Africa

African football legend, Mulamba Ndaye, who still holds the record for most goals scored at a single Nations Cup, has died in South Africa at the age of 70.

President Buhari faces international pressure after suspending the country's top judge before an election.

Rohingya refugees queue for food at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. PHOTO: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP

By Abu Afsarul Haider
Jan 26 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) – According to media reports, the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) took back 31 stranded Rohingyas from the no-man’s land in the India-Bangladesh border near Brahmanbaria after a five-day impasse, which ensued after a BSF attempt to push them into Bangladesh was met with stiff resistance from the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). Since the beginning of the year, no less than 1,300 Rohingya Muslims crossed the border into Bangladesh from India, where many of them had been living for years. (The Daily Star, January 20, 2019) Before this, on January 3, 2019, India deported a family of five Rohingyas, and last year, seven Rohingya Muslims were deported to Myanmar by the Indian government despite appeals from the United Nations not to do so. In recent times, Saudi Arabia also deported undocumented Rohingya migrants who had gone there with illegally obtained travel documents.

The Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic-minority group based in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. According to many historians, they are descendants of Arab traders and other groups who, in the 15th century, migrated to Rakhine, previously called the Kingdom of Arakan. Despite their considerable numbers and established local roots, successive governments in Myanmar have rejected the Rohingyas’ historical claims and denied them recognition as one of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups, claiming they are illegal immigrants. They are denied basic human rights and treated like animals with no access to education, medicine, or other government services. They are not even allowed to move freely or leave their settlements in Rakhine without government approval. Many are internally displaced in their own birthplace, living like refugees.

Things got worse when militants attacked security forces in northern Rakhine State on August 25, 2017. In response, the Myanmar army launched a ruthless campaign against the Rohingyas fashioned in the style of the Japanese war tactic—“burn all, kill all, destroy all”. The army and its collaborators slaughtered thousands of civilians, raped girls and women while family members were tortured and killed, and burned their houses, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. Since then, the Rohingyas have been trying to escape by sea to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand but unfortunately, none of these countries allowed them to enter their territory, claiming they are financially unable to accept or host them and so their boats were turned away.

In a world where so many borders are closed, Bangladesh, itself a poor country and one of the world’s most densely populated, welcomed the Rohingyas by opening its border. Since August 2017, over 750,000 Rohingyas have crossed into Bangladesh. For Bangladesh, the Rohingya refugee influx is not a new phenomenon. Different media reports confirm that between 1974 and 2016, more than 260,000 Rohingyas fled Rakhine thanks to human rights abuses committed by the Myanmar military, including the confiscation of land, forced labour, rape, and torture. Bangladesh has continued to take in another 11,432 Rohingyas since the beginning of 2018 through the end of June 2018. Currently, more than a million Rohingya refugees are living in mostly makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar.

It should be noted that the degree of violence endured by the Rohingyas since August 25, 2017 was new, but their experience of oppression was not. Since the 1970s, the Rohingyas have faced state-sponsored persecution and have long endured severe discrimination in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and were targets of communal violence. In 1982, the Myanmar government effectively institutionalised discrimination against the Rohingyas by introducing a citizenship law. Under the law, Rohingyas were not recognised as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups. Restrictions was imposed on their rights to study, marriage, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement, leaving them vulnerable to abuse. For years, they have been living a miserable life, suffered considerable trauma as a result of the widespread campaign of murder, rape, and arson tantamount to crimes against humanity. As such, seeing no other options, they have been crowded on boats and ping-ponged between nations that don’t want them.

Bangladesh and its people have shown the best of humanity and saved many thousands of lives by providing shelter to the Rohingya community. The country has allocated 5,000 acres of land for temporary shelters, provided food, deployed mobile medical teams, and carried out large-scale immunisation campaigns. While there is now enough food and shelter to keep these Rohingyas alive, and while there are more than enough water points and sanitation facilities to accommodate them, one must not forget the limitation of this poor country, already struggling to cope with extreme poverty, high population density, high unemployment rate and the effects of regular natural disasters and climate change. So far, Bangladesh has managed to reconcile the two conflicting demands, with the assistance of the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, supplying humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas while ensuring the stability and security within Bangladesh. But if the repatriation process doesn’t start soon, not only will it have a negative impact on our economy and environment; the regional and global security and stability will be affected as well.

Today, the Rohingyas are often described as “the world’s most persecuted minority.” They deserve a home where they can live peacefully without the fear of persecution. And that home must be in their original motherland, Arakan/Rakhine State. The repatriation deal signed in November 2017 between Bangladesh and Myanmar has stalled largely because, among other reasons, the Rohingyas fear returning to Rakhine without their safety and rights guaranteed. Rohingya Muslims now face an uncertain future. Therefore, Bangladesh should continue to make its case on the world stage. It cannot let the world think that the issue is only ours to solve. As the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. “The refugee situation around the world is everybody’s problem. It’s not just a problem for host countries, or just a problem for the refugees—this is everybody’s problem.”

There needs to be a paradigm shift in how to deal with the crisis. Rather than just pledging money and humanitarian aid, it is time for the international community to demonstrate the political will and moral authority to step up and offer a bold package of support that meets the needs of Rohingya refugees and addresses the root causes of the crisis, including recognition of Rohingya citizenship in Myanmar and of the basic rights of the Rohingya people. The failure to do so will worsen what is already one of the great tragedies of our time.

Abu Afsarul Haider studied economics and business administration at the Illinois State University, USA, and is currently involved in international trade in Dhaka. Email: afsarulhaider@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Rohingya – A people not wanted anywhere appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Vijay Prashad
Jan 25 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Tricontinental) – In June 1931, the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci wrote a letter to Giulia Schucht, who lived in Moscow and with whom he had two children. One of the children – Delio – had taken an interest in literature, with a particular fascination for fantasy literature. This gave Gramsci, locked in a fascist prison, the opportunity to recall a story from his village on the island of Sardinia.

A child sleeps, a mug of milk at his side for when he awakes. A mouse drinks the milk, which provokes a scream from the child and his mother. ‘In despair, the mouse bangs his head against the wall, but he realizes that this doesn’t help, and he runs to the goat to get some milk’, writes Gramsci. The goat says he will give milk if the mouse gets him grass, but the meadow is dry because of a drought. So, the mouse seeks water from the fountain, which has been ruined by war. It needs the mason, who needs stones, so the mouse heads to the mountain. But the mountain has been deforested by speculators, and it ‘reveals everywhere its bones stripped of earth’.

The mouse explains his predicament to the mountain, and he promises that when the boy grows, he – unlike the rest of humanity – will replant the trees, which motivates the mountain to give stones and so the child gets his milk. ‘He grows up, plants the trees, everything changes: the mountain’s bones disappear under new humus, atmospheric precipitation once more becomes regular because the trees absorb the vapours and prevent the torrents from devastating the plains, etc’. In short, Gramsci writes, the mouse conceives of a true and proper piatilietca’, a five-year plan.

What the mouse and the mountain teach us is that everything is connected. There is war here but also deforestation for profit and drought and greed. The child, when grown, recognises the need for deliberate planning. But before the plan comes the recognition of linkages.

The post What The Mountain Taught the Mouse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

From the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

The post What The Mountain Taught the Mouse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Photo: Philip Gain

By Philip Gain
Jan 25 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) – 14 Bede families have set up their oval-shaped makeshift tents on private land in Natun Torki, a village in Kalkini Upazila of Madaripur district. A branch of the Arialkha river flows on the west of Natun Torki. The area is well-known in Barishal for Torki Bandar, a narrow but flowing river on the west. The Bede huts are just on the outskirts of the crowded Natun Torki market.

Soud Khan, a Bede Sardar from Kharia in Munshiganj, and two other Bedes—Md Zakir Hossain and Md Nurun Nabi—guide me into their tents, many in the open space and some under the shade of a tree. It is a bright, sunny afternoon in June 29, 2018. Each tent seems to have everything a family needs, all crammed into a 100 to 150 square-feet space. Most tents are also fitted with solar panels. The tents facing west glow in the golden sunshine.

It is Friday, an off-day here. I inspect the tents and take photos in the daylight before finally sitting down for a chat with the elderly Bedes, surrounded by everyone of the little Bede community.

Md Zakir Hossain, in his late forties, informs me that all 14 families there had started their journey from Khari in Munshiganj in October 2017. Since then they have set up their tents and set up businesses in 14 places!

Their journey through these months saw them moving through Shariatpur, Madaripur, Barguna, Jhalakathi and Barishal. Before coming to Natun Torki, they spent a month and ten days in the Doari Bridge area in Barishal.

“We stay in an area for as long as the business is good,” says Hossain, admitting that the business is actually not that good anywhere. “We survive on minimal income and the scope of business dries out pretty quickly. So, we keep moving.”

The 14 families are all Mal Manta, one of a dozen groups among the Bede. One main business of the female Mal Bede is making use of singe, a metal pipe that sucks out bad blood from the human body to give relief from pain. Other businesses of Mal Bede include the search of lost gold, and sale of imitation ornaments, cosmetics, amulets, cups and other light utensils.

Hossain and his group plan to stay at Natun Torki for no longer than two weeks. They do not think business will be good here. I call Hossain some 20 days after I meet them to check if they have moved on.

“Yes, we are now at Haturia Launch Ghat in Goshairhat Thana under Shariatpur district,” he tells me. “We stayed at Natun Torki for 15 days.”

The life of the Bedes is tough indeed. “Because we are always on the run, our children cannot attend school,” laments Rubina Akhtar, 45, explaining that none of the 25 children of the 14 families receive education.

“Many years back, Father Renato, a Catholic priest, used to assist us and had a school that would travel with us,” recalls Rubina’s husband Nurun Nabi, 55, who had been a teacher of the floating school. Nurun Nabi studied up to class ten and is ready to teach the Bede children again.

“Give us a school and a teacher,” Rubina demands of me repeatedly. “We want education for our children.” When I mention that Bangladesh reportedly has a 100 percent enrollment for children, Rubina shouts in disagreement, “It is a lie.”

A large percentage of the Bede is on the move like these 14 families; and their children do not get any education. About 15 years ago, these groups used to glide through the country in boats. Their economic condition was better back then. Now, none them have a boat.

Most of the Bede boats in Kakalia disappears in 2018. Photo: Philip Gain

The Bede geography

Grambangla Unnayan Committee, a non-profit organisation that works closely with Bedes, estimates that there are 5,000 Bede groups roaming around the country for 10 months around the year. Then they assemble at 75 locations in 39 districts. Normally, they get together during Eid-ul-Azha or national and local elections. Most of them were not allowed to vote until 2007.However, a great percentage of Bede households do not have land or houses where they are registered as voters. They simply carry their tents everywhere.

According to a survey by the NGO, more than 90 percent of Bedes are illiterate. An overwhelming percentage live below the poverty line. Very few children are vaccinated. As they change locations often, they do not enjoy any government family welfare schemes or health assistance. Although they belong to the poorest of the poor and are landless, they hardly get khas land for settlement. Their access to safety net programmes such as old age allowance, VGF cards, disability allowance, flood relief etc. is minimal.

House of a poor Bede in Torki, Barishal. Photo: Philip Gain

From water to land

Before visiting Natun Torki, we also spend hours at Torki Char Bede Palli. The hamlet is located along a half kilometer stretch on a western branch of the Arialkha river that snakes through Torki Bandar. The Bede hamlet, with its two-storey concrete and wooden houses, is neat and clean. Some houses, of course, reveal the poverty of the 60 families staying there. The shabbier houses are built like boats on plinths, perhaps in fond memory of their long-lost boats. The differences between the well-off and poorer Bede are clearly visible.

Md Nannu Sarder tells me that in addition to the 60 families settled on tiny plots of land purchased as far back as 25 years ago, another 60 to 70 families assembled here on boats for two months in October. Torki Char Bazar is home for them. Some families have small plots of land but they are yet to build houses.

For a month or two in October and November they relax, organise parties with singing and dancing, repair their boats, and settle social matters such as disputes and marriages. “About half of the 70 families who don’t own houses and have their boats under repair set up tents,” explains the Sardar (leader of the Bede hamlet). The hamlet grows lively with the assembled crowds.

But during business season, most working men and women go out to sell their business ware. Some women roam around with singe leaving the hamlet nearly empty. Beside the village, the river flows quietly—lifeblood of the wandering people, eager to settle down as agriculturists.

“But we have been able to purchase only tiny plots of land on which to build our houses,” says Nannu Sarder, his strong features not once reveal his age of 75. “None of us have agricultural land.”

A two-storied typical house of a well-to-do bede in Torki, Barishal. Photo: Philip Gain

This is a change they want now. “Once we settle down, our children can go to school,” asserts Nannu.

Two of Sarder’s friends—Md Jahangir and Md Abdur Rab—join us as we chat. They reminisce about their life 25 years back, when they all had boats. “We used to come here twice a year since 1972. The river had a magnetic power. We would repair our boats here,” recalls Md Jahangir, 65, who was the first to buy five decimals of land for Tk 40,000 back in the day.

“The local Gale (non-Bede Bangalee) offered to sell land to us,” says Md Jahangir. Others followed Jahangir too.

The Manta of Torki Char Bede Palli in Gournadi Pourashava are all from Amanatganj, Barishal, and all are Muslims. They believe that they are different from Bedes of Dhaka Division and other areas. Soud Khan of Kharia in Munshiganj who accompanied us agrees. “I can see the Bede of Barishal are the homely kind,” observes Khan.

The benefit of a permanent address is clear.

However, even after settling down, they face social difficulties with the Gale. “They look down upon us and do not want to socialise with us,” says Nannu Sarder. “We pray in separate mosques and we do not mix with the Gale who envy our economic well-being.” Relations between the Bede and Gale turned bitter after a fight two years ago.

Like the Bede who have settled in the Torki Bandar area, other Bede groups are also trying to settle on land. One such group is seen in Kakalia village in the Nagari union of Kaliganj upazila in Gazipur. Even a year and half ago, around 60 Bedes had boats beautifully lined up in the Turag river close to the Tongi-Ghorashal Highway. At one time, 200 boats would float in this part of the Turag, serving as a reminder of the river gypsy tradition in riverine Bengal.

But in July 2018, only eight boats were left. Quite a few of the awnings were set on the land close to the river. Others have disappeared from the river with signs of dilapidation around. Around 60 families have now built their houses on khas land on the Turag bank. The majority of the families have built tin shed houses, some with concrete floor. One family has constructed a two-storey home with a wooden deck—a typical house of a well-off Bede family. Others have set the awnings of their boats right on the banks of Turag.

Child being prepared for marriage. Photo: Philip Gain

A Bede playing been or pungi (flute). Photo: Philip Gain

Mosammat Rezia, 70, born and brought up on a boat, feels sad about the boat life that has recently ended for her and others. She has sold cosmetics and ornaments on foot all her life, a typical mode of work for Sandar Manta women. She has two sons who sell cosmetics and supplement their income by fishing in the Belai beel and river during monsoon.

“We are destitute,” sighs Rezia. “We have to buy everything except for water.” The families, however, have received two concrete toilets and one tubewell from the government.”

Land and agriculture are mirages to the Bede of Kakalia or elsewhere. 60 Bede families have settled on 51 decimals of khas land; but not for free. Abu Miah, Tabu Miah and Ali have taken yearly leases of 20 decimals of land and divided it into 10 tiny plots. Fazlul Haque, Rezia’s son, took one of the plots for BDT 8,000 15 years ago. Others have taken plots for between BDT 40,000 and BDT 50,000.

It is here that we find Nuru Miah, aged 110. He stoops low, yet he walks fast and his eyesight is perfect. Born in Demra, he came here 10 years back. His wife Gedi Begum is 90 years old. Both husband and wife were born, and have spent all their life, on boats.

“Since then we have set the awnings of our boat on land and we live under it,” he says, pointing to the oval-shaped structure that he set up after his boat broke. Everybody in the little hamlet is sympathetic to the aged couple.

A few families in Kakalia that still live there will soon abandon their boats. “We do not want to go back,” says Sadhina Begum, 47, who with a son and two daughters left their boat about a year back.

Sadhina’s son works at a garment factory at College Gate, 10 minutes away from Kakalia. Like Sadhina’s son, 15 other young boys and girls go to work in the nearby garment factory.

Bede tents in a playground in Goalimandra, Munshiganj. Photo: Philip Gain

A much bigger group of Sandar Bede, around 320 families, have been living on the Turag bank attached to the Tongi bridge. It is actually an age-old Bede slum comprising small huts crammed on a narrow strip of public land.

The men of this Bede squalid are in the fish trade. They buy fish from Abdullahpur, Jatrabari, Karwan Bazar, etc and sell it in the local market. “The Turag was wider and clearer in the past,” says octogenarian Ismail, “but now it is too polluted with hardly any fish to catch.” The women, as usual, sell cosmetics and utensils in villages far and near.

Bedana, aged 70, sits in front of her hut in great despair. She has heard that many of the Bede houses would have to be dismantled for the construction of another bridge in Tongi. “We have no land and no means. We do not know where to go if we are required to move out,” says Bedana.

When I checked with Giashuddin Sarker, councillor of Ward No. 57, Gazipur City Corporation, in late September last year, he reported that, “94 Bede families have already been evicted for Tongi bridge construction. They have taken shelter in their relatives’ houses and a few families have gone to Savar Bede villages.”

Other Sandars at Tongi are equally concerned. In fact, this has Bedes all around the country concerned. They want change in their lifestyles. They want to settle on land and become agriculturists. It is a century-old desire as reflected in W.W. Hunter’s writing on Bediyas around a century and half ago: “They mostly wander about in boats, and subsist by jugglery and thieving, but some of them have now settled down as agriculturists.”

However, Bede life on land is not easy. Unemployment and social ills such as drug addiction thrived in Bede villages. But years back, things began to improve with the help of a police officer, Habibur Rahman, then a superintendent police of Dhaka and now a deputy inspector general of police.

Bede girls from Munshiganj photographed in Torki Bandar, Barishal. Photo: Philip Gain

The police official appeared as a great friend to the Bede. “He motivated the drug addicts and dealers in the villages to engage in productive work,” says Ramjan Ahmed, an educated Bede leader from Badda and managing director of Uttaran Fashion, a small garment factory that exclusively employs Bede girls and boys. “Many girls who previously charmed snakes and sold cosmetics now operate modern sewing machines and make clothes for export.”

The factory is also a training ground. “So far 105 girls and boys have been trained and about 50 of them work at the factory,” states Ramjan Ahmed. “The factory keeps training girls with a financial incentive. They seek work in other factories after learning the skills of the trade. This is how many are transitioning from traditional work to modern-day work.”

“The profits are spent on the welfare of the Bedes,” says Habibur Rahman, who has a comprehensive plan for the Bedes of Savar in particular. A primary school dedicated for the Bede children is months away. A cluster village on about four acres of land for the landless Bede is becoming visible on the other side of the Bongshi river, which was the life blood of the Bede not long ago.

With Habibur Rahman’s initiative, 36 young people have learned to drive. Many others have passed the test to become police officers and got other jobs. He set up four schools in Khari in Munshiganj, and also helps when Bedes face trouble anywhere in the country.

“I also want to set up a Bede museum in Savar where people will see the Bede artefacts and learn about their history,” says Habibur Rahman with confidence.

The Bedes are clear enough on one thing: they are falling behind in the race for progress. They realise if their nomadic existence continues, they cannot send their children to schools, access public health services and attain skills to move out of extreme poverty. So, their appeal to the state is that they are permanently allocated some khas land or that arrangements are made so that they can purchase small plots in areas they feel comfortable to live in.

Philip Gain is researcher and director of Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post The story of a floating people appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Three students are arrested following the physics teacher's death in the Kenyan city of Nakuru.

US President Donald Trump with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during the UN General Assembly sessions last September.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations, which embodies the core principles of multilateralism since its creation more than 74 years ago, is being steadily and systematically undermined by a reactionary and demagogic Trump administration recklessly flaunting American imperialism at its worst.

The US has already scuttled the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran, refused to participate in the global migration compact, pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, abandoned the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, dismissed the relevance of the World Trade Organization (WTO), revoked the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, and withdrew from both the Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.

And that’s just for starters—and perhaps with more to come during the next two years of an unpredictable Trump presidency.

Meanwhile, as it continues to ravage international treaties and treaty bodies, the Trump administration has also weakened the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC)– of which it was never a member– by threatening its judges with sanctions if they ever investigate war crimes committed either by US troops in Afghanistan or Israeli troops in Palestine.

The threat against the ICC was vociferously reinforced last September by National Security Adviser John Bolton, a former US ambassador, who once infamously said that you could chop off 10 floors of the 38-storeyed UN building and it wouldn’t make a difference (prompting a New York Times columnist to say Bolton would be ideally suited as an urban planner than as an American envoy).

But the tragedy of it all is that several countries with rightwing governments, including Brazil, the Philippines, Hungary and Poland are following in the footsteps of the US – and tragically so, at a time when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns that “multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.”

Will this trend continue in the coming years? And if it does, will the Trump administration be a potential threat to multilateral diplomacy – and the United Nations itself? And more importantly, will other big powers step up take the lead in a new world order?

Norman Solomon, Executive Director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS the United Nations, as it now stands, is largely at the mercy of its most powerful member states.

Seventy years after adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he pointed out, its principles are often violated by the five permanent members (P-5) of the Security Council—the US, UK, France, China and Russia — and the governments of many other countries.

“It is hard to see how the UN can move forward effectively to advance the ideals of the Universal Declaration in the real world without challenging the nations that dominate the world body.”

Selective outrage at the violations committed by countries in rival blocs does little to improve the well-being of the people of the world, said Solomon who is also Co-Founder and Coordinator of the online activist group RootsAction.org, which has 1.4 million active online members.

He singled out two fundamental, interrelated problems — vast economic inequality of extreme proportions and rampant militarism led by the U.S. government – that threaten the survival of humanity.

“Over us all loom the threats of nuclear war and climate change, with those threats fueled by severe shortfalls of democracy that make possible rule by oligarchy as well as huge profiteering from arms sales and warfare.”

The UN member states that have cleaner hands than the permanent members of the Security Council often seem intimidated by the most powerful governments as a matter of routine, he noted

“Yet, our only hope involves the willingness of individuals, organizations and nations to not only speak truth to and about power, but also to build effective coalitions across international borders on behalf of human rights, democracy, environmental protection and peace”, declared Solomon, and author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”.

Addressing delegates last December, Guterres lamented the rise of unilateralism and the decline of multilateralism.

He urged world leaders to renew their commitment to a rules-based order, with the United Nations at its centre.

“In the face of massive existential threats to people and planet — but, equally, at a time of compelling opportunities for shared prosperity — there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good,” he stressed. “This is how we rebuild trust.”

Despite chaos and confusion in the world, there are winds of hope, he said, pointing out three positive developments: first, Eritrea’s peace initiatives with neighbouring States, second, the signing of a peace agreement between rival leaders of South Sudan and third, the summit meetings involving leaders of North Korea, the United States and South Korea.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the Trump administration’s ultra-nationalism and its rejection of international legal principles and multilateral initiatives is certainly harmful to the United Nations and the international community on a number of levels.

One result is that the United States is not being taken as seriously as it used to be. That may actually be a good thing, however.

While there have been a number of areas at the United Nations where the United States has wielded a positive influence, he argued, there have been quite a few others areas where Washington has undermined basic principles of international law and efforts at multilateral diplomacy.

These, he said, include the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the frequent abuse of its veto power, the rejection of near-unanimous World Court decisions, attacks on various UN agencies which have documented war crimes and other misdeeds by the United States or its allies, support for the Israeli and Moroccan occupations, and more.

“The United States has gotten away with wielding a disproportionate amount of influence on the United Nations since its inception.”

With the U.S. reputation at its lowest ebb, however, it may allow some other countries to step up to take greater leadership and thereby help create a more pluralistic world order, declared Zunes.

Addressing the UN General Assembly last September, Trump said that his outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, had laid out a clear agenda for reform.

“But despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.”

So, the United States, he said, took the only responsible course: “We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.”

For similar reasons, said Trump, the US will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court.

“As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority”.

He said the ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process.

“We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

“America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism,” Trump insisted.

He also said the US did not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration because “migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens”.

Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric was preceded by drastic cuts in US funding to at least two UN agencies: the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aiding Palestinian refugees.

At a press conference announcing her decision to step down as US ambassador to the UN, Haley told reporters last October that that during her two-year tenure “we cut $1.3 billion in the UN’s budget. We’ve made it stronger. We’ve made it more efficient.”

At the same time, the US has slashed its contribution to UNFPA , from $69 million in 2016 to zero in 2017, and cut $300 million in funds to UNRWA.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Is the UN Being Undermined by a Demagogic Trump Administration? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Lessons at the University of Pretoria will now mostly be in English, in the hopes of "transforming the culture".

World football's governing body Fifa imposes a life ban on retired Niger referee Ibrahim Chaibou from all football-related activities.

The “bride shortage” in India and China has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides. Pictured here are the rites of a Hindu marriage ceremony.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

Paradoxically, the world’s most populated countries are facing a population crisis: a woman shortage. And it’s women who are paying a brutal price for it.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the natural sex ratio at birth is approximately 105 boys to every 100 girls.

However, decades of gender discrimination, which favoured having boys over girls, has left India and China with 80 million more men than women.

“When women lack equal rights and patriarchy is deeply engrained, it is no surprise that parents choose to not to have daughters,” said Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Senior Researcher in the Women’s Rights Division Heather Barr.

Now that there is a shortage of women doesn’t mean that women become more treasured or valued, she noted. Instead, there are very harmful consequences.

“[Women have] become a commodity which is in demand, so in demand that people will use violence to acquire it,” Barr told IPS.

“The stories we heard were really unbelievably shocking even after having spent many, many years on human rights issues,” she added.

The “bride shortage” has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides.

Bordering China is Myanmar’s Kachin and northern Shan states which has seen iterations of conflicts over the last decade.

HRW found that traffickers often prey on women and girls in those regions, offering jobs in and transport to China. The women are then sold for 3,000 to 13,000 dollars to Chinese families struggling to find a bride for their sons.

Once purchased, women and girls are often locked in room and raped so that they can quickly provide a baby for the family.

Often times, women and girls are even sold by people they know—sometimes even by family members.

“The idea that there is a situation, a set of social pressures, a sense of lawlessness that is so extreme that it is causing people to sell their own relatives…it is shocking,” Barr said.

In India, bride trafficking has become common in the northern states such as Haryana which has only 830 girls to every 1,000 boys.

In a study, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found in over 10,000 households, over 9,000 married women in Haryana were brought from other States.

Most of those women came from poor villages in Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar where their families, desperate for money, struck deals with traffickers. There are also cases of girls being resold to other people after living a married life for a few years.

According to the 2016 National Crimes Records Bureau, almost 34,000 were kidnapped or abducted for the purpose of marriage across India, half of whom were under the age of 18.

While the immediate consequences for women are clear, there may also be long-term consequences of the distorted sex ratio.

“Part of the reason that we should be worrying about it is that we simply don’t know what the long-term consequences of this are. We don’t know how this might change societies, but this is something that is going to have an effect through generations,” Barr told IPS, highlighting the need for action including better prevention efforts and law enforcement on trafficking and violence against women.

But at the end of the day, governments must do more to address the root cause of the imbalance—gender discrimination.

Though sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, it is still a widespread practice in the country. In fact, approximately five to seven million sex-selective abortions are estimated to be carried out in South Asian country every year.

China’s now two-child policy may also continue to pose a threat to women and girls, as well as the future stability of the country’s population.

“The most fundamental problem is gender inequality and most fundamental solution to this is that you have to change the dynamics in society that makes sons valued and daughters not valued,” Barr concluded.

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• Recorded Increase in Human Trafficking, Women and Girls Targeted

The post Asia’s Expanding Illicit Market: Brides appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Congressman Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will party, president of the National Assembly since Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd as Venezuela's interim president. Credit: NationalAssembly

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

Venezuela entered a new and astonishing arena of political confrontation, with two presidents, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, leading the forces vying for power, while Venezuelans once again are taking to the streets to demonstrate their weariness at the crisis, which has left them exhausted.

Both sides “have sharply raised the stakes, they’re not giving in and the internal and international factors that traditionally operate as mediators show signs of having taken sides,” Carlos Romero, former director of postgraduate studies in political science at Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar and Central Universities, told IPS.

Guaidó, 35, who was appointed president of the single-chamber National Legislative Assembly on Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd of supporters in Caracas – while hundreds of thousands marched in 50 other cities – as “interim president of the Republic”, to put an end to Maduro’s alleged “usurping” of power, create a transitional government and organise new elections.

“I don’t want a ‘bono’ (stipend) anymore, I don’t want Clap (bags of food at subsidised prices), what I want is for Nicolás to leave”, along with shouts of “Freedom!” and insults against the president were the most frequently chants by people from practically all social strata, who have been hit hard by the crisis, including annual hyperinflation of 1.7 million percent, according to the National Assembly in the absence of official statistics.

The United States, Brazil, Canada and a dozen other countries in the Americas immediately recognisedGuaidó, to which Maduro responded by denouncing that “the imperialist government of the United States is directing an operation to, through a coup d’état, impose a puppet government” in Venezuela.

In response, Maduro cut off diplomatic ties with Washington and gave all U.S. diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.

The United States, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ignored Maduro’s measure and announced that it would keep its diplomats in Caracas as requested by Guaidó, the president they recognise.

U.S. President Donald Trump also called for stronger measures.

For a century, Venezuela has been a supplier of oil to the United States, currently the destination of 47 percent of its exports, while it imports not only U.S. manufactured products, but also inputs such as components to make gasoline. But the flow of trade has not appeared in the breakup equation.

The “Guaidó phenomenon” achieved what seemed unthinkable just a few weeks ago: reviving the mass “open councils” in the streets, which led to the huge opposition marches on Jan. 23.

That is a key date in Venezuela because on that day in 1958 a civil-military uprising put an end to the almost 10-year dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1914-2001).

Maduro, 56, in power since 2013, was re-elected on May 20, 2018 in controversial elections in which the majority of the opposition – much of which was disqualified – did not participate, and whose results were not recognised by many governments in the Americas and Europe.

General Vladimir Padrino, minister of defense and head of the high command of the Bolivarian National Armed Force of Venezuela, ratified his support for President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 24. Credit: Miraflores Palace

The president took office on Jan. 10 for a new six-year term. That same day, a majority of governments in the Americas and the European Union (EU) said they did not recognise his government.

The heir to Hugo Chávez, who governed the country between 1999 and 2013, the year of his death, also received the backing of hundreds of supporters on Jan. 23, who crowded around the Miraflores Presidential Palace.

He was also backed by the commanders of the Bolivarian National Armed Force, who on Jan. 24 reiterated their loyalty to Maduro in a series of statements.

Guaidó’s proclamation “is shameful and aberrant,” and part of “a criminal plan that reached the limits of extreme danger,” because “a coup d’état is being carried out against democracy and the constitution,” declared General Vladimir Padrino, defense minister and head of the military high command.

Today in Venezuela “three scenarios have opened up. The first is that President Maduro withstands the pressure from the opposition, from the population in the streets and from the international community, and that the mass movement against him peters out,” Romero said.

The second is that the street protests and international pressure sustain the duality of power, which translates into the elimination of Maduro’s government, either by him stepping down or by an act of force, and new elections are called,” the analyst added.

“And the third is that a third actor enters the scene, which could be international, from the armed forces, or some other factor that intervenes to stop the confrontation if it gets out of hand in the country,” Romero said.

Luis Salamanca, also a professor of political science at the Central University of Venezuela, told IPS: “There can’t be two presidents at the same time in the same territory. That puts the ball in Maduro’s court, and he will have to pull his strings to stop and perhaps arrest Guaidó, but to do that he would have to assess the political costs.”

The crowds returned to the streets of Caracas and dozens of other Venezuelan cities to express discontent over the economic crisis and call for change in the country’s leadership. Credit: National Assembly

Guaidó, for his part, “must have calculated the risks of taking the bull by the horns in the middle of the square. There may be arrests that reach not only him but other members of the Assembly,” Salamanca said.

Parliament was declared “in contempt” two years ago by the government-appointed Supreme Court of Justice. Since then, the other branches of power, all in the hands of government allies, have ignored its decisions, while in 2017 a National Constituent Assembly was elected, also without an opposition presence, which has assumed part of the legislature’s functions.

International factors

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Jan. 24 for “a transparent and independent investigation” into “the incidents in Venezuela,” because in the context of the protests of Jan. 21-23, at least 26 people were shot dead, according to local media, and dozens were injured and arrested.

On Jan. 18,Guterres had already said his organisation”is willing to use its good offices” to promote a political solution”, since only the U.N. “can solve and provide answers to Venezuela’s problems.”

Washington, Ottawa and the Lima Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru) recognisedGuaidó. Ecuador did as well.

Meanwhile, Uruguay and Mexico distanced themselves to insist on the need for a new “urgent and transparent” dialogue between the parties. Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Suriname were the countries in the region that supported Maduro.

Although the EU did not recognise Maduro’s election and second term, it has not given Guaidó recognition either, although some of its members have done so or have ratified their support for him as president of the legislature.

However, the bloc insists on the need for new elections, with guarantees, in order to return to a state of law in Venezuela.

Two other major global players, China and Russia, have expressed their support for Maduro.

What will happen if, for example, the United States refuses to withdraw its diplomats from Caracas and Maduro’s government imprisons Guaidó?

The new scenario could take one of many directions, while underneath the surface of a situation where the country has two presidents are years of weariness and crisis that has undermined the quality of life of Venezuelans, with growing numbers of people going to sleep hungry every night, and millions forced to emigrate.

The post In Venezuela, Two Presidents Vie for Power appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A spat between Italy and France has reignited a debate over French involvement in its former African colonies.