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Gas development in South America, during pandemic and post pandemic times, was the issue of a new round of debates this Friday 14 at the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, which takes place virtually from May 7 to 28, and brings together officials , Latin American businessmen and analysts. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS.

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 14 2021 (IPS)

The gas producing countries of South America are debating on how toSouth America debate on how to make better use of the resource and how to integrate the sector, amid geographical and infrastructural barriers.

The issue was the center of discussions this Friday 14 during the weekly debate at the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, which began May 7th and will conclude on May 28th and is being held virtually, due to the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.

The Conference will be held on Wednesdays and Fridays of every week in May and is organized by the Institute of the Americas (IA), which has its headquarters in the coastal city of La Jolla, in the state of California, in the United States. Dedicated to promoting public policies and public-private cooperation in the hemisphere, the IA has energy as one of its main focuses of action.

In the case of Argentina, Juan Bulgheroni, Pan American Energy’s vice president of Upstream Strategy and Planning for that country, highlighted the characteristics of the Vaca Muerta unconventional gas field in southwestern Argentina.

“It has sufficient resources to meet a growing demand. Productivity has increased and costs continue to fall. We have to develop new facilities to control polluting gases and to transport more gas,” he explained.

Bulgheroni assured during the discussions that “Argentina is on the road to recovery, as prices and consumption have returned.”

In 2020, Argentina produced 123.21 million cubic meters (m3) of gas, almost nine percent less than the previous year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the January-February period of this year, gas production totaled 115.31 million m3 per day, a drop of 10.6 percent in relation to the same period of the previous year, in a two-month period in which the pandemic, declared a month later, had not yet broken out.

In late January, Vaca Muerta delivered 26.85 million m³ per day of the fuel, but this productive basin reported a 10 percent drop between March 2020 and the same month of 2021.

That same month the government applied the Plan Gas.Ar, which seeks to encourage investment and domestic gas production to replace imports, and through which the government pays producers for the fluid injected into the national system.

In Brazil, the Gas Law also came into force in April and puts an end to the monopoly of the state-owned Petrobras group in the access and transportation of gas and regulates the transportation, treatment, processing, storage, liquefaction, regasification and commercialization of the molecule.

The South American giant extracted 127 million m3 per day in 2020 and aims for a target of 276 million in 2030.

“We don’t have 20 years to develop our gas resources. We have to do it fast, as there is a lot of unsatisfied demand. Demand is concentrated near production centers, which is an advantage. And we have to see which fuel gas has to compete against,” said Sylvie D’Apote, Brazilian Petroleum Institute’s executive director for natural gas.

The Conference, attended by higher officials, executives and analysts from the region, will also address topics such as the future of transportation, including its electrification; the outlook for hydrogen; energy cooperation between the United States and Mexico; as well as the future of hydrocarbons and the financing of the post-covid economic recovery.

Countries such as Colombia and Peru are also analysing how to extract more gas to increase their domestic market.

Armando Zamora, Colombia’s governmental National Hydrocarbons Association president, the sector’s national regulator and administrator, predicted that investment and production “will go up when companies are authorised to return to work”.

“The expectation is to return to pre-pandemic levels of investment and exploration. This year investment is returning,” he said.

Colombian gas production is already at pre-pandemic levels, at around 1 billion cubic feet per day.

Carlos Sarmiento, Schlumberger’s managing director for Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, said the new Ecuadorian government, which will take office on 24 May, is keen to increase investment in the sector.

“Much of the effort has been made to maintain production. Therefore, a lot has to happen to the legal framework and production strategy, there must be changes to attract investment in exploration, there is the potential and the infrastructure,” he said.

Ecuador extracts some 1.08 million m3 of gas a day, which is insufficient to meet the growing demand.

 

Vaporous illusions

The common dream of South American gas-producing countries is to consolidate the domestic market and build an exploration platform. But this goal faces several barriers.

Argentina’s Bulgheroni highlighted opportunities in petrochemical production, for plastics, and urea, for fertilisers. “The best domestic product is to export. Many of the internal barriers will be overcome, but there is a need to invest in pipelines. There is a bottleneck to extract and transport more gas,” he said.

For Brazil’s D’Apote, there are opportunities for gas in the fertiliser industry, but there are “infrastructure and price barriers”.

One strategy is to build regasification plants for liquefied gas (LNG), imported mainly from the United States, and connected to South American gas pipeline networks.

Decio Oddone, CEO of Brazil’s Enauta, concluded that gas integration is not possible because a country’s internal problems impact the supply of the entire network.

“What I see now is that since LNG is available, it defines prices. If Bolivia or others want to be competitive in Brazil, they have to compete with LNG. I don’t see the need for pipelines,” he said.

For Oddone, “Brazil can become a gas exporter, but first it has to develop the domestic market, which can be more attractive than the foreign market”.

Sarmiento questioned that there has been little exploration in Ecuador. “We have many opportunities for integration. For example, using Ecuadorian oil in a Peruvian refinery or developing fields in southern Colombia, using Ecuadorian infrastructure,” he said.

Saverio Minervini, FitchRatings’ director of Latin American corporationst, predicted that regional integration will incorporate LNG, but “there are political risks and geographical and engineering challenges”.

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A healthcare worker collects samples for COVID-19 testing at Mimar Sinan State Hospital in Buyukcekmece district, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2020. New numbers reveal that men outnumber women 3-1 in 225 COVID-19 task forces around the world, while 70 percent of the frontline healthcare workers are women. Credit: UNDP Turkey/Levent Kulu

By Raquel Lagunas
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 2021 (IPS)

There are teams of experts around the world right now tackling the coronavirus pandemic, providing pathways to put an end to this deadly global scourge and charting the course for recovery.

These task forces comprise health experts, economic leaders, policy makers, and more to ensure the best holistic solutions are put forward. But what they don’t have is gender balance and, in some cases, any women at all.

There are three men to every woman on national COVID-19 task forces around the world, according to recent data from the United Nations Development Programme, UN Women and the University of Pittsburgh.

The data show that women, on average, still make up only 24 percent of members among the 225 COVID-19 task forces examined across 137 countries. And in 26 task forces, there are shockingly no women at all.

This is a problem. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in recent remarks, the pandemic has provided yet another opportunity for men to dominate decision-making. And when women are missing from decision-making, we see the world through only one perspective.

Male-dominated decision makers will lead to male-dominated policies. With each new recommendation or proposed policy towards pandemic recovery, assumptions will be made on behalf of women, because women aren’t in the mix.

When male-dominated task forces recommend economic measures, for instance, are they considering the mass exodus of women workers who were forced to leave their jobs to take care of their families during this crisis?

Tracking governments’ pandemic responses will help us better understand the gender gaps in global policies and actions. That is why the COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, developed by UNDP in partnership with UN Women, collects data on national COVID-19 measures taken by governments and showcases them in a one-stop shop for policy makers to see where they need to correct course.

The tracker, which includes over 3,100 policy measures across 219 countries and territories, indicates that the global response to the economic fallout remains, so far, largely gender blind. It shows, for example, that only 13 percent of all the fiscal, labour market, and social protection policy measures analyzed target women’s economic security.

We know that women’s full participation is essential for democracy and can lead to more sustainable peace and greater climate action. It also brings more inclusive perspectives that can influence public policies and institutional practices to include a gender lens.

So, why are women’s voices still missing from COVID-19 leadership, especially when they are being disproportionately affected by this crisis?

Many factors play a role in this exclusion. Among them are perceptions and bias. Last year UNDP released data that showed 90 percent of people surveyed had some bias against women. The index also showed that about half of the world’s men and women feel that men make better political leaders, and over 40 percent feel that men make better business executives and that men have more right to a job when jobs are scarce. How women are viewed by society places them at the back of the line.

There’s also a gender gap in public administration. We know that having more women in the public sector and civil service brings women’s perspectives and needs to policy and public service delivery, but women are still missing from leadership positions in this area.

Data from 2018 show that women made up 45 percent of the public administration workforce but only 34 percent of decision-making positions.

Over the past year the pandemic has worsened these longstanding gender inequalities and revealed just how deep and pervasive these inequalities are in our political, social and economic systems. Women’s economic security is in jeopardy as their jobs are hardest hit, their unpaid care work continues to dramatically rise, and a shadow pandemic has emerged as domestic violence surges globally.

At the same time, women are “the shock absorbers of society” and make up the majority of the global health workforce, working at the frontlines of the pandemic. Women should have the opportunity to shape their own future and the post-pandemic world, and to bring their different views and perspectives to the table.

It’s not too late to change this.

Women have the skills, the knowledge and the expertise to lead in all decision-making spaces, including the COVID-19 response. What they lack though is power. We must work together – UN agencies, governments, civil society, the private sector and others – to shift the power into women’s hands and to close this power gap.

To create this change, we need to break down the structural barriers and alter discriminatory social norms and attitudes that are holding women back. Strengthen constitutional, legislative, and political processes, for example by establishing quotas.

Address the increasing violence that women in public life face, both online and offline, as well as reform our workplace cultures so women can harness their full leadership potential. Recognize women’s unpaid care and domestic work and address the crisis of care to ensure women have equal conditions to participate fully in decision-making in their societies.

As we determine the best way forward from this pandemic, let’s not waste this opportunity to do things differently. Now is the time to work together to ensure that women finally have a seat at the decision-making table, in the COVID-19 response and beyond.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Gender Team Director at UN Development Programme (UNDP)

Smoke from an airstrike rises over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 2021 (IPS)

The UN Security Council (UNSC), the most powerful political body at the United Nations, has largely remained silent or ineffective in resolving one of the longstanding military conflicts in the Middle East involving Israelis and Palestinians.

But, at the same time, several attempts to condemn Israel for its excesses have been thwarted by successive US administrations, which have exercised the veto power in the Security Council to protect a client state whose survival has depended largely on billions of dollars in US economic and military aid, state-of-the-art weapons systems and outright military grants doled out gratis.

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS the US has vetoed no less than 45 resolutions critical of Israel, “thereby rendering the Security Council effectively impotent”.

Asked if any other UN member state has been protected by so many vetoes, he said: “Not even close”.

In January 2017, he pointed out, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress passed a resolution opposing United Nations involvement on the question of Israel and Palestine, insisting all matters should be resolved only through direct talks between the Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers, a position which thus far appears to being upheld by the administration of President Joe Biden.

Still, said Dr Zunes, it is unlikely the Biden administration will allow any resolution to pass that is critical of Israeli attacks in East Jerusalem or Gaza, even if balanced by criticism of Palestinian actions, since in the view of Washington, every military action by Israel is by definition “self-defense.”

Early this week, a State Department spokesperson defended the Israeli air strikes in a crowded urban area in the Gaza Strip on the grounds that every state has a right to self-defense.

However, when pressed, he was unwilling to acknowledge–even theoretically–that Palestinians also have a right to self-defense, said Dr Zunes, a columnist and senior analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus.

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

As US Presidents go, Biden was no exception when he told reporters early this week that his expectation was that tensions would be “closing down sooner rather than later” but pointed out that “Israel has a right to defend itself, when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory.”

But he ignored the lethal Israeli airstrikes with US-supplied fighter planes that have so far killed 67 Palestinians, including women and children, while turning houses and buildings into rubble, including a 12-storeyed office building.

In the US, the Israeli lobby has remained so powerful that few Americans politicians dare challenge the Jewish state or its violations of Security Council resolutions.

Pat Buchanan, a senior advisor to three US Presidents and twice candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, once infamously described the United States Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory” -– apparently because of its unrelentingly blind support for Israel.

Meanwhile, according to Cable News Network (CNN), riots and violent clashes between Arab and Jewish citizens have swept through several Israeli cities after days of deadly airstrikes and rocket attacks.

“Militants in Gaza have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel since the latest round of violence began Monday afternoon, and Israel has responded with devastating airstrikes in Gaza.”

At the same time, residents have reacted with fury, and there have been reports of attacks and raids at places of worship, said CNN.

Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), told IPS the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been left to fester and rot for a generation.

In the past, he said, the United States routinely used its veto to provide political cover for Israel, making the UN Security Council irrelevant.

“The new Biden administration should make it clear that the US will no longer provide diplomatic excuses for Israel’s violations of international law, its collective punishment of civilian populations or its apartheid-like policies,” he said.

“Otherwise, the UN Security Council will be left on the sidelines watching as yet another senseless war kills both Israeli and Palestinian civilians,” declared Dr Adams, a former member of the international anti-apartheid movement and of the African National Congress in South Africa.

Zunes said since the United Nations and virtually the entire international community recognizes East Jerusalem as territory under foreign belligerent occupation, responding to the escalating violence is very much within the purview of the Security Council.

Since 1993, however, the United States has blocked—either by a veto threat or an outright veto—every UN Security Council resolution which has included criticisms of Israeli actions in Jerusalem in its operational clause.

It was under the Clinton administration when the United States began to informally recognize occupied East Jerusalem as part of Israel and blocking UN Security Council resolutions that confirmed greater East Jerusalem as occupied territory.

https://fpif.org/us_policy_toward_jerusalem_clintons_shift_to_the_right/

Meanwhile, an “Atrocity Alert” issued by the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protec, said Israel has controlled East Jerusalem since the 1967 war, but Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory.

Jahaan Pittalwala, Research Analyst at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said that, “forced evictions of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem are rooted in the Israeli government’s apartheid policies. The illegal transfer of Israeli settlers into occupied territory may amount to a war crime.”

With tensions already high in Jerusalem, last Friday, 7 May, Israeli security forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as tens of thousands of worshippers finished their prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Israeli authorities fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters who were throwing rocks.

The situation escalated further when Israeli forces carried out another raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,000 Palestinians were wounded between 7-10 May. At least 17 Israeli police were also injured.

On 11 May two UN Special Rapporteurs issued a joint statement asserting that, “the recent scenes of Israeli police and security forces attacking large crowds of Palestinian residents and worshipers is only intensifying a deeply inflammatory atmosphere in the City. A militarized response to civilian protests against discriminatory practices only deepens social divisions.”

Thalif Deen is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Published by Amazon, the book is mostly a satire peppered with scores of anecdotes– from the sublime to the hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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By Yanghee Lee
SEOUL, May 13 2021 (IPS)

In one particularly bloody day in March, Myanmar’s security forces shot and killed at least ten children, some as young as 6, in violent crackdowns against peaceful protests. Since the military seized control over the country three months ago, more than 50 children have been killed, countless others injured, and more than 900 children and young people arbitrarily detained across the country.

Security forces have also occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses, exacerbating the education crisis for almost 12 million children. This week, as we mark 100 days since Myanmar’s military seized control of the country, the chaos and devastation show no signs of slowing.

The Myanmar military’s blatant disregard for children’s lives is nothing new. Known as the Tatmadaw, they forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya civilians into Bangladesh, the majority of them children, in 2016-2017. I had called this “the hallmarks of genocide”.

As the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar and a founding member of a new Special Advisory Council on Myanmar, I have seen first-hand the devastating consequences of the Tatmadaw’s brutal tactics on children’s lives

The UN secretary-general has documented the Tatmadaw’s grave violations against children across the country year after year, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, and attacks on schools and hospitals. Currently, many schools and hospitals have been seized by the Tatmadaw. And at least three high schools were bombed last month, according to groups in Karen state.

As the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar and a founding member of a new Special Advisory Council on Myanmar, I have seen first-hand the devastating consequences of the Tatmadaw’s brutal tactics on children’s lives.

I have seen children who survived being thrown into fire by the Tatmadaw. It sent chills down my spine when a mother told me she had to leave behind her baby who had been thrown into a river, because she had to see to the safety of her other children in their exodus into Bangladesh. I heard many more similar testimonies.

Since 2003, the secretary-general has included the Tatmadaw for recruitment and use of children in his ‘list of shame’—an annex to his annual report on children and armed conflict where he names those responsible for grave violations against children. Listing is an important accountability tool since it names the perpetrators, draws the UN Security Council’s attention, and opens the door to engagement with the UN to end abuses. 

But in June 2020, Secretary-General António Guterres removed the Tatmadaw from his list for recruitment and use of children, even though in the same report, the UN had documented 205 cases where the Tatmadaw had recruited or used children in its ranks in the preceding year.

Having reported on human rights concerns in Myanmar for many years, I can say with certainly that despite Myanmar’s pledges to stop recruiting and using children in conflict, the Tatmadaw never ceased the practice. It was also a known fact that in order to leave the Tatmadaw, a regular soldier had to recruit two children to replace him, as term limits for service were vague.

Yanghee Lee

At the time, the secretary-general said he delisted the Tatmadaw due to “continued significant decrease” in recruitment and ongoing efforts to prevent new recruitments and release any remaining children in its ranks. He also said that the delisting was conditional and that failure to end recruitment and use would result in relisting. Prematurely removing parties like the Tatmadaw from the list—and this was not an isolated case—threatens the credibility of the list, a critical mechanism for protecting children and holding their abusers accountable. 

Being removed from the list seems to have emboldened the Tatmadaw to commit even more violations. In the first half of 2020, the Tatmadaw used 301 boys in support functions such as military camp maintenance and digging trenches. And in October 2020, two boys were killed after a Tatmadaw unit allegedly used them as human shields, in an incident that the UN publicly condemned. 

As protests across Myanmar continue, armed conflict is escalating between the military and ethnic armed groups. Children will face even greater risk, so the Security Council must urgently act to stop the military in its tracks. Instead, the Council seems hard pressed to reach consensus due to China and Russia’s opposition to strong measures such as an arms embargo. 

The 2020 delisting of the Tatmadaw was inexplicable and unjustifiable given the military’s conduct. Now Secretary-General Guterres has an opportunity to set the record straight. In a few weeks, he will release his 2021 report and list of perpetrators.

He should return the Tatmadaw to the list for its recruitment and use of children. In light of the military’s total disregard for children’s rights, this is a concrete action he must take to hold the Tatmadaw accountable for its crimes against children. 

Yanghee Lee is Professor in the department of Child Psychology and Education at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. She is former chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

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Wallhouse, Dominica, 2017, a few days after Category 5 Hurricane Maria struck the island. At the Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week the Dominican Republic called for a consolidated regional vision in the face of climate change that would bring a strong regional position to COP26. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 13 2021 (IPS)

The Dominican Republic opened the 2021 virtual Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week with a pledge to increase the country’s climate ambition by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 27 percent and maintaining progress towards climate neutrality according to the goals of the Paris Agreement.

“For us, climate action is not just about mitigation. We need to prepare for what is coming. We especially welcome this Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week. Let’s consolidate a regional vision in the face of climate change and bring a strong regional position to COP26,” said Dominican Republic’s Environment and Natural Resources Minister Orlando Jorge Mera.

Jorge’s emissions announcement and call to action come as the United Nations is urging countries to put climate action and sustainable development at the center of COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts.

Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Patricia Espinosa said the May 11 to 14 Climate Week is an opportunity to face the sobering reality that current ambition and action levels are insufficient to tackle the climate crisis.

“Despite all the evidence, the numbers, statistics, human misery, nations have not yet moved the Paris Agreement from adoption to implementation, nor have they fulfilled commitments under it,” she told the opening ceremony.

This year’s Latin America and the Caribbean Climate week is taking place six months ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. The organisers are hoping that the regional talks end with a commitment to put accelerated climate action at the heart of COVID-19 recovery efforts.

The event’s backdrop is a grim one. It includes the findings of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Adaptation Gap Report released earlier this year, which concluded that the world is lagging far behind in adaptation to climate change, finance and implementation.

As countries continue to deal with the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Meteorological Organisation recently published its State of the Global Climate Report, which found that concentrations of the major greenhouse gases increased, despite a temporary reduction in emissions in 2020, due to COVID-19 containment measures.

The report also noted that 2020 was one of three warmest years on record.

It is against these reports that the UNFCC says this week’s talks are taking place at a time of ‘great urgency.’ 2021 is regarded as a historic year for climate action and the Caribbean, with its small island states, warming ocean temperatures and increasingly intense storms, is on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

“This is the year we either lose sight of the Paris targets, or it is the year we start implementing the Paris Agreement. It is our opportunity to increase global climate ambition in COVID-19 recovery and kick-start a decade of action,” a UNFCC statement said.

The regional climate week talks are divided into three thematic themes; national actions and economy-wide approaches, integrated approaches for climate-resilient development and seizing transformation opportunities.

Organisers are hoping to amplify the Latin American and Caribbean youth voice on climate action and convened a special event focused on helping young people to take a leading role in climate advocacy.

Madrelle, Loubiere, Dominica 2017, a few days after Category 5 Hurricane Maria struck the island. The Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week is exploring challenges and ambitious solutions to protect lives and livelihoods from climate change impacts. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

Youth climate activist and Caribbean Youth Environment Network Special Envoy Jevanic Henry of Saint Lucia addressed that panel. He told IPS that as climate change poses a significant threat to lives and livelihoods, platforms like climate week are critical for youth contribution to solutions.

“I always emphasise on the need for youth led-entities particularly in our Small Island Developing States to use their collective strength, building partnerships across the region, to facilitate great knowledge exchange and resource sharing which can contribute towards scaling up youth capacity building initiatives,” he told IPS.

“Going forward, I believe there is still a need for an increase in dedicated resource facilities both at the national and sub-regional level which are easily accessible for grassroots youth-led entities, that they can use in strengthening the capacity of young people from all walks of life, in line with the Sustainable Development Agenda of ‘Leaving no-one behind.’”

Henry, a youth award winner for his work in climate change and sustainable development, said he is pleased with the increasing inclusion of youth in climate solutions.

“I have seen the steady growth of youth involvement in climate action at the national and regional level. It is due to such increased youth action I can say with Saint Lucia’s recent submission of its updated NDCs, not only as young people we were engaged in the revision process, but also in this submission the Children/Youth component of the NDC has been strengthened,” he told IPS.

Like the UN officials at this week’s summit, Henry said there is room for improvement, particularly in holding governments accountable to climate commitments between 2021-2030.

“Until such time that the climate crisis is a staple in the minds and discussions of all young people like with the COVID19 pandemic, there will still be a need for improving our national and regional youth climate movement,” he said.

The UNFCC said this regional meeting is an opportunity for ‘grassroots exchange’ among youth, government, civil society and the business community, to contribute to COP26.

The message is that the time for a surge in action is now.

“You cannot measure climate change by numbers, statistics and economics alone. Its true impact is measured in human misery, loss and death. Nor can numbers capture the growing sense of fear and anxiety from people throughout the world who know that climate change is not some future challenge, but a problem that their leaders are simply not working hard enough to address today,” said Espinosa.

The organisers will convene two more regional climate talks ahead of COP26.

Asia-Pacific Climate Week is scheduled for Jul. 6 to 9, while Africa Climate Week will take place from Jul. 19 to 22.

 

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Older adults are amongst the first Peruvians to receive COVID-19 vaccines at a vaccination site in Lima, Peru. “The World Health Organisation’s Global Vaccine Access Fund, or Covax, amounts to a clearinghouse for the West’s leftovers,” says the writer. Credit: UNICEF/Jose Vilca

By Valentina Lares
MADRID, May 13 2021 (IPS)

While Western countries were busy with their own vaccination campaigns, Russia has filled the leadership vacuum in developing countries.

Amid the West’s scramble for vaccines, a trickle of news flies under the radar. Argentina becomes the first country in South America to produce Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The first shipment of Sputnik V is promised to Peru by May.

Some 11,000 Sputnik V doses reach North Macedonia, while Tunisia begins administering 30,000 doses, and 1.7 million more are promised to Bolivia by May. The African Union confirms it has received an offer of 300 million doses from Russia, which has already signed agreements to produce tens of millions of doses in China, Brazil, Iran and Serbia.

While we weren’t looking, Russia’s Sputnik V became the cornerstone of pandemic response for the developing world.

The race for influence

The vaccine offers a unique chance to launder Russia’s reputation. But the Sputnik V jab is about more than image. It’s a calculated campaign to increase the Kremlin’s power and influence through a global scientific, diplomatic, and media influence operation.

Russian capabilities align elegantly with the world’s pandemic needs. As developing countries tried and failed to secure enough vaccine supplies through Western mechanisms, headlines worldwide hail Russia as the partner that really comes through when it counts.

As developing countries tried and failed to secure enough vaccine supplies through Western mechanisms, headlines worldwide hail Russia as the partner that really comes through when it counts.

Sputnik V is the image of Russia the Kremlin wants to project. Far from the authoritarian, bellicose, annexationist Moscow that poisons its domestic political opponents and interferes in its rivals’ elections, Sputnik V casts Russia in the role of scientific superpower and pandemic saviour.

Flexing the media-muscle

Russia’s official mouthpieces — Russia Today, Sputnik Radio, and the TASS news agency — minutely cover each new country, from Laos to Panama, that approves Sputnik V for use, while the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Kremlin agency that bankrolled Sputnik V’s development, trumpets Russia’s achievement not just in finding a vaccine first, but also in making it widely available.

Valentina Lares

Sputnik V’s Twitter feed (because of course Sputnik V has its own Twitter feed) pumps out messages once or twice an hour — ‘A planeload of vaccines lands in Armenia!’ — or retweets good news from partner countries, such as this one, from the Mexican Health Ministry, which claims that Sputnik V is the only vaccine with a 0 per cent chance of producing serious adverse side effects.

What Russia can no longer achieve with its declining military strength, Flemming Splidsboel Hansen at the Danish Institute for International Studies writes, it now seeks through cognitive and digital means.

And Russia’s storied bot armies are on the march on the vaccine’s behalf. In December 2020, an investigation in The Daily Beast found that a Russian state-linked content farm known as Caliwax was behind Why Africa should focus on Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, a viral WhatsApp chain that spread far and wide through Ghana and Nigeria.

Meanwhile, sources that the State Department’s Global Engagement Centre describes as ‘guided’ by Russian state intelligence have been peddling between two and three pieces a day hyping the arrival of Sputnik V in locations around the world.
What Russia can no longer achieve with its declining military strength, Flemming Splidsboel Hansen at the Danish Institute for International Studies writes, it now seeks through cognitive and digital means.

Supporting allies

First in line for the Russian jab have been Moscow’s long-time allies, typically led by autocrats like Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. ‘The vaccines underline the anti-Western bloc’s scientific prowess,’ says Félix Arellano, a professor of international relations at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

‘Ideology demands it be portrayed as greater than the West’s. Russia’s posture, in offering up highly effective vaccines at a low price for countries like Venezuela, is media-driven. It’s how Russia and its allies seek to show that authoritarian governments can also grow in the scientific realm, that it’s possible to grow without democracy.’

Argentina, under a proto-socialist government, was the first to send a team to Moscow to translate Sputnik V’s technical documentation to Spanish and set up its own production facilities.

Other countries soon followed suit: Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and even U.S. allies like Peru, Chile, and Colombia. These last three were the ultimate feather in the Kremlin’s cap, the final seal of approval on an operation that is succeeding largely thanks to the West’s navel-gazing inaction.

‘At this point the discussion, at least in Peru, grants the need to negotiate to secure whatever vaccine is on offer,’ explains Oscar Vidarte, a professor of international relations at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú in Lima.

Western failures are Russia’s success

For Colombia, Washington’s most reliable ally in South America, buying into Sputnik V serves two purposes: immunising a vulnerable population and rebuilding bilateral links with Moscow, which had been icy since Colombia expelled two Russian diplomats accused of spying in Colombian oil and mining regions last December.

‘We’re [Washington’s] key ally in the region,’ says Mauricio Jaramillo, who teaches international relations at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, ‘and the U.S. is not trying to leverage vaccines to project its power or earn prestige.’

Russia makes sure to portray vaccine supply deals not as charity, but as partnerships among equals. Giving the leaders of poor countries the chance to say ‘I’m doing something about this’ is almost as big a prize as the shots themselves, he says.

The West hasn’t so much lost this fight as forfeited it. The World Health Organisation’s Global Vaccine Access Fund, or Covax, amounts to a clearinghouse for the West’s leftovers.

The Biden administration has pledged some $4 billion to Covax, but the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, acknowledges that ‘when there are no vaccines to buy, money is irrelevant.’

Arellano has pointed out that it’s not just access to ample supply that’s tilting the field in Moscow’s favour: It’s how the Russians approach supply agreements. Russia makes sure to portray vaccine supply deals not as charity, but as partnerships among equals.

Giving the leaders of poor countries the chance to say ‘I’m doing something about this’ is almost as big a prize as the shots themselves, he says.

Coming through when it really counts

Sputnik V’s successes keep mounting. The European Union’s shambolic vaccine roll-out has brought even some member countries like Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, and the Czech Republic knocking on Moscow’s door. Each has had to negotiate unilaterally for its share.

Italy and Spain are now considering doing the same, and the European Medicines Agency has had no choice but to formally consider certifying the Russian vaccine, softening its line in the wake of Crimea and Navalny.

To be sure, liberal democracy need not fear for its life from the Russian vaccine. But the West has left a huge leadership vacuum at a moment of acute crisis that Russia is determined to exploit.

Western democracies, and particularly the United States, have lost too many opportunities to the pandemic — not least among them the chance to back their allies, firm up their influence and position themselves as the go-to model for how to manage a crisis that, many scientists fear, could be repeated sooner than many realise.

Where will the world turn then?

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS) published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

This article was originally published in the community blog Persuasion.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is a journalist and managing editor of Armando.info, an investigative journalism site.

Italy appeals for EU help as 2,000 arrivals within days fill Lampedusa's migrant camp.

Credit: UNICEF

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, May 12 2021 (IPS)

The month of May marks mental health awareness month or mental health awareness week in several countries around the world. Many people will be reading posts and blogs about the importance of getting more sunshine and exercise to avoid the blues, about ways to deal with the stress of the pandemic, about dealing with everyday challenges that disrupt our striving for happiness.

But for children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises who are living through the extreme stress and adversity of armed conflicts, forced displacement, attacks on schools and climate-induced disasters, the need for mental health and psychosocial support services extends far beyond wellness remedies. It requires a sincere understanding of their suffering and a profound recognition of their resilience.

As we look to care for our own mental health, it is also crucial that we also take action to care for the mental health of the world’s most vulnerable: crisis-affected girls and boys. Their lives torn apart, their dispossession, their fears and soul-shattering experiences can either make or break them.

What has become clear to us at ECW, and the education sector as a whole, is the importance of continuing to invest in and further deepen mental health and psychosocial support – yes there’s a hashtag for that: #MHPSS – across ECW’s broad portfolio of investments.

Yasmine Sherif

Every day, ECW and our partners are investing in new ways to provide crisis-impacted children and youth with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education that is truly meaningful. For education to have a lasting impact, mental health must be part and parcel of education responses in crisis and displacement contexts. We aim at empowering these girls and boys to find meaning in their suffering, like the great psychoanalyst, Victor Frankl, wrote in his world best-seller “Man’s Search for a Meaning.” Because, at ECW we believe, that their suffering and pains can – with the right MHPSS approach – also be that tipping point for turning their education into a powerful tool for change and achievement.

Imagine girls like Janat Ara, a Rohingya adolescent girl who fled through the night and hid in the forests before finding at least some hope in the refugee camps of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar. Janat, and other adolescents like her, are now back to learning but they need even more support before they can fully return to a place of mental and psycho-social safety, and from there be the young change-makers of their community, society and people.

The Sustainable Development Goals and The Agenda for Humanity set the stage for the humanitarian and development ecosystem to chart a new path forward to ensure that education in emergency and protracted crises programming creates safe, protective environments that promote the wellbeing and healthy development of all girls, boys and adolescents – via meaningful, relevant, quality, holistic education.

These commitments have led to ECW taking a strong stance: school-based and well thought through MHPSS is a required component in every ECW country investment. The logic behind this is that crisis-affected children and youth all have great potential and their experiences can enable them to not only fully learn, but to achieve and actually become their true potential if MHPSS is of the highest standard.

In the same vein, teachers will not be able to successfully support learners, if the well-being of both the students and the teachers are not tended to and supported at the most profound level of understanding what they have gone through and what they can achieve.

Credit: UNICEF

Accelerating support
To create high-impact public goods that will accelerate MHPSS support for girls, boys and adolescents like Janat Ara, ECW supports a number of key initiatives:

• Just this month, ECW announced new grant funding to support the Norwegian Refugee Council’s “Better Learning Programme (BLP).” The BLP is a best-practice, evidence-informed, school-based, diverse set of MHPSS interventions that is helping children and adolescents across the Middle East and North Africa to heal and cope with displacement, adversity and stress.
• ECW is also announcing a new grant to the Child Protection Area of Responsibility. Led by UNICEF, this focal area fosters localization and coordination to ensure marginalized children and adolescents have access to specialized, focused MHPSS supports in their schools and communities.
• Refugee children and youth have unique needs, and ECW works with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to ensure that girls and boys who have endured displacement and protracted crisis have access to mental health supports and services as part of their education. Together, we are changing the way refugee students are protected and served.
• ECW also works with the International Federation of the Red Cross’s Psychosocial Centre, as a co-chair for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s MHPSS Reference Group. Throughout the unprecedented time of COVID-19 and associated school closures, ECW supported IASC and IFRC to provide rapid MHPSS guidance, trainings and tools to parents, caregivers and teachers across the globe.
• Teacher well-being has a significant impact on student well-being. ECW and INEE’s PSS/SEL Collaborative have joined forces to ensure that Teachers’ mental health and wellbeing is protected and promoted in emergency and crisis contexts.
• Lastly but certainly not least, ECW is rolling out a new unprecedented approach on MHPSS that draws on Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy by which mental health transforms suffering into meaning and hope for the future.

Meeting the needs of the whole-child and effectively delivery on the Global Goals – especially SDG4 – will require a sea change in partners’ collective way of working: education, child protection and health working collaboratively via joint programming and coordination through existing networks and channels. You can learn more about ECW’s work here in our MHPSS Technical Guidance Note.

Today, more than ever, crisis-affected girls and boys around the world need the mental health and psychosocial support they so desperately need and deserve. With that, “they are the ones we have been waiting for”, as Alice Walker once said. With that they can change the world.

 

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Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait
 
To achieve SDG4 on quality inclusive education, we must prioritize mental health

The two, one of whom is trans celebrity Shakiro, were found guilty of "attempting homosexuality".

By Sam Olukoya
LAGOS, Nigeria, May 12 2021 (IPS)

People affected by leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, are often stigmatised. In countries like Nigeria, many of them end up as beggars due to the psycho- and socio-economic problems they face. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought fresh challenges for them and life is getting increasingly difficult. Sam Olukoya in Lagos takes a look at how people affected by leprosy in Nigeria are faring in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

 

SCRIPT

SONG:

NARRATION: In Nigeria, many people affected by leprosy survive as beggars. They usually sing songs like this as they solicit for assistance. One of them, Musa Gambo, says life has changed for the worse for them since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GAMBO: We have been facing problems since the Corona pandemic started. The price of food has gone up, everything is expensive, yet we cannot do any job. The money people give us as alms now is much lower than what they used to give us in the past. Some people will give you nothing and just walk away because they are facing difficult times. Some people are even angry and irritated when you beg them for money because life is tough for them. They will ask why you are disturbing them for money as if you are not aware that there is corona.

SOUND OF BUCKETS

NARRATION: Musa Ibrahim arranges buckets which he uses to store water. Ibrahim who is affected by leprosy says as beggars they often face arrest.

IBRAHIM: The lockdown has been lifted and people can move about freely, but for us if we go out they will arrest us and they will not release us. They came even yesterday. It is difficult for us to go and beg for alms g because they will arrest us. Our crime is that we are begging, they said they don’t want beggars, for us that is the only way we can get money to sustain ourselves. If we cannot beg for money honestly it will be difficult to feed. They did not give us jobs yet they are stopping us from looking for money, that is not good.

NARRATION: Audu Garba says people like him who are affected by leprosy have to survive as beggars due to the discrimination they face.

GARBA: Because we have leprosy, people will not patronise us if we set up a business due to the stigma. Here in Lagos anyone with leprosy who set up a business is deceiving himself because the business will not succeed. If I have money my business idea will be breeding and selling livestocks. If I have the resources for this business I will cease to be a beggar.  But I don’t have the resources. I cannot farm, so if I don’t live as a beggar what else should I do? I cannot get loan from the bank, who will give me loan in the bank, when I don’t have a farm or a house that I can use as collateral to get a loan?

NARRATION: Garba says the pandemic has increased the stigma against people affected by leprosy as many Nigerians believe they are infected by the Corona virus.

GARBA: We have been facing discrimination in the past and it has continued. It is now double discrimination with corona, because now they see us as the people who actually have Corona. I swear. It saddens me when they say we have corona. Till now they go about with that impression that we have Corona. When some people even pity you and want to give you money, they will throw it at you from a distance. Yes, it is because of the stigma that we have Corona that is why they treat us this way. They discriminate against us because they don’t regard us as normal human beings.

NARRATION: Lagos based medical doctor, Kunle Ogunyemi, says once treated, people who had Hansen’s disease are not contagious and can live a fairly normal life. He said misconceptions about the disease make many people think they are still contagious.

OGUNYEMI: Ordinarily when they are fully cured, they are not infectious. Perception of the public or even some health care workers unfortunately does not accommodate them at all because knowledge about it, it is not a common disease at all and because not too many people know, the tendency is still to keep them at arms length.

SONG:

NARRATION: With songs like this, people affected by leprosy often appeal to society to respect the rights of vulnerable people like them. But Garba says so strong is the discrimination against them that he is not optimistic that they will get the COVID-19 vaccine which is supposed to be freely available to Nigerians.

GARBA: We are happy that there is vaccine, but it is not meant for us. If the populace are vaccinated we shall thank God, but for us, it is not a priority. If they look for us we shall take the vaccine since everyone ought to have it, but if they don’t look for us, we shall not force ourselves to get it, it will be difficult for us to get the vaccine. Take the newly introduced national identification card, I don’t have one, because they asked for money, I don’t have money. The situation with the vaccine will be similar, they will ask for money but we don’t have money.