World Waring: Syria, Somalia, Yemen have bombs raining just like Ukraine. Sudan conflicts seeing wide spread raping of kids

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Taiwan seeks 'peaceful coexistence' with China, president says​

Yimou LeeOctober 10, 20234:12 AM EDTUpdated 2 days ago

TAIPEI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Taiwan seeks "peaceful coexistence" with China with free and unrestricted interaction but the island will be democratic for generations to come, President Tsai Ing-wen said in her last national day speech on Tuesday.

Taiwan, claimed by China as its own territory, has come under increasing military and political pressure from Beijing, including two major sets of Chinese war games near the island since August of last year, heightening fears of a conflict which would have global ramifications.

Tsai, who cannot stand again as president at elections in January after two terms in office, has repeatedly offered talks with China, which has rejected them as it views her as a separatist.

Speaking in front of the presidential office, Tsai said the strength of international support for Taiwan had reached an "unprecedented height".

"Since this is a time we can now face the world with confidence and resolve, we can also be calm and self-assured in facing China, creating conditions for peaceful coexistence and future developments across the Taiwan Strait," she added.

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Tsai said it was her duty to safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty and its democratic, free way of life, seeking "free, unrestricted, and unburdened interactions" between Taiwan and China's people.

Differences between Taiwan and China must be resolved peacefully, and maintaining the status quo is "critical" to ensuring peace, she added, to a big round of applause.

China's foreign ministry responded to Tsai's speech on Tuesday, calling the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities the "greatest threat" to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for "seeking independence and provocation".

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"No matter what the DPP authorities say or do, they cannot change the fact that Taiwan is a part of China. It will not change the general trend that China will inevitably move towards reunification," ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing.

The parade part of the event featured dancers, athletes just returned from the Asian Games in China's Hangzhou where Taiwan won 19 gold medals, as well as soldiers marching in close formation.

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A formation of five of Taiwan's new advanced jet trainer, the AT-5 Brave Eagle, flew over the venue, underscoring Tsai's efforts to boost domestic weapons development, that includes submarines.

'DEMOCRATIC AND FREE'​

In the face of China's threats, Taiwan has been heartened by support from fellow democracies, especially the United States and its allies whose lawmakers and occasionally officials have flocked to Taipei, defying Chinese anger.

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"With confidence, we will show the world that the Taiwanese people are dignified, independent, warm, and kind. The Taiwanese people are happy to be people of the world and will be a democratic and free people for generations to come," Tsai said.

Tsai looked back at her major policy achievements since she took office in 2016, including marriage equality, a first for Asia, to an audience that included Canadian and Japanese lawmakers and former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, as well as ordinary Taiwanese.

Beijing says Taiwan's government must accept that both China and Taiwan belong to "one China", which Tsai has refused to do.

Taiwan celebrates Oct. 10 as its national day, marking an uprising in 1911 that ended China's last imperial dynasty and ushered in the Republic of China.

The republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's Communists, who set up the People's Republic of China.

The Republic of China remains Taiwan's formal name, though the government tends to stylise it as the Republic of China, Taiwan, to distinguish it from the government in Beijing.

Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Lincoln Feast and Ed Osmond

 

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The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of seeking to escalate the situation in the region after the shelling of the airports in Damascus and Aleppo

 

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BREAKING: The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory could trigger an armed escalation across the entire region.

The ministry described the strikes as a blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty and fundamental norms of international law.

 

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[MASTERBAKER]

How Taiwan Will Stop China's Invasion​

 

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Ignoring Syrian Crisis Risks Destabilizing Region, Experts Say​

Lisa SchleinMarch 23, 2024 3:44 PM

GENEVA —
More than 13 years after Syria erupted into civil war, the United Nations says the country has become a more dangerous place for civilians, noting that the oppressive government of President Bashir al-Assad that sparked the flames of conflict remains in power and continues to escalate hostilities on multiple fronts.

“The Syria crisis remains one of the most deadly to civilians in the world. Hostilities continue to plague various parts of Syria and have recently seen a sharp spike, particularly in the north,” said Adam Abdelmoula, resident and humanitarian coordinator for Syria, at a news conference in Geneva Friday.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, says 454 civilians, including 88 women and 115 children, were killed in the first 10 months of 2023 because of the conflict.

Those casualties are the latest manifestation of the toll taken by the war on Syria’s population. The U.N. estimates that since the start of the war on March 15, 2011, 300,000 people have been killed, more than 12 million have been displaced — 6.8 million inside Syria and 5.4 million as refugees in five neighboring countries.

Speaking from the capital, Damascus, Abdelmoula said, “Today, a staggering 16.7 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance in Syria,” noting that nearly 13 million people are suffering from acute hunger.

He said the economy is in freefall, causing prices for the most basic commodities to soar. “We hear daily how people are forced to forgo meals, pull their children from school so they can help support the family, or mothers choosing to skip their medications in order to feed their children. This is unconscionable.”

While man-made disasters are largely responsible for the catastrophic situation facing Syria’s civilian population, natural disasters and climate shocks have exacerbated the distress.

OCHA says that the devastating earthquake in February 2023 in northern Syria killed some 6,000 people and injured more than 12,800, “increasing the strain on services, causing displacement, and inflicting widespread damage,” adding that “many families lost their main breadwinner at a time when the economic situation was already dire.”

OCHA says two days of heavy flooding last week affected more than 15,700 people at several displacement camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo. It says that more than 3,300 family tents have been damaged and 500 destroyed in more than 100 flooding incidents in northwest Syria this year.



FILE - Syrian family members sit in front of their tent at a refugee camp in Bar Elias, Lebanon, on June 13, 2023. Experts warn that without much more humanitarian assistance, more Syrian refugees could flood into Lebanon and other nearby nations.

The U.N. is appealing for $4.07 billion to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to 10.8 million people out of the 16.7 million Syrians in need this year.

Abdelmoula warns that funding is almost nonexistent and that the spillover effects of the war in Gaza and other crises are making it difficult to receive support for Syria from the international community.

“We are competing with so many crises. Look at the global picture. You have Gaza, you have Ukraine, you have Sudan, you have Afghanistan — and the list goes on and on,” Abdelmoula said.

“With each emerging crisis, the Syrian one keeps being pushed to the back burner. We are struggling to keep global attention on Syria, and that is proving to be challenging,” he said.

Abdelmoula warns that ignoring Syria’s calls for help will have a dangerous, destabilizing impact in the region and beyond, including “a resurgence of terrorism, which we have seen lately.”

He also warned that turning a blind eye to Syria’s plight will likely trigger a renewed flow of refugees into countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, which already are buckling under the strain of hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees.

“We could see a situation where migration to Europe would increase,” he said, noting that migration numbers in Europe already are surging.

“In 2023, we have seen 181,000 new applications for asylum in Europe. That represents a 38% increase over 2022,” he said.

“If increased resources are not provided because the Syrian people need them, then donor countries should provide them out of sheer national interest,” he said. “Migration is going to increase very significantly, unless we can keep people in their national borders.

“We are still in the first quarter of the year, but with the level of funding that we have and the vulnerability that we see around us, it is not hard to conclude that the migration will only increase.

“It is less costly to provide for people to remain in their countries as opposed to providing for them when they reach any destination of refuge,” he said.

 

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I was thinking about this in a work meeting today.

Indian supervisor asked us if we kept up with the news and what's going on in the world.

I said yeah, France is pulling out of Mali finally after 10 years.


Crickets.

What about this thread….

look in here, tell me what you see or don’t see

 

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Nearly 80 Al Shabab militants were killed in Jubaland, southern Somalia, the country's authorities say.
From Jubaland instead said that 135 militants were killed in the attacks, in addition to capturing the terrorist group's weapons.

This comes after three separate coordinated attacks that militants carried out against military bases in the west and south of the city of Kismayo.

According to Al Shabab, more than 70 soldiers were killed during their attacks on military bases.

 

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Warring parties committing ‘widespread sexual violence’ in Sudan: HRW​

Some instances of sexual and gender-based violence were so severe they led to death, according to the rights group.​

Sexual and gender-based violence has been rampant in Khartoum and its sister cities, in addition to attacks on hospitals and blocking of humanitarian assistance amid the devastating civil war [Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters]
The warring parties in the conflict in Sudan have engaged in widespread sexual and gender-based violence in the capital Khartoum, an NGO has reported.

Forces commanded by both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have regularly carried out rape and gang rape among other crimes since the start of the civil war in April 2023, a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday said. It also noted numerous attacks on health facilities and staff.

The report, which is far from the first to note the use of sexual violence in Sudan, was based on interviews with service providers, including healthcare and social workers, counsellors and lawyers who directly interacted with hundreds of survivors of sexual violence in Khartoum, as well as the sister cities of Khartoum North and Omdurman. Access to survivors was limited due to war conditions, it said.

“It finds that warring parties have subjected women and girls, from ages nine through to at least 60, to widespread sexual violence, including rape and gang rape. Women and girls have also been subjected to forced marriage and child marriage. Men and boys have also been victims of sexual violence,” HRW said.

Most cases were attributed to paramilitary RSF forces, which embedded itself in many areas of the capital in the early days of the war. Although accused of fewer violations, numerous crimes were also attributed to the army.

“Services providers described particularly high levels of sexual violence in populated areas of Khartoum North and Omdurman, including by SAF after it regained control of parts of Omdurman in January 2024,” according to HRW.

Many survivors said they were raped by multiple perpetrators, sometimes involving up to five RSF fighters, who also seized women and girls from their homes, streets and workplaces, and detained or confined them in homes and other facilities they occupied in Khartoum and the sister cities.

“We received a case of a mother and her four daughters who were raped in front of their father and brothers. They were not able to leave their home as the RSF placed them under some sort of house arrest. These women were raped repeatedly for days. One of the daughters was pregnant when they were able to reach us,” a health worker in Khartoum was quoted as saying.

The RSF also subjected women and girls to forced and child marriage, according to the rights group, which added that some relatives agreed to such marriages in hopes of protecting the women or girls from rape outside the marriage, or for financial reasons.

HRW said many survivors have been left with immense physical, emotional, social and psychological scars after suffering sexual and gender-based violence. In at least four cases, the physical injuries suffered by victims led to death.

“Many survivors sought to terminate their pregnancy when they became pregnant from rape; these survivors could not necessarily access abortion care,” it said.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, also confirmed widespread sexual violence across Sudan in a report earlier this month, especially in the Darfur region, where the RSF has also engaged in acts constituting ethnic cleansing.

More than 10 million people have been displaced since the war started in April 2023, according to the United Nations, and the conflict shows no signs of immediately stopping as warring parties continue to vie for control of Sudan.

 

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