LONDON: Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform U.K party, is facing wide-ranging criticism across the political spectrum over his claim that the West provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, including of being an appeaser.
In a BBC television interview broadcast Friday evening, Farage, who is seeking to woo voters away from Britain’s governing Conservatives at the July 4 general election, drew a link between the expansion of NATO and the European Union eastwards over the past few decades and the invasion.
Claiming that he warned of a potential war in Ukraine in 2014, when he was a member of the European Parliament, Farage said “we provoked this war.” It’s unclear whether his warning came before or after Russia had annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in February 2014.
“It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, ‘They’re coming for us again’ and to go to war,” Farage said. “It’s, you know, of course it’s his fault — he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse.”
Farage’s critics from across the political spectrum slammed his statement, with many describing him as a Putin apologist.
In perhaps his sharpest criticism of Farage, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “completely wrong” to say the West provoked Putin into launching a full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“This is a man who deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain, who’s doing deals with countries like North Korea,” Sunak said. “And this kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us and only emboldens Putin further.”
Many Conservatives, including Sunak, have largely held back from overly criticizing Farage, who though not a lawmaker in the UK Parliament, was hugely influential in Britain’s vote to leave the EU in 2016.
The worry among many Conservatives is that attacking him too much will further alienate many Conservative voters, who sympathize with his tough rhetoric on issues like immigration and Brexit. In many constituencies around the country, Conservatives have argued that a vote for Reform would see the main opposition Labour Party come through the middle and win.
“I think Nigel Farage is a bit like that pub bore we have all met at the end of the bar who often says if ‘I was running the country’ and presents very simplistic answers to actually, I am afraid in the 21st century, complex problems,” Ben Wallace, the former Conservative defense secretary who has stood down as a lawmaker, told BBC radio.
This is the first general election that Reform UK is contesting and it has enjoyed a lift in the polls after Farage said in early June he would lead the party and contest the seat in Clacton in southeast England. Though the party is not expected to secure many seats, Farage is currently favorite to win his contest and finally enter Parliament after seven attempts.
Keir Starmer, leader of the left-of-center Labour Party who is widely expected to become prime minister after the election, labelled Farage’s comments as “disgraceful.”
“Anyone who is standing for Parliament ought to be really clear that Russia is the aggressor,” he said.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, criticized for saying West provoked Putin to invade Ukraine
https://arab.news/8kzca
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, criticized for saying West provoked Putin to invade Ukraine
- Claiming that he warned of a potential war in Ukraine in 2014, when he was a member of the European Parliament, Farage said “we provoked this war”
- “It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say”
Canada sanctions target more Israeli settlers
- Ottawa listed 7 individuals and 5 organizations “for their role in facilitating, supporting or financially contributing to acts of violence by Israeli extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians and their property”
OTTAWA: Canada on Thursday announced a new round of sanctions against Israeli settlers for “extremist violence” against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
This comes just one month after the first ever sanctions by Canada against settlers were rolled out in lockstep with Britain, France, the European Union and the United States.
This round Ottawa listed seven individuals and five organizations “for their role in facilitating, supporting or financially contributing to acts of violence by Israeli extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians and their property,” said a statement.
They include veteran settler activist Daniella Weiss, Lehava founder Ben Zion Gopstein, and the Amana association, which lobbies for and builds West Bank settlements and outposts.
Ottawa said attacks by settlers have resulted in the deaths of Palestinians and damage to property and farmlands, as well as the forced displacement of Palestinian communities.
The sanctions include a ban on transactions with the settlers or their organizations and on their entry into Canada.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to three million Palestinians, since 1967 and around 490,000 Israeli settlers live there in communities considered illegal under international law.
Violence had already surged before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza broke out on October 7. Since then it has escalated to levels unseen in about two decades.
At least 553 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials.
Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 15 Israelis, including soldiers, in the West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Uyghur group wins appeal over UK investigation into ‘slave labor’ cotton
- The World Uyghur Congress took legal action against Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) after it declined to begin a criminal investigation
- Rahima Mahmut: ‘This win represents a measure of justice for those Uyghurs and other Turkic people who have been tortured and subjected to slave labor’
British authorities must reconsider whether to open an investigation into imports of cotton allegedly produced by slave labor in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, a London court ruled on Thursday, allowing an appeal by a Uyghur rights group.
The World Uyghur Congress, an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups, took legal action against Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) after it declined to begin a criminal investigation.
Rights groups and the US government accuse China of widespread abuses of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang, from where the vast majority of Chinese-produced cotton emanates.
Beijing vigorously denies any abuses and its embassy in Washington has previously described allegations of forced labor as “nothing but a lie concocted by the US side in an attempt to wantonly suppress Chinese enterprises.”
“The Chinese government has made it very clear that the allegation of ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang is nothing but an enormous lie propagated by anti-China elements to smear China,” a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said.
In its legal action, the World Uyghur Congress argued that the NCA wrongly failed to investigate whether cotton from Xinjiang amounts to “criminal property.”
Last year, a judge at London’s High Court ruled there was “clear and undisputed evidence of instances of cotton being manufactured ... by the use of detained and prison labor as well as by forced labor.”
But the legal challenge was dismissed on the grounds that the British authorities’ approach to the law — which was that there has to be a clear link between alleged criminality and a specific product — was correct.
The Court of Appeal overturned that decision, ruling that “the question of whether to carry out an investigation ... will be remitted to the NCA for reconsideration.”
Rahima Mahmut, UK Director of the World Uyghur Congress, described the ruling as “a monumental victory and a moral triumph.”
“This win represents a measure of justice for those Uyghurs and other Turkic people who have been tortured and subjected to slave labor,” Mahmut said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the NCA said: “We respectfully note the judgment of the Court of Appeal and are considering our next steps.”
Drought-hit lakes in Chile come back to life after downpours
SANTIAGO: Recent torrential rains in Chile have brought back to life — for now at least — reservoirs and lagoons that had all but dried up after years of drought, with dramatic images of cracked lake beds replaced by mirror-like still waters.
A severe years-long drought had decimated water supplies and hit local industries from mining to agriculture and bees in the Andean nation, while exacerbating tensions over water use.
The Aculeo Lagoon became a symbol of the crisis, as dead cattle and fish carcasses lay on its cracked and dry surface where there had once been a huge body of water. That’s now dramatically refilled.
“The water is alive,” Gloria Contreras, manager of a campsite in the area, told Reuters. “With the drought of the lagoon, many jobs were lost. But now that’s changed, everything is reactivated — businesses, even the smallest vendors.”
The recent rains that have refilled the lakes and seen snow dumped on bare mountainsides in the Andes, damaged hundreds of homes and left one person dead.
But the water has meant that other lagoons like Lake Penuelas, an important water source for tourist coastal town Valparaíso that had dried up to a “puddle,” has recovered substantially.
“It’s been more than 20 years since we saw the lake like this, it’s beautiful,” said Eduardo Torres, a resident in the area of the nature reserve.
Experts, however, believe that recent rains won’t make up for the decade-long drought. A recent El Niño weather pattern brought low-pressure storms from the Pacific, heralding strong rains during the Southern Hemisphere winter, replenishing aquifers and covering the Andes mountains with snow.
Mauritania president faces six challengers in Saturday’s election
- Mohammed Ould Ghazouani keen to accelerate investments as youths seek jobs, equal opportunities
NOUAKCHOTT: Mauritania’s President Mohammed Ould Ghazouani has promised to accelerate investments to spur an energy and mining boom as he takes on six challengers in the June 29 presidential election.
Increased investments in energy and mining could boost Mauritania’s economy and solidify the 67-year-old former army chief’s grip at the helm of the soon-to-be gas producer.
Widely expected to win due to the ruling party’s dominance in the desert nation, Ghazouani faces an opposition field that includes anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, who came second in the 2019 election with over 18 percent of the vote.
The iron ore, gold, and copper producer is on track to become a gas producer by the end of the year with the start of production at the BP-operated Greater Tortue Ahmeyin, or GTA, offshore gas project that spans Mauritania and Senegal.
Mauritania, which holds a 7 percent take in the GTA project, is also finding developers for its BirAllah offshore gas field, which is estimated to contain nearly 60 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Ghazouani has promised a gas-fired power plant from the GTA while investing in renewable energy and expanding gold, uranium, and iron ore mining if re-elected.
Other candidates in the election include lawyer Id Mohameden M’Bareck, economist Mohammed Lemine El-Mourtaji El Wafi, neurosurgeon Otouma Soumare, and Hamadi Sidi El-Mokhtar of the Tewassoul party.
Despite growth prospects, Mauritania, four times the size of the United Kingdom and home to fewer than 5 million people, suffers from widespread poverty and has been dealing with an influx of tens of thousands of people from Mali.
As a transit route for migrants heading for Europe, the EU has promised more funds to help Mauritania curb irregular migration.
Abeid is challenging Ghazouani on his human rights record and the marginalization of Mauritania’s Black African population.
Despite slavery being abolished in 1981 and criminalized in 2007, forms of slavery persist in some parts of the country, according to a 2023 UN report.
Tens of thousands of Black Mauritanians still live as domestic slaves, rights groups say, usually to lighter-skinned masters of Arab or Berber descent.
Ghazouani has presided over a period of relative stability since 2019, as Mauritania’s Sahel neighbors, including Mali, struggle with Islamist insurgencies that have led to military coups. Mauritania has not recorded a militant attack on its soil in recent years.
“Mauritania has a more professional army with an effective presence on the ground,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
Mauritania has remained a Western ally in the fight against militants in the region, accepting help from countries such as France. In contrast, Western powers have been kicked out of junta-led Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which have all turned to Russia for military support.
On the campaign trail, Ghazouani, who currently chairs the African Union, has promised to manage militant threats.
The International Monetary Fund projects economic growth this year at 4.3 percent, up from 3.4 percent in 2023, but warns that delays in the GTA project could worsen the country’s medium-term debt profile.
For the country’s 2 million registered voters, key issues include equitable distribution of mineral wealth and tackling corruption.
“Mauritania needs decentralized management which promotes each of the 15 regions of the country,” said civil society activist Sidha Mint Yenge.
Job access is a priority for young people, said 23-year-old student Hawa Boubacar Traore.
“These elections are an opportunity for young people to show civic commitment with a demand for transparency,” she said.
UK Labour leader hits back after PM Sunak’s ‘ayatollah and Taliban negotiations’ jibe
- Keir Starmer says Conservative election rival has ‘no answer’ to growing asylum backlog
- Party leaders exchange angry barbs over migrant question during BBC debate
LONDON: Labour leader Keir Starmer has hit back after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accused him of planning to “sit down with the Iranian ayatollah” and of making a “deal with the Taliban” on return agreements in a bid to clear the UK’s asylum backlog.
During a televised debate aired on Wednesday, the Conservative leader rejected his election rival’s argument that he would seek to move asylum seekers to safe countries or return them to their home countries, adding that many had arrived in the UK from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan.
“Is he going to sit down with the Iranian ayatollah? Are you going to try to do a deal with the Taliban? It’s completely nonsensical; you are taking people for fools,” Sunak said in a BBC leaders’ debate.
As part of his election campaign, Starmer has said he wants to negotiate return agreements as part of efforts to address the country’s chronic asylum backlog, which has worsened due to recent legislation brought in by the Conservatives, which does not allow asylum claims to be processed while deportations to Rwanda are on hold.
“There are some things that are not sensible for the asylum policy. That was a throwaway comment from the prime minister himself who had no answer to that question,” Starmer said on Thursday.
“But leaving those claims unprocessed is not the answer to that. Of course, there will be countries, Afghanistan for example, where you can’t return people — people who perhaps helped us by interpreting for our troops in Afghanistan and put themselves at risk; people who in my constituency were fleeing war in Afghanistan and found we weren’t able to get them out on those flights. Of course, in relation to their particular cases they’re not going to be returned to Afghanistan.
“But what we can’t do is stay with this absurd situation where there’s just a growing and growing number to which the prime minister has got absolutely no answer. It is absurd and reckless,” he added.
Polls have predicted Starmer is on course to win the July 4 election with a large majority, ending 14 years of Conservative rule. The Labour leader and Sunak have clashed at several debates or public sessions with voters in recent weeks over who was better suited to lead the country.
