Call on Colombia to Stop Flow of Mercenaries

If you believe Sudan, then one of Colombia's major exports has to be mercenaries. 

The country's ex-soldiers who become hired guns are highly regarded. Their training and experience acquired over more than 50 years of armed conflict in Colombia itself, make them attractive candidates for countries facing security crises.

Therefore, predictably, there is a big demand for these mercenaries. So much so that Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil al-Taib Idris (right) has called on the said country to stop the recruitment and deployment of mercenaries to the African state, which has been gripped by a civil war between the national army and paramilitary forces for more than two years. 

The minister made the demand in a letter published by the state-owned Sudan News Agency (SUNA) on Saturday and confirmed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. 

His remarks come amid repeated allegations by the Sudanese transitional government that the United Arab Emirates is financing foreign mercenaries, including Colombian fighters aligned with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing conflict. 

Sudan claims it has “irrefutable” evidence, submitted to the UN Security Council, confirming the UAE’s actions, which it warns threaten peace and security in the region and the continent. 

Khartoum severed diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi in May, accusing it of violating Sudanese sovereignty. The UAE has dismissed the claims as “baseless allegations” and “feeble media stunts”. 

On August 06, Sudan’s air force said they had destroyed an Emirati aircraft allegedly carrying Colombian militants as it landed at an RSF-held airport in Darfur, killing at least 40 people. 

Following the incident, Petro (left) announced he had asked the Colombian parliament to grant emergency status to a bill outlawing mercenarism. He condemned the practice as a “form of human trafficking, turning men into commodities for killing”, and branded those profiting from it as “death bosses”. 

In response to the Sudanese prime minister’s message, on Sunday, Petro urged “young former soldiers and officers” not to sell themselves as hired fighters. 

“Fight for your homeland, do not die in foreign wars”, he said in a post on X.

Israeli Hands Get More Blood-soaked As More Palestinians Are Butchered

The death toll surges, soars and spirals. 

 

At least 23,469 Palestinians have been killed and 59,604 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 07, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. And about 7,000 people remain missing under the rubble and are presumed dead. 

 

In the most recent 24-hour reporting period, Israeli forces carried out 10 mass killings in the Gaza Strip, causing 112 deaths and 194 injuries, the ministry added.

 

Israeli hands get more blood-soaked as more Palestinians are butchered.

 

 

The killing of civilians in Gaza is at a scale unprecedented in recent history, as Israel continues to pound the besieged coastal enclave more than three months into the war. 

 

UK-based charity Oxfam said on Thursday that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza – claimed to be at an average rate of 250 people a day – surpasses that of any other major conflict in the twenty-first century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments.

 

For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the turn of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen. 

 

Oxfam said the crisis is further compounded by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, where only 10 percent of weekly food aid that is needed gets in. This poses a serious risk of starvation for those who survive the relentless bombardment, they said.

19 Million Cases

Yesterday, the world hit 19 million cases. And a day earlier, the coronavirus pandemic death toll had passed 700,000. 

I suppose this is what is commonly referred to as the ‘second wave’. Again, if we examine the twelve worst-affected countries, they have combined to contribute 72.7% of the world total cases.

 

Two countries, the United States and India stuck out like sore thumbs. 

SARS-CoV-2 continues to plague the US as the number of cases went beyond 5 million. And India has become the third country to pass two million cases. 

In fact, it has taken 20 days for the country to progress from a million to two million cases. That is faster than the time the US (43 days) and Brazil (27 days) took to double from a million cases. The only saving grace is that India recorded fewer fatalities than both these countries.

I wish the country would focus on fighting Covid-19 rather than fighting China. 

Africa has a million people now been confirmed to have had the coronavirus – and 87.5% are coming from these 12 countries:

Mary Stephen, technical officer at the WHO's regional office for Africa warns: "We haven't seen the peak in Africa yet".

Africa Tops 400,000 Coronavirus Cases

Covid-19 is here to stay in Africa. 

Given the current trends in incidence – more so when the coronavirus pandemic transitions to more widespread community transmission – and underlying healthcare systems vulnerabilities, the continent is in real danger of becoming the next epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Note that it took 98 days for Africa to reach 100,000 cases – and just 18 to hit 200,000 and another 22 days to reach 400,000. On that Tuesday, the continent also registered 10,000 deaths.

It is pertinent to highlight that the twelve most-affected countries are responsible for 84.2% of Africa’s total cases; insofar as fatalities are concerned, the Top 12 contributed 87.7% of total deaths. 

Elsewhere, Pakistan garnered 200,000 cases on Sunday whilst India, Turkey and Colombia collected 600,000, 200,000 and 100,000 cases respectively on Wednesday:

It is heartening to know that Malaysia has reported positive news today with the number of active cases dipping below 100 – with 85 cases only.

200,000 Coronavirus Cases in Africa

The total number of coronavirus cases in Africa passed 200,000 yesterday, according to the World Health Organization’s office for the region. The continent had added 100,000 cases in eighteen days. 

According to the latest update by the UN health agency, 201,157 people have tested positive for the virus across the 54 countries in Africa, of whom 90,374 have recovered and 5,486 have died, the UN health agency said. 

The Top 7 African countries for confirmed cases are still the same as the list I had put out in my May 23 post (“The Covid-19 Situation in Africa”) – just that there has been a reshuffle in their positions, Nos. 3 to 7:

BTW, these seven countries constitute 72.3% of Africa’s total (or 1.9% of cases worldwide). 

Even for fatalities – where the Top 7 countries make up 81.8% of Africa’s total (or 1.1% of deaths worldwide) – it's the same seven countries as I last reported in May – except for a change in positions, Nos. 2 to 7. 

And just to compare with the Bottom 7 (i.e. the Least Affected countries):

4.5 Million Cases and 300,000 Deaths

Already 4.5 million coronavirus cases worldwide and 300,000 people dead. And still counting! 

The United States is tightly holding onto its No.1 ranking for both infections and fatalities – and methinks, in 8 days or less, it will reach another grim milestone: 1.5 million cases and 100,000 deaths. Donald Trump is doing a swell job to keep Americans safe!

Meanwhile, Russia has a quarter of a million cases on Thursday – but daily new infections thankfully fell below 10,000 for the first time:

The other hotspot, Brazil has surpassed 200,000 cases on the same day too: 

Yesterday, Africa registered more than 70,000 coronavirus infections and its death toll is almost hitting 2,500:

It is not too worrisome a situation just yet because the 7 countries (out of a tally of 54) most affected by Covid-19 in terms of cumulative case numbers together account for 68.7% of the total in the continent:

Poverty Porn Images

The vulture and the little girl, 1993. Original title: Struggling Girl. Image credit: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/

Yesterday, at a High Impact Leadership session that I was involved in – one speaker showed the above print and spoke about hunger. 

In the pix, the vulture is waiting for the girl to die and to make a meal out of her. 

The photograph was taken by South African photojournalist, Kevin Carter, while on assignment in Sudan. 

It was in March 1993 that he made a trip to a location that is near the village of Ayod, Carter found a scrawny girl who had stopped to rest while struggling to a United Nations feeding center, whereupon a vulture had landed nearby. 

Careful not to disturb the bird, he waited for twenty minutes until the vulture was close enough, positioned himself for the best possible image and only then chased it away. 

At this point Carter was probably not yet aware that he had captured one of the most controversial pictures in the history of photojournalism. 

The snapshot was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. 

Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run a special editor’s note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. 

Because of this, Carter was bombarded with questions about why he did not help the girl, and only used her to take a photograph. 

As with many dramatic photos, Carter came under severe criticism for this image. 

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida wrote: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene”. 

The attitude that public opinion condemned was not only that of taking the picture instead of chasing the vulture immediately away, but also the fact that he did not help the girl afterwards – as Carter explained later – leaving her in such a weak state and yet, she did continue the march by herself towards the food distribution station. 

In all fairness, he was working in a time when photojournalists were told not to touch famine victims for fear of spreading disease. 

Carter estimated that there were twenty people per hour dying at the nourishment site. The child was not unique. 

Regardless, Carter had expressed regret that he had not done anything to help the girl – even though there was not much that he could have done. 

In 1994, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for that very photograph. And in that same year, he committed suicide due to depression. 

A BBC News report published July 24, 2018 highlighted a similar situation. 

Another lensman had put up for public display what his critics described as 'poverty porn' images. 

Alessio Mamo posed poor Indians in front of a table with "fake food" on it and made them cover their eyes. They were shot in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, two of India’s poorest states which have high rates of malnutrition. 

The photos, part of a series titled Dreaming Food, were taken in 2011 – a "conceptual project about hunger issue in India". They went viral after the World Press Photo Foundation shared them on Instagram.

World Press Photos/Instagram

In the face of angry outrage, the World Press Photo Foundation posted a statement online which said that ultimately, photographers are "responsible for selecting their work" – and added that they were only given a set of "guidelines" to follow. 

In an email to the BBC, Mamo clarified that the goal of his project was to urge "people in the West to think, in a provocative way, about the waste of food". 

He added: "Maybe it did not work at all, maybe I did it in the wrong way, but I worked honestly and respectfully with all the people involved". 

In any case, Mamo apologized if his images had caused offence. 

I know many photographers built their careers exploiting misery. 

We need to remember too that like it or not, this is how much of the world lives. 

The poverty is real – and it is the direct result of an unfair economic system plus decades of governmental neglect. Still, that’s life, is it not? 

I don’t mean to sound uncaring. I am equally distressed that economically disadvantaged humans are used as props. 

We shouldn’t strip them of their last vestige of dignity. 

Then again because of these photos, there is genuine awareness of the pressing problem of poverty in India.

Sometimes, whether something is right or wrong can be difficult to establish. A question of perspective really.

A Second Chance for Scotland

A second Scottish independence referendum looks unavoidable.

Even ministers in the UK government have now concluded it is a question of when such a vote will be held, the Financial Times reported today. I certainly don’t think anybody can stop it from happening. It’s the logical next step.

The FT also said that the London government would fight to delay the vote until after the exit from the European Union.

If you recall, the results of the Brexit referendum had been divisive. England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

Those who argued in favor of leaving said that the EU has changed enormously over the last four decades with regard to the size and the reach of its bureaucracy, diminishing British influence and sovereignty.

Whilst those who wanted to stay say that a medium-size island needs to be part of a larger bloc of like-minded countries to have real influence and security in the world, and that leaving would be economically costly.

Anyway, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (right) had already stated that Scotland could hold an independence vote in late 2018 – just months before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union.

On the other side of the fence, Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly announced there is no need for such a vote.

Indeed, the prospect of an independence vote in Scotland could rip apart the United Kingdom.

As I have previously said, the Brexit vote can facilitate Scottish independence. Go, go, go!

On Monday, US President Donald Trump (left) signed a new executive order placing a 90-day ban on people from six mainly Muslim countries.

The revised ban bars new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also temporarily blocks all refugees.

The ban begins on March 16, with the White House saying it is "very confident" of winning in court.

Todate, five states have already filed legal challenges: Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington. I am sure more states will join in.

The previous order, which Trump signed in January, was blocked in federal courts and sparked mass protests as well as confusion at airports. However, critics maintained that the revised travel ban still discriminates against Muslims.

This Trump fella just doesn't give up.