Africa

Health agencies and medics tells the BBC of a growing crisis facing low-income African nations.

Jeffery Moyo was reunited with his wife, Purity, and young son, after his release today, Jun. 16, from prison in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He said his incarceration would not deter him from doing his job as a journalist. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jun 16 2021 (IPS)

International correspondent Jeffrey Moyo, who was a released from detention today after being arrested for breaching Zimbabwe’s Immigration Act by helping two foreign journalists work in the country, says press freedom is undermined when journalists cannot work undeterred.

“I feel relieved as it was so horrible inside for 21 days without my freedom,” Moyo told IPS upon his release from Bulawayo Prison today, Jun. 16. “The detention is a complete infringement of press freedom in Zimbabwe.”

Moyo (37), a correspondent for Inter Press Service (IPS), the New York Times and other media, was arrested in Harare on May 26 and detained at Bulawayo Prison. He was released after 21 days when he was granted ZWL5000 bail unopposed by the state, which admitted to erring in finding him a threat to national security.

In May, Bulawayo Magistrate, Rachel Mkanga denied Moyo bail on the grounds that the journalist was a threat to national security and the county’s sovereignty. Moyo has been charged with violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act, based on an allegation that he made a false representation to immigration officials. This pertains to the accreditation of two of his colleagues, Christina Goldbaum and Joao Silva from the New York Times.

Fight for press freedom

The accreditation of journalists should not offend anyone or any authority in the country, Moyo said, arguing that the accreditation of journalists in Zimbabwe should be a right and not a difficulty.

“Journalists are not dangerous and do not cause any harm to any particular individual or government,” said Moyo, who was welcomed by his wife, Purity, and son outside Bulawayo Prison. “I am scared about what happened but I will not stop my work. …I am committed to doing my job as journalist no matter what the authorities say to me as long as I tow the line in terms of the law. I will continue to do my job.”

Moyo was granted bail on Jun. 14 and was set to be released on Jun. 15 but an error with his release papers at the Bulawayo prison resulted in him spending another night in jail.

“I am just happy that he has been released, I am relieved,” Purity Moyo, Jeffery’s wife, told IPS. She was prevented from seeing her journalist husband in prison and had communicated with him via letters.

“I thank my wife who brought me something to eat every day,” Moyo told IPS. “The letters my wife communicated to me gave me hope as did visits from colleagues from the media. I thank God that I am out and united with my family.”

Jeffery Moyo was overcome with emotion after his release from Bulawayo Prison today, Jun. 16. The international correspondent, who works for IPS and the New York Times, among others, was detained for 21 days when the state refused to grant him bail, calling him a threat to national security. Moyo was arrested on May 26 on charges relating to the accreditation of his New York Times colleagues. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Horrible prison

Moyo was arrested in May 26 and detained in Central Police Station in Harare. He was later moved to the city of Bulawayo, 400km from Harare, and detained at the Bulawayo Central Police Station under conditions he described as horrible and traumatising.

“I was detained overnight at the Bulawayo Central Police Station under horrible conditions; no bedding, no blankets and I was sleeping on the concrete floor and there was no food at the police station.”

It was only to get worse. 

Moyo said conditions at the Bulawayo Prison were inhumane. He said he was placed in a crowded prison cell with 18 other people. The food was bad.

“Health wise I am okay but the food in prison is horrible,” he said explaining that he was served porridge with no sugar or salt, plain sadza (a type of maize or cassava porridge) and dried vegetables and beans without cooking oil.

Violated rights

Moyo’s lawyer Doug Coltart told IPS that his client’s detention was a series of appalling violations of his human rights. The state, after three weeks of opposing bail, made a turn around to say it had no case against Moyo and that the grounds it cited for opposing his bail were baseless.

This demonstrates precisely how the denial of bail at the magistrate’s court is being used to punish innocent people, Coltart said. He also noted that in being denied the right to see his wife and relatives as well as his extended detention, despite being granted bail, were all violations of Moyo’s rights.

“The prison officials continue to refuse to show us the purported error in the warrant of liberation and this raises our strong suspicion that it was all a lie and an abuse of the detention process to keep him for an extra night,” Coltart told IPS.

Moyo is set to appear in court on Jun. 24 in preparation for trial. If convicted he could face 10 years in jail. Media rights organisations have welcomed Moyo’s release.

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• Calls for Zimbabwean Journalist Jeffrey Moyo to be Given a Fair Trial after Bail is Denied

Small-holder farmer works on a community vegetable garden in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, Jun 16 2021 (IPS)

The number of people facing acute food insecurity has hit a five-year high, according to a recently released annual report by the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC) – an international alliance of the United Nations, the European Union, governmental and non-governmental agencies working to tackle food crises. In addition, the report noted that 28 million people were one step away from starvation. This was attributed to conflict, economic shocks due to COVID-19 and climate change associated weather events.

The continued trajectory of increase in food insecurity is making it clear that our current food systems are not resilient.  Moreover, with climate change expected to continue to bring extreme events — from droughts to floods to invasive insects to deadly cyclones — it is likely going to get worse. We must urgently act to reverse these current trends.

The questions, then, become these: How can we reverse these worrisome trends? How can we ensure that people, across Africa and around the globe have the tools, technologies, and resources to be resilient to climate change?

Many farmers continue to rely on an agricultural system that remains rain-fed and underdeveloped. With limited access to infrastructure, current agricultural knowledge and reliable access to financial services, their ability to build a resilient agricultural system remains an unattainable dream

To answer these questions, we must re-examine the underpinning roots to food insecurity.

First off, most of the people affected by hunger live off the land, many as small holder farmers. They depend on agriculture, a sector that is highly vulnerable to climate change.

Furthermore, many farmers continue to rely on an agricultural system that remains rain-fed and underdeveloped. With limited access to infrastructure, current agricultural knowledge and reliable access to financial services, their ability to build a resilient agricultural system remains an unattainable dream.

Based on the challenges above, tackling rising food insecurity would greatly benefit from modernizing agriculture and making the agricultural sector resilient to climate change.

The good news is that building a resilient agricultural sector and dealing with climate-linked weather events such as drought, flooding, tropical cyclones, and insect invasions can benefit from science.  Science can help to develop climate-smart efficient water management technologies such as the drip irrigation, improved drought and flood tolerant crops and crops that are resistant to insects and plant diseases.  Also important are advances in improving and restoring soil health which is fundamental and key.

In addition to science, countries that continue to face food insecurity must invest in climate smart agricultural practices. As defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), climate smart agricultural practices are approaches that help to transform and reorient agricultural and food systems to effectively support development and ensure food security in a changing climate.

These approaches aim to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, adapt, and build resilience to climate change and reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions. Many of the science-based solutions above are regarded as climate smart strategies.

Coupled with building climate smart strategies, is the need to invest in early warning systems, to ensure that farmers and citizens who continue to face hunger are not caught unawares. To do so, it is important that countries have access to reliable data.

Building resilient agricultural sectors must also go hand in hand with rebuilding rural communities’ infrastructures. Local roads, rural water, energy, and other infrastructures that are critical to ensuring an efficient and functioning agricultural supply chain.  Investing in upgrading rural communities should also result in job creation for the rural poor. It also could curtail urban migration, which continues to be an issue affecting many African countries.

Finally, all the above cannot happen and be sustainable without the strong presence of the people that are affected by climate change. They must be at the conversation tables where decisions are being made, or there should be appropriate channels to solicit their thoughts. Without these initiatives being locally driven, and involving broad coalition of stakeholders, we risk delivering unsustainable solutions that are heavily disconnected from the needs.

The task of achieving food security for all remains an enormous challenge. As we continue to invest in climate-smart strategies, upgrade rural infrastructure, and utilize science derived data evidence to improve agriculture and mitigate climate change associated weather events, we will make progress. We must do everything we can to fight food insecurity.

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Credit: UN Photo/Eluchi Matsumoto The widespread destruction in Hiroshima as a result of the nuclear bomb which the US dropped on the Japanese city in August 1945. Credit: UN Photo/Eluchi Matsumoto

By M. V. Ramana
VANCOUVER, Canada, Jun 16 2021 (IPS)

Looking through my emails for the last year, I was struck by how often the adjective “unprecedented” occurred. The term, of course, referred to the global Covid-19 pandemic. One would imagine that this unprecedented year would result in unprecedented trends in other aspects of life.

But this is not the case for preparations to kill lots of people. That for me is the message of the 2021 Yearbook from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which documents how global military spending continued to increase, armed conflicts continued in many parts of the world, and the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons continued to modernize their arsenals.

Among these continuities is the increase in global military expenditure, which SIPRI estimates at nearly two trillion dollars in 2020, 2.6 per cent higher than the corresponding figure for 2019 and 9.3 per cent higher than in 2011.

For comparison, the World Health Organization estimates that the total government budget allocations for the Covid-19 health response is about $560 billion. This disparity in spending demonstrates the skewed priorities of the ruling elites in countries around the world.

A small fraction of these expenditures—72 billion dollars, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) —went to maintaining or manufacturing more of the most destructive of these military armaments, nuclear weapons.

These weapons are held by a tiny minority of states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—that buck the international desire for nuclear disarmament. (In comparison, as of June 2021, 86 states have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; 54 have ratified the Treaty.)

Credit: United Nations
UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu attends the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 2020. Credit: United Nations

The SIPRI report includes a detailed update of the world’s arsenals from the Federation of the American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project, which estimates that at the start of 2021, the nine nuclear weapon states “possessed approximately 13 080 nuclear weapons, of which 3825 were deployed with operational forces”.

The continued existence of these weapons of mass destruction demonstrates that the institutions responsible for these nuclear arsenals continue to thrive and shape public expenditures, more than three decades after the cold war was declared over.

Misdirected expenditures are hardly the only problem with these arsenals. Of much greater concern is their destructive nature. Although known from the U.S. bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear weapons technology has changed significantly since.

Many of the thirteen thousand plus nuclear weapons today would possess tens of times the explosive power of those two bombs. These nuclear weapons are to be delivered through means that are much more technically advanced than the B-29 bombers that flew to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The arsenals are also part of military arsenals that are bristling with a mind boggling variety of high-tech weapons. There is also the possibility that hackers could compromise the computers that control nuclear weapons or provide information to officials about impending nuclear attacks.

But there is an even more dangerous context to these weapons. Periods of great tension between many of the major nuclear powers are becoming frequent: for example, between the United States and Russia, between China and the United States, between India and China, between Pakistan and India, and between the United States and North Korea.

Relations between China and the United States, in particular, have taken a turn for worse with two recent developments. Domestically, the US Senate passed the Endless Frontier Act, which the New York Times argued was “testament to how commercial and military competition with Beijing has become one of the few issues that can unite both political parties”.

Internationally, the G7 group of rich nations have agreed to fall in line behind U.S. President Joe Biden and supported the Build Back Better World (B3W) plan, which is framed as an alternative to China’s belt and road initiative.

Analyst Andrew Lichterman points out that this competition is happening when the whole globe is “part of the capitalist circuit of trade and investment” and “there are fewer opportunities for the ‘accumulation by dispossession’ available to competing states that characterized past forms of colonialism and imperialism”.

Add to this the growth of blood and soil nationalisms in many countries. Thus, the current conjuncture is profoundly different from earlier rounds of great power competition, and the possibility of war between them should not be ruled out.

The only possible check to this collision course will be social movements. But unlike the Cold War era peace movements, the new movements will have to be multi-issue ones, tying together the struggles for arms control and nuclear disarmament with struggles for climate justice, against racial and gender injustice, for indigenous rights, and for an equitable and fair economic system that is not predicated on endless growth.

This won’t be easy, but the alternative is worse.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, and a scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

The link follows: https://sppga.ubc.ca/profile/m-v-ramana/

 

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Yasmine Sherif

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 16 2021 (IPS)

The climate crisis is amplifying the effects of instability and violence in the world’s poorest countries. Nowhere is this more visible than in Africa’s Central Sahel region, where increasing temperature, floods, droughts and other climate change-induced disasters are triggering conflicts, displacement, and pushing girls and boys into the shadows.

As world leaders come together to celebrate Africa Climate Week, in the lead up to this year’s climate talks in the UK, they must look at education – especially education for girls – as a cornerstone in delivering on our promises for peaceful, low-carbon development in places like the Central Sahel.

Taken together with other actions, education for children and youth caught in climate change-induced emergencies and protracted crises is essential in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals and reaching the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Forced displacement puts children at risk

Climate change may not be seen as a direct catalyst of conflict, but it is often the root-cause to conflict, leading to forced displacement, or exacerbates conflict dynamics. It is now clear that climate change undermines the ability of vulnerable communities to enjoy their human rights, such as the foundational right of education, hence be able to best cope and adapt.

Unpredictable rains and floods in the Central Sahel, which is warming faster than the global average, are severely impacting populations and their ability to safeguard the right to education, build stability, and end cycles of violence and poverty that severely hamper access to an inclusive quality education. Communities and nations are plagued for decades as a result and the number of out-of-school children and adolescents continues to rise.

More than 1.5 million people have been uprooted in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger alone, according to recent UN reports – most over the last two to three years. Some 13 million people – including 7 million children – are in urgent need of education, food, water, shelter, health.

This under-covered and underfunded emergency, fuelled by multiple overlapping insurgencies, has evolved rapidly for complex reasons. And the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with climate change are putting even more girls and boys at risk every day. Girls are especially affected, as they are the first to bear the brunt of a climate-induced disasters closing down schools and any access to education.

Africa’s Sahel region is at the centre of the accelerating climate crisis, and is “a canary in the coalmine of our warming planet,” according to UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, who describes the level of international aid to help these countries adapt to climate change as “ totally inadequate”.

Researchers say average temperatures across the Sahel rose 1 degree Celsius from 1950 to 2010 while average annual rainfall fell 4.1 cm, outpacing global trends. By the 2060s, temperatures are projected to be 1.2 to 3.6 degrees higher.

Severe drought occurred in the 1970s and 1980s in this region. Moving forward, most projections actually predict an increase in rainfall. While this should be good news for farmers that rely on rains to water their crops, it actually may not be: the rains will be different than before, and will come in extreme events, triggering floods, landslides and other disasters. All these climate impacts are happening on top of COVID-19, rapid population growth, protracted violence and insecurity, gender inequality, and pervasive poverty.

Climate change is a risk multiplier – especially for girls, children with disabilities and other marginalized groups. Conflicts over scarce water and land resources are triggering violence, displacing communities and pushing coping mechanisms to the breaking point. And when things break, children and youth are those who suffer the most. One example comes from Nigeria, where recent analysis indicates that climate change is driving recruitment by armed groups.

Change is on the way. Countries across the Central Sahel are mobilizing resources to address climate change as a mechanism to reduce conflict. But climate action is not enough. We must connect the dots with education and other sustainable development endeavours to achieve long-term results.

Climate action and girls’ education

Without an education, crisis-affected children and youth – especially girls – are at high risk of sexual exploitation, domestic work, early marriage, child labour, and both girls and boys at higher risk of recruitment by armed forces.

Girls and adolescent girls in vulnerable households are more likely to leave school to get married in times of weather-related crises to help ease the burden of scarce household resources. The droughts in Ethiopia in 2010-11, for example, were followed by an increase in the number of girls sold into marriage in exchange for livestock.

Women and girls make up 80 percent of climate refugees worldwide, according to the UN. Warning of the long-term impacts of climate change on migration, the World Bank has estimated that, without concerted action, over 140 million people could be displaced within their countries across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America by 2050.

Gathering evidence on how the climate displaced are overwhelmingly female and poor, Malala Fund’s recent report, A greener, fairer future: Why leaders need to invest in climate and girls’ education, estimates that climate-related events in 2021 will prevent at least 4 million girls in poorer countries from completing their education. On current trends, by 2025, climate change will be a contributing factor in preventing at least 12.5 million girls from completing their education each year.

Countries that have invested in girls’ education have suffered far fewer losses from droughts and floods than countries with lower levels of girls’ education. A 2013 study analysing the links between girls’ education and disaster risk reduction projected that if 70 per cent of women aged 20 to 39 received at least a lower-secondary education, disaster-related deaths in 130 countries could reduce by 60 per cent by 2050.

Connecting the dots

In Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, over 8 million children aged 6 to 14 are out of school, representing almost 55 per cent of children in this age group, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in late 2020.

In response to the growing crisis, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) announced new multi-year resilience programs for the Sahel in January 2021, making catalytic investment grants of US$33.3 million across these three countries – with the goal of leveraging an additional US$117 million in co-financing from national and global partners, the private sector and philanthropic foundations. The new programs will reach an initial 300,000 children and youth impacted by climate change, displacement, conflict and COVID-19. Additional investments in Africa – and across the globe – are connecting the dots between education and climate action, with a particular focus on girls and adolescent girls.

Call to action

We cannot achieve 12 years of free, safe, quality education for every girl without climate action. It is time for donors and other global leaders to make the link between education and climate change, not just in theory but in their financing and programming decisions.

As the Malala Fund recently stated: “As leaders gather in 2021 to address the climate crisis at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and other events, they must not overlook one of the most powerful yet underused strategies in the fight against climate change: Providing girls with 12 years of quality education.”

Quality education means the empowerment of girls and adolescent girls, who one day will enable a pathway to peace, security and stability. An inclusive quality education means resilience, preventive action and reduced risks from natural disasters. It means access to greater incomes and preparedness in the face of future emergencies. It is a pathway to a more sustainable future for all children and young people.

And today, their needs, their voices and their call for change can no longer go unheard. It is time to connect the dots between climate change and education and recognize the sharp reality of what is at risk for them and for generations to come.

The Regional Climate Weeks 2021 Virtual Thematic Sessions for the Africa Region are taking place from 15-18 June 2021. These sessions focus on partnering for whole society engagement in implementation, managing climate risks and seizing transformation opportunities.

Regional Climate Weeks are open to all stakeholders as a ‘go-to’ hub to build partnerships and showcase ground breaking action in the regions. They are designed to encourage and facilitate implementation of ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, along with the implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), Long-Term Low greenhouse gas Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), and Global Climate Action and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The Virtual Thematic Sessions are the second segment of the Climate Weeks.

http://sdg.iisd.org/events/regional-climate-weeks-2021-virtual-thematic-sessions-for-africa/

 

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• FEATURED TRANSLATION – FRENCH

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

A Saint Lucian farmer surveys his crops, during the annual dry season. Amid reports that half of the earth’s agricultural land is degraded, countries are reporting on progress to halt land degradation. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 16 2021 (IPS)

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told the first United Nations General Assembly meeting on desertification and drought in a decade, that his country’s report card will show it is well on track to meet its land restoration commitments.

“In India, over the last 10 years, around 3 million hectares of forest cover has been added. This has enhanced the combined forest cover to almost one-fourth of the country’s total area,” the Prime Minister told the Jun. 15 gathering.

He added that the country is working towards restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. That goal is part of the 2019 Delhi Declaration, in which member countries of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) pledged to enact national drought plans and restore land and soil affected by desertification and drought.

Land degradation, or the deterioration of soil to the point that it is no longer able to support ecosystems, is caused by both climate change and human activity such as deforestation.

It is a global concern.

The UN classifies half of all agricultural land as degraded. The impacts are far-reaching. They include widening food insecurity, with the world’s crop yields estimated to fall by 10 percent by 2050. The knock-on effect will be a spike in food prices as high as 30 percent, which could send hunger levels skyrocketing.

Statistics like these are drivers for the pledges in the Delhi Declaration.

They have also spurred a renewed commitment by countries to work towards achieving 15.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals – the attainment of a land degradation-neutral world.

Land Degradation Neutrality or LDN refers to the revival of land and subsequent restoration of biological and ecosystem functions, through sustainable practices.

It is a concept adopted at various levels in Saint Lucia.

That country has tackled soil erosion and degradation through agroforestry. Forestry officials encourage and provide assistance to farmers to plant trees on their land, along with their crops. The trees help to protect the soil, the crops and nearby rivers, while providing an additional source of income for farmers.

“Our freshwater supply depends on the trees,” Saint Lucia’s Forestry Chief Alwin Dornelly told IPS.

“Storms, climate change and deforestation lead to land degradation. We had to rehabilitate Saint Lucia’s riverbanks. By encouraging farmers to plant some native forest crops along with other plants that have economic benefits, this is resulting in reforestation, stabilisation and an income for the farmers,” he said.

The small island states of the Caribbean have been battling crippling drought for the past 5 years. For many countries, prolonged drought leads to rationing by water companies.

In June 2020, the Saint Lucian government declared a water emergency, with the Prime Minister Allen Chastanet warning that it was the worst drought the country had seen in a half-century. He told the nation that water levels at the Jon Compton Dam, which supplies water to over half the island, were dangerously low.

It is a reality that regions across the world are facing.

According to the UN, climate change-fuelled desertification and drought, combined with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic put 34 million people at risk of famine. The organisation says 2021 will be a critical year for restoring balance with nature.

For Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Coordinator of the Association of Peul Women and Autochthonous Peoples of Chad, restoration cannot be achieved in the absence of support from indigenous communities.

“We all know that for indigenous peoples there is no difference between human beings and nature. We are part of nature,” she told the UN High-Level Meeting.

“With our way of life, our traditional knowledge, if we want to protect the ecosystem, we need indigenous peoples and local communities in rural areas. They can restore the land, the ecosystem and contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation for a nature-based solution.”

President of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir urged countries to step up funding for forest-based solutions to the climate, biodiversity and pollution crises.

“Currently, forests and agriculture receive less than 3 percent of climate finance but hold more than 30% of the solution to the climate crisis,” he said.

“For an estimated $ 2.7 trillion per year, comfortably within the scope of the proposed COVID spending, we could transform the world’s economies by restoring natural ecosystems, rewarding agriculture that keeps soils healthy, and incentivising business models that prioritise renewable, recyclable or biodegradable products and services.”

The UN is calling on countries to adopt Land Degradation Neutrality targets, halt unsustainable agricultural practices and strengthen the tenure rights and technical abilities of agricultural workers.

 

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• Living with Drought: Lessons from Brazil’s Semiarid Region
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Excerpt:

Jun. 17 is World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. Amid reports that half of the earth’s agricultural land is degraded, countries are reporting on progress to revive arable land and restore biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

The Somali Football Federation sacks coach Abdellatif Saleft after less than three weeks in charge and hours before a friendly against Djibouti.

The BBC charts the dramatic changes and challenges facing the country as it goes to the polls.

The Cerro Corredor solar complex in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile became the largest photovoltaic plant in operation in Latin America when it was inaugurated on Jun. 8. CREDIT: Cerro Corredor

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jun 15 2021 (IPS)

Chile is in a privileged position in the world to produce green hydrogen and boost the development of the new fuel thanks to the country’s optimal conditions for generating solar and wind energy, but the large investment required and the scarcity of water are two of the biggest obstacles to overcome.

This South American nation’s National Green Hydrogen Strategy aims for Chile to produce the world’s cheapest green hydrogen by 2030, to become a major exporter by 2040 and to reach an electrolysis capacity of five gigawatts (GW) by 2025.

“Our main goal is to become one of the top three exporters of green hydrogen worldwide by 2030, producing approximately 2.5 billion dollars worth each year at the lowest global cost,” said Minister of Energy and Mining Juan Carlos Jobet.

“We are extraordinarily blessed with some of the best solar and wind resources in the world,” he said on Jun. 2, alluding to the heavy solar radiation in the northern Atacama Desert and the strong winds in Patagonia, in the southern Magallanes region.

Chile increased the goal for clean electricity generation to 40 percent by 2030, coinciding with the Jun. 8 inauguration in the northern region of Antofagasta of the Cerro Dominador Complex, which became the largest solar plant in Latin America. A goal in which green hydrogen is beginning to enter the equation.

According to Jobet’s calculations, by 2030 Chile will produce hydrogen at 1.50 dollars per kilo, a price competitive with fossil fuels. The minister forecasts a potential market of 25 billion dollars that same year.

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, was already used for refining oil, methanol or steel, for example, but was generated from fossil sources, thus contributing to the emission of polluting gases.

Green or renewable hydrogen, on the other hand, is a fuel obtained by electrolysis of water, a process that separates hydrogen from the oxygen contained in water, using electricity from clean sources, such as solar and wind power, so as not to contribute to global warming.

Energy represents 70 percent of the cost of this process, so it is crucial to boost the steady decline of prices of these sources in the country.

Marcelo Mena, a professor at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, former environment minister and member of the government’s Green Hydrogen Advisory Committee, told IPS that the Strategy “is possible, but it requires a change in the way industrial policy is made in Chile.”

“Unlike in history, where ideologies have led governments to say that the market has to choose the winners and not States, I believe that here we have to choose, stake our bets on and seek comparative advantages. Betting on what Chile is in terms of its production,” he said.

Mena argued that “a high level of financing is required in the transition” and gave as an example the subsidies in Germany, equivalent to some 700 million dollars a year, while “what we have put in so far is 50 million.”

“A more robust subsidy is needed, a greater amount of funds because they are emerging technologies that require reducing the risk for investors,” he said.

By way of example, Mena said “a large green hydrogen project, from one to two gigawatts, requires an investment of close to one billion dollars.”

According to Mena, a leading expert in energy transition, green taxes can provide part of these resources.

A mock-up of the Haru Oni plant, which is about to begin construction in the southern Chilean region of Magallanes, where it will take advantage of the abundant wind energy provided by the area’s strong winds. With an investment of 45 million dollars, it will produce ecological methanol based on green hydrogen and the resulting gasoline will be used in conventional vehicles. CREDIT: Siemens Energía

No lack of doubts

Consultant María Isabel González, manager of the company Energética and former executive secretary of the state-owned National Energy Commission, has doubts about the country’s bet on the so-called fuel of the future.

“Producing green hydrogen in Chile is an overly ambitious goal, which is not in line with the circumstances here. Just compare the investments being made in countries like Australia, with projects for more than 27 gigawatts and an investment of 36 billion dollars,” she remarked to IPS."What is needed is a strategic look at what is going to be done with water, waste, citizen participation, transmission, space demands. Everything has to be transparent and discussed with the community. Otherwise, those who could be our promoters may become detractors." -- Marcelo Mena

She also argued that the idea of green hydrogen stood in marked contrast to the energy poverty suffered by half of the population in this country of 17.5 million people, who still have no access to hot water, while thousands of households use firewood for heating.

“Obviously a developing country like Chile should first solve the basic needs of its population and in particular of those most in need,” González argued.

That is why she suggests delaying green hydrogen plans.

Mena agrees that energy poverty is a problem, but believes that the situation can be addressed simultaneously with the production of hydrogen.

“We can promote an industry that generates revenues of around 20 or 30 billion dollars a year and with these higher revenues we can electrify the energy mix by replacing polluting firewood, which is expensive and causes high levels of deforestation,” he said.

Another issue is that generating green hydrogen requires a lot of water. According to González, nine tons to produce one ton of hydrogen. But Chile is facing a major drought that has lasted for more than a decade.

She said “this could be solved with seawater desalination,” but added that “this is not our only disadvantage” and cited the “significant” problem of Chile’s distance from the main markets.

This long and narrow country nestled between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean can export its products through its Pacific coast ports, ship them up through the Panama Canal or transport them across several South American countries to reach the Atlantic.

Mena believes that “the amount of water required is much less and there are ways to find this water without causing conflict. One is desalination and another is the use of sewage that today is discharged raw into the sea in northern cities.”

The Canela Wind Farm, with wind turbines 112 meters high and an installed capacity of 18.15 megawatts, generates electricity with wind from offshore in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Darío Morales, director of studies for the Chilean Renewable Energy Association (Acera), which represents companies and professionals in the sector, admitted to IPS that water is a challenge that should not be minimised.

But he also mentioned the desalination option and pointed out that “one of the objectives of developing the domestic hydrogen market is to use it to replace fossil fuels, the refining of which also uses significant amounts of water.”

The investment challenge

Morales also noted that the Strategy calls for five billion dollars to be invested in hydrogen development by 2025, “which is an enormous challenge, especially if we consider that this must be accompanied by a major boost for renewable energies.”

He said these clean energies should at least double their current generation capacity.

According to Minister Jobet, Chile has the capacity to generate 70 times more renewable electricity than what it produces today.

Mena said the Strategy includes “investments of over 300 Giga of solar energy. In terms of panels per person, this would be 15 KW of power, equivalent to 40 solar panels for each Chilean.”

He said it was important to submit the plans to a strategic environmental assessment that would allow for consultation on this policy and look at environmental aspects.

“What is needed is a strategic look at what is going to be done with water, waste, citizen participation, transmission, space requirements. Everything has to be transparent and discussed with the community. Otherwise, those who could be our promoters may become detractors,” he said.

He also warned that “today green hydrogen is not competitive.”

“Costs have to come down, like they did with solar energy, whose costs were reduced by 90 percent in a couple of decades,” Mena said.

González noted that “according to the International Energy Agency, one kilo of green hydrogen, which contains about 33.3 kWh, costs between 3.50 and 5.0 euros (each euro is equivalent to 1.22 dollars), which means between 100 euros/MWh and 150 euros/MWh.”

A glimpse of dawn amidst the steam from the geysers of El Tatio, in northern Chile. Geothermal energy is another clean, non-conventional energy, in this case also infinite, which Chile is beginning to harness with the Cerro Pabellón Geothermal Power Plant in the municipality of Ollagüe. CREDIT: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

“To be competitive it should reach around 60 euros/MWh, or around two euros per kilo,” she said.

The Strategy aims for a cost of 1.30 dollars/kg H2 by 2030 and 0.80 cents/kg H2 by 2050. One cost reduction would come from lower electricity prices. Another would come from economies of scale, for which it is essential to develop domestic demand.

To reach this goal, “policies for the development of specialised suppliers and local technological development should be promoted. If any of these pillars fail, it will be difficult to achieve the expected cost reductions,” said Mena.

Eduardo Bitran, designated as one of 20 ambassadors of green hydrogen by the government of Sebastián Piñera, said the domestic market is led by the mining industry. “Moving towards green mining is a starting point,” he said. This would be followed by use in long-distance heavy-duty transport and passenger transport.

He said the coronavirus pandemic “has made us realise the extent of global interdependence.”

“The great post-pandemic threat is climate change. This is the last decade to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius,” he said at a meeting of the Innovation Club, which he chairs.

Countries with productive potential and other consumers agreed to join forces to turn hydrogen into an alternative to fossil fuels, during an international meeting organised in Santiago in preparation for the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in November.

Australia, Chile, the United Kingdom and the European Union will seek to make green hydrogen affordable and competitive, they agreed at a virtual meeting on Jun. 3.

Minister Jobet stated that “what we have to do as a planet to use this hydrogen at an accelerated rate is to reduce its cost, because it is still more expensive to produce, transport and store than its oil or gas alternatives.”

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Shafi Bhuiyan. Credit : ITMDs file photo

By Shafi Bhuiyan
TORONTO, Canada, Jun 15 2021 (IPS)

In Canada, we are fortunate to have many talented newcomers eager to contribute to the country, including thousands of doctors from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who meet Canadian standards but are blocked from becoming practicing physicians. These doctors are Canadian citizens and permanent residents with recognized training and experience.

Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMDs), also known as International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are individuals who obtain their medical license outside of Canada. ITMDs face significant barriers to obtaining a medical license to practice in Canada (Wong & Lohfeld, 2008). Residencies must be completed to obtain a medical license in Canada, yet there are few residency positions available to ITMDs compared to those trained in Canada.

In 2011, over 1,800 International Medical Graduates competed for only 191 residency spots that were set aside for ITMD (Thomson & Cohl, 2011). After decades of employment experiences, still thousands of ITMDs must seek other employment opportunities. However, many are unable to find employment commensurate with their training, and some are unable to find employment at all (Environics Research Group, 2014).

If now isn’t the time for Ontario to make better use of the trained doctors who are already here, when will it ever be?

To practice medicine in Canada, ITMDs must have an approved medical degree and pass merit based qualifying exams, i.e. Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam 1 (MCCQE1), The National Assessment Collaboration Examination Objective Structured Clinical Examination (NAC OSCE), Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam 2 (MCCQE2). A large number of ITMDs have already met these requirements and are keen to serve Canadians who need access to healthcare.

During the pandemic, many of these doctors worked tirelessly to help Canadians stay healthy, even on a volunteer basis. Numerous graduates of Ryerson University’s unique ITMD Bridging Program, which helps internationally trained medical doctors transition into careers in the non-licensed health sector,have been hired to help with Ontario’s COVID-19 response.

A rapid survey of ITMD program alumni from recent cohorts (2019- 2021) was conducted by [Bhuiyan, Orin and Krivova, 2021] with the purpose of identifying their current status regarding licensure preparations to practice medicine in Canada. We targeted 100 alumni out of 277 through an online survey using SurveyMonkey, and we received 97 responses.

The rapid survey illustrated that 35% of these ITMDs have already completed the MCCQE1 and NAC OSCE. Despite being eligible to join residency programs, the wait time for residency opportunities is 4- 10 years. The remaining 65% of surveyed participants/ITMDs have not completed the medical licence qualifying exams; 44% of respondents are still considering this option, but are unsure.

Of those [35%] who have already passed the exams, many are still waiting on opportunities to complete residencies, while others are losing hope and interest in a future in clinical practice. Immigrant internationally trained doctors in Canada want and deserve equal opportunities to practise medicine.

There is an acute shortage of family doctors in Ontario’s rural and northern areas. Before the pandemic, Ontario needed thousands of new doctors within the next few years to keep up with those who are retiring and the increased needs of an aging population. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue and increased the need for doctors. Offering internationally trained immigrant professionals a clear path to use their medical experience and qualifications will positively impact the ITMDs as well as their surrounding communities.

ITMDs are skilled health professionals who immigrated with the potential of contributing to the Canadian healthcare system. Canadian demographic pattern is continually changing, which makes it vital to keep up with the diverse cultural needs andaddress inequity in Canadian healthcare system. Canadian long-term care facilities, ageing population, indigenous community, immigrants and migrant workers, and rural health care facilities, are now under pressure in these changing times.

Statistics show that Canada is at the lower end of OECD countries with average doctors per capita being 2.8/1,000 people where OECD countries have 3.5/1,000. It is imperative that we have more physicians in Canada.

To ensure a win-win situation in post-pandemic health care setting in Canada, let’s work together [academics, policy makers and civil society] to help support new immigrant health professionals and local community to ensure that no one will be left behind.

The author, Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan PhD is Asst. Professor, University of Toronto’s Institute for Pandemics and co-creator of the pilot MScCH Program at the DLSPH, University of Toronto; co-founder of ITMDs Post Graduate Bridge Training Program at the Chang School and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University; Board Chair, Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research

 

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Fresh water for the residents of the Majengo slums on Kenya's coast has come on tap as part of a UN-Habitat rehabilitation project. Credit: UN-Habitat/Kirsten Milhahn

By Branko Milanović
NEW YORK, Jun 15 2021 (IPS)

Is Africa marginalised in contemporary economics and politics, and in contemporary economic and political research?

Impressions gathered over the years and a bit of evidence (much more could be assembled) indicate that it is. I would distinguish three types of marginalisation: objective, objectified and subjective marginalisation.

Caused by poverty

Africa is not at the forefront of the new economic and social issues which arise in the advanced economies. Nor does it have the funds to maintain numerous intellectuals who create ‘theories’ and an ‘intellectual climate’. Objectively, both problems are caused by poverty.

It is not by accident that economics developed in north-western Europe. Modern capitalism, financial crises, problems of displacement of labour by capital, the use of fiscal and monetary policy to wage wars and so on were first encountered there.

This continues to the present day — albeit Modern Monetary Theory, outsourcing, artificial intelligence and the like have taken the place of Adam Smith’s discussion of the ‘invisible hand’ or David Ricardo’s disquisition on the role of machinery. None of these cutting-edge issues is present in less-developed countries.

Poor countries are thus attractive as a field of research — but nothing more.

Poorer countries also lack resources to maintain the intellectual class which could promote ‘their’ (domestic) issues and they thus become mere consumers of the ideas produced in the rich countries.

Branko Milanović

That has led to accusations of global-northern ideological hegemony but this is largely independent of one’s will: it is built into the very system of economics and other social sciences. We can deplore it but not much can be done about it.

At times it is reversed — as when such topics as industrialisation, central planning, land reform, saving and accumulation came to play an important role in economics. But this was exceptional and we are back to the ‘normal’ division of intellectual labour between rich and poor countries.

Ethical concerns

By objectified marginalisation I mean that, while Africa does not autonomously generate topics to be studied, it is often used as a ‘research field’ for themes defined by the north to be examined.

These topics may or may not however have much to do with African countries and may or may not have any real effect on the ground in Africa.

Consider randomised controlled trials. RCTs have long been plagued by ethical concerns (as well as questionable replicability). These arise because poorer countries and poor people implicated in them do not have much agency — or often even full understanding of what is happening and what they are supposed to do.

They are unable to shape projects or participate meaningfully.

Moreover, poor people’s participation is cheap since, when compensated, the amounts received are a fraction of what would need to be paid in rich countries for similar participation (assuming that such projects would ethically pass muster there).

Poor countries are thus attractive as a field of research — but nothing more.

Last year a project in Kenya randomly turned off water to households in default on their fees — to find out how they would react and at what point lack of water would force them to pay the municipality.

One could not imagine a similar project in which, say, households in New York or Paris, late in the payment of some city dues, would be treated in the same manner.

I have seen how foreign-funded non-governmental organisations (NGOs) used to determine, and still frequently do, the research agenda in eastern Europe.

Often such projects have very little domestic ownership — even if on paper it might appear different. Northern consultants (who need such projects to write scientific papers or justify their fees) have huge power over local academics and communities.

They hold the purse strings: if one academic refuses to participate, another will easily be found.

This does not necessitate outright corruption, but incentives (fees, travel, co-authorship) are flashed in front of local counterparts. The economist Angus Deaton recently declared: ‘Using poor people to build a professional CV should not be accepted.’

Self-induced

These problems are not unique to Africa — they are experienced by all less-developed countries. I have seen how foreign-funded non-governmental organisations used to determine, and still frequently do, the research agenda in eastern Europe — until some of these countries became richer, their academic community stronger and more self-confident.

But African countries have contributed to their marginalisation by not having developed stronger academic and political counterparts. Such subjective marginalisation is self-induced.

For instance, the reaction in 1998 of the academic community and policy-makers in South Korea to an austerity programme imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted the lack of reaction of intellectual communities in many African countries when exposed to even tougher IMF programmes.

South Korean academics went on the offensive, using extensive connections with their counterparts in the United States, and the west generally, to push back on IMF proposals. Outside of South Africa, I am not aware of anything similar in over half a century of African countries’ relations with the IMF.

If one puts the three causes of marginalisation together, they clearly flow from structural impotence to potential influence.

The self-marginalisation is even more puzzling because it cannot be put down to lack of knowledge of the world’s dominant language. The elites in all African countries are perfectly fluent in English and French — many in both.

By contrast, many eastern Europeans and some Asians are unfamiliar with English, which cuts them off from the most up-to-date research — even from mundane knowledge of whom to contact and how.

Early successes

If one puts the three causes of marginalisation together, they clearly flow from structural impotence to potential influence. There is nothing to be done about ‘objective’ marginalisation short of Africa growing faster, getting richer and thus provoking more interest — success always leads to interest — and in the process becoming financially able to shape the agenda.

This is what China has done. ‘Objectified’ marginalisation would similarly largely take care of itself with greater wealth, even if it might take longer to overturn.

It is in the subjective marginalisation where governments could reap some early successes: it requires spending a higher share of gross domestic product on research, creating much better universities and think tanks, and attracting foreign researchers who, if they were to live longer in African countries (not just visit for a fortnight), would no longer see African issues as a good way to publish a paper but would fully participate in academic life.

In addition, it requires building much stronger ties between the domestic research community and government. Then African countries could take more initiative and exercise more ownership when it comes to policy advice proffered from the global north.

This article is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal.

Branko Milanović is a visiting professor at the City University of New York. Prior to that, he was, among other things, senior economist of the research department at the World Bank. For his book Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization he won the Hans-Matthöfer-Prize awarded by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Most recently he published Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World.

 

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Euratom inspectors conduct safeguards inspections at URENCO in the Netherlands. Credit: IAEA/Dean Calma

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 2021 (IPS)

The world’s nine nuclear armed states have downsized their military arsenals, but made up for their loss by increasing the number of weapons on high operational alert, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

As a result, the world is increasingly within striking distance of nuclear weapons—either by accident or by design.

The most vulnerable region is Asia, which is home to four of the world’s nine nuclear powers, namely, India, Pakistan, China and North Korea, the rest being the US, UK, France, Russia and Israel.

The study says the nine countries collectively possessed an estimated 13,080 nuclear weapons at the start of 2021.

This was a decrease from the 13, 400 that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2020, since some of these weapons have gone into “retirement”.

But despite this overall decrease, the estimated number of nuclear weapons currently deployed with operational forces increased to 3,825, from 3,720 last year.

Around 2,000 of these—nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the US—were kept in a state of high operational alert ready for a strike.

World nuclear forces, January 2021

Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2021

While the US and Russia continued to reduce their overall nuclear weapon inventories by dismantling retired warheads in 2020, both are estimated to have had around 50 more nuclear warheads in operational deployment at the start of 2021 than a year earlier.

Russia also increased its overall military nuclear stockpile by around 180 warheads, mainly due to deployment of more multi-warhead land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

The deployed strategic nuclear forces by both countries remained within the limits set by the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), although the treaty does not limit total nuclear warhead inventories, according to SIPRI.

Meanwhile, a new report released last week by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), warned that nuclear-armed states spent $72.6 billion on their nuclear weapons – even as the pandemic spread in 2020, an increase of $1.4 billion from 2019.

The report, Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending, showcases how during the pandemic, which had devastating health and economic consequences last year, governments were increasingly channeling tax money to defence contractors, which in turn increased the amounts to lobbyists and think tanks to encourage a continued increase of spending.

Out of the $72.6 billion that countries spent on nuclear weapons in 2020 globally, $27.7 billion went to less than a dozen defence contractors to build nuclear weapons, which in turn spent $117 million lobbying and upwards of $10 million funding most major think tanks writing about nuclear weapons.

“The climate and Covid emergencies are showing us what we really need for our security and safety as human beings, and it’s not nuclear weapons,” said Dr Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy (AIDD) and a UK-based member of ICAN’s Steering Group.

“The UN system is struggling because its efforts to build cooperative peace and security are constantly undermined and strangled by aggressive nation states. Most people can see we need cooperation and sharing to solve global challenges, from vaccines to sustainable resources,” she told IPS.

But a minority of governments with nuclear dependencies and militaristic economies create the most dangers for everyone, said Dr Johnson.

“With their aggressive posturing, new types of weapons and corrupt selling practices they arm rivals, feed insecurity and wars, and undermine international security, law and human rights, she warned.

“As the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force this year, it has come as little surprise to see some governments kick back with extra bells and whistles on their pointless and insecure nuclear weapons”.

She said privileged governments with vested interests have engaged in similar angry retaliations when faced with other international treaties that bring much-needed legal constraints.

Professor M. V. Ramana, Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, and Director, Liu Institute for Global Issues, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, told IPS the ICAN report documents the power of the political control wielded by companies involved in nuclear weapons production and maintenance is.

These companies profit enormously from their involvement in making these weapons of mass destruction and use a share of these profits to lobby for and shape the decision-making process in ways that further their profits, and loosen any semblance of democracy in this sphere, he said.

“To have such actions continue during a global pandemic is shocking, and reveals the completely misguided priorities of these nuclear weapon states and their allies,” said Dr Ramana, a scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

According to a breakdown provided by ICAN on global spending on nuclear weapons, the US leads the list:

• United States: $37.4 billion
• China: $10.1 billion
• Russia: $8 billion
• United Kingdom: $6.2 billion
• France: $5.7 billion
• India: $2.4 billion
• Pakistan: $1 billion
• North Korea: $667 million

The top 5 companies profiting from nuclear weapon contracts were:

• Northrop Grumman ($13.6 billion)
• General Dynamics ($10.8 billion)
• Lockheed Martin ($2 billion)
• Raytheon Technologies ($449.5 million)
• Draper ($342 million)

 

 

Dr Johnson said stigmatising and banning nuclear weapons not only affects the profits of military-industrial businesses, but the careers of many bureaucrats, academics and politicians who for decades have promoted spending taxpayer’s money on these weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) instead of investing more in their countries’ health, education, peace-building relations and environment-saving technologies.

“Like all peace and security objectives, nuclear disarmament is not a one-off project, but a transformative process that needs to be built and maintained throughout our lives.’

She said the TPNW puts UN bodies and activists in a stronger position in terms of international norms and law, but as will be seen as States Parties hold their first meeting in 2022, we have a lot of work ahead of us to construct the vital institutional, humanitarian and verification infrastructures for the Treaty to become universally effective.”

“Nuclear weapons still have the potential to cause great harm, so these dying kicks of nuclear colonialism need to be stopped. In Britain, many are now promoting the TPNW while campaigning for ‘Nurses not Nukes’ and accusing Boris Johnson’s government of violating Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations with recent policies that increase the role and numbers of UK nuclear weapons,” said Dr Johnson.

“ICAN’s recent nuclear spending report ‘Complicit’ deals with another dimension where civil society can exert very effective pressure. Not only does ICAN expose the high financial costs to the nuclear armed governments (and therefore people), but also names some of the major military-industrial and bureaucratic-academic profiteers”.

She said naming names is important, as civil society continues to lift the covers and expose the corrupt and dependent relations that have kept nuclear weapons in business since 1945.

Thalif Deen is a former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defence Marketing Services; Senior Defence Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group. He is also the co-author of “How to Survive a Nuclear Disaster” (New Century,1981).

 

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Excerpt:

On the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons last September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored the need to “reverse course and return to a common path to nuclear disarmament”.

Credit: Bantonglaoatang

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 15 2021 (IPS)

Last week, the largest rich countries, home to most major transnational corporations (TNCs), agreed to a global minimum corporate income tax (GMCIT) rate. But the low rate proposed and other features will deprive developing countries of their just due yet again.

New race to bottom
On 5 June, the Group of Seven largest rich countries (G7) agreed that TNCs should all pay GMCIT of at least 15%. This rate is just over half President Biden’s promise of a 28% US CIT rate during last year’s election campaign.

The G7’s 15% GMCIT rate is also almost 30% less than US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s 21% proposal. Her proposal was aligned with Trump’s much reduced CIT rate, rather than Biden’s 28% vow.

Unbelievably, this cut rate has been hailed as a “game changer” by the new Australian Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) chief and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, among others.

Many have called for a GMCIT, especially those long concerned with reduced fiscal means. Notably, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) called for a 25% GMCIT to enhance development finance.

On average, official CIT rates have fallen by twenty percentage points since 1980. In high-income countries, they fell from 38% in 1990 to 23% in 2018. Meanwhile, they fell from 40% to 25% in middle-income countries (MICs), and from over 45% to 30% in low-income countries (LICs). Despite such lowered rates, TNCs still minimise paying tax.

Fiscal crises force tax reform
Contemporary fiscal crises have been decades in the making. The tax counter-revolution of recent decades cut not only public spending, but also tax revenue. Developments in the last dozen years have forced an ongoing fiscal policy turn.

The 2008 global financial crisis was met by massive financial bailouts and recovery measures. Declining tax revenue in earlier decades and its sharp decline during the Great Recession compelled related policy rethinking.

Meanwhile, debilitating inter-country tax competition remains unaddressed. Now, the pandemic has enhanced efforts to boost fiscal means to finance contagion containment as well as economic relief and recovery.

TNCs’ ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ (BEPS) practices are hardly new, having long adversely affected developing countries. To be sure, all countries have lost much tax revenue to such practices.

TNCs use ‘trade mis-invoicing’ – i.e., ‘paper transactions’ among linked companies – and ‘tax havens’ to minimise overall tax liability on their profits and income. Thus, effective tax rates are even lower, with many paying little in fact.

In 2013, the OECD launched its BEPS project, at the behest of the Group of Twenty (G20) largest economies, to reform taxation of TNC digital commerce (Pillar 1) and propose a GMCIT rate (Pillar 2).

ICRICT estimated yearly global revenue losses at minimally US$240bn, or 10% of global CIT revenue. Despite falling rates, CIT is still significant for government revenue, at 13-14% of global tax revenue, and 9.3% in OECD countries.

Between devil and deep blue sea
The OECD has long limited international tax cooperation to arrangements for its wealthy country members. Its BEPS proposal’s 12.5% minimum rate would raise no more than US$81bn in additional revenue yearly. Unsurprisingly, about 75% of the additional tax revenue envisaged would go to its rich member states.

The G7 proposal’s main attraction is that it seems simpler than the OECD blueprints. If more TNCs are taxed, than just a few large TNCs with profit rates over 10%, CIT revenue would rise significantly. For Yellen, a minimal Pillar 2 CIT rate on about 8,000 TNCs would yield much more.

For the G7, host countries will only have the right to tax 20% of ‘excess profits’ (over 10%) from the largest, most profitable firms. In the OECD draft, ‘residual’ profit untaxed by home – headquarters or ‘source’ – countries may be taxed by host countries.

Calculating and apportioning excess profit will always be moot. As home countries have the right to tax the ‘residual’, or balance untaxed by host countries, developing countries will have no more reason to offer tax incentives to attract foreign direct investment.

Both OECD and G7 proposals favour TNC home countries, even when host countries are the main profit source. Also, mechanisms to distribute ‘extra’ tax revenue would mainly benefit the richest countries, home to most large TNCs.

Incredibly, location of TNC production or employment, often in developing countries, is irrelevant for defining host countries. With generally lower incomes, developing countries are relatively less significant as sales jurisdictions except for affordable, mass-consumed goods and services.

Tax injustice rules
Some governments are expected to seek – and gain – exemptions to protect special interests, further eroding the already modest G7 proposal, e.g., the UK reportedly wants to exclude financial services. Also, some low tax countries are among those sowing doubts about the G7 proposal.

Meanwhile, tax justice campaigners have noted the painfully obvious: the G7’s 15% minimum is too low – much lower than average rates in most MICs and LICs, and closer to rates in tax havens like Singapore, Switzerland and Ireland. The rate is seen as reflecting G7 interests and preferences.

Instead, the G24 inter-governmental group of developing countries at the IMF and World Bank urges greater priority for host countries. The G24 and African Tax Administration Forum have also proposed various practical measures. These include distributing TNCs’ global profits among countries on a formulaic basis, considering factors such as production and employment, not just sales.

An IMF policy paper also argues for greater priority for LIC interests. It urges a simpler system, given their capacity constraints, and the critical need for “securing the tax base on inward investment”.

But achieving a fair and effective outcome is difficult. According to the Tax Justice Network, a 21% minimum rate would yield US$640bn more annually. Tax equity campaigners’ other proposals are also generally fairer to developing countries.

Reverse race to bottom
The G7 has lowered the GMCIT to 15%, close to the OECD’s 12.5% proposal, and much lower than Yellen’s 21%, Biden’s 28% and the ICRICT’s 25%. But the G20 could still reverse this downward trend as it can decisively influence the OECD BEPS Inclusive Framework outcome.

A related option is to begin implementation as soon as possible at a certain lower rate, with an irrevocably scheduled commitment to quickly raise the GMCIT rate according to a pre-set timetable to, say, 25%.

Much more remains to be done, much of it urgently. Developing countries can only seek tax justice on more neutral ground provided by truly multilateral forum, namely at the United Nations with the IMF providing needed technical support.

For the time being, however, the participation of many developing countries, mainly MICs, in the skewed OECD BEPS IF has to be urgently addressed to ensure its outcome is not detrimental to their medium- and long-term interests.

 

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Rabina Khan

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 14 2021 (IPS)

In 2015, When Rabina Khan was running as an independent candidate in the Tower Hamlets’ mayoral elections in London, a male voter asked her what colour her hair was under her veil. Rabina replied and said, it was pink. This small interaction is what got Rabina inspired to write her book, My Hair is Pink Under This Veil.

The book is about a Muslim woman living in the United Kingdom and how she reconciles her faith with British culture to construct a successful political career against the backdrop of blame, bias, ignorance and misogyny. Rabina Khan through her own personal experience of wearing a Hijab, also highlights the outdated views about Muslim women, challenges the notions of what a Muslim woman can or can’t do and also questions the stereotypes.

“The reason why I responded in that manner was to question the notion that hijab wearing muslim women had no interest in hairstyles, vibrant colors, or fashion,” says Rabina Khan in an interview to me.

“There has always been this narrative around Muslim women that we are seen to be oppressed, we do not have a life, we do not anticipate to become professionals in different sectors or that we become politicians. Women like us, women of color, women of faith, do have a difficult time in mainstream society because we are seeing stereotypes, racism, and prejudice,” Rabina says.

Over the last few years, the United Kingdom has seen Islamophobia rise at a very disturbing rate. In 2011, Lady Warsi claimed that Islamophobia was socially acceptable in Britain, and “passed the dinner-table test”.

In 2015, the Muslim Council of Britain warned of increasing levels of Islamophobia in the UK after a few videos were posted online showing anti-Muslim abuse on public transport.

UN experts had warned of a ‘stark increase’ in hate crimes across the UK, post-Brexit vote in 2018. The UN Special Rapporteur on racism, xenophobia and intolerance, E. Tendayi Achiume said, “it was worrying that the anti-migrant, anti-foreigner rhetoric, developed around the campaign in favour of Brexit had become widespread in society, going as far as to add that a hateful and stigmatising discourse had become “normalised” – even involving some high-ranking officials”.

In 2019, a week after the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand, the number of reported hate crimes against Muslims in the U.K. soared by 5. 93%. Muslims in Oxford, Southampton and Colindale, North London had reported “gun gestures or firearms noises being directed at them”.

Last year in 2020, a dossier of more than 300 allegations of Islamophobia against Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other members of the Conservative party had been submitted to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to launch a formal investigation.

Another report by The Labour Muslim Network, which is the largest group of Muslim members and supporters of Labour in one its reports stated that, more than one in four Muslim members and supporters of Labour partt – 29 percent – have experienced Islamophobia within the ranks of Labour party, “stemming from ignorance and systemic racism, which may not be overt but does exist.”

Just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a qualified apology for offence caused by his past remarks about Islam, including a 2018 newspaper column in which he referred to women wearing burqas as “going around looking like letterboxes” and likened their appearance to bank robbers. A report in 2019 found that Islamophobic incidents rose by 375 percent the week after Boris Johnson’s article, with 42 percent of reported racist abuse in the streets of the UK directly referencing his language.

“His (Boris Johnson) comments had a profound effect, and a damaging effect on Muslim women, and specificially towards Muslim women in veil,” says Rabina.

“It is really important for politicians to be careful the way they depict Muslim women, and people of faith, whether they are Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or Jews, they have got to be careful because by demonising people, you push people back and not with you.

“There are 3.3 million Muslims living in the UK today, making billions of contributions for the British economy, we are a huge population and we are a big voter sector that should be valued and respected. So whilst I welcome Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologising, I also give credit to the Conservative party, because they were the party in government who introduced Sharia law finance for Muslim communties, so if they have managed to do that, I am sure they can manage to address the Islamophobic behaviour,” says Rabina.

For British Muslims and people of colour, hate crimes against minorities have become a new normal in the country. Many have chosen to leave the United Kingdom as it has become “too dangerous to stay”. Hate crimes have now been extended to Britain’s East and Southeast Asian communities as well, which has seen a 300-percent increase since the UK was placed under its first lockdown due to the coronavirus surge across the country.

These negative characterizations of minority groups in the United Kingdom perpetuates the view that minority groups embody the most extreme ‘other’ characteristic traits, or that they are a risk to national security due to dangers associated with inherent radicalisation or in the case of Islamophobia, that muslim voices of resistance are untrustworthy.

Whether it is Islamophobia, Xenophobia, hate crime against different communities or normalization of Islamophobia by politicians in the United Kingdom, all of it raises multiple questions whether they are simply a manifestation of a deeply rooted anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment in British politics. If so, then it is high time Britain changes its political culture and discourse and moves towards becoming an inclusive society that it was, atleast until a few years ago.

Prejudices, biases and political underrespresentation of ethnic minorities have often been used as a political tool during elections, but a government’s progress or a political leaders progress is determinded not just based on apologies issued for ‘past comments on Islam’, but on the overarching actions taken to ensure equality, inclusivity and mechanisms put in place to protect against such attacks or statements in the future, which should be considered not just offensive, but also an offence. Britain must fix it’s Anti-muslim sentiment problem and do it without othering the community and it’s people. As Rabina says, “double standard is a structural inequality that perpetuates bigotry, racism and Islamophobia.”

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

 

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