FFTG is also intended to achieve behavioural change, and bring about sustainable practices in the football industry. The first organization to join up is UEFA, the game’s European governing body, and the UN has invited other members of the wider football community – from leagues and clubs, to players, fan groups and media partners – to follow UEFA’s lead, and commit to positive change.
SDG champs
This means adopting UN principles of sustainable development and human rights, developing sustainable business practices, acting as champions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and raising the profile of the Goals.
To demonstrate how the FFTG commitments translate into action, the Football Association of Norway is launching a pilot project with its national teams, grassroot football and leagues, as well as its media partner, to collaborate in support of the SDGs, and work closely with the UN to share the results with those interested in joining FFTG.
“The United Nations recognizes the powerful voice football carries in the global community and the role football can play in raising awareness for the SDGs”, said Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the UN.
Power of football
“Not only is football the most popular sport in the world, it is also the most accessible. All you need is a ball for people to come together. Every day, millions of people all over the world play the game, whether on a makeshift field, in a school yard or in a giant stadium. That’s why we are excited and proud to launch this initiative.”
FFTG, which is led and managed by the UN, was launched on Wednesday with a virtual event, featuring a conversation with Ms. Mohammed and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin. A recording of the event is available on the UN’s Youtube channel here.
When the UN votes by secret ballot… Credit: United Nations
by Thalif Deen (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 06 (IPS) – A 2.0 version of an ancient Biblical saying reads: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a woman to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The male/female ratio for the Secretary-General stands at 9 vs zero. And the Presidency of the General Assembly (PGA), the highest policy-making body at the UN, is not far behind either.
“Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President,” Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, told IPS.
The score stands at 73 men and 4 women as PGAs– even as the General Assembly elected another male candidate, as its 77th President last month, and who will serve his one-year term beginning September 2022.
Since 1945, the only four women elected as presidents were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces of Ecuador (2018).
Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador, who was elected President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly in 2018—only the fourth time a woman candidate was elected. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
The General Assembly last month adopted a resolution—by consensus– to commemorate every June 24 as “International Day of Women in Diplomacy” (IDWD).
But how significant is this resolution? And will it help usher in the UN’s first woman SG or trigger more women PGAs? Or is this resolution another exercise in political futility?
Introducing the resolution, the Maldives Ambassador Thilmeeza Hussain stressed that “women’s participation in decision making is absolutely vital”.
She also added that yet, far too often, as women climb the diplomatic ranks, they are outnumbered by their male peers, including at United Nations Headquarters, where they represent only one fifth of the Permanent Representatives.
Currently, there are only 44 women Permanent Representatives compared to 149 men holding that post.
All permanent representatives are nominated by their respective governments—and each member state takes it turn, in geographical rotation, to field a candidate, mostly permanent representatives and occasionally foreign ministers.
A former UN diplomat told IPS that PGAs are some of the strongest advocates of gender empowerment— while in office.
But none of them, he pointed out, were politically generous enough to decline their nominations and convince their respective governments to nominate a woman for the post.
Meanwhile, in a letter to President of the International Association of Permanent Representatives (IAPR), Ambassador Chowdhury said: “I recall proudly that in September 2012, I and the IMPACT Leadership 21, issued a joint “Call to Action” to world leaders gathering at the UN asking for urgent action in four areas:
Appointment of a Woman as the Next UN Secretary-General. In its 77 years of existence, the world body has failed miserably to elect a woman to that post. It is truly an embarrassment.
Nominations of Women as Future Presidents of the General Assembly. Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President.
Election of More Women as Heads of Various UN Governing Bodies, and,
Appointment by Member States of More Women as Ambassadors to the UN in New York and Geneva.
On the first International Day of Women in Diplomacy, he said last month, “let us commit to achieving these objectives to make the observance of the IDWD truly meaningful and worthwhile.”
“Reflecting the unfortunate reality, not much attention has been given to those so far,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former Senior Special Adviser to the President of the UN General Assembly (2011-2012).
Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)., told IPS a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution which acknowledges the contribution of women globally in any sector is always a major milestone and to be applauded especially when it is unanimously passed by consensus by the UNGA.
That the Maldives which proposed the resolution had 191 co-sponsors is laudable and is apparently a record for the current session of the UNGA, she pointed out.
“While this acknowledgement of women in diplomacy is more than welcome, many will wonder at the timing of this acknowledgement especially because the UN is grappling with a multiplicity of crises on the global scene.”
Clearly the world will have to unpack what exactly this celebration of women in diplomacy means and what the aspirational goals are in the current scenario of the many challenges the UN is facing and in the context of UN reform, said Mane, an internationally respected expert on sexual and reproductive health who also served as the President and CEO of Pathfinder International.
She said the language used to explain this celebration states that it is to celebrate women at all levels of decision making who work for the achievement of sustainable development, peace, and democracy.
“Women are currently under-represented at most levels among national delegations and in the UN diplomatic corps but especially so in the senior levels,’ she said.
While the representation of women ambassadors is said to have gone up from 16 to 22 percent since 2018, the numbers are appallingly low to begin with and women continue to be grossly under-represented in diplomatic positions in most countries.
Canada and Sweden, she pointed out, have achieved equality of representation in the diplomatic corps and as per available records, UK, Norway and South Africa are not far behind but there is extensive catching up to do for most countries.
To that extent, this commemoration might wake up countries to take the matter of representation of women in diplomatic roles more seriously and also focus on providing them an enabling environment in which to work, a matter in which significant lacunae are known to exist, she declared.
Ambassador Chowdhury said the burst of applause that followed the adoption of the resolution proclaiming the annual observance of this very meaningful day in the UN’s calendar was very energizing in view of the priority accorded to the global objective of ensuring “active participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making…”.
Given its energy and relevance as well as the high-level support of the UN’s top echelons, he said, it was very disappointing to accept in any case, the inclusion of a sentence in the same resolution stressing that the cost of all activities by the UN that may arise from the observance of the Day “should be met from voluntary contributions”.
For the paltry sum of resources needed for the observance, the relevant department of the UN is always in a position to accommodate the expenses from its existing budgets.
“Also, I believe that the regular budget of the Department of Global Communication should always include the observance of the international days as proclaimed by the General Assembly,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former UN High Representative.
Referring to the new GA resolution declaring IDWD, Mane said “this brings us back to the question why women in diplomacy was seen as a relevant priority at this point of time in the UN’s history”.
Is the major motivator of this resolution the push to alter the reality that one of the highest positions in the UN, that of the Secretary General, has never been occupied by a woman and that only 4 women have held the position of the President of the General Assembly as compared to 73 men?, Mane asked.
“Or does it come from a desire to acknowledge the vast and significant contributions of women in all diplomatic processes and an aspiration to push all parts of the UN and governments to do more?”.
Hopefully the inspiration comes from both these motivators and will lead to visible change and greater accountability within governments and the UN to pay even more serious attention to the representation and role of women in diplomacy, she declared.
Meanwhile, at a news briefing in March last year, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield was asked by a reporter about American support for a future woman candidate for Secretary-General.
“You represent an administration which is pledging a need for diversity and change and gender rights and a whole panoply of different things. You have arrived in time for the selection of a Secretary-General, whether it will be a renewal or a new candidate”.
“Speaking in your national capacity and speaking as a woman, don’t you think after 76 years it’s time for more than half the population in the world to be represented at the United Nations by a woman as Secretary-General?,” the reporter asked.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield: That’s a loaded question, and I will take it as a loaded question (Laughter). We will support the most qualified candidate for the job, but we absolutely believe in and support diversity”.
“We want to support gender balance, and we will look at the candidates who are presented to us and review them accordingly,” she declared.
Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of the recently-released book on the UN titled “No Comment—and Don’t Quote Me on That” (2021). The book, available on Amazon, is a satire peppered with scores of political anecdotes—from the sublime to the hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/
LONDON, Jul 06 (IPS) – When Ceylon- now Sri Lanka- gained independence from Britain in 1948 after almost 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was one Asia’s most stable and prosperous democracies.
Today, after years of misrule, rampant corruption by the ruling class and a politicised administration, the country is bankrupt, its economy on the verge of collapse, and society in disarray while a discredited president still clings to power and manipulating the political system, determined to serve the rest of his term.
While the original 18th century Beggar’s Opera was a satire on the injustice in London society of the day and Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s corrupt government, Sri Lanka has not turned to opera but to begging and possibly borrowing if any international lending institution is willing to lend to a country that has recently defaulted on debt repayment for the first time in its post-independence history.
That speaks volumes for the fiscal and monetary policies of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government, and its unthinking and ill- considered actions in the last two and a half years, that has “collapsed” the country’s economy— as the prime minister told parliament the other day.
Under the 10-year rule of elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015), the government borrowed heavily from China for massive infrastructure projects. That included a huge international airport at Mattala in nearby Rajapaksa territory in the deep south. Some of them continue to be white elephants.
A joke at the time and resonating now and then was that even herds of roaming wild elephants in the area spurn the airport because of the colour bar!
Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in November 2019 and a year later brother Mahinda led their Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) to a parliamentary victory, the Rajapaksas, now at the helm of power, strengthened their already close relationship with Beijing at the expense of ties with the West and international lending institutions and alienating UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council.
But in the last few months it has been a begging-bowl ‘opera’ as Sri Lanka scoured the world for loans after its foreign reserves started dipping drastically and leading international rating agencies took to downgrading the country’s sovereign rating.
Eventually the Rajapaksa government reneged on its debt repayments, humiliating Sri Lanka which had never defaulted in its 74-year history.
Trapped by a plunging economy Sri Lanka turned to Bangladesh to save it from emerging bankruptcy. Nothing could be more ironic. In its early years Bangladesh was perceived as a recipient of financial support, not a lender.
At that time Sri Lanka’s economy seemed stable enough despite its near 30 years of war against Tamil Tiger separatists.
In early, June Bangladesh agreed in principle to another currency swap of US$ 200 million. This is in addition to last year’s currency swap of $200 million whose repayment date of three months was extended to one year at Sri Lanka’s request last August.
Today, the country’s 22 million people are almost without petrol, cooking gas, kerosene, food, medicines, powdered milk, and other essentials as the government has no foreign currency to import them.
A common scenario in many parts of Sri Lanka are queues of people-men, women and even children- spending many hours and even days to buy the essentials that are scarce and a food shortage is predicted in the coming months.
As I sat down to write this, news reports said the 12th man died seated in his vehicle at a queue for fuel. A few days later the Sunday Times Political Editor upped the death toll to 16.
Meanwhile physical clashes are becoming common at filling station where thugs have muscled in. The other day a soldier was caught on video assaulting a policeman.
Such is the tension building up in society that the Sunday Times Political Editor reported of concerns among local intelligence services about national security.
While the long-drawn out covid pandemic did cripple the tourism industry, a major foreign currency earner, much of the blame rests on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s short-sighted policies as well as those of some of his ministers and close advisers whose arrogance and ignorance brushed aside warnings sounded a year or two ahead by reputed economists, former Central Bank professionals, academics and trade chambers.
Rajapaksa having denied any culpability for these errors of judgement ultimately conceded his responsibility but only when mass protests erupted in Colombo and elsewhere in the country with even the peasantry-a vital support base of the Rajapaksas- took to the streets castigating him and his government for creating shortages of essential fertilizers for agriculture.
After almost two months, thousands of anti-government protestors who set up camp on the seaside promenade opposite the presidential secretariat in the heart of Colombo, are still there raising their clarion call which has now spread across the country- “Gota Go Home”-demanding that the president return to whence he came.
While Sri Lanka struggles to survive and the Rajapaksas gradually reappear into public view, there has been a perceptible change in the government’s world view. Though Chinese leaders have often declared that Beijing is Colombo’s “all weather friend” it has been slow to come to Sri Lanka’s aid at a time of real crisis.
An appeal to China by the Rajapaksa government to restructure its loans as one of its biggest lenders had not produced the expected reaction from Beijing. Nor had there been a positive response at the time for another credit line of US$ 1.5 billion when Colombo’s foreign reserves were fast drying out.
Even President Xi Jinping’s birthday greeting to President Rajapaksa last month made no mention of any concrete assistance except references to the long-standing Sri Lanka-China relations.
Observers claimed that China was coaxing-if not actually pressuring- Sri Lanka to distance itself from India, its competitor for political positioning and an expanding stake in the strategically- located island.
While the immediate target was India, Beijing was also pointing its finger at Sri Lanka’s growing ties with the US and international institutions such as the IMF.
The fact that since January India has provided assistance to Sri Lanka with currency swaps, credit lines, loan deferments and humanitarian assistance to meet the mounting crisis and supported Colombo’s call for IMF aid, appeared unwelcome news to China which has been trying to persuade Sri Lanka to enter into a trade agreement with it.
In late June, a high-powered Indian delegation led by Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra made a quick few- hour visit to Colombo to meet President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and discuss further strengthening of Indo-Lanka ties and bilateral investment partnerships including infrastructure and renewal energy.
New Delhi pointed out that this unprecedented recent economic, financial and humanitarian assistance including medicines and food valued at over US$ 3.5 b was guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.
Had it not been for the Indian central government and the Tamil Nadu state government responding fast with generous assistance Sri Lanka would have been struggling to find scarce food, fuel and medicines.
Meanwhile a nine-member team of senior IMF officials spent 10 days in Sri Lanka in late June to assess whether it could come up with a reform package to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability.
Since Colombo approached the IMF for a bailout programme early this year the international lending institution has been monitoring the country’s economic and political situation, neither of which presented much confidence.
It is not only sustainable economic reforms that the IMF is after. It seeks substantial efforts to improve governance and a stable corruption-free government that the IMF and other lending institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and donor nations could have confidence in.
The current government of bits and pieces could hardly provide evidence that it is fighting corruption when one of its stalwarts who was convicted the other day on extortion and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment but suspended for five years was reappointed to the cabinet by President Rajapaksa and made chief government whip in addition.
It is the need for clean government that causes concerns with President Rajapaksa reneging on promises he made to introduce constitutional amendments that will substantially prune the plethora of powers he grabbed on coming to power.
This is hardly likely as the world will see when the new 21st constitutional amendment is gazetted in a few days.
Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London
Opinion by Daud Khan, Stephen Akester (rome / london)
Inter Press Service
ROME / LONDON, Jul 05 (IPS) – Over the last past several decades marine fish stocks worldwide have been under intense threat. There have been many high sounding declarations and agreements to reduce catch effort, to use more environmentally friendly fishing gear, to prevent illegal fishing and to impose “closed seasons” to allow stocks to recover.
However, these declarations have often been disregarded and ignored, particularly when it comes to the open oceans that are beyond national jurisdictions and are the common heritage of all mankind. And the main culprits have been the developed countries, with their large and sophisticated fishing fleets and super market consumers which instead of being cutback, continue to receive political support and public subsidies.
The story of the yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean well illustrates what has been happening.
Stephen Akester
The Yellowfin tuna is one of the most majestic fish in the oceans. It can grow to 1.8 meters in length and up to 150 kgs in weight living 10 to 14 years. It is a top predator and moves with a grace and elegance that is sheer poetry in movement.
As juveniles, Yellowfin normally hunt in surface waters in packs although, when they mature, they change their habits and tend to be solitary. They live in tropical and sub-tropical waters and there used to be large stocks in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. But that was before Europeans, Asians and Americans discovered tinned tuna was cheap, and before the Japanese developed technology to very rapidly freeze freshly caught tuna for the Sashimi market in Japan where prize cuts can go for up to hundreds, if not thousands, of US$ per kilo.
During the 1970s and 80s the Europeans, Americans and the Japanese overfished the Atlantic tuna stocks. Their fishing fleets, mainly Spanish and French with several vessels flying “flags of convenience” – then moved to the Indian Ocean. These boats are floating factories with modern radar, sophisticated fishing gear and huge freezing capacity. Over time, more aggressive techniques are being introduced such as drifting Fish Attracting Devises (FADs) -small floating rafts that facilitate the growth of algae and seaweed and which in turn attract surface swimming tunas, skipjack and juvenile yellowfin. FADs, make it easier to increase catches and reduce costs but also are highly destructive as not only facilitate the catching of skipjack, the target species, but also young yellowfin tuna.
The overfishing of yellowfin tuna has triggered various attempts to reduce effort and introduce better management. Spearheading this effort in the Indian Ocean is the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), set up by FAO in 1996 to ensure, the conservation and optimum utilization of tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. However, the IOTC is not well designed for handling the complexities and political pressures that stand in the way of equitable and sustainable fishing effort in the Indian Ocean. In particular, key aspects such as its membership and distribution of catch entitlement among countries, are deeply flawed.
Daud Khan
The Commission is “open to any state that has coasts within the Indian Ocean region” – this is fine and as it should be. But it is also open to states that have coasts on “adjacent seas”, “as well as any state that fishes for tuna in the Indian Ocean region.” This wording has allowed membership of the IOTC of non-coastal countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, Spain, France and the UK, as well as the EU.
Moreover, the division of allowable catch is based on how much each country fished in the past. This results in the poorer coastal states getting a small proportion of the allowable catch as compared to the richer countries that have been operating large, modern vessels capable of overfishing in the Indian Ocean since the mid-1980s. The outcome of this highly inequitable strategy is that 45% of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean is allocated to the EU. And the developing coastal countries have not only seen their national fisheries impacted by competition from the developed countries, they are not even entitled to any license or royalty fees from oceanic fisheries adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones.
Furthermore, the IOTC has been given a hamstrung decisions making process. Decisions are by consensus which prevents fundamental reforms such as limits on purse seiners or on drifting FADs. And when coastal state attempt is made to push matters to the vote, such as was the case for a proposal to ban drifting FADs, procedural issues prevent them for being adopted.
And so it goes on. Rich countries take the lion’s share of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna, depriving the coastal states and their artisanal fishing communities of all but crumbs. They also systematically sabotage attempts to place restrictions on fishing and introduce more eco-friendly fishing practices.
As in many other areas, from climate change to the use of coal and the transition to green energy, there is much rhetoric from developed countries but efforts to change the system are not yet working.
Stephen Akester is an independent fisheries specialist working in Indian Ocean coastal countries for past 40 years…
Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.
“The reports we have received about serious violence, including killings, during the protests are very concerning,” said High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, while calling on authorities to “exercise utmost restraint”.
Death toll
According to the Prosecutor General’s office, 18 people were killed and 243 injured, including 94 seriously, during the clashes between protesters and security forces in the regional capital, Nukus.
But the actual number of casualties may be far higher, according to the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
While the identities of those who died was not immediately clear, they reportedly suffered bullet wounds to the head and body.
I urge the authorities to immediately open a transparent and independent investigation – UN rights chief
“To ensure accountability, I urge the authorities to immediately open a transparent and independent investigation into any allegations of criminal acts committed in that context, including violations by agents of the State,” said Ms. Bachelet.
Protesting to secede
Around the autonomous region, thousands protested against planned constitutional changes that would have stripped the Republic of Karakalpakstan of its constitutional right to secede, which is based on a nationwide referendum.
The President said on Saturday those plans would be dropped.
Crushing dissent
After the violence, media reported a heavy military presence in the city, as the Government imposed emergency regulations, including a curfew and internet shutdown.
The city was reportedly quiet over the weekend and yesterday.
However, during and after the protests, more than 500 people were detained.
The UN human rights chief expressed concern that one person had already been charged and faces up to 20 years imprisonment “for conspiracy to seize power or overthrow the constitutional order”.
“People should not be criminalized for exercising their rights,” she said.
Freedom to assemble peacefully
All detainees should have prompt access to a lawyer, their due process and fair trial guarantees, according to Ms. Bachelet.
“Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Uzbekistan is a State Party, everyone has the right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and the right to participate in public affairs”.
She urged the Government to immediately restore internet access, stressing that such a ban has an indiscriminate reach and broadly impacts the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, and access to information.
The High Commissioner also reminded authorities that restrictions under emergency law must abide by international law; be necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory; of a limited in duration; and include key safeguards against excesses.
In his video message to some 40 country representatives meeting in Lugano, the Secretary-General highlighted the tragic human impact of the conflict, as well as the long-term challenges that lie ahead:
“Russia’s war in Ukraine has taken thousands of lives and forcibly displaced millions of people”, the UN chief said. Millions of Ukrainians have lost their livelihoods risk of falling into poverty. The damage and devastation to homes, hospitals schools will take years to rebuild…This is a long road, but it must start now.”
In addition to the UN, international financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank attended the meeting.
On the agenda, projects to promote climate protection, the digital economy and the diversification of energy sources.
FAO aids Ukraine farmers
The development comes as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched a bid to help Ukrainian farmers save their summer harvest later this month.
The $17 million project, funded by Japan, also aims to support the export of grain to unnamed “alternative” international markets, while also strengthening food security for countries that are dependent on importing Ukrainian cereals, vegetable oil and other commodities.
It involves restoring storage silos for Ukraine’s grain, and also ensuring that the country’s farmers have the tools they need to work in future, FAO said in a statement.
“Ukraine’s farmers are feeding themselves, their communities and millions more people around the world. Ensuring they can continue production, safely store and access alternative markets to sell their produce is vital to secure food availability, protect livelihoods, strengthen food security within Ukraine and ensure other import-dependent countries have a steady and sufficient supply of grain at a manageable cost,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of the FAO Office of Emergencies and Resilience.
Human Rights Council spotlight
Large numbers of civilian casualties and massive destruction to civilian infrastructure caused by the Russian military – and on a much smaller scale by Ukrainian armed forces – are not in compliance with International Humanitarian Law, said UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, in a report presented on Tuesday at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The report examines the human rights situation in Ukraine from the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February to 15 May.
The findings are based on information gathered by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine during 11 field visits, visits to 3 places of detention, and 517 interviews with victims and witnesses of human rights violations, as well as other sources of information.
Apartment buildings are destroyed after shelling in Obolon district, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
No access to occupied territory
“While we have yet to be provided with access to territory occupied by Russian armed forces, we document violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law (IHL) committed by all parties, and we remain fully committed to monitoring the human rights situation across the entire territory of Ukraine”,said the UN High Commissioner.
As of 3 July, OHCHR has documented over 10,000 civilian deaths or injuries across Ukraine, with 335 children among the 4,889 documented as killed. However, the actual figures are likely to be much higher.
“Most of the documented civilian casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas”, said Ms. Bachelet “Shelling from heavy artillery, such as multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes, including weapons that can carry cluster munitions, were used repeatedly”.
The mass displacement of the civilian population – including over 8 million within the country – has had a disproportionate impact on women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities.
“Concerns persist about unlawful killings, including summary executions”,Ms Bachelet said. “Growing evidence gives my Office reasonable grounds to believe that serious violations of International Humanitarian Law in this regard have been committed by Russian armed forces”.
OHCHR is working to corroborate over 300 allegations of killings by Russian armed forces in situations that were not linked to active fighting.
BRATISLAVA, Jul 05 (IPS) – Women’s rights groups fear a new legal provision in Poland requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies could create what they have described as a ‘pregnancy register’ to monitor whether women are having abortions.
Poland has some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws with terminations allowed in only two instances – if the woman’s health or life is at risk and if the pregnancy is the result of either rape or incest.
Until last year, abortions had also been allowed in cases where the foetus had congenital defects, but this exemption was removed following a legal challenge by members of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which some critics accuse of systematically suppressing women’s rights.
Rights groups and opposition MPs say that in light of the tightened abortion legislation, they are worried that the pregnancy data could be used in an unprecedented state surveillance campaign against women.
“A pregnancy register in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-B?k, an MP for The Left (Lewica) political alliance in Poland, said on Twitter. “Even today, Polish women avoid getting pregnant out of fear that they will be forced to give birth in every situation. There are even more reasons to be scared now,” she added.
The new provision was approved by Health Minister Adam Niedzielski on June 3 and will come into effect in October when medical staff will begin collecting additional information from patients, including data on pregnancies. This will then be entered into the country’s central Medical Information System (SIM).
Critics question why this data is being collected now, and who will have access to it, pointing out that information about pregnancies is already available in medical records, while some Polish lawyers have claimed that police and prosecutors will be allowed access to the data under certain circumstances.
Mara Clarke of the international group Abortion Without Borders said that while the collection of the information may not appear harmful in itself, against the background of the recent tightening of already very strict abortion laws, the move will only increase fears among women in Poland over their reproductive rights.
She told IPS: “There is a difference between information being gathered in a free, democratic country, and being gathered in a state with a regime suppressing women’s rights. Any talk of a pregnancy register cannot be construed as anything other than an attempt to again attack women’s rights. It will only promote more fear among women.”
Some doctors agree, saying patients have already expressed fears about what the data collection could mean.
Michal Gontkiewicz, a gynaecologist at a district hospital in Plonsk, central Poland, told local TV station TVN 24: “As a tool in itself this is not dangerous, but patients may fear it will be used as a tool of the regime. Women are afraid that if they experience a spontaneous miscarriage, which is already a huge trauma for them, someone will accuse them of terminating the pregnancy, multiplying their trauma.”
The Health Ministry has rejected claims that it is trying to create a ‘pregnancy register’ and said the provision is being implemented as part of requirements to meet EU health regulations on patient data.
A spokesman for the ministry told IPS: “We are not creating any register, only expanding the reporting system based on recommendations of the European Commission. Only medics will have access to the data.
“Information about pregnancy is important for medics, because, for example, pregnant women should not undergo a number of medical procedures, and certain medicinal products cannot be prescribed to them.”
Some local doctors have also sought to play down the significance of the data collection, pointing out that bodies such as state social insurance institutions can already check up on pregnancies and that law enforcement agencies can already access medical data in certain instances if approved by a court.
But with questions over the country’s judiciary – Poland has already been censured by the European Commission over a lack of judicial independence – critics of the provision worry the existence of the register will only make an already bad situation worse.
The Polish rights group, Women’s Strike, claims police are already involved in questioning women whose pregnancies have ended, often after being contacted by angry partners.
“Given the current state of the judicial system in Poland and the threat of investigation in cases of undelivered pregnancies, this raises a lot of concerns,” Wiktoria Magnuszewska, an activist with Lex Q, a Polish LGBT+ advocacy organisation, told IPS.
Before the provision comes into effect, activists are trying to reassure Polish women that the provision does not represent a change to legislation on terminations.
Under Poland’s abortion laws, it is not illegal to have an abortion, but it is illegal to help someone do so. Many women in Poland who want an abortion self-administer pills bought online from abroad, or travel to neighbouring countries with less restrictive legislation, such as Germany and the Czech Republic, for terminations.
“Our Polish helpline has already had a few calls from women concerned about what the situation would be if they wanted an abortion. The good news is that there is no danger that women will no longer be able to self-administer abortions,” said Clarke.
However, the fear of how the ‘pregnancy register’ could be used already appears to be driving Polish women away from the country’s doctors.
Eva Ptaskova of the Ciocia Czesia volunteer organisation in the Czech Republic which helps Polish women access reproductive services, including abortions in local facilities, says her group has already been contacted by clients looking not for terminations, but gynaecologists who will treat them during their pregnancy because they do not want their details recorded in Poland.
She told IPS: “The situation in Poland is beginning to look more and more like something from The Handmaid’s Tale. What we are seeing is women with concerns that this could open the door to investigations of pregnancies that are ‘no longer’.
“This could deter women from seeking medical care, for instance, post-abortion care, which could then be very dangerous to their health. I worry it will get to the point where women will be scared to go to a gynaecologist at all because the information will be recorded that could one day be used against them.”
The large Citizen Action warehouse in downtown Rio de Janeiro is filled with food donated by people in solidarity for distribution to poor and hunger-stricken communities. There are 33.1 million Brazilians suffering from hunger, according to a survey by a network of researchers on the subject. CREDIT: Tânia Rêgo /Agência Brasil
by Mario Osava (rio de janeiro)
Inter Press Service
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 05 (IPS) – A campaign against hunger, a problem that affects 15.5 percent of the Brazilian population, seeks to mobilize society once again in search of urgent solutions, inspired by a mass movement that took off in the country in 1993.
“Now it’s more difficult, hunger has spread throughout the country, in cities where there was none, it has expanded,” said Rodrigo Afonso, executive director of Citizen Action, one of the social organizations spearheading the campaign.
“Besides, society is anesthetized with so many tragedies, exhausted after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, so many losses,” he lamented in an interview with IPS.
And we cannot count on the current government, which in addition to deactivating policies that had been strengthening food security, adopted negative measures, the activist added, saying that for now they are looking towards civil society and companies.
“Brazil feeds one billion people in the world, we provide food security for one-sixth of the world’s population,” President Jair Bolsonaro exaggerated in his speech at the Summit of the Americas on Jun. 10 in Los Angeles, California.
But according to Brazilian agricultural researchers, who made a simple calculation based on the country’s growing grain production, Brazil’s food exports feed 800 million people.
If Brazil accounts for 10 percent of the world’s grain production, about 270 million tons this year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, then it feeds 10 percent of humanity.
The country is the world’s largest producer of soybeans, coffee and sugar, as well as the largest exporter of meat.
A green sea of soy is the landscape in vast areas of Brazil, especially in the midwest and southern regions of the country. They are held up as the “success” of Brazilian agriculture, which, according to President Jair Bolsonaro, feeds one billion people around the world. But paradoxically, 33.1 million Brazilians suffer from hunger. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS
Food for other countries, shortages at home
But the production boasted of by political leaders and large agricultural producers is basically destined for export and livestock feed. Brazilians consume only a small portion of the corn and an even smaller portion of the soybeans the country produces – most of it is exported or used for animal feed.
At the same time, Brazil is a net importer of wheat and beans, key products in the diet of the country’s inhabitants. And the production of rice, another staple, just barely meets domestic demand.
Bolsonaro and his far-right government, closely allied with export agriculture, seek to defend a sector that faces international criticism, due to its association with deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, harassment and mistreatment of indigenous peoples and the overuse of agrochemicals.
Penssan, headed by researchers from universities and other public institutions, but open to all interested parties, released its second National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Jun. 8.
The study based on data collected between November 2021 and April 2022 pointed to a 73 percent increase over the 19.1 million hungry people reported in the first edition, published in late 2020.
In other words, in just over a year of pandemic, the number of people suffering from severe food insecurity or frequent food deprivation increased by 14 million: from nine to 15.5 percent of the Brazilian population, today estimated at 214 million.
The crisis especially affects people in the North and Northeast (the poorest regions), blacks, families headed by women and with children under 10 years of age, and rural and local populations that also suffer from water insecurity. Inequalities have intensified.
Wearing a T-shirt reading “Hunger, the greatest violence”, Herbert de Souza, Betinho (C), is honored as a symbol of the Brazilian fight against hunger. He led a massive campaign starting in 1993 and unleashed a process that allowed Brazil to be removed from the FAO hunger map in 2014. But the country returned to the map in 2018 and hunger worsened with the pandemic and the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2021. CREDIT: Facebook
Reviving the movement against hunger
To face this new emergency situation, Citizen Action called a National Meeting against Hunger, which brought together representatives of social movements, non-governmental organizations and food security councils that operate in the Brazilian states, from Jun. 20 to 23 in Rio de Janeiro.
The meeting approved a letter addressed to the public with a proposal for ten priority measures, ranging from an increase in the national minimum wage to a fair tax reform, the resumption of agrarian reform and the demarcation of indigenous lands, interrupted under the current government, and the restoration of food security policies also abolished under the Bolsonaro administration.
These demands will serve as the basis for the new anti-hunger campaign that will be officially launched in the coming weeks, Afonso announced.
The present outlook is due to the economic crisis Brazil has been suffering since 2015 and the pandemic, aggravated as “a product of recent government decisions, which dismantled food security policies and imposed new contrary measures,” the executive director of Citizen Action told IPS.
The Bolsonaro administration has not raised the minimum wage, for example, merely adjusting it each year to keep up with the official inflation rate. The current inflation rate of 11.73 percent accumulated in the 12 months up to May reduces the purchasing power of the minimum wage month by month.
The minimum wage, set at 1,212 reais (233 dollars) a month for this year, is no longer enough to cover the cost of the basic basket of food and hygiene products for a family of four in the southern city of São Paulo, which currently costs 1,226 reais, according to the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies.
Bolsonaro replaced the Bolsa Familia program with Auxilio Brasil, a stipend of 400 reais (77 dollars) – double the previous amount – to 18 million families, in an attempt to win votes among the poor, a sector in which he is highly unpopular according to polls for the October presidential elections.
But there are “almost three million very poor families” still excluded from the program, who are going hungry, Afonso stressed.
Citizen Action is the non-governmental organization heir to the massive movement unleashed in 1993 by sociologist Herbert de Souza, known as Betinho, which awakened the public to the extent of hunger in the country and mobilized the solidarity of millions of people in municipal, factory, school, neighborhood and community committees.
The campaign, called Citizen Action against Hunger and Poverty and for Life, triggered a process that culminated in the creation of a national food security system, governmental but with broad participation by society in councils at the national, state and municipal levels.
“We still have regional and local committees in all 26 Brazilian states” seeking to collect food donations and mobilize the population to prioritize the fight against hunger, Afonso said.
Many companies support the campaign that will also try to mobilize political leaders, delivering the letter approved at the Meeting against Hunger to all presidential candidates in the October elections, announced the activist, confident in a new awakening of society to the problem, despite the current adverse circumstances.
Presenting the conclusions of her report on the 2030 Agenda, SDGs and the fight against racial discrimination, Ms. Achiume acknowledged that while opening the door to important improvements on earlier development initiatives, more commitments are needed to effectively combat racism.
“Racial justice commitments are largely absent from the operationalization of the SDGs, as seen through the lack of racial disaggregation in the SDG Targets and Indicators,” she said.
“The persistent lack of resources, failure to collect disaggregated data and dearth of political willpower still limit progress toward racial justice in virtually all national and international contexts”.
Entrenched challenges
The Special Rapporteur attributed the entrenched challenges of promoting racial equality and justice through development initiatives, to the “racialised origins” of today’s international development structure.
Citing the deep racial inequalities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, she explained how global economic and financial systems continue to be engines of racially discriminatory “underdevelopment”.
This serious fault has left mainstream international development architecture ill-suited to challenging the status quo, she said.
Relentless cycle of inequity
A vast body of research available, has demonstrated that the international economic, development and financial order has perpetuated human rights problems and economic inequality.
As such, it has served to dismantle social safety nets in the global South and increase the dependency of formerly colonized peoples, she added.
Her report emphasized the urgent need to decolonize global economic, legal, and political systems.
To achieve this goal, international hierarchies must be disrupted and shifted beyond Euro-centric visions, models and means of economic development.
Altering the debate
During her presentation, the Special Rapporteur highlighted racial justice uprisings in 2020, which mobilized the global community and significantly shifted the terms of debate at the United Nations and elsewhere.
She noted that racially and ethnically marginalized employees in particular, were voluntarily taking on institutional anti-racism work – providing vital leadership without compensation.
Ms. Achiume expressed her unwavering support for those actively challenging systemic racism within international institutions.
“For anti-racism initiatives to be successful, institutional leaders must commit necessary resources and political willpower to transformation,” underscored the independent expert.
This can only be achieved by “making institutions more representative of the populations they serve, especially at decision-making levels,” she added.
Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not paid for their work.
UN News
Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism and Racial Discrimination.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Anis Chowdhury (sydney and kuala lumpur)
Inter Press Service
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 05 (IPS) – Long seen as means to seek advantage on the pretext of providing mutual benefit, free trade agreements (FTAs) may increasingly be used as economic weapons in the emerging new Cold War.
Pivot to Asia, containing China
In November 2009, President Obama observed, “in an inter-connected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game… the United States does not seek to contain China”.
Anis ChowdhuryBut Obama soon changed course with his ‘pivot to Asia’, first announced in November 2011. After his re-election in 2012, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) became the economic centrepiece of the new US strategy to check China’s growth and technological progress.
His US Trade Representative (USTR) claimed the TPP was based on principles the US champions, such as protecting intellectual property (IP) and human rights. While claiming all who accept its principles would be welcome to join, China was conspicuously not among countries negotiating the TPP.
For Washington, this new rivalry with China involves strengthened US alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia. In October 2011, the US Congress ratified the Korea-US (KORUS) FTA.
With the military and economic containment of China central to US security strategy, the TPP was concluded in 2015. Obama emphasized, “TPP allows America – and not countries like China – to write the rules of the road in the 21st century.”
Creating an “anyone but China club” was the US motive for establishing the TPP. But with changed public sentiment since Trump’s presidency, once Obama’s loyal Vice-President, now President Biden did not attempt to revive the TPP during his presidential campaign, or since.
Security alliances
“American prosperity and security are challenged by an economic competition playing out in a broader strategic context… We must work with like-minded allies and partners to ensure our principles prevail and the rules are enforced so that our economies prosper”, noted President Trump’s national security strategy.
Jomo Kwame SundaramAccordingly, the ‘Quad’ – Quadrilateral Security Dialogue group for maritime cooperation of the US, Australia, India and Japan, initiated after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – has become a putative anti-China security arrangement.
By 2020, leaders of all four countries were more aligned in their concerns about China’s rise. In November 2020, navies of all four countries participated in their first joint military exercise in over a decade.
Meanwhile, under Shinzo Abe, Japan radically transformed its security policy. Abe has greatly expanded the Japan Self-Defence Forces’ role, mission and capabilities within and beyond the US-Japan alliance, especially in East Asia.
The US security profile in the region has been boosted by the AUKUS (Australia-UK-USA) alliance. Its clear intention is to enhance the US and its allies military presence in the Indo-Pacific, with the greatest ‘China focus’ of all regional security arrangements.
World hegemony
The US is also linking trade to its national security strategy, especially to contain China, in Africa and Latin America. As the USTR notes, “The Biden Administration is conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy toward China as part of its development of its overall China strategy”.
Her office also emphasizes, “Addressing the China challenge will require a comprehensive strategy and more systematic approach than the piecemeal approach of the recent past.”
Reflecting his Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, Biden emphasizes, “The United States must renew its enduring advantages…; modernize our military capabilities…; and revitalize America’s unmatched network of alliances and partnerships”. He notes “growing rivalry with China, Russia… reshaping every aspect of our lives”.
Biden insists his administration “will make sure that the rules of the international economy are not tilted against the United States. We will enforce existing trade rules and create new ones… This agenda will strengthen our enduring advantages, and allow us to prevail in strategic competition with China or any other nation”.
His administration announced a review of all Trump-era trade negotiations. Due to expire in 2025, President Clinton’s African Growth and Opportunity Act has offered enhanced US market access to qualifying African countries since 2000.
In April 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed US-Kenya FTA talks would resume. Observers believe the US-Kenya FTA, initiated by Trump in 2020, would help expand US ‘carrot and stick’ trade and security policies on the continent to counter China.
In the US ‘Monroe doctrine backyard’, six US FTAs already involve 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries. On 8 June, Biden announced a new regional economic partnership to counter China. His speech inaugurated a Summit of the Americas, criticized for omitting countries seen as friendly to China.
Now, five years after Trump withdrew from the TPP, Biden has revived Obama’s China strategy with his own Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Smug, he could not help but echo Obama’s TPP brag, “We’re writing the new rules”.
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