Day: May 26, 2021

The armed forces of Egypt and Sudan launched a joint military exercise in southern Sudan on Wednesday, according to a military source.

Armed forces of the two countries are taking part in the Guardians of the Nile exercise in southern Kardavan province, a Sudanese military official told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

It will increase joint combat power, military skills and capabilities of the two armies, the official said.

Land, air and sea forces of both countries will take part in the drill scheduled from May 26 – 31, the Sudanese army said Saturday in a statement.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A two-day virtual meeting of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) started on Wednesday.

The forum will discuss the “proposed constitutional basis for parliamentary and presidential elections” to be held on Dec. 24, as prepared by the LPDF Legal Committee, according to a statement by the UN Support Mission in Libya.

Libya has recently witnessed positive developments following a breakthrough on Feb. 5 when rival parties agreed on a unified new executive authority to govern the country until elections on Dec. 24.

Libyans hope the new government will end years of civil war that have ravaged the country since the ouster and killing of strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday slammed a recent statement by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian who said the situation in Israel has “the ingredients of long-lasting apartheid.”

Le Drian’s comment is “an insolent, false claim that has no basis,” said Netanyahu. “In the State of Israel, all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of their ethnicity.”

Le Drian commented on Sunday on the recent Israeli escalation which turned to violent clashes between Arab-Israelis and Israelis in Israeli towns.

Such escalation “clearly shows that if in the future we had a solution other than the two-state solution, we would have the ingredients of long-lasting apartheid,” he said.

Since April 13, clashes erupted across the occupied territories because of Israeli attacks and restrictions on Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque and an Israeli court’s decision to evict 12 Palestinian families from their homes in favor of Israeli settlers.

Tension moved to Gaza on May 10, leading to a military confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance groups where Israeli warplanes caused an unprecedented scale of destruction in the occupied territory.

At least 284 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and 39 women, and more than 1,900 others injured in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank, according to Palestinian health officials.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Spain’s national postal service has come under fire for what many are calling racism after it issued a new stamp collection intended to highlight racial discrimination on Wednesday.

The new collection includes four stamps that reflect different shades of skin colors.

It features a peach shade worth €1.60 ($1.90), a medium-brown at €1.50 ($1.78), while a darker brown one is €0.80 ($0.95) and a jet black stamp is €0.70 ($0.83).

“At Correos we believe that the value of a person shouldn’t have color, and that’s why we’ve launched #EqualityStamps,” the post office said on Twitter. “We’re reflecting an unjust and painful reality that shouldn’t exist.”

The stamps were launched to coincide with European Diversity Month and the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd — a Black man killed by a white police officer in the US last year that sparked worldwide protests, according to the post office’s website,

But the campaign has received a flurry of criticism on social networks, as users underscored the price differences between the stamps.

“How much is this group of people worth, according to Correos?,” asked Twitter user Undosytess, who posted a picture of a group of young women with varying black and brown skin tones.

“Since this racist reality shouldn’t exist, we’re going to make it even more real with stamps,” said Albercocs.

“This is exactly what happens when you want to launch a publicity campaign in solidarity, but everyone who is organizing it is white,” said another user.

“Their anti-racist campaign consists in giving less value to blackness? If it’s anti-racist shouldn’t all the colors be worth the same?” asked Seba_NqN.

Correos has yet to reply to the 2,300 comments left under its Twitter post. Many recognized the good intentions of the postal service but thought the execution was off the mark.

But it did have just a few supporters, like Fernando de Cordoba, who said he liked the campaign,

“I think it’s daring and will provoke outrage. And that’s what they want. They want people to get mad about the inequalities of the stamps because it reflects and a real-world reality that’s sometimes not so obvious,” he said.

Source: Anadolu Agency