Day: December 20, 2019

Africa
wagner group

African intrigues over Wagner Group

Burkina Faso’s ruling military authorities summoned Ghana’s ambassador over accusations that they have hired Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to help fight jihadists. Speaking alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said: “Today, Russian mercenaries are on our northern border. Burkina Faso has now entered into an arrangement to go along with Mali in employing the Wagner forces there.” Calling the mercenaries’ presence “distressing,” Akufo-Addo also alleged that Burkina Faso had offered Wagner control of a gold mine as payment. Meanwhile, a Russian national said to be closely linked to the Wagner Group was injured in an apparent assassination attempt in the Central African Republic. Wagner Group’s parent company Concord named French agents as behind the attack. Burkina Faso, Mali and the CAR alike have recently broken long-standing security ties with France, their former colonial ruler—with Russian mercenaries moving in as French soldiers go home. (Photo of CAR army troops wearing the Wagner Group insignia via Corbeau News Centrafrique)

gauri lankesh protest 759

INDIA 2019 JOURNO-MURDER INDEX

As the year 2019 is approaching the finish line, India appears to have improved its journalist murder index—with authorities counting only two slain in circumstances directly related to their work this year. Reporters Without Borders counts nearly 50 journalists killed for their work worldwide to date this year (compared to 95 in 2018), and India’s share has also gone down considerably—from six last year. However, there were several other cases across India in which it is yet to be confirmed that the victims were targeted for media activities. And with multiple conflicts now escalating around the country, this promises to be a critical question in 2020. Nava Thakuria reports from Guwahati, in India’s strife-torn northeast.

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Planet Watch
Cumbre de los Pueblos

Madrid climate talks a total bust

Nearly half a million demonstrators gathered in Madrid as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) opened more than two weeks ago, with young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg the star of the show at a mass rally. But despite being the longest climate summit yet, the affair ultimately amounted to little. Nearly 27,000 delegates came together with the supposed aim of finalizing the “rulebook” of the Paris Agreement, which is to officially take effect in 2020—settling mechanisms for international cooperation under Article 6 of the deal. But, unable to agree on terms, delegates finally invoked “Rule 16” of the climate process—allowing them to put off the critical decisions for another year. This means there will have been no progress when COP26 is convened in Glasgow in November 2020. UN Secretary General António Guterres tweeted that he was “disappointed” with the results of COP25, and that “the international community lost an important opportunity.” (Photo: Global Justice Ecology Project)

North Africa
Sharara

Force majeure at Libya’s top oil-field —again

Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) declared force majeure at the country’s largest oilfield, a week after announcing a contractual waiver on exports from the 315,000-bpd Sharara field following its seizure by armed militants. The Sharara facility was seized by a force of desert tribesmen under the banner or the Fezzan Anger Movement, which is demanding better living conditions for the remote and impoversihed southern region of the country. Sharara is located in the Fezzan region, which produces most of Libya’s oil but lacks basic services such as electricity and hospitals. The Fezzan militants were actually joined by members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, demanding back wages be paid by the UN-backed Government of National Accord. Oil production in Libya has been repeatedly paralyzed by unrest, and the NOC is still struggling to restore output to pre-2011 levels. (Photo: Libya Observer)

Syria

Trump’s Syria withdrawal: bad news for Kurds

President Trump has ordered a rapid withdrawal of all 2,000 United States ground troops from Syria within 30 days. Hardly coincidentally, this comes just as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Pentagon’s main partner on the ground, are on the brink of capturing the last town in Syria still under ISIS—Hajin, on the banks of the Euphrates River. Also not coincidentally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just days earlier warned of an imminent offensive against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that makes up the core of the SDF. Erdogan said that Turkey will launch an operation against the YPG “in a few days,” adding that it is “time to realize our decision to wipe out terror groups east of the Euphrates.” The Euphrates River has until now served as a border between Turkey’s “buffer zone”in northern Syria and areas still under Kurdish control. Turkey is now preparing to cross it—with evident US connivance. (Image of SDF fighters via Rudaw)

Planet Watch

Arctic oil scramble in offing after GOP tax bill

As a part of the Republican tax overhaul bill, Congress voted  to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and natural gas drilling, after more than four decades of contestation on the matter. Drilling is still years away at best, due to depressed oil prices, a lengthy review process, and likely legal challenges. But oil companies are already arguing over who will have rights to the reserve—while Native Alaskan communities that depend on its critical caribou habitat see impending cultural extermination. (Photo: FWS)

Greater Middle East

UN approves monitors for Aleppo evacuation

Alarmed at the "devastating" humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, the Security Council called on the UN to carry out "neutral monitoring" of evacuations from the war-ravaged city.

IMPRESSIONS OF ROJAVA

by Janet Biehl, ROAR Magazine

In early December an international delegation visited Cezire canton in Syria’s Kurdish-majority northern region of Rojava, where they learned about the revolutionary process underway there. Longtime Vermont-based Green activist and writer Janet Biehl was part of the delegation, and offers this account. —World War 4 Report

From December 1 to 9, I had the privilege of visiting Rojava as part of a delegation of academics from Austria, Germany, Norway, Turkey, the UK, and the US. We assembled in Erbil, Iraq, on November 29 and spent the next day learning about the petrostate known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), with its oil politics, patronage politics, feuding parties (KDP and PUK), and apparent aspirations to emulate Dubai. We soon had enough and on Monday morning were relieved to drive to the Tigris, where we crossed the border into Syria and entered Rojava, the majority-Kurdish autonomous region of northern Syria.

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