Nigerians have been hit by a double whammy of chronic fuel shortages and a hike in prices by the state-owned oil company.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which imports the country’s fuel and distributes it to private sellers, blamed its debts and rising global prices for its difficulty in getting fuel.

Many people have been left stranded with long queues at petrol stations nationwide. Commuters in Lagos have been lining up at bus stations, but there very few buses operating.

Others told the BBC they have been forced to trek long distances as public transport prices have doubled along some routes.

On Tuesday, the NNPC said it was putting up the petrol price from 617 naira ($0.40, £0.30) to 897 naira a litre.

Its petrol stations have the cheapest fuel on sale in the country – but at the vast majority of other private garages the pump price is much higher.

When the NNPC puts up the price, so do private sellers and in some states, like Oyo, Kano and Kaduna, petrol is now selling for as much as 1,200 naira a litre.

Many garages around the country have shut because they have run out of fuel, others have closed to adjust their prices.

In the capital, Abuja, most are open but all have long queues as desperate drivers wait their turn – some slept in their cars overnight.

Fuel stations are not rationing supply, so there is a danger their wait will be futile.

A motorcycle rider in Kano, the main trading hub of northern Nigeria, said it was frustrating: “Most of the fuel stations here in Kano are closed because they want to adjust their pumps to the new price.

“I was able to get fuel at 950 naira at a particular station, but other places have already started selling at 1,200 per litre,” Aminu Danyaro told the BBC.

Black-market traders, who buy fuel from petrol stations and sell it by the roadside from jerrycans at inflated prices, are doing a brisk trade in Kano, where there is significantly less traffic than usual.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) – the country’s main trade union body – says it feels “betrayed”, explaining that the reason it accepted the new minimum monthly wage of 70,000 naira ($44, £34) in July was because there was an agreement with the government that petrol price would not be increased.

When President Bola Tinubu came to power last year, he shocked Nigerians on his first day by removing a subsidy that kept the price of fuel low.

This – amongst other policies – has led to the worst economic crisis in a generation and cost-of-living protests, dubbed “10 days of rage”, were held countrywide last month.

Nigerians are now pinning their hopes on the new privately owned Dangote Petroleum Refinery, which has been built by one of Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.

On Monday, it was announced with great fanfare that the refinery had just started producing petrol – a milestone in Nigeria which despite being Africa’s largest producer of crude oil imports all its refined fuel.

But it is not clear how long Nigerians will have to wait to see ready availability of petrol or a drop in prices.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Gridlock in Nigeria amid fuel shortages and price hikes est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

It won’t stop undocumented migrants. But it will kill many more families trying to cross the frigid border.

Razak Iyal and Seidu Mohammed recently celebrated becoming Canadian citizens. Their stories have been intertwined since they crossed the Canada-United States border to seek asylum near Emerson, Manitoba, on Christmas eve of 2016.

Their lives nearly ended on that frigid night at the side of a rural road. The two men survived but both lost all their fingers to frostbite. Others have not survived. On March 31, two families perished at the Quebec-US border, including an infant and a three-year-old.

Stories like Razak and Seidu’s have captured intense political and public attention in Canada. Why aren’t people going to official ports of entry? The answer is that the law, specifically the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) between the US and Canada, deters people from using official border entry points because they will be turned away and denied the opportunity to make a refugee claim.

Canada has acknowledged these crossings by erecting pop-up border stations like one at Roxham Road, facilitating the movement of migrants. Quebec’s premier and main opposition leader have called for this makeshift port of entry to be shut down. And now, as part of US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Canada, the two countries have decided to do just that, under a renegotiated STCA that came into effect starting midnight on Friday, March 24.

Now anyone crossing any point of the Canada-US land border to make a refugee claim will be turned away. They will not be able to make a refugee claim and will be sent back to the US side of the border. Until now, this agreement only applied at official land ports of entry which pushed people seeking asylum to cross at unofficial points and made the remote Roxham Road that dead-ends at the boundary line between Hemmingford, Quebec, and Champlain, New York, a legal and well-travelled option.

The newly expanded STCA now applies across the entire Canada-US land border, including areas between official ports of entry and certain bodies of water. Anyone making an asylum claim within 14 days of crossing without authorisation or valid immigration status will be brought back to a US port of entry and excluded from being able to make a claim in Canada.

This expanded protocol is a response to heightened political rhetoric that paints people crossing at Roxham Road as illegal and taking advantage of Canada’s immigration system. In recent weeks, this processing centre has become a lightning rod for debates about migration and border policy in Canada.

Yet while Roxham Road will no longer be a viable crossing route for refugee claimants, this will not stop people from seeking safety and security across the border. The legality of the additional protocol will be tested in courts. In fact, the STCA’s constitutionality is before the Supreme Court of Canada right now.

Advocates argued that the agreement not only infringes migrants’ rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but also violates Canada’s international legal obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention which calls on states to provide a meaningful opportunity to ask for refugee protection.

Rather than suspending the agreement as many refugees and their advocates have long called for, the Canadian government has instead expanded it even though its legality is in question. Further, rather than trusting the tools and procedures at our official ports of entry, the Canadian government has chosen a less efficient and inhumane way to manage the movement of people at the border.

The story of Roxham Road is not separate from the wider global context of increasing anti-migration sentiments and stricter border controls, underpinned by systemic racism and discrimination, even as more people are forced to flee their homes due to instability, war and environmental degradation.

Policies like the STCA are short-sighted because stricter border policies, militarisation and surveillance do not stem migration. Instead, people desperate for protection simply take more dangerous routes, leading to loss of life, broken families and lifelong trauma.

Iyal and Mohammed survived their journey across a remote and dangerous segment of the Canada-US border. Their refugee claims were accepted in 2017, opening their pathway to becoming citizens this March.

They narrowly avoided freezing to death. Others were not so lucky, dying at the border.

How many deaths and other casualties of the STCA will it take before Canada reconsiders its reliance on increasingly restrictive and short-sighted policies? For the answer is blowing in the frigid wind along the US-Canada border: the Safe Third Country Agreement offers no real safety to either desperate people or the nations involved.

• Jamie LiewLawyer and associate professor, University of OttawaJamie Liew is a lawyer, Director of the Institute of Feminist & Gender Studies and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. Twitter: @thechaiyun
• Petra MolnarAssociate Director of the Refugee Law LabPetra Molnar, lawyer and Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab, York University and Fellow with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society Twitter: @_PMolnar
• Julie YoungCanada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Critical Border Studies and Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Lethbridge.Julie Young is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Critical Border Studies and Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Lethbridge.

World Opinions – Aljazeera

L’article Analysis. The new US-Canada border deal is inhumane — and deadly est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, condemned Israeli action at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in a press conference on Wednesday, saying it is the “exclusive right of the Palestinian Muslims” to practise their religious traditions there.

“It is the right of the Palestinian Muslim worshippers to exercise their religious duties and prayers in this holy month of Ramadan and in any other time in this holy Aqsa Mosque,” Mansour said.

“The Israeli occupying authority has no right whatsoever to tell people when to pray and when not to pray.”

Arab League holds emergency meeting, condemns Israeli action

The Arab League – a regional organisation of 22 member countries – is holding an emergency meeting on the raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hossam Zaki, the league’s assistant secretary general, told Al Jazeera: “We lay the blame totally and squarely on the Israeli government.”

“We are going to work, politically and diplomatically, to expose what Israel has been doing,” he continued.

“It’s not that we need another excuse from the Israeli occupation forces to storm in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They never run out of excuses. They always tell you that there will be youth barricading, amassing guns and so on. We’ve heard it so many times. It is almost irrelevant at this point. This is a government that is bent on harming the Palestinian population.”

Raids on Al-Aqsa ‘a serious provocation’

Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, called the latest violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque a “very serious provocation that will definitely lead to an escalation”.

“And maybe that’s what the Israeli government wants,” he told Al Jazeera. “They want to distract attention from their internal divisions, from the demonstrations that are taking place inside Israel against this government, and they want to drag this whole region into an explosion.”

Barghouti blamed the violence, in part, on the appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as Israel’s minister of national security: “This Israeli government is using religion for nationalist causes.”

“This is unprecedented that the mosque would be attacked twice in the same day, people would be injured, elderly people would be attacked, children, women in the morning. And now preventing medical teams from reaching them,” he said..

World Opinins – Agencies

L’article Israeli police attack Palestinians in Al-Aqsa Mosque again est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

During the holy month, legions of cooks gather at restaurants, warehouses, and street stalls to spend hours mashing the savory porridge of mutton, wheat, and spices, a beloved fixture of night markets and family iftar feasts.

ForFor much of the year, dawn breaks over sleepy lanes in Hyderabad, India, as chai and newspaper vendors rush to deliver piping hot tea alongside the news. But during Ramadan, mornings in the Old City, Secunderabad, Mallepally, Tolichowki, and other neighborhoods bring a different kind of activity. Dozens of eateries and warehouses fill with workers starting the long process of making massive amounts of haleem, an iconic savory porridge-like dish enjoyed across the Muslim world but especially beloved in Hyderabad during Ramadan, when it becomes a staple of the nightly iftar meal.

Across its many locations, the legendary Pista House, a name nearly synonymous with haleem, prepares around two tons of the dish every day during the holy month. The operation at the restaurant, and at many others, is a communal effort. Legions of cooks (including many temp workers hired just for the month) set up firewood, chop mutton, grind wheat, prep lentils, clean herbs and chiles, strain rose petals, crush cardamom, chop cinnamon bark, and ready other spices and ingredients before piling everything into bhattis, mud or brick kilns fitted with huge cauldrons. Then it’s all hands on deck, as crews of Muslims as well as non-Muslims work like well-oiled machines, using wooden mallets to rhythmically pound the mixture as it cooks for up to 12 hours. (If you thought tricep dips were hard, try pounding tons of meat into a paste, every day for a month, while fasting.)

As the sun sets, the streets transform again with a new flurry of activity. The usually traffic-packed road around the iconic Charminar monument and mosque is blocked off to allow pedestrians to explore freely. Almost simultaneously, thousands of stalls spring up, selling all things festive: shimmery bangles, little jars of attar (perfume), colorful sarees, embroidered anarkalis. Here and across the city, restaurants shift their attention to serving the food they spent all day preparing. Workers distribute Styrofoam bowls filled with haleem, topped with caramelized onions, coriander, shorba (meat consomme), slices of lemon, and other fixings.

Mohammed Sibghatullah Khan of Deccan Archive, a digital publication preserving Hyderabad’s heritage, recalls relatives across Hyderabad coming together during his childhood to prepare the feast that follows the fast. “Back then, this was the only time I got to eat haleem,” he says. The more family members who showed up to help, the more the work could be shared, with everyone taking turns to lend a hand in preparing the dish (at home, many families cook the elements of haleem separately before combining and mashing them to make the work a bit easier). Today, his family heads to Shah Ghouse, a popular choice, to fetch “buckets of haleem,” he says. “Cooking this dish has become a rare sight” in his house, Khan adds with a chuckle.

After he offers his prayers, Khan breaks the fast with his community over dates, fresh and dried fruits, and a handful of pakoras, before everyone disperses to hit the stalls, alongside diners of all backgrounds eating, shopping, and searching for the best bowl of haleem.

How did haleem come to Hyderabad?

The dish can be traced back to Arabian cookbooks from the 10th century. A predecessor called harees (also spelled jareesh) also consists of mashed meat and wheat; it came to India with Arab mercenaries, likely from Yemen, during Muslim rule in Hyderabad under the Nizams. These soldiers enjoyed harees for breakfast, when its high calories were especially useful. The barracks that housed these mercenaries eventually gave their name to the Barkas neighborhood, today home to hundreds of thousands of Arab descendants. You’ll still find harees year-round in Barkas, like at the long-standing Madina Hotel and Hadrami Harees, two restaurants that inspire long lines of customers as early as 5 a.m. and often scrape the bottom of their pots for the last harees by 10 a.m. (A sweeter version of harees is also on the menu at some eateries, though it’s not as popular.)

Unlike mild harees, which usually calls for equal parts wheat and meat, haleem calls for double the meat. Over time, locals augmented the ratio and added more seasoning. Though Hyderabad is equally famous and protective of its biryani, during Ramadan, the rice dish is quite literally on the back burner — which alone speaks volumes about the passion for haleem.

Versions of haleem and related dishes are hugely popular in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, West Asian countries, and Turkey. Across India, haleem can be found in Iranian restaurants in Mumbai; eateries in Bangalore’s Fraser Town, Old Delhi, Lucknow, Chennai, Ludhiana, and Goa; in traces in relative dishes like aleesa in Kerala, harissa in Kashmir, and khichra in Gujarat; and at many family gatherings and weddings.

Over the last decade especially, meat consumption, especially beef, has been a flash point for violence by right-wing Hindus on Muslim communities (as well as on Indigenous Adivasis and Dalits) as nationalists have pressed for the widespread adoption of vegetarianism. Given the context, the scene in Hyderabad during Ramadan, with crowds of Muslims, Hindus, and other non-Muslims all enjoying haleem, is striking.

What makes Hyderabadi haleem so popular?

At its best, haleem is an amalgamation of sensations and flavors — gamey mutton, subtly aromatic rose petals, punchy spices, slick ghee, generous fixings — all delivered in a caloric, easily digestible bowl. Anas Murtuza, the food critic behind BeingHydFoodie, claims he could fast for days after one bowl of haleem — though that doesn’t stop him from constantly visiting his go-to shop, City Diamond, a favorite of residents in Mehdipatnam..

World Opinions – Eater.com

L’article During Ramadan in Hyderabad, All Roads Lead to Haleem est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

From India to France, bigots are scared of the hijab. Why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent about this?

A little piece of cloth is scaring big governments again.

The latest instance is in India, where in early March the Supreme Court announced that it would set up a three-judge bench to hear a case challenging a hijab ban in educational institutions in the state of Karnataka. In October 2022, the top court had delivered a split verdict on the ban, which the Karnataka High Court had previously upheld.

As a result of the Indian hijab ban in educational institutions, thousands of girls have not been able to attend school for a year, and were denied even a temporary lifting of the ban for their practical exams this year.

And thanks to the same restrictions on religious dress in France, thousands of French women must choose between practising their sincerely held spiritual beliefs or pursuing their love for the sport of football.

The French Football Federation bans hijab-wearing women and girls from its competitions. The French senate in January of last year voted 160 to 143 to extend that ban to all sports competitions, though that move was ultimately defeated in the country’s parliament. Meanwhile, France’s hijab ban at state-run academic institutions remains in place.

As always, these bans have been justified by supporters, in part, as acts aimed at the emancipation of women. Nothing says women’s empowerment like policing women’s dress.

Why is it that the hijab is so often the obsession of bigots the world over? What is it about this piece of cloth that brings about so much passionate protest from detractors?  And why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent when it comes to this type of state control of women’s bodies?

I asked myself these very questions when I received hate mail following my appearance on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2016. In response to a question about my head covering, I told Trevor it was an act of spiritual devotion but, reversing roles, posed my own question to him. Paraphrased, I inquired “Oppression is the taking away of one’s power. So what are we really saying about women and the source of their power if they are oppressed when they privatise their sexual energy?”

Trevor slowly attempted a response, “We are saying they are only powerful when they are sexy in public?” he ventured timidly.  “Did I get it right?” The audience roared and the clip went viral.

While I received an overwhelmingly positive response to the appearance, every piece of hate mail was about this segment. Mostly women, claiming to be “feminists” were incredulous that I dare attribute an empowering quality to the hijab, or point out the inherent misogyny of casting it as demeaning.

The great irony of course is that all these supposed “saviours” of Muslim women who want to liberate us from our religious dress because they claim it degrades and limits us, do just that by restricting or ridiculing our choices.

Indian and French girls must choose between their education and practising their faith, and thousands of French athletes must make a similar agonising decision between their careers and their creed.

How poetic it is that the very people who rightly decry the treatment of women under the Taliban, partially because the group bars women from education and athletics, support hijab bans that ultimately result in the same?

Some will point out that the hijab is indeed sometimes forced and sometimes politicised by authoritarian systems that do restrict women’s education and movement. So, they contend, it is a symbol of oppression that should be cancelled.

This argument denies women their agency. According to representative survey research conducted by the Washington-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, roughly half of Muslim women in the United States wear hijabs. The most popular reason given for why those who wear it do so is “religious devotion”, cited by roughly half. Next comes “so people know I’m Muslim” (21 percent), and  “modesty” (12 percent). Just one percent of those who wear a hijab said it was in compliance with the wishes of a relative or husband.

But let’s take to its logical conclusion the argument that says anything that is sometimes coerced or politicised is inherently oppressive and must be opposed.

Let’s apply this idea to something else that is far more often forced on women than the hijab, and see where we end up: sex. One in four women are victims of sexual assault during their undergraduate education in the United States. And sexual violence is not only politicised, it is used as a weapon of war in conflicts from Bosnia to Ukraine.

So because sex is often forced and even weaponised, should it be banned? Should the state restrict consenting adult women from choosing in the name of women’s empowerment?

Should well-meaning self-proclaimed “feminists” shame and demean other women for making it a part of their lives?

If the answer is no, then perhaps this Women’s History Month, Western feminists should consider opposing hijab bans with as much ferocity as hijab mandates.

By Dalia Mogahed – Research Director at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding / Aljazeera

L’article Analysis. Feminists need to oppose hijab bans as much as hijab mandates est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

For decades, Kenya’s restrictive refugee policies have denied refugees freedom of movement and the right to work. But there’s change in the air – and it’s exciting.

The Refugee Act, a new law passed late last year, could in fact position the country as a global leader on refugees. Now Kenya needs support to make sure that happens. Doing so not only benefits refugees in the country but the Kenyan economy as a whole – and could signal to the world how refugees’ inclusion can yield positive results for all.

Kenya currently hosts more than half a million registered refugees and asylum seekers. Most have been required to remain in camps for years, have been unable to obtain work permits and other documentation, and have faced limited access to education, vocational training and financial services. For decades, they have relied on humanitarian assistance.

In recent years, many governments around the world – including Kenya – have recognised that refugees can benefit their economies. A study by the World Bank in 2015 and 2016 concluded that Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp has led to an increase in overall average local income and employment in Turkana, the county where the camp is based. Other research has corroborated those economic gains for the local population when refugees are integrated with the host communities.

That’s what the Refugee Act could facilitate. It promises to improve refugee access to a range of rights, including freedom of movement, the right to work, better access to financial services, better access to documentation and education, and the ability to start a business. Recent indications from Kenya indicate that its leadership is ready to work with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to move away from a closed camp model to help refugees become self-reliant.

That is welcome. Until recently, Kenya – like a majority of the world’s refugee-hosting states – limited refugees’ freedom of movement and their right to work. Indeed, with the exception of Uganda, most of Kenya’s neighbours require refugees to live in camps or settlements, which tend to be in remote and economically-challenged areas where host communities are also struggling. These all-too-common models of refugee response perpetuate cycles of poverty and forced reliance on aid that can last for years, even decades. They can also build tensions between refugee and host populations, and leave displaced people in precarity for years on end.

However, as Kenya welcomes large numbers of new Somali refugees fleeing instability and the effects of a changing climate, as well as an ongoing influx of South Sudanese refugees, it needs support from donors and the international community to respond to these challenges.

Kenya already has gains to point to. In 2016, it opened the Kalobeyei settlement, which is administered by the country’s government, the UNHCR, the local Turkana county administration and other partners.

Just 3.5km (2.2 miles) from Kakuma – where refugees cannot formally work and move freely – Kalobeyei encourages self-reliance and integration with the local community. The settlement seeks to help refugees transition away from ongoing humanitarian aid by using cash-based programmes, greater vocational training, and entrepreneurial and agricultural opportunities.

In addition to greater freedom of movement, programmes like the Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund aim to encourage private-sector investment in areas hosting refugees.

Although research indicates that refugees in all settlements and camps still struggle, refugees in Kalobeyei were found to have better diets and food security, as well as higher levels of interaction with members of the local community. These are notable successes.

Kenya’s policy evolution also comes at a critical time for change in the region, in the form of an expanding East African Community (EAC) that could also be a game changer for refugees.

Refugees from EAC countries – including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and perhaps even Somalia someday), can claim the rights of citizens in any other nation within the bloc. That includes the freedom of movement and the right to work.

Granted, refugees from these countries will need to choose to give up their refugee status and the protections and assistance that go with it – which is not a small decision – should they choose to take up the citizenship. However, if some of the refugees in Kenya chose this path instead of the current encampment policy, it could free up resources to respond to other refugee populations more in need of protection and assistance.

Yet the pressure to respond to fast-paced influxes on multiple borders and a long tradition of treating refugees as security threats and scapegoats for political gain means that rights advocates cannot rest easy. The risk that Kenya could backslide to its restrictive policies of limiting refugee rights remains.

This would be to the detriment of Kenya and the broader region and could also wipe out the gains and investments the country’s government and its international partners have made in recent years. East Africa needs Kenya’s economic and political leadership, its diplomatic clout and its humanitarian and development capabilities now more than ever.

The international community should work with Kenyan authorities – at the national and county levels – to ensure successful implementation of the new law. Humanitarian and development actors must continue to support the Kalobeyei model, drawing on lessons learned and replicating it elsewhere. Donors must pressure Kenya to adopt these types of approaches in line with the new Refugee Law and match that pressure with funding and long-term programmes of support.

We must seize this critical moment in Kenya. It holds the potential for a new direction on refugee rights and solutions – one that could change the way hundreds of thousands of people live and that could affect how the region and the world think about refugees.

By Abdullahi Boru HalakheAbdullahi Boru Halakhe is an expert on governance, security and peace in Africa.Abdullahi Boru Halakhe is an expert on governance, security and peace in Africa.

By Sarah Deardorff MillerSenior Fellow at Refugees InternationalSarah Deardorff Miller is a Senior Fellow at Refugees International, where she focuses on refugee access to the labor market. She has a Doctorate from Oxford University and teaches at Georgetown University.

Aljazeera

L’article Can Kenya emerge as a role model on refugees? est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Politicians and journalists scatter the word “crisis” like salt over hot chips, but every now and then the term really applies. The Bank of England’s emergency intervention in financial markets on Wednesday qualifies as a crisis – for the Bank, the government and the public. This is a crisis made in Downing Street, and it is not over yet.

Just last Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled what he refused to call a mini-budget. It did in fact rank as one of the most significant budgets in 50 years, with £45bn in tax cuts. These giveaways had not been demanded by vast swathes of voters. Many businesses and economists thought them unnecessary, even wasteful. They came after an energy support package worth £150bn over two years, and while the UK is having to borrow ever more money to pay for imported fuel, food and manufactured goods. Yet the chancellor had not prepared investors for all this spending, had decreed the Office for Budget Responsibility should not check his sums, and also pushed out Tom Scholar, the Treasury’s top civil servant. Along with Liz Truss, Mr Kwarteng had spent months decrying the Treasury’s “abacus economics” and also demanding a shakeup at the Bank of England.

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Faced with all this institutional instability and slipshod policy, markets reacted incredibly badly. The pound has collapsed and bond markets have all but frozen up. The free-market thinktanks and media outriders who helped write the budget now look less like the experts on capitalism they claimed to be, and more like extremist cabals on a different planet from voters and investors. Even the IMF, not known for its concern with either growth or tackling inequality, laid into the chancellor’s plans. The IMF is quite happy to slap down policymakers in Islamabad or Kigali; it is usually rather more circumspect about criticising G7 countries that rank among its major shareholders. Six years and three prime ministers on from the Brexit vote, the UK looks very isolated on the world stage. The government that thought it could rip up the Northern Ireland protocol and renege on all manner of international deals has been rewarded with the cold shoulder by erstwhile allies who might otherwise offer support.

Liz Truss’s first big policy has been shot down by financial markets – and her economic credibility shredded

On Wednesday the Bank governor, Andrew Bailey, was forced to step in, buying long-term government bonds in order to save Mr Kwarteng from his own mess. This will not be a one-off rescue mission but an entire programme of daily purchases lasting until mid-October. Bond traders enjoyed a one-way bet for the past week in selling gilts. They now have a one-way bet for a fortnight in buying them. A nice business to be in. But for the Bank this is a huge mess. It wanted to reverse quantitative easing, now it is doing some more. It planned to increase rates, now it is under pressure to jack them up very soon. Mr Bailey apparently believes he can carry on as normal and make his next rate decision with colleagues as scheduled in November. This no longer looks plausible.

For Mr Kwarteng and Ms Truss, this is an unmitigated disaster. Their first major policy has been shot down by financial markets, their claims to economic competence shredded. Nothing the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, could say would do as much for his poll ratings as the public uselessness of these two. But, sadly, even if the Bank’s manoeuvring works, the consequences will be felt much more widely, in higher mortgage bills and import prices. And the government is already hinting at significant spending cuts. To do so would be a contravention of the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto, which made huge spending promises on hospitals, police and schools. It would also further erode public services and a public realm already in dangerously ill health.

By The Guardian View 

L’article View on the financial crisis: a meltdown made in Downing Street est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Canada’s parole board will review its decision to release one of the men suspected of carrying out a deadly stabbing attack in Saskatchewan.

Parole documents of Myles Sanderson, 32, show he has 59 prior convictions as well as a history of violence.

He was released in February while serving a four-year sentence.

« I want to know the reasons behind the decision, » Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said. « I’m extremely concerned by what occurred here. »

The hunt for Myles Sanderson is in its fourth day following the stabbing attack on Sunday that left 10 people dead and 18 others injured. Ten victims remain in hospital, three of them in critical condition.

The other suspect, his 31-year-old brother Damien Sanderson, was found dead by police on Monday at the James Smith Cree Nation, a close-knit indigenous community in central Saskatchewan. The discovery brought the death toll to 10.

At an emotional news conference on Wednesday, relatives of the victims spoke of the « horror » of the attack that has stunned the country. They were among the first relatives to come forward and speak about their loss.

« We are broken, but we’re not defeated, » said Mark Arcand, chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council and brother of Bonnie Goodvoice-Burns. Bonnie, 48, and her son Gregory Burns, 28, were both killed.

Bonnie « took care of everybody » and was « a true matriarch », her brother said, adding that Gregory loved his family and had two children with a third on the way.

With a smile, Chief Arcand said he « didn’t like » being in a room with Bonnie and her husband Brian, « because all they would do was laugh at us and joke ».

He recalled the horror he felt after hearing the news of the attack, driving alone for two hours to reach his sister and her family at James Smith Cree Nation. Bonnie and Gregory were among nine victims that lived in the community.

« One of the most traumatising things was the visual scene that day, » he said.

Bonnie was a « hero », he said, adding that she had died protecting her three young sons. One of the children was stabbed but survived.

« These two young boys woke up to screaming not being able to help, » he said. « One of the young boys was hiding behind a high chair watching the whole thing happen. »

He continued: « I’m just a kid from the reserve. We didn’t want this, we didn’t ask for this. »

Four days after the stabbing spree, there are still more questions than answers.

It is unclear whether Myles Sanderson acted alone or with assistance, including from his brother Damien. It is unclear why Wes Petterson, and elderly man who lived in Weldon, 30km (18 miles) away, was killed.

Police have said they believe some victims were targeted, but have not offered any information about a possible motive.

It is also unknown where in the province – or in the country – Myles Sanderson is now.

These questions have fuelled intense speculation about the events throughout Saskatchewan – conjecture that was addressed by Chief Arcand directly on Wednesday.

« Don’t listen to rumours, innuendos, » he said. « Please don’t assume. »

Parole documents show Myles Sanderson has a decades-long criminal record, including 59 criminal convictions since he was 18, including assault, threats, and robbery. The files also indicate his childhood was marred by violence, substance abuse and other trauma.

The parole board in February said he would « not present an undue risk » and that his release would « contribute to the protection of society » by facilitating his rehabilitation. He has been unlawfully at large since May of this year.

It also noted that he had taken steps towards rehabilitation during an earlier release, including participation in cultural ceremonies, staying sober and getting a job.

« I am assured that the Parole Board of Canada will be undertaking an investigation of the decision, » Mr Mendicino told reporters on Tuesday evening.

« There will be an appropriate time and a place to review policy and resourcing and we need to embrace that review, we need to be transparent with Canadians to make sure that this kind of thing never happens again, » he said.

Myles Sanderson now faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Canada stabbings suspect has 59 prior convictions, documents show est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

About 27 million people already suffer hunger, a number that could rise to 23 by June unless urgent action is taken.

About 27 million people in West Africa are suffering from hunger marking the region’s worst food crisis in a decade, international aid groups have said.

In a damning statement published on Tuesday, 11 major international organizations including Oxfam, ALIMA and Save the Children, warned that the figure could even rise to 38 million this June.

Unless urgent action is taken, they said, the increase would mark “a new historic level” and an increase by more than a third during last year.

The alert comes a day before a virtual conference on the food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel and Lake Chad.

Since 2015, the number of people in need of emergency food assistance in the region – which includes Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali, and Nigeria – has nearly quadrupled, jumping from seven to 27 million.

Assalama Dawalack Sidi, Oxfam’s regional director for West and Central Africa said the situation had been worsened by “drought, floods, conflict, and the economic impacts of COVID-19”, which has displaced millions and is “pushing them to the brink”.

“There is not enough food, let alone food that is nutritious enough for children. We must help them urgently because their health, their future and even their lives are at risk,” stressed Philippe Adapoe, Save the Children’s director for West and Central Africa.

The United Nations has estimated that 6.3 million children aged 6-59 months will be acutely malnourished this year, an increase of almost 30 percent from 2021.

“I had almost no milk left so I gave my baby other food. He often refused to take it and lost weight. In addition, he had diarrhoea, which worsened his condition,” said Safiatou, a mother who had to flee her village because of the violence in Burkina Faso.

With food increasingly scarce, families’ food sources, especially in the central Sahel, and families increasingly being forced to sell their assets, further jeopardising their productive capacity and the future of their children.

As often happens during crisis, girls are dropping out of school or being forced into early marriage.

“The rains were scarce. There is no more food. With the lack of grazing, the sheep are getting thinner and this forces us to sell them at a loss. I used to have 12 sheep, but now I only have one left”, explained Ramata Sanfo, a herder from Burkina Faso. “I would like to have my cattle back so that I have enough money and my children can go back to school.”

To add to the already dire situation, experts have predicted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could push food prices up to 20 percent worldwide – “an unbearable increase for an already fragile population”.

The conflict will likely significantly reduce the availability of wheat in the six West African countries, which import at least a third or even as much as half of their consumption volumes from the conflicting countries.

And while the crisis has shown no sign of abating during the past decade, international donations are drastically reducing. Last year, the humanitarian response plan for West Africa failed to reach half of its scope.

“The Sahel crisis is one of the worst humanitarian crises on a global scale and, at the same time, one of the least funded,” said Mamadou Diop, the regional representative of Action Against Hunger. “We fear that by redirecting humanitarian budgets to the Ukrainian crisis, we risk dangerously aggravating one crisis to respond to another.”

According to the statement, Denmark has announced that it will postpone about half of its entire bilateral development assistance to Burkina Faso and Mali this year, in order to fund the reception of people displaced from Ukraine.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

L’article Oxfam, others: West Africa facing worst food crisis in a decade est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Baghdad, Iraq – As the plane taxied on the runway of Erbil’s airport after a three-hour flight from the Belarusian capital Minsk, Azad looked out the window, clutching his wife’s hands.

“We’ll lower our hats, wear masks, and leave the airport as soon as possible,” Azad, a 28-year-old man from the Kurdish city of Duhok, recalled telling his wife after their failed attempt to enter the European Union from Belarus.

Left physically bruised and in indescribable emotional pain, Azad and his wife, who asked not to be fully named, told Al Jazeera they had been treated like animals at the Belarus-Poland border and did not want to be subjected again to rounds of questions by reporters as soon as they returned to the place they so desperately wanted to leave.

“For now, we’ll try not to think about our future too much because as soon as we start thinking, it’ll become clear that we don’t have one here in Kurdistan,” Azad told Al Jazeera while sitting in their house in Duhok. “But we both know we are probably stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

For many Iraqi families stuck at the Poland-Belarus border, waiting was simply not an option any more.

Azad, along with some 430 other Iraqis, returned from Belarus to Iraq last Thursday on a government-mandated repatriation flight, as part of the Iraqi government’s bid to ease the tensions that have been flaring by the Belarus-Poland border for the past few months.

While most of the refugees and asylum seekers decided to remain in Belarus with the growingly slim hope that they could someday cross into Poland, others “gave up their naive hope that they could succeed” and decided that they would return home, Azad said.

‘Time to let go’

Coming back to Iraq was not an easy decision to make. Just like many others who left for Belarus in the hope of entering the EU, Azad saved up, asked for financial support from his family, and nearly sold his house. When they heard the Iraqi government was offering repatriation flights from Minsk for those who wished to return voluntarily, their first reaction was an adamant “No”.

“I remember I told my wife in our tent at night that we didn’t spend all the money and waste all this energy so we would go back to Iraq,” Azad said. But then the next day, the usual clashes between the Belarusian border forces and their counterparts in Poland occurred.

Azad said they were being pushed by the Belarusian police to the other side of the border, while Polish police were then pushing them back.

“Back and forth, back and forth, they were playing us like animals,” he said, becoming visibly upset. “That was the moment when we thought it was time to let go of this dream of moving to Europe.”

What was described by Azad is only a fraction of a political and humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding at the EU’s eastern frontier. So far, at least 11 people have died in this round of the border crisis, and many others are facing freezing temperatures and a dwindling supply of essentials.

Despite the Belarusian government’s effort to bus migrants and asylum seekers to warehouses for temporary shelter, it remains unclear how the government will resolve this crisis. Western politicians accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using migrants and asylum seekers as “weapons” for revenge against the EU’s sanctions on his government.

For many like Azad, waiting simply is not an option any more: they decided to go back home. Now back in Iraq, Azad said they were lucky he did not sell the house. But that is the last thing he owns now: He sold the sofas, the refrigerator, and even the coffee pot. Basically, anything that could be turned into cash to support their odyssey out of Iraq was fair game for sale.

Social media posts also revealed a grim picture of what awaits the returnees in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. For example, one Kurdish family did not even have enough money for a taxi to take them from the airport to the internally displaced people’s (IDP) camp where they resided.

‘Only choice I had’

Even though the Kurdish region, home to the Iraqi Kurds and some Yazidis, enjoys relative security and prosperity compared with the rest of Iraq, people who live in the region face rising unemployment and endemic corruption. Ravaged by the armed group ISIL (ISIS), some parts of the Kurdish and Yazidi communities are still struggling to rebuild.

Employment opportunities are scarce and many young people like Azad are not seeing a future in the Kurdish region. “I tried and tried, but I simply couldn’t find a job, so leaving Erbil was the only choice I had,” said another young Kurdish man who is still in Belarus.

The regional government, in the face of the hardships that many of the people encounter in the region, insists the migrant crisis was stirred up by people smugglers. Yet many people who spoke with Al Jazeera said they voluntarily left their homes and went to Belarus with travel agency-arranged flights and visas.

For the 430 people who have returned from Europe to Iraq, their future now is even bleaker than when they decided to embark on this journey a few months ago. Without government support, many are facing more despair.

“I don’t expect the media to really care about us and I don’t think people could really understand what we are going through, but I’m glad that I have someone to talk to,” Azad said, standing up from the floor and ending the conversation.

 World Opinions – AL JAZEERA

L’article Destitute and hopeless: Iraqi Kurds return from Belarus est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.