Africa

An official says he got separated at an airport in South Africa rather than actually being arrested.

Celestine Babayaro says while he welcomes ex-players being involved in Nigeria's coaching set-up he questions former Super Eagles team-mate Joseph Yobo's credentials.

Taxi driver Seifu Amanuel spreads his message of peace by standing in the middle of roads in Addis Ababa.

Taxi driver Seifu Amanuel spreads his message of peace by standing in the middle of roads in Addis Ababa.

Mubarak was forced out of office by an Arab Spring uprising in 2011, after 30 years in power.

Cameroon forward Christian Bassogog donates $16,000 to help Cameroonians living in areas of China hit by the coronavirus.

The University of Nairobi apologises after blaming "reckless" female students for becoming victims.

Thousands of children from different schools and colleges bring out a procession at Manik Mia Avenue expressing solidarity with the global climate strike. PHOTO: STAR/PRABIR DAS

By Saleemul Huq
Feb 26 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Bangladesh parliament, led by the parliamentary standing committee on environment, recently declared a planetary emergency in Bangladesh. This is ground breaking in that most other parliaments around the world have declared a climate change emergency, but none have also added a biodiversity emergency as the Bangladesh parliament has. So ours is a twin track emergency, not just a single track.

While this is indeed a pioneering resolution, it will mean very little unless implemented.

The climate emergency side of the twin track declaration has already received significant priority within national planning and even budgeting by virtue of the clearly visible adverse impacts of climate change that Bangladesh has already started to face over the last few years.

The good news is that the government is about to publish the revised Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), which will take us to 2030, while the original BCCSAP from 2009 has reached its end. The most important element in the revised BCCSAP is that instead of having separate and parallel funds and projects for tackling climate change, we now need to rapidly shift into mainstreaming or integrating climate change actions into all national, sectoral and local level plans, as well as into every ministry’s and agency’s workplan going forward.

The upcoming preparation of the 8th Five Year Plan is a great opportunity for the Bangladesh government to again show how to integrate climate change into all chapters of the plan, and not just a stand-alone chapter for environment and climate change.

At the same time, the ministry of finance should be lauded for preparing a climate change budget every year for the last few years, and should be encouraged to include even more ministries in the next year’s budget. It also needs to enhance the monitoring and evaluation of these expenditures to assess their actual effectiveness on the ground.

Also, non-government organisations (NGOs), private sector, education sector and media need to gear up their own actions to tackle climate change so that it is a whole-of-society effort and not just a whole-of-government effort.

Here, it is important to also point out the synergies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which, SDG 13 is explicitly about tackling climate change—hence these efforts at finding synergies across sectors will give us significant dividends in enhancing the quality of our economic development going forward.

When it comes to protecting our biodiversity, which includes both individual species of plants and animals, as well as entire habitats and ecosystems, we are unfortunately in a very bad position as we have failed to protect our natural environment because of the kind of growth we have pursued. We now stand at a very significant crossroad, where a business-as-usual attitude will lead to us losing whatever natural resources we have left in a very short period of time. Hence, protecting the environment while also growing has to be the new agenda going forward. This paradigm shift goes under several terms such as green development or Nature Based Solutions (NBS), but the label is less important than the necessity to acknowledge that every day we are destroying our natural environment bit by bit, and that this must not just stop but be reversed as soon as possible.

This is where the parliamentary standing committee on environment has a very important role to play, as it is the constitutionally mandated body to oversee that national development is protecting and not destroying our natural environment. It’s declaration of the planetary emergency has demonstrated that it is indeed very concerned about these issues. But now it needs to exert its constitutionally mandated power over the executive to ensure that it means what it says.

I would also like to add that there is an extremely energetic resource that they can harness if they wish, namely the youth of our country, starting with all the university students and then high school and even primary school students. The paradigm shift that is needed is to make this agenda everybody’s agenda and not just leave it to government authorities only.

At the same time, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has an extremely important role to play within the government, where its role is to try to protect the natural environment against forces, often other powerful ministries within the government, who want to get permission to build over natural habitats. I must say that over the last few decades, the different heads of the ministry have recognised their duty and done their best to try and protect the environment, but have often failed against the desires of powerful interests, both within as well as outside the government.

Hence, we have to realise that protecting our natural environment requires us to fight the forces who want to destroy it in every way possible, from within the government by the MOEFCC, and outside it by conscious citizens, who will oppose any visible destruction of the natural habitat that they see happening anywhere in the country.

The most effective means of protecting our natural environment is for every citizen to see it as her or his duty to do so. I believe we can do it.

Saleemul Huq is Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Protecting the environment should be everyone’s concern appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The UN warns that time is short to stop locusts threatening food supplies in some countries.

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Feb 26 2020 (IPS)

The Environmental Defence Fund and its partners in conservation are this month celebrating a major milestone in Belize’s efforts to safeguard its fisheries.

On Feb. 14, the Belizean Parliament passed into law the Fisheries Resources Act that establishes legal safeguards for marine protected areas and that country’s managed access programme for fishers. The Central American country of Belize was a pioneer in 2016 in bringing its entire territorial waters under a system of licensed fishing rights that gave fishers designated spots.

Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist at the EDF, tells Voices from the Global South that this new law is a win-win for all, since the marine protected areas and the managed access programme reinforce each other, ensuring the livelihood of Belizean fishers. In this Voices from the Global South Podcast, IPS Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser speaks to Rader about the problems the law will solve and the ways Belize and neighbouring countries will benefit.

The post Belize Passes Milestone Law to Safeguard Fisheries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

More than 1,500 people claim asylum in the UK each year, claiming that they are persecuted for being gay. But it's not an easy thing to prove.

The price of tomatoes have skyrocketed in East Africa in recent weeks after floods ruined crops.

Ninteeen-year-old Canada international Alphonso Davies tells Football Focus about his journey from refugee to Bayern Munich.

Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

Recently, Nigerian feminist author Ukamaka Olisakwe spoke about her post-partum depression after giving birth in the city of Aba, southeast Nigeria. This follows her 2019 Longreads essay, in which she narrated painful details of her experience. 

In 2007, Olisakwe was 24 years old when she had her first encounter with post-partum depression. She had just given birth to her first child of three – a daughter.

Olisakwe’s experience convinced her that, No one really cares about how the women feel, if they are still haunted by the memories of childbirth, how they are coping with the immense bodily changes, if they are emotionally ready to have sex, if they even want to go through pregnancy ever again. They are expected to perform their roles as virtuous wives and good mothers, or they’ll fall short of societal expectations, of which the consequences are grave.

Post-partum depression is a mental health disorder. It is much more than baby blues. Globally, 13% of women who give birth experience post-partum depression. In some U.S. states, prevalence can be as high as 20%. In South Africa, up to 40% of women suffer from post-partum depression.

Post-partum depression is a neglected part of mental health. It is hardly spoken about. In most cultures, women who suffer post-partum depression are stigmatized and made to feel unworthy

According to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, symptoms of post-partum depression include; crying more often than usual, feelings of anger, withdrawing from loved ones, feeling numb or disconnected from your baby, worrying that you will hurt the baby and feeling guilty about not being a good mom or doubting your ability to care for the baby.

It could also present with other symptoms of depression such as, thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts, difficulty falling asleep or sleeping too much and overeating or loss of appetite.

On the extreme end,  a few women have harmed themselves and their loved ones. In 2014, for instance, a woman named Carol suffering from post-partum psychosis stabbed and killed her three children aged 2 years, 1 year and 3 months. In 2016, another woman named Elizabeth committed suicide, after months of battling post-partum depression.

Without a doubt, post-partum depression is a neglected part of mental health. It is hardly spoken about. In most cultures, women who suffer post-partum depression are stigmatized and made to feel unworthy.

They are made to keep caring for their children, husbands and families despite suffering a serious disability, which dangerously impacts their quality of life. Women who suffer post-partum depression suffer in silence. When they cry out for help, society and health systems don’t listen.

It’s’ time to listen. We must help prevent post-partum depression and provide care to sufferers. These are ways to achieve both.

Post-partum depression diagnoses and treatment must be included in Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) projects. Right now, it is hard to find a project with treatment of post-partum depression as a core component.

Between 2008 to 2010, for instance, I was part of a MNCH project in Nigeria, which focused on managing excessive bleeding after birth in communities and health facilities. Post-partum depression was not a part of that project. With hindsight, I can imagine the number of women who gave birth, looked “okay” but could have been battling post-partum depression. This makes me feel bad. A decade later, these kinds of services are still lacking.

Donors that fund MNCH programs should work with governments and ensure that such services are available to pregnant women and mothers. It is no longer a question of whether post-depression would happen, we know up to 40% of women who give birth will suffer this mental health disorder.

Community education to improve awareness on post-partum depression must be redesigned to show how serious it is. Governments, donors, private sector and community based organisations should work with communities, religious and traditional leaders to dismantle patriarchal cultures that perpetuate this mental disorder. As Olisakwe mentioned in her recent interview, “I think not discussing postpartum depression is the legacy of patriarchy, not the illness itself”.

There should be open non-judgmental discussions about post-partum depression and sufferers should not be shamed but supported to heal. Referral systems for mental health treatment should be established to cater for the women who would require such specialized care.

Communities must understand that not all women have same birth experiences. Therefore, every woman deserves individualized support during pregnancy, birth and afterwards.

Male involvement in pregnancy, childbirth and after birth should be institutionalized. Involving men leads to better outcomes for women. In Nigeria, Tolu Adeleke, popularly known as “Tolu the Midwife” champions male involvement.

Through her interventions, she organizes couples antenatal classes and dads’ antenatal classes. Topics covered during these classes include, what to expect when you are expecting, partner’s role in pregnancy, partner’s role at birth, breastfeeding and partner roles, postnatal recovery and adjusting to life with a newborn.

Parental leave should be non-negotiable. After 9 months of pregnancy, women and their partners need time off work to recover while caring for their newborns. All countries should emulate Finland’s parental leave laws which give each parent 7 months of leave after a child’s birth. This is a good way to involve men in caring for new mothers and newborn.

There is no time to waste, too many women are suffering in silence and crying out for help. It took Ukamaka 17 years of suffering in silence before she was able to write and speak about her experience.

Post-partum depression is a mental health disorder. It should be accorded the recognition it deserves. Period.

 

The post Let’s Prevent Post-partum Depression and Provide Care to Those in Need appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is a medical doctor, the CEO of EpiAFRIC, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Nigeria Health Watch

The post Let’s Prevent Post-partum Depression and Provide Care to Those in Need appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Zimbabwe is barred from hosting any international matches until further notice after its main stadiums fail to meet required standards.

Their population has fallen sharply since Kenya began exporting donkey meat and hide to China.

Tanzanian investigative journalist, Erick Kabendera has finally been released from jail after seven months in prison. Courtesy: Amnesty International

By Isaiah Esipisu
KAMPALA, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

After six months in prison, Tanzanian investigative journalist Erick Kabendera has finally been released at a cost of $118,000.

Kabendera was arrested in July 2019 after police claimed that his citizenship was in question.

“We are holding him (Erick Kabendera) for questioning because authorities are doubting his citizenship. We are communicating with the immigration department for further measures,” Regional police commissioner Lazaro Mambosasa told journalists soon after the arrest.

However, when he appeared in court a week later he was charged with leading an organised criminal gang, money laundering and failure to pay taxes.

According to the charge sheet, the journalist “knowingly furnished assistance in the conduct of affairs of a criminal racket, with intent either to reap profit or other benefit”.

In a twist of events, the charge against his citizenship was dropped, and he was later cleared of charges for leading a criminal gang. This left him with the charges of economic crimes which included money laundering and tax evasion.

After postponing his case a number of times, the Director of Public Prosecution on Monday Feb. 24 accepted Kabendera’s plea bargain application, which paved the way for the Kisutu Magistrate’s Court to begin hearing his case.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of money laundering and was fined TZS100 million ($43,000), which he paid, thereby securing his freedom.

However, according to reports, the court slapped him with another fine of 250,000 shillings ($108) for evading tax, and a further 173 million shillings ($75,000) in compensation for the tax evasion, bringing the total fine to about $118,000.

“We welcome his release, but we are deeply concerned about the hefty fines levied against him,” Muthoki Mumo, the sub-Saharan Africa representative to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told IPS in an interview.

Amid speculations that Kabendera pleaded guilty to the crimes due to frustrations of being held indefinitely, Mumo said that she would leave that for the accused to say. “I am hesitant to speak on his behalf because I do not know the circumstances under which he pleaded guilty,” she told IPS.

Amnesty International also welcomed the news of Kabendera’s release, also criticising the fines levied against him.

“It is outrageous that he had to pay such a hefty fine to gain his freedom after having been unjustly jailed for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

“Kabendera’s mother died while he was in custody shortly after she was filmed pleading with President John Magufuli to let her son free. He has already suffered so much simply for doing his job and should have been released unconditionally. There is absolutely no justice in what transpired in the Dar es Salaam court today,” Amnesty International Director for East and Southern Africa Deprose Muchena said in a statement.

Kabendera also reportedly suffered illness while in jail.

His detention became a concern for many individuals and organisations, including the United States Embassy and the British High Commission in Tanzania.

In a joint statement, they said, “The U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission are deeply concerned about the steady erosion of due process in Tanzania, as evidenced by the ever more frequent resort to lengthy pre-trial detentions and shifting charges by its justice system.”

“We are particularly concerned about a recent case — the irregular handling of the arrest, detention, and indictment of investigative journalist Erick Kabendera, including the fact that he was denied access to a lawyer in the early stages of his detention, contrary to the Criminal Procedures Act.”

Attempts to reach Kabendera’s family by IPS went unanswered today. But Kabendera reportedly said after the release, “Finally I’ve got my freedom, it’s quite unexpected that I would be out this soon. I’m really grateful to everybody who played their role.”

According to Reporters Without Borders, since Magufuli became president of Tanzania in 2015 the country has suffered an unprecedented decline in press freedom, as the president refuses to tolerate criticism of himself or his policies.

Kabendera has been one of his critics. Prior to his arrest, Kabendera, who also wrote for international news agencies such as the Guardian, the Independent and the local East African, had published an article in The Economist Intelligence Unit about the nation’s president entitled: ‘John Magufuli is bulldozing Tanzania’s freedom’. 

It will be remembered that during Magufuli’s second year in office, the Media Services Act was passed. The law allows for harsh penalties for content deemed defamatory, seditious or illegal.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International, the Media Services Act, 2016, enhances censorship, violates the right to information and limits scrutiny of government policies and programmes.

“From 2016, the Tanzania government has used the Media Service Act to close, fine and suspend at least six media outlets for publishing reports on allegations of corruption and human rights violations and the state of Tanzania’s economy,” reads part of the report.

In 2018, the government approved another law to regulate content posted online. According to the new rule, Tanzanians operating online radio stations and video (TV) websites, including bloggers are required to apply for a licence, pay a licence fee upon registration as well as annual fees, totalling about $900 a year.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International is urging Tanzania’s regional and international partners and human rights mechanisms to put pressure on the authorities to ensure that the human rights situation in the country does not deteriorate further, including by strongly and publicly condemning the growing human rights violations and abuses and raising individual cases with government officials.

Last year Amnesty International reported that Tanzania had “withdrawn the right of individuals and NGOs to directly file cases against it at the Arusha-based African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights” in a move said to block the ability for individuals and NGOs to seek redress for human rights violations.  

The arrest of Kabendera, according to analysts, could be a strategy by the government to instil fear in journalists who are critiques of the government and its policies.

Related Articles

• Tanzania Switches Track, Charges Kabendera with Economic Crimes
• Tanzania Detains Freelancer Kabendera over ‘Citizenship’
• Investigative Journalist Erick Kabendera Arrested
• When Being ‘Offensive’ or ‘Morally Improper’ Online Carries an Indeterminate Jail Sentence in East Africa

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Top-flight Egyptian side Zamalek face punishment after failing to turn up to the Cairo derby against rivals Al Ahly on Monday.

The former president, who was ousted by the military in 2011, has died in hospital in Cairo aged 91.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

Meeting the President of the Republic of Korea in September 2019, President Donald J Trump bragged that the “US economy is the envy of the world”. Trump reiterated such claims in his State of the Union address in early February, hailing his own policies with typical humility.

Anis Chowdhury

Trump touted US economic success at the Davos World Economic Forum in January as “nothing short of spectacular”, asserting “I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Facts hardly matter
To the contrary, US economic growth slowed after Trump started the ‘trade war’ with China, dropping from 3.5% in the second quarter of 2018 to 2.1% in the last quarter of 2019, much less than the 5.5% per annum peak in the second quarter of 2014 during the Obama presidency.

Meanwhile, annual growth declined from 2.9% in 2018 to 2.3% in 2019. Growth in Trump’s first three years was well below the Clinton era (1993-2000) average around 4%, the highest for any presidency in the last half century, although growth was even higher at times in earlier years.

Obama inherited a recession following the global financial crisis from September 2008, with the deepest post-war contraction when real GDP fell by about -4% p.a. in the second quarter of 2009. The US economy then turned around by the end of that year.

While US growth peaked under Obama at almost 4% p.a. in the first quarter of 2015, Trump’s peak in the last three years was around 3% p.a. in mid-2018.

Making America great again?
The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank all expect the US economy to continue slowing to 1.7-1.8% annually in 2020-2021. US manufacturing growth slowed to its lowest level in almost a decade in August 2019 as the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) signalled contraction for the first time since September 2009.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Meanwhile, with its agricultural sector experiencing higher levels of farm debt, the number of US farm bankruptcies grew by a fifth in 2019, from 498 in 2018 to 595, despite the government’s US$28 billion bailout for farmers, double the 2009 bailout of its Big Three automobile producers.

The US Congressional Research Service doubts that the supply-side incentive effects of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, mainly benefiting the wealthiest 10% of Americans, will be as significant as he claims.

Much of the funds released by the tax cut have been used for a record-breaking spree of stock buybacks, worth more than US$1 trillion in the first quarter of 2019, augmented by easy money policies.

In December 2019, the IMF noted that “Global growth recorded its weakest pace since the global financial crisis a decade ago” despite monetary policy easing all round.

Meanwhile, slower global growth has been increasingly blamed everywhere on the US-China trade war. Hence, while Trump’s attempts to ‘make America great again’ have largely failed to lift US growth, they have been harming the rest of the world.

Election economics
President Trump kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign at an Orlando, Florida rally in June 2019 with his characteristic modesty, claiming that the US economy under his watch was “perhaps the greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country”.

To enhance his appeal, Trump has successfully pressured the US Federal Reserve to keep monetary policy and credit conditions ‘easy’. However, the funds have not gone into productive investments, but instead to portfolio investments, mergers, acquisitions and share buybacks, transferring more wealth and income to the rich.

Trump has also been repeatedly promising more tax cuts, ostensibly for the “middle-class”. His economic advisor, Larry Kudlow told Fox News that Trump wants to give the middle class a 10% tax cut in September, weeks before the polls.

Meanwhile, Trump has claimed victory and struck a less aggressive tone on international trade conflicts, declaring the end of hostilities with China in January after concluding the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), with some minor, largely cosmetic changes to the preceding North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

But he has also turned on Europe, threatening at Davos to levy huge tariffs on European car imports. This was followed by another threat from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to punish European countries that have the audacity to tax American digital firms.

The art of the ordeal
Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s blatant schadenfreude over the coronavirus outbreak that it could boost US jobs is telling. The coronavirus pandemic has shut down Chinese businesses and ports as efforts to contain the pandemic wreck China’s manufacturing supply chains.

Under the US-China Phase-One trade deal, China will increase imports of US farm goods by US$32 billion over two years, enhancing his appeal to the US rural farm vote.

So, if anything goes wrong, Trump can always blame China or the pandemic for any shortfalls, while heroically claiming to be protecting the US from a new Chinese threat. Meanwhile, Trump seems likely to ratchet up his rhetoric against Europe’s farmers.

To mitigate the economic impacts of the trade conflicts and the coronavirus outbreak, other countries, including China, are further easing monetary policy. The US Fed can thus more easily remain dovish, at least until November, ensuring more buoyant equity markets, and helping Trump’s re-election prospects.

The Donald has much reason to grin again.

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