Details of horrific first voyages in transatlantic slave trade revealed
Exclusive: As the world ignores the ignominious 500th anniversary of the buying and selling of slaves between Africa and the Americas, historians uncover its first horrific voyages
Almost completely ignored by the modern world, this month marks the 500th anniversary of one of history’s most tragic and significant events – the birth of the Africa to America transatlantic slave trade. New discoveries are now revealing the details of the trade’s first horrific voyages.
Exactly five centuries ago – on 18 August 1518 (28 August 1518, if they had been using our modern Gregorian calendar) – the King of Spain, Charles I, issued a charter authorising the transportation of slaves direct from Africa to the Americas. Up until that point (since at least 1510), African slaves had usually been transported to Spain or Portugal and had then been transhipped to the Caribbean.
Charles’s decision to create a direct, more economically viable Africa to America slave trade fundamentally changed the nature and scale of this terrible human trafficking industry. Over the subsequent 350 years, at least 10.7 million black Africans were transported between the two continents. A further 1.8 million died en route.
Indonesian police kill dozens in Asian Games 'clean-up'
Amnesty says more than 30 killings directly linked to street crime crackdown
Police in Jakarta have killed dozens of people as part of an escalating crackdown against petty criminals ahead of the Asian Games, in a campaign Amnesty International has described as “unnecessary and excessive”.
Based on monitoring from January to August this year, Amnesty International said 31 police killings were directly linked to the Games, which open in Jakarta and Palembang on Saturday.
The rights group said police shot dead 77 petty criminals across the whole of Indonesia during the same period, a 64% increase from 2017.
'Islamic State' youth fighters keep the faith in prison
Iraqi youngsters are doing time for their roles in the "Islamic State" terror group. Some will leave jail even more radicalized. As one of the first foreign journalists, Judit Neurink visited Irbil's juvenile prison.
"I don't know how many Hashed I have killed," says Khayralah Mezadivan, 18, about the battles he fought for the militant "Islamic State" group against the Iraqi Shiite militias, the Hashed al-Shabi. He jokes: "Nobody kept score."
He sits at a table in the library of the juvenile prison in the Iraqi Kurdish capital, Irbil, where he is serving a nine-month sentence. Here, over a hundred Arab youngsters taken prisoner by Kurdish peshmerga troops are being held for their involvement with IS. Some deny having trained or been stationed on an IS base, others admit to it. But Mezadivan — who wears his long hair under a black cloth tied like a tight cap around his head and his trousers above the ankles, as IS ordered men to do — freely admits not only to manning checkpoints, but also to working with the IS police and even fighting on the front line.
Palm oil threatens indigenous life in Malaysia
Growing demand for palm oil is depleting forests as the Orang Asli tribe fights for its rights.
Dendi Johari is an Orang Asli fighting for his tribe's rights in Malaysia's eastern state of Kelantan.
As an indigenous activist, Dendi makes trips from his village in the deep forest of Gua Musang to the state's capital to attend court hearings, community meetings and participate in forest road blockades to protest logging in the lands that Orang Asli consider theirs.
"I see the forests being cut down with such greed and without control," said Dendi.
Anti-Semitism is so bad in Britain that some Jews are planning to leave
Updated 0423 GMT (1223 HKT) August 17, 2018
Mark Lewis, a famed libel and privacy lawyer, is leaving Britain. Worn down by years of anti-Semitic abuse and death threats, he has decided enough is enough.
The 53-year-old plans to begin a new life in Israel with his partner, Mandy Blumenthal, by year's end. Both were born and raised in England. Both are very ready to leave.
"I just want to get out of here. It's a massive thing to do but I've actually had enough," Lewis said. "People might dislike me in Israel because of my political views, might think I'm too right-wing or left-wing or whatever, but they are not going to dislike me for being Jewish."
Donald Trump Is a Dangerous Demagogue. It’s Time for a Crusading Press to Fight Back.
His father, Leopold Ullstein, a Jewish newspaper dealer, had founded Ullstein Verlag, the family publishing house, which at its pre-Nazi peak owned some of Germany’s most important publications, including the Vossische Zeitung newspaper. But when Hitler stole their press holdings, Hermann Ullstein and other family members fled, and by World War II, the Ullstein presses were being used to print Das Reich, a newspaper created by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
No comments:
Post a Comment