Category: World

Doctor from Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital dies in Israeli prison | Israel War on Gaza News

Groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners say Adnan al-Barash, head of orthopaedics, died as a ‘result of torture’.

A prominent Palestinian doctor from Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital has died in an Israeli jail after more than four months of detention, according to the enclave’s health ministry and groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners.

Adnan al-Barash, the head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s largest medical facility, was detained by Israeli forces while temporarily treating patients at al-Awda Hospital in the north of the territory, the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Committee and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement on Thursday.

The two groups blamed Israel for “killing” another medical worker and described it as an “assassination”.

With his death, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the total number of medical personnel who have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza broke out in October has reached 496.

“The killing of Dr al-Barash would not be the last crime in light of the complete secrecy of the condition of prisoners in prisons, especially those arrested from the Gaza Strip,” it said.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said she was “extremely alarmed” after learning about al-Barash’s death.

“No Palestinian is safe under Israel’s occupation today. How many more lives will have to be taken before UN Member States, especially those demonstrating genuine concern for human rights globally, act to PROTECT the Palestinians?”

Al-Barash died on April 19, the prisoners’ groups said, citing Palestinian authorities. They alleged that his death was “part of a systematic targeting of doctors and the health system in Gaza”, adding that he died “as a result of torture”.

The Israeli prison service issued a statement on April 19 saying that a prisoner detained for national security reasons had died in Ofer prison. It gave no details about the cause of death.

A prison service spokesperson confirmed that the statement referred to al-Barash and said the incident was being investigated, the Reuters news agency reported.

The Israeli army responded to the AFP news agency when asked about the reported death in custody: “We are currently not aware of such [an] incident.”

 

Al-Barash was “tortured to death by the Israeli army in their secret detention sites. He was a great surgeon, full of life,” Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, a British Palestinian surgeon, posted on X.

Abu Sittah, who volunteered in Gaza’s medical facilities during the first weeks of Israel’s war and worked at the al-Shifa and al-Alhi Baptist hospitals, wrote that al-Barash was “taken hostage from al-Awda Hospital”, adding that “he was beaten to death” by Israeli prison guards.

Doctors, hospitals targeted

Al-Barash, 50, was arrested with a group of other doctors in December at the al-Awda Hospital near the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The prisoners’ rights groups said his body was still being held by the Israeli authorities.

The fate of the other doctors remains unknown.

While attacks on medical facilities and health workers are banned under international humanitarian law, according to the Geneva Conventions, the Israeli military has repeatedly targeted them.

The health ministry said about 1,500 medical workers have also been wounded during the war, while 309 remain imprisoned in Israeli jails.

It called on the international community and health and human rights organisations to intervene and protect prisoners held by Israel.

Israel routinely accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and says its operations have been justified by the presence of fighters, but it has not provided any evidence to back its claims. Hamas and medical staff deny such allegations.



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UK has begun mass arrests of potential Rwanda deportees: What’s next? | Refugees News

The British authorities have begun a series of operations to detain migrants in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy.

The UK Home Office, which oversees immigration matters in the United Kingdom, released a video on Wednesday showing armed immigration officers handcuffing individuals at their homes and escorting them into deportation vans.

In a statement, it announced a “series of nationwide operations” ahead of the first deportations to begin in the next nine to 11 weeks. Interior minister James Cleverly said enforcement teams were “working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here so we can get flights off the ground”.

Last month, Parliament approved a controversial law – known as the Safety of Rwanda Bill – that allows for asylum seekers who arrive illegally in Britain to be deported to Rwanda, even after the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful last year.

Sunak, who is expected to call an election later this year, said the flagship immigration policy seeks to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats and to tackle the issue of people-smuggling gangs.

Unions and human rights charities have expressed dismay at the wave of arrests so far. While some have succeeded in blocking transfers to removal centres, they say it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring legal action.

Who is being targeted by the campaign of mass arrests?

The Home Office has announced it is carrying out arrests within an initial cohort of about 5,700 men and women who arrived in the UK without prior permission between January 2022 and June 2023. Those who fall within this group have been sent a “notice of intent” stating that they are being considered for deportation to Rwanda.

However, it was revealed this week that government data shows that the Home Office has lost contact with thousands of potential deportees, with only 2,143 “located for detention” so far. More than 3,500 are unaccounted for, with some thought to have fled across the Northern Irish border into Ireland. Others include people who have failed to attend mandatory appointments with the UK authorities. Ministers have insisted enforcement teams will find them.

Several asylum seekers who did attend compulsory appointments with the UK authorities as part of their application for asylum this week have been arrested and told they will be sent to Rwanda.

Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the charity Migrants’ Rights Network, told Al Jazeera that “people are forced to go and report in these Home Office centres and once they are there, there is no guarantee that they’ll come out free”.

The government has not provided exact figures for the number of arrests conducted since the operation started on Monday, but detentions have been reported across the UK in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and in cities including Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow.

Maddie Harris, founder of the UK-based Humans for Rights Network, told Al Jazeera that asylum seekers from war-torn countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Eritrea with no connection to Rwanda are being arrested as part of the scheme.

One of the organisation’s clients, a young woman who has been in the UK for almost two years, was arrested as part of the crackdown. “She is absolutely terrified,” Harris said, adding that while the young woman has no connection to Rwanda, she was told she would be deported to the Eastern African country.

According to Humans for Rights Network, individuals who have filled out a Home Office questionnaire over the past two years were also being arrested. The organisation said it had initially believed completing the form indicated that the client had been admitted into the UK asylum system and could not be deported.

That assumption has been proven false and “that’s very concerning”, Harris said.

How is the arrest campaign affecting the people being targeted?

Rights groups, including Migrants’ Rights Network, have been successful in blocking the transfer of some people to removal centres in several cases, but Qureshi said it required “24/7 resistance” for each individual case.

Qureshi added that the arrests have had a chilling effect, pushing asylum seekers to evade authorities and into exploitative situations. “Raids push people underground and away from support systems,” she said. “There is no safe option for people and that has been made clear.”

Natasha Tsangarides, associate director of advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said detentions run the risk of rekindling pre-existing trauma in people who were subject to torture or ill-treatment, while also driving them away from support systems.

“Clinicians who work with torture survivors every day in our therapy rooms have recognised that many will experience re-traumatisation even with a very short time in detention,” Tsangarides said, adding that this would deteriorate trauma symptoms.

“Not only does this legislation place people at risk of harm if they are sent to Rwanda, but it spreads such terror in the community that we worry people may go underground to avoid taking any risk.”

The UK government has not ruled out sending survivors of torture to Rwanda.

The ruling Conservative party’s plan to deport immigrants who have entered the UK without permission to Rwanda has faced more than two years of legal hurdles and political wrangling between the two houses of Parliament.

In June 2022, the first flight taking refugees to Rwanda was stopped at the last minute by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Last year, the UK Supreme Court declared the deportation scheme unlawful on the basis that the government could not guarantee the safety of migrants once they had arrived in Rwanda.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill, which was passed on April 23, circumvented the Supreme Court ruling by designating the East African country as a safe destination, paving the way for deportations to begin.

The Illegal Migration Act, which became law in July 2023, also stated that anyone who arrives in the UK on small boats will be prevented from claiming asylum, detained and then deported either back to their homelands or to a third country, such as Rwanda.

Jonathan Featonby, chief policy analyst at Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera that both legislations severely limit the ability of people to challenge their removal to Rwanda through the courts.

Under the plan, asylum seekers arriving illegally in the UK can be sent to Rwanda to be processed within the East African country’s legal system and will not be able to return to the UK.

“In reality, people’s ability to continue that challenge and get the support they need to go through that process is severely limited,” Featonby said. “There are some legal organisations coming together to make sure they can provide legal support and challenge both individual cases and the legislation itself, but it is quite unclear how successful those challenges will be.”

The senior civil servants’ union FDA on Wednesday submitted an application for a judicial review against the government’s Rwanda plan, arguing that it leaves its members at risk of breaching international law if they follow a minister’s demands.

Featonby said appeals can also be filed at the European Court of Human Rights, “but that will take time and it will likely not prevent someone from being removed to Rwanda in the meantime”.

“Not only is the legislation dehumanising people coming to the UK to seek protection, but it is shutting down the asylum process,” he added.

“We are calling for the whole plan and the Illegal Migration Act to be scrapped and for the government to run a fair, efficient and humane asylum system.”



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Palestinian employee of German development agency ‘abused’ in Israeli jail | Israel War on Gaza News

Berlin, Germany – A Palestinian employee of Germany’s state-funded development agency has been imprisoned in Israel for more than a month, where she has been beaten and subject to abusive and humiliating treatment, her family members and lawyer say.

Baraa Odeh, 34, works for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and was detained by Israeli border guards on March 5 while returning to her home in Ramallah from a work trip to Germany.

She has since been sentenced to three months of administrative detention without charge.

Neither her husband, who is a German national, nor her family have had direct contact with Odeh since her arrest.

“Our life is upside down,” her sister Shireen Odeh told Al Jazeera, adding that her family is extremely concerned for her wellbeing.

“The only thing we do is think about her. We haven’t had a normal life since they arrested her.”

Mahmoud Hassan, a lawyer for Odeh who has spoken to her in prison, said she has been physically assaulted and subject to inhumane conditions.

“When she arrived [at Hasharon] prison, she was strip-searched while the policewoman was shouting at her. She was kept in a cell and later, a policeman that also shouted at her beat her on her leg,” said Hassan, who works with Addameer Prisoner Support, an NGO that supports Palestinian prisoners.

“The policeman pushed her to the corner and the keys he had injured her hand. He kicked her. She said she had marks on her chest. He was threatening to keep her in this cell overnight.

“After a couple of hours, he took her to another room that was not clean and was very cold.”

The second room had security cameras. The toilet was so dirty that Odeh refused to use it. She was then transferred to the overcrowded Damon prison and strip-searched again.

According to reports, detainees at the site have said it is difficult to access medical care or clean clothes. Guards have allegedly blindfolded and handcuffed prisoners when they are moved, and prevented them from sleeping.

Israel has regularly detained and imprisoned workers for Palestinian aid organisations, and sometimes UNRWA, but it is unusual for the Israeli army to hold an employee of a Western organisation such as the GIZ under administrative detention.

Since October 7, when the Israel-Palestine conflict escalated, Israel has sharply increased the arrest of Palestinians in the West Bank. Most have been held under administrative detention, without being charged or given due process. Administrative detention orders are often extended, sometimes for years.

Prisoner rights groups and released detainees have raised the alarm on Israel’s systematic use of torture in its prisons, especially in recent months.

Israel has arrested 8,425 Palestinians, including about 280 women and 540 children, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between October 7 and April 22, according to Addameer. Some 5,210 administrative detention orders have been issued during the same period, while 16 prisoners have died in Israeli prisons.

Meanwhile, Israel has prevented the Red Cross from making humanitarian visits to prison detainees since October 7.

Germany ‘critical’ of administrative detention

GIZ, one of the world’s largest international development agencies, has operated in the occupied Palestinian territories since the 1980s. It works on issues such as economic development, governance and peace-building. It is funded by the German government, one of Israel’s closest allies, and is overseen by its Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

“Israeli security forces have taken a national employee of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH into custody after a private trip. After a subsequent hearing, security forces ordered three months of administrative detention, to our knowledge unrelated to her professional employment,” said a spokesperson for GIZ.

“GIZ is working with all the means at its disposal to clarify the background. We are also in close contact with the family.”

Hassan told Al Jazeera she has been visited by a German consular official in prison. The German Federal Foreign Office did not comment on this visit when asked by Al Jazeera.

Odeh is a technical adviser for GIZ, where she has been employed for 10 years. She has recently worked on projects focused on youth empowerment and psychosocial support for children, mainly in the West Bank.

She is also a graduate student at Birzeit University, where she is active in a student representative body.

After she was stopped at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing, which separates Jordan from the West Bank, Odeh was first taken to Ofer detention centre and then to Hasharon prison, where she was allegedly beaten. A few days later she was transferred to Damon prison, where dozens of female detainees have been held.

On March 11, an Israeli judge ordered Odeh to administrative detention until June 4 on the grounds that she is a security threat.

During a hearing on March 19, she was accused of working with a banned political group, based on confidential military information. Her lawyer said she denies this accusation, and that Israel has not offered any evidence against her.

The BMZ told Al Jazeera that it does not comment on individual cases.

“The protection of human life and human dignity should be the top priority in every situation – including in the context of armed conflict and in detention facilities,” a spokesperson said. “The Federal Government is critical of the practice of administrative detention – ie, the possibility of detaining people over a longer period of time based on suspicion and without trial. International humanitarian law sets strict limits on this practice.”

At the time of publishing, Israeli officials had not responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

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Jewish professor banned from US campus after arrest | Israel War on Gaza

NewsFeed

A Jewish professor who was filmed being violently arrested during an anti-Gaza war protest at Dartmouth College in the US says she had been banned from the university’s campus. Dartmouth said the ban was down to court officials and will request that ‘any errors be corrected’.

Published On 3 May 2024

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Rains, mudslides kill 29 in southern Brazil’s ‘worst disaster’ | Floods News

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state has climbed to 29, with at least 60 people missing, according to the state’s civil defence agency.

The authorities in Rio Grande do Sul have declared a state of emergency as rescuers continue to search for dozens of people reported missing among the ruins of collapsed homes, bridges and roads.

Rescuers and soldiers have been scrambling to free families trapped in their homes, many stranded on rooftops to escape rising waters.

Storm damage has affected nearly 150 municipalities in the state, also injuring 36 people and displacing more than 10,000.

Governor Eduardo Leite said Rio Grande do Sul was dealing with “the worst disaster in [its] history”, adding that the number of dead was expected to rise.

On Thursday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised “there will be no lack of human or material resources” to “minimize the suffering this extreme event … is causing in the state”.

Federal authorities have already made available 12 aircraft, 45 vehicles and 12 boats as well as 626 soldiers to help clear roads, distribute food, water and mattresses, and set up shelters.

Forecasts warned that the state’s main Guaiba river, which has already overflowed its banks in some areas, could rise to four metres (13 feet) on Friday.

Entire communities in Rio Grande do Sul have been completely cut off as the persistent rains have destroyed bridges and blocked roads, and left towns without telephone and internet services.

The authorities have told people to avoid areas along state highways due to the risk of mudslides, and urged those who live near rivers or on hillsides to evacuate.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without access to drinking water, while classes have been suspended statewide.

South America’s largest country has suffered a string of recent extreme weather events, which experts say are made more likely by climate change. The floods came amid a cold front battering the south and southeast, following a wave of extreme heat.

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World Press Freedom Day: Gaza conflict deadliest for journalists | Freedom of the Press News

Every year on May 3, UNESCO commemorates World Press Freedom Day.

It is being marked today at a particularly perilous time for journalists globally, with Israel’s war on Gaza becoming the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers.

“When we lose a journalist, we lose our eyes and ears to the outside world. We lose a voice for the voiceless,” Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement today.

“World Press Freedom Day was established to celebrate the value of truth and to protect the people who work courageously to uncover it.”

Deadliest period for journalists in Gaza

More than 100 journalists and media workers, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in the first seven months of war in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

Gaza’s media office has the number at more than 140 killed, which averages to five journalists killed every week since October 7.

Since the start of the war, at least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 others injured in Gaza. More than 8,000 others are missing, buried under the rubble.

“Gaza’s reporters must be protected, those who wish must be evacuated, and Gaza’s gates must be opened to international media.” Jonathan Dagher, Head of RSF’s Middle East desk said in a statement in April.

“The few reporters who have been able to leave bear witness to the same terrifying reality of journalists being attacked, injured and killed … Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency.”

Al Jazeera journalists killed and injured in Gaza

On January 7, Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was killed by an Israeli missile in Khan Younis. Hamza, who was a journalist like his father, was in a vehicle near al-Mawasi, a supposedly safe area that Israel designated, with another journalist, Mustafa Thuraya, who was also killed in the attack.

According to reports from Al Jazeera correspondents, Hamza and Mustafa’s vehicle was targeted as they were trying to interview civilians displaced by previous bombings.

Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, centre, hugs his daughter during the funeral of his son Hamza Wael Dahdouh, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television network, who was killed in a reported Israeli air strike in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on January 7, 2024 [AFP]

The Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemned the attack, adding: “The assassination of Mustafa and Hamza … whilst they were on their way to carry out their duty in the Gaza Strip, reaffirms the need to take immediate necessary legal measures against the occupation forces to ensure that there is no impunity.”

[Al Jazeera]

On December 15, 2023, Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa was hit in an Israeli drone attack that also injured Wael Dahdouh, while they were reporting at Farhana school in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Abudaqa bled to death for more than four hours as emergency workers were unable to reach him because the Israeli army would not let them.

Abudaqa was the 13th Al Jazeera journalist killed on duty since the launch of the network in 1996.

Al Jazeera established a monument at its headquarters in Doha carrying the names of those who have paid the ultimate price in the line of duty [Al Jazeera]

In 2022, Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, renowned across the Arab world, was killed by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank while reporting.

Al Jazeera has called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for attacks on reporters.

How many journalists have been killed around the world in 2024?

So far in 2024, 25 journalists and media workers have been killed, according to the CPJ.

At least 20 of those killed were in Palestine. While two were killed in Colombia, and one each in Pakistan, Sudan and Myanmar.

In 2023, more than three-quarters of the 99 journalists and media workers killed worldwide died in the Israel-Gaza war, the majority of them Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said.

(Al Jazeera)

Where is press freedom most restricted?

To measure the pulse of press freedom around the globe, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) publishes an annual index. It ranks the political, economic, and sociocultural context as well as the legal framework and security of the press in 180 countries and territories.

According to the 2024 World Press Freedom Index, Eritrea has the worst press freedom, followed by Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran.

According to RSF, all independent media have been banned in Eritrea since the transition to a dictatorship in September 2001. The media is directly controlled by the Ministry of Information – a news agency, a few publications and Eri TV.

How many journalists are imprisoned?

As of December 1, 2023, 320 journalists and media workers were imprisoned, according to CPJ.

China (44 behind bars), Myanmar (43), Belarus (28), Russia (22) and Vietnam (19) rank as having the highest number of imprisoned journalists.

China has long been “one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists”, according to the CPJ.

Of the 44 journalists imprisoned in China, nearly half are Uighurs, where they have accused Beijing of crimes against humanity for its mass detentions and harsh repression of the region’s mostly-Muslim ethnic groups.

(Al Jazeera)

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Wall Street Journal cuts Hong Kong staff, shifts focus to Singapore | Media

Company-wide memo says the newspaper is shifting its ‘center of gravity in the region’ to Southeast Asian hub.

Hong Kong, China – The Wall Street Journal has announced staff cuts at its Hong Kong bureau as it shifts its “center of gravity in the region” to Singapore, marking the latest blow to the financial hub’s once-thriving media industry.

Editor-in-chief Emma Tucker told staff in a company-wide memo on Thursday that the newspaper was following the same path that “many of the companies we cover have done”.

The cuts include six editorial staff in Hong Kong and two reporters at the newspaper’s Singapore office, two sources familiar with the matter told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

In her memo, Tucker said “some of our colleagues, mostly in Hong Kong, will be leaving us”, while listing several new positions in Singapore, including an editor and several reporters.

“At the core of these changes is the creation of a new business, finance and economics group,” she said.

“This unites what had been separate teams under one banner with a common goal: Focus on the biggest money stories in Asia – the rise of China’s EV industry, the chip war, China Shock 2.0, the struggles of Hong Kong’s finance industry and China’s stunning property bust.”

The WSJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since the imposition of a Beijing-decreed national security law and some of the world’s toughest pandemic curbs in 2020, numerous international companies have departed Hong Kong or scaled bank operations in the city, shifting resources elsewhere.

China’s economic slowdown has also impacted the work of the army of analysts and financiers who thrived in Hong Kong’s once-free-wheeling atmosphere, in turn informing the coverage of media outlets such as the WSJ.

Earlier this year, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell to its lowest levels since 1997, the year the former British colony was returned to Chinese sovereignty, in what was widely seen as an ominous sign for the future of the city’s economy – although the market has rebounded over 10 percent during the last month.

Hundreds of thousands of expatriate and local residents have departed the city in recent years, many of them driven to leave by harsh zero-COVID curbs and a national security crackdown that has weakened rights and freedoms that are supposed to be guaranteed until 2047 under an arrangement known as “one country, two systems”.

Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officials have argued that a greater focus on national security has been necessary to restore peace and stability to the city after mass antigovernment protests in 2019 that devolved into widespread property destruction and clashes with police.

Several local independent news outlets have shuttered under political pressure, while international media including The New York Times and Radio Free Asia have shifted editorial positions to cities such as Seoul and Taipei.

Once known as one of the freest media environments in Asia, Hong Kong ranks 135 out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) latest media freedom index released on Friday, falling between the Philippines and South Sudan.

Last month, Hong Kong immigration authorities denied entry to an RSF representative who visited the city to attend the ongoing national security trial of media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

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Why are Pakistan’s wheat farmers protesting against the government? | Food News

Islamabad, Pakistan – Tens of thousands of farmers in Pakistan are holding protests in several cities over the government’s decision not to buy their wheat, causing them huge losses in income.

The farmers in Punjab, the country’s largest province and often called the “bread basket” of Pakistan, are demanding that the government stop wheat imports that have flooded the market at a time when they expect bumper crops.

At a protest in Lahore, the provincial capital, on Monday, police violently pushed back the farmers with batons and arrested dozens of them.

Here is what we know about the issue so far:

What triggered the protests?

The farmers are furious about the import of wheat in the second half of last year and the first three months of this year, resulting in an excess of wheat in the market and reducing prices.

Agriculture is one of the most significant income sectors in Pakistan, making up nearly 23 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. Wheat makes up 2 percent of the whole.

Following devastating floods in Pakistan in 2022, the impact on wheat farming caused a shortage of wheat in early 2023. While Pakistan consumes around 30 million tonnes of wheat per year, only 26.2 million tonnes were produced in 2022, pushing up prices and resulting in long queues of people in cities trying to buy wheat. There were even instances of people being crushed in crowds trying to access wheat.

The farmers accuse recent wheat import policies of causing their financial woes [Bilawal Arbab/EPA]

The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the ruling coalition at the time, decided to allow the private sector to import wheat in July 2023, just a month before the end of its tenure in government.

According to figures from the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, between September 2023 and March 2024, more than 3.5 million tonnes of wheat were imported into Pakistan from the international market, where prices were much lower.

As a result of the excess, at the beginning of April this year, when Pakistan’s farmers started harvesting their wheat, the country’s national and provincial food storage department was holding more than 4.3 million tonnes of wheat in its stocks.

Usually, the government purchases around 20 percent of all the wheat produced by local farmers at a fixed price (about 5.6 million tonnes, based on a 2023 yield of 28 million tonnes). This intervention in the market, it says, ensures price stability, prevents hoarding and maintains the supply chain. This year, however, it has announced that it will purchase only 2 million tonnes of wheat from Pakistani farmers.

If farmers produce as much wheat this year as they did last year – and in fact, they expect to produce more – that represents around only 7 percent of total produce, leaving farmers out of pocket, they say.

Khalid Mehmood Khokhar, president of the farmers’ organisation Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) and a farmer from the city of Multan in Punjab, said that also allowing private importers to bring unlimited wheat into the country last year means that farmers will now have to sell what they can to other sources at much-reduced prices – and they will suffer great losses.

“With a bumper crop, we are expected to grow nearly 32 million metric tonnes of wheat this year, but with the government’s coffers already full of wheat, we will be able to sell not more than 50 percent of our crop. This could result in losses of nearly 380 billion rupees ($1.4bn),” Khokhar told Al Jazeera.

Why does it matter how much wheat the government buys?

According to Adil Mansoor, a Karachi-based food security analyst and researcher, the government’s purchase of domestic wheat each year helps to set the price at which the rest of the farmers’ wheat is sold to flour millers and others in the market.

“When everybody knows that the single largest buyer [the government] will purchase the wheat at a certain price, it means that the rest of the market functions accordingly as the government has set a reference price, and sells goods on that price,” he explained.

What do the farmers say?

Ishfaq Jatt, a wheat and cotton farmer who owns 4.8 hectares (12 acres) of land in Khanewal, Punjab, said the production cost for wheat has risen sharply due to the high price of fertiliser, water and other requirements for growing wheat.

“Now we farmers also have to sell the wheat to middlemen at a much-reduced rate, incurring losses for us,” Jatt told Al Jazeera. “I have a small farm. I do not have any space to store the wheat I have grown. What will I do with it? And if I don’t earn from my harvest, how can I sow my next crops?”

He added that many farmers may opt to avoid planting wheat in future years if they feel they “cannot trust the government anymore”.

What does the government say?

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an investigation into the wheat crisis.

Bilal Yasin, provincial food minister for Punjab, told the provincial assembly earlier this week that the crisis had been caused by decisions made by the caretaker government that took over in August last year after the tenure of the previous elected government came to an end. Elections, which should have been held within three months, were delayed by the need to redraw constituencies following the latest census. They were eventually held in February this year.

“Those people who allowed the import of the wheat close to wheat harvest season are responsible for this crisis. How­ever, despite this, the government will fully support the small farmers,” the minister said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the food minister for further comment, but did not receive a response.

How will consumers be affected?

Mansoor said the government’s decision not to buy the excess wheat this year “reeks of poor planning and management”, but he pointed out that it will ultimately benefit consumers who have been hard hit by the cost-of-living crisis, as the price of wheat will fall.

“Farmers are naturally going to be very upset, with some incurring massive losses. But if consumers are getting benefit, is it a bad situation?” Mansoor asked.

Pakistan has been hit by skyrocketing prices over the past two years. At its high, inflation stood at nearly 38 percent in May 2023.

However, government action to tackle inflation – along with loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – have brought relative stability, with inflation dropping to 17 percent in April, its lowest in more than two years.

Mansoor also welcomed the government’s effective retreat from interfering in the market.

“The government should have communicated better to farmers about their plan of not purchasing wheat from them. But in the long term, it is a good thing that the government exits from the market,” he said. “This cannot be done overnight, but gradually, it should phase out its involvement in coming years.”

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KFC Malaysia temporarily closes outlets amid Gaza boycott | Business and Economy

Franchise operator cites ‘challenging economic conditions’ amid local reports linking closures to boycotts of Israel.

KFC Malaysia has temporarily closed some outlets in the country amid calls to boycott the chain over Israel’s war in Gaza.

KFC is among a number of Western brands in Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of the population is Muslim, that have been subject to boycott calls over their perceived links to Israel.

QSR Brands Holdings Bhd, which operates KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in the country, said it temporarily shut the outlets amid “challenging economic conditions” in order to “manage increasing business costs and focus on high engagement trade zones”.

“Contributing positively to the Malaysian community, preserving the brand love for KFC and protecting employees of the brand are all priority to the organisation. Employees from affected outlets were offered the opportunity to relocate to busier operating stores as part of the company’s re-optimisation efforts,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

“As a company that has been serving Malaysians for over 50 years, the focus remains on providing quality products and services to customers, while contributing positively to the Malaysian economy through job security for 18,000 team members in Malaysia, of which, approximately 85 percent are Muslims.”

QSR Brands did not specify a reason for the difficult conditions.

Local media, which linked the closures to the boycotts, cited Google Map data showing dozens of outlets affected across the country.

Boycotts in Muslim-majority countries have been blamed for a slump in the earnings of Western brands with perceived links to Israel.

In February, McDonald’s cited boycott campaigns in the Middle East, Indonesia and Malaysia for sales growing just 0.7 percent during the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with a 16.5 percent growth the previous year.

Unilever, which produces Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Knorr stock cubes, said the same month that sales in Indonesia had experienced a double-digit decline during the fourth quarter as a result of “geopolitically focused, consumer-facing campaigns”.

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Israeli firms sold invasive surveillance tech to Indonesia: Report | Cybersecurity News

An international investigation has found that at least four Israeli-linked firms have been selling invasive spyware and cyber surveillance technology to Indonesia, which has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel and is the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

The research by Amnesty International’s Security Lab – based on open sources including trade records, shipping data and internet scans – uncovered links between official government bodies and agencies in the Southeast Asian country and Israeli tech firms NSO, Candiru, Wintego and Intellexa, a consortium of linked firms originally founded by a former Israeli military officer, going back to at least 2017.

German firm FinFisher, a rival to the Israeli companies and whose technology has been used to allegedly target government critics in Bahrain and Turkey, was also found to have sent such technologies to Indonesia.

Amnesty said there was little visibility about the targets of the systems.

“Highly invasive spyware tools are designed to be covert and to leave minimal traces,” it said in the report. “This built-in secrecy can make it exceedingly difficult to detect cases of unlawful misuse of these tools against civil society, and risks creating impunity-by-design for rights violations.”

It said this was of “special concern” in Indonesia where civic space had “shrunk as a result of the ongoing assault on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, personal security and freedom of arbitrary detention”.

Concerns about human rights have intensified in Indonesia since former general Prabowo Subianto was elected president in February at his third attempt. Prabowo, who will formally take office in October, has been accused of serious rights abuses in East Timor and West Papua, where Indigenous people have been fighting for independence from Indonesia since the 1960s. He denies the allegations against him.

The report said it had discovered “numerous spyware imports or deployments between 2017 and 2023 by companies and state agencies in Indonesia, including the Indonesian National Police [Kepala Kepolisian Negara Republik] and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency [Badan Siber dan Sandi Negara]”.

Amnesty said the Indonesian police declined to respond to its queries over the research findings, while the National Crypto and Cyber Agency had not responded to its questions by the time of publication.

 

The investigation noted that several of the imports passed through intermediary firms in Singapore, “which appear to be brokers with a history of supplying surveillance technologies and/or spyware to state agencies in Indonesia”.

Over an investigation lasting several months, Amnesty collaborated with Indonesian news magazine Tempo, Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and news and research organisations based in Greece and Switzerland.

“The murky and complex ecosystem of suppliers, brokers, and retailers of spyware and surveillance, as well as complex corporate structures, allow this industry to evade accountability and regulation easily,” Amnesty International Indonesia director, Usman Hamid, was quoted as saying in Tempo.

It is not the first time that Indonesia has been linked to Israeli spyware, with Tempo reporting in 2023 that traces of NSO’s Pegasus spyware, which can infect targeted mobile phones without any user interaction, had been found in Indonesia.

In 2022, the Reuters news agency said more than a dozen senior Indonesian government and military officials had been targeted the year before with Israeli-made spyware.

Fake websites

Amnesty found evidence that, unlike Pegasus, much of the spyware required the target to click a link to lead them to a website, usually imitating the sites of legitimate news outlets or politically critical organisations.

Researchers found links between some of the fake sites and IP addresses linked to Wintego, Candiru (now named Saito Tech) and Intellexa, which is known for its Predator one-click spyware.

In the case of Intellexa, the fake sites mimicked Papuan news website Suara Papua as well as Gelora, which is the name for a political party but also an unrelated news outlet.

Amnesty also found Candiru-linked domains imitating legitimate Indonesian news sites, including the state news agency ANTARA.

Indonesia does not currently have laws that govern the lawful use of spyware and surveillance technologies but has legislation safeguarding freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and personal security. It has also ratified multiple international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Amnesty urged the Indonesian government to institute a ban on such highly invasive spyware.

Citing sources it did not name, Haaretz said NSO and Candiru were not currently active in Indonesia.

It reported that Singapore had summoned a senior Israeli official in the summer of 2020 after “authorities there had discovered that Israeli firms had sold advanced digital intelligence technologies to Indonesia”.

In responding to Friday’s findings, NSO cited human rights regulations in response to questions from Haaretz.

“With respect to your specific inquiries, there have been no active geolocation or mobile endpoint intelligence systems provided by the NSO Group to Indonesia under our current human rights due diligence procedure,” it was quoted as saying by the newspaper, referring to a framework it introduced in 2020.

Intellexa was founded by former Israeli military officer Tal Dilian [File: Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

Candiru, meanwhile, told Amnesty that it operated in accordance with Israeli defence export rules and could neither confirm nor deny the questions posed by the organisation.

Wintego did not respond to requests for comment on the research findings, Haaretz said.

Israel’s defence exports body declined to comment on whether it had approved sales to Indonesia.

It told Amnesty the sale of cyber surveillance systems was authorised only for government entities for “anti-terror and law enforcement purposes”.

The United States blacklisted NSO in 2021 over concerns its phone-hacking technology had been used by foreign governments to “maliciously target” political dissidents, journalists and activists. The designation makes it harder for US companies to do business with it.

Candiru and Intellexa are also subject to the US’s trade control rules.

In March, the US imposed sanctions on Intellexa for “developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts”.

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