PRESS RELEASE
By Amnesty International
Apr 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)
The Bangladesh authorities should rescue and welcome Rohingya refugees currently stranded at sea, Amnesty International said today. Other governments must fulfil their shared responsibility to carry out search and rescue efforts, in line with their international obligations to protect life, and allow safe disembarkation of refugees and asylum seekers at sea.
Two fishing trawlers carrying an estimated 500 Rohingya women, men and children are currently in the Bay of Bengal after being pushed away by Malaysia, which has imposed restrictions on all boats in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two trawlers are headed towards Bangladesh a week after an earlier vessel carrying nearly 400 Rohingya refugees arrived there on 15 April. Monitors also believe there could be another vessel still at sea with hundreds more Rohingya stranded, further highlighting the need for governments in the region to get involved in search and rescue operations if needed.
“In contrast to the cruel indifference demonstrated by other governments, who have actively pushed away boats, Bangladesh has maintained its positive record of giving sanctuary to people who have lost their homes and suffered horrific crimes,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.
“We hope that Bangladesh will continue to welcome Rohingya refugees in these difficult times. The international community has an obligation to help the Bangladeshi authorities in this task, including in supporting efforts to set up quarantine centres and provide refugees the immediate medical assistance they require to recover from the journey and to protect them against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.”
Amnesty International last week called on Southeast Asian governments to launch immediate search and rescue operations for potentially hundreds more Rohingya refugees languishing at sea.
Malaysia has actively brought one vessel to shore but launched aggressive military patrols to scare others with Rohingya refugees away while Thailand has remained silent about the growing crisis, not saying whether it has pushed back boats or if it will assist any boats carrying refugees found near its coast.
The situation revives troubling memories of the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis when an untold number of Rohingya people were not rescued and hundreds lost their lives.
In February 2020, the Taskforce on the Bali Process – which included the participation of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar – “emphasized the primacy of saving lives at sea and not endangering the life and safety of persons in responding to irregular maritime migration.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International said, cannot be a pretext for governments to abandon their responsibilities towards refugees.
“All countries in the region have a responsibility to ensure the seas do not become graveyards for people seeking safety. Bangladesh cannot be left to address this situation alone. The fact that it is upholding its own obligations is not an excuse for others to abandon theirs,” said Biraj Patnaik.
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Excerpt:
PRESS RELEASE
The post Rohingya refugees stranded at sea show urgent need for regional response appeared first on Inter Press Service.
A la question de savoir qui est de droite et qui est de gauche en Roumanie, autant on a l'embarras du choix dans le premier cas, autant on est gêné dans le second. Le Parti social-démocrate est-il de gauche comme il le prétend, sans insister d'ailleurs ? Qu'en est-il des courants de gauche situés en dehors de l'échiquier politique qui assument volontiers un tel engagement ?
Sur l'échiquier politique roumain actuel, à droite, on se bouscule.
*Deux petits partis, chapeautés l'un par l'ancien président (...)
KYIV, 23 April 2020 – Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine Yaşar Halit Çevik today paid tribute to SMM medic Joseph Stone, who, while on patrol, tragically lost his life three years ago when an SMM armoured vehicle was struck by an explosion, most likely caused by an anti-tank mine in a non-government controlled area near Pryshyb in the Luhansk region.
“As colleagues and friends, we miss Joseph Stone dearly. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends as we remember a brave medic who died serving others, in the cause of peace,” he said.
While there has been some limited progress on de-mining, Çevik stressed that mines and UXO continue to be reported on a daily basis, posing a danger to civilians living along the contact line. “Joseph Stone and 262 other civilians have fallen victim to these indiscriminate weapons over the past three years. Further action is urgently needed. Civilians have the right to live in safety and without fear,” he said.
Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities, UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations
By The Rev. Liberato C. Bautista
NEW YORK, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)
Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, space for multilateral policy development and commitment has grown. Its growth in the global health field augurs well as we find ways to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Multilateralism is a difficult word, often misconstrued to be about the global and not the local and daily life. Perception plays a major role in how the public perceives multilateralism. This is in part due to the complexity of modern global challenges, which are well beyond the capacity of any one state or even a small group of states to resolve by themselves.
The novel coronavirus pandemic may yet change this perception.
As the saying goes, all politics is local. My rejoinder to this is that one’s local is another’s global. The local and the global are simultaneous realities. United Methodist connectionalism is akin to multilateralism.
As a church, we address social issues central to the multilateral agenda, including health, migration, peace, climate, and concerns about global poverty, trading and commerce, sustainable development, social justice, women, children and gender justice, human rights, indigenous peoples, and more.
Holistic health, healing and wholeness are intrinsic to Methodism and its Wesleyan roots. John Wesley attended to both the care for the soul and for the biological body with his abundant tips and remedies for ailments during his time.
Throughout the United Methodist connection, we are doing advocacy on public health policies at national legislatures and multilateral settings. We are in global mission together for sustainable development and humanitarian assistance, building capacity for peoples and communities to manage their healthcare needs.
Our numerous United Methodist-affiliated clinics, hospitals, colleges and universities around the world are training medical, health, social work and pastoral care professionals.
The Rev. Liberato Bautista. Credit: Marcelo Schneider, World Council of Churches
Human rights intrinsic to health, healing and wholenessGlobal pandemics such as the novel coronavirus respect no sovereign boundaries or national allegiances. The coronavirus ravages all peoples across races and social classes, but its effects are more devastating on vulnerable populations everywhere and on struggling low- and middle-income economies around the world.
To mitigate the virulent spread of COVID-19, we are called by national authorities to stay at home, wash our hands, stay in place and practice physical distancing. These public health directives imply that we have houses to stay in, water to wash our hands, and some space where we can move around and still maintain six feet distance from each other.
When Philippine government officials issued the directive for Filipinos to stay at home, Norma Dollaga, a United Methodist deaconess and justice advocate from the Philippines, reacted through her Facebook page: “Stay at home. That’s for those who have homes. How about the homeless?”
The reality is that the human rights to health, housing and water, along with human mobility, have long been imperiled in many places around the world prior to COVID-19’s onslaught. Moreover, the health crisis has been used as an excuse in other parts of the world to grab power or tighten national security laws that are assaulting civil liberties and violating democratic rights.
Neither pandemic nor political or economic exigency can derogate from the enjoyment of fundamental human rights.
That the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Wuhan City in China has resulted in undue rise in racist and xenophobic acts especially against people of Chinese origin, or Asians in general. This is on top of an ongoing surge of populism and xenophobic nationalism around the world.
Health is wealth, fund it robustly
If health is wealth, it behooves peoples and their governments to protect it. Health care workers who are on the front line against this pandemic should have all the resources they need without begging for them.
A war may have been declared in the eradication of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it is looking more like the deployment of war rhetoric and not the funding that real wars have received.
National budgets are moral documents. Health is the true common wealth that we must invest human and budgetary resources to. Yet we know that defense spending today far outweighs the puny investments from national coffers that health care urgently needs and strategically deserves.
Global collaboration is indispensable
The role of the U.N. in forging global cooperation is crucial, in times of crisis or calm. Global cooperation in the surveillance of emerging viruses and bacteria is necessary if pandemics are to be mitigated and diseases eradicated.
Coordinating this global collaboration and leading the development of a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 disease gives the public good reason to trust global institutions like World Health Organization. Think of the eradication of smallpox — and the ongoing programs to eventually eradicate polio and malaria — as examples of how global cooperation benefits us in our local daily lives.
To triumph over COVID-19, comprehensive cooperation is needed on many fronts — medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare workers, mental health providers, healthcare facilities. Public and private coordination is necessary in ensuring that the supply chain for much needed testing kits, ventilators, as well as personal protective equipment like N95 face masks, gloves, gowns, aprons, face shields and respirators remain unbroken.
A successful multilateral response requires a “whole-of-government,” “whole-of-society” and evidence-based public health approach. Mitigation works best when countries share expertise and scientific knowledge about threats to health, to climate, to populations and to peace and security.
Social inequalities imperil public health
The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health established by WHO in 2005 elaborated on the disastrous effects of social inequalities on people’s health. The intersections of physical, mental and social health, healing and wholeness are abundantly clear.
The commission’s 2008 final report stated: “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels.
The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities — the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”
The U.N. commemorates its 75th anniversary this year. It is an auspicious time to reaffirm support for its mandates, especially the securing of health for all peoples and the planet. A healthy population makes for a healthy planet.
Nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based organizations like our United Methodist representations at the U.N., are in a kairos moment to help achieve the U.N.’s mandates.
COVID-19 may have been virulent and will forever change the rules of social etiquette and socialization. But the novel coronavirus has done what multilateral negotiations have not done — pause globalization and its unbridled pursuit of profit and capital.
When the world reopens from the ravages of the virus, we have a momentous task not to return to, but to transform, global and local arrangements to protect humanity and the planet, at least from the ravages of pandemics and social inequalities.
It comforts me that not all contagions are deadly. Some are beneficial. Love and kindness are. So are hospitality, mercy and justice.
*This article 0riginally appeared in UM News”. The link follows: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/collaboration-can-help-eradicate-covid-19
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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Rev Liberato C. Bautista is assistant general secretary for United Nations and International Affairs of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He also serves as president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations.
The post Collaboration Can Help Eradicate COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.
Neue erweiterte Fassung – die um 9.30 Uhr versandte war unvollständig!
Die wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Einschränkungen durch die Corona-Maßnahmen hat die große Mehrheit der Deutschen mit Disziplin mitgetragen. Sogar am Osterwochenende hielt sich die Bevölkerung an die weitreichenden Kontaktbeschränkungen. Doch nun wecken selektive Lockerungsmaßnahmen, also die Wiedereröffnung von vielen Geschäften und öffentlichen Einrichtungen wie Schulen, die Hoffnung auf die Rückkehr in die Normalität. Damit wächst auch die Gefahr, dass die Selbstdisziplin nachlässt. Eine seit mehr als einem Monat laufende tägliche Befragung von infratest dimap lässt erst geringe Ermüdungserscheinungen in der Bevölkerung erkennen und zeigt auch, dass rund 40 Prozent der Menschen im Land sich durch die bisherigen Maßnahmen stark eingeschränkt sehen. Die Erhebung zeigt zudem, wie die Befragten weiteren Maßnahmen wie Tracing-App und Schutzmaskenpflicht gegenüberstehen.