US designates Russia's Wagner military group an intl 'criminal organization'

Yahoo - AFP, January 20, 2023 

The United States on Friday designated Russia's Wagner group as a "transnational criminal organization," raising pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine. 

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wagner, controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of them drawn from prisons. 

Kirby showed US intelligence photographs of North Korea supplying arms to Wagner for its Ukraine operations, and said the private army has become a rival to the formal Russian military. 

The photographs, from November 18-19, show Russian rail cars entering North Korea, picking up a load of infantry rockets and missiles, and returning to Russia, he said. 

He said the US Treasury was formally designating Wagner as a transnational criminal organization, putting it in league with Italian mafia groups and Japanese and Russian organized crime. 

The designation will allow the wider application of sanctions on the group’s sprawling global network, which includes mercenary operations as well as businesses in Africa and elsewhere. 

Wagner "is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses," Kirby said. 

"We will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose and target those who are assisting Wagner," he said. 

Kirby also said the United States had presented its intelligence on Wagner's North Korean purchase to the UN Security Council's unit on North Korea sanctions. 

The arms transfers from North Korea are in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, Kirby said. 

Kirby said there is evidence that Prigozhin's confidence in Wagner fighters' relative success in Ukraine has generated tensions in the Kremlin. 

"Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries," Kirby said. 

"Prigozhin is trying to advance his own interest in Ukraine and Wagner is making military decisions based largely on what they will generate for Prigozhin, in terms of positive publicity."

US government examining over 500 'UFO' reports

Rfi – AFP, 12 Jan 2023 

An image from of US military pilot's sighting of an "unidentified
anomalous phenomena" that some think is evidence of UFOs © Handout / DoD/AFP

Washington (AFP) – The US government is examining 510 UFO reports, over triple the number in its 2021 file, and while many were caused by drones or balloons, hundreds remain unexplained, according to a report released Thursday. 

The 2022 report by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said that 247 "unidentified anomalous phenomena" or UAP reports have been filed with it since June 2021, when it revealed that it had records of 144 sightings of suspicious aerial objects under examination. 

In addition, the report said, another 119 reports that had been buried in old records from the past 17 years had been unearthed, leaving it with 510 in total. 

Most of the new reports come from US Navy and Air Force pilots, it said. 

Of those, close to 200 had "unremarkable" explanations: they were balloons, drones or so-called aerial clutter, which covers birds, weather events and airborne plastic bags. 

But others haven't been explained according to the DNI document, an unclassified version of a report delivered to Congress. 

Those are the focus of examinations by the Pentagon, US intelligence agencies, and NASA over concerns not that they are alien spacecraft but unknown spying capabilities of rival countries. 

"UAP continue to represent a hazard to flight safety and pose a possible adversary collection threat," the report said, referring to intelligence gathering. 

"Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis," it said. 

The report said many of those still unexplained reports could stem from weather phenomena, faulty sensors, or erroneous analysis by humans. 

"Many reports lack enough detailed data to enable attribution of UAP with high certainty," it said. 

The report came after years of pressure from Congress for the military and intelligence community to take seriously what were formerly called UFOs, or unidentified flying objects. 

The US military is worried some of the UAPs spotted by military pilots in the past may represent technologies of strategic rivals unknown to US scientists. 

The Pentagon previously called them unidentified aerial phenomena, but has now changed it to unidentified anomalous phenomena to include air, space, and maritime domains. 

In 2020, the Pentagon released a still inexplicable video taken by navy pilots of objects moving at incredible speeds, spinning and mysteriously disappearing. 

"We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one," said Pentagon Spokesman Pat Ryder in a statement.

In rare hearing, Pentagon reports rise in UFOs in past 20 years

Yahoo – AFP, May 17, 2022

A screen grab provided by the Pentagon in April 2020 from a video showing
"unidentified aerial phenomena" (AFP/Handout) (Handout)

An increasing number of unidentified flying objects have been reported in the sky over the past 20 years, a top US defense official told lawmakers Tuesday in the first public hearing on UFOs in half a century. 

"Since the early 2000s we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft or objects in military controlled training areas and training ranges and other designated airspace," Scott Bray, deputy director of Naval intelligence, told a House security panel. 

Bray attributed the rise to efforts by the US military to "destigmatize the act of reporting sights and encounters" as well as to technological advances. 

However, he said the Pentagon had detected nothing "that would suggest it's anything non-terrestrial in origin" behind these phenomena. 

On the other hand, Brey also did not definitively rule out that possibility. 

"We've made no assumptions about what this is or isn't," Bray said. 

In June 2021, US intelligence had already claimed in a long-awaited report that there was no evidence of the existence of extraterrestrials in the skies, while acknowledging that they had no explanation for dozens of phenomena observed by military pilots. 

Some could be explained by the presence of drones or birds creating confusion in the radar systems of the US military. 

Others could stem from tests of military equipment or technologies carried out by other powers, such as China or Russia. 

The US military and intelligence are primarily interested in determining whether these aerial objects may be linked to threats against the United States. 

"Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are a potential national security threat. And they need to be treated that way," said Democratic Representative Andre Carson of Indiana, who was chairing the panel holding the hearing.

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"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift.

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

Biden order makes sexual harassment in US military a crime

Yahoo – AFP, January 27, 2022 

An executive order signed by US President Joe Biden that makes sexual
harassment a crime in the military includes provisions on domestic violence
and the wrongful broadcast or distribution of intimate visual images
(AFP/Nicholas Kamm) (Nicholas Kamm)

US President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday making sexual harassment a crime under the military justice code, in an attempt to relieve a long-term issue with which the Pentagon has struggled. 

The move, called for in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon's annual budget package, pays homage to Vanessa Guillen. 

The 20-year-old army soldier was murdered by a fellow soldier in 2020 after being sexually harassed and telling her family she did not trust the military command to follow up on her complaint. 

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the order "honors the memory of Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen," whose death is "catalyzing national attention to the scourge of sexual violence in our military and helping advance bipartisan military justice reform." 

Biden tweeted earlier in the day that he was "signing an Executive Order to make sexual harassment an offense in the Uniform Code of Military Justice." 

The order is also meant to "strengthen the military's response to domestic violence and the wrongful broadcast or distribution of intimate visual images," he said. 

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had previously appointed an independent commission to submit recommendations as to how best to deal with perpetrators of sexual violence in the armed forces, and how to prosecute them more effectively. 

The commission concluded that removing decisions about prosecuting sexual assault from the military chain of command was the only solution. 

Instead of incurring administrative sanctions as was previously the case, perpetrators may receive prison time.

Pentagon nixes Confederate flag at US military facilities

Yahoo - AFP, July 17, 2020

White supremacists often display the Confederate flag during demonstrations
 as they did at a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 -- it is
now effectively banned at US military installations (AFP Photo/ANDREW
CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)

Washington (AFP) - Pentagon chief Mark Esper on Friday effectively banned the display of the Confederate flag at all US military facilities, where the banner -- seen by many as racist -- is frequently displayed in barracks and common areas.

In a message to all US military officials, the Defense Department posted a list of flags authorized to be flown at bases and aboard war ships, in offices and conference halls, and in any spaces operated by the military.

Left off that list was the Confederate battle flag, a red banner with two diagonal blue stripes and 13 white stars symbolizing the southern slave-holding states that seceded from the union or supported the effort during the 1861-1865 American Civil War.

"The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols," Esper wrote in a two-page memorandum.

The carefully worded statement did not specifically mention the Confederate flag, or the racial tensions that have simmered since the killing of unarmed African American George Floyd in police custody in late May.

It appeared crafted in a way to avoid open conflict with US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly waded into the debate over the Confederate flag to argue that people who fly it are exercising their freedom of speech.

Since the death of Floyd, the US military -- one of the most racially diverse American institutions -- has conducted a sweeping internal debate on racism.

For years, some soldiers have been fond of displaying Confederate flags in their barracks, claiming the freedom of expression enshrined in the US Constitution.

White southerners often fly the flag as a symbol of their southern heritage and pride, but for most African Americans, it is a potent symbol of slavery, racism and white supremacy.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan, a notorious white supremacist hate group, often flew the flag.

By effectively banning the flag, Esper is differentiating himself from Trump, who addressed the Confederate issue in a CBS interview this week.

"I know people that like the Confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery," Trump told the network. "With me, it's freedom of speech, very simple."

Esper and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have also spoken out in favor of renaming US military bases currently named for Confederate generals, an idea the president opposes.

Canada bans assault weapons in wake of worst-ever mass shooting

Yahoo – AFP, May 1, 2020

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ordered a sweeping ban on many
assault weapons after a deadly mass shooting (AFP Photo/Dave Chan)

Ottawa (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced an immediate ban on military-grade assault weapons, responding to a mass shooting and arson spree that left 22 people dead earlier this month.

"These weapons were designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time," Trudeau told a news briefing.

He said his government has approved a decree banning the sale, purchase, use, transport and import of 1,500 models of military-grade assault weapons and variants of them.

"There is no use, and no place for such weapons in Canada," Trudeau said.

The killing spree, the worst in Canadian history, began on the night of April 18 in Nova Scotia and led to a 13-hour manhunt for the shooter, who was eventually shot dead by police.

Authorities have said the assailant -- identified as 51-year-old denturist Gabriel Wortman -- was wearing a police uniform, driving a mock police car, and had several guns with him including at least one assault-style weapon.

Trudeau said there will be a two-year amnesty for people who currently own assault-style weapons to protect them from liability, and parliament will eventually pass legislation to compensate them for turning in their guns.

"For many families, including indigenous people, firearms are part of traditions passed down through generations, and the vast majority of gun owners use them safely, responsibly, and in accordance with the law, whether it be for work, sports shooting for collecting or for hunting," Trudeau said.

"But you don't need an AR-15 to bring down a deer," he added.

Mass shootings are less common in Canada than in the US "but the heartbreaking truth is, they're happening more often than they once did," the prime minister said.

He mentioned for instance a shooting at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 that left six dead and 19 wounded.

Trudeau made banning assault weapons part of his campaign for elections that brought him to power in 2015. He repeated it in the campaign for the October 2019 elections in which he won another term.

Nearly four of five Canadians back such a ban, according to an Angus Reid poll released Friday.

Theory that Coronavirus Escaped from a Lab Lacks Evidence

The pathogen appears to have come from wild animals, virologists say, and there are no signs of genetic manipulation in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

The Scientist, Emily Makowski, Mar 5, 2020

Since the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, theories have circulated about the origin of the novel coronavirus causing the disease, SARS-CoV-2. One prominent rumor is that it first escaped from a lab in Wuhan studying bat coronaviruses and then spread to the public. This theory has also evolved into claims that the virus was genetically engineered to be a bioweapon. But scientists say that while there’s not enough information to pinpoint where the virus came from, there is no evidence that it was created in a lab.

The lab-escape theory had been circulating on social media and various blogs for weeks, but gained considerable visibility in a New York Post article in late February. In it, Steven Mosher, a social scientist and the president of the Population Research Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, summarizes why he believes SARS-CoV-2 may have been accidentally spread by China’s National Biosafety Laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers have studied bat coronaviruses.

In the article, Mosher describes several lines of reasoning, namely, that the lab is less than 10 miles away from the seafood market where a cluster of COVID-19 cases was first discovered, and that after the 2003 SARS outbreak, the SARS-CoV virus escaped from virology labs multiple times in China. He also describes how Chinese virologist and bioweapons expert Major General Chen Wei went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology with military scientists in January to study thenew virus, which Mosher sees as a form of damage control.

“The circumstantial evidence surrounding it is pretty compelling. . . . The idea that the epicenter of this epidemic would be just a few miles from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, which is where we know that dangerous pathogens are being kept and looked at as potential bioweapons, I think the odds against that are just astronomical,” Mosher tells The Scientist.

Dimitrios Paraskevis, an epidemiologist at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, tells The Scientist that while it’s not possible to rule out the idea of lab escape, he believes that it is unlikely. “Any person who works in a lab must follow very strict safety regulations. It sounds to me very extraordinary that something happened and nobody took care about such an accident,” he says. The World Health Organization updated SARS surveillance guidelines in 2004 after the lab-based outbreaks, urging labs to follow proper biosafety procedures, and China replaced the director of its Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

One problem leading to a lot of apprehension and speculation about the new coronavirus is that scientists “don’t know what the actual source of the virus was,” Anthony Fehr, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Kansas, tells The Scientist. Additionally, researchers don’t know if SARS-CoV-2 immediately started to spread in humans after a single transmission from an animal, or if it took multiple zoonotic events between an infected animal population and humans.

Despite the question mark around the exact source of the disease, it does appear to have originally come from wildlife, according to a team of international public health scientists who wrote a statement published in The Lancet. An analysis of SARS-CoV-2 by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology suggests that the virus’s genome is 96 percent similar to a coronavirus found in bats.

Mosher agrees that animals were the likely origin. “That doesn’t mean [the virus] wasn’t collected, brought to the lab, and was being tested on in various ways, and escaped from the lab,” he says. Mosher also does not claim that China genetically engineered the virus. “I’m not saying this has been genetically engineered to be a bioweapon that’s escaped from the lab. . . . I’m just saying that [China is] collecting dangerous pathogens, [and] they have a history of letting them escape from the lab,” he says.

Transmission from an animal, with no lab experiment or genetic manipulation involved, fits best with what scientists know about how other coronaviruses have made the jump to humans. In the past, these viruses have spread through wild bats that infect another type of animal—an intermediate host—that then spreads it to humans. SARS-CoV, for example, was transmitted from bats to civets to humans, while camels were an intermediate host in MERS, according to Quanta. The civet version of SARS-CoV was 99.8 percent similar to the one found in humans—much more closely related than the bat and human varieties of SARS-CoV-2—so researchers believe the new coronavirus also infected another type of animal on its way from bats to humans. But they have not found a candidate so far, according to Nature.

This ability to move in between different animal hosts is a characteristic feature of coronaviruses, according to Paul McCray, a pulmonologist at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine whose lab studies coronaviruses. “It’s exactly what we’ve learned in studies of SARS in 2002 and 2003, and MERS in 2012. . . . So the concept that this is happening again should come as no surprise,” he says. “For people that work with these viruses, this is completely unsurprising. We don’t need to come up with farfetched theories when the genome sequences and the characteristics of these viruses support what we’re seeing.”

No signs of engineering in SARS-CoV-2 genome

In addition to the claim that a naturally evolved virus escaped from a lab by mistake, some conspiracy theories have posited that SARS-CoV-2 was genetically engineered. In fact, researchers throughout the world, including in the US and China, have conducted research involving the creation of experimentally engineered hybrid coronaviruses. But there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was genetically engineered, says Paraskevis, whose genomic analysis of the new virus was reported as a preprint in January.

RNA viruses, which include coronaviruses, “accumulate mutations at a rate one million times faster than human DNA [does]. . . . It gives them the ability to survive against an immune response,” Paraskevis says. While the new coronavirus does have some genetic differences to other known viruses due to mutations, “there’s no evidence that this is the result of a human experiment,” he says, adding that if the virus were engineered, scientists would expect to see additional genetic material in its genome. For example, an early bioRxiv preprint on SARS-CoV-2 found HIV-like genetic sequences, but online commenters pointed out that “the findings were at most a coincidence” and that research has since been retracted, reports STAT.

As there are still many unknowns about SARS-CoV-2, researchers worldwide are trying to uncover as much as they can about the virus. Chinese researchers “released the genomic sequence incredibly rapidly online. . . . They were very public in sharing the most important first piece of information” about it, McCray tells The Scientist. “The fact that scientists all over the world had access to that genomic sequence” made a lot of early research possible, he says.

Emily Makowski is a freelance writer based in Boston. Find her on Twitter @EmilyRMakowski.

"China is seeking to deflect criticism for its role in starting a global pandemic and not telling the world" by spreading "dangerous and ridiculous" conspiracy theories, a US State Department official said https://t.co/wBxj3p3Sjl pic.twitter.com/myx3OcoixS

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 13, 2020

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Protesters in US rally against prospect of war with Iran

Yahoo – AFP, January 4, 2020

Demonstrators rally outside the White House to denounce the killing of a senior
Iranian general in Iraq (AFP Photo/ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)

Washington (AFP) - Demonstrators chanting "no war on Iran" rallied Saturday in Washington, New York and across the US to protest the assassination of a top Iranian military commander in a US drone strike.

Outside the White House, around 200 people gathered as part of a wave of rallies called by left-leaning organizations. They chanted slogans including "No Justice, No Peace, US out of the Middle East."

Organizers said demonstrations were convened in some 70 US cities to denounce the killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani early Friday in Baghdad on orders from President Donald Trump. The attack has prompted fears of a major conflagration in the Middle East.

"We will not allow our country to be led into another reckless war," one speaker outside the White House said.

The protesters later headed toward the Trump International Hotel, which is just down the street from the presidential mansion.

"Need a distraction? Start of a war," read a sign held by Sam Crook, 66.

Trump faces a looming trial in the Senate following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in the Ukraine scandal.

Demonstrators opposed to the US military presence in Iraq march in
New York (AFP Photo/Kena Betancur)

Crook described himself as concerned.

"This country is in the grip of somebody who's mentally unstable, I mean Donald Trump, that is. He's not right in the head," Crook told AFP.

"He's crazy, and has a childish reaction to everything. And I'm afraid he's going to inadvertently -- he doesn't really want to, I think -- but I think he could easily start some sort of a real conflagration in the Middle East," Crook added.

Shirin, a 31-year-old Iranian-American who would not give her last name, said she was worried about the possibility of war with Iran, which has vowed revenge for the death of Soleimani.

"We already spent trillions of dollars fighting unjust wars in Iraq and, you know, the longest war today in Afghanistan. And what do we have to show for it?" she said.

She argued that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq caused instability throughout the region and strengthened Iran, "which is now, you know, a major political, social and cultural force in Iraq."

At Times Square in New York, demonstrators marched with signs crying out against the prospect of war with Iran and calling for the withdrawal of the 5,000-odd US troops in Iraq.

"War is not a re-election strategy," read one sign in that procession.

Demonstrators also marched in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles.

Tens of thousands rally in Iran capital against US 'crimes'

Yahoo – AFP, January 3, 2020

In recent years, Soleimani had become an unlikely celebrity in Iran, with a huge
following on Instagram (AFP Photo/ATTA KENARE)

Tehran (AFP) - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran and other cities to protest against American "crimes" after US strikes killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad on Friday.

Chanting "Death to America" and holding up posters of the slain Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, the demonstrators filled streets for several blocks in central Tehran after Friday prayers.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the commander of its Quds Force foreign operations arm had been killed by US forces in an air strike on Baghdad international airport.

Soleimani, who died aged 62, was one of Iran's most popular public figures.

Women and men, many of them elderly, took part in the processions, some holding aloft portraits of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The axis of any evil is America, the motto of religion and the Koran is death to America," they said in unison.

"O leader of our revolution, condolences, condolences."

One group of men tore holes out of a US flag before setting it on fire.

"This was a good move, so that the whole world would realise who the terrorist is. The whole world found that out," said Ali Bakhshi, an elderly cleric.

"The dear leader of the revolution respond to them (the US) very intelligently and precisely. And the nation of Iran will resist," he told AFP.

Another group of men were seem standing on the sidelines of the proceedings, some sobbing uncontrollably.

'Loved by the people'

Among the demonstrators was Mohsen Rezai, a former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards who currently heads the Expediency Council.

Dozens of sombre-looking members of the Guards dressed in olive-green fatigues also took part in the procession.

"I think America has taken a big risk and will get its response as well," said a Guards member who only gave his surname as Qasemi.

"I don't think a war will break out. They are not brave enough to enter a direct conflict with us. I think we'll give them a crushing response as it is," he told AFP.

State news agency IRNA said there were similar demonstrations in the cities of Arak, Bojnourd, Hamedan, Hormozgan, Sanandaj, Semnan, Shiraz and Yazd.

Footage of rallies were also beamed on state television from other cities, including Tabriz, where some black-clad women had tears rolling down their faces.

News of the death of Soleimani also saw people hold impromptu gatherings in his central hometown of Kerman.

After serving in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Soleimani rose through the ranks of the Guards to become commander of the Quds Force.

In recent years he became an unlikely celebrity in Iran and had a huge following on Instagram.

A student who only identified herself as Khansari said Soleimani was "loved by the people".

"What America showed was the depth of its weaknesses and defeat in the region for it to murder the general of a country... who is so loved by the people.

"It must know that all the people of Iran are Qasem Soleimani... and this actually made the country unite again so that they can take revenge from the world arrogance," she said.

President Donald Trump campaigns on a no more "stupid" wars mantra, but the US killing of Iran's military mastermind will test his ability to stay out of Middle Eastern quagmires less than a year from election day https://t.co/9Jmd2bT9C4

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 3, 2020

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Chagos islands: The fight over Africa’s last British colony

DW, 22 November 2019

A piece of Britain lies between Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. To date the Chagos Islands are still under British control and their inhabitants live in exile. But the UK has missed a deadline to return them.

   

The anger in his voice is clearly audible. There is a lack of goodwill on the side of the British government, Olivier Bancoult says. The fight over the Chagos archipelago has been dragging on for too long. "We are continuing to put pressure [on the British government]," Bancoult told DW. As a young boy, Bancoult was one of the Chagos residents who were forced to resettle. Today he lives in Mauritius and as a lawyer has been fighting for the people of Chagos and their descendants to return to the islands. On Friday, November 22, the United Nations deadline for the return of the islands to its people. Bancoult is amongst the organizers of a demonstration outside the British High Commission in Mauritius.

Mauritius, which had once been part of the same colonial territory as the Chagos islands, gained its independence in 1968. Between 1968 and 1973, up to 2,000 residents of the Chagos archipelago were forced to move to Mauritius, the Seychelles and UK in order to establish a military base on the main island, Diego Garcia. In the meantime, the UK has leased it to the US until 2036. Chagos served as a military base for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The largest island, Diego Garcis, serves as a US military base

Geostrategic importance

"We were poor people who are living in peace and harmony until they made the decision to giv one of the largest islands to America to make a military base. Since that time our nightmare started. Many of us were forcibly removed from our native land to live in Mauritius and the Seychelles," Bancoult told DW. In February the International Court of Justice in The Hague, ruled that the archipelago is legally a part of Mauritius. The court said that Britain had illegally separated the islands from Mauritius and should give them back.

The British government rejected the ruling. "The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814," read a statement by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The statement, however, alleged that Britain had pledged  to hand over the islands to Mauritius when they are no longer needed for defense purposes.

In May, the UN General Assembly also called on the UK to handover the islands. The deadline for the handover expired on November 22, but the resolution is not binding and the UK seems to have no intention to make such a move in the near future.

The strategic location and the military role of the island, make the very calls for its independence very difficult.  Philippe Sands, a British lawyer who advises the Mauritian government on the Chagos matter, believes that talks between the UK, the US and Mauritius will continue to take place. "Mauritius has indicated that the military base could even remain on the island," Sands told DW.

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The archipelago belings to the same island group as Mauritius which
gained independence from Britain in 1968

Clinging onto the last African colony

Sands believes that Britain's reluctance to bow to international pressure lies in the fact that it is still coming to terms with its new place in world politics. "[The UK] is a diminished power. It has lost its judge at the International Court of Justice, it has lost a series of resolutions at the UN General Assembly. I think its just taking time to come to the realization, that ist legal situation and is very different, but ultimately I think the UK will comply with the court," Sands said.

The UK, Sands explained, is paying a high price for its political losses. "They're in the process of leaving the European Union, and they have to negotiate new trade agreements and political agreements with several countries. The government is in real trouble and I think that is why it is clinging on to its last colony in Africa," Sands said.  For him, keeping the islands under British control amounts to a crime against the people of Chagos.

Chagossians celebrate the news of the UN resolution calling on the
UK give up control of the islands (February 2019)

Hopes set on upcoming UK elections

According to Sands, the UN is already preparing new maps which show the Chagos islands as part of Mauritius. Additionally Mauritius is the only country that can have legal rights to fishing and overflying rights of the area.

Sands and Bancoult have the hope that the upcoming UK elections set for December 12 could make a difference. "The Labour party has promised to respect the ruling of the International Court of Justice," Sands said. "If the next government is under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn that would be very good,” Bancoult said. "He already supports us."

According to Bancoult, 596 Chagossians who were forced to leave the islands are still alive today. All in all, he said, they have 9.800 descendants who identify as Chagossians. Bancoult himself finds the thought of growing old away from his homeland difficult. "Most old people want to die where they were born," he said.