Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday hailed relations with Russia as the two countries celebrate 75 years of diplomatic ties.

With the concerted efforts of the two sides, China-Russia relations have been moving forward steadily, with enhanced comprehensive strategic coordination and further cooperation on economy and trade, investment, energy and people-to-people exchanges, at the subnational level and in other fields, President Xi said when meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during large-group talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Xi pointed out that Putin’s trip to China is his first foreign visit since he began his new term as Russian president, fully demonstrating the great importance Putin and the Russian government attach to developing China-Russia relations. China highly appreciates this, the Chinese president said.

Xi said China is advancing Chinese modernization on all fronts and moving faster to foster new quality productive forces through high-quality development, which will add new drivers to global economic growth.

Both China and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council and major emerging markets, Xi noted. It is the shared strategic choice of both countries to deepen strategic coordination, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and follow the general historical trend of multipolarity in the world and economic globalization, Xi told his Russian counterpart.

Xi said he believes the two sides should take the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties as a new starting point, further synergize development strategies and continue to enrich bilateral cooperation, to bring greater benefits to the two countries and their people.

The Chinese president also expressed his readiness to work with Putin to jointly steer the future direction of bilateral relations and make new plans for cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

Source(s)L CGTN

As the Israel-Palestine conflict entered its 222nd day on Wednesday, Palestinians marked the 76th anniversary of Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), the exodus of Palestinians after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, thousands of Palestinians gathered to commemorate the Palestinian victims of 76 years ago and protest against the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza that have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the enclave.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags, held portraits of Palestinians who were expelled from their homes in 1948, displayed pictures of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, and carried banners bearing slogans including “The Nakba is recurring in Gaza now.”

Several Palestinian faction leaders and members of the Executive Committees of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Central Committee of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) also attended the rally in Ramallah.

The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 35,233, health authorities in the Palestinian enclave said in a press statement on Wednesday.

Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a senior Fatah official, said more than 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to leave their homes since the outbreak of the ongoing conflict, labeling it a “perhaps far more severe Nakba” compared to that of 1948.

He also accused the U.S. administration of being complicit in Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza as it supplied weapons to Israel and vetoed UN resolutions that called for a ceasefire and a full UN membership for Palestine.

For his part, Ahmed Abu Holi, the head of the refugee affairs department of the PLO, stressed the essential role of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and denounced the U.S. and the West at large for suspending UNRWA funding.

In January, Israeli officials claimed that UNRWA personnel took part in the October 7 Hamas attack, which set off the current conflict in Gaza. The allegations remain unverified but prompted the U.S. and many other Western donors to halt the agency’s funding.

Australia, Canada, Germany and several other countries have resumed their funding, whereas the U.S. and Britain continue to hold back their funds.

“Our people need the UNRWA to continue its work in the Gaza Strip because it is the only institution capable of working there,” Abu Holi told Xinhua.

In Gaza, locals said there is no need to mark the Nakba anniversary because they are already living in one.

Mohammed al-Maqadma, a 58-year-old resident of Jabalia refugee camp, said that his parents, survivors of the Nakba 76 years ago, were killed in the recent Israeli strikes on Gaza.

“For the rest of their lives, my parents could not stop talking about their ordeal during Nakba. Now, for how many years will I speak about the new Nakba to our next generations?” al-Maqadma lamented.

Post-war plan

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that he would oppose the establishment of Israel’s rule in the post-war Gaza Strip.

Speaking in a televised press briefing, Gallant urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian or military control over the Gaza Strip, adding that a governing alternative to Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian resistance movement that runs the enclave, must be named by Netanyahu “immediately.”

Gallant said that soon after the beginning of the Israeli conflict with Hamas in October last year, he had tried to promote a plan for a new Palestinian administration unaffiliated with Hamas but “received no response” in cabinet meetings.

In response, Netanyahu said in a statement that “as long as Hamas remains, no other party will run Gaza, certainly not the Palestinian Authority.” He did not address the issue of a possible Israeli rule in the Palestinian enclave.

Source(s): CGTN

The United States, alongside its Western allies, often prides itself on being a beacon of freedom and justice and a promoter of human rights across the globe. However, beneath the surface, shadows loom large. During the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, an increasing number of developing countries raised the problem of human rights abuses within the borders of Western countries. This article further elaborates on what the West has done under the pretext of human rights “protection”.

I. Police violence never ends

Police brutality has long been an issue in many Western countries. During the general debate of Item 4, Western countries continued to point fingers at China, Venezuela, Russia and other developing countries over issues of police violence. However, a careful examination of the record of the accusers shows that Western countries are far from the paragon of virtue they claim to be. In the US, for example, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police have sparked global protests and highlighted the country’s systemic racial biases. Across the Atlantic, the death of Adama Traoré in police custody ignited protests against police brutality and racial injustice in 2016.

These tragedies are mainly caused by two factors: police militarization and widening social divide. In the 1990s, the US Department of Defense started to allow the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments, prioritizing anti-drug and anti-terrorism efforts. After the end of US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, dual-purpose weaponry suitable for both urban warfare and municipal law enforcement made by arms manufacturers were redirected elsewhere. Since the mid-2000s, the amount of military gear transferred to local law enforcement agencies has surged rapidly. In other words, the weapons produced by the West to defend their so-called democracy have ended up hurting their own citizens. At the same time, racial disparity is tearing the country apart. The average net worth of a White family is about 10 times that of an African American family. African Americans are more likely low-wage workers with lower level education of attainment compared with their White counterparts. These are part of the reason why intergenerational poverty persists in the US.

II. Refugee rights never secured

As of September 2023, among the over 32 million refugees worldwide, 72 percent were from countries that have experienced extensive Western military interventions. And natural disasters often made things worse. For example, the number of refugees in Syria soared to 7 million after the 2023 earthquake. However, during the OHCHR general debate, Western countries chose to ignore the impact of natural disasters and blamed Syria for allowing refugees to cross into Europe. These refugees were counting on Western “saviors” for a helping hand. Yet reality tells a different story.

One of the key pillars of international refugee law is the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the forced return of refugees to countries or territories in which their lives or freedom may be threatened due to their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This means no rejection at the border, no extradition, no expulsion, and no mass refoulement. However, Western countries have blatantly violated this principle with practices such as offshore interceptions and refugee swaps.

As early as the 1980s, the US intercepted over a hundred thousand Central American refugees at sea. In the following years, Australia and the EU quickly followed suit in turning down refugees. During the Trump administration, the US implemented the harmful “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers from Central and South America back to Mexico. There was also the infamous “Muslim Ban,” which blatantly infringed on the rights of refugees from countries such as Syria, Yemen and Sudan. The Biden administration has continued to expel immigrants and refugees from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, leading to tragedies of family separation and child deaths.

III. Judicial system: A casino for the rich

Judicial systems are essential for the effective prevention of crimes and the protection of the lives and properties of citizens. While the West keeps pointing fingers at the judicial systems of developing countries in the Human Rights Council, their own systems are flawed with problems that are much more severe.

“Money makes the mare go.” This best describes judicial systems in the West. Money can buy suspects out of pretrial detention, privileging the rich over the poor. Moreover, court verdicts sometimes have little to do with fairness or justice and are more like a “gamble”—betting that the other party has less money to tip the “scales of justice.”

The entire US legal system operates like a massive marketplace where judges, police, prosecutors and lawyers do deals with one another. Money changes hands among the powerful, covering up bullying, violence, and even murder in the name of justice, while the poor had to face various exorbitant charges. No wonder Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, reported to the UN Human Rights Council after investigating several US states in 2017 that the US justice system was being used to generate revenue rather than promote justice—a national and pervasive issue.
As the 20th-century French writer Anatole France aptly said, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Yet in the West, the crisis of human rights still exists. When the halo of freedom and democracy fades, all that remains is the blood and tears of the impoverished.

Western human rights—what a joke.

The author is a commentator on internationals affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, Global Times, China Daily, CGTN etc. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.

Source(s): China Daily