharaja Brijendra Singh, who passed away in 1995. He was the last ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Bharatpur. If one goes through the official website of the royal estate of Bharatpur, one will find the names of former kings which are engraved on the pillar. These include Maharaja Kehri Singh, Nawal Singh, Ranjit Singh et al. This shows that the claims that suggest that these rulers were forefathers of the Mughals are baseless.

Therefore, the image that has been circulating on social media claiming it to be of the iron pillar in Qutub Complex is actually of Jawahar Burj in Bharatpur, Rajasthan. The claims that the names inscribed on it are of the ancestors of Mughal rulers are false.

Vansh Shah is an intern with Alt News.

The post Photo of iron pillar in Bharatpur fort falsely shared to claim Mughals’ ‘Hindu ancestry’ appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Vansh Shah.

Former President Donald Trump's use of pro-authoritarian language escalated earlier this week when he celebrated the Republican primary victory of Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl—one of many 2020 election deniers on the ballot this fall.

"Geoff is a proven fighter who successfully pushes back on the ultraliberal extremists," Trump said during a Monday night tele-rally. "He'll rule your state with an iron fist, and he'll do what has to be done."

Diehl is not favored to beat Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) in the state's gubernatorial race this November, but Trump's embrace of fascist symbolism and reference to doing "what has to be done"—a vague but ominous message that could be interpreted as a threat of violence against political opponents—has raised alarm bells.

As presidential historian Michael Beschloss noted on Twitter, "iron fist" was Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's preferred descriptor of fascism, and the term was also used to describe Germany's Nazi Party, led by genocidal demagogue Adolf Hitler.

Trump's "iron fist" comment came just two days after his Saturday rally, during which he called President Joe Biden an "enemy of the state" and said that the federal criminal investigation into his unauthorized possession of government records would create a "backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen"—statements that elicited accusations of inciting domestic terrorism.

At the same rally, Trump characterized Biden's prime-time address to the nation last Thursday—wherein he said that "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic"—as the "most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by a president."

One week before his Philadelphia speech, Biden said that the GOP's large pro-Trump faction—encapsulated by the phrase, "Make America Great Again"—was "like semi-fascism."

On the same day as Biden's speech, Trump said that if elected to the White House in 2024, he would "look very, very favorably" at full pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential contest.

Right-wingers across the U.S. have responded with fury to Biden's "semi-fascism" comment and ensuing speech only to have Trump repeatedly confirm that he and his supporters are contemptuous of democracy, as some social media users pointed out.

"There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans," Biden said last week, "and that is a threat to this country."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

Law professor and cleric, Father Ricardo Rezende, told Le Monde he spent four decades gathering information on Volkswagen’s complicity in the Brazilian slave trade. The farm named Companhia do Vale do Rio Cristalino allegedly held indebted itinerant workers against their will, without pay, and did not provide adequate accommodation or sanitary facilities. Mr. Garcia Rodrigues is certain Volkswagen “was perfectly aware of the criminal practices underway”.

These embarrassing accusations emerge less than a decade after the scandal-prone company finally agreed to compensate retired factory workers in São Paulo for handing them over to the secret police under Brazil’s military dictatorship. Another chapter in Volkswagen’s egregious record is about to begin.

Scholars like Ulrike Lindner, Steven Press, Jan-Georg Deutsch, Andreas Eckert, and Michael Long amply demonstrated that German companies and missionaries have a very long and disturbing history of making use of slave labor.

In the early 1900s, shortly after waging a genocidal counterinsurgency war against the Herero and Nama peoples in South-West Africa (present-day Namibia), the German Colonial Corporation for Southwest Africa press-ganged Ovambo tribesmen to extract diamonds in the fittingly named “Forbidden Zone”. Hundreds died of exhaustion and disease as a result.

Similar scenes unfolded in the German Empire’s colonies in Cameroon and Togoland. Professor Philippe Blaise Essomba told journalists that when German soldiers pacified unruly villages or regions, defeated locals ended up in forced labor camps.

Papa André Pegha Kooh Mbous never forgot the construction process of a German railway line: “Some of us started working as soon as the sun came up…This work was carried out in chains and with lashes so that no one rested…Whenever we went from one place to another, our bodies would convulse under the blows of sticks. Some collapsed and many died. That’s how it was…”

The German East Africa Company in Tanzania imported 500 Chinese coolies from Singapore in the 1890s to work on major infrastructure projects. Terrible mistreatment at the hands of German foremen convinced many coolies to return home after barely two year’s service.

Legal scholars Klaus Bachmann and Gerhard Kemp say that at the height of the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania, which saw German troops using scorched-earth tactics that killed between 250,000-300,000 indigenous peoples due to starvation or disease, Commander Theodore von Hirsch confessed in his diary that he felt “like a murderer, arsonist, and slave trader”.

German firms based in the Pacific, such as DHPG (Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft), often “collected” Melanesians from the Solomon Islands or Papua New Guinea and shipped them to coffee, coconut, and pineapple plantations in German Samoa, according to Gerard Hindmarsh.

Lurking beneath the façade of a fairy tale landscape, to paraphrase author Robert Louis Stevenson, plantation overseers whipped Melanesians and controlled every facet of their lives. A German commissioner casually admitted in his correspondence that Germans preferred imported Melanesians to native Samoans because “they hardly ever complain, even when ill-treated”.

Colonial cruelties nominally reserved for “lesser races” in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific soon made their way to mainland Europe during World War 2. From June 1940 onwards, Volkswagen conscripted captured Russians, Poles, Scandinavians, and Jews, among many other nationalities, to work as slaves in German factories. Ulrich Herbert estimated that, depending on the week and month, 70% of the company’s workforce was mainly Eastern European.

Additionally, Volkswagen managers and executives implemented their very own extermination program without any input from Nazi authorities. A company-run nursery in Rühen, according to historian Neal Gabler, sadistically and systematically starved to death hundreds of infants born to Polish and Russian slaves. Nurse Kathe Pisters exclaimed to fellow staff “We will take care that not so many Russian and Polish children will grow up”. The company even made mothers like Anna Snopczyk pay for the burial of her murdered son.

Volkswagen’s subsidiaries across the globe collaborated, to varying degrees, with unsavoury regimes long after the Nuremberg trials ignored the company’s considerable contribution to the Nazi war machine. Knud Andresen says around fifty West German companies ran manufacturing plants in South Africa and conveniently turned a blind eye to the apartheid state’s heinous crimes until the 1970s. Black labour strikes in Volkswagen of South Africa eventually persuaded the company to press Pretoria for reforms.

Christopher Kopper’s extensive research proves beyond doubt that Volkswagen do Brasil’s managers welcomed the Brazilian military coup d’état in 1964. The ouster of a left-leaning president marked not a brutal blow to democracy or freedom of speech, but the “restoration of a rational political order”. VW board member Friedrich Schultz-Wenk rejoiced when secret police arrested trade union leaders on factory premises and effectively endorsed a regime that perceived its own citizens as mindless automatons, committed widespread torture, ran hidden concentration camps to repress uncooperative indigenous tribes, and precipitated the environmental destruction of the Amazon.

However, Volkswagen is not the only multinational corporation with Brazilian blood on its hands. Many other companies handsomely profited from the military regime’s abhorrent conduct towards factory workers and indigenous peoples.

Journalists like Santiago Navarro emphasize that Mitsubishi, Anderson Clayton, Goodyear, Nestlé, Swift, Ludwig, Mappin, Bordon, Codeara, Camargo Correa, Bradesco, and Bamerindus all made a killing out of the dictatorship’s suppression of labor rights and genocidal occupation of the Amazon—and most so far have escaped the methodical scrutiny and relentless media condemnation Volkswagen has undergone in recent years.

For posterity’s sake, academics, reporters, and concerned citizens need to pool their resources and expertise to carry out thorough investigations and uncover the true extent of corporate malfeasance under military rule in Brazil.

Yet it is worth emphasizing that slavery never disappeared in Brazil. The German confectionary giant Haribo allegedly still relies on slave labor to harvest carnauba wax. Westdeutscher Rundfunk released a documentary in 2017 that revealed Brazilian carnauba pickers lived in squalor, slept outside in adverse weather conditions with no access to clean drinking water, and received pay amounting to barely twelve dollars a day.

Environmentalist Binka Le Breton witnessed firsthand what happens to itinerant and often illiterate laborers the deceitful gatos (contractors) lure into the murky depths of the Amazon with false promises of fortune and glory. An anonymous slave vividly recalled his hellish experience in a far-flung estate: “It was a nightmare. There was one day I was so hungry I ate a dead rat… They thrashed me with a whip; I can still remember the pain of it”.

Foremen armed with guns forced slaves like Batista to get up before dawn and toil till nightfall. He rarely complained about not getting paid or eating terrible food, when it was available at all, to avoid torture or worse. Beatings and wanton brutality paralyze dissent and prevent slaves from fleeing isolated plantations.

Unbearable working conditions ensure numerous slaves never return home either. Le Breton says illicit gold mining operations are especially dangerous. Rumors abound about the existence of clandestine cemeteries in Rondônia, where 15-20 labourers perished in a cassiterite mine on a weekly basis in the early nineties.

Professor Kevin Bales argues that Brazilian authorities have many options to choose from if they truly wish to combat modern slavery. A well-funded national task force spread out across the Amazon’s frontiers can make a real difference on the ground. Federal courts should hand down much quicker and harsher sentences to punish human traffickers and slaveholders. Sweeping legislative reforms must take aim at endemic police corruption as well: it is not uncommon for policemen to warn slaveholders about an impending raid on their property.

Above all else, anti-slavery bodies like GERTRAF( Executive Group for the Repression of Forced Labour) and the Flying Squads (consisting of labour inspectors and federal policemen) are in dire need of funding. Le Breton found that between 2010 and 2020, the annual budget allotted to eradicating slavery fell from 65 to 25 million real.

Moreover, the number of federal labour inspectors continues to plummet—not a single one has been hired since 2013. At least 1544 out of 3644 labour inspector positions remain unfilled. Considering the department investigates approximately 20% of suspected slave labour cases at the best of times, and only 45% of those prove the existence of slavery, these staff shortages are a disaster.

Additionally, powerful agricultural lobbies in the Brazilian Congress block the publication of the “Lista Suja”. This registry of offenders names and shames individuals or businesses guilty of owning slaves and forbids them access to state, federal, or bank funding for two years. Labour inspectors still compile extensive databases despite this obstruction, yet the list is useless if no one can see it.

Jair Bolsonaro’s administration has done nothing to alleviate these problems. On the contrary, the president believes the sanctity of private property trumps human dignity–  much to the delight of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA), a lobby whose members rank among Bolsonaro’s staunchest supporters, according to Reuters.

The president is adamantly opposed to legislation allowing for the confiscation of land where slaves are exploited. In May 2021, Bolsonaro declared his government will not make into law constitutional amendment 81, which states that rural properties hosting forced labour would be expropriated as it poses a serious threat to private property in Brazil, as stated in Globo.

The Intercept added that Bolsonaro first expressed his disdain for amendment 81 following the trial of Cyro Pires Xavier, a member of the wealthy agribusiness-owning Xavier family in Mato Grosso, who was found guilty of keeping 23 workers (including a pregnant woman) in conditions “analogous to slavery” on a farm. The judge said labourers had no protective gear for handling pesticides, no cleaning products, and not even toilet paper. The pregnant woman had no choice but to defecate in a ditch covered in banana leaves.

The Xaviers are repeat offenders when it comes to taking advantage of vulnerable labourers and their children. The Public Ministry of Labour in Mato Grosso says that five separate raids saved 324 workers from slavery on Xavier family property over the years. The “Lista Suja” includes the names of patriarch Sebastião Bueno Xavier’s two sons.

Ultimately, a labour court in October 2018 jointly condemned seven members of the Xavier dynasty to pay six million real in damages, although judges nearly invoked amendment 81 to seize Cyro Pires Xavier’s farm. In a bid to further bolster his burgeoning popularity among rural elites, Bolsonaro, then a presidential candidate, castigated judges rightfully clamping down on slavery for their “judicial activism”.

Furthermore, iG Brasil reported that on the campaign trail in 2018, Bolsonaro also claimed he would dismantle anti-child labour laws, saying “ The ECA (Brazilian Child and Adolescent Statute) needs to be torn up and thrown down the toilet” for being “ a stimulus for vagrancy and childish trickery”.

The PT (Workers’ Party) might make a difference in the war on slavery if it returned to power after this year’s presidential elections. The Institute of the Pact for Eradicating Slavery made great strides towards identifying and eliminating slave labour in the value chains of various products and industries under the reigns of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. If elected, the PT could build upon these achievements and finally banish slavery into the past where it belongs.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jean-Philippe Stone.

The post An Iron Curtain is Descending on America and We Were Warned appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kary Love.

The Company of Economic Cooperation in Vietnam (Coecco) runs a mining operation in the Boualapha district of Laos’ southern Khammouane province.

When “red water” began flowing down the Sa-A and Xe Noi Rivers starting on June 21, the governors of Khamouane and the downstream Savannakhet provinces, along with the minister of Natural Resources and Environment, inspected three Boualapha district mining operations, local outlet Next Media reported.

Investigators discovered that Coecco’s mine was to blame and also discovered the company had been conducting illegal mining activities. On June 27, the Ministry of Energy and Mines issued a notice that ordered Coecco to stop all operations until the company completes construction of a larger waste treatment facility.

“Pollution has been affecting many villages along the Sa-A and Xe Noi Rivers,” an official of Savannakhet’s Vilabouly district told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“The most affected are four villages — Nateu, Katae, Na Yom and Hoei Phai — here in Vilabouly district,” the official said.

The water turns red when the mines wash iron and release waste into the river, a resident of Nateu, who like the rest of the sources in this story, declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA.

“The river water becomes red, undrinkable and unusable. Some villagers here who are rich can dig wells and get [uncontaminated] groundwater, but the poorer folks have no choice but to use the red water,” the Nateu resident said.

The red water in the facility overflows when it rains, the villager said.

Prior to the ministerial order to halt operations, authorities and villagers in Vilabouly district wrote a letter demanding Coecco stop polluting, but the company did nothing.

Bathing in the red water leaves residue on villagers’ bodies, a resident of Hoei Phai told RFA.

“I took a bath in the Sa-A River on the other day. The red water stuck to my body, my arms and my legs,” the Hoei Phai resident said.

“The governors of Khammouane and Savannakhet provinces and the minister came down here, so this week the company agreed to stop operations. The company previously ignored the demand of the district authorities,” the Hoei Phai resident said

A resident of Nong Kapad village in te Boulapha district told RFA that residents there have been less affected by pollution even though the mine is located in the district.

“We live far away from the rivers, but a lot of villages in the south, especially those four in Vilabouly district in Savannakhet, have been badly affected. They can’t drink the water or take baths in the rivers,” the Nong Kapad villager said.

The residents are unhappy about the red water, a Khammouane province Natural Resources and Environment Department official, who was part of the inspection team, told RFA.

“The company must improve the [waste] treatment system as required by the governors and the minister. The waste reservoir is too small and substandard, so that is why the waste is flowing down into the rivers,” the official said.

The official said that the inspection team did not discuss the issue of building wells for the residents when they met with Coecco.

When asked if the red water was toxic, the official responded, “All the information regarding this matter is kept by the inspecting committee.”

The Lao government gave the concession to Coecco for rights to extract iron ore in a five-hectare (12.3-acre) plot in Boualapha district in July 2021. So far, the company has produced 36,000 tons of ore.

Foreign-invested farming, mining and development projects in Laos have been touted as a boon for development and employment in the impoverished nation. But the projects have sparked friction over land taken without proper compensation, harsh labor conditions and environmental pollution.

Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

On March 28, an employee of the Brazilian subsidiary of Britain’s Brazil Iron in the northeastern city of Piatã called the local police after two journalists with the investigative news organization Repórter Brasil arrived at the company’s office to request comment about the alleged impact of their mining activities on local communities, according to news reports, a statement from Repórter Brasil, and Ana Magalhães, the outlet’s journalism coordinator, who spoke to CPJ on the phone.

Armed officers with the state military police told reporter Daniel Camargos and photographer Fernando Martinho that the company had accused them of trespassing, according to those sources. In the presence of the officers, a Brazil Iron employee asked to see images the journalists had recorded outside the company’s office, which the journalists refused to show.

The officers took the journalists to a police station and released them without charge after about an hour, according to those sources.

“Brazil Iron should refrain from attempting to intimidate journalists who seek to cover the environmental impact of their work, should not threaten reporters or outsource that task to the police,” said Natalie Southwick, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, in New York. “It is outrageous that a company would react to a standard request for comment by calling the police. Investigative journalists covering mining in Brazil are keeping the public informed about a vital topic, and should be able to do so without fear of harassment.”

Brazil Iron Ltd. is a privately held British company with an iron and manganese mining subsidiary in Brazil.

“It was a clear attempt to intimidate the press,” Magalhães told CPJ, calling the incident “a gratuitous intimidation because the journalists were there to hear the position of the company. It is very serious that a journalist seeks to hear the other side and is received like that.”

In a statement emailed to CPJ by Brazil Iron press officer Emerson Souza, the company said it called the police “after becoming aware that [the journalists] flew over the area of operation of the Mocó mine with a drone.”

Magalhães told CPJ that the journalists had previously used a drone in the area, but had done that while on public roads and not inside the company’s property.

The company’s statement also said that its employee “did not request the seizure of the [journalists’] equipment, but only asked for the images to be presented, in order to ensure they did not show critical and security zones.”

Magalhães told CPJ that she was unaware of any formal complaint filed by the company. CPJ emailed the Bahia state Civil and Military Police for comment, but did not receive any replies.

Repórter Brasil is an investigative reporting and human rights organization that often reports on environmental issues. In January 2021, the outlet was targeted with cyberattacks, threats, and an attempted break-in, as CPJ reported at the time.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

The decision comes as Sweden is in the midst of a national reckoning over its treatment of the Sami. In 2020, Sweden established an independent truth commission to study past abuse against the Sami, who have faced generations of rights violations, discrimination, land theft, and cultural eradication. 

The Sami, and other activists, have protested the Kallak (Gállok in the Sami language) mine since Beowulf first began exploring mining activities in 2006. Kallak, which would be located in Jokkmokk municipality in Lapland Province, could produce hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore creating dust that could pollute the air and water in the region, in addition to infrastructure that the Sami say will disrupt their reindeer herding. The company has said the mine will create hundreds of jobs in the region. 

“When conditions for reindeer husbandry in Gállok are eradicated, it means ultimately that also the conditions for maintaining Sami culture in the area are removed,” the Sami Parliament wrote in a statement.

The Sami have been recognized as Indigenous people in Sweden since 1977, and it’s estimated that up to 40,000 Sami people live in Sweden, many of whom live in Sapmi, traditional Sami lands that cross Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The area is crucial for Sami reindeer herding, an essential part of Sami culture that also contributes to the ecological health and diversity of the region. It’s also home to the World Heritage site of Laponia, which UNESCO recognized as an outstanding example of traditional land use and for its natural beauty. The mine would be less than 40 kilometers from Laponia. 

Although the Swedish government’s decision means that Beowulf can proceed with environmental studies, President of the Sami Parliament Håkan Jonsson released a statement saying he is skeptical that those studies will lead to meaningful environmental protections. 

In February, the UN joined the Sami in resisting the mine, highlighting the toxic dust the mine will produce and calling on the government to consult with the Sami. “We call on Sweden to construct future good-faith relations with Indigenous peoples at the national level, based on recognition of their cultural heritage and traditional livelihoods,” UN officials wrote in a statement. “A decision not to approve the Gállok project can demonstrate a watershed shift from past injustices.”

Earlier this year, the Swedish government passed legislation requiring consultation with Sami representatives on “issues of special significance to the Sami people,” but the law doesn’t take effect until 2024. Jonsson’s statement says that the decision contradicts the spirit of the law. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Sweden approves controversial iron mine on Indigenous Sami land on Mar 25, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Lee.