Africa

Three African students caught up in India's unfolding Covid-19 crisis share their views from the ground.

14-year-old Sierra Leonean Mabinty Mambu is using radio to empower and educate girls about teen pregnancy.

By External Source
Apr 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY: a reminder to governments of their commitment to press freedom. This year’s World Press Freedom Day theme: “Information as a Public Good.”

It serves as a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good.

It is vital to have access to reliable information – especially in an era of misinformation.

Today, journalism is restricted in well over two thirds of the globe.

The 2021 World Press Freedom Index: journalism is “totally blocked or seriously impeded” in 73 nations.

“The pandemic has been used as grounds to block journalists’ access to information sources, and reporting in the field,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire

According to RSF, authoritarian regimes have used the pandemic to “perfect their methods of totalitarian control of information.”

‘Dictatorial democracies’ have used coronavirus as a pretext for imposing especially repressive legislation combining propaganda with suppression of dissent.

In Egypt, the government banned publication of non-government pandemic figures and arrested people for circulating figures larger than the official numbers.

In Zimbabwe, an investigative reporter was arrested after exposing a scandal related to the procurement of COVID- 19 supplies.

Tanzania, the former president imposed an information blackout on the pandemic before he died in March 2021. Even in Norway, journalists have faced difficulty accessing pandemic-related government information.

Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Indonesia adopted extremely draconian laws in the spring of 2020 criminalizing any criticism of the government’s actions.

Press freedom in Myanmar has also become increasingly strained since the military deposed its democratically elected government in February.

Despite Africa being the most violent continent for journalists, but several countries showed significant improvements in press freedom, according to RSF.

Europe and the Americas are the most favorable regions for press freedom, according to RSF.

 

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The post World Press Freedom Day 2021 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Simeon 'Simy' Nwankwo is one of the leading scorers in Italy's Serie A but has been told he is not part of Nigeria's plans.

Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said in a report released April 27. The finding is based on an overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem. Credit: Human Rights Watch (HRW)

By Mouin Rabbani
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Apr 30 2021 (IPS)

Human Rights Watch’s 27 April report, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, could also have been entitled Better Late Than Never.

The evidence and analysis deployed in this 217-page report and its 867 footnotes, voluminous and sound as it is, has been at HRW’s disposal for years. Similarly, its conclusions have been common currency in the region, and often beyond, since before HRW was founded. It is thus not Israel, but rather HRW that has crossed a threshold.

The more pertinent question is why HRW chose this moment to formally recognize reality. HRW is the industry leader in its field. As an establishment institution that places a premium on access to the corridors of power, it generally avoids open conflict with US foreign policy.

And compared to its reporting on other states in the MENA region, it has until recently been extremely reticent about explicitly condemning Israeli conduct or unambiguously charging it with criminal conduct – unequivocal HRW denunciations have in fact traditionally been directed at the Palestinians and other Arabs rather than Israel.

Additionally, key HRW leaders such as founding Chairman Robert Bernstein and President-for-Life Ken Roth are known for their pro-Israel sympathies. Bernstein for example was a shameless apologist for Israel who never encountered an Israeli violation he wouldn’t justify.

It is common knowledge within the human rights community that HRW staff hold a rather different view of Israel and its conduct, and have been agitating for many years for their organization to hold Israel to the same standards it applies to others in the region.

When, particularly during the past year, Israeli human rights organizations, most notably B’Tselem, published major reports characterizing Israel as an apartheid regime, HRW’s continued silence on the matter became politically untenable and somewhat of an embarrassment.

As in other aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, the Americans follow the lead of their Israeli counterparts and almost never get ahead of them.

Similarly, HRW management has always been adept at divining the political winds, and it may be the case that it assessed the direction of the ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) deliberations on Palestine, and saw benefit in getting on the right side of history and positioning itself to claim some of the credit.

A report by the world’s most prominent human rights organization accusing Israel of apartheid and calling for it to face real consequences for its policies is by definition a significant development. And precisely because of HRW’s history, and because it is a renowned US organization, this report acquires added importance.

For example, the campaign by Israel and its apologists to proscribe advocacy for Palestinian rights and delegitimize findings that Israel is an institutionally racist state has I suspect suffered a significant blow.

Whenever Israel is exposed as a racist state or compulsive violator of Palestinian rights it seeks to render such judgements irrelevant and delegitimize its critics – including, it should be noted, Jewish ones – with specious charges of anti-Semitism. It’s a well-worn playbook often augmented with other dirty tricks and propaganda such as denouncing critics as terrorists and fellow travellers. But the anti-Semitism canard remains the core of its response.

Similarly, authoritative reports by prominent Israeli and US organizations make it more difficult for Western media and officialdom to continue avoiding serious discussion of Palestinian rights and Israeli practices, and may empower those within such institutions seeking to promote greater debate about Israeli-Palestinian issues. Such reports can also serve as a valuable educational resource and assist in advocacy efforts.

The more interesting question is what if any consequences A Threshold Crossed and similar publications may have for Israel’s continued impunity in its dealings with the Palestinian people.

Apartheid is not a murder committed by a soldier who can theoretically be placed on trial, or a war crime commissioned by a commanding officer or government minister who can theoretically be held to account.

It is, rather, the intentional, consciously designed character of a state, and as such implicates not only the state itself but every participating leader, official, and bureaucrat. It will be interesting to see, for example, if such reports have an impact on the current deliberations within the ICC prosecutor’s office about the situation in Palestine.

It will be similarly interesting to see if such reports register within the United Nations system. In 2017, Secretary General Antonio Gutteres scandalously buckled to US and Israeli pressure, and disassociated the UN from, and tried to suppress, a report commissioned by UN ESCWA on this very subject.

This led to the resignation of ESCWA’s highly respected Executive Secretary, Rima Khalaf. Given that his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric recently refused to acknowledge the Armenian genocide on the spurious grounds that it transpired prior to the UN’s establishment (perhaps it is his view that the Nazi Holocaust commemorated by the UN this January was perpetrated during the 1970s), I am not particularly optimistic.

 

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The post Human Rights Watch: A Threshold Crossed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Co-Editor, Jadaliyya, www.jadaliyya.com, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute based in Washington DC/Beirut

The post Human Rights Watch: A Threshold Crossed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Afghanistan marked World Press Freedom Day with speeches and the recognition of journalists for their work in covering key national and political issues. Credit: UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

By Michael De Dora
WASHINGTON, Apr 30 2021 (IPS)

When Myanmar’s military seized power from the elected government in February, one of its first actions was to further squeeze the already restricted free flow of information in the country. It obstructed news stations, temporarily shuttered phone and internet access, and blocked social media platforms.

Since then, things have only worsened, with dozens of journalists behind bars, news organizations charged with crimes, and military officials stating the shutdown will not be lifted anytime soon.

The result? At a time when it’s been desperately needed, independent information has been impossible to either publish or access. As the country experienced a rapid, unexpected shift in power, the majority of its citizens—and by consequence the world—have been left in the dark about the details.

The internet shutdown in Myanmar should be an example of what a government should never do. And yet is an example of what governments are doing—with disturbing frequency around the world.

All told, there have been more than 500 internet shutdowns across dozens of countries over the last three years.

As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented, these shutdowns have serious consequences for press freedom. They leave journalists struggling to do their job effectively. Turning off or limiting access to the internet means that media workers are unable to contact sources, fact check data, file stories, or publish news to the online platforms they depend on for dispersal.

Internet shutdowns also leave the public deprived of the ability to access reliable information on what is happening in their community and their country—or even to phone their neighbor. If the press can’t publish, the public can’t read. It’s that simple.

And these shutdowns are not limited to autocraties or dictatorships. They’re happening in democracies, too.

Consider: in August 2019, millions of people living in Jammu and Kashmir awoke as news broke that the Indian government was planning to revoke a constitutional provision that granted the contested region’s governing autonomy and change it from a state to a union territory, essentially bringing it under federal control.

Except they couldn’t call their neighbors or read the news, because the Indian government had imposed an internet shutdown and communications blackout. This blackout extended well into 2020.

The situations in Jammu and Kashmir, and now Myanmar, are the tip of a largely unnoticed iceberg. In Uganda, the government suspended internet access during its January 2021 elections. In Belarus, authorities blocked local news websites amid protests in September 2020. In Ethiopia, also in response to protests, officials shut down the internet across the country (on the same day, police raided a news organization and detained journalists). In Iran, the government cut internet access for at least several days after protests broke out. In Indonesia, in response to civil unrest, authorities temporarily blocked the internet.

Why do governments engage in such behavior? For many reasons, but chief among them: to protect their power.

It is no coincidence that shutdowns are more likely to happen during times of conflict or unrest, or during an election period. When governments feel their power threatened, those in charge naturally rush to protect it. And the perception throughout history is that keeping a firm grip on what citizens can hear and see will aid authorities in maintaining control.

That explains why, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, government attempts to shutter internet access became an acute problem. Governments, particularly authoritarian regimes, sought to control the narrative about the scale of the outbreak or the quality of its response.

Unfortunately when paired with a public health crisis, internet shutdowns can have deadly consequences—keeping from people the information they need to keep themselves and their families safe.

The widespread impact and apparent uptick in internet shutdowns has forced news outlets and journalists to get creative in order to continue to perform their duties.

It’s also forced civil society to become more proactive. Organizations are joining together to urge governments to keep the internet on ahead of elections and crises, and providing advice and assistance to journalists operating in suffocating environments.

Governments committed to defending human rights and democracy must now follow suit.

These shutdowns violate foundational rights protected by both state constitutions and international treaties. Freedom of religion, belief, opinion, and expression depend on the ability to read, publish, and exchange information and ideas.

But they’re also counter-productive. In times of unrest and upheaval, it may appear that keeping the masses in the dark is an agent of stabilization. In reality it’s the opposite. It shows people that those in charge consider their power so weak that it cannot withstand discussion or scrutiny. And it puts on display for the world a government’s true colors—isolating it while also creating new reasons for the global community to apply pressure.

Internet shutdowns don’t stabilize societies. They crack open the facade of a government’s authority. If governments are looking to secure their countries in times of trouble, turning the lights off is not the answer. Instead, they should ensure the free flow of information. There’s no more stable foundation for a country than trust in government, and one way to achieve that is by protecting human rights for all.

 

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The post Internet Restrictions Harm the Press & Public Alike appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is CPJ Washington Advocacy Manager

 
3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post Internet Restrictions Harm the Press & Public Alike appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 30 2021 (IPS)

When the UN’s Beirut-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), released a landmark 2017 report on “apartheid” in Israel, the United Nations disassociated itself with the study and left it to die— unceremoniously and unsung.

According to a March 2017 report in Foreign Policy Journal, both the Israeli and the Trump administrations put “enormous pressure on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to withdraw the report”.

But the head of the ESCWA, Rima Khalaf, refused to withdraw it and resigned from her UN position in protest. Later, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he will award Khalaf the Palestine Medal of the Highest Honor for her “courage and support” for the Palestinian people.

And now, more than four years later, the apartheid policies of Israel have come back to haunt the United Nations with the release, on April 27, of a detailed report which says Israel’s abusive apartheid policies towards Palestinians constitute “crimes against humanity.”

Authored by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a widely known international human rights organizations, the 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” singles out “the overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.”

Originally coined in relation to South Africa, “apartheid” today is a universal legal term, says HRW, pointing out that the prohibition against particularly severe institutional discrimination and oppression or apartheid constitutes a core principle of international law.

But whether the new report will have any impact on the UN is doubtful.

Asked whether the UN should re-visit its own 2017 report on Israel and apartheid, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters April 27: “Well, again, without characterizing it one way or another, we have been getting the various facts out about the situation on the ground, including in the report, by the way, that you mentioned, which, I believe, the facts of the report were released, and we’ll continue to do that. Ultimately, it’s important to have a solid base of information about what’s happening, and that’s what we try to provide.”

Dr Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, who co-authored the 2017 UN report, told IPS the narrative of the apartheid discourse (extends) from the original smears at the UN to the B’Tselem Report, and now the HRW Report.

The Israeli Basic Law of 2018, which proclaimed Israel as an apartheid state without using the word, he said.

“The one large issue in which the critical discourse still lags behind what we argued in 2017 is the insistence that Israeli apartheid is best conceptualized by reference to the Palestinian people rather than land”

“We believed this is an essential element because Israeli apartheid unlike South African apartheid created a victimized Palestinian diaspora by way of ethnic cleansing, and still shout the slogan ‘less Arabs, more land,’ said Dr Falk, who served a six-year term as the UN Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”

Palestinian refugees. Credit: UNRWA

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said “prominent voices have warned for years that apartheid lurks just around the corner if the trajectory of Israel’s rule over Palestinians does not change.”

“This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” he added.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS the HRW report was indeed historic, though overdue. “As pointed out by an equally earth-shattering UN report in March 2017, Israel is already an apartheid state”.

“In fact, we can take this further and claim that a country that is essentially founded on the racial supremacy of one group and racial discrimination against another, is, per academic definition at least, an apartheid state”, he argued.

What the HRW report has done is providing more than an intellectual argument regarding Israel’s apartheid status, but a legal one, he added.

“This is crucial, because Palestinians and the supporters of their struggle everywhere can now push for legally indicting Israel for its ongoing crime of apartheid, which should be added to the imminent International Criminal Court investigation of crimes committed in occupied Palestine.”

Even though the UN report in 2017 was pulled out under US pressure, Dr Baroud said, the legal arguments it contained remain valid.

Since then, two equally important voices were added to strengthening the argument of Israeli apartheid, a decisive and comprehensive report by the prominent Israeli rights group B’tselem in January and the just-released HRW’s report.

Judging by the evolution of the language considering Israel’s systematic racism and apartheid in Palestine, it is now a matter of time before the label, that of apartheid, becomes synonymous with Israel, as at one point in the past became synonymous with South Africa, before apartheid was dismantled, he noted.

“Despite its relentless efforts at winning the legitimacy war and launching smear campaigns against anyone who dares to criticize it, Israel is losing, not only the moral war, but the legal battle as well.”

This is good news for anyone who supports justice in Palestine, said Dr Baroud, a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University, and at the Johannesburg-based Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). www.ramzybaroud.net.

In its report, Human Rights Watch found that the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory, as part of a single Israeli government policy.

“That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there”.

Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies, and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials, and other sources, HRW compared policies and practices toward Palestinians in the occupied territory and Israel with those concerning Jewish Israelis living in the same areas.

It also wrote to the Israeli government in July 2020, soliciting its perspectives on these issues, but received no response.

Across Israel and the occupied territory, Israeli authorities have sought to maximize the land available for Jewish communities and to concentrate most Palestinians in dense population centers, HRW said.

The authorities have adopted policies to mitigate what they have openly described as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians.

In Jerusalem, for example, the government’s plan for the municipality, including both the west and occupied east parts of the city, sets the goal of “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city” and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.

To maintain domination, Israeli authorities systematically discriminate against Palestinians. The institutional discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face includes laws that allow hundreds of small Jewish towns to effectively exclude Palestinians and budgets that allocate only a fraction of resources to Palestinian schools as compared to those that serve Jewish Israeli children.

In the occupied territory, the severity of the repression, including the imposition of draconian military rule on Palestinians while affording Jewish Israelis living in a segregated manner in the same territory their full rights under Israel’s rights-respecting civil law, amounts to the systematic oppression required for apartheid.

Ambassador Gilad Erdan, Israel’s envoy to the US, dismissed the report as bordering on anti-Semitism. “When the authors of the report cynically and falsely use the term apartheid, they nullify the legal and social status of millions of Israeli citizens, including Arab citizens, who are an integral part of the state of Israel,” he said.

*Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment and Don’t Quote Me on That” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows:
https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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The post The Day the UN Buried its Report on Apartheid in Israel appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

The 65-year-old was appointed interim ruler of South Africa's Zulu nation in March.

Produce. The Global Food Systems Summit is hoping to attract the commitment, technology and financing needed to feed all people sustainably, but organisers say managing scarce water resources will be critical to tackling hunger and achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2021 (IPS)

As the United Nations prepares for its solutions-based Global Food Systems Summit in September, officials say resolving issues around water scarcity, pollution and wastage is crucial transforming food production and consumption.

The third Global Food Systems Dialogue was held virtually on Tuesday Apr. 27  with the event’s special envoy Dr. Agnes Kalibata calling on participants to contribute “game-changing ideas” to better manage the world’s water resources.

“Water is everything. Water touches all 17 SDG’s and so it is critical to everything that we do,” she said.

Noting that water systems are under stress from exploitation, pollution and drought, said it was time for action.

“Water is life, but it is one of those sources of life around biodiversity, irrigation or whether it is the water we get from above through rain-fed agriculture, it is one of the elements of food systems that is most taken for granted. It is not appreciated for what it is worth.”

Dialogue participants discussed the links between food and water systems and explored action to tackle the water challenges that threaten food systems, protect waterways, conserve the resource and ensure water equity.

Stating that “when water is wasted, food is wasted and when water is scarce, food is scarce”, chair of the UN Water Partnership Gilbert Houngbo reminded the gathering that demand for food is rising – along with the world population.

“We know that in 2019, 690 million people went to bed hungry every night and very likely this year, the social report that is about to be released by the five agencies under the leadership of FAO, will certainly be confirming those difficult situations,” Houngbo said.

“In the past two decades, the annual amounts of available freshwater resources per person have fallen by roughly 20 percent and an estimated 3.2 billion people live in an agricultural area where water is scarce.”

Kent Falls, Connecticut, USA. The Global Food Systems Summit Dialogue on Water explored the interdependence of water and food systems and their links to SDG goals on energy, climate and the environment. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

In a March to July 2021 report, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN and the World Food Programme warned that acute hunger would soar in over 20 countries, in the absence of urgent and scaled-up assistance.

The report on early warnings on acute food security stated that already, over 34 million people are struggling with ‘emergency levels’ of acute hunger across the world. This meant that they were one step away from starvation.

The Global Food Systems Summit is hoping to attract the commitment, technology and financing needed to feed all people sustainably. Through its focus on water as the game-changer in this goal, the Global Food Systems Dialogue acknowledges that managing scarce water resources will be critical to tackling hunger and achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

“The kinds of food that we grow, store and eat, have a direct impact on water. The way in which water is used in agriculture is no longer sustainable. We know that irrigation accounts for more than 70% of global water withdrawals. Existing techniques such as rainwater harvesting or micro-irrigation can make a major difference, while new research in digital technology holds out an even greater promise for more sustainable water use in agriculture,” the UN-Water chair said.

The dialogue builds on existing global water-related goals, including those outlined in the UN Decade on Water and Sustainable Development (2018-2028). That initiative calls for urgent action to increase access to safe water and ease pressure on water resources and ecosystems.

The decade’s halfway mark will be observed in 2023 and officials are already planning for the event, as another opportunity to take stock of the world’s progress in achieving ambitious goals for water security.

“COVID-19 has again put into sharp focus, the indivisible nature of the sustainable development agenda and food and water security is at the very heart of this agenda. Water is essential when it comes to feeding our populations, with freshwater resources under increasing pressure, so are food systems,” said Yoka Brandt, Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the UN. The Netherlands is one of the host countries of the 2023 mid-term review of the Decade on Water and Sustainable Development. 

The organisers of the dialogue say by bringing together the Global Food Systems Summit and the institutions taking responsibility for water, there is greater hope for joint solutions for change in the food and water sectors – two areas experiencing turmoil and intrinsically linked.

With intensifying competition for water and climate change hurting the water sector, creating tension and inequality among the world’s most vulnerable, including the rural poor, they say without water, there will be no food and ahead of the Global Food Systems Summit in September, this dialogue on water was an urgent one.

 

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The post UN Banks on Water as the ‘Game Changer’ in Food Production and Consumption appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The Global Food Systems Dialogue on Water took place this week, with partnering stating that climate change and increased competition for water are widening inequality, especially for the rural poor

The post UN Banks on Water as the ‘Game Changer’ in Food Production and Consumption appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Young Palestinians drive their boat along the coast near the Gaza Sea port, selling boat rides as a way to earn a living. Credit: Laila Barhoum/ Oxfam

By Laila Barhoum
GAZA, Apr 29 2021 (IPS)

We were able to keep the coronavirus at bay for five months in Gaza, the densely populated Palestinian strip of land surrounded by Israel that I call home. But the Coronavirus doesn’t respect walls or artificial borders. While preparations were made for the pandemic to inevitably breach a blockade so few Palestinians can, we waited for it to come for us. And it did.

In one of the most sealed off places in the world, we knew the virus now insidiously spreading in our community could be catastrophic. In the early days the realities of over two million Palestinians, trapped between a wall and sea in Gaza, became suddenly shared with millions more around the world who were unable to leave their houses and going short on basic supplies. “Dear World, how is the lockdown? – Gaza” was trending on Twitter.

Now, like in the rest of the world, the virus is ripping through our already suffering community with a new surge calling for renewed lockdown measures – and with Ramadan beginning. But you can’t wear a mask when you don’t have one.

You can’t social distance when you live in a crowded refugee camp, or share a small house with a big family. You can’t wash your hands for 20 seconds when you don’t have enough running water. In Gaza, it’s hard to take measures to protect ourselves from a pandemic when we are already struggling to survive.

And as many countries begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel as the long-awaited vaccination programme gathers pace across the world, Gaza is once again left behind.

While Israel was celebrated globally for the leading pace of its vaccination rollout, the first shipment of 2,000 doses of the vaccine, intended for medical staff working in intensive care rooms and emergency departments, was initially blocked by Israeli authorities from entering Gaza.

For every subsequent batch of vaccines destined for our small coastal enclave, it will be Israel alone who determines whether it can enter. This is what its ‘separation policy’ means, keeping us isolated from the rest of the world and unable to break free from many chains, including the virus.

But it gets worse. As over half of the Israeli population are fully vaccinated against the Coronavirus, Israel used surplus vaccines as diplomatic bargaining chips, making deals with Czech Republic, Honduras, and Guatemala in exchange for UN votes and embassies.

Despite Israel’s vaccination campaign being extended to Palestinians with permits to work in Israel and its settlements, this does not come close to ensuring recovery in the Occupied Palestinian Territory or even covering our priority needs.

The long passage at the Erez crossing that Palestinians use to pass in and out of Gaza, when permitted. Credit: Laila Barhoum / Oxfam

Once again, Israel is refusing to effectively protect all Palestinians under its control and ensure their access to the most basic of healthcare, including an urgent vaccination campaign, that is their legal and moral obligation to provide.

This tells me and all other Palestinians across the occupied territory what we have been told so often before: that my life is viewed as inconsequential compared to Israel’s political position.

Our rights are traded away all too often to accommodate Israel, and so it is again with COVID-19. While countries around the world begin to vaccinate their citizens, Palestinians must fight to qualify as human beings who warrant even the most basic human rights. We see no indication that the world considers us deserving of a vaccine that can save our lives.

The Palestinian Authority recently received its first shipment of doses through COVAX, which are intended for healthcare workers and elderly people in the West Bank and Gaza. In the absence of a transparent Palestinian Authority COVID-19 strategy, some doses of vaccines destined for frontline workers have ended up in the hands of so called “VIP’s” – government officials, presidential guards and the Palestinian national football team.

There have been over 65,000 cases of COVID-19 in Gaza. Two months ago, as we waited and hoped for a vaccine, I became part of the statistics. After I tested positive, I was scared and I lost my sense of time and place, and kept thinking, what if it gets worse?

For almost a year I had been sounding the alarm about the poor conditions of the health system in Gaza. It was terrifying that I might need to go to the hospital for care. As my breath became shorter by the hour, I asked my lungs not to fail me. We are already failed by so many things here.

But I continue to fight and recover from the disease. And I can’t help but think about how much we need this vaccine and how it is only fair to have free and just access to it.

A safe, effective, and universal COVID-19 vaccine is a public health necessity, an economic priority, and a moral imperative for all people everywhere. Including my grandmother. including my fellow Palestinians. Including me.

Vaccines should never be bargaining chips. No one should be prevented from accessing life-saving vaccines because of where they were born, where they live, or how much money they have.

Here in Gaza, we are still trapped. Even if we get through this pandemic, I am not sure what will follow. The decisions that most shape our lives are made not by us, but by policymakers in Jerusalem, and to a lesser extent in Ramallah, Washington, and Brussels. They usually serve to increase our misery, not benefit us. No amount of strength, smarts, or ambition can overcome the powerlessness of living without rights.

A year into your pandemic lockdown, you may begin to understand what ours has been like. But your lockdown will end in the months to come. Ours has been in place for 13 years with no end in sight.

 

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The post A Free & Accessible Vaccine is Just out of Reach for Palestinians appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is a Palestinian living in Gaza and a policy officer for Oxfam.

The post A Free & Accessible Vaccine is Just out of Reach for Palestinians appeared first on Inter Press Service.

3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

By Raghbendra Jha
CANBERRA, Australia, Apr 29 2021 (IPS)

Edmund Burke called the press the fourth estate, the fourth pillar of democracy, with an oversight role on the remaining three pillars – the legislature, executive and the judiciary. In an ideal world, this fourth estate would have unimpeded access to the other three pillars so that the citizenry could be kept informed at all times. This freedom was conceived to be so sacrosanct that many countries have included it as a fundamental right, e.g., the US Constitution enshrined it as the very first amendment.

Raghbendra Jha

While this is the ideal state of affairs, even under the best of circumstances press freedoms have faced considerable challenges. The traditional newspaper is threatened by shrinking readership and concentration of ownership and control which implies that profitable markets will be served first, viz. global or at best national audiences.. There has been a considerable void in news reporting, particularly on issues affecting local populations. Other forms of media are unable to fill the gap. Television combines news with entertainment – infotainment- and traditional radio has been swamped by satellite radios. Local issues areneglected and many local media outlets including newspapers and television and radio stations are facing dire conditions. There has been a steady rise in media concentration in the past few decades https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-australias-level-of-media-ownership-concentration-one-of-the-highest-in-the-world-68437

At the same time, the emergence and now overwhelming dominance of the social media and the Internet have given rise to a sharp proliferation of media outlets. Many of these are driven by the pure short-term profit motive and are difficult to regulate. All these forms of media are facilitated by the frictionless distribution enabled by the Internet and the disruptive effects of digital transformation. There is no dearth of people active on social and regular media, including some who should know better, who will, when forming an opinion about an issue, first come to their preferred conclusion and then work their way back to selectively choose evidence to support their conclusion. The world still awaits a business model that pays for accurate content at competitive rates. The overburdening with information makes it difficult for people to use discretion in the absorption of news so that the primary objective of press freedom, i.e., keeping the citizenry informed at all times, is belied. Nevertheless, in many countries with very distorted ownership patterns of traditional media social media outlets have provided a breath of fresh air and independence, especially when elements of the traditional media are themselves accused of improper conduct and reporting.

This point brings us to the issue of pressing challenges facing journalism and press freedoms. https://orca.cf.ac.uk/94201/1/DG_FoJ-Risks%20Threats%20and%20Opportunities_JJ.pdf

The first one is personalized news feeds. Facebook and Twitter have created cultures of maximal tribalism and infinite personalization. Users can silo themselves in self-made realities while taking part in collective expression of tribal outrage that often seem bewilder outsiders. The fact that such personalization can mould the opinions of large numbers of people is particularly worrisome. Second, the 24-hour news cycle forces reporters to publish articles without proper fact-checking. Even allegedly responsible media houses have had to retract stories because of the lack of proper checking. This leads to a deeper concern. Whereas the privilege of helping the citizenry to form opinions about key public issues lies with journalists, there is an implied responsibility that the information and analysis provided by the journalist is accurate and verifiable. This does not always seem to be the case. Indeed, some journalists have been accused of spreading “fake news” by pursuing their own agendas when pursuing their vocation. There have been well-known instances of both traditional and social media outlets pursuing political advocacy. The distinction between “news” and “views” has broken down in many cases and the citizenry is often ill equipped to discern the difference.

During the on-going pandemic another very serious issue has disrupted. Violence towards journalists is an old issue but the promulgation of long lockdowns has led to explosion of serious domestic violence and mental ill-health concerns. This has been described as a pandemic within a pandemic https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2024046

Under ordinary circumstances, the explosion of these domestic issues would be an important news story. However, lockdown orders have meant that many such instances all over the world get unreported. Clearly, women are the worst victims here. In particular, it has become increasingly difficult for women journalists to report on such issues. It is ironical that although women journalists are most suited to report on occurrences of domestic and sexual violence, they are the ones with minimal access to the victims of such abuse.

Even before the pandemic journalists- particularly women journalists – have been subjected to harassment and abuse.of several types: https://www.iwmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IWMF-Global-Report.pdf

On World Press Freedom Day (May 3) there is need to ponder on these and many other issues relating to the role of the fourth estate. Freedom of the Press is invaluable in society. However, as with any other freedom, constant vigil and action are the price of this freedom. If we want a robust press this price will need to be paid.

Raghbendra Jha, Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University.

 

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The post World Press Freedom in an age of remoteness appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post World Press Freedom in an age of remoteness appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Freelance journalist Hopewell Chin'ono before testifying at Harare Magistrate Ngoni Nduna on the state of conditions at Chikurubi Maximum Prison. Credit: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights

By Sibahle Zuma
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Apr 29 2021 (IPS)

Access to accurate information is vitally important during the pandemic, so that people can understand how to protect themselves and their families, and to hold their governments to account for their response to the health emergency.

But it is clear that many governments are instead working to hamper the flow of information. Many governments have used the pandemic as a pretext to crack down on the ability of journalists to do their jobs.

While there is an understandable need to limit the spread of false information about the virus, claims of ‘fake news’ are often being used as a smokescreen to imprison journalists and censor independent media organisations critical of governments. Some worrying trends have been in Africa.

Just like the virus, the persecution of the press has no borders, affecting journalists in many countries across the region. In its latest global report, the CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks civic freedoms, documented that journalists had been detained in at least 28 African countries. This was the top civic rights violation recorded in Africa during the past year.

From Chad to Nigeria and from Somalia to Zimbabwe, journalists have been arrested for their reporting on COVID-19. In Zimbabwe, investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has been arrested three times since July 2020.

The persecution began after he published an exposé alleging corruption in the Health Ministry’s US$60 million procurement of protective equipment. Hopewell was targeted even though his reporting led to the sacking and arrest of the Health Minister.

He was rearrested in November on spurious charges of inciting anti-government protests and then again in January for a tweet alleging police brutality in lockdown enforcement. He is currently out on bail, but faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted of ‘peddling falsehoods’. Other Zimbabwean journalists have also been arrested for their reporting on the pandemic.

Hopewell Chin’ono’s lead lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa tells journalists outside the High Court that she is disappointed by the court’s decision to dismiss her client’s bail appeal. Credit: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights

Online freedom of expression for journalists has also been curtailed under the pandemic. In Nigeria, journalists have been charged under the country’s cybercrimes law for their reporting on the pandemic. In Somalia, a news editor was arrested for a social media post alleging that a hospital ventilator was transferred to the office of the Somali President.

Media outlets have been shut down, in another common tactic used to silence government critics and suppress critical reporting on state responses to the pandemic.

In Tanzania, where media outlets were regularly taken off-air or fined for not toeing the government line under the late President Maghufuli’s regime, the Communication Regulatory Authority suspended multiple outlets for their pandemic coverage, including for publishing death tolls. Tanzania’s official policy of pandemic denial under the late Magufuli saw the official counting of cases cease in the early days of the health crisis.

A similar trend was documented in Zambia, where the authorities have used COVID-19 as an opportunity to cancel the broadcast licence of the popular TV station, Prime TV, which was known for its critical coverage of the government. In April 2020, after the independent outlet’s coverage of the pandemic, the broadcast regulator cancelled the licence on public safety grounds and police prevented staff from leaving the building. The same station was suspended a year earlier for its coverage of parliamentary elections.

Instead of the repression, journalists should be recognised as key allies in debunking lethal disinformation. To make sure people are getting up-to-date, safe and relevant information about COVID-19, governments, independent media and civil society must work together to clearly define what qualifies as ‘fake news’.

Most importantly, to fight disinformation, governments must be more transparent and proactively disclose timely data on the state of the health emergency in their countries. The media must be able to access and interrogate such information.

On World Press Freedom Day, and over a year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, it is critical that independent media are able to operate freely, without fear of reprisals or detention.

Journalists are part of the solution to controlling the virus and combating disinformation. They should not be behind bars for doing their job.

 

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The post Press Freedom Vital in the Fight Against the Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is a researcher with CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance based in Johannesburg

 
3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post Press Freedom Vital in the Fight Against the Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Journalists in the line of duty. Credit: Left - UNESCO/©Thomas Hawk; Right - UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Apr 28 2021 (IPS)

Spyware’s repeated use to target journalists and those close to them poses an existential threat to the privacy required for press freedom to flourish. Without the ability to privately communicate with sources, conduct research, and compile information, journalists are hampered in their ability to keep the public informed and hold the powerful to account.

“The spyware attack revealed to me that regardless of where I am and what citizenship I hold, if the Moroccan government wants to gather surveillance, they will…It prevents you from being able to do your work because you don’t want to put people [you speak to] at risk,” said Samia Errazzouki, an editorial board member with the Moroccan Mamfakinch news site with U.S. citizenship. Errazzouki was based in the U.S. when she and 14 other Mamfakinch staff were targeted with spyware in 2012.

In March, the Committee to Protect Journalists mapped dozens of incidents where members of the media were targeted with sophisticated, secret surveillance on nearly every continent. The compiled reporting details how spyware products sold by companies based in Israel and Europe have been allegedly used by governments to reach across borders and oceans into the devices of journalists and their associates to monitor their lives without their knowledge.

“It’s not just the fear or anxiety,” said Errazzouki, who now considers the possibility of being unknowingly recorded by her devices’ cameras and microphones. “It’s real, the way it changes your everyday habits. Not changing your clothes in front of your computer. Putting your phone in a drawer to have a private conversation.…[There’s] some degree of paranoia.”

The evidence of spyware’s use against the press uncovered by investigators, including from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, Amnesty International, and Reuters, outlines a chilling threat to the privacy required for journalists to work freely.

Unbridled use of technology to access and conduct surveillance on journalists’ devices promotes fear and self-censorship, often accompanied by physical intimidation or arrests.

In 2020, Moroccan journalists Omar Radi and Maati Monjib were arrested after being targeted with spyware. Monjib was granted provisional release on March 23 following a 19-day hunger strike, but Radi remains behind bars. Another journalist in India, Anand Teltumbde, was also jailed last year following similar spyware targeting.

How the efforts to hack these journalists’ phones may have contributed to their arrests remains unclear, but their experiences illustrate the familiar, tandem nature of digital and physical threats.

In Nigeria, for example, police used call record data to lure and arrest journalists and in Ghana reporters worry that digital forensics tools will be deployed to access information on seized devices. They have reason after the Washington Post reported that Myanmar police leveraged the same technology to search the phones of two jailed Reuters journalists and the Nigerian military sought a “forensic search” for sources on editors’ phones and computers.

Without a robust defense of privacy from governments, corporate leaders, and citizens, journalists’ phones will continue to be converted from useful tools into grave vulnerabilities.

*A shorter version of this report was also published in the April 2021 edition of The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership newsletter.

 

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The post Spyware Threatens Press Freedom’s Privacy Imperative appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is a Senior Africa Researcher with the Committee to Protect Journalists*.

 
3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post Spyware Threatens Press Freedom’s Privacy Imperative appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Across the world, several key mutant strains have emerged thanks to ongoing virus replication in humans.

By External Source
Apr 28 2021 (IPS)

With more than 300,000 new COVID cases a day and hospitals and crematoria facing collapse, Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called the situation in India “beyond heartbreaking”.

India’s government has blamed the people for not following COVID-safe public health directives, but recent data shows mask use has only fallen by 10 percentage points, from a high of 71% in August 2020 to a low of 61% by the end of February.

B.1.617, or what has been called the “Indian double mutation”, has drawn attention because it contains two mutations (known as E484Q and L452R) that have been linked to increased transmissibility and an ability to evade our immune system. Many experts in India now think this is driving the surge

And the mobility index increased by about 20 percentage points, although most sectors of the economy and activity had opened up. These are modest changes and do not adequately explain the huge increase in cases.

A more likely explanation is the impact of variants that are more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

 

Variants in India

Viruses keep changing and adapting through mutations, and new variants of a virus are expected and tracked in a pandemic situation such as this.

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), a group of ten national laboratories, was set up in December 2020 to monitor genetic variations in the coronavirus. The labs are required to sequence 5% of COVID-positive samples from states and 100% of positive samples from international travellers.

The United Kingdom is currently testing about 8% of its positive samples and the United States about 4%. India has been testing about 1% altogether. INSACOG has so far tested 15,133 SARS-CoV-2 genomes. This means of every 1,000 cases, the UK has sequenced 79.5, the US 8.59, and India only 0.0552.

In the final week of December, India detected six cases of the UK variant (B.1.1.7) among international travellers.

The current second wave started in the northwestern state of Punjab in the first half of February and has not yet plateaued. One of the advisers to the Punjab government confirmed that more than 80% of the cases were attributed to the UK variant.

Significantly, the most affected districts are from Punjab’s Doaba region, known as the NRI (non-resident Indian) belt. An estimated 60-70% of the families in these districts have relatives abroad, mostly in the UK or Canada, and a high volume of travel to and from these countries.

B.1.617, or what has been called the “Indian double mutation”, has drawn attention because it contains two mutations (known as E484Q and L452R) that have been linked to increased transmissibility and an ability to evade our immune system.

Many experts in India now think this is driving the surge.

Even as India’s health ministry announced the detection of the mutants on March 24, it went on to add:

[…] these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states.

The head of the Indian Council of Medical Research said there was no reason for panic because mutations are sporadic, and not significant. That day, the states of Maharashtra and Punjab accounted for 62.5% and 4.5% of 40,715 new cases, respectively.

Across the world, several key mutant strains have emerged thanks to ongoing virus replication in humans. Both ability to replicate and transmit, and a better ability to escape our immune systems, led to the variants establishing themselves as dominant strains across geographies and populations.

The UK variant (B.1.1.7) is at least 30% more transmissible. At a recent webinar, Indian experts observed the “Indian strain” (B.1.617) is similarly transmissible to the UK variant, but there is little evidence so far of it being more lethal than the original virus.

 

Why higher transmissibility is so concerning

According to epidemiologist Adam Kucharski at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the conundrum is this:

[…] suppose 10,000 people are infected in a city and each infects 1.1 other people on average, the low end for the estimated rate of infection in England. After a month, 16,000 people would have been infected. If the infection fatality rate is 0.8%, as it was in England at the end of the first wave of infections, it would mean 128 deaths. With a variant that is 50% more deadly, those 16,000 cases would result in 192 deaths. But with a variant that is 50% more transmissible, though no more deadly, there would be 122,000 cases after a month, leading to 976 deaths.

In all likelihood, this is the current Indian scenario: a higher overall death count despite the variants being no more fatal in relative terms.

Setting up a genomic surveillance system and consistently testing 5% of the positive samples is an expensive but important tool in the journey ahead. This can help us identify emerging hotspots, track transmission and enable nimble-footed decision-making and tailored interventions.

Rajib Dasgupta, Chairperson, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Why Variants are Most Likely to Blame for India’s COVID Surge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

South Sudan men's football coach Ashu Cyprian Besong says the team are progressing a decade after being created.

His two-year extension provoked three days of clashes and forced up to 100,000 from their homes.