US sends Patriots to Slovakia so Ukraine can get its anti-aircraft system: Pentagon

The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the U.S. assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine's efforts to resist.

U.S. sending Patriot system to backfill Slovakia

After repeated pleas from Ukraine for help defending itself against Russian air strikes, Slovakia is sending its sole S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine, it announced Friday, and at the same time, the U.S. announced it is moving one of its Patriot missile batteries to Slovakia to replace it.


© Costas Metaxakis/AFP via Getty Images

In this file photo taken on Dec. 13, 2013, an S-300 PMU-1 anti-aircraft missile launches during a Greek army military exercise near Chania on the island of Crete.

"At my direction, and at the invitation of Slovakia, U.S. European Command will reposition one Patriot missile system, manned by U.S. service members, to Slovakia," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement Friday. "Their deployment length has not yet been fixed, as we continue to consult with the Slovakian government about more permanent air defense solutions."

There has been talk of such an arrangement since last month when Slovakian defense minister Jaroslav Nad’ said his country was ready to deliver its Soviet-era S-300 to Ukraine on condition Slovakia's air-defense capability be immediately backfilled.

"Should there be situation that we have a proper replacement or that we have a capability guaranteed for a certain period of time, then we will be willing to discuss the future of S-300 system," Slovakia's Prime Minister Eduard Heger said in a joint press conference with Austin on March 17.

A U.S. military Patriot battery based in Germany was pre-positioned in Poland for this purpose, and that system will soon be moving to from Poland to Slovakia to replace its S-300, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

The Slovak military has previously said it had about 45 missiles for its S-300 system.

US 'not buying' Russia's denial of hitting railway station


© Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images

Calcinated cars are pictured outside a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that was being used for civilian evacuations, after it was hit by a rocket attack killing at least 35 people, on April 8, 2022.

The Pentagon is "not buying" Russia's denial of responsibility, a senior U.S. defense official said.

"They originally claimed a successful strike and then only retracted it when there were reports of civilian casualties," the official said. "It's our full expectation that this was a Russian strike -- we believe they used a short range ballistic missile, an SS-21."

Why might the Russians have targeted it?

The official said the station is a major rail hub in a "very strategic location," just south of the key city of Izyum.MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: Kremlin reacts to attack on Kramatorsk railway station

"And we've been talking now for days and days about how Izyum was so important to them because it lies almost in the middle of the Donbas," the official said.

Russian units 'eradicated'

Some of the Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) that have withdrawn back across the Belarusian and Russian borders have been essentially gutted from hard fighting in Ukraine, according to the senior defense official.



"We've seen indications of some units that are literally, for all intents and purposes, eradicated. There's just nothing left of the BTG except a handful of troops and maybe a small number of vehicles," the official said.

In terms of total losses -- counting troops, tanks, aircraft and missile inventory – Russia has lost between 15-20% of the combat power it originally had arrayed against Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, according to the official.

Russia hoping to recruit 60,000 new troops

Some of the Russian forces withdrawn from around Kyiv and elsewhere are now heading to the Russian cities of Belgorod and Valuyki, to the northwest of Donbas. But there are "no indications" that fresh troops are waiting there to join them.

For now, degraded Russian BTGs, usually made up of roughly 800-1,000 troops, are "exploring the option of" consolidating, banding together remaining forces and supplies to form new units.

"It's really going to depend on the unit and how ready they are to get back into the fight, but we don't believe that in general this is going to be a speedy process for them given the kinds of casualties they've taken and the kind of damage that they've sustained to their to their units' readiness," the official said.

Russia is also aiming to recruit upwards of 60,000 new troops, according to the official.


© Felipe Dana/APA Ukrainian soldier stands amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.

"They hope to get reinforced by new conscripts -- there's a whole new conscription schedule coming up here in May," the official said, adding that Russian conscripts serve for one year.MORE: Russia fully withdraws from Kyiv region, Ukrainians get drone training in US: Pentagon update Day 42

"It remains to be seen how successful they'll be on this, and where those reinforcements would go, how much training they would get," the official said.

Additionally, the U.S. sees indications Russia has begun mobilizing reservists.

After Russian BTGs rebuild, "the most likely course of action would be for them to move immediately south right into the Donbas," the official said.

The Pentagon estimates more than 40 Russian BTGs are already positioned in or near the Donbas region. The estimate was "more than 30" on Wednesday, meaning up to 10,000 more troops have arrived in recent days.

ABC News' Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

‘We’re sending S-300 SAMs to the citizens of Ukraine’ – Slovakia

By Boyko Nikolov On Apr 8, 2022

BRATISLAVA, ($1=0.92 Euros) — Slovakia is sending its S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine and “its innocent citizens, believing that this system will help save the lives of as many innocent Ukrainians as possible,” Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger wrote in a Facebook post.

Photo credit: TASS

• Germany sends to Ukraine ex-East German IFVs based on Soviet BMP-1
• German Strela-2 MANPADS for Ukraine had cracks in the fuel charge
• Cyprus might send Mi-35 helos, T-80 tanks, TOR or BUK SAMs to Ukraine

BulgarianMilitary.com recalls that on March 20, Slovakia received Patriot systems from NATO members Germany and the Netherlands, which were deployed in Slovakia to strengthen the country’s air defense. Slovak officials then announced that the deployment of these air defense systems was not a substitute for their S-300s. Slovakia expressed a desire in March to provide its air defense systems only if it receives an equivalent from Western partners.

The White House later announced that the United States was sending its own S-300 air defense systems, purchased during the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. BulgarianMilitary.com has learned that these systems have not yet arrived in Ukraine.

Last week, the White House announced that the deployment of Slovak S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine “is under negotiation.” An agreement has apparently been reached between the United States and Slovakia, and the European country will likely acquire American Patriot systems. It remains unknown in what form this acquisition will take place. Will the United States “donate” Patriot systems in exchange for S-300s leaving for Ukraine, or will Washington make a huge concession to Bratislava to buy new systems?

Photo credit: Wikipedia

There is a third possibility, and that is with Germany. It is no secret that Germany is upgrading its existing Patriot systems to the last possible level, as we wrote earlier, and that it is looking for opportunities to increase its army’s combat capability against long-range missiles. In this case, Germany may agree to leave the deployed Patriot systems in Slovakia and also receive a huge return from subsequent orders to the United States and Israel.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger said Slovakia had given its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine to help defend itself against Russian attacks.

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

On 21 February 2022, the Russian government claimed that Ukrainian shelling had destroyed an FSB border facility on the Russia Ukraine border, and claimed that it had killed 5 Ukrainian soldiers who tried to cross into Russian territory. Ukraine denied being involved in both incidents and called them a false flag.

On the same day, the Russian government formally recognized the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR as independent states, according to Putin not only in their de-facto controlled areas, but the Ukrainian Oblasts as a whole, and Putin ordered Russian troops, including tanks, to enter the regions.

Photo credit: Twitter

On 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine by Russian Armed Forces previously concentrated along the border. The invasion followed by targeted airstrikes of military buildings in the country, as well as tanks entering via the Belarus border.

Russia has so far not recognized the invasion of Ukraine as a “war”, although that is exactly what it is, claiming that it is a “special military operation”. According to the UN, in which Russia has its permanent representation, for military action to be defined as a “special military operation”, it must have a resolution issued by the UN. There is no such resolution, which automatically defines the military actions of the Russians as an invasion and war against the citizens of Ukraine.

Russia uses full salvo system of 50 mine-loaded rockets in Ukraine

By Boyko Nikolov 

BULGARIAN MILITARY.COM

On Apr 5, 2022

MOSCOW, ($1=83.44 Russian Rubles) — Russian ground forces most likely used in Ukraine a full salvo system to launch mine-loaded rockets, called ISDM Zemledeliye, and this was most likely the weapon’s combat debut, BulgarianMilitary.com has learned, citing its own sources.

Photo credit: MilitaryLeak

3M-54 Kalibr missile fired from the sea has hit Ukrainian military plant

4.5-Gen Su-35 on SEAD mission was shot down over Ukraine by SAM

Russian air strikes have sunk US Island-class cutter given to Ukraine

A video circulated on social networks confirms this, as sources at BulgarianMilitary.com say that the system was spotted in the Kharkiv region on March 26 and 27. The British online portal for defense, security, and intelligence Jane’s also suggest that it is ISDM Zemledeliye and that it is used for the first time in real combat conditions.

BulgarianMilitary.com reminds us that almost nine years ago the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation signed a contract with the Russian company Splav Enterprise – this is the manufacturer of ISDM Zemledeliye. This means that the system of firing 50 salvo remotely mining rockets has been in service for at least two or three years in the Russian ground forces. Splav Enterprise is one of the Russian leaders in the design, development, and production of various weapon systems for the salvo launch.

Photo credit: Twitter

What is the system ISDM Zemledeliye

Zemledeliye in Russian means Agriculture, which refers to the main functionality of the system – scattering mining rockets as seeds over a large area. Russia first showed ISDM Zemledeliye on Red Square during a military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 against Nazi Germany. This happened on May 9, 2020, although the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the Russian military from showing much more military equipment. According to unconfirmed information, 2020 is the first delivery from the manufacturer to the Russian ground forces.

The system consists of 50 rockets tubes [two blocks of 25 each] for launching 122mm cluster munitions [mining rockets] each. The two units are located at the rear of the Kamaz 6560 8×8 chassis, which has an armored cab. Each 122mm rocket has a range of 5 to 15 km.

Each rocket contains several dozen anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. The system itself has a precise aiming so that after each rocket is fired, the mines in it are scattered in a strictly defined order. This particular order is controlled by software that can create a minefield of varying complexity. This information is shared with other military units in the region, thus giving them the exact location of the minefields and avoiding them.

Photo credit: Twitter

EU officials see with their own eyes Russian horrors in Ukraine

9 APRIL 2022

European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen and EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, travelled to Kyiv on Friday in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian government and people, on a day when again dozens were killed in indiscriminate Russian attacks against civilians at a railway station, and when further evidence emerged of a Russian massacre of Ukrainians in the town of Bucha..

The two EU leaders started their trip in Bucha, scene of an earlier Russian massacre. European Commission president Von der Leyen said the civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town showed the “cruel face” of Russia’s army.

In Bucha, where forensic investigators started to exhume bodies from a mass grave, Von der Leyen looked visibly moved by what she saw in the town northwest of Kyiv where Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians were killed by Russian forces.

Borrell summed up the feelings when later meeting with Ukrainian president Vlodymir Zelensky.

Mr President, I am really touched by what I have seen, by what I heard and by what I felt today. Certainly, there are two words to describe what is happening in Ukraine. One word is failure. A big failure of the Russian army that has not been able to overcome your courage.And the other word is horror: the horror of civilians being attacked, being killed in an indiscriminate way. So, we are in the presence of war crimes and we will help you, we will help the Ukrainian prosecutor to present the proofs in front of the International Criminal Court. Our EU Advisory Mission, which was working here, before the war, will deploy their effective means, tools, capacities in order to support you, and we have also allocated 7 million euros to support you in this task.

Borrell also outlined further EU assistance for Ukraine's struggle against the Russian invasion.

"I think is important to stress - since you are fighting for us, the least thing that we can do, is to give you arms. You have received lot of applauses, you have been in many parliaments in [Member States of] European union. And you got a lot of support and applauses. But you need arms, arms, arms. We have [already] allocated one billion euro and I hope that in couple of days we will be able to allocate 500 million more. And we will do everything in order that these resources will be tailored to your needs, to provide you with the arms you need to fight to resist and to win."

source: commonspace.eu with agencies
photo: European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and EU High Representative Josep Borrell in Bucha on 8 April 2022.

Nigeria: Here's How Activists Are Advocating to End Environmental Pollution in Port Harcourt

Nigeria Health Watch (Abuja)

BLOG By Innocent Eteng

It is 8 am and a dark cloud of haze has darkened the Port Harcourt skyline making visibility difficult. In Oyigbo, a local government area (LGA) 30 kilometres east of the city, Adanmma Rufus, a receptionist at Richardson Hotel, is checking this writer into room 311. There are spots of a black powdery substance called 'black soot', on the bedsheet. Rufus wipes her palm across the sheet in an attempt to brush them off. "Just two days we couldn't lodge a guest in this room; look, everything here is turning black," she complained.

The soot-like particles started falling from the skies of Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State in September 2016, penetrating lungs, coating surfaces and filtering into enclosed spaces. According to a task force set up by the Rivers State government to investigate and recommend solutions to the environmental challenge, it may be caused by increased levels of illegal refining of stolen crude, decades of gas flaring by oil corporations, burning of tyres for roasting meat in abattoirs and during celebrations, and emissions from asphalt plants. These activities have, for an undetermined period, sent clouds of thick toxic smoke in gaseous form into the atmosphere and now, they are descending because they have reached overwhelming levels.

"Every atmospheric system has its threshold of tolerance... [for] managing our air pollution. This thing (soot) becomes very prominent when it has overcome the carrying capacity the atmospheric system can diffuse," said Professor Prince Mmom, an environmental and disaster risk management expert at the University of Port Harcourt.

Fine particles kill seven million people globally every year, and 50% of pneumonia-related deaths among under-five kids is due to air contamination. The main pollutant in Rivers State is a dangerous one called particulate matter (PM) 2.5. It is the smallest level of fine particles, as tiny as 2.5 micrometres. Its concentration in the state is 47.6 µg/m³, significantly higher than the 10 µg/m³ the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends. These tiny particles can enter the bloodstream through the lungs by inhalation, the eyes, and through contaminated food and water. Experts say that they can cause heart diseases, strokes, cancers, premature birth, miscarriages, male infertility, and acute respiratory infection (ARI).

In Port Harcourt, residents are experiencing health problems that could be attributed to atmospheric conditions. A 2017 study revealed that ARI among under-5 kids jumped by nearly 20% between 2016 and 2017 and local doctors say they now see patients with soot-related health conditions more frequently than pre-soot times. "There has been a tremendous increase in asthmatic attacks -- not only in the number of attacks, but in the frequency. Those that had one attack in two or three months before are now having multiple attacks in a week because of the air pollution in the atmosphere," said Briggs Bieye, an environmental advocate and public health physician at the hospital wing of the Ignatius Ajuru University in Port Harcourt. He added that sudden infant death syndrome is also rising. "[For] a pregnant woman who smokes, her child is five times at risk of dying during infancy. Imagine pregnant women in Port Harcourt who 'smoke' the soot every second for the nine months that they are pregnant. Children die, and they [mothers] do not even know that it is caused by the soot."

Stop the soot

Of the many identified causative factors of the soot, gas flaring and illegal oil refining top the list. Hundreds of artisanal refining sites dot the bushes of Rivers State, and one LGA alone is said to have about 112 sites. Rivers State has 23 LGAs.

In 2017, the state government banned the burning of tyres and shut down asphalt plants. But because it failed to act on artisanal refining, the pollution continued unaffected. Local activists like Eugene Abels, coordinator of #Stopthesoot, a group campaigning for a pollution-free Port Harcourt said the government seemed reluctant to tackle illegal refineries and stop oil companies from flaring gas. In April 2018, #Stopthesoot led over 5000 residents in a protest march in Port Harcourt, demanding immediate policy action.

About 420 activists signed and sent a petition to the WHO and the United Nations (UN) asking them to intervene. Abels also took the federal and state governments to court, requesting the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt to order governments to use their powers and end the pollution immediately. None of these actions have yielded a meaningful result.

Behaviour change sparks hope

But a flicker of hope rose in Port Harcourt and residents attributed it to a solutions-driven "Stop The Soot Conference" organised on December 9, 2021, by the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco. Organisers wanted a multi-stakeholder approach to creating awareness, teaching residents to take personal safety measures, suggesting ways to end the pollution, and hopefully get the government to act. So, they had in attendance, representatives from the government, traditional institutions, civil society groups, student bodies, multinational oil companies, religious bodies, and media groups. Speakers -- mostly experts in health and environment -- showed, with proof, the short-term (asthmatic attacks, respiratory infections, child pneumonia, and heart conditions) and expected long-term (cancers, infertility, and congenital disabilities) impacts of the soot.

Stakeholders agreed that the government should tackle the problem by engaging with the youths who steal and refine crude, provide environment-friendly refining alternatives like cellular and modular refineries, incorporate illegal refiners into the legal refining process, and regulate their activities. Days and weeks after the conference, organisers and speakers followed up with appearances on radio programmes to further discuss solutions and expand awareness.

Consequently, on January 1, 2022, the state government took decisive action against illegal artisanal refining by working with LGA chairmen, traditional rulers and whistleblowers to identify and destroy dozens of illegal refining facilities across some LGAs. "They really did a good job," Bieye admits. "From the beginning of January, we saw that there was really a reduction in the level of soot in the atmosphere of Port Harcourt. We could breathe fresh air."

Short-lived respite

However, the change was short-lived, lasting for just six weeks, because illegal refiners found a way to resume their activities. Activists blame the short-lived success on the government's not all-involving and unsustainable approach away from recommendations at the conference.

Yet, despite the failure, increased citizen awareness after the conference and possible next steps from the government offer some hope as more people and groups are joining the conversation.

Ilanye Chapp Jumbo, a 54-year-old television presenter with the state-owned Rivers State Television, now boldly uses her time on-air to discuss the soot -- something hardly done on state-owned media. "Even if what I am talking about is not about soot, I find a way to chip in soot. I use every platform available to me, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram," she said. "I don't have that luxury to relocate my family. So, if I am determined to stay in my state, and I don't talk on issues like this, then I am as guilty as those involved in the illegal refining of products."

Religious groups were not left out. The Health Ministries Department of the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) church in Port Harcourt organsed a virtual event between February 12 and 19, 2022. Titled "Soot: A Matter of Life and Breath", the event featured eight doctors and environmentalists who taught the over 200 attendees (via Zoom and Facebook) measures to tackle the pollution.

"Our [three-hour plus] presentation highlighted that it was not just artisanal refining that contributed to soot. People who use firewood to cook and people who do things that release carbon monoxide into the air [contribute to it]. We wanted them to know that it is not enough to blame. But we can all together solve the problem by intentionally being careful [about] what we do," Sokiprim Akoko, a clinical and nutritional pharmacologist and director of SDA's Health Ministries Department in Port Harcourt, said.

As increased and sustained awareness continues, residents are getting better informed about safety recommendations they can observe. Vocal voices like Bieye, Abels, and Jumbo are continually faced with the risk of possible verbal and physical attacks from those who think anti-soot campaigns are an attack on their livelihoods or interests. Yet, they vow to keep talking because lives depend on it. "Why would I not talk when I know that this is the only place I call home?" Jumbo queried.

Read the original article on Nigeria Health Watch.

NIMBY IS ABOUT PROPERTY VALUE
Boris Johnson blows cold on onshore wind faced with 100-plus rebel MPs


Opposition in cabinet as well as on backbenches to expansion of turbines in England widely seen as an eyesore

Boris Johnson helps to place a solar panel on a frame as he visits the Carland Cross windfarm in Newquay, Cornwall last June. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Rowena Mason, Rob Davies and Helena Horton
Tue 5 Apr 2022 06.00 BST

Pro-green cabinet ministers are frustrated by Boris Johnson’s decision to back away from ambitious onshore windfarm plans for England, as it emerged more than 100 Tory MPs are lobbying against the policy behind the scenes.

The prime minister, who is to announce his energy strategy later in the week, will announce big targets for increasing nuclear power and offshore wind, as well as exploiting more North Sea oil and gas.

But he has been hit by a cabinet split over onshore wind, with Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, in favour, and others including Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, branding onshore turbines “an eyesore”.

Another nine ministers sitting in cabinet – Steve Barclay, Nadine Dorries, Simon Hart, Chris Heaton-Harris, Brandon Lewis, Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mark Spencer and Nadhim Zahawi – signed a letter calling for a cut in support for onshore wind in 2012. The letter was orchestrated by Heaton-Harris, now responsible for party discipline, who co-ran a campaign called Together Against Wind and wrote a manual that was a “step by step guide on opposing a windfarm in your area”.

A spokesperson for Heaton-Harris would not comment on his communications with the prime minister about the issue of onshore wind.

One cabinet source said those cabinet ministers and Tory MPs arguing against the expansion in England said they “should look at the polling in favour of onshore wind. They are fighting a war from 10 years ago.”

The prime minister is expected to approve financial incentives to encourage communities to accept windfarms in exchange for lower energy bills, but changes to planning laws in England to make permission easier to get are less likely.

One government source said: “If you strip away the theatrics, everybody is talking about community consent. The PM has spoken about that, Kwasi has spoken about that. That’s one thing ministers would want to ensure that communities are to be paid to directly share in community infrastructure close by.”

He added: “The workhorse of Britain’s future energy needs is and will be offshore wind. There will be more onshore wind and it will be in windy parts of Scotland. Let’s see what happens in England.”

John Hayes, the Tory MP and former energy minister who led the charge against onshore wind in 2015, warned the government against overturning the moratorium put in place at that point.

“To reverse that would be extremely politically unwise but also the argument does not stand up in terms of environmental efficiency and energy efficiency,” he said, arguing against an expansion of onshore wind on the grounds of cost, protecting wildlife, and aesthetics.

One Tory MP said there was a WhatsApp group of more than 140 anti-onshore wind Conservative MPs, who would make it very hard for any energy bill with stretching onshore wind targets to pass. “It’s certainly way more than his [Johnson’s] majority,” he said.

Another Conservative MP put the number of rebels at more than 100, adding that the prime minister was not politically strong enough to get such proposals through his own party.

But Chris Skidmore, a Tory MP who runs the net zero support group, said: “We are at a fork in the road here. We either need to double down as Kwasi is doing and saying we need secure forms of homegrown clean energy. You could say look at the North Sea – but it’s gone. We’ve extracted most of it. Fracking – we’re not the States. So what you need is the tripartite plan of wind, nuclear and energy efficiency. There is public support for onshore that there wasn’t 10 years ago.”

Renewable industry sources were not downcast about the government’s plans. “[Johnson] needs to get energy bills down quickly, he’s not going to rule out onshore wind and solar. It’s a case of how you go about doing that in a way that gets it past the nimbys. He was interested in local electricity discount schemes, where the closer you live, the more you get off your bill,” the source said.

It comes as energy scientists criticised Shapp’s comments, in which he claimed onshore wind would be an “eyesore” and destroy the view in beautiful areas.

Dr David Toke, from the University of Aberdeen, said this is false, and that there is plenty of land, for example next to train lines, that is ripe for use.

He told the Guardian: “Only a small proportion of England is classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Yet, for, example, there’s very few wind turbines near to motorway routes, which can hardly be classed as beautiful. As you go from England to Scotland by road or rail you will notice a definite increase in the use of land close to transport corridors for windfarms.

“The rules effectively banning windfarms in England are unique to planning in the UK and are a testament to the government’s political inability to mobilise this very cheap and clean source of renewable energy to reduce our energy bills.”

IMPERIALIST BRAIN DRAIN
Nigeria: 9,000 Doctors Moved to UK, U.S., Canada in 2 Years - NMA


Marcelo Leal/Unsplash
(File photo).

4 APRIL 2022
Vanguard (Lagos)

By Joseph Erunke, Abuja

Over 9,000 medical doctors of Nigerian origin left the shores of the country in search of greener pastures in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada in two years, the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has said.

The emigration of the medical experts which the NMA said happened between 2016 and 2018, negatively impacted the nation's health care system that only 4.7% of specialists were left to take care of Nigerians' health issues.

NMA President, Professor Innocent Ujah, speaking in Abuja, lamented the high emigration rate of doctors of Nigerian extraction to foreign nations.

Ujah who spoke at the NMA's maiden annual lecture with a theme: "Brain Drain and Medical Tourism: The Twin Evil in Nigeria's Health System", also said over $1 billion was being spent yearly by Nigerians on medical tourism.

Regretting that the development was negatively impacting the nation's health system, Prof. Ujah, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of Federal University of Medical Science, Otukpo, said Africa, including Nigeria, was encountering a health workforce crisis.

Noting that human resources for health, which according to him, represented "one of the six pillars of a strong and efficient health system", was critical to the improvement the health system, the professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said a huge amount Nigerians were injecting into medical tourism was weakening Nigeria's economy.

The impact of the development on the economy, he said was a reduction of funding and investment in the health sector, widening infrastructural deficits and the growing distrust in the Nigerian health system by the Nigerian public.

"According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sub-Saharan Africa has about 3 per cent of the world's health workers while it accounts for 24 per cent of the global burden of disease. Nigeria has a doctor-to-population ratio of about 1: 4000-5000 which falls far short of the WHO recommended doctor-to-population ratio of 1:600. Nigeria is still grappling with disturbingly poor health indices," he said.

According to him, "The Nigerian health sector today groans under the devastating impact of huge human capital flight which now manifests as brain drain."

The theme of the lecture, he noted, was apt, adding, "The twin monster of brain drain and medical tourism seems to have a bi-directional relationship, which implies that one will lead to the other and vice-versa."

"It is because of the devastating consequences of this twin evil on the health system efficiency and effectiveness and the urgent need for solutions and action that inspired the theme for this maiden NMA Annual Lecture tagged, Brain Drain and Medical Tourism: The Twin evil in Nigeria's Health System.

"The burning desire of NMA to proactively confront the many challenges of healthcare delivery in Nigeria must be sustained using evidence-based constructive engagement, high-level advocacy and understanding to achieve quality healthcare for our people so as to reduce the unacceptably high morbidity and mortality.

"This national discourse on brain drain and medical tourism is, therefore, inevitable at this time and it is only right, just and appropriate for Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to take the lead, being the leader of the health team", he further said.

Vanguard News Nigeria

Ukraine shockwaves reverberate in war-weary Syria

Russia is the common thread in Syria and Ukraine; Syrians feel ‘abandoned by the world;' Turkey seizes an opening; UN process stymied; and US stresses ‘accountability.'

Protesters raise a giant flag of the Syrian rebels atop a building during a demonstration against Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the city of Binnish in Syria's northwestern rebel-held Idlib province. - OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP via Getty Images

Week in Review
@AlMonitor

April 8, 2022


The Russia-Ukraine-Syria connections

The Russian attack on Ukraine last month has diverted the international community’s already fading attention from the now 11-year civil war in Syria.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, addressing the Security Council on March 23, said that Syrians feel "abandoned by the world" after a decade of war.

Russia is the primary backer of the Syrian government. Moscow’s military intervention in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has secured Assad’s hold on power in a fragile and divided country.

Israel coordinates its Syria policy, including intermittent attacks on Iran and Iranian-backed armed groups, with Russia.

With Russia fully engaged with the war in Ukraine, Turkey, and perhaps others, may sense an opening to press their agendas in Syria.

UN: Syria destruction ‘has few equals’ in modern history

On March 11, Guterres reminded the Security Council that "the destruction that Syrians have endured is so extensive and deadly that it has few equals in modern history. … There must be no impunity."

"Hundreds of thousands have been killed, more than half of the pre-war population – somewhere in the order of 22 million - have been displaced," said Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, on March 9. "More than 100,000 are missing or forcibly disappeared. Syria’s cities and infrastructure have been destroyed. Today the poverty rate in Syria is an unprecedented 90%; 14.6 million people in Syria depend on humanitarian aid.”

"Nearly 5 million children have been born in Syria since 2011," said UNICEF Syria Representative, Bo Viktor Nylund said in March. "They have known nothing but war and conflict. In many parts of Syria, they continue to live in fear of violence, landmines, and explosive remnants of war."

Syria ranks among the 10 most food-insecure countries globally, with “a staggering 12 million people considered to be food insecure,” Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Joyce Msuya reported to the Council, while noting that the country’s economy is “spiraling further downward.”

Sultan Al-Kanj reports on the impact of higher food and fuel costs on Syrians in Idlib.

UN envoy: Parties ‘substantively far apart’ on flagging political process

The only way to break that deadlock, Guterres said, is through a credible political process that forges a sustainable peace and lets the voices of all Syrians be heard.

But the political process outlined in UN Security 2254 (2015) has been so delayed, and obstructed, that it seems out of time and place with Syria today. And that was before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, one of the key players in the Syrian drama.

UN Syria Envoy Geir Pedersen told the Security Council in February that he is "very concerned that the constructive international diplomacy required to push this may prove more difficult than it already was, against the backdrop of the military operations in Ukraine."

The political negotiations are mostly dominated by Moscow, and by extension Damascus, with no countervailing US or Western engagement to give Pedersen the leverage needed to press ahead with his "step-for-step" approach to negotiations.

"The parties' positions are substantively far apart, and narrowing their differences will inevitably be an incremental process," Pedersen told the Security Council.

Turkey: ‘A new beginning’ in Syria?

For at least one player in Syria — Turkey — the Ukraine war may present an opportunity. Russia’s distraction in Ukraine could be a chance for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to address his Syrian quagmire, which has been a drain on Turkey’s flagging economy, made worse by the Ukraine war (see the report by Mustafa Sonmez here).

Turkey currently occupies, via its military and proxy Syrian forces, approximately 3,400 square miles in northern Syria. Turkey also hosts close to 3.5 million Syrian refugees.

Erdogan has proffered a dialogue with Assad, while escalating actions in Syria to intimidate Kurdish-controlled areas and strengthening Turkish bases, as Fehim Tastekin reports.

Turkey considers the Kurdish parties aligned with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as terrorists, linked to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Meanwhile, Turkey has sought to facilitate coordination by the former al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS, and ‘Liberation of the Levant’), which controls most of the northwest province of Idlib, with Turkish-backed Syrian factions, as Khaled Al-Khateb reports from Aleppo, as HTS seeks to eliminate or absorb more radical rival groups.

Moscow may have told Damascus to hold off on any major offensive against Idlib, according to diplomatic sources, although there have been a steady stream of Syrian government attacks in the province, adds Khateb.

Also seizing the initiative in Syria is HTS leader Abu Mohamed al-Golani, who has been making the rounds seeking to expand his popular support, as Sultan Al-Kanj reports.

Meanwhile, Turkey has warmed ties with the US, establishing a new "strategic mechanism" to facilitate coordination on trade, human rights, and security, including Ukraine and Syria, as Nazlan Ertan reports.

And Erdogan’s global diplomatic credibility has been bolstered in the West by his efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, writes Semih Idiz.

US: ‘Pressing for accountability’?

Under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, "It is the policy of the United States that diplomatic and coercive economic means should be utilized to compel the government of Bashar al-Assad to halt its murderous attacks on the Syrian people and to support a transition to a government in Syria that respects the rule of law, human rights, and peaceful co-existence with its neighbors."

The Biden administration’s review of Syria policy, completed in December 2021, gives priority to the US-led campaign against ISIS; supporting local ceasefires and humanitarian access throughout Syria (which requires coordination with Russia); "pressing for accountability and respect for international law while promoting human rights and nonproliferation, including through the imposition of targeted sanctions; and supporting a political process led by the Syrian people, as envisioned in" UNSCR 2254.

Dropped, or deprioritized, following the Biden review, is the Trump administration’s objective of seeking the withdrawal of Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and IRGC-backed forces in Syria.

Four US soldiers received medical attention for “minor injuries” and possible brain trauma following a rocket attack on a US-led coalition base in eastern Syria, likely attributed to Iran-backed paramilitary groups, the first such attack since January, Jared Szuba reports. The US has approximately 900 troops in Syria as part of its Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led ‘D-ISIS’ mission in Syria and Iraq.

The Biden administration continues to reject initiatives by Arab states to normalize relations with Assad, who made an official visit to the UAE in March. But these efforts are nonetheless gaining traction, if slowly, as George Mikhail reports from Cairo.

The chairs and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees wrote a letter to US President Joe Biden in January calling for "consequences for any nation that seeks to rehabilitate the Assad regime and to ensure all countries understand that normalization or Assad’s return to the Arab League are unacceptable."

Mostly absent from the UN diplomacy on Syria, the US has instead focused on keeping open the remaining UN humanitarian corridor at the Bab Al Hawa crossing. UNSC Res 2585 (2021) expires in July, and Russia could veto. Diplomatic sources indicate, however, that most aid through the crossing is in any case facilitated by one the ground NGOs, and that Turkey controls a number of alternative border crossings into Syria.

Elizabeth Hagedorn, on this week’s On the Middle East podcast, suggests that the focus on alleged Russian atrocities in the Ukraine war could spark similar calls for accountability for war crimes in Syria.

Tunisia's future darkens with dissolution of parliament

Tunisia's president has taken a darker turn after unilaterally dissolving parliament and threatening to put elected deputies on trial.

A picture shows the Tunisian parliament in Tunis on March 31, 2022. Tunisia's President Kais Saied yesterday dissolved the country's parliament and said MPs would be prosecuted, extending an eight-month power grab and intensifying the country's political crisis. - FETHI BELAID/AFP via Getty Images

Stephen Quillen
@stephen_quillen

April 5, 2022

TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisian President Kais Saied’s orders to dissolve parliament and investigate its members for “conspiracy” have pushed the country into deeper political turmoil and raised fears of a budding autocracy.

What lies ahead for the country’s political system — and whether it will restore its democratic institutions or continue on a path toward one-man rule — will likely hinge on the ability of civil society and other political players to mediate a resolution, as well as Saied’s ability to maintain public support amid a stumbling economy, analysts say.

The Tunisian president issued a decree to formally dissolve the legislative body, which has been suspended since July after its members voted to revoke “exceptional powers” the president gave himself eight months ago. Saied also threatened judicial action against the deputies, accusing them of “conspiracy against the state” by holding an “illegal” meeting.

The Tunisian Constitution gives Saied no mandate to issue such a decree and explicitly states that parliament cannot be dissolved if the president holds “exceptional powers.”

However, Saied justified the decision under a separate constitutional article, which says the president is responsible for guaranteeing the state’s “independence and continuity” and ensuring “respect for the constitution."

“We must protect the state from division. … We will not allow the abusers to continue their aggression against the state,” Saied said in an address to the Tunisian people.

Tunisia’s crisis escalated April 1 when the anti-terror brigade summoned at least seven parliament members, including parliament speaker Rached Ghannouchi, for investigation, a move the International Court of Justice called a “travesty.”

More than 20 additional parliament members have received subpoenas, according to Ghannouchi, and the justice minister has called for even more to be investigated.

“If it was not clear already, Kais Saied’s moves to put half of the parliament on trial for treason and conspiracy should reveal to all his authoritarian ambitions,” Sharan Grewal, a professor at the College of William & Mary who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa politics, told Al-Monitor. “He has never been committed to the constitution.”

Tunisia analysts and watchdogs said the developments are putting the country’s young democracy in further peril, eight months after the president stunned the political class by ousting the government, suspending parliament and giving himself overarching powers.

“Tunisia has clearly taken an authoritarian turn, and Saied’s recent moves only deepen these concerns,” Lamine Benghazi, programs coordinator of Lawyers Without Borders, told Al-Monitor.

Saied “has consistently exhibited a tendency toward executive aggrandizement, increasing his powers in violation of the constitution,” added Grewal.

Rights groups previously warned of a rise in repression of journalists and activists, a hallmark of the regime of longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

"A police and security mentality is running the state. … Tunisia has become a country that suppresses freedoms,” Yassine Jelassi, head of the Tunisian National Journalists' Union, said at a press conference in January.

Saied, a political outsider who won in a landslide election victory in 2019 on promises of curbing corruption, has enjoyed strong public backing even while consolidating his power. In July, many Tunisians applauded his decision to freeze the widely unpopular parliament, which was often mired in embarrassing scandals and brawls and was too gridlocked to pass legislation. Since then, parliament has remained on the sidelines, while Saied has used his expansive powers to reshape the government and chart a new political vision by attempting to overhaul the 2014 Tunisian Constitution.

After months of “keeping a low profile,” Tunisia’s parliament finally attempted to reclaim its place on the political scene, Saida Ounissi, a deputy with the moderate Islamist Ennahda party who attended Wednesday’s online plenary session, told Al-Monitor.

“We tried to find other ways to reach out to the president … but after his refusal to engage in dialogue with anyone, it was important for parliament to regain its role in helping to manage the crisis,” said Ounissi.

The chamber’s plenary session, held via video conference, had been planned behind the scenes for more than a month and drew deputies from across the political spectrum in a rare show of unity from the disparate forces. One-hundred and sixteen out of 120 participating parliament members voted to repeal Saied’s “exceptional measures” in a strong public rebuke of the president’s eight-month rule by fiat.

“We finally found enough common ground in our opposition to Saied to rally together. The success of the plenary is the result of Saied’s failure to be a leader of any sort,” said Ounissi.

There were signs that government forces were threatened by the vote and had mobilized to try to stop it, parliament members said.

Just before the session was due to begin Wednesday afternoon, online video platforms Microsoft Teams and Zoom went down in Tunisia, forcing deputies to delay the session and switch to another site. Parliament’s official webpage was also reportedly inaccessible during the afternoon, drawing the suspicion of government interference.

Technology Minister Nizar Ben Neji denied the government had disabled any communications applications.

While parliament’s vote was largely symbolic, it shows that more political parties — including those that once supported Saied — are changing their tune and growing more confrontational.

Saied’s order to dissolve parliament puts even more question marks on the country’s political future.

Ghannouchi rejected the move and said the chamber should still be considered “operational” because Saied does not have the authority to dissolve it. Other parliament members and civil society groups said the president must hold snap parliamentary elections to replace the body within three months, as required by the constitution.

Saied has balked at both views, saying he will carry on with a plan to reform Tunisia’s Constitution and wait until December for a parliamentary poll.

So far, the president has kept details of his reform plan under wraps, but he previously advocated for changes that would strengthen the presidency. These include installing local councils to decentralize the power of parliament and clipping the wings of “corrupt” political parties. In the coming months, a committee of Saied’s favored experts will write the proposed reforms to be put to a national vote on July 25.

Grewal expects whatever new system the president creates to be “one in which the presidency wields significant power.”

“Regardless of what happens to the parliament and political parties in the new system, the most likely outcome is a shift to a presidential system — a worrying trend for all who opposed the strong presidentialism of Ben Ali,” he said.

While Saied remains popular, there appears to be little interest in his project. Less than 10% of eligible Tunisians participated in an online survey he initiated to gather public input in a blow to the process’s credibility. And with the economy sinking and prices on the rise, many are beginning to tire of his focus on rewriting the constitution.

“We are suffering more and more as prices grow higher and higher,” Alaa Kadri, a teacher in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, told Al-Monitor. "Many of us lack basic needs and food staples such as flour, sugar, grain and even oil to cook.”

Grewal said that “civil society organizations, despite their frustrations with Saied, are trying to set themselves up as the ‘neutral’ arbiters between the president and the opposition.”

Saied met with UGTT head Noureddine Tabboubi on April 1, and the two agreed on the need for a “partnership” to chart a way out of the crisis, Tabboubi said. But to what extent Saied is willing to make concessions — even amid mounting criticism at home and abroad — remains to be seen.

“Even if political parties, civil society and international donors all unify around a demand of restoring democratic institutions, and public opinion turns on Kais Saied (both of which are tall tasks), that still may not be enough,” said Grewal.

He added, “It ultimately depends on Kais Saied: Will he agree to negotiate, or will he escalate into even greater repression? We just don’t know. His personality and behavior will ultimately make or break Tunisian democracy.



Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/04/tunisias-future-darkens-dissolution-parliament#ixzz7PwwiR2JR

People live here

Why are Ngorongoro's Maasai at risk of being evicted again? Tanzania's conservation-tourism industrial complex wants them out.

Image credit Abir Anwar via Flickr CC BY 2.0.

BY Jevgeniy Bluwstein

Since last year, as thousands of Maasai are at risk of being evicted from their homes, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area has been in the news. For decades now, the residence of Maasai in Ngorongoro has been a concern for conservation authorities and NGOs, tourism companies, and the Tanzanian state—all of whom worry that they may be spoiling the natural beauty of Ngorongoro. Although the threat of dispossession has loomed large over Ngorongoro residents in the past, this time the Tanzanian government seems to be particularly serious about resettling thousands of Maasai pastoralists in the name of conservation.

To better understand why the Maasai are perceived as a threat to Ngorongoro, we need to take a look at the colonial beginnings and the postcolonial history of the conservation industry in Tanzania. By resettling the Maasai from the Serengeti to Ngorongoro in the 1950s (where other Maasai had already lived prior to the establishment of Serengeti National Park), the British colonial administration and international conservation interest groups had sought to protect the Serengeti from the pastoralists. In doing so, they promised the Maasai that they would never be evicted from the Ngorongoro highlands. At the time, the irony of protecting the Serengeti from the people whose land use and environmental conservation practices had led to the very creation of the famous Serengeti plains was apparently lost on the colonial administration and Western conservationists such as Bernhard Grzimek.

To European colonizers, resettling the Maasai was not only good for nature conservation, but for evicted populations themselves. To this day, people living around protected areas in Tanzania continue to experience a deeply paternalistic treatment by the state, which perceives them as backward and in need of modernization and development. The state has mobilized the colonial discourse of a civilizing mission whenever Maasai or other pastoralists are resettled in the name of “conservation” and “development” in Tanzania. While this colonial legacy persists today, what has changed since the end of colonial rule is the paramount role of the tourism industry in present-day Tanzania.

When Tanzania’s world-famous protected areas were initially created, tourism was hardly developed as an economic sector and poorly integrated into the global tourism industry. What is more, in socialist Tanzania under Nyerere, the role of tourism was hotly debated and deeply contested, as Issa Shivji’s 1973 edited volume Tourism and Socialist Development demonstrates (it is unfortunately out of print today). Should Africans endure the “extremely humiliating subservient ‘memsahib’ and ‘sir’ attitudes” in order to “create a hospitable climate for tourists” in return for foreign exchange? Can, in other words, the economic promise of tourism outweigh the price of “cultural imperialism”? These were central questions 50 years ago—questions that seem almost entirely out of place today.

Since the liberalization of the Tanzanian economy beginning in the 1980s, the state has worked closely with western conservation NGOs, donors, and private tourism companies to grow the tourism industry in the country. Today, tourism funds conservation projects across the country and is a source of wealth and power for Tanzania’s political and economic elites. In 2017, Ngorongoro alone was visited by almost 650,000 tourists and generated around 56 million USD in entry fees. Before the pandemic, the direct and indirect contribution of tourism to Tanzania’s GDP was almost 11 percent, and the tourism industry was Tanzania’s largest source of foreign exchange.

Nature conservation has thus become economically unsustainable without a vibrant international tourism industry. At the same time, tourism depends almost entirely on the conservation of Tanzania’s flagship species—most prominently its elephants and lions—in some of the world’s most famous protected areas, such as the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. It is this conservation-tourism industrial complex that offers Tanzania’s political and economic elites the justification to continue threatening rural people with eviction and resettlement. The more successful Tanzania’s tourism sector is, the more the state desperately tries to protect its cash cow from any potential risks. Tourism has thus become a trap. The state cannot live without it, while some of its people suffer from it.

Due to this questionable role of tourism, the state treats rural people living around protected areas as conservation subjects whose contribution as citizens is primarily judged in relation to their value for the conservation-tourism industrial complex. Through tourism ads and brochures, the Maasai are visually represented and celebrated as exotic conservationists when they attract more tourism. When it undermines tourism potential, however, they are vilified through media campaigns. Ultimately, state and conservation authorities see any group whose land use practices are perceived to threaten the generation of revenues from international tourism as economic saboteurs. In Ngorongoro, once people were perceived as a threat, a slow process of marginalization and “stealthy dispossession” was set in motion to render their land grabbable and local people relocatable.

We should not overlook—or worse, dismiss—this patronizing relationship between the rent-extracting state-conservation-tourism nexus and its rural subjects when we discuss environmental conservation issues, when we are concerned about the state of wildlife, or when we consider the next trip to protected areas in Tanzania. We should not overlook, in other words, how “tourism perpetuates a colonialist political economy in a postcolonial world.” Tourists who visit Tanzania indirectly contribute to strengthening this status quo and thus bear some responsibility. Whether they agree with it or not, international tourists visiting Tanzania’s world-famous protected areas are complicit in this politics of conservation.

What, then, can be done? Grassroots efforts from Tanzanian civil society to stop the evictions should be supported. Environmentally minded people could reconsider their donation practices and stop funding conservation organizations that—directly or indirectly—support the fortress conservation model in Tanzania and beyond. People considering visiting Tanzania as tourists can also do their part by demanding that tourism operators present Tanzania as a country populated by people and wildlife, not as an unfenced zoo whose violent history of evictions remains invisible in curated and sterile safari experiences. Tourists can also consider boycotting protected areas whose operation and conservation is bound up with the dispossession of people living in or around these areas.

https://africasacountry.com/

PATRIARCHICAL CHATTEL OWNERSHIP* NOT POLYAMORY

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Polygamy is illegal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet, it is still practised by two percent of the population, like in the church of self-styled pastor Zagabe Chiruza, in the eastern city of Bukavu.

VIDEO https://www.africanews.com/embed/1889604

In 2012, he married three women at the same time in his church. Pastor Zagabe Chiruza, leader of the "Primitive Church of the Lord" is convinced that Polygamy is a divine institution.

"This is the message of the end time. The others who hunt us down, that's their business, but we must go to the end and show the people of God the truth, which is the teaching of polygamy. Meaning a man can marry more than one woman although society is against it, others don't care" he said.

Three live with him under the same roof in Bukavu, the fourth in Bujumbura, Burundi, where some of his children are studying. Yaëlle, one of the wives says she lives in harmony with her co-wives but the situation is different with her neighbours.

"When I was still alone at home, I had a good relationship with all the neighbours. But when my husband got married to other women, all the neighbours cut contact with me, they all ran away. Nowadays, we only greet each other on the way, but they don't visit us anymore, that's how it is."

In an interview with Catholic priest Raymond Kongolo, he explained "Polygamy is a human institution that goes back a long way in our African and traditional Congolese culture". Adding however: "it is not a divine institution".

According to the American research centre Pew Research Center, about 2% of the world's population lives in polygamous households and it is in Africa that the practice is most widespread (11%).

*LIKE SOME MORMONS AND MUSLIMS

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/10/polygamy-is-not-polyamoury.html