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Revoke Patents, Defeat the Pandemic & Deliver Global Justice

Thu, 02/04/2021 - 10:05

Wearing a full protective suit, a woman doctor who leads a group of volunteer medical professionals attending to COVID-19 patients at a community hospital in the Philippines. Credit: UN Women/Louie Pacardo

By Benny Kuruvilla
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)

As the pandemic spills into its second year, the WHO tracker lists eight Covid-19 vaccines already in public use. Several others are awaiting regulatory approval. This is unprecedented in vaccine history and with effective international coordination, it presents the global community with a real chance for both pandemic and economic recovery in 2021.

Instead, however, the world is on the brink of a ‘catastrophic moral failure’ on vaccine distribution, to use the words of WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Countries are mired in a stalemate of ‘vaccine nationalism’, with the rich world having secured contracts to vaccinate their entire populations thrice over by the end of this year, while 85 poor countries will not get vaccine rollouts until early 2023, if at all.

This hoarding of vaccines by rich countries for profit constitutes ‘vaccine apartheid’, which not only grants rich countries an unjust privilege but also naively approaches the pandemic as a national or regional problem, despite its obviously global nature.

And as a recent study showed, vaccine nationalism could cost rich countries alone USD 4.5 trillion because of its global economic interlinkages.

European hypocrisy

But even with the imbalance already strongly in its favour, the European Union lashed out at pharma giant AstraZeneca when the company announced it would be delivering fewer than half the 80 million jabs it promised by March 2021, disrupting the bloc’s plans to vaccinate 70 per cent of its adult population by the end of the summer.

Meanwhile, a large majority of poor countries — most of the world’s population — will be lucky if they can vaccinate even 10 per cent of their populations by the end of the year.

In October 2020, South Africa and India moved a proposal at the WTO for a TRIPS waiver on patents, industrial designs and trade secrets that restrict access to vaccines and medicines or manufacturing of medical products essential to combat Covid-19.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, argued in November that the best strategy against the virus was geopolitical cooperation — not competition. Yet her ongoing fiasco with AstraZeneca has exposed the EU’s hypocrisy — as the EU threatened to invoke the same emergency provisions on behalf of Europeans that the EU are currently opposing for citizens of the global South.

Benny Kuruvilla

At the international level, rich countries and pharmaceutical corporations hide behind the innocuously named but disastrously enforced regime of ‘intellectual property’. Since its inception in 1995, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has arguably been the World Trade Organisation’s weakest link.

While TRIPS paradoxically advanced corporate monopoly rights, the rest of WTO agreements exhorted competition, deregulation and free trade.

AIDS: the global health crisis of the 1990s

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic was raging in the late 1990s, the prevailing cost of patented antiretroviral (ARV) drugs was over USD 12,000 per patient, per year. South African president Nelson Mandela led a worldwide revolt for access to affordable, lifesaving ARV drugs by overriding TRIPS provisions and launching a frontal attack on big pharma. In response to this call, the Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla stunned the world in February 2001 by introducing a drug to fight AIDS at less than USD 1 per day.

Buoyed by this victory, developing countries fought off US and EU opposition in pushing for the November 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS, which underlined the right to public health and access to medicines.

Two decades and another global health crisis later, a similar script is being played out by the same set of actors.

Publicly funded innovation

The proposal has now gained heft with sponsorship by Kenya, Pakistan, Venezuela, Egypt and Bolivia, along with the endorsement of nearly 100 countries at the WTO. The WHO, UNAIDS and several UN special rapporteurs are also backing the waiver.

Just like twenty years ago, a powerful cabal of rich countries led by the EU, US, UK and Japan are blocking the waiver. They argue that a waiver on patents will undermine innovation and that the TRIPS already offers flexibilities for public health.

The waiver can play a critical role in rapid expansion of vaccine supplies.

Both these arguments are flawed.

A study of 210 drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 2010 and 2016 showed that public funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was the greatest contributor to research and innovation.

A more recent study showed that governments have allocated at least €88bn to Covid-19 vaccine companies in 2020, demonstrating the marginal role of corporate funding in innovation.

Rich countries should support the TRIPS waiver

Developing countries have long argued at the WTO that stringent provisions in the TRIPS have made it virtually impossible to use the existing flexibilities, and any attempt to invoke flexibilities results in arm-twisting and retaliatory trade pressures from powerful members such as the EU and US.

The waiver can play a critical role in rapid expansion of vaccine supplies. Given that the expertise to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine is reasonably widespread, production can be expanded in firms across the developing world.

In India, its production has been licensed only to the Serum Institute of India, which is struggling to keep up with demand. It is a scandal that while AstraZeneca is charging the EU less than USD 2 per dose, Thailand — a far poorer country — is being charged around USD 5 per dose. Locating production domestically will also help countries to bring down costs substantively.

If the US and EU are serious about contributing to a cooperative global effort on vaccines, they should support the waiver proposal when it comes up for discussions at the WTO on 4 February.

The pandemic is a global problem that requires a global solution, not a few national ones. It is of the utmost importance that all countries take quick and decisive action to put people and health before profits. Only then can we defeat this pandemic.

Source: International Politics and Society. Launched in January 2017, the online journal highlights global inequality and brings new perspectives on issues such as the environment, European integration, international relations, social democracy and development policy.

Based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office, International Politics and Society aims to bring the European political debate to a global audience, as well as providing a platform for voices from the Global South. Contributors include leading journalists, academics and politicians, as well policy officers working throughout the FES’s global network.

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The post Revoke Patents, Defeat the Pandemic & Deliver Global Justice appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Twitter: “We must get to work to make sure the vaccine is available to everyone, everywhere. With this pandemic, none of us are safe until all of us are safe.”

Benny Kuruvilla heads the India office of Focus on the Global South, an Asia-based think tank providing analysis and building alternatives for just social, economic and political change.

The post Revoke Patents, Defeat the Pandemic & Deliver Global Justice appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

UN Calls for an ‘Ocean Science Revolution’

Thu, 02/04/2021 - 09:27

A peninsula separates the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea in the southwestern village of Scottshead, Dominica. Dominica banned single use plastic in 2020. The UN Decade on Ocean Science is calling for amped up action on conservation and the sustainable use of ocean resources.

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations Secretary-General has urged nations to rise to the ‘defining challenge’ of restoring the ocean’s power to support humanity and regulate the climate.

António Guterres addressed the “Brave New Ocean” high level event on Feb. 3. The virtual gathering of world leaders, scientists, philanthropists and ocean advocates marked the start of the UN Decade on Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

The 2021-2030 observance hopes to mobilise financial, scientific, volunteer and community support in ocean science, conservation and the sustainable use of marine resources. The UN chief said it comes as oceans face ‘unprecedented’ threats from human activity.

“By 2050, there may be more plastic than fish in the sea. The world’s tropical coral reefs could be dead by the end of the century if we don’t act now. Protecting and sustainably managing the ocean is essential for food, livelihoods and mitigating climate disruption and related disasters,” Guterres said.

The ocean is immense, containing 97 percent of the water on the earth’s surface. It is an important source of food and energy, while facilitating commerce and communication. Scientists have however warned that humanity’s dependence on the ocean has given way to overexploitation and increased pollution.

The UN’s First World Ocean Assessment, published in 2016, cited inaction as the greatest threat to ocean protection. It stated that as the global population continued to rise, demands on marine resources were soaring. It also warned that as many parts of the ocean were being degraded, pollution went unabated. Sewage, garbage, oil spills and industrial waste were destroying a provider of oxygen, food and water for humanity.

The UN chief has called for ‘an ocean science revolution,’ while noting that funding in this field is critical, but ‘miniscule.’ A number of youth activists from across the globe have volunteered to bring the message of conservation and sustainable ocean use to their peers.

“The ocean I want to see is the one where there is no pollution. Where humans live in balance with it and not just draining it and expecting the ocean to give more than it can,” said 13-year-old ocean activist Catarina Lorenzo.

While the Decade of Ocean Science is new, for some regions, a call to act quickly is not. The tourism-dependent Caribbean is well aware that it has a problem with plastic waste in its waters. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, “the Caribbean is the second most plastic-contaminated sea in the world”. Many governments have enacted laws banning single-use plastics and now, a pilot plastic recycling project is underway on Saint Lucia, with plans for replication on other islands.

The project is RePLAST-OECS. It was launched in May, 2019 and is being implemented by UNITE Caribbean, a pan-Caribbean technical assistance and sustainable development partner. It includes the development of a plastic collection system and incentive scheme, the export of plastic, public education, management and eventual replication.

The project is community driven, with a roster of volunteers. It is support by constituency councils and youth groups such as the Caribbean Youth Environment Network. Project officials supply materials for the establishment of a waste collection point and also provide training. There is a non-monetary incentive scheme. Citizens register and receive a reward card. Reward points are issued based the weight of plastic bottles and containers dropped off at the collection point.

“We are trying to do it with a community-based approach, as opposed to coming into a community and imposing something on them. We are trying to foster greater ownership of the collection activity and ensure sustainability when the pilot is complete,” project director Shanta King told IPS.

For Caribbean countries, a project like this goes to the heart of waste diversion, ensuring that plastics do not end up in the ocean or in landfills.

“When it rains heavily, go to any waterway and you will see a proliferation of plastic bottles. This is evidence of inadequate disposal,” said King.

“The plastics have not been disposed of through the solid waste collection process, but even waste which would go to the landfill is still not adequate because it reduces the landfill lifespan. These bottles take up a significant amount of landfill space and governments have to invest millions of dollars to create additional space. Our small islands just don’t have the landmass to do that.”

RePLAST OECS has established 4 collection points for Saint Lucia. The plastic is collected by a recycler, compacted and sent to Honduras. So far, 2 containers – about 26,000 lbs of plastic – have been shipped.

Constructing and maintaining a recycling plant is not a viable option for each island. The goal is to tackle the ballooning plastic waste problem by each island establishing collection points and shipping its plastic for recycling.

It came before the Decade for Ocean Science, but the Saint Lucia project reflects the kind of action being called for by the movement – to identify an issue plaguing the ocean and work towards a sustainable solution.

UN officials are urging nations to embrace this commitment to support science and jump start initiatives to protect oceans for the next ten years.

The post UN Calls for an ‘Ocean Science Revolution’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The 2021-2030 initiative hopes to raise funding for ocean science and focus on the sustainable use of marine resources

The post UN Calls for an ‘Ocean Science Revolution’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

China & Russia Throw Protective Arms Around Myanmar

Thu, 02/04/2021 - 08:38

Bagan, Myanmar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Credit: World Bank/Markus Kostner

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)

When million-dollar arms sales knock on the door, human rights violations and war crimes fly out of the window.

As the United Nations grapples for a reaction to the military coup in Myanmar, both China and Russia, two veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), refused to support a statement condemning the army takeover—a collective statement that warrants consensus from all 15 members.

The two big powers have long thrown their protective arms around Myanmar because of longstanding political, economic and military relationships with the troubled Southeast Asian Nation.

Russia and China have often provided support for each other (“you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours…”). But they don’t always vote in sync, says one UN watcher.

Perhaps what is most significant is the fact that Russia and China are two of the major arms suppliers to Myanmar and will therefore protect the country from any form of UN military or economic sanctions.

Although it does not officially release figures for its annual military budget or provide a breakdown of its expenditures on arms purchase, Myanmar purchased over $2.4 billion worth or arms between 2010-2019, according to a database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China accounted for about $1.3 billion in arms; Russia $807 million; India $145 million; and South Korea $90 million.

Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher, Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at SIPRI told IPS these arms purchases included warships, combat aircraft, armed drones (UAVs), armoured vehicles and air defence systems from China while Russia supplied fighter aircraft and combat helicopters.

India, currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC, provided a second-hand submarine, the first large submarine for Myanmar, plus equipment and missiles for warships built in Myanmar.

“India is a rather new arms supplier and seems to aim to reduce Myanmar’s links to China — and it has, in the past, expressed concerns about Chinese influence in Myanmar and in (potential) Chinese military installations and bases in Myanmar,” said Wezeman.

India and China, both nuclear powers, have had several military confrontations in their ongoing border disputes along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayas.

Among other arms suppliers to Myanmar, Wezeman pointed out, are South Korea, Belarus and Israel.

Several members of the European Union (EU), he said, have also supplied equipment considered ‘major arms’ by SIPRI – despite EU sanctions which include a seemingly strong ban on supplying equipment or support to Myanmar’s military.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers

In a statement condemning the coup, US President Joe Biden said “the United States removed sanctions on Burma (the US has long refused to recognize the name change to Myanmar) over the past decade based on progress toward democracy.”

“The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action,” he said “The United States will stand up for democracy wherever it is under attack.”

A State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters February 3 the United States provided nearly $135 million in bilateral assistance to Burma in FY2020.

“I should mention that only a portion of that, a very small portion, is assistance to the government. But we’re undertaking that review”.

“Again, we’re going to work expeditiously to determine the implications for Burma’s military leaders for their actions here. But there is a small sliver of that foreign assistance that would actually be implicated.”

It’s the vast, vast majority that actually goes to Rohingya, to civil society, and not to the Burmese military, said Price.

Louis Charbonneau, UN director for Human Rights Watch, said the Security Council’s abysmal failure to address Myanmar’s past appalling human rights abuses assured the military they could do as they please without serious consequences.

“That approach should end now,” he added.

The Security Council, he said, should demand the immediate release of all detained political leaders and activists, and the restoration of civilian democratic rule. Targeted sanctions should be imposed on those military leaders responsible.”

Meanwhile, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US, along with the High Representative of the European Union, have unanimously condemned the coup in Myanmar.

“We are deeply concerned by the detention of political leaders and civil society activists, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, and targeting of the media”.

“We call upon the military to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law. The November election results must be respected and Parliament should be convened at the earliest opportunity,” the G7 ministers said in a statement released here.

Calling for the de-militarization of Myanmar, Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon and President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), said war is the language of death.

“Civil wars are a refusal to recognize the humanity of our brothers and sisters. Violence never begets peace. War negates national harmony. The fruits of conflicts are bitterness, divisions and wounds that take years to heal. Seek unity, yes, but not by fear or threat”.

Speaking of militarization, Wezeman told IPS that Myanmar has started, in recent years, to modernize its armed forces in a more serious way, acquiring advanced combat aircraft (MiG-29, SDu-30MK and JF-17), advanced and basic trainer aircraft (K-8, Yak-130 and G-120TP) and various armoured vehicles to replace or add to those in service.

Myanmar has also acquired several types of air defence systems (which it did not really have before) and its first submarine. It has acquired new warships and has started building its warships of local design (but suspected to lean heavily on Chinese help in design and using imported weapons, sensors and engines).

In general, he said, it seems Myanmar has embarked on building more capable armed forces — more capable against the various rebel force in Myanmar but also more capable against other states.

Compared to its neighbours– China and India, and even Thailand– the Myanmar armed forces operate with less major arms and less advanced weapons systems, Wezeman said.

The writer is a former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services (DMS), a Senior Military Analyst at Forecast International and Military Editor, Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group in the US.

The post China & Russia Throw Protective Arms Around Myanmar appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The UN Special Envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, appealed to the Security Council on February 2 to unite in support of democracy in Myanmar in the wake of a power grab by the military and the declaration of a one-year state of emergency.

The post China & Russia Throw Protective Arms Around Myanmar appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Water Graves: Nightmare for Mexican Fishermen

Thu, 02/04/2021 - 08:08

By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Feb 4 2021 (IPS)

All of Erizo’s nightmares are the same. Since his return from the ocean – almost unrecognizable – every bad dream is identical. A wave punches his little boat and throws him into the deep sea where everything is so dark that he can’t even see his own hands.

Rosi Orozco

Even when he swam with all his energy, this 31 year old fisherman was never able to set foot on the mainland and to him, the Mexican Pacific ocean slowly became a grave formed only of water.

When Erizo dies in his nightmare, he wakes up in real life, opening his mouth like a dying fish that desperately tries to gasp some air. Then, he and his wife are on a midnight routine. Erizo stays in bed while Sandra walks over the sand floor of their home to reach for a glass of water for him. She can do that in total darkness without stumbling because there is barely anything; the furniture in this young couple’s home consists only of a bed, a small TV, a plastic table, two chairs, two hammocks, and a few plastic bags with clothes and shoes.

Their poverty reflects the 24-hour labor shifts that Erizo undertook each week sailing on his little boat -“Esmeralda”- named after his 4 year old daughter.

Erizo is a fisherman in a small town 20 minutes away from Mazatlan, Sinaloa, where everybody knows his neighbors by their nicknames. Erizo’s name means hedgehog, a name given to him because of his short and straight black hair. His friends are Pelao and Rana (frog). On the surface or in plain sight, they look like a relaxed group of friends who drink beer by the ocean and listen to The Hermanos Cota music band. When you look closely at that community you can see the open wounds inflicted on these fishermen by labor exploitation. Pelao has been struggling for years with an unpayable debt that has led him to alcohol addiction and Rana suffers from terrible pain in his hands due to the frequent injuries suffered from handling the heavy fishing nets.

Erizo is not the same person ever since fish sales dropped in March 2008 and he couldn’t afford gasoline for his little boat to go to sea and return home every day with his catch. He decided to enter the deep sea and stay there for five days until he catches as many fish as possible. On the third day, a big wave hit him nearly pinning him to the seabed.

He managed to keep afloat for eight days, clinging on to a big plastic jug of water, eating his own vomit, biting and eating live and raw fish for eight days.

During the first days, he prayed to God for survival. The next six days he prayed for death until on the last day when he closed his eyes and thought it was over — just to realize that a boat had rescued him and saved his life. “I didn’t die at sea, but a part of me is still there. Being a fisherman in this country is like having no life”, he told me.

Erizo and his friends are hired on verbal agreements by anonymous men who represent shady businesses. It’s a common strategy in the fishing industry that exploits the most vulnerable ones without paying any social costs or support. Hiring companies pay between 0.7 and 1.4 dollars per kilo of fish and shrimp respectively, which goes to “Central de Abastos” – the largest fish market in America. There it is sold at 15 dollars per kilo. In a fancy restaurant located in the rich neighborhood of Polanco in Mexico City, a shrimp soup could cost 35 dollars.

Of the small profits that the Mexican fishermen make, they must take off the cost of gasoline, food, helpers, boat maintenance and the fee to anchor on shore. Often they work with clear financial loss. Such is life for the 300,000 fishermen in Mexico, the country that is globally ranked 16th in seafood production. They produce 800,000 tons of food for a multibillion dollar industry. Yet, the fishermen work like slaves. Most of them earn and live 10 dollars a day. They don’t have health insurance, social security, or household credits. Also, no financial services are available to them nor any money to have fun or enjoyment in their lives, according to the “Social Impact of the Fishing Industry in Mexico” report.

The pandemic has deepened their poverty. The coronavirus has been a curse, but it can be a salvation: the fishing industry needs to transform and this is the ideal time to pay the long-time debt owed to these women and men, like Erizo. It’s now or never to demand better work quality for them. Regulations and sanctions imposed on abusive companies are essential in the new world after this global crisis of Covid-19 is over.

A country that devours the delicacies of the sea, leaving the people who bring it to their tables to starve only leaves a bitter rather than a good taste.

The author is a human rights activist who opened the first shelter for girls and teenagers rescued from sexual commercial exploitation in Mexico. She has published five books on preventing human trafficking; she is the elected Representative of GSN Global Sustainability Network in Latin America.

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Categories: Africa

Nepal Struggles to Preserve Its Indigenous Languages as Those Speaking Them Dwindle

Wed, 02/03/2021 - 13:40

Child reading Newa folk story, Dhaplaan Khyaa, by Durgalal Shrestha. Credit: ASHISH SHAKYA

By Alisha Sijapati
KATMANDU, Feb 3 2021 (IPS)

At last count Nepal had 129 spoken languages, but even as new ones are identified, others are becoming extinct. At least 24 of the languages and dialects spoken in Nepal are ‘endangered’, and the next ones on the verge of disappearing are Dura, Kusunda, and Tillung, each of which have only one speaker left.

“It will not surprise me if these three languages will be the next to go. With no one left to speak, we will not be able to save them,” says Lok Bahadur Lopchan of the Language Commission of Nepal, which is entrusted with preserving Nepal’s linguistic diversity.

If a language is spoken by less than 1,000 people, it is categorised as ‘endangered’. Lopchan predicts that over 37 more languages spoken in Nepal are in that category and likely to disappear in the next ten years.

According to the Language Commission of Nepal‘s 2019 annual report the languages most commonly spoken in the country are Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu, Tamang, Nepal Bhasa, Bajjika, Magar, Doteli and Urdu, in that order.

But just as there are languages disappearing, new ones that had never been recognised are being found in far flung parts of the country, like Rana Tharu which is spoken in the western Tarai, Narphu in a remote valley in Manang, Tsum in the Tsum Valley of Upper Gorkha, Nubri Larke in the Manaslu region, Poike and Syarke.

“It is fortunate that these languages have been identified, but it is unfortunate they are spoken by very few people, and could very soon die out,” says Lopchan, who adds that every two weeks, an indigenous language goes extinct somewhere in the world.

“The loss of Nepal’s languages is the result of deliberate state policy, our linguistic heritage was swept away to promote a national character”
Even those that are among the top ten most spoken in Nepal are losing their first language status. Parents insist on proficiency in Nepali or English in school to ensure good job prospects for their children. And even since King Mahendra’s reign, the state has pushed Nepali as the lingua franca to the detriment of other national languages.

Supral Raj Joshi, 29, is a voice actor and grew up speaking Nepal Bhasa at home. But from primary school onwards, it was Nepali and English only in class, and he soon forgot his mother tongue. Speaking Nepali with his family, it suddenly struck him how much of his culture he had lost with the language.

“The loss of Nepal’s languages is the result of deliberate state policy, our linguistic heritage was swept away to promote a national character,” says Joshi.

King Mahendra instituted measures to create a unified Nepali identity through dress, language, and even dismantled democracy and instituted the partyless Panchayat system that he said “suited the Nepali soil”.

Experts say that the decision enforcing the idea of nationalism through one language restricted indigenous communities to speak their ancestral tongue.

“The dominant class made its language the national language, and in doing so other languages suffered collateral damage,” says Rajendra Dahal, Editor of Shikshak magazine. “The end of a language is not just a loss for a community, but for the country and the world.”

At the Language Commission of Nepal, there is a sense of urgency to save the three languages that each have only one speaker left. It has partnered with 45-year-old Kamala Kusunda, the only living person in the world who speaks Kusunda. She now runs a small private school in Dang to teach the language to over 20 students.

“If I die, then my mother language dies with me too. I had to revive this language for its value to our people, and the hope of keeping our ancestral language alive,” Kamal Kusunda told Nepali Times over the phone.

Muktinath Ghimire in Lamjung has a similar task. As the only remaining speaker of Dura, he is preparing to start a school to teach the language to others in the community. “We can’t let this language die,” he says.

Other languages like Tsum, more recently identified as distinct dialects, were already endangered by the time they were identified as being uniquely different.

“Older people in Tsum Valley exclusively speak Tsum, but the younger generation is losing the language,” says Wangchuk Rapten Lama, a fluent Tsum speaker himself who is working to expand its use by introducing the language to children through cultural activities.

Canada-based linguistic anthropologist Mark Turin worked with the Thangmi in Dolakha and Sindhupalchok to document their endangered language.

“To speak of linguists saving languages is just as ludicrous as suggesting that Apps and digital technologies save language,” he says. “Neither is true, and field linguistics is still dominated by quite colonial and extractivist models of knowledge production.”

He says speakers of indigenous languages like Thangmi deserve the recognition as they work tirelessly to reclaim, rejuvenate and revive their ancestral languages, often in the face of considerable opposition.

“Indigenous youth in these communities are now creating domains of use for ancestral languages to thrive once again, in print, online and on air. This is the true work of language revitalisation and reclamation, and it deserves wider recognition,” Turin adds.

After Nepal went into the federal mode, it was expected that schools across the country would teach regional languages. Article 31 of the Constitution says: ‘Every Nepali community living in Nepal shall have the right to acquire education in their mother tongue up to the secondary level, and the right to open and run schools and educational institutions as provided for by law.’

The Curriculum Development Centre along with rural municipalities introduced a ‘local curriculum’ bearing 100 points. For instance, Bhaktapur and Gokarna municipalities have curricula designed to teach students about their own municipalities. While some schools offer mother tongues as an option, a majority choose the ‘local curriculum’.

In October 2020, Kathmandu Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya made it mandatory for schools to teach Nepal Bhasa from Grade 1-8. But there was mixed reaction from parents, with many feeling it would burden the students and their Nepali and English would suffer.

“We have tried offering students formal classes on Nepal Bhasa for many years, but there was not much interest from guardians even though we know children thrive when they learn new languages,” says Jyoti Man Sherchan, former Principal of Malpi International School, who introduced a Thakali language club in the school.

“Parents are more interested in their children being proficient in English or Mandarin. Change is possible only if the government intervenes and provides resources and training to teach our own mother tongues,” says Sherchan.

However, there are limitations in residential schools where students come from all over Nepal. It is impossible to make everyone speak different languages.

Province 2 is different because the Tarai districts are the most multilingual in the country. In Birganj, for example, most people speak Maithili and Bhojpuri, and they also speak Hindi, Nepali or English.

“Although schools here do not teach ancestral languages, the majority of children continue to speak Maithili and Bhojpuri at home,” explains writer Chandra Kishore. “In my school English and Nepali were taught, but the medium language for explaining those languages was Maithili.

Languages stop evolving once people stop conversing in them. Ancestral languages are also needed to root a people in their heritage and give a distinct identity. This is becoming more and more difficult all over the world with globalisation and the Internet.

“My little children only speak English,” says Saraswati Lama who is married to a Rai, and works for a non-profit in Kathmandu. “My daughter learned it from YouTube and she taught it to her younger brother.” Neither Lama, nor her husband speak their own mother tongues, and use Nepali to speak with one another.

But these days, it is in the Nepali diaspora that the country’s linguistic heritage seems to be valued more. Sujan Shrestha was born in Kathmandu but moved to the US while he was in high school. Now a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, he says his wife and children only speak English and Nepal Bhasa, and no Nepali.

“Nepal Bhasa gives the kids an identity, and connects them to the extended family, especially their grandparents. It is about teaching our kids cultural sensitivity and open-mindedness towards other cultures and people.”

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Categories: Africa

Myanmar Looks Back in Fear and Anger after Military Coup

Wed, 02/03/2021 - 11:53

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Categories: Africa

The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration

Wed, 02/03/2021 - 11:00

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed meets with Afghans displaced by the ongoing conflict. Credit: United Nations

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Feb 3 2021 (IPS)

President Biden and his administration confront a very challenging situation within the United States and abroad. His predecessor, Mr. Trump, refused to accept the defeat or extend any cooperation to the incoming team.

Simultaneously, the threat of internal terrorism, fomented by the former president’s rhetoric, is real. National security apparatuses are on maximum alert. Furthermore, Republican leaders have not yet decided to realign their party on values defended by Abraham Lincoln.

The health crisis is unprecedented. So far, over 450’0000 Americans have lost their lives in less than a year because of the coronavirus ravages alone. The economy is frail and unemployment soaring. President Biden and Vice-President Harris inherit a deeply divided country. Such a state of affairs is distinctive and has never occurred in the United States of America’s recently remembered history.

Abroad, the United States suffered an enormous setback during the last four years. Mr. Trump snubbed every friend, ally, and liable institution, antagonizing practically the whole world against his policies.

Among other significant lapses, his discord with Europeans and NATO, unilateral retraction from the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement, unhindered support to the Saudi-led Yemen tragedy, and troops withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan have been flagrant deviations from the standard and sound approaches undertaken by any government, Democrat or Republican.

On Afghanistan, more specifically, the United States and its allies spent trillions of dollars since 2001 on the bilateral and multilateral military, humanitarian, and development aid schemes. Thousands of their soldiers either lost their lives or sustained severe injuries.

However, due to evident inefficiency, systematic corruption, rampant nepotism, intentioned tribalism, and the traditional carelessness of Kabul leaders, little changed in ordinary people’s lives. Alarming insecurity all over the country, a quasi-inexistent economy, the inapplicable rule of law, raging violations of human rights, rising bigotry, and lack of vision for the future portray the current situation.

The Trump-Taliban agreement is perceived as a nail that aimed at durably coffining the hope for democracy, prosperity, and a peaceful future. There is a growing feeling within and outside Afghanistan that the United States did not achieve tangible results from their longest and costly war since Vietnam.

The Biden/Harris administration could transform the United States’ looming letdown into a success story of their foreign policy. Boldness and slightly more patience are essential to such an achievement.

Practically all post-Taliban chieftains in Afghanistan proved inept and part of the problem. The hope for a solution and taking Afghanistan out of the abyss rely on a young and incorruptible generation. Some students and scholars voiced their views by addressing President Biden and Vice-President Harris in a letter on 26 January 2021, transmitted to the White House two days later.

They valiantly highlight some inconsistency between policy and practice and the continued unfortunate support provided to inefficient and corrupt individuals by the international community. They further underscore their growing fear that Afghanistan has become the battleground for a new “great game” among superpowers that would last for decades.

They deem it necessary to learn from mistakes committed by the international community and Afghan leadership. In their view, the new administration in the United States needs to opt for an innovative approach that would finally bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and allow an honorable withdrawal of foreign troops from this country. In particular, they insist on the following:

The letter’s signatories justifiably call on President Biden and Vice-President Harris to promote and support a young and incorruptible generation of Afghan leaders to endeavor and surmount the impediments mentioned above.

With all sincerity and humility, the new administration in Washington must embrace this new approach and abandon the policy of building on what did not function. It is also the right moment to put intense pressure on Pakistan to stop its unhindered and destructive support to the Taliban.

Finally, the international community and the United States, in particular, need to define their position concerning the Taliban and those who harbor, arm, train, and finance them, bearing in mind that their success to share or grab power would be perceived the success of other terrorist organizations too over the forces of democracy and the rule of law.

Afghans have suffered for over forty years from wars, destruction, killing of innocents – mainly women and children, extremism, terrorism, bigotry, and the ineptness of their leaders. It is high time to end their suffering with a refreshing policy and a new generation of leaders!

The post The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Saber Azam is a former United Nations official who served with UNHCR and DPKO in key positions in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is also the author of SORAYA: The Other Princess, a historical fiction that overflies the latest seven decades of Afghan history, and Hell’s Mouth, also a historical fiction that recounts the excellent work of humanitarian and human rights actors in Côte d’Ivoire during the First Liberian Civil War.

The post The Afghan Dilemma for the Biden/Harris Administration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions

Wed, 02/03/2021 - 07:59

Credit: UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 3 2021 (IPS)

Access to COVID-19 vaccines for many developing countries and most of their people will have to wait as the powerful and better off secure earlier access regardless of need or urgency. More profits, by manufacturing scarcity, will surely cause even more loss of both lives and livelihoods.

Good intentions not enough
To induce private efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, the WHO initiated COVAX to ensure more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. However, interest by vaccine companies has been limited, while some governments – especially from better-off upper middle-income countries – pursue other options.

COVAX has been co-led with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Buoyed by their earlier success with advance market commitments (AMC), they have extended the same approach in very different circumstances.

AMC was originally conceived to induce the development of vaccines for ‘neglected diseases’. Such infectious diseases remain threats in poor countries and among poor people. Hence, prospective sales revenue was believed to be too small for needed investments by profit-seeking vaccine companies.

By guaranteeing and subsidising sales, the AMC effectively promises the vaccine developer to make the research and development effort profitable, typically with early payments and subsidies to enhance the inducement.

No one size fits all
In the Covid-19 pandemic context, however, the COVAX AMC is not a ‘white knight’ coming to the rescue of an orphaned, typically tropical disease. Instead, it competes with other buyers, mostly of greater means.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

To put it bluntly, the Covid-19 pandemic context is quite different from the ‘neglected diseases’ problem which the AMC was conceived to address, i.e., contemporary Western R&D efforts presumed to be driven primarily, if not exclusively by the prospect of profits.

The highly infectious ‘aerosol-borne’ virus quickly achieved a global reach. Apparently more likely to be lethal with advancing age, mass vulnerability to infection ensured a broad, inclusive, international market for Covid-19 vaccines from the outset.

Recognising the extent and impact of the pandemic threat, vaccine developers expect to sell their vaccines very profitably. They made advance sales to many rich-country governments, rather than, or even while committing to COVAX. Unsurprisingly in these circumstances, the COVAX AMC approach has not worked well, let alone equitably.

The companies did not require AMC advance purchases to start their efforts. Expecting the WHO to protect their interests, participating developing country governments, mainly of upper-middle income economies, have generally not worked together to push for further price moderation.

COVAX subverted
Advance Covid-19 vaccine purchases by many rich country governments are not only greatly in excess of their population requirements, but also not made in a transparent manner conducive to improving equity.

Unsure of the efficacy and effectiveness of the often still experimental vaccines, some booked, paid for and now demand far more than needed by their populations. Thus, COVAX has been subverted by rich country government actions.

Ironically, instead of protecting and promoting the interests of the poor, the public interest and the common good, the COVAX AMC has served to set floor prices. Arguably, COVAX has ensured profits for vaccine companies without addressing the ‘only money talks’ problem and competitive ‘vaccine nationalism’.

To ensure a ‘people’s vaccine’ available to all, Acharya and Reddy have proposed public financing to develop or buy over vaccine formulas. This can ensure patentable and other relevant information is freely shared, enabling generic vaccine producers to greatly increase supply at much lower prices.

As rich country governments have already paid much to accelerate vaccine development, they can more easily secure and share the thus far undisclosed information needed to greatly and affordably scale up generic vaccine output.

As vaccine developers do not really expect much revenue from selling vaccines to the poor, such ‘generosity’ would cost them little, while earning them and the enabling governments priceless appreciation and goodwill in the process.

Way out
The best way forward now involves approving the TRIPS waiver at the WTO, which the Trump administration, the EU and some allies, such as Brazil, have stubbornly blocked.

The TRIPS waiver – sought by developing countries led by South Africa, India and Pakistan – seeks to temporarily suspend several TRIPS provisions on patents, design and protection of undisclosed information.

The Biden administration has shown renewed commitment to multilateralism by re-joining the World Health Organization (WHO). It can demonstrate leadership by not only lifting the US embargo on exports of vaccines, vital medicines and equipment, but also advocating strongly for the TRIPS waiver proposal at the WTO.

US taxpayers have already spent many billions to accelerate private vaccine development and distribution. Vaccines for the world can be greatly increased, at little additional cost, by working with the rest of the world, as Chinese researchers did by sharing the virus’ genome sequence with the world within a fortnight of its discovery over a year ago.

The post Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

As Army Takes Over, Fear and Uncertainty Grip Myanmar Citizens

Tue, 02/02/2021 - 10:30

The post As Army Takes Over, Fear and Uncertainty Grip Myanmar Citizens appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

A Counter-Narrative? Ruminations Around Holocaust Memorial Day

Tue, 02/02/2021 - 10:17

A mother holds her child in the Al Dhale'e Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp in Yemen. The war in Yemen continues to ravage the country and its people, senior UN-appointed rights investigators said, in a call for an international probe into suspected war crimes, and sanctions against the perpetrators. Credit: YPN for UNOCHA

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Feb 2 2021 (IPS)

For more than two decades, the mantra was “PVE” (preventing violent extremism) and/or “CVE” (countering violent extremism).

Millions of dollars were spent, new NGOs and think tanks emerged, government policy papers were drafted, countless books and articles were published, large and small scale initiatives developed – indeed almost an entire industry in development and foreign policy spaces thrived.

Complete with UN resolutions and entire units inside the UN system and intergovernmental entities were created to focus on this (thinly veiled religious) violent extremism.

It would seem that PVE/CVE also delineated political positions in certain countries. Were you of the PVE or the CVE inclination? The difference between these two positions was not whether one considered violent extremism to be a – largely – religious (and let’s face it, Islamic-focused) set of features, but whether you were seeking to be politically correct about the endeavor, or just ‘call it like it is”.

Of course, all this generated multitudes of arguments, analysis and ‘alternative views’. By and large, the consensus – and certainly where multi million dollars of investment were going – appeared to be, that ‘developing a counter narrative’ was the way to go.

Horrific gang violence, atrocious drug-related violence, spiking gender-based violence, sexual violence in conflict and non-conflict settings, even domestic violence, school shootings, policy brutality, all soared. But none of that of course, is violent extremism.

In the US, throughout the 1990s, several incidents took place – Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992; Waco, Texas, in 1993; and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The sight of men carrying torches in Charlottesville and braying anti-semitic and anti-everything decent slogans, apparently was … well, clearly, freedom of speech.

While on the other hand, peaceful demonstrations against the oldest and most vile of prejudices which intersects with and informs so many other prejudices – I mean racism by the way – those we did see as worthy of brutality and force. And that brutality and force was also not violent extremism.

With all that, to many of the pundits (‘experts’, intellectuals, intelligence communities) in the ‘developed’ part of the world, none of all this qualified as violent extremism. No, violent extremism, and its kin, terrorism, were what, by and large, Muslims did.

And the Muslims, by the way, were not really a religion. In fact, maybe they were not even human. Our kind of humans, you see, don’t do violent extremism. ‘Our’ kind of humans do good, old fashioned pro-Life kind of religion, informed by wholesome [western] values which are worthy of export as part of an ongoing mission to bring light to the world.

And when some of those things turn ugly and even contravene international standards of human rights (as if those are even relevant), it does not get labelled what it is, because ‘there are good people on all sides’.

When nations turn away or intern those seeking refuge and those displaced by their own duty bearers, and when these people end up cold and without clothes in the coldest of times, or separated from their loved ones in manners reminiscent of the stories of earlier Jewish internment camps, that is not violent extremism.

When there are over two million Muslims in “reeducation camps” (because of their propensity to ‘Islamic extremism’ of course) – no, not in Nazi times back then, but right here, happening right now – that ‘reeducation’ is not called violent extremism.

Even genocide – when we dare to name it – is not violent extremism either, apparently. You see, if a powerful government commits it, it is not violent extremism. And the label of genocide is anyway facetious and disrespectful and libelous and plain wrong. Some say. When they dare to speak.

We needed to watch the Capitol of the United States of America, besieged by men with war paint on their faces, wearing animal masks, military-like fatigues, brazenly waving the flags of states which once went to war with kith and kin to defend human slavery, former (and currently serving) military and/or police officers, even women with a mission apparently willing to scale walls to enter “the people’s house” – and get shot dead by terrified, seriously understaffed security people.

We had to wait to see these macabre sights of yet another awful US reality TV show, to begin – only begin – to name it. So now that we have named it, shall we draw upon the decades’ long ‘expertise’ of NGOs, human rights actors, think tanks, governments and the industry, academia, which largely focused on the Muslim other?

All those who valiantly created “counter-narratives” to deal with this variant of the virus of violent extremism? Or are counter-narratives only something we invest in when it comes to others outside of ‘our’ kind?

And what is the counter narrative to rampant hate of the multiple, intersecting and difficult to discern forms of ‘otherness’, when divisiveness, bitterness and ignorance are normal in so many parts of the world?

For we spent decades normalizing othering. Even as we sought to deal with violence, we did so by ‘othering’ (rendering different from ‘us’) the perpetrators and the actions, even when they were us. We even othered violence itself by defining an extreme form thereof! As if violence was not bad enough.

As we sought ‘counter narratives’, we affirmed the us-versus-them world view: our narrative was, would be, better than theirs. But hate is not a narrative. Hatred is felt, it is embodied, it is lived – and it is actively justified.

Hatred feeds on othering. Othering is the fuel which makes hatred rage as the fires that consumed our earth did in 2020 – literally as well as metaphorically.

The antidote to othering, to the roots of hatred, is to recognize the power inherent in our diversity. All faiths teach that diversity is manifestations of the Divine, and/or that the Divine resides in diversity – sometimes in polar opposites (e.g. Destructor-Creator).

All faiths try to teach that power is not about institutions and boundaries. Instead, ‘power’ is to love the diversities. Yet still we persist, and our religions and our politics and our institutions persist, in the politics of othering, and defining the boundaries of us versus them.

When will we learn, that we are one and the same? What will it take?

The post A Counter-Narrative? Ruminations Around Holocaust Memorial Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Azza Karam is the Secretary General of Religions for Peace, and Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

The post A Counter-Narrative? Ruminations Around Holocaust Memorial Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Caught in Tangled Web of Vaccine Nationalism

Tue, 02/02/2021 - 07:32

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 2 2021 (IPS)

“Oh what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive”. Walter Scott’s lines, already over two centuries old, nicely sum up how pursuit of national advantage and private gain have undermined the public interest and the common good.

As known COVID-19 infections exceed 100 million internationally, with more than two million lives lost, rich countries are now quarrelling publicly over access to limited vaccine supplies. With ‘vaccine nationalism’ widespread, multilateral arrangements have not been able to address current challenges well.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Vaccine nationalism has meant that the rich and powerful come first, not only in societies, but also in the world, making a mockery of the ‘No one left behind’ slogan embraced by the international community.

Many developing countries and most of their people will have to wait for access to vaccines while the powerful and better off secure prior access regardless of need or urgency.

Vaccine nationalism and the prospect of more profits by not scaling up output to induce scarcity may thus cause more losses of both lives and livelihoods, causing economies to slow further.

TRIPS waiver blocked
The 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) greatly strengthened and extended intellectual property rights (IPRs) transnationally. It is easy to forget that strict cross-border enforcement of IPRs claims are relatively recent.

While many assume that IPRs are needed to promote research and development for technological progress, this is seriously challenged by most serious histories and historians of technology.

Perhaps more importantly, there is considerable evidence that IPRs may well have inadvertently slowed progress. More generally, IPRs have discouraged research cooperation and knowledge sharing, so essential to progress.

By enabling, and thus encouraging ‘patent trolling’ and hoarding, IPRs have effectively denied access to patented products and processes except to the highest bidders.

Public health exception
Following the pushback to the original TRIPS, boosted by Nelson Mandela after he became South African President in 1994, developing countries have secured legal access to ‘essential medicines’.

A 2001 WTO Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health affirmed the right of countries to protect public health, enable access to medicines, and issue a compulsory license (CL), even without a health emergency.

In return for developing countries extending IP protection, developed countries promised to establish manufacturing capabilities for patented processes in developing countries, and incentivise their transnational corporations (TNCs) to enable technology transfer to developing countries, especially the least developed countries (LDCs).

In 2017, the TRIPS Agreement was amended to confirm developing countries unable to domestically produce certain pharmaceuticals, could issue compulsory licenses to import patented drugs produced abroad under compulsory licensing.

But although TRIPS now allows such use of compulsory licensing, developing countries are still constrained by its complex rules, procedures and conditions as well as constant TNC threats and inducements, supported by their governments.

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

TRIPS waiver
The TRIPS waiver – proposed by South Africa, India and others to the WTO – seeks temporary suspension of several TRIPS provisions on patents, design and protection of undisclosed information.

The proposed waiver seeks to greatly scale up production of and access to COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and equipment, especially in developing countries, to contain the contagion. But the Trump administration, the European Union (EU) and their allies have stubbornly blocked the waiver.

The EU claims “an [intellectual property] system is…also to ensure the publication and dissemination of research results, when otherwise they will remain secret.” It omits to acknowledge that no vaccine developer has shared research results needed to scale up vaccine output by others, including generic producers.

Vaccine nationalism rules
Although the waiver implies treating vaccine production and distribution as public goods, and the European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has spoken about “working together” and “solidarity” for the “public good”, the EU continues to block it.

But after AstraZeneca and Pfizer failed to meet their contractual obligations to deliver vaccines to EU countries, the now embattled EC President has criticised the companies for not meeting their contractual obligations. She did not hesitate to emphasise that EU taxpayers and governments had paid much to accelerate vaccine development and production.

Ironically, the most feasible way forward now involves approving the TRIPS waiver at the WTO. The US and EU governments can make the badly needed breakthrough and thus do much to restore international confidence in their intentions.

With Biden announcing the US re-joining the World Health Organization (WHO), the new administration can not only lift the embargo on exports of vaccines, vital medicines and equipment, but also advocate for the TRIPS waiver, quickly winning appreciation for his commitment to multilateral leadership.

US taxpayers have already spent many billions for Trump’s Operation Warp Speed to accelerate private vaccine development and distribution. Now, both the US and EU are well placed to greatly accelerate vaccine production and distribution for the world at relatively little additional cost.

They can do so by ensuring that relevant information is quickly shared to rapidly scale up vaccine production. For example, mass vaccine production capacity remains limited internationally, but it is the Serum Institute of India, not a developed country facility, which is acknowledged as the world leader by far.

The post Caught in Tangled Web of Vaccine Nationalism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Sri Lanka’s Deteriorating Human Rights Situation Raises Multiple Alarms

Mon, 02/01/2021 - 12:24

Shreen Saroor

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 1 2021 (IPS)

A decade has passed since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war between the government and the LTTE, where at least 100,000 people were killed in the over three-decade long conflict. Families of victims of enforced disappearances continue to seek justice, the government is yet to end impunity and put accountability for crimes under international law and human rights violation and abuses in its transitional justice process.

In a recent United Nations Human Rights Office of The High Commissioner report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stressed that the failure to deal with the past continues to have devastating effects on tens of thousands of families in Sri Lanka, who are still waiting for justice, reparations – and the truth about the fate of their loved ones. The report warns that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations has significantly “ heightened the risk of human rights violations being repeated.”

“Sri Lanka’s current trajectory sets the scene for the recurrence of the policies and practices that gave rise to grave human rights violations.” The report also flags the pattern of intensified surveillance and harassment of civil society organizations, human rights defenders and victims, and a shrinking space for independent media.

“I see the OHCHR report as something that will give more oxygen to continue our many struggles, especially for truth and justice,” says Sri Lanka based human rights activist Shreen Saroor to IPS News. The report has articulated the lack of access to justice and the need for accountability very well. It is robust on militarisation and deep securitisation of Sri Lanka and calls for rigorous vetting and demilitarization with a warning of grave consequences if failed, says Shreen.

“Michelle Bachelet’s criticism on surveillance on CSOs and shrinking space for dissent and the abuses of Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act are alarming. However in order to prevent another round of conflict, the report should emphasize more on the ongoing attacks against countries’ religious minorities,” says Shreen.

Earlier in december 2020, Muslims in Sri Lanka were outraged over the forced cremation of a 20-day-old COVID-19 victim against the family’s wishes. Sri Lanka has been flagged for ignoring the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines which permits both burial and cremations.

In a country where minorities are marginalized and discriminated against, Muslims who fall victim to COVID-19 are unjustly prevented from being laid to rest in accordance with their religious beliefs and are forcibly cremated, said Amnesty International in a statement. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world which has made cremations mandatory for people who have died or are suspected of having died from COVID-19. The rights group urged the Sri Lankan Government to not forget that “ it has a duty to ensure all people in Sri Lanka are treated equitably. COVID-19 does not discriminate on grounds of ethnic, political or religious differences, and nor should the Government of Sri Lanka.”

“Many of us who have witnessed continuous minority rights violations over three decades in Sri Lanka, it is important for OHCHR to take on the issue of growing Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism and the extreme nationalism that has been mentioned in the OHCHR report.

“It is time for OHCHR to come up with an early prevention strategy, so that another bloody war or religious violence in this country is prevented,” says Shreen.

Human Rights Watch in its recently released 93-page report, Open Wounds and Mounting Dangers: Blocking Accountability for Grave Abuses in Sri Lanka, examines the efforts by the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to thwart justice in seven prominent human rights cases.

“The Sri Lankan government’s assault on justice increases the risk of human rights abuses today and in the future,” said John Fisher, Geneva Director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN Human Rights Council should adopt a resolution at its upcoming session that demonstrates to the Rajapaksa administration that the world won’t ignore its abuses and offers hope of justice to victims’ families, the report stated.

In 2018, just before and during the ongoing session of the UNHRC, Sri Lankan authorities made several announcements to signify their commitments to pledges made in the October 2015 resolution on justice and accountability for abuses during Sri Lanka’s civil war.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksha months into his tenure in November 2019, made several changes including replacing the 19th Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution, which was enacted to limit excessive executive power and facilitate independent institutions including the judiciary with the 20th Amendment, which consolidated power in the executive and nullified the independent commissions mainly Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commissions and Office of the Missing Persons. “Rajapaksa appointed people implicated in war crimes and other serious violations to senior administration positions,” said Shreen.

In February 2020 Sri Lanka withdrew itself from the 2019 UN resolution on post-war accountability and reconciliation, which is scheduled to be taken up in the upcoming session.

Sri Lanka’s main Tamil political parties are now urging for an international probe, and in a joint letter addressed to members of the UN Human Rights Council said, “It is now time for Member States to acknowledge that there is no scope for a domestic process that can genuinely deal with accountability in Sri Lanka.”

According to this report, Sri Lanka is in discussion with India and other countries for support to counter the Core Group’s move which could lead to targeted sanctions, asset freezes and travel bans against alleged perpetrators of grave human rights violations and abuses in the March session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

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.

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Categories: Africa

Myanmar Coup Sends ‘Chilling Message that Military won’t Tolerate Dissent’

Mon, 02/01/2021 - 11:19

Myanmar’s military has sized control of government and reportedly detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, senior members of her governing National League for Democracy (NLD) as well as human rights activists and student leaders. Courtesy: Yves Alarie on Unsplash

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Feb 1 2021 (IPS)

Responding to reports this morning that Myanmar’s military has seized control of government in a coup on the eve of the country’s opening session of its new parliament, rights group Amnesty International said it “sends a chilling message that the military authorities will not tolerate any dissent amid today’s unfolding events”.

Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, senior members of her governing National League for Democracy (NLD) as well as human rights activists and student leaders were reportedly detained this morning, Feb. 1. The BBC reported military “was handing power to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing because of “election fraud”” and that soldiers were “on the streets of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and the main city, Yangon”.

Amnesty International said in a statement today that phone lines and the internet have been cut in some areas, further stating, “the military-owned television station announced that a one-year state of emergency was being imposed under the authority of the Commander in Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing”.

The President of the European Council Charles Michel condemned the coup in a tweet this morning.

I strongly condemn the coup in #Myanmar and call on the military to release all who have been unlawfully detained in raids across the country.

The outcome of the elections has to be respected and democratic process needs to be restored.

— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) February 1, 2021

As did the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

I condemn the coup and unlawful imprisonment of civilians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, in Myanmar. The vote of the people must be respected and civilian leaders released.

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 1, 2021

A statement from White House spokesperson Jen Psaki read the United States was alarmed by the reports of the coup and subsequent arrest of Suu Kyi and civilian officials. “The United States opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed,” the statement read.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also condemned the coup and called for Suu Kyi’s release as well as that of other leaders and government officials.

Guterres expressed “grave concern regarding the declaration of the transfer of all legislative, executive and judicial powers to the military. These developments represent a serious blow to democratic reforms in Myanmar”, a statement said.

Myanmar’s Nov. 8 election, which was won by Suu Kyi’s NLD which increased its parliamentary majority — taking 396 of the 498 seats — had been disputed by the military. The Rohingya population had been excluded from participating in the vote.

Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, called it “an ominous moment for people in Myanmar”, stating it threatened “a severe worsening of military repression and impunity. The concurrent arrests of prominent political activists and human rights defenders sends a chilling message that the military authorities will not tolerate any dissent amid today’s unfolding events” he said in a statement.

“Previous military coups and crackdowns in Myanmar have seen large scale violence and extrajudicial killings by security forces. We urge the armed forces to exercise restraint, abide by international human rights and humanitarian law and for law enforcement duties to be fully resumed by the police force at the earliest opportunity,” Hah said.

Concern remains about the safety of the Rohingya, an ethnic minority in the mostly Buddhist country.

The Rohingya have long been persecuted by the military and according to an October report by Human Rights Watch, “have faced decades of systematic repression, discrimination, and violence under successive Myanmar governments”.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, a million Rohingya refugees have fled violence in Myanmar since the 1990s. However, in August 2017 when violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In November, The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar to the UN’s International Court of Justice, arguing that the mainly-Muslim Rohingya had been subjected to genocide. Suu Kyi had downplayed the allegations of genocide and serious human rights violations.

Last month, Jan. 23, the ICJ ruled that Myanmar must take steps to protect its minority Rohingya population. ICJ’s orders are binding against Myanmar.

But as late as last November, Amnesty International reported it had “documented a litany of serious human rights crimes in Rakhine, Chin, Kachin and northern Shan States in recent years, including attacks killing or injuring civilians, extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment, forced labour, looting and confiscation of property”.

Amnesty International’s Hah said today, “Reports of a telecommunications blackout pose a further threat to the population at such a volatile time – especially as Myanmar battles a pandemic, and as internal conflict against armed groups puts civilians at risk in several parts of the country. It is vital that full phone and internet services be resumed immediately.”

The post Myanmar Coup Sends ‘Chilling Message that Military won’t Tolerate Dissent’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

A Grey Cloud Over Lebanon: Mental Health Burdens

Mon, 02/01/2021 - 11:09

Beirut, Lebanon; Tuesday, September 1st, 2020. Credit: Photojournalist Rahib Yassine

By Maria Aoun
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb 1 2021 (IPS)

Humankind is no stranger to the destabilizing events of 2020. The state of the global economy and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the headlines. In this ever escalating global crisis, Lebanon, has been facing what can only be described as unimaginable hardships. For the past year the country has seen challenges which have resulted in an utter state of hopelessness and rapid deterioration in mental health of many of its citizens.

The country has been facing a high rate of youth unemployment, with 55% of the Lebanese population already living under the poverty line according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). Followed by an almost complete devaluation of the Lebanese currency due to ever-growing political uncertainties and national lockdowns to tackle the pandemic, Lebanon is faced with one of its worst economic crises. The aforementioned obstacles reinforced pre-existing socio-economic inequalities in the country that has taken a heavy toll on the state of mental health of the Lebanese people.

In fact, shortly after the economic collapse in July 2020, alarming reports made headlines about the double suicides that occurred on the same day, a Friday, mainly because of the financial instability that people are faced with. On 3 July, a man in his 60s stood in front of a café in the city of Hamra and shot himself in the head in broad daylight, leaving behind a copy of his clean criminal record with a message written in red that said “I am not a Kafer” meaning sinner, infidel or blasphemer, and a Lebanese flag. On that same day in Sidon, an unemployed bus driver in his late thirties took his own life.

The middle aged man also wrote “I am not a Kafer” since the act of suicide is culturally and religiously prohibited and considered a sin or taboo in both Islam and Christianity, the two predominent religions in Lebanon. In fact, some families tend to hide the real cause of death of members who have taken their own lives to avoid societal judgment.

The successive misfortunes that befell Lebanon reached a height when one of the deadliest events in its history occurred at 6.07 pm on 4 August 2020; tons of Ammonium Nitrate detonated at the Beirut port, devastating the capital within seconds and causing thousands casualties. Additionally, it is estimated that 70,000 workers have lost their jobs, and 42 percent of affected families who had chronic medical conditions reported that they could not afford continuing treatment, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

When asked about the collective mental state of the Lebanese in 2020, Mia Atoui, co-founder and board member of “Embrace”, a Lebanese NGO that works to raise awareness around mental health told IPS that “We are witnessing increased levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD as a result of all the crises”, stressing on the importance of providing mental health services to people during these difficult times.

According to the latest report created by “Embrace” titled “Post Beirut’s Blast Update”, issue no.9, two months after the Beirut blast, the national hotline for emotional support and suicide prevention received more than 2239 calls, with approximately 67% of those callers expressing emotional distress and around 28% exhibiting suicidal tendencies. Those numbers reveal the state of mental health faced by the Lebanese. “Embrace Lifeline (1564) received more than 6,100 calls to its hotline in 2020, compared to more than 2500 calls in 2019” stated Atoui. These numbers show that calls have almost tripled from the year 2019 to 2020.

Beirut, Lebanon; Tuesday, September 1st, 2020. Credit: Photojournalist Rahib Yassine

Nowadays, and five months post blast, the Lebanese are still trying to adapt to what seems to be a “new normal” by going about their daily lives, navigating a pandemic that has gone completely out of control.

Lebanese Journalist Cendrella Azar was meters away from the Beirut blast and shared with IPS her mental journey. “Physically, I am a survivor, I healed in no time. Nevertheless, mentally and emotionally, I am still bearing the consequences of the Beirut Port crime I was subjected to. Today, almost six months past the explosion, I still deal with different kinds of symptoms. While I think that I am a normal human being who overcame this traumatic event, I am hit on a daily basis with visions and thoughts. I am physically at home among my loved ones yet mentally I am stuck within the walls of Annahar Newspaper’s building where I was the moment we were hit by the third biggest non-nuclear explosion in human history” stated Azar.

The journalist pointed out the daily stress that citizens are subjected to amidst the new wave of the global pandemic that brutally hit Lebanon. “We transformed into a traumatized nation, suffering from a collective trauma, and bearing so many invisible wounds and scars. We are currently in a national state of shock” declared Azar.

With positive cases of Covid-19 multiplying due to relaxing of governmental restrictions, Lebanon is now seeing a saturation in ICU beds and is heading towards disaster including yet another full lockdown. “The impact of Covid on mental health is a very significant and serious one. People are in a constant state of fear with worry and anxiety; many are losing their loved ones, which is also causing a lot of people to be in grief” explained the mental health expert Atoui. In fact, Lebanon is seeing thousands of new contaminations per day with the peak being 6154 registered cases on 16 January 2021, coupled with an exponential death toll, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mental health hit a low point in Lebanon in the year 2020 with a grey cloud over the country overstaying its welcome. However, Atoui explained that suicides have not increased this year, “most probably because of the Covid crisis and Beirut blast; usually when there are big disasters at a national level we do not witness an increase in suicides, especially after the Beirut blast where there was a lot of social solidarity…” she said. “…However if the crises continues in 2021 we may witness an increase in suicide rates. Currently the rate of suicide in Lebanon is on average 1 person every 2.1 days” stated Atoui.

Atoui mentioned how important it was to assist people mentally during those trying times yet the current skyrocketing prices have made mental health services inaccessible with therapists charging outrageous figures per therapy session. Atoui told IPS that “Even when it [the cost of therapy] was 150,000 LBP (approximately $ 100 at the time), it was not affordable by most people. Now [after the currency devaluation] it has become a luxury. Since Embrace opened its clinic in August 2020, we have provided 690 consultations and we already have a long waiting list”.

A few days into the new year, a middle-aged man set his car on fire in Beirut and attempted to burn himself alive; bystanders rushed to stop him. On 25 January this year, violent anti-lockdown protests erupted in Tripoli, one of the poorest cities in Lebanon. Met by police brutality, the protesters denounced the absence of a sustainable governmental plan and a lockdown that is worsening their economic situation everyday.

The post A Grey Cloud Over Lebanon: Mental Health Burdens appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

UN Humanitarian Staff in Geneva Experience Anxiety, Job Insecurity & Fear of Tomorrow

Mon, 02/01/2021 - 10:02

UN staff in Geneva protesting proposed pay cuts. Credit: ILO Staff Union

By Isabel Garcia-Gill
GENEVA, Feb 1 2021 (IPS)

For the staff of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2021 is likely to be even more difficult than 2020, with job cuts, forced departures, transfers to Istanbul or The Hague, restructuring and too many rumours.

In Geneva, the plan to relocate part of the teams to Istanbul has caused turmoil and incomprehension and has been the cause of many sick leaves over the last twelve months. This deep unease is the result of a serious lack of transparency in internal communication on the future of staff and is also due to the stress linked to the Coronavirus.

2021 will not give more respite

The relocation project announced by Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, plans to move 23 professional posts (P3 to P5) from Geneva to Istanbul, 5 from New York to The Hague and 8 to other countries (some posts have already been relocated from Geneva to The Hague).

However, no date could be set for the signature of the agreement with the Turkish Government or the move to Istanbul during the year 2020. The OCHA Press Office did not answer many questions about the relocation plan. It merely pointed out that OCHA will gradually resort to offshoring in order to reduce its costs and conduct its headquarters activities more efficiently.

Unfortunately, OCHA staff did not receive any internal information by email or post regarding the date of installation in Istanbul. Yet, on his Twitter account, Mark Lowcock said on January 22, 2021: “It was a pleasure to meet yesterday in Turkey at the United Nations headquarters for the signing of the UNOCHA agreement. Many thanks to Ambassador Sinirlioglu “.

Fear in the gut

“I have dedicated more than 20 years to humanitarian affairs in the field and at headquarters. And the head of human resources in Geneva gave me an ultimatum: either I accept the transfer or she will put my post directly up for competition in Istanbul,” says a staff member who does not want her name to be mentioned. “People are afraid of retaliation from management”.

For many OCHA officials, the current restructuring is not very coherent. They also fear that Geneva’s central role in the humanitarian community will be jeopardized if important coordination functions are relocated.

“We are struggling to make sense of all this restructuring”, says one interviewee. Several OCHA staff members also said that Mr. Lowcock, a former chartered accountant and Director of Finance at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), seems insensitive to the staff human situation.

Opacity of figures

“There is talk of substantial savings, but we don’t know how much money we’re talking about,” regrets a father who is prepared to leave Geneva in 2021 if necessary. He has calculated the salary he would earn in Turkey, 15% less than in Geneva.

On the one hand, there are plans to cut six general service posts (G4 to G7) in order to recruit locally in Turkey, and on the other hand, the plan is to leave a large number of D1 and D2 director posts in Geneva. Where is the logic?

Last October, for example, a D1 was dismissed and received severance pay equivalent to one year’s salary, even though his post had already been filled in Geneva.

Precarious employment

Prisca Chaoui, Executive Secretary of the UNOG Staff Coordinating Board, is concerned about the willingness to relocate administrative posts and transform professional posts in Geneva into temporary jobs under the pretext of making OCHA staff more mobile.

This trend of job insecurity is not new. Another professional woman has had the hard experience of it. She has been working in the UN system, at headquarters and in the field, for about 15 years and was recruited on a fixed-term contract in Geneva.

After a few years at the headquarter, her post was recently abolished and she had to accept a temporary position.

However, Lowcock recently stated: “OCHA will work to strengthen women’s leadership in the humanitarian sector (…) In the face of increasingly demanding and dangerous situations (…) the staffing strategy places particular emphasis on the safety, health and well-being of its employees”.

The union is outraged

On the side of the Staff Coordinating Council, the observation is severe: “It is unfortunate to note that OCHA, in this plan, is totally failing in its duty of care towards its staff. In resettlement decisions, staff do not occupy the central place that they should have for a humanitarian entity such as OCHA”.

Lowcock responded in writing to the union’s remarks, saying that OCHA management, including himself, had held several meetings with OCHA staff representatives and the UN union in New York and Geneva in 2019 and 2020.

“While we understand the need for staff mobility, we believe that decisions must be people-centered first and foremost. Instead, OCHA’s leadership has succeeded in taking the human dimension out of the term ‘humanitarian’,” concludes Prisca Chaoui.

The post UN Humanitarian Staff in Geneva Experience Anxiety, Job Insecurity & Fear of Tomorrow appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Isabel Garcia-Gill is a journalist who has worked for daily newspapers, radio broadcasts and weekly magazines in Geneva (Switzerland) and a correspondent based in Rome and Rabat. She has also worked for UNOCHA as well is for the IPCC as Senior Communication Officer. Isabel has published and travelled extensively on professional assignments. She has a very deep knowledge of Latin America. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Sciences from the University of Geneva and in Journalism from Lausanne.

The post UN Humanitarian Staff in Geneva Experience Anxiety, Job Insecurity & Fear of Tomorrow appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Making Seawater Potable in Mexico Has High Costs and Environmental Impacts

Sun, 01/31/2021 - 18:50

This projected desalination plant in Los Cabos, whose construction received final approval in October 2020, will have a capacity to purify 250 litres of water per second and its cost will exceed 55 million dollars, according to figures from the Baja California Sur state government. CREDIT: Government of Baja California Sur

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jan 31 2021 (IPS)

Mexico is seeking to mitigate water shortages in part of its extensive territory by resorting to seawater, through the expansion of desalination plants. But this solution has exorbitant costs and significant environmental impacts.

Among the advantages of these water treatment plants, Gabriela Muñoz, a researcher at the public university El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, highlighted the expansion of water sources and the production of water for human consumption.

But in her conversation with IPS, she also underlined the disadvantages of these plants, such as high energy requirements, aggravated if the energy comes from fossil sources; high costs; and the generation of brine and wastewater."Before considering desalination, measures such as water saving, investment in green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting and the reuse of treated water should be a priority. We must also compare the costs of building desalination plants versus alternatives.” -- Gabriela Muñoz

To illustrate the costs: one of the desalination plants authorised in 2014 by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) in the northern state of Baja California cost some 35 million dollars to process 250 litres per second (l/s). Another plant with the same capacity, given final approval in October 2020 in the neighbouring state of Baja California Sur, will require an investment of more than 55 million dollars.

In Mexico “there are no regulations regarding how to dispose of the brine. The most common thing to do is to dump it on the beach. We have to be careful how we handle the brine because of the toxicity to ecosystems. Nor is there installed capacity to treat all the wastewater. For specific areas, desalination should not be the first option,” said Muñoz from the northern border city of Tijuana.

Between 2012 and 2020, environmental authorities authorised at least 120 desalination facilities, rejected six applications and another five are under evaluation, according to data obtained by IPS through public information requests. Most of the new projects are located in three states with acute water shortages: the northwestern states of Baja California and Baja California Sur, and the southeastern state of Quintana Roo.

However, in Mexico, where more than 400 such plants operate, there has been no research on their ecological effects, as corroborated by IPS, with the exception of the study “Desalination of water”, published in 2000 by the government’s Mexican Water Institute.

One basic desalination technique is thermal distillation, in which seawater is heated until it evaporates, the vapor condenses to form freshwater, and the remaining liquid is discarded as concentrated brine.

Another is reverse osmosis, in which water is filtered and then pumped at high pressure through thin membranes that only allow the liquid to pass through and retain the salt.

Global context

In 2019, the study “The State of Desalination and Brine Production: A Global Outlook”, produced by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, based in Ontario, Canada, warned of the growing generation of brine and its serious effects on the environment. The process of extracting brine, it estimated, accumulated a total of 142 million cubic metres (m3) of waste worldwide that year.

There are 18,214 desalination plants around the world, with an installed capacity of 89 million m3 per day, serving more than 300 million people, according to the latest data from the International Desalination Association. For every litre of water desalinated, a litre of brine is produced.

These plants are part of a trend towards the introduction of this technology in areas facing the threat of water stress or scarcity.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (C) visited Los Cabos, on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula at the northwestern tip of Mexico, in August, where he confirmed the construction of the larger of two new desalination plants in the state of Baja California Sur. Mexico already has 400 seawater treatment plants, but experts warn about the excessive costs and environmental impacts. CREDIT: Government of Baja California Sur

Water availability in Mexico

Mexico, Latin America’s second largest economy, has an area of 1.96 million square kilometres, 67 percent of which is arid and semi-arid land.

According to CONAGUA, water availability varies widely in this country of 129 million people, as it is scarce in the north and abundant in the south.

Of every 100 litres of rainfall, 72 return to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, 22 run off into rivers and streams, and six feed 653 aquifers, of which 108 were overexploited, 32 had saline soils or brackish water, and 18 had seawater infiltration due to rising sea levels and seepage into the water table.

Although Mexico had a low national water stress level in 2017 – 19.5 percent – its risk of water stress is high, according to the Aqueduct platform, developed by the Aqueduct Alliance, made up of governments, companies and foundations.

In fact, Mexico is the second most water-stressed country in the Americas, after Chile. Water stress could be a problem by 2040 from the centre to the north of the country.

Meanwhile, the extreme northwest presents a medium-high risk of aquifer depletion and practically the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea present a medium-high risk of drought, precisely where most of the desalination plants are located.

Aqueduct takes into account 13 indicators of water stress, such as groundwater availability and depletion.

In the last five months, drought has worsened in Mexico – the third worst record of the century – a consequence of the climate crisis, according to data from the National Meteorological Service.

In Mexico water use is intense, reflected in its water footprint – the impact of human activities on water – of 1,978 m3/person per year, compared to a global average of 1,385.

As a result, national and regional authorities have set their sights on seawater, given that Mexico is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and there are a total of 150 municipalities with a coastline, out of a total of 2,466, according to the National Policy on Mexico’s Seas and Coasts.

This screenshot from a video by the Baja California Sur government in northwestern Mexico shows the site of the new desalination plant to be built in Los Cabos, next to the sea, including details of the different processes used to make the water from the Pacific Ocean fit for human consumption. CREDIT: IPS

Scalable model

This year, Héctor Aviña, an academic at the Engineering Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, plans to scale up his prototype geothermal-powered desalination plant in the city of Los Cabos, located in Baja California Sur, some 1,650 kilometres northwest of Mexico City.

“I don’t know if it is the best option because of brine generation and well exploitation, but it is a good alternative. Many areas are already experiencing water stress. In those places, desalination and beach wells can help aquifers recover,” Aviña told IPS from Mexico City.

The 500,000 dollar plan consists of upgrading a pilot plant from the current capacity of four m3 per day to 40 m3 and, if possible, to 400 m3, in an initiative to be developed with the state-owned Mexican Centre for Innovation in Geothermal Energy.

The project will take advantage of nearby hot water wells to obtain water and geothermal energy.

With this technology, the cost per m3 of water ranges from 0.8 to 1.3 dollars, compared to 0.6 to 1.00 dollars using reverse osmosis.

The National Infrastructure Investment Agreement, signed between the federal government and members of the business community in November 2020, includes the foundations for four desalination plants in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora, with an investment of 643 million dollars and a capacity of 650 l/s.

But Muñoz suggested that before turning to desalination, poor irrigation practices, leaks and aging infrastructure should be addressed.

“Before considering desalination, measures such as water saving, investment in green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting and the reuse of treated water should be a priority. We must also compare the costs of building desalination plants versus alternatives,” she said.

In 2014 Aviña designed a reverse osmosis model equipped with solar panels and batteries, which has competitive costs.

“In other areas, the source of energy must be reviewed. Mexico is going to have water problems, it is a situation that we will have to live with. If we study it well, if we manage it well, desalination is a good alternative,” he argued.

Mexico Sticks to Natural Gas, Despite Socioenvironmental Impacts

The post Making Seawater Potable in Mexico Has High Costs and Environmental Impacts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Internationally COVID-19 Extracted a Heavy Toll on Older People

Fri, 01/29/2021 - 20:25

Delegates at a webinar discuss COVID-19 and its impact on older persons.

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan 29 2021 (IPS)

Internationally COVID-19 extracted a heavy toll on older people – raising concerns in the Asia Pacific region where more than half of the world’s ageing population live.

“Rising inequalities have resulted in the increasing poverty, insufficient access to health and social protection services, which have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Bjorn Andersson, Regional Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia Pacific said. He spoke at a webinar to discuss a recently released policy review undertaken on Vietnam, Australia, Thailand, and Kazakhstan.

“Older women, who constitute most of the sector (some are above 80 years old), often bear the brunt of old age and poverty. Older men usually have more financial security as a result of their lifetime of earnings,” Andersson said, noting that older persons were more significantly impacted by the COVID-19 virus which results in mortality and comorbidity. He pointed out that this scenario also disrupted the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action’s achievements and the 2030 Agenda.

The study’s leader, Keizo Takemi, the chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) said while most low-income Asian countries had not been affected by the crisis on a massive scale, it was an “unfortunate reality that some sovereign nations tend to be exclusive and focus only on their people when it comes to health intervention such as vaccine, immunisation and delivery systems.”

There was a need to develop a global governance structure to create accessible development and allocation system fairly and efficiently given the limited resources, he said.

Each country studied had diverse social issues – and had come up with different solutions for their older population during the pandemic.

Dr Nguyen Van Tien, former Vietnam parliamentarian and AFPPD’s vice-chairperson, said that only a few older persons had pensions in Vietnam. In Hanoi, for example, many needed help with their daily routines, but the human resources to care for them were few.

Many, especially women living in rural areas experienced loneliness and isolation in old age, and abuse and violence were also experienced.

“Critically it was important to ensure that attention is drawn to older people in emergency situations – due to their old age and inability to cope with and fully take care of themselves, coupled with the lack of adequate care from society during disasters, older persons are the most vulnerable to death,” Van Tien said.

Independent consultant Hadley Rose presented data for both Australia and Thailand.

In Australia, about one million older persons received aged care at home or community-based setting. It used technology – a COVID-19 call line to mitigate boredom, loneliness or feeling of isolation during the lockdown periods to managethe pandemic.

Telehealth services, a consultation facility via phone or video chat, were available mainly for older persons (70 years and older). Going to the clinic for medical consultation becomes the last option, and a “COVID Safe” app was set-up for smartphones for contact tracing. Older persons are encouraged to use the app to know if they came in contact with a COVID-19 positive person. When the vaccine becomes available older persons and aged care workers will be prioritised, she said.

In contrast, Thailand’s older persons were mostly living with their relatives or near to them.

“While this is good in terms of limiting the spread of COVID-19, this set-up puts pressure on the families, especially since some breadwinners in the families have lost their jobs as a consequence of the pandemic,” Rose said.

Thailand had adopted its second national plan of action for older persons in 2001 and will be effective until 2021. Because residential health care was not common,the country relied on 50,000 medical health volunteers to assist in older persons’homes.

During March and April 2020, about one million health volunteers managed to do COVID-19 screening for eight million households across the country.

Svetlana Zhassymbekova presented the result of the legislative and policy reviews for the republic of Kazakhstan. According to a UN Policy Brief, Kazakhstan’scommunity-level responses from volunteers’ networks ensured social support of older persons affected by COVID-19 was a best practice worth citing. Kazakhstan has more than 200 volunteer organisations, which the national party was providing funds. These organisations delivered various humanitarian packages.

The packages included providing protection and humanitarian assistance to older persons to restore familyties. Where people lived alone, they were provided with an electronic device to access information and seek help if required.

Professor Keizo Takemi, chair of AFPPD, said the discussions on older persons were crucial. Eighty percent of deaths caused by COVID-19 were people aged 70 and above. He called on parliamentarians to serve as “catalysts for change (working) toward more efficient handling of COVID-19 and continuously protecting people from the infection.”

The research report: Legislative and Policy Reviews on Ageing was undertaken with the support of the Japan Trust Fund and UNFPA, APDA and AFPPD launched the project featuring comprehensive policy review in four countries, namely, Vietnam, Australia, Thailand, and Kazakhstan.

The post Internationally COVID-19 Extracted a Heavy Toll on Older People appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

How COVID-19 Adds to the Challenges of Leprosy-affected People

Fri, 01/29/2021 - 11:40

Participants from organisations focused on assisting Hansen’s disease-affected people from Asia, Latin America and Africa with World Health Organisation (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa (centre pink shirt) pictured in 2019. Participants were attending the Global Forum of People’s Organisations on Hansen’s disease in Manila, Philippines, which was sponsored by the Sasakawa Health Foundation and The Nippon Foundation. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, Jan 29 2021 (IPS)

Lilibeth Evarestus of Lagos, Nigeria doesn’t like the concept of handouts — she is against the idea of thinking of leprosy-affected people as weak.

Yet, for several months now, Evarastus – a human rights lawyer and founder of community welfare organisation, Purple Hope Foundation – has been spending a lot of time on the road, distributing food items and hygiene products among the leprosy-affected people in her community.

It’s because the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the challenges that the leprosy-affected community face: deep and widespread stigma, discrimination, misinformation, unfounded fear, besides living with the disease itself.

“If we want to really strengthen them and support them, we have to go to the people of the community where they are, instead of expecting them to come and get the help,” Evarastus tells IPS.

COVID 19 and leprosy-affected people

The economic, social, and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far infected over a billion people and killed more than two million worldwide, have led to a significant increase in the need for humanitarian aid and social protection measures globally. According to experts, people affected by leprosy have been especially impacted by the worst consequences of the pandemic, largely because of pre-existing vulnerabilities and economic insecurities.

According to a report published by Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy (GPZL), 76 percent of leprosy-affected people in 26 countries have been adversely affected by the pandemic. These range from disruptions in their leprosy-elimination programmes to a loss of livelihood.

In Jharkhand, eastern India, the poorest leprosy-affected people, especially those living with disabilities, were forced to beg on the streets when India went into a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. This is according to Atma Swabhiman – a charity based in the city of Dhanbad, Jharkhand.

“Access of health services during COVID-19 period has become a challenge leading to further deterioration of health of people affected by leprosy specially elderly, with deformities and are on regular medication. Many are not being able to procure medicine in the absence of the money,” Shailendra Prasad, head of the charity, tells IPS.

The big gaps: drugs, medicare

On Jan. 27 and 28, members of leprosy-affected organisations from Asia, Africa and Latin America gathered online to share their experiences of dealing with COVID. It was organised by the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan, which has been working to support and strengthen leprosy-affected people’s organisations worldwide.

But in Brazil, where COVID-19 cases have surpassed 9 million and a new study by Sydney’s Lowy Institute ranked the South American nation with the worst response to the pandemic, leprosy-affected people are reporting a shortage of Multi-drug Therapy (MDT) supplies, which is crucial for the treatment of leprosy or Hansen’s Diseases. The reduced supply is due to the disruption in transportation and distribution caused by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, said Faustino Pinto – a community leader from the Brazilian leprosy-affected people’s organisation, MORHAN.

However, according to the GPZL report, 13 other countries across the world have also experienced delays with in-country supply, distribution, and/or shortages. Some have also experienced challenges in accessing MDT because of travel restrictions and there is also a shortage of drugs for side-affects of the treatment.

Standing together

But the leprosy-affected community and their programme partners are also drawing strength from the fact that the community hasn’t seen a specific spike in the number of COVID-related deaths.

“We are fortunate that till today nobody has died in our community (in Bogra) from COVID-19,” Shahid Sharif, head of Bogra Federation, tells IPS. Sharif credits this to the federation’s early warning and awareness-generation activities. “As soon as we learnt of the pandemic, we started educating our community members about washing hands with precautions like washing with soap and wearing masks as soon as we heard of the pandemic. We also distributed soap and masks, besides dry rations like rice, dal etc,” Sharif says.

However, when it comes to social stigma, the community has remained as vulnerable as ever.

In Tanzania, where the president has ruled out purchasing any coronavirus vaccines, citizens have been rushing to buy health insurance to secure themselves against any possible health challenges.

But people affected by leprosy cannot access this facility as health insurances are not sold to them, Fikira Ally, an activist from Tanzanian Leprosy Association, tells IPS.

“Those affected by leprosy have no access to this. This is important because it is a human right issue. Everyone would need this once in their lifetime and I request the authorities to look into this,” explains Ally.

Community leader Maya Ranavare is from Maharashtra – the worst COVID-affected state in India with nearly 2 million cases and over 150,000 deaths. Ranavare tells IPS that people still continue to look at leprosy as more infectious and scarier than the coronavirus.

“The whole world has been in lockdown, flow of life has been disrupted but still most people follow the social distancing only because there is a government rule. But the same people maintain social distancing from a leprosy-affected person even when there is no scientific reason to do it,” Ranavare says.

Calls to end stigma and discrimination

Some, however, are optimistic of ending the social stigma if the community has better access to education, healthcare and economic sustainability. “We can change the minds of the entire community, but we need a sustained support, until we have become truly empowered,” says Ally.

Yohei Sasakawa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy and chair of the Sasakawa Health Foundation, has renewed his call for ending the stigma against leprosy-affected people.

“I believe we will achieve a world without leprosy one day. But along the way, we need to realise an inclusive society in which everyone has access to quality treatment and services, and a diagnosis of leprosy no longer comes with a possibility of devastating physical, social, economic or psychological consequences,” Sasakawa said in a pre-recorded speech to mark World Leprosy day on Sunday, Jan. 31.

The post How COVID-19 Adds to the Challenges of Leprosy-affected People appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the challenges the leprosy-affected community face: deep and widespread stigma, discrimination, misinformation, unfounded fear, besides living with the disease itself. IPS senior correspondent STELLA PAUL looks at the challenges they face ahead of World Leprosy Day on Jan. 31

The post How COVID-19 Adds to the Challenges of Leprosy-affected People appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Wilde Side of Life: Readings from “Oscariana”

Fri, 01/29/2021 - 11:16

Oscar Wilde in the 1880s. Photo: wikipedia

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jan 29 2021 (IPS-Partners)

So, who or what was Oscar Fingal Flahertie Wills Wilde? Was he a poet, a prose-smith, a playwright, a classicist, a raconteur, a poseur, an aphorist, or simply a sensation for his, or may be for all, times? He was all of those, and much else besides. He was a lord of language, known for his bitingly witty dialogue and epigrammatic banter, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation. To London’s Victorian society he was both a bright boy in a man’s body, albeit with an intellect of stupendous heights, as well as a thoughtful prophet wrapping profundity in dazzling verbal giftwrap. To discuss his writings, the Dhaka -based “The Reading Circle” held a Webinar ably moderated by Professor Niaz Zaman. The participants -Syed Badrul Ahsan, Tazeen Murshid, Nusrat Haque, Ameenah Ahmed, Tanveerul Haque, Zakia Rahman, Zobaida Latif, and myself -all of us drawn from such different corners of the globe as London, Brussels, Singapore and Dhaka, made presentations. This article is based on my remarks made on that occasion.

Born Irish in 1856, Oscar Wilde had made England famous in America, where during his lecture tour he took the new world by storm. He regaled the Americans with his wisdom and wit, evoking laughter everywhere he went, with such quips as that there was everything common between England and America, except of course, the language!

From Trinity College in Dublin Wilde went to Magdalene at Oxford. The University was to acknowledge him as among its brightest alumni. He graduated with First Class Honors, and moved to London, first conquering the salons of the West end, and then its theatre. He believed that a man who can dominate a London dinner-table could dominate the world. He mocked the flippancy of the upper classes through his plays, poems stories, and his novel “the Picture of Dorian Gray”. He ridiculed them by noting how the hair of a socialite, after the death of her third husband, turned quite gold with grief! Yet it was to their ranks that he also yearned to belong. To him, if being in society was a bore, to be out of it was a tragedy!

What was to finally destroy him, and spell his doom, was his admiration of one young member of this nobility, Lord Alfred Douglas, whom he endearingly called Bosie. Bosie was breathtakingly beautiful, and to Wilde, the visible perception of absolute perfection. This love that dared not speak its name was unrequited. It pulled Wilde down to abysmal depths of degradation, and eventually to prison, where he spent two years in hard labour as a price for consorting with this younger object of his adoration. His was a life in which he seemed to be unable to reconcile his precocious intellect with his immature emotions.

Wilde baffles us by freely mingling profound wisdom with mere frippery. He often played with words, toyed with ideas, and struck poses. His writings that featured in the Webinar were all part of his efforts to create verbal works of art. Critics were not always kind to him. Particularly his morality or rather the lack of it attracted social opprobrium. Yet he persisted, undeterred. He often said he himself disagreed with much he wrote. He held that in art there was no such thing as universal truth. A truth in art was that whose contradictory was also true.

Frank Harris, whose work on Wilde was the first biography on him that I had read in my mid-teens , said that Oscar Wilde’s greatest play was his own life, a tragedy with Greek implications , of which he himself was the most ardent spectator. Wilde once observed to Andre Gide that ‘’ I put my genius into my life and only my talents into my works”.

His sole novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, a dark story of split- self amidst corruption in the heart of the city, belongs to the genre of late Victorian Gothic literature. Some have seen it as a fantasy autobiography of Wilde himself, a moral cautionary tale of the era. It revolves around a Faustian deal that the principal protagonist Dorian Gray makes with the devil by selling his soul for the gift of eternal physical beauty. Names have deep connotations in Wilde; remember “The Importance of Being Earnest”? Dorian Gray’s name is both important and ambiguous. It derives from the combination of the sea-nymph “Doris” in Greek mythology, and the French word “D’or” meaning gold or golden, signifying beauty. Gray means morally he is neither black nor white. As for his fiancée, Sybil Vane, who kills herself upon being rejected by Dorian, ”Sybils” were oracles in Classical Greece through whom the gods spoke. Vane reflects her life with Dorian which was in vain.

Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol” is a fascinating narration of prison experience. Structurally the poem comprises 109 stanzas, divided into six sections, maintaining the same rhythmic scheme, rendering it consistent and regular. His use of the literary devices included alliteration, enjambment and repetition. In this long and plodding iambic tetrameter, and use of repetitive parallelism , the reader is made to feel the grinding restlessness of prison life. The central theme of the poem was the execution of one Charles Woodridge for the murder of his wife. Around this core, whose genre was Gothic Realism, Wilde built a meditation on the paradoxes of morality. The ballad was also an indictment on the death penalty, and the harsh conditions of the Victorian prison-system.

While in prison, Wilde produced another deeply Gothic construct, “De Profundis”, Latin for “Out of the Depths”. In this, which refers to Psalm 130 (“From the depths I cry to thee, O Lord!”), Wilde’s spiritual awareness is manifested. It is a petulant, sad, and riveting memoir of his life, in the form of a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, the focus of his largely unrequited affections. The letter also reflects his metaphysical side, for here he looks to find within himself and not outside, some form of self-realization. He was to say of his faith: “I believe that God made a separate world for each separate human being, and it is in that world within us that we should seek to live”. It was in such a world that he lived and died himself, both shocking and dazzling his fellow humans inhabiting their other worlds.

It has been aptly said that talking remained his vocation, writing his evocation. Writing was merely a vehicle propelling him towards his real goal which was the dramatization of Oscar Wilde. In his description of self, it was often difficult to make out whether he was speaking in self -deprecation or self-praise: As when he said “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word that I am saying”; or , his simple statement to the American Customs official, upon arrival in New York, that : “I have nothing to declare but my genius”. The compilations of the sayings he left behind for posterity are often fondly called “Oscariana.”’

This coruscating kaleidoscope of colors that was the life of Oscar Wilde lasted only 46 years. Oscar was ahead of his time. His disdain for conventional morality and relentless pursuit of new and amoral experiences broke ground, to be later tilled by others. He was an apostle of the Aesthetic Movement- admiring art and beauty for their own sake which stemmed from Keats, Shelley, Whistler and Walter Pater.

Wilde was the advance herald of existentialism, and the intellectual godfather of the flower children of our younger days, in the 1960s. For all his love of Classical Greece, there was a striking simplicity in his spiritualism (he had converted to Catholicism), as when he proclaimed in his inspirational poem, Santa Decca, referring to the Greek god that “Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s Son is King”. His writings will endure in the great pantheon of English literature as the work of an incomparable language-wrangler.

Oscar Wilde, I believe, must have been convinced, that like Christ’s, his life would someday be resurrected, only metaphorically, of course. If he were to be aware of a Webinar on him a century and a quarter down the line by a Group of Bangladeshis, he would be amused, and pleased. But not, I believe, given his ego, surprised.

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

The post Wilde Side of Life: Readings from “Oscariana” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Lebanon: How to Build Back Better after Political and Economic Crisis

Fri, 01/29/2021 - 08:44

A man and a woman in front of the Beirut Port, Lebanon, following the blast. Courtesy: UN Women Arab States/Dar Al Mussawir

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2021 (IPS)

Lebanon must “shield and preserve” the skills, knowledge, and experience of its people in order to move forward with its development, according to Christophe Abi-Nassif, the Lebanon programme director for the Middle East Institute (MEI).

“Shielding and preserving whatever is left of Lebanon’s human capital should be the main policy-making concern at the moment,” Abi-Nassif told IPS. “We are in fire-fighting mode right now and when you’re a fire-fighter, you prioritise saving human lives.”

He spoke with IPS following a panel on COVID-19-integrated recovery policies for the country, organised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

At the panel, experts spoke on a range of issues from the country’s private and public sector partnerships, the health sector and its COVID-19 response, the impact on children, and the challenges faced by Syrian refugees.

The panel took place on Wednesday, Jan. 27, just as the country was embroiled in massive protests in response to COVID-19 restrictions and the worst economic crisis in Lebanon’s history.

“What is the point of any other policy priorities anyway when your people are impoverished, dying at hospital doors, or emigrating?” Abi-Nassif added. “Any serious effort would entail providing immediate financial, logistical and mental health support to families living below the poverty line since extreme poverty breeds unrest and chaos.”

Lebanon is at the intersection of one crisis after the other: the COVID-19 pandemic, the August 2020 explosion — which left an estimated 200,000 people homeless or living in homes without windows or doors — and an extremely high poverty rate. The World Bank estimates the poverty rate in the country could go up to 45 percent, with the rate of extreme poverty nearing 22 percent, and a projected 19.2 percent decline in GDP.

This dire situation is affecting marginalised groups differently: from children to refugees.

Yukie Mokuo, a representative with the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), pointed to an enormous lack of social protection in the country.

“This is a really unprecedented crisis for children,” she said, citing the country’s poverty rate. “About 1.2 million children are impacted in their access to education, and child labour has increased, including early marriage.”

Dr. Rita Rehayem, a representative for the National Committee for Sustainable Development, shared the different challenges that civil society organisations are experiencing under the current crises. While the number of vulnerable populations increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, so did the costs for CSOs in implementing their work, she said. With added costs, it has affected the work of CSOs.

“Additional budget was needed to purchase PPEs, to protect staff and volunteers but as well as the beneficiaries. Many additional budgets were allocated for this, and development projects were unfortunately put on hold,” she said. “Although we in Lebanon are in desperate need of development projects, the budget or the funds were really allocated for humanitarian assistance.”

While the Lebanese population is being impacted by these different crises, the Syrian refugee population in the country is also suffering immensely, according to Karolina Lindholm, Deputy Representative of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon, who was speaking at the panel.

Lebanon’s Syrian refugee community — more than half of whom are under 18 — is facing a number of challenges under the current circumstances: difficulty buying food due to lack of money, inability to pay rent, loss of livelihoods and employments, reduced access to healthcare due to lack of money, and increased morbidity rate among the refugees.

A mental health crisis in the community has also led to a spike in suicide cases, Lindholm added, citing cases of self-immolation among the refugees.

“The erosion of resilience is very, very striking,” Lindholm said.

Abi-Nassif expressed concern that on top of these challenges, the refugee community might be subject to more discrimination.

“As more and more people compete for fewer resources such as food supplies or vaccines, one thing I worry about is an increase in extreme right-wing rhetoric and violence against refugees,” he told IPS.

With demonstrators out on the streets protesting the current economic and political crises, Abi-Nassif warned of against conspiracy theories.

“In Lebanon, even misery and tragedy are politicised. The notion that people are taking to the streets for the pure sake of voicing grievances is foreign to the political class,” he said. “In the latter’s eyes, it is always about conspiracy and foreign interference. Although this possibility may hold sometimes in some places, it cannot hold everywhere all the time.”

The post Lebanon: How to Build Back Better after Political and Economic Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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