Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Cattle carcass in Kenya's Kitengela Maasai rangelands in the great drought of 2009. A new report shows that major river basis in Africa have become sources of conflict due to drying up thanks to climate change and environmental degradation. Credit: ILRI

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI, Oct 24 2023 (IPS)

Almost all major river basins in Africa have become the epicentres for conflicts over the last 20 years, and agricultural yields on the continent could drop by up to 50 percent in the coming years owing to the drying up of ‘traditional’ water sources, thanks in part to effects climate change and degradation of the environment, the inaugural edition of the State of Africa’s Environment Report 2023 released in Nairobi finds.

At the same time, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity affect the continent the most, with a loss of 4 million hectares of forest cover each year, double the global average rate.

This, in part, has contributed to over 50 million people migrating from the degraded areas of sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe by 2020, according to the report compiled by India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released in Nairobi on October 13, 2023.

It finds that all the critical water basins on the continent were experiencing distress and turbulence due to, among other reasons, unsustainable use of resources besides climate, becoming hotspots for competition over water.

The basins include Lake Chad, shared by Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger, the river Nile shared by Egypt, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia; Lake Victoria, Shared by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania; and the river Niger used by communities in Niger, Mali and Nigeria.

Also on the list is the river Congo basin, a joint resource used by Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, and the Lake Malawi basin shared by Tanzania and Malawi. Also on the list is the Lake Turkana basin in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Examples show that the Lake Chad basin disputes started in 1980, and the water body has diminished by 90 percent since the 1960s due to overuse and climate change effects.

“For years, the lake has supported drinking water, irrigation, fishing, livestock and economic activity for over 30 million people; it is vital for indigenous, pastoral and farming communities in one of the world’s poorest countries. However, climate change has fueled massive environmental and humanitarian crises in the region,” the report notes.

It notes that international actors and regional governments have long ignored the interplay between climate change, community violence and the forced displacement of civilians.

“Conflict between herders and farmers have become common as livelihoods are lost, and families dependent on the lake are migrating to other areas in search of water,” the report says.

“In the Congo basin, disputes started in 1960. The basin witnesses multifaceted crises, including forced displacement, violent conflicts, political instability, and climate change impacts,” it concludes.

On the other hand, it traces conflicts in the Niger basin to 1980, blaming climate change for disagreements over “damage to farmland and restricted access to water, while in the Nile, disagreements began around 2011 stemming from the construction of the Grand Renaissance dam by Ethiopia, which Egypt fears will impact water flow.

Conflicts over Lake Turkana resources are fairly recent, traced to 2016 when it was observed that with 90 percent of its water from the Omo River in Ethiopia, rising temperatures and reduced rainfall have contributed to the lake’s ‘retreat’ into Kenya.

To survive, the Ethiopian herder tribes began following the water, resulting in inter-tribal conflict with their Kenyan counterparts. The construction of Ethiopia’s Gilgel Gibe III Dam on the river worsened matters.

It notes that in 2020, between 75 and 250 million people on the continent were projected to be “exposed to increased water stress” due to climate change, warning that in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could drop up to 50 percent due to drying up of traditional water sources including lakes, rivers, and wells.

“How Africa manages its water resources will define how water-secure the world would be. Africa’s aquifers hold 0.66 million KM3 of water. This is more than 100 times the annual renewable freshwater resources stored in dams and rivers.”

Take Ethiopia, for instance. Known as the continent’s water tower, the country is confronting huge challenges of disappearing lakes and rivers, it explains.

Africa, the world’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent, hosts a quarter of the planet’s animal and plant species, but the species extinction and general biodiversity loss rate in the continent are higher than in the rest of the world.

As a result, total deaths from extreme weather, climate or water stress in the world in the last 50 years, 35 percent of them were in Africa. Predictably, Africa will account for 40 percent of the world’s migration due to climate change.

“While the Global South will bear the maximum burden of internal migration, the reasons might vary from region to region, depending on climate change-related issues like water scarcity or rising sea levels. However, water scarcity will be the main driving force of the total migration, the report explains.

Citing the example of chimpanzees, the SOE 2023 reports that there are only 1.050 million to 2.050 million of the species on the continent, limited to Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, with populations having disappeared in Gambia, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo.

On the brighter side, it says that African countries have some pioneering conservation models that, among other things, put communities at the centre of conservation efforts, noting that if Africa protects its biodiversity, the whole world will also gain.

Protected areas in Africa, if sustainably used, can eradicate poverty and bring peace, it asserts.

South Africa will be worst impacted by extreme weather events, making some areas inhospitable because of weather events, where already people are being forced to migrate within their own countries or regions in search of more hospitable and better living conditions, said Sunita Narain, CSE Director General.

Explaining the rationale behind the report, Narain said: “We can read and get the immediate story today, but often we do not get the big picture. The report will help us get that big picture. It will enable us to understand the different aspects of the environment by putting together a comprehensive picture that makes the links clearer between the environment and development. Environment and development are two sides of the same coin.”

She added that the report, produced with input from scientists and Africa-based journalists, also helped people appreciate the link between development and the environment.

According to Mamo Boru Mamo, director of Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), the issues raised in the report are important and pertinent to the environment in Africa.

Among other things, the SOE 2023 had captured the plight of East Africa’s agro-pastoral communities whose migration from arid and semi-arid areas of Africa to urban centres and out of the continent has risen over the recent years, thanks in part to accelerated degradation of the environment.

“The continent has a collective responsibility to manage the environment sustainably while giving direction on the position Africa should take in the upcoming UN’s COP28 in Dubai,” he said.

Citing the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “Provisional State of the Global Climate 2022”, it finds that in East Africa, rainfall has been below average for four consecutive wet seasons, the most extended sequence in 40 years.

The region recorded five consecutive deficit rainy seasons by the end of 2022, with the rainy season of March to May 2022 being the driest in over 70 years for Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, partly due to the destruction of the environment and climate change.

Overall, the report confirms that the climate crisis in Africa was an existential problem facing millions of people who have endured the wrath of nature for years.

Over 100 journalists, researchers and experts from across Africa have contributed to the preparation of this annual publication.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Dozens of women environmentalists participated in Mexico City in the launch of the Voices of Life campaign by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023, which brings together hundreds of activists in five of the country's 32 states. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 2023 (IPS)

The defense of the right to water led Gema Pacheco to become involved in environmental struggles in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, an area threatened by drought, land degradation, megaprojects, mining and deforestation.

Care “means first and foremost to value the place where we live, that the environment in which we grow up is part of our life and on which our existence depends,” said Pacheco, deputy municipal agent of San Matías Chilazoa, in the municipality of Ejutla de Crespo, some 355 kilometers south of Mexico City."We are in the phase of seeing how the Escazú Agreement will be applied. The most important thing is effective implementation. It is something new and it will not be ready overnight." -- Gisselle García

A biologist by profession, the activist is a member of the Local Committee for the Care and Defense of Water in San Matías Chilazoa, which belongs to the Coordinating Committee of Peoples United for the Care and Defense of Water (Copuda).

The local population is dedicated to growing corn, beans and chickpeas, an activity hampered by the scarcity of water in a country that has been suffering from a severe drought over the past year.

To deal with the phenomenon, the community created three water reservoirs and infiltration wells to feed the water table.

“Women’s participation has been restricted, there are few women in leadership positions. The main challenge is acceptance. There is little participation, because they see it as a waste of time and it is very demanding,” lamented Pacheco.

In November 2021, the 16 communities of Copuda obtained the right to manage the water resources in their territories, thus receiving water concessions.

But women activists like Pacheco face multiple threats for protecting their livelihoods and culture in a country where such activities can pose a lethal risk.

For this reason, eight organizations from five Mexican states launched the Voices of Life campaign on Oct. 12, involving hundreds of habitat protectors, some of whom came to the Mexican capital for the event, where IPS interviewed several of them.

Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

 

The initiative seeks to promote the right to a healthy environment, facilitate environmental information, protect and recognize people and organizations that defend the environment, as well as learn how to use information and communication technologies.

In 2022, Mexico ranked number three in Latin America in terms of murders of environmental activists, with 31 killed (four women and 16 indigenous people), behind Colombia (60) and Brazil (34), out of a global total of 177, according to the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

A year earlier, this Latin American country of almost 129 million inhabitants ranked first on the planet, with 54 killings, so 2022 reflected an improvement.

“The situation in Mexico remains dire for defenders, and non-fatal attacks, including intimidation, threats, forced displacement, harassment and criminalization, continued to greatly complicate their work,” the report says.

The outlook remains serious for activists, as the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) documented 582 attacks in 2022, more than double the number in 2021. Oaxaca, Mexico City and the northern state of Chihuahua reported the highest number of attacks.

 

Urban problems

The south of Mexico City is home to the largest area of conservation land, but faces growing threats, such as deforestation, urbanization and irregular settlements.

Protected land defines the areas preserved by the public administration to ensure the survival of the land and its biodiversity.

Social anthropologist Tania Lopez said another risk has now emerged, in the form of the new General Land Use Planning Program 2020-2035 for the Mexican capital, which has a population of more than eight million people, although Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million.

“There was no public consultation of the plan based on a vision of development from the perspective of native peoples. In addition, it encourages real estate speculation, changes in land use and invasions,” said López, a member of the non-governmental organization Sembradoras Xochimilpas, part of the Voices of Life campaign.

 

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda

 

Apart from the failure to carry out mandatory consultation processes, activists point out irregularities in the governmental Planning Institute and its technical and citizen advisory councils, because they are not included as members.

The conservation land, which provides clean air, water, agricultural production and protection of flora and fauna, totals some 87,000 hectares, more than half of Mexico City.

The plan stipulates conservation of rural and urban land. But critics of the program point out that the former would lose some 30,000 hectares, destined for rural housing.

The capital’s legislature is debating the program, which should have been ready by 2020.

Gisselle García, a lawyer with the non-governmental Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, said attacks on women activists occur within a patriarchal culture that limits the existence of safe spaces for women’s participation in the defense of rights.

“It’s an entire system, which reflects the legal structure. If a woman files a civil or criminal complaint, she is not heard,” she told IPS, describing the special gender-based handicaps faced by women environmental defenders.

 

Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

 

Still just an empty promise

This risky situation comes in the midst of preparations for the implementation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, an unprecedented treaty that aims to mitigate threats to defenders of the environment, in force since April 2021.

Article 9 of the Agreement stipulates the obligation to ensure a safe and enabling environment for the exercise of environmental defense, to take protective or preventive measures prior to an attack, and to take response actions.

The treaty, which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making, to protect activists.

The Escazú Agreement has so far been signed by 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 15 of which have ratified it as well.

But its implementation is proceeding at the same slow pace as environmental protection in countries such as Mexico, where there are still no legislative changes to ensure its enforcement.

In August, the seven-person Committee to Support the Implementation of and Compliance with the Escazú Agreement took office. This is a non-contentious, consultative subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to the agreement to promote and support its implementation.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Escazú National Group, made up of government and civil society representatives, was formed in June to implement the treaty.

During the annual regional Second Forum of Human Rights Defenders, held Sept. 26-28 in Panama, participants called on the region’s governments to strengthen protection and ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental protectors, particularly women.

While the Mexican women defenders who gathered in Mexico City valued the Escazú Agreement, they also stressed the importance of its dissemination and, even more so, its proper implementation.

Activists Pacheco and Lopez agreed on the need for national outreach, especially to stakeholders.

“We need more information to get out, a lot of work needs to be done, more people need to know about it,” said Pacheco.

The parties to the treaty are currently discussing a draft action plan that would cover 2024 to 2030.

The document calls for the generation of greater knowledge, awareness and dissemination of information on the situation, rights and role of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights in environmental matters, as well as on the existing instruments and mechanisms for prevention, protection and response.

It also seeks recognition of the work and contribution of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights, capacity building, support for national implementation and cooperation, as well as a follow-up and review scheme for the regional plan.

García the attorney said the regional treaty is just one more tool, however important it may be.

“We are in the phase of seeing how the Escazú Agreement will be applied. The most important thing is effective implementation. It is something new and it will not be ready overnight,” she said.

As it gains strength, the women defenders talk about how the treaty can help them in their work. “If they attack me, what do I do? Pull out the agreement and show it to them so they know they must respect me?” one of the women who are part of the Voices of Life campaign asked her fellow activists.

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Credit: Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 24 2023 (IPS)

Brazil’s Supreme Court has delivered a long-awaited ruling upholding Brazilian Indigenous peoples’ claims to their traditional land. It did so by rejecting the ‘Temporal Framework’ principle, which only allowed for the demarcation and titling of lands physically occupied by the Indigenous groups who claimed them by 5 October 1988, when the current constitution was adopted. This excluded the numerous Indigenous communities who’d been violently expelled from their ancestral lands before then, including under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

The case was brought in relation to a land dispute in the state of Santa Catarina, but the ruling applies to hundreds of similar situations throughout Brazil.

This was also good news for the climate. Brazil is home to 60 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, a key climate stabiliser due to the enormous amount of carbon it stores and the water it releases into the atmosphere. Most of Brazil’s roughly 800 Indigenous territories – over 300 of which are yet to be officially demarcated – are in the Amazon. And there are no better guardians of the rainforest than Indigenous peoples: when they fend off deforestation, they protect their livelihoods and ways of life. The best-preserved areas of the Amazon are those legally recognised and protected as Indigenous lands.

But there’s been a sting in the tale: politicians backed by the powerful agribusiness lobby have passed legislation to enshrine the Temporal Framework, blatantly ignoring the court ruling.

A tug of war

The Supreme Court victory came after a long struggle. Hundreds of Indigenous mobilisations over several years called for the rejection of the Temporal Framework.

Powerful agribusiness interests presented the Temporal Framework as the proper way of regulating article 231 of the constitution in a way that provides the legal security rural producers need to continue to operate. Indigenous rights groups denounced it as a clear attempt to make theft of Indigenous lands legal. Regional and international human rights mechanisms sided with them: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples warned that the framework contradicted universal and Inter-American human rights standards.

In their 21 September decision, nine of the Supreme Court’s 11 members ruled the Temporal Framework to be unconstitutional. With a track record of agribusiness-friendly rulings, the two judges who backed it had been appointed by former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and one of them had also been Bolsonaro’s justice minister.

As the Supreme Court held its hearings and deliberations, political change took hold. Bolsonaro had vowed ‘not to cede one centimetre more of land’ to Indigenous peoples, and the process of land demarcation had remained stalled for years. But in April 2023, President Lula da Silva, in power since January, signed decrees recognising six new Indigenous territories and promised to approve all pending cases before the end of his term in 2026, a promise consistent with the commitment to achieve zero deforestation by 2030. The recognition of two additional reserves in September came alongside news that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen by 66 per cent in August compared to the same month in 2022.

Agribusiness fights back

But the agribusiness lobby didn’t simply accept its fate. The powerful ruralist congressional caucus introduced a bill to enshrine the Temporal Framework principle into law, which the Chamber of Deputies quickly passed on 30 May. The vote was accompanied by protests, with Indigenous groups blocking a major highway. They faced the police with their ceremonial bows and arrows and were dispersed with water cannon and teargas.

The Temporal Framework bill continued its course through Congress even after the Supreme Court’s decision. On 27 September, with 43 votes for and 21 against, the Senate approved it as a matter of ‘urgency’, rejecting the substance of the Supreme Court ruling and claiming that in issuing it the court had ‘usurped’ legislative powers.

The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s (APIB) assessment was that, as well as upholding the Temporal Framework, the bill sought to open the door to commodity production and infrastructure construction in Indigenous lands, among other serious violations of Indigenous rights. For these reasons, Indigenous groups called this the ‘Indigenous Genocide Bill’.

The struggle goes on

As the 20 October deadline for President Lula to either sign or veto the bill approached, a campaign led by Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá collected almost a million signatures backing her call for a total veto. Along with other civil society groups, APIB sent an urgent appeal to the UN requesting support to urge Lula to veto the bill.

On 19 October the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Lula should veto the bill on the basis that it’s unconstitutional. On the same day, however, senior government sources informed that there wouldn’t be a total veto, but a ‘very large’ partial one. And indeed, the next day it was announced that Lula had partially vetoed the bill. According to a government spokesperson, all the clauses that constituted attacks on Indigenous rights and went against the Constitution were vetoed, while the ones that remained would serve to improve the land demarcation process, making it more transparent.

Even if the part of the bill that wasn’t vetoed doesn’t undermine the Supreme Court ruling, the issue is far from settled. The veto now needs to be analysed at a congressional session on a date yet to be determined. And the agribusiness lobby won’t back down easily. Many politicians own land overlapping Indigenous territories, and many more received campaigns funding from farmers who occupy Indigenous lands.

While further moves by the right-leaning Congress can’t be ruled out, the Supreme Court ruling also has some problems. The most blatant concerns the acknowledgment that there must be ‘fair compensation’ for non-Indigenous people occupying Indigenous lands they acquired ‘in good faith’ before the state considered them to be Indigenous territory. Indigenous groups contend that, while there might be a very small number of such cases, in a context of increasing violence against Indigenous communities, the compensation proposal would reward and further incentivise illegal invasions.

But beneath the surface of political squabbles, deeper changes are taking place that point to a movement that is growing stronger and better equipped to defend Indigenous peoples’ rights.

The 2022 census showed a 90-per-cent increase, from 896,917 to 1.69 million, in the number of Brazilians identifying as Indigenous compared to the census 12 years before. There was no demographic boom behind these numbers – just longstanding work by the Indigenous movement to increase visibility and respect for Indigenous identities. People who’d long ignored and denied their heritage to protect themselves from racism are now reclaiming their Indigenous identities. Not even the violent anti-Indigenous stance of the Bolsonaro administration could reverse this.

Today the Brazilian Indigenous movement is stronger than ever. President Lula owes his election to positioning himself as an alternative to his anti-rights, climate-denying predecessor. He now has the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights while tackling the climate crisis.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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Missile attacks on Gaza. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By Purnaka L. de Silva
NEW YORK, Oct 24 2023 (IPS)

“God Is Truth” – Mahatma Gandhi.
The bloodletting in Israel-Palestine is nothing new, perhaps the ferocity and intensity has become much worse and more frenetic. Ever since the Zionist project to establish a Jewish nation took hold in 1948, and flourished thereafter, the local inhabitants, mostly Arab Muslims and Christians, were displaced in the power equation and became dispossessed in every sense of the word.

Leading to wars between Arab neighbors and Israel, most notably in 1948-1949, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has remained the predominant military in Israel-Palestine.

In the 1980s Israel played a significant role in the creation and promotion of Hamas as a counter to weaken Fatah/PLO. Retired IDF Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev who was the Israeli military governor of Gaza in the early 1980s confessed that the government gave him a budget to engage fringe Palestinian Islamists.

For more details see Mehdi Hassan and Dina Sayedahmed, February 18, 2018, in the Intercept “Blowback: How Israel Went from Helping Create Hamas to Bombing It: Hamas wants to destroy Israel, right? But as Mehdi Hassan shows in a new video on blowback, Israeli officials admit they helped start the group”.

In fact, Hamas was originally viewed as a religious and charitable organization and Sheikh Yassin its founder was feted – a potential rival to Yasser Arafat it was thought at the time by Israeli pundits. For more details see Lorrie Goldstein October 18, 2023, in the Toronto Sun “Goldstein: Israel’s enormous blunder – it helped to create Hamas”.

Today, Hamas has become a veritable monster. Israel is not the first country to engage in such fruitless, disastrous, and ultimately counterproductive dalliances. History is replete with examples of blowback.

In the late 1970s, Indira Gandhi attempted to co-opt Bhindranwale and the Khalistan movement by allowing it to flourish to split Sikh votes and weaken the Akali Dal party, her chief rival in Punjab. After the Khalistan movement reached its pinnacle, it was too late to contain them, as in the case of Hamas today.

Indira Gandhi authorized Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army to plan the 1984 Operation Blue Star, which was executed by LTG Kuldeep Singh Brar, killing Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers holed up in Sikhism’s holiest house of worship the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab – akin to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem.

For more details see Smita Prakash’s podcast on ANI reported in the Economic Times of India “Indira Gandhi let Jarnail Bhindranwale to become Frankenstein monster, claims Operation Blue Star commander”. Sadly, on October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence in New Delhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used Operation Cyclone to provide weapons (including stinger manpads to bring down Soviet Hind D helicopter gunships) and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979-1992 to defeat the USSR’s military.

For more details see Steve Coll February 24, 2004 Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, New York: The Penguin Press. On February 15, 1989, the last Soviet military column occupying Afghanistan withdrew, under the leadership of Colonel-General Boris Gromov.

The mujahideen veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War including Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, Muhammad Atef, and Ayman al-Zawahiri created Al Qaeda, following a series of meetings in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1988. As the whole world knows, Al Qaeda launched four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, against the United States.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, well before the Festival of Sukkot ended at sundown Hamas launched a vicious, well-planned dawn raid into southern Israel from the Gaza enclave, where Palestinians have been hemmed in for decades in what has been referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison.

The attack was heralded by launching over 5,000 rockets, many likely 122mm Chinese WS-1E design (used as early as August 2008 – 15 years ago). For more details see the report of December 31, 2008, in WIRED “Hamas Fires Long-Range Chinese Rockets at Israel”. According to a report shared privately by a retired senior Indian Army officer (which needs to be independently verified by Israeli sources):

As IDF (Israel Defense Forces) publishes names of KIA (Killed in Action) in Hamas assault, IDF losses are clearer. IDF signals intelligence losses in the first 24 hours was nothing short of catastrophic. Unit 414, the Neshar (Vulture) Battalion, a pivotal piece of the IDF Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, lost 19 personnel KIA and its base infrastructure was heavily damaged during Hamas assault on Camp Urim. Gaza Division Signals Battalion commander was KIA at Camp Re’im, along with the Multidimensional “Ghost” unit commander.

Perhaps even more dramatic were the heavy losses of IDF special forces. All SOF (Special Operations Forces) units which responded to the attacks suffered heavy casualties, both to ambushes prepared by Hamas and also during clearing operations of the Hamas-occupied bases and kibbutzim (civilians had to be rescued despite casualties). Israel’s premier SOF unit Sayaret Matkal suffered 11 KIA, which is 5-10% of its total number of operators. Shayetet 12 naval special forces (another tier 1 unit) lost its unit commander.

The airborne Shaldag special operations unit lost 5 KIA and at least as many heavily injured in multiple engagements. Other losses: 933rd Nahal infantry brigade suffered 23 killed in action at Kerem Shalom checkpoint, including the brigade commander and the commander of the brigade reconnaissance battalion and his deputy. More or less the entire Nahal brigade command cell suffered very heavy losses. Overall, it is clear why IDF command is very, very annoyed, and not just because of the civilian casualties.

The combat losses it suffered on October 7 including from among its most elite units, represents a humiliating defeat for the IDF. Under the pressure of the assault and especially the loss of its HQ at Re’im, IDF Southern Command’s Gaza Division collapsed. SOF units were unable to compensate and were hammered badly. SIGINT personnel and infrastructure were destroyed, key unit commanders were killed. It was a Mess.

So where do we go from here? How do Israelis and Palestinians retain their collective humanity? There are no “good guys and bad guys” in the Israel-Palestine imbroglio. All parties to varying degrees are complicit in the utter savagery visited upon civilians, since the ethnic cleansings of 1948. The last real chance for peace that Israelis and Palestinians had was snuffed out 28 years ago on November 4 when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in an internecine killing by a fellow Israeli Jew. Yitzhak Rabin had the gravitas and vision to make peace happen. From that time on it has been a downward spiral into the depths of hell, most times willfully.

Successive Israeli governments ratcheted up the pressure by making conditions in Gaza and the West Bank unlivable for the inhabitants – despite withdrawing from the entire Gaza Strip on September 22, 2005. The Israeli settler movement added further misery. We forget Voltaire’s wise words from centuries ago when denouncing the Catholic Church, which is applicable today in Israel: “If we believe in absurdities, we shall commit atrocities”. In June 2007 Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority and the dye was cast with Israel pitted against its monstrous creation from the 1980s.

It has also laid Israel open to external interference. In the case of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Russia’s fingerprints are all over as British, European, and American top brass and security experts will confirm. Many of Hamas’s leadership studied in Russia and speak Russian. The Israel-Gaza war is a perfect diversionary tactic for Mr. Putin whose War of Aggression in Ukraine is bogged down, taking huge losses. Diverting American and European attention and war fighting men and material to aid Israel is of huge benefit to the Russians and detrimental to the freedom of Ukraine.

In Israel-Palestine, matters became compounded during the last decade that Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party and their far-right allies have been at the helm of Israeli government, security, politics, and discourse. Hubris and braggadocio are the hallmarks of a less-than-intelligent approach to dealing with Palestinians in Israel-Palestine. And rather than strengthening the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s most reliable partner to date, efforts were made systematically to undermine it. Leaving the field clear for Hamas to capture imagination of the youth.

It is ironic that Binyamin Netanyahu is still Prime Minister in all but name with mounting Israeli public pressure calling for his resignation. Guest Essay of October 18, 2023, in The New York Times “Netanyahu Led Us to Catastrophe. He Must Go.” Unlike his more famous and honorable predecessor Prime Minister Gold Meir who took responsibility and resigned after the surprise Egyptian attack in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War, a similar momentous event like the attacks that unfolded on October 7, 2023, in southern Israel.

Non-stop aerial bombing of northern Gaza will not solve the crisis. It is not a solution; in fact, it strengthens Hamas in many unintended ways. The only immediate move must be to walk back from the brink, call a ceasefire and halt the planned ground assault of Gaza, and look outside the box that Israel-Palestine in trapped inside.

Israel’s stalwart allies the United States, and the European powers must act as good friends and not provide bad advice in supporting the launch of a ground assault on Gaza. Revenge and counter-revenge lead to a never-ending spiral of bloodletting with no end in sight, generation after generation.

Israel has claimed that after this most recent war in Gaza it will cut ties with the territory. Israel’s custodianship of the occupied territories has been far from ideal, and they have created hellish conditions for Palestinians and Israelis alike – which in all accounts is an unmitigated failure. Egypt ruled Gaza for 250 years and for a short time under President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1949.

As an immediate stopgap measure, maybe the reluctant Egyptians could be persuaded by the United State and European allies and through the provision of requisite resources to take over Gaza as a protectorate, where civilians can go about their daily lives without the threat of aerial bombardment or fear of medieval sanctions denying water, food, electricity and other basic needs – which is absolutely prohibited under the laws of war, and the Geneva Conventions. Time is fast running out and Israel-Palestine must step back from the brink of hell in the name of humanity.

Purnaka L. de Silva, Ph.D., is Faculty and University Adjunct Professor of the Year 2022, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, New Jersey; and Director, Institute for Strategic Studies and Democracy (ISSD) Malta. He was previously Senior Advisor, United Nations Global Compact in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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On residential streets of Caracas with little traffic it is possible to see cars that have been abandoned by their owners for years. They probably migrated from Venezuela or cannot afford to repair and sell their vehicles. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

Diego has just enrolled to study journalism at a university in the Venezuelan capital and, with 2,000 dollars that his family members managed to gather, has bought his first car, a small 2007 Ford that can take him to class from his home in the neighboring Caribbean port city of La Guaira.

Tomás, an experienced physiotherapist who sold Diego the car, is leaving for Spain where a job awaits him without delay, “so I’m quickly selling off things that will give me money to settle there, such as furniture, household goods and appliances, but for now I sold only one of my two cars,” he told IPS."The vehicle fleet in Venezuela - a country that now has 28 million inhabitants - is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service. The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil." -- Omar Bautista

“This Ford Fiesta was my first car, I loved it very much, but it doesn’t make sense for me to hold on to two vehicles. I’m keeping a 2011 pickup truck that is in good condition, just in case I don’t do well and I have to return,” added the professional who, like other sources who spoke to IPS, asked not to disclose his last name “for safety reasons.”

The migration of almost eight million Venezuelans in the last 10 years, and the general impoverishment of the population, have led to the deterioration of what was once a shiny fleet of vehicles, with one out of every four vehicles left standing now due to lack of maintenance and leaving much of the rest aging and on the way to the junkyards.

In the basements of parking lots, and in the streets of towns and cities, thousands and thousands of vehicles are permanently parked under layers of dust and oblivion, because their owners have left or because they do not have the money to buy spare parts and pay the costs of repairs.

Along the streets of any Venezuelan city can be seen old rundown vehicles with no sign that the necessary repairs will be made. The impoverishment of the population is at the root of this decline. CREDIT: RrSs

Aging vehicle fleet

Omar Bautista, president of the Chamber of Venezuelan Automotive Manufacturers, told IPS that “the vehicle fleet in Venezuela – a country that now has 28 million inhabitants – is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service.”

“The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil,” Bautista said.

Moreover, in contrast to the immense oil wealth in its subsoil, gasoline in Venezuela is scarce and, after more than half a century being the cheapest in the world, it is now sold at half a dollar per liter, a cost difficult to afford for most owners of private vehicles or public transportation.

The country needs some 300,000 barrels of fuel per day and for several years it has had less than 160,000 barrels, according to oil economist Rafael Quiroz, who added that interruptions in the work of Venezuela’s refineries are frequent.

There is almost no residential building that does not have at least one vehicle in storage waiting for its owners to return from abroad. They are part of the 1.5 million vehicles that are permanently parked in the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Not enough money

The minimum wage in Venezuela is four dollars a month. Most workers receive up to 50 dollars in non-wage compensation for food, and the average income according to consulting firms is around 130 dollars a month.

Luisa Hernández, a retired teacher, earns a little more giving private English classes, but “the situation at home is very difficult. I can’t afford to pay for the repair of my Toyota Corolla, but a mechanic friend agreed to do the work, and I can pay him in installments,” she told IPS.

Mechanics have their finger on the pulse of the situation. “People leave and the cars often sit idle for years, and then the owners end up selling them, from abroad. Quite a few of those I have gone to pick up and have fixed them, to sell them,” Daniel, who runs a garage in the capital’s middle-class east side, told IPS.

He said that “many people do not sell their cars before leaving the country, thinking that they’re just going abroad to ‘see how it goes’. But they stay there and then decide to sell their vehicle before it further deteriorates and depreciates.”

Another mechanic, Eduardo González, told IPS that “There are people who go away and leave their cars in storage and from abroad they contact us so that from time to time we can check them and do some maintenance. Or they entrust their vehicle to a relative. There are people who travel and come back, but most of them end up selling.”

This situation “has favored buyers, who can get cars at a low price. But the problems come later, because that very used car will require spare parts and maintenance, and that is expensive and often the parts are difficult to get,” added González.

The same difficulty is also a concern for owners of cabs, buses and private vans that transport passengers, as well as cargo trucks.

“At least half of the truck fleet in the region is affected by the shortage and scarcity of spare parts,” said Jonathan Durrelle, president of the Chamber of Cargo Transportation of Carabobo, an industrial state in the center of the country.

Large and small buses for passenger transport in Venezuelan cities, including Caracas, as well as cargo vehicles, also suffer from the lack of sufficient revenue, as well as spare parts, to keep them in proper working condition. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Industries have closed down

Elías Besis, from the Chamber of Spare Parts Importers, attributed this to the closure of companies that “years ago manufactured 62 percent of the spare parts needed in the country, and now that production has plunged to two percent.”

Thousands of manufacturing companies closed down in Venezuela during the eight years (2013-2020) in which the country was in deep recession, suffering a loss of four-fifths of its GDP according to economic consulting firms.

Financial and banking activity has also declined, as has the vehicle loan portfolio, which peaked at 2.3 billion dollars in 2008 and plummeted to just 227,000 dollars by late 2022, according to economist Manuel Sutherland.

Vehicle assembly plants, of which there were a dozen until recently, also closed their doors. In addition to selling to hundreds of dealerships, they used to export vehicles to the Andean and Caribbean markets.

Their production peaks were recorded in 1978, with 182,000 new vehicles – Venezuela then had 14 million inhabitants and 2.5 million vehicles – and in 2007, when 172,000 cars were assembled.

In 2022 only 75 vehicles – trucks and buses – were assembled, and in the first six months of this year just 22.

Newer vans and cars drive through middle and upper class neighborhoods, but are part of the “bubble,” the small segment of the population less impacted by the deep economic crisis that Venezuela has suffered over the last decade. CREDIT: Motorpasión

Farewell to the bonanza

The result of this scenario is the aging and non-renewal of the vehicles circulating on Venezuela’s roads.

The new ones, Daniel pointed out, “are SUVs, crossovers and off-road vehicles that cost a lot of money and can only be bought by those who live in the bubble,” the term popularly used to refer to the segment of high-level officials and businesspersons whose finances are still booming in the midst of the crisis.

In addition, in view of the almost total closure of automotive plants, individuals are opting to import new vehicles directly from the United States, favored by the elimination of tariffs for the importation of most models.

For that reason, said Bautista, “there is no shortage of new vehicles, what there is is a shortage of consumers with the necessary purchasing power and conditions to buy new vehicles.”

These consumers were part of the hard-hit middle class – nine out of 10 families in that socioeconomic category had fallen below the middle class by 2020 according to the consulting firm Anova – and they no longer buy new or newer cars because they have swelled the legion of migrants, selling or leaving behind their main assets.

Since the days of the oil boom (1950-1980), Venezuelans developed a sort of sentimental relationship with their vehicles, associating them with comfort and enjoyment that favored cheap gasoline and a network of paved roads that made it easier to travel to places of recreation.

In middle class and even lower middle class families, it was quite common to change cars every two years and to give one to their children when they turned 18. They were helped by credit facilities, and were encouraged to buy cars in cities where public transportation has always fallen short.

They have had to say goodbye to their easy past on wheels, like migrants have said farewell to their country and homeland. Or at least “see you later”.

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• Open Migration Flows and Closed-Up Houses in Venezuela

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid wait to cross into Gaza from Egypt through Rafah. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By an IPS Correspondent
NEW YORK, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

Amnesty International (AI), one of the leading human rights organizations, has accused Israeli forces of continuing “to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.”

AI says it has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said Israeli forces, in their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives.

“They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity”.

Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by, said Callamard.

Families sheltering in an UNRWA school. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh

AI said it spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families.

Here the organization presented an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.

“The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard”.

“We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”

Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.

In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.

“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Callamard.

Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes.

Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.

Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks.

Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”

The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters.

Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.

Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid.

Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Families flee their shattered neighbourhood, Tal al-Hawa, to seek refuge in the southern Gaza strip. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

The widespread use of American weapons by Israel, which has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, has triggered accusations of war crimes against the United States.

But US has always escaped these charges in contemporary military conflicts –particularly in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq –and also in the use of American weapons in Yemen where thousands have been killed.

The United Nations once described the deaths and destruction in the eight-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The killings of mostly civilians have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose primary arms supplier is the US.

And now, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza have come back to haunt the Americans in a new war zone. But still, the US is unlikely to be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“If U.S. officials don’t care about Palestinian civilians facing atrocities using U.S. weapons, perhaps they will care a bit more about their own individual criminal liability for aiding Israel in carrying out these atrocities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an American non-profit organization that advocates democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

“The American people never signed up to help Israel commit war crimes against defenseless civilians with taxpayer funded bombs and artillery,” she noted.

According to DAWN, U.S. law requires that United States monitor and ensure that weapons and munitions it provides to Israel are not used to commit war crimes in Gaza.

The advocacy group reminded both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a letter sent last week.

“Failure to comply with end-use monitoring requirements not only breaches U.S. laws but also could expose U.S. officials to prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for aiding and abetting war crimes,” warned DAWN.

In a separate letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, DAWN asked the Prosecutor urgently to issue a public statement reminding the parties to the conflict of the ongoing investigation there and send an investigative team to the Gaza region of Palestine to document and investigate potential crimes under the Rome Statute.

Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor, Jadaliyya, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, told IPS the United States is in violation of international law, as well as its own domestic legislation, by providing weapons to Israel in the full knowledge that these are being used for the express purpose of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

www.jadaliyya.com

“I would go further and state that it is providing them to Israel for precisely this reason. This is because the US is determined to see Israel achieve its objectives in the Gaza Strip; Washington recognizes that Israel does not have the military capacity and political will to physically occupy the Gaza Strip for a prolonged period and eradicate Hamas and other groups, and has instead — with unqualified US support — adopted as its primary objective the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip and mass killings of Palestinian civilians”, he pointed out.

As for international law and domestic US legislation, these are as irrelevant as Palestinian lives in this context. That’s how the US-designed rules-based international order works and was designed to work, he said.

“US legislation, the laws of war, and international law more generally, are rigorously applied to rivals and adversaries, while the US and its partners are free to violate them with total impunity, Rabbani argued.

It would be fair to say that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is the personification of this system — fearlessly prosecuting official enemies and adversaries with rabid zeal, but more docile than a dead canary when similar or greater crimes are committed by states his government and its Western partners support without qualification, said Rabbani.

If there’s one thing US officials complicit in Israel’s war crimes don’t have to worry about, it is prosecution by the ICC, he declared.

Asked about US weapons in killings in Gaza, Matthew Miller, Spokesperson for the State Department told reporters last week that American weapons cannot be deliberately used against civilians.

“Of course – and one of the tragedies of war –is that there are always civilian deaths. It is one of the great tragedies of war, and what we try to do is work to minimize civilian deaths to the greatest extent possible,” he said.

Asked if there is “any concern among the administration that by supplying this military assistance, the US might be involved in any possible war crimes against civilians”, Miller said: “No, I would say that we have made very clear that we expect Israel to conduct its operations in compliance with international law.”

“That is the standard we hold – uphold – that’s the standard we hold ourselves to; it’s the standard we hold our partners to; it’s the standard every democracy ought to be held to. And we will continue to work with them and continue to deliver messages to them that they should conduct their military operations in – and to the maximum extent possible to protect civilians from harm,” he declared.

According to the Washington-based Stimson Center, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. military assistance since the Second World War, amounting to more than $158 billion over the past seven decades– not adjusted for inflation.

In recent years, U.S. assistance to Israel has been outlined in a 10-year memoranda of understandings, the most recent of which was signed in 2016 and pledges $38 billion in military assistance between FY2019-FY2028.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian journalist and author, told IPS asking the US to clarify the End Use Monitoring (EUM) measures, or Israel’s compliance with the use of American weapons in its war against Gaza, may give the impression that Washington lacks awareness of how US weapons, and US tax payers money are being used.

https://ramzybaroud.net/

“Never before in the history of the US’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the US involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct,” he said.

Every statement made by top US officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the US is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance, Dr, Baroud pointed out.

“In the past, Israel has violated the US’s rules on the use of US arms against civilians, and repeatedly so. Much has been written about this subject, particularly in terms of Israeli violation of the Lehy Laws.”

But what is happening right now is a whole different reality. By sending massive arm shipments, aircraft carriers, and even soldiers to Israel, the US has become a party in the world, therefore it is responsible for the unprecedented war crimes in Gaza, he argued.

“The fingerprints of US weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.

We don’t demand clarification regarding the use of these weapons. We know precisely how they are being used. We demand accountability from war criminals, whether in Tel Aviv or Washington,” he noted.

Meanwhile, a report on Cable News Network (CNN) October 22 said the death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651, with more than 14,245 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Christian citizens bury victims of Israel's bombing of the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza. Credit: Hany Al-Shaeir/IPS

By Hisham Allam and Naureen Hossain
CAIRO & UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 2023 (IPS)

The ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip has resulted in a humanitarian crisis described as “catastrophic” – and even as aid arrived, strikes intensified.

According to the health ministry in Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed 4,385 Palestinians and wounded 13,650 more since October 7. The victims include 3,983 children and 3,300 women. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, another 64 Palestinians have been killed and 1,230 injured by Israeli forces in the same period, as reported by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Palestinian rockets and other attacks have claimed the lives of 1,300 Israelis and injured 4,562 more, while nearly 200 remain captive, according to OCHA. The conflict has also forced about one million Palestinians in Gaza to flee their homes, more than half of whom are staying in UNRWA facilities across the territory.

A convoy with aid entered Gaza for the first time on October 21 since the outbreak of hostilities on October 7.

Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, welcomed aid and said he was confident that this would be the start of a “sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine, and fuel – to the people of Gaza, in a safe, dependable, unconditional and unimpeded manner.

Trucks carrying 60 metric tons of World Food Programme emergency food were among the first humanitarian convoys to cross the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza. Credit: WFP

“Two weeks since the start of hostilities, the humanitarian situation in Gaza – already precarious – has reached catastrophic levels. It is critical that aid reaches people in need wherever they are across Gaza and at the right scale.

“The people of Gaza have endured decades of suffering. The international community cannot continue to fail them.”

UNRWA, the United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, says that more than half a million people are staying in crowded shelters in Gaza, especially in the south. They have left their homes because of the war and have nowhere else to go.

The shelters do not have enough food, water, hygiene, and cleaning items, and they are not clean enough. The UNRWA says that this is a health problem, and it makes the people who live there feel more stressed and scared. Some of them have gone back to where they came from, even though it is still dangerous.

The water crisis in Gaza is also affecting the UNRWA shelters, as many of them do not have any water supply at all. The agency says that fuel is urgently needed to operate water pumps and desalination plants, but it is scarce and expensive due to the blockade and the war.

UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma noted during a UN briefing last week that the organization was concerned about shortages of water.

“We are very concerned about the spread of water-borne diseases,” Touma said. The influx of people in shelters and facilities such as hospitals means that the latter have been over-extended to accommodate them while resuming regular operations.

“We call for the siege to be lifted so that UNRWA and other sister and humanitarian agencies can bring in much-needed supplies,” Touma said.

On October 20, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the gate to Gaza (Rafah Crossing) and spoke about the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. He said, “We have a situation where trucks carrying vital supplies are stuck at the border while the people in Gaza are suffering from a lack of water, electricity, food, and medicine. We need to end this deadlock urgently.”

The next day, several trucks entered Gaza with aid, following a previous agreement between the USA, Egypt, and Israel.

Guterres praised the efforts of the Egyptian Red Crescent and other Egyptian entities that are helping the people in Gaza, along with the United Nations. He said, “It’s important that we have consistent support, with a sufficient number of trucks allowed to cross every day.”

A large convoy of humanitarian aid from Egypt is waiting to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, according to a volunteer from the National Alliance for Civil Development Work. The convoy consists of 120 trucks carrying 1,000 tons of food and meat, 40,000 blankets, 80 tents, 46,000 pieces of clothing, and 290,000 boxes of medicines and medical supplies.

A volunteer, Ahmed Magdy, said that the convoy had been delayed for days and that only limited trucks were allowed to pass. He expressed his disappointment and frustration at the situation, especially after the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza and the shortage of medical resources in most of the hospitals in the Strip. He said that the Egyptian civil society organizations are eager to deliver their aid to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from Israeli aggression.

According to the Palestine Red Crescent, 20 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived in Gaza and will be distributed according to the Emergency Committee’s lists. However, the organization warned that the supplies are not enough to meet the needs of the region and that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues.

While IPS was interviewing Hisham Mahna, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, the Jerusalem Hospital affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society received a notice of immediate evacuation from the Israeli army and a threat of shelling. More threats continued over the weekend, with Palestinians saying they had received renewed new warnings from Israel’s military to move from north Gaza to the south of the strip.

According to Hisham, the hospital houses more than 400 patients, including critically ill patients and others in the intensive care unit, in addition to 12,000 displaced civilians who have taken refuge in the hospital as a safe place, in addition to the medical staff.

“We appealed to the Israeli authorities at all levels to stop the repeated attacks on hospitals, to highlight the dire humanitarian situation inside the hospital for patients and displaced people, and to avoid a repeat of the Al-Ahli Hospital tragedy,” Mahna told IPS.

Ahmed El-Beriem, a Palestinian journalist and volunteer coordinator at UNRWA shelters in the Gaza Strip, tells IPS that most of the population of Gaza has been displaced to the south, which is what Israel had planned from the beginning of the war to force Gazans to leave through the Egyptian border.

“The tents provided by UN agencies are no longer enough. There are more than half a million displaced people without shelter. As for schools, the classrooms are full to the brim, with most of them reaching a density of 70 people in a room that does not exceed 25 square meters.”

El-Beriem says that the cemeteries in the Gaza Strip are filled to the brim. There is no more room, which forced the municipality to dig mass graves, each of which contains between 100 and 200 dead.

“Since the beginning of the war, the people of Gaza have been living without water or electricity. The water provided by aid organizations is limited, and diseases are widespread in the refugee camps.”

He says, “You can barely breathe clean air. The displaced people are scattered in schools, in gardens, in the courtyards of mosques, and in the corridors of hospitals.

Security has become a rare commodity. People here do not have the luxury of sleeping. You never know when the shelling will come. Israel is firing shells over the heads of civilians day and night. They are shelling hospitals, mosques, churches, residential towers, crossings, and everything.”

On the other side of the border, a field coordinator with the Egyptian Red Crescent, Mohamed Jamal, said they have received hundreds of tons of aid for Gaza at El-Arish Airport in Egypt’s northern Sinai. However, he said they are still waiting for the border to open to deliver the aid. “We are still waiting for any breakthrough in the situation and the opening of the crossing,” Jamal told IPS.

He said the international aid includes medical equipment, medicines, food, blankets, and clothing from various countries and organizations. Jamal said the Egyptian Red Crescent was coordinating with other countries and the Palestinian Red Crescent to assess the needs of the people in Gaza and provide them with the necessary relief supplies.

According to UN Women, the recent outbreak of violence and destruction in Gaza has forced nearly 493,000 women and girls to flee their homes. The violence has also left many women without their male partners, as about 900 women have become widows and heads of households.

Sarah Hendriks, UN Women Deputy Executive Director, ad interim, said: “UN Women urges an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unrestricted access to humanitarian aid, including food, water, fuel, and health supplies, which are vital for the survival of women and girls in the Gaza Strip.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been providing food and cash assistance to 522,000 Palestinians each day since the start of the crisis, even as stocks run dangerously low. Due to the widespread destruction and insecurity, the replenishment of supplies has proven to be difficult, nigh impossible.

The call for an end to the siege has been made more pertinent and urgent after the bombings of a UNRWA school in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp and the Al Ahli Anglican Episcopal Hospital on October 17, resulting in casualties in the hundreds. Guterres condemned the strikes in a statement issued that same day, also emphasizing that under international law, hospitals and medical clinics are protected under international law.

Since the start of the crisis, 26 healthcare facilities have been damaged by the fighting, according to the World Health Organization. Facilities such as hospitals have already been overwhelmed with the patient care they provide during such crises, as well as serving as shelters for displaced peoples.

The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths spoke at the Security Council to call for the involved parties to respect international humanitarian law. He also called for a ceasefire so that humanitarian efforts could step in. Following the hospital bombing on Tuesday, he noted that medical personnel and facilities are protected under international law.

“It’s imperative that the wounded and the sick receive the medical care they need,” he said. “It is imperative that the parties respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, and it is our collective responsibility – we are all involved in this, we are not observers, we are all involved – in using all our influence to ensure that this is the case.”

Some Member States have extended their support to the people of Palestine and the relief effort. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia contributed USD 20 million and USD 2 million, respectively, to UNRWA’s relief funding. Contributions have also come from Jordan, Ireland, and Iceland.

There have also been statements that call out or even condemn the Israeli military forces in their operations against Hamas.

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the continued attacks and siege of Gaza have demonstrated “daily indications of violations of the law of war and international human rights law.”

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, has warned that the Palestinians face the “grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing” should the war continue and has stated that Israeli forces’ military operations go “well beyond the limits of international law.”

In the 15-member council, a resolution that would have condemned all violence against civilians in the Hamas-Israel conflict was vetoed by the United States. Russia and Britain, two other permanent members of the Security Council, abstained during the voting process – the rationale being that more time was needed for diplomacy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

It’s a rapid reversal for New Zealand’s Labour Party, in power for six years. At the last election in 2020 it won an outright majority, the first party to do so under the current voting system. But three years on, it’s finished a distant second in the election held on 14 October. The result speaks to a broader pattern seen amid economic strife in many countries – of intense political volatility and the rejection of incumbents.

Jacindamania fades

Former Labour leader Jacinda Ardern captured the public imagination when she took the helm of her party in August 2017. Labour had been floundering but went on to gain seats at the election the following month, unexpectedly forming a coalition government.

Aged 37, Ardern was her country’s youngest-ever prime minister by some margin, and the world’s youngest female government leader. Many saw her as a breath of fresh air, offering an approachable and empathetic brand of politics. Ardern enjoyed an international profile unprecedented for a New Zealand prime minister.

The 2020 election saw Ardern and her party rewarded for what was widely seen as an effective pandemic response, credited with saving around 20,000 lives. The opportunity seemed on to pursue an ambitious agenda. The government could point to progress in decriminalising abortion, tightening gun control laws and introducing stronger workplace rights. But many saw the government as having an overcrowded legislative agenda, failing to make headway on headline policies such as child poverty, while voters increasingly became preoccupied with high inflation.

Ardern announced her resignation in January 2023. Her popularity and that of her party had declined amid the soaring cost of living, which some blamed on long pandemic lockdowns.

Ardern had been the target of a bombardment of online abuse, much of it vilely misogynist in nature. Last year New Zealand police reported that threats against Ardern had almost tripled over two years, as anti-vaccine disinformation and conspiracy theories accumulated extremist adherents. In 2022, anti-vaccine protesters camped for weeks outside parliament. The protests, which ended in violence, were a magnet for far-right extremists. Levels of vitriol previously unseen in New Zealand were again present during the election campaign, in which women and Māori candidates in particular were subjected to intimidation and instances of violence.

Ardern’s replacement as prime minister, Chris Hipkins, promised to focus on bread-and-butter issues. He cut many progressive policies and pitched squarely for the centre. But his strategy failed. Labour was the only major party to shed votes. It lost support to the centre-right National Party – New Zealand’s other party of government – along with the right-wing Act and the nationalist and populist NZ First. But it also shed more progressive voters, with the Green party and Te Pāti Māori, which advocates for Indigenous rights, picking up support.

Fractious coalition ahead

Quite what government will form isn’t yet clear. Results are provisional and won’t be finalised until 3 November, with over half a million ‘special votes’ still to be counted – many from New Zealanders living overseas. Due to the death of a candidate a by-election will also be held.

The National party has 50 seats in the 121-seat single-chamber parliament; the workings of the electoral system mean parliament will expand to 122 seats once all votes are counted. This total means it’s clear the National party will head a coalition government, with Christopher Luxon as prime minister. But a National-Act alliance might not be enough to command a majority. NZ First may need to be part of the coalition too.

NZ First is the creation of maverick opportunist Winston Peters. Over the course of a long career, Peters has pulled off the trick of positioning as anti-establishment while working with both main parties in coalition governments, including Ardern’s first administration, and serving as deputy prime minister twice. This time he was able to capitalise on anti-government sentiment developed under the pandemic, including by opposing vaccine mandates.

Among his campaign targets were Māori rights, with Peters – himself Māori – pledging to withdraw support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Another focus was trans rights, tapping into the same currents of manufactured outrage seen in Europe and North America, with a law proposed to restrict access to toilets for transgender people.

The numbers may mean that the National party finds it easier to govern with Peters than without, even though the three parties disagree on key policies, including on the economy and housing. It could be a rocky road ahead.

Advances reversed?

For New Zealand’s civil society, the question could now become how best to defend gains made and keep on the agenda vital issues such as climate change. The climate crisis was barely mentioned during the campaign even though the country is experiencing extreme weather along with the rest of Oceania. Hipkins scrapped a series of transport reforms intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Act, certain to be part of government, wants to get rid of New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission and Zero Carbon Act, which mandates an emissions reduction plan and cap.

The last government’s experiments in ‘co-governance’ – essentially collaborative management, mostly of environmental resources, between government and Māori representatives, based in New Zealand’s foundational Treaty of Waitangi – seem sure to end. All parties likely to be involved in the new government attacked these moves with a flurry of hyperbolic claims. Act and NZ First characterise efforts to challenge the exclusion of Māori people as privileging them over other population groups. The danger is that those strongly opposed to Māori rights will feel emboldened, signalling increasing division and polarisation ahead.

New Zealand offers a lesson on the political consequences of the impacts of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis intensified by Russia’s war on Ukraine. In just three years, overwhelming political support evaporated. Progress may be temporary and subject to rapid reversal. Civil society must be able to switch strategies just as quickly, from advocating for more to defending gains already made.

Andrew Firmin isCIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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An aerial view of Hacendita Cafubá, on the north shore of Piratininga, a lagoon in southeastern Brazil, when ponds that serve as a spillway and to collect sedimentation of polluted water were being built and filter gardens that clean the water of the Cafubá River before discharging its waters into the lagoon were being planted. CREDIT: Alex Ramos / Niterói City Government

By Mario Osava
NITERÓI, Brazil , Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

Houses with balconies facing the street or the surrounding hills, when they are not hidden behind high walls, reflect a neighborhood where people live on the shore of a lagoon but reject the landscape it offers.

Piratininga, a 2.87 square kilometer coastal lagoon in the southern part of the Brazilian city of Niterói, began to change after several decades of uncontrolled urban growth with no care for the natural surroundings, in what has become a neighborhood of 16,000 inhabitants."I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope." -- Local beneficiary of the PRO project

Garbage, polluted water, construction debris and bad odors hurt the landscape and the quality of life that is sought when choosing a lagoon and green hills as a place to build a year-round or weekend residence.

The accumulated sludge at the bottom of the lagoon is 1.6 meters thick, on average, resulting from both pollution and natural sedimentation.

“That’s what explains those houses that turn their backs to the lagoon,” explained Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sostenible) of the city government of Niterói, a municipality of 482,000 people separated from the city of Rio de Janeiro only by Guanabara Bay.

Oceânica is one of the five administrative zones of the municipality, locally called regions, which includes 11 neighborhoods in the southern part, on the open sea coast, in contrast to others on the shore of the bay or inland areas without beaches. With two lagoons and a good part of the Atlantic Forest still preserved, the area stands out for its nature.

PRO Sostenible, which was founded in 2014, seeks to restore environmental systems and to ensure better and more sustainable urbanization in the area. Its actions are based on a systemic approach and nature-based solutions.

Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their “backs to the lagoon.” CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Natural clean-up of the water

The program’s flagship project is the Orla Piratininga Alfredo Sirkis Park, which pays homage to a leader of the environmental movement, former national lawmaker and former president of the Green Party, as well as journalist and writer, who died in 2020.

The park, known by its acronym POP, has the mission of recovering and protecting the ecosystems associated with the Piratininga Lagoon, in addition to fostering a sense of belonging to the environment and its surroundings. For this reason, the participation of the local residents in all stages of the project has been and continues to be a basic principle.

It comprises an area of 680,000 square meters, the largest in Brazil in nature-based solutions projects, with 10.6 kilometers of bicycle paths, 17 recreational areas and a 2,800 square meter Ecocultural Center.

To bring residents and visitors closer to the local environment, the plan is to complete three three-story lookout points – two of which have already been built – and piers reaching into the lagoon, part of which can be used for fishing, as fish still inhabit the lagoon despite the pollution of recent decades.

The first section, known as Haciendita Cafubá, was inaugurated on Jun. 17, with a water filtration system for the Cafubá River, one of the three that flow into the lagoon, a lookout point, piers, a bicycle path and even a nursery for newborn crocodiles in a special fenced-in area.

 

A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

“I went to see if I could find the crocodiles, my son made me walk down the street, he loves animals… I never thought I would see what I saw… I went to the beginning of the Haciendita, I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope. Congratulations for tolerating us, that community is tough.”

This is the testimony of a resident, addressed to the head of PRO Sostenible. The park has had a large number of visitors since before its inauguration, attracted by flora and fauna that had long since disappeared from the shores of the lagoon.

The technology used to clean the waters is known around the world but has not been widely used in Brazil. It is based on filter gardens, in which layers of gravel and permeable substrates serve as a base for macrophytes, aquatic plants that live in flooded areas and are visible on the surface.

The plants filter the water in a process that does not require chemical inputs.

A special spillway receives the waters of the Cafubá, which conducts and controls them to give greater efficiency to the next pond, the sedimentation pond, the first step in cleaning the polluted waters by reducing the solid material produced by erosion and garbage thrown into the riverbed.

After the sedimentation basins, the water passes through three filtering gardens before flowing into the lagoon.

 

Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Plant filters

Twelve species of macrophytes are used in the filtration process, but the variety has been reduced due to maintenance difficulties. “We use only Brazilian species, and no exogenous species,” said Heloisa Osanai, a biologist specialized in environmental management and one of the 17 employees of PRO Sostenible.

Examples include water lettuce and water lilies with orange flowers.

“One of the effects of the water treatment is the reduction of mosquitoes, which is important to local residents, who used to burn dry vegetation in an attempt to drive away the insects. People no longer build bonfires in the evenings. The filter gardens attract dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Osanai.

In the larger Jacaré River, 11 filtering gardens were created, which operate in sequence and whose size was designed for greater efficiency, said Andrea Maia, another biologist and environmental manager of the team.

 

Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Awards and results

PRO Sostenible has already won several national and international awards. It was named one of the three best environmental sustainability programs in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Smart Cities 2022 award.

This year it won another award from Smart Cities Latin America, as the best in Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility. The Park also won awards for valuing biodiversity, from the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, and another as an environmental project, from the São Paulo city government, for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

In addition to the Park, the program has inaugurated a Sports and Leisure Center on the island of Tibau, on the other side of the Piratininga Lagoon, closer to the sea.

As part of this project, sports fields, a playground and a lookout point have been built, while an invasive tree, the white lead tree (Leucaena leucocephala), native to Mexico and Central America, which dominated the island’s vegetation, has been gradually replaced with local species.

The systemic thinking that guides PRO Sostenible is based on three pillars, explained Dionê Castro.

First is the complexity of local ecosystems and of the projects being implemented, focusing on the environmental, natural, social and cultural dimensions.

In second place is what is called “intersubjectivity”, which takes into account new paradigms of science, leaving behind “simplistic and Cartesian views…The changes do not come from outside, but from local residents, with public input from the conception of the project to its execution,” said the geographer who holds a doctorate in environmental management.

The third pillar is irreversibility. The lagoon and its ecosystems will not return to their original state, “to zero,” but will be cleaned up as much as possible to reach a “new equilibrium,” she said.

Local support for the environmental project led to solutions in different areas, such as the regularization of real estate in the favelas or shantytowns, the improvement of health, the revitalization of fishing, and even the creation of a fishermen’s association.

“It’s environmental justice on the march,” Castro summed up.

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. Credit: Shutterstock

By Stephanie Musho and Esther M Passaris
NAIROBI, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

The tips of our fingers have densely packed nerve endings. That is why a miniscule paper cut activates our pain receptors and causes stubborn pain for a day or two. Now consider that a clitoris has over 10,000 nerve endings. It is the human female’s most sensitive erogenous zone, explaining the sexual pleasure it elicits at the slightest touch. A paper cut on your clitoris would be agonizing yet does not compare to the pain of female genital mutilation – or FGM.

The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, permeating social, political and economic facets of daily life. Consider that the current and future financial cost of health care alone for women living with conditions caused by FGM is USD 1.4 billion   annually.  Yet,  over 4 million women and girls remain at risk of undergoing this violation.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful

Survivors have spoken out on what sex is like after this heinous mutilation:  they feel no sexual pleasure, only excruciating pain. Childbirth is even worse as they are more susceptible to complications, increasing the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity by way of obstructed labor, fistula, post-partum hemorrhage, sepsis and ultimately death. The psychological effects are extensive too, resulting in, among other things, depression, crippling anxiety, and even suicide.

Worse still is that the repercussions extend beyond physiology. FGM is often a precursor to child marriage, cutting off the prospects of a girl or young woman actualizing themselves. It is further compounded by conflict and climate crises. In such contexts, bride price is deemed to be an ‘easy escape’ from economic hardships. This false perception makes an already bad situation worse.

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. This is despite the existence of robust laws and policies that criminalize this violation in at least 28 countries on the continent. For example  50% of these 55 million girls are found in three countries – Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and all three countries have criminalized the practice. This disregard of the rule of law can be attributed to deeply entrenched cultural dogma, founded on patriarchy that perpetuates the clashing of harmful culture with the legal code.

Additionally, African women and girls in the diaspora, such as those among the 11 million Africans in Europe and 2 million in the U.S., continue to suffer, with little to no legal protections in place. Aggravating this is that undocumented migrants have little recourse, as seeking protection from FGM would expose them to detention and deportation.

Besides, an emerging trend in the fight against FGM is the contention with cross border FGM. This is where communities travel outside of territories with stringent laws that criminalize the practice to carry out the violation elsewhere to avoid prosecution. This is termed ‘vacation cutting’. It is consequently imperative that FGM is criminalized everywhere, for there to be progress towards our shared global sustainable goals.

The fight to end this scourge is made harder by the medicalization of FGM where health professionals conduct the practice in place of traditional ‘cutters’; in a fallacious and inadequate attempt to mitigate the damaging impacts of FGM.  In fact, a qualified medical doctor recently filed an application in the High Court challenging the prohibition of FGM, citing criminalization of the practice as a violation of bodily autonomy and an infringement of a woman’s right to uphold her culture. This is a reiteration of the need to double down efforts to eradicate the practice as there are those among us that remain committed to the continued relegation of women and girls, and their entrapment in vicious dependency and poverty cycles in the name of culture.

It is then evident that ending FGM requires an armory of varied strategies. This begins with the understanding that when a country becomes party to an international legal instrument, it consents to limitations to its sovereignty and must therefore fulfil its obligations under international law.

This includes those under African Charter on People’s and Human Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa – commonly known as the Maputo Protocol, for African States; and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), among others. These are important tools towards much needed universal criminalization of and ending FGM.

The world is currently at the midpoint of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set to elapse in 2030, and all indications point to a completely off-track trajectory – if not regression. If the current rate of progress continues, it could take nearly 300 years to attain gender equality.

While some could argue that it is unrealistic to succeed in 7 years, it is certainly possible to accelerate action and shorten this depressing forecast. We must therefore accelerate action and truly leave no one behind. This means protecting those at risk of this horrendous violation of women and girls. Additionally, a needed increase in financial investments; and it makes financial sense to make them since ending FGM saves economies the costs of the attendant consequence.

The time is now to focus on FGM because while there are ongoing efforts to reform the global financial architecture towards financing for development, these have been heavily centered on climate action.  Whilst this is indeed important, the relegation of other goals in this pursuit runs the risk of pushing them – including those on women and girls further to the periphery. These spaces must be expanded towards intersectional collaboration towards financing and meeting our people and planetary goals.

Additionally, there are at least 40 general and presidential elections slated for next year. Fifteen elections are in Africa; 7 in the Americas; 8 in Asia; another 8 in Europe and 2 in Oceania. It is an opportune time for the electorate to demand the inclusion of gender and health rights like ending FGM in manifestos as a start.

People can appraise track records and thereafter hold elected leaders accountable to their commitments including on increased budgetary allocations and transparency in expenditure. Good governance is indeed central to these efforts.

Ultimately, ending FGM requires a concerted effort, a global push with full solidarity where everyone has a responsibility to act. If the rights of women and girls are not prioritized and intersectionality leveraged, as deliberated on at the just concluded International Conference on FGM, we will ultimately fail to achieve Agenda 2030 in its entirety and possibly even our health and gender goals in our lifetime.

 

Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and campaigner; and an Aspen New Voices Senior Fellow

Hon. Esther Passaris is a Member of Parliament in the Republic of Kenya and a member of the Pan African Parliament 

Tabeth Gowere (76) makes extra cash from weaving plastic waste. A group of seniors started weaving plastic out of a need to improve the environment and make some extra cash. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival – earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.

Such are the lives of the country’s senior citizens, like 76-year-old Tabeth Gowere and 81-year-old Elizabeth Makufa, both hailing from Harare’s Glenora high-density suburb, where they become famous as plastic waste collectors.

Gowere and Makufa, thanks to plastic waste, now care for themselves financially despite their old age, so they said.

“At first, we saw plastic waste just being flown around by the wind, and we started to pick these, cleaning the environment, burning it, but later realized we could make something out of these plastics and earn money.  So, using plastic waste, we started weaving different things, including mats to decorate sofas. Many people were impressed by our work, and they started placing orders for the plastic products we were making,” Gowere told IPS.

Makufa, like Gowere, has also seen gold in the dumped plastic waste.

“We say this is waste, but from it, we find something that is helping us to sustain us in life. I make 30 US dollars daily at times from selling the products I make from plastic waste, which means at least I get something to survive,” Makufa told IPS.

The young are learning from the lessons from the senior plastic waste entrepreneurs – like 40-year-old Michelle Gowere.

“Weaving things using plastics is a skill I learned from my mother-in-law, Mrs Gowere. We spend time together daily, and because of this, I ended up learning the skill from her; this is helping me to, at least, help my children with food to carry in their lunch boxes when they go to school,” Michelle told IPS.

To Michelle’s mother-in-law and many others, the environment has been the secondary beneficiary of the geriatrics’ initiative collecting plastic waste.

“You would see that in our area, waste collectors from the council rarely come to empty the refuse bins. So, as we use plastic waste to make our products, we are making our environment clean,” Michelle told IPS.

Zimbabwe Environmental Management Agency (EMA) about 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up 18 percent of that.

However, Makufa says it was not the love of money that swayed them into getting into plastic waste but improving the environment.

“It was not because we lacked money that we turned to collecting plastic waste, but we copied some people who were doing it, and we started doing the same. We thought of removing plastic waste from our environment, and we told ourselves if we could take those plastics and weave them together, we could have impressive products that we could sell and earn some money,” Makufa told IPS.

As the group of elderly people are making a difference in collectively fighting plastic waste, the local authorities welcome their contribution but add that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the environment.

“The job of caring for the environment is not a responsibility of the council alone. In fact, it is the duty of everyone to make sure where they live there is cleanliness. As a council, we thank people who are beginning to realize that there is money in plastic waste. It’s not every waste that should be dumped; there is what we call recycling, and some people make money from it, but the duty to take care of our surroundings is not a prerogative of the council, but ordinary people as well,” Innocent Ruwende, Harare City Council spokesperson, told IPS.

Priscilla Gavi, director of Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization mandated to take care of the elderly’s needs, says the elderly, too, are critical in the fight against plastic waste.

“Old age does not make someone incapable of supporting their families and taking care of themselves. It doesn’t stop the aged from working for their country. In fact, old age gives people opportunities to use skills gained during their prime ages, and they, for instance, make use of plastics, producing different things for sale from plastic waste as they also rid the environment of the plastic waste,” Gavi told IPS.

Yet for many like Makufa, collecting plastic waste has also turned out to be therapeutic in addition to being an economic venture.

“These things that we make with our own hands using plastic waste help us to rest from mental stress owing to problems we have these days that strain us psychologically. So, this helps us to be always occupied and refrain from overthinking about things we don’t have control over,” said Makufa.

According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up to 18 percent of that.

Gowere and Makufa and other elderly recyclers and plastic entrepreneurs have drawn the admiration of organizations like EMA.

“This is a commendable initiative that is promoting upcycling of waste and upscaling recycling as a business. This reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the environment. Plastic waste takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it releases harmful toxins into the environment when burned,” Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for EMA, told IPS.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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• Greener Pastures Not So Green for Zimbabweans in the Diaspora

Cities across Asia and the Pacific in the 21st century have undergone extraordinary transformation and economic growth. They are places of immense opportunities for upward mobility to improve quality of life, dynamic innovations for transforming global technologies, and manufacturing hubs to meet the increasing demands for industrialization, consumerism and prosperity. The eighth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), which is being held next week (23-25 October) in Suwon, Republic of Korea, is a key platform to share urban solutions and enhance partnerships to address the multitude of challenges. Credit: ESCAP

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

Cities have always been dynamic hubs of culture, education, economic growth and opportunity, and most importantly, centres of social interaction attracting residents and visitors alike.

It is no surprise then, that Asia and the Pacific has in recent years become predominantly urban as people seek greater opportunities and services in cities of all sizes, from coastal communities in the Pacific to mega-cities such as Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and in smaller towns and emerging urban centres, each with unique characteristics reflecting our region’s diversity.

The megatrend of urbanization, however, has not been free of difficulties, with many of the global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and various forms of pollution, all converging in our cities. These challenges have made more visible long-standing issues such as inequalities and urban poverty, access to affordable housing and an infrastructure gap.

Our most vulnerable communities often are those most affected. This is clear in our cities where climate-related disasters disproportionately impact the poor, and women and children are unable to access essential urban services.

Meanwhile, a lack of affordable housing hinders the poor and middle classes alike, and inadequate infrastructure too frequently results in persons with disabilities being left behind. Collectively, these challenges not only can harm cities and their residents but will hinder progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals, many of which intersect in cities.

When cities shuttered during the pandemic, economic activity, tourism, education and urban services all suffered seemingly irreparable harm. Yet, in the aftermath of the global pandemic, we realize that a sustainable future for Asia and the Pacific runs through our cities, and we must take the necessary steps to address existing urban challenges and plan urbanization to be inclusive and resilient to future shocks and crises.

And we know how to get there. ESCAP, UN-Habitat and partners have developed a new flagship report, Crisis Resilient Urban Futures: The Future of Asian & Pacific Cities 2023. Through analysis of the crises and their effects, the report offers practical guidance across four key thematic areas for inclusive urban policies, partnerships, and innovations:

First, urban and territorial planning remains the foundation of how all cities manage their growth and plan urban services. Having seen how crises can disrupt these systems, we know that holistic urban planning that prioritizes multi-use, compact development, low-carbon transportation and mobility, affordable housing and efficient delivery of services are essential for creating safe, sustainable and livable cities for all citizens.

Next, as we are all too frequently reminded by the number of climate-induced disasters in our region, effectively responding to the climate emergency must be a priority, and cities are well positioned to lead innovation and new practices for low-carbon and resilient pathways. A resilient city engages all stakeholders, from the most vulnerable communities to civil society and policy makers from the local to national level, all working to co-develop solutions.

We also live in a more digitally connected world, where urban digital transformations and smart city technologies, if managed effectively, can improve operational efficiencies, bridge the digital divide and ensure access for all. The pandemic underlined the need to include everyone in shaping our digitally transformed future.

Finally, the multiple crises highlighted the urgency to safeguard urban finances. Expanding, diversifying, and increasing municipal revenue should be a key strategy for cities to stimulate local economic recoveries. And as no city can go it alone, robust multi-level governance, supported by transparent public frameworks for intergovernmental transfers, is needed, while more stable policies and incentives can open doors to private sector investment.

Recovery from any shock or crisis takes time and collective action. We must ensure that our urban areas guard against future risks while building safe, sustainable and livable communities and putting us back on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

The eighth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), which is being held next week (23-25 October) in Suwon, Republic of Korea, is a key platform to share urban solutions and enhance partnerships to address the multitude of challenges. Though the task is formidable, with the right policies, innovations, cooperation and the engagement of citizens, we can ensure that our region’s cities remain vibrant hubs.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

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Credit: European Press Agency for Glasgow Actions Team

By Andrew Nazdin
LONDON, Oct 19 2023 (IPS)

It’s official: The World Bank officially has a mission to combat climate change. At least on paper.

This week, the World Bank governing body approved a new vision statement that clarifies that the Bank can tackle climate change as part of its mission to alleviate global poverty on “a livable planet.” Also this week, the new World Bank President Ajay Banga suggested that he’ll be consider redirecting subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards climate action.

This is not nearly enough. The World Bank is still funneling billions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry each year, through direct and indirect finance mechanisms. Urgewald estimates that they funded $3.7 billion towards oil and gas last year.

This is despite the fact that they’ve made a commitment to align with the Paris Climate Agreement and do what it takes to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius. In order to do so, experts with the International Energy Agency warned that there is ‘no room’ for new fossil fuel development if we’re going to reach this goal.

The IEA also said that fossil fuel subsidies are an inefficient way to help consumers. Yet despite this, Banga admitted he didn’t plan to “get rid of all” fossil fuel subsidies. Just that the topic “needs discussion.”

Still – it’s hard to imagine this new vision statement coming out one year ago, under the helm of former climate change-denying president David Malpass. After his climate change denial caused public outrage–and protests around the world–he stepped down, and US President Joe Biden appointed a new president.

Credit: European Press Agency for Glasgow Actions Team

Banga started with a clear societal mandate to accelerate climate action at the World Bank. He was given a 100-day plan to end fossil fuel finance, fund a just and green transition, and promote transparency.

Last week, Banga’s opportunity arrived during the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings in Marrakech. The first meetings run by Banga after months of him talking up his climate change credentials.

Organizations from around the world teamed up with local Moroccan activists to put on the pressure. It started before the meetings began, with billboards blanketing the city. They had two key demands: End Fossil Finance and Drop the Debt.

Why end fossil finance?

Because the World Bank, despite its commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, has continued funneling billions of dollars to fossil fuel projects through direct and indirect mechanisms.

And why drop the debt?

Because global debt is at a decades-long high, with people in 54 countries currently living in debt crisis, and unless these colonial debt deals can be fixed, many developing countries can’t afford to invest in the climate solutions they so desperately need.

The action continued all week long. On the first day of the meetings, we stood outside the meeting venue to greet every World Bank delegate on their way inside. Many groups joined the meetings and delivered a petition to Banga himself, with 40,000 people calling on him to end fossil finance.

Last Thursday, hundreds marched through the streets of Marrakech. And on the final day of the conference, activists returned to the conference venue for one last rousing rally and day of action.

Meanwhile, the Bank must consider the intertwined relationship between debt relief for developing nations and environmental sustainability. Offering debt relief can free up resources, enabling these nations to explore and invest in green technologies.

This would not only aid in their fight against climate change but also propel them toward a sustainable economic trajectory. Banga has outlined a few steps to greatly increase funding that can flow through the World Bank.

But we must make sure such increased funding doesn’t continue to force developing countries into deals they can never get out of. It’s true that the world needs vastly more funding into clean energy industries if we are to transition to a sustainable economy. We need funding that helps those in need, not harms.

The World Bank acknowledging that it must do its job on a “livable planet” is the absolute bare minimum. It’s like an employee setting his printer on fire but telling his manager, “At least I didn’t burn the whole office down.”

Decades after the world’s top scientists have agreed that climate change is an existential threat, the Bank has a place for climate change in its vision statement. But what is a vision without a plan? And what is a plan on a dead planet?

The protestors have done their part, articulating a vision for a greener, fairer world economy. The ball now lies firmly in the court of institutions like the World Bank. As the drums of activism fade and the placards are put away, the world awaits their next move.

What will it be?

Andrew Nazdin is Director of Glasgow Actions Team

The Glasgow Actions Team formed around the UN Climate Conference in 2021 in Glasgow, which led to a landmark deal putting the world on the trajectory to ending financing for fossil fuels. The organization is committed to pushing the world’s climate champions to go farther, calling out the blockers, and exposing the deniers. Throughout the 2023 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group, they ran several actions calling on the World Bank to get in line with the Paris Climate Goals — to stop funding fossil fuels, invest in renewables, and become a more transparent and democratic institution.

To learn more, follow Glasgow Actions Team on Twitter, Instagram, , or check out the website.

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Community health workers demand to be recognised as formal workers with pay and benefits to match. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Oct 19 2023 (IPS)

“Professionally, I am still where I was 23 years ago when I started working as a lady health worker (LHW),” said a disgruntled Yasmin Siddiq, 47, from Karachi. “I will probably retire in the same capacity, as a Grade 5 government servant, without any hope for upward mobility.”

The idea behind the Lady Health Worker Programme (LHWP), the brainchild of Pakistan’s late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, began in 1994 with the purpose of “training women as community health workers (CHWs) to improve the dismal maternal and child health scores of the country and build a bridge between the village woman and the formal health sector,” said Dr Talat Rizvi, a public health physician with a vast experience in Maternal and Child Health with a particular focus on community-based projects and who designed the programme.

Siddiqi’s day starts at 9 am, and she must go door-to-door, covering between 5 to 10 homes within the 1 km radius of her home. “Initially, my tasks included making married women (of reproductive age) aware of the benefits of family planning and informing and providing them assistance about contraceptives, ensuring they go for antenatal check-ups when pregnant and their tetanus shots. I had to keep an eye on under-five children of that family and get them vaccinated,” she said. Over the years, her workload has expanded.

“We were asked to help fight TB, handle refusals by parents on administration of polio drops, ensure every child under five gets immunised against childhood diseases, which have now increased to 12 vaccines, and recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, we helped with vaccinations,” said Bushra Bano Arain, chairperson of All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Union. “And as if health is not enough, we are asked to carry out our duties on election day,” disclosed Arain, an LHW supervisor.

“Over the years, the focus got diluted from primary healthcare when more and more responsibilities were added to the LHWP’s boat, and the boat sank,” said Rizvi.

“The original programme of ensuring the health of mother and child took a backseat,” agreed Dr Shershah Syed, a gynaecologist and obstetrician. “LHW was perhaps started with good intention but had become a politicised entity with many women recruited by MPAs and MNAs as ghost workers, in the Sindh province especially,” he added.

The situation is no better for the over a million Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs)  in India or the 52,000 Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) of Nepal, who have, over the years, been lumped with more and more tasks, according to Public Services International, a global trade union federation, which helped the women CHWs in Pakistan, Nepal and India come up with a Charter of Demands to “address injustices and advocate for better working conditions”.

According to Jeni Jain Thapa, PSI’s project organiser in Nepa, the FCHVs “have no fixed working hours and must be on standby 24/7”.

The same is the case with the LHWs, said Musarrat Basharat, an LHW and the general secretary of the Punjab LHW’s Union. “Whatever time of the day or night it is, we must accompany a woman in labour to the health centre and be with her till she delivers. Same with a sick child. If the baby has diarrhoea and is dehydrated, we must rehydrate and be with the family for six hours until the child is out of danger. We are not shirking from our duty, but at least pay us for overtime or make some provision for it,” she said.

However, of the CHWs in the three countries, over 100,000 LHWs have won significant gains in getting themselves recognised as workers, securing a wage and registering their unions, Kannan Raman, secretary PSI, South Asia: “In Nepal and India, they are considered volunteers and not offered decent wages or better working conditions.”

“It took us 20 years to get ourselves noticed when the Supreme Court of Pakistan asked the government to bring us into the fold of formal work and make us permanent employees in 2014,” said Haleema Leghari, central president of All Sindh Lady Health Workers and Employees Union, working as a supervisor in the LHW programme.

But even after nine years, they continue working without a job structure or rules that go with that. “We rejected the service structure made for us as it was found to be discriminatory,” said Leghari, adding: “Recognition from the government is mere lip service.”

Even for those who started in 1994, like Arain and Leghari, who have become supervisors, their grades have been marginally improved from Grade 5 (which is for LHWs) to Grade 7 (which is for the supervisor). “While in other sections of the health departments, those who have worked as many years as us and are as educated as us have reached Grade 14; why have we not been upgraded?” Arain asked.

Although their salary was increased by 35 percent in June, Leghari said: “We do not want these ad-hoc increments; we want promotions like other government servants are promoted based on work performance, education and years of service, as these impromptu increments can also be taken back anytime.”

In addition, she said that those who have retired after attaining 60 years of age, are sick, or have died should be compensated. They or their families should be paid the pension in arrears,” she added. Today, the LHWs want the 20 years of contract work to be accounted for, which they say “everyone seems to have forgotten”.

According to Leghari, in other government departments, when an employee retires or meets with an accident, is sick or dies, a family member gets the job in that department. “We are missing out on these benefits because the rules have not been approved in the absence of a service structure,” she said.

“Their main demand is fool-proof security,” said Mir Zulfiqar Ali, executive director of Workers Education and Research Organisation. “You know so many LHWs have been killed by extremists,” he said. His organisation is working with the LHWs and training them about labour rights, health protection especially during crises and pandemics, and workplace safety and how to lobby effectively with the government to get their demands accepted, coordinating the PSI CHW project in Pakistan.

Siddiqi’s monthly payment is now Rs 44,000 from Rs 37,000 since June, but given the skyrocketing food, electricity and fuel prices, she said this was certainly not enough for a single mother with two school and college-going kids.

“The provincial health departments have time to meet all the international NGOs and donor agencies, but for holding a meeting to address our grievances, they can never find time,” said Arain.

“The invaluable work community health workers do work that has delivered immeasurable value to communities and public health, is not valued, simply because it is carried out by women, and women’s care work is routinely de-valued, even when it saves lives”, explained Kate Lappin, the Asia Pacific regional secretary for PSI.

With new climate catastrophes imminent, Lappin said Pakistan will need the services of LHWs even more, as was proved during the pandemic and the 2022 floods that disrupted the already fragile health system. “They [CHWs] are the first line of defence in a crisis.” She was in Pakistan recently and met with LHWs from some remote parts of Pakistan. “It was clear that they are often the only source of support to women in the most underserviced areas.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Children walk in the wreckage of homes destroyed by airstrikes in Al Shati refugee camp in the Gaza. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammad Ajjour

By Joyce Msuya
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2023 (IPS)

The humanitarian situation in and around the Gaza Strip—which continues to unfold as we speak—can only be described as an utter catastrophe.

In just 10 days since Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, the death toll has already exceeded that of the 2014 hostilities, which lasted more than 7 weeks. So far, more than 2,800 Palestinians have been killed, more than 10,850 injured and hundreds are believed to be trapped under rubble.

Israeli authorities have also now confirmed that 1,300 Israelis have been killed and more than 4,100 injured. Nearly 200 remain captive. They must be treated humanely; hostages must be released immediately.

Humanitarians have not been spared. Fifteen UNRWA staff and five from the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have been killed. UN premises are among the vast number of civilian objects damaged.

As hostilities escalate, these numbers will only rise, and an already dire humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate.

The United Nations, from the Secretary-General down, is deeply concerned about the situation. Even before the Government of Israel announced that Palestinians living in northern Gaza should leave for their safety, mass displacement had already taken place.

It is now estimated that as many as 1 million people have fled their homes to other parts of Gaza. In reality, civilians have nowhere to go—nowhere to escape the bombs and missiles, and nowhere to find water or food, or to escape the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

As civilians are packed into an ever-smaller area, the essentials they need to survive—shelter, water, food, power and medical care—have all but run out.

UNRWA schools shelter more than half of the displaced population in central-south Gaza. UNRWA is doing what it can to address the growing needs, but its capacity is at full stretch. Without more fuel, it will only be able to operate the small desalination plants in those shelters for a few more days.

Concerns about dehydration and waterborne diseases remain high given the collapse of water and sanitation services. Although Israel partially resumed the water supply to eastern Khan Younis over the weekend, other networks are so damaged that they could not deliver even if turned on again.

On Monday, UNRWA secured five trucks-worth of fuel to operate Gaza’s main seawater desalination plants, but this will only keep the facilities operational for a week or so.

Fuel reserves at Gaza’s hospitals have also been almost totally depleted. 20 out of 23 hospitals in Gaza were already only offering partial services. As generators and back-up generators run dry, critical life support systems will shut down and these hospitals—which are filled with the chronically ill and civilian casualties of war—will be thrust into darkness.

As every hour passes, the restoration of essential supplies and services, and the need to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza becomes ever more critical. The Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, is joining a UN delegation to the region over the next few days in pursuit of these urgent objectives.

Humanitarian supplies are on standby. The UN and other humanitarian organisations have stocks of food, water, non-food items, medical supplies and fuel available in Egypt, Amman, the West Bank and Israel ready to be delivered now or within hours.

Emergency funding has also been made available. On 11 October, the ERC approved a rapid response allocation of $9 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund, bringing the total CERF funding for the OPT to $15 million.

The OPT Humanitarian Fund is also reprioritizing an existing allocation of $9 million to respond to the crisis, although this will deplete the humanitarian fund.

The UN will continue to engage with the parties and States with influence to identify urgent solutions to getting humanitarian access to Gaza so we can deliver these supplies; to secure humanitarian access throughout the territory; and to allow UN and NGO personnel in and out of the Strip.

A humanitarian suspension of hostilities would provide the space for this to happen, for civilians to move safely, and some respite from the bloodshed.

We will continue to demand respect for international humanitarian law. Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected and humanitarian relief must be facilitated, as international humanitarian law demands. We urge all countries with influence to insist on respect for the rules of war and the avoidance of any further escalation and spillover.

And we continue to call for humanity to prevail.

Footnote: This briefing on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip took place before the devastating bombing of a hospital where more than 500 civilians were killed.

Joyce Msuya is Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 18 2023 (IPS)

A senior manager of the world’s largest investment firm has ‘blown the whistle’ on ESG (environment, social and governance) ‘greenwashing’, especially on supposed climate finance.

Wall Street whistle-blower
Tariq Fancy was Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, managing over $9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1988, headquartered in New York City, and with the world’s largest investment portfolio, BlackRock can move financial markets.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Hence, Fancy’s insider critique of corporate ESG pretensions – often associated with ‘responsible’ and ‘impact investing’ – has had a major impact. It has been seen as confirming and even elaborating on longstanding criticisms of ESG ‘greenwashing’.

Rejecting ‘stakeholder capitalism’, shareholder capitalism guru Milton Friedman long emphasized that a corporation’s primary and sole duty is to maximize profits for shareholders.

Managers are legally required to prioritize shareholder financial interests above all else. This means corporations must never sacrifice profits or their funds, however noble the cause.

Ethical or responsible actions can only be justified if they enhance ‘shareholder value’. Thus, companies can take morally desirable actions to improve their ESG ratings only if and when they enhance profitability.

As Friedman emphasized, corporate executives have strict fiduciary responsibilities under the law in ‘shareholder capitalism’ in the US, UK and elsewhere. Their managerial obligations and conduct thus limit potentially positive ESG impacts.

Prioritizing their corporate fiduciary duties above all else, they cannot enhance social or environmental benefits without maximizing returns for shareholders. By law, social, community or national ethical duties or moral values must always be secondary.

Is green financing progressive?
Corporate practices respond to changing understandings of profit-maximization in the medium to long-term. With changing national and international requirements, companies may be able to maximize long-term financial gains by investing in sustainability.

Thus, investing in green transitions – e.g., renewable energy or re-afforestation – can become profitable in the longer-term if the regulatory environment changes soon enough to sufficiently change incentives for long-term investments.

So, long-term profitability can be enhanced at the expense of short-term gains if conducive regulations, incentives and deterrents are introduced early enough.

Companies changing to more environmentally sustainable practices – like adopting solar panels, investing in re-afforestation, or other green initiatives – may thus become more profitable over the longer-term.

But ‘business-as-usual’ investments are still likely to yield more short-term gains in the near-term. And stock markets are more interested in short-term corporate performance, undermining longer-term profitability considerations. Thus, short-termist corporate governance norms deter green transitions.

Do green bonds accelerate green transitions?
Larry Lohmann has shown how difficult it is to confirm that finance raised by companies issuing ‘green bonds’ is actually additional. It is often difficult to verify such bonds are funding new projects that would not have happened anyway.

Sometimes, companies had already planned to make certain investments using conventional financing. With ready access to such finance, they would not have issued green bonds if not for the pecuniary advantages of doing so.

In such circumstances, green bonds have the same results as conventional finance if not for the incentives to claim otherwise. Hence, green bonds cannot claim credit for green investments and transitions if they would have happened anyway by other means.

This raises larger questions about the supposedly transformative impact of green bonds. Companies may even obscure environmentally unsustainable or even harmful practices by bundling them together with ostensibly ‘green’ investments.

Thus, green bonds may finance certain genuinely sustainable or environment-friendly projects without changing the rest of their investment portfolios and business practices.

Stock market discipline?
Despite lacking strong supportive empirical evidence, advocates claim ESG-compliant stocks outperform non-compliant ones in the share market. Similarly, they claim such compliance improves overall ESG indicators and contributes significantly to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

But there is no strong evidence that ESG-inspired stock market or corporate strategies have improved the environment, society or governance. After all, shareholders and companies prioritize short-term financial goals over longer-term considerations, including ESG and long-term profitability.

Divestment of shares in companies which are not ESG-compliant may only have limited impact if others buy non-compliant stocks, especially after their prices have fallen.

Also, even if some investors sell their shares in companies which are not ESG-compliant, it is unlikely the stock market will ‘green’ corporate behaviour more broadly.

Such stocks are mere drops in the ocean of wealth and finance, and one cannot realistically expect the tail to ‘wag the dog’. In 2021, the world economy had $360 trillion worth of wealth, with nearly $6 trillion in private equity.

Disciplining companies
Divestment means selling shares and thus losing ‘voice’ in company governance. But for shareholder engagement, it is necessary to retain stock ownership. Holding stock gives shareholders voice which can be used to try to pressure companies to be more ESG-compliant.

Without financially damaging effects for its reputation and share price, a company would not be compelled to become more ESG-compliant. Only significant stock price collapses – following massive share divestment due to reputational damage – are likely to motivate companies to become ESG compliant.

Undoubtedly, adverse publicity for particular companies hurts their stock prices, at least temporarily. And this may force companies to improve their behaviour. But such success implies a ‘name and shame’ approach – not ESG-compliance – can be effective.

And while some share prices may be more sensitive to adverse ESG publicity in some societies, there is no strong evidence this is true everywhere. Nor is there any strong evidence that systematic ESG reporting has generated desirable outcomes in most societies.

Divestment may not strongly affect company profitability or share prices. But actions such as consumer boycotts directly influence company revenue and financial performance. This may prompt strong corporate responses due to their impacts on companies’ ‘bottom lines’.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Egypt is sacrificing a historic area to make way for a road network to assist with traffic flow in Cairo. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Oct 18 2023 (IPS)

The Egyptian government is clearing a vast area in Historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to make way for new main roads and flyover bridges, which it says will improve traffic flow in the sprawling, congested megacity.

The developments are being pitched as part of an effort to modernize Egypt and connect the heart of the capital with a new administrative one being built 45km (28 miles) to the east.

However, the affected gravesites are mostly from the past century and include some in the famous City of the Dead, where Egypt’s notables have long been buried, often in fancy marble tombs engraved with Arabic calligraphy.

The city’s two main cemeteries radiate north and south from a central citadel known as the City of the Dead. Building the new highway will entail removing thousands of family graves, including those of historic figures from Egyptian history and culture.

Dr Islam Assem, an assistant professor of modern and contemporary history, told IPS that the demolition of these historic cemeteries is a “disaster by any measure.” He said that there is no rational justification for the demolition and that it is a decision that was not made after any study.

“Under any circumstances, we cannot destroy our heritage with our own hands and erase our identity and history,” Assem said.

He cited the example of Egypt’s construction of the Aswan High Dam, where it was discovered that the reservoir would cover archaeological sites behind the dam. Egypt worked with UNESCO to save the Abu Simbel Temple and other antiquities that were threatened by flooding.

“The government should have taken its time and found logical solutions for these cemeteries, such as moving them in a respectful way,” Assem said.

He added that the cemeteries “carry a history of at least 250 years that is not written in books but is written on the tombstones of these places.”

Heritage enthusiasts are collecting tombstones, plaques, inscriptions, and unique mausoleums from 17 cemeteries being demolished by the government in Historic Cairo. They are afraid that these items will be stolen or destroyed. The tombs of Ali Pasha Fahmi and the Daramli family, as well as the tomb of the freedmen of Prince Ibrahim Helmy, which was built over a century ago, are being demolished.

Historian Sameh Al-Zahar said that Historic Cairo is entirely listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including the cemeteries, which is the area where development and demolition work is taking place. This is regardless of whether some of the cemeteries are registered or not.

Al-Zahar, a specialist in Islamic antiquities, added that the officials’ comment that the demolition is taking place on unregistered cemeteries is “a true statement with a false intention.” The meaning of the government not registering them is that this denies their significance, as some employees believe that we have enough antiquities and, therefore, there is no need to register them.

Some of these cemeteries date back historically between 700 and 1,000 years. Al-Zahar explained that this land was allocated by Omar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of the Muslims, to be a city for the dead for Egyptians for 1,400 years.

He continued that eviction operations are taking place without legal, moral, or humanitarian justification, as the owners of these cemeteries own them with official contracts. Therefore, no one has the right to expropriate their property and transfer their remains without their consent and the consent of their families.

According to Al-Zahar, the government is using double standards by registering some places as archaeological buildings, such as the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s home and the Rifa’i Mosque, even though they are less than 100 years old, simply because they are associated with historical and important figures. He stated that the government demolished the graves of al-Maqrizi and Ibn Khaldun in Sufi cemeteries in the 1990s, so the demolition strategy of historic cemeteries is not new.

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IPS – UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Egypt

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The UN Secretary-General has appealed to Hamas to immediately release all hostages and to Israel to grant “unimpeded access for humanitarian aid” into the Gaza Strip. Credit: UN News/Ziad Taleb

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Oct 17 2023 (IPS)

Israel will recover over time from its colossal intelligence failure and its tardiness in responding militarily to Hamas’ massacre. But it cannot do so unless it upholds its moral values and makes every effort to spare the lives of innocent Palestinians as it pursues Hamas’ destruction

The unfathomable massacre of Israeli Jews by Hamas and its insatiable thirst for Jewish blood has rightfully evoked the most virulent condemnation from many corners of the world, including many Arab states. The call for revenge and retribution by many Israelis was an instinctive human reaction that can be justified in a moment of incomparable rage and devastation.

The Israeli decision to crush Hamas and decapitate its leaders must indeed be pursued with determination and vigor by the Israeli army. That said, the pursuit of destroying Hamas and preventing it from being reconstituted so that it can never threaten Israel again should under no circumstances justify any acts of revenge against innocent Palestinian men, women, and children who have nothing to do with Hamas’ evil act.

In fact, most of the Palestinians in Gaza have been victimized by Hamas itself, which has subjected them to a life of destitute and despair while they are frequently imperiled due to a lack of basic necessities like fuel, electricity, medicine, and drinking water.

Meanwhile, Hamas has been concentrating on battling Israel and using the people of Gaza as human shields as it invested much of its financial resources in buying and manufacturing weapons, training its warriors, building tunnels, and preparing to waging yet another destructive battle against Israel.

Hamas blames the plight of its people on Israel, using the 17-year-old blockade as a justification, which allows it to sow hatred and unrelenting enmity among the people against the Jewish state.

That said, Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza that has already leveled entire neighborhoods, killed, as of this writing, in excess of 2,300 Gazans, one-quarter of whom are children, and injured nearly 10,000 with little or no access to medical care, only affirms rather than refutes Hamas’ claims against Israel.

None of the dead or injured were asked by Hamas’s leaders whether they should go and massacre innocent Israelis at an unprecedented scale, but Hamas knew full well the unimaginable price these ordinary Palestinians, who just want to live, would end up paying.

Hamas’ unprecedent onslaught against Israeli civilians and soldiers put a significant dent in Israel’s military invincibility that could have hardly been imagined only two weeks ago. And whereby the colossal failure of Israeli intelligence to detect what Hamas was planning may well be rectified over time, the carnage that Israel is inflicting on Gazans severely damages the high moral ground the Israeli army has proudly claimed.

As the death toll and destruction rise in Gaza by the minute, the initial overwhelming sympathy toward Israel’s tragic losses is waning even among many of its friends. Indeed, once Israel loses its moral compass in dealing with the crisis, it will no longer be seen as the victim who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and has every right to defend itself, but the victimizer whose survival rests on the ashes of its real or perceived enemies.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been busy trying to dismantle Israel’s democracy, will stop short of nothing to try to redeem himself by exploiting these tragic events, hoping to emerge as a “war hero” and save his political skin.

How adversely his public call for revenge might impact Israel’s standing and its future relationship with the Palestinians is of no concern to him. Imposing a total siege on Gaza and depriving more than two million Palestinians of receiving basic necessities and demanding that over a million Gazans evacuate their homes and go south while bombing them to smithereens is a collective punishment that defies morality (and legality) by any measure.

Netanyahu is justifying this collective punishment by dehumanizing the Palestinians, deeming them unworthy of humane treatment. Whereas he rightfully condemned the unimaginable evil act of Hamas that killed over 1,400 innocent Israelis, he is waging a merciless campaign against innocent Palestinians who had nothing to do with Hamas’ acts of terror.

For Netanyahu, there is simply no moral equivalence. For him and many of his followers, the Palestinians are sub-humans and their lives are unequal to those of Israeli Jews.

The dehumanization of Palestinians will come back to haunt the Israelis simply because the Palestinians have no other place to go. And whether they are ordinary human beings with hopes and aspirations, or subhuman, Israel is stuck with them. And regardless of how the war will end, Israel will have to address the conflict with the Palestinians. The depth of the scars of the war will define the relationship for years to come.

Former Defense Minister and Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Benny Gantz, who has just joined the government along with the current Defense Minister Yoav Galant, must resist Netanyahu’s call for vengeance. Yes, they will fight with their military might to crush Hamas, but they must also fight to safeguard Israel’s democracy and Jewish values, which forbid the indiscriminate killing of innocent people.

Israel will win this war; the question is, will it win it while adhering to these moral values, or win it by leaving behind deep moral wounds that will be etched in memory and in history books as one of Israel’s darkest chapters?

They must remember that just about every Arab country will quietly (and some even overtly) cheer the demise of Hamas, but they will be loud and clear about their objection to the killing of innocent Palestinians, especially women and children, and scuttle further any prospect of normalization of relations with other Arab countries.

The imminent invasion of Gaza will result in the destruction of this enclave, the likes of which we have never seen before. However, as long as the invasion is not driven by revenge and retribution and instead seeks, as the war comes to an end, to create a new paradigm to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then all the sacrifices made by all sides will not have been in vain.

This unprecedented breakdown in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could lead to a historic breakthrough, if only the moderate Israeli, Arab, and Palestinian leaders grasp the unparalleled moment this crisis presents.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Cattle quench their thirst at a drying river as worsening drought conditions continue in Isiolo County, Kenya. Credit: ILRI/Geoffrey Njenga

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI, Oct 17 2023 (IPS)

Women in pastoralist areas of East Africa are critical to the health of livestock in their communities, holding the key to effective animal vaccination campaigns meant to protect herds against deadly diseases.

They are, therefore, an important part of any vaccination strategies designed to guard the animals against killer outbreaks and need to be involved in such efforts for them to be successful.

Achieving the goals of such campaigns has become increasingly important as the effects of climate change introduce new diseases that threaten the sector and, by extension, household incomes.

It has become critically important to integrate females in such health campaigns, and one barrier to their success is the failure of authorities and development agencies to involve them. 

While women, due to cultural reasons, do not commonly own livestock, they act as caregivers when the animals are sick, and with incidents of disease outbreaks rising, involving them, in the end, ensures improved food and financial security for families.

Besides, an increasing number of households in the region where livestock keeping is the economic mainstay are being headed by women who also act as providers to their families.

Unsurprisingly, as many as 43 percent of livestock insurance policyholders in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where the policies have been introduced in the recent past, are women, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) say.

“Besides taking care of animals when they are sick, women influence the allocation of resources at the household level, determining things such as how money should go to buying vaccines, for example. Therefore, a strong gender strategy to allow women access to disease control is very important,” said Dr Bernard Bett, ILRI Senior Scientist, Animal and Human Health Program.

In its disease surveillance and response strategy, ILRI engaged “community disease reporters,” local leaders, and village women’s champions, including women heads of households, to gather information on outbreaks and to create awareness about vaccination campaigns, says Bett.

At times he noted, women got intimidated in queues by men during mass vaccination exercises, making them lose valuable time for other chores at home as they waited for their turn in the queue.

Authorities and organizations carrying out the missions have responded by enforcing a first–come–first–serve policy in the interest of fairness and increased animal health personnel staffing levels for orderly vaccinations, he explained.

Recognizing that conflict with household tasks was a permanent reality for women, ILRI practiced and advocated for early communication to enable better planning through community messaging while actively supporting females’ role in caring for livestock, he added.

Climate change, evidenced by frequent droughts and flood incidents in arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa that are the home of pastoralism in the region, Bett observed, presented a major disease burden with incidents of outbreaks of diseases such as Rift Valley Fever being a major threat.

“Highly climate-sensitive diseases causing pathogens attracted by changes in weather conditions, including those caused by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies, become common. Efficient delivery of disease control measures, including vaccinations, is therefore important,” he told a recent media briefing in Nairobi.

Owing to the nomadic nature of pastoralists in search of pastures and water in times of shortage it is women are the ones who take care of households when the men are away with cattle and camels, while women are left behind caring for goats, calves, and vulnerable animals, making them also effectively in charge of their households.

Like their counterparts in the crop farming areas of the region, women pastoralists are faced with the challenge of providing food for their families, which is made worse by lack of income due to livestock deaths, noted Dr Rupsha Bernerjee, ILRI senior scientist attached to livestock and climate initiative.

“Whenever there are shocks such as droughts which in turn lead to food shortages, women skip meals to ensure their families are fed. It is therefore important to promote social inclusion in livestock health programs to ensure no one is left behind,” she said.

The impressive uptake of livestock insurance among women increases the resilience of herder communities, enabling them to cope with climate-induced risks, she added.

“Payments made to herders when droughts are very severe help in reducing distress sales of livestock guaranteeing that families are cushioned against possible malnutrition, thus the importance of women livestock health,” she told the briefing at the global body’s Nairobi headquarters.

In appreciating the important role in the health of livestock IDRC, Global Affairs Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF), which supports the development and production of innovative vaccines to improve livestock health and the livelihoods of farmers.

The agency notes that worldwide, more than 750 million people keep livestock as a source of income, 400 million being women, but animal diseases, such as Newcastle disease in chickens and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in goats, create widespread devastation, with women disproportionately affected because “they are less likely than men to be able to access vaccines to prevent such losses.”

“Millions of women livestock holders face financial and animal losses when diseases sweep through their farms. These infections are often highly preventable with a simple vaccination, so what is preventing women from taking measures to protect their assets?” the IDRC poses.

To answer find answers to the imbalance, the partners launched a regional livestock vaccine initiative called SheVax+ research project was launched in 2019, bringing together Cumming School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University-US, the Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN) together and implementing partners, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda.

Helen Amuguni, the SheVax+ principal investigator, identifies three primary barriers to livestock vaccine uptake among women smallholder livestock farmers in East Africa, including gender norms, which lead to women having less access to information on vaccinations, animal health, and livestock management practices.

Stereotypes, she says, affect the way women are viewed in relation to livestock ownership, leading to their exclusion during vaccination information campaigns. Power relations also mean some women require permission from the male household head to attend training or control livestock-related resources.

As a result, many women lack understanding of, among other things, the availability and importance of vaccines, while those who do have awareness may be prevented from acting upon it, she explains.

Besides carrying out disease control and management initiatives insuring livestock, as happens with the Index-Based Livestock Insurance pioneered by ILRI to ‘de-risk’ the sector, was a critical component of cushioning the sector’s well-being and incomes for households, according to Bernard Kimoro, head of climate change and livestock sustainability in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kenya.

Operational in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the insurance utilizes satellite data to determine and read the conditions of the vegetation, where herders get compensation when the vegetation turns brown/yellow to indicate drought or shortage of foliage.

Desperation in the pure livestock systems in the region due to frequent climate change-linked droughts in the region called for both new animal disease control and feeds and nutritional strategies, he said.

The droughts have led to keepers using unsustainable feeds with high methane gas levels owing as the owners tried to keep animals alive during the dry spells, the official regrets.

The Greater Horn of Africa region is predicted to experience El Nino weather conditions characterized by higher than usual rainfall beginning this October to early 2024.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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