#WATER IS LIFE

Sparkling pools, empty taps: Cape Town's stark water divide




Four years after Cape Town nearly ran dry, water now flows liberally -- but not for everyone 

(AFP/RODGER BOSCH)

Jack DUTTON
Tue, March 15, 2022,

On Cape Town's beaches, swimmers shower off sand from their feet. Irrigation pipes water the region's famed vineyards. And Shadrack Mogress fumes as he fills a barrel with water so he can flush his toilet.

It's been four years since South Africa's tourist capital nearly ran dry, during a drought that left the city limping towards a "Day Zero" when all the pipes would empty.

Now water flows liberally -- but not for everyone.

South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, with race playing a determining factor, a World Bank report said last week.

The taps at Mogress's house in the township of Khayelitsha run only intermittently, and rarely with full pressure.

So at 56 years old, he wakes up early to fill up a barrel while the water is running, so that his household of six can drink and wash all day.

“We also need to take from that water to use the toilet, which is an insult at the end of the day," Mogress said.

“We have toilets here. We have showers here. We cannot use those," he said. "Our children go to school in the morning at about 6:00 a.m. Sometimes there's no water at that time.”

Mogress said he contacted city officials several times about the issues but has not heard back.

“We're sitting within the middle of a pandemic here, and we do not even have water to wash our hands,” he said.

City trucks that deliver water to the community are unreliable, Sandile Zatu, a 45-year-old resident said.

"We have no choice but to wake up in the morning and try to fill our bucket as much as possible," he added.

Ironically, Covid brought better water supplies to some areas of Cape Town under the state of disaster that empowered lockdown measures 

(AFP/RODGER BOSCH)

- Worse than ‘Day Zero’ -

During the drought, city-wide efforts to save water created a sense of shared purpose. Everyone avoided flushing toilets, gave up on watering plants, and let their cars sit dirty for months.

"At that time, we knew that we were sitting with a problem," Mogress said. "But it is actually worse, because we do have water and we know that."

Swimming pools in Cape Town's posh suburbs do have water, but the city estimates that about 31 neighbourhoods have no access to clean water.

That includes sprawling districts filled with shacks, but also working-class neighbourhoods.

Ironically, Covid brought better water supplies to some areas.

The state of disaster that empowered lockdown measures also allowed authorities to deliver more water to encourage better washing.

If the state of disaster is called off, the city will lose funding to deliver water, city water official Zahid Badroodien said.

- Future droughts -

Badroodien said the city was investing millions of rand in the aging water infrastructure, adding that a Day Zero was "inevitable".

But it is harder for the city to provide reliable water services in some areas due to "funding being tied up in existing projects to try and establish services in existing communities."

"At the same time, the safety of our officials becomes an issue in these areas, where I know for a fact that our tankers have been hijacked, our officials have been hijacked, they've been held up at gunpoint," he said.

Jo Barnes, a water expert at Stellenbosch University, said the city has shown poor planning for future droughts.

"To not plan for the next drought -- which may be around the corner -- sounds like managerial suicide to me," she said.

"We're getting more and more people, and we have the same volume of water. So, unless we do something magic, we're going to run into the same problem again."

str-vid/gs/kjm

Little oxygen and low pay: Venezuela's risky world of small-scale mining




A miner in Lobatera, a town in the Venezuelan Andes where 50 small-scale mines are run by 22 cooperatives 

(AFP/Jhonny PARRA)


Mon, March 14, 2022, 

Henry Alviarez says he began small-scale coal mining in Venezuela's western Tachira state out of "necessity" due to the country's ongoing economic crisis which has deepened during the coronavirus pandemic.

He leaves home early in the morning on motorbike for the 45-minute journey to the Los Parra mine in Lobatera, near the border with Colombia.

The Andean town has 50 small-scale mines run by 22 cooperatives, each made up of eight to 10 workers who earn no more than $120 a month.

From Lobatera, the mined coal is moved via clandestine routes over the border to Colombia or the neighboring Merida state to be used primarily for generating electricity.


The lack of oxygen deep inside the mines and little emergency equipment, makes for precarious and "exhausting" work conditions, says Alviarez.

"There are many blacksmiths and mechanics here but we cannot work in those" professions, he adds, citing the unprecedented economic crisis that has plunged Venezuela into an eight-year recession and four years of hyperinflation.

Bare-chested, pickaxe in hand, and helmet with a torch on his head, Alviarez quickly becomes covered in a mixture of sweat and black streaks.

He tries in vain to wipe off the coal marks with a green cloth.

All three of his children have left the country, one each to Chile, Colombia and Ecuador.

"Thank goodness they've left," he said, adding that their only options in Lobatera would have been to join him in the mines.

"Who would want to work here?"

Around 500 families rely on the Lobatera mines, which are located in a mountainous area only accessible by dirt roads.

Temperatures in the area can soar, with the mining pit often the only shelter from the sun.

"It's a pretty risky job because we have to use a lot of wood" to hold up the tunnels "and pray to God," said Jose Alberto Trejo, 38, who used to work in construction before subsequently finding employment in Colombian mines due to the lack of job opportunities.

- Fears of being 'left out' -

On average, each miner in Los Parra can extract one ton a day, although there is no reliable data on the total production from the 50 mines in Lobatera.

"The price of coal is low and has fallen over the years, which makes it tougher to work these days," said Pablo Jose Vivas, 61.

The miners take their hauls to the mine director who sells it on for $50 a ton.

The profits are shared out between the members of the cooperative.

Vivas, who has worked in mining for more than 20 years, picks up a piece of mined rock and holds it between his blackened fingers.

The rock shines in the torchlight that gives it a purple hue, like a precious stone.

The miners work in teams. One smashes the rocks with a pickaxe, another fills the wheelbarrow and a third carts it out of the mine.

Outside, several small piles of coal await the arrival of a truck.

Tachira governor Freddy Bernal, a loyalist of President Nicolas Maduro, is hoping to encourage foreign investment in Lobatera from Venezuela's allies Russia, China or even India.

"That would generate many jobs and a significant economic impact," he said, adding that it would ensure families who have subsisted on mining for more than 40 years would not be left destitute.

But the miners are far from convinced.

"That would end the basic job because they would arrive with new technologies that we don't know how to use," said Vivas.

"Many of us would be left out."

str-jt/mbj/yow/bc/des

Chad hands over former CAR militia leader to ICC

His arrest warrant was issued in 2018.

In Summary

• The ICC said Mr Mokom, 43, is suspected of being responsible for extermination, forcible transfer of population, torture, mutilation and enlistment of child soldiers among other crimes.

• The Hague-based court said Mr Mokom appearance before a pre-trial chamber will take place in due course, according to a statement.

The Seleka rule birthed a rival rebel movement
Image: AFP

The authorities in Chad have handed over former Central African Republic (CAR) militia leader to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom was the leader of an anti-Balaka militia and is suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 2013 and 2014.

His arrest warrant was issued in 2018.

The ICC said Mr Mokom, 43, is suspected of being responsible for extermination, forcible transfer of population, torture, mutilation and enlistment of child soldiers among other crimes.

The Hague-based court said Mr Mokom appearance before a pre-trial chamber will take place in due course, according to a statement.

Violence in CAR started in March 2013 after Muslim rebels, known as Seleka, seized power. Their rule made the Christian rebels to form the opposing anti-Balaka militias.

Thousands were killed and at least a million people displaced in CAR since 2013, according to the UN.

Several leaders from both rebel groups were arrested for crimes committed against civilians.

Chadian soldiers acted as peacekeepers in CAR after the 2013 violence but withdrew after they were accused of siding with the Muslim rebels.

Viral photo changes Brazil trash-pickers' lives


Gabriel Silva finds a Christmas tree in a dump in Pinheiro, Brazil, on November 8, 2021. (AFP/Joao Paulo Guimaraes) 

Mon, March 14, 2022, 

A holiday story that emerged from an unlikely place took a heartwarming turn when Gabriel Silva, a Brazilian boy photographed pulling a Christmas tree from a garbage dump, managed to help buy his family a house.

The story began in the weeks before Christmas last year, when AFP photojournalist Joao Paulo Guimaraes captured a picture of Silva, then 12, pulling a small plastic Christmas tree from a fetid mountain of trash swarmed by vultures and impoverished trash-pickers in the town of Pinheiro, in northeastern Brazil.

The photograph went viral, and Silva and his family soon started receiving a flood of donations from people moved by their struggle to survive at the illegal garbage dump, a symbol of the poverty in which millions of Brazilians live.

First came a real Christmas tree, then a bicycle, then money -- eventually enough for Silva, his mother and three siblings to leave their dirt-floor hut and buy a brick house.

"I'm so happy to have this house. We didn't used to have one, we lived in a little mud hut with nothing. Now I have a good house," said Silva, now 13, who helps his mother collect recyclable materials at the dump most days after school.

"I never imagined all this would happen because of that picture."

The house, which the family purchased several weeks ago and is still completing, has three bedrooms, a kitchen and a garage.

"It has electricity, running water and a bathroom with a shower," said Silva's mother, Maria Francisca Silva, 45.

"We used to have to walk a long way to get water."

More than 2,000 people contributed to an online collection to help the Silvas, raising around 80,000 reais ($16,000) as of January.

The house cost 49,000 reais, she said.

"All that's left to do is tile the floors and buy some furniture," she said.

More than 24 percent of Brazil's 213 million people live in poverty, according to the national statistics institute.

mls-msi/jhb/mdl

Activists briefly seize London mansion linked to Oleg Deripaska

Activists in London briefly seized a multimillion-dollar mansion linked to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch subject to sanctions, saying they want to use it to house refugees fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine.

© Provided by Al Jazeera A group of squatters display banners and a Ukrainian flag on the facade of a mansion supposedly belonging to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Belgrave Square, central London [Tolga Akmen / AFP]

The group broke into the property at 5 Belgrave Square – one of the most exclusive addresses in the centre of the United Kingdom’s capital – and hung the Ukrainian flag outside alongside banners, one of which read: “This property has been liberated.”

Police, who were called out in the early hours of Monday, arrived and set up a cordon before later using a drill to break open the front door and a crane to access the balcony. Four people who had gained entry to the building’s balcony “have come down and been arrested”, police said, adding that they would maintain a presence after ending the protest.

Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from outside the mansion, said the protesters were unhappy with the UK government’s efforts to help those escaping the war in Ukraine.

“The group that took over the seven-bedroom property said they want to give it over to Ukrainian refugees,” Gallego said.

“They also criticised the government for not doing enough to help people fleeing the war and they say the UK government is doing more to protect the interest of those oligarchs,” she added.

One of those inside the mansion told AFP news agency earlier by telephone: “We are a property liberation front. That’s what we do. It’s not really squatting, it’s liberating.”

Another said: “Our intention is to use it to house [Ukrainian] refugees.”

The activists criticised the length of time it could take to implement British sanctions against those identified by the government as being part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

“They say it might take up to six months to seize their property. Come on, it’s ridiculous,” one said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said on Monday that “we are working to identify the appropriate use for seized property while owners are subject to sanctions.”

In 2007, a High Court judgement said Deripaska “beneficially owns” the house in the upmarket Belgravia area, near Hyde Park and Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace.

But he is not listed on UK Land Registry records.

Instead, the owners are listed as Ravellot Limited, based in the British Virgin Islands, managed by Graham Bonham Carter.

On March 4, the UK’s National Crime Agency said it had secured two account-freezing orders for five bank accounts held by Bonham Carter, a British businessman.

“The orders were obtained on the basis that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the money in the accounts was derived from the laundering of funds of an individual subject to sanctions in the United States, namely Oleg Deripaska,” it added in a statement.

“The accounts contain funds of a value totalling approximately £110,000 ($144,000).”

Deripaska was last week hit with an assets freeze and travel ban alongside six other Russian billionaires, including his former business associate and owner of the Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich.

The US Treasury designated him in 2018 as part of moves against a number of Russian oligarchs and the companies they own or control, Russian officials, and businesses.

In France, three men were questioned by police on Monday after they broke into a villa owned by Putin’s former son-in-law and unfurled a Ukrainian flag in the southern French city of Biarritz.

A YouTube video showed one of those arrested waving a Ukrainian flag from one of the villa’s balconies.

A message read, “The house of the people is ready to host refugees from the Putin regime.”

The three were questioned then released with a warning.

Peru's congress votes to debate presidential impeachment


Issued on: 14/03/2022 

Rural schoolteacher Pedro Castillo has been embroiled in numerous crises since assuming office in July 2021

NONE OF HIS OWN MAKING 

ALDAIR MEJIA Presidencia de Perú/AFP/File

Lima (AFP) – Peru's opposition-dominated congress on Monday voted in favor of a motion to debate whether or not to impeach leftist President Pedro Castillo.

It is already the second time Castillo, a former rural school teacher, has faced such a vote in just seven months in office.

Similar moves resulted in former presidents Pablo Kuczynski (in 2018) and Martin Vizcarra (2020) leaving office.

"The motion (to debate) was admitted," said Congress president Maria del Carmen Alva, an opposition legislator.

The motion was passed by 76 votes for, with 41 against and one abstention.

The debate could take place as early as Friday.

In December, Congress voted against opening an impeachment process.

The latest motion was presented by 50 legislators from right wing parties Popular Renovation, Country Advances and Popular Force, with support from other groups.

The opposition accuses Castillo of "moral incapacity" but will have a hard job securing the 87 out of 130 votes needed to remove him from office.

"The president must immediately explain to the country his repeated misconduct," said conservative legislator Jorge Montoya, a retired general.

Waldemar Cerron, from Castillo's Free Peru party, said Congress was "wasting time" with these debates.

Free Peru has 37 legislators and could almost block the motion on its own.

Castillo, 52, has been hurt by corruption scandals among his inner circle and his rejection rating is at 66 percent, although that is not as bad as the 70 percent rejection rating of Congress, according to pollsters Ipsos.

The opposition also accuses Castillo of "treason" for saying he was open to a referendum on allowing landlocked neighbor Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean.

"The treason accusation makes no sense. They are trying to find any way possible to topple the Castillo government," said political scientist Fernando Tuesta.

"They don't have enough votes to force him out, there aren't even any street protests demanding that he quit."

Castillo has received support from fellow leftist governments in Latin America while the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticized the charge of "moral incapacity" saying that there was "no objective definition" of it.

This is the sixth time since 2017 that Peru's congress has filed a motion to impeach a sitting president.

Kuczynski resigned in 2018 before he could be impeached, while Vizcarra's removal in 2020 sparked street protests and a spell of three different presidents in just five days.

The security forces response to the protests left two dead and hundreds injured.

Castillo has faced a number of different crises since assuming power in July 2021 and has had to change his cabinet three times already.

© 2022 AFP

Riots in Corsica over jailed nationalist leave dozens injured




Clashes on Corsica have left dozens of demonstrators and police injured 

(AFP/Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

Maureen COFFLARD
Mon, March 14, 2022

The French government called for calm on Monday after fierce clashes left dozens of demonstrators and police injured on the island of Corsica, where anger over the assault in prison of a nationalist figure has reached boiling point.

Police reported 67 people injured during protests on Sunday, including 44 police, following scenes that onlookers described as akin to urban guerrilla war.

"The overnight scenes were extremely violent," the chief prosecutor in the north Corsican town of Bastia, Arnaud Viornery, told AFP.

Police had to deal with a "quasi-insurrectional" situation, according to a statement by their union, SG Police.

Yvan Colonna is serving a life sentence for the assassination in 1998 of the top state official in Corsica, Claude Erignac.

He has been in a coma since being beaten on March 2 in jail by a fellow detainee, a convicted jihadist.

The incident stoked anger on the island, where some see Colonna as a hero in a fight for independence from France.

He was arrested in 2003 after a five-year manhunt that eventually found him living as a shepherd in the Corsican mountains.

Demonstrations and riots have been ongoing since the prison attack, which protesters blame on the French government.

"French government murderers", read placards at Sunday's demonstrations. An estimated crowd of between 7,000 and 12,000 people took to the streets.

Colonna was jailed in the south of France. He is classed as a special status detainee which prevents him from being transferred to a Corsican jail.

In response to the unrest, Prime Minister Jean Castex has removed this status for Colonna and two other convicts, but this has failed to placate their supporters.

Hundreds of masked demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks against police, who fired teargas and water cannon.


Corsica: Police and protestors clash in Bastia 

(AFP/Elise BRETAUD, Fabien NOVIAL)

Clashes broke out in the afternoon and lasted late into the evening.

Prosecutor Viornery said protesters were using homemade explosive devices filled with gunpowder, lead or nails.

Police ordered people to stay indoors in Bastia where protesters set the tax office on fire with incendiary devices and damaged the inside of the main post office.

On Monday, Bastia was calm, with no visible damage done to shops, according to AFP reporters.

- Anger and indignation -

Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte and one of the Mediterranean's largest islands, has been French since the 18th Century.

It is known as the "Island of Beauty" for its unspoiled coastlines, spectacular beaches and mild climate, which have made tourism its main source of income.

But there have also been constant tensions between independence-seeking nationalists and the central government as well as murders between the island's political factions.

"There is an expression of anger and indignation," Gilles Simeoni, Colonna's former lawyer and a pro-independence politician, said on Sunday.

"The entire Corsican people has been mobilised to protest against injustice and in favour of truth and a real political solution."

Piles of trash burned in the streets in Ajaccio in recent riots

 (AFP/Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA)

One demonstrator at Sunday's protest, Antoine Negretti, said, "Any violence will be the fault of the French government."

Seven years of negotiations had yielded no result, the 29-year-old said. "But things have changed thanks to seven days of violence. Violence is necessary."

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday he will travel to Corsica on Wednesday for a two-day visit, seeking to "open a cycle of discussions" with all political forces on the island.

He condemned the recent violence and called "for an immediate return to calm".

An Ifop poll published Sunday in the local Corse-Matin newspaper found that 53 percent of those questioned favoured a degree of autonomy for Corsica, with 35 percent favouring the island's outright independence from France.

mc-jp-jh/sjw/rlp

'I asked for French citizenship so that I could vote, too,' says Algeria-born musician

Aude MAZOUE 


Mohand Boughalem became a citizen of France only months ago, in December. Poised to savour the opportunity to vote in his first French presidential election in April, the Algeria native had applied precisely for that privilege and to get involved, fully and completely, in French democratic life.

© Association L'oreille presque parfaite

"I had already voted in Algeria, but it isn't the same. An election there is a foregone conclusion because, let's be honest, it's a dictatorship," the Marseille-based fifty-something with greying curls told FRANCE 24. "French democracy isn't perfect but we can demonstrate and join a party without being afraid."

When he settled in France in 2000, fleeing a bloody decade of conflict between the army and Islamists in Algeria that saw as many as 200,000 killed through the 1990s, Boughalem wasn't especially seeking to become French. The politically engaged artist had attracted troublesome attention on the other side of the Mediterranean and was looking above all for stability, a safe haven and a job. "At that time, since I wasn't managing to get my physical education and sports teaching degree recognised as equivalent here, I decided to earn my living from my passion, music," the ever-smiling Boughalem recounted.

Now a professor of stringed instruments, Boughalem is also finally fully engaged in the political and community work in his city. "Before, I was only participating in meetings and political debates. I felt that I needed to go further in my political engagement," he explained. "So I asked for French citizenship so that I could vote, too."

The Covid-19 pandemic also played an important part in Boughalem's reasoning. "It became clear with Covid-19 that we could be deprived of certain liberties. I'm not against the vaccine. But I think we should remain free to choose whether we get vaccinated or not. Restrictions on freedoms and the health pass accentuated my longing to participate in the democratic life of this country," he explained.

Determined to properly carry out his new duty as a French citizen, Boughalem has been poring over the candidates' platforms. "I follow politics closely. I read the newspapers, I watch reports on the candidates and listen to the analysis on the radio. Actually, politics and the presidential election are a big topic of conversation at work, at the café, with family," he said.

And yet Boughalem, whose political sympathies lie to the left, admitted that he has yet to decide who will get his vote in the first round on April 10. "There are things that I like a lot about (far-leftist Jean-Luc) Mélenchon, but not everything, either," the professor said, before adding he was also thinking about Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo and, before she failed to make the official presidential ballot, independent leftist Christiane Taubira. The profusion of left-wing options for Boughalem's first presidential vote is, to be sure, dizzying. He wants to take his time narrowing down the choices before casting his maiden French ballot. "I think I'll decide a week before the first round. At that point, I should be seeing things more clearly," he concluded.

This is the second installment in a FRANCE 24 series on first-time voters ahead of the 2022 French presidential election. The first is available here. This article has been translated from the original in French.

Ukraine war: Why the West cannot afford to ignore Afghanistan

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is no longer a priority for Western powers, as they are busy dealing with the Ukraine war. The situation could allow transnational terrorist groups to regroup in Afghanistan.



The Taliban could look toward 'non-state actors' for financial help

The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan was dubbed a monumental security challenge for the international community. A humanitarian crisis ensued, with millions of Afghans plunged into poverty, and the country's economy began to collapse.

Major world powers scrambled to tackle the situation, and efforts were made to ensure Afghanistan's stability and put pressure on the country's new Islamic fundamentalist rulers.

Seven months later, Afghanistan is no longer a main concern for Western powers, as they shift their focus to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Observers say the Taliban see it as an opportunity to implement their hard-line policies in the country, knowing that the international community is "busy elsewhere."

Regrouping of militants

Tamim Asey, the executive chairman of Kabul's Institute of War and Peace Studies and a visiting research fellow at King's College London, told DW that he believes "a lack of international interest" in Afghanistan's crisis could pave the way for terror groups and criminal networks to regather and regain strength.

"Unfortunately, Afghanistan has taken a backseat. This will push Afghanistan further into turmoil and will provide an opportunity for transnational criminal networks to recover," he told DW.

Few in the West see an immediate security threat emanating from Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban are seeking to gain international recognition and financial aid and have been more inclined toward a "diplomatic" approach than employing violent tactics.

But experts say this superficial calm may not last for long.

"History tells us that humanitarian crises could lead to violent conflicts. It is easier for terrorist groups to operate in a country that is facing economic turmoil. Afghanistan is no exception," Shamroz Khan Masjidi, an Afghan political analyst, told DW.

Aggravating humanitarian crisis

If the humanitarian crisis is aggravated in Afghanistan, even the Taliban won't be able to manage the situation, as evidenced by recent violent attacks by the Islamic State group.

Salahuddin Ludin, a political expert in Afghanistan, told DW that life has become "extremely difficult" for most Afghans.

"International aid organizations have left the country. The Taliban are unable to pay the wages to government employees. The public health care sector is in a disarray," he pointed out.

Apart from the suffering of the rural population, even Afghans based in cities are finding it impossible to make ends meet.

Ludin said many Afghans had put their savings in bank accounts: "Now, they cannot access them. Afghan businessmen, for instance, cannot make international transfers, which has resulted in high commodity prices in the country."

The Taliban have been demanding that the United States release Afghanistan's frozen assets so that they can tackle the worsening economic crisis. Washington has refused to hand over the money to them, which means that Afghanistan's Islamist rulers could look for "financial aid" from "non-state actors," say experts.

Watch video 02:49 Taliban faces security challenge from 'Islamic State'

A forgotten crisis?

Sardar Mohammad Rahman Ughelli, Afghanistan's former ambassador to Ukraine, says the world is already "forgetting" about the Afghanistan crisis.

"Even the international media is not covering the crisis in Afghanistan," he said, adding that the Taliban are now free to implement their regressive policies in the country.

Some observers say the current situation is disturbingly similar to the geopolitical scenario in the late 1990s. The Taliban seized power in 1996, but the international community did not fully grasp the potential consequences of the new paradigm.

Away from the global spotlight — and with a lack of world interest in Afghan affairs — the country became a hub of local and international militant groups.

"The Taliban have ties with international terrorists. Their return to power has emboldened jihadi organizations in the region. As they consolidate themselves, their tactical and strategic ties with terrorism financiers and sponsors will grow and will eventually jeopardize peace and security in the region and beyond," Farid Amiri, a former Afghan government official, told DW.

Tariq Farhadi, an adviser to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, agrees with this view. "The international community forgot about Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 during the Taliban's first regime. It is possible that it will be forgotten again," he added.

The longer the Taliban stay in power, Amiri said, the more difficult will it get to maintain stability in the region.

"Regional powers will start supporting proxies to keep the violence within Afghanistan's boundaries. But it will only be a short-term solution to the Afghan conflict," Amiri said

Watch video 01:42 Heroin use in Afghanistan rising since Taliban takeover

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

STILL COLONIES

Britain's Privy Council upholds Bermuda gay marriage ban

Self-governing Bermuda has departed from broad Western trends towards marriage equality (AFP/YASUYOSHI CHIBA) (YASUYOSHI CHIBA)Mon, March 14, 2022, 

A British tribunal upheld a ban on gay marriage in Bermuda Monday, in a departure from Western trends towards equality and a blow to campaigners in one of the colonial power's few remaining overseas territories.

The Privy Council in London, which is the last court of appeal for some British territories, sided with the Bermuda government, which has been fighting to keep its Supreme Court from enshrining marriage equality in the self-governing archipelago.

"To my fellow LGBTQ+ Bermudians, I wish to say to you what I also need to hear at this moment: you matter. Your hurt matters. You deserve better than this," said Roderick Ferguson, the lead co-plaintiff in the case.

"The Bermuda Government's crusade against same-sex marriage was waged to convince you that there's something shameful about your sexuality. Don't believe that tired old lie."

Marriage equality was legalised in Britain in 2014, and self-governing Bermuda's Supreme Court followed three years later.

But months afterward, the governing Progressive Labour Party voted to overturn that ruling, in an unusual turnabout against prevailing Western norms legalising marriage equality.

Instead it approved the Domestic Partnership Act, which replaced the right to marriage with the ability to form same-sex partnerships.

The move was supported by the island's many socially conservative churches, but caused an outcry among progressive Bermudians who felt that the decision would tarnish the reputation of what had been a popular destination for both tourism and the reinsurance industry.

It also raised questions over the status of couples who had married in the intervening months.

Campaigners took the Domestic Partnerships Act back to the island's Supreme Court as well as its the Court of Appeals, both of which sided against the government.

The island's attorney general then took it to the Privy Council, which dismissed the earlier courts' rulings and upheld the government's ban.

"The Board will humbly advise Her Majesty that the Attorney General's appeal should be allowed and the cross-appeal by the respondents should be dismissed," it said in its ruling.

Bermuda conducted a referendum on same-sex marriage in June 2016.

A majority of those voting opposed both same-sex marriages and same-sex civil unions, but since fewer than half of eligible voters took part, the results were deemed invalid.

In 2019, as the marriage equality row rumbled on, Bermuda held its first ever Pride parade -- and campaigners were taken aback by the outpouring of support they received from Bermudians of all races and ages.

"We discovered for the first time, the magnitude of our support on the island," Ferguson told AFP. "No ruling will ever overturn that."

st/des

British appeals court blocks same-sex marriage for Bermuda, Cayman Islands
By Adam Schrader

The pride flag flies next to European flags in front of European

 council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, in May 2017. 

File Photo by Olivier Hoslet/EPA

March 14 (UPI) -- A top appeals court in Britain on Monday blocked same-sex marriage in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands after siding with the governments of the two self-governing overseas territories in two landmark rulings.

The Cayman Islands case stems from two women, Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden Bush, who were refused an application to marry in 2018 because local marriage law defined marriage as "the union between a man and a woman as husband and wife," according to court documents.

Day and Bush successfully sued the government in a case heard before Chief Justice Anthony Smellie on the grounds that the marriage law conflicted with the Cayman Islands Constitution.

The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands found that the law violated the rights of Day and Bush to private and family life and their freedoms including the freedom to manifest their belief in marriage, according to court documents. The Grand Court then modified the marriage law to define "marriage" as "the union between two people as one another's spouses."

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However, the case was successfully appealed by the government to the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands, which ruled that the right to marriage under the constitution did not extend to same-sex couples but that Day and Bush were entitled to legal protection functionally equivalent to marriage.

Bush and Day then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, which serves as the final appeals court for Bermuda and the Cayman Islands despite the fact they are administered as their own nations.

However, the couple could still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

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"The right to marry in section 14(1) of the Bill of Rights has been drafted in highly specific terms to make it clear that it is a right "freely to marry a person of the opposite sex,'" the Privy Council wrote in its unanimous judgment.

"It is obvious that this language has been used to emphasize the limited ambit of the right and to ensure that it could not be read as capable of covering same-sex marriage."

The Privy Council ruled that the interpretations of other stipulations in the Constitution cannot circumvent the explicit limit on marriage established in the Bill of Rights.

However, the Privy Council noted that its interpretation of the Bill of Rights in the judgment does not prevent the legislative assembly in the Cayman Islands from passing laws that recognize same-sex marriage.

"The effect of the interpretation endorsed by the Board is that this is a matter for the choice of the Legislative Assembly rather than a right laid down in the Constitution," the Privy Council wrote in its judgment.

The Bermuda case came after the Bermudian Parliament passed a law in 2018 voiding same-sex marriages but allowing for same-sex couples to enter domestic partnerships, according to court documents.

The law was challenged to the Supreme Court of Bermuda by a series of people affected by it, including a Bermudian LGBTQ+ charity on the grounds that the provision revoking same-sex marriage went against the constitution of Bermuda.

The Supreme Court ruled that the provision did contradict the Bermudian constitution but case was appealed by the attorney general to the Court of Appeal of Bermuda, which upheld most of the Supreme Court's ruling.

The attorney general then appealed the case to the Privy Council, which struck down the rulings of the two lower courts in a 4-1 decision with Lord Phillip Sales dissenting.

The Bermuda case largely revolved around the religious belief in the right to same-sex marriage, with the Privy Council ruling that the legislation does not prevent people from holding such a belief but that the government is not required to provide for such a legal right under existing law.

"[The law] does not prevent a church or other religious body from carrying out a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple and giving recognition to such a marriage as a matter of religious practice within their faith community," the Privy Council wrote.

"The protection of a 'practice' does not extend to a requirement that the state give legal recognition to a marriage celebrated in accordance with that practice."

The Privy Council then made a series of comparisons, including that "the protection of a belief in the right to life does not compel the state to ban all forms of abortion ... just as the protection of a belief in communism does not require the state to adopt a particular form of government."

"In making those comparisons, the Board does not seek to diminish or understate the importance of marriage as a fundamental social institution or the value of social recognition of committed and loving relationships," the judges wrote.

Ben Tonner, an attorney for the couple in the Cayman Islands case, told the Cayman Compass that they are "extremely disappointed with the Privy Council's judgment issued earlier today."

"Were it not for their courage in standing up for their rights, and the rights of many others, there would still be no legal framework for the recognition of same-sex couples in the Cayman Islands [allowed under the Civil Partnership Act]," Tonner said.

"Their strength and bravery throughout these proceedings has been truly inspirational."