siyasetçi, İspanya
Western Sahara: Morocco's Deadly Wall Across Western Sahara - Why the 2,700km Berm Was Built and the Damage It Does
[The Conversation Africa] Western Sahara has been carved in two since the 1980s by a wall that Morocco built to hold on to territory it occupied in 1975. Fifty years on, the conflict remains unresolved and the wall - known as the Berm - remains one of the world's most militarised borders. The region is the focus of a project at the University of Porto exploring prospects for biodiversity restoration. Joana Castro Pereira, a professor of politics and international relations, and postgraduate researcher Simón Pardo de
Trump and 14 Lat Am leaders ignite new drug-terror war at UN
On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Tuesday, 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries followed the Trump administration’s lead by designating 24 cartels, prison gangs, and drug trafficking groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), laying the groundwork for potential U.S. military involvement in operations across the Western Hemisphere. The announcement came from the majority of the member-states of the Shield of the Americas, a loosely-formed coalition of 19 right-leaning regional governments — including Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Peru — which in March committed to use lethal military force against criminal groups alleged of drug trafficking to the United States. The Shield members that — for reasons not immediately clear — did not sign Tuesday’s statement include Guatemala, Jamaica, Belize and Bahamas. Other hemispheric governments led by nominally left-of-center leaders, such as Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Cuba and several Caribbean nations — some of which are regional epicenters for organized crime — have not been invited to join the ad-hoc coalition. The joint declaration, which invoked the 1947 mutual defense pact known as the Rio Treaty, came just hours after President Trump told world leaders that “the cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere.” As such he was previewing what many believe may signal the acceleration of open-ended, ill-defined, and unauthorized U.S. military deployments across wide swaths of Latin America and Caribbean in a fusion of the war on drugs with the war on terror. “For years, the cartels have waged war against the people of this hemisphere. Now, we’re waging war on them,” Trump told several heads of state, including Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa, Honduran President Nasry Asfura, and Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, at the gathering of the consortium being led by ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Tuesday’s announcement followed statements last month by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a Panama gathering of the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition (AC3), the Shield's operational wing, that five countries — Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica and Guatemala — had authorized U.S. forces to conduct joint military operations against armed groups in their national territory. Since March, Ecuador has been hosting U.S. special forces in joint operations near the border with Colombia, which has agreed to host the organization’s regional headquarters in Medellín. Colombia also plans to borrow three U.S. MQ-9A reaper drones to carry-out precision strikes against high-value targets and is slated to receive $1 billion in fresh U.S. security assistance over an undefined period of time. While Tuesday’s joint declaration also highlighted plans to boost economic cooperation and multilateral coordination, the coalition’s principal objective is “to do bad things to bad people,” Hegseth told the senior military leaders assembled in Panama, warning them of the alleged threats also posed by irregular migration and extrahemispheric actors like China. Tuesday’s meeting came a week after U.S. officials announced that $52 million in foreign military financing would be redirected from African and European countries to Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Panama. More recently, defense officials speaking with CNN said that “most” of the Pentagon’s high-powered drones operating in Africa will likely be transferred to South America in anticipation of escalating, land-based counternarcotics and counter-terrorism operations. While most, if not all, of the region’s leaders understand the acute challenges to their societies posed by organized crime, experts and former officials say that coercive pressure must act in concert with law enforcement-led solutions and economic development, as well strengthening the rule of law, combatting public corruption, and disrupting illicit financial flows, if security strategies are to prove durable over time. “Criminal organizations are not terrorist organizations,” Todd Robinson, a top Biden administration official for international narcotics and law enforcement, told the New York Times. Weakening these groups requires bolstering a “civilian security apparatus that is trained to go after these organizations — to go after their money, to collect evidence, to indict and prosecute and to, under the rule of law, bring these people to justice.”
Iran war endgameFollowing a Goan photographer across empires and a global war
Moving between Portuguese Goa, British India, princely Gwalior and wartime Mesopotamia, Victor Pereira navigated several worlds.
“Sistema Italia” Mission to Cabo Delgado in Northern Mozambique
(ANSA) - PEMBA, 09 SET - The second “Sistema Italia” mission to the province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique has been underway since Monday, led by Italian Ambassador Gabriele Annis along with the head of the Maputo office of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), and the president of the Mozambique-Italy Chamber of Commerce, Simone Santi. The goal is to strengthen Italy’s presence in the province by promoting collaboration with local institutions, communities, and the private sector. On the first day, the delegation—accompanied by Minister of Youth and Sports Caifadine Paulo Manasse—met with Pemba Mayor Satar Abdulgani, Governor Valige Tauabo, and Provincial Secretary of State Plácido Nerino Pereira, before visiting the Ifpelac vocational training institute and participating in a business forum organized by the Chamber of Commerce. “Italy has a presence in the province with about 30 companies and is one of the countries investing the most in the region,” Annis noted. On the second day, the Cambio program was launched, funded by Italian cooperation with two million euros to strengthen the climate resilience of the cities of Pemba and Beira and the island of Ibo, implemented by a consortium led by the NGO AVSI in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Milan and Lúrio University. “Cabo Delgado is a region of particular importance to Italy, where the presence of major Italian companies, such as Eni, goes hand in hand with the growing commitment of Italian development cooperation,” the ambassador stated. Read article...
Sistema Italia Strengthens Its Commitment in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique
(ANSA) - ROMA, 09 SET - The second mission of Sistema Italia in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado began with the goal of strengthening Italy’s presence in the region and promoting greater collaboration with local institutions, communities, and the private sector. The delegation is led by the Italian Ambassador to Mozambique, Gabriele Annis, with the participation of the head of the AICS office in Maputo, Fabio Strinati, and the president of the Mozambique-Italy Chamber of Commerce, Simone Santi. “Cabo Delgado is a region of particular importance for Italy, where the presence of major Italian companies, such as Eni, goes hand in hand with the growing commitment of Italian Cooperation to the province’s sustainable development,” stated Annis. The delegation, accompanied by the Minister of Youth and Sports, Caifadine Paulo Manasse, met with the mayor of Pemba, Satar Abdulgani; the governor of Cabo Delgado, Valige Tauabo; and the province’s secretary of state, Placido Nerino Pereira. The mission also visited the Alberto Cassimo Institute for Vocational Training and Labor Studies to evaluate new opportunities for cooperation in the field of technical and vocational training. “A focus on the development of human and professional capital has always been at the heart of Italian Cooperation,” the Ambassador emphasized. Discussions with Italian and Mozambican businesses continued at a forum organized by the Mozambique-Italy Chamber of Commerce. Annis noted that approximately 30 Italian companies operate in the province and highlighted the importance of synergy between Italian Cooperation and the private sector. The delegation participated today in the launch of the “Cambio” program, funded by Italian Cooperation with two million euros to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of the cities of Pemba and Beira and the island of Ibo in the face of climate change. The program is implemented by a consortium led by AVSI, in partnership with the Polytechnic University of Milan, Lurio University, the E35 Foundation, and the FACE association, in collaboration with local governments. “The launch of ‘Cambio’ represents another concrete step forward in our commitment and our desire to work side by side with local institutions and communities,” Annis concluded. Read article...