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    Latin America’s most corrupt countries – a roll call

    Inter Press Service
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    Latin America’s most corrupt countries – a roll call

    Data collected by Transparency International looks at bribery, the diversion of public funds, officials using their office for private gain, conflicts of interest and legal protections for those denouncing corruption. South American nations scored poorly.

    By Gabrielle Gorder and Seth Robbins 

    Latin American countries scored poorly on Transparency International’s latest corruption index, with the worst joining the ranks of war-torn nations and dictatorships.

    Of the 19 Latin American countries ranked, three-quarters scored below 50 in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2021. The worst was Venezuela, which scored below North Korea and Afghanistan.

    Using assessments from country experts, business analysts, and international organizations, the index rates countries on a scale from zero to 100. Scores below 50 indicate flagrant corruption problems.

    The data collected by Transparency International looks at bribery, the diversion of public funds, officials using their office for private gain, conflicts of interest and legal protections for those denouncing corruption.

    Caribbean countries fared better in the index. Of the ten ranked, six scored above 50, though none rated above 65.

    When Canada and the United States are excluded, the average score for the region is 41, putting it a notch below the global average of 43. Without the Caribbean, it drops to 37.

    Below is a break-down of the scores, as provided by InSight Crime, from a region that continues to be rife with corruption.

    Scores of 0 to 25: Highly corrupt

    Venezuela held the title for the seventh consecutive year as the most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere with a score of 14, an all-time low for the country.

    As InSight Crime has reported, Venezuela has essentially become a mafia state. Officials and security forces at every level are involved in criminal activity. Pilfering of state coffers is rampant, while drug trafficking, illegal mining, and other criminal economies are widespread.

    Venezuelan government officials are known to collaborate with gangs. State security forces have colluded with the Colombian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) to take control of illegal gold mines in the Amazon.

    The rot in Venezuela starts at the top, with President Nicolás Maduro, whom the United States Department of Justice has accused of narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other offenses.

    Just above Venezuela were Haiti and Nicaragua, which each received a score of 20.

    Haiti saw a slight uptick as compared with the last two years, as the effects of the July 2021 assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse, are only just beginning to be felt.

    Meanwhile, Nicaragua saw its score hit a new low. This is not surprising, considering that, on his way to winning his fourth consecutive presidential election, President Daniel Ortega used the country’s justice system to silence political opponents, some of whom were jailed or subjected to a range of abuses.

    Honduras also hit a new low, scoring a 23 — tying the country with Iraq. The low score stemmed partly from accusations linking Honduras’ former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, to his brother’s drug trafficking ring.

    Meanwhile, Guatemala’s score of 25 remained unchanged from the previous year. The country tied with Iran. High-profile graft probes and the dismissals of those investigating corruption explain the country’s low ranking.

    Scores of 26 to 50: Corruption issues

    The average global corruption perception score was 43 out of 100. Of the 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries scoring less than 50, 19 fell below the global average.

    The countries scoring in this bracket were Paraguay (30), the Dominican Republic (30), Bolivia (30), Mexico (31), El Salvador (34), Panama (36), Ecuador (36), Peru (36), Brazil (38), Argentina (38) and Colombia (39), Guyana (39), Suriname (39), Trinidad and Tobago (41).

    Only Jamaica (44) and Cuba (46) scored higher than the global average.

    In the case of Paraguay, InSight Crime published an investigation just last year revealing how a Paraguayan congressman conspired with an alleged drug trafficker to protect cocaine shipments in exchange for illicit funds.

    El Salvador’s declining score reflects growing corruption within the government of President Nayib Bukele, including the decision to dissolve the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador (Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad de El Salvador – CICIES) after the entity started to investigate several members of the Bukele administration for mismanaging coronavirus emergency funds. Additionally, the US government, in 2021, blacklisted two officials with close ties to Bukele for allegedly making deals with street gangs.

    Ecuador’s plummeting score was also to be expected. The country has emerged as a key trafficking route for drugs, arms, explosives, and migrants. Corruption has eaten away at state institutions.

    Peru’s falling score comes as President Pedro Castillo faces corruption allegations that have led to impeachment proceedings, while in Argentina, instances of corruption among judicial authorities have created the impression of impunity.

    Cuba’s comparatively high CPI ranking may come as a surprise to some, given that it is a one-party state.

    While Cuba’s low corruption perception score may reflect steps taken to rein in corruption during the administrations of former president Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz Canel, political corruption remains an issue, and the low perception score could be more a reflection of the country’s limits on press freedom.

    Scores of 50 to 100: Relatively clean

    Only three Latin American countries scored above 50: Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica.

    Uruguay scored higher than the United States, but lower than Canada. Transparency International credited its “independent judiciary and the protection of basic rights [as] vital in preventing corruption from permeating the [Uruguayan] State.” Chile, meanwhile, tied with the United States.

    The Caribbean countries of Barbados, The Bahamas, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Dominica and Grenada all scored above 50, suggesting minimal corruption concerns. But these countries are all known hubs for money laundering, a known contributor to corruption worldwide.

     

    This story has been sourced from Inter Press Service It was originally published by InsightCrime

     

    Image: UN News / Daniel Dickinson

    Babies can tell who has close relationships based on one clue: saliva

    OWSA Contributor
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    Babies can tell who has close relationships based on one clue: saliva

    Sharing food and kissing are among the signals babies use to interpret their social world, according to a new study.

    Anne Trafton     |     MIT News Office

    Learning to navigate social relationships is a skill that is critical for surviving in human societies. For babies and young children, that means learning who they can count on to take care of them.

    MIT neuroscientists have now identified a specific signal that young children and even babies use to determine whether two people have a strong relationship and a mutual obligation to help each other: whether those two people kiss, share food, or have other interactions that involve sharing saliva.

    In a new study, the researchers showed that babies expect people who share saliva to come to one another’s aid when one person is in distress, much more so than when people share toys or interact in other ways that do not involve saliva exchange. The findings suggest that babies can use these cues to try to figure out who around them is most likely to offer help, the researchers say.

    “Babies don’t know in advance which relationships are the close and morally obligating ones, so they have to have some way of learning this by looking at what happens around them,” says Rebecca Saxe, the John W. Jarve Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines (CBMM), and the senior author of the new study.

    MIT postdoc Ashley Thomas, who is also affiliated with the CBMM, is the lead author of the study, which appears today in Science. Brandon Woo, a Harvard University graduate student; Daniel Nettle, a professor of behavioral science at Newcastle University; and Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard and CBMM member, are also authors of the paper.

    Sharing saliva

    In human societies, people typically distinguish between “thick” and “thin” relationships. Thick relationships, usually found between family members, feature strong levels of attachment, obligation, and mutual responsiveness. Anthropologists have also observed that people in thick relationships are more willing to share bodily fluids such as saliva.

    “That inspired both the question of whether infants distinguish between those types of relationships, and whether saliva sharing might be a really good cue they could use to recognize them,” Thomas says.

    To study those questions, the researchers observed toddlers (16.5 to 18.5 months) and babies (8.5 to 10 months) as they watched interactions between human actors and puppets. In the first set of experiments, a puppet shared an orange with one actor, then tossed a ball back and forth with a different actor.

    After the children watched these initial interactions, the researchers observed the children’s reactions when the puppet showed distress while sitting between the two actors. Based on an earlier study of nonhuman primates, the researchers hypothesized that babies would look first at the person whom they expected to help. That study showed that when baby monkeys cry, other members of the troop look to the baby’s parents, as if expecting them to step in.

    The MIT team found that the children were more likely to look toward the actor who had shared food with the puppet, not the one who had shared a toy, when the puppet was in distress.

    In a second set of experiments, designed to focus more specifically on saliva, the actor either placed her finger in her mouth and then into the mouth of the puppet, or placed her finger on her forehead and then onto the forehead of the puppet. Later, when the actor expressed distress while standing between the two puppets, children watching the video were more likely to look toward the puppet with whom she had shared saliva.

    Social cues

    The findings suggest that saliva sharing is likely an important cue that helps infants to learn about their own social relationships and those of people around them, the researchers say.

    “The general skill of learning about social relationships is very useful,” Thomas says. “One reason why this distinction between thick and thin might be important for infants in particular, especially human infants, who depend on adults for longer than many other species, is that it might be a good way to figure out who else can provide the support that they depend on to survive.”

    The researchers did their first set of studies shortly before Covid-19 lockdowns began, with babies who came to the lab with their families. Later experiments were done over Zoom. The results that the researchers saw were similar before and after the pandemic, confirming that pandemic-related hygiene concerns did not affect the outcome.

    “We actually know the results would have been similar if it hadn’t been for the pandemic,” Saxe says. “You might wonder, did kids start to think very differently about sharing saliva when suddenly everybody was talking about hygiene all the time? So, for that question, it’s very useful that we had an initial data set collected before the pandemic.”

    Doing the second set of studies on Zoom also allowed the researchers to recruit a much more diverse group of children because the subjects were not limited to families who could come to the lab in Cambridge during normal working hours.

    In future work, the researchers hope to perform similar studies with infants in cultures that have different types of family structures. In adult subjects, they plan to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study what parts of the brain are involved in making saliva-based assessments about social relationships.

     

    Reprinted with permission of MIT News (http://news.mit.edu/)

    Image: UNICEF India

    When the fate of half our planet is being discussed, it’s too important to shut out civil society

    Inter Press Service
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    When the fate of half our planet is being discussed, it’s too important to shut out civil society

    Over 100 governments claim to back ocean protection and almost five million people globally are demanding urgent action to tackle the ocean crisis. But organisations amplifying their voices are kept out as decisions are being made.

    By Will McCallum

    Over the past two weeks, a petition signed by almost five million people globally was handed in to governments around the world. It called for a global ocean treaty to help rescue our oceans.

    Yet with governments gathering next month to discuss the fate of half our planet, civil society is being shut out. The climate crisis and industrial fishing are pushing our oceans to the brink. Wildlife populations are collapsing, our oceans are heating and their very chemistry is changing.

    World leaders will meet at the so-called BBNJ negotiations from 7-18 March to attempt to reckon with the scale of the crisis facing one of our planet’s key life support systems. But, as NGOs found out in a closed-door briefing call on 15 February, the meeting will not allow for proper participation from civil society.

    This is effectively closing the door to organisations which represent millions of people worldwide, many of whom rely on the ocean for their lives and livelihoods, and all of whom depend on the ocean for the oxygen it gives us.

    It is worth noting that without years of campaigning by organisations like Greenpeace and many others, this treaty process would not even be happening: civil society has played a crucial role in getting us to this stage.

    It contributes expertise and information, facilitates policy development and provides a network of connections and experts, as well as a platform for frontline communities facing these issues day in, day out.

    Democratic engagement at UN?

    The extremely limited participation at this meeting simply does not represent the urgency with which we need a rescue plan for our oceans: a Global Ocean Treaty that allows us to cover at least a third of international waters with ocean sanctuaries – areas free from harmful human activity like destructive fishing.

    As COVID-19 continues to impact on all of our lives, we all recognise and appreciate the seriousness of health measures around large international conferences. But there has to be a way to also ensure that the vital voices which civil society represents are heard in a safe and meaningful way, particularly during a time when not only our global health, but our planetary health, is in jeopardy.

    Closing the doors to civil society – and even restricting government participation so severely – should be unthinkable and sets a worrying precedent for democratic engagement at the UN. What possible justification can there be to deny civil society the right to speak on video screens?

    It hampers the important role that civil society has played, and continues to play, in the global ocean treaty negotiations, as well as other UN processes. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, innovative hybrid models and flexible health measures have shown that effective and safe participation is possible, and a failure to embrace this approach at the UN – especially as we face critical decisions that affect us all – is simply untenable.

    Almost five million people globally are demanding urgent action to tackle the ocean crisis. Over 100 governments claim to back ocean protection. Organisations amplifying the voices of millions of people worldwide must be represented as decisions are made.

    Ocean protection a scientific imperative

    These negotiations are simply too important to avoid proper scrutiny: the UN should review its decision and work to ensure that civil society can participate in global ocean treaty negotiations in a safe and meaningful way.

    This means allowing in-person representation from NGOs during the deliberations, timely access to information prior to and during the meeting, and the opportunity to provide interventions and written submissions.

    This isn’t simply a matter of transparency and accountability: ocean protection is a scientific imperative and governments are not acting fast enough. We know that for the three billion people who depend on the oceans for their food and livelihood, for the wildlife that call the ocean home and for the fight against climate breakdown, we need a network of ocean sanctuaries across at least a third of the world’s oceans by 2030.

    To do that we first need to win an ambitious Global Ocean Treaty at the UN that gives us the tools we need to meet that target in the vast majority of the oceans beyond national boundaries.

    The pandemic has pressed the pause button on so many things, but not for our natural world. From the melting Arctic to the plundered Pacific, the climate and nature crises are accelerating. Political momentum for a network of ocean sanctuaries across our oceans is gathering pace, but governments need to act like our lives depend on it, because they do.

    Our oceans connect us all

    Out on the water, while we delay, destructive fishing companies are operating out of sight and beyond the rule of law, stripping the oceans of life. This plunder of the seas is pushing wildlife populations towards collapse and leaving nothing for the coastal communities who rely on artisanal fishing to survive.

    Pollution, oil drilling and the emerging threat of deep-sea mining, are poisoning marine life and making the climate crisis worse by killing off vital ecosystems.

    Our oceans connect us all and what happens there will impact the future of life on earth. Ocean sanctuaries can give wildlife space to recover and, in turn, help to cycle carbon and avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. We need to protect at least 30 per cent of the oceans by 2030, not the paltry one per cent of the global ocean that is currently protected.

    We desperately need progress at this meeting: governments were expected to conclude the treaty at these negotiations, and so it is vital that every effort is made to ensure the maximum participation possible, so that essential negotiations can take place.

    To do that, we need civil society organisations in the room.

     

    Will McCallum runs Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign and is head of oceans at Greenpeace UK

    This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

     

    Image: Greenpeace activists fly a giant turtle kite outside the United Nations headquarters in New York as countries gathered to begin negotiations towards a treaty covering all oceans outside of national borders. September 2018
    Credit: Greenpeace

    Environmental conflict threatens iconic Auroville

    Mongabay-India
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    Environmental conflict threatens iconic Auroville

    A midnight action on a contentious development plan rattled the residents of Auroville in December 2021. The community is divided on the master plan and protesting residents claim the planned development will destroy the forest ecosystem around the centre. 

    By Sarosh Bana

    At a time when India’s standing forests are under threat – with 14 per cent of the country’s tree cover being lost in 2019-20 alone, according to Washington-based Global Forest Watch – a swath of forestland created by human effort over half a century ago faces desecration owing to contentious policies.

    In the dead of night last December, bulldozers rolled into the forested idyll of Auroville, the global community in southern India fostered by the vision of Indian philosopher, nationalist, poet and seer Sri Aurobindo. Indian and foreign residents, who rushed out of their homes to inquire, were overpowered by the excavators that razed over 900 trees across 67 acres. The tree clearance is for a proposed 75-metre-wide circular road through the township.

    Aggrieved residents petitioned the national green tribunal (NGT) of south zone to halt “the proposed construction and development”, based on the Auroville Universal Township Master Plan (Perspective 2025) that they say has not been subjected to the mandated Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. After imposing a series of short-term stays against further development, the NGT has now reserved its final ruling.

    The contested project is being executed by the Auroville Foundation and its Town Development Council (TDC), and newly-appointed government authorities.

    Straddling the border of Tamil Nadu and the adjoining Union Territory of Puducherry, Auroville was developed as a unique experiment in human unity, with two-thirds of its 3,500 inhabitants hailing from 59 other nations, and from all age groups (from infancy to over 80, averaging 30), backgrounds and cultures.

    Political angle

    Auroville evolved from the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, who was born in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1872 and died in Puducherry (then Pondicherry) in 1950. It was his spiritual collaborator, the French woman Mirra Alfassa, who became known as ‘The Mother’, who in 1968 laid the foundations of this ‘universal town’ where people of all countries would cohabit in peace and harmony.

    At its foundation, some 5,000 people assembled near the banyan tree at the centre of the future township for a ceremony attended by representatives of 124 nations, as also of all the states of India. They brought with them some soil from their homelands, to be mixed in a white marble-clad lotus-shaped urn that became the centrepoint of Auroville.

    Auroville was taken over by the central government through the Auroville Emergency Act, 1980, and granted autonomy under the Auroville Foundation Act passed eight years later under the UNESCO division of the Ministry of Education (later, Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). The Foundation is supported by annual grants from the Central government.

    Section 10 (3) of the AF Act divides the Foundation into the Governing Board, Residents’ Assembly, and Auroville International Advisory Council. The plaint before the NGT cites only the Governing Board as being behind the development work.

    Some Aurovillians see a political angle to the dispute, pointing out that the Crown project has been expedited after Tamil Nadu Governor Ravindra Narayana Ravi, Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, and Gujarat cadre IAS officer, Dr Jayanti Ravi, took over last year as the chairman, member and secretary of the Governing Board respectively.

    Internal squabble?

    Long-time resident, architect, designer and TDC member Tejaswini Mistri-Kapoor, says she and two more of the seven members of the Council, have stepped down because of the recent developments. She explains that the Master Plan took off from French architect Roger Anger’s ‘galaxy model’ for Auroville that he had developed in the ‘60s in collaboration with the Mother. She, however, emphasises that the Master Plan is more a concept note as it lacks the required Detailed Development Plans (DDPs) necessary to ‘flesh out’ its sketches prior to implementation.

    The plaint before the NGT also contends that the respondent (AF) is by its action contravening not only the EIA notification of 2006, but also the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the principles of sustainable development, the precautionary principle, and the eco-centric principle.

    Terming the dispute an “internal squabble” that does not require NGT scrutiny, the Auroville Foundation notes, “Based on the Mother’s vision, the Master Plan was made as per law, and approval was received from the Central government in 2010.” It adds that while the plan was accepted by the Residents Assembly as early as 1999, a few residents were now resisting all development, due to which instead of 50,000 residents, there were only 3,500 today.

    In its affidavit before the NGT, the Foundation clarifies, “Auroville has been conceived and has been developed as an international cultural township and not as a forest.” It notes that the Master Plan provides for a green belt three times the size of the city area, which will also have green corridors and parks. Ownership of the land is vested in the Foundation, which currently owns about 850 hectares. It has been progressively securing the lands required for development.

    Seek collaborative planning

    Declaring that the land area of the Crown Right of Way (RoW) is only 0.36 per cent of the Master Plan land area, the Foundation maintains that a major part of it has already been cleared, and infrastructure like electricity, water and optical fibre cable have been installed.

    The petitioners argue that “the alleged fact” that the Crown road is but 0.36 per cent “is irrelevant”. “Statistics often provide a misleading picture when taken out of context,” they explain. “By this logic, the Congo rainforests account for only 0.6 per cent of the earth’s surface – that does not mean that the entire rainforest can be cleared.”

    They charged the Foundation with violating the NGT’s stays, with its contractors engaging in installing high tension cables and also preparing the cleared area for laying black kadappa limestone slabs. “It is abundantly clear that the 1st respondent (Foundation) is keen on presenting a fait accompli before this Hon’ble Tribunal,” they contended.

    The petitioners note that the minutes of the 57th meeting of the Governing Board on 2 November 2021 contradict the Foundation when they record the Board’s observations that: “2.2 There is scattered, sporadic and ad-hoc development resulting in high-cost infrastructure and lack of a cohesive social fabric 2.3 Master Plan RoWs (the Crown, radials, outer ring and international zone loop etc.) have not been cleared, resulting in haphazard infrastructure development and high installation and maintenance costs 2.4 There is lack of focus on the development of the township amongst the various working groups and Auroville residents.”

    Auroville residents seek collaborative planning for sustainable development

    Creating an ecosystem

    A former forester and resident since 2002 going only by her first name, Natasha, says Aurovillians are not opposed to development, but do look to participatory and collaborative planning to ensure that any development considers the environment and ground realities. “Afforestation in Auroville has been a long-term endeavour where people are invested not as scientists, but as enthusiasts,” she maintains. “Auroville is to be a point of inspiration, its forests being the most advanced pioneering experiment in recreating a tropical forest.” Tropical forests can fix much more carbon than was previously believed, and this incredible diversity was now regenerating within Auroville.

    Auroville arose from a parched plateau that was rapidly eroding into gullies and furrows, says Kundhavi Devi, an Auroville resident for the past 15 years. Today, the forests, farms and water bodies flourishing in the greenbelt bear testimony to the self-healing power of nature when it is assisted with concern and commitment. The first settlers toiled in the sun-baked expanse to recharge aquifers by preventing rainwater run-off and by nurturing a green cover to improve soil fertility. Auroville has received international acclaim for greening its landscape.

    “We’re not simply planting trees, but creating an ecosystem comprising trees, shrubs, woody species, creepers, lianas, that host insects, birds, animals, microorganisms, and fungi,” adds Natasha. “We have introduced around a thousand different plant species, and raise between 5,000 and 10,000 seedlings a year.”

    The Mother’s charter declares that Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole and that to live there, one must be a willing servitor of divine consciousness. She envisaged an eventual population of 50,000, by around 2025, with Matrimandir, the meditation centre, as its “centre and soul”. It was envisaged that systematic development of infrastructure would attract a working population of 15,000 by 2010.

    An equilibrium disturbed

    Asserting that the Foundation was under the “mistaken assumption” that it has a duty to build for a population of 50,000, the plaint stressed that the growth of Auroville has been organic and fuelled by the people who have chosen to be a part of it. “Constructing infrastructure for 50,000 people when only 3,500 reside is putting the cart before the horse,” it noted. “The need for infrastructure and facilities should be driven by the population and necessity, and not the other way around.”

    The petitioners were expected to appeal before the Supreme Court in the event the petition was dismissed because they anticipate that the NGT will generally not question a central government project.

    Auroville Working Committee member Hemant Lamba says the planned RoW requires the felling of over 150,000 trees and shrubs of tropical dry evergreen forest species, some of which are endangered trees. “Politics has the power to tear the delicate fabric of our path to human unity, and for this reason, most Aurovillians shun all political activity,” he remarks.

    Lamba maintains that the Aurovillian equilibrium has been stricken by some fanatical interpretations of ‘development’ that ignore ground realities. In recent years, a few community members have developed more extreme views about the Mother’s wish to build a ‘city of the future’, believing that the execution of the Crown as a ‘perfect circle’ is essential to hasten Auroville’s spiritual development.

     

    This article was first published on Mongabay-India

     

    Image: Mongabay-India with through a special arrangement

    Myanmar’s minefields continue to kill and maim

    OWSA Contributor
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    Myanmar’s minefields continue to kill and maim

    Antipersonnel landmines continue to be produced in state-owned factories in Myanmar while resistance groups employ improvised landmines.

    Antipersonnel mine blasts claimed 88 lives in Myanmar in 2021, according to UNICEF’s mine action team in Myanmar. Another 196 individuals were maimed for life. Children represent 27 per cent of casualties from landmines or other similar explosive remnants of war – 19 among the 88 dead and 55 children were injured as a result of mines exploding, UNICEF’s data shows.

    The figures, covering 284 casualties from 169 different landmine blast incidents suggest a 113 per cent jump in the caseload of landmine incidents in 2020.

    Leading the list of incidents is the Shan state that shouldered about 38 per cent of the total casualties from 66 blast incidents. Landmine blasts killed 32 people, including seven children. Shan is particularly vulnerable as it borders China to the north, Laos to the east and Thailand to its south.

    The Kachin and Rakhine states followed, accounting for 18 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. Rakhine accounted for the highest rate of child casualties with 44 per cent of the total.

    The combination of the other areas including Bago, Chin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Magway, Sagaing and Tanintharyi accounted for 27 per cent of the total casualties.

    “Landmines continue to be planted as a method of warfare, obstructing the movement of civilians and provision of humanitarian aid,” says the international campaign to ban landmines (ICBL).

    Myanmar’s mined areas are located adjacent to the country’s borders with Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand. New mines continue to be laid by both the military and non-State armed groups.

    Even on roads

    While people and organisations like ICBL involved in landmine monitoring are not exactly aware of the extent of mines planted in the country, they do confirm that mines continue to be produced in state-owned factories.

    In the meanwhile, resistance groups also employ improvised landmines. The planting of mines impedes the return of refugees and internally displaced persons.

    In June 2021, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines had voiced concern over reports of new antipersonnel mine use and civilian casualties due to landmines and other explosive ordnance in the country, especially following the coup by the military in February 2021. The coup was followed by violent crackdowns and fighting between the Myanmar military and two newly formed non-State armed groups, the ethnic armed group and the people’s defence forces.

    Tom Andrews the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, had said on 8 June, “I have received distressing reports that junta forces are laying landmines on public roads.” Andrews was referring to reports from the Kayah State.

     

    Image: UNICEF

    Global trade likely to be subdued in 2022, after record $28.5 trillion in 2021

    OWSA Staff
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    Global trade likely to be subdued in 2022, after record $28.5 trillion in 2021

    Global trade reached a record high in 2021, but it is expected to slow this year for many reasons including continuing delays in global supply chains, UN economists said on Thursday. Trade can significantly reduce poverty.

    First, the good news. Worldwide commerce amounted to around $28.5 trillion in the year gone past. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), this represents an increase of almost 13 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic level of 2019.

    “Global trade growth remained strong during 2021, as its value continued to increase through each quarter of 2021, UNCTAD said, in its Global Trade Update 2022. “Trade growth was not only limited to goods. Trade in services also grew substantially through 2021, to finally reach pre-pandemic levels during Q4 2021.”

    The fourth quarter of 2021 saw trade in goods and services finally returning to pre-pandemic levels

    Now the sad part: The growth in global trade in 2022 will be lower than it was last year.

    Earlier, the International Monetary Fund too had cut its world economic growth forecast for 2022 by 0.5 points (from 4.9 to 4.4.) due to inflation in the US and concerns related to China’s real estate sector.

    Trade has been integral to economic development for centuries as it can significantly reduce poverty by spurring economic growth, creating more remunerative jobs, broadening choices for consumption and enabling innovations and acquisition of technologies. This is why UNCTAD’s report is important.

    Quarter measures

    The UN body pointed to data showing that trade in services finally returned to its pre-pandemic levels in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2021, while trade in goods remained strong, increasing by almost $200 billion, to about $5.8 trillion, a new record.

    A growth in services is what emerging economies like India are banking on, especially because the service sector took a knock in the wake of the lockdowns following COVID-19 and many were rendered without a job.

    UNCTAD also noted that poorer nations’ exports outpaced their richer counterparts in the last quarter of 2021, compared with Q4 2020 (by 30 per cent versus 15 per cent).

    Yearly outlook

    But last year’s economic drivers are likely to “abate”, the UN body, which offers technical advice to developing countries to access the globalized economy, said. This is the reason why it feels that 2022 is set to see less growth than what was seen in 2021.

    This means that “trade growth will continue to slow during Q1 2022” and then “normalize during 2022”, UNCTAD said, before pointing to “persistent inflation” in the US and “concerns” over China’s real estate sector.

    Global supply chains – one of the key elements of the worldwide trade puzzle – will also continue to face negative pressures created by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to UNCTAD.

     

    Image:  World Bank / Dominic Chavez

     

    Digital education push welcome, but not at the cost of institutions

    Policy Circle
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    Digital education push welcome, but not at the cost of institutions

    There is no denying that digital education is the need of the hour. But it should supplement the existing system, not substitute it.

    By Krishnakumar S

    The various lockdown measures announced after the COVID-19 outbreak resulted in an increase in learning deficits across the world. Research by Azim Premji University, survey of Annual State of Education Report, as well as the field observations in the Oxfam report provide empirical evidence which testify this. The asymmetry in access to digital gadgets has resulted in serious learning deficits in different parts of the developing world including India. It needs immediate correction, lest it would lead to a big reversal of some of the milestones that have been achieved towards the Sustainable Development Goals over the years.

    The online learning process has emerged as a short-term solution during the pandemic. This was pushed through as a panacea for all the ills in the field of education. The big digital push announced in the Union Budget 2022 towards addressing the problems in the sector gives the impression that the policymakers are totally unaware of the realities on the ground.

    The announcements included a proposal to set up a national digital university with an outlay of Rs 460 crore and the setting up of a number of education channels. Will the technology fixes work? Shouldn’t they take into confidence the students and teachers who have been experiencing the digital mode in the last two years to understand the associated problems before making such big plans?

    Digital education, a supplement or substitute

    It would be foolish to deny the need for the digital focus. However, people who have experienced digital education during the pandemic will vouch that it should be supplementary, rather than a substitute. To begin with, should there be a national digital university? The Rs 460 crore could have been spent across institutions to create proper digital laboratories that could supplement the mainstream learning environment. The model of OpenCourseWare from MIT is a good example to emulate. Quality assessment of digital resources produced by organisations like NPTEL and upscaling it through soliciting content from scholars could be a useful exercise.

    Such exercises alone would be able to serve as a countervailing power to the EdTech players. It would be in the best interest of the country to take a leaf out of the Chinese policies regulating EdTech players, lest the whole sector would be full of start-ups guided least by the larger social interest.

    Setting up libraries of digital gadgets that students could borrow and creation of information kiosks would be good initiatives towards last mile connectivity. It is also important to mobilise resources towards setting up National Mathematics Mission, National Storytelling and Reading Missions and National Literary Missions that would harness youth power and address the learning deficits. All this could work under NCERT for which Budget 2022 did not allocate any additional fund on the capital expenditure front.

    There is no dearth of talent in the country. There are people who have worked in literacy missions in the past. Rectification of learning deficit in primary, secondary and college levels should be treated as a national priority.

    The current preoccupation to create new institutions when institutions with due mandate are ignored is not desirable. For instance, when all this digital upscaling is being planned, the national resource centre for school education, NCERT, is largely neglected. Other than an increase of the establishment expenses on the investment grant front, there is no extra amount allocated. The preoccupation with new institutions would serve no purpose in the long run. The government should reassure and restore confidence in its own institutions. Institutions like NCERT should be scaled up in such a manner that they could act as countervailing power to private players and EdTechs.

    Another example worth emulating is Hillary Clinton’s initiatives to upscaling science and math education in rural Arkansas through the Arkansas School of Mathematics and Sciences with public boarding school facilities. Could India think in terms of giving a new direction to the Navodaya schools started in mid-1980s? Through infusion of funds, the schools should have monthly camps which cater to aspiring rural school and college learners. Enhancing refresher courses for teachers in this dynamically evolving world should be given priority.

    The country needs to create effective digital resources, but not by demeaning the roles of school. There is no substitute to the ecosystem of support provided by these institutions and their role in nurturing a conscientious generation that dares to think, experiment, disagree and question. And that’s what education is all about.

     

    Krishnakumar S is a New Delhi-based economist. He teaches economics at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.

    This piece has been sourced from Policy Circle — policycircle.org

     

    Image: IBEF

    Noise pollution, wildfires and disruptive timing of life cycles looming environmental threats: UN report

    OWSA Staff
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    Noise pollution, wildfires and disruptive timing of life cycles looming environmental threats: UN report

    The Frontiers Report speaks of a ‘triple planetary crisis’ comprising of urban noise, wildfires and disturbed biological life cycle timings among other looming environmental threats capable of causing widespread ecological damage.

    Wildfires are burning more severely and more often, urban noise pollution is growing into a global public health menace, and phenological mismatches – disruptions in the timing of life-cycle stages in natural systems – are causing ecological consequences.

    These critical environmental issues, requiring greater attention, are highlighted in the fourth edition of the Frontiers Report  Noise, Blazes and Mismatches: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern, released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on Thursday in the run-up to resuming the fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly on 28 February.

    Noise pollution a growing public health hazard

    Unwanted, prolonged and high-level sounds from road traffic, railways, or leisure activities impair human health and well-being. This includes chronic annoyance and sleep disturbance, resulting in severe heart diseases and metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hearing impairment, and poorer mental health, the report says.

    Noise pollution already leads to 12,000 premature deaths each year in the EU. Acceptable noise levels are surpassed in many cities worldwide, including Algiers, Bangkok, Damascus, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City Ibadan, Islamabad and New York.

    According to the report, the very young, the elderly and marginalized communities near high traffic roads, and industrial areas and far from green spaces are particularly affected. It calls on urban planners to prioritize the reduction of noise at the source.

    At the same time, the report conveys, natural sounds can offer diverse health benefits.

    The report points out that the lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 brought a new appreciation for green spaces and the reduction of urban traffic noise. Programmes meant to ‘build back better’ represent an under-utilized opportunity for policymakers, urban planners and communities to create additional green spaces for all.

    Wildfires might get worse

    Each year, between 2002 and 2016, an average of about 423 million hectares or 4.23 million square km of the Earth’s land surface burned, becoming more common in mixed forest and savannah ecosystems. To put it in context, this India’s area measures 3.287 million square km.

    Dangerous wildfire weather conditions are projected to become more frequent and intense and to last longer, including in areas previously unaffected by fires. Extremely intense wildfires can trigger thunderstorms in smoke flumes that aggravate fires through erratic wind speeds and generate lightning that ignites other fires far beyond the fire front, a hazardous feedback loop.

    This is due to climate change, including hotter temperatures and drier conditions with more frequent droughts. Land-use change is another risk factor, including commercial logging and deforestation for farms, grazing land, and expanding cities. A further cause for the proliferation of wildfires is the aggressive suppression of natural fire, which is essential in some natural systems to limit the amounts of combustible material, and inappropriate fire management policies that exclude traditional fire management practices and indigenous knowledge.

    Besides long-term effects on human health, changes in fire regimes are also expected to lead to massive biodiversity loss, endangering over 4,400 terrestrial and freshwater species.

    Wildfires generate black carbon and other pollutants that can pollute water sources, enhance the melting of glaciers, cause landslides and large-scale algal blooms in oceans, and turn carbon sinks such as rainforests into carbon sources.

    Climate change disrupts natural rhythms in plants and animals

    Phenology is the timing of recurring life cycle stages, driven by environmental forces, and how, within an ecosystem, interacting species respond to the changing conditions. Plants and animals in terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems use temperature, day-length or rainfall as cues for when to unfold leaf, flower, bear fruit, breed, nestle, pollinate, migrate or transform in other ways.

    Phenological shifts occur when species shift the timing of life cycle stages in response to changing environmental conditions altered by climate change. The concern is that interacting species in an ecosystem do not always shift the timing in the same direction or at the same rate.

    These phenological shifts are increasingly disturbed by climate change, pushing plants and animals out of sync with their natural rhythms and leading to mismatches, such as when plants shift life cycle stages faster than herbivores.

    Long-distance migrants are particularly vulnerable to phenological change. Local climatic cues that normally trigger migration may no longer accurately predict conditions at their destination and resting sites along the route.

    Phenological shifts in crops in response to seasonal variations will be challenging for food production in the face of climate change.  Similarly, shifts in the phenology of commercially important marine species and their prey have significant consequences for stock and fisheries productivity.

    “The Frontiers Report identifies and offers solutions to three environmental issues that merit attention and action from governments and the public at large,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “Urban noise pollution, wildfires and phenological shifts – the three topics of this Frontiers Report – are issues that highlight the urgent need to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.”

     

    Image: Hippopx / Licensed to use under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

    Health ministry dismisses research reports of undercounting COVID-19 deaths

    OWSA Staff
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    Health ministry dismisses research reports of undercounting COVID-19 deaths

    The health ministry has refuted media reports claiming that India’s COVID-19 mortality is higher than official counts. It called the reports ill-informed and speculative and said that India has a transparent and robust system of recording COVID-19 deaths.

    The union health ministry today refuted reports about India’s COVID-19 mortality count being much higher than the official figures given out by the government.

    The report cites a research paper according to which actual numbers have been under-counted. The study estimates that people between 3.2 million to 3.7 million have died from COVID19 by early Nov 2021 in the country, as compared to official figures of November 2021 of 0.46 million.

    “India has a robust system of reporting deaths including COVID-19 deaths that is compiled regularly at different levels of governance starting from the level of the village local government to the district-level and state level,” the health ministry said, adding that the reporting of deaths is regularly done in a transparent manner.

    In its statement released today, the ministry said that all deaths are compiled by the centre after being independently reported by the state governments. It says that the government has a comprehensive definition to classify COVID-19 deaths based on globally acceptable categorization.

    Saying that projecting COVID-19 deaths have been under-reported is without basis and devoid of justification, the health ministry says.

    The study quoted in the media reports has taken four distinct sub-populations — the population of Kerala, Indian Railways employees, legislators, parliamentarians and school teachers in Karnataka. It uses a triangulation process to estimate nationwide deaths.

    “Any such projections based on limited data sets and certain specific assumptions must be treated with extreme care before extrapolating the numbers by putting all states and country of the size of India in a single envelope,” the health ministry said.

    Robust system

    In its statement, the health ministry has argued, “This exercise runs the risk of mapping skewed data of outliers together and is bound to give wrong estimations thereby leading to fallacious conclusions.” It says that the justification that the study has credence since its findings/estimates are in convergence with another study defies logic and highlights bias on the part of the study’s authors.

    The health ministry says that the whole process is being continuously monitored by the country’s supreme court and, so, the “likelihood of under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in the country is significantly less.”

    The ministry has dismissed the conclusion of the research authors that the “undercount” is due to reluctance or inability of families and local authorities. It says that this is “fallacious and far from the truth.”

    To the media reports claiming that “experts believe India’s civil registration system is vulnerable to gaps. The current civil registration system has little interoperability with health information systems, there is potential for gaps in recording of deaths,” the ministry claims that the government has followed a transparent approach regarding COVID-19 data management that is based on a robust system of recording all COVID-19 related deaths.

    The government iterated that the date of cases and deaths due to COVID-19 are being put in public domain on a daily basis since start of the pandemic, and similarly all states, including districts, are releasing regular bulletins with all details on a daily basis which is also in public domain.

    Further, it says that there is added push in India to capture and report all COVID-19 deaths due to the entitlement to monetary compensation to the next of kin of each and every person dying of COVID-19.

    Crime in Islamabad blamed on its weakest residents

    OWSA Contributor
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    Crime in Islamabad blamed on its weakest residents

    The police’s statement on zero robberies in Islamabad must be taken with a pinch of salt. After all, even a lawmaker’s home robbed at gunpoint in November 2021.

    Is Islamabad SouthAsia’s safest capital city?

    Islamabad’s inspector general of police, Muhammad Ahsan Younas, mentioned to a national assembly standing committee of interior affairs on Wednesday that “not a single house robbery case has been reported since December 18, 2021 in the capital.”

    Briefing the committee about the law and order situation in the Pakistani capital city, Younas said that the city had witnessed a drop of 70 per cent in street crimes and car lifting incidents.

    The senators were enquiring about the status of security since November 2021 when a senator’s home was robbed. Newspapers had reported how a gang of robbers conducted a daring robbery in broad daylight at the house of a senator in a well-appointed Islamabad locality. The armed robbers tied up the senator’s spouse and guards and looted cash and jewellery.

    The incident left the small city with a yet smaller and highly secured population shocked.

    Islamabad is home to about 1,164,000 people – less than a twenty-seventh of Delhi’s or an eighteenth of Dhaka’s population.

    And, while the capital city of Maldives, Male, has about a tenth of Islamabad’s population, it would be a folly to forget that it is the world’s most densely populated capital city. By contrast, Islamabad has been more silent than New York’s graveyard.

    According to the police, Islamabad has witnessed an upward crime trend over three years until 2020. A total of 9,465 cases had been registered in 2018, another 9,748 cases were registered in 2019 and the numbers jumped to 10,539 in 2020.

    In 2021, the capital city’s police told a separate legislative committee that the city witnessed 130 murders, 585 thefts, 954 robberies and 47 cases of rape.

    All hunky-dory?

    But the November 2021 incident seems to have faded into the recess of memory of the city’s residents.

    In a conversation with OWSA, a resident of the city seemed to concur with the top cop’s claim of zero robbery cases for two months now. “It is nothing to be surprised about,” she said. “Islamabad is Pakistan’s capital city and has lot of security.”

    The Islamabad resident who wished not to be named said that she had not heard of instances of robbery in the recent past. “It is very safe, small city,” she said. “I cannot recall when I last heard of an instance of robbery.”

    There are, however, some issues about security in the city of Pakistan’s elites. According to the police boss, two police officials were killed and 11 sustained injuries in incidents (described as “terrorist incidents”) over the past two months.

    The weakest take the blame

    The police blame residents of the katchi abadi for crime. Islamabad’s 52 katch abadis, or informal, unregulated settlements, are home to over 100,000 people, mainly Punjabi Christians who comprise roughly 35 per cent of the population, besides Pakhtuns and Afghan Hazaras.

    The vast majority of katchi abadi residents are work-hands, sanitary workers and domestic workers who serve the labour needs of the city.

    For policemen across the world, refugees become easy fall guys. This is also the case with the Afghan refugees in the city and the Islamabad police that has undertaken a drive to register Afghans in the city. So far the police have registered over 4,000 Afghans.

    But the Islamabad resident OWSA spoke to didn’t feel that Afghans were a problem. “There a lots of Afghans in Islamabad,” she said. “They are very hard working people. They run restaurants here.”

    Like anywhere else, Islamabad’s police too has its black sheep and abuse of power is not unknown. The senior police official said that an “FIR has already been registered against four officials of Islamabad police who opened fire at three students.” The accused men are in the police’s custody and are also facing a departmental inquiry.

     

    Image: Wikimedia – A police station in Islamabad

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