Africa

Christian Atsu's agent says the footballer's whereabouts are unknown, a day after it was reported he was pulled from the rubble of a building "with injuries" after the Turkey earthquakes.

Many banks have not had enough of the new banknotes, leading to desperate and chaotic scenes.

Energy-efficient solar systems in the UN Compound in Timor-Leste are helping cut down costs and reduce CO2 emissions. Credit: UN

By Ahmed Saleem
DILI, Timor-Leste, Feb 8 2023 (IPS)

Access to energy remains a concerning challenge for many in Timor-Leste. The centralised nature of the local electricity supply chain has traditionally kept consumers reliant on the national grid to overcome chronic energy shortages.

While more than 200,000 households have access to electricity, the distribution network is in poor condition, with excessive voltage drops and persistent service outages. The cost of electricity is also higher than in neighbouring countries, and Timor-Leste has been slow to transition from expensive diesel generation to renewables.

With the new UN reforms, the United Nations in Timor-Leste, under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator (RCO) has now started lighting the way with its solar-powered grid which has begun to give maximum dividends.

A powerful 300 kWp photovoltaic system is producing 400,000 kWh of clean electricity annually, filling critical gaps in energy supply. “It covers 75 per cent of the daytime electricity consumption of the entire UN House, which hosts 14 UN agencies in Dili and has reduced reliance on fossil fuels and generators, leading to 286.000 kg of CO2 emission saved every year,” said Project Coordinator Ulderico Ze Machado.

It took almost a year – from feasibility to completion – to see the solar panel installed at the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste

This move comes with the UN’s revised Business Operations Strategy (BOS) that guides strategic planning, management, monitoring, and reporting of the UN Country Team’s joint support.

The Operations Management Team started weighing the feasibility and working on a cost-efficient alternative energy solution in 2016-2017 when Timor-Leste was facing high electricity costs and increased CO2 emissions.

“In Timor-Leste, our road to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development starts at home. Our solar energy system can be a model for other UN Country Offices to show how we can jointly, sustainably and effectively tackle greenhouse emissions while reducing operational costs, and scale up support across the United Nations System”.

“Greening our business operations can help maximise efficiency, improve productivity, and in turn support the transition of the country to a more sustainable energy future,” noted UN Timor-Leste Resident Coordinator Funmi Balogun.

The project has already substantially reduced electricity costs, which were 40% of the entire Common Premises budget. “We now save USD 90,000 annually on electricity bills and diesel costs with the hope that a 100 per cent return on the investment will be materialised within six to seven years,” added Ulderico Ze Machado.

In line with the UN’s commitment to the ‘Smart UN Facilities and the Sustainable Development Goals’, this solar project shows how a UN Common premises can work in action, and how the the United Nations Sustainable Development Coordination Framework can be coherently implemented in countries.

The infographic outlines the impact of the solar panel operations in the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste

“A project like this goes beyond providing energy. It showcases a value addition to the Government, partners, and stakeholders as to how such initiatives can help create other socio-economic benefits, including employment, greener environment, cheaper energy, and sustainable lifestyles.

So, the more we implement such projects, the more we empower our communities and bring impact.

The project also evidences the skillset and expertise to support the country to transition to a more sustainable energy future and supporting the deployment of renewable energy technologies,” said UNDP Resident Representative Munkhtuya Altangerel, who is also chair of the UN Operations Management Team.

Based on this successful experience, the UN Operations Management Team is now working on upscaling the project and making the UN House, a 100 per cent solar-energy-run compound.

Ahmed Saleem is Communications Officer, Resident Coordinator’s Office, Timor-Leste. Editorial support by UNDCO.

For more information on the UN’s work in Timor-Leste, please visit  Timorleste.un.org

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Pope Francis with a child on his shoulders - graffiti in Rome

“The Roman curia suffers from spiritual Alzheimer [and] existential schizophrenia; this is the disease of those who live a double life, the fruit of that hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive spiritual emptiness which no doctorates or academic titles can fill. […] When appearances, the colour of our clothes and our titles of honour become the primary object in life, [it] leads us to be men and woman of deceit. […] Be careful around those who are rigid. Be careful around Christians – be they laity, priests, bishops – who present themselves as so ‘perfect’. Be careful. There’s no Spirit of God there. They lack the spirit of liberty [..] We are all sinners. But may the Lord not let us be hypocrites. Hypocrites don't know the meaning of forgiveness, joy and the love of God.”
                                                                                                                                                Pope Francis I

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Feb 8 2023 (IPS)

When the Pope Emeritus Benedict XIV/Ratzinger died on the last day of 2022 it did not cause much of a stir in the global newsfeed. Maybe a sign that religion has ceased to play a decisive role in modern society Nevertheless, religious hierarchies are still highly influential, not least for the world’s 1, 4 billion baptized Catholics, and a pope’s policies have a bearing not only on morals, but also on political and economic issues. By contrast, there are more Muslims in the world, 1.9 billion, though adherents are not so centrally controlled and supervised as Catholics and hierarchies do not have a comparable influence on global affairs.

When Benedict abdicated in 2013 he retained his papal name, continued to wear the white, papal cassock, adopted the title Pope Emeritus and moved into a monastery in the Vatican Gardens. It must have been a somewhat cumbersome presence for a new, more radical pope, particularly since Benedict became a symbol of traditional values and served as an inspiration for critics of the current papacy.

By the end of his reign, John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and Cardinal Ratzinger was in effect running the Vatican and when he was elected Pope in 2005, his closest runner-up was Cardinal Bergoglio from Buenos Aires. What would have happened if Borgoglio, who eventually became Francis I, had been elected? Would he have been able to more effectively deal with clerical sexual abuse and Vatican corruption?

When Joseph Ratzinger became pope, he had for 27 years served John Paul II by heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), investigating and condemning birth control, acceptance of homosexuals, “gender theory” and Liberation Theology, a theological approach with a specific concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed people.

Under Cardinal Ratzinger the CDF generally overlooked an often shady economic cooperation financing Pope John Paul II’s successful battle against Communism, while covering up clerical sexual abuse and marginalizing “progressive” priests. Several Latin American liberation theologians agreed that John Paul II in several ways was an asset to the Church, though he mistreated clerics who actually believed in Jesus’s declaration that he was chosen to “bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” John Paul II and his “watchdog” Joseph Ratzinger were considered to have “armoured fists hidden in silk gloves.”

Ratzinger censured and silenced a number of leading “liberal” priests, like the Latin American Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and the American Charles Curran, who supported same sex marriages. Both were defrocked. Under Ratzinger’s CDF rule, several clerics were excommunicated for allowing abortions, like the American nun Margaret McBride, and the ordination of women priests, among them the Argentinian priest Rómulo Braschi and the French priest Roy Bourgeois.

Ratzinger/Benedict wrote 66 books, in which a common theme was Truth, which according to him was “self-sacrificing love”, guided by principles promulgated by the Pope and implemented by the Curia, the administrative body of the Vatican:

“Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting one be tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

A strict adherence to Catholic Doctrine meant bringing the Church back to what Benedict XVI considered as its proper roots. If this alienated some believers, so be it. Numerous times he stated that the Church might well be healthier if it was smaller. A point of view opposed to the one expressed by Francis I:

“Changes need to be made […] Law cannot be kept in a refrigerator. Law accompanies life, and life goes on. Like morals, it is being perfected. Both the Church and society have made important changes over time on issues as slavery and the possession of atomic weapons, moral life is also progressing along the same line. Human thought and development grows and consolidates with the passage of time. Human understanding changes over time, and human consciousness deepens.”

Benedict XVI allowed the issue of human sexuality to overshadow support to environmentalism and human rights. He wanted to “purify the Church” in accordance with rules laid down in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992 and written under direction of the then Cardinal Ratzinger. The Catechism might be considered as a counterweight to “relativistic theories seeking to justify religious pluralism, while supporting decline in general moral standards.”

Pope Benedict endeavoured to reintegrate hard-core traditionalists back into the fold, maintaining and strengthening traditional qualms related to sexual conduct and abortion. He declared that modern society had diminished “the morality of sexual love to a matter of personal sentiments, feelings, [and] customs. […], isolating it from its procreative purposes.” Accordingly, “homosexual acts” were in the Catechism described as “violating natural law” and could “under no circumstances be approved.”

Papal condemnation of homosexuality may seem somewhat strange considering that it is generally estimated that the percentage of gay Catholic priests might be 30 – 60, suggesting more homosexual men (active and non-active) within the Catholic priesthood than within society at large.

In 2019, Frédéric Martel’s In the Closet of the Vatican sent shock waves through the Catholic world. Based on years of interviews and collaboration with a vast array of researchers, priests and prostitutes, Martel described the double life of priests and the hypocrisy of homophobic cardinals and bishops living with their young “assistants”. He pinpointed members of the Catholic hierarchy as “closet gays”, revealed how “de-anonymised” data from homosexual dating apps (like Grindl) listed clergy users, described exclusive homosexual coteries within the Vatican, networks of prostitutes serving priests, as well as the anguish of homosexual priests trying to come to terms with their homosexual inclinations.

According to Martel, celibacy is a main reason for homosexuality among Catholic priesthood. For a homosexual youngster a respected male community might serve as a safe haven within a homophobic society.

By burdening homosexuality with guilt, covering up sexual abuse and opaque finances the Vatican has not supported what Benedict proclaimed, namely protect and preach the Truth. Behind the majority of cases of sexual abuse there are priests and bishops who protected aggressors because of their own homosexuality and out of fear that it might be revealed in the event of a scandal. The culture of secrecy needed to maintain silence about the prevalence of homosexuality in the Church, which allowed sexual abuse to be hidden and predators to act without punishment.

Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that “Western homosexual and abortion ideologies” are of “demonic origin” and compared them to “Nazism and Islamic terrorism.” Such opinions did in 2020 not hinder Pope Emeritus Benedict from writing a book together with Sarah – From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church. Among injunctions against abortion, safe sex, and women clergy, celibacy was fervently defended as not only “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law, but as a sharing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church.” This in contrast to Francis I, who declared:

“It is time that the Church moves away from questions that divide believers and concentrate on the real issues: the poor, migrants, poverty. We can’t only insist on questions bound up with abortion, homosexual marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. It is not possible … It isn’t necessary to go on talking about it all the time.”

The current pope is not condoning abortion, though does not elevate it above the fight against poverty, climate change and the rights of migrants, which he proclaims to be “pro-life” issues in their own right. In 2021, Francis I stated that “same-sex civil unions are good and helpful to many.” He is of the opinion that Catholic priests ought to be celibate, but adds that this rule is not an unchangeable dogma and “the door is always open” to change. Francis propagates that women ought to be ordained as deacons; allowed to do priestly tasks, except giving absolution, anointing the sick, and celebrate mass and he has recruited women to several crucial administrative positions within the Vatican. Furthermore, he ordered all dioceses to report sexual abuse of minors to the Vatican, while notifying governmental law enforcement to allow for comprehensive investigations and perpetrators being judged by common – and not by canon law.

Just hours after Benedict’s funeral on 5 January Georg Gänswein’s memoir Nothing but the Truth — My Life Beside Benedict XVI, was distributed to the press. Gänswein, who was Benedict’s faithful companion and personal secretary, writes that for the Pope Emeritus the Doctrine of the Faith was the fundament of the Church, while Francis is more inclined to highlight “pastoral care”, i.e. guidance and support focusing on a person’s welfare, social and emotional needs, rather than purely educational ones.

In 2013, Gänswein entered in the service of Benedict XIV. He was professor in Canon Law, fluent in four languages, an able tennis player, excellent downhill skier and had a pilot’s licence. He was also an outspoken conservative and often critical of Francis I.

Shortly before his abdication, Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Gänswein archbishop and made him Prefect of the Papal Household, deciding who could have an audience with Pope Francis I, while he at the same time was responsible for Benedict’s daily schedule, communications, and private and personal audiences. The Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair presented Gänswein on its cover, declaring “being handsome is not a sin” and calling him “the Georg Clooney of the Vatican”. Six years before Donatella Versace used Gänswein as inspiration for her fashion show Priest Chic.

There was an air of vanity and conservatism surrounding the acolytes of Benedict. Gänswein writes that working with both popes, the active one and the ”Emeritus” was a great challenge, not only in terms of work but in terms of style. Benedict XIV was a pope of aesthetics recognising that in a debased world there remain things of beauty, embodied in a Mozart sonata, a Latin mass, an altarpiece, an embroidered cape, or the cut of a cassock. The male-oriented lifestyle magazine Esquire included Pope Benedict in a “best-dressed men list”. Gänswein states that when Pope Francis in 2022 restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass “I believe it broke Pope Benedict’s heart”.

Pope Francis is now 86, not much time remains for him as sovereign of the Catholic Church. Hopefully he will be able to change the Curia by staffing it with people who share his ambition to reform the Church by navigating away from doctrinal rigidity, vanity and seclusion towards inclusion, tolerance, human rights, poverty eradication and environmentalism.

Main sources: Gänswein, Georg (2023) Nient’altro che la verità. La mia vita al fianco di Benedetto XVI. Segrate: Piemme. Martel, Frédéric (2019) In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy. London: Bloomsbury.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A Togolese and Nigerian survivors say the situation, following the earthquake in Turkey, was apocalyptic.

Young people from small towns are now able to work close to home thanks to co-working spaces that opened up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, INDIA, Feb 8 2023 (IPS)

While a 2017 study by the Confederation of Indian Industry Jones Lang LaSalle India and WeWork noted the potential in India’s co-working segment, it took COVID-19 for people to transition to co-working spaces close to home.

The study, Future of Work – The Co-working Revolution, which saw the potential market size of the co-working segment standing at 12-16 million, anticipated 400 million USD in investments by 2018, triggering a 40-50 percent growth in 2017 itself.

This was to be driven by India’s emerging start-ups (given that India is currently the world’s largest start-up hub) and India’s freelance workforce (with India having the 2nd largest freelancer workforce in the world, more than 15 million professionals).

In 2020, India was hit by the pandemic. Owing to a forced lockdown in operations, many companies faced heavy losses. On resumption, they had to operate at 50 percent capacity (as per government directives), which meant curtailment in operations. Layoffs and salary cuts were invoked to survive. Barring manufacturing operations, the attendance of many employees was deemed unnecessary in the office. This ushered in the work-from-home culture.

Salary cuts, and work-from-home options, saw many employees move out of expensive metropolitan centres and return home to smaller towns and cities. Some who faced layoffs and salary cuts opted to launch start-ups. This gave further impetus to the demand for commercial spaces in small towns and Tier-2 or Tier-3 cities for co-working spaces.

Over the last few decades, small-town India has seen professional education pick up in a big way, with several reputed engineering and management institutions nurturing brilliant students. However, conservative values continue to rule here, unlike cosmopolitan metropolitan centres. Since many youngsters are first-generation professionals and belong to rural families of modest means, moving to a metropolitan city can be a big financial strain for a fresher. Internships, too, are difficult to come by for a student straight out of college.

As a result, many remain confined to low-paid jobs in their towns and end up frustrated in the long run.

This is where the pandemic has helped.

Take the case of the pilgrim city of Tirunelveli in the state of Tamil Nadu at the southern tip of the Indian peninsula. Adjoining the port town of Tuticorin, it has many engineering, management and science colleges. Tirunelveli is close to Nagercoil town in Kanyakumari district, which is the southernmost district of the Indian mainland and boasts a high rate of literacy. Yet, students from these parts have always had to move to either Chennai or Bangalore for a suitable job or internship.

Ronaldsen Solomon of Virudhunagar, though, has been lucky. A final-year student of Engineering studying at Francis Xavier College in Tirunelveli, he has landed an internship with an IT infrastructure company with local offices in a co-working space.

“I am acquiring hands-on experience, even as I attend college lectures for my degree,” he tells me of his job at 3i Infotech.

For Jenima Hyrun of Chermahadevi town in Tirunelveli district, landing a job was an uphill task, despite her Computer Science degree, owing to opposition from her conservative Muslim family.

“I had a job offer from Chennai. But although my father has always encouraged me, my aunts and others would not allow it. Being part of a joint family, living alone in a metropolitan city was unthinkable for me.”

When 3i Infotech acquired dedicated premises under Mikro Grafeio, Hyrun’s prayers for a suitable opening were answered. She easily traverses the short distance to work from her home using public transport.

When Vijay Roshan acquired his Bachelor of Computer Applications degree from MDT Hindu College in Tirunelveli, his faltering English made him unsure of himself. As a farmer’s son, he felt uncertain about moving to a metropolitan city either. However, when the same IT infrastructure company launched its office through a dedicated space, Roshan was immediately recruited as a promising fresher.

For those who would rather not travel a long distance to work, low-cost rentals are not too difficult to come by in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

Take the case of college-mates Vignesh M and Ashwin S.C from Thiruvananthapuram in the adjoining state of Kerala, who completed their degrees at the Nurul Islam Institute of Higher Education. Taking up lodgings in Tirunelveli is far cheaper than if they had moved to metropolitan centres like Bangalore or Chennai.

“We pay Rs 1500 per head, sharing a room among three colleagues in a nearby home. The place is only a 15-minute walk from our workplace, saving commuting time and money,” Ashwin says.

The same is true of Shiny Evangeline and Abarnadevi from the neighbouring district of Nagercoil (in Tamil Nadu), Tamilselvi of Thenkasi, and Sahanya Wilson of Kanyakumari. This ensures a better take-home salary for these freshers, who would have needed to spend upwards of Rs 10,000 for a co-living space in a metropolitan city. Shared rentals also nurture better camaraderie among colleagues, which is essential for better project teamwork.

When blue chip companies move into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, it can mean a lot for specially-abled persons like V Saumya, who has battled many odds to emerge as a Human Resources Head today. Victim of an accident as an infant, Saumya had to fall back on help from her parents all through her school and college years, fighting despite her physical disability to complete her Master’s in Business Administration. Proximity to her workplace in Tirunelveli has helped her secure a job, and she too works for 3i Infotech and is appreciative of the facilities at Mikro Grafeio.

“For the first time, I was greeted by a disabled-friendly toilet that I could use.”

The world has opened up for Saumya, who now looks forward to travelling far and wide, even as she travels up and down to work on her motorised wheelchair.

Although Mikro Grafeio intends to develop co-working spaces for individual use in small towns eventually, it currently confines itself to operating dedicated areas for companies. Chief Growth Officer Sundar Rajan tells IPS, “We are still exploring the market; in small towns, the concept is yet to catch up. However, Mikro Grafeio operates co-working spaces within cafes and breweries in cities like Coimbatore, Pondicherry and Bangalore and has Memoranda of Understanding in place with Café Coffee Day in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.”

It has several clients, 3i Infotech, CIT Services, Sotheby’s International Realty, and others that are slated to follow suit.

Indiqube has followed a similar pattern by handing over dedicated spaces and co-working offices. According to Indiqube Co-Founder Rishi Das, 85 percent of their clientele have dedicated spaces, while 15 per cent belong to the co-working segment.

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Credit: United Nations

By Amy Shelver and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb 7 2023 (IPS)

New UNCTAD software does to digital government what IKEA did to furniture, allowing Bhutan’s government employees to create their own user-friendly services for citizens online.

Tedious government procedures aren’t just a pain for users, they’re a bore for the civil servants who administer them. Sitting behind a counter and stamping forms isn’t exactly a dream job.

This is where technology can help. In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched the G2B digital government portal. It’s a ground-breaking piece of software that earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business.

Entrepreneurs simply fill out a form on their mobile phones, and receive all registration documents at no cost, in less than a minute. In 2022, 5,500 Bhutanese, almost 1% of the population, used the service to register a business – 52% of them were women. It’s also a turning point for Bhutan’s public administration and for the world of digital government in general.

The fastest business registration service on Earth wasn’t designed by consultants in India or California but by the very civil servants who had previously administered the time-consuming, paper-only process that required citizens to go from one government office queue to another.

How did this happen?

Keep it simple

It’s all down to the low-code simplicity of the UNCTAD digital government platform, which after some basic training, Bhutan’s civil servants were able to customize themselves to create online services. The coverage of these services is now vast and includes permits to run bus services, authorizations to fly drones and leases for industrial parks.

Over the next two years, the government plans to include all permits, authorizations and procedures related to the country’s economy in the platform. With time it could stretch across all government departments.

“The goal of our technology is to ease friction,” says Frank Grozel, who heads UNCTAD’s digital government platform programme. “Everyone wins from having effective, uncomplicated technology at their fingertips. But this is especially important for civil servants, because it allows them to focus on why they do their job and not necessarily how they do it.”

Better service delivery

Each service is built from the bottom up. Government teams, including civil servants working on the procedure, developers and trainers came together to simplify existing steps, creating shortcuts that help accelerate service delivery.

Employees are guided to understand the process from the user’s point of view, generating empathy and understanding of where the bottlenecks and frustrations can be.

“Whole teams have started to see how the system could be changed, and why elements of the original process could have felt so painful to the end user,” said Bita Mortazavi, UNCTAD’s project manager for the Bhutan initiative.

The impact on staff has been transformative. “We can now focus on service development and select simple services, with large impact, to change entire systems,” said Sonam Lhamo, project lead at Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Tshering Dorji, a developer, said it changed his perspective in software development. “My imagination improved a lot. I learned how to simplify without coding,” he said.

Another developer, Pema Gyalpo, was pleasantly surprised.

“We can further simplify even the simple things,” he said. “The experience of building this easier system was not about work, but how we’re going to work [in the future]. I’ll be privileged to send ideas which will serve other countries.”

Innovate first, regulate later

Most Bhutanese businesses are small. About 95% of them are cottage enterprises. This reality drove the country’s government to seek ways to help the mountain nation’s micro-enterprises succeed in the quickest, simplest way.

“Our approach is to innovate first, regulate later, so as to reduce entry barriers for new businesses, embrace innovation and allow creativity to flourish,” said Bhutan’s minister of economic affairs, Tengye Lyonpo.

This ethos has delivered results for the country whose unconventional approaches are working for it and its citizens in novel ways.

While Bhutan has been pioneering the flatpack approach to digital government, making services modular and easier to create, thanks to funding from the Netherlands, other countries are set to follow. Colombia, Estonia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia will join the club this year.

Countries already benefiting from the platform include Argentina, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali.

Amy Shelver is an expert on digitalization and the creative economy and Ian Richards is an economist at UNCTAD specializing in digital business environments.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Torture Museum, Amsterdam, via Wikipedia

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 2023 (IPS)

Hinting at “Western hypocrisy”, a senior UN official once told a group of reporters, perhaps half-jokingly: “When you go on one of those sight-seeing tours in Europe, they will show you their palaces and castles– but never their medieval prisons or torture chambers.”

The world’s torturers, according to Western nations, were mostly in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and in authoritarian regimes of the Middle East -– with a notoriety for whip lashes, blind folds, leg irons, electric shock devices and public hangings.

In more recent years, torture and water-boarding were common forms of punishment in US-run Guantanamo Bay, in the Abu Ghraib prison in US-occupied Iraq and at the Bagram American air base in Afghanistan.

And in the heart of Amsterdam are a “Torture Museum” and a “Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments” displaying some of the equipment of a bygone era.

Last month, the London-based Amnesty International led a coalition of over 30 civil society organizations (CSOs) calling for a treaty to control the trade in tools of torture used to suppress peaceful protests and abuse detainees around the world.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, the largest international organization that treats survivors and advocates for an end to torture worldwide, told IPS it’s sickening and outrageous that even though torture is illegal everywhere, at all times, and in all circumstances, more than 500 companies from 58 countries are still manufacturing, marketing and selling goods used in torture on the world market.

“It’s time to strictly regulate goods that are deliberately misused by some security forces to commit torture, and to impose a global ban on goods that have no use other than torture.”

“We need to outlaw this immoral trade in unspeakable human suffering. The UN General Assembly is our global parliament, and international law obligates states to help prevent torture”.

So, the General Assembly should immediately move towards the adoption of a Torture-Free Trade Treaty and prohibit people and companies from profiting from torture,” he noted.

In the declaration signed in London January 20, the civil rights organizations (CSOs) launched a campaign calling for a treaty to prohibit the manufacture and trade in inherently abusive equipment such as spiked batons and body-worn electric shock devices, as well as the introduction of human rights-based controls on the trade in more standard law enforcement equipment, such as pepper spray, rubber bullets and handcuffs.

These items are often used to commit acts of torture or other ill-treatment, which are categorically prohibited under international law, the coalition said.

Asked whether such a treaty should originate at the United Nations, Verity Coyle, Amnesty International’s Law & Policy adviser, told IPS: “Yes, Amnesty International around the world is campaigning for a Torture-Free Trade Treaty through our Flagship Campaign – Protect the Protest.

When the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) report was published on 30 May 2022, Amnesty published this PR response.

She said the 193-member UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the logical forum given 2019 resolution, including the GGE report recommendations.

The Alliance for Torture-Free Trade (60+ members) is coordinated by the EU, Argentina and Mongolia.

In June 2022, Amnesty was invited to present its analysis of the GGEs report to a meeting of the Alliance “and we continue to hold regular meetings with the EU in particular in anticipation of resolution being brought forward requesting a negotiating mandate”.

Civil Society in Latin America, Coyle pointed out, is speaking regularly to Argentina about the process.

“Our Sections around the world are about to embark on a series of lobby meetings in capitals”, said Coyle, who sits on the global Steering Committee of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, of which Amnesty International is a member.

In September 2017, the EU, Argentina and Mongolia launched the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade at the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Alliance currently comprises over 60 states from all regions of the world pledging to “act together to further prevent, restrict and end trade” in goods used for torture, other ill-treatment and the death penalty.

In June 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/73/L.94, Towards torture-free trade, initiating a process for “examining the feasibility, scope and parameters for possible common international standards” for regulating international trade in this area.

The first stage in this UN process resulted in the July 2020 publication of a UN Secretary General’s study of member states’ positions, which found that the majority of respondent states supported international standards, with most believing these should be through a “legally binding instrument establishing measures to control and restrict trade in goods used for capital punishment, torture or other forms of ill-treatment”.

Meanwhile, the UN Special Rapporteur on “the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, is undertaking a “technical visit” to the United States.

Between 6 and 14 February, she will visit Washington D.C. and subsequently the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Over the course of the subsequent three-month period, Ní Aoláin will also carry out a series of interviews with individuals in the United States and abroad, on a voluntary basis, including victims and families of victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and former detainees in countries of resettlement/repatriation.

The visit takes place in accordance with the Terms of Reference for Country Visits by Special Procedures Mandate Holders.

Besides Amnesty International, the CSOs campaigning for the treaty include American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Article 36, Asia Alliance Against Torture, Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, International Commission of Jurists, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), among others.

Coyle of Amnesty International also pointed out that equipment, such as tear gas, rubber bullets, batons and restraints, have been used to intimidate, repress and punish protesters, human rights defenders and others, during the policing of demonstrations and in places of detention, in all regions, in recent years.

“Thousands of protesters have sustained eye injuries resulting from the reckless use of rubber bullets, while others have been hit by tear gas grenades, doused in excessive amounts of chemical irritants, beaten with batons, or forced into stress positions by restraints”.

Despite this, there are currently no global human rights-related controls on the trade in law enforcement equipment. However, the UN General Assembly now has a historic opportunity to vote to begin negotiations on a treaty, she declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A mining waste deposit in the center of the municipality of Topia, in the northern Mexican state of Durango, threatens the air, water and people’s health. The Escazú Agreement, In force since 2021, guarantees access to environmental information and justice in Latin American countries, as well as public participation in decision-making on these issues. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 2023 (IPS)

In the municipality of Papantla, in the southeastern Mexican state of Veracruz, the non-governmental Regional Coordinator of Solidarity Action in Defense of the Huasteca-Totonacapan Territory (Corason) works with local communities on empowering organizations, advocacy capacity in policies and litigation strategies.

“This participation with organizations that work at the national level and have the capacity to influence not only the legal field is important,” Corason coordinator Alejandra Jiménez told IPS from Papantla. “They are able to bring injunctions, and this is how they have managed to block mining projects, for example.”“Up to now, the Escazú Agreement is dead letter, that is the history of many laws in Mexico. Environmentalists have clearly suffered from violence, and let's not even mention access to information, where there have even been setbacks.” -- Alejandra Jiménez

She was referring to the collaboration between locally-based civil society organizations and others of national scope.

Since its creation in 2015, Corason has supported local organizations in their fight against the extraction of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a highly polluting technique that uses large volumes of water and chemicals, in Veracruz and Puebla, as well as mining and hydroelectric plants in Puebla.

Cases like this abound in Mexico, as they do throughout Latin America, a particularly dangerous region for environmentalists.

Activists agreed on the challenges involved in enforcing the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, seen as a tool to mitigate dangers faced by human rights defenders in environmental matters.

A case that has been in the hands of Mexico’s Supreme Court since August 2021 is currently addressing the power of organizations to express their disagreement with environmental decisions and will outline the future of environmental activism in this Latin American country of some 130 million people, and of the enforcement of the Escazú Agreement.

The origin of the case lies in two opposing rulings by Mexican courts in 2019 and 2020, in which one recognized the power of organizations and the other rejected that power. As a result, the case went to the Supreme Court, which must reach a decision to settle the contradiction.

In August 2022 and again on Jan. 25 this year, the Supreme Court postponed its own verdict, which poses a legal threat to the megaprojects promoted by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch defender of the country’s oil industry.

Gustavo Ampugnani, general director of Greenpeace Mexico, said the case was an alert to the Escazú Agreement, and that it should not represent a setback for the defense of the environment.

“The significance lies in the risks involved in a wrong decision by the Supreme Court on how to resolve this existing contradiction. If the Court decides that the legal creation of an environmental organization is not enough and that other elements are required, it would limit citizen participation and access to justice,” he told IPS.

Environmentalists are waiting for their Godot in the form of the novel agreement, to which Brazil and Costa Rica do not yet belong, to improve their protection.

The treaty, in force since April 2021 and which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making. It thus protects environmentalists and defenders of local land.

Mexico’s foreign ministry, which represented this country in negotiating the agreement, has identified a legislative route to reform laws that make its application possible and promote the integration of a multisectoral group with that same purpose.

Escazú has been undermined in Mexico by López Obrador’s constant attacks against defenders of the environment, whom he calls “pseudo-environmentalists” and “conservatives” for criticizing his policies, which they describe as anti-environmental and extractivist.

For this reason, a group of organizations and activists requested in a letter to the foreign ministry, released on Feb. 2, details of the progress in the creation of inter-institutional roundtables, selection of indicators, creation of protection mechanisms, and training of officials, including courts, while demanding transparency, inclusion and equity in the process.

Activists from the southern Mexican state of Puebla protest the activities of a water bottling company, on Apr.19, 2021. Environmentalists face serious threats in Mexico, where the Escazú Agreement, which since 2021 provides guarantees to these activists in Latin American countries, has not been applied. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

High risk

In 2021, there were 200 murders of environmentalists around the world, a slight decrease from 227 the previous year, according to a report by the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

Latin America led these crimes, accounting for 157 of the killings, with a slight decline from 165 the previous year. Mexico topped the list with 54 murders, compared to 30 in 2020. Colombia ranked second despite the drop in cases: 33, down from 65 in 2020, followed by Brazil (26 vs. 20), Honduras (eight vs. 17) and Nicaragua (13 vs. 12).

The attacks targeted people involved in opposition to logging, mining, large-scale agribusiness and dams, and more than 40 percent of the victims were indigenous people.

In Mexico there are currently some 600 ongoing environmental conflicts without a solution from the government, according to estimates by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

The most recent case was the Jan. 15 disappearance of lawyer Ricardo Lagunes and indigenous activist Antonio Díaz, an opponent of mining in the western state of Michoacán, which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has demanded be urgently clarified.

One year after it came into force, the Escazú Agreement is facing major challenges, especially in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua, where environmentalists face particular risks.

Olimpia Castillo, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Communication and Environmental Education, said the context sends out a warning.

“It is a very interesting round, because article 10 (of the agreement) refers to highlighting the participation of the organizations. That article could be violated, which would mean a major limitation. These are things that as a country we are going to have to face up to,” the activist, who participated in the negotiation of the agreement as a representative of civil society, told IPS.

In Mexico, compliance with the agreement has already faced hurdles, such as the November 2021 decree by which López Obrador declared his megaprojects “priority works for national security”, thus guaranteeing provisional permits, in contravention of the treaty.

Dispute resolution

Activists are already planning what to do if the Supreme Court hands down a negative verdict: they will turn to the Escazú Agreement dispute resolution mechanism – although the signatory countries have not actually designed it yet.

“We would consider turning to the treaty to resolve the issue. Environmental activism is highly dangerous. But that should not set aside the right of organizations to intervene in decisions. Activists and organizations must be given tools to use regional agreements, because what is happening in the country is very serious,” said Greenpeace’s Ampugnani.

Castillo’s organization is working to raise awareness about the agreement. “If no one knows it exists and that they are obliged to comply with it, how do we make them do it? There are still informative processes in which an application has not yet received a response. We have to demand compliance. There are conditions to apply the agreement. But we need political will to comply with it and to get the word out about it,” she said.

Corason’s Jiménez questioned whether the treaty was up-to-date. “Up to now, the Escazú Agreement is dead letter, that is the history of many laws in Mexico. Environmentalists have clearly suffered from violence, and let’s not even mention access to information, where there have even been setbacks. There is an environment that hinders progress,” she said.

In her view, it is not in the interest of governments to apply the agreement, because it requires participation, information and protection in environmental issues.

In March 2022, the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Escazú Agreement took place, which focused on its operational issues and other aspects that the countries will have to hash out before the next summit is held in 2024.

The Supreme Court, which has not yet set a date for handing down its ruling, is caught between going against the government if it favors environmental organizations or hindering respect for the agreement. For now, the treaty is as far from land as Mexico City is from Escazú: about 1,925 kilometers.

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By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil, Feb 6 2023 (IPS)

Roraima, the northernmost state of Brazil, on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, is undergoing an energy transition that points to the dilemmas and possible solutions for a safe and sustainable supply of electricity in the Amazon rainforest.

As the only state outside the national grid – the National Interconnected Electric System (SIN) – it is dependent on diesel and natural gas thermoelectric plants, which are expensive and polluting sources, that account for 79 percent of Roraima’s electric power.

The financial and environmental cost is exacerbated by the transportation of fossil fuels by truck from Manaus, the capital of the neighboring state of Amazonas, 780 kilometers from Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima.

But the people of Roraima pay one of the lowest prices for electricity in Brazil, thanks to a subsidy paid by consumers in the rest of the country.

These subsidies will cost about 2.3 billion dollars in 2023, benefiting three million people in this country of 214 million people, according to the National Electric Energy Agency regulator.

 

 

A fifth of the total goes to Roraima, which from 2001 to 2019 received electricity imported from Venezuela. This meant the state needed less subsidies while it enjoyed a degree of energy security, undermined in recent years by the deterioration of the supplier, the Guri hydroelectric plant, which stopped providing the state with energy two years before the end of the contract.

Fortunately, Roraima has natural gas from deposits in the Amazon, extracted in Silves, 200 kilometers from Manaus, to supply the Jaguatirica II thermoelectric power plant, inaugurated in February 2022, with a capacity of 141 megawatts, two thirds of the state’s demand.

Roraima thus reduced its dependence on diesel, which is more costly and more polluting.

But what several local initiatives are seeking is to replace fossil fuels with clean sources, such as solar, wind and biomass.

This is the path to sustainable energy security, says Ciro Campos, one of the heads of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, as a representative of the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), a pro-indigenous and environmental non-governmental organization.

The city government in Boa Vista, the state capital, home to two thirds of the population of Roraima, has made progress towards that goal. Solar panels cover the roofs of the city government building, municipal markets and a bus terminal, and form roofs over the parking lots of the municipal theater and the Secretariat of Public Services and the Environment.

In addition, a plant with 15,000 solar panels with the capacity to generate 5,000 kilowatts, the limit for so-called distributed generation in Brazil, was built on the outskirts of the city.

In total there are seven plants with a capacity to generate 6,700 kilowatts, in addition to 74 bus stops equipped with solar panels, some of which have been damaged by theft, lamented Thiago Amorim, the secretary of Public Services and the Environment.

In addition to the environmental objective, solar energy allows the municipality to save the equivalent of 960,000 dollars a year, funds that are used for social spending. Boa Vista describes itself as “the capital of early childhood” and has won national and international recognition for its programs for children.

The Renewable Energies Forum and the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR), which promote clean sources, say the aim is to reduce the consumption of diesel, a fossil fuel transported from afar whose supply is unstable, and to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant.

The project, of which there are still no detailed studies, would dam the Branco River, Roraima’s largest water source, to form a 519-square-kilometer reservoir that would even flood part of Boa Vista. It would affect nine indigenous territories directly and others indirectly, said Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the CIR.

Bem Querer would have an installed capacity of 650 megawatts, three times Roraima’s total demand. It has awakened interest because it would also supply Manaus, a metropolis of 2.2 million inhabitants that lacks energy security, and could produce more electricity just as the generation of other hydroelectric plants in the Amazon region is declining.

Almost all of Roraima is in the northern hemisphere, and the rainiest season runs from April to September, when water levels run low in the rest of the Amazon region. The state’s hydroelectricity would therefore be complementary to the entire Brazilian portion of the rainforest.

That is why Bem Querer is a project inextricably connected to the construction of the transmission line between Manaus and Boa Vista, already ready to start, which would integrate Roraima with the national grid, enabling it to import or export electricity.

“We can connect, but we reject dependency, we want a safe and autonomous energy model. We will have ten years to find economically and politically viable solutions,” said Ciro Campos.

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