AFP Asia Business

Sitting near a poster of Che Guevara inside his French prison cell before his release this week, pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah said the “struggle” kept him going during his four decades behind bars.A court last week ordered the 74-year-old — who was jailed over the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats in Paris — be released from the Lannemezan prison in southern France on Friday.Abdallah is one of the longest-serving prisoners in France, where most convicts with life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.Between his bed, desk and microwave corner, Abdallah had decorated the yellow walls of his 11-square-metre cell with the flag of the Argentine Marxist revolutionary, but also a map of the world and postcards.An office chair near his bed was piled high with newspapers.”If I’m alive in front of you today, it’s because I’ve kept up the fight — otherwise 40 years (in jail) would turn your brain to mush,” said the prisoner, whose hair and beard have turned grey.AFP visited his cell on July 17, along with a hard-left member of parliament, Andree Taurinya, who used her right as a lawmaker to visit detention centres to see him on the day the court ordered his release.Dressed in a red sleeveless t-shirt and beige shorts, he greeted her warmly and they posed together for a selfie.Abdallah said that for more than 40 years he had continued to be a “militant with a struggle” — even if it was in very “particular” conditions behind bars.He said he did not foresee a “radical change in (his) struggle outlook” after leaving France and flying home to Lebanon — the condition for his release.- Birthday calendar -Next to his computer, he had pinned up images of flowers, including poppies and cherry blossom, as well as Palestinian flags and a picture of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.”Forty years is a lot but you don’t feel them go by when you keep up the struggle,” he said.Many of his fellow militants have died over the years however, he said.”On my computer I have a calendar to keep track of every day: dead comrades, that’s in brown, orange is for visits, and green is for birthdays,” he explained.But these days, “the colour brown is taking up more and more space.”Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement, which he denies, in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.After his arrest, French police discovered submachine guns and transceiver stations in one of his Paris apartments.- ‘Pampered’ -Lebanese of Maronite Christian heritage, Abdallah has always insisted he is a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians, and not a “criminal”.Before the decision to release him, he had been eligible for release for 25 years.But the United States — a civil party to the case — had consistently opposed him leaving prison.The Israeli embassy in Paris objected to the decision to release Abdallah, saying “such terrorists, enemies of the free world, should spend their life in prison”.Abdallah, who considers himself to be a “political prisoner”, said he had been “pampered” compared to “what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank, especially for comrades in prison”.His release comes as Israel wages war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for a 22nd month, with aid and rights groups warning of mass starvation for civilians trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory.Deadly Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also become commonplace.Abdallah, who founded a now dissolved Marxist anti-Israel militant group in his youth, endorsed recent protests in the West calling for a Gaza ceasefire.”Palestine remains the historical lever of the revolution throughout the Arab world,” he said.

The World Health Organization’s chief warned Wednesday of widespread starvation in Gaza, saying food deliveries into the war-ravaged Palestinian territory were “far below what is needed for the survival of the population”.”A large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving. I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation — and it’s man-made,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.His statement added his voice to those of 111 aid organisations and rights groups, including MSF and Oxfam, who warned earlier Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza.”Our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away,” they said in a joint statement.Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict.Even after Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade in late May, Gaza’s population is still suffering extreme scarcities.”The 2.1 million people trapped in the war zone that is Gaza are facing yet another killer on top of bombs and bullets: starvation,” Tedros said.”We are now witnessing a deadly surge in malnutrition-related deaths,” he added.- Children starving to death -Tedros highlighted that “rates of global acute malnutrition exceed 10 percent, and over 20 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women that have been screened are malnourished, often severely”.The UN health agency has documented 21 deaths in Gaza related to malnutrition of children under the age of five since the beginning of the year, but acknowledges that that the true number is likely higher.The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said Tuesday that 21 children had died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory over the previous three days alone.Tedros warned that “the hunger crisis is being accelerated by the collapse of aid pipelines and restrictions on access”. The starvation is “man-made” and clearly caused by Israel’s blockade on the territory, he said.The WHO chief highlighted how starving people were risking their lives to access aid.The UN rights office said Tuesday that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May.”Not only 1,026 were killed while trying to feed themselves or find food for their family. Thousands were also wounded,” Tedros said.”We demand that there is full access, and we demand that there is a ceasefire,” he said. “We demand that there is a political solution to this problem, a lasting solution.”

More than 100 aid organisations and human rights groups warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in Gaza, as the United States said its top envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and aid corridor.Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after 21 months of conflict.But it denied blocking supplies, saying that 950 trucks’ worth of aid were in Gaza waiting for international agencies to collect and distribute.”We have not identified starvation at this current point in time but we understand that action is required to stabilise the humanitarian situation,” an unnamed senior Israeli security official was quoted as saying by the Times of Israel.On the ground, the Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and the north, and had hit dozens of “terror targets” across the Palestinian territory.Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP that Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight, including a pregnant woman in Gaza City.- ‘Wasting away’ -The United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations in late May — effectively sidelining the longstanding UN-led system.A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”.The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.The United States said its envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Europe this week for talks on Gaza and may then visit the Middle East.Witkoff comes with “a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow, that both sides have in fact agreed to,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.Even after Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade in late May, Gaza’s population is still suffering extreme scarcities.Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.GHF said the United Nations, which refuses to work with it, “has a capacity and operational problem” and called for “more collaboration” to deliver life-saving aid.COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said nearly 4,500 trucks entered Gaza recently, with flour, baby food and high-calorie food for children.But it said there had been “a significant decline in the collection of humanitarian aid” by international organisations in the past month.”This collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip,” it added.Aid agencies, though, said permissions from Israel were still limited and coordination to move trucks to where they are needed — and safely — was a major challenge.- ‘Hope and heartbreak’ -The humanitarian organisations said warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched just outside the territory, and even inside, as they were blocked from delivering the goods.”Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions,” the signatories said. “It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage,” they added.”The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access.”The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said Tuesday that 21 children had died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory over the previous three days.Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since July 6 in search of an elusive truce, with expectations that Witkoff would join the talks as they entered their final stages.More than two dozen Western governments called on Monday for an immediate end to the war, saying suffering in Gaza had “reached new depths”.Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,219 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The UK imposed sanctions Wednesday on more than two dozen people, groups and suppliers from the Balkans, the Middle East and China accused of helping migrants cross the Channel.In what it called a “landmark” first use of new powers, the move came as the government faces political pressure to stem migrant arrivals on small boats from northern France, at record levels.The asset freezes and travel bans announced target individuals and entities “driving irregular migration to the UK”, and include four “gangs” and “gangland bosses” operating in the Balkans, the Foreign Office said.They also hit a small boat supplier in China, so-called “hawala” money movers in the Middle East, and seven alleged people-smugglers linked to Iraq.Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it “a landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organised immigration crime” impacting the UK. “From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world,” he added.  “My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: we know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account.”- ‘Terrorising refugees’ -Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office a year ago promising to curb the journeys by “smashing the gangs” that facilitate the crossings, but he has struggled to deliver.Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest ever tally at this point in a year.The issue has become politically perilous in the UK, blamed for helping to fuel the rise of the far-right and violence at anti-migrant demonstrations. Protests have erupted sporadically outside hotels believed to house asylum-seekers, with a recent demonstration outside one in Epping, east of London, descending into clashes that injured eight police officers.Riots sparked by the stabbing to death of three young girls in northwestern Southport a year ago also saw suspected asylum-seeker hotels attacked and anti-migrant sentiment on display.    As part of its strategy to curb new arrivals, the government is also cracking down on illegal working, which European neighbours cite as a “pull factor” for UK-bound migrants.It announced late Tuesday a new agreement with delivery firms Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats which includes sharing the locations of asylum hotels to help tackle illegal working.Meanwhile in another new tactic, artificial intelligence technology will be trialled to assess disputed ages of asylum-seekers who claim to be children, the interior ministry said Tuesday.- ‘Far-fetched’ -Wednesday’s designations represent the UK’s first use of its new “Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime”.It claims the regime is a “world first”, empowering the Foreign Office to target foreign financiers and companies as well as individuals allegedly involved in facilitating people-smuggling to the UK.In all, it sanctioned 20 individuals, four gangs — two Balkan groups and two of North African origin operating in the Balkans — and Chinese firm Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co. It has advertised its small boats online “explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling,” the Foreign Office said.Among those facing curbs was Bledar Lala, described as an Albanian controlling “the ‘Belgium operations’ of an organised criminal group” involved in the crossings. The UK also targeted Alen Basil, a former police translator it accused of now leading a large smuggling network in Serbia, “terrorising refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen”. London hit alleged “gangland boss” Mohammed Tetwani with sanctions, noting he was dubbed the “King of Horgos” over his brutal running of a migrant camp in the Serbian town Horgos.Author and researcher Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the sanctions were “a new front in the UK’s efforts to control a business model that brings profit to the enablers” and misery to victims.”However, I would caution against overpromising,” he told AFP. “Talk of freezing assets and using sanctions to ‘smash the gangs’ seems far-fetched and remains to be seen. “History suggests that such assertions hold governments hostage to fortune.”

The EU and Japan pledged on Wednesday to work together on championing a “free and fair” trade global system, as US tariffs and disputes with China rattle their economies.Brussels and Tokyo announced a “competitiveness alliance” to increase bilateral trade, address unfair practices, and boost innovation, at a summit in the Japanese capital.”In today’s world, competitiveness …

EU, Japan vow joint push for ‘fair’ global trade Read More »

Tunisian President Kais Saied presented US counterpart Donald Trump’s senior Africa adviser with photographs of starving children in Gaza, official video of their meeting posted late Tuesday showed.Saied told US envoy Massad Boulos, who is also the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, that “it is time for all of humanity to wake up and put an end to these crimes against the Palestinian people”.”I believe you know these images well,” Saied was seen telling the envoy as he showed a photograph of what he described as “a child crying, eating sand in occupied Palestine”.Saied showed Boulos several more images, saying that Palestinians in Gaza were subjected to crimes against humanity.Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where more than two million people have endured 21 months of devastating conflict.”It is absolutely unacceptable,” Saied was heard saying as Boulos stood silently, occasionally nodding. “It is a crime against all of humanity.”More than 100 aid organisations warned on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading across the Gaza Strip and that their own colleagues were suffering acutely from the shortages.The head of Gaza’s largest hospital said on Tuesday that 21 children had died from malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the previous three days.Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.Following his visit to Tunisia, Boulos flew on to the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday, Tunisian media reported.