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Tag: Human rights

  • Homeless Families Now a Growing Issue in Zimbabwe

    Homeless Families Now a Growing Issue in Zimbabwe

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    Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
    • by Jeffrey Moyo (harare)
    • Inter Press Service

    HARARE, Jan 04 (IPS) – It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

    Over the decades, Zimbabwe’s economy has underperformed. It started in 2000 with the departure of white commercial farmers, and the country has experienced subsequent periods of hyperinflation, which the International Monetary Fund estimated reached 172% in July last year.

    ISS Africa estimates that two out of five Zimbabweans were living in extreme poverty (living on less than US$3.20 per day) in 2019, and although this “poverty rate of nearly 45% is projected to decline to 20% by 2043, 4.7 million Zimbabweans will be living in extreme poverty on the current path.”

    Many, like Mugabe, find themselves in their open-air dwellings, and it would seem that being homeless has become a perpetual crisis.

    Trynos Munzira, a 43-year-old vendor in Harare, feels that the homeless have moved into the area, making it unsafe for regular people like him to visit the streets and parks.

    “People of my age—the 43-year-olds, the 44s—we used to frequent recreational parks, wiling away time, but nowadays it’s impossible because the homeless are all over the parks, contaminating the parks, and there in the parks, they just relieve themselves anywhere,” Munzira told IPS.

    Another Harare resident, 33-year-old Nonhlanhla Mandundu, said: “We have suffered because of homeless people who are picking left-over food containers from rubbish bins and leaving these on the streets; they have no toilets because all the toilets in towns are paid for, and so they relieve themselves all over town and urinate anywhere.”

    Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s countrywide housing shortage is estimated at 1,25 million units, translating to a national backlog of five million citizens, or over 40 percent of the total population.

    As such, more than 1.2 million Zimbabweans remain on the government’s national housing waiting list.

    But this list is not likely to include everybody, like 21-year-old David Paina, an orphan who fled from his foster parents due to abuse. He moved to the streets for safety.

    “I started living here in Harare Gardens in 2012. What drove me here was the abuse I faced living with people who were not my parents. I am just crying for help from well-wishers so that I may do better in life,” Paina told IPS.

    Yet authorities in the Zimbabwean regime often don’t address the situation of the homeless.

    “I left the housing ministry. I am no longer allowed to talk about such issues,” July Moyo, the current Zimbabwean Minister of Local Government, told IPS.

    As authorities like Moyo evade accountability, more than two decades after the land reform program here, homeless families have turned out to be a growing issue in every town and city.

    Some teenage parents and their children also find themselves on the streets. Although the method of their relocation varies, they frequently experience eviction, move from door to door, find lodging with family and friends, and eventually end up living on the streets where they don’t need to pay rent.

    Baba Ano (19) said he started his family on the streets of Harare not so long ago.

    In cold and heat, these homeless families find life tough and uncertain, yet they have no choice except to soldier on.

    “I came here in October last year. The rain has been pounding me all this time in the open here. Up to now, I am still living here. I am looking for help with accommodation. I have my son, who is disabled, staying with me,” Mugabe told IPS.

    There are no official statistics from the country’s Ministry of Social Welfare documenting the number of homeless families.

    Local authorities have acknowledged the homelessness crisis that has gripped many Zimbabweans but don’t seem to have any ready answers.

    “It’s true we have a problem of homeless people in Harare—in Harare Gardens, Mabvuku Park, Budiriro, Mufakose, Mabelreign, and several others—all these parks have been taken over by homeless families. People are living in the streets and waking up every day, breaking up water pipes to access water, digging holes on the ground to trap water for bathing, and they bathe right there,” Denford Ngadziore, an opposition Citizens Coalition for Change Ward 16 councilor in Harare, told IPS.

    Stanely Gama, the Harare City Council spokesperson, said, “We have homeless people for sure who live in parks like Harare Gardens, Mabelreign, and Africa Unity Square. We always do operations to remove them, but we don’t know where they come from, and each time they are removed, they always come back. This is a case to be better handled by the government’s Social Welfare Department.”

    But lack of housing may not be the only factor that has rendered many Zimbabweans homeless, according to human rights activists.

    Some may be ex-convicts who struggle to return to society.

    “People who stay on the streets or in recreational parks are young children and adults—as young as 10. Some of the homeless adults living on the streets are ex-convicts who could not find acceptance with their relatives back home, forcing them to live on the streets and in recreational parks because they have nowhere to go,” said Peace Hungwe, founder of PeaceHub Zimbabwe, an organization that handles mental health cases in Harare.

    While the authorities dither, Mugabe counts her losses.

    “Where I used to stay, the plot of land was sold, and my belongings were burned in the house in which I used to live. Nothing was saved of all the things I worked to generate for the past 25 years. I am now just a nobody; the things you see gathered here are my only belongings in this world.”

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  • There Is No Democracy Without Gender Equality

    There Is No Democracy Without Gender Equality

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    Credit: UNDP El Salvador
    • Opinion by Maria Noel Vaeza, Michelle Muschett (panama city, panama)
    • Inter Press Service

    PANAMA CITY, Panama, Jan 04 (IPS) – Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread and persistent abuses of fundamental rights at a global level that, to a certain extent, derives from what we consider “normal” in our societies. In addition to firmly condemning that every three women in the world suffer from physical or sexual violence, we must question what we are normalizing as a society for this to happen.

    Faced with this question, the Gender Social Norms Index published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reveals that 90% of the population has at least one fundamental prejudice against women, which ranges from believing that men are better business leaders and that they have more rights than women to take a job, to the conviction that it is okay for a man to be violent with his partner.
    Gender violence is not a phenomenon that arises out of nowhere and its prevention and eradication also require each of us to be aware of our own biases.

    At UN Women and UNDP, we work to reduce gender discrimination and transform sexist attitudes by promoting social norms and positive gender roles. This requires empowering girls and women and working with the entire society to remove stereotypes that promote violent masculinities.

    To achieve this, at UN Women we apply the behavioral sciences to involve men and commit them to the prevention of violence against women and girls with more effective awareness campaigns that adapt to the reality of each country in the region. Social norms that limit women’s rights also harm society, they hinder the expansion of human development and increase inequality gaps.

    It is no coincidence that the difficulty in achieving progress in social gender norms occurs during a human development crisis. The global Human Development Index (HDI) lost value in 2020 for the first time in history; the same thing happened the following year.

    In turn, for Latin America and the Caribbean, the UNDP estimated – based on its proposal for a Multidimensional Poverty Index with a focus on women, that 27.4% of women in 10 countries in the region live in conditions of multidimensional poverty.

    The impact of poverty on women varies depending on their location in the territory: in the 16 countries analyzed, 19% of those who live in urban areas are multidimensional poor, while 58% live in rural areas.

    The poorest women are those who face greater inequalities, participate less in the labor market, and experience greater time poverty caused by excessive unpaid care work.

    These inequality gaps, in addition to being a barrier to human development, are a threat to democracy. Latin America and the Caribbean, the third most democratic region in the world and the only emerging region that aspires to – and still has the possibility of – achieving development through democracy and respect for human rights, will not achieve it if it continues to be the most violent and dangerous region for women.

    The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) quantifies biases against women, capturing people’s attitudes on women’s roles along four key dimensions: political, educational, economic and physical integrity. The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women. Credit: UNDP

    The Latinobarometro 2023 report points out a clear democratic decline in Latin America: the percentage of its population that sees democracy as the preferred form of government fell from 60% in 2000 to 48% in 2023. Women remain underrepresented in decision-making decisions and are the most dissatisfied with democracy with 70%.

    At the same time, according to the latest data reported by official organizations to the Gender Equality Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean, in 2022, at least 4,050 women saw their lives cut short. 4,004 from Latin America and 46 from the Caribbean, from 26 countries in the region, were victims of femicide or feminicide.

    This is a clear sign that despite the progress in several countries in the region with the approval of specific and comprehensive legal frameworks and the establishment of specialized prosecutors and protocols to respond to gender violence, the fundamental rights of women continue without translating into tangible achievements.

    Without effective governance and solid institutions that guarantee women and girls the full enjoyment of their rights, including the right to live a life free of violence and discrimination, it will be impossible to regain confidence in democracy in the region.

    In building more peaceful, just, and inclusive societies, universal access to justice is essential to eradicate gender violence and impunity. Girls, adolescents, and women who suffer violence do not find sufficient protection in the judicial system, and when they have the courage to report, they are often re-victimized until they give up their complaint and seek help and protection from the authorities. public institutions.

    At the same time, these women have a triple workload: they face caretaker tasks, domestic work and their paid jobs, which are usually precarious, informal and low-income.

    Furthermore, much of the impetus for the judicial process falls on the complainant, who must not only appear before the court on numerous occasions, but also bear the financial costs of transportation, the difficulties in organizing household responsibilities, and the fear of retaliation by the aggressor or members of their communities.

    To this must be added both the possible lack of knowledge that many women may have about judicial or extrajudicial procedures, as well as the difficulties in accessing free services and/or ignorance of their existence. There is also little or no public information about specialized services.

    For example, in the case of experiencing violence, there is usually distrust on the part of women regarding the speed and effectiveness of the judicial response to their situation and, they also often face practices of re-victimization such as being forced to tell the facts on several occasions. or have their testimony called into question.

    From UNDP and UN Women, we call to build more just societies for women. All people and societies can advance through education, social mobilization, adoption of legal and political measures, advocacy for greater budgets to prevent violence, promotion of dialogue, and search for consensus to break down biases and open passage to more peaceful, secure, fair, inclusive, and egalitarian societies as a requirement to leave no one behind on the path towards sustainable development.

    María Noel Vaeza is regional director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean;
    Michelle Muschett is regional director of UNDP for Latin America and the Caribbean.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • Will the Human Rights Movement Survive the Gaza War?

    Will the Human Rights Movement Survive the Gaza War?

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    Destruction in Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
    • Opinion by Connor Echols (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Jan 03 (IPS) – In its military campaign in Gaza, Israel faces a seemingly endless list of alleged human rights violations. International monitors argue the Israel Defense Forces have starved Gazans, targeted journalists attempting to cover the carnage, tortured detainees, and attacked hospitals full of wounded civilians.

    The U.S. — a passionate backer of civilian protections in Ukraine — has struggled to find the right way to address these claims while still standing by its long-time partner. The bombing has been “indiscriminate,” says President Joe Biden, but perhaps it will improve tomorrow. Killing more than 10,000 women and children in two months is not “genocide,” argues White House spokesperson John Kirby, but Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attacks were.

    If human rights are fundamentally a matter of world consensus, then what does it tell us that the United States threatens to cast a second veto against a United Nations Security Council resolution begging for a humanitarian suspension of fighting?

    What does it mean when a supposed champion of human rights seems to jettison them when it becomes inconvenient? For that matter, why should Israel care about human rights when it perceives its fight as existential?

    Displaced Palestinians wait for food at Al-Shaboura camp, in Rafah. Credit: WHO

    Kenneth Roth has a unique perspective on these questions. Roth, considered by many to be a dean of the human rights movement, spent nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch before stepping down last year to become a visiting professor at Princeton University.

    Under his leadership, HRW drew flak for, among other things, declaring Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to be apartheid, all while documenting in meticulous detail abuses committed by Palestinian groups, including Hamas.

    RS spoke with Roth to get his thoughts on human rights at a time of crisis. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

    Responsible Statecraft (RS): How would you rate the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza crisis from a human rights perspective?

    Roth: The Biden administration has been far too deferential to the Israeli Government, despite the pretty clear commission of war crimes in Gaza. And while the administration has pushed to ameliorate some of those war crimes — by pressing for humanitarian access, by urging greater attention to avoiding civilian casualties — that rhetorical push has not been backed by the use of the leverage that the administration has that might have really put pressure on the Israeli government to stop, whether that would be withholding or conditioning ongoing arm sales or military assistance, or even allowing a Security Council resolution to go forward.

    RS: What would a better approach look like?

    Roth: The initial problem was that Biden pretty unconditionally wrapped himself in the Israeli government’s response to the horrible October 7 attacks by Hamas. If you look at his initial comments, while there were caveats written in about the need to respect humanitarian law, there was no emotional punch behind them.

    It was pretty clear that Biden simply stood with Israel and was giving it a green light to proceed with its military response to Hamas without much effort, at least during the first few weeks, to ensure that that response really did comply with humanitarian law. So, I think the Israeli government got the message that the references to humanitarian law were necessary for certain audiences, but that the administration’s heart was not in them.

    RS: Would a more forceful form of messaging at the start have led to different results?

    Roth: Obviously, it’s hard to know the counterfactual. But the U.S. government, which has the greatest leverage of any external actor, didn’t really use that leverage to ensure that its periodic rhetorical commitment to the need to respect humanitarian law was matched by its much more forceful embrace of the Israeli military response to Hamas.

    RS: I’ve seen some reporting that the State Department has done internal inquiries as to whether U.S. officials could be legally complicit if Israel is found to have committed war crimes in Gaza. Do you have any thoughts on that question?

    Roth: Well, they could be. Biden’s references to the Israeli military conducting indiscriminate bombing were clearly not just a verbal slip. It probably reflected the internal conversations that the administration has. The second one even seems to have been somewhat deliberate.

    And the significance of that is that indiscriminate bombardment is a war crime. As any administration lawyer would know, continuing to provide weapons to a force that is engaged in war crimes can make the sender guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes.

    That is not some crazy, wacko theory. That was the basis on which former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted by an internationally backed tribunal, the so-called Special Court for Sierra Leone, for providing weapons to the Sierra Leonean rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front, a group that was notorious for chopping off the limbs of its victims.

    Because Taylor kept providing arms in return for the RUF’s diamonds while he knew the RUF was committing these war crimes, this internationally-backed tribunal found him guilty of aiding and abetting, convicted him, and sentenced him to 50 years in prison, which he is currently serving in a British prison.

    RS: My next question is a little tricky, but I’m curious how you approach it. Israel claims that this war is a fight for its very survival. Why should a country that views itself as being in that position care about respecting human rights?

    Roth: Well, I think the question is why should it care about adhering to international humanitarian law and protocols. It’s worth noting that humanitarian law was not drafted by a bunch of human rights activists and peaceniks. This was drafted by the world’s leading militaries. It was designed for war, for situations where governments often feel that they are existentially at risk, and these were the limits that the world’s leading militaries imposed on themselves. Israel has signed on to these standards, and it claims to abide by them. It has many capable lawyers who could be applying them. It just isn’t applying them.

    It probably requires a certain psychological analysis to figure out why, but some of the signals being sent from the top indicate a willingness to disregard the requirements of humanitarian law. When you have Defense Minister Galant referring to the residents of Gaza as “human animals,” when you have Netanyahu invoking the biblical story of Amalek in which there’s a divine injunction to not spare the men, women, children, or animals, these are not-so-subtle signals that the top political and military leadership in Israel doesn’t care that much about civilian casualties. This has seemed to have manifested itself in the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks that the Israeli military has carried out in Gaza.

    RS: It seems to me that focusing on war crimes or potential war crimes can sometimes lead to really bad policy outcomes. In this case, Israel is really spotlighting Hamas’ alleged war crimes. You think back to the war in Iraq, where there was a lot of highlighting of Saddam’s alleged war crimes. How can advocacy for human rights avoid supporting unfettered militarism?

    Roth: First, I think it’s important to note that war crimes by one side do not justify war crimes by the other. If a warring party could cite the other side’s war crimes, you would quickly have no more Geneva Conventions because allegations of war crimes are often made in the passions of conflict. The fact that some people have committed war crimes — in this case, both sides — doesn’t justify that others resort to criminal conduct. Now, in terms of military action, few people contest that Israel had every right to respond to Hamas’ military attack. It was an extraordinarily lethal military attack. It was ruthless, with widespread murder, rape, abduction, and indiscriminate bombardment. So with an attack of that sort, no one should be surprised that the Israeli government responds. The only real question was, will it respond consistent with humanitarian law? Or would it flout that law?

    RS: What does all this mean — especially the fact of the U.S. seemingly taking a step back in advocacy for the protection of human rights — what does all this mean for the state of human rights today?

    Roth: It is harmful because the U.S. government is such a powerful voice, and when it does seem to make an exception in its human rights advocacy for a close ally like Israel, it discredits the U.S. as a voice for human rights around the world. Now, I should say this is not the only instance of inconsistency on the part of Washington. We’re seeing it as well as the Biden administration tries to build alliances to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or to contain China. So while the administration has spoken numerous times about its fundamental commitment to human rights, it’s been a very inconsistent commitment. And that inconsistency is probably most visible in the Middle East, which has been essentially a black hole in the administration’s human rights policy. It’s very difficult to be so permissive of human rights violations in one region of the world and have a whole lot of credibility on human rights in other parts of the world.

    This means that one of those powerful voices we have has weakened itself. It’s not the first time that has happened. Under Trump, the U.S. essentially abandoned any pretense of enforcing human rights. Prior administrations have had comparable inconsistencies. The U.S. still has been able to be a useful voice for human rights, despite these inconsistencies, in some cases, but it is a much weaker voice than if it had really been principled and consistent.

    RS: How do you see the future of the push to get states to protect human rights? Are we in a moment of crisis that galvanizes change?

    Roth: If you look at the various efforts to uphold human rights, they’ve been quite vigorous in certain cases. There has been a very strong response to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, complete with multiple General Assembly resolutions, the Human Rights Council standing up a commission of inquiry, the International Criminal Court launching an immediate investigation and actually charging Putin and one of his aides with war crimes.

    A place where it’s been weaker has been, say, China’s crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, where we came within two votes of putting on the agenda a discussion of then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s very strong report on what she called possible crimes against humanity. But we didn’t even get that agenda item, so that’s a place where the world has been much weaker.

    But there’s been greater mobilization, greater willingness to speak out on a range of other situations, whether that be Myanmar or Iran, Saudi abuses in Yemen for a time, Sudan, Ethiopia for a time, Venezuela, Nicaragua. So the idea that because there’s this black hole in U.S. human rights policy, therefore nothing can get done, that’s just not true. A lot gets done, but the defense of human rights is weaker because the U.S. has been an inconsistent supporter of the effort.

    Source: Responsible Statecraft (RS)

    Connor Echols is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft. He was previously an associate editor at the Nonzero Foundation, where he co-wrote a weekly foreign policy newsletter. Echols received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, where he studied journalism and Middle East and North African Studies.

    The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

    IPS UN Bureau

    © Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Fear as Russian Anti-LGBT Law Comes into Effect

    Fear as Russian Anti-LGBT Law Comes into Effect

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    The Russian Supreme Court ruling making the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization will come into effect on January 9, 2024. Graphic: IPS
    • by Ed Holt (bratislava)
    • Inter Press Service

    BRATISLAVA, Jan 03 (IPS) – “This is what you get after ten years of state propaganda and brainwashing,” says Anatolii*.

    The Moscow-based LGBT rights activist’s ire is directed at a recent ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization.

    Details of the ruling, made on November 30 after a closed hearing, have yet to be made public—it will not be enforced until January 9, 2024, and until then, no one is likely to be any the wiser about its practical implementation, says Anatolii.

    But its vagueness—critics point out that no “international LGBT movement” exists as an organization—has already fueled fears that it could lead to the arbitrary prosecution of anyone involved in any activities supporting the LGBT community.

    And the potential punishments for such support are draconian, with participating in or financing an extremist organization carrying a maximum 12-year prison sentence under Russian law.

    In the weeks since the ruling was announced, fear has spread among LGBT people.

    “Russian queers are really scared,” Anatolii tells IPS.

    But while fearful, many see it as the latest, if potentially the most drastic, act in a decade-long campaign by the Kremlin to marginalise and vilify the LGBT community in the country through legislation and political rhetoric.

    The first legislative attack on the community came in 2013, not long after Vladimir Putin had returned to power as President, when a law came into effect banning “the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to anyone under the age of 18.

    This was followed by increasingly homophobic political discourse, and Kremlin campaigns—prominently backed by the country’s powerful Orthodox Church—promoting ‘traditional family values’ in society and casting LGBT activism as a product of the degenerate West and a threat to Russian identity.

    Then in 2022, the ban on “LGBT propaganda” was extended to cover all public information or activities supporting LGBT rights or displaying non-heterosexual orientation and implicitly linked the LGBT community with paedophilia—the law refers to the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations and/or preferences, paedophilia, and sex change.”

    A ban on same sex marriage has also been written into the constitution; authorities have labelled a number of LGBT organizations as “foreign agents,” stigmatizing them and forcing them to adhere to a set of funding and bureaucratic requirements that can be liquidating, and earlier this year a law was passed banning transgender people officially or medically changing their gender.

    With each new piece of pernicious legislation, and an accompanying rise in intensity and normalization of homophobic hate speech from politicians, the LGBT community has suffered, its members say.

    “The Supreme Court ruling is just a continuation of Russia’s homophobic policies. The amount of physical violence against LGBT people has been growing in Russia for 10 years. After each such law, it intensifies even more noticeably,” Yaroslav Rasputin, editor at the Russian-language LGBT website www.parniplus.com, told IPS.

    “We expect homophobes will feel justified in attacking LGBT people , both through cyberbullying and physical assaults,” he added.

    Members of the LGBT community and rights campaigners who spoke to IPS said there was a desperate fear among many LGBT people now. While the threat of physical violence was often felt as being very real, there was also a crippling concern over the uncertainty many would now face in their daily activities.

    Many do not know what will constitute “support” for the LGBT community. Some are trawling through years of social media records, deleting any possible positive references to LGBT or reposted messages on the topic for fear of the information being used against them by authorities.

    And there are worries that simply being openly gay could somehow be interpreted as extremism.

    Lawyers who have advised LGBT people and groups in the past say that it will be much easier for security forces to initiate and prosecute cases of extremism than propaganda, as the latter is more difficult to prove.

    “Although the government says these ‘repressions’ concern only political activists, in reality this is not the case. We know this from previous homophobic laws. Sometimes people spontaneously get caught for who they are. No one knows when it will be safe to come out and when not,” said Rasputin.

    Anatolii said the organisation he works for has been inundated with calls from people “in panic and despair” over the ruling, many of whom are looking for help to leave the country.

    LGBT groups outside Russia have also reported a huge uptick in calls from people trying to find safe passage to other countries.

    “We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people contacting us, perhaps three or four times more. LGBT people in Russia are really worried about the ruling; they don’t know what might be defined as extremist,” Aleksandr Kochekovskii from the Berlin-based organisation Quarteera e. V, which helps LGBT refugees and migrants to arrive and find their way around Germany, told IPS.

    “Unfortunately, a lot of people will leave Russia because of this ruling because they feel in danger. There is a ubiquitous psychological pressure on LGBT people in Russia now,” he added.

    Even some openly gay figures in Russia have publicly acknowledged that LGBT people may be forced to flee the country.

    “This is real repression. There is panic in Russia’s LGBT community. People are emigrating urgently. The actual word we’re using is evacuation. We’re having to evacuate from our own country. It’s terrible,” Sergei Troshin, a gay municipal deputy in St Petersburg, told the BBC.

    But others warn the Kremlin may be looking to use the ruling to crack down on the community as a whole as much as individuals.

    “At this point, the state’s main goal is to erase the LGBT community from society and history,” Mikhail*, a Russian LGBT activist who recently left the country and now works for a pan-European NGO campaigning for minority health rights, told IPS. “It is hard to imagine how many organisations defending the rights of LGBT people will be able to exist in Russia any more since such support is advocating terrorism,” he added.

    Some such organisations have already decided to close in the wake of the ruling. The Russian LGBT Sports Federation announced it had stopped its activities, and one of the most prominent LGBT groups in the country, Delo, which provided legal assistance to people in the community, also closed following the court decision.

    But other mainstays of the LGBT community are also shutting their doors. The owners of one of the oldest gay clubs in Russia, “Central Station” in St Petersburg, said they had been forced to close the club after the site’s owners refused to rent to them. Its closure came as other gay clubs and bars in Moscow were raided by police just 24 hours after the Supreme Court ruling. People’s names taken, and ID documents copied.

    Although police said the raids were part of anti-drug operations, LGBT activists said they could see the true purpose behind them.

    “The state has made it very clear that it is ready to use the apparatus of force against LGBT people in Russia,” said Mikhail.

    But the ruling is also expected to have effects for LGBT people beyond their interactions with other individuals or groups within the community.

    Accessing specific healthcare services, for instance, seems likely to become more difficult.  Some practitioners, such as psychiatrists and psychologists, have until now openly indicated their services as LGBT-friendly. But according to some Russian media reports, it is thought many will no longer be able or willing to do so, and that others may simply stop providing their services to LGBT people altogether out of fear of repercussions.

    Experts warn that without qualified help, the risks of suicide, PTSD, and the development of other mental disorders will rise, especially among children, something that was seen after the first law banning the promotion of LGBT to minors was passed in 2013.

    International rights groups have condemned the court ruling and urged other countries to provide a safe haven for those forced to flee Russia and to support Russian LGBT activists working both inside and outside the country.

    Whatever the effects of the law eventually are once it is fully implemented, it looks unlikely there will be any improvement for the LGBT community in the near future.

    Activists predict anti-LGBT political rhetoric will probably only intensify as President Putin looks to cement support among voters ahead of elections in March, and as the Kremlin tries to draw the public’s attention away from the country’s problems, not least those connected to the war raging in Ukraine.

    “It’s easier to create an artificial enemy than to struggle with the real problems the war has caused. The LGBT+ community in Russia is a kind of collective scapegoat, taking a punch and feeling the people’s wrath,” said Anatolii.

    Others say that as the war drags on, repression of the LGBT community may start being repeated among other minority groups.

    “Everything the Kremlin does in Russia is an attempt to divert people’s attention from the war. ‘Othering’ is typical for all dictatorial regimes. I am quite sure that soon will start targeting other groups like migrants and foreigners,” Nikolay Lunchenkov, LGBT Health Coordinator for the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender, and Sexual Diversity NGO, which works with the LGBT community in Russia, told IPS.

    Note: *Names have been changed for safety reasons.


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  • Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel in response to killing of Hamas leader

    Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel in response to killing of Hamas leader

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    Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at Israel on Saturday in retaliation for the targeted killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut this week amid mounting fears of a larger regional war, according to media reports.

    Hezbollah said in a statement Saturday that it targeted an Israeli air surveillance base in northern Israel with 62 missiles as an “initial response” to the suspected Israeli strike on January 2 that killed senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut. The Israeli military said around 40 rockets were fired from Lebanon at its territory.

    Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, said earlier this week that the killing of al-Arouri will “not go unpunished.”

    Israel’s military said it responded to the Hezbollah rocket attacks with a drone strike on “the terrorist cell responsible for the launches toward the area of Metula.”

    The escalation comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has embarked on his fourth diplomatic tour of the Middle East as the Israel-Hamas war reaches its three-month mark and amid growing international criticism of Israel’s strategy. Yemen’s Houthi militants have also increased their attacks on cargo ships and fuel tankers in the Red Sea.

    Blinken met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday. U.S. officials said Blinken was seeking Turkish buy-in, or at least consideration, of potential monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multi-national force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory, the Associated Press reported.

    Turkey has been harshly critical of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the prosecution of the war and the impact it has had on Palestinian civilians.

    In addition, officials said, Blinken will stress the importance Washington places on Ankara ratifying Sweden’s membership in NATO, a long-delayed process that the Turks have said they will complete soon. Sweden’s accession to the defense alliance is seen as one critical response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who was in Lebanon on Saturday, warned that it was imperative to avoid the Israel-Hamas war growing into a regional conflict.

    Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, some of whom have been released.

    Israel has for the last three months bombed the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, resulting in nearly 23,000 people dying and around 59,000 others being injured, according to the Palestinian enclave’s health authorities.

    In another warning, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday that Gaza has become “uninhabitable” for its nearly 2.3 million inhabitants and repeated that “a public health disaster is unfolding” in the enclave. 

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  • Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

    Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Google has agreed to settle a $5 billion privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser — along with similar “private” modes in other browsers — to track their internet use.

    The class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 said Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. It argued that Google’s advertising technologies and other techniques continued to catalog details of users’ site visits and activities despite their use of supposedly “private” browsing.

    Plaintiffs also charged that Google’s activities yielded an “unaccountable trove of information” about users who thought they’d taken steps to protect their privacy.

    The settlement, reached Thursday, must still be approved by a federal judge. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the suit originally sought $5 billion on behalf of users; lawyers for the plaintiffs said they expect to present the court with a final settlement agreement by Feb. 24.

    Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

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  • Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

    Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Google has agreed to settle a $5 billion privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser — along with similar “private” modes in other browsers — to track their internet use.

    The class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 said Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. It argued that Google’s advertising technologies and other techniques continued to catalog details of users’ site visits and activities despite their use of supposedly “private” browsing.

    Plaintiffs also charged that Google’s activities yielded an “unaccountable trove of information” about users who thought they’d taken steps to protect their privacy.

    The settlement, reached Thursday, must still be approved by a federal judge. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the suit originally sought $5 billion on behalf of users; lawyers for the plaintiffs said they expect to present the court with a final settlement agreement by Feb. 24.

    Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

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  • Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

    Google settles $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using 'incognito mode'

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Google has agreed to settle a $5 billion privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser — along with similar “private” modes in other browsers — to track their internet use.

    The class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 said Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. It argued that Google’s advertising technologies and other techniques continued to catalog details of users’ site visits and activities despite their use of supposedly “private” browsing.

    Plaintiffs also charged that Google’s activities yielded an “unaccountable trove of information” about users who thought they’d taken steps to protect their privacy.

    The settlement, reached Thursday, must still be approved by a federal judge. Terms weren’t disclosed, but the suit originally sought $5 billion on behalf of users; lawyers for the plaintiffs said they expect to present the court with a final settlement agreement by Feb. 24.

    Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

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  • Israel says Gaza war is like WWII. Experts say it’s ‘justifying brutality’

    Israel says Gaza war is like WWII. Experts say it’s ‘justifying brutality’

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    Israel’s campaign of relentless bombardment against the Gaza Strip had been raging for three weeks when the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to address the heavy civilian death toll in the Palestinian enclave.

    Netanyahu, who had earlier evoked the 9/11 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001 to describe the deadly Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, looked to the second world war for validation, on this occasion.

    The hawkish Israeli premier referred to the time in 1945 – he mistakenly mentioned 1944 – when a British air raid, which had been targeting a Gestapo site, erroneously hit a school in Copenhagen killing 86 children. “That is not a war crime,” he told reporters. “That is not something you blame Britain for doing. That was a legitimate act of war with tragic consequences that accompany such legitimate actions.”

    Since then, the Allied campaign against Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II has become something of an historical precedent for an Israeli state seeking to justify the large-scale killings of the people of Gaza as it ostensibly pursues Hamas fighters. Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, has compared Israel’s campaign with the devastating Allied bombing of Dresden, which, conducted over three nights in 1945, was intended to force the Nazis into surrender, and led to the deaths of some 25,000-35,000 Germans. Non-state affiliated advocates of Israel have also drawn similar comparisons.

    Yet, these attempts erase the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948, the destruction of 500 towns and villages at the time, and the subsequent illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. They also ignore how World War II led to a new international law regime, and serve to dehumanise Palestinians while justifying Israel’s decades-long violence and discrimination — described by many international rights groups as akin to apartheid — against Palestinians, say historians and analysts.

    Israeli historian and socialist activist Ilan Pappé told Al Jazeera that these efforts by Israel are aimed “as a justification for its brutal policies towards” Palestinians and that they represent an old playbook used by the country.

    He cited the instance when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared the then-leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, to Hitler, and war-torn Beirut to Berlin, following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

    “I feel as a prime minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing ‘Berlin’ where, amongst innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep beneath the surface,” Begin said in a telegram to then-United States President Ronald Reagan in early August 1982.

    But Begin’s words prompted criticism from many in his own country, with Israeli novelist Amos Oz writing that “the urge to revive Hitler, only to kill him again and again, is the result of pain that poets can permit themselves to use, but not statesmen”.

    Reaching into the past to legitimise modern-day conflicts can also be ahistorical. Scott Lucas, a specialist in US and British foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, said the relentless use of World War II by Israel and its supporters to mitigate criticism of its bloody war on Gaza suggests that Israel wants to “wish away the post-1945 pledge – by lawyers, NGOs, activists and politicians – to say we need a better system so civilians do not suffer needlessly in war zones”.

    He added that Israel’s decision to opt out of membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its attempts to “actively … undermine [the authority] of the United Nations”, founded after the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, make its claims to be part of an Allied-like struggle disingenuous.

    Israel has repeatedly accused the UN’s agencies and its officials, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, of bias because they have called for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, Israeli bombs have killed more UN staff members in Gaza since October 7 than in any conflict in the history of the organisation.

    “Civilians will be killed in wartime,” Lucas acknowledged, but added that Israel appeared to be breaching the international law requirement of proportionality. In essence, a military whose war leads to civilian deaths, including through attacks on hospitals, schools and shelters – targets Israel has repeatedly struck during this war – must be able to show proportionate military gains through those strikes. That’s a bar Israel hasn’t met, according to many experts.

    “You are currently having an excessive number of civilians who are being killed because there are not adequate protections that are being applied by the power that is carrying out the attack,” Lucas said. “And that’s what the Israelis should be judged by. Bringing in World War II and other narratives is [just] peripheral.”

    Israel’s supporters continue to argue that the parallel with World War II holds. Jake Wallis Simons, editor of the London-based Jewish Chronicle, said that there were “two points of similarity” between the conflicts.

    “The first is a sense of existential threat both during World War II and in the attacks by Hamas upon Israel,” claimed Wallis Simons. “The other is the nature of the aggressor.” He described Hamas’s actions as “barbarism”.

    But UN experts, international human rights groups and many nations around the world have warned that it is Israel’s actions since October 7 – more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and almost the entire population of 2.3 million people has been displaced – that could constitute modern-day genocide. Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using food as a weapon of war. Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, and since the start of the current war, has made it even more difficult for aid to enter the Strip. Right at the start of the current war, Israel also imposed a strict block on the entry of fuel and water – a restriction it has largely kept in place.

    Against that backdrop, it’s useful for Israel to project World War II onto the conflict with Palestine, suggested German-Palestinian academic Anna Younes. It helps Israel dehumanise Palestinians and blunts sensitivity towards their suffering.

    “By conflating Israel with Jewishness, it’s easy to project Nazism … onto Palestinians, but also onto all of their supporters,” Younes told Al Jazeera. “Nazism has thus become a globalised Eurocentric rhetorical vessel for everything … which doesn’t deserve empathy and context, and is free to be killed.”

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  • Amidst a Horrendous 2023, Civil Society is Fighting Back Society

    Amidst a Horrendous 2023, Civil Society is Fighting Back Society

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    • Opinion by Farhana Haque Rahman (toronto, canada)
    • Inter Press Service

    TORONTO, Canada, Dec 22 (IPS) – The year 2023 has brought so much tragedy, with incomprehensible loss of lives, whether from wars or devastating ‘natural’ disasters, while our planet has seen yet more records broken as our climate catastrophe worsens.

    Farhana Haque RahmanAnd so as the clock ticks towards the (mostly western) New Year, readers are traditionally subjected by media outlets like ours to the ‘yearender’ – usually a roundup of main events over the previous 12 months, one horror often overshadowed by the next.

    So forgive us if for 2023 IPS takes a somewhat different approach, highlighting how humanity can do better, and how the big depressing picture should not obscure the myriad small but positive steps being taken out there.

    COP28, the global climate conference held this month in Dubai, could neatly fit the ‘big depressing’ category. Hosted by a petrostate with nearly 100,000 people registered to attend, many of them lobbyists for fossil fuels and other polluters, it would be natural to address its outcomes with scepticism.

    However, while Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at the Open Society Foundations, described COP28 as “imperfect”, she said it also marked “an important and unprecedented step forward in our ‘course correction’ for a just transition towards resilient and greener economies.”

    UN climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged shortcomings in the compromise resolutions on fossil fuels and the level of funding for the Loss and Damages Fund. But the outcome, he said, was also the “beginning of the end” for the fossil fuel era.

    Imperfect as it was and still based on old structures, COP28 hinted at the possible: a planetary approach to governance where common interests spanning climate, biodiversity and the whole health of Earth outweigh and supersede the current dominant global system of rule by nation states.

    As we have tragically witnessed in 2023, the existing system – as vividly reflected in the repetitive stalemate among the five veto-bearing members of the UN Security Council – is failing to find resolution to the major conflicts of this year, Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. Not to mention older and half-forgotten conflicts in places like Myanmar (18.6 million people in need of humanitarian aid) and in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (seven million displaced).

    The unrestrained destruction of Gaza and the disproportionate killings of over 17,000, (now the death toll is “at least 20,000 people” according to Palestinian officials) mostly civilians– in retaliation for 1,200 killings by Hamas and 120 hostages in captivity– have left the Palestinians in a state of deep isolation and weighed down by a feeling of being deserted by the world at large.

    The United Nations and the international community have remained helpless– with UN resolutions having no impact– while American pleas for restrained aerial bombings continue to be ignored by the Israelis in an act of defiance, wrote IPS senior journalist Thalif Deen.

    The hegemony of the nation-state system is surely not going to disappear soon but – without wanting to sound too idealistic — its foundations are being chipped away by civil society where interdependence prevails over the divide and rule of the existing order. And so for a few examples encountered in our reporting:

    CIVICUS Lens, standing for social justice and rooted in the global south, offers analysis of major events from a civil society perspective, such as its report on the security crisis gripping Haiti casting doubt over the viability of an international plan to dispatch a Kenya-led police contingent.

    Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, lobbied at COP28 for a $150 million appeal to support school-aged children facing climate shocks, such as the devastating drought in Somalia and Ethiopia, and floods in Pakistan where many of the 26,000 schools hit in 2022 remain closed.

    Leprosy, an ancient but curable disease, had been pegged back in terms of new case numbers but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made it harder for patients to get treatment and for new cases to be reported. Groups such as the Sasakawa Health Foundation are redoubling efforts to promote early detection and treatment.

    With 80 percent of the world’s poorest living closer to the epicenters of climate-induced disasters, civil society is hammering at the doors of global institutions to address the challenges of adaptation and mitigation.

    Lobbying on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai was activist Joshua Amponsem, co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund who questioned why weather-resilient housing was not yet a reality in Mozambique’s coastal regions despite the increasing ferocity of tropical cyclones.

    “My key message is really simple. The clock is ticking,” Dr Simeon Ehui told IPS as the newly appointed Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.

    Dr Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which has received record-breaking pledges in support of its largest ever replenishment, warns that under current trends 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030.

    “Hunger remains a political issue, mostly caused by poverty, inequality, conflict, corruption and overall lack of access to food and resources. In a world of plenty, which produces enough food to feed everyone, how can there be hundreds of millions going hungry?” he asked.

    Empowering communities in a bid to protect and rejuvenate the ecosystems of Pacific communities is the aim of the Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity conservation effort launched at COP28 by Palau’s President Surangel Whipps who noted that the world was not on track to meet any of the 17 sustainable development goals or climate goals by 2030.

    A scientist with a life-long career studying coral reefs, David Obura was appointed this year as the new chair of IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

    “We really have reached planetary limits and I think interest in oceans is rising because we have very dramatically reached the limits of land,” says Dr Obura, “What the world needs to understand is how strongly nature and natural systems, even when highly altered such as agricultural systems, support people and economies very tangibly. It’s the same with the ocean.”

    An ocean-first approach to the fight against climate change is also the pillar of a Dalhousie University research program, Transforming Climate Action, launched last May and funded by the Canadian government. Traditional knowledges of Indigenous People will be a focus.

    As Max Roser, an economist making academic research accessible to all, reminds us: for more people to devote their energy to making progress tackling large global problems, we should ensure that more people know that it is possible.

    Focusing on the efforts of civil society and projecting hope amidst all the heartbreak of 2023 might come across as futile and wasted, but in its coverage IPS will continue to highlight efforts and successes, big and small, that deserve to be celebrated.

    Farhana Haque Rahman is the Executive Director of IPS Inter Press Service Noram and Senior Vice President of IPS; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015 to 2019. A journalist and communications expert who lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD.

    IPS UN Bureau


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

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  • A 5-Step Guide For Weighing In On Hot-Button Issues At Work | Entrepreneur

    A 5-Step Guide For Weighing In On Hot-Button Issues At Work | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    For business leaders, weighing in publicly on current issues has become a minefield. In the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t-era of social media, both voicing an opinion and staying on the sidelines imply business consequences.

    Mixed signals from consumers and the public muddy the waters further. On the one hand, employees want to hear from their leaders: they’re 14.5 times more likely to work for a company that publicly supports human rights. Yet a recent Gallup poll found that less than half of U.S. adults thought that businesses should take a public stance on current events.

    So, what’s the best course of action for a business leader to take in fraught times? I’ve worked with dozens of CEOs at both startups and huge consumer brands on exactly this communication challenge — and there are few easy answers.

    Before pressing publish on that latest X post or LinkedIn update, consider these five guidelines.

    Related: This Workplace Policy Is Igniting Fiery Debates In The Boardroom — Here’s Why.

    1. Start with why

    Shoot-from-the-hip hot takes and half-baked opinions are an obvious no-no. But what about when you really have something to say — or at least think you should chime in?

    Before weighing in on a hot-button topic, business leaders need to ask themselves, “Why?” from both a corporate and personal standpoint.

    On the corporate side, the fundamental question is: How is making this statement strategic for my company? Does my opinion benefit employees, customers, and/or other stakeholders? A clear yes here is a strong incentive to speak up.

    Nor should the personal level be ignored. If you feel you must say something on a topic because doing so aligns with your beliefs and values, then that might trump more pragmatic considerations. The key is to be honest about whether you’re prepared to face the potential consequences, personal and professional.

    Take the example of Chobani’s CEO, Hamdi Ulukaya. A Turkish immigrant of Kurdish descent, Ulukaya has been an outspoken supporter of immigration reform in the U.S. This has little to do with his yogurt empire and has earned backlash from some sectors. But it’s a stand he’s personally committed to making.

    2. Are you truly being additive?

    The concept of decentering can also provide a helpful benchmark. In short, leaders need to ask themselves if they should weigh in at all, thereby shifting the spotlight away from the issue and onto themselves.

    Do you truly have anything to add to the conversation, or are you just muddying the waters? Do you have unique insights? Or are you just talking to be heard or to be noticed? Or because you feel obligated to say something?

    Listening and learning can often be a more fruitful path than empty statements that add noise without adding value. A simple gut check — Am I truly staying in my lane? — often goes a long way.

    3. Remember internal channels

    Business leaders often overlook the option of internal communications. But you can get the same benefits with fewer drawbacks by sharing your thoughts via your company mailing list, newsletter, or an all-hands meeting with your employees.

    Shows of concern on closed channels scratch the itch to make your voice heard and satisfy employees who believe that the company should take a side or who are wondering why it isn’t. If your customers are wondering where you stand, bring up the situation in an email list that goes out to subscribers.

    The upside of internal communications is that it can avoid the appearance of being theatrical or indulging in virtue-signaling or exploiting a situation.

    Related: CEOs Are Tricking Employees Into Spending More Time In The Office — But Here’s Why They’re Only Fooling Themselves.

    4. Do a consequence audit

    In the military, war games are standard fare. Generals go through the motions of combat in advance, illuminating unforeseen risks.

    Leaders need to take a similar approach before weighing in on hot-button topics. What will the likely pushback be? Are you willing to suffer the consequences if your comments go sidewise? Is it really worth it, or does it make more sense to stay on the sidelines?

    5. When in doubt, wait

    The timeless advice to wait a day or two before sending out a heated letter or email applies doubly to business leaders.

    The news cycle may move at a breakneck pace, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Take the extra time to deliberate with colleagues, advisors and confidantes before sharing a view on a contentious issue. For CEOs accustomed to speed and decisiveness, this pause for reflection can be frustrating. But it’s often time well spent.

    Media attention will, inevitably, move on. An impulsive Tweet, however, may last a lifetime.

    Ultimately, in an era when social media can make all topics seem pressing and all opinions urgently needed, it can also be useful to remember the advice Marcus Aurelius shared 2,000 years ago: “You always own the option of having no opinion — These things are not asking to be judged by you.”

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  • Regime Change in Israel

    Regime Change in Israel

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    • Opinion by David L. Phillips (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Dec 22 (IPS) – Benjamin Netanyahu must go. Under the guise of judicial reform, Netanyahu has undermined the rule of law and divided the country. He is toxic to Arab states, even those which have signed the Abraham Accords. Netanyahu has become an impediment to Israel’s democratic development and regional relations.

    Israel needs a new government committed to peace and a cabinet that champions reconciliation. Perpetual war plays into the hands of Hamas. It placates Jewish hardliners who oppose the national aspirations of Palestinians. War also serves Netanyahu by distracting voters and delaying accountability for his government’s intelligence failures on October 7.

    It took up to ten hours for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to react to Hamas’ invasion. Known for its security and intelligence services, Israel was caught flat-footed. Panicked residents of kibbutzim cowered in safe rooms, while 1,200 Israelis were killed, butchered in their homes and on the grounds of the Nova Music Festival. Hundreds were taken hostage by Hamas, gang-raped and turned into sexual slaves. One hundred and thirty remain in captivity.

    It is impossible to reconcile Israel’s objectives. Israel cannot eradicate Hamas and free hostages captive in the subterranean world of Gaza’s tunnel network. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin just visited Jerusalem to discuss priorities and scaling back Israel’s offensive.

    In the fog of war, the IDF killed three Israeli hostages last week displaying a white flag and speaking in Hebrew. Shooting people, even Hamas members who surrender, violates the laws of war and Israel’s military code. Exhausted and trigger happy, the incident is under investigation. The Israeli army chief of staff and the intelligence chief issued apologies. Netanyahu prevaricated, delaying his meeting with hostage families.

    The incident caused outrage across Israel, raising questions about Israel’s conduct of the war. The Hamas Ministry of Health claims that 20,000 Palestinian civilians have died as a result of IDF activities. Hostage families are demanding an investigation.

    There is a growing clamor to bring the hostages home. Hostage families are also demanding a plan to end the war. They have generally been supportive of Netanyahu’s response, but they are wavering. They believe that continued action in Gaza risks the lives of the remaining 130 hostages. The bungled operation has brought Israeli institutions – the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad – into disrepute.

    Even President Joe Biden, Israel’s biggest backer, criticized the IDF for its “indiscriminate bombing.” France, Germany and Britain are also fed up and have demanded a “sustainable ceasefire.”

    Netanyahu said there will be a time and place for an inquiry into the Hamas attack and Israel’s response. He believes that the longer it takes for an inquiry, the more the passions of hostage families will be mollified.

    Israel’s slow grinding war with Hamas must stop. Israel was justified in launching a reprisal after October 7, especially as details of the brutality came to light. Two months later, the IDF seems to be flailing about. Israel has been characterized as the aggressor and has lost the moral high ground. For sure, Israel has every right to defend itself. But what started as calculated counterterrorism now seems more like rage and revenge.

    Can Hamas even be defeated? Hamas is more than an organization. It is a movement. For every Hamas terrorist that Israel kills, more Palestinian militants are waiting in the wings.

    It’s time for a new approach. An interim government overseen by the Palestinian Authority should be established and make plans for an eventual Palestinian state living side-by-side at peace with Israel.

    Indiscriminate bombing is counterproductive. A more surgical approach would differentiate between Hamas and Gazans, addressing claims of collective punishment.

    Internationally mediated talks would ensue when the hostages are freed. Palestinians need a national horizon to separate themselves from the clutches of Hamas.

    Israeli elections would likely repudiate Netanyahu and lead to the creation of a peace cabinet, putting Israel back on track as a democracy that respects minority rights and values good neighborly relations.

    It is unimaginable that Netanyahu can survive his putrid performance. Prosecutors are waiting to charge Netanyahu with corruption. Israelis can debate the details of government formation for months, but polling suggests that regime change is something that Israelis agree on now.

    David Phillips is an Adjunct Professor at the Security Studies Program of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

    IPS UN Bureau


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

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  • Catastrophic Shortage of Food in Gaza—Starvation as a Weapon of War

    Catastrophic Shortage of Food in Gaza—Starvation as a Weapon of War

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    Displaced families in a school in Gaza. 21 December 2023 Credit: WFP/Arete/Abood al Sayd
    • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 (IPS) – As the killings of civilians in Gaza rose to over 20,000, the besieged city — which has been virtually reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardments — is also being ravaged by hunger and starvation.

    In new estimates released December 21, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership, which includes the World Health Organization (WHO), said Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” with the risk of famine “increasing each day.”

    An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition.

    At least 1 in 4 households are facing “catastrophic conditions”: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.

    The World Food Programme warns that these levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in recent history and that Gaza risks famine.

    Shaza Moghraby, Spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said: “I have been exposed to many IPC reports on various countries throughout my time at WFP and I have never seen anything like this before. The levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in terms of seriousness, speed of deterioration and complexity.”

    Gaza risks famine. The population falling into the “catastrophe” classification of food security in Gaza or IPC Level 5 is more than four times higher than the total number of people currently facing similar conditions worldwide (577,000 compared to 129,000 respectively).

    A family cooks a meal in a temporary accommodation in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Credit: WFP

    “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the opening of all border crossings and the resumption of commercial cargo to provide relief, put an end to the suffering and avert the very serious threat of famine. We cannot wait for famine to be declared before we act,” she said.

    On recent missions to north Gaza, WHO staff say that every single person they spoke to in Gaza is hungry. Wherever they went, including hospitals and emergency wards, people asked them for food.

    “We move around Gaza delivering medical supplies and people rush to our trucks hoping it’s food,” they said, calling it “an indicator of the desperation.”

    Meanwhile, in a new report released this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Israeli government of using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

    “Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival”.

    Since Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, high-ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Energy Minister Israel Kat have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel – statements reflecting a policy being carried out by Israeli forces, HRW said.

    Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction.

    “For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

    “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

    Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza between November 24 and December 4. They described their profound hardships in securing basic necessities. “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza. “We don’t know how we survived.”

    Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America said the shocking figures describing the high levels of starvation in Gaza are a direct, damning, and predictable consequence of Israel’s policy choices – and President Biden’s unconditional support and diplomatic approach.

    “Anyone paying attention cannot be surprised by these figures after more than two months of complete siege, denial of humanitarian aid, and destruction of residential neighborhoods, bakeries, mills, farms, and other infrastructure essential for food and water production,” she said.

    “Israel has the right to defend its people from attacks, but it does not have the right to use starvation as a weapon of war to collectively punish an entire civilian population in reprisal. That is a war crime.”

    “The US government has repeatedly given Israel diplomatic cover, but now must urgently change course and put politics aside to prioritize the lives of civilians”, said Maxman.

    “ As humanitarians, we know no amount of aid can meaningfully address this spiraling crisis without an end to the bombing and siege, but it is unconscionable to deny it to Palestinian families who are starving”.

    She argued the Biden administration must use all of its influence to achieve an immediate ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, allow for the safe return of hostages to Israel, and allow aid and commercial goods in, “so we can save lives now.”

    “The US cannot continue to stand by and allow Palestinians to be starved to death.”

    According to WHO, Gaza is also experiencing soaring rates of infectious diseases. Over 100, 000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported since mid-October. Half of these are among young children under the age of 5 years, case numbers that are 25 times what was reported before the conflict.

    Over 150 000 cases of upper respiratory infection, and numerous cases of meningitis, skin rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox have been reported. Hepatitis is also suspected as many people present with the tell-tale signs of jaundice.

    “While a healthy body can more easily fight off these diseases, a wasted and weakened body will struggle. Hunger weakens the body’s defences and opens the door to disease,” WHO warned.

    Meanwhile, HRW said international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.

    Criminal intent does not require the attacker’s admission but can also be inferred from the totality of the circumstances of the military campaign.

    In addition, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza, as well as its more than 16-year closure, amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, a war crime. As the occupying power in Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel has the duty to ensure that the civilian population gets food and medical supplies.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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  • South Asian Women, Girls Need Responsive Legal System to Gender Violence

    South Asian Women, Girls Need Responsive Legal System to Gender Violence

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    • by Ranjit Devraj (new delhi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW DELHI, Dec 21 (IPS) – Criminal justice systems in South Asia are failing women, despite stark statistics on the prevalence of violence. WHO estimates translate to one in every two women and girls in the region experiencing violence daily.

    Nawmi Naz Chowdhury, a Global Legal Advisor at Equality Now, told a webinar titled ‘Future of Legal Aid in South Asia for Sexual Violence Offenses Against Women and Girls: Lessons from the Past Five Years’ that women and girls experience indifference and neglect at all levels, and there are gaps in legal protections that leave them vulnerable to sexual violence. Where laws do exist, common failures in implementation effectively prevent survivors from accessing justice.

    Research by Equality Now, Dignity Alliance International, and partners has revealed that sexual violence laws in South Asian countries are insufficient, inconsistent, and not systematically enforced, leading to extremely low conviction rates for rape.

    Long delays in medical examinations, police investigations, prosecutions, and trials are widespread. Survivors often have difficulties filing cases with the police and face community pressure to withdraw criminal complaints and accept informal mediation. Other protection gaps in legal systems include overly burdensome or discriminatory evidence requirements in rape cases and the failure to fully criminalize marital or intimate partner rape.

    To bring about change, more needs to be done by governments, and this requires an increase in budgeting and strategizing on a national level, taking lessons derived from best practices in the region and elsewhere.

    Training and raising awareness must go hand in hand with giving the police the tools to operate and upgrade their role to better meet society’s needs. This could include being trained in sign language interpretation, using technology to offer services and information, understanding communities and their intersectionality, and including women and girls from various backgrounds and diversities within the police force.

    Chowdhury spoke about how women from excluded groups are frequently targeted. “Women and girls from socially excluded communities are often at higher risk of being subjected to sexual violence as compared to other communities due to the use of rape as a weapon of suppression.

    “This is accompanied by a general culture of impunity for sexual violence and particular impunity for those from dominant classes, castes, or religions, which often leads to a denial of justice,” she said, with Dalit women and girls and those from indigenous communities encountering even greater obstacles to accessing justice.

    Legal weak spots also make young and adolescent girls more vulnerable to sexual violence and, in some circumstances, enable perpetrators of rape to avoid punishment, typically by marrying the victim or obtaining ‘forgiveness’ from the victim, says Choudhury. “Victims of crime have a right to free legal aid, but in countries where these protection gaps exist, access to legal aid for women and girls seeking justice for sexual violence is hindered.”

    Choudhury pointed to the high levels of stigma attached to rape in South Asian societies that often lead to the non-reporting or withdrawal of cases or settlements outside the court. Other factors that impede the reporting of sexual violence include fear of repercussions, such as violence, threats to life, or social ostracization.

    “How much support are women and girls in South Asia getting?” she asked. “While accessing the criminal justice system, they are met with indifference and neglect at all levels, and this often results in the withdrawal of cases or long delays in adjudication—despite the pervasiveness of sexual violence in the region.”

    Governments in the area rarely provide psychosocial care. While India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have schemes for the payment of compensation to rape survivors, practical barriers often make compensation inaccessible for survivors, Choudhury explained.

    Participants in the webinar from various countries in the region offered insights into how access to justice rights functions on a practical level and shared methods by which civil society organizations nudge criminal justice systems to bring about progressive change.

    Sushama Gautam, at the Forum for Women, Law, and Development (FWLD) in Nepal, said that legal aid provided by her organization went beyond assisting individuals and included advocacy with key players and institutions like the police and the courts through public interest litigation.

    A significant achievement of FWLD was filing public interest litigation in 2001 to get the Supreme Court of Nepal to declare in 2002 that marital sex without the wife’s consent should be considered rape. Nepal’s parliament adopted in 2018 a new criminal code that increased punishment for marital rape but made it a lesser offense than non-marital rape.

    Nepal’s constitution guarantees legal aid as a fundamental right, said Gautam, explaining, “The national policy on legal aid and the policy on unified legal aid have also been formulated. These policies promote victim-centered legal aid, and there are digital mechanisms to ensure that legal aid has been established.”

    FWLD has an app that provides people with legal information on various violations and helps them contact legal aid providers. The organization also runs a Legal Clinic and Information Center that extends services to survivors of sexual violence, such as legal counseling, and helps take care of their immediate needs.

    Manisha Biswas, senior advocacy officer at the Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust (BLAST), says that while Bangladesh has made progress in ensuring access to justice for rape victims, estimates show that only one in 90 cases of sexual violence reaches the stage where the victim gets compensation.

    Leading the Rape Law Reform Coalition, comprising 17 rights organizations, BLAST was instrumental in getting the Bangladesh Parliament to amend evidence laws to disallow ‘character assassination’ of rape victims by questioning during prosecution.

    BLAST offers a range of legal support, including providing information, advice, and free legal representation, underpinned by a network of paralegal workers, many of whom are recruited from different law colleges. Other activities include public interest litigation and advocacy campaigns to increase awareness and understanding of legal rights, remedies, and services.

    “BLAST enjoys a good reputation that helps us to act as a guiding force and use our expertise in providing services such as training paralegal volunteers in police and court procedures and in proactively rehabilitating rape victims,” she said.

    Biswas reflected that much remains to be done. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with more than half of women marrying before reaching the minimum legal marriage age of 18. Bangladeshi laws also permit marital rape.

    Overall, says Choudhury, the reality in South Asia is that “the burden of supporting survivors of sexual violence falls on underfunded NGOs, predominantly legal aid organizations that may not have adequate resources.”

    This is particularly true for NGOs and CSOs that operate at the grassroots level, which affects access to justice rights for women and girls who have disabilities, indigenous women and girls, and women and girls from minority groups.

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  • From Bureaucratic Labyrinths to Accessible Civil Registration

    From Bureaucratic Labyrinths to Accessible Civil Registration

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    • Opinion by Alice Wolfle, Tanja Sejersen (bangkok, thailand)
    • Inter Press Service

    BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 21 (IPS) – Have you ever tried to register a birth, a death or maybe your own marriage? Unfortunately, many of these vital events in Asia and the Pacific remain unregistered often with dire consequences for individuals, families and communities.

    Civil registration can be a labyrinth to navigate, comprising of multiple stages with many bureaucratic hurdles. Such complex systems discourage individuals from either commencing or completing the arduous registration process.

    But what if the process of registering a birth or death could be made less stressful for a new parent or a grieving relative? As an implementing partner of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative, ESCAP has been working with selected countries in the region to improve their Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems using the CRVS Systems Improvement Framework.

    This framework provides the tools for a participatory approach to identify bottlenecks and solutions to streamline registration processes. The framework has now been used in Niue, Maldives, Nauru, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, and Turkmenistan.

    In many cases, people are not aware of the legal timeframes for registering vital events, leading to late registration of births often at school enrolment age, which often means having to pay additional late registration fees or the submission of additional documentation.

    People living overseas may be unaware of the need to notify a vital event in their home country or are unable to visit a civil registration office to register the event. Lack of systems for recording overseas vital events in many countries means that events are either not captured, or in some cases may be double counted.

    So, why is registering a vital event so complex?

    In many countries, notification of a birth or death occurs at a health facility, but an individual must then register the event at a civil registration office. This multi-stage process means several trips to different offices for family members, which can be expensive and time-consuming, especially for those in remote areas.

    Additionally, births or deaths occurring outside of health facilities frequently remain unregistered.

    Civil registration processes are not only cumbersome for people attempting to register an event, but also for staff engaged in the process. Paper-based registration forms slow down the transfer of information between health facilities and civil registration offices and sometimes staff must (re)enter personal information by hand.

    Where digital civil registration systems are used, staff often encounter obstacles in leveraging the potential benefits due to outdated ICT hardware and software, as well as limited internet connectivity. This ‘system’ may be something as simple as a spreadsheet or an MS Access database.

    It is hardly surprising that this process is time-consuming for already understaffed facilities, often resulting in long queues at registration offices, not to mention the increased scope for errors or misplaced forms. In many countries, replacing lost forms or changing a mistake is akin to reaching a dead end in the registration labyrinth!

    The lack of training and inconsistent forms for coding causes of death in line with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is also an issue. This means that accurate statistics on causes of death cannot be utilized by government agencies for future planning. Additionally, in many countries, the sharing of data may not be possible among government agencies due to regulations or the absence of integrated digital data systems. This means important data is not utilized to its full potential.

    Once the main obstacles for registering a birth or death have been identified, stakeholders are able to develop redesigned civil registration processes. Although CRVS Business Process Improvement aims to encourage longer-term sustainable solutions to strengthen CRVS systems, (e.g., changing legislation, developing digitized platforms, improving interoperability, integrity and efficiency), ‘quick win’ solutions also constitute an important outcome of this work.

    These facilitate immediate improvements that require minimal investment (e.g. amending a field on a registration form) to minimize the burden on families and combat the lack of awareness about the importance of registering vital events. ‘Quick win’ solutions may be used as an advocacy tool for increasing future resources for CRVS system improvements.

    Examples of longer-term sustainable solutions have included the development of online registration forms, appointment booking systems, SMS mobile messaging communications and development of standard operating procedures for civil registry staff.

    The process of implementing a simplified CRVS system is iterative, monitoring progress until complete and timely civil registration is achieved in the Asia and Pacific region as outlined in the Ministerial Declaration to “Get every one in the picture’ in Asia and the Pacific. A smooth experience encourages people to register events, increasing registration completeness alongside accuracy and timeliness of vital statistics, supporting the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development where no one is left behind.

    Source: ESCAP

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  • Viktor Orbán: The EU is blackmailing Hungary

    Viktor Orbán: The EU is blackmailing Hungary

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    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Thursday the European Commission is blackmailing Hungary by withholding billions in frozen funds over rule-of-law concerns.

    Orbán said the blackmail is “a fact,” even admitted by the blackmailers themselves — members of the European Parliament.

    “In our view, Hungary fulfils all the qualities of the rule of law, and when the European Commission has specific needs, we implement everything from them, and we are also cooperative,” Orbán told reporters in Budapest during a press conference. “You cannot blame me for doing everything I can to promote Hungary’s interests in such a blackmailed situation.”

    Orbán’s government has been embroiled in a long-standing dispute with Brussels, which has frozen billions of EU funds intended for Hungary over concerns about human rights and the rule of law in the country.

    Last week, the European Commission unblocked €10.2 billion in frozen EU cohesion funds earmarked for Hungary.

    The commission said the timing of the funding release — which came just a day before the European Council, where Orbán was threatening to block the start of Ukraine’s accession talks to the EU and a further aid package to Kyiv — was coincidental. But many EU politicians have warned Brussels not to give in to what they perceive as blackmail from the Hungarian leader.

    In the end, Orbán did a U-turn and allowed EU leaders to approve the start of negotiations for Ukraine to join the bloc.

    There is more money at stake for Budapest and Orbán is still blocking a €50 billion aid package for Kyiv, which leaders are set to discuss early next year.

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  • Russia uses POWs as a political weapon against Kyiv

    Russia uses POWs as a political weapon against Kyiv

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    KYIV — The last time Valentyna Tkachenko, a 35-year-old mother of two from Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, saw her husband Serhii was just before Russia invaded her country.

    Serhii, a National Guard soldier, was captured on February 24 of last year, the day Moscow launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. His unit was guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it was attacked by the Russians. When the Russian military retreated from Chernobyl and the rest of the Kyiv region at the end of March, they took Serhii and 167 other POWs with them.

    Since then, the wives of the captured soldiers have only heard from them once — a short handwritten note: “I am alive, everything is OK,” sent more than six months after they were taken prisoner.

    Like thousands of other relatives of Ukrainian POWs, Tkachenko has contacted Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and had written four letters, but heard nothing back until November 29. That’s the day she got a video call on the Viber messaging app.

    “It was Serhii. We talked only for three minutes. I was not allowed to ask him questions. As soon as I tried, he shook his head and just said no. Instead, he kept saying: ‘Valya, go make things hard for Kyiv. Kyiv does not want to take us back,’” Tkachenko recalled. “Then he said he was sorry and ended the call, promising to call me back if he ever has a chance.”

    Tkachenko didn’t go off to demonstrate against the government, although family protests have taken place in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

    Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s coordinating staff on the treatment of prisoners of war, told POLITICO that other families have received similar calls from soldiers being held by the Russians.

    “A person has not heard from a relative for more than a year, and here he calls and says that he is alive. Russians are ready to exchange him, but Ukraine does nothing. Recently these calls became massive. So, we understood that this is a campaign to cause distrust in the government,” Yatsenko said.

    It’s a stark change in policy from the first year of the war, when the two sides regularly exchanged prisoners. In all, 2,598 people have returned from Russian captivity during 48 swaps, according to the Ukrainian military. However, the last major exchange was on August 7.

    “It has really slowed down due to reasons from the Russian Federation, but there are very specific reasons for this,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv this week.

    Playing politics with POWs

    The Russian refusal to exchange POWs appears aimed at inflaming tensions in Ukrainian society, where dissatisfaction with Zelenskyy is rising in the wake of this year’s disappointing counteroffensive, and the mood is turning grim as crucial aid for Ukraine stalls in the U.S. Senate and Hungary blocks the EU’s efforts to boost civilian and military help for Kyiv.

    Tkachenko thinks her family, as well as other prisoners of war, have become tools in a political game.

    Anastasiia Bugera with her boyfriend Kostyantyn Ivanov | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO

    “They started so well, exchanging so many. But then suddenly it all stopped. I think Russians want to discredit our government. People are exhausted, and POWs’ relatives are losing their temper. They want to cause havoc,” Tkachenko said bitterly.

    A large number of the Ukrainian POWs were captured following the bloody siege of Mariupol, a coastal city where Ukrainian troops held out for three months of ferocious attacks before surrendering the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in May 2022.

    Anastasiia Bugera, 22, from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, has not spoken to her boyfriend, 24-year-old Kostyantyn Ivanov, since March 2022. She was in Russian-occupied Izyum when Ivanov was ordered to surrender alongside several thousand other Azovstal defenders.

    “I managed to call his mother from our neighbor’s outdoor toilet one day. She told me he was trying to call me and failed. I cried so hard standing in that toilet,” Bugera said. The toilet was the only place she could get a connection as the Russians were trying to block mobile signals. Izyum was liberated by the Ukrainians in September 2022.

    “We have not had the opportunity to even say hello to each other. They were promised to be in captivity only for three to four months. But Russia lied,” Bugera said.

    Ukraine has managed to exchange only a few dozen Azovstal defenders, including the commanders of the Azov Regiment, but thousands of regular troops, police and border guards captured in Mariupol are still being held. According to the Azovstal families’ association, Russia does not want to exchange them. Instead, families occasionally see them on videos from Russian courts, malnourished, exhausted, and on trial accused of war crimes. Russia continues to block any direct communication with them.

    Life in prison

    As of today, Russia holds more than 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and some 28,000 civilians, the Ukrainian ombudsman’s office and reintegration ministry said. However, the real number may be even higher.

    “For example, some of those who are in captivity have not been confirmed yet. Those people are still considered ‘missing’ although we have information they might be in captivity,” Yatsenko said.

    The Ukrainians have not said how many Russians they hold, but they have so many that they’re building a second POW camp to hold them. Russians are also being held in a special facility in western Ukraine and housed in cells in pretrial detention centers.

    “I would say during the counteroffensive Ukraine managed to increase the POWs exchange fund that was already big because of the stalled exchanges,” Yatsenko said. “But we are ready to accommodate all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, in case they decide to surrender.”

    Ukraine says it is treating its POWs according to international rules, but accuses Russia of mistreating its prisoners.

    “More than 90 percent of prisoners of war whom we interview after their return say that they were subjected to torture, deprivation of sufficient nutrition and sleep,” Yatsenko said. “People are being forced to burn out tattoos or to consume only Russian propaganda. They are not allowed to communicate with relatives.”

    A photo Kostyantyn Ivanov sent to his relatives from Mariupol, where he was fighting against overwhelming Russian forces together with thousands of other Azovstal Steel Mill defenders | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO

    Russia insists it is treating its POWs well.

    Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova on November 30 visited 119 Ukrainian POWs and said they were being held in conditions that correspond to international standards.  

    “Many of them reported that they were allowed to call their relatives by phone by the competent Russian authorities,” Moskalkova said in a statement published a day after Tkachenko got the video call from her husband.

    Moskalkova said that arrangements are being made with her Ukrainian counterpart to allow for mutual visits.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross visits POWs on both sides of the front — so far seeing 2,300 of them — but Russia hasn’t fully opened its facilities to outside inspection and the ICRC is institutionally limited in its ability to criticize countries out of fear that its access will be cut off.

    “We are painfully aware that there are POWs that we still have not visited, and this is why we are constantly working towards improving our access to the places where they are held. We have also delivered more than 3,800 personal messages between POWs and their loved ones, on top of facilitating the exchanges of over 9,300 letters from and to prisoners of war,” said Achille Després, the ICRC spokesperson in Ukraine.

    He refused to reveal any information about the specific conditions in which POWs are held.

    “Our goal is to work directly with the detaining authorities, to influence towards the concrete improvement of the interment conditions and remind the relevant states of their legal obligations, notably that POWs must at all times be treated humanely and their rights upheld, as well as their integrity, dignity and privacy respected,” he said.

    Hoping for release

    With big prisoner exchanges frozen, the only way captured soldiers can make it back to their own side is in informal battlefield swaps between commanders.

    “Unfortunately, such sporadic exchanges cannot replace the ones at the state level,” Yatsenko said.

    In his news conference, Zelenskyy said he hopes to see a change of policy that will allow for a resumption of prisoner exchanges.

    “We are now working to bring back a fairly decent number of our guys. God willing, we will succeed,” he said.

    Ukraine hopes to jar the Kremlin into restarting swaps thanks to the growing number of Russian POWs it’s holding.

    “As soon as we accumulate, if you’ll forgive me the language, the appropriate stockpile of enemy resources, we exchange them for our Ukrainian defenders … I really hope that our pathway will soon be activated,” Zelenskyy said.

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  • Israel green-lights Cypriot aid plan for Palestinians as military pounds Gaza

    Israel green-lights Cypriot aid plan for Palestinians as military pounds Gaza

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    Israel will allow ships from several European countries to deliver aid directly to war-torn Gaza, the country’s top diplomat said Sunday, as the Israeli military ramped up large-scale air attacks across central Gaza.

    Ships from countries including France, Greece, the Netherlands and the U.K. can “immediately” start shipping aid packages via a proposed sea corridor that goes through Cyprus, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told local radio on Sunday. The measure could mean a partial lifting of Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, first imposed in 2007 after the Hamas militant group took control of the Palestinian enclave.

    Under the plan, originally proposed by Nicosia last month, ships would travel to Cyprus for security checks before heading 370 kilometers to Gaza’s coast in a route that would avoid Egyptian or Israeli borders. Paris, Athens, Amsterdam and London have yet to officially comment on the plan, though the U.K. and Greece have previously indicated they would support the measure.

    The announcement comes after the U.N. Security Council earlier this month demanded that Israel guarantee “immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale” to the Gaza Strip.

    Meanwhile, Israeli jets stepped up air strikes on Maghazi and Bureij in the center of Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 35 people, including former Religious Affairs Minister for the Palestinian Authority Youssef Salama, according to local media and hospital officials.

    Israel has said it would keep fighting until it eliminates Hamas after the militant group launched a surprise attack on the country in early October, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage. Israel has said it has killed 8,000 Hamas fighters so far in its military offensive. Cohen said on Sunday that the “government bears responsibility” for failing to prevent the October 7 attack, and suggested an independent inquiry should be set up after the war.

    Despite growing international pressure for a cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said the war would continue for “many more months.” Israel argues that ending the conflict now would mean victory for Hamas, a stance shared by the Biden administration, which at the same time has urged Israel to do more to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians.

    Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, meanwhile, urged Israeli resettlement of Gaza after the hostilities. The far-right politician told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday that if Israel does the right thing, there will be an exodus of Palestinians “and we will live in the Gaza Strip.”

    “We will not allow a situation in which two million people live there. If there are 100,000 to 200,000 Arabs living in Gaza, the discussion about the day after will be completely different,” Smotrich said. “They want to leave, they have been living in a ghetto and in suffering for 75 years,” he added.

    Fearing a mass exodus, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to accept refugees from the embattled Gaza Strip. Netanyahu also said on Saturday that the border zone between the Gaza Strip and Egypt should be under Israel’s control.

    Almost 22,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military response, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, 70 percent of whom are women and children — while 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced.

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  • UN and Humanitarian Partners Seek $46 Billion for Humanitarian Assistance

    UN and Humanitarian Partners Seek $46 Billion for Humanitarian Assistance

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    Two women together in a ‘friendly space’, a woman-only zone in an IDP site in Unity State, South Sudan. Credit: OCHA-Alioune Ndiaye
    • by Naureen Hossain (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 18 (IPS) – Funding humanitarian programs will continue into the new year, but the funding cuts of the previous year may impact the prioritization of the most immediate and most life-threatening needs.

    The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) for 2024. This annual assessment of the global humanitarian sector provides insight into the humanitarian action undertaken by the UN and its partners and reviews current and future trends in this sector.

    Major crises have been the result of violent conflicts or global climate disasters. The economic impact of these crises has been a contributing factor to the increasing humanitarian needs in places like Afghanistan and Syria, or indicative of greater economic instability. The need for food, water, shelter, and health services, have also contributed to the assessment of needs among affected communities. As a result of these crises, 1 in 73 people have been forcibly displaced. Over 258 million people have experienced acute food insecurity. Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has remarked that the international community has not been “keeping pace with the needs” brought on by these crises.

    For this year, there was a reported decrease in funding from the year prior. In the previous year, in spite of efforts and repeated calls from UN officials to increase funding, the UN received only one-third of the requested $57 billion for 2023. In 2024, the UN and its humanitarian partners are calling for USD$46.4 billion to assist 180.5 million in 72 countries. The North Africa and Middle East region, which includes the Palestinian Territory, Syria and Yemen, will require US$13.9 billion, which is the largest amount being asked. East and Southern Africa is next, requiring US$10.9 billion, followed by Central and West Africa requiring US$8.3 billion, and Asia and the Pacific, which is calling for US$5.5 billion.

    Two women together in a ‘friendly space’, a woman-only zone in an IDP site in Unity State, South Sudan. Credit: OCHA-Alioune Ndiaye

    The current plans from the UN and its humanitarian partners, as indicated by the report, will be to prioritize the communities dealing with the most life-threatening needs, and therefore require urgent action. The response plans that have been formulated promise a more stream-lined approach that will take into consideration the realities of the organizations’ capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance. Given that funding – or the lack therof, – was a particular concern over the last year, and resources were quickly dwindling, this pragmatic approach is founded.

    Even with this focus on immediate needs, the predicted funds required for certain regions would suggest that protracted crises with long-term impacts are among the issues that will be addressed. The tragedy of humanitarian work seems to be that with multiple situations and escalations to address, attention and assistance are only further divided between today’s disaster and yesterday’s crisis. The crisis may not have been fully resolved.

    For instance, under the Rohingya Joint Response Plan, which will be led by UNHCR and IOM, US$872.7 million has been requested to fund this plan that will provide ongoing humanitarian support to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. It is six years since the Rohingya refugee camps have been set up. The need for food, shelter, and protection, and the pressure to keep these camps running have only exacerbated and may continue to do so the longer it persists. The prolonged presence of the camps, and the number of people still seeking refuge by crossing the border, will only leave them more vulnerable to the risks of abuse, exploitation, disease, and other security issues that developed within the settlements.

    The GHO attests that humanitarian organizations will aim to deliver better results. This will include acknowledging and supporting local and national humanitarian groups through funding, increasing accountability and people-centered responses, and engaging in humanitarian diplomacy. There is also a call to promote inclusive responses that acknowledge the unique, intersecting, and complex needs of vulnerable peoples, including those from marginalized communities.

    Women and girls, for instance, are particularly vulnerable during humanitarian crises. OCHA Director, Coordination Division, Ramesh Rajasingham, remarked on this during a high-level event in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia. He stated that women are fourteen times more likely to be killed during climate disasters. Women and girls are also at a greater risk of gender-based violence; only 53 percent were able to access GBV services through groups like UN Women. Women and girls also face barriers in receiving life-saving healthcare, especially when it comes to reproductive health. Humanitarian organizations, and the international community that supports them, should be expected to improve their response to the gender-specific needs.

    “We need to get better at acting on gender-specific analyses that strengthen our ability to meet the diverse and distinct needs of all the people we serve,” he said. “We need far greater investment in protection and other services in humanitarian settings that are tailored for women and girls.”

    What is evident in the GHO is that the compassion and urgency to help those in need remain a driving force for the UN’s humanitarian actors. Yet, one cannot help but lament at the adjusted funding request, which is lower than last year’s. When it is now, more than ever, that millions of people are living through dire situations, through conflict or displacement, and many more are at risk of falling.

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  • The United States, the United Nations, and Genocide in the Gaza Strip

    The United States, the United Nations, and Genocide in the Gaza Strip

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    Azzawieh Market in Gaza City lies in ruins. Credit: UNICEF/Omar Al-Qattaa
    • Opinion by Mouin Rabbani (montreal, canada)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTREAL, Canada, Dec 18 (IPS) – The political significance of US-Israeli differences is easily exaggerated.

    It is certainly true that tensions in the relationship exist. Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The US would like Israel to reduce – not cease, but reduce – its slaughter Palestinian civilians,

    Israel has stated its intention to indefinitely maintain a military presence within at least parts of the Gaza Strip, and rejects any role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the governance of the Gaza Strip. The US has indicated it would like to see Israel withdraw to the 1967 boundary and supports replacing Hamas rule with that of the PA, which it believes to be in Israel’s best interest.

    Washington would like to resume bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under US supervision, and has paid lip service to a two-state settlement. Israel has repeatedly and emphatically rejected both proposals.

    Neither these nor other disagreements resulting from the current crisis have resulted in any reduction of US military, political, or diplomatic support for Israel, which remains total and unconditional. In other words, US-Israeli tensions have the political significance of a loving couple deciding whether to dine on steak or sushi for their next date.

    It has been widely reported, for years, that Biden and his key lieutenants detest Netanyahu, and intensely so. If so, the Israeli prime minister must be thinking: “With enemies like these, who needs friends?”.

    On December 12, the 193-member UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on “Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations” during the 45th plenary meeting of the resumed 10th Emergency Special Session. Member States adopted a resolution, demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the unconditional release of all hostages as well as a call for “ensuring humanitarian access”. It was passed with a majority of 153 in favour and 10 against, with 23 abstentions. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

    The US is not only complicit in Israel’s genocide, it is a full and active partner. For it to propose a “humanitarian pause” under present conditions, which in addition to the continuous, relentless bombing include measures intended to produce starvation, dehydration, and epidemic disease is tantamount to advocating for a Khmer Rouge coffee break.

    A meaningless and diversionary charade if ever there was one.

    If the Biden administration does take action to enforce international law during the current crisis it won’t be against Israel, but rather against Yemen for interfering with global shipping. Israeli impunity might as well be incorporated into the US constitution.

    The performance of the UN Secretariat also leaves much to be desired. It has been extremely slow off the mark, hesitant to a fault, and excessively deferential to the US and Israel. It’s head of Political and Peacekeeping Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, has been enveloped in an impenetrable invisibility cloak.

    For his part Secretary-General Guterres has been condemning Hamas in the strongest possible terms on an almost daily basis since 7 October but has yet to explicitly condemn Israel for anything.

    Candidates for Guterres’s censure would include the mass killings of thousands of children; a medieval siege designed to produce widespread starvation, dehydration, and epidemic disease; an unprecedented campaign to destroy an entire territory’s health sector; the bombing of UN facilities sheltering civilians fleeing hostilities, and a record number of UN staff killed in a conflict, often together with their families.

    Among senior officials only Martin Griffiths, the UN’s Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, and to a lesser extent Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, have defied the echo chamber and been more explicit in framing the atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

    To his credit, Guterres on 6 December invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, thereby identifying the crisis as not only a humanitarian emergency but also a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security.

    Its significance notwithstanding, history will question why Guterres dithered for two months when it came to calling out Israel for its ferocious onslaught on Gaza before suddenly reaching for his heaviest weapon.

    Rather than using the stature and authority of his office during the crucial months of October and November to call for an immediate and comprehensive cessation of hostilities and accountability for all who have violated the laws of war or international humanitarian law, he instead chose to advocate for a vaguely-defined “humanitarian ceasefire”.

    For Guterres, the Gaza Crisis constitutes a low point in an already unremarkable and frankly mediocre tenure. There’s a reason morale at the UN is disintegrating.

    One does not require the benefit of hindsight to conclude that Guterres would have done better to align himself with the overwhelming majority of UN member states, who on 12 December, in numerous speeches from the floor, once again spoke out against the horrors of this war and called for it to end forthwith.

    Mouin Rabbani is Co-Editor, Jadaliyya www.jadaliyya.com

    IPS UN Bureau


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

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