By Jonathan Head Long before the crisis in Rakhine state hit the world's headlines, some of the best, ground-breaking reporting was being done by the Yangon bureau of the Reuters news agency. And the name which most often appeared on the byline of these stories was Wa Lone. A young man from a small village near Mandalay, he made his name as a journalist working for The Myanmar Times in the build-up to the historic 2015 election which brought Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to power. He then joined Reuters in July 2016. The details in Wa Lone's reports of the military operations against Rohingya in Rakhine have given a vivid picture of the conflict, in a state where journalists and independent investigators are given almost no access. Since September this year, Wa Lone was joined at Reuters by Kyaw Soe Oo, an ethnic Rakhine writer and therefore a valuable asset in covering a state where the local population is often hostile to journalists. The lack of access to Rakhine state forces journalists to seek other sources of information about what is happening there. On the evening of 12 December the two Reuters reporters had gone to a meeting with two police officers at a northern Yangon restaurant, where they were detained. A photograph posted on the Ministry of Interior's Facebook page the next day showed both reporters, in handcuffs, standing next to some documents, with a statement that they would be charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act for "illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media". The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years. Since then neither Reuters, the two men's families, nor their lawyers have had any contact with them, prompting protests from the US and the EU. The group Human Rights Watch has described their detention as an enforced disappearance. A spokesman for Ms Suu Kyi has said the two men will be afforded the protection of the law, and will soon be brought to trial. So the two police officers, who are reportedly also being charged, apparently gave documents to the two reporters. What was in those documents that prompted this drastic move by the Myanmar authorities? As the officers had until recently worked in Rakhine state, it can be guessed that the documents contained information about the actions and operational orders of the security forces, which have been accused by human rights groups of abuses of Rohingya civilians that could amount to crimes against humanity. Until now, the only accounts of the behaviour of the Myanmar security forces have been from the refugees who fled to Bangladesh. The sole investigation allowed inside Rakhine state was carried out by the Myanmar military, which, unsurprisingly, has exonerated itself of all wrongdoing, without addressing the detailed allegations made by human rights groups. Intriguingly another theory has been put forward, linking the two Reuters journalists to the announcement this week by the military that it was investigating a mass grave found in a village called Inn Din. This was unexpected. The only mass grave publicised by the authorities before this was one in September, supposedly containing the bodies of dozens of Hindus, who the government says were killed by Rohingya militants. No independent investigation was allowed. But Inn Din was a mixed community, where the human rights group Amnesty International has already documented an attack on the Rohingya by security forces in late August, and then the burning of their homes. That suggests any victims in the grave are likely to be Rohingya - but would the authorities admit this, something they have refused to do up to now? A local newspaper has now reported that three days after the Reuters reporters were arrested, five ethnic Rakhine residents of Inn Din were detained on suspicion of giving information about what happened in their village to journalists. Some residents believe Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were among those journalists, although this cannot be confirmed. Two of the detained residents have since been released. So could the reporters' arrests be linked to that mass grave in Inn Din, and the allegations of a massacre there by the Myanmar security forces? Given the detailed testimony already published about atrocities in other parts of Rakhine state, it is difficult to understand why this one would be more sensitive. Media captionRohingya Muslims displaced from Tula Toli village in Rakhine State gave disturbing accounts But if local Rakhine people had been talking to journalists about it, rather than Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, it would make the military's insistence that its troops did nothing wrong even harder to sustain. Or, the arrests of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo might instead be linked to their other investigations of events in Rakhine state, which have shone a brighter light than pretty much any other reporting into the actions of the security forces. The Myanmar government and armed forces have already demonstrated that they are more than ready to use the country's archaic and repressive laws against journalists who cross them. Since the restoration of semi-civilian rule in 2012, at least a dozen journalists have been prosecuted under laws like criminal defamation and the Unlawful Association Act, although in September the military agreed to drop charges against six of them. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists has included Myanmar in its list of the ten most censored countries in the world. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42437085 (c) 2017 BBC News

By Jina Moore NAIROBI, Kenya — When the United Nations hosts a donor conference next week to raise $1.7 billion for the violence-racked Democratic Republic of Congo, one important country will not attend: Congo itself. The government of President Joseph Kabila has said that it will boycott the gathering, denying that his central African nation faces a humanitarian crisis at all. The move, which took some diplomats by surprise, was another sign of the increasing isolation of the government of Mr. Kabila, who has faced internal rebellion and international criticism for holding on to power in defiance of constitutional term limits. The government’s increasingly bellicose stance comes as it has been blasting what it calls international “meddling” in the country’s politics. Under intense international pressure, Mr. Kabila’s government will hold new elections in December, but it has rejected any outside assistance with the poll. “We do not agree with the way our friends talk about the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Freddy Kita, deputy minister for international cooperation, speaking by telephone from the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. “I’m in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a member of the government. There is no humanitarian crisis here.” The United Nations says challenges to Mr. Kabila’s rule have caused a collapse of political authority, leading to fighting that has displaced 4.5 million people and left 2 million children severely malnourished. It has declared Congo one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies on par with Syria and Yemen. To respond to the crisis, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance organized the donor conference in Geneva on April 13 to make its biggest appeal yet for aid to Congo to provide emergency assistance — including food, sanitation, shelter and education — to more than 13 million people affected by the violence. Mr. Kita said the calls for assistance are “a demonization campaign.” Congolese officials convened a separate meeting in Geneva with other African officials, asking them denounce the aid effort, according to a diplomat with knowledge of the matter. The other nations did not agree to the request. Still, diplomats and aid workers say they expect the Congolese government’s opposition to have an effect by making it harder for countries at the conference to agree to donate. The United Arab Emirates, a co-host of the conference, has already said it would suspend participation if the Congolese government did not support the appeal. Congo also threatened Swedish and Dutch diplomats who helped convene the donor conference, saying they did not consult with their Congolese counterparts and warning of unspecified consequences if the European nations continued with the conference. Christos Stylianides, the European Commission’s top crisis envoy, said during a visit to Kinshasa late last month that foreign assistance would be ineffective without local government cooperation. Donor nations have already pledged $171 million. An appeal for aid last year fell far short of needs, as donors provided less than 60 percent of what aid agencies requested. Jose Barahona, Congo country director for Oxfam International, said he has witnessed firsthand what the funding shortfall means for the ordinary Congolese. His organization had to halve its assistance last year, when promised donor funds did not materialize. The people left out felt hopeless, he said. He recalled one of them pointing to the ground and saying: “I have two of my younger sons buried here. Do you want me to bury more sons?’” © 2018 New York Times

By Jina Moore and Megan Specia Photo by: Isaac Billy / UNMISS / CC BY-NC-ND April26, 2018—NAIROBI, Kenya — Ten relief workers traveling in South Sudan have been abducted by an armed group, the United Nations said on Thursday. The kidnapping underscores the risks to humanitarian aid providers in the war-afflicted African country. A statement from the United Nations said the aid workers, all from South Sudan, disappeared on Wednesday during a trip through the southern part of the country. The statement gave no details on the armed group that seized them or its demands. This is the third time in six months that aid workers have been held by militants in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country. At least 98 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since it devolved into civil war in 2013, two years after it was founded. The majority of the aid workers killed since the conflict began are South Sudanese. The United Nations statement called for the release of the workers “without condition so that their work can continue.” “We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of these humanitarian workers and are urgently seeking information about their well-being,” Alain Noudehou, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, said in the statement. Aid organizations working in the country, he said, “are here to help the people of South Sudan and should not be targeted.” The aid workers disappeared as their convoy was traveling from Yei to the town of Tore, about 50 miles northwest, in the restive Central Equatoria region. Because of violence, much of the area has become inaccessible to humanitarian groups. The South Sudanese Army, which is loyal to President Salva Kiir, has repeatedly clashed with rebel groups loyal to the deposed vice president, Riek Machar. Both sides have been accused of targeting aid workers and committing widespread human rights abuses. Edmund Yakani, executive director of the humanitarian group Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, in Juba, said it has seen a rise in attacks on South Sudanese aid workers since mid-March. “The trend toward targeting humanitarian work is on a daily basis increasing,” said Mr. Yakani, whose 60 staff members around the country report daily on the conditions. “When the population is in need and humanitarian workers are being targeted, it’s using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war.” Parts of Yei state are controlled by a rebel group loyal to Mr. Machar, but a senior rebel official there, Frank Matata, said he did not believe it was behind the kidnapping. Earlier this week, he said, there were skirmishes in the area between the rebels and a breakaway faction. He said it was not immediately known who was holding the aid workers or where. “I do not believe it was us,” Mr. Matata said, “because I was not notified. They would have told me.” Lam Paul Gabriel, a spokesman for the main rebel group in South Sudan, the SPLM-IO, said he did not know whether his group was behind the kidnapping, which he learned about on Wednesday when a United Nations official reported staff members as missing. All of the missing are South Sudanese citizens working for the United Nations and other international organizations. One is from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; two from Unicef; one from the South Sudanese Development Organization; two from Across, a Christian aid group; three from Plan International; and one from Action Africa Help International. “I firmly condemn the latest attack against colleagues engaged in emergency humanitarian assistance in Central Equatoria and call on all parties to the conflict in South Sudan to ensure a safe and secure environment, conducive to the delivery of assistance,” Mr. Noudehou said. © 2018 | New York Times

By Joe Cochrane Police officers outside a police station in Surabaya, Indonesia, after an explosion on Monday. A family of five detonated a bomb at the entrance of the Surabaya police headquarters on Monday, injuring four police officers. Credit: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images JAKARTA, Indonesia — A wave of deadly bombings on Sunday and Monday and evidence of more planned have shaken Indonesia just ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, with entire families — including children — carrying out suicide attacks against Christian worshipers and the police. The troubling discovery Monday of a trove of completed bombs in a housing complex outside Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, came a day after members of a single family carried out three attacks against separate churches in the city around Mass time, killing seven people. On Sunday night, three members of another family, including a child, were killed when a bomb exploded at their apartment outside Surabaya when the police moved in to arrest them. And on Monday morning, a family of five riding on two motorbikes detonated a bomb at the entrance of the Surabaya Police Headquarters — killing all but one of them and injuring four police officers. An 8-year-old girl who was with the attackers survived the blast and was taken to the hospital. The extent of the carnage and the fact that children were enlisted in the attacks drew condemnation from the country’s leader, President Joko Widodo, who called them “barbaric.” All told, 12 civilians and 13 terrorist suspects were dead from two days of violence, with at least 46 people injured, including police officers. Police officials said the attackers, whether by blood or other ties, were working together. “They’re from one organization,” Gen. Tito Karnavian, chief of the National Police, said during a Monday news conference in Surabaya. The city, the capital of East Java Province with a population of almost three million, has a large ethnic Chinese Christian community. Surabaya Center Pentecostal Church, in East Java, Indonesia, was one of three churches targeted by suicide bombers on Sunday. Credit: Andy Pinaria/Surabaya Goverment , via Getty Images A day earlier, General Karnavian had said the family suspected in those attacks had recently returned to Indonesia after being deported from Syria. On Monday, General Karnavian said the bombs that exploded on Sunday and Monday were similar in their construction — highly-powerful and sensitive to movement — to those used by the Islamic State in its war in Iraq and Syria. He said that these types of bombs are known as the Mother of Satan. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, describing each of the bombings as a “martyrdom” operation carried out by three modes of attack: a car bomb, a suicide vest and a motorcycle-borne bomb. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, practices one of the most moderate forms of Islam in the world, but still has a homegrown terrorism problem. The country has experienced numerous attacks in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, including deadly terrorist bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 and 2005, and bombings of international hotels in Jakarta in 2003 and 2009. But the use of children in terrorist plots, analysts say, represents a new and shocking development in Indonesia. “It was in one way expected and also completely unexpected, and that raises it to a new level of sick, using kids in this kind of thing,” said Ken Conboy, a security consultant and counterterrorism analyst in Jakarta. Rudi Setiawan, chief of the Surabaya police, on Sunday showing a photo of a family suspected of carrying out suicide attacks on three churches. Credit: Antara Foto, via Reuters During Sunday morning’s attacks, one suicide bomber appeared to have been disguised as a churchgoer. In another, an attacker drove a Toyota minivan with a bomb the site. Still another attacker was seen in footage speeding on a scooter toward a church before an explosion. In Sidoarjo, a suburb south of Surabaya, a bomb detonated within a family’s apartment as the police closed in on Sunday night, killing the husband and wife and one of their children, and injuring another three children, said a spokesman for the provincial police, Frans Barung Mangera. He identified the dead suspect as Anton Ferdiantono, 46, who police officials later said was a friend of the man behind the church bombings. In the final burst of violence, on Monday, four of the five people on the motorcycles were killed, and the fifth, the 8-year-old girl, was taken to the hospital, said Mr. Frans, the police spokesman. Four police officers were reported injured. A video released by an Indonesian news outlet appeared to show the explosion centered on one of the motorcycles, flattening police officers and damaging another car. The counterterrorism police said they raided another housing complex in Sidoarjo on Monday morning, recovering several completed bombs after having neighboring residents evacuate. The wave of deadly attacks began with the Sunday church bombings, which left at least 43 people injured and occurred in different parts of the city within minutes of each other, according to the police. The family members in the church bombings have been identified as Dita Oepriarto and his wife, Puji Kuswati. Two of their sons, ages 18 and 16, were also involved, as well as two daughters, ages 9 and 12, according to the police. Family members on Monday mourned one of the victims killed during Sunday’s church attacks in Surabaya. Credit: Juni Kriswanto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The police said the father had dropped off his wife and two daughters at the Indonesia Christian Church. There, the wife tried to force her way inside, detonating a bomb outside the entrance and killing herself and her two daughters, the police said. The sons rode motorcycles to their target, the Santa Maria Church, before detonating their explosives, according to the police. The father was behind the wheel of the vehicle that crashed into the third church, the Surabaya Center Pentecostal, detonating a bomb believed to have been in the vehicle, the police said. All six of the family members died in the explosions, the police said. The police later disabled three bombs at the family’s home. The bombings occurred as professed followers of the Islamic State have begun to make their presence felt in Indonesia, which is proud of its diversity and religious tolerance. Last Wednesday, the Islamic State said it was responsible for a riot at a police detention center near the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, which housed dozens of terrorist suspects and convicts, most of them members of an Indonesian terrorist network that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. Detainees killed five guards before order was restored, and one detainee was also killed. In 2016, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, claimed its first attack in Southeast Asia, when militants attacked a police post and shopping center in central Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, with homemade guns and bombs. Amir Tejo contributed reporting from Surabaya, Indonesia, Muktita Suhartono from Bandung, Indonesia, Muhammad Rusmadi from Jakarta, and Rukmini Callimachi from New York. (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/world/asia/indonesia-church-bombings-families-isis-suicide.html

By Jamie Doward It began in the US with lurid claims and a hatred of the ‘deep state’. Now it’s growing in the UK, spilling over into anti-vaccine and 5G protests, fuelled by online misinformation. Jamie Doward examines the rise of a rightwing cult movement. He was desperate and scared and pleading for advice. “It’s integrating itself into soft rightwing timelines and I believe it’s starting to radicalise many. Seeing my mum and nan fall for it unaware is so troubling. I’ve seen it all over Facebook and these people genuinely believe they’re revealing the truth.” It is QAnon, the unfounded conspiracy theory that has gone through countless, bewildering versions since it emerged in the US in 2017 and is now spreading like California’s wildfires across the internet. At its core are lurid claims that an elite cabal of child-trafficking paedophiles, comprising, among others, Hollywood A-listers, leading philanthropists, Jewish financiers and Democrat politicians, covertly rule the world. Only President Trump can bring them to justice with his secret plan that will deliver what QAnon’s disciples refer to as “The Storm” or “The Great Awakening”. Heavy on millennialism and the idea that a reckoning awaits the world, the theory has found fertile ground in the American “alt-right”. But, unlike many contributors to the QAnoncasualties forum on Reddit, the man concerned about his mother and grandmother was from Britain and he was in despair at how the movement’s ideas were taking hold here. “My mum and grandma have shown me some, quite frankly, terrifying hard-right Facebook posts, calling Black Lives Matter Marxist paedophiles, typical QAnon stuff, however not even advertised as Q,” he explained. What was once dismissed as an underground US conspiracy theory is becoming something more disturbing, more mainstream, more international, more mystical. And the effects of this are now being felt in Britain. This weekend rallies were held in several cities around the country attended by disparate, discrete groups protesting against lockdowns, vaccinations, 5G mobile phone technology and child abuse. Few of those who turned up at these events would describe themselves as QAnon supporters. Indeed, many have legitimate concerns about the government’s response to the pandemic. But where they overlap with QAnon is in a shared deep distrust of government, an enmity that encourages the cross-pollination of anti-authoritarian ideas in a Britain becoming more fragmented, more angry. “Belief in one conspiracy theory can open the door to many more, and the line between anti-lockdown, anti-5G narratives and QAnon is, to some extent, blurring, for example with some alleging that an evil, child-trafficking cabal is behind the current crisis,” said David Lawrence, a researcher with the antifascist organisation Hope not Hate, which has been monitoring the rise of QAnon in the UK. In London on Saturday, Resist and Act for Freedom, which described itself as “a medic-focused” anti-vaccination rally, was addressed by Kate Shemirani, a nurse suspended from practising by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for being accused of promoting baseless theories about Covid-19, vaccines and 5G. Shemirani has espoused some of the QAnon theories and has described the Covid-19 crisis as a “plandemic scamdemic”. She has described the NHS as “the new Auschwitz” and her online media postings make references to Hitler and the Nazis, an investigation by the Jewish Chronicle has found. A handful of QAnon-inspired banners, such as “We Are Q”, were being held aloft. Others held flags bearing slogans – for example, “Save Our Children” and “Where We Go One We Go All” – that are affiliated to QAnon. Shemirani told the crowd: “Our government has declared war on the people of the UK.” The police, including some on horseback, made several unsuccessful attempts to break up the rally, pushed back by scores of protesters. As they did, the crowd chanted to them: “Choose your side.” One woman in her 20s, who was wearing a hoodie with a QAnon logo, told the Observer that she had come to the rally because she had read about the child abuse taking place across the US and the UK, a chief QAnon trope. Another protester, Emma, 25, said she had a young daughter. She was holding a placard suggesting hundreds of thousands of children had been abducted around the world. “I’ve done years of research,” she said. “QAnon are right. There’s a global elite out there going for our children. Trump is taking down the elite and draining the swamp.” She was dismissive of the government’s response to Covid. “The government is trying to take away our constitutional rights. You don’t need vaccination, you need to live well, eat well.” She also believed that Black Lives Matter was funded by George Soros, the Jewish financier who funds a number of major civil society initiatives. “He’s a Zionist,” she said without further explanation. Gregory Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch, said: “QAnon’s conspiracy theory is copied from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the conspiracy theory promoted by Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany. “Its potential for the promotion of genocidal hatred is a deadly historical fact. The Protocols’ theory that Jews plan to take over the world, and are well on their way to doing so, has been an ideology and motivator for pogroms since the middle ages, and under the Nazis for the Holocaust. It is a conspiracy theory that has literally cost millions of lives. QAnon has revived the Protocols, complete with the Blood Libel, that the secret cabal kidnaps children, drains their blood and cannibalises them to gain mystical power.” There is evidence that far-right groups in Europe are turning their attention to the QAnon movement. A “freedom rally”, held last month in Trafalgar Square and where QAnon supporters were clearly present, was also attended by a group flying a flag of the now defunct British Union of Fascists. In Germany, a major QAnon rally was attended by followers of the Reichsbürger far-right movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state. Similar flirtations have been reported among groups in Finland and Scandinavia. But QAnon is also creeping into UK street protest movements that have no affiliation with the far right. Earlier this year a “justice for all” rally in Nottingham attracted hundreds who came out in support of military veterans and tougher action on child-grooming gangs. QAnon iconography was visible at the event, while one of the rally’s organisers claimed to have had contact with “ a general from Q” and a “group from Q”. Another group, Freedom for the Children UK, which aims to raise awareness about child exploitation and human trafficking, holds marches in cities around the UK. Many involved are well-intentioned but Hope not Hate has found that inside the private group’s online forums, members frequently post QAnon misinformation and references to “Pizzagate”, an unsubstantiated QAnon precursor that claimed several high-ranking Democrat officials, including Hillary Clinton, were involved in a child sex abuse ring based at a Washington pizza restaurant. “QAnon has gathered pockets of support in the UK, and is likely to continue to build momentum as the US election approaches,” Lawrence explained. “But, while the spread of a dangerous conspiracy theory is always concerning, especially when it is animating people on to the street in protest, it is important to underline that the QAnon scene as a whole is still dominated by the US.” Indeed, over in the US QAnon is now marching on Washington. Several Republican congressional candidates, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who looks likely to win her seat in Georgia, have openly expressed support for the movement. Last week, Lauren Witzke, who has posed in a QAnon-branded T-shirt and tweeted the QAnon motto, WWG1WGA – where we go one we go all – won the Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Delaware. Witzke has since distanced herself from QAnon. By contrast, QAnon has been confined to the fringes of the UK political scene. But this is not to say it will remain there. “Support for conspiracy theories and the far right tends to rise in volatile, uncertain times,” Lawrence explained. “Public trust in UK institutions has been increasingly challenged in recent years, and exacerbated by the pandemic and the government’s inconsistent responses.” That QAnon is gaining traction in the UK now, three years after it first emerged in the US, is no surprise to those who have encountered it. An analyst who monitors online extremism in Britain, and spoke to the Observer on condition of anonymity, said it had the ability to appeal to anyone. It hardly mattered that the movement was US-focused. “It offers wish fulfilment – the idea that at some moment Donald Trump is going to liberate people from debt and slavery. Someone might hate banks, well Donald Trump is going to liberate them from banks. Someone might despise immigrants, well Donald Trump is fighting a conspiracy against him inspired by George Soros. The content is not as important as the communities in which it embeds itself.” Stanton said QAnon was “an opportunistic ideology”. “QAnon even briefly stole the Twitter hashtag for Save the Children, the genuine charity that protects children,” Stanton said. “QAnon attracts some women who think it is about saving kidnapped children. By relaying ‘secret messages’ from inside the ‘Deep State’ QAnon lurks in the shadows, where its leaders cannot be exposed for promoting racist, anti-Jewish Nazi terrorism. Extremist ideologies are often dismissed until they take power, as the Nazis did, as communism did, as Isis did. We ignore them at our peril.” Many of those drawn to QAnon from within the UK are followers of the new religious movements that emerged out of the 60s and 70s, or the new-age traveller communities of the 90s. Others have a fascination with UFOs. But to believe that their views have no relevance to the UK’s political ecosystem would be dangerous, experts claim. “QAnon feeds on widespread conspiracy theories, new age, and occult belief systems,”said Chamila Liyanage of the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right. “QAnon will not be able to influence UK politics right away, but it will first gain a foothold among the enthusiasts of fringe belief systems and conspiracy theories. This is metapolitics, changing minds, then cultures can be changed in the long run. If more and more people distrust liberal democracies and believe that liberals are satanists planning to implement the New World Order, it’s not possible to uphold democratic accountability. Such a situation will surely bring political consequences in the long run.” Earlier this year, the Observer reported that John Mappin, a Scientologist and supporter of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, was flying the QAnon flag over his castle in Cornwall. Mappin is a central figure behind Turning Point UK, the British arm of the pro-Trump American student organisation Turning Point USA, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, has been accused of pushing pro-QAnon narratives based on debunked statistics produced by the movement’s supporters. Turning Point UK has been endorsed by several leading Conservatives, including the home secretary, Priti Patel, and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mappin, who has declared that “Q is 100% valid”, has used YouTube to promote QAnon. One person in the US who has seen friends and family turn to QAnon told the Observer: “People who fall into QAnon or adjacent modern conspiracy thinking, including my family member and friends, are people who have unresolved trauma, such as from childhood, that has left them with deep insecurities about their place in the world and the state of society.” He said that these people often had “a lack of understanding for sciences, math, history and politics, a lack of critical thinking, a vulnerability to magical thinking – Evangelical Christian or deep new-age spirituality” – and were dealing with the “trauma of Covid, the loss of physical connections, the loss of work” while confronted by “unfettered internet access and dangerous social media algorithms”. Robert Johnson, who helps moderate the Qanoncasualties site after watching a relative fall victim to the movement, warned anyone can fall down the QAnon rabbit hole. “How fast someone can be sucked in? If they are susceptible, I’d say five days to start believing. If they have an underlying condition, they can reach mania in a week.” One contributer to the QAnoncasualties forum said that his father had become “so invested in QAnon that it feels like someone just hypnotised him”. Stanton has argued powerfully that QAnon is simply the Nazi cult rebranded. “Two definitions of a cult are: a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister; and a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing: a cult of personality surrounding the leaders. QAnon’s strange and sinister beliefs qualify it as a cult, as does QAnon’s misplaced admiration for Donald Trump.” As with any cults, financial gain is not far away. QAnon merchandise has mushroomed. Websites hosting the theory are making money out of traffic. Covid quackery is doing brisk business on QAnon sites. The world today is ripe for the cult’s promotion, Stanton argues, as it shares many similarities with the world in which Hitler emerged. “I think it comes at a similar time to the 1920s and 1930s. We have mass unemployment. We face a plague that is like the Spanish Flu that killed millions. Nazis and QAnon both seek a ‘saviour’ leader who will deliver society from disorder and the cabal of conspirators that is secretly taking over their nations.” The difference now, though, is that technology has unified the world. A movement emanating from the US can quickly spread beyond its borders. One contributor to the Qanoncasualties forum told the Observer that QAnon appears to mimic the spread of the pandemic. “It struck me that the way QAnon has taken off in a really big way this year, despite being three years old, is like the spread of the virus, in terms of the exponential growth curve. The more people that are connected to QAnon, the steeper the curve will be in terms of them spreading the BS on social media and in real-life interactions.” The appeal seems almost physical. As one German contributor to Qanoncasualties, who was not a QAnon follower but had been a believer in Pizzagate, explained: “It all started on Reddit. It began with stumbling on a few ‘alternative’ subreddits, those with prefixes ‘real’, ‘anarchy’, ‘true’, etc. To this day, I’m still not sure what triggered the hate spiral in me. “I think one of the possibilities is that any unresolved conflicts are channelled in anger and negative energy. A lot of people describe their relatives watching QAnon videos all day – they know that they’re essentially on an IV drip of some stuff they crave. I have no idea how it works inside the body, but I’m willing to bet there’s a physical response to this behaviour.” Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has found that QAnon and the online world have enjoyed a powerful symbiosis after lockdown started in many countries, including the UK. A report the ISD published in June showed that membership of QAnon groups on Facebook increased by 120% in March, while engagement rates increased by 91%. From 27 October 2017 to 17 June 2020, the ISD recorded 69,475,451 million tweets, 487,310 Facebook posts and 281,554 Instagram posts mentioning QAnon-related hashtags and phrases. The ISD said that “across all three platforms, a clear trend exists showing a notable increase in conversation volumes coinciding with periods when lockdowns were issued”. It found that the top four countries driving discussion of QAnon on Twitter were the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Much of the online discussion is driven by the actions of Trump, who has retweeted QAnon-promoting accounts. One Reddit contributor said that QAnon was spreading for “one reason only”. “The failure of the government, in the US at least, to deny and denounce it. These conspiracies and cult-like behaviours have arrived thousands of times over the years and usually die out. “However, when you have a president who says he didn’t know much about QAnon, except ‘they like me very much’ and ‘I heard... that these are people who love our country’, then immediately this is essentially permission and acknowledgement of their movement.” Facebook and Twitter have recently taken steps to restrict QAnon. The movement now largely operates on the 8kun message board site, whose earlier incarnation, 8chan, has been criticised for hosting images of child abuse and promoting white supremacy groups. “QAnon hardcore followers are still gaining but there is more awareness and active scepticism recently,” Johnson said. “They had a recent setback with the shutdown of qmap.pub (a website endorsed by Q). But they are a great hype machine and Covid has been a godsend. Globally it is gaining ground and numbers. I think it surpassed 72 countries this week. We recently had a user report dealing with a family member in Switzerland.” But can a cult survive the demise of its leader? Few believe that if Trump loses in November, QAnon will disappear. “When Obama won that’s what kickstarted half of the angry movements that fed into this,” the online extremism analyst explained. “It didn’t calm the Republican right, it made them much more aggravated.” Nor would Trump’s defeat sound the death knell for an incipient QAnon movement in the UK. “There is a high possibility that the spirited belief system which surrounds QAnon can slowly become a political movement in the UK,” Liyanage said. “It will be successful because no one can fight it through reason. It’s not a rational belief system but mostly a supernatural belief system.” The mysterious rise of QAnon • QAnon publicly emerged on 28 October 2017 when a user calling themselves Q, who claimed to have high-level security clearance, posted a series of cryptic messages on the website 4chan (which later became 8chan and then 8kun). • Q claimed that they would work to covertly inform the public about President Trump’s ongoing battle against the “deep state”, a blanket term used to describe those in power working against the president. Since then, users claiming to be Q have made over 4,000 posts, known in the community as “Qdrops”, fuelling the growth of a lurid meta-conspiracy connecting a range of harmful narratives. • The QAnon theory now connects antivaccine, anti-5G conspiracies, antisemitic and antimigrant tropes, and several bizarre theories that the world is in the thrall of a group of paedophile elites set on global domination in part aided by ritualistic child sacrifice. It morphed out of an earlier conspiracy, “Pizzagate”, which suggested that a paedophile ring involving senior officials in the Democratic Party was being run out of a pizza restaurant in Washington. • In 2019, the FBI labelled QAnon a domestic terror threat, observing that conspiracy theories have the potential to encourage “both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts”. • In the 2020 US elections there are 14 congressional candidates on the ballot for November who express support for the theory. • Who is behind QAnon remains opaque. But NBC has reported that it took off when two 4chan moderators, who went by the usernames Pamphlet Anon and BaruchtheScribe, reached out to Tracy Diaz, a small-time YouTube star who helped popularise the earlier ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy who then helped bring QAnon to a wider online audience. The Guardian © 2020 See full article here .

The Biden administration has to reconsider its support for the Indonesian military until it addresses abuse of civilians. By Joanne Lin und Usman Hamid On October 28, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Indonesia as part of a five-country tour of Asia focused on strengthening ties amid ongoing tensions with China. A day after his arrival, an independent humanitarian team, consisting of several religious leaders, academics, and humanitarian activists in Papua, announced that it had found evidence that Yeremia Zanambani, a pastor in the region of Intan Jaya, Papua, had been allegedly shot, stabbed and ultimately killed by an Indonesian soldier. On November 2, Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission further said that the soldier had allegedly tortured Pastor Yeremia in an attempt to extract information about an armed criminal group in the area. Two days before Pompeo’s visit, military forces allegedly shot and killed Rufinus Tigau, a catechist working at a Catholic parish in the same region, saying that he was a member of an armed criminal group, a claim the local Catholic diocese denies. These incidents are just the latest in a series of unlawful killings allegedly involving Indonesian military and police personnel in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. There has been an Indonesian military presence in Papua since it was incorporated into the country in 1969 after a contentious referendum organised by the United Nations. Under former President Soeharto’s New Order regime (1966-1998), the region was designated as a military operation zone and military forces deployed there were accused of numerous human rights violations. The designation was lifted shortly after Soeharto’s resignation in 1998, but the military presence has continued and successive governments have adopted a “security approach” to Papua – focusing on the threat posed by armed separatist groups while largely ignoring legitimate socioeconomic and political grievances from the civilian population. Amnesty has recorded at least 52 cases of suspected unlawful killings by security forces in Papua between February 2018 and November 2020 alone, in which 103 people were killed. In one such incident in July, 40-year-old Elias Karunggu and his 18-year-old son Sela were shot by Indonesian soldiers in Nduga regency while they were fording a river on the way to the nearest town. The father and son had lived in a forest refugee camp for nearly two years after being displaced from their homes due to ongoing military operations in the area. Indonesia’s government and military have often sought to portray those killed as armed rebels, or, in certain cases, claim that it was armed rebels that were doing the killing. Official investigations into the killings have been few and far between. Pompeo’s Jakarta trip came less than two weeks after Indonesian Minister of Defence Prabowo Subianto travelled to Washington for his first official visit after being banned from entering the US for two decades over his involvement as a high-ranking officer in human rights violations. In the 1990s, the US government also imposed military assistance restrictions on the Indonesian military and Kopassus, its army special forces unit where Prabowo was a commander, due to their alleged involvement in war crimes in the East Timor conflict. Kopassus has also been implicated in the kidnapping and murder of Papuan activist Theys Eluay in 2001. In a statement issued after Prabowo met with US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the Department of Defense said: “Both leaders shared their desire to enhance bilateral military-to-military activities and work together on maritime security.” The statement also said that Esper “communicated the importance of upholding human rights, the rule of law and professionalization as the two countries expand their engagement”. These admirable words might have carried more weight had they not been addressed to a man discharged from the Indonesian military for his involvement in the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists. Esper’s meeting with Prabowo was another example of something the US has done too often in its relations with Indonesia: paying lip service to human rights while turning a blind eye to flagrant and continuous abuses, particularly in Papua, in order to gain Jakarta’s loyalties in the growing regional competition with China. Of course, nothing more could have been expected from the current US administration led by a man who had casually tweeted out “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” during mass protests against racism and lavished praise on autocrats and dictators while purportedly serving as the leader of the free world. President Donald Trump has never demonstrated interest in upholding human rights in his own country, let alone addressing human rights violations and abuses elsewhere. His successor, however, has promised change. “We lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example […] With a love of country – and a thirst for justice – let us be the nation that we know we can be,” President-elect Joe Biden said in his election victory speech on November 7. Such a nation should not put weapons into the hands of foreign soldiers who will use them against civilians and activists. Such a nation should not stay silent when an ally deploys an increasing number of security forces to a region where military and police officers have been implicated in numerous crimes against the local population. It is high time that the US lead by the power of its example by speaking out against flagrant human rights violations, including in Papua and West Papua, and guaranteeing that no military aid will be used to prolong the suffering of the Papuan people. © Al Jazeera 2020

By Joe Inwood Somalia is marking 30 years of conflict. Specifically, it's marking the moment the government of President Siad Barre collapsed in January 1991, setting Somalia on a rapid path to fragmentation and anarchy. In recent years a federal government has begun to make some progress in rebuilding the country and Islamist militants have been pushed out of most major towns. Our Africa correspondent Andrew Harding has been covering Somalia's troubles for over two decades and has just been back to the capital Mogadishu to see what hopes people have for peace. Source: BBC News

By Jon Gambrell FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2016, file photo, men are silhouetted against a large representation of the Yemeni flag as they attend a ceremony to mark the anniversary of North Yemen's Sept. 26, 1962 revolution in Sanaa, Yemen. President Joe Biden's announcement that the U.S. will end its support of a Saudi-led coalition's years-long war against Yemen's Houthi rebels likely will increase pressure on the kingdom to end its campaign there, though reaching an enduring peace for the Arab world's poorest country still remains in question. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Joe Biden’s announcement that the U.S. will end its support of a Saudi-led coalition’s yearslong war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels likely will increase pressure on the kingdom to end its campaign there. However, reaching an enduring peace for the Arab world’s poorest country still remains in question. The Iran-backed rebels remain firmly entrenched in the country’s north and hold its capital, Sanaa. The rest of the country is being held by competing tribal, regional and political alliances, backed overall by the Saudi-led coalition that’s been fighting there since 2015. How those fractious forces respond will be key as the United Nations, the West and regional countries try to find a power-sharing political arrangement agreeable to all sides. Yemen’s long-troubled modern history suggests any deal will be difficult to reach and perhaps even harder to stick to. WHO IS FIGHTING IN YEMEN AND WHY HAS IT BEEN SO BLOODY? Yemen’s war began in September 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and began a march south to try to seize the entire country. Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and other countries, entered the war alongside Yemen’s internationally recognized government in March 2015. The war has killed some 130,000 people, including over 13,000 civilians slain in targeted attacks, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project. The aid group Save the Children estimates that 85,000 children under age 5 have died from starvation or disease since the war began. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic rages unchecked as Yemen’s health care system has been decimated by the war and the Houthis suppressed information about the crisis. The war has seen atrocities from all sides. Saudi airstrikes using American-made bombs killed school children and civilians. The UAE paid off local al-Qaida fighters to avoid fighting and controlled prisons where torture and sexual abuse was rampant . The Houthis employ child soldiers and indiscriminately lay landmines . WHY IS YEMEN AT WAR? Situated along the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen had been split in the Cold War between a Marxist south and a northern republic. The two nations became a unified Yemen in 1990, fought a civil war in 1994 and later came under the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a strongman who once described governing his nation’s myriad of tribal groups, militant groups and alliances as “dancing on the heads of snakes.” Saleh began losing his grip on power during the Arab Spring protests a decade ago. He ultimately agreed to have his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, take over. Hadi’s government struggled and Saleh, seeing a second chance to regain power, had his forces side with the same Houthis he had battled as president as they swept into the capital in 2014. Saleh ultimately switched sides again to back Hadi but his luck had run out — the Houthis killed him in 2017. Iran, seeing the opportunity to aid a war of attrition against rival Saudi Arabia, has backed the Houthis. Arab countries, the West and United Nations experts say Iran has armed the Houthis with everything from assault rifles to ballistic missiles , something long denied by Tehran despite evidence to the contrary . Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies fear the Houthis could grow as powerful as Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah militant group. The Houthis already launched drone and missile attacks deep into the kingdom. All the while, Yemen’s endemic poverty , lack of water and other resources have worsened. The war merely compounded the misery, and this country of 29 million people is now on the brink of famine. WHY IS THE U.S. INVOLVED? There’s another conflict hidden inside Yemen’s war that directly involves the U.S. America has been targeting members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by Washington to be the most-dangerous franchise of the militant group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2000, al-Qaida militants attacked the USS Cole off Yemen’s port city of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. Every U.S. president since George W. Bush has conducted drone strikes in Yemen, killing over 1,300 people, including at least 115 civilians, according to the Washington-based organization New America. U.S. forces had been operating in Yemen under Saleh and later left. American special forces troops have deployed in the country in the time since, including a raid early in President Donald Trump’s administration that killed a Navy SEAL, al-Qaida militants and civilians . Meanwhile, the U.S. sold bombs and fighter jets to Saudi Arabia that the kingdom later used in strikes on Yemen that also killed civilians. The Obama administration in 2015 initially offered U.S. targeting assistance to Saudi Arabia’s command-and-control that was supposed to minimize civilian casualties in airstrikes. It didn’t, and Obama ultimately cut back on the program. Under Trump, that assistance continued although his administration later stopped U.S. refueling operations for Saudi jets . America also has deployed U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia after it came under a drone-and-missile attack in 2019 that temporarily halved its oil output. While the Houthis claimed the attack, the kingdom, the U.S. and U.N. experts believe Iran carried out the attack. Biden made a point to say the U.S. would “continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people.” WILL THIS END THE WAR? Biden’s announcement appeared designed to put new pressure on Saudi Arabia to end its coalition campaign there. The UAE pulled out its ground forces in 2019 and has been urging a negotiated settlement to the war. Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, a deputy defense minister and son of King Salman, wrote on Twitter the kingdom wants to work toward “implementing a sustainable political settlement” in Yemen. The war has been a costly, bloody stalemate for his father, as well as his brother Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. However, previous U.N.-led efforts have yet to end the conflict. Meanwhile, secessionists allied to the UAE have openly battled other troops allied to the coalition . Any peace between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis may only see the country divided again in the future. All contents © copyright 2021 The Associated Press.

E ffort by Canada and Netherlands under UN Convention Against Torture will be slow but sends strong message, experts say. By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours Syrian campaigner Wafa Mustafa sits between pictures of victims of the Syrian government, holding a picture of her father, outside the trial of two former Syrian intelligence officers accused of crimes against humanity, in Germany, in June 2020 [File: Thomas Lohnes/AFP] Montreal, Canada – As the world marked 10 years since the start of the uprising in Syria last week, renewed efforts are under way to hold President Bashar al-Assad’s government accountable for abuses in the war-torn country. Canada announced this month that it is joining the Netherlands in an international effort to seek justice under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, a process that ultimately could trigger a case at the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “The Syrian regime has cruelly and systematically repressed and committed crimes against its own population, causing unimaginable suffering,” the Canadian and Dutch foreign ministers, Marc Garneau and Stef Blok, said in a joint statement on March 12. But how exactly do Canada and the Netherlands intend to hold the Syrian government accountable for torture, what does the process entail, and what could accountability look like in this case? Long road Seeking negotiations under the Convention Against Torture – which Syria, Canada and the Netherlands are all parties to – is the first of a multi-step process, explained Amanda Ghahremani, an international criminal lawyer based in Canada. The Dutch government first said in September that it sought to hold Syria responsible for “ gross human rights violations ” under the convention. If Syria does not respond to the initial request for negotiations, or if those talks are not successful within a reasonable timeframe, Canada and the Netherlands can submit a request for arbitration. Then, if no agreement on arbitration can be reached within six months, any of the parties can refer the issue to the ICJ. The court settles disputes between states. It is not a criminal court, does not issue judgments against individuals, and does not have an enforcement mechanism. In this case, Ghahremani said the court could declare Syria to be in breach of the convention and order it to take steps to get in line with the UN framework, or award compensation on behalf of people affected by the breach. She pointed to a 2009 case in which Belgium went to the ICJ to argue that Senegal was violating the Convention Against Torture by failing to prosecute or extradite former Chadian military ruler Hissene Habre for torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In its ruling, the court established that the parties to the convention have an obligation to each other to abide by it, Human Rights Watch has explained . The ICJ concluded that Senegal needed to take “the necessary measures to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution, if it did not extradite Mr. Habre”. Habre was eventually tried in a special tribunal in Senegal and sentenced to life in prison in 2016. “This gives you an example of what the powers of the court are, what it can do, and then … how it can push them to even go so far as prosecuting an individual if that’s how they need to stop violating the treaty,” Ghahremani said. But she said the process will be “time-consuming” and “slow” – and in the case of Syria, it remains unclear whether the Canadian-Dutch effort would be successful, particularly since al-Assad’s government has denied accusations of widespread rights abuses. “But certainly, it does send a message,” Ghahremani said. Torture reports The office of Syria’s permanent representative to the UN did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment in time for publication. In September, after the Netherlands announced it would seek negotiations under the torture convention, Syria’s foreign ministry rejected the effort, saying the Dutch government “is the last one who has the right to talk about human rights”. The Syrian government has denied it tortures prisoners. Since the war began, it has rejected attempts to hold it accountable for abuses, instead accusing human rights groups, UN experts, foreign governments and others of meddling in the country’s internal affairs. Nevertheless, Reem Salahi, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said since an effort to bring Syria to the International Criminal Court failed at the UN Security Council in 2014, countries – particularly in Europe – have sought creative avenues to seek justice. Syrian children carry pictures of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib, who activists say was tortured and killed by security forces, at a rally in Beirut in 2011 [File: Jamal Saidi/Reuters] Police in the United Kingdom recently launched an investigation into Asma al-Assad, the Syrian president’s wife, who is also a British national, for allegedly inciting “terrorist” acts in Syria. A German court last month sentenced a former Syrian intelligence officer to more than four years in prison for complicity in state-sponsored torture. Another defendant accused of crimes against humanity is also on trial. Salahi said if the Dutch and Canadian effort ends up at the ICJ, there will be no shortage of evidence of torture in Syria, as rights groups have documented atrocities for years. A Syrian military police defector known as Caesar smuggled tens of thousands of images of torture victims out of the country in 2014. Most recently, this month the UN Human Rights Council said in a report that “the use of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, including through sexual violence, involuntary or enforced disappearance and summary executions, has been a hallmark of the conflict” in Syria. Torture was used to extract confessions from detainees, and the UN said “at least 20 different horrific methods of torture” were employed by the government, including electric shocks, burning body parts, pulling out nails and teeth, mock executions, and suspending people from one or two limbs for long periods of time. “Torture methods were both physical and mental, and had severe long-term consequences for detainees, and frequently led to their death. Inhuman conditions documented across government detention centres often in and of themselves amounted to torture,” the report found. Global attention With no enforcement mechanism, the ICJ cannot issue arrest warrants or bring suspects to trial, but a ruling would represent an international rebuke of the Syrian government and acknowledgement for the victims. It would be “a very important tool because it will be happening at one of the highest levels, showing that Syria is engaging in extreme torture and human rights violations,” Salahi told Al Jazeera. “It will be the first ruling in the international court against the Syrian state on this basis, and it can support additional efforts that are happening in national courts through universal jurisdiction. It can be used as the grounds or the basis to call for another referral to the ICC.” Bessma Momani, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo, agreed that countries and other stakeholders have been forced to find unique ways to demand accountability in Syria – and the push by Canada and the Netherlands is one such attempt. While the process may be long, in the meantime, it helps bring the war in Syria back into focus. “It’s useful because it attracts global attention to a crisis that, unfortunately, a lot of people have gotten tired of talking about,” Momani told Al Jazeera. “I think the Assad regime strategy has always been about running down the clock. In other words, continue to evade, eventually, the world will give up … It’s important, I think, also to remind the Assad regime that the world hasn’t forgotten.” © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Jaime Yaya Barry and Dionne Searcey President Adama Barrow of Gambia arrived in the country on Thursday for the first time since being elected in December. He had fled to Senegal when his predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, initially refused to step down. By REUTERS.Photo by Jerome Delay/Associated Press. Watch in Times Video » BANJUL, Gambia — A week after he was inaugurated in another country, Adama Barrow landed in Gambia on Thursday afternoon, setting foot inside his own national borders for the first time as the new president. Throngs of supporters, some holding Gambian flags, lined the roads to greet Mr. Barrow, who had flown in from Dakar, Senegal, where he had fled more than a week earlier out of security concerns after his predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, refused to step down. As he entered Banjul, the capital, Mr. Barrow, dressed in all white, poked out of a white Land Cruiser surrounded by military vehicles and waved to onlookers. “Today is freedom day,” said Mariama Bah, a nurse from Serekunda, a town nearby, who came to the airport to welcome President Barrow. “We now have a president that we can be proud of.” Mr. Barrow defeated the longtime president, Mr. Jammeh, in a surprising outcome to an election in December. Mr. Jammeh, who had been in power since 1994, when he led a successful coup, initially accepted defeat. A few days after the vote, he changed his mind, declared the election results invalid and vowed to use the power of his military to stay in charge. It took repeated personal overtures from West African presidents and finally a regional coalition of troops that crossed into Gambia to persuade Mr. Jammeh, known for human rights abuses, to step down. He flew out of the country on Saturday, accompanied by a cargo plane containing his Rolls-Royce and other luxury automobiles, and has settled in Equatorial Guinea, which has its own record of human rights violations. Mr. Barrow’s arrival capped a tense period for many Gambians who had feared a bloody end to the presidential standoff. Tens of thousands of residents had been so worried that they fled the country, though many have already returned. But Mr. Jammeh still has supporters left in Gambia, and some residents worry that divisions could lead to problems in the new administration. Mr. Barrow has dismissed his predecessor’s supporters as a minority. Most of all, many residents said they were weary of the regional troops who were still roaming the capital. They had arrived at the statehouse to search it and make sure all was safe for Mr. Barrow’s return, but their presence on the streets was unsettling to many. Mr. Barrow’s aides said the soldiers were likely to remain in Gambia for weeks as the new administration makes the transition. Some Gambians worried that it was still too early for Mr. Barrow to come home. “Yahya Jammeh was not acting alone,” said Ishmael Ceesay, 24, a mobile phone salesman in Serekunda. “His people are still around.” Mr. Barrow’s aides said the president would stay at a private residence until the regional troops finished securing the statehouse. Mr. Jammeh’s rule penetrated the psyche of many Gambians who feared him, so much so that thousands fled years ago. Their departure further damaged an already shaky economy that Mr. Barrow has said will be a priority for him. Mr. Jammeh jailed journalists and his opponents, some of whom died in prison, carried out hunts for people believed to be witches and forced patients to stop taking medication so he could test what he said was his homemade cure for AIDS — herbs, prayers and a banana. Residents of Gambia talked about Mr. Jammeh only in hushed tones, and rarely in public, and even some members of the diaspora said they were convinced he was monitoring their communications. Mohamed Jalloh, who sells fabric at the entrance to the statehouse, said he had spent the past two decades praying a bullet would not come flying toward him. “Yahya Jammeh brought so much fear in us,” Mr. Jalloh said. The paranoia was evident even this week, with Mr. Jammeh hundreds of miles away, when a Gambian newspaper reported that he had left toxins in the vents in the statehouse to poison his successor. Mr. Barrow’s team said the report was false. For many Gambians, the pain of Mr. Jammeh’s rule was all too real. Some residents said part of Mr. Barrow’s new job would be comforter in chief. Mr. Barrow has vowed to create a truth and reconciliation commission to look into injustices during Mr. Jammeh’s more than 22-year administration. On Wednesday afternoon in Brikama, the region where Mr. Barrow received the most votes, three women sat on a long wooden bench. They wore yellow #GambiaHasDecided T-shirts, a motto adopted by the opposition that wanted Mr. Jammeh to leave. Like many others across Gambia, each of the women said a relative had been killed by security forces loyal to Mr. Jammeh. As they sold sugar at the market, the three spoke of their losses. It was during the 2011 presidential election campaign that Nyima Jabang’s father, an ambulance driver, was tortured and killed while in custody at the National Intelligence Agency. His crime: driving two men to a hospital who had been wounded at a rally in a clash between Mr. Jammeh’s party and the main opposition party, the United Democratic Party. The next day, the brother of Nyima Sanyang, another of the friends selling sugar, was arrested by security forces in connection with the campaign clash and was beaten to death. The third woman, Bintu Sonko, 30, described the long, speeding motorcades that carried Mr. Jammeh and his aides, who would toss packets of cookies to supporters. In 2013, Ms. Sonko’s son, Lamine, 7, heard Mr. Jammeh’s cars approaching. He ran out with his friends to wave to the passing president. Lamine darted into the street to catch a cookie and was struck and killed by a car in the motorcade. “They did not even stop,” Ms. Sonko said. “They kept going and throwing cookies at the rest of the kids. We can’t even report the matter to the chief or the police.” “That was my only child.” _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times Company

By Jeffery Gettleman The video opens with a squad of soldiers walking down a sandy, sunlit road toward a group of people who are chanting. Then the soldiers — who appear to be uniformed members of the national army of the Democratic Republic of Congo, accompanied by a heavy military truck — raise their weapons. They start firing. One by one, the figures in the road drop. Oddly, several of the people do not make any attempt to run from the advancing soldiers. The soldiers then saunter up to the wounded, blasting them in the head with assault rifles from a few feet away. Many of the victims look young; several are women. None carry guns. These images are part of a battlefield video that was shared with The New York Times on Friday and that, thanks to Congolese human rights activists, has begun to make the rounds on Facebook and other social media. Several analysts said that the footage revealed a government-sponsored massacre of civilians and that the video could be used as evidence of war crimes. Human Rights Watch, Western diplomats and United Nations officials said they were investigating the video, which was consistent with United Nations reports this week of Congolese government soldiers ruthlessly crushing a local militia in the Kasaï-Central Province. “The video shows shocking footage of killings and executions of civilians by uniformed personnel,” said a statement by the United Nations peacekeeping department. Peacekeeping officials said they were trying to verify the source of the video and whether it was linked to the recent clashes in the Kasaï area. Congo has a sordid history of government-led atrocities, including gang rapes and the slaughtering of civilians. The country is nearly lawless, and the government forces are known to be brutal, underpaid and among the most dreaded. But it is rare to have such powerful, graphic evidence of the blasé taking of human life. “Look, they are dying,” the soldiers said in Lingala, the language of central Congo, as they blasted the civilians. “Watch how they get killed like animals.” Human rights activists said that the video was filmed by a Congolese government soldier who was part of the execution squad and that the soldier may have felt bad about what happened and leaked it to assuage his conscience. The camera was right behind the soldiers as they raised their rifles. The soldiers did not even take cover when they opened fire. Analysts said it was clear that the soldiers knew that their targets posed no threat. At least 13 bodies could be seen in the video. The unrest in Kasaï is only one of many self-inflicted crises that the Congolese government faces. A religious cult in the west of the country is seeking to revive an ancient kingdom. A rebel army called the M23 is agitating again in the east, along with several dozen other rebel groups. The commodities-based economy continues to nose-dive. And great uncertainty hangs over the teeming, beleaguered capital, Kinshasa, as Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, seems to retreat deeper into the corner he has put himself in, with no plan to leave. Just this week, the government announced that it did not have the money to hold an election in 2017, after the ruling party agreed a few weeks ago to do just that. Under Congo’s Constitution, Mr. Kabila should not even be in office now. His second and final term was over in December. He is deeply unpopular, increasingly isolated and suspected of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars through fraudulent mining deals. “None of these conflicts are directly related to each other, but they are proliferating around the country because the government is weak and contested,” said Jason Stearns, the director of the Congo Research Group, a research project based at New York University. “The government is also paranoid, which is why it feels it needs to take a hard line toward any movements,” he added. The video appears to have been filmed within the past 10 days, analysts said, during the government’s military operations to quash the Kamuina Nsapu militia. The militia is an offshoot of a local movement in Kasaï whose followers have challenged the government over local autonomy. Some of the group’s followers believe in traditional magic. It seems the video was filmed as the government soldiers were approaching about a dozen Kamuina Nsapu followers who were standing together in a rural road, chanting. “They are not scared to die, so we will show them,” one of the soldiers says. Several of the victims were wearing garlands of leaves. Analysts said they might have believed the leaves — or the chanting — would protect them from bullets. That may be one reason the people did not run or dive into the bushes when the first gunshots rang out. This week, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liz Throssell, said as many as 101 people, including 39 women, may have been killed in clashes in the Kasaï area. “We are deeply concerned at the reported high number of deaths, which if confirmed would suggest excessive and disproportionate use of force by the soldiers,” the statement said. Lambert Mende, Congo’s information minister, said the video was not filmed in Congo, but possibly another African country, and that it was an attempt by nongovernmental organizations “to destroy the image of the D.R.C.” ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times

By Jean H. Lee After the 14th-century Korean ruler Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, chose the youngest of his eight sons to succeed him, a spurned son killed the heir apparent and at least one of his other half brothers and eventually rose to the throne. Today, rumors of royal fratricide are again swirling, this time around the court of Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea. Last week, Mr. Kim’s estranged older half brother, Kim Jong-nam, died in Malaysia, the apparent victim of a nerve-agent attack in the Kuala Lumpur airport. The Malaysian police named several suspects, including a North Korean diplomat. Many South Koreans, without needing proof, are calling it a political assassination directed by Kim Jong-un. North Korea denies that. The Malaysian authorities may never be able to prove that Kim Jong-un was responsible for the death. But the rampant speculation that Mr. Kim ordered the attack is enough to send a chilling message to the North Korean people: Kim Jong-un’s reach and power can extend to all corners of the earth. A head of state ordering a hit on his brother may sound medieval to modern ears. But in many ways, North Korea still operates like a feudal monarchy. The Korean tradition of leaders slaying their enemies and exiling potential claimants to the throne flourishes in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather both carried out deadly purges in the early years of their rule. And Kim Jong-il sent his half brother, Kim Pyong-il, to serve as ambassador to North Korea’s embassies in distant Poland and the Czech Republic. Though he once appeared as the favorite to succeed his father, Kim Jong-nam began living abroad in exile after being caught in 2001 trying to enter Japan with a fake Dominican passport (the portly Mr. Kim used the name Pang Xiong, Chinese for “fat bear,” a detail that hints at his sense of humor). The elder brother was better known for gambling than for politics. His young son, Kim Han-sol, affirmed that image in a 2012 interview in which he said, “My dad was definitely not really interested in politics.” Still, Kim Jong-nam had been vocal in his criticism of the North Korean leadership. In 2010, as Kim Jong-un was being groomed to become leader, Kim Jong-nam told TV Asahi he opposed his father’s decision to pass leadership onto a third generation. And in a book published in Japan, Kim Jong-nam was quoted as predicting that North Korea would collapse without economic reform. These were damning words from a son of Kim Jong-il and could be cause for prosecution for treason under North Korean law. The 2013 execution of Kim Jong-nam’s uncle Jang Song-thaek was an omen. Mr. Jang, the husband of Kim Jong-il’s sister who at one time was treated as a regent for the young Kim Jong-un, was accused of plotting to overthrow the regime. His execution was meant to send North Koreans a message about the dangers of crossing Kim Jong-un and ushered in an extended purge. Kim Jong-nam was said to be close to his uncle. The state media haven’t mentioned Kim Jong-nam’s name in the reports on the death of a North Korean citizen in Malaysia, but word of the assassination has most likely circulated among elites. While Kim Jong-nam has not appeared much in the state media since falling out of favor with the regime more than 15 years ago, he was well known among elites and North Koreans who have spent time abroad — diplomats and, of course, defectors. These are the people who Kim Jong-un may have wanted to reach. The death comes at a time when an unprecedented number of members of the North Korean elite are defecting to South Korea, most notably Thae Yong-ho, the dapper former deputy ambassador to Britain. Mr. Thae had been making the rounds divulging the inner workings of the Kim Jong-un regime, a blow to Pyongyang and a coup for Seoul. As someone who traces her lineage to King Taejo, I have a personal interest in his long-ago palace drama. In 2013, I visited Taejo’s hometown, Hamhung, in North Korea, where locals shared details of the family legends. The feuding among Taejo’s sons, I was told, so disheartened the king that he abandoned his palace in Seoul and retreated to Hamhung. For years, he refused to meet with the murderous son who eventually ascended to the throne. Legend has it that envoys bearing entreaties from the son, who ruled as King Taejong, were ordered slain before they could deliver their messages. The murdered envoys were called “Hamhung chasa” — messengers who never made it back home. With his death, and all the speculation surrounding it, Kim Jong-nam has become a modern-day Hamhung chasa — a doomed man who never made it back home. And at least until we know more about the case, Kim Jong-nam’s demise will be seen as a warning to North Koreans of the fate they risk if they cross their leader. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The New York Times