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Tag: Baher Kamal

  • Extremist Ideology in Europe: Leave Everyone Behind (Except Us)

    Extremist Ideology in Europe: Leave Everyone Behind (Except Us)

    Credit: United Nations
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jul 10 (IPS) – A quick glance at the current European political map would clearly show how far the extremist ideology has been installed in European countries –those who still wave the French Revolution’s flag of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”

    According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.

    Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.

    “Not true” that “all humans are equal”

    These concepts have also been clearly reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the actual umbrella of all the other international laws and agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted in 2015 by all countries -including the richest ones, those who now violate their own principles.

    Instead, the extremist ideology promoted by Europe’s right and far-right politicians is pushing –either openly or surreptitiously– for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle: Leave No One Behind.

    A compilation of all the extremist ideology postulates, which are now spreading like wildfire in Europe, would require drafting a long book or more. Therefore, this report is based on the most shared right and far-right doctrines in the continent.

    “Gender violence does not exist“

    To start with, one of the Agenda 2030 Goals: Gender Equality, has been gradually breached by the European far-right parties, by either directly or indirectly claiming that women should stay at home, caring for children, as the only way to prevent the ‘disappearance of families.’

    Some of them even start advocating for the separation of students by gender, e.g., classrooms for boys and others for girls.

    ‘Penis matter’

    In Spain, for instance, the conservative party– Partido Popular (PP), has adopted such a far-right party VOX doctrine in all those regions where they rule in coalition with the PP: to replace the concept of gender violence with “intra-family violence.”

    Not only that: one VOX leader, Gabriel Le Senne, who now chairs the Balear Islands regional Parliament as part of the pact between VOX and the PP, says that “Women are more belligerent because they lack a penis.”

    Migrants,“that big threat”

    Migrants have further been targeted by European extremist ideology, which assures those who flee former European colonies, those who have fallen victims of externally-induced wars and severe climate change’s impacts.

    In their hate speech, the far-right claims that migrants come to Europe to “steal our jobs, destroy our social fabric, threaten our civilisation, our faith, kill our innocent citizens,” and a long etcetera.

    The very same far-right leader, Gabriel Le Senne, also stated that “In Spain, between Hispanics and Africans it is not clear where the thing will end, but it is clear that the natives are increasingly in danger of extinction.”

    “Labour exploitation does not exist“

    Meanwhile, alongside other European extremist political groups, the two Spanish right and far-right parties, PP and VOX, show reluctance to a European Commission directive aimed at preventing labour exploitation and child labour.

    Reason: the proposed directive intends to penalise large companies that benefit from labour exploitation. A high number of the exploited children are migrant descendants.

    Islam is “terror”

    In a related hate speech, the European extremist politicians continue to target the world’s Muslim for all sorts of “terrorism,” and criminality.

    For example, the leader of the far-right party VOX, Santiago Abascal, has indirectly blamed ‘radical Muslims’ living in the European Union of fuelling and masterminding the already week-long social unrest in France, following the assasination by a French policeman of an Argelian-descendent 17 years old Nahel.

    This growing anti-Muslim trend goes against all international laws and agreements, including the worldwide adopted Agenda 2030, let alone the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    For instance, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March 2023), warned that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

    According to this United Nations report, the outright hatred towards Muslims has risen to ‘epidemic proportions.’

    “Climate change does not exist”

    Climate change is another key target of European extremist ideology, which not only negates its existence, but it also refuses regulations and policies that aim to reduce both its causes and worldwide devastating impacts, Europe included.

    In this, they deny what two authoritative specialised bodies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, have warned on 19 June 2023.

    “Not true” that Europe is the fastest warming continent

    Europe is “the fastest warming continent of the world, doubling global average,” WMO and Copernicus warned in their joint report: The State of the Climate in Europe 2022 report.

    “The year 2022 was marked by extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Sea surface temperatures around Europe reached new highs, accompanied by marine heatwaves. Glacier melt was unprecedented.”

    Such a fact is easily verifiable: around one third of European crops have been already lost, and the sources of water, both for humans, irrigation, and livestock, are rapidly drying up.

    Already in May 2022, the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that from insufficient drinking water supply to contamination by sewage overflow and disease outbreaks from improper wastewater treatment, “existing risks from climate change to water, sanitation and hygiene in the pan-European region are set to increase significantly.”

    “No” to a European Nature Restoration Law

    In spite of all this, a dozen of the European Union’s member countries oppose a proposed Nature Restoration Law. According to its detractors, such a law would harm the market and financial interests of the agri-food business in their countries.

    In yet another negation of the SDGs’ key pillar: Leave No One Behind, the ultra-right parties in Europe, also deny the rights of the lesbians, gays, bi, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, who, according to the UN, “continue to face widespread stigma, exclusion and discrimination, including in education, employment and health care.”

    Let alone refusing the right to euthanasia, abortion, and a very long etcetera.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Huge Increase in Transnational Crime in Asia ‘Golden Triangle

    Huge Increase in Transnational Crime in Asia ‘Golden Triangle

    In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jun 27 (IPS) – How come that in a world where technology is -or is about to be- able to detect an ant in a jungle, the traffickers of death continue to carry out their lucrative criminal activities everywhere and in all fields, from weapons to prostitution, enslavement and drugs, to deadly fake medicines, through oil, gas and poisoned food.

    In the specific case of Asia, a specialised organisation reports the Asian ‘Golden Triangle’ is where historically opium was grown to produce heroin for export, but where, in recent years, the trade of “even deadlier and more profitable synthetic drugs have taken over.”

    In its June 2023 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) informs that East and Southeast Asian synthetic drug supply remains at ‘extreme levels’ and diversifies.

    The report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2023”, confirms an expansion and diversification of synthetic drug production and trafficking in the region, while trafficking routes have shifted significantly.

    “Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the frontlines of illicit trade in Asia dominated by transnational organised crime syndicates.”

    Methamphetamine, ketamine…

    ‘High volumes’ of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded.

    “Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

    ‘Unwanted’ to be seen

    “Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand, but at the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking.”

    Douglas added that criminal groups from across the region also started moving and reconnecting after lengthy pandemic border closures, with late 2022 and early 2023 patterns starting to look similar to 2019.

    Hidden in “legal products”

    Moreover, synthetic drugs containing a mixture of substances and sometimes “packaged alongside legal products” continue to be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, with serious health consequences for those who knowingly, or unknowingly, consume the products.

    Moreover, the world drug problem is a complex issue that affects millions of people worldwide.

    Many people who use drugs face stigma and discrimination, which can further harm their physical and mental health and prevent them from accessing the help they need, the UN warns on the occasion of the 2023 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June).

    “Unprecedented” increase

    The increase in the production of synthetic drugs in recent years has been “unprecedented” according to the UNODC Regional Representative.

    It is not just drugs which are being trafficked across the region: chemical precursors to manufacture synthetic drugs are being illegally transported into Myanmar in quantities far larger than the drugs that are trafficked out, UNODC further explains.

    Trafficking also in people, wildlife, timber…

    In fact, a myriad of cross-borders issues, including drug and precursor chemical trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, wildlife and forestry crime, and, in some locations, the movement of terrorist fighters alongside public health and pandemic-related matters.

    The impact of legalising the use of cocaine

    Cannabis legalisation in parts of the world appears to have accelerated daily use and related health impacts, according to the World Drug Report 2022, which also details record rises in the manufacturing of cocaine, the expansion of synthetic drugs to new markets, and continued gaps in the availability of drug treatments, especially for women.

    According to the report, around 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26% increase over the previous decade.

    “In Africa and Latin America, people under 35 represent the majority of people being treated for drug use disorders.”

    Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. Around half of this number were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million were living with HIV, and 1.2 million were living with both.

    Reacting to these findings, UNODC Executive Director, Ghada Waly stated: “Numbers for the manufacturing and seizures of many illicit drugs are hitting record highs, even as global emergencies are deepening vulnerabilities.”

    At the same time, mis-perceptions regarding the magnitude of the problem and the associated harms are depriving people of care and treatment and driving young people towards harmful behaviour, said Waly.

    Key trends by region

    In many countries in Africa and South and Central America, the largest proportion of people in treatment for drug use disorders are there primarily for cannabis use disorders. In Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, people are most often in treatment for opioid use disorders.

    In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Preliminary estimates in the United States point to more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, up from nearly 92,000 in 2020.

    Conflict zones magnets for synthetic drug production

    This year’s report also highlights that illicit drug economies can flourish in situations of conflict and where the rule of law is weak, and in turn can prolong or fuel conflict.

    Information from the Middle East and South-East Asia suggest that conflict situations can act as a magnet for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere. This effect may be greater when the conflict area is close to large consumer markets.

    Historically, parties to conflict have used drugs to finance conflict and generate income. The 2022 World Drug Report also reveals that conflicts may also disrupt and shift drug trafficking routes, as has happened in the Balkans and more recently in Ukraine.

    A possible growing capacity to manufacture amphetamine in Ukraine

    According to the UNODC report, “there was a significant increase in the number of reported clandestine laboratories in Ukraine, skyrocketing from 17 dismantled laboratories in 2019 to 79 in 2020. 67 out of these laboratories were producing amphetamines, up from five in 2019 – the highest number of dismantled laboratories reported in any given country in 2020.”

    Gender treatment gap

    Women remain in the minority of drug users globally yet tend to increase their rate of drug consumption and progress to drug use disorders more rapidly than men do. Women now represent an estimated 45-49% of users of amphetamines and non-medical users of pharmaceutical stimulants, pharmaceutical opioids, sedatives, and tranquillisers.

    The treatment gap remains large for women globally. Although women represent almost one in two amphetamine users, they constitute only one in five people in treatment for amphetamine use disorders.

    The World Drug Report also spotlights the wide range of roles fulfilled by women in the global cocaine economy, including cultivating coca, transporting small quantities of drugs, selling to consumers, and smuggling into prisons.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

    Global Issues

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  • Extremist Ideology Spreading Like an Oil Spill in Europe

    Extremist Ideology Spreading Like an Oil Spill in Europe

    Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party. The party could soon be in government, after the 23 July 2023 general elections. Credit: Shutterstock
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jun 22 (IPS) – The abuse of human rights has sharply increased with the steady rise of the right and far-right parties in the wealthy industrialised countries, whose extremist ideology is now spreading faster than ever in Europe.

    Indeed, most of the European Union 27 member countries are now either formally ruled by or strongly influenced and supported by extremists and populist parties, which publicly negate basic human rights, while masking their policies of suppressing public services like health, education, pensions, and protection of workers.

    Life of citizens to be handled by private corporations

    Let alone, their negation of the existing deadly gender violence, the right of women to equal opportunities, and the devastating climate catastrophes which impact the very same Europe, let alone all international laws regulating the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

    And they are active in most European countries, from Scandinavian and Baltic States, to Italy and Greece, through Hungary, Poland, Czechia, France and Austria, let alone the United Kingdom.

    Spain is one of very few European countries still ruled by a progressive Government, although it is feared that the right and far-right parties will take over after the 23 July 2023 general elections.

    The myth of white supremacy

    Their trend to further promote the myth of ‘white supremacy’ is not new, but rather a reflection of what is being done by European descendents in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

    Such a myth goes against what they call ‘minorities,’ e.g., anybody who is not White and Christian.

    They call it “the defence of our national identity.”

    In short, the spread of hate speech, stigmatisation and racial discrimination is now being widely “institutionalised” in European countries, those whose governments signed –and their Parliaments ratified– all international, legally-binding declarations, treaties and laws defending the protection of human rights.

    For such purposes, they further spread hate speech, which reinforces “discrimination and stigma and is most often aimed at women, refugees and migrants, and minorities,” as described by the United Nations on the occasion of this year’s International Day for Countering Hate Speech (18 June).

    With hate “spreading lightning fast on social media and mega spreaders using divisive rhetoric to inspire thousands, hate speech “lays the ground for conflicts and tensions, wide scale human rights violations.”

    ‘Dark age of intolerance’

    On this, Mita Hosali, Deputy Director of the UN Department of Global Communication (DGC), said young people are often seen today as vectors of such toxic trends as online hate speech.

    “Increasingly, we are entering this dark age of intolerance, fueled by polarisation and mis- and disinformation, and there are all kinds of ‘facts’ swirling out there,” she cautioned.

    “It’s like a ladder of incremental extremism,” Hosali said.

    “You start at the bottom with a stereotype, move on to emojis and memes that lead to harmful speech. Harmful speech leads to hate speech, a torrent of hate builds up, and results in the incitement of violence. And then you have actual violence.”

    Tech companies must now show effective leadership and responsibility around moderation to set up guard rails for respectful online discourse, she said.

    “It really boils down to leaders, whether they are political, business, faith, or community leaders,” she said, emphasising that such efforts must also start within the family and ripple across all circles of influence so that ordinary people fight back against hate speech.

    According to the world’s largest multilateral body –the UN–, the devastating effect of hatred is sadly nothing new.

    However, “its scale and impact are amplified today by new technologies of communication, so much so that hate speech has become one of the most frequent methods for spreading divisive rhetoric and ideologies on a global scale.”

    Social exclusion fuels terrorism

    The consequences of such a growing social exclusion spreading in Europe and elsewhere are dire.

    On this, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on 19 June 2023 stressed at the UN’s Third Counter-Terrorism week that terrorism affects every region of the world, while preying on local and national vulnerabilities.

    “Poverty, inequalities and social exclusion give terrorism fuel. Prejudice and discrimination targeting specific groups, cultures, religions and ethnicities give it flame.”

    No one is born to hate

    Hatred, conspiracy theories and prejudice infiltrate our societies and affect all of us. We are flooded by information – and disinformation – more than ever before both on- and offline. “But no one is born to hate.”

    Nevertheless, ‘toxic and destructive’ hate speech has now grown much faster and wider than anytime before.

    Migrants, the easiest victims

    In the right and far-right campaigns in defence of what they call “our freedom,” “our Western civilisation,” “our democracy,” “our values,” and “our Christian faith,” they turn migrants, now more than ever before, into the easiest prey to chase.

    In fact, like the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, among other Western wealthy powers, the 27 members of the European Union on 8 June adopted a strongly criticised by major human rights organisations, which further restricts the basic human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

    Death of migrants, ‘normalised’

    The number of migrants who died and are still hopelessly missing as a consequence of the 14 June shipwreck off Greece coast of a fishing vessel carrying between 450- and 750 migrants, is still unknown.

    Anyway, it just adds to a long series of migrant deaths in only one sea: the Mediterranean.

    Although the number of dead migrants in the Mediterranean is far from being credibly counted, the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project documented 441 migrant deaths in the Central Mediterranean in the first quarter of 2023, “the deadliest first quarter on record since 2017.”

    The most dangerous maritime crossing

    The increasing loss of lives on the “world’s most dangerous maritime crossing” comes amidst reports of delays in State-led rescue responses and hindrance to the operations of humanitarian non-governmental organisations’ search and rescue (SaR) vessels in the central Mediterranean.

    Not only that: Italy, like other South European States, still argues that the non-governmental, voluntary humanitarian vessels dedicated to search and rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, are involved in… human trafficking.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Migration: Europe’s Complicity in Massive Human Rights Violations

    Migration: Europe’s Complicity in Massive Human Rights Violations

    These human tragedies are playing out at Europe’s land and sea borders on a daily basis. The first quarter of this year marked the deadliest in the central Mediterranean in six years, say humanitarian organisations in a joint statement. Credit: UN News Centre
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jun 19 (IPS) – Make no mistake: European States are complicit in the death of thousands and thousands of human beings on their shores, land borders and at home. The massive drowning of hundreds of migrants close to Greece shores on 14 June is just a new chapter in Europe’s long series of continued violations of all international human rights laws.

    So far, 10 worldwide known humanitarian organisations have strongly reacted, in a joint denunciation statement, asking the European Union (EU) to ‘end rights violations at Europe’s borders.’

    In their Joint NGO statement: The EU must not be complicit, launched on 16 June, organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, OXFAM and Save the Children, among others, warned that once again, dozens of lives have been lost at Europe’s borders “due to the EU’s failure to allow people seeking protection to reach Europe safely.”

    Hundreds are missing and presumed dead after the latest tragedy close to the Greek coast, with reports that amongst the dead are many women and children who were held below the deck of this overcrowded fishing vessel.

    European States were “informed”

    “The authorities of several Member States were informed[1] of the vessel in distress multiple hours before it capsized, and a Frontex aircraft was also present at the scene.”[2].

    These human tragedies are playing out at Europe’s land and sea borders on a daily basis. The first quarter of this year marked the deadliest[3] in the central Mediterranean in six years, adds the statement which was also signed by Danish Refugee Council, HIAS Europe, International Rescue Committee, Missing Children Europe, and SOS Children’s Villages International.

    The joint humanitarian organisation statement goes on reporting that human rights watchdogs[4], civil society organisations, the United Nations[5] and countless investigative journalists as well as major media outlets[6] have documented the human rights violations, pushbacks[7] and systematic failures to engage in search and rescue that have now become the EU’s de facto migration management policy.

    Europe urged to end rights abuse, senseless deaths

    Hundreds of reports and evidence submissions have been published, including those based directly on witness and survivor testimonies.

    Organisations have advocated relentlessly with the European Commission, Member States and European policy makers to adopt measures to end human rights abuses and senseless deaths at EU borders, it adds.

    “Instead, some EU states have drastically reduced search and rescue (SAR) capacity at sea, and restricted[8] civil society SAR operations[9], which means that prompt and effective assistance cannot be provided to migrants in distress, in blatant disregard of international SAR obligations.”

    More pushbacks and more deaths

    Furthermore, on 8 June European Union’s Member States agreed on a reform of the European asylum and migration system, which is built on deterrence and systematic detention at EU borders, that will most probably incentivise more pushbacks, and deaths at sea, while the border monitoring mechanisms established so far are neither independent nor effective[10].

    “This will only push people fleeing war and violence into even more dangerous routes and cause more unnecessary deaths. Meanwhile, EU Member States continue to rely on untransparent deals worth billions with third countries, in an attempt to rid themselves of their asylum responsibilities.”

    In their joint statement, the human rights watchdogs urge a full investigation into these deaths, specifically into the role of EU Member States as well as the involvement of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which supports the management of the EU’s external borders and the fight against cross-border crime.

    An ‘open graveyard’ at Europe’s borders

    “We urge the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, to finally take a clear stand on the open graveyard at Europe’s land and sea borders, and to hold Member States accountable.”

    “We call for a European asylum system that guarantees people the right to seek protection in full respect of their rights. The EU should abandon the narrative of blaming shipwrecks on smugglers and stop seeing solutions solely in the dismantling of criminal networks.”

    “A recipe for more abuse at EU borders”

    Analysing the new reform of the European asylum and migration system, Human Rights Watch‘s Judith Sunderland on 9 June warned that EU migration reforms deal will increase suffering at borders.

    “European governments pave the way for further abuse,” reported Sunderland, Human Rights Watch’s Associate Director, Europe and Central Asia Division.

    A June 8 agreement among European Union countries on asylum procedures and migration management is “a recipe for more abuse at EU borders,” she warned.

    Interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg endorsed policies that “will entrench rights violations, including expedited procedures without sufficient safeguards, increased use of detention, and unsafe returns.”

    The deal creates an expedited “border procedure” for anyone applying for asylum following an irregular entry or disembarkation after a rescue at sea, she adds.

    The procedure would be mandatory for asylum seekers coming from countries whose nationals have a less than 20 percent rate of being granted some form of protection and anyone authorities say withheld or used false information, Sunderland further reports.

    Asylum seekers likely to be “locked up”

    “In practice, many if not most people will be channelled into these sub-standard accelerated procedures with fewer safeguards, such as legal aid, than the normal procedure.”

    People are also likely to be “locked up” during the procedure, which could take up to six months, with few exemptions for people with vulnerabilities, families, or children.

    According to the human rights defender, imposing this procedure in conjunction with detention or detention-like conditions is directly linked to the twin interests of many EU countries in preventing people travelling further into Europe from countries of first entry and in deporting people as swiftly as possible.

    The agreement would allow each country to determine what constitutes a “safe third country” where people can be returned, based on a vague concept of “connection” to that country. This could lead to people being sent to countries they have merely transited or where they have a family member but have themselves never been, and where their basic rights cannot be guaranteed.”

    Want to further abuse human rights, just pay a fine!

    “EU countries have rejected a mandatory relocation scheme, instead aiming to allow countries who won’t take asylum seekers to pay into a common fund that would be used to finance unspecified projects in non-EU countries, presumably focused on preventing migration.”

    When the European Commission presented its proposal for a Migration Pact in September 2020, more than 70 organisations warned the proposal risked “exacerbating the focus on externalisation, deterrence, containment, and return.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Guess Who Is the Worst Enemy of the Oceans (And Everywhere Else)?

    Guess Who Is the Worst Enemy of the Oceans (And Everywhere Else)?

    Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming. Credit: Claudio Riquelme/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jun 07 (IPS) – The good news: oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth’s surface, contain 97% of the world’s water, represent 99% of the living space on the Planet by volume, and are a major source of food and medicine. Much so that they are the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world.

    More: Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

    And the bad news

    The bad news is that, with 90% of big fish populations depleted, and 50% of coral reefs destroyed, human beings are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished.

    Indeed, there is another ‘crime’ being committed as a consequence of the unrelenting business obsession with making more and more money. It is about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a practice that threatens marine biodiversity, livelihoods, exacerbates poverty, and augments food insecurity.

    The ‘criminal’ depletion of the fish

    Such illegal activities are responsible for the loss of 11–26 million tons of fish each year, which is estimated to have an economic value of 10–23 billion US dollars.”

    Much so that if ‘business’ goes as usual –and all indicate that it will– there will be more tons of plastic than fish by the year 2050, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

    Moreover, there are issues of marine debris and marine litter involved in IUU fishing, which are not only related to the marine environment but also the safe navigation of ships, explains the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

    Who is the worst enemy?

    Commenting on their exceptional importance for human beings, the United Nations chief, António Guterres warned on the occasion of the 2023 World Oceans Day (8 June) that “we should be the ocean’s best friend. But right now, humanity is its worst enemy.”

    Guterres called oceans ‘the foundation of life’, as they supply the ‘air we breathe and the food we eat,’ while regulating climate and weather.

    The greatest reservoir of biodiversity. And of litter

    “Marine biodiversity is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification. Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste.”

    According to reports, an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons, is distributed across the ocean.

    The United Nations has long warned the international community of the damage ocean garbage does to the economy and the environment, as reported by the large energy company Iberdrola.

    This waste decimates marine ecosystems by killing more than a million animals a year, it reports, adding that organisations like Greenpeace report that floating plastic accounts for only 15% of the total, while 85% remains hidden underwater — at depths of up to 11,000 metres, or even trapped in Arctic ice.

    Marine pollution

    Marine pollution accounts for at least 85% of marine waste, and plastic litter is the chief pollutant, reports the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

    Every minute, one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our ocean. If nothing is done about it, by 2040, the equivalent of 50 kg of plastic per metre of coastline worldwide is projected to flow into the ocean yearly, the world leading environmental body informs.

    It is estimated that by the year 2030, the world’s coastal populations will contribute three trillion dollars to the global economy in sectors as diverse as fisheries, and tourism, as well as emerging green and blue economies such as renewable energy and marine biotechnology.

    More human ‘crimes’ against life

    Another major body, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has also focused on the dangers of plastic pollution also to the world’s soils and crops.

    On this, it reports that the qualities that make plastic useful are also the ones that make it hazardous: ‘designed to fool nature itself, most plastics are too resilient to biodegrade in a meaningful timeframe.’

    The Convention further says that the world’s current efforts to recycle plastics have been inefficient so far: only 9% of plastic is recycled globally, and much of it is either thrown away or cannot be processed for recycling.

    “One-third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater, endangering our food, our livestock and the health of the soil. Invisible to the eye, microplastics linger in the environment, the food chain, and our bodies.”

    Soil is the foundation of our agricultural systems which support nearly all food-producing crops: about 95% of our food comes from the soil, UNCCD further explains.

    “Fertile soil that produces food is a finite resource, and plastic pollution can have a long-lasting impact on soil health, biodiversity and productivity, all of which are essential to food security.”

    Deadly contaminated food

    Talking about food security, did you know that “every day, some 1.6 million people worldwide fall ill from eating contaminated food, which kills 420,000 people each year,” as reported by two UN agencies on the occasion of the 2023 World Food Safety Day, (7 June).

    Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have in fact reported that “over 200 diseases are caused by eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances such as heavy metals.”

    The staggering impacts of human activities against the oceans and everywhere else do not end here. There is still more, much more, to report on the deadly consequences for the world’s oceans, soils, and the whole cycle of life of the human addiction to fossil fuels.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Of the Sahel and the Merchants of Death

    Of the Sahel and the Merchants of Death

    Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Jun 02 (IPS) – There is a tangled trafficking web that has been woven across the Sahel, which spans almost 6.000 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and is home to more than 300 million people in 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

    This is how several international specialised bodies, mainly the United Nations, depict the aggravated situation in this already highly fragile African region, which the UN describes as a region in crisis, as those living there are prey to “chronic insecurity, climate shocks, conflict, coups, and the rise of criminal and terrorist networks.”

    The Sahel criminal web deals with an unimaginable range of ‘commodities’, from chilli peppers and fake medicine, to fuel, gold, and guns, through humans and more which are being trafficked via millennia-old trade routes crisscrossing the Sahel, according to a 20 May 2023 report.

    The US-led military intervention

    Security has long been an issue in the region, “but the situation markedly degraded in 2011, following the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, which led to the ongoing destabilisation of the country,” explains the United Nations.

    On 19 March 2011, a US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization coalition (31 Western member-countries) launched a military intervention in Libya, with coordinated naval and air forces attacks mainly by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, among others.

    Since then the big oil producer Libya has been the stage of growing instability and chaos, let alone a hub of human trafficking, smuggling and slavery.

    Humans, weapons, oil…

    Such “ensuing chaos, and porous borders stymied efforts to stem illicit flows, and traffickers transporting looted Libyan firearms rode into the Sahel on the coattails of insurgency and the spread of terrorism,” reports the UN.

    Fuel is another commodity trafficked by the main players – terrorist groups, criminal networks, and local militias.

    “Armed groups now control swathes of Libya, which has become a trafficking hub.”

    In fact, in addition to massive human trafficking and migrant smuggling, markets across the Sahel can be found openly selling a wide range of contraband goods, from fake medicines to AK-style assault rifles.

    … And medicines that kill

    A UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, on 27 May 2023 focussed on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines.

    “From ineffective hand sanitiser to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa’s Sahel region.”

    Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

    Trafficking medication is often deadly; in just one case, 70 Gambian children died in 2022 after ingesting smuggled cough syrup.

    Desperate demand

    According to the UN, health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world’s highest incidences of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.

    “This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms,” the report says.

    It further explains that street markets and unauthorised sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.

    Fatal results

    The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.

    “Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorised antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.”

    In the summer of 2022, 70 Gambian babies and young children died from kidney failure after ingesting cough syrup spooned out by their caregivers.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert that four tainted paediatric products had originated in India, as local health authorities continue to investigate how this tragedy unfolded.

    Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to 44.7 million US dollars every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

    Corruption

    Corruption is one of the main reasons the trade is allowed to flourish.

    About 40% of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed.

    “Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.”

    The perpetrators

    “The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain,” the report found.

    Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.

    While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying “taxes” on shipments in areas under their control.

    Far beyond the Sahel and Africa

    Fighting organised crime is a central pillar in the wider battle to deal with the security crisis in the region, which UN Secretary-General, António Guterres says, poses a global threat.

    “If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism, and organised crime will be felt far beyond the region and the African continent,” Guterres already warned in 2022.

    Apart from repeated proposals for action and solution, evidence shows that very little has been done, if anything, to halt those merchants of death. Who benefits from such a horrid destabilisation of 10 African countries which already rank among the poorest ones on Earth?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Climate Carnage: Things Can Only Get Worse

    Climate Carnage: Things Can Only Get Worse

    The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (rome)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME, May 29 (IPS) – Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.

    Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.

    See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.

    Warmest year ever

    “There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”

    The world-leading meteorological body then informs that such a rise is fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern.

    El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.

    El Niño steers weather patterns around the world, WMO further explains, “can aggravate extreme weather events,” and its events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the Southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

    “This year is already predicted to be hotter than 2022 and the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. 2024 could be even hotter as the impact of the weather phenomenon sets in.”

    ‘Staggering rise…’

    Mind you: This WMO report is just an update that would be logically expected. Indeed, it actually adds to earlier reiterated findings about the worse to come.

    For instance, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’

    According to its report, there has already been an 80% increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015.

    Out of control

    “However, many of the lessons from past disasters have been ignored.”

    The consequences are that now a steadily increasing number of people are being affected by larger, ever more complex and more expensive disasters because decision-makers are failing to put people first and prevent risks from becoming disasters.

    “Many of these disasters are climate-related, and in light of the latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries are likely to face even worse disasters if global temperatures continue to rise.”

    “Brutally unequal”

    The impacts are “brutally unequal,” with developing countries hit the hardest, as highlighted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

    Its report multi-country review points to the rapid accumulation of risk that is building up, intersecting with the risks of breaching planetary boundaries, biodiversity and ecosystem limits – which is spiralling out of control.

    Not so new, anyway. Indeed the UNDRR chief, Mami Mizutori, reminded already at the end of 2020 that the international community pledged in Paris in 2015 to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

    ‘Uninhabitable hell…’

    However, she added, “It was “baffling” that nations were continuing knowingly “to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people”.

    One doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of how disasters are becoming worse, said Mami Mizutori. “The sad fact is that many of these disasters are preventable because they are caused by human decisions.”

    The point is that already a year ago, the UNDRR warned that “by deliberately ignoring risk, the World is bankrolling its own destruction.”

    But this should not be surprising: many fingers have been pointing to the responsibility of the short-sighted politicians, who are too often influenced by the powerful money-making business, that they end up turning a blind eye on such mass destruction.

    Drought, heat “100 times more likely”

    On 5 May 2023, the World Meteorological Organization reported that climate ‘change’ made both the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa and the record April temperatures in the Western Mediterranean at least 100 times more likely.

    Regarding the Horn of Africa, it said that the drought was made much more severe because of the low rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures in a world which is now nearly 1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.

    Mediterranean heatwave

    In late April, parts of Southwestern Europe and North Africa experienced a massive heatwave that brought extremely high temperatures never previously recorded in the region at this time of the year, with temperatures reaching 36.9 – 41 °C in the four countries.

    “The event broke temperature records by a large margin, against the backdrop of an intense drought.”

    “The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

    Spreading everywhere

    Across the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter, reports WMO based on researchers’ analysis that looked at the average of the maximum temperature for three consecutive days in April across southern Spain and Portugal, most of Morocco and the northwest part of Algeria.

    Crops under threat

    As other analyses of extreme heat in Europe have found, “extreme temperatures are increasing faster in the region than climate models have predicted,” said the researchers.

    Until overall greenhouse gas emissions are halted, global temperatures will continue to increase and events like these will become more frequent and severe.

    “The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

    And the carnage goes on

    In short, the ongoing climate carnage is expected to move from the worst to the worst.

    And anyway, the term ‘carnage’ should not sound at all new.

    Indeed, it was already spelt out by the United Nations’ top chief, António Guterres, in September 2022, following his field visit to the vast Pakistan’s regions impacted by unprecedented devastating floods.

    The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said Guterres, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.

    The UN chief stated that he saw in those regions “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination.”

    By the way, do you expect that the coming COP28 in Dubai (November 30th-December 12th, 2023) will come out with anything different from the usual ‘politically correct,” “radical chic” statements?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Europe Sells to Africa and Asia 90% of Its Used Clothes, Textiles Waste

    Europe Sells to Africa and Asia 90% of Its Used Clothes, Textiles Waste

    “As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain,” says the European Environmental Agency. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • by Baher Kamal (rome)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME, May 18 (IPS) – Once the money-making businesses have turned Asia and Africa into their low-cost factories, to produce and market at higher prices their clothes and footwear, obtaining more profits by selling to these two continents around 90% of all their used and textiles waste.

    Not only: such a business alleviates the harsh environmental impacts of the lucrative clothing and fashion industry, and the cost of recycling and eliminating the leftovers of these products.

    Just know that textiles are on average “the fourth-highest source of pressure on the environment and climate change from a European consumption perspective,” the European Environment Agency (EEA) on 26 April 2023 reported.

    Consequently, “Europe faces major challenges managing used textiles, including textiles waste.”

    Europe exports much more than textile waste

    Lars Mortensen, EEA expert on circular economy, confirms that textile production and consumption in the European Union have significant impacts on the environment and climate.

    “Textile consumption causes the third largest land use and water use in the value chain, and the fifth largest material resource use and greenhouse gas emissions. Also, textiles cause pressures and impacts from their chemicals on the environment and climate”.

    The poisoning plastic

    A 27 January 2023 EEA briefing focusses on another big problem: plastic.

    “Plastic-based — or ‘synthetic’— textiles are woven into daily lives in Europe, in the clothes we wear, the towels and the bed sheets, in the carpets, curtains and cushions. And they are in safety belts, car tyres, workwear and sportswear.”

    Synthetic textile fibres are produced from fossil fuel resources, such as oil and natural gas, the briefing goes on, adding that their production, consumption and related waste handling generate greenhouse gas emissions, use non-renewable resources and can release microplastics.

    EU consumers discard about 5.8 million tonnes of textiles annually – around 11 kg per person – of which about two-thirds consist of synthetic fibres, according to the briefing.

    “In Europe, about one-third of textile waste is collected separately, and a large part is exported.”

    Africa and Asia are therefore the largest destinations of these toxic fibres.

    Simply put: by exporting European used clothes and textiles waste, their impacts necessarily fall on the shoulders of Africans and Asians.

    A highly uncertain fate

    Indeed, “as reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain,” says the European Environmental Agency.

    In fact, throughout the past two decades, Africa has been the main continent receiving used textiles from the European Union (EU), importing more than 60% of EU exports.

    But while in 2000 Asia received only 26% of EU exports, by 2019 it had significantly increased its share to 41% of EU imports. This is almost equal to Africa, which still imported 46% of EU exports.

    Where do second-hand clothes end up?

    In the African countries studied, the EEA report says that the import of used textiles seems to be mainly meant for local reuse. This is because there is a demand for cheap, used clothes from Europe, which seem to be preferred to new items.

    “What is not fit for reuse mostly ends up in open landfills and informal waste streams.”

    In Asia, however, most of the used textiles are imported to so-called economic zones where they are sorted and processed. In the countries studied for this briefing, import for local reuse is restricted.

    Instead, used textiles seem to be recycled locally, mostly downcycled into industrial rags or filling, or re-exported either for recycling in other Asian countries or reuse in Africa.

    “Textiles that cannot be recycled or re-exported are likely to end up in the general waste management system, most of which is landfilling.”

    The big figures…

    According to this European Union (EU)’s agency that ‘delivers knowledge and data to support Europe’s environment and climate goals’:

    • The amount of used textiles exported from the EU has tripled over the last two decades from slightly over 550,000 tonnes in 2000 to almost 1.7 million tonnes in 2019.
    • The fate of used textiles exported from the EU is highly uncertain. The perception of used clothing donations as generous gifts to people in need does not fully match reality,
    • Used clothing is increasingly part of a specialised and traded global commodity value chain,
    • In 2019, 46% of used textiles ended up in Africa: Imported, used textiles on this continent primarily go towards local reuse as there is a demand for cheap, used clothes from Europe. What is not fit for reuse mostly ends up in open landfills and informal waste streams,
    • In 2019, 41% of used textiles ended up in Asia. Most used textiles on this continent are imported to dedicated economic zones where they are sorted and processed,
    • The used textiles are mostly downcycled into industrial rags or filling, or re-exported for recycling in other Asian countries or for reuse in Africa. Textiles that cannot be recycled or re-exported are likely to end up in landfills.

     

    … The big exporting hubs

    “Some EU countries, such as Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, have exported more than others and seem to have acted as import-export hubs for used textiles from the EU.”

    There is no clear reason explaining why five out of 27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom account for around 75% of all EU used textile exports, adds the EEA.

    Therefore, it is likely that the largest exporters have been sending used textiles abroad, collected locally and from other EU countries, says the European agency.

    Thus, another reason for the concentration of exports in a few EU countries could be that these large exporting countries are acting as export hubs.

    “In other words, they are importing used textiles from other EU Member States for re-export beyond the EU. Ports/harbours for international shipment in some of these countries make them logical export hubs.”

    Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have large export harbours.

    … and the big increase

    EU used textile exports have grown significantly over the last two decades, the EEA reports, explaining that exports of textile waste outside the EU have been steadily increasing to reach 1.4 million tonnes in 2020.

    Still, another problem appears: how to avoid that waste streams are falsely labelled as second-hand goods when exported from the EU and in this way escape the waste regime?

    EU used textile exports are characterised by a lot of uncertainty, adds the EEA. First, there is uncertainty around the types of textiles exported as well as their quality.

    In other words, it says, if used textiles exported from the EU are of too low quality to be reused, or are not reused for very long or do not replace new clothing purchases, they may not really replace new production or benefit the environment.

    “Instead, the exports will only lead to more textiles ending up in landfills.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • A Short Tale of a Tree and a Moroccan Wedding Party

    A Short Tale of a Tree and a Moroccan Wedding Party

    The argan tree forest constitutes a vital fodder reserve for all herds even in periods of drought. All parts of the argan tree are edible and very appreciated: leaves, fruits and the undergrowth are a meal of choice especially for the most daring goats that do not hesitate to climb the branches. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • by Baher Kamal (rome)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME, May 12 (IPS) – A much needed break amidst so many alarming news, with a brief story of a tree, a bottle of liquid gold, and a wedding gift.

    It is useless to remind you that all trees are wonderful living beings, with an amazing vital system to drain water through their roots, and breathe through their leaves to bring this water to their trunk, branches and leaves.

    All of them are sources of most of the oxygen on Earth while absorbing harmful greenhouse gases. Their roots greatly contribute to fixing the land, thus reducing the risk of further degradation and desertification. Let alone purifying the air.

    This particular tree

    Among them, one is special: the Argan tree.

    A native species of the sub-Saharan, Southwest region of Morocco, where it grows in arid and semi-arid areas, this tree is the defining species of a woodland ecosystem, also known as Arganeraie, which is rich in endemic flora.

    The argan tree used to grow throughout North Africa, but currently, it only grows in southwestern Morocco. It is estimated to be the second most abundant tree in Moroccan forests, with over 20 million trees living in the region.

    The argan tree is one of the world’s wild plants, which are used by an estimated 3.5 to 5.8 billion people, with one billion humans depending on them for their livelihoods and food security.

    Furthermore, wild plants offer great economic and nutritional benefits for these communities and for societies around the world. In fact, between 2000 and 2020, the global trade value of medicinal and aromatic plants alone increased by more than 75%, as reported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

    In spite of that, two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, sustainable use and climate change.

    Hidden in plain sight

    Here is the case of just one of these wild plant species hidden in plain sight:

    Argan can be found in cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals. Mostly used as an oil, its anti-ageing properties are popular for cosmetics, and its demand in the food industry has turned it into the most expensive edible oil in the world, FAO adds.

    Under the burning sun

    Now see what the UN further tells about its importance on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Argania:

    • It withstands temperatures of up to 50° Celsius.
    • It is a bastion against desertification, it can reach 10 metres in height and can live for 200 years.
    • Its woodlands provide forest products, fruits and fodder.
    • Its leaves and fruits are edible and highly appreciated, as is the undergrowth, and constitute a vital fodder reserve for all herds, even in periods of drought.
    • It is used as fuelwood for cooking and heating.
    • And also as medicines and cosmetics.

    A mainstay of indigenous Berbers

    For centuries, the argan tree has been a mainstay of the Berber and Arab-origin indigenous rural communities, which developed a specific culture and identity, sharing their traditional knowledge and skills through non-formal education, particularly the knowledge associated with the traditional production of argan oil by women, the world body explains.

    The argan-based agro-forestry-pastoral system uses only locally adapted species and pastoralism activities and relies on traditional water management provided by the Matifiya – a rainwater reservoir carved into the rock, hence contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to the conservation of biodiversity.

    The ‘liquid gold’

    But there is more: the world-renowned argan oil, which is extracted from the seeds and has multiple applications, especially in traditional and complementary medicine and in the culinary and cosmetic industries.

    In addition, argan oil is given as a wedding gift and it is used extensively in the preparation of festive dishes.

    The fruit of the argan tree is a green to light yellow berry in the centre of which is an almond made up of several seeds gorged with oil. It takes about 150 kg of fruit to produce 3 litres of argan oil.

    The Argan Women

    Indeed, it is said that, since the 13th century, the Berber women of North Africa have been making argan oil for culinary and cosmetic purposes.

    The International Day of Argania further explains that the fruits are hand-picked and dried in the sun, then pulped, grinding, sorting, milling and mixing. Its nuts are crushed and its almonds crushed to filter the oil.

    Women lead the entire extraction process through knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next. In fact, rural women and, to a lesser extent, men living in the reserve practice traditional methods to extract argan oil from the fruit of the tree.

    “Traditional know-how specific to the extraction of the oil and its multiple uses is systematically transmitted by ‘argan women’, who teach their daughters from a young age to put it into practice.”

    What else would you expect from a tree?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Unceasing Human Attacks on the Source of 80% of Food, 98% of Oxygen

    Unceasing Human Attacks on the Source of 80% of Food, 98% of Oxygen

    Several human-caused threats lay behind the current annual loss of up to 40% of food crops globally, mainly due to plant pests and the introduction of alien species. Credit: Jency Samuel/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (rome)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME, May 10 (IPS) – Two big facts are impressive enough: plants are the source of 80% of all food, and as much as 98% of all oxygen. Logically, it would be taken for granted that human beings would do whatever is needed to protect this essential source of life. But do they?

    Not at all. Rather the whole contrary.

    Several human-caused threats lay behind the current annual loss of up to 40% of food crops globally, mainly due to plant pests and the introduction of alien species.

    Among them stands the massive international travel and trade business, which has been associated with the introduction and spread of so many pests.

    Indeed, world trade hit a record 32 trillion US dollars in 2022, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

    Being such a highly profitable business, it continues to bring thousands of alien species that silently but relentlessly invade – and colonise – the whole Planet Earth.

    The ‘White Sea’ and the Black Sea, invaded, colonised

    Just know that over 1.000 alien species have already taken over the Mediterranean Sea (popularly known in Arabic as the ‘White Sea’) and the Black Sea.

    But these two seas are no exception. All of the world’s seas are already occupied by aliens. And anyway this is not the case of seas only: also all the Planet’s lands and air are highly infected.

    Such an alien invasion is extremely dangerous to native species, much so that it is changing the nature of the waters and the lands of these two nearly closed seas.

    Aliens on board

    “They are non-indigenous fish, jellyfish, prawns, algae and many other marine and not marine species, most of them are being brought by human activities such as giant cargo ships, oil tankers, touristic cruisers, and even medium and small fishing boats,” reliable data show in a recent UN report.

    The Mediterranean Sea ranks high on the list of the world’s most trafficked waters.

    Did you know that more than 2.000 cargo ships, oil tankers, cruisers, cross the Mediterranean Sea at any given moment?

    Over half of those alien species have established permanent populations and are spreading, causing concern about the threat they pose to marine ecosystems and local fishing communities, reports the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

    No wonder then that this sea is undergoing a “tropicalisation” process as water temperatures rise, largely due to climate change, the UN warns.

    Where from and who is bringing them?

    Many species have migrated via well-travelled Mediterranean shipping routes such as the Strait of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal, often attached to the hull of ships or inside them in the ballast waters, explains FAO.

    Other species, such as the Pacific cupped oyster and the Japanese carpet shell, were introduced for aquaculture during the 1960s and 1970s and have since escaped and colonised Mediterranean ecosystems.

    Number of aliens on the rise

    In other words, “Invasive species are changing the nature of the Mediterranean Sea,” the world’s body warns.

    Stefano Lelli, a fishery expert for the Eastern Mediterranean working for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, knows about that. “Climate change and human activities have had a profound impact on the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.”

    According to Lelli, “We have witnessed a swift and significant alteration of marine ecosystems, which has led to several impacts on local communities livelihoods. In the coming years, we expect the number of non-indigenous species to continue rising.”

    Once established, non-indigenous species can outcompete native ones and alter their surrounding ecosystems, with potential economic implications for fisheries and tourism or even human health, says the FAO report.

    Massive unsustainable tourism

    Add to this the massive, often unsustainable tourism business, and travels by air and ships –both among the main causes of climate emergency–, and the many other invasive pest species that are also associated with rising temperatures which create new niches for pests to populate and spread.

    Did you know that the Mediterranean Sea is by far the largest global tourism destination?

    Simply, it attracts almost a third of the world’s international tourists (one billion a year), generating more than one-fourth of all international tourism receipts (200 out of 750 billion euros, or about 230 out of 800 billion US dollars).

    No wonder then that it is one of the most infected basins by pests and alien species.

    What is the reaction to the loss of 40% of food crops globally?

    Instead of reacting swiftly to repair all these damages and avoid further ones, human activities resort to the intensive use and misuse of pesticides, which harm pollinators, natural pest enemies and organisms crucial for a healthy environment, warns FAO.

    “Yet, plant health is increasingly at risk. Plant pests are responsible for the annual loss of up to 40 percent of food crops globally. This is especially relevant to the millions of smallholder farmers and people in rural communities who rely on agriculture as a primary source of income and see their livelihoods at risk.”

    Humans continue to alter ecosystems, reduce biodiversity…

    The climate crisis and unsustainable human activities are altering ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and creating new niches for invasive pests to thrive.

    Concurrently, international travel and trade that can unintentionally spread pests and diseases rapidly around the world have tripled in volume over the last decade, causing great damage to native plants and the environment.

    In view of all the above, no surprise that the UN has declared an International Day of Plant Health, which is observed each year on 12 May, to raise global awareness of how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment, and boost economic development.

    Until when -and how far- will human avidity continue to destroy the very source of life on Planet Earth?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Of Africa and The Magic Formula of The Italian Taxi Driver

    Of Africa and The Magic Formula of The Italian Taxi Driver

    Africa is the continent that has contributed the least (just 2 to 3%) to the causes of the current climate emergencies while bearing the brunt of 82% of the devastating consequences. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (rome)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME, May 04 (IPS) – Some days ago in Rome, the Italian taxi driver switched on the radio during a longish ride through the usual traffic jam. Music, gossip, and the hourly news bulletin. All of a sudden, the man strongly hit the steering wheel. “They are stupid, those bastards…,” he shouted.

    “These useless politicians speak every now and then about the need for solidarity with Africa…, blah, blah, blah,” he added. “But the solution is easy, very easy, even the most stupid can see it.”

    According to the taxi driver, “the solution is that the government sends to Africa our retired engineers, agronomists, university professors… to teach Africans how to farm.”

    The man was so furious that you would not dare to comment that African farmers already know how to farm… far more than many foreign academicians.

    History tells us that Africans were among the first farmers on Earth, and that they knew –and still know– what to plant, when, where and how. And that one of Africa’s biggest deserts, the Sahara used to be one of the greenest areas in the world.

    Now that this vast continent –the second largest after Asia– home to around 1.4 billion humans, is experiencing unprecedented hunger, malnutrition, undernourishment and death, outsider technology moguls have now come out with another “easy solution”: the digitalisation of farming…

    Those moguls, and the world’s largest organisations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, insisting that what poor farmers need is to use devices such as smartphones and computers, and download apps that tell them what to farm, when, where, how, and with which inputs. They call it “transformation.”

    Meanwhile, they do not hesitate to attribute to the condemnable war in Ukraine the tsunami of poverty and famine that have been for years and even decades striking the most impoverished humans, saying that that proxy war stands behind such a horrifying situation, or at least that it heavily contributes to dangerously worsening it.

    Africa before Ukraine’s war

    Here are some key factors to be taken into consideration:

    • Hunger in Africa started around four decades ago, amidst a striking shortage of the most basic preventions and social services, like education and health, leading to the surge of diseases that were given for eliminated in other parts of the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the Horn of Africa hunger emergency sparks surge in disease.
    • WHO also alerts that “life-threatening hunger caused by climate shocks, violent insecurity and disease in the Horn of Africa, have left nearly 130,000 people “looking death in the eyes.”
    • The world leading health body also reports “exponential rise in cholera cases in Africa”,
    • Several African regions have been facing the impacts of the hardest-ever weather extremes, with unprecedented absence of precipitation and record droughts now for the fifth consecutive year.
    • This and the previous factors have led to massive migration waves, in addition to millions of internally displaced people, let alone tens of thousands of homeless,
    • Conflicts, fights for water and fertile lands, have pushed 33 African nations high in the ranking of the Least Developed Countries,
    • Africa is the continent that has contributed the least (just 2 to 3%) to the causes of the current climate emergencies while bearing the brunt of 82% of the devastating consequences,
    • As many as 45 African countries fall further under what the International Monetary Fund calls: “The Big Funding Squeeze,” as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels,
    • Indebtedness: The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023. A high number of those countries are located in Africa.
    • International trade barriers, dominance of mostly Western giant private chains of food production and distribution, price fixing and market speculation, “vulture funds” intensive and extensive land grabbing, armed conflicts, are factors standing behind such a gloomy situation,
    • Add to the above the unstoppable rush for Africa’s precious minerals, in particular those which are indispensable for the production and worldwide sales of electronic devices, like the smartphones and computers African farmers are now told to use. Let alone all other natural resources,
    • Africa’s oil resources have been exploited over long decades, now more than ever,
    • Then you have the excessive use of chemicals, such as fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides, as well as Genetically Modified Organisms and the cultivation of non-autochthonous commodities by the dominant industrial intensive agriculture systems,
    • The concentration of key commodities production, such as grains and cereals, in a reduced number of countries (See the case of Russia, Ukraine, let alone major producers such as the United States, Europe, Canada, India…)

     

    Such concentration is so intense that, in his recent article: The War in Ukraine Triggers a Record Increase in World Military Spending, IPS journalist Thalif Deen reported that “The United Nations has warned that the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has threatened to force up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution and hunger.”

    And that “Long before the war, Ukraine and Russia provided about 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil. But the ongoing 14th-month-old war has undermined– and cut-off– most of these supplies.”

    Also that “Together, the UN pointed out, their grain was an essential food source for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries (LDCs), described as “the poorest of the world’s poor.”

    All these key factors are extraneous to Africa… all of them!

    Perhaps what Africa deserves most is a just reparation for the long decades of exploitation by its former European colonisers –now giant private corporations–, and a fair compensation for the devastating damage caused by their induced climate emergencies and so many other extraneous causes.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Now Europeans Learn What Climate Extremes Are All About

    Now Europeans Learn What Climate Extremes Are All About

    Rhine River, Cologne,,Germany,10.08.2022. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Apr 25 (IPS) – Apologies to those Western politicians and media who continue to say that Ukraine’s brutal proxy war stands behind whatever catastrophes, disasters or crises occur in the Planet.

    Is this accurate?

    Scientific evidence confirms that, much earlier than that war, Europe, like many other regions, was already walking closer to the edge of extreme weather consequences.

    Europe’s worst drought in 500 years?

    “The drought episode that affected Europe in 2022 could well be the worst in 500 years,” reports Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme which “looks at our planet and its environment to benefit all European citizens and offers information services.”

    This European service further explains that the 2022 drought episode “is attributable to a severe and persistent lack of precipitation, combined with a sequence of repeated heat waves that have affected Europe from May to October.”

    Put simply, the reported climate extremes in Europe are not the consequence of the Ukraine war, and they were already there many years earlier to when it started in February 2022.

    Anyway, European citizens now hear the devastating impacts of climate extremes in their own rich continent, which is one of the major global contributors to the ongoing climate emergency.

    Are climate emergencies just an impoverished regions’ problem?

    So far, the severe impacts of climate extremes in Africa and other impoverished regions, would jump to the news every now and then, by showing short videos of errant human beings and deserts… before analysing in-depth the latest soccer games or reporting on the new friend of a reality-show star. And highway accidents or a fight between young gangs.

    Western citizens are also used to hearing that the horrifying numbers of hungry people (more than one billion human beings), in particular in East Africa due to long years of record droughts, is either caused by the war in Ukraine or that their situation was exacerbated by it.

    Now European citizens wake up to the upsetting fact that they also fall under the heavy impact of the steadily rising human, economic, and environmental toll of climate change.

    How come those impacts are now becoming news?

    A swift answer is that such climate extremes, heat waves, severe droughts, water and food production shortages have been causing increasing damage to private businesses, as well as to medium-to-small-size agriculture activities. In short, damaging their pockets.

    See what the very same European Union officially says at the macro level:

    – Weather- and climate-related hazards, such as temperature extremes, heavy precipitation and droughts, pose risks to human health and the environment and can lead to substantial economic losses.

    — Between 1980 and 2021, weather- and climate-related extremes amounted to an estimated EUR 560 billion (2021 values).

    – Hydrological events (floods) account for over 45% and meteorological events (storms including lightning and hail, together with mass movements) for almost one-third of the total.

    – When it comes to climatological events, heat waves are responsible for over 13% of the total losses while the remaining +/-8% are caused by droughts, forest fires and cold waves.

    – The most expensive hazards during the period 1980-2021 include the 2021 flooding in Germany and Belgium (almost EUR 50 billion), the 2002 flood in central Europe (over EUR 22 billion), the 2003 drought and heatwave across the EU (around EUR 16 billion), the 1999 storm Lothar in Western Europe and the 2000 flood in France and Italy (both over EUR 13 billion), all at 2021 values.

    – A relatively small number of events is responsible for a large proportion of the economic losses: 5% of the weather- and climate-related events with the biggest losses is responsible for 57% of losses and 1% of the events cause 26% of losses (EEA’s own calculations based on the original dataset).

    – This results in high variability from year to year and makes it difficult to identify trends. Nevertheless, the average annual (constant prices, 2021 euros) losses were around EUR 9.7 billion in 1981-1990, 11.2 billion in 1991-2000, 13.5 billion in 2001-2010 and 15.3 billion in 2011-2020.

    – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that climate-related extreme events will become more frequent and severe worldwide. This could affect multiple sectors and cause systemic failures across Europe, leading to greater economic losses.

    – Only 30% of the total losses were insured, although this varied considerably among countries, from less than 2% in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania to over 75% in Slovenia and the Netherlands.

    Also at the medium-to-micro level

    Most medium-to-small agricultural cooperatives, unions and associations in those European countries more stricken by droughts, have been rising their public protests, demanding their governments to compensate them for the big losses of their harvests.

    In the specific case of Spain, farmers’ unions and agri-food cooperatives report crop losses of up to two-thirds of the expected harvest.

    Back to Copernicus

    The “historical drought” affected Europe as evidenced by the Combined Drought Indicator of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service European Drought Observatory for the first ten-day period of September 2022.

    On this, Copernicus reports the following findings:

    – Heatwaves: 2022 was also characterised by intense, and in some areas prolonged, heatwaves which affected Europe and the rest of the world, breaking several surface air temperature records.

    – As reported in the July 2022 Climate Bulletin published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service July 2022 was the sixth warmest July in Europe.

    – Temperature anomalies reached peaks of +4ºC in Italy, France, and Spain.

    According to the European Union’s Copernicus:

    – The prolonged drought that has affected various parts of the globe together with the record temperatures were contributing forces that have certainly caused an increased wildfire risk, which peaked during the summer season both in Europe, in the Mediterranean region, and in the north-west of the United States.

    – The Combined Drought Indicator (which is published by the European Drought Observatory as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service) reported that more than one-fourth of the EU territory was in “Alert” conditions in early September.

    – Another extreme phenomenon of 2022 was the marine heatwave that affected the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 2022.

    European countries are highly dependent on the Mediterranean Sea for shipping goods, including oil tankers; tourism (one country – Spain receives more than 80 million tourists a year, double its total population); industrial fishing; refineries; harbours, and a long etcetera.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Africa, Now Squeezed to the Bones

    Africa, Now Squeezed to the Bones

    The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”, says new report. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Apr 19 (IPS) – As many as 45 African countries –out of the Continent’s 54 nations–, all of them grouped in what is known as Sub-Saharan Africa, have now been further squeezed to their bones, as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels, and as a portion of the so-called aid goes back to the pockets of rich donor countries.

    See what happens.

    In its April 2023 World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) talks about a rocky recovery. In its reporting on that, it lowers global economic growth outlook as ‘fog thickens.’

    It says that the road to global economic recovery is “getting rocky.’ And that while inflation is slowly falling, economic growth remains ‘historically low,’ and that the financial risks have risen.

    Squeezed

    Well. In its April Outlook, the IMF devotes a chapter to Sub-Saharan Africa, titled “The Big Funding Squeeze”.

    It says that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 3.6 percent as a “big funding squeeze”, tied to “the drying up of aid and access to private finance,” hits the region in this second consecutive year of an aggregate decline.

    If no measures are taken, “this shortage of funding may force countries to reduce fiscal resources for critical development like health, education, and infrastructure, holding the region back from developing its true potential.”

    Some arguments

    According to the IMF:

    • Public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in half of countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.
    • The rapid tightening of global monetary policy has raised borrowing costs for Sub-Saharan countries both on domestic and international markets.
    • All Sub-Saharan African frontier markets have been cut off from market access since spring 2022.
    • The US dollar effective exchange rate reached a 20-year high last year, increasing the burden of dollar-denominated debt service payments. Interest payments as a share of revenue have doubled for the average SSA country over the past decade.
    • With shrinking aid budgets and reduced inflows from partners, this is leading to a big funding squeeze for the region.

    The giant monetary body says that the lack of financing affects a region that is already struggling with elevated macroeconomic imbalances.

    Unprecedented debts and inflation

    In a previous article: The Poor, Squeezed by 10 Trillion Dollars in External Debts, IPS reported on the external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries, which at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago.

    Such debts are expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023, thus totalling 10.1 trillion US dollars.

    Now, the IMF reports that “public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in about half of the countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.”

    In short, “Sub-Saharan Africa stands to lose the most in a severely fragmented world and stresses the need for building resilience.”

    Like many other major international bodies, the IMF indirectly blames African Governments for non adopting the “right” policies and encourages further investments in the region, while some insist that the way out is digitalisation, robotisation, etcetera.

    The big contradiction

    Here, a question arises: are all IMF and other monetary-oriented bodies’ recommendations and ‘altruistic’ advice the solution to the deepening collapse of a whole continent, home to around 1,4 billion human beings?

    Not really, or at least not necessarily. A global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, grounded in the commitment to the universality of human rights: Oxfam, on 13 April 2023 said that multilateral lender’s role in helping to insulate people in low- and middle-income countries from economic crises is “incoherent and inadequate.”

    For example, “for every $1 the IMF encourages a set of poor countries to spend on public goods, it has told them to cut four times more through austerity measures.”

    Countries forced to cut public funding

    Then the global civil society movement explains that an important IMF initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis “is in tatters.”

    New analysis by Oxfam finds that the IMF’s “Social Spending Floors” targets designed to help borrowing governments protect minimum levels of social spending— are proving largely powerless against its own austerity policies that instead force countries to cut public funding.

    “The IMF’s ‘Social Spending Floors’ encouraged raising inflation-adjusted social spending by about $1 billion over the second year of its loan programs compared to the first year, across the 13 countries that participated where data is available.”

    IMF’s austerity policiesBy comparison, the IMF’s austerity drive has required most of those same governments to rip away over $5 billion worth of state spending over the same period, warns Oxfam.

    “This suggests the IMF was four times more effective in getting governments to cut their budgets than it is in guaranteeing minimum social investments,” said incoming Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar.

    “This is deeply worrying and disappointing, given that the IMF had itself urged countries to build back better after the pandemic by investing in social protection, health and education,” Behar said.

    “Among the 2 billion people who are suffering most from the effects of austerity cuts and social spending squeezes, we know it is women who always bear the brunt.”

    A fig leaf for austerity?

    In its new report “IMF Social Spending Floors. A Fig Leaf for Austerity?,” Oxfam analysed these components in all IMF loan programs agreed with 17 low- and middle-income countries in 2020 and 2021.

    Oxfam’s report: “The Assault of Austerity” found inconsistencies between countries. There is no standard or transparent way of tracking progress and many of the minimum targets were inadequate.

    The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, the report goes on, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”.

    The farce of aid budget

    In another report titled “Obscene amount of aid is going back into the pockets of rich countries,” Oxfam informed that on 12 April 2023 the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OECD DAC) published its preliminary figures on the amount of development aid for 2022.

    According to the OECD report, in 2022, official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 204.0 billion.

    This total included USD 201.4 billion in the form of grants, loans to sovereign entities, debt relief and contributions to multilateral institutions (calculated on a grant-equivalent basis); USD 0.8 billion to development-oriented private sector instrument (PSI) vehicles and USD 1.7 billion in the form of net loans and equities to private companies operating in ODA-eligible countries (calculated on a cash flow basis), it adds.

    Total ODA in 2022 rose by 13.6% in real terms compared to 2021, says the OECD.

    “This was the fourth consecutive year ODA surpassed its record levels, and one of the highest growth rates recorded in the history of ODA…”

    The rich pocketing ‘obscene’ percentage of aid
    In response, Marc Cohen, Oxfam’s aid expert, said: “In 2022, rich countries pocketed an obscene 14.4 percent of aid. They robbed the world’s poorest people of a much-needed lifeline in a time of multiple crises.

    “Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid”.

    Rich countries inflating their aid budgets

    “They continue to inflate their aid budgets by including vaccine donations, the costs of hosting refugees, and by profiting off development aid loans. It is time for a system with teeth to hold them to account and make sure aid goes to the poorest people in the poorest countries.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Superbugs Among Top 10 Threats to Whole Cycle of Life

    Superbugs Among Top 10 Threats to Whole Cycle of Life

    “If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Apr 11 (IPS) – Research after research, world’s scientists renew their loud alerts against the high dangers of human-driven “superbugs” – bacteria and pathogens that no longer respond to antimicrobials, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

    No way.

    The pressure of giant industrial sectors appear to be heavier than the needed political well to reduce the dangerous impacts of the excessive use of those drugs which are widely employed to prevent and treat infections in humans, aquaculture, livestock, and crop production.

    Antibiotics are perhaps the most familiar ones, but there are many others, including numerous antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitic agents that have been largely used and misused to treat diseases but that end up spreading them.

    They are known as “superbugs” resulting from their increasing resistance to those medicines. And they are antimicrobial resistant germs which are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air).

    “They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin,” as further explained by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

    Such an increasing abuse of antimicrobials and other microbial stressors (e.g. the presence of heavy metals and other pollutants) creates favourable conditions for microorganisms to develop resistance.

    The big threat

    They represent one of the most complex threats to global health, and food safety and security. Much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) lists Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) among the top 10 threats for global health.

    The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten the ability to treat common infections, WHO explains.

    Alarming advance of multi-resistant bacterias

    “Especially alarming” is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacterias that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

    “The clinical pipeline of new antimicrobials is dry.” In 2019 WHO identified 32 antibiotics in clinical development that address its list of priority pathogens, of which only six were classified as innovative.

    Moreover, estimates suggest that by 2050 up to 10 million additional direct deaths could occur annually. That is on par with the 2020 rate of global deaths from cancer.

    Additionally, in the next decade, AMR could result in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shortfall of at least 3.4 trillion US dollars annually and push 24 million more people into extreme poverty.

    Antibiotics, increasingly ineffective

    According to the World Health Organization, the lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health-care systems.

    “Antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective as drug-resistance spreads globally leading to more difficult to treat infections and death.”

    New antibiotics urgently needed

    New antibacterials are urgently needed – for example, to treat carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections as identified in the WHO priority pathogen list.

    “However, if people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective.”

    Meanwhile, FAO reports, “the situation is expected to worsen as global demand for food increases,” adding that it is therefore paramount that the agrifood systems are progressively transformed to reduce the need for antimicrobials.

    What drives antimicrobials?

    As mentioned above, such a threat is primarily driven by the excessive application of antimicrobials, the international body adds. In fact, currently, more than 70% of antimicrobials sold worldwide are used in animals for human consumption.

    While AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes, FAO reports that their main drivers include:

    • misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in human health and agriculture
    • lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals
    • poor infection and disease prevention and control in healthcare facilities and farms
    • poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, and
    • weak enforcement of legislation.

    Who influences the spread of superbugs?

    According to UN reports, three economic sector value chains profoundly influence AMR’s development and spread:

    • Pharmaceuticals and other chemicals manufacturing
    • Agriculture and food including terrestrial animal production, aquaculture, food crops or those providing inputs such as feed, textiles, ornamental plants, biofuels, and other agricultural commodities.
    • Healthcare delivery in hospitals, medical facilities, community healthcare facilities and in pharmacies where a range of chemicals and disinfectants are used.

    Other major consequences

    Another leading specialised body, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in its February 2023 report: Bracing for Superbugs about the need to curtail pollution created by the pharmaceuticals, agricultural and healthcare sectors.

    The study focuses on the environmental dimensions of AMR, reporting that the pharmaceutical, agricultural and healthcare sectors are key drivers of AMR development and spread in the environment, together with pollutants from poor sanitation, sewage and municipal waste systems.

    Inger Andersen, the UNEP Executive Director, explained that the triple planetary crisis – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – has contributed to this.

    “Pollution of air, soil, and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of antimicrobial resistance could destroy our health and food systems,” she warned.

    Climate, biodiversity, pollution, nature loss…

    According to UNEP, global attention to AMR has mainly focused on human health and agriculture sectors, but there is growing evidence that the environment plays a key role in the development, transmission and spread of AMR and is a key part of the solution to tackle AMR.

    In fact, AMR is closely linked to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution and waste, driven by human activity, unsustainable consumption and production patterns.

    The world leading environmental body explains the following:

    • Climate crisis and AMR are two of the greatest and most complex threats the world currently faces. Both have been worsened by, and can be mitigated by, human action.
    • Higher temperatures can be associated with increases in AMR infections, and extreme weather patterns can contribute to the emergence and spread of AMR.
    • Antimicrobial impacts on microbial biodiversity may affect the cycles of carbon and methane, which are directly involved in regulating Earth’s climate.
    • Biodiversity loss: Land-use changes and climate change alter soils’ microbial diversity in recent decades, and microbes inhabiting natural environments are sources of pharmaceutical discovery.
    • Municipal solid waste landfills and open dumps are prone to wildlife and feral animal interaction and can contribute to the spread of AMR.
    • Pollution: Biological and chemical pollution sources contribute to AMR development, transmission, and spread.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Planet Garbage

    Planet Garbage

    We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health, warns UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Apr 04 (IPS) – Straight to the point: the current system of voracious money-making production and the induced over-consumption patterns have turned Planet Earth into a giant garbage dump.

    And straight to the facts:

    • Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean.
    • If food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
    • More than 75% of all electronic waste is not safely managed.
    • Resource extraction is responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions.
    • The amount of municipal solid waste generated globally could rise from around 2.24 billion tons to 3.88 billion tons by 2050.
    • 80% of marine pollution originates on land.

     

    One billion tons of food in the garbage

    The waste sector contributes significantly to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution.

    Just take the shocking case of food. Every year, around 931 million tons of food is lost or wasted and up to 14 million tons of plastic waste enters aquatic ecosystems.

    Such an unimaginable waste of food in a world of one billion empty plates, is just to be added to the dumping of billions of tons of plastics, textiles, discarded electronics, and debris from mining and construction sites.

    ‘Trashing our only home’

    “The planet is literally drowning in garbage, and it is high time to clean up,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, marking the first-ever International Day of Zero Waste (30 March 2023).

    “We are trashing our only home,” he said. “We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health.”

    Guterres said it was time for “a war on waste” on three fronts, calling on polluters themselves to take the lead.

    “Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell,” he said.

    “We need to find opportunities to reuse, recycle, repurpose, repair and recover the products we use. And we need to think twice before throwing these items in the garbage.”

    The case of Türkiye

    The Türkiye’s Zero Waste Project has so far managed to conserve some 650 million tonnes of raw material, and to eliminate four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions through recycling.

    “All life on earth is connected but industrialization has led to the over-consumption that is polluting the planet, said the Turkish First Lady, Emine Erdo?an, who spearheads the Project.

    “Humans have created this frightening landscape.”

    “We are obliged to establish a fair system and take on measures based on burden sharing where we look out for countries deeply impacted by the consequences of climate change which had no part to play in the first place,” she said.

    Be ‘waste wise’

    The head of the UN’s urban development agency, UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, urged countries to be “waste wise”, including through finding value in reusing items before discarding them.

    “Zero Waste is the first step towards creating waste-wise societies,” she said. “The first step is to take responsibility and make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics. Remember that everything we use and discard must go somewhere.”

    Food systems

    The global population is on track to reach 10 billion by 2050, and demand for food and non-food agricultural products is also expected to rise by up to 56%, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

    Meeting this demand will require healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said.

    “We need to urgently address the inefficiencies and inequalities in our agri-food systems to make them more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.”

    For this, it would be of great help to implement the world’s Global Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production, which calls for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production objectives across all sectors by 2030.

    Another available tool is the “End plastic pollution: towards an internationally legally binding instrument”, which was adopted at the United Nations Environment Assembly on 2 March 2022.

    Zero waste?

    A zero-waste approach entails responsible production, consumption and disposal of products in a closed, circular system. This means that resources are reused or recovered as much as possible and that we minimise the pollution of air, land or water.

    Products should be designed to be durable and require fewer and low-impact materials. By opting for less resource-intensive production and transport methods, manufacturers can further limit pollution and waste.

    Consumers can also play a pivotal role in enabling zero waste by changing habits and reusing and repairing products as much as possible before properly disposing of them.

    ‘The world is bigger than five’

    Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, has suggested that “the world is bigger than five” – a reference to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

    Sounds good. But the fact is that those five are the world’s major producers and their corporations are dominating the global markets, making astonishing profits from destruction, being all of them the greater polluters.

    For example, alongside oil and gas corporations, food companies more than doubled their profits in 2022 at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry and 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, as reported by Oxfam International.

    Meanwhile, the food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera, that end up in land, water and the air.

    Shouldn’t such deadly practices be classified as “crimes against humanity”? And their perpetrators be taken to International Criminal Courts?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Outright Hatred Towards Muslims, Risen to ‘Epidemic Proportions’

    Outright Hatred Towards Muslims, Risen to ‘Epidemic Proportions’

    Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world, says UN chief.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Mar 13 (IPS) – Islamophobia is a ‘fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world.’

    Consequently, suspicion, discrimination and ‘outright hatred’ towards Muslims have risen to “epidemic proportions.”

    These are not the words of this convinced secular journalist, but those of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

    In fact, a recent report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March), warns that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

    This definition emphasises the link between institutional levels of Islamophobia and manifestations of such attitudes, triggered by the visibility of the victim’s perceived Muslim identity.

    A threat to Western values?

    This approach also interprets Islamophobia as a form of racism, whereby Islamic religion, tradition and culture are seen as a “threat” to “Western values.”

    “Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and other horrific acts of terrorism purportedly carried out in the name of Islam, institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to epidemic proportions.”

    Widespread negative representations of Islam

    At the same time, “widespread negative representations of Islam, and harmful stereotypes that depict Muslims and their beliefs and culture as a threat have served to perpetuate, validate and normalise discrimination, hostility and violence towards Muslim individuals and communities.”

    In addition, in States where they are in the minority, “Muslims often experience discrimination in accessing goods and services, in finding employment and in education.”

    In some States they are denied citizenship or legal immigration status due to xenophobic perceptions that Muslims represent national security and terrorism threats. Muslim women are disproportionately targeted in Islamophobic hate crimes, adds the United Nations.

    Islamophobic ‘hate crimes’

    Studies show that the number of Islamophobic hate crimes frequently increases following events beyond the control of most Muslims, including terrorist attacks and anniversaries of such attacks.

    “These trigger events illustrate how Islamophobia may attribute collective responsibility to all Muslims for the actions of a very select few, or feed upon inflammatory rhetoric.”

    The UN says that many Governments have taken steps to combat Islamophobia by establishing anti-hate-crime legislation and measures to prevent and prosecute hate crimes and by conducting public awareness campaigns about Muslims and Islam designed to dispel negative myths and misconceptions.

    A resolution…

    The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by 60 Member-States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which designated 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

    The resolution stresses that “terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”

    It calls for a global dialogue on the promotion of a culture of tolerance and peace, based on respect for human rights and for the diversity of religions and beliefs.

    Marking the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia in 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that “anti-Muslim bigotry is part of a larger trend of a resurgence in ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazism, stigma and hate speech targeting vulnerable populations including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities, as well as others.”

    … and a Plan

    In response to the “alarming trend” of rising hate speech around the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.

    The Strategy clearly states that hate speech incites violence and intolerance.

    The devastating effect of hatred, it adds, is sadly nothing new. However, its scale and impact are now amplified by new communications technologies.

    “Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world.”

    The numbers

    With an estimated total of some 1.8 billion followers worldwide, Islam is the second most spread belief after Christianism (2.2 billion).

    Here, it should be reminded that not all Arabs are Muslims, nor all Muslims are Arabs.

    In fact, Arab countries are home to just slightly more than 1 in 4 Muslims worldwide, while Asia –in particular South and Southeast Asia– accounts for more than 60% of the world’s Muslims.

    The largest Muslim population in a single country lives in Indonesia, which is home to 13% of all the world’s Muslims. Pakistan (with 12%) is the second largest Muslim-majority nation, followed by India (11%), and Bangladesh (10%).

    Also the Arabs

    In spite of the above, there is still a widespread perception mixing Muslims with Arabs, which extends the anti-Muslim hatred wave to all Arab or Arab-majority societies.

    Whatever the case is, recent history shows that several Muslim countries have fallen victims to wars, and military occupation (Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen), while others are scenarios to stark instabilities (Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, just to mention some).

    Racism everywhere

    No lessons have been learnt from horrific crimes committed against believers. Remember the Holocaust against the Jews?

    The evidence is that racism, “xenophobia and related discrimination and intolerance exist in all societies, everywhere. Racism harms not just the lives of those who endure it, but also society as a whole,” stated the UN chief.

    “We all lose in a society characterised by discrimination, division, distrust, intolerance, and hate. The fight against racism is everyone’s fight…”

    Yes, but is it… really?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Why Do 800 Mothers a Day – 1 Every 2 Minutes Die from Preventable Causes?

    Why Do 800 Mothers a Day – 1 Every 2 Minutes Die from Preventable Causes?

    Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Mar 07 (IPS) – The answer is that there are alarming setbacks for maternal health care and, in many cases, even a total lack of maternity services, which threaten to further raise the number of these tragic preventable deaths one million or more a year by 2030.

    Severe bleeding, high blood pressure, pregnancy-related infections, complications from unsafe abortion, and underlying conditions that can be aggravated by pregnancy (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria) are the leading causes of maternal deaths, UN specialised bodies report.

    “These are all largely preventable and treatable with access to quality and respectful healthcare.”

    Why then are these causes still not prevented and treated?

    In theory, ending maternal mortality should be achievable, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the world’s sexual and reproductive health agency, on 23 February stated, that’s just three weeks ahead of this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March).

    “Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades.”

    “Why, then, do almost 800 women still die every day from maternal causes? How, today, can one woman die every two minutes from pregnancy or childbirth?”

    Alarming setbacks

    It’s a question that has only grown more urgent with the release of the new report –based on estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division, which reveals progress on ending preventable maternal deaths has “not only slowed over the last five years, but stagnated.”

    The report reveals “alarming setbacks” for women’s health over recent years, as maternal deaths either increased or stagnated in nearly all regions of the world.

    “While pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, it is tragically still a shockingly dangerous experience for millions around the world who lack access to high quality, respectful health care,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

    “These new statistics reveal the urgent need to ensure every woman and girl has access to critical health services before, during and after childbirth, and that they can fully exercise their reproductive rights.”

    A miracle turned into tragedy

    “For millions of families, the miracle of childbirth is marred by the tragedy of maternal deaths,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell.

    “No mother should have to fear for her life while bringing a baby into the world, especially when the knowledge and tools to treat common complications exist. Equity in healthcare gives every mother, no matter who they are or where they are, a fair chance at a safe delivery and a healthy future with their family.”

    More poverty, more death

    In total numbers, maternal deaths continue to be largely concentrated in the poorest parts of the world and in countries affected by conflict, according to the report.

    In 2020, about 70% of all maternal deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa. In nine countries facing severe humanitarian crises, maternal mortality rates were more than double the world average (551 maternal deaths per 100.000 live births, compared to 223 globally).

    Stark inequalities

    Roughly a third of women do not have even four of a recommended eight antenatal checks or receive essential postnatal care, while some 270 million women lack access to modern family planning methods.

    Moreover, “inequities related to income, education, race or ethnicity further increase risks for marginalised pregnant women, who have the least access to essential maternity care but are most likely to experience underlying health problems in pregnancy.”

    Needless deaths

    “It is unacceptable that so many women continue to die needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth. Over 280.000 fatalities in a single year is unconscionable,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem.

    “We can and must do better by urgently investing in family planning and filling the global shortage of 900.000 midwives so that every woman can get the lifesaving care she needs. We have the tools, knowledge and resources to end preventable maternal deaths; what we need now is the political will.”

    The report reveals that the world must “significantly accelerate progress to meet global targets for reducing maternal deaths, or else risk the lives of over one million more women by 2030.”

    Question: How much money is needed to put an end to such horrifying deaths? Wouldn’t it be enough to dedicate what the world’s giant private business gains in just one minute through selling weapons, speculating with oil, power and food prices, marketing artificial baby milk, and a very long etcetera, let alone technologies?

    Is digitisation more urgent?

    There is another question needing an answer: how come that, in spite of the above-mentioned findings, the United Nations now focuses on the need to ‘digilitalise’ the lives of women?

    See what the UN says about this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March), under the theme: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality:

    “Our lives depend on strong technological integration: attending a course, calling loved ones, making a bank transaction, or booking a medical appointment. Everything currently goes through a digital process.”

    “However, 37% of women do not use the internet. 259 million fewer women have access to the Internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world’s population.”

    The world’s major multilateral body further explains that if women are unable to access the Internet and do not feel safe online, they are unable to develop the necessary digital skills to engage in digital spaces, which diminishes their opportunities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields.

    And that by 2050, 75% of jobs will be related to STEM areas. “Yet today, women hold just 22% of positions in artificial intelligence, to name just one.”

    True: women have historically been victims of all sorts of abuse, violence, and targeted inequalities that have systematically left them far behind in all aspects of life.

    Shouldn’t their indisputable right to the most basic health care be –now and always– a high priority on the world’s agenda?

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Most African Govts (3 in 4) Spend More on Arms, Less on Farms

    Most African Govts (3 in 4) Spend More on Arms, Less on Farms

    Chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022, according to Oxfam report. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Mar 03 (IPS) – The data is shocking: three-quarters of African Governments have already reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms.

    Africa is home to a quarter of the world’s entire agricultural land. Nevertheless, in the 12 months that African leaders vowed to improve food security in the continent, over 20 million more people have been pushed into “severe hunger.”

    Today “a fifth of the African population (or 278 million) is undernourished, and 55 million of its children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition,” Oxfam International adds to the above data in its report: Over 20 million more people hungry in Africa’s “year of nutrition”.

    “The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices…,” said Fati N’Zi-Hassane, Oxfam in Africa Director.

    Chronic underinvestment

    The report further explains that chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022.

    Specifically, it adds, the majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8% of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as 1%.

    “Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their agricultural spending since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture.”

    In 2014 African leaders signed the Malabo Declaration, which stipulated that African governments must spend at least 10% of their budget on Agriculture and supporting farmers.

    Politicians doubling military spending

    In contrast, “African governments spent nearly double that budget (6.4%) on arms last year. Ongoing conflict, especially in Sahel and Central Africa, has continued to destroy farmland, displace people and fuel hunger.”

    In addition, “worsening climate-fuelled droughts and floods, and a global rise in fuel and fertilisers prices, made food unobtainable for millions of people. In 2022 alone, food inflation rose by double digits in all but ten African countries.”

    No access to neighbouring markets

    As the 36th African Union Summit was held in February 2023, focussing on intra-continental free trade, “millions of smallholder farmers, who are vital food producers in the continent, cannot reach markets in neighbouring countries due to poor infrastructure and high intra-African tariffs.”

    In other words, “many African nations find it cheaper to import food from outside the continent than from their next-door neighbour.”
    According to Oxfam:

    • As of August 2022 (the last available figure), there were 139.95 million people in 35 African countries living in “Crisis or worse acute food insecurity.” That is an increase of 17% (20.26 million people) over the same number a year earlier (119.69 million people).

     

     

     

    • South Sudan spends less than 1% of its budget on Agriculture. Calculations of all agricultural spending in Africa is based on data from the government spending watch, national budgets and FAO.

     

    • According to the CAADP report and the FAO Crop Prospects report, Africa’s cereal production in 2022 was 207.4 million tons, a decline of 3.4 million tons from the average of the previous five years.

     

    Five-fold increase in extreme weather events

    The increasing hunger in Africa –which is imposed by both externally and internally– is just part of a widespread drama.

    In fact, climate change is fuelling hunger for millions of people around the world. “Extreme weather events have increased five-fold over the past 50 years, destroying homes, decimating livelihoods, fuelling conflict and displacement, and deepening inequality,” Oxfam reports.

    Hunger more than doubling

    Climate change has resulted in more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and heat waves. “The number of disasters has increased five-fold over the past 50 years.”

    This is hitting low-income countries hardest, Oxfam goes on, adding that the 10 countries with the highest UN appeals related to weather extremes since 2000, have seen a 123% rise in the number of people suffering extreme hunger -from 21.3 million to 47.5 million.

    These countries are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. According to this data, 7 out of these 10 countries are Africans.

    Fossil fuel staggering profits

    The G20 countries are amongst the most polluting nations in the world, collectively responsible for nearly 77% of carbon emissions, reports Oxfam, a global movement of people, working together to end the injustice of poverty, by tackling the inequality that keeps people poor.

    It is extraordinary that as humanity faces this existential crisis, there is still more incentive to destroy our planet than to save lives.

    “The oil and gas industry has enjoyed staggering profits as they wreak havoc on the planet –amassing 2.8 billion US dollars a day (or more than 1 trillion US dollars per year) for the last 50 years.”

    Seismic hunger

    For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that the current seismic hunger crisis has been caused by a deadly combination of factors: conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes are combining to create a food crisis of unprecedented proportions.

    Much so that “as many as 828 million people are unsure of where their next meal is coming from.”

    In its report ‘2023: Another year of extreme jeopardy for those struggling to feed their families,’ WFP warns that a record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity – up from 287 million in 2021. This constitutes a staggering rise of 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

    More than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in famine-like conditions, the world body reports, adding that this is “ten times more than five years ago, an alarmingly rapid increase.”

    In short, politicians also in the most needed and highest exposed to staggering hunger countries, continue to attach higher relevance to spending on arms fueling conflicts, and on fuel fuels spreading climate disasters, rather than investing in saving the lives of their own people.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Wildlife Is Much More than a Safari. And It Is at Highest Risk of Extinction

    Wildlife Is Much More than a Safari. And It Is at Highest Risk of Extinction

    A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute, finds WWF report. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Mar 01 (IPS) – Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world’s population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.

    In spite of that, one million species of plants and animals are already facing extinction due to the voracious profit-making, over-exploitative, illegal trade and the relentless depletion of the variety of life on Planet Earth.

    In fact, billions of people, both in developed and developing nations, benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, and many other vital contributions to human well-being, as duly reports the UN on the occasion of the 2023 World Wildlife Day (3 March).

    Much so that 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions worldwide. And 1 in 5 people around the world rely on wild species for income and food, while 2.4 billion people depend on wood fuel for cooking.

    The world’s major multilateral body reminds us of the “urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime and human-induced reduction of species, which have wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.”

    Variety of life, lost at an “alarming rate”

    A world organisation leading in wildlife conservation and protection of endangered species: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns that unfortunately, we’re losing biodiversity — the rich variety of life on Earth — at an “alarming rate.”

    “We’ve seen a 69% average decline in the number of birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970, according to the 2022 Living Planet Report.

    “A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute.”

    WWF highlights the following findings, among several others:

    • 69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970,
    • Wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean plummeting at a staggering rate of 94%,
    • Freshwater species populations have suffered an 83% fall.

     

    Major causes

    The 2022 Living Planet Report points out some of the major causes leading to the shocking loss of the world’s biodiversity.

    “The biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the way in which people use the land and sea. How we grow food, harvest materials such as wood or minerals from the ocean floor, and build our towns and cities all have an impact on the natural environment and the biodiversity that lives there.”

    Food systems: the biggest cause of Nature loss: according to findings provided by WWF, food production has caused 70% of biodiversity loss on land and 50% in freshwater. It is also responsible for around 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

    As a global population, what we’re eating and how we’re producing it right now is good for neither us nor the planet. While over 800 million people are going hungry, over two billion of those who do have enough food are obese or overweight.

    The WWF provided findings also indicate that meat tends to have the highest environmental impact, partially because livestock produce methane emissions through their digestive process – something called enteric fermentation – but also because most meat comes from livestock fed with crops.

    And that around 850 million people around the world are thought to rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods.

    WWF’ report also refers to the invasive non-native species: Invasive non-native species are those that arrive in places where they historically didn’t live and out-compete local biodiversity for resources such as sunlight and water. This causes the native species to die out, causing a shift in the makeup of the natural ecosystem.

    Future depends on reversing the loss of Nature

    “The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US.

    “These plunges in wildlife populations can have dire consequences for our health and economies,” says Rebecca Shaw, global chief scientist of WWF.

    “When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on. We should care deeply about the unravelling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life.”

    In view of all the above, the causes of the fast destruction of the variety of life have been scientifically identified as well as the dangerous consequences. However, the dominant private business continues to see more profits in destroying than in saving.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Ticking Time Bombs for the Most Defenceless: The Children (II)

    Ticking Time Bombs for the Most Defenceless: The Children (II)

    In Nigeria’s Northeast the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition is projected to increase to two million in 2023. Credit: UNOCHA/Christina Powell.
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Feb 23 (IPS) – While the world’s biggest powers and their giant private corporations continue to attach high priority to their military –and commercial– dominance, both of them being shockingly profitable, entire generations are being lost to deadly armed conflicts, devastating climate catastrophes, diseases, hunger and more imposed impoverishment.

    Part I of this series of two articles focussed on the unprecedented suffering of the most innocent and helpless human beings – children– in 11 countries. But there are many more.

    According to the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), hundreds of thousands of children continue to pay the highest price of a mixture of man-made brutalities, with their lives, apart from the unfolding proxy war in Ukraine, and the not yet final account of victims of the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, which are forcing children to sleep in the streets under the rumble, amid the chilling cold.

    Nigeria

    Nigeria is just one of the already reported cases of 11 countries. UNICEF on 11 February 2023 appealed for 1.3 billion US dollars to stop what it calls “the ticking bomb of child malnutrition.”

    The appeal is meant to help six million people severely affected by conflict, disease, and disaster in Northeast Nigeria.

    “The large-scale humanitarian and protection crisis shows no sign of abating,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria. “An estimated 2.4 million people are in acute need – impacted by conflict, disaster and disease – and require urgent support.”

    The “ticking time bomb” of child malnutrition is escalating in Nigeria’s Northeast, with the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition projected to increase to two million in 2023, up from 1.74 million last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

    Already high levels of severe acute malnutrition are projected to more than double from 2022 to a projected 697,000 this year. Women and girls are the hardest hit, said Schmale.

    “Over 80% of people in need of humanitarian assistance across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are women and children. They face increased risks of violence, abduction, rape and abuse.”

    The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu raised concerns about a worsening security situation, calling for urgent action to address conflicts and prevent “atrocity crimes.”

    Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
    Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

    Horn of Africa: the suffering of over 20 million children

    By the end of 2022, UNICEF warned of a funding shortfall as the region faces an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season and a poor outlook for the sixth.

    The number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has “more than doubled in five months,” according to UNICEF.

    “Around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July , as climate change, conflict, global inflation and grain shortages devastate the region.”

    While collective and accelerated efforts have mitigated some of the worst impacts of what had been feared, “children in the Horn of Africa are still facing the most severe drought in more than two generations,” said UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Lieke van de Wiel.

    “Humanitarian assistance must be continued to save lives and build the resilience of the staggering number of children and families who are being pushed to the edge – dying from hunger and disease and being displaced in search of food, water and pasture for their livestock.”

    Nearly two million children across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are currently estimated to require ”urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of hunger.”

    In addition, across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia:

    • More than two million people are displaced internally because of drought.
    • Water insecurity has more than doubled with close to 24 million people now confronting dire water shortages.
    • Approximately 2.7 million children are out of school because of the drought, with an additional estimated 4 million children at risk of dropping out.
    • As families are driven to the edge dealing with increased stress, children face a range of protection risks – including child labour, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
    • Gender-based violence, including sexual violence, exploitation and abuse, is also increasing due to widespread food insecurity and displacement.

    UNICEF’s 2023 emergency appeal of US$759 million to provide life-saving support to children and their families will require timely and flexible funding support, especially in the areas of education, water and sanitation, and child protection, which were ”severely underfunded” during UNICEF’s 2022 response.

    An additional US$690 million is required to support long-term investments to help children and their families to recover and adapt to climate change.

    Meanwhile, more unfolding tragedies for children

    The above-reported suffering for the most defenceless human beings–children, does not end here. Indeed, two more major tragedies continue unfolding. Such is the case of the brutal proxy war in Ukraine and the most destructive earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.

    “A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” – Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

    Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes

    A steady flow of UN aid trucks filled with vital humanitarian relief continues to cross the border from Southern Türkiye into Northwest Syria to help communities enduring “terrible trauma” caused by the earthquake disaster, UN aid teams on 17 February 2023 reported.

    As UN aid convoys continue to deliver more relief to quake-hit Northwest Syria via additional land routes from Türkiye, UN humanitarians warned that “many thousands of children have likely been killed,” while millions more vulnerable people urgently need support.

    “Even without verified numbers, it’s tragically clear the number of children killed, the number of children orphaned is going to keep on rising,” on 14 February 2023 said UN Children Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder.

    In Türkiye, the total number of children living in the 10 provinces before the emergency was 4.6 million, and 2.5 million in Syria.

    And as the humanitarian focus shifts from rescue to recovery, eight days after the disaster, Elder warned that cases of “hypothermia and respiratory infections” were rising among youngsters, as he appealed for continued solidarity with all those affected by the emergency.

    “Everyone, everywhere, needs more support, more safe water, more warmth, more shelter, more fuel, more medicines, more funding,” he said.

    “Families with children are sleeping in streets, malls, mosques, schools, under bridges, staying out in the open for fear of returning to their homes.”

    “Unimaginable hardship”

    “The children and families of Türkiye and Syria are facing unimaginable hardship in the aftermath of these devastating earthquakes,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

    “We must do everything in our power to ensure that everyone who survived this catastrophe receives life-saving support, including safe water, sanitation, critical nutrition and health supplies, and support for children’s mental health. Not only now, but over the long term.”

    The number of children killed and injured during the quakes and their aftermath has not yet been confirmed but is likely to be in the many thousands. The official total death toll has now passed 45,000.

    Freezing

    Many families have lost their homes and are now living in temporary shelters, “often in freezing conditions and with snow and rain adding to their suffering.” Access to safe water and sanitation is also a major concern, as are the health needs of the affected population.

    Ukraine

    Months of escalating conflict have left millions of children in Ukraine vulnerable to biting winds and frigid temperatures, UNICEF reports.

    Hundreds of thousands of people have seen their homes, businesses or schools damaged or destroyed while continuing attacks on critical energy infrastructure have left millions of children without sustained access to electricity, heating and water.

    The list of brutalities committed against the world’s children goes on. The funds desperately needed to save their lives represent a tiny faction of all that is being spent on wars.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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