Devil in the details: How HRW laundered Israel’s 7 October falsehoods

by WILLIAM VAN WAGENEN

Human Rights Watch’s recent report not only whitewashes Israel’s killing of its own citizens during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, but also omits critical evidence of the occupation army’s orders to deliberately target fellow ’civilians.’

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a new report on 17 July entitled “I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind,” in which the US-based rights group brazenly claims that Hamas’ leadership issued orders for its fighters to deliberately kill Israeli civilians during their attack on Israeli military bases and settlements in the Gaza envelope on 7 October.

Then, based on that unsubstantiated premise, HRW declares that Hamas leaders are guilty of committing crimes against humanity for launching last year’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

However, any close reading of the report reveals that HRW bases these allegations on dubious evidence. The rights group deliberately ignores the much stronger evidence – presented by numerous Israeli military sources – that Israeli military leaders issued orders to their forces to kill Israeli civilians deliberately.

HRW omits the Hannibal Directive

But the massive 67,000-word HRW report fails to mention the controversial Israeli military doctrine, known as the Hannibal Directive, which directs Israeli forces to kill Israeli civilians and soldiers rather than allow them to be taken captive by an enemy.

As The Cradle and other independent news outlets have documented, multiple reports in the Hebrew language media show how the occupation military used Apache attack helicopters, Zik drones, and Merkava tanks to fire heavy weapons at Israelis within Israeli territory, including in settlements (kibbutzim), military bases, the town of Sderot, and the grounds of the Nova music festival.

HRW even ignored a detailed account published in major Israeli daily Haaretz just this month, which outlined the occupation state’s use of the Hannibal Directive on 7 October:

Documents obtained by Haaretz, as well as testimonies of soldiers, mid-level and senior IDF officers, reveal a host of orders and procedures laid down by the Gaza Division, Southern Command and the IDF General Staff up to the afternoon hours of that day, showing how widespread this procedure was, from the first hours following the attack and at various points along the border.

“The instruction,” said a source in the army’s Southern Command, “was meant to turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone.”

By omitting Israel’s own reporting, HRW misleads by implying that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups killed virtually all of the 1,195 Israelis who died during the 7 October resistance operation.

The Cradle for more

The big change ahead: NATO starting a war with Russia?

by STEPHEN BRYEN

VIDEO/ABC/Youtube

There is no other way to interpret it: Washington and its client NATO members are declaring war on Russia.  That is the direct meaning of the forthcoming visit of Zelensky to Washington where the parties will agree on targets inside Russia.

To say this is an insane, reckless move is understatement.  This is the most dangerous step possible for the US and NATO and it will lead to World War III.

Don’t believe any garbage “justifying” the use of long range missiles on Russia.

Putin has pointed out that while Ukraine will host the missiles, they will be fired by NATO personnel who will also insert the targeting data coming from overhead satellites covering Russian territory.  Those satellites are American.

The upcoming Zelensky-Biden meeting should also include Harris, so she takes full responsibility for starting a war.

No one can presume what the outcome will be.  Will Russia unleash nuclear weapons and bring a definitive end to the Ukraine war?  Will it shoot down American satellites?  Will Russia send rockets to hit supply depots in Europe, especially in Poland which is the jumping off point for military supplies to Ukraine?

There are many other possibilities open to Russia. Russia could transfer nuclear weapons to Iran, for example, or to Syria. 

The truth is Washington wants to take up Zelensky’s proposals for deep strikes on Russian territory because Ukraine is losing the war and could be defeated even before the Presidential elections in November.  The Biden-Harris “team” will have to explain why they kept backing a loser, causing tens of thousands of casualties, instead of seeking a diplomatic settlement that was easily within their grasp. Here again Washington stopped a deal in the making between Ukraine and Russia, and Biden and Harris are directly responsible for that.

Zelensky’s strategy is easy to grasp.  He knows everything is falling apart and Ukraine won’t be able to fight anymore by winter, as the infrastructure of the country, especially electrical power, but also fuel, dries up. Polish Foreign Minister Rados?aw Sikorski says that Ukraine’s electrical power has been degraded by 70%, perhaps more.

So Zelensky’s strategy is to bring NATO directly into the war.  And, stupidly and arrogantly, Washington is playing the same game.

No one, other than the UK, wants to see a war in Europe.  The UK is no longer an important European country and lacks a land army worth talking about. Instead its government built a couple of massively expensive aircraft carriers that function poorly, if at all, instead of strengthening its military and rebuilding its defenses. In any case, the UK dances to the US tune.  The British are anxious to attack Russia, but haven’t bothered to figure what will happen when Russia blows up the UK.

The big question is why Washington wants to fire missiles into Russia?  It means that Biden, Sullivan and Blinken know that their Ukraine policy is a disaster.  Instead of trying to open communications with the Russians, they are upping the ante and taking huge risks, with little idea how things will end up, unless they are really getting ready to send in NATO troops and use NATO airpower in the Ukraine war.

Russia may not match the US in many military categories, but it occupies a large landmass and has strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.  We have known for years that Russia’s military does not really differentiate between tactical and strategic nuclear systems; rather they see them all along a continuum to be used as necessary.  What this means is that Russia  can launch ICBMs and submarine IRBMs against US continental targets.  People in Washington should understand that the US has almost no continental air defenses capable of stopping a Russian nuclear attack.

Weapons and Strategy for more

When is enough, enough? Humanitarian rights and protection for children in conflict settings must be revisited

by ZULFIQAR A. BHUTTA, ROBERT HARDING, GEORGIA B. DOMINGUEZ, & PAUL H. WISE

A group of child soldiers in South Sudan in 2015 IMAGE/Junior Scholastic

Protecting the lives of children in Gaza and other conflicts requires changes to the rules of engagement and global responses to all conflicts affecting civilian populations, argue Zulfiqar Bhutta and colleagues

The rules of war and existing regulations have become increasingly unable to protect civilians from harm in conflicts around the world. The large death toll among children in Gaza continues to provide the most tragically prominent example of this reality. More broadly, international institutions and humanitarian norms have remained impotent in preventing mass civilian casualties in various settings, including Ukraine, Sudan, and Tigray.123 Much has been said on the genesis of the Gaza conflict and other conflicts, and the tactics being employed by the combatant parties,4 but here we examine the Gaza conflict’s humanitarian effect on children and its implications for the protection of children in other conflict settings around the world.

The attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 triggered a devastating military response by Israel that is still ongoing in September 2024. Over the past 10 months in Gaza, the protections afforded civilians in international humanitarian law have been largely ineffective.5 The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is estimated to have killed between 500?000 and 1 million people,6 but other than this there have not been as many civilian deaths in such a short period. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 40 534 Palestinians were killed from 7 October 2023 to 28 August 2024, many of them women and children.7 The reliance on the Gaza Ministry of Health for casualty figures has been questioned, particularly as these numbers do not well distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths and cannot distinguish between the number killed and those who remain listed as missing. Nevertheless, independent assessments have generally substantiated the early tallies of the Gazan ministry, although more recent casualty data may be less reliable as the health information system in Gaza has been largely destroyed and the full numbers may be evident only once the rubble is cleared.89

BMJ for more

‘The brother from another planet,’ Kamala Harris and the fallacy of post-racialism

by CANDICE FREDERICK

Actor Joe Morton looks back on the legacy of his first leading role as a formerly enslaved alien, which both defies and reflects the nuances of identity politics in writer-director John Sayles’ 1984 film.
IMAGE/Jianan Liu/HuffPost; Photo: Alamy

Forty years after the cult classic gave us a Black character from outer space who crash-lands in Harlem, it finds new relevance in today’s discussions on race.

Every few years or so, the term “post-racial” boomerangs back into the zeitgeist, bringing with it the myth of a supposed utopia where racial woes no longer need to be brought up — much less rectified.

Just last month, Salon published a piece suggesting that a statement from presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ nomination acceptance speech, “We have so much more in common than what separates us,” implies that she, too, believes that racial labels only further divide us.

That was published less than a decade after The Atlantic ran a clear-eyed article condemning the fallacy of post-racialism that should have put the kibosh on the whole idea and any remnants of it thereafter.

But this rhetoric can be traced as far back as 1984 (and probably earlier) when The New York Times published an oversimplified “Black folks have much less to complain about now” type of piece because we had presumably overcome most significant hurdles by then. It cited as evidence Rev. Jesse Jackson’s relatively successful presidential campaign, Michael Jackson’s record eight Grammy Awards for “Thriller,” and the debut of “The Cosby Show.” Eddie Murphy had also proven himself as a megastar in “Beverly Hills Cop,” And “Breakin’,” which helped solidify the hip-hop cinematic canon, opened No. 1 at the box office.

But that same year, the low-budget film “The Brother from Another Planet” also opened in theaters, dropping audiences — and its mute, Black male-presenting protagonist from outer space — into Harlem, and offering a far less idyllic view of the “capital of Black America.”

The film barely made an impact at the box office, save for devotees of its writer-director and indie film auteur John Sayles. In its oddball, occasionally funny and eternally poignant way, it reflected the realities of race relations, immigration, police injustice, poverty and the drug epidemic that existed throughout that so-called Black “renaissance.”

“The film didn’t really pick up in terms of popularity until it got on television,” the film’s star, Joe Morton, told me when we hopped on a Zoom call together weeks before the movie’s 40th anniversary on Sept. 7.

But there was a hunger among some Black moviegoers for stories that reflected their real worlds beyond what was seen in popular blaxploitation films at the time. Morton cites Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It,” released two years after “Brother,” as another example of a growing fervor for small films about Black experiences that fell outside the typical Hollywood fare.

“I think audiences ran to them because they were going to be good stories,” Morton said. “Both Spike and John are social commentators. So, I think people were very excited because it was going to be about something, even though we were sci-fi — something real.”

That’s partly why the actor, to this day, calls “Brother” his “favorite film,” telling his X followers just two years ago that it’s “because of the challenges the character presented and the story of unrecognized Black talent that it tells, and it was my first lead in a film.”

Morton is known to a newer generation of fans for roles like Whitley’s fiancé on “A Different World,” Silas Stone in “Justice League” or Papa Pope on “Scandal,” but it is the title character in “The Brother From Another Planet,” now considered Sayles’ cult classic, that established him as an unparalleled screen actor.

Soon after his spaceship crash-lands at, fittingly, the Ellis Island immigration center, Morton’s alien alter ego, an enslaved person on his own planet, trudges through the streets of Harlem in tattered clothes, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. He doesn’t speak and doesn’t understand anything happening around him, but gathers some important truths right away.

Chiefly, while race isn’t particularly a concept the alien recognizes on his planet, he quickly understands that his appearance as a Black man garners specific reactions on Earth.

“He knows the dynamic because, remember, at the beginning of the film, he watches a Black man being arrested,” Morton said, “and he makes the false conclusion of that — Oh my God, that’s what they do here.”

HuffPost for more

Richard Wolff: The decline of the U.S. Empire – where is it taking us aCll?

by YVES SMITH

CARTOON/Cartoon Movement/Duck Duck Go

Yves here. One key point by Richard Wolff is that despite the US having overwhelming advantages at the end of World War II via the Soviet Union having been so weakened by the conflict and European powers losing their empire, US military efforts to preserve and extend its hegemony, even very early on, were not particularly successful (coups were an entirely different matter, witness for instance Mossadegh in Iran). Despite our role in World War I, even as of the 1930s, the US did not have a very large military by the standards of the day (why would we, given our secure geographic position?). So I wonder if part of our hubris is due to our belief in our PR about winning World War II, when the Soviet Union was overwhelmingly responsible in Europe, that we conflated our economic dominance with our ability to deploy power physically.

By Richard D. Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York. Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update,” is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to millions via several TV networks and YouTube. His most recent book with Democracy at Work is Understanding Capitalism (2024), which responds to requests from readers of his earlier books: Understanding Socialism and Understanding Marxism. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute

The evidence suggests that empires often react to periods of their own decline by over-extending their coping mechanisms. Military actions, infrastructure problems, and social welfare demands may then combine or clash, accumulating costs and backlash effects that the declining empire cannot manage. Policies aimed to strengthen empire—and that once did—now undermine it. Contemporary social changes inside and outside the empire can reinforce, slow, or reverse the decline. However, when decline leads leaders to deny its existence, it can become self-accelerating. In empires’ early years, leaders and the led may repress those among them who stress or merely even mention decline. Social problems may likewise be denied, minimized, or, if admitted, blamed on convenient scapegoats—immigrants, foreign powers, or ethnic minorities—rather than linked to imperial decline.

The U.S. empire, audaciously proclaimed by the Monroe Doctrine soon after two independence wars won against Britain, grew across the 19th and 20th centuries, and peaked during the decades between 1945 and 2010. The rise of the U.S. empire overlapped with the decline of the British empire. The Soviet Union represented limited political and military challenges, but never any serious economic competition or threat. The Cold War was a lopsided contest whose outcome was programmed in from its beginning. All of the U.S. empire’s potential economic competitors or threats were devastated by World War II. The following years found Europe losing its colonies. The unique global position of the United States then, with its disproportional position in world trade and investment, was anomalous and likely unsustainable. An attitude of denial at the time that decline was all but certain morphed only too readily into the attitude of denial now that the decline is well underway.

The United States could not prevail militarily over all of Korea in its 1950–53 war there. The United States lost its subsequent wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The NATO alliance was insufficient to alter any of those outcomes. U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine and the massive United States and NATO sanctions war against Russia are failures to date and are likely to remain so. U.S. sanctions programs against Cuba, Iran, and China have failed too. Meanwhile, the BRICS alliance counteracts U.S. policies to protect its empire, including its sanctions warfare, with increasing effectiveness.

In the realms of trade, investment, and finance, we can measure the decline of the U.S. empire differently. One index is the decline of the U.S. dollar as a central bank reserve holding. Another is its decline as a means of trade, loans, and investment. Finally, consider the U.S. dollar’s decline alongside that of dollar-denominated assets as internationally desired means of holding wealth. Across the Global South, countries, industries, or firms seeking trade, loans, or investments used to go to London, Washington, or Paris for decades; they now have other options. They can go instead to Beijing, New Delhi, or Moscow, where they often secure more attractive terms.

Naked Capitalism for more

Argentina: Milei, Elon Musk and the Lithium Triangle

by JUAN SAMANIEGO

Argentina President Javier Milei and Tesla CEO Elon Musk

The Argentine president’s reformist agenda seeks to eliminate environmental, social and human rights protection standards in order to attract foreign investment. Booming demand for lithium plays a key role in Milei’s new policy.

He went to Davos to introduce himself to the world at the World Economic Forum. To Israel and Italy to strengthen his international position. To Washington to meet with Donald Trump, to Texas to meet with Elon Musk at his Tesla factory, and to Los Angeles to shake hands with Silicon Valley heavyweights. And he ended up in Madrid to close ranks with VOX. Javier Milei’s first six trips after winning the Argentine elections were a declaration of intentions, not only political and ideological, but also economic. Beyond rhetorical gestures and political fuss, the president has a clear agenda: to open Argentina’s doors to foreign investment at any cost.

In parallel to his travels around the globe, the government born out of the elections of October and November 2023 has launched a large number of legislative reforms with the same objective, some of them with serious environmental implications. The first major regulatory package, baptized as the Omnibus Law, sought to repeal the Native Forest Protection Law and the Glacier Protection Law, although both reforms eventually fell out of the proposal after strong internal and external pressures (including a warning from several UN human rights rapporteurs).

What the new far-right government did end up pushing through was a reform of the Land Law – which no longer limits the possession of land by foreign individuals and legal entities – and the Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI), which puts the environmental and social sovereignty of Argentina’s provinces at risk. “Milei sees environmental, labor or human rights standards as an impediment to investment and development,” explains Pia Marchegiani, director of environmental policy at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN).

In the midst of the reformist agenda of Milei’s government, there is one strategic resource that shines above the rest and takes us back to Silicon Valley and the office of Elon Musk and many other tech tycoons: lithium.

Who wants Argentina’s lithium?

Resumen for more

More than Biden or Trump?

by ASHRAF JEHANGIR QAZI

VIDEO/The Wall Street Journal/Youtube

We talk a lot about the state of Pakistan today, and, by and large, it is not encouraging — to put it mildly. We are also part of the larger world and are witnessing the state of ‘the greatest state in the world’, and — to put it mildly — it is not encouraging.

The debate between President Biden and former president Trump was, in the words of one commentator, a match between a derelict and “infirm” Biden and an “unstable” felon, Trump. Accordingly, the world’s mightiest country will be led by someone who is either “not quite there” or someone who is pathologically “reckless”. One can hear the Doomsday Clock tick-tocking towards “midnight”.

The US is politically more polarised than ever. A less polarised and more informed political society might have been expected to moderate the recklessness or compensate for the cluelessness of its leadership. But the American polity is irreconcilably divided between the ‘besotted’ (for Trump) and the ‘haters’ (of Trump) — which renders Biden irrelevant, and yet a possible winner! This is what the US has been reduced to while being the world’s mightiest military and economic power.

Like it or not, the rest of the world has a vital stake in the policies pursued by the US as ‘leader of the free world’. But neither Biden nor Trump measure up to the minimum essentials for such a role. Moreover, the US political process by and large does not take account of the impact of its policies and follies on the rest of the world. This may be true of other countries, but their ability to benefit or harm the rest of the world is relatively limited. So what is to be done if we are to avoid the prospect of the US leading the world over the cliff?

Intellectually, answers are available. Instead of the US political process — or rather, its power structure — deciding the fate of the world, the UN Charter and UN decisions should be enabled — with the necessary UN reforms — to play a much greater role in preserving the peace, eliminating poverty and injustice, and combating climate and other challenges to the survival of human civilisation.

However, securing intellectual agreement on such a panacea is far easier than translating it into reality. For a start, this would require democratising the decision-making processes of the UN and its affiliated bodies, which the US and other great powers are anything but willing to contemplate. Nevertheless, the idea of One World, in which we win or lose and live or die together, needs to be promoted with far greater urgency and realism than has been the case.

How might this be possible? Let us resort to childhood imagination and build on old Hollywood movie themes, such as a war of the worlds, etc. Suppose alien intelligent life discovered us and saw our world as an inviting place for conquest and occupation. How would we react to such a palpable threat? Would we, as in the movies, overcome all our divisions and differences to unitedly meet and overcome such a threat? Or would we, in accordance with the prevailing reality, dismiss as juvenile the very idea of making a serious and sincere attempt on a scale and speed that would make a real difference? Can we mimic the movies and bring ourselves to see contemporary existential challenges as we might an alien invasion if it became a reality? If so, we might yet make the right choices in time.

Even so, no one country with all its supposed superlatives is able and wise enough to be the sole leader of such a global undertaking. The current dysfunction of the American political process underscores this fact. It should incentivise the best minds and enablers to come together as never before to meet and overcome these threats. If the US political process can sufficiently buy into this urgent global imperative, it may yet provide a major contribution to such a global endeavour and become worthy of its self-image as a shining City on a Hill.

Dawn for more

Russia urges citizens to produce as many children as possible

by B. R. GOWANI

Russia’s Health Minister Dr Yevgeny Shestopalov IMAGE/Mirror
Former Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko IMAGE/kremlin.ru/The Moscow Times

In July 2024, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

Russia’s present fertility rate is 1.4 children per woman

“This is comparable to European countries, Japan and so on. But this is disastrous for the future of the nation.”

to maintain it’s current population,

it needs a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman

Russia’s Health Minister Dr Yevgeny Shestopalov told women

“Being very busy at work is not a valid reason, but a lame excuse.”

when the interviewer countered the Health Minister

There are people who work 12 to 14 hours – when do they make babies?”

Health Minister was ready with the answer

it’s a different matter whether the answer made any sense

You can engage in procreation during breaks, because life flies by too quickly.”

how long is the break?

more time’s required for sex when 2 persons like each other or are in love

but for procreation purpose not much time is necessary

a woman is to be treated as a child-producing machine so no love is needed

but then, why the procreation process during the breaks only?

why not also during work hours?

place some portable sex-rooms (like portable toilet) in working areas

whenever anyone has sexual thoughts, that person could visit the sex-room

but there is a minor problem …

is the health minister recommending anyone to have sex with anyone?

because all the husbands/wives couldn’t be working at the same place

ditto with all the girlfriends/boyfriends or live-in-partners

Russia’s then Health Minister had recommended similarly in July 2023

A belief has developed that a woman should first get an education and build a career and that only after that should she think about having children.”

education & career first; children later is an “improper practice

Tatyana Butskaya (MP or Member of Parliament) showcased her wisdom

“Each employer should look at their workplace, what is your birth rate? Here in your team.”

“Do you have one more child this year from each person who can give birth to a child this year – or not?

“This is exactly how we should pose this question…we will monitor it. In a year, our task is, of course, to increase it.”

let’s hope the monitoring is not this kind of Woody Allen film scene

MP Zhanna Ryabtseva wants girls to begin producing children at 18

“Give birth, give birth and give birth again, you need to give birth, give birth at 18.”

Politician Anna Kuznetsova wants women to have 4 or more children

“You should start giving birth at 19-20 years old. Then, statistically, the family will be able to have three, four, or more children.”

but why? so Russia could have more …

serfs, servants, slaves, soldiers, shoppers …

the world has turned into a commercial wasteland

life revolves around work, work, work, …

produce, produce, produce, …

consume, consume, consume, …

waste, waste, waste, …

Russia & other countries can stabilize their birthrates

provided they arrest this rampant capitalism

less work, less production, less consumption, less waste

this will give time for people to relax …

in turn, more time will incentivize those people who want more children

forcing and monitoring women to produce more children is wrong

it will also create financial problems for most women

children need decent education, housing, health, social environment

so …

will the government provide these resources?

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

Amplifying the unheard

by NAZIM KARIM

Working with an all-female crew on a short independent documentary profiling inspirational women in Nairobi, Kenya in 2016.

Shedding light on marginalised voices

Drawn to connect with individuals who have suffered trauma, Jazzmin Jiwa has forged a reputation as a fearless journalist willing to uncover uncomfortable stories that reveal some of the darker truths about society. 

Jazzmin understands the anguish of being uprooted, and the crises in identity and security that follow—her grandparents were expelled from Uganda in 1972, along with many others, while her mother was stranded as a young student in London at the time.

It’s no surprise then that Jazzmin’s upbringing led to a passion for storytelling and a desire for social justice, focused largely on dispossessed and marginalised sections of society. 

“Being a refugee is an ultimate story of survival,” says Jazzmin. “Survival beyond the home you lose, the heritage ripped from your being. The surroundings and smells of the familiar that disappear. The reciprocal nature of familiarity and how it nourishes your spirit… gone.”

When picking a career path, she wanted to “tell stories of human connection through personal experiences that override differences in religion, culture, race, and political beliefs,” and chose journalism as a way to do so. 

“Journalism is an act of truth, accuracy and bearing witness to the world as you uniquely see it.”

One of her first projects in the field involved research and work on the harrowing six-part documentary series Working Lives: Human Traffic for BBC World News.

The stories covered reflect the humiliation and abuse of African women in Saudi Arabia and the UK, sentenced to domestic servitude and child labour. The series also includes an interview with former First Lady of Egypt Suzanne Mubarak about child trafficking and underage marriages in Egypt, which often lead to the domestic abuse of young girls.

Jazzmin collaborated on the project with Ismaili journalist Faridoun Hemani of Linx Productions, and it was this internship that helped propel her career as a broadcast journalist.

Jazzmin Jiwa stops at a market in Uganda to taste the local matoke, a local banana species delicacy

She continues to cover human trafficking, with her most recent piece appearing on CBC Radio after she obtained an archive of voice notes women recorded while held captive. The acclaimed Pulitzer Center funded her in-depth field reporting.

Another area of interest is conflict and its consequences. Two decades ago, Liberia endured a civil war in which more than 20,000 young children were recruited for combat. When the fighting ended, many resorted to crime, drugs, and living in ghettos. Jazzmin was interested in programmes that were rehabilitating the youngsters and providing them with opportunities to work. She interviewed a former child soldier, who had been instrumental in convincing fighters to disarm.

The Ismaili for more

(Thanks to reader)