Former Pakistani leader Imran Khan and supporters will appear in military courts over their alleged links to mob attacks on security personnel, following his recent arrest on corruption charges. The PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) had hoped sympathetic judges of the Supreme Court could protect the party, but parliament will seek Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial’s removal from the top court for alleged pro-Khan bias. Political analysts and diplomats warn of an increasingly polarized situation in Pakistan, with Khan and his supporters set to typically push back using “support in the higher judiciary, social media and the street” while the government will use “the power of the state machinery and its own street protests, backed as of now by the army higher command to counteract the PTI”, according to former ambassador Husain Haqqani. Analyst Mosharraf Zaidi said judges were split down the middle over the political crisis.
Last week's fighting in Gaza and Israel have reportedly left more than 1,200 Palestinians displaced, according to the UN. With Israel's ceasefire holding but tensions remaining high, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are listed by Israel and the West as terrorist organisations. Human rights groups have condemned the attacks on residential buildings, destroying entire apartment blocks, as a violation of international law. Despite the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bids to burnish his reputation for security in the face of unprecedented domestic unrest and growing pressure from religious-ultranationalist extremists in his coalition. Many Palestinians in Gaza feel abandoned by an international community that still talks about a political future for the region - a two-state solution - which is outright rejected by both Israel's nationalist government and the Palestinian armed groups.
According to Amnesty International, executions across the world rose to their highest number in five years in 2022 despite growing moves to ban the death penalty. The annual report recorded 883 executions globally, up from 579 in 2021. Including information from countries such as China, where high levels of secrecy make it difficult to determine numbers, could mean that thousands more people were executed globally. Such information means the true scale of executions across the world could be even higher. Approximately 90% of the documented executions were carried out in Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The report found that non-lethal crimes such as drug offences were common in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is in violation of international law. Executions in the Middle East and North Africa rose by 59% in 2022. In total four countries, Kazakhstan, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, abolished the death penalty for all crimes, however. Also, public support for the death penalty decreased in certain countries.
Is Maths Real?: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics's Deepest Truths by mathematician Eugenia Cheng aims to answer "stupid" maths questions, all the inevitable childhood queries from subtracting numbers to understanding infinity, and reveal what it's like to be a mathematician. Cheng’s book also looks at what it's like to be a mathematician and she presents herself as a human being, saddled with faulty memories like anyone else. However, the author's desire to smash the "patriarchal power-structures" into sections of her book lead to some hackneyed passages on ethnomathematics.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had been isolated by Arab states for a decade following the uprising against his rule in 2011, has returned to the Arab League at its summit in Saudi Arabia. Pro-Assad forces backed by Russia and Iran have regained control of most of the country. However, the return has met with opposition from some member states including Qatar and Kuwait, while it has been viewed sceptically by the US. Additionally, while Assad has been permitted to return, Arab states are pushing for action against Syria’s drugs trade and want to see the return of war refugees.
Most Gulf stock markets rose despite concerns over the U.S. government's debt-ceiling negotiations. In Saudi Arabia, the benchmark index gained 0.6%, whereas the Qatari index outperformed the region to finish 2% higher. Emirati markets rose, with Dubai rising 1.6% after four sessions of losses and Abu Dhabi rising 0.5%. In Egypt, the blue-chip index declined, with international investors continuing to be sellers due to global concerns and a declining risk appetite.
Khalaf al-Rumaithi, an Emirati-Turkish man who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia by the UAE’s Federal Supreme Court has been extradited from Jordan to the UAE to have a retrial. According to rights groups, al-Rumaithi’s case, and that of his co-defendants, had previously drawn concern from rights groups and were convicted by what they called an “unfair” mass trial resulting in the conviction of 69 people including 94 critics of the UAE government. The UAE classifies the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
Arab foreign ministers meet ahead of Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia
The Toronto Star
23-05-17 12:01
Arab foreign ministers have gathered in Saudi Arabia ahead of the annual summit in Jeddah. The summit will see Syria return to the 22-member league after a 12-year suspension caused by President Bashar Assad's brutal crackdown on the 2011 mass protests against his rule. Despite the move, a number of Arab countries remain skeptical of Syria’s return to the league, primarily Qatar. The summit also takes place as Arab governments are attempting to resolve the conflict between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, which has left over 600 people dead.
Israel avoided targeting Hamas, its main enemy, in its recent airstrikes against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Instead, the missile attack targeted the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, killing six senior commanders. This shows the complexity of Israel's relationship with Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007, despite being sworn enemies. While Israel maintains a strict blockade against Palestine, almost 20,000 Palestinians are allowed to leave the enclave to work in Israel or the West Bank in jobs that provide about $3m a day in wages to a territory where around half the population is out of work.
Hamas has warned that provocative “flag day” marches and attempts to Judaise the Palestinian part of Jerusalem risk further violence and a religious conflict, according to Dr Basim Naim, former minister of health and current head of the Council on International Relations for Hamas. He said Hamas is “ready to invest all we can, to sacrifice all we can to prevent any more steps towards Judaisation of the city and freedom for Palestine” and warned that such steps could lead to “explosions not only inside Palestine but in a lot of other countries.” Naim also stressed that protesters disregarded universal values by focusing on human rights within the Jewish community but not as a universal value for all human beings.
The Eglinton Light Rapid Transit (LRT) in Toronto has been under construction for 12 years and counting, and legal challenges from companies building the system have added further uncertainty. Building work for the 19 km route, along with its 25 stations, began in the summer of 2011, with completion scheduled for 2020. However, Metrolinx confirmed on Tuesday the LRT would not open this year. The construction time for the scheme is currently longer than that for the CN Tower (three years), the Roman Colosseum (eight years) and the Channel Tunnel, which connects England and France (six years).
The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is worsening, as aid agencies are unable to access the capital, Khartoum. Food and water supplies are running low following the conflict between the army and the paramilitary rapid support forces, and access to medical aid, food, and fuel is being carried out by groups known as resistance committees. The UNHCR has reported that over a million people have been displaced by the fighting, with 220,000 fleeing to Egypt and Chad, including Darfur. So far, the two warring parties have failed to secure a ceasefire, though they agreed on a statement on protecting civilians and aid supplies.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close links to President Vladimir Putin, has been uploading photos, videos and audio files for months to his Telegram channel. In his most recent clip, posted last week, he filmed himself in a bloodied field, with rows of corpses laid out behind him, berating the Russian military leaders for failing to give him the munitions he needed to fight in Ukraine’s Donbass region. Prigozhin, who is the leader of the notorious mercenary unit, the Wagner Group, has given a face to the brutalisation of the Putin regime, but some have wondered if he is a megalomaniac. The video shows the story of one man’s rise to unimaginable power, a man who can promise people their freedom or send them to their deaths.
Prigozhin made the conquering of Bakhmut in the Donbass his personal mission. Russian and Ukrainian media outlets say that Prigozhin, together with army commanders, developed a suicidal battle plan. It was his idea to attack the city before Ukrainian supply lines were cut, thus turning it into a battle of attrition – from the standpoint of both personnel and material. He was also allowed to recruit his fighters from the prisons of Russia. Of 30 men who were recruited for the mission from Rustam’s colony, he was apparently among the most able-bodied. Only nine of them managed to complete the required fitness test, the sit-ups and the pull-ups. Prigozhin’s troops have been butchered, and he is no longer receiving the munitions he needs.
There are up to 10,000 Wagner fighters currently in Ukraine, according to a senior official in the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, and most of them have been deployed in and around Bakhmut where housing block by housing block, destroyed home by destroyed home, the Ukrainians have pulled back. Prigozhin poses as Putin’s loyal bloodhound, but has threatened the very system the president has built up. While he takes care of dirty work for Putin, Prigozhin has given a face to the brutalisation of the Putin regime, although his grip on power is unclear.
Sudanese security forces have arrested three pro-democracy activists while they were discussing how to provide internal aid to displaced persons. The men were openly distributing food and aid to those arriving in the city of Madani after fleeing conflict in the capital Khartoum. Members of resistance committees and other figures from the pro-democracy movement have increasingly been targeted in a bid by the Sudanese army and other forces to control the provision of aid in the conflict.
A Russian family has asked for permission to change their son's name from Putin back to Rasul. The family renamed the boy Putin in honour of the president when he was one-and-a-half years old, but in an unexpected move asked registry officials in the town of Aleksandrov, 90km north-east of Moscow, to restore his original name. No reason for the request to change the boy's name has been given. His grandfather is a strong supporter of Putin.
The 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale will tackle the need for decolonisation and decarbonisation and focus on the stories and thoughts of African and diasporic architects for the first time. Curator Lesley Lokko has invited 89 independent exhibitors and 64 nations to present proposals and thoughts as part of the global event. The theme is intended to “encourage people to experiment with bold visions for how we should live.” Among the exhibition's subjects will be how cities of the future could look, highlighting that the future is an opportunity for all.
92-year-old British painter Bridget Riley has completed her first ceiling painting, which now adorns the barrel vaults of the foyer at the British School at Rome. The work, entitled Verve, is composed of vibrant stripes of red, blue, lilac, turquoise, yellow and white. Riley agreed to the project, which was carried out by three assistants for three weeks, after deciding her original idea of creating a Discs painting for the refectory would clash with its boxed wooden ceiling. “I believe that art in buildings is not about impact, it’s about interest”, said Riley, who is known for her Op Art pieces but considers the basis of colour to be instability. Founded in 1901, the British School provides research facilities and residencies for Commonwealth artists and researchers.
Sudan's capital, Khartoum, has been hit by heavy air strikes again, with fighting in the areas around a military camp. The last two weeks have seen nearly a million displaced and disrupted food supplies. On Wednesday, the UN launched its $3bn aid appeal due to over half of the country’s 46 million population requireded humanitarian assistance. Moreover, the situation has been hampered by the deaths of some humanitarian workers early in the conflict and repeated cases of looting, with medical aid group MSF reporting its warehouse in Khartoum has been raided.
Tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists are set to participate in a march through Jerusalem's Old City's Muslim quarter, marking the nation's capture of the city in the 1967 war. The parade has become increasingly affiliated with Jewish nationalism, stirring concerns of provocation among Palestinian factions. The march is being safeguarded by around 2,500 police as a deterrent to violence and anti-Arab prejudice. During last year's march, Islamist group Hamas launched rockets into Israel, causing an 11-day clash that killed over 250 Palestinians and 13 people in Israel.
Most Gulf stock markets fell on concerns surrounding the US debt-ceiling negotiations, with Dubai's main share index dropping by 0.3%. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's benchmark index rose by 0.6%, and Abu Dhabi's index fell 0.2%. The Qatari benchmark finished 0.4% lower, and Egypt's blue-chip index declined by 0.5%. The stock market in Dubai may now be affected as traders shift to caution while US issues continue to weigh on expectations.
