Day: January 13, 2024

President Ilham Aliyev establishes Organizing Committee for key international climate conferences in Baku  News.Az

NPR News: 01-13-2024 5PM EST

President Aliyev Highlights Key Policy Issues After 2020 War  Caspian News

As Iran’s regime nears its sham parliamentary elections, scheduled for March, the process of purging the key regime figures from running for office has reached a point thateven the regime newspaper Ham-Mihan wrote on January 7, “No news has had as strong a reaction as the disqualification of Seyyed Mahmoud Alavi, the former Minister of Intelligence… How is it possible that the highest-ranking official of the Ministry of Intelligence, who played a role in confirming or disqualifying candidates in the previous elections, is now disqualified and eliminated from the parliamentary elections?”

On January 4, the spokesperson of the Guardian Council announced the disqualification of 26 members of the current Majlis (parliament) and key figures of the regime, another scandal that is trying hard to purge its ranks from officials that are not completely aligned with the vision of its supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

On January 7, the state-run Arman-e Emrooz Daily quoted Ahmad Alireza Bigi, a member of Majlis who was disqualified, as saying, “I have been a commander of the law enforcement forces in various provinces for years, a deputy of the Judiciary, and I have six years of experience as a governor. It is strange to claim that someone like me does not believe in the Islamic Republic.”

On January 5, Khabar Online quoted Jalal Mahmoud Zadeh, another member of Majlis who has been disqualified, as saying, “Currently, the qualifications of over 40% of Sunni representatives in the Majlis have been rejected by the supervisory committee. In other words, we have 16 Sunni representatives in the Majlis, and they have disqualified six of us. Now, I am surprised that I have been a member of Majlis for three terms, and for the past 12 years, I have been the head of the Sunni faction in the Majlis. However, the supervisory committee has disqualified me, citing non-compliance with Islam.”

Khabar Online added, “Mahmoud Zadeh, referring to the government’s influence in the qualification process, said: During the protests, I had discussions, including the impeachment of the Minister of Interior and opposition to the proposed Minister of Industries, Mining, and Trade. These discussions led to my disqualification.”

In a meeting with 50 regime loyalists on January 2, regime president Ebrahim Raisi tried to raise encouragement for participating in the elections. However, it became so scandalous that even the participants in this session described it as a show. Despite the previous announcement, the regime’s television refrained from broadcasting it.

In that session, the politician Mohsen Rafsanjani, said, “It seems that these sessions are more ceremonial rather than practical.”

It appears that Khamenei, who had resorted to warmongering and suppressing uprisings to engineer the electoral process, is now so concerned with these elections that he has been personally appealing three times in recent days to urge people to vote. He said that there are problems, but they can only be resolved by casting their votes.

On December 27, Khamenei asked from a group of women to “encourage their children and spouses to be actively involved in the elections.”

Then, on January 3, 2024, while threatening those who oppose the purged elections, said, “Anyone who opposes the elections is opposing the Islamic Republic, opposing Islam. Elections are a duty. One of today’s tasks is to feel a sense of duty towards the elections.”

But the people of Iran have already cast their votes in multiple rounds of nationwide protests, where they have chanted, “Death to Khamenei,” “Death to Raisi,” and “Death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the mullahs.” They have made it clear that they will settle for nothing less than regime change and the establishment of a free and democratic republic, where the people choose their true leaders and destiny.

By Leesa K. Donner

Former President Donald Trump took the day off from campaigning in Iowa this week to attend a hearing before a three-judge DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel. At issue is whether Trump had presidential immunity following the 2020 election and cannot be prosecuted for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, by special counsel Jack Smith. The hearing came about because the US Supreme Court refused a petition from Smith, which was sent back to the Circuit Court.

The three judges, two of whom were appointed by Joe Biden and one by George H.W. Bush, hammered Trump’s attorney John Sauer with a plethora of hypothetical questions and appeared to take a skeptical eye to the former president’s position.

One particularly unusual exchange occurred when a judge asked Sauer what if a president ordered “SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival.” According to a report in The Hill, Trump’s attorney maintained the president would have to be “impeached and convicted” before he could be prosecuted. Arguing on behalf of the special counsel, James Pearce chimed in with:

“What kind of world are we living in … if a president orders his SEAL team to murder a political rival and then resigns or is not impeached — that is not a crime? I think that is an extraordinarily frightening future that should weigh heavily on the court’s decision.”

Bush appointee Judge Karen Henderson sounded skeptical of Trump’s position when she pointed out, “I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law,” according to Fox Digital.

Will No Immunity Equal Bedlam?

Hypothetical questions aside, the linchpin of Trump’s case is that a former president is being prosecuted by his chief current political opponent. This argument appeared to make some headway with Judge Henderson, who wondered aloud how a decision could be made against immunity that would not result in the “floodgates” being opened against a slew of former presidents.

That appeared to be Trump’s main point following the hearing. Speaking to a gaggle of reporters at the Washington DC Waldorf Astoria Hotel (formerly a Trump property), he warned there would be “bedlam in the country” if he lost the immunity case.

Bedlam or not, and based on the questions from the three-judge panel, court watchers speculate the former president is not likely to prevail in this legal action. Liberty Nation’s Legal Affairs Editor Scott Cosenza, Esq. explained:

“The DC Circuit panel hesitated to accept Trump’s arguments and appeared ready with some tough hypotheticals. To give Trump a win on a novel application of the law benefiting his political prospects seems unlikely given who appointed the judges. I suspect they will rule in favor of Mr. Smith, knowing the Supreme Court will address any oversight in their rulings, and they will still be in favor at their kids’ school functions.”

But here’s the kicker: Should Trump lose this battle, he may have helped himself by slowing down things. Currently, the trial date is set for March 4, and what Trump needs above all right now is time, which means that delaying proceedings until after the presidential election is a crucial part of the game.

• About the author: Leesa K. Donner is Editor-in-Chief of LibertyNation.com. A widely published columnist, Leesa previously worked in the broadcast news industry as a television news anchor, reporter, and producer at NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates in Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. She is the author of “Free At Last: A Life-Changing Journey through the Gospel of Luke.”
• Source: This article was published by Liberty Nation

The countries that straddle our tormented world are woefully unprepared to counter and prevent five Omnicides already underway or looming menacingly on the horizon. This is increasingly true with the yearly passage of neglected opportunities. The gap between our mounting knowledge and its application to these global threats is widening.

1. The Climate Crisis, better called Climate Violence, producing record storms, wildfires, droughts, sea-level rises, floods and unprecedented heat waves, is omnicidal. The year 2023 was the hottest in recorded history. Millions of lives are already being lost, with even more people suffering from climate-related illnesses and injuries. In addition, property destruction is rampant. The consequential effects of natural disasters are mounting in terms of damaged agriculture, soil erosion, habitat destruction (leading to species extinction) and the regional spread of insect-borne diseases such as Malaria.

Promised investments for mitigation and prevention made at the international “climate change” conventions have not been fulfilled. Renewable solar energy is growing, to be sure. However, the pace of proven responses required by the accelerating global warming is at abysmally low levels.

2. Viral and bacterial pandemics are looming larger by the decade. Faster transport carriers of infections often zoonotically transmitted, poor collaborations such as between China and the U.S., and increasing human-driven mutations from e.g., reckless over-use of antibiotics are exacerbating these problems. The proliferation of laboratories with inadequate safeguards for their “gain of function” and viruses and bacteria breaching containment all are raising alarming scenarios by scientists from many disciplines.

The Covid-19 pandemic has taken approximately 15 million lives between 2020 to 2021, according to the World Health Organization. Specialists are saying it is not a question of “if,” but a question of “when” future pandemics will occur.

3. The omnicidal perils of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are not being confronted with the requisite international arms control treaties. Indeed, the existing treaties between the U.S. and Russia are being rescinded or suspended and the remaining ones are in danger of not being renewed and updated. The use of these weapons and their delivery capabilities is becoming decentralized, with fast-innovating drones and smart bombs.

Our Congress has no countervailing forces in motion, no serious hearings, no champions confronting the necessities of applying knowledge to action and compelling an empire-building White House to work to mobilize allies and non-allies alike around the world to negotiate peace treaties which are in everyone’s perceived self-interest. (Remember the treaties between the former Soviet Union and the U.S.)

4. “Artificial Intelligence” or “A.I.” is viewed by leading scientists and technologists as the ultimate tool capable of advancing an out-of-control doomsday future. Machines replicating themselves and turning on their creators is no longer science fiction. A coherent warning came from computer expert Bill Joy in his seminal article published by Wired Magazine on April 1, 2000, titled “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” He included in his triad of plausible horrors, A.I., Biotechnology and Nanotechnology and how they are interwoven with one another.

Without any regulation to speak of, these technologies are being driven by commercial/corporate short-term profit priorities, with heavy government subsidies and contracts. The citizenry’s input is not part of the equation.

In 2014, heavyweights in science and technology, led by Stephen Hawking, released a letter to the world warning of robots that could take control of their operations and replicate their algorithms resulting in direct control of human beings, autonomous weapons and other seizures of decisions from the human species. It was a one or two-day story in the mass media followed by a global shrug and back to business as usual. Congress and the Parliaments are unprepared and have done little to develop the enforceable legislation necessary to thwart this relentless self-inflicted momentum to omnicide.

5. Then comes the foundational omnicide stemming from a wave of elected dictators enabled by an excluded, deteriorating civil society. Political and corporate power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. In most countries, the political economy has converged into an ever-maturing Corporate State which President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned about in a 1938 message to Congress:

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

Kleptocratic regimes come in various styles, depending on the nation’s stage of development, and operate by stealing from the future to enrich and entrench themselves in the present. Both in so-called developed and developing countries, they are displacing any semblance of modestly functioning democracies able, with the primacy of civil values and the rule of law, to foresee and forestall these approaching omnicides.

Where is the hope? Where it always has been, in societies with deliberative democratic practices and traditions of civic engagement that lean toward governments of, by and for the people. Just one percent of the people resolving to commit and connect can start reversing these ominous drifts toward the cliffs.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education…”

From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few years. 

From a strategic asset, the Israeli connection is becoming a liability for the Indian government. Delhi spurned Netanyahu’s repeated entreaties to brand Hamas as a terrorist organisation — by the way, India never pointed finger at Hamas for the October 7 attack. It has resumed the traditional stance of voting against Israel in the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Palestine problem. The Netanyahu-Modi pow-vows have become infrequent. 

This is a far cry from the controversial gesture by PM Modi during his ‘historic’ five-day visit to Israel in 2017 to pay homage at the tomb of the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl in Haifa . It is doubtful if any Indian prime minister would repeat Modi’s feat in future. With reasonable certainty, it can be said that the future of Zionism in West Asia itself looks rather bleak.

Again, for reasons that remain obscure even today, India decided to be a strong votary of the ill-fated Abraham Accords that purportedly aimed at ‘integrating’ Israel into the Arab fold but, in reality, to isolate Iran in its neighbourhood. Delhi never provided a rational explanation for such a dramatic shift in the traditional policy not to take sides in the intra-regional fratricidal strife in West Asia or identify with the US hegemony in that region. 

Delhi followed up by enthusiastically lining up with a surreal venture called ‘I2U2’ which brought together India and the UAE with the US and Israel as a condominium to promote the spirit of the Abraham Accords. In an extravagant gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a 5-day visit to Israel to participate in ‘I2U2’.  

Above all, Delhi, which hosted the G20 Summit last year and was supposedly highlighting the rise of the Global South in the world order, instead ended up arranging photo-ops for the visiting US President who hijacked the event and instead catapulted a phoney,  laughable idea as the main outcome of that historic event — the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC). 

The US apparently incentivised Delhi by planting a patently absurd thought that IMEEC would toll the death knell for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China of course retaliated by just hoisting the BRI flag high all over the Maldives (population: 515,132 in the 2022 census) on India’s soft underbelly from where it is visible all over the subcontinent day and night.

However, Indian diplomats are quick learners and course corrections come naturally to them. Delhi has understood that such absurdities in its West Asian policy will do no good and may even be counterproductive as they raise hackles in the Arab Street. Thus, Qatar ticked off India recently by ordering the 15 Indian schools in Doha that cater to the needs of the largely-Hindu 700,000-strong Indian ex-patriate community to ignore Hindu holidays, especially Diwali. 

Consistent with the championing of the Global South, India should have voiced support for South Africa’s brilliant initiative to petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to bring Israel to justice for its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. After all, it was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi had finessed the concept of resistance to racialism. But, alas, India lacked the courage of conviction and the moral fibre to do so. 

It is too much to expect the ICJ to put Netanyahu in a cage and try him in the Hague court for his abominable acts against humanity. But there is a strong likelihood that with tacit western support, the ICJ may issue in the coming weeks some sort of interim order for a ceasefire. And in the present atmosphere, that can prove to be a game changer.

All this makes India’s decision to stay clear of the US’ harebrained idea of disciplining Yemen’s Houthis a sensible step. The theatre of the absurd playing out in the Red Sea with the Five Eyes in the cockpit is incredibly complicated. One main vector there is about the phenomenon of the Houthi resistance as such. 

An old friend and Beirut-based editor-in-chief of the Cradle, Sharmine Narwani twitted about the quagmire in the Red Sea that awaits the Anglo-American attack on Yemen today:

“I honestly question whether the US or UK have carefully considered #Yemen‘s potential responses to this act of war. Ansarallah (Houthi) is an unusual member of the region’s Axis of Resistance. It marches to its own tune and its mindset is entirely devoid of western narrative grooming. There is no guessing at the full spectrum of its retaliatory palette, but I would not want to be an American or Brit in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or any of the neighbouring waterways right now.

“It may be that Washington misread the Russian and Chinese abstentions at the UNSC yesterday (on Red Sea). Or, perhaps Moscow and Beijing dangled that bait so the US would miscalculate this badly. The Americans are now militarily engaged, supplying, or bogged down on 5 separate fronts: Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. US adversaries can easily hold out until the fatigue sets in; they are nowhere near depleted. 

“Bottom line is I think the entire Global South is going to be wearing Abdul Malik al-Houthi t-shirts by springtime.”

Indeed, it is such prescience that is often lacking in India’s West Asia strategy. This is not a region for one-dimensional men. It has been a strategic mistake to be aligned to the US and its allies in the Indian Ocean under the rubric of ‘maritime security’. The erstwhile colonial powers are innovating Neo-mercantile mechanisms to transfer wealth to their metropolis. Why should Indians act as ‘coolies’, as during British rule? 

Most important, India should be seized of the Renaissance that is sweeping through the Muslim countries in West Asia. It is epochal in its sweep and has cultural, political and economic dimensions — and will inevitably have far-reaching geopolitical significance. That is why, it becomes imperative that Delhi stops viewing the region though Netanyahu’s Zionist eyes. It is important to terminate India’s collaboration with the US and colonial powers such as France and the UK to interfere in the region on the pretext of maritime security in the Indian Ocean. 

India has no reason to have institutionalised partnerships with the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). In a conceivable future, the curtain could well be descending on the western military bases in West Asia. Delhi should grasp the reality that something fundamentally changed post-October 7 in the geopolitics of West Asia. 

It is in sync with what Germans call the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) that Saudi Arabia is demanding that the security of the Red Sea is an international responsibility in cooperation with the riparian countries and UN support. Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has called for the establishment of a Council of States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in 2020, eight countries signed the Council’s founding charter, who include, ironically, Yemen. Saudi Arabia plans to host a summit meeting of the Council of States. 

Today’s Anglo-American missile strike against Yemen should come as a rude awakening to India messaging that the very same western powers who are backing Israel are also escalating the conflict in Gaza and step by step transforming it as a regional conflict — all in the name of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia, the regional superpower in the Red Sea, has called on the US to exercise restraint.  

This article was published at Indian Punchline

By Jeyhun Ahmadli

The internal politics of Iran is being shaken by the election agenda while the Israel-Hamas war continues in a tense phase. The elections scheduled for March 1, 2024, will define both the composition of the 12th term parliament and the Council of Experts, which is empowered to appoint the Supreme Religious Leader.

As the upcoming elections are the first since the large-scale protests that swept across the country in 2022 following the killing of activist Mahsa Amini, some observers hope that the election marathon will be held in a relatively democratic atmosphere. Although the fact that the registration process of candidates started in August and this online procedure was initially promoted as a positive element, later an opinion began to be heard more widely that this initiative stems from the need to create an imitation of a “transparent and democratic environment” during the election process.

Although a record number of 48,000 people reportedly confirmed their candidacy online at the initial registration stage, the Council of Guardians (“Shuraye Negahban”) responded negatively to the applications of thousands of candidates who did not conform to the “values and principles” of the regime. It should be noted that one of the main points criticized by the reformists is that the new articles added to the Election Code enable the disqualification procedure of the opposition candidates to be made more stringent. Thus, the extension of the registration period allows more candidates to participate in the election, and on the other hand, it gives the regime additional time to ensure a deeper and more thorough examination of the candidates. In other words, some opposition forces representing the reformist wing have started voicing boycott messages, characterizing the change to the Election Code as a reactionary and anti-democratic step.

Based on the monitoring of the state-affiliated media resources, we can say that the main goal of the regime is to achieve high turnout in the upcoming parliamentary elections. It should be recalled that the 42 percent turnout recorded in the 2020 parliamentary elections is considered the lowest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. This indicator, which calls into question the legitimacy of the Majlis, is likely to decrease further in the background of the deepening socio-economic crisis and the regime’s increasing persecution of dissidents. According to the results of the survey conducted in July 2023, the level of public distrust in the parliament among the population has risen to 68 percent, which sounds an alarm from the point of view of weakening social support for the regime. In this regard, the theocratic authorities hope to ensure high participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections in order to strengthen public trust among the people.

The same line is evident in the statements in the political groups representing the conservative-fundamentalist camp as well. It is evident that conservative politicians, drawing inspiration from recent calls from the Supreme Religious Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei, are conducting a propaganda campaign with all their strength to mobilize the population for the elections.

The ultra-conservative Paydari party (Front of Islamic Revolution Stability), which has a dominant position in both the parliament and the government, backed with the support of the regime in the previous elections, is considered the strongest force of the conservative wing in the upcoming elections. Besides, politicians from the conservative camp, such as the current speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf; the former soldier Hossein Allahkaram, who is reportedly considered to be engaged in criminal activities; the minister of roads and urban development Mehrdad Bazrpash; and the current mayor of Tehran Alirza Zakani, are all expected to participate in the elections under a separate list of candidates. Whether the political parties led by those persons will unite with the Paydari party under one coalition is still in question.

It is hard to say that a special pre-election activity was observed in the opposition camp. Ex-president Mohammad Hatami, famous reformist leaders like Mehdi Karroubi, Abdollah Nouri and other like-minded influential politicians preferred the path of direct or indirect boycott, which led to the strengthening of distrust and pessimism toward the election process. The refusal of such reformist leaders to participate in the elections can significantly weaken the competitive environment and reduce the turnout to a minimum. It even appears as though, among the registered candidates, representatives of reformists are entirely absent. Nevertheless, the government media reported that 800 reformist candidates had filled out the application form to participate in the parliamentary elections at the initial stage of the registration process. Although there is no information about how many of those candidates were disqualified by the Council of Guardians, this figure itself leaves no room for doubt that the conservatives will definitely win the elections and form a government on their own.

The Kayhan newspaper, which is known for its close ties to conservative circles, accused the opposition of engaging in pre-election manipulation, writing that they are hiding information about the registered candidates of reformists from the public. Some fundamentalist politicians have claimed that reformist political parties are holding coalition discussions behind closed doors.

Even a few months ago, allegations were put forward that there was a secret deal between the former president Hassan Rouhani and the former speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani. Although there is no concrete information yet on whether the aforementioned political figures will participate in the parliamentary elections as part of one coalition, it has already been confirmed that Hasan Rouhani will give the main priority to the elections for the Council of Experts. It is likely that his main opponent in the elections to that institution will be the current President Ebrahim Raisi.

However, it is predicted that Larijani will be one of the main figures of the reformist-moderate wing in the upcoming parliamentary elections, and a number of other parties representing that camp will participate in the elections as part of the alliance that will be formed under his leadership. The Construction Party, which is considered the main political party of the moderate-centrist camp and was founded by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, plans to join the elections independently. Although the Construction Party made ambitious pre-election statements, considering the results of the last elections, we can underestimate their chances of winning a significant percentage of the votes.

The upcoming elections are another test in terms of the continuation of the theocratic authority. According to information circulating in political circles, the 85-year-old Supreme Religious Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei plans to hand over the post that he holds to one of his successors as soon as possible due to health problems. As the members of the Council of Experts, who will appoint the new religious leader, will be defined as a result of the elections to be held on March 1, 2024, Khamenei will first of all pay attention to the formation of the aforementioned institution from the ultra-conservative camp.

Another main point that concerns Khamenei is the ethnic tensions that have engulfed the country for more than a year and the ideological consequences created by the public dissatisfaction with the hijab. These trends, which are intensifying at the moment, pose a threat to the existence of the regime and put Khamenei in front of a big dilemma before the elections: should he take risks in order to strengthen his social support among the people and allow the parliament to be controlled by reformers, or should he allow the ideological crisis to deepen further by keeping the conservative wing in the dominant position in the legislature with traditional methods?

The second scenario could further fuel distrust and antipathy towards the regime among the population, and right on the eve of a planned transition of religious power to one of the successors, posing a major worry for Khamenei. From the day the elections were announced, numerous statements by prominent representatives in the ultra-conservative camp, including Khamenei, urging the population to participate in the elections, strengthened the possibility of the first scenario. However, influential figures of the reformist movement subsequently voiced negative opinions about the transparency of the election process, and some reformists boycotted the elections, giving reason to predict that the reformists will remain in the minority in the 12th term of the parliament. As for the possibilities of the centrist-moderate parties sharing power in the parliament, there are some disagreements within this camp, but it can’t be ruled out that the regime will take certain steps for the benefit of centrist political forces in order to create an impression of electoral competition in the legislative body.

It is worth noting that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war may have some implications on the upcoming elections. Thus, if the war continues according to the scenario desired by Israel and if a new governance system is formed in Gaza under the patronage of the West, the trust of the ultra-right electorate towards the regime will surely be damaged. This expected shift in the views of the conservative voters may likely manifest itself at the results of the elections.

Source: This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com