“My grandma and my grandfather are now washed out in the sea,” says Mario Muschamp, gazing out at the coast near his close-knit Creole community. “You know, their graves are gone. That really hurts.”
This is the reality for the inhabitants of Monkey River, who have watched on, powerless, as their football field, their homes, and even the graves of deceased loved ones, are claimed by the sea.
Man-made activity has been identified by experts as the main cause of the coastal erosion which is devastating the village and causing such deep suffering, notably industrial salt mining and water diversion. The situation has deteriorated to the extent that some members of the community have moved away.
The geotube fightback
Others, however, have decided to stay and fight, and, in the words of local schoolteachers Audra Castellanos, “put Monkey River back on the map”.
Mr. Muschamp is the President of the Monkey River Watershed Association, a community-based organization working to conserve and restore the integrity of the entire Monkey River Watershed, and ensure that it continues to provide a multitude of benefits to local residents and the coastal ecosystem.
To this end, the Monkey River Watershed Association partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to install one hundred and sixty feet of sand filled “geotubes” in front of the most threatened properties.
Residents are teaming up with UNDP to install the geotubes, massive synthetic sandbags that create physical barriers to wave energy and erosion, and take other measures to slow the disintegration of the shoreline.
‘We need climate justice’
“Monkey River Village is one of those coastal communities that we prioritize,” said Leonel Requena, UNDP’s National Coordinator of the GEF Small Grants Programme. “Monkey River’s inhabitants are not responsible for the climate crisis, yet they are the ones that are suffering the greatest loss and damage. What we need is climate justice.”
The story of Monkey River is about a hub of biodiversity where the river meets the sea – but more than that, it is about a community that, like so many others, is joining forces to turn the tide on climate change, with the support of the United Nations.
Since a 2022 United Nations Global Lens video documentary on the community was produced in 2022, yet another home has been claimed by the sea, but the residents who have resolved to protect their village say nothing will wash away their resolve to fight coastal erosion.
“We have been doing our best to try and keep what we have,” said Mr. Muschamp. “I don’t want to see any more graves go to the sea.”
In a statement released on Friday, Mr. Türk said that the decision by the authorities to investigate the deaths was encouraging, but he added that it should be “prompt, thorough, impartial and transparent”. “I have sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs underlining this exact message”, declared the High Commissioner. “The victims and their loved ones are owed no less.”
The 28 bodies were found in the north-western town of Nouna, in the Kossi Province, in the Boucle du Mouhoun region. According to local sources, the victims, who were all men, were killed when members of the Volontaires pour la Défense de la Patrie (VDP), armed auxiliaries to the defence and security forces, descended on the town, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack on the group’s military base the previous night by suspected members of the Jamāʿat nuṣrat al-islām wal-muslimīn (JNIM) armed group.
Burkina Faso has been in the grip of political instability for several years, and its people have suffered a series of deadly terrorist attacks. The country’s severe humanitarian crisis has seen more than a million people displaced from their homes, victims of ongoing conflict and poverty.
In launching its investigation on 2 January, the Burkina Faso transitional government declared that it is “fundamentally opposed to any form of abuse or human rights violations on any grounds” and reiterated its commitment to protect all civilians without any distinction.
Mr. Türk has previously raised concerns directly with the authorities regarding the potential human rights risks linked to recruitment, arming and deployment of auxiliaries in Burkina Faso.
The statement noted that there is an urgent need to strengthen their vetting procedures, pre-deployment training on international human rights and humanitarian law, their effective supervision by the security and defence forces and to ensure inclusion and transparency during their recruitment.
As the sun sets over the Celebes sea, and its orange glow turns the horizon gold, a couple of dozen tourists are on the pier at Budo, a village of 2400 perched on the ocean, 25 kilometres northeast of the regional capital Manado.
They snap photos and marvel at the view; a woman visiting from a nearby town exclaims that, even for the locals, the sun setting on the volcanoes is an extraordinary sight.
However, until a few years ago, the pier – about 300 meters long, crossing a mangrove forest to connect the village to the open sea – was dilapidated and used only by fishers heading out to sea.
But those were different times, explains Hani Lorens Singa, President of the Village Enterprise Association (BUMDES): back then there were far more fish, and no tourists.
Budo, like many coastal villages in North Sulawesi, in far northeastern Indonesia, has traditionally been dependent on small scale fishing, but fish stocks have shrunk, prompting a new focus on tourism as a way of creating livelihoods.
A programme set up by the International Labour Organization (ILO, a UN agency), is helping the rural community of Budo, and four other villages, to diversify into sustainable tourism, providing skills to local entrepreneurs, mostly women.
The pier has been renovated and painted, with support from the government, and benches and wooden huts have been added for the convenience of tourists, who pay an entrance fee of 10,000 Rupiahs ($0.65), to walk along it and enjoy the view.
Visitors can buy local delicacies and drinks at the ticket counter, and the orders are prepared and delivered to the pier by available members of the village association. “We share the work, we share the income – this is tourism at a human scale”, says Mr. Lorens Singa.
Since the renovation, a fifth of the visitors spend more, ordering local delicacies and drinks at the ticket counter with the occasional visitor also staying the night.
Thanks to support from ILO and its partners, Budo has increased its income from tourism fivefold and now appears on the tourist trail: the village was the winner of the digital marketing category at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy’s Top 50 Village Tourism Award this year.
Despite the improvements, a lot still remains to be done, and Mr. Lorens Singa is not complacent. “We need to offer more reasons for people to stay for a meal or overnight,” he insists.
M. Gaspar / UNIC Jakarta
The Indonesian government supplied wooden buildings on top of or next to villagers’ houses in Marinsow
Homestays, hashtags, and home cooking
About an hour’s drive east of Budo, the inhabitants of Marinsow have taken a crash course in the bed and breakfast business, a steep learning curve for many of them.
“Many of the entrepreneurs we work with have never been tourists themselves, so without training, it is not obvious for them to know what tourists expect,” says Mary Kent, the ILO Chief Technical Adviser for the project.
Marinsow is in a mining region, several kilometres away from Indonesia’s pristine beaches, so tourists previously had no reason to stop by. But, since Marinsow was designated as a “priority tours destination” by the Government, the village has received a significant financial boost, aimed at diversifying the economy.
More than 50 villagers received small wooden bungalows on their plots to start bed and breakfast businesses, or homestays, as they are known in Indonesia. ILO, with local partners Klabat University and the Manado State Polytechnic, is helping to teach local people the skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, such as bookkeeping, cost calculation and marketing, hospitality, and tourism.
M. Gaspar / UNIC Jakarta
Yeni Alelo at her homestay in Marinsow, Indonesia
“I was very surprised to learn that tourists prefer their sheet white and a diversity of meals,” says Yeni Alelo. Ms. Alelo and the other participants have also learned the importance of using hashtags in social media marketing posts, so that tourists looking for a place to stay in the area find them more easily.
“The women’s small businesses are financed through microfinance credits, and they have been able to make all the payments on time,” says Gabriel Tamasengge, the village’s mayor. “We are very proud of our women, of the business acumen we never knew they had.”
The investment in skills for marketing and quality control in these communities is paying off, with about half of the few hundred tourists spending the night in Marinsow last year coming from outside the province, including an increasing number from abroad.
Back in Budo, there is interest in building more homestays, and increasing overnight stays, perhaps by creating a marketing campaign to convince foreign tourists from nearby world-class diving destinations within the Bunaken Marine Park to hop over for an evening meal and make a visit to a typical village, rather than sticking to the usual mass tourism destinations. The Village Enterprise Association also plans to offer cooking and handicraft classes, as well as fishing trips.
“Our task now is to make sure that when the funding from ILO and the government stops, we will have a fully formed business that allows us to stand completely on our own feet,” says Mr. Lorens Singa. “We had the vision, and we have the commitment – I am confident we will succeed.”
M. Gaspar / UNIC Jakarta
Members of the Budo tourism association prepare local delicacies for tourists.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jan 06 (IPS) – The UN Democracy Fund, also known as UNDEF, is an interesting tool but it is too small and lacking resources to mark a difference.
How can the UN do a better job at promoting democracy? This is a key question that high-ranking policy makers at the UN should ask themselves.
It is a subject that makes many uncomfortable because democracy still remains a contested topic within the UN due to the resistance by some of its member states which have not adopted standard democratic practices in their way of governing.
Yet, it is worthy for the UN to try to play a bigger role in its promotion as democracy itself is too important an issue to be neglected despite the high sensitiveness around it.
If you think well, it is almost a miracle that the UN is celebrating International Day of Democracy that falls every year on the 15 of September.
It is, without questions, one of the most undeterred and less prominent celebrations endorsed by the UN and the lack of visibility of the day might not be a mere coincidence. Finding ways and tools to elevate democracy at the UN is a conundrum that is hard to untangle.
For example, how can the UN Democracy Fund also known as UNDEF be more effective and more inclusive?
UNDEF is one of the most flexible programs promoted by the UN and probably one of the best, if not the most suitable to reach out members of the civil society that often are working in dire conditions under dire legislative and regulatory environments and, consequentially, are starving for funding.
From gender empowerment in politics to press freedom to dialogues about democracy and fights against corruption, we have a program that could do wonders if expanded and enhanced.
UNDEF recently closed its annual round of applications (its 17th since its foundation) and once again as every year, it gained some spotlights before returning to the shadows of international development.
While its application process is relative straightforward for being a UN program, its review process is overly complicated and based on multiple vetting layers that, at least apparently, seem to be overlapping each other and unnecessary.
Yet, even when a project is selected, the most difficult part comes when, as the web site of UNDAF explains, “shortlisted applicants are now required to complete the final stage of the selection process: negotiating a formal project document with UNDEF. Only upon successful conclusion of this process will the project be approved for funding”.
This last procedure is simply unhelpful and certainly does not make life easier for any organization that gets selected.
Perhaps such a complex governance structure exemplifies the exceptionality of the UNDAF that, it is important to note, is not embedded in any official programs nor is led by any UN agency but it is rather something on its own standing.
It’s autonomy is not itself a negative factor, actually it can even bring more effectiveness by leveraging its nimbleness but only if this approach comes with intention and an overall purpose to allow it to be more agile and independent.
Instead, I am afraid the way UNDAF is run just the result of a difficult environment, a sort of expedient that allows to “manage” something strategically meaningful but that, at the same time, is also something that is seen critically by those members of the UN that have not embraced democracy as their system of government.
The fact that the fund and the money it manages is just a drop in the ocean might confirm the latter option. According to its web site, UNDEF “receives an average of about 2,000-3,000 proposals a year and only some 50 are selected”.
It is not surprising that only 7 full staff are managing the entire fund with the precious support of an equal number of interns.
Moreover, the UN should also not shy away from supporting innovative practices in the field of democracy. For example, it should embrace deliberative democracy or any other forms of bottom- up policing aimed at giving a voice and, importantly, an agency to the citizens.
It is certainly something less controversial than liberal democracy that is put in question by countries like China.
Indeed, even a country like China with its one-party system of governance has in the past (especially in the pre-President Xi’s era) embraced, at least partially, bottom-up participation through deliberation.
One way for the UN to play a bigger role in supporting democratic practices is to champion them from the angle of good governance and deliberative practices can be very useful on this regard. This was the main task assumed in the past by the UNDP.
What is this program, one of the biggest and most resourceful, doing at the moment to advance democracy? What are its plans for the future?
In its attempt to enable transformative changes across all the SDGs, something that as the UNDP also points out, requires structural transformations, there is the risk to lose the focus on good governance, once a strength of the program.
In its new Strategic Plan 2022-2025, governance is one of the six so called “Signature Solutions” and it is at the center of holistic, whole of the government “systems approach” that is supposed to ensure structural changes.
Still. if you read the definition of governance in the plan, you might wonder how important democracy and human rights are.
“Helping countries address emerging complexities by “future-proofing” governance systems through anticipatory approaches and better management of risk”.
This is a definition that might come from the blueprint of a top global consultancies that has to do business with autocratic regimes rather than the “formula” to promote true democratic change.
It is not, therefore surprising that in the entire document, the word “democracy” does not appear even one. Unsurprisingly UNDP almost never runs civil society or democracy enhancing funding directly benefiting local grassroots organizations.
Perhaps only the UNDP Governance Centre in Oslo, currently in search of a new strategic direction, could help its “parent” organization to re-discover an interest on democracy.
The new High Commissioner, Volker Türk, a veteran of the UN and a national of Austria, initially was thought to be the unassuming candidate that would not make much noise in the international community.
Instead from his initial statements, Türk is taking head on some of the most controversial and sensitive and yet very important files.
Perhaps, OHCHR as the organization is known, could take a very important role in working more directly with the civil society to advance human rights and with them, democracy.
UNDAF’s role and mandate could be boosted and supported through a strategic partnership with OHCHR or even through multi-funding arrangements from other agencies and programs within the UN system.
Let’s not forget that it was then UN Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan that back in 2005 came up with the idea of a special thematic fund promoting democracy.
The fund remains within the mandate of the current Secretary General, Antonio Guterres who leads the Advisory Board of the UNDAF.
Guterres should explore all the options to strengthen UNDAF as currently it is structured, a United Nations General Trust Fund but with much broader resources or as a standing alone entity something that hardly can materialize.
“Democracy is a universal value based on the freely expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems and their full participation in all aspects of their lives”.
Surely, UNDAF should complement and reinforce the work of UNDP and OHCHR as it explained in its TOR.
What at the end can make the difference can be the willpower and commitment of Guterres to include democracy in his ambitious reform agenda of the United Nations.
The writer is the co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.
Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, Jan 06 (IPS) – Escalating conflict and climate change threaten the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI), an ambitious land restoration project across Africa.
Promoters of the Great Green Wall have called for strong political will in engendering peace and increasing investment in environmental preservation, which the project launched 16 years ago seeks to enhance.
Competition over natural resources that are affected by climate change is fueling interstate conflicts, especially in West Africa, a region in the path of the Great Green Wall. The Wall is an Africa-led project to stop the march of desertification across Africa through the restoration of more than 100 million hectares of degraded land.
These trees will grow money
The project was initially aimed at planting trees in the Sahel region from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, but its scope has been expanded to cover the restoration of degraded land in more than 20 countries with a view to sequestering 250 million tonnes of carbon and creating 10 million green jobs by 2030, the promoters of the project say.
To date, the project has covered more than 4 percent of the target 100 million hectares, but it is making good progress to make the deadline, says Paul Elvis Tangem, coordinator for the Great Green Wall Initiative at the African Union Commission.
According to a United Nations status report, the Great Green Wall needs to cover 8 million hectares of land a year at a cost of up to $4.3 billion if it is to meet the implementation deadline.
Tangem says the project, which has received multiple funding from governments, donors, and multilateral development banks, would need more than 50 billion US Dollars to be realized by 2030. Currently, about 27 billion US dollars has been pledged, a seemingly huge amount which Tangem says is not much if the return on investment at 1:7 US dollars in nature-based solutions is considered.
Tangem notes that the escalating impacts of climate change across Africa justify the speedy implementation of the project, which is now more than just planting millions of trees across Africa but a holistic approach to unlocking economic and ecological benefits for many countries.
Launched in 2007, the Great Green Wall is envisaged that the land restoration initiative will boost economic prosperity in the participating countries, create employment, reduce hunger and reduce conflict, which has been linked to a fight over access to and use of natural resources across the width of Africa.
“The various COPs from UNFCCC COP 15, the UNFCCC-COP27, and the CBDCOP15 have recognized the Great Green wall as an important project giving more impetus to mainstream it in all development plans and giving more visibility to it,” Tangem said, noting that the current climate change impacts and conflicts arising from natural resource use were challenges that the project was seeking to solve.
Restoring land, restoring peace
Conflicts and climate are the greatest threats to the full realization of the Great Green Wall currently, Tangem explained, adding that the impact of drought across Africa has justified the importance of the GGWI, which has garnered global attention as a solution to land degradation, drought, and desertification.
“The main challenges we have now, especially for farmers, is the issue of grazelands which is the biggest push of conflict in the drylands of Africa,” Tangem told IPS in an interview, highlighting that there was high competition for rangelands between countries and within countries, especially in West Africa where part of the Great Green Wall runs. He cited the conflict in the Tigray region as less political and more environmental.
“It is the competition for land, the politics of it is what we see, but the underlying causes are natural resources,” said Tangem. “People do not want to speak the truth, but many conflicts in Africa are basically in the drylands, which are the areas most vulnerable to climate change and where the GGWI is focusing on. So we have a challenge.”
Remarking that it was now impossible to work in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea as a result of conflict, Tangem underscored the need to restore peace by restoring the environment.
The biggest challenge we are having today is security,” Tangem observed. “Conflicts are a big, big challenge. Most of the challenges that are happening now are because of competition for natural resources, the use of benefit sharing of the scarce resources from water, fertile land, fishing, and pastoral lands.”
When the Great Green Wall Initiative started, there was skepticism that it was a ‘white elephant’, Tangem said, but now it was the project to support.
Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
In November 2022, global leaders launched the International Drought Resilience Alliance to give political impetus to making land’s resilience to drought and climate change a reality by 2030. The Alliance is a boost to the Great Green Wall Initiative.
Droughts are hitting more often and harder than before, up nearly by a third since 2000. Climate change is expected to cause more severe droughts in the future. Recent droughts in Australia, Europe, the western United States, Chile, the Horn, and Southern Africa show that no country or region is immune to their impacts, which run into billions of dollars each year, not to mention human suffering, says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
The United Nations has recognized the Great Green Wall Initiative as one of 10 pioneering efforts to revive the natural world, designating it as one of its inaugural World Restoration Flagships.
Tangem said this recognition of the Great Green Wall Initiative as a key programme for land restoration had elevated it beyond being an African project.
“When people were still talking about the reality of climate change, Africa saw the need to respond to this challenge through this programme. The project has taken desertification and drought to the global agenda,” Tangem said.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), warns that the world cannot turn a blind eye to the impacts and effects of degraded lands in places like the Sahel, where millions face multiple vulnerabilities, including climate shocks and conflict. Action to tackle the drought is of utmost urgency, Andersen stressed.
Noting that desertification was becoming a massive crisis, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, which is part of the International Drought Resilience Alliance, said the alliance is focusing on finding nature-based solutions and the right technology and societal approaches to prevent further land degradation.
Presidents Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón of Spain and Macky Sall of Senegal rallied world leaders to create the Alliance as “a specific solution for the United Nations” to the impacts of climate change. In a joint communication, they declared that building resilience to drought disasters was the way to secure the gains made on sustainable development goals, particularly for the most vulnerable people.
IPS UN Bureau Report
“The release of political prisoners in Myanmar is not only a relief to those unfairly detained, but also their families”, OHCHR Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told journalists in Geneva.
“Importantly, however, we take this opportunity to call for the release of the thousands of others who remain in detention for opposing military rule”.
Tortured in prison
To mark the country’s 75th anniversary of independence, the military junta which seized power nearly two years ago, announced this week that it would free some 7,000 prisoners.
However, it did not specify whether those jailed as part of its brutal crackdown on dissent would be included.
Citing credible sources, the OHCHR spokesperson said that the military regime has incarcerated some 300 political prisoners.
“Even as news emerged about the amnesty to mark the country’s independence day, we continued to receive reports of people being detained for opposing military rule, many of whom have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment”, he said.
Freedom during crackdown
Since the military coup of 1 February 2021, nearly 17,000 people have been arrested and over 13,000 remain in detention, he said.
The local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners also believes that 300 political prisoners had been released – having identified 223, while working to verify the others.
In welcoming the amnesty, the UN official pointed out that on the very day that they were released, another 22 political prisoners were detained.
“Such detentions are not only intended to silence the junta’s critics, but are also designed to instil fear”, he stated.
Freedom call
As this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has called for an end to arbitrary detention once and for all.
Regarding human rights as “the force that come in and unify us”, bringing everyone “back to the fundamentals of who we are, of human dignity and to what connects us all with each other”, he argued that one person’s pain ultimately hurts everyone.
The UN rights chief called on governments and all detaining authorities globally to put the milestone Declaration into action by granting an amnesty, pardon or by simply releasing all those detained for exercising their rights.
“The pathway out of Myanmar’s crisis is not by locking people up – it is by allowing them to freely, fully, and effectively participate in political life”, underscored Mr. Laurence.
Call for release of Aung San Suu Kyi
Turning to former democratically elected leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi’s further sentencing earlier in the week, OHCHR appealed for her immediate release and for the arbitrary detention of individuals to cease.
On Tuesday, the UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said that Secretary-General António Guterres had also expressed his “deep concern” at the latest verdicts and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi, “and reiterates his calls for her immediate release and that of President Wyn Myint and of all arbitrarily detained prisoners in Myanmar.”
Mr. Laurence told journalists in Geneva that OHCHR was in constant engagement with the authorities, and that the High Commissioner would be releasing a new report soon on Myanmar.
In a detailed statement, more than two dozen UN-appointed independent human rights experts – including representatives from three different working groups and multiple Special Rapporteurs – called out chief executives by name, saying that the companies they lead “must urgently address posts and activities that advocate hatred, and constitute incitement to discrimination, in line with international standards for freedom of expression.”
Time to change
They said the new tech billionaire owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple’s Tim Cook, “and CEOs of other social media platforms”, should “centre human rights, racial justice, accountability, transparency, corporate social responsibility and ethics, in their business model.”
They reminded that being accountable as businesses for racial justice and human rights, “is a core social responsibility, advising that “respecting human rights is in the long-term interest of these companies, and their shareholders.”
“We urge all CEOs and leaders of social media to fully assume their responsibility to respect human rights and address racial hatred.”
As evidence of the corporate failure to get a grip on hate speech, the Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts pointed to a “sharp increase in the use of the racist ‘N’ word on Twitter”, following its recent acquisition by Tesla boss Elon Musk.
This showed the urgent need for social media companies to be more accountable “over the expression of hatred towards people of African descent, they argued.
Soon after Mr. Musk took over, the Network Contagion Research Institute of Rutgers University in the US, highlighted that the use of the N-word on the platform increased by almost 500 per cent within a 12-hour period, compared to the previous average, the experts said.
There has been a sharp increase in the use of hate speech on Twitter after its recent acquisition.
Uphold human rights
“Although Twitter advised this was based on a trolling campaign and that there is no place for hatred, the expression of hatred against people of African descent is deeply concerning and merits an urgent response centred on human rights.”
They added that hate speech, “advocacy of national, racial and religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination and violence, as well as racism on social media, are not just a concern for Twitter but also for other social media giants such as Meta”, the company formerly known as Facebook.
The experts said although some companies claimed not to allow hate speech, there was a clear gap between stated policies, and enforcement.
Rampant disinformation
“This is particularly salient in the approval of inflammatory ads, electoral disinformation on Facebook, and content that talks of conspiracy theories. Research from Global Witness and SumOfUs recently revealed how Meta is unable to block certain advertisements”, the experts state.
Meta “took a significant step with the establishment of an oversight board in 2020”, in response to complaints, they said, noting that the “group of experts from diverse areas of expertise is in place to ‘promote free expression by making principled, independent decisions regarding content on Facebook and Instagram and by issuing recommendations on the relevant Facebook Company Content policy’”.
Long-term oversight
The experts acknowledged that the board had been well funded, received around two million appeals regarding content, and made a number of recommendations and decisions.
“However, the effectiveness of the Oversight Board can only be seen over a long-time horizon and will require continued commitment at the highest levels” to reviewing and modifying tools to combat racial hatred online, the experts said.
“There is a risk of arbitrariness and profit interests getting in the way of how social media platforms monitor and regulate themselves”, they added.
Unsplash/Dan Edge
Hate speech, whether online or offline, poses a threat to democracy and human rights.
Free speech, not a ‘free pass’
They pointed out that High Commissioner Volker Türk who heads up OHCHR, had recently penned an open letter to Twitter CEO Elon Musk, emphasizing that free speech did not mean “a free pass to spread harmful disinformation that results in real world harms.
“As he underlined, human rights law is clear – freedom of expression stops at hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence. We see too often that the spread of hatred and hate speech against people of African descent, and other groups, not only undermines their rights but creates major fissures in societies. These are increasingly difficult to overcome and a source of various forms of destabilisation within countries.”
‘Race-based traumatic stress’
The independent experts said that allowing and tolerating incitement to hatred and expression, or advocacy of hatred against people of African descent and other marginalized groups, “not only encourages the perpetrators, but also constitutes a continuous source of chronic race-based traumatic stress and trauma.”
The presence of racial hatred further undermines confidence on the part of those impacted, in using social media and seeking justice.
“It is especially alarming” considering that so many youngsters “live a significant part of their lives” online, they added.
Social media at a crossroads
“Content moderation can only address a part of what happens in cyber space but does not take into account the intended and unintended effects in society. There are deeper issues about advocacy of racial hatred, lack of accountability for abuses, and an absence of efforts to promote tolerance.
“If addressed, these can be strong determining factors in building a positive future both online and offline.”
Acknowledging the power for good that social media represents if put to positive use, the experts said that it has “a major role to prevent further rifts, so that racial justice and human rights can be upheld, to build less racist, less devisive, more tolerant, just and equitable societies.”
The UN agency has published its latest Food Price Index (FFPI) which tracks the monthly international prices of cereals, vegetable oil, dairy, meat and sugar.
The FFPI averaged 132.4 points last month, which is one per cent lower than the previous December.
However, it averaged 143.7 points last year – more than 14 per cent higher than the average value over 2021.
Guard against food insecurity
“Calmer food commodity prices are welcome after two very volatile years,” saidFAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero.
“It is important to remain vigilant and keep a strong focus on mitigating global food insecurity given that world food prices remain at elevated levels, with many staples near record highs, and with prices of rice increasing, and still many risks associated with future supplies,” he added.
The FFPI was “notably higher” in 2022 than in 2021, which on top of large increases that year sparked “significant strains and food security concerns” for poorer food-importing countries, said FAO.
This led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to adopt a “Food Shock Window”, inspired by the agency.
World prices of wheat and maize reached record highs last year and the average value of vegetable oils hit a new record, while individual indexes for dairy and meat prices also marked their highest full-year levels since 1990.
Declines in December
The lower FFPI in December was led by a decrease in the Vegetable Price Index, which dropped 6.7 per cent from the previous month, reaching its lowest level since February 2021.
“International quotations for palm, soy, rapeseed and sunflower seed oils all declined last month, driven by subdued global import demand and prospects of seasonally rising soy oil production in South America as well as declining crude oil prices,” said FAO.
The Cereal Price Index declined by nearly two per cent over November. Ongoing harvests in the southern hemisphere boosted wheat supplies for export, while strong competition from Brazil drove down maize prices.
However, rice prices rose, largely bolstered by “Asian buying and currency appreciation against the United States dollar for exporting countries.”
Christmas boost in Europe
Last month also saw 1.2 per cent downward slide in the Meat Price Index. For example, bovine meat prices were affected by “lacklustre demand for medium-term supplies”, said FAO, whereas poultry costs were pushed down due to “more-than-adequate export supplies”.
Meanwhile, pig meat prices increased, largely supported by solid pre-Christmas demand, particularly in Europe.
The Dairy Price Index rose by 1.2 per cent in December, following five consecutive months of declines. FAO attributed this to higher international cheese prices, reflecting tightening market conditions, though international quotations for butter and milk powder declined.
The Sugar Price Index also jumped 2.4 percent from November, which was mostly due to concerns over the impact of adverse weather conditions on crop yields in India as well as sugarcane crushing delays in Thailand and Australia.
Roma community protest in the Serbian city of Nis after dozens of families in a settlement in the city had their electricity cut off. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija
by Ed Holt (bratislava)
Inter Press Service
BRATISLAVA, Jan 05 (IPS) – As European households brace for energy shortages this winter and leaders draw up support packages to help people heat homes in the coming months, experts fear that the largest minority on the continent, the Roma, will be left behind.
Many of the 12 million Roma in Europe have a low standard of living, and even before the energy crisis, energy poverty was rife among their communities.
Roma leaders and rights organisations say the current crisis has only deepened the problem and are calling for governments to ensure that one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups gets the help they need this winter and beyond.
“EU leaders and policymakers must ensure that energy policies already agreed, or any agreed in future, must be tailored and implemented in such a way that the most vulnerable, including the Roma, can access and benefit from them,” Zeljko Jovanovic, director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), told IPS.
Roma living in Europe are among the most discriminated and disadvantaged groups on the continent. In many countries, significant numbers live in segregated settlements where living conditions are often poor, and extreme poverty is widespread.
Energy poverty is also common. It is estimated that at least 10% of the roughly 6 million Roma living in EU countries have no access to electricity at all.
Roma protest after electricity supplies to 24 families in the ‘12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis was cut off over unpaid bills. There are calls for European countries to take into consideration the plight of the Roma during the energy crisis. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija
Meanwhile, where utilities are available, many struggle to afford them.
Rising energy prices this year have exacerbated the problem. But while governments have rolled out help in the form of one-off payments and other support for families and businesses to pay energy bills, this aid is often not filtering through to Roma despite the minority being among those most in need, say rights activists.
Unemployment in Roma communities is often high, with only one in four Roma aged 16 years or older reporting being employed, and many earn money working in the grey or black economies. But because of this, they often struggle with accessing state support schemes. This is especially true for measures approved to provide financial aid during the energy crisis.
“Even before the energy crisis, there was a problem with energy poverty in Europe, and for the Roma, this was even more so because so many were not in the formal system.
“Measures for the energy crisis are made for those in the formal system. Many Roma are not in that system – they are unemployed, or not formally registered, or earning money and paying into the social welfare system – so they cannot access those measures,” explained Jovanovic.
Roma NGOs working in some countries say they have already seen these problems.
In Romania, which has a Roma population of 1.85 million according to the Council of Europe, a programme to help the vulnerable with energy payments has been launched.
But Alin Banu, Community Organiser at the Aresel civic initiative, told IPS some Roma are unable to access it precisely because “they work in the grey or black economy and don’t have the right documentation of social insurance payments, wages etc.”.
Meanwhile, even those who are eligible for help are often being denied it, he claimed. He said that some municipalities had put conditions on receiving help to pay energy bills – for example, evidence of historical tax debt, or car ownership, makes an individual ineligible for the help.
The group says this is illegal.
“We have solved this problem in some cases, but most Roma will not complain about this because often they simply will not know it is illegal,” Balu said.
There are also concerns that other measures already adopted will actually make things worse for Roma.
Last year European leaders agreed on a non-binding goal for EU countries to reduce overall electricity demand by at least 10% by 31 March 2023, and a mandatory reduction of electricity consumption by 5% for at least 10% of high-demand hours each week.
Jovanovic fears that politicians’ first steps to save on energy consumption could involve simply cutting off power supplies to those not formally connected to the energy grid.
“Countries’ reductions in energy demand might come from cutting energy to those who do not have formal access to it, like the Roma,” said Jovanovic.
Nicu Dumitru, a Community Organiser at Arsesel, agreed – “the Roma would be the first to be cut off in that case,” he told IPS – but said that even if that does not happen, many Roma are already struggling with soaring energy costs.
Information collected by his group suggests that a fifth of all Roma households have had their electricity cut off since the start of the crisis because they cannot afford to pay. They are then connecting informally to the grid – usually through one person in their community who has a connection and who then charges high prices for others for use of that power – often borrowing money to do so, and worsening their already precarious financial situation.
There are an estimated over 400,000 people informally connected to the power grid in Romania, many of them Roma.
“The situation is getting critical for Roma,” Dumitru said.
Meanwhile, Roma activists in other countries are worried that politicians will use the energy crisis as an excuse to ignore long-term problems with energy poverty among the Roma or even as a justification to allow Roma settlements to be cut off from supplies.
In May this year, electricity supplies to 24 families in the ’12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis were cut off over unpaid bills. The families claim this debt pre-dates their time living there, but the local power distributor demanded proof of house ownership from the families before reconnection.
People in many Roma settlements often lack such documents as the process for obtaining them is costly and difficult for many to navigate without expert legal help, and none of these families was able to provide the required proof.
It was only after both local and nationwide protests by members of the community themselves and negotiations between the families, who were represented by the Opre Roma Serbia rights group, local authorities, and the local distributor Elektrodistribucija Nis, that in December, limited supplies of electricity were restored to the families involved.
Jelena Reljic of Opre Roma Serbia said she was pleased those affected could now access electricity again but warned “the situation in this settlement is an example of a much wider systemic problem” which politicians are not doing enough to solve.
“The last cut off in this settlement was because of historic debt, but the problems with electricity have been going on for a decade. Politicians are relying on being able to cut Roma settlements off from electricity during the energy crisis without too much public outrage or resistance. Around 99% of the reaction we have seen to the problem in this settlement has been of the type ‘oh, no one should be getting energy free during this crisis, we pay, so why shouldn’t they?’” she told IPS.
“Politicians are using the energy crisis to cover up the fact that they have never dealt with the problem of energy poverty for years and years,” she added.
The OSF’s Jovanovic wants European policymakers to review their proposed help during the crisis, including not just the approved reductions in energy demand but plans for energy price caps and a solidarity levy on the profits of businesses active in the oil, natural gas, coal, and refinery sectors.
He said the 5% reduction must not lead to electricity cuts for those already in energy poverty and that public revenues from the energy cap and solidarity levy – estimated at €140bn within the EU – should be redistributed along principles that are both morally and macroeconomically justified.
He has been involved in high-level EU committee meetings on energy crisis support policies, but, he told IPS, at those meetings, there seemed to be “little idea of the perspective of Roma and other vulnerable groups and how they would cope in the crisis”.
Now he and other activists are trying to arrange further talks with EU and national policymakers to urge them to address shortcomings in current policies affecting vulnerable groups, including Roma.
ARLINGTON, Virginia, Jan 05 (IPS) – More than 10 months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies continue to seek the most effective military, humanitarian, political, and economic means of assisting Ukraine.
In his December 2022 visit to Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly reiterated his desire for advanced US weapons; Ukraine’s wish list includes Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter aircraft. Fulfilling President Zelensky’s request for US combat aircraft and tanks would be a significant escalation of the US military commitment to Ukraine and could further increase the risks associated with that commitment.
The situation is fraught, with threats of conventional war beyond Ukraine’s borders and even possible nuclear weapons use, as well as uncertainty about weapons suppliers’ ability to ensure that the weapons transferred reach their intended users and are not retransferred.
Danger of transferring weapons and munitions that could be used to attack Russia
The US weapons that have been transferred to Ukraine so far have been largely defensive in nature; these include anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems. The US has reportedly not provided the munitions with the longest range for systems such as rocket launchers, making it more difficult for Ukrainian forces to strike far beyond the Ukrainian-Russian border.
In contrast, weapons such as battle tanks and fighter aircraft can be used in offensive roles that may increase the likelihood of Russian reprisals against the United States and our European allies. In particular, providing weapons that can reach deep into Russian territory may increase the likelihood of escalation, with Russia potentially responding by attacking countries in Europe that have assisted with Ukraine’s war effort.
Through its actions, the US government implicitly seems to assume that the Russian government will perceive these transfers the way that the US government wants them to — as defensive in nature. There’s no guarantee that this will be the case. And even if the Russian government does not deliberately choose escalation, it may still occur because of accident, mistake, or miscalculation. Focusing US aid on defensive weapons and shorter-range munitions is likely to decrease this risk.
Insufficient accountability for weapons transfers
Far too often, the US government transfers weapons and ammunition without putting sufficient systems in place to ensure accountability for their storage, deployment, and use. Without robust controls, these weapons can be stolen and sold to the highest bidder or transferred to other conflicts.
The capture of US weapons by Russia would present a particular threat — the potential disclosure of US technology through Russian reverse engineering of US weapons systems.
The hurried nature of transfers to Ukraine further increases the likelihood of diversion. Continuing to expand the number and capability of US weapons provided may also exacerbate these risks.
In addition, even if US military forces are not deployed in Ukraine, in the future they could still face US weapons that were diverted to other conflicts.
The risk of diversion can be reduced by verifying that only authorized users receive US weapons and ammunition, that they carefully track the deployment and use of the weapons, and that weapons and their ammunition are securely stored when not deployed. In addition, diversion to other conflicts can be reduced by destroying the weapons and ammunition that remain when the conflict ends.
US even more dominant in assistance to Ukraine than in global conventional weapons transfers
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States continues to be the world’s largest supplier of conventional weapons, supplying nearly 40 percent of the global value of weapons transferred from 2017-2021. This was virtually identical to the total value of weapons transferred by the next four countries during the same period (Russia, France, China, and Germany). US dominance in aid to Ukraine is even more pronounced.
In conjunction with President Zelensky’s visit to Washington, the US Department of Defense announced the 28th drawdown of US defense stocks to aid Ukraine since August 2021. The press release acknowledging the latest commitments indicated that the US has provided more than $21 billion in security assistance since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The omnibus spending bill that President Biden signed in late December 2022 contains $47 billion in additional military, economic, and humanitarian assistance.
In contrast, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) issued a press release on 30 December 2022 stating that the UK had provided £2.3bn of military aid in 2022, and that this was second only to the United States. The MOD also indicated that they planned to provide the same level of funding in 2023. This commitment is a small fraction of US assistance.
As with other US transfers of conventional weapons, transfers to Ukraine risk diversion to other countries and other conflicts. US dominance of the supply of weapons means that it also holds a disproportionate responsibility for the use and potential misuse of the weapons.
Danger of nuclear weapons use
During the Cold War, one of the most significant concerns was that a conventional war might escalate to the nuclear level. Analysts and political leaders alike recognized while this could take place because of deliberate action, it could also occur because of accident or miscalculation.
This likelihood of nuclear use persists today, and is arguably higher as a result of Russian President Putin’s threat to use all means of military force in the conflict in Ukraine.
If Russia is losing the conventional war, they may decide to turn to nuclear weapons to try to change the war’s outcome. The US providing Ukraine with weapons designed primarily for offensive use may increase this risk.
The continued use of nuclear threats is yet another illustration of the danger of nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, this danger continues. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides a roadmap for escaping this existential threat.
Danger of ignoring long-term risks in favor of potential short-term gains
Taken together, these risks highlight the danger of giving priority to potential short-term political and military gains over longer-term negative consequences.
Further weapons transfers to Ukraine need to be subjected to rigorous analysis of potential long-term consequences before the transfers occur. Saying yes to Ukraine may be the easier response from a short-term perspective.
For example, saying yes is likely to enhance the political connection between the US and Ukraine, and military contractor’s profit from weapons sales. However, that response may well endanger US security interests in the longer term.
Dr. Natalie Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional and nuclear disarmament issues.
And as a growing number of European ski resorts at lower altitudes struggle to provide adequate snow cover for their early-season visitors, the WMO pointed to widely accepted peer-reviewed scientific data from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicating that the frequency of cold spells and frost days “will decrease”.
“Strong declines in glaciers, permafrost, snow cover extent, and snow seasonal duration at high latitudes/altitudes are observed and will continue in a warming world,” the IPCC said.
According to the UN agency, New Year temperatures soared above 20 degrees Celsius (C) in many European countries, even in Central Europe.
National and many local temperature records for December and January were also broken in several countries, from southern Spain to eastern and northern parts of Europe, WMO said.
Temperatures lift off in Spain
At Spain’s Bilbao airport, a reading of 25.1C on 1 January smashed the previous all-time record established 12 months earlier, by 0.7C.
And in the eastern French city of Besançon, which is usually chilly at this time of year, temperatures hit a new all-time high of 18.6 degrees on New Year’s Day, 1.8C above the previous record, dating back to January 1918.
In the German city of Dresden, the 1961 New Year’s Eve record of 17.7C was left trailing by the 19.4C reading taken on 31 December 2022, just as Poland’s Warsaw residents saw in the new year with temperatures peaking at 18.9C, a staggering 5.1C higher than the previous all-time record for January, from 1993.
Further north, in Denmark’s Lolland island, 2023 started with a new high of 12.6C, overtaking the 12.4C record set in 2005.
Highs and lows
WMO attributed the warm spell in Europe to a high-pressure zone over the Mediterranean region which encountered an Atlantic low-pressure system.
Their interaction “induced a strong south-west flux that brought warm air from north-western Africa to middle latitudes”, the UN agency explained, adding that this hotter-than-normal air “was further warmed when passing the North Atlantic, due to a higher-than-normal sea surface temperature”.
Highlighting the influence of warmer sea waters on weather patterns, the WMO noted that in the eastern North Atlantic, sea surface temperature was 1C to 2C higher than normal, and “near the coasts of Iberia, even more”.
“All this caused record-breaking heat in several European countries on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day,” WMO concluded.
In recent years, Bosnia and Herzegovina in Eastern Europe, has been impacted by climate change-related extreme weather, from intense rainfall to heat waves.
Sign of the times
The weather extremes experienced in Europe are projected to carry on increasing, the WMO warned, as it referenced recent analysis published with “high confidence” by the influential UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Regardless of future levels of global warming, temperatures will rise in all European areas at a rate exceeding global mean temperature changes, similar to past observations,” the IPCC said.
According to the IPCC’s regional fact sheet for Europe, “the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, including marine heatwaves, have increased in recent decades and are projected to keep increasing regardless of the greenhouse gas emissions scenario”.
The panel’s experts further warned that “critical thresholds” for the environment and humans “are projected to be exceeded for global warming of 2C and higher”.
Women students and workers travel free from harassment in the BRT buses, which reserves seats for them in the conservative region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
by Ashfaq Yusufzai
Inter Press Service
Jan 04 (IPS) – A bus rapid transport (BRT) system in Peshawar is benefiting female students and working women by providing a safe journey – something women passengers could not take for granted on regular public transport.
“Prior to the launch of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, girls faced enormous hardships in reaching colleges and universities, but now, we don’t have any issue in getting to our respective institutions in a timely manner,” Javeria Khan, 21, a student at the University of Peshawar, told IPS.
She said that two of her elder sisters had left education after completion of secondary school because of a lack of proper transportation services.
“Now, there is a sea-change as far transportation is concerned; thanks to BRT through, we reach home on time without any hindrance,” Javeria, a student at the Department of Chemistry, said.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, is considered conservative where most women cover their faces while venturing out in public and avoid traveling with men in buses; the new service has proved a blessing for the female population living in the capital city of Peshawar.
There is a 27 km long corridor with as many stations to facilitate about 400,000 people every day, including 20 percent women.
BRT launched in April 2020, fleet contains a fleet of 150 air-conditioned buses imported from China, which charge people USD 0.24 from the first to the last station, and the fare is only USD 0.09 for a single stop.
“We have allocated 25 seats to women in each bus, so they don’t face any harassment. The buses go along the main road, which provides a service to the general public as well as the students,” Umair Khan, spokesman for BRT, told IPS.
Before the BRT, there were complaints of harassment and high fares charged by private buses, which deterred the women from traveling, he said. “Now, women have separate compartments with security measures in place to ensure the safe journey of all the commuters.”
In February 2022, the BRT received Gold Standard Award for transforming transport through its clean technology buses and promoting non-motorized traffic. A month before, it received the certificate of International Sustainable Award from the International Transport Organization, while UN Women has also honored the BRT for providing a safe traveling facility to women.
Transport Ticketing Global, UK presented the award to BRT for easing the lives of a large segment of society using innovative solutions, Khan said.
A local resident, Palwasha Bibi, 30, told IPS that she thinks that the BRT has been constructed to assist women workers.
“It was a Herculean task to get a seat in a private bus before the BRT. Even if one was lucky to get a seat, the fares were high, and the drivers were reluctant to drive fast as they waited for more people to embark on the bus to earn more money,” Bibi, who works in a garment factory in Peshawar’s industrial Estate, said.
More often than not, my colleagues and I encountered pay cuts for arriving late at the factory, she said. “Now, we reach 15 minutes before duty time because the BRT has a strict timing schedule. It stops at every station for 20 seconds only,” Bibi said.
BRT is also helping the common people.
Muhammad Zaheer, 31, a salesman at a grocery shop, said that he had been using a motorbike to reach the outlet, which cost him more money and time.
“Many times, I also faced minor accidents due to huge rush on the road, but now the BRT has a signal-free route with no chance of accidents, and the cost is very low,” he said.
Our manager is very happy that I get to the shop early than my duty time, and the same is true for over a dozen of my co-workers, Zaheer, father of three, said.
Naureena Shah a female student at the Islamia College Peshawar, said the BRT had been a blessing for her.
“My parents have asked me to stop education because every day we encountered problems, but the BRT has helped me to continue my studies because I arrive at the college and get back home well on time,” she said. My parents are no longer opposing my studies because they also use BRT for shopping and so on, she said.
Now, I will get medical education to serve patients, she said.
Nasreen Hamid, a schoolteacher, is all praise for BRT services.
“It has benefitted me in two ways. I use the service for going to duty and getting back home and also for going to market,” she said.
Spogmay Khan (17), a second-year student at the Jinnah College for Women, said that all her class fellows were praising former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who started the service in the city.
She said most of the students who were dropped off by fathers or brothers at the college were now traveling alone because the buses were safe.
“The main road remains flooded with vehicles, making it difficult to attend classes with punctuality, but the BRT route is smooth, and no traffic jams, due to which we enjoy traveling in the buses,” she said.
Khan said that it has really improved women’s education and the credit goes to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “Many of our classmates wouldn’t have been able to take admission because of the messy traffic and worn-out buses, but the BRT has solved this issue, once and for all,” she said
BRT’s spokesman Umair Khan said they had started feeder routes to ensure passengers can use the facility near their homes. The feeder buses use the roads, and the passengers take these buses after disembarking from the buses on (BRT) corridors.
“About 20 percent of the BRT’s 4000 employees are females,” he said.
IPS UN Bureau Report
BRUSSELS, Jan 04 (IPS) – Three years after the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Chinese government began in December to abruptly scrap its harsh containment policy known as “zero-Covid.”
This zero-Covid policy relied on strict lockdowns, use of a Covid tracking app, domestic travel restrictions, and quarantining those who test positive along with their close contacts. But the strategy isolated the country from the rest of the world and dealt a severe blow to the world’s second-largest economy.
The government announced that from January 8 onwards, mandatory quarantine on arrival for travelers to China will end and Chinese people will be able to travel abroad again after three years.
The switch followed unprecedented protests against the policies championed by President Xi Jinping, marking the strongest display of public defiance in his decade-long presidency and reminiscent of the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy in many minds.
“What matters is that we reach consensus through communication and consultation. When the 1.4 billion Chinese work with one heart and one mind, and stand in unity with a strong will, no task will be impossible and no difficulty insurmountable”, Xi stated in his nationally broadcast New Year’s message.
“We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us. Let’s make an extra effort to pull through, as perseverance and solidarity mean victory.”
The question is: how many Chinese are still being taken in by this tough language now that hospitals have been hit by a tidal wave of mainly elderly patients since the lifting of the zero-covid policy, crematoriums are overloaded and many pharmacies no longer have anti-virus and fever medication.
Initially, photos and video fragments of these harrowing conditions were still censored, but recently even the China Daily reported on them. The magnitude of the outbreak remains unclear for now, and the lack of transparency can be attributed to strict censorship and the fact that government officials have stopped reporting asymptomatic cases and introduced a new definition of covid-related deaths.
Only patients with the virus who die due to pneumonia and respiratory failure now meet the criteria, according to China. The National Health Commission (NHC) further announced that it is no longer releasing an official daily Covid death toll.
In addition, the state news agency Xinhua reported that from January 8, China will lower its priority management of Covid-19 cases and treat it as a class B infection rather than a more severe class A infection. Liang Wannian, head of the expert panel for the COVID-19 response under the NHC, said the shift does not mean China is letting go of the virus, but instead is focusing more resources on rural areas to contain the epidemic.
According to Nikola Davis, science correspondent for The Guardian, China is experiencing this surge for a number of reasons. The relaxation of restrictions has allowed the virus to spread more. Plus, the slow vaccination campaign in much of China, coupled with the use of the less effective locally produced Sinovac vaccine, means the population has little protection and many vulnerable people are still at risk from the virus.
In addition, the tight restrictions previously in place mean few people have contracted Covid before. That means there is little natural immunity at play in the current wave.
As a result, many people are now simultaneously getting Covid and requiring hospital care, leading to increasing pressure on the healthcare system. In addition, the inadequate medical infrastructure (there remains a major shortage of intensive care beds and well-trained staff) as well as substandard general hygiene (clean toilets, washing hands, etc.) must also be added.
So the ink of my contribution on ‘China: From A Health Crisis to A Political Crisis?’ was barely dry before my fears came true: China is in the middle of a relentless covid wave. Chinese authorities estimate that about 250 million people, or 18 percent of the population, were infected with the COVID-19 virus in the first 20 days of December.
Despite this increase, the government insists it has the rising infections and circulating variants under control. Yet these ‘official’ figures do not seem to correspond with the reality on the ground.
People will continue to grope in the dark about the correct figures. The Chinese government and the so-called worldometers are still counting only 5250 covid deaths, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published the number of 31,585.
Some academic friends and former students, though not epidemiologists, whisper that up to 60% of the Chinese have or have been exposed to covid.
Airfinity, a UK-based company that analyzes health risks worldwide, also comes with worrying figures. They currently estimate 11,000 daily deaths and 1.8 million infections per day in China, while it expects 1.7 million fatalities by the end of April 2023.
The researchers say their model is based on data from China’s regional provinces, before changes in infection reporting, combined with case growth rates from other former zero-Covid countries.
It is feared that the numbers will rise even more in the coming weeks. Especially around the Chinese New Year on January 22, when almost every Chinese goes to visit friends and family.
Is Xi Jinping firmly in the saddle?
Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as leader in October, emerging as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong. He thus further consolidated his power in a process that began a decade ago, a concentration that has steered China in a more authoritarian direction and which critics warn increases the risk of policy missteps.
The year 2022 ended with unprecedented street protests, followed by the sudden reversal of its zero-Covid policy and coronavirus infections sweeping through the world’s most populous country. This, together with the sluggish economy, has damaged his image considerably.
For decades, China has been the world’s leading economic growth engine and the hub of industrial supply chains. The World Bank and other experts expect the reopening of the Chinese economy to boost growth to 4.3% in 2023, compared to the forecast of 2.7% for 2022.
This is still reasonable by international standards, but remains below the official target of about 5.5%. Choked consumption and disrupted supply chains continue to weigh on the crisis in the huge real estate sector. A prolonged economic slowdown or new logistical concerns, whether due to COVID or geopolitical tensions, could reverberate globally.
Beijing’s relations with the West deteriorated over Xi’s partnership with Moscow just before Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, as well as rising tensions over US-backed Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.
Xi traveled abroad for the first time since the pandemic began in September, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In November, he met US President Joe Biden at the G20 in Indonesia, where both sides sought to cement relations.
According to Chinese diplomacy, a recent phone call between China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang (the outgoing ambassador to Washington and Xi’s confidant) and US secretary of state Antony Blinken has ironed out the folds.
Diplomatically, Xi appears to be trying to ease some of the tension that has made relations with the West increasingly fraught, even as Beijing tries to strengthen its position as a counterweight to the post-World War II US-led order. Xi’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia and meetings with representatives of Gulf states could be viewed in this context.
But things are also rumbling within the government and the almighty Communist Party (CCP). Leaked excerpts of an internal policy brief published in the Sydney Morning Herald, discussed at a recent Politburo, state that “the zero-Covid dynamic was an unqualified success and demonstrated the superiority of the Chinese communist system over the cowardly and immoral West, but that it can now be brushed aside because omicron is ‘just like the flu’”.
“We must resolutely follow the line of the party. We must never deviate from the notes,” Xi told the Politburo during the “self-criticism” session, a Maoist practice that is back in vogue.
Authoritarian regimes with near-absolute control over the media can sometimes facilitate breathtakingly destructive policies. It is difficult to think of a more unhinged policy than suddenly exposing an inadequately vaccinated population to massive infection in the middle of winter, just before the great Chinese New Year inland migration.
Fortitude appears to be one of Xi Jinping’s principles, as his New Year’s letter affirmed: “Everyone stands firm with great fortitude, and the light of hope stands right before us.”
Jan Servaes was UNESCO-Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He taught ‘international communication’ in Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, the US, Netherlands and Thailand, in addition to short-term projects at about 120 universities in 55 countries. He is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change.
https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8
“At the start of this year – the 75th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – I call on governments and all detaining authorities, globally, to amnesty, pardon or simply release all those detained for exercising their rights,” he said in a statement.
“Reach into your hearts, review their cases, and make a choice to begin this year with a step in the direction of the vision of the Universal Declaration. A world in which all people live free and equal, in dignity and rights.”
The milestone document set out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected, and has been translated into more than 500 languages.
Throughout 2023, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, will run a campaign to showcase the importance and continuing relevance of the Universal Declaration.
Activities and advocacy will be centred around three tracks: promoting universality and indivisibility, looking to the future, and sustaining the human rights ecosystem.
Put UHDR ‘in action’
Mr. Türk recalled that as he marked the beginning of the new year with his own family, his thoughts turned to those whose loved ones are languishing in detention facilities, imprisoned for exercising their human rights.
They include people working as environmental defenders, on climate action, or those calling out discrimination – in addition to those speaking up against abuses and corruption, journalists jailed for doing their essential work, and human rights activists.
“I call on all those in power to put the UDHR in action – and to end arbitrary detention once and for all,” he said.
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 03 (IPS) – The writer is the Policy Director at Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank specializing in research, advocacy, and advisory services.Over the last decades, the private investment fund sector has grown into a multi trillion-dollar industry. Private investment funds are vulnerable to money laundering because they contain a variety of structural risk factors that help camouflage illicit behavior.
A 2020 leaked bulletin from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found that criminals were using “private placement funds including investments offered by private equity firms and hedge funds, to circumvent the anti-money laundering (AML) programs of other financial institutions and launder money.”
The new Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report Private Investment Funds in Latin America: Money Laundering & Corruption Risks examines the money laundering risk factors associated with these private investment funds in Latin America.
It analyzes the ring of actors and facilitators involved, the methods of contact used by perpetrators and the channels utilized to move illicit money. The report provides a series of case studies and analyzes AML regulation of private investment funds in four countries; Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.
“Despite the scale of wealth under management, ‘family offices’ have little to no regulatory oversight in most parts of the world,” noted Tom Cardamone, President and CEO at GFI. “This is especially concerning given the close nexus between wealth and corruption in many parts of the world. The unregulated nature of these funds makes them a particularly useful vehicle to mask proceeds of corruption or money laundering.”
Additionally, Private Investment Funds in Latin America uses a series of case studies to highlight how money laundering, corruption and organized crime risks exist in private investment funds in Latin America.
The risk factors include a customer base often composed of wealthy individuals, including politically-exposed persons; a close relationship between fund managers and their clients (i.e. investors); the use of shell companies and trusts to manage investments; outsourcing operations and risk management; weak transparency around source of wealth and source of funds; and investment structures which may include multiple accounts in different jurisdictions, including secrecy and tax havens, with funds moving through a concentration account.
GFI in this report offers the following key recommendations:
• The Brazilian government, which has the largest assets under management in the region, should be the first to adopt AML regulations that will address future risks when they arise. As well as regulators pay closer attention to family office architecture and undertake a risk assessment of the sector
• Latin American authorities should look to regulate intermediaries and enabler professions for AML/CFT due diligence as they are critical in allowing illicit money to move through the financial system within the region but also to be invested in private investment funds overseas.
• The United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Malta, and other countries within the EU should conduct a robust money laundering risk assessment of their private investment fund sectors.
• Latin American law enforcement authorities involved in corruption, drug trafficking, and organized crime investigations should be provided training on the complexities of private investment funds and the manner in which they can be used to hide illicit assets.
Global Financial Integrity is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, producing high-caliber analyses of illicit financial flows, advising developing country governments on effective policy solutions and promoting pragmatic transparency measures in the financial system to promote global development and security.
Good governance and strong institutions enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection. Credit: UN-OSAA
Opinion by Kavazeua Katjomuise (united nations)
Inter Press Service
The writer is a Senior Economic Affairs Officer and leader of the Policy Analysis and Coordination team in the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UN – OSAA).
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (IPS) – I recently overheard a conversation among three young people at a café in an African city. It was a passionate discussion on the management of funds allocated to the COVID-19 response and the effectiveness of the mechanisms in place to manage the money to achieve the intended purposes.
The concerns of my young brothers and sister resonated with me, as I could not help but reflect on how COVID-19 exposed cracks in Africa’s fragile revenue institutions and contributed to widening the financing gap for the region’s development.
Weak institutions, especially revenue collection and customs authorities, are a challenge in Africa, which loses billions in potential tax revenue, including through tax avoidance and evasion, especially by multinational companies.
UNCTAD’s Economic Development Report 2020 says Africa lost $88.6 billion through illicit financial flows in 2019.
This undermines efforts to mobilize domestic resources to finance the continent’s development as outlined in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and African Union Agenda 2063, which both recognize the primacy of strong and effective institutions in driving sustainable development.
African countries fare poorly on domestic resource mobilization compared to other developing countries. The share of revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 averaged 16 per cent for Africa, compared to 35 per cent for Asia-Pacific, and 24 per cent for Latin American Countries. Africa’s Least Developed Countries fared even lower at 13.3 per cent.
Governance influences tax revenue collection considerably in Africa. Good governance and strong institutions – measured through regulatory quality, the enforcement of the rule of law, strong institutional capacity and lower corruption – enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection.
However, corruption erodes tax compliance. Citizens in countries with high corruption are reluctant to pay taxes because of the perception that resources will be misused.
Empirical evidence shows that countries with a low Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score collected 4.3 per cent more in tax revenue to GDP than those with a high CPI score (2).
Addressing governance issues and improving transparency in the use of public resources is vital to building trust and generating increased domestic resources. Efforts should be geared at supporting African countries to strengthen governance and tackle corruption.
Digitization
Technological improvements and digitization could be leveraged to improve scale and efficiency and prevent corruption through increased transparency.
The pace toward digitization on the continent has quickened in recent years, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, Africa recorded progress toward digitization, albeit driven by the private sector mainly through incubators, start-ups, technological hubs and data centres.
Digitization is already transforming African economies in several ways, such as revolutionizing retail payment systems, thus allowing consumers and businesses to save billions in transaction costs, facilitating financial inclusion, and enhancing the efficiency of fiscal and revenue administration.
For example, the launch of M-Shwari in Kenya increased access to financial services for millions who may otherwise have been excluded from the financial sector. Taking advantage of this trend, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) introduced electronic banking in 2016 to expedite the payment of taxes through secure electronic payment.
This, coupled with the launch of iTax, has enabled a single view of taxpayer information, allowing for real-time monitoring of revenue collection, thus improving the efficiency of payment to government suppliers and social protection grants.
Digitization has also enabled developed countries to build effective and robust Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, critical to ensuring Africa’s recovery from COVID-19.
However, despite the widespread adoption of digital technologies across the world, the digital divide excludes many African countries from the benefits of digital technology.
Digitizing tax administration in Africa has been relatively slow. An International Monetary Fund’s analysis (ISORA 2018: Understanding Revenue Administration) shows that, relative to other developing regions, African countries scored below the world average on almost all indices related to tax administration performance, especially on the degree of digitization.
The average score for the degree of digitization was 29 per cent for Africa compared to 49 per cent and 46 per cent for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as East Asia Pacific, respectively.
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an erosion of tax collection in Africa due to a lack of digitization, as countries could not fully work remotely. This underscores the urgency of investing in the digitalization of tax collection processes, paired with other digitization initiatives such as digital identification, digital finance, and electronic payment systems.
Evidence shows that enhanced tax collection has followed the introduction of ICTs, including the computerization of tax and customs administration to support tax payments.
Countries that have modernized and digitized tax revenue administration have benefited from increased revenue due to improved efficiency, reduced corruption through enhanced transparency, and increased tax compliance.
COVID-19 provides an opportunity for African governments to embrace digitization by leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) as well as mobile technology.
Increased mobile penetration is an opportunity for African countries to digitize their fiscal and revenue administration. Development partners can support African countries in bolstering DRM systems by channeling substantial Official Development Assistance (ODA) towards strengthening capacities and institutions, including tax authorities, to improve tax collection.
By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.
This would help enhance African countries’ ability to address tax evasion and avoidance, tackle money laundering and tax havens, and curtail Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS).
Development partners and international organizations can increase support to Africa to strengthen its capacity for tax assessment, including through training, mentorship and coaching.
Complementary measures are also necessary to enhance African countries’ capacity to enact and implement policies and legislation to tackle BEPS and transfer pricing, starting with a comprehensive review of all tax treaties, tax incentives, and trade and investment agreements to eliminate all loopholes for BEPS and other IFFs.
This is central to de-risking Africa’s fiscal space for long-term sustainable development in the post-pandemic era.
In conclusion, building strong institutions through digitizing key institutions, especially revenue authorities, is critical to boosting domestic resource mobilization systems.
By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust DRM systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) of Ukraine, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine. “We are dealing with a State that is turning the veto of the United Nations Security Council into the right to die”, President Zelynskyy warned. If it continues, countries will rely not on international law or global institutions to ensure security, but rather, on the power of their own arms. April 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
by Thalif Deen (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (IPS) – A US Senator once described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, perhaps facetiously, as “a Winston Churchill in a tee shirt”.
And last month, when he addressed the US Congress – with the presence of about 100 Senators and 435 Congressmen – he tried to re-live that moment.
While most of the Senators and Congressmen were in business suits for the formal occasion, Zelensky opted for green military fatigues and a matching sweatshirt
And he was the second war-time head of government to address the US Congress, after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1941 address to Congress during World War II.
In his address December 21, the 44-year-old Zelensky appealed for increased economic aid, sophisticated weapons and security assistance.
According to a report in the New York Times last month, if Congress passes the budget bill (it did), the US aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion last February would amount to a hefty 100 billion dollars “allocated over four emergency spending packages.”
“We have artillery, yes thank you,” Zelensky told Senators and Congressmen, “We have it. But is it enough? Honestly, not really?”
Although the US has been sending a staggering array of weapons, including 1,400 Stinger missiles, GPS-guided joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the Patriot missile system, Ukraine has requested even more advanced weapons, including M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and F-16 fighter planes.
But the US is holding back both for security reasons.
According to the State Department, more than 40 US allies, have provided economic aid, political support or weapons to Ukraine in its hard-fought battle with Russia, one of the world’s major nuclear powers.
Norman Solomon, Executive Director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) told IPS while the Russian government is entirely responsible for its horrendous decisions to invade Ukraine and to persist with warfare there, the United States has refused to engage in actual diplomacy to avert the war or to seek a workable end to it.
The vast ongoing shipments of arms from the U.S. to Ukraine are of such a huge magnitude that they signify many billions of dollars in profits for U.S.-based weapons makers, he pointed out.
And those shipments of weapons represent eagerness in Washington to escalate the conflagration rather than seek ways to reduce and end it, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”
“The tremendous quantity of weaponry flowing from the USA to Ukraine can be understood as an extension of the U.S.-led NATO approach to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union — encirclement and confrontation with Russia instead of trying to find genuine geopolitical solutions for Europe as a whole.”
The U.S. withdrawals from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, he argued, were reckless steps for conflict between the world’s two nuclear superpowers that could end in global omnicide.
Now, the United States is proceeding to maximize the profits of its military-industrial complex while boosting the likelihood that the war in Ukraine will keep getting worse. The vows of victory in Ukraine, he noted, are fervent expressions of madness in Washington and in Moscow.
“Rather than pursue avenues for diplomacy that could bring the terrible suffering in Ukraine to an end, the U.S. government policy is to further enrich U.S. military contractors and escalate even further a war that is already a catastrophic reality,” he declared.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last month the United States will continue to work closely with more than 40 allies and partners in support of the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence with extraordinary courage and boundless determination.
“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, so it can continue to defend itself and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table when the time comes,” he declared.
In a “Fact Sheet” released last July, the State Department provided a partial breakdown of US arms to Ukraine, which includes:
Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; more than 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems.
Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems.
Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.
126 155mm Howitzers and up to 411,000 155mm artillery rounds.
72,000 105mm artillery rounds.
126 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers.
22 Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment.
16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition.
Four Command Post vehicles.
Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS).
20 Mi-17 helicopters.
Counter-battery systems.
Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles.
200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers.
Over 10,000 grenade launchers and small arms.
Over 59,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition.
75,000 sets of body armor and helmets.
Approximately 700 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.
Laser-guided rocket systems—and more.
The United States also continues to work with its allies and partners to provide Ukraine with additional capabilities to defend itself
According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Russian Federation’s military and paramilitary services are equipped mostly with domestically-produced weapons systems, although since 2010, Russia has imported limited amounts of military hardware from several countries, including Czechia, France, Israel, Italy, Turkey, and Ukraine.
The Russian defense industry is also capable of designing, developing, and producing a full range of advanced air, land, missile, and naval systems. As of 2021, Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of military hardware.
The Russian armed forces include approximately 850,000 total active-duty troops (300,000 Ground Troops; 40,000 Airborne Troops; 150,000 Navy; 160,000 Aerospace Forces; 70,000 Strategic Rocket Forces; approximately 20,000 special operations forces; approximately 100,000 other uniformed personnel (command and control, cyber, support, logistics, security, etc.); estimated 200-250,000 Federal National Guard Troops.
SYDNEY, Jan 02 (IPS) – 2022 has been a year of great uncertainty when it seemed the world perilously reached the brink of self-destruction – be it human-induced climate change or military conflict. Welcoming 2022, we had enough reasons to be optimistic; but it was another ‘year of living dangerously’ – Tahun vivere pericoloso in the words of Soekarno, or an annus horribilis in the words of the late Queen Elizabeth.
Anis Chowdhury
No end to Covid-19
The joy of the COVID vaccine discovery quickly vanished as the ‘vaccine apartheid‘ blatantly prioritised lives in rich nations, especially of the wealthy, over the ‘wretched of the earth’, and corporate profit triumphed over people’s lives. Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Fauci’s sober warning of a more dangerous COVID variant emerging this winter may come to be true as China, the country of 1.4 billion, struggles to deal with the surge in cases since it has largely abandoned its unpopular ‘zero COVID’ policy.
New cold war turns into proxy war
Whereas the global pandemic required extraordinary global unity, unfortunately, a ‘new cold war’ quickly turned into a ‘hot war’, bringing the world to the verge of a devastating nuclear war for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Russia, finding itself cornered by an expanding NATO, decided most foolishly to invade Ukraine, believing it could overrun the country without any resistance. While the heroic Ukrainians continue to defend their motherland, Russia seems to have become bogged down in a proxy war with NATO.
If the proxy war with Russia was not enough, the US is recklessly provoking China towards another ‘hot war’, following Trump’s trade war. Clearly the monopoly capital of the US and its military-industrial complex are pushing the US to a ‘Thucydides Trap‘. More than 60 years ago, President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation, warned about the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defence contractors and the armed forces. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, who led the allies on D-Day, saw the military-industrial complex as a threat to democratic government and global peace. Alas, his dire warning fell on deaf ears.
Western hypocrisy exposed
The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed Western pretence. The Western mainstream media unashamedly declared the dislocation of Ukrainians intolerable because the victims are blue-eyed, blond-haired Europeans, not “uncivilized” third world inhabitants or “barbaric” Arabs. Western duplicity is nowhere as blatant as it is in the case of the Palestinian plight. To them, Russia’s occupation and annexation of parts of Ukraine is illegal; but Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian land as well as gross human rights violations are justified on various professed grounds, e.g., right to protection from “terrorist acts”.
Leadership vacuum
The world now needs Eisenhower to resist the military-industrial complex; it needs Teddy Roosevelt to break monopoly capital’s stranglehold and to protect consumers, workers and the environment; it needs Franklin Roosevelt to promote multilateralism and social justice; it needs Kennedy to defuse crises. At the height of the ‘old cold war’, Kennedy ate humble pie by quietly removing the security threat to the USSR posed by offensive weapons (Jupiter MRBMs) deployed in Turkey, and publicly pledging that the US would never invade Cuba or attempt another Bay of Pigs operation. Eisenhower was magnanimous enough to bear the lion’s share of financing the USSR’s proposal for global efforts to eradicate smallpox – the leading cause of death and blindness then.
Alas, we see no such signs in a world of Trump, Biden, Johnson, Marcon and Scholz. Even ‘out of touch‘, billionaire Sunak does not inspire any hope, despite being the first coloured person of colonial descent to occupy the 10 Downing Street. Sunak will probably try to prove himself holier than the Pope, instead of promoting the interest of former colonies or descendants of colonial subjects or downtrodden.
No better leadership in the South
The South is also devoid of visionaries, such as Nkrumah or Nehru who promoted non-alignment and Southern unity. Nehru’s land is now overtaken by Modi’s Hindutva movement, openly promoting violence against minorities. Unsurprisingly, Modi was in sync with Trump; but he equally cosies up to Biden professing to promote democracy and human rights. Sadly, Mandela’s South Africa is mired in scandal after scandal.
Although many, including myself, eagerly looked forward to Lula’s victory in Brazil, neither his return to power nor the so-called ‘second pink tide’ in Latin America should make one overly joyous. The Left has demonstrated its propensity to fracture or implode easily, e.g., contributing to Correa’s defeat in Ecuador, or aiding the Right to strike back in Peru. In Colombia, Finance capital, mining giants and the elite have already ganged up on Petro’s vow to tackle inequality with tax and land reforms and his proposed ban on new oil and gas exploration. Chile’s Boric has faced setbacks including the rejection of a new constitution, forcing his concessions to the Centre-Right. Constitutional coup is a common strategy of the established vested interest.
Some inspirations down under
Down under, the Australians soundly defeated an increasingly autocratic and unaccountable conservative government in May. It was the government that implemented inhumane off-shore detention centres for people seeking to escape persecution and starvation in their own countries (about to be emulated by the UK Tory Govt.). It also was cruel enough to pursue vulnerable people on social security payments with a robotic program whilst cutting taxes for the wealthy and letting them evade tax. It was the government which created plumb jobs for the boys. It was the government which continued to deny climate science and refused to act.
Finally, the Australians got rid of it. Labor showed extraordinary discipline in opposition, and in government, it stood up to big business and vested interests. It has quickly moved to put in place the processes to:
set up an independent anti-corruption body with real teeth;
recognise the voice of First Nations people;
respect human rights of asylum seekers languishing in detention centres;
review RBA’s performance to ensure monetary policy serves broader national interest, not the finance; and
balance geo-political alliances.
Its progressive agenda is quite long. Let me end here, wishing the Australian Labor Government success to inspire other nations – large and small, developed and developing; and with best wishes for you to be safe and remain healthy, even if not quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
The breakthrough was announced on 1 January by the first-ever leftist president of the South American nation, Gustavo Petro, who tweeted that he was seeking “total peace”, in the light of continuing violence, following the historic UN-supported peace deal with the leadership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) militant group in 2016.
That pact ended decades of conflict with FARC, but did not include other dissent factions, who failed to demobilize as a result of the peace agreement.
President Petro said that the bilateral ceasefire deal, including ELN rebels, the Second Marquetalia, the Central General Staff, the AGC group and the Self Defence Forces of the Sierra Nevada, would run for six months, through to the end of this June, with the possibility of extending it “depending on progress”.
He said there would be a “national and international verification mechanism” to monitor and ensure the new ceasefire agreement.
Building confidence
“The Secretary-General trusts that adherence to these commitments will reduce violence and the suffering of conflict-affected communities”, said the statement from António Guterres, “while helping to build confidence in ongoing dialogues.”
The Secretary-General also reaffirmed “the support of the United Nations to Colombia’s efforts to achieve full and lasting peace.”
President Petro – a former rebel fighter himself who has been in democratic politics since the early 1990s – was elected to the presidency last June, pledging to kickstart negotiations to make the comprehensive peace deal a reality.
UN Photo/Cia Pak
President Gustavo Petro Urrego of Colombia addresses the general debate of the UN General Assembly’s 77th session.
“I am certainly confident that Colombia can demonstrate to the world, once again, that there is no better alternative to ending conflicts than through dialogue”, he told ambassadors.
He also welcomed the Government’s commitment to bolstering the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, and its support for the mechanism established for investigating missing persons.
Despite the demobilization of FARC fighters and entry into democratic politics in 2017, news reports suggest around 10,000 militants from other armed groups, have continued to be locked in deadly disputes, destabilizing the entire country.
The ELN, leading the last recognized insurgency in the country, according to reports, has been negotiating with the Government since November. It announced a short-term unilateral ceasefire in mid-December.
In a tweet on Sunday, Mr. Massieu welcomed President Petro’s announcement, saying the UN supported “all efforts” to reduce violence, that would protect vulnerable communities still affected by conflict, and help build a lasting peace.
Secretary-General António Guterres said he had learned of his passing, “with great sadness”, describing him as a “humble man of prayer and study.”
Defender of human rights
“Principled in his faith, tireless in his pursuit of peace, and determined in his defence of human rights, he was a spiritual guide to millions across the world and one of the leading academic theologians of our time.”
Ascending to the papacy following his election in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, became the first pope to step down in six centuries. The Vatican announced that the celebrated German theologian’s funeral will take place in St. Peter’s Square.
His successor, Pope Francis, told a New Year’s Eve service in the Vatican that Benedict would be fondly remembered “with emotion, we remember his person, so noble, so kind. And we feel in our hearts so much gratitude.”
Visit to UN Headquarters
In his statement, Mr. Guterres recalled the former pontiff’s 2008 visit to UN Headquarters, and his appeal for “building international relations in a way that allows every person and every people to feel they can make a difference.”
The UN chief said his “powerful calls for solidarity with marginalized people everywhere and his urgent appeals to close the widening gap between rich and poor are more relevant than ever.”
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Pope Benedict XVI Meets United Nations Staff during his visit to the United Nations Headquarters in April 2008. (File Photo).
‘Tenacious commitment to non-violence’
The Secretary-General offered his deepest condolences to all Catholics “and others around the world who were inspired by his life of prayer and tenacious commitment to non-violence and peace.”
According to news reports, Benedict’s body will be laid in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, allowing the Catholic faithful the opportunity to file past and pay their respects.
Benedict was ordained in 1951 and became archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977. Four years later he took on the powerful job of enforcer in the Vatican, defending church orthodoxy, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
When he resigned in 2013, citing his ailing health, he said that he had done so freely “for the good of the church”, and retired to live out his days in a monastery that lay within the ground of the Vatican.
