MESOPOTAMIA NEWS SITU REPORT : ONE LESS HURDLE BEFORE IRAQI ELECTIONS – by Safwan Al-Amin and Bilal Wahab
PolicyWatch 3462 April 1, 2021 – A complicated parliamentary compromise has reactivated some of the machinery required for this year’s proposed ballot and a potential resolution to the KRG energy dispute, though the country’s hobbled legal institutions are still holding back reform.
On March 19, the Iraqi Council of Representatives (COR) amended Law No. 30 of 2005 establishing the Federal Supreme Court (FSC), the country’s highest constitutional court. Although the decision stems from a thorny political compromise and fails to resolve Iraq’s deeper legal pathologies, it will nonetheless help overcome a serious barrier to holding early elections in October. The FSC has been paralyzed since 2019 by a self-inflicted constitutional crisis, but it can now fulfill its mandated duty of ratifying election results. It might also be able to dust off a case regarding national oil and natural gas management rights—a subject of bitter dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Yet if Iraq keeps kicking the can down the road on constitutionally mandated reforms, the situation could lead to even worse political and legal complications.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS “OUR TOP PIORITY”! – BOYCOTTING BEIJING? THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND PROTESTING UIGHUR GENOCIDE
Friday, April 2, 2021 – THE SOUFAN CENTER
Bottom Line Up Front:
- The conversation about whether the United States should boycott the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, China is growing in intensity.
- The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains hyper sensitive to even a modicum of public criticism about what it considers “internal issues.”
- Done properly, an Olympic boycott would need to be tied to broader strategic objectives related to improving human rights dynamics in China.
- Consequently, officials in the Biden administration are likely debating whether a boycott would deliver tangible change.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Jihadis Are Becoming Turkey’s Permanent Proxy Force
By Burak Bekdil March 31, 2021 – ISRAEL – BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,982, March 31, 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey, a member of NATO, now effectively has a jihadi proxy force that it has deployed in its Syrian homeland as well as in faraway war theaters like Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.
An assortment of jihadi groups holed up in northern Syria under Turkey’s protection are becoming the permanent proxy force of the new Ottomans.This looks like a marriage made in heaven. Turkey and the jihadis share an ideological and sectarian bond and have common goals. There is money and logistical support, as well as geographical proximity. They share a taste for adventurism in faraway lands, particularly in the service of what they consider a holy cause.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS EDITORIAL : Why the Left needs ‘institutional racism’
Their dogmatic approach makes sensible analysis impossible
Douglas Murray is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist based in London. – DouglasKMurray – UNHERD MAGAZINE – UK – April 1, 2021
The law of the instrument — or “Maslow’s hammer”, as it is sometimes known — has become an indispensable tool for negotiating the current world. It holds, as Abraham Maslow said in 1966, that “it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”.
In recent decades, this law has held firm nowhere so much as in the business of “race relations”, where one hammer in particular has been on very public display: the casual accusation of “racism”. Allegations of racism have for decades been among the most serious accusations that can be made against a person; likewise, since the publication of the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, an allegation of “institutional racism” has been the most serious accusation that can be made against an organisation.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : SINJAR REPORT – IRAQ-KURDISTAN / TROUBLE WITH PKK !
Despite government promises, lives in Sinjar remain on hold – ‘They all just talk but don’t do anything.’
Lizzie Porter THE NEW HUMANITARIAN 31 March 2021 – Print and radio journalist based between Baghdad, Erbil, and Beirut. Senior correspondent at Iraq Oil Report, focused on politics, the economy, and security
Little has changed in the six months since a deal that was intended to bring stability and reconstruction to Sinjar – the long-disputed northern Iraq homeland of the Yazidis – was signed, residents say.
“This deal has had no real effect,” said Dilyar, a member of Sinjar’s police force, who asked that his surname not be published. He gestured up and down a street lined with collapsed buildings, the sun fading. “[One armed group] are in this direction, and the PKK [another armed group] in the other. At night there are no people here, and it’s pitch dark.”
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : TROUBLE INSIDE OF THE KURDISH FAMILY – Shingal agreement must be implemented or there will be war, says Yazidi commander
26-03-2021 – Dilan Sirwan – RUDAW – ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The commander of a Yazidi armed force part of the Kurdistan Region Peshmerga forces said on Friday he fears war could break out in the disputed district of Shingal as tensions between the Iraqi army and militias affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) continue to grow.
“The Iraqi side had initially planned for all armed groups to leave the center of Shingal today, however it seems that the time could be extended until April 1,” Haidar Shasho told Rudaw English.
Shasho is commander of Shingal’s Ezidkhan Protection Force, a Yazidi armed group incorporated into the Kurdistan Region Peshmerga forces. If the armed groups do not voluntarily withdraw, he is worried the Iraqi army may use force.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS TRENDS & POSITIONS – : Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the “Anti-Imperialism” of Fools
By: Multiple signers March 26, 2021 NEW POLITICS
[The following Open Letter was a collaborative effort of a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them. It is signed by activists, writers, artists, and academics from Syria and 32 other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America, and appears in multiple languages: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian.]
Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising ten years ago, and especially since Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, there has been a curious and malign development: the emergence of pro-Assad allegiances in the name of “anti-imperialism” among some who otherwise generally identify as progressive or “left,” and the consequent spread of manipulative disinformation that routinely deflects attention away from the well-documented abuses of Assad and his allies. Portraying themselves as “opponents” of imperialism, they routinely exhibit a highly selective attention to matters of “intervention” and human rights violations that often aligns with the governments of Russia and China; those who disagree with their highly-policed views are frequently (and falsely) branded as “regime change enthusiasts” or dupes of western political interests.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS NEUESTES UNTER DER REGENBOGEN-FAHNE – Endlich wieder Rassenkund und Rassengesetze – eine Initiative von LINKS! Cengiz Barsanmaz und die Rechtsordnung.
„Kritische Rassenkunde“ im Jahr 2021 unter Begleitung einer Richterin am BVerfG (Susanne Baer). Die Promotion von Cengiz Barskanmaz ist eine Anleitung die völkische Critical Race Theory in die Rechtsordnung zu implementieren.
Das Rechtsverständnis der Critical Race Theory löscht die politische Gleichheit des Staatsbürgers aus. Critical Race Theory vertritt nur noch kollektive/völkische Interessen und Identitäten. (1)
Stellt der Staat diese Gruppenzugehörigkeit über das Individuum und seine individuellen Bürgerrechte, hat sich der Staat von den Grundsätzen einer liberalen Demokratie verabschiedet. Er bedroht damit auch die Geltung individueller Menschenrechte und öffnet damit auch Tür und Tor der Scharia (https://bit.ly/3odVyNB). Es ist daher nicht überraschend, dass die Ideologie der Critical Race Theory (wie sie Cengiz Barskanmaz vertritt) Anschluss bei Vereinen wie Inssan e.V. findet.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS SPECIAL : ‘The National’ obtains US official document for Palestinian ‘reset’
Four-page US memo details Biden administration’s approach to relations with the Palestinian Authority and jump-starting the peace process – THE NATIONAL 26 March 2021
The US administration is looking to ‘reset’ relations with the Palestinians with a plan that includes $15 million in Covid-19 assistance and a rollback of several Trump administration positions that favoured Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and did not prioritise the two-state solution, an internal memo reveals.
The official document, obtained exclusively by The National on Wednesday, was raised to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on March 1, by acting assistant secretary of state for near eastern Affairs Joey Hood.
It was drafted by deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs Hady Amr and his team.
The memo, The US Palestinian Reset and the Path Forward, is the most detailed proposal so far by the Biden team to rebalance relations with the Palestinians after four years of Donald Trump, who cut ties with Ramallah.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS FOCUS : Iran concerned about being excluded from process of settling the conflict in Syria
Iran is concerned that Turkey, Russia and Qatar are trying to bypass the Astana accords. A senior Iranian claimed openly that Iran should not become dependent on the survival of Assad alone
Ami Rojkes Dombe | 22/03/2021 AHVAL NEWS : President al-Assad receives Senior Assistant to Iranian Foreign Minister Khaji and the accompanying delegation – http://sana.sy/
According to a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Iran is concerned about a change of direction in Syrian President Assad’s palace in Damascus. “In an extraordinary statement, a former Iranian Majlis member stated that it can not be ruled out that Syria will change its approach toward Iran is the future, and hence Iran must not place all its eggs in President Assad’s basket. His statement was made against the backdrop of Iran’s exclusion from a meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Qatar in Doha, which convened to discuss the crisis in Syria,” the report said.
« neuere Artikel / next articles ältere Artikel / previous articles »