Tag: politics

South Korea sanctions North Korean spy chief over illicit cyber activities | Cybercrime News

Pyongyang is thought to use the money stolen in cyber-heists to fund its illegal weapons programmes.

South Korea has imposed sanctions on North Korea’s spy chief and seven other North Koreans for alleged illicit cyber activities, which are believed to fund their country’s nuclear weapons and conventional missile programmes.

Ri Chang Ho, the head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, was sanctioned for his involvement in “earning foreign currency through illegal cyber activities and technology theft”, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

His activities contributed to “generating revenue for the North Korean regime and procuring funds for its nuclear and missile activities”, it added.

Ri heads the agency that is believed to be the parent organisation for North Korean hacking groups Kimsuky, Lazarus and Andariel, which have been previously sanctioned by Seoul. A United Nations report earlier this year found North Korea was using ever more sophisticated techniques to target foreign aerospace and defence companies, and steal a record amount of cryptocurrency assets.

Pyongyang is already under international sanctions for its atomic bomb and ballistic missile programmes, which have seen rapid progress under leader Kim Jong Un who has moved ahead with his plan to modernise the military and acquire ever more advanced weaponry.

The sanctions’ announcement came weeks after Seoul, Tokyo and Washington launched new three-way initiatives encompassing measures to address North Korea’s cybercrime, cryptocurrency and money laundering activities, which are believed to fund the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.

Along with Ri, Seoul has sanctioned seven other North Koreans, including former China-based diplomat Yun Chol, for being involved in the “trade of lithium-6, a nuclear-related mineral and UN-sanctioned material for North Korea”.

Those blacklisted are barred from conducting foreign exchange and financial transactions with South Korean nationals without prior authorisation from Seoul, measures analysts say are mostly symbolic given the scant trade between the two countries.

Seoul has now blacklisted 83 individuals and 53 entities related to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes since October last year, its Foreign Ministry said.

North Korea has recently ramped up its nuclear and military threats, successfully launching a reconnaissance satellite on its third attempt in November and earlier this month testing the solid-fuel Hwasong-18, its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), for the third time in 2023.

Kim said last week that Pyongyang would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if it was “provoked” with nuclear weapons.

“Our government has made it clear that North Korea’s provocations will inevitably come with a price,” Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in its statement on Wednesday.

“Our government will continue to closely cooperate with the international community… to make North Korea realise this fact, cease provocations, and engage in dialogue for denuclearisation.”

According to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, Pyongyang stole as much as $1.7bn in cryptocurrency last year alone and supported its weapons programmes in part by gathering information through “malicious cyber activities”.

In June, Seoul sanctioned a Russian national over allegedly founding a North Korean front company in Mongolia to assist Pyongyang in evading sanctions to secure financing for its banned weapons programmes.

The latest sanctions were announced as Kim opened a year-end meeting of the country’s ruling party.

Kim told delegates that 2023 had been a “year of great turn and great change” as well as one of “great importance”, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

He also noted that the country’s new weapons, including its spy satellite, had “unswervingly put” North Korea “on the position of a military power”.

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Who’s in charge of Tunisia’s streets? Writing’s on the wall | Arts and Culture

Tunis, Tunisia — Where control of the public space lies is one of the most fundamental questions at the heart of any society.

Under repressive governments, such as those that held sway over Tunisia during the decades from independence up to its revolution of 2011, there was never any real doubt. Control of the public space, its roads, its architecture and its walls was the exclusive preserve of the state.

While the muscle memory of repression may again be flexing in Tunisia, some of the dramatic gains of the post-revolutionary years, not least in terms of music and art, continue to hold their ground.

Local rap artists such as Balti, Artmasta and Klay BBJ are regular fixtures on the Tunisian charts. And graffiti has come to adorn entire swathes of the urban space, especially in the capital, where giant murals adorn the sides of public buildings and car park walls and have become creative magnets for the curious.

“Street art isn’t really illegal in Tunisia,” 23-year-old street artist Klawd explained from the offices of the Debo street art and hip-hop collective in downtown Tunis, the smell of paint thinners and sound of techno filling the darkening air.

“That’s to say, there’s no one law against it. If the police wanted to, they could get you [citing other laws], but for now, they don’t seem too bothered.”

Given the politically charged history of graffiti in Tunisia, it can be a fine balance. The Ahl El Kahf crew flooded Tunis’s streets in the wake of the revolution with murals celebrating Mohammed Bouazizi — whose self-immolation sparked the 2011 uprising — and other artwork decrying the decades-long deployment of police violence that escalated to a frenzy during the last few weeks of the regime.

Over the ensuing years, Tunisian history has been written on its cities’ walls with tags protesting the government’s 2017 attempts to forgive the crimes of the old repressive state. Other targets include the country’s drug laws and the police.

Now, new generations of artists must compete for space alongside art graduates and advertisements — while practising caution towards the ubiquitous spread of football culture.

“The ultras [football fans] are the worst,” 20-year-old Split said. “If you’re caught tagging [painting] in one of their hoods, you’re in trouble.”

The reach of street art extends across the capital, even if much of its former political bite has been dulled.

When the Czech government had to remove the thick hedge that surrounded its embassy in Tunis out of security concerns, their diplomats turned to the city’s street artists to give their offices a contemporary edge. Elsewhere, everything from co-working spaces to fishing tackle shops look to the country’s street artists to help them stand out from the crowd.

Towering above other murals in the minds of many is Djerbahood, the giant installation put together in 2014 on the island of Djerba. There, artists from around the world travelled to the island to give the small, isolated village of Erriadh a new lease of life with a creation that, if now a little careworn, still draws visitors from across the region.

Many of Tunisia’s street artists no longer focus their anger on the police and the state, but protests do continue. In Tunis, StreetMan, who uses a figure inspired by traditional Tunisian wrought iron curls as a signature, questions everything from unemployment to irregular migration in his work.

Still, it is Israel’s war on Gaza that now dominates the scene with the buttresses supporting freeways carrying symbols of Palestine’s resistance. Elsewhere, on Avenue Jean Jaures in the heart of the city, plans are under way to install a new mural condemning Israel and the international actors backing its actions in Gaza.

“It deserves something better,” Klawd said of the space currently carrying a number of ill-assorted tags praising Palestine’s resistance, “I think we’re going to get a few people together and really do something.”

In the years since the revolution, graffiti has become a fact of life for many of Tunisia’s city dwellers. Commuters pass by some of the most vibrant designs in North Africa. Cars queue up outside walls coloured by the vivid imaginings of the young, the creative and the engaged.

The alternative is concrete.

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Mary Jane Veloso case unresolved as Jokowi prepares to leave office | Death Penalty News

Jakarta, Indonesia – For more than a decade, Mary Jane Veloso has been held in a prison in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta awaiting execution after being found guilty of drug trafficking.

This year, her family got to see her for the first time in five years.

“Mary Jane has been here in Indonesia for a very long time already. Before Mary Jane’s father and I pass away, we hope that she comes home for her children and she will be the one that takes care of her children,” her mother Celia told Al Jazeera.

“It’s been a very long time. We want her back,” she added.

Like many Filipinos, Veloso sought work overseas because the money was better than at home.

Leaving her two sons with her mother, she first went to Dubai where she spent nine months as a domestic worker.

After another household employee allegedly tried to rape her, Veloso left her job and returned home to the Philippines where she was approached by a woman named Maria Kristina Sergio who said she had a job for her in Malaysia.

Eager for another chance, Veloso accepted the offer but when she got to Malaysia, she found there was no work.

Sergio, her contact, instead suggested Veloso join her on a holiday to Indonesia, but when the women landed at Yogyakarta’s Adisutjipto Airport in April 2010, officials found 2.6kg (5.7 pounds) of heroin in 25-year-old Veloso’s suitcase.

Six months later, she was found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death.

Despite a tough line on drugs by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who was first elected in 2014, Veloso has so far managed to escape the firing squad.

Veloso’s family speaking to the media about their efforts to secure clemency earlier this year [File: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA]

She won a last-minute reprieve in 2015, when seven foreigners and an Indonesian were executed, after Sergio turned herself in to the Philippines police on allegations of people trafficking and the government in Manila under then President Benigno Aquino asked for Veloso’s case to be reviewed.

As Widodo enters his last few months in office, Veloso’s family are now hoping the outgoing president will agree to clemency for the Filipino after, in March, giving a rare pardon to another domestic worker who had also been sentenced to death.

‘Forced to go abroad’

Veloso’s supporters argue she is a victim of human trafficking.

According to the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), which is raising awareness about Veloso’s case, the drugs were “secretly stashed in a bag given to her by the brother of Tintin’s [Sergio’s] boyfriend in Malaysia without Mary Jane’s knowledge, consent or intention”.

Hailing from Nueva Ecija, north of Manila on the island of Luzon, all the women in the Veloso family were among the millions of Filipinos working overseas to provide for their families.

“Our life is very difficult, it’s very hard, we don’t have much [money] to eat,” their mother Celia Veloso explained. “That’s why we are forced to make a choice to go abroad. All of my daughters, four of them… all worked overseas”.

Mary Jane’s recruiters for the supposed job in Malaysia, Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, were found guilty in January 2020 of running an alleged illegal recruitment network and sentenced to life in prison.

Veloso has also filed a case against the pair in the same court but has been unable to give testimony because it needs to be delivered in person and she cannot do so because while being on death row in Indonesia.

“The only barrier right now for that to move forward is for both governments, both Indonesia and the Philippine government, to agree on the technicality…  where this testimony will be taken,” said Joanna Concepcion, who chairs Migrante International, an organisation advocating for Veloso.

Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah told Al Jazeera he had not followed up on the issue and referred questions to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights.

The law ministry spokesperson did not reply to Al Jazeera’s questions.

Mary Jane Veloso at a prison craft workshop in 2016 [Rana Dyandra/Antara Foto via Reuters]

Widodo and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office after Aquino, shared the same hardline approach to drugs, with Duterte leading a brutal crackdown, which left thousands dead and is now the subject of an International Criminal Court investigation.

Instead of seeking clemency from Indonesia, Widodo said Duterte had given the green light for Veloso’s execution in 2015. The Philippines, which does not use capital punishment, said Duterte had said he would simply respect the judicial process.

Migrante International’s Concepcion says there does not seem to have been much of a change in approach since Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in June 2022.

“He continues the same policy and has not publicly said that it would change anything that Duterte had done,” she said.

Indonesia and the Philippines are founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Indonesia was the first country Marcos Jr visited after he was elected president..

“Maybe he is playing it safe,” Concepcion added. “It was his first state visit at that time as president, so I’m sure that the agenda items that he would discuss were very carefully planned out, of what specific issues that his first state visit would focus on”.

In the first two years of Widodo’s first term, 18 people, including two women, were executed. All had been found guilty of drug offences.

Under international law, where the death penalty exists, it is supposed to be used only for the “most serious crimes”, a threshold that does not include drug crimes.

Amid widespread criticism from national, regional and global human rights defenders, there has not been an execution in Indonesia since July 2016, according to  Afif Abdul Qoyim, coordinator of the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBHM), an organisation that campaigns against the death penalty.

Activists have been calling for a moratorium, but one is not formally in place.

“[The president] still can arrange an execution any time he wants, or the next government can also do it in the early part of their reign,” Afif told Al Jazeera.

Maintaining pressure

Earlier this year, Jokowi gave clemency to another female migrant worker, Merri Utami, who was almost executed in 2016.

Even though Merri Utami’s and Veloso’s cases share some similarities, Afif notes some key differences.

“One of the factors, probably, is the nationality. Merri Utami is Indonesian, while Mary Jane has a foreign nationality,” he explained, adding that Indonesia often tried to suggest that it was foreigners who were most involved in drug trafficking.

Still, Mary Jane Veloso is not losing hope.

While Marcos Jr may seem to have continued the Duterte approach to the case, on the sidelines of his visit to Indonesia, his Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo made a request for “executive clemency” for Veloso during a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi in Jakarta.

Now Veloso’s legal team is lodging an appeal before Widodo leaves office.

“The truth is, the first clemency was to SBY [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president from 2004-2014]. Mary Jane never asked clemency to Jokowi,” Veloso’s lawyer Agus Salim told Al Jazeera.

The Indonesia general election is scheduled for February 2024.

“We are going to keep pushing until Widodo formally leaves the office… We’re still hopeful that there are some actions, some development,” Concepcion said.

Veloso’s family is anxiously awaiting developments.

Her eldest son Mark Danielle is now 20 years old,

“It’s hard to grow up without my mother,” he said. “We really want to be with my mother and be able to see her every day, to see her, to hug her.”

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Deadly Christmas in Syria’s Idlib after Russian attack kills five in family | Politics News

Idlib, Syria ــ A couple and three of their children were killed in Russian air raids targeting a house in a farm near the town of Armenaz in western Idlib on Monday evening, according to the Syrian Civil Defence.

Another child, the sole survivor, was injured.

“We live in this small region of Syria as legitimate targets to satisfy the criminal instincts of both Russia and the Assad regime,” said Walid Ahmed Murad, 32, who lost his sister, her husband, and their children in the Alata farm air raid. He was referring to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Murad told Al Jazeera that his sister Fatima and her husband Anas had fled Aleppo six years ago after the Assad regime took control, only to return to their hometown in Jabal Zawiya in Idlib countryside before moving to the farm three days ago for job opportunities in sheep farming.

“They were very happy to find work that could help them live under their difficult economic conditions,” Murad said. The three children who died — Amina, Khalid, and Mohammed —”were among the kindest children you could meet, and I will miss them forever,” he said. Hamza, his sister’s fourth child and the only one still alive, is in critical condition.

Earlier in the day, another civilian was killed, and five others were injured, including three children, in a missile attack by Syrian regime forces on civilian homes, a rural school, public facilities and agricultural lands in the city of Sarmin in eastern Idlib.

The Syrian Civil Defence, a volunteer emergency rescue group also known as the White Helmets, said that since the beginning of 2023 until December 17, their teams have responded to 1,232 attacks by Syrian regime forces, Russian forces, and their allied militias.

These attacks resulted in the death of 161 people, including 46 children and 23 women, while 681 people were injured, of which 214 were children and 95 were women.

Idlib, the last province controlled by opposition fighters in Syria, is governed by a March 5, 2020 ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia. However, this agreement is occasionally violated by Syrian government forces and Russia.

“Today’s massacre is evidence that Russia can never be on the side of peace and a party that brings security to Syrians. The international community must put an end to Russian terrorism that transcends borders,” said Nada al-Rashid, a board member of the Syrian Civil Defence.

Al-Rashid told Al Jazeera that villages in eastern and southern Idlib are systematically targeted by regime forces, undermining stability in the region and imposing a state of terror and fear, leading to displacement waves.

“The continued massacres by the Assad regime and Russia against Syrians increase the danger of living in dozens of cities and towns, imposing a reality of continuous suffering, especially in the harsh winter that ravages camps lacking the basic necessities of life, weak infrastructure, and a clear decline in humanitarian response,” al-Rashid said.

Hopes for accountability

While much of the world marks Christmas and prepares for the New Year, these celebrations are absent for the people of northwest Syria due to continuous bombing and the deteriorating economic situation in an area with a population of 4.5 million, including 1.9 million living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, according to the latest statistics from United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“Russia celebrates Christmas in its criminal way by killing children and women in Idlib,” said Obadah al-Daher, 21, a displaced civilian from Maarat al-Numan city living in the town of al-Dana town near the Syria-Turkey border.

Al-Daher enters his fourth year today away from his land and home after leaving them at the beginning of 2020 following a military campaign led by the Syrian regime, supported by Russia and Iranian militias.

The campaign resulted in the control of Maarat al-Numan city and its countryside, leading to the displacement of most residents to northern Idlib.

“With the beginning of each year, we hope to return to our homes and for the Assad regime and Russia to be held accountable for the crimes they committed and continue to against us,” al-Daher said.

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Will the 2024 US election save TikTok from near-death? | Social Media News

TikTok is a lot like the young people on its platform – difficult to control.

Earlier this year, the fate of the short-form video app in the United States hung by a thread as several states looked to imposed restrictions on its use, and one state, Montana, legislated on a ban. And yet, TikTok seems set to enter 2024 on solid footing. After all, which political party would want to start an election year banning a platform on which 150 million mostly-young Americans spend their lives?

The app survived a year in which its CEO was subjected to a five-hour US Congressional grilling in March, the app was banned on federal government devices, and lawmakers called for a broader ban on the app, calling it “spyware” and “digital fentanyl”.

While the obstacles in its path since then may not have vanished, they seem to have diminished in size. A federal judge blocked a ban on TikTok in Montana at the end of November, a PEW survey released earlier this month showed that fewer Americans supported a federal TikTok ban than they did earlier in the year, and Congress won’t take up legislation addressing foreign-owned apps like TikTok this year.

While no astrologers were consulted for this piece, it’s fair to say the stars seem to have aligned in favour of TikTok as it enters 2024.

The new year is unprecedented, with elections in over 70 countries, including the US.

“This is the first time TikTok will be front and centre as an app for political news and views in an election year, a particularly tricky path for TikTok to walk down,” said Katie Harbath, founder and CEO of technology policy firm Anchor Change.

“The platform will have to make decisions that companies like Meta and Google have had to do in the past. Candidates will want to reach voters on the platform, the way the Biden campaign is working with TikTok influencers,” she added. Harbath was previously public policy director for global elections at Facebook, now Meta.

Harbath said Democrats won’t be the only ones forced to use TikTok to reach young voters. Republicans, including the likes of Nikki Haley, who have called for a TikTok ban, will have to do a mea culpa and use the app for their campaigns, she said. “Eventually, the place where the voters are will win,” Harbath pointed out.

While TikTok may not be going away anytime soon, it will have to navigate tricky regulatory waters, something Harbath believes the company is adept at, given that it has hired veterans from other tech platforms and has worked at winning over the broader public.

While conversations around TikTok being forced to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, seem to have died down for now, the proposition is not dead in the waters, she said. Irrespective of which party wins elections next year, ByteDance will be pushed to sell TikTok’s US operations to an American company, she said.

“A sale would depend on whether investors see a real challenge for TikTok to continue being associated with ByteDance. This could depend on broader geopolitical issues, like China’s actions in Taiwan,” Harbath said.

The controversy over TikTok stems from fears that it could spy on US citizens on behalf of China. FBI director Chris Wray called the app a national security risk, adding that Chinese companies were forced to do whatever the Chinese government wanted them to “in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government”. He feared China could harness the app to influence users.

TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew, in his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March, said, “TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, US user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honour such a request if one were ever made.” He has said repeatedly that ByteDance was not owned by the Chinese government, and that 60 percent of the company was owned by global institutional investors.

Whom to believe

Chantal Winston is one of the many small business owners who find TikTok useful for finding new clients [Courtesy of Chantal Winston]

At the heart of the TikTok debate lies the question of whom to believe. “We don’t have enough information to make that call yet,” Harbath said.

Harsh Taneja, associate professor of New and Emerging Media, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who has researched audience measurement regimes across the world, pointed to the inherent difficulties with accessing data about platforms today, an issue that is not limited to TikTok.

The problem, said Taneja, is that data on tech companies is being provided by the company itself, unlike an earlier era where organisations like Nielsen collected data on television viewership and content. “The data was being collected by a third party that was neither an advertiser on the platform nor the platform itself,” he said. “We had more visibility into viewership data, whereas today data use on tech platforms is opaque.”

Taneja said the calls to ban TikTok in the US were ironic, given that, a decade ago, Hillary Clinton likened China’s internet firewall to a “new information curtain,” a Cold War reference to the “iron curtain”.

While American politicians have accused TikTok of addicting kids and polluting young minds, Taneja said some of the panic around TikTok is similar to the panic around television in the 1970s, when the adverse effects of television on children was a hot topic, and communications theories focussed on how television would cultivate violent views of the world and promote crimes.

There is also a huge generational divide between those who use TikTok and those who are legislating over the platform, Taneja said.

“Almost everybody who has the power to do something consequential about the platform is not, most likely, part of its 150 million user base in the US, and certainly not an active user,” he said.

TikTok is now an important part of the cultural fabric of a segment of the country and a place where people channel their creative talents.

Banning it would have negative consequences on the creator economy, he said.

‘Where we go to learn things’

Novelist Amy Zhang says TikTok can be a lot of work but it’s also fun [Courtesy of Amy Zhang]

Chantal Winston, a young Black woman who posts videos of herself making candles is one of five million businesses on the platform, many of which are small businesses.

“When I launched my nontoxic candle business, BLKessence, in 2020, I didn’t even think about creating a TikTok account. Once I started creating candle-making TikTok videos in 2021, I wished that I had done it a lot sooner,” she told Al Jazeera.  The behind-the-scenes videos of how she makes candles have got her new business, she said.

For novelist Amy Zhang, TikTok is fun “because it is unserious”.

She writes way less in periods when she is making videos on TikTok, a lot of work in itself. “To consistently put out videos, you have to do a lot of scrolling, saving sounds and seeing what people are engaging with. So when I’m actively scrolling, I’m not so much reading or writing. When my book came out earlier this year and I was trying to post every day, it was difficult to focus on anything else. Now that the initial [book] release period is over, I’m just having fun,” she told Al Jazeera.

“It’s hard not to feel threatened by the short video format, or to compare the audience size for a video that took one hour to produce versus the reader pool for content that takes one year to write,” she added.

Not all young people on the platform use it to post videos. Yashvi Tibrewal, a 25-year-old marketing professional based in the San Francisco Bay Area, uses the app as a search engine. The majority of her friends do so, too. “It’s where we go to learn things,” she said.

News reports have repeatedly written of TikTok replacing Google as Gen Z’s search engine. Taneja, a scholar of audience behaviour, says the platform a group of people use the most is the one they use for everything, including news.

While much of the TikTok debate focuses on its ties with China, many young people in America, like Tibrewal, are more concerned about US-owned companies towing the US government line, particularly on subjects like Middle Eastern politics. For instance, Meta-owned apps have been accused of censoring Palestinian content. 

“We’re sceptical about what American-owned companies are doing algorithmically,” says Tibrewal. That TikTok is not owned by the US and is not as involved in US government policy is something that has piqued the interest of her generation.

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Why has cricketer Khawaja been barred from showing solidarity with Gaza? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The Australian cricketer, Usman Khawaja, has accused the International Cricket Council (ICC) of double standards – this time after being denied permission to display the image of a dove of peace on his bat, in solidarity with Gaza.

What happened between Khawaja and the ICC?

Khawaja planned to show his support for Palestine by decorating his bat with the image of the dove accompanied by the message “01: UDHR”, a reference to the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that human rights are universal and inalienable.

According to The Australian newspaper, the ICC has refused to allow him to display this message on his bat.

The ICC Code of Conduct forbids players from wearing, displaying or conveying messages through arm bands or other items on clothing or equipment without prior approval, especially for “political, religious or racial” causes.

However, Khawaja and his supporters point out that this rule has not stopped other players from displaying such messages in the past.

For example, West Indies players were permitted to wear “Black Lives Matter” logos on their shirts during a test series against England in 2020.

In a video he posted on Instagram late on the eve of the second test against Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Monday, Khawaja also posted pictures of other international players displaying religious symbols and messages on their bats.

He captioned his post: “Merry Christmas everybody, sometimes you just gotta laugh … #inconsistent #doublestandards.”

Khawaja’s case is not the only instance when the ICC has blocked a player from displaying such symbols. England’s Moeen Ali was banned from wearing wristbands with the messages, “Save Gaza” and “Free Palestine”, during a home test against India in 2014.

Khawaja’s armband and shoes

Pakistan-born Khawaja has made several attempts this month to show his solidarity and support for the people in Gaza, where more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

On Friday, he said he would contest ICC’s reprimand for wearing a black armband in the first test against Pakistan in Perth on December 14.

He had originally intended to show his support by displaying the messages “Freedom is a human right” and “All lives are equal” on his shoes in the colours of the Palestinian flag. He wore these shoes during training and intended to wear them during the test match as well, but was prevented from doing so. He argued that his message was not political in a video posted on X on December 13.

Khawaja, 37, argued that the armband decision did not make sense.

“I told them it was for a personal bereavement. I never ever stated it was for anything else. The shoes were a different matter, I’m happy to say that,” he said at Melbourne Cricket Ground. He did not specify details about the personal bereavement.

What does the dove of peace represent?

Doves have long been a symbol of peace in many cultures, including Palestinian culture.

The separation wall that divides many communities including the Palestinian town of Bir Nabala in the occupied West Bank has several different graffiti symbols painted onto it including the dove of peace. A section of the wall runs through Bethlehem.

British street artist Banksy’s armoured dove is particularly celebrated. It features a white dove wearing a bulletproof vest, carrying an olive branch in its beak. This dove can be seen in many spots in Palestine.

Banksy’s armoured dove on a shop’s wall in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank [David Silverman/Getty Images]

How have others reacted?

Australian skipper Pat Cummins defended Khawaja, arguing that there is no difference between Khawaja displaying the dove symbol and his teammate, Marnus Labuschagne, displaying an eagle on his bat as a religious symbol.

The Australian team was sympathetic towards Khawaja’s desire to show his support, said Cummins on Monday.

“I don’t know the ins and outs of the application, but I think it is pretty vanilla, a dove,” he told reporters. “We really support Uzzy, I think he’s standing up for what he believes and I think he’s doing it really respectfully,” he said.

“He can hold his head high the way he’s gone about it, but there’s rules in place, so I believe the ICC have said they’re not going to approve that. They make up the rules and you’ve got to accept it.”

Cricket Australia said in a statement that Khawaja had a right to express his opinion but they expected him to conform to the ICC rules banning displays on his playing equipment.

Australia’s sports minister, Anika Wells, gave Khawaja her full backing.

“Usman Khawaja is a great athlete and a great Australian. He should have every right to speak up on matters that are important to him,” she said.

“He has done so in a peaceful and respectful way. He has done so as an individual and expressed an individual opinion that does not compromise the Australian cricket team’s obligations to the ICC.”



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New constitution, old playbook: Chad’s Deby continues power play in Sahel | Politics

Millions of Chadians voted for a controversial new draft constitution last week, despite resistance from critics of the military government which accuse it of perpetuating itself in power.

According to the National Commission Charged with the Organisation of the Constitutional Referendum (CONOREC), 86 percent of voters chose “yes”. The turnout for the December 17 referendum, in which 8 million people were eligible to vote, was 64 percent.

The referendum is the second part of a three-step process for the return of the landlocked Central African country to democratic rule following the death of former long-term ruler Idriss Deby Itno who was succeeded by his son Mahmat Idriss Deby in 2021.

The new constitution, like the one it replaced, entrenches a unitary system that has been in place since independence in 1960.

Ahead of the referendum, opposition parties called for an outright boycott of the process, with a major point being the campaign for a federal system instead, to devolve powers from the centre.

One party, Les Transformateurs, claimed removing the unitary system would allow for progressive democracy and spur economic development. But those in favour of retaining the old system – including supporters of the transitional government –  say a federalist system will lead to disunity. Protests by the party led to its ban and mass arrest of its members.

The transitional government made some concessions by inserting the creation of local governments and local legislatures in the new draft, with the people allowed to vote for their representatives. But the opposition said this was not enough.

Experts say the referendum committee comprised mostly Deby allies and offered the opposition no real chance of success or a compromise. When the vote happened last Sunday, the options were simply “yes” or “no” for a unitary constitution.

And the debate that began before the referendum, has continued within and outside the country.

“When you look at how the referendum process has been conducted, there are a lot of signs that indicate the transition authority intends to keep hold on power as this has always been the case,” Remadji Hoinathy, a Chad-based expert at the Institute of Security Studies, told Al Jazeera.

‘Long-term play’

Upon assumption of power in an April 2021 coup, Deby, now 38, promised to return to democracy within 18 months. After that timeline expired, a national dialogue committee gave the military an extra 24 months and excised a constitutional provision precluding Deby’s participation in the 2024 elections.

In October 2022, opposition parties and pro-democracy protesters took to the streets to demand elections but were shot at by the military. Dozens of people were killed, with several others wounded and arrested.

Deby has not yet said if he will run or not, but that remains a possibility.

Despite the Deby dynasty being in power for over three decades, there has not been a corresponding economic development in the Central African nation.

According to the World Bank, extreme poverty has been on the rise yearly and 42.3 percent of the country’s 18 million people live below the national poverty line. The country is also beset by conflicts, primarily driven by multiple armed groups.

Experts say the referendum had a predetermined outcome as part of a plan for Deby to stay longer in power.

“Deby’s ‘long-term play’ … is to entrench himself at the top of an autocratic political system dominated by the military,” Chris Ogunmodede, a foreign affairs analyst who has worked in African diplomatic circles, told Al Jazeera.

Ogunmodede says Deby is using the same playbook as his father, a wily ruler who changed the constitution twice to evade term limits while repressing dissent from opposition and civil society.

Yet there remains opposition to his government from multiple rebel groups. Even during the older Deby’s rule, rebels using Libya and Sudan as their base had repeatedly challenged the government, raising possibilities of a bigger fallout from the referendum from aggrieved parties.

“In any case, the current trajectory bodes poorly for the establishment of ‘peace’ in Chad, however, that word is defined. It is possible that this ‘referendum’, to the extent that it offers any real choices, might trigger a chain of events that creates another major dilemma in that country,” Ogunmodede said.

Members of the security forces patrol Chad’s capital N’Djamena following the battlefield death of President Idriss Debyin N’Djamena, Chad April 26, 2021 [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]

France’s backing

In recent years, there has been increased pushback against French influence in its former colonies. This has resulted in coups in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea.

But unlike in those countries where relations between military governments and the French have deteriorated, Deby has embraced Paris and is helping repress any threat to France’s continued influence in the country.

In 2021, Paris backed his rise to power and has been quiet about state tactics to stall a credible return to democracy, a different stance compared to its criticism of coups elsewhere in the Sahel

Analysts like Hoinathy say due to Chad’s strategic position in regional security as the last bastion of France’s military presence in the Sahel, Deby is now seen as a key ally for Paris. In turn, France has helped prop up the Chadian elite.

“The big difference is that the leaders in power are the ones leading on this anti-France movement [in Sahel],” Hoinathy said. “While in Chad, the leaders in power remain very strong partners with France and they know that this relationship with France is key for them to remain in power because they receive military and diplomatic support.”

Double-faced Deby?

Even as Deby continues to navigate the internal strife in Chad, attention is now turning to the geopolitical fireworks that some of his actions have sparked abroad.

In neighbouring Sudan, the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war since April. The former has accused Deby of allowing the use of the Amdjarass airport in its north for channelling weapons to the latter by the United Arab Emirates.

Chad – which has also been a part of an international coalition to end the conflict and has taken in millions of Sudanese refugees – and the UAE have denied this accusation, but the diplomatic rift continues to deepen, with Sudan and Chad mutually expelling diplomats.

This development has complicated the disastrous conflict in Sudan, which has killed more than 10,000 people in nine months.

“[Deby’s support] makes it very dangerous not just during the war but in the post-war period as well,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior associate in the Africa programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“If the Sudanese army wins, the Sudanese army is going to remember for a very long time that their neighbour helped their enemy to try to defeat them,” he added. “People forget that 15-20 years ago, there was a series of coups d’etat launched by Chad and Sudan against each other. The two countries have a long history of meddling in the internal affairs of the other.”

But the other outcome of the war is also laced with dangerous possibilities for Deby – and Chad. Deby is from the Zaghawa ethnic minority in Chad which has accused the RSF of assassinating some of its notable kin in Darfur. Some Zaghawa have been fighting against the RSF and experts say this is indicative of the dangerous dilemma Deby is in and the weakness of his leadership.

And the complications arising from that situation could lead to fresh bouts of conflict in an already volatile region.

“If Chad were to fall into a period of prolonged fighting and instability, it would spread that fighting and instability across an already very unstable region,” Hudson said.

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‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine’: Kremlin critic Navalny from Arctic jail | Prison News

Russian opposition leader says he has seen his lawyer after 20 days travelling to penal colony above the Arctic Circle.

Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has confirmed he is being held in a remote Arctic prison and has seen his lawyer after his spokespeople said they had lost touch with him for more than two weeks.

Navalny on Tuesday said he was in good spirits after a “pretty exhausting” 20-day transfer from a prison in the Vladimir region, in a post on X, his account routinely updated via his allies.

“I now live above the Arctic Circle. In the village of Kharp on Yamal. The nearest town has the beautiful name of Labytnangi,” he wrote, after announcing: “I am your new Santa Claus” and noting that he had grown a beard during the “20 days of my transportation”.

His spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, on Monday said Navalny had been tracked down and was in the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.

The Kremlin critic’s whereabouts had not been known since December 6, triggering concern from his allies, rights groups and Western governments.

“The 20 days of my transportation were pretty exhausting, but I’m still in a good mood,” Navalny said.

“They brought me here on Saturday night. And I was transported with such precaution and on such a strange route (Vladimir – Moscow – Chelyabinsk – Ekaterinburg – Kirov – Vorkuta – Kharp) that I didn’t expect anyone to find me here before mid-January.

“That’s why I was very surprised when the cell door was opened yesterday with the words: ‘A lawyer is here to see you.’”

Addressing his supporters, Navalny thanked them for being concerned about his wellbeing, adding: “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m totally relieved that I’ve finally made it.”

While his whereabouts were unknown, there was speculation that he was undergoing a prison transfer, which can take weeks in Russia because prisoners are slowly moved by rail between far-flung facilities.

Navalny’s lawyers and supporters had been preparing for his expected transfer to a “special regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s prison system.

His new home, known as the “Polar Wolf” colony, is considered one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Its inmates are convicted of grave crimes. Winters are harsh there with temperatures due to drop to about minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next week.

Navalny has been behind bars since January 2021 when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Before his arrest, he campaigned against corruption and organised major anti-Kremlin protests. He has since received three prison terms and spent months in isolation in Penal Colony Number 6 for alleged minor infractions.

A court extended Navalny’s sentence to 19 years on extremism charges and ruled that he be moved to a more secure, harsher prison.

He has rejected all charges against him as politically motivated.

“Since I’m Santa Claus, you’re probably wondering about the presents,” Navalny said on X. “But I am a special-regime Santa Claus, so only those who have behaved very badly get presents.”



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Why do evangelical Christians support Israel? | Israel-Palestine conflict

Palestinian human rights activist Jonathan Kuttab explains how Christian Zionism affects US policy in the Middle East.

In the evangelical Christian worldview, the 1948 creation of Israel was a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and the Palestinians are either “non-existent” or “the enemies of God, because they are the enemies of the State of Israel”, explains Palestinian human rights defender Jonathan Kuttab.

Kuttab tells host Steve Clemons that believers of this interpretation of holy scripture do not care about international law or catastrophic war in the region. “They say, ‘Bring it on. That’s the End Times. That’s the Second Coming. That’s wonderful.’”

And if 30 percent of Americans hold these beliefs, what is the impact on US policy on Palestine and Israel?

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Ukraine proposes lowering age for military conscription from 27 to 25 | Russia-Ukraine war News

Draft bill proposed as military looks for hundreds of thousands of new recruits in its fight to eject Russia.

Ukraine has proposed reducing the age of those who can be mobilised into the armed forces from 27 to 25 after the military said it needed as many as 500,000 more soldiers in its now 22-month-long war against Russia.

The age reduction was in the text of a draft law posted on the website of Ukraine’s parliament late on Monday.

The text detailed which Ukrainian citizens would be subject to enrolment for military registration of conscripts and said it would apply to those “who have reached the age of 25”.

An explanatory note signed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov summarised key provisions of the draft law, saying they included the “change of conscription age from 27 to 25 years”.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed earlier this month that the military had proposed mobilising between 450,000 and 500,000 more Ukrainians but that it was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would discuss before deciding whether to send the proposal to parliament.

Zelenskyy, who has yet to back the proposal publicly, said on December 19 that he wanted to hear more arguments for mobilising additional people. “This is a very serious number,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not yet backed the proposal publicly [Ukrainian Presidential Press Service via Reuters]

Ukraine’s troop numbers are not known but in the past, it has been said the country has about 1 million people under arms. US officials estimate that hundreds of thousands have been killed and wounded since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia publishes its casualty figures.

David Arakhamia, the head of Zelenskyy’s party in parliament, said the government was working on the bill at the request of the military and that it was due to be introduced on Monday.

“The military needs a solution to its problems,” he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Society wants to hear answers to all sensitive questions.”

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