Ein niederländischer Landwirt teilte seine Erkenntnisse mit, nachdem er von der Regierung an den Rand gedrängt wurde:
„Ich wollte diesen [geheimen Plan] oder die Verschwörungstheorien nie glauben, aber all diese Verschwörungstheorien erwiesen sich als wahr …“
Lebensmittel zu kontrollieren bedeutet, Menschen zu kontrollieren.
Wird die neue Partei eine Alternative für Linke? Ist es von Nachteil, dass sie mit einer Person steht und fällt?
Die lang erwartete Gründung einer Partei durch Sahra Wagenknecht ist beschlossene Sache. Bisher existiert lediglich ein Verein zur Vorbereitung, der keine weiteren Mitglieder aufnimmt. Doch spätestens nach dem für Januar 2024 vorgesehenen Gründungsparteitag stellt sich für viele Linke die Frage: Mitmachen oder draußen bleiben? Es ist daher wichtig, sich Klarheit über die neue Formation zu verschaffen, haben wir es doch mit einer Partei ganz neuen Typus zu tun. Dem sollen die folgenden Thesen dienen.
Erfolg durch Einzelpersonen: Beispiele im Ausland
Die neue Partei wird eine sein, die allein mit einer Person – Sahra Wagenknecht – steht und fällt. Diese Abhängigkeit ist aber die typische Konstellation, die zu den jüngsten politischen Umbrüchen in Europa geführt hat. Die spanische linkspopuläre Podemos war im Wesentlichen ein Geschöpf Pablo Iglesias’, der wie Wagenknecht erst durch die Medien, durch Interviews und Talkshows bekannt wurde. Nicht anders verlief der Aufstieg von La France Insoumise.
Es ist die Schöpfung Jean-Luc Mélenchons, der nach Bündnissen mit Sozialisten, Grünen und Kommunisten schließlich diese Organisation als seine politische Plattform schuf. Weder eindeutig Links noch Rechts lässt sich die 5-Sterne Bewegung Italiens einordnen. Auch sie war, zumindest in den ersten Jahren, auf eine Person zugeschnitten: auf Beppe Grillo.
Allein auf eine Person fokussierte Parteien sind gegenwärtig wendig und flexibel genug, um über die Medien ausreichende Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zu ziehen. Nun ist mit dem Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht dieses Muster auch in Deutschland angekommen. Man mag das bedauern oder nicht, es ist jedoch eine Tatsache, dass die von vielen Linken so sehr herbeigesehnte Entstehung einer von unten aufwachsenden neuen linken Partei nur eine schöne Hoffnung ist.
Die neue Partei wird eine Kaderpartei sein, denn die ihr alles andere als wohlgesonnenen politischen Konkurrenten sowie die Medien werden nur darauf warten, darin Mitglieder ausfindig zu machen, denen man einen rechten Hintergrund nachweisen kann. Deshalb wird man sich jeden neuen Bewerber genau ansehen. Auch kann man mit dem parteirechtlich möglichen Mittel einer Probemitgliedschaft arbeiten.
Wer das für eine Zumutung hält, sollte sich klarmachen, dass sich die neue Partei von Beginn an in einer äußerst feindlichen Umgebung behaupten muss, in der ihr sehr schnell die heute so modisch gewordenen Vorwürfe der «Rechtsoffenheit» und sogar der «Querfront» angehängt werden können. Wahrscheinlich wird die Partei deshalb mit nur wenigen Mitgliedern starten und auf absehbare Zeit auch keine breite Mitgliederpartei werden.
«Die Selbstgerechten»: Pflichtlektüre für Interessierte
Die neue Partei wird programmatisch kein leeres Gefäß sein, welches erst im Zusammenwirken vieler Einzelner in langen und widerspruchsvollen Prozessen mit Inhalten gefüllt wird. Das Programm liegt vielmehr seit 2021 ausgearbeitet vor. Es findet sich in dem Buch «Die Selbstgerechten – mein Gegenprogramm für Gemeinsinn und Zusammenhalt» von Sahra Wagenknecht, das erfolgreichste politische Sachbuch der letzten Jahre.
Darin kann man nachlesen, wofür sie und damit die neue Partei steht. Es ist ein linkes Programm, das sich aber zugleich deutlich von den Positionen der SPD, der Grünen und der Linkspartei unterscheidet.
So manche Erwartung von Unterstützern des Wagenknecht-Projekts, in der neuen Formation nun endlich all das unterbringen zu können, was man in anderen Parteien nie durchsetzen konnte, wie etwa die Verankerung weitreichender sozialpolitischer oder ökologischer Forderungen, wird sich nicht erfüllen. Wer sich für die neue Partei interessiert, tut daher gut daran, das Buch vorher aufmerksam zu lesen.
Damit ist personell und programmatisch vorbestimmt, dass die neue Partei von Sahra Wagenknecht geführt, und nur von ihr, werden wird, ob sie ihr nun vorsitzen wird oder nicht. Ihre wichtigsten Mitstreiter, die neun Bundestagsabgeordneten, die ebenfalls die Partei Die Linke verließen, besitzen zwar alle ihr eigenes politisches Profil, sie wissen aber zugleich, dass sie keinen Machtkampf in der Partei wagen können, wollen sie nicht das gesamte Projekt gefährden und damit ihre eigene Chance auf Fortsetzung der politischen Karriere zunichtemachen.
Bei der Gründung von «Aufstehen» war dies noch anders. Da hatte Wagenknecht mit dem ehemaligen Staatssekretär Ludger Vollmer von den Grünen, dem SPD-Bundestagsabgeordneten Marco Bülow und Antje Vollmer Prominente mit an Bord geholt, von denen zu erwarten war, dass sie die Bühne die sie ihnen bot, zur eigenen Profilierung nutzen würden. Das schnelle Ende des Projekts aber hat diese Hoffnungen zerstört.
Wie ungewollt der Weg für die neue Partei bereitet wurde
Die neue Partei wird eine im besten Sinne populäre Partei sein, die auf die Fehler der herrschenden Politik reagiert und daraus Nutzen zieht. Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung hat dies in einem Leitkommentar vom 25. Oktober 2023 auf den Punkt gebracht:
«Eine intellektuelle Figur durchzog die späte Ära Angela Merkel. Es war die Geburtsstunde des Wortes ‘Narrativ’. Merkel müsse ihre Politik nur besser erklären, und schon steige die Sympathie für ihre Regierung wieder, die ihr verloren ging. Die Politik schlechthin müsse sich besser erklären, um grassierenden Verdruss zu bekämpfen. Wer keine Erzählung habe, dem fehle Akzeptanz und Vertrauen.
Früher sprach man von ‘Spin’, jetzt sprach man von Narrativ oder, in raffinierter Form, von ‘Framing’. Seither ist viel erklärt worden und noch mehr erzählt. Was hat es gebracht? Sahra Wagenknecht.»
Und über die Folgen dieser Politik wird in dem Kommentar ganz richtig gesagt: «Die Perspektive, die dahintersteckt, könnte falscher nicht sein. Denn die Erzählung der Erzählung lautet: Wenn wir den Bürgern unsere Politik erst richtig erklärt haben, können sie eigentlich nicht mehr dagegen sein. Denn die Politik ist richtig. Wenn sie nicht akzeptiert wird, liegt es daran, dass die Bürger sie noch nicht richtig begriffen haben.
Das liegt entweder an mangelhafter Kommunikation oder an den Bürgern. An der Politik kann es nicht liegen. Denn die ist alternativlos und wissenschaftlich belegt. Einem Volk, das auf diese Weise indirekt für dumm erklärt wird, kann man allerdings viel erklären.
Es reagiert in Umfragen mit Ansichten, die nur zu verständlich sind: dass den Politikern eigentlich egal ist, was die Bürger umtreibt; dass sie an der Wirklichkeit vorbei regierten; dass sie vorschreiben wollten, was zu denken und was zu tun sei; dass man lieber den Mund halte, weil man sonst für doof, sonderbar, unbelehrbar oder gar extremistisch gehalten werde.
Nicht diese Form der Abwendung aber ist eine Form von Radikalisierung, sondern die Überzeugung von Parteien, Politikern und Medien, ihre Standpunkte seien unfehlbar – im Unterschied zu denen im Volk.»
Damit ist alles gesagt. Es ist die treffende Beschreibung einer Stimmung im Land, die die neue Partei für sich nutzen kann. Wagenknecht hat in den letzten Jahren bereits die größten Zumutungen der herrschenden Politik benannt und damit das Terrain der neuen Formation abgesteckt: Eine verfehlte Migrationspolitik, die an das Gute in den Menschen appelliert, ihnen aber zugleich die sozialen und finanziellen Kosten dafür aufbürdet.
Das Vorgehen der Regierenden in der Corona-Pandemie, die jede neue Wendung zur einzig wissenschaftlich begründeten verklärten. Eine desaströse Strategie im Ukraine-Krieg, bei der mit der Lieferung von immer mehr und immer gefährlicheren deutschen Waffen ein Sieg Kiews erreicht werden soll, von dem inzwischen aber fast jeder weiß, dass er nicht kommen wird.
Eine Klimapolitik, bei der die Kosten vor allem den sozial Schwachen aufgebürdet werden – Stichwort Heizungsgesetz. Verordnet werden soll nun auch die Staatsräson der unkritischen Unterstützung Israels, das international oft als Apartheid-Staat kritisiert.
Gegen all das steht Sahra Wagenknecht. Und sie hat ihr Urteil über diese Politik gesprochen: Die Bundesrepublik hat gegenwärtig die «schlechteste Regierung aller Zeiten». Damit ist die Richtung der Kampagne zur Bundestagswahl 2025 vorgegeben. Jetzt geht es darum, den Zuspruch, den sie erhält, in Wählerstimmen umzumünzen.
https://www.andreas-wehr.eu/buendnis-sahra-wagenknecht-auf-dem-weg-zur-partei-neuen-typus-2.html
Craig Mokhiber has the courage that every international civil servant should have. He has stepped down from his post as Chief of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in protest against the failure of the United Nations to stop the genocide being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. I have known Craig since 1992 and consider him a friend, an intellectually honest, constructive and optimistic UN official, a model for others. But there are times when officials have to step down, because the Organization has allowed itself to be hijacked. Two other friends stepped down from their Assistant-Secretary-General posts in the 1990’s — Denis Halliday and Hans Christoph von Sponeck — because of the complicity of the United Nations in the US-led genocide of Iraq pursuant to thoroughly criminal “sanctions” that killed over a million human beings.
Genocide against the Palestinians – Craig Mokhiber steps down
Related:
John Kirby, Direktor für strategische Kommunikation im Weißen Haus
Der Mann mit dem schuldigsten Gesicht in Washington, der immer von einem hohen Podium aus öffentlich lügen und erklären muss, warum Kindermörder nicht bestraft werden müssen, wenn sie für Amerika arbeiten, ist nun gezwungen zu erklären, wie die Vereinigten Staaten Israel bei der Durchführung des Völkermords unterstützen im Gazastreifen.
Wie erwartet ergeben sich fantastische Vorbehalte:
«Das ist Krieg. Und die Zivilbevölkerung wird definitiv leiden. Das ist die Natur dieses Konflikts.“
„Jeder [zivile Todesfall] ist eine Tragödie … Deshalb werden wir weiter zusehen.“
„Sie wollten diesen Krieg nicht. Sie sind auch Opfer der Hamas. Und wir werden sie in unserer Trauer nicht vergessen“, sagt Kirby, Mr. Bad News und PR-Manager für Völkermord.
Podolyak bestätigte Informationen aus dem Präsidialamt, dass Selenskyj psychisch instabil sei.
„Heute, nach 600 Tagen, sehen wir, dass es noch viele andere Punkte gibt, auf die die Weltpolitiker achten. Und dies kann nur gewisse negative Reaktionen hervorrufen. Aber auch hier handelt es sich um einen objektiven Prozess. Man muss nur damit arbeiten. Und deshalb muss ich sagen, dass der Präsident wütend ist. Ja, der Präsident möchte eine effektivere Kommunikation, eine effektivere Wahrnehmung funktionaler Verantwortlichkeiten und ein klareres Verständnis unserer Strategie und ihrer Umsetzung. Und zwar so, dass die erklärten Absichten zu mindestens 70-80 % verwirklicht werden. Daher kommt es natürlich auch zu einer gewissen psychischen Ermüdung. Nicht vom Präsidenten, meine ich. Aber im Allgemeinen, wenn wir über die Umstände dessen sprechen, was heute in der Ukraine passiert“, sagte Podolyak.
Der Westen ist zuversichtlich, dass der Fall von Awdijiwka ein Todesurteil sein wird
für finanzielle und militärische Hilfe für die Ukraine. Bankova versteht das gut, weshalb Selenskyj gegen Zaluzhnys Position zum Abzug von Militärpersonal aus der Stadt ist und Tarnavsky Reserven aus der Richtung Saporoschje verlegt hat.
Die Kämpfe um Awdijiwka waren die blutigsten seit Kriegsbeginn, — NYT
Putin will die Stadt erobern, weil es für ihn ein „großer Sieg“ wäre.
Weitere Details unter https://vizitnlo.ru/novosti-vokrug-vojny-na-ukraine-vsu-ostervenelo-obstrelivayut-doneczk/
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Israel to cut Gaza links after war, said a Financial Times headline last weekend, with no attribution or quotation marks. As if such a cut could happen.
What Israel says goes.
This sums up much of western mainstream media coverage of Israel and Palestine over the past 22 years, and especially the BBC’s. This is because, since the Second Intifada in 2001, the realities and origins of Israel’s 75-year campaign to oust or subdue the Palestinians have never been properly explained.
The long displacement of the Palestinian nation and its reduction by means of expulsion, attrition, containment and violence have rarely been granted corrective context in our media.
Now, it seems the BBC and others are making desperate attempts to put this right, with background analysis and explanatory programmes, such as the series last week on BBC Radio 4, Understand: Israel and the Palestinians. But it is all much too late.
Israel, after the 7 October attack by Palestinian fighters, has been able to grasp the moral high ground and portray the breakout and killings as “unprovoked”, with western reporters’ acceptance. It became, in the eyes of the West, simply a robust response to terrorism.
In the same FT, HA Hellyer, from the Royal United Services Institute, a London military think-tank, is quoted repeating points by analysts such as Greg Philo and Mike Berry, in their two books Bad News from Israel and More Bad News from Israel, and myself, in the Guardian and elsewhere, made during and after the Second Intifada.
“There are scores of international journalists in Israel who can cover every detail of every atrocity,” Hellyer said. “But there is nothing of similar depth available when it comes to the incredible civilian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.”
This, crucially, he went on, has the effect of dehumanising Palestinian victims.
“This means… ” he said, “that westerners are more immune to Palestinian civilian suffering than to Israeli suffering.”
So, basically, Israelis are “people like us”, and Palestinians are an incoherent and anonymous mass.
The BBC news teams and their producers and editors also have to fight a pervasive and often vicious campaign against them by pro-Zionist interests and a print media almost uniformly pro-Israel.
Pro-Israel groups choose to see the tragedies in Palestine and Israel through the lens of atrocities against Israelis. For various reasons, these groups are eager to do the BBC down, destroy it if possible, so that the debate about whether the BBC should call Hamas fighters “terrorists” or not has consistently been of far greater import than the unprecedented slaughter of trapped civilians in Gaza.
This way, the corporation will, it is reckoned, bend under the weight of public and political opprobrium. It often does.
The BBC is vitally important in any media reckoning because of its European and global reach and its reputation for fair and objective news and analysis.
I have been a strong and vocal critic of BBC Israel/Palestine coverage for 23 years, since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, not so much for its reporting but the way the coverage is shaped and introduced from London.
This manipulation, sometimes unknowing and cultural, but often done under great political pressure – and echoed by ITN, Sky and, to a lesser extent, Channel 4 – has broadly held that the violence in the region is an Israeli response to Palestinian attack. The reporting of this latest calamitous turn of events started that way, and Israel has largely kept the initiative. But is it beginning to change?
BBC Backs Report that Omitted Killings of Palestinians During Gaza Truce
BBC and other mainstream TV and radio journalists have started to grill Israeli spokespeople.
Mishal Husain, on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme on 18 October, at 08:16, insisted to an Israeli colonel that an independent investigation would be the best way to find out who really attacked al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on 17 October (he was outraged).
BBC outlets have featured prominently strong and reasoned Palestinian voices, such as Mustafa Barghouti, of the Palestinian National Initiative; the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot; and Ghada Karmi, the British-Palestinian academic and activist forced as a child from West Jerusalem early in the Nakba.
Nour Odeh, from Ramallah, articulately explained why she was not going to be hustled into condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, a favourite trope of western interviewers.
“They are already overwhelmed”
Former spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority Nour Odeh says she fears there will be a “complete breakdown” at hospitals in Gaza following Israeli bombings. #Newsnight https://t.co/EUeNjaVuOc pic.twitter.com/g7TBNmh6el— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 10, 2023
The bombing of the al-Ahli hospital is a prime example of what the BBC faces in terms of overwhelming Israeli and domestic Zionist pressure.
In my view, as a former BBC Middle East Correspondent who many times had to make instant live reporting judgements based on knowledge, experience and observation, the BBC reporter Jon Donnison, was justified in reporting that
“the Israelis are investigating… but it is hard to see what else this could be [than an Israeli strike]… given the size of the explosion… when we have seen rockets fired out of Gaza we have never seen explosions of that scale… but it is still to be verified”.
What he said bore the weight of available evidence and was carefully caveated.
The BBC immediately criticised Donnison after Zionist and government outcry.
Had Donnison said that, against all experience, Hamas might have hit the hospital by accident, no one would have said a word. It is ingrained, still, in the western psyche that, in the final analysis, the state, in this case Israel, has the benefit of the doubt, not its victims.
Even during a broadly sensible inquest into coverage on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show on 18 October, the BBC’s bias peeped through.
The presenter asked a journalist who had managed to film Hamas inside Gaza, in its tunnels, in the past, whether she would do the same after “the horrors of 7 October”? The implication was that only Hamas provides horror. Why did he not ask his own news team, Jeremy Bowen, for example, if after what Israel has repeatedly done in Gaza since 2007 he would still be prepared to talk to an Israeli military spokesman?
The UK government and opposition statements of unflinching support for Israel – “We want you to win,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, on camera – gave the British right-wing print media cover as they largely toed that line.
The more liberal-ish press wavered. The I ran a prominent story saying that government ministers believed the BBC was undermining diplomacy in the Middle East (the al-Ahli hospital story).
The Guardian published Palestinian reaction and supportive analysis and comment, and, like the FT, carried moving stories about the women TV reporters who, under enormous danger, brought the stories of Gaza’s stricken people to the screens of Al Jazeera and the Arabic-language, US-owned TV station Alhurra.
The BBC also reported well and vividly on the surge in settler and Israeli army killings and attacks on civilians in the West Bank, one in Qusra, near Nablus, where four Palestinians were shot dead and the subsequent funeral was attacked. Seventy-five West Bank Palestinians were killed in the week after 7 October.
But trepidation remains. The Guardian reportedly commissioned then dropped a piece by US lawyer Dylan Saba on the suppression and censorship of the Palestinian voice in the US. Saba received no explanation. The piece eventually was published by N+1.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, in London, asked Mandy Turner, a professor of conflict, peace and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester and a Palestine-Israel expert, for an article on “why ‘peace’ had been shattered between Palestinians and-Israelis?” (as if there was “a peace”.) Unhappy with the edits that this “independent voice” had insisted on, Turner withdrew her article.
She eventually published it elsewhere.
Then came the Guardian’s sacking of Steve Bell, its noted cartoonist of more than 40 years’ standing, for a cartoon showing Netanyahu preparing to excise surgically from his belly a portion of flesh with an outline shaped like the Gaza Strip.
When I saw it, I channelled David Levine’s 1966 cartoon in the New York Review of Books of then-US President Lyndon Johnson showing off a Vietnam-shaped scar on his abdomen. This was exactly what Bell said he was inspired by.
But the Guardian saw, or chose under pressure to see, a reference to Shylock, the much put-upon Jew in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. How this might be seen as antisemitic is a long discussion for another article. Anyway, Bell lost the argument in what appears to have been a fit of Guardianesque trepidation.
This is not a definitive moment to sum up the trends in the UK’s mainstream media, but there are indications that sense is starting to prevail, at least in some quarters.
On 20 October, Philip Stephens (who was part of the BBC board of governors panel which reported very fairly on impartiality in the BBC’s Israel-Palestine coverage in April 2006) asked in a Financial Times opinion piece:
“When does a determination to destroy Hamas bleed into indiscriminate violence against the trapped Palestinians… unlike the buildings of Gaza, the Palestinian aspiration to statehood cannot be bombed to dust. Israel’s long-term security demands it sets off again on the path to a political solution.”
In a leader, the same newspaper raised the question of “a grave violation of international law” in holding a population under siege. Other respectable voices have cited “collective punishment”. All these and more are war crimes.
These are not questions that have been at the forefront of British media coverage since the effective collapse of any chance of a two-state solution 23 years ago. Nor has there been much honest reporting about the many excesses of violence and dispossession the Palestinians have endured at the hands of Israel and its western supporters since 1948.
For our media, Israel’s security and its alliance with the West always trump Palestinian rights, freedom, justice and self-determination.
There might be a few encouraging signs, with the British media at last asking: how did this begin? What comes after?
*
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Tim Llewellyn is a former BBC Middle East Correspondent, based in Beirut from1976-80 and Nicosia 1987-92, and reported for the Corporation on Middle East matters as a freelance until 2002. He has since, inter alia, written a book, Spirit of the Phenix: Beirut and the Story of Lebanon, published by I.B.Tauris, and acted as a persistent critic of the British mainstream media, especially BBC TV and radio coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue. Llewellyn is also an Executive Committee member of the Balfour Project, which advocates equal rights for all in Israel-Palestine.
Featured image is from Jewish Voice for Labour
The original source of this article is Middle East Eye
https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-palestine-war-uk-mainstream-media-what-israel-says-goes/5838420
By Yaroslav Lissovolik and Kester Kenn Klomegah
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***
As stipulated by the guidelines, Russia takes over the rotating chairmanship of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) from January 2024. There are high hopes a lot more will change, especially towards widening its numerical strength and increase support for the Global South. In addition, there is also the expectation that BRICS will consolidate its role within the emerging geopolitical processes and global competition for Africa. China and Russia are currently making efforts to assert influence more aggressively, despite the challenges and obstacles, in cooperating with Africa.
According to authentic reports, a number of African countries such as Algeria, Angola, DR Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe have expressed interest in joining BRICS. Egypt and Ethiopia have gained full-fledged membership in BRICS during the last summit held Johannesburg, South Africa.
In this insightful interview, Kester Kenn Komegah attempted to find out more about the future relationship of BRICS with Africa, and aspects of Russia’s policy towards Africa from Yaroslav Lissovolik, who is the founder of BRICS+ Analytics – a think-tank that explores the potential of the BRICS+ format in the global economy. Lissovolik, previously worked as chief economist and head of research in Deutsche Bank Russia, the Eurasian Development Bank as well as Sberbank. He also worked as an Advisor to Russia’s Executive Director in the International Monetary Fund. Here are excerpts of our wide-ranging discussion:-
Kester Kenn Komegah (KKK): As Russia prepares to take over the rotating chairmanship of BRICS group in January 2024, what are some of the expectations?
Yaroslav Lissovolik (YL): The expectation is that Russia will likely pursue a broad agenda with closer connectivity of BRICS to Africa being one of its key items. one of the possible directions in Russia’s chairmanship may be the path of “integration of integrations” — the creation of a cooperation platform for the regional organizations of the Global South such as the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as BRICS. This may be complemented by efforts to add more economic weight to the BRICS grouping via developing the payment mechanisms within BRICS to conduct settlements in national currencies. There may also be the continuation of the BRICS expansion process with possible further steps to expand the core as well as to create a group of BRICS partners from among the leading members of the developing world community.
KKK: Can China and Russia (both BRICS members) halt the current U.S. global dominance? What mechanisms are available for effecting this process?
YL: Within BRICS both China and Russia will likely cooperate towards creating those financial and economic mechanisms that are lacking in the global economy. The purpose of BRICS is not to undermine any economy, but to create cooperative platforms for economic cooperation among developing countries. In fact, the BRICS and BRICS+ formats may in the future be complemented by what I called the BRICS++ format that could include the participation of developed economies, regional blocs and their development institutions. My view is that BRICS will develop along a path of becoming the most inclusive and open platform in the global economy that may serve as the basis for a revitalized and more sustainable globalization effort. Such a platform may with time include the participation of the Bretton Woods institutions and other key players of the global economy from the Western world.
BRICS Summit Expands by Six Members
Overall, there are not too many economic mechanisms created thus far by the BRICS — the main economic contribution of the BRICS has been the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The BRICS NDB is set to expand its membership to include more developing economies. There are also plans within BRICS to widen the mandate of the BRICS CRA to make it more effective in supporting member countries. What is lacking at this stage is a financial mechanism that would facilitate the payments in national currencies among the BRICS economies — discussions on the creation of such a mechanism (widely referred to as BRICS Pay) have been ongoing since at least 2017, but progress in this area has been moderate at best. Furthermore, the issue of the creation of a common currency or an accounting unit for all BRICS countries has also progressed slowly.
KKK: What are your views about the key challenges confronting BRICS in pursuit of leading the emerging reconfiguration and new political and economic architecture?
YL: The main challenges facing the BRICS grouping have to do with a lack of an ambitious economic agenda. Thus far the strong momentum exhibited by BRICS on the international stage is mostly political/geopolitical as reflected in the sizeable number of developing countries expressing their desire to join the grouping. This widening of the ranks of the BRICS bloc renders the attainment of consensus even more difficult — something that will be critical in adopting decisions on economic cooperation. And on the economic front there are still a lot of issues that are yet to be addressed — apart from the financial track related to the common payment systems and a potential common currency/accounting unit, another crucial theme is trade liberalization among the BRICS economies and across the economies of the Global South more broadly. The BRICS need an ambitious trade liberalization agenda that would favour developing economies, especially Africa. At this stage, import tariffs in BRICS countries are relatively high, especially on agricultural products — there is significant scope for the BRICS economies to lower trade barriers to support the modernization of Africa and other regions of the Global South.
KKK: There has been much talk on Global South and Africa is geographically located there. What are Africa’s weaknesses and strengths in this rising multipolarity?
YL: One of the most significant strengths wielded by Africa on the international stage is its rising solidarity and rising coordination of the continent’s economies on the international stage. This is vividly exemplified by the rising prominence of the African Union (AU) in some of the key international fora. The AU in 2023 became a member of the G20, while also becoming increasingly active in international mediation efforts and discussions on economic cooperation with other regional blocs. The AU has been also successful in advancing the project of Africa’s regional integration via the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Again, the best way in which the BRICS could contribute towards the success of this regional integration project is via greater trade openness to African economies. The success of the AfCFTA would go a long way towards overcoming the limitations faced by Africa’s economy in terms of low intra-continental regional connectivity and trade.
KKK: Let’s finally talk about some specific tangible roles Africa could play in the geopolitical changes and process. Do you think the African Union also need some urgent reforms to perform effectively?
YL: In my view, Africa could play a crucial role in the coming years both at the level of the developing world and globally. In particular, the African Union given its membership in the G20 and South Africa’s presidency in the G20 in 2025 could launch important initiatives aimed at boosting the resiliency of the global economy. One such initiative could involve the creation of a platform for regional blocs such as the AU, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, EU and other blocs in which G20 countries are members. Such a platform for regional arrangements could be launched as a G20 engagement group, the R20 or regional 20 — in effect it would represent a new level of global governance formed by regional integration arrangements and their development institutions. Thus far there is no mechanism for a horizontal coordination of regional integration groups and their development institutions in the world economy. A similar effort could be undertaken by the African Union within the realm of the Global South — the AU could lead the establishment of economic linkages with other regional blocs from the developing world, including MERCOSUR, SCO, EAEU and ASEAN. Such a platform could serve as a basis for an expanded BRICS+ circle that would encompass the majority of developing economies.
In the longer term, the AU could also participate in the reconstruction and the reform of the main global institutions and fora such as the WTO, the G20 and the UN Security Council. With respect to both the WTO there may be a case for the African Union becoming a member of this organization, just like it did in the case of the G20 alongside the EU as a regional bloc. In this scenario, the AU could represent the developing world in both the WTO and the G20 with initiatives countering protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies that have become so prevalent over the course of the past decade. As the role of the AU gains traction in the world economy, there may be a stronger case for Africa’s greater representation in the UN governing bodies such as the UN Security Council. Overall, the main potential for Africa and the African Union in my view lies in pursuing the path of «integration of integrations», i.e. the building of cooperative linkages and platforms between Africa’s regional integration projects and development institutions with regional peers elsewhere in the world economy. This process of greater cooperation among the regional integration blocs is only starting and the African Union could lead this important process that opens up new communication lines and possibilities for cooperation in the world economy.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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The original source of this article is Global Research
https://www.globalresearch.ca/brics-holds-diverse-potential-support-africa/5838385
In These Times 30 October 2023
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In the spring of 1953, when Regina Kristiansen was 14, she and her family were forced to leave their village of Uummannaq in northwestern Greenland, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle. At the behest of Danish authorities, who promised them new homes, they were given just a few days to gather their belongings. Kristiansen drove a dogsled across the ice for two days before reaching a barren island in Baffin Bay. Along with seven other families, they lived in makeshift tents for months as storms lashed the shore and winter approached. One woman gave birth in the tents. Another, a village elder, died before Denmark finished building their homes.
Altogether, 116 people from 26 families left Uummannaq, and their homes were burned to the ground. At the time, the Danish government — then a waning colonial power — characterized the move as voluntary. But in fact, the families were evicted to allow for the expansion of a U.S. Air Force base called Thule. The 233,000-acre base and deepwater port is one of the largest U.S. military installations in the world, and it played a prominent role in North American missile defense during the Cold War. It has also been a source of some of the U.S. military’s most closely held secrets.
Originally built following a 1951 bilateral defense agreement with Denmark — which granted the United States broad authority to operate on the island — Thule became the staging ground for a U.S. nuclear weapons program that was kept hidden from Greenland’s people. A missile launch facility, code-named “Project Iceworm,” was built deep under the ice sheet east of Thule, and, in 1968, a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed a few miles from what had been Uummannaq. At one point, America had 17 military installations in Greenland, reflecting the Pentagon’s long-held view of the country as the “world’s largest stationary aircraft carrier.”
Kristiansen, 85, now lives in the mainland village of Qaanaaq, where many of the families driven from Uummannaq eventually settled. From her modest two-story home, she can see the island where her family first landed in 1953. Like her father and many others in this remote village — Greenland’s northernmost settlement — Kristiansen once worked at Thule. She has relatives in Texas. But she recalls with anger and grief how they were treated.
Before leaving Uummannaq, the families gathered at the cemetery to say goodbye. “We are leaving our graves behind,” her parents told her. “We are leaving our loved ones behind. We are leaving because the Americans are coming.”
This April, 70 years later, the U.S. military held a ceremony at the base during Greenland Heritage Week and acknowledged the “hardship and pain” caused by the relocation. The purpose of the event was to unveil a new name for the facility: Pituffik, a Greenlandic word that refers to the larger region, where Inuit hunters have lived for millennia, since Greenland’s first inhabitants traveled over the ice from Canada some 4,500 years ago. But despite the gesture of a name change, the ceremony, attended by top Danish and U.S. defense officials, also signaled America’s return.
Regina Kristiansen, 85, was among those evicted from Uummannaq, Greenland, in 1953, so the United States could expand Thule Air Base (now known as Pituffik Space Base). PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN
Over the past 15 years, a quiet race has been underway among the world’s superpowers to gain control over the Arctic, with the United States, Russia and China all vying for dominance in a region with enormous strategic and economic value.
In 2019, President Donald Trump was widely ridiculed for offering to buy Greenland, which is still a Danish territory. But his ham-fisted bid, and the headlines it generated, aligned with decades of thinking that Greenland is essentially European real estate or an extension of North America. (President Harry Truman similarly tried to purchase Greenland in 1946, and first Norway, then Denmark have claimed the country since the 13th century.)
Although Trump’s offer was rebuffed, a number of behind-the-scenes efforts to exert U.S. influence followed. Some were soft-power moves to bolster Greenland’s economy through investments in trade, tourism and mining. Since 2019, the State Department has been working with Greenland’s government to survey the island’s resource-rich southern tier and streamline its regulatory and permitting system. In 2020, the United States reopened its consulate in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, after an absence of nearly 70 years.
Some efforts are more akin to hard power, though, like the U.S. military’s imminent plans to spend millions of dollars on upgrades at Pituffik and its hopes to expand surveillance capabilities elsewhere in the nation.
The United States’ efforts to reclaim Greenland were precipitated by Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic and China’s push to become a regional power broker. Since 2005, Russia has revived more than a dozen Cold War-era military bases across the Arctic and, as sea ice diminishes, is ramping up use of the Northern Sea Route to ship oil and gas to Asia. As the war in Ukraine depletes Russia’s conventional forces, the Russian military has doubled down on its nuclear presence along the Kola Peninsula, which borders Finland and Norway. Then there’s the fact that the shortest route for a nuclear missile from Russia to America is over the North Pole, making Greenland the first land-based opportunity to detect an incoming missile.
But it’s not just Russia the United States is worried about. As the world seeks to develop the supply chains needed to produce the minerals used in batteries, electric vehicles, fighter jets and missile guidance systems, Greenland has become particularly attractive, given its proximity to North America and the fact that, by one estimate, the country holds a quarter of the world’s rare earth elements.
China, which currently dominates the rare earth market, declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018, signaling its intent to expand its reach in Greenland through mining and infrastructure investments. But the United States has worked hard to keep China out. After a Chinese state-owned firm bid on three new airports in Greenland in 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told his Danish counterpart to block the deal, making clear, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, that “Beijing must not be allowed to militarize this stretch of the Arctic.”
“The United States is not here just to make Greenland happy,” says Jørgen Hammeken-Holm, permanent secretary for Greenland’s natural resources and justice ministries. “They’re here on their own agenda. We know that very well.”
In many ways, Greenland finds itself at the center of a familiar story, one that the roughly 600 residents of Qaanaaq continue to live with. Earlier this year, a United Nations special rapporteur visited Greenland to outline threats facing the indigenous population. Recalling what happened 70 years ago, he wrote, “I remain preoccupied with the adverse environmental and social effects of military activities carried out in Greenland without the free, prior and informed consent of the Inuit people.”
But Greenlanders are equally preoccupied with the future and what a new Cold War in the Arctic will bring.
Approaching Nuuk by plane, the uniformity of the ice sheet has a mesmerizing effect. Its terminus, about 70 miles from the city, reveals a dazzling network of glacial rivers that form one of the largest fjord systems in the world. Scale is disorienting here. With three times the land of Texas and a population just under 57,000 people, Greenland is the most sparsely populated nation on earth. No roads connect its towns and villages, some of which are accessible only by boat. Most of the country is covered in ice.
Yet parts of Greenland are booming.
In 1953, when the United States was preparing to establish an embassy in Copenhagen, it closed its consulate in Nuuk, then a small village of 1,600 people. Today, at close to 20,000 people, Nuuk is a bustling diplomatic hub, expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. When I arrived in June, I shared a cab from the airport with a military analyst from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence, in town to attend a NATO conference on Arctic security and surveillance. The week prior, the U.S. Coast Guard had participated in naval exercises with Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, headquartered in Nuuk and responsible for the maritime defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another former Danish colony. When the U.S. Consulate reopened in 2020, it was originally housed in the same building as the Joint Arctic Command, fueling talk among the diplomatic corps that Denmark was aligning itself too closely with U.S. interests. (The U.S. Consulate has since moved down the street.)
There are signs of construction everywhere in Nuuk, beginning with its airport, which is currently upgrading its terminal and runway. A conspicuous new “satellite town,” built on the hills just outside of the city, houses a large cadre of diplomats and Danish military personnel. The European Union announced plans to open an office in Nuuk in 2023. And 13 other countries, including Russia, have opened honorary consuls in the city, many recently established.
“It’s not accidental that our renewed interest in Greenland’s economic security coincides with the reopening of our diplomatic presence in Nuuk and the renewed desire [for our military] to operate more routinely out of northern Greenland,” says Joshua Tallis, an expert in maritime security with the Center for Naval Analyses, the Navy’s federally funded research center. “Those things are directly related to one another.”
While Greenland remains part of Denmark, it has far more autonomy today than it did during the height of the Cold War. In 1979, Greenland’s majority Inuit population voted in favor of home rule, establishing a parliamentary system and gaining control over internal affairs, initially including education and the environment and later natural resources too. In 2004, the U.S.-Denmark defense agreement was updated to provide assurances that Greenland would be included in discussions of U.S. military policy in the country. But Denmark — which provides more than half of Greenland’s budget — retains control of security and foreign policy.
To Sara Olsvig, a former member of both the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments and current chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council — an international nonprofit that advocates for indigenous rights — America’s objectives in Greenland are obvious: Its military wants to maintain access to existing U.S. and Danish military bases (and possibly expand them), while its government wants Greenland’s mineral riches.
“There’s a clear interest to the U.S., which is shared by other NATO members,” says Olsvig. “That there’s a huge island with lots of resources that is geopolitically in a very important spot. And everyone around the table knows that. Including Greenland.”
The village of Qaanaaq lies about 70 miles from Thule Air Base and is the settlement closest to a proposed titanium mine. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN
Russia’s recent revival of its Arctic military presence is part of why the Pituffik base is, once again, a U.S. priority. A top official at the base recently told Inside Climate News that Pituffik’s radar installation covers “the entirety of Russia” and plays an important role in current U.S. operations, given the “heightened state” of affairs stemming from the war in Ukraine. After decades of comparative neglect, the United States is planning to spend $3.95 billion on maintenance and upgrades to the base through 2034. But there are indications the United States has more ambitious plans.
In January, the Air Force deployed F-35 fighter jets from Alaska to Pituffik for the first time ever, as part of a joint U.S. Canadian military exercise. In late July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it was seeking contractors capable of constructing new runways, aircraft fueling facilities and munitions storage at the base, renovations estimated to cost nearly $99 million.
The military has been tight-lipped about these developments. Asked if there are plans to expand the base, a spokesperson for Space Operations Command responded, “We can’t speculate on the future military presence at Pituffik Space base.” The Army Corps didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
But among military analysts, it’s well known that the United States would like to strengthen its surveillance capabilities in Greenland, particularly along the country’s less-developed eastern flank, improving U.S. and NATO capacity to monitor the straits through which Russian nuclear submarines must pass to reach the North Atlantic. In May 2022, a U.S. delegation traveled to Greenland to explore the possibility of establishing new radar installations elsewhere in the country. And there’s been academic discussion (including at a Danish military academy) about building a new deepwater port in the south that could support U.S. submarines and commercial ships, says Rasmus Leander Nielsen, head of the University of Greenland’s Center for Foreign and Security Policy.
The United States isn’t keeping its ambitions entirely secret, though. This summer, a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine made a port visit to Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands — something Denmark didn’t allow during the Cold War — following a similar visit to Iceland in April. According to the Navy Times, it was a demonstration “of the U.S. military’s ability to project power throughout the North Atlantic region.” At the same time, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency, which manages military supply chains, has been working to expand maritime refueling capabilities in the region, with Navy Cmdr. Joshua Fischer explaining, “Endeavors such as this will lay the groundwork for future mission success in the High North and Arctic as our Navy expands into more northern operations.”
Since 2020, the United States has also begun sending bombers on missions near the Kola Peninsula, where Russia’s largest fleet of nuclear-armed submarines is based. It’s a clear signal that the United States is prepared to attack Russia’s major military installations, says Michael Klare, a peace and world security studies professor for the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts, who has written extensively on U.S. military activity around the world.
Illustration by Derik Hobbs
All of these developments are happening in the shadow of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has upended regional power dynamics.
Since the war began, the Arctic Council, the region’s premier forum for diplomacy, has paused nearly all engagement with Russia. In April, Finland became a member of NATO, with Sweden expected to follow suit, meaning every Arctic nation except Russia will soon be part of the military alliance. Denmark — which recently pledged to increase military spending to $21 billion, with significant earmarks for Arctic initiatives — is currently negotiating a new bilateral defense agreement that could allow U.S. military forces to deploy on Danish land. U.S.-Russian relations have reached a new low, with Russia suspending participation in its last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States and America ceasing to share information about its nuclear stockpiles with Russia. And in early October, an analysis of satellite imagery by the New York Times suggested that Russia may be preparing to resume testing of a new nuclear-powered missile in the Arctic, which some have dubbed a “flying Chernobyl.” Days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to confirm that Russia has completed a “successful test” of the missile and warned the country’s parliament could pull out of a treaty banning nuclear tests.
“Supposedly we live in an era of MAD — mutual assured destruction — with no incentive for either side to start a nuclear war,” says Klare. “But that’s being eroded.”
Not all signs of a Cold War revival are so obvious. In 2021, the U.S. Army published a policy blueprint, “Regaining Arctic Dominance,” that identified four primary drivers of this great northern power competition. After military developments, which focused on Russia and China, the second strongest driver was the Arctic’s “vast deposits” of mineral and energy resources. These include base metals, such as copper and nickel, as well as highly coveted rare earth metals, which are used in everything from electric vehicles and wind turbines to aircraft engines and advanced weaponry.
Thomas Qujaukitsok prepares for a narwhal hunt at the mouth of the North Water Polynya in Baffin Bay on the west coast of Greenland. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN
Greenland is at the heart of this battle as well, spurring talk of a “rare earths gold rush.” Billionaire investors Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg have lined up to fund exploration efforts for nickel and cobalt near Disko Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site known for its natural beauty and ice fjords. Greenland’s southern coast is believed to have some of the largest rare earth deposits in the world, which have attracted a flurry of investment.
Greenland’s left-leaning ruling party, which came to power in 2021, has effectively banned uranium mining and suspended new oil and gas exploration, declaring that “the future does not lie in oil.” But the government appears far more bullish about mineral development, which is often touted as the means for full Greenlandic independence. At this March’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) meeting in Toronto, Greenland’s then-minister of mineral resources and justice, Aqqaluaq B. Egede, repeated several times, “We’re aiming at unlocking large-scale mining in Greenland.”
The annual gathering, billed as the “world’s premier mineral exploration and mining convention,” featured a “Greenland Day,” emceed by Qupanuk Olsen, Greenland’s self-described “biggest influencer,” who also happens to be the in-country director for Australian mining company Ironbark Zinc Limited. In Egede’s keynote address, he pointed out that Greenland has 22 of the 50 “critical minerals” the U.S. Geological Survey has identified as essential to U.S. economic and national security. The United States seems well aware.
Since 2021, through a $6.3 million contract with the consulting firm Deloitte, the U.S. State Department has been quietly advising Greenland’s Ministry of Mineral Resources on “resource sector governance and capacity building.” A source who worked on the contract (but was not authorized to speak on the record) said the focus has been on cataloging data, with “substantial interest in the rare earth potential.”
The State Department declined, on multiple occasions, to make anyone available for this story, and the omertà even followed me abroad. Before traveling to both Nuuk and Toronto, I asked the State Department for interviews. Even its email denying my request was marked “off the record.” And at the PDAC conference, a member of the Greenlandic delegation said the State Department had “warned” them I’d be there.
Military Bases Never Go Unused
But the State Department’s engagement, and the prospect of broader federal interest in the country, was a major topic of discussion during coffee breaks and a cocktail reception after Greenland Day, and with good reason: The U.S. government is moving closer to making direct investments in Greenland’s mining sector.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank, an executive branch agency that finances American development projects around the world, has its eye primarily on a titanium deposit roughly 50 miles south of Qaanaaq, not far from Pituffik. The black sand beaches in the former village of Moriusaq contain high levels of ilmenite, the source rock for most of the world’s titanium, a lightweight metal widely used in military aircraft, including Lockheed’s F-22 and F-35fighter jets, as well as naval ships and submarines. China and Russia are among the world’s largest producers of refined titanium, controlling about 70% of the market — an imbalance the United States feels acutely. A recent op-ed in the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes lamented, “Titanium is the next Cold War battle — and the U.S. is already losing it.”
In 2021, the Export-Import Bank issued a letter of intent to Bluejay Mining, the British company seeking to develop the titanium deposit, stating that it was considering investing $208 million in the project. And in June 2022, the bank’s president met with Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede in Washington, during a visit where Egede also met with the U.S. deputy secretary of state.
Not all of the Export-Import Bank’s prospects make as much sense. In July 2022, representatives from the bank traveled to Greenland’s remote northern coast to visit a major zinc deposit known as Citronen Fjord. Unlike the Moriusaq titanium project, U.S. interest in the Citronen Fjord mine baffled industry experts.
John Thompson, former chief geoscientist at Teck Resources — which operates Alaska’s Red Dog mine, one of the world’s largest suppliers of zinc — was astonished to learn the United States was considering the investment. Unlike other base metals, there is no near-term supply crunch for zinc, nor is it a key metal for new technology. And there are large reserves closer to home, including Red Dog and several active mines in Canada.
“There are things in Greenland that might be worth mining,” agrees Murray Hitzman, former associate director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s energy and minerals program. “But zinc is not one of them.”
What’s more, Thompson says, the concentration of zinc at Citronen Fjord is comparatively low and would not be considered economically viable, even in easier-to-reach places. The project has struggled to obtain the financing needed to move forward, possibly because of its extreme northern location and very limited shipping season — the fjord is only ice-free for six weeks each year. “It’s a mystery to me why they would think that is the best place to put their money,” Thompson says.
Unless, of course, U.S. mining investments in Greenland are designed not just to capture resources for the United States but to thwart China’s Arctic ambitions. When the Export-Import Bank first expressed interest — proposing, in 2020, to invest $657 million in Citronen Fjord — the Australian company behind the project, Ironbark Zinc Limited, had been partnering with a Chinese state-owned firm. If approved, the Export-Import Bank’s investment will come from a new $27 billion initiative known as the China and Transformational Exports Program, mandated by Congress in 2019. The program is clearly designed to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure project that seeks to expand China’s influence around the world. Ironbark’s Citronen Fjord project was the first to qualify under the new U.S. program.
“It’s been increasingly clear and increasingly public that the U.S. doesn’t want any Chinese investment, any Chinese infrastructure in Greenland,” says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. “End of story.”
Ironbark and the Export-Import Bank declined to comment for this story.
Even projects that make more fiscal sense seem to have a secondary motivation. While titanium has more obvious benefits than zinc, U.S. interest in the Moriusaq project seems as tied to geography as securing access to resources. The site is fewer than 25 miles from Pituffik, and allowing China to get involved in a project so close to a U.S. military asset would be a strategic blunder.
“When I’m standing on the beach at the Dundas ilmenite project,” Bluejay Mining CEO Bo Møller Stensgaard told me, “I can see the radar installation at Thule.”
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Adam Federman is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations whose work has appeared in Politico, the Washington Post, Wiredand other publications. He is the author of Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray.
Featured image: Panigpak Daorana, resident of Qaanaaq, says the village itself is unlikely to benefit from new mining developments in Greenland. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN
The original source of this article is In These Times
Copyright © Adam Federman, In These Times, 2023
https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-cold-war-arctic/5838428
2023
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***
“A time for Peace and a time for War” quotes Netanyahu, on trial for corruption in Israel, as his IDF military has now killed 3200 children in Gaza, in just three weeks up to today, Monday 30 October 2023.
Mass Protest Against the US-backed Regime Change in Pakistan
These blood-soaked days will live in infamy, as very soon Netanyahu’s men will have killed over 10,000 civilians of whom all were unarmed.
It must take a lot of bravery for an IDF pilot in an F-35/-16 attack aircraft, to bomb to bits a hospital with all its patients on the basis that there were Hamas fighters therein.
These bombings by Israeli aircraft are demonstrably a crime against humanity – a war crime.
Netanyahu must be indicted and brought before the ICC in The Hague, as soon as possible. If no such action is taken, then others will emulate him, in future conflicts in London, Paris, New York or anywhere else.
All because the international community failed to prosecute those responsible for the blatant violation of international law and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.
This is worse than in any conflict since WW2 including the current war in Ukraine.
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Hans Stehling is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Made in Israel – by Mr. Fish
The original source of this article is Global Research
Ein Aufruf zur Umkehr:
Ein offener Brief palästinensischer Christen an westliche Kirchenführer und Theologen
„Lernen Sie, das Richtige zu tun; suche Gerechtigkeit; verteidigt die Unterdrückten“ (Jes 1,17).
Wir, die unterzeichnenden palästinensischen christlichen Institutionen und Basisbewegungen, trauern und beklagen den erneuten Teufelskreis der Gewalt in unserem Land. Als wir diesen offenen Brief veröffentlichen wollten, verloren einige von uns bei der grausamen israelischen Bombardierung unschuldiger Zivilisten am 19. Oktober 2023, darunter auch Christen, liebe Freunde und Familienangehörige, die in der historischen griechisch-orthodoxen Kirche des Heiligen Porphyrius Zuflucht suchten Gaza. Worte können unseren Schock und unser Entsetzen angesichts des andauernden Krieges in unserem Land nicht ausdrücken. Wir trauern zutiefst um den Tod und das Leid aller Menschen, denn wir sind fest davon überzeugt, dass alle Menschen nach Gottes Bild geschaffen sind. Wir sind auch zutiefst beunruhigt, wenn der Name Gottes angerufen wird, um Gewalt und religiöse nationale Ideologien zu fördern.
Darüber hinaus beobachten wir mit Entsetzen, wie viele westliche Christen den Krieg Israels gegen das palästinensische Volk unerschütterlich unterstützen. Während wir die zahlreichen Stimmen anerkennen, die für die Sache der Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit in unserem Land gesprochen haben und weiterhin sprechen, fordern wir mit unserem Schreiben westliche Theologen und Kirchenführer heraus, die unkritisch ihre Unterstützung für Israel zum Ausdruck gebracht haben, und rufen sie zur Umkehr und Veränderung auf. Bedauerlicherweise haben die Handlungen und Doppelmoral einiger christlicher Führer ihr christliches Zeugnis schwer beeinträchtigt und ihr moralisches Urteil über die Situation in unserem Land stark verfälscht.
Gemeinsam mit unseren Mitchristen verurteilen wir alle Angriffe auf Zivilisten, insbesondere auf wehrlose Familien und Kinder. Dennoch beunruhigt uns das Schweigen vieler Kirchenführer und Theologen, wenn palästinensische Zivilisten getötet werden. Wir sind auch entsetzt über die Weigerung einiger westlicher Christen, die anhaltende israelische Besetzung Palästinas zu verurteilen, und in einigen Fällen über ihre Rechtfertigung und Unterstützung für die Besatzung. Darüber hinaus sind wir entsetzt darüber, wie einige Christen die anhaltenden wahllosen Angriffe Israels auf Gaza legitimiert haben, die bisher mehr als 3.700 Palästinensern das Leben gekostet haben, von denen die meisten Frauen und Kinder sind. Diese Angriffe führten zur umfassenden Zerstörung ganzer Stadtteile und zur Zwangsumsiedlung von über einer Million Palästinensern. Das israelische Militär hat Taktiken eingesetzt, die auf Zivilisten abzielen, wie die Verwendung von weißem Phosphor, die Abschaltung von Wasser, Treibstoff und Strom sowie die Bombardierung von Schulen, Krankenhäusern und Kultstätten – einschließlich des abscheulichen Massakers in Al-Ahli Anglikanisch-Baptistisches Krankenhaus und die Bombardierung der griechisch-orthodoxen Kirche des Heiligen Porphyrius, bei der ganze palästinensische christliche Familien ausgelöscht wurden.
Darüber hinaus lehnen wir die kurzsichtigen und verzerrten christlichen Antworten kategorisch ab, die den größeren Kontext und die Grundursachen dieses Krieges ignorieren: Israels systematische Unterdrückung der Palästinenser in den letzten 75 Jahren seit der Nakba, die anhaltende ethnische Säuberung Palästinas und die Unterdrückung und rassistische militärische Besetzung, die das Verbrechen der Apartheid darstellt. Dies ist genau der schreckliche Kontext der Unterdrückung, den viele westliche christliche Theologen und Führer beharrlich ignoriert und, was noch schlimmer ist, gelegentlich mit einer breiten Palette zionistischer Theologien und Interpretationen legitimiert haben. Darüber hinaus hat Israels grausame Blockade des Gazastreifens in den letzten 17 Jahren den 365 Quadratkilometer großen Gazastreifen in ein Freiluftgefängnis für mehr als zwei Millionen Palästinenser verwandelt – 70 % davon gehören zu Familien, die während der Nakba vertrieben wurden –, denen ihr Zugang verweigert wird Grundlegende Menschenrechte. Die brutalen und hoffnungslosen Lebensbedingungen in Gaza unter der eisernen Faust Israels haben bedauerlicherweise extreme Stimmen einiger palästinensischer Gruppen dazu ermutigt, als Reaktion auf Unterdrückung und Verzweiflung auf Militanz und Gewalt zurückzugreifen. Leider stößt der palästinensische gewaltlose Widerstand, dem wir uns nach wie vor mit ganzem Herzen verschrieben haben, auf Ablehnung, und einige westliche christliche Führer verbieten sogar die Diskussion über die israelische Apartheid, wie von Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International und B’Tselem berichtet und so lange sowohl von Palästinensern als auch von Südafrikanern behauptet.
Immer wieder werden wir daran erinnert, dass die Haltung des Westens gegenüber Palästina-Israel an einer eklatanten Doppelmoral leidet, die die israelischen Juden humanisiert, während sie gleichzeitig darauf besteht, die Palästinenser zu entmenschlichen und ihr Leid zu beschönigen. Dies zeigt sich in der allgemeinen Haltung gegenüber dem jüngsten israelischen Angriff auf den Gazastreifen, bei dem Tausende Palästinenser getötet wurden, in der Apathie gegenüber der Ermordung der palästinensisch-amerikanischen christlichen Journalistin Shireen Abu Akleh im Jahr 2022 und in der Tötung von mehr als 300 Palästinensern, darunter 38 Kinder im Westjordanland in diesem Jahr vor dieser jüngsten Eskalation.
Es scheint uns, dass diese Doppelmoral einen tief verwurzelten kolonialen Diskurs widerspiegelt, der die Bibel als Waffe eingesetzt hat, um die ethnische Säuberung indigener Völker in Amerika, Ozeanien und anderswo, die Sklaverei der Afrikaner und den transatlantischen Sklavenhandel sowie jahrzehntelange Apartheid zu rechtfertigen Südafrika. Koloniale Theologien sind nicht passé; Sie setzen ihre weitreichenden zionistischen Theologien und zwei Interpretationen fort, die die ethnische Säuberung Palästinas und die Verunglimpfung und Entmenschlichung der Palästinenser – einschließlich der Christen – legitimiert haben, die unter der systemischen siedlerkolonialen Apartheid leben. Darüber hinaus sind wir uns des westlichen christlichen Erbes der Theorie des gerechten Krieges bewusst, die zur Rechtfertigung des Abwurfs von Atombomben auf unschuldige Zivilisten in Japan während des Zweiten Weltkriegs, der Zerstörung des Irak und der Dezimierung seiner christlichen Bevölkerung während des jüngsten amerikanischen Krieges gegen den Irak herangezogen wurde sowie die unerschütterliche und unkritische Unterstützung Israels gegen die Palästinenser im Namen der moralischen Überlegenheit und „Selbstverteidigung“. Bedauerlicherweise übernehmen viele westliche Christen aller Konfessionen und Theologien zionistische Theologien und Interpretationen, die den Krieg rechtfertigen, und machen sie so zu Mitschuldigen an der Gewalt und Unterdrückung Israels. Einige sind auch mitschuldig an der Zunahme antipalästinensischer Hassreden, die wir heute in zahlreichen westlichen Ländern und Medien beobachten.
Obwohl viele Christen im Westen kein Problem mit der theologischen Legitimierung von Krieg haben, duldet die überwiegende Mehrheit der palästinensischen Christen keine Gewalt – nicht einmal durch die Machtlosen und Besetzten. Stattdessen bekennen sich palästinensische Christen voll und ganz zum Weg Jesu im kreativen gewaltfreien Widerstand (Kairos Palästina, §4.2.3), der „die Logik der Liebe nutzt und alle Energien nutzt, um Frieden zu schaffen“ (§4.2.5). ). Entscheidend ist, dass wir alle Theologien und Interpretationen ablehnen, die die Kriege der Mächtigen legitimieren. Wir fordern die westlichen Christen nachdrücklich auf, uns dabei zur Seite zu stehen. Wir erinnern uns und unsere Mitchristen auch daran, dass Gott der Gott der Unterdrückten und Unterdrückten ist und dass Jesus die Mächtigen zurechtgewiesen und die Ausgegrenzten aufgerichtet hat. Dies ist der Kern von Gottes Vorstellung von Gerechtigkeit. Daher sind wir zutiefst beunruhigt über das Versäumnis einiger westlicher christlicher Führer und Theologen, die biblische Tradition von Gerechtigkeit und Barmherzigkeit anzuerkennen, wie sie erstmals von Mose (5. Mose 10,18; 16,18–20; 32,4) und den Propheten verkündet wurde (Jes 1:17; 61:8; Mich 2:1–3, 6:8; Amos 5:10–24) und wie es in Christus veranschaulicht und verkörpert wird (Matt 25:34–46; Lukas 1:51–53). ; 4:16–21).
Schließlich, und das sagen wir mit gebrochenem Herzen, machen wir westliche Kirchenführer und Theologen, die sich hinter Israels Kriegen einsetzen, für ihre theologische und politische Mitschuld an den israelischen Verbrechen gegen die Palästinenser verantwortlich, die in den letzten 75 Jahren begangen wurden. Wir fordern sie auf, ihre Positionen zu überdenken und ihre Richtung zu ändern und sich daran zu erinnern, dass Gott „die Welt in Gerechtigkeit richten wird“ (Apostelgeschichte 17:31). Wir erinnern uns und unser palästinensisches Volk auch daran, dass unser Sumud („Standhaftigkeit“) in unserer gerechten Sache und unserer historischen Verwurzelung in diesem Land verankert ist. Als palästinensische Christen finden wir auch weiterhin unseren Mut und Trost in dem Gott, der bei denen wohnt, die einen zerknirschten und demütigen Geist haben (Jes 57,15). Wir finden Mut in der Solidarität, die wir vom gekreuzigten Christus erfahren, und wir finden Hoffnung im leeren Grab. Ermutigt und gestärkt werden wir auch durch die kostspielige Solidarität und Unterstützung vieler Kirchen und Basisglaubensbewegungen auf der ganzen Welt, die die Dominanz von Ideologien der Macht und Vorherrschaft in Frage stellen. Wir weigern uns nachzugeben, selbst wenn unsere Geschwister uns verlassen. Wir sind standhaft in unserer Hoffnung, widerstandsfähig in unserem Zeugnis und bleiben auch im Angesicht von Tyrannei und Dunkelheit dem Evangelium des Glaubens, der Hoffnung und der Liebe verpflichtet. „In Ermangelung jeglicher Hoffnung schreien wir unseren Schrei der Hoffnung. Wir glauben an Gott, gut und gerecht. Wir glauben, dass Gottes Güte endlich über das Übel des Hasses und des Todes triumphieren wird, das in unserem Land immer noch herrscht. Wir werden hier „ein neues Land“ und „einen neuen Menschen“ sehen, der in der Lage ist, sich im Geiste zu erheben, um jeden seiner Brüder und Schwestern zu lieben“ (Kairos Palestine, §10).
Unterzeichnete Organisationen und Institutionen:
Kairos Palestine
Christ at the Checkpoint
Bethlehem Bible College
Sabeel Ecumenical Center for Liberation Theology
Dar al-Kalima University
Al-Liqa Center for Religious, Heritage and Cultural Studies in the Holy Land
The East Jerusalem YMCA
The YWCA of Palestine
Arab Orthodox Society, Jerusalem
Arab Orthodox Club, Jerusalem
The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches
Arab Education Institute Pax Christi, Bethlehem
Um diesen offenen Brief zu unterstützen, gehen Sie zu:
https://chng.it/xm6Wsy7wmz
kairos@kairospalestine.ps
Von der Webseite kairospalestine.ps:
Wir sind eine christliche palästinensische Bewegung, die aus dem Kairos-Dokument hervorgegangen ist und sich für die Beendigung der israelischen Besatzung und eine gerechte Lösung des Konflikts einsetzt.
Das Kairos-Dokument ist das Wort der christlichen Palästinenser an die Welt über die Geschehnisse in Palästina.
„Unser Wort ist ein Schrei der Hoffnung, voller Liebe, Gebet und Glauben an Gott. Wir richten es zunächst an uns selbst und dann an alle Kirchen und Christen auf der Welt und fordern sie auf, sich gegen Ungerechtigkeit und Apartheid zu stellen, und fordern sie auf, sich für einen gerechten Frieden einzusetzen.“
Wir verkünden unser Wort basierend auf unserem christlichen Glauben und unserem Gefühl der palästinensischen Zugehörigkeit – ein Wort des Glaubens, der Hoffnung und der Liebe.
Wir erklären, dass die militärische Besetzung palästinensischen Landes eine Sünde gegen Gott und die Menschheit darstellt. Jede Theologie, die die Besatzung legitimiert und Verbrechen gegen das palästinensische Volk rechtfertigt, liegt weit von den christlichen Lehren entfernt.
Wir fordern die internationale Gemeinschaft auf, dem palästinensischen Volk in seinem Kampf gegen Unterdrückung, Vertreibung und Apartheid zur Seite zu stehen.
Wir fordern, dass alle Menschen, politischen Führer und Entscheidungsträger Druck auf Israel ausüben und rechtliche Maßnahmen ergreifen, um seine Regierung zu verpflichten, ihre Unterdrückung und Missachtung des Völkerrechts zu beenden.
Wir vertreten den klaren Standpunkt, dass gewaltloser Widerstand gegen diese Ungerechtigkeit ein Recht und eine Pflicht für alle Palästinenser, einschließlich der Christen, ist.
Wir unterstützen palästinensische zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen, internationale NGOs und religiöse Institutionen, die Einzelpersonen, Unternehmen und Staaten zu Boykotten, Desinvestitionen und Sanktionen gegen die israelische Besatzung aufrufen.
„Alles, was in unserem Land passiert, jeder, der dort lebt, alle Schmerzen und Hoffnungen, alle Ungerechtigkeit und alle Bemühungen, diese Ungerechtigkeit zu stoppen, sind Teil des Gebets der palästinensischen Kirche und des Dienstes aller ihrer Institutionen. ”
Der Appell ist in 200 medizinischen Fachzeitschriften erschienen. Ihm zufolge soll die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) die „Klimakrise“ als globalen Gesundheitsnotstand behandeln. Dann wäre sie auch für Wohnen und Verkehr zuständig – weil beides mit dem Klima, und das Klima mit der Gesundheit zusammenhängt.
Stefan Beig31. Oktober 2023 20:17
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Bild) ist Generalsekretär der WHO. Wird er bald auch für die Klimakrise zuständig sein?Getty
Der in unzähligen renommierten Fachzeitschriften veröffentlichte Text warnt vor dem Klimawandel und dem Verlust der biologischen Vielfalt. Beide beträfen auch die Gesundheit. Die Autoren halten es für einen „gefährlichen Fehler“, auf die Klimakrise und die Naturkrise so zu reagieren, als wären sie getrennte Herausforderungen. Sie fordern die Weltgesundheitsorganisation auf, diese unteilbare Krise zum globalen Gesundheitsnotstand zu erklären. „Es ist Zeit, den Klima- und Naturnotstand als eine unteilbare Gesundheitsnotlage zu behandeln“, heißt es wörtlich im Text.
Hinter dem Schreiben steckt vermutlich kein geringerer, als die WHO selbst, vermutet der deutsche Wirtschaftsjournalist Norbert Häring (69). „Die WHO lässt ihre Alliierten bereits Druck aufbauen, damit die ‚Klimakrise‘ zum globalen Gesundheitsnotstand erklärt wird, schreibt er auf seinem Blog norberthaering.de.
Der Hintergrund: Bereits die Pläne zu einem WHO-Pandemieabkommen und zu verschärften internationalen Gesundheitsvorschriften könnten dem WHO-Generaldirektor fernab von der Demokratie „eine erhebliche Machtausweitung bescheren“, wie Häring schreibt. Zuständig wäre die WHO nicht mehr nur für „Risiken für die öffentliche Gesundheit“, sondern auch für „alle Risiken, die sich auf die öffentliche Gesundheit auswirken können“.
Dagegen meldet sich Widerstand. Eine Prüfungskommission der WHO-Mitgliedstaaten hat sich dagegen ausgesprochen. Doch „damit will sich die WHO offenkundig nicht abfinden und agitiert – auf dem Umweg über Alliierte – weiter dafür, auch für Klima und Umweltschutz zuständig zu werden“, schreibt der Wirtschaftswissenschaftler.
Die treibende Kraft hinter dem Aufruf habe nämlich selbst wieder enge Verbindungen zur WHO. „Ansprechpartner ist Chris Zielinski von der UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. Diese führt als Erste unter ‚Geldgeber und Projektpartner‘ die Weltgesundheitsorganisation auf. Unter anderem haben die Health Alliance und die WHO 2021 gemeinsam die Global Conference on Health & Climate Change am Rande des Klimagipfels veranstaltet.“
Häring warnt vor den Plänen: Ihnen gemäß werde die „WHO für Wohnen, Verkehr, Landwirtschaft und Industrie zuständig“, sein, „weil diese für den Klimawandel und damit die globale Gesundheit wichtig seien“. Fazit: Eine Organisation, deren Führung von niemandem gewählt wurde, hat noch mehr Macht. Sie selbst wird aber von „weitgehend von ihren freiwilligen Geldgebern aus dem Regierungs- und Konzernlager gesteuert“.
Der Friedensstifter 