Benin opposition wins seats in parliament, first time in 4 years

The main opposition party, the Les Democrates, wins 28 seats in the 109-seat parliament, preliminary results show.

Benin’s opposition has returned to parliament after a four-year absence, winning 28 seats in elections dominated by President Patrice Talon’s allies, according to preliminary results.

Sunday’s election was a test for the West African state where Talon has promoted development, but critics say his programme has come at a cost to Benin’s once thriving multiparty democracy.

The main opposition party Les Democrates won 28 seats, while the Republican Bloc (BR) and Progressive Union for Renewal (UP-R) parties allied with Talon together won 81 seats, the CENA electoral authority said on Wednesday.

None of the remaining four parties competing for the 109 seats gathered enough votes to meet the 10 percent threshold for parliamentary representation.

Final results are expected on Friday after a vote that went ahead peacefully and in line with the regulations, according to election observers from the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS.

Voter turnout in the polls was a low 38.66 percent, the electoral commission said, despite analysts predicting it would be higher as more parties were involved.

Four years ago, opposition parties were effectively barred from participating in a legislative ballot due to a tightening of election rules, resulting in a parliament dominated by Talon supporters.

Most of Talon’s key opponents have also been jailed or forced into exile after the cotton magnate was elected in 2016 and later re-elected in 2021.

The 2019 legislative vote was marred by deadly clashes in an opposition stronghold, historic low turnout and an internet blackout.

On Sunday, seven parties – including three allied to the opposition – were allowed to participate.

Opposition leaders had hoped their parties would gain seats in preparation for the 2026 presidential election, when candidates will need the backing of lawmakers to be registered.

The mandate of the Constitutional Court also ends this year and, three years before the presidential ballot, the court’s composition is key as it oversees decisions on elections.

Four judges are appointed by lawmakers while three are chosen by the president.

Les Democrates, linked to Talon’s predecessor and rival Thomas Boni Yayi, also said it would seek to push an amnesty law in parliament to free jailed colleagues and allow the return of exiles.

In December 2021, Reckya Madougou was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of “terrorism”, while Joel Aivo – another opposition leader and academic – was jailed for 10 years for alleged conspiracy against the authority of the state.

Both were tried by a special court dealing with “terrorism” and economic crimes, known as the CRIET. Critics say the court, opened by Talon’s government in 2016, has been used to crackdown on his opponents.

Sunday’s legislative vote took place as Benin and other Gulf of Guinea coastal countries, Ghana, Togo and Ivory Coast, face a growing threat from violence spilling over their northern borders with the Sahel.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Benin opposition rejects parliamentary vote results

 The main opposition party in Benin, Les Democrates, has rejected provisional results from Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Benin’s electoral commission said the party won 28 seats in the 109-member parliament.

It would be the first time its members have been represented in the chamber in four years.

But a party spokesman accused the commission of falsifying results in order to minimise the opposition’s parliamentary representation.

Allies of President Patrice Talon secured 81 seats in the vote.

Final results are expected later this week.

Benin’s opposition was in effect barred from running in the 2019 legislative elections with most of Mr Talon’s opponents jailed or exiled.

Source BBC

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US, Japan agree to strengthen security ties amid China worries

US and Japan say China is their ‘greatest shared strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific and beyond’.

The United States and Japan have unveiled plans to strengthen security cooperation in the face of shared worries about China.

In a joint statement issued on Wednesday in Washington, DC after talks between the US and Japanese foreign and defence ministers, the two countries said China presented an “unprecedented” threat to international order and pledged to position their alliance to “prevail in a new era of strategic competition”.

“China’s foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order to its benefit and to employ China’s growing political, economic, military, and technological power to that end,” said the statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their Japanese counterparts, Yoshimasa Hayashi and Yasukazu Hamada.

“This behavior is of serious concern to the alliance and the entire international community, and represents the greatest strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”

The four men agreed to adjust the American troop presence on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa in part to enhance anti-ship capabilities that would be needed in the event of a Chinese incursion into Taiwan or other hostile acts in the South or East China seas.

They also added a formal mention of outer space in the longstanding US-Japan security treaty, making clear that “attacks to, from and within space” could trigger the mutual defence provisions of the treaty. That had previously been outside the scope of the agreement.

In addition, the US space agency NASA plans to sign a cooperation deal with Japan on Friday, they said.

Blinken said the agreement reflects the two nations’ effort to deepen cooperation “across all realms”, including space, cybersecurity and emerging technologies.

He said the US-Japan alliance has “been the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, ensuring the security, the liberty and prosperity of our people and people across the region”.

Wednesday’s discussions will be followed by a meeting on Friday between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida where they will underscore the importance of the relationship.

Kishida, on a weeklong trip to visit allies in Europe and North America, signed a defence agreement with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday that strengthens military ties between the two countries, also in response to China.

Austin noted that the agreement affirms the US’s “ironclad commitment to defend Japan with a full range of capabilities, including nuclear” and underscores that Article 5 of the mutual security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.

The disputed islands outside Japanese territorial waters are also claimed by Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands.

The changes in the US deployment on Okinawa will transform the 12th Marine Regiment into a smaller, more rapidly mobile unit – the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, which will be designed to be better equipped to fight any adversary and defend the US and its allies in the region.

Austin said the regiment will bring “tremendous” capabilities to the region as a “more lethal, more agile, more capable” military unit.

US officials said the decision will not increase the number of marines on the island and does not come with any significant change in weapons capability. Reinforcement of military capability or troops is a sensitive issue for Okinawa, the site of one of the bloodiest ground battles at the end of World War II. The island hosts more than half of the US troops based in Japan, and Okinawans want that number reduced.

A littoral regiment is made up of roughly 2,000 marines and includes a combat team with an anti-ship missile battery, a logistics battalion and an air defence battalion. The current marine regiment on Okinawa that it would essentially replace includes about 3,400 marines and sailors.

Wednesday’s agreements follow Japan’s announcement last year that it would increase its defence spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over five years. That would make its defence budget the world’s third-largest – a dramatic shift in Tokyo’s priorities that reflects growing concerns about North Korea and potential Chinese military action against Taiwan.

Asked about the Japanese reforms, Blinken said: “It’s very simple, we heartily welcome the new strategies especially because there is … a remarkable convergence between our strategy and strategies and Japan’s.

“We applaud the commitment to increase investment, to enhanced roles, missions and capabilities … to closer cooperation not only between the United States and Japan but as well with other allies and other partners,” he said. “We already have a strong foundation that’s only going to grow.”

Austin noted ramped-up Chinese military activities near the Taiwan Strait, but said he seriously doubted they were a sign of plans for an imminent invasion of the island by Beijing.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, as its territory and last year carried out exercises seen as a test run for an invasion after a defiant visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives.

“I won’t second-guess Mr Xi but what I will tell you that what we are seeing recently is some very provocative behaviour on the part of China’s forces,” Austin said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We believe that they endeavour to establish a new normal but whether or not that means that an invasion is imminent, you know, I seriously doubt that,” he said.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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German police begin clearing coal mine protest camp in Luetzerath

 The expansion of a lignite mine has highlighted tensions around Germany’s climate policy during the energy crisis.

Police in riot gear have begun evicting climate activists from a condemned village in western Germany that is due to be demolished for the expansion of a coal mine.

Some stones and fireworks were thrown on Wednesday as officers entered the tiny hamlet of Luetzerath, which has become a flashpoint of debate over the country’s climate efforts.

Police spokesman Andreas Mueller said the attacks on officers were “not nice” but noted that most of the protests so far had been peaceful.

He said police would stick to their tactic of trying to avoid any escalation by offering to let any activists who leave on their own accord to do so without facing further police measures or prosecution.

“I’m really afraid today,” Petra Mueller, a 53-year-old local who had been at the site for several days, said from a top-floor window of one of the few remaining houses. Mueller said she still held out hope of preserving what is left of Luetzerath “until nothing is left standing; hope dies last”.

Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the nearby Garzweiler coal mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue that coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

However, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research calls into question the government’s stance. Its authors found other existing coal fields could be used instead, though the cost to RWE would be greater.

Another alternative would be for Germany to increase the production of renewable power, cut demand through energy efficiency measures, or import more coal or gas from abroad, the study found.

Some activists expressed particular anger at the environmentalist Green party, which is part of the regional and national governments that reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

“I think climate protection and protests need symbols but the empty hamlet of Luetzerath, where no one lives any more, is the wrong symbol from my point of view,” Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, a Green who is Germany’s economy and climate minister, told reporters in Berlin.

Climate campaigners counter that expanding a massive open-cast coal mine goes against Germany’s international commitments to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The country is expected to miss its ambitious targets for the second year in a row.

Source aljazeera

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Jeff Beck, iconic British rock guitarist, dies aged 78

Beck, a guitar virtuoso and innovator, died after contracting bacterial meningitis, his family said.

Jeff Beck, the influential, genre-bending English guitarist who rose to fame with The Yardbirds before later embarking on a solo career, has died at the age of 78, his family said.

“On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday,” a statement on the English-born musician’s website said on Wednesday.

“His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.”

Beck is a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee – in 1992 for his work with The Yardbirds and as a solo performer in 2009. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Beck as the fifth greatest guitarist of all time, one spot ahead of blues icon BB King.

In 2022, Beck released his final album, 18, a 13-track collection of mostly cover songs with Hollywood star Johnny Depp.

“We slowly built songs that we just like. We didn’t really make any design,” Beck said at the time.

A native of Wallington, England, Beck won his first Grammy award in 1985 with the instrumental Escape. He would go on to win seven more of the gold-plated statuettes in his career.

Beck’s death quickly reverberated around the music world, with tributes pouring in from rock icons like Ozzy Osbourne, with whom Beck once collaborated, and Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons, who called Beck’s passing “heartbreaking”.

“No one played guitar like Jeff,” Simmons posted on Twitter. “Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness. RIP.”

Mick Jagger hailed Beck as “one of the greatest guitar players in the world”.

“He was quiet as moccasined feet, yet mercurial, innovative, impossible to categorise,” wrote punk-poet laureate Patti Smith. “One of the masters of my generation.”

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi mourned Beck’s death on Twitter, saying he was shocked to hear of his passing.

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, also a former Yardbirds member, paid tribute to Beck, saying his technique was unique and imagination limitless.

Born Geoffrey Arnold Beck on June 24, 1944, the self-taught artist got his start tinkering on a borrowed guitar and even tried building his own.

He has cited guitarists from Les Paul to Ravi Shankar to Django Reinhardt as influences and built a life off of experimenting with new sounds and fusions that pushed rock’s boundaries.

Beck played in a number of groups while in art school in London and had already recorded pioneering rock sounds by the time the Yardbirds hired him in 1965.

He auditioned after the departure of one of the band’s star guitarists, Eric Clapton, and helped propel the British avant garde rock sound with multiple groundbreaking recordings, including the fuzz-filled guitar licks on Heart Full of Soul.

By 1966, he was paired in the Yardbirds with fellow guitar wizard Jimmy Page, who went on to found the British blues rock sensation Led Zeppelin.

A year later Beck formed his own band – the Jeff Beck Group, which included Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass – and swiftly drew widespread praise.

The musician found solo success in 1975 with Blow by Blow, a sleeper hit produced by George Martin of Beatles fame, who Beck later credited with saving his career.

By the 1980s he’d stopped using a guitar pick, producing innovative sounds by plucking with his thumb.

“I don’t care about the rules. In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least 10 times in every song then I’m not doing my job properly,” the Recording Academy quoted Beck as saying.

He found regular success collaborating with his peers and throughout the 1980s was a regular feature, performing on albums from the likes of Tina Turner, Roger Waters and Jon Bon Jovi, who hailed Beck as a “legend”.

“Jeff Beck was on another planet,” said Stewart of his former bandmate. “He was one of the few guitarists that, when playing live, would actually listen to me sing and respond. Jeff, you were the greatest, my man.

“Thank you for everything.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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