Africa

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It is "great news", Kenneth Macharia's MP says, but there is still a "lot of work to be done".

The Moroccan confessed to feeding his remains to Pakistani workers in the UAE in a traditional dish.

The reality star and model is launching a skin-lightening cream in Nigeria.

Eminent photographer Shahidul Alam walks out of Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj last night, five days after the High Court granted him bail in a case filed under the ICT Act. Photo: Palash Khan

By The Daily Star, Correspondent
Nov 21 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

After 107 days in jail, acclaimed photographer Shahidul Alam was finally released last night, five days after he had secured permanent bail from the High Court.

He walked out of Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj around 8:20pm, following a daylong confusion over his release.

Shahidul hugged his wife Rahnuma Ahmed who, along with their relatives, his students, well-wishers and lawyers, had been waiting at the jail gate since 11:00am.

He raised his fist in the air as they welcomed him with bouquets.

In an instant reaction, Shahidul said, “We expect that in independent Bangladesh, people will be able to speak freely. If that does not happen, being inside [jail] or out in the open is the same.”

Asked how he had been in jail, he said, “I was so-so. Others’ conditions were much worse.”

A smiling Shahidul then thanked all those who spoke for his freedom at home and abroad.

His lawyers said the release order reached jail authorities around 11:30am. However, around 2:30pm, the authorities said the address on the document did not match with that on the jail documents.

They then sent the order back to a Dhaka court for correction. The corrected copy came back around 5:55pm, they said.

Talking to The Daily Star, Rahnuma said a jail official called them over phone around 7:30pm and said her husband would not be released. The official told them to come again around 10:00am today.

However, the official again called them around 8:00pm and told them to go near the jail gate. By that time, many of those waiting outside had left, she said.

Shahidul came out around 20 minutes later.

Rahnuma also said both the addresses were correct. One was the present address while other was the permanent one.

Senior Superintendent of Dhaka Central Jail Iqbal Kabir Chowdhury said they received the release order from a Dhaka court yesterday morning, but could not let Shahidul go as the order had “some mistakes”.

Shahidul, also the founder of Drik Gallery and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, was picked up on August 5 from his Dhanmondi home in the capital during a widespread demonstration for safe roads.

Police filed a case against the 63-year-old under section 57 of the ICT Act and produced him before a Dhaka court the following day. He was then placed on a seven-day remand. Police charged him with “spreading propaganda and false information against the government”.

His arrest and imprisonment sparked outrage and condemnation at home and abroad.

The noted photographer obtained permanent bail from the High Court on November 15 following a petition by him.

On Monday, the government filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the High Court verdict that granted him permanent bail.

Meanwhile, in response to Shahidul’s release, Saad Hammadi, Amnesty International’s Regional Campaigner for South Asia, in a statement, said, “Shahidul Alam is a bold representation of Bangladesh through his lens. He should not have been detained in the first place.

“Bangladesh authorities must immediately drop charges against Shahidul Alam and uphold its international commitments to protect the right to freedom of expression,” he added.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Shahidul Alam: Freedom at last appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Eresh Omar Jamal
Nov 21 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Sultana Kamal, lawyer and human rights activist, member of CPD board of trustees, former Executive Director of Ain o Salish Kendra, and former advisor to the caretaker government of Bangladesh, talks to Eresh Omar Jamal of The Daily Star about the upcoming national elections and the state of human rights in Bangladesh.

Sultana Kamal. Photo: Anisur Rahman

In a report released on October 19, Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed concern over the government taking a number of steps ahead of the national elections which it believes will have “a chilling effect on speech”. What are your thoughts on their assessment?

In your question you have not spelled out what exactly are the steps taken by the government ahead of the national elections that the HRW is fearing will have a chilling effect on people’s freedom of expression. I presume they are referring to the random, arbitrary arrests of social activists as well as the members and supporters of the opposition political parties and implicating them in anti-State cases. They have been very random as many of the accused in such cases are known to have died already. These cases have been termed as “ghost cases”.

Police excess in controlling meetings and rallies of the opposition could also be an example here. In our current political culture where there is every reason to believe that police actions normally are manifestations of the wish of the ruling party, the Human Rights Watch quite justifiably sees these as steps taken by the government to have serious effect on people’s freedom of expression.

In addition to the above, the other concern the Human Rights Watch may have in mind over which we could not agree with them more, obviously relates to the passing of the Digital Security Act (DSA). This Act, as had been promised by the government, was supposed to replace the previously passed ICT Act, Section 57 of which was notoriously misused by the government and its supporters to stop dissent and shun any criticism against them. It is worrying to note that even after passing the DSA, the cases filed under Section 57 of the ICT Act remain in force.

Coming back to the DSA, Bangladesh now has this regressive Act giving police unlimited power, as illustrated in a write up of the Sampadak Parishad, “to enter premises, search offices, bodily search persons, seize computers, computer networks, servers, and everything related to the digital platforms.” Aided by this Act the police on the ground can arrest anybody even on suspicion without warrant—not requiring to seek approval of any authorities. It’s worth remembering that the responsible ministers of the government under the pressure of concerned citizens and journalists sat with the Sampadak Parishad with a view to review the Act but unfortunately did nothing to bring the desired changes. This kind of dependence of the government on police is most unbecoming of a democracy.

This attitude of the government of demonstrating its will to not allow people to speak their minds without fear sends serious signals to everyone concerned. It has a far-reaching effect in curbing people’s freedom of expression and other civil liberties, eventually negatively influencing them in freely exercising their right to vote during the elections. In a weak democracy like Bangladesh where political parties are not sure of their power base, all parties in power across the border unfortunately tend to follow the same strategy of silencing the people’s voice by taking such actions.

It may not be out of context to note here that the dialogues that were held in the meantime among the opposing political alliances ended without any conclusive decision. This happened, in my opinion, due to the lack of political will of the main parties to use the opportunity to seriously dedicate their focus and everything else towards holding a free and fair election. From what we gather from the media, the parties were more determined in re-asserting what they have been saying to each other in their public speeches rather than discussing ways to meet the election challenges posed in front of them.

Over the last months, we have seen a number of police cases being filed against leaders and activists belonging to opposition political parties. Some of them were filed against individuals who were abroad at the time they are said to have committed a crime, or who had earlier passed away. What effect can this have on voter confidence?

Well, people mainly depend on the police for safety and security on the day of polling. It is the police that is entrusted with the sacred duty of ensuring an atmosphere for the voters to feel confident that the election is being held in a free and fair environment where they can cast their votes without the fear of their votes being rigged or manipulated—physically or technically. It is therefore important that they find people with integrity around them for the desired protection.

Police actions, as described in your question, certainly have a negative impact in the confidence level of voters which manifests in the fear and anxiety expressed by them in relation to the election time. This is particularly true of the religious and ethnic minorities, women and supporters of the opposition parties who, without exception, become victims of violence and have their rights violated in the pre, during as well as post-election periods. In the past, we have seen these people not being given timely or proper protection by the police.

In your view, have the different political parties been emphasising enough on human rights in their appeal to voters?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Not only in their appeals to voters, in general even, as it seems from the discourses of the different political parties, human rights are placed quite low in their list of priorities. In their appeal to voters the emphasis of the different political parties is on development which, to many, lacks reflection of human rights values to a considerable extent.

As I said earlier, the aim of the political parties is to win the elections at any cost. Unfortunately, our elections with very few exceptions have been characterised by dependence on money, muscle and manipulation. In such an atmosphere, human rights is not given a fair chance.

Only recently in one of the TV talk-shows, a very high-ranking police officer when asked to comment on remarks made by human rights activists about escalation of human rights violation in the country, responded by saying that he finds these comments “irritating and ridiculous”. Such statements coming from a high-ranking police officer clearly demonstrate the degree of apathy and disrespect officers and politicians have towards human rights. Promotion and protection of human rights evidently are placed in subordination to all other priorities of the power centric political culture that the political parties have embraced so dearly.

Rights violations have taken place under every regime. Even though we’ve seen the party in power change, why is it that we don’t see any meaningful improvement in the government upholding the basic rights of citizens?

It all depends on the state of democracy in a society whether the State will seriously dedicate itself to upholding the basic rights of the citizens. In Bangladesh, historically, because of repeated interference by undemocratic forces in political processes, democracy was not allowed to take root in society.

Hence we are confronted with socio-political and cultural conditions that permit the State to undermine the norms of human rights without having to answer for the lapses. This was originally facilitated by the rehabilitation of the anti-liberation forces accused of war crimes in every sphere of our life. They were not simply allowed to return to the country but were rehabilitated with power and opportunities to infiltrate into our political, social and economic fabric, and to mould our culture to embrace the character of intolerance towards the “others”. The fundamental principle of respect for equal rights and dignity of all somehow ceased to bear much value to the power centric political forces. Which is why we do not see any meaningful improvement in the government upholding the basic rights of citizens.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post ‘In Bangladesh, democracy was not allowed to take root’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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The post Solar Energy Drives Social Development in Brazil’s Favelas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sea level rise threatens Raolo island in the Solomon Islands. The ongoing negative effects of climate change, inadequate agricultural, industrial and household waste management, to name but a few, all threaten and undermine the promise of the Blue Economy. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Cameron Diver
NEW CALEDONIA, Nov 20 2018 (IPS)

We live on a “blue planet” where water covers around 75 percent of the Earth’s surface. Without water we would simply not survive as a species. As we strive to find pathways to and take action for inclusive sustainable development, we must ensure that our ocean, our seas, rivers, lakes, waterways and wetlands, together with their invaluable biodiversity, are preserved, sustainably used and integrated into development programming.

Above all, we should understand, value and harness these natural pillars of the Blue Economy as answers to many development challenges, as solutions to help us achieve the ambition of the Paris Agreement, deliver a new deal for nature and people, and reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Blue Economy has enormous potential as a driver of economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection, but it is also faced with immense challenges.

The ongoing negative effects of climate change, inadequate agricultural, industrial and household waste management, plastic and chemical pollution, corruption and lack of robust water governance mechanisms, the alarming rate of biodiversity loss in global ecosystems and sometimes wilful ignorance of scientific evidence and advice, to name but a few, all threaten and undermine the promise of the Blue Economy.

There are inspiring examples worldwide of action to clean up waterways, restore habitat and create clean environments for economic and recreational activities. But you don’t have to be a wealthy developed country to share the same ambition or achieve similar outcomes.

Here are just a few examples from the Pacific region, whose large ocean/small island states are taking up the challenge, all the while dealing with the immediate impact of climate change, natural disasters and the very real tyranny of distance.

The Pacific Islands are uniquely vulnerable to the environmental impacts of maritime transport due to their reliance on shipping and the fact that many ports in island contexts are located both in the main urban area and in fragile coastal ecosystems like lagoons.

Through programmes like our Green Pacific Port initiative my organisation, the Pacific Community, is helping its Member States address these issues through improved efforts to increase port energy efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint, and enhanced environmental management including marine pollution and waste management.

In the tiny archipelago of Wallis and Futuna, the issue of used oils, batteries and saturated landfill was prioritised by local authorities due to its potential repercussions on the quality of the aquifer, lagoon and coastal water, and of course marine biodiversity.

Working alongside local communities and decision makers, our teams contributed to developing multiple measures to remove hazardous waste from the islands. A viable export business was set up to process this type of waste and, on the island of Futuna, the landfill was closed and underwent site remediation.

In the agriculture sector Pacific Island countries are also tackling threats to soil quality, plant life and water resources. In Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Samoa we are helping develop and implement innovative approaches using soft chemicals and biocides to target specific pests and diseases without affecting other forms of biodiversity and significantly lessening the environmental impact.

Alongside other partners, the Pacific Community contributed to the 2018 Pacific Marine Climate Change Report Card. The Report Card provides an easy to access summary of climate change impacts on coasts and seas in the Pacific region.

It also highlights the critical nexus between the ocean and climate change and underscores the significant threat that deteriorating marine and coastal biodiversity would present for livelihoods, health, culture, wellbeing and infrastructure.

It also proposes are range of responses Pacific Islands can adopt such as: building resilience to unavoidable climate change impacts on coral reefs, mangroves and seas grass by reducing non-climate threats and introducing protected areas; working with communities to diversify fisheries livelihoods and restore and preserve fish habitats; optimising the sustainable economic benefits from tuna through regional management.

For the large ocean/small island States of the Pacific region the ocean is at the heart of their identity: “We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth”. Through the Blue Pacific narrative, Oceania’s Leaders seek to harness the potential of Pacific peoples’ shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean based on an explicit recognition of their shared ocean identity, ocean geography, and ocean resources.

The Blue Economy must therefore contribute to the Blue Pacific identity and help fulfil a higher ambition for regionalism and sustainable development based first and foremost on the deep-rooted bond between the peoples of the Pacific, the land, the ocean and biodiversity.

In this context, the Pacific Community and our partners provide scientific and technical expertise and advice for evidence-based policy making and sustainable solutions tailored to the needs of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories. Globally, as in the Pacific, we must ensure that the Blue Economy is more than a slogan, more than a concept encouraging sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth.

It must become a concrete reality where decisions are informed by science and the best available evidence. We must use the Blue Economy so that nature and the environment are not sacrificed for short-term political or economic gain but leveraged for long-term sustainable growth and development.

We must truly transform the promise of the Blue Economy from the page and the conference hall to tangible and integrated climate action, ocean action and biodiversity action to guarantee a sustainable future for our planet and, as a consequence, ourselves.

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The post The Blue Economy for the Blue Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Cameron Diver is the Deputy Director-General of the Pacific Community (SPC).

The post The Blue Economy for the Blue Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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The block M24 (Camp 20) mosque is one of the community structures upgraded by IOM, with funding from ECHO, to provide temporary shelter for Rohingya refugees during emergencies. Photo: IOM

By International Organization for Migration
Cox’s Bazar, Nov 20 2018 (IOM)

Dozens of community buildings in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps have been upgraded by shelter teams from IOM, the UN Migration Agency, to provide temporary accommodation for refugees in emergency situations.

Seventy buildings have now been completed under the first phase of the project, supported by the European Union (EU), offering temporary shelter space for over 4,500 people.

The upgraded structures will allow IOM shelter and site management teams to provide better protection for refugees if they are affected by landslides, floods, bad weather or other unexpected events that force them to leave their own shelters.

Mohammed Nur, 36, a maji or community representative, said: “If weather conditions turn bad and storms destroy our shelters, people from our area will be able to stay here safely for a few days. It is a relief for all of us.”

In a second phase of community shelter upgrade work, to be funded by the United Kingdom, a further 100 buildings will undergo improvements. Once completed, the 170 strengthened structures will be able to accommodate 10,000 people with urgent shelter needs.

The facilities will also serve as a temporary accommodation for families whose shelters need to be repaired or completely re-built in the coming months, as the dry season offers a window of opportunity to tackle damage inflicted during the monsoon season.

“IOM and partners have provided over 100,000 households with materials to help them upgrade their own shelters. But weather and environmental conditions in the camps mean tens of thousands of families live with the knowledge that their shelters could be damaged or destroyed at any time,” said Manuel Pereira, IOM’s Emergency Coordinator in Cox’s Bazar.

“Ensuring we have secure and stable buildings in which people can safely take shelter if disaster strikes is hugely important under such circumstances. This project means that even though people are living in very uncertain conditions, if the worst happens, we are still able to offer them a safe haven.”

The EU funding was provided by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) under a consortium project implemented by IOM, the German Red Cross, and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The Disaster Risk Reduction consortium was established to mitigate against disasters among refugee and local communities affected by the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Almost a million Rohingya are currently living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, after escaping violence in Myanmar, which surged in late August 2017 sending over 500,000 people fleeing across the border in just a few weeks. The region is prone to some of the worst monsoon conditions on earth and undergoes two cyclone seasons each year.

Most Rohingya live in what has become the largest refugee settlement in the world – a desperately overcrowded environment on ground prone to landslides and flooding. People living in local villages, where infrastructure has been severely overstretched since the arrival of so many people in a very short period, also face ongoing risk of environmental and other disasters.

For more information please contact Fiona MacGregor at IOM Cox’s Bazar. Email: fmacgregor@iom.int, Tel: +88 0 1733 33522

The post IOM Creates Emergency Safe Havens for Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugees appeared first on Inter Press Service.

St. Lucia's iconic Pitons, a World Heritage Site, located in Soufriere in the south of the island. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have been poorly placed to take advantage of the blue economy.They face acute development challenges; small population size, limited opportunities to diversify their economies, inability to achieve economies of scale in production, weak institutional capacity. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS

By Cyrus Rustomjee
WINDSOR, England, Nov 20 2018 (IPS)

The blue economy—a concept and economic model that balances economic development with equity and environmental protection, and one that uses marine resources to meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own—is not a new idea.

Already the global blue economy, through fisheries, aquaculture, coastal and marine tourism, ports, shipping, marine renewable energy and many other activities, generates global value added of over USD1.5 trillion, a figure that is projected to double by 2030.

But so far, the world’s almost 50 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have been poorly placed to take advantage of the blue economy.

They face acute development challenges; small population size, limited opportunities to diversify their economies, inability to achieve economies of scale in production, weak institutional capacity.

Many are among the world’s most remote countries with disproportionately high transport costs severely reducing opportunities for trade.

Most face disproportionately high impacts from climate change and adverse weather events. There is an irony and paradox in this: collectively, 10 Caribbean SIDS together enjoy an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 1.25 million square kilometres.

That’s a sea area exclusively available to these countries to develop, of 23 times their collective land area. For 12 Pacific SIDS the opportunity is even greater, with EEZs totalling an enormous 16.8 million square kilometres – on average 31 times their collective land area.

Constrained by these and other factors, SIDS have seen little of the potential benefits of the blue economy. But with the blue economy concept quickly gaining global attention as an opportunity for sustainable, transformative economic development, all that may soon change.

The first global Sustainable Blue Economy Conference (SBEC) will take place in Nairobi in late-November, bringing together almost all countries involved in the blue economy, civil society, the private sector, international financial institutions and other stakeholders.

The purpose: to find ways to accelerate the blue economy and to share more widely the prosperity, job opportunities and the promise the blue economy offers for transformative development. It’s a huge opportunity for SIDS and a potential game-changer for their future development path.

There have been many global ocean-related conferences, including several United Nations-led events, before – so what’s different about the SBEC?

For SIDS and other developing countries, for the first time global focus will move beyond an overarching preoccupation with one critical component of the blue economy on which all stakeholders agree – the urgent and imperative quest to protect the world’s oceans and waterways from further deterioration and to restore ocean health. Focus will also be on identifying how to best increase growth and jobs, reduce poverty and make blue economy opportunities available to a much wider range of countries and stakeholders.

For SIDS, the opportunity and the stakes could not be higher. A successful conference could help unshackle many of the constraints that have long held back their blue economy aspirations. It sets a course for a long-term systematic transformation from terrestrially-based economies, to ocean economies that integrate land, coast and sea space; and could put in motion a sustained process of transition.

Dr Cyrus Rustomjee says for SIDS, the opportunity and the stakes at Sustainable Blue Economy Conference could not be higher. A successful conference could help unshackle many of the constraints that have long held back their blue economy aspirations. Courtesy: Cyrus Rustomjee

Four key outcomes from the SBEC will serve as critical measures of success for SIDS and as key pointers to the pace and scale of their future progress toward the blue economy.

First, renewed, repositioned partnerships for SIDS. Through the U.N. SIDS and Ocean conferences, over 1,400 SIDS partnerships have already been established, with about a third focused on Sustainable Development Goal 14 – Life Underwater. But most focus on knowledge transfer and the bulk are yet to be implemented. Success at the SBEC will see accelerated implementation of existing commitments and the establishment of more partnerships directly focused on creating and supporting marine and coastal projects in SIDS.

Second, strengthened regional and international initiatives to ensure effective cross-border and multi-jurisdictional governance and oversight of the blue economy. The blue economy has little respect for national borders. Several fish species are themselves highly migratory and many blue economy activities, including fisheries, require cross-border, multi-jurisdictional oversight and cooperation. Overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, for example, have all severely limited SIDS and other developing countries’ ability to reap the full gains from fisheries. For SIDS, a successful SBEC will see many regional and international agreements across all traditional and emerging blue economy activities tightened, rationalised, simplified and made more effective.

Third, improving SIDS’ access to the scientific know-how, research and marine technologies needed to engage in emerging sectors of the blue economy, such as technologies to harness opportunities from marine biotechnology, bio-prospecting, marine renewable energy and seabed mining. These have remained largely the preserve of advanced economies. New initiatives agreed at the SBEC, to share these more widely, coupled with signature of a series of access and benefit sharing agreements that see a larger share of revenues and jobs from joint initiatives accruing to SIDS, will be a strong marker of success.

Fourth, new traditional and innovative sources of finance. Investing in the blue economy can come at high cost, particularly in investing in port infrastructure, marine transport and emerging sectors such as biotechnology and minerals prospecting.

And although international financial institutions, including the World Bank, the Caribbean, African and Asian Development Banks, and some SIDS themselves have successfully scaled up sources and volumes of blue finance, more needs to be done to establish the infrastructure needed to tap the transformative potential of the blue economy for SIDS.

SBEC outcomes that result in wider sharing of SIDS’ experiences in attracting innovative finance, particularly inter-regional sharing, together with greater uptake of existing international finance institutions, blue finance can both directly help accelerate progress for SIDS.

The full and multiple opportunities offered by the blue economy for transformation remain elusive for SIDS and have yet to be realised. These include:

• sustained, higher levels of output and growth;
• a transformation from terrestrially-based, low-wage to higher wage employment;
• a steady shift to higher value added production;
• greater diversification and external competitiveness;
• large-scale increases in infrastructure and investment;
• reduced reliance on imported energy, diversification; and
• reduced poverty and inequality.

All eyes are now on the SBEC in November, to see if the arc of sustainable development and resilience for SIDS can be shifted and their journey to the sustainable blue economy accelerated. For SIDS, the time for the blue economy is now.

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The post The Blue Economy – A New Frontier for Small Island Developing States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Cyrus Rustomjee, is a senior fellow with Global Economy Programme, Centre for International Governance Innovation; and is managing director of CETAWorld, an independent consulting practice.

The post The Blue Economy – A New Frontier for Small Island Developing States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Tobacco pickers carry leaves to one of the sheds where they are cured on the Rosario plantation in San Juan y Martínez, in Vuelta Abajo, a western Cuban region famous for producing premium cigars. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Wendell C Balderas
BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 20 2018 (IPS)

Thailand is set to become the first Asian country to introduce standardized packaging of tobacco. On 14 November 2018, the Thai National Committee on Tobacco Control approved the Ministry of Health Regulation that requires cigarettes in Thailand to be sold in packaging stripped of the fancy, colorful and unique cigarette branding.

Instead, the packs will be in drab brown color, free of any logos or images with 85 percent pictorial health warnings on both sides. Tobacco brand names can only be printed in a standardized font type, size, color, and location. This regulation will be gazetted soon and implementation will be in 270 days.

Standardized packaging is the global best practice in packaging tobacco products as recommended in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Article 11 (Packaging and labelling) and 13 (Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship) Guidelines and are designed to make smoking less appealing.

With this move, Thailand continues to be a leader in tobacco control in Asia joining seven other countries worldwide already implementing standardized packaging.

Standardized packaging’s promises to reduce the attractiveness of tobacco products, eliminate tobacco packaging as a form of advertising, and increase the noticeability and effectiveness of pictorial health warnings.

This will also reduce the tobacco industry’s ability to market to young people who have not started using tobacco, support adult tobacco users who want to quit, and help prevent ex-users from relapsing. But is there evidence to support this?

While the tobacco industry denies the evidence, studies done in Australia and the United Kingdom show standardized packaging works. A national survey measuring Australian smokers’ responses one-year post-implementation found that more adult smokers noticed graphic health warnings and attributed their motivation to quit to the warnings.

A year after implementation, another study showed sustained reduction in visible smoking. The sustained reduction suggests that plain packaging may be changing norms about smoking in public.

A global independent network, the Cochrane review, has reviewed, 51 peer-reviewed studies, investigating the impact of standardized packaging focusing on associations between the use of standardized packaging and changes in the prevalence of smoking, number of people starting smoking, the number of people stopping, or the number of people relapsing after attempting to quit.

This systematic review of the evidence points to the effectiveness of plain packaging.
The review also mentions evidence from eye-tracking studies that adults and teenagers pay more attention to health warnings on standardized packs compared to branded packs.

Tobacco from standardized packs has been rated as tasting worse than from branded packs by smokers, and as being lower quality. There is also evidence supporting the idea that teenagers who see standardized packaging are less likely to report wanting to start smoking than those who see branded packaging.

Thailand’s new regulation is part of a comprehensive set of measures in the Tobacco Products Control Act passed in March 2017 by the Thai National Legislative Assembly. Other important measures in the law include the ban on tobacco-related Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, ban on single stick sales, requiring the tobacco industry to report its marketing activities, and increased penalty fee for smoking in prohibited areas from THB 2,000 ($60.89) to THB 5,000 ($152.23).

Earlier this November, Singapore announced its plans for standardized packaging and the domino effect has begun. Singapore’s Tobacco Control of Advertisements and Sale Act will be amended moving towards standardized packaging to come into effect in 2019.

Worldwide, Australia was the first country to mandate plain packaging in 2012. Since then, eight other countries, namely, France, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Uruguay, Slovenia, and Mauritius have also introduced plain or standardized packaging laws, and at least 16 other jurisdictions are formally considering the same.

Since plain packaging is effective and will reduce smoking, the tobacco industry countered by suing Australia, France, the UK, and the EU, but failed in all its legal challenges.

In June this year, a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute panel upheld Australia’s plain packaging law as being consistent with international trade and intellectual property laws.

The tobacco industry has a history of using the threat of legal challenges to intimidate governments, particularly in low and middle-income countries that have limited resources to fight the industry in court, but these latest announcements by Thailand and Singapore and the recent WTO ruling in favor of Australia should encourage more countries to adopt and implement this life-saving measure.

SEATCA is very delighted with this important development in the the history of tobacco control in Asia and we look forward to Thailand implementing this law and monitoring the compliance.

This new law will not only help the more than 10 million current smokers to quit but more importantly stop children from being addicted to tobacco and protect the Thai people from being exposed to secondhand smoke.

Stay tuned for the next country in Asia who will follow Thailand and Singapore’s strategic action to protect public health.

The post Thailand First Asian Nation to Join Global Efforts to Control Tobacco appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Wendell C Balderas is Media and Communications Manager, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

The post Thailand First Asian Nation to Join Global Efforts to Control Tobacco appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Editor, The Manila Times, Philippines
Nov 20 2018 (Manila Times)

For the first time in 29 years, the 21 countries in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum this week could not agree on a declaration to mark the 2018 meeting of leaders in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

In this era of high-tech and high-speed communications, this year’s meeting will probably be described as a “low-batt” summit because of its perceptible lack of energy and harmony.

Both Presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia sent their second-stringers to the summit. Only President Xi Jinping of China was on hand to represent his country.

President Rodrigo Duterte was even initially reported as cutting short his visit to Port Moresby, although he changed his mind and stayed for the meeting of leaders.

The Associated Press described the 2018 summit as an “acrimonious meeting of world leaders” when the leaders failed to agree Sunday on a final communique. That was seen as highlighting the widening divisions between global powers China and the US.

The 21 APEC nations struggled to bridge their differences on the role of the World Trade Organization, which governs international trade. They settled on a statement to be issued, instead, by the meeting’s chair, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

“The entire world is worried” about tensions between China and the US,” O’Neill told reporters after he confirmed that there would be no communique from leaders.

The problem once again was the differing visions of the future by China and the US. For several summits now, the two nations have offered divergent routes toward the future in their preferred policy on global trade.

Draft versions of the proposed communique at Port Moresby, as reported by AP, showed that the US wanted strong language against unfair trade practices that it accused China of perpetrating. China, on the other hand, wanted a reaffirmation of opposition to protectionism and unilateralism in which, it said, the US was engaging.

The two-day summit in PNG, therefore, wound up underlining the rising rivalry between China and the US for influence in the Pacific. US Vice President Mike Pence and Chinese President Xi Jinping even traded sharp barbs in their speeches.

Pence accused China of luring developing nations into a debt trap through the loans it offered for infrastructure.

Xi said the world was facing a choice between cooperation and confrontation as protectionism and unilateralism grew. He said a trade war would produce “no winners.”

Where this tit-for-tat leaves the Asia-Pacific and APEC is unclear.

This could revive interest in the words of former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, who memorably described APEC as “four adjectives in search of meaning.”

As in the beginning, APEC could be engaged again in an acute search for coherence. Ironically, Evans was one of the architects or midwives of APEC when it was born in 1989.

This story was originally published by The Manila Times, Philippines

The post ‘Low-batt’ APEC summit back to search for coherence appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jawed Naqvi
Nov 20 2018 (Dawn, Pakistan)

Between silence and music lies imagination. The unspoken rule should apply to every realm of human art. Consider the quandary of a painter who could stare endlessly at his easel in absolute seclusion. But if he or she hadn’t walked the busy street or the green or arid field to get to the studio, there would probably be a blank canvas, with nothing to stir the brush.

Jawed Naqvi

Imagination is thus nothing if not a rephrasing of our daily experiences that open the door to exhilaration or discovery, and which occasionally lead to an unexpected point of departure. Mirza Ghalib in the 19th century had a word of caution (with a sense of discovery) about the world, the entire universe, in fact. “Aalam tamaam halqa-i-daam-i-khayaal hai,” the poet-philosopher wrote in a verse about the limitless dimensions of the world we live in. In other words, as Ghalib says, one’s capacity to think and imagine could be likened to a fisherman’s net. The universe would then fit, with room to spare, into just one hole of our vast web of imagination.

Ghalib’s notion of imagination is shared by T.M. Krishna, a terrific singer in the Carnatic genre of Indian classical music. Their idea of imagination, however, has been under stress of late by a mushrooming pursuit of self-limiting identities on all sides of the globe. The 42-year-old singer, who rejects the idea of borders, sees patriotism too as a jarring invention of human deprivation. Fellow musician John Lennon had offered a similar idea in a different song he called Imagine. As a social activist, apart from being an unusually gifted musician, Krishna finds himself inevitably rejected by the Hindu right. The singer’s upper-caste roots notwithstanding, his criticism of Hinduism, in his famed essays and through his music, makes him a Hindu apostate, if such a category is conjured. Other critics of Hindu nationalism — such as Gauri Lankesh, and at least three upper-caste men opposed to a deliberate spreading of blind faith by right-wing groups — have paid with their lives.

Krishna’s greatly stimulating theories on music and life and art are predicated on his rejection of patriotism — a holy cow for India’s burgeoning nationalists. And he reminds us of how the word itself derives from ‘patrice’ or ‘pater’, which points to the patriarchal origin of the idea of nation, therefore, of nationalism. In our society, patriarchy is pervasive. It drives practically everything, and music is among its main charges. But Krishna is a trenchant critic of patriarchy, including in music.

Krishna’s greatly stimulating theories on music and life and art are predicated on his rejection of patriotism, a holy cow for India’s burgeoning nationalists.

Indian classical music in particular shares this unsavoury feature with its Western counterpart. In the West too, major professional orchestras have historically been mostly or entirely composed of men. Some of the earliest cases of women being hired in professional orchestras were in the position of harpist. The Vienna Philharmonic did not accept women to permanent membership until 1997.

The so-called Western classical genre, however, was historically clothed in religious jargon by powerful usurpers of extant traditions. It was no surprise that Western classical music emerged from the jostling for cultural spaces between Protestant and Catholic churches, although the repertory of music that is exclusively Lutheran seems relatively small. Heinrich Schutz, a leading Lutheran composer of the 17th century, wrote music that was strikingly in the idiom of Catholic composers active around 1600. His point of departure came in the use of the vernacular German text. The Lutheran tradition peaked with Bach and waned with a few church pieces by Brahms.

Yet, the term ‘classical music’ does not appear until the early 19th century. The earliest reference to ‘classical music’ recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1829. Subsequently, ornate baroque art, music and architecture was spawned by the Catholic Church to overwhelm Protestant simplicity. However, it was not before the rise of the middle classes, spurred by colonialism, that great composers detached themselves from their powerful patrons and embarked on a journey of their own.

As the precursor in classical genre of Western music was the handiwork of Catholic monks who diligently notated and codified music from 11th century on, Indian classical music (translated with a purpose perhaps as shastriya sangeet or liturgical music) was codified as recently as the 20th century. Some claim, however, that Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860-1937) had sought to re-codify ancient Indian music, which they allege was disrupted by Muslim influence.

At any rate, Bhatkhande is credited with the introduction of an organised musical system, as did the Catholic monks, which reflects in much of the current performance practices. As I have indicated, there is a growing belief for better or worse that the historical tradition of music in India was destroyed during the mediaeval times. The claim may seem exaggerated, but it persists nevertheless. “Since then, music in India has changed so considerably that no correlation or correspondence was possible between Sanskrit musicological texts and the music practised in modern times,” says the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, considered by many to be an authentic platform of musicians and musicologists.

Krishna’s questioning of the Brahminical hold on India’s music has disturbed his detractors and he is getting dire threats. His efforts to recast classical music into a non-Brahminical milieu has met with obvious resistance from the Hindu right.

Imagine this. We can date the advent of the piano to the advance of metallurgy. We can divine Amir Khusro’s qawwali before the arrival of the harmonium in India with the Europeans. Thus, according to Krishna, there could be more imaginative ways to appreciate music and other arts than to relegate them to an obscure origin with an insidious intent. In Bertolt Brecht’s imagination, on the other hand: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it”.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@mail.com

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

The post From Brahms to Brahmins appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Villagers in one area of Kenya mark the rainy season with a unique song and dance competition.