the real world
exposing how greed, corruption, and imperialism impacts the world
and exposes the leaders who benefit
december 10, 2018
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men
Mahatma Gandhi
articles
*British politics has worst record for antisemitism in Europe, poll says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Scandal-plagued Peru to vote on reshaping political system
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*China Is Both the Best and Worst Hope for Clean Energy
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Revealed: the stark evidence of everyday racial bias in Britain
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*People of African descent face 'dire picture' of racism in EU
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Cuban doctors abandon Brazil after attacks by new far-right president, leaving towns with no care
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*NORTH KOREA IGNORING DONALD TRUMP AS NUCLEAR SITE EXPANDS: REPORT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Amazon indigenous groups propose Mexico-sized 'corridor of life'
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*African singer makes persecution of fellow albinos visible
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Gruesome discovery of Czech tiger farm exposes illegal trade in heart of Europe
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Human rights groups call on Canada to end coerced sterilization of indigenous women
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Folks Concerned After China Opens 13th Police Station in South Africa
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Ethiopia Eases Travel With ‘Visa-On-Arrival’ For African Travelers, Encouraging African Unity
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Sierra Leone Cancels $300 Million Chinese Airport Deal, But Will Other African Nations Follow Suit?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
funnies(at the end)
British politics has worst record for antisemitism in Europe, poll says
Nearly a third of Jews in UK say they are thinking of emigrating out of fears for their safety
Daniel Boffey in Brussels
the guardian
Mon 10 Dec 2018 06.16 EST
Four out of five Jews in the UK believe antisemitism is a major problem in British politics, the worst record within the EU, and nearly a third are considering leaving Britain out of fears for their safety, according to the world’s largest survey of Jewish people.
The report from the EU’s agency on fundamental rights has found antisemitic hatred and discrimination on the rise across Europe, with attitudes in France, Germany, Belgium and Poland said to be the most disturbing.
The survey of 16,300 Jewish people in Europe found that almost a third avoid attending events or visiting Jewish sites because they do not feel safe.
In France, 95% of Jews believe antisemitism is a very or fairly big problem, up from 85% when the poll was last run six years ago. Nine out of 10 Jews in France say they had faced expressions of hostility on the street.
The survey of communities in the 12 member states, accounting for 96% of the Jewish population in the EU, further found that on average 41% had considered emigrating to escape because they no longer feel safe.
The results for the UK were peculiar, however, in the high level of concern expressed about the political sphere.
The survey found that 75% of Jewish people in the UK perceived antisemitism to be generally a very big or fairly big problem, up from 48% in 2012, with 29% having considered emigrating.
The poll, though, reported that 84% of Jews surveyed found antisemitism specifically in political life to be a very or fairly big problem, compared with the 12-country average of 70%.
It also found that 89% of British Jews say antisemitism has increased in the six years since the last survey.
The European commissioner for justice, Věra Jourová, told the Guardian the results were a dismal setback for the EU that should be taken up as a challenge by the heads of states and government.
She urged Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour party has battled accusations that it has allowed antisemitism to take hold within its ranks, to take heed of the results.
The Labour leader himself has come under repeated criticism over the issue, not least when a recording emerged this summer of Corbyn addressing an event in 2013, where he angrily accused a group of British Zionists of having no understanding of “English irony”.
Corbyn later issued a clarification, saying he was using the term Zionist in “the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people”.
Asked about Corbyn’s track record, Jourová said: “I always use the phrase ‘Let’s not play with fire’, let’s be aware of what happened in the past. And let’s not make the same mistake of tolerating it. It is not enough just to be silent …
“Every politician must realise that it is also our rhetoric that is influencing and pardoning the bad behaviour of the people who have these tendencies to attack others. We must be more and more careful not to give a blessing.”
Jourová added of the Labour leader: “I read quite a lot of his quotes and a lot of articles and he is trying to get out of this label but, OK, I hope he will pay attention to this survey.
“This is a serious message we have received from the Jewish community,” she said. “We must do everything to let the Jewish communities now that they are not alone in Europe.”
Among the other results, the survey found that nearly half (44%) of Jews in Germany and France have considered emigrating because they do not feel safe.
Nine out of 10 Jews in Poland had been targeted with anti-semitism on the internet and 84% in Belgium reported having experienced antisemitism in their national media.
Across the 12 countries as a whole, 89% said antisemitism is at its worst and most problematic on the internet and social media platforms. Nearly three in four (73%) think hostile behaviour toward Jews in public is a big or very big problem, and 71% believe there is evidence of antisemitism in the media.
In Hungary, where the re-election campaign of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was heavily criticised for encouraging anti-semitism through the demonisation of the philanthropist George Soros, the proportion of Jews who felt that anti-semitic attitudes is a major problem has fallen from 89% in 2012 to 77%.
The European commission’s vice president, Frans Timmermans, nevertheless warned Orbán about the dangers of his rhetoric which he claimed “has led to an anti semitic response in Hungarian society”. Orbán has accused Soros of masterminding an international plot to open Europe’s borders.
“Since prime minister Orbán is so vocal saying he wants to combat anti semitism”, Timmermans said, “I would call upon him to avoid dog whistle words”.
The report from the EU’s agency on fundamental rights has found antisemitic hatred and discrimination on the rise across Europe, with attitudes in France, Germany, Belgium and Poland said to be the most disturbing.
The survey of 16,300 Jewish people in Europe found that almost a third avoid attending events or visiting Jewish sites because they do not feel safe.
In France, 95% of Jews believe antisemitism is a very or fairly big problem, up from 85% when the poll was last run six years ago. Nine out of 10 Jews in France say they had faced expressions of hostility on the street.
The survey of communities in the 12 member states, accounting for 96% of the Jewish population in the EU, further found that on average 41% had considered emigrating to escape because they no longer feel safe.
The results for the UK were peculiar, however, in the high level of concern expressed about the political sphere.
The survey found that 75% of Jewish people in the UK perceived antisemitism to be generally a very big or fairly big problem, up from 48% in 2012, with 29% having considered emigrating.
The poll, though, reported that 84% of Jews surveyed found antisemitism specifically in political life to be a very or fairly big problem, compared with the 12-country average of 70%.
It also found that 89% of British Jews say antisemitism has increased in the six years since the last survey.
The European commissioner for justice, Věra Jourová, told the Guardian the results were a dismal setback for the EU that should be taken up as a challenge by the heads of states and government.
She urged Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour party has battled accusations that it has allowed antisemitism to take hold within its ranks, to take heed of the results.
The Labour leader himself has come under repeated criticism over the issue, not least when a recording emerged this summer of Corbyn addressing an event in 2013, where he angrily accused a group of British Zionists of having no understanding of “English irony”.
Corbyn later issued a clarification, saying he was using the term Zionist in “the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people”.
Asked about Corbyn’s track record, Jourová said: “I always use the phrase ‘Let’s not play with fire’, let’s be aware of what happened in the past. And let’s not make the same mistake of tolerating it. It is not enough just to be silent …
“Every politician must realise that it is also our rhetoric that is influencing and pardoning the bad behaviour of the people who have these tendencies to attack others. We must be more and more careful not to give a blessing.”
Jourová added of the Labour leader: “I read quite a lot of his quotes and a lot of articles and he is trying to get out of this label but, OK, I hope he will pay attention to this survey.
“This is a serious message we have received from the Jewish community,” she said. “We must do everything to let the Jewish communities now that they are not alone in Europe.”
Among the other results, the survey found that nearly half (44%) of Jews in Germany and France have considered emigrating because they do not feel safe.
Nine out of 10 Jews in Poland had been targeted with anti-semitism on the internet and 84% in Belgium reported having experienced antisemitism in their national media.
Across the 12 countries as a whole, 89% said antisemitism is at its worst and most problematic on the internet and social media platforms. Nearly three in four (73%) think hostile behaviour toward Jews in public is a big or very big problem, and 71% believe there is evidence of antisemitism in the media.
In Hungary, where the re-election campaign of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was heavily criticised for encouraging anti-semitism through the demonisation of the philanthropist George Soros, the proportion of Jews who felt that anti-semitic attitudes is a major problem has fallen from 89% in 2012 to 77%.
The European commission’s vice president, Frans Timmermans, nevertheless warned Orbán about the dangers of his rhetoric which he claimed “has led to an anti semitic response in Hungarian society”. Orbán has accused Soros of masterminding an international plot to open Europe’s borders.
“Since prime minister Orbán is so vocal saying he wants to combat anti semitism”, Timmermans said, “I would call upon him to avoid dog whistle words”.
Scandal-plagued Peru to vote on reshaping political system
Referendum could overhaul judiciary and limit lawmakers’ terms as ‘accidental president’ targets corruption
Dan Collyns in Lima
the guardian
Sun 9 Dec 2018 03.00 EST
Peruvians vote on Sunday in a referendum that could empower a sweeping overhaul of the country’s judiciary and a loathed political class following a string of scandals that have laid bare the corruption at the heart of Peru’s public institutions.
The referendum comes at the end of a year of hitherto unimaginable political upsets beginning when the president Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki was forced to resign over corruption allegations in March and followed by the jailing in November of his principal adversary, the powerful opposition leader Keiko Fujimori .
Four former Peruvian presidents are now under investigation for taking bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying out $30m in Peru – just a fraction of the estimated $800m the firm has admitted to handing out as kickbacks across Latin America, making it the continent’s biggest-ever corruption scandal.
Seeing their political leaders in court (and in Fujimori’s case jailed in preventative detention), would have been unthinkable for most Peruvians – who wearily assumed such figures were untouchable.
But after a series of scandals involving crooked judges and double-dealing politicians, public indignation reached boiling point and the country’s “accidental president”, Martín Vizcarra, has become an unexpected people’s champion.
A low-profile former regional governor, Vizcarra was Kuczysnki’s vice-president but has focused on the fight against corruption, a problem that has dominated Latin America’s political agenda.
Sunday’s referendum includes four questions. Voters will be asked if they want to change the skewed system used to appoint judges and prosecutors, to toughen laws on electoral campaign financing – adding criminal penalties – and to limit legislators’ terms by banning immediate re-election to the deeply unpopular congress.
Public disapproval of politicians is so high that a final question to return Peru’s one-chamber legislature to a bicameral system is expected to get a no vote.
“If this government is remembered it will be for fighting against corruption, in theory and in practice, and I stress in practice – because in theory everyone has said they will fight against corruption,” Vizcarra told reporters in October.
Every former president dating back three decades is either being investigated for corruption or has already been jailed, as in the case of Alberto Fujimori, Keiko’s father, whose recently granted medical pardon was revoked in October.
On Monday, Uruguay turned down an asylum request by the two-time former president Alan García, who lived in the ambassador’s residence in Lima for about two weeks pleading “political persecution” after a court barred him from leaving the country. Prosecutors are investigating allegations he took bribes from Odebrecht in his second term, from 2006 to 2011.
Widely reviled since his disastrous first 1985-90 spell, which left the country in economic ruin, García denies accusations he took kickbacks from the firm in return for a contract to build a metro line in Peru’s capital.
The referendum comes at the end of a year of hitherto unimaginable political upsets beginning when the president Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki was forced to resign over corruption allegations in March and followed by the jailing in November of his principal adversary, the powerful opposition leader Keiko Fujimori .
Four former Peruvian presidents are now under investigation for taking bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying out $30m in Peru – just a fraction of the estimated $800m the firm has admitted to handing out as kickbacks across Latin America, making it the continent’s biggest-ever corruption scandal.
Seeing their political leaders in court (and in Fujimori’s case jailed in preventative detention), would have been unthinkable for most Peruvians – who wearily assumed such figures were untouchable.
But after a series of scandals involving crooked judges and double-dealing politicians, public indignation reached boiling point and the country’s “accidental president”, Martín Vizcarra, has become an unexpected people’s champion.
A low-profile former regional governor, Vizcarra was Kuczysnki’s vice-president but has focused on the fight against corruption, a problem that has dominated Latin America’s political agenda.
Sunday’s referendum includes four questions. Voters will be asked if they want to change the skewed system used to appoint judges and prosecutors, to toughen laws on electoral campaign financing – adding criminal penalties – and to limit legislators’ terms by banning immediate re-election to the deeply unpopular congress.
Public disapproval of politicians is so high that a final question to return Peru’s one-chamber legislature to a bicameral system is expected to get a no vote.
“If this government is remembered it will be for fighting against corruption, in theory and in practice, and I stress in practice – because in theory everyone has said they will fight against corruption,” Vizcarra told reporters in October.
Every former president dating back three decades is either being investigated for corruption or has already been jailed, as in the case of Alberto Fujimori, Keiko’s father, whose recently granted medical pardon was revoked in October.
On Monday, Uruguay turned down an asylum request by the two-time former president Alan García, who lived in the ambassador’s residence in Lima for about two weeks pleading “political persecution” after a court barred him from leaving the country. Prosecutors are investigating allegations he took bribes from Odebrecht in his second term, from 2006 to 2011.
Widely reviled since his disastrous first 1985-90 spell, which left the country in economic ruin, García denies accusations he took kickbacks from the firm in return for a contract to build a metro line in Peru’s capital.
China Is Both the Best and Worst Hope for Clean Energy
It burns half the world’s coal but also owns half the world’s electric vehicles and most of its electric buses.
ERIC NIILER - mother jones
DECEMBER 5, 2018 6:00 AM
In Katowice, Poland, delegates from around the world have gathered to discuss how to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. The intent is to meet the goals that emerged from the 2015 Paris United Nations Climate Summit. But this year there’s a new top dog at the table.
The United States, led by a president who doesn’t believe in climate change or the scientists who study it, will take a back seat at this month’s climate summit, known as COP24. Meanwhile China, with its massive economy and growing green energy sector, has become the world’s climate leader.
That might seem like a good thing if it weren’t for a couple of problems. China is the world’s biggest carbon polluter, and its emissions won’t start easing for many years. Chinese leaders are also exporting dirty energy around the world through their “belt and road” development program, which is spurring economic growth throughout Africa and Southeast Asia. A construction boom in coal-fired power plants has accompanied that growth in places like Vietnam, Pakistan and Kenya, for example.
So having China as the big power at a climate summit doesn’t bode well for any new get-tough-on-carbon deals between now and the end of the meeting on Dec. 14, experts say. “The negotiations abhor a vacuum,” says Andrew Light, senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and a former climate negotiator in the Obama administration. “The US is not showing leadership, so China steps in.”
The latest round of climate negotiations (held in the capital of Poland’s coal-producing region of Silesia) are focused on the technical issues of how best to measure and verify each country’s stated emissions reductions. Even though the negotiations are held under the flag of the United Nations, there’s no real carbon police out there. So it’s up to each country to self-report their carbon dioxide emissions from factories, automobile tailpipe emissions and other sources that end up forming a warming blanket in the Earth’s atmosphere. Those numbers are then fact-checked by other nations and NGOs.
A major report released in October by a panel of the world’s leading scientists says that the planet will experience severe environmental damage—wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and floods—that could top $54 trillion by 2040 unless there’s a big downward shift in carbon dioxide emissions. That’s going to require every nation to make changes, as well as individual cities, states and businesses.
“It will require things that are more aggressive, like shutting down existing power plants and by 2030, we probably need to reduce global coal power production by 70 or 80 percent,” says Nathan Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.
Hultman, who worked on climate issues in the Obama White House, says the solutions may be politically impossible for now. “Are we doing enough quickly enough?,” he said. “The answer is probably no. At the same time, we have to ask, how do we ramp up contributions toward limiting emissions.”
Still, Hultman and others see progress, and they see China as both a cause of the problem and a potential solution. China burns half the world’s coal and has added 40 percent of the world’s coal capacity since 2002. More than 4.3 million Chinese people work in coal mines, compared to 76,000 in the US (that’s fewer employees than work at Arby’s or in radio).
While China is gaga for coal, it also is more green than anyone else. China owns half the world’s electric vehicles and 99 percent of the world’s electric buses. One quarter of its electricity comes from renewable power like solar or wind. Its cheap silicon panels have driven down the price of solar energy worldwide, and Chinese manufacturers are now starting to export EV batteries to automakers in Europe, Asia and the U.S.
For Chinese leaders, boosting global green energy isn’t a moral issue, it’s an economic one, according to Jonas Nahm, assistant professor of energy, resources, and environment at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “It doesn’t come from an altruistic place,” Nahm said. “They are doing this as an economic development strategy.”
Nahm has been studying the disconnect between green energy targets announced by party leaders in Beijing, and the actions of local leaders in China’s far-flung provinces. He found that up to 40 percent of renewable energy is wasted because there’s no national power market in China. That means that wind and solar power generated in one province can’t be sent to an adjacent province, so more coal plants are fired up even if there’s cheaper green energy next door.
But China’s reliance on dirty coal has come back to haunt its own citizens, according to Nahm. “The air pollution crisis is a reason to get away from coal,” he said. “That’s the first environmental crisis that’s pushed the government to act, and then the impact of climate change. There’s desertification, water shortages, giant dust storms and some of these problems are getting more severe.”
Nahm and the other experts believe that China is headed in the right direction on climate change, but its economy is so big and so dependent on coal that it takes a while to get there. As for the climate summit in Poland, it’s possible that China might try to wiggle out of meeting even tougher new climate commitments, even as it becomes the biggest nation supporting the UN Paris agreement goals. President Trump said he plans to walk away from the Paris agreement; the earliest he can do that is in 2020.
There’s also the issue of checking up on each country’s measurements. Before the Paris agreement, China was considered a “developing” nation subject to less-stringent reporting requirements. That changed after 2015. But without a strong US influence to check it today, China might try to loosen the bookkeeping, says Samantha Gross, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
“What will the reporting requirements be and how will they be verified,” said Gross. “That’s what the negotiators will be duking out in Poland. I’m curious to see how far they get.”
As for China, Gross says they hold the cards for the world’s climate future. “We’re all gonna fry if they don’t do something.”
The United States, led by a president who doesn’t believe in climate change or the scientists who study it, will take a back seat at this month’s climate summit, known as COP24. Meanwhile China, with its massive economy and growing green energy sector, has become the world’s climate leader.
That might seem like a good thing if it weren’t for a couple of problems. China is the world’s biggest carbon polluter, and its emissions won’t start easing for many years. Chinese leaders are also exporting dirty energy around the world through their “belt and road” development program, which is spurring economic growth throughout Africa and Southeast Asia. A construction boom in coal-fired power plants has accompanied that growth in places like Vietnam, Pakistan and Kenya, for example.
So having China as the big power at a climate summit doesn’t bode well for any new get-tough-on-carbon deals between now and the end of the meeting on Dec. 14, experts say. “The negotiations abhor a vacuum,” says Andrew Light, senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and a former climate negotiator in the Obama administration. “The US is not showing leadership, so China steps in.”
The latest round of climate negotiations (held in the capital of Poland’s coal-producing region of Silesia) are focused on the technical issues of how best to measure and verify each country’s stated emissions reductions. Even though the negotiations are held under the flag of the United Nations, there’s no real carbon police out there. So it’s up to each country to self-report their carbon dioxide emissions from factories, automobile tailpipe emissions and other sources that end up forming a warming blanket in the Earth’s atmosphere. Those numbers are then fact-checked by other nations and NGOs.
A major report released in October by a panel of the world’s leading scientists says that the planet will experience severe environmental damage—wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and floods—that could top $54 trillion by 2040 unless there’s a big downward shift in carbon dioxide emissions. That’s going to require every nation to make changes, as well as individual cities, states and businesses.
“It will require things that are more aggressive, like shutting down existing power plants and by 2030, we probably need to reduce global coal power production by 70 or 80 percent,” says Nathan Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.
Hultman, who worked on climate issues in the Obama White House, says the solutions may be politically impossible for now. “Are we doing enough quickly enough?,” he said. “The answer is probably no. At the same time, we have to ask, how do we ramp up contributions toward limiting emissions.”
Still, Hultman and others see progress, and they see China as both a cause of the problem and a potential solution. China burns half the world’s coal and has added 40 percent of the world’s coal capacity since 2002. More than 4.3 million Chinese people work in coal mines, compared to 76,000 in the US (that’s fewer employees than work at Arby’s or in radio).
While China is gaga for coal, it also is more green than anyone else. China owns half the world’s electric vehicles and 99 percent of the world’s electric buses. One quarter of its electricity comes from renewable power like solar or wind. Its cheap silicon panels have driven down the price of solar energy worldwide, and Chinese manufacturers are now starting to export EV batteries to automakers in Europe, Asia and the U.S.
For Chinese leaders, boosting global green energy isn’t a moral issue, it’s an economic one, according to Jonas Nahm, assistant professor of energy, resources, and environment at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “It doesn’t come from an altruistic place,” Nahm said. “They are doing this as an economic development strategy.”
Nahm has been studying the disconnect between green energy targets announced by party leaders in Beijing, and the actions of local leaders in China’s far-flung provinces. He found that up to 40 percent of renewable energy is wasted because there’s no national power market in China. That means that wind and solar power generated in one province can’t be sent to an adjacent province, so more coal plants are fired up even if there’s cheaper green energy next door.
But China’s reliance on dirty coal has come back to haunt its own citizens, according to Nahm. “The air pollution crisis is a reason to get away from coal,” he said. “That’s the first environmental crisis that’s pushed the government to act, and then the impact of climate change. There’s desertification, water shortages, giant dust storms and some of these problems are getting more severe.”
Nahm and the other experts believe that China is headed in the right direction on climate change, but its economy is so big and so dependent on coal that it takes a while to get there. As for the climate summit in Poland, it’s possible that China might try to wiggle out of meeting even tougher new climate commitments, even as it becomes the biggest nation supporting the UN Paris agreement goals. President Trump said he plans to walk away from the Paris agreement; the earliest he can do that is in 2020.
There’s also the issue of checking up on each country’s measurements. Before the Paris agreement, China was considered a “developing” nation subject to less-stringent reporting requirements. That changed after 2015. But without a strong US influence to check it today, China might try to loosen the bookkeeping, says Samantha Gross, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
“What will the reporting requirements be and how will they be verified,” said Gross. “That’s what the negotiators will be duking out in Poland. I’m curious to see how far they get.”
As for China, Gross says they hold the cards for the world’s climate future. “We’re all gonna fry if they don’t do something.”
JUST LIKE THE u.S., THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED IN 400 years!!!
Revealed: the stark evidence of everyday racial bias in Britain
Poll commissioned to launch series on unconscious bias shows gulf in negative experiences by ethnicity
Robert Booth and Aamna Mohdin
the guarddian
Sun 2 Dec 2018 13.00 EST
The extent of racial bias faced by black, Asian and minority ethnic citizens in 21st-century Britain has been laid bare in an unprecedented study showing a gulf in how people of different ethnicities are treated in their daily lives.
A survey for the Guardian of 1,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds found they were consistently more likely to have faced negative everyday experiences – all frequently associated with racism – than white people in a comparison poll.
The survey found that 43% of those from a minority ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience.
The results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain has a problem with racism.
The ICM poll, commissioned to launch a week-long investigation into bias in Britain, focuses on everyday experiences of prejudice that could be a result of unconscious bias – quick decisions conditioned by our backgrounds, cultural environment and personal experiences.
It is believed to be the first major piece of UK public polling to focus on ethnic minorities’ experiences of unconscious bias, and comes amid wider concerns about a shortage of research capturing the views of minority groups.
The poll found comprehensive evidence to support concerns that unconscious bias has a negative effect on the lives of Britain’s 8.5 million people from minority backgrounds that is not revealed by typical data on racism. For example:
• *38% of people from ethnic minorities said they had been wrongly suspected of shoplifting in the last five years, compared with 14% of white people, with black people and women in particular more likely to be wrongly suspected.
• *Minorities were more than twice as likely to have encountered abuse or rudeness from a stranger in the last week.
• *53% of people from a minority background believed they had been treated differently because of their hair, clothes or appearance, compared with 29% of white people.
The Runnymede Trust, a racial equality thinktank, described the findings as “stark” and said they illustrated “everyday micro-aggressions” that had profound effects on Britain’s social structure.
“Racism and discrimination for BAME people and minority faith groups isn’t restricted to one area of life,” said Zubaida Haque, the trust’s deputy director. “If you’re not welcome in a restaurant as a guest because of the colour of your skin, you’re unlikely to get a job in the restaurant for the same reason. Structural and institutional racism is difficult to identify or prove, but it has much more far-reaching effects on people’s life chances.”
David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said the findings were upsetting. “Racial prejudice continues to weigh on the lives of black and ethnic minority people in the UK. While we all share the same hard-won rights, our lived experience and opportunity can vary,” he said.
Recalling being stopped and searched when he was 12, Lammy said: “Stereotyping is not just something that happens, stereotyping is something that is felt, and it feels like sheer terror, confusion and shame.”
Half of the respondents from a minority background said they believed people sometimes did not realise they were treating them differently because of their ethnicity, suggesting unconscious bias, as well as more explicit and deliberate racism, has a major influence on the way millions of people who were born in the UK or moved here are treated.
As well as demonstrating how much more likely ethnic minorities are to report negative experiences that did not feature an explicitly racist element, the poll found that one in eight had heard racist language directed at them in the month before they were surveyed.
It also found troubling levels of concern about bias in the workplace, with 57% of minorities saying they felt they had to work harder to succeed in Britain because of their ethnicity, and 40% saying they earned less or had worse employment prospects for the same reason.
The poll persistently found evidence that the gap in negative experiences was not confined to the past. For example, one in seven people from ethnic minorities said they had been treated as a potential shoplifter in the last month, against one in 25 white people.
The findings come a year after Theresa May published a race disparity audit that identified differences in living standards, housing, work, policing and health. The prime minister pledged to “confront these issues we have identified” but admitted: “We still have a way to go if we’re truly going to have a country that does work for everyone.”
In October the government said employers could be forced to reveal salary figures broken down by ethnicity, as they already do for gender, in a move that lawyers predicted could lead to a flood of employment tribunal cases. Black, Asian and minority ethnic unemployment stands at 6.3%, compared with 3.6% for white people.
Bangladeshi and Pakistani households had an average income of nearly £9,000 a year less than white British households between 2014 and 2016, and the gap between white and black Caribbean and black British families was £5,500.
One of the few positive findings was that just over half of those surveyed said they had either never experienced someone directing racist language at them, or had not done so for at least five years.
However, the results raise concerns over efforts to forge a multicultural British identity, with 41% saying someone had assumed they were not British at some point in the last year because of their ethnicity.
People from minorities are twice as likely as white people to have been mistaken for staff in a restaurant, bar or shop. One in five said they had felt the need to alter their voice and appearance in the last year because of their ethnicity.
The effects of bias are not the same for all ethnicities. Half of black and mixed-race people felt they had been unfairly overlooked for a promotion or job application, compared with 41% of people from Asian backgrounds. Black people were more likely to feel they had to work harder to succeed because of their ethnicity.
Muslims living in Britain – a large minority at around 2.8 million people – are more likely to have negative experiences than other religious groups. They are more likely than Christians, people with no religion and other smaller religions to be stopped by the police, left out of social functions at work or college and find that people seem not to want to sit next to them on public transport.
A government spokesperson said the prime minister was determined that people of different ethnicities were treated equally. The spokesperson said: “One year on from [the race disparity audit’s] launch, we are delivering on our commitment to explain or change ethnic disparities in all areas of society including a £90m programme to help tackle youth unemployment and a Race at Work charter to help create greater opportunities for ethnic minority employees at work. We have also launched a consultation on mandatory ethnicity pay reporting.”
A survey for the Guardian of 1,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds found they were consistently more likely to have faced negative everyday experiences – all frequently associated with racism – than white people in a comparison poll.
The survey found that 43% of those from a minority ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience.
The results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain has a problem with racism.
The ICM poll, commissioned to launch a week-long investigation into bias in Britain, focuses on everyday experiences of prejudice that could be a result of unconscious bias – quick decisions conditioned by our backgrounds, cultural environment and personal experiences.
It is believed to be the first major piece of UK public polling to focus on ethnic minorities’ experiences of unconscious bias, and comes amid wider concerns about a shortage of research capturing the views of minority groups.
The poll found comprehensive evidence to support concerns that unconscious bias has a negative effect on the lives of Britain’s 8.5 million people from minority backgrounds that is not revealed by typical data on racism. For example:
• *38% of people from ethnic minorities said they had been wrongly suspected of shoplifting in the last five years, compared with 14% of white people, with black people and women in particular more likely to be wrongly suspected.
• *Minorities were more than twice as likely to have encountered abuse or rudeness from a stranger in the last week.
• *53% of people from a minority background believed they had been treated differently because of their hair, clothes or appearance, compared with 29% of white people.
The Runnymede Trust, a racial equality thinktank, described the findings as “stark” and said they illustrated “everyday micro-aggressions” that had profound effects on Britain’s social structure.
“Racism and discrimination for BAME people and minority faith groups isn’t restricted to one area of life,” said Zubaida Haque, the trust’s deputy director. “If you’re not welcome in a restaurant as a guest because of the colour of your skin, you’re unlikely to get a job in the restaurant for the same reason. Structural and institutional racism is difficult to identify or prove, but it has much more far-reaching effects on people’s life chances.”
David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said the findings were upsetting. “Racial prejudice continues to weigh on the lives of black and ethnic minority people in the UK. While we all share the same hard-won rights, our lived experience and opportunity can vary,” he said.
Recalling being stopped and searched when he was 12, Lammy said: “Stereotyping is not just something that happens, stereotyping is something that is felt, and it feels like sheer terror, confusion and shame.”
Half of the respondents from a minority background said they believed people sometimes did not realise they were treating them differently because of their ethnicity, suggesting unconscious bias, as well as more explicit and deliberate racism, has a major influence on the way millions of people who were born in the UK or moved here are treated.
As well as demonstrating how much more likely ethnic minorities are to report negative experiences that did not feature an explicitly racist element, the poll found that one in eight had heard racist language directed at them in the month before they were surveyed.
It also found troubling levels of concern about bias in the workplace, with 57% of minorities saying they felt they had to work harder to succeed in Britain because of their ethnicity, and 40% saying they earned less or had worse employment prospects for the same reason.
The poll persistently found evidence that the gap in negative experiences was not confined to the past. For example, one in seven people from ethnic minorities said they had been treated as a potential shoplifter in the last month, against one in 25 white people.
The findings come a year after Theresa May published a race disparity audit that identified differences in living standards, housing, work, policing and health. The prime minister pledged to “confront these issues we have identified” but admitted: “We still have a way to go if we’re truly going to have a country that does work for everyone.”
In October the government said employers could be forced to reveal salary figures broken down by ethnicity, as they already do for gender, in a move that lawyers predicted could lead to a flood of employment tribunal cases. Black, Asian and minority ethnic unemployment stands at 6.3%, compared with 3.6% for white people.
Bangladeshi and Pakistani households had an average income of nearly £9,000 a year less than white British households between 2014 and 2016, and the gap between white and black Caribbean and black British families was £5,500.
One of the few positive findings was that just over half of those surveyed said they had either never experienced someone directing racist language at them, or had not done so for at least five years.
However, the results raise concerns over efforts to forge a multicultural British identity, with 41% saying someone had assumed they were not British at some point in the last year because of their ethnicity.
People from minorities are twice as likely as white people to have been mistaken for staff in a restaurant, bar or shop. One in five said they had felt the need to alter their voice and appearance in the last year because of their ethnicity.
The effects of bias are not the same for all ethnicities. Half of black and mixed-race people felt they had been unfairly overlooked for a promotion or job application, compared with 41% of people from Asian backgrounds. Black people were more likely to feel they had to work harder to succeed because of their ethnicity.
Muslims living in Britain – a large minority at around 2.8 million people – are more likely to have negative experiences than other religious groups. They are more likely than Christians, people with no religion and other smaller religions to be stopped by the police, left out of social functions at work or college and find that people seem not to want to sit next to them on public transport.
A government spokesperson said the prime minister was determined that people of different ethnicities were treated equally. The spokesperson said: “One year on from [the race disparity audit’s] launch, we are delivering on our commitment to explain or change ethnic disparities in all areas of society including a £90m programme to help tackle youth unemployment and a Race at Work charter to help create greater opportunities for ethnic minority employees at work. We have also launched a consultation on mandatory ethnicity pay reporting.”
Dutch trains to compensate descendants of Jews deported to Nazi camps
dw.com
11/28/18
A postcard of the Dutch railway from 1934
|
The transit camp Westerbork is today a museum
|
The Netherlands state-owned train company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), will compensate individuals whose Jewish relatives were deported on its trains to concentration and extermination camps when the country was under Nazi-German occupation during World War II.
Announced Tuesday on the nightly public television news show, the decision marks the first time that the train company will pay damages to individual descendants of Holocaust victims. Previously the NS had donated money to various remembrance projects.
"We have jointly decided … to found a committee," NS President Roger van Boxtel said. "This committee will find out how we can arrange financial aid to those affected."
The number of individuals to receive compensation, as well as the total to be paid out, remains unknown.
Millions made from transporting Jews
Following the occupation of the Netherland by Nazi troops in May 1940, the NS followed orders to deport Jews to the transit camp Westerbork. Around 107,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were sent there before eventually being transported to other concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz and Sobibor.
The Nazis paid the state train company for transporting the Jews.
"The NS adhered to a German command to make trains available. The Germans paid for this and the NS had to make sure that the trains ran on time," Dirk Mulder of the Centre for Memory at Westerbork told national broadcaster NOS.
According to national broadcaster, the NS took in a rough profit of present-day €2.5 million ($2.8 million) under Nazi occupation for operating the trains.
The NS officially apologized for its role in 2005 for its role in the WWII deportations of Jews.
Only around 30,000 of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands at the start of WWII survived the war.
Demand for damages granted
The Dutch railway firm's decision to compensate descendants of deportees was the result of a confrontation between the train company and Salo Muller, a former physical therapist for the Ajax Amsterdam soccer club.
Both of Muller's parents were sent first to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz, where they were killed. He had argued that the NS profited from the transport of Jews and since 2017 has pushed for indiviudal compensation.
"For me, this [decision] means that the NS realizes that the suffering of many Jews has not ended," Muller said. "That's why I am happy the NS recognizes that it will be paid out for moral reasons."
Announced Tuesday on the nightly public television news show, the decision marks the first time that the train company will pay damages to individual descendants of Holocaust victims. Previously the NS had donated money to various remembrance projects.
"We have jointly decided … to found a committee," NS President Roger van Boxtel said. "This committee will find out how we can arrange financial aid to those affected."
The number of individuals to receive compensation, as well as the total to be paid out, remains unknown.
Millions made from transporting Jews
Following the occupation of the Netherland by Nazi troops in May 1940, the NS followed orders to deport Jews to the transit camp Westerbork. Around 107,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were sent there before eventually being transported to other concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz and Sobibor.
The Nazis paid the state train company for transporting the Jews.
"The NS adhered to a German command to make trains available. The Germans paid for this and the NS had to make sure that the trains ran on time," Dirk Mulder of the Centre for Memory at Westerbork told national broadcaster NOS.
According to national broadcaster, the NS took in a rough profit of present-day €2.5 million ($2.8 million) under Nazi occupation for operating the trains.
The NS officially apologized for its role in 2005 for its role in the WWII deportations of Jews.
Only around 30,000 of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands at the start of WWII survived the war.
Demand for damages granted
The Dutch railway firm's decision to compensate descendants of deportees was the result of a confrontation between the train company and Salo Muller, a former physical therapist for the Ajax Amsterdam soccer club.
Both of Muller's parents were sent first to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz, where they were killed. He had argued that the NS profited from the transport of Jews and since 2017 has pushed for indiviudal compensation.
"For me, this [decision] means that the NS realizes that the suffering of many Jews has not ended," Muller said. "That's why I am happy the NS recognizes that it will be paid out for moral reasons."
People of African descent face 'dire picture' of racism in EU
Almost a third of people of African descent have experienced racial harassment in past five years, survey finds
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
the guardian
Wed 28 Nov 2018 00.00 EST
Almost a third of people of African descent polled in a new EU survey say they have experienced racial harassment in the last five years, a report that claims racial discrimination is “commonplace” across 12 European countries reveals.
People of African descent face “a dire picture” of discrimination in housing, the workplace and everyday life, the survey of 5,803 people by the European Union’s fundamental rights agency states.
Perceived racial harassment, such as offensive gestures, comments or threats, was highest in Finland (63%) and Luxembourg (52%) and least prevalent in the UK (21%) and Malta (20%).
One in 20 respondents said they had been a victim of a physical attack in the last five years, ranging from 14% in Finland to 2% in Portugal. The figure was 3% for the UK.
“The survey paints a dire picture of the reality on the ground,” said the agency’s director, Michael O’Flaherty, in a preface to the report. Referring to the EU’s 2000 racial equality directive, he said: “Almost 20 years after adoption of EU laws forbidding discrimination, people of African descent face widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion.”
O’Flaherty wrote that: “Racial discrimination and harassment are commonplace,” adding that discriminatory profiling by the police is “a common reality”.
Most people who took the survey were first and second-generation immigrants, who come from, or have at least one parent from a sub-Saharan African country. The study also includes people from British and French overseas territories, including the Caribbean.
It does not, however, include black Europeans whose families have been settled in Europe for three or more generations, because most EU countries do not collect such data – a gap the agency is urging governments to remedy.
“We do not claim that we represent the experience of all black people in the European Union,” said Rossalina Latcheva, one of the report’s authors. The agency was convinced, she said, that “these results are indicative for experiences of different people of African descent also from third or fourth generation, fifth generation”.
The report will be launched in the European parliament on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Italian politician Cécile Kyenge, one of only three black MEPs in the 751-strong assembly. The MEP has argued that the EU has a gap in its equality strategy and has drafted a non-binding resolution to promote equality for an estimated 15 million people of African descent in the EU. Her text will be voted on next week.
The latest survey lays bare the extent of the task. One in 10 respondents said that racial discrimination had stopped them from renting an apartment or house, with a wide variation between countries: 37% reported this experience in Italy and 28% in Luxembourg, compared with 3% in the UK.
In the labour market, people of African descent with a degree were almost twice as likely to work in low-skill occupations than the general population.
Being stopped by the police was also a big concern. One in 10 respondents said they had been stopped by the police in the year before the survey. Nearly half of those people saw that action as racially motivated, but this rose to 70% in Italy. While a majority of respondents trusted the police, trust fell when police stops were deemed to be racially targeted.
The agency said one “particularly unsettling finding” was that younger people tended to report worse discrimination than older respondents.
Muslim women of African descent wearing a headscarf or face veil also reported discrimination in the year before the survey: 27% said they had experienced inappropriate staring or offensive gestures, while 15% reported verbal assaults and 2% said they had been victims of physical attacks.
People of African descent face “a dire picture” of discrimination in housing, the workplace and everyday life, the survey of 5,803 people by the European Union’s fundamental rights agency states.
Perceived racial harassment, such as offensive gestures, comments or threats, was highest in Finland (63%) and Luxembourg (52%) and least prevalent in the UK (21%) and Malta (20%).
One in 20 respondents said they had been a victim of a physical attack in the last five years, ranging from 14% in Finland to 2% in Portugal. The figure was 3% for the UK.
“The survey paints a dire picture of the reality on the ground,” said the agency’s director, Michael O’Flaherty, in a preface to the report. Referring to the EU’s 2000 racial equality directive, he said: “Almost 20 years after adoption of EU laws forbidding discrimination, people of African descent face widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion.”
O’Flaherty wrote that: “Racial discrimination and harassment are commonplace,” adding that discriminatory profiling by the police is “a common reality”.
Most people who took the survey were first and second-generation immigrants, who come from, or have at least one parent from a sub-Saharan African country. The study also includes people from British and French overseas territories, including the Caribbean.
It does not, however, include black Europeans whose families have been settled in Europe for three or more generations, because most EU countries do not collect such data – a gap the agency is urging governments to remedy.
“We do not claim that we represent the experience of all black people in the European Union,” said Rossalina Latcheva, one of the report’s authors. The agency was convinced, she said, that “these results are indicative for experiences of different people of African descent also from third or fourth generation, fifth generation”.
The report will be launched in the European parliament on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Italian politician Cécile Kyenge, one of only three black MEPs in the 751-strong assembly. The MEP has argued that the EU has a gap in its equality strategy and has drafted a non-binding resolution to promote equality for an estimated 15 million people of African descent in the EU. Her text will be voted on next week.
The latest survey lays bare the extent of the task. One in 10 respondents said that racial discrimination had stopped them from renting an apartment or house, with a wide variation between countries: 37% reported this experience in Italy and 28% in Luxembourg, compared with 3% in the UK.
In the labour market, people of African descent with a degree were almost twice as likely to work in low-skill occupations than the general population.
Being stopped by the police was also a big concern. One in 10 respondents said they had been stopped by the police in the year before the survey. Nearly half of those people saw that action as racially motivated, but this rose to 70% in Italy. While a majority of respondents trusted the police, trust fell when police stops were deemed to be racially targeted.
The agency said one “particularly unsettling finding” was that younger people tended to report worse discrimination than older respondents.
Muslim women of African descent wearing a headscarf or face veil also reported discrimination in the year before the survey: 27% said they had experienced inappropriate staring or offensive gestures, while 15% reported verbal assaults and 2% said they had been victims of physical attacks.
Cuban doctors abandon Brazil after attacks by new far-right president, leaving towns with no care
Reuters - raw story
22 NOV 2018 AT 22:11 ET
The first of thousands of Cuban doctors left Brazil on Thursday after criticism by Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro prompted Cuba’s government to sever a cooperation agreement, leaving millions of Brazilians without medical care.
Bolsonaro said the Cuban doctors were being used as “slave labor” because the Cuban government took 75 percent of their salaries. He said the program that began in 2013 could only continue if they got full pay and were allowed to bring their families from Cuba.
Bolsonaro, an admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, was elected last month by Brazilians fed up with rising crime and rampant corruption that reached new highs during almost a decade and a half of leftist governments with close ties to Cuba.
The Cubans practiced mostly in poor and remote areas of Brazil where Brazilian doctors do not want to work. The government is now scrambling to replace them in 8,332 positions left vacant by the sudden departures of the Cubans.
Cuba has a respected health service and generates major export earnings by sending more than 50,000 health workers to more than 60 countries. Even receiving a fraction of their salaries, the money was good for the doctors by Cuban standards.
As they lined up to check in at the Brasilia airport, many had large mainly 49-inch smart TVs packaged to take home to communist-run Cuba, where such imported sets are very expensive.
“I will be happy to see my children but sad to leave people without medical care,” said Lume Rodriguez, a general practitioner who spent two years in the interior of Bahia state.
“Our patients came to hug us goodbye,” said Rafael Sosa, 32, from Granma province in eastern Cuba. “I visited many patients here who had never had a doctor in their home.”
In many Brazilian towns and the outskirts of cities that relied on the Cuban doctors, usually crowded waiting rooms at public health posts were empty this week and notices said appointments had been canceled until further notice.
Adrielly Rodrigues, a pregnant 22-year-old, was turned away on Wednesday when she went for a pre-natal scan in Santa Maria, a town near the capital Brasilia.
“We are so worried because we don’t have the money to pay for a private doctor and she is five months pregnant and still needs to be monitored and have tests,” said her mother, Adriana Rodrigues.
A national lobby of mayors, the FNP, and the municipal health authorities council Conasems said in a statement that 29 million Brazilians could be left without basic healthcare. They urged the government to make it possible for the Cubans to stay.
Bolsonaro, who takes office on Jan. 1, said last week he would grant asylum to any Cuban who asks for it, escalating tensions with Havana. He said Cuban doctors were not qualified and would have to take exams to practice in Brazil.
The Health Ministry plans next week to waive a requirement that Cubans validate their medical diploma in Brazil so that they can continue working directly contracted by the Brazilian government and not through the Pan-American Health Organization.
It is not clear how many Cubans will want to break with their communist-run government’s doctors-for-export program, which is present in about 60 countries, especially if they have children in Cuba since it would be tantamount to defecting.
Brazil plans to fill the medical vacuum with local hires. In just two days since registration opened, 3.648 Brazilians have been selected to fill the empty posts, a ministry spokesman said, but those replacements are mainly in large urban areas.
One Cuban who will be staying in Brazil is Richel Collazo, who was so liked in the small town of Chapada in southern Brazil that the mayor asked him to become municipal health secretary.
“My town needs doctors and he has been key to our medical care,” Mayor Carlos Catto said by telephone.
Bolsonaro said the Cuban doctors were being used as “slave labor” because the Cuban government took 75 percent of their salaries. He said the program that began in 2013 could only continue if they got full pay and were allowed to bring their families from Cuba.
Bolsonaro, an admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, was elected last month by Brazilians fed up with rising crime and rampant corruption that reached new highs during almost a decade and a half of leftist governments with close ties to Cuba.
The Cubans practiced mostly in poor and remote areas of Brazil where Brazilian doctors do not want to work. The government is now scrambling to replace them in 8,332 positions left vacant by the sudden departures of the Cubans.
Cuba has a respected health service and generates major export earnings by sending more than 50,000 health workers to more than 60 countries. Even receiving a fraction of their salaries, the money was good for the doctors by Cuban standards.
As they lined up to check in at the Brasilia airport, many had large mainly 49-inch smart TVs packaged to take home to communist-run Cuba, where such imported sets are very expensive.
“I will be happy to see my children but sad to leave people without medical care,” said Lume Rodriguez, a general practitioner who spent two years in the interior of Bahia state.
“Our patients came to hug us goodbye,” said Rafael Sosa, 32, from Granma province in eastern Cuba. “I visited many patients here who had never had a doctor in their home.”
In many Brazilian towns and the outskirts of cities that relied on the Cuban doctors, usually crowded waiting rooms at public health posts were empty this week and notices said appointments had been canceled until further notice.
Adrielly Rodrigues, a pregnant 22-year-old, was turned away on Wednesday when she went for a pre-natal scan in Santa Maria, a town near the capital Brasilia.
“We are so worried because we don’t have the money to pay for a private doctor and she is five months pregnant and still needs to be monitored and have tests,” said her mother, Adriana Rodrigues.
A national lobby of mayors, the FNP, and the municipal health authorities council Conasems said in a statement that 29 million Brazilians could be left without basic healthcare. They urged the government to make it possible for the Cubans to stay.
Bolsonaro, who takes office on Jan. 1, said last week he would grant asylum to any Cuban who asks for it, escalating tensions with Havana. He said Cuban doctors were not qualified and would have to take exams to practice in Brazil.
The Health Ministry plans next week to waive a requirement that Cubans validate their medical diploma in Brazil so that they can continue working directly contracted by the Brazilian government and not through the Pan-American Health Organization.
It is not clear how many Cubans will want to break with their communist-run government’s doctors-for-export program, which is present in about 60 countries, especially if they have children in Cuba since it would be tantamount to defecting.
Brazil plans to fill the medical vacuum with local hires. In just two days since registration opened, 3.648 Brazilians have been selected to fill the empty posts, a ministry spokesman said, but those replacements are mainly in large urban areas.
One Cuban who will be staying in Brazil is Richel Collazo, who was so liked in the small town of Chapada in southern Brazil that the mayor asked him to become municipal health secretary.
“My town needs doctors and he has been key to our medical care,” Mayor Carlos Catto said by telephone.
NORTH KOREA IGNORING DONALD TRUMP AS NUCLEAR SITE EXPANDS: REPORT
BY DAVID BRENNAN ON - newsweek
11/23/18 AT 6:06 AM
An international nuclear watchdog has warned that North Korea shows no signs of winding down activity at its main nuclear research site, despite President Donald Trump’s assurances the country was moving towards denuclearization.
The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a statement Thursday noting the North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility remains operational and even shows signs of expansion, Reuters reported.
Yongbyon is believed to be the facility that provides the fissile material for North Korea’s nuclear bombs. Pyongyang is believed to have enough material for around 60 devices as per U.S. intelligence estimates from 2017, according to ABC News.
The new IAEA statement noted that new components now appear to have been brought into Yongbyon for use in a light-water reactor being built there.
IAEA head Yukiya Amano explained: “At the light water reactor, the agency also observed activities consistent with the fabrication of reactor components and the possible transfer of these components into the reactor building,” reporting on the period since August.
The country has thus far conducted six nuclear tests, the most recent of which took place in September 2017. The regime has since frozen the test program, first amid diplomatic tensions with South Korea and the U.S. and more recently alongside an unexpected thaw in relations between the two sides.
At the historic summit between Pissident Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, both leaders signed an agreement to move towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and a lasting peace. But the document was roundly dismissed as too vague and lacking in detail.
Though Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly assured the international community—at least in public—that Pyongyang will move to denuclearize, material results have been elusive.
The president rates the North Korean summit as one of his great foreign policy achievements, but many observers and opponents believe Trump was played by Kim—handing the young dictator a priceless propaganda coup and offering to halt U.S.-South Korea military exercises for nothing in return.
There have been multiple follow-up meetings between U.S. and North Korean officials since the June summit. But in past weeks, talks on denuclearization have stalled. Earlier this month, the North announced it would not send representatives to planned high-level talks involving Pompeo in New York.
The IAEA has not been allowed access to North Korea’s nuclear sites since 2009, and is thus unable to confirm its findings. Most of its monitoring efforts now rely on satellite imagery.
The watchdog’s report also noted continued work at the nearby Kuryong River, which has been dammed to increase water supply to the planned reactor or the current experimental one, used to cool the systems. The existing reactor has an output of 5 megawatts, Reuters explained.
In a September meeting with South Korea officials, Northern representatives said the country would be prepared to permanently dismantle Yongbyon if there was corresponding action from the U.S.
The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a statement Thursday noting the North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility remains operational and even shows signs of expansion, Reuters reported.
Yongbyon is believed to be the facility that provides the fissile material for North Korea’s nuclear bombs. Pyongyang is believed to have enough material for around 60 devices as per U.S. intelligence estimates from 2017, according to ABC News.
The new IAEA statement noted that new components now appear to have been brought into Yongbyon for use in a light-water reactor being built there.
IAEA head Yukiya Amano explained: “At the light water reactor, the agency also observed activities consistent with the fabrication of reactor components and the possible transfer of these components into the reactor building,” reporting on the period since August.
The country has thus far conducted six nuclear tests, the most recent of which took place in September 2017. The regime has since frozen the test program, first amid diplomatic tensions with South Korea and the U.S. and more recently alongside an unexpected thaw in relations between the two sides.
At the historic summit between Pissident Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, both leaders signed an agreement to move towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and a lasting peace. But the document was roundly dismissed as too vague and lacking in detail.
Though Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly assured the international community—at least in public—that Pyongyang will move to denuclearize, material results have been elusive.
The president rates the North Korean summit as one of his great foreign policy achievements, but many observers and opponents believe Trump was played by Kim—handing the young dictator a priceless propaganda coup and offering to halt U.S.-South Korea military exercises for nothing in return.
There have been multiple follow-up meetings between U.S. and North Korean officials since the June summit. But in past weeks, talks on denuclearization have stalled. Earlier this month, the North announced it would not send representatives to planned high-level talks involving Pompeo in New York.
The IAEA has not been allowed access to North Korea’s nuclear sites since 2009, and is thus unable to confirm its findings. Most of its monitoring efforts now rely on satellite imagery.
The watchdog’s report also noted continued work at the nearby Kuryong River, which has been dammed to increase water supply to the planned reactor or the current experimental one, used to cool the systems. The existing reactor has an output of 5 megawatts, Reuters explained.
In a September meeting with South Korea officials, Northern representatives said the country would be prepared to permanently dismantle Yongbyon if there was corresponding action from the U.S.
Amazon indigenous groups propose Mexico-sized 'corridor of life'
World’s biggest protected area would stretch across borders from Andes to Atlantic
Jonathan Watts in Sharm El Sheikh
the guardian
Wed 21 Nov 2018 07.20 EST
Deforestation in the western Amazon region of Brazil. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Indigenous groups in the Amazon have proposed the creation of the world’s biggest protected area, a 200m-hectare sanctuary for people, wildlife and climate stability that would stretch across borders from the Andes to the Atlantic.
The plan, presented to the UN Conference on Biodiversity on Wednesday, puts the alliance of Amazon communities in the middle of one of the world’s most important environmental and political disputes.
Colombia previously outlined a similar triple-A (Andes, Amazon and Atlantic) protection project that it planned to put forward with the support of Ecuador at next month’s climate talks. But the election of new rightwing leaders in Colombia and Brazil has thrown into doubt what would have been a major contribution by South American nations to reduce emissions.
The indigenous alliance, which represents 500 cultures in nine Amazonian countries, has now entered the fray with its own proposal for a “sacred corridor of life and culture” that would be the size of Mexico.
“We have come from the forest and we worry about what is happening ,” said Tuntiak Katan, the vice-president of Coica (Coordinator of the Indigenous Organisation of the Amazon River Basin). “This space is the world’s last great sanctuary for biodiversity. It is there because we are there. Other places have been destroyed.”
The organisation does not recognise national boundaries, which were put in place by colonial settlers and their descendants without the consent of indigenous people who have lived in the Amazon for millennia. Katan said the group was willing to talk to anyone who was ready to protect not just biodiversity but the territorial rights of forest communities.
Colombia’s initial proposal was smaller and focused only on biodiversity and climate. But government enthusiasm has waned since an election in June in which the rightwing populist Iván Duque took power. Brazil was more sceptical but had previously engaged in ministerial-level talks on the corridor-plan. Its opposition is likely to grow under its new rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who will take power in January.
Last month Bolsonaro indicated he would only stay in the Paris climate agreement if he had guarantees ensuring Brazilian sovereignty over indigenous land and the “triple A” region.
“136 million hectares of land and the Solimões and Amazon rivers would not be in our jurisdiction because they would be considered essential for the survival of humanity. So I ask you, with that Paris agreement, would we take the risk of giving up the Amazon?” he said at a press conference.
This was seen by many as disingenuous because Brazilian sovereignty over the land has never been questioned by other countries, but it echoes a long-held – though unsupported – fear of the Brazilian right about the internationalisation of the world’s biggest rainforest.
The indigenous leaders from Coica said they would press ahead with the plan regardless of the changing political situation. They are seeking government-level representation at the UN Convention on Biodiversity and want to ally with indigenous groups and NGOs in other countries.
But their political power is weak and many fear they may come under a more violent assault by agribusiness and miners encouraged by the government to move into their territory.
Katan said dialogue was the best way forward, but some communities were already preparing to defend their land with their lives. “We know the governments will try to go over our heads. We need a defensive strategy, a communications strategy. This is nothing new for us. We have faced challenges for hundreds of years.”
The plan, presented to the UN Conference on Biodiversity on Wednesday, puts the alliance of Amazon communities in the middle of one of the world’s most important environmental and political disputes.
Colombia previously outlined a similar triple-A (Andes, Amazon and Atlantic) protection project that it planned to put forward with the support of Ecuador at next month’s climate talks. But the election of new rightwing leaders in Colombia and Brazil has thrown into doubt what would have been a major contribution by South American nations to reduce emissions.
The indigenous alliance, which represents 500 cultures in nine Amazonian countries, has now entered the fray with its own proposal for a “sacred corridor of life and culture” that would be the size of Mexico.
“We have come from the forest and we worry about what is happening ,” said Tuntiak Katan, the vice-president of Coica (Coordinator of the Indigenous Organisation of the Amazon River Basin). “This space is the world’s last great sanctuary for biodiversity. It is there because we are there. Other places have been destroyed.”
The organisation does not recognise national boundaries, which were put in place by colonial settlers and their descendants without the consent of indigenous people who have lived in the Amazon for millennia. Katan said the group was willing to talk to anyone who was ready to protect not just biodiversity but the territorial rights of forest communities.
Colombia’s initial proposal was smaller and focused only on biodiversity and climate. But government enthusiasm has waned since an election in June in which the rightwing populist Iván Duque took power. Brazil was more sceptical but had previously engaged in ministerial-level talks on the corridor-plan. Its opposition is likely to grow under its new rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who will take power in January.
Last month Bolsonaro indicated he would only stay in the Paris climate agreement if he had guarantees ensuring Brazilian sovereignty over indigenous land and the “triple A” region.
“136 million hectares of land and the Solimões and Amazon rivers would not be in our jurisdiction because they would be considered essential for the survival of humanity. So I ask you, with that Paris agreement, would we take the risk of giving up the Amazon?” he said at a press conference.
This was seen by many as disingenuous because Brazilian sovereignty over the land has never been questioned by other countries, but it echoes a long-held – though unsupported – fear of the Brazilian right about the internationalisation of the world’s biggest rainforest.
The indigenous leaders from Coica said they would press ahead with the plan regardless of the changing political situation. They are seeking government-level representation at the UN Convention on Biodiversity and want to ally with indigenous groups and NGOs in other countries.
But their political power is weak and many fear they may come under a more violent assault by agribusiness and miners encouraged by the government to move into their territory.
Katan said dialogue was the best way forward, but some communities were already preparing to defend their land with their lives. “We know the governments will try to go over our heads. We need a defensive strategy, a communications strategy. This is nothing new for us. We have faced challenges for hundreds of years.”
albinos, the original white people!!!
African singer makes persecution of fellow albinos visible
BABA AHMED - philly tribune
11/19/18
BAMAKO, Mali — Singer-songwriter and albino activist Salif Keita assembled an international forum on protecting albino people in Africa and dedicated a benefit concert to a 5-year-old albino girl who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Mali in May.
More than 100 politicians, diplomats and albinos attended the forum on Friday. Keita described how albinos in Mali and other African countries have been ridiculed and worse because the genetic disorder that affects the color of their skin, hair and eyes were seen as curses or bad luck.
"Never again," he said at the event. "I have the strong hope that people will understand that we are born in the same way and we have the same rights as everyone else."
On May 12, 2018, a five-year-old albino girl named Ramata was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in her hometown of Fana, located around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Bamako. Her murder ripped through the Malian public and drew international outrage.
After Keita left the podium, the mother of Ramata, the girl who was kidnapped and killed, replaced him there. Hawa Toure Diarra described how a man abducted her daughter while the family slept outside, a common custom among Malians in the hottest summer months.
"As the man was getting ready to leave our home with my daughter, I woke up. I moved my hand to look for Ramata, but she was not next to me. It was at that moment that I realized what had happened," Diarra said.
To the listening attendees, she described in horrifying detail how she chased the man down the street, her young son strapped hastily to her back, screaming for neighbors. Police arrived when daytime had returned. Ramata had been found dead, disemboweled and decapitated.
Two suspects were arrested. At the forum, a representative of Mali's justice minister vowed they would be judged.
Keita knows what it is like to be an albino person in Mali. Born in 1949, he says he faced bullying, rejection and humiliation in the remote village where he grew up. He spent 10 years struggling to find success as a musician and firm footing before his first Afro-pop album, "Mandjou," was released.
"When I was a child, I had to give up school because I had vision problems caused by the albinism," Keita said at the forum. "So, I got a guitar."
The benefit concert on Saturday night featured songs from Keita's new album, "Another White," which the four-time Grammy nominee dedicated to fellow albinos and says will be his last.
In 2006, he created The Salif Keita Global Foundation, which provides free health care to people with albinism, advocates for their protection and works to end their persecution with education. -- (AP)
More than 100 politicians, diplomats and albinos attended the forum on Friday. Keita described how albinos in Mali and other African countries have been ridiculed and worse because the genetic disorder that affects the color of their skin, hair and eyes were seen as curses or bad luck.
"Never again," he said at the event. "I have the strong hope that people will understand that we are born in the same way and we have the same rights as everyone else."
On May 12, 2018, a five-year-old albino girl named Ramata was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in her hometown of Fana, located around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Bamako. Her murder ripped through the Malian public and drew international outrage.
After Keita left the podium, the mother of Ramata, the girl who was kidnapped and killed, replaced him there. Hawa Toure Diarra described how a man abducted her daughter while the family slept outside, a common custom among Malians in the hottest summer months.
"As the man was getting ready to leave our home with my daughter, I woke up. I moved my hand to look for Ramata, but she was not next to me. It was at that moment that I realized what had happened," Diarra said.
To the listening attendees, she described in horrifying detail how she chased the man down the street, her young son strapped hastily to her back, screaming for neighbors. Police arrived when daytime had returned. Ramata had been found dead, disemboweled and decapitated.
Two suspects were arrested. At the forum, a representative of Mali's justice minister vowed they would be judged.
Keita knows what it is like to be an albino person in Mali. Born in 1949, he says he faced bullying, rejection and humiliation in the remote village where he grew up. He spent 10 years struggling to find success as a musician and firm footing before his first Afro-pop album, "Mandjou," was released.
"When I was a child, I had to give up school because I had vision problems caused by the albinism," Keita said at the forum. "So, I got a guitar."
The benefit concert on Saturday night featured songs from Keita's new album, "Another White," which the four-time Grammy nominee dedicated to fellow albinos and says will be his last.
In 2006, he created The Salif Keita Global Foundation, which provides free health care to people with albinism, advocates for their protection and works to end their persecution with education. -- (AP)
Gruesome discovery of Czech tiger farm exposes illegal trade in heart of Europe
A haul of fresh pelts and rotting remains marks the end of a five-year probe into an international crime ring. Authorities fear it points to a wider problem in Europe
Tristan Martin
the guardian
Mon 19 Nov 2018 04.57 EST
The body of a tiger discovered in a house in Prague, next to a pot used to cook down tiger parts. Photograph: Handout Czech customs authority
The first thing that hit the inspectors was the smell. It was a sweltering midsummer day in Prague, and they had just opened an unplugged freezer filled with the rotting remains of tigers, lions and cougars. Pavla Rihova, the lead environmental inspector on the scene, said she had never seen anything like it.
“I have been working for the inspectorate 25 years … but the situation there was really horrible. If you can imagine: an old freezer, without electricity, full of meat and dead bodies, in the garden for two years. Absolutely incredible.”
In a shed next to the house they found a freshly killed tiger, shot through the neck so as not to damage its valuable pelt. In the same room was a heavy duty cooking pot on a gas hob, filled with the unidentified meat and bones of animals.
The raid was the culmination of five years of work carried out by the Czech police, customs authorities and environmental inspectorate, who say they have uncovered an organised ring of Czech and Vietnamese criminals illegally killing and processing protected big cats for the traditional Chinese medicine market. Officials across Europe are now beginning to realise that illegal tiger farms are not just a problem in south-east Asia, but are also operating in the middle of the EU.
The trail of evidence began in early 2013, when customs inspectors found a bag of tiger bones in the van of a Vietnamese man who claimed he had received them from a breeding facility in Slovakia. A few months later, the skeletons of two tigers were found concealed within a set of loudspeakers being exported to Hanoi.
As well as tiger remains, authorities were increasingly finding processed products such as tiger wine and broth, which seemed to have originated in the Czech Republic. Concerned about the source of these items, the environmental inspectorate conducted a full inspection of the country’s captive tiger population in 2015.
The movement of tigers across international borders is tightly controlled under international rules, while Czech laws go even further: each birth, death or sale of a tiger has to be recorded and the environmental inspectorate notified.
The inspectors soon realised the paperwork was a mess. Tigers were reportedly being exported multiple times, disappearing altogether, or not having their deaths recorded. Most worryingly, the mortality rate of tigers kept in private facilities was shockingly high. In zoos or in the wild, tigers can live to well over 20 years. In the Czech Republic’s private breeding facilities they were consistently dying before they reached five.
The attention of the authorities turned to Ludvík Berousek, a member of a well-known Czech circus family, who runs the country’s largest breeding facility for tigers and lions. Officially, he breeds big cats to supply circuses, stage shows and petting zoos. Customs officials, however, believed he was also the likely source for the tiger products they were seizing en route to Vietnam.
It took almost two years, but eventually Czech customs and police unravelled the network. At the top was Le Xuan Vu, a Vietnamese trader who would place the orders for the tigers. Berousek would then deliver them to the house of the taxidermist, a Czech hunting enthusiast called Miloš Hrozínek. Together with Vu, Hrozínek would dismember and cook the tigers in his house and shed.
Through covert surveillance operations, the officers understood that the gang could sell cubes of tiger stock, which in Chinese medicine is widely believed to strengthen bones and alleviate arthritis, for €60 (£52) per gram. The skins were worth from €2,000-€4,000 and the claws were worth €100 each. Though much of this product was clearly destined for Vietnam, authorities believe that a significant amount was also traded within the large Czech-Vietnamese community.
Though demand for tiger-based traditional medicine is driven by the Vietnamese population, many of whom arrived as guest workers during Czechoslovakia’s communist era, experts believe it is not the only factor at play. At the same time customs agents were starting to seize tiger products in 2013, there started to emerge a number of “kontaktni zoos” – small private zoos where children can cuddle baby tigers and lions.
“You can use the small tiger or lion cubs only for half a year, or one year, absolutely no longer. Because it is too dangerous for children,” Rihova said. In order to fulfil the growing demand for tiger and lion cubs, it is necessary to breed more and more animals.
When the cubs have outgrown the petting zoos, other businesses such as circuses and stage shows can make use of them for another few years. But once tigers and lions reach full sexual maturity, at four or five years old, they are too big and dangerous for any of these uses. At this point they are worth significantly more dead than alive.
Berousek, Hrozínek and Vu have all been charged with offences related to the illegal killing and trade of protected species. While Hrozínek remains in custody, Berousek and Vu are both out on bail. Berousek continues to operate his breeding facility.
Rihova believes the illegal tiger trade may also be active elsewhere in Europe, and urges the EU to take a more rigorous approach. “The European commission believes that they have an overview of big cats in Europe. But it’s not true,” Rihova says. “Without some registration, some documents, the registered movement of animals from one breeder to another, you cannot have an overview.”
“The world has already lost more than 90% of its tigers,” says Kieran Harkin of the charity Four Paws. “We call on the European commission to protect the endangered tigers and ban commercial trade in captive-bred tigers. Tiger traders and their cruel business should no longer have a place in the EU.”
“I have been working for the inspectorate 25 years … but the situation there was really horrible. If you can imagine: an old freezer, without electricity, full of meat and dead bodies, in the garden for two years. Absolutely incredible.”
In a shed next to the house they found a freshly killed tiger, shot through the neck so as not to damage its valuable pelt. In the same room was a heavy duty cooking pot on a gas hob, filled with the unidentified meat and bones of animals.
The raid was the culmination of five years of work carried out by the Czech police, customs authorities and environmental inspectorate, who say they have uncovered an organised ring of Czech and Vietnamese criminals illegally killing and processing protected big cats for the traditional Chinese medicine market. Officials across Europe are now beginning to realise that illegal tiger farms are not just a problem in south-east Asia, but are also operating in the middle of the EU.
The trail of evidence began in early 2013, when customs inspectors found a bag of tiger bones in the van of a Vietnamese man who claimed he had received them from a breeding facility in Slovakia. A few months later, the skeletons of two tigers were found concealed within a set of loudspeakers being exported to Hanoi.
As well as tiger remains, authorities were increasingly finding processed products such as tiger wine and broth, which seemed to have originated in the Czech Republic. Concerned about the source of these items, the environmental inspectorate conducted a full inspection of the country’s captive tiger population in 2015.
The movement of tigers across international borders is tightly controlled under international rules, while Czech laws go even further: each birth, death or sale of a tiger has to be recorded and the environmental inspectorate notified.
The inspectors soon realised the paperwork was a mess. Tigers were reportedly being exported multiple times, disappearing altogether, or not having their deaths recorded. Most worryingly, the mortality rate of tigers kept in private facilities was shockingly high. In zoos or in the wild, tigers can live to well over 20 years. In the Czech Republic’s private breeding facilities they were consistently dying before they reached five.
The attention of the authorities turned to Ludvík Berousek, a member of a well-known Czech circus family, who runs the country’s largest breeding facility for tigers and lions. Officially, he breeds big cats to supply circuses, stage shows and petting zoos. Customs officials, however, believed he was also the likely source for the tiger products they were seizing en route to Vietnam.
It took almost two years, but eventually Czech customs and police unravelled the network. At the top was Le Xuan Vu, a Vietnamese trader who would place the orders for the tigers. Berousek would then deliver them to the house of the taxidermist, a Czech hunting enthusiast called Miloš Hrozínek. Together with Vu, Hrozínek would dismember and cook the tigers in his house and shed.
Through covert surveillance operations, the officers understood that the gang could sell cubes of tiger stock, which in Chinese medicine is widely believed to strengthen bones and alleviate arthritis, for €60 (£52) per gram. The skins were worth from €2,000-€4,000 and the claws were worth €100 each. Though much of this product was clearly destined for Vietnam, authorities believe that a significant amount was also traded within the large Czech-Vietnamese community.
Though demand for tiger-based traditional medicine is driven by the Vietnamese population, many of whom arrived as guest workers during Czechoslovakia’s communist era, experts believe it is not the only factor at play. At the same time customs agents were starting to seize tiger products in 2013, there started to emerge a number of “kontaktni zoos” – small private zoos where children can cuddle baby tigers and lions.
“You can use the small tiger or lion cubs only for half a year, or one year, absolutely no longer. Because it is too dangerous for children,” Rihova said. In order to fulfil the growing demand for tiger and lion cubs, it is necessary to breed more and more animals.
When the cubs have outgrown the petting zoos, other businesses such as circuses and stage shows can make use of them for another few years. But once tigers and lions reach full sexual maturity, at four or five years old, they are too big and dangerous for any of these uses. At this point they are worth significantly more dead than alive.
Berousek, Hrozínek and Vu have all been charged with offences related to the illegal killing and trade of protected species. While Hrozínek remains in custody, Berousek and Vu are both out on bail. Berousek continues to operate his breeding facility.
Rihova believes the illegal tiger trade may also be active elsewhere in Europe, and urges the EU to take a more rigorous approach. “The European commission believes that they have an overview of big cats in Europe. But it’s not true,” Rihova says. “Without some registration, some documents, the registered movement of animals from one breeder to another, you cannot have an overview.”
“The world has already lost more than 90% of its tigers,” says Kieran Harkin of the charity Four Paws. “We call on the European commission to protect the endangered tigers and ban commercial trade in captive-bred tigers. Tiger traders and their cruel business should no longer have a place in the EU.”
Human rights groups call on Canada to end coerced sterilization of indigenous women
Amnesty International said it will lobby UN committee to pressure government as at least 60 women join class action lawsuit
Leyland Cecco in Toronto
the guardian
Sun 18 Nov 2018 06.00 EST
Human rights groups are calling on Canada to end the coerced sterilization of indigenous women, as a growing number of victims seek to join a class action lawsuit against government and medical professionals.
At least 60 women have joined a pending class action lawsuit against doctors and health officials in the province of Saskatchewan, seeking compensation for the violation of their rights.
The lawsuit has yet to be certified by a judge, but this week Amnesty International announced it will lobby the UN committee against torture to increase pressure on the Canadian government to act.
“Ultimately, this is about women who are supposed to have the right to make decisions about their bodies, having that right taken away from them,” said Amnesty’s Jacqueline Hansen.
The women allege their fallopian tubes were tied, burned or cut in public hospitals when the women were unable to give sufficient consent – which would be a breach of both medical ethics and the law.
Some of the complainants have said they were told they would not be allowed to see their newborn child unless they agreed to the procedure.
“These women and their communities have suffered. They have suffered. And they are entitled to restitution as they essentially re-live their trauma,” said Alisa Lombard, the lawyer representing the women.
The continued use of coerced sterilization was exposed 2015, when four women spoke about their experiences in the province of Saskatchewan. An investigation was launched and the province’s healthy authority issued an apology and new criteria for tubal ligations.
But the pending lawsuit suggests that some cases occurred as recently as 2017.
Senator Yvonne Boyer, an indigenous lawyer who co-authored an independent report on the experiences of women in Saskatchewan, believes the problem is likely more widespread than currently understood.
“If it’s happened in Saskatoon, it has happened in Regina, it’s happened in Winnipeg, it’s happened where there’s a high population of indigenous women,” Boyer told the Canadian Press. “I’ve had many women contact me from across the country and ask me for help.”
Jane Philpott, minister of indigenous services, described the practice as “horrifying” in an interview with the Canadian Press.
“The issue of forced sterilization of vulnerable people, including indigenous women, is a very serious violation of human rights,” she said.
Indigenous leaders have also expressed outrage: Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, joined calls for an immediate investigation by the federal government.
“It is wrong, it is immoral, it is a gross violation of human rights, and this dehumanizing practice must stop,” he told the Canadian Press.
Hansen said that Amnesty had investigated similar practices in Mexico, Chile and Peru. “It’s always done for a very specific reason. It is clear that it’s been linked to policies around wanting to ensure a group of people doesn’t reproduce,” she said.
For Lombard, Canada’s troubled history with indigenous people lays bare the motivation behind the procedure.
“I think the genesis of this, and of treatment of people across the board, is really rooted in racism,” she said. “I think we have to call it what it is.”
At least 60 women have joined a pending class action lawsuit against doctors and health officials in the province of Saskatchewan, seeking compensation for the violation of their rights.
The lawsuit has yet to be certified by a judge, but this week Amnesty International announced it will lobby the UN committee against torture to increase pressure on the Canadian government to act.
“Ultimately, this is about women who are supposed to have the right to make decisions about their bodies, having that right taken away from them,” said Amnesty’s Jacqueline Hansen.
The women allege their fallopian tubes were tied, burned or cut in public hospitals when the women were unable to give sufficient consent – which would be a breach of both medical ethics and the law.
Some of the complainants have said they were told they would not be allowed to see their newborn child unless they agreed to the procedure.
“These women and their communities have suffered. They have suffered. And they are entitled to restitution as they essentially re-live their trauma,” said Alisa Lombard, the lawyer representing the women.
The continued use of coerced sterilization was exposed 2015, when four women spoke about their experiences in the province of Saskatchewan. An investigation was launched and the province’s healthy authority issued an apology and new criteria for tubal ligations.
But the pending lawsuit suggests that some cases occurred as recently as 2017.
Senator Yvonne Boyer, an indigenous lawyer who co-authored an independent report on the experiences of women in Saskatchewan, believes the problem is likely more widespread than currently understood.
“If it’s happened in Saskatoon, it has happened in Regina, it’s happened in Winnipeg, it’s happened where there’s a high population of indigenous women,” Boyer told the Canadian Press. “I’ve had many women contact me from across the country and ask me for help.”
Jane Philpott, minister of indigenous services, described the practice as “horrifying” in an interview with the Canadian Press.
“The issue of forced sterilization of vulnerable people, including indigenous women, is a very serious violation of human rights,” she said.
Indigenous leaders have also expressed outrage: Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, joined calls for an immediate investigation by the federal government.
“It is wrong, it is immoral, it is a gross violation of human rights, and this dehumanizing practice must stop,” he told the Canadian Press.
Hansen said that Amnesty had investigated similar practices in Mexico, Chile and Peru. “It’s always done for a very specific reason. It is clear that it’s been linked to policies around wanting to ensure a group of people doesn’t reproduce,” she said.
For Lombard, Canada’s troubled history with indigenous people lays bare the motivation behind the procedure.
“I think the genesis of this, and of treatment of people across the board, is really rooted in racism,” she said. “I think we have to call it what it is.”
sa takes chinese money, now the chinese take their country!!!
Folks Concerned After China Opens 13th Police Station in South Africa
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
November 11, 2018
The opening of the 13th Chinese Community and Police Co-Operation Center in South Africa last week has sparked concerns about China’s growing influence in various institutions across the continent of Africa.
On Oct. 28, several dignitaries gathered in Port Elizabeth to celebrate the opening of the new center, which was established to improve relation and communication between South African police and the local Chinese community, the Daily Dispatch reported. The 3rd Term opening of the Chinese Language Training Program, which teaches law enforcement officers to speak Mandarin, was also celebrated.
Lt. General Liziwe Ntshinga, who serves as the provincial commissioner, lauded the ongoing collaboration between the Chinese and South African communities.
“My confidence is also derived from the long term economic relations our country has with the Republic of China,” Ntshinga said in her remarks. “With the strengthened and deepened relationship between South Africa and China, the (South African Police Service) SAPS has benefited by finding its role in order to further the existing relationship within the police and the Chinese community.”
She continued: “This relationship has also found its expression in the educational programs involving our police members. I congratulate the Chinese community for the noble initiative established in the Province and Clusters in Port Elizabeth.”
Yu Yuan, the Councillor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Pretoria, also addressed the crowd and assured the Chinese would be law abiding “model citizens” while living in South Africa, many of whom are there for work. The embassy promised to support the local police and called on law enforcement officers and the Chinese to work together to build safer, more secure communities.
The Chinese have been occasional victims of crime in South Africa, according to the newspaper.
Furor over the new community center arose after Twitter celebrity Julius Malema authored a post suggesting the Chinese were taking over by opening their own police stations.
“Now Chinese are opening their own police stations in South Africa,” Malema tweeted. “They have already opened 13 & this one was opened yesterday in PE.”
Jie Lee Zhang, CEO of the CCPCC, denied this however, saying the office will serve as the “middleman” between South African government police departments and Chinese citizens living in South Africa.
Various countries across the Motherland have welcomed China’s growing presence in the continent with open arms. However, some African natives have expressed worry over the Asian nation being allowed to enter certain social and cultural spaces within the diaspora. Racist attitudes have also become cause for concern.
Just last month, a Chinese worker was deported from Kenya after he was caught on video making disparaging remarks and likening Kenyan citizens to “monkeys.” In the video, Liu Jiaq, who expanded his motorcycle company to Africa, is heard complaining about how he hates Kenya, saying it “smells bad and (its people are) poor, foolish and broke.”
“They [the Chinese] are the ones with the capital, but as much as we want their money, we don’t want them to treat us like we are not human in our own country,” David Kinyua, who manages an industrial park in Ruiru that is now home to several Chinese companies, told The New York Times earlier this month.
Meanwhile in Djbouti, China has built its own military base. In Zambia, the police force welcomed new Chinese reservists last year and the state-owned newspaper, “Times of Zambia,” ran an article in Mandarin, according to This Is Africa.
With China’s growing investment in Africa, which more than doubled between 2011 to 2015 from $16 billion to $35 billion, many have been left to question how African countries stand to benefit and how do they’ll go about protecting the interests of its people.
On Oct. 28, several dignitaries gathered in Port Elizabeth to celebrate the opening of the new center, which was established to improve relation and communication between South African police and the local Chinese community, the Daily Dispatch reported. The 3rd Term opening of the Chinese Language Training Program, which teaches law enforcement officers to speak Mandarin, was also celebrated.
Lt. General Liziwe Ntshinga, who serves as the provincial commissioner, lauded the ongoing collaboration between the Chinese and South African communities.
“My confidence is also derived from the long term economic relations our country has with the Republic of China,” Ntshinga said in her remarks. “With the strengthened and deepened relationship between South Africa and China, the (South African Police Service) SAPS has benefited by finding its role in order to further the existing relationship within the police and the Chinese community.”
She continued: “This relationship has also found its expression in the educational programs involving our police members. I congratulate the Chinese community for the noble initiative established in the Province and Clusters in Port Elizabeth.”
Yu Yuan, the Councillor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Pretoria, also addressed the crowd and assured the Chinese would be law abiding “model citizens” while living in South Africa, many of whom are there for work. The embassy promised to support the local police and called on law enforcement officers and the Chinese to work together to build safer, more secure communities.
The Chinese have been occasional victims of crime in South Africa, according to the newspaper.
Furor over the new community center arose after Twitter celebrity Julius Malema authored a post suggesting the Chinese were taking over by opening their own police stations.
“Now Chinese are opening their own police stations in South Africa,” Malema tweeted. “They have already opened 13 & this one was opened yesterday in PE.”
Jie Lee Zhang, CEO of the CCPCC, denied this however, saying the office will serve as the “middleman” between South African government police departments and Chinese citizens living in South Africa.
Various countries across the Motherland have welcomed China’s growing presence in the continent with open arms. However, some African natives have expressed worry over the Asian nation being allowed to enter certain social and cultural spaces within the diaspora. Racist attitudes have also become cause for concern.
Just last month, a Chinese worker was deported from Kenya after he was caught on video making disparaging remarks and likening Kenyan citizens to “monkeys.” In the video, Liu Jiaq, who expanded his motorcycle company to Africa, is heard complaining about how he hates Kenya, saying it “smells bad and (its people are) poor, foolish and broke.”
“They [the Chinese] are the ones with the capital, but as much as we want their money, we don’t want them to treat us like we are not human in our own country,” David Kinyua, who manages an industrial park in Ruiru that is now home to several Chinese companies, told The New York Times earlier this month.
Meanwhile in Djbouti, China has built its own military base. In Zambia, the police force welcomed new Chinese reservists last year and the state-owned newspaper, “Times of Zambia,” ran an article in Mandarin, according to This Is Africa.
With China’s growing investment in Africa, which more than doubled between 2011 to 2015 from $16 billion to $35 billion, many have been left to question how African countries stand to benefit and how do they’ll go about protecting the interests of its people.
Ethiopia Eases Travel With ‘Visa-On-Arrival’ For African Travelers, Encouraging African Unity
By David Love - atlanta black star
November 10, 2018
Ethiopia has revamped and streamlined its visa system for visitors from African nations in a move that will spur tourism, trade and investment, and has broad implications for African unity.
As of Nov. 1, Ethiopia has implemented what is known as a visa-on-arrival service for African travelers to the East African nation, allowing foreign visitors to receive a visa upon arrival, and effectively opening its doors to all people arriving from throughout the continent.
“It is truly an honor and a special privilege to witness this historical and truly inspirational day. Ethiopian Airlines has been bringing Africa together and closer to the world for over seven decades,” said Ethiopian Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam at a ceremony held at the African Union Commission headquarters. “Today, Ethiopian flies to 60 African destinations and connects the continent to over 50 major international cities in five continents. Visa on arrival for fellow African brothers and sisters and, more importantly, visa online will greatly boost cross-border tourism, trade and investment, further deepening African integration.”
The new Ethiopian visa announcement comes on the heels of a new e-Visa service that was launched in June. That service, initiated by the Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Affairs Main Department in collaboration with Ethiopian Airlines, allows all international visitors to apply and pay for a tourist visa online and receive it by email message, reducing wait times and streamlining the travel process, and eliminating the need for travelers to go to the Ethiopian Embassy in their home country to apply for a travel permit. The driving force behind the revamped visa service is “a new national initiative to transform the tourism sector” in Ethiopia, according to a press release, as Ethiopian Airlines hopes the new visa initiative will facilitate conference tourism and boost tourism flow. For the airline, which is unquestionably the largest carrier in Africa, the visa plan falls into its pan-African strategy of further connecting and creating alliances in the African airline industry.
The recent steps taken by Ethiopia — Africa’s second-largest country in terms of population and the continent’s fastest growing economy — has taken point to a larger trend that other African nations are expected to follow. This as Ethiopia ultimately wants to enable the economic integration of the continent and facilitate the AU’s promotion of the free movement of people across Africa. Kenya, Rwanda, and Mauritius have all eased visa restrictions in the past few years, and Ghana has offered visas upon arrival to all African nationals, even as some African nations have gone in the other direction.
For example, South Africa has eased restrictions on Chinese and Indian visitors, but not on travelers from within the African continent. In addition, Tanzania has reversed its visa-on-arrival policy for Nigeria, Mali, and Somalia.
The AU, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, has urged all member nations to issue a visa-on-arrival program by 2023. The AU Agenda 2063 also calls for the issuance of an African Common Passport by 2023. In 2016, the AU announced the launch of an e-passport, which will be initially available to African heads of state, government ministers and permanent representatives of AU member nations. Such moves ultimately will create “seamless borders” across the continent in a European Union-style concept, and allow for closer steps toward economic integration of Africa. In February 2018, the AU introduced a Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), an effort to liberalize civil aviation and break down barriers to trade and labor movement in Africa, which have stifled African development over the years. SAATM promises to increase airline connectivity across the continent and enhance competitiveness in the African airline sector, resulting in an expansion in tourism, trade and commerce within Africa and with the rest of the world. The AU expects a unified airline market — which includes the lifting of visa restrictions and dropping tariff and customs restraints — will bring about 300,000 additional direct jobs and two million indirect jobs.
Last year, the AU launched the “.africa” domain, which aspires to unite Africa on the Internet just as the member nations seek greater connectivity in the air and in travel, trade and investment.
With the introduction of an innovative and streamlined visa program for its fellow African travelers, Ethiopia is setting a standard for Africans to follow, in a pan-African vision of economic cooperation that can only boost the continent.
As of Nov. 1, Ethiopia has implemented what is known as a visa-on-arrival service for African travelers to the East African nation, allowing foreign visitors to receive a visa upon arrival, and effectively opening its doors to all people arriving from throughout the continent.
“It is truly an honor and a special privilege to witness this historical and truly inspirational day. Ethiopian Airlines has been bringing Africa together and closer to the world for over seven decades,” said Ethiopian Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam at a ceremony held at the African Union Commission headquarters. “Today, Ethiopian flies to 60 African destinations and connects the continent to over 50 major international cities in five continents. Visa on arrival for fellow African brothers and sisters and, more importantly, visa online will greatly boost cross-border tourism, trade and investment, further deepening African integration.”
The new Ethiopian visa announcement comes on the heels of a new e-Visa service that was launched in June. That service, initiated by the Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Affairs Main Department in collaboration with Ethiopian Airlines, allows all international visitors to apply and pay for a tourist visa online and receive it by email message, reducing wait times and streamlining the travel process, and eliminating the need for travelers to go to the Ethiopian Embassy in their home country to apply for a travel permit. The driving force behind the revamped visa service is “a new national initiative to transform the tourism sector” in Ethiopia, according to a press release, as Ethiopian Airlines hopes the new visa initiative will facilitate conference tourism and boost tourism flow. For the airline, which is unquestionably the largest carrier in Africa, the visa plan falls into its pan-African strategy of further connecting and creating alliances in the African airline industry.
The recent steps taken by Ethiopia — Africa’s second-largest country in terms of population and the continent’s fastest growing economy — has taken point to a larger trend that other African nations are expected to follow. This as Ethiopia ultimately wants to enable the economic integration of the continent and facilitate the AU’s promotion of the free movement of people across Africa. Kenya, Rwanda, and Mauritius have all eased visa restrictions in the past few years, and Ghana has offered visas upon arrival to all African nationals, even as some African nations have gone in the other direction.
For example, South Africa has eased restrictions on Chinese and Indian visitors, but not on travelers from within the African continent. In addition, Tanzania has reversed its visa-on-arrival policy for Nigeria, Mali, and Somalia.
The AU, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, has urged all member nations to issue a visa-on-arrival program by 2023. The AU Agenda 2063 also calls for the issuance of an African Common Passport by 2023. In 2016, the AU announced the launch of an e-passport, which will be initially available to African heads of state, government ministers and permanent representatives of AU member nations. Such moves ultimately will create “seamless borders” across the continent in a European Union-style concept, and allow for closer steps toward economic integration of Africa. In February 2018, the AU introduced a Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), an effort to liberalize civil aviation and break down barriers to trade and labor movement in Africa, which have stifled African development over the years. SAATM promises to increase airline connectivity across the continent and enhance competitiveness in the African airline sector, resulting in an expansion in tourism, trade and commerce within Africa and with the rest of the world. The AU expects a unified airline market — which includes the lifting of visa restrictions and dropping tariff and customs restraints — will bring about 300,000 additional direct jobs and two million indirect jobs.
Last year, the AU launched the “.africa” domain, which aspires to unite Africa on the Internet just as the member nations seek greater connectivity in the air and in travel, trade and investment.
With the introduction of an innovative and streamlined visa program for its fellow African travelers, Ethiopia is setting a standard for Africans to follow, in a pan-African vision of economic cooperation that can only boost the continent.
Sierra Leone Cancels $300 Million Chinese Airport Deal, But Will Other African Nations Follow Suit?
By David Love - atlanta black star
November 5, 2018
In the first example of an African nation canceling an already existing Chinese-funded project, the government of Sierra Leone has canceled a plan to build a $318 million airport outside Freetown through a Chinese contractor and Chinese loans.
Originally slated for completion in 2022, the Mamamah International Airport was to be built by the company China Railway Seventh Group, which has built highways and bridges across the continent, and funding supplied by China Exim Bank. The project had suffered from concerns over transparency.
“After serious consideration and diligence, it is the Government’s view that (it) is uneconomical to proceed with the construction of the new airport when the existing one is grossly underutilized,” said the Sierra Leone minister of transport and aviation in a letter to the director of the airport project, according to the Sierra Leone Telegraph. The Telegraph described the “vanity” international airport, which the Chinese were contracted to build, manage and maintain, as dead. Critics such as the World Bank and IMF have expressed concerns over the massive debt burden Sierra Leone would incur. The World Bank questioned the cost-benefit feasibility of a new airport, given that the existing Lungi airport is under capacity, with fewer flights to and from the airport than in the past. Lungi airport has been redeveloped with a $200 million loan from the World Bank — with plans to build a $1 billion bridge to connect the airport to the capital city of Freetown — as part of a broader vision to transform Lungi into a hub for tourism and commerce.
With charges that China is ensnaring African countries in debt traps, the Mamamah project places the larger issue of African financial dependence on China into context. The Asian giant is the largest bilateral financier of African infrastructure, more than the African Development Bank (ADB), the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) countries combined, according to the BBC.
China recently pledged an additional $60 billion to African nations as part of a so-called “win-win” cooperation policy that President Xi Jinping said, ”follows the principle of giving more and taking less, giving before taking and giving without asking for return.” This as China has flexed its muscle on the continent in terms of its security and defense presence in Africa, and has threatened the sovereignty of some African nations. Economically challenged nations such as Sierra Leone — one of the poorest nations in the world — find themselves with limited resources for providing health care, education and basic utilities. While Sierra Leone owes $220 million in Chinese debt, other nations have become beholden to China, which accounts for 70 percent of Kenya’s debt and 77 percent of Djibouti’s debt. The Democratic Republic of Congo owes China an estimated 25 percent of its $37 billion economy to China, and Zambia and Mozambique each owe between 10 percent and 25 percent. Zambia, which owes $6.4 billion to China, recently faced rumors of a Chinese takeover of that country’s state utility company.
“When cooperating with African countries that include Sierra Leone, China has always adhered to the principles of equality-based consultations and win-win cooperation. I don’t think this particular project should be overblown as an indication of problems between the Chinese and Sierra Leone governments,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, indicating the latest news did not show signs of a rift between Sierra Leone and China.
Despite these reassuring words from Beijing, cancellation of the Sierra Leone airport project highlights the issue of African reliance on Chinese creditors, suggesting other African nations are following the story closely and taking notes.
Originally slated for completion in 2022, the Mamamah International Airport was to be built by the company China Railway Seventh Group, which has built highways and bridges across the continent, and funding supplied by China Exim Bank. The project had suffered from concerns over transparency.
“After serious consideration and diligence, it is the Government’s view that (it) is uneconomical to proceed with the construction of the new airport when the existing one is grossly underutilized,” said the Sierra Leone minister of transport and aviation in a letter to the director of the airport project, according to the Sierra Leone Telegraph. The Telegraph described the “vanity” international airport, which the Chinese were contracted to build, manage and maintain, as dead. Critics such as the World Bank and IMF have expressed concerns over the massive debt burden Sierra Leone would incur. The World Bank questioned the cost-benefit feasibility of a new airport, given that the existing Lungi airport is under capacity, with fewer flights to and from the airport than in the past. Lungi airport has been redeveloped with a $200 million loan from the World Bank — with plans to build a $1 billion bridge to connect the airport to the capital city of Freetown — as part of a broader vision to transform Lungi into a hub for tourism and commerce.
With charges that China is ensnaring African countries in debt traps, the Mamamah project places the larger issue of African financial dependence on China into context. The Asian giant is the largest bilateral financier of African infrastructure, more than the African Development Bank (ADB), the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) countries combined, according to the BBC.
China recently pledged an additional $60 billion to African nations as part of a so-called “win-win” cooperation policy that President Xi Jinping said, ”follows the principle of giving more and taking less, giving before taking and giving without asking for return.” This as China has flexed its muscle on the continent in terms of its security and defense presence in Africa, and has threatened the sovereignty of some African nations. Economically challenged nations such as Sierra Leone — one of the poorest nations in the world — find themselves with limited resources for providing health care, education and basic utilities. While Sierra Leone owes $220 million in Chinese debt, other nations have become beholden to China, which accounts for 70 percent of Kenya’s debt and 77 percent of Djibouti’s debt. The Democratic Republic of Congo owes China an estimated 25 percent of its $37 billion economy to China, and Zambia and Mozambique each owe between 10 percent and 25 percent. Zambia, which owes $6.4 billion to China, recently faced rumors of a Chinese takeover of that country’s state utility company.
“When cooperating with African countries that include Sierra Leone, China has always adhered to the principles of equality-based consultations and win-win cooperation. I don’t think this particular project should be overblown as an indication of problems between the Chinese and Sierra Leone governments,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, indicating the latest news did not show signs of a rift between Sierra Leone and China.
Despite these reassuring words from Beijing, cancellation of the Sierra Leone airport project highlights the issue of African reliance on Chinese creditors, suggesting other African nations are following the story closely and taking notes.
funnies
|
|
