Cabinet urges de-escalation in Israel-Iran conflict
Cabinet has raised concern about conflict between Israel and Iran, intensified by recent US air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, urging the countries to turn to the negotiating table.
Speaking on behalf of the cabinet after a meeting on Wednesday, minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni called for peace as the conflict has claimed lives in both countries, with hundreds injured.
'Cabinet calls for an urgent de-escalation of hostilities and full compliance with international law by all parties to prevent further human suffering.
'Cabinet further calls on the US, Israel and Iran to create room for constructive dialogue and give the UN the opportunity to lead the peaceful resolution of disputes.'
Listen to cabinet message:
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Mail & Guardian
2 hours ago
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As humanity, we should be constructing a multilateral system that can respond effectively to global crises. The UN at 80 (UN80) initiative is a dangerous distraction, fuelled by threats from Washington to withhold and reduce its massive financing of the United Nations, a body created in 1945. An initiative that could weaken multilateralism is dangerous in the sense that it will further undermine the international system of collective security, which in reality leads to the bombing of children in hospitals, deprives refugees of shelter and food and sets back efforts to regulate climate change and protect the environment. The UN's budget is about $3.7 billion; by contrast New York City's annual budget is $5.9 billion. The paradox is evident for all to see. As humanity, we spend less than a city's budget on floundering efforts to address global crises such as geopolitical conflict, the climate catastrophe, refugee flows that are double those of World War II, food scarcity and attempts to regulate artificial intelligence, including robotic weapons. To put matters further in perspective, global humanity spends more than $2 trillion on military concerns, with a significant proportion of that transferred to corporations that indirectly influence political actors and systems around the world to spend more on death and destruction. As humanity, we should be constructing a multilateral system that can respond effectively to global crises. Such a system should be operating with at least 10% of the $2 trillion that we spend on the military, or roughly $200 billion a year — which can be achieved by the international taxation of global financial flows. This shows that humanity has its priorities dangerously skewed and self-defeatingly inverse. We spend more on the weapons of destruction and their production than we do on ensuring that the 3.5 billion people who go to sleep each night hungry have enough to eat. It is evident that Washington has an over-sized financial dominance of the UN system and now the 'America First' ideology dictates that multilateralism must die so that Washington can have free rein to trumpet its call of 'Make America Great Again'. This conveniently glosses over the fact that, for Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans, there was no point in the past when they were genuinely included in this bygone, mythical 'great' America. These so-called minorities were in fact the human fodder upon which mainstream America built its affluence and maintained its dominance of the state and, by extension, of the world. 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The tempestuous weather patterns that burn down the Palisades of California and sweep away the shacks of people in informal settlements do not discriminate between Californians and Nairobi's residents. Climate change is a global issue that has outgrown state-centric systems and exposes the failure of nation-states to act in the interests of humanity. The collapse of the international system of collective security, embodied in the decrepit and UN (In)Security Council, has paved the way for geopolitical conflagrations that threaten the lives of tens of millions of people around the world. If the governments of the global majority are serious about reviving multilateralism, then they need to commit to putting their money where their mouths are. Switzerland has already committed an additional $300 million to financing UN agencies in Geneva. 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IOL News
5 hours ago
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How US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities changed the landscape of conflict
Experts say the US has been thrown into the conflict against Iran based on fake information about the latter's nuclear facilities. Image: Atta Kenare / AFP The recent US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have sparked intense debate, with the focus shifting from the act of aggression itself to the scale of destruction inflicted on Iran's nuclear program. US President Donald Trump initially claimed the damage was "monumental" and that the nuclear sites were "obliterated." However, the Pentagon's own report suggests that the damage was less severe, setting back Iran's nuclear program by only three months. The discrepancy between Trump's claims and the Pentagon's report has raised questions about the accuracy of the damage assessment. While Trump claimed to be happy about the damage, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, reportedly said that the US strikes inflicted "extremely severe damage and destruction" on Iran's nuclear facilities, but the extent of the damage is still being assessed. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have deepened the conflict in the Middle East, and the international community is waiting to see how the situation unfolds. Disagreement over the extent of the damage has raised questions about the effectiveness of the US strategy and the potential consequences for the region from experts. International relations expert Bruce Spector noted that there are "a couple of things that must be focused on, including the disagreement over the extent of the damage". "The Pentagon's intelligence agency's leaked report said the damage was rather less significant than a number of other organisations internationally had said," Spector said. "What we need to concentrate on is what happens going forward. Will the Iranians finally start rebuilding a nuclear program? And if they do, is it headed toward the creation of a bomb or a nuclear device?" Spector thinks the best way to evaluate the situation is to look at what happens next. "If Iran's program has been decimated or obliterated, then there isn't much point cooperating because there isn't much of a program to cooperate over," he said. "If that's a kind of a threat to allow the Iranians to begin to reconstitute their program, that's a whole different thing altogether." Spector noted that there are 18 different organisations in the US that focus on different aspects of information gathering, and they have yet to offer their analysis. "A lot of it will be second-hand intelligence…"It will be a while until we have a consensus on this,' Spector said. Meanwhile North Korea has since 'strongly' condemned the US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities as a grave violation of a sovereign state's security interests and territorial rights, the North's state media reported. The US and Israel are the culprits of the current tensions in the Middle East born out of Jerusalem's "ceaseless war moves and territorial expansion" accepted and encouraged by the West," North Korea's foreign ministry said. "North Korea strongly denounces the attack on Iran by the US which ... violently trampled down the territorial integrity and security interests of a sovereign state. "The just international community should raise the voice of unanimous censure and rejection against the US and Israel's confrontational acts," the statement added.
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5 hours ago
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Cabinet urges de-escalation in Israel-Iran conflict
Cabinet has raised concern about conflict between Israel and Iran, intensified by recent US air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, urging the countries to turn to the negotiating table. Speaking on behalf of the cabinet after a meeting on Wednesday, minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni called for peace as the conflict has claimed lives in both countries, with hundreds injured. 'Cabinet calls for an urgent de-escalation of hostilities and full compliance with international law by all parties to prevent further human suffering. 'Cabinet further calls on the US, Israel and Iran to create room for constructive dialogue and give the UN the opportunity to lead the peaceful resolution of disputes.' Listen to cabinet message:
