https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/m23-rebels-attack-army-in-eastern-dr-congo-town-leading-to-h

M23 rebels attack army in eastern DR Congo town leading to heavy fight

M23 rebels launched an attack on troops on Sunday, in Bunagana, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which led to a heavy fight, according to officials.

Damien Sebusanane, the head of a local civilian group, said the majority of the population had fled the center of the town, which is a key transit point for goods on the Ugandan border.

Clashes renewed between M23 rebels and the army in the region, and the government has blamed neighboring Rwanda which has repeatedly denied supporting the rebel group.

On Sunday morning, the army was attacked in Bunagana and the nearby town of Tshengerero, both in North Kivu province, according to local military administrator Colonel Muhindi Lwanzo.

M23 fighters surrounded Bunagana, and Congolese army tanks fired at the rebels' positions from inside the town, Sebusanane said.

An army officer, who preferred to remain unnamed, told AFP that on Sunday afternoon, Congolese soldiers were pushing the rebels back, and fights were ongoing on the road leading from Bunagana.

The M23, a mainly Congolese Tutsi group of militants, is one of more than 120 other armed groups active in eastern DRC.

In 2012, a joint offensive by UN troops and the Congolese army put an end to the rebellion, but the M23 resumed fighting last year, accusing the government in Congo of not respecting a 2009 agreement under which its fighters were to be blended with the army.

Local sources reported in April that M23 rebels have taken control of several villages in eastern DR Congo after fighting with government troops in the Rutshuru region.

At the end of May, the DRC army confirmed that it was holding two Rwandan troops, a day after Kigali accused it of supporting the rebels who seized them.

Rwanda claimed that the two soldiers were kidnapped by a Hutu rebel group operating in eastern DRC. However, the DRC army, on the other hand, claimed the soldiers were trespassing on its territory and had been apprehended by civilians.

Relations between the DRC and Rwanda have been strained since the overwhelming entry of Rwandan Hutus suspected of slaying Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda genocide in the eastern DRC.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/russia:-response-to-nato-build-up-in-poland-to-be-proportion

Russia: Response to NATO build-up in Poland to be ‘proportionate’

The head of a foreign ministry department in charge of Russian relations with Europe Oleg Tyapkin said, on Saturday, that Moscow’s “response, as always, will be proportionate and appropriate,” adding that “any possible response would be intended to neutralize potential threats to the security of the Russian Federation.”

Tyapkin made the remarks a day after a meeting in Bucharest, Romania, where nine Central and Eastern European countries asked NATO to strengthen its eastern flank.

It is worth noting that the event was attended by leaders from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

Last week, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Poland will sign the largest contract in 30 years to supply almost $630 million worth of weapons to Ukraine.

Russia has long complained to the US about NATO's eastward expansion, stressing that Washington has ignored the Kremlin's concerns about the security of its western borders.

On his account, NATO's Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoana stated last month that the alliance is no longer bound by previous commitments to refrain from deploying forces in Eastern Europe.

NATO has significantly increased its presence along its eastern border, with approximately 40,000 troops stationed from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

In addition, the alliance plans to deploy four new combat units in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iraqi-mps-from-moqtada-sadrs-bloc-resign

Iraqi MPs from Moqtada Sadr's bloc resign

Muqtada Al-Sadr, the leader of Iraq's Sadrist movement, directed the head of the Sadrist bloc, Hassan Al-Adhari, to submit the resignations of the Sadrist bloc MPs to the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, and ordered the closure of affiliated institutions currently in operation, with some exceptions.

Al-Sadr said that this step is considered a sacrifice for the sake of the homeland and the Iraqi people to save them from an unknown fate.

"We have reluctantly accepted the requests of our brothers and sisters, representatives of the Sadr bloc, to resign," Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbussi said on Twitter after receiving the resignation letters from the 73 lawmakers.

Al Mayadeen correspondent in Iraq reported that "there are multiple legal options regarding how to deal with the resignation of Sadrist bloc members," stressing that "there is a legal option which confirms the need for parliament to vote on the resignations and another which says that the speaker has the jurisdiction in this context."

Al-Sadr had urged, on Thursday, the MPs from his bloc the biggest in parliament to ready resignation papers, in a bid, he said, to break the parliamentary logjam and create space for the establishment of a new government.

"If the survival of the Sadrist bloc is an obstacle to the formation of the government, then all representatives of the bloc are ready to resign from parliament," Al-Sadr said on Thursday in a televised statement.

Iraqi lawmakers have already exceeded all deadlines for setting up a new government set down in the constitution, prolonging the country's political crisis.

If the parliamentary impasse cannot be broken, new elections may be called, but that would necessitate lawmakers agreeing to dissolve Parliament.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/miscellaneous/gunmen-release-11-hostages-abducted-in-train-assault-in-nige

Gunmen release 11 hostages abducted in train assault in Nigeria

Gunmen released 11 hostages out of 60 they had taken in an attack on a train in March in the Nigerian state of Kaduna. The release took place after long negotiations with Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi, according to the statements of his spokesman Tukur Mamu on Sunday.

The attack that took place in March resulted in the death of nine people and the injury of 26 others. An eyewitness said the gunmen blew up the train tracks, causing the derailment of the train. They had previously released a number of hostages after the payment of a ransom.

Mamu told the Nigerian Premium Times that Gumi carried out long-lasting negotiations and suggested the location for the hostages to be released. According to him, the negotiations had been ongoing for several weeks and led to the release of 11 hostages at Kidandan forest.

"After reaching agreements about the release, they [the gunmen] insisted that sheikh Gumi must intervene and identify a location where the captives will be handed over," Mamu said.

The spokesperson added that the parties are still negotiating the release of the rest of the hostages, and he is unaware whether the gunmen had been paid another ransom to secure their release.

Armed men and gangs continue to attack villages and abduct people for ransom around Nigeria.

Police in northwest Nigeria reported that armed cattle thieves killed 16 people in March.

Nigeria's northwest and central regions are a hub of cattle thieves and those kidnapping for ransom, raiding villages and killing and abducting residents after looting and burning homes.

The bandits have recently intensified mass abductions of students in schools for ransom.

Dozens of bandits invaded Ganar-Kiyawa village in Bukkuyum District, shooting 16 residents dead, according to Mohammed Shehu, the Zamfara State Police Spokesperson.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/miscellaneous/ancestral-land-of-maasai-people-trophy-hunting-grounds-for-u

Ancestral land of Maasai people trophy-hunting grounds for UAE royals

Northern Tanzania is faced with evictions as UAE firm seeks to turn ancestral land into a trophy-hunting ground. More than 70,000 Indigenous Maasais reside in northern Tanzania, and they are all facing displacement after the government revealed plans to lease the space to a UAE-based company, Business Corporation (OBC), to create a hunting reserve for elite tourism.

Indigenous leaders have filed an appeal at the regional court, hoping that they could halt the plans for this area. For Maasais, the current evictions are considered a violation of a 2018 injunction that barred the government from evicting Maasai from 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) of ancestral, legally registered land in the Loliondo Division of Ngorongoro, northern Tanzania.

The regional commissioner for the Arusha, John Mongella, according to sources, said the decision to lease the land was a difficult one. However, he claimed, that the country could largely benefit from the return on such a project as it will boost tourism revenue.

The Maasai people were informed of this decision on January 11, 2022. The timeframe for Maasai displacement is still being worked out, but plans for another group of Maasai to be relocated to an UNESCO World Heritage Site are set to begin at the end of February.

Evictions and actions

On Friday, June 10, 2022, Tanzanian security forces fired at Maasai farming communities. The gunshots came in the context of an eviction operation leaving Maasai people terrorized and feeling unsafe… all this happened for the sake of clearing the land to turn it into a hunting corridor.

Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank specializing in social and environmental issues, has been monitoring the situation of the evictions and said in a written statement to the OBC, “The government is willing to defy the court injunction, grab the ancestral land of the Maasai and hand it over to the royal family of the UAE for their hunting pleasures, indicating its ruthless disregard for its citizens, international law, and due process.”

International organizations such as UNESCO and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature collaborate with Tanzania's government to monitor conservation initiatives in specific regions. This week, as the world leaders attempted to save 30% of the world's land by 2030 as part of a worldwide initiative to protect biodiversity, indigenous people were being forcefully evicted from their ancestral land. Experts in human rights issues are concerned that the "30 by 30 plan" might result in abuses and breaches of the rights of Indigenous and local people.

According to Fio Longo, a campaign manager at the Indigenous rights group Survival International, "We are facing a humanitarian disaster that exposes the true face of conservation." She added, "The Maasai are being shot just because they wish to live peacefully in their traditional lands—all to make place for trophy hunting."

In the face of government brutality and human rights violations, four Maasai communities asked the East African Court to recognize their ownership of the ancestral land the OBC is attempting to snatch through a government agreement. The eviction, they argued, has seen a series of violations of their rights from the burning of their homes to arbitrary arrest and confiscation of Maasai livestock. These campaigns, said the indigenous communities, serve to intimidate and harass people coercing them into forced evictions.

Part 1

>>16436656

The court argued that the evictions are lawful, while the government denied all allegations of human rights violations. A final decision has not been made due to interruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Protectors of the Land

This process of snatching ancestral lands to make room for money-generating projects is no new endeavor. Longo says that "what happens today is in continuity with this colonial past. This violence that we see in Tanzania is the reality of conservation in Africa and Asia: Daily violations of the human rights of indigenous peoples and local communities so that the ‘rich’ can hunt and do safaris in peace.”

Maasai ancestral territory, some of which became part of the Tanzanian wildlife conservation areas bordering Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, is of great significance in terms of biodiversity and environmental sustainability. While tourists from across the world view Tanzanian ancestral territory as a Lion King-like landscape that consists of herds of wildebeests, packs of zebras and lions, as well as giraffes and other endangered animals, the Maasai people see it as the motherland in which they are an integral part of its sustainability.

The cultural significance of the land for the indigenous communities that currently occupy the territory, as well as those that have historically done so, combined with its biological importance, especially with regard to threatened and endangered species, makes it a highly sensitive topic pertaining to not only human rights but also to environmental sustainability and diversity.

Human rights groups such as Survival International, the Oakland Institute, and others have actively pushed back against global conservation efforts especially those that displace Indigenous and local communities. Often such abuses are also linked to further violent abuses such as killings, torture, and rape according to InsideClimateNews.

As such, the UAE firm, and subsequently the Royal family, as well as the Tanzanian government, will not only be threatening the continuity and sustainability of the Maasai people but also the future of the region amid a global environmental crisis. Climate change and biodiversity are integral to each other and by threatening the latter, any decision also prevents global advance in environmental goals of sustainability.

Part 2 - End

>>16436716

The Big Show?

>>16436730

I don't think Potus was talking about this. I think he is talking about the "Israel for last" scenario.

>>16436767

The narrative is being shaped in the ME that we are going to war with Israel.

>>16436787

We in the ME anon. I've been trying to get anons attention to the narrative that is being slowly built for the passing weeks, but it's being ignored by anons.

We, over here, we are going to war. It's big. SOOOOOO big. Spain, Morrocco are also making up excuses to prepare for it under the disguise of drills and such stuff.

It's true = the end won't be for everyone. We know it's coming, it's very close. [they] know it's coming and [they] are preparing for it, being at the read, at the stand-by. No one knows when it's going to start, but loads of steps have been taken towards that direction and we are very near, very. The narrative is being shaped perfectly. It's incredible how this is all played out and anons are in a slumber.