The US is seen with growing suspicion within Kurdish communities and elites, which is changing political calculations.

Last month during the violent clashes between Kurdish forces and the Syrian army, the United States delivered a devastating message to Syria’s Kurds: Their partnership with Washington had “expired“. This was not merely a statement of shifting priorities – it was a clear signal that the US was siding with Damascus and abandoning the Kurds at their most vulnerable moment.

For the Kurds across the region watching events unfold, the implications were profound. The US is no longer perceived as a reliable partner or supporter of minorities.

This development is likely to have an impact not just on the Kurdish community in Syria but also those in Iraq, Turkiye and Iran.

Fears of repeat marginalisation in Syria

US support for Damascus under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa paves the way for a centralised Syrian state – an arrangement that Kurds throughout the region view with deep suspicion. Their wariness is rooted in bitter historical experience.

Centralised states in the Middle East have historically marginalised, excluded and assimilated Kurdish minorities. The prospect of such a system emerging in Syria, with US backing, represents a fundamental divergence from Kurdish hopes for the region’s future.

The approach the Assad regime to the Kurdish question was built on systematic denial. Kurds were not recognised as a distinct collective group within Syria’s national fabric; the state banned the public use of the Kurdish language and Kurdish names. Many Kurds were denied citizenship.

Al-Sharaa’s presidential decree of January 16 promised Kurds some rights while the January 30 agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) included limited recognition of Kurdish collective identity, including acknowledgment of “Kurdish regions” – terminology conspicuously absent from Syria’s political vocabulary and government documents in the past.

These represent incremental gains, but they are unfolding within a transitional government structure that aims for centralisation as its ultimate objective. That is why Syrian Kurds remain suspicious of whether the promises made today will be upheld in the future.

While a consensus has emerged among the majority of Kurdish groups that armed resistance is not strategically viable at this stage, any future engagement with the US will be perceived with mistrust.

Possibility of renewed Shia-Kurdish alliance in Iraq

After years of power rivalries between Shia and Kurdish parties in Iraq, both groups are now observing developments in Syria and potential changes in Iran with a shared sense of threat and common interests. If in 2003, their alliance was driven by a shared past – the suffering under Saddam Hussein’s regime – today it is being guided by a shared future shaped by fears of being marginalised in the region.

At both the political and popular levels, Shia and Kurdish parties and communities have had much more in common over the past few weeks than in the past. This convergence is evident not only in elite political calculations but also in public sentiment across both communities.

For the first time in recent memory, both Kurdish elites and ordinary citizens in Iraq are no longer enthusiastic about regime change in Iran, a position that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.

In addition, last month, Iraq’s Shia Coordination Framework, an alliance of its Shia political parties, nominated Nouri al-Maliki for prime minister, the most powerful position in the Iraqi government. Remarkably, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant Kurdish political force, welcomed the nomination.

The KDP’s support for al-Maliki was not solely a reaction to anger over US policy in Syria. It was also rooted in Iraqi and Kurdish internal politics. The endorsement is part of an ongoing rivalry between the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) over Iraq’s presidency, an office reserved for the Kurds. The KDP needs allies in Baghdad to ensure its candidate, rather than the PUK’s, secures the position.

However, Washington might see an alignment between the KDP-led Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq and an al-Maliki-led government or a similar government in Baghdad as not conducive to its interests in Iraq, especially its efforts to curb Iranian influence.

Before casting blame, Washington should ask itself why the Kurds feels compelled to adopt this position. The Kurdish stance cannot be fully understood without factoring US policy in Syria into the discussion. From a Kurdish perspective, the US has not been a neutral arbiter in Syria.

The peace process in Turkiye

Over the past year, many believed that the sustainability of Turkiye’s peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) hinged on a resolution of the Kurdish question in Syria and the fate of the SDF.

The violent clashes between Damascus, backed by Ankara and Washington, and the SDF threatened to close the door on negotiations. Remarkably, however, not all avenues have been shut.

It now appears the two issues are being treated as separate files. Negotiations with the PKK are likely to continue within Turkiye’s borders, and crucially, PKK leaders have not translated their disappointment over the weakening of the SDF into a definitive rejection of talks with Ankara.

What sustains this dynamic is that the SDF has not been entirely dismantled, leaving some breathing room for continued dialogue between Ankara and the PKK.

The Iranian Kurds

The Iranian Kurds, although farther away from Syria, have also observed events there and made their conclusions. The abandonment of the SDF reveals the unpredictable nature of US support for the region’s minorities.

In light of this and given continuing US incitement against the Iranian regime, it is quite significant that the Iranian Kurds collectively and deliberately decided not to be at the forefront of the recent protests or allow themselves to be instrumentalised by Western media.

The Kurdish community in Iran is not enthusiastic about a potential return of Reza Pahlavi, who clearly enjoys support from Washington, and the restoration of the shah’s legacy, which was also oppressive. Iranian opposition groups – many of them based in the West – have not offered a better prospect for the Kurdish question. There is widespread fear that the current regime could simply be replaced by another with no guarantee for Kurdish rights.

Some Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish armed groups did carry out attacks on Iranian positions near the Iran-Iraq border. But the main Iranian Kurdish armed actors chose not to engage directly or escalate militarily. Their calculations are based on the uncertainty about the endgame envisioned by Israel and the US and the reality that any escalation would provoke Iranian retaliation against Iraqi Kurds.

With each abandonment of its Kurdish allies, the US further erodes the foundation of trust upon which its local partnerships rest. Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have learned to live with American unreliability, but this arrangement may not endure indefinitely. When it fractures, the consequences for US influence in the region could be profound.

By Kamaran Palani – Aljazeera

L’article Analysis. US abandoning the SDF has impacted Kurds across the region est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Public anger is growing against looters and exploitative merchants. Their actions are seen as betrayal.

On July 17, I was in a market in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza looking for any affordable food item to buy when I saw a crowd of people gather in front of some shops. The people were angry about the exorbitant prices that the shop owners were charging for goods that had clearly been looted from aid convoys.

Two weeks later, I was at the same market and witnessed another angry protest. People were chanting, “You thieves!” and cursing the merchants.

Having no fear of God, shop owners are exploiting the famine without mercy, selling aid as if it were rare luxury items when in fact it is supposed to be distributed for free. The greed and exploitation have gone too far, and the people are taking things into their own hands. Across Gaza, there are protests against price speculation. In some places, shops are being forcibly closed.

Indeed, the prices of essential goods have soared to unimaginable levels, beyond anything dictated by the forces of supply and demand. People cannot understand why goods cost so much despite their minimal purchasing power. The prices I saw while walking at the market were insane: a kilo (2.2lb) of flour – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of rice – 60 shekels ($18), a kilo of lentils – 40 shekels ($12), a kilo of sugar – 250 shekels ($73), a litre (1 quart) of cooking oil – 200 shekels ($58).

Since Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza in March, the normal aid distribution through the United Nations – something that has to happen unabated in any warzone – has ceased.

To stave off global criticism, Israel set up humanitarian hubs to supposedly distribute aid. But they have been nothing more than death traps. Many of those who come to collect aid are shot at, and thousands have been killed or wounded.

In parallel, the Israeli government started allowing in a very small quantity of aid trucks, but a large portion of those are looted once they enter Gaza. The goods are then resold at outrageous prices.

Those who control this supply of looted food are powerful merchants and brokers, often protected by local influential actors or benefitting from indirect coordination with Israel. These actions are not spontaneous. They take place within a deliberately created atmosphere of chaos. With the collapse of state institutions and absence of legal accountability, exploitation has become the rule, not the exception.

It is clear to the Palestinians that the occupation doesn’t merely aim to show that Gaza is weak. It actively seeks to prove that it is ungovernable. To achieve this, closing the borders isn’t enough. The people of Gaza must be pushed into a state of constant chaos and friction.

Starvation is a key instrument here. Hunger doesn’t only kill. It also changes human nature. A starving person, stripped of the bare minimum needed to survive and subjected to daily humiliation, slowly loses the ability to think clearly, to judge or to restrain themselves from turning against those they perceive – rightly or wrongly – as contributing to their suffering.

There are black markets and war profiteers in every conflict. But in this one, the occupying power is encouraging these criminal activities, not because it is earning money from them, but because it serves its overall goal. The Palestinians who choose to participate in this form of extortion are motivated by greed, blackmail or survival.

This slow unravelling is exactly what the occupation has aimed for. It wants chaos in the streets of Gaza so Israeli and international media can be quick to point a finger at the Palestinians and declare: “Look, the Palestinian people are imploding. They can’t govern themselves. They don’t deserve a state.” But the truth is, this is not a sign of a failed nation. It is evidence of the occupation’s success in dragging it to the brink.

It is not the people who have lost control. Control has been forcibly stripped from them – through starvation, the systematic destruction of healthcare and sanitary infrastructure, the dismantling of state institutions and the empowerment of criminals.

Yet Gaza will not break. People may grow angry and desperate, cry out and protest, but they still retain a moral compass. This collective outcry is not infighting. It is a clear warning that society will no longer tolerate betrayal. Those who raise prices mercilessly in times of siege are traitors, and they will be held accountable before institutions of justice when Gaza rebuilds.

The occupation may be revelling now in the unfolding collapse, but it would be wrong to think it has defeated the Palestinians. Every crisis breeds new awareness. Every betrayal gives birth to new resistance. The vast majority of Palestinians refuse to become tools in the hands of their torturers. They refuse subjugation and erasure. They refuse to exploit and harm their fellow citizens.

Palestinian national solidarity is still alive.

By Amal Abu Seif Palestinian writer and researcher from Gaza – Aljazeera ENG

L’article Palestinians won’t tolerate war profiteering in Gaza est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

In the days following October 7, when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel to murder, mutilate and take hostage hundreds of Israelis of all ages, US President Joe Biden was quick to express his outrage, calling the Hamas attack “sheer evil.” He flew to Israel and pledged his support for it to act in self-defense, saying that if the US had been the victim of such an atrocity, its response would be “swift, decisive and overwhelming.” The US “has Israel’s back,” he declared.

Six weeks after Israel unleashed its military comeback, however, with air strikes and a comprehensive ground assault against Hamas in the north of Gaza, the US support for the war appears less than wholehearted. As the civilian death toll mounted in Gaza and aid agencies warned of shortages of water, food and fuel, US pressure mounted on the Israeli government to agree to a truce, both to allow more aid lorries to enter Gaza and allow for a negotiated release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel.

Israel was initially reluctant to pause its assault, knowing that Hamas would use the time to rearm and reorganize its defenses. But it went ahead, both because of domestic pressure from families of hostages and from Washington. Around ten American citizens are among the hostages held in Gaza. Hamas has sought to prolong the suspension of the Israeli action against them by releasing only one or two of the Americans it holds, calculating that the longer they hold them, the longer the US will continue to pressure Israel to extend the truce.

While the Israeli government is clear in its determination to continue the offensive to eliminate Hamas once the truce is over, the White House is warning against its repeating in the south of Gaza the intense bombardment it launched in the north. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that “far too many” Palestinians had been killed in the war already, ahead of his latest visit to Israel. He declared that his priority was both securing the release of all the hostages and improving protection for civilians in Gaza.

The clear US switch in priority from defeating Hamas to hostage releases and protecting Gazan civilians is driven in part by pressure from Arab and Western allies. But domestic political pressure is also playing a role. And as the US prepares for a presidential election next year, this key foreign policy issue is becoming a major issue among voters.

An NBC opinion poll, released on November 14, over one month into the war, shows that President Biden’s approval rating had sunk to an all-time low of 40 percent. And his stance on the Israel-Hamas war appears to be a major factor in this drop in support, with 56 percent of registered voters and 41 percent of Democrats disapproving of his handling of the conflict. Half of Democrat supporters said they thought the Israeli military action in Gaza was unjustified and that the US should stop providing it with military aid. Opposition to US support for the Israeli campaign was even more pronounced among young Democrat supporters, 70 percent of whom were against Biden’s backing of Israel and his refusal to back a permanent ceasefire.

These young Democrats are unlikely to switch their vote to Trump. But if enough stay at home on election day, it could prove fatal to Biden’s chances of a second term in the White House. The poll shows Biden trailing his predecessor, Donald Trump, who remains by far his most likely opponent in next year’s election. And Trump lost no time in seeking to exploit the mood by criticizing the Biden administration for failing to ensure that Americans were among the first batch of hostages freed by Hamas. Trump used his social media platform to declare that the reason for this was a lack of respect for Biden’s leadership. Trump has also claimed that if he had been president, the Hamas attack would never have happened because of his tough approach to Iran.

The growing Democrat opposition to Biden’s support for Israel in the war is finding expression in Congress, where 24 Democrat members of the House of Representatives earlier this month urged the president to push for an immediate, complete ceasefire. So far, the White House has resisted calls for a permanent ceasefire since it would enable Hamas to declare victory, regroup, and prepare for another deadly attack on Israeli civilians.

Supporters of the Palestinian people hold a rally and march called a Day of Action for Palestine as the conflict between Israeli and Hamas continues, near the White House in Washington, US, October 14, 2023. (Reuters)

And as Congress prepares to debate the Biden administration’s plan to provide $14.3 billion in emergency military aid for Israel, some Democrats are making an unprecedented attempt to attach conditions to the bill – insisting that Israel do more to avoid civilian casualties and agree to allow the delivery of more humanitarian aid. At the start of November, a majority of Democrats in the Senate challenged Biden’s request for emergency military assistance to Israel, calling for guarantees that Israel would take steps to minimize civilian casualties. The pressure on the president from fellow Democrats appeared to bear fruit when Biden told reporters that the idea of conditioning aid to Israel was “a worthwhile thought.”

President Biden has committed himself to Israel’s war aim of eradicating Hamas. But his previous backing for “swift, decisive and overwhelming” Israeli military action has been tempered with doubts over the way the campaign is being waged. And as the fighting shifts to the south of Gaza, with more civilian suffering inevitable, international and domestic pressure will build on Biden to find a way to end it or risk the issue seriously endangering his chances of re-election.

By David Powell worked for 20 years as a journalist in pan-Arab television news, including BBC Arabic and MBC. He is now an analyst of Middle East affairs specializing in media and Islamist movements.

Alarabiya ENG

L’article Analysis. Is US support for Israel wavering? est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

A senior UN aid official has warned that half of Gaza’s population is starving, as fighting there continues.

Carl Skau, deputy director of the UN World Food Programme, said only a fraction of supplies needed have been able to enter the Strip – and nine out of 10 people cannot eat every day.

Conditions in Gaza have made deliveries « almost impossible », Mr Skau said.

Israel says it must continue air strikes on Gaza to eliminate Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home.

Israel Defence Forces spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht told the BBC on Saturday that « any death and pain to a civilian is painful, but we don’t have an alternative ».

« We are doing everything we can to get as much as possible inside the Gaza Strip, » he said.

Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the IDF, was filmed telling soldiers the army has to « press harder » because « we’re seeing terrorists surrendering… a sign their network is collapsing ».

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has used an emergency law to bypass Congress and authorise the sale of some 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106m (£85m) to Israel.

Movement in and out of Gaza has been heavily restricted since 7 October, when Hamas fighters broke through Israel’s heavily-guarded perimeter fence – killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.

In response, Israel closed its borders with Gaza and began launching air strikes on the territory, restricting aid deliveries which Gazans heavily relied on.

The Hamas-run health ministry says Israel has killed more than 17,700 Gazans in its retaliatory campaign, including more than 7,000 children.

Only the Rafah crossing bordering Egypt has been open, allowing limited quantities of aid to reach Gaza. This week Israel agreed to open the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into Gaza in the next few days – but only for the inspection of aid lorries. The trucks would then go to Rafah to cross into Gaza.

Mr Skau said nothing had prepared him for the « fear, the chaos, and the despair » he and his WFP team encountered during their trip to Gaza this week.

They witnessed « confusion at warehouses, distribution points with thousands of desperate hungry people, supermarkets with bare shelves, and overcrowded shelters with bursting bathrooms, » he said.

International pressure and a temporary seven-day ceasefire last month had allowed some badly-needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip, but the WFP insists a second border crossing is now needed to meet demand.

Nine out of 10 families in some areas are spending « a full day and night without any food at all », according to Mr Skau.

People in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, a city now surrounded on two fronts by Israeli tanks, say the situation there is dire.

Dr Ahmed Moghrabi, head of the plastic surgery and burns unit in the city’s only remaining health facility, Nasser hospital, fought back tears as he spoke to the BBC about the lack of food.

« I have a daughter, three years old, always she ask me (for) some sweets, some apple, some fruits. I can’t provide. I feel helpless, » he said.

« There is not enough food, there is not enough food, only rice, only rice can you believe? We eat once, once a day, only. »

Khan Younis has been the focus of heavy air strikes in recent days and the boss of Nasser hospital there said his team had « lost control » over the numbers of dead and wounded arriving at the facility.

Israel says Hamas leaders are hiding in Khan Younis, possibly in an underground network of tunnels, and that it is fighting house to house and « shaft to shaft » to destroy the group’s military capabilities.

Speaking on Saturday, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, accused the United States of being complicit in war crimes, after it vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Out of 15 of the Security Council members, 13 countries voted in favour of the resolution calling for a ceasefire. The UK abstained from the vote and the US was the only country to vote against the resolution.

Mr Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, said he held Washington responsible for « the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women, and elderly in Gaza at the hands of [Israeli] occupation forces ».

The US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, defended the veto, and said the resolution was calling for an « unsustainable ceasefire » which « would leave Hamas in place able to repeat what it did on October 7 ».

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday he appreciated the « correct stance » the US had taken at the security council.

A seven-day temporary ceasefire ended just over a week ago. Under the truce, 78 hostages were released by Hamas in exchange for 180 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

There are still more than 100 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

On Saturday, it was confirmed that Israeli hostage Sahar Baruch, 25, had been killed, his kibbutz and a hostages’ group said in a statement.

It comes after the armed wing of Hamas released a video on Friday which it said showed the bloody aftermath of a failed IDF operation to free an Israeli hostage.

By Fiona Nimoni – BBC News

L’article Israel-Gaza war: Half of Gaza’s population is starving, warns UN.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Leading presidents and prime ministers from around the world are meeting for the annual G20 leaders’ summit in India’s capital, Delhi, from 9-10 September.

Narendra Modi is an authoritarian figure who, as India’s prime minister since 2014, has pushed his country into increasingly becoming a “de facto ethnic democracy”, in which Hindus define the national identity and non-Hindus are seen as second-class citizens. Yet as the host of the upcoming talks of the world’s 20 largest economies, Mr Modi will be feted by major global leaders – except his absent fellow strongmen Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

Mr Modi’s dangerous majoritarianism is too easily overlooked by the west, as the G20 glad-handing will show. India had been considered an exemplary liberal parliamentary democracy among developing countries. This is being slowly dismantled by Mr Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism. State intimidation has seen civil society harassed and critics jailed. A report by a group of prominent lawyers last year warned that “the administration of law has become the means by which … the Muslim community can be kept in a state of perpetual fear”. Since May, the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur has been burning, with its valley Hindus and highland Christians sinking into bloody fighting. Mr Modi’s party blames non-Hindus for the violence.

The Indian prime minister shares the ideological viewpoint of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen in France and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Mr Modi claims India suffered 1,000 years of servitude: 750 years of Muslim rule, plus 250 years of British rule. Pulling down, or discarding, symbols of that history – mosques, mausoleums, Lutyens’ Delhi buildings – is excused, in this thinking, because this represents a national, Hindu resurgence. Mr Modi tellingly speaks of 1,000 years of rule to come.

The west thinks that it must keep stumm because it needs India to contain China. But at what cost to democracy and human rights? Mukul Kesavan, an Indian historian, wrote earlier this year that when the White House rolled out the red carpet for Mr Modi, “One of the more entertaining things about [his] visit has been the sight of [Joe] Biden welcoming a foreign leader who had openly campaigned for his predecessor and liberal bête noire, Donald Trump.”

Last year, Gothenburg University’s annual report on the state of global democracy warned of a wave of “autocratization” spreading around the world. Since 2020, the report said, India has not been a working democracy but an “electoral autocracy” similar to that in Russia. All is not lost. India’s next general election will provide a chance for the public to have its say – though how much remains to be seen, given that a peer-reviewed paper suggested that in 2019 Mr Modi won around 11 seats by suppressing the Muslim vote. Its author, a respected economist, quit after his university failed to back him. The arrival of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, otherwise known as INDIA, has also unsettled Mr Modi. Perhaps peeved at being opposed by “INDIA”, Mr Modi wants to respond only to the country’s Sanskrit name “Bharat”.

India’s prime minister says the G20 should let the global south shape the world’s future. As Human Rights Watch pointed out this week, “many proposed summit topics – debt crises, social protection programs, food security, climate change, internet freedom – are at their root about human rights”. Britain has its own share of democratic backsliding. But if Mr Modi desires successful outcomes then he, like all autocratic leaders, should understand why his actions at home undermine the arguments he wants to promote abroad.

Western democracies are wrong to overlook a country’s descent into electoral autocracy because they believe they need it to contain China

What is the G20?

The G20 – or Group of Twenty – is a club of countries which meets to discuss plans for the global economy.

Between them, G20 countries account for 85% of the world’s economic output and 75% of world trade. They contain two-thirds of the global population.

The members are the European Union and 19 nations – Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US. Spain is always invited as a guest.

A smaller group of G20 member countries meets as the G7.

Some of the G20 member nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have formed a separate group called Brics.

This is due to expand, having invited six other nations to join at its recent summit: Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

What does the group discuss?

The issues discussed by G20 leaders have broadened in recent years from just economics to include issues such as climate change, sustainable energy, international-debt forgiveness and taxing multinational corporations.

Every year, a different G20 member state takes over the presidency and sets the agenda for meetings.

Indonesia held the presidency in 2022, and the leaders’ summit was held in Bali.

As 2023 president, India wants the Delhi event to concentrate on sustainable development, as well as measures to spread economic growth more evenly between developed and developing countries.

The summit also provides an opportunity for one-to-one discussions to take place alongside group sessions.

The White House says that US President Joe Biden will talk to individual leaders about tackling climate change, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and getting global organisations such as the World Bank to do more to fight poverty.

However, the Kremlin says Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the summit, and it’s been widely reported that China’s President Xi Jinping will also stay away.

Are there any controversial issues for G20 countries?

Russia’s war in Ukraine is likely to cause discord at the Delhi summit.

In March 2022, the G20 foreign ministers were unable to reach agreements at their meeting because of fierce arguments over the war between the US and Russia delegations.

At the Bali leaders’ summit in November 2022, discussions were dominated by a crisis involving missiles from the war falling on Poland’s side of the border with Ukraine.

In May, China and Saudi Arabia boycotted a G20 meeting on tourism which was held in Indian-administered Kashmir because the Kashmir region contains territory claimed by Pakistan as well as India.

A row has also broken out between India and China over a long-running border dispute, after Beijing released a map which claims the state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin plateau as Chinese territory.

What does the summit mean for India?

India has been positioning itself as a leading voice of developing countries known as the Global South in recent years and G20 is seen as its chance to deliver on these promises on a bigger stage.

The summit also comes ahead of the 2024 general elections in India and could bolster Mr Modi’s image as a leader who commands respect on the global stage.

The government has held hundreds of meeting across some 50 cities in the run-up to the summit in Delhi.

For months, cities and towns have been dotted with shiny billboards featuring the G20 logo and Mr Modi’s photos, framing the event as the prime minister’s earnest attempt to bring the world to India.

Mr Modi also appears to share a personal rapport with many of his G20 counterparts, including President Biden who accorded him a coveted state visit in June.

That said, the summit is not expected to be a breeze for India, given the current complex geopolitical situation.

Many economies are still struggling to recover from the pandemic and have grown increasingly anxious about the war and its economic impact, with global surges in food and energy prices.

Why is there a ‘family photo’?

At the end of key summits, the heads of government often pose for a group photograph, known as the « family photo ».

However, the diplomatic discord revealed by the image sometimes makes headlines in its own right.

In 2018, following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was largely ignored, and made to stand at the far end of the group.

What has the G20 achieved?

At the 2008 and 2009 leaders’ summits, during the financial crisis, leaders agreed a host of measures to rescue the global economic system.

But some critics argue that subsequent summits have been less successful, often as a result of tensions between rival world powers.

However, bilateral meetings at the summit have often proved constructive.

In 2019, at Osaka, then-US president Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to resume talks to settle a major trade dispute.

Do G20 summits attract protests?

Big demonstrations often take place around the leaders’ summits.

Anti-capitalist protesters demonstrated at the 2010 summit in Toronto and the 2017 summit in Hamburg.

Thousands of demonstrators marched during the 2018 summit in Rio de Janeiro to protest against the G20’s economic policies.

In 2009 Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, died after he was caught up in protests during the G20 summit in London.

World Opinions +The Guarasidian + BBC NEWS + Agencies

L’article View on India’s G20 summit: a backsliding democracy gets to play host est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

As they mark six years of exodus in Bangladesh, young refugees demand the tools that would allow them to take charge of their lives and futures.

Six years have now elapsed since the world watched 700,000 Rohingya flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh in search of safety. About half of them were children and young people. What was expected to be a short-term refuge has become another protracted crisis. Those who fled as children have now reached the age of adolescence; those who were teenagers are now adults.

Like most children, they aspire to become doctors, engineers, teachers, sports stars, and artists – a stark contrast to their reality. Living in the world’s biggest refugee camp, surrounded by barbed-wire fences, Rohingya refugees are blocked from accessing formal education, earning an income, and moving freely through or beyond the camp.

In such conditions, what hope they can have to build the kind of future they dream of? There should be scope for them to improve their lives, be it through education or paid work.

Many of the young Rohingya I have met as part of my work at these camps tell me they feel forgotten by the world. They tell me the barriers between them and the life they want for themselves engulf them with a sense of despair. They say their voices go unheard and that they have lost the right to dream. This sense of helplessness has a visceral impact on their mental health.

A 2022 survey of 317 refugee youth and adolescents across 11 camps conducted by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) found that 96 percent of the respondents were unemployed and that they constantly feel anxious and stressed.

Amin is a young Rohingya I know well. Six years ago, he was a high-school student in his home country. He planned to go to university and become a lawyer. Then one day, his village was burned down, and his relatives were killed before his eyes. Scared for their lives, he and his family walked for 10 days before crossing the border to reach safety in Bangladesh.

Like many others, Amin assumed he would only be in Bangladesh for a short time. But the vastly different reality has struck him hard. Now, with every passing year, little by little, his aspiration to become a lawyer is drifting away and he feels ever more helpless. He does not even know if he will ever be able to resume his education.

Life for girls and young Rohingya women is even more challenging. They spend most of their time within the four walls of congested bamboo homes. Learning centres, providing limited non-formal education, work as a safe space for women and girls. There they can learn to read and build friendships and bonds with other young people. However, many girls are not allowed by their families to attend. Instead, it’s very common for girls to get married before they turn 18 due to social pressure and safety concerns.

Fifteen-year-old Ayesha told me she misses her life before she fled. Back then, she had the freedom to spend time with her friends in the garden outside their home. Now she says her home is too crowded and she barely has any privacy. She has to spend the entire day at home. It feels like a prison to her.

Sadly, there are thousands of stories like those of Amin and Ayesha. At the age of energy and enthusiasm, young Rohingya spend their days by roadside shops or inside their shelters. With nowhere to channel their energy, they are growing weary and restless.

The recent cuts that reduced food rations to just 27 cents a day have become a bitter cherry on top of their situation. The community, especially the young generation, is even more desperate for employment than before.

“How long are we going to be aid-dependent like this?” one young refugee asked me. “We do not enjoy being totally aid dependent. This is our age of working and earning. This latest ration cut is an indication that it is high time we start earning our own money.”

It is critical that donors and decision-makers listen to these young people. They have the right to determine their own future, and to influence how aid dollars are invested in programmes to support them.

A recent assessment conducted by NRC found that Rohingya youth and adolescents are eager to receive vocational training and build technical knowledge, which will help them earn money to support themselves and their families. Some of this training is available, but much more must be provided, and existing initiatives expanded.

For example, some Rohingya youth are being trained on how to repair solar panels while others are trained in tailoring. Alongside this training, the youth now need opportunities to use their newfound skills to earn a living for themselves. And to do that donors, governments and private institutions must put their hands in their pockets and invest further in these initiatives.

Given the opportunity, these young people will be a huge asset to their community and Bangladesh. But the government and donor community must work to provide the tools. Only that way, can young Rohingya have a real chance to take charge of their own futures.

By Sadia Rahman Communications Officer for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Bangladesh/ ALjazeera

L’article Analysis. Rohingya youth long for a future beyond the barbed wire est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Iran has released five US-Iranian dual nationals into house arrest, US officials say.

Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, who also has a British passport, were released alongside a fourth unidentified man, a lawyer for one of the men said.

A fifth American had already been released, a US national security official said.

Talks had taken place between Iran and the US to secure their release.

« While this is an encouraging step, these US citizens… should have never been detained in the first place, » said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

« Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States, » she added.

Iran’s mission to the UN confirmed the release of dual nationals from Tehran’s Evin prison, according to state media.

US-Iranian Siamak Namazi is among those freed from prison under the deal

It said the deal had been « mediated by a third country » and that as part of it, frozen funds in South Korea would be « unblocked and transferred to Qatar, » according to Reuters, citing state news agency IRNA.

US media report that the Iranian funds frozen in South Korea are worth around $6bn (£4.7bn).

Mr Namazi’s brother Babak said: « While this is a positive change, we will not rest until Siamak and others are back home; we continue to count the days until this can happen. »

The 51-year-old was first arrested in 2015 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on security charges.

The sister of Mr Shargi, 58, said she « has faith in the work of President Biden and government officials » to secure his release following his detention in April 2018.

Mr Tahbaz, a 67-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, was first arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018.

Iran has detained and imprisoned a number of dual nationals in recent years, usually on national security charges.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said two of the five individuals released « wish to remain private ».

He continued: « We are in touch with the families of US citizens involved, and we continue to monitor these individuals’ health and welfare closely. »

Negotiations have been taking place for years to try to secure their release as part of a prisoner swap with Iranians now incarcerated in American and other western prisons, as well as the easing of US sanctions on Iran.

Citing sources close to the talks, Reuters said it could still take several weeks for the US citizens to leave Iran.

The New York Times reported that Iranian prisoners in US jails could also be freed as part of the deal, but the White House has not confirmed any details of what it offered to Tehran in order to secure the prisoners’ release.

World Opinions + BBC News

L’article Analysis. Iran releases US dual nationals into house arrest, lawyer says est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to impose an overhaul of Israel’s institutions, which most of his fellow citizens do not want. The prime minister has succeeded in pitting against him some of the most influential entrepreneurs in the digital economy he prides himself on having created.

The head of the central bank, the leading representatives of the judiciary, all the former army chiefs of staff, the former leaders of the intelligence services, thousands of reservists, notably from the air force, the association of medical personnel and doctors… The list of the country’s driving forces who have warned him against such a move, to no avail, is endless.

His own camp is alarmed by this stubbornness. Netanyahu’s coalition was elected in November 2022 for four years, with 64 seats out of 120 in parliament. But for months, opinion polls have shown that most Israelis reject this reform or want it to pass only with the opposition’s approval by consensus.

A significant proportion of Netanyahu’s voters are turning away from him, witnessing the tearing apart of the Jewish majority – 80 % of the population – whose effects promise to be felt for years. Yet Netanyahu persists. On July 24, his coalition reduced the Supreme Court’s supervisory power over his actions and those of local administrations and the appointment and dismissal of senior civil servants.

It thus weakens the justice system’s ability to fight corruption and nepotism. But, more than the substance of the legislation, its passage by force is shocking. Netanyahu repeatedly refused to hear the chief of staff before the vote, even as discord spread through the army’s ranks. Thousands of reservists are no longer volunteering for the military, to which they are indispensable.

Radicalized base and messianic far right

According to the daily newspaper Haaretz, two generals dispatched in uniform to the Knesset waited for hours without being able to meet with certain ministers they were supposed to inform about the gravity of the crisis. The day after the vote, the major international rating agencies published harsh analyses. Netanyahu dismissed them.

Once again, the prime minister who has been on trial for corruption since 2020 says he will negotiate with the opposition before proceeding with his reforms. There is every reason to fear that this promise will amount to nothing. Justice Minister Yariv Levin intends to tackle the appointment of government legal advisors and Supreme Court judges during the fall to bring the institution in line.

Even among the ultra-Orthodox parties, at war with the Supreme Court for three decades, doubts are emerging. They realize secular and liberal Israelis are turning against their community. Only the radicalized electoral base of the « Bibists » and the messianic far right, which thrives on Israel’s colonial war in the Palestinian territories and dreams of a Jewish theocracy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, remain adamantly committed to the reform.

For over 15 years, Netanyahu ruled by pitting one part of Israel against another: Jews against Arabs, Mizrahi Jews against Ashkenazis, the country’s center against its periphery, and the « people » against the institutions. It was a tactic, a way to become indispensable. Now it is his very legacy.

World Opinions + Le Monde

L’article Debate. Benyamin Netanyahu and the politics of division est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Rather than investing in predatory for-profit healthcare companies, development finance institutions should use their funds to help improve universal public services across the continent.

Recently, a good friend of mine took his perfectly healthy daughter to a private hospital in West Africa for a routine check-up. The paediatrician thought she was a bit thin for her age and advised that she undergo a surgical procedure, which is known to trigger weight gain in children. Despite the family’s misgivings, the operation went ahead.

She died on the operating table. It was a terrible loss. So many people I know in Africa have stories like this.

Public investment in essential public services has been in decline, creating a vacuum in healthcare provision that those seeking to make a profit are increasingly exploiting. But mixing profit maximisation with healthcare too often comes at an unacceptable cost.

Today, many private hospitals are abusing and violating the rights of patients and their relatives and impoverishing them. I see the devastating results every day in Africa – people faced with no choice but to watch their loved ones die, or forced to sell everything or take loans to pay the exorbitant medical bills.

However, the private sector continues to gain huge support as “the solution” to Africa’s development challenges.

Last month, I attended the Summit on the New Global Financial Pact in Paris on behalf of Oxfam. African leaders spoke passionately there about the issues affecting their citizens and, in particular, the need for public finance and public solutions. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the profiteering by Big Pharma during the pandemic, and we kept saying, “What is more important, life or profits by your big pharmaceutical companies?”

But the World Bank and the rich countries instead again offered the private sector as the answer.

The new World Bank president, Ajay Banga, talked about how “for years, the World Bank Group, governments, and other multilateral institutions have tried – and fallen short – to mobilise meaningful private investment in emerging markets” and that “we must try a new approach … to catalyse private capital more effectively”.

In my view, the private sector knows quite well how to look after itself. It does not require taxpayers’ funding.

Sadly, and without asking us, governments in rich countries have contributed to this misery by underwriting and investing in these predatory private healthcare companies, feeding them to grow in our countries and become ever more powerful.

Oxfam recently released two shocking reports, based on complex and detailed investigative research in a number of countries.

We show how development institutions belonging to the governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union and the World Bank, are investing billions of dollars in Majority World countries into for-profit private hospital chains that block or bankrupt patients, deny them emergency medical care, with some even imprisoning patients and retaining corpses for non-payment of fees.

They are making huge profits for their already rich owners. All this, in the name of advancing universal health coverage and fighting poverty.

Ironically, the same rich countries provide healthcare and education funded by taxation and free of charge to their own citizens.

In Kenya, Oxfam unearthed dozens of cases of alleged or confirmed human rights violations by the Nairobi Women’s Hospital since 2017, including a newborn baby detained for three months, a schoolboy for 11 months, and a single mother of two for 226 days during which time her bill escalated by more than 2,000 percent.

The body of Francisca’s mother was locked in the hospital’s morgue for two years, she said. “I feel very sad seeing her … It is not easy for me because her body has changed … It does not look like a body any more, it’s more like a stone … We pleaded with the hospital to give us the body. We will never be able to pay the money, no matter how long they keep it.”

What upsets me most is that this hospital’s policy of detaining patients was already public knowledge before the rich countries chose to invest.

In Nigeria, nine out of 10 of the poorest women give birth with no medical care, yet childbirth at Development Finance Institution (DFI)-funded Evercare Hospital would cost those women their 12 years’ income.

Across all the hospitals getting these development funds, the average starting price for a childbirth procedure is more than a year’s income for an average earner in the poorest 40 percent.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people in my region of the world searched in desperation for scarce oxygen and life-saving care, exploitation escalated within some of these DFI-funded hospitals.

In Uganda, one of Africa’s poorest countries and hardest hit by the virus, private hospitals funded by European governments and the World Bank charged patient “clients” up to $2,300 per day for treatment and care. The Maputo Private Hospital reportedly charged COVID-19 patients an upfront deposit of more than $6,000 for oxygen and more than $10,000 for a ventilator.

In my view, the evidence is clear that the private sector is not the answer for the delivery of the public good. We know what the solution entails.

Instead of promoting the growth of expensive, out-of-reach hospitals for the elite, countries should support quality universal public services – funded by taxes and aid – and delivered free of charge at the point of use.

For example, look at the incredible improvements in healthcare delivered by thousands of new health workers in Ethiopia, pioneered by then minister of health, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, before his time leading the World Health Organization.

European governments and the World Bank should stop funding for-profit private hospitals and evaluate the effect that their decades of investment in them have had on healthcare in Africa.

Fati N’zi Hassane – Oxfam in Africa Director – Aljazeera

L’article Investments in private healthcare are not helping Africans est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi slated for a June 22 State Visit to Washington, India will, if briefly, be front-page news in the United States. Since President Clinton ended a chill in U.S.-India relations almost 25 years ago, successive American and Indian administrations across political parties have worked to strengthen ties.

So it’s fair to ask: how robust is this relationship today? As with the blind men and the elephant, the answer varies. Is India a bad bet, or is it, as the White House senior Asia policy official said recently, “the most important bilateral relationship with the United States on the global stage”?

Despite careful nurturing by Washington over the years, many aspects of U.S. ties with India remain challenging. Bilateral trade has grown tenfold since 2000, to $191 billion in 2022, and India became the ninth-largest US trading partner in 2021. But longstanding economic gripes persist, meriting 13 pages in the 2023 Foreign Trade Barriers report from the U.S. Trade Representative.

Multilaterally, India’s role in the fast-consolidating “Quad” consultation (comprised of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan) has brought shared purpose to Washington and New Delhi, both of which harbor concerns about China. But New Delhi also champions alternative non-Western groupings like the BRICS, and it remains outside bodies central to U.S. diplomacy like the U.N. Security Council and the G7.

Today, U.S.-India cooperation spans defense, global health, sustainable development, climate, and technology, among other things. But deep differences remain, including concerns in Washington about India’s democratic backsliding under Modi, and India’s failure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In other words, the U.S.-India relationship has been transformed over the past quarter-century, but that transformation has not delivered a partnership or alignment similar to the closest U.S. alliances.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. India is not a U.S. ally, and has not wanted to become one. To see relations with rising power India as on a pathway that culminates in a relationship like that the United States enjoys with Japan or the United Kingdom creates expectations that will not be met. Indian leaders across parties and over decades have long prioritized foreign policy independence as a central feature of India’s approach to the world. That remains the case even with Modi’s openness to the United States.

For India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, protecting his country’s hard-fought independence was a guiding principle for foreign policy. Speaking in the Indian Parliament in March 1951, Nehru noted that “By aligning ourselves with any one Power, you surrender your opinion, give up the policy you would normally pursue because somebody else wants you to pursue another policy.” Twelve years later, evaluating his country’s nonalignment policy in the pages of Foreign Affairs, Nehru went on to observe that it had not “fared badly,” and that “essentially, ‘non-alignment’ is freedom of action which is a part of independence.”

American President Harry S. Truman shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the tarmac as Nehru’s sister, diplomat Vijaya Pandit, and daughter, future Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, stand with them, in Washington D.C., on October 11, 1949.

PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

For famously allied Washington, nonalignment in the 20th century was a bridge too far; in 1956 then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proclaimed that neutrality was “an obsolete conception…immoral and shortsighted.” It did not help matters that the United States had entered an alliance with India’s arch-rival Pakistan in 1954, and sided with the Pakistani military in the bloody civil war that gave birth to Bangladesh in 1971. Nor, too, when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed a “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation” with the USSR in 1971, definitively tilting India toward the Soviet Union even as the United States had tilted toward Pakistan.

Especially since the end of the Cold War, Indian leaders have sought to improve ties with Washington, but not by curtailing India’s independent approach to foreign policy. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee proclaimed India and the United States “natural allies” in a landmark 1998 speech in New York. Yet this was perhaps more a term of art than a call for an alliance as it occurred against the backdrop of India’s nuclear tests, underscoring New Delhi’s willingness to upset global nuclear nonproliferation conventions, which it never joined. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose 10 years at the helm greatly improved Indo-U.S. relations, pursued a civil-nuclear agreement with Washington and ushered in new cooperation in high technology, defense, and clean energy. But his government too defended its principle of “strategic autonomy” as a redline for its foreign policy even as it moved closer to Washington than ever in the past. Defending the civil-nuclear deal with Washington before Parliament in 2008, Singh twice asserted that “Our strategic autonomy will never be compromised.”

In important ways, Prime Minister Modi represents a break with India’s past, most notably in his emphasis on India’s Hindu, rather than syncretic and secular, cultural heritage. But his approach to the United States remains consistent with the history of his country’s foreign policy independence.

Modi has deepened ties with the United States, now across three U.S. presidents, through increased partnership in defense, in advanced technology, and in energy, just to name a few, as well as through moments of high symbolism, like his 2015 Republic Day invitation to former President Barack Obama, the first time an American president joined this day honoring India’s constitution. Even so, Modi has leaned into the United States while leaning into many other partners around the world. The Modi government invokes a Sanskrit saying, the “world is one family” (vasudhaiva kutumbakam), to frame Indian diplomacy. This approach has been termed “multialignment,” a theory of seeking positive ties as far and as widely as possible, without seeing contradictions in this approach.

In practice, New Delhi has carefully managed its relationships with Saudi Arabia as well as Iran; with Israel as well as the Palestinian Territories; with the United States as well as Russia. India’s G20 presidency this year encapsulates this orientation, with its Sanskritic theme of “One Earth, One Family, One Future,” and its twin efforts to lead the forum for the world’s 20 largest economies while self-consciously presenting itself as the “Voice of the Global South.”

With this history in mind, it’s easier to perceive that momentum in the U.S.-India relationship does not necessarily imply a path to a formal alliance or mutual defense treaty. In the United States, the mental model for positive international cooperation defaults to seeing “ally” as the ultimate endpoint. For India, that suggests a curtailment of independence. And with India, even as cooperation becomes more extensive than ever in the past, consequential differences remain.

For many in Washington, the dramatic growth of coordination and joint activities under the Quad consultative group fills a growing need in light of China’s rise, encompassing subjects as far-flung as maritime security, infrastructure, climate and resilience, vaccines, technology standards, and higher education—all underlining Indian strategic convergence with the United States in the Indo-Pacific. Yet strategic convergence there does not mean everywhere: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its year-long war has elicited a tepid tut-tut from New Delhi, while India has escalated its purchases of cheap Russian oil at a time Washington seeks to isolate Moscow.

On closer examination this foreign policy independence and desire to define its own path so prized by India may offer lessons for U.S. foreign policy. The unipolar moment has passed; in its place we have more actors with their own perspectives, and a rising China with global ambitions and its own priorities increasingly shaping the priorities of others. The array of special relationships and alliances nurtured by the United States over decades are still in place, but many of these are now inflected by divergences with Washington. Take Turkey, or France, or Egypt, Pakistan, or Brazil. These U.S. allies do not always see their alliance relationship with Washington as barriers to taking decisions that contradict U.S. preferences. Indeed, President Emmanuel Macron too invokes “strategic autonomy.”

It’s here that India’s ambivalence offers a lens onto the world Washington is likely to encounter on a growing scale. In this world of more diffused power—a world with more diverse actors taking more distinctive foreign policy steps—partnerships and even alliances marked by substantial disagreements might be the new normal. In fact, managing ambivalence may be the central skill for American foreign policy in the years ahead.

World Opinions – Time.com

L’article Analysis. India Is Not a U.S. Ally—and Has Never Wanted to Be est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.