Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist Danish Siddiqui Is Killed In Afghanistan

July 16, 20212:24 PM ET

SCOTT NEUMAN

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AMNA IJAZ

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An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal, in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 11, 2017.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Danish Siddiqui, who worked for the Reuters news agency based out of India, was killed Friday while on assignment in southern Afghanistan after coming under fire by Taliban militiamen.

Siddiqui, who was 38 years old, had been embedded with Afghan special forces in southern Kandahar province when he was killed along with a senior Afghan officer, Reuters reports.

Candles are placed by journalists next to portraits of Danish Siddiqui as a tribute in Kolkata, India, on Friday, after the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with the Reuters news agency was killed covering fighting between Afghan security forces and the Taliban.

Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty Images

"We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region," Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement. "Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time."

A Rohingya refugee pulls a child as they walk to shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on Sept. 10, 2017.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Siddiqui was reporting from Afghanistan as U.S. forces complete their withdrawal, ordered by President Biden, to wrap up by Sept. 11. As the U.S. leaves, the Taliban — long held at bay by American might — have been rapidly capturing territory, leading to concern that the Afghan government could collapse.

Siddiqui reported to his editors earlier on Friday that he had sustained a shrapnel wound to the arm during a clash between Afghan troops and the Taliban at the town of Spin Boldak, but that he had been treated for the injury, according to Reuters. Later, as he was interviewing local shopkeepers, the Taliban attacked again, the news agency said, quoting an Afghan commander.

A health worker reacts on April 29, 2020, before the burial in New Delhi of a police officer who died of complications related to COVID-19.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Siddiqui is best known for his work covering the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh, for which he won journalism's top prize in 2018. The Pulitzer board cited his "shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar."

Ahmad Shah, 28, an Afghan policeman, sits in an armored vehicle after being rescued by Afghan Special Forces, in Kandahar province on July 13, 2021.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

"I shoot for the common man who wants to see and feel a story from a place where he can't be present himself," Siddiqui once wrote of his photography.

In a statement on Friday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement that he was "deeply saddened with the shocking reports" of Siddiqui's death. Ghani extended condolences to the journalist's family.

A Naga Sadhu, or Hindu holy man, wears a mask before the procession for taking a dip in the Ganges River during Shahi Snan at "Kumbh Mela," or the Pitcher Festival, amid the pandemic in Haridwar, India, on April 12, 2021.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Siddiqui had been a Reuters photographer since 2010. In addition to his work covering the Rohingya and Afghanistan, he also shot pictures for the news agency during the war in Iraq, the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests of 2019-2020 and the deadly earthquakes in Nepal in 2015.

In recent months, Siddiqui chronicled a growing COVID-19 wave that swept through India, killing thousands. The assignment was not without controversy, as some in India expressed outrage over some of his photos showing mass cremations of those who died from the disease.

Fireworks explode over participants during a torchlight procession during the celebration marking the 70th anniversary of North Korea's foundation in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 10, 2018.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Saad Mohseni, the CEO of Afghanistan's MOBY Group, the largest media company in the country, described Siddiqui as "an extremely brave and talented journalist," and said his death "tragically demonstrates the dangers that journalists in Afghanistan face for doing their jobs."

A participant stands behind a rainbow flag during a vigil in Mumbai, India, on June 16, 2016, held in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Mohseni said that Afghan journalists were being killed or threatened.

"Despite these dangers, they continue to do their work, reporting on the fighting that is consuming the country, on the human rights violations that are proliferating, and on the urgent humanitarian needs of the people of Afghanistan," he said.

According to a United Nations report this year, 39 journalists were killed in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2021.

Displaced Iraqis flee during a fight between Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq, on May 15, 2017.

Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

‘Biggest Story Right Now’: Humanity Has Flipped Amazon From Carbon Sink to Source
17/07/2021


JESSICA CORBETT


Following years of warnings and mounting fears among scientists, “terrifying” research revealed Wednesday that climate change and deforestation have turned parts of the Amazon basin, a crucial “sink,” into a source of planet-heating carbon dioxide.

Though recent research has elevated concerns about the Amazon putting more CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it absorbs, the new findings, published in the journal Nature, were presented as a “first” by scientists and climate reporters.


From 2010 to 2018, researchers for the new study – led by Luciana Gatti of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research – conducted “vertical profiling measurements” of carbon dioxide and monoxide a few miles above the tree canopy at four sites in Amazonia.

The researchers found that “Southeastern Amazonia, in particular, acts as a net carbon source” and “total carbon emissions are greater in eastern Amazonia than in the western part.” The former, they noted, has been “subjected to more deforestation, warming, and moisture stress” than the latter in recent decades.

As The New York Times reported Wednesday:

In an accompanying article in Nature, Scott Denning, a professor in the department of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, wrote that the paper’s “atmospheric profiles show that the uncertain future is happening now.”

In an emailed response to questions, Dr. Denning praised the new study as the first real large-scale measurement—from various altitudes across thousands of kilometers and remote sectors—of the phenomenon, an advance beyond the traditional measurement at forest sites. The results show “that warming and deforestation in eastern Amazonia have reversed the carbon sink at regional scale and that the change is actually showing up in atmospheric CO2,” he wrote.

Gatti told The Guardian that “the first very bad news is that forest-burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs. The second bad news is that the places where deforestation is 30% or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20%.”

According to the newspaper – which noted the role of emissions from deliberately set fires for beef and soy production as well as the global criticism that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has faced for encouraging the soaring deforestation:


Fewer trees meant less rain and higher temperatures, making the dry season even worse for the remaining forest, she said: “We have a very negative loop that makes the forest more susceptible to uncontrolled fires.”

Much of the timber, beef, and soy from the Amazon is exported from Brazil. “We need a global agreement to save the Amazon,” Gatti said. European nations have said they will block an E.U. trade deal with Brazil and other countries unless Bolsonaro agrees to do more to tackle Amazonian destruction.

The study comes after a March analysis, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, that took into account not only CO2 but also methane, nitrous oxide, black carbon, biogenic volatile organic compounds, aerosols, evapotranspiration and albedo.

The new findings also follow an April study, published in Nature Climate Change, that focused on Brazil, which is home to the majority of the incredibly biodiverse and threatened rainforest that spans nine countries.


Comparing that research to Wednesday’s, Denning said that “they’re complementary studies with radically different methods that come to very similar conclusions.”

The researchers from the April study, who relied on satellite monitoring, found that between 2010 and 2019, the Brazilian Amazon released 16.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, while only taking in 13.9 billion tonnes – meaning that over a decade, it released nearly 20% more CO2 than it absorbed.

“We half-expected it, but it is the first time that we have figures showing that the Brazilian Amazon has flipped, and is now a net emitter,” said co-author Jean-Pierre Wigneron, a scientist at France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), at the time. “We don’t know at what point the changeover could become irreversible.”

Agence France-Presse reported that in a statement about the study, INRA said that “Brazil saw a sharp decline in the application of environmental protection policies after the change of government in 2019,” referencing when Bolsonaro was sworn in as president.

“Imagine if we could prohibit fires in the Amazon – it could be a carbon sink,” Gatti said Wednesday, noting the negative impact of converting swaths of the rainforest last for agriculture. “But we are doing the opposite – we are accelerating climate change.”


This article was originally published by Common Dreams and has been republished here under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.

Emmy Noether, the Math Pioneer Who Faced Down Sexism and the Nazis


Emmy Noether made significant contributions to theoretical mathematics. 

Photo: Konrad Jacobs, Erlangen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA


TAMAR LICHTER BLANKS

THE WIRE

17/07/2021

When Albert Einstein wrote an obituary for Emmy Noether in 1935, he described her as a “creative mathematical genius” who – despite “unselfish, significant work over a period of many years” – did not get the recognition she deserved.

Noether made groundbreaking contributions to mathematics at a time when women were barred from academia and when Jewish people like herself faced persecution in Nazi Germany, where she lived.

The year 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of Noether’s landmark paper on ring theory, a branch of theoretical mathematics that is still fascinating and challenging mathematicians like me today.

I remember the first time I learned about Noether and the surprise I felt when my professor referred to the brilliant ring theorist as “she.” Even though I am a woman doing mathematics, I had assumed Noether would be a man. I was surprised at how moved I was to learn she was a woman, too.

Her inspiring story is one that not many people know.

A rare woman in mathematics

Noether was born in 1882 in Erlangen, Germany. Her father was a math professor, but it must have seemed unlikely to a young Noether that she would follow in his footsteps. At the time, few women took classes at German universities, and when they did they could only audit them. Teaching at a university was out of the question.

But in 1903 – a few years after Noether graduated from a high school for girls – Erlangen University started to let women enroll. Noether signed up and eventually earned her doctorate in mathematics there.

That doctorate should have been the end of her mathematical career. At the time, women were still not allowed to teach at universities in Germany. But Noether stuck with mathematics anyway, staying in Erlangen and unofficially supervising doctoral students without pay. In 1915, she applied for a position at the prestigious University of Göttingen. The dean at the university, also a mathematician, was in favor of hiring Noether, although his argument was far from feminist.

“I think the female brain is unsuitable for mathematical production,” he wrote, but Noether stood out as “one of the rare exceptions.”

Unfortunately for Noether, the Prussian Ministry of Education would not give the university permission to have a woman on their faculty, no matter how talented. Noether stayed in Göttingen anyway and taught courses listed under the name of a male faculty member.

During those years, she kept doing research. While she was still an unofficial lecturer, Noether made important contributions to theoretical physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity. The university finally granted her lecturer status in 1919 – four years after she applied.

A revolution in ring theory

In 1921, only two years after becoming an official lecturer, Noether published revolutionary discoveries in ring theory that mathematicians are still pondering and building upon today. Noether’s work in ring theory is the main reason that I, like many mathematicians today, know her name.

Ring theory is the study of mathematical objects called rings. Despite the name, these rings have nothing to do with circles or ring-shaped objects – theoretical or otherwise. In mathematics, a ring is a set of items you can add, subtract and multiply and always get another object that is in the set.

A classic example is the ring known as Z. It is made of all the integers – positive and negative whole numbers like 0, 1, 2, 3, -1, -2, -3 and so on – and it is a ring because if you add, subtract or multiply two integers, you always get another integer.

There are infinitely many rings, and each one is different. A ring can be made of numbers, functions, matrices, polynomials or other abstract objects – as long as there’s a way to add, subtract and multiply them.

One reason rings are so interesting to mathematicians is that often it is possible to tell something is a ring, but it’s difficult to know much about the specifics of that particular ring. It’s like seeing a croissant at a fancy bakery. You know you are looking at a croissant, but you might not know whether it’s filled with almond paste, chocolate or something else altogether.

Instead of focusing on one ring at a time, Noether showed that a whole class of easy-to-identify rings all share a common internal structure, like a row of houses with the same floor plan. These rings are now called Noetherian rings, and the structure they share is like a map that guides the mathematicians who study them.

Noetherian rings show up all the time in modern mathematics. Mathematicians still use Noether’s map today, not just in ring theory, but in other areas such as number theory and algebraic geometry.

Escape from Nazi Germany

Noether published her famous ring theory paper and other important results in mathematics while she was a lecturer in Göttingen from 1919 to 1933. But in the spring of 1933, the University of Göttingen received a telegram: Six faculty members – including Noether – had to stop teaching immediately. The Nazis had passed a law barring Jews from professorship.

Noether’s response, it seems, was calm. “This thing is much less terrible for me than it is for many others,” she wrote in a letter to a fellow mathematician. But she was out of a job, and no university in Germany could hire her.

Help came from the United States. Bryn Mawr, a women’s college in Pennsylvania, offered Noether a professorship through a special fund for refugee German scholars. Noether accepted the offer and, as a professor at Bryn Mawr, she mentored four younger women – one doctoral student and three postdoctoral researchers – in advanced mathematics.

Noether’s time at Bryn Mawr was, tragically, short. In 1935 she had surgery to remove a tumor and died unexpectedly four days later.

At Noether’s funeral, mathematician Hermann Weyl compared her sudden passing to “the echo of a thunderclap.” In her short life, Noether shook up mathematics. She kept teaching and learning even when women and Jews were not welcome. One hundred years later, her mathematical genius and “unbreakable optimism” are qualities to admire.

Tamar Lichter Blanks is a PhD candidate in mathematics, Rutgers University.

This article was originally published by The Conversation and has been republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A Week's Rioting Has Decimated 100 Years of South African-Indians' Efforts

However, Indians – who have borne considerable losses in the violence and have needed to guard their own neighbourhoods – are not describing the offensive by Zuma's supporters entirely as a racist one.

Umesh Morar’s Royal Tobacconist shop, after it was gutted by a mob of arsonists in South Africas KwaZulu Natal. Photo: Umesh Morar


Suvojit Bagchi


This is part one of a two-part series on the recent violence in South Africa. Part two will shed light on why South Africa is resting on a powder keg.

Kolkata: Vanessa Narotam’s voice choked several times during an hour-long telephone conversation from riot-ravaged Durban, an eastern coastal province of South Africa.

“We have to start again from scratch,” she said.

The 46-year-old Vanessa and her family own one of the top wholesale and retail food, drinks and beverages brand in South Africa, the Panjivan Group of Companies. Three of Panjivan’s four sprawling stores have been flattened since a violent protest engulfed two of South Africa’s nine provinces – north-central Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal (KZN) on the Indian Ocean, a little over 8000 kilometres from the coast of India.

“I am now watching on television one of our shops being looted and razed to the ground,” said Vanessa. The immediate trigger of the violence was to first prevent and then to ensure the release of former South African president Jacob Zuma after his imprisonment earlier in July.


The court gave Zuma a 15-month jail term for defying an instruction earlier in February to table evidence at an inquiry into corruption during his nine years in power until 2018, reported Reuters. Right before Zuma handed himself over, his supporters led by Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association, formerly the armed group of the African National Congress (ANC), threatened that the “country will be torn apart”, if Zuma is sent to prison.

Former President Jacob Zuma in May 24, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Rogan Ward

Gauteng and KZN were indeed torn apart and nearly 80 are killed officially till Thursday, July 15. Unofficially, the toll stands at 120 and the medium-sized business groups are at the epicentre of the violence. Panjivan’s, with a turnover of over two billion Rand (more than Rs 1,000 crore plus), is one of the worst hit.

“Over the weekend we heard the rumour that our shop at Isipingo, south of Durban in KZN, could be attacked. My husband was confident that the police would be able to handle it. Around early evening on Sunday (July 11) we got a call…” paused Vanessa to confirm the time from her husband, who requested that his first name be withheld.

“At 7 pm, as we were told about the assembly of the people near the Isipingo shop, my husband rushed.” By the time Vanessa’s husband reached the shop, a mob took control of the 5,000 square meter campus of the first ever shop the family has owned, a typical cash-and-carry food and liquor store.

“Everything was taken, not just the consumables and the cash but the air conditioners, the furniture, the cameras, the truck batteries and the tyres. The looting went on till the next morning,” she said.

The police and the security guards watched. They could do very little as they were barred from using live ammunition on the day. It was no more a pro-Zuma protest, said Vanessa but, “absolute criminal action.”

“Once the loot was over, the shop next to us owned by my husband’s uncle was ransacked and set on fire. We called the Fire Department repeatedly, but unfortunately, no help came.” As the water sprinklers kicked in, the fire stopped, but petrol bombs were lobbed. “It was absolute devastation,” said Vanessa.

Panjivan’s Isipingo store before and after (right) it was gutted. Photo: Narotams

As the Isipingo shop was torched, the Narotams came to know that a mob had entered the Panjivan’s Swelani shop in Phoenix, about 25 kilometres northwest of Durban, and the other one at KZN’s capital Pietermaritzburg – where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a train – was looted. Their vehicles stolen or burnt. The Port Shepstone shop, south of Durban, is unharmed for now.

Vanessa used the word “devastation” a dozen times to explain how an enterprise built over 100 years was decimated in about 100 hours.

Narotam Jeena (Mothiram Amtha), who migrated from Surat to KwaZulu Natal in 1890s. His family runs Panjivan’s. Photo: Narotam family

In many ways, their family’s story is the narrative of Indians in KZN, who left the shores of India in thousands, across provinces of what was then a British colony in the middle of the 19th century as indentured labourers, merchants or professionals, to work in another British colony.

A few years later, in 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress. At that time, a young trader from Gujarat’s Surat reached Pietermaritzburg station from East London. Mothiram Amtha, the trader, whose name was changed to ‘Narotam Jeena’ by South African immigration worked on the railways and as a vegetable seller in his early years. He started many shops and so did his sons and nephews till the chain was founded in “a tin shack”, by his grandson Panjivan Chota Narotam.

Panjivan Chota Narotam, who started Panjivan’s in 1950 from “a tin shack.” Photo: Narotam family

The chain-store, founded in 1950, gets its name from Panjivan, Vanessa’s husband’s grandfather.

“It took five generations over 120 years. They poured their blood, sweat and tears into a business that would service and sustain the very communities that turned on them,” said Vanessa.

An executive of high profit liquor trade indicated that out of 21 medium-sized independent liquor businesses at play in the region – outside the league of big national brands – “nearly all” were Indian owned ones.

Brutal as it may be, the Narotams’ story is not unique. Mobs have been on a rampage in pockets despite army deployment on Monday, July 12, after at least 120 hours of arson.

While deployment was ordered on Monday, the first time personnel could be seen on the ground in KwaZulu Natal was Friday, July 16, say residents. Salma Patel, a news editor with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and an executive producer with SABC Radio, said, “The situation is calming down with army in the streets. It is acting as a good deterrent to violence and the positive news is that the civil society is coming together and has made appeals to calm things down. Patrolling, also, is multi-racial in nature.”

The lawlessness of the days between Monday and Friday compelled Indians to set up their own vigilante forces carrying assault rifles, said Umesh Morar, a 56-year-old tobacconist of north Durban. Morar’s three Durban-based tobacco and knick-knack shops were looted earlier in the week. He indicated that their trust is shaken.

“We were not attacked last night [July 14] after two nights of rioting but we are still guarding our streets as we do not know if it is the lull before the next storm. We are feeling deeply vulnerable,” said Morar.

Trust shaken as Indians form vigilante forces

Insecurity has shaken the relationship between the Indian-origin South Africans and the black Africans developed over a century when Natal Indian Congress was formed. Indians who had participated unanimously in the anti-Apartheid struggle find the strength of their ties depleting.

“KZN is a Zulu province. They are mobilising and, do not forget, they are top class fighters. Zuma is Zulu and most of the province’s officials are from the same ethnic group. So, in case of violence, can we trust the officials to rein in Zuma’s Zulu supporters?” asks Morar. There are about 1.5 million Indians in South Africa – a mere 2.5% of the population – with about a million residing in KZN.

Morar said Indians are spread all over KZN and are being targeted everywhere. The situation is worse in Phoenix where Indians are a majority but are surrounded by blacks. “In Durban, we are now trying to protect the areas which have not been targeted yet,” Morar said.

Umesh Morar’s Royal Tobacconist before being gutted. 

At the top of this page is the shop after destruction. Photo: Umesh Morar

The Indians have formed vigilante forces of their own with many carrying “assault rifles” and setting up roadblocks at the entrances and exits of their enclaves. “The ones with rifles are at the front of the vigilante groups, while the boys carrying cricket bats and hockey sticks are behind them. We do not have an alternative as we are yet to see any army vehicles. The police has asked for bullets from us,” said Morar on Thursday, July 15.

These private vigilante forces are not letting anyone enter their respective neighbourhoods.

“It is like you are in Noida and not allowing a neighbour from Mayur Vihar in east Delhi to enter your area out of deep fear,” said Morar.

A Johannesburg-based journalist said that some of the members of South African-Indian street fighting forces “are dollar millionaires with business establishments across Africa and India.”

A business woman, Riaa Algoo, who was featured in Forbes magazine, was in a state of panic hours after the army had hit the streets of Durban.

“Call me any time,” she messaged. “we are always awake as we need to guard our homes and families.” In separate messages, Algoo – with businesses in India – noted that the community has “hardly any businesses left” in South Africa.

Also read: What Jacob Zuma’s Sentencing Means for South Africa

“It is all burnt down. The bread factories, dairies, farms are destroyed too. We will now run out of food. The Army and police are not protecting us, we need the United Nations,” noted Algoo.


As panic escalates with every passing hour, with every text and voice message, and with each post on Twitter, where both black Africans and Indians are posting footage of a week’s madness with intermittent and chilling threats to each other.

A photograph taken from a car in Durban on Friday. Photo: By arrangement

Privately circulated videos of graphic violence reminds one of past African massacres when minorities were attacked indiscriminately. The streets of KZN are filled with hundreds of thousands of people carrying mainly food, electronic goods and daily consumables looted from supermarkets. “A reasonably well organised province has been gutted overnight,” said Vanessa Narotam.

“The warehouses, the Makros – supermarkets – malls, buildings all razed.”

The damage is colossal for the poorest provinces of an African country with about 60 million people; over 10 billion rand (Rs 5,000 crore plus) worth of goods and property was damaged, the Provincial Government of KwaZulu Natal has estimated. In a social media statement the local government noted 200 incidents of looting and 26 deaths, a figure disputed by Indians.

About ‘353,000 tonnes of sugarcane’– one of the main foreign currency earners – was ‘lost to arson,’ the government statement said. The statement also noted that about 200 shopping malls are damaged. Many of these mega-malls housed shops of mainly South African-Indians.

The fear is further exacerbated with repeated calls to remove Indians from important positions by a 40-year-old African National Congress renegade Julius Sello Malema.

“South Africa is run by an Indian cabal,” he says often, “controlling all financial institutions.” The former ANC Youth League president has stepped up his campaign against president Ramphosa, favoured by the west. Malema has all the hallmarks of a populist young leader – a bit like Kapil Mishra of North East Delhi – and Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) party has about 6.5% votes and two dozen seats in the national parliament. Yet Indians – who are deeply entrenched in South Africa’s society, business and politics – are not describing the offensive entirely as a racist one.

“It is about politics, finally,” said Morar.

The Economist newspaper used a separate set of words to express similar thoughts. The violence was incited with a “narrow aim” to have Zuma released but the “broader goal is to make the country ungovernable so as to undermine his (Zuma’s) successor, Cyril Ramaphosa,” the newspaper noted.

Morar is not a British newspaper editor defending Ramphosa but a businessman who lost three 50 square metre shops on prime real estate of Durban. Yet he and his community are stopping short of branding this week’s violence as an exclusively racial attack.


The question is why.

Suvojit Bagchi is a senior journalist who has previously worked with BBC and The Hindu.

South African President Dispatches Senior Officials to Tackle Indian-Black Tensions in Durban

The tensions between the two communities in the Indian township of Phoenix and surrounding areas have been sparked by social media posts in which there are calls for action against each other's communities.


FILE PHOTO: Members of a private security walk at a looted shopping mall as the country deploys army to quell unrest linked to the jailing of former South African President Jacob Zuma, in Vosloorus, South Africa, July 14, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko

PTI

Johannesburg :South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said he has dispatched his police minister and premier of KwaZulu Natal province to a township in Durban amid escalating tensions between the Indian and Black African communities there.

The tensions between the two communities in the Indian township of Phoenix and surrounding areas have been sparked by social media posts in which there are calls for action against each other’s communities following the violence over the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7.

Ramaphosa was briefly in Ethekwini, a metropolitan municipality that includes the city of Durban and surrounding towns, to assess the situation following the continuing violence and looting in the region.

However, he did not visit the suburbs of Phoenix and Pietermaritzburg, the provincial capital of KwaZulu-Natal, that have been most affected.

Durban is the largest city in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

Ramaphosa asked police minister Bheki Cele and Premier of KwaZulu Natal province Sihle Zikalala to go to these areas to address the situation.

The Minister of Police was on his way to Phoenix. Our local leaders – the Premier, the MEC’s (Members of the Executive Committee of the City) are going to have to deal with that type of situation,” the president said.

I wanted to go myself, but time now is of the essence. We are going to have a Cabinet meeting later, so I’m going to have to go back to Gauteng (province), but I’m here now, encouraging and holding the hands of both our people on the ground and also directing the security forces and getting them to go to those areas that are volatile at the moment, Ramaphosa said.

Concerned over the widespread violence and rioting in South Africa, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday spoke with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor who assured him that her government was doing utmost to enforce law and order and an early restoration of normalcy was the overriding priority.

Phoenix and Chatsworth are the two sprawling townships created to forcibly rehouse the thousands of Indian citizens of the region under the draconian apartheid-era policy of separate development. Phoenix is now surrounded by several Black African townships.

There has also been widespread social media sharing of edited posts of Ethekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda which were manipulated to create a highly inflammatory message suggesting that he was calling for Indians to be killed.

In the original post, Kaunda quoted someone else to call for all to reject the message and exercise restraint, appealing for calm to prevail.

We are continuing a series of engagements with communities, especially where the issues of racial tension have been cited, Kaunda said.

Kaunda said that besides Phoenix, there were also initiatives in other areas of the city, including the huge Indian suburb of Chatsworth, south of the city.

Meanwhile, images of some Indian residents of Phoenix, many heavily armed, who claim to be protecting their lives and property and making inflammatory anti-Black remarks, have been flashed on social media, getting fellow incensed residents to join vigilante groups.

But some groups have pointed out that a few rogue vigilante elements in the community, who were receiving huge publicity while making racist remarks and threats to African people, have been tainting the efforts of many others who have mobilised to protect their assets and stop looters.

The community members who have come forward to work lawfully alongside security forces for this purpose have even been publicly lauded by both President Ramaphosa this morning and the Minister of Police yesterday, said Shaun Naidoo, who was speaking on behalf of a group controlling access at one of the entry points into Phoenix.

This small group of rogues in both the Indian and African communities are misusing the looting and rioting situation and unfortunately this is now getting the entire communities very angry, flaring up into the explosive situation that we now find ourselves in, said Abdul Khan, who was also part of the group.

Police minister Cele said he was confident that with the deployment of soldiers, law and order would be restored in Phoenix.

Cele attributed the situation to criminals and not to those who are protesting the imprisonment of former president Zuma, which sparked the initial mass action that quickly devolved into massive looting and arson across the country.

Zuma started a 15-month sentence last Wednesday after the country’s Apex court found him guilty of contempt of court as he refused to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, where he has been repeatedly accused of involvement in corruption by witnesses.

(PTI)

WTO edges closer to an agreement on fisheries limiting government subsidies
Friday, July 16th 2021 - 

FAO estimates that one-third of global fish stocks are overfished and most of the rest is fully exploited. This is up from 10% in 1970 and 27% in 2000

The World Trade Organization edged closer on Thursday to an agreement that would set new rules for the global fisheries industry and limit government subsidies contributing to unsustainable fishing and the depletion of global fish stocks.

During an all-day meeting with 104 ministers and heads of delegation, WTO members pledged to conclude the negotiations soon and certainly before the WTO's Ministerial Conference in early December, and to empower their Geneva-based delegations to do so. Members also confirmed that the negotiating text currently before them can be used as the basis for the talks to strike the final deal.

“I feel new hope this evening. Because ministers and heads of delegation today demonstrated a strong commitment to moving forward and doing the hard work needed to get these negotiations to the finish line. I applaud you for this. In 20 years of negotiations, this is the closest we have ever come towards reaching an outcome – a high-quality outcome that would contribute to building a sustainable blue economy,” said Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

“One fundamental conclusion that I draw from your interventions today is that members are ready to use the text as the basis for future negotiations. A second takeaway from today was that there is universal agreement about the importance of the food and livelihood security of artisanal fishers in developing and least developed countries. The prospect for a deal in the autumn ahead of our Ministerial Conference has clearly improved.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one-third of global fish stocks are overfished and most of the rest is fully exploited. This is up from 10% in 1970 and 27% in 2000. Depleted stocks threaten the food security of low-income coastal communities, and the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable fishers who must go further and further from shore only to bring back smaller and smaller hauls.

Each year, governments hand out around US$ 35 billion in fisheries subsidies, two-thirds of which go to commercial fishers. These subsidies keep at sea vessels which would otherwise be economically unviable. World leaders in 2015 made a fisheries subsidies agreement by 2020 part of the Sustainable Development Goals and trade ministers reaffirmed this pledge in 2017.

The negotiations on fisheries subsidies disciplines have been ongoing for nearly 20 years. Among the thorniest issues to resolve has been how to extend special and differential treatment to developing and least developed country WTO members while preserving the overall objective of enhanced sustainability of the oceans. Ministers said that the livelihoods and food security of poor and vulnerable artisanal fishers in developing and least developed countries were of great importance, as was preserving the sustainability objective of the negotiations.

POSTFORDISM

Volkswagen picks Uruguay to make e-cars Latin American landing

“Few countries in Latin America that have the renewable energy that Uruguay has,” Di Si said

Wednesday, July 14th 2021 -

The traditional German automaker Volkswagen has chosen Uruguay as the first country in Latin America to receive its assortment of fully electricity-powered models, it was announced during a ceremony which was attended by President Luis Lacalle Pou.

So far, only some hybrid models had been sold in Argentina (Touareg Hybrid) and Brazil (Golf GTE).

VW South America CEO, the Argentine executive Pablo Di Si, handed over the keys to the first 10 VW e-Up! Two of those first units will be transferred to the Uruguayan Industry Ministry to form be a part of its fleet of vehicles.

The e-Up! is made in Europe and is not to be confused with the Brazilian-made Up! which was sold until last year in Argentina. The e-Up has 32 kWh batteries and an electric motor that delivers 82 horsepower and 210 Nm of torque (for comparison, the Brazilian Up! 1.0 Turbo had 101 hp and 165 Nm). It accelerates from 0 to 100 km / h in 11.3 seconds and reaches a top speed of 135 km / h for a maximum range of 255 kilometers. The batteries are lithium-ion and can be fully recharged in six hours, using a WallBox.

In August of last year, an e-Up! arrived at the VW Argentina plant in Pacheco to carry out “tests to evaluate its possible local commercialization.” However, the brand chose Uruguay to launch it locally. Di Si explained that “we have chosen Uruguay to launch the first 100% electric vehicle of the VW brand in Latin America. And why Uruguay? First of all, I want to congratulate the public policy of decades in Uruguay. I have seen few countries in Latin America that have the renewable energy that Uruguay has: it is a public policy and a strategic vision that was launched several decades ago. I also want to thank and highlight our partner, the Lestido family, who for 71 years have defended VW in Uruguay as if it were their own. We bring the e-Up! democratizing electrification: they are almost 260 kilometers of autonomy, for a vehicle that can be charged both at home and in all the possible outlets that we tested for two years in Uruguay. It is a country with an infrastructure that works very well.”

Uruguay is the smallest country in South America and does not have its own oil production: today, 98% of the electrical energy that supplies the country comes from renewable sources, such as solar and wind energy. In addition, the country has one of the highest densities of chargers for electric cars in the world: among the most distant chargers there are no more than 100 kilometers.

The first 10 VW e-Up! that were presented in Uruguay will carry out 12 thousand test kilometers each. Upon completion of that trial, marketing to the public will begin.

Uruguay was chosen by Volkswagen to launch its electrification strategy in Latin America

This is part of the brand's global strategy, which envisages carbon neutrality by 2050. The e-Up! is the first fully electric Volkswagen model to be introduced in the region

At the initiative of Julio César Lestido S.A., Volkswagen agreed with the company to carry out a study to market 100% electric vehicles in Uruguay. This was a seven-year process.

Uruguay has received the first 10 electric units that will have to carry out a field test. Once this phase is completed, the vehicles will be inspected by Volkswagen Germany technicians and, with their approval, Uruguay will be enabled to market electric vehicles.

Cuban gov't to allow medicines, food and hygiene products into the country
Thursday, July 15th 2021 -

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero made the announcement

Cuba's Ministry of Finance and Prices has allowed unrestricted entry into the country of medicines, food, and hygiene products as of next Monday in a measure to appease protests which erupted nationwide last Sunday.

Travellers arriving in Cuba will be able to bring unlimited food, hygiene products and medicines with them, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced Wednesday.

The announcement comes after a series of protests in almost every city nationwide, It was the largest demonstration in six decades. Citizens grew tired of the scarcity of these goods, coupled with constant power cuts and the longstanding lack of freedom.

Cuba's current legislation sets tariffs on excess items brought by travellers. In the case of medicines, up to 10 kilograms are allowed into the country. All these restrictions will be eliminated at the entry points except at the Cayo Coco and Varadero airports, the prime minister said.

It expected to be short term, particularly since due to the pandemic, international flights arriving in Cuba are limited to a few a week.

Cuba's impoverished economy has sunk considerably due to the lack of tourists as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to sanctions imposed by the United States during the last administration of Donald Trump as well as by local shock measures of questionable efficacy.

Thus, food, hygiene products and medicines have become increasingly scarce in recent months, in which the number of flights has also been drastically reduced and with it so was the number of items brought from abroad by individuals.

International campaigns were launched in early July to collect medicines and find ways to send them over to the island, which is also going through its worst outbreak of covid-19 with a record of infected and deceased every week.

Meanwhile, Cuban Youtube influencer Dina Stars who was arrested live while she was giving an interview earlier this week has been released by the authorities. “Thank you very much to all those who have cared about me,” said the youngster on social media.

She had been taken into custody during a live interview with a Spanish network.

“I'm good. They didn't mistreat me, they didn't kidnap me. They brought me in for instigation to commit a crime, which is to promote the demonstration campaigns,” said the influencer through a video on her Instagram account. “I really tell you, I swear, you know that I am on the side of the truth. I will always, always be honest with you. I'm home now, I'm fine, ”she added.

The arrests and persecutions of journalists and activists have increased in the Caribbean country since the demonstrations against the government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel broke out.

Brazilian President supports Cuban demonstrations, signs privatization of Eletrobras
Wednesday, July 14th 2021 
Bolsonaro has chosen in order to maintain a certain popularity among his most loyal fans to stage motorcycle caravans in several cities

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Tuesday expressed his support for the Cuban people protesting against their living conditions under the Communist Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

”I support the movements for freedom in Cuba. I want to see if (former President Luiz Inácio) Lula (Da Silva) does the same,” said Bolsonaro.

“Lula is a criminal who cannot go out on the streets and is with almost 60% of the intention to vote. In order not to be like Cuba we have to avoid electoral fraud in the 2022 elections,“ he added.

Bolsonaro criticized the Communist regime. He stressed that ”Cuban medicine is a sham” and recalled that 15,000 Cuban doctors who were working in Brazil with an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) decided to leave before he took office.

“In order not to be like Cuba, we must have the auditable vote,” he said, insisting on the need to change the electronic ballot box system that Brazil has used since 1996.

Opposition politicians and media outlets have maintained that Bolsonaro's objections to that system were unfounded.

In another geopolitical move along the same lines, Foreign Minister Carlos França, Tuesday released a statement supporting Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, whom Brazil still considers the country's interim president.

Since he took office in 2019, Bolsonaro has aligned himself with the United States and Israel to maintain the economic embargo against Cuba at the United Nations and now seems to have taken the flag in favor of opponents of the government of President Miguel Díaz Canel.

Bolsonaro has reportedly suffered a loss in his popularity down to 24%, especially due to his peculiar handling of the coronavirus pandemic and is now believed to be unable to beat Lula in next year's elections, according to pollstersd Datafolha.

Over the weekend, a survey has found that 63% of the population considers Bolsonaro incapable of governing and that he is repudiated by 59% for the October 2022 elections.

In this context, the president said that he “shits” on the Senate committee investigating the pandemic (CPI), where its members have accused him of 'health genocide' and that his profile of “myth” against corruption that spread in the 2018 campaign began to blur. He is also being investigated by the STF for malfeasance.

The president admitted on Monday night that he had received a complaint from a documented ally of overpricing in the purchase of Covaxin vaccines and that he did not make the complaint. He argued that he passed the papers on to then Health Minister General Eduardo Pazuello.

Bolsonaro has chosen in order to maintain a certain popularity among his most loyal fans to stage motorcycle caravans in several cities, while the opposition took to the streets to demand his impeachment, which has been halted by his ally and House of Deputies Speaker Arthur Lira.

There is also a conflict between CPI head Senator Omar Aziz and the heads of the three armed forces. The crossing of complaints and threats has escalated so much that Tuesday afternoon Bolsonaro had meeting with STF Chief Justice Luis Fux. The magistrate invited him to seal a defense agreement for the institutions. Upon exiting the meeting, Bolsonaro was once again irritated and angry with one of the journalists who questioned him.

To avoid losing the control, shouting, ordered everyone to pray the Our Father. With apparent health problems, he told his followers that he suffered suffering from hiccup attacks.

Lula did adress the Cuban crisis, but like Argentine President Alberto Fernández, he drew the spotlight onto the US trade embargo: ”Americans have to stop with that grudge; the blockade is a way of killing human beings who are not at war. What is the United States afraid of? I know what one country is trying to interfere with another; (President Joseph) Biden should take advantage of this moment to announce on television that he is going to adopt the recommendation of the UN countries and end this blockade,” Lula said on social media.

Also Tuesday Bolsonaro signed into law the privatization of Eletrobras and vetoed social protection for the workers who are being laid off in the process, which had been approved by Congress. Following the change of hands of the electricity company, consumers fear rates will rise up to 15 percent, while government officials have estimated that under the new management they might fall up to 7.36%.

Privatization has come at a difficult time for hydroelectric power in Brazil, its main source, as a result of the worst drought in the last 91 years in the southern and southeastern basins of the country, including that of the Paraná River.

According to the new law, Eletrobras stock is to be listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange, and the State will keep 4 to 5% of the shares.

Bolsonaro has also banned those to be dismissed from acquiring shares of the company at a discount price as part of their severance pay and has also stricken the clause that allowed them to be employed by other energy-related companies or public entities.

The President also vetoed a provision whereby the Senate should evaluate the directors of the National Electric System Operator, the one responsible for coordinating the entire generation and transmission network of the country.

The sale of Eletrobras is carried out through a share package, as also happened with the service station giant of the oil company Petrobras, called BR Distribuidora, today in the hands of investment funds that own the majority of the shares.

The first attempt to privatize Eletrobras had been between 2016 and 2018 during the administration of Michel Temer, whose agenda for the sale of public assets was deepened with the arrival of Bolsonaro with his Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, an ultra-liberal from the Chicago School of Economics that vindicates Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet, for whom he worked in Chile in the eighties.

Argentine Health Ministry needs 10,000 wooden penises for educational purposes
Saturday, July 17th 2021 

The items are to be used in training people on how to use protection from STDs

Argentina's Health Ministry has called for tenders to purchase a large assortment of items, including 10,000 wooden human penises for educational purposes, it was reported.

Other needs to be fulfilled at the State's expense are 10,000 dispensers of condoms, which will be manufactured in such a way that they can be hung in public buildings and 10 thousand turquoise briefcases, stamped and with ribbons to the tone, together with the replicas of the male genitalia packed in one hundred boxes of one hundred units each, according to the ministry's website.

Also among the condition to be fulfilled by bidders is that the sculptures be neatly polished and measure around 17 centimeters.

The items will reportedly be used for sexual education activities and will entail a disbursement of AR $ 13,371,100 (the US $ 138,964, at the official exchange rate).

As explained in resolution 35 of 2021, the request for the materials was made by “the Directorate of Response to HIV, STIs, Viral Hepatitis and Tuberculosis” and will be ”intended for the general population and health professionals, to be distributed in Primary Health Care Centers (CAPS), Health Regions, Provincial and Municipal Programs and other establishments throughout the country.”

Despite the technical explanations and justifications, the news went virals and memes filled social media Friday as soon as it became known.

Access to Health Secretary Sandra Marcela Tirado had given the green light on June 24 to a request from the Directorate of response to HIV, STIs, viral Hepatitis and Tuberculosis for the purchase of materials to promote sexual health, which included the purchase of 10,000 polished wood penises, which was spotted by the Buenos Aires daily La Nación and made public Friday.

Through resolution 35 of 2021, Tirado indicated that the purchase of “the requested supplies will ensure wide availability of promotional materials whose purpose is to raise awareness and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and other ITS within the framework of Law No. 23,798.″

Tirado then authorized “the call for Public Tender No. 80-0023-LPU21, for the acquisition of promotional materials, consisting of condom dispensers, wooden penises and briefcases, requested by the Directorate of response to HIV, STI, Viral Hepatitis and Tuberculosis, intended for the general population and health professionals, to be distributed in Primary Health Care Centers (CAPS), Health Regions, Provincial and Municipal Programs and other establishments throughout the country.”

The tender was published July 1 and the deadline for bids was last Tuesday. Four companies are vying to supply the Argentine government with the product.

Meanwhile, Minister Carla Vizzotti is on a tour of England, trying to reach new agreements and exchanges regarding anticoronavirus policies.

But the Ministry nevertheless explained to La Nación that “In response to preliminary studies that reveal a deterioration in the indicators related to sexually transmitted diseases during the pandemic, the Ministry of Health of the Nation calls for a public tender (0023/2021) for the acquisition, within the framework of the implementation of Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) and health strategies to ensure compliance, of educational kits with materials for conducting training.”

“The educational kits for promotion and prevention contain condoms, a dispenser for accessibility of condoms and briefcases where the elements for training are transported, including wooden penises, lubricating gel and communication materials [...] The materials are intended for teams that work in the field, whether in health, education or community institutions,” the Ministry said in a press release given to La Nación.

“No province buys this type of input. The planned monthly distribution is 800 kits. The material is distributed through provincial programs. Among the bidders for the acquisition of the kits, there is a maximum offer of 14 million and another smaller offer, for 4 million. In case of acquiring them, the Ministry of Health will opt for the lowest offer,” the statement went on.

“The amount to be acquired —which was consolidated from the distributions made in previous years— is because they are distributed to around 5,200 health providers and to other government teams and organizations that work with the ESI (sexual education), buying is also related to the possibility of taking preventive policies to as many places as possible by placing these resources close to people, including civil society organizations and other government agencies in the preventive response to HIV and other STIs,” the Ministry explained.

The release also specified that “in preliminary studies, a decrease in the use of condoms is observed during the pandemic, for this reason, it is necessary to plan intervention policies with educational measures, promotion and post-pandemic assistance. Furthermore, in our country, more than 98% of infections are caused by unprotected sex.”

“The current situation in our country concerning the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis, shows an increase in diagnoses, especially in the cases of adolescents and young people. All this determines the need for policies of prevention in Sexual Health, sustained and of national impact [...] In relation to the use of condoms, so that their use is adequate, training and health education are carried out for young people and adolescents. This is why material is needed so that, through Comprehensive Sex Education, the proper use is transmitted,” the authorities detailed.