Jake Paul and Mike Tyson have been encouraged to cancel their ‘mismatch’ showdown.

‘Iron Mike’ is set to step back in the ring aged 58 to take on YouTube star Jake Paul in a blockbuster summer fight, a fight which has seen him given medical warnings given their 31-year age difference.

Tyson has been documenting his training in footage posted to social media, with some fans surprisingly impressed by his punch power and suggesting he will beat Paul.

And his new footage crushing the pads with trainer Rafael Cordeiro, has been met by new pleas from fans for Paul to abandon the fight plans.

One commented: “Jake, you can still say no. It’s okay.

Another agreed: “Wow, if just one of those punches lands, Paul will be in the ICU.”

One fan suggested: “Jake’s gonna need to borrow some of those pads from Mike’s trainer.”

A fan observed: “Look at his coaches’ face, he is fearing for his life.”

One even wrote: “If Mike Tyson doesn’t win… this was fixed.”

But not all fans were convinced by the footage, with one writing: “Run Tyson. Get your wind back. You’re gonna need it for this fight trust me.”

One pleaded: “Hey Champ, can you show us a video of you hitting mitts or the heavy bag for 3 mins straight? If not just cancel it!”

A fan predicted: “I hope you all know Mike isn’t beating Jakey.”

Although a final user concluded: “It’s okay to back out Jake Paul or Mike Tyson, I’m just saying..”

Paul himself even responded to the footage, writing in the comments: “He’s the best ever. The most brutal and vicious, and most ruthless champion there’s ever been. And I will defeat him.”

It is clear Tyson is still one of the best around in short bursts, but it remains to be seen if he can keep up his work for an eight-round period.

The former undisputed champion already suffered a damaging defeat to the end of his professional career losing three of his four final fights before retirement in 2005.

Paul will be the younger and fresher fighter at just 26 despite having far less experience in the ring.

This will be his 11th professional fight, a record that boast nine wins and six knockouts though Tyson is the biggest name on an impressive list so far.

And it seems like Paul is bigger. Three-weight champion Shane Mosley said: “He’s 230 pounds. He’s big, really big. He said he feels as fast as he does at 185.”

Still, a proportion of fans are still certain that Paul will lose, after seeing training footage compared side-by-side.

Tyson’s trainer has insisted the veteran is working harder than ever, and will be primed in time for their summer battle.

A cancellation certainly seems unlikely as over 108,000 people have signed up for access to the ticket pre-sale, according to Paul’s promoter Most Valuable Promotions.

They tweeted earlier this month: “As of this morning #PaulTyson / #TaylorSerrano has over 108K signed up for access to the ticket pre-sale.

“Next week we will announce press conference dates and the ticket on-sale date. Pre-sale will be two days prior to on-sale.”

Source: Talk Sport

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Polls show that a large percentage of Israeli citizens have lost faith in the future of their nation

Major General (Reserve) in the Israeli Army, and former ombudsman for the occupation forces, Yitzhak Brick, has sounded an alarm over the growing inefficacy of the country’s army to win a possible war.

Warning that the Israeli occupation forces have turned into an “air force army,” Brick criticized the leadership in Tel Aviv for their “sensitivity” towards human losses on the ground.

“Whoever wants to completely avoid losing on the battlefield, completely loses the deterrence of the army and the ability to win the war. This way of thinking and managing the security echelons will eventually lead to much heavier losses in the war,” the former official said in a column published on 10 May by Channel 12.

Brick went on to add that Israel’s land army and reserve system have been continuously ignored: “We lost the inter-arm combat capability and became a one-dimensional Air Force army that alone could not win a war.”

He goes on to highlight that the occupation forces in general, and the land army in particular, “are not ready for war.”

The warning comes on the heels of a number of polls showing that a large portion of Israeli citizens have lost faith in the future of their nation.

A poll published by the Pnima Movement at the start of the month showed that 40 percent of Israelis were not optimistic about the country’s future. It also showed that 33 percent of Israeli youth are seriously considering emigrating out of the occupied territory.

Meanwhile, at least 75 percent of Israeli Arabs believe Jews have no right to sovereignty in occupied Palestine, according to a survey by Habithonistim–Protectors of Israel published on 9 May.

In an article published in Yedioth Ahronoth on 7 May, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak expressed fears of the imminent demise of Israel before the 80th anniversary of its founding.

“Throughout Jewish history, the Jews did not rule for more than eighty years, except in the two kingdoms of David and the Hasmonean dynasty, and in both periods, their disintegration began in the eighth decade,” Barak said.

Earlier this year, former Air Force chief Amikam Norkin said Israel no longer enjoys superiority and freedom over the skies of Lebanon, highlighting that this reality was apparent to the Israeli military establishment after Hezbollah began manufacturing its own drones.

In the weeks after this statement by the Israeli official, Iran notified Tel Aviv that the army of the Islamic Republic has missiles pointed at all of their nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons sites.

Source: The Cradle

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Russian propagandists have published a recording of a “conversation between four senior German officers”. In it, they discuss the possible supply of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. The recording is authentic, the Bundeswehr has since confirmed. “This is a very serious matter and that is why it is now the subject of a very meticulous, in-depth and rapid investigation,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

On Friday afternoon, a half-hour recording of the conversation, which reportedly dates to Monday, Feb. 19, circulated on Russian propaganda channels. Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s state broadcaster RT, then published the recording. She did not say how she obtained it.

It concerns a meeting that was held between Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz and three officers using the platform Webex for videoconferencing (!), writes ‘Die Welt’. During the conversation in Singapore, the four senior officers could be heard discussing the theoretical possibilities of deploying German Taurus missiles, apparently in preparation for a briefing to the German government. They talk about the challenges that a delivery of such missiles to Ukraine entails.

Scholz

The four officers do not assume that German soldiers should necessarily be sent to Ukraine for this. However, this is exactly what Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly used as a reason for not supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine. According to him, Germany would thus be dragged into the conflict.

The officers also talk about the training of Ukrainian pilots and share technical details about missile systems. They also discuss several targets that the Ukrainians could attack with the Taurus – including ammunition depots and the Kerch Bridge (or Crimean Bridge), a key supply route for Russia-occupied Crimea.

What would make the publication of the recording even more painful for Berlin is that the participants in the call also discuss details about deliveries of Scalp long-range missiles by France and the United Kingdom.

“If this story is true, then this would be a highly problematic incident,” Konstanin van Notz, chairman of the parliamentary committee that monitors the secret services, told the newspapers of the RND group.

Singapore

It’s unclear how the Russians got the shot. One of the officers taking part in the interview is staying in a hotel in Singapore at the time. It is conceivable that he was bugged there, that his phone was compromised or that he dialed in via an unsecured Wi-Fi network.

Given that it was Russian propagandists who sent the audio recording into the ether, it seems obvious that Russian secret services are behind it.

German Chancellor Scholz promises quick clarification on the Russian publication of a recording of a conversation among German air force officers about support for Ukraine. “This is a very serious matter and that is why it is now the subject of a very meticulous, in-depth and rapid investigation,” he said after an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Damage Mitigation

The Bundeswehr tried to limit the damage on Friday by blocking accounts on X that distributed the recording in Germany.

The German Ministry of Defense is investigating whether the communications of the air force are being tapped by the Russians. “The German Military Counterintelligence Service (BAMAD) has initiated all necessary measures,” a ministry spokesman said.

The question of how secure the Bundeswehr’s internal communications are via unencrypted platforms such as Webex may be raised now that the audio recording has been found to be authentic. It is also possible that other communications were intercepted by the Russians.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had requested a statement from the German government, following the reports about the conversation. “Attempts to avoid answers will be interpreted as an admission of guilt,” said Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian ministry.

Source : DPG Media

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Frankfurt, Paris (14/4 – 40)

Relations between Russia and NATO have reached boiling point due the recent event: the claim that Serbia and Russia want to refight Kosovo; the closure of the border by Finland; and the statement by the President of France, Emanuel Macron, on March, 14. 

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, in a series of posts on social media, claimed that NATO, the EU, and the US government were targeting Kosovo and Serbia and destroying the relationship. Never mind a coalition with Italy and Russia, this is just another pipedream of Radio Moscow.

In recent days, rumours of an impending Balkan war have become more widespread, but experienced Balkan parties are calling for a cool head to prevail. Radio Moscow plays up the usual rubbish of war drums. “People forget that this alliance does not like to use force, but…,” a NATO Air Command spokesman warned.

According to Lavrov, the Kosovo police have long discredited themselves through systematic punitive measures against the Serb community. “They have tried to push the Serbs out of Kosovo through the deployment of heavily armed special forces in non-Albanian areas. There is an immediate threat of a return to the ethnic cleansing carried out by Kosovo Albanian extremists.”

Meanwhile, President Macron said that Europe must be ready for war if it wants peace. He called President Putin would not stop at Ukraine if he succeeded in defeating Kyiv forces in the conflict that has been going on for two years.

President Macron sparked controversy last month after saying he could not link the possibility of ground troops to Ukraine in the future. Many state leaders avoided this, while several other leaders, especially in the Eastern European region, supported the statement. “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility will be destroyed,” Macron said in a television interview.

However, President Putin stated that anything is possible in the modern world. “I have said and it is clear to everyone that this (possible direct conflict with NATO) would be one more step towards a full-scale third world war. I think almost no one is interested in this increasing chaos.” 

He added that French troops would perform secondary functions, training military personnel in Ukraine, explaining how to use heavy equipment, and performing several other similar functions. “Today, it is not much different from what was done by the mercenaries and later armed military personnel of the NATO countries present there,” President Putin said in speech after winning the election. 

Meanwhile, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia’s relations with NATO had reached the level of direct confrontation. “The relationship has now descended to the level of direct confrontation. NATO not only continues to escalate but is also directly involved in the conflict around Ukraine. NATO continues its advance towards our borders,” he said.

Even so, President Putin is open to dialogue with NATO. According to Peskov, President Putin often holds international dialogue with countries that show interest in developing relations with Russia, “President Putin is open to dialogue to solve complex global and regional problems.”

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If European countries don’t see defeat coming, we can’t turn the wheel to avoid it

I left my meeting with a senior French officer feeling that the west is so weak it scarcely exists any more. “The West”, a longtime object of obsession for anti-westerners from Egypt’s President Nasser to Vladimir Putin, has shrivelled to a small rump of countries squabbling with each other. At times they seem willing to let Ukraine lose its war.  

 I share the emotional impulse to keep intoning that Ukraine will win. But Panglossian war propaganda is becoming counterproductive. We need to see a possible defeat coming so that we can turn the wheel and avoid it. We can if we want to. 

I met the officer days after Emmanuel Macron suggested that Nato troops could be sent to Ukraine. As usual with France’s attempts to lead, most of its so-called allies responded by saying, in essence: “Shut up, France.” 

The officer thought Macron had spoken in desperation, compelled by French pessimism about Ukraine. Westerners have grown used to the war as a background rumble that never seems to change. One day, this could stop being true. Russian troops have a firepower advantage of perhaps five-to-one over Ukrainians.

Western countries are weak firstly because they lack allies. Non-aligned states in Asia, Africa and the Gulf never cared much about Ukraine’s struggle. They have been further alienated by western double standards over Israel’s killing of 30,000 Palestinians.

If western countries support human rights in Ukraine but not in Palestine, then they don’t support human rights.  Meanwhile, the US seems to be abandoning “The West” like a sinking ship leaving the rats. This goes beyond Donald Trump’s plan, as relayed by his chum Viktor Orbán, to “not give a single penny” to Ukraine if he becomes president again. Even if Trump loses and Republicans win just one chamber of Congress, they can keep blocking aid to Ukraine.  

The French long dreamt of Europe running its own military affairs without the US butting in. Now the dream is coming true, and it’s terrifying. Europeans cannot even agree whether this is an existential war for them (as eastern Europeans believe), a war of choice (as western countries seem to think) or a war to ignore (Olaf Scholz of Germany’s view). 

Western powers have often labelled wars existential — in Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — only to abandon them after realising they were, in fact, wars of choice. European pacifists hope Ukraine’s war will remain similarly self-contained. Perhaps Putin might stop once he’s swallowed the country. After all, western domino theories proved wrong about Vietnam, too.

So uncommitted are western states to arming Ukraine that they are treating it as a public-spending programme of choice, one you can ditch when money gets tight, like the UK’s HS2 train line. It’s not merely that our countries are disunited. France itself — the one western military with much fighting experience this past decade, albeit in the Sahel — is disunited.

A contingent of Putinist French officers still admires Russia and would rather fight what it considers the “Islamic peril” inside France. And in 2027, Putin’s longtime admirer Marine Le Pen could become French president. Putin has another military advantage over us: his willingness to sacrifice his people. Russia might have suffered more casualties taking the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka than all western European deaths in combat put together in the past 50 years.

The French officer told me apologetically: “We’re an old continent, no longer used to making war.”  This is a backhanded tribute to the success of European societies. Much though western Europeans like to whine, their region may be the safest and most liveable in history. It’s the apotheosis of the humanistic project. But Putin suspects we treasure life too much to defend it.  

If he wins, that wouldn’t mean a new Iron Curtain descending across Europe. It would be more like a portable cotton curtain, blown around by Russia’s will. “The West” could shrink to a thin line stretching from Britain to (if we’re lucky) Poland. 

Happily, we can change course. Russia has a poorly trained army and a Canada-sized economy. “This should be feasible, easily,” says Steven Everts of the EU Institute for Security Studies. Victory would require western countries to send non-combat troops such as de-miners, trainers and vehicle engineers. Countries would need to follow Denmark in giving every shell in their cupboards to Ukraine.

Germany would have to send Taurus missiles. Replacing American support for Ukraine would cost the other Nato states about €65 per citizen per year. We could choose to let Ukraine win.

Source: Financial Times

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Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis. 

Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire. 

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defense around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.

Pessimism among Ukraine and its allies has been mounting for weeks as they’ve seen Russian forces seize the initiative on the frontline with vital aid from the US held up in Congress. The fall of Avdiivka and several nearby villages is fueling fears that Kyiv’s defenses may not be able to hold.

Those losses should act as a wakeup call to Ukraine’s allies, a European official said.

“Ukraine can start losing the war this year,” Michael Kofman, a specialist on Russia and Ukraine at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on the War on the Rocks podcast.

What many do not realize is a defeat in the Ukraine will cause western powers collapsing with calls for stronger leadership taking over. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t given up his original goal of seizing major cities including the capital Kyiv and Odesa, according to Ukrainian intelligence assessments, the person said, asking for anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public. 

If Russian forces reached Odesa, they would be able to shut off Ukraine’s crucial grain export routes through the Black Sea and open up access to Moldova, where the breakaway region of Transnistria on Wednesday appealed to Moscow for political support.

Depending on the results of the current campaign, Russia will decide whether to continue with a slow, grinding advance, or to accumulate resources for a bigger strike to break through Ukrainian lines this summer, the person close to Ukraine’s leadership said.

Putin on Thursday repeated that he still plans to achieve the goals set out at the start of the invasion, which have remained unchanged since 2022, during an address to his Federal Assembly.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Sunday that munitions shortages are affecting the battlefield situation and warned that Russia is planning a new offensive in the spring or early summer.

“It will be difficult for us in the coming months because there are fluctuations in the US that have an impact on some countries, though the European Union showed it is capable of being a leader with its support,” Zelenskiy said.

With Ukrainian forces desperate for more ammunition, some allies, led by the Czech Republic, are looking into buying around 800,000 artillery shells from outside the EU to give to Ukraine.

A major offensive would still be a challenge for the Kremlin after two years of war that have depleted its forces. Russia’s efforts to take Kyiv, Kharkiv and move on Odesa in the early weeks of the war failed spectacularly.

Despite Ukraine’s shortages, Russia would need far more soldiers but also heavy tanks and vehicles to launch an offensive, Admiral Rob Bauer, NATO’s military committee chairman, said in an interview on Feb. 17. So far, Moscow hasn’t been able to ramp up production quickly enough in those areas, he said.

Putin “has more artillery, he has an ability to replace a certain amount of missiles every month, which he’s using, but he’s not been fully successful in terms of the increase in, for example, tanks and armored vehicles,” Bauer said.

He pointed to recent Ukrainian reports that, despite the loss of Avdiivka, Russian troops were killed at a high rate of seven for every soldier Kyiv lost.

“The one-to-seven ratio means he will need a lot of forces to defeat the Ukrainians, “Bauer said.

Ukraine’s strategy is to try to hold the front line as much as possible until the second half of the year, when it may get F-16 fighter jets and western ammunition production is due to ramp up. That would allow Kyiv to plan for another possible counteroffensive in 2025.

Aliaksandr Kudrytski and Jessica Loudis.

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In a landmark move to bolster global environmental sustainability and climate resilience, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) have officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) supporting Indonesia’s Forest and Land Use (FOLU) Net Sink 2030 plan.  USFS Chief Randy Moore and KLHK Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar signed the MOU at a ceremony in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The critical agreement signifies a commitment from both nations to work collaboratively on sustainable forest management, forest carbon governance, forest and land fire control, and education and training. This collaboration aligns with the global urgency to address climate change and environmental degradation, recognizing the crucial role of forests in carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.

“The United States Forest Service looks forward to expanding our collaboration with The Ministry of Environment and Forestry to help reach Indonesia’s ambitious goals for 2030, in support of global efforts to combat climate change,” said USFS Chief Randy Moore.

The United States Forest Service, with its extensive experience in forest management and wildfire control, will provide technical expertise and support to Indonesia in these areas. This partnership is expected to enhance Indonesia’s capabilities in managing its forest resources sustainably while contributing significantly to the FOLU Net Sink 2030 objectives.

Under the MOU, the two parties will exchange knowledge and best practices in sustainable forest management, aiming to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. They will also collaborate on forest and land fire management.

Additionally, the agreement includes a strong focus on education and training. Capacity building initiatives will be developed to empower local communities and stakeholders, ensuring that the benefits of sustainable forest management are widespread and inclusive.

The MOU is expected to pave the way for more robust and effective forest management practices in Indonesia, contributing to global efforts to mitigate climate change and enhance biodiversity conservation.

Source

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Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the Tajik president has been building for so many years.

Next year will mark thirty years of Emomali Rahmon’s presidency in Tajikistan, now the only country in Central Asia that has not seen a change of leadership since the early 1990s. Unsurprisingly, there have been rumors of an imminent transition of power for a decade.

The name of the successor is no secret: it’s Rahmon’s son, thirty-six-year-old Rustam Emomali. But there is no consensus within the president’s large family over the succession. Some of the president’s other children have their own ambitions to run the country, which could upset plans for the transition.

President Rahmon is seventy-one years old, and has reportedly suffered numerous health issues. Arrangements for the transition have long been in place, but events keep getting in the way of its implementation: first the pandemic and its economic fallout, and then the street protests in neighboring Kazakhstan in January 2022, which frightened the Tajik leader and persuaded him it was not a good time to step down. Even Turkmenistan has seen a power transition in recent years. Now Tajikistan is expected to implement its own in 2024.

Rustam has already headed a number of government agencies. Since 2017, he has been mayor of Dushanbe: a post he has combined since 2020 with that of speaker of the upper house of parliament, to whom power would automatically pass if the current president were to step down early.

His supporters argue that as the capital’s mayor, he has improved the city, supported youth initiatives, and started to form his own team of young technocrats. Some are counting on him to carry out at least limited reforms once he is in power, such as those seen in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Not everyone believes Rustam is ready to take over, however. The future president is an unknown quantity for most Tajiks. All of his public appearances are prerecorded and accompanied by information read out by the broadcaster, meaning that people have not even heard him speak. His nickname on social media is “the great mute.”

More worryingly, the heir apparent has reportedly shot and wounded two people: his own uncle in 2008, and—just last year—the head of the State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, supposedly for refusing to carry out orders.

There are those within the presidential family who do not want to see Rustam succeed his father because they fear losing prestigious posts in government and business. They are indignant that there are no relatives within the team he is building. The current president cannot possibly keep everyone happy, and this could threaten the transition, as ambitious clan members prepare to battle it out for the top job in order to retain their privileges.

Rahmon has seven daughters and two sons. The most ambitious of them is generally considered to be the second daughter Ozoda, who has headed up the presidential administration since 2016. She is very experienced, works well with her staff, and has the trust of the security services. Unsurprisingly, given the alleged shooting incident, there is no love lost between Rustam and the country’s main security official Yatimov, who has reportedly been paving the way for Ozoda’s candidacy. In addition, her husband Jamoliddin Nuraliev is also considered a very influential figure, having been deputy chair of the country’s central bank for over seven years.

Another contender for the presidency could be Rahmon’s fifth daughter, Ruhshona, a seasoned diplomat who is well versed in Tajikistan’s political affairs. Her husband is the influential oligarch Shamsullo Sohibov, who made his fortune thanks to his family connection to the president. Together with his brothers, he controls entire sectors of the economy, including transport, media, and banking. Change at the top could deprive the Sohibov clan of both influence and money, so Ruhshona and her husband may well throw their hats into the ring.

They might get the backing of Rahmon’s other children, who also control various sectors of the economy, including air travel (the third daughter, Tahmina) and pharmacies (the fourth daughter, Parvina). There are also plenty of Rahmon’s more distant relatives who owe their fortunes to the president and fear losing their positions under his successor.

Rahmon has relied on the loyalty of various relatives to ensure the stable functioning of his regime. But overly vociferous squabbles within the family could destabilize the situation, and for precisely this reason, Rahmon has tried to temper their ambition. Ruhshona, for example, was sent to the UK as Tajik ambassador to stop her from interfering in the plans for the transition. Her oligarch husband went with her.

Nor is the heir apparent himself outside the fray. There is evidence that Rustam was involved in leaking information to the media about his sister Ozoda’s alleged affair with her driver: something that, in patriarchal Tajikistan, caused serious damage to her reputation. There are also rumors that Ozoda’s main ally Yatimov will be retired from his post as head of the security services and replaced with a close friend of Rustam, Shohruh Saidov.

Right now, international circumstances are conducive to a swift transition. Tajikistan’s relations with its trickiest neighbors, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, are improving. While the Taliban has yet to be recognized as the legitimate Afghan government by Dushanbe, both sides agreed to strengthen economic ties during the first visit to Tajikistan by a delegation from the radical Islamist movement in March this year. Meanwhile, the Tajik government has pledged to resolve the border dispute with Kyrgyzstan—an issue that has led to several armed clashes in the last three years—by spring 2024. Rahmon is clearly trying to hand over a stable country to his son.

The situation at home, however, is more complicated. There is also considerable opposition to Rustam’s candidacy among the regional elites, who have long supported Rahmon in exchange for access to state resources, and are now seeing many of the most lucrative cash flows appropriated by the presidential family. A transition of power could be an opportune moment to express their displeasure.

Events in Gorno-Badakhshan in spring 2022 were a stark warning of the dangers of that displeasure. After the civil war that ravaged the country in the early 1990s, many of its field commanders settled in the region. Over time, they became informal leaders of the local communities, helping to solve problems that the central government was ignoring, sometimes strong-arming local officials into making the required decision. Rahmon ordered several security operations to rid Gorno-Badakhshan of this dual power system, only for it to reemerge further down the line.

Last spring, protests erupted there after a local man was killed by law enforcement officers. The unrest lasted for several months until Rahmon crushed it by force. Many of the activists were killed or imprisoned, while others fled the country, and the region was brought back under Dushanbe’s control. But the anger simmering in the region could boil over again at the first sign of conflict.

For now, the other regions remain loyal to the regime, but that could change after the power transition if the local elites feel they are not getting sufficient state resources.

By directing all the streams of income and control of the country to his own relatives, Rahmon has painted himself into a corner. Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the president has been building for so many years. Power transitions rarely go to plan in Central Asia, and Tajikistan may be no exception.

Source

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A year ago Germany deported to Tajikistan an activist from that country’s exiled opposition movement who had been living in Dortmund since 2009. What happened next is a shocking example of what can occur when Germany fails to uphold safeguards in its increased efforts to deport unsuccessful asylum seekers. The Bundestag this month gave police greater powers to carry out deportations.

The activist, Abdullohi Shamsiddin, 33, was deported to Tajikistan on January 18 2023. He was detained on arrival by the security services. Two months later he was convicted of trying to overthrow the constitution and jailed for seven years. No credible evidence was presented in an unfair trial.

Tajikistan, a predominantly Musim country of 9.7m people in Central Asia is ruled by one the world’s longest serving autocrats. President Emomali Rahmon has been in power since 1992. He has led a severe crackdown on human rights, especially since 2015, when the main opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and Group 24, another opposition group, were banned. The European Parliament this month expressed concern over “state repression against independent media” in the country.

Since 2021 the government has brutally suppressed protests in the region of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, leading to many deaths.

The German government acknowledged the human rights crisis in Tajikistan last year in response to a parliamentary question on Shamsiddin’s case. “Basic freedoms for citizens, especially freedom of speech and freedom of religion are severely restricted in Tajikistan” it said. Members of the IRPT are regularly “jailed and given long prison terms”, the government added.

Shamsiddin’s father, a refugee in Germany, is a senior IRPT member. This made Shamsiddin’s forced return a particularly precious gift for Tajikistan’s authoritarian leaders.

After his detention Shamsiddin was held for over two months in a darkened isolation cell and has been mistreated, according to family members. He has lost weight and has been denied medical care. When a German embassy official visited him, eight prison guards were present.

Dozens of his friends and relatives in Tajikistan have been questioned based on contacts the Tajik authorities retrieved from Shamsiddin’s mobile phone, a device they obtained because German police officials gave it to them. A cousin of Shamsiddin, Saidumar Saidov was  jailed last July for six years for a short social media post about Shamsiddin’s case.

Shamsiddin should never have been deported because international law, including multiple treaties to which Germany is bound, prohibits “refoulement”, returning a person to a country where they are at risk of torture or cruel or inhumane treatment.

Shamsiddin, who is married and has two small children, made three unsuccessful asylum applications in Germany. His case is complex. He changed his name after arriving in Germany and has several convictions. Apparently for these reasons local authorities and courts chose not to accept experts on Tajikistan who said it was highly likely he would be detained and mistreated if returned.

German authorities were aware of Shamsiddin’s true identity before he was deported, as officials from the Tajik embassy in Berlin had confirmed this in June 2022. Shamsiddin’s wife, a Tajik citizen, has refugee status in the European Union.

Germany’s decision to deport Shamsiddin had severe consequences as Tajikistan is infamous for pursuing its opponents abroad. Many opposition supporters moved abroad after the crackdown in 2015.

In 2016 HRW published findings pointing to Dushanbe’s strategy of assaulting or kidnapping activists living abroad or seeking their deportation. Since then, deportations to Tajikistan of opposition figures have occurred from many countries including Austria as well as Germany.

The Tajik government regularly interrogates Tajikistan-based relatives of exiled activists, to pressure those activists to halt their campaigns. Last September a group of Tajik activists protested in Berlin at the visit there of president Rahmon. In the following days authorities in Tajikistan questioned around 50 relatives of the protesters in Berlin, detaining some for several days.

Several members of the Bundestag are following Shamsiddin’s case. The German government should urge Tajikistan to end its human rights violations, to release Shamsiddin and allow him to leave the country. Tajikistan is currently seeking closer ties with Europe, so Germany has leverage in its negotiations with Dushanbe, if it is willing to use it.

Berlin should also investigate how Shamsiddin was deported to face a known risk of torture or inhuman treatment, to ensure such incidents do not happen again.

This is urgent. In November another Tajik opposition activist was deported from Germany. Bilal Qurbanaliev was one of the protesters against Rahmon last September. He is now in detention in  Tajikistan. And in December a Tajik man was arrested in Germany on terrorism charges. The allegations are serious and should be investigated. But he should not be deported to Tajikistan if there is a danger he could face torture there.

Source: Human Rights Watch

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PA President’s son Tareq Abbas also holds positions in other ventures incorporated by offshore company.

Leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca reveal Tareq Abbas, son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, holds shares worth nearly $1 million in an offshore company with ties to the Palestinian Authority.

The documents, leaked as part of the massive ‘Panama Papers’ scandal, show that a company called the Arab Palestinian Investment Company (APIC) was registered in September 1994 in the British Virgin Islands. Since then, the company’s economic portfolio has grown substantially, and is active in virtually every Palestinian economic sphere, including food and medical equipment, public relations, vehicles, and shopping malls, according to a report by Ha’aretz.

The Palestinian Authority’s involvement in the company has also grown since 1994, through indirect investments by the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF), which holds 18 percent of APIC’s shares, and over which the office of the Palestinian Authority President has near-total control, Ha’aretz reports.

According to the leaked documents, Tareq Abbas, the PA President’s son, was appointed to APIC’s board of directors in 2011 and held shares worth roughly $982,000 as of June 2013.

Tareq Abbas at the same time holds various positions within a number of other ventures since incorporated by APIC. Tareq served as deputy CEO of public relations firm Sky, a leader in the Palestinian advertising market, when it was purchased by APIC in 1999.

Tareq also serves as deputy CEO of the Arab Palestinian Shopping Center Company, which owns several shopping malls throughout the Palestinian territories, and as a member of the board of directors of the Unipal General Trading Company, a leading product distributor in the territories. Both companies are incorporated by APIC.

The depth of Tareq Abbas’ involvement at APIC, Ha’aretz says, further testifies to Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca’s skirting of international standards, which would have required them to identify clients’ conflicts of interests as well as clients who are “politically exposed” through government officials, family members, or business associates, in order to monitor for money laundering, tax evasion, or other corruption offenses.

Lawyer Kareem Shehadeh, speaking on behalf of the Abbas brothers and APIC, told Ha’aretz: “APIC is a publicly listed company in Palestine whose shares are traded daily on the stock exchange. It is subject to oversight by the renowned Deloitte accounting and auditing firm, and complete and transparent details of its dealings appear in an annual report that appears on its website. APIC’s operations are supervised by the Ministry of Commerce and the Palestine Capital Market Authority.”

Another source quoted by Ha’aretz said that ““Tareq Abbas is a salaried employee at APIC, from this dates from before the time his father became the Palestinian Authority’s president. As far as I know, he has no involvement with the investment fund or the Palestinian Authority.”

The office of Mahmoud Abbas did not respond to a Ha’aretz request for comment.

The trove of 11 million Panama Papers documents was anonymously leaked to German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with more than 100 media groups by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The documents have shone light on financial and tax practices of customers across the globe, with more revelations expected over the coming weeks.

Source

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