Activists taking part in the annual 'Healing Walk' through the tar sands site in Fort McMurray, Canada, call for the expansion of the energy project to end. Credit: Keepers of the Athabasca

By Flossie Baker
NEW YORK, Aug 5 2013 (IPS)

“First the bugs began to disappear,” says Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

By Deranger’s account, her small community of Fort Chipewyan is increasingly affected by the expansion of the world’s third largest crude oil deposit, the Athabasca tar sands of Alberta, Canada."Our people are being held as economic hostages in the race to develop our homeland." -- Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation

In the last decade, the town of Fort Chipewyan in northeastern Alberta has witnessed its local caribou herds threatened with extinction, a decline in the numbers of migratory birds, and elevated rates of certain types of cancer.

An independent study conducted from 2006 to 2009 was inconclusive about the cause of the rise in cancer.

“The most recent statistics indicate that overall rates of cancer are not higher in Fort Chipewyan compared to the Alberta average,” John Muir, spokesperson for Alberta Health Services, told IPS.

“However, the rate is higher for specific cancers such as lung cancer. Independent medical studies have found no causal links between oil sands development and the community health downstream.”

Many locals do not believe it is a coincidence that cancer rates and tar sands production have both increased. Nevertheless, the community is pleased with its new health facilities, which were largely paid for by the oil company Suncor.

Oil companies continue to heavily fund projects for Native people in northeastern Alberta. In 2009, they donated more than 23 million dollars to organisations in the region, including youth and community programmes. Yet for a lot of local indigenous people, this support is bittersweet.

Like many northern indigenous communities, Fort Chipewyan has struggled economically since the fur trade, on which it heavily depended, was outlawed in the early 1970s. Now, with fears of contamination compounding the hardships of living off the land, many residents have turned to the tar sands for employment.

This is a move encouraged by oil companies, one of which provides a fly in/fly out service every two weeks for its workers from the isolated town.

“[The oil] industry is proud of the solid relationship it has with Aboriginal people…[and] has created mutually beneficial employment and business opportunities,” Geraldine Anderson of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers told IPS.

The town’s elders, however, have mixed feelings about younger generations leaving to work in the tar sands.

“The elders who lived through the end of the fur trade, and then the [economic] depression…are now seeing this resurgence,” Deranger says. “This economy on the one hand is ensuring that their families are fed …and are allowing new and better health facilities…people are able to live well.

“However it’s also going hand in hand with the loss of land, the loss of culture, the loss of identity.”

Deranger explained that a deep understanding and connection with the land is central to the culture of indigenous people.

“The blades of grass, the leaves on the trees, the medicine, the water, the animals: they are our brothers and sisters and cousins…the land is where we learnt to be human and self-sufficient,” she said.

Deranger says that there has been a surge in the numbers of Fort Chipewyan tar sands workers taking drugs and alcohol. She attributes this to the racism they face in the workplace as well as the psychological trauma of leaving their land.

“We are seeing increases in the cases of post-traumatic stress disorder because they are watching the destruction of their ancestors. And this is why we are seeing an epidemic of substance abuse…they are trying to numb that pain,” Deranger told IPS.

Covering 142,200 square kilometres, the tar sands span an area the size of New York State. Only 20 percent of the deposit has thus far been mined and it is estimated that the Athabasca tar sands have the potential to produce three million barrels of oil per day for the next 150 years.

Environmentalists say that mining tar sands oil produces three to five times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude. Large amounts of water and natural gas are required to heat and separate oily tar – or bitumen – from the sand.

Extracting one barrel of oil from the tar sands requires 650 cubic feet of natural gas, according to Shell Canada figures.

Shell, one of the world’s largest oil companies, estimates that by 2050, only 30 percent of the world’s energy sources will be will be renewable, with the remaining 70 percent coming from fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

There is a huge incentive for oil companies to expand. If U.S. President Barack Obama gives the go-ahead for the expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline, oil would be transported all the way from Alberta to Houston, Texas.
This is a worrying prospect for Deranger who believes that expansion has already committed a “cultural genocide” against her community. Being both an economic catalyst and environmental hazard, the tar sands pose a difficult dilemma for many Fort Chipewyan residents.

“We need these jobs …because there are members that can’t pay their bills and [whose] children are starving. Our people are being held as economic hostages in the race to develop our homeland,” Deranger says.

Despite a pledge by the oil companies to reduce environmental contamination, it still occurs. For the last six weeks, oil has been continuously leaking from the ground into the forests of Cold Lake, Eastern Alberta. Attempts to stop it have so far failed.

The continuing expansion of the tar sands is viewed by some as a practical solution to the world’s increasing demand for energy, and by scientists and climate activists on both sides of the border as a catastrophe. For local indigenous people who live at ground zero, their traditional culture is in jeopardy.

“When there is no Athabasca left, there will be no Athabasca Dene Suline [the Native language]…You will have completely annihilated an entire people,” says Deranger.

Increasing numbers of men, women and children are being raped in North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as recurrent conflict continues to displace citizens.

Since January, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that 705 cases of sexual violence have taken place in the region, 619 of which were incidences of rape.

Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokesperson for the UNHCR said in a statement Tuesday that “out of the 705 cases of sexual violence reported to our staff since the beginning of the year, 434 were perpetrated by armed elements.”

Lejeune- Kaba is concerned that displaced people face greater exposure to sexual violence and rape. The renewed fighting around North Kivu’s capital, Goma between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese army is expected to increase the danger for civilians in the region, especially women and children.

The fightinghas so far forced 6,000 – 7,000 people to flee their homes since July 14th 2013.

Additionally, continued fighting in Kamango, North Kivu between the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan based rebel group and the Congolese army has already displaced 14,000 civilians increasing the total number of internally displaced people in the Kamango area to 40,000.

There are currently over 96,000 people displaced in North Kivu following years of conflict.

“The newly displaced are staying in schools and churches in the northern part of Goma, some 10 kilometers from the frontline…we are transferring the displaced to existing camps, mainly Mugunga 3, where they receive shelter and basic humanitarian aid” Lejueune- Kaba said.

In addition, the UNHCR is also facilitating courses on how to prevent and manage sexual violence and rape cases for 96 police officers deployed in refugee camps in the area.

Lejeune – Kaba’s brieifng comes several weeks after the UN announced that nine young girls aged between 18 months and 12 years were being treated for rape, two of whom died in hospital.

The scale and extremity of rape cases that the DRC has witnessed for over a decade led Margot Wallstrom, former senior UN Offical to declare in 2010 that the DRC was the “rape capital of the world.”

This recent surge in rape cases is desperate news for a country which has endured the use of rape as a weapon of war for too long.

As humanitarian access remains limited in the area and the conflict tense, there seems little sign that the DRC is winning the battle against the use of sexual violence in warfare.

Heavy seasonal rains over the past two weeks has caused extreme flooding and consecutive landslides across large areas of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Many parts of the country have received twice the average rainfall of July in just three days. North and south Pyongan, north and south Hwanghae, south Hamgyong, Kangwon and Jagang provinces have been worst affected, witnessing extreme damage to buildings, infrastructure and crops.

In Anjui City, South Pyongan, the banks of the river Chongchon burst leaving 80% of the province flooded since the early hours of July 21 2013, a Red Cross report states.

Some 46,000 people have been displaced and 28 people have thus far died. Over 11,000 buildings have been destroyed, more than 10,000 hectares of farmland has been affected and over 3,700 families have lost their homes.

The United Nations has dispatched assessment teams to a number of areas in the DPRK that the government has identified as being the worst affected by the flooding.

Eduardo Del Buey, deputy spokesperson for the Secretary -General, told reporters Friday: “UN agencies that have conducted assessment missions in North Pyongan have warned that homeless families do not have enough food stocks.”

Much of the affected population has been moved to public buildings which are serving as temporary shelters; yet conditions are often inadequate, lacking bedding and other basic household utilities.

With many water supplies polluted in both rural and urban areas, access to clean drinking water is a major concern. Local health authorities are providing primary healthcare and clean water to as many victims as possible whilst humanitarian partners have distributed diarrhea treatment kits to 1,200 patients. In addition, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has released over 1,000 hygiene kits to displaced women and girls.

The DPRK is not unfamiliar to severe flooding. Last year, the country suffered one of the worst floods in its history.

Cyclone Khanun hit the region in July 2012 causing torrential rain and flash flooding that lasted into August. More than 62,000 people were displaced and over 100 people lost their lives.  Typhoon Bolaven then hit the region in September displacing yet more people and creating further havoc.

With flooding set to continue for the near future, international organizations wait on hand to see how the situation develops.  The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) continues to monitor the situation and is working with the DPRK and the humanitarian community in order to coordinate an effective emergency response.

The ongoing conflict in Syria will have dire consequences for future generations, United Nations Special Representative for Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui told the Security Council Monday.

Having just returned from a visit to Syria, the special representative drew attention to the plight of children caught up in the on-going civil war.

Inside Syria, 6.8 million people, half of whom are children, desperately require humanitarian assistance. Families continue to flee Syria to neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon in the hope of escaping violence and accessing food, clean water and other basic necessities. Horrendous violations are also committed against Syrian children on a daily basis such as maiming, killing, abduction and sexual violence.

“You go to a hospital and you see a child without a leg and he’s telling you ‘they will fix my leg and I am going to fight!’ and then…you see the brother…lying on the bed who lost [his] kidneys and [his] pancreas and the mother sitting near…This is the reality that you see,” Zerrougui told reporters Monday.

Many schools in Syria are also under attack and are being used as military barracks or prisons. This has deprived thousands of children of their school facilities for many months. Although Lebanon has begun to open its schools to Syrian refugees, these facilities lack the space and resources to accommodate all the students. Differences in language and culturally inappropriate  curriculums pose further challenges.

“They have lost their family, they have lost their house and they have lost their hope. They are full of anger…and if this continues we will face a generation of illiterates,” Zerrougui stressed.

Zerrougui urged that every effort should be made to ensure children have access to learning materials, adding, “Education is one of the most effective ways to build an inclusive and open society.”

Last month, Syria’s main rebel group, The Free Syria Army (FSA), was added to the U.N.’s List of Shame.

The list was part of a report issued by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which highlighted that Syrian children were being used by both sides as suicide bombers and human shields.

Introducing the report in June, Ban described the current situation of children in Syria as “unacceptable and unbearable” and called for “an end to detention and any form of ill-treatment, including torture, of children for alleged association with the opposition.”

The uprising, which began in March 2011, has resulted in the deaths of thousands of children. Zerrougi stressed that a political solution must be found soon for the sake of Syria’s future generation.

The vital role gender stereotypes play in promoting peace was highlighted at the United Nations this week.

Gary Barker of Promundo, a Brazilian non-governmental organization (NGO), stressed the importance of addressing the issue of gendered identity and how it contributes to domestic violence, as well as war.

Promundo undertakes a lot of work engaging men in conflict and post conflict settings around the world, particularly in the favelas of Rio de Janerio. Here, perceptions of masculinity are often so entrenched in drug culture that many males literally die trying to assert their sense of manhood, he said.

Barker explained that “men’s tenuous hold on a sense of identity …are huge drivers of all kinds of issues we are concerned about …whether its men’s use of violence against women…[or] their own health issues.”

The International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) undertook a recent analysis of gender relations and sexual violence in North Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

About 1,500 interviews were conducted on both men and women. The results showed that an overwhelming 72 percent of men felt ashamed to face their families, if they were unemployed. Barker explained that notions of masculinity often centre on the need to be a provider, “if there’s no work, you’re not a man” he said.

War often intensifies gender based violence. “The displacement that comes from conflict, the loss of livelihood that comes from conflict, the witnessing and experience of violence that comes from conflict create this very toxic mix that is affecting both the lives of women and the lives of men” said Barker.

In a country where hundreds of rapes take place every day, mostly in the home,  understanding this sense of lost identity and challenging gender stereotypes could help lead to solutions for this problem in the DRC.

Interestingly, it was also found that men fare worse in the face of conflict than women who have a tendency to talk about their problems and build networks of solidarity. In addition, women did not report a sense of lost identity in a conflict setting in the way that men did.

Also key to understanding gender norms that perpetuate violence are childhood experiences. “Men who carried out care giving and witnessed their fathers doing care giving are more likely to be gender equitable in their views, more involved in the lives of their children and more supportive of their partners as equals”  Barker said.

It is therefore crucial to engage males and females into addressing their gendered identities from an early age to ensure that domestic peace has hope of prevailing, especially in post conflict settings.

With over 80 percent of its population struggling to eke out a living on less than a dollar a day, Madagascar is now one of the world’s poorest countries.

Hunger has reached alarming levels and acute malnutrition continues to hover at the rate of 50 percent. All indicators suggest that the country can scarcely hold its head above water, let alone survive any unexpected shocks.

But according to a statement Wednesday by the spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, this island nation lying just south of continental Africa has not seen the last of its woes.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is concerned that Madagascar is facing a grave food crisis due to locust plagues that are endangering 13 million people.

Locust plagues have already destroyed more than half the country’s agricultural land and are threatening the food security and livelihoods of 60 percent of the population of 22.7 million people, states an FAO report.

However, attempts to reduce the devastation have been hindered by lack of funds. The FAO claims that a large scale emergency control campaign costing 22 million dollars is required imminently if the crop planting season beginning in September is going to be successful.

But  emergency appeals in Madagascar remain severely underfunded. This is the first stage of a wider three-year plan (2013-2016) by the agency to control the destruction caused by the locusts.

“If we don’t act now, the plague could last years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. This could very well be a last window of opportunity to avert an extended crisis,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva warned.

A recent FAO assessment states that approximately 25 percent of the total rice supply in Madagascar could be lost if measures are not implemented soon. Indeed, some regions of the country have already lost between 40 and 70 percent of their rice and maize crop, the staple foods of the country.

The current infestation threatens to be the worst in Madagascar’s history, barring a 17-year-long plague that hit the country in the 1950s.

The current locust problem intensified in February 2013 when Cyclone Haruna struck the southwest coast of Madagascar, not only causing widespread damage but also improving the locusts’ breeding conditions.

Depending on its size and density, a locust swarm is capable of consuming up to 100,000 tonnes of vegetation per day. In a county already plagued by poverty, the potential damage is tremendous, experts say.