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Online Violence: Weaponization of Deeply Rooted Misogyny, Sexism & Abuse of Power

Fri, 04/30/2021 - 21:08

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Apr 30 2021 (IPS)

Every time a woman journalist receives threats of physical and sexual violence, cyber attacks and surveillence, doxxing, public humiliation, damage to her professional & personal credibility, the driving forces behind these intents are deeply rooted misogyny, sexism and abuse of power.

These online offenses are often organized, coordinated or orchestrated, which could include State-sponsored ‘sock puppet networks’, acts of patriotic trolling, networked gaslighting or involves mobs who seed hate campaigns.

According to a report published by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and UNESCO, vicious online violence seeks to silence women journalists and discredit their reporting has become a growing problem. “Because of their race, sexual orientation and religion, some women face even more frequent and vitriolic attacks. Online violence against women journalists are often linked to disinformation and political extremism, designed to smear their personal and professional reputations,” the report says.

Saudi Arabia: ‘Toughest & Most Dangerous for Journalists’

Reem Abdellatif

Reem Abdellatif, a prominent Egyptian-American journalist now based in the Netherlands left the Middle East due to the challenges and abuse she faced while working as a journalist in Saudi Arabia. Speaking to me Reem says, “I worked with Saudi State TV, which controls the narrative in the Kingdom and the Middle East. I was constantly pressured into glamorizing the Kingdom’s non-existent tourism sector, economy, and investment scene. I was working in close proximity to the Kingdom’s ruling elite, and when I tried covering and flagging festering core issues, such as women and human rights, poor tourism infrastructure, diversity, equality, inclusion in the workplace, bullying and harassment, for them that is where I went wrong and became a threat.

“Women journalists face difficulties in this region because we call for accountability. Authoritarian regimes fear sovereign women, especially survivors who openly discuss their lived experiences because we are resilient and people can relate to us,” Reem says.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, Middle East’s most authoritarian countries – Saudi Arabia (170th), Egypt (166th) and Syria (173rd) – have taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to reinforce their methods for gagging the media and reaffirm their monopoly on news and information.

The report also mentions how authorities continue to use surveillance to keep an eye on Saudi journalists, even when they are abroad, as Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in Istanbul in October 2018 illustrated. “In this region, still the toughest and most dangerous for journalists, the pandemic has exacerbated the problems that have long plagued the press, which was already in its death throes,” the report states.

“I have faced gendered attacks and systematic online trolling because I spoke up against sexual abuse, harassment and government repression. I have received death threats, and the trolls have used profanity to intimidate me, Twitter has become their playground. There is no room to agree or disagree in the media scene in MENA and the Gulf region, and women journalists who are unaffiliated with the state have no place in the Middle East, sadly.

“I left the Middle East in March 2020 to live a dignified life, where I could speak openly and freely about my experiences as a woman and help young girls and survivors of abuse to reclaim the narrative,” says Reem.

Return of “Red-tagging” in Philippines

Meanwhile in the Philippines, which ranks 138 in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, the government continues to develop several ways to pressure journalists critical of the summary methods adopted by “Punisher” Rodrigo Duterte and his “war on drugs”. The Persecution of the media has been accompanied by online harassment campaigns orchestrated by pro-Duterte troll armies, which also launched cyber-attacks on alternative news websites, including the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

“Red-tagging” also returned in force in 2020 in the Philippines and one such victim was Lady Ann Salen, co-founder of the alternative media network Altermidya and editor of the Manila Today news site, who was arrested on firearms charges. The local police claimed they found 45 pistols and four grenades during the search.

“The police clearly planted the evidence to incriminate ‘Icy’ Salem in an utterly shameless manner,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

Lady Ann Salem

Women journalists work under military surveillance in this country, says Lady Ann Salen. “Online publications are hacked if they criticise the government, journalists get arrested, have their equipment confiscated, they receive death threats, hate-trolling and are locked out of their Facebook accounts,” Lady Ann says.

“My arrest on planted evidence and trumped up charges came only 9 days after the nationally televised red-tagging at the Senate hearing.

“It was December 10th, 2020, around two am, when the condo building’s security guard knocked on my door, police barged in with SWAT with their long firearms and full battle gear – around 20 of them, they made me and my companion face the wall, tied our hands behind our backs and made us neel on the floor for an hour. We were not allowed to make any calls to our lawyer or family members.”

Detained for almost 12 hours, Lady Ann said the whole search was conducted inside her “bedroom” and not any other part of the condo. “The police found a grenade wedged in the small mesh pocket in my everyday bag, gun amongst my laptop and hard drives, as well as from under my pillow. They found guns inside bags that did not belong to us. We were detained in four facilities in two months and three weeks of incarceration.”

Red-tagging for a long time has been a prelude to human rights violations, and a way to condition the public’s mind that if there were irregularities in the arrest or killing of somebody red-tagged, those people had it coming or even deserved it. In June 2016, when Rodrigo Duterte was sworn in as president, he had said, “Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assasination if you’re a son of a bitch. Freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.”

“Despite these attacks and threats, women journalists in the country continue to rise, resist pressures, defend their ranks and defend press freedom in the country. We must continue to serve the people with journalism and our work is best exercised when it can contribute to just and meaningful changes in the lives of the people in this country – because a lot still needs to change,” says Lady Ann.

Iran: Polarized Political Sphere & Strict State Red Lines

Iran’s media freedom rank is 174 out of the 180 countries in the latest press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2021.

The RSF report says Iran is still one of the world’s most repressive countries for journalists subjecting news and information to relentless control and at least 860 journalists and citizen journalists have been persecuted, arrested, imprisoned and in some cases executed since the 1979 revolution.

The report mentions the Iranian authorities waged their fight against the freedom to inform beyond the country’s borders, putting a great deal of pressure on Iranian journalists working for international media outlets.

Negar Mortazavi

One such journalist is Negar Mortazavi, who has been living in the United States for almost two decades, but was forced into exile from Iran in 2009, during the presidential election and the green movement. She currently has an open case against her, and says “it is a big risk” returning back to the country.

“As an Iranian-American journalist and analyst, I have been covering both the human rights abuses of the Iranian government, as well as the negative impact of US sanctions and the dangers of military escalation between the two countries. I have been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s policies towards Iran, as well as a critic of Iran’s repression against its own citizens. I have been a target of massive online abuse and harassment from various state-sponsored entities, both by the Islamic Republic, the United States government, as well as Saudi Arabian and Israeli online operations.

“They constantly try to discredit my work, post death and rape threats on a regular basis, incite others to attack me, they do everything they can to intimidate and silence me,” says Negar.

In 2019, Negar used her Twitter handle to draw attention to a series of inflammatory tweets that were trying to smear her work along with other American journalists and analysts on Twitter. Negar exposed the Iran Disinformation Project, a state department- funded initiative that claimed to “bring to light disinformation emanating from the Islamic Republic of Iran via official rhetoric, state propaganda outlets, social media manipulation and more.”

“In response to the complaints, the US State Department suspended the initiative’s funding, but some other projects and cyber armies still continue to smear journalists and analysts who are critical of US policies towards Iran. They specifically target women with a sexist and misogynistic discourse, to discourage us from participating in public debates.

“It is very challenging to cover Iran from a distance, and to cover US foreign policy towards the region in general. There are many powerful players in the Middle East and in Washington DC who do not like nuance, objective reporting and analysis about the region,” says Negar.

Violations of journalists’ rights in countries like Iran, which often arrest journalists on fabricated charges and subject them through unfair trials, long sentences, without proper legal support and medical attention while in prison, often have a strong gender element and a common thread to the abuse that is directed at women journalists.

“In traditional societies with strict state red lines, women journalists are always the top targets because the perception is, it is easier to intimidate and silence women. I know of so many female colleagues who have left social media temporarily or permanently because of the abuse. It is important for women in these times, to be bold, be brave, break these barriers, create alliances and find partners, to speak up and push against abuse and intimidation,” says Negar.

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

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Categories: Africa

World Press Freedom Day 2021

Fri, 04/30/2021 - 12:18

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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Categories: Africa

Human Rights Watch: A Threshold Crossed

Fri, 04/30/2021 - 09:50

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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Excerpt:

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

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Categories: Africa

Internet Restrictions Harm the Press & Public Alike

Fri, 04/30/2021 - 09:27

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.

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.

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Categories: Africa

The Day the UN Buried its Report on Apartheid in Israel

Fri, 04/30/2021 - 08:50

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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Categories: Africa

UN Banks on Water as the ‘Game Changer’ in Food Production and Consumption

Thu, 04/29/2021 - 20:11

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.

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.

Categories: Africa

A Free & Accessible Vaccine is Just out of Reach for Palestinians

Thu, 04/29/2021 - 10:35

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.

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.

Categories: Africa

World Press Freedom in an age of remoteness

Thu, 04/29/2021 - 10:16

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.

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.

Categories: Africa

Press Freedom Vital in the Fight Against the Pandemic

Thu, 04/29/2021 - 09:26

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.

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.

Categories: Africa

Spyware Threatens Press Freedom’s Privacy Imperative

Wed, 04/28/2021 - 17:27

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.

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.

Categories: Africa

Why Variants are Most Likely to Blame for India’s COVID Surge

Wed, 04/28/2021 - 14:04

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.

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.

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Categories: Africa

Why Experts are Saying It’s a ‘Make or Break’ Moment for Forests

Wed, 04/28/2021 - 09:47

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management. The pandemic has the brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus. Pictured here forest in the Dominican Republic. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 28 2021 (IPS)

A new global report on forests says that while the COVID-19 pandemic is the latest threat to achieving ambitious forest protection goals, it has brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus, and that this recognition must now be met with collection action.

The inaugural Global Forest Goals Report was launched on Apr. 26, as part of the 16th United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) session which runs until the end of this week. It is based on data and information submitted by 52 member states, representing 75 percent of the world’s forests.

The report concluded that while countries have taken action to protect their forests, those efforts must be accelerated to achieve ambitious global goals.

It tracks the progress of countries in meeting the ambitious goals set out in the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2030. Under that plan, countries vowed to accelerate the pace of forest protection by upgrading an initial focus on achieving net-zero deforestation to increasing global forest area by three percent by 2030 and eradicating extreme poverty for all forest-dependent people.

While it acknowledged the work done by countries in areas such as poverty reduction for forest-dependent people, initiatives to increase forest financing and cooperation on sustainable forest management, it stated that there is a lot more to be done. Noting that Africa and South America lost forest cover during the reporting period, the publication stated that forests remain under threat.

“Every year, seven million hectares of natural forests are converted to other land uses such as large-scale commercial agriculture and other economic activities. And although the global rate of deforestation has slowed over the past decade, we continue to lose forests in the tropics – largely due to human and natural causes,” it stated.

United National Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said the report is being launched at a crucial time for the world’s forests.

The report cites growing concern by some countries that the economic fallout from the pandemic will lead to reduced donor funding for forests. It states that Africa, the Asia-Pacific Region and some countries in Latin America are facing dwindling forest financing, as scarce public funds are being prioritised on immediate public health needs.

Mohammed said while the COVID-19 crisis has dealt a blow to poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals, it is presenting an opportunity to make peace with nature through a green recovery, with healthy forests as a solid foundation.

“We are at a make or break moment. 2021 provides us a unique opportunity to halt the rapid loss of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, while addressing the climate emergency and desertification and making our food systems more sustainable, with the sustainable development goals as our guide,” the deputy UN chief said.

UNFF Secretariat’s Officer-in-Charge Alexander Trepelkov presented a note on COVID-19’s impact on forests and the forest sector. It concluded that the pandemic has aggravated hardships for forest-dependent people and exposed systemic gaps and vulnerabilities.

It called for the integration of forest-based solutions into pandemic recovery, accelerated implementation of international forest-related targets and adequate resources for forestry.

Meanwhile, on the fringes of the event, a group of 15 international organisations launched a joint statement on the challenges and opportunities involved in halting deforestation. The Collaborative Partnership on Forests event was chaired by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Director of the FAO’s Forestry Division Mette Wilkie told IPS that as ecosystems that are home to the vast majority of land biodiversity and 75 percent of freshwater, without forests, climate goals cannot be met.

“Forests also provide numerous products for everyday life – from the traditional use of wood to the masks, gloves and hand sanitisers that we all use during the current COVID-19 pandemic. They provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people worldwide,” Wilkie said.

“As we increasingly encroach on forests and wildlife habitats to expand agricultural production, settlements and infrastructure, the risk of diseases spilling over from animals to people rises exponentially. It is evident that we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the future we want unless we halt deforestation and forest degradation and increase our efforts to protect, manage and restore our forests.”

Wilkie, who chairs the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, told IPS that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management.

“Lockdowns have led to disruptions in markets and supply chains and caused job losses, triggering reverse migration into rural areas and increasing pressure on forests to provide subsistence livelihoods,” she said, adding that, “on the other hand, investing in forest restoration and the sustainable management of forests can create green jobs and livelihoods, and at the same time create habits for biodiversity and mitigate – and adapt to – climate change.”

The post Why Experts are Saying It’s a ‘Make or Break’ Moment for Forests appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

World Press Freedom Day: Philippines journalist Maria Ressa to receive 2021 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize

Wed, 04/28/2021 - 09:29

By UNESCO
PARIS, Apr 28 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Investigative journalist and media executive Maria Ressa of the Philippines has been named as the 2021 laureate of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals. The Award Ceremony will take place on 2 May in Windhoek, Namibia, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day Global Conference, and be streamed online.

Over a career spanning more than thirty years, Ressa has worked as CNN’s lead investigative reporter for Asia and the head of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs. She has also been involved in many international initiatives to promote press freedom. In recent years, she has been the target of online attacks and judicial processes relating to her investigative reporting and status as manager of online outlet Rappler. She has been arrested for alleged crimes related to the exercise of her profession, and has been subject to a sustained campaign of gendered online abuse, threats, and harassment, which at one point, resulted in her receiving an average of over 90 hateful messages an hour on Facebook.

"Maria Ressa’s unerring fight for freedom of expression is an example for many journalists around the world. Her case is emblematic of global trends that represent a real threat to press freedom, and therefore to democracy."

-- Marilu Mastrogiovanni, Chair of the Prize’s international jury, investigative journalist from ItalyThe $25,000 Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the defence or promotion of press freedom especially in the face of danger. It is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, the Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia, on 17 December 1986. It is funded by the Guillermo Cano Isaza Foundation (Colombia), the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (Finland) and the Namibia Media Trust.

About the 2021 World Press Freedom Day Global Conference in Windhoek

The 2021 World Press Freedom Day Global Conference will take place from 29 April to 3 May and focus on the theme of Information as a Public Good. More than 40 online and in situ sessions are planned, looking at topics such as the transparency of online platforms and the importance of media and information literacy. The conference will also tackle ways to promote and support independent media struggling to survive a crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when national and local media everywhere face financial instability and other pressures threatening their survival and their journalists’ jobs.

Source: UNESCO

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Categories: Africa

State of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka: Are Government Policies Effective in Controlling it?

Wed, 04/28/2021 - 09:02

By Sunil J. Wimalawansa
NEW JERSEY, Apr 28 2021 (IPS)

The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) affected the entire world; many died, millions got sick, and the misery continues. Second and third waves of SARS.Cov-2 infection are devastating most countries.

Non-strategic lockdowns and curfews (as in Sri Lanka) further aggravated the peoples’ misery, sufferings, daily lives, and economies, more than that from the virus. The toxic combination of COVID-19 and curfews devastated local productions and supply chains, livelihoods, people welfare, food security, and the county’s economy.

Many viral diseases can control using natural and non-pharmacological approaches, adhering to public health standards, personal hygiene, and maintaining health: COVID-19 is not an exemption.

SARS.Cov-2 viruses enter humans mainly through the respiratory tract epithelial, causing predominantly immunological (cytokine storm), cardiovascular (clots), and multiple endocrinological abnormalities.

In some, the combined effects can be deadly. In addition to supportive therapies, preventing clots, cytokine storms, and providing oxygen, treatments should be geared to prevent complications in the mentioned systems.

Approximately a quarter of persons who develop complications develop an intractable “post-COVID syndrome.” This protracted disease mainly arises from the longer-term adverse effects in the central nervous system (mainly the brain) and must be prevented.

The combination of strengthening the innate immune system with nutrient vitamin D and vaccination significantly reduces this serious complication following COVID-19.

Governmental actions to control COVID-19

Sri Lanka’s President delegated full responsibility of COVID control to a handful of people and made government funds available. Nevertheless, the lack of systems thinking, focus, practical strategies, and misinterpretations of data preclude proper control of COVID-19 that led to a countrywide community spread, from May 2020.

Moreover, weak leadership and egotism led to improper and vague policies jeopardising the economy, people, and the country. Ineffective and harmful policies (some originated from WHO and CDC) led to contradictions, confusion and collectively eroded public trust. The lack of transparency and accountability of the government and its administrators further compromised COVID control.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is working closely with global experts, governments and partners to rapidly expand scientific knowledge on this new virus, to track the spread and virulence of the virus, and to provide advice to countries and individuals on measures to protect health and prevent the spread of this outbreak.

The lack of vision and practical strategies, inexperience in managing epidemics, and the refusal to consult experts with managing epidemics led to creating flawed policies that hurt the economy.

Despite the hard work of healthcare workers and other frontline personnel, the second wave of COVID began in August 2020; within weeks, it got out of control. In June 2020, the author predicted the impending second wave in August and the third wave in April 2021.

The inability to comprehend the viruses’ biology, failure to adjust an effective (living)strategy to control the spread, and failure to use acceptable means to enhance natural immunity, prevented successful control of the epidemic.

Besides misinterpreting statistics and consequently enforcing island-wide curfew inappropriately, refusing community PCR testing, and preventing conducting crucial prevention and treatment randomised controlled clinical studies, and the failure to incorporate emerging scientific data for better management of COVID-19 were few lost opportunities for Sri Lanka.

What should have been done

Conducting broader preventative actions, including prioritising humane “home” quarantining and local production of high-quality, reliable PCR kits, would have markedly reduced the government’s economic burden and peoples suffering.

The government had plenty of time to prevent hospitals and the healthcare sector burden. For example, increasing the populations’ innate immunity could have achieved through safe sun exposure advice and vitamin D supplementation. These would have prevented COVID-19-associated complications and deaths.

There was no rationale for military-style, forced quarantining of people. Those exposed to a person infected with COVID-19 and PCR positive asymptomatic persons could have better and cost-effectively managed in their homes, with oversights from the medical officer of health and public health inspectors.

Such simple measures would have improved the safety and well-being of people and markedly reduce government costs. Collectively, these approaches would have cost less than 10% of what the government spent (and continue to spend) on COVID-19 and associated significant opportunity costs.

Community spreads could have prevented through geographically limited lockdowns not exceeding two weeks while supplying essentials to the local community. Shutting down entire districts or the country was a colossal mistake. Consequently, small businesses and self-employed and daily wage-earners accounting for two-thirds of adults in Sri Lanka were worst affected.

Pitfalls of managing COVID-19 in Sri Lanka

Public trust and cooperation are essential in successfully managing an epidemic or any severe crisis. The loss of trust was detrimental for the governance, especially the belief that neither the administration nor law enforcement has genuine interests or intentions to control the COVID-19 epidemic and protect the public. These concepts entrenched following turning the COVID misery into a profitable business.

Ironically, the decision-makers who enforced draconian restrictions had all supplies for themselves and full salaries. Simultaneously, the lower-middle-class and the poor, two-thirds of the country, suffered the most.

Besides, inappropriate curfew also interrupted local travel and businesses, tourism, air travel, hotel industry, import and export trade, and all supply chains, causing significant food insecurity and financial burdens on over 80% of the population. It will take years to recover from the harmful effects of COVID, amplified by poor administrative decisions.

The lack of candour and commercialisation of COVID-19 is understandably worrisome for the local public, expatriates, and the international community. Boosting the supply-chain-related businesses by respective administrations during the LTTE war and COVID-19 are remarkably similar: achieved at the public expense. In both cases, a handful of the same set of companies allied with the government became rich.

Moreover, faulty actions in 2020 significantly increased poverty and malnutrition, worsen existing medical disorders, the disease burden, suicides and excess premature deaths, and increase healthcare costs.

Instead of strengthening the power base, militarisation, and environmental destruction, the government should focus on disease prevention, improving education and health, supply chain, exports, national security, re-establish law and order and freedom of speech, increase food security, and lower the cost of living. These would facilitate getting the country back on track for prosperity.

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Excerpt:

The writer is Professor of Medicine, Director, Cardio-Metabolic Institute, New Jersey, U.S.A.

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Categories: Africa

The Complex Energy Transition of Chile’s “Sacrifice Zones”

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 13:28

A clean-up crew called in by AES Gener, owner of the coal-fired power plants operating in Quintero and Puchuncaví, regularly cleans the coal from the beach (Image: Saul Mansilla)

By Francisco Parra Galaz
SANTIAGO, Apr 27 2021 (IPS)

Standing on Punta Ventanilla, Carlos Vegas, 65, looks across at the industrial park which has been there most of his life. He looks at the impact of the 15 industries spread around the bay that connects the towns of Quintero and Puchuncaví, in central Chile.

Although he comes from a family of fishers, 20 years ago, the Chilean health authority prohibited him and his union from selling and cultivating mussels because they had high levels of cadmium, arsenic and copper. If people got sick, it would be his fault, he was told.

Carlos knows these waters of the Pacific like the back of his hand. He knows there will be deposits of coal on the beach tomorrow. He takes his mobile phone, looks at the data on the height of the waves in Puchuncaví, and said: “The tide is low, listen to me, tomorrow at eight in the morning, the beach will be full of coal.”

The next morning, a representative of the Navy — the maritime authority in Chile — walks along the coast and gives a warning. Coal is landing in Ventanas, the beach next to the industrial park. Immediately afterwards, a group of four artisanal fishermen, loaded with shovels and sacks, arrive to collect the coal left by the tide.

Hundreds of people in Quintero and Puchuncaví have suffered illnesses related to industrial pollution, now the Chilean towns are seeing a shift to renewables

When the sea is calm, and the waves are low, the coal is left in the sand. “This is like when you have the cup of milk. If you leave it still, the cream comes out on top. If you move it, it sticks,” explained José Carvajal, 58, a lifelong artisanal fisherman. He is the coordinator of the cleaning group convened by AES Gener, owner of the three coal-fired thermoelectric plants that operate in the area.

During January 2021, Ventanas artisanal fishermen collected four tonnes of charcoal on the beach. Over the years it has become normal to see the sand turn black at sunrise. The Terram Foundation estimated the amount of coal at 832 tonnes between 2009 and 2020.

How does a popular tourism destination end up saturated with coal year after year? In 2017, the Navy’s Maritime Prosecutor’s Office carried out an investigation and concluded that the deposits were due to “the lack of control by AES Gener in the management of waste from its production processes”. The company appealed and an investigation was reopened. It has not yet concluded.

In 2020, AES Gener burned more than 1.4 million tonnes of bituminous coal, mainly from the US and Colombia. It arrived in the bay on ships. Mechanical shovels and cranes extracted it and dumped it on a conveyor belt that extends 1.4 kilometers out to sea from the coast, taking it to an outdoor storage field. This process has operated for decades in the port of Ventanas.

Coal-fired power accounted for 39% of electricity generation in Chile in 2019, the year in which President Sebastián Piñera made an unprecedented announcement. He pledged to close all 28 coal plants in this small South American country – that contributes scarcely 0.26% of global CO2 emissions – by 2040. The decarbonisation of the energy mix became Chile’s main climate commitment, and underpinned its plan to achieve carbon neutrality.

Puchuncaví has already started its transition, with the closure, in December 2020, of the “Ventanas 1” plant, which had been operating since 1964. But the challenge is not simple for an area that has lived for more than half a century with multiple environmental consequences.

Half a century of sacrifice

Between August and October 2018, 1,553 children and adolescents were treated for symptoms of poisoning, including dizziness, fainting spells, nosebleeds, and panic attacks in eight medical centers in the Valparaíso region, according to a report by the Children’s Ombudsman.

The Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling, affirmed that the state had failed to protect the inhabitants of Quintero and Puchuncaví. But, at the same time, the ruling could not determine who was responsible.

The industrial park includes, among others, an oil refinery; a copper concentrate smelter; a coal-fired thermoelectric complex; a chemical storage and discharge terminal; a cement production plant; a natural gas thermoelectric plant; a terminal that stores gas; another fuel discharge terminal; and a lubricant plant.

In 2011, boys and girls from the rural school in La Greda were poisoned in March, August and November. The court proved Codelco’s responsibility for the mismanagement of its copper smelter. The school was relocated, to less than two kilometers away. In 2019, Chilean and US researchers published a study showing that children between the ages of one and five are at risk of cancer due to levels of exposure to arsenic in soils.

This industrial presence has not translated into positive development for the town. Puchuncaví records 27% of its population at poverty level, 7% higher than the national average, and 32% of its inhabitants lack access to basic services, 20% above the Chilean average.

Decarbonising the energy mix

Sebastián Piñera issued the order to close down the Ventanas 1 plant from the La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago on 29 December 2020. It was the oldest coal-fired thermoelectric plant in the country.

“It is a milestone in the energy history of our country,” said Fernanda Pinochet, regional ministerial secretary of energy for the Valparaíso region, who was present.

Three other coal-fired thermoelectric plants still operate in the Puchuncaví bay: Ventanas 2, Nueva Ventanas and Campiche. All owned by AES Gener.

“The closing of Ventanas 1 was the product of a tripartite effort between the company, the government and the union. We sat at the table to see what they needed and we were able to cover their needs completely,” said Pinochet. A total of 35 workers were part of the plant. Of these, 16 took early retirement and 17 were relocated to other plants in the same complex.

Residents of Quintero and Puchuncaví exercise on the beach, with the industrial park in the background (image: Saul Mancilla).

Hernán Ramírez, a researcher at the Terram Foundation, describes the closure as window dressing from the government: “Ventanas 1 was the oldest and smallest, with very high operating costs. Last year, according to data from the Electrical Coordinator, it burned 3% of all the coal that was discharged into the bay and ran for 140 hours throughout the year. The closure has no effect.”

The NGO Chile Sustentable carried out a study in which they showed the different theories on what a fair transition would be. Its author, Claudia Fuentes, says that the Chilean government’s proposal “is more than anything a timetable. Decarbonising was associated with shutting down plants, but later challenges were not seen, such as reconversion, environmental remediation and everything that has to do with a just transition”.

Chile said that it will develop a “Just Transition Strategy” as part of is climate change pledge (NDC), the formal commitment to the Paris Agreement, which will be one of its pillars for the decarbonisation process. In the coming months, the ministry of energy will present the draft of the strategy.

The process, however, still does not generate much trust in the local community. “They are not responsible for any environmental liability or negative externalities or people’s health. Because when you are diagnosed with cancer, you are left alone,” said Katta Alonso, representative of the organisation Women in the Sacrifice Zone in Resistencia.

It would propose that any transition begins with the closure of the three remaining coal-fired plants, and of Codelco’s copper smelter. The next step would be the reduction of the industrial park so that no more companies are installed and that the community decides what will happen in the territory.

Chile’s renewable future

Since the Decarbonisation Plan announced in 2019, six thermoelectric plants have already closed in Chile. Another five will do so by the end of 2024 and the remaining 17 will shutter before 2040. The government signed a voluntary agreement with the four companies that own the plants for the winddown: AES Gener, Italy’s Enel, France’s Engie and the Chilean Colbún.

Although coal continues to be the main source of energy in Chile today, the rapid growth of renewables also accelerated its demise. In the last 6 years, Chile quintupled the capacity generated with solar, wind and hydraulic energy. The projections of the current government indicate that these energies cover 70% of the mix by the end of this decade.

According to the ministry of energy, as of January 2021, there are 6,335MW of power plants under construction, of which 94% will generate renewable energy. The vast majority are solar and wind, which according to projections, will be able to cover all the fossil generation that Chile has today in 2040.

Investments in renewables come mainly from the same companies involved in decarbonisation: Enel, Engie and Colbún, which have been joined by other small players, in the country, such as Acciona.

However, the most important company in the whole process is AES Gener. It owns 14 of the 22 coal-fired plants operating today. Only Ventanas 2 will close before 2024. The rest are subject to new negotiations every five years. For Claudia Fuentes, AES Gener “has been the company most reluctant to change. They are the ones with the least commitment to shut down plants ”.

AES Gener controls 26% of the electricity generation market in Chile, with 3,541mw of installed capacity, of which 77% are today coal-fired thermoelectric plants. Although the company has expressed its interest in diversifying its parent company, its big bet in Chile is the Alto Maipo hydroelectric plant, which will add 531mw to its portfolio by the end of this year. This has been seen years of resistance from the local community who claim it would threaten the supply of drinking water in Santiago.

The company has announced the possible conversion of the infrastructure of its plants in Puchuncaví to seawater desalination plants or green hydrogen plants. In addition, a few weeks ago it announced the sale of its five coal-fired plants in Huasco to the WEG group as a step forward in its decarbonisation. However, WEG has not signed any closure commitments with the government.

*AES Gener was contacted to be part of this report but did not respond to interview requests.

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

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Categories: Africa

Sacred Words

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 11:07

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 27 2021 (IPS)

Forgive me,
is all that you can’t say.
Years gone by and still
words don’t come easily,
like forgive me, forgive me.
Tracy Chapman

The World Press Freedom Day on the 3rd of May is an occasion for celebrating humanity. Language enables us to transmit our thoughts in sound – a means of communication developed through our unique brain, combined with our capacity to control lips, tongue and other components of the vocal apparatus. Over time, humans have also acquired skills to commit our language to writing.

Since language is the basis for human existence, it is particularly painful when we are denied expressions of thoughts and feelings. Not being listened to, abused and told to: “Shut up!”, make us suffer from being denied equal access to human fellowship. We are herd animals, a sense of belonging and freedom to express ourselves is essential for us all. This is probably the reason to why words in so many cultures are considered to be sacred – worthy of respect and even veneration. Several societies condemn verbal abuse and most religions consider lying to be a grave sin.

Generally, it is written words which are considered to be particularly sacred. However, these sacred words have often a spoken tradition behind them. Several sacred scriptures have been recited long before they were written down. In 1960, the Malian author Amadou Hampâté Bâ stated in a speech at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris:

“It is our duty to safeguard our inherited oral tradition, to try to transmit whatever we can of it before time and oblivion cause it to disappear from human memory. […] I concede that several of the world’s human inhabitants are illiterate, but I do not concede to you that they are ignorant. […] I remind you that in my country, every time an old man dies, a library has burned down.”

This respect for the spoken word, particularly in the form of recitation, is reflected in many of the world’s sacred texts. For many Muslims the sound of Qur’anic chant is an immediate means of contact with the Word of God. The sound itself is considered to have a divine source. Participation in Qur’anic recitation as reciter, or as listener, becomes an act of worship. This respect for the spoken and written word may be one reason to why so many religions condemn lying. The Lebanese scholar Al-Ḥurr Al-cĀmili (1624-1693 CE) accurately stated “All the evils have been locked in a room and its key is lying.” In the Christian Bible, Jesus is quoted as saying: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the Evil One,” while Buddhist scriptures proclaim that the path to bliss and righteousness contain:

“Correct speech: Refrain from lying. Do not engage in gossip, misleading, hurtful, or loose speech.
Right intention: Your intentions should be based on kindness and compassion. Proper action: Refrain from harming living things. Do not take any statement for granted.”

Honest and exquisitely expressed words might slightly open the gates to an otherwise incomprehensible core of existence. Like art and music, words may enable us to glimpse the greatness of the Universe and perhaps even grasp some of its inner meaning.

In the Bible, God creates the world with words:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

Most of us have a quite laid back attitude when it comes to expressing ourselves. After having used our words we tend to forget what made us utter them, that is if we do not consider them to be so significant that we decide to write them down. When such writings become “sacred” it means that they have gained an existence far beyond what one single person happened to say to another at a given moment. Such words often become Law, a solid foundation for a society’s existence and thus they obtain a decisive significance for an individual’s perceptions, thoughts and actions.

Apparently did writing develop independently in at least four ancient civilizations. Sometime in 3400 BCE in Mesopotamia, in Egypt 3200 BCE, in China 1200 BCE, and in the present Southern Mexico and Guatemala 500 BCE.

Written words were extremely important to ancient Egyptians. The Greeks called Egyptian characters hieroglyphs, sacred signs. Scribes were considered to convey the language of the gods and Thoth, the god of wisdom and maintainer of the Universe, was believed to possess a book that included the entire set of rules governing Cosmos. Written and carefully recited words empowered objects and sacred actions. Words were believed to enable the deceased to awaken to a new existence beyond death. Every sacrificed object – water, necessities of life, incense, and ornaments – was through sacred words charged with power. It was not only objects that through words were filled to the brim by force, the words themselves were also loaded with power, meaning that so called “word plays” endowed words and sentences with a wide range of meanings and allusions. A single word could thereby allude to objects, the deceased, gods and demons, forces and a large variety of powerful concepts and ways of thinking.

Mastering all this knowledge made the art of writing extremely difficult. Becoming a scribe required a long, tough education, which not only meant mastering the complex depiction/writing of words, the difficult grammar and underlying allusions, it also included learning rituals by heart, mythology, accounting, mathematics and geometry. All that was required not only to master religious obligations, but also administrative tasks. However, the reward was worth it. An Egyptian scribe escaped hard work under a scorching sun, did not pay taxes and reached high positions. Sometime 3,200 years ago, someone wrote on a papyrus a text he called The Happy Scribe:

“Is there anyone here like Hardedef? Is here another one similar to Imhotep? There is not in our time a Noferti, or a Cheti, foremost of them all. I ask you to remember a man like Pathemdjehuti, a Chacheperrasonb. Is there perhaps another one like Ptahhotep or Kaires? The gates and halls that were built for them have fallen into disrepair. Their mortuary priests do no longer exist. Their resting places are forgotten. But their names are still mentioned due to the books they wrote, because they were so beautiful. Those who wrote them, their memory lives on forever. Become a scribe! Put this into your mind, so that your name might become like theirs. A book is better than a burial chamber covered with writing, than a burial chapel never so well built. Become a scribe and live forever.”

For many later authors writing became a life-absorbing vocation, while several of them spent a lifetime searching for the right word. One of them, Gustave Flaubert, wrote:

”Whatever we want to convey, there is only one word to express it, one verb to animate it, one adjective to qualify it. We must therefore go on seeking that word, verb or adjective, until we have discovered it and never be satisfied with approximations, never fall back on tricks, even inspired ones. Or tomfoolery of language to dodge the difficulty.”

The right words have been found by vociferous writers and speakers, enabling them to inspire and empower people. You might think of Martin Luther King’s rousing speech:

”I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”

Bold journalists have with beautiful and adequate expressions dared to pinpoint injustices. Like Émile Zola when he in 1898 accused the French establishment of punishing the innocent Alfred Dreyfus:

”What they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so. My duty is to speak out, not to become an accomplice in this travesty. My nights would otherwise be haunted by the spectre of an innocent man, far away, suffering the most horrible of tortures for a crime he did not commit.”

However, many of these outspoken heroes of well-written and just words have had to pay for their honesty with their lives. Like the poet Osip Mandelstam, who under the bloody tyranny of Josef Stalin with a great poem dared to break the fearful silence of many of his fellow citizens:

We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
more than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
But if people would talk on occasion,
they should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.

Dictators hate to be disclosed in all their nakedness; their stupidity, fears, disdain for others and raving violence. However, it is not only in dictatorships that unsung heroes of free speech are silenced, and even killed. In 2020, nearly seven out of every ten journalists killed lost their lives in countries “at peace” and an unaccounted number were threatened and abused, often due to investigations into cases of local corruption, organised crime, misuse of public funds and environmental misdemeanour. In 2020, Reporters Without Borders revealed that to their knowledge 50 journalists had been killed, 387 had been detained, 54 held hostage and four were missing. So, not only on the 3rd May let us pay homage to the guardians and heroes of the sacred word and express our disdain for all those who do not respect words; who cheat, lie, abuse, maim and kill to keep us all in ignorance and fear.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Sacred Words appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. This feature is part of a series highlighting the current state of media freedom globally

The post Sacred Words appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Diversification of Media Content Can Break Gender Stereotypes

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 09:15

By External Source
Apr 27 2021 (IPS-Partners)

A renowned Pacific gender equality champion and Technical Advisor of Shifting the Power Coalition, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, believes that gender equality is about men and women working together and this can be achieved by diversifying media content to break gender stereotypes.

She highlighted this while speaking on Women and the Media, which is one of the 12 priority areas of concern in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) on Gender Equality. The BPA is a resolution adopted by the United Nations at the end of the Fourth World Conference on Women on 15 September 1995. The resolution adopted to promulgate a set of principles concerning the equality of men and women.

Bhagwan Rolls said the recent global media monitoring project is a useful tool to gauge ways in which women are included or not included in media content.

“It’s really important to note that gender issues are not only about women, or simply adding women to the mix. To get better at promoting gender equality through the media, we need to start looking at diversification of content; how we make the linkages with gender equality commitments to all areas of society, and promoting women’s leadership in all her diversity,” she stated.

Bhagwan Rolls said government ministers need to help break the gender stereotypes by reviewing ways their government initiative stories are produced.

“There needs to be greater cohesive action and collaboration to produce stories that aren’t just promoting what the government is doing, but actually having conversations with women from different sectors. Even if it is simply promoting women working within government ministries, profile these women, show the public how these women are contributing to moving the agenda forward,” she explained.

Prior to the BPA, in 1994, at the 6th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and 1st Meeting of Pacific Ministers for Women, and in preparation for the Fourth World Conference for Women, held in Beijing, China in 1995, delegates from 22 Pacific Island countries and territories met in Noumea and endorsed a set of principles and a plan of action to advance gender equality in the region – The Pacific Platform for Action on the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality (PPA).

The PPA was a landmark achievement for the region, and a remarkable one as it emerged prior to the globally negotiated and endorsed BPA, and its 13 critical issues mirrored most of the critical areas of the BPA.

For Pacific Island Countries and Territories, BPA implementation from 1995 was twinned with actioning the PPA. The PPA has been central to accelerating implementation of the BPA in the region.

The 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women (27-29 April), will see the launch of the Pacific Beijing +25 Report, which takes stock of progress, recommendations, and what must be done to achieve full and equal participation and inclusion of all women and girls of all diversities.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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Categories: Africa

Transparency Offers Pathway to a More Sustainable Earth

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 08:33

A young child participates in a plant workshop organized by UNDP Peru and FAO in Ayacucho, Peru. Credit: UNDP Peru

By Peter Paul van de Wijs
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Apr 27 2021 (IPS)

Last week, the world marked Earth Day – an opportunity to put the spotlight on the pressing needs of our planet, in the face of ever-growing impacts by humanity, and galvanize action to change practices and behavior. Yet these issues were not, and cannot be, addressed in a single day. Resolve and action to protect the environment is a 365 days-a-year endeavor.

The accumulating corporate contribution to the damaging impacts on the Earth – by businesses and other organizations – is significant. Therefore, the role of companies, in participating in solutions that safeguard the natural environment, are also crucial.

To identify and recognize how a company is impacting on the sustainability of the Earth, the starting point is transparency. The GRI Standards – the world’s most widely for sustainability reporting – offer any organization a common language for communicating their impacts on people and planet.

So, what is the role of GRI, through reporting, in catalyzing action by organizations, large and small, to safeguard the environment?

I spoke to Bastian Buck, GRI Chief of Standards, and Marco van der Ree, GRI Chief Development Officer, to find out more.

Q: The theme of Earth Day 2021 was, ‘Together, we can prevent the coming disasters of climate change and environmental destruction. Together, we can Restore Our Earth’. This is a significant ask. How can sustainability reporting support the required action – by companies, governments or other organizations?

Marco: We know the planet is in serious distress and organizations need to understand their impact – positive and negative – on the planet. GRI reporting essentially provides them with a ‘risk map’, so they can identify where they have impacts and consequently what action they need to take.

Bastian: Communicating their impact through our Standards enables companies to have important, timely societal dialogues with their stakeholders – including customers, investors, civil society and governments. What sustainability reporting does is to provide information that is critical in decision-making processes, internal and external to the company. helping companies and stakeholders determine their role in this transitional moment in the global debate on how to restore our planet.

Bastian Buck

Q: Addressing environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change were key focus areas for Earth Day. How do the GRI Standards relate to this? What is GRI doing to ensure the Standards remain relevant and capture impacts in these crucial areas?

Bastian: Disclosure on environmental impacts has always been at the core of the GRI Standards and our standard setting activities. What they also do is address the corresponding societal topics that cannot be ignored, if organizations are to fully understand and change how they impact on the environment. Progress to net zero by 2050 or stopping biodiversity loss, for example, have broader societal impacts and that’s why comprehensive sustainability reporting is needed that gives a holistic picture.

Marco: GRI cover topics that range from biodiversity to energy, water to emissions – all of which help companies understand their environmental impact. We don’t stand still and regularly update or add new Standards, as guided by changing societal expectations on good corporate behavior. For example, in 2020 our new Waste Standard launched, which seeks to enable companies move away from the ‘take make waste’ model and embrace circular practices.

Q: Recent research from KPMG indicates that the number of companies conducting sustainability reporting rises year on year. Most larger companies now do so – with a majority choosing to use the GRI Standards. What is the biggest challenge to continuing to spread the practice of reporting, and what’s the benefit of using a common standard?

Marco van der Ree

Marco: If we really want to change our behavior as a global society in order to protect the Earth then sustainability reporting, transparency and disclosures will have to become mandatory for all companies and organizations. As I have said previously – there is no business on a dead planet

Bastian: We need mandatory sustainability reporting – across as many jurisdictions as possible and addressing as many themes as possible. The recent moves we are seeing in the EU offer encouragement that change is happening. We have come a long way through promoting voluntary disclosure, and different regions and nations will move at a different pace. However, we should not lose sight of the vision of mandatory, global sustainability standards that apply to all.

Q: GRI says that it provides the Standards as a ‘free public good’. What does this actually mean and, given that standards development is a costly activity, how can GRI continue to update and deliver globally relevant sustainability standards?

Marco: GRI wants all organizations to have free access to the Standards so that there are no barriers to access – and therefore no barriers to embracing transparency. Last year, we created the Global Standards Fund to bring together a group of funders from governments, corporates, foundations and individuals who are passionate about supporting the Standards.

If you think of the multiplication effect of a sustainability standard, the impact of the investment in updating it goes a long way. For example, we estimate that updating the GRI Biodiversity Standard will cost 350,000 Euro. On the one hand, a local conservation project might be able to safeguard a few hectares of rainforest, for a limited time, with these funds. Yet an improved Biodiversity Standard, freely available to all, can help improve the practices of thousands of companies around the world.

Q: Finally, what is your personal motivation for working for GRI and in the field of sustainability reporting? What was your career journey to get to this point?

Bastian: I joined GRI 15 years ago because I believe that sustainability reporting, and the dialogue and action that it enables, is essential if we are move away from environmentally harmful business models. Reporting is a key tool in the transition. Therefore, in 2021, the GRI Standards are more important than ever before.

Marco: I have worked in sustainable development around the world for 25 years, starting out with managing socio-environmental community projects in Brazil. From these early beginnings, I realized that we can only protect this Earth by working together. If businesses change their behavior and take responsibility for their impacts, they can become truly sustainable. The GRI Standards provide a clear pathway for companies to do just that.

The post Transparency Offers Pathway to a More Sustainable Earth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Chief External Affairs Officer, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The post Transparency Offers Pathway to a More Sustainable Earth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Q&A: Drawing Attention to the Crisis in the DRC’s Education Sector

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 07:54

The post Q&A: Drawing Attention to the Crisis in the DRC’s Education Sector appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Struggle for the Future of Food

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 07:54

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 27 2021 (IPS)

Producers and consumers seem helpless as food all over the world comes under fast growing corporate control. Such changes have also been worsening environmental collapse, social dislocation and the human condition.

Longer term perspective
The recent joint report – by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and the ETC Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration – is ominous, to say the least.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

A Long Food Movement, principally authored by Pat Mooney with a team including IPES-Food Director Nick Jacobs, analyses how food systems are likely to evolve over the next quarter century with technological and other changes.

The report notes that ‘hi-tech’, data processing and asset management corporations have joined established agribusinesses in reshaping world food supply chains.

If current trends continue, the food system will be increasingly controlled by large transnational corporations (TNCs) at the expense of billions of farmers and consumers.

Big Ag weds Big Data
The Davos World Economic Forum’s (WEF) much touted ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (IR4.0), promoting digitisation, is transforming food systems, accelerating concentration in corporate hands.

New apps enable better tracking across supply chains, while ‘precision farming’ now includes using drones to spray pesticides on targeted crops, reducing inputs and, potentially, farming costs. Agriculture is now second only to the military in drone use.

Digital giants are working with other TNCs to extend enabling ‘cloud computing’ infrastructure. Spreading as quickly as the infrastructure allows, new ‘digital ag’ technologies have been displacing farm labour.

Meanwhile, food data have become more commercially valuable, e.g., to meet consumer demand, Big Ag profits have also grown by creating ‘new needs’. Big data are already being used to manipulate consumer preferences.

With the pandemic, e-retail and food delivery services have grown even faster. Thus, e-commerce platforms have quickly become the world’s top retailers.

New ‘digital ag’ technologies are also undermining diverse, ecologically more appropriate food agriculture in favour of unsustainable monocropping. The threat is great as family farms still feed more than two-thirds of the world’s population.

IR4.0 not benign
Meanwhile, hi-tech and asset management firms have acquired significant shareholdings in food giants. Powerful conglomerates are integrating different business lines, increasing concentration while invoking competition and ‘creative disruption’.

The IPES-ETC study highlights new threats to farming and food security as IR4.0 proponents exert increasing influence. The report warns that giving Big Ag the ‘keys of the food system’ worsens food insecurity and other existential threats.

Powerful corporations will increase control of most world food supplies. Big Ag controlled supply chains will also be more vulnerable as great power rivalry and competition continue to displace multilateral cooperation.

There is no alternative?
But the report also presents a more optimistic vision for the next quarter century. In this alternative scenario, collaborative efforts, from the grassroots to the global level, empower social movements and civil society to resist.

New technologies are part of this vision, from small-scale drones for field monitoring to consumer apps for food safety and nutrient verification. But they would be cooperatively owned, open access and well regulated.

The report includes pragmatic strategies to cut three quarters of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions and shift US$4 trillion from Big Ag to agroecology and food sovereignty. These include “$720 billion in subsidies” and “$1.6 trillion in healthcare savings” due to malnutrition.

IPES-ETC also recommends taxing junk food, toxins, carbon emissions and TNC profits. It also urges criminal prosecution of those responsible for famine, malnutrition and environmental degradation.

Food security protocols are needed to supercede trade and intellectual property law, and not only for emergencies. But with food systems under growing stress, Big Ag solutions have proved attractive to worried policymakers who see no other way out.

Last chance to change course
Historically, natural resources were commonly or publicly shared. Water and land have long been sustainably used by farmers, fisherfolk and pastoralists. But market value has grown with ‘property rights’, especially with corporate acquisition.

Touted as the best means to achieve food security, corporate investments in recent decades have instead undermined remaining ‘traditional’ agrarian ecosystems.

Big Ag claims that the food, ecological and climate crises has to be addressed with its superior new technologies harnessing the finance, entrepreneurship and innovation only they can offer.

But in fact, they have failed, instead triggering more problems in their pursuit of profit. As the new food system and corporate trends consolidate, it will become increasingly difficult to change course.

Proposed by the WEF, the UN Secretary-General’s Food Systems Summit later this year clearly seeks to promote corporate ‘solutions’. Very timely, A Long Food Movement is an urgent call to action for the long haul.

With so much at stake, representatives of food producers and consumers need to act urgently to prevent governments from allowing a UN sanctioned corporate takeover of global governance of food systems.

The post Struggle for the Future of Food appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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