Violence against women rages in South Africa

"Government is not enough," she said. "And we are not looking at government anymore because we need to do these things on our own."


South African men and women protest gender-based violence outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 30. File Photo by Nic Bothma/EPA-EFE

Nov. 25 (UPI) -- South Africa's constitution is revered for its commitments to human rights -- but it also has one of the highest rates of femicide, the slaying of women on account of gender, in the world.

Data released by the World Health Organization shows that 12.1 in every 100,000 women are victims of femicide, five times worse than the global average of 2.6. One in four women over 18 have experienced violence of some form from a partner in their lifetime, according to a 2016 Demographic Health Survey.

This is a problem that has only accelerated in the country since the lifting of COVID-19 lockdowns. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a June speech, "The scourge of gender-based violence continues to stalk our country, as the men of our country declared war on the women."

The United Nations recognizes Nov. 25 as the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, highlighting the statistics showing gender-based violence as among the most pervasive yet underreported crimes across the globe.

In South Africa, what factors into the disparity between what is on the books and what is actually happening?

According to the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, an academic research organization based in Johannesburg, studies have found that police are less likely to intervene in cases of gender-based violence, as they are viewed as inter-relationship squabbles. This often results in the secondary victimization of the person reporting the crime.

Jackie Chauke, 49, was subjugated to secondary victimization by police on multiple occasions while she was attempting to escape her abusive husband in the Alexandra township in Johannesburg in 2011.

Chauke's husband tracked her movements and the two were getting into arguments so intense that each of them vowed to kill the other. One day Chauke made the decision to leave. She exited her house with trash in hand to make it seem like she was just taking out the garbage. It was a guise to escape to a police station. She reported emotional abuse and requested to stay at a shelter. The officer initially did not understand what emotional abuse was and said he could not help her.

"He got stuck," Chauke said. "He did not know what to do with me."

In that vulnerable moment, Chauke said she felt unsupported.

The officer eventually called over a captain who was familiar with a program where she was able to seek shelter and receive counseling. Chauke was thrilled when she saw her room for the first time.

Women can seek refuge in shelters, like Chauke did, but are typically only permitted to stay up to three months. During the three months, the women have access to legal advice and counseling. But that ends when their time there is up.

"I've had survivors come back. We also have survivors who hop from one shelter to the other," said Jeanette Sera, who oversees operations at a shelter in a Johannesburg suburb run by People Opposing Women Abuse.
During her three-month stay at the shelter, Chauke had to return home to retrieve some of her clothes and personal items. She was escorted by police, who were intended to be there to protect her, however, they quickly accepted bribery from her husband.

One of the officers turned to her and said, "You have a beautiful home, you have a car, a business and your husband is very sweet and humble, why do you leave your relationship?" Chauke responded, "If you want to come and stay here, then take over."

She wasn't supposed to be left alone with her husband as she packed her things, but she was.

She didn't know what secondary victimization was at the time, but remembers feeling as though the officer wasn't on her side.

The constitution of South Africa includes one of the most progressive and ambitious Bill of Rights, including rights to housing, equality of the sexes and human dignity.

Although this political goodwill is written into law, there is still a huge gulf between these aspirations and the reality on the ground.

"Implementation sucks," said Francesca Fondse of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Fondse, who works as the South African Champion for Women against GBV, Domestic Violence and Intimate Femicide, said that although South Africa has great laws on the books, because of a lack of implementation the situation hasn't improved. Over 60% of the South African Police Service personnel are men, according to the service's 2019 annual report. Fondse said that the average police officer is someone who left school to join the force.

"He's probably seen his own father abuse his mother," Fondse said. "We have to re-educate."

The domestic violence training police officers receive from the Department of Justice, Fondse said, is a top-down operation. The department trains upper, middle and lower management and in turn they are supposed to train the officers in their precincts. This used to be an annual training, though Fondse now believes it to be quarterly.

The culture of machismo in the police force can disrupt the willingness of the officers to take the training seriously.

"It is difficult in some cases, where you have police officers that in their own personal lives abuse women," said Irvin Kinnes, an adviser to the South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police.

Chauke said she eventually made the decision to move back into the house with her husband, living in a separate wing, and uses the skills she learned through counselling to keep her independence. She now works at ADAPT, a non-profit aimed at providing victims training and counseling, and works in a police station in Alexandra to give counseling to victims.

Chauke has seen the increase in women coming into the police station to report abuse since the lifting of the COVID-19 lockdown. There was a 1.8% increase in attempted murder and a 3.2% increase in sexual offenses from July to September of this year, compared to the same time in 2019, according to data released by the South African Police Service.

She said she feels extreme fatigue from handling an increasing number of cases in this current uptick.

"I'm so tired," Chauke said. "The statistics are crazy."

Ramaphosa announced in September that three bills were being introduced to Parliament to help combat gender-based violence. The bills focus on tightening bail restrictions for perpetrators of sexual offenses, making the names on the National Register for Sex Offenders public and permitting protection orders to be completed online. Ramaphosa acknowledged in his statement that the barriers in the system make it incredibly difficult for victims to navigate.

"The sad reality is that many survivors of gender-based violence have lost faith in the criminal justice system," Ramaphosa wrote. "Difficulties in obtaining protection orders, lax bail conditions for suspects, police not taking domestic violence complaints seriously and inappropriate sentences have contributed to an environment of cynicism and mistrust."

Chauke acknowledged Ramaphosa's pushes to create change, but said she is tired of the inaction on the ground.

"Government is not enough," she said. "And we are not looking at government anymore because we need to do these things on our own."


upi.com/7056998

Scotland becomes first country to make menstrual products free nationwide

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Scotland approved legislation on Tuesday making it the first nation to provide free access to menstrual products nationwide.

The bill introduced by member of the Scottish Parliament Monica Lennon creates a series of requirements to combat "period poverty," a term describing situations in which people who need period products are unable to afford them

Under the legislation,the Scottish government will be required to set up a nationwide program to allow anyone who needs period products to get them free of charge. This includes requiring schools, colleges and universities to make a range of products available for free in bathrooms and granting the government the power to make other public bodies provide the products for free.

Scotland made menstrual hygiene products free for students at schools and universities two years ago.

The Scottish government estimated the new program will cost about $32 million annually.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon praised the passage of the legislation on Twitter Tuesday.

"Proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation, making Scotland the first country in the world to provide free period products for all who need them An important policy for women and girls," she wrote.

The Philippines wants to outlaw child marriage. But in Muslim-majority Bangsamoro, change will be hard

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

ByRAISSA ROBLES

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Some 15 per cent of Filipino girls are married before their 18th birthday, and 2 per cent are married before the age of 15.
Reuters

Ayesha Merdeka wants child marriages to be a thing of the past. They aren’t an abstract concept to her – they are the reality she has lived with for more than three decades after her grand wedding at the age of 15 made a splash in newspapers and magazines across the Philippines .

She is a member of a politically influential clan in what is now the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) – where most of the 3.8 million residents are Muslim, in contrast with the rest of the predominantly Catholic country – and hers was the first Muslim Maranao-style wedding to be held in the capital, Manila.

Ayesha’s father, Abul Khayr Alonto, was the founding Vice-Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front. He recruited Nur Misuari, who became the group’s leader, into the rebel movement. Her father, who was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority in 2016, died last year.

At the time of Ayesha’s wedding, then-president Corazon Aquino was seeking peace talks with the rebels. Several foreign diplomats from the US and Russian embassies attended the ceremony. But little did the guests know, the bride had no choice but to marry.

It was like having “an invisible gun on your head”, Ayesha, now 49, told This Week in Asia . She clarifies that she wasn’t forced into marriage – it was “more like [being] indoctrinated into the idea that marriage was a decision made by the elders. It’s like your mind was conditioned from the beginning that that area of your entire life is going to be decided by them.”

Ayesha, who still lives in the BARMM, said suitors, including those from abroad, began circling when she was 13 years old and still “boyish looking”. But her father put his foot down and said she had to marry within the clan.

A handout photo. Ayesha Merdeka on her wedding day.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

He warned her that if she committed “a moral mistake, then I will make an example [of you] to the Bangsamoro women”, Ayesha recalled.

“The one thing that really held me after he said that,” she said, was that “his voice became imploring as he said, ‘Please don’t make me do that to you’. The voice is still at the back of my head but I trusted that my dad would choose the best man among the Moros [for me].”

‘An act of child abuse’

According to Girls Not Brides, a partnership of civil society organisations committed to ending marriages involving children, 15 per cent of Filipino girls were married before their 18th birthday, and 2 per cent were married before the age of 15.

Boys in the Philippines are less likely to enter into child marriages – in 2017, there were 32,000 brides between the ages of 15 and 19, four times the number of grooms, according to official figures.

Part of the problem, Girls Not Brides points out, is the trafficking of women and girls from rural regions to urban cities, as well as forced marriages.


Read Also Social media couple in Indonesia slammed for touting child marriage


Another issue the group identifies is religion . Most registered child marriages in the Philippines take place in the BARMM – which is in Mindanao, the country’s second-largest island – where women can marry at a very young age under the 1977 Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

That legislation, enacted through a decree from then president Ferdinand Marcos, set the marrying age for Muslims at 15, but provided an exception – girls can be married as young as 13, provided they are menstruating, and a wali , or guardian, petitions for the marriage.

Last month, Senate Bill 1373, which criminalises marriages between an adult and a minor – defined as a person under the age of 18 – was unanimously approved by the Senate. A similar measure, House Bill 1486, has bipartisan support and is awaiting a nod from the House of Representatives that is expected to come by next year.

The Senate bill, which calls child marriage “an act of child abuse as it debases, degrades and demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of children”, aims to punish relatives, guardians and those who facilitate such marriages with a fine of not less than 50,000 pesos (S$1,400) and between six and 12 years in jail, as well as the “loss of parental authority” over the victim.

Its main sponsor, Senator Risa Hontiveros from the opposition Akbayan party, told local media after the vote that the issue of early and forced child marriages was “a tragic reality for scores of young girls who are forced by economic circumstances and cultural expectations to shelve their own dreams, begin families they are not ready for, and raise children even if their own childhoods have not yet ended”.

However, even if the law is passed, realities on the ground will make its implementation difficult, according to Muslim rights activists in the Philippines who are seeking to end the practice.


Read Also Indonesia inches closer to outlawing child marriage



A senior member of the National Ulama Conference of the Philippines, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he did not think the proposed child-marriage law was “automatic for Muslims” given the concurrent existence of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

He revealed that there was an ongoing discussion between the ulamas on the conflict between the Code and the impending congressional legislation banning child marriages.

“We are trying to reconcile the two views – the Code says 15 [is the marrying age], while the [proposed Congress legislation] says 18,” he said, explaining that some Islamic scholars put the age of marriage for women “from the time she starts menstruating, but the Koran itself has no provision regarding that”.
‘It stops with me’

Experts say decades of war in the BARMM – including in the province of Magindanao, and the 2017 battle to retake the city of Marawi from Islamic State -affiliated militants – have made the region the poorest in the country, and caused a spike in the number of child brides.

“It alarmed us,” said Sittie Jehanne Mutin, former chair of the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women, of the rise in child brides among tens of thousands of internally displaced persons or refugees due to the protracted war between government troops and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The rebellion officially ended last year after a peace deal that saw MILF rebel commanders become administrators of the newly formed BARMM.

Read Also UN moves to prevent child marriage


Mutin said the war had taken a toll on families taking care of young girls, and marrying them off meant fewer mouths to feed, while it was also a way of preventing possible sexual abuse since strangers were crammed together in refugee camps. The really poor families did not mind even if the groom was decades older, she said, so long as “they can afford the dowry”.

She pointed out that the situation could not be addressed simply by an outright ban since there were multiple laws that existed and were applicable, including international Islamic law; Philippine sharia law, as outlined under the Code of Muslim Personal Laws; as well as the various traditional and customary laws observed by the 13 Muslim-majority ethnic groups in Mindanao.

Ordinarily, Mutin added, arranged marriages were a custom with built-in protective mechanisms. For instance, “parents will never force a child to marry without really looking at the advantages for their own daughter. That’s usually very high on their list.”

This community aspect is also evident to columnist and peace advocate Samira Gutoc, who took part in drafting the Bangsamoro Basic Law for the BARMM. She said there were many instances when young couples were made to abstain from sexual relations until the girl reached “the age of maturity” or started menstruating

.

A handout photo. Ayesha Merdeka today.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

“The purpose of marriage is not just to strengthen power relations; it also provides social protection [and] protection against family vendettas,” Gutoc said, pointing out that some marriages were arranged between clans after slights were exchanged so as to prevent the clans from warring.

She was almost made to marry young herself, and recalls “running away” to show her refusal to do so – following in the footsteps of her mother, who had flatly rejected the notion after seeing her older sister marry around the age of 13 and drop out of school to bear children.

As for Ayesha, when asked about her own marriage, she explained that there were some arranged marriages that worked because “Islam emphasises duty over individual rights”.

Read Also Yemen child brides the victims of poverty, tradition


“It gets more complex when you really look at the culture,” she said. “I chose to be happy every day. There are a lot of things to be grateful for.”

Her husband visited and wooed her daily for three months before their wedding, keeping to a condition imposed by a stern aunt. “My aunt was crying throughout her wedding day because [she had only seen her husband] on that day.”

Ayesha, whose early marriage did not stop her from finishing a history degree and teaching for nearly four years in Libya, said Filipino Muslim women were “far more empowered” than those in the Middle East. In Libya, she would be summoned by the school head to “stop your revolution” about Muslim women’s rights.

It’s a revolution she continued at home. None of her three daughters – who are still single in their 20s and 30s – were forced into arranged marriages, she said, and her eldest son married for love.

“It stops with me,” said Ayesha, whose second given name, “Merdeka”, means freedom.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.

Small farmers jailed for Sumatra fires as companies duck blame

By Harry Jacques

BENGKALIS, Indonesia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Firefighter Ibnu Hajar stopped near the top of a wrought-iron observation tower in Bengkalis on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, and looked inland over miles of oil palm trees planted up to the edge of the northeastern coastline.

“In 2015, all this was lost,” he said.

Five years ago, a strong El Nino climate pattern prolonged Sumatra’s main dry season beyond October, delaying rains needed to douse wildfires burning across expanses of peatland.

The result was an environmental and public health disaster, with 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) scorched, and half a million people sickened across the archipelago.

Indonesia’s planet-warming emissions exceeded those of the entire U.S. economy for 38 out of 56 days during the 2015 crisis.

Small-scale farmers in Bengkalis regency, part of Riau province, have set fires for decades to prepare land to plant cassava, pineapple and rambutan, said Teguh Surya, head of the Sustainable Madani Foundation, a Jakarta-based environmental group.

Research shows fire has traditionally been used in land cultivation owing to its speed, low cost and desirable side effects in reducing soil acidity and incinerating pests.

But such fires increasingly spread out of control after acacia and oil palm plantation firms began draining peatlands on an industrial scale in the 1990s, said Bengkalis-born Teguh.

Oil palm and acacia trees fare poorly in waterlogged soil, so companies excavated vast networks of canals to drain it, rendering the carbon-rich landscape highly flammable.

LOCKED UP

Across the road from the fire tower, the ground becomes increasingly damp and brackish as plantation land recedes into the sea about 80 km (62 miles) south of the Malaysian city of Malacca.

Oil palm grower Muakit, with flecks of grey hair and sun blemishes from years spent working more than a dozen hectares of land here alone, recalled the blacked-out sky during the worst of the 2015 disaster.

But only a few months after the haze brought by the fires finally ended, the 63-year-old became the object of a manhunt for contravening rules against burning.

Muakit, who goes by one name, said he went to work as normal in the fields not long after dawn in early 2016 and set a small fire to burn rubbish.

He then drove home, only to find out later in the day the fire had spread over about half a hectare. He went into hiding out of fear, but police caught up with him a month later.

The farmer found himself locked up with rapists and other violent offenders in a small cell of about 30 inmates and was later sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment.

“I am traumatised,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I don’t ever want to use fire again.”

LOW-HANGING FRUIT

Environmental groups say a legal crackdown against the people and companies behind the fires has disproportionately fallen on individual farmers like Muakit.

Kadiman, 59, a mildly spoken man who began farming here in 1981 and goes by one name, went to prison for two years in 2004 after setting fire to a patch of nearby land to begin planting.

He had to sell four hectares to support his family while in jail.

“I would not burn again,” said Kadiman. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Police detained 136 individuals in the year to mid-September, but launched criminal investigations into only two companies accused of fires on their concessions.

Legal advocates in Riau say only a handful of farmers arrested over fires have access to adequate legal representation.

Farmers like Muakit held in more remote areas are often unaware of their rights to legal assistance, said Andi Wijaya, director of the regional Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

The coronavirus pandemic has further complicated legal support this year owing to restricted prison access.


“COVID has been highly disruptive,” said Andi.
LAW ENFORCEMENT

Legal analysts say prosecutions of corporations over fires frequently run into obstacles in Indonesia’s maze-like legal system, with resourceful companies dragging out cases or winning appeals in local courts.

“We have identified 349 palm, pulp and paper companies involved in forest and peat fires (since 2015), but law enforcement has stalled,” said Zenzi Suhadi, head of advocacy at the Jakarta-based Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi).

Greenpeace Southeast Asia analysis shows only a fraction of about $220 million handed down in fines to companies during the last decade has been paid.

In 2016, police in Riau province dropped criminal investigations against more than a dozen plantation firms accused of burning land.

“Companies sometimes do not want to share the information,” including concession permits, maps, environmental impact assessments and field data, said Professor Bambang Hero Saharjo at Bogor Agricultural University, who frequently testifies as an expert witness for the government in fire cases.

Given the complexity of criminal proceedings, the government has increasingly levied administrative sanctions against such companies, ranging from warning letters to suspending permits.

But holding errant plantation firms to account may be about to get harder, green groups fear.

On Nov. 2, President Joko Widodo enacted an unprecedented deregulation package, easing labour laws and red tape to attract new investment into Southeast Asia’s largest market.

Raynaldo Sembiring, executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, said new rules may weaken companies’ obligation to prevent fires on their concessions.

But details of the regulation still need to be clarified by the environment ministry, he added.

‘PERMANENT’ SOLUTION


About 4.4 million hectares of land burned in Indonesia between 2015 and 2019 - an area larger than Switzerland, according to Greenpeace.

The estimated $16 billion in economic damages from the 2015 haze crisis was double the worth of Indonesia’s value-added palm oil exports from the previous year, according to the World Bank.

In 2015, President Joko Widodo extended a moratorium on forest conversion, before banning new cultivation on peat in 2016.

Earlier this year, he instructed ministers to find “a permanent solution” to the annual wildfires.

Environment ministry data show there were far fewer fires this year compared with 2019, amid a shorter dry season.

But some structural factors could prove difficult to shift on the ground.

The Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research has estimated the use of fire to clear land to produce palm oil in Riau generates more than $3,000 per hectare.

But only a small share of that goes to the farmer, with local elites and plantation firms pocketing about 85%.

And as restrictions have been tightened on establishing larger plantations, one way around it may involve bundling up land owned by small-scale farmers, experts say.

That could also put such growers in the firing line.

“If a farmer burns something in the kitchen they go to prison,” said Muakit. “But if a company burns however many hundred hectares, there is no prison.”


Reporting by Harry Jacques; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org/climate

Tullow Oil's new strategy focuses on squeezing West African oilfields

By Shadia Nasralla
Wed, 25 November 2020

LONDON (Reuters) - Tullow Oil will commit 90% of its investments in coming years on its existing oilfields offshore West Africa and move exploration activities to the back burner as it seeks to reduce its debt burden.

Tullow, which was founded in the 1980s to tap in to African oil and gas, has historically focused on exploring for new oil discoveries, but the oil price collapse this year has forced the entire oil and gas sector to slash its exploration budgets.

As part of a Capital Markets Day under new Chief Executive Rahul Dhir, Tullow, with a market capitalisation of $560 million as of Tuesday and $2.4 billion in net debt, said it expected to generate $7 billion of operating cash flow over the next 10 years.

"The plan focuses our capital on a deep portfolio of short-cycle, high-return opportunities within our current producing asset base and will ensure that Tullow can meet its financial obligations," Dhir said.

In a statement before a presentation due at 0900 GMT, Tullow said it had produced only 14% of the 2.9 billion barrels in place in its Ghanaian fields and that drilling there would start in the second quarter.

It expects to invest around $2.7 billion over the next 10 years and make $4 billion in cash flow to pay down debt and distribute shareholder returns at oil prices of $45 a barrel in 2021 and $55 from 2022.

In September, Tullow, which pays no dividend, raised the prospect of a potential cash crunch at a debt covenant test in January 2021. Then, it said it was looking at options like refinancing convertible bonds due next year or the senior notes due in 2022, amending its reserve-based lending (RBL) facility or raising cash from banks or other investors by January.

Since 2019, Tullow suffered a series of missed production targets, leading its previous chief executive to step down late last year.

It then set itself a $1 billion divestment target, but on Wednesday it said it saw less need for further divestments after the sale of its stake in yet-to-be developed Ugandan onshore oilfields to Total for $575 million and cost cuts.

As for its oilfields offshore Guyana, adjacent to the Stabroek field where Exxon Mobil Corp has discovered some 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent but where it had some disappointing well results, Tullow said it would focus on better understanding the basin.

Graphic: Tullow Oil free cash flow - 

https://graphics.reuters.com/TULLOW-OIL/oakvexyowpr/chart.png

Graphic: Tullow Oil net debt -

 https://graphics.reuters.com/TULLOW-OUTLOOK/ygdvzbamavw/chart.png

(This story corrects net debt figure to $2.4 billion to reflect recent Uganda deal, paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London, Editing by Matthew Lewis)

UK
Coronavirus: ‘Inadequate’ stockpiles forced Health Department to pay extra £10bn for PPE, report finds

Andrew Woodcock
Tue, 24 November 2020

A nurse helps a doctor to put up his protective gear (AFP via Getty Images)

“Inadequate” stockpiles of personal protective equipment forced the government to pay £10bn over the odds for items such as face-masks, gowns and gloves in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, a spending watchdog has found.

The worldwide scramble for PPE sent prices soaring by more than 1,000 per cent in some cases, and saw Matt Hancock’s Department for Health and Social Care spend £12.5bn on 32bn items which would have cost £2.5bn the year before, some of which turned out to be unfit for use, said the National Audit Office (NAO) in a report.

Meanwhile, the DHSC was accused of having “no plan” in place to secure vital medical equipment in an emergency, after a separate report found it lost a crucial month because it was “underprepared and reacted slowly” to the shortage of mechanical ventilators.

An inquiry by the House of Commons Public Account Committee (PAC) found the NHS in England did not even know how many ventilators it owned at the start of the outbreak, and that 26,000 were eventually bought for a total £569m, the majority of which have never been used.

The NAO found that many front-line health and care workers in England went without essential PPE between March and July, as the care sector received just 10 per cent and the NHS 80 per cent of their needs from government. Care homes were initially expected to source most of their PPE from private wholesalers and received just 331m items from DHSC in this period - 14 per cent of the total distributed - compared to 1.9bn going to NHS trusts.

Some 8,152 Covid-19 cases and 126 deaths were linked to occupational exposure among health and care workers, significant numbers of whom felt they were not adequately protected.

As demand for PPE rose in March, the government was initially reliant on PPE stockpiles designed for a flu outbreak which proved “inadequate” for a coronavirus pandemic, the NAO found.

In a “rapidly deteriorating” situation, the DHSC set up a parallel supply chain to speed distribution, but could “barely satisfy” requirements, with just 2.6bn items delivered to the frontline by July. It was not until the end of May that the system reported holding as much as one day’s worth of stock for all PPE items.

By July, some 32bn items of PPE had been ordered, but the global surge in demand led to “huge” increases in prices, from a 166 percent hike for respirator masks to 1,310 per cent for body bags.

“Had government been able to buy PPE at 2019 prices, expenditure on PPE to July 2020 would have been £2.5 billion - £10 billion less than it actually paid,” said the NAO. The extra cash spent equates to almost one-twelfth of the entire annual budget of NHS England.

Some PPE failed to meet required standards, with two orders totalling £214m for 75m respirator face masks which could not be used. Tens of millions of respirator masks ordered from other suppliers and some other types of PPE are also likely to be unusable for the original purpose.

PAC chair Meg Hillier said: “The pandemic caught the NHS on the wrong foot. The national stockpile was nowhere near big enough for a coronavirus outbreak – a consequence of the pandemic plans’ fixation on influenza.

“The government was far too slow to recognise how precarious the position was. When the penny finally dropped, DHSC had to scramble to buy what was left as prices went through the roof.

“The social care sector was largely left to fend for itself in the early months, while health workers couldn’t always get the PPE they needed. Shortages and confusing guidance added to the strain on front line workers.”

The head of the NAO Gareth Davies acknowledged that the authorities worked hard to source PPE “once they realised the gravity of the situation”, but said most arrived too late for the first wave of the disease. Government must learn “important lessons” about considering the needs of the care sector as well as the NHS, he said.

Meanwhile, the PAC report into ventilator procurement found that the government went into the pandemic with no plan in place to source additional critical care equipment in the event of an emergency.

NHS bosses did not put out a call to trusts to find out how many mechanical ventilators they had until late February - a month after the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a “public health emergency of international concern”.

The tally of 7,400 was far fewer than the 59,000 the NHS thought might be needed, sparking a race to buy more in March.

Estimates of the total number required increased rapidly to 90,000 by the end of March, before being sharply reduced to 6,200 in April. A DHSC target to acquire 30,000 ventilators by 30 June to prepare for a second wave was missed, with the figure eventually being hit on 3 August.

“It is fortunate that the majority of the ventilators were not needed and that additional capacity is now available should it be required,” said the PAC report. “However, the committee is concerned that the government’s targets were not effectively calibrated to need - and were not met.

“Even in the extreme circumstances of the emergency, there must be clear protocols in place to ensure that public money is protected, and that any exceptions or changes to procurement are justified. Despite having to operate at speed, DHSC still had a duty to carry out full due diligence for all parts of the supply chain, and it is not clear that the government’s checks were sufficient to provide that assurance.”

Ms Hillier said it was “much more by luck than design” that a ventilator was available for every patient needing one.

“DHSC incredibly had no plan for sourcing critical care equipment in an international emergency,” said the PAC chair. “It relied at first on an overseas market that was under great pressure and seeing prices increase exponentially because of the international nature of the pandemic.

“DHSC didn’t know what equipment hospitals already had, and its estimates of need fluctuated considerably as the pandemic progressed. Those targets that were set were universally missed.”

Eventual successes in the procurement operation cannot cover the fact that “much of it would have been unnecessary had DHSC and the NHS had a better plan for what to do to fill gaps in critical equipment in an emergency”, she said.

Health minister Jo Churchill said:“As the NAO report recognises, during this unprecedented pandemic all the NHS providers audited ‘were always able to get what they needed in time’ thanks to the herculean effort of government, NHS, armed forces, civil servants and industry who delivered around 5bn items of PPE to the frontline at record speed.

“We set up robust and resilient supply chains from scratch and expanded our distribution network from 226 NHS trusts to over 58,000 health and care settings.

“With almost 32bn items of PPE ordered, we are confident we can provide a continuous supply to our amazing frontline workers over the coming months and respond to future eventualities.”

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Millions wasted on useless PPE could have paid for free school meals

Why An Interracial Marriage In The White House Matters To Black Women Like Me


Tineka Smith
·Writer, racial equality advocate and entrepreneur
Mon, 23 November 2020

For a long while, I felt the struggle for equality and social progress was being squashed under the weight of Trumpism. So I let out a sigh of relief once Joe Biden had reached 270 electoral votes and officially won November’s election.

But for Black American women like me, the real victory is Kamala Harris. What she has accomplished is no mean feat: the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, Harris is the first woman of colour to be elected vice president of the United States of America.

Not only that, but with her husband Doug Emhoff set to become the first ‘Second Gentleman’ in US history, Harris is also the first candidate in an interracial relationship to ever be elected to the White House.

This is an important milestone. Here’s why.

Over the last four years, my country has shown me racism isn’t being stamped out – instead it is only becoming more insidious. The rise of white supremacy and open racism under Trump has caused people in mixed-race relationships to re-evaluate the difficult racial dynamics of their relationships. And I say that from personal experience as an African American woman married to a white British man.

When America elected Obama, many heralded it the dawn of a new post-racist world – as if a Black man becoming president of a country with a brutal past of slavery proved humanity had moved beyond racism.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gained significant momentum this year and deeper conversations on race were sparked across the country and in my own relationship, I found myself becoming more of an advocate for racial equality. But while Biden and Kamala’s election win gives cause for optimism, I am cautious to embrace that times are changing for the better.

You see, when America first elected Barack Obama in 2008, many heralded it the dawn of a new post-racist world – as if a Black man becoming president of a country with a brutal past of slavery proved humanity had moved beyond racism. I admit I was one of those hopeful people who thought a new era of racial equality had begun.

Fast forward 12 years and the celebrations that followed Biden’s election victory over President Trump seemed more akin to the end of an authoritarian regime. For what the last four years of Trump’s presidency has shown me is that the idea that our nation is ‘post-racism’ is nothing but a myth.

Strange as it might seem, race wasn’t really something my husband and I discussed early on in our relationship. But the more race became a matter of vehement discussion in public arenas, the more it manifested in our personal lives – from strangers in the street contesting our interracial relationship to racially inappropriate comments made by our friends where my husband would not even perceive these as problematic.

Yes, love brought us together. But the gaping disparities in our lived experiences in our lived experiences were, at one point, driving us apart. Where I needed empathy and support, he inferred that I might have played a part in provoking my aggressors or perhaps that I was on the receiving end of someone who was simply having ‘a bad day’. I never expected my husband to doubt that I was a reliable witness to my own Black experience.

When a man spat in my face after he saw me kiss my husband in the street, only then was he really able to see the multi-faceted experience of the discrimination I faced – not just from some white people but those in the Black community who perceived me as some kind of race traitor. Confronting his ignorance has been a long and difficult process but was all the more necessary as we navigated the world as an interracial couple together; not least in a world that was appearing to regress under populism.



When a man spat in my face after he saw me kiss my husband in the street, only then was he really able to see the multi-faceted experience of the discrimination I faced.

Kamala and Doug’s new precedent should pave the way to a world more welcoming of diversity – not just in professional spheres, but in our personal lives too. To an interracial couple such as my husband and me, Harris and Emhoff personify unity. They symbolise that, in today’s world, two people can come to love each other not just despite but also because of their cultural and racial differences.

With the globalisation of the Black Lives Matter movement and now Harris’ election, maybe interracial and diverse relationships and families are going to see better representation than ever before. Christmas adverts this year, and in recent years, are a testimony to this: Argos made an all-Black family with queer parents the centre of their festive narrative; Debenhams did a modern take on the classic Cinderella fairytale with a Black ‘prince’ and white ‘princess’; John Lewis told the story of Moz the Monster and his special relationship with a mixed-race boy.

I’m hopeful that the tides will continue to change. And I’m hopeful that Kamala Harris will, among many things, use her incredible profile and platform to effect a collective shift in mindset – not just in those who inwardly oppose biracial unions but for those in interracial relationships to engage in honest and, yes, uncomfortable discussions about what it means to walk hand in hand through life together in a post-Trump world.

Tineka Smith is a writer of Mixed Up with Alex Court, available exclusively on Audible now

Growing ‘heat blob’ from Atlantic driving sea ice loss in Arctic, study says


Daisy Dunne
Tue, 24 November 2020

Amount of ocean heat delivered to the Arctic has increased markedly since 2001(Getty Images)

An underwater heat blob from the Atlantic is delivering more and more warmth to the Arctic, causing sea ice to rapidly melt, a study has found.

The research shows that the amount of heat delivered to the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas by ocean currents has increased markedly since 2001.

This influx in ocean heat is likely playing a major role in the warming of the Arctic Ocean and the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice, according to the study.

“The most significant achievement of this work is that we have quantified the ocean heat transport robustly for the first time, not only long-term mean, but also its temporal variability,” study lead author Dr Takamasa Tsubouchi, a researcher of ocean circulation at the University of Bergen, Norway, told The Independent.

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, uses ocean temperature data taken across the Arctic from 1993 to 2016.

It is the first to fully quantify changes to how much heat has been delivered to the Arctic Ocean over this time period.

Ocean heat arrives at the high northern latitudes through a vast ocean current, which is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

The AMOC moves warm, salty water from the tropics to regions further north, such as western Europe.

A diagram of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

Praetorius (2018)

It plays a major role in determining the world’s weather. As the AMOC carries warm water northward, it releases heat into the atmosphere. Without this, winters in the UK could be close to 5C colder.

When warm, salty Atlantic water reaches the Arctic, it sinks below the ocean surface to form a “heat blob”. The reason it sinks down is because it is more salty, and thus more dense, than cool and fresh Arctic water.

The sinking of the warm Atlantic water below the cool Arctic water usually allows sea ice to form on top of the Arctic Ocean.

However, the increased delivery of ocean heat from the Atlantic identified in this study could disrupt this balance.

In some parts of the Arctic, such as the Barents Sea, warm salty Atlantic water has begun escaping to the ocean surface, where it is causing Arctic sea ice to melt. This phenomenon is known as “Atlantification”.

Prof Igor Polyakov, a researcher from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who led a research paper in Science documenting Atlantification of the Arctic in 2017, told The Independent: “[The paper] sheds light on our recent finding of Atlantification in the eastern Arctic Ocean which is driven by anomalous influx of Atlantic water into the polar basis and represents a fundamental change of how the polar basin operates.

“Particularly, it provides solid grounds for our arguments for the increasing role of the Arctic Ocean on diminishing sea ice. Thus, I think this an important element of the mosaic painting a complex picture of high-latitude climate change.”

Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest level on record this September and took much longer than usual to begin refreezing for the winter.

In addition, the last 14 years have seen the 14 lowest levels of Arctic sea ice in the modern satellite record.

Ocean heat is not the only contributor to Arctic sea ice melt. Air temperatures are rising twice as fast in the Arctic than the global average. In some parts of the Arctic, temperature rise is four times higher than the global average.

Previous research has found that human-caused climate change will cause the AMOC to weaken over the 21st century.

To fully understand the influence of human-caused warming on increasing ocean heat in the Arctic, more measurements will need to be taken, Dr Tsubouchi said, adding: “If we do not measure it, we cannot know what is going on in the ocean.

Funding for this kind of research has declined in recent years.

“In Davis Strait, which is one of major gateways of Arctic Ocean, there has been no new data collection at all over the last two to three years at least, and we do not know when observations will resume again," he said.

The strength of this study comes from its use of field data, said Dr Michel Tsamados, a sea ice researcher from University College London, who was not involved in the research.

“More observations would result in improved accuracy in the estimates provided here and a better understanding of the ocean and climate system as a whole,” he told The Independent.

Breonna Taylor protest leader is shot dead in Louisville


Matt Mathers
Tue, 24 November 2020, 

(Getty Images)

A man shot dead in a suspected carjacking in Louisville, Kentucky has been identified as a protester who was at the forefront of racial justice demonstrations for Breonna Taylor in the city.

Family members of Hamza "Travis" Nagdy, 21, confirmed him as the victim to the Louisville Courier-Journal in the shooting which took place at 12.30am on Monday.

Louisville police did not provide more details and no suspects have been identified.

In a social media post on Monday, Mr Nagdy’s mother, Christine Muineach, said her “beautiful and intelligent son” had been killed in a carjacking.

Mr Nagdy was among hundreds of protesters who took to the streets of Louisville over the summer to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot dead by police during a bungled drugs raid on her home in March. No drugs were found at the property.

Her death, and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis two months later, led to nationwide protests over police brutality against minority communities.

Mr Nagdy was a key organiser in those Black Lives Matter protests in Louisville and was often seen leading chants and marches. On Monday a few dozen people gathered at the spot where Mr Nagdy was killed.

Some in attendance wore T-shirts bearing Mr Nagdy’s face and chanted "there ain't no justice in this town".

At least 200 people gathered at Jefferson Square, scene of many earlier protests, later in the evening to sing Mr Nagdy's name and recite his favourite chants, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

"I hope he will be a symbol of this violence and that we'll finally say, 'This stops with Travis,'" Antonio T-Made Taylor, an independent reporter who mentored Mr Nagdy, told LCJ.

"He's irreplaceable. Travis really believed he could help change systemic racism. He believed he could be a big part of that change," he added.

Louisville Metro Police spokesman Matt Sanders said the victim was rushed to the University of Louisville Hospital where he died of his injuries.

LMPD's homicide unit is investigating the killing.

Harvard elects Black man as student body president for first time in three centuries


Namita Singh Tue, 24 November 2020, 

Noah Harris becomes the first black man to be elected as the president of the Harvard University’s student body (Screengrab/NewsNation Now)

Harvard University has for the first time in the school’s three-century history elected a black man as the president of its student body.

Noah Harris, 20, is a junior in Dunster House and is majoring in government studies.

Mr Harris told CBS Boston that he does not shy away from his identity of being a Black man from Mississippi.

“It was a historic election and for it to come in a year of so many racial injustices with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and people who were taken from our communities, it makes it that much more of a statement on the part of Harvard and the student body,” Mr Harris, who is also a co-chair of the Undergraduate Council’s Black Caucus at the school, said.

He added that “it’s a message to the university that we really have to be conscious about the decisions that we’re making, and how we’re standing with all of our students of colour and making sure that their college experience and just their livelihoods are as good as possible, when a university like Harvard has so many resources.”

Mr Harris, along with his vice president Jenny Gan, in their campaign pushed for proactive steps to tackle issues like sexual assault and mental health, while emphasising diversity and inclusion. “We will hold Harvard accountable for its commitment to anti-racism", read their electoral plan.

Though two other black persons have in the past headed Harvard’s Undergraduate Council, Mr Harris is the only Black man to have been elected by the entire student body to the role.

Another Black man, Carl Gabay, was selected for the role in 1993 by members of the council. Gabay died in 2015 after being caught in the crossfire of a shooting in New York City.

Rules were changed in 1995 to make it an election involving the entire student body, after which the first Black woman, Fentrice Driskell, was named president in 1999.

Mr Harris, who intends to go to Harvard Law Schoool and become an attorney, also received congratulatory messages from Representative Jeramey Anderson and Congressman Steven Palazzo.