Tag: Human Rights Watch

Niger Military Coup | What They Are Not Telling You

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

On the 10th of April 2022, the former president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum posted on Twitter, that “about 30 senior state officials are guilty of embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds. One of them is Niger’s communications minister who had been detained in a high-profile embezzlement case dating from when he ran a state corporation that manages Niger’s mining sector. The 2 social activists that raised the corruption alarm, Abdoulaye Seydou and Adamou Idrissa, were later arrested and transferred to the high security prison according to their coalition.

Meanwhile, French Energy giant Orano announced that it was shutting down its second largest mine in Niger after 50 years of exploitation. Their reason was the uranium deposits at the sites have been depleted.

So in Niger, you have a country with its natural resources being depleted while senior officials in government are notorious and robbing the country. But there is more. According to a publication by Reuters, An audit by the Nigerien Budgetary Transparency Agency, reported a lack of documents to back several government spending and justify the cost of infrastructure projects. The report also noted fake public tenders, and the “granting of undue advantages to certain companies. However the former president Mohamed Bazoum maintained a clean posture that endeared him to the US and ECOWAS leaders.

The former president may not be the problem, but clearly his government was riddled with corruption.

In the morning July 26 2023, the Niger presidential palace and adjacent ministries were blocked off by military vehicles and palace staff were prevented from accessing their offices. The President Mohammed Bazoum had just been removed from office. Some civilian supporters of Bazoum tried to approach the palace, but were dispersed by the Presidential Guard with gunfire, leaving one injured. Elsewhere in Niamey, the situation was described as calm.

Later In the evening, Air Force Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane went on state television to confirm that Bazoum had been removed from power and announced the formation of a National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland.

He also announced the suspension of all activities by political parties in the country until further notice.

Alarmed by the recurrence of military coup in the region, ECOWAS leaders swiftly responded and gave Niger’s coup leaders a one-week deadline to hand power back to Bazoum or face international sanctions and the region’s military intervention. However the defence minister of Neighbouring Nigeria, maintained the need for diplomacy. Present at the meeting to echo the fears of ECOWAS leaders that are grappling with similar corruption in their governments was Ghana defence minister.

Niger Military Coup | What They Are Not Telling You via Africa Views

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An Open Letter to RFK Jr. on Israel/Palestine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

This article was originally written as a private letter addressed to Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his campaign manager, former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Unanswered since it was sent in early June 2023, it is now published as an open letter.

An Open Letter to RFK Jr. on Israel/Palestine

Related:

Israel’s One-State Reality

When a U.S. president demanded inspections of a nuclear facility in the Middle East (and failed)

The Battle of the Letters, 1963: John F. Kennedy, David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and the U.S. Inspections of Dimona

By giving Ukraine cluster bombs, the US is admitting that it’s OK to kill civilians

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By giving Ukraine cluster bombs, the US is admitting that it’s OK to kill civilians

The estimated dud rate is disputable. According to the Congressional Research Service, “There appear to be significant discrepancies among failure rate estimates. Some manufacturers claim a submunition failure rate of 2% to 5%, whereas mine clearance specialists have frequently reported failure rates of 10% to 30%. A number of factors influence submunition reliability. These include delivery technique, age of the submunition, air temperature, landing in soft or muddy ground, getting caught in trees and vegetation, and submunitions being damaged after dispersal, or landing in such a manner that their impact fuzes fail to initiate.”

The United States has a huge stockpile of cluster munitions — 4.7 million containing hundreds of millions of bomblets — that it is dusting off to deliver to Ukraine after a “difficult decision” by President Joe Biden.

The U.S. last used these munitions in its military excursion in Afghanistan. Trouble was that the little bombs resembled in color and shape the humanitarian aid packets that the U.S. dropped from planes. This confusion, which obviously left many civilians maimed or dead, led to the curtailment of cluster bombs for our next military adventure.

This did not stop Israel from using cluster bombs in its 2006 campaign against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. According to a March 2022 Congressional Research Service report, Israel used them in the “last 3 days of the 34-day war after a U.N. cease-fire deal had been agreed to — resulting in almost 1 million unexploded cluster bomblets to which the U.N. attributed 14 deaths during the conflict.” Israel’s use of the bombs “supposedly affected 26% of southern Lebanon’s arable land and contaminated about 13 square miles with unexploded submunitions. One report states that there was a failure rate of upward of 70% of Israel’s cluster weapons,” the agency said.

Related:

The Packaging Color for Air-Dropped Humanitarian Rations was Changed from Yellow to Salmon Since Yellow was the Same Color as Air-Dropped Cluster Bombs.

FLASHBACK: White House Press Secretary Said Using Cluster Munitions Would Be A Potential ‘War Crime’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki called Russia’s alleged use of cluster munitions a potential “war crime” in the early days of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

FLASHBACK: White House Press Secretary Said Using Cluster Munitions Would Be A Potential ‘War Crime’

Psychopathic hypocrites! 🤬

Related:

White House de facto admits to committing war crimes in Ukraine — Russian Embassy

Report Shows How Military Industrial Complex Sets Media Narrative on Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Wealthy donors have long funded think tanks with official-sounding names that produce research that reflects the interests of those funders (Extra!, 7/13). The weapons industry is a major contributor to these idea factories; a recent report from the Quincy Institute (6/1/23) demonstrates just how much influence war profiteers have on the national discourse.

Report Shows How Military Industrial Complex Sets Media Narrative on Ukraine

In Nahel M., a Stranger Killed by Police, French Protesters See Friend and Kin + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“We don’t forget, we don’t forgive,” crowds chanted as they denounced the shooting death of a 17-year-old from the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

In Nahel M., a Stranger Killed by Police, French Protesters See Friend and Kin

Related:

Nahel M.: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

France: ‘La rage, partout’ Responses after the umpteenth police execution

Evidence mounts for use of banned mines by Ukrainian forces, rights group says

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ukrainian forces appear to have used rockets to scatter stacks of internationally banned, hand-size antipersonnel land mines over Russian-occupied areas in eastern Ukraine, according to evidence collected by Human Rights Watch.

Evidence mounts for use of banned mines by Ukrainian forces, rights group says

Related:

Fact Check: Is Russia using butterfly mines in Ukraine?

The West is silent as Ukraine targets civilians in Donetsk using banned ‘Petal’ mines