Al Mayadeen – December 13, 2024
By day 434 of Israeli genocide in Gaza: 44,875 killed, 106,454 wounded
The Israeli occupation commits three massacres across the Gaza Strip in 24 hours, killing 40 Palestinians and injuring 98 others.
In the latest toll issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza on day 434 of the ongoing genocide, the number of martyrs has reached 44,875, with 106,454 wounded since October 7, 2023.
The Israeli occupation committed three massacres across the Gaza Strip in 24 hours, killing 40 Palestinians and injuring 98 others, according to the Ministry.
While some of the victims were transported to the few partially functioning hospitals in the Strip, most of them remain trapped beneath the rubble, with almost impossible means to get out amid the continuous Israeli obstruction of rescue operations.
The Israeli genocide is ongoing
Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that an Israeli drone struck east of the al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza, adding that another Israeli airstrike near the industrial complex killed two Palestinians.
In a related development, he added that three Palestinians were killed and several others were wounded following an Israeli drone strike on the al-Nasr neighborhood in Gaza City.
Our correspondent reported that an Israeli strike near the "Women Empowerment Association" in the northern part of the New Camp in al-Nuseirat led to several casualties.
He also confirmed that the death toll from the al-Nuseirat massacre has risen to 35 martyrs, with reports indicating that 50 more are trapped under the rubble.
Our correspondent reported that Israeli warplanes conducted an airstrike on the al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Israeli artillery also shelled the eastern areas of Gaza City.
Concurrently, several people were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a group of citizens near Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahia area, northern Gaza Strip.
On its part, the Civil Defense reported that its teams retrieved the body of a martyr near Al-Akkad School in the Khirbet al-Adas area, northeast of Rafah, southern Gaza.
Several were also wounded in an Israeli strike targeting a group of citizens near al-Fawakhir on Al-Nufaq Street in central Gaza City.
Famnie is immnet in Gaza
Philippe Lazzarini, speaking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, shared distressing accounts of UNRWA staff in Gaza who have been forced to eat animal feed to survive.
He described their stories as harrowing, highlighting the widespread famine in the region.
In a related context, the UNRWA posted its latest report on the situation in Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza.
Israeli forces, as per the UN organization, continue their aerial, land, and maritime bombardments across Gaza, exacerbating the already dire situation.
On December 4, 5,500 people were forcibly displaced from Beit Lahia to Gaza City, adding to the large number of displaced civilians, as per UNRWA.
Since the beginning of the Israeli war on October 7, 2023, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) affirmed that it has been providing more than half of the essential health services in Gaza, underscoring the critical role the agency plays in responding to the crisis.
Mondoweiss – December 12, 2024
Israel occupies more Syrian land with U.S. approval
Israeli forces moved further into the Syrian Golan, forcing entire towns to evacuate. While Netanyahu celebrated what he says will be an "eternal" Israeli presence in Syria, U.S. officials insist Israel’s occupation of Syrian lands is "temporary."
BY QASSAM MUADDI
Israeli forces continued their offensive inside Syria, which began following the collapse of Bashar Al-Assadﾒs regime last Sunday. Israeli troopsﾠbreached the demilitarized buffer zoneﾠestablished in 1974 between Syrian-held and Israeli-occupied Syrian territory in the Golan, and occupied new positions in the Golan heights and on Mount Al-Sheikh.
Israel’s new advances according to reports included the occupation of nine Syrian towns in the Golan, where Israeli forces forced inhabitants to leave their homes and move deeper into Syria. Israeli tanks continued to advance, reaching up to 18 kilometers inside Syria, approaching the Damascus-Beirut international highway, at no more than 23 kilometers from the Syrian capital.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes conducted at least 300 airstrikes on Syrian military positions, including air defenses, radars, missile positions and arms warehouses according to the Israeli army. Israel also bombed the Syrian public scientific research center in the outskirts of Damascus.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that “Israel’s intention is clear in preventing any danger coming from Syria,” adding that “if the new regime in Syria allows Iran to return [to Syria, in reference to Iranian military advisors who had been present in Syria since 2012], then we will confront it.”
The UN spokesperson Stephan Dujarric said that Israel’s actions are a breach of the forces disengagement agreement signed between Syria and Israel in 1974, following the 1973 war. Dujarric said that the UN peacekeeping forces are present in three locations in the Golan, and that they will remain there.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller said in a press briefing that Israel’s invasion of Syrian territory was legitimate, because according to him, it aimed at preventing rebel groups from filling the vacuum created by the collapse of the Syrian army. Miller also said that the U.S. will “monitor” Israel’s actions, and make sure that they remain temporary.
Israeli leaders, however, indicated opposite intentions. On Sunday, Netanyahu released a video statement from the occupied Golan Heights, where he celebrated the collapse of Assad’s regime saying that it was a key piece of “the Iranian alliance,” adding that the occupied Syrian Golan will remain part of Israel “for eternity.”
Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, along with the West Bank, Gaza, and the Egyptian Sinai desert. Israel’s position was at the beginning that the occupation of these territories was temporary. The occupations of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza continue until today, 57 years later. In 1981, Israel illegally annexed the Golan Heights and the eastern part of Jerusalem, also occupied in 1967.
Israel’s moves in Syria come amid statements from Israeli officials indicating Israelﾒs plans to announce the annexation of the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israel continues to forcibly drive Palestinians from the north of Gaza, amid calls by Israeli ministers and Knesset members to settle and annex the Gaza Strip as well.
Global Research – December 13, 2024
Syria Left Alone by an Abandoning World:The End Game Is “Greater Israel”?
By Peter Koenig
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad was long in the making and has nothing to do with a civil war. There has never been a fight of the Syrian people against Assad. But President al-Assad fought against foreign-infiltrated and paid mercenaries, terrorists, including US-created Al Qaeda and IS / ISIS.
The traditional allies like Russia, Iran, and Iraq, suddenly disappeared. Russia made a semblance of fighting alongside the already badly damaged Syrian Air Force – to no avail. Then the Russians left, or rather, became busy evacuating their air bases in Syria. In time, before they would fall into the eager hands of Israel and its allied terrorist bands.
The connection between the Zionist-Israeli war against Palestine, then Lebanon and now Syria, next possibly Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Ukraine war becomes ever clearer. Jordan is already in Israel’s back-pocket. Without a fight. It is all about the Big War for Greater Israel. “Greater Israel” is the hidden agenda in the Great Reset and especially the UN Agenda 2030.
Both of these “guiding documents” were created under control of the Zionist supremacists.
Greater Israel, driven by worldwide Zionism, is also behind the “normally” illegal agreement between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the UN of 2019.
For years, NATO has been successful in provoking again and again Russia, with ever more aggressive advances surrounding Russia, but preparing Ukraine for a senseless and hopeless war against Russia. This war eventually happened, with President Putin falling for the bait in February 2022, invading the predominantly Russian Donbass area for salvaging them from the murderous Ukrainian Azov Nazi troops.
While adamantly opposing western weapon deliveries to Ukraine, hence supporting Russia, Mr. Erdogan was officially accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. However, silently the Turkish PM supported the idea of a Greater Israel. Because, as part of a deal, Turkey was to incorporate northern Syria, which was long prepared as a 30-km wide “buffer zone,” under the pretext of preventing migration from Idlib to Turkey.
The buffer zone served Turkey for years to transport stolen petrol from Syrian wells to Turkey and sell it to European customers.
All the talk about a ceasefire, and the eventual truce agreement signed between Turkey and Russia in Moscow on March 5, 2020, was just a make-believe farce for Turkey, which, under Erdogan, has proven to be an unfaithful ally to just about any country to whom Turkey wanted to appear as trustworthy. Such betrayals include Russia as well as the US and NATO, of which Turkey is a prominent member.*
The NATO-provoked Russia-Ukraine conflict was the beginning of a senseless war, fought with western weapons and with western advice, and eventually with western mercenaries, if not specialized western troops, that had no other purpose than keeping Russia busy with Ukraine, losing tens of thousands of soldiers to western weapons so that Greater Israel could now march on – literally undisturbe
d.
The over a million Ukrainians senselessly killed shall not even be mentioned. All for the establishment of Greater Israel. All life is sacred, but none is as sacred as that of the Chosen People.
Some very smart psychological research must have been carried out by CIA-DARPA (the Pentagon-linked semi-secret thinktank, “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency”), Mossad and MI6 – on President Putin. They have carefully studied his hesitancy on self-imposed “red-lines”, his eagerness to belong to the “west”, and concluded, the west could do almost anything and Putin’s reactions would just be half-hearted.
The last one of those half-hearted warnings was the Russian launching of the world’s most advanced supersonic multi-warhead, multi-directional, ultra-state-of-the-art Oreshnik long-range missile, towards a relatively harmless weapon-depot in Dnipro, Ukraine, on November 21, 2024. And that after Russia having been attacked by western made ATACMS (US), and Storm Shadows (UK-France) – which were Mr. Putin’s latest Red Line.
Putin’s unimpressive reaction gave the signal that the final war on Syria could start and be finished in a few days. The end game was fast. It started on November 27, 2024 by Syrian “opposition forces”, meaning US, Israel, UK, and possibly also Turkey funded and created terrorist forces like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other mercenaries.
They advanced rapidly, led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, leader of the “Levant Liberation Committee”, a Sunni Islamist political and paramilitary organization. Aleppo fell first, then Hama and almost instantly, Damascus.
Russia, China, Iran, and Iraq were disturbingly absent. Without Russia and China, Iran would have been fully exposed to US and possibly Israeli attack missiles – targeting Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, a “coup” prepared by the recent negative inspection report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an agency dancing to the tunes of western commandos.
It was all planned, an almost perfect strategy, that started playing out with the US – Madame Victoria Nuland, Deputy Foreign Secretary-instigated Maidan Coup, in Kiev, on February 21, 2014. Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, former Secretary General of NATO, was right when he said the war started already in February 2014. And ten years later it was concluded – with a giant step forward by Zionist-Israel towards a Greater Israel for the “Chosen People”.
Strategically speaking, sadly, and for now, the west won and the east – Russia and her allies – lost. See also Paul Craig Robertﾒs excellent analysis.
What will happen next is a new ball-game. Was Russia prepared for this scenario? Being able to act now? For example, by using now the Oreshnik super-missile to strike Russia’s strategic targets in the west, in Israel and NATO countries, to – perhaps, reverse the trend?
Or is Russia just ready for internal damage control, leaving the world’s new globalist order, beginning with Greater Israel, play out?
Is the world experiencing planned chaos? Or a last-minute avoidance – and reversal – of a checkmate?
*
During the past weekend, President al-Assad transferred to the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, the responsibility to hand over the country in a peaceful way to a new “government chosen by the people.” This new government is being established by foreign-funded terrorists.
President al-Assad left the country in a military jet. He is currently in Moscow, where President Putin greeted him and has granted him political asylum. Mr. Assad’s wife, Asma, has already been in Moscow for several months, where she is receiving cancer treatment.
According to a weak declaration describing the situation, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, it is US policy in the Middle East and Syria that is responsible for the constant attacks on Syria, already during the times of Bashar al-Assad’s father, and it ceaselessly continued when his son, Bashar, took over.
Bashar al-Assad is an ophthalmologist, who had studied medicine in London. He is NOT the dictator made out to be by the west, and propagated by the western lie-media. Mr. Lavrov really does not bring any news on the table; he is just confirming the obvious.
President al-Assad wanted a free Syria for his people, pursued a liberal policy on religion – Christians were welcome – and gender equality for his highly educated people. Foreign funding for the usual “divide to conquer”, especially by the US, created religious divisions in Syria, and eventually some 50,000 Christians left the country.
Lavrov makes the US responsible for the rapid escalation and conquering of Aleppo, Homs, Hama and finally Damascus by foreign-funded terrorists, including by Turkey and Israel.
Israel occupied two-thirds of the Golan Heights area of Syria, following the 1967 Six-Day War, and then effectively annexed it in 1981. Except for the US, this action was never recognized by the UN and the international community. As part of the US-instigated escalation, in 2024 Israel occupied the remaining one third of the area. Israel has been launching missiles against and bombing Syria for most of 2024.
As it is clear today, Syria was then and is today part of the Zionist-Israel’s larger plan of a Greater Israel.
In hindsight, the so-called Arab Spring – a US-UK-Israel secret services organized Arab uprising that started in December 2010 in Tunisia, was also the signal for the US to intensify bombing of Syria, leading to the “Syrian Arab Spring” of March 2011. It converted to what is known as the “Syrian Civil War” – a misnomer for a US-led and paid for endless war of attrition, leaving Syria almost defenseless, up to the final assault, the end game of December 2024.
The more active precursor to the “endless war of attrition”, started already in 2000, when Qatar declared, they were going to build a US$ 10 billion, 1,500 km gas pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria to Turkey, and from there to further distribution to Europe. Syria, an ally of Russia, rejected, since Russia was the main supplier of gas to Europe.
Strategic planners knew, of course, that Syra would not accept the pipeline through her country. Although expected, the rejection was not liked by the US. It gave Washington an argument to start a low-key “Syrian civil war” as a CIA operation, by regular, dispersed, and deadly attacks by western funded terrorist groups.
According to Seymour Hersh, already in 2006 – possibly earlier – the US Embassy in Damascus funded dissidents, Syrian, or terrorist “imports”, to the tune of five million dollars to systematically destabilize the country.
*
Today, in practical terms, Syria no longer exists. Since the western take-over of Syria, all the way to and including Damascus, Israel has launched several hundred attacks by war planes on Syria, the largest ever since the Israeli-Syria conflict began in 1967. And this after the fall of Damascus. Attacks against a helpless Syria.
The goal of these countless and ceaseless Israeli airstrikes is to destroy all remaining weapons and war potential. It is typical for a country that plans a full take-over with occupation.
The question remains: Is this the beginning of a new Middle Eastern status quo? A Greater Israel, absorbing roughly two-thirds of what today is called the Middle East – see map above – including the world’s largest pool of hydrocarbons – essentially controlling the world’s energy supply?
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion ﾖ An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/%E2%80%A8syria-left-alone-abandoning-world/5874837
Al Jazeera – December 12, 2024
Redrawing the map: Israel seeks to remake the Middle East to its own design
Following its new attacks on Syria, Israel’s leaders and much of its media tout the creation of a new Middle East.
By Simon Speakman Cordall
Since former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s dramatic flight to Moscow on Sunday, Israel has launched hundreds of attacks on its neighbour.
Israel claims this is necessary for its defence.
But it has been attacking Syria with impunity since at least January 2013, when it bombed a Syrian weapons convoy, killing two.
Since then, Israel has attacked Syria continuously, typically claiming it was targeting positions belonging to its nemeses – Hezbollah and Iran.
In the process, according to observers,Israel has normalized for itself the idea of attacking a neighboring state…….
World Socialist Web Site – December 13, 2024
Pakistani government intensifies repression after murderous assault on Islamabad protest
Sampath Perera
After perpetrating a massacre of unarmed anti-government protestors on November 26 in Pakistan’s capital, the big-business Muslim League (PML-N) led minority government and the country’s US-backed military are continuing their brutal crackdown against supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or Movement for Justice (PTI).
Thousands of Khan supporters who were either arrested while traveling to Islamabad to join the march or during the massacre remain behind bars. They are threatened with severe criminal charges, including under Pakistan’s draconian anti-terrorism laws.
Khan himself faces “anti-terrorism” charges for calling for the Nov. 26 protest from his jail cell, as does his wife. She led protesters in their attempt to bring the protest to central Islamabad, the so-called Red Zone, where an anti-democratic blanket ban on all protests is in effect.
PTI spokesman Waqas Akram Sheikh has said 12 party supporters were killed, adding that, “The actual number is higher, but we are sharing only the confirmed figures with the media.” The live ammunition fire unleashed in the pitch dark after power was cutoff, left scores, possibly hundreds injured.
The PTI has now called for the launching of a “civil disobedience movement” from Saturday, December 14, unless the government releases its arrested supporters and establishes a “judicial commission” to investigate the Nov. 26 mass arrests and massacre.
At present, the right-wing PTI is viewed sympathetically by a large portion of the population. They resent the military’s brutal repression and domineering political role, and view the government—whose election victory was achieved through military-engineered vote-rigging—as illegitimate and committed to imposing IMF austerity.
To the consternation of the dominant factions of the military and Pakistani bourgeoisie, Khan and his PTI continue to retain support within the state apparatus, among some judges and sections of the military itself.
On Tuesday, the military announced that it has initiated court martial proceedings against the former head of its intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, on multiple charges. These include violation of the Official Secrets Act, abuse of authority and “engaging in political activities.” As head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, Hameed masterminded the military’s intervention in the 2018 elections to secure victory for Khan and his PTI. Once in power, the PTI quickly jettisoned their phony promises of an Islamic welfare state in favour of imposing still more IMF austerity.
While Khan paid back the military for its support by ceding it more governmental power, especially in the economic sphere, he later ran afoul of the military top brass, the dominant wing of the Pakistani ruling class, and Washington, principally over issues of foreign policy.
Khan and his PTI have time and again indicated their willingness to compromise with the military. They have directed their criticism over the military-engineered ouster of Khan, the stealing of the Feb. 2023 elections, and continuing repression only at certain generals. Above all, they have signaled their eagerness to mend relations with Washington, including by praising Trump on his November 5 election victory.
The military and PML-N led government, meanwhile, have adamantly rejected all PTI overtures. Instead, they have intensified their drive to suppress and criminalize the PTI.
In regard to the November 26 massacre, the government continues to brazenly lie, denying outright that any of the protesters were shot down. Declared Information Minister Attaullah Tarar in a post on X, “These bodies will only be found on TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp. They are playing politics of jokes and lies with the nation.” Although X has been blocked in Pakistan since February for most of the population, it is heavily used by the government, the military and major political parties.
The government and military-intelligence agencies are maintaining a tight grip on the media, enforced through threats and sanctions, to ensure that as little as possible is reported about the crackdown on the PTI and the widening repression more generally. In rare cases where this regime of state censors and media self-censorship is broken, journalists have been targeted, as exemplified by the kidnapping of Matiullah Jan, a prominent journalist, who was later charged with “terrorism.” The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan demanded Jan’s immediate release and stated that the “authoritarian tactic to silence journalists must cease.”
The World Socialist Web Site was informed by its readers that it was inaccessible in several major cities, including Lahore and Quetta, fore several days after November 29 when it published “Pakistani army opens fire in brazen, US-backed massacre of pro-Imran Khan protest.” While it is impossible to accurately assess the extent of this blockade, any such ban is a blatant act of state censorship.
The WSWS article provided an analysis placing the political crisis that has gripped Islamabad in the context of the devloping US imperialist-led global war. “The massacre was carried out by the Pakistani army, but it has the fingerprints of Washington and its European allies all over it. Khan is in prison as a result of an imperialist vendetta after he fell afoul of US-NATO war plans against Russia and China,” it stated.
Significantly, the WSWS article cited at length a leaked diplomatic cable that revealed Washington’s behind-the-scenes role in the ouster of Khan. The cable included extensive quotations of US State Department official Donald Lu in which he warned officials at the Pakistani embassy in Washington that the Biden administration viewed Khan’s removal as non-negotiable.
Pakistan’s bourgeois ruling elite is confronted by an unprecedented multi-faceted crisis. The economy of the nuclear-armed South Asian nation of 240 million people barely averted bankruptcy last year only to see its crisis deepen under a new spell of austerity and pro-market reforms dictated by the IMF.
It is also in a geopolitical impasse, caught in the comprehensive and intensifying US imperialist onslaught on China and its growing economy and global influence. Islamabad traditionally based its economic and security policy on the close strategic partnership between the Pakistani military and the Pentagon, and its “all-weather” alliance with China. This balancing act is increasingly impossible to maintain as Washington accelerates its economic, diplomatic, and military offensive throughout the Asia-Pacific to prepare for war with China to thwart its economic rise.
Above all, the venal Islamabad elite is fearful of its own population. The military operates as a virtual occupation force in the country’s northwestern tribal regions and Balochistan in the west. It employs methods of terror, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances and colonial style collective punishment. In October, the government proscribed the Pashtun Defence Movement or PTM, which has led mass protests against military repression in the tribal regions since its founding in 2018.
As brutal as its response to various nationalist and Islamist groups (the latter rooted in Pakistan’s nurturing and arming of the mujahedeen in the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan) is, what preoccupies the Islamabad ruling elite even more is its fear of the emergence of mass opposition within the working class. No section of the Islamabad elite has any answer to the social, democratic and egalitarian aspirations of the Pakistani masses. That is why, amidst widespread opposition, the government is seeking to further strengthen the military’s hand.
The Anti-Terrorism Act Amendment Bill 2024 and Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2024 are being rushed through parliament. The first will further broaden the anti-democratic repressive apparatus erected by the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. The bill will allow the security forces to put any individual in “preventive detention” for up to 3 months. Amnesty International found the bill “does not comply with international human rights law and standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
The 1997 act was a primary tool of the US-backed dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf (1999-2008) to target its opponents, and was deployed in the fraudulent “war on terror,” which Islamabad used to pursue the broadening of its reactionary alliance with US imperialism.
According to an increasing number of reports, the government is also deploying a new firewall technology to regulate Internet traffic in and out of the country, and spy on the population’s internet usage. The new technology provides the government with unprecedented powers to monitor, throttle, and block online content. Unlike the firewall that it replaced, the new technology cannot be bypassed by using VPN technologies, which it can detect and block. The firewall can also geo-fence content based on its location, and carry out IP-level blocking, allowing for the targeting of specific network addresses. It can detect where messages are generated and received.
Beyond regulating access to the Internet, the government is seeking to broaden the Internet crackdown through the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act. The English-language daily Dawn, which has seen the proposal, said the bill seeks “the formation of a Digital Rights Protection Authority (DRPA) to deal with issues such as the removal of online content, prosecuting people for sharing or accessing prohibited content and action against social media platforms where such content is hosted.”
The amendments include the broadening of the definition of “social media platform” to include tools and software used to access social media and any “person managing a system that allows access to social media.” The amendments introduce draconian measures against “fake news,” the catch-all justification for censorship used internationally. One is a new non-bailable offence with up to five years imprisonment or fine of up to one million rupees (most Pakistan workers won’t make 40,000 rupees a month by comparison).
Pressenza NY – December 13, 2024
Human Rights Violations in Balochistan: A Bitter Reality
Balochistan was a colony of Britain from 1839 till 1947 and on August 11 Balochistan became an independent country. There was only a 9-month window in history within which Balochistan was independent during 1947. The Indian Independence Act of 1947, which resulted in the independence of British India from British rule and the birth of both India and Pakistan, was passed by the British Parliament in that year. Nevertheless, the Act created circumstances that would lead to apprehensions of Pakistan’s control over Balochistan rather than the desired self-rule.
By Basit Zaheer Baloch
Soon after the partition of India, an army that was composed predominantly of Punjabis and was under the command of a Pakistani general, made a sudden invasion of Balochistan’s Khan Mir Ahmad Yar Khan Ahmadzai, which is more popularly referred to as Ahmad Yar Khan or Khan of Kalat. The military forced him, Yar Khan, to sign the deal for Balochistan to join Pakistan. Moreover, as both Upper and Lower Houses of Balochistan’s parliament (House of Lords and House of Commons respectively) supported the accession and there is no evidence of the document being signed, about 40 million Baloch people consider membership to have been annexed through aggression, that is, by force of the Pakistani army.
Balochistan has endured decades of systemic human rights abuses. Despite its abundant natural resources, the region remains impoverished, and its people continue to suffer. At the core of the Balochistan issue are the stifling of political opposition, ethnic exclusion, and an ongoing cycle of violence that breeds fear and instability. Grave human rights abuses in Balochistan include forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, curbs on freedom of speech, and economic oppression through the denial of essential livelihoods.
Enforced Disappearances
A wide assortment of mass human rights violations in the region is related to the problem of abductions. The Students, activists, journalists or simply people walk out of their homes and are forced into abductions by the armed forces or their coalition groups without the explanation of any kind and even legal procedures. The family members remain on the edge for an uncertain period of time since they are never provided with information about their near and dear ones or where they have been taken. It Livens up during these periods with the help of Posters and videos, but unfails every time wait and hope never dries up. Repeatedly voiced in the reports submitted to the authorities, administered by international coordination from Human Rights Watch’s and Amnesty International, the demand for accountability, so staunchly accommodates an aid, is thoroughly opposed. The state, on the other, says that it has never aided and abetted the people presented in the reports never to mention the forcible eliminations that have been purportedly termed as counter-insurgency tactics.
Extrajudicial killings
The phenomenon of extrajudicial killings is now common in enforced disappearances. The remains of the disappeared are frequently discovered in obscure locations, some of them having been tortured and executed. The “hit and throw” policy is among the brutalities that have become prominently associated with Balochistan. The operatives include those who have in the past opposed the state or supported Baloch causes. Such mass killings seem to be unrestrained and self-governing, with the absence of any approach towards meaningful investigation and justice for the victims and their families.
Freedom of speech and expression
In Balochistan, freedom of speech is at risk. Journalists who do try to cover regional affairs are intimidated, stalked and murdered. Presses were either blocked from reporting on province-wide affairs, or censored entirely. Local activists and human rights defenders using social media to campaign are often abducted, incarcerated or brutally persecuted. This fear has driven people to either seize the scene themselves, or move out of the area entirely.
Economy suffocation and fishermen’s lives:
Economic pressure is another form of tyranny in Balochistan. Fishermen in Balochistan are often rounded up, arrested at sea and denied the ability to make a living. Not only does this practice undermine their economic viability, it increases coastal poverty. What’s more, arbitrary trade sanctions and embargoes against local traders are paralyzing its economy. Those sorts of measures disproportionately impact on the already disenfranchised local community and highlight their estrangement from the state.
Capitalism at the expense of the locals Balochistan has vast reserves of gas, coal and minerals, but its citizens are the poorest in the country. Both public and private corporations abuse these resources without just distributions to the locals. This economic deprivation is nothing less than colonial slavery in Balochistan.
Conclusion
The “freedom” that Balochistan seeks to attain as an answer to its problems is infused with the ambition for self-determination, economic justice, and cultural heritage. But it also faces deep political, military and geopolitical obstacles. Although most Baloch regard freedom as a required response to their persecution, the journey towards it is difficult and riddled with challenges both domestically and internationally. The situation in Balochistan demands an individual, sophisticated strategy that takes into account the desires of the Baloch as well as the interests of the nation and region at large.
Basit Zaheer Baloch, Political worker, Human Rights activist, and writer.
https://www.pressenza.com/2024/12/human-rights-violations-in-balochistan-a-bitter-reality/
Global Research – December 13, 2024
Russia and Iran Lack Strategic Vision:Where there is no vision the people are lost
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
The latest report is that Israel has carried out 480 air strikes on territory of the former Syria and Israeli troops are moving deeper into the country. Netanyahu claims credit for Syria’s overthrow which he said is “a historic day in the history of the Middle East.” It certainly opens up the Middle East to Greater Israel.
Israel said that Syria’s fall has isolated and weakened Iran’s position and now is the time for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. See this.
The NATO secretary-general has instructed NATO members to cut spending on social services and divert the money to military spending. Security matters more than social welfare , said the secretary-general, and Europe must prepare to defend itself from aggressive Russia. Of course, it is Russia that is failing to defend herself and her allies from the aggressive West.
The Russian foreign ministry again declared Ukrainian membership in NATO to be unacceptable, but Russia has given no indication of what it can do to block it.
President-elect Trump has criticized the Biden regime for the major escalation of firing missiles into Russia. But the policy of softening up Russia for negotiations is likely to continue under Trump. Now that the Russian, Iranian, and Chinese governments have demonstrated that they are unable to act even in their own interests, it will be difficult for Trump to slow the momentum toward wider war.
Russia is negotiating with HTS, the latest name for the terrorists used by the US and Israel to overthrow Syria, for the protection of the Russian military bases in Syria. Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said the Russian forces will play an important role in the fight against terrorism. Apparently, Bogdanov doesn’t realize that it is the terrorist regime from whom he is asking protection for Russians. It seems that HTS is both the “Syrian democratic opposition” and “the terrorists.” In liberating Syria they were the democratic opposition. Now that they have Syria they are terrorists, Israel’s war with which covers Israel’s annexation of Syria into Greater Israel.
Peter Ford, the former British ambassador to Syria, said that the West intends a “master-client relationship” with those who “yesterday were al-Qaeda and ISIS,” but today are the Syrian democratic opposition.
“For Western powers, the optics of doing business with gangs and warlords designated as terrorist groups presents a problem. This can be got round, however, by pretending to have a ‘transition.’”
I have been wondering where tiny Israel would find the manpower to occupy Syria, Lebanon, and Greater Israel. It looks like they are going to use the Arabs themselves, the Shia to occupy the Sunni or vice versa.
Things change fast. It was only five days ago that Russian foreign minister Lavrov was warning of the HTS terrorists and declared Russia will oppose attempts by the militants to alter the situation on the ground in Syria. Clearly, the Russian foreign ministry had no idea that Syria was disintegrating while Lavrov was speaking. Now Syria is in the hands of the HTS terrorists/democratic opposition. The Astana agreement that Russia supported repeated the utter folly of the Minsk Agreement and destroyed Syria. Disdaining force, Russia called for “restraint.” Russia and Iran restrained, but not their enemies, or is it their “partners”?
“We are absolutely convinced of the inadmissibility of using terrorists like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to achieve geopolitical goals, as is happening now with the organization of this offensive from the Idlib de-escalation zone,” Lavrov explained during a session at the Doha Forum (source: Sputnik).
Perhaps Lavrov has forgot that the Idlib de-escalation zone is a produce of Russia’s Astana agreement.
Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, reports that Syria’s disappearance was orchestrated in the Zionist command rooms of the United States and the Israeli Zionist regime. He did not explain why Iran stood aside and accepted the destruction of its ally and buffer and route to the resupply of Hezbollah, the only force preventing Israel’s occupation of Lebanon.
Were Syria’s allies, Iran and Russia, unaware of the plot? Why did Khamenei join Putin in sitting on their butts while Washington and Israel overthrew their ally and handed them a dramatic strategic defeat. Now all they can do is to complain. But they never blame themselves.
My conclusion has been that neither Russia nor Iran has an intelligence service. Iran relies on God, and the Russian government relies on a 19th century gentleman’s diplomacy that exists today only in the heads of Putin and Lavrov. To such people it is important not to give offense, so they are incapable of acting. Strategic vision is far beyond their capability. This makes them sitting ducks. However, John Helmer reports that Russian intelligence was fully aware of what was afoot, and Putin prevented the Russian military from defending Syria. See this.
John Helmer reporting from Moscow supports my conclusion that Putin’s unwillingness to use force has discredited Russia as the leader of an alternative world to the Western-dominated one:
Having opposed but obeyed Putin’s orders forbidding them to fire on Israeli aircraft attacking Syria, or on Turkish ground operations in and around Idlib, Moscow sources believe the General Staff have now told Putin much more than the refrain, he’s heard many times before, “We told you so”. This time the General Staff assessment of the invasion of Syria, refusal of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to fight, and the replacement of the Assad regime in Damascus is that grave damage has been done to the protective alliances which Russia has been promoting in Africa, the Americas, China, and North Korea.
“We just have to accept that Iran and Russia have been comprehensively defeated in their non-fight, “a well-informed Moscow source says. “It is the worst defeat of Russia by the Turks in history. If Putin goes on now to make significant concessions in an Istanbul II negotiation with [President Donald] Trump, that will be the cherry on top of the Turkish halva. We are thinking this; no one is saying it. In the end, a defeat of Ukraine is all we care about. If Putin fails to deliver that, then he has a much bigger problem than the one he has just retreated from. Yes, this is a huge dishonour for us, but nothing is served by talking of it. Still, the situation can be redeemed in the Ukraine. This means the complete and comprehensive defeat of the enemy there.”
A non-Russian military source says the Russians he knows are “in denial. The Turks can now say we have them where we want them. This means the Israelis and the Americans can say the same. That means leverage above and beyond the Levant, in Africa, Asia and no less in Ukraine. What do the Russians have to offer their African or Asian friends now? Do they say — we’ll be there for you, of course, until the end – we mean your end. Of course, when the going gets tough, and potentially that means fighting the Americans or one of its proxy armies, the Russians now show they will blame their unwillingness to fight on their friends’ refusal to do what the Russians advise; their military incompetence; their corruption; or their racial inferiority compared to Russians.”
Amazing that Putin enables the neoconservatives’ discrediting of him. With the Washington/Israeli victory in Syria, less attention will be paid to anything Putin says. See this.
In this very important statement, John Helmer describes Putin’s acceptance of the partition of Syria by Israel, Turkey, and Washington.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-iran-lack-strategic-vision/5874883
Global Research – December 13, 2024
Weaponizing the Dollar: Trump Declares War on BRICS De-dollarization
By Ahmed Adel
Incoming US President Donald Trump is obsessed with imposing tariffs, believing this will resurrect the ailing economy. However, Trump faces the challenge that his reckless tariffs policy will only strengthen efforts to replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, especially fearing a BRICS currency.
In a Truth Social post on November 30, Trump said:
“We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US Economy.”
The president-elect’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS+ countries that try to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency is excessively bombastic. Not only does it sound sterile, but worse, it would mean the geoeconomic and commercial suicide of the US since today, the BRICS+ have surpassed the G7 of which the US is a member.
Today, the G7’s GDP has fallen substantially behind, with 30% of the global GDP measured in Purchasing Power Parity. Even when measuring the combined economies of all 32 NATO members, accounting for 30.7% of the global GDP, it pales compared to the BRICS+ 35%.
In terms of population, BRICS+ – including its five new members Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia – make up 45.3% of the world’s population, compared to 10% for the G7, while NATO represents about 973 million people.
It is clear that, up to this point, just by analyzing the hard geoeconomic data of NATO and its G7 allies, both have been significantly surpassed by the BRICS+, both in terms of GDP and population scale, not to mention their prodigious technological advances, from hypersonic missiles to military artificial intelligence.
The only three strengths left to the US today are the terrifying control of its pernicious global propaganda, its lead in quantum computing, and, above all, the omnipotent dollar, which has already begun to be undermined by the BRICS+. It is noteworthy that at the 16th BRICS+ Summit in Kazan in October, Russia and China opted for gradual de-dollarization.
The nervousness of the outgoing Biden administration’s financial authorities became evident when Brent Neiman, assistant to the US Treasury Secretary, warned on November 19 of “potential risks to international financial stability and economic security from any cross-border payments systems that fail to adhere to standards aimed at minimizing illicit activity,” in an obscene allusion to the BRICS+ communiqué of October 22 that called for a cross-border payments system to bypass Western platforms.
Two days later, on November 21, the State Department announced new Treasury sanctions against all Russian banks and Russia’s financial message transfer system to prevent Moscow from using the global financial system. The combined effect of both punitive measures in the US led to a sharp devaluation of the Russian currency, which reached 114 rubles per dollar, primarily due to sanctions against Gazprombank, its third largest bank.
This whole series of suffocating geofinancial measures seem more like the death throes of a dollar-centrism that is gradually fading away on the horizon of the advent of the new world order, multipolar, polycentric, ecumenical and civilizing.
At the BRIC Summit in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted how “weaponizing” the dollar was a “big mistake.”
“It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.”
Moscow started creating a new payment system as an alternative to the global bank messaging network SWIFT and to help facilitate trade with partners after becoming the most sanctioned country in the world.
According to the IMF, the US dollar accounts for about 58% of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, and major commodities like oil are still primarily bought and sold using dollars. However, the dollar’s dominance is threatened by BRICS’ growing share of GDP and the alliance’s intent to trade in non-dollar currencies, with India and China playing an important role.
Due to this evident threat to US economic dominance, BRICS members are still moving towards de-dollarization, but without bravado, hoping not to antagonize Trump.
South Africa was the first BRICS nation to respond to Trump’s threat, wasting no time issuing an official response the following day, denying that BRICS is planning to create a new currency. This was followed by India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar saying on December 6, “Right now, there is no proposal to have a BRICS currency.”
In reality, though, India, for example, has been a great facilitator of trade in national currencies away from the US dollar. Although a BRICS currency is realistically nowhere near realization, the trend of trading in national currencies and not the US dollar will accelerate, and no threat or tariff from Trump can stop this.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-declares-war-brics-de-dollarization/5874889
