World

Camilo Guevara March, the eldest son of communist revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara, died in Caracas aged 60, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Tuesday.

According to Prensa Latina, Guevara March was visiting Venezuela when he died on Monday due to a blood clot that led to a heart attack.

“It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to Camilo, son of Che and promoter of his ideas,” said Diaz-Canel on Twitter.

He was the eldest of four children that Argentine Guevara had with Cuban Aleida March.

Guevara also had a daughter, Hilda, from a previous marriage to Peruvian Hilda Gadea.

A graduate in labor law, Guevara March was the director of the Center for Che Guevara Studies in Havana, an institution dedicated to promoting the work and ideology of his father, who remains a hugely influential figure in Cuba.

Born in Argentina, Guevara studied medicine before traveling through Latin America, when he met Cuban revolutionaries Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico.

Guevara joined their army and helped overthrow US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, before later unsuccessfully attempting to spark similar Marxist revolutions in Congo and then Bolivia, where he was shot dead by a soldier in 1967 at age 39.

Aid efforts ramped up across flooded Pakistan on Tuesday to help tens of millions of people affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged a third of the country and claimed more than 1,100 lives.

The rains that began in June have unleashed the worst flooding in more than a decade, washing away swathes of vital crops and damaging or destroying more than a million homes.

Authorities and charities are struggling to accelerate aid delivery to more than 33 million people, a challenging task in areas cut off because roads and bridges have been washed away.

Displaced people have been wandering what remains of dry land seeking shelter, food and drinking water.

“For God’s sake help us out,” said Qadir, 35, who was camped out with his extended family on a road near the southern city of Sukkur.

“We walked along the road for three days to reach here. There’s nothing left back at home, we only managed to save our lives.”

In the country’s south and west, many Pakistanis have crammed onto elevated highways and railroad tracks to escape the flooded plains.

“We don’t even have space to cook food. We need help,” Rimsha Bibi, a schoolgirl in Dera Ghazi Khan in central Pakistan, told AFP.

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But such intense downpours have not been seen for three decades.

Pakistani officials have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

– ‘Mind-boggling devastation’ –

“To see the devastation on the ground is really mind-boggling,” Pakistan’s climate change minister Sherry Rehman told AFP.

“When we send in water pumps, they say, ‘Where do we pump the water?’ It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out.”

She said “literally a third” of the country was under water, comparing scenes from the disaster to a dystopian movie.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan needed more than $10 billion to repair and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

“Massive damage has been caused… especially in the areas of telecommunications, roads, agriculture and livelihoods,” he told AFP Tuesday.

The Indus River, which runs the length of the South Asian nation, is threatening to burst its banks as torrents of water rush downstream from its tributaries in the north.

Pakistan as a whole has been deluged with twice the usual monsoon rainfall, the meteorological office said, but Balochistan and Sindh provinces have seen more than four times the average of the last three decades.

– International help –

The disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.

Appealing for international help, the government has declared an emergency.

Aid flights have arrived in recent days from Turkey and the UAE, while other nations including Canada, Australia and Japan have also pledged assistance.

The United Nations has announced it will launch a formal $160 million appeal on Tuesday to fund emergency aid.

“Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video statement, calling it a “colossal crisis”.

Pakistan was already desperate for international support and the floods have compounded the challenge.

Prices of basic goods — particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas — are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

There was some relief on Monday when the International Monetary Fund approved the revival of a loan programme for Pakistan, releasing an initial $1.1 billion.

Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over Pakistan — in schools, on motorways and in military bases.

In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.

They sweltered in the summer heat with sporadic food aid and little access to water.

“I never thought that one day we will have to live like this,” said 60-year-old Malang Jan.

“We have lost our heaven and are now forced to live a miserable life.”

China’s ruling Communist Party will begin its 20th Party Congress on October 16, state media reported Tuesday, a landmark meeting at which President Xi Jinping is expected to be anointed as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.

The congress in the capital Beijing comes as Xi faces significant political headwinds, including an ailing economy, deteriorating relations with the United States and a strict zero-Covid policy that has accelerated China’s inward turn from the world.

It is widely expected to see Xi reinstated as president for a third term — unprecedented in the contemporary era.

It will also see the unveiling of a new top leadership line-up, as Xi consolidates his grip on the party and his position as the most powerful Chinese leader since the country’s founder Mao Zedong. 

The meeting — held every five years — will be “extremely important”, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV on a Monday meeting of the country’s 25-member Politburo, adding preparations were “progressing smoothly.”

The event will see about 2,300 Communist Party delegates from across the country descend on Beijing in a highly choreographed exercise to pick members of the party’s Central Committee of around 200 members.

The final meeting of the current Central Committee will take place in Beijing from October 9, the report said.

The Central Committee will then vote for the 25-person Politburo and its all-powerful Standing Committee — China’s highest leadership body and apex of power, currently comprised of seven people.

Voting is mostly a formality — the pecking order of the Politburo and its Standing Committee is likely to have been decided well in advance. The overall duration of the Congress is not yet clear.

– Expect no surprises –

Analysts predict “no surprises” in terms of format and timing.

“Most people will not be surprised to see that Xi Jinping will have a third term. I think this has been lined up for a while,” said Alfred Wu Muluan, a Chinese politics expert and associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

“He will increase the percentage of his supporters, particularly from Fujian and Zhejiang (where Xi previously held top positions), in the Politburo… He can then count on their support for his fourth term in five years’ time.”

It is likely that Xi will be anointed the honorific title of “Great Leader” at the Congress, Wu said, a term last used to refer to Mao Zedong.

Party propaganda organs such as its official newspaper, the People’s Daily, have already started using the term “People’s Leader” to refer to Xi.

Wu added that the top leadership lineup was most likely set during the secretive two-week conclave of Communist Party leaders held at the seaside town of Beidaihe in August. 

– Unchecked power –

Xi’s decade-long tenure has also seen crackdowns on corruption within the party, which analysts say served to take down his political rivals, as well as the crushing of a democracy movement in Hong Kong and strict lockdowns on cities in the name of curbing the coronavirus.

He has faced harsh human rights criticism from the international community over repressive policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region, which have seen an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorites detained in a sweeping crackdown ostensibly targeting “terrorism”.

He also ushered in an assertive “Wolf Warrior” foreign policy that has alienated Western democracies and some of China’s regional neighbours, and pushed for closer ties with Russia while cultivating domestic nationalism to rampant levels.

He abolished the presidential two-term limit in 2018 — originally set up by former leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s to prevent another Mao-like dictatorship — leaving the possibility of him becoming leader for life. 

Over the past year, Chinese propaganda has worked in overdrive to bolster Xi’s legacy, diminish the achievements of his predecessors and further enshrine him in the highest echelons of the Communist Party.

Analysts predict that at this year’s congress, Xi will be looking to shorten the name of his official political philosophy in the party constitution to the pithier “Xi Jinping Thought”, putting him on par with Mao.

Xi Jinping, who is soon expected to be anointed for an unprecedented third term in office as China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) holds its 20th Congress, has become his country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

He joined the pantheon of Chinese leadership in 2012, two decades after bursting onto the scene as a graft-fighting governor.

The country’s rubber-stamp parliament boosted Xi’s considerable power in 2018 when it approved a constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits.

The move allowed Xi, now aged 69, to remain in power for as long as he wishes, and is the latest feather in the cap of a Communist “princeling” who is remaking China in his own image.

Xi has amassed seemingly unchecked power and a level of officially-stoked adulation unseen since Communist China’s founder Mao.

Even though his father Xi Zhongxun — a renowned revolutionary hero turned vice-premier — was purged by Mao, Xi has remained true to the party that rules with an iron fist and over which he now reigns supreme.

Xi is the first Chinese leader to have been born after 1949, when Mao’s Communist forces took over following a protracted civil war.

The purging of his father led to years of difficulties for the family, but he nevertheless rose through the party’s ranks.

Beginning as a county-level party secretary in 1969, Xi climbed to the governorship of coastal Fujian province in 1999, then party chief of Zhejiang province in 2002 and eventually Shanghai in 2007.

That same year, he was appointed to the Politburo’s Standing Committee, the apex of power in China. 

Following Mao’s disastrous economic campaigns and the bloody 1966 to 1976 Cultural Revolution, the Communist leadership had sought to prevent further chaos by tempering presidential power through a system in which major personnel and policy decisions were hashed out by the Standing Committee.

That move helped prevent political power from becoming too concentrated in the hands of a single leader but was also blamed for policy indecision that led to growing ills such as worsening pollution, corruption and social unrest.

But “Xi Dada” (“Big Uncle Xi”), as he has been dubbed by Communist propaganda, has broken sharply with that tradition since taking over as president in 2013 and now looms over the country with a deepening cult of personality.

His tenure has seen crackdowns on corruption, tightening control in the northwestern Xinjiang region, crushing of a democracy movement in Hong Kong and strict lockdowns on cities in the name of curbing Covid-19.

He has also revitalised Chinese nationalism — sparking standoffs with the United States over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing has pledged to retake one day, by force if necessary.

Fighting graft and upholding party leadership were already central to him when he spoke to AFP in 2000.

At the time, Xi vowed to root out corruption following a $10 billion smuggling scandal, but ruled out political reform to confront the problem, saying he would work within the one-party structure and system of political consultation and “supervision by the masses”.

– Chairman of everything –

Xi’s face graces the front page of newspapers in the country, while his exploits and directives regularly headline the evening news.

The Communist Party Congress in 2017 confirmed Xi’s induction into the leadership pantheon alongside Mao and market reformer Deng Xiaoping by writing his name and political ideology into the party’s constitution.

In November last year, China’s top leaders passed an important resolution on the party’s past, braiding Xi more tightly into the CCP’s story.

It was only the third such resolution issued in the party’s 100-year history, after two under leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and aimed to consolidate the party’s achievements while providing an ideological roadmap for its continued rule.

Following a divorce from his first wife, Xi married the celebrity soprano Peng Liyuan in 1987, at a time when she was much more famous than him. The couple’s daughter, Xi Mingze, studied at Harvard but stays out of the public eye.

Xi has also presided over a tough crackdown on civil society and freedom of speech, and he tolerates no ridicule or slander of his person.

He has presented a defiant face to overseas rivals, batting back criticism of his government’s actions in Hong Kong, attitude towards Taiwan and treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

And he is pushing on with an emphasis on a strong party for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.

Iraqi supporters of powerful cleric Moqtada Sadr began withdrawing Tuesday from Baghdad’s Green Zone after he demanded fighting end between rival Shiite forces and the army that left 23 dead and hundreds wounded.

The violence that erupted on Monday pitted Sadr loyalists against Shiite factions backed by neighbouring Iran, with the sides exchanging gunfire across barricades — violence the United Nations warned risked tipping the war-ravaged country deeper into chaos.

Moments after Sadr’s speech was broadcast live on television, his supporters were seen beginning to leave the Green Zone, and minutes after that, the army lifted a nation-wide curfew.

Sadr, a grey-bearded preacher with millions of devoted followers who once led a militia against American and Iraqi government forces after the 2003 US-led overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein, gave followers “60 minutes” to withdraw after which he would threaten to “disavow” those who remained.

“I apologise to the Iraqi people, the only ones affected by the events,” Sadr said in a speech from his base in the central city of Najaf.

“Shame on this revolution… Regardless of who was the initiator, this revolution, as long as it is marred by violence, is not a revolution,” he said.

“I thank the security forces and members of Hashed al-Shaabi,” he added.

Tensions have soared in Iraq amid a political crisis that has left the country without a new government, prime minister or president for months.

They escalated sharply after Sadr’s supporters on Monday afternoon stormed the government palace inside the high-security Green Zone following their leader’s announcement that he was quitting politics.

– ‘Dangerous escalation’ –

Overnight, shelling targeted the Green Zone that houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, amid angry protests after Sadr surprised many by announcing his “definitive retirement”.

Violence continued on Tuesday morning — with the rattle of automatic gunfire and heavier explosions of rocket-propelled grenades — as Sadr’s supporters clashed with the army and men of the Hashed al-Shaabi, former Tehran-backed paramilitaries integrated into the Iraqi security forces.

The UN mission in Iraq warned of “an extremely dangerous escalation” and called on all sides to “refrain from acts that could lead to an unstoppable chain of events”.

“The very survival of the state is at stake,” it warned.

On Tuesday morning, medics said 23 Sadr supporters had been killed and some 380 others wounded — some with bullet wounds and others suffering tear gas inhalation.

A mass funeral was held Tuesday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf for some of the protesters killed in Baghdad.

Witnesses said earlier that Sadr loyalists and supporters of a rival Shiite bloc, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, had exchanged fire.

The Framework condemned an “attack on state institutions”, urging the Sadrists to engage in dialogue.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi said “security or military forces, or armed men” were prohibited from opening fire on protesters.

– ‘Disturbing’ –

The United States also urged calm amid the “disturbing” reports, while France called on “the parties to exercise the utmost restraint”.

Shortly after Sadr announced he was stepping down, his followers burst into the Republican Palace in Baghdad — where cabinet meetings are usually held.

Sadr — a longtime player in the war-torn country’s political scene, though he himself has never directly been in government — announced he was quitting politics two days after he said “all parties” including his own should give up government positions in order to help resolve the political crisis.

His bloc emerged from last October’s election as the biggest in the legislature, with 73 seats, but short of a majority.

Since then the country has been mired in political deadlock due to disagreement between Shiite factions over forming a coalition.

In June, his lawmakers quit in a bid to break the logjam, which led to the Coordination Framework becoming the largest bloc.

Sadr’s supporters have for weeks been staging a sit-in outside Iraq’s parliament, after storming the legislature’s interior on July 30, demanding fresh elections be held.

The Coordination Framework wants a new head of government to be appointed before any new polls are held.

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