Monthly Archives: June 2022

An apparent lack of clear policies and procedures caused an hour-long display of citizen disappointment and anger at the Lake Wales City Commission meeting Tuesday night following a decision by Mayor Jack Hilligoss to remove a generic resolution recognizing Pride Month from the meeting agenda.

Proclamations are commonly used to recognize the accomplishments of community groups and individuals, or special observances and are normally a public relations tool for the city.

The proclamation offered by Lakeland-based Polk Pride required no vote or signature and has been presented at June city commission meetings since 2018. The text cites the fact that "Lake Wales, Florida, is part of a global community in which people of diverse cultures, races, creeds, genders, and sexual identities must work together toward peace and understanding..."

Hilligoss' refusal to include the document in the official agenda touched upon a hot-button issue and led to a succession of speakers who criticized Hilligoss for removing the proclamation. Citing continuing intolerance and discrimination directed at members of the LGBTQ+ community, many of the speakers, some emotional or even tearful, urged the city to continue its policy of acceptance of all.

Resident Mandy Cilliers shared a story of having been raised in apartheid South Africa, where she was not permitted to socialize with Blacks, and discrimination and intolerance were government-sanctioned. "I grew up with oppression, and oppression leads to hate," she said. "Children who grow up with hate, teach hate."

Bok Tower Gardens President David Price also urged tolerance and inclusivity, citing the fact that the gardens have always been accepting of all since their founding in 1929, and he expected nothing less from the city.

David Jones, a long-time employee of Lake Wales Hospital, told of his former co-worker Amanda Alvear, who was among the scores murdered in an act of mass violence at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. She was 25 years old, he said.

Bob Nickell called for tolerance, pointing out that "America has become more tolerant" and that many religious denominations now allow gay men and lesbians to become ministers.

"You don't have to send this hateful message," said resident Cheryl Millett, who said that she had long-before come to accept herself for who she is, but worried about the young people of Lake Wales who struggle to accept themselves, and the message that is being sent by "going back" on the tradition of acceptance and tolerance. Issuing the proclamation would be "no skin off anyone's nose."

Others spoke of the damage done by hate, and the senseless assaults and deaths that have occurred because hate is propagated instead of teaching acceptance and tolerance.

Local resident Heather Mankowski used her allotted time to read the document in full as adopted by the city commission of Davenport, thereby accomplishing the original intent of the proclamation before a larger audience..

In a conversation with LakeWalesNews.net City Attorney Chuck Galloway cited text in city administrative code which states that "Any person may have an item placed on the agenda by submitting a request to the city clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding the meeting." For the past two or more years the commission has been conducting weekly agenda review meetings prior to that hour, making the current language obsolete. "There's not a current policy" to cover the removal of the item, "but that's being worked on," Galloway said.

According to City Clerk Jennifer Nanek, proclamations are not included in workshop agendas or discussions because they are not voted upon by the commission. Nanek said that in past years the proclamation has been read by Deputy Mayor Robin Gibson because former mayor Gene Fultz refused to do.

The proclamation language says it is issued "in honor of freedom from prejudice and bias in any form, and in recognition and praise of those members of our community who constantly fight the battle for equal treatment for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race, color, creed, ethnic origin or religion." The full text is published below.

During the meeting Hilligoss attempted to deflect criticism by stating that he had never seen the proclamation. Galloway cited that as adequate reason to have it removed.

"In the past proclamations came over Gene's (Fultz) desk. He (Hilligoss) did not see it before it was published," which gave him the right to have it removed. "There's not anything written down which says that specifically," Galloway added, but "there will be something coming forward to address this issue so it doesn't recur."

Nanek said she had mentioned the Pride proclamation to Hilligoss prior to the beginning of the Wednesday agenda workshop and asked whether he would prefer to have Gibson present it, and he replied that he would "think about it." She was instructed to remove the item on Saturday morning.

At the conclusion of the meeting commissioners discussed the need for a policy clarifying when and who has the authority to add or remove proclamations on the agenda.

Originally posted here:

City Earns Black Eye With Fumbled Proclamation - Lake Wales News

Dozens of scholars have accused the UN human rights chief of having ignored or contradicted academic findings on abuses in Xinjiang with her statements on the region.

In an open letter published this week, 39 academics from across Europe, the US and Australia called on Michelle Bachelet to release a long-awaited UN report on human rights abuses in China.

The letter, published online, included some academics with whom Bachelet had consulted prior to her visit to Xinjiang. The letters signatories expressed gratitude for this, but said they were deeply disturbed by her official statement, delivered at a press conference in Guangzhou at the end of her six-day tour.

They said her statement ignored and even contradicted the academic findings that our colleagues, including two signatories to this letter, provided.

It is rare that an academic field arrives at the level of consensus that specialists in the study of Xinjiang have reached, the letter said. While we disagree on some questions of why Beijing is enacting its atrocities in Xinjiang, we are unanimous in our understanding of what it is that the Chinese state is doing on the ground.

Xinjiang is the site of a years-long crackdown by Chinese authorities on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, with sweeping hardline policies of religious, cultural, linguistic and physical oppression.

An estimated one million people have been incarcerated in a vast network of detention and reeducation camps, which Beijing terms vocational education and training centres. Document leaks have revealed countless others have been arrested or jailed for alleged crimes including studying scripture, growing a beard, or travelling overseas, and that authorities have established shoot to kill policies in response to attempted escapes.

Rights organisations and several governments have labelled the campaign a genocide or crime against humanity. Beijing denies all allegations of mistreatment and says its policies are to counter terrorism and religious extremism.

At the end of her visit Bachelet said she had urged the Chinese government to review its counter-terrorism policies in Xinjiang and appealed for information about missing Uyghurs. She was quickly criticised by some rights groups for giving few details or condemnation of China while readily giving long unrelated statements about US issues in response to questions from Chinese state media.

The academics letter is among growing criticism of Bachelet for not speaking out more forcefully against Chinese abuses after her visit, as well as a continued failure to release the UN report, which is believed to have been completed in late 2021. On Wednesday dozens of rights groups, predominately national and local chapters of organisations associated with Uyghur and Tibetan campaigns, demanded her resignation.

The 230 organisations accused Bachelet of having whitewashed the Chinese governments human rights atrocities and having legitimised Beijings attempt to cover up its crimes by using the Chinese governments false counter-terrorism framing.

The failed visit by the high commissioner has not only worsened the human rights crisis of those living under the Chinese governments rule, but also severely compromised the integrity of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in promoting and protecting human rights globally, the statement said.

They also decried that she had repeatedly referred to the detention camps in Xinjiang by the Chinese governments preferred term: vocational education and training centres.

The signatories said Bachelet had been entirely silent on the human rights crisis enveloping Tibet during her four years in office, and had grossly underplayed the crackdown in Hong Kong.

It also called for the urgent release of the UN report.

The repeated, open-ended, and unexplained delays call into serious question the credibility of her office to fulfil its mandate, the statement said.

Go here to see the original:

Fury at UN human rights chief over whitewash of Uyghur repression - The Guardian

Thirty-one-year-old Ghofran Warasnah was shot dead by the Israeli occupation forces located at the entrance of Al-Arroub Palestinian refugee camp near Hebron. Ghofran was a Palestinian journalist who was heading to work. According to reports paramedics were barred from reaching her for 20 minutes and the ambulance carrying her dead body was attacked by Israeli forces.

This brings to mind the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh.

Of course, this kind of extra-judicial killing is the norm in the West Bank, this year alone 50 Palestinians have been killed, including 15 children. In most cases Israeli occupation soldiers claim that the victims were assailants armed with knives who had to be shot to protect the occupation forces. No evidence is ever provided for their claims.

Unlike others, Israel kills suspects then seeks to legitimise the murder.

OPINION: Racist Israeli flag march raises concerns about threat to status quo in occupied Jerusalem

How are Israelis able to play the role of the victim? They are able to manipulate facts and escape the consequences of their actions. Basic facts which are not "disputed" by anyone except by the illegal Israeli occupation forces, such as that Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a Muslim holy site for the last 1,400 years. This fact is recognised by all concerned international organisations and laws.

Unfortunately, most of those who acknowledge this do not act accordingly, save some empty statements that denounce Israel's actions especially those related to human rights violations. They act with indifference towards Israeli violations and aggression, to the extent that they practically forgot their commitments and obligations towards the tenets of the UN and perceive and deal with Palestinians who are resisting a brutal colonial occupation in Jerusalem as vagabonds and trouble makers, not as freedom fighters and martyrs. This approach makes them complicit in the atrocities being committed.

This contradiction was evident when Israeli fanatics marched through the Old City of Jerusalem hoisting Israeli flags, abusing and cursing Islam's Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and Palestinians, then broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque and practiced their prayers inside this Muslim holy site under the protection of Israeli occupation police, while the real owners of the mosque were beaten with batons and accused of disturbing the peace.

These crimes are legalised by the Israeli judiciary, who gave Jews the right to intrude into Al-Aqsa, protected by Israeli police who watch over them when they were reciting their prayers, justified by Western media which always claims that Muslim holy sites are disputed places, governed by the Israeli government.

So, does the world really believe that Israel is an occupation state? Theoretically speaking yes. In practice, however, this same world has not done anything tangible over the last 55 years to deter Israel or punish it. On the contrary, economic relations continued and helped strengthen the occupation's clout. All the European countries, America and most of Latin American, Asian, African and even some Arab countries have diplomatic relations with Israel. During the Trump era, the United States the most powerful country on Earth even relocated its embassy to occupied Jerusalem in contravention of international law. Turning the UN resolution on the matter into rhetoric.

Inaction and neutrality in the face of aggression is a sign of ethical bankruptcy. The world has long crossed this line to a more inferior one; the stage of covering, justifying and aiding the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people. This same world who has been giving the occupation a green light for the past 55 years, condemning the Palestinian victims as they try to defend themselves.

What we see on the ground proves beyond no doubt that the world only believes in the language of nuclear war heads, aircraft carries, nuclear submarines, jet fighters and supersonic missiles and not in justice for the oppressed and those whose rights have been ripped from them.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Why does the world allow Israel to continue its oppression of Palestinians? - Middle East Monitor

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. On Mondays, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Last week, noting Russias invasion of Ukraine, Chinas treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and the hunger crises forecast in poorer countries, I asked, What responsibility, if any, do the United States or individual Americans have to help innocents around the world?

Chris argues that America will help if we know whats good for us and act in our selfish interest:

Advocates for more global engagement and aid, critics of the benefits of more global engagement and aid, and foam-at-the-mouth advocates of reheated Pat Buchanan isolationism all seem to accept the unstated premise that providing aid to the rest of the world would be a continuation of some fantastical Rich Uncle Pennybags version of U.S. history. If we help Ukraine more or less, it will be a measure of more or less charity and goodwill on the part of a benevolent or stingy America. Or a measure of our gullibility in throwing the taxes of hardworking Americans down the sinkhole of a corrupt government.

But this is not why the U.S. worked for so many decades to maintain global democracy, stability, or prosperity, any more than it was why the Roman empire worked to maintain a Pax Romana. Our moral responsibility to help the less fortunate is a valid philosophical debate, but the U.S. interest in keeping Ukraine independent, Hong Kong and Taiwan free, Uyghurs out of apartheid, and Africans from starving isnt primarily moral.

Yes, being a global underwriter, grant writer, and policeman has come with huge price tags, some poor decisions, and lost lives. And the benefits havent been enjoyed equally.

But for decades the U.S. was the primary beneficiary in the long run. Free democratic societies are less likely to attack each other and start wars. A global rules-based system creates trust between parties that allows for global trade. Our consumers can buy things from more places, our businesses can sell things to more customers. Our dollar is the reserve currency specifically because the U.S. is assumed to be the safest place to flee in times of financial troubleso the dollar actually got stronger when our own financial sector crashed the global economy in 2008, even as other currencies took a hit.

Our opinion carries outsize international weight because so many global strategies for finance and defense are dependent on American banks, companies, or backing, and so many nations are dependent on American aid or remittances from immigrants to America. Its not that our success creates a moral mandate to help. Its that our success is predicated on a transaction: well help most if everyone agrees to a global arrangement in which everyone can benefit but from which America benefits most of all.

The question we should be asking is: Are you willing to accept fewer goods, more expensive goods, more wars, a less valuable dollar, less global innovation, less safe international travel, and vastly diminished influence at the international bargaining table, if in exchange you dont have to feel bad about Ukraine, or be pissed off that theyre getting $40bn when youve still got that used Chevy? We dont get to walk away from our global responsibilities and keep the global leadership or the benefits weve enjoyed any more than you can walk away from your mortgage and keep your house. When you stop holding up your end of the deal, they throw you out. And right now, theres a couple people really, really hoping that well be evicted so they can move in.

Stefan urges multilateralism:

There is an internationally recognized Responsibility to Protect such innocents. However, this is clearly a GLOBAL responsibility if it is any responsibility at all. It is not, and should not be, up to the US alone. To be sure, it is doubtful that we can ever bring 100% of the worlds nations on board for any effort on behalf of the victims of even the most clear-cut case of malevolence against our fellow human beings. However, to suggest that it must either be 100% of the world or else just us is a false dichotomy. The truth is that it is indeed possible, and necessary, to gather as many nations as possible in support of any effort to assist those innocents who need our helpa coalition of the willing, if you can accept what some would consider to be an unfortunate and tainted phrase. We need to do our part to help, and given our size and global prominence, our part is usually going to be a leadership role. However, it cannot be ALL up to us.

Read: The potential of a hot war between the U.S. and Russia

MBI is similarly skeptical of unilateral American power:

The question as framed is somewhat perverse. The issues identified, such as the oppression of Uyghur Muslims, the subjugation of the people of Hong Kong and potentially Taiwan, and Russias murderous invasion of Ukraine are all of the highest geopolitical and strategic interest to the United States. From other parts of the world, the question raised may include the oppression of Muslims in India, the daily atrocities committed against the Palestinians in Israel or the numerous human rights abuses committed by dozens of autocrats spread around the world, some of whom are even supported by the United States.

That America thinks that it has a right to intervene to help innocents around the world is borne out of the belief in its own exceptionalism, which hypocritically allows it to select which countries to intervene in and ultimately save. The question that much of the rest of the world may ask is what moral right does America have to do this, or more precisely, what moral basis does America have to select the issues that it deems fit for its intervention? That American exceptionalism has justified the utter destruction of entire countries and societies on flimsy or non-existent pretexts or grounds does not help matters.

American exceptionalism is in reality an immoral means to pursue American national interests around the world and is entirely divorced from humanitarian considerations of helping innocents. If my assessment and analysis is correct then America does not have any right to help innocents around the world because the endeavor is entirely insincere, as we have seen in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Would America submit itself to the decision of an international body or institution that can claim some moral authority to determine in which situations to intervene? Of course not, as the body would not seek to advance American national interests and would also negate the idea of American exceptionalism. What is required is an end to American unilateralism, exceptionalism, selectiveness and the pursuance of an objective and impartial means to determine what situations are deserving of American intervention to help innocents, regardless of national interest considerations. That would, of course, be an imaginary world.

To play devils advocate:, If the U.S. is to spend wealth its people earned, or to fight with lives volunteered by its citizens, shouldnt Americans decide when and how to spend or to fight?

Guillermo takes a somewhat rosier view of Americans motivation:

To assume responsibility is a personal decision usually related to your intimate search for meaning. If a sufficiently large number of persons share a view of the meaning of responsibility, this becomes the view of a nation. More Americans than not see compassion as a good character trait and try to assist the innocents of the world. This in turn has consistently shaped government worldviews regarding the need for charitable work and merciful ministries. The world continues to be a difficult place to live because Homo sapiens is still a species prone to ego-centered violent passions. But in spite of it all, compassionate feelings and merciful actions continue to save us from extinction.

Recent headlines are bringing Cliff down:

Lets review what the past month of American life has brought us: a massacre of 19 children, a nationwide baby formula shortage, a racially motivated mass-murder in a grocery store, and three women shot by some lunatic in a salon for no reason other than the fact that they were of East Asian descent. I could go on, but you get the picture. Add to that a surge in Covid cases, permanent political dysfunction, an affordable housing crisis, and record inflation. The real question becomes whether America can help anybody, because it obviously cant help itself. Until we get our act together, we should ask not what we should do for others, but what we must do for ourselves.

Grant maintains that the United States is the worlds least-bad option:

The US, imperfect though it is, remains the best state actor for maintaining stability in an anarchic world order. Careful balancing of self-preservation (isolationism) and foreign engagements, i.e., wars, in order to avoid overextending itself is the only way to preserve global stability, and with that US domestic prosperity.

Jinyong wants to respond in different ways to different kinds of Chinese repression:

I know this might sound callous but I believe that our responsibility to act should be based on what best aligns with our national interests. Despite the horrific nature of the oppression occurring in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, there is very little we can do to stop said oppression, and to be frank, what happens in Xinjiang and Hong Kong doesn't really affect the balance of power in East Asia.

On the issue of Taiwan I believe that we have a responsibility to do more. Putting aside the fact that Taiwan is a thriving democracy, a PRC takeover of Taiwan would be an unmitigated disaster for our position in East Asia. Such an event would destroy our defensive position on the first island chain, start the dominoes for our eventual expulsion from East Asia, and would probably precipitate the PRC achieving regional hegemony. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Instead of canceling and slow-rolling arms orders like this current administration is doing, we need to be selling them way more arms including advanced weapons like the F-35B. Just look at Ukraine and the effect our arms transfers are having over there. We should be trying to do the same with Taiwan. Against the odds, Ukraine has shown that a smaller power can survive against a stronger one. We need to ensure Taiwan can do the same. We cant change what happened in Xinjiang and Hong Kong and we cant stop the war currently raging in Ukraine. But we can arm Taiwan to the teeth and ensure that deterrence continues to hold in that region. We still have time. Lets not waste it.

Read: 14 reader views on guns

Harold is a radical egalitarian redistributionist:

In an ideal world every nation and every person would have an obligation to help every other nation and person as far as their means would allow. So long as the basic needs of the population or person are being met, the obligation to the other should be stretched as far as possible. A need is something essential for sustaining life, not staving off discomfort. We are all stewards of the interconnected societies we inhabit. When another suffers, I suffer, and when another society suffers so too does our society.

Putting all of this into practice is difficult. Oftentimes we will fail. Unfortunately, we have an example of what a nation may look like when it views its only obligation as to itself: As China looks on at the carnage in Ukrainethe killing of Ukrainian children, women, and the elderly through indiscriminate bombing and brutal violence, the rape, and the leveling of entire citiesit still does not feel the need to intervene in even the slightest of ways.

China derives a great deal of power from its own people, but also from those in other nations who turn a blind eye and tirelessly consume the products and goods they produce. We must cease our enabling of China, lest we become no better, a nation without obligation.

Dr. Y wants Americans to help the world, but that doesnt mean he wants the help to go through the U.S. government:

We cannot help everyone, but everyone can help someone. This is an essential responsibility we all owe to humanity, but not necessarily to, or through our government.

I am an Evangelical; an oft maligned (sometimes fairly) and always misunderstood, unique flavor of Christianity. We are often asked, How can you be for helping people and against big government solutions? The answer is surprisingly simple. I believe that my responsibility to humanity rests on a much higher authority than merely our federal government. In addition I believe that social engineering should usually not be attempted through the coercive power of government, lest it violate ones personal conscience.

Monopolies always tend to foster bad behavior. This is not just true of the corporate world, it is unfortunately also true of my large denomination, which some considered a monopoly in the evangelical world. It is no less true of the federal government that has arguably grown to have a monopoly interest in social services. Such a monopoly has an adverse effect on local communities. There are more resources to throw at the problem. But that benefit comes at the expense of a large, distant, impersonal, bureaucratic mechanism that can suck the life out of local communities while offering financial assistance for their problems. I believe this is a major source of the demise of our small towns and communities today. The old clich is true: One always receives more than he gives. It is therefore a good investment. But when this is done through the coercive power of government it robs the act of its greater power of personal transformation. Such an approach robs the recipient of gratitude and replaces it with dependence. It robs the donor of humaneness and replaces it with resentment. It meets the physical needs of the moment, but ignores the spiritual needs and so diminishes the transaction.

Private benevolent NGOs have proven in every way to be more efficient and effective than large well intended federal programs. So I was scandalized not so long ago by a well-intended presidential candidates rather naive assertion that small government conservatives were selfishly motivated. He did not know me well enough to make that accusation. I annually give 1220% of my personal income, before taxes, to private benevolent enterprises. He did not have the advantage of seeing my tax return, but I was able to see his, made public as part of his candidacy. I knew that although he made significantly more money than I did, I in fact gave significantly more than he did in real dollars on an annual basis. It was not hypocrisy, or political cynicism on his part. He is in fact by all accounts a very generous and humane man. It was a failure to imagine any social structure other than a centralized and highly regulated government system.

He was a student of FDR. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I happen to follow a much older and more radical political thinker that walked the earth before modern democracies were a thing, speaking of the Kingdom of heaven. Talk of kingdoms is a scary thing for citizens of a democracy. To be clear, I am an ardent and patriotic supporter of our democracy. This is actually the real tension that has always existed within our republic between people of faith living in harmony within a pluralistic system. It is not new. Our founders designed our democracy to accommodate such separate spheres of influence as positive good. Some of the checks and balances within our system actually reside outside the actual governing system. The Church is a good example of this.

David helps his neighbors personally but wants the government to step in when it comes to international neighbors:

I am aware of food insecurity in Manhattan, where I live. I feel a responsibility to prioritize helping my fellow New Yorkers with their food needs, because they are part of my community, even though their situation is not as dire as people facing famine in other countries. Id like to see our country lead in helping other countries with food. As the wealthiest member of the global community, we have a responsibility to do so.

Perry believes that the U.S. has the means to stave off famine:

We have had ample surpluses of all kinds of commodities. Wheat, corn, milk, all manner of vegetables. The U.S. government PAYS farmers not to grow some things. The problem is that the supply chain to Africa and the Middle East is very slow and China has no incentive to speed it up. Yes, the containers and bulk haulers are still on that side of the world. The U.S. may not be able to fill the Ukraine gap in commodities but we can try. The problem now again will be politics. I am sure the Right will be very upset if we try.

Pat wants international institutions to get involved:

This is where the United Nations Food and Agriculture Program should be taking the lead, assessing the need, issuing a call to member countries with a prioritized list of requirements by country and by product, and coordinating deliveries. Any crisis of this scale requires a coordinated response to deliver whats needed in an efficient manner. Individual countries responding to individual countries is likely to result in confusion at best and lack of success at worst.

And Mitch is focused on perpetuating the species:

I dont feel responsible for addressing, in general, the various problems specific to other states or societies. I have little bandwidth to adequately consider the details of their situations. But I do feel a need to address issues that affect the future of all life forms on this planet. If you are an intellectually capable human, of typical emotional intelligence, you likely experience some empathy for all other humans, as well as other sentient life forms (too many species to list, but gorillas, chimps, dolphins, whales are examples). I strive to be considerate of all, but mainly I want to see the intellect established by homo sapiens continue to expand. And that perspective informs my priorities.

Thanks for all of your emails. Ill see you Wednesday.

More here:

America's Duty to Help the World's Vulnerable: 13 Reader Views - The Atlantic

THE ALTERNATIVE

By Reno Omokri

Let me make myself clear from the get-go. It is wrong for Buhari alone to single-handedly pick the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress. It is undemocratic.

However, his statement that he should be allowed to pick his successor is not just undemocratic, it is treasonable. Buhari works for Nigerians, not vice versa. Even if he can arm-twist his way into picking the APC candidate, Nigerians will pick his successor!

And if his threat is predicated on repeating the massive rigging he supervised in 2019, then my response to him is to repeat what he (Buhari) said on May 15, 2012:

They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way.-Muhammadu Buhari.

What nonsense is that? A man of low mentality, who has reduced Nigeria from the third fastest-growing economy in the world on May 29, 2015, to the world headquarters for extreme poverty today, is now saying he will produce his successor as if the electorate doesnt count?

Let him try it. But before he does, he should also remember what happened during #EndSARS. That was an unprecedented people movement sparked by governments oppression of the governed. And if Buhari tries a repeat of the shameful rigging that happened in 2019, he should prepare for EndSARS part 2!

The reality is that Buhari is not even politically savvy enough to anoint his successor. Look at what happened in his own state. His nephews were defeated in the APC primaries. His in-law was roundly trounced in Kaduna. In Kano, his aides were defeated. And in 2023, his candidate will be defeated by Nigerians!

Without the APC Governors, Buhari is a toothless bulldog. He can bark, but he has no bite. The real power in the party belongs to the Governors. And even they are fed up with Buhari. Their allocations from the federation account have been the worst in history under the ineffectual so-called General!

But coming back to Bola Tinubu, why is he now subtly attacking Buhari and insisting that he must be the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress because he supported Buhari? Why is he sulking and agitating against Buharis stated intention to pick the APCs candidate?

I really dont get why Bola Tinubus people are complaining that Buhari cant choose who the APC candidate will be. Who chooses who becomes the candidate of the APC in Lagos? Is it not solely Tinubu? Who stopped Ambode from being re-elected? Was it not solely Tinubu? Did Ambode not pay for an All Progressives Congress Gubernatorial form in 2019? Did the APC not collect his money and refuse to refund him after Tinubu rejected him?

Did he not go and gather his brother Governors to beg Tinubu on his behalf? Did Governor Bagudu of Kebbi, who is the chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum, not prostrate to Tinubu on Ambodes behalf? Not that I support the imposition of candidates. However, what is good for Lagos APC is also good for national APC! Or should I say, what is good for Greece is also good for Uganda.

I am a student of history. I recall clearly that Samuel Doe relished slicing the flesh of his political opponents while they were still alive. However, when Prince Yormie Johnson arrested him on his way to seek safety with the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, Johnson gave Doe the special Doe treatment.

So, if Buhari decides to give Tinubu the special Ambode treatment, history justifies it! Tinubu cannot expect Buhari to treat him better than he, Tinubu, treated Ambode.

If Ambode was the Governor of Lagos on October 20, 2020, instead of Sanwo-olu, maybe the #LekkiMassacre of peaceful, unarmed #EndSARS protesters would not have happened. But Tinubu denied him the ticket. So, Buhari can deny Tinubu just as Tinubu denied Ambode. No one will cry foul!

Tinubu says he made Buhari President in 2015 and expects to be supported in 2023. That may or may not be true. But what is true is that Afenifere made Tinubu Governor in 1999, and he not only abandoned them, he also fought them. One bad turn deserves another!

The thing about Tinubus argument is that it is not about Nigeria, or its people. Watch his video in Ogun state while he was campaigning for delegates on Thursday, June 2, 2022. He said he made Buhari President and as such Buhari should support him. He played the same emotional blackmail against his host Governor, Dapo Abiodun, saying:

Dapo thats sitting down here, could he have become Governor without me? We were at the stadium, they tore all his posters. Even the party flag, they didnt want to hand over it to him, I was the one who brought it.

If he wants to meet God at the right place, he must know that without God and me, he would not have become Governor.

Nothing about what he would do for Nigerians. He is appealing to Buhari instead of Nigerians. So Nigerians should remain onlookers in his quarrel with Buhari. Let them fight and destroy their party the way they have destroyed Nigeria.

And the curious thing is that Buhari has not yet cheated Bola Tinubu, and Tinubu attacked him. Why did he not wait until after the primaries before attacking Buhari? Now, he has given Buhari an excuse not to support him. I thought Bola Tinubu knew how to play politics. I was wrong. Very wrong!

Look at his petty complaints? Buhari did not give me ministerial slots. Buhari did not give me contracts. Me, me, me! Like a spoilt child. Nothing about what Buhari has done to Nigeria, a country he met as the third fastest-growing economy in the world, and is leaving as the worlds headquarters for extreme poverty!

Tinubu was not even ashamed to say that Buhari did not want to contest, and had retired from politics until he went to Daura to beg him to contest in 2015. In other words, it is because of Tinubu we are suffering from the worst government in our history!

And hear him! I deserve to be President because I made Buhari President and it is my turn. Look at the egotistical entitlement! Nothing about what he did or would do for Nigeria or Nigerians. What kind of cult language is that? That he made Buhari President is precisely why Tinubu should not be President!

Tinubu is letting tantrums spoil what could have been a home run for him in the APC primaries. How can you call a Yoruba Governor eleyi to his face? Yoruba that love respect? Vice President Yemi Osinbajo must be dancing with his RCCG political directorate!

Tinubu is just behaving like Tonto Dikeh and Nkechi Blessing. Like a woman who was promised marriage and jilted and is now exploding and exposing the jilter. Buhari don buy market. He either builds another other room for Tinubu, or marry him as promised!

When he was doing Ambode, he did not have mercy. Now that Buhari is doing him, he is shouting eleyi all over the place. First to do e no dey pain. Jagaban to to di jagajaga. It is just that he did not buy a form. If not, I would have said Buhari should give it to Ambode!

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan did not accuse Tinubu of betraying him. Akinwunmi Ambode did not accuse Tinubu of betraying him. Afenifere is not accusing Tinubu of betraying them. Yet, after a political lifetime of betrayal and backstabbing, Tinubu is surprised with the breakfast he got served?

Because of Buhari, Tinubu insulted former Presidents Obasanjo, and Jonathan. He insulted Yoruba obas. He insulted #EndSARS protesters. And after all he has done, Buhari wants to do him I go chop your dollar! Ah! Aiye! This life no balance ra ra!

Tinubu portrayed ignorance of elementary rudiments of power politics. If you want a reigning king to anoint you, do not remind him of what you have done for him. Kings hate to be indebted to their subjects. Instead, remind the king of what you can still do for him in future!

With what I watched in Ogun state, if the NDLEA performs drug tests on all Presidential aspirants, as recommended by its Chairman, Buba Marwa, I seriously doubt that Bola Tinubu will pass it. Nobody throws stones like that unless they are stoned!

Bola Tinubu fall my hand, as the young people say. How can he expect a former coup plotter, who overthrew a democratically elected President, to keep to agreements? Shagari was a Fulani Muslim like him, yet Buhari overthrew him. If Buhari could overthrow his own brother, who is Tinubu that he cant betray?

And to further indicate his political navet, Tinubu proudly released a photo of him sitting in a chair in a mosque, to greet His Eminence, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto.

But who is advising Tinubu? How can you follow Sarkin Musulumi to a mosque, and he will sit on the floor and you will sit in a chair? If you are too old to sit on the floor, like other Muslims, then you dont attend with the Sultan. Or maybe you stay somewhere else until Jumat is over. Buhari also sometimes sits in a chair because of old age, but NEVER in the presence of Sarkin Musulumi!

The Queen of England is the official head of the Church of England. Her official title is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, AKA Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith). Even the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot sit in her presence, until she sits.

The Sultan is the spiritual leader of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. That photo, that Tinubu is proudly displaying, wont go down well in the North! It is like Osinbajo sitting and Adeboye standing, while both of them are having a one-on-one conversation!

Anyway, let me conclude with somewhat of a parable. Elections are very expensive in Nigeria. Its not every time we will be paying for advert. Sometimes, we just buy free advert by deliberately shaking some predictable tables so that we will get an echo and the biggest media will carry stories that theyd have otherwise asked us to pay for.

If you dont use this ogbon, you will just spend 1 billion, that you dont have, buying up full-page ads in papers and 60 second slots on TV. Instead of wasting money and energy, just create a wave and surf it until you get your message across.

#TableShaker

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Buhari, Give Tinubu The Special Ambode Treatment - THISDAY Newspapers

TUNIS, TUNISIAMy 26-year-old tour guide is one reason Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is no longer president of Tunisia. When protests broke out in December 2010, Hassan joined in, only to be shot in the shoulder by a government sniper. Since he could not go to a hospital, where he would be arrested, friends patched him up, leaving the bullet undisturbed. He went out the next day, he told me, and threw rocks with his other arm.

Tunisians like Hassan are at risk of losing the freedoms they gained at great cost.

Last July, President Kais Saied staged a coup against the Parliament and independent government agencies. He dismissed the prime minister and cabinet members, claimed all executive power, closed Parliament, prohibited public gatherings, arrested political opponents, and imposed travel bans. Claiming nonexistent constitutional authority, he later disbanded Parliament as well as independent judicial and electoral commissions, fired judges, and prosecuted critics. One political professional complained that Saied was basically destroying the state. She asked that her name not be usedone of many with whom I spoke who feared retribution from an increasingly authoritarian government.

Next, Saied plans to create hisconstitution, to be approved in a referendum on July 25, in which votes will be counted byhis election commissioners. Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, a former minister, long-time opposition activist, and head of the Democratic Progressive Party, pointed to a threefold crisis: political, social, and especially economic. With protests multiplying, an increasing number of Tunisians fear what the future might hold: dictatorship, military coup, or chaos.

Democracy advocates arranged for me to visit Tunisia last month and meet with a variety of professionals and activists. Many had voted for Saied. Some initially hoped that he would live up to his promise to restore democracy. Today few credit his professed good intentions. Instead, the near-uniform diagnosis is that he plans to install an authoritarian system, perhaps akin to the personalist rule of Muammar Gaddafi, who voiced similar political ideas.

More than a decade ago, the Jasmine Revolution erupted after corrupt Tunisian police repeatedly harassed a street vendor and confiscated his goods. He burned himself alive, triggering widespread demonstrations that brought down Ben Alis government. The Tunisian uprising sparked a succession of popular uprisings in the so-called Arab Spring. Unfortunately, no where else did democracy take hold.

In Tunisia, a nation of about 12 million, the people wrote a constitution, held elections, formed governments, and worked across ideological and religious lines. The moderate Islamic Ennahda Party was feared by some but eschewed extremist positions and joined coalitions with its secular counterparts. The Tunisian government supplanted increasingly authoritarian Turkey as the best example of a Muslim and Middle Eastern/North African democracy.

All was not well in Tunisia, however. Politicians bickered, governments appeared ineffective, and Tunisians didnt like what they saw. No wonder Otto von Bismarck warned against watching the making of sausages or laws. Yet Saied played a key role in creating the crisis, noted the head of an NGO who asked not to be identified. He actively obstructed the government, refusing to swear in cabinet members, for example.

Even more important were Tunisias economic problems. The Jasmine Revolution began with a protest against the corrupt, dirigiste economic system. Unfortunately, little changed under the new democratic governments. Observed Chebbi, Years later a lot of Tunisians feel that the political process didnt have the desired effect especially in terms of quality of life. The result, he added, is a crisis of confidence with the political class and democratically elected institutions.

When Saied, a little-known law professor who had won on a populist platform, seized control, many Tunisians gave him the benefit of the doubt.Since then, noted several people I spoke with, Saied has grown both more paranoid and punitive.

When members of the Parliament met online and voted to repeal his illegal decrees, he dissolvedthe assembly, which he accused of staging a coup attempt and having betrayed Tunisia. In drafting a constitution he has sought to disenfranchise virtually everyone who has been active politically over the last decade.His political visionappears to involve a leader invested with all power, to be advised by diffuse, powerless local assemblies, from which regional and national representatives would be chosen, kept disorganized and leaderless by a ban on political parties. An NGO leader contended that Saied intended to produce a very weak legislature.

Indeed,Saudi ArabiaandUnited Arab Emirates, which underwrite dictatorships in Egypt and Bahrain and obstructed democratic forces in Libya and Sudan, are widely believed to have encouraged Saied to stage his Machtergreifung. Egypt also may have played a role. Each fears democracy as well as the emergence of even a moderate variant of political Islam. Bloombergcolumnist Bobby Ghoshquipped: Tunisias President Kais Saied may not wear military fatigues, but hes doing a pretty good Sisi impression nonetheless.

Saied initially gained support by appealing to popular frustrations. When he vowed to fix the political system, punish corruption, and address the economy, many Tunisians applauded. One Saied critic acknowledged that people had expected the new revolutionary leaders to improve their lives: Democracy is not easy to understand when you cant feed your family. However, Chebbi believes the people have discovered that Saied would only make matters worse. A pollster told me that Saieds support has plummeted.Noted theNew York Times: The rebukes have come from staunch opponents and former allies alike, from political parties and from the media, and even from some of the same supporters who cheered in the streets when Mr. Saied froze Parliament, fired the prime minister and seized power.

Increasingly, the president is isolated and ruling alone. At the same time, noted one activist, now we are seeing opposition parties come together, making common cause for a return to democracy. I attended a large demonstration against Saieds power grab and spoke with some of the protestors. One complained that the president stole all the powers and put them all in one hand, his hand. She wanted to restore the constitution. Another, who voted for Saied, called the president a usurper. Yet another complained that Saied hasnt done anything for us.

On Saturday, police clashed with protestors who sought to march on the headquarters of the judicial council, which Saied had taken over. (Last week, he fired 57 judges.) More demonstrations are planned.

Perhaps even more significant, the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT), the nations largest labor union, rejected Saieds call for a national dialogue given his exclusion of democratic representatives; the union plans a general strike next week. Simon Speakman Cordall, a freelance journalist in Tunisia, observed: The UGTT and its million or so members have emerged as a unique political force in the country. The UGTT spans a number of subsidiary unions, and their power, along with their ability to mobilize that power, cannot be underestimated. So far, the security agencies have obeyed Saied, but their loyalty is likely to be increasingly tested.

Tunisias predicament prompts much gloom. One activist observed: Tunisia is like a room full of gas. Every week it is more full of gas. Although he doesnt believe Saied will be able to establish a real dictatorship, he fears the chaos that might ensue.

Not everyone was pessimistic, however. Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahdha Party and ousted speaker of the assembly, said he was optimistic for future. He defended the revolution: We became a stable democracy contrary to the other failed democratic change experiments in the Arab world. He contended that Tunisians were in one of the stages of change, one of the different phases of democratic transformation. We hope to cross this phase peacefully.

Tunisia is now in the populist phase, Ghannouchi suggested, reflecting the very high expectations in social and economic terms held by the people, especially by the young. He noted that Saied won the election with a considerable majority without offering an economic program. However, the situation has changed dramatically: On the 25th of July from last year, the entirety of the political establishment and the media establishment were with the president. Ten months later and no one is with him anymore.

Key to the opposition succeeding may be developing a credible program for economic and political reform. One activist contended that support for Saied is dwindling because He shows no interest in solving peoples problems. However, in Tunisia, like America, it is hard to beat something with nothing. Chebbi emphasized the need for a genuine national dialogue to build consensus, a lawful political process, and early elections. Tunisians have a right to arbitrate this crisis through democratic tools, namely the ballot box.

What should the U.S. do?

Despite the Biden administrations rhetorical support for democracy, its stance toward Saied has been remarkably weak. OriginallyWashingtonissued generic statementsapplicable to both sides, for instance, stating that Tunisia must not squander its democratic gains and calling on Saied to adhere to the principles of democracy and human rights. In December,Washingtonwelcomed President Saieds announcement of a timeline outlining a path for political reform and parliamentary elections and look[ed] forward to a reform process that is transparent andinclusive of diverse political and civil society voices. However, the administration appears to be finally losing patience, and last month proposed cutting economic and military aid almost in half next year.

U.S. policymakers should recognize the limits of their influence. Given Saieds refusal to divert from his authoritarian course despite growing domestic opposition, he isnt likely to buckle under U.S. pressure. Indeed, he might head to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to beg for handouts, following the example of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after a similar partial cut-off of American aid.

Nevertheless, it is important for Washington to refuse to give its imprimatur for a regime that is growing more autocratic. Most Tunisian activists I spoke with hope for stronger opposition to Saieds dictatorial course.

What the Biden administration should do is use its bully pulpit to call for restoration of democracyreviving government institutions, respecting civil liberties and press freedom, undertaking a genuine national dialogue, engaging in an inclusive constitutional rewrite, followed by free votes to ratify the constitution and elect a new president and legislature. The Pentagon should encourage the Tunisian armed forces to respect the constitution rather than the constitutional usurper.

Washington should coordinate with Europe, which has greater historic, cultural, and economic ties with Tunisia. Washington should consider applying Magnitsky Act sanctions against Saied, his top officials, and government institutions. The threat might prove particularly effective against those who opportunistically supported Saied, only to see him hemorrhage public and foreign support.

Finally, the U.S. should end all financial assistance to Tunisia. Admittedly, thats a controversial proposal. Opposition activists disagree on the issue, with some worrying about triggering economic collapse. However, it would be worse for the U.S. to keep an emerging dictatorship afloat and subsidize a return to Tunisias oppressive past.

The Arab Spring loosed enormous optimism and hope. Tragically, in every case but Tunisia, the result was negative. And now, Tunisian democracy appears to be slipping away.

Still, hope remains. One activist said that in the end she didnt think the Tunisian people will accept dictatorship ten years after the revolution.

More than decade ago, the Tunisian people risked much to free themselves after decades of oppression. They will have to take a similar stand today to preserve the freedoms that they won in the Jasmine Revolution. People of good will in America and around the world should stand with them.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: Americas New Global Empire.

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Tunisian Democracy Is Slipping Away - The American Conservative

Its like this. I speak to a friend who went through the hard times of Nauru. He is a refugee. For several years he has been in Australia. He can work but he has few other rights. He does not have a permanent visa. He does not know what will happen to him next.

I cannot do what I want with my visa, he says to me. I cannot leave the country and see my beloved ones. My brother died a while ago and my mother is sick. I have to renew my visa every six months. My case manager calls me sometimes and starts threatening me: you will never resettle here.

I speak to another friend, similarly living in Australia on a temporary visa. For him it has also been like this for years. We have no rights here, he says. We have no right to defend our dignity when we are insulted. We have no right to defend ourselves when we are attacked. Because defending our dignity comes at the cost of detention for us, because we do not have equal rights with others.

In the traditional way of the world, in an election like the one just gone in Australia, it would be customary for the most important programs and priorities of the rival parties to be presented to the people so a vote could be held for the most desired option based on that program. In this way, the vision and perspective of a government can be identified.

Before the election, we very much hoped that the human rights of asylum seekers deported to remote islands would be a point of difference between the two rivals. As one of the people who spent their childhood to adolescence in the harsh conditions of the far islands, I was very optimistic. I hoped strongly that there would be a realisation of the legal rights of these oppressed people after years of exile and that our punishment would be considered.

All those of us who spent our childhoods and adolescence alone in the far islands and in the horrific environments of those areas, without trial and without sentencing, were also hopeful that at least one of parties would see us as the oppressed and finally offer to us some peace.

We hoped that they would offer permanent residence to those of us in the community, held in limbo with no crime to answer. Perhaps, after all these years and all the hardship we have endured, they would give those of us here some clemency.

Beyond that, possibly they would start to talk about compensation for how we were treated. For someone like me, who spent my childhood in detention, maybe there would be some acknowledgement of everything I have lost and will never get back, of all the cruelty and suffering.

In reality, the question of our human rights was given almost no attention. The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, reiterated support for offshore detention. After winning, one of the first acts of the Labor government was to continue with the turnback of an asylum-seeker boat.

The readers of this article may want to remember that people like me came to Australia because we believed it would be wonderful to live in this country. We took the deadliest and most terrifying voyage across oceans, with very basic equipment, and suffered great psychological damage along the way. After escaping the wrath of the ocean, we had to pay the penalty of trying to reach this country.

What happened was unique in its kind and the decisions of the officials were unprecedented. We were imprisoned without end. Children, women and adults were taken to harsh and remote areas. Wherever we went became our cage.

There was no due process. I was 15 years old when I entered this detention and I was 24 when I left.

After this tragedy, I was very hopeful that the election might promise us some change. I was heartbroken and angry when it did not. What the two major parties completely forgot was that the inhabitants of their island prisons were all human beings. Like other human beings, we survived with hope and have the right to receive special attention in a country whose rule is based on democracy. Unfortunately, this expectation was not met. No chapter was dedicated to us or our oppression. I emphasise that ignoring this issue is contrary to the spirit of democracy that Australia has been so proud of for so many years.

How to appease and compensate for the losses inflicted on those who are really oppressed? What should happen now for the people who were most punished by this system? Is not this kind of long oppression a modern form of slavery?

Personally, I would say that Labor must finish what it started. For many of us, our detention began while Labor was in power. Now that they are in power again it is time to remove the refugees from Nauru and Manus Island and address the material and spiritual needs of the deportees.

Refugees, like many other citizens, have been involved in the development of Australia for many years in many ways. Unfortunately, because of the dire visa situation, instead of being praised for this development and assistance and useful work in Australia, we have spent our days in uncertainty and fear. I am settled in America now but many others are not. They spend their days in disarray. This took its worst form during the Coalition rule and especially when Peter Dutton was Immigration minister. It is a cruel irony that he is now leading the Liberal Party.

The situation of the people damaged by Australia must be taken care of. More than that, the few survivors who have been forgotten in offshore detention and have become the toys of some oppressors must be rescued as soon as possible.

We really have to use the word salvation, because they are in danger. We really hope that the Labor government will take serious and immediate measures to free the refugees abroad and to reform the refugee visas so that they can live in safety.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper onJune 11, 2022 as "Defending dignity".

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Mehdi Ali Defending the dignity of refugees - The Saturday Paper

By Sarhad Melkonian

Editors Note: Sarhad Melkonian, a member of the AYF New Jersey Arsen Chapter, was one of six winners in the 2022 Junior Seminar Council AYF Camp Haiastan Campership Essay Competition. The winners were announced at Junior Seminar late last month. The winning authors received prize money and publication of their essays in the Armenian Weekly. Melkonians essay, which won first place in the middle group (ages 13 to 14), answered the following prompt: How has the recent Artsakh War affected the global Armenian nation? As AYF Juniors in the Diaspora, how can you help with the current state of Armenia?

Artsakh is an integral part of the Armenian nation. Artsakh is the heart and soul of our homeland. For my generation, we have only known a reality where we have had an independent Republic of Artsakh. However, today, we find ourselves in a new paradigm, a very dangerous new reality for the Armenian nation. The cataclysmic war in Artsakh in 2020 was devastating for all Armenians globally.

Our parents generation liberated Artsakh from the grip of oppression and near annihilation at the hands of Azerbaijan. That generation fought and proudly won a war where our nation faced huge disadvantages. Despite the disadvantages, they still triumphed and prospered. During the recent war, on the other hand, we did not face the major disadvantages that our parents generation faced, and still lost at the hands of the prime minister of Armenia.

Many in my generation have photos proudly posing in front of the sign that says Free Artsakh Welcomes You. Many of us, including myself, have friends, family in Artsakh, and some of us have even been christened in Artsakh. Sadly, today, this is not the reality; Artsakh is no longer free. Artsakh is no longer independent. All the efforts our parents generation had put into liberating Artsakh have gone to waste.

During the 44-day war, the government kept falsely reassuring us that everything is fine and that we will win this war, and we do not have many losses. It was only after the war when the truth was unveiled. The government of Armenia did not really fight this war to win. They fought this war to use as an excuse for why we lost land and why we lost young, innocent soldiers. Today we know the Pashinyan regime committed treason. Today, we suffer the consequences of the Pashinyan regime.

What did the Pashinyan regime do that set back the Armenian nation 30 years? We are in a worse state of affairs than we were 30 years ago. The regime ultimately dismantled the army, sold our indigenous lands and, still, after almost two years, hasnt brought back our POWs. Over five thousand young, courageous Armenian soldiers died at the hands of this regime. Today the Armenian nation is devastated. We are lost, hurt, confused and stumped.

For the past year, the Armenian nation has been in a haze as the losses sustained from the war were so severe that we did not know how to continue. Now the Armenian nation is on the brink of a rebirth. We have organized our thoughts and pulled ourselves together. The way that we can help our nation is not by mourning, but by working on a solution.

Now what is the solution to this problem? First and foremost is education. Educate yourself, friends, family and peers. Participate in local protests. Volunteer for Hai Tahd by engaging with government officials and organizing events in your communities that educate everyone about what Pashinyan is doing. We need to help the AYF in Armenia to get rid of Pashinyan. The way to do that is to make sure the diaspora understands the treason that was committed by this regime. It is the only way the diaspora will join the Zartnir Lao movement in Armenia that is led mostly by our AYF ungers in Armenia.

One of the most important things we need to do is to help our brothers and sisters in Artsakh stay in Artsakh. We have to help however we can by raising money and awareness so we can help them survive and thrive. If the people living in Artsakh leave, there will be no hope in regaining the land. Through thick and thin, through Azeri oppression, the people in Artsakh fight for their land by living in their hometowns. We have to do everything in our power to help them stay in our homeland.

Now more than ever Artsakh and Armenia need our help, and the diaspora has to do everything in their power to help our homeland. We have to work harder than ever to rebuild our government and rebuild our churches in Artsakh that were demolished by Azeris after Artsakh got signed away.

Founded in 1933, The Armenian Youth Federation is an international, non-profit, youth organization of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). The AYF-YOARF Eastern United States stands on five pillars that guide its central activities and initiatives: Educational, Hai Tahd, Social, Athletic and Cultural. The AYF also promotes a fraternal attitude of respect for ideas and individuals amongst its membership. Unity and cooperation are essential traits that allow members of the organization to work together to realize the AYFs objectives.

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Unveiling the truth and rebuilding after war - Armenian Weekly

The entire shopfloor at the Urals Compressor Factory (UKZ) in Yekaterinburg, Russia, walked off the job on Tuesday in protest against the failure of the companys owners to pay them several months worth of salary. The plants 316 employees, who make parts for medical and military equipment, are owed in total 13.4 million rublesabout $233,000in outstanding wages.

The strike is just the latest action taken by workers in the assembly, foundry, heat treatment, tool and mechanical sections at the enterprise, which since October 2021 has repeatedly failed to pay salaries. In March 2022, workers laid down their tools and then again in May 2022, resuming work only after UKZ promised to give them their pay, as ordered by the local prosecutor. They have gotten nothing, however, for two months, apart from 1,000 rubles last week out of 100,000 they were supposed to receive.

We dont have enough money to even get to work, one worker told the press. You cant even get on a bus for a ruble.

The plant, which has holes in the roof, is evidently falling apart. In a video posted on the Telegram social media channel Ural Mash, one can see piles of rubble on the factory floor. You get refreshing drops of rain on your head, one worker reported.

The company claims it is owed millions by customers and is saddled with massive debts, having failed to pay its taxes and for supplies. Workers report a steep fall in production, with daily output recently dropping to just two units a day from 60.

But UKZs insistence that it suddenly does not have the means to pay its employees just because of poor market conditions and government taxes is unconvincing. I worked there, wrote one person on Telegram. The suits looted it and this is the sad result. Let the epaulets [an ornamental decoration pinned to the uniform of a high-ranking person] dig into them. Then theyll find the salaries, the [money for] the utility bills and everything else, said another. Referring to the wholesale theft of publicly-owned industry by the newly-emerging rich in the 1990s, one worker declared, Its time to take back the plants and factories.

The strike in Yekaterinburg follows walkouts and slowdowns in April and May by sanitation workers in Novosibirsk, doctors, nurses, and emergency medical technicians in Bashkortostan, taxi and delivery drivers in Tver and Moscow, and poultry workers in Sakhalin.

In the former Soviet country Georgia, which borders Russia to the southwest, workers at a mineral water bottling company are also on strike. They too have not been paid for two months. The entire 800-person workforce at two Bojomi plants walked off the job on May 31, demanding payment of back wages, a 25 percent wage increase, a collective bargaining agreement, an end to what workers describe as blackmail and threats of layoff for those who criticize the company, and the reinstatement of 50 personnel previously laid off for protesting.

On Tuesday, laborers threw eggs at police cars that sought to bring strikebreakers into the plant. Workers say the company is offering their jobs to Georgians from other parts of the country, as well as Ukrainians and Russians, attempting to attract them with promises of a salary that is three to four times what they currently pay in order to break the strike.

The day before the conflict with police broke out at Bojomis factory gates, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced that the government would be buying a majority stake in the concern, taking over ownership of the company from the Russian-based Alfa Group, whose head, Mikhail Fridman, is under anti-Russian sanctions, the immediate cause of the financial crisis at the company.

Georgias head of state insisted that it would ensure the end of the suffering and oppression at Bojomi, a dubious promise given that Georgias average monthly salary is $356 a month, more than 20 percent of its population lives in poverty, and its major industries, such as mining, are well known for being death traps.

In the countrys capital on Tuesday, medical workers protested against terrible working conditions and low wages. Senior emergency personnel make about $61 a shift, junior staff about $48, and drivers just $36. Doctors, nurses and ambulance teams are demanding a 100 percent wage increase and the reinstatement of a monthly bonus, about $180, that had been stripped from them because the government in Tbilisi recently declared the COVID-19 crisis to be over, terminated all public health measures, and ended all extra payments for health care employees. Workers insist, however, that the number of emergency calls has not decreased.

Refusing to increase wages, the Georgian Ministry of Health is instead proposing that emergency health care employees hours be changed such that they work 12-hour days, as opposed to 24-hour days spaced 3 days apartin other words, that they trade one misery for another.

Discontent among workers is widespread throughout the former Soviet sphere. Over the last seven months, thousands of health care employees, taxi drivers, railway, fertilizer plant, oil and agricultural workers have protested and gone on strike in countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Conditions are only worsening due to the US/NATO-Russia war in Ukraine. Whatever claims the governments of these states, particularly the Baltic countries, make about the willingness of their people to sacrifice to wage war against Moscow, millions of workers cannot and will not accept the ruin of their livelihoods so that Russia can be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey and handed out to the rich.

Russia too is facing a growing jobs crisis, despite the Kremlins insistence that the unemployment rate is the lowest ever. The countrys Central Bank just acknowledged Wednesday that job vacancies have been declining for the past several months, with March showing 17 percent fewer available positions compared to the previous month. HeadHunter, a labor market analysis firm, reported the next day that one-third of Russias workers are fearful they will lose their jobs.

Layoffs continue to be announced at industrial enterprises across Russia. Volkswagen is trying to dismiss hundreds of employees at its plant in Nizhni Novgorod by offering them six wage payments if they voluntarily leave. In Tikhvin in Leningrad Oblast, a car plant and an IKEA facility employing 7000 people will close. The Barnaul Machine Tool Plant in Altai is going to let go 500 workers, more than previously planned. In Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, 1,200 workers at the residential construction company Sibpromstroi will lose their jobs.

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Factory and health care workers strike, protest in Russia and Georgia - WSWS

When confronted with systemic racism and state violence, its important to call things what they are. Around a month ago, as the sun rose over Jenin refugee camp, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh was murdered by the Israeli military. Four days later, when mourners tried to carry her coffin through the streets to the Christian cemetery in Jerusalem, they were attacked and beaten by border guards.

At the time of her murder, much of the western media reported that Abu Aqleh had been killed in crossfire, and repeated Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims that she had actually been killed by Palestinians. The New York Times ran with the headline: Shireen Abu Aqleh, Trailblazing Palestinian Journalist, Dies at 51. The BBC reported there had been clashes at her funeral. You have to wonder what either of these outlets would have done if it was one of their journalists who had been shot in the head while wearing a press vest, and if their colleagues at the scene had all corroborated the same story: that the bullet had come from an IDF gun.

Two weeks ago, on a sunny morning in East Jerusalem, I and a small group of Labour MPs went to Abu Aqlehs house and met her family. It was a deeply moving experience. The room was covered in floral tributes, and her fluffy white dog ran around it, seemingly unaware of the grief of the people around him. Our translators, both Palestinian women activists, wept as they relayed the conversation between us and Abu Aqlehs brother, niece and nephew. Abu Aqleh was a national icon, and a household name across the Middle East. It feels like were mourning our own deaths, they explained, because if it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us and it does, regularly.

I was struck by the extent to which Abu Aqlehs family was determined to use her death to fight for structural change. Rather than view the occasion purely as a moment for an outpouring of grief, they handed us a letter, outlining what they wanted us to do: to support the International Criminal Courts investigation of Israeli war crimes; to call for an independent investigation into Abu Aqlehs killing; and for there to be accountability, not just for the shooter but for the wider military apparatus. These demands ought to be so common-sensical that they would barely need to be campaigned for.

This is Palestine, however, where injustice and state violence is a part of daily life. Along with four other Labour MPs, I went to the West Bank on a tour organised by the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) and Medical Aid for Palestinians. Although we were there for only a few days, we were constantly bombarded with an apparatus of segregation and oppression. One afternoon, we visited the bail hearing of a 14-year-old who stood accused of rock-throwing. His dad waved and gestured a thumbs up to his son, a child being tried by a military court. In the end bail was granted, but this, we were told, is unusual.

But we were also bombarded by an inspiring sense of resistance and humanity, and a struggle for justice which is shared by progressives across the world. In Hebron, I met a womens collective fighting for emancipation both from the occupation and from patriarchy. In Ramallah, I spoke with a group of young activists who gave me their perspective the state of class politics in the West Bank and on the Palestinian Authority, which often draws criticism from the Palestinian left for being a de-facto sub-contractor of the occupation and a corrupt and authoritarian one at that. Its a government by the super rich, and in the interests of the super rich, as the young activists in Ramallah put it.

A report from Amnesty International published earlier this year sets out in plain language what Palestinians and campaign groups have been saying for decades: that whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. From healthcare to justice to education, I witnessed a system of oppression that seemed to consume every aspect of Palestinian life. We must be willing to call that system what it is: apartheid.

And that system doesnt belong just to Israel. It has been allowed and at times encouraged to take form by western governments, as well as by companies that have made major profits from the subjugation of the Palestinians. The UK has played an appalling historical role in Palestine, both as colonial power (against both peoples: at various points forcing the displacement of Palestinian communities from their homes, and blocking the arrival of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust), and as an ally of reactionary Israeli governments. British companies including JCB, whose bulldozers regularly demolish Palestinian homes profit from the occupation.

That history gives us a special responsibility to act, and an opportunity to do so by targeting our own government and capitalists. Now that Im back, I will do everything I can to push the UK government to support the demands of Abu Aqlehs family. But, as they told me, one of the most frustrating things about the Wests treatment of Palestine is that it sees cases like hers as individual tragedies rather than as the product of systemic oppression. They want her killing to mark a turning point in the UKs treatment of Israel, and as a spur to action for all of us. For me, that means a campaign of divestment against companies which support and profit from the occupation, most prominently the arms trade, and sanctions against the Israeli government.

Solidarity means rooting our campaigns in ties with the left and progressives in Palestine, where socialists, feminists and LGBT activists are waging a struggle for basic rights and against their own rulers and bosses. And while Israeli politics is generally dire, I was inspired by the co-resistance of Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups. Israeli socialists, feminists and anti-racists are also key to a lasting, just peace. Organisations like Standing Together and BTselem stand in a long tradition of resistance to the occupation. Peace Now, another Israeli campaign group, took a bulldozer to the West Bank settlement Homesh last month with the aim of dismantling it.

I have rarely felt angrier than when confronted with the realities of the occupation in Palestine, but I have also been inspired by the hope and resilience of the activists I met. I intend to turn both of these feelings into action at home.

Nadia Whittome is the Labour MP for Nottingham East.

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I Met Shireen Abu Aqleh's Family And Here's What They Want From the UK - Novara Media