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The US Senate will vote next week on a border security package that would unlock vital aid for Ukraine, Democrats announced Thursday (1 February), as President Joe Biden hailed a €50 billion package approved by the war-torn nation's European allies.

Myriam Miller and Freddy Vargas stand next to one of the three greenhouses on their farm, where tomatoes are growing, anticipating an optimal harvest this year. The couple uses no chemical fertilizers to ensure the healthy development of thousands of plants on their farm in Mostazal, a municipality in central Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
MOSTAZAL, Chile , Feb 2 2024 (IPS)

The installation of photovoltaic panels to use solar energy to irrigate small farms is expanding quickly in Chile because it lowers costs and optimizes the use of scarce water resources.

This long, narrow South American country that stretches from the northern Atacama Desert to the southern Patagonia region and from the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean is extremely rich in renewable energies, especially solar and wind power."Solar panels have made an immensely important contribution to our energy expenditure. Without them we would consume a lot of electricity." -- Myriam Miller

Last year, 36.6 percent of Chile’s electricity mix was made up of Non-Conventional Renewable Energies (NCREs), whose generation in May 2023 totaled 2392 gigawatt hours (GWh), including 1190 GWh of solar power.

This boom in the development of alternative energies has been mainly led by large companies that have installed solar panels throughout the country, including the desert. The phenomenon has also reached small farmers throughout this South American country who use solar energy.

In family farming, solar energy converted into electricity is installed with the help of resources from the government’s Agricultural Development Institute (Indap), which promotes sustainable production of healthy food among small farmers, incorporating new irrigation techniques.

In 2020 alone, the last year for which the institute provides data, Indap promoted 206 new irrigation projects that incorporated NCREs with an investment of more than 2.1 million dollars.

That year, of the projects financed and implemented, 182 formed part of the Intra-predial Irrigation Program, 17 of the Minor Works Irrigation Program and seven of the Associative Irrigation Program. The investment includes solar panels for irrigation systems.

Within this framework, 2025 photovoltaic panels with an installed capacity of 668 kilowatts were installed, producing 1002 megawatt hours and preventing the emission of 234 tons of carbon dioxide.

The six solar panels installed on the small farm of Myriam Miller and Freddy Vargas, in the municipality of Mostazal, south of Santiago, Chile, allow them to pump water to their three greenhouses with thousands of tomato plants and to their vegetable garden. They also drastically reduced their electric energy expenditure. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

An experience in Mostazal

“Solar panels have made an immensely important contribution to our energy expenditure. Without them we would consume a lot of electricity,” 50-year-old farmer Myriam Miller told IPS at her farm in the municipality of Mostazal, 66 km south of Santiago, where some 54,000 people live in different communities.

Miller has half a hectare of land, with a small portion set aside for three greenhouses with nearly 1,500 tomato plants. Other tomato plants grow in rows outdoors, including heirloom varieties whose seeds she works to preserve, such as oxheart and pink tomatoes.

Indap provided 7780 dollars in financing to install the solar panels on her land. Meanwhile, she and her husband, Freddy Vargas, 51, who run their farm together, contributed 10 percent of the total cost.

In 2023, Miller and Vargas built a third greenhouse to increase their production, which they sell on their own land.

“We’re producing around 8,000 kilos of tomatoes per season. This year we will exceed that goal. We’re happy because we’re moving ahead little by little and improving our production year,” Miller said as she picked tomatoes.

On the land next to the tomato plants, the couple grows vegetables, mainly lettuce, some 7,000 heads a year. They also have fruit trees.

Vargas told IPS that they needed electricity to irrigate the greenhouses because “it’s not easy to do it by hand.”

Freddy Vargas turns the soil on his farm in the municipality of Mostazal, south of Santiago, Chile. Lettuce is his star vegetable, with thousands of heads sold on the farm. The farmer plans to buy a mini-tractor to alleviate the work of plowing the land. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The farm has two wells that hold about 30,000 liters of water that arrives once a week from a dam located two kilometers away. This is the water they use to power the pumps to irrigate the greenhouses.

“We have water rights and Indap provided us with solar panels and tools to automate irrigation. They gave us four panels and we made an additional investment, with our own funds, and installed six,” Vargas explained.

The couple consumes between 250 and 300 kilowatts per month and the surplus energy they generate is injected into the household grid.

“We don’t have storage batteries, which are more expensive. Every month the electric company sends us a bill detailing the total we have injected into the grid and what we have consumed. They calculate it and we pay the difference,” Vargas said.

The average savings in the cost of consumption is 80 percent.

“I haven’t paid anything in the (southern hemisphere) summer for years. In the winter I spend 30,000 to 40,000 pesos (between 33 and 44 dollars) but I only pay between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos a month (5.5 to 11 dollars) thanks to the energy I generate,” the farmer said.

Above and beyond the savings, Miller stressed the “personal growth and social contribution we make with our products that go to households that need healthier food. We feel good about contributing to the environment.”

“We have a network, still small, of agroecological producers. There is a lack of information among the public about what people eat,” she added.

Their tomatoes are highly prized. “People come to buy them because of their flavor and because they are very juicy. Once people taste them, they come back and recommend them by word of mouth,” Miller said.

She is optimistic and believes that in the municipalities of Mostazal and nearby Codegua, young people are more and more interested in contributing to the planet, producing their own food and selling the surplus.

“We just need a little support and more interest in youth projects in agriculture to raise awareness that just as we take care of the land, it also gives to us,” she said.

Valentina Martínez stands on her father’s small plot of land in the municipality of María Pinto, north of Santiago, Chile. The fruit trees provide the shade needed to keep the planted vegetables from being scorched by the strong southern hemisphere summer sun in central Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

A pesticide-free new generation

Valentina Martínez, 32, is an environmental engineer. Together with her father, Simón, 75, they work as small farmers in the municipality of María Pinto, 60 kilometers north of Santiago. She has a 0.45 hectare plot and her father has a 0.35 hectare plot.

Both have just obtained funding from the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture (TAS) project, which operates within Indap, and they are excited about production without chemical fertilizers and are trying to meet the goal of securing another larger loan that would enable them to build a greenhouse and expand fruit and vegetable production on the two farms.

“It’s a two-year program. In the first year you apply and they give you an incentive of 450,000 pesos (500 dollars) focused on buying technology. I’ve invested in plants, fruit trees, worms, and containers for making preserves,” Valentina told IPS.

In the second year, depending on the results of the first year, they will apply for a fund of 3900 dollars for each plot, to invest in their production.

“This year my father and I will apply for solar panels to improve irrigation,” said Valentina, who is currently dedicated to producing seedlings.

“My father liked the idea of producing without agrochemicals to combat pests,” she said about Simón, who has a fruit tree orchard and also grows vegetables.

In María Pinto there are 380 small farmers on the census, but the real number is estimated at about 500. Another 300 are medium-sized farmers.

Simón Martínez, 75, proudly shows some of the citrus fruits harvested on his farm where he practices agroecology and does not use agrochemicals. He and his daughter Valentina won a contest to continue improving the sustainability of their farming practices on their adjoining plots, located outside the Chilean town of María Pinto. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The rest of the area is monopolized by large agricultural companies dedicated to monocultures for export. Most of them have citrus, avocado, cherry and peach trees, as well as some walnut trees, and they all make intensive use of chemical fertilizers.

Chile exports mainly copper, followed by iron. But it also stands out for its sales of fish, cellulose pulp and fruit. In 2023, it exported 2.3 million tons of fruit, produced by large farms and bringing in 5.04 billion dollars. Agriculture represents 4.3 percent of the country’s GDP.

Family farming consists of some 260,000 small farms, which account for 98 percent of the country’s farms, according to the government’s Office of Agrarian Studies and Policies (Odepa).

Family farms produce 40 percent of annual crops and 22 percent of total agricultural production, which is key to feeding the country’s 19.7 million people.

Valentina is excited about TAS and the meetings she has had with other young farmers.

“It’s fun. We’re all on the same page and interested in what each other is doing. We start in December and January and it lasts all year. The young people are learning about sustainable agriculture and that there are more projects to apply for,” she explained.

She said that 15 young people in María Pinto have projects with pistachio trees, fruit trees, greenhouse gardens, outdoor gardens, animal husbandry and orchards. They are all different and receive group and individual training.

The training is provided by Indap and the Local Development Program (Prodesal), its regional representatives and the Foundation for the Promotion and Development of Women (Prodemu).

“The idea is that more people can learn about and realize the benefits of sustainable agriculture for their own health and for their land, which in a few years will be impossible due to the spraying of monocultures,” Valentina said.

It targets large entrepreneurs who produce avocado and broccoli in up to four harvests a year, both water-intensive crops, even on high hillsides.

“We need to come together, do things properly and recruit more people to create a legal group to reach other places and be able to organize projects. When you exist as an organization, you can also reach other places and say I am no longer one person, we are 15, we are 20, 100 and we need this,” she said.

The Hungarian parliament has put Sweden’s application to join NATO on the agenda for its extraordinary session on Monday, but lawmakers from the ruling Fidesz party are unlikely to attend, meaning Sweden’s already 20-month wait in the NATO queue could not be over quite yet.

As EU policymakers prepare to announce the specifics of the 2040 target, there is a clear risk the EU’s climate ambition could be undermined through a poor design, write Eadbhard Pernot, Mark Preston Aragones and Fabiola De Simone.

EU leaders managed to unanimously agree on the bloc's financial aid to Ukraine and overcome yet another Hungarian veto threat. Here's what that deal means going forward.

Americas Stellant Systemswon a $9.4 million delivery order for the purchase of 22 electron tubes used on the F/A-18 aircraft. All work will be performed in Torrance, California, and work is expected to be completed by December 2026. Working capital funds (Navy) in the amount of $4,606,000 will be obligated at time of award, and […]

A selection of the best photos from the African continent and beyond.

EU negotiators reached a provisional deal on a bill that aims to reduce waste and bolster the repair sector by making product repairs more accessible and cost-effective.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

EU negotiators reached a provisional deal on a bill that aims to reduce waste and bolster the repair sector by making product repairs more accessible and cost-effective.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

EU negotiators reached a provisional deal on a bill that aims to reduce waste and bolster the repair sector by making product repairs more accessible and cost-effective.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

EU negotiators reached a provisional deal on a bill that aims to reduce waste and bolster the repair sector by making product repairs more accessible and cost-effective.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Deux ouvrages parus récemment explorent la mise en place d'un réseau d'instituts visant à diffuser la culture et la langue française dans une Europe post-impériale, en voie de recomposition sur des bases nationales, où la France entendait jouer un rôle de premier plan. Par une voie d'entrée notamment biographique, voire prosopographique, les auteurs ont cherché à renouveler une approche centrée sur l'influence française. À partir de deux terrains différents (Bucarest et Zagreb), émergent (...)

- Agenda / Région parisienne, Croatie, Roumanie

Deux ouvrages parus récemment explorent la mise en place d'un réseau d'instituts visant à diffuser la culture et la langue française dans une Europe post-impériale, en voie de recomposition sur des bases nationales, où la France entendait jouer un rôle de premier plan. Par une voie d'entrée notamment biographique, voire prosopographique, les auteurs ont cherché à renouveler une approche centrée sur l'influence française. À partir de deux terrains différents (Bucarest et Zagreb), émergent (...)

- Agenda / Région parisienne, Croatie, Roumanie

A war of attrition is entrenched along Ukraine's 1,000km frontline. But in the south-east, Kherson — a city where Russian forces are just across the Dnipro River — it remains a siege.

Interview with Hirotsugu Terasaki, DG of Peace and Global Issues of SGI by Victor Gaetan at UN. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri, President of INPS Japan.
 
“Jesus and Buddha were peacemakers and promoters of non-violence,”
Pope Francis, May 28, 2022

By Victor Gaetan
Nagasaki (Agenzia Fides) - , Feb 1 2024 (IPS-Partners)

At the United Nations headquarters in New York City, on the third floor, a solemn statue of St. Agnes, holding her namesake lamb, stands as a disturbing reminder of nuclear destruction.

The saint, known for resisting multiple attempts to kill her, survived an atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki by the United States on August 9, 1945. The bomb exploded 500 meters from Urakami Cathedral, Asia’s largest Catholic church at the time. The bomb incinerated 60-80,000 people, of whom no more than 150 were soldiers. St. Agnes was found face down in the cathedral’s rubble.

Declassified Pentagon documents solve the puzzle of why Nagasaki was targeted despite not being included in the initial list of targets: at the last-minute, the city was added in handwriting, by an unknown hand, to obliterate the most historic Catholic community in Japan as retribution Retribution for the Vatican’s 1942 establishment of diplomatic relations with Japan. The US couldn’t forgive the Vatican for establishing diplomatic relation with its enemy, Tokyo).

Hibakusha Voices

In front of the UN’s St. Agnes statue, I met anti-nuclear campaigner, Hirotsugu Terasaki, director general of the lay Buddhist movement, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), representing some 12 million people worldwide. Founded in 1930, Soka Gakkai is Japan’s largest organized religious group.

SGI is dedicated to the teachings of Nichiren, a 13th century Japanese Buddhist priest. Soka University in Tokyo and Aliso Viejo, California are also associated with the faith tradition. A regular collaborator with the Holy See, SGI was a participating partner at the Vatican’s 2017 conference “Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament.” Pope Francis sent public condolences when SG’s highly influential third president, Daisaku Ikeda, died last November at age 95.

Hiromasa Ikeda, vice president of SGI meeting with Pope Francis during the Vatican conference “Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament.” Credit: Centro Televisivo Vaticano

Terasaki was at the UN to attend the second Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), an ambitious disarmament treaty—the first prohibiting countries from possessing nuclear arms—signed by 93 countries, most recently Sri Lanka. It went into effect January 22, 2021.

Terasaki explained that SGI’s disarmament commitment stretches back over half a century and is directly connected with his country’s tragic experience of nuclear holocaust. The Soka Gakkai youth division in Japan started a campaign in 1972 aimed at “protecting the fundamental human right to survival” by gathering and documenting the wartime testimonials of Japanese nuclear survivors known as hibakusha (bomb-affected-people). Over the next 12 years, students collected thousands of testimonies, which eventually filled 80 volumes.

“My personal involvement brought me face-to-face with the harrowing accounts of hibakusha,” Terasaki recalled. “There were some who initially agreed to being interviewed, but once it began, they were voiceless, choked by the weight of their anguish and pain. Yet, there were those who bravely shared their persistent suffering and trauma. I was in a state of utter shock witnessing their visceral outpourings of pain. It shook the depth of my soul. These testimonials seared in my consciousness the inhumanity of nuclear devastation.”

Of 650,000 hibakusha recognized by the Japanese government, over 113,000 are alive. To this day, they influence the contemporary disarmament movement by inspiring its leaders: “These individuals form the foundation of building peace,” summarized Terasaki.

Partnering with ICAN

A fortuitous partnership helped amplify SGI’s anti-nuclear commitment in 2007. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (which won a Nobel Peace Prize for creating public awareness of the catastrophe of nuclear weapons in 1985) initiated the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and asked SGI to sign on as an early collaborator to help gain global approval of the TPNW. Both were especially committed to mobilizing youth.

Terasaki remembered, “To realize our vision of a nuclear-free world, we felt compelled to forge a vast global network committed to educating people about the devastating realities of nuclear weapons. Our efforts began by organizing study groups for diplomats around the world, heightening awareness of the aftermath of nuclear exposure”—again, putting the humanitarian impact at the center of the discussion. Regional anti-nuke conferences, from Central Asia to the Caribbean, and directly lobbying foreign ministries were two other tactics.

In the span of merely a decade, the TPNW was adopted by the United Nations in July 2017. The Holy See was one of the first signatories. “This was indeed a miraculous achievement,” confirmed Terasaki, who credits many other organizations with contributing to the success, including Pax, the Dutch Catholic peace group, and the World Council of Churches.

No surprise, TPNW has not been signed by the nine countries with nuclear capability: Russia (5,889 warheads); US (5,224 warheads); China (410); France (290); United Kingdom (225); Pakistan (170); India (164); Israel (90); and North Korea (30). Nor have five states hosting nuclear weapons for the US signed: Italy (35); Turkey (20); Belgium (15); Germany (15); or Netherlands (15) according to ICAN.

Most inhumane weapons

The main message of TPNW campaigners is that nuclear weapons are the most inhumane weapons ever created. They violate international law, cause severe environmental damage, undermine global security, and divert budgets from addressing human needs. Nuclear weapons must be eliminated, not just controlled.

Yet, a cover story in the magazine Scientific American last December warned about the U.S. government’s plans to upgrade its nuclear capacity with an additional $1,5 trillion to modernize its nuclear arsenal. Presently, there are approximately 12,500 nuclear warheads worldwide, with the United States and Russia holding nearly 90% of the stockpile.

Explained Terasaki, “The current plan to expand nuclear capabilities stems from an unwavering belief in the utility of nuclear deterrence. Yet, we must question whether this policy is a sound political strategy or is it a myth created to perpetuate nuclear armament.”

He continued, “Advancing the current nuclear expansion will not yield peace and security based on global nuclear balance but will precipitate global destruction or Armageddon.”

Moral discourse

I asked Terasaki, how he describes the unique role being played by faith-based organizations such as SGI, in the new, emerging disarmament movement, as typified by the TPNW? He explained that while TPNW’s next steps are largely diplomatic and state-centric, faith-based organizations must continue highlighting the negative impact of nuclear arms from a spiritual and humanitarian perspective.

“As the world grapples with escalating challenges, the influence of moral discourse becomes ever more pertinent,” he said. This is a position strongly maintained by the Holy See.

At the same time, Soka Gakkai’s affiliation with the Komeito party (NKP), founded by Daisaku Ikeda in 1964 gives it unique influence on perceptions of governing elite; it’s not “just” a Buddhist lay entity. In the 1960s, Ikeda advocated for the reopening of China-Japan relations. He visited China ten times between 1974 and 1997, meeting with leaders Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. In the 1970s, Ikeda traveled to the Soviet Union and met with Premier Aleksey Kosygin, passing conciliatory messages between Beijing and Moscow, at the height of China-USSR tensions. NKP has been the Liberal Democratic Party (LPD) junior partner since 1999.

Ikeda’s vision converged with Pope Francis: The Japanese leader observed, “In the end, peace will not be realized by politicians signing treaties. Human solidarity is built by opening our hearts to each other. This is the power of dialogue.”

Kazakhstan and Bahrain

Teresaki described two inspiring images of collaboration witnessed in his travels to promote peace, denuclearization, and cross-cultural dialogue: In 2022 he attended both the Seventh Congress of Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan as a Buddhist representative, and, a month later, he was in Bahrain for the forum “East and West for Human Coexistence.”

The events put him in close proximity to Pope Francis, whose encyclicals “resonate deeply with me,” said Terasaki.

“I was particularly moved seeing the reconciliatory atmosphere between Catholic and Sunni Islamic leaders sitting in the same room,” observed the Japanese leader. “These forums offered a promising platform for religious leaders from across the globe to engage in candid and meaningful discourse, sharing insights and wisdom on the pressing global issues facing humanity.”

According to Terasaki, a fundamental Buddhist tenet informing SGI anti-nuclear advocacy is that individual and society’s security are one and interdependent. The Mahayana tradition followed by SGI emphasizes how an individual, through discipline and deepening practice, works change within that impacts the external world.

“SGI is committed to safeguarding dignity of life, happiness of all individuals, and the collective security of the world. Reliance on nuclear arms fundamentally contradicts these aims, as they jeopardize the very security we seek,” he summarized.

As Pope Francis declared at Nagasaki in 2019, “Peace and international stability are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation. They can be achieved only on the basis of a global ethic of solidarity and cooperation.”
(Agenzia Fides, 17/1/2024)

Victor Gaetan is a senior correspondent for the National Catholic Register, focusing on international issues. He also writes for Foreign Affairs magazine and contributed to Catholic News Service. He is the author of the book God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America’s Armageddon (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) published in paperback in July 2023. VictorGaetan.org

Original article: https://www.fides.org/en/news/74617-ASIA_JAPAN_Nuclear_Disarmament_A_Natural_Buddhist_Catholic_Alliance_Explains_Japanese_Leader

 

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Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is still flashing his Nato veto on Sweden, after dropping his EU veto on Ukraine.

Le Ministère français de la culture a élevé au grade de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, la béninoise Prudientienne Houngnibo Gbaguidi. La distinction a été remise à l'heureuse récipiendaire, mercredi 31 janvier 2024 à Cotonou, par l'ambassadeur de France près le Bénin.

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Justifiant les mérites de Prudientienne Houngnibo Gbaguidi, Son Excellence Marc Vizy, l'Ambassadeur de France près le Bénin a indiqué : « Vous avez été une partenaire fiable de projets franco-béninois comme le projet Ressources éducatives, dont vous êtes un des membres les plus actifs, créatifs et moteur du comité de pilotage (…) Vous faites de la lutte contre la contrefaçon du livre, contre les librairies dites parterre, votre cheval de bataille. (…) Au-delà de la femme engagée, de la femme de caractère, vous restez une femme de cœur ».
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Prudientienne Houngnibo Gbaguidi est la vice-présidente de l'Association internationale des libraires francophones (AILF) ; deuxième vice-présidente de la Fédération Nationale du Livre (FENALI) ; Présidente de l'Association des libraires professionnels du Bénin (ALPB) et Directrice de la librairie « Savoir d'Afrique ».
M. M.

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Antoine Gnike et Victorine Agbemahloué ont été respectivement désignés Premier Adjoint et Deuxième Adjoint au maire Ulrich Sokègbé.
Les nouveaux responsables de la commune de Djakotomey seront installés dans leurs fonctions le lundi 5 février 2024 lors d'une session présidée par le préfet du département du Couffo, Christophe Mègbédji.
La session convoquée par le préfet débutera à 10 heures dans la salle de conférence de la mairie de Djakotomey.
Les 25 conseillers des arrondissements Adjintimey, Bétoumey, Djakotomey I, Djakotomey II, Gohomey, Houégamey, Kinkinhoué, Kokohoué, Kpoba et Sokouhoué de la commune.
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M. M.