Thousands protest as Austria braces for first far right-led govt

Thousands protest as Austria braces for first far right-led govt
Thousands gather for a demonstration in front of Austria’s chancellery against efforts by the far right Freedom Party (FPOe) to form the country’s first far-right-led government and marking the “25 years of resistance against the Blue-Black government” in Vienna, on Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 04 February 2025
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Thousands protest as Austria braces for first far right-led govt

Thousands protest as Austria braces for first far right-led govt
  • Carrying posters that read “Nazis out” and “Never again,” many expressed fears an FPOe-led government would not respect the rule of law
  • The FPOe has been negotiating since early last month with the long-ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP)

VIENNA: Thousands protested on Tuesday in Vienna against negotiations for Austria’s first far-right-led government, with efforts to form a ruling coalition dragging on toward a record period of time.
While the Freedom Party (FPOe) — which in September topped national polls for the first time ever — has been in government before, it has never led the Alpine nation of nine million people.
“We don’t want that... We want a good and humane government,” researcher Karl Bittner, 27, told AFP, as thousands protested in front of the chancellery.
Organizers put the number at 30,000.
Carrying posters that read “Nazis out” and “Never again,” many expressed fears an FPOe-led government would not respect the rule of law, as well as minority and other rights.
Another protester, a 32-year-old student who only gave her name as Alexandra, said she was rallying “against the right-wing surge in Europe gaining even more momentum.”
The FPOe has been negotiating since early last month with the long-ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP), which came second in September’s polls.
“The government negotiations are in a difficult phase,” the OeVP said in a statement late Tuesday, without giving details on the stumbling blocks.
The OeVP failed in an earlier attempt to form a government without the FPOe.
Set in the 1960s, the previous record time taken for negotiations to form a government was 129 days.
That mark will tumble on Wednesday.
Analysts still see an FPOe-led government in the EU member nation as the most likely outcome.
“There are differences, especially in their standpoints on the EU... However, the negotiations are unlikely to fail because of this,” political analyst Johannes Huber told AFP.
He added that the conservatives in recent years had demanded a “refocusing of the EU on economic issues,” which is “not far” from the EU-critical FPOe’s own demands.
Other sticking points include FPOe plans to slash the fees Austrians pay to public broadcaster ORF.
FPOe leader Herbert Kickl, in a Facebook post on Sunday, said that he continues to have “trust” in the conservatives.
Tuesday’s protest followed a rally last month which gathered tens of thousands of people across Austria.
In neighboring Germany, at least 160,000 people rallied in Berlin on Sunday to protest last week’s decision by the country’s conservatives to make overtures to the far right ahead of this month’s legislative election.
Austria has had a strong far-right political presence since the 1980s.
In 2000, the FPOe under Joerg Haider entered into a coalition government, a first in the European Union, triggering protests that drew up to 250,000 people.
The FPOe — led by the radical Kickl since 2021 — won almost 29 percent of the vote in September as anger and fears over inflation, migration, the war in Ukraine and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic weighed heavily on the ballot.
The FPOe currently leads one regional government in Austria and is part of regional governments in four other provinces.


US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says

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US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says

US official sought to end aid for Rohingya refugees, email says
The email provides a window into some of the thinking behind the administration’s drive to terminate aid programs that it does not believe benefit the US
Marocco appeared to want the Rohingya and Lebanon to express their gratitude for US support

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration official overseeing the dismantling of the main US foreign aid agency proposed phasing out help for crisis-torn Lebanon and the Rohingya, the world’s largest stateless population, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
Written on February 16 by Peter Marocco, the acting USAID deputy administrator, the email provides a window into some of the thinking behind the administration’s drive to terminate aid programs that it does not believe benefit the US
In it, Marocco appeared to want the Rohingya and Lebanon to express their gratitude for US support, saying the US “should procure some type of consideration or good faith from the recipient populations to the American people.”
The email directed Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID’s humanitarian affairs bureau, to draft an “Action memo” drawing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s attention to “the odd dependency” of Lebanon and the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on US aid.
It should outline options for “how we recommend, immediately, sending the signal, that though we have compassion, people had the warning on November 5, and things will have to change,” Marocco wrote, referring to Trump’s 2024 re-election.
“Please propose the best method and timeline of weening this dependency and what we might seek, from them – or partners. Nothing is owed,” he wrote, apparently meaning an absence of any US obligation to provide further support.
A source with knowledge of the issue confirmed the authenticity of the email and that Marocco sought to phase out aid to the Rohingya and Lebanon.
Marocco “is not convinced these people need more aid,” the source said.
The State Department declined to comment. Marocco and Meisburger did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not determine whether Meisburger sent the requested memo to Rubio or how much US aid continues to flow to Lebanon or the more than 1 million Rohingyas who have fled violent persecution in Myanmar that the US in 2022 declared a genocide.
The United States provides military, humanitarian and other assistance to Lebanon.
Marocco sent the email as he and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were launching a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department.
They have fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depend. Rubio on Monday said more than 80 percent of all USAID programs have been canceled.

ROHINGYA AID COVERED BY WAIVER
The drive began hours after Trump took office on January 20, with the Republican president ordering a 90-day freeze on all foreign assistance pending reviews of whether aid programs conformed with his America First foreign policy.
Food aid for the Rohingya and Lebanon was shielded by a waiver from the freeze for emergency food aid issued by Rubio on February 24, the source said.
Four days later, Rubio granted a waiver for all life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such aid.
The US has been the largest provider of aid to the Rohingya refugees, contributing nearly $2.4 billion since 2017, according to a State Department website.
More than 1 million Rohingyas live in squalid camps in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar, and according to the UN refugee agency, 95 percent of Rohingya households depend on humanitarian assistance.
Others have sought refuge in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Thailand and elsewhere.
The United Nations earlier this month warned it will have to cut monthly food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from $12.50 to $6 next month, unless it can raise more funds.
Visiting Cox’s Bazar on Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN will do all it can to help prevent cuts to the refugees’ rations.
Lebanon has been rocked by a series of crises, including an influx of refugees from Syria, political paralysis, a financial collapse, a blast that devastated Beirut’s port and fighting that erupted in October 2023 between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement that uprooted tens of thousands.
The US long has viewed Lebanon’s stability as critical to that of the region and sought to counter the influence that Iran has exerted there through Hezbollah, part of Tehran’s Axis of Resistance against Israel.
To that end, successive Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump in his first term, have approved since 2001 more than $5.5 billion in humanitarian, military and other aid for Lebanon, according to a USAID website.

Zelensky denies troops surrounded in Kursk as Russia retakes villages

Zelensky denies troops surrounded in Kursk as Russia retakes villages
Updated 9 min 58 sec ago
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Zelensky denies troops surrounded in Kursk as Russia retakes villages

Zelensky denies troops surrounded in Kursk as Russia retakes villages
  • Zelensky has acknowledged that the situation in the Kursk area is “very difficult” for Ukraine
  • “There is no encirclement of out troops,” he said

KYIV: Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky denied Saturday his troops were encircled in Russia’s Kursk region, where Moscow has regained swathes of land this week, as Russia said it took back two more villages in the border region.
US leader Donald Trump had a day earlier asked Russia’s Vladimir Putin on social media to spare the lives of Ukrainian troops that he said were “completely surrounded” by the Russian army.
Moscow has pushed this week to retake a large part of the land that Ukraine originally captured in its western Kursk region last summer.
Zelensky has acknowledged that the situation in the Kursk area is “very difficult” for Ukraine, but contradicted Trump’s comments.
“There is no encirclement of out troops,” he said on social media, adding that: “Our troops continue to hold back Russian and North Korean groupings in the Kursk region.”
Kyiv had hoped to use the Russian territories as a bargaining chip in any negotiations to end the more than three-year conflict.
The UK on Saturday hosted a virtual summit on how to protect any ceasefire in Ukraine, but Zelensky warned that Moscow was intent on “prolonging the war” and “ignoring diplomacy.”
He also accused Moscow of amassing troops on the border with “an intention to attack our Sumy region” — attacked by Moscow at the start of its 2022 invasion but since spared the worst of the fighting seen in other eastern regions.
Putin had this week not committed to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine proposed by the US, instead putting forward conditions and raising “serious questions” about the idea.
The Kremlin has hailed its troops ousting Ukrainian forces from swathes of the Kursk region, with Moscow on Saturday releasing images of a destroyed center in Sudzha — the main town occupied by Ukrainian forces for months.
The Russian defense ministry said troops took control over the villages of Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina — north and west of Sudzha.
Sudzha was home to around 6,000 people before fighting began and Ukraine had set up a military administration there after its shock August 2024 incursion.
The Russian defense ministry’s footage showed heavily destroyed houses and shops, with rubble and broken glass on the streets, and some Russian flags flying.
The acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinstein, said Russia had evacuated 275 civilians from areas it had regained since Wednesday.
Khinstein said “174 of the residents are now in temporary accommodation” and that the “work of evacuating our residents is continuing.”
The Kremlin has hailed the Kursk operations as a major success.
Responding to Trump’s call to spare Ukrainian troops in Kursk region, Putin said Friday:
“If they lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and dignified treatment.”
Russia’s defense ministry also said that military engineers were working to clear the areas that were held by Ukraine.
Russia had also deployed almost 200 firefighters to help put out a fire at an oil depot caused by a Ukraine drone strike in the southern Krasnodar region, authorities said.
The governor of the Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratyev said in the early hours of Saturday that a petrol reserve station in the Black Sea city of Tuapse was “attacked by the Kyiv regime.”
Elsewhere on the front, Zelensky claimed the situation around the eastern city of Pokrovsk — which Russian troops have tried to capture for months — had “stabilized.”
Ukrainian officials also said the number of wounded from a Russian strike a day earlier on Zelensky’s hometown Kryvy Rig rose to 14.
Moscow has targeted the central city throughout its invasion and Kyiv said Friday it struck a residential area of Kryvy Rig, destroying large apartment buildings.
Ukrainian prosecutors said the wounded children were a two-year-old and a 15-year-old.


Italy sees surge in migrant crossings despite PM’s tough stance

Italy sees surge in migrant crossings despite PM’s tough stance
Updated 15 March 2025
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Italy sees surge in migrant crossings despite PM’s tough stance

Italy sees surge in migrant crossings despite PM’s tough stance
  • Country sees 40% rise driven by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, despite numbers elsewhere in Europe dropping 
  • Italy struck deals last year with authorities in Libya, Tunisia to halt Mediterranean crossings

London: Italy has experienced a sharp rise in the number of migrants arriving illegally this year, damaging Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s reputation for being tough on migration, The Times reported.

While Europe broadly has seen numbers of migrants decline, Italy saw an increase of 40 percent despite Meloni’s government striking deals last year with authorities in Libya and Tunisia to halt Mediterranean crossings, which initially led to a 58 percent drop.

The number of migrants reaching Italy so far this year is 8,232, up from 5,912 in the same period in 2024.

The increase has been driven by a 68 percent rise from Libya, facilitated by hundreds of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis arriving in the North African country to make the journey to Europe.

So far this year, 3,195 Bangladeshis and 1,247 Pakistanis have crossed into Europe, with more than half traveling to Italy.

Frontex, the EU’s border force, said labor deals between Libya and Bangladesh were making the journey easier for migrants.

It added that overall, there had been a drop in people reaching Europe of around 25 percent, including to Greece, Spain and the Balkans. The total number to reach Europe so far this year stands at around 25,000. The number of crossings from France to the UK, meanwhile, is down 28 percent.

Frontex said traffickers are using faster boats with more engines to avoid the Italian Coast Guard, with migrants paying up to €8,000 ($8,737) for the crossing.

“Smugglers are using them to get people quickly out of Libyan waters, avoiding patrols in the early stages,” a Frontex spokesman said.

“In January alone, nearly 30 of these types of boats carrying nearly 1,500 people were detected.” 


Ghosts of fast fashion: Has colonialism ruined Bangladesh’s luxury fabric trade?

Ghosts of fast fashion: Has colonialism ruined Bangladesh’s luxury fabric trade?
Updated 15 March 2025
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Ghosts of fast fashion: Has colonialism ruined Bangladesh’s luxury fabric trade?

Ghosts of fast fashion: Has colonialism ruined Bangladesh’s luxury fabric trade?
  • Dhaka was the global center of muslin and fine handloom weaving until British colonial rule
  • Top model and designer Bibi Russell spearheads a movement to revive Bangladeshi textile art

DHAKA: Now a hub of cheap, mass-produced clothing for global brands, Bangladesh was for centuries known as the opposite — a center of coveted luxury textiles. The European appeal of these fine fabrics in the late 18th century marked the beginning of the industry’s decline, ultimately leading to its eventual erasure.

Historically, eastern Bengal — now Bangladesh — was renowned for its master weavers of silk and cotton textiles and particularly for muslin, a lightweight fabric crafted from extremely fine handspun yarns.

Dhaka became the center of muslin weaving in the early 17th century when the fabric became popular on the Indian subcontinent under the Mughal Empire. It dominated the global market for 200 years.

“Dhaka muslin was a symbol of tradition and royal nobility in this land. It was celebrated for its magnificent design and exceptional craftsmanship, earning worldwide acclaim. So fine was its weaving that an entire muslin sari could easily pass through a finger ring,” said Mohammad Ayub Ali, head of the muslin revival project at the Bangladesh Handloom Board, which works to preserve classical Bengali weaving techniques.

“Traders from various European countries, including England, the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece, were actively engaged in the muslin trade.”

This flourishing market was, however, soon overshadowed by colonial influence. Bengal’s textile industry began to wither after the British East India Company conquered the region in the mid-18th century, took control of the industry and exploited it beyond its limits.

In his 1772 work “Considerations on India Affairs,” merchant William Bolts of the British East India Company describes weavers being forcibly taken from their workplaces to produce textiles at English factories. Some resorted to self-mutilation — cutting of their own thumbs — in a desperate attempt to escape forced labor.

Another devastating blow to the native industry came with the tariffs imposed by the British colonial rulers, as England entered the Industrial Revolution and itself began mass-producing fabrics.

“The British rulers suppressed our local cotton producers and muslin weavers to create a favorable market for (their) textiles. Cheap textiles started to pour into our markets ... In the middle of the 19th century, muslin production in Dhaka was completely stopped,” Ali said.

“We were forced to import British clothes ... We once had 100 percent local input in cotton production, weaving and the expertise required to create world-class garments. But now, we only produce ready-made clothing as tailors.”

Bangladesh is the second-largest exporter of ready-made garments in the world, after China, producing large volumes quickly and cheaply. Around 4 million people are employed in factories, where unsafe working conditions, frequent deadly accidents and monthly wages that rarely exceed $120 regularly make headlines in both local and international press.

There is a direct link between the exploitative sector and colonial legacy.

“The colonizers systematically dismantled our thriving artisan economy ... The destruction of that heritage was not just about economics; it was about erasing a culture of excellence and self-reliance,” top Bangladeshi model and celebrated designer Bibi Russell, renowned for her efforts to revive her homeland’s textile art, told Arab News.

“While Bangladesh has become one of the largest exporters of ready-made garments in the world, we must ask ourselves at what cost. The fast fashion industry has created millions of jobs, but it has also perpetuated a system where workers are often undervalued, artisans are sidelined, and our natural resources are exploited. In many ways, it reflects a continuation of the exploitative systems of the past, where the value of human skill and creativity is sacrificed for profit.”

Bibi Russell speaks to Bangladeshi TV in December 2024. (Bibi Russell)

Russell is an advocate of the growing defashion movement, which calls for a shift away from the disposable culture of fast fashion — including its overconsumption, environmental degradation and the exploitation of workers in countries where labor laws and wages are poor.

She believes such a change is possible as the world is waking up and the global fashion landscape is changing, with consumers becoming more conscious of sustainability and ethical practices.

“Bangladesh has an incredible opportunity to lead this change ... Our history shows that we are resilient, and I see an opportunity to reclaim our legacy as a hub of quality and innovation, not just quantity,” she said.

“By investing in our craftspeople and celebrating their work, we can create an industry that uplifts rather than exploits, honors rather than erases ... This is our moment to rewrite the narrative — not as victims of a colonial legacy, but as innovators and creators.”


Thailand says assured of Uyghurs’ safety after US visa bans

Thailand says assured of Uyghurs’ safety after US visa bans
Updated 15 March 2025
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Thailand says assured of Uyghurs’ safety after US visa bans

Thailand says assured of Uyghurs’ safety after US visa bans
  • Thailand on Saturday responded to a United States visa ban on officials from the kingdom involved in deporting dozens of Uyghurs back to China, saying it had “received assurances” of their safety

BANGKOK: Thailand on Saturday responded to a United States visa ban on officials from the kingdom involved in deporting dozens of Uyghurs back to China, saying it had “received assurances” of their safety.
The Thai government has suffered intense criticism from around the world for its decision to hand over at least 40 Uyghurs, who were flown by special plane to China’s northwestern Xinjiang region in late February.
The Uyghurs had spent years languishing in Thai detention facilities after fleeing China more than a decade ago.
On Friday US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on an unspecified number of former or current officials from Thailand involved in the deportation.
Thailand’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Saturday it noted the US decision adding it had “received assurances from the Government of China concerning the safety of the Uyghurs.”
It said Thailand “will continue to follow up on the well-being of this group.”
Thailand is the oldest US ally in Asia but maintains friendly relations with Beijing.
“Thailand has always and will continue to value the long-standing and close treaty alliance with the United States,” the statement said.
The United States accuses China of genocide over its mass camps for Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim minority in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
China rejects the accusations and says it is providing vocational education to improve Uyghurs’ future.