Africa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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

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

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

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Jul 18 2018 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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By WAM
NEW YORK, Jul 18 2018 (WAM)

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

WAM/نيو/Nour Salman

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Hundreds of children, many from rural schools in the Coquimbo region, have visited the fog catchers in Cerro Grande as part of an educational programme to raise awareness among future generations about the importance of rational use of water in Chile. Credit: Foundation un Alto en el Desierto

By Orlando Milesi
OVALLE, Chile, Jul 17 2018 (IPS)

The retention of rainwater which otherwise is lost at sea could be an excellent medicine against the advance of the desert from northern to central Chile, but there is no political will to take the necessary actions, according to experts and representatives of affected communities.

“One of the priority actions, especially in the Coquimbo region, is the retention of rainwater. That is key because since we have eroded and degraded soil and we have occasional rains in winter, the soil is not able to retain more than 10 percent of the water that falls,” Daniel Rojas, the head of the Peña Blanca farmers’ association, told IPS.

“The rest ends up in the sea,” added Rojas, the head of the association of 85 small-scale farmers, located 385 km north of Santiago, which has 6,587 hectares, 98 percent of them rainfed, irrigated exclusively by rainfall."If the amount of resources that the state puts into the distribution of water by tanker trucks were to be used to solve the problem, it would be invested only once and not every year, which just boosts a business. Because the distribution of water is a business." -- Daniel Rojas

Rojas considered that “if we had retention works we could use between 50 and 70 percent of that water and restore our groundwater.”

In the region of Coquimbo, where Peña Blanca is located, within the municipality of Ovalle, 90 percent of the land is eroded and degraded.

Between 2000 and 2016, the area planted with fruit trees in Chile grew 50 percent, but in Coquimbo it fell 22.9 percent, from 35,558 to 27,395 hectares.

Water is vital in Chile, an agrifood powerhouse that last year exported 15.751 billion dollars in food and is the world’s leading exporter of various kinds of fruit.

According to Rojas, there is academic, social and even political consensus on a solution that focuses on water retention, “but the necessary resources are not allocated and the necessary laws are not enacted.”

Pedro Castillo, mayor of the municipality of Combarbalá, agreed with Rojas.

“Because of the strong centralism that prevails in our country, desertification won’t be given importance until the desert is knocking on the doors of Santiago,” Castillo, the highest authority in this municipality of small-scale farmers and goat farmers told IPS.

Castillo believes that all the projects “will be only declarations of good intentions if there is no powerful and determined investment by the state of Chile to halt desertification.”

The mayor said that desertification can be combated by investing in water catchment systems, through “works that are not expensive,” such as the construction of infiltration ditches and dams in the gorges.

“With rainwater catchment systems with plastic sheeting, rainwater can be optimised, wells can be recharged and the need for additional water, which is now being delivered to the population with tanker trucks, can be reduced,” he said.

“The cost of these systems does not exceed five million pesos (7,936 dollars) because the works use materials that exist on-site and do not require much engineering. A tanker truck that delivers water costs the state about 40 million pesos (63,492 dollars) each year,” Castillo said.

A tank holds rainwater collected at the Elías Sánchez school in the municipality of Champa, 40 km south of Santiago, which the students decided to use to irrigate a nursery where they grow vegetables next to it. Saving rainwater helps restore the groundwater used to supply the local population. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

He also proposed curbing desertification through afforestation with native species of lands handed by agricultural communities to the government’s National Forestry Corporation (CONAF).

“Afforestation efforts involve the replanting of native trees tolerant of the scarce rainfall in semi-arid areas, and they generate fodder for local farmers,” he said.

The region of Coquimbo comprises the southern border of the Atacama Desert, the driest desert on earth which has the most intense solar radiation on the planet. Covering 105,000 sq km, it encompasses six northern regions in this long and narrow country that stretches between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

This year Peña Blanca, at the southern tip of the desert, received 150 mm of rainfall, a high figure compared to the average of the last few years.

Rojas said “there are many things to be done, not to halt the advance of desertification completely, but to slow it down.”

The social leader said that in meetings with both academics and politicians there is agreement on what to do, “but that is not reflected when it comes to creating a law or allocating resources to do these works.”

To illustrate, he mentioned a novel project for the retention of rainwater underground, saying the studies and development of the initiative were financed, “but not the works itself.”

“And this way, it’s no use. Ideas must be put into practice through works. This is what is urgently needed: fewer studies and more works,” he said.

Rojas also criticised the fact that the state spends “billions of pesos” on the distribution of water to rural areas through tanker trucks.

“If the amount of resources that the state puts into the distribution of water by tanker trucks were to be used to solve the problem, it would be invested only once and not every year, which just boosts a business. Because the distribution of water is a business,” Rojas said.

Geographer Nicolás Schneider, the driving force behind the non-governmental “Un Alto en el Desierto” (Stop the Desert) Foundation, told IPS that in Chile “there is no public policy in terms of tools, concrete policies and the provision of resources” to halt desertification in the country.

“Successful alternatives are isolated experiences that are the product of enthusiasm or group ventures, but not of a state policy to stop this scientifically accredited advance (of the desertification process),” he said.

He mentioned Chilean physicist Carlos Espinosa, who invented the fog catcher, a system whose patent he donated in the 1980s to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and which consists of harvesting water from the fog.

Fog catchers consist of fine mesh nets known as raschel set up on foggy slopes to catch suspended drops of water, which gather and merge, running from small gutters to collection tanks.

These systems, which are becoming more and more sophisticated, have been providing water for human consumption and for irrigation on land generally higher than 600 metres above sea level for decades.

In the Cerro Grande Ecological Reserve, owned by Peña Blanca, the Un Alto en el Desierto Foundation installed 24 fog catchers and a fog study centre.

“The average daily water from fog there is six litres per cubic metre of raschel mesh and 35 percent shade. Since they are nine square metres in size, we have a catchment area of 216 metres, which gives us 1,296 litres of water per day,” Schneider said.

He explained that “this water is mainly used for reforestation and ecological restoration, beer making, water for animals and – when there is severe drought – for human consumption.”

“It is also an educational element because thousands of children have visited the fog catchers, so they have been turned into an open-air classroom against desertification,” he said.

He added that there is great potential for fog from Papudo, on the central Chilean coast, to Arica, in the far north of the country, which has not been exploited to the benefit of coastal communities that have problems of access and water quality.

Eduardo Rodríguez, regional director of Conaf in Coquimbo, told IPS that all of the corporation’s programmes are aimed at combating desertification, including one against forest fires, which now have better indicators.

“However, we have problems with afforestation because we do not yet have a policy for providing incentives to increase afforestation, reforestation and replanting in a region that has been degraded for practically a century and a half,” he acknowledged.

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By Roberto Savio
ROME, Jul 17 2018 (IPS)

According to the latest statistics, the total immigrants flow for what goes of 2018 is 50.000 people, against 186.768 last year, 1.259.955 in 2016, and 1.327.825 in 2015. There is such an astonishing difference between the reality and the perceptions that it is clear that we are looking to one of the most brilliant manipulations of history.

Roberto Savio

The last survey, made on 23.000 citizens of France, Germany, Italy, UK, US and Sweden, shows an enormous disinformation. In five of those countries, people believe that immigrants are three times higher than in reality. Italians think they are 30% of the population when they are 10%, an average which is lower than the media of the European Union.

The Swedes are those closer to reality: they think immigrants are 30%, when in fact they are 20%. And Italians think that 50% of the immigrants are Muslim, when in fact it is 30%, conversely, 60% of the immigrants are Christian, and Italians think they are 30%. And in all 6 countries citizens think that immigrants are poorer and without education or knowledges, and therefore a heavy financial burden. Italians think that 40% of the immigrants are jobless, when it is close to 10%, not different from the general rate. Then, the seventh report on the economic impact of Immigration, from Foundation Leonessa that based its research on the statistics of the Italian Institute of Statistics, presented some totally ignored facts. The 2.4 million immigrants in Italy have produced 130 billion euro, or 8.9% of the Gross Internal Product: an amount larger than the FIP from Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia. In the last 5 years, companies started by immigrants have become 25.8 of the total, with 570.000 companies, or 9.4% of the total. The director of the Pension Italian system, Boeri, said in the Parliament that immigrants give to the system 11.5 billion, more than what they cost. He also stressed that Italy is having a demographic crisis, with seven birth for eleven death.

Well, Salvini, the emerging Italian leader, who has based all his political success on making immigrants the greatest threat to Italy, answered with a twitter: Boeri lives in Mars. And that was the end of the story. For more than 50% of the Italians, Salvini twitter was more conclusive than statistics.

Same has happened with the outgoing Director General of the International Institute for Migration, Swing., that quoted a study conducted by the IOM and McKinsey Global Institute “determined that although only 3.5% of the world’s population are migrants, they are producing nine percent of the global wealth measured in GDP terms, which is more than four percent than if they stayed at home”. This did not make any impact on Trump electors, white rural and red collars, who are convinced that immigration is a threat to the country: while they all come from immigrants…

In other words, facts are irrelevant. Perceptions count more. Let us take Germany, where Merkel is being weakened by the immigration issue, barely escaping a revolt of her minister of interior, Seehofer, who is the leader of the Christian Social Union, the sister party of Bavaria of the CDU, Merkel’s party.

Gladly the shy and timid Trump come to Seehofer’s help, by twitting “the Germans are against their government because of its immigration policy who has brought to an increase in crimes”. The fact that in Germany there is a strong decrease in crime, of course is irrelevant for somebody who has made more than 3.750 false statements, over its 38.187 tweets (as on the 14th of July.). Trumps twitters have 53.111.505 followers (at July 15th)- Well, the total circulation of the 1.331 dailies newspapers in the US, is close to 62 million. But the total circulation of the 100 largest dailies is below 10 million copies. So, whatever they write is massively overwhelmed nu Trump twitters…And Trump is not alone in his campaign…he is aligned with Orban of Hungary, Salvini from Italy, Kazynscky from Poland, Kurz from Austria, Pellegrini from Slovaquia, Zeman from Chechia, all in power; of course we have those in the wings, Le Pen from France, Farage from Great Britain and so on for nearly every European country, with the exception of Spain and Portugal. All together, they have been using immigration, nationalism and xenophobia as the new “alternative right’s tools for success.

Let us go back to the case of Germany, Bavaria, who threatens Berlin’s government, is the richest state of Germany, with a population of 12.240 million people. Munich is the third largest city, after Berlin and Hamburg, with 1.400.000 people, and is the second largest employer in the country, and has attracted immigrants, which are all together less than 200.000. The local daily, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, estimates Muslim at 32.000.

The Alternative fur Deutschland, the extreme right -wing party that in the last elections got 13% of the votes (and 92 Seats in the Parliament,) is based basically in an antiimmigrant platform. In a poll in March narrowly surpassed the center-left Social Democrats for the first time in history. The poll by Insa, commissioned by Bild newspaper, showed the AfD at 16 percent support compared to the SPD at 15.5 percent — a new low for what has traditionally been one of Germany’s largest parties.

AfD in the last polls appears to win over CSU in Bavaria, where Muslim immigrants are rare. But the main basis for AFD come from the old East Germany, where immigrants are one fourth of those in West Germany. So, there is no rational link between reacting to presence of immigrants and vote. AFD gets more votes where there are fewer immigrants.

CDU runs now frantically to extreme right wing, xenophobe positions, so to do not lose to the Afd. It will probably loose anyhow. History shows us that voters always prefer to vote the original than copies. But Germans, and Bavarians, are thought to be rational people. Statistics are clear. Each year there are 300.000 less working people. Of the 80.6 million Germans, only 61% is in working age. In 2050, it will shrink to 51%, and those older than 65 will increase from 21% to 33%. Birth rate in Germany is 1.5%; to have a constant population you need a birth rate of 2.1%. And the immigrant’s huge influx has increased the birth rate to a modest 1.59%. Immigrants tend to imitate local trends and do not have many children. Therefore, it is clear to all, that in two decades productivity will decline dramatically (some say 30%), because of less people working, and there will be not enough payers to keep the pension and social security system going. It will be the end of the German locomotive.

The same consideration applies to all of Europe, which has a statistical birth rate of 1.6, which means it will lose close to one million per year. The UN division of Population Statistics consider that Europe should have an influx of 20 million immigrants to retain its course. This is clearly impossible in today political system. With an impeccable observation, a Spanish philosopher, Adela Cortina, has observed that foot players, artist, and rich people, be even Muslim, like princes, are most welcome in Europe. Those who are not welcome are the poor. So, she wrote a book on why we are not in front of a real xenophobia. We face aporofobia, a term she coined using the word apora, the Greek world for poor. In fact, this defense of European civilization is an update of colonialism…

And yet we have plenty of data about the positive impact of immigration. The last is a very complex study over 30 years of immigration, done by the very respected CNRS, the National Center of Scientific Investigation if France, published by Science Advances, on the 15 European countries who did receive 89% of demand for asylum in 2015, the year of the great influx from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. After four years, partly due to the length of the bureaucratic process, the GNP rises by 0.32%. Impacts on the fiscal system are also relevant. Prof. Hippolyte D’Albis, one of the authors, observes that of course initially immigrants are a cost, but this public money is reinvested in the society, and for ten years they produce more wealth than the general population. After ten years they melt in the general statics. It is obvious that the dream of people who come in Europe to escape hunger or wars, is to get a job as soon as possible, pay taxes and contributions to ensure their stability and future, and work hard. At least for a decade. And it is interesting to see the difference between the new right and the old right. The old right was not against immigrants, also because they did provide cheap labor. It was mildly nationalist but was never xenophobe (Jews apart). The alternative right is not interested in statistics and economics. Is interested only to stir fear, to get to the power. Reality is fake news. Trump has claimed that the 250.000 demonstrator against his visit, that kept him out of the center of London, were in fact his supporters. You do not need to be only a narcissist; you need also to reverse reality.

The question, therefore, is what has happened to people. Trump changing a manifestation of 250.00o people intent, would have once ridiculed him. Not now: his tweets are to his supporters undisputed truth. His meeting with Kim brought the vaguest of results, He left the Iran deal, which had several pages of agreement, as one which did not address issues. In the NATO’s meeting, he scolded everybody, and then said that all engaged to increase to 4% their military budget (US is at 3.6%). In the visit to UK, he scolded the beleaguered PM May, defending a hard Brexit, and saluting the resigning Minister of Foreign Affairs and hard Brexiter Johnson as his favorite. He said to May that he did not come to negotiate, but to get what he wanted. He then met Putin, said that the Us was responsible for the bad relations, that Putin was to be believed when he said that there was no Russian meddling in the last elections, and that the Intelligence agencies and the Secretary of Justice, with his Mueller’s probe, were an American disgrace. When, in American history, a President scolding his allies, and praising Us enemies, did not even raised an eyelash from Republican American electorate, which is now Trumpian first than anything else?

Well, a survey, Varieties of Democracy, released last June, says that the concept of Democracy itself is in danger. The survey asked more than 3.000 scholars and country experts to evaluate each of 178 countries on the quality of core features of democracy. At the end of 2016, most people lived in democracies. Since then, one third of the world population, or 2.5 billion have gone through “autocratization”, in which a leader, or a group of leaders begin to limit these democratic attributes, and to rule more unilaterally. Four of the most populous countries, India Russia, Brazil and United States, have been affected by autocratization. Other large countries in democratic decline in the past !0 years include Congo, Turkey, Ukraine and Poland. The US fell from seventh to 31st in just two years. The Congress does not like to be able to reign the President, the opposition party looks unable to have any influence over the governing party, and the Judiciary is becoming much more partisan than balanced. The US Supreme Court looked as a counterweight to the Executive, but now its ranking slipped to no.48. A poll from the McKinsey institute found out that now a full 41% of Americans would not mind to do not live in democracy, if the leader they like would remain in power beyond its constitutional term.

By other hand, it is fact that people elect those they like, and therefore any country has the leader they elect, be Putin, Erdogan, Orban, Trump, and not centuries ego Mussolini and Hitler. If they want to listen to Savers sent by God, , who don’t care about reality, is their right. We can only mourn the growing somnambulism of people…

The serious problem is that this will only bring in a near future a disaster. It is really urgent to create an immigration policy, to establish criteria of those that Industrialized countries need for their ability to remain in the world’s competition. This will not happen. All immigrants are presented as a threat, just as a cynical road to power, regardless of reality. Africa’s population will double in the next decades. Nigeria will grow to 400 million, the present population of Europe. Now 60% of Africa’s population is under 25, compared with 32% in United States, and 27% in Europe. Are Europeans going to machine gun the immigrants, (as some xenophobe are already asking) and decline to a region of old people, with little pension and an inexistent social system? Is Europe going to lose its original identity, and the values that are enshrined not only in the European constitution, but also in the National ones? The French Parliament has eliminated the term “race” from its constitution, and the Portuguese government will give to immigrants who have a stable job after a year, the Portuguese citizenship.

By other hand, to government of Nederland, with the support of the Parliament, has decided that will refuse the return to the children born by Dutch parents enrolled with ISIS: those children have been born and raised in a climate of hate and violence, and they would bring a danger to the Dutch society. Nederland was a symbol of tolerance, and refugees for centuries went to Nederland, flying from religious or political conflicts. Nederland has today a population of 17.2 million people, with a high standard of living. How many are the ISIS children? The astounding number of 145. It would be impossible to find 145 families, where those children would forget the horrors through which they went, without any responsibility, and enjoy the benefits of their nationality, which by international law is considered unwaiverable? Is this the new Europe that its citizens want? The new face of United States is separating more than 5.000 children from their immigrant parents… It looks like is the new face of the West…

The post Immigration, Lot of Myths and Little Reality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The exhibition at the Southbank Centre is in the centenary year of Nelson Mandela's birth.

IOM DG William Swing meets new mothers from the Rohingya refugee and local communities. Photo: IOM

By International Organization for Migration
Dhaka/Cox’s Bazar, Jul 17 2018 (IOM)

Almost a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face a triple threat of extreme weather, funding shortfalls and uncertainty about their future, William Lacy Swing, head of the UN Migration Agency, IOM, said today.

Director General Swing said it was crucial for the world to remain focused on the crisis, as a “failure to do so would have tragic outcomes for the nearly a million Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh.”

He made the remarks after reviewing progress by IOM and partners in managing the world’s largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar discussions with Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka and an earlier meeting on Thursday with Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.

“The Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar are in danger of becoming the wretched of the earth, homeless and without a future,” he said, adding, “The world must rally to support them.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated, “The wellbeing of the Rohingyas is our concern while they are here (in Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh).”

She also underscored the enormity of the impact that so many refugees are having on the local population and the need for global solidarity to find a solution to their plight and humanitarian aid to support them and the surrounding host communities.

Ambassador Swing previously visited Cox’s Bazar in October 2017, less than three months into a violent crisis which has sent more than 700,000 people fleeing over the border from Myanmar since late August 2017.

The Rohingya now live in desperately cramped conditions on bare sandy slopes, with only bamboo and tarpaulin shelters to protect them from the elements. All this in an area that suffers two cyclone seasons yearly and some of the heaviest monsoon conditions in the world.

Ambassador Swing noted the major improvements to the camps’ management and infrastructure carried out by IOM, and an entire spectrum of other UN agencies, NGOs as well as other organizations and the government, including access ways, bridges, drainage, sanitation and improved shelters.

However, as monsoon rains turned many hillsides to mud, Ambassador Swing warned that with just one quarter of joint funding appeal for the entire response met so far, much of the progress made in recent months was at serious risk of collapsing. That, he said, would create yet another life-threatening disaster for the Rohingya community.

Ambassador Swing, who met young mothers from the refugee and local Bangladeshi host community who had recently given birth at an IOM medical facility in the heart of the sprawling mega-camp stressed the vital role that such health services played for people in Cox’s Bazar whether refugee or local residents.

“Everyone must recognize, in addition to the refugees’ needs, the tremendous impact this crisis is having on the host community,” he said.

IOM has been working in Cox’s Bazar providing medical care to the local community long before the crisis which began last August, he noted.

“All mothers – refugees and locals – should have access to safe, hygienic facilities to give birth and it’s profoundly worrying that funding shortages are now threatening these crucial maternity services which are making such differences to the lives of women and babies from all backgrounds.”

Ambassador Swing praised the great hospitality of the local community and the government and people of Bangladesh as a whole in supporting the Rohingya refugees in what is now one of the world’s largest humanitarian responses.

“The world must recognize the hugely generous support that the Bangladesh government and host community here in Cox’s Bazar has offered these refugees who arrived in such desperate conditions with nothing.”

For more information please contact
Leonard Doyle at IOM HQ, Email: ldoyle@iom.int, Tel: +41 792857123
Fiona MacGregor, IOM Cox’s Bazar, Email: fmacgregor@iom.int, Tel: +88 0 1733 335221

The post Fate of Rohingya Refugees Discussed by IOM Chief and Bangladesh Prime Minister appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fifa postpones a proposed extra-ordinary congress of the Sierra Leone Football Association as it awaits new draft statutes to be submitted.

On any given day, a pall of smog and dust hangs over Kabul's streets. It clings to the face, burns the eyes, and stains the hands. It bathes the cars, often stuck bumper-to-bumper in traffic, and occludes the view of the distant mountains. Credit: Anand Gopal/IPS

By Sinsiri Tiwutanond
BANGKOK , Jul 17 2018 (IPS)

At the start of the year the pollution in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, reached six times the World Health Organization’s guideline levels for air quality.

Yet the levels, which appear higher than those of South Korea’s capital Seoul—where most people monitor the air pollution levels daily—is not treated with equal concern because of a lack of general awareness. This is despite the fact that air pollution has become the largest cause of premature deaths in Asia.

“When I went to Vietnam, I realised no one thought there was an air pollution problem because no one was directly addressing it. It was worse than Seoul when we checked the level there. In Seoul, people talk about air pollution everyday. In the morning, you check the air quality to see if you need a mask or if the kids can play outside. In Hanoi, the problem is just as bad but people just don’t know about it,” Global Green Growth Institute’s director-general Dr. Frank Rijsberman told IPS.

GGGI is one of the organisations working directly with governments in the region to tackle the growing concern of air pollution, as it has become the largest cause of premature death in many nations.

A study released by the WHO this March found air pollution to be the most lethal environmental threat to human health in Asia.  "Pollution is the largest cause of premature death now, even more than smoking." -- GGGI director-general Dr. Frank Rijsberman

The WHO estimated around 2.2 million of the global seven million premature deaths each year occur in low and middle-income countries, most of them in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The study also found that the world’s megacities exceed the WHO’s guideline levels for air quality by more than five times.

Inefficient energy use in households, industry, agriculture and transport sectors, and coal-fired power plants were the major sources attributed to outdoor air pollution, while the lack of access to clean cooking fuels and technologies contributed most to indoor pollution. The latter puts women and children as the biggest group at risk.

As a result, two-thirds of Southeast Asian cities saw a five percent growth in air pollution between 2008 and 2013 according to a WHO report in 2016. However, the report noted that more governments were increasing their commitments to reduce air pollution.

On his latest visit to Bangkok, Rijsberman spoke to IPS about the efforts governments in the region are making to mitigate the risks from air pollution, and key areas the region needed to focus on before the effects of pollution become irreversible.

Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) Dr. Frank Rijsberman says the issue of air pollution in Asia has become “surprisingly alarming”. Credit: Sinsiri Tiwutanond/IPS

Q: You were in Singapore for the World Cities Summit prior to your Bangkok visit. Can you share some of the key insights and trends discussed on the panel?

There was a lot of focus on smart cities at the social innovation panel I was part of. I am very excited about electric mobility from the environmental perspective but also because it is a more sustainable, affordable and healthier form of public transportation.

For example, three-wheelers are the most important form of public transport in Vientiane, Laos, but it is also the biggest source of air pollution.

So we are working on a project to replace these three-wheelers with electric ones. Most of the things I talked about was a shift in perspective to focus on basic public services that need to be more sustainable, inclusive and help to improve the quality of life for the citizens.

Q: Where do you see the impact most visible now that Asia has become a key battleground in the fight against air pollution?

The issue is surprisingly alarming everywhere. The most immediately visible [impact can be seen] in places like Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia where you cannot even see the other side of the street during winter. The government had to declare a national emergency last year and we worked on a whole series of projects to help reduce that, mostly focusing on indoor air pollution.

A lot of the locals still heat their tents with coal and that means that the children have incredible levels of pneumonia, asthma and bronchitis. Air pollution is actually the second-largest cause of premature deaths for children in Mongolia. But there is also cause for alarm in countries where it is not as clearly visible and people are not so aware of the problem.

Q: What are some of these places that are still falling behind in pollution awareness?

Air pollution is virtually everywhere in Asia in the big cities because of transport, coal-fired power plants and industry. Even in less-developed rural areas where you don’t expect the level to be as high.

Eighty percent of people in Cambodia are still cooking food on an open fire and using coal for heating and as a result, indoor air pollution is a huge problem for them. Pollution is the largest cause of premature death now, even more than smoking. It is something that worries us a lot and plays a large part in green growth.

Q: Who do you see as leaders within the region on these issues?

There are quite a few leaders now in renewable energy for electricity production. India, however, is moving fast in positioning itself in the renewable energy industry. The prices have drastically decreased because of large-scale subsidy options where the Indian government says for the next 100 megawatts you can build a power plant or if you want you can offer us the cheapest form of energy.

For those options, the prices have come down comparatively to coal, which used to be assumed as the cheapest option. As a result, a lot of the companies abandon their plans to build coal-fired power plants, which is a huge change.

Southeast Asia appears to have small success but by and large, it is still waiting to take off. However, it can grow very rapidly once it has a breakthrough. In Vietnam late last year, they introduced some good policies for net metering, feed-in-tariff and power purchase agreement. There is a lot of interest but the breakthrough is likely to come in the next one or two years.

Q: What are some challenges facing this breakthrough?

Southeast Asia is variable. In Cambodia, the government is interested in renewable energy but the ministry of environment also just recently signed a contract for a coal-fired power plant. I think we just need to ensure that the stakeholders can see these investments as financially viable on top of the immediate environmental consequences.

We are working on that in quite a few places.

Q: Lastly, what do you think are some areas that have been overlooked in the region?

Only 20 percent of the total global energy use goes to electricity and power production. The other two large parts are mobility/transport and buildings. In Asia, energy efficiency in building materials or cooling and heating structures are hugely important. The technology tends to be there but there is remarkably little interest.

In Mongolia, we are working to prepare a project to improve these existing Soviet-style housing where people control the temperature by opening windows. Everything is over heated and it is the worst way to manage energy. We are proposing to them to retrofit these buildings by insulating them and improving the temperature control. The project will be successful to us if by the end of the year we can mobilise the finance to retrofit the 15,000 apartments with better insulation and e-meters.

Energy efficiency in general whether it is for air conditioning or building is a huge topic, which has not received enough attention. It is as good as adding new energy if you can improve energy efficiency. It is something we think can be shared more within the region.

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The post Q&A: Air Pollution Remains Cause for Alarm in Asia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IPS correspondent Sinsiri Tiwutanond spoke to Global Green Growth Institute’s director-general Dr. Frank Rijsbermanon about Asia's fight against air pollution.

The post Q&A: Air Pollution Remains Cause for Alarm in Asia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

With an ambition to be Zimbabwe's youngest president, he can work a crowd like the preacher he is.

A view of the General Assembly Hall following the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda by the UN summit convened for that purpose on 25 September 2015. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By International Organization for Migration
United States, Jul 17 2018 (IOM)

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) is a global framework of immense ambition and consequence. It is, as the UN Secretary-General has described it, a ‘blueprint for dignity, peace and prosperity for people and the planet’.

Its adoption in 2015 was hailed as a momentous occasion. For migration practitioners and policy makers, this was certainly the case. The 2030 Agenda was the first major UN development framework — at least since the Programme of Action of the 1994 Conference on Population and Development — to include specific commitments on migration.

Photo: Cia Pak / UN DPI (2015)

Three years into its implementation, there has been some positive progress. This includes reductions in maternal and under-five mortality, as well as unemployment, and increases in electricity access and labour productivity. In many other areas however, there is still a great deal of work to be done. The UN has reported that in some cases, current progress may be ‘insufficient to meet the Agenda’s goals and targets by 2030’.

School girls leaning about HIV and hygiene in South Sudan. Photo: Amanda Nero / IOM (2017)

Although it is currently very difficult to assess progress towards the migration commitments, global migration governance is arguably one area that risks being underserved in the race to 2030. This is the case both in a practical sense and in policy terms, with governments increasingly putting up legal and physical barriers to mobility, even as the number of people on the move continues to rise.

Tunisia-Libya border crossing. Photo: Emiliano Capozoli / IOM (2011)

A challenge for those with an interest in migration governance is that although the links between migration and other policy domains have long been discussed by governments, academic institutes, international organizations and others, migration is still not sufficiently addressed in relevant policy development processes. This is despite migration being increasingly included in global multilateral frameworks, especially those adopted in the past 3–4 years. As such, it is still difficult to draw attention to migration issues in an admittedly crowded development space, notwithstanding its broad relevance.

Although the anticipated adoption in December 2018 of a new Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration could help change that dynamic and will give migration a global agreement of its own, it will still be important to draw linkages with other development frameworks, including but not limited to the 2030 Agenda. The commitments that have already been made in the 2030 Agenda, Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and the New Urban Agenda, amongst others, must still be progressed.

Third round of the intergovernmental negotiations for the Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration (GCM) at the United Nations Headquarters. Photo: Juan José Gómez Camacho (2018)

For that reason, it is still vitally important to assess the implications of migration across the full 2030 Agenda, and to consider how good migration governance can produce positive outcomes for development. As the principle UN body mandated to review progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) is the ideal platform from which to do that.

This year, for example, all environmental related goals being considered at the HLPF are of relevance to contemporary migration movements, as changes in the environment can drive people to migrate and similarly, migration of people can also impact the environment. It is critical to draw attention to the nexus between migration and environment, discuss existing best practices and support a forward-looking vision of comprehensive environmental approaches that systematically include migration dimensions.

Boy on his boat in Sirajganj where a large community is affected by river erosion in Bangladesh. Photo: Amanda Nero / IOM (2016)

Similarly, migration is also relevant to Goal 11, on inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements. This is because the drivers and effects of migration are most strongly felt at the local level. Cities and other local and regional authorities are increasingly finding themselves at the forefront of responses to the complex challenges and opportunities that migration presents for development.

Governments must therefore establish joined-up and coherent migration governance systems and practices, including mechanisms to consult and support local authorities on migration issues, while also supporting local level authorities with frameworks and measures to ensure inclusive, cohesive and productive communities.

This is one of the core principles of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Migration Governance Framework (MiGOF), which highlights the fact that migration, by its very nature, implicates multiple actors and that its good governance relies upon partnerships between all actors at different levels of engagement. These are also the messages that IOM will be taking to this year’s HLPF.

Dublin, Ireland. Photo: Muse Mohammed / IOM (2017)

Future iterations of the HLPF will also be important to review progress towards global commitments on migration and development. In 2019 for example, the HLPF will review SDG 10, which includes a target to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of well-planned migration policies.

It is already pleasing to see that some governments have addressed migration in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) this year, and that a number of related events also have a migration focus. This sets a positive precedent ahead of the 2019 review of SDG 10. With migration continuing to be an issue high on the global political agenda, governments must consider migration and its impacts on development — in all its dimensions.

Some of the information in this article relied on the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018 which can be accessed here.

This story was written by Chris Richter, Migration Policy Officer at the IOM Office to the United Nations.

The post The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development Must Address Migration appeared first on Inter Press Service.