Tag: Clashes

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Iraq Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Tries To Defuse Baghdad Clashes

Iraq Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Tries To Defuse Baghdad Clashes

Iraq’s influential Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr took a step on Tuesday to try to defuse an eruption of violence in the capital, Baghdad, calling on his followers to stand down after at least 24 people were killed in two days of clashes with security forces.

The violence, after three years of relative stability in Baghdad, began shortly after Mr. Sadr declared on Monday on Twitter that he was quitting politics for good. His supporters went out to protest and stormed the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, then came under fire from government security forces who included members of Iran-backed militias.

Mr. Sadr, appearing at a news conference on Tuesday in Najaf, a southern city holy to Shiite Muslims worldwide, called on his supporters to withdraw within the hour from the Green Zone, where most of the fighting has been focused, and said he was sorry about what had happened.

“Regardless of who started the sedition yesterday,” he said, referring to the violent clashes, “I say that my head is down and I apologize to the Iraqi people.” Mr. Sadr added that anyone who did not comply with his order would be considered no longer loyal to him. He also called on supporters to dismantle the protest camps they had maintained for weeks, including around Parliament.

Witnesses and Iraqi security officials confirmed that shooting had stopped in the Green Zone and that Sadr militia members and other supporters were withdrawing, some carrying tents they had used in sit-ins.

On Monday, Iraqi officials said at least 12 people had been killed. But the fighting continued overnight and into Tuesday, when a Health Ministry official said at least 24 people had been killed and more than 190 injured since Mr. Sadr’s supporters entered the Green Zone, home to Iraqi government offices, the United Nations and diplomatic missions including the US Embassy.

Baghdad began Tuesday under a strict curfew for the second straight day. But after Mr. Sadr’s announcement, Iraqi security commanders said they were lifting the curfew in the capital and in all the other parts of Iraq where it was in place.

The clashes have set Iraq on edge, with some fearing the country could descend into another violent phase after two decades of frequent fighting. Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a sectarian civil war between Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim factions broke out, and was followed by a yearslong battle to drive out Islamic State after the terrorist group took over large parts of the country.

Although political turmoil and street protests are common in Iraq, this round of fighting laid bare the risk of an even more dangerous and unstable phase, fueled by political paralysis, divisions among the country’s Shiite majority and the breaching of state institutions.

In recent years, rivalries among Shiites have become the main driver of Iraqi political instability.

Iran-backed militias formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State have become a permanent part of Iraqi government security forces, with some more answerable to Iran than the Iraqi government. Mr. Sadr, in contrast, is seen as an Iraqi nationalist and a thorn in the side of Iran and its continuing influence in neighboring Iraq.

Elections last year in October were seen as a fresh start for the country — a response to massive protests against a corrupt and dysfunctional government. Instead they have led to a political deadlock.

Mr. Sadr comes from a revered Shiite family of clerics and commands millions of followers in Iraq. His bloc won the most seats of any other party in Parliament in the October election, and he had tried in vain for months to form a coalition government with other partners after the elections. Frustrated over the failure, he urged his followers into the streets instead to achieve their aims.

The clashes over the past day mainly pitted Iran-backed paramilitary units that are part of Iraqi government security forces against armed members of Mr. Sadr’s paramilitary organization, the so-called Peace Brigades, attacking each other’s positions and offices, according to Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based fellow with the Century Foundation.

A senior Iraqi security official said some of those killed on Monday had been shot by pro-Iran militia members who are part of Iraqi security forces as they approached the home of the former prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The official asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Neighboring Iran, which has exerted extensive efforts over the past several years to bring Shiite factions in Iraq closer together, reacted with alarm to the fighting, closing its borders with Iraq and telling Iranians it would work to bring them home safely.

A spokesman for the US National Security Council said Monday that the United States was monitoring clashes but there was no current indication that the embassy would need to be evacuated.

The United Nations mission in Iraq called the clashes a dangerous escalation.

Falih Hassan, Nermeen al-Mufti and Awadh al-Taie contributed reporting from Baghdad

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World News

Lots of Damage in Clashes at Aqsa Mosque as Pressure Rises in Jerusalem

Hundreds Hurt in Clashes at Aqsa Mosque as Tension Rises in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM – Hundreds of Palestinians were injured Monday after Israeli police entered the grounds of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, after a week of mounting tension in the city. Police fired rubber-tipped bullets and stunned grenades at stone-throwing Palestinians who had stored stones on the site in anticipation of a stalemate with right-wing Jewish groups.

According to a representative of the Palestinian Red Crescent, more than 330 people were injured and at least 250 people were hospitalized that afternoon. One person was shot in the head and was in critical condition, the medical aid group said. At least two other people were in a serious or critical condition. According to the police, at least 21 police officers were injured.

Tensions were expected to increase as the day progressed. Thousands of far-right Israelis were supposed to march provocatively through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City on Monday afternoon to mark the conquest of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, an anniversary in Israel known as Jerusalem Day. Israel then annexed that part of the city, a move that most of the world did not recognize. Palestinians claim that East Jerusalem is the capital of a future state.

Videos posted on Twitter showed chaos both outside and inside the mosque, where some worshipers were sheltered from explosions while others were throwing stones and setting off fireworks. In another clip, police officers were seen beating a man who was being held in part of the mosque grounds. In the early afternoon the police withdrew from the construction site.

Another video released by the police showed young men throwing stones from the edge of the mosque onto the land below. A separate clip, captured by a surveillance camera, appeared to show a Jewish man turning into a passerby after stones hit his car and Palestinians opened the car doors. Hadassah Medical Center reported that a 7-month-old girl was also treated after her head was slightly injured by a stone.

Witnesses at the mosque reacted in shock to the tactics used by the Israeli police in one of the most sacred places in the world. “Why did you attack the Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan?” asked Khaled Zabarqa, 48, a lawyer who said he prayed on the mosque grounds before escaping after the first shots.

“The Aqsa Mosque is a sacred place for Muslims,” ​​added Zabarqa. “Israel starts a religious war.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the police for their “strong stance”.

“Now there is a battle going on for the heart of Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s not a new fight. It is the struggle between intolerance and tolerance, between lawless violence and law and order, ”he added, viewing the confrontations as the continuation of a sectarian struggle for the city for hundreds of years.

Israeli security officials met for consultations in the hours leading up to the start of the Jerusalem Day march and recommended that measures be taken to minimize friction, including by rerouting the march. However, the police ultimately decided to allow it to be carried out on their traditional route.

Jerusalem day is always full. But the atmosphere was particularly feverish on Monday as the confrontations followed weeks of escalating tensions in the city, with Palestinians restricted access to the old city during the holy month of Ramadan, a far-right march through the city center in April, and on the streets Attacks by Jews and Arabs have all contributed to the volatile atmosphere.

Pressure has risen in recent days as protests increased against the threat of evictions of several Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. For the Palestinians and their supporters, the case has become a substitute for the broader campaign to evict Palestinians from parts of East Jerusalem and their previous evictions in the Occupied Territories and within Israel.

Tensions escalated again on Friday evening when police fired rubber-tipped bullets and stunned grenades and Palestinians threw stones at the Aqsa site after prayers. The video showed some grenades that landed in the mosque.

Militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at Israel overnight on Sunday after sending incendiary balloons into Israeli farmlands in recent days. Israel has returned fire, denied fishermen access to the sea and blocked a key crossroads between Gaza and Israel – but avoided a major escalation.

Tensions heightened when a Palestinian killed an Israeli in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank last week, sparking a manhunt by the Israeli army in the West Bank and raids on Palestinian homes. Israeli soldiers later shot dead a Palestinian teenager in another incident.

A court ruling on the evictions of families in East Jerusalem planned for Monday was postponed on Sunday in order to partially defuse these growing tensions. Israeli police made the last minute decision on Monday morning to prevent Jews from entering the Aqsa grounds, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

But clashes nonetheless occurred that were expected to escalate throughout the day.

The violence takes place against a background of political instability in both Israel and the Occupied Territories. The Palestinian Authority recently canceled the first Palestinian elections in 15 years.

And after a fourth Israeli election in just two years, the Israeli opposition parties are embroiled in negotiations to form a coalition government to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s prime minister. Mr. Netanyahu is a janitor on trial on corruption charges.

Myra Noveck reported from Jerusalem and Iyad Abuheweila from Gaza City.

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Business

Amazon’s Clashes With Labor: Days of Battle and Management

Amazon’s Clashes With Labor: Days of Conflict and Control

In the past few weeks, there has been a heated discussion on Twitter about whether Amazon employees have to urinate in bottles because they don’t have time to go to the bathroom – a level of control few modern companies would dare to practice.

“Amazon is reorganizing the nature of retail work – something that is traditionally physically undemanding and has a large amount of downtime – into something that resembles a factory that never wears off,” said Spencer Cox, a former Amazon employee who writes his Ph .D. Thesis at the University of Minnesota on how the company is transforming work. “For Amazon, it’s not about money. This is about controlling the workers’ bodies and every possible moment of their time. “

Amazon had no comment on this story.

Signs that Amazon is putting more pressure on its control are mounting. In February, Lovenia Scott, a former warehouse worker for the Vacaville, Calif., Company accused Amazon in a lawsuit of “doing such an immense amount of work” that she and her colleagues were given no breaks. Ms. Scott is seeking class action status. Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment on the suit.

Last month, the California labor officer said 718 delivery drivers who worked for Green Messengers, a Southern California contractor for Amazon, owed $ 5 million in wages that never made it to their wallets. Drivers were paid for 10-hour days, the labor commissioner said, but the volume of parcels was so large that they often had to work 11 or more hours and through breaks.

Amazon said it no longer works with Green Messengers and would appeal the decision. Green messengers could not be reached for comment.

An Amazon warehouse in the Canadian province of Ontario showed a rapid spread of Covid-19 in March. “Our investigation found that a shutdown was needed to break the chain of transmission,” said Dr. Lawrence Loh, the regional medical officer. “We gave Amazon our recommendation.” The company, he said, “didn’t answer.” Health officials ordered workers to self-isolate and close the facility for two weeks. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.

And five US senators wrote a letter to the company last month asking for more information on why it fitted its vans with surveillance cameras that constantly monitor the driver. The technology, the senators said, “raises important questions about privacy and worker surveillance that Amazon needs to answer.”

Categories
Politics

Biden Clashes With China and Russia in First 60 Days

Biden Clashes With China and Russia in First 60 Days

The path to power is to build new networks instead of disrupting old ones. Economists are debating when the Chinese will have the world’s largest gross domestic product – perhaps by the end of this decade – and whether they can achieve their other two major national goals: building the most powerful military in the world and dominating the race for key technologies by 2049. Anniversary of Mao’s Revolution.

Their power does not stem from their relatively small nuclear arsenal or their growing supply of conventional weapons. Instead, it stems from their growing economic power and the way they use their government-subsidized technology to connect nations like Latin America or the Middle East, Africa or Eastern Europe with 5G wireless networks that keep them ever closer to Beijing should. It comes from the undersea cables that they wind up around the world to make these networks run on Chinese circuitry.

Ultimately, it will come from how they use these networks to make other nations dependent on Chinese technology. Once that happens, the Chinese could export some of their authoritarianism, for example by selling facial recognition software from other nations that would enable them to contain dissent at home.

Because of this, Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s National Security Advisor, who was with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken while meeting his Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, warned in a number of writings over the past few years that it could be a mistake to say so assume that China wants to prevail by directly taking over the US military in the Pacific.

“The central premises of this alternative approach would be that economic and technological power is more fundamental than traditional military power in building global leadership,” he wrote, “and that physical influence in East Asia is not a necessary condition for sustaining it.” such a guide. “

The Trump administration came to similar conclusions, but only released a real strategy for dealing with China weeks before leaving office. Attempts to strangle Huawei, China’s national telecom champion, and take control of social media apps like TikTok ended as a disorganized effort in which allies who thought of buying Chinese technology were often threatened and angry .

Part of the goal of the Alaska meeting was to convince the Chinese that the Biden government is determined to compete with Beijing across the board to offer competitive technologies like semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence, albeit billions in spending on government-led research means development projects and new industrial partnerships with Europe, India, Japan and Australia.