Transparency International revealed alarming findings in December 2024 about the siphoning of public funds in Africa. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jan 16 2025 (IPS)

It is no longer a secret that at major global summits there are more lobbyists than official delegates. There, they participate as ‘guests,’ and most of them work for big business corporations. Their goal? To deter the adoption of policies that conflict with their employers’ interests.

Their persuasion exercise quite often helps water down the urgency of taking decisive actions, the need to cut the private business staggering profits, the financial dues of the industrialised powers to the impoverished nations that bear the heaviest brunt of their policies, and so on.

To achieve such a purpose, lobbyists often quietly show different sorts of ‘gratitude.’

The Big Financial Gap in Climate Action

A clear evidence is what the global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption: Transparency International (TI) informs on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day 2024: Time to tackle the murky world of climate negotiations:

“Every year billions of dollars are mobilised to finance initiatives that curb emissions, fund climate adaptation, and protect crucial conservation areas…

… But without strong anti-corruption measures in place, these essential resources are at risk of being diverted, and the current finance gap is at risk of never being closed.”

“We can already see evidence of this taking place.”

In the carbon credits market, it explains, where the inherent tension between reducing emissions and providing financial returns has led to land grabbing, bribery, projects being double-counted and the prices of carbon credits being keptsecret.

“Last year we saw that in total over 90 percent of carbon credits should not have been approved.”

Estimates of total global anonymous and potentially illicit wealth range from US$7 trillion to US$32 trillion (around 10% of total global wealth).

Such an amount is more than 100-fold the 300 billion US dollars promised by the world’s major climate carnage promoters in the concept of “reparation” to the most impacted poor countries.

Responding to the COP29 climate finance agreement in Baku’s climate summit in November 2024, in which rich countries agree to mobilise $300 billion a year to help Global South countries cope with warming temperatures and switch to renewable energy, Oxfam International’s Climate Change Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi, said:

“The terrible verdict from the Baku climate talks shows that rich countries view the Global South as ultimately expendable, like pawns on a chessboard…

… The $300 billion so-called ‘deal’ that poorer countries have been bullied into accepting is unserious and dangerous —a soulless triumph for the rich, but a genuine disaster for our planet and communities who are being flooded, starved, and displaced today by climate breakdown. And as for promises of future funding? They’re just as hollow as the deal itself.

… The money on the table is not only a pittance in comparison to what’s really needed –it’s not even real “money”, by and large, added Nafkote Dabi.

“Rather, it’s a motley mix of loans and privatized investment –a global Ponzi scheme that the private equity vultures and public relations people will now exploit.

Africa’s Stolen Wealth

“Imagine billions of dollars siphoned from public funds – money meant to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure – vanishing into a web of offshore accounts, luxury real estate and shell companies…”

“This isn’t fiction; it’s the stark reality of how corruption drains resources from Africa and other regions, leaving people to bear the cost,” Transparency International unveiled in December 2024.

TI analysis is based on cases of corruption confirmed by court decisions, as well as credible allegations of corruption and hiding of wealth offshore.

The following are just some of the findings that Transparency International has just uncovered:

– There is a staggering network of companies, properties, bank accounts and luxury goods,

Notably, close to 80 percent of assets were held abroad, often far from where the corruption originally occurred:

– Companies: the ultimate anonymity tool: In 85 percent of cases, companies and trusts were used to obscure the ownership of assets. Often, complex cross-border corporate structures or multiple shell companies were used to distance corrupt individuals – and their dirty funds – from the asset in question.

– Real Estate: The laundering favourite: If companies are the preferred tool for anonymity, real estate ranks among the top choices for laundering stolen funds. In one-third of the cases we analysed, properties played a central role.

France, the United Kingdom (UK), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States (US) were the preferred locations for purchasing properties connected to suspicious activities.

– Bank Accounts: Hong Kong, Switzerland, the UK, the UAE and the US appear as key destinations for bank accounts used to pay bribes, move or store dirty funds.

– EU Golden Passport, Visa Schemes: Many countries run golden passport and visa programmes which offer fast-track citizenship or residency to foreign nationals in exchange for substantial investment in the country – often in real estate.

Member states of the European Union (EU) are particularly attractive, as citizenship or residence in one country grants access to the whole EU.

Golden passports and visas are highly desirable for those associated with corruption because they offer access to a safe haven for their stolen wealth.

A high percentage of the golden visas exchanged money proceed from the ‘mafias’ of trafficking in drugs and toxic substances, let alone the business of trafficking and smuggling migrants.

Transparency International listed the major destinations of the ‘dirty money’: British Virgin Islands, France, Hong Kong, Panama, Seychelles, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and United States.

Ever Growing Inequality

TI, the international movement working to speed up global progress in tackling illicit financial flows and abusive practices that perpetuate economic inequalities and undermine sustainable development, warns that:

“Inequality is a key impediment to sustainable development and social justice. This is particularly true in the case of Africa, where the COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated social and economic inequalities.

Despite two decades of high economic growth, resource-rich Africa is home to 10 of the world’s 20 most unequal countries.

“While extreme poverty is rising, three African billionaires have more wealth than the poorest 50 per cent of the population across the continent.”

Disproportionate impact on the Poor

For its part, the World Bank considers corruption a major challenge to the twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 40 percent of people in developing countries.

“Corruption has a disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable, increasing costs and reducing access to services, including health, education and justice.”

Furthermore, the World Bank explains that corruption in the procurement of drugs and medical equipment drives up costs and can lead to sub-standard or harmful products.

As the global community continues its struggle against climate change, addressing corruption remains critical to ensuring that resources reach those who need them most and that climate finance fulfills its promise of justice and equity.

The IOM estimates that one billion people live without legal identity, limiting their access to vital services and restricting their mobility. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 20 2024 (IPS)

Perhaps demographers would consider designing a new classification system to separate from their estimates of the world’s total population –eight billion plus– the billion humans who live without legal identity and, thus, are deprived from the most basic rights.

The one billion figure seems to fall short if you consider that there are at least 150 million unregistered births.

The Facts

The United Nations specialised body: the International Organization for Migration (IOM) informs that “one in eight people in the world do not have legal identity and cannot have access to services.”

Today, one billion people do not have proof of legal identity hampering their access to social services, taxes, voting, a bank account, and driving irregular migration
Jens Godtfredsen

Specifically, the IOM reveals that “an estimated one billion people are living without legal identity and remain invisible to states, limiting their access to services and restricting their mobility, pushing them to undertake longer, more perilous, irregular routes.”

In view of this finding, the IOM brought together government representatives from Europe, Africa, Middle East and Central America for the Legal Identity and Rights-Based Return Management Conference at the UN City in Copenhagen.

The conference, held at the end of last October, convened government officials from countries of origin and destination and served to promote cross-regional exchanges on legal identity as a core enabler of safer and regular migration.

No Human Rights for Them

On this, Jens Godtfredsen, Ambassador for Migration, Return and Readmission at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, said during the conference that “today, one billion people do not have proof of legal identity hampering their access to social services, taxes, voting, a bank account, and driving irregular migration.”

That’s why it’s critical to come together to discuss concrete solutions to migration challenges, such as the global identity gap, by adopting a whole of government approach, stressed the Danish Government’s representative.

During this international conference, the Governments recognised that readmission processes for migrants are often “hindered by obstacles that can be eliminated or reduced by strengthening a state’s legal identity capacity, consular support, and collaboration among relevant government agencies.”

A Persistent Crisis

Despite these discussions, the grim reality persists. Rather, it is one continuous rise if you take the other dramatic fate of the millions of babies and children that are also ‘inexistente’

A 10 December 2024 report from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals significant progress in ending the problem of the “invisible” millions of babies each year who go unregistered.

Nearly eight in 10 children under five were successfully registered at birth in the last five years.

However, the report, The Right Start in Life: Global Levels and Trends in Birth Registration, also highlights a troubling reality: 150 million children under five still go unregistered, meaning they don’t officially exist as far as government systems.

According to UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, it is crucial that we provide “stronger efforts to ensure that every child, everywhere, is registered at birth.”

Beyond Formality: Why Birth Registration Matters

Birth registration is more than a legal formality – it is the gateway to rights and protections. It ensures a child’s legal identity, prevents statelessness, and facilitates access to essential services like healthcare, education, and social protection.

“Yet over 50 million children with registered births still lack birth certificates, a critical document for proving registration and securing nationality.”

Africa leads the disparities

Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, and Central and Southern Asia lead the way with less than 30 percent of unregistered births.

Lagging is Sub-Saharan Africa home to half of the world’s unregistered children.

Within this region, the disparities are stark: Southern Africa reaches 88 per cent of registrations while Eastern and Middle Africa remain behind at just 41 per cent.

“Rapid population growth in the region will exacerbate the challenge, with projections suggesting over 100 million unregistered children by 2030 if current trends persist.”

Barriers to Registration

Families face numerous barriers to registration, UNICEF explains.

They often mention long distances and multiple visits to registration facilities, a lack of awareness about the process and discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, or religion. High costs also cause recurrent issues.

Stateless and Displaced: The Unseen Millions

Add to all the above, the millions of statelessness who are forced to flee to nowhere as a consequence of the ongoing armed conflicts taking place in some of the most impoverished countries as it is the case of DR. Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Yemen, Haiti, Central America…

Let alone Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.

Please do not forget the millions of victims of the climate carnage who are forced to be displaced across borders they most probably know nothing about, and as such pariahs are not formally recognised by states.

Still talking about human rights, democracy, equality…?

"Without concerted efforts, billions face a future marked by hunger, displacement, and economic decline." Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 17 2024 (IPS)

Planet Earth is drying up, relentlessly. Over three-quarters of all lands have become permanently drier in the last three decades. This is not jut a statistic but a stark scientific fact. But while such an ‘existential crisis’ affects nearly every region, guess where -and who- are the most hit? 

They are the 1.35 billion humans living in Asia’s drylands, that’s more than half the global total. And they are the 620 millions people who inhabit Africa’s drylands, e.g. nearly half of the continent’s population.

The above are some of the key findings of worldwide scientific research elaborated by the Bonn-based UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

A Human-Perpetrated Crime

The report by UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI) — the UN body for assessing the science of land degradation and drought — points to human-caused climate change as the primary driver of this shift.

“Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, transport, industry and land use changes warm the planet and other human activities warm the planet and affect rainfall, evaporation and plant life, creating the conditions that increase aridity.”

According to the world’s scientific community, aridity is considered one of the world’s five most important causes of land degradation (along with land erosion, salinization, organic carbon loss and vegetation degradation).

Drylands Expending at an Alarming Rate

The overarching trend, however, is clear: drylands are expanding, pushing ecosystems and societies to suffer from aridity’s life-threatening impacts.

The report names South Sudan and Tanzania as nations with the largest percentage of land transitioning to drylands, and China as the country experiencing the largest total area shifting from non-drylands into drylands.

Billions Living in Expanding Drylands

For the 2.3 billion people – well over 25% of the world’s population – living in the expanding drylands, this new normal requires lasting, adaptive solutions. Aridity-related land degradation, known as desertification, represents a dire threat to human well-being and ecological stability, warns the research.

“And as the planet continues to warm, report projections in the worst-case scenario suggest up to 5 billion people could live in drylands by the century’s end, grappling with depleted soils, dwindling water resources, and the diminishment or collapse of once-thriving ecosystems.”

A Billion Climate Forced Migrants

Nearly a decade ago, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that the number of climate migrants and refugees could be estimated to reach one billion in the coming decades.

Now, according to the scientific findings, forced migration is one of aridity’s most visible consequences.

“As land becomes uninhabitable, families and entire communities facing water scarcity and agricultural collapse often have no choice but to abandon their homes, leading to social and political challenges worldwide.”

From the Middle East to Africa and South Asia, millions are already on the move—a trend set to intensify in coming decades.

“Without concerted efforts, billions face a future marked by hunger, displacement, and economic decline,” warns Nichole Barger, Chair, UNCCD Science-Policy Interface.

Total Impunity for Polluters

According to the European Union (EU) the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) is a simple idea at the core of EU environmental policy: those responsible for environmental damage should pay to cover the costs.

“This applies to prevention of pollution, remediation, liability (criminal, civil and environmental liability) and the costs imposed on society of pollution that does happen.”

Such PPP has been too far away from being applied, rather: it has been systematically denied.

The most recent evidence of such denial is the outcome of the Baku, Azerbaijan’s climate summit (COP29).

A “Global Ponzi Scheme”

Perhaps one of the clearest evidence is what the world’s coalition to fight inequality: OXFAM International, stated at the end of the Baku meeting.

Responding to the COP29 climate finance agreement, in which rich countries agree to mobilize $300 billion a year to help Global South countries cope with warming temperatures and switch to renewable energy, Oxfam International’s Climate Change Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi, said:

“The terrible verdict from the Baku climate talks shows that rich countries view the Global South as ultimately expendable, like pawns on a chessboard…

… The $300 billion so-called ‘deal’ that poorer countries have been bullied into accepting is unserious and dangerous —a soulless triumph for the rich, but a genuine disaster for our planet and communities who are being flooded, starved, and displaced today by climate breakdown….

And as for promises of future funding? They’re just as hollow as the deal itself.”

The real PPP: “The Poor Pays Principle”

“The money on the table is not only a pittance in comparison to what’s really needed –it’s not even real “money”, by and large, warns OXFAM.

“Rather, it’s a motley mix of loans and privatized investment –a global Ponzi scheme that the private equity vultures and public relations people will now exploit.”

The destruction of our planet is avoidable, but not with this shabby and dishonorable deal. The richest polluters need to wise up —and pay up.”

No way, rather…

Did you know that billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime.

And that superyachts and jets of Europe’s elite emit more carbon pollution in a week than the world’s poorest 1% emits in a lifetime

The scientific findings show that aridity impacts vast areas of the rich Western powers – those who most contaminate.

All the above goes far beyond semantics: when it comes to the polluters, they talk just about money. But when it comes to the polluted, it is about devastation, diseases… and death.

Human activity has degraded over 70% of Earth’s land, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost annually. It takes up to 1,000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

The available data is self-explanatory: business-prompted human activities have already altered over 70% of the Earth’s lands, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost due to industrial agriculture, the excessive use of chemicals, overgrazing, deforestation, pollution and other major threats.

Human-caused extreme weather events, such as heavy rains followed by drought, accelerate soil degradation, while deforestation and overgrazing reduce soil quality by compacting it and depleting essential nutrients.

Much so that the United Nations system has identified that more than 40% of all fertile soils are already degraded.

This consequence is alarming enough if you learn that “it can take up to 1.000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil,” as explained by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and other specialised bodies like the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The case of Africa

In the specific case of Africa, which is home to 1.3 billion people, this vast continent is responsable for barely 2-3% of global warming, yet falls prey to over 80% of its devastating consequences.

Add to this that African fertile soils are highly ambitioned by the international commercial business of massive food production and trade, which are generated through land grabbing, which leads to loss of fertility and water scarcity.

Consequently, Africa is usually associated with severe droughts, land degradation, hunger and famine, let alone the exploitation of its mineral resources, and dozens of armed conflicts.

The five major threats:

According to the UN, these are the five biggest causes and effects of the human-made disastrous situation:

1. Drought

Over one-third of the world’s population lives in water-scarce regions, according to the UNCCD’s Global Land Outlook report.

As land degrades, soil loses its ability to retain water, leading to vegetation loss and creating a vicious cycle of drought and erosion.

“This issue, exacerbated by climate change, is particularly severe in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to food insecurity and famine.”

Add to this that African fertile soils are highly ambitioned by the international commercial business of massive food production and trade, generated through land grabbing.

2. Land degradation

Human activity has altered more than 70% of the Earth’s land, causing widespread degradation of forests, peatlands, and grasslands to name a few ecosystems. This diminishes soil fertility, reduces crop yields and threatens food security.

3. Industrial farming

While industrial farming produces large volumes of food, it significantly harms soil health.

The use of heavy machinery, tilling, monocropping, and excessive pesticide and fertilizer use degrades soil quality, pollutes water sources and contributes to biodiversity loss.

Industrial agriculture also accounts for about 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

4. Chemicals and pollution

Soil pollution, often invisible, harms plant, animal and human health. Industrial processes, mining, poor waste management and unsustainable farming practices introduce chemicals, like synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and heavy metals, into the soil.

Excessive fertilizer use disrupts nutrient balance, while pesticides harm beneficial soil organisms, like earthworms and fungi. Heavy metals, like lead and mercury, accumulate in the soil, interfering with microbial activity and plant nutrient uptake.

5. Diet and nutrition

The world’s current diet and nutritional choices significantly affect soil health through the agricultural practices used to produce food. Diets reliant on staple crops, like wheat, corn and rice, often promote intensive monoculture farming.

This practice depletes soil nutrients, reduces organic matter, and leads to compaction and erosion.

Similarly, diets high in animal products, particularly beef, increase land use for grazing and feed crops. Overgrazing by livestock exacerbates soil compaction and erosion.

With these facts in hand, no wonder that the UN declared the years 2021 through 2030  the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Any way out?

There are too many factors to justify the pressing need to act.

“Our planet’s survival depends on the precious link with soil. Over 95 percent of our food comes from soils. Besides, they supply 15 of the 18 naturally occurring chemical elements essential to plants,” the UN reminds.

The world body also reminds that there are solutions through feasible sustainable soil management practices, such as minimum tillage, crop rotation, organic matter addition, and cover cropping, improve soil health, reduce erosion and pollution, and enhance water infiltration and storage.

These practices also preserve soil biodiversity, improve fertility, and contribute to carbon sequestration, playing a crucial role in the fight against climate change.

Up to 58% more food could be produced through sustainable soil management, the UN unveils, and warns that agricultural production will have to increase by 60% to meet the global food demand in 2050.

The obscene greed…

Despite all the above, and no matter how many summits are held, greed standing behind such depletion remains unaltered.

In fact, giant industrial corporations – mostly originating in Western countries – seem to have no limits in their practices of making more and more profits, at any cost, including poisoning human, fauna and flora, in short, the whole natural system.

Much so that “big business’ windfall profits rocket to “obscene” $1 trillion a year amid cost-of-living crisis,” according to Oxfam, a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, and ActionAid, a global federation working for a world free from poverty and injustice.

“722 mega-corporations raked in $1 trillion a year in windfall profits each year for the past two years amid soaring prices and interest rates, while billions of people are having to cut back or go hungry,” unveil the two big civil society coalitions.

Only business matters?

A small tax on just seven of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies could grow the UN Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2000%, as shown in an analysis by environmental organisations Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty.

“Taxing ExxonMobil’s 2023 extraction could pay for half the cost of Hurricane Beryl, which ravaged large parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and the USA…

… Taxing Shell’s 2023 extraction could cover much of Typhoon Carina’s damages, one of the worst that the Philippines experienced this year. Taxing TotalEnergies’ 2023 extraction could cover over 30 times Kenya’s 2024 floods.”

What appears to matter most is that the business of global trade is poised to hit a record 33 trillion USD in 2024, marking a 1 trillion USD increase over 2023, according to the UN trade and development body (UNCTAD)’s Global Trade Update.

Photo courtesy: Shelter Associates

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 26 2024 (IPS)

In most Western European countries you can purchase –or rent- a 60 square-metres flat that is equipped with two toilets, one for her and one for him. Larger apartments may feature even more.

For those who can afford it, such facilities are taken for granted. Yet, nearly half the global population—over 3.5 billion people—live without access to safely managed sanitation, including 419 million forced to practice open defecation.

The Hidden Reality of Open Defecation

The consequences of open defecation are stark. Human waste contaminates rivers and groundwater—often the primary sources of drinking, cooking, and bathing water in impoverished regions. It pollutes the air and fuels the spread of deadly diseases like cholera and malaria.

For women and adolescent girls, the lack of sanitation also brings added challenges. Without hygienic facilities, they face health risks and societal stigma, particularly during menstruation, with nowhere to manage this basic need in privacy.

Global Promises, Limited Progress

Year after year, the world’s largest multilateral system – the United Nations, tries to draw attention to the dangers of the lack of such an essential sanitation service. And so it does once and again on the occasion of the 2024 World Toilet Day.

These dangers are one of the main sources of concern and worry of at latest 30 specialised bodies grouped in the international system.

Such is the case of the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), the UN Women, among many others, let alone the UN-Water which coordinates the United Nations’ work on water and sanitation.

Politicians promised that by 2030, they would achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.

This promise is part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

Yet another unmet promise

Nevertheless, “the world is alarmingly off-track to deliver sanitation for all by 2030.”

The evidence is sobering:

• Nearly half the world’s population, 3.5 billion people, use sanitation services that leave human waste untreated, jeopardizing human and environmental health.
• Of those, 419 million lack any toilet and practice open defecation.
• An estimated 367 million school-age children attend schools without toilets.
• Only 32% of forcibly displaced people have basic sanitation access.

At the current pace, sanitation for all won’t become a reality until the 22nd century, warns the World Health Organization.

Also this year, the whole UN system recalls that ‘Safe toilets for all by 2030’ is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 . However, “the world is seriously off track.”

Indeed, this goal is among the 17 SDGs which were adopted nearly a decade ago by all members of the United Nations.

Also Toilets Are Under Threat

Yes, as armed conflicts, extreme weather events and disasters can destroy, damage or disrupt sanitation services. Here go some of the consequences:

“When toilet systems don’t work – or don’t exist – untreated human waste spreads in the environment, unleashing deadly diseases such as cholera,” warns the United Nations.

– Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene are responsible for the deaths of around 1,000 children under five every day. (WHO, 2023)

– Children who live in extremely fragile contexts are three times more likely to practise open defecation, four times more likely to lack basic sanitation services and eight times more likely to lack basic drinking water services. (UNICEF, 2024).

Obviously the citizens living in industrialised countries are not to be blamed for having toilets… not at all. Rather, good for them.

But what about the decision-makers?

Over 1 billion children have had their lives disrupted by disasters since 2000, with over 80,000 schools damaged or destroyed. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 20 2024 (IPS)

Did you know that hundreds of millions of children around the world are currently suffering from physical, sexual, and psychological violence, including child labour, child marriage, female genital mutilation, gender-based violence, war, trafficking, bullying, and cyberbullying?

This is the grim reality of up to a billion children vulnerable to various forms of abuse, as depicted by the United Nations  Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children.

Commenting on a special report on this issue, the UN Special Representative, Najat Maalla M’Jid, revealed that violence against children has reached “unprecedented levels.”

Meanwhile, the UN specialised bodies, led by UN Children Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO), among others, have revealed staggering findings on the occasion of the 2024 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.

No safe place for children

These findings revealed by the United Nations highlight that “there is no safe place for children” anywhere in the world.

Indeed, climate carnage, wars, human trafficking, slavery, and cyberviolence, among many other forms of abuse against the innocent children, stand behind their grim life.

See some of the most relevant facts:

• UNICEF and other UN bodies report that half of the world’s children are at “extremely high risk” due to climate impacts and related disasters,

• Over 1 billion children have had their lives disrupted by disasters since 2000, with over 80,000 schools damaged or destroyed,

• The number of children affected by destructive flooding worldwide has reached the highest levels in more than three decades,

• In the aftermath of a disaster, children face serious repercussions including disrupted education, nutrition and healthcare”

Punished and Abused

Should all these facts be not frightening enough, please also know that 400 million children under five regularly endure psychological aggression and physical punishment at home;

And that 300 million children have been affected by online sexual exploitation and abuse over the past 12 months.

Young Girls: the Most Vulnerable

“Today’s generation of girls is disproportionately affected by global crises of climate, conflict, poverty and pushback on hard won gains for human rights and gender equality,” reports the United Nations on the occasion of the 2024 International Day of the Girl Child.

Did you know that:

• Nearly 1 in 5 girls are still not completing lower-secondary and nearly 4 in 10 girls are not completing upper-secondary school today.

• Globally, girls aged 5-14 spend 160 million more hours every day on unpaid care and domestic work than boys of the same age.

• Adolescent girls continue to account for 3 in 4 new HIV infections among adolescents.

• Nearly 1 in 4 married/partnered adolescent girls aged 15-19 have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime.

• Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 100 million girls were at risk of child marriage in the next decade.

Rape: A Weapon of War

Add to all the above that more than 370 million girls and women alive today – or 1 in 8 – experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, warns UNICEF.

And that “children in fragile settings are especially vulnerable to sexual violence,” said Russell.

“We are witnessing horrific sexual violence in conflict zones, where rape and gender-based violence are often used as weapons of war.”

The Digital Threat

Among emerging challenges are the risks faced by children in the digital spaces, including the tactics used by armed groups to recruit and exploit children.

According to UN data, most childhood sexual violence occurs during adolescence, with a significant spike between ages 14 and 17.

“Studies show that children who experience sexual violence are more likely to suffer repeated abuse.”

Survivors often carry the trauma of sexual violence into adulthood, facing higher risks of sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, social isolation, and mental health issues like anxiety and depression, as well as challenges in forming healthy relationships.

Although more girls and women are affected, and their experiences are better documented, boys and men are also impacted, with an estimated 240 to 310 million boys and men.

Today’s children have been raised in a violent world, thus, they will most likely fall in the hellish trap of exercising violence in their adulthood.

These hundreds and hundreds of millions of children will be the backbone of the immediate future. Do you think that their tragic fate is on the agenda of political –and business- leaders?

Trump's focus: Drilling for oil, not saving the planet. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 13 2024 (IPS)

During his electoral campaign, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump highlighted that the U.S. holds more oil reserves than any other country, even surpassing Saudi Arabia. In this context, he openly encouraged big businesses to tap into these reserves with the words: ’Drill, baby, drill.’

The US president-elect has also threatened to impose record tariffs on electric cars’ imports from China, by increasing them between 100% and 200%, and has hinted at higher taxes on European vehicles as well.

As the U.S. remains the second-largest global contributor to climate damage after China, do you expect that this year’s climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan (11-22 November) can achieve what all the previous 28 sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have failed to?

In other words, can COP29 come out with effective, verifiable, legally binding decisions to mobilise the amount of financial resources (between 187 and 359 billion US dollars annually) to overcome the current huge adaptation finance gap?

Or shall this yet another expensive gathering end up with the usual ‘politically correct’ Declaration that will be announced as “landmark,” “historical,” although a non-binding step to halt the growing “climate carnage,” as called by the United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres.

So far, major political –and financial– world’s leaders decided to skip the summit, as is the case of the United States, the European Commision, and Germany, among others.

The Huge Financial Gap

The life-saving amount required to heal peoples and Nature –187 to 359 billion US dollars annually– is just a fraction of what the world’s military powers spend –annually– on weapons whose function is to kill peoples and Nature.

See what an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports:

• Estimated global military expenditure rose for the ninth consecutive year in 2023, to surpass $2.4 trillion,
• Despite the consequent growth in demand for weapons and continued efforts to meet that demand, arms companies have found it difficult to boost production.
• The 6.8 per cent increase in total military spending in 2023 was the largest rise since 2009 and pushed estimated world spending to the highest level recorded by SIPRI.
• As a result, the global military burden—world military expenditure as a share of world gross domestic product (GDP)—rose to 2.3 per cent.
• Governments allocated an average of 6.9 per cent of their budgets to the military or 306 US dollars per person.
• Estimated military spending increased across all five geographical regions for the first time since 2009.

‘America First’

“The United States remained by far the largest military spender in the world.”

The USA’s expenditure of 916 billion US dollars was more than the combined spending of the 9 other countries among the top 10 spenders, and 3.1 times as large as that of the second biggest spender, China, reports SIPRI, which is ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide

During the same year -2023- up to 39 of the 43 countries in Europe increased military spending. The 16 per cent surge in total European spending was driven by a 51 per cent rise in Ukrainian spending and a 24 per cent rise in Russian spending.

The Israel–Hamas war was the main driver for the 24 per cent increase in Israel’s military expenditure, adds SIPRI in its Yearbook 2024.

The Big Polluters

The United States and other rich, industrialised powers, like Europe, and Japan, are the largest polluters, as is the case of China and India, while being those with the biggest capability to reduce the financial adaptation gap they have been causing.

See what a global movement of people who are fighting injustice for a more equal world, working across regions in 79 countries, with thousands of partners and allies: Oxfam International unveils in its report: “Carbon Inequality Kills”:

• Super Yachts and Jets of Europe’s Elite Emit More Carbon Pollution in a Week than the World’s Poorest 1% Emits in a Lifetime
• One ultra-rich European takes an average of 140 flights a year, spending 267 hours in the air and producing as much carbon as the average European would in over 112 years.
• In the same period, an ultra-rich European on their yachts emits, on average, as much carbon as an ordinary European would in 585 years.

On the climate adaptation financial gap, the report highlights what it called Make rich polluters pay.

“Climate finance needs are enormous and escalating, especially in Global South countries that are withstanding the worst of climate impacts.

“A wealth tax up to 5% on European multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise 286.5 billion euros annually. , supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis.”

The Victims Pay?

Another global movement of more than 10 million people in over 150 countries and territories who campaign to end abuses of human rights: Amnesty International, has reported.

“With millions of people already displaced by climate change disasters in Africa, the richer countries most responsible for global warming must agree at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan “to fully pay for the catastrophic loss of homes and damage to livelihoods taking place across the continent.”

Africa’s contribution to the climate carnage amounts to a neglectable 2 per cent.

And the suicidal war on Nature and Humans goes on

On the eve of the COP29, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the year 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of this century, the world has witnessed more than 2,500 disasters and 40 major conflicts.

A Misleading Claim

By the way, the elected president of the United States’ statement that his country has the largest oil reserves in the world, including Saudi Arabia, is anything but accurate.

According to the WorldAtlas’ list of the top 10 oil reserves by country, Venezuela ranks first with 303 billion barrels, followed by Saudi Arabia with 267 billion barrels, while the United States comes the 9th, with oil reserves amounting to 55 billion barrels.

In short, for the world’s biggest military powers, wars are worth spending far more than saving lifes. And the oil business that kills Mother Nature and all that lives on it, also ranks hight among their top priorities.

‘Drill, baby, drill’

Credit: United Nations

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

A quick glance at the current European political map would clearly show how far the extremist ideology has been installed in European countries –those who still wave the French Revolution’s flag of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”

According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.

Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.

“Not true” that “all humans are equal”

The extremist ideology promoted by Europe’s right and far-right politicians is pushing –either openly or surreptitiously– for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle: Leave No One Behind

These concepts have also been clearly reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the actual umbrella of all the other international laws and agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted in 2015 by all countries -including the richest ones, those who now violate their own principles.

Instead, the extremist ideology promoted by Europe’s right and far-right politicians is pushing –either openly or surreptitiously– for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle: Leave No One Behind.

A compilation of all the extremist ideology postulates, which are now spreading like wildfire in Europe, would require drafting a long book or more. Therefore, this report is based on the most shared right and far-right doctrines in the continent.

“Gender violence does not exist“

To start with, one of the Agenda 2030 Goals: Gender Equality, has been gradually breached by the European far-right parties, by either directly or indirectly claiming that women should stay at home, caring for children, as the only way to prevent the ‘disappearance of families.’

Some of them even start advocating for the separation of students by gender, e.g., classrooms for boys and others for girls.

‘Penis matter’

In Spain, for instance, the conservative party– Partido Popular (PP), has adopted such a far-right party VOX doctrine in all those regions where they rule in coalition with the PP: to replace the concept of gender violence with “intra-family violence.”

Not only that: one VOX leader, Gabriel Le Senne, who now chairs the Balear Islands regional Parliament as part of the pact between VOX and the PP, says that “Women are more belligerent because they lack a penis.”

Migrants, “that big threat”

Migrants have further been targeted by European extremist ideology, which assures those who flee former European colonies, those who have fallen victims of externally-induced wars and severe climate change’s impacts.

In their hate speech, the far-right claims that migrants come to Europe to “steal our jobs, destroy our social fabric, threaten our civilisation, our faith, kill our innocent citizens,” and a long etcetera.

The very same far-right leader, Gabriel Le Senne, also stated that “In Spain, between Hispanics and Africans it is not clear where the thing will end, but it is clear that the natives are increasingly in danger of extinction.”

“Labour exploitation does not exist“

Meanwhile, alongside other European extremist political groups, the two Spanish right and far-right parties, PP and VOX, show reluctance to a European Commission directive aimed at preventing labour exploitation and child labour.

Reason: the proposed directive intends to penalise large companies that benefit from labour exploitation. A high number of the exploited children are migrant descendants.

Islam is “terror”

In a related hate speech, the European extremist politicians continue to target the world’s Muslim for all sorts of “terrorism,” and criminality.

For example, the leader of the far-right party VOX, Santiago Abascal, has indirectly blamed ‘radical Muslims’ living in the European Union of fuelling and masterminding the already week-long social unrest in France, following the assasination by a French policeman of an Argelian-descendent 17 years old Nahel.

This growing anti-Muslim trend goes against all international laws and agreements, including the worldwide adopted Agenda 2030, let alone the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For instance, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March 2023), warned that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

According to this United Nations report, the outright hatred towards Muslims has risen to ‘epidemic proportions.’

“Climate change does not exist”

Climate change is another key target of European extremist ideology, which not only negates its existence, but it also refuses regulations and policies that aim to reduce both its causes and worldwide devastating impacts, Europe included.

In this, they deny what two authoritative specialised bodies, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, have warned on 19 June 2023.

“Not true” that Europe is the fastest warming continent

Europe is “the fastest warming continent of the world, doubling global average,” WMO and Copernicus warned in their joint report: The State of the Climate in Europe 2022 report.

“The year 2022 was marked by extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Sea surface temperatures around Europe reached new highs, accompanied by marine heatwaves. Glacier melt was unprecedented.”

Such a fact is easily verifiable: around one third of European crops have been already lost, and the sources of water, both for humans, irrigation, and livestock, are rapidly drying up.

Already in May 2022, the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that from insufficient drinking water supply to contamination by sewage overflow and disease outbreaks from improper wastewater treatment, “existing risks from climate change to water, sanitation and hygiene in the pan-European region are set to increase significantly.”

“No” to a European Nature Restoration Law

In spite of all this, a dozen of the European Union’s member countries oppose a proposed Nature Restoration Law. According to its detractors, such a law would harm the market and financial interests of the agri-food business in their countries.

In yet another negation of the SDGs’ key pillar: Leave No One Behind, the ultra-right parties in Europe, also deny the rights of the lesbians, gays, bi, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, who, according to the UN, “continue to face widespread stigma, exclusion and discrimination, including in education, employment and health care.”

Let alone refusing the right to euthanasia, abortion, and a very long etcetera.

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

How come that in a world where technology is -or is about to be- able to detect an ant in a jungle, the traffickers of death continue to carry out their lucrative criminal activities everywhere and in all fields, from weapons to prostitution, enslavement and drugs, to deadly fake medicines, through oil, gas and poisoned food.

In the specific case of Asia, a specialised organisation reports the Asian ‘Golden Triangle’ is where historically opium was grown to produce heroin for export, but where, in recent years, the trade of “even deadlier and more profitable synthetic drugs have taken over.”

Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past

Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
In its June 2023 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) informs that East and Southeast Asian synthetic drug supply remains at ‘extreme levels’ and diversifies.

The report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2023”, confirms an expansion and diversification of synthetic drug production and trafficking in the region, while trafficking routes have shifted significantly.

“Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the frontlines of illicit trade in Asia dominated by transnational organised crime syndicates.”

Methamphetamine, ketamine…

‘High volumes’ of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded.

“Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

‘Unwanted’ to be seen

“Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand, but at the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking.”

Douglas added that criminal groups from across the region also started moving and reconnecting after lengthy pandemic border closures, with late 2022 and early 2023 patterns starting to look similar to 2019.

Hidden in “legal products”

Moreover, synthetic drugs containing a mixture of substances and sometimes “packaged alongside legal products” continue to be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, with serious health consequences for those who knowingly, or unknowingly, consume the products.

Moreover, the world drug problem is a complex issue that affects millions of people worldwide.

Many people who use drugs face stigma and discrimination, which can further harm their physical and mental health and prevent them from accessing the help they need, the UN warns on the occasion of the 2023 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June).

“Unprecedented” increase

The increase in the production of synthetic drugs in recent years has been “unprecedented” according to the UNODC Regional Representative.

It is not just drugs which are being trafficked across the region: chemical precursors to manufacture synthetic drugs are being illegally transported into Myanmar in quantities far larger than the drugs that are trafficked out, UNODC further explains.

Trafficking also in people, wildlife, timber…

In fact, a myriad of cross-borders issues, including drug and precursor chemical trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, wildlife and forestry crime, and, in some locations, the movement of terrorist fighters alongside public health and pandemic-related matters.

The impact of legalising the use of cocaine

Cannabis legalisation in parts of the world appears to have accelerated daily use and related health impacts, according to the World Drug Report 2022, which also details record rises in the manufacturing of cocaine, the expansion of synthetic drugs to new markets, and continued gaps in the availability of drug treatments, especially for women.

According to the report, around 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26% increase over the previous decade.

“In Africa and Latin America, people under 35 represent the majority of people being treated for drug use disorders.”

Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. Around half of this number were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million were living with HIV, and 1.2 million were living with both.

Reacting to these findings, UNODC Executive Director, Ghada Waly stated: “Numbers for the manufacturing and seizures of many illicit drugs are hitting record highs, even as global emergencies are deepening vulnerabilities.”

At the same time, mis-perceptions regarding the magnitude of the problem and the associated harms are depriving people of care and treatment and driving young people towards harmful behaviour, said Waly.

Key trends by region

In many countries in Africa and South and Central America, the largest proportion of people in treatment for drug use disorders are there primarily for cannabis use disorders. In Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, people are most often in treatment for opioid use disorders.

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Preliminary estimates in the United States point to more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, up from nearly 92,000 in 2020.

Conflict zones magnets for synthetic drug production

This year’s report also highlights that illicit drug economies can flourish in situations of conflict and where the rule of law is weak, and in turn can prolong or fuel conflict.

Information from the Middle East and South-East Asia suggest that conflict situations can act as a magnet for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere. This effect may be greater when the conflict area is close to large consumer markets.

Historically, parties to conflict have used drugs to finance conflict and generate income. The 2022 World Drug Report also reveals that conflicts may also disrupt and shift drug trafficking routes, as has happened in the Balkans and more recently in Ukraine.

A possible growing capacity to manufacture amphetamine in Ukraine

According to the UNODC report, “there was a significant increase in the number of reported clandestine laboratories in Ukraine, skyrocketing from 17 dismantled laboratories in 2019 to 79 in 2020. 67 out of these laboratories were producing amphetamines, up from five in 2019 – the highest number of dismantled laboratories reported in any given country in 2020.”

Gender treatment gap

Women remain in the minority of drug users globally yet tend to increase their rate of drug consumption and progress to drug use disorders more rapidly than men do. Women now represent an estimated 45-49% of users of amphetamines and non-medical users of pharmaceutical stimulants, pharmaceutical opioids, sedatives, and tranquillisers.

The treatment gap remains large for women globally. Although women represent almost one in two amphetamine users, they constitute only one in five people in treatment for amphetamine use disorders.

The World Drug Report also spotlights the wide range of roles fulfilled by women in the global cocaine economy, including cultivating coca, transporting small quantities of drugs, selling to consumers, and smuggling into prisons.

Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party. The party could soon be in government, after the 23 July 2023 general elections. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 22 2023 (IPS)

The abuse of human rights has sharply increased with the steady rise of the right and far-right parties in the wealthy industrialised countries, whose extremist ideology is now spreading faster than ever in Europe.

Indeed, most of the European Union 27 member countries are now either formally ruled by or strongly influenced and supported by extremists and populist parties, which publicly negate basic human rights, while masking their policies of suppressing public services like health, education, pensions, and protection of workers.

Life of citizens to be handled by private corporations

Let alone, their negation of the existing deadly gender violence, the right of women to equal opportunities, and the devastating climate catastrophes which impact the very same Europe, let alone all international laws regulating the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

It’s like a ladder of incremental extremism - You start at the bottom with a stereotype, move on to emojis and memes that lead to harmful speech. Harmful speech leads to hate speech, a torrent of hate builds up, and results in the incitement of violence. And then you have actual violence

And they are active in most European countries, from Scandinavian and Baltic States, to Italy and Greece, through Hungary, Poland, Czechia, France and Austria, let alone the United Kingdom.

Spain is one of very few European countries still ruled by a progressive Government, although it is feared that the right and far-right parties will take over after the 23 July 2023 general elections.

The myth of white supremacy

Their trend to further promote the myth of ‘white supremacy’ is not new, but rather a reflection of what is being done by European descendents in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Such a myth goes against what they call ‘minorities,’ e.g., anybody who is not White and Christian.

They call it “the defence of our national identity.”

In short, the spread of hate speech, stigmatisation and racial discrimination is now being widely “institutionalised” in European countries, those whose governments signed –and their Parliaments ratified– all international, legally-binding declarations, treaties and laws defending the protection of human rights.

For such purposes, they further spread hate speech, which reinforces “discrimination and stigma and is most often aimed at women, refugees and migrants, and minorities,” as described by the United Nations on the occasion of this year’s International Day for Countering Hate Speech (18 June).

With hate “spreading lightning fast on social media and mega spreaders using divisive rhetoric to inspire thousands, hate speech “lays the ground for conflicts and tensions, wide scale human rights violations.”

‘Dark age of intolerance’

On this, Mita Hosali, Deputy Director of the UN Department of Global Communication (DGC), said young people are often seen today as vectors of such toxic trends as online hate speech.

“Increasingly, we are entering this dark age of intolerance, fueled by polarisation and mis- and disinformation, and there are all kinds of ‘facts’ swirling out there,” she cautioned.

“It’s like a ladder of incremental extremism,” Hosali said.

“You start at the bottom with a stereotype, move on to emojis and memes that lead to harmful speech. Harmful speech leads to hate speech, a torrent of hate builds up, and results in the incitement of violence. And then you have actual violence.”

Tech companies must now show effective leadership and responsibility around moderation to set up guard rails for respectful online discourse, she said.

“It really boils down to leaders, whether they are political, business, faith, or community leaders,” she said, emphasising that such efforts must also start within the family and ripple across all circles of influence so that ordinary people fight back against hate speech.

According to the world’s largest multilateral body –the UN–, the devastating effect of hatred is sadly nothing new.

However, “its scale and impact are amplified today by new technologies of communication, so much so that hate speech has become one of the most frequent methods for spreading divisive rhetoric and ideologies on a global scale.”

Social exclusion fuels terrorism

The consequences of such a growing social exclusion spreading in Europe and elsewhere are dire.

On this, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on 19 June 2023 stressed at the UN’s Third Counter-Terrorism week that terrorism affects every region of the world, while preying on local and national vulnerabilities.

“Poverty, inequalities and social exclusion give terrorism fuel. Prejudice and discrimination targeting specific groups, cultures, religions and ethnicities give it flame.”

No one is born to hate

Hatred, conspiracy theories and prejudice infiltrate our societies and affect all of us. We are flooded by information – and disinformation – more than ever before both on- and offline. “But no one is born to hate.”

Nevertheless, ‘toxic and destructive’ hate speech has now grown much faster and wider than anytime before.

Migrants, the easiest victims

In the right and far-right campaigns in defence of what they call “our freedom,” “our Western civilisation,” “our democracy,” “our values,” and “our Christian faith,” they turn migrants, now more than ever before, into the easiest prey to chase.

In fact, like the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, among other Western wealthy powers, the 27 members of the European Union on 8 June adopted a strongly criticised by major human rights organisations, which further restricts the basic human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Death of migrants, ‘normalised’

The number of migrants who died and are still hopelessly missing as a consequence of the 14 June shipwreck off Greece coast of a fishing vessel carrying between 450- and 750 migrants, is still unknown.

Anyway, it just adds to a long series of migrant deaths in only one sea: the Mediterranean.

Although the number of dead migrants in the Mediterranean is far from being credibly counted, the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project documented 441 migrant deaths in the Central Mediterranean in the first quarter of 2023, “the deadliest first quarter on record since 2017.”

The most dangerous maritime crossing

The increasing loss of lives on the “world’s most dangerous maritime crossing” comes amidst reports of delays in State-led rescue responses and hindrance to the operations of humanitarian non-governmental organisations’ search and rescue (SaR) vessels in the central Mediterranean.

Not only that: Italy, like other South European States, still argues that the non-governmental, voluntary humanitarian vessels dedicated to search and rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, are involved in… human trafficking.

These human tragedies are playing out at Europe's land and sea borders on a daily basis. The first quarter of this year marked the deadliest in the central Mediterranean in six years, say humanitarian organisations in a joint statement. Credit: UN News Centre

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 19 2023 (IPS)

Make no mistake: European States are complicit in the death of thousands and thousands of human beings on their shores, land borders and at home. The massive drowning of hundreds of migrants close to Greece shores on 14 June is just a new chapter in Europe’s long series of continued violations of all international human rights laws.

So far, 10 worldwide known humanitarian organisations have strongly reacted, in a joint denunciation statement, asking the European Union (EU) to ‘end rights violations at Europe’s borders.’

In their Joint NGO statement: The EU must not be complicit, launched on 16 June, organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, OXFAM and Save the Children, among others, warned that once again, dozens of lives have been lost at Europe’s borders “due to the EU’s failure to allow people seeking protection to reach Europe safely.”

Hundreds are missing and presumed dead after the latest tragedy close to the Greek coast, with reports that amongst the dead are many women and children who were held below the deck of this overcrowded fishing vessel.

European States were “informed”

“The authorities of several Member States were informed[1] of the vessel in distress multiple hours before it capsized, and a Frontex aircraft was also present at the scene.” [2].

Organisations have advocated relentlessly with the European Commission, Member States and European policy makers to adopt measures to end human rights abuses and senseless deaths at EU borders. Instead, some EU states have drastically reduced search and rescue (SAR) capacity at sea, and restricted civil society SAR operations, which means that prompt and effective assistance cannot be provided to migrants in distress, in blatant disregard of international SAR obligations

These human tragedies are playing out at Europe’s land and sea borders on a daily basis. The first quarter of this year marked the deadliest [3] in the central Mediterranean in six years, adds the statement which was also signed by Danish Refugee Council, HIAS Europe, International Rescue Committee, Missing Children Europe, and SOS Children’s Villages International.

The joint humanitarian organisation statement goes on reporting that human rights watchdogs[4], civil society organisations, the United Nations[5] and countless investigative journalists as well as major media outlets[6] have documented the human rights violations, pushbacks[7] and systematic failures to engage in search and rescue that have now become the EU’s de facto migration management policy.

Europe urged to end rights abuse, senseless deaths

Hundreds of reports and evidence submissions have been published, including those based directly on witness and survivor testimonies.

Organisations have advocated relentlessly with the European Commission, Member States and European policy makers to adopt measures to end human rights abuses and senseless deaths at EU borders, it adds.

“Instead, some EU states have drastically reduced search and rescue (SAR) capacity at sea, and restricted[8] civil society SAR operations[9], which means that prompt and effective assistance cannot be provided to migrants in distress, in blatant disregard of international SAR obligations.”

More pushbacks and more deaths

Furthermore, on 8 June European Union’s Member States agreed on a reform of the European asylum and migration system, which is built on deterrence and systematic detention at EU borders, that will most probably incentivise more pushbacks, and deaths at sea, while the border monitoring mechanisms established so far are neither independent nor effective[10].

“This will only push people fleeing war and violence into even more dangerous routes and cause more unnecessary deaths. Meanwhile, EU Member States continue to rely on untransparent deals worth billions with third countries, in an attempt to rid themselves of their asylum responsibilities.”

In their joint statement, the human rights watchdogs urge a full investigation into these deaths, specifically into the role of EU Member States as well as the involvement of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which supports the management of the EU’s external borders and the fight against cross-border crime.

An ‘open graveyard’ at Europe’s borders

“We urge the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, to finally take a clear stand on the open graveyard at Europe’s land and sea borders, and to hold Member States accountable.”

“We call for a European asylum system that guarantees people the right to seek protection in full respect of their rights. The EU should abandon the narrative of blaming shipwrecks on smugglers and stop seeing solutions solely in the dismantling of criminal networks.”

“A recipe for more abuse at EU borders”

Analysing the new reform of the European asylum and migration system, Human Rights Watch‘s Judith Sunderland on 9 June warned that EU migration reforms deal will increase suffering at borders.

“European governments pave the way for further abuse,” reported Sunderland, Human Rights Watch’s Associate Director, Europe and Central Asia Division.

A June 8 agreement among European Union countries on asylum procedures and migration management is “a recipe for more abuse at EU borders,” she warned.

Interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg endorsed policies that “will entrench rights violations, including expedited procedures without sufficient safeguards, increased use of detention, and unsafe returns.”

The deal creates an expedited “border procedure” for anyone applying for asylum following an irregular entry or disembarkation after a rescue at sea, she adds.

The procedure would be mandatory for asylum seekers coming from countries whose nationals have a less than 20 percent rate of being granted some form of protection and anyone authorities say withheld or used false information, Sunderland further reports.

Asylum seekers likely to be “locked up”

“In practice, many if not most people will be channelled into these sub-standard accelerated procedures with fewer safeguards, such as legal aid, than the normal procedure.”

People are also likely to be “locked up” during the procedure, which could take up to six months, with few exemptions for people with vulnerabilities, families, or children.

According to the human rights defender, imposing this procedure in conjunction with detention or detention-like conditions is directly linked to the twin interests of many EU countries in preventing people travelling further into Europe from countries of first entry and in deporting people as swiftly as possible.

The agreement would allow each country to determine what constitutes a “safe third country” where people can be returned, based on a vague concept of “connection” to that country. This could lead to people being sent to countries they have merely transited or where they have a family member but have themselves never been, and where their basic rights cannot be guaranteed.”

Want to further abuse human rights, just pay a fine!

“EU countries have rejected a mandatory relocation scheme, instead aiming to allow countries who won’t take asylum seekers to pay into a common fund that would be used to finance unspecified projects in non-EU countries, presumably focused on preventing migration.”

When the European Commission presented its proposal for a Migration Pact in September 2020, more than 70 organisations warned the proposal risked “exacerbating the focus on externalisation, deterrence, containment, and return.”

Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming. Credit: Claudio Riquelme/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

The good news: oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth’s surface, contain 97% of the world’s water, represent 99% of the living space on the Planet by volume, and are a major source of food and medicine. Much so that they are the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world.

More: Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

And the bad news

The bad news is that, with 90% of big fish populations depleted, and 50% of coral reefs destroyed, human beings are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished.

Marine biodiversity is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification. Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste

Indeed, there is another ‘crime’ being committed as a consequence of the unrelenting business obsession with making more and more money. It is about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a practice that threatens marine biodiversity, livelihoods, exacerbates poverty, and augments food insecurity.

The ‘criminal’ depletion of the fish

Such illegal activities are responsible for the loss of 11–26 million tons of fish each year, which is estimated to have an economic value of 10–23 billion US dollars.”

Much so that if ‘business’ goes as usual –and all indicate that it will– there will be more tons of plastic than fish by the year 2050, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Moreover, there are issues of marine debris and marine litter involved in IUU fishing, which are not only related to the marine environment but also the safe navigation of ships, explains the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Who is the worst enemy?

Commenting on their exceptional importance for human beings, the United Nations chief, António Guterres warned on the occasion of the 2023 World Oceans Day (8 June) that “we should be the ocean’s best friend. But right now, humanity is its worst enemy.”

Guterres called oceans ‘the foundation of life’, as they supply the ‘air we breathe and the food we eat,’ while regulating climate and weather.

The greatest reservoir of biodiversity. And of litter

“Marine biodiversity is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification. Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste.”

According to reports, an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons, is distributed across the ocean.

The United Nations has long warned the international community of the damage ocean garbage does to the economy and the environment, as reported by the large energy company Iberdrola.

This waste decimates marine ecosystems by killing more than a million animals a year, it reports, adding that organisations like Greenpeace report that floating plastic accounts for only 15% of the total, while 85% remains hidden underwater — at depths of up to 11,000 metres, or even trapped in Arctic ice.

Marine pollution

Marine pollution accounts for at least 85% of marine waste, and plastic litter is the chief pollutant, reports the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Every minute, one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our ocean. If nothing is done about it, by 2040, the equivalent of 50 kg of plastic per metre of coastline worldwide is projected to flow into the ocean yearly, the world leading environmental body informs.

It is estimated that by the year 2030, the world’s coastal populations will contribute three trillion dollars to the global economy in sectors as diverse as fisheries, and tourism, as well as emerging green and blue economies such as renewable energy and marine biotechnology.

More human ‘crimes’ against life

Another major body, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has also focused on the dangers of plastic pollution also to the world’s soils and crops.

On this, it reports that the qualities that make plastic useful are also the ones that make it hazardous: ‘designed to fool nature itself, most plastics are too resilient to biodegrade in a meaningful timeframe.’

The Convention further says that the world’s current efforts to recycle plastics have been inefficient so far: only 9% of plastic is recycled globally, and much of it is either thrown away or cannot be processed for recycling.

“One-third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater, endangering our food, our livestock and the health of the soil. Invisible to the eye, microplastics linger in the environment, the food chain, and our bodies.”

Soil is the foundation of our agricultural systems which support nearly all food-producing crops: about 95% of our food comes from the soil, UNCCD further explains.

“Fertile soil that produces food is a finite resource, and plastic pollution can have a long-lasting impact on soil health, biodiversity and productivity, all of which are essential to food security.”

Deadly contaminated food

Talking about food security, did you know that “every day, some 1.6 million people worldwide fall ill from eating contaminated food, which kills 420,000 people each year,” as reported by two UN agencies on the occasion of the 2023 World Food Safety Day, (7 June).

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have in fact reported that “over 200 diseases are caused by eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances such as heavy metals.”

The staggering impacts of human activities against the oceans and everywhere else do not end here. There is still more, much more, to report on the deadly consequences for the world’s oceans, soils, and the whole cycle of life of the human addiction to fossil fuels.

Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

There is a tangled trafficking web that has been woven across the Sahel, which spans almost 6.000 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and is home to more than 300 million people in 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

This is how several international specialised bodies, mainly the United Nations, depict the aggravated situation in this already highly fragile African region, which the UN describes as a region in crisis, as those living there are prey to “chronic insecurity, climate shocks, conflict, coups, and the rise of criminal and terrorist networks.”

The Sahel criminal web deals with an unimaginable range of ‘commodities’, from chilli peppers and fake medicine, to fuel, gold, and guns, through humans and more which are being trafficked via millennia-old trade routes crisscrossing the Sahel, according to a 20 May 2023 report.

The US-led military intervention

Security has long been an issue in the region, “but the situation markedly degraded in 2011, following the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, which led to the ongoing destabilisation of the country,” explains the United Nations.

On 19 March 2011, a US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization coalition (31 Western member-countries) launched a military intervention in Libya, with coordinated naval and air forces attacks mainly by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, among others.

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Since then the big oil producer Libya has been the stage of growing instability and chaos, let alone a hub of human trafficking, smuggling and slavery.

Humans, weapons, oil…

Such “ensuing chaos, and porous borders stymied efforts to stem illicit flows, and traffickers transporting looted Libyan firearms rode into the Sahel on the coattails of insurgency and the spread of terrorism,” reports the UN.

Fuel is another commodity trafficked by the main players – terrorist groups, criminal networks, and local militias.

“Armed groups now control swathes of Libya, which has become a trafficking hub.”

In fact, in addition to massive human trafficking and migrant smuggling, markets across the Sahel can be found openly selling a wide range of contraband goods, from fake medicines to AK-style assault rifles.

… And medicines that kill

A UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, on 27 May 2023 focussed on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines.

“From ineffective hand sanitiser to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa’s Sahel region.”

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Trafficking medication is often deadly; in just one case, 70 Gambian children died in 2022 after ingesting smuggled cough syrup.

Desperate demand

According to the UN, health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world’s highest incidences of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.

“This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms,” the report says.

It further explains that street markets and unauthorised sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.

Fatal results

The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.

“Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorised antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.”

In the summer of 2022, 70 Gambian babies and young children died from kidney failure after ingesting cough syrup spooned out by their caregivers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert that four tainted paediatric products had originated in India, as local health authorities continue to investigate how this tragedy unfolded.

Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to 44.7 million US dollars every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

Corruption

Corruption is one of the main reasons the trade is allowed to flourish.

About 40% of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed.

“Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.”

The perpetrators

“The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain,” the report found.

Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.

While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying “taxes” on shipments in areas under their control.

Far beyond the Sahel and Africa

Fighting organised crime is a central pillar in the wider battle to deal with the security crisis in the region, which UN Secretary-General, António Guterres says, poses a global threat.

“If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism, and organised crime will be felt far beyond the [Sahel] region and the African continent,” Guterres already warned in 2022.

Apart from repeated proposals for action and solution, evidence shows that very little has been done, if anything, to halt those merchants of death. Who benefits from such a horrid destabilisation of 10 African countries which already rank among the poorest ones on Earth?

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 29 2023 (IPS)

Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.

Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.

See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.

Warmest year ever

“There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”

It was baffling that nations were continuing knowingly to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people

Mami Mizutori, UNDRR chief

The world-leading meteorological body then informs that such a rise is fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.

El Niño steers weather patterns around the world, WMO further explains, “can aggravate extreme weather events,” and its events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the Southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

“This year is already predicted to be hotter than 2022 and the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. 2024 could be even hotter as the impact of the weather phenomenon sets in.”

‘Staggering rise…’

Mind you: This WMO report is just an update that would be logically expected. Indeed, it actually adds to earlier reiterated findings about the worse to come.

For instance, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’

According to its report, there has already been an 80% increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015.

Out of control

“However, many of the lessons from past disasters have been ignored.”

The consequences are that now a steadily increasing number of people are being affected by larger, ever more complex and more expensive disasters because decision-makers are failing to put people first and prevent risks from becoming disasters.

“Many of these disasters are climate-related, and in light of the latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries are likely to face even worse disasters if global temperatures continue to rise.”

“Brutally unequal”

The impacts are “brutally unequal,” with developing countries hit the hardest, as highlighted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Its report multi-country review points to the rapid accumulation of risk that is building up, intersecting with the risks of breaching planetary boundaries, biodiversity and ecosystem limits – which is spiralling out of control.

Not so new, anyway. Indeed the UNDRR chief, Mami Mizutori, reminded already at the end of 2020 that the international community pledged in Paris in 2015 to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

‘Uninhabitable hell…’

However, she added, “It was “baffling” that nations were continuing knowingly “to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people”.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of how disasters are becoming worse, said Mami Mizutori. “The sad fact is that many of these disasters are preventable because they are caused by human decisions.”

The point is that already a year ago, the UNDRR warned that “by deliberately ignoring risk, the World is bankrolling its own destruction.”

But this should not be surprising: many fingers have been pointing to the responsibility of the short-sighted politicians, who are too often influenced by the powerful money-making business, that they end up turning a blind eye on such mass destruction.

Drought, heat “100 times more likely”

On 5 May 2023, the World Meteorological Organization reported that climate ‘change’ made both the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa and the record April temperatures in the Western Mediterranean at least 100 times more likely.

Regarding the Horn of Africa, it said that the drought was made much more severe because of the low rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures in a world which is now nearly 1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.

Mediterranean heatwave

In late April, parts of Southwestern Europe and North Africa experienced a massive heatwave that brought extremely high temperatures never previously recorded in the region at this time of the year, with temperatures reaching 36.9 – 41 °C in the four countries.

“The event broke temperature records by a large margin, against the backdrop of an intense drought.”

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

Spreading everywhere

Across the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter, reports WMO based on researchers’ analysis that looked at the average of the maximum temperature for three consecutive days in April across southern Spain and Portugal, most of Morocco and the northwest part of Algeria.

Crops under threat

As other analyses of extreme heat in Europe have found, “extreme temperatures are increasing faster in the region than climate models have predicted,” said the researchers.

Until overall greenhouse gas emissions are halted, global temperatures will continue to increase and events like these will become more frequent and severe.

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

And the carnage goes on

In short, the ongoing climate carnage is expected to move from the worst to the worst.

And anyway, the term ‘carnage’ should not sound at all new.

Indeed, it was already spelt out by the United Nations’ top chief, António Guterres, in September 2022, following his field visit to the vast Pakistan’s regions impacted by unprecedented devastating floods.

The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said Guterres, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.

The UN chief stated that he saw in those regions “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination.”

By the way, do you expect that the coming COP28 in Dubai (November 30th-December 12th, 2023) will come out with anything different from the usual ‘politically correct,” “radical chic” statements?

This money could otherwise be spent on healthcare, education, gender equality and social protection, as well as addressing the impacts of climate change, says Oxfam. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 22 2023 (IPS)

Two shocking findings have just been revealed: the G7 countries owe low- and middle-income countries a huge 13.3 trillion USD in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, at a time when one billion people now face cholera risk, precisely because of the staggering reduction and even non-payment of committed assistance.

Such an inhuman reality also reveals that the G7 (Group of the seven wealthiest countries), who represent just 10% of the world’s population, continue to demand the Global South to pay 232 million USD –a day– in debt repayments through 2028, on 17 May 2023 revealed a new analysis from Oxfam ahead of the G7.

The Group of Seven (G7) countries owe low- and middle-income countries a huge 13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, according to an Oxfam new analysis launched ahead of the G7 (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and Canada) Summit in Hiroshima, Japan (May 19- 21, 2023)

This is the amount of interest and debt repayment that the mid and low-income nations –including the 46 Least Developed Countries (LDC5)– have to continue transferring -every single day– for the total 10 trillion USD they have been forced to borrow from rich states, private banks and financial corporations.

The findings

The Group of Seven (G7) countries owe low- and middle-income countries a huge 13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, according to an Oxfam new analysis launched ahead of the G7 (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and Canada) Summit in Hiroshima, Japan (May 19- 21, 2023).

“This money could otherwise be spent on healthcare, education, gender equality and social protection, as well as addressing the impacts of climate change,” adds this global movement of people fighting inequality, working in 70 countries, with thousands of partners and allies.

Meanwhile, cholera threatens one billion humans

Such a huge G7 country’s debt to the Global South in their unmet aid pledges would be vitally needed to save the lives of up to one billion people in 43 countries now facing cholera risk amid a ‘bleak’ outlook, as reported by World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) on 19 May 2023.

In their new alert, the two specialised organisations said that more countries now face outbreaks, increasing numbers of cases are being reported and the outcome for patients is worse than 10 years ago.

After years of steady decline, cholera is making a “devastating comeback and targeting the world’s most vulnerable communities.”

Killing the poor in plain sight

“The pandemic is killing the poor right in front of us,” said Jérôme Pfaffmann Zambruni, Head of UNICEF’s Public Health Emergency unit.

Echoing the bleak outlook, WHO data indicates that by May 2022, 15 countries had reported cases, but by mid-May this year 2023 “we already have 24 countries reporting and we anticipate more with the seasonal shift in cholera cases,” said Henry Gray, WHO’s Incident Manager for the global cholera response.

Cholera cases spiking

“Despite advances in the control of the disease made in the previous decades we risk going backwards.”

The UN health agency estimates that one billion people in 43 countries are at risk of cholera with children under five particularly vulnerable.

“Cholera’s extraordinarily high mortality ratio is also alarming.”

Southeastern Africa is particularly badly affected, with infections spreading in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations.

Deadly combination

A deadly combination of climate change, underinvestment in water, sanitation and hygiene services – and in some cases armed conflict – has led to the spread of the disease, said the two UN agencies.

Despite these and so many other threats facing the most vulnerable countries, the wealthy G7 states continue to drastically cut their committed aid, while causing the largest impacts of their highly lucrative addiction to fossil fuels, one of the main causes of the current climate emergency.

Wealth “built on colonialism and slavery”

“Wealthy G7 countries like to cast themselves as saviours but what they are is operating a deadly double standard —they play by one set of rules while their former colonies are forced to play by another,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“It’s the rich world that owes the Global South. The aid they promised decades ago but never gave. The huge costs of climate damage caused by their reckless burning of fossil fuels. The immense wealth built on colonialism and slavery.”

In fact, already in 2020, the G7 countries accounted for more than 50% of global net wealth, estimated at over 200 trillion USD.

“Each and every day, the Global South pays hundreds of millions of dollars to the G7 and their rich bankers. This has to stop. It’s time to call the G7’s hypocrisy for what it is: an attempt to dodge responsibility and maintain the neo-colonial status quo,” said Behar.

“This money could have been transformational,” said Behar. “It could have paid for children to go to school, hospitals and life-saving medicines, improving access to water, better roads, agriculture and food security, and so much more. The G7 must pay its due.”

Billions of poor… and hungry

The G7 leaders are meeting at a moment where billions of workers face real-term pay cuts and impossible rises in the prices of basics like food. Global hunger has risen for a fifth consecutive year, while extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years, reports OXFAM.

Despite a commitment last month from the G7 to phase out fossil fuels faster, Germany is now pushing for G7 leaders to endorse public investment in gas, the human solidarity movement further explains.

G7 owes the poor $9 trillion for their devastation

“It has been estimated that the G7 owes low- and middle-income countries $8.7 trillion for the devastating losses and damages their excessive carbon emissions have caused, especially in the Global South.”

G7 governments are also collectively failing to meet a long-standing promise by rich countries to provide $100 billion per year from 2020 to 2025 to help poorer countries cope with climate change, it adds.

Meanwhile, “In 1970, rich countries agreed to provide 0.7 percent of their gross national income in aid. Since then, G7 countries have left unpaid a total of $4.49 trillion to the world’s poorest countries —more than half of what was promised.”

Will this 10% of the world’s population ever meet its pledges to the 90% of all humans on Earth? What do you think?

“As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain,” says the European Environmental Agency. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 18 2023 (IPS)

Once the money-making businesses have turned Asia and Africa into their low-cost factories, to produce and market at higher prices their clothes and footwear, obtaining more profits by selling to these two continents around 90% of all their used and textiles waste.

Not only: such a business alleviates the harsh environmental impacts of the lucrative clothing and fashion industry, and the cost of recycling and eliminating the leftovers of these products.

Textile consumption causes the third largest land use and water use in the value chain, and the fifth largest material resource use and greenhouse gas emissions. Also, textiles cause pressures and impacts from their chemicals on the environment and climate

Just know that textiles are on average “the fourth-highest source of pressure on the environment and climate change from a European consumption perspective,” the European Environment Agency (EEA) on 26 April 2023 reported.

Consequently, “Europe faces major challenges managing used textiles, including textiles waste.”

Europe exports much more than textile waste

Lars Mortensen, EEA expert on circular economy, confirms that textile production and consumption in the European Union have significant impacts on the environment and climate.

“Textile consumption causes the third largest land use and water use in the value chain, and the fifth largest material resource use and greenhouse gas emissions. Also, textiles cause pressures and impacts from their chemicals on the environment and climate”.

The poisoning plastic

A 27 January 2023 EEA briefing focusses on another big problem: plastic.

“Plastic-based — or ‘synthetic’— textiles are woven into daily lives in Europe, in the clothes we wear, the towels and the bed sheets, in the carpets, curtains and cushions. And they are in safety belts, car tyres, workwear and sportswear.”

Synthetic textile fibres are produced from fossil fuel resources, such as oil and natural gas, the briefing goes on, adding that their production, consumption and related waste handling generate greenhouse gas emissions, use non-renewable resources and can release microplastics.

EU consumers discard about 5.8 million tonnes of textiles annually – around 11 kg per person – of which about two-thirds consist of synthetic fibres, according to the briefing.

“In Europe, about one-third of textile waste is collected separately, and a large part is exported.”

Africa and Asia are therefore the largest destinations of these toxic fibres.

Simply put: by exporting European used clothes and textiles waste, their impacts necessarily fall on the shoulders of Africans and Asians.

A highly uncertain fate

Indeed, “as reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain,” says the European Environmental Agency.

In fact, throughout the past two decades, Africa has been the main continent receiving used textiles from the European Union (EU), importing more than 60% of EU exports.

But while in 2000 Asia received only 26% of EU exports, by 2019 it had significantly increased its share to 41% of EU imports. This is almost equal to Africa, which still imported 46% of EU exports.

Where do second-hand clothes end up?

In the African countries studied, the EEA report says that the import of used textiles seems to be mainly meant for local reuse. This is because there is a demand for cheap, used clothes from Europe, which seem to be preferred to new items.

“What is not fit for reuse mostly ends up in open landfills and informal waste streams.”

In Asia, however, most of the used textiles are imported to so-called economic zones where they are sorted and processed. In the countries studied for this briefing, import for local reuse is restricted.

Instead, used textiles seem to be recycled locally, mostly downcycled into industrial rags or filling, or re-exported either for recycling in other Asian countries or reuse in Africa.

“Textiles that cannot be recycled or re-exported are likely to end up in the general waste management system, most of which is landfilling.”

The big figures…

According to this European Union (EU)’s agency that ‘delivers knowledge and data to support Europe’s environment and climate goals’:

• The amount of used textiles exported from the EU has tripled over the last two decades from slightly over 550,000 tonnes in 2000 to almost 1.7 million tonnes in 2019.
• The fate of used textiles exported from the EU is highly uncertain. The perception of used clothing donations as generous gifts to people in need does not fully match reality,
• Used clothing is increasingly part of a specialised and traded global commodity value chain,
• In 2019, 46% of used textiles ended up in Africa: Imported, used textiles on this continent primarily go towards local reuse as there is a demand for cheap, used clothes from Europe. What is not fit for reuse mostly ends up in open landfills and informal waste streams,
• In 2019, 41% of used textiles ended up in Asia. Most used textiles on this continent are imported to dedicated economic zones where they are sorted and processed,
• The used textiles are mostly downcycled into industrial rags or filling, or re-exported for recycling in other Asian countries or for reuse in Africa. Textiles that cannot be recycled or re-exported are likely to end up in landfills.

… The big exporting hubs

“Some EU countries, such as Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, have exported more than others and seem to have acted as import-export hubs for used textiles from the EU.”

There is no clear reason explaining why five out of 27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom account for around 75% of all EU used textile exports, adds the EEA.

Therefore, it is likely that the largest exporters have been sending used textiles abroad, collected locally and from other EU countries, says the European agency.

Thus, another reason for the concentration of exports in a few EU countries could be that these large exporting countries are acting as export hubs.

“In other words, they are importing used textiles from other EU Member States for re-export beyond the EU. Ports/harbours for international shipment in some of these countries make them logical export hubs.”

Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have large export harbours.

… and the big increase

EU used textile exports have grown significantly over the last two decades, the EEA reports, explaining that exports of textile waste outside the EU have been steadily increasing to reach 1.4 million tonnes in 2020.

Still, another problem appears: how to avoid that waste streams are falsely labelled as second-hand goods when exported from the EU and in this way escape the waste regime?

EU used textile exports are characterised by a lot of uncertainty, adds the EEA. First, there is uncertainty around the types of textiles exported as well as their quality.

In other words, it says, if used textiles exported from the EU are of too low quality to be reused, or are not reused for very long or do not replace new clothing purchases, they may not really replace new production or benefit the environment.

“Instead, the exports will only lead to more textiles ending up in landfills.”

The argan tree forest constitutes a vital fodder reserve for all herds even in periods of drought. All parts of the argan tree are edible and very appreciated: leaves, fruits and the undergrowth are a meal of choice especially for the most daring goats that do not hesitate to climb the branches. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 12 2023 (IPS)

A much needed break amidst so many alarming news, with a brief story of a tree, a bottle of liquid gold, and a wedding gift.

It is useless to remind you that all trees are wonderful living beings, with an amazing vital system to drain water through their roots, and breathe through their leaves to bring this water to their trunk, branches and leaves.

All of them are sources of most of the oxygen on Earth while absorbing harmful greenhouse gases. Their roots greatly contribute to fixing the land, thus reducing the risk of further degradation and desertification. Let alone purifying the air.

This particular tree

Among them, one is special: the Argan tree.

A native species of the sub-Saharan, Southwest region of Morocco, where it grows in arid and semi-arid areas, this tree is the defining species of a woodland ecosystem, also known as Arganeraie, which is rich in endemic flora.

The argan tree used to grow throughout North Africa, but currently, it only grows in southwestern Morocco. It is estimated to be the second most abundant tree in Moroccan forests, with over 20 million trees living in the region.

The argan tree is one of the world’s wild plants, which are used by an estimated 3.5 to 5.8 billion people, with one billion humans depending on them for their livelihoods and food security.

Furthermore, wild plants offer great economic and nutritional benefits for these communities and for societies around the world. In fact, between 2000 and 2020, the global trade value of medicinal and aromatic plants alone increased by more than 75%, as reported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In spite of that, two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, sustainable use and climate change.

Hidden in plain sight

Here is the case of just one of these wild plant species hidden in plain sight:

Argan can be found in cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals. Mostly used as an oil, its anti-ageing properties are popular for cosmetics, and its demand in the food industry has turned it into the most expensive edible oil in the world, FAO adds.

Under the burning sun

Now see what the UN further tells about its importance on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Argania:

• It withstands temperatures of up to 50° Celsius.
• It is a bastion against desertification, it can reach 10 metres in height and can live for 200 years.
• Its woodlands provide forest products, fruits and fodder.
• Its leaves and fruits are edible and highly appreciated, as is the undergrowth, and constitute a vital fodder reserve for all herds, even in periods of drought.
• It is used as fuelwood for cooking and heating.
• And also as medicines and cosmetics.

A mainstay of indigenous Berbers

For centuries, the argan tree has been a mainstay of the Berber and Arab-origin indigenous rural communities, which developed a specific culture and identity, sharing their traditional knowledge and skills through non-formal education, particularly the knowledge associated with the traditional production of argan oil by women, the world body explains.

The argan-based agro-forestry-pastoral system uses only locally adapted species and pastoralism activities and relies on traditional water management provided by the Matifiya – a rainwater reservoir carved into the rock, hence contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to the conservation of biodiversity.

The ‘liquid gold’

But there is more: the world-renowned argan oil, which is extracted from the seeds and has multiple applications, especially in traditional and complementary medicine and in the culinary and cosmetic industries.

In addition, argan oil is given as a wedding gift and it is used extensively in the preparation of festive dishes.

The fruit of the argan tree is a green to light yellow berry in the centre of which is an almond made up of several seeds gorged with oil. It takes about 150 kg of fruit to produce 3 litres of argan oil.

The Argan Women

Indeed, it is said that, since the 13th century, the Berber women of North Africa have been making argan oil for culinary and cosmetic purposes.

The International Day of Argania further explains that the fruits are hand-picked and dried in the sun, then pulped, grinding, sorting, milling and mixing. Its nuts are crushed and its almonds crushed to filter the oil.

Women lead the entire extraction process through knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next. In fact, rural women and, to a lesser extent, men living in the reserve practice traditional methods to extract argan oil from the fruit of the tree.

“Traditional know-how specific to the extraction of the oil and its multiple uses is systematically transmitted by ‘argan women’, who teach their daughters from a young age to put it into practice.”

What else would you expect from a tree?

Several human-caused threats lay behind the current annual loss of up to 40% of food crops globally, mainly due to plant pests and the introduction of alien species. Credit: Jency Samuel/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 10 2023 (IPS)

Two big facts are impressive enough: plants are the source of 80% of all food, and as much as 98% of all oxygen. Logically, it would be taken for granted that human beings would do whatever is needed to protect this essential source of life. But do they?

Not at all. Rather the whole contrary.

Several human-caused threats lay behind the current annual loss of up to 40% of food crops globally, mainly due to plant pests and the introduction of alien species.

Among them stands the massive international travel and trade business, which has been associated with the introduction and spread of so many pests.

Plant health is increasingly at risk. Plant pests are responsible for the annual loss of up to 40 percent of food crops globally. This is especially relevant to the millions of smallholder farmers and people in rural communities who rely on agriculture as a primary source of income and see their livelihoods at risk

Indeed, world trade hit a record 32 trillion US dollars in 2022, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Being such a highly profitable business, it continues to bring thousands of alien species that silently but relentlessly invade – and colonise – the whole Planet Earth.

The ‘White Sea’ and the Black Sea, invaded, colonised

Just know that over 1.000 alien species have already taken over the Mediterranean Sea (popularly known in Arabic as the ‘White Sea’) and the Black Sea.

But these two seas are no exception. All of the world’s seas are already occupied by aliens. And anyway this is not the case of seas only: also all the Planet’s lands and air are highly infected.

Such an alien invasion is extremely dangerous to native species, much so that it is changing the nature of the waters and the lands of these two nearly closed seas.

Aliens on board

“They are non-indigenous fish, jellyfish, prawns, algae and many other marine and not marine species, most of them are being brought by human activities such as giant cargo ships, oil tankers, touristic cruisers, and even medium and small fishing boats,” reliable data show in a recent UN report.

The Mediterranean Sea ranks high on the list of the world’s most trafficked waters.

Did you know that more than 2.000 cargo ships, oil tankers, cruisers, cross the Mediterranean Sea at any given moment?

Over half of those alien species have established permanent populations and are spreading, causing concern about the threat they pose to marine ecosystems and local fishing communities, reports the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

No wonder then that this sea is undergoing a “tropicalisation” process as water temperatures rise, largely due to climate change, the UN warns.

Where from and who is bringing them?

Many species have migrated via well-travelled Mediterranean shipping routes such as the Strait of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal, often attached to the hull of ships or inside them in the ballast waters, explains FAO.

Other species, such as the Pacific cupped oyster and the Japanese carpet shell, were introduced for aquaculture during the 1960s and 1970s and have since escaped and colonised Mediterranean ecosystems.

Number of aliens on the rise

In other words, “Invasive species are changing the nature of the Mediterranean Sea,” the world’s body warns.

Stefano Lelli, a fishery expert for the Eastern Mediterranean working for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, knows about that. “Climate change and human activities have had a profound impact on the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.”

According to Lelli, “We have witnessed a swift and significant alteration of marine ecosystems, which has led to several impacts on local communities livelihoods. In the coming years, we expect the number of non-indigenous species to continue rising.”

Once established, non-indigenous species can outcompete native ones and alter their surrounding ecosystems, with potential economic implications for fisheries and tourism or even human health, says the FAO report.

Massive unsustainable tourism

Add to this the massive, often unsustainable tourism business, and travels by air and ships –both among the main causes of climate emergency–, and the many other invasive pest species that are also associated with rising temperatures which create new niches for pests to populate and spread.

Did you know that the Mediterranean Sea is by far the largest global tourism destination?

Simply, it attracts almost a third of the world’s international tourists (one billion a year), generating more than one-fourth of all international tourism receipts (200 out of 750 billion euros, or about 230 out of 800 billion US dollars).

No wonder then that it is one of the most infected basins by pests and alien species.

What is the reaction to the loss of 40% of food crops globally?

Instead of reacting swiftly to repair all these damages and avoid further ones, human activities resort to the intensive use and misuse of pesticides, which harm pollinators, natural pest enemies and organisms crucial for a healthy environment, warns FAO.

“Yet, plant health is increasingly at risk. Plant pests are responsible for the annual loss of up to 40 percent of food crops globally. This is especially relevant to the millions of smallholder farmers and people in rural communities who rely on agriculture as a primary source of income and see their livelihoods at risk.”

Humans continue to alter ecosystems, reduce biodiversity…

The climate crisis and unsustainable human activities are altering ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and creating new niches for invasive pests to thrive.

Concurrently, international travel and trade that can unintentionally spread pests and diseases rapidly around the world have tripled in volume over the last decade, causing great damage to native plants and the environment.

In view of all the above, no surprise that the UN has declared an International Day of Plant Health, which is observed each year on 12 May, to raise global awareness of how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment, and boost economic development.

Until when -and how far- will human avidity continue to destroy the very source of life on Planet Earth?

Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 8 2023 (IPS)

Less than a decade ago, Africa was home to 60-65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 10% of renewable freshwater resources, as reported by the African Union in 2016, while concluding that African farmers could feed the world.

Is it still the case?

The above data had been provided in July 2016 by the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), the technical body of the African Union (AU).

Now that seven long years have elapsed, the second largest continent on Earth –after Asia– has been facing too many extraneous pressures and hazards.

A major consequence is that that very percentage (60-65%) of the world’s uncultivated and arable land is now affected by degradation, with nearly three million hectares of forest lost… every single year.

Great walls

The steadily advancing degradation and desertification of major African regions have led the continent to build great green walls.

One of them – the Great Green Wall, is the largest living structure on the Planet, one that stretches over 8.000 kilometres across Africa, aiming at restoring the continent’s degraded landscapes and transforming millions of lives in the Sahel, and ushering in a new era of sustainability and economic growth.

Launched in 2007 by the African Union, this African-led Great Green Wall Initiative. The project is being implemented across 22 African countries and is expected to revitalise thousands of communities across the continent.

It is about “helping people and nature cope with the growing impact of the climate emergency and the degradation of vital ecosystems, and to keep the Sahara desert from spreading deeper into one of the world’s poorest regions,” according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Vast tracts of land along the Great Green Wall have already been restored by local communities. And so far, 80% of the 19 billion US dollars have been pledged, as reported by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

But not enough…

The extraneous factors that have been pushing Africa towards the abyss of extremely severe droughts, unprecedented floods, the advancing degradation of its land and water resources, have led this continent on Earth to rush to build more and longer and larger walls.

For instance, the Southern Africa region is currently busy preparing a similar programme, with all 16 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) committed to accelerating multi-sectoral transformation through a regional initiative inspired by the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, or SADC Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI).

The SADC member countries are: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A wall for Southern Africa

Their Initiative aims to create productive landscapes in the Southern Africa region that contribute to regional socially inclusive economic prosperity and environmental sustainability.

Together with member countries and key partners the goal is to initiate multi sectoral partnerships and to acquire pledges of an indicative 27 billion US dollars by 2025.

10 Million square kilometres at risk of desertification

Covering a total land area of 10 million square kilometres, Southern Africa faces immediate effects of desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as challenges driven by climate change, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable development practices in agriculture, energy and infrastructure sectors, reports the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

“The Great Green Wall is part of a broader economic and development plan – if we restore land but are not able to reap the benefits of that healthy and restored land due to lack of access to renewable energy and infrastructure, hindering access to markets and livelihoods, then we are only halfway there with our vision,” on this said UNCCD’s Louise Baker.

And a great wall for the Middle East

In addition to the above two new natural wonders, there is another one: the Middle East Green Initiative, a regional effort led by Saudi Arabia to mitigate the impact of climate change on the region and to collaborate to meet global climate targets.

50 billion trees

It aims at planting 50 billion trees across the Middle East, equivalent to 5% of the global afforestation target, and to restore 200 million hectares of degraded land.

A fifth (10 billion) trees will be planted within Saudi Arabia’s borders, with the remaining 40 billion set to be planted across the region in the coming decades.

The trees will also provide numerous other benefits, including stabilising soils, protecting against floods and dust storms and helping reduce CO2 emissions by up to 2.5% of global levels.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, extreme weather events including droughts and heavy rains will become more common in the region if global temperatures continue to increase, according to the Saudi-led project.

A green corridor for East Africa… and elsewhere

In addition to developing an Eastern Africa corridor soon, other similar initiatives under the umbrella of the African Union’s NEPAD are ongoing, such as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100).

In 2015, AFR100 was founded in Durban by a group of 10 African countries, each committing to restore a certain number of hectares of degraded landscapes within their borders.

Twenty-eight African countries have now committed to restoring 113 million hectares, which, if achieved, will exceed the initiative’s namesake goal of 100 million hectares across the continent under restoration by 2030.

Not only trees

Forest landscape restoration is more than just planting trees,” said Mamadou Diakhite, leader of the AFR100 Secretariat.

On a continent that is expected to account for half the global population growth by 2050, reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions is a welcome byproduct of returning those natural landscapes to health and profitability; but it’s not the first focus, reported Gabrielle Lipton, Landscape News Editor-in-Chief.

“Restoring landscapes that have been degraded by the effects of climate change and human development through planting trees and encouraging sustainable farming and herding must first and foremost provide food, jobs and homes for people, as well as preserve their cultures that are based on the products of their lands.”

Moreover, as more than 1 in 5 people in Africa are undernourished, and forced migration across country borders increases due to climate change and conflict, African economies continue to struggle hard to create jobs for young people.

Any chance that Africa recovers soon from the impacts of so much extraneous damage, which this continent of nearly 1.4 billion humans continues to struggle to reverse?

Africa is the continent that has contributed the least (just 2 to 3%) to the causes of the current climate emergencies while bearing the brunt of 82% of the devastating consequences. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 4 2023 (IPS)

Some days ago in Rome, the Italian taxi driver switched on the radio during a longish ride through the usual traffic jam. Music, gossip, and the hourly news bulletin. All of a sudden, the man strongly hit the steering wheel. “They are stupid, those bastards…,” he shouted.

“These useless politicians speak every now and then about the need for solidarity with Africa…, blah, blah, blah,” he added. “But the solution is easy, very easy, even the most stupid can see it.”

According to the taxi driver, “the solution is that the government sends to Africa our retired engineers, agronomists, university professors… to teach Africans how to farm.”

The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023

The man was so furious that you would not dare to comment that African farmers already know how to farm… far more than many foreign academicians.

History tells us that Africans were among the first farmers on Earth, and that they knew –and still know– what to plant, when, where and how. And that one of Africa’s biggest deserts, the Sahara used to be one of the greenest areas in the world.

Now that this vast continent –the second largest after Asia– home to around 1.4 billion humans, is experiencing unprecedented hunger, malnutrition, undernourishment and death, outsider technology moguls have now come out with another “easy solution”: the digitalisation of farming…

Those moguls, and the world’s largest organisations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, insisting that what poor farmers need is to use devices such as smartphones and computers, and download apps that tell them what to farm, when, where, how, and with which inputs. They call it “transformation.”

Meanwhile, they do not hesitate to attribute to the condemnable war in Ukraine the tsunami of poverty and famine that have been for years and even decades striking the most impoverished humans, saying that that proxy war stands behind such a horrifying situation, or at least that it heavily contributes to dangerously worsening it.

Africa before Ukraine’s war

Here are some key factors to be taken into consideration:

• Hunger in Africa started around four decades ago, amidst a striking shortage of the most basic preventions and social services, like education and health, leading to the surge of diseases that were given for eliminated in other parts of the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the Horn of Africa hunger emergency sparks surge in disease.
• WHO also alerts that “life-threatening hunger caused by climate shocks, violent insecurity and disease in the Horn of Africa, have left nearly 130,000 people “looking death in the eyes.”
• The world leading health body also reports “exponential rise in cholera cases in Africa”,
• Several African regions have been facing the impacts of the hardest-ever weather extremes, with unprecedented absence of precipitation and record droughts now for the fifth consecutive year.
• This and the previous factors have led to massive migration waves, in addition to millions of internally displaced people, let alone tens of thousands of homeless,
• Conflicts, fights for water and fertile lands, have pushed 33 African nations high in the ranking of the Least Developed Countries,
• Africa is the continent that has contributed the least (just 2 to 3%) to the causes of the current climate emergencies while bearing the brunt of 82% of the devastating consequences,
• As many as 45 African countries fall further under what the International Monetary Fund calls: “The Big Funding Squeeze,” as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels,
• Indebtedness: The external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023. A high number of those countries are located in Africa.
• International trade barriers, dominance of mostly Western giant private chains of food production and distribution, price fixing and market speculation, “vulture funds” intensive and extensive land grabbing, armed conflicts, are factors standing behind such a gloomy situation,
• Add to the above the unstoppable rush for Africa’s precious minerals, in particular those which are indispensable for the production and worldwide sales of electronic devices, like the smartphones and computers African farmers are now told to use. Let alone all other natural resources,
• Africa’s oil resources have been exploited over long decades, now more than ever,
• Then you have the excessive use of chemicals, such as fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides, as well as Genetically Modified Organisms and the cultivation of non-autochthonous commodities by the dominant industrial intensive agriculture systems,
• The concentration of key commodities production, such as grains and cereals, in a reduced number of countries (See the case of Russia, Ukraine, let alone major producers such as the United States, Europe, Canada, India…)

Such concentration is so intense that, in his recent article: The War in Ukraine Triggers a Record Increase in World Military Spending, IPS journalist Thalif Deen reported that “The United Nations has warned that the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has threatened to force up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution and hunger.”

And that “Long before the war, Ukraine and Russia provided about 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil. But the ongoing 14th-month-old war has undermined– and cut-off– most of these supplies.”

Also that “Together, the UN pointed out, their grain was an essential food source for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries (LDCs), described as “the poorest of the world’s poor.”

All these key factors are extraneous to Africa… all of them!

Perhaps what Africa deserves most is a just reparation for the long decades of exploitation by its former European colonisers –now giant private corporations–, and a fair compensation for the devastating damage caused by their induced climate emergencies and so many other extraneous causes.

Rhine River, Cologne,,Germany,10.08.2022. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

Apologies to those Western politicians and media who continue to say that Ukraine’s brutal proxy war stands behind whatever catastrophes, disasters or crises occur in the Planet.

Is this accurate?

Scientific evidence confirms that, much earlier than that war, Europe, like many other regions, was already walking closer to the edge of extreme weather consequences.

Europe’s worst drought in 500 years?

“The drought episode that affected Europe in 2022 could well be the worst in 500 years,” reports Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme which “looks at our planet and its environment to benefit all European citizens and offers information services.”

The most expensive hazards during the period 1980-2021 include the 2021 flooding in Germany and Belgium (almost EUR 50 billion), the 2002 flood in central Europe (over EUR 22 billion), the 2003 drought and heatwave across the EU (around EUR 16 billion), the 1999 storm Lothar in Western Europe and the 2000 flood in France and Italy (both over EUR 13 billion), all at 2021 values

This European service further explains that the 2022 drought episode “is attributable to a severe and persistent lack of precipitation, combined with a sequence of repeated heat waves that have affected Europe from May to October.”

Put simply, the reported climate extremes in Europe are not the consequence of the Ukraine war, and they were already there many years earlier to when it started in February 2022.

Anyway, European citizens now hear the devastating impacts of climate extremes in their own rich continent, which is one of the major global contributors to the ongoing climate emergency.

Are climate emergencies just an impoverished regions’ problem?

So far, the severe impacts of climate extremes in Africa and other impoverished regions, would jump to the news every now and then, by showing short videos of errant human beings and deserts… before analysing in-depth the latest soccer games or reporting on the new friend of a reality-show star. And highway accidents or a fight between young gangs.

Western citizens are also used to hearing that the horrifying numbers of hungry people (more than one billion human beings), in particular in East Africa due to long years of record droughts, is either caused by the war in Ukraine or that their situation was exacerbated by it.

Now European citizens wake up to the upsetting fact that they also fall under the heavy impact of the steadily rising human, economic, and environmental toll of climate change.

How come those impacts are now becoming news?

A swift answer is that such climate extremes, heat waves, severe droughts, water and food production shortages have been causing increasing damage to private businesses, as well as to medium-to-small-size agriculture activities. In short, damaging their pockets.

See what the very same European Union officially says at the macro level:

– Weather- and climate-related hazards, such as temperature extremes, heavy precipitation and droughts, pose risks to human health and the environment and can lead to substantial economic losses.

— Between 1980 and 2021, weather- and climate-related extremes amounted to an estimated EUR 560 billion (2021 values).

– Hydrological events (floods) account for over 45% and meteorological events (storms including lightning and hail, together with mass movements) for almost one-third of the total.

– When it comes to climatological events, heat waves are responsible for over 13% of the total losses while the remaining +/-8% are caused by droughts, forest fires and cold waves.

– The most expensive hazards during the period 1980-2021 include the 2021 flooding in Germany and Belgium (almost EUR 50 billion), the 2002 flood in central Europe (over EUR 22 billion), the 2003 drought and heatwave across the EU (around EUR 16 billion), the 1999 storm Lothar in Western Europe and the 2000 flood in France and Italy (both over EUR 13 billion), all at 2021 values.

– A relatively small number of events is responsible for a large proportion of the economic losses: 5% of the weather- and climate-related events with the biggest losses is responsible for 57% of losses and 1% of the events cause 26% of losses (EEA’s own calculations based on the original dataset).

– This results in high variability from year to year and makes it difficult to identify trends. Nevertheless, the average annual (constant prices, 2021 euros) losses were around EUR 9.7 billion in 1981-1990, 11.2 billion in 1991-2000, 13.5 billion in 2001-2010 and 15.3 billion in 2011-2020.

– The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that climate-related extreme events will become more frequent and severe worldwide. This could affect multiple sectors and cause systemic failures across Europe, leading to greater economic losses.

– Only 30% of the total losses were insured, although this varied considerably among countries, from less than 2% in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania to over 75% in Slovenia and the Netherlands.

Also at the medium-to-micro level

Most medium-to-small agricultural cooperatives, unions and associations in those European countries more stricken by droughts, have been rising their public protests, demanding their governments to compensate them for the big losses of their harvests.

In the specific case of Spain, farmers’ unions and agri-food cooperatives report crop losses of up to two-thirds of the expected harvest.

Back to Copernicus

The “historical drought” affected Europe as evidenced by the Combined Drought Indicator of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service European Drought Observatory for the first ten-day period of September 2022.

On this, Copernicus reports the following findings:

– Heatwaves: 2022 was also characterised by intense, and in some areas prolonged, heatwaves which affected Europe and the rest of the world, breaking several surface air temperature records.

– As reported in the July 2022 Climate Bulletin published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service July 2022 was the sixth warmest July in Europe.

– Temperature anomalies reached peaks of +4ºC in Italy, France, and Spain.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus:

– The prolonged drought that has affected various parts of the globe together with the record temperatures were contributing forces that have certainly caused an increased wildfire risk, which peaked during the summer season both in Europe, in the Mediterranean region, and in the north-west of the United States.

– The Combined Drought Indicator (which is published by the European Drought Observatory as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service) reported that more than one-fourth of the EU territory was in “Alert” conditions in early September.

– Another extreme phenomenon of 2022 was the marine heatwave that affected the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 2022.

European countries are highly dependent on the Mediterranean Sea for shipping goods, including oil tankers; tourism (one country – Spain receives more than 80 million tourists a year, double its total population); industrial fishing; refineries; harbours, and a long etcetera.

The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”, says new report. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

As many as 45 African countries –out of the Continent’s 54 nations–, all of them grouped in what is known as Sub-Saharan Africa, have now been further squeezed to their bones, as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels, and as a portion of the so-called aid goes back to the pockets of rich donor countries.

See what happens.

In its April 2023 World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) talks about a rocky recovery. In its reporting on that, it lowers global economic growth outlook as ‘fog thickens.’

“Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid"

It says that the road to global economic recovery is “getting rocky.’ And that while inflation is slowly falling, economic growth remains ‘historically low,’ and that the financial risks have risen.

Squeezed

Well. In its April Outlook, the IMF devotes a chapter to Sub-Saharan Africa, titled “The Big Funding Squeeze”.

It says that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 3.6 percent as a “big funding squeeze”, tied to “the drying up of aid and access to private finance,” hits the region in this second consecutive year of an aggregate decline.

If no measures are taken, “this shortage of funding may force countries to reduce fiscal resources for critical development like health, education, and infrastructure, holding the region back from developing its true potential.”

Some arguments

According to the IMF:

• Public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in half of countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.
• The rapid tightening of global monetary policy has raised borrowing costs for Sub-Saharan countries both on domestic and international markets.
• All Sub-Saharan African frontier markets have been cut off from market access since spring 2022.
• The US dollar effective exchange rate reached a 20-year high last year, increasing the burden of dollar-denominated debt service payments. Interest payments as a share of revenue have doubled for the average SSA country over the past decade.
• With shrinking aid budgets and reduced inflows from partners, this is leading to a big funding squeeze for the region.

The giant monetary body says that the lack of financing affects a region that is already struggling with elevated macroeconomic imbalances.

Unprecedented debts and inflation

In a previous article: The Poor, Squeezed by 10 Trillion Dollars in External Debts, IPS reported on the external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries, which at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago.

Such debts are expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023, thus totalling 10.1 trillion US dollars.

Now, the IMF reports that “public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in about half of the countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.”

In short, “Sub-Saharan Africa stands to lose the most in a severely fragmented world and stresses the need for building resilience.”

Like many other major international bodies, the IMF indirectly blames African Governments for non adopting the “right” policies and encourages further investments in the region, while some insist that the way out is digitalisation, robotisation, etcetera.

The big contradiction

Here, a question arises: are all IMF and other monetary-oriented bodies’ recommendations and ‘altruistic’ advice the solution to the deepening collapse of a whole continent, home to around 1,4 billion human beings?

Not really, or at least not necessarily. A global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, grounded in the commitment to the universality of human rights: Oxfam, on 13 April 2023 said that multilateral lender’s role in helping to insulate people in low- and middle-income countries from economic crises is “incoherent and inadequate.”

For example, “for every $1 the IMF encourages a set of poor countries to spend on public goods, it has told them to cut four times more through austerity measures.”

Countries forced to cut public funding

Then the global civil society movement explains that an important IMF initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis “is in tatters.”

New analysis by Oxfam finds that the IMF’s “Social Spending Floors” targets designed to help borrowing governments protect minimum levels of social spending— are proving largely powerless against its own austerity policies that instead force countries to cut public funding.

“The IMF’s ‘Social Spending Floors’ encouraged raising inflation-adjusted social spending by about $1 billion over the second year of its loan programs compared to the first year, across the 13 countries that participated where data is available.”

IMF’s austerity policies

By comparison, the IMF’s austerity drive has required most of those same governments to rip away over $5 billion worth of state spending over the same period, warns Oxfam.

“This suggests the IMF was four times more effective in getting governments to cut their budgets than it is in guaranteeing minimum social investments,” said incoming Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar.

“This is deeply worrying and disappointing, given that the IMF had itself urged countries to build back better after the pandemic by investing in social protection, health and education,” Behar said.

“Among the 2 billion people who are suffering most from the effects of austerity cuts and social spending squeezes, we know it is women who always bear the brunt.”

A fig leaf for austerity?

In its new report “IMF Social Spending Floors. A Fig Leaf for Austerity?,” Oxfam analysed these components in all IMF loan programs agreed with 17 low- and middle-income countries in 2020 and 2021.

Oxfam’s report: “The Assault of Austerity” found inconsistencies between countries. There is no standard or transparent way of tracking progress and many of the minimum targets were inadequate.

The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, the report goes on, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”.

The farce of aid budget

In another report titled “Obscene amount of aid is going back into the pockets of rich countries,” Oxfam informed that on 12 April 2023 the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OECD DAC) published its preliminary figures on the amount of development aid for 2022.

According to the OECD report, in 2022, official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 204.0 billion.

This total included USD 201.4 billion in the form of grants, loans to sovereign entities, debt relief and contributions to multilateral institutions (calculated on a grant-equivalent basis); USD 0.8 billion to development-oriented private sector instrument (PSI) vehicles and USD 1.7 billion in the form of net loans and equities to private companies operating in ODA-eligible countries (calculated on a cash flow basis), it adds.

Total ODA in 2022 rose by 13.6% in real terms compared to 2021, says the OECD.

“This was the fourth consecutive year ODA surpassed its record levels, and one of the highest growth rates recorded in the history of ODA…”

The rich pocketing ‘obscene’ percentage of aid

In response, Marc Cohen, Oxfam’s aid expert, said: “In 2022, rich countries pocketed an obscene 14.4 percent of aid. They robbed the world’s poorest people of a much-needed lifeline in a time of multiple crises.

“Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid”.

Rich countries inflating their aid budgets

“They continue to inflate their aid budgets by including vaccine donations, the costs of hosting refugees, and by profiting off development aid loans. It is time for a system with teeth to hold them to account and make sure aid goes to the poorest people in the poorest countries.”

"If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 11 2023 (IPS)

Research after research, world’s scientists renew their loud alerts against the high dangers of human-driven ‘superbugs’ – bacterias and pathogens that no longer respond to antimicrobials, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

No way.

The pressure of giant industrial sectors appear to be heavier than the needed political well to reduce the dangerous impacts of the excessive use of those drugs which are widely employed to prevent and treat infections in humans, aquaculture, livestock, and crop production.

Antibiotics are perhaps the most familiar ones, but there are many others, including numerous antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitic agents that have been largely used and misused to treat diseases but that end up spreading them.

They are known as ‘superbugs’ resulting from their increasing resistance to those medicines. And they are antimicrobial resistant germs which are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air).

“They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin,” as further explained by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Such an increasing abuse of antimicrobials and other microbial stressors (e.g. the presence of heavy metals and other pollutants) creates favourable conditions for microorganisms to develop resistance.

The big threat

They represent one of the most complex threats to global health, and food safety and security. Much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) lists Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) among the top 10 threats for global health.

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten the ability to treat common infections, WHO explains.

Alarming advance of multi-resistant bacterias

“Especially alarming” is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacterias that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

“The clinical pipeline of new antimicrobials is dry.” In 2019 WHO identified 32 antibiotics in clinical development that address its list of priority pathogens, of which only six were classified as innovative.

Moreover, estimates suggest that by 2050 up to 10 million additional direct deaths could occur annually. That is on par with the 2020 rate of global deaths from cancer.

Additionally, in the next decade, AMR could result in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shortfall of at least 3.4 trillion US dollars annually and push 24 million more people into extreme poverty.

Antibiotics, increasingly ineffective

According to the World Health Organization, the lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health-care systems.

“Antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective as drug-resistance spreads globally leading to more difficult to treat infections and death.”

New antibiotics urgently needed

New antibacterials are urgently needed – for example, to treat carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections as identified in the WHO priority pathogen list.

“However, if people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective.”

Meanwhile, FAO reports, “the situation is expected to worsen as global demand for food increases,” adding that it is therefore paramount that the agrifood systems are progressively transformed to reduce the need for antimicrobials.

What drives antimicrobials?

As mentioned above, such a threat is primarily driven by the excessive application of antimicrobials, the international body adds. In fact, currently, more than 70% of antimicrobials sold worldwide are used in animals for human consumption.

While AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes, FAO reports that their main drivers include:

– misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in human health and agriculture;

– lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals;

– poor infection and disease prevention and control in healthcare facilities and farms;

– poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; and

– weak enforcement of legislation.

Who influences the spread of superbugs?

According to UN reports, three economic sector value chains profoundly influence AMR’s development and spread:

• Pharmaceuticals and other chemicals manufacturing
• Agriculture and food including terrestrial animal production, aquaculture, food crops or those providing inputs such as feed, textiles, ornamental plants, biofuels, and other agricultural commodities.

• Healthcare delivery in hospitals, medical facilities, community healthcare facilities and in pharmacies where a range of chemicals and disinfectants are used.

Other major consequences

Another leading specialised body, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in its February 2023 report: Bracing for Superbugs about the need to curtail pollution created by the pharmaceuticals, agricultural and healthcare sectors.

The study focuses on the environmental dimensions of AMR, reporting that the pharmaceutical, agricultural and healthcare sectors are key drivers of AMR development and spread in the environment, together with pollutants from poor sanitation, sewage and municipal waste systems.

Inger Andersen, the UNEP Executive Director, explained that the triple planetary crisis – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – has contributed to this.

“Pollution of air, soil, and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of antimicrobial resistance could destroy our health and food systems,” she warned.

Climate, biodiversity, pollution, nature loss…

According to UNEP, global attention to AMR has mainly focused on human health and agriculture sectors, but there is growing evidence that the environment plays a key role in the development, transmission and spread of AMR and is a key part of the solution to tackle AMR.

In fact, AMR is closely linked to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution and waste, driven by human activity, unsustainable consumption and production patterns.

The world leading environmental body explains the following:

— Climate crisis and AMR are two of the greatest and most complex threats the world currently faces. Both have been worsened by, and can be mitigated by, human action.

— Higher temperatures can be associated with increases in AMR infections, and extreme weather patterns can contribute to the emergence and spread of AMR.

— Antimicrobial impacts on microbial biodiversity may affect the cycles of carbon and methane, which are directly involved in regulating Earth’s climate.

— Biodiversity loss: Land-use changes and climate change alter soils’ microbial diversity in recent decades, and microbes inhabiting natural environments are sources of pharmaceutical discovery.

— Municipal solid waste landfills and open dumps are prone to wildlife and feral animal interaction and can contribute to the spread of AMR.

— Pollution: Biological and chemical pollution sources contribute to AMR development, transmission, and spread.

We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health, warns UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 4 2023 (IPS)

Straight to the point: the current system of voracious money-making production and the induced over-consumption patterns have turned Planet Earth into a giant garbage dump.

And straight to the facts:

• Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean.
• If food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
• More than 75% of all electronic waste is not safely managed.
• Resource extraction is responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions.
• The amount of municipal solid waste generated globally could rise from around 2.24 billion tons to 3.88 billion tons by 2050.
• 80% of marine pollution originates on land.

One billion tons of food in the garbage

The waste sector contributes significantly to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution.

Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General


Just take the shocking case of food. Every year, around 931 million tons of food is lost or wasted and up to 14 million tons of plastic waste enters aquatic ecosystems.

Such an unimaginable waste of food in a world of one billion empty plates, is just to be added to the dumping of billions of tons of plastics, textiles, discarded electronics, and debris from mining and construction sites.

‘Trashing our only home’

“The planet is literally drowning in garbage, and it is high time to clean up,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, marking the first-ever International Day of Zero Waste (30 March 2023).

“We are trashing our only home,” he said. “We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health.”

Guterres said it was time for “a war on waste” on three fronts, calling on polluters themselves to take the lead.

“Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell,” he said.

“We need to find opportunities to reuse, recycle, repurpose, repair and recover the products we use. And we need to think twice before throwing these items in the garbage.”

The case of Türkiye

The Türkiye’s Zero Waste Project has so far managed to conserve some 650 million tonnes of raw material, and to eliminate four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions through recycling.

“All life on earth is connected but industrialization has led to the over-consumption that is polluting the planet, said the Turkish First Lady, Emine Erdoğan, who spearheads the Project.

“Humans have created this frightening landscape.”

“We are obliged to establish a fair system and take on measures based on burden sharing where we look out for countries deeply impacted by the consequences of climate change which had no part to play in the first place,” she said.

Be ‘waste wise’

The head of the UN’s urban development agency, UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, urged countries to be “waste wise”, including through finding value in reusing items before discarding them.

“Zero Waste is the first step towards creating waste-wise societies,” she said. “The first step is to take responsibility and make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics. Remember that everything we use and discard must go somewhere.”

Food systems

The global population is on track to reach 10 billion by 2050, and demand for food and non-food agricultural products is also expected to rise by up to 56%, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Meeting this demand will require healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said.

“We need to urgently address the inefficiencies and inequalities in our agri-food systems to make them more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.”

For this, it would be of great help to implement the world’s Global Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production, which calls for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production objectives across all sectors by 2030.

Another available tool is the “End plastic pollution: towards an internationally legally binding instrument”, which was adopted at the United Nations Environment Assembly on 2 March 2022.

Zero waste?

A zero-waste approach entails responsible production, consumption and disposal of products in a closed, circular system. This means that resources are reused or recovered as much as possible and that we minimise the pollution of air, land or water.

Products should be designed to be durable and require fewer and low-impact materials. By opting for less resource-intensive production and transport methods, manufacturers can further limit pollution and waste.

Consumers can also play a pivotal role in enabling zero waste by changing habits and reusing and repairing products as much as possible before properly disposing of them.

‘The world is bigger than five’

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has suggested that “the world is bigger than five” – a reference to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

Sounds good. But the fact is that those five are the world’s major producers and their corporations are dominating the global markets, making astonishing profits from destruction, being all of them the greater polluters.

For example, alongside oil and gas corporations, food companies more than doubled their profits in 2022 at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry and 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, as reported by Oxfam International.

Meanwhile, the food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera, that end up in land, water and the air.

Shouldn’t such deadly practices be classified as “crimes against humanity”? And their perpetrators be taken to International Criminal Courts?

"Drop by drop, this precious lifeblood is being poisoned by pollution and drained by vampiric overuse, with water demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by decade’s end" Credit: Bigstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

Shockingly, the human suicidal war on Nature not only continues unabated but is also set to become even more virulent. Just to start with, please be reminded that groundwater accounts for 99% of all liquid freshwater on Earth, according to the 2022 UN World Water Development Report.

And that groundwater already provides half of the volume of water withdrawn for domestic use by the global population, including the drinking water for the vast majority of the rural population who do not get their water delivered to them via public or private supply systems.

Also that around 25% of all water withdrawn for irrigation, being this a major cause of the fast depletion and pollution of this vital source.

There are two main reasons behind such a dangerous over-exploitation and poisoning of the world’s groundwater:

Vampiric draining…

Water is the lifeblood of our world. From health and nutrition to education and infrastructure, water is vital to every aspect of human survival and wellbeing, and the economic development and prosperity of every nation. But drop by drop, this precious lifeblood is being poisoned by pollution and drained by vampiric overuse, with water demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by decade’s end

António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

The industrial agriculture and food supplies systems, imposed by giant private corporations for the sake of increasing their profits, leads to the “vampiric” draining of the world’s groundwater.

Such money-making systems also lead to a growing, deadly poisoning of water, through the irrational abuse of chemicals in intensive agriculture.

… and deadly poisoning

Coinciding with World Water Day, the United Nations inaugurated in its headquarters in New You a two-day Water Conference (22-24 March), which warns that decades of “mismanagement and misuse” have intensified water stress, threatening the many aspects of life that depend on this crucial resource.

According to a joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Water Management Institute, human settlements, industries and agriculture are the major sources of water pollution.

Much so that, globally, 80% of municipal wastewater is discharged into water bodies untreated.

Learn also that:

Industry is responsible for dumping millions of tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes into water bodies each year.

Agriculture, which accounts for 70% of water abstractions worldwide, plays a major role in water pollution. Farms discharge large quantities of agrochemicals, organic matter, drug residues, sediments and saline drainage into water bodies.

The level of water poisoning has largely increased since this joint report was issued in 2017.

The resultant water pollution poses demonstrated risks to aquatic ecosystems, human health and productive activities.

FAO further reports that in most high-income countries and many emerging economies, “agricultural pollution has already overtaken contamination from settlements and industries as the major factor in the degradation of inland and coastal waters.”

“Nitrate from agriculture is the most common chemical contaminant in the world’s groundwater aquifers.”

In addition to poisoned crops, billions of people around the world still lack access to water. It is estimated that more than 800.000 people die each year from diseases directly attributed to unsafe water.

More alarm bells

No wonder then that the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has sounded the following alarm bells in his message on the occasion of this year’s World Water Day (22 March):

“Water is the lifeblood of our world. From health and nutrition to education and infrastructure, water is vital to every aspect of human survival and wellbeing, and the economic development and prosperity of every nation.”

”But drop by drop, this precious lifeblood is being poisoned by pollution and drained by vampiric overuse, with water demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by decade’s end.”

“Meanwhile, climate change is wreaking havoc on water’s natural cycle. Greenhouse gas pollution continues to rise to all-time record levels, heating the world’s climate to dangerous levels,” warns the UN Chief.

“This is worsening water-related disasters, disease outbreaks, water shortages and droughts while inflicting damage to infrastructure, food production, and supply chains.”

More than 1 in 3 people lack basic hand washing facilities at home. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Key facts

Perhaps a look at some of the key facts and figures about this grim picture, which have been released by major international specialised organisations, would suffice to realise the pernicious dimensions of such a war.

See what they report on the occasion of the 2023 World Water Day:

• A quarter of the global population – 2 billion people – use unsafe drinking water sources. Half of humanity – 3.6 billion people – live without safely managed sanitation.
• More than 1 in 3 people lack basic hand washing facilities at home. For at least 3 billion people, mostly in developing countries, the quality of the water they depend on is unknown because the data is not collected routinely.
• Almost half of the schools in the world do not have proper handwashing facilities with soap and water. Every day, more than 700 children under the age of five die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene.
• Eight out of 10 people who lack even basic drinking water service live in rural areas, and about half of them live in least developed countries. In 2019, more than 733 million people lived in countries with high and critical levels of water stress.
• Water-related hazards have increased in frequency over the past 20 years. Since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134 per cent, and the number and duration of droughts also increased by 29 per cent.
• Agricultural and untreated wastewater pose two of the gravest threats to environmental water quality globally. With a well-developed monitoring system, water-quality issues could be identified at an early stage, allowing mitigation measures to be introduced before severe deterioration occurs.
• The number of city inhabitants lacking safely managed drinking water has increased by more than 50% since 2000. While 86% of people in urban areas have safely managed drinking water services, only 60% of people in rural areas have them.

Survival of the innocent victims

Meanwhile, the drilling of local wells to meet the vital needs of the world’s impoverished communities, in particular areas, who suffer the devastating impacts of severe, long-standing droughts, heat waves, unprecedented floods caused by climate emergencies that they have not caused.

Did you know that one of the continents most hit by such devastation is Africa, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions with a negligible 3%, while bearing the brunt of 80% of its consequences?

What else to say?

A family from Sachac, a Quechua farming community in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco in southeastern Peru. When members of these native families move to the cities, they face different forms of racism, despite the fact that 60 percent of the Peruvian population identifies as ‘mestizo’ or mixed-race and 25 percent as a member of an indigenous people. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 17 2023 (IPS)

Three-quarters of a century ago, the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emphasising that all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. The 2023 theme of its 75th anniversary focuses on the urgency of combating racism and racial discrimination.

More: nearly a quarter of a century ago, the world adopted in South Africa the Durban Declaration to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, distrust, intolerance, and hate, globally.

Since then, these “contagious killers” not only continued unabated but are now more spread than ever in all societies, in particular in those under the dominance of the so-called ‘white supremacy.’

Centuries of colonialism, enslavement

Such a “Pernicious Evil” as rightfully described by the United Nations Chief, António Guterres, takes many forms and impacts all aspects of life. “Much of today’s racism is “deeply entrenched in centuries of colonialism and enslavement,” he warned already two years ago.

The UN Chief then painted a picture of “pervasive discrimination and exclusion” suffered by people of African descent, injustices and oppression endured by indigenous peoples, antisemitism, anti-Muslim hatred – and the latest abhorrence of violence against people of Asian descent who are bring targeted unjustly for COVID-19.

The “repugnant” views of white supremacists

“We also see it in the biases built into the codes for facial recognition and artificial intelligence” as well as the “repugnant views of white supremacists and other extremist groups”, added the top UN Official.

In fact, racism harms not just the lives of those who endure it but also society as a whole. It deepens mistrust, casting suspicion on all sides and tearing apart the social fabric, warns the United Nations.

Impacts could include the ability to find a job, get an education, have equal access to healthcare, housing, food, water or get fair treatment in a court of law, explains the world body.

“We all lose in a society characterised by discrimination, division, distrust, intolerance, and hate,” as stated on the occasion of the 2023 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (21 March).

Contagious killers

“Like COVID-19, racism and xenophobia are contagious killers,” the UN emphasises.

In 2001, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) was adopted at the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. As the UN’s blueprint to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance globally.

Alongside with the International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024, the implementation of the Durban Declaration should represent a top priority in the world’s agenda. But is it?

Hatred spreading everywhere

Evidently it is not. Reality shows that the narratives of separatism, discrimination, division and fear and hatred of the other continue to be widespread in the streets, in schools, at work, in public transport; in the voting booth, on social media, at home and on the sports field.

Moreover, hate speech’ scale and impact are now amplified by new communications technologies.

The major victims

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination lists the following communities among the major victims of abhorrent racism, discrimination and hatred:

People of African Descent

The descendants of the victims of the transatlantic slave trade or more recent migrants, frequently face racial discrimination and prejudice.

Discriminatory structures and institutions, legacies of the injustices of enslavement and colonialism result in people of African descent being among the poorest and most marginalised groups in society who also face “alarmingly high rates of police violence, and racial profiling.”

In addition to People of African Descent and the descendants of the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, racism directly impacts the lives of many other communities and groups, including:

Indigenous Peoples

Systematically discriminated against, robbed of their basic rights, lands and cultures, there are nowadays over 476 million indigenous people living in 90 countries across the world, accounting for 6.2% of the global population.

Of those, there are more than 5.000 distinct groups. Indigenous people speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7.000 languages.

“Nevertheless, they are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty compared to their non-indigenous counterparts.”

Migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, Internally Displaced People

There were 82.4 million people forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of 2020 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.

There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.

Among the 82.4 million forcibly displaced: 26.4 million are refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18; 20.7 million refugees under UNHCR‘s mandate, and 5.7 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA‘s mandate.

There were also 48 million internally displaced people, 4.1 million asylum seekers, and 3.9 million Venezuelans displaced abroad (UNHCR).

People Living in Extreme Poverty

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include “hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making.”

Poverty — a cause and a product of human rights violations

Many people who live in extreme poverty are often also victims of racial discrimination.

In 2001 the World Conference against Racism in Durban emphasised that poverty, underdevelopment, marginalisation, social exclusion and economic disparities are closely associated with racism, and contribute to the persistence of racist attitudes and practices, which in turn, generate more poverty.

A vicious circle

The UN often refers to poverty as a ’vicious circle,’ made up of a wide range of factors, which are interlinked and hard to overcome. Deprivation of resources, capability and opportunities makes it impossible for anyone to satisfy the most basic human needs or to enjoy human rights.

Women

Racial discrimination does not affect all members of victim groups in the same way.

In fact, being the entire half of the world population, women and girls are often among the most vulnerable members of society, and are at greater risk of economic hardship, exclusion and violence; discrimination against them is often compounded.

The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action focused attention on the issue of multiple, or aggravated, forms of discrimination, which are most significantly experienced by female members of discriminated groups, but which are also suffered by persons with disabilities, persons affected by HIV/AIDS, children and the elderly, among others.

These are often among the most vulnerable members of society, and are at greater risk of economic hardship, exclusion and violence; discrimination against them is often compounded.

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia subject members of these religious communities to discrimination and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas.

There are many other groups and many more millions of human beings who every day, every minute, fall prey to racism, discrimination, hatred, and the consequence of shocking inequalities that kill one person every four seconds.

Why don’t you take a look at what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says?

Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world, says UN chief.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 13 2023 (IPS)

Islamophobia is a ‘fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world.’

Consequently, suspicion, discrimination and ‘outright hatred’ towards Muslims have risen to “epidemic proportions.”

These are not the words of this convinced secular journalist, but those of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

In fact, a recent report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March), warns that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by 60 Member-States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which designated 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. The resolution stresses that “terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”
This definition emphasises the link between institutional levels of Islamophobia and manifestations of such attitudes, triggered by the visibility of the victim’s perceived Muslim identity.

A threat to Western values?

This approach also interprets Islamophobia as a form of racism, whereby Islamic religion, tradition and culture are seen as a “threat” to “Western values.”

“Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and other horrific acts of terrorism purportedly carried out in the name of Islam, institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to epidemic proportions.”

Widespread negative representations of Islam

At the same time, “widespread negative representations of Islam, and harmful stereotypes that depict Muslims and their beliefs and culture as a threat have served to perpetuate, validate and normalise discrimination, hostility and violence towards Muslim individuals and communities.”

In addition, in States where they are in the minority, “Muslims often experience discrimination in accessing goods and services, in finding employment and in education.”

In some States they are denied citizenship or legal immigration status due to xenophobic perceptions that Muslims represent national security and terrorism threats. Muslim women are disproportionately targeted in Islamophobic hate crimes, adds the United Nations.

Islamophobic ‘hate crimes’

Studies show that the number of Islamophobic hate crimes frequently increases following events beyond the control of most Muslims, including terrorist attacks and anniversaries of such attacks.

“These trigger events illustrate how Islamophobia may attribute collective responsibility to all Muslims for the actions of a very select few, or feed upon inflammatory rhetoric.”

The UN says that many Governments have taken steps to combat Islamophobia by establishing anti-hate-crime legislation and measures to prevent and prosecute hate crimes and by conducting public awareness campaigns about Muslims and Islam designed to dispel negative myths and misconceptions.

A resolution…

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by 60 Member-States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which designated 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

The resolution stresses that “terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”

It calls for a global dialogue on the promotion of a culture of tolerance and peace, based on respect for human rights and for the diversity of religions and beliefs.

Marking the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia in 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that “anti-Muslim bigotry is part of a larger trend of a resurgence in ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazism, stigma and hate speech targeting vulnerable populations including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities, as well as others.”

… and a Plan

In response to the “alarming trend” of rising hate speech around the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.

The Strategy clearly states that hate speech incites violence and intolerance.

The devastating effect of hatred, it adds, is sadly nothing new. However, its scale and impact are now amplified by new communications technologies.

“Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world.”

The numbers

With an estimated total of some 1.8 billion followers worldwide, Islam is the second most spread belief after Christianism (2.2 billion).

Here, it should be reminded that not all Arabs are Muslims, nor all Muslims are Arabs.

In fact, Arab countries are home to just slightly more than 1 in 4 Muslims worldwide, while Asia –in particular South and Southeast Asia– accounts for more than 60% of the world’s Muslims.

The largest Muslim population in a single country lives in Indonesia, which is home to 13% of all the world’s Muslims. Pakistan (with 12%) is the second largest Muslim-majority nation, followed by India (11%), and Bangladesh (10%).

Also the Arabs

In spite of the above, there is still a widespread perception mixing Muslims with Arabs, which extends the anti-Muslim hatred wave to all Arab or Arab-majority societies.

Whatever the case is, recent history shows that several Muslim countries have fallen victims to wars, and military occupation (Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen), while others are scenarios to stark instabilities (Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, just to mention some).

Racism everywhere

No lessons have been learnt from horrific crimes committed against believers. Remember the Holocaust against the Jews?

The evidence is that racism, “xenophobia and related discrimination and intolerance exist in all societies, everywhere. Racism harms not just the lives of those who endure it, but also society as a whole,” stated the UN chief.

“We all lose in a society characterised by discrimination, division, distrust, intolerance, and hate. The fight against racism is everyone’s fight…”

Yes, but is it… really?

Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 7 2023 (IPS)

The answer is that there are alarming setbacks for maternal health care and, in many cases, even a total lack of maternity services, which threaten to further raise the number of these tragic preventable deaths one million or more a year by 2030.

Severe bleeding, high blood pressure, pregnancy-related infections, complications from unsafe abortion, and underlying conditions that can be aggravated by pregnancy (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria) are the leading causes of maternal deaths, UN specialised bodies report.

“These are all largely preventable and treatable with access to quality and respectful healthcare.”

Why then are these causes still not prevented and treated?

While pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, it is tragically still a shockingly dangerous experience for millions around the world who lack access to high quality, respectful health care,

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)
In theory, ending maternal mortality should be achievable, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the world’s sexual and reproductive health agency, on 23 February stated, that’s just three weeks ahead of this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March).

“Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades.”

“Why, then, do almost 800 women still die every day from maternal causes? How, today, can one woman die every two minutes from pregnancy or childbirth?”

Alarming setbacks

It’s a question that has only grown more urgent with the release of the new report –based on estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division, which reveals progress on ending preventable maternal deaths has “not only slowed over the last five years, but stagnated.”

The report reveals “alarming setbacks” for women’s health over recent years, as maternal deaths either increased or stagnated in nearly all regions of the world.

“While pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, it is tragically still a shockingly dangerous experience for millions around the world who lack access to high quality, respectful health care,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“These new statistics reveal the urgent need to ensure every woman and girl has access to critical health services before, during and after childbirth, and that they can fully exercise their reproductive rights.”

A miracle turned into tragedy

“For millions of families, the miracle of childbirth is marred by the tragedy of maternal deaths,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“No mother should have to fear for her life while bringing a baby into the world, especially when the knowledge and tools to treat common complications exist. Equity in healthcare gives every mother, no matter who they are or where they are, a fair chance at a safe delivery and a healthy future with their family.”

More poverty, more death

In total numbers, maternal deaths continue to be largely concentrated in the poorest parts of the world and in countries affected by conflict, according to the report.

In 2020, about 70% of all maternal deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa. In nine countries facing severe humanitarian crises, maternal mortality rates were more than double the world average (551 maternal deaths per 100.000 live births, compared to 223 globally).

Stark inequalities

Roughly a third of women do not have even four of a recommended eight antenatal checks or receive essential postnatal care, while some 270 million women lack access to modern family planning methods.

Moreover, “inequities related to income, education, race or ethnicity further increase risks for marginalised pregnant women, who have the least access to essential maternity care but are most likely to experience underlying health problems in pregnancy.”

Needless deaths

“It is unacceptable that so many women continue to die needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth. Over 280.000 fatalities in a single year is unconscionable,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem.

“We can and must do better by urgently investing in family planning and filling the global shortage of 900.000 midwives so that every woman can get the lifesaving care she needs. We have the tools, knowledge and resources to end preventable maternal deaths; what we need now is the political will.”

The report reveals that the world must “significantly accelerate progress to meet global targets for reducing maternal deaths, or else risk the lives of over one million more women by 2030.”

Question: How much money is needed to put an end to such horrifying deaths? Wouldn’t it be enough to dedicate what the world’s giant private business gains in just one minute through selling weapons, speculating with oil, power and food prices, marketing artificial baby milk, and a very long etcetera, let alone technologies?

Is digitisation more urgent?

There is another question needing an answer: how come that, in spite of the above-mentioned findings, the United Nations now focuses on the need to ‘digilitalise’ the lives of women?

See what the UN says about this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March), under the theme: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality:

“Our lives depend on strong technological integration: attending a course, calling loved ones, making a bank transaction, or booking a medical appointment. Everything currently goes through a digital process.”

“However, 37% of women do not use the internet. 259 million fewer women have access to the Internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world’s population.”

The world’s major multilateral body further explains that if women are unable to access the Internet and do not feel safe online, they are unable to develop the necessary digital skills to engage in digital spaces, which diminishes their opportunities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields.

And that by 2050, 75% of jobs will be related to STEM areas. “Yet today, women hold just 22% of positions in artificial intelligence, to name just one.”

True: women have historically been victims of all sorts of abuse, violence, and targeted inequalities that have systematically left them far behind in all aspects of life.

Shouldn’t their indisputable right to the most basic health care be –now and always– a high priority on the world’s agenda?

Chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022, according to Oxfam report. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

The data is shocking: three-quarters of African Governments have already reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms.

Africa is home to a quarter of the world’s entire agricultural land. Nevertheless, in the 12 months that African leaders vowed to improve food security in the continent, over 20 million more people have been pushed into “severe hunger.”

Today “a fifth of the African population (or 278 million) is undernourished, and 55 million of its children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition,” Oxfam International adds to the above data in its report: Over 20 million more people hungry in Africa’s “year of nutrition”.

“The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices…,” said Fati N’Zi-Hassane, Oxfam in Africa Director.

Chronic underinvestment

The report further explains that chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022.

The majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8% of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as 1%. Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their agricultural spending since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture

Specifically, it adds, the majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8% of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as 1%.

“Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their agricultural spending since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture.”

In 2014 African leaders signed the Malabo Declaration, which stipulated that African governments must spend at least 10% of their budget on Agriculture and supporting farmers.

Politicians doubling military spending

In contrast, “African governments spent nearly double that budget (6.4%) on arms last year. Ongoing conflict, especially in Sahel and Central Africa, has continued to destroy farmland, displace people and fuel hunger.”

In addition, “worsening climate-fuelled droughts and floods, and a global rise in fuel and fertilisers prices, made food unobtainable for millions of people. In 2022 alone, food inflation rose by double digits in all but ten African countries.”

No access to neighbouring markets

As the 36th African Union Summit was held in February 2023, focussing on intra-continental free trade, “millions of smallholder farmers, who are vital food producers in the continent, cannot reach markets in neighbouring countries due to poor infrastructure and high intra-African tariffs.”

In other words, “many African nations find it cheaper to import food from outside the continent than from their next-door neighbour.”
According to Oxfam:

• As of August 2022 (the last available figure), there were 139.95 million people in 35 African countries living in “Crisis or worse acute food insecurity.” That is an increase of 17% (20.26 million people) over the same number a year earlier (119.69 million people).

• This increase can be attributed to both a worsening acute food insecurity situation and an expansion in the population analysed between 2021 and 2022. (Source: Global Report on Food Crises Mid-Year Update 2022).

• The average spending on military as share of total budget is 6.43% (2021) as reported at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, while the average spending in agriculture (2021) was 3.8% as reported on GovernmentSpendingWatch

• South Sudan spends less than 1% of its budget on Agriculture. Calculations of all agricultural spending in Africa is based on data from the government spending watch, national budgets and FAO.

• According to the CAADP report and the FAO Crop Prospects report, Africa’s cereal production in 2022 was 207.4 million tons, a decline of 3.4 million tons from the average of the previous five years.

Five-fold increase in extreme weather events

The increasing hunger in Africa –which is imposed by both externally and internally– is just part of a widespread drama.

In fact, climate change is fuelling hunger for millions of people around the world. “Extreme weather events have increased five-fold over the past 50 years, destroying homes, decimating livelihoods, fuelling conflict and displacement, and deepening inequality,” Oxfam reports.

Hunger more than doubling

Climate change has resulted in more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and heat waves. “The number of disasters has increased five-fold over the past 50 years.”

This is hitting low-income countries hardest, Oxfam goes on, adding that the 10 countries with the highest UN appeals related to weather extremes since 2000, have seen a 123% rise in the number of people suffering extreme hunger -from 21.3 million to 47.5 million.

These countries are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. According to this data, 7 out of these 10 countries are Africans.

Fossil fuel staggering profits

The G20 countries are amongst the most polluting nations in the world, collectively responsible for nearly 77% of carbon emissions, reports Oxfam, a global movement of people, working together to end the injustice of poverty, by tackling the inequality that keeps people poor.

It is extraordinary that as humanity faces this existential crisis, there is still more incentive to destroy our planet than to save lives.

“The oil and gas industry has enjoyed staggering profits as they wreak havoc on the planet –amassing 2.8 billion US dollars a day (or more than 1 trillion US dollars per year) for the last 50 years.”

Seismic hunger

For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that the current seismic hunger crisis has been caused by a deadly combination of factors: conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes are combining to create a food crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Much so that “as many as 828 million people are unsure of where their next meal is coming from.”

In its report ‘2023: Another year of extreme jeopardy for those struggling to feed their families,’ WFP warns that a record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity – up from 287 million in 2021. This constitutes a staggering rise of 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

More than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in famine-like conditions, the world body reports, adding that this is “ten times more than five years ago, an alarmingly rapid increase.”

In short, politicians also in the most needed and highest exposed to staggering hunger countries, continue to attach higher relevance to spending on arms fueling conflicts, and on fuel fuels spreading climate disasters, rather than investing in saving the lives of their own people.

A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute, finds WWF report. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world’s population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.

In spite of that, one million species of plants and animals are already facing extinction due to the voracious profit-making, over-exploitative, illegal trade and the relentless depletion of the variety of life on Planet Earth.

In fact, billions of people, both in developed and developing nations, benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, and many other vital contributions to human well-being, as duly reports the UN on the occasion of the 2023 World Wildlife Day (3 March).

The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other

Carter Roberts, head of WWF-US

Much so that 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions worldwide. And 1 in 5 people around the world rely on wild species for income and food, while 2.4 billion people depend on wood fuel for cooking.

The world’s major multilateral body reminds us of the “urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime and human-induced reduction of species, which have wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.”

Variety of life, lost at an “alarming rate”

A world organisation leading in wildlife conservation and protection of endangered species: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns that unfortunately, we’re losing biodiversity — the rich variety of life on Earth — at an “alarming rate.”

“We’ve seen a 69% average decline in the number of birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970, according to the 2022 Living Planet Report.

“A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute.”

WWF highlights the following findings, among several others:

• 69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970,
• Wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean plummeting at a staggering rate of 94%,
• Freshwater species populations have suffered an 83% fall.

Major causes

The 2022 Living Planet Report points out some of the major causes leading to the shocking loss of the world’s biodiversity.

“The biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the way in which people use the land and sea. How we grow food, harvest materials such as wood or minerals from the ocean floor, and build our towns and cities all have an impact on the natural environment and the biodiversity that lives there.”

Food systems: the biggest cause of Nature loss: according to findings provided by WWF, food production has caused 70% of biodiversity loss on land and 50% in freshwater. It is also responsible for around 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

As a global population, what we’re eating and how we’re producing it right now is good for neither us nor the planet. While over 800 million people are going hungry, over two billion of those who do have enough food are obese or overweight.

The WWF provided findings also indicate that meat tends to have the highest environmental impact, partially because livestock produce methane emissions through their digestive process – something called enteric fermentation – but also because most meat comes from livestock fed with crops.

And that around 850 million people around the world are thought to rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods.

WWF’ report also refers to the invasive non-native species: Invasive non-native species are those that arrive in places where they historically didn’t live and out-compete local biodiversity for resources such as sunlight and water. This causes the native species to die out, causing a shift in the makeup of the natural ecosystem.

Future depends on reversing the loss of Nature

“The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US.

“These plunges in wildlife populations can have dire consequences for our health and economies,” says Rebecca Shaw, global chief scientist of WWF.

“When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on. We should care deeply about the unravelling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life.”

In view of all the above, the causes of the fast destruction of the variety of life have been scientifically identified as well as the dangerous consequences. However, the dominant private business continues to see more profits in destroying than in saving.

In Nigeria's Northeast the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition is projected to increase to two million in 2023. Credit: UNOCHA/Christina Powell.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 23 2023 (IPS)

While the world’s biggest powers and their giant private corporations continue to attach high priority to their military –and commercial– dominance, both of them being shockingly profitable, entire generations are being lost to deadly armed conflicts, devastating climate catastrophes, diseases, hunger and more imposed impoverishment.

Part I of this series of two articles focussed on the unprecedented suffering of the most innocent and helpless human beings – children– in 11 countries. But there are many more.

According to the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), hundreds of thousands of children continue to pay the highest price of a mixture of man-made brutalities, with their lives, apart from the unfolding proxy war in Ukraine, and the not yet final account of victims of the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, which are forcing children to sleep in the streets under the rumble, amid the chilling cold.

Nigeria

Nigeria is just one of the already reported cases of 11 countries. UNICEF on 11 February 2023 appealed for 1.3 billion US dollars to stop what it calls “the ticking bomb of child malnutrition.”

The appeal is meant to help six million people severely affected by conflict, disease, and disaster in Northeast Nigeria.

“The large-scale humanitarian and protection crisis shows no sign of abating,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria. “An estimated 2.4 million people are in acute need – impacted by conflict, disaster and disease – and require urgent support.”

The “ticking time bomb” of child malnutrition is escalating in Nigeria’s Northeast, with the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition projected to increase to two million in 2023, up from 1.74 million last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

Already high levels of severe acute malnutrition are projected to more than double from 2022 to a projected 697,000 this year. Women and girls are the hardest hit, said Schmale.

“Over 80% of people in need of humanitarian assistance across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are women and children. They face increased risks of violence, abduction, rape and abuse.”

The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu raised concerns about a worsening security situation, calling for urgent action to address conflicts and prevent “atrocity crimes.”

Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Horn of Africa: the suffering of over 20 million children

By the end of 2022, UNICEF warned of a funding shortfall as the region faces an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season and a poor outlook for the sixth.

The number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has “more than doubled in five months,” according to UNICEF.

“Around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July [2022], as climate change, conflict, global inflation and grain shortages devastate the region.”

While collective and accelerated efforts have mitigated some of the worst impacts of what had been feared, “children in the Horn of Africa are still facing the most severe drought in more than two generations,” said UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Lieke van de Wiel.

“Humanitarian assistance must be continued to save lives and build the resilience of the staggering number of children and families who are being pushed to the edge – dying from hunger and disease and being displaced in search of food, water and pasture for their livestock.”

Nearly two million children across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are currently estimated to require ”urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of hunger.”

In addition, across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia:

• More than two million people are displaced internally because of drought.
• Water insecurity has more than doubled with close to 24 million people now confronting dire water shortages.
• Approximately 2.7 million children are out of school because of the drought, with an additional estimated 4 million children at risk of dropping out.
• As families are driven to the edge dealing with increased stress, children face a range of protection risks – including child labour, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
• Gender-based violence, including sexual violence, exploitation and abuse, is also increasing due to widespread food insecurity and displacement.

UNICEF’s 2023 emergency appeal of US$759 million to provide life-saving support to children and their families will require timely and flexible funding support, especially in the areas of education, water and sanitation, and child protection, which were ”severely underfunded” during UNICEF’s 2022 response.

An additional US$690 million is required to support long-term investments to help children and their families to recover and adapt to climate change.

Meanwhile, more unfolding tragedies for children

The above-reported suffering for the most defenceless human beings–children, does not end here. Indeed, two more major tragedies continue unfolding. Such is the case of the brutal proxy war in Ukraine and the most destructive earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.

“A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” – Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes

A steady flow of UN aid trucks filled with vital humanitarian relief continues to cross the border from Southern Türkiye into Northwest Syria to help communities enduring “terrible trauma” caused by the earthquake disaster, UN aid teams on 17 February 2023 reported.

As UN aid convoys continue to deliver more relief to quake-hit Northwest Syria via additional land routes from Türkiye, UN humanitarians warned that “many thousands of children have likely been killed,” while millions more vulnerable people urgently need support.

“Even without verified numbers, it’s tragically clear the number of children killed, the number of children orphaned is going to keep on rising,” on 14 February 2023 said UN Children Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder.

In Türkiye, the total number of children living in the 10 provinces before the emergency was 4.6 million, and 2.5 million in Syria.

And as the humanitarian focus shifts from rescue to recovery, eight days after the disaster, Elder warned that cases of “hypothermia and respiratory infections” were rising among youngsters, as he appealed for continued solidarity with all those affected by the emergency.

“Everyone, everywhere, needs more support, more safe water, more warmth, more shelter, more fuel, more medicines, more funding,” he said.

“Families with children are sleeping in streets, malls, mosques, schools, under bridges, staying out in the open for fear of returning to their homes.”

“Unimaginable hardship”

“The children and families of Türkiye and Syria are facing unimaginable hardship in the aftermath of these devastating earthquakes,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“We must do everything in our power to ensure that everyone who survived this catastrophe receives life-saving support, including safe water, sanitation, critical nutrition and health supplies, and support for children’s mental health. Not only now, but over the long term.”

The number of children killed and injured during the quakes and their aftermath has not yet been confirmed but is likely to be in the many thousands. The official total death toll has now passed 45,000.

Freezing

Many families have lost their homes and are now living in temporary shelters, “often in freezing conditions and with snow and rain adding to their suffering.” Access to safe water and sanitation is also a major concern, as are the health needs of the affected population.

Ukraine

Months of escalating conflict have left millions of children in Ukraine vulnerable to biting winds and frigid temperatures, UNICEF reports.

Hundreds of thousands of people have seen their homes, businesses or schools damaged or destroyed while continuing attacks on critical energy infrastructure have left millions of children without sustained access to electricity, heating and water.

The list of brutalities committed against the world’s children goes on. The funds desperately needed to save their lives represent a tiny faction of all that is being spent on wars.

A child carries empty jerry cans to fill water from a nearby tap providing untreated water from the Nile river in Juba, South Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/Phil Hatcher-Moore

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 22 2023 (IPS)

Today, there are more children in need of desperate humanitarian assistance than at any other time since World War II.

“Across the globe, children and their families are facing a deadly mix of crises, from conflict and displacement to disease, outbreaks and soaring rates of malnutrition. Meanwhile, climate change is making these crises worse and unleashing new ones.”

Tragically enough, UNICEF – the world’s body which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War to save the lives of millions of children who fell prey to the devastating weapons used by their own continent: Europe – could not depict more accurately the current situation of the most innocent humans.

The UN Children Fund in fact reports on the pressing need to provide life-saving help to millions of children trapped in continuing atrocities committed by adults.

In its report: 11 emergencies that need more attention and support in 2023, UNICEF focuses on the following countries where, additionally, resources have fallen short:

South Sudan

Unprecedented flooding in South Sudan has taken a devastating toll on families. Crops have been destroyed, grazing spaces for cattle and other livestock have been submerged and families have been forced to flee their homes.

With hunger and malnutrition on the rise across the flooded regions, some communities are likely to face starvation without sustained humanitarian assistance.

UNICEF is working to screen and treat children with severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting – the most lethal form of undernutrition, and one of the top threats to child survival. Read the latest appeal for South Sudan

Yemen

After eight years of conflict, the systems that Yemen’s families depend on remain on the edge of total collapse. More than 23.4 million people, including 12.9 million children, have, so far, fallen victim to such a brutal war.

In addition, more than 11,000 children have been killed or maimed since 2015, while conflict, massive displacement and recurring climate shocks have left more than 2 million children “acutely malnourished and struggling to survive.” Read the latest appeal for Yemen

Haiti

Political turmoil, civil unrest and gang violence, crippling poverty and natural disasters, a deadly combination of threats are already posing a massive challenge for families in Haiti. A surge in cholera in 2022 is posing yet another risk for children’s health – and their lives.

“There is an urgent need to step up efforts to protect families against cholera by delivering cholera kits and water purifying tablets and trucking in clean water.”

To contain malnutrition, UNICEF is also screening children for wasting to ensure that those who need help can be treated in mobile clinics and other facilities. Read the latest appeal for Haiti

DR Congo

An escalation in armed conflict and recurrent outbreaks of deadly diseases are taking a heavy toll on millions of children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The country hosts the “second-highest number of internally displaced people in the world.”

The cramped conditions in the camps that families are living in are fraught with danger for children, who face an increased risk of violence and disease. Read the latest appeal for Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A father and son remove their belonging from their flooded home in Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas, Pakistan. Credit: RDF

Pakistan

The rains that brought historic flooding to much of Pakistan in 2022 may have ended, but the crisis for children has not.

Months after floods ravaged the country, vast swathes of cropland and villages remain under water, while millions of girls and boys are still in need of immediate lifesaving support.

Around 8 million people are still exposed to flood waters or living close to flooded areas. “Many of these families are still living in makeshift tents alongside the road or near the rubble of their home – often in the open, right next to contaminated and stagnant water.”

UNICEF on January 2022 reported that up to 4 million children in Pakistan are still living next to stagnant and contaminated floodwater Read the latest appeal for Pakistan

Burkina Faso

Political fragility, the impacts of climate change and economic and health crises have contributed to the internal displacement of around 1.7 million people in Burkina Faso – 60% of them are children.

“The anxiety, depression and other stress-related problems associated with displacement can take a lifelong toll on children’s emotional and physical health.” Read the latest appeal for Burkina Faso

Rohingya IDPs confined to a Sittwe camp in Rakhine State wait for international intervention. More than 1.5 million people are displaced in Myanmar. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

Myanmar

Deepening conflict in Myanmar continues to impact children and their families, with some 5.6 million children in need of humanitarian assistance.

Attacks on schools and hospitals have continued at alarming levels, while grave violations of child rights in armed conflict have been reported.

The conflict has undermined the delivery of child health services, including routine immunisation, threatening to take a long-lasting toll on children’s health and well-being. Read the latest appeal for Myanmar

Palestine

“Children in the State of Palestine continue to face a protracted protection crisis and an ongoing occupation.” Around 2.1 million people – more than half of them children – now require humanitarian assistance.

Since 2009, UNICEF has been supporting family centres across the Gaza Strip to provide psychosocial care for children.

Children in need of more specialised services – such as those facing violence at home, school or work – are provided with a case manager who works directly with them and their families. Read the latest appeal for the State of Palestine

Bangladesh

As the Rohingya refugee crisis enters its fifth year, Bangladesh still hosts hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who settled in the Cox’s Bazar District after fleeing “extreme violence” in Myanmar.

While basic services have been provided in the camps, “children still face disease outbreaks, malnutrition, inadequate educational opportunities and other risks like exploitation and violence.” Read the latest appeal for Bangladesh

Syria

The situation was already dire far earlier to the recent earthquakes. In fact, “more than a decade of humanitarian crises and hostilities has left children in Syria facing one of the most complex emergencies in the world.”

“Two thirds of the population require assistance” due to the worsening economic crisis, continued localised hostilities, mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure.

The conflict has seen one of the largest education crises in recent history, with “a whole generation of Syrian children paying a devastating price.” Read the latest appeal for Syria

Kenya

Four failed rainy seasons in a row have left Kenya experiencing its worst drought in 40 years. Without water, crops cannot grow, and animals and livestock die.

The resulting loss of nutritious food, combined with poor sanitation, has left “hundreds of thousands of children requiring treatment for wasting.”

Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death. Read the latest appeal for Kenya

Millions more

In addition to these 11 nations so far identified by UNICEF as needing urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance, with millions of children being the most vulnerable, there are several other countries where they live in dire situations, on which IPS reports in Part II of this two-part series.

Hate speech loads the gun, misinformation pulls the trigger - And that's the kind of the relationship that we've come to understand over the years. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 17 2023 (IPS)

In this world of wars, massive weapons production, sales and use; of sharpening inequalities and deadly climate emergencies, hate speech and its inhumane impact, is being amplified at ‘unprecedented scale’ by new technologies.

Hate speech has now reached dangerous records, fuelling discrimination, racism, xenophobia and staggering human rights violations.

It mainly targets whoever is not “like us” i.e ethnic minorities, black, ‘coloured,’ and Asian peoples; and Muslims worldwide through widespread Islamophobia, let alone the millions of migrants, and the billions of poor. In short, the most vulnerable human beings, let alone the world’s girls and women.

“A lot of the time people want to talk about content moderation, what should be allowed on these platforms, without paying close attention to the political economy of these social media platforms. And it turns out hate speech is profitable”

The UN reports that the new communications technologies are one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world.

A new UN Podcasts series, UNiting Against Hate, explains how this dangerous phenomenon is being tackled worldwide.

Online hate speech on staggering rise

According to a leading international human rights organisation, Minority Rights Group, one analysis records a 400-fold increase in the use of hate terms online in Pakistan between 2011 and 2021.

Being able to monitor hate speech can provide valuable information for authorities to predict future crimes or to take measures afterwards.

There is concern amongst human rights experts and activists that hate speech is becoming more prevalent, with views once perceived as fringe and extreme, moving into the mainstream.

An episode of UNiting Against Hate features Tendayi Achiume, the outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, and Jaroslav Valůch, who is the project manager for fact-checking and news literacy, at Prague-based media development organisation “Transitions”.

‘Hate speech is profitable’

For Tendayi Achiume, a former independent UN human rights expert, more attention needs to be paid to the business models of social media companies.

“A lot of the time people want to talk about content moderation, what should be allowed on these platforms, without paying close attention to the political economy of these social media platforms. And it turns out hate speech is profitable”.

Hate speech and misinformation, closely related

Christopher Tuckwood, the executive director of the Sentinel Project warns that hate speech and misinformation are closely related: “Hate speech loads the gun, misinformation pulls the trigger.“

“And that’s the kind of the relationship that we’ve come to understand over the years”.

It’s now theoretically possible for any human being who can access an Internet connection to become a producer of that sort of content. And so that really does change things, and with a global reach, adds Tuckerwood.

The Sentinel Project is a Canadian non-profit organisation who’s Hatebase initiative monitors the trigger words that appear on various platforms and risk morphing into real-world violence.

Tuckwood describes it as an “early warning indicator that can help us to identify an increased risk of violence.”

It works by monitoring online spaces, especially Twitter, looking for certain keywords, in several different languages, and then applying certain contextual rules to determine what was or was not most likely to be actually hateful content.

In the Balkans

Another organisation doing a similar kind of hate speech mapping is the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

The Network monitors every single trial related to war crime atrocities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and amounts to 700 open cases.

In mapping hate it looks out for four different aspects; “hateful narratives by politicians, discriminatory language, atrocity denial and actual incidents on the ground where minority groups have been attacked.”

Politicians fuelling hatred

According to Dennis Gillick, the executive director and editor of their branch in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the primary drivers of hate narratives in the country are populist, ethno-nationalist politicians.

“The idea behind the entire mapping process is to prove the correlation between political statements and political drivers of hate and the actual atrocities that take place.”

The Network also wants to prove that “there is a lack of systematic prosecution of hate crimes and that the hateful language allows for this perpetuating cycle of violence, with more discriminatory language by politicians and fewer prosecutions.”

As a result of hate speech, we have seen a rising number of far-right groups being mobilised, explains Gillick.

Fake humanitarian groups spreading hateful language

“We are seeing fake NGOs or fake humanitarian groups being mobilised to spread hateful or discriminatory language, in order to expand this gap between the three different ethnic and religious groups in this country.”

The real-life consequences reported by the Network have included defacing or vandalising mosques, or churches, depending on where a specific faith group is in the minority, and open calls to violence.

According to Gillick, this is fuelling the agenda of ethno-nationalist parties who want to cause divisions.

Need to create counter narratives

The way to combat this toxic environment, according to Gillick, is to create counter-narratives, disseminating accurate, factual information and stories that promote unity rather than division.

However, he acknowledges that this is a big ask.

“It is difficult to counter public broadcasters, big media outlets with several hundred journalists and reporters with thousands of flights a day, with a group of 10 to 15 journalists who are trying to write about very specific topics, in a different way, and to do the analytical and investigative reporting.”

Minorities under attack

Another organisation that is trying to create counter-narratives is Kirkuk Now, an independent media outlet in Iraq, which is trying to produce objective and quality content on these groups and share it on social media platforms.

“Our focus is on minorities, internally displaced people, women and children and, of course, freedom of expression,” says editor-in-chief of Kirkuk Now, Salaam Omer.

“We see very little content [about them] in the Iraqi media mainstream. And if they are actually depicted, they are depicted as problems.”

Social media moguls urged to change

The heads of many of the world’s biggest social media platforms were urged to change their business models and become more accountable in the battle against rising hate speech online.

In a detailed statement, more than two dozen UN-appointed independent human rights experts – including representatives from three different working groups and multiple Special Rapporteurs – called out chief executives by name.

They said that the companies they lead “must urgently address posts and activities that advocate hatred, and constitute incitement to discrimination, in line with international standards for freedom of expression.”

They also said the new tech billionaire owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple’s Tim Cook, “and CEOs of other social media platforms”, should “centre human rights, racial justice, accountability, transparency, corporate social responsibility and ethics, in their business model.”

And they reminded that being accountable as businesses for racial justice and human rights, “is a core social responsibility, advising that “respecting human rights is in the long-term interest of these companies, and their shareholders.”

The human rights experts underlined that the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide a clear path forward on how this can be done.

Corporate failure

“We urge all CEOs and leaders of social media to fully assume their responsibility to respect human rights and address racial hatred.”

As evidence of the corporate failure to get a grip on hate speech, the Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts pointed to a “sharp increase in the use of the racist ‘N’ word on Twitter”, following its recent acquisition by Tesla boss Elon Musk.

This showed the urgent need for social media companies to be more accountable “over the expression of hatred towards people of African descent, they argued.

Soon after Mr. Musk took over, the Network Contagion Research Institute of Rutgers University in the US, highlighted that the use of the N-word on the platform “increased by almost 500 per cent within a 12-hour period,” compared to the previous average, the human rights experts said.

Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year, according to WHO. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 10 2023 (IPS)

The food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera.

“Trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food,” warns Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), informing that trans fat has no known benefits, and substantial health risks that incur enormous costs for health systems.

“Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food.”

What is trans fat?

Trans fat, or trans-unsaturated fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in food. Of all the fats, trans fat is the worst for health. Used intensively it increases the risks of heart disease and death.

“Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)

Trans fat can be found in commercial baked goods, such as cakes, cookies, fried foods, margarine, packaged foods, cooking oils and spreads among many other products.

Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year, WHO said.

Currently, nine of the 16 countries with the highest estimated proportion of coronary heart disease deaths caused by trans fat intake do not have a best-practice policy.

They are Australia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and the Republic of Korea.

The annual status report has been published by WHO in collaboration with Resolve to Save Lives, a not-for-profit organisation that supports action towards eliminating industrially produced trans fat from national food supplies.

Food industry doubles its profits in just one year

Alongside oil and gas corporations, food companies more than doubled their profits in 2022 at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry and 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, reports Oxfam International.

Industrial food systems destroy

On this, Navdanya International warns that in a few decades, industrial food systems have destroyed the Earth’s systems, human health and livelihoods as it has directly violated ecological laws and laws of justice.

Now we are seeing a global agenda to erase land-based cultures, to destroy real farms, real farmers, real food to create a dystopia of “farming without farmers” and “food without farms” as false totalitarian solutions to climate change, it adds in its Call to Action “Our Bread, Our Freedom” 2022.

“It is time to abandon our resource-intensive and profit-based economic systems that have created havoc in the world, disrupting the planet’s ecosystems and undermining society’s systems of health, justice, and democracy.”

Navdanya and the Navdanya movement was created by Dr. Vandana Shiva 30 years ago in India to defend Seed and Food sovereignty and small farmers around the world.

For its part, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that more than 600 million people fall ill and 420.000 die every year as a result of eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals.

More damage, more profits

These huge damages caused by the food business add to many others. One of them is the infant formula corporations’ exploitative marketing tactics, which the world-leading health organisation on 8 February 2023 called for “a swift crackdown” on such business tactics.

In a previous report Scope and impact of digital marketing strategies for promoting breast-milk substitutes on what it called ‘insidious’ online marketing of baby formula, the world’s top health organisation warned that the 55 billion US dollars baby formula industry must end exploitative online marketing targeting parents, particularly mothers

WHO’s report found that companies are paying social media platforms and influencers to “gain direct access to pregnant women and mothers at some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives,” through personalised content that is “often not recognisable as advertising.”

Big Business pays to social media influencers

“Through tools like apps, virtual support groups or ‘baby-clubs’, paid social media influencers, promotions and competitions and advice forums or services, formula milk companies can buy or collect personal information and send personalised promotions to new pregnant women and mothers.”

The report summarises findings of a new research that sampled and analysed 4 million social media posts about infant feeding, published between January and June 2021 using a commercial social listening platform.

These posts reached 2.47 billion people and generated more than 12 million likes, shares or comments.

“This new research highlights the vast economic and political power of the big formula milk companies, as well as serious public policy failures that prevent millions of women from breastfeeding their children,” said Nigel Rollins, one of the authors of a series on the $55 billion-a-year industry and their marketing “playbooks”, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.

“Actions are needed across different areas of society to better support mothers to breastfeed for as long as they want, alongside efforts to tackle exploitative formula milk marketing once and for all,” he added.

650 million women lack ‘maternity protection’

Currently, around 650 million women lack adequate maternity protections, the research noted.

Elaborated by a group of doctors and scientists, it examines how formula marketing tactics undermine breastfeeding and target parents, health professionals and politicians, and how feeding practices, women’s rights and health outcomes, are determined by power imbalances and political and economic structures.

Dairy lobbyists’ misleading claims

WHO recommends exclusively breastfeeding infants for at least six months. The practice provides immense benefits to babies and young children, from reducing infection risks to lowering rates of obesity and chronic diseases later in life.

However, globally, only around half of newborns are put to the breast within the first hour of life, warns WHO.

Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. Credit: Clae

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jan 25 2023 (IPS)

Gone are those times when catastrophes were measured in terms of human suffering. Now, with an exception: Ukrainians victims of the Russian invasion, everything is calculated in just money.

Following such a solid trend, major financial, business-oriented institutions, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank, are now devoted to calculating if and how big the recession will be, ergo, how much money could be won or lost due, of course, to the Ukrainian proxy war.

The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals Oxfam's new report “Survival of the Richest

They, likewise the establishment’s politicians and media, just talk about inflation, stagflation, economic (read financial) slowdown and commerce.

Rare mention is made of the victims and human suffering of the other 56 armed conflicts still spreading worldwide. Haitians do not matter, nor do Yemenis, Syrians, Somalis, Ethiopians, and a long list of human beings whose lives are broken by wars and climate disasters they did not cause.

Inequality reaches highest peak ever

In yet another evidence of this trend, a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty: Oxfam International, has now revealed that the richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world over the past two years.

“The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals Oxfam’s new report “Survival of the Richest.

“During the past decade, the richest 1 percent had captured around half of all new wealth.”

Super-rich outstrip their extraordinary grab of half of all new wealth in the past decade, and billionaires’ fortunes are increasing by $2.7 billion a day even as at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, it reported on 16 January 2023.

“A tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.”

“Survival of the Richest” was published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In it, Oxfam explains, the elites are gathering in the Swiss ski resort as extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years.

The rich’s wildest dreams

“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires —a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.

“Taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises. It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide doesn’t lift all ships —just the super-yachts.”

The rich capture 16 trillion US dollars

Billionaires have seen extraordinary increases in their wealth. During the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis years since 2020, $26 trillion (63 percent) of all new wealth was captured by the richest 1 percent, while $16 trillion (37 percent) went to the rest of the world put together.

A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90 percent. Billionaire fortunes have increased by $2.7 billion a day. This comes on top of a decade of historic gains —the number and wealth of billionaires having doubled over the last ten years, adds the report.

Profiting from destruction

“Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits, and paid out $257 billion (84 percent) of that to rich shareholders.”

Oxfam further reports that the Walton dynasty, which owns half of Walmart, received $8.5 billion over the last year. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy corporations, has seen this wealth soar by $42 billion (46 percent) in 2022 alone. Excess corporate profits have driven at least half of inflation in Australia, the US and the UK.

At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and over 820 million people —roughly one in ten people on Earth— are going hungry. Women and girls often eat least and last, and make up nearly 60 percent of the world’s hungry population.

“The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since WW2. Entire countries are facing bankruptcy, with the poorest countries now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare.”

Many poorest people pay more taxes than billionaires

Oxfam is calling for a systemic and wide-ranging increase in taxation of the super-rich to claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering. Decades of tax cuts for the richest and corporations have fueled inequality, with the poorest people in many countries paying higher tax rates than billionaires.

It explains that Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, paid a “true tax rate” of about 3 percent between 2014 and 2018. Aber Christine, a flour vendor in Uganda, makes $80 a month and pays a tax rate of 40 percent.

And that worldwide, only four cents in every tax dollar now comes from taxes on wealth. Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants.

“They will pass on a $5 trillion tax-free treasure chest to their heirs, more than the GDP of Africa, which will drive a future generation of aristocratic elites. Rich people’s income is mostly unearned, derived from returns on their assets, yet it is taxed on average at 18 percent, just over half as much as the average top tax rate on wages and salaries.”

The vital 5 percent

According to new analysis by the Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam and the Patriotic Millionaires, an annual wealth tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year…

… This figure would be enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, fully fund the shortfalls on existing humanitarian appeals, deliver a 10-year plan to end hunger, support poorer countries being ravaged by climate impacts, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Any chance that this will ever happen?