UN hot on the trail of temperature records

Issued on: 17/08/2021 - 

Spain is evaluating provisional data that suggests record temperatures 

JORGE GUERRERO AFP


Geneva (AFP)

During last week's heatwaves in Italy and Spain, meteorologists in both countries announced provisional data suggesting temperature records had been set there.

But such claims need to be verified by the United Nations before being confirmed or rejected -- a process that can take months of careful scientific checking.

The UN's World Meteorological Organization is responsible for signing off on temperature records around the planet.

The Geneva-based agency maintains a global weather and climate extremes archive, which logs records for temperature, pressure, rainfall, hail, aridity, wind, lightning and weather-related mortality.

Here is how the WMO validates record claims, and what the records can tell us:

- Months of evaluation -

Confirming a claimed heat record takes several months.

The WMO first contacts the national weather service of the country concerned, and the specific organisation that captured the supposed record in order to get the raw data. That includes details on the exact location of the reading, the equipment used, its calibration, and the regional weather conditions at the time.

An initial assessment is carried out by the WMO Commission for Climatology and by Randall Cerveny, the organisation's rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, who heads up the records archive.

Meteorologists in Italy think they may have recorded a new European record of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) in Sicily on August 11 Alberto PIZZOLI AFP

An international panel of atmospheric scientists then reviews the raw data and provides Cerveny, a geographical sciences professor at Arizona State University, with recommendations for his final verdict.

A decision typically takes six to nine months after the panel is convened.

Since the process was set up, "no findings of any WMO extremes evaluation committee have been overturned", he told AFP.

- Database started in 2007 -

In 2005, while watching US news coverage of Hurricane Katrina's trail of destruction in New Orleans, Cerveny was struck by TV presenters repeatedly calling it the worst hurricane of all time.

He knew otherwise: while Katrina caused 1,800 deaths, a tropical cyclone in 1970 killed an estimated 300,000 people in what is now Bangladesh.

Cerveny co-wrote a scientific article calling for an official global records database.

And in 2007, the WMO asked him to set one up, to keep world, hemispherical and regional records for particular extreme weather events.

- Measuring climate change -

A new report this month by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed unequivocally that the climate is changing faster than previously feared, and because of human activity.

Knowing the existing weather and climate extremes is critical in determining exactly how much and how fast the world's climate is changing, said the WMO, identifying that as the most important reason for holding the database.

The information is also important for health and civil engineering planning, Cerveny said in a WMO bulletin: Architects needed to know, for example, the maximum possible wind speed when designing a bridge.

Another reason given for maintaining the records database was to advance science -- and help the media to put weather events in perspective.

- All-time heat record overturned -

The WMO also re-examines records from before 2007, and sometimes delists them.

Perhaps the best-known case is that of the long-standing world record temperature of 58 C (136 F) measured in 1922 in El Azizia, in what is now Libya.

Following a two-year investigation conducted in dangerous conditions during the Libyan revolution of 2011, the record was invalidated due to five major concerns, including potentially problematic instrumentation and "a probable new and inexperienced observer".

Since then, the 56.7 C (134.1 F) registered on July 10, 1913 in Furnace Creek, in Death Valley in the United States has held the world heat record.

The coldest temperature on record is the minus 89.2 C (minus 128.6 F) recorded on July 21, 1983 at Russia's Vostok research station on Antarctica.

In July this year, the WMO recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 C (64.9 F) made last year at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020.

But the WMO rejected an even higher temperature reading of 20.75 C (69.35) reported on February 9 last year at a Brazilian automated permafrost monitoring station on nearby Seymour Island.

It found an improvised radiation shield led to a demonstrable thermal bias error for the permafrost monitor's air temperature sensor, making its reading ineligible as a record.

© 2021 AFP

Three in four say climate 'tipping points' close

Issued on: 17/08/2021

The survey, conducted before the release of a bombshell UN climate report last week, showed more than half of respondents in G20 nations feel very or extremely concerned about the state of the planet 

CESAR MANSO AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

Some 73 percent of people now believe that Earth's climate is approaching abrupt and irreversible "tipping points" due to human activity, according to a global opinion poll released Tuesday.

The survey, conducted before the publication of a bombshell UN climate science report last week, showed that more than half (58 percent) of respondents in G20 nations feel very or extremely concerned about the state of the planet.

Scientists are increasingly concerned that some feedback loops in nature -- such as irreversible melting of icesheets or permafrost -- may be close to being triggered as mankind's mind-boggling carbon emissions show no signs of slowing, despite a pandemic.

The IPCC report warned that Earth is on course to be 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times around 2030 -- a full decade earlier than it projected just three years ago.

It said that "low likelihood, high impact" tipping points, such as the Amazon degrading from a carbon sink to source, "cannot be ruled out".

Tuesday's survey, conducted by the Global Commons Alliance and Ipsos MORI, found four out of five respondents wanted to do more to protect the planet.

"The world is not sleepwalking towards catastrophe. People know we are taking colossal risks, they want to do more and they want their governments to do more," said Owen Gaffney, the lead author of a report based on the poll's findings.

Tuesday's survey showed that people in developing nations were more likely to be willing to protect nature and the climate than those in richer countries.

Ninety-five percent of respondents in Indonesia, and 94 percent in South Africa, said they would do more for the planet, compared with just 70 percent and 74 percent in Germany and the United States, respectively.

And although 59 percent of people surveyed said they believed in the need for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, just eight percent acknowledged the need for large-scale economic shifts this decade.

Gaffney said the survey showed "people really want to do something to protect nature, but report that they lack information and face financial constraints to what they can do."

"The vast majority of people in the world's wealthiest countries... are worried about the state of the planet and want to protect it," said Kenyan environmentalist Elizabeth Wathuti.

"They want to become planetary stewards. This should be a wake-up call to leaders everywhere."

© 2021 AFP

US declares first-ever water shortage for Lake Mead, its largest reservoir

Issued on: 17/08/2021 - 

Lake Mead, situated on the Nevada/Arizona border, is the largest reservoir in the US and a major water supplier to the Southwest; it is now at its lowest level in nearly 90 years. 

© Bridget Bennett AFP/File

Text by: NEWS WIRES


U.S. officials for the first time on Monday issued an official water shortage declaration for the massive Western reservoir of Lake Mead, triggering supply cuts to parts of the drought-stricken Southwest.

The shortage will reduce water apportionments to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico for the year beginning in October, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said in a statement.

Arizona will lose 18% of its annual apportionment, while Nevada will see cuts of 7%. Apportionments to Mexico, which are required under a 1944 treaty, will be cut by 5%.

While not a surprise, the cuts will mean less water -- and tough allotment decisions -- for farms, cities and tribes in the parched region, which is in its 22nd year of drought.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change," Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for water and science, said during an online press conference. She pointed to the region's lower-than-average snowpack, scorching temperatures and dry soil conditions.

"Unfortunately that trend may continue," Trujillo said.

Lake Mead, formed in the 1930s from the damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border, is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is crucial to the water

supply of 25 million people in the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas.

Crippling drought in the U.S. West has brought Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation's second-biggest reservoir, to historic lows. Total water storage in the Colorado River system is at 40% of capacity, down from 49% a year ago, the bureau said.

Water releases in a given year are determined by an annual study anticipating the reservoirs' water levels in winter. In January, Lake Mead is expected to be at 1,065.85 feet (324.9 metres) above sea level, which is 9 feet below the official trigger for a shortage.

The reservoir's elevation is projected to keep falling, the agency said. By July of 2023, it is estimated to be at 1,037.73 feet. Arizona, California and Nevada are mulling actions needed to prevent the reservor from going below 1,020 feet, officials said.

Last month, an emergency drought agreement prompted the release of 181,000-acre feet of water from smaller Western storage reservoirs to boost the elevation of Lake Powell.

(REUTERS)

Colorado basin drought sparks water limits at huge US reservoir

Issued on: 17/08/2021

The level of Lake Mead - as seen in July 2021 from Boulder City, Nevada - has been steadily declining due to a chronic drought Patrick T. FALLON AFP

Los Angeles (AFP)

A huge reservoir that supplies water to tens of millions of people in the Western United States is at such low levels that populations it feeds must reduce their useage next year, the government said Monday.

A chronic drought has left huge swathes of the country parched, as man-made climate change forces shifts in the pattern of rainfall.

That has left Lake Mead, the largest US artifical reservoir which is fed by the mighty Colorado River, worryingly low -- at just a third of its capacity.


"Like much of the (US) West, and across our connected basins, the Colorado River is facing unprecedented and accelerating challenges," said Tanya Trujillo, an official with the federal water resources agency.

"The only way to address these challenges and climate change is to utilize the best available science and to work co-operatively across the landscapes and communities that rely on the Colorado River."

That means starting in January, places downstream of Lake Mead -- formed in the 1930s by the building of the Hoover Dam -- will receive less water.

Arizona's water supply will drop by almost a fifth, compared with a normal year, while Nevada will get seven percent less and Mexico will see a five percent reduction.

According to a study released last year by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the Colorado River's flow has declined by an average of 20 percent over the past century.

At least half of that decline can be attributed to rising temperatures in the area.

Global warming caused by human activity -– mostly the burning of fossil fuels -– has pushed up Earth's average surface temperature 1.1 degrees Celsius (2.0 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to mid-19th century levels. Most of that increase has occurred in the last 50 years.

A UN draft climate report obtained by AFP says these rising temperatures will cause water shortages around the world.

"Globally, 800 million people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to drought cause by two degrees Celsius of warming," it says.

© 2021 AFP

EXPLAINER: Western states face first federal water cuts

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM

1 of 10
A buoy sits above the waterline at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021, near Boulder City, Nev. Water levels at Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, have fallen to record lows. (AP Photo/John Locher)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought.

Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River — Lake Mead — have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white “bathtub ring” of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.

States, cities, farmers and others have diversified their water sources over the years, helping soften the blow of the upcoming cuts. But federal officials said Monday’s declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted in 2019, when some states in the Colorado River basin agreed to give up shares of water to maintain levels at Lake Mead.

“The announcement today is a recognition that the hydrology that was planned for years ago — but we hoped we would never see — is here,” said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton.

Lake Mead was formed by building the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. It is one of several man-made reservoirs that store water from the Colorado River, which supplies household water, irrigation for farms and hydropower to Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and parts of Mexico.

But water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river’s two largest reservoirs, have been falling for years and faster than experts predicted. Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and into the Gulf of California.

“We’re at a moment where we’re reckoning with how we continue to flourish with less water, and it’s very painful,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

HOW IS THE RIVER WATER SHARED?

Water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is divvied up through legal agreements among the seven Colorado River basin states, the federal government, Mexico and others. The agreements determine how much water each gets, when cuts are triggered and the order in which the parties have to sacrifice some of their supply.

Under a 2019 drought contingency plan, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico agreed to give up shares of their water to maintain water levels at Lake Mead. The voluntary measures weren’t enough to prevent the shortage declaration.

WHO DOES LAKE MEAD SERVE?

Lake Mead supplies water to millions of people in Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico.

Cuts for 2022 are triggered when predicted water levels fall below a certain threshold — 1,075 feet (328 meters) above sea level, or 40% capacity. Hydrologists predict that by January, the reservoir will drop to 1,066 feet (325 meters).

Further rounds of cuts are triggered when projected levels sink to 1,050, 1,045 and 1,025 feet (320, 318 and 312 meters).

Eventually, some city and industrial water users could be affected.

Lake Powell’s levels also are falling, threatening the roughly 5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity generated each year at the Glen Canyon Dam.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming get water from tributaries and other reservoirs that feed into Lake Powell. Water from three reservoirs in those states has been drained to maintain water levels at Lake Powell and protect the electric grid powered by the Glen Canyon Dam.

WHICH STATES WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE CUTS?

In the U.S., Arizona will be hardest hit and lose 18% of its share from the river next year, or 512,000 acre-feet of water. That’s around 8% of the state’s total water use.

An acre-foot is enough water to supply one to two households a year.

Nevada will lose about 7% of its allocation, or 21,000 acre-feet of water. But it will not feel the shortage largely because of conservation efforts.

California is spared from immediate cuts because it has more senior water rights than Arizona and Nevada.

Mexico will see a reduction of roughly 5%, or 80,000 acre-feet.

WHO IN THOSE STATES WILL SEE THEIR WATER SUPPLY CUT?

Farmers in central Arizona, who are among the state’s largest producers of livestock, dairy, alfalfa, wheat and barley, will bear the brunt of the cuts. Their allocation comes from water deemed “extra” by the agency that supplies water to much of the region, making them the first to lose it during a shortage.

As a result, the farmers will likely need to fallow land — as many already have in recent years because of persisting drought — and rely even more on groundwater, switch to water-efficient crops and find other ways to use less water.

Water suppliers have planned for the shortage declaration by diversifying and conserving their water supply, such as by storing water in underground basins. Still, water cuts make it harder to plan for the future.

The Central Arizona Project, which supplies water to Arizona’s major cities, will no longer bank river water or replenish some groundwater systems next year because of the cuts.

“It’s a historic moment where drought and climate change are at our door,” said Chuck Cullom of the Central Arizona Project.

Cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson, and Native American tribes are shielded from the first round of cuts.

CAN THE DECLINE OF LAKE MEAD BE REVERSED?

Water levels at the reservoir have been falling since 1999 due to the dry spell enveloping the West and increased water demand. With weather patterns expected to worsen, experts say the reservoir may never be full again.


Though Lake Mead and Lake Powell could theoretically be refilled, planning for a hotter, drier future with less river water would be more prudent, said Porter of Arizona State University.

___

AP reporters Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Sam Metz in Carson City, Nevada, contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment and drought coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/droughts.

EXPLAINER: Western water projects in infrastructure deal

SUMAN NAISHADHAM

1 of 10
FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2021, file photo, Buchanan Dam holds back water in Eastman Lake in unincorporated Madera County, Calif. At the time of this photo, the reservoir was at 11 percent of capacity and 20 percent of its historical average. The sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate this week includes funding for Western water projects that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are badly needed across the parched region. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Included in the sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate is funding for Western water projects that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are badly needed across the parched region.

The Senate voted this week in favor of the legislation that seeks to rebuild U.S. roads and highways, improve broadband internet access and modernize water pipes and public works systems. The bill’s future in the House is uncertain.

The federal funding would come as the West bakes under a decadeslong drought that is straining water supplies.

A look at some ways the $8.3 billion for water projects would help bring relief in coming years.

WATER STORAGE

The plan would provide $1.15 billion for improving water storage and transport infrastructure such as dams and canals. Groundwater storage projects, which replenish underground aquifers that aren’t vulnerable to evaporation, would also get funding. Western states have for years over-pumped groundwater from wells during dry years, even causing land to sink in parts of California.

“California has to do more to store and otherwise stretch the use of water in wet years in order to have enough to sustain through the dry years,” said California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat whose office helped get water provisions in the bill.

WATER RECYCLING

To help stretch existing water supplies, $1 billion would go toward projects that recycle wastewater for household and industrial use. Many states and cities already have or are developing programs that recycle storm water runoff and wastewater. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water, dams and reservoirs in 17 Western states, would decide which projects are funded.

DROUGHT PLAN

Prolonged drought, scorching temperatures and climate change are draining the Colorado River that supplies water to 40 million people and farmland in the West. The bill would provide $300 million for drought measures, such as conservation and storage projects, to maintain water levels at the river’s reservoirs and prevent additional water cuts.

Already, the first-ever shortage declaration at the river is expected next week. Some Arizona farmers will be among those to feel the effects next year.

DESALINATION

The bill would add $250 million for studies and projects to make sea water and brackish water usable for agricultural, industrial and municipal use. Desalination plants send ocean water through filters that extract fresh water and leave behind salty water that’s often returned to the ocean. The technology is expensive but increasingly viewed as a critical way to supplement water supplies in drought prone areas.

DAM SAFETY

About $800 million would fund improvements and repairs at dams that are used for drinking water, irrigation, flood control and hydropower. Scores of dams across the U.S. are in poor or unsatisfactory condition, according to state and federal agencies. In 2017, damage at California’s Oroville Dam prompted evacuation orders covering nearly 200,000 people. Feinstein’s office recently said that California alone has 89 dams that are “in less than satisfactory condition.”

RURAL WATER

Another $1 billion would be dedicated for water projects in rural areas, where aging water treatment facilities and infrastructure are often in need of repair.

Taken together, the water projects funded by the infrastructure plan could make an impact in the West, said Dan Keppen, executive director of Family Farm Alliance, which lobbies for farmers, ranchers and irrigation districts.

“It’s sort of an all-of-the-above approach and that’s what’s needed,” he said.

___

AP journalist Matthew Daly contributed from Washington.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment

___

This story was first published on Aug. 14, 2021. It was updated on Aug. 16, 2021, to correct the amount of money in the infrastructure bill for desalination studies and projects to $250 million, not $250 billion.

SOCIETY: 

PLAGUES AND CLASSICAL HISTORY

Christopher Smith

Published August 15, 2021 - 


After almost two years — and an extraordinary global hiatus whose impact remains as yet unclear — it is inevitable that many will write about Covid-19 for decades to come.

Indeed, one of the first books — The Spike by Jeremy Farrar, one of the UK’s leading scientists and a member of the Sage emergency committee — has just been published. As we enter a long period of reflection, arts and humanities scholarship has much to offer, especially once the intensity of scientific and medical coverage has begun to subside.

Early on, as many of us locked down and worried about how we would emerge from the pandemic, the only chapter of any book on Covid any of us wanted to read was the one on the vaccine. Would there be one and would it work? But the technical description of this precious medical intervention in publications to come will be concise and short. The fuller story lies elsewhere.

The medical history of plagues is fascinating, but it is seldom the critical issue. We don’t know for sure what the Athenian plague of the fifth century BC was, or the devastating plague of the second and third century AD. The plague of the sixth to eighth century AD in the Roman empire is a matter of some discussion, but was probably several different infections. We know how the Black Death was spread, but it’s scarcely the most interesting thing about it.

What is more interesting is how people react to plagues and how writers describe their reactions. The account by the Greek historian and general Thucydides (460-400BC), of how the Athenians responded to their virulent plague in the fifth century, directly or indirectly influenced how many later historians in antiquity described plagues. It set the pattern for a narrative of symptoms alongside social impact.

What will the arts and humanities scholarship tell us about Covid in years to come?

Athens was in the second year of what would turn into more than 20 years of conflict with its Greek rival Sparta. The plague spread rapidly and killed fast — its symptoms beginning with fever and spreading through the body. Some Athenians were dutiful in caring for others, which usually led to death, but many simply gave up, or they ignored family or the dead, or they chased pleasure of every kind in what time was left to them.

How far the plague changed Athens is debatable — it did not stop the war or affect Athenian prosperity. What Thucydides does say is that the loss of their great statesman Pericles (495-429BC) to the plague altered the nature of their leadership, and removed some of its moderating features. It is left implicit that the Athenians may have abandoned more of their traditional piety and respect for social norms.

This was the generation that would produce the most radical questioning of the role and nature of the gods, of what we know of the world and how we should live. But it also led to a renewed sense of militarism and eventual catastrophe: Athens’ defeat by Sparta and the loss of her empire.

Pandemics and their impact

The temptation is to say that pandemics change everything. The Byzantine historian Procopius (500-570AD), who survived the onset of plague in the sixth century AD, was alive to this. Everyone became very religious for a while, but then, as soon as they felt they were free, they went back to old behaviour. The plague was a wonderful symbol of systemic decline, but people adjust.

Was the Byzantine world so fatally weakened by plague and its resurgence that it was unable to resist the onslaught of the Arabs in the seventh century? This may well be partly true. But the plague significantly preceded the Arab conquest, there was as much continuity as disruption visible in their culture and city life, and the Arab world had its own pestilences. History is not so simple.

So what of our own pandemic? What will it change?

Tempting as it is to predict a complete overturning of social behaviour, the lessons of the past would suggest that this is unlikely. The strong bonds of society have survived well.

Perhaps the worst consequence is how this has set back progress in the developing world.

That, and long-term mental health and educational impacts across the world, are exceptionally difficult to gauge — though this will be the most studied pandemic in our history. And it will be arts and humanities scholars and social scientists who will be doing much of this incisive work — and already are.

For example, The Pandemic and Beyond at Exeter University is already mapping more than 70 Covid-19 projects in the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s portfolio.

Pandemic science

So, what does history tell us that is useful? Look harder, and dig deeper. That’s why the history of Covid won’t just be the description of the virus and vaccine, or the mystery of whether it came from a bat or a lab. It will be the immensely complex story of how this disease intersected with our social behaviour, how we chose to respond as individuals and families, communities and politicians, nations and global agencies.

What the best historians from Thucydides on have told us is that the biology of disease is inextricable from the social construction of illness and health. And we also see that humans are very bad at thinking about consequences.

One of the most interesting potential consequences of this pandemic is the relationship between politics and science. The Athenian plague may have jolted thinkers to be more radical by questioning traditional views of life, death and the role of the gods. And the Black Death is often seen as game-changing in terms of religion and philosophy, and encouraging changes to medical ethics and improvements in social care. It even changed the balance on the value of labour, but we have yet to see if our pandemic has lasting inroads into patterns of working in offices or virtually.

This latest pandemic has shown science at its best and most essential, but it has also placed it uncomfortably centre-stage in political decision making. Alongside the much more dangerous climate change crisis, the pandemic has encouraged politicians to claim to “follow the science”.

But science does not speak with one voice, seldom offers easy or unequivocal answers and resists the short term. How the conversation between politics and science plays out, and what the consequences of the trade-offs may be, might yet turn out to be one of the surprises of this strangest of moments.

In the long run, understanding the impacts of this virus — and the wider cultural, social and economic challenges in which it is embedded — will require us to deploy a more generous and holistic view of science. Only in that way will we write the account of this pandemic that its disruptive force demands.

The writer is Executive Chair, Arts and Humanities Research Council, and Professor, School of Classics, University of St Andrews Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 15th, 2021

ANOTHER NATO FUCK UP
Libya political upturn boosts migrant exodus


Issued on: 17/08/2021 -

Libya remains one of the main departure points for migrants hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing FATHI NASRI AFP

Tripoli (AFP)

As violence in Libya has waned this year, the number of would-be migrants to Europe intercepted so far has doubled compared to the same period of 2020, experts say.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 20,257 people have been intercepted at sea and returned to Libya so far this year.

The North African country remains one of the main departure points for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.


Most try to reach the Italian coast around 300 kilometres (186 miles) away.

A Libyan navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told AFP of a "100 percent increase in departures from January to July" compared with the same period last year, without giving figures.

Lawyer Anwar al-Werfalli, a specialist in migration law, attributes the rise in migrant numbers "in particular to the end of the fighting" in Libya.

The 2011 uprising that brought about the downfall and death of dictator Moamer Kadhafi plunged the country into chaos and years of infighting between militias.

But a UN-brokered ceasefire in October 2020 has been generally respected, and a transitional government was installed this year.

Werfalli said this has created some "stability which, though relative, encourages migrants to undertake the crossing".

The central Mediterranean crossing between Libya and Italy or Malta is by far the deadliest in the world, according to IOM figures.

- People traffickers -

The most recent tragedy was last month, when at least 57 migrants drowned.

According to UN refugee agency the UNHCR, more than 10,000 migrants and refugees made landfall in Italy in the first four months of 2021, an increase of about 170 percent over the same period of 2020.

Werfalli said people smugglers have now boosted operations "to compensate for the shortfall during the many months of lockdown" for the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Many migrants who had to put their plans on hold are now back on the road," he said.

Miloud el-Hajj, a professor of international relations, told AFP that traffickers had exploited the conflict in Libya, to the extent that the country became a hub for people smugglers.

While violence and a collapsed state "facilitated the crossing" to Europe, he said, it also "frightened migrants who worried about being badly treated or kidnapped".

Libya's own coastguard has long faced accusations of ill-treatment of migrants.

At the end of June, German charity Sea-Watch released aerial images of what it said was a Libyan coastguard vessel firing shots about two to three metres (yards) from the bow of a boat carrying around 50 migrants.

German NGO Sea-Watch on July 1, 2021 released an aerial footage of Libyan coastguards apparently firing near a migrant boat Kai VON KOTZE SEA-WATCH/AFP

Abdel Rahman al-Mahmoudi, a former officer in the Libyan navy, said the country "needs international aid to cope with the endless flow of migrants".

However, the European Union and Italy have for years financed, trained and equipped the Libyan coastguard to stop smugglers sending migrants to Europe on makeshift boats.

Those intercepted at sea and returned to Libya are placed in detention centres where they languish in deplorable conditions.

International maritime law says those rescued at sea should be disembarked at a safe port, but the United Nations does not consider ports in Libya to be in that category.

The authorities in Libya say they lack sufficient resources and staff to cope with the problem.

© 2021 AFP

IRAQI KURDISTAN

Tensions rise as Iranian dams cut off Iraqi water supplies

Drought in Iran is sparking protests, but its strategy of building dams to conserve water has devastating consequences across the border in Iraq.


Agriculture suffers from drought in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Alqod Mahmoud stands on the bank of the Diyala River, staring helplessly into the stagnant pond where deep waters once swelled. Diyala means "shouting river" in Kurdish. But, these days, it's barely a whisper.

The rainy season in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) usually lasts less than three months of the year. But, in Mahmoud's village of Topkhana, which depends on the Diyala to water its crops, locals say the situation has never been as bad as this year.

Three years ago, Mahmoud, who, at 33 years old, is Topkhana's mukhtar, or village leader, invested $1,700 in a new pump to bring water from the Diyala to irrigate his fields. Now, the pipe hangs uselessly over a bed of dry gravel. What remains of the river runs too far from the village, and too low, to water its fields.

Climate change, driving rising temperatures and irregular rainfall in the region, is a factor. But Mahmoud points the blame squarely at a more tangible culprit. "This is Iran," he said. "They built a new dam to cut the water and keep it for themselves."

Alqod Mahmoud says he doesn't know how long villagers suffering from drought will be able to hang on in Topkhana

Iraq is highly dependent on water resources originating beyond its borders. Like the Diyala, which begins in Zagros mountains in eastern Iran — where it is called the Sirvan — and runs along the border between the two countries before crossing into Iraq to join the Tigris in Baghdad.

But 28 kilometers (17 miles) upstream from Topkhana, inside Iranian territory, the 169-meter (555-foot) Daryan Dam cuts the river's flow. It is the largest dam in an even larger national project. Iran's ongoing Tropical Water Project includes 14 dams with a capacity of 1.9 billion cubic meters, as well 150 kilometers of underground tunnels diverting waterways to rural areas in southern Iran.
Water stress sparks protests in Iran

Drought has been displacing farmers and fuelling unrest in Iran for years. In late July, the Iranian authorities reportedly fired on protests sparked by water shortages in the southwest region of Khuzestan, where temperatures topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

And scientists say temperatures are expected to keep rising, with droughts becoming more frequent.

"Unless Iran harnesses its water resources, the country will hit a major crisis by 2036 and will face mass migration," said Banafsheh Keynoush, a fellow at the International Institute for Iranian Studies and former consultant to the World Bank. As far as the Iranian authorities are concerned, "Iraq's interests are irrelevant," she adds bluntly.
Iraq sees water levels falls

The Daryan Dam was officially inaugurated in 2018 but sources in Iraqi Kurdistan say they began to feel the impact in 2020 and it has been more intense since the end of the last rainy season this spring.

Residents of Topkhana are under pressure from the lack of water

Mahmoud says he's not sure how long the people of Topkhana will be able to hang on. "In one or two years we will have no choice but to leave," he said despondently. "We will be displaced to the city and work like slaves for some company or try to survive as street vendors."

They are not the only ones feeling the pinch. Around 30 kilometers upstream from Topkhana, the Darbandikhan dam is a key source of drinking and irrigation water in the Diyala basin area. But this year, the reservoir is dangerously low.

Namiq Mustafa, deputy director of the hydrology and meteorology department at the Darbandikhan dam, drops a ream of data and stats onto his desk. "Normally in March, after three months of rain, the average inflow in the dam would be 400 to 500 cubic meters of water per second," he said. This year it was barely 28."

Local officials says the Darbandikhan dam in KRI was down to 28 cubic meters of water in March, compared to a usual volume for that time of year of 400 cubic meters or more

And knock-on effects are being felt throughout the economy, as farmers are forced to abandon water-intensive crops.
Are Iraqi water shortages boosting Iran's exports?

Soon after daybreak, long before the sun reaches its blazing zenith, crowds gather in a market square on the edge of Kalar, a city of 250,000 on the Diyala River south of Topkhana. Traders holler into megaphones to advertise fresh fruit, vegetables and fish. What they don't shout out loud is where their goods are from.

Privately, they report that crop failures in Iraq mean they are now importing much of their produce from across the border. "A fish from Iran," says one stallholder, is half the price. "Same for vegetables — for us, it has become much cheaper to import goods than produce them ourselves."

Traders at Kalar market saying they are sourcing more and more of their produce from Iran as Iraqi crops fail

In Kalar city center, traders tell much the same story. Jabar Abdallah Mawlud, 56, sits outside his shop dressed in the gray jacket and wide trousers typical of Kurdish men. "I had a farm in Qoratu, just by the river,'' he said. "We used to grow rice, tomatoes, okra, watermelons, and I used to sell them here. Now it's all gone. All the goods you see here I had to import from Iran."

According to Iranian authorities quoted in local media, since 2016, Iraq has been the destination for 35% of Iran's agricultural exports. Abdulmutalib Raafat Sarhat, a lecturer on water management resources at Garmian University in Kalar, believes the dams therefore serve more than just Iran's water needs: "As Iran's economy struggles due to US sanctions, they are trying to solve the problem by turning Iraq into its marketplace."
Drought fuels international and domestic tensions

Whichever way you look at it, water security is a deeply political issue, and as climate change increases the risk of drought, one country's adaptation strategy risks becoming another's crisis. The only applicable international legal framework — the UN Watercourses Convention — is vague and largely unenforced. Iraq ratified the convention in 2001. But Iran never adopted it, and Turkey, a major player in the area, voted against it.

In June this year, the Water Peace and Security tool, said it"predicts emerging and ongoing conflict throughout much of northern, central, and southern Iraq over the next 12 months," as a result of water shortages.

In summer 2018, some 118,000 people were hospitalized In Basra with symptoms related to poor water quality, driving citizens to storm the local health authority.

Activist Ali Alkharki, who took part in the protests that shook Baghdad in October 2019, says water shortages lurk often behind public outrage against corruption and economic hardship. "When I train young activists in Iraq, I always like to take them by surprise by saying that protests in Baghdad and Basra are caused by water," Alkharki said.

"It is a chain," he explained. "If we do not have enough water, we lose agricultural land, farmers, drivers, sellers, will lose their jobs ... You have poverty and insecurity. That's how you end up with people protesting in the street."

Last year, Alkharki fled the Iraqi capital for Sulaymaniyah in the KRI, where he works with the Save The Tigris campaign. "You can call us environmental activists," he said, "but actually, ours is humanitarian work — it's the future of the current and the next generation that is at stake."
Fighting dams — with more dams?

With no power over what Iran does across the border, one strategy the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) can employ is, ironically, to build more dams.

Since 2014, 245 dams have been proposed in Iraqi Kurdistan. Akram Ahmed Rasul, general director of the Directorate for Dams and Water Reservoirs of the KRI, says 14 have already been completed, 17 are under construction and another 40 are in the planning stages.

Akram Ahmed Rasul, Director-General of the Directorate of Dams and Water Reservoirs of the KRG believes the more dams are the solution to Iraqi Kurdishtan's water woes

Rasual insists the dams would be opened whenever Baghdad requested. But many fear the KRG would simply be hoarding water at the expense of the rest of Iraq, and could use its control of the dams as political leverage in disputes with Baghdad.

Alkharki laughs bitterly that dams have become the go-to solution for water shortages, even in locations so far downstream there isn't enough water for them to be viable, "even in the south," he says, "in Basra, where it would be just impossible to build them. The truth is that you cannot fight dams by doing the same."


IRAQ: WHERE WATER USED TO FLOW
A parched land
The Mesopotamian Marshes of southern Iraq are a rare area of wetland in a sea of desert, and are fed by the waters of the Tigris-Euphrates river system. Drought is often an issue in Iraq but a lack of rainfall, internal political strife and the damming of rivers further upstream in Turkey have combined to make the current situation even more dire.
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PAKISTAN (DAWN) VIEWS AFGHANISTAN

Malala urges world leaders to take urgent action on Afghanistan

Reuters | Dawn.com

Published August 17, 2021 - 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai poses for photographs during the Education and Development G7 Ministers Summit in Paris on July 5, 2019. — Reuters

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, particularly the safety of women and girls, and called on Monday for world leaders to take urgent action.

Yousafzai said US President Joe Biden “has a lot to do” and must “take a bold step” to protect the Afghan people, adding she had been trying to reach out to several global leaders.

“This is actually an urgent humanitarian crisis right now that we need to provide our help and support,” Yousafzai told BBC's Newsnight.



Yousafzai, 23, survived being shot in the head by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants in 2012, after she was targeted for her campaign against its efforts to deny women education.

She had become known as an 11-year-old, writing a blog under a pen name for the BBC about living under the rule of the militants.

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan right now, especially about the safety of women and girls there,” Yousafzai told Newsnight.

“I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women's rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like.”

Yousafzai said she had sent a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan asking him to admit Afghan refugees and ensure that all refugee children “have access to education, have access to safety and protection, that their futures are not lost”.

A day earlier, Yousafzai and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry had spoken on the phone during which the minister said Pakistan would continue supporting endeavours for women's education in Afghanistan.

According to Radio Pakistan, the minister said that Pakistan was providing educational facilities to the children of Afghan refugees. He said that 6,000 Afghan children were currently studying in the country.

During the call, Yousafzai informed the minister about global concerns regarding women's rights in Afghanistan. "Pakistan should play an active role in promoting women's education in Afghanistan," she said.

Afghans are just like you and me and today, they're helpless and abandoned, says Anoushey Ashraf

She posted a heartfelt note asking people to be kind and true Muslims and stop harbouring hatred towards anyone.

Afghanistan is now in the hands of the Taliban and thousands of Afghans are desperately looking for ways out of the country. Videos of Afghan men clinging to the wheels and wings of planes and then plummeting to their death will tell you just how desperate they are to leave. But amidst this, there have been many voices praising the Taliban takeover. Anoushey Ashraf isn't one of them — she's calling for people to be more kind.

The actor and RJ shared a lengthy but very necessary post on Afghanistan on Instagram. In the post she shared pictures of a trip she made to the country in 2016 for a TV show.




"On this trip I met girls who wanted to cycle for the Olympics, boys who only wanted to be the next Messi. I met Imams at masjids who greeted me with love, respect and duas. I met fantastic TV hosts who were living under tense conditions but were also excited about the new game shows they were launching. I met writers, poets and restauranteurs. I met children of the Hazara, beautiful even with their traumas," she recalled.

"They were exactly like you and me. And today, they’re helpless, homeless and abandoned."

This doesn’t make the government or the Americans my heroes, she clarified. "But are the Taliban any better? So stop your hate. In this moment, whoever leads the nation it’s still in a crisis and people's lives have been disrupted all over again. Not fair!" she cried.

She also raised one point that no one seems to realise. "No one wants to leave their homes and live as a refugee," she said. People against refugees seem to believe that these people willingly and happily leave their homes and possessions to live in refugee camps thousands of miles away, where they are often not even afforded dignity or a comfortable place to sleep.

"Look at the second last picture in this series," Ashraf asked, referring to a collage of portraits. "I photographed each of them. They’re humans with dreams. Please ask yourself why you grew up to be so bitter, that instead of giving people the room to breathe, you abuse them, give them titles like ‘yeh liberals’. Please be kinder. Be a true Muslim on the inside and you’ll never harbour hate for anyone in this world," she wrote.

"Sure, the people in power say they want peace, but to many peace only comes on their terms," the actor explained. "Peace means girls not working and men not playing sports. Surrender means peace. Not a single life and their true dreams come into consideration. If you think this is ‘good’ let me remind you it’s the innocent losing their right to be free for these leaders (Taliban or not) to feed their agenda, politics, power and greed. NOTHING ELSE," she wrote.

"The Taliban says they’re ready to evolve and give women and children their rights. Let’s not hail them heroes yet. They’ve said they have learned from the past. Only time will tell. Reaching out to all my Afghan friends tonight, you are in my prayers. Humanity first."

Of the many people — including celebrities — posting about Afghanistan, Ashraf's post really struck a chord with us. Her pictures don't show people crying and mourning, they show happy people, full of hopes and dreams. Just like us. We hope that people can be empathetic towards Afghans right now — they've lost more than you can imagine and all they want is for them and their families to be safe.

Wars lost and won

Arifa Noor

Published August 17, 2021

 - DAWN.COM

The writer is a journalist.


“Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best.
Then reason will our hearts should be as good.” 

— Shakespeare

‘MISSION accomplished’ was a phrase that came to haunt President George Bush for his two terms, even though he never used it. The two words were simply displayed on a banner behind him when he landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare the end of major combat missions in Iraq. But that image and those words came to symbolise his failed and widely criticised Iraq policy as it was after this event that the violence in Iraq intensified, leading to heavy casualties on both sides.

President Joe Biden’s July speech where he said, in answer to a question, that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was not inevitable is going to reverberate similarly, for months and perhaps years to come.

But it is hard to believe that anyone expected the collapse of the Afghan army to be as sudden and as complete as it was.

In Islamabad itself, some of those who kept an eye on Afghan affairs felt its security forces would put up a challenge and slow down the Taliban. Even those who were more sceptical of the Afghan forces’ ability to hold (in hindsight a more realistic assessment) spoke of three to six months till the fall of Kabul. Perhaps most of us were letting the past colour our analyses — some referred to the difficulties the Taliban had controlling the entire country even after they took over Kabul in 1996 and some to the Najibullah government which lasted for three years after the Soviet troops departed.


Institution-building in Afghanistan was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained.

But then history is not always a good guide to the future and when matters came to a head, the countdown to a Taliban takeover was merely days long.

And while there will be considerable focus on what is to come and if Taliban 2.0 will prove any different from the rule they provided in the 1990s, the quick collapse of the security forces will also inspire reams of paper and words in the days to come.

The videos on social media of Taliban fighters roaming the palatial residences of the fleeing officials and giggling at the plush surroundings brought to mind the Khaldunian warriors who are able to vanquish a decaying society used to a comfortable life.

But there is far more to this story.

At one level, it is yet again a reminder of the failure of the state building project — the impossibility perhaps of outsiders coming in to build a state, especially its military and turn it into a professional fighting force.

It seemed that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the focus was on recruiting and training people but not on building institutions. Hence, corruption was endemic and career progression and accountability missing (the next time there is a story about the nonpayment of soldiers’ salaries, one needs to think about how and why the relevant government departments in Kabul were able to get away with this state of affairs for years).

Read: ‘Unfinished problem’: World leaders react to Taliban's reclaiming of Afghanistan

Partly, those training created forces dependent on their resources rather than what was possible indigenously — the US military developed a model in which its air support was a crucial factor for the Afghan forces. Hence as the widely read Wall Street Journal story on the quick collapse of the Afghan forces pointed out, once the American forces pulled out along with their airpower, the Afghan forces in far-off outposts could no longer hold on as supplies ran out. And this is one reason, says the story, the soldiers found it easier to surrender than to fight.

More importantly, institution-building was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained — deliberately or otherwise — by the international forces. For there was constant talk of low morale — an easy term to bandy about but a complex one to unpack. It is linked to all that a professional outfit brings — merit, a sense of purpose and identification (which is inculcated in the institution) and a relationship with society. All this was missing in Iraq when the US-trained military collapsed in the face of the IS assault, and now in Afghanistan. Consider this quote from a paper on the Iraq army: “If the hallmark of professionalism is trust, the Iraqi army in 2014 did not have it: the people did not trust it and its members did not trust each other.”

That the agreement between the Americans and the Afghan Taliban increased violence against government installations and the people was also a factor. This too took its toll on the people and the regime.

But not all the blame can be laid at the door of the outsiders.

Ashraf Ghani and others around him in Kabul didn’t do much to win over their countrymen. If the north, which had evaded Taliban influence the last time, fell quickly it was partly due to its troubled relations with Kabul. Just recently in Badakhshan, government troops fired on protesters demanding water and electricity, reported the Washington Post. In Mazar-i-Sharif, in 2017, a governor was fired by Ghani, a move which nearly led to an armed conflict between the local militias and federal troops.

The fault lines and fissures were multiple but the presence of the superpower had papered over all of it. Once the forces’ withdrawal was finalised, there was a widespread — inside Afghanistan as well as internationally — sense of the inevitability of a Taliban takeover. Perhaps this simply convinced or hastened everyone to give up the fight rather than opting for resistance.

Indeed, as time passes, more details will be filled in, not just as to what happened in the districts and cities as the Taliban swept across the country but also what the regional powers were up to. In the latter category, Pakistan, especially, will not escape censure. But the internal failings are and will be the storyline, not just a chapter or two.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021

'The Taliban will ban all art': An Afghan female filmmaker's plea

In an open letter, acclaimed director Sahraa Karimi has written of the brutal impact of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan on women, girls and artists.


Sahraa Karimi: appeal for help


"If the Taliban take over they will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list," Sahraa Karimi writes in an open appeal that was sent to global media organizations on August 13 and circulated on social media as the Taliban took control of major cities in Afghanistan and encircled the country's capital, Kabul.

The filmmaker is also documenting the situation on social media and has since posted on Facebook and Instagram different videos showing her fleeing to the Kabul airport, joining crowds of other Afghans as they scramble to reach the capital's last remaining exit.

The director of the award-nominated film Hava, Maryam, Ayesha (2019) is the only Afghan woman to have a PhD in cinema. Karimi is also the president of the state-run Afghan Film Organization.

A murderous takeover

In her letter, Karimi writes that the Taliban have "massacred our people" as they gained control over several provinces over the past weeks. Many children have been killed and girls sold as child brides to Taliban fighters, she writes; they murdered a woman for wearing the wrong clothes and gouged out the eyes of another.

"They tortured and murdered one of our beloved comedians," Karimi writes, referring to the killing of Nazar Mohammad, popularly known as Khasha Zwan, who was killed by unidentified gunmen in Kandahar last month.

Earlier this month, members of the militant group also killed poet and historian Abdullah Atefi in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.

The Taliban have been targeting activists, journalists and cultural figures who have been critical of its activities.

The country's top media official, Dawa Khan Menapal, was also murdered by Taliban gunmen in early August. In a statement accepting responsibility for the killing, the Taliban said Menapal was "punished" for his deeds.

Karimi mentions both the incidents in her letter to emphasize the danger that cultural figures face in the country.

'Meanwhile, residents in various cities that have been taken over by the Taliban are fleeing to camps. "The families are in camps in Kabul after fleeing these provinces, and they are in unsanitary condition. There is looting in the camps and babies dying because they don't have milk," Karimi writes, adding that apart from the political crisis, the country is also on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and "yet, the world is silent."

In a recent report, the UN has stated that "Afghanistan is on course to witness its highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since records began." About 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since the end of May, 80% of whom are children, according to the UN report.

The filmmaker also mentions that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, initiated by Donald Trump and pursued under the administration of his successor, Joe Biden, is to be blamed for the situation in Afghanistan today. "We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong, that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people and all that we did when Afghans won the Cold War for the west," Karimi writes, adding that the Afghan people were "forgotten" during the militant group's "dark rule" that began in 1996.

AFGHANS TRY TO FLEE AS TALIBAN TOPPLES GOVERNMENT
Desperate Afghans try to enter Kabul airport
Afghan families have been making increasingly desperate attempts to get into Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Many children are among the crowds trying to make a last ditch attempt to escape the Taliban who stormed the capital city.
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Girls forced out of school again

"When the Taliban were in power, zero girls were in school. Since then there are over 9 million Afghan girls in school. This is incredible. ... Herat, the third-largest city which just fell to the Taliban had nearly 50% women in its university. These are incredible gains that the world hardly knows about. Just in these few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and 2 million girls are forced now out of school again," Karimi writes.

During the first emirate that the Taliban established, in 1996, they executed a strict interpretation of Islamic law and established a moral police that forced men to grow beards and women to wear full-body burqas. Women who went unaccompanied to public places were beaten and schools for girls were shuttered. Music was also banned, aside of religious chants.
'A proxy war'

"If the Taliban take over Kabul, we may not have access to the internet or any communication tool at all," Karimi writes, adding that she will stay and fight for her country.

"This war is not a civil war, this is an imposed war, and it is the result of the US deal with the Taliban," she says, referring to the peace agreement that was brokered between the US, represented by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban's chief negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in February 2020.

Watch video 05:01 'Taliban 2.0 is exactly the same as the earlier version'

At the time, the US government, under Trump, said the country would withdraw all its troops within the next 14 months. Since then, unrest in the country has been growing, culminating in the present occupation of the country by Taliban militants.

In her letter, Karimi appeals to the world to "not turn its back on us. We need your support and your voice on behalf of Afghan women, children, artists, and filmmakers."

CIA’s turn to admit to its fiasco

Jawed Naqv i

Published August 17, 2021 - DAWN.COM

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in New Delhi.


AS far as the Afghan Taliban’s fanaticism is concerned, together with their overwhelming military superiority with their winning guerrilla tactics, there ought to be no surprises at the brigands’ return to Kabul with amazing ease. It is also not a huge surprise that the US spilled unimaginable quantities of blood and money in the 20 years of its occupation of the landlocked impoverished nation with precious little to show for it.

The savagery showcased the nature of the beast for both sides, one under the banner of democracy, the other openly tethered to religious and cultural atavism and, therefore, in this situation, less of a hypocrite. The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.

At the risk of annoying my liberal Pakistani friends, and Indians who have lost crucial listening posts in the erstwhile friendlier Afghanistan, the question needs to be asked: why this fret over barbarism when we can put up with the routine chopping of heads and hands in other countries, legally?

How was the demolishing of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban any worse than Turkey’s forcible conversion of a fabled church into a mosque? How was that different from the razing of a mediaeval mosque in India by a frenzied mob? When the acrimony and false pride surrounding the great tragedy fade away, history would search for the genesis and execution of the mindlessness.

The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.

The main personalities involved in the latest version of the Great Game — which better qualifies to be called the dirty game — were the KGB and the CIA. We know from the contrite revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, the senior KGB defector to the West, the Soviet side of the truer story. We could do with a CIA defector, why not, to Afghanistan itself to explain the inexplicable insanity that was not the agency’s first such enterprise.

When I visited Kabul in 1981 for a Dubai daily, I saw girls going to schools and women heading off to colleges and universities. One was aware that the rural regions in the story were built on a different foundation. Iran’s Islamic revolution also had its seeds in the greater control that the religious clergy had on the rural masses. It was mainly the underground communist groups led by the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party that provided the urban sinews for the revolution in Iran. In Afghanistan there was no similar bridge between the rural conservative masses and the left-leaning and liberal intellectual elite located in urban pockets.

Yet, the erstwhile conservative Afghans were an agreeable lot, relatively speaking. Sample the way the Soviet-backed government would pick them out from their lairs. One of the most popular method of arresting suspected Afghan mujahideen in droves was to raid cinema halls where everyone would be watching recently released Indian movies. The Soviet ambassador, probably a Tajik, was a burly man named Fikriat al Tabeev. Indian ambassador J.N. Dixit introduced us at a party thrown by some Eastern European embassy. I remember a flare would be shot into the sky for the Soviet ambassador to travel.

I met Sultan Kishtmand, the prime minister, and found him to be an enlightened communist who supported the rights of peasants, workers and women. Life was, however, difficult already with the support that the culturally regressive Muslim groups were getting from Pakistan, a conduit to a Western campaign to evict the Soviet presence from Afghanistan.

The Mitrokhin Archive has been an excellent source to correct the communist narrative one had impressionably accepted. But there is no matching account of the American story other than the dribble in the Western media and their global consumers that have justified the CIA’s blunders in Afghanistan.

A KGB report submitted to the Soviet politburo, On the Events in Afghanistan on 27 and 28 December 1979, was effectively designed to mislead the rest of the Soviet leadership about the harsh reality of the Afghan situation, admits Mitrokhin with the help of his co-author Christopher Andrew. Probably composed for “Brezhnev’s benefit, the report maintained the fiction that the assassination of Amin had been chiefly the work of the Afghans themselves rather than KGB special forces” says Mitrokhin.

“On the wave of patriotic feelings which had overcome fairly broad sections of the Afghan population following the introduction of Soviet troops which was carried out in strict accordance with the Soviet–Afghan treaty of 1978, the forces opposed to H. Amin carried out an armed attack during the night of 27 to 28 December which ended in the overthrow of the regime of H. Amin. This attack was widely supported by the working masses, the intelligentsia, a considerable part of the Afghan army and the state apparatus, which welcomed the establishment of the new leadership of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] and the PDPA [People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan].” It reads like any communist pamphlet, not dissimilar to the story Tabeev- and Kishtmand-fed journalists like me.

The reality was starkly different as Mitrokhin reveals. “Far from receiving widespread support from both working masses and intelligentsia, the Soviet invasion provoked immediate opposition. Demonstrations against the presence of Soviet troops began in Kandahar on 31 December.”

The KGB also gave the politburo an extraordinarily optimistic assessment of the prospects for the new Babrak Karmal government. He was “one of the best-trained leaders of the PDPA theoretically. He is able to take a sober and objective view of the situation in Afghanistan. He has always been noted for his sincere goodwill towards the Soviet Union and is held in great respect in the Party and throughout the country”. We know what happened to someone’s dream of sowing socialism in Afghanistan. And now we are compelled to remember the fall of Saigon as the Taliban entered Kabul on Aug 15.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in New Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021

To Afghans with nowhere to go

Abbas Nasir

Published August 15, 2021 

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

AS news organisations report on the rapid territorial gains by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a lot of debate around the issue focuses on power politics and very little on the impact a Taliban win will have on the lives of the Afghans.

Just a few weeks ahead of President Biden’s announcement, confirming his predecessor’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and then the dramatic, unannounced overnight pullout emptying the massive Bagram military base, I was watching a vlog.

It was by one of those vloggers who go travelling around the world on different airlines, rate and report on the carriers and the services they offer from check-in to inflight meals. Our particular vlogger happened to be in Kabul.

He reported he’d been invited to the Afghan capital by an airline to travel on an ‘all-woman crew’ return flight to the western city of Herat. Lo and behold, when he boarded the Boeing 737, a women cabin crew welcomed him aboard and not a single male crew member was present.

‘This means I am going to lose … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for.’

The crew members the vlogger talked to belonged to different parts of the country and had taken up their profession over the past decade or so. Each said they loved their work and the travel opportunities and the independence it provided them.

Then the vlogger entered the flight deck and both the captain and the first officer were women. The captain was an experienced Ukrainian and her deputy a young Afghan. They both talked of their passion, flying, and during the more relaxed phases of the flight discussed various aspects of their job.

Being the proud father of two daughters myself, my eyes turned misty when the first officer told the vlogger that flying was all she ever wanted to do and getting to live her dream was great but what was even better was that ‘young Afghan girls can see if I can do it, so can they,’ a little before she executed a perfect touchdown at Kabul airport.

Earlier this week, I watched UK’s Channel 4 News TV interview another Afghan woman, this particular one ran an NGO for young girls’ education in Kandahar, who described the Doha talks as “selling us out ... that was ‘let us go out, let the elite and the posh people get out, let us sell the people of Afghanistan, the civilians of Afghanistan’ … for us there is no way out”.

“This means I am going to lose my … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for, every girl has worked for, every person has worked for in the last 20 years. This means losing your houses, losing your dreams, your goals, your ambitions, your identity as Afghans. Everything.”

The brutal Channel 4 presenter, aware that the Taliban were already at the gates of Kandahar, from where the staggeringly articulate and inspirational young woman was answering his questions live, asked: “What are you going to do if there is a bang on the door?”

Her forlorn face answered the question better in the moment of silence that preceded her words. She heaved a huge sigh and said: “Pray. Pray, probably. It is going to be the last thing I am going to do but it is the only thing I can do. I don’t have anything else to do,” the presenter shifted awkwardly in his chair as he thanked the woman whose expression was no less than a stab in the heart.

So, yes while you read ‘analysis’ ie partisan accounts of who exactly is to blame for the Afghans’ dilemma today, spare a thought for the young airline pilot, for the equally brilliant young woman whose despair and desperation will haunt me for weeks on end. And countless others like them.

In pictures: The human cost of the Taliban's gains

Pakistan is concerned that it may be ‘scapegoated’ and left to shoulder the blame by itself, even isolated, for giving sanctuary to the Taliban leadership and fighters, as others, while they were being hunted down by US-led forces in Afghanistan. There is no escaping that blame.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The US forces arrived in Afghanistan to degrade and destroy Al Qaeda that had launched ‘spectacular’ terror attacks on the US mainland, striking at the corporate heart of the country and also at the core of its near-mythical, unchallenged military power.

The US spent a reported $1.5 trillion (I don’t know how many zeroes are in that, do you?) over the 20 years its forces were present on the ground and largely believes that Al Qaeda is no more the threat it once was.

The US hand was guided by its own security interests not concerns for the Afghan nation. It is that simple. No higher purpose, principles were involved. The Afghans were let down more than anyone else by their own elite, if you ask me.

Yes, Pakistan was duplicitous inasmuch as the Taliban were concerned owing to its own security concerns; the West was acting in self-interest too ie the security threat posed by the international terror group Al Qaeda even if it was born out of an earlier folly, the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’.

Read: 'No smoking, no shaving' — Taliban restore old rules in newly seized Afghan territory

What about the billions poured by the West into the Afghan defence forces? Just weeks before the Taliban advance began, the number of Afghan troops was put at 300,000. From the evidence on the ground the real number was one-tenth of the claimed figure, if that. It seemed largely a ghost force.

Of course, the West has more or less walked away and the Afghan elite, that siphoned off funds meant for bolstering the defence forces and meaningful structural reform, will be on planes out of the country before the final humiliation inflicted by the Taliban. The rest have nowhere to go.

My thoughts are with those Afghans today. Particularly women, so many of whom are demonstrably much worthier in intellectual terms than their male compatriots whose material greed and lust for power has left their country at the mercy of an armed, intolerant and obscurantist militant group.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2021