Satellite images show Egypt levelling land and building a wall along its border with the Gaza Strip near the Rafah crossing. The construction suggests Egypt is preparing for a possible influx of displaced Palestinians, amid fears that Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah could push thousands across the line.
Published On 16 Feb 2024
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Yellow and green feathers radiating from his headdress, Davi Kopenawa strode onto the parade route with a mission in mind.
All around him, the city of Rio de Janeiro was pulsing with music and merry-making: It was February 12, and the world’s largest Carnival celebration was under way. But Kopenawa was not in town to party.
Rather, he had travelled more than 3,500 kilometres (2,000 miles) from his village in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to spread a dire message: His people, the Yanomami, were in trouble.
For decades, the Indigenous Yanomami have suffered at the hands of illegal gold miners, who destroyed vast stretches of their homeland and polluted their rivers with mercury.
But since 2019, the crisis has reached new heights, with hundreds of Yanomami dying from conditions related to the mining. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has gone so far as to declare the situation a “genocide”.
“Every day, we face death in our villages and attacks from illegal miners,” Kopenawa, a shaman, told Al Jazeera.
So this year, Kopenawa and other Indigenous leaders took an unusual step. They teamed up with Salgueiro, one of Rio’s celebrated samba schools, to stage an awareness campaign, right in the middle of the annual Carnival festivities.
The result was unveiled in the early hours of Monday at Sambadrome, one of the premier destinations for Carnival parades.
Floats dedicated to the “people of the forest” sailed down the Sambadrome’s wide parade avenue, surrounded by stands packed with thousands of spectators.
Some of the floats featured larger-than-life depictions of Indigenous peoples, arms outstretched as if to soar above the pavement. One float, however, represented the death and destruction wrought by the miners, with feathered headdresses crowning skulls.
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Israel has ramped up attacks in Lebanon – and Hezbollah has promised to retaliate.
The Israeli military has been exchanging almost daily fire with Lebanese group Hezbollah since the war on Gaza began on October 7.
Hezbollah says it is acting in solidarity with its ally in Gaza, Hamas, and that it will continue attacks as long as Israel bombards the besieged Palestinian strip.
This week, Israeli attacks killed 10 civilians – including children – in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has promised to retaliate.
Both sides say they are not looking for all-out war, but increasingly, attacks are happening far beyond the border area.
So what does each party want to achieve?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Elijah Magnier – Military and political analyst who has covered conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa for more than 35 years
Hala Jaber – Award-winning journalist and author of the book, Hezbollah: Born With A Vengeance
Gilbert Achcar – Professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies
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Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is just one of many Kremlin critics to have fallen foul of the government under President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
Navalny, 47, who Russian prison authorities said had died on Friday, was jailed in early 2021 after returning from Germany, where he was recovering from a near-fatal poisoning attack.
He was sentenced to 19 years in prison on “extremism” charges that rights organisations widely condemned. In late 2023, he was moved to the remote prison colony in the Arctic Circle where he reportedly died.
But Navalny is not the first opposition figure or Kremlin critic to die or be penalised for speaking out against Putin’s government.
Here are a few others.
The former Russian FSB spy and Putin critic was killed in 2006 after drinking tea that had been poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive isotope.
Litvinenko had accused Putin, who was prime minister at the time, of corruption and of orchestrating the Moscow apartment bombings which were used as an excuse to start the 1999 Chechen War.
Litvinenko, who had claimed citizenship in the United Kingdom, drank the poisoned tea during a meeting with two Russian spies in London. The murder is said to have been approved by Putin, but he has denied the allegation.
Some of Putin’s high-profile critics have been in exile for years. They include former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade in prison after challenging the Russian leader early in his rule.
Khodorkovsky left Russia after his release in 2013. He lives in London and has financed media projects critical of the Kremlin.
Many of Navalny’s prominent allies similarly fled Russia after his organisations were banned as “extremist”.
But the decision in February 2022 to send troops into Ukraine, which ushered in an unprecedented crackdown at home, proved to be a final nail in the coffin for Russia’s opposition movement.
Russians opposed to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine are now scattered around the world. Many have fled to Europe and Israel.
In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, the former prime minister, was shot dead as he walked home across a Moscow bridge near the Kremlin.
The 55-year-old had spoken out about Putin’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and regularly taken part in opposition protests.
Five Chechen men were convicted of killing Nemtsov, but the mastermind of the murder was never found.
Nemtov’s allies pointed to the Kremlin and to Chechen leader and Putin-ally Ramzan Kadyrov, who denied the accusation.
Opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed in April 2023 for 25 years, the harshest sentence so far, for comments critical of the Kremlin and the military operation in Ukraine.
Since the Ukraine war began nearly two years ago, the Kremlin has passed strict anti-defamation laws that make it illegal to speak out against the military and can result in long-term sentences.
Kara-Murza, 42, was jailed on charges of treason, spreading “false” information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an “undesirable organisation”.
His lawyers say he suffers from serious health problems due to two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017.
Although not a critic of the Kremlin, the Wagner mercenary group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, fell foul of his ally Putin months into the Ukraine war.
Prigozhin first rose to prominence in Russia for his fighter role in the war. But he died in a plane crash in August 2023 after criticising the army for failing to accomplish its military goals.
After taking control of Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine, Prigozhin, 62, became more vocal about his dissatisfaction with the Russian defence ministry, and in June, ordered his troops to march towards the Russian border city of Rostov-on-don.
In an address at the time, Putin said that the “armed mutiny” amounted to treason.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations that it assassinated the mercenary chief.
Famous author and outspoken Putin critic Boris Akunin, real name Grigory Chkhartishvili, lives in self-imposed exile in Europe. he was added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” by Moscow last month due to his views on the Ukraine war.
The Russian justice ministry said he had spread “false information” and accused him of helping raise money for Ukraine.
On Friday, Akunin said that Navalny’s death had made him “immortal” and he was now a more significant threat to Putin’s regime.
“I also think that a murdered Alexei Navalny will be a bigger threat for the dictator than a living one,” Akunin said.
“Most likely, to drown out voices of protest, he [Putin] will launch a campaign of terror in the country.”
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Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that Israel will pay a price “in blood” for killing Lebanese civilians, signalling the conflict across the Lebanon-Israel border could intensify.
Israeli air raids on Wednesday killed at least 10 civilians, including five children, in southern Lebanon. Three Hezbollah fighters were also killed.
In a televised speech on Friday, Nasrallah said, “The response to the massacre should be continuing resistance work at the front and escalating resistance work at the front.”
“Our women and our children who were killed in these days, the enemy will pay the price of spilling their blood in blood,” Nasrallah said.
He also highlighted that the killings had increased Hezbollah’s determination and said the group would increase its “presence, strength, fire, anger” and expand its operations.
Israel “must expect that and wait for that”.
Shortly after Nasrallah’s speech, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli army facility in Shebaa Farms, occupied territory that Lebanon regards as its own, with missiles, adding that casualties were inflicted.
Hezbollah has been trading fire with the Israeli military across Lebanon’s southern border in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which launched a cross-border assault from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7. This was followed by heavy Israeli bombardment of Gaza from the land, air and sea.
The cross-border attacks have killed at least 200 people in Lebanon, including more than 170 Hezbollah fighters, as well as 10 Israeli soldiers and five civilians.
Hezbollah officials have said they will stop attacking Israeli military posts when Israel’s assault on Gaza ends.
But there are growing fears of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah with tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border and regional tensions soaring.
The United Nations secretary-general’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric has called for the violence to stop and countries like France have also delivered a written proposal to Beirut and Israel aimed at ending hostilities and settling the disputed Lebanon-Israel frontier. But there are few signs that those efforts will bear fruit in the immediate term.
On Friday, at the Munich Security Conference, where world leaders and security analysts have gathered to discuss solutions to solve global crises, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, urged calm and said attacks on civilians needed to end.
“Just two days ago, a family of seven innocent individuals was targeted in south Lebanon. The killing and targeting of innocent children, women, and older adults is a crime against humanity,” he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told the conference that Hezbollah was just a proxy that Iran was manoeuvring as it saw fit and that Israel would not let instability in the north continue endlessly.
“If a diplomatic solution is not found, Israel will be forced to act in order to remove Hezbollah from the border and return our residents to their homes,” he said, referring to some 70,000 displaced Israelis.
“In such a case, Lebanon will also pay a heavy price,” he warned and called on world leaders to pressure Hezbollah and Iran to stop the attacks.
At a news conference in Beirut last week, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-abdollahian told reporters that Iran and Lebanon’s position was that “war is not a solution.”
However, he noted that amid Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon, “Hezbollah and the resistance in Lebanon have courageously and wisely carried out their deterring and effective role.”
Amir-abdollahian added that Tehran will continue “its strong support to the resistance in Lebanon, as we consider Lebanon’s security as the security of Iran and the region”.
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Palestinians are being forced to eat weeds and leaves to stay alive in Gaza. The UN says Gaza is on the brink of famine.
Published On 16 Feb 2024
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Following an inflammatory piece in the Wall Street Journal, Marc Lamont Hill talks to Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.
Since the October 7th attacks and the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, there’s been an uptick in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric and incidents across the United States.
A few weeks ago, an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal labelled the city of Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest Arab and Muslim communities in the US, as “America’s Jihad Capital”. The op-ed has left many of the city’s residents concerned that the piece plays into growing anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment.
Meanwhile, continuing US support for Israel has left many Muslim Americans feeling alienated by the current administration. With the 2024 election campaigns fully under way, uncertainty about the Arab-American support for US President Joe Biden continues to grow.
So what impact has Israel’s war on Gaza had on Muslim and Arab communities in the US? And how will it affect the upcoming Presidential election?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill talks to Dearborn’s Mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, on the Arab and Muslims and their reaction to the rising tensions and the upcoming presidential elections.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates will not go “unpunished” if the death of Alexey Navalny, as reported by Russian officials, turns out to be true, the Kremlin critic’s wife Yulia has said.
Russia’s prison agency earlier said Navalny died on Friday in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence. The 47-year-old had crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as Putin’s fiercest foe.
Navlany’s team said it has not yet received direct confirmation of his death and had only seen a general announcement by the regional judicial authorities.
Yulia Navalnaya called upon the international community to come together and fight against the “horrific regime” in Russia, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday in an appearance that was scheduled before the news of her husband broke.
In her speech, she expressed some doubt over the veracity of the news of her husband’s death.
“I don’t know whether we should believe the terrible news that we are receiving exclusively from Russian state sources,” said Yulia Navalnaya.
“We cannot believe Putin and Putin’s government,” she added. “They always lie.”
However, she called on the international community “to unite and fight evil”, and that Putin and his supporters would be held accountable soon.
Earlier, Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya said her son had been “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him on February 12, according to Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
“I don’t want to hear any condolences. We saw him in prison on [February] 12, in a meeting. He was alive, healthy and happy,” Navalnaya mother said in a Facebook post, according to the publication.
In his last public appearance before his reported death, Navalny spoke by videolink to a court on Thursday, Russian state media reported.
Navalny did not complain about his health and “spoke actively, presenting arguments in defence of his position”, a regional court from the city of Vladimir, to the east of Moscow, told the RIA news agency.
Separately Nikolaos Gazeas, a German lawyer for Navalny, told the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger that he was stunned by the news of Navalny’s death after seeing images of him participating in the court hearing.
“He made a fit and strong impression as usual,” he said, adding that a Russian colleague had visited Navalny on Wednesday while another was currently on his way to his prison to learn more about the circumstances of his death.
Meanwhile, other Putin opponents also reacted strongly to the news of Navalny’s death.
“There is nothing more the dictator can do to Navalny, Navalny is dead and has become immortal,” said Boris Akunin, a renowned Russian writer who lives in self-imposed exile in Europe.
“I also think that a murdered Alexey Navalny will be a bigger threat for the dictator than a living one. Most likely, to drown out voices of protest, [Putin] will launch a campaign of terror in the country,” he told AFP.
Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov described Navalny’s death as “murder”.
“Alexey Navalny was tortured and tormented for three years. As Navalny’s doctor told me: the body cannot endure such things. Murder was added to Alexey Navalny’s sentence,” he was quoted as saying by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Exiled Russian opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said on social media, “Alexei’s death is a murder. Organised by Putin … Even if Alexei died of ‘natural’ causes, they were caused by his poisoning and further torture in prison.”
Bill Browder, a British American businessman who was once among the biggest foreign investors in Russia before becoming a fierce regime critic, said on X, “Putin assassinated Navalny … He did so because Navalny was brave enough to stand up to Putin. He did so because Navalny offered the Russian people an alternative to kleptocracy and repression.”
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‘Israel operates under a climate of absolute impunity,’ says Craig Mokhiber, former top UN official.
Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza the United Nations has been under pressure. More than 85 percent of the Gazan population is currently homeless and living in dire conditions, while the UN remains in political gridlock.
Three weeks after the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, the former director of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokibher, resigned from his post, protesting that the UN was “failing” in its duty to prevent what he called a “textbook case of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. He also accused the US and most of Europe of being complicit.
So, is the UN failing in its duty to prevent the massacre in Gaza? And what is at stake for the future of Palestine?
On UpFront this week, Marc Lamont Hill discusses the role of the UN in Israel’s war on Gaza with Craig Mokhiber, the former director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has died on Friday in the Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year-term, Russia’s federal penitentiary service said.
Navalny lost consciousness after a walk and could not be revived by medics, the prison service explained.
Here are some of the key events in his life:
August 20, 2020 – Navalny is hospitalised in the Siberian city of Omsk after falling ill and losing consciousness while on a flight over Siberia. Navalny’s spokeswoman says he was poisoned, perhaps by a cup of tea he drank prior to the takeoff from Tomsk’s Bogashevo airport, but Russian doctors treating him say they have found “no trace” in his blood or urine.
August 22, 2020 – Navalny is airlifted to Charite hospital in Germany’s capital, Berlin, for treatment. The Russian medical team treating him had initially refused the move before later releasing him. German doctors say their tests indicate Navalny was poisoned.
September 2, 2020 – German officials say there is “unequivocal proof” Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, a Soviet-era chemical weapon. Chancellor Angela Merkel says Navalny is a victim of attempted murder, adding there are “serious questions that only the Russian government can and must answer”. International calls for an investigation into the incident mount.
September 3, 2020 – The Kremlin rejects claims, including those made by Navalny’s team, that Moscow was behind the poisoning.
September 4, 2020 – A Russian toxicologist says Navalny’s health could have deteriorated because of dieting, stress or fatigue, insisting no poison had been found in his body.
September 7, 2020 – German doctors say Navalny is out of an artificial coma.
September 11-13 – Russia holds local elections during which Navalny’s allies make gains in Siberian cities.
September 14, 2020 – Laboratories in France and Sweden confirm Germany’s findings that Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. French President Emmanuel Macron urges Putin to shed light on the “attempted murder”, but the Russian leader only moves to condemn “unsubstantiated” accusations.
September 15, 2020 – Navalny posts a message on Instagram saying he is able to breathe unaided, appearing with his wife Yulia and two children, sitting up in bed looking gaunt.
September 17, 2020 – Navalny’s aides say they have discovered traces of Novichok on a bottle taken from the hotel in Siberia where he stayed before falling ill.
September 21, 2020 – Navalny says Western laboratories have found traces of Novichok in and on his body and he demands Moscow return his clothes from the day he fell ill.
September 22, 2020 – Navalny is discharged from hospital and doctors say a “complete recovery is possible”. The Kremlin says Navalny is welcome to return to Moscow, while his spokeswoman says Russia froze his assets while he was in a coma.
October 1, 2020 – Navalny accuses Putin of being behind his poisoning, and says he will not give the Russian president the pleasure of being in exile. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov accuses Navalny of working for the CIA and calls his claims “groundless and unacceptable”.
December 14, 2020 – Citing flight records and mobile phone geolocation data, investigative website Bellingcat and Russian media outlet The Insider publish results of a joint investigation into Navalny’s alleged poisoning. In cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, and endorsed by Navalny, they claim to have identified a team of assassins from Russia’s FSB security service who have stalked him for years. It names intelligence officers and poison laboratories it says were behind the operation.
December 21, 2020 – Navalny releases a recording of him appearing to trick an FSB agent into confessing that he tried to kill him by putting poison in his underpants. The FSB denounces the video clip of the phone call as “fake”.
December 28, 2020 – Russia’s prison service gives Navalny a last-minute ultimatum, telling him to fly back from Germany at once and report at a Moscow office the following morning. The prison service warns Navalny he will be jailed if he returns after the deadline. Navalny’s spokeswoman says it is impossible for him to return in time, adding that he is still convalescing after his poisoning, and accuses the prison service of acting on orders from the Kremlin.
January 12, 2021 – Court documents reveal a Russian judge has been asked to jail Navalny in absentia for, among other infractions, having allegedly broken the terms of a suspended sentence he had been serving.
January 13, 2021 – Navalny posts a video on Instagram announcing plans to return home to Russia. “It was never a question of whether to return or not. Simply because I never left. I ended up in Germany after arriving in an intensive care unit for one reason: they tried to kill me,” he says.
January 17, 2021 – Navalny flies home to Russia from Germany. He is detained shortly after landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The arrest provokes condemnation from several European and world powers and a chorus of calls for his immediate release.
January 18, 2021 – A Russian judge remands Navalny in pre-trial detention for 30 days for violating the terms of his suspended jail sentence at a hastily arranged court hearing in a police station on the outskirts of Moscow. Navalny urges Russians to take to the streets in protest in the wake of the decision. “Don’t be afraid, take to the streets. Don’t go out for me, go out for yourself and your future,” he said in a video published on social media.
February 2, 2021 – A Moscow court orders Navalny to serve 2 and half years in prison for his parole violation. While in prison, Navalny stages a three-week hunger strike to protest a lack of medical treatment and sleep deprivation.
June 9, 2021 – A Moscow court outlaws Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and about 40 regional offices as extremist, shutting down his political network. Close associates and team members face prosecution and leave Russia under pressure. Navalny maintains contact with his lawyers and team from prison, and they update his social media accounts.
February 24, 2022 – Russia invades Ukraine. Navalny condemns the war in social media posts from prison and during his court appearances.
March 22, 2022 – Navalny is sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court in a case his supporters rejected as fabricated. He is transferred to a maximum-security prison in Russia’s western Vladimir region.
July 11, 2022 – Navalny’s team announces the relaunch of the Anti-Corruption Foundation as an international organisation with an advisory board. Navalny continues to file lawsuits in prison and tries to form a labor union in the facility. In response, penitentiary officials start regularly placing him in solitary confinement over purported disciplinary violations such as failing to properly button his garment or to wash his face at a specified time.
January 11, 2023 – Over 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, urging an end to what it calls abuse of Navalny, following reports that he was denied basic medication after getting the flu. His team expresses concern about his health, saying in April he had acute stomach pain and suspected he was being slowly poisoned.
March 12, 2023 – “Navalny,” a film about the attempt on the opposition leader’s life, wins the Oscar for best documentary feature.
April 26, 2023 – Appearing on a videolink from prison during a hearing, Navalny says he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. He adds sardonically that the charges imply that “I’m conducting terror attacks while sitting in prison.”
June 19, 2023 – The trial begins in a make-shift courtroom in the Penal Colony No. 6 where Navalny is being held. Soon after it starts, the judge closes the trial for the public and the media despite Navalny’s demand to keep it open.
July 20, 2023 – The prosecution in its closing arguments asks the court to sentence Navalny to 20 years in prison, the politician’s team reports. Navalny says in a subsequent statement that he expects his sentence to be “huge … a Stalinist term,” referring to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
December 11, 2023 – Navalny’s whereabouts are unknown as officials at the penal colony where he is serving his sentence tell one of his lawyers that he is no longer on the inmate roster, his spokeswoman says.
December 15, 2023 – Allies of imprisoned Navalny say his lawyer is told in court that the leader has been moved from the penal colony east of Moscow where he has been serving time but he is not told where he was taken. The Kremly says it has “no information.”
December 25, 2023 – Associates of Navalny say that he has been located at a prison colony above the Arctic Circle nearly three weeks after contact with him was lost.
December 26, 2023 – Navalny releases a sardonic statement about his transfer to a Arctic prison colony nicknamed the “Polar Wolf,” his first appearance since associates lost contact with him.
January 9, 2024 – Navalny says in social media that officials at the Arctic penal colony have isolated him in a tiny punishment cell over a minor infraction.
January 10, 2024 – A smiling and joking Navalny appears in court via video link from the Arctic penal colony, the first time the Russian opposition leader has been shown on camera since his transfer to the remote prison.
February 1, 2024 – In a social media statement, Navalny urges Russians to show their protest of President Vladimir Putin during next month’s presidential balloting by voting at a specific time on election day.
February 15, 2024 – Navalny is last seen in public, when he appeared via video link in a court hearing. He jokingly asked the judge for part of this “huge salary.”
February 16, 2024 – Navalny dies, state media reports, citing the prison service of the region.
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