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thembnko · 3 years ago

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The China/US spat hurts Africa and will escalate into WWIII Since its outbreak in early 2018 China's spat with the United States (US) hurt Africa. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows in its World Economic Outlook for 2019 the US was first to increase tensions through imposing higher tariffs on aluminum and steel of 25 percentage points on imports of $50 billion from China and 10 percentage points on imports of an additional $200 billion. After China retaliated the US imposed 15 percentage points in tariffs on all goods (roughly $300 billion) that had not yet incurred tariffs starting in September 2019 and a 5 percentage-point increase on already-tariffed $250 billion imports. The imposition of higher tariffs reduce Africa's economic activity for China depends on the continent for aluminium. China's impact increased the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1 percent. Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo, Ethiopia and Namibia feature in investments while Europe and the US regards them as 'failed states.' The countries had 1.6 percent of the population move out of poverty annually. In Tanzania extreme poverty fell by 5.3 million people. Chad and the DRC saw a 3 percent drop. Since South Africa started a peace process focusing on the DRC and Burundi n 2000 and helped the countries run elections, negotiated with the South African private sector to invest, refocused the Organization for African Unity hence its renaming to being the African Union, and established additionally the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) China boosted the initiatives by providing finance. The United Nations names it in all peace reports as the only country in the world helping the African Peace and Security Architecture. South Africa accepted more than 2 million refugees from the continent before this. Now they have reduced by more than 800,000. China brought a new emphasis on development boosting the NEPAD by promulgating the Belt Road Initiative in 2013. Though focused upon growing Asian economies it includes non-regional countries like Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Djibouti. It ‘grows’ its power with them miles away from its geographic space building a vast network of railroads and shipping lanes at an investment in 2019 of $1.2 trillion. All US thinktanks see this as China's efforts at 'recolonizing' Africa yet the US does not provide investments. Meanwhile, the Belt Road Initiative will increase investments by 14 percent annually reaching $1.3 trillion by 2027. China encouraged all its companies and banks to go into the continent, restructured its economic model to move away from cheap labour so the country moved up the value chain of high-quality electronics and new technologies while the US and Europe only encouraged big companies like Google and Microsoft. Regionalisation as initially conceptualized by Britain worked on the basis of colonization. It has no place in a rising Africa. For economic growth to happen with it being at the centre or part of economic objectives all regional players must agree before they each have national economic policies on priorities, objectives, resources, budgeting and implementation methodology. China facilitated that yearly having African policy makers and Heads of States assembled in a single forum with it's own leaders. Throughout the 400 years Europe had colonized the entirety of Africa and after liberation from 1960 when Africa needed help with development it had no such plans and initiatives. It hated the idea of an African Rennaissance and blemished Kwame Nkrumah's image for it. World Bank and IMF officials colluded with the US in hating Thabo Mbeki for reviving the idea. He had South Africa help Zimbabwe boost its currency with the rand and not the US dollar alone. More importantly tensions between the US and China escalate when European economists are now realising because of prosperity J.M. Keynes’s famous economic 'prophecy' that Europe and the US would have solved all their economic problems by 2030 is coming true. He wrote leisure was to be their focus

since working hours were historically to be reduced. To emphasise its poverty Africa meanwhile has not even a Survey of Income to measure incomes after colonization and make comparisons with Europe. The US has high labour participation rates giving a high standard of living that in the case of an outright war will not make US citizens poor but only reduce equality.

Evidence since 2017 - that is before the trade tensions erupted - is the US was given China's growth in Africa preparing for war. All US thinktanks have discussion documents showing US military mobilization in the Pacific Rim pretended to be a watch on China's East Asian ambitions. They did not see regionalisation taking place which Europe and South America permitted through respectively having Britain and the US lead. The Economist's 16 August 2020 publication titled "America musters the world's biggest naval exercise" described the exercise as 'bibulous' showing off the newest US destroyers. The magazine described the relationship between the US and China which was in 'freefall.' The now overtly shown military build up comes as more than in any country and continent the US has 7 million Covid-19 cases and 170,000 deaths. China where Covid-19 it claims originated has less than a third of both. The US's foreign policy calls for military action when its citizens are affected by death while based in another country or the death is imported into the US. Who does not recall the demise of Libya and Muammar Gadhaffi? The pretext against China is it is hiding information on the origins of Covid-19. The Rand Corporation which produces policy and discussion documents for the US President, Department of Defence, and the Department of Homeland Security recently bolstered Donald Trump's and the Secretary of State's rhetoric on the claim. It documents, researches, analyses, and conducts a project entitled U.S.-China Long-Term Competition sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, U.S. Army which has the stated purpose of helping the US Army understand China's capabilities and military.

It published a tool detailing air travel data from the International Air Transport Association. This data visualizes how the coronavirus travelled from China between December 2019-February 2020. The tool titled The Covid-19 Air Traffic Visualization (CAT-V) tool has a "heat spot." It has never been commercialised or made known to the public and was given to the Rand Corporation on condition it showed the public the coronavirus emanated from China. It boosts the underreporting claim and uses estimates of importation risk to the US. It concludes air travel interacted to export infection risk across the world and states by late January 2020 exported from China via commercial air travel on a daily basis. One other conclusion is that countries with modest numbers of confirmed cases still represent the greatest risks of virus exportation to the US if those countries have relatively high active case rates per capita and high levels of connectivity to China. The organization specifically writes the tool inform(s) 'defense-related decisions.' It is preparing for WWIII escalating tensions to more than a Cold War. If WWIII takes place South Africa and Africa must take sides. This is because • the US jeopardizes the New Partnership for African Development and peace initiatives South Africa commenced. • food in the whole of Africa will become short since Covid-19 already disrupted chains of supply • refugees will increase • China's obliteration will mean an end to the whole of humanity because high precision weapons will be used by both sides and the US has a military station mounted on the Moon

Before the tensions rose Africa was projected to have a food market of $740 billion by 2027. It will not come. Hence, the entirety of Africa must take sides. Huawei will stop its investments. South African companies are in Nigeria. They will close. Africa and South Africa will have bourgeoining unemployment which will never get reversed. South Africa has because of Covid-19 a $40 billion loan from the IMF it will never repay because its economy will never grow again. Europe and the US on the other hand will keep growing whatever the outcome because they have just respectively publicized agreements for an injection of $858 billion and $1 trillion to grow businesses and give more than 50 million workers affected by Covid-19 income. The entire world will be imperiled because Russia has an alliance with China including India. They are with South Africa part of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries. Taking sides means South Africa's national defence force and those of all countries in the continent must start training. Citizens must be told to stockpile food and other necessities and plans drawn to move them to places of safety. This must happen whilst efforts as a priority are made to broker peace. China has since February 2020 been refusing to sign a nuclear deal with the US. The US has been hoping to pressurise Russia to convince China to become part of a deal that involved the three countries. But China has been seeing war coming. With tensions now nearing military confrontation it indeed will be suicidal if it signed including Russia. The US has a military station on the Moon which fact they must consider extremely seriously. So to protect humanity both Russia and China deserve support in maintaining their current nuclear capacity. Maintaining it as a minimum deterrent force is of interest to Africa. In fact it is also time Africa asked both nations to train and equip the continents' separate national defence forces including India. BRIC had better be military. South Africa must use its muscle to negotiate with both. China too has responsibility to start the negotiations if South Africa delays. Tanzania after South Africa has the next best national defence force to train and Libya though it had suffered defeat in the hands of the US's army in 2009. It wants revenge. When the war breaks out Japan, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and the entire Western Europe will side with the US. Japan has in South Africa investments of R100 billion consisting of 5 different car manufacturers (R60 billion) employing 25,000 South Africans; electronics (R2 billion) employing 20,000. Its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reported to have the closest personal relationship with former US President Donald Trump. Trump consulted him closely on the Indo-Pacific. Japan views China in its 2020 defense White Paper as the region's greatest security threat and is responsible for the US's majority intelligence products concerning China's maneuvers there. It has allowed the US Navy to mobilize and gives it at present very extensive logistical support. China deteriorated relations with it for years over the conduct. It has not been able to succeed to make Japan look towards Asia for its security because after the outbreak of WWII the US government invested heavily in Japan advised by its Navy to keep its power in check. The relationship was based on racism for both the US and Britain regarded Asia Pacific as an extremely important geographical space for the expansion and protection of British colonialism that included Africa. It levies extraordinary payments upon the US for hosting its bases. Australia lies not far from Japan.

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trigonometry-is-my-bitch · 4 years ago

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In the light of the racial Injustice we have seen in America, where a Black man named George Floyd was murdered at the hands of the US police, and where Breonna Taylor, a Black EMT, was murdered while sleeping in her home by police without uniform, and many other brutalities take place every day in America unto black people that goes unheard, it lifts my spirits to see people all around the world in support of the Black lives matter movement for racial justice.

I am heartbroken to watch their governments show little to no support for their people protesting against racism, when they have plenty to talk about from their unsettled past actions during the colonial era, as well as institutionalised racism which breathes today in their countries.

In the years of 1884 - 1914, the Berlin conference saw many of the major nations of europe partake in the colonisation of African countries known as the Scramble for Africa, which set a low bar for the history of mankind. You can and should read all about the atrocities onto African people, such as the Human Zoos, or the genocides which took place under the foot of colonial powers

I ask you to remember the starving to death of 65,000 Herero people, 80% of their number. And the 10,000 Nama people, 50% of their number in German concentration camps like Shark Island. They were the first genocides of the 20th century, we are only in the beginning of the 21st. The effects are still suffered today.

I ask you to remember the Belgium Rubber mines which saw the people of Congo enslaved and tortured. Even today countries like France interfere with African politics, and are forcing 14 african ex-colonies to pay colonial tax since their independence. 85% of these countries’ national reserve is controlled by France. The effects are still suffered today.

The colonial powers did not care to make amends with the ex-colony states after the end of colonialism, which saw many african nations and cultures in total ruin. They carved up borders that were not there, grouping and racially categorising indigenous people, which saw tribes amongst the desolation of a sacked continent at war with each other, and lead to incidents such as those seen in Rwanda.

Now today you hear white supremacist leaders that accomplish nothing for their citizens, calling African nations “shithole countries”. The painting of the african continent is that they cannot develop their cultural identity like Europe can because they are inferior, and not because while they were subjugated, their culture was abolished for being unlike theirs, and surely therefore barbaric. Or they cannot create strong economies like Europe can because they are inferior, while the wealth of those european countries is built on the spoils of a war against Africans, those same Africans did not choose to be engaged in.

And in america, white supremacy will convince you today that black people are lazy, after fighting a civil war to keep them enslaved, to do the hard labour for them because black people were just so good at building roads and the White house.

It is not okay to be silent about racism. It is equally dangerous to humanity to leave mankind’s sins unhealed and conveniently forgotten, because the pain is felt every day by black people and african nations by racism which lives today just as fresh as then in the beginning of Colonialism. The effects of racism don’t go away because a government stops carving up your homeland, or enslaving your people, the problem gets passed down on both sides of the conflict and becomes a generational issue like we are seeing in Britain, Africa, America, and other parts of the world.

I live in the United Kingdom, so I call for the government to come forward and address properly the injustice done to ethnic minorities today in britain, as well as in the past. I call for other European countries to address racism in a similar manner officially, if you are a European citizen, you should call upon your government too. Italy, Spain, Portugal, France,Belgium, Britain are failing to engage the public in conversation about racism.

European Governments are failing the people taking a stand against racism and protesting. Because they are hiding in shame like the biblical adam who knew he had sinned. If only they put the same level of energy and enthusiasm in healing the wounds of centuries of racism as they did sowing its seeds.

To start, I call for the Statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, proudly displayed at Oriel College, Oxford University, to be taken down and put in a museum. In 2016, a petition to remove the statue which represents British white supremacy, was refused because “the statue was a reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism”. There is nothing complex at all about colonialism, that is only delusional exceptionalism born from white supremacy. It is animalistic barbarism, and failure of compassion that forever left a stain upon humanity, which at least we can learn from - in a museum. If it is indeed history it should be put in a museum.

Sign the petition to remove the Cecil Rhodes statue.

Please, share this, and do all that you can to support the movement for racial justice. Do what you can in your country.

Donate to Black lives matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019

#edward colston #blacklivesmatter #endracialinjustice #george floyd #breonnataylor #cecil rhodes

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narrowtriangle33-blog · 4 years ago

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Petitions, can you please sign and share them?

Here are they can you please sign and share?

https://www.change.org/p/the-people-who-buys-stuff-from-the-companies-who-uses-child-labor-help-stopping-companies-from-using-child-labor https://www.change.org/p/apple-child-labor-awareness-in-the-drc https://www.change.org/p/manjot-end-cobalt-mining-in-the-drc

https://www.change.org/p/i-want-to-target-the-collages-doing-research-researching-cheaper-and-cleaner-batteries

https://www.change.org/p/stop-some-of-the-biggest-tech-companies-from-using-deadly-child-labour-in-their-supply-chains https://www.change.org/p/stakeholders-in-support-of-drc-agoa-eligibility-designation-and-us-investment-in-the-drc

https://www.change.org/p/united-nations-we-need-media-attention-on-the-rape-crisis-and-rebel-invasion-in-east-of-congo-kivu

http://chng.it/cR4BWFHGMr http://chng.it/s8HhyRxH8D https://www.change.org/p/stop-killing-congolese-children-mining-cobalt-for-batteries-lithium-ion-batteries-production

https://www.change.org/p/the-government-raise-awareness-and-stop-child-labor-in-drc https://www.change.org/p/apple-end-modern-day-slavery-children-forced-to-mine-cobalt-for-your-iphone-s-battery

https://www.change.org/p/everybody-tell-tesla-no-to-cobalt-and-unsustainable-child-labor https://www.change.org/p/international-federation-for-humanrights-get-chinese-people-and-businesses-out-of-africa-people-voices-surpasses-the-government https://www.change.org/p/abolish-child-slavery

https://www.change.org/p/apple-stop-apple-samsung-and-china-from-exploiting-children-to-mine-cobalt-in-congo https://www.change.org/p/ella-sloat-icloud-com-end-child-labor-in-the-production-of-cobalt https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-stop-nintendo-from-using-slave-labor

#justice #injustice #hlp #helo #please sign and share #share this #shareit #share share share #sharethis #raiseawareness #raise awareness #spread the truth #speak up #speak now #takeaction #take action #take a stand

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khalilhumam · 4 years ago

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The Economic Shock of COVID-19 May Hit Private School and Contract Teachers Hardest

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-economic-shock-of-covid-19-may-hit-private-school-and-contract-teachers-hardest/

The Economic Shock of COVID-19 May Hit Private School and Contract Teachers Hardest

This post is part of CGD’s education finance series, where we are examining some of the ways the pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis may impact resources to fund education. In the second post of the series, we looked at teacher labor markets and teacher salaries. Now we’re zooming in on part of the education workforce that seems to be disproportionately at risk following the pandemic: contract and private school teachers. While regular public school teachers may be relatively safe from significant wage reductions following COVID-19 in many parts of the world, the structure of the teacher labor market will likely play an important role in the impact of the shock on the education system as a whole. In an analysis of public versus private school teacher job loss through recessions over time, Jason Kopelman and Harvey Rosen find that during both recessionary and non-recessionary periods, private school teachers in the United States have a higher probability of losing their jobs than public school teachers and find that this gap was largest during the Global Financial Crisis. Based on recent trends, it seems this is likely to be true in many low- and middle-income countries during the current crisis as well. With teachers making up a substantial portion of the formal sector labor market—and a projected need of an additional 70 million teachers needed to reach SDG 4—it’s important to consider and protect the entire teacher labour market and education workforce, not just the civil servant teachers in public schools. Our analysis of teacher labor markets shows that countries often freeze or slow hiring, as opposed to reducing salaries, following shocks. This could result in an even more severe teacher shortage and is likely to disproportionately impact non-civil service teachers—who are more likely to be women and to be located in remote locations in many places—who may not get their jobs back following school closures. Here’s what we know so far about private school and contract teachers.

Non-civil service teachers make up a substantial part of the education workforce in many low- and middle-income countries

Private schools and contract teachers (i.e, teachers who work on fixed—often short-term—contracts in government schools) play an important role in the education workforce in many developing countries and face disproportionate risks of job loss and salary reductions following the pandemic. Contract teachers are non-civil service teachers who are often hired locally and have fixed-term contracts. This form of employment is a prevalent feature of many developing country teacher labor markets that may not be captured in previous analyses of the impact of past recessions on education systems. Accurate data on the reliance of education systems on contract teachers is difficult to come by. However, figure 1 shows the wide variation in the prevalence of contract teachers across a sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Other estimates suggest that contract teachers are even more prevalent including making up more than 70 percent of the basic education teaching force in Niger and more than 80 percent in Burkina Faso. Contract or incentive teachers (teachers who are only paid a small “incentive” wage) are also common in fragile states and situations of displacement, particularly where refugee teachers may not have the formal right to work or schooling options may be organized informally. In non-crisis times, contract teachers are often paid less and have fewer benefits than their civil service colleagues. By definition, fixed terms contracts offer less job security than permanent civil servant contracts. Findings from analyses in India and Francophone West Africa also suggest that contract teachers in developing countries are more likely to be women and to be concentrated at lower grades. A prolonged crisis is likely to make the jobs of contract teachers even more uncertain in the short-run and could contribute to greater teacher shortages—particularly for female teachers—in the long-run in places where contract teachers are prevalent, including the most remote areas and in humanitarian contexts. A disproportionate shortage of teachers in already disadvantaged areas could hinder recovery efforts and could have lasting consequences for the most marginalized groups and educational equity more broadly. Figure 1. Prevalence of contract teachers

Source: Evans, Yuan, and Filmer (2020). Data represent estimates of the prevalence of contract teachers.

In many developing countries, private schools constitute a large share of the education market. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, more than 40 percent of students are enrolled in private schools and in Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, and Liberia, a majority of students go to private schools. Private schools are far less prevalent in many high-income countries. This could be due in part to concerns over the quality of public options in low-income countries as well as the prevalence of low-fee private schools available to middle-class families in some countries. Figure 2. Average percentage of enrolment in private institutions across regions and levels of education

Source: UIS data. Latest available data

In some contexts, private schools employ substantial portions of the education workforce. Figure 3 shows estimates of the proportion of teachers employed in private schools. In the Gambia, Uganda, Pakistan, and Liberia at least one third of the entire teacher workforce are employed in private schools.

Figure 3. Proportion of teachers employed in private schools

Source: Evans, Yuan, and Filmer (2020). Data represent estimates of the prevalence of contract teachers. See Table 2.

The impact of recessions on private school participation varies across contexts

When recessions impact household income, families are forced to make choices about spending. While data are not yet available on re-enrolment in private schools, reports suggest that mass closures are likely. While there are reports of wealthier families in high-income countries moving their children from public to private schools to avoid COVID restrictions and closures in public schools, this trend may not hold in lower-income countries. Figure 4 shows that while trends in private school participation remained relatively consistent in Europe and Central Asia following the global financial crisis, participation in Latin America and Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa slowed or dropped following the crisis, particularly at the secondary level. Figure 4. Private school enrollment over time

Source: UIS data

The proprietors of private schools—usually independent entrepreneurs—have had a tough time during the closure period. This will have a knock-on effect on employment.

The Kenya Private Schools Association claimed that the majority of private school teachers were put on unpaid leave when schools were closed. A survey of private schools in India suggested that 50 percent of teachers did not receive their salary in March, when schools had just closed. If the private education market does not recover, we may see further strains on public education as a result. Several countries including Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Pakistan, and Panama have explicitly excluded private schools from additional education funds made available to help schools respond to COVID. In Morocco, education unions successfully lobbied to stop government support to private schools as part of COVID-19 responses. We have identified reports of private school teachers losing their jobs or having their salaries cut in at least 25 countries. In South Africa, teacher pay in some mid-range private schools was cut by 20-50 percent in June. Private school teacher salaries were also cut by 25 percent in Mozambique and 50 percent in Zambia. In Jordan, private school teachers, a majority of whom are women, reported not being paid their full salaries while schools were closed despite continuing to teach online. This has led to calls for updated legislation related to gender discrimination at work. Accounts of private school teachers not being paid or losing their contracts while schools were closed were also reported in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Vietnam, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, and Senegal. A joint UN-World Bank survey suggests that contract teachers in many countries including Burkina Faso, Guinea, Kenya, Niger, Togo, and Uganda have missed salary payments and/or had their contracts suspended following school closures. This trend may get worse if parents are unable to afford private school tuition as schools reopen.

Acknowledging that contract and private school teachers face greater risks of job and salary loss, some countries have offered support

While the overall picture is alarming, not all countries are neglecting non-civil servant teachers. Senegal, for example, set up a fund called “Force COVID” which guarantees wages for both civil servants and contract workers in public schools until schools are able to reopen. In Nigeria, the federal government launched a stimulus package to pay private school teacher salaries. In Côte d’Ivore the government agreed to pay more than 10,000 contract teachers who had missed salaries for three months. In Honduras and Togo, teacher unions have called for support for contract and private school teachers. In some humanitarian contexts including Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, Malawi, and Mozambique, UNHCR has ensured that incentive teachers still receive pay while schools are closed. Australia and Comoros have also offered financial support to private schools and teachers.

If education systems are to recover, the whole workforce needs to be protected

While there are ongoing debates and conflicting evidence related to whether the level of teacher salaries make a difference for education outcomes, we should try to avoid a situation in which public education systems face even more severe teacher shortages and/or overcrowding following the pandemic particularly in the areas which already faced disproportionate risks and teacher shortages (especially of female teachers) at the start of the crisis. For example, an analysis by UNHCR identified continuing incentive teacher pay during the crisis as critical to protecting the education workforce and refugee livelihoods. Teachers and the broader education workforce will continue to play a critical role in the continuity of learning during the crisis and will be crucial in the recovery process.

What happens to the education workforce will likely have ripple effects across the formal labor market in many developing countries

In addition to protecting the broader education workforce for the sake of the education sector, it’s also worth remembering that education constitutes a large section of the formal labor market in many developing countries. Substantial job loss in the education sector could have repercussions for the wider labor market and broader economic stability. Ensuring that teacher salaries and jobs are protected through the crisis may be an efficient means through which to provide an employment insurance of sorts to large portions of the formal sector in many developing countries. The complex trends and dynamics observed in teacher salary protection following shocks indicate that this is an important space to watch as governments consider tradeoffs. The choices they make will almost surely require a delicate balancing act between the political and economic need to protect public wage bills, while also protecting the larger teacher labor market and other critical components of education sector budgets. We are grateful to Ana Luiza Minardi and Christelle Saintis for research assistance.

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rightsinexile · 4 years ago

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News on Countries of Origin

Global

COI update of UK country guidance case law, UK Home Office publications and developments in refugee producing countries

Africa

BURUNDI: More Burundi refugees leave Rwanda for home, citing sustained peace in Burundi

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: UNHCR warns resurging violence could spark mass displacement in DRC’s Kasai region

ERITREA: Thousands of secondary school students sent to military training camp despite COVID-19

ETHIOPIA: Intercommunal violence kills at least 120 in past month

GUINEA: Security forces fail to stem election violence

LIBYA: UN Secretary-General condemns “horrendous conditions” in Libya’s immigrant detention sites

NIGER: Human rights defenders unjustly detained for more than six months

NIGERIA: Hundreds missing in northeast Nigeria following Boko Haram attack

SOUTH AFRICA: Routine xenophobic harassment and violence against African and Asian foreigners

SOUTH SUDAN:

No investigation for enforced disappearances and missing persons since 2013 civil war

More than 25,400 South Sudanese refugees have returned home since January

UN Security Council briefing on ongoing intercommunal conflicts in South Sudan

SUDAN: Heavy rains devastate displaced, host communities in Sudan

Americas

COVID-19 and the crisis for migrants, indigenous people on the Venezuela-Colombia border

VENEZUELA:

UN inquiry finds crimes against humanity in Venezuela

Police crack down on dissent during COVID-19, with increased arbitrary arrests, prosecutions of critics, and abuses against detainees

Asia

BANGLADESH: Continued impunity for enforced disappearances targeting journalists, activists, and government critics in Bangladesh

CAMBODIA: Ongoing crackdown on activists in Cambodia, with wave of arrests, intimidation

CHINA:

Authorities increasingly target activists’ families in China

China is expanding mass labour programme in Tibet

China building mass detention centers for Muslims in Xianjing

INDIA: Politically motivated arrests of activists, academics, student leaders, and others are increasing

MYANMAR:

Myanmar government fails to ensure that one million Rohingya refugees can safely return home

New attacks, village burnings swell refugee ranks in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

Continued targeting of civilians in Rakhine and Chin states could constitute additional war crimes, crimes against humanity

Khin Omar provides oral statement to UN Human Rights Council on Myanmar’s ongoing human rights abuses

For Rohingya refugees, mismatched expectations of justice in genocide cases

PHILIPPINES: Fifty percent increase in ‘drug-war’ killings by police during COVID-19 lockdown

TURKMENISTAN: Two years in prison for gay sex on sodomy charges

Europe

BELARUS:

Detained protesters mistreated and tortured by police

Reports of systematic abuse of protestors and civilians to be presented to UN Human Rights Council

More than 700 peaceful protestors arrested, hundreds injured in Belarus

Internet disruptions and online censorship following continued countrywide protests

MENA

IRAQ: Failure to put a stop to systematic torture and inhumane prison conditions in Iraq

LIBYA:

Armed groups linked with UN-backed GNA government use lethal force on peaceful protesters in Tripoli

Overlapping crises in Lebanon fuel new exodus to Cyprus

SYRIA: Syria’s new government policy prevents refugees from returning home

TURKEY: Mass arrest of 47 lawyers under guise of terrorism allegation

#COI #asylum #asylum seeker #refugee

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riseabovedefeat · 7 years ago

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99 good things that happened in 2017 world wide

1. This year, the World Health Organisation unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. Zika all but disappeared in 2017. Cases plummeted in Latin America and the Caribbean, and most people in those places are now immune. Science Mag

4. A new report showed that the world’s assault on tropical diseases is working. A massive, five year international effort has saved millions of lives, and countries are now signing up for more. STAT

5. Soft drink sales in the United States dropped for the 12th year in a row, thanks to consumer education and new sugar taxes aimed at stemming obesity and diabetes. Reuters

6. Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, was eliminated as a public health problem in Oman and Morocco, and Mexico became the first country in the Americas to eliminate it. NBC

7. Meet Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin, two eye doctors responsible for helping restore sight to 4 million people in two dozen countries, including North Korea and Ethiopia. CBS

8. Premature deaths for the world’s four biggest noncommunicable diseases — cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory — have declined by 16% since 2000. World Bank

9. Global abortion rates have fallen from around 40 procedures per 1,000 women in the early 1990s, to 35 procedures per 1,000 women today. In the United States, abortion rates have reached their lowest level since 1973. Vox

10. In July, UNAIDS, revealed that for the first time in history, half of all people on the planet with HIV are now getting treatment, and that AIDS deaths have dropped by half since 2005. Science Mag

11. There were only 26 cases of Guinea worm in 2017, down from 3.5 million cases in 21 countries in Africa and Asia in 1986. Devex

12. The United Kingdom announced a 20% fall in the incidence of dementia over the past two decades, meaning 40,000 fewer people are being affected every year. iNews

13. Thanks to better access to clean water and sanitation, the number of children around the world who are dying from diarrhoea has fallen by a third since 2005. BBC

14. Leprosy is now easily treatable. The number of worldwide cases has dropped by 97% since 1985, and a new plan has set 2020 as the target for the end of the disease. New York Times

15. In October, new research from the Center for Disease Controlrevealed that between 2000 and 2016, the measles vaccine saved 20.4 million lives.

16. And on the 17th November, the WHO said that global deaths from tuberculosis have fallen by 37% since 2000, saving an estimated 53 million lives. These astonishing achievements were of course, reported by every media outlet on the planet.

Some stunning victories for global conservation

17. Chile set aside 11 million acres of land for national parks in Patagonia, following the largest ever private land donation from a private entity to a country. Smithsonian

18. China invested more than $100 billion into treating and preventing water pollution, and launched nearly 8,000 water clean-up projects in the first half of 2017. Reuters

19. The United States, Russia, China and the European Union reached a deal to make the Arctic off-limits to commercial fishers for the next 16 years. Science Mag

20. In July, 1.5 million people in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh set a new Guinness record for reforestation by planting more than 67 million trees in a 12 hour period. RT

21. A province in Pakistan announced it has planted 1 billion trees in two years, in response to the terrible floods of 2015. Independent

22. In August, the Canadian government and Inuit groups signed a deal to create the ‘Serengeti of the Arctic’ by far the largest marine reserve in the country’s history. Globe & Mail

23. A month later, one of the world’s largest marine parks was created off the coast of Easter Island, and will protect 142 species, including 27 threatened with extinction. Guardian

24. The EU imposed new, stricter limits on pollutants such as nitrogen, sulphur, mercury and particulates that will apply to all 2,900 of Europe’s large power plants. Reuters

25. China carried out its largest ever crackdown on pollution, reprimanding, fining or jailing officials in 80,000 factories, 40% of the country’s total. NPR

26. Indonesia pledged $1 billion to clean up its seas from plastic, Kenyaannounced a ban on plastic bags, and Chile said it will ban them in its coastal cities (30 countries now have existing or impending bans in place). ABC

27. Eleven countries continued their plan to build a wall of trees from east to west across Africa in order to push back the desert. In Senegal, it’s already working. BBC World Hacks

28. Cameroon committed to restoring over 12 million hectares of forest in the Congo Basin, and Brazil started a project to plan 73 million trees, the largest tropical reforestation project in history. Fast Co.

29. In November, Mexico’s government created a new 148,000 square kilometer ocean reserve, ‘the Galapagos of North America’ for the conservation of hundreds of species, including rays, humpback whales, sea turtles, lizards and migratory birds. Reuters

30. In 2017, the ozone hole shrunk to its smallest size since 1988, the year Bobby McFerrin topped the charts with ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy.’ CNET

Rising living standards for billions of people

31. The International Energy Agency announced that nearly 1.2 billion people around the world have gained access to electricity in the last 16 years.

32. In February, the World Bank published new figures showing that 20 years ago, the average malnourished person on planet Earth consumed 155 fewer calories per day than they needed. Today, that number is down to 88.

33. Since 2000, life expectancy in Rwanda is up from 49 to 64, child mortality is down more than two-thirds, maternal mortality is down nearly 80%, and HIV/AIDS prevalence is down from 13% to 3%. Mail & Guardian

34. In the last three years, the number of people in China living below the poverty line decreased from 99 million to 43.4 million. And since 2010, income inequality has been falling steadily. Quartz

35. 275 million Indians gained access to proper sanitation between 2014 and 2017. Gates Notes

36. In 1991 more than 40% of Bangladesh lived in extreme poverty. The World Bank said this year that the number has now dropped to 14% (equating to 50 million fewer people). Quartz

37. The United States’ official poverty rate reached 12.7%, the lowest level since the end of the global financial crisis. And the child-poverty rate reached an all time low, dropping to 15.6%. The Atlantic

38. Between 2005 and 2017, Afghanistan built 16,000 schools, the nation-wide literacy rate increased by 5%, and the youth literacy rate increased by more than 16%. USAID

39. In October, a new report by the International Labour Organisation revealed that global child labour has plummeted. In 2016, there were 98 million fewer boys and girls being exploited than in 2000. CS Monitor

A terrible year for the fossil fuels industry

40. Sweden committed to phasing out all carbon emissions by 2045, and the country’s largest pension fund divested from six companies that violate the Paris Agreement, including Exxon, Gazprom and TransCanada. CleanTechnica

41. New figures at the beginning of the year showed that the global coal industry is taking a hammering. A 48% drop in pre-construction activity, a 62% drop in construction starts and a 19% drop in ongoing construction. CoalSwarm

42. In May, a shareholder rebellion forced ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, to start reporting on the effect of preventing climate change on its bottom line. Washington Post

43. France stopped granting all licences for oil and gas exploration, and said it will phase out all production by 2040, a major transition towards clean energy being driven by the new Macron government. Bloomberg

44. Deutsche Bank, one of the coal industry’s biggest financiers, announced it would stop financing all new coal projects. Ouch. Mining.com

45. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest pile of money on the planet, announced they were officially divesting from all fossil fuels, and the global insurance industry has pulled $20 billion. Telegraph

46. In 2017, the United Kingdom, France and Finland all agreed to ban the sale of any new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040.

47. China continued its all out war on coal, stopping construction on more than 150GW of coal plants, and laying off more than 700,000 coal workers since 2014. CleanTechnica

48. In one of the great climate change victories of our time, TransCanada terminated its tar sands pipeline, triggering a $1 billion loss and ending an epic 4 year battle between politicians, big oil, environmentalists and indigenous communities. Calgary Herald

49. On the eve of one of their major feast days, 40 Catholic institutions on five different continents announced the largest ever religious divestment from fossil fuels. Catholic Reporter

50. In the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, carbon emissions fell to the lowest levels since 1894, and on the 21st of April the country did not burn coal for the first time in 140 years. Independent UK

51. In November, a new global alliance of more than 20 countries, including the UK, France, Mexico, Canada and Finland, committed to ending their use of coal before 2030. BBC

…and an amazing one for clean energy

52. The cost of solar and wind plummeted by more than 25% in 2017, shifting the global clean energy industry on its axis. Think Progress

53. The cost of solar plants in the United States dropped by 30% in one year and in the United Kingdom, the price of offshore wind dropped by half in less than two years.

54. Solar energy is now responsible for one in every 50 new jobs created in the United States, and the clean energy sector is growing at 12 times the rate of the rest of the economy. CNBC

55. In June, South Korea announced a major U-turn on energy, shifting one of the world’s staunchest supporters of coal and nuclear power toward natural gas and renewables. Reuters

56. JP Morgan Chase said it will source 100% of its energy from renewables by 2020 and will facilitate $200 billion in clean financing through 2025. PV Tech

57. General Motors believes “the future is all-electric” Volkswagenannounced it’s investing 70 billion euros and “putting its full force behind a shift into electric cars” and Volvo said that starting in 2019 it will only make fully electric or hybrid cars “the end of the combustion engine-powered car.” Atlantic

58. China is going to install 54GW of solar by the end of 2017, more than any country has ever previously deployed in a single year, and doubled their 2020 goal to 213 GW. PV Magazine

59. The world’s largest carbon emitter also announced that their Paris Agreement pledges will now be met a decade ahead of schedule, with emissions forecast to peak in 2018. Australian Financial Review

60. Following in China’s footsteps, India more than doubled its solar installations in 2017, accounting for more than 40% of new capacity, the largest addition to the grid of any energy source. Quartz

61. A new report from the European Union said that between 1990 and 2016 the continent cut its carbon emissions by 23% while the economy grew by 53%. So much for the propaganda of fossil fuel lobbyists… CleanTechnica

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

62. On the 21st January 2017, the Women’s March became the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. Washington Post

63. On International Women’s Day 2017, Iceland became the first country in the world to make equal pay compulsory by law. Two days later, India passed a bill giving every working woman in the country 26 weeks of compulsory maternity leave. Economic Times

64. Thanks to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, suicide attempts by LGBT teenagers have decreased by 14% in US high schools since 2014. Guardian

65. In May, Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled in favour of allowing same-sex marriage, becoming the first Asian country to do so. SCMP

66. Saudi Arabia said women would no longer need male permission to travel or study. A few months later, women received the right to drive. BBC

67. New figures showed that the gender pay gap in the United States has narrowed from 36% in 1980 to 17% today. For young women the gap has narrowed even further, and now stands at 10%. Pew Research

68. Women now occupy 23% of parliamentary seats around the world, up from 12% in 1997. The Middle East and North Africa have seen a fourfold increase in that time. World Bank

69. As plunging crime closed prisons across the Netherlands, the government started turning them into housing and cultural hubs for ten of thousands of refugees instead. Fast Company

70. New data showed that young people are officially less racist than old people. The worldwide trend is towards towards less discrimination on the grounds of skin tone or caste. Quartz

71. 17% of newlyweds in the United States now marry someone of a different race or ethnicity, a fivefold increase since 1967, when interracial marriage was legalised. Pew Research

72. The immigrant population of the US (people born in another country) has now reached 43.7 million people, one out of every eight residents, the highest proportion in 106 years. CIS

73. Canada became the 9th country to allow a third gender, rather than male or female, on passports and government documents. That came two months after country number 8, Pakistan. Vox

74. India’s Supreme Court issued a historic ruling confirming the right of the country’s LGBTQ people to express their sexuality without discrimination. Independent UK

75. California became the first US state to legally recognise nonbinary genders, and Germany’s top court ruled that lawmakers must legally recognise a third gender from birth. CNN

76. In December, Australia became the 26th country to legalise same sex marriage. A wonderful victory, hard fought for by so many brave people. About bloody time. ABC

The world got a little less violent

77. Global deaths from terrorism dropped by 22% from their peak in 2014, thanks to significant declines in four of the five countries most impacted: Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. ReliefWeb

78. After quintupling between 1974 and 2007, the imprisonment rate in the United States is now dropping in a majority of states. New York Times

79. The number of executions recorded worldwide fell by 37% since 2015. The decline was largely driven by fewer deaths recorded in Iran and Pakistan. BBC

80. You didn’t see this story in the evening news — in June, we heard that the homicide rate in Australia has dropped to one victim per 100,000 people, the lowest ever recorded. Guardian

81. Rates of violent crime and property crime have dropped by around 50% in the United States since 1990, yet a majority of people still believe it’s gotten worse. Pew Research

82. A new report showed that incidents of bullying and the number of violent attacks in American public schools have decreased significantly since 2010. Associated Press

83. The European Union passed fresh rules that make it more difficult for armed groups to finance their activities through the sale of conflict minerals. Mining.com

84. Heckler & Koch, the world’s deadliest arms manufacturer, announced it would end gun sales to countries falling short of corruption and democracy standards. Deutsche Welle

85. Nepal passed a law criminalising an ancient Hindu practice called chhaupadi that banishes women from the home during menstruation and after childbirth. Al Jazeera

86. Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon repealed provisions in their penal codes that allow rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims. Al Jazeera

87. India’s Supreme Court outlawed non-consensual marital sex with child brides, and raised the age of sexual consent for all women to 18. CNN

Signs of hope for a living planet

88. Snow leopards have been on the endangered list since 1972. In 2017, they were taken off, as the wild population has now increased to more than 10,000 animals. BBC

89. In March, in a big win for two of the world’s most endangered big cats, the Amur leopard and tiger, China approved a national park 60% larger than Yellowstone. HuffPost

90. Taiwan became the first Asian country to ban the eating of cats and dogs, with new laws imposing fines for consumption and jail time for killing and cruelty. National Geographic

91. A decrease in pollution in the Ganges brought Gangetic dolphins, one of the four freshwater dolphin species in the world, back from the brink of extinction. Hindustan Times

92. Germany banned fur farming. This followed similar decisions by Japan and Croatia within the last year. A victory that was two decades in the making. Well done PETA.

93. Vietnam agreed to end bear farming, and said it would work with Animals Asia to rescue 1,000 remaining caged animals.

94. The British government unveiled new plans to require compulsory CCTV cameras in all slaughterhouses, in order to enforce laws against animal cruelty. Guardian

95. In more than 60 regions across the globe, more populations of large sea turtles are improving than declining, a big change from a decade or two ago. Associated Press

96. China agreed to ban the domestic ivory trade in 2017. By mid year, the price of raw ivory in Asia had fallen by around half. And in October, the UK government banned the sale and export of all ivory items. BBC

97. Gucci announced it would go fur-free in 2018 and auction off all remaining fur items. It follows in the footsteps of Armani, which went fur free in 2016. Harper’s Bazaar

98. One of China’s richest women, He Qiaonv, announced a $2 billion donation for wildlife conservation, the largest environmental philanthropic pledge of all time. Bloomberg

99. The Indian government officially banned the use of all wild animals in circus performances. One month later, the Italian parliament did the same. 40 nations now have animal circus bans in place. Inhabit

source: https://qz.com/1169003/the-99-best-things-that-happened-in-2017/

#good news

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xtruss · 5 years ago

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Investing in Humanity: Why Refugees Need an Education?

Introduction by Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees

How can you invest in a refugee, and what do you get back for your investment?

In today’s world of business and finance, making an investment – whether in shares and bonds or property, gold, lottery tickets or the latest start-up – is quick and easy. The big trick is getting more back than you put in.

But when it comes to real people, the dividends are not so clear. How would you measure your gains, or cash in on your investment? And what would represent a good return?

Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with pupils at Al Shuhada School in Souran, Syria, where UNHCR is assisting former refugees and displaced people who have returned home. © UNHCR

You might be doubly wary of investing in people if you knew they had been uprooted from their homes, stripped of their livelihoods and possessions, perhaps separated from their families, had lost loved ones, and were having to start their lives all over again.

But in a world of conflict and upheaval, we as an international community are missing out one of the best investments there is: the education of young refugees. This is not an expense, but a golden opportunity.

3.7 Million Refugee Children are Out of School

For most of us, education is how we feed curious minds and discover our life’s passions. It is also how we learn to look after ourselves – how to navigate the world of work, to organize our households, to deal with everyday chores and challenges.

For refugees, it is all that and more. It is the surest road to recovering a sense of purpose and dignity after the trauma of displacement. It is – or should be – the route to labour markets and economic self-sufficiency, spelling an end to months or sometimes years of depending on others.

Compared to the trillions of dollars wasted on conflict, and the cost to societies and economies when ordinary civilians are forcibly displaced en masse, this is a no-brainer investment.

The gains in educational enrolment revealed in this year’s UNHCR report on refugees and education, small as they are in percentage terms, still represent life-changing opportunities for tens of thousands of refugee children, adolescents and youth. Refugee enrolment in primary school is up from 61 to 63 per cent, while secondary level enrolment has risen from 23 to 24 per cent. I particularly welcome the increase in numbers of refugees accessing higher education – a rise to 3 per cent after several years stuck at 1 per cent.

Higher-level education turns students into leaders. It harnesses the creativity, energy and idealism of refugee youth and young adults, casting them in the mould of role models, developing critical skills for decision-making, amplifying their voices and enabling rapid generational change.

The gains in primary and higher education cannot mask the huge shortfall in places and the yawning gap in opportunity, especially at secondary level. The proportion of refugees enrolled in secondary education is more than two-thirds lower than the level for non-refugees – 24 per cent, compared to the global rate of 84 per cent.

The effect is devastating. Without the stepping stone of secondary school, progress made over the past year will be short-lived, and the futures of millions of refugee children will be thrown away.

Young refugees such as Gift, a South Sudanese boy now living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who was so determined to go to school that he learned French and constructed his own solar-powered light to study after dark. His hopes of progressing to secondary level are likely to be dashed because there is quite simply no school in his area for him to attend.

Young students read in a girl-only room at Paysannat L school in Mahama refugee camp, Rwanda. The school welcomes around 20,000 children. Eighty per cent are Burundian refugees and the rest come from the host community. © UNHCR

Young refugees such as Hina, who excelled at primary school in Pakistan but found that, out of 500 places at the secondary school in Peshawar she wanted to attend, only one of them was for a refugee.

I myself have seen the same phenomenon in Bangladesh: refugee children still unable to join official schools and follow a recognized curriculum. It is a profoundly dispiriting situation.

This failure to improve the provision of secondary education for refugees does not just kick away the ladder to higher, technical and vocational education and training. As well as its countless other benefits, education is fundamentally protective. Children in school are less likely to be involved in child labour or criminal activity, or to come under the influence of gangs and militias. Girls are less likely to be coerced into early marriage and pregnancy, and can study and socialize in safe spaces.

Schools should be safe havens. That is why we must all condemn the acts of violence against schools, pupils and teachers that continue to be carried out in countries affected by conflict. According to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, there were 14,000 such incidents in 34 countries between 2014 and 2018, including bombings, partial or total occupation by armed groups, abduction, rape and forced recruitment. Such unpardonable violence against innocents must stop.

Furthermore, without ensuring access to an inclusive secondary education, the international community will fail to meet several of the Sustainable Development Goals – not just SDG4, which is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, but also commitments to eradicating poverty, promoting decent work and reducing inequality.

Safia Ibrahimkel, 24, is an Afghan refugee living in Peshawar, Pakistan. As a member of UNHCR’s Global Youth Advisory Council, she attended a workshop in Berlin on forming a new tertiary education student network. © UNHCR

That is why UNHCR places such importance on the inclusion of refugee children in national education systems, leading to recognized qualifications and certification. This creates conditions in which refugee children and youth can learn, thrive and develop their potential in peaceful coexistence with each other, and with local children. In a world in which conflict appears to come more easily than peace, these are invaluable lessons.

Investing in a refugee’s education is a collective endeavour with collective rewards, requiring the involvement of all levels of society to make the biggest gains. Governments, business, educational institutions and non-governmental organizations must unite to improve the provision of education at all levels, particularly secondary, and to allow refugees the same access as host-country citizens. Our ambition over the next decade, set out in UNHCR’s Refugee Education 2030 strategy, is to have refugees achieving parity with their non-refugee peers in pre-primary, primary and secondary education, and to boost enrolment in higher education to 15 per cent.

I am therefore proud to announce a new initiative to improve secondary education opportunities for refugees. After pilot projects in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Pakistan since 2017, the initiative will ambitiously expand over the coming years with a focus on investing in teachers and schools, community schemes to encourage enrolment and financial support for refugee families. This programme is aimed not just at refugees but the community at large, so that all children will benefit from new opportunities. By boosting secondary-level enrolment, we aim to get more refugees and host community peers to progress to higher studies. And we hope to show them that a full educational cycle is possible, motivating more of them to come to school and stay there.

It is my hope that at the forthcoming Global Refugee Forum, governments, the private sector, educational organizations and donors will unite to give their backing to this initiative – in the spirit of responsibility-sharing and collaboration that lies at the heart of the Global Compact on Refugees.

These are ambitious targets, but they come with incalculable rewards. Education will prepare refugee children and youth for the world of today and of tomorrow. In turn, it will make that world more resilient, sustainable and peaceful. And that is not a bad return on our investment.

— UNHCR

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lollipoplollipopoh · 6 years ago

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EU reform, migration and the economy - Counting the Cost by Al Jazeera English The European Union makes up one fifth of the world's economy. Part of its success is that EU citizens see themselves as better off economically within the bloc than outside. But that perception is being challenged. At this week's EU summit in Brussels - more than 60 years after the EU's foundation - reform was tabled as a necessary adjustment to meet the challenges of our time. On the financial side, reform is largely driven by French President Emmanuel Macron who says now is a golden opportunity to make changes to ensure the future success of the bloc. He is pushing for a more financially flexible EU. But divisions have been growing as well over the bloc's policy on refugees. On the opening day a breakthrough of sorts was achieved: the bloc will boost funding to address the issue which has threatened the very solidarity of the bloc. "If it's being framed as a solution to the migration crisis, it's the biggest exaggeration you could possibly imagine," reports Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee from Brussels. "It's a sort of political fix to stop the bloc from falling apart ... It's all about keeping people out." So can EU reforms help solve Europe's so-called refugee crisis? Can reforms save the bloc? And how should the EU respond to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration? John Springford, the deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, says "bringing in more people definitely helps" EU countries economically. "What's really important is that those people are quickly integrated into the labour market, into society, so that they find jobs quickly and they start being productive helpful members of society." Asked about tariffs imposed by Trump, Springford says "If the trade war escalates, and the US imposes tariffs on cars ... the EU is quite vulnerable to that. It's difficult to say how the EU should respond. On the one hand if they say 'Trump just imposed tarfiffs on us and we are not going to respond', it may well embolden Trump to go further and particularly the trade balance between US and EU does not improve. "But on the other hand, if they do escalate the trade war, then it might become a kind of fight to the death and we might see some severe restrictions on transatlantic trade which won't help anyone ... I think the EU has no easy options." Also on this episode of Counting the Cost: Harley Davidson vs Trump: The US president's trade spat with the EU has forced Harley Davidson to shift gear overseas. New EU tariffs will raise the average cost per bike by about $2,000, so it's shifting some production outside the US. And with that move, it just became the poster child for the breakdown in US trade relations with the EU. Illegal logging: Activists accuse timber companies of endangering the world's second largest rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jules Caron, a campaigner at Global Witness, talks to Counting the Cost. Mexico's digital divide: One of the main issues in Mexico's presidential campaign has been its underperforming economy. Mexico is traditionally seen as a commodities and manufacturing giant. It has the largest proven silver reserves in the world, and the 10th largest oil reserves. But according to Bloomberg, some 40 percent of the population still face entrenched poverty and more than half of the population is not connected online. Carlos Cardenas from HIS Markit discusses Mexico's digital divide. Bahrain's economic woes: Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia are teaming up to offer financial aid to neighbouring Bahrain. - Subscribe to our channel: https://ift.tt/291RaQr - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://ift.tt/1iHo6G4 - Check our website: https://ift.tt/2lOp4tL

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newsfundastuff · 4 years ago

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A poacher who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 500 elephants will spend the next 30 years in forced labour after he was convicted of ivory trafficking and attempting to kill park rangers in the Republic of Congo. Mobanza Mobembo Gérard has been dubbed ‘the butcher of Nouabale Ndoki’ National Park, a swathe of rainforest two and a half times the size of Greater London which stretches across the Congo Republic’s borders into the Central African Republic and Cameroon. It is believed that Gérard, 35, first started hunting expeditions in 2008 and soon led a team of around 25 poachers through the bush to kill hundreds of rare forest elephants with military-grade weapons. The poaching chief, who is originally from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, was convicted last week by a court in the Congo Republic’s Sangha region, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC), an NGO. The Telegraph understands that Gérard has been surrounded or imprisoned several times by rangers over the last three years but has always managed to either shoot his way out or escape prison. His trial and sentencing marked the first criminal conviction of a wildlife trafficker in the Republic of Congo. Previously, environmental crimes were tried in civil courts and incurred a maximum sentence of five years. Gérard will also be required to pay damages of $68,000 (£51,710) to injured rangers. “This detention is a major first in the battle against poaching and illegal smuggling of wildlife products,” said Richard Malonga, the head of WCS Congo which works in the Nouabale Ndoki park. “This creates opportunities to criminalise acts of poaching, and punish poachers even more severely.” The sentence “sends an extremely strong message that wildlife crime will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted at the highest levels,” WCS regional director Emma Stokes said in a statement on Monday. Nouabale Ndoki National Park in the north of the Congo Republic was created in 1993 and was named as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2012. It is a rare sanctuary in central Africa for endangered forest elephants, gorillas and chimpanzees. A hundred years ago, there were an estimated 10 million elephants who roamed across Africa’s savvanahs and forests. But thanks to the lucrative ivory trade, poaching has decimated the continent’s elephant population. There are now only an estimated 350,000 elephants left in Africa and approximately 10 to 15,000 of them are killed every year for their ivory tusks. Most of the ivory is shipped to East Asia where a booming middle class use it in jewellery, ornaments and sometimes in traditional Chinese medicine. China has historically been the biggest buyer of ivory but demand there has reportedly fallen significantly since Beijing banned the ivory trade at the end of 2017. However, last week wildlife conservationists, rangers and safari tour guides told The Telegraph that poaching and bushmeat hunting has been surging across parts of Eastern and Southern Africa since the world went into lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus. Rangers in Kenya, another major wildlife sanctuary, told the newspaper that the pandemic has wrought havoc on many rural communities who often depend on tourism revenue to put food on the table. With the tourism revenue almost completely gone, the rangers said that many people were turning to bushmeat hunting or commercial poaching to feed their families.

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teeky185 · 4 years ago

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from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34E49ma

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years ago

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First Lawsuit of Its Kind Accuses Big Tech of Profiting From Child Labor in Cobalt Mines

In the first lawsuit of its kind, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla are being sued on behalf of 14 Congolese families whose children were killed or permanently injured while illegally mining cobalt for electronics made by these companies.

Filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia by human rights group International Rights Advocates, the federal class-action lawsuit alleges the companies "aided and abetted" a system of forced child labor and had "specific knowledge" of the conditions these children were working in but did not act to protect their profit margins.

"Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla all have specific policies claiming to prohibit child labour in their supply chains," said IRAdvocates in the complaint. "Their failure to actually implement these policies to stop forced child labour in cobalt mining is an intentional act to avoid ending the windfall of getting cheap cobalt."

Cobalt is an important component of lithium-ion batteries that are used in many modern electronics. In the lawsuit, the families argue that their children were illegally working at cobalt mines owned by Glencore, the world's largest cobalt producer. Glencore then supplied cobalt to Umicore, a Belgian mining company and metals trader. Umicore then provided cobalt for lithium-ion batteries to Apple, Google, Tesla, and Dell. Also implicated is Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese cobalt producer, which works with Apple, Dell, and Microsoft.

By now, the relationship between cobalt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and child labor is well-trodden territory. Last year, the Democratic Republic of Congo produced between 60 and 70 percent of the world’s cobalt—a third of that was “artisanal” or subsistence mining, independently done outside formal employment with a mining company.

Cobalt is an essential mineral for advanced electronics—necessary for the lithium batteries that power smartphones, personal computers, and electric vehicles. While these batteries may power renewable technologies necessary to avoid climate apocalypse, making them is not without its own problems: Cobalt mining is done at great cost to the miners, their communities, and their ecosystems.

In the complaint, the Congolese families go into vivid detail explaining how abject poverty made them desperate enough to work at the mines, paid as little as $2 a day for dangerous and demanding work in conditions.

In one instance, a child went to work in a Glencore-owned mine after his family could no longer afford his school fees. A tunnel collapsed on him and his body was never recovered, according to the lawsuit. Another child, who also worked in a Glencore-owned mine, fell into a mine but after being dragged out by other miners, was left alone until his parents found him. The accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. Others still say tunnel collapses killed their children, broke their spines, or maimed their limbs. None of them were compensated for deaths or injuries, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit is clear in its allegations that these companies knowingly entered into business with the mining firms despite knowledge of their child labor supply chains and is seeking damages for their forced labor, but also for "unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and intentional infliction of emotional distress."

Apple and other companies have said in recent years that they’ve taken steps to not work with mines that use child labor, but time and time again, reporters and international nonprofits have shown that the global supply chain is convoluted to the point that it is difficult to be sure exactly who is doing the mining.

First Lawsuit of Its Kind Accuses Big Tech of Profiting From Child Labor in Cobalt Mines syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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things-wrong-with · 6 years ago

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Child Labor

Child labor is defined by the United Nations as work done by children that puts them in danger or at a disadvantage. Child labor has always been a major issue in the world. Currently, there are over seventy million children forced to do work. Children are put to work in dangerous places for hours. These places include being exposed to extreme heat, carrying objects that weigh tons and exposure to toxic chemicals. Child labor is very common in Africa and Latin America.

During the Industrial Revolution, children were forced to work in factories. They worked to earn more money for their family. They were used to repair machines or get into small crawl spaces where adults could not fit. While fixing the machines or going into the crawl spaces the children would get badly hurt. They would lose fingers or get bad cuts. Young girls who did not go into crawl spaces or fix the machines would get their dress or hair caught on the machines they were working on. Not only did the children get injured by the machines but the air in the factories was not the healthiest. Most of the factories at the time were textile factories, so there was lots of lint and dust in the air. Windows in the factories were rarely open so workers of all ages would have to breathe in this polluted air. They would develop lung diseases and be very unhealthy. Workers would work around twelve to eighteen hours a day, for six days a week. Men and boys usually worked in mines while women and girls worked in the factories. Both workplaces were horrible and hazardous. According to Scholastic, by 1810 about two million school-age children were working fifty to seventy hour weeks. Charles Dickens even wrote a noble called Oliver Twist to help publicize the horrors of child labor. In 1914, Congress attempted to prohibit child labor by proposing a constitutional amendment but the states in America did not ratify the idea. But then Congress thought of another idea, the idea was to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. The Fair Labor Standards Act fixed the issue of the minimum age for work during school/after school.

On January 30th of 2019, CNN 10 published a video where one of their reporters went to Africa to investigate the issue of child labor. There had been rumors stating that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where ⅔ of the world's cobalt supply comes from, has been using children to mine cobalt. Cobalt is a chemical element in that is found in the Earth’s crust. Recently cobalt has become in high demand due to many car companies, more specifically electric car companies, using it to manufacture their cars. CNN went to a market where the cobalt is taken by brokers and it enters the supply chain. Cobalt that is mined/handled by children is called dirty. This dirty cobalt cannot always be tracked. Companies like Tesla says that they are taking measures to make sure the cobalt they are buying is not being mined by children. But there is no way that they can be able to know if the cobalt they are obtaining is dirty or not. Child labor has not been entirely fixed in the United States but it has improved from how it used to be. But in developing countries, it is still a major issue. Some people do not really realize that child labor is still occurring and that some things you own can be ‘dirty’. People do talk about sweatshops in Asian countries. But people have not really been doing anything. We all are aware of what is happening but we kind of cast it aside and do not try to fix the issue.

Where you can help fix the issue or know more about the issue:

https://humaneeducation.org/blog/2017/10-tips-for-helping-end-child-labor/

https://www.we.org/we-schools/program/issues-backgrounders/global-child-labour/

https://orgs.tigweb.org/scream-stop-child-labour---supporting-childrens-rights-through-education-the-arts-and-the-media-trabajo-infantil-le-travail-des-enfants

http://stopchildlabor.org/

...etc

Sources I used:

https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/05/africa/congo-cobalt-dirty-energy-intl/

https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-labor#

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cobalt-children-mining-democratic-republic-congo-cbs-news-investigation/

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/history-child-labor/

https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-labour/

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todaynewsstories · 6 years ago

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Sudanese hit by bread shortages as currency crunch escalates

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Bread shortages have hit Sudan, with wheat traders blaming a foreign currency crisis for shortages of the staple that have left people queuing for hours outside bakeries.

A vendor carries her child on her back as she sells bread along the streets of Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa, December 19, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Sudan’s economy has been struggling since the south seceded in 2011, taking with it three-quarters of its oil output and depriving it of a crucial source of foreign currency.

The crisis has deepened over the past year as a black market for U.S. dollars has effectively replaced the formal banking system after the Sudanese pound was devalued, making it more difficult to import essential supplies such as wheat.

A doubling of the price of bread in January triggered demonstrations after the government eliminated subsidies, although so far there was no sign of protests this time.

At Banet neighbourhood in the town of Omdurman, in Khartoum, dozens of people stood in a long line outside the Modern Bakery.

“This is unbearable,” said 53-year-old Abdullah Mahmoud, a day labourer, who said he had been queuing for two hours for bread. “I had been here since the morning and I still don’t have any bread.”

Fatima Yassin, 36, in a queue for women, said: “Everything is expensive and bread is not available. We have a difficult life and the government doesn’t care about us.”

Similar queues were seen in other cities near the capital.

Sudan imported 2 million tonnes of wheat in 2017, the government said in December, compared with 445,000 tonnes produced locally. [nL8N1OS1M6]

One Khartoum bakery owner, Ahmed Saleh, said he had had no flour since Monday.

“We stopped working since yesterday because we did not get our share of flour,” he told Reuters.

BLACK MARKET

Any flare-up over shortages could prove tricky for the government. In January, authorities arrested a prominent opposition leader and confiscated newspapers to try to stop unrest from spreading. [nL8N1P20G5]

Only last week, Sudan’s ruling party announced that it would back any new bid by President Omar al-Bashir, to run again in the 2020 election, a move that would require a constitutional amendment. [nL5N1V1425]

Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the crisis.

But the Khartoum state governor, Abdel-Rahim Mohammed Hussein, said in remarks carried by state news agency SUNA on Monday that the state would receive its share of wheat supplies in the “next couple of days”, without elaborating.

Private sector wheat traders, who were given responsibility for imports by the government at the start of this year, blamed the flour shortages on the foreign currency shortages.

One trader said that businessmen were increasingly being forced to buy foreign currency at a higher rate on the black market to finance imports.

“At the same time, the government sets the sale price for flour at an unreal dollar rate,” one trader told Reuters. “We cannot sell flour at a loss,” he added.

The price of the Sudanese pound had been declining since the beginning of the year after the government devalued the currency to 18 per U.S. dollar, more than double its peg of 6.7 pounds to the dollar.

The pound, which has since been devalued further and is now officially set at 29 pounds to the dollar, was trading at 40 pounds to the dollar on the black market on Tuesday.

Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Alison Williams

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itsnelkabelka · 7 years ago

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Speech: Lord Ahmad welcomes conclusions of the 36th Session of the UN Human Rights Council

The UN Human Rights Council concluded its 36th Session today with important resolutions on Burundi, Yemen, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the death penalty. This session also saw the adoption of the UK’s Universal Periodic Review, where we have been making good progress in important areas.

I am delighted to have attended the Council this session and to have reaffirmed the UK’s strong commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights. I had a positive first meeting with High Commissioner Zeid to discuss human rights priorities and had thep opportunity to meet members of the Syria Commission of Inquiry to set out our continued support to their work. I also met civil society and NGOs to discuss, amongst other topics, the plight of Rohingya muslims in Burma and the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. Protecting human rights and individual freedoms is a priority for this Government, for our Prime Minister, and for me personally. It is our collective responsibility, and we will continue to use our membership of the council to speak out about human rights violations and abuses around the world.

I am pleased to see that resolutions on Burundi, Syria, Yemen, DRC, have been adopted at this session, as well as a Council decision on Burma. It is essential we work together with other Member States to hold perpetrators to account.

Burma

The UK welcomes the adoption of a Council decision on Burma, extending the mandate of the Fact Finding Mission. Given the deeply concerning human rights situation across the country, including in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine States, its work is crucial. We once again urge Burma to grant the Mission access to the country, and to cooperate fully with its mandate. We also urge the security forces, under Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing, to stop the violence in Rakhine State, allow a rapid return for refugees, and support the swift implementation of the Annan Commission’s recommendations by the civilian government.

Ukraine

The UK continues to see the regular report into, and the discussion of, the human rights situation in Ukraine as essential. We are deeply concerned by the continued high numbers of civilian casualties, detailed by OHCHR, and urge all parties to the conflict to work urgently to achieve a full and sustained ceasefire. We also welcome the thematic report into the human rights situation in illegally annexed Crimea which was undertaken despite the refusal of Russia de facto authorities to allow access to the High Commissioner and his Office, as called for in UN General Assembly Resolution 71/205. We reiterate our call for the de facto authorities to grant access to Crimea for international monitors.

Syria

The human rights situation in Syria remains deeply concerning. The horrific violations and abuses the Syrian people continue to face are carefully recorded by the Commission of Inquiry. Attacks on civilians, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and forced displacement of civilians continue to be carried out by the Syrian regime. It is vital that the Council maintains a strong and unified stance on Syria. An important part of our efforts must be to hold those responsible to account. We therefore welcome the Resolution the Council has adopted and call upon all parties to ensure that the rights of all Syrian citizens are upheld and respected.

Yemen

The deteriorating human rights situation in Yemen was an important priority at this council. We remain deeply concerned by the large scale human rights abuses that continue. We welcome the Council achieving consensus to establish a group of eminent international and regional experts as a concrete step taken by the international community to address the crisis and bring relief to innocent civilians.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The resolution on the Democratic Republic of Congo builds on the international investigation mandated at the last HRC into the violence in the Kasai region. The Council is right to be seriously concerned by heinous human rights abuses and violations that have taken place there. It is important that we have agreed to have a comprehensive OHCHR report on the human rights situation as well as enhanced dialogues through the HRC calendar year to make sure responsibility is determined. I trust that the authorities in DRC will grant the access to the investigation, mandated in June, to ensure that those who bear responsibility will be brought to justice.

Somalia

The UK welcomes the adoption by consensus of the renewed resolution on Somalia. The resolution acknowledges the progress Somalia has made in strengthening the protection of human rights, and the commitment of the Federal Government of Somalia to continuing this progress. It is now vital that Somalia, together with support from the international community, takes forward the steps laid out in the resolution. This includes the establishment of the Human Rights Commission to end the culture of impunity and hold accountable those who commit human rights violations and abuses.

Sudan

I welcome the resolution that the Human Rights Council has adopted on Sudan. We are encouraged by the Government of Sudan’s increased willingness to engage with the international community on human rights issues, including with the Independent Expert. However, regrettably, fundamental freedoms continue to be restricted across Sudan. I therefore welcome the unified stance that the Council has taken. We urge the Government to increase accountability for human rights violations, and to cooperate with the UN/AU Mission in Darfur to increase protection for civilians.

Burundi

The UK remains deeply concerned at the human rights situation in Burundi and is disappointed at the Burundi Government’s response to the Commission of Inquiry’s report, and in particular, their rejection of the report’s conclusions that there were reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity had been committed. Our national statement outlined worrying reports that gunmen entered the office of the UN OHCHR in Bujumbura. The Government of Burundi has a duty to protect diplomatic staff and premises. To this end, I welcome the resolutions on Burundi, and urge the Burundi Government to engage with the international community to bring an end to the violence and to hold the perpetrators to account.

Central African Republic

The UK thanks the Independent Expert on CAR for her report to the Council and welcomes the extension of the mandate of the Independent Expert. The UK is concerned at the increase in human rights violations and abuses due to a resurgence of violence between armed groups. Reports of deliberate targeting of civilians by armed groups, in some cases based on ethnicity or religion is deeply troubling. The continued violence has seen significant numbers of displaced people who are without access to basic humanitarian needs. The UK urges the international community to provide essential assistance to the people of CAR to prevent the onset of a humanitarian crisis.

Modern Slavery

I spoke at the start of this session about the importance the UK places on tackling the crime of modern slavery and our Prime Minister’s personal commitment and leadership to eradicating human trafficking, modern slavery, and forced labour. The newly published “Global Estimates” further highlight the enormous scale of the challenge. At the UN General Assembly this month, I also had the honour to speak at a “Why Slavery?” event, launching a campaign to raise awareness of modern slavery. Tackling modern slavery requires the concerted effort of us all but government leadership is crucial. The UK’s Call to Action, launched at an event chaired by our Prime Minister and UN Secretary General Guterres on 19 September, has been endorsed by 37 countries and we will continue to work tirelessly to get more to sign up. I also encourage all governments to ratify the International Labour Organization’s protocol on forced labour and to work with us in supporting the “50 for Freedom” campaign. We will continue to work with the international community and use opportunities such as the UPR to press for further action on this critical agenda.

PSVI

At the UN General Assembly, together with Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten, I also launched the Principles for Global Action on preventing and addressing stigma affecting victims of sexual violence in conflict. The Principles for Global Action is a key tool for policymakers and practitioners and aims to provide a survivor-centred approach to working to end stigma associated with conflict-related sexual violence. This document incorporates the expertise of 13 UN Agencies, NGOs, civil society, academics, international organisations and donor countries. The guide was also informed by experiences of survivors and practitioners from 16 conflict affected countries, and is a truly global document to help tackle stigma worldwide.

UK Universal Period Review Adoption

In May this year the UK underwent its 3rd cycle of the Universal Periodic Review. Last week, we set out our position on all 227 recommendations we received from Member States in May during the UPR dialogue. We also voluntarily committed to providing an update on up to 5 recommendations by May 2018, and an update on all recommendations via a Mid Term Report in 2019. We are clear that the UPR is not just a three and a half hour dialogue that occurs for all States every four years. Each cycle builds on the last, with Mid Term Reports and other updates being an important way to demonstrate ongoing commitment to the UPR.

The Human Rights Council is a crucial platform, allowing Member States to support and uphold universal rights around the world. As an outward-looking, globally-minded, and inclusive country, the UK has always played an active role in the Council and other UN human rights fora. The UK will continue to promote universal human rights as a foundation for development and a vital tool for conflict prevention, resolution and reconciliation.

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