Tag: France

Oceania

New Caledonia voters reject independence ā€”for now

In an independence referendum that drew record numbers to the polls, voters in the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia voted 56 to 44 percent to remain a French territory. The referendum was the fruit of a 1988 peace accord with the armed Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS). However, the referendum was repeatedly postponed amid controversies over whether only native residents or also French colonists and their descendants would get to vote. Under terms of the 1998 Noumea Accord, only French colonists and descendants already in the territory by that point would be eligible. The indigenous Kanaks now represent only 40% of the territory's population. However, the future of the archipelago is still uncertain. French law allows for a possible second or third vote if the first goes against independence. (Photo: NurPhoto/Getty via SBS News)

Watching the Shadows
killer robot

Amnesty calls on UN to ban ‘killer robots’

Amnesty International called upon countries to ban fully autonomous weapons systems on  the first day of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems meeting. Amnesty states that technology related to advanced weapons systems is outpacing international law. Future technologies may be able to replicate human responses, including "the ability to analyse the intentions behind people's actions, to assess and respond to often dynamic and unpredictable situations, or make complex decisions about the proportionality or necessity of an attack." A complete ban on fully autonomous weapons is necessary in order to avoid possible "dystopian" futures. Human interaction should be required by law to be involved in the identification, selection, and engagement of targets in advanced weapons. (Photo: Future of Life Institute)

Europe

‘Left’ joins with Euro-fascists to betray political prisoners in Russia

The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Russian authorities to release Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, and all the other "illegally detained Ukrainian citizens" in Russia and Russia-annexed Crimea. Sentsov has been on hunger strike in a Russian prison since May 14, demanding the release 64 Ukrainian citizens he considers political prisoners. Sentsov was arrested in Crimea in 2014, after Russia seized the Ukrainian region. The 76 MEPs who voted against the resolution are either of far-right formations such as the French National Front, Germany's Alternative für Deutschland, the Greek Golden Dawn, Italy's Northern League, the Netherlands' Party for Freedom, and Britain's UK Independence Party; or "leftist" parties such as the French Left Front, Germany's Die Linke, the Greek Syriza, Italy's The Other Europe, and Spain's Podemos. (Photo via Kyiv Post)

Syria

Syria: gas attacks, air-strikes and hypocrisy ā€”again

Just over a year after Trump’s air-strikes on an Assad regime airbase in response to a chemical attack, we witness a repeat of this episodeā€”although this time the air-strikes were on wider targets, and carried out in conjunction with British and French forces. In response to last week’s chemical attack on Douma in Syria’s besieged Eastern Ghouta enclave, missiles and warplanes from the USS Donald Cook in the eastern Mediterranean carried out the first Western strikes on targets around the Damascus area. The targets were chemical warfare and military facilities, with no deaths orĀ civilian casualties yet reported. “Anti-war” hypocrites who were silent during Trump’s massive bombardment of civilians in Raqqa and Mosul, silent during the Assad-Purtin destruction of Aleppo, and silent (at best) over the Douma chemical attack, are now protesting air-strikes on Assad’s machinery of death. Such “anti-war” depravity is part of the problem. (Image: Syria Solidarity NYC)

Southern Cone

‘Lost kingdom’ of Patagonia stands up for Mapuche

The exiled Royal House of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia elected Prince Frederic Luz as the new monarch—claiming dominion over a large area of Chile in the name of the region's Mapuche indigenous inhabitants. Although now dispersed in Britain and France, the Royal House traces its origin to 1860, when Orélie de Tounens was recognized as king by the Mapuche, on his pledge to help them resist Chilean encroachment on their unceded territory. In the 1870s, the territory was finally taken in a genocidal campaign by the Chilean military. De Tounens returned to Europe and campaigned for international recognition of his exiled government. The Royal House still advocates for the rights and sovereignty of the Mapuche today. (Photo: North American Araucanian Royalist Society via CraigsList Philadelphia)

Syria

Syria: impunity in ongoing Ghouta war crimes

Medical facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in besieged Eastern Ghouta report receiving 1,000 dead and upwards of 4,800 wounded over the past two weeks. Up to 20 of MSF’s facilities in the enclave have been hit by bombing or shelling. The regime is accused of using chemical and phosphorus weapons in its offensive. France has threatened “intervention measures” if claims of gas attacks are proved true. But Russia has repeatedly used its Security Council veto to block any investigation into Syrian chemical attacks.

North America

Charlottesville and Barcelona: fearful symmetry

Trump's disparate reactions to the similar attacks in Charlottesville and Barcelona provide a study not only in double standards, but (worse) the president's actual embrace of racist terror. While saying there were "good people" on the side that was flying the Nazi flag and committed an act of terror in Virginia, he used the attack in Spain as an opportunity to unabashedly call for war crimes against Muslims.

Greater Middle East

UK court approves arms sales to Saudi Arabia

London's High Court of Justice ruled that the UK can continue to export arms to Saudi Arabia, rejecting a case asserting that the weapons have been used in the commission of war crimes in Yemen. A substantial portion of the court's reasoning is contained in a "closed judgment" document only available to the government's legal team and a security-cleared "special advocate" for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

Europe

ETA still wants independent Basque Country

Separatist group ETA said in a communique that it will not abandon its goal of an independent Basque state on the French-Spanish borderlands despite surrendering its arms.

North America

Yes, the Russians. Wake up and smell the vodka.

Amid disingenuous demands for the "evidence," all the political logic points to Russia being behind the hacks in an intentional strategy to throw the US election to Trump.