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[A 93-year-old former Belgian diplomat was ordered on Tuesday to stand trial over the 1961 killing of the Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba, in a decision hailed as a major step towards confronting the country's colonial past.Étienne Davignon, a one-time European commissioner and the only person still alive among ten Belgians accused by the Congolese leader's family of complicity in his murder, stands accused of participation in "war crimes".]

#1

Off the Record / Re: Lumumba's remains returned...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 08:30:38 PM

Interesting story - unsure how I feel given that he was a 20 something and probably the least senior person involved. But because of that he's the last one standing and from what I've read he did send telexes in very nice diplomatese basically saying Lumumba needed got rid of:

Belgian ex-diplomat, 93, to face trial over murder of Patrice Lumumba
Count Étienne Davignon is accused of 'war crimes' over the 1961 killing of the Congo's first post-colonial leader

Patrice Lumumba, left, was murdered in 1961. Étienne Davignon, right, stands accused of participation in "war crimes"
KEYSTONE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Foreign Staff
Tuesday March 17 2026, 8.35pm, The Times

A 93-year-old former Belgian diplomat was ordered on Tuesday to stand trial over the 1961 killing of the Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba, in a decision hailed as a major step towards confronting the country's colonial past.

Étienne Davignon, a one-time European commissioner and the only person still alive among ten Belgians accused by the Congolese leader's family of complicity in his murder, stands accused of participation in "war crimes".

The former prime minister's grandson, Mehdi Lumumba, welcomed the Brussels court decision — which remains subject to appeal — as "historic".

"We are all relieved," he said. "Belgium is finally confronting its history."

If the trial goes ahead, Davignon — who was made a count by King Philippe in 2018 — would be the first Belgian official to face justice in the 65 years since Lumumba was executed and his body dissolved in acid.

In its decision, the court went beyond prosecutors' submissions and extended the scope of the trial to cover Lumumba's political allies, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, who were murdered alongside him.

Lawyers for Davignon, who denies all charges, argued in a closed-door hearing in January that too much time had passed since the events, according to multiple sources.

Lumumba's relatives maintain the time is ripe for a long-overdue legal reckoning.

"It's a gigantic victory," Christophe Marchand, the family's lawyer, told the Agence France-Presse news agency on Tuesday.

"No one believed when we first brought the case in 2011 that Belgium would prove capable of seriously investigating this," he said. "It's very hard for a country to judge its own colonial crimes."

Prosecutors accused Davignon of "participation in war crimes" over his role in the "unlawful detention and transfer" of Lumumba, as well as "humiliating and degrading treatment".


Christophe Marchand, a Belgian lawyer left, with Lumumba's grandchildren, Yema Lumumba, centre, and Mehdi Lumumba, right
JOHN THYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A fiery critic of Belgium's colonial rule, Lumumba became his country's first prime minister after it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

But he fell out with the former colonial power and with the United States and was ousted in a coup a few months after taking office.

He was executed on January 17, 1961, aged 35, in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries. His body was never recovered.

Davignon, who went on to become a vice-president of the European Commission in the 1980s, was a novice diplomat in his late twenties at the time of the assassination.

After entering the diplomatic service in 1959, Davignon rose through the ranks after his early involvement in Congolese independence talks.

Marchand had described the accused as "a link in the chain" of a "disastrous state-sponsored criminal enterprise".

The case — the latest step in Belgium's decades-long reckoning with the role it played in Lumumba's killing — had already led to one macabre discovery: one of Lumumba's teeth.

The only known remains of the assassinated leader was seized from the daughter of a deceased Belgian police officer who had been involved in the disappearance of the body.

It was returned in a coffin to the authorities in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, during an official ceremony in 2022 that aimed to turn a page on the grim chapter of its colonial past.

During the handover, Alexander De Croo, then the Belgian prime minister, reiterated the government's "apologies" for its "moral responsibility" in Lumumba's disappearance.

De Croo pointed the finger at Belgian officials who at the time "chose not to see" and "not to act".

[🔹Iran continues signaling that escalation could extend to additional chokepoints. The Houthis remain a ready secondary front, with the potential to target shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb if pressure on Hormuz increases, forcing the U.S. to operate across multiple maritime theaters.]

#2

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:35:48 PM

Thanks - that's very interesting.

Hamidreza Azizi's latest update - I don't think I've posted a full one before. But three things seem particularly interesting to me: the domestic crackdown in Iran, what's happening in Iraq (and between Iraq and Syria) and the Houthis waiting for their moment (when the US commits to trying to re-open Hormuz? When tankers are diverted into the Red Sea?):

Hamidreza Azizi
@HamidRezaAz
#Iran War Update No. 18 (focus on Iranian strategic narrative):

🔹The maritime dimension of the war is moving toward a more dangerous phase. Reports suggest Israel may join the U.S. in expanding operations around the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian discussions increasingly point to a possible shift from selective disruption to full closure, including the use of naval mines if pressure intensifies.

🔹At the same time, U.S. strikes are becoming more focused on degrading Iran's maritime disruption capabilities. CENTCOM confirmed the use of heavy bunker-busting munitions against Iranian anti-ship missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring efforts to reopen the waterway by force if necessary.

🔹Iran continues signaling that escalation could extend to additional chokepoints. The Houthis remain a ready secondary front, with the potential to target shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb if pressure on Hormuz increases, forcing the U.S. to operate across multiple maritime theaters.

🔹Attacks on Gulf states continued, with the UAE facing one of the heaviest waves so far. Emirati officials report thousands of drone and missile strikes since the start of the war, raising the likelihood that Abu Dhabi may move toward a more active role in supporting the U.S. operation against Iran.

🔹This raises the risk of a sharper Iran-UAE confrontation. Iranian concerns about the UAE's role in the war and its potential ambitions regarding disputed islands in the Persian Gulf are resurfacing, suggesting that this front could escalate further.

🔹Iran has also expanded its warnings to additional regional actors. Statements directed at Jordan and Azerbaijan claimed that any country facilitating U.S. or Israeli operations could be treated as a legitimate target.

🔹Inside Iran, Israeli operations appear increasingly focused on internal security structures. Strikes on Basij forces and police units across Tehran suggest an effort to weaken the regime's domestic control apparatus rather than only its conventional military capabilities.

🔹This has heightened fears in Tehran of internal destabilization. Authorities are intensifying crackdowns, including arrests, asset seizures, and restrictions on communications such as Starlink, while also encouraging public mobilization – of their own support base – to deter unrest.

🔹The internal security dimension is becoming more acute following reports of targeted killings of senior figures, including Ali Larijani and Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani.

🔹Meanwhile, tensions in Iraq continue to rise. Attacks on U.S. diplomatic and military sites are increasing, while U.S. strikes on Iran-aligned armed groups are fueling a cycle of escalation that is pulling Iraq deeper into the conflict.

🔹The Iraq-Syria nexus is becoming more volatile. A Reuters report about potential Syrian involvement against Hezbollah surfaced alongside intensified U.S. strikes on PMF positions in Anbar province, following earlier attacks near the al-Qaim border crossing, raising concerns about a broader effort to weaken Iran-aligned forces along this corridor.

🔹Nuclear risks are also entering the picture. A reported strike near the Bushehr nuclear facility has raised concerns about the potential consequences of any direct hit on nuclear infrastructure, including the risk of regional contamination.

🔹Iran continues to leverage the Strait of Hormuz selectively. While most shipping remains disrupted, Iranian oil exports – primarily to China – continue, with estimates suggesting around $140 million per day in revenue and sustained flows, highlighting a strategy of controlled economic pressure rather than total shutdown of the strait.

🔹At the same time, Tehran is increasingly explicit about its conditions for ending the war. Iranian officials state that reopening the strait would require not only a ceasefire, but also compensation, sanctions relief, and an end to operations against its regional allies, including Hezbollah.

🔹This approach is reinforced by emerging patterns of bilateral arrangements. Countries such as India and Turkey are reportedly negotiating access to the strait directly with Iran, suggesting the early contours of a more fragmented and transactional maritime order.

🔹Iranian media is also framing developments in U.S. domestic politics as part of the battlefield. Reports of internal disagreements in Washington and political pressure on Donald Trump are interpreted as signs that Iran's cost-imposition strategy is having an effect.

🔹Overall, Iran appears to be using control over the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, while signs are growing that the United States and Israel are preparing to challenge that strategy more directly. As Tehran continues disruption without fully shutting the strait, recent strikes on coastal missile sites and discussions about expanded operations suggest that Washington and its allies may be moving toward a more forceful effort to reopen maritime routes.

Edit: Also Qatar Energy confirming "extensive damage" to Ras Laffan Industrial City which is in Ed Conway's brilliant book Material World. It's not just really important for gas but also responsible for about a third of the world's helium production - helium is really important in loads of supply chains for medical equipment, semiconductors etc. Lots of other products too so a very signficant site and with "extensive damage" likely to be a big hit to supply chains even if Hormuz is re-opened.

["Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come," Ehrlich told CBS News a year later. "And by 'the end' I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity."]

#3

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2026

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:23:50 PM

He was wrong and never really accepted that or reckoned with it - and he was influential particularly through technocratic, Western dominated organisations. I think he's basically the equivalent of an unapologetic eugenicist - even if some of that work was subsequently useful in studies of genetics.

From Charles Mann (total aside but a fantastic writer - I loved 1491 and 1493) for the Smithsonian Magazine:

It is true that in the book Ehrlich exhorted readers to remember that his scenarios "are just possibilities, not predictions." But it is also true that he slipped into the language of prediction occasionally in the book, and more often in other settings. "Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born," he promised in a 1969 magazine article. "Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come," Ehrlich told CBS News a year later. "And by 'the end' I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity."

Such statements contributed to a wave of population alarm then sweeping the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council, the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund, the Hugh Moore-backed Association for Voluntary Sterilization and other organizations promoted and funded programs to reduce fertility in poor places. "The results were horrific," says Betsy Hartmann, author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, a classic 1987 exposé of the anti-population crusade. Some population-control programs pressured women to use only certain officially mandated contraceptives. In Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan, health workers' salaries were, in a system that invited abuse, dictated by the number of IUDs they inserted into women. In the Philippines, birth-control pills were literally pitched out of helicopters hovering over remote villages. Millions of people were sterilized, often coercively, sometimes illegally, frequently in unsafe conditions, in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

In the 1970s and '80s, India, led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay, embraced policies that in many states required sterilization for men and women to obtain water, electricity, ration cards, medical care and pay raises. Teachers could expel students from school if their parents weren't sterilized. More than eight million men and women were sterilized in 1975 alone. ("At long last," World Bank head Robert McNamara remarked, "India is moving to effectively address its population problem.") For its part, China adopted a "one-child" policy that led to huge numbers—possibly 100 million—of coerced abortions, often in poor conditions contributing to infection, sterility and even death. Millions of forced sterilizations occurred.


5w Infographics; Sources: World Peace Foundation, Tufts; Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N.

Ehrlich does not see himself as responsible for such abuses. He strongly supported population-control measures like sterilization, and argued that the United States should pressure other governments to launch vasectomy campaigns, but he did not advocate for the programs' brutality and discrimination.

Equally strongly, he disputes the criticism that none of his scenarios came true. Famines did occur in the 1970s, as Ehrlich had warned. India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, West and East Africa—all were wracked, horribly, by hunger in that decade. Nonetheless, there was no "great increase in the death rate" around the world. According to a widely accepted count by the British economist Stephen Devereux, starvation claimed four to five million lives during that decade—with most of the deaths due to warfare, rather than environmental exhaustion from overpopulation.

In fact, famine has not been increasing but has become rarer. When The Population Bomb appeared, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, something like one out of four people in the world was hungry. Today the proportion of hungry is about one out of ten. Meanwhile, the world's population has more than doubled. People are surviving because they learned how to do things differently. They developed and adopted new agricultural techniques—improved seeds, high-intensity fertilizers, drip irrigation.

And to the very end - literally within the last five years - he was still saying the same thing.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2026

Last post by grumbler - Today at 06:19:05 PM

Less regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.

Starved to death?

#5

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2026

Last post by mongers - Today at 06:00:02 PM

Less regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.

That's an oddly uncharitable statement from you, what did he do that was So bad?

Some of the topics he worked on needed to be debated?

#6

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 05:58:19 PM

The two major pipelines that allow KSA and UAE to bypass the Strait with a portion of their production are both fully operational BTW. The issue is neither is capable of carrying the entirety of either country's production (the KSA pipeline is far more significant), and of course they offer no transit for the other gulf states.

I thought the Iranians had hit Fujairah?

And as well as no transit for the rest I think all that infrastructure is for oil not gas?

So there's a few separate things at play:

1. Fujairah Port on the Gulf of Oman is a major oil export terminal for UAE, it is on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE's pipeline system allows oil to go from the UAE's oil fields to Fujairah, bypassing the need to go through the Strait. However, even at full capacity of both the pipeline and Fujairah, this isn't enough to get UAE's full production to market. Some is simply stymied by the closure of the Strait.

Two days ago the port facilities in Fujairah were hit, resulting in a partial shut down. The pipeline as far as I know was not damaged.

2. The KSA East/West pipeline actually goes all the way to the Red Sea, not just bypassing the Strait of Hormuz but bypassing the entire eastern coastline of the Arabian peninsula. This pipeline carries 7m bpd, and as far as I know has not been interrupted at present.

The KSA pipeline has two main pipes, one of which sometimes is configured to carry natural gas instead of liquid petroleum, but due to the greater profitability and importance to KSA's economy of exporting crude oil vs natural gas, both pipes are currently moving crude oil.

3. The UAE's Shah gas field was directly struck, the full scope of the damage and impact on production is, AFAIK, not known at this time.

#7

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 05:54:21 PM

Israel is certainly bearing the cost of the war in economic terms as can be easily discerned from looking at numerous economic reports on the ongoing cost of Israel's wars dating back to October 7th are well known.

#8

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by mongers - Today at 05:50:43 PM

Yes nearly everyone BUT Bibi's Israel is bearing the cost of this war; he's happy for it to be a forever war, keeps him in power and out of jail.

#9

Off the Record / Re: Cuba vs Trump

Last post by Valmy - Today at 05:46:35 PM

Presumably, the founders/authors assumed that the President would typically be a wise and judicious person. 

The Founders had some pretty significant failings and blind spots...which wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't held up as practically super human wizards.

Perhaps the biggest blind spot being that they thought the President would almost unfailingly be a wise and judicious person. 

The guy who would prove that wrong, Andrew Jackson, was already an adult when they made that assumption 

[public]

#10

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 05:42:37 PM

Seems the US is running out of time too.

Trump ally warns US economy not strong enough to cope with Iran war

It's interesting because factually speaking, the U.S. can easily bear the increase cost in oil. In fact right now oil isn't that expensive. It's $98 a barrel for WTI, the most relevant measure for U.S. purposes. It has been higher than this before--and it's been over $100 a barrel for extended periods without causing anything like an economic collapse.

I think it's more correct to say the U.S. public has close to zero tolerance for what, in historical terms, would be categorized as relatively mild economic pain. It is a huge weakness of the U.S., and it's probably worth at some point discerning how things got to be this way.

What's interesting about energy prices and their intersection with politics--America is almost "psychotically" obsessed with the price per gallon of gasoline. To a level that I think many would find unreasonable elsewhere.

If you check out the EIA, there was an 18 month period from 2007 to 2008 where gasoline was over $3/gallon for 15 of those months (including a couple of months where it was over $4/gallon.) These aren't inflation-adjusted, this was almost 20 years ago and gasoline was roughly in the same ballpark price as it is today. In a country where virtually everything else is more expensive now than it was in 2007-08. For most commodities, if you were able to say "this is the same price it was in 2007", that would be considered pretty good news.

The average U.S. household uses about 56 gallons of gasoline per month. If gas was at $2 that's $112/month on gasoline. At $4 it's $224 a month.

The simple fact is it is very difficult to understand a "rational" reason people get so upset about a nominal price increase in that range--versus, as a quick example, in the months of December, January and February my electric bill was around $500/mo, versus around $300/mo over that same span last year (we heat with electric heat pump and the location our home is in does not have any alternative fuel sources unless we want to get buried propane or fuel oil, both of which are prone to wild price spikes.)

My home cable / internet bill has been over $200/mo for years and years.

I'm not necessarily trying to say the increase in the cost of oil has no "real" impact on the U.S. economy, but I am saying compared to what I consider "real" economic costs, like "war of survival" level economic costs the U.S. bore many times in the past, it doesn't amount to anything that real. It's nowhere near the economic cost Iran has born for a decade or more from sanctions, or anything approaching the costs Iran or Israel is bearing from the war right now.

And yet--I fully agree with the assessment, the U.S. can't bear it because it has virtually no public political will to bear any costs at all. Interesting scenario for America to find itself in. We are not the same country that did rationing to beat Hitler and the Japanese.