The 2003 American invasion of Iraq was always surrounded by dubious justifications. Notwithstanding the obvious lies then President George W. Bush told the American people about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, paving the way for the invasion by US and coalition forces. Life under Saddam Hussein had been belligerent, oppressive, and stagnant. Iraq then was politically stable by brute force only, which was no stability at all.

Playing on the obvious downsides of the Hussein regime, the Bush Administration seized an opportunity to expand US oil and military interests by convincing ordinary Americans that Saddam Hussein was complicit in 9/11. Failing to prove this, Iraq was alleged to possess “weapons of mass destruction,” something Bush knowingly used to sanction a war, in spite of clear shortfalls in intelligence reports at the time that were at best manipulated, or at worst falsified.

Ba’athism And Coups: Iraq’s Troubled History

The greater backdrop to the invasion, however, was a country ill at ease with itself, its neighbors, and its role on the world stage. After Hussein seized the reins from former Ba’ath Party leader Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a series of badly miscalculated wars with neighbors⁠ – started by Hussein⁠ – as well as failed internal policies, created hardship and discontent for the Iraqi people.

Although the Ba’ath Party had been in power since 1963, the leader Hassan al-Bakr staged a coup upon being ousted, retaking the reins of power. A 1968 bloodless coup saw al-Bakr take complete control of the country, ousting Colonel Abdel Salam Aref whom he had previously helped to install. Over the next decade, Hussein rose from being chief of intelligence services in al-Bakr’s regime, to succeeding his former leader in 1979.

Life was initially good for common Iraqis under al-Bakr, notwithstanding his chosen route to ascension, and Iraq’s image in the Arab world was shifting to one of enhanced standing. Internal tensions within the country’s majority Shia community were persistent, however, and in fact Hussein rose to the presidency on the back of his oppression of a bout of anti-government social unrest, something he crushed in a power grab marked by the brutal oppression of protesters as well as a purging of the Ba’ath Party.

Dreams of Syrian Union Dashed by Hussein

At the time of Hussein taking power, President Al-Bakr had been close to concluding negotiations with Syria to merge the two countries. Such a development would have seen Hussein politically sidelined. Then Syrian president Hafez al-Assad would have become deputy leader of the union under al-Bakr. Instead, under threat of force, the ailing al-Bakr ceded the presidency to Hussein, whereupon Hussein staged a purge, executing opposing voices in his own party in short order. Citizens’ protests were violently suppressed, and all dissenting voices within the party were silenced.

Although Hussein’s Ba’ath regime was officially secular, Iraq’s Sunni Muslim community felt entitled under the new dispensation, Hussein himself being a Sunni Muslim. While actually more nuanced, political upheaval became delineated along that fault line, and Hussein’s belligerence towards largely Shia Muslim Iran also eventually led to the devastating Iraq⁠—Iran war starting in 1980. Iran had experienced a revolution in 1979, at the same time as Hussein was still crushing street protests and executing rivals, and this led to the belief that Iran would be a weak target.

Trading on this assumption, and with the ancient Shia-Sunni factionalism having now become the broad backdrop to conflict in the region, the war between the neighboring states was anything but swift, persisting for eight brutal years.

Iran-Iraq War Ceasefire

A ceasefire was reached in 1988, and a stalemate became the final outcome of hostilities between the two countries. Hussein had failed to demonstrate Iraq’s ability to quash its far larger eastern neighbor, while at the same time he entrenched a pattern of brutal suppression of dissent on the home front. Iraq’s prosperity had evaporated, to be replaced by politics of fear and simmering tension. Hussein’s mismanagement of the economy and regional belligerence had taken its toll.

When the US and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, they found a weakened and divided nation. In a war now considered one of the larger deceits of the American public (no “weapons of mass destruction” were ever found⁠—the premise upon which Bush had insisted on the immediate need to topple Hussein), Iraq fell within a month. Since then, life in Iraq has been a constant, violent political conflict with diverse armed combatants sporadically detonating bombs that have claimed thousands of lives. Iraq has become a truly fragmented nation and another ugly quagmire for the US, much like Afghanistan.

Iraq Remains a Fractured Nation

Although a government of “national unity” has been in place since the US toppled the Ba’ath regime upon invasion, national unity is an elusive animal in Iraq. Over a dozen armed factions are currently vying for various kinds of control, from territorial to national, while loyalties and allegiances often chop and change too, making attempted solutions and likely outcomes unpredictable. A clear line towards national unity, and political and economic stability remains elusive.

Iraq’s current turmoil is but another moment of social upheaval in a broken country, one bedeviled by foreign interests and acts of aggression, as well as internal fractures that involve religious, cultural, geographic and historical grievances. The latest unrest has an elevated pitch, however, as common Muslims rarely defy clerical dictates on behavior. The last few weeks in Iraq have seen anti-government protesters defy a Shiite cleric and take to the streets, something indicative of the level of discontent common Iraqis are feeling.

Iraq is a country of many armed and adamant factions. Quite apart from opportunistic aggression by smaller groups or coalitions seeking local dominance or other benefits from their belligerence, the current Iraqi army was assembled and trained under American and other foreign oversight. It lacks legitimacy for many, as well as its own genuine sense of identity and purpose at times. Sunni militias allied to Ba’athist loyalists habitually attack the Iraqi Army, and there is also a history of aggression between Islamic State (IS) and the army that reaches back decades. IS is now a major force in the region, still holding onto the desire to establish a caliphate, and populated by many of Hussein’s former military commanders.

Former Hussein strongmen make IS a formidable and persistent force, although the movement itself gives rise to internal tensions of varying degrees, while also prompting citizens’ flight from IS territory towards less politicised regions – something extremely hard to come by in Iraq. Also, up to 35 million Kurds occupy the rugged mountainous region that straddles several borders – Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria. Kurdish people are in fact the Middle East’s fourth-largest ethnic group, and local and national loyalties play out within the region against the difficulties for Kurds of marrying both their cultural and national identities.

While both the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces had collaborated to combat IS, fighting started between the army and Kurdish fighters in 2017, further fracturing tenuous alliances. Previous conflicts between Turkmen and Kurdish fighters that have been manifest since 2015 add to the fragmentation, as varying objectives coexist within Turkmen politics, some aligned to national (Iraqi) unity, while others seek greater autonomy. The coalition forces on the ground in Iraq are supporting both the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces to repel IS, but are walking a minefield through the two groups’ conflict with each another. Calls for a peaceful resolution between the two warring parties seldom gain traction.

Adding to Iraq’s state of constant conflict are neighboring countries like Turkey, which previously supported Kurdish fighters against IS until around 2017, where after Turkey began systematically attacking Kurdish forces, supporting Iraq’s army in their fight against the Kurds. Ceasefires and truces are as often employed as smokescreens for various and expediently varying political aims. Iraq, weakened by years of oppressive belligerence under Hussein and blasted by the US invasion, has never been able to recover a sense of genteel politics to resolve its innumerable armed conflicts.

Hopes for Future Stability in Iraq

The current unrest in the streets of Baghdad stems from accumulated dissatisfaction with government inability and corruption, economic intransigence, and the seemingly constant stress levels the average Iraqi lives under. The economic immobility, particularly, weighs heavily upon the populace. In an unnatural situation, where a country is so bitterly fragmented and warring because of it, meaningful change is hard to effect. Glimpses of political corruption, and glimpses of the future unchanged all severely tax the collective psyche of a people who have had no rest for decades.

That recent protests occurred in spite of a prominent cleric’s admonishments gives everyone outside a glimpse of just how desperately dissatisfied many Iraqis are.

International pledges towards reconstruction of various cities and other infrastructure have been stymied⁠—it’s difficult to effect meaningful public works in such a fractured and hostile environment. There are more than 2 million internally displaced people in Iraq, floating in a homeostasis many find no longer tenable. With both the central and Kurdish governments also lamentably erratic in paying salaries, the knock-on effect in the country is huge. Economic resurgence in Iraq clearly needs stable government employees, instead that workforce is contributing to the national dissatisfaction, and points to a weak, frail state.

Could Protests Improve Conditions in Iraq?

As unpleasant, dangerous and seemingly unfortunate as protest actions might appear, perhaps they will ultimately form the basis of a long-awaited change in Iraq’s demeanor and policies. It seems that Iraq has much goodwill out in the world, with many international parties pledged to assist in rebuilding the country. Perhaps all that is needed is for common people, as they recently have, to protest loudly, until a new ethos is forced upon the current regime, all warring parties, and insidious outside interests. Iraqis have had enough of war.

The Iraqi parliament voted in January 2020 to evict all remaining US troops still in the country. In response, US President Donald Trump has threatened to slash military and other aid to Iraq that Congress has already approved. It seems the honeymoon that never was is over. Iraq always had to get to the point where it threw off the status of US colony and regained its autonomy.

Having had a glimpse of stability and even a taste of the good life over the years, the Iraqi populace’s anger is now more targeted and more urgent. Outside interests have seldom aided common Iraqis in any real sense. The coalition government is struggling for efficacy and control on many fronts. Perhaps it will indeed be common Iraqi citizens that continue to protest for a return to normality who will prove to be the many straws that break the camel’s back. Iraq desperately needs peace, to enable its citizens to regain their economic optimism and vigor.

L'articolo Iraq Descends Once More into Turmoil: is There Any Hope Ahead? proviene da InsideOver.

The Arab Spring of 2010 – 2011 has not rolled on to summer days for Yemen. Now a war-torn nation, Yemen is the victim of both weak internal politics as well as external meddling. Prompted by the Spring unrest in many parts of the Islamic world, Yemen in 2011 experienced a “transition” from the stale, authoritarian presidency of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who handed over his rule to his then deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Although the flimsiest of concessions – as opposed to a wholesale renewal of government based on multiparty elections – it seemed the civil transfer of power was good enough for Yemen’s people, and it would enable the country to go forward with higher hopes. The incoming Hadi, however, was quickly beset by southern separatists’ aspirations, persistent loyalty among the military top brass towards Saleh, ongoing corruption, unemployment and food scarcity, as well as sporadic jihadist attacks.

Today, Yemen is a country tarnished throughout by civil war, with Saleh’s old enemies – the Houthi movement that fights for control by the country’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority – having taken control of the north with relative ease. The Houthi’s stronghold was always the Saada province, and the movement now controls it, along with several surrounding areas.

As Hadi’s inability to address Yemen’s affairs grew more apparent, the Houthi’s popular appeal grew, and the movement attracted both Shia and Sunni Muslim residents’ sympathies. Popular support due to lingering dissatisfaction – combined with a weak and remote government – saw fighting erupt, enabling a Houthi coup in late 2014. The capital city Sanaa also fell to rebel control in 2015, while Hadi was forced into exile. Both Houthi aggression as well as variably substantiated allegations of Yemeni military leaders – in cahoots with erstwhile president Saleh – supporting such actions, ensured Hadi’s departure into exile, leaving behind a torn government, and a people in crisis.

Yemen’s internal strife exacerbated from the outside

The current internecine stalemate has wrought havoc on the nation’s food supplies, bringing many to the brink of starvation all over the country. For many Yemeni families, feeding their children, as well as accessing needed medical care, are evaporating hopes. Malnutrition is rife in some areas, in a country that was never a bread basket to begin with. The current hostilities have interrupted Yemen’s ports, the food supplies that typically flowed from these coastal regions, as well as many citizens’ ability to plant and manage a seasonal crop.

Exacerbating the hardship for Yemeni’s are the various players forcing their own interests in the region, those who have latched onto fragmented Yemen with fervour. Neighbouring (Sunni) Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of neighbouring states in offensives against the Houthi encampments, with Saudi jets frequently bombing targets in the north country. Hospitals and schools too have been destroyed, and aid agencies have repeatedly condemned the targeted destruction of civilian installations. Millions of Yemen’s children have been forced to abandon their education.

Although the coalition’s air and ground actions, as well as the naval blockade still in place along the coastline, are alleged to be in keeping with UN Charter articles, critics have disputed this, and pointed to the real ramifications for common Yemenis. Widespread criticism of the coalition’s efforts have centered more specifically on those of Saudi Arabia, accused of seeking particularly the collapse of any Shia Muslim movement on its borders, rather than any egalitarian or democratic end result. With the vast southern coastal stretch also broadly yet sparsely dotted with Al Qaeda operatives, common Yemenis seem trapped within their own borders.

Most painfully, all parties in the Yemeni war appear to be accepting civilian casualties with a new disregard for non-combatant human life. The war is being waged on a new low as regards the safety of civilians, and their current often desperate needs, with alarming statistics of civilian deaths now commonplace.

To date, the Houthi movement remains in control of the territory they originally conquered, while the coalition partners, in conjunction with many European nations’ support, are hoping for a greater, final offensive to restore the erstwhile government of Hadi.

Notwithstanding over 18,000 air raids by Saudi jets, the coalition remains unconvinced that a ground force offensive would be able to recapture Sanaa, or any of the terrain Houthi rebels currently control. Iran – Saudi relations are at an all-time low, and Iran is seen as the Houthi movement’s principal benefactor, although its ability to arm and supply rebel forces is intermittently hamstrung by current monitoring.

Amidst all of the carnage, Yemen’s children are dying

Not only have over 80,000 people – civilians and combatants – died in the conflict, over two million children are at risk of dying from conditions brought on by severe malnutrition. Millions of Yemenis are on the move, having fled their homes for areas away from conflict hot spots, typically finding themselves cut off from conventional food supplies or healthcare services of any kind when they arrive.

Children are paying the heaviest price, according to UNICEF and other agencies doing relief work in the country. Poverty in Yemen was a social scourge even before the Arab Spring, and has simply increased under the current internecine warfare.

The war has dramatically worsened Yemen’s humanitarian situation, resulting in a full-blown catastrophe, which some agencies have called genocide. All warring parties are gripped by the desire for military conquest, while peace talks – and the nation’s hungry population – lie forgotten. Reporters on the ground regularly file reports of civilian installations being bombed by Saudi jets. Aid agencies are hampered by Yemen’s geography too, with an entire northern border running alongside Saudi Arabia, and the entire southern coast variably beset with foreign naval warships policing the seas.

In spite of such difficulties, prominent agencies are active on the ground in Yemen, but they face a daunting task. Not only are supplies often lost, curtailed or simply irregular, the theft of food aid is being used as a tool of war, often in an attempt to weaken Houthi resistance. The Houthi rebels too, frequently steal food donations that they then distribute only to those who express wholesale support for the movement. Civilians pay the heaviest toll, as the warring parties in this conflict have made food scarcity an offensive tactic.

Millions of children face malnourishment in 2020

As fighting intensifies, humanitarian organisations are at risk of succumbing to the carnage and being forced to retreat. Recent attacks in December 2019 on specifically aid agencies’ encampments have alarmed the UN, while agency workers on the ground say that the real victims will be the Yemeni people. As the war drags on, agencies are mostly in agreement that more than half the population will need food aid to avoid malnutrition or outright starvation in the coming months.

Never an agriculturally giving land, failed or absent crops unsupported by imports make the threat of famine engulfing Yemen a looming probability. Now in winter, if the region is at all impacted by climate change this coming summer season, aid workers fear the worst if the scant rainfall eludes farmers altogether. Caught between the internal conflict and an average annual rainfall of just 127mm, failed summer rains could well prove to be the last straw that propels millions into starvation.

More than any other recent crisis, Yemen’s humanitarian disaster has focused a spotlight on humanitarian aid – food and medical supplies – in terms of how it is dispatched, distributed and ultimately consumed. Although the UN raised an amount of some $3 billion that was needed to address malnutrition and starvation in Yemen in 2018 – 2019, it has been criticised by potential recipients for allegedly allowing the Houthi rebels to distribute food. Most likely a marriage of convenience, it seems at times that Houthi “oversight” and “distribution” is the best aid agencies can hope for. Stories of rebels confiscating food or selling it on the black market – often directly from a crate still bearing a UN or other insignia – have seen their popular support souring in many locales.

Allegations that the movement steals children to train as soldiers or use as human shields have also encouraged many families to flee, exacerbating the situation, and pushing the country towards more hardship and starvation. With peace talks mooted but as yet unmanifest, the conflict in Yemen looks set to drag on into 2020, meaning that the death toll among Yemen’s most vulnerable – the children – will continue to climb.

L'articolo Thousands of Yemeni Children at Risk of Dying from Malnutrition proviene da InsideOver.

Iran’s telecommunications minister said the country has averted a crisis after a second cyber attack was launched against government installations within the same week. Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi would not give further details, saying only that the last attack was “massive,” while noting that a second attack had been successfully foiled.

Iran: Cyber-Target Number One

He said that the hackers’ origins had been traced, although he also declined to give further details. There are constant online attacks against Iran that wax and wane in regularity and intensity. Although all governments are actively engaged in cyber security measures, as well as quietly fishing in the ether for whatever they can find, Iran often stands out as the target of repeated, concerted attempts to down national infrastructure.

While US officials have previously confessed to Reuters journalists that the country has staged attacks against Tehran⁠, in the latest incidents Iran isn’t necessarily pointing fingers at the US. Such is the convoluted, false flag-peppered realm of cyber attacks against national infrastructure.

Iran’s Attack On Saudi Oil Facilities

The minister did call the latest attacks “highly organized and state-sponsored,” and commentators on the ground in the Middle East point to a variety of possibilities. Saying that he couldn’t “say the attack was carried out by which country right now,” Azari-Jahromi didn’t elaborate on what appears to be a regular, frequent cyber tit-for-tat between Iran and other nations.

Some months ago, Iran was suspected of being behind an explosive attack on the Saudi Arabian Abqaiq oil-processing plant, as well as the Khurais oilfield. The attack employed unmanned drones and cruise missiles, destroying parts of the refinery and disrupting production in the oilfield. Nonetheless, the United Nations’ (UN) secretary general Antonio Guterres said then that the body could not “At this time… independently corroborate that the cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles used in these attacks are of Iranian origin.” American officials acknowledged that a cyber attack was launched against Iran in response.

Who’s Behind The Recent Cyber Attack On Iran?

Various hypotheses have emerged after the recent cyber attack on Iran. Some Iran watchers speculate that it’s more payback for the Saudi strike, if indeed Tehran was behind it, while others note that any third party wanting to stoke the flames between the two petro giants for their own purposes, would have lots of political debris to hide behind. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are oil economies, and rely heavily on exports of crude to maintain a healthy fiscal balance sheet.

While perhaps not the origin of the latest attacks on Tehran, the US certainly set the precedent years ago. With Iran long determined to develop nuclear weapons, the 2010 Stuxnet attack was allegedly the result of collaboration between US and Israeli agents, seeking to cripple development at Iranian nuclear facilities. The Stuxnet virus, a worm, caused hardware failure by sending false readings to workers monitoring Iranian systems running Siemens Step 7 industrial software. At the same time, the virus initiated a series of fraudulent instructions that condemned a plant to mechanical burnout and failure.

Spurred by Tehran’s nuclear weapons programme, it’s an open secret that US agents have often attempted to remotely foil Iranian development. With Iran as often cryptic in response, the masking behavior that surrounds cyber attacks makes clear understanding difficult. The US also blames Iran for a host of misinformation regularly distributed via dozens of recently discovered websites that are targeting various countries, while the Iranian theocracy frequently blames the US for sneaky attempts at data hacking or system shutdown. In the latest incident, Tehran has yet to publicize its conclusions about the origins of the attack.

Russian False-Flag?

Around the same time as US agents were confessing to Reuters about their online activities against the Middle Eastern nation, both US and UK spies claimed that a supposedly Iranian cyber attack was in fact a collection of Russian hackers dropping false flags that pointed to Tehran. In this incident, rather than payback for Stuxnet, it seemed that the Russians had appropriated original tools from Iran and were staging cyber attacks for their own purposes, piggy-backing on an Iranian identity. With myriad such potential situations and Tehran not telling who they “identified” as being behind the latest attacks, Azari-Jahromi did however say that the last attempts against Iran were “aimed at spying on government intelligence.”

A High-Stakes Game Of Electronic Deception

Detailed cloaking from all players defines this landscape and although, for example, the US sometimes admits to concerted attempts to hack Iran’s military installations – notably after Iran downed a US surveillance drone earlier this year – on other occasions agents deny culpability, or Tehran denies the extent or effect of hacking attempts. Long co-opted into government service, private concerns in many countries are often used to further blur the line between their behavior and government-sanctioned espionage or attack.

Not merely a target in the online wars, Iran has cyber sleuthing capabilities of its own. The US Department of Homeland Security suffered an Iranian hack in June this year. The intrusion alarmed officials, as it wiped out large sections of the department’s IT capabilities. The attack seemed to be a statement of Iran’s abilities in the tech warfare between the two nations. According to US commentators, an Iranian penchant for wiping hard drives in the wake of an attack is something new in the sphere of remotely disabling an opponent’s infrastructure.

American-Iranian Tensions At All-Time Highs

Tensions between Tehran and the US have risen after President Trump withdrew America from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, rather opting for a policy of “maximum pressure” being applied to the Islamic Republic. While it is often true that cyber attacks between the two countries are simply manifest, direct hostilities, the potential for China, Russia or any other third party to trade on that likelihood enables a confusing litany of online warfare.

The further potential for such attacks to be driven by various governments’ political motives, or economic ones that favor more private interests, merely makes the facts harder to find. Currently engaged in a vicious proxy war with Iran in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is a constant threat to Tehran in cyberspace. Israel and the US are also usual suspects in any cyber attack against Iran, and Israel has the ability to act as proxy for either the Americans or the Saudis in carrying out attacks that cripple Iranian infrastructure.

Azari-Jahromi has also denied that a recent attack targeting Iran’s major banks successfully hacked millions of private accounts, in spite of local media claims to this effect. Iran needs to be seen to be a tech savvy and formidable opponent, both to the US as well as among its more local allies. To this end, the nature or extent of attacks are ambiguously reported by Tehran in order not to reveal weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Ever conscious of its image in the region, when fuel prices jumped 50 percent in November 2019, prompting Iranians to start violent protests, officials downed the internet in the country to quell coverage of events.

L'articolo Iran Thwarts Second Cyber Attack In Under A Week proviene da InsideOver.

The extrapolation of a recent report compiled by IHS Markit has revealed that American citizens are almost as likely to be spied on as are the Chinese, each by their respective regimes. While China boasts one security camera for every 4.1 people, America ranks at 4.6 people per camera deployed, notes the report’s author, IHS Markit analyst Oliver Philippou. Activists bemoan the fact that China is constantly and unashamedly pushing video surveillance into civil society, but the US state and private monitors are almost as ubiquitous.

Long demonised as a totalitarian state, the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong was, indeed, an unashamedly totalitarian construct. The historical vestiges linger, notwithstanding China’s modernisation of the last two decades, and the Communist Party remains the sole political option, with dire consequences for detractors.

That said, whether it is better or worse to watch third party infiltration as is happening in the US, rather than surveillance by the state itself, is debatable. The report noted that the highest number of surveillance cameras in the US were deployed by private enterprise, such as those in hotels, malls and office complexes. For many, it remains a moot point as to whether a camera is installed by state or private entities, as both the Chinese and US regimes can legally commandeer just about anything in the name of national security, thus making private surveillance footage state property.

A billion cameras for the kids

The youth of 2019 will likely be growing up in a world filled with all-seeing eyes. IHS Markit has estimated there will be around one billion surveillance cameras in operation by 2025. The growth in surveillance is being driven by price competition and technological advances – allowing for greater deployment at a lower cost – but also respective government funding and a pressing need for public safety, as is the official line.

Critics disagree, and note that the wanton abuse of privacy through surveillance “for the public good” is a precedent set long ago. They fear that in spite of the impetus being public safety – something yet to be definitively and unambiguously linked to increased surveillance – the likelihood that the state will use it to spy on its citizens, crush dissent and broadly and quietly impose whatever stranglehold best suits its purposes, is almost a foregone conclusion.

With China leading the pack and North America a close second, third place for monitoring its citizens goes to Taiwan, with one camera for every 5.5 residents, the UK in fourth position at 6.5 citizens per camera deployed, and Singapore in fifth place, sporting one surveillance camera for every 7.1 people.

With the current figures being 349 million cameras deployed in China and 70 million in North America, Big Brother has never looked so ominous. Or seen so much. Philippou notes that reporting from the surveillance arena has largely focused on Beijing’s roll-out of monitoring via cameras and AI in public spaces, whereas the US deployment has been almost as ambitious. He concludes by saying that “future debate over mass surveillance is likely to concern America as much as China.”

Even though a larger percentage of surveillance is currently being funded by private enterprise in North America, government agencies have not been absent from the arena. For many years, the Baltimore Police Department enacted aerial surveillance of its citizens, and Detroit has cameras pointed at public housing residents. Many police departments are also advocating tech giant Amazon’s Ring, essentially creating a network of citizens monitoring one another.

Civil rights advocates are warning of the dangers of such enhanced surveillance, disputing any real link between increased surveillance and a reduction in crime, while noting that the technology is all too often abused by political agendas, where innocent people are spuriously targeted or privacy completely eradicated through such surveillance.

L'articolo US Domestic Video Surveillance Almost On Par With China proviene da InsideOver.

Smoke from rampant bush fires in Australia has been blanketing the cities of Sydney and Adelaide for almost two weeks. Although starting around mid-November, the sheer extent and ferocity of this year’s wildfires have climatologists pointing to climate change as a new culprit, adding fuel to the continent’s woes. Particularly intimidating wildfires have so far burnt hundreds of thousands of hectares to ashes while claiming six lives in the process.

Residents in various New South Wales regions are anxiously awaiting the approach of rampant fires, hoping that authorities will be able to curb their impact on local towns. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has warned people in several affected areas that it is now too late to flee, as only greater danger awaits them if they were to attempt an evacuation at this stage of the chaos. A fire burning on the New South Wales coast has already consumed over 11,000 hectares, doubling in size as it marches inland.

Adding to the mayhem, residents elsewhere are being encouraged to leave areas authorities estimate will soon be beset by walls of fire raging through the wilderness, approaching suburban homes. Over 100 fires are currently burning on the continent, as hot, dry winds and a dearth of rain make conditions highly favourable for massive wildfires across Australia.

Part and parcel of colonial Australia

Fire has always defined historical Australia. Indeed, when James Cook first landed centuries ago, the local Aborigine population was in the process of systematically burning huge swathes of land as far as the eye could see. Observations in Cook’s journal state quite plainly that it appeared that the entire continent was ablaze. Author, mammalogist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery years ago offered his insights into the peculiar relationship Australia has with fire. His epic tale of the continent’s history, The Future Eaters, details the slow decimation of Australia’s megaherbivores at the hands of the Aboriginal population.

One upshot of this extinction was the resultant huge amount of dry matter left lying on the surface of the land, now out of the recycling loop. In the absence of animals eating millions of tons of plant matter each year, when intermittent wildfires did spring up, their effects became more deadly than anything that had gone before. Suffering the same fate as today’s modern Australians, the Aborigines developed a management approach today known as “fire-stick farming.” Hence Cook’s perception that the entire continent was ablaze, as Aborigines burnt vast swathes in one region, just as other areas were already regenerating after previous fires.

They did this, among other reasons, to compensate for the loss of grazers and browsers, which had historically kept the fuel load in balance. Since colonisers usurped the Aborigines’ ability to manage the extent and ferocity of such unnaturally intense fires, Australia has suffered repeated bouts of wildfire so intense, that many lives, houses and even towns have been lost over the centuries.

Particularly deadly bush fires in Australia are often precipitated by hot and windy or prolonged drought conditions. Such environmental contributors led to the Black Saturday fires in 2009 that killed 180 people. Previously, December 2006 gave rise to deadly and rampant fires, East Victoria suffered shocking fire damage in 2003, and in 1983 the “Ash Wednesday” wildfires startled the world as it watched Australia burn uncontrollably.

The Australian NGO, Climate Council, has observed that climate change induced by global warming has had a particularly devastating effect on the Australian continent, making for both more frequent and far more severe wildfires. Although hugely exacerbated after the industrial revolution, some observers note that the current wildfires are but the modern result of practices humans began on the continent thousands of years ago.

A continent defined by fire

Australia is largely populated by what scientists term scleromorphic plant species. The term refers to several typical attributes of such species, but also that they have reproductive methodologies able to withstand fire or, indeed, actually favoured by fire. Even though fire fighting preparedness is markedly higher on the continent than in most other nations, the combination of dry litter, combustible living vegetation and climate change-induced intensity makes wildfires in Australia especially devastating.

While there is still scientific debate as to whether the world is currently in an El Niño cycle (a persistent and intermittent weather pattern that means drought conditions for many southern hemisphere countries), the reality in Australia right now is one of unapproachable, rampant fires that consume everything in their path. For the average Australian citizen, exact scientific explanations mean little, as many now fear for their homes and the safety of their families.

Queensland and other regions remain on a knife-edge, as authorities apply more resources to quell blazes, while everything about the weather and the predictions for this summer’s weather as a whole, counts heavily against them.

L'articolo Australia Ablaze: Sydney Under a Cloud of Smoke Due to Bush Fires proviene da InsideOver.

Social media messaging app Telegram is officially banned in Russia, in spite of its 14 million users there. In embarrassing revelations, however, senior politicians have responded with outrage to being caricatured with memes on the platform, responding on the platform no one Russian is supposed to be on. Officially, no one – and especially not city majors and others – are supposed to be able to access Telegram in the country, yet the mayor of Krasnoyarsk, Sergei Eremin, has been complaining loudly after being pilloried on the platform.

Several memes on a channel on Telegram have made fun of the mayor, and Eremin has taken the bait. Telegram emerged mid-2013 as the darling of modern Russian messaging apps, having been founded by brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, although Pavel Durov is the far more visible face of the company. The brothers are also the co-creators of VK, a massive social messaging network in Russia.

In rather draconian behaviour, during June 2017, the Russian comms watchdog Roskomnadzor demanded that Telegram give the Russian security police (FSB) its encryption keys. Pavel Durov refused, and a Moscow court ordered the blocking of Telegram thereafter. Durov had fled the country in 2014, after being forced to “sign over” his other platform VKontakte (VK) to businesses linked to the Kremlin. A typical strong-arm “engineering” of business outcomes common to Russian, it was obvious at the time that political heavyweights were robbing Durov to benefit their inner circle.

In April of 2018, a Russian court ordered the blocking of non-compliant Telegram in Russia, although it’s still alive and well on home soil. Many Russians at the time simply switched to open proxies available in other countries, although, in reality, the “ban” has proved impossible to enforce.

The sin of free speech

In part, because the Russian state is still broadly ill at ease with rank freedom of speech, Telegram had to be investigated. In an amusing depiction of the freedom that the internet began, the freedom that modern connectivity just keeps improving, the mighty Russian bear hasn’t managed to quash Telegram just yet, however.

Telegram allows users to send text, photos, voice notes and indeed all types of files. Groups on the app can also have up to 200,000 members. Those who employ the chat app WhatsApp will recognise Telegram immediately, as it employs the same one-click-sent-and-two-clicks-read status indicators, for one thing. According to 2018 figures, Telegram has around 200 million users, with around seven per cent being Russian citizens.

Interestingly, Pavel Durov recently alleged that competing app WhatsApp would “never be secure” and is possibly contaminated with government oversight. WhatsApp is the global leader in messaging apps, owned by Facebook, and possibly bedevilling users’ lives with spyware. With the company having recently flagged the possibility that spyware could have infiltrated users’ phones by using the app, Durov maintains this indicates the potential of “backdoor” access by government or other interests. Supposedly equipped with end to end encryption, it appears that WhatsApp is not as secure as most would like to believe.

It was precisely the strong encryption at play in Telegram that finally provoked Russian authorities to attack the app and its founder. The maverick programmer Durov maintains that such a warning from the company indicates the likelihood of bad actors involved with WhatsApp. The Telegram CEO expressed the opinion that WhatsApp would be perpetually open to surveillance, and said that “WhatsApp has a consistent history – from zero encryption at its inception to a succession of security issues strangely suitable for surveillance purposes.”

In his online post, Durov noted that each time a vulnerability appeared with WhatsApp and was patched, a new issue seemed to arise shortly thereafter. WhatsApp has around 1.5 billion global users, something Durov feels certain would be of huge interest to the FBI or other US government agencies. “For WhatsApp to become a privacy-oriented service,” Durov wrote, “it has to risk losing entire markets and clashing with authorities in their home country,” a reality Durov knows only too well.

Telegram shut down in Russia, yet rolling on regardless

Russian authorities in 2018 ordered local ISPs to block Telegram after Durov refused to comply with the demand for encryption keys. The “Yarovaya law,” which mandates that telecom operators preserve their clients’voice and messaging activity for six months, took effect in Russia mid-2018. Under this law, Russian courts pursued Telegram, trying to compel it to store all encryption keys and also hand them over to the FSB if and when ordered to do so. Durov maintains that since the keys are stored on individual users’ phones, this would be impossible or, at least, technically challenging, and unethical.

 Durov said that such a demand would violate the constitutionally enshrined right for Russian citizens to enjoy privacy in correspondence. The FSB had, even before the Yarovaya law taking effect, been badgering Durov for encryption keys while ostensibly in pursuit of six suspected terrorists who employed the platform. Durov responded by pointing out that, apart from the demand being an obnoxious violation of all users’ rights, the six targeted suspects had either never employed Telegram accounts, or had since been deleted because of inactivity in regular housekeeping exercises at Telegram.

Particularly shameless, the FSB at the time had also demanded that Durov either design or otherwise install monitoring technology on the platform, to enable clandestine surveillance by authorities in future.

Durov’s woes did not go unnoticed. During April 2018, protests in support of a free internet were staged in cities around Russia, with residents throwing paper aeroplanes (the Telegram symbol) from rooftops. No doubt raising the further ire of authorities, the protest actions were planned and coordinated via Telegram. Durov came out in support of the protests but asked that protesters please pick up their paper planes when done.

Telegram is now also on the Indian government’s radar after that regime began clamping down on fake news. There are concerns that the app will soon face an outright ban in India. The app is among many being looked at as sources of fake news and is not alone in hot water. The reality of any countrywide ban, however, as Russian realities have shown, is that Telegram is likely to continue unabated, whether authorities in India ban it or not.

L'articolo Telegram App Hanging on in Russia But Facing an Uncertain Future proviene da InsideOver.

Congo-Brazzaville (ROtC) has for many years been looking to foreign agricultural expertise to optimise its agrarian output. Delegations to woo particularly South Africa’s white farmers have been commonplace for a decade or more, as the West African country has sought to jump-start agricultural production in the name of food security. Some 10 million hectares of farmland were originally apportioned to entice foreign commercial farming expertise that could transform the country’s agricultural profile.

Largely dominated by local subsistence farmers, the Congo’s agricultural sector has yet to provide food security for the country’s 5 million-plus citizens. Across the border, the much larger Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) boasts some 80 million hectares of suitably arable land, and approximately 4 million hectares under irrigation. There are also many rivers and green assets in the region that would enable aquacultural and other commercial development. In the DRC too, subsistence farming dominates, and both countries are looking to foreigners to kick start a commercial mindset in the sector.

Notwithstanding the region’s overall fertility, the ROtC’s policies, and the DRC’s similar approach of developing Agri-Business Parks – rural hubs of agricultural expertise – both nations have yet to develop a strong commercial farming sector.

Chinese hopes might flounder in the ROtC

As an underdeveloped oil producer that also has huge potential for commercial crops, the Congo has long been attractive to China. African oil and other critical raw materials supplied to principally Shanghai, China’s massive manufacturing hub, are essential to sustain Beijing’s aggressive push for growth. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which Beijing initiated years ago, has been the Chinese regime’s approach of “We’ll develop in exchange for extraction.” Beijing long ago recognised that in order to sustain the country’s enviable growth rate, a massive exchange overture was needed to secure raw material supplies.

The Belt and Road Initiative offered infrastructure, maritime, road and rail development, as well as loans and expertise from China, to some 65 African, South American, Middle Eastern and Pacific countries. Also called the “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) initiative, Beijing is, however, starting to feel the challenges of such an ambitious stance, with Venezuela’s current hyperinflation putting paid to repayments from that quarter to date. Although not a component of the BRI, loans to the Congo have seen Brazzaville recently seek an IMF bailout to service it’s foreign debt, around a third of which is held by China.

Word on the ground in the South African commercial farming community too is that “China is out,” and opportunities abound for commercial farmers who are happy to relocate. Brazzaville is feeling the pinch of taking Chinese loans and, along with many African regimes, is also becoming disenchanted with the true nature of Beijing’s ambitions.

Speaking off the record, Johannesburg-based agricultural agents have confirmed that the Congo is rejecting Chinese expertise and products, and seeking skills closer to home. Long the target of various African regimes’ attempts to redistribute local land to black Africans in a post-colonial era, white commercial farmers in various African nations have trekked across borders before, to apply their expertise in other countries.

The drop in the oil price in 2014 severely dented Brazzaville’s ability to service its Chinese loans. More than that, however, the mix of cultural objectives has proven challenging on the ground. Disenchanted with a Beijing that swamps its agricultural market with Chinese goods while driving projects with a foreign fervour, Brazzaville in particular is eager to correct. Beijing’s cut-and-paste approach to foreign development does come with benefits for the home country, but the sociopolitical and longer term implications are rubbing Brazzaville-Beijing relations raw. This has been mirrored in the DRC’s cobalt mining sector across the river too.

Beijing no friend of the IMF

Beijing is uncomfortable with the IMF’s typical stipulations of restructured government debt and reworked policies, fearing it will lose influence, no matter that it might at least recoup its loans. Brazzaville is uncomfortable with what it can now see as the outflow of produce in exchange for development that will still not leave a commercial farming sector behind. One South Africa placement agent confirmed: “They don’t want to see Chinese goods there even. Not a sprinkler, not a piece of pipe.”

In a first for Beijing, it might need to deal with an IMF claim to a country’s repayments, development and long term value. While Brazzaville attempts to secure IMF funding to avoid default, the Congolese regime is also actively looking to stem the soft resource-grab enacted by the Chinese. Although there has been Chinese immigration in the region, at policy level at least, relations are tense between parties.

The main subsistence crops of the region are cassava, bananas and plantains, maize, rice and groundnuts. Principal cash crops include tobacco, sugar cane, rubber, cotton, tea, cocoa, coffee and palm oil. While the trickle has yet to become a flood, many white South African farmers are finding pleasant relief free of political stigma, on fertile, cheap land in the Congo. Good rainfall and growing conditions further present as a boon to many South African farmers, being often used to less forgiving climes.

Korea, China and other hungry nations continue to secure tracts of African land to ensure food security for their own nations. Although African politics often doesn’t follow crisp, clear lines, leaders still need to be seen to act in the people’s best interest, and not swapping local food production for golden handshakes. White commercial farmers on the continent are increasingly being seen as a softer and more viable answer to long term commercial farming development in the region. Without recent ties to Europe or elsewhere, white African farmers produce locally, and stay at home, as do the dividends of their commercial farms.

Many South African farmers are heading to the Congo’s Niari Valley in the south west, a particularly fertile region, which also has greater industrial development to support commercial agriculture.

L'articolo Congo Luring Agri Expertise After China Out proviene da InsideOver.

In a rather blunt and still unimaginable depiction of seasonal drought compounded by global warming, hale German forests are starting to die. With some forestry workers describing the situation as “catastrophic,” prolonged drought and unnatural heat are jeopardising German forests’ long term sustainability. Lumberjacks put the number of trees at risk in the millions, as some 110,000 hectares of forest were damaged in 2018.

Apart from such observations on the ground, scientists have corroborated the fact that swathes of German forest are in imminent danger of dying. Spruce needles are producing a kind of constant rain as they fall from the heat and dryness, while notices have been erected in several parks warning hikers of the dangers of falling branches. Researchers at the country’s Thünen Institute of Forest Ecosystems have noted that some 33 million m³ of timber have already been declared dead or lost to harvesting.

In the woods where the Brothers Grimm saw a Big Bad Wolf lure Little Red Riding Hood, all is not well. Fiercely proud of their forests as a whole, German citizens are alarmed at the prospect of dying trees.

Old forest fragility exposed

For many Germans it’s an impossible and painful imagining that their giant old forests succumb to adverse planetary conditions. German forests are clearly in danger of doing just that. A combination of factors have contributed to the current state of decline, but heat stress is paramount among them. Poor annual rainfall that has subjected forests to drought, damaging winter storms as well as a notable bark beetle infestation have all contributed.

Over 1 million adolescent or mature trees have died since 2018, apart from seedling losses. Millions of saplings have failed too due to the manifesting effects of climate change. These seedlings were planted in an attempt to restore forests’ diversity and extent, but are now dying off en masse. Ulrich Dohle of the Bunds Deutscher Forstleute (BDF), a forestry trade union representing more than 10,000 members, said: “It’s a catastrophe. German forests are close to collapsing.” The relevant arms of government, forestry workers, and now too the German population is aware that there is a national crisis playing out in the woodlands of home. With record high temperatures this past June, trees are suffering, while the whole environment remains dangerously prone to wild fires.

The “dramatic tree deaths” that Dohle and his colleagues are reporting began with heavy winter snows that broke many trees’ limbs. Suitably stressed from a previous season of subpar rain, many trees then succumbed to fungal infections. The lack of ensuing, normal rainfall as well as an accompanying bark beetle infestation has killed many especially European Spruce trees.

Particularly tragic, the more than a million trees that have since died are not only the heat intolerant Spruce species, but also prized European Red Beech trees. Planted extensively for the last decade or more, they were hoped to engender a more resistant, climate-stable forest.

A partially deforested Germany?

The poor rainfall last summer meant that many of Germany’s rivers sat at record lows. Many are still below par, while surrounding forests are unusually prone to fire. Dohle added that, in his opinion, “These are no longer single unusual weather events. [This] is climate change.” The co-director of the national Center for Integrative Biodiversity, Helge Bruelheide, has also warned that “… if the trend prevails and the annual precipitation sinks below 400 millimeters, then there will be areas in Germany that will no longer be forestable.”

Wild fluctuations in precipitation are no good for established forests, and authorities have observed severe swings to less than half of the anticipated seasonal rainfall recorded in some areas over the last few years. The densely forested Lüdenscheid area was mentioned by Dole as an example, where precipitation had dwindled from 1000mm, to but 483 millimeters in 2018.

The fire risk has risen to the point where authorities are scrambling for additional resources. The first of 20 new fire trucks have already been delivered to fire crews in several German states. A total of 300 will be distributed around the country. With forestry personnel having shrunk by some 50 percent over the last 20 years, managing recovery or battling forest fires also poses a challenge, one the authorities will need to address.

German forestry workers are calling for a summit to map out exactly how to turn things around and how many hands it will take. European catchments have collected but 10 percent more rain in the first six months of 2019 than they did in 2018, making for a continuing drought. Even lifelong foresters are unable to remember such a dire situation.

German forestry personnel understand they’re dealing with a crisis. Speaking on national radio, Michael Blaschke, a spokesman for the North Rhine-Westphalia’s forestry commission, Wald und Holz NRW, said: “We don’t know where it will end.” The German government is looking to emergency relief funds for machinery and personnel to both combat infestations and fires, as well as plant more trees in more places faster than ever before. Everyone will be hoping for the next summer rains to be normal, in order to finally quench two seasons of dry, damaging weather.

L'articolo Mythical German Forests Are Dying proviene da InsideOver.

The Pentagon is withdrawing US troops from Syria but, rather than heading homeward, the troops are set to be deployed in Iraq. Mark Esper, US Secretary of Defense, has confirmed the redeployment to western Iraq. The resurgence of Islamic State (IS) militants has clinched the decision to deploy some 1,000 US soldiers to that region. This is in opposition to President Trump’s last assertion that US troops would withdraw from Syria and return home.

Continuing hostilities in Syria show no sign of pending resolution, in spite of the fact that a recent US-brokered ceasefire between Kurdish fighters and Turkey has facilitated the current US redeployment. All of the US troops being withdrawn from northern Syria will relocate to western Iraq, a resurgent hot spot. Alongside the US withdrawal, Kurdish forces say they have also withdrawn all fighters from the besieged Syrian town of Ras al-Ain.

Although it would appear that the US is hastily grabbing the opportunity to withdraw after it brokered a temporary ceasefire between warring parties, the direct route home for US troops seems to have fallen away. Correspondents on the ground in Syria have speculated whether the withdrawal forms part of a wider extraction post ceasefire, although the troops will still not return home just yet, remaining active in the Middle East.

Armoured vehicles followed by a convoy of ambulances have left northern Syrian positions en route to Ras al-Ain, while President Trump’s withdrawal announcement has also paved the way for Turkish military action against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

Republicans berate Trump’s Syrian plans

Senior Republican Mitch McConnell has said that Trump’s withdrawal, particularly precipitating Turkey’s offensive against Syrian positions, was a “strategic nightmare.” In contrast, the president himself has labeled the current Syria-Turkey border hostilities as “strategically brilliant” for US aims. To whatever extent US troops maintained a fragile peace, this has now been lost, as the ceasefire appears tenuous, with sporadic breaches from all sides. Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish positions, has prompted many American politicians – including from within the Republican Party – to accuse President Trump of abandoning a former US ally. The SDF previously fought alongside US forces against Islamic State (IS) groups in Syria.

The ceasefire mandated that Turkey halt hostilities for five days while Kurdish fighters withdrew. Whether Kurdish fighters relinquished their positions en masse or not, and whether Turkey afforded them the full five days to withdraw, is now lost in varying understandings of the agreement. After Trump’s command effectively withdrew all US troops from the border area, however, Turkish forces immediately came in to attack Kurdish fighters.

Turkey’s objectives are nuanced. In a bid to generate a safe zone to house some 2 million Syria refugees in their own country, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to push Kurdish fighters out of the north of Syria. Turkey views Kurdish fighters as terrorists, and is also keen to resettle the millions of Syrian refugees currently on Turkish soil. In terms of the ceasefire, the prominent Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has committed to a withdrawal from a 120km area, from Tal Abyad to Ras al-Ain.

For its part, Turkey is pushing to control a far larger area in order to ensure a cessation of hostilities so close to home. Turkey alleges that combatants have not vacated the area, whereas the SDF has alleged that Turkey prevented its fighters and civilian wounded from leaving Ras al-Ain. Both sides accuse one another of ceasefire violations. Turkey said that a recent attack left one of its soldiers dead and another wounded near Tal Abyad in Syria.

Hopes for stability continue

In other overtures, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has visited Jordan with a bipartisan assembly of US lawmakers to discuss the ongoing crisis with King Abdullah. Pelosi and many other senior American politicians have been outspokenly critical of President Trump’s edict to withdraw US troops from the north of Syria.

Pelosi spoke of a deepening crisis exacerbated by Turkish hostilities, expressing concern over “regional stability” and a worsening refugee situation. She specifically pointed to the “… dangerous opening that has been provided to Isis (IS), Iran and Russia,” made possible by the US withdrawal. Also in the region, US Secretary of Defense Esper said the redeployed troops are needed to “help defend Iraq” and quash a renewed attempt by IS to reestablish in the western region.

President Trump posted a tweet that was later removed, claiming Esper had said that the ceasefire is “holding up very nicely.” The Turkish defence ministry, meanwhile, has accused Kurdish forces of being behind 14 “provocative” attacks that occurred within some 36 hours, mainly in Ras al-Ain. Turkey insists its troops are abiding by the ceasefire, however the SDF has accused Turkey of sporadic violence in spite of it, and also failing to provide the safe corridor of passage agreed to for Kurdish fighters.

One reporter in Ras al-Ain watched the convoy of armoured US vehicles and ambulances leave the town’s hospital, whereupon the hospital building immediately burst into flames, set alight by unknown combatants.

L'articolo US Troops Relocating In The Middle East proviene da InsideOver.

Since poaching rhino horns became a well organised international trade several years ago, its tempo and drive has resembled a military operation. Current figures show that two to three African rhinos are poached in various locales across Africa every day. This has been the statistical norm for five years now. Elsewhere, particularly the Sumatran (Indonesian) and other vulnerable subspecies remain on the cusp of extinction. The war being waged for the horns of the Black and White African rhinoceros, however, gives rise to the bulk of statistics.

In South Africa and various other responsive regions across the continent, numbers are rising in some private and state reserves. Thanks to some innovative and intense responses from government and private foundations, this is a war where the good guys are making headway, yet the situation remains fraught. A new film starring actress Shannon Elizabeth, has outlined the nature of the illegal trade in rhino horn, while giving a clear glimpse of future challenges. Stroop: Journey into the Rhino Horn War lays bare the alarmingly established trade in poached rhino horn, documenting the illicit product’s journey from the African veld to the murky trafficking backrooms of China and Vietnam.

Success comes in spite of poaching pressure

Despite some initially dire statistics – where often smaller, private reserves around South Africa were completely cleaned out of resident rhino in targeted attacks – the effort to conserve rhinos has had some notable successes. A decade ago, approximately 20,800 rhinos were roaming the earth. Today, overall rhino numbers have gone up to around 29,500 – a substantial increase in population numbers.

Loss of genetic diversity – with the Northern White rhino subspecies declared functionally extinct in 2018 – remains a large concern for future population stability. The simple numerical impact of over ten years of intense, organised poaching, has also made for a desperate backdrop to rhino survival. It does often seem, however, particularly in South Africa, where the government together with polished conservation organisations have worked in tandem to safeguard rhinos, that the good guys can win.

South Africa has brought Southern White rhino numbers up from a mere 100 individuals circa 1920, to around 20,000 today. Similar success stories dot this landscape, with the Indian and Nepalese authorities also presiding over the rise of Greater One-horned, or Indian rhino numbers. From as few as 200 individuals, that species numbers around 3,550 animals today. In South Africa, statistics show that the larger reserves like Kruger National Park – in reality, a transnational park sharing a massive conservation area with neighbouring Mozambique – offer poachers the most opportunity. Where land is expansive and outposts distant, poachers operate with greater impunity.

Stroop: Journey into the Rhino Horn War has been praised as the first top-to-bottom, comprehensive recording of the rhino horn trade in all of its grisly reality. Both a shocking expose for many removed from the African bush, as well as an alarm call for the future, the film has galvanised further public support for rhino conservation. Rhinos across Africa are often subject to VIP treatment from armed guards, who trail individuals day and night in order to protect them. Stroop makes it plain that in this dire reality, that kind of paramilitary conservation simply has to intensify.

The film opened the Rotterdam Wildlife Film Festival in October 2018, and both as a documentary and expose, has won rave reviews wherever it’s been screened. Perhaps most revealing for some viewers, the movie clearly shows how middlemen and other traders in Asia play on the limited prospects or existing poverty of the poachers who do the killing. A complex, nuanced trade, the film reveals why it is so difficult to tackle rhino poaching from a single entry point.

Is the fight for rhinos’ survival succeeding?

“iJob ijob” is a common refrain in South Africa, and it essentially denotes resignation. One’s job is one’s job and whatever one must do to make money is just the way it is. Very often, removed from an educated understanding of the implications of poaching as well as any of the financial benefits of conservation, local illegal hunters are dazzled by the thousands of dollars paid for rhino horns. Far removed from Asian middlemen halfway across the world, locals do the dirty work, pass on horns to furtive, interloper agents, who then ship the horns along various routes to their Asian destinations.

The reality of rhino poaching is a complex and sometimes heartbreaking story of mixed players in the game. Successfully addressing the various actors in the rhino horn war necessitates social overtures, persistent education and criminal prosecution. Future conservation needs to be a diverse, intense and intelligent drive if rhinos are to keep recovering in numbers. The rise of a massive Asian middle class has brought the desires of traditional medicine to the forefront of trade, resulting in the current constant war on the world’s rhinoceros.

The future survival of all rhino species hinges largely on two main approaches. It will take state of the art, military grade protection of rhinos on the ground, along with an intensive educational drive directed at consumer countries, notably China and Vietnam, as well as towards the local communities from where poachers are drawn. Only the slow changing of mindsets can enable a future where the currently intense pressure on rhinos can be relieved.

If a statistical gain is indicative of “winning” the war, then it’s fair to say that the good guys are on top right now. That rosy pronunciation, however, comes against the backdrop of consistently intense poaching pressure and an unabated demand from Asia. A great challenge too is the constant need for funding when, in Africa at least, authorities often have diverse pressing social situations to address. The current situation of organisations pushing for the maximum government contribution, while topping up from private coffers as needed, seems set to remain the model for rhino survival going forward.

L'articolo Are We Winning or Losing the War Against Rhino Extinction? proviene da InsideOver.