The Weekly Wrap for Saturday, 14 April 2018

DEEP DIVE India's moment of reckoning with rape crime descended like an avalanche in 2012 when 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey was raped and murdered in the back of a bus in South Delhi. She had been at the cinema and mistakenly accepted a ride from joyriders lampooning as charter bus drivers. The brutality and the callousness of the crime touched a nerve, and protests blossomed across the country in the name of 'nirbhaya', or 'fearless one'. This week we explore the stories of two more rapes that have once again shaken the country. Taken together they reveal a poisonous mix of misogyny, racism and religious hatred that is yet to be addressed in many parts of Indian society. Those left in Kathua struggle to make sense of the crime. PHOTO: Dar Yasin / AP Asifa Bano, 8, Kathua The picturesque state of Jammu and Kashmir has long been home to some of India's worst intercommunal strife. In the city of Kathua, the latest atrocity was committed to deliver a horrific message. The Hindu majority in and around the town were uneasy with the recent arrival of the Barkawals, a nomadic Muslim group who graze their horses and other livestock in the region. In January, the custodian of a local Hindu temple, Sanji Ram, took it upon himself to drive the Barkawals out. Ram approached a Barkawal girl named Asifa Bano away from the meadow where she was tending horses. He then led her through the forest to the temple, where he and several other men sedated her, raped her repeatedly and bludgeoned her to death. The attacks lasted for three days before the child was finally killed and dumped in the forest. Her lifeless body was the message: leave. Asifa's family and relatives lamented both the killing and the fact that the local police were paid off to quash any subsequent investigation. But they weren't the only people protesting. A growing number of ultra-nationalists belonging to the Hindu Ekta Manch group rushed to the defence of the accused; claiming that Muslims can't be trusted and pleading the mens' innocence. On Monday a group of 40 Hindu lawyers with links to the ruling BJP party physically obstructed the police from finally filing charges against the accused. The fracas has further inflamed anti-Muslim sentiment in the town. While the counter-protests have intensified (one group of Hindu women blocking a highway near Kathua has vowed to self-immolate if the accused are found guilty), the government's own response has been non-existent. The state legislature in Jammu and Kashmir has criticised police corruption but the government in New Delhi has remained quiet. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declined to comment on the case, as have many of his lieutenants. Activists say this silence is a sign that Modi's BJP is looking ahead to the 2019 elections. The party already has a chequered history of using Hindu-Muslim tensions for political gain. Given that local BJP politicians are now speaking at Hindu Ekta Manch rallies in Kathua the accusations of politically-motivated indifference don't seem outlandish. Unnamed, 15, Unnao Where the Kathua case shows small-town bribery and discrimination, another rape which occurred last year has highlighted a vast coverup amongst police and local government officials. The Uttar Pradeshi city of Unnao has been rocked by a scandal involving the rape of a teenager by a powerful local politician. This week (one year on from the attack) India's Central Bureau of Investigation stepped in and charged BJP legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar with rape and assault. The rape victim has been petitioning state authorities for a response ever since the assault last June. But the police have dragged their feet and the BJP has stonewalled; in desperation the girl finally attempted to immolate herself last Thursday outside the home of the State's Chief Minister. Even this failed to spur the Chief Minister - Yogi Adityanath - to any real action. But then on Monday the police and party officials shielding Kuldeep from investigation made a fatal mistake. The victim's father, who had raged at his daughter's alleged tormentors, was taken into custody over the weekend. On Monday he was beaten to death by Atul Singh, the brother of the accused rapist. It's not the first time Adityanath's tenure in UP has been marred by extrajudicial killings. While the toxicology report states that the girl's father died of septicaemia and shock, the hospital's records show evidence of the thrashing he had received inside the police station. Now, Kuldeep has been charged and six police officers have been suspended. But the case is certain to expand drastically as CBI officers pursue additional charges.  The Indian justice system may eventually mete out blame and punishment to the tormentors in both these heinous cases but the much harder task will be to try and unknot the prejudices that allowed them to happen in the first place. WORLDLYWISE What remains of Douma. PHOTO: Reuters Last weekend the besieged town of Douma was again attacked with chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad's regime. Dozens, perhaps as many as 70, died in what was the fourth gas attack on Douma this year; a further 1200 were wounded. The latest deployment of chemical weapons (once again denied by the Kremlin and its client in Damascus) hastened the collapse of the last rebel defensive lines. As of yesterday the Syrian Arab Army and its proxies had fully subdued the district and raised the national flag over the ruins. During the week it appeared as though this latest war crime might finally prompt international action. Why this one? One might point to French President Emmanuel Macron's increasingly muscular foreign policy stance; or perhaps the Trump administration's evolving calculations on Russian power in the region. Early in the week Israeli warplanes bombed the T-4 airbase on the outskirts of Homs. After days of mystery it became clear this was not a punitive airstrike, but simply Tel Aviv using the opportunity to disrupt Iran's control over a vital facility. Regardless of intention, the action spurred world leaders to start drumming up support for military action against Assad's forces. British Prime Minister Theresa May won the support of her colleagues in cabinet to reply in force; she has instructed the Royal Navy to move its submarines within missile range of Syria. Her counterpart across the Channel has been just as vocal, promising swift retribution. Trump himself spent the week tweeting threats as his guided missile warships stalked Syria's Mediterranean coast. But by the end of the week the mood had changed. The calculus is plain but problematic: the regime has spent all week moving its most important military assets into Russian facilities protected by Moscow's state-of-the-art S-400 anti-aircraft batteries. Trump has made clear that any action would need to be greater than last year's paltry attack on Shayrat airbase, but this would at the very least require the West to commit warplanes (which are vulnerable to the S-400). For now, it appears that the risk of wider conflict with Russia is holding the West at bay: that's precisely what Vladimir Putin and Assad are banking on. The wreckage of an Ilyushin IL-76 on Wednesday. PHOTO: Al Jazeera Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has declared three days of mourning after his nation suffered its worst air disaster. On Wednesday a military transport plane crashed shortly after take-off from Boufarik military airbase just south of the Algiers. Witnesses described one engine and wing bursting into flames before the plane speared into the ground. Of the 257 people who perished the vast majority were soldiers and their families en route to the western city of Tindouf.  The catastrophe not only reinforced Algeria's poor record of air safety, but also drew attention to an oft-forgotten conflict in neighbouring Western Sahara. 30 of those onboard, including some women and children, were Sahrawis affiliated with an armed independence movement in the disputed territory. The Polisario Front controls the harsh eastern regions of the territory but many thousands remain in Tindouf's refugee camps. Algeria has backed (both financially and militarily) the Polisario Front for decades. The group has fought off a low-intensity insurgency action ever since Western Sahara's incomplete annexation by Morocco in 1976. A year earlier Francisco Franco's death had prompted Madrid to withdraw from its colonial possessions (including from what was then known as the Spanish Sahara). But the Sahrawis move toward self-determination was squashed by Rabat before it could even begin. In the following decades Morocco and its French backers have worked hard to keep the Sahrawi plight out of the spotlight.  WHAT ELSE HAPPENED Xi Jinping (centre) inspects his navy. PHOTO: Xinhua Coming off a relatively conciliatory speech at the Boao Forum, Xi Jinping oversaw a muscular naval exercise in the Taiwan Strait that is set to include live-fire drills Donald Trump gave the strongest signal yet that he intends to lead America back into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a deal he mocked and withdrew from last year) In the US the Department of Justice moved to give German giant Bayer the green light for its long-planned acquisition of Monsanto; a deal that would upend the global agribusiness industry In a move that has convulsed the Republican party (and perhaps outlined his future designs on the presidency) the House Speaker Paul Ryan announced he would not seek reelection Hungarian firebrand Viktor Orban won his reelection bid; instantly sparking a new round of recriminations against George Soros and the remaining liberal media Former 'New Labour' politicians and donors gathered around Project One Movement; it seeks to form a new centrist party in British politics and has tenuous links to the Blairs The FBI raided the New York offices of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen over alleged hush money paid to Stormy Daniels; it raised fears that Trump would fire Robert Mueller Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced two days of inexpert questioning on Capitol Hill over the Cambridge Analytica scandal; his performance saw Facebook shares (and his own net worth) soar A top ISIS commander in Afghanistan was killed in a drone strike in Jowzjan province; Qari Hekamatullah's death revealed the complex fight being waged between Al Qaeda and ISIS Chinese mass surveillance company SenseTime Group has become the most valuable AI startup in the world after raising $600m from the Alibaba Group THE BEST OF TIMES... Wind, rain and clean energy. PHOTO: AFP / Getty A particularly squally and wet March saw dams fill up and wind turbines spin all across the Iberian peninsula. In Portugal - already famous for its leadership on climate change - the weather conditions boosted the country's hydroelectric and wind power output, so much so that the renewable sector produced 104% of the country's energy needs. It's an extraordinary milestone that well and truly tops Scotland's two-thirds renewable mix earlier in the year. Congratulations Portugal. And New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this week announced a complete ban on all new offshore oil exploration licenses. Her Labour party swept into power last year on a platform of progressivism, populism and environmentalism. This is the first step in Ardern's plan to decarbonise the country, with an ambitious goal of being carbon neutral by 2050. While the ban doesn't effect the 22 current operating licenses it is being hailed by environmental groups as a bold step forward.  THE WORST OF TIMES... Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone languish in custody. PHOTO: AFP In Myanmar two Reuters journalists have been jailed in a Kafkaesque scenario since December. Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were picked up by police while investigating the slaughter of 10 Rohingya men by roving government militias. Their footage was used as evidence of their having  breached the Official Secrets Act, a crime that carries a 14-year sentence. The case continues to progress despite the fact that seven soldiers have already been found guilty of committing the massacre that was being investigated.   While the events in Myanmar certainly can't be fixed overnight, this next problem can. A new study shows that alcohol consumption over five standard drinks a week shortens your life. In fact, each extra glass of wine over the recommended limit is the equivalent of smoking a cigarette and may knock 30 minutes off your life. The research published in the Lancet flies in the face of earlier findings (mostly anecdotal) that a glass of red wine per night cuts the risk of heart disease later in life.  P.S. Your weekend long read... Another winner from the Financial Times. An interview with Rem Koolhaas, which is a sizeable task considering the man's genius. Quote of the week... “We South Koreans peacefully unseated a sitting president for corruption and had her convicted in a court of law. How many countries in the world can do that?” - Ahn Jin-geol Help us help you... If you've enjoyed this issue of The Weekly Wrap, please tell your friends about us. It's an easy and fast way to help us help people stay informed. Thank you!  One last thing... If you haven't purchased an inkl plan as yet, we're offering you a month for just 99c. That's just 3 cents a day to read the world's best news coverage. It's a deal too good to miss!