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The Jewish Home | JANUARY 12, 2023 Storming the Capital in Brazil
On Sunday, thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s Congress, Presidential Palace, and Supreme Court in the nation’s capital of Brasilia. Brazilian President Lula da Silva has vowed that those who participated in Sunday’s events will be facing consequences. As of Tuesday, Brazilian authorities have arrested a total of 1,500 people who were involved. “We will not allow democracy to slip out of our hands,” da Silva said on Monday evening. “In the name of defending democracy, we will not act in an authoritarian way with anyone, but we also will not go lightly on them. We will investigate and find out who financed it.” Da Silva has accused Bolsonaro of inciting and encouraging the rioters. Bolsonaro was in Florida at the time of the attack and was briefly hospitalized on Monday after complaining of pain related to his 2018 stabbing injury. “Peaceful demonstrations, within the law, are part of democracy. However, vandalism and the invasion of public buildings like today’s acts, and like those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, are an exception,” Bolsonaro wrote in a statement on Sunday. Nevertheless, da Silva has named him personally responsible for the attack, though no formal investigation or charges have been made. “He didn’t just provoke this or encourage this – he’s still encouraging this via social media,” Da Silva asserted on Sunday. Several Democrats in the U.S. have called for Bolsonaro’s extradition out of Florida.
Iran Condemns Charlie Hebdo Caricature
Iranian officials have condemned the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and closed a research center affiliated with France after the satirical outlet published caricatures of the country’s religious clerical leaders amid civil unrest. The images were published in the magazine’s recent issue around the anniversary of the 2015 shooting at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, which had, at the time, published a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed. Twelve people died in that shooting. The publication’s latest illustrations depict Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other members of the clerical regime executing protestors and engaged in inappropriate scenarios. The political cartoons were solicited by the magazine in an open call that closed at the end of December. On its website, the outlet called for caricaturists “to support Iranians who are fighting for their freedom, by ridiculing this religious leader from another age and consigning him to historical oblivion.” The magazine wanted to publish the images in solidarity with protest demonstrations that have roiled the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Amini had been arrested by the modesty police for failure to fully cover her hair. Since the protests over Amini’s death began in September, thousands of demonstrators have been arrested, and hundreds have been killed, according to the Human Rights Activists’ News Agency. Two protestors detained for alleged links to the death of an Iranian officer during the demonstrations were publicly executed last month after closed trials. In a statement published on Sunday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said that freedom of speech should not be used as a “pretext for insulting” religion. The ministry called on France to “hold to account the perpetrators and sponsor of such instances of
14 spreading hatred.” Iran’s foreign ministry closed the French Institute for Research in Iran as The Jewish Home | JANUARY 12, 2023 its “first step” in responding to the offensive images. France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, defended freedom of the press in her country, saying that under the country’s legal system, “blasphemy does not exist.” Plastics to Be Banned in England
Single-use items like plastic cutlery, plates, and polystyrene trays will be banned in England, the government has confirmed. It is unclear when the ban will come into effect. Scotland and Wales had previously passed a ban on these products. Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said the move would help protect the environment for future generations. According to government figures, 1.1 billion single-use plates and more than four billion pieces of plastic cutlery are used in England every year. Each person in England uses an average of 18 single-use plastic plates and 37 items of plastic cutlery every year, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, while just 10% of those are recycled. Similar bans have already been made in Scotland, while single-use plastic straws, stirrers and plastic stemmed cotton buds were already banned in England in 2020. Scotland introduced a ban on businesses using a range of single-use plastic goods in June last year. Laws for a similar ban in Wales were approved in December and will come into force later in 2023. This latest measure in England does not, however, cover items found in supermarkets or shops. The government said it would address those by other means. The military junta that controls Mali pardoned 49 Ivorian soldiers and suspended their prison sentences, ending a diplomatic dispute that highlighted the growing isolation of the West African country and its strained relations with its neighbors. The decision, announced late Friday, came a week after the soldiers, who had been detained nearly six months ago, had received sentences of 20 years. Mali had accused the soldiers of being mercenaries, but the government of Ivory Coast said they were in Mali to support a nearly decade-old United Nations peacekeeping mission of 15,000 members assigned to protect civilians from armed groups. Months of negotiations and a mediation led by the president of Togo ensued, but on December 30, a court in Bamako, Mali’s capital, convicted 46 soldiers of crimes including conspiracy against the government after a closed trial that lasted a day and a half. Three female soldiers, who had been arrested and later released, were sentenced to death in absentia because they did not appear in court for their hearing. On Friday, however, Mali’s military leader, Col. Assimi Goïta, revoked the sentences of all soldiers, Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, the government spokesperson, said in a statement read on national television. “This gesture demonstrates once again the attachment to peace, dialogue and pan-Africanism,” the statement said of Goïta’s move, a claim that is at odds with Mali’s recent attitude toward its neighbors and international partners. Inside Bamako, much of the population believes that the Ivorian soldiers were mercenaries, Doussouba Konaté, a civil society leader in Mali, told The New York Times in December. But abroad, most diplomats and analysts repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the detention. After the soldiers were arrested, the United Nations acknowledged procedural “dysfunctions” in a note to the Malian government and admitted that “certain measures have not been followed.” But Ivorian authorities denied that the soldiers had been sent to disturb public order, and denounced their detention as hostage-taking. Mali’s relations with some West African neighbors and international partners have soured since a military junta seized power in Mali in a coup in 2020 and overthrew civilian leaders in a second one, in 2021. In August, French troops left Mali after a nearly decade-long military intervention intended to restore order in the country, which has been battling a terrorist threat in an increasingly unstable region. (© The New York Times)
Boat Smuggling Rifles from Iran to Yemen
According to the U.S. military this week, U.S. Navy forces recently intercepted a fishing boat transporting over 2,000 AK-17 rifles from Iran to Yemen. The vessel, which was crewed by six Yemeni nationals, was sailing through the Gulf of Oman on January 6 when it was caught, U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement. A team from the patrol coastal ship USS Chinook discovered and boarded the ship with support from fellow Cyclone-class patrol ship USS Monsoon and the guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans. The ship was carrying 2,116 AK-47 assault rifles. The vessel was traveling along a route historically understood to be used for the transfer of lethal aid to Yemen’s Houthi rebels — a violation of a UN Security Council resolution and international law, 5th Fleet said. Iran is the main backer of the Houthis, who have fought a devastating years-long civil war against Yemen’s internationally recognized government. The bloody conflict has previously been characterized by experts as a proxy war between regional
foes Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia supports the Yemeni government. Over the past few months, U.S. forces have intercepted several vessels transferring lethal aid from Iran to Yemen. In November, 5th Fleet seized a “massive amount” of explosive chemical material that can be used to fuel ballistic missiles. A few weeks later, it recovered more than 50 tons of ammunition and rocket parts. The recent shipment “is part of a continued pattern of destabilizing activity from Iran,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who commands US Naval Forces Central Command, US 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, said in a statement. “These threats have our attention. We remain vigilant in detecting any maritime activity that impedes freedom of navigation or compromises regional security,” he added.
The Quest to Build the Perfect Grenade
An array of mostly unremarkable items stretched across two wooden tables on the far side of a cramped workshop in eastern Ukraine: double-sided tape, gloves, Allen wrenches, a soldering iron, 3D-printed plastic, ball bearings, a digital scale. Next to them was a German DM51 fragmentation grenade. They were all important ingredients for Ukrainian troops trying to piece together a puzzle: How do you create a grenade that weighs next to nothing but can be dropped from a drone and destroy a roughly 40-ton Russian tank? “War is an economy. It’s money,” said Graf, a stout, bearded Ukrainian soldier in charge of his unit’s drone team. “And if you have a drone for $3,000 and a grenade for $200, and you destroy a tank that costs $3 million, it’s very interesting.” Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, technological advancements on the battlefield have mostly centered on both countries’ increased use of small, remotely operated drones and their growing importance in almost every aspect of the war. Now Graf and his team, who have become experts at killing Russian troops with munitions dropped from the air, are trying to raise the drones’ effectiveness to the next level: by using them to deliver what they consider the perfect grenade.
The challenge is building that grenade. The tinkering in Graf’s workroom is another example of how Ukraine’s military has adapted as the war progresses, creating advantages in the face of the Russian army’s superiority in troop numbers and long-range weaponry. The grenade, Graf said, should weigh around 1.1 pounds, the maximum weight a DJI Mavic 3 drone can carry without its flight being significantly disrupted. To get the grenade closer to the desired weight, his team has been using a 3D printer to try to make a lightweight casing that can hold the explosives needed to penetrate a tank’s armor. The painstaking task involves experimenting with grenades of differing designs, clasped in a vise in their workroom, and operating around the explosive mechanisms to fine-tune them. Despite the risks, Graf and his team continue to tinker in their workshop teeming with different kinds of explosives, edging ever closer to the elusive tank-killing grenade. Currently, they
18 have a munition that they say can penetrate Russian armor, but it is around a half-pound too heavy. (© The New York The Jewish Home | JANUARY 12, 2023 Times) Daughter of Ex-Iranian Pres. to Go to Jail
The daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to five years in prison in Iran. The verdict against Faezeh Hashemi, who is a known Iranian activist, is “not final,” her lawyer, Neda Shams, said in a tweet. “The client is still in prison and there are other cases against her,” Shams added. Hashemi was indicted last year by Tehran’s public prosecutor on charges of “propaganda against the system,” statealigned news agency ISNA said. She was arrested and transferred to Evin prison in September. Iran has detained a number of high-profile activists in recent months, including writer and poet Mona Borzouei, singer Shervin Hajipour, and Iranian football player Hossein Mahini, as anti-government protests rocked the country. Over the past decade, Hashemi has been jailed several times for making anti-government statements and participating in protests. She spent months in prison after a 2012 arrest for making anti-government statements. Hashemi’s father was a revolutionary who fought the Shah’s regime and its Western-leaning social and economic policies but pushed for liberalization and privatization programs when he became president a year after the end of the IranIraq war. Rafsanjani died in 2017 at 82. At least 41 protesters have received death sentences in recent months as officials attempt to crack down on the swell of angry public sentiment across Iran that has spread across the country since the arrest and subsequent death of Mahsa Amini.
China and Taliban’s Energy Agreement
The Taliban is cutting its first major energy extractions agreement since taking control of Afghanistan in 2021, agreeing to a 25-year pact with a Chinese company to drill for oil in the country’s Amu Darya basin. “The Amu Darya oil contract is an important project between China and Afghanistan,” Wang Yu, the Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan, said at a press conference in Kabul. The Taliban’s agreement is with China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company and is set for 25 years, while another Chinese state-owned company is also reportedly in talks with the Taliban to operate a copper mine in eastern Afghanistan. The deal comes as Chinese nationals have faced increasing security concerns as the country strengthens its ties to the Taliban, including an ISIS-K attack last month on a Kabul hotel popular with Chinese businessmen. The attack killed at least three people and injured another 18, including five Chinese nationals, and came despite assurances by the Taliban that security is “guaranteed” for Chinese citizens and other foreigners. Some observers believe such attacks on Chinese nationals are likely to continue, pointing out that Afghanistan’s ISIS offshoot has taken issue with China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. The Taliban has continued to look to China, which has not yet formally recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan, as a friendly trade partner to tap its vast reserves of resources. Afghanistan sits on reserves of natural gas, copper and rare earth minerals estimated to be worth over $1 trillion, which remain untapped amid decades of war and turmoil in the country.
