Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By External Source
Feb 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

“Working in Science, like any other career, is fit for women too… Just go for it, nobody can stop you”, Valérie Allain, Senior Fisheries Scientist at the Pacific Community (SPC).

The post Valérie Allain – Women in Science (2021) appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kisa Project Manager, Hadija Hassan, records the Tanzania-based GLAMI’s first radio program, about Personal Leadership, at the studio. Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

By Jessica Love
DENVER, Colorado, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

Last fall, a 45-year-old father of four named Moses turned on the radio at his home in Arusha, Tanzania. Searching for his favorite station, he heard the introduction to a program about girls that he would later describe as ‘ear-catching.’ He wanted to know what would come next.

He had stumbled upon “Safari ya Binti” (A Girl’s Journey), a pilot radio program created by GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative), a Tanzanian NGO that runs extracurricular mentoring programs for secondary school girls.

In a culture that too often reinforces the narrative that girls are weak, less important than boys, and that being confident and determined is rude, GLAMI is working to upend this narrative. Matching girls with university-educated Tanzanian female mentors, GLAMI shows their scholars they have the power to write their own futures – and then they teach the skills needed to do just that.

As a result, girls enrolled in these mentoring programs are more likely to graduate secondary school, attend university, and create positive change in their communities.

Safari ya Binti provided a way for mentors and scholars to connect when in-person sessions had been scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Airing weekly on Saturdays for four months, GLAMI mentors presented lessons that aligned with themes in their core curriculum, such as personal leadership, resilience, study skills, and community leadership.

The father of one son and three daughters, the radio programming was of deep interest to Moses. “The fact that a lot of girls drop out of school because of pregnancy, which is disappointing to us as parents, got me thinking that girls are weak and dependent, and that there is nothing they can do better than taking care of a family.”

Listening to Safari ya Binti, Moses heard inspiring female presenters and he heard girls asking smart questions. This was a program his entire family should hear, he decided, and so they all began to gather weekly to listen together.

Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

“I came to realize that girls are capable of doing what boys can do, there is no limit to what they can do. I noticed this by listening to the girl’s testimonies on the sessions,” he said.

He wasn’t the only one to experience this shift in attitude. GLAMI found that a number of other focus group respondents also experienced significant changes in the way they viewed their daughters, and in the way girls viewed themselves.

“I had doubts that women can be leaders but right now I am beginning to believe that girls are born leaders. I even begin to see that my wife is capable of making huge decisions for the family’s well-being,” shared Balongo, the father of a GLAMI scholar, who listened to the radio show.

Nengarivo, who is enrolled in GLAMI’s mentoring program, shared: “There were times after the school opened when I thought that the world was coming to an end. Coronavirus was a threat, and I had a lot of dreams that I wanted to achieve, but an outbreak of Corona made me lose a lot of hopes given the fact that [GLAMI] mentors were visiting us only twice a month, unlike the usual timetable.

But when Safari ya Binti came I was really motivated to start afresh and have my hopes again. …I consider myself a change maker and I believe that I am a leader, I am not afraid of taking any action to save my community.”

This year, United Nations’ World Radio Day celebrates evolution, innovation, and connection at a time when radio has presented perhaps one of the most important lifelines in recent memory. But for so many organizations, radio presented opportunity.

Radio inspired creative approaches like Safari ya Binti. Radio enabled organizations to stay connected to the communities they serve from a safe distance. And radio allowed the chance to reach wider audiences with messages that inspired, informed, and changed attitudes.

The only downside of radio? Lillian, the mother of one girl enrolled in GLAMI programming put it best:
“I just wish that everything that was discussed could be repeated so as the new listeners could learn everything.”

The link to a promotional video created for the program: https://youtu.be/z8yAyh3qlY0

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post In Tanzania, a Radio Programme for Girls Yields Unexpected Results appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The United Nations will commemorate World Radio Day on Feb. 13

 
Jessica Love is the Executive Director of AfricAid, which supports robust, locally-led mentorship initiatives that cultivate confidence, improve academic and health outcomes, and promote socially-responsible leadership skills. Learn more at AfricAid.org.

The post In Tanzania, a Radio Programme for Girls Yields Unexpected Results appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Member of Parliament Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn. Credit: Kate Chappell

By Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

It was a joyful, tearful celebration in the early morning hours of Dec. 30, 2020 for countless Argentinians when they heard the news: the senate had legalized terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Prior to this, activists have said that more than 3,000 women died of botched, illegal abortions since 1983. And across the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, this renewed sense of optimism was compounded after President Joe Biden rescinded what is known as the “global gag rule,” which essentially denied funding to international non-profit organizations that provided abortion counseling or referrals.

Now, women and campaigners across LAC are hopeful that these developments will spur lawmakers to consider decriminalizing abortion in their countries, sparing women their lives, economic well-being, dignity and access to a range of options to make the best choice for their reproductive and overall health.

The LAC region has some of the most restrictive legislation in the world.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a health policy and research organization based in New York, between 2010 and 2014, 6.5 million induced abortions were performed every year. In this region, 97% of women live in countries with restrictive abortion legislation, yet 46% of an estimated 14 million unintended pregnancies end in abortion. About 60% of those were considered to be “unsafe.”

When asked if there is a sense of hope that Argentina’s legislation will spur change in the rest of the region, Tonni Brodber, Representative UN Women, Multi Country Office Caribbean, says there are encouraging signs. “I hope so. Right now we are in the middle of a pandemic, people are struggling with recovery and trying to manage day-to-day life in a pandemic, but there is a lot of support for what has happened within the spaces of women’s organizations.” She added that it “is a difficult conversation, so it will be debated for a long time,” adding that human rights should be centred and stakeholders should focus on the lessons learned from Ireland and other countries, as well as on empathy and shared goals. She noted that Jamaica like all CARICOM countries is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 16 of which speaks to the right to reproductive freedom.

(CEDAW (article 16) guarantees women equal rights in deciding “freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.” CEDAW (article 10) also specifies that women’s right to education includes “access to specific educational information to help to ensure the health and well-being of families, including information and advice on family planning.”)

In Jamaica, where abortion is criminalized by a possible life sentence with or without hard labour (except to save a woman’s life or preserve her mental and physical well-being) Brodber says it is a hopeful sign that both male and female leaders are prioritizing the issue. “It can be motivational for a lot of persons who may feel that these issues are not prioritized.” Several MPs, including one male, have voiced support for repealing the legislation.

Jamaicans have been debating this issue for decades without resolution, and like Argentina and Ireland, faces strong opposition to any less restrictive legislation from the Church. This is similarly the case across the region.

Barbados, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines allow abortion to save a woman’s life as well as mental health and socio-economic well-being. Cuba, Guyana, Uruguay and Peurto Rico all allow abortion without restrictions. It is still not permitted for any reason in six countries, while nine others only allow it for the purpose of saving a woman’s life, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn is state minister in the ministry of Health and Wellness for the majority Jamaica Labour Party. In 2018, she tabled a motion to repeal the legislation that criminalizes termination. It has been debated at the committee level, but the motion died on the order paper with the dissolution of parliament last September for an election. Cuthbert-Flynn says she is working at the policy level to advance the issue again. In the meantime, women are still suffering, she says. “These are the women showing up with complications from a botched abortion,” she says. “I think us as parliamentarians need to understand our role and debate laws even if it is going to cause controversy.”

Natalie Campbell Rodriques, a Senator for the majority Jamaica Labour Party, concurs.

“Personally, my own views are that this is something we should bring to the table to the debate, especially for women, our bodies being policed is not something that sits well with me,” she says.

Unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality in Jamaica, and according to estimates, anywhere from 6,000 to 22,000 women a year terminate a pregnancy. While it appears nobody has received any jail time, at least one doctor has been arrested for performing a termination on a 12-year-old girl.

While the UNFPA does not promote abortion, it seeks to decriminalize it, prioritize family planning efforts, and to handle the consequences of unsafe abortions, efforts that are all centred on a common understanding of human rights that has been enshrined in several treaties and agreements.

“I think we have to be honest this is not a straight cut and dry issue,” says the UNFPA’s Brodber. “It is a difficult conversation, so it will be debated for a long time. We are still not prioritizing yet the same common understanding of human rights and women’s rights in particular,” she says, adding that Jamaica is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, which highlights the right to reproductive freedom.

The implications of the restrictive legislations have many consequences, from the stigmatization of the women who terminate their pregnancies, to the financial and emotional costs, to the potential health risks. The legislation also disproportionately affects poor and rural women, who do not have the same access as their wealthy counterparts in urban areas.

Over the past several years, a Jamaican activist has been collecting stories from women who have had an abortion. One of these women describes having two abortions, one in 2015 and one in 2107.

“I went the bandoloo way and as expected I almost died… The pain I felt that night I could have push my head through a grill and not feel it. That was the worst night of my life,” the woman writes.

These are the stories that bring the issue to life, beyond the numbers, and a report released on Feb. 4 makes clear the reality.

Leanne Levers, director of advocacy at the Caribbean Policy and Research Institute, which just released the European Union-funded report called “The Cost of Unequal Access to Safe Abortion in Jamaica,” says that the legislation has dire consequences: “People are having abortions regardless of the legality, and they are being done in a way that is unsafe and have serious health and social complications for women, children and wider society, which comes at an economic cost.”

CAPRI’s report made three major recommendations, including a secret conscience vote to decriminalize abortion and make it legal upon request; the access to abortion by minors without parental consent and publicly funded abortions.

The report, which aims to clear away the rhetoric and provide people with evidence-based research upon which to make decisions, also found there is a cost of US$1.4 million in lost economic output to care for women who have had unsafe abortions. One of Cuthbert-Flynn’s constituents died of a botched abortion, and she has pledged to continue to try to enact change.

“I am a parliamentarian, so first my role as a parliamentarian is to make laws and enact laws. That is my first job, and so if I am not willing to do that, and look at laws enacted in 1864, then I am not sure why I am there.”

For her part, Cuthbert Flynn feels hopeful that Argentina’s legislation can help to spark change, but she says people need to make their voices heard, especially in light of a very vocal lobby against decriminalization from groups representing Jamaica’s churches. She says she has had some threats on social media, but none to her person.

“I think civil society needs to come up and speak out, with the church speaking out. We are hearing more and more voices out there, but they need to do like Argentina. People really came out and rallied for this, and tried to make it happen. I was shocked with them and Ireland to see a society that was Catholic (change legislation). It took the people to really come out and galvanize.”

Women’s rights activist Nadeen Spence says that threats from the church to march in protest of abortion and vote out supportive politicians are irrelevant.

“I’m not even concerned with the church, I’m concerned with what I see as the laziness of our politicians.”

Elsewhere in the region, Dominican Republic shares the distinction with Jamaica of the most restrictive legislation in the world.

Abortion is completely illegal, and women who induce abortions can be jailed for up to two years, while medical providers face up to 20 years. Selene Soto, senior attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide, an NGO that focuses on human rights, says Argentina’s recent legislation “We think that in general, that has had an impact, because these issues are important, and they are still on agenda because of what happened in Argentina,” she says. Activists in the Dominican Republic are lobbying for, at the minimum, an inclusion of three exceptions in which the ban on abortion could be lifted: rape, the life of the mother is in danger and the fetus is not viable. “We think that a total ban or restriction is against human rights standards that have been very well established by several international mechanisms,” says Soto.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post Argentina’s Abortion Legislation Sparks Hope in Caribbean Region appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, Feb 11 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations, created in 1945 following the devastation caused by World War II, was mandated with one central mission: the maintenance of international peace and security.

But the 76-year-old Organization and its affiliated bodies – including the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council— take decisions mostly by open voting, and few, by secret ballot.

But the seriousness of the UN’s far-reaching mandate has been tempered by occasional moments of levity which have rocked the Glass House by the East River— with laughter.

The UN is a rich source of anecdotes—both real and apocryphal– in which the General Assembly (UNGA), the UN’s highest policy-making body, takes center stage, along with the Security Council (UNSC) as a political sidekick.

When UN ambassadors and delegates congregate in the cavernous General Assembly hall at voting time, they have one of three options: either vote for, against, or abstain.

The most intriguing, however, is a fourth option: to be suddenly struck with an urge to rush to the toilet. The frantic attempt to leave your seat vacant — and consequently be counted as “absent”– takes place whenever the issue is politically-sensitive.

When delegates are unable to vote with their conscience– don’t want to incur the wrath of mostly Western aid donors or are taken unawares with no specific instructions from their capitals– they flee their seats.

At a lunch for reporters in his town house bordering Park Avenue in Manhattan, (“this was once owned by Gucci, now owned by Fulci”), Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci, an Italian envoy with a sharp sense of humor, described the fourth option as the “toilet factor” in UN voting.

And he jokingly suggested that the only way to resolve the problem is to install portable toilets in the back of the General Assembly hall so that delegates can still cast their votes while contemplating on their toilet seats. But for obvious reasons, there were no takers.

The UN General Assembly in session. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Regrettably, the voting habits at the UN were not recorded when the world body commemorated the “International Year of Sanitation” in 2008, highlighting the fact that roughly 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to toilets or basic sanitation.

Not surprisingly, UN delegates were excluded from that collective head count because the Secretariat never ran out of toilets. But the joke lingered on.

In most instances, the various regional groups and coalitions—including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Group of 77, the Latin American and Caribbean States, the African Union (AU) and the Western European and Others (WEOG)— take decisions behind closed doors ahead of voting.

But even though the “herd mentality” continues in most UN voting, there are rare occasions of an unscheduled vote taking delegates by surprise.

In the 1970s and 80s, the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Belgrade in 1961, was one of the largest and most powerful political coalitions at the UN led by countries such as Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Zambia, Cuba and Sri Lanka.

As a general rule, all 116 countries vote in unison on General Assembly resolutions rarely breaking ranks.

A Sri Lankan ambassador once recounted a message transmitted from his Foreign Ministry in Colombo – primarily directed at newly-arrived delegates which read— “If you are faced with an unscheduled surprise vote, and do not have any instructions from the Foreign Ministry, look to the right to see how Yugoslavia is voting and look to the left to see how India is voting. If both ambassadors are seen bolting from their seats, just follow them to the toilet”.

But NAM was a political power house in the 1970s and 80s. Still, when Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene (JRJ) inherited the chairmanship in February 1978, he was skeptical of NAM which was known to be politically independent, with no strong links to either of the world’s two superpowers at that time, namely the US and the Soviet Union, who were engaged in a longstanding and bitter Cold War.

In an interview with an American news reporter, JRJ downgraded the political myth about “non-alignment” when he infamously declared there were only two “non-aligned countries” in the world: the US and the Soviet Union. All other countries, he argued, were politically aligned either with the US or the Soviets.

The quote was apparently off- the-record and not-for attribution, but the reporter couldn’t resist the temptation of running with it.

In September 1979, when JRJ handed over the chairmanship of NAM to Cuba at a summit meeting in Havana, the Western world and the mainstream media never accepted the fact that a strong pro-Soviet ally like Havana could ever be a “non-aligned” country.

As a result, right throughout Cuba’s chairmanship of NAM (1979-1983), the New York Times, perhaps as part of its editorial policy, never wavered describing NAM as a “so called Non-Aligned Movement” in every news story published in the paper. The “so called” label was dropped only when India took over the chairmanship of NAM in 1983.

When “non-alignment” was a political buzz word and NAM was in full swing, a UN diplomat once recounted the economic progress in Yugoslavia which had produced the Yugo, a small hatchback that arrived in United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

According to a report in the New York Times, the Yugo was said to be the first car from a Communist country to reach the American market. Equipped with front-wheel drive and a 55-horsepower engine, it sold at a base price of about $3,990, one of the cheapest in the market.

But when scores of cars kept breaking down in the streets of New York, the Yugo was dubbed “an unaligned car from a non-aligned country.” A political twist perhaps planted by the American automobile industry.

The only thing missing was a bumper sticker which should have read: “The parts falling off this car were made of the finest Yugoslav steel” (a parody of a quote once attributed to a motorist with his broken-down British-made car).

The book is available on Amazon. The link follows:

https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

  

The post Where do UN Diplomats Hide During Politically-Sensitive Voting? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

(Excerpts from a just-published book “No Comment – and Don’t Quote me on That”, a collection of political anecdotes reflecting over 40 years of reporting from the United Nations*)

The post Where do UN Diplomats Hide During Politically-Sensitive Voting? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A health worker at a local health centre in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, prepares a vaccine injection. The dispatch of millions of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa started in February. Credit: UNICEF/Sibylle Desjardins

By Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
GENEVA, Feb 11 2021 (IPS)

WHO and UNICEF have a long, deep and very special relationship. Neither of us could do what we do without the other.

UNICEF’s success is WHO’s success, and we are proud to be your partner on so many issues: Ebola, polio, maternal health, nutrition, infection prevention and control, primary health care – the list is long.

Never has our partnership been more important than it is now. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world in ways we could never have imagined when it started just over a year ago.

It’s sobering to think that on this day 12 months ago, more than 3000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported to WHO. Yesterday, 3000 cases were reported every 15 minutes. The pandemic has held a mirror up to our world. It has shown humanity at its best and worst.

It has exposed and exploited the fault lines, inequalities, injustices and contradictions of our world, within and between countries. The pandemic has also become a child emergency, with children bearing both its direct and indirect consequences.

Children may be at lower risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19, but they have suffered many of the most severe social and economic consequences, and will bear a large burden of the long-term fallout.

Many children have missed out on months of schooling, and have been exposed to a greater risk of violence. Girls are especially at risk in places where they may never go back to school, as they approach the age when they will go to work or be married.

Since the beginning, UNICEF has been, and will continue to be, an indispensable partner in ensuring that children are a primary consideration in the global response to COVID-19.

Together, we have engaged, empowered and communicated with communities about the risks of COVID-19 and how to stay safe; We have developed joint guidance for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in schools;

We’ve supported health workers with improved infection prevention and control, and we’ve supported them to deliver better care and psycho-social support for patients, their families and communities; We’ve procured and delivered essential supplies;

We’ve provided the joint analytics that are key to an effective pandemic response; We’ve supported countries to maintain essential health services, including in humanitarian settings;

And through the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and COVAX, we are poised for the largest vaccination campaign in history. Vaccines are the shot in the arm we all need, literally and metaphorically.

But we must also remember that vaccines will complement, not replace, the proven public health measures that countries around the world have used successfully to prevent and contain widespread transmission.

As governments, institutions and individuals, we all have a role to play in stopping this pandemic with the tools we have. The pandemic will subside, but the inequalities that preceded it will still be there.

There’s no vaccine for climate change, poverty or malnutrition. None of these challenges can be met by a single agency. Let me outline three areas in which the partnership between WHO and UNICEF, bilaterally and through the Global Action Plan on Health and Well-Being for All, must become even deeper and stronger as we work together to support countries to respond, recover and rebuild.

First, as we support countries to respond to the pandemic, we must ensure that all people and communities enjoy equitable access to life-saving vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics – rich and poor, urban and rural, citizen and refugee.

A year ago, we were defenceless against this virus. Now we can detect it with rapid diagnostic tests, we can treat it with dexamethasone and oxygen, and we can prevent it with vaccines. The urgency, ambition and resources with which vaccines have been developed must be matched by the same urgency, ambition and resources to distribute them fairly.

UNICEF has played a vital role in procuring vaccines and preparing countries to deploy them rapidly once they receive them. Together, we have supported 124 countries to perform readiness assessments for vaccination.

But we face significant challenges. More than 130 million doses of vaccine have now been deployed globally, but 75% of them have been in only ten countries that account for 60% of global GDP.

Meanwhile, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, have yet to administer a single dose. Many of these countries are also struggling to secure the resources for testing, personal protective equipment, oxygen, and medicines.

I have issued a call to action to ensure that by World Health Day on the 7th of April, vaccination of health workers is underway in all countries. UNICEF can play a key role in meeting that challenge. As a trusted advocate, you can use your voice and experience in communities to build acceptance of vaccines;

You can deploy your unparalleled logistics and supply capacities to deliver vaccines to the last mile; You can negotiate the best deals for the communities you serve; And you can mobilize your networks of National Committees to resource this historic effort to save lives and livelihoods.

Second, as we support countries to recover from the pandemic, we must support them to maintain essential health services, including routine immunization for children. The pandemic has shown that we can only meet the major crises of our time with a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach.

In the same way, the challenges of child development can only be met with a multi-sectoral approach that addresses their access to services, their mental health and well-being, their nutrition, their risk factors for developing NCDs later in life, their educational outcomes, their chances on employment, and their need to be protected from violence.

And third, as we support countries to rebuild from the pandemic, we must invest in primary health care. The pandemic has given us a brutal reminder of the importance of primary health care, as the eyes and ears of every health system, and the foundation of universal health coverage.

Ultimately, our fight is not against a single virus. Our fight is against the inequalities that leave children in some countries exposed to deadly diseases that are easily prevented in others; Our fight is against the inequalities that mean women and their babies die during childbirth in some countries because of complications that are easily prevented in others;

And our fight is to ensure that health is no longer a commodity or a luxury item, but a fundamental human right, and the foundation of the safer, fairer and more sustainable world we all want.

History will not judge us solely by how we ended the COVID-19 pandemic, but what we learned, what we changed, and the future we left our children.

*WHO Director-General in his opening remarks before the UNICEF Executive Board

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post COVID-19 Pandemic has Shown Humanity at its Best– & at its Worst appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is Director-General of the World Health Organization*

The post COVID-19 Pandemic has Shown Humanity at its Best– & at its Worst appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The rugged landscape of Tigray, Ethiopia’s most northern region, stretches away to the north and into Eritrea. The Tigray Region has been rocked by conflict since November 2020, when forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front clashed with federal soldiers over the autonomy of the region and the composition of the federal government. (File photo) Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 2021 (IPS)

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has called for unimpeded access to all parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, to locate an estimated 20,000 unaccounted for refugees and assess damage to its Hitsaats Camp which was looted and set alight in early January.

“3,000 of the refugees have been relocated or have been able to move themselves to camps in southern Tigray, but that leaves possibly as many as 20,000 completely unaccounted for and that’s the real problem. We don’t know where those people are,” Jeremy Taylor, NRC’s head of Advocacy, Media and Communications for East Africa and Yemen Region, told IPS. He added that according to satellite imagery, NRC believes that the camps were empty at the time of the looting and burning.

The NRC’s Shimelba and Hitsaats camps provided shelter and food for about 25,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers. The Tigray Region has been rocked by conflict since November 2020, when forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front clashed with federal soldiers over the autonomy of the region and the composition of the federal government. Recent satellite imagery received by the NRC shows the camp among buildings looted and burned between Jan. 5 and 8. A school and a health clinic were also damaged.

Operations at the NRC camps stopped in November, at the start of the conflict. The camps house education facilities including eight classrooms, child friendly spaces and Youth Education Pack Centre which provides instruction in literacy and life skills for children separated from their parents. The interruption in services to the displaced coincided with a blackout of the Tigray Region. Telecoms services were cut and roads were blocked.

The NRC has condemned the destruction of its buildings, stating that the “rampage of burning and looting by armed men deepens an already dire crisis for millions of people”. It has called on the government and donor nations to investigate the destruction and hold perpetrators to account.

Taylor said NRC employees fled to their villages and some later travelled to urban areas to send word about the dire situation in Tigray.

“For three months that region has been completely blocked off from the world. The reports that have trickled out speak to extensive violence, extensive conflict and extensive impact on civilians,” he said.

The NRC says three months since the start of the conflict, fighting and tough bureaucratic challenges are impending humanitarian access into Tigray and rendering independent verification of the fate of refugees and facilities impossible.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Feb. 6 that it had struck an access deal with the Abiy Ahmed government that would boost transportation capacity and ensure strengthened partnership with the authorities to deliver humanitarian assistance into Tigray.

“WFP has also agreed to provide emergency food relief assistance to up to 1 million people in Tigray and launch a blanket supplementary feeding intervention to assist up to 875,000 nutritionally vulnerable children and pregnant and lactating mothers,” the statement added.

In Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) says that for three months Ethiopia’s Tigray Region has been completely blocked off from the world. The reports that have trickled out speak to extensive violence, extensive conflict and extensive impact on civilians, the humanitarian agency says. (File photo) Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Acknowledging that the food and nutrition security situation is “especially challenging,” the WFP called for “strong partnership between the government and the entire humanitarian community” to quickly heighten response to the humanitarian needs. The NRC says, a good start would be unfettered access to the area for aid agencies.

“Some aid has got in, but it is a trickle of it. It has been patchwork and it has only reached certain parts of the Region – mostly main towns and main roads controlled by the government. It is not being sustained,” said Taylor.

The NRC has welcomed the WFP’s statement, but says while it is indicative of progress, some major challenges remain.

“Until we are able to access all parts of Tigray, until we are able to access the areas where the camps were we just will not be able to know what happened to them and we will not know the full extent of the damage to our facilities because satellite imagery can only show so much,” said Taylor.

The NRC says for Tigray, a response that aligns with the scale and breadth of the crisis has not started. Taylor says humanitarian aid work would require an assessment to people’s location and their needs. For now, the NRC is not able to do that.

“What is needed is complete access to all parts of the region to bring in supplies and people. The real issue here is what happened to the people and that is our main concern.”

Related Articles

• Q & A: Escalating Tensions in Ethiopia adds to Tenuous Refugee Setting

The post Give us Access to Tigray to Find Missing Refugees — NRC Pleas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Healthier food options are relatively expensive and unaffordable in low- and middle-income countries. This influences people to steer away from healthier options. . Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By External Source
Feb 10 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on people with obesity and noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes. The pandemic has underlined the importance of the food environment and healthy food intake. It has shown the urgent need for effective policies to make sure that everyone can get enough nutritious food – and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Africa, nearly 70% of diabetes cases are undiagnosed. Of these, 90% are type 2 diabetes cases. Obesity is a key risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Between 1975 and 2016, southern Africa saw the world’s highest proportional increase in child and adolescent obesity – an alarming 400% per decade.

Ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks contribute to rising rates of obesity and diet-related diseases. Unhealthy, processed foods are now frequently consumed in low- and middle-income countries. This is largely due to the low prices, food types, availability and marketing strategies employed by large corporations.

A shift in the food system is urgently required. Interventions to achieve this must include policies that promote healthier food choices. These include imposing taxes on food that is high in sugar, salt or saturated fat (unhealthy fat); regulating food labels; and restricting marketing of unhealthy products. Policies must also support people in making healthier food choices, for example through subsidies

Healthier food options are relatively expensive and unaffordable in low- and middle-income countries. This influences people to steer away from healthier options. Companies market these convenient, palatable, yet unhealthy foods aggressively, and aim their marketing at children. It’s not always possible to choose healthier products, especially in rural areas.

Supplying ultra-processed products is very profitable for the companies concerned. These products have low production input requirements, a high retail value and an extended shelf life. Often the responsibility for preventing noncommunicable disease is put on individuals. But the corporate food industry creates a food environment that gives rise to obesity.

COVID-19 has brought new urgency to the need to repair food systems that put profits before public health.

A recent report by the organisation Global Health Advocacy Incubator highlights how food and beverage corporations used the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to promote their ultra-processed foods to vulnerable populations around the world.

The report includes over 280 examples from 18 countries of the food industry undermining healthy food policy efforts. This was done through lobbying to classify (unhealthy) ultra-processed foodstuffs as “essential products” during the pandemic.

They also improved their brand image through providing financial and other support to needy communities, frontline workers, food banks, and small businesses while still marketing unhealthy products and pushing against healthy food policies.

A shift in the food systems is urgently required. Interventions to achieve this must include policies that promote healthier food choices. These include imposing taxes on food that is high in sugar, salt or saturated fat (unhealthy fat); regulating food labels; and restricting marketing of unhealthy products. Policies must also support people in making healthier food choices, for example through subsidies.

 

Healthy food policies to consider

Globally, there has been a push for healthy food policies to curb the obesity pandemic. African countries have been slow to adopt policies like these.

But South Africa introduced a Health Promotion Levy in 2018. It aims to give manufacturers an incentive to reduce the sugar content of drinks. It also seeks to discourage excessive consumption by increasing the price of these products. Mexico imposed a tax on sugar sweetened drinks in 2014.

This has resulted in a 6% reduction in purchases of sugary drinks and replacement with untaxed beverages (predominantly plain water) – specifically among lower income households who likely have poorer health outcomes.

The implementation of the tax is an acknowledgement that corporates have manufactured conditions that cultivate malconsumption resulting in poor nutrition and noncommunicable disease.

Governments should also introduce labelling that helps consumers to identify food with high quantities of salt, saturated fat or sugar. Chile introduced a set of linked policies, including warning labels and marketing controls. The result was that companies reformulated products to improve their health profiles.

But taxes and labelling interventions won’t be enough to stem the tide of obesity and noncommunicable diseases. Food policies must also make healthy food more accessible.

Subsidies can lower the price of healthy foods. This will help put healthy food within reach of poorer people. Prices can be changed through a combination of taxes on unhealthy products and subsidies on healthier alternatives.

In Finland, a subsidy of milk protein rather than milk fat resulted in more consumption of low fat milk and a reduction of cardiovascular diseases over time. A fruit and vegetable subsidy in the US Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children led to increased – and sustained – fruit and vegetable intake.

 

The way forward

The best policies are those that create positive changes in the food, social and information environments. A policy cannot be adopted in isolation; for the biggest impact they need to be part of a set of mutually reinforcing and supporting actions. Chile is one country that has taken steps like this to create an enabling environment.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa should regulate the food industry better to protect against industry interference that harms the population. Policies that restrict marketing to children, provide clear labelling and tax unhealthy foodstuffs should be the start. The revenue raised from these taxes could be used to subsidise the cost of healthy foods.

Rina Swart, Professor, University of the Western Cape; Makoma Bopape, Lecturer in Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetic, University of Limpopo, and Tamryn Frank, Researcher, University of the Western Cape

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Food Systems Need to Change to Promote Healthy Choices and Combat Obesity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Feb 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

“As we enter 2021, education must be at the core of pandemic response and recovery efforts,” says António Gutteres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his interview with Education Cannot Wait (ECW) for this monthly issue, reminding us that “upholding our pledge to leave no one behind starts with education.”

Yasmine Sherif

Indeed, without making inclusive, quality education a priority in the COVID-19 response and recovery for those left furthest behind in armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters, we will see a continued exacerbation of inequalities and a deepened global learning crisis, all while ongoing forced displacement and migration lead to an unprecedented number of children and youth losing access to their inherent human right of an education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further impacted the marginalization of girls and boys in contexts already affected by crisis, while wealthier children in stable countries have more easily been able to sustain their learning using remote technologies. However, today, a staggering 2.2 billion children globally, or 2/3 of children and youth under the age of 25, do not have access to internet at home, preventing them from accessing online learning during school closures. Today, only 6% of children in low-income countries have access to internet at home compared to 87% in high income countries, while only 5% of children and young people in West and Central Africa have access to internet compared to 33% globally. These figures reveal the stark reality of the huge digital divide in a long-standing learning crisis.

As a result of COVID-19, the learning crisis is now plunging to new depths. During our ECW mission to Burkina Faso in January 2021, we stood face to face with the naked reality of this learning crisis: teachers without the technology and internet access needed, alongside internally displaced and refugee children and youth with no possibility to access remote learning. Their eyes hollow, their hope fading away.

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else,” Leonardo da Vinci once said. Education sits at the very heart of all Sustainable Development Goals. Without an inclusive quality education, the world will also drift further away from achieving gender equality, ending poverty, ensuring decent work and economic growth, and from achieving peace, justice and strong institutions – in both conflict- and crisis-affected countries that need it the most to build back better.

In 2016, well before COVID-19, over 600 million girls and boys, including adolescents, were estimated to not be reaching minimum proficiency levels in reading and math. Pre-COVID-19, an estimated 53% of girls and boys in low- and middle-income countries could not read proficiently by age 10. Today, these figures are growing as countries in crisis are falling into the dark abyss of abandonment by the international community – unless it makes bold and morally courageous moves to show unprecedented solidarity and humanity.

The intensification of armed conflicts and climate-induced disasters, forced displacement and migration will deprive millions of children and youth from accessing their right to a quality education. There were 18.8 million climate-related displacements in 2017. The combined and related effects of climate change and conflict are now causing unprecedented rates of displacement. Before COVID-19, refugee children were already twice as likely to be out of school than non-refugee children. Only 31% of refugee children were enrolled at the secondary level, and just 27% of girls.

“Without resolute political commitment by global leaders, as well as additional resources for Education Cannot Wait, and its UN and civil society partners, millions of girls and boys may never return to school. Investing in the education of these vulnerable children and youth is an investment in peace, prosperity and resilience for generations to come – and a priority for the United Nations,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told Education Cannot Wait in his interview for this newsletter.

Education Cannot Wait, and its UN and civil society partners are investing in their education and we do so together with host governments, local communities, strategic donors, UN and civil society partners and the private sector. In just four years since ECW’s creation, nearly 4 million children have received quality education in some of the most violent wars and most challenging refugee and forced displacement contexts, while another 10 million children benefited from our rapid response to provide remote learning as a result of COVID-19 in 2020.

However, with more funding many more crisis-affected children and youth can be reached. Our biggest challenge is the availability of funds to deliver on the ground through the well-established coordination structure of the United Nations that enables host-governments, local communities, UN agencies and civil society to efficiently mobilize and expand their operations.

It is precisely this coordination structure and collaborative togetherness that have enabled Education Cannot Wait to operate with humanitarian speed in delivering quality, inclusive education across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus through the ‘whole of child-approach’, while giving due consideration to crucial crisis-related factors, such as mental-health and psycho-social services, protection, reaching 60% girls in ECW joint programming and paying special attention to children with disabilities and other marginalized children and youth in emergencies and protracted crisis.

By working through the United Nations’ established coordination structure on both the humanitarian and development sides and bringing these together with our strategic donors, Education Cannot Wait’s investments are implemented through coordination, collaboration and joint programming, wherein each actor contributes with their added value to collective outcomes. In doing so, the New Way of Working is put in action and contributes to real learning outcomes, while reinforcing the Grand Bargain, as local communities are empowered along with national government ministries.

A catalyst and facilitator, the Education Cannot Wait Global Fund offers an example of a rapidly growing and results-driven UN entity (hosted by UNICEF), that has reduced bureaucracy to strengthen accountability in support of multilateral and national efforts under the UN umbrella, where all dots are connected – coming together in a powerful commitment for those left furthest behind.

When realizing that we are ‘stronger together,’ we also become worthy of bringing hope and delivering immediate and sustainable results – or, as the UN Secretary-General António Gutteres concludes his interview with Education Cannot Wait: “We can move from an ‘annus horribilis’ to make 2021 an ‘annus possibilitatis’ – a year of possibility and hope. We must make it happen – together.”

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post We Must Make It Happen – Together! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

The post We Must Make It Happen – Together! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

For a long time – and too long for the North Korean government – the issue of North Korea and its nuclear programme has been pushed into the background on the international stage. With the swearing-in of Joe Biden as president, however, it will be on the agenda sooner or later. Credit: UN photo

By Herbert Wulf
DUISBURG, Germany, Feb 10 2021 (IPS)

How long can Kim Jong-un wait patiently? After a euphoric start, the Trump administration ultimately proved to be a bitter disappointment for the North Korean regime.

During the meetings between Trump and Kim Jong-un, there was grandiose talk of an imminent deal to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula. In the negotiations that followed, it quickly became apparent that the two heads of state had simply brushed over the practical problems and fundamental differences of the American-North Korean rapprochement.

For at least two years since then, there has been radio silence. After four years of erratic policy, Pyongyang is waiting to see what the Biden government’s position will be on North Korea. But it cannot expect to receive a quick answer from Washington.

While Biden has years of foreign policy experience, his administration’s first priorities are domestic: dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, the devastating economic slump, deep social divisions, the fight against racism and the consequences of the Capitol riot on 6 January.

It is therefore not unlikely that North Korea – in a manner we’ve seen in the past – will provocatively launch missiles and test nuclear warheads, continue to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, spark conflict at the inner-Korean border and insult politicians in Seoul and Washington.

With such actions teetering at the brink, the North Korean government has often tried to attract international attention – with the aim of overcoming the economically damaging isolation of the country and easing the sanctions that have been imposed.

Three approaches to North Korea

For a long time – and too long for the North Korean government – the issue of North Korea and its nuclear programme has been pushed into the background on the international stage. With the swearing-in of Joe Biden as president, however, it will be on the agenda sooner or later.

Herbert Wulf

It is not yet clear how the new US administration will act. Observers are speculating about three different, in some cases mutually exclusive, approaches that the Biden administration could use to address the instability and danger posed by North Korea.

First, the denuclearization paradigm: its advocates argue that North Korea must make preliminary efforts – that is, scale back or at least freeze parts of its nuclear and missile programme – before negotiations can be conducted and sanctions can be eased or lifted.

In the long term, the goal is complete nuclear disarmament. Maintaining pressure and coercive measures, then, is absolutely necessary to persuade the North Korean government to adopt such a policy.

At the same time, this thinking also emphasises military cooperation with American allies South Korea and Japan. In the past, however, maximalist positions have not been able to divert North Korea from its course – not least because China and Russia in particular have only half-heartedly supported the isolation of North Korea.

In North Korea, unrest and impatience are on the rise. The Kim regime no longer wants to be treated as an international pariah.

The second approach provides for gradual nuclear disarmament with a simultaneous easing of economic sanctions. This paradigm reflects that the North Korean regime views its nuclear programme as life insurance and is unwilling to take preliminary steps in arms control or disarmament.

It acknowledges, but does not accept, that North Korea makes policy by means of nuclear weapons. At the heart of this second strategy are reciprocity and simultaneity. Measures would need to be taken to freeze certain nuclear facilities in North Korea while providing humanitarian or economic assistance from the US and other countries, as envisioned in the June 2018 meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore and the February 2019 meeting in Hanoi.

As we know, the second summit in Hanoi was broken off prematurely because of irreconcilable differences. But that does not mean that such a strategy is doomed to fail from the outset.

According to its proponents, a process that is gradually set in motion would be mutually beneficial and would initiate a process of détente step by step. If appropriate confidence-building measures take effect, the tricky situation in Korea could be resolved, as was the case between the East and West in Europe in the 1980s.

The third possible variant is based on maintaining strategic stability – being patient in the name of stability and not to tamper with existing conditions. To put it in a less positive way: ‘Wait and see while doing nothing.’

This was the policy followed by the Obama administration. At the same time, the US attempted to build up international pressure. However, during the eight years of Obama, North Korea succeeded in expanding and modernizing its missile and nuclear programme.

The risks of Biden’s ‘wait and see’ approach

It is not unlikely that the Biden government will again adopt this paradigm. As Vice President, Biden supported this North Korea policy. For the new administration, this would have the advantage of not having to decide on a new policy model – at least initially, as the policy of waiting and doing nothing has implicitly continued for the past two years.

No serious negotiations have since taken place. An additional advantage for Biden would be that he would not have to immediately act in all of the crucial political areas at the same time, and this would allow him to pursue his domestic political priorities.

The big disadvantage, however – as past experience shows – is that the North Korean government will presumably not stand by idly. In all likelihood, it will push forward its missile and nuclear programme with all available means. Relying on its own military means –nuclear weapons first and foremost – is a high priority for the regime.

In North Korea, unrest and impatience are on the rise. The Kim regime no longer wants to be treated as an international pariah. It has only now publicly acknowledged the need for economic reform.

Effective reforms will require an end to isolation and at least an easing of sanctions. Negotiating on an equal footing with Donald Trump was an important symbolic act for Kim Jong-un at the time. It was celebrated accordingly in Pyongyang, even if it ultimately did not lead to the desired change in foreign policy relations.

There is reason to fear that for now, North Korea will not be a top priority in Washington’s foreign policy, nor will negotiations that pursue a strategy of gradual disarmament and rapprochement. Meanwhile, Pyongyang may begin to lose patience. But further missile launches and nuclear tests would spoil the chances for a long-term North Korean policy for the US.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post Kim is Waiting for Joe — But for How Long? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Herbert Wulf was Director of the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), from its beginning in 1994 until 2001. He is currently a Senior Fellow at BICC and an Adjunct Senior Researcher at the Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg/Essen where he was previously a Deputy Director.

The post Kim is Waiting for Joe — But for How Long? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This year marks South Sudan's tenth independence anniversary (file photo). A new report by the International Crisis Group says that in order to ensure lasting peace the country needs wider power-sharing and decentralisation of government. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Feb 10 2021 (IPS)

The threat of a full-blown civil war in South Sudan remains unless the country’s leaders can broaden power sharing, warns a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) released almost year into the country’s formation of a government of national unity.

The report titled “Toward a Viable Future for South Sudan” formulates a stark conclusion. Almost a decade after its 2011 independence from Sudan, “South Sudan – the world’s newest country – needs a reset, if not a redo.”

“Our argument is that South Sudan is so fragile and faces so many challenges and is so diverse that we think the only way to govern South Sudan peacefully is through radical consensus as a form of power sharing and government,” Alan Boswell, ICG’s Senior Analyst for South Sudan and one of the authors of the report, told IPS.

The report urged South Sudanese elite, religious leaders and civil society to rethink the country’s system of governance and create a political system that would work for one of Africa’s most diverse nations with more than 60 different ethnic groups.

Upcoming elections, which could possibly be set for 2022, as well as the country’s “winner-take-all” political system which “ill suits a country that requires consensus among major blocs to avert cyclical power struggles,” could inflame tensions, said the report released today, Feb. 10.

“Incentives for post-election violence will be acute. South Sudan’s highly centralised power structure and political economy raises the election’s stakes, since there are limited consolation prizes especially if [President Salva] Kiir continues to flout the constitution by refusing to devolve oil revenues and removing powerful governors by decree,” the report said. South Sudan has the third-largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, which generates the majority of the government’s wealth.

South Sudan gained independent after Africa’s longest civil war, which lasted from 1956 to 1972 and then again from 1983 to independence. But two years later, in 2013, the nation descended into civil war after  Kiir fired his cabinet and accused his vice president, Riek Machar, of being behind a plot to oust him.

Majoritarian democracy proved itself to not be a successful model for South Sudan.

“We make the argument that although South Sudan has structured itself along with many other states around the world as a majoritarian democracy, where in theory they go to polls and whoever the majority picks rules. That in practice in South Sudan’s context is likely a recipe for many groups feeling shut out of power, and a recipe for the ongoing power struggles that have already killed 100,000s of South Sudanese,” Boswell said.

In September 2018, all sides signed the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), which included a power sharing agreement. The government of national unity was formed almost a year ago, at the end of February 2020, as part of the conditions of the agreement.

Boswell urged South Sudanese elites and the country’s external partners to support the country and “go back to the drawing board” and think “how they create the political system that works for them rather than copying political systems from other places that might not be as appropriate.”

Boswell said in order to prevent more conflict, the ICG called for pre- and post-election power sharing. “In order to prevent more conflict South Sudan really needs a very broad, inclusive power sharing before, during and after the vote. What you don’t want is a situation where the election is seen as a path by the one party to defeat another party,” Boswell said.

The report cited examples of rotational power sharing that could “encourage multi-ethnic alliances or mean losers of elections feel they have a shot at the presidency next time around,” the report stated.

For example, Nigeria — where through informal agreement the country rotates its presidency between the Muslim north and the Christian south; and Tanzania — where the presidency is rotated between a Muslim and Christian every decade.

Additional recommendations included, among others:

• Setting aside prominent positions in the national government for electoral runners-up as a way of guaranteeing them positions of influence to prevent them from taking up arms.
• Having regional leaders broker pre-election dialogue, to extract assurances from losing parties in order to lower the stakes as well as guaranteeing in advance another broad-based unity government.
• A system where power can be shared more equitably at the centre.
• Agree to designate the first vice president position, for the presidential runner-up, while allocating at least one other vice presidential position to the next most successful contestant.

More than four million South Sudanese have been displaced across the region and within their own country in one of Africa’s largest displacement crises (file photo). Credit: Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/IPS

Life for South Sudanese remains a harsh reality of food insecurity and continued conflict.

Last September, Yasmin Sooka Chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said in a statement that the implementation of key areas of the revitalised agreement had stalled. “While the COVID-19 pandemic can take some of the blame, the lack of progress poses a threat to the peace process,” she said, noting the the escalation in violence in Central Equatoria, Jonglei, Lakes, Unity, Western Bahr el-Ghazal, and Warrap States, and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.

“A breakdown in the ceasefire with armed groups in the Equatorias has fuelled the violence and already displaced thousands of South Sudanese civilians,” she said in a statement to the Human Rights Commission.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), “more than four million South Sudanese have been displaced across the region and within their own country in one of Africa’s largest displacement crises”. Of the four million displaced, UNHCR notes that there are almost 2,3 million refugees and asylum seekers, with the largest number in Uganda (over 890,000), followed closely by Sudan (736,700), followed by Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Last December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that almost half — 5.8 million — of the country’s 11 million people were acutely food insecure. “In 2020, communities were hit hard by the triple shock of intensified conflict and sub-national violence, a second consecutive year of major flooding, and the impacts of COVID-19. Some 1.6 million people remained internally displaced and another 2.2 million as refugees in the region,” OCHA said in its 2021 Humanitarian Needs Overview for South Sudan.

Meanwhile, the ICG report also noted that development partners, fatigued by years of conflict resolution had “no clear plan for finding peace, despite the substantial sums still devoted to humanitarian aid.”

There was also widespread cynicism among donors, Boswell said. “They have lost any vision of what a peaceful South Sudan could look like and how to help get it there,” he said.

He cautioned this was not very sustainable.

“If there is not a vision or a plan that both South Sudanese and both donors can look upon and push towards where the country is heading and what a peaceful situation looks like then we fear that donors would gradually, as they have been, pull more and more out of South Sudan and start doing the bare minimum of just keeping people alive,” Boswell said.

South Sudanese have lost a lot of hope in their country, because they have lost faith in their leaders after seeing them act in ways that are clearly selfish, Boswell said.

One example of this is the large-scale corruption within the country.

According to Transparency International, in 2012 Kiir accused at least 75 government and ex-government officials of embezzling $4 billion of public funds and in a public statement urged for the money to be returned. Only $60 million was reportedly returned to a bank account in Kenya.

Last September, during her statement to the Human Rights Commission, Sooka cautioned that “lives are being destroyed by financial corruption on an epic scale” in South Sudan.

She referred to a recent report to parliament by South Sudan’s National Revenue Authority that had shown “that approximately $300 million have been “lost” in the last three months alone”.

“At one end of the spectrum, South Sudan’s political elites are fighting for control of the country’s oil and mineral resources, in the process stealing their people’s future. At the other, the soldiers in this conflict over resources are offered the chance to abduct and rape women in lieu of salaries,” Sooka had said.

Despite the challenges faced by South Sudan, the country’s diversity remains a strength.

“Europe is not necessarily weaker, in fact a lot of people argue that they are in fact stronger, because of their diversity … So our point is that South Sudanese need to look at what they are constituent-wise and the elites — if they are serious about building their country and not just looting its resources — should think about how to forge a settlement that works for its parts,” Boswell told IPS.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• South Sudan – COVID-19 and Ongoing Violence has Catastrophic Impact on Civilians
• Sexual Violence Surging in South Sudan

The post To Prevent Another Civil War South Sudan Must Create a New, Unique Political System appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The work crunch due to COVID-19 has put pressure on labour rights, with workers having to do as their companies demand, or lose their jobs. Picture courtesy: Flickr.

By Aaditeshwar Seth
NEW DELHI, Feb 9 2021 (IPS)

As the Indian economy officially heads into a recession and news of layoffs and unemployment reaches us with increasing frequency, we at Gram Vaani turned to workers to hear their side of the story. Industrial sector workers, largely engaged in the automotive and garments factories in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt, spoke to us about the turn that their lives have taken due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Most of them—being migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh—were forced to return to their homes during the lockdown under distressing circumstances. Having remained out of work for several months, they ultimately had no choice but to come back.

The media reported companies sending chartered buses and paying for flight tickets to bring their workers back when the lockdown was eased. It briefly seemed that workers would finally be in a valued position, now that companies were honouring their worth.

However, increasingly, workers have reported that the opposite is happening, with exploitation and inequality getting institutionalised.

 

Post-lockdown working conditions look bleak

Of the 372 migrant workers we surveyed during October-November 2020, through our voice-based community media platform Saajha Manch, 60 percent reported that they were out of work. Of the remaining, 65 percent reported that they were getting only erratic work, for hardly three to four days in a week. Companies have no new orders, our volunteers told us, and are shutting down one branch after the next.

Due to this work crunch in both the automotive and the garments sectors, there is pressure on workers to do as the company says, else forsake their jobs. More than 50 percent workers reported that their workload has increased tremendously

Up until August 2020, it seemed that companies needed workers desperately to complete their pending orders. Not enough work is available now, and companies ask the workers to go on leave for a few days, then give another day of work. Anil, a worker who returned to Gurgaon from his village around this time says he has been walking from company to company, looking for work. “Just another few days,” he says, “If I don’t find anything then I will go back.”

Due to this work crunch in both the automotive and the garments sectors, there is pressure on workers to do as the company says, else forsake their jobs. More than 50 percent workers reported that their workload has increased tremendously.

Working hours have increased as well, but most workers in the automotive sector are only paid for overtime at the regular wage rate. Conditions in the garments sector are worse, where 37 percent of workers reported that they worked longer hours, but were only paid for their regular eight hours. “If you don’t like it then you can leave, is what the employers tell us,” they reported.

Employers are said to also use other means to hold workers back, such as withholding their pending wages, or threatening to block their Provident Fund (PF) withdrawals. Whether this is happening because companies are struggling to meet their bottom lines, or because they are using this opportunity to increase their margins, it is the workers who are suffering.

There has also been a strong shift to piece-rate work and of outsourcing to local fabricators. A seasoned worker, Harsh explained that companies prefer to outsource now (without bothering to do quality checks), as it helps them save on overheads, forsake giving Diwali bonuses to workers, and meet social security compliances.

Fabricators engage workers on a piece-rate basis and pay in cash. Workers prefer this these days, so that they can get immediate cash in hand and do not have to contribute part of their wages to mandatory social security systems such as the PF.

Piece-rates have also reduced. Earlier, workers were paid INR 10 per piece but now they are only paid INR 8. A worker from Bihar, currently in Ahmedabad, explained that they are not able to protest because they have no bargaining power—once they arrive in the cities they have to agree to whatever work they get because they have rent to pay.

 

Social security is elusive

Without enough income opportunities available back home either, many workers have wanted to withdraw funds from their PF. The government announced during the lockdown that workers could withdraw up to 75 percent of their PF, or three months of wages, whichever is lower, from their accounts.

By the end of August, a massive amount of INR 39,400 crores had been withdrawn, with 79 percent of the PF contributors having incomes below INR 15,000 per month. However, we found that this is really an underestimate. Of the workers we surveyed who were out of work, 53 percent wanted to withdraw their PF but failed, and another 30 percent either did not have PF or were not aware that they had an account.

Even among those who had managed to find some kind of work, 35 percent were unable to withdraw funds. The reasons in almost every case were to do with broken systems and procedures.

Mehtab told our community manager, Varun, that he had not been able to withdraw anything because the spelling of his name on the PF account did not match his name on his Aadhaar card. With Akbar, there was a mismatch in his date of joining.

Workers also told us that at times, the HR in many companies are also complicit, deliberately making mistakes and then charging a commission to fix them. Staff at the PF office are not cooperative either, people said. They are made to visit again and again while foregoing their wages, or are asked to fill forms online even though many workers are not tech savvy or literate enough.

Consequently, PF shops run by agents have proliferated to help workers navigate the system, but complaints of fraud are also regularly heard about them. Currently, PF has an unclaimed balance of INR 42,000 crores and an social audit is needed to explain this, given the difficulties that workers face in being able to claim their PF.

Saddled with these issues in not being able to access money which is theirs, most workers naturally perceive PF to be a burden, as reported in a 2016 study by Nagaparaju and Sharma from IIM Indore. Seventy percent of workers prefer receiving cash instead of contributing part of their salary to PF, it found.

They do not foresee themselves utilising these funds in their old-age, especially in the current circumstances. Many prefer to work on piece-rate where they can decline having to make PF contributions. This is not ideal, as acknowledged by Shanti, working in Tiruppur, since regular salaried employment, where wages come directly to their bank accounts, helps them build a good credit score to avail loans.

According to labour rights expert Professor KR Shyam Sundar, other than issues with providing reliable social security, India has not been strong on giving unemployment benefits to workers either. This continued with the announcement of an unemployment allowance for Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) holders. Like PF, ESI is a mandatory social security scheme that both employers and employees contribute to—primarily for health insurance benefits.

The allowance announced as part of the scheme is however riddled with unrealistic conditions that makes it almost non-applicable: The workers should have been in insurable employment since at least two years, and should have contributed for 78 days in the period preceding unemployment. The first condition immediately brings down the eligible poor.

The second condition of 78 days is meant to restrict the eligibility to workers who had been working since at least three months before they lost their jobs, but companies are known to avoid regularisation of workers as a workaround to the law by laying them off at a steady frequency.

 

No chances of redress

With so much stacked against them, are any redressal avenues available to workers? Justice delivery for labour has only worsened over the years, with a growing number of pending cases. Additionally, many workers told us that they do not consider the laws to be of any use to them, neither the old ones, nor the new labour code that was recently passed.

A worker from Uttar Pradesh, Rajesh, says, “Laws were around even earlier but didn’t work, we had to walk back home and we will have to walk back again.” Another worker Prashant adds, “It is difficult for us to put documents together and take leave to go to the labour court, we can’t use the laws.”

Even if workers do go to the labour court, Manish reports that due to under-staffing at the office, workers have to stand in long lines with severe overcrowding to get their work done. To bring law closer to the workers, better functioning workplace committees, worker participation in management, and helplines and violation reporting through simple technological systems like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is needed.

This is so that irrespective of whether anybody has a smartphone or internet access, they are able to get guidance on how to proceed without having to forego their wages in their search for justice.

 

So, is there any hope for labourers? 

Instead of trying to secure rights for workers, states such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh tried to suspend labour laws to spur recovery during the slowdown. Thankfully, more sense prevailed at the Supreme Court. But the new labour code, passed without any due deliberation, continues to be employer-sided and makes it harder for workers to seek redress and protest against injustice and exploitation.

The reason behind these changes in the labour code is not hard to understand. A neoliberal state strives to maintain a balance between keeping wages, working conditions, and social security at a bare minimum to avoid protest, but never high enough that it can give a strong bargaining power to workers and reduce the competitiveness for Indian companies in today’s globalised markets.

This has been apparent throughout the lockdown, where few benefits really reached workers. Social welfare such as the Public Distribution System (PDS) and cash transfers under schemes like PM-KISAN and Jan Dhan fell short as well. Fallback options, such as MGNREGA, that have the potential to retain migrant workers at their home locations and thereby strengthen the collective power of workers in the labour market, have been plagued with operational issues.

Serving as a basic floor wage, MGNREGA is known to have pushed higher wages for agricultural work in rural areas. Similarly, PDS is known to have led to a lowering of labour supply and consequently higher wages. In the current pandemic, a better functioning MGNREGA that paid higher wages could have led to a similar effect of securing higher wages in the cities by reducing the labour supply of migrant workers, but this has not come to pass. As a result, the workers had no option but to come back to work under even more exploitative conditions.

Consequently, the already frayed bonds between employers and workers are getting even weaker. The recent violence by workers at Wistron’s iPhone factory to protest against labour violations don’t come as a surprise. Workers are increasingly beginning to view their employers and contractors with suspicion, warning one another to take everything in writing, to first get their pending wages before agreeing to anything else, and share malpractice information with each other.

The need for workers to unite has been recognised by the workers too, with emerging solidarity between contract and permanent workers. But with the new laws being created to weaken the power of unions and collective action, it seems likely that we will see more spontaneous action by the workers to make themselves heard.

 

Aaditeshwar Seth is the co-founder of Gram Vaani

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

The post Labour Rights Have Worsened in India Post-Lockdown appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Amidst post-election violence in the Central African Republic (CAR), more than 200,000 people have fled for their own safety, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in January 2021. Conflict and violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) continue to be all too frequent across the country. Since 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to curb the consequences of these clashes. Credit: UNHCR/Ghislaine Nentobo

By Bruce Biber
BANGUI, Central African Republic, Feb 9 2021 (IPS)

Last October, an ICRC medical team helped a woman deliver a baby boy in the bush on their way to a health center we support in Grévaï, a small town in the north-central region of CAR. On her way to the market, by foot, the woman went into labour and only by chance did not have to go through it alone, surviving along with her baby.

That same year, my colleagues at the main hospital in Nana-Grébizi prefecture surrounding the town of Kaga-Bandoro helped a young couple deliver triplets – a moment of joy but also one that made the father cry, concerned about how to feed his family of now seven children. Our team at the hospital’s nutritional unit, where we help treat malnourished children, already knew they would see the three baby boys again before long.

Our doctor there also told me about premature babies who had to be revived several times during their first days before their health eventually stabilised.

These stories are just a glimpse into what people here face every day when it comes to accessing basic goods and services, such as food and health care. These things cannot be taken for granted. The local health workers at the Kaga-Bandoro hospital and the nearby health centers in Grévaï and Ouandago are doing the best they can with the limited resources they have.

But the needs remain enormous and working conditions remain difficult due to insecurity, making it hard to recruit and retain personnel, allowing impunity and criminality to reign and hampering development of proper infrastructure.

The crisis in CAR is a neglected one, receiving little attention despite the humanitarian consequences it has triggered since the outbreak of civil war around 2013. More than half of the country’s 4.9 million inhabitants live in desperate need, making it one of the worst, but most poorly known, humanitarian crises in the world. Sporadic violence is pervasive.

Security conditions are volatile. Armed groups maintain a presence throughout the country, and acts of criminality, such as armed burglaries, are reportedly widespread. Communal tensions – related to resource competition between farming and pastural communities, for instance – give rise to violence.

It has been two years since the signature of the latest peace agreement in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups. These groups control some 70 percent of the country. And as CAR struggles with post-electoral violence, conflict, insecurity, and criminality, the compounding impact of climate change and COVID-19 are making a bad situation even worse.

For weeks now, the country has been experiencing a new period of violence between a coalition of six armed groups who have launched an offensive to disrupt the presidential elections and take the capital Bangui. Before this latest violent outbreak, one in four Central Africans had been forced to flee their homes – living on the streets, struggling for survival in the bush, or sheltering in displacement and refugee camps.

Some of them had started returning home, but this violent outbreak has made that impossible, forcing even more people to flee. Many people have had to abandon everything and start over several times in the last few years. Over years of crisis, many of our Central African colleagues at the ICRC have also been displaced, lost their homes and loved ones, and carry memories that will never fade. I truly hope they don’t have to go through that again.

The widespread violence in CAR continues to have a serious impact on people’s lives. Citizens’ homes and livelihoods, such as crops and livestock, have been looted or destroyed. Access to safe drinking water is difficult in many places due to insecurity or lack of proper water infrastructure. A mother I met lost her baby because of unsafe drinking water – another loss that could have been prevented. Not least, sexual violence related to this insecurity is underreported, affecting mostly women and girls who work in the fields, go fishing, search for firewood, or fetch water for their families.

Violence in general is frequent, leaving generations with physical and mental scars. In Nana-Grébizi, our mental health team works with displaced children who have experienced violence as well as with survivors of sexual violence. They try to help them learn to live with their trauma that is almost impossible to forget.

CAR also remains one of the most dangerous countries for humanitarians, making it difficult to access certain areas and communities, due to widespread instability, crime, and the range of armed groups. The more actors, the more difficult it is to build structured dialogue and to obtain reliable security guarantees.

During the rainy season, some areas are also unreachable by road for months, and transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped in many places. During the ongoing clashes last year, the ICRC’s office in Bouar, in the Nana-Mambéré prefecture in western CAR, was raided, forcing us to drastically reduce our activities in the region until security in the town could be restored. Such attacks only punish the local communities, depriving them of desperately needed help.

In the wake of the peace agreement, violence briefly declined in the country. However, since September 2019, this trend has reversed, with recent clashes only making it worse. For sustainable results, authorities and their partners should address insecurity and impunity in the long run.

Insecurity is a scourge that prevents Central Africans from helping themselves and moving forward with their lives. It hampers the ability of the ICRC and other organisations to assist in these efforts.

To curb the worst of the violence, and in support to the Central African authorities, the ICRC continues to engage with the Central African armed and security forces, armed groups, and international forces to raise awareness of their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.

The ICRC is also stepping up its support of the Kaga-Bandoro hospital and nearby health centers in Nana-Grébizi, alongside partners from CAR’s Ministry of Health and the World Bank. This complementarity between political, humanitarian, and development actors is key for the country to move towards peace, prosperity, and dignity. The people of CAR have paid the price of this crisis for too long.

This article is part of the “Forgotten Conflicts” series by the International Committee of the Red Cross in partnership with AIIA, highlighting the serious and often overlooked humanitarian consequences of armed conflicts and other situations of violence.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post Forgotten Conflicts 2021: When Will the Crisis in the Central African Republic End? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Bruce Biber is Head of the ICRC Delegation in the Central African Republic.

The post Forgotten Conflicts 2021: When Will the Crisis in the Central African Republic End? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

When Palestine made history as Chair of the Group of 77 in 2019. The current chair is the Republic of Guinea. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 9 2021 (IPS)

When the 134-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing countries, was trying to strike a hard bargain in its negotiations with Western nations years ago, one of its envoys famously declared: “You have the numbers. We have the money.”

But that implicit threat– signifying the power of the purse– did not deter the G77 from playing a key role in helping shape the UN’s socio-economic agenda, including sustainable development, environmental protection, universal health care, South-South cooperation, eradication of extreme poverty and hunger—all of them culminating largely in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 and targeted for a 2030 deadline.

The People’s Republic of China, the world’s second largest economy after the US, has remained an integral part– and a strong supporter– of the G77, going back to the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

At that summit meeting – which marked a battle between the West and the global South over funding to promote development while protecting the environment — a G77 delegate told his colleagues in a closed-door gathering: ”We have to confront them with an iron fist cloaked in a velvet glove.”

The G77’s strength in numbers—with over two-thirds of the UN’s 193-member states —provides it with an unparalleled political clout ranking ahead of the Non-Aligned Movement (with 120 members), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (57), the Asian Group (55), the African Group (54), the Latin American and Caribbean Group (33) the European Union (27) and the Eastern European Group (23).

https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/regional-groups

While the G77 focused on achieving sustainable development, NAM pursued the hard-core politics of the global South, including human rights, neo-colonialism, international security, military conflicts and UN peacekeeping.

Speaking from Beijing, Dr Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to China, told IPS that while many countries in the Western camp have tended to dismiss the G77 and China as irrelevant to contemporary economic/political developments, the Group has provided the platform for developing countries to make a profound input to contemporary global economic policy formulation.

In its heyday, he pointed out, the G77 and China contributed significantly to the development of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the Law of the Sea regulatory framework.

“Today, the Law of the Sea Convention is considered to be the Constitution of the oceans and seas,” said Dr Kohona, a one-time Chief of the UN Treaty Section and a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.

More recently, he noted, its influence on the Rio Process, the conventions on Climate Change, Biological Diversity, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been seminal.

He said the G77’s influence on global policy development in these major areas of importance to humanity remain undiminished and cannot be underestimated.

“These global rules are now impacting on policy formulation in the Bretton Woods institutions as well”, he added.

The role played by individual intellectual giants from the developing world in highlighting the G77 and China needs to be acknowledged, he argued.

“Today China has assumed a lead role in addressing the challenge of climate change affecting the very survival of humanity,” he declared.

Mourad Ahmia, Executive Secretary of the G77, told IPS the integral role played by the Group in economic diplomacy and projecting the development interests of the global South is a testimony to its continued relevance in the ongoing global development dialogue.

When it was established on Jun. 15, 1964, the signing nations of the well-known “Joint Declaration of Seventy-Seven Countries” formed the largest intergovernmental organisation of developing countries in the United Nations to articulate and promote their collective interests and common development agenda.

Since the First Ministerial meeting of the G-77 held in Algeria in October 1967, and the adoption of the “Charter of Algiers”, he pointed out, the Group of 77 laid down the institutional mechanisms and structures that have contributed to shaping the international development agenda and changing the landscape of the global South.

Over the years, he said, the Group has gained an increasing role in the determination and conduct of international relations through global negotiations on major North-South and development issues.

The G-77 adheres to the principle that nations, big and small, deserve an equal voice in world affairs… Today the Group remains linked by common geography and shared history of struggle for liberation, freedom and South-South solidarity, said Ahmia.

The Group has a presence worldwide at U.N. centres in New York, Geneva, Nairobi, Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Washington D.C., and is actively involved in ongoing negotiations on a wide range of global issues including climate change, poverty eradication, migration, trade, and the law of the sea.

The G-77 remains the only viable and operational mechanism in multilateral economic diplomacy within the U.N system. The growing membership is proof of its enduring strength.

http://www.g77.org/doc/

Chakravarthi Raghavan, the former Chief Editor of the Geneva-based SUNS, told IPS since its founding in 1964, the G77 came into being, along with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as an organ of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and brought about several changes for the better in the international economic system.

With UNCTAD came the scope for “alternate view” to “liberal/neoliberal economics and Generalized System of Preferences (GSP schemes) – – “True, they are voluntary, not mandatory.”

The principle of non-reciprocity, and Special & Differential treatment in trade relations with developed countries (initially non-binding, Part IV of GATT-1947, but contractual for developing countries after 1994 Marrakesh Agreement for WTO) that the US now is trying to eliminate as part of its proposals for “WTO Reform”, said Raghavan a. former Editor-in-Chief of Press Trust of India,

The Jamaica accord (following the collapse of international money and finance system with (former US President Richard) Nixon’s repudiation of dollar-gold convertibility at $35 an ounce) – and Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

The G77 also created the concept of “development” as against the original IMF Bretton Woods concept of “Reconstruction and Development” for war-ravaged economies of Europe, said Raghavan, winner of the 1997 G77/UN Development Programme (UNDP) Award.

In the immediate post-war order, the major Industrialized countries decided on policy (with US holding a veto on most decisions) that others were forced to accept. Now there is at least an attempt at dialogue (from G7 to G20).

Initially, said Raghavan, the G77 concerned itself only with economic issues; the much earlier NAM dealt with political and security issues.

But gradually, individual G77 members, brought their political and security issues and alliances with Great Powers, to influence the G77 decision-making. This has resulted in weakening the G77 positions and influence in international economic matters, declared Raghavan.

The writer is a former editor of the Journal of the Group of 77

  

The post The West vs the Global South: You Have the Numbers. We Have the Money appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Feb 9 2021 (IPS)

Refusal to temporarily suspend several World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) provisions to enable much faster and broader progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be grounds for International Criminal Court prosecution for genocide.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Making life-saving vaccines, medicines and equipment available, freely or affordably, has been crucial for containing the spread of many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox.

Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, insisted that it remain patent free. Asked who owned the patent 65 years ago, he replied, “The people I would say. There is no patent. You might as well ask, could you patent the sun?”

Intellectual property induced scarcity
However, cross-border enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is relatively recent. The 1994 WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) greatly strengthened and extended IP transnationally. IPRs have effectively denied access to patented formulas and processes except to the highest bidders.

Recognising the extent of the pandemic threat, vaccine developers expect to be very profitable, thanks to national and transnational IP laws. Thus, IP has distorted research priorities and discouraged cooperation and knowledge sharing, so essential to progress.

As COVID-19 infections and deaths continue to rise alarmingly, rich countries are falling out among themselves, fighting for access to vaccine supplies, as IP profits take precedence over lives and livelihoods.

‘Vaccine nationalism’ involves cut-throat contests responding to scarcity due to limited output. Facing vaccine wars, multilateral arrangements, such as Covax, have not adequately addressed current challenges.

Vaccine nationalism has also meant that among the rich, the powerful – Trump’s US – came first. Consequently, most developing countries and most of their people will have to wait longer than necessary for vaccines, while the powerful and better off secure prior access, regardless of need or urgency.

Lethal combination
This lethal combination of IP and vaccine warfare is responsible for more avoidable losses of both lives and livelihoods. Developing nations, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, have been left far behind, even in most programmes for COVID-19 prevention, containment, treatment and vaccination.

Anis Chowdhury

The deadly duo are unnecessarily delaying the end of the pandemic, causing avoidable infections, deaths and related setbacks. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General (DG) Tedros warns “the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure…the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries”.

He advises that “the international community cannot allow a handful of companies to dictate the terms or the timeframe for ending the pandemic”; “vaccine nationalism combined with a restrictive approach to vaccine production is in fact more likely to prolong the pandemic … tantamount to medical malpractice on a global scale”.

While over 39 million vaccine doses had been given in 49 richer countries, only 25 doses had reached one poor country! At current rates, more than 85 poor countries will not have significant access before the end of 2023! In 70 lower income countries, only one in ten will be vaccinated.

Of the 7.2 billion confirmed sales of COVID-19 vaccine doses, 4.2 billion have gone to the wealthiest nations. With only 16% of the world’s population, high income countries have secured 60% of available doses. Meanwhile, the African Union has only procured 670 million for the continent’s 1.3 billion people.

Public health exception
Following strong advocacy led by South African President Mandela, a 2001 WTO Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health affirmed countries’ right to protect public health by enabling access to medicines, even without a health emergency.

Although TRIPS now allows such government public health efforts, developing countries remain constrained by compulsory licensing’s complex rules, procedures and conditions. Threats and inducements by transnational corporations and their governments limit its use.

Hence, use of compulsory licensing by developing countries has been largely limited to several more independent middle-income countries and HIV/AIDS medicines.

TRIPS waiver
The TRIPS waiver proposal to the WTO – led by South Africa and India – seeks temporary suspension of several TRIPS provisions to greatly scale up production of and access to COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and equipment to contain the contagion.

The Trump administration, the European Union (EU) and their allies have so far blocked the waiver proposal, although its measures are allowed by their own national laws. Some rich countries even increased such provisions with the pandemic.

South African TRIPS negotiator Mustaqeem Da Gama has debunked the waiver opponents’ claim that even if “approved tomorrow, there are no companies in the developing world that can produce any number of products relevant to COVID-19, including mRNA vaccines”.

In fact, the Serum Institute of India is acknowledged as the only facility in the world with the mass vaccine production capacity to rapidly greatly scale up output. Furthermore, 72 of the 154 vaccines ‘pre-qualified’ by the WHO are already being manufactured in developing countries.

Such production in developing countries is subject to very restrictive IP regulations and licensing agreements with stringent conditions. Hence, existing capacity in India, China, Brazil, Cuba, Thailand, Senegal and Indonesia, among others, remains underutilised, primarily due to such legal barriers.

IP main barrier
Despite growing support for the waiver, the proposal was rejected by the TRIPS Council on 4th February. The EU insists that IP will “ensure the publication and dissemination of research results, when otherwise they will remain secret”.

But everyone knows the IP system discourages, rather than encourages cooperation and sharing, both essential for accelerating progress. Although IP requires sharing research results, no vaccine developer has done so yet. Nonetheless, waiver opponents insist the system is working well.

Rich countries opposing the waiver have quietly, even secretly bought up vaccines. Even as the EU has lost vaccine wars despite furthering pharmaceutical company interests, it has claimed the moral high ground as a major Covax donor. The recent EU export authorisation scheme, restricting exports, is bound to trigger retaliatory restrictions by others.

Incredibly, rich countries opposed to the TRIPS waiver proposal, particularly the EU, now want WTO members to instead accept its trade and health initiative for further trade liberalisation and removal of export restrictions –to address a problem of its own making!

Biden can still lead
The Biden administration has shown renewed commitment to multilateralism by rejoining the WHO, but still needs to offer leadership beyond funding the ineffective Covax scheme and lifting Trump’s embargo on exports of vaccines, vital medicines and equipment.

One ‘people’s vaccine’ proposal involves sharing research results in return for public financing. This can affordably, quickly and greatly scale up generic production, enabling ‘vaccines for all’ in the world at little additional cost.

As rich country governments have already spent to accelerate vaccine development, they can make this happen. As vaccine developers do not expect to profit much from the poor, this will benefit many at little added expense.

Depriving and delaying vaccines for those with less means has to be seen for what it is. Such avoidable behaviour is, frankly, nothing less than genocidal, for causing many people to die needlessly for IP profit.

At the forthcoming 23 February TRIPS Council meeting, US President Biden can secure consensus support for the waiver proposal, thus providing the Rooseveltian leadership internationally that he seems to be emulating in the US.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Intellectual Property Monopolies Block Vaccine Access
• Caught in Tangled Web of Vaccine Nationalism
• Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions
• West First Policies Expose Myths

The post Intellectual Property Cause of Death, Genocide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
NEW YORK, Feb 8 2021 (IPS-Partners)

In response to Bangladesh authorities’ recent filing of charges under the Digital Security Act against photographer Shafiqul Islam Kajol, writer Mushtaq Ahmed, and cartoonist and Kabir Kishore, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:

“We are extremely alarmed by Bangladeshi authorities’ continuous and blatant abuse of the Digital Security Act in an effort to silence any critical reporting in the country,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher. “Authorities should immediately drop the charges against Shafiqul Islam Kajol, Kabir Kishore, and Mushtaq Ahmed, and release Kishore and Ahmed from prison.”

On February 4, police charged Kishore and Ahmed under the Digital Security Act, and charged Shafiqul Islam Kajol yesterday, according to news reports. Kishore and Mushtaq have been jailed since May 2020, according to CPJ research; Kajol was previously detained for nine months and was released on December 25, 2020, according to CPJ research on his case.

Authorities allege that Kishore and Ahmed violated the act by publishing propaganda, false or offensive information, and information that could destroy communal harmony and create unrest, according to police documents reviewed by CPJ. If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 10 million taka (US$118,000), according to the Digital Security Act.

A complaint filed last year alleges that Kajol violated the act by criticizing political leaders and spreading false information on his personal Facebook page, according to CPJ research on his case. Authorities allege that Kajol published false or offensive information, published or transmitted defamatory information, and made unauthorized use of identity information, according to the text of the law and court documents reviewed by CPJ. If convicted, he could face three years in prison each for the charges of publishing false or offensive information and transmitting defamatory information, and up to five years in prison for the charge of unauthorized use of identity information, as well as a fine of 300,000 to 500,000 taka (US$3,500-$6,000), set at the discretion of a judge.

The post Bangladesh Charges 3 Journalists under Digital Security Act appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday this iconic photograph of the first meeting of King and Richard Nixon will be displayed at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, 400 N. Ashley Dr., Tampa, through April 19 as part of the inside exhibition, “Griff Davis- Langston Hughes, Letters and Photographs, 1947-1967: A Global Friendship. For more information about the exhibit and to learn more about Griff Davis via video, please go to www.fmopa.org.

By Dorothy M. Davis
TAMPA, Florida, Feb 8 2021 (IPS)

My dad, Griff Davis, was a boyhood friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. They ran in the same crowd and, after graduating from Morehouse College, stayed in touch their whole lives. Dad, who was both an international photojournalist and U.S. Foreign Service officer, captured a famous photo of a rising “M.L.,” as they called him in Atlanta, and Vice President Richard Nixon meeting for the first time in newly independent Ghana in 1957. That photo couldn’t have been made in America at the time.

Dad was 24 when he graduated from Morehouse in 1947. After M.L. graduated a year later at 19, they both set out to make their lives, knowing that they had a right to dream and the tools to make those dreams come true. They only needed experience.

In 1947, Langston Hughes arrived at Atlanta University as the visiting professor for creative writing. Recognizing that Dad was the photographer for the campuses of the Atlanta University Center and the Atlanta Daily World, Hughes adopted him as his photographer in Atlanta.

Dad became the first roving editor of Ebony magazine at Hughes’ recommendation to its founder and publisher. He subsequently graduated in the Class of ‘49 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism while renting a room in Hughes’ home. It turned into his home base while working as the only African-American international freelance photojournalist for Black Star, the first privately owned picture agency in the United States. His work appeared in Fortune, Ebony, Time, Modern Photography, Steelways and Der Spiegel.

During this time, he made three separate trips to Liberia, which with Ethiopia were the only independent black countries in Africa and among the charter members of the United Nations in 1945.

My parents returned to Liberia in late 1952 after Dad passed the foreign service exam, the beginning of his 35-year career. Unlike their white counterparts, African-American Foreign Service officers at the time were posted by the U.S. State Department only to Liberia or Haiti.

When Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957 to become the new nation of Ghana, our family was ending a four-year tour in Liberia. Back in the United States in 1955, Rosa Parks had been arrested after refusing to give up her bus seat, and King had come to national prominence as the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott.

Vice President Richard Nixon and Patricia Nixon led the official U.S. delegation to Ghana’s Independence Day ceremonies — Nixon’s first trip to Africa. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King had been invited by Ghana’s prime minister himself on the heels of the end of the Montgomery bus boycott. It was also the Kings’ first trip to Africa.

Having attended Lincoln University, Kwame Nkrumah was very aware of the racial dynamics in the United States and had been following the American civil rights movement. He could equate it to the colonialism in his own country. Recognizing the common fight for freedom between the two movements, he used the Independence Day celebrations of Ghana as a global platform to bring key people together. This included Ralph Bunche, the first person of color to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, in his new capacity as undersecretary of the United Nations.

The U.S. Information Service (USIS) assigned my Dad to cover Nixon’s visit to Liberia and Ghana, one of only 20 official photographers to cover Ghana’s independence celebrations. It was the first African country to become decolonized.

The Kings arrived in Accra, the capital, on March 4, 1957 and attended a reception at Legon University. That’s where he met Nixon. As the official photographer for the Nixon delegation and former photojournalist, my father took the picture of their first meeting.

Dad said, “When they met, Nixon invited M.L. to come by his office the next time he travelled to Washington. … It was ironic to me that Montgomery, Ala., and Washington, D.C., had to meet at Accra, outside the United States. However, it was only a short time later that M.L. and his nonviolent movement entered upon the national scene in America.”

The next time my father saw M.L. and Coretta Scott King was back in the U.S. at my Dad’s 10th year class reunion at Morehouse in June 1957. They were building the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1963, my father attended the March on Washington in Washington, DC and heard M.L. give his “I Have A Dream” speech. It reminded him of their teachings at Morehouse. He last saw M.L. at the Capitol in Montgomery at the conclusion of the March from Selma in 1965. In 1966, our family was posted to Nigeria. M.L. was scheduled to visit Nigeria the week after he was assassinated.

All through the years since their college days, M.L. and Dad exchanged greeting cards at Christmas. This is the message in the last Christmas card:

“We who know we are brothers,” M.L. said, “have a duty to bring others back into the broken family of man, into our world house. In the context of the modern world, we must live together as brothers or we shall perish divided as fools.”

This story was first published by Tampa Bay Times

Dorothy Davis, president of Dorothy M. Davis Consulting and Griffith J. Davis Photographs and Archives, is a member of the board of directors of the Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts and United Nations Association-USA Chapter Tampa Bay Chapter. She serves on the Board of Directors and program committee of the St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post How My Dad Captured This Famous Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A protestor in Myanmar holding up the three-finger salute of opposition to military dictatorship from the film “Hunger Games” which was popularised by the democracy protests in Hong Kong and Thailand. Courtesy: CC BY-SA 4.0

By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK, Feb 8 2021 (IPS)

Myanmar is in a deep political crisis. Over the past week — reminiscent of the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988 — Myanmar’s citizens are openly and publicly challenging the country’s powerful military, whose coup earlier this month now threatens to stifle the country’s fledgling democracy.

Since the weekend, thousands of people have come out onto the streets in most of the country’s major cities in defiance of the military authorities: noisily opposing the coup and demanding that Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the November election, be allowed to form a civilian government.

These demonstrations of support for democracy are growing daily with thousands and thousands across Myanmar voicing their rejection of the military coup.

It is like 33 years ago when millions of students, civil servants, workers and Buddhist monks took to the streets demanding democracy. Those protests provoked the military to seize power in a coup in September that year.

Again, the future of the country’s transition to democracy has reached a critical crossroads. After weeks of tension between the military and the elected civilian government of Suu Kyi, the Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a military coup on Feb. 1 and assumed all government powers – of the executive, judiciary and the legislature – for 12 months after which fresh elections would be held and power transferred to the winner.

Protests started with noise & via social media

People spontaneously started to demonstrate their opposition to the coup by creating a cacophony of noise – beating drums, banging, blowing trumpets and singing in unison every night at 8pm. Since then the ‘banging brigade’ has got louder and louder, as the country’s main urban centres come to a standstill and all that can be heard is the rhythmic sound of the beating of pots and pans all showing their opposition to the military and support for Suu Kyi.

“Most people in Myanmar support the ideals of democracy and want the army to withdraw from politics permanently,” Shwe Yee Myint Saw, who has joined the street protests almost every day from when they started on the weekend, told IPS.

The vast majority of those who have taken to the streets are under the age of 30. “You see the youth of this country understand what we lost in 30 years of military misrule, and we can’t afford a repeat of that.”

Peaceful protest in #Myanmar . #HearTheVoiceOfMyanmar #SaveDemocracy pic.twitter.com/WN0e98ehdU

— khant thaw (@akthaw) February 7, 2021

As in 1988, the charismatic pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi – and leader of the NLD — is at the centre of the movement. She was detained last Monday, Feb. 1, when the military launched their coup and arrested her in an early morning raid. She remains under house arrest and has been charged for possession of illegally imported radios that were used without permission – six walkie-talkie radios were found in the search of her home after she was arrested. If convicted it would bar her from contesting any future elections, including those the military have promised to hold later next year.

Most of the country’s civilian leaders were also detained in these dawn raids. This included all key politicians, regional chief ministers, government ministers, the top leadership of the governing NLD, most national and local members of parliament, and hundreds of pro-democracy and human rights activists. Many of them have been released since and effectively sent home to house arrest.

In the past week the opposition to the coup has built momentum and a concerted campaign of civil disobedience grew through the use of social media.

“We have digital power, so we’ve been using this to oppose the military junta ever since the start of the coup,” human rights activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who is one of the main organisers of the ‘Civil Disobedience Movement’ which has taken Myanmar by storm since the coup, told IPS. “And we must continue to use it: to seek an immediate end to this culture of coups.”

Banks reopened in Yangon, Myanmar on February 2 after closing the day before. Credit: IPS / Yangon stringer

Health workers went on strike

The social media protests quickly snowballed into a civil disobedience campaign initiated by the country’s health workers. The day after the coup, the country’s health workers galvanised public resistance to the military by refusing to work under a military government.

“It isn’t that we don’t care about our patients – we certainly do — but we can’t work under a military government again,” Dr Mya Oo, a doctor at Mandalay General Hospital who went on strike the first day, told IPS. “We all feel we must do everything we can to stop this bullying and preserve our democracy.”

Support for the opposition movement has grown enormously ever since, affecting hospitals, schools and other government offices. Although the doctors and nurses in the two main cities of Mandalay and Yangon took the lead — refusing to work and gathering outside their hospital to protest against the military coup — it quickly grew to government ministries, schools and universities throughout Myanmar.

Pictures can be seen of staff congregating together in uniform, wearing the red ribbon of protest, and defiantly holding up the three-finger salute of opposition to military dictatorship from the film “Hunger Games” – popularised in the democracy protests in Hong Kong and Thailand. There has also been a flood of resignations from government posts.

Civilians on the street

It culminated over the weekend, when the campaigners took to the streets to demonstrate their anger at the coup and its leaders. Their main grievance is the army’s seizure of power has effectively annulled the results of last November’s election which Suu Kyi and the NLD convincingly won.

“We voted for Aung San Suu Kyi and now the military are trying to steal this election from us and put us under their harsh controlling power like before,” Sandar, a young university graduate, told IPS. “We won’t stand for it: we have tasted democratic freedom and we know it’s the only way for our country to develop,” she said.

In most urban centres across the country, there are massive demonstrations of support for Suu Kyi demanding the military respect the election results. More and more civil servants are joining the movement. And now there are calls for a general strike.

“The ‘civil disobedience movement’ is a non-violent campaign – started by young doctors across the country which has inspired everyone and has grown into a mass protest involving all sectors of society,” Thinzar Shunlei Yi told IPS. 

Suu Kyi is believed to have signalled her support for the movement in messages from her house arrest in the capital Naypyidaw, according to senior party officials. Late last week the NLD central executive committee released a statement supporting the current Civil Disobedience Movement.

“In order to take back the country’s sovereignty – invested in the people — and restore democracy, all the people of Myanmar people should support this political resistance movement — in a peaceful and non-violence way,” the statement read.

So far the authorities have been powerless to stem the movement. But as the momentum grows there are increasing fears of a major confrontation between the peaceful protestors and the security forces.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• China & Russia Throw Protective Arms Around Myanmar
• Myanmar Looks Back in Fear and Anger after Military Coup
• As Army Takes Over, Fear and Uncertainty Grip Myanmar Citizens

The post Myanmar Faces Increasing Uncertainty as Opposition to the Military Coup Grows appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nazlan Ertan

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 8 2021 (IPS)

Over the years, Turkey has survived three Coup d’état in which its military forces took power, in 1960, 1971 and 1980. The coup in 1997, was carried out in a “post-modern way”, where generals sat down with the then prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan and forced him to resign. However the turning point in Turkey has been the failed coup attempt in July 2016, which has till date been one of the bloodiest coup attempts in its political history, leaving 241 people killed, and 2,194 others injured.

Soldiers and tanks took to the streets, explosions rang out in Ankara and Istanbul, fighter jets dropped bombs on their own parliament, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hulusi Akar, was kidnapped by his own security detail. Thousands of citizens gathered in streets and squares around Anatolia to oppose the coup and with the help of loyalist soldiers and police forces, defeated the coup attempt.

“Freedom of expression in Turkey continues to backslide, particularly after the 2016 attempted coup,” says journalist Nazlan Ertan to IPS News. “Currently 70 journalists in Turkey are in jail, and some 170 media outlets have been closed down since 2016. More than 80 percent of the press institutions – newspapers and TV channels we considered admiral ships – are now in the hands of the companies close to the government. Key news either goes unreported, or comes out heavily biased,” says Nazlan.

In october 2020, eleven international rights groups issued a statement on Turkey’s clamp down on its press freedom,including its efforts to silence the press by stepping up online censorship through the new law targeting social media, mobilization partisan regulatory bodies, and launching a new offensive against judicial independence by targeting Turkey’s Constitutional Court (TCC). The group also flagged the continued jailing and prosecution of journalists as well as ongoing concerns over the safety of journalists and judicial independence.

International community must step up its bilateral and multilateral efforts to bring Turkey back into the club of countries that respects the rule of law, the group said.

According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2019, 130,000 public officials were dismissed following the 2016 coup over alleged association with U.S. – based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. Turkey’s Ministry of Justice stated that as of June, “almost one-fifth of the total prison population was charged or convicted of terrorism offenses. Others have been charged with “insulting the president”.

A Turkish court on Friday resumed its high-profile show trial targeting leading Turkish civil society figure and philanthropist Osman Kavala accused of espionage and attempting to overthrow the constitutional order in the 2016 coup. Kavala has been accused of collaborating with Henri Barkey, a prominent U.S. based Turkey scholar who has been accused of having links to Fethullah Gulen’s network, which Ankara says orchestrated the coup attempt.

The court rejected Osman Kavala’s request to be released, and also ruled to merge two ongoing proceedings against Kavala and adjourned the trial until May 21, extending his detention since late 2017 by nearly four months.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed the wife of jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala for provoking student protests at Bogazici University where she is an acclaimed academic. A report in Bloomberg stated that Erdogan called Ayse Bugra a “provocator” and her husband a “representative” of George Soros in Turkey.

Hundreds of protestors have been arrested at the university since January 4, including others who have been arrested at demonstrations in support of the students and LGBTQ rights in cities such as Ankara, Izmir and Bursa.

According to Nazlan, Bogazici University is a “microcosmos of all the issues we talk about in Turkey – academic freedom, independence, the right to assembly, LGBTQ movements and more”.

“Ever since the protests have started, hundreds of students have been taken into custody, those who expressed a rightful and peaceful opposition to the government appointed rector were vilified, the president and his cronies referred to them as terrorists, vandals, or “snakes whose heads should be crushed.”

The LGBTQ students who demonstrated with a rainbow flag were called “perverts who had no place in Turkey” by the Interior Minister,” says Nazlan.

The European Union and the United Nations has condemned these homophobic comments and called for demonstrators to be released.

Rights group Amnesty International has called on the government of Turkey to take urgent action to counter the increasing number of discriminatory statements and policies by the State officials against LGBTQ people. In a statement published in 2020, the rights group had urged the authorities to promote “equality both in their statements and actions.”

Nazlan adds that women in Turkey who have often used humour to make their voices heard, their situation continues to remain grim. In 2019, 474 women were murdered, mostly by partners and relatives and the figures in 2020, affected by coronavirus lockdhowns, are expected to be even higher.

“Women have been on the streets and various hashtags have surfaced – such as #ChallengeAccepted, #IstanbulConventionSavesLives and also #menshouldknowtheirplace. Domestic violence has increased, nearly half of all the women claim that they have faced some form of physical or psychological abuse in their lives,” says Nazlan.

Much before these brutal crackdowns on dissent following the attempted coup two years ago, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held promises of turning Turkey into a “beacon of democracy for a region rife with religious conflict”, except today authoritaianism has destroyed the country and “the current Bogazici protests – which are still going on – is an example that no opposition is tolerated in Turkey anymore, no matter how peaceful or democratic,” says Nazlan.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post Is Turkey a Proof that Religion and Democracy Cannot Coexist? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Feb 8 2021 (IPS-Partners)

President Joseph Biden of the United states and President Vladimir Putin of Russia vide a telephone talk have agreed to extend the New Start treaty beyond the expiry date of 5th February of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or New-START by another five years. By ageing to do so, President Biden was reversing the decision of his predecessor, President Donald Trump. It is actually the only remaining agreement that curtails US and Russian nuclear forces.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The New Start limits both sides to no more than 700 ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-capable bombers, and 1500 deployed strategic warheads. The numbers are the lowest since 1960s. Sheer numbers, more often than not, do not tell the whole story. Within the treaty framework one could introduce qualitative improvements, or new weaponry that could add capabilities and upset the equilibrium. This has always been an apple of discord between the parties.

An immediate positive spin-off of the extension would be the continuation of the Bilateral Consultative Commission to discuss the aforementioned issues, among other things. The Commission meets periodically to discuss all matters of treaty operations. Of late both parties have been concerned about certain doctrinal adjustments on either side: the US over the perceived ‘”escalation for de-escalation” and associated ‘hybrid war’ policies of the Russians, and Russia over the defensive measures undertaken by the US , as well as addition of low-yield weapons to US arsenal, both of which they assess as destabilizing.

It would be appropriate here to discuss some element of the Russian nuclear doctrine that western and non-Russian readership might not be familiar with. Briefly this is encompassed in the two concepts of SDERZIVANIE (“nuclear restraint”) and USTRASHENIE (“intimidation”).This combination is meant to persuade the adversary that it has no chance of achieving its strategic goals by force, and this policy, which implies use of conventional and strategic weaponry, remains in operation in peacetime and war , nuclear weapons being only one tool in the broad tool-kit of warfare. It, therefore, encompasses the western concept of deterrence, as well as coercive warfare and compellence, and is designed to be a multi-domain cross-cutting effort using both soft and hard power. Hence the western perception of Russian doctrine as “’hybrid”.

On 2 June 2020, President Putin signed off (Executive Order 355) on an important document that outlines Russia’s current strategic doctrine. It entails a systematized asymmetric approach, underscoring the severity and certainty of ‘’ punishment”. The document lists a whole series of activities by the adversary that may be constituted as a threat to Russia, and/or its “allies” to be “neutralized by the implementation of nuclear deterrence” (translation: ‘’by use of nuclear weapons”). The order also allows for the use of nuclear weapons not only to counter the enemy’s similar capabilities, but also ‘other types of weapons of mass destruction or significant combat potential of general purpose forces”. Western analysts read this as a wide range of options to introduce nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict to prevent its spread, reconfirming the so-called “escalate to de-escalate” strategy.

One criticism of the New-START, and the Trump Administration made much of it, was the non-inclusion of China. While the Chinese armoury is barely one-tenth of that of the US, it possesses very advanced hypersonic platforms. Its DF 17 (“Deng Feng” or East wind) missiles can be mounted on hypersonic glide vehicle, which the Chinese are said to claim that could render the US Air defence systems in the Near East obsolete. At the 2019 October Revolution Anniversary parade, it displayed what was designated as DF 100, a very advanced hypersonic rocket that can “kill” large enemy ships, and even Carriers. A significant point about hypersonic vehicles is that even without weapons payload, it can unleash enormous destructive kinetic energy while impacting on targets because of its sheer speed! It is, however, difficult to see why China would, quite unnecessarily in its perception, subject itself to any agreement on constraining its capacity to be a comparable military rival to the US (or even Russia, for that matter).

The Biden Administration could use the New- START discussions to negotiate limits on new types of platforms such as Russia’s ‘’Avangard’’ hypersonic glide vehicles with speed of Mach 20 to 27, which means that many times the speed of sound ( any propulsion over Mach 5 is normally classified as ‘hypersonic’; only Russia and China possess such capabilities). This is one of six new strategic weapons unveiled by Russia in 2018. The Russian side can bring to the table their concerns about US missile defense; for instance, the 44 Ground based Interceptors or GBIs based in Alaska and California. It is important to note that the 1972 ABM Treaty was predicated on the theoretical proposition that since defensive measures of this kind erode retaliatory strike-capability of the adversary, is hence destabilizing, the assumption being that vulnerability encourages good strategic behaviour. The Republican legislators in the US, as a rule, tend to be “pro-defense” (recent voting patterns of Senators such as Messrs Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and Joshua Hawley can be cited as a case in point). This factor may prove a modicum of constraint for Biden. The New Start would facilitate Strategic Stability Talks which will not perhaps produce agreements but will enhance understanding of each other’s doctrines and concerns. Particularly as the Russian concept of strategic SDERZIVANIE is more complex, using soft and hard power tools in peace and war.

The Trump Administration was said to be toying the idea of testing, which would have well and truly put the genie out of the bottle around the world. Experts view that the US, which has not tested since 1992 can make do with what is called ”Stockpile stewardship”. It is a process by which reliability is determined through simulations and supercomputers without having to conduct tests.

The Obama Administration had made a deal with the Senate to win New-Start ratification with a commitment for modernization of the US deterrent. So, Biden will have to continue with this over USD 1 tr programme. The so-called triad on which this deterrence is based has three legs: bomber aircraft, the land-based ICBMs, and the sea-based SLBMS.

The strategic bombers, 60 under the START Agreement, comprise such aircraft as the venerable B 52 and B-2 Stealth, highly mobile, and effective as both first and second strikers. As for ICBMS, Start permits 400 Minutemen 111 to be deployed. Some experts see these in immobile silos as more vulnerable and also due to their targeting inflexibility as of reduced strategic value and would argue for their elimination. The third and most effective leg, SLBMs, is also the smallest, only 14 deployed Trident Submarines. Since submarines are more difficult to track and destroy, they are most useful for second strike, which is the critical component of deterrence, and for this very reason, seen as a stabilizing factor in any nuclear balance. The US Navy will replace the current Ohio Class with Columbia Class. The latter will be interoperable with the British Dreadnaughts Class of submarines, poised to be deployed as British deterrence. This will signify further enhanced partnership between the two.

At some point in time the bilateral agreement could possibly be widened, but it will not be easy. China stands little to gain by constraining its capabilities in realpolitik terms. Also, nations who have the capability, and perceive security being linked to nuclear weaponization will do so. North Korea, for instance. Some others, who are also capable but see more current benefits in avoiding or delaying it would hedge, as Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and Iran. Happily, proliferation has not been as rampant as earlier feared. Some credit is owed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 for this. So, this would be a good time for the US to back the various non -proliferation and arms control negotiations. For instance, the Biden Administration could encourage the reactivation of the nearly-defunct Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, which is the sole existing multilateral disarmament forum, though that could be a tall order. But a good example, its critique notwithstanding, has been set by the Biden team in continuing with the New-START with Russia.

Meanwhile, the push by both the US and Russia, is to increase accuracy, which is measured by Circular Error Probability or CEP. If the CEP of a warhead is 10000 yards, it means 50% of the ordnance will fall within that distance of the target. Theoretically, increased precision is always suspect as it enhances propensity to use, which, in turn, encourages warfighting as opposed to deterrence. Indeed, at one point in 1974, the then US Defence Secretary, James Schlesinger, had propounded a ‘limited options” strategy, known as “Schlesinger doctrine, which was critiqued for just that. Unfortunately, this race to be one-up on the adversary, be it in terms of posture or policy, quality or quantum, will continue. Nuclear Strategists tend to share the same belief, two thousand years ago, of the classic Roman thinker, Cicero: Si vis Pacem, para bellum, if you want peace prepare for war.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is the Honorary Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, NUS. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President & Distinguished Fellow of Cosmos Foundation. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac@nus.edu.sg

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post US-Russia Arms Control: Is Biden off to a Good Start? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kul Gautam, UNICEF Regional Director for Asia-Pacific meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon in 1998.

By Kul Chandra Gautam
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 8 2021 (IPS)

The 1 February 2021 coup d’état by Myanmar’s military (Tatmadaw), has been widely condemned by all the world’s democratic leaders, human rights activists and genuine friends of the people of Myanmar around the globe. In an unusual manner for the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has gone so far as to urge the world community to make sure that Myanmar’s military coup fails.

Like many other world leaders, he urged the military leadership to respect the will of the people of Myanmar as expressed in the 8 November 2020 general elections that gave Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) Party a resounding 83 % of the popular vote. Guterres called the reversal of those elections “absolutely unacceptable”.

Notwithstanding the Secretary-General’s strong call, the most powerful organ of the UN, the Security Council, issued a mild statement that failed to condemn the coup because of strong objection by China, a veto-wielding member of the Council with significant economic interests in Myanmar. Reflecting the Beijing government’s views, China’s state news agency Xinhua referred to the military coup simply as a “major Cabinet reshuffle”.

Given the potential veto by China and Russia (both permanent members of the Security Council that sell huge quantities of arms to Tatmadaw), it is unlikely that the Council will muster the courage or the unanimity needed to intervene or impose stern sanctions against the military junta.

However, even an indirect condemnation of the coup and a call for restoration of democratic institutions and respect for people’s human rights sends a clear signal of solidarity of the international community to the people of Myanmar to fight for their rights.

Donald Trump’s impact

The ostensible reason for the Tatmadaw’s putsch is their objection to apparent electoral irregularities in the November 2020 elections in which the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) suffered a humiliating defeat.

Coincidentally, the Tatmadaw’s charges of massive electoral fraud in Myanmar sound very similar to those of the former US President Donald Trump’s discredited claims of similar electoral fraud in the US presidential election. Indeed, the Trump administration’s cuddling of authoritarian regimes may have given some encouragement to the Burmese junta.

The junta was certainly aware that its power grab would be condemned by the new Biden administration in the US, the European Union and other democratic governments, and human rights groups around the world. But knowing it can count on strong support of China and Russia,
and tacit approval or acquiescence of its ASEAN neighbors and India too, seems to have given it the confidence that it can afford to withstand the opprobrium by the rest of the world.

The fact that Aung San Suu Kyi’s international stature has greatly diminished in recent years was probably another factor in the military’s calculation to dare to overthrow her.

However, it is difficult to fathom what Tatmadaw’s long-term calculations and strategy are. For an army that is despised by a large majority of the people of Myanmar, because of its decades of oppression and corruption that has gravely retarded the country’s development, it already enjoys a very favorable position under the current power-sharing arrangement with Suu Kyi.

It can appoint 25 percent of the members of parliament. It controls three of the most powerful government ministries in charge of national security. It is allowed to carry out very lucrative business ventures that has made many army generals among the richest people in the country.

The current power-sharing arrangement is such that if the elected government fails, the blame would go largely to its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but if it succeeds the Tatmadaw too could claim some credit and brag that the Myanmar model of power-sharing works!

It is, therefore, baffling to figure out why the military would give up such a sweet-heart deal in pursuit of an uncertain future knowing that the putsch would push the country into the ranks of a pariah regime once again.

The speculation is that either the Tatmadaw leadership was fearful of the NLD government clipping its current prerogatives by attempting to amend the army-imposed constitution or more likely the top General Min Aung Hlaing’s inflated personal ambitions led him to make this pre-emptive strike.

Outfoxing each other

A decade ago, Tatmadaw and Aung San Suu Kyi negotiated a power-sharing deal. After Suu Kyi’s NLD Party scored a sweeping victory in the 2015 elections, Myanmar became the democratic darling of the world. It heralded the end of Myanmar’s international isolation, the blossoming of a relatively free media, as well as an explosion of social media.

Young Burmese flocked to the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, followed by their elders soon afterwards. Tourism started flourishing. Foreign investment, particularly from neighboring ASEAN countries, and especially, China boomed.

International media and NGOs, banned during the military regime, flocked to Myanmar. And UN agencies severely constrained by highly restricted mandate and shortage of funding because of sanctions against the military regime by Western donors got a new lease of life and expanded their operations.

But the euphoria of Myanmar’s transition away from military rule to a seemingly liberal democracy was premature and exaggerated. It was more wishful and hopeful than the ground realities justified.

In the power-sharing deal she entered with Tatmadaw in 2011, Suu Kyi tentatively accepted the 2008 Constitution drafted by the military with a view to perpetuating its dominance on all key issues of “national security” under the garb of a pro-forma electoral democracy.

With her confidence in securing overwhelming election victory, Suu Kyi’s calculation was that she will be able to outfox the Tatmadaw and amend the constitution to weaken or eliminate the military’s power, and strengthen genuine democracy.

But it appears that the Tatmadaw actually outfoxed Suu Kyi. It even got her, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to condone the military’s ethnic cleansing and genocidal oppression of the Rohingya Muslims and to cuddle Burman Buddhist xenophobia.

To the consternation of the international community, but continuing adulation of the ethnic Burman population, it turned out that as a politician Suu Kyi and Tatmadaw shared many common Bamar ethno-nationalist sentiments and deeply held prejudices against most non-Bamar ethnic communities, particularly the Rohingya Muslims, questioning their status as equal and patriotic citizens of Myanmar.

Forming and Spurning the Kofi Annan Commission

Stung by international criticism of Tatmadaw’s brutal oppression of the Rohingyas, and as a face-saving gesture, in 2016 Suu Kyi formed an international Advisory Commission on Rakhine State headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to propose measures to ensure the social and economic well-being of both the Buddhist, the Muslim and other ethnic communities in Myanmar’s conflict-ravaged regions.

In my view, this Commission came up with the best possible recommendations and a roadmap for not only Rakhine state but to ensure a sustainable, democratic, prosperous and equitable multi-ethnic future for all of Myanmar. But Suu Kyi essentially cold-shouldered Annan’s recommendations, perhaps fearing that the military would never accept them.

Inspired and disappointed by Suu Kyi

As a senior UNICEF official in the 1990s and 2000s, I had the opportunity to meet and interact with Suu Kyi as well as several senior Burmese military leaders, including the seemingly progressive General Thein Sein when he was the powerful Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Committee (SPDC) who later became Prime Minister and the first “elected” “civilian” President of Myanmar. He was the one who negotiated the power sharing deal with Suu Kyi in 2010.

I recall Suu Kyi, being an articulate and inspiring personality. Very strong-minded and stubborn at times, she presented herself as a staunch defender of democracy and human rights in Myanmar and globally. Her advocacy of a Gandhian non-violent civil disobedience and her reputation as a Mandela-like prisoner of conscience over a prolonged period, led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

But like many of her previous admirers, including her fellow Nobel Prize laureates, I became deeply disappointed by her politically-calculated alliance with the military when she defended the indefensible ethnic cleansing of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim community at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Although Suu Kyi’s international stature as an icon of democracy and human rights has suffered irredeemably, she continues to be immensely popular domestically. If anybody can potentially tame Myanmar’s powerful Tatmadaw, it still continues to be Aung San Suu Kyi, given both her undiminished domestic popularity and her father General Aung San’s nationalist credentials and legacy.

Thus, despite all her flaws, I believe the international community has no choice but to support the restoration of democratic process in Myanmar led, in the near-term, by Suu Kyi and her NLD party.

The possible ways forward

However, in the longer term, both the people of Myanmar and the international community ought to internalize three important lessons from the Burmese conundrum of the past six decades: a) not to rely on the leadership of one individual, no matter how charismatic, b) the necessity of delegitimizing the privileged political role of Myanmar’s military, and c) looking beyond the necessary restoration of electoral democracy to a laser-like focus on tackling a range of issues that have perpetuated poverty, inequality and violent conflicts in this immensely resource-rich country that remains one of the poorest in the region.

Nobody believes the military’s promise that it will organize new elections in a year’s time and hand-over power to a newly-elected government. If free and fair elections are held, the military and its puppet party, the USDP, are likely to fare even worse than in the November 2020 general elections.

The junta maybe able to prolong its rule in the short-term by organizing sham elections and increased repression, but the durability of such a regime is questionable. We are already beginning to see the sprouting of a courageous campaign of civil disobedience in various forms, which is only likely to accelerate over time.

We can expect Tatmadaw to unleash harsh repression using all the tools and tricks in the authoritarians’ toolbox, starting with shutting down the internet and the social media. But there is no conceivable scenario under which the Tatmadaw can solve Myanmar’s entrenched problems and endear itself to a restive population.

In this day and age, harsh repression alone cannot ensure political stability. Even the military regime’s backers like China and most of the ASEAN countries that treasure political stability over democratic norms, are likely to abandon their active or tacit support of the junta, once they realize that a regime deeply despised by the populace and incapable of delivering sustainable development cannot ensure lasting stability and tranquility.

It is clear that the military has grossly misjudged the mood of the Burmese youth. Having tasted democracy and an open society during the past decade, Myanmar’s digitally savvy youth, like those of many other countries, are now so well-connected with their counterparts around the world, so well aware of their rights and their potential, so determined to pursue a prosperous future, that they will find many creative ways to outfox the military’s shenanigans.

Among the best proposals for a way forward is a solemn appeal by a wise and thoughtful religious leader, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference, and a Co-President of Religions for Peace International.

He made a strong case for “demilitarizing Myanmar”, warning even before the latest coup: “History teaches us, diplomats and peacemakers know, that there is never going to be a military solution to a political conflict. Pursuing military solutions leads only to endless war and endless misery”.

Following the coup, the Cardinal issued an urgent message addressed to the people of Myanmar; its civilian leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi; to the Myanmar military, and the international community.

The message calls for the people to stay calm, avoid violence, but pursue their goals peacefully.
The Bishop chastises the military for its empty promises and urges the junta to respect people’s rights as expressed through their elected representatives, writers, activists, and especially Myanmar’s youth. He urges Suu Kyi and the NLD leaders to continue dialogue and with Tatmadaw to overcome the new challenges created by the latest coup.

To the International community, the Bishop cautions how sanctions in the past brought few results, and to avoid measures that risk collapsing the economy and throwing millions into poverty.

I tend to agree with the Bishop that general sanctions are a blunt instrument that hurt ordinary people while the rich and the powerful find many ways to evade them. However, I believe there is room and need for tough but very specifically and narrowly targeted sanctions against the key perpetrators and enforcers of the military putsch and their business interests, while meticulously sparing the ordinary people.

The international community would be wise to follow the Burmese historian Thant Myint-U’s advice to avoid a narrow focus on political change and help ensure the protection of ordinary people’s lives and livelihoods as part of any international action to thwart the military coup.

“Myanmar needs a fresh path to democracy” he says, “Free and fair elections (and respect for the results) are essential. But also essential is the transformation of a society shaped by decades of dictatorship, international isolation, brutal armed conflict, racial and religious discrimination, extreme poverty and widening inequality”.

In a world struggling to recover from the ravages of the COVID pandemic, and many other epochal crises, the plight of the people of Myanmar may not get the full attention it deserves. But let us hope that the sentiments of global solidarity will inspire them to regain their inalienable human rights and dignity.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The post Post-Coup Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Way Forward appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kul Chandra Gautam, a Nepali diplomat, is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. (www.kulgautam.org). He is also the author of the recently-published "Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations"

The post Post-Coup Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Way Forward appeared first on Inter Press Service.