Africa

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - July 19, 2018: HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President, Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Defence (3rd R), and HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces (L) receive HE Xi Jinping, President of China (2nd L), at the Presidential Airport. Seen with Peng Liyuan, First Lady of China (R).( Hamad Al Kaabi / Crown Prince Court - Abu Dhabi ) ---

By WAM
ABU DHABI, Jul 19 2018 (WAM)

President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China arrived here on Thursday for a three-day state visit to the UAE accompanied by First Lady Peng Liyuan.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, received the distinguished guest and his accompanying delegation at the Presidential Flight.

 

WAM/Rola Alghoul/MOHD AAMIR

The post Chinese President arrives in UAE appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Hardeep S. Puri, India’s Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs, in his address to the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

By Hardeep S. Puri
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2018 (IPS)

It is with great pleasure and pride that I interact with you this afternoon as India’s Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, to share some thoughts on India’s extremely ambitious, and arguably the world’s largest planned urbanization programme under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

Hardeep S. Puri

In 1947, when we became an independent country, 17% of our population lived in urban areas. This 17% was on a population base of 350 million or so. At present, over 30% of our population, on a base of 1.2 billion, lives in urban centres.

By 2030, when we complete work of the 2030 Development Agenda, nearly 600 million Indians, or 40% of our population, will reside in urban spaces. To lay further emphasis on India’s urban prospects – from now till 2030, India has to build 700 to 900 million square meters of urban space every year.

In other words, India will have to build a new Chicago every year from now till 2030 to meet its urban demand. More importantly, the new urban infrastructure India builds for 2030, 70% of which still needs to be constructed, will have to be green and resilient.

India has been in the vanguard of the sustainable development agenda even prior to 2015. By promoting cooperative federalism, ensuring integrated planning through convergence, and focusing on an outcome-based approach compared to a project-based approach, we have embarked upon the most ambitious and comprehensive programme of planned urbanisation ever undertaken in the world.

With these principles as the backbone, India is implementing some of the world’s largest and most ambitious national schemes for social inclusion, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, through silo-breaking approaches.

In the words of Prime Minister Modi at the UN summit for post-2015 development agenda, “Just as our vision behind Agenda 2030 is lofty, our goals are comprehensive. It gives priority to the problems that have endured through the past decades. And, it reflects our evolving understanding of the social, economic and environmental linkages that define our lives”.

India has consistently achieved a growth rate of over 7% year on year through bold economic reforms, and has strong prospects for an even higher growth rate in the near future. Given our size and scale, India is fast becoming a pillar of global growth and stability.

SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

As President of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat, it gives me great pleasure to note international efforts towards inclusive, resilient, and sustainable human settlements and SDG 11 have been greatly strengthened in the last few years by the New Urban Agenda signed at Habitat III, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Quito Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements.

Today, more than 90% of the global urban growth is occurring in the developing world. India, China, and Nigeria together will account for 35 % of the growth in the world’s urban population between 2018 and 2050. It would not be an overstatement to say that India’s urban agenda will constitute one of the defining projects of the 21st century.

Urban areas in India face multi-pronged challenges. We remain confronted by a complex ecosystem of urban challenges through and in ensuring housing for all, technology based solutions to enhance service delivery, better mobility and greener transport, smart governance, and in doing more with less.

Mahatma Gandhi had famously said, “Freedom from insanitary practices is even more important than political freedom”.

As a tribute to the father of the nation, India launched the largest sanitation and hygiene program in the world – the Swachh Bharat Mission, with the objective of make India open defecation free and achieve scientific waste management by October 2nd 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma, well ahead of the deadline for SDG 6.

The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP) seek to provide urban and rural areas with universal drinking water supply and sewage treatment respectively. Both these missions have been making steady progress and are on track to achieve their goals.

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or the Prime Minister’s scheme on Affordable Housing for All is the world’s largest housing programme for the poor. The government aims to build 11 million affordable homes for urban Indians by the year 2022.

We have already sanctioned over 5 million and are confident of meeting the targets by middle of 2019. Giving a fillip to gender empowerment, the title of each home under the Mission is under the lady of the house, or co-jointly.

The mission also encompasses a Technology Sub-Mission to facilitate adoption of green, disaster resistant building materials and construction techniques for ensuring faster and cost- effective construction.

This not only addresses SDG 11 directly but also aims to effectuate, SDG 1 by ending spatial poverty of homeless people; SDG 3 by giving access to all-weather protected living environment; SDG 7 through increased usage of sustainable, affordable construction practices; and SDG 10 by reducing inequalities of access to basic minimum standard of living.

India is in the process of creating 100 Smart Cities to strengthen urban infrastructure by applying smart solutions and giving a decent quality of life to citizens. Improving the urban governance reforms through creation of Integrated Command and Control Centre has made city management efficient and effective resulting in savings of city revenues.

This has made a significant impact on India’s promise to create inclusive and sustainable cities under the SDG 11 by building institutional capabilities through efficient administrative processes and strengthening grassroots democracy.

Smart Cities Mission also focuses on SDG 12 by reducing the pressure on resources through promotion of sustainable consumption and production pattern which again is promoted by sustainable practices being adopted by cities in reducing the carbon footprint, leveraging vertical expansion and reducing the overall burden on infrastructural resources by switching to cleaner substitutes.

India has ensured that all its international commitments are mirrored in the national development goals. With India striving to meet its national socio-economic development targets, achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 169 targets linked to them will be a major success story of the millennium affecting more than a billion persons all at once.

India’s national development goals and its “Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas” or “development with all, and for all,” policy initiatives for inclusive development converge well with the SDGs, and India will play a leading role in determining the success of the SDGs, globally.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted, “The sustainable development of one-sixth of humanity will be of great consequence to the world and our beautiful planet.” India stands truly committed to achieving an equitable and sustainable future for all its citizens, and in working with the global community to achieve the SDGs together.

The post India Fast Becoming a Pillar of Global Growth & Stability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Hardeep S. Puri, India’s Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs, in his address to the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

The post India Fast Becoming a Pillar of Global Growth & Stability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kenya's Gor Mahia score a big win over their regional rivals in the Confederation Cup as Enyimba go to the top of their pool and Hilal are held at home.

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IOM team discusses improving poor living conditions with displaced Ethiopians. Photo: Olivia Headon IOM

By International Organization for Migration
Addis Ababa, Jul 18 2018 (IOM)

Clashes between communities on the border of Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and Oromia regions have forced some 970,000 people to flee their homes since April 2018, most becoming displaced in June alone.

Rapid woreda (district) level assessments conducted by IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) teams have found that 822,187 people are displaced in Gedeo zone (SNNPR region) and at least 147,040 people in West Guji (Oromia region). Due to ongoing security concerns and access problems, IOM’s DTM teams could only assess internal displacement in four of the six woredas in West Guji where people are displaced.

In both zones, most of the displaced population are staying with local communities (Gedeo: 514,446; West Guji: 84,681), while the remainder are sheltering in collective sites (Gedeo: 307,741; West Guji: 62,359) such as schools, government properties, spontaneous sites and disused or unfinished buildings.

The buildings in the collective sites generally are not fit for human habitation and are extremely overcrowded – forcing many people to sleep outside on dirt, rarely with anything but a single sheet of tarpaulin shielding them from the rain.

Mujib is sheltering in a small four by five metre area of dirt ground that he shares with 26 other displaced people, many of whom are his former neighbours. “This place is very cold. We don’t have enough food, and our children are not getting proper nutrition,” said Mujib. Part of the 26 is Mujib’s family of eight, including his mother, brothers, wife and two-year-old daughter. “I do not know what the impact of all this is going to be on the lives of our children. This is hard to imagine right now,” he added.

The assessments identified 80 collective sites and 103 host community locations in Gedeo and 21 collective sites and 60 host community locations in West Guji. Food was reported as the primary need in both zones. This is in addition to major shelter needs, as well as concerns over access to safe sanitation. A more detailed assessment of displacement sites in both zones is currently underway, which will produce more qualitative data in terms of how many people are displaced and their needs.

IOM’s country-wide DTM Round 11, conducted in May and June 2018, identified 1,776,685 internally displaced persons in Ethiopia, of which 1,204,577 are displaced due to conflict and 536,321 due to climate change.

Since June, IOM has been scaling up its response in Gedeo and West Guji. Over the last two weeks, in addition to assessments, IOM has constructed over 190 latrines of a planned 263, four communal shelters of a planned 40, two communal kitchens, as well hosted workshops with the government on site management.

For more information, please contact Olivia Headon in Ethiopia, Tel: +251902484062, Email: oheadon@iom.int

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This year's African Champions League winners will be given direct entry into the group phase of the next edition, as Caf aims to alleviate fixture-congestion.

Former Togo and Zimbabwe coach Tom Saintfiet is appointed as Gambia's new coach, the country's football federation reveals in a statement.

Spanish rescuers say Italy and Libya's coastguard "abandoned" a woman and child found dead at sea.

PHOTO: PETER ANDREWS/REUTERS

By Saleemul Huq
Jul 18 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

In the run-up to the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in its 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in December 2015, one of the most politically contentious issues was whether the limit of the long-term global temperature rise should be kept at 2 degrees centigrade or changed to 1.5 degrees.

Bangladesh, as part of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group of Negotiators under the leadership of Angola, and also the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) under the leadership of President Aquino of the Philippines, was very active in advocating for a change to 1.5 degrees. However, there was strong initial resistance from the developed countries as well as large developing countries such as China and India, and also the oil-exporting countries led by Saudi Arabia. The specific technical argument they used was the need for more scientific studies and wanted the topic passed on to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to produce a special report which would take several years.

However, by the end of COP21, we were able to convince all the countries to include 1.5 degrees as an aspirational goal with the main goal being “well below 2 degrees” in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This was a major victory for the vulnerable developing countries including Bangladesh.

In the meantime, the IPCC did indeed go ahead with the preparation of the Special Report on 1.5 degrees over the last few years, and a draft final report has been prepared which is expected to be finalised for dissemination in October at the IPCC Plenary.

However, the draft final report has been leaked and is already available, even though it is yet to be finalised and endorsed by the IPCC. Based on this leaked report, I am going to share some key messages which are unlikely to change in the final official version in October.

The first finding is the difference in global impacts for 2 degrees versus 1.5 degrees. They have shown that the additional cost of climate change impacts will be over USD 10 trillion globally over the next few decades, and that these adverse impacts will be worst in certain locations and groups. The greatest hotspots are West Africa and South Asia, and within the latter category, coastal Bangladesh will be a major hotspot that will lead to tens of millions of people being forced to migrate.

The second assessment made by the IPCC is how feasible the goal of staying below 1.5 degrees is. The answer is that it is still possible to do so but it will require the current efforts to reduce emissions to not just be doubled but redoubled. This particular result will be a key issue in COP24 to be held in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, where the issue of raising ambition and measuring, verifying and measuring progress is expected to be agreed on.

The third and final topic which is addressed in the report is the emerging realisation globally that not only is zero emission going to be possible, but it may in fact be very profitable for companies engaged in providing sustainable energy solutions to replace fossil fuels-based energy.

Hence, more and more countries are planning to bring forward their respective goals of reaching zero emission which is what is needed to stay below 1.5 degrees.

In conclusion, the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees, which we expect to be finalised and released in October, is likely to feed into COP24 in December in Poland. Hence, Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries have to ensure maximum pressure on all countries to raise their levels of ambition in order to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees.

Saleemul Huq is Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).
Email: saleem.icccad@iub.edu.bd

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Limiting Global Temperature Rise to 1.5 Degrees appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Tamas Gaidosch, a senior financial sector expert in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, is a cybersecurity professional with more than 20 years’ experience, including probing banking systems to find cyber weaknesses. He formerly led the Information Technology Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Hungary.

By Tamas Gaidosch
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 18 2018 (IPS)

Cybercrime is now a mature industry operating on principles much like those of legitimate businesses in pursuit of profit. Combating the proliferation of cybercrime means disrupting a business model that employs easy-to-use tools to generate high profits with low risk.

Long gone are the legendary lone-wolf hackers of the late 1980s, when showing off level 99 computer wizard skills was the main reason to get into other people’s computers.

The shift to profit making, starting in the 1990s, has gradually taken over the hacking scene to create today’s cybercrime industry, with all the attributes of normal businesses, including markets, exchanges, specialist operators, outsourcing service providers, integrated supply chains, and so on.

Several nation-states have used the same technology to develop highly effective cyber weaponry for intelligence gathering, industrial espionage, and disrupting adversaries’ vulnerable infrastructures.

Cybercrime has proliferated even though the supply of highly skilled specialists has not kept pace with the increasing technical sophistication needed to pull off profitable hacks with impunity. Advanced tooling and automation have filled the gap.

Hacking tools have evolved spectacularly over the past two decades. In the 1990s, so-called penetration testing to find vulnerabilities in a computer system was all the rage in the profession.

Most tools available at that time were simple, often custom built, and using them required considerable knowledge in programming, networking protocols, operating system internals, and various other deeply technical subjects. As a result, only a few professionals could find exploitable weaknesses and take advantage of them.

As tools got better and easier to use, less skilled, but motivated, young people—mockingly called “script kiddies”—started to use them with relative success. Today, to launch a phishing operation—that is, the fraudulent practice of sending email that appears to be from a reputable sender to trick people into revealing confidential information—requires only a basic understanding of the concepts, willingness, and some cash. Hacking has become easy to do (see chart).

Cyber risk is notoriously difficult to quantify. Loss data are scarce and unreliable, in part because there is little incentive to report cyber losses, especially if the incident does not make headlines or there is no cyber insurance coverage. The rapidly evolving nature of the threats makes historical data less relevant in predicting future losses.

Scenario-based modeling, working out the costs of a well-defined incident affecting certain economies, produces estimates in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. Lloyd’s of London estimates losses of $53.05 billion for a cloud service outage lasting 2½ to 3 days affecting the advanced economies.

An IMF modeling exercise put the base-case average aggregated annual loss at $97 billion, with the worst-case scenario in the range of $250 billion.

Crime in the physical world—with the intent of making money—is generally motivated simply by profit potentially much higher than for legal business, which criminals view as compensation for the high risk.

In the world of cybercrime, similar or even higher profits are possible with much less risk: less chance of being caught and successfully prosecuted and almost no risk of being shot at. Phishing profitability is estimated in the high hundreds or even over a thousand percentage points.

We can only speculate on the profits made possible by intellectual property theft carried out by the most sophisticated cyber threat actors. The basics, however, are similar: effective tooling and an exceptional risk/reward ratio make a compelling case and ultimately explain the sharp increase in and industrialization of cybercrime.

Cybercrime gives rise to systemic risk in several industries. While different industries are affected differently, the most exposed is probably the financial sector. A relatively new threat is posed by destruction-motivated attackers.

When seeking to destabilize the financial system, they look at the most promising targets. Financial market infrastructure is the most vulnerable because of its pivotal role in global financial markets.

Given the financial sector’s dependence on a relatively small set of technical systems, knock-on effects from defaults or delays due to successful attacks can be widespread, with potentially systemic effects.

And given the inherent interconnection of financial sector participants, a successful disruption to the payment, clearing, or settlement systems—or stealing confidential information—would result in widespread spillovers and threaten financial stability.

Fortunately, to date, we have not experienced a cyberattack with systemic consequences. However, policymakers and financial regulators are increasingly wary, given recent incidents that took out ATM networks and attacks against online banking systems, central banks, and payment systems.

The financial sector has been dependent on information technology for decades and has a history of maintaining strong IT control environments mandated by regulation. While the financial sector may be most at risk of cyberattack, such attacks also carry a higher risk for cyber criminals, in part because of greater attention from law enforcement (just like old-fashioned bank robberies).

The financial sector also does a better job of supporting law enforcement—for example, by keeping extensive records that are valuable in forensic investigations. Deeper budgets can often lead to effective cybersecurity solutions. (A recent notable exception is Equifax, whose hack was arguably a consequence of a cyber regulatory regime that was not proportional to its risk.)

The situation is different in health care. Except in the wealthiest nations, the health care sector typically does not have the resources necessary for effective cyber defense. This is evident, for example, in ransomware attacks this year that targeted computer systems at the electronic health record company Allscripts and two regional hospitals in the United States.

Although also heavily regulated and under strict data protection rules, health care has not relied nearly as much on IT as the financial sector has, and consequently has not developed a similar culture of strict IT controls. This too makes the health care sector more susceptible to cyber breaches.

What is most worrisome about this weakness is that, unlike in the financial sector, lives can be lost if, for example, attackers hit computerized life-support systems.

Utilities, especially the power and communication grids, are often cited as the next sectors where large-scale cyberattacks can have severe consequences. In this case, however, the main concern is disruption or infiltration of systems by rival states, either directly or through proxy organizations.

As famously exemplified by the massive 2007 attack against Estonia’s Internet infrastructure—which took down online financial services, media, and government agencies—the more advanced and Internet-based an economy, the more devastating cyberattacks can be. Estonia is among the most digitalized societies in the world.

If critical infrastructure—say, a power grid—or telecommunication and transportation networks are affected, or an attack prevents governments from collecting taxes or providing critical services, major disruptions with systemic economic implications could ensue and potentially pose a public health or security hazard.

In such instances, the aggregate risk to the global economy could exceed the sum of individuals’ risks, because of the global nature of IT networks and platforms, the national nature of response structures, ineffective international cooperation, or even the presence of nation-states among the attackers.

International cooperation in combating and prosecuting cybercrime lags well behind the global nature of the threat. The best way to tackle cybercrime is to attack its business model, which relies on the exceptional risk/reward ratio associated with ineffective prosecution. In this context, the business risk of cybercrime must be raised significantly, but this is possible only with better international cooperation.

Cybercrime operations can span several jurisdictions, which makes them harder to take down and prosecute. Some jurisdictions are slow, ineffective, or simply uncooperative in tackling cybercrime. Stronger cooperation would make tracking down suspects and charging them faster and more effective.

In the financial sector, regulators have developed specific assessment standards, set enforceable expectations and benchmarks, and encouraged information sharing and collaboration among firms and regulators. Bank regulators conduct IT examinations that factor cybersecurity preparedness into stress testing, resolution planning, and safety and soundness supervision.

Some require simulated cyberattacks designed specifically for each firm, drawing on government and private sector intelligence and expertise, to determine resilience against an attack. Companies have also increased investment in cybersecurity and are incorporating cybersecurity preparedness into risk management. In addition, some have sought to transfer some risk via cyber insurance.

The current cybersecurity landscape remains disparate and decentralized, with risks handled mainly as local idiosyncratic problems. There are some cooperation mechanisms, and governments and regulators are stepping up their efforts, but the choice of cybersecurity is largely determined by corporate need—“each to its own.”

This must change to bring about generally enhanced cyber risk resilience. Strong preventive measures are needed both at the regulatory and technology levels and across industries.

Among the most important of these is adherence to minimum cybersecurity standards, enforced in a coordinated way by regulators. Stepped-up cybersecurity awareness training will help defend against the basic technical weaknesses and user errors that are the source of most breaches.

Cyberattacks and cybersecurity breaches seem inevitable, so we also need to focus on how fast we detect breaches, how effectively we respond, and how soon we get operations back on track.

The link to the original article follows: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/06/global-cybercrime-industry-and-financial-sector/gaidosch.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The post The Industrialization of Cybercrime appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Tamas Gaidosch, a senior financial sector expert in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, is a cybersecurity professional with more than 20 years’ experience, including probing banking systems to find cyber weaknesses. He formerly led the Information Technology Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Hungary.

The post The Industrialization of Cybercrime appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An Ethiopian passenger plane flies to Eritrea for the first time since a border war 20 years ago.

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Sri Lanka's media has been under pressure for most of the past decade and only gained some breathing space since the 2015 presidential election. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Jul 18 2018 (IPS)

Journalists and media activists have cautioned against Sri Lanka’s newfound press freedom as the country heads to the polls in 2020. Separate incidents of hate-speech against a Muslim minority—and the subsequent shutdown of social media platforms—and the harassment of reporters critical of the country’s opposition have led some to believe that the changes in media independence could reverse.

In the latest world press freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders, Sri Lanka is listed 131 out of 180 countries across the globe—a marginal improvement from its 2014 ranking of 165.

The unexpected 2015 electoral victory for current president Maithripala Sirisena, who championed greater press freedom during his campaign, was responsible for this island nation’s rise on the index.

But Shan Wijethunge, head of the Sri Lanka Press Institute, the island’s premier media training centre, is apprehensive as he takes stock of what has transpired over the last six months.

In February, the government lost the local government elections to a resurgent opposition led by ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which prompted opposition supporters to increase the tempo of their anti-government campaign. Many became critical of the New York Times (NYT) and its Sri Lanka journalists who reported that Rajapaksa had allegedly received funds from Chinese state companies. In a delicately balanced national political scenario, the reporters who worked on the story were accused of working for a pro-government agenda and their independence was questioned.

“The journalists were criticised and trolled rather than [there being] any challenge on the contents of the story, because what matters right now is setting the headlines,” Wijethunge told IPS.

Family and friends of the NYT journalists in Sri Lanka said that they were shocked at the personal level of the attacks and pointed out that there had been no requests for the story to be retracted.

“They just felt so vulnerable, as if things suddenly regressed by three years. It just shows how quickly things can get bad here,” said a colleague of the harassed journalists. He requested to remain anonymous due to the fear of being targeted.

It was only less than a decade ago when the Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was assassinated in 2009—just months before the country’s 26-year civil war ended. A year after Wickrematunge’s death, cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda disappeared.

However, there are signs that media freedom has improved on the island nation.

In 2016 when the respected regional magazine Himal Southasian came under increased bureaucratic pressure in Nepal, where it had been operating since 1996, the Sri Lankan capital Colombo became the obvious choice for relocation. In March, the magazine opened a new office in a Colombo suburb. Amnesty International also now has a regional office in the capital.

But many are concerned that if the upcoming 2020 presidential election proves to be a tight race, there will be heightened pressure on journalists to toe the line.

Not only that, the recent shut down of social media platforms across the country has left analysts concerned that freedom of speech in general could be targeted.

In March, parts of Sri Lanka’s Central Province experienced a wave of anti-Muslim riots that led to a weeklong shutdown of the social media platforms Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Viber. The government blamed the riots on hate speech against the minority Muslim community that was spread over the various platforms. After meeting with Facebook, which owns Whatsapp and Instagram, the government unblocked the platforms.

“It was a knee jerk reaction, but it is a reaction that is again possible in the future, especially when we are heading into elections,” Wijethunge said.

He feels that social media was targeted because that is where Sri Lankans tend be freest in airing their views and disseminating news.

Facebook data shows that there are between five to six million accounts of Sri Lankan origin, generating one billion posts on Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram each month. Even politicians like president Sirisena, ex-president Rajapaksa and his son Namal Rajapaksa have been using their Facebook and Twitter profiles as integral parts of campaigning and reaching out to their constituencies.

Sanjana Hattotuwa, a senior researcher with the think-tank Centre for Policy Alternatives, has extensively researched the impact social media has on voters. His research shows that for a quarter of the country’s eligible voters, those within the age bracket of 18 to 34, social media is the primary platform of political interaction.

“Misinformation and disinformation are clearly engineered to heighten their anxieties and anger,” he said, referring to fake news content.

Hattutowa’s research also shows that hate speech, trolling and fake news were quite visible on accounts and groups originating in Sri Lanka long before the March riots. He said these should have been tackled in a much more organised and professional manner with technology and human vetting playing an important role. He said he feared that old political games could be at play on these new forums.

“The growth of social media and the spread of internet access, in Sri Lanka, cannot be equated with a stronger democracy, and the growth of liberal government. The weaponisation of social media needs thus to be seen as the latest strategy of an older political game.”

With its growing popularity, Wijethunge feels social media is now the main vector for political news and sentiment.

Given that there is no effective countering of fake content and misinformation other than outright blocking, “it will be the testing ground where we will see all these freedoms gained in the last three and half years are really sustainable or just an illusion.” More so as the criticism of the government increases.

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By WAM
NEW YORK, Jul 18 2018 (WAM)

Ambassador Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, UAE’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, called for greater international cooperation to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, at an event hosted by the UAE on the sidelines of the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York.

The Ambassador stressed the importance of international partnerships and highlighted the work of the Global Councils on the Sustainable Development Goals, a UAE initiative that brings together decision-makers from government, academia, civil society, and the private sector to solve some of the world’s most pressing development challenges.

“The Global Councils are designed to create partnerships across sectors, develop innovative solutions, and leverage global best practices towards implementing the SDGs,” said Nusseibeh. “These Councils underscore the power of partnership and the great outcomes that can be achieved by working together toward common goals. Our hope is that the work of these Councils spur action to get the world on track to achieving the 2030 Agenda.”

The event was co-hosted by the World Bank Group and the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, and brought together a diverse group of participants including Member States, representatives of international organisations and stakeholders from academia and civil society. Members of the UAE’s delegation to the Forum, Dr. Radheya Yahya AlHashmi and Dr. Yasir Ahmed AlNaqbi from the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, as well as Meera Ahmad AlShaikh from Smart Dubai, also participated in the discussion moderated by Talal Al-Haj, the New York and UN Bureau Chief for Al-Arabiya News Channel.

During the discussion, Dr. Adnan Amin, Director-General of IRENA, highlighted that SDG7 on climate action needed to be closely aligned with the outcomes of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and noted that the Global Councils can contribute to fast-tracking progress both on the energy as well as on the climate goals. Additionally, Juwang Zhu from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, cited that in 2017, the UAE was recognised by the OECD as the world’s largest per capita donor in international aid and development – contributing 1.31 percent of its gross national income as Official Development Assistance. He also praised the UAE’s report on the implementation of the SDGs, calling it true “excellence in action” and thanked the UAE for their leadership.

Nine of the Global Councils were launched at the UAE’s flagship event, the World Government Summit in February 2018, and composition of the remaining eight Global Councils is being worked on currently. Each Council is responsible for a specific SDG and is chaired by a global leader, including current and former heads of state, ministers, and international organisations.

 

WAM/نيو/Nour Salman

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Huda Shaarawi launched a successful feminist revolution fighting for the rights of girls and women.