Merkel and Putin to discuss Afghanistan, other 'big' issues

August 20, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to hold talks in Moscow on Friday amid the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan and as Russia's treatment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny and Ukraine remain a source of ongoing tension between the two leaders' countries.

Other challenging issues that are certain to play a role in the meeting are a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany opposed by the United States, the repression of dissent in Belarus, and allegations that the Belarusian government has channeled migrants into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with the aim of destabilizing the European Union.

Merkel’s visit to Moscow comes as the chancellor is nearing the end of her almost 16-year-long leadership of Germany. She and Putin, who has served as Russia's president or prime minister since 2000, managed to maintain a line of communication over the years despite their many political differences.

However, the personal relationship between the two has deteriorated since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and as a result of other authoritarian actions by Moscow.

Friday's talks in Moscow will “surely be about the big outstanding international questions,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin earlier this week. “Obviously Afghanistan. Furthermore, the conflict in eastern Ukraine, for the solution and settlement of which Russia could do much more."

"Belarus, a country, a dictator, who goes against his own people in the worst kind of way and on whom the Russian leadership has influence as we believe,” Seibert added as he listed possible talking points.

Merkel is heading to Russia on the anniversary of Navalny falling gravely ill while on a plane flying over Siberia on Aug. 20, 2020. At his wife's insistence, the opposition leader was transferred for medical treatment to Germany, where officials said tests revealed he had been poisoned with a Soviet-developed nerve agent.

Navalny, who is Putin’s most outspoken critic, spent five months in Germany recovering and blamed the poisoning on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation. Upon his return to Russia in January, Navalny was immediately arrested and jailed. A month later, he was ordered to serve 2½ years in prison for violating the terms of a suspended sentence from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he dismissed as politically motivated.

“This still unsolved case is putting a very severe burden on the relationship to Russia,” Seibert said. “Mr. Navalny is wrongfully imprisoned.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a lengthy statement Wednesday about “the Navalny case," charging that actions by “Germany and its allies” over the past 12 months indicated “a planned provocation aimed at discrediting Russia in the eyes of the global community and at damaging its national interests.”

The ministry accused Berlin of failing to provide evidence that would support their “brazen allegations” that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent. It said Germany left legal requests from Russian law enforcement without any “meaningful answers” and instead played “bureaucratic ping-pong” with Moscow.

Merkel, 67, who grew up in communist East Germany and is fluent in Russian, has always stressed that relations with Russia can only improve through dialogue. Her visit to Moscow will be one of her last trips abroad as chancellor since she is not running in Germany's national election next month.

Putin, 68, who has been in power for more than 20 years, is Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Under communism in the 1980s, he worked for the Soviet's intelligence service KGB in East Germany.

Despite his and Merkel's years of experience as leaders and with each other, experts are skeptical Friday's meeting will improve the ties between Germany and Russia. “Russia has become an authoritarian regime,” Stefan Meister, a political analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations told The Associated Press. “It is no longer interested in improving relations with the west.”

The deterioration of relations between the two countries is mirrored in the worsening of the personal relationship of their longtime leaders, Meister said. “Mrs. Merkel, as an East German and with her background, right from the start understood better than her predecessors how Russia works and how Putin operates. There always was a matter-of-fact relationship...based on respect," Meister said, adding that all changed with the beginning of armed hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

“The big break was the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” Meister added. Fighting between Russia-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine erupted after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and has left more than 14,000 dead.

Efforts to negotiate a political settlement under the 2015 Minsk agreements brokered by France and Germany have stalled, and the EU has imposed sanctions against Russia for failing to live up to its peace commitments in Ukraine.

Merkel plans to travel back to Berlin on Friday night and to head to Kyiv on Sunday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Another topic of discussion with Putin will likely be the nearly finished Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will carry natural gas from Russia to Germany. The project has angered the United States and some European countries, but the U.S. and Germany announced a deal last month to allow its completion.

Critics say the pipeline threatens European energy security, heightens Russia’s influence and poses risks to Ukraine and Poland in bypassing both countries. Regarding Belarus, Merkel earlier this week accused President Alexander Lukashenko of a “hybrid attack” against the EU by encouraging migrants to cross the borders into Lithuania, Latvia and Poland in retaliation to the EU’s sanctions against Belarus.

Merkel said she would raise the topic with Putin. Belarus depends heavily on Russian energy supplies and Moscow has authorized loans to prop up the country’s beleaguered economy.

Frank Jordans and Dorothee Thiesing contributed reporting from Berlin, Daria Litvinova contributed reporting from Moscow.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine Forces Swedes to Rethink NATO Membership

Friday, 4 March, 2022

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has for the first time seen a majority of Swedes in favor of joining NATO, according to a poll, and signs are the political landscape could to change too in a country long known for neutrality.

Sweden has not been in a war since 1814 and has built its foreign policy on "non-participation in military alliances." It remained neutral throughout World War Two even as neighboring Nordic countries were invaded, and during the Cold War.

A poll on Friday by Demoskop and commissioned by Aftonbladet newspaper showed 51% of Swedes are now in favor of NATO membership, up from 42% in January. People against joining fell to 27% from 37%. It's the first time such a poll has shown a majority in favor.

However, Sweden's Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said joining NATO was not an easy decision, nor one that could be rushed based on recent events alone.

"To change the defense doctrine, that is a very huge decision, so you don't do it overnight and you cannot do it because of opinion polls," he told a news conference in Copenhagen where he met his Danish and British counterparts.

However, the Sweden Democrats, the third biggest party in parliament, said on Friday it was reviewing its stance, which could give a majority in parliament to those who wish to join.

"We are analyzing the situation now, hour by hour more or less, looking at the NATO issue, looking at other security policy collaborations and what we can do," Aron Emilsson, foreign policy spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats told Swedish Radio.

"It is clear that everything is put in a completely different light right now," he said.

Sweden's center-right opposition has long called for membership but the Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Greens and the nationalist Sweden Democrats have resisted the move.

The shift in opinion echoes that in close ally and NATO non-member Finland, where the head of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs described Russia's attack on Ukraine as a wake-up call and "Europe's 9/11 for Finns."

Claes Levinsson, director at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University said the close cooperation between Sweden and Finland, which include joint military drills and materiel purchases, meant that if Finland joined, Sweden probably would too.

"Sweden is closer than ever before to joining NATO but it would need a substantial majority both in parliament and among the people. It would require the Social Democrats changing opinion", Levinsson said, adding that NATO's process of accepting members could also take time.

Sweden and Finland already have very close cooperation with NATO and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in January the two countries could join the alliance "very quickly" if they decided to apply for membership. On Friday he said NATO had decided to strengthen coordination further.

"Both countries are now taking part in all NATO consultations about the crisis," Stoltenberg said.

Russia, which says it is conducting a "special operation" in Ukraine, has warned Sweden and Finland against joining NATO, saying it would lead to "serious military and political consequences."

Sweden took the decision this month to send weapons to Ukraine, the first time since 1939 Sweden sent weapons to a country at war.

On Friday British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said it would be incomprehensible that Britain would not come and support Sweden.

"Sweden is part of the same family so we would stand by Sweden, we would do anything we could to support both militarily and in other ways," he said.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3511591/russian-invasion-ukraine-forces-swedes-rethink-nato-membership.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Unveil Two Missile, Drone Bases

Sunday, 6 March, 2022

Iran's Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) unveiled two new missile and drone tunnel bases, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

“The two underground missile bases house ground-to-ground missile systems with advanced equipment, as well as attack drones penetrating the enemy's radar and defense networks,” said state media.

The Tasnim news agency reported that IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami and IRGC commander of Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh attended the inauguration ceremony of the two underground bases.

The IRGC names underground missile bases as Missile Cities.

Tasnim's report said the new base boasts homegrown drones with a range of 2,000 kilometers, twin missile launch platforms, and platforms for the launch of multiple drones.

It added that a combination of accuracy and quality in the employment of the new military systems was put on display in a massive exercise held in December 2021.

The IRGC had declared its ability to launch 60 drones simultaneously, according to Reuters.

Saturday’s unveiling comes days after Iran suffered another failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket.

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies seen by The Associated Press showed scorch marks at a launchpad at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran's rural Semnan province.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3514161/iran%E2%80%99s-revolutionary-guards-unveil-two-missile-drone-bases.

Balkanatolia: the forgotten continent that sheds light on the evolution of mammals

Paris, France (SPX)

Feb 23, 2022

A team of French, American and Turkish palaeontologists and geologists led by CNRS researchers1 has discovered the existence of a forgotten continent they have dubbed Balkanatolia, which today covers the present-day Balkans and Anatolia. Formerly inhabited by a highly specific fauna, they believe that it enabled mammals from Asia to colonize Europe 34 million years ago. Their findings are published in the March 2022 volume of Earth Science Reviews.

For millions of years during the Eocene Epoch (55 to 34 million years ago), Western Europe and Eastern Asia formed two distinct land masses with very different mammalian faunas: European forests were home to endemic fauna such as Palaeotheres (an extinct group distantly related to present-day horses, but more like today's tapirs), whereas Asia was populated by a more diverse fauna including the mammal families found today on both continents.

We know that, around 34 million years ago, Western Europe was colonized by Asian species, leading to a major renewal of vertebrate fauna and the extinction of its endemic mammals, a sudden event called the 'Grande Coupure'. Surprisingly, fossils found in the Balkans point to the presence of Asian mammals in southern Europe long before the Grande Coupure, suggesting earlier colonization.

Now, a team led by CNRS researchers has come up with an explanation for this paradox. To do this, they reviewed earlier palaeontological discoveries, some of which date back to the 19th century, sometimes reassessing their dating in the light of current geological data. The review revealed that, for much of the Eocene, the region corresponding to the present-day Balkans and Anatolia was home to a terrestrial fauna that was homogeneous, but distinct from those of Europe and eastern Asia. This exotic fauna included, for example, marsupials of South American affinity and Embrithopoda (large herbivorous mammals resembling hippopotamuses) formerly found in Africa. The region must therefore have made up a single land mass, separated from the neighboring continents.

The team also discovered a new fossil deposit in Turkey (Buyukteflek) dating from 38 to 35 million years ago, which yielded mammals whose affinity was clearly Asian, and are the earliest discovered in Anatolia until now. They found jaw fragments belonging to Brontotheres, animals resembling large rhinoceroses that died out at the end of the Eocene.

All this information enabled the team to outline the history of this third Eurasian continent, wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia, which they dubbed Balkanatolia. The continent, already in existence 50 million years ago2 and home to a unique fauna, was colonized 40 million years ago by Asian mammals as a result of geographical changes that have yet to be fully understood. It seems likely that a major glaciation 34 million years ago, leading to the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet and lowering sea levels, connected Balkanatolia to Western Europe, giving rise to the 'Grande Coupure'.

Source: Terra Daily.

Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Balkanatolia_the_forgotten_continent_that_sheds_light_on_the_evolution_of_mammals_999.html.

Division of labor in ants goes back over 100 million years

 Jena, Germany (SPX)

Feb 23, 2022

Ants live in states organized according to the division of tasks. There are three castes, each of which has a different role: the queen lays eggs and the males fertilize them, while the workers look after the offspring and deal with finding food and nest-building. In biology, this special behavior is called eusociality, which is developed in a particularly complex way in ants, as it is shown not only in their behavior, but also in their morphology.

Winged females take on the role of the queen, while wingless, infertile females perform the tasks of the workers. But when exactly in their evolution did ants start this unique teamwork? The research team has now established that this cooperative way of life developed in the early Cretaceous period and the scientists present their findings in the research journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Ant pupa found in Cretaceous amber for the first time

In their work, the biologists closely examined four fossils enclosed in amber. These were three adult female wingless ants and one incompletely developed pupa - the first ant pupa ever found in Cretaceous amber. "With the help of micro-computed tomography images, we were able to determine that the soft tissues of the insects have been exceptionally well-preserved," explains Dr Brendon E. Boudinot, who is currently working at the University of Jena under a Humboldt Research Fellowship.

"This enabled us to examine the precise structure of the brain and the transverse muscle fibers, for example, and thus compare the four specimens with each other in fine detail."

Sensational discoveries

Based on these insights into the ants' internal anatomy, the researchers were able to draw conclusions about the species - and in doing so to make two spectacular discoveries. First, they established that two of the adult insects belong to a previously unknown species of the extinct ant genus Gerontoformica, which the biologists have now been able to describe more precisely for the first time.

Second, the third adult ant and the pupa are both of the same species: Gerontoformica gracilis.

"As ant pupae are not mobile, it can be inferred that the adult insect carried it," says US entomologist Boudinot. "This brood transport, as it's called, is a unique feature of ant coexistence based on their division of labor. The fossil therefore provides the first material evidence of cooperative behavior from the Cretaceous period: these ants looked after their young together, went in search of food together and had different queen and worker castes."

The fossil representatives of the extinct ant genus are therefore an important "missing link" between today's ants and their closest relatives, confirming that the specialized social system of ants evolved sometime in the early Cretaceous - during the time of the dinosaurs.

New insights into the evolution of ants

The work on the four fossil ants has shown the researchers the wealth of information that can be produced using the high-resolution imaging facilities. "We can now derive new insights into the development of the internal anatomy of fossil insects and clarify much more precisely the relationships of fossil species to each other and to species living today," says Boudinot. For example, how did the two different female forms of ants - queens and workers - develop?

Did the wings regress first and then fertility, did the onset of sterility lead to the loss of the wings or did both developments take place at the same time? Thanks to the new findings and methods, scientists may soon be able to provide answers to such questions about the evolution of ants. There are also new, connected, research questions in the field of sociobiology, for example on the emergence of eusociality.

Source: Terra Daily.

Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Division_of_labor_in_ants_goes_back_over_100_million_years_999.html.

Foreign Students Fleeing Ukraine Battle Racism, Extortion

Friday, 4 March, 2022

With the sound of shelling over overhead, Nigerian medical student John Adebisi has been trapped for nine days in a basement in the north-east Ukrainian town of Sumy, wracked by fear and without enough money or means to escape.

More than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24, but many more are stuck, particularly foreign students whose governments and families lack planes, cash or connections to get them out.

Racism makes it harder to flee, several students said, after watching social media videos of African, Asian and Middle Eastern travelers being assaulted by border guards and turned away from buses and trains while white people were let through.

"In terms of evacuation, we need a lot of money to pay for things because people are trying to extort us," Adebisi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that money transfer apps were not working and their cards had reached their withdrawal limits.

"Some students were charged up to $600 to get to the west of Ukraine ... we have heard there is racism at the borders, which is something we experienced even before the fighting broke out. Black students are treated differently," the 27-year-old said.

Thousands are estimated to have died in the biggest attack on a European state since 1945, which has led to a barrage of economic measures against Russia, and stoked fears of wider conflict in the West.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Twitter that there is no discrimination in crossing the border and a "first come first served approach applies to all nationalities".

But Tanmay, who is Indian, said Ukrainian guards abused his brother as he tried to leave Ukraine.

"A guard near the Polish border shoved my brother and tossed away his suitcase, yelling and screaming at him and his (friends) to go away," Tanmay said in interview from Delhi.

"My brother said ... the Ukrainian guards allow (white) people to go through ... The message was, 'If you're not white, your life doesn't matter'," said Tanmay, 24, who asked not to share his brother's name for his safety.

'No authorities'

Ukraine has been popular with foreign students who want a relatively cheap education overseas. Government data shows 76,000 students from 155 nations were enrolled in Ukrainian universities.

After an Indian student was killed by shelling on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the evacuation of his citizens with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Other nationals are less fortunate.

Syrian Orwa Staif was studying in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, where bombing has left its center a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.

Staif said he had to bribe the cashier to get him and three friends onto a train to the western city of Lviv, close to the Polish border.

The 24-year-old software engineering student said he hopes to travel "anywhere that is safe."

"It's complicated because we do not have an embassy in Ukraine and we have no authorities to ask for support," said Staif, whose country has been in crisis since insurgents tried to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

'Traumatic experience'

With little government support, shuttered banks and empty cash machines, foreign nationals in Ukraine have come together to lend money and help each other out.

Afifa Maham, a medical student from Pakistan, said that 50 of them hired a private bus, each paying $50, to reach Shehyni, on the western border of Ukraine and Poland.

A journey that typically takes 2.5 hours took them 13 because of traffic jams and long queues at passport control.

"Short of 30 km, we saw a huge traffic jam. Our driver asked us to step out of the bus and walk to the border, carrying our heavy suitcases ... It was a traumatic experience," said Maham.

"When we reached the border, there was a massive crowd and there was lot of brawling and screaming. We were too scared to move further up to the gate," said Maham, who eventually entered Warsaw four days later with help of the Pakistani ambassador.

Ghassan Abdallah, 28, a Lebanese student at the Kharkiv National Medical University, said he spent $900 between trains, private cars and hotels to reach Romania. He then borrowed $1,300 from friends in Romania to fly home to Beirut.

Egyptian brothers and dentistry students Mohamed and Mahmoud Hossam also borrowed money from on friends in Kyiv - $680 to get bus tickets to the Polish border and then fly home to Cairo.

"If it were not for our friends here, we would not be able to make it," 22-year-old Mohamed said.

Dependent families

Getting out of Ukraine is only the first step.

Several Nigerian students who have made it to Poland and Hungary said they could not afford to go home - and the sacrifices their families made to send them to Ukraine meant they had to find a way to finish their degrees in Europe.

"My parents are farmers who grow cassava," Ehigiamusoe Godfrey, who was studying languages in Ukraine's eastern city of Dnipro with the hope of being able to support his parents after graduation.

"They sold everything to send me to study in Ukraine," Godfrey, 24, said by Whatsapp call from a church-funded hotel room in Lodz in central Poland, where he has food and accommodation for the next three days.

The Nigerian government plans to evacuate over 5,000 of its nationals from Poland, Hungary and Romania and on Thursday dispatched two planes to Warsaw.

"Some of us are waiting for the Nigerian government to arrange a flight, but we don't know when that will happen," said medical student Ogunnika Oluwanifemi who traveled by bus and train for four days from southeastern Ukraine to Hungary.

"Our parents back home took out loans to send us to Ukraine. How can we ask them (for money) when we know they are already in debt?" said Oluwanifemi, 20, whose parents run a small business in Nigeria's Ondo state.

Many are now dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Natalia Mufutau, who is Polish and married to a Nigerian, is mobilizing people in Poland to help stranded Africans.

"We are doing everything, from organizing buses to transport them and providing immigration information and translation at the border," Mufutau said by phone from the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where she lives.

"Some of their families can send them a little money, like about 25 euros ($28). But it's not enough for them to survive here so we are trying to raise funds so we can support them."

Meanwhile, Adebisi remains in his Sumy apartment with eight other Nigerian friends, hoping to eke out their funds until a safe evacuation strategy is in place.

"It is scary, we don't know what will happen in the next hour. We saw on social media that Africans have died trying to cross the border, from hypothermia and exhaustion," he said.

"We see photos of places we have visited in Ukraine now destroyed by bombs. This feeling is not something I would wish on anybody."

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3511596/foreign-students-fleeing-ukraine-battle-racism-extortion.

If Ukraine can have an international brigade, why can't Palestine and Syria?

February 27, 2022

Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said that she will support anyone who wants to go to Ukraine to join an international brigade of fighters against Russia. She described such a mission as taking part in a battle "for freedom and democracy".

I can't help but wonder, though, about those who've left British shores to fight overseas only to have their citizenships revoked by an unsympathetic British government. The only difference I can see between those who want to fight in Ukraine and those who want to fight in Palestine, Syria, Libya or Iraq is skin color and faith.

There are at least 100,000 Muslims living in Kyiv. Is Truss going to support their British and European brothers and sisters who want to go out to fight alongside them in the Ukrainian capital? She told the BBC on Sunday morning that it was up to people to make their own decisions in such situations; she also said that the Ukrainians are fighting for freedom, "not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe."

Why, I wonder, are democracy and freedom more precious in Europe than, say, in Syria, where dictator Bashar Al-Assad is trying to crush the last vestiges of a revolution in which Syrians dared to dream about their own democratic state? And why are Palestinians who resist Israel's brutal occupation demonized as "terrorists" and shunned by the "democratic" and apparently freedom-loving West? I know many people who would like to go out and join the Palestinians in defense of their legitimate rights as they fight for survival against apartheid Israel.

As Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urges foreign nationals "to join the defense of security in Europe", his government is ready to arm an "international" legion of volunteer foreigners who wish to join the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russian forces. "This is not just Russia's invasion of Ukraine," he pointed out on his official website. "This is the beginning of a war against Europe. Against European unity."

Palestinian leaders have made similar statements about securing the future of Islam's third holiest site, the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, which is under attack by Israeli occupation forces, including illegal settlers. If an international call was made for millions of Muslims across the West to protect Al-Aqsa from the murderous designs of the Israelis, would Foreign Secretary Liz Truss approve? Somehow, I doubt it. As I wrote a couple of days ago, "The crisis in Ukraine exposes the hypocrisy of Israel and its Zionist allies." Among the latter stands Truss and the government in which she has a senior role.

"Everyone who wants to join the defense of security in Europe and the world may come and stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians against the invaders of the 21st Century," said Zelenskyy. Now imagine that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh — whose democratic election as Palestinian Prime Minister in 2006 was rejected by those same Zionist allies — issued such an invitation to Muslims around the world, and Britain in particular, to protect the people of occupied Palestine from Israel and its settler-colonialism. Apartheid, remember, is akin to a crime against humanity, and the annexation of territory through military action is illegal; Israel is guilty of both.

Moreover, some of the settlers and soldiers who bolster and enforce Israel's occupation of Palestine hold British and other European passports. But hey, that's OK it seems, because they are white and Jewish, while those who oppose them are "only" Arabs.

In 2019, I visited an amputee clinic where traumatized Syrian children were being taught to walk again. I met British doctors, teachers and aid workers who have had their citizenship revoked because they were working in rebel-held Idlib. Unable to make a legal challenge against the British government's decision from a war zone, they are now in a legal black hole.

They didn't pick up weapons or go out to fight; they simply wanted to help the ordinary Syrian people in their struggle for democracy and the best way they could do this was by using the skills that they have. They must all be wondering why the British government which stripped them of their passports is ready to back those looking to do the same in Ukraine, and even take up arms there. Can there be any more blatant example of hypocrisy, Islamophobia and racism than that being displayed by Liz Truss and, presumably, her boss Boris Johnson and their cabinet colleagues?

When people are in trouble it is human nature for people to want to help in any way they can. I would not dream of criticizing anyone who wants to join an international brigade to help Ukrainians in their struggle. But if that's OK, then it should also be OK for others to go to help the people of Palestine, Chechnya, Libya, Syria, Yemen, occupied Kashmir and other trouble spots.

In the 1930s, around 60,000 young people left North America and Europe to join the International Brigade, groups of foreign volunteers who fought on the Republican side against the fascist Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). What is rarely reported is that while many left Britain to fight for the republicans, there was also a few who fought alongside the fascists. Neither faced any problems when they returned to Britain.

While Truss and UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace insist that British soldiers will not be sent to Ukraine to fight, the position of British citizens who decide to join the international brigade needs to be clarified. The foreign secretary needs to explain why the defense of democracy in Ukraine is acceptable, but standing up against tyrants, dictators and authoritarian regimes elsewhere is not. We have a right to know. More to the point, so do the people of occupied Palestine and Syria. If the Ukrainians can be helped by an international brigade, why can't they?s and soldiers who bolster and enforce Israel's occupation of Palestine hold British and other European passports. But hey, that's OK it seems, because they are white and Jewish, while those who oppose them are "only" Arabs.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220227-if-ukraine-can-have-an-international-brigade-why-cant-palestine-and-syria/.