Africa

Kumerra Gemechu's phone and computer have also been seized by police, his family says.

Violence in Cabo Delgado province has continued to escalate throughout 2020.

The grim milestone comes after a new variant of coronavirus is identified in the country.

Ethiopia's leader says Eritrea armed his troops when they first came under attack in Tigray region.

Three UN peacekeepers were killed before the election, as tension grows between rebels and the state.

Catherine Nakalembe won this year's Africa Food Prize for pioneering work using satellite images.

Ikram Abdi Omar was the UK's first hijab-wearing model to feature on the cover of Vogue.

After protests, a strike, and lockdown, Kiki, a student from Lagos, Nigeria, can’t wait for the year to be over.

South Africa express their "ongoing commitment" to supporting the Black Lives Matter movement as players raise their fists before the first Test against Sri Lanka.

The UN said three peacekeepers died in two separate attacks, as rebel and government forces clash.

A former refugee considers the importance of memory for those who lose everything in the chaos of war.

Strong winds caused the boat to sink on the lake, which has a history of incidents, officials said.

The Islamist group also burnt down the church in the Christian village in northeast Nigeria.

A search continues for survivors after the boat heading to Italy capsized near the city of Sfax.

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Dec 24 2020 (IPS)

What a challenging year 2020 has been! A year of living dangerously – “Tahun vivere pericoloso”- perhaps these words of late President Soekarno of Indonesia are the best description.

Fortunately, I managed to remain sane, reading and writing op-eds (mostly about the pandemic, here, here).

Anis Chowdhury

I began the year 2020 with an interview with New Age (Dhaka, 12 Feb.), headlined, “We need to Democratise Politics” where I highlighted the perils of growing inequality and how it could be a greater threat than the evolving pandemic for the human race, interacting with the climate crisis and advancements in biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The pandemic seems to have accelerated the process.

The Economist described the year of “Great Lockdown”, when the entire world was shut down, as “the year when everything changed” – the lead title of The New York Times columnist, Gail Collins’ book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (2009).

When the facemask not only became an emblem of the year, but also of a frightening new age, many pointed to fatal flaws in the neoliberal paradigm that came to dominance since the early 1980s with the Thatcher-Reagan onslaught on the post-World War II social contract that respected workers’ right and promised full employment and universal provisioning of essential public goods, and unleashing of greed (recall the 1987 movie “Wall Street”, where Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko captured the essence of neoliberalism, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good”).

It was refreshing to hear the torch-bearer of corporate capitalism, Klaus Schwab, say to TIMES, “the neoliberalist … approach centers on the notion that the market knows best, that the ‘business of business is business,’ and that government should refrain from setting clear rules for the functioning of markets. Those dogmatic beliefs have proved wrong”.

Hence, Schwab argued, “We must move on from neoliberalism in the post-COVID era”, and acknowledged, “Free-market fundamentalism has eroded worker rights and economic security, triggered a deregulatory race to the bottom and ruinous tax competition, and enabled the emergence of massive new global monopolies. Trade, taxation, and competition rules that reflect decades of neoliberal influence will now have to be revised”.

Agreed Francis Fukuyama, who celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of socialist experiments with his The End of History and the Last Man. “a certain set of ideas about the benefits of unregulated markets … had a disastrous effect… it’s led to a weakening of labour unions, of the bargaining power of ordinary workers, the rise of an oligarchic class …that … exerts undue political power”. Thus, he thought, “socialism ought to come back”, meaning “redistributive programmes that try to redress this big imbalance in both incomes and wealth. He further said, “if there’s anything we learned from the financial crisis it’s that you’ve got to regulate the sector like hell because they’ll make everyone else pay”.

Thus, it was encouraging to see the advocates of neoliberalism, such as The Financial Times pen an editorial reminding the readers of the core of the post-WWII social contract, “to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone”.

It was also heartening to see the IMF’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva move swiftly to arrange debt relief for low-income countries in an innovative way which is superior to the G20’s mean offer of debt suspension to be re-paid fully with accumulated interest obligations (no surprise not many takers). It was a music to hear debt hawks, such as Carmen Reinhart, the Chief Economist of the World Bank, advise, “First you worry about fighting the war, then you figure out how to pay for it”. The Bank also “paused” its controversial Doing Business Report that encouraged a “beauty contest” of deregulation in the “race to the bottom” after it could no longer defend its data manipulation in favour of right-wing regimes.

So, “when everything changed”, there was a great hope of change in the way we organise economies and societies, and respond to common threats to humanity; that low-paid workers would be recognised for their essential services; that the rent-seeking activities of the rentier class would be restrained; that the widening disparities in income, wealth and opportunities would be reversed; that there would be inclusive multilateralism recognising differentiated responsibility in collective global response; that no one or country would be left behind; and the list grows.

However, not everyone was so sanguine. Simon Mair of the University of Surry, for example, contemplated four possible post-COVID world: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. He believed, “versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible, if not equally desirable”. It all depends on the choice we make and the decisions that our political leaders take.

Amartya Sen believes that “a better society can emerge from the lockdowns” as it happened after WWII; but he is concerned that “in the policies against the present pandemic, equity has not been a particularly noticeable priority…Instead, the focus has been on drastic control and sudden lockdowns … with little attention paid to labourers who lose their jobs or the many migrant workers, the poorest of the poor, who are kept hundreds of miles from their homes”.

Meanwhile Luke Cooper and Guy Aitchison of LSE list four dangers ahead: ‘deglobalisation’ takes a nationalist form; less democratic participation, more centralisation; surveillance state and erosion of human rights; inequality goes unchallenged.

I am not a fan of Tony Blair; but I tend to share his eerie feeling, when he says, “for the first time ever I’m troubled about the future”. He fears, “COVID-19 will usher in a world where insecurity and unpredictability constitute the new normal. Everything that was relevant and present before COVID will be there afterwards, except intensified and accelerated… to produce a lot of hardship with the burden falling often on the most vulnerable”.

I have reasons to be spooky. I list a few:
Vaccine nationalism rules forgetting that we defeated small-pox that has been one of the major causes of death and blindness for centuries in less than a decade through unprecedented global cooperation at the height of the Cold war.

Governments remain beholden to Big Pharmas in opposing the waiver of patent rights, falsely arguing that patent rights are needed for innovation, and ignoring the fact that we won against polio with a vaccine without patent.

Corporate bosses shamelessly paid themselves fat bonuses and used tax-payers’ pandemic relief money to pay dividends, and buy-back shares, while millions lost jobs and livelihoods.

Yet governments are offering more corporate tax cuts and further removing job and wage protections, instead of standing up to corporate interest, ignoring the fact that these are the very policies that contributed to widening disparities, sluggish growth, stagnating productivity and chronic fiscal crises.

Meanwhile billionaires have become richer and millions are pushed back to poverty and precarious living.

Governments have missed the opportunity to reboot and accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals. The pandemic has shown that we can live on less and do not have to over-crowd cities.

But governments have failed to facilitate the millions of people who moved to villages and rural towns to stay by taking jobs and services there, and designing adjustment measures; governments did not grab the opportunity to fix urban bias and initiate regenerative economies.

Governments and policymakers are refusing to recognise that both existential threats – the climate crisis and the pandemic – although appear to be “environmental” or “natural” problems, they are socially driven.

Climate crisis is caused by society’s decision to over-consume and over-produce, the very factors that are destroying natural habitats of wild-lives and bringing humans in close contact with virus-carrying animals.

Tackling both pandemic and climate crisis would be much easier if we cut or cease our hedonic life-style and nonessential economic activities

Meanwhile, Nobel Laureate economist Michael Spence is advocating the return of structural adjustment era conditionalities for countries seeking help from the Bank and the Fund, ignoring the findings of the Bank’s Growth Commission, he chaired, that fair-seeming, “good-intentioned” conditionalities produced “lost decades” of development.

Another Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz is advocating Brady-style bond buybacks using the IMF and donor money, while these monies are urgently needed for fighting pandemic, ignoring that the debt landscape has changed significantly since Brady with more varied players and that such debt buybacks in the past benefited the creditors.

Sadly, they are not offering a roadmap for a new more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable future.

In my adopted country, Australia, the government is foot-dragging and refusing to take bold and ambitious green-house gas emission targets despite witnessing worst bushfires and extreme weather events in history. It has done nothing to protect gig workers despite four Uber-eat delivery riders killed in road accidents taking food to people in lockdown. It is contemplating reforms of the industrial relations laws that are bound to make the life of essential workers like fire-fighters, nurses, cleaners and food-delivery persons more precarious.

My country of dreaming, Bangladesh, is now listed as new ‘autocracy’ where the government has become intolerant, arresting and harassing journalists and anyone exposing its misdeeds, and corruptions even when it involved fake COVID testings, and relief money and goods. Extra-judicial killings and forced disappearance have become instruments of control, while all the state institutions, including the judiciary, the police and bureaucracy are politicised.

Nevertheless, there are some rays of hope as we welcome 2021 in the spontaneous mass mobilisation in Thailand and Belarus against despots, in Chile’s referendum to meet people’s democratic aspirations, in impulsive resistance in India against the farm laws promoting corporate interest, in Indonesia’s mass protest against the controversial, omnibus bill that assaults workers’ rights; in defeating imperialist plots in Bolivia; in imposing taxes on Argentina’s wealthy and rich; in Zambia’s decision to default that defied debt-hawk’s scare-mongering.

Hope is an incurable disease that keeps us alive and moving. Be safe and well. Let us ponder over the lessons of the crises; the relationship with our governments; social contract and trust; measures of societal progress; and how our economies be more distributive and regenerative or sustainable.

 

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Children were among more than 100 people killed when a village was attacked in western Ethiopia.

More than 100 people were killed in fires or by shooting and stabbing attacks, reports say.

Travel restrictions and quarantine rules have been introduced to limit the spread.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 2020 (IPS)

While 2020 will be remembered most for the way COVID-19 changed our lives in nearly every way and in every part of the world, we made some strides for women’s rights and gender equality.

From new laws addressing domestic violence and equality to women’s critical leadership during the global pandemic, join us to celebrate some key moments for gender equality this year.

Women leaders shine in the face of COVID-19

Governments across the world worked to respond to COVID-19, with research suggesting that in countries where women lead, the responses were quicker, more effective and stronger. In countries with women leaders, including New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Bangladesh and more, the quick and decisive actions of the women in charge led to lower cases and lower deaths.

Even though COVID-19 has demonstrated the important role of women in leadership and decision-making, as of December 2020, there are only 22 countries with women serving as Heads of State and/or Government worldwide. As we look ahead to building back better in the future, women’s leadership is critical to success.

US elects first woman vice-president

In November, Kamala Harris became the first woman vice-president-elect of the United States, shattering barriers that have kept men entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for many years. Following her swearing-in in January 2021, she will join the ranks of other female vice-presidents around the world, in countries including Bulgaria, Nicaragua, Liberia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, The Gambia, South Sudan, and others.

US President-elect Joe Biden also announced an all women senior communications team, a first for the White House.

Scotland makes period products free for all

The Scottish parliament voted unanimously in favour of the Period Products bill in November, making Scotland the first country to allow free and universal access to menstrual products –including tampons and pads – in public buildings including schools and universities.

It marks a significant victory for the global movement against period poverty which impacts women and girls in many ways. With 12.8 per cent of women and girls worldwide living in poverty, the cost of menstrual products and added taxes leave many without ways to safely manage their periods.

Mother’s names to be included on children’s IDs in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the President signed a new law stating that for the first time, mothers will be named on their children’s birth certificates and identification cards, making it easier for women to get education, healthcare and other documents for their children. The change will especially benefit women who are widowed, divorced or otherwise raising children on their own.

The new law comes after a year-long social media campaign #WhereIsMyName, advocating for women’s rights and empowerment in the country.

World leaders reignite the vision of the Beijing Platform for Action

In October, co-hosted by the President of the General Assembly and UN Women, leaders came together to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for action, the most comprehensive roadmap for advancing gender equality.

Over 100 countries committed to concrete actions that would accelerate the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls everywhere. Some of the commitments include eliminating discriminatory laws, social norms and gender stereotypes; matching commitments to gender equality with adequate financing; strengthening institutions to promote gender equality; harnessing the potential of technology and innovation to improve women’s and girls’ lives; and regularly collecting, analyzing and using gender statistics.

Looking ahead, all eyes are on the robust actions and commitments to fast-track implementation on gender equality, at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico and France in 2021, and through the Generation Equality Action Coalitions.

Equal pay for women footballers in Brazil and Sierra Leone

Brazil and Sierra Leone have joined Australia, England, Norway and New Zealand in publicly committing to equal pay for women and men footballers. Globally, the gender pay gap stands at 16 per cent, meaning women workers earn an average of 84 per cent of what men earn. For women of colour, immigrant women, and women with children, the difference is even greater.

In Sierra Leone, the commitment to equality covers appearance fees and winning bonuses for the national women’s team. Similarly in Brazil, female national players will be paid the same as male national players in preparation periods and games.

Kuwait’s domestic violence law signals hope for women

In September, Kuwait issued a new law on protection from domestic violence, following years of activism from Kuwaiti women’s rights groups. The law creates a national committee to write policies to combat domestic violence and protect women. It also establishes shelters and a hotline to receive domestic violence complaints, provides counseling and legal assistance for survivors, and allows for emergency protection orders to prevent abusers from contacting their victims.

Although the new family protection law is a step forward for the country with high levels of domestic abuse, much work remains in implementing the law, filling protection gaps and repealing discriminatory laws.
Worldwide, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the ever-present pandemic of violence against women surged dramatically.

Calls to helplines increased up to five-fold in some countries during the first weeks of the coronavirus outbreak. Projections show that for every three months of lockdown, an additional 15 million women could experience violence. Laws and policies matter right now, to curb violence against women and recover from the social and economic fallouts of COVID-19.

TIME’s first Kid of the Year celebrates girl power and women in science

Fifteen-year-old scientist and inventor, Gitanjali Rao, was selected as TIME magazine’s first-ever ‘Kid of the Year’. From an early age, Rao thought about how to use science and technology to create social change, as motivated by her desire to introduce positivity and community to the world around her.

She developed Kindly, an app and a Chrome extension based on artificial intelligence that is able to detect cyberbullying at an early stage. Rao is currently working on an inexpensive and accurate means of detecting bio-contaminants in water.

New Zealand appoints first indigenous woman Foreign Minister

Nanaia Mahuta became the first indigenous woman appointed as Foreign Minister of New Zealand in November. Mahuta, who is Maori, and was first elected to parliament in 1996, previously made history as the first woman member of parliament to wear a moko kauae, or traditional tattoo, on her chin.

New Zealand also has one of the most diverse parliaments in the world, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, with almost half of lawmakers being women, and around 10 per cent of incoming parliamentarians being members of the LGBTQ community.

Two women take home Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In October, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on a way of editing DNA, known as Crispr-Cas9. The two scientists led efforts to turn molecules made by microbes into a tool for customizing genes.

Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna’s joint win marks the first time in history that the prize has gone to two women, and they are only the sixth and seventh women to win Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Originally published on UN-Women.Medium.com

 

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Malay hawker prepares satay (seasoned and skewered meat grilled over hot charcoal). © Mohamad Hafiz, contestant of #OurHawkerCulture photography contest 2019, Singapore, 2019

By SWAN
PARIS, Dec 23 2020 (IPS)

Cuisine formed a notable portion of the latest inscriptions on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, with hawker food in Singapore and couscous traditions in North Africa being celebrated.

The two were among 29 elements inscribed when the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage met virtually Dec. 14 to 19, hosted by Jamaica and chaired by the island’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange.

“This year … the experience that we all had in sharing and experiencing the cultures of different countries made us realize that in spite of the pandemic, in spite of us being apart, we were still able to share in each other’s culture, and what it did for all of us was to bring us closer together,” Grange said at the end of the meeting.

The inscription of Singapore’s “hawker culture, community dining and culinary practices in a multicultural urban context” marks the first time that the Southeast Asian island state has an element inscribed on the List.

Hawker culture is “present throughout Singapore”, with these food centres seen as a kind of “community dining room”, officials said. Here, people from diverse backgrounds dine and mingle, in an atmosphere of conviviality and enjoyment of the scents and flavours on offer.

Hawker centres grew out of street-food culture, housing cooks who provide meals in a bustling communal setting with different stalls. The centres have, however, seen closures and fewer customers because of the Covid-19 pandemic, making the 2020 inscription a bitter-sweet one.

 

Couscous © Centre national de recherches préhistoriques, anthropologiques et historiques (CNRPAH), Algérie, 2018.

 

The couscous submission – which focused on the knowledge, know-how and practices pertaining to the production and consumption of the dish – was made by Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, and it naturally sparked an online debate about the absence of other countries that are known for this food, and about favourite recipes.

The inscription encompasses “the methods of production, manufacturing conditions and tools, associated artefacts and circumstances of couscous consumption in the communities concerned,” according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Originating from the Berber culture of Algeria and Morocco, couscous is now eaten around the world, accompanied by a variety of vegetables and meats – depending on the region, the season and the occasion.

It comes “replete with symbols, meanings and social and cultural dimensions linked to solidarity, conviviality and the sharing of meals,” UNESCO said.

Food was also indirectly highlighted with the inscription of “Zlakusa pottery making, hand-wheel pottery making in the village of Zlakusa”. This comprises the practice of making unglazed food vessels that are used in households and restaurants across Serbia, originating from a tiny village in the west of the country.

Olivia “Babsy” Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport.

Some gastronomes claim that dishes prepared in Zlakusa earthenware have a unique taste, and the pottery’s “close association with the village of Zlakusa and its environs reflects its close link with the natural environment,” the inscription stated.

Away from food, several music and art practices were also inscribed, and the meeting saw three elements added to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, while another three were added to the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.

The latter “facilitates the sharing of successful safeguarding experiences” and “showcases examples of the effective transmission of living cultural practices and knowledge to future generations,” UNESCO said. Elements inscribed this year include the Martinique yole (a light boat), whose tradition goes back several centuries in the Caribbean.

The committee stated that a “spontaneous movement to safeguard these boats developed while they faced the threat of disappearing” and that the safeguarding programme has grown over the years. The main purpose is to “preserve the know-how of local boat builders”, transmit expertise on sailing, and create a federation to organize major events.

In a year that has seen the cultural sector hit hard globally by the Covid-19 pandemic, the inscriptions brought some cheer to the 141 countries attending and the more than one thousand people participating in the virtual meeting. During an online press briefing on Dec. 18, committee chairperson Grange noted that Jamaica was of course also affected by the health crisis, but that the population was very “resilient”.

“It impacted aspects of our culture, primarily the entertainment industry, and also various sectors in the creative industry,” she said in response to a question. “It has impacted the economy … and our creative people who depend on their creative works to earn an income. However, we were still able to take our music to the world, through technology.”

Grange said that hosting the huge virtual meeting of the Intangible Cultural Heritage committee posed some technological challenges, but nothing that could not be overcome. She said it showed the importance of working together, of sharing cultures, and of finding ways to overcome obstacles to “ensure that we continue to use culture to unite the world.”

This year saw the highest number of multi-country nominations – 14 inscriptions “testifying to the ability of intangible cultural heritage to bring people together and promote international cooperation,” Grange said.

“These are great achievements for all of humanity,” she declared, recalling her country’s pride and the global celebration when reggae music of Jamaica was added to the List in 2018.

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