Africa

Group of refugees supported by South Florida's Refugee Assistance Alliance organization.

By Rose Delaney
MIAMI, Mar 22 2019 (IPS)

South Florida has long been known as a haven for refugees and migrants. Widely referred to as the “gateway to Latin America”, 1 in every 5 Florida residents is an immigrant. Significantly, the “sunshine state” welcomes 1,000 new settlers every day.

At present, The State of Florida’s refugee program is the largest in the United States, resettling more than 25,000 refugees and 2,000 asylum seekers each year.

South Florida’s refugee population is predominantly made up of Cubans and Haitians. Interestingly enough, Cubans account for over 80% of arrivals per year.

Due to the high numbers of migrants arriving from Latin America and the Caribbean, Florida’s diverse refugee communities from countries such as Syria, Iraq Palestine, and Ethiopia are often overlooked.

Oftentimes, the resources needed by these small refugee groups are limited, due to the absence of socio-cultural understanding, and lack of services available to them in their native language.

Although the Syrian refugee population in South Florida only amounts to roughly 90 people, groups such as the Refugee Assistance Alliance and Muslim Women’s Organization of South Florida are determined to help not only Syrian, but all underserved refugee communities.

Undoubtedly, according to Refugee Assistance Alliance’s founder and executive director, Kristen Bloom, refugee families’ main setback comes through their lack of English. Although the refugee resettlement process offers English classes, many cannot attend due to limited transportation, lack of childcare and conflicting schedules.

Furthermore, as English classes cater to predominantly Hispanic students with English-Spanish bilingual teachers, oftentimes, the families feel both culturally and linguistically isolated in the classroom and prefer to stay at home.

Significantly, non-profit groups have placed a keen focus on educating the Mothers of the households with no external occupation, as they are the least likely to be exposed to the language.

Refugee advocates believe by empowering the female head of the family, all the other family members will feel confident in their new surroundings.

For example, an ongoing Syrian refugee gathering, “A Taste of Syria” held in Miami, empowers Syrian chefs, always women, to cook food and earn a profit from it.

For many Syrian women, this is the first time they have provided for their family financially and it has granted them with a new sense of purpose.

Last month, a second-generation Cuban migrant recounted the story of his father’s journey to the United States at a Taste of Syria event. His father was met with open arms in an American restaurant as a waitress proclaimed “Welcome to America” and did not charge him for his meal.

The man claimed that most Floridians know what it’s like to be uprooted from the country of their birth and start all over again.

He extended a warm welcome to all the refugee families present. “We want you to thrive and succeed here.” He said to the group of refugees at the dinner, just as the waitress said to his father many years ago, “Welcome to America”.

Ultimately, the main objective for all refugee families in the United States is to become self-sufficient. Ideally, the families will pass on the skills they have learned to incoming refugees as “mentors.”

Refugee support organizations across South Florida would no longer need to exist if this goal is met. However, refugee rights advocates hope that if incoming refugee numbers increase, they will always have someone to help.

Unfortunately, the incoming refugee quota in the United States is at a historic low. Surprisingly, in 2018, only 11 Syrian refugees were admitted in North America.

What’s more, for Fiscal Year 2019 (FY 2019) the Trump administration proposes a resettlement cap of 30,000 refugees. This figure lies in stark contrast to Obama’s cap of 110,000 refugees in FY 2017.Oftentimes, due to strict vetting processes, the quota is not even met.

Many Floridians are unaware of the small yet underserved Syrian, Iraqi, Ethiopian etc. refugee communities that surround them.

By advocating for refugee rights and empowering them through entrepreneurship, education and inclusion, the divisive “fear” and stigmatization shadowing refugees and migrants will eventually break down.

As a global society, we must continue to include refugees in our communities, so they may become self-sufficient and contribute in the most impactful way.

The post South Florida’s Underserved Refugee Communities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A stranded motorist in Mozambique tells of the scene of devastation along the Beira to Chimoio highway.

Banned Togolese referee Kokou Hougnimon Fagla admits he was asked to manipulate an international friendly but did not agree to do so.

Police say the vehicles were travelling in separate directions when the crash occurred.

Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr questions Leicester City striker Kelechi Iheanacho's commitment and professionalism to the national team.

By Iris Hsu
TAIPEI, Mar 22 2019 (IPS)

Reporting on China’s harassment of journalists has never been easy. Lately it’s been getting much harder, which suggests that conditions for the press could be worsening.

At least 47 journalists were jailed in China at the time of CPJ’s 2018 prison census and I am investigating at least a dozen other cases, but the details are hard to verify.

The reason: authorities are deliberately preventing information from getting out–and they are getting really good at it.

Among the cases I’m investigating are the arrests in December of 45 contributors at Bitter Winter, a religious and human rights news website, who were detained and interrogated for exposing details about Xinjiang’s secret camps; reports from December 14 that police in Tianjin arrested a woman for exposing an outbreak of African swine fever on her WeChat account for the alleged crime of “spreading rumors”; the arrests from 2016 to 2018 by Xinjiang police of at least 30 Uighur editors working for local newspapers and television broadcasters; and the case of a woman who live-streamed police breaking into her apartment and taking her away in August, as an officer asked, “What did you say on the internet?”

Information was so scarce on the latter cases, that CPJ was unable to confirm who the journalists were and if they were still detained at the time of our prison census.By ensuring little to no information is available on these individuals, Chinese authorities are able to prevent widespread coverage and avoid being held to account for their actions.

In researching these cases and others I identified at least five methods China uses to try to prevent coverage of journalist arrests.

Sealing court records

Chinese laws require courts to make verdicts public on court websites as long as they don’t contain “state secrets.” However, I was unable to find records for any of the journalists on our prison census, or in the other cases under investigation, including for reporters convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

Ding Lingjie, the editor of Minsheng Guancha (Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch), is one of several journalists imprisoned on that charge, whose records should have been made public.

As testament to the opacity of Chinese judicial system, only six judgments from 2018 are posted on the website of the Beijing Shijingshan People’s Court, which is handling Ding’s case. No data is available for last year, but the Beijing court system says the court has taken on over 5,600 cases since January 1, which gives an idea of the scale of the cases it handles. In December, it sentenced Ding in a closed hearing to one year and eight months in prison, according to news reports.

Authorities also physically block lawyers from reading their clients’ court papers. On February 13, Zhang Zanning, who represents Huang Qi, founder of the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, was not allowed to see his client and was denied access to court records because “the judge was on vacation.”

A day later, when Zhang returned to the detention center, authorities blocked him again without providing a reason and told him that his law firm was no longer handling the case, according to Radio Free Asia and Zhang’s statement on Minsheng Guancha.

In another example, the state-owned newspaper People’s Daily reported on September 10 that Shaanxi authorities had made 96 arrests in a month in connection to “fabricating news reports” and “news blackmailing.”

Despite combing through public court judgments on China Judgements Online, a public access service that allows users to review verdicts, orders, mediation documents, and notices, I was unable to find any records relating to the arrests.

Censoring news coverage

Chinese authorities often issue instructions to media outlets forbidding coverage of a reporter’s arrest or trial. When the Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court held a trial for Huang, Chinese media received an order from the government to not “report, republish, or comment without prior arrangement” on Huang’s case, according to China Digital Times, a California-based media organization that reports on uncensored news in China.

In cases that don’t involve politics or human rights, authorities allow some reporting but often key details, such as the suspect’s name and alleged crime, are redacted.

Take the Shaanxi arrests last year of people whom authorities called “fake journalists.” Authorities said they detained 96 people, and shut down five social media accounts, 15 local broadcasters, and 45 apps on accusations of spreading illegal political information or rumors, according to news reports.

However, only a few vague reports appeared in media outlets or on the website of the Shaanxi Provincial Administration of Radio and TV. These scant news reports failed to provide names, which made the task of beginning to verify any of the 96 arrests near to impossible.

Blocking foreign IPs and VPNs

Last year, authorities officially banned the unauthorized use of virtual private networks (VPNs), a service many in China rely on to circumvent the infamous “Great Firewall.” In October, companies providing VPN services said they had detected a higher frequency of authorities attempting to block VPNs, leading to suspicions that the government had deployed on-the-ground censors to work against them.

When I called the Cyberspace Administration of China for comment, an official said that he had no information on the matter and refused to redirect my call.

In January, I experienced connectivity lags while browsing Chinese websites, including China’s largest online search engine Baidu, public security bureau websites, and the social platform Weibo, from Taiwan, where I’m based. Access was blocked entirely and restored only when I switched to other devices and used a different IP address.

The experience suggests that authorities not only attempt to control the use of internet within China’s borders, they also try to keep its so-called “internet sovereignty” intact by denying searches from outside the country.

Cutting police station phone lines

After China’s use of “re-education camps” to detain up to a million Uighur minorities came to international attention in 2017, it became more difficult to contact public security bureaus in Xinjiang for confirmation or comment on arrests. I found that police and officials no longer answered my calls and several listed numbers were no longer connected.

Xu Xiaoli, the wife of award-winning photojournalist Lu Guang who disappeared in the region in November, experienced the same issue. She said on Twitter that when she tried to contact police in Xinjiang for information about her husband, “none of the listed numbers worked.”

On the rare occasions that I do get through to an official, they refuse to answer my questions. In September, I attempted to contact the Urumqi Public Security Bureau to ask about detained scholar and blogger Ilham Tohti and his fellow students. Several calls went unanswered before a female official answered the phone.

As soon as I identified myself, she hung up. I made another call and the same official answered. This time she yelled at me, seemingly in panic, and told me to never call this number to ask questions again.

Intimidating lawyers, family and friends

As well as declining to comment on detentions, China has threatened family, friends, and lawyers. Authorities held Pu Wenqing, the mother of jailed journalist Huang, in an undisclosed location for nearly two months, with no contact with friends or activists, according to news reports.

Even after her release on January 21, police called her and ordered her not to post anything online, according to Radio Free Asia. The officer who made the calls told Radio Free Asia that he was under state security orders to monitor internet traffic about Huang’s case. Pu is still under surveillance today, a 64 Tianwang volunteer told me.

While Pu was under detention, Guangdong’s Department of Justice disbarred Huang’s lawyer Liu Zhengqing for “using language that endangers state security and slanders others,” according to reports.

Huang’s previous lawyer Sui Muqing was disbarred for “using uncivilized, offensive wording” and other poor behavior while representing a fellow lawyer, and for bringing a cell phone to take photos of a rights activist in a detention center whom he was representing, according to news reports and Sui’s Twitter account.Both Sui and Liu had been vocal about Huang’s case. They talked to the media and posted case updates regularly on social media platforms and human rights websites.

I found in late 2018 that lawyers with whom I had previously spoken were now declining to talk about the detained journalists they represent. At least two told CPJ they could not speak for fear of retaliation from the government.

Despite attempts by China to censor and silence the press, journalists continue to report on critical social issues–even if it means they risk arrest. And CPJ continues to investigate and publicize their cases.

*Prior to joining CPJ, Hsu interned at Human Rights Watch, Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, and the Atlantic Council. Hsu obtained her master’s degree in international affairs from American University. She speaks Mandarin and French and lives in Taipei.

The post How Many Journalists are Jailed in China? Censorship Means We Don’t Know appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Iris Hsu* is China correspondent for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The post How Many Journalists are Jailed in China? Censorship Means We Don’t Know appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kenyans have accused their government of ignoring drought victims in north-west Kenya.

John Mikel Obi says he thought he would find out his father had been shot after playing in a World Cup game for Nigeria.

Women and girls from Myanmar are increasingly being trafficked as “brides” to China. Aung Ja* was 18 when a woman from Myitkina, northern Myanmar, convinced her to take a ‘factory’ job in China. She was rescued in 2017 and is taking part in a UN Women-supported trafficking prevention programme. Photo: UN Women/Stuart Mannion

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2019 (IPS)

Women and girls from Myanmar are increasingly being trafficked as “brides” to China, a human rights group found.

In a new report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented numerous cases of women and girls from Myanmar’s Kachin and northern Shan States who were trafficked and forced into sexual slavery in China, as well as the alarming lack of law enforcement on the issue.

“Myanmar and Chinese authorities are looking away while unscrupulous traffickers are selling Kachin women and girls into captivity and unspeakable abuse,” said Acting Women’s Rights Co-Director at HRW and author of the report Heather Barr.

“The dearth of livelihoods and basic rights protections have made these women easy prey for traffickers, who have little reason to fear law enforcement on either side of the border,” she added.

Over the past 40 years, conflict in Kachin and norther Shan states has caused long-term displacement and left many struggling to survive.

As humanitarian aid is largely blocked by Myanmar’s government, internally displaced people (IDPs) living in camps do not receive enough food and renewed fighting has pushed families to the brink of desperation.

Since many men are taking part in the conflict, women often become the sole breadwinners for their families and have no choice but to seek work across the border in China. But often they are enticed under false pretences, falling prey to traffickers.

“Those living in the camps are without money or anything. Not being able to make ends meet, it is women and girls who pay the price,” said a worker from Kachin Women’s Association (KWA) which assists trafficking victims.

Another Kachin activist echoed similar sentiments, stating: “Normally the target is the family who are facing financial crisis…but now the [brokers] are targeting the IDP camps. It’s a better place to gather people. They are in one space. Most of the brokers are involved as relatives or acquaintances.”

HRW found that out of 37 survivors interviewed, 15 were recruited by friends and 12 by an acquaintance. Another 6 were recruited and sold by their own relatives.

Many of the trafficking survivors interviewed were sold for between 3,000 and 13,000 dollars. Once delivered to their “buyers,” they were often locked in a room and raped frequently so as to make them pregnant.

Survivor “Brides”

After fleeing conflict in Kachin State and living in an IDP camp, 16-year-old Seng Moon was told of a job as a cook by her sister-in-law in China’s Yunnan province.

In the car, Seng Moon’s sister-in-law gave her something she said prevented car sickness causing Seng Moon to fall asleep immediately. She told Human Rights Watch that she woke up with her hands tied behind her back and was left with a Chinese family.

“My sister-in-law left me at the home…the family took me to a room. In that room I was tied up again…they locked the door—for one or two months…each time when the Chinese man brought me meals, he raped me,” Seng Moon said.

After another couple of months, she was told that she was married to the Chinese man who continued to be abusive.

Once Seng Moon was pregnant and gave birth, the husband said,“No one plans to stop you. If you want to go back home, you can. But you can’t take my baby.”

After two years, she was able to escape with her son.

Other survivors however were forced to leave behind their children. Of the people interviewed, eight left behind children.

Some trafficked women and girls were also forced to be both “brides” and labourers.

Ja Seng Nu was held for almost a year on a watermelon farm near Shanghai, locked in a room, physically abused, and raped every night by the son of the family who owned the farm “because [they] wanted a child as soon as possible.”

At the same time, she had to get up very early, cook breakfast for the farm’s workers, and then work in the fields all day.

Those who were caught trying to escape usually faced even more abuse.

Mai Mai Tsawm, who was trafficked at 21, told HRW that she met a woman who tried to run and after being caught by her “husband,” he tied her neck and hands to the end of a motorbike and dragged her behind the bike.

Tsawm said she did not know whether the woman had survived or not.

If they are able to escape successfully, many trafficked women and girls have difficulty grappling with trauma and face stigma within their communities.

“Most victims face terrible situations. They come back, and they are totally different from us. They are just gazing, staring…People who just came back don’t even dare to go outside and show their faces…They feel guilty for being [trafficked],” a KWA worker said.

A Long Road to Justice and Recovery

Among the reasons for the rise in trafficking has been attributed to the “woman shortage” in China.

According to the Chinese government’s 2000 census, there were over 120 boys born for every 100 girls between 1996 and 2000. The World Health Organization has stated a normal ratio at birth is approximately 105 boys to 100 women.

The estimated 30 to 40 million “missing women” in the East Asian nation is partly due to its one-child policy which led to a preference for boys.

The gender imbalance is leaving many Chinese men without wives. In fact, by 2030, projections show that 25 percent of Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married.

Despite evidence for trafficking, HRW expressed concern over the lack of law enforcement and services to prevent trafficking and help those who have been trafficked.

The organization found that law enforcement officers in both China and Myanmar made little effort to recover trafficked women and girls, and those that sought help to find missing relatives were turned away and told that they would have to pay if they wanted they police to act.

HRW also reported that when trafficking survivors escaped and ran to the Chinese police, they were sometimes jailed for immigration violations rather than treated as crime victims.

“The Myanmar and Chinese governments, as well as the Kachin Independence Organization, should be doing much more to prevent trafficking, recover and assist victims, and prosecute traffickers,” Barr said.

“Donors and international organizations should support the local groups that are doing the hard work that governments won’t to rescue trafficked women and girls and help them recover,” she added.

HRW also urged for both China and Myanmar to develop formalized recruitment pathways for people from Myanmar to safely travel and legally obtain employment in China and establish measures to encourage reporting of suspected trafficking.

They also stressed the need to provide comprehensive services to survivors to combat stigma and provide access to livelihood support such as education and training and end the practice of jailing trafficking survivors.

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• Human Trafficking – Hidden in Plain Sight

The post Myanmar and China’s Bride Trafficking Problem appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

The post Myanmar and China’s Bride Trafficking Problem appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 22 2019 (IPS)

If we ever needed proof of how the political system has become self-referential and unable to update itself, the latest student march in more than 1,000 towns is a very good example.

Of course, politicians referred to it in declarations and, in a totally demagogic gesture, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Community and an old political fox with a lot of mileage, even kissed the hand of Greta Thunber. She is the 16-year-old Swedish girl who, frustrated with the pace of government action to deal with climate change, launched a “school strike for climate” last year, setting off an international youth movement and widespread demonstrations in an unprecedented initiative on climate change. We are fortunate that the Asperger’s syndrome Greta suffers from brings little empathy and greater determination, so is totally improbable that she will be co-opted by  flattery and recognition.

Roberto Savio

It was interesting to see the reaction of politicians.  In the Italian Parliament, for example, insiders report that the reaction was one of “in any case they do not vote, they are too young”.

It should be recalled that in its 2017 budget, the Italian government earmarked 20 billion dollars to save four Italian banks and just two billion dollars for subsidies and support to young people. School principals from Germany to Italy declared that the duty of students is to study, not take part in demonstrations, and – as usual – a conspiracy theory circulated that because climate change is  too complex an issue for young people to understand, Greta was clearly a puppet in the hands of adults.

Newspapers dwelt on the relations between her family and climate change campaigners to show that she had been used. Maybe so, but it is now too late to discredit her. She acted on her initiative, on goals that were hers, and the hundreds of thousands of students around the world were not copying her … she has awakened a chord that was already there.

The fact is that when masses of students from all over the world mobilise around a utopia (a concept which has totally disappeared in the political world), adults become uncomfortable. It measures the distance between what we are now and what we were when young; the world was more idealistic then than now, and we all had some hope and engagement.

That distance is quite large … many of us have betrayed those ideals or put them to sleep. The way out is scepticism and paternalism.  We know the reality, we know what dreams are, and young people should listen to our experiences. In May 1968, Tristan Tzara, the father of Dadaism, shouted to the marching students from his balcony: ”Criez, criez, vous serez tous des notaires” (Yell, shout, you will all be notaries). And for those of us who have not betrayed ideals and commitments, there is the sad realisation that we are a failed generation, a generation that was unable to implement its vision of a better society.

The difference is that when we were young, the most existential threat was the atomic bomb, and we took part in many marches. Today, that threat is not only coming back to haunt us with abolition of the  Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), but there is a new existential threat: climate change.

What is very impressive is that many students speak of how they are changing their lifestyle: from not using plastic bottles, to reducing  meat consumption and using less water when they brush their teeth. This change of lifestyle goes far beyond climate change, it goes to the heart of our consumption society and its values, a society in which advertising budgets are greater than those for education,

And the fact that the heavy users of Internet, the first willing victims of commercialisation of the Net, start to doubt the use by Google, Twitter and other platforms of people as consumers and not as citizens is a significant fact. They are now ignoring advertising. Automakers are very sad that the car is no longer a status symbol among young people … Nike, jeans and smartphones are today’s status symbols and their impact on climate is much smaller.

Extremely interesting are the reflections of a high-level staff member of the World Economic Forum in Davos: We view with great sympathy the mobilisation  of civil society .. thanks to them, several gaps in the field of medical assistance, museum and art care, and many social problems, are being taken care of … this has a dual positive effect: it reduces social tensions, and it keeps volunteers busy, and out of political engagement. In other words, civil society activists are seen as hamsters: running all the time, and going nowhere.

The time has perhaps come for our generation to make three considerations.

The first is that we would do well to remember that until the crisis of 2008, with the exception of Le Pen in France, populist, xenophobic and nationalist parties were marginal. Now they are everywhere, except for Portugal, and they are frequently in power, as in Italy, Austria, Poland and Hungary, or in the government coalitions of several countries, including the Nordic countries. Nobody at that time could have thought of rabid nationalists like Trump, Bolsonaro, Duque, Modi , Duterte,  Abe or Xi, or how the multilateral system, based on the idea of peace and cooperation, would be disintegrating.

Now we know what capitalism and finance mean when they are unchecked. We now have a financial system that is 40 times more powerful that the world of industry and services, and without any control. Since 2008, banks have been fined over 800 billion dollars for illegal practices.

Nobody foresaw a world where 40 peoples would possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people, a world where in just one minute the family owner of the Walmart supermarket chain makes the equivalent of the yearly salary of its employees. Over the last decade, fiscal paradises have hidden at least 30 trillion dollars from the fiscal system: six times the budget of the US government. Countries are now unable to act globally, while finance does so daily, unfettered.

The last decade has seen a steady deterioration of democracy, of social justice, of concern to secure a future for the young and halt the existential threat to the planet, to humans, animals and plants.

There have been only two new changes. One is the arrival of women on the political scene, with millions mobilising against injustice and patriarchism. Has that enormous mobilisation brought about any change in legislations and budgets? Hardly. On the contrary, the prestige of dinosaurs like Putin, Trump, Kaciesnky, Orban,  Salvini, Le Pen and company has been reinforced; they are the defenders of the values of the Western civilization, against dissolution of the family and the advancement  of woman (associated in the same breath with lesbians, gays and transgenders in a revealing logic). The second is the arrival of young people who are mobilising … so far, the extreme right has made no comment. Yet, touching on climate change, alternative energies and lifestyle is bound to create opposition soon or later. A strange destiny that of the extreme right; it is now against peace, development and social justice as central values. In a short space of time it will be against woman, and now it will be against young people.

The second consideration.  In fact, the main value of this campaign by young people is that it has put the political system in front of its responsibilities. “We have no time”, and it is true. We are all mesmerised by the Treaty of Paris on climate change, with the participation of all countries of the world.  However, it is important to see how the Treaty was conceived.  To make a tent large enough to accommodate everybody, the rules are: every country will decide what targets it will adopt; and every country is responsible for checking implementation of its engagement. What would happen if we did that with taxes? Citizens would decide how many taxes they would pay, and all would be responsible for seeing that  they complied.

Well, on the basis of the engagements taken until today, global temperature will increase by 3.5 degrees Centigrade compared with 1840. Scientists have always insisted that a reasonable limit is 1.5 degrees Centigrade, after which they speak of irreversible changes. Paris adopted the goal of 2 degrees Centigrade  to make things easier.

Then Trump left the Treaty, explaining that climate change is a Chinese hoax to block American development. He has cancelled all legislation on climate control created before him, to the point that he is now opening all national parks to fossil fuel extraction. Of course, this pleases people like the Koch brothers who own almost all the coal mines; the petrochemical companies; the workers displaced by the fight against climate change, like miners. And it pleases the large numbers of Americans who see China as the main threat, and believe that America is a victim of international exploitation, especially by its allies (Canada, Europe, Japan), Trump’s withdrawal has given a perfect alibi to countries like Poland (coal) and Saudi Arabia (oil) and others for ducking the issue.

So governments now say that in 2020, when the first conference on implementation will be held, they will assess the situation. But the students are here to remind us that,  according the vast majority of scientists, unless we change the present trend, by 2030 we will be over the famous threshold, of 1.5 degrees centigrade, and they are calling for an unprecedented effort. But climate change is now is considered a left-wing issue,  and  times are not really the best. In other words, there are many chances that we will reach 2020 and we will still be debating. The very important Laudatio Si encyclical from Pope Francis, who links climate to social justice, migration, technological progress, and so in a holistic approach, has been largely ignored.

Young people are asking us to act now. As Greta said at Davos: when we arrive in society, the damage will already have been done. This is an intergenerational call, and it  is very important and powerful. “Parents, if you say you love us, why you do not take care of our future?“ Should young people take a lesson from the violence of the Yellow Jackets in France to be heard, instead of peaceful marches?

Now to the third consideration. The climate movement comes after several others grassroots movements. The most traumatic was the protest against the World Trade Organisation in Chicago in 1999, when thousands protested against unchecked capitalism imposed by the Washington Consensus (a holistic neoliberal view of international and national  relations, based on extreme reduction of the role of the state and unfettered capitalism). This Consensus,  subscribed to by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury,  changed the trend  from cooperation to competition and success. Social costs were unproductive, only trade and finance were the tools for the world. Margaret Thatcher famously said: there is no society, only individuals.

Then, in 2001, in Porto Alegre, the World Social Forum was created, a meeting place for sharing practices and views as an alternative to Davos, and started a process of conferences with several hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. This process continues today, albeit with a major loss of steam. Ten years later, in 2011, the Movement of the Indignados started in Madrid, asking for change to the democratic and financial system, and spread to 68 towns of Spain, lasting until 2015. Anti-system parties came out in 2013, and stood at the European elections of 2014.  Podemos gathered 1,253,837 votes and won four seats. The others did not make it: Partido X received 105.561 votes, the Movement of Citizens Democratic Renewal 105,688 and Recortes Zero 30,827.  Had they stood together, they would have won seven seats. But a proverb says that the left unites only in front of a firing squad.

But many other citizens’ movement took to the streets.  In 2011, there was Occupy Wall Street against greed, corruption, social inequality and the power of finance and corporations over political institutions, joined by several hundreds of thousands of people.  Some see the Arab Spring, and the massive protests of Algiers as part of the same revolt. But it is instructive to see how the political system read those events. They were classified as anarchist movements. Horizontalism (they elected no leader), autonomy from existing institutions and defiance, demonising the rich and introducing class warfare, were considered proper of anarchists who rejected the political system.  So the content of demonstration was obscured by how they structured themselves.

It is a fact that by acting without the rules of organisation that political parties apply has been a huge handicap. Podemos, the only survivor of the Indignados wave, like the 5 Star Movement in Italy, structured itself as a political party. Like it or not, laws are made in parliament, and external protests, large as they might be (just think of the women’s movement), can be perfectly ignored, no risk except for recurring elections. But the political system today is not a free one. It is conditioned by finance, corporations, trade, armaments and technological developments (many more people will be made jobless by artificial intelligence than by migrants). The political system is hardly the representation of citizens in the old sense. There are 32,000 lobbyists in the US Congress, and 16,000 in the European Parliament: not really a symptom of unfettered democracy. The Koch brothers, who donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the Republican Party at each election, have a vote like the unemployed black guy from the suburbs. Do they compete at an equal level?

Now, the student movement is asking those in power to introduce urgent changes on their behalf. Until now the system has been able to ignore requests from peoples’ movements, and let them fritter away, “Students do not vote” was the main comment from the system after the last large demonstration.

Yet, the students are denouncing an existential threat, which will reach the brothers Koch, as well the black unemployed (but remember, the weakest will be affected much more). If the system does not listen to the voices of young people, the gap between political institutions and citizens will increase. And history tells us that voices from the street can be ignored once, twice, many times, but not for ever.

Young people are those who see clearly that climate change jeopardises their future, already affected by precarious jobs, unemployment and a difficult future in which pensions will be minimal. They see growing injustice and lack of participation. They represent a revolt based on idealism and hard facts. They are also a minority because of our changing demography. If the political system ignores this latest mass movement, it will take an unprecedented risk. What happens will be something that will shape history, If the young people are be ignored, democracy will be in great peril … killing idealism is a very great responsibility.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of global governance. Adviser to INPS-IDN and to the Global Cooperation Council. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

The post The System, Youth and Democracy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Hibs and Burundi midfielder Gael Bigirimana says he owes his career to a trip to the shops to buy milk.

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Dr Mohammad Amir Hossain Bhuiyan

By Naznin Tithi
Mar 22 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The depletion of groundwater table in Dhaka has made water crisis in the city acute, especially during the dry season. What are the reasons behind this?

We have conducted many research studies in the last 15/20 years and have found that Dhaka’s groundwater table has been gradually depleting at an average rate of one metre or 30/40 centimetres sometimes. Because of the rapid urbanisation of the city, the demand for groundwater has been increasing. In the multi-storied buildings and towers that are being constructed, high-powered pumps are used to extract water from underground. This contributes significantly to the lowering of the groundwater table. In Dhaka, there is no water in the shallow aquifers (50-70 feet deep). Presently, water is being extracted from the intermediate and deep aquifers, which are 600 to 800 feet deep.

Another reason for this depletion is our total dependency on groundwater. The whole city depends on groundwater. Although we have Sayedabad Water Treatment Plant, which uses the water from Shitalakhya, the capacity of the plant and the quality of water it produces are not satisfactory. Because of industrial pollution, the amount of heavy metals and other harmful elements in the Shitalakhya has increased to dangerous proportions. The Sayedabad plant does not have the required efficiency to treat such extremely polluted water. This treated water is not safe to drink. So we are left with the water supplied through pipelines by the Wasa.

Moreover, industries inside Dhaka use excessive amounts of groundwater. So the shortage of water in the city is particularly acute in industrial areas such as Tejgaon and Old Dhaka.

The World Bank in a recent report found that the sources of water are contaminated with E.Coli and arsenic. Also, harmful bacteria were found in 82 percent of supplied water. What are the reasons for this contamination?

Through my research study, I found that even the deep layers of water have been contaminated with excessive amounts of heavy metals and other pollutants. So even after boiling the water supplied by Wasa and purifying it through regular water filters, the heavy metals cannot be removed. There are pathogens and hookworms in the water supplied by Wasa. When you boil this water, you will notice some residue which looks like white thread. These are nothing but worms. Moreover, the water supplied by Wasa has Faecal Coliform, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) and many other bacteria.

Contaminants enter the water pipelines in so many ways. The reserved tanks of Wasa, where 50,000 gallons or more water are stored, are not cleaned regularly. Then the water pipelines are getting connected with the sewerage lines. Sewerage lines are filled with faecal coliform which enters the water pipelines through leakages.

Moreover, groundwater gets contaminated during the construction of high-rise buildings. When the soil is dug up for building construction, some weak joints are created in the ground. The pollutants from the surface seep into these weak joints and contaminate underground water, especially when high-powered pumps are used to extract water from underground, the pollutants from the surface seep in through the weak joints. Underground water also gets polluted by pollutants from the rivers.

Can’t anything be done to ensure that the water remains safe throughout the whole process—from extraction to supply?

In the developed countries, when water is extracted from underground, it is boiled to kill the pathogens, bacteria and other pollutants. After this water is cooled, it is distributed for people’s use. But in Bangladesh, after the water is extracted from underground, it is supplied to the pipelines straight away. Although this is a very expensive process, if we can do what developed countries do, the water quality will be better. We should also clean and replace the pipelines from time to time. In addition, if chlorination is done following the proper method, a lot of germs can be killed.

Researchers have also found that bottled and jar water are polluted with E.Coli and other pollutants. Who should be held accountable for this?

The BSTI has been looking after this at present. But the BSTI is not the relevant authority here. Everything related to water, including the quality of bottled water, should be checked by the Department of Public Health and Engineering. Carrying out random drives and fining some illegal businessmen will not solve the problem. The sources of the illegal businesses must be identified and addressed.

I think the government should take a policy decision to ban bottled water, say, after 10 years. Bottled water can be used for drinking purposes, only for the time being. But the use of jar water should be banned. Because if it is not banned, no sincere efforts will be made to make the Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) work, and the pollution of the rivers will not stop. This is not possible for the government to do at one go but this can be done in phases. The use of bottled and jar water should be discouraged and the use of river water after proper treatment should be given priority.

The government has been talking about reducing the use of groundwater for quite some time now. What should be done to reduce our dependency on groundwater and ensure optimal use of surface water?

The government has set a target of ensuring safe water for all by 2021. There’s only two years until 2021 but not much progress has been made to ensure this. Immediate steps should be taken to reduce the use of groundwater and ensure the maximum use of surface water. The use of groundwater in the industrial and agricultural sector should also stop.

We have no other alternatives to using river water for all purposes. We have to bring water from the rivers where industrial pollution is much less. The water of Buriganga, Turag, Shitalakhya and Balu cannot be used because these rivers are extremely polluted. If we treat this water and supply it to the consumers, it will create a public health disaster. We have also carried out research on the Meghna river and found its water to be contaminated with the pollutants from nearby factories. However, the water quality of Padma and Jamuna is relatively better. This water can be brought to Dhaka through pipelines and after treatment can be used by the residents of Dhaka.

The use of ETPs should be made mandatory for all factories. If the laws are strictly enforced, the rivers will be pollution-free and the water can be used for industrial and agricultural purposes. The government must ensure that those who violate the law face harsh penalty.

Another thing we should do is store water from Dhaka’s surrounding rivers during the rainy season. During July-August, even the water of Buriganga gets cleaner. We will have to reserve that water by building polders, reservoirs and ponds all around Dhaka. This water can be used from November till April after proper treatment.

We should take a policy decision to not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years. It has to be done immediately. One of the results would be the groundwater table rising up. Water crisis and pollution are major issues in Dhaka and solving these problems should be given due importance by the government.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post ‘We should not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Mohammad Amir Hossain Bhuiyan, professor and chairman, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, talks to Naznin Tithi of The Daily Star about why it is absolutely necessary to stop using groundwater and find alternative sources of water for residents of Dhaka.

The post ‘We should not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

Individuals who worked for the East German intelligence service have been questioned as part of the ongoing inquiry.

Congressman Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will party, president of the National Assembly since Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd as Venezuela's interim president. Credit: NationalAssembly

By Ivar Andersen
STOCKHOLM, Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

More than 60 countries have recognized Juan Guaidó as legitimate interim president. But among international trade unions, support for Venezuelan self-determination is resolute.

On January 23, the leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself  interim president of Venezuela. His claim on the presidency was immediately recognized by the United States who, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, called for the world to “pick a side”.

A little over 60 countries have followed in the footsteps of the United States, according to information from Al Jazeera. On February 4, Sweden joined the list.

“Sweden supports and acknowledges Juan Guaidó as the leader of the National Assembly and, in accordance with the country’s constitution, his attempts to serve as interim President of Venezuela, now responsible for making sure free and fair democratic elections will be called,” said Margot Wallström, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in a statement that stressed the importance of solving the crisis peacefully.

The international trade union movement on the other hand, has chosen a different approach. On the same day as Guaidó declared himself president, the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), released a harsh statement:

“We condemn the unilateral decision adopted today, January 23, by a group of governments of the region, notably led by the USA, to ignore the legitimacy of the government of President Maduro and to recognize the self-proclaimed ’president of the transition’, representative Juan Guaidó.”

TUCA is calling upon the government of Venezuela and the opposition to seek out dialogue, and for the international community to support this, but also states that the support for Guaidó “is a grave act of interference and intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, setting back the region to times we thought belonged to the past, in which coups d’état and military dictatorships were instigated”.

Many national trade union confederations have taken the same position. South Africa’s largest confederations Cosatu and Saftu condemn what they both call a “coup attempt”.

Trade unions in Canada are protesting the government’s decision to recognize Guaidó. The trade union confederation CLC writes that it supports “the Venezuelan people’s right to peaceful self-determination”.

Venezuela Presidential Election 2018



On May 20, 2018, the sitting president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was reelected for a second, six-year term. The EU and the United States, as well as associations like OAS and the Lima Group, rejected the election process.

In a statement on May 28, the Council of the European Union wrote: “The substantially reduced electoral calendar, bans and other major obstacles to the participation of opposition political parties and their leaders, as well as the non-respect of minimal democratic standards as indicated by numerous reported irregularities, notably the widespread abuse of state resources, voter coercion and unbalanced access to media, led to these elections being neither free nor fair.”

The election result was recognised by some countries, including China, South Africa, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

The voter turnout was 46 percent, the lowest since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958.

The country’s largest trade union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, states that Canada “has chosen to side with Donald Trump and US foreign policy”, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers calls the Canadian standpoint “deeply disturbing” and “ in direct violation of international law”.

The global union IndustriALL condemns the acknowledgement of Guaidó and “also rejects the external boycott, which has clear political and economic motives that violate Venezuela’s sovereignty”.

The relationship between the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Venezuela has been tense for some time, due to the fact that the country’s leadership doesn’t acknowledge ITUC’s affiliate ASI. But the ITUC also opposes foreign interference in the matter of the presidency.

“Concerning the Presidency of Venezuela, that is a matter for the people of Venezuela to decide, not any other entity outside of the country,” says Director of Communications Tim Noonan to Arbetet Global.

The ITUC also refers to its statement on Venezuela, which was adopted by the organisation’s world congress in December last year, before Guaidó’s challenge.

“The ITUC supports its affiliates in Venezuela in their struggle to strengthen democracy and dialogue, and the workers and people of Venezuela in dealing with the enormous difficulties that they are experiencing due to the economic blockade imposed on Venezuela.”

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO, is in favour of humanitarian aid and UN led reconcilliation efforts. The international department stresses that the LO does not take sides in the question of the presidency, but does take a swing at foreign involvement.

“The unstable political situation is worsened by superpowers like China, the United States, and Russia trying to manoeuvre the political map,” says Åsa Törnlund, union officer responsible for South America.

Translation: Cecilia Studer 

This story was originally published by Arbetet Global

 

The post International Trade Unions Condemn Recognition of Guaidó appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched a project called Migrants as Messengers (MaM), which aims to make future candidates aware of the dangers of irregular migration. In Guinea, migrants who have returned home are involved in awareness-raising activities with logistical support and training from IOM-Guinea. Courtesy: Amadou Kendessa Diallo

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
COTONOU, Benin , Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

Elhadj Mohamed Diallo wants to make sure that others won’t experience what he has lived through. The former irregular migrant who has returned home to Guinea from a jail in North Africa is calling on his fellow returnee migrants to establish associations in their respective countries, which will serve as powerful platforms to combat irregular migration across the continent.

“If I had the resources, I would tour Africa to create awareness about irregular migration. But because I haven’t got [those resources], I am urging all the African returnees wherever they are to take this fight into their hands and do something to stop the people who want to travel that route from experiencing what we went through,” he tells IPS.

The resource-rich West African nation has a population of about 13 million, of which 60 percent are less than 25 years of age. But widespread corruption, poverty, the country’s low score on the Human Development Index (Guinea ranks 175 out of 189 countries on the index), coupled with political unrest, has seen hundreds of young people attempt irregular migration with the hope of finding peace and stability in Europe.

The journey is a harsh one and Diallo’s own experiences of irregular migration are traumatic. In Morocco he was attacked by five youth and seriously wounded in the face and back. It, however, didn’t deter him from trying to reach Europe through irregular means. And it was only after he had been held for the third time in a Libyan jail that he eventually returned home through the European Union (EU)-International Organisation of Migration (IOM) Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration.

The 31-year-old is one of the Guinea migrants assisted to return home by the IOM. A total of 12,609 Guinean migrants stranded in North Africa have been assisted by the EU-IOM initiative to return home from Niger, Libya, Mali and Morocco. According to IOM’s recent figures, four percent of the returnees to Guinea are women, with six percent being minors.

Thirty returning migrants, including Diallo, were selected to become volunteers as part of IOM’s Migrants as Messengers (MaM) campaign in Guinea, which kicked off in June 2018. MaM, which runs in Senegal, Guinea and Nigeria, is a unique peer-to-peer “awareness-raising project about irregular migration which includes various campaigns targeting, among others, parents, returning migrants and candidates to irregular migration.”

Les gens partent et ils meurent

« Je suis revenue sain et sauf, Dieu merci ». C’est pas évident de survivre la route terrestre vers la Libye. Madiama raconte son vécu. Partagez sa vidéo! #MigrantsasMessengers

Posted by Migrants as Messengers on Friday, November 16, 2018

“They are carried out by young migrants who returned from different North African countries with the support of IOM and its partners,” Mariama Bobo Sy, the spokesperson for IOM in Guinea, tells IPS about the project.

As part of the awareness campaign, returnee migrants in Guinea have participated in events at football games, music shows and even universities.

“They also organised focus groups with young people in different neighbourhoods of Conakry and outside of the capital, particularly in Mamou, a crossroads town located 275 km of Conakry. Also, they were time to time in touch with the media to discuss the issue of irregular migration in a view of reaching more people, and get the message across to various sections of the population,” Sy says.

The experience made Diablo realise there was a need for further action. He has gone on to found the Guinean Organisation for the Fight against Irregular Migration, known as Organisation Guinéene pour la Luttecontre la Migration Irregulière (OGLIM) in French.

Apart from its headquarters in the capital Conakry, OGLIM has five national branches, namely in Kindia, Mamou, Labe, Kankan and Nzerekore. The group has currently 550 members in Conakry and 250 outside the capital.

“The terrible things that we saw and experienced during our ordeal in North Africa should serve as a catalyst for teaching the young generations about the dangers of irregular migration,” Diablo explains.
“However, we have to do it in a united manner so that the message conveyed through concerted efforts and as a bloc reaches the communities effectively and makes a long-lasting impact in our society.”

Related Articles

• Hope Springs Once Again for Nigeria’s Returnee Migrants
• Awareness Raising, a Deterrent to Educate Guineans About Irregular Migration
• For Love of the Game: Using Football to Educate Nigerians About the Dangers of Irregular Migration

The post Call for Returnee Migrants to Join Forces to Fight Irregular Migration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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