The news will disappear from your feed, Facebook announced after Thursday’s vote in Canada’s Senate formalized passage of the bill to force “dominant” web companies to the negotiating table with the media.

“We confirm today that we will be ending access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada before the Online News Act goes into effect,” the California multinational writes on its blog. Meta, in both official languages.

In so doing, the platform is making good on its threat it repeated while considering Bill C-18 on revenue sharing between internet giants and the media, hoping to change it. The elected officials and senators had replied that they would not bow to the threat.

In the same message, Facebook wants to reassure its users, indicating that “they will always be able to keep in touch with their friends and family, grow their business, and support their communities.”

Facebook, like Google, conducted “tests” in the spring aimed at blocking access to news articles for a small segment of internet users in the country. Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez had a meeting with Google officials on Thursday. The company states that it “does everything [son] Power to prevent an outcome no one wants.”

“We remain urgently seeking to work with the government on another avenue,” spokesman Shay Purdy wrote in an email.

Ottawa’s Wager

“I sincerely hope that the government wins its bet,” Independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne said ahead of Thursday’s Senate vote, the result of which came as no surprise.

The MPs-elect had left Ottawa for the summer the previous day, leaving it to the senators to adopt the text. They had recently returned to the House of Lords the version already revised by the Senate, minus two amendments by Ms Miville-Dechêne to clarify that the negotiations between the web platforms and the media that distribute their content there would be “based on”. Value exchange”, one of the demands of the platforms.

These exchanges – which both recognize as the value of news on the platforms, whether financial or not – must guide possible arbitration proceedings if no agreement is reached, but not necessarily the previous negotiations, the government has ruled. The minister said it was necessary to “retain as much flexibility as possible” in order not to disadvantage the media in this expected showdown.

Royal Assent must therefore formalize the law regarding online communication platforms that make news content available to people in Canada, a process that will happen automatically. However, there are several months between the passage of the law and the signing of a first check promised to the media.

amicable agreement

The impact of Facebook’s message blocking on enforcement of the new law, originally intended to require “minimal intervention” from the government, is still unclear. If everything goes as planned, the platforms would independently agree with the media on an amount made available to them, for example after collective bargaining.

These platforms must continue to “make the news content available” to be subject to the law. Minister Pablo Rodriguez didn’t seem too concerned about Google or Facebook blocking their users’ access to news entirely.

“It’s a business decision, but you have to understand that they also make a lot of money in Canada. It’s a market that’s important to them,” he told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.

Then, on Thursday, the minister made it clear that the ongoing process would give the government the right to crack down on Meta. “Facebook is well aware that it has no legal obligation at this time. Following royal approval of Bill C-18, the government will begin a regulatory and enforcement process. If the government can’t defend Canadians against the giants of the internet, who will? the minister said in an email from his office to Le Devoir.

In theory, the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) should first set the rules of the game by officially designating Google and Facebook as the “dominant” companies to fall under the law, according to the criteria set out in the regulation. The CRTC must then also draft a “code of conduct” that the parties must subscribe to in order to be able to negotiate.

These rules must also determine whether these companies have already made enough deals with the media to stop doing more. Both Facebook and Google already fund several press organizations, including Le Devoir, under agreements the amounts of which are kept confidential. However, several other media outlets, including major corporations such as Bell Media and CBC/Radio-Canada, are also claiming their share of the pie.

In Australia, a country that has passed a similar law, collective bargaining with the media has enabled web giants to be exempted from the law. Multinational Google multiplied steps in the spring To in law the number of media outlets with which consent would be sufficient.

An evaluation of agreements to avoid arbitration

Under the law passed on Thursday, it will ultimately be up to the CRTC, as the regulator, to assess whether the number and quality of the agreements satisfy it based on various criteria: that the agreements are fair, that support local production, such as regional and national news and upholding freedom of expression. The CRTC must also publish an annual report that captures the total value of commercial agreements with platforms without disclosing commercial information.

If the major platforms “that make news content available” don’t sign enough deals to meet the CRTC’s requirements within the next 18 months, they’ll be subject to the entire law. The financial consequences could be significant.

This would give any media outlet the right to bring these companies before an arbitrator. Their concern would be to estimate what they are owed based on the price of producing the news, the value the platforms derive from it, and the “imbalance” in bargaining power. The arbitrator must then decide whether the platform’s offer is sufficient.

Google and Facebook have sharply criticized this aspect, which amounts to forcing them to pay the media for the quantity of links to the articles they display, which, according to the two platforms, is contrary to the spirit of how the Internet works.

To see in the video

In September 2021, a day after the state of Texas enacted the country’s toughest anti-abortion law, criminalizing abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, the satirical weekly The Onion ran a piece of news that reflected a zeitgeist: “The new Texas Law allows citizens to hold pregnant women hostage until childbirth.” The key to the legislation that went into effect this month in Texas was precisely that it shifted the prosecution of abortion from the state to individuals: the strategy was to turn it into a civil matter and provide a legal basis so that any citizen could sue any person who assisted another to have an abortion.

A year and two months later, across the continent, The Onion’s brutal joke became a prophecy in other latitudes as well. In December 2022, in Santa Fe, Argentina, a 12-year-old girl who had been raped by her father filed with her mother for a legal abortion. However, he did not show up at the hospital on the day scheduled for the procedure. After a search lasting more than 24 hours, the girl was found at a home run by the Catholic organization Gravida, where she was being held to prevent an abortion. “We want the political and economic connections of Gravida, who is hoping for the possible kidnapping of a girl, to be investigated,” a reproductive rights activist told EL PAÍS.

Between 2021 and 2023, the scenario of the struggle for reproductive rights in America is no longer the same, between an extreme of geography and legality, between legal strategies and direct citizen action. The dispute is not new, but it has spread and taken a place in the region’s political struggles, thanks to a long process of alliances, funding and the development of ultra-conservative lobbying strategies and evangelical churches. For José Morán, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet), one of these strategies is to disqualify traditional progressive positions by equating them with a kind of “new communism”. In other words, an enemy image of conservatism, in which the struggle is not aimed at class struggle as in the 20th century, but at a culture war that concentrates the confrontation on questions of gender and sexuality.

“Retracing this path also involves understanding discursive constructions,” explains Morán. “They have tried to relate sexual and reproductive rights to something far beyond gender and sexuality, a kind of neo-Marxism.” This discourse has been ubiquitous in the continent’s election campaigns for the past decade: ever since the No popular vote won for the 2016 peace accords with the FARC in Colombia – the campaign led by former President Álvaro Uribe in which they spread untruths such as that the accords threatened the “traditional family” or attempted to promote a “gender ideology” into the constitution, and the evangelical vote was crucial to its victory – until Brazil’s second round of presidency in October last year. Then, in a desperate attempt to win the evangelical voice for Jair Bolsonaro, Lula da Silva sent a letter to church leaders stating that his project had “a commitment to fulfilling life in all its stages” because it was for him “life sacred, the work of the Creator’s hands.” Bolsonaro then ridiculed Lula’s shift in position on abortion to win evangelical votes, subconsciously pointing to an edge of the issue: “The left thrive on it, badly over our flags to talk, but on the campaign trail they’re passionate about her,” he said.

In recent years, the alliance between conservative politicians and Catholic and Evangelical groups — historic rivals who found a common agenda against reproductive rights, equal marriage and sex education — has managed to get representatives into parliament and has spurred mobilizations to ban books addresses sexuality in schools and works to thwart progress for LGBTI rights. The recent triumph of progressive governments on the continent has not solved the problem but has revealed its magnitude: while the fear fueled by the right has not been enough to win victories in societies plagued by more pressing social needs, it has a core formed power that can influence public policy and, in some cases, reverse progress.

For example, in the Honduran presidential election campaign, which ended in Xiomara Castro’s victory at the end of 2021, the opposition went viral with a banner featuring a cartoon of a politician stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach. During his intense campaign to reject Chile’s new constitution in 2022, far-right politician José Kast — who lost the presidential election and gained ground by winning the last constitutional advisor election — falsely reiterated that the constitutional convention allowed abortion “up to the ninth month of pregnancy”.

The phenomenon is not new, but in recent decades, as the ultra-conservative lobbies in the United States began to lose ground, they expanded their battlefield on the continent: they expanded their networks in Latin America, where they found greater opportunities, results to be achieved in public policy and in fertile land to influence the regulation of reproductive rights. “We see that conservative evangelical churches have a fairly easy time attracting adherents,” says researcher Javier Corrales, a professor at Amherst College.

During the last World Congress of Families in October 2022 in Mexico City, Joe Grogan, former director of the United States Domestic Policy Council and assistant to former President Donald Trump, spoke of him as “a great defender of life,” “a great agent of change.” ‘ and the ‘three solid stones of the Supreme Court for the annulment of Roe v. Wade”.

From Washington to Latin America

Idalia Candelas

The verdict of June 24, 2022 should not have come as a surprise; a draft had already been leaked. Still, Rebeca Ramos, director general of the Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE), a Mexican organization, reiterates that the overturning of the sentence was “a bucketful of cold water”. At that time she was in Lima, at a meeting that brought tears of pain and anger to many women’s eyes. Many countries in Latin America have pushed reproductive justice laws for decades. To describe this panorama, EL PAÍS spoke to academics, activists and lawyers to understand the implications of the end of a judgment that has been a reference in the fight for reproductive rights for almost fifty years.

Tania Reneaum, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, warns of the long-term risks of the Supreme Court ruling, which turns one year old this Saturday. “This resolution directly threatens the reproductive autonomy of women and pregnant people in the United States,” he says. In his opinion, the decision has implications not only for American reality but also for the rest of the continent, reflecting a trend of backlash and threats to reproductive rights. “What happened in the United States hasn’t been worked on in five or ten years, they’ve been working to reverse the Roe judgment since the ’70s. I can imagine that this will be the strategy in Latin America,” he explains.

The Supreme Court of the Nation of Mexico enshrined the decriminalization of abortion in September 2021, but access to legal abortion remains very precarious in some areas today. In Guerrero, for example, in 2022, a 10-year-old Me’phaa girl who was the victim of a rape was denied it. After filing a complaint with the public prosecutor, the minor managed to get the abortion.

let it be law

Idalia Candelas

The big difference between the progress made in Latin American countries and Roe v. Wade in the United States, alongside the initiative of the judiciary, consists of feminist and civil society organizations promoting changes in criminal law. Jenny Durán, a member of Católicas por el Derechos a Decidir and the women’s front Evita, explains that in Argentina it is a law that must be included in the country’s health plan, but there are other challenges. “Today we urge that this law be known, that the Ministry of Health inform that this law is also one of the basic contents of comprehensive sex education.”

Argentina was a pioneer country. In addition to sexual and reproductive rights, gender identity, equal marriage or the different regulatory frameworks that integrate these contents are at the forefront of comprehensive sex education. For the country, Durán adds, “Roe vs. Wade” represents only an uproar in the discourse of certain ultra sectors, but the legal bases are already irrefutable.

A similar thing happened in Colombia thanks to platforms like Just Cause for Abortion, the movement campaigning to have abortion removed from the penal code in 2022. For Mariana Ardila, lawyer for the organization Women’s Link Worldwide in the Andean country and director of Transnational Justice, Roe v. Wade very important back when there was nothing in Latin America, but today there are “many decisions even from…”. judicial powers that can be admired in Latin America and the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Global South as well.” The arguments on which there was progress were much more advanced. The US ruling granted freedom but did not guarantee access to abortion. On the other hand, these decisions in Latin America were very aware of the differences between women. “An Indigenous, Afro or migrant woman is not the same as a rich, privileged, urban white woman. And our advances have taken into account the impact of using criminal law to regulate abortion on these women, guaranteeing not only the decriminalization but also the legalization of abortion.” But we must not let up: A ruling by the Constitutional Court, announced last week, Again threatens access to abortion by denying the existence of this right. The judgment alone does not constitute case law, although it is an alarm signal.

Activists in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico agree that now is the time to band together and try to apply what they have learned in other countries. Because while Argentina managed in 2020 to pass Law 27.610, which enshrines women’s right to access an abortion up to week 14, Mexico has achieved decriminalization at the national level and Colombia has achieved decriminalization up to week 24, this is not the reality of the entire region . There are countries like Cuba, where there is access to abortion on paper but no access to contraceptives, and very restrictive countries like El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic, where criminalization prevails.

The Central American Wasteland

Tania Reneaum recalls that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has affirmed that the outright criminalization of abortion “exposes women and people of childbearing potential to dangerous and even deadly practices that endanger their health and life, especially those who find themselves in such a situation”. situation of poverty and vulnerability. Central American countries have suffered fully from the reactions of anti-rights groups. They have made these countries their laboratory because the judiciary is not independent, social movements are heavily attacked, persecuted and criminalized, and this makes them the perfect breeding ground for passing their restrictive laws.

El Salvador punishes women who have abortions with the harshest penalties in the world, even for spontaneous abortions. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights presented the Beatriz case, which seeks to hold the state responsible for prohibiting early access to abortion in a situation where the life of the woman and the unviability of the fetus are at serious risk. with the hope of setting a precedent.

Adding to historically very restrictive legislation is a lack of political will. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele radically changed his speech. Marcia Aguiluz, legal strategist at Women’s Link Worldwide, explains it. Before winning the 2019 election, he supported the three causes, but now he opposes abortion with the idea of ​​keeping the churches happy. The same thing happened in Nicaragua with the alliance Daniel Ortega forged with the Catholic Church before launching an unprecedented attack on religious freedom. This Central American country’s penal code upholds the ban on abortion in all circumstances, including the woman’s life.

As another example, Costa Rica passed an ordinance in 2019 allowing for therapeutic abortions, sparking resentment among parties most closely aligned with the churches. And Guatemala, in turn, was declared the “pro-life capital of Ibero-America” by a Christian convention in March last year after passing a controversial law increasing prison sentences for abortions from 1 to 3 years to 5. At least. Xiomara Castro from Honduras campaigned that she was in favor of decriminalizing abortion for the three reasons, but nothing has changed at the moment.

Countries like Chile are also affected by parliamentary balance sheets. Verónica Ávila, an expert on gender issues and public policy, explains that the obstacles in the South American country are created more by the machinery of the state than by pressure from groups of critics. The new constitution, which among other things provided for sexual and reproductive rights such as voluntary abortion, was rejected by a large majority last September. The government of Gabriel Boric, a young left-wing president, has restarted the constitutional process. However, on May 7, the election of the new Constitutional Council, which is to draw up a new text on the basis of a draft drawn up by a commission of experts, tipped the scales in favor of the extreme right, the big winner of this vote.

The Spirit of the “New Communism”

Each of these cases confirms that reproductive rights in Latin America are a political bargaining chip and have the power to change the fate of a candidate, campaign or project. It is the strategy of the “new communism” as José Morán defines it. Evangelical groups are advising Sebastián Piñera’s campaign in Chile and trying to determine the political balance in Peru on the left and right sides of the board. Fear is the main engine of this kind of mobilization. Pro-life, this scholar adds, are agitating the populace with a mix that “mixes popular radicalization” and a discourse that links sexual and reproductive rights to the right’s historic fear of communism.

A decade ago, progressive movements fought for societal conquest, as do anti-rightist movements today, which for political reasons have placed equal marriage and abortion at the heart of their agenda. The fear, for example, that a left-wing politician like Boric could introduce a “gay dictatorship”, as parts of the extreme right knowingly lied. More than a lie, this was a caricature, but this kind of unsupported slander follows the same modus operandi of the anti-vaccination and anti-immigration movements.

In parallel with the disinformation strategy, organizations linked to Vida Humana International and Heartbeat International are also operating on a political front. Heartbeat, who has close ties to former US Vice President Mike Pence and other Republican politicians, attends OAS meetings to campaign against reproductive rights. And it’s not the only one: Various movements against reproductive rights have emerged. The Hemispheric Congress of Parliamentarians, a platform bringing together more than 700 lawmakers from 18 countries, has denounced the multilateral organization for its abortion and gender agenda. In a 2017 document titled “Declaration of Mexico,” they express in black and white their “dismay at the aggressive and sustained efforts” of international organizations to impose “anti-life” measures on member states. Signatories include Jair and Eduardo Bolsonaro of Brazil, José Antonio Kast of Chile, former Costa Rican evangelical presidential candidate Fabricio Alvarado and Julio Rosas of Peru.

Mariana Ardila, an expert on women’s rights, also mentions the coalition promoted by Mike Pompeo during Donald Trump’s administration: the Geneva Consensus. An anti-rightist club of rulers that former Colombian President Iván Duque turned to in a last-ditch effort to push through his pro-life agenda. “Shortly after Colombia made the historic decision of the Causa Justa to have abortion, it became the country that made the most progress in the region and he brought Colombia into that club.”

And although the converse of Roe v. Wade worries all of Just Cause’s pro-abortion organizations, Ardila reiterates that “this colonizing approach needs to be demystified” given that countries in Latin America ultimately have their own constitutions, judges and democracies. On the other hand, according to Morán, the risk is because the Christian anti-rightist organizations that are rampant in the United States are also present in Latin America, where “not only do they have a social impact, at the level of mentality, but also the political repercussions at higher and higher levels in the domes of power.” A new form of political struggle in which progress and women’s rights are at stake alongside a management model.

This report was prepared with the support of the Internationale Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) as part of its program initiative Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice in America.

The city of Rome was fined Thursday by Italy’s privacy police for listing the names of women who had performed abortions on fetal graves without their consent.

At the end of September 2020, the discovery of these graves of aborted fetuses buried in the Flaminio Cemetery without the knowledge of their parents, whose names were written on the graves, had provoked the outrage of associations defending the rights of women and women involved. who denounced an invasion of their privacy.

Citing the ban on the dissemination of data on abortion, the DPA decided to impose a fine of 176,000 euros on the City of Rome and an additional fine of 239,000 euros on the AMA, the public company in charge of managing the cemeteries of the Italian capital .

In its press release, the agency also issued a warning to Rome’s primary health insurance company, which violated data protection laws that compromise privacy by providing WADA with the identity of each fetus of the woman who had an abortion.

In addition to these sanctions, the agency ordered the capital’s health insurance fund “to no longer ‘explicitly’ state identity on transport permits and medical certificates,” and suggested masking or encrypting that data to eliminate the possibility of identifying the woman fathered the aborted fetus.

The credit union must notify the AMF within two months of the election and adoption of such measures.

“We had to wait a long time, but today justice was done to so many women and to everyone who knew that this wrong was being done,” said Elisa Ercoli, President of the Association for the Defense of Women’s Rights “Differenza Donna”. quoted by the Italian agency AGI.

The scandal erupted in September 2020 after a woman who had an abortion spotted her name on a cross in Flaminio Cemetery, of which she posted a photo on Facebook that went viral.

Similar practices were later discovered in a cemetery in the northern city of Brescia.

For months, mercenary chief Wagner has been bombarding Russian military leaders with profanity, criticizing and reprimanding their competence in an ongoing conflict that has weakened the country’s armed forces during the attack on Ukraine.

Now the standoff between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Defense Ministry seems to have come to a head when the multi-million dollar leader of the mercenary group called for an armed uprising, directly challenging the Kremlin.

Prigozhin said he would take all necessary steps to overthrow the country’s military leadership, as he claimed his troops had “crossed state lines” and were ready “to destroy anything that gets in their way.”

As the Wagner militia appeared to be charging at Moscow, Prigozhin vowed to punish military leaders whom he accused of killing 2,000 of his fighters after claiming that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had ordered a rocket attack on his encampments.

But 62-year-old Prigozhin, who made his living from catering services and earned himself the nickname “Putin’s chef,” was not long ago considered a close ally of the Russian president and the Kremlin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of military company Wagner Group, addresses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy March 3, 2023

Prigozhin, 62, made his living from catering services and earned the nickname “Putin’s chef.”

An armored personnel carrier (APC) was sighted near a shopping center in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday

Born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in the Soviet Union in 1961, Prigozhin spent part of his early life in prison after being convicted of robbery and fraud.

After Prigozhin was released from prison in 1990 after serving nine years, he began selling hot dogs at his hometown flea markets. He told the New York Times in 2018: “The rubles piled up faster than his mother could count them.” And when the Soviet Union fell apart, Prigozhin founded several companies.

Having worked in a grocery store, and then in a gambling shop, Prigozhin later became a restaurateur. After the success of several outlets, Prigozhin began to secure lucrative catering deals in the Kremlin with the Russian elite.

This propelled him to the forefront of Russian politics and signaled his growing ambitions.

Eventually, he became closer to Putin himself and is said to have received hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts to feed schoolchildren and government employees.

It is believed that these contracts, some of which were later linked to the military, prompted him to found the mercenary group Wager, although information on their exact origins is sparse.

Prigozhin had long denied any connection to Wagner and threatened to sue journalists covering his involvement with the group.

The group gained a reputation for doing the Russian military’s dirty work, leaving a trail of brutal violence, rape and war crimes. For years after its inception, the Russian government refused to even acknowledge the group’s existence.

General Sergei Surovikin (left) and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are pictured in December

Vladimir Putin (centre) speaks with Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov (left) and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in December

Armored vehicles appear on the streets of Moscow in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

Wagner’s first assignment came in 2014 on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where he supported Russian-backed separatist groups fighting the country’s new government after a 2013 revolution that toppled the pro-Kremlin president.

They have since gone to Libya – where they fought for warlord Khalifa Haftar against the Western-backed government of national unity – and to Syria, alongside dictator Bashar al-Assad’s troops.

They have also been deployed to the Central African Republic, where they have been accused of raping, robbing and torturing unarmed civilians, and are currently being deployed to Mali, where they are accused of massacres of civilians.

So far, Putin and the military have met Prigozhin’s rants against the military leadership with silence. Some saw a failure to quell the infighting, a sign of possible shifts in Russia’s political scene that set the stage for more internal struggles.

A video Prigozhin released in May seemed to inflame some of the rifts between the military and militia – not only because of what it showed, but also because of what the Wagner boss said. Standing in front of the bloodied bodies of his slain troops near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, he shouted profanities and insults at Shoigu and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov. He called her weak and incompetent and blamed her for the bloodbath.

“They came here as volunteers and died to let you lounge around in your mahogany offices,” Prigozhin explained. “You sit in your expensive clubs, your kids enjoy the good life and make videos on YouTube. ‘If you don’t give us ammunition, you’ll get eaten alive in hell!’

Prigozhin was once known as “Putin’s cook” – now the Wagner boss seems to be waging war against the Kremlin

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner group, attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov in December

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (right) accompanied by a group of officers welcomes a military medic in Ukraine

The dispute with the military intensified on Friday when he accused Shoigu of targeting Wagner troops. Prigozhin said his men would punish the military leaders who ordered the attack and said his troops would fire on any troops trying to stop them.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” Prigozhin called out in a recorded statement, adding that his forces made no attempt to challenge Putin and other government structures. “Justice in the armed forces will be restored, and then justice will be restored across Russia.”

The conflict has so far been ignored by state-controlled television, which is where most Russians get their news. But on Friday, Channel 1 aired an unscheduled newscast citing the Defense Ministry’s rejection of Prigozhin’s claim and calling as fake a video he released that allegedly showed the aftermath of a rocket attack on a Wagner camp.

However, the dispute drew the attention of politically active, ultra-patriotic Russians on social media, who share his contempt for military leaders.

Prigozhin’s fierce criticism continued, despite the Kremlin cracking down on other critics, handing out fines and imprisonment.

While there are no signs that Putin is losing influence, “there are increasing signs of deep dysfunction, fear, concerns about the war and real problems in providing the resources needed to fight it effectively,” Nigel said Gould-Davies, a senior scholar for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Prigozhin’s feud with military leaders dates back years and was brought to light during the Battle of Bakhmut led by his mercenaries. It has propelled the man dubbed “Putin’s chef” because of his lucrative catering deals in the Kremlin to the forefront of Russian politics and signaled his growing ambitions.

Yevgeny Prigozhin takes part in the meeting with investors at the 2nd Eastern Economic Forum on September 2, 2016

The head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has repeatedly ridiculed the reports from the Russian Defense Ministry

With his blunt statements, Prigozhin ventured into areas only Putin had previously ventured into: over the years, the Russian leader occasionally broke decency with a down-to-earth remark or an inappropriate joke, while top officials used carefully crafted language.

In another recent video, Prigozhin made a statement that some interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on Putin himself. He explained that while his men were dying because the Department of Defense wasn’t supplying ammunition, a “happy grandpa thinks he’s fine,” and then referred to that “grandpa” with an obscene remark.

The blunt comment caused an uproar on social media, where it was taken as a reference to Putin. Prigozhin later said he spoke about Gerasimov.

“Prigozhin is now sailing much closer to the wind than ever before,” Gould-Davies told The Associated Press.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political commentator, described Prigozhin as “the second most popular man after Putin” and a “symbol of Russia’s military victory to millions of people.”

Putin needed Prigozhin’s mercenaries at a time when the regular military was still recovering from setbacks at the start of the war. The Wagner chief’s position was strengthened after his private army captured Bakhmut last month in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. He relied on tens of thousands of convicts who were promised pardon if they survived the fighting for six months.

“Putin dominates the system, but he still depends on a small number of big people to implement his will and provide him with resources to carry out his orders, including waging war,” Gould-Davies told the AP.

While Putin may split different factions and then “decide who wins and who loses and who’s up and who’s down,” this process undermines the government’s authority in wartime, Gould-Davies said.

“If your military forces are divided and don’t work together effectively, your military operations will suffer accordingly, and that’s what’s happening here,” he said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private mercenary army, grumbles about the recent casualties and the lack of ammunition in early May 2023

The mercenary chief has made a number of cryptic but profane remarks about Russia’s military leadership

Mark Galeotti, a London-based expert on Russian politics and security, speculated on a recent podcast that Putin’s failure to resolve political disputes was due to a lack of interest, a focus on other issues, or, more likely, a reluctance to take sides , could be due to .

“It also raises questions about his overall ability to do his job,” Galeotti said. “That’s the one thing, the only job he can’t really outsource, and he’s not even trying.”

Prigozhin has allied himself with other aggressive officials, including reportedly Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, a former bodyguard of Putin who is seen by many as a potential successor. The Wagner boss has also become attracted to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed regional leader of Chechnya.

Some of these alliances have been shaky.

While initially praising Prigozhin and supporting some of his criticisms of military leaders, Kadyrov later changed tack and criticized him for his defeatist tone. Kadyrov’s lieutenants criticized Wagner’s efforts in Bakhmut after Prigozhin made disparaging remarks about Chechen fighters in Ukraine. Kadyrov’s right-hand man, Magomed Daudov, said Prigozhin was executed for such statements in World War II.

Prigozhin quickly backed down, saying he was only expressing concern about the Russian operations.

Prigozhin has dodged questions about his political ambitions, but recently toured Russia and continued a flurry of stormy commentary.

“There are signs that he aspires to a political future,” Gould-Davies observed.

While Prigozhin owes his position and wealth to Putin, he is playing the role of an outsider in his criticism of some leaders and his attempt to appeal to the masses in the face of backlash in Ukraine, said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment.

“Prigozhin plays an independent politician who ups the ante and tests the limits of the system.” “But it’s technically and physically possible only as long as Putin finds him useful and amused by his antics,” Kolesnikov said.

To show his support for the military, Putin backed the Defense Ministry’s demand that all private companies sign contracts with the military — something Prigozhin has opposed.

Prigozhin called for a full-scale war with Ukraine, including a full-scale nationwide mobilization and the imposition of martial law in Russia — calls welcomed by some hawks.

But Kolesnikov points out that the vast majority of Russians, who are largely apathetic or unwilling to make major sacrifices, may be frightened and appalled by this message.

He warns against overestimating Prigozhin’s influence and political prospects and underestimating Putin’s authority.

“A finger movement of the commander-in-chief is enough to make the Wagner boss disappear,” said Kolesnikov.

• By Umaru Fofana and Cecilia Macaulay
• BBC News, Freetown and London

Jun 24, 2023 at 1:47 am BST

Updated 3 hours ago

picture description,

Voters face a choice Saturday between the same two leading presidential candidates as in 2018

After a tense, violent election campaign, Sierra Leoneans are taking part in a general election.

On Wednesday, the main opposition party claimed one of its supporters was shot dead by police, which police have denied.

Supporters of both major parties have been accused of attacking opponents.

This election comes against a backdrop of a struggling economy, rising cost of living and concerns about national unity.

In the fifth election since the end of the civil war in 2002, voters choose a president, MPs and councillors.

According to Marcella Samba Sesay, chair of the NGO National Elections Watch, the 11-year conflict has claimed the lives of an estimated 50,000 people, but the country has since had a tradition of largely peaceful, free and credible elections.

Given the strong party allegiance of the 3.3 million registered voters, campaigns have focused on strengthening the base of their parties rather than articulating and discussing political issues.

Who are the candidates?

President Julius Maada Bio, 59, of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is running for a second five-year term. His main rival among the twelve challengers is Dr. Samura Kamara, 72, of the All People’s Congress (APC).

This is a repeat of the 2018 race where Mr Bio narrowly won after a second round runoff.

How much violence was there?

According to the West Africa Network for Peace-building Sierra Leone, violence has increased compared to five years ago. Since April, 109 violent incidents have been counted.

This week, the APC said one person was killed by security forces as its supporters gathered for a protest at its Freetown headquarters on Wednesday.

Police claimed the shots were fired from the direction of the APC building.

dr Kamara also said his motorcade was attacked and that the APC office in Bo town was set on fire last weekend.

The SLPP said it too had been attacked in opposition strongholds.

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What you need to know about the elections

President Bio called for “peaceful elections” and “no violence”. The African Union has also expressed concern over reported incidents of violence and intimidation in parts of the country.

The Portal news agency reports that the Sierra Leoneans are alarmed by the activists’ rhetoric.

“All I want is peace. I’m scared of the high level of hatred that political extremists on both sides are displaying on social media,” a Freetown student who asked to remain anonymous told Portal.

what about women

This election comes months after a landmark law that says women must hold 30% of all positions in both the public and private sectors – including in Parliament.

But analysis by Sierra Leone’s Institute for Government Reform (IGR) suggests the next parliament will fail to do so.

The parties have submitted lists of candidates for each of the country’s districts to be elected by proportional representation. However, according to IGR, there are not enough women high up on these lists to ensure that the 30 percent threshold is exceeded.

Of the 13 candidates running for president, only one is a woman — the little-known Iye Kakay.

How does the election work?

The APC has also raised concerns about the transparency of the counting process and expressed doubts about the Electoral Commission’s ability to hold fair elections.

The commission defended itself, saying steps had been taken to ensure the credibility of the voting and counting process.

Results should be known within 48 hours of polling stations closing.

To be declared the winner of the presidential campaign, the top candidate must receive 55% of the votes cast, otherwise a runoff will take place between the two candidates with the highest number of votes.