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By Kelly Ng

BBC News

Pakistan is dominated by news of politics as it prepares for general elections next week. But when hundreds of citizens marched on the capital Islamabad in December, they did so with a completely different agenda.

Among them was Sammi Deen Baloch, hugging a laminated photograph of her father – as she had done on numerous occasions over the past 14 years – and demanding to know where he is.

Or if he is even still alive.

The 26-year-old is one of several women who led the march, which saw protesters walk almost 1,000 miles from the restive Balochistan province, demanding the whereabouts of family members whom they say have been “forcibly disappeared”. At least 200 people were arrested and police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

Campaigns like this are routine in the conflict-ridden province and women play a key part in organising them.

Balochistan, in the west of Pakistan, has been the scene of a long-running nationalist insurgency.

Separatist militants say they are fighting for a free Balochistan.

The protesters say their loved ones – many of them men – have been picked up, tortured and killed with impunity by Pakistani security forces, amid a bloody counterinsurgency operation. Islamabad authorities have denied these accusations.

They believe there have been thousands of such disappearances over the last two decades.

The UN defines enforced disappearances as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state”.

Vanished without a trace

Sammi’s father, Deen Mohammad Baloch, was forcibly disappeared when she was just 11. In June 2009, armed forces stormed a public hospital in south-western Balochistan when he was the doctor on shift and detained him.

“Until today we do not know what has happened to him. My mother does not know if she is a widow or still married. And we still don’t know why they took him,” she told the BBC.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a non-profit organisation representing family members of those who disappeared in Balochistan, says approximately 7,000 cases have been registered with them since 2004.

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances convened by the government records 2,752 active cases of enforced disappearances in the province as of January 2024, but Pakistan’s interim prime minister claimed in a recent interview with the BBC that only about 50 people are missing.

In 2021, Pakistan’s parliament – the National Assembly – passed a bill to criminalise enforced disappearances, but it has not yet come into force. Court directives have also been issued over the years to hold the state responsible for such disappearances, but rights groups say these pledges have rung hollow.

The state has branded Baloch activists – many of whom have advocated Baloch nationalism and irredentism – as secessionists or trouble-makers.

But many people who were picked up in recent years are Baloch people who do not have anything to do with the armed resistance, Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui claims.

He said officials instead detain “on mere suspicion and at times on false information provided by rival pro-Pakistan groups based in Balochistan”.

Protesters have been calling for Pakistani authorities to deal with the accused according to the law, not detain them arbitrarily.

“If they had done anything wrong, produce them to the court. These forced disappearances have brought so much suffering to our family. My life has completely changed since 2009. We’ve been put through so much mental torture. I don’t know what life we are living. It is very painful,” Sammi said.

Mahrang Baloch, who organised last year’s long march and was arrested twice in the midst of it, told the BBC she hoped it “brought global attention to the human rights violations and state oppression prevalent in Balochistan”.

The 30-year-old, who is a prominent figure in the Baloch resistance movement, said that in 2009 her father Abdul Gaffar Langove was taken – allegedly by security service officers – and found dead with signs of torture two years later. Her brother was detained for three months in 2017.

“Cases of forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan escalated to an alarming extent… Many people remain unaccounted for. Some may be released after being held in secret cells and tortured. But the conditions of their mental and physical health are far from normal,” she said.

A Baloch man living in exile in London said he fled Pakistan for fear of being abducted.

“The Pakistani army had been trying to impose hegemony on citizens in Balochistan. We have a lot of gold and other natural resources in the province, but the Baloch people do not receive resources from the national government. Some places don’t even have proper drinking water,” said the man, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity.

He noted cases of Baloch activists who mysteriously died while in exile, including activist Karima Baloch who was found dead in December 2020 near Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada. Earlier that year, Pakistani journalist Sajid Hussain, who served as editor-in-chief of The Balochistan Times while in exile in Sweden, was found dead in a river north of Stockholm. Authorities in the respective countries have said the circumstances around both deaths were suspicious.

Exploited and alienated

Balochistan recently returned to the global spotlight after it was hit by air strikes from Iran in January, leading Pakistan to retaliate with strikes in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.

Both states say they were targeting Baloch militants.

Historically, the term Balochistan has been used to refer to a wider territory that includes land in Iran and Afghanistan.

Baloch groups in both Pakistan and Iran are part of a decades-long struggle for greater autonomy, with some fighting for an independent Balochistan state.

The Balochs have blamed the Pakistani government for exploiting and profiting from the province’s resources while neglecting its development.

It is also a crucial part of a multi-billion dollar project funded by China called the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, but many believe the Baloch people will not receive the employment opportunities created through the project.

“The entire province is racked by alienation, dejection and frustration towards Pakistan as well as those Punjabi socio-political elites who call the shots in Pakistan,” said Burzine Waghmar from the University of London’s SOAS South Asia Institute.

Protesters and observers believe it is in Pakistan’s political and economic interest to resolve the conflict in Balochistan, but they hold little hope that the upcoming elections would bring change for the Baloch people, and fear it may even disenfranchise the community further.

The state has been pushing non-Baloch candidates to contest in Baloch constituencies, which will further alienate the already-marginalised community, Mr Siddiqui said.

The election is of little significance for the Baloch, Mahrang said.

“Whichever government comes into power, the human rights violations and extrajudicial killings will persist in Balochistan. It has never been of genuine concern to the leadership,” she said.https://blejermot.com/

Pakistan’s former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif only returned from self-imposed exile last year but is now the clear front-runner to win the 8 February election.

Few could have predicted his return to the top, despite his dominance in Pakistani politics for much of these past three decades.

His last term ended in him being convicted of corruption, and the time before that, he was toppled in a military coup.

Still, he appears on the brink of making another successful comeback, a dramatic turnaround for someone who had long been viewed as an opponent to Pakistan’s powerful military.

“He’s a top candidate to be the next premier not because he’s wildly popular – he certainly is not – but more so because he’s played his cards right,” says analyst Michael Kugelman, the South Asia Director at the Wilson Center think tank.

Mr Sharif’s arch-rival and former prime minister Imran Khan – previously backed by the military – is now the one locked up in jail, his popular party restricted across the country.

What’s his story?

One might say that Mr Sharif is the king of comebacks. He’s certainly done it before.

Ousted from his second term in a 1999 military coup, he returned in the 2013 parliamentary elections, staging a triumphant comeback to become prime minister for a record third term.

That was a historic moment for the country, as it was the first transition from one democratically elected government to another since independence in 1947.

But Nawaz Sharif’s last period in office was marred by upheavals – starting with a six-month opposition blockade of the capital Islamabad, and ending with court proceedings over corruption allegations which eventually led to the Supreme Court disqualifying him in July 2017. He resigned shortly afterwards.

In July 2018 he was found guilty of corruption by a court in Pakistan and given a 10-year sentence. But he was released two months later when the court suspended the sentences, pending a final judgement.

By December 2018 however, he was jailed for corruption again, this time for seven years, in relation to his family’s ownership of steel mills in Saudi Arabia.

He then fought for bail arguing he needed medical treatment in the UK. This was granted in 2019, allowing him to flee to London where he lived in a luxury flat in exile for four years until his return last October.

Even in absentia though, he has been one of the country’s leading politicians for the past 35 years.

Early years

Nawaz Sharif was born into the family of a prominent Lahore industrialist in 1949 and made his mark in politics representing an urban constituency.

A protégé of military leader Gen Zia ul-Haq – who ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988 – Mr Sharif is perhaps best known outside Pakistan for ordering the country’s first nuclear tests in 1998.

He first came to national prominence during the early days of Gen Zia’s martial law, serving as Punjab province’s finance and then chief minister from 1985-1990.

Observers recall him as not being a particularly impressive political figure, but said he nonetheless proved himself an adept administrator. He became prime minister in 1990, but was dismissed in 1993, clearing the way for the then opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, to form a government.

Owner of Ittefaq Group, a leading steel mill conglomerate, he is among the country’s wealthiest industrialists.

Military coup

After becoming prime minister again in 1997 with a comfortable majority, Mr Sharif appeared to dominate the political landscape and exerted a powerful hold over all the country’s major institutions – apart from the army.

Then, frustrated by opposition in parliament, he tried to pass a constitutional amendment that would have enabled him to enforce Sharia law. He also confronted other power centres – a mob of his supporters ransacked the Supreme Court and he tried to rein in Pakistan’s powerful military.

But Mr Sharif’s overthrowing in 1999 by then army chief Pervez Musharraf showed how dangerous it was for any politician to attempt to curtail the military’s influence in Pakistan.

Mr Sharif was arrested, jailed and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of hijacking and terrorism. He was also convicted of corruption and banned for life from political activities.

But an alleged deal, brokered by the Saudis, saved him and other family members from being put behind bars. Mr Sharif and 40 members of his family were exiled to Saudi Arabia for what was supposed to be a period of 10 years.

Owen Bennett-Jones, BBC Islamabad correspondent at the time, recalls that when Mr Sharif was removed from power, many Pakistanis expressed great relief, describing him as corrupt, incompetent and power-hungry.

Corruption allegations

Mr Sharif’s first time in the political wilderness lasted until his triumphal return to Pakistan in 2007 following a deal with the military.

Back in Pakistan, he patiently bided his time in opposition. His PML-N party won about a quarter of parliamentary seats in the 2008 elections.

Though tipped to win the 2013 elections he surprised many with the scale of his victory. He saw off a spirited challenge from the party of former cricketer Imran Khan, who became prime minister after him, in politically crucial Punjab province.

But after assuming power in 2013, Mr Sharif faced a six-month blockade of Islamabad by Imran Khan’s PTI party which accused him of rigging the elections.

There were public accusations that the blockade had been launched at the instigation of some officials in the military’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Analysts believe the military establishment wanted to put Mr Sharif under pressure to prevent him from expanding trading ties with India – a process begun under the previous government.

He had promised in his third term to turn Pakistan into an “Asian tiger”, with new infrastructure and a government with “zero tolerance for corruption”.

But problems multiplied and the only economic highlight – the Chinese-funded $56bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor- has been mired in the country’s fragile economy with only some projects delivered so far.

In 2016, the Panama Papers leaks unleashed a new threat for the prime minister which resulted in claims of corruption being investigated by the Supreme Court.

The allegations related to his family’s ownership of apartments in an upmarket area of central London, with questions being raised over the money trail that led to the acquisition of those properties.

Nawaz Sharif denied all wrongdoing and called the charges politically motivated.

However, on 6 July 2018 a court in Pakistan found him guilty of corruption and sentenced him – in absentia – to 10 years in prison. When the sentence was announced he was in London where his terminally-ill wife was receiving medical treatment.

Mr Sharif’s daughter and son-in-law were also convicted.

Opportunity strikes

The former leader chose to stay in in London as his rival Imran Khan ruled the country.

But Khan’s term in power was also turbulent and his relationship with the military deteriorated.

In 2022, Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence paving the way for Mr Sharif’s party, led by his younger brother Shehbaz, to take charge.

Mr Sharif has been tilting to get back into power even since Imran Khan’s fall, stepping up political engagements.

He made a triumphant return in October 2023, and in the months since all legal cases that were still outstanding against him have melted away, after he was apparently welcomed back by the same military establishment which toppled him in a coup.

His path is clear to retake power if his party wins the most votes.

Not that they’re a shoo in- there’s a lot of resentment against Mr Sharif and his party, who are blamed for Pakistan’s economic misery. Mr Sharif is also heavily tarnished by his corruption accusations.

“They are going to win it but no party really ever comes in with an absolute majority, apart from Sharif once,” said Dr Farzana Shaikh, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Asia-Pacific programme.

“Everything points to him coming in as prime minister, or head of the largest party,” she said, but added that it was uncertain what type of working majority he might have.

Will he get a fourth term as PM?

It is a turbulent, volatile time in Pakistan politics and Mr Sharif is presenting himself as the experienced leader with a track record of three premierships.

He’s promising to stabilise the economy and “right the ship” in Pakistan.

“Sharif’s supporters will hope his narrative of stability, experience, and dependability will get him votes – and also make the army comfortable with him, or at least comfortable with his party,” says Mr Kugelman.

But analysts are still wary. He has a number of issues to navigate – not least an economy in crisis, for which his party is largely blamed, and widespread feelings the vote will not be fair because his main opponent is locked up.

“He is struggling because his party, led by his brother, was senior partner in the former coalition government, which had to implement a series of economic policies which have exacted a very high toll,” says Dr Shaikh.

“Sharif and his party have been blamed for the economic misery if not the crisis that engulfs the country.”

And then there’s the military, which has a big say in how Pakistan is run.

While abroad, the ex-PM had been very vocal on occasion against the armed forces.

In particular he blamed an ex-head of the feared ISI intelligence agency and the former army chief of staff for political instability in the country, charges they denied.

He also strongly criticised the nation’s judiciary, accusing judges of collusion and saying he had been the victim of “bogus cases”. This, he said, had resulted in a crippled democracy that hadn’t let any of Pakistan’s prime ministers complete their constitutional tenure in office.

The military has never breathed a word on whether it prefers Mr Sharif or Mr Khan or any other political leader – stating on record that it does not get involved in politics.

But to analysts it would appear he has done a deal now with the military to facilitate his return.

“The fact that he’s received so much legal relief since returning home proves that he’s back in the good graces of a powerful military that exerts heavy influence over the judiciary,” says Mr Kugelman.

He notes the “great irony” of Mr Sharif’s success; at the moment he’s riding high but he used to constantly spar with the military.

“[But] in Pakistan, when you’re a political leader and have the army behind you, your chances of electoral success tend to be higher.”https://tehopeng.com/

By Tom Symonds

Home affairs correspondent, BBC News

Evidence that the Duke of Sussex had been the victim of phone hacking first emerged 11 years ago during the trial of media executives at the now defunct News of the World.

Prince Harry was put off from taking legal action in the civil courts by a palace culture which held that the royals don’t sue.

But that changed when his friends Elton John and David Furnish introduced him to David Sherborne, the slim-suited barrister who has led phone hacking cases for much of the last decade.

Now, despite some in the newspaper industry playing down their significance, he has achieved two big wins in his battle against what has become known in court as ‘unlawful information gathering’.

Most phone hacking victims reach a settlement with the newspapers, finalised with brief statements and few details.

Prince Harry tried another strategy. He turned down offers to settle, turned up at court, and gave evidence in person.

He was rewarded with a judgement last year which not only backed his claims about 15 newspaper articles but set out in detail what Mirror Group Newspapers knew about unlawful practices at its titles.

That was gold-dust for his campaign. It provided solid proof for his claims that he and others were unfairly victimised by red-top reporters and investigators desperate for celebrity scoops.

It made today’s settlement with MGN much more likely.

Incidentally, the damages he’s been awarded are not the highest for a phone-hacking case. In 2008 the Professional Footballers Association chief Gordon Taylor was reportedly given a sum of £400,000. Prince Harry’s payout is around £300,000, for the repeated hacking of a senior royal, potentially a major security risk.

The former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie suggested Prince Harry had accepted a “much smaller deal than he could have done if he wanted a fight”.

Mr MacKenzie went on to talk about the prince’s popularity in the UK, saying the settlement “indicates that even he understands that the nation is not behind him, even though the allegations may be serious.”

In fact, according to the Prince’s barrister, he made the offer, not MGN, which, in accepting it, avoided much larger legal bills.

Though the Prince has been slow to flesh out his comments in statements about his anti-media campaign, it does seem likely he is not in it for the money.

He has repeated many times that he is pursuing “positive change” in the media culture, and that he will “see it through to the end.”

A successful end for him would mean defeating Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, and News Group Newspapers, now News UK, which publishes the Sun. Those cases are currently crawling through the courts.

There will be protracted legal arguments during 2024. Key to Prince Harry’s success will be getting Associated in particular, to disclose evidence it has about payments to private investigators who claimants allege carried out phone hacking and blagging of personal information for the Mail titles.

• Harry settle phone hacking claim with Mirror group
• Prince Harry has last laugh but his ‘mission’ goes on

What might change as a result of this legal battle?

In many ways Prince Harry is fighting to put right historical wrong-doing.

The phone hacking era began in the 90s when journalists realised that by dialling the friend of a celebrity and punching in a default pin-code they could hear the voicemail messages the star had left.

It ended in the 2010s as we replaced “brick” mobile phones with smartphones and moved to encrypted messaging apps for many conversations.

Around that time the police investigations of journalists and investigators made clear that methods relied on to get celeb scoops were actually criminal.

And then celebs started giving away their own secrets on social media. Much easier for the tabloids to digest without the unpleasant legal after-taste.

So perhaps the problem has solved itself.

There is one potential development which could ignite the campaign the prince is fighting.

He has called several times for the police to reopen their investigations into press malpractice and the civil case against Mirror Group has provided new potential evidence.

After convicting senior News International journalists in 2014 a subsequent investigation of the Mirror newspapers was shut down. It’s likely the Metropolitan Police has no stomach to get involved again, and currently Scotland Yard isn’t commenting.

One thing is clear. Prince Harry’s campaign has made him more enemies in the press. So far that has not deterred him.https://tehopeng.com/

By Jonathan Beale

Defence Correspondent

Speculation that Ukraine’s popular military chief, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was on his way out has been swirling for months.

That in itself has been damaging. Strain at the top does not bolster morale at home or abroad.

Confirmation of General Zaluzhnyi’s removal will not immediately resolve the crises either. Ukraine is struggling on the battlefield, facing shortages of both ammunition and manpower.

Removing Zaluzhnyi as commander in chief, but keeping him as part of the team, may be politically astute for President Zelensky. Some opinion polls suggest the general was more popular than the president.

We know only a little about why Mr Zelensky decided to make a change.

Remember that Gen Zaluzhnyi was hand-picked for the job by him in 2021 – ahead of more senior officers. He had already proven himself in battle as a commander in eastern Ukraine, fighting pro-Russian separatists from 2014.

But the reality is that it is the president’s prerogative to appoint who he wants as leader of the nation’s military.

Gen Ben Hodges, the former head of the US Army in Europe, says: “When it becomes apparent that the government has lost confidence in you, it is your duty to step down because of the principle of civilian control over the military.”

“My impression was this was a guy who was trying to change and modernise [Ukraine’s military], to get rid of all the old Soviet era thinking,” Gen Hodges, who had several dealings with Gen Zaluzhnyi, says.

He also thinks history will judge him kindly: “He’ll correctly get a lot of credit for having stopped the Russians.”

Gen Zaluzhnyi was facing a huge challenge to transform Ukraine’s military into a modern Nato military machine.

The defence analyst and expert Justin Crump says it was a near impossible task. Not least, he says, because Ukrainian soldiers were often only given a few weeks of Western training.

Gen Zaluzhnyi may have been a post-Soviet era general, but he was still heavily influenced by it.

In one of his rare interviews with Western media, he told Time magazine: “I was raised on Russian military doctrine, and I still think that the science of war is all located in Russia.” But he quickly looked to Nato and the West to train, rebuild and restructure his armed forces.

He was soon given credit for turning away from the top-heavy, hierarchical, old Soviet military structures to more nimble Western-style command.

That certainly proved effective in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion – with Ukraine adopting quick hit-and-run tactics against long, unwieldy, columns of Russian troops and armour.

At the time, the former head of the US military, Gen Mark Milley, credited President Zelensky with those successes: “His leadership enabled the Ukrainian armed forces to adapt quickly with battlefield initiative against the Russians.”

There was more to come. In the summer of 2022 Gen Zaluzhnyi fooled Russia into thinking Ukraine’s next move would be a massive counter-offensive in the south. Instead he took advantage of weakened Russian defences in the northeast of the country and launched a lightning counter-offensive which took back a huge swathe of territory around north-eastern Kharkiv.

The expected southern offensive still took place and eventually forced Russia to retreat across the Dnipro River – forcing them to quit their occupation of southern Kherson. These early offensives would be the pinnacle of Gen Zaluzhnyi’s battlefield successes. But they also fuelled unrealistic Western expectations of what might happen next.

The subsequent, long-anticipated Ukrainian offensive in the summer of 2023 was supposed to be decisive. It wasn’t.

In fact Gen Zaluzhnyi ended up calling it “a stalemate”.

• The Inquiry: Is the war in Ukraine at a stalemate?

Mr Crump, who is also CEO of risk and security consultancy Sibylline, says that comment may have led to the breakdown of the relationship between the president and his top military commander.

“The Ukrainian leadership didn’t want to see the word stalemate used – not least to make sure that support [from the West] kept flowing,” he notes.

Even those who spoke in terms of great hope for the offensive now concede it was highly likely to fail.

Gen Hodges says the West would never have tried to do the same without air power. The heavily-mined Russian defensive lines proved hard to break through.

Various briefings from Western military sources since haven’t helped either, says Gen Hodges – with the suggestion that Gen Zaluzhnyi had ignored some of their advice.

Removing military commanders in a time of war is hardly unusual. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did it during World War Two.

And US President Harry S Truman famously dismissed the highly popular Gen Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War. President Truman later said: “I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was. I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president.”

Gen Zaluzhnyi’s departure appears to be a lot more amicable than that. He will remain part of the military team advising the president.

The general has forged close relationships with many Western military leaders. He clearly still has a vision to continue the fight by building an arsenal of drones – which he set out in a recent article in the Economist.

Analyst Mr Crump says the change might be good – “leading a nation and a military in a time of war can get pretty stressful”.

But his replacement, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has also been doing the same as the commander in the east for the last two years. His new job won’t be any easier.https://tehopeng.com/

By Georgina Rannard

BBC science reporter

A unique species of flying reptile, or pterosaur, that lived 168-166 million years ago has been discovered on the Isle of Skye.

Its wings, shoulders, legs and backbone were found in a rock on a beach, but the fossil’s skull was missing.

Scientists were surprised to find a pterosaur from this period – they were thought to mostly live in China.

The creature – called Ceoptera – is the second pterosaur found on Skye.

Its name comes from the Scottish Gaelic word cheò, meaning mist, and is a reference to the Gaelic name of Isle of Skye – Eilean a’ Cheò or Isle of Mist.

Fossils from this era, called the Middle Jurassic, are extremely rare, says Dr Liz Martin-Silverstone at the University of Bristol who used a CT scanner to make a 3D digital model of the fossil.

“Finding anything from that time period that’s more than just a single bone is really exciting,” she says.

The creature probably had a wing-span of around 1m to 1.5m.

Prof Steve Brusatte, who was not involved in the research, says it was unique to Scotland. The research proves that a type of pterosaur between the primitive and advanced stages of evolution existed, he adds.

“This is the time before birds, so pterosaurs ruled the sky. This research shows that pterosaurs were common animals in Scotland, soaring over the heads of dinosaurs,” he said.

Prof Brusatte led a project that found another type of pterosaur, called Dearc, in 2022.

In the Middle Jurassic period, Scotland was part of an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a sub-tropical climate with beaches and lagoons where the pterosaurs probably liked to live, he explains.

Scientists with the Natural History Museum first found the fossil buried in rock on a dig in 2006.

“We were looking at very dark black bone on a very dark grey rock. We were on hands and knees crawling, looking for small smears of bone on the surface,” says Dr Paul Barrett who was on the expedition.

• Fossil of largest Jurassic pterosaur found on Skye
• Colossal pliosaur sea monster skull on display in Dorset

The team carried the fragile fossil in backpacks on the journey back to London to protect it from damage, he adds.

It took thousands of hours to remove enough of the hard limestone rock around the fossil so it could be studied.

After using acid to dissolve rock and then scanning the specimen, scientists have now published their classification of the fossil.

“This group of more advanced flying reptiles had an earlier flourishing than we originally thought,” says Dr Barrett.

The creature is from the Darwinoptera branch of pterosaurs. The research shows that the group lived for more than 25 million years, from the late Early Jurassic to the latest Jurassic, explains Dr Martin-Silverstone.https://tehopeng.com/

The findings are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

By Patrick Jackson

BBC News

Top UN officials have warned that the withdrawal of funding for its main aid agency in Gaza could lead to the “collapse of the humanitarian system”.

They spoke out after the US, UK and other countries halted funding over the alleged role of some UN staff in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.

The UN sacked several of its staff over the allegations.

It said an investigation into its agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is underway.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described UNRWA as “perforated with Hamas”, saying Israel has “discovered that there were 13 UNRWA workers who actually participated, either directly or indirectly, in the 7 October massacre”.

But the US, the biggest donor to the UNWRA, has said it wants to see the aid agency continue its work.

“There is no other humanitarian player in Gaza who can provide food and water and medicine at the scale that UNRWA does,” US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“We want to see that work continued which is why it is so important that the United Nations take this matter seriously, that they investigate, that there is accountability for anyone who is found to have engaged in wrongdoing.”

In the attack on 7 October, Hamas gunmen killed about 1,300 people and took about 250 hostages.

Israel launched an offensive against Hamas in response and more than 26,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

More than half of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the offensive, new analysis seen by the BBC has revealed.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has said a full independent investigation into UNRWA is under way,

A UNRWA spokesperson has said that if funding is not resumed, the agency will not be able to continue its operations beyond the end of February.

“The allegations of involvement of several UNRWA staff in the heinous attacks on Israel on 7 October are horrifying,” a  by the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee says.

“As the secretary-general has said, any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable. However, we must not prevent an entire organisation from delivering on its mandate to serve people in desperate need.

“Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region,” it adds. “The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza.”

Also on Tuesday, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said no other organisation can replace UNRWA due to the the agency’s “knowledge” of the population in Gaza.

Other countries which have halted funding include Germany, Sweden an Japan.

Mr Guterres met representatives of more than 30 donor states on Tuesday and is reported to have urged those who have withdrawn funding to reconsider.https://tehopeng.com/

By Frances Mao

BBC News

North Korea experts – by nature, a cautious group who seek to avoid sowing panic – have been left reeling by two of their own.

Last week, the two eminent analysts dropped a bomb – so to speak – in stating their belief that the pariah state’s leader is preparing for war.

Kim Jong Un has scrapped the bedrock goal of reconciling and re-uniting with South Korea, they said. Instead, he’s presenting the North and South as two independent states at war with each other.

“We believe, that like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” wrote Robert L Carlin, a former CIA analyst and Siegfried S Hecker, a nuclear scientist who’s visited the North several times, in an article on specialist site 38 North.

Such a pronouncement set off alarm bells in Washington and Seoul, and a massive debate in North Korea watching circles.

Most analysts, however, disagree with the war theory; the BBC spoke to seven experts across Asia, Europe and North America – none of whom supported the idea.

“Risking his entire regime on a potentially cataclysmic conflict is not on-brand for the North Koreans. They have proven to be ruthlessly Machiavellian,” says Christopher Green, a Korea watcher from Crisis Group based in the Netherlands.

He and others note the North often acts out to bring Western powers to the table for dialogue; and there are political pressures at home too.

But they do agree that Mr Kim’s increased bluster can’t be ignored and his regime has grown more dangerous.

While most argue war may still be unlikely, some fear a more limited attack could yet be on the cards.

What has led to this?

Close watchers of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are used to his nuclear threats, but some say the latest messages from Pyongyang are of a different nature.

Six days on from his New Year’s Eve declaration that “it is fait accompli that a war can break out anytime on the Korean peninsula”, his military blasted artillery across the border.

North Korea has also claimed a test of a new solid-fuelled missile, and its underwater attack drones, which can supposedly carry a nuclear weapon, since the start of January.

They follow on from two years of near-monthly missile launches and weapons development in blatant contravention of UN sanctions.

However, it was his announcement of formally abandoning the goal of unification that last week furrowed brows.

Reuniting with the South had always been a key – if increasingly unrealistic – part of the North’s ideology since the inception of the state.

“This is a big deal. It fundamentally alters one of the regime’s core ideological precepts,” says Peter Ward, a senior researcher at Kookmin University in Seoul.

Kim Jong Un would now be tearing down that legacy – literally. Along with shutting diplomacy channels and cross-border radio broadcasts, he has announced he will demolish the Reunification Arch, a nine-storey monument on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

The arch, showing two women in traditional Korean dress reaching towards each other, had been built in 2001 to mark his father’s and grandfather’s efforts towards the goal of reunification.

Satellite pictures released by Planet Labs on Tuesday appear to show the arch may already have been destroyed, although there’s no official confirmation of this.

Kim Il Sung had been the one who went to war in 1950, but he was also the one who set the idea that at some point North Koreans would be united with their southern kin again.

But his grandson has now chosen to define South Koreans as different people altogether – perhaps to justify them as a military target.

A limited strike on the cards?

Mr Carlin and Dr Hecker, the analysts who predicted war, have interpreted all of this as signs that Kim Jong Un has settled on actually pursuing a fight.

But most analysts disagree. Seong-Hyon Lee, from the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China relations, points out the country is due to reopen to foreign tourists next month, and it has also sold its own shells to Russia for war – something it could ill afford if it were preparing for the battlefields.

The ultimate deterrent, however, is that were the North to launch an attack, the US and South Korea armies are just so much more advanced.

“A general war could kill a lot of people in the South, but it would be the end of Kim Jong Un and his regime,” says Kookmin University’s Mr Ward.

Instead, he and others warn the conditions are building for a smaller action.

“I’m much more concerned, in general, about a limited attack on South Korea… an attack of that sort would take aim at South Korean territory or military forces but be limited in scope,” says analyst Ankit Panda, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This could even be in the form of shelling or attempted occupation of contested islands west of the Korean peninsula.

In 2010, the North struck the island of Yeonpyeong killing four South Korean soldiers, infuriating the South.

A similar provocation again could be done to test the South Korea’s limits, analysts suggest, and to push the buttons of President Yoon Suk Yeol, a defiantly hawkish leader who has vowed to respond to a North Korean attack with punishment “multiple times more severe”.

“North Korea may expect to draw out a disproportionate retaliatory attack from Seoul,” says Mr Panda, something that might spark a broader escalation in fighting.

Playbook move for leverage

Others say war fears should also be put in the context of Kim’s operating patterns.

“Looking at the history of North Korea, it has often used provocation to attract the attention of other countries when it wants to negotiate,” says Seong-Hyon Lee.

The regime continues to suffer from economic sanctions and 2024 is an election year for its enemies – with the US presidential vote and South Korean legislature poll.

“This presents a good opportunity for Kim Jong Un to provoke,” explains Dr Lee.

The current US administration under President Joe Biden – tied up with Ukraine and Gaza – hasn’t paid North Korea much heed and Pyongyang has also typically had most engagement with Republican administrations.

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump famously had a bromance in 2019 before the denuclearisation talks soured – and the North Korean leader may be waiting for the former US president to return to the White House, where he might weaken the alliance with South Korea and be open to dialogue again.

North Korea’s closer friendship with Russia and continued economic support from China in the past year may have also boosted its audacity, analysts suggest. It’s received technical help from Russia to achieve a long-term goal of launching its spy satellites and the two states had several high-profile meetings including a leaders summit last year.

“Much of what we’re seeing is a result of broader North Korean confidence in its own capabilities and its geopolitical position given Russian, and to a lesser degree, Chinese support,” says Mr Panda.

Domestic goals

And others say Kim Jong Un’s behaviour is all aimed at stabilising his own regime.

“This appears to be an ideological adjustment for regime survival,” argues Professor Leif-Eric Easley from Ewha University in Seoul. “North Koreans are increasingly aware of their Communist country’s failings compared to the South.”

He suggests a policy focused on defining the enemy is intended to justify Mr Kim’s missile spending during a difficult time. There are reports of starvation across the country.

• North Koreans tell of neighbours starving to death
• A family’s escape from North Korea through a minefield and stormy seas

Presenting the South as the enemy also makes it easier to resolve “cognitive dissonance at the heart” of the North’s view on South Korea, points out Mr Ward.

“Previously it was an indelibly evil state that was supposed to be the object of unification with a hopelessly corrupting culture that should not be consumed under any circumstances but with people who need to be liberated from their evil government,” says Mr Ward.

“Now the country and its culture can just be branded evil and that justifies the continued crackdown on South Korean culture.”

The BBC last week published rare footage showing two North Korean teenagers sentenced to 12 years hard labour for watching K-dramas.

“He doesn’t actually want a war – a huge gamble where he would have nothing to gain and everything to lose”, says Sokeel Park, from Liberty in North Korea, an NGO helping North Korean refugees.

His threats are instead aimed at cementing his new North and South policy, designed ultimately to shore up his power at home, he says.

While it’s important for South Korea, the US and allies to prepare for the worst-case scenario, it is also worth a thorough examination of the internal situation in North Korea and the wider geopolitics, analysts say.

At the end of the day, the best way to find out what the North’s leader is thinking is to engage with him, argues Dr Lee.

“The international community does not see the US talking to Kim Jong Un as surrendering to Kim Jong Un’s threats. It is seen as a necessary means to achieve a goal,” he says.

“If necessary, one should consider meeting with the leader of an enemy nation to reduce misjudgements and prevent war.”https://tehopeng.com/

With reporting by Kelly Ng

Netflix sign-ups boomed at the end of last year as customers prodded by the firm’s crackdown on password-sharing created their own accounts.

The streaming giant added more than 13.1 million subscriptions in the three months ended in December.

That was the most for any quarter since 2020, extending a streak of growth that started last year.

Netflix said it was confident in its growth path and was planning to raise prices.

“We largely put price increases on hold as we rolled out paid sharing. Now that we’re through that, we’re able to resume our standard approach,” co-chief executive Greg Peters said on a call with analysts to discuss its latest quarterly update.

“The summary statement might be, ‘back to business as usual’.”

Many of its new members opted for the company’s cheapest plan, undeterred by the prospect of seeing advertisements.

Netflix said in the 12 countries where it offers adverts – which include some of its biggest markets such as the UK and US – the plan accounted for 40% of the new sign-ups.

The gains are an ironic twist for a firm that resisted calls to sell ads for years, saying such a move would hurt the viewer experience and complicate its business with privacy risks and other issues.

But the company was jolted by an unexpected subscriber decline in the first half of 2022, followed by a fall in profits, which prompted it to seek out new ways to bring in new viewers – and more money.

As well as adverts and the password crackdown, it is experimenting with more live events to bring in new audiences.

On Tuesday, it announced a 10-year, $5bn (£3.9bn) deal to bring WWE Raw – pro-wrestling’s most popular weekly show – to the platform.

Many of its rivals are making similar moves.

Amazon, for example, is trying to boost its slate of live sports events. It is also due to start showing adverts to Prime members when they watch starting this month, unless they pay $2.99 extra per month.

Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, said the numbers validated Netflix’s strategy.

“Another cracking quarter to finish the year,” he said. “These latest results reaffirm that Netflix is firmly the king among all streamers.”

Netflix charges £4.99 in the UK and $6.99 per month in the US for the standard plan with adverts, compared with £10.99 and $15.49 without.

It said it did not expect advertising to contribute meaningfully to growth this year.

But the programme has sparked excitement on Wall Street since selling ads, on top of subscriptions, has the potential to bolster the money a company can earn per account.

Netflix had already hinted that the plan was gaining traction, claiming earlier this month that it had more than 23 million accounts, compared with 15 million in November.

• Why some streaming companies are leaning into adverts and raising prices

Still, the number of new subscribers it added in the quarter also surprised analysts, who had worried that sign-ups would suffer without the release of a stand-out hit.

Netflix said it had offered a strong slate of programmes, including hits like the Beckham documentary series and Adam Sandler’s Leo.

The platform received 18 Oscar nominations on Tuesday, including “Best Picture” for Maestro starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan.

Shares jumped more than 6% in after-hours trade.

For the year, Netflix reported more than $33.7bn in revenue in 2023, up more than 6% over 2022.

Profits were $5.4bn for the year, compared with $4.49bn the year before.https://selesaisudah.com/

By George Wright

BBC News

Turkish MPs have ratified Sweden’s bid to join Nato in a long-delayed vote that represents a big step forward on the Nordic nation’s path to membership.

Sweden applied to join in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey withheld approval amid a row over what it called Sweden’s support to Kurdish separatists.

Turkish President Erdogan is expected to sign the legislation within days.

It leaves Hungary the sole Nato member yet to ratify Sweden’s accession.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson posted on social media: “Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of Nato”.

And Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Turkey’s vote, saying he was counting on Hungary to “complete its national ratification as soon as possible”.

• What is Nato and which countries are members?

Hungary has accused Sweden of having a hostile attitude. In March Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács accused officials in Sweden of sitting on a “crumbling throne of moral superiority”. Stockholm has previously accused the Hungarian government of backsliding on the EU’s democratic principles.

However there have been signs of progress. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest for talks, stating in a letter that “a more intensive dialogue could contribute to reinforcing trust”.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said he saw “no reason” to negotiate with Hungary “at this point”, but added that the two nations “can have a dialogue and continue to discuss questions”.

Turkey had been blocking Sweden’s application until July, when an agreement was reached. On Tuesday evening lawmakers voted 287-55 in favour of Swedish membership. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now expected to sign the legislation.

Turkey had argued Sweden was giving refuge to Kurdish militants, and needed to do more to crack down on rebel groups like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist organisation. The EU and US have also designated the PKK as a terrorist group.

Like any of Nato’s 31 member countries, Turkey has the power to block new nations from joining the group.

But Sweden introduced tougher anti-terrorism laws in June, making it illegal to give financial or logistical help to terrorist groups.

Sweden and its eastern neighbour Finland, both long considered as militarily neutral, announced their intention to join Nato in May 2022, several months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland formally joined in April, doubling the length of the alliance’s border with Russia.https://tehopeng.com/

By Bernd Debusmann Jr.

BBC News

A giraffe named Benito has left his home in Mexico’s arid north to begin a 2,000km-trip (1,200 miles) to more temperate climates further south.

Benito’s voyage follows a long campaign by activists who warned that he was suffering in the extreme climates of the border city of Ciudad Juárez.

To reach his new home, Benito is travelling in a purpose-built 5m-tall container.

Some activists shouted “we love you” as he began his trip.

Until his departure, the three-year-old Benito had been kept in Ciudad Juárez’s Parque Central zoo.

Activists had long warned that the city’s desert climate – which can reach a a sweltering 42C (108F) in the summer and dip as low as freezing in the winter – was difficult for giraffes and that the zoo was not properly equipped to handle the animals.

A second giraffe which was kept at the zoo, Modesto, died in 2022.

The operation to move Benito began early on Monday morning, when the container in which he will travel was loaded onto a truck.

Benito had been allowed to familiarise himself with the container over the weekend.

The container is designed so that he can peek his head out from inside but can be covered with a tarp to protect him from the elements and potentially stressful sights and sounds.

The trip to his new home – a safari park in the state of Puebla – is expected to take approximately 50 hours.

Frank Carlos Camacho, the director of the safari park where Benito is headed, said that the container had cameras and sensors installed to allow his keepers to monitor him, as well as enough alfalfa, fruits, vegetables, and water to keep him fed along the way.

“We can check his temperature, and even talk to him through a microphone that’s inside the container,” Mr Camacho said. “He’s very well.”

At his new home in Puebla’s African Safari park, visitors will be able to see him in a more natural habitat from all-terrain vehicles.

In an interview with Mexico’s Animal Politico news outlet, activist Perla Iris Guzmán – a member of the “Let’s Save Benito” collective – thanked “all the people who made this movement grow”.

“This is an accomplishment of the entire Juárez community,” she said. “[They] believed in us and went to the zoo to see what we meant about the ‘little’ animals.”https://tehopeng.com/