FDA lays out plan to combat bacterial contamination of baby formula

Story by Brenda Goodman • CNN

The US Food and Drug Administration is charting a plan to enhance its surveillance of infant formula for Cronobacter bacteria.

CNN anchor presses FDA chief on baby formula shortage. See his response

The agency said in a statement Tuesday that it would like to see Cronobacter infections added to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of national notifiable diseases, which would mean doctors would be required to report cases to public health officials.

Cronobacter infections are rare, but they can be serious and even fatal, especially in newborns. Cronobacter lives in the environment, but when these infections are diagnosed in infants, they are often linked to powdered formula.

Only one state, Minnesota, now requires doctors to report Cronobacter infections to the state health department. Because of this requirement, Minnesota was the first state to alert federal regulators to a potential problem with powdered baby formula last year.

Ultimately, the FDA received four reports of Cronobacter infections in babies last year, including two deaths. The infants had all consumed powdered formula manufactured at an Abbott Nutrition production facility in Sturgis, Michigan.

A lengthy FDA inspection of the plant and subsequent recall of products manufactured there exacerbated a nationwide infant formula shortage that only got worse when Abbott shut down the plant to make needed repairs. Census data shows that families are still struggling to find baby formula months after the facility restarted.

Ulitmately, although the FDA detected Cronobacter bacteria in the plant, genetic testing couldn’t link that bacteria to the sick infants.

In a written statement to CNN, Abbott said “Since our voluntary recall in February, investigations conducted by the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Abbott, including genetic sequencing, retained product samples and available product from the four complaints, did not find any definitive link between the company’s products and illnesses in children. No retained samples of recalled product tested positive for Cronobacter. And, in all four cases, unopened containers of formula in the infant homes tested negative for Cronobacter sakazakii.”

Although the FDA’s statement adds important weight to the push to add Cronobacter to the list of notifiable diseases, ultimately, the decision is made by a different group: the nonprofit Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

“If FDA supports it and calls for it, I think that provides a lot of support to move the issue forward with the State and Territorial Epidemiologists,” said Mitzi Baum, chief executive officer of Stop Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of the victims of food poisoning.

Stop Foodborne Illness wrote a letter to the FDA and the CDC in March, urging them to move the ball forward to get Cronobacter added to the list.

Baum said there are several interesting ideas in the FDA’s outline, but because there’s no timeline attached to the plan, it strikes her as only a half measure.

“It lacks a sense of urgency associated with this issue, which is really focused on the most vulnerable population,” she said. “It’s just not a strong enough step. But it is a step.”

The FDA said Tuesday that it is also considering other actions including:
Creating a dedicated team of food inspectors that would focus on infant formula
Providing additional education and training for staff who inspect infant formula production facilities
Reviewing and updating guidance and rules for infant formula production facilities
Re-evaluating testing requirements to enhance safety of finished infant formula products
Developing and improving consumer education on how to safely prepare and store infant formula
Conducting and supporting more research to fill in gaps in the scientific knowledge of Cronobacter

The agency says it will meet with stakeholders and continue to refine its plans over the next few months.

The FDA has released similar action plans for other foods that have a history of certain types of contamination. In September, the agency released plans to prevent salmonella infections caused by contaminated bulb onions and listeria and salmonella infections linked to wood ear mushrooms.

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YUKON/NWT

Deal protects some key Tłı̨chǫ areas from development

The Tłı̨chǫ Government says it has reached an agreement with Explor Silica to protect some culturally and ecologically significant areas from mineral exploration.

The agreement, announced on Wednesday, means Explor will relinquish four mineral claims in a region known as the Dınàgà Wek’èhodì candidate protected area.

That area covers the lake, shoreline and islands near the top end of Great Slave Lake's North Arm.

Explor is interested in drilling for silica sand, a product used in the process of fracking.

The Husky mining company first proposed drilling for silica sand in the area, but backed out in 2015 after the Tłı̨chǫ Government, Yellowknives Dene First Nation and North Slave Métis Alliance each expressed concern that K’ıchıì – or Whitebeach Point, a culturally significant area – could be affected.

Explor bought Husky's claims but met with similar resistance.

Now, the Tłı̨chǫ Government says an agreement has been reached in which Explor relinquishes four claims, including in the region of K’ıchıì, to allow evaluation of potential development at its remaining claims.

In Wednesday's press release, Explor president Allan Châtenay said he knew, going into the project, that building a partnership with the Tłı̨chǫ Government would be an essential part of the deal.

"We are thrilled to be working closely with the Tłı̨chǫ Government to move forward with the development of this world-class and strategically important resource," stated Châtenay.

Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty stated: “By relinquishing the four claims around Whitebeach Point, Explor has shown its willingness to work with the Tłı̨chǫ Government in a good and respectful way that acknowledges the longstanding wishes of Tłı̨chǫ Elders and leadership.

"This gives us the foundation to begin exploring the next steps for a successful future together.”

Caitrin Pilkington, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Bankers bet billions on new wave of debt-for-nature deals

Story by By Clare Baldwin, Marc Jones and Simon Jessop • Thursday, Nov 17,2022

FILE PHOTO: A hammerhead shark swims close to Wolf Island at Galapagos Marine Reserve© Thomson Reuters

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - The Galapagos Islands, whose thousands of unique species inspired Darwin's theory of evolution, have incalculable ecological value. But what are they worth?

Perhaps around $800 million, judging by the size of a "debt-for-nature" swap deal that could see Ecuador's debts cut in exchange for protecting its offshore territory's fragile ecosystem, according to people with knowledge of the talks.



Sea lions swim near San Cristobal at Galapagos Marine Reserve© Thomson Reuters

These kind of agreements are part of efforts to address an intractable quandary facing world leaders at the U.N. COP27 summit underway in Egypt: who will pay the bill for the global fight against biodiversity loss and climate change?

"There's now a big push to get nature into sovereign debt markets," said Simon Zadek, executive director at NatureFinance, which advises governments on debt-for-nature swaps and other types of climate-focused finance.

"The tragedy of debt distress offers a real opportunity," he added, pointing to nature-rich countries who look like ideal debt swap candidates following big drops in their bond prices this year.

Ecuador isn't among the world's richer nations. It's a serial defaulter and its sovereign bonds are again trading at "distressed" levels, or a deep discount to their face value. But it does have a wealth of biodiversity that it could leverage in a wider region where much of the wildlife has been wiped out.

The country is holding talks with banks and a nonprofit group in an attempt to reach a deal that would see about $800 million of its debt refinanced more cheaply, freeing up the savings for conservation efforts, according to the three people with knowledge of the deal, who declined to be named as the discussions are confidential.

At that level, it would be the biggest debt-for-nature swap struck to date. Yet it could eventually be trumped by others, including Sri Lanka, which has been discussing a deal of up to $1 billion according to people familiar with those talks.

Cape Verde, an archipelago nation off West Africa, is meanwhile close to a nature swap that could be worth up to $200 million, said Jean-Paul Adam, a former Seychelles government official who now works for the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), providing financing advice to governments.

The Ecuadorian, Sri Lankan and Cape Verde governments didn't respond to requests for comment for this story, although Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso said in an local newspaper on Oct. 12 that its Galapagos swap deal could be wrapped up in four or five weeks.

Graphic: Debt-for-nature swaps 

https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-DEBTFORNATURE/movaknjnava/chart.png

VANISHING ANIMALS

The potential deals for Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Cape Verde, reported here in detail for the first time, point to a jump in interest for this form of financial alchemy, which was conceived decades ago but has remained something of a niche area until recently.

Only three of over 140 or so swaps struck over the past 35 years - the first in 1987 - had a value of more than a quarter of a billion dollars, according to global data published by the African Development Bank. The average size was $26.6 million.

The combined value of swap deals to date is $3.7 billion, according to the data. That's a fraction of the $400 billion of emerging market sovereign debt analysts at Capital Economics recently estimated had fallen to distressed levels.

Advocates say that those current debt problems, combined with the growing political will and the recent successful swap deals in the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados, mean a swathe of other countries are now exploring the model.

Indeed, Adam at UNECA said four African countries were now exploring potential swaps. He declined to name them, saying he wasn't sure if they were ready to go public.

Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth of 56 countries, told Reuters: "Lots of my members are looking at it and we're looking at it with them".
]

The ecological stakes could barely be higher.

The global populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by almost 70% on average since 1970, while Latin America has seen a drop of more than 90%, according to this year's Living Planet Index compiled by the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London.

Graphic: Global biodiversity loss https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/egpbykywqvq/Pasted%20image%201668601669021.png

CULTIVATING PORTFOLIOS

Such swaps are often compromises.

Should a country default, its bondholders lose money or at least have to wait a lot longer to recoup it.

Debt-for-nature deals can help as they can produce so-called green, or blue bonds in the case of those that focus on ocean conservation, which appeal to a rapidly growing number of investors who want to meet ESG and net-zero goals.

Veteran debt crisis fund manager Carl Ross at GMO said Belize's pledge to protect its sprawling barrier reef - the largest in the western hemisphere - helped get its restructuring "over the hump" last year in a deal he was involved with.

At their simplest, these deals see expensive bonds or loans written down and replaced with cheaper financing, usually with the help of a credit guarantee from a multilateral development bank.

Ecuador, for example, is in talks with the Pew Charitable Trusts plus the Inter-American Development Bank and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, two of the people with knowledge of the planned deal said.

Pew and the banks declined to comment.

Securing the buy-in of development banks is usually key for the economics of a deal. But as the banks must closely guard their capital and credit ratings to preserve their ability to borrow cheaply, that hurdle has long restricted the growth of swaps.

The World Bank's managing director of operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, told Reuters on the sidelines of COP27 that it supports debt-for-nature swaps, as did African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, who said his bank would "absolutely" start providing credit guarantees.

G7 governments and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley's "Bridgetown initiative" have all demanded the World Bank and International Monetary Fund ramp up climate-focused funding.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva spoke at COP27, saying swaps were a worthwhile part of the toolkit albeit no "silver bullet" in global efforts to fund conservation.

BELIZE'S $550 MLN DEAL

Indeed, debt-for-nature deals are dwarfed by the scale of the funding challenge: developing countries will need to secure $1 trillion a year in external financing by the end of the decade to take effective climate action and restore nature, a report released at COP27 said.

Nonetheless, those involved in such swaps say they are having an impact.

Belize's $553 million swap last year provided money to protect the world's second-largest coral reef and reduced its debt level by more than 10% of GDP, the government estimates.

The Seychelles' 2015 deal, which created the world's first blue bond after eight years of talks, saw the government commit to protect 30% of its waters - an area the size of Germany - from overfishing and development and bought back $22 million of its debt on favourable terms, former environment minister Ronny Jumeau said.

Swap proponents are pushing for the dozen or so major development banks to come together with expanded and standardized support to drive widespread use of the instruments.

"That's the limiting factor that keeps us from just scaling this to trillions of dollars," added Kevin Bender at The Nature Conservancy, who leads the NGO's sovereign debt teams and worked on the Belize swap.

Esteban Brenes, the WWF's U.S. director of conservation finance, said improvements were also needed in how wildlife pledges are monitored and verified so that creditors are satisfied that countries are meeting their commitments.

Monitoring can be creative.

The WWF has projects in Central and South America where they are monitoring deforestation by tracking jaguars, said Brenes, who has worked on debt-for-nature swaps for the last 25 years.

The big cats need around 50 square kilometers of good forest to hunt and reproduce, so are a good indicator of forest health. More data showing swaps work should encourage international institutions to become involved, Brenes added.

"No planet, no business - that is what we need the IMFs of this world to understand," he said.

Graphic: Spreading the pain

https://graphics.reuters.com/MARKETS-EMERGING/mopanaqkmva/chart.png

(Reporting by Simon Jessop in Sharm el-Sheikh, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong and Marc Jones in London; Additional reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo, Sergio Goncalves in Lisbon and Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Graphics by Sumanta Sen; Editing by Katy Daigle and Pravin Char)

THIRD WORLD U$A

Home births in US during early pandemic times rise to highest level in 30 years: CDC

Home births in the United States reached the highest level in three decades during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

The report's findings show the nationwide number of pregnant people giving birth at home rose from 1.26% in 2020 to 1.41% in 2021 -- an increase of 12% and the highest level since at least 1990. That followed a 22% increase from 2019 to 2020.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of U.S. births still happen at a hospital or birthing center, with fewer than 2% of people giving birth at home. Prior to the pandemic, the country's rate of home births hovered around 1%.MORE: US birth and fertility rates drop to record lows in 2020, CDC says

The report noted that interest in home births increased due to COVID-19 and "concerns about giving birth in a hospital." The uptick in home births is likely tied to surges of COVID-19 infections. The increase was highest during the first year of the pandemic and less sharp during the second year. The percentage peaked in January 2021 at 1.51%, corresponding to the first major surge in COVID-19 cases, driven by the alpha variant.

© Tami Chappell/Reuters, FILE

The rise in U.S. home births from 2020 to 2021 was sharpest among Black women, with an increase of 21%. That followed a 36% increase from 2019 to 2020, according to the report.

Kids around the world describe the highs and lows of the COVID-19 pandemic
Duration 3:43  View on Watch

For Hispanic women, home births increased 15% from 2020 to 2021, following a 30% increase from 2019 to 2020. For white women, home births increased 10% from 2020 to 2021, following a 21% increase from 2019 to 2020, according to the report.MORE: US life expectancy drops 1 year in first half of 2020 amid coronavirus pandemic, CDC says

From 2020 to 2021, the percentage of home births was on the rise in 30 U.S. states, with increases ranging from 8% for Florida to 49% for West Virginia. That followed increases in home births in 40 states from 2019 to 2020, the report said.

Medical associations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists assert that every individual should have the right and opportunity to choose how they want to give birth. But they also say that hospitals and birthing centers are the safest places to give birth because trained professionals can intervene quickly if something goes wrong.

Jade Godbolt, 31, of Dallas, Texas, told The Associated Press that she had her second child at a birthing center in 2021, partly to avoid hospital risks of COVID-19 and to experience a more natural environment. She and her husband then chose a home birth for their third child, born last month. She said there were no complications and that both she and her newborn son are doing well.

"I believed that my body could do what it was made to do and I wanted to be in the comfort of my home to do that,'' Godbolt told the AP.

Angela Álvarez makes history at age 95 with Latin Grammy tie win for best new artist

Story by Marysabel Huston-Crespo •  Nov 18,2022 -CNN

Angela Álvarez made Latin Grammy history on Thursday by winning the award for best new artist at age 95.

The singer tied in the category with musician and songwriter Silvana Estrada, but she had already set a record going into the event with her nomination as the oldest musician ever nominated in the category.

“I want to dedicate this award to God and to my beloved country, Cuba, which I will never be able to forget,” Álvarez said accepting her award on stage at the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas.

The Cuban-native’s passion for music began in her youth. She was discouraged from pursuing a career in music by her father but found joy performing for her family. The mother of four, grandmother of nine and the great-grandmother of 15 immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, according to Billboard.
 
Over the years, she sang for her family about her life and developed a collection of songs she composed. At the encouragement and support of her grandson, she eventually recorded and released collection of her songs in 2021.

The Latin Grammy nomination came as a surprise to her, Álvarez told CNN en Español last month.

“I felt very, very proud to be able to tell my story, to touch people who have probably gone through the same or more than what I have gone through. There are people who give up, but I did not give up. I always fought,” she said.

Álvarez concluded her speech on Thursday with words of inspiration.

“To those who have not fulfilled their dream, although life is difficult, there is always a way out and with faith and love you can achieve it, I promise you,” Álvarez said. “It’s never too late.”

REACTIONARY NATIONALISM

Bio of Polish statesman holds lessons on today's Ukraine

NEW YORK (AP) — One hundred years ago, a revolutionary 

REACTIONARY Polish patriot argued that Russia’s hunger for territory would continue to destabilize Europe unless Ukraine could gain independence from Moscow.

Poland's Marshal Józef Piłsudski never managed to fulfil his hope for an independent Ukraine connected to Europe. But the farsighted and analytical statesman did manage to wrest his own homeland from the grip of czarism and from two other powers, Austria and Prussia.

At a time when many Poles had given up on the dream for full independence, Piłsudski put a sovereign Polish state back on the map of Europe at the end of World War I, after more than a century's erasure.

Piłsudski's story, complete with flaws, accomplishments and echoes of today’s war in Ukraine, is brought to life in a recent biography, “Józef Piłsudski Founding Father of Modern Poland,” by Joshua D. Zimmerman, a professor of Holocaust Studies and eastern European history at New York’s Yeshiva University. The book, published by Harvard University Press, also reexamines Piłsudski's relationship to Ukraine.

Thickly mustached, with heavy brows and a hawk-like visage, Piłsudski lived modestly and inspired his troops by leading them in battle. He was celebrated at home and abroad in his day, but his memory outside of Poland has faded.

After proclaiming a new Polish republic, Piłsudski and his legionnaires fought a series of wars to define, secure and defend its borders, culminating with his greatest victory: turning back a Bolshevik army in 1920 that was threatening to drive all the way to Berlin and carry a Communist revolution to the heart of industrial Europe.

Before that battle, known as the “Miracle on the Vistula,” Piłsudski's forces had marched deep into Ukraine and occupied Kyiv in an alliance with nationalist leader Symon Petliura, who also was fighting the Bolsheviks, amid Ukraine's short-lived independence in 1918-21.

As Zimmerman recounts, Piłsudski had a vision of a multilingual and multiethnic Poland that respected the rights of minorities, especially Jews. That earned him the enmity of nationalists who wanted a Poland run for ethnic Poles.

After World War I, Piłsudski hoped Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine could form an alliance to counter Russia in the style of the Polish-Lithuanian union that existed for centuries prior to 1795. But Ukrainians and Lithuanians were wary of Polish claims on their territories, and Pilsudski's vision of an anti-Russian alliance never became reality.

In language that might be applied to today's discourse, Piłsudski conceived of a sovereign Ukraine not merely to prevent Russian aggression but as an outpost of Western liberal democracy.

“There can be no independent Poland,” he is quoted as saying in 1919, “without an independent Ukraine.”

Piłsudski launched a military campaign in 1920 to support Ukrainian nationalists against Bolshevik rule, an action condemned by some as an overreach. Zimmerman believed he had a rationale that echoes today, when Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic countries, as well as Finland and Sweden, feel that Russia under President Vladimir Putin must be contained.

Related video: Polish Ukrainian Communities Unite

Duration 2:43   View on Watch

On May 7, 1920, Piłsudski's cavalry entered Kyiv, followed by Polish and Ukrainian infantry. At the peak of his Ukrainian campaign, he ordered his commanders to withdraw “as soon as possible" in order to establish friendly relations with the new Ukrainian state. according to Zimmerman.

“My view is that he clearly championed an independent Ukraine, one that would be a democratic outpost on Russia’s border, a buffer between Russia and the West, but also a staunch Polish ally that shared Piłsudski's democratic values and the values of at least his followers,” the author said.

Poland and Lithuania — two countries that emerged from Soviet rule — are among Ukraine’s strongest diplomatic champions against Putin's Russia.

Zimmerman’s book makes a balanced and “significant contribution” to the understanding of Piłsudski, said Michael Fleming, a historian and director of the Institute of European Culture at the Polish University Abroad in London.

“Pilsudski was well aware of the challenges posed by Poland’s geography and concluded that an independent Ukraine would share Poland’s interest in limiting Russia’s expansionist tendencies,” Fleming said by email. “At the same time, however, it is important to remember that western Galicia (including Lviv) was much contested” between Poles and Ukrainians.

Indeed Polish and Ukrainian nationalists clashed in the early 1900s and again during and after World War II, and some ethnic animosities have lingered.

During Russia's civil war between the Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White Army, Pilsudski resisted pleas for Poland to help the Whites. No matter who won, he believed, Russia would remain “fiercely imperialistic."

There was little to gain from negotiations because “we cannot believe anything Russia promises,” Piłsudski is quoted as saying.

Piłsudski, born in 1867 and raised in present-day Lithuania, was steeped in the romanticism of Polish independence. He acquired a burning hatred of czarist authority that held Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine in its grip, and he and his brother were implicated in a plot to assassinate the czar and imprisoned.

Zimmerman traces how, upon his release, Piłsudski became the leading activist of the banned Polish Socialist Party, published its newspaper for years, made a daring escape from a second Russian imprisonment after he was caught — by pretending to be insane — and then turned to creating a military force in Austrian-ruled Poland that eventually fought against Russia during World War I.

Although they fought under Austria and Germany, Piłsudski's insistence on Polish independence ultimately led to his imprisonment by the Germans, a sacrifice that enhanced his legend among his fellow Poles. Upon his release, he was acclaimed the country's leader and the de facto founder of modern Poland on Nov. 11, 1918, now celebrated as Polish independence day.

After Poland's borders were secured and a civil government established, Piłsudski mostly stepped back from public life. But after several years, he followed with his own turn to strongman rule.

Concerned that a democratic Poland was slipping away and disgusted by 13 failed Polish governments, he led a 1926 military putsch to restore order. After imposing a system of “managed” democracy and soft dictatorship, Piłsudski's final years were burdened by declining health and growing worries about how to position Poland between a rising Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany.

Zimmerman captures the difficulties of knitting together Poland and details its conflicts, including pogroms against Jews by some of Piłsudski's troops. Yet he views Pilsudski as a defender of Jews and pluralism.

The author makes the case that Piłsudski, although flawed, possessed the judgment and skills to defend Poland's interests. His death in 1935 left Poland with a vacuum in leadership, unable to stave off the German and Soviet invasions of 1939.

Yet Piłsudski's creation of an independent Poland after World War I helped ensure that when World War II ended and Soviet rule receded, there would be no question that an independent Poland would reemerge.

___

John Daniszewski, editor-at-large for standards and former senior managing editor for international news at The Associated Press, is a former Warsaw correspondent.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/polish-question.htm

Rosa Luxemburg: The Polish Question and the Socialist Movement ... 

Dec 16, 2008 ... The right of a nation to independence was neither here nor there; the crucial concern was to have the campaign of Polish Socialists to establish ...

Rosa Luxemburg, national liberation, and the defeated Polish revolution - John Riddell

Rosa Luxemburg and the National Question | Prometheus (prometheusjournal.org)

A war we can no longer ignore: Why the waters are running red in Africa’s Great Lakes region 

 Opinion
Story by AlterNet • Sunday
By Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter

Image via Shutterstock.© provided by AlterNet

In early November, foreign ministers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Christophe Lutundula Apala Pen’Apala, and Rwanda, Vicent Biruta met in Luanda, Angola, to find a political solution to a conflict that has been ongoing in eastern DRC for decades. The foreign ministers agreed that the “peace roadmap” agreed to in a July meeting had to be implemented. Angola’s President João Lourenço shuttled between Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and the DRC’s President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi in his role as the African Union’s “mediator in the crisis” between Rwanda and the DRC.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Meanwhile, the M23 rebels—backed by Rwanda—have expanded their attacks in the DRC. In retaliation, the DRC expelled Rwandan Ambassador Vincent Karega. The M23 with the assistance of Rwanda troops captured Kiwanja and Rutshuru, two towns in the DRC’s North Kivu province. Rwanda argues that it was the DRC that violated agreements leading to the fighters being reinstated.

Related video: Kenya's President William Ruto says East African troops will enforce peace in Eastern DR Congo
Duration 11:10  View on Watch



In August, a leaked report from the United Nations showed that Rwanda had backed the M23. It was difficult for Rwanda to deny the details in the report, particularly after U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, alternate representative for special political affairs, told the UN Security Council that his government calls “on state actors to stop their support for these groups, including the Rwandan Defense Forces’ assistance to M23.” The M23 is a recent entrant into the wars in the DRC’s eastern provinces, which have been ongoing since the early 1990s. A UN report from August 2010 details several hundred violent incidents that took place in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003, with “deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people”; one estimate, based on studies conducted in 2000 and 2004, suggests that more than 3 million people have died in the conflict since 1998.

In June, the DRC allowed the East African Community to send troops into its eastern regions, as long as the Rwandan military was not involved in the intervention. Through this agreement, troops from Burundi and Kenya arrived in eastern Congo. This has caused alarm. Carina Tertsakian of the Burundi Human Rights Initiative told the Associated Press, “It is no surprise that Burundi is the first country to offer troops. Burundi is a direct party to the conflict, so cannot be viewed as a neutral actor. It therefore seems unlikely that their deployment will end the insecurity in the area.”

Former DRC presidential candidate Martin Fayulu told Deutsche Welle recently that he is distressed by the lack of international attention to this conflict. “Ukraine is having a problem,” he said, and the widespread media coverage has brought the world’s attention to that. “[W]e are having a problem in Congo, but nobody is condemning Rwanda. Why?” Perhaps, it has to do with the cobalt, copper, lithium, and the trees of the rainforest, precious resources that continue to be exploited by the rest of the world despite the carnage that has afflicted Africa’s Great Lakes for the past 30 years.

Author Bio: Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.

Dynamite and picket lines: The great textbook debate that forever changed US school boards

Story by Janelle Davis • Thursday, Nov 17,2022 - CNN

School board meetings have become ground zero for clashing political movements. Once placid meetings now erupt in chaos with heckling, protests and even death threats.

This divisiveness has been boiling over since the pandemic, but it’s nothing new.

One of the biggest school board debates started in 1974 over textbooks in West Virginia. It spiraled into a boycott and then bombings. This battle created the lasting framework for conservative activism.

How it began

The 70s were a tumultuous time in American history with civil rights and women’s rights, and the Vietnam war all in the mix. There was a progressive push to not only integrate classrooms but also to integrate reading lists.

West Virginia approved a new set of textbooks that would modernize its curriculum. Adam Laats, a history professor at Binghamton University, said it featured a diverse range of multicultural writers, including George Jackson and Eldridge Cleaver. It also added new literary works at the time, including “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley.

“They really were trying to shake up what they saw as traditional classrooms, but also traditional sort of white man content. They wanted to get more voices,” Laats explained.

Alice Moore, a conservative member of the Kanawha County Board of Education, objected to the books.

“She said, they’re full of anti-American sentiment. They’re full of anti-White racism,” Laats said. “They’re just full of ideas that she thought were really dangerous for kids.”

Despite her concerns, the school board pushed ahead with the new curriculum. But for Moore, a conservative activist, this was the start of the debate – not the end.



Kanawha County Board of Education member Alice Moore makes one of many motions that were defeated Nov. 8, 1975 in Charleston as the board voted to return most of the disputed school books to the classrooms. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma) 

The tension started to build

Rumors began to fly about the textbooks and groups galvanized. Parents formed grassroots campaigns. Ministers started mobilizing their congregations.

Flyers were passed around claiming the new books promoted reverse racism and criminality, which was untrue. Fake news 1974, if you will.

“There was no Facebook in 1974, but it was a community, like every community, that really cared about what went on in the schools. It doesn’t take long for people to hear rumors – with or without the internet – that can get them, in this case, violently upset about a perceived danger to their kids,” Laats said.

At the next school board meeting, the gymnasium was packed with more than a thousand people. Some stood outside, sticking their heads in the windows to see inside, Laats said.

Boos and cheers filled the room as people took the mic.

“We absolutely refuse to have the liberal point of view pushed upon our children,” one parent said.

“We the parents are the taxpayers. We pay your salary, we elected you to office,” another said.

“In the room, it sure sounded like most people wanted the books out,” Laats said. “That’s not actually a fair estimation of how people in the county felt. But that night, at that meeting, it certainly felt like the people were speaking against the books.”

After three hours of back and forth, the board again voted in favor of the textbooks.

Activism turns violent

Nearly 10,000 kids stayed home to boycott the books, about 20% of the students, according to National Endowment for the Humanities. Parents created picket lines in front of the schools with signs saying, “I have a bible. I don’t need those dirty books.”

Nazi symbols were graffitied onto school buildings, windows were smashed and people shot at school buses on their way to pick up the students going to school, reported The New York Times.

The Appalachian county, home to many miners, weaponized its most powerful tools. Bombs were planted at three elementary schools and dynamite was thrown into a school board building and an elementary school. Fortunately, no one was injured in any of these incidents, according to American Public Media.

The story drew national attention.

Ultimately, all the books but one were adopted, but in return, Moore created new guidelines for selecting future textbooks – requiring “books encourage loyalty to the United States,” “not encourage sedition or revolution against our government” and “not defame our nation’s founders or misrepresent the ideals and causes for which they struggled and sacrificed,” according to American Public Media.

The 1974 controversy showed the explosiveness of politics, culture and religion colliding in the classroom.

The renewed debate over The 1619 Project and 1776 curriculum show this age-old tendency to turn the classroom into a battlefield is here to stay.

“It’s a fight over who gets to decide what goes on in schools. It’s who gets to decide what goes into magazines. It’s what mainstream America is. It’s who are the ‘real Americans,’” said Laats.

NATO NATION BUILDING

Analysis-Libya's festering crisis risks slide back to war

Story by By Angus McDowall • Thursday, Nov 17.2022

FILE PHOTO: Members of the military personnel arrive to take part in a parade calling for parliamentary and presidential election, in Tripoli© Thomson Reuters

(Reuters) - As its political stalemate festers, Libya risks sliding back towards civil war with diplomacy at a standstill, politicians thwarting progress towards elections and military leaders including eastern commander Khalifa Haftar threatening violence.


Protesters set fire to the Libyan parliament building after protests against the failure of the government in Tobruk© Thomson Reuters

A move by forces aligned with the Tripoli government this week to blockade a meeting by a legislative body, a bout of deadly fighting in August and Haftar's warnings of a new war all underscore the risks.

With the new U.N. envoy Abdoulaye Bathily warning in a first report this week that "some institutional players are actively hindering progress towards elections" there seems little prospect of any real move towards a settled peace.


FILE PHOTO: Aftermath of clashes in Tripoli© Thomson Reuters

"No one is talking about elections any more. The game playing that political leaders are doing is always to obstruct. It's all delaying tactics," said Otman Gajiji, a former Libyan electoral commission head.

In Tripoli, many people fear that continued gridlock raises the chances of violence, which has flared several times in the capital this year and always risks escalating into wider conflict.

"The crisis is mainly getting prolonged because those in power seek their own interests, not those of Libyans," said Adel al-Sheikh, 39, a Tripoli shop owner.

Fair national elections were the only solution, he said. "Otherwise we won't have a stable country and for sure there will be more wars," he added.

The prospect of more conflict would not only create misery for ordinary Libyans: the stakes are also high for an inattentive world.

War could mean a new theatre for Russia-Western friction on the Mediterranean, cuts to Libya's 1.2 million barrels-per-day oil output during a global energy shortage, a space for Islamist militants to prosper and fuel for a global migration crisis.

Libya has had little open warfare since the 2020 ceasefire that ended Haftar's last assault on Tripoli, the culmination of years of division between factions who emerged during a 2011 NATO-backed uprising and split between east and west in 2014.

OBSTRUCTION

On the surface, Libya's political standoff seems defined by disputes over an eventual constitution, the rules of a future election, regional divisions of wealth and the shape of a transitional government.

However, many Libyans suspect that behind the public facade of each faction's avowed support for elections, none has much interest in a long-term resolution because each benefits from the messy status quo.

National elections could sweep away most of the squabbling political forces that have dominated Libya through years of institutional division, outright warfare and unstable peace.

In Tripoli, Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah runs the Government of National Unity, installed early last year through a U.N.-backed process to oversee a short transition that was meant to culminate in elections last year.

His government's direct access to oil revenue through the Central Bank and spending on development projects run by political allies has drawn repeated accusations of widespread corruption, which Dbeibah denies.

The eastern parliament has rejected his legitimacy since last year's election process fell apart amid disputes over the rules. It backs a separate administration under Fathi Bashagha, urging its own plan for an election.

However, the parliament's own term formally expired years ago and critics of the speaker, Aguila Saleh, accuse him of playing loose with legislative rules to issue laws aimed at consolidating his power base, something he also denies.

Another legislative body, the High State Council, whose legitimacy stems from a 2012 election and a political agreement that was never fully implemented, has moved back and forth on the issues, furthering hindering any prospect of a deal.

THREATS

However, even if elites are unwilling to upset the status quo through a long-term political settlement, there is no guarantee they will not upset it by returning to arms.

Haftar remains entrenched in eastern and southern Libya and his recent speeches, appearing to threaten a new war if the political stalemate persists, reveal a man again chafing to expand his influence to the capital.

"We are waging the decisive battle for liberation, whatever the price and however long it takes," he said on October 31, adding that unnamed corrupt leaders "will not escape punishment - the armed forces will not allow it."

In Tripoli itself, and the rest of the northwest, two years of ceasefire have scrambled the military coalition of armed factions that had fought off Haftar's assault.

That was brought home in August when rival factions fought in the worst battle in the capital for years as Bashagha attempted to enter the city. He turned back and groups aligned with him were pushed out of Tripoli, leaving Dbeibah more firmly ensconced there.

Recent fighting in Tripoli has allowed one powerful group to consolidate its hold over territory, but its rivals still exist and could mount new attempts to win sway.

With Turkish forces still present around Tripoli and able to fend off any major assault there with drone strikes, battles between rival groups in the northwest present the most likely trigger for any wider conflict involving Haftar.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; additional reporting by Reuters Tripoli newsroom; editing by William Maclean)

Activists hoped Egypt's COP27 would bring a focus on Africa. They were disappointed

Story by Ivana Kottasová • CNN

The crowd was loving what Bhekumuzi Bhebhe had to say, cheering loudly as he yelled “don’t gas Africa!” into the megaphone.

On GPS: Can the world hit its climate targets?

Duration 4:50  View on Watch

Standing under the baking Egyptian sun at the COP27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, Bhebhe, a South Africa-based climate campaigner, was protesting against what he says is an attempt by rich countries to bribe Africa into investing in planet-warming fossil fuels.

In his mind, it’s yet another example of the hypocrisy western countries have showed toward the continent – which has barely contributed to the climate crisis but is experiencing some of its most devastating effects.

“Is this justice?!” he asked his fellow protesters. “No!” the crowd yelled back.

Bhekumuzi Bhebhe speaks at a protest against the development of new fossil fuel projects in Africa.

- Ivana Kottasova/CNN

The Egyptian government, which is hosting and presiding over the UN-sponsored climate talks, had promised this year’s summit would finally be the “African COP” that would put the needs of the continent front and center.

Unfulfilled promises

But according to many representatives of countries across Africa, that promise remains largely unfulfilled.

Mohamed Adow, the director and founder of Power Shift Africa, a non-governmental organization focused on accelerating renewable energy there, said at an event on Sunday that the developments so far show the conference was “African in the name only.”

Any hopes that the summit would really focus on Africa were dashed early, when the conference participants denied a request by a group of African governments to include a discussion about the continent’s “special needs and circumstances” on the official agenda.

Philip Osano, the director of the Africa Center at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told CNN that the recognition of the special circumstances was one of the top three priorities for many African governments, along with climate finance and the clean energy transition.

“Africa contributes less than 4.8% of emissions, but the impacts have now become very serious, that’s why this is a priority item,” he said.

“The bad news is, it’s off the agenda. But it’s very complicated, because other parts of the world – especially small island states, developing countries – everybody is kind of having a special circumstance when it comes to climate.”

Mithika Mwenda, the Kenyan co-founder of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, said he was “outraged” by the decision not to include the discussion on the agenda. Speaking after the item was struck, Mwenda said the development “set the stage for another COP that will fail millions of Africans dying unjustly” from climate change.


This year's climate conference was widely billed as "Africa COP."

 - Ivana Kottasova/CNN

Paying for loss and damage

Some of the leaders of countries that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis – many of which are in Africa – have come to Sharm el Sheikh with high hopes that developed countries would finally agree to pay for the loss and damage already caused by climate change.

The idea is simple: countries that got rich using fossil fuels that have caused the crisis should help those that are most affected by it deal with the devastating consequences.

Going into the summit, leaders of climate-vulnerable countries said this was their number one priority, and there was hope that a new funding facility could be established this year. But negotiations have proven tough. Some of the richest countries are united in pushing against the idea of setting up a new fund.

The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom have all been trying to kick the can down the road, saying they want to establish a “process” that would lead to an “outcome” by 2024.

But for countries that are seeing their coasts disappear and their people drown in devastating floods or starve because of droughts, that is not good enough.

“We had pledges, statements and commitments. But we need comprehensive proposals. We already have concept notes, we already have proposals, we already have our [emission cutting plans], we need to move into implementations,” Edward Bendu, the chief environmental officer at Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment, told CNN in an interview at the summit.

Bendu, who is representing a country that is among the most impacted by the climate crisis, said that access to existing climate finance is difficult and that the current financing options are not fit for purpose.

“It takes about three four years to access funds,” he said. “That’s too late for us, we can’t address the loss and damage issues that way.”

There have been some positive movements coming from the summit. Germany has been spearheading a new loss and damage program called the Global Shield that it hopes would make money available faster for countries suffering from weather disasters.

The EU and several of its member states announced Wednesday they “will provide over €1 billion ($1.04 billion) for climate adaptation in Africa.” The bloc also said it would add €60 million ($62.2 million) to the loss and damage pot.

But as is often the case with climate finance announcements, the devil is in the detail.

Delving into the figures, it emerged that of the €345 million ($357 million) the European Commission would contribute to the package, only €220 million ($228 million) is a “new commitment,” according to a statement released Wednesday.

The rest of the €345m was already pledged elsewhere in the past. And as for the €60 million for loss and damage, that money is included in the €220 million rather than being an additional sum. The EU didn’t give a breakdown on the contributions from individual states. CNN has contacted the bloc for comment and more details on the announcement.

For the developing world, the bottom line remains that the promise of funding remains unfulfilled. Under the Paris Agreement, rich countries pledged to provide $100 billion a year in climate financing to developing world by 2020. Two years after the deadline, the target has still not been met.

Energy front end center

The battle over Africa’s future energy infrastructure has emerged as one of the key issues at the summit.

Around 600 million Africans don’t have access to electricity and almost a billion don’t have clean cooking facilities, relying instead on burning solid biomass, kerosene or coal as their primary cooking fuel, according to the International Energy Agency.

Experts and activists are stressing that many African countries are getting locked in fossil fuel investments that are polluting and will likely prove uneconomical in a few years.

It is not a hypothetical issue. Many of the world’s richest countries are pushing for more fossil fuel investments in several African countries as they try to wean themselves of Russian gas because of the war in Ukraine.

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Dakar earlier this year and held talks with the Senegalese president Macky Sall – the chair of the African Union – about the development of a new offshore natural gas field. And earlier this month, the Italian energy giant ENI started exporting natural gas from a new deep sea gas field in Mozambique.

These developments are making activists particularly furious.

“It’s a hypocrisy and we are calling it out,” said Omar Elmaawi, a Kenyan activist who has spent years campaigning against the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is meant to transport oil from Uganda to Tanzania, where it could be sold on international markets.

“Africa has contributed very little to the climate problem, but the fossil fuel companies are using that to their advantage. They say Africa has been left behind and therefore they want to explore the potential so that they can help us develop,” Elmaawi told CNN.

“But that narrative doesn’t hold up because although they’re calling it ‘development’ they want to exploit these resources and send them into the Global North,” he added.



Kenyan climate activist Omar Elmaawi poses for a picture at the COP27 summit in Egypt. - Ivana Kottasova/CNN

Elmaawi said he understood the money big fossil fuel companies are offering may look like a lucrative option to some African governments. But he and his fellow activist say they want their governments to think about the future.

“My assessment has always been either our government leaders are really ignorant and stupid, or, some of them have been compromised and they are not working in the best interest of their people,” he said.

What Elmaawi, Adow and other activists want is for the COP27 conference to help African countries foster more investment into renewable energy.

According to the IEA, Africa has around 60% of the world’s best solar-energy resources, but only 1% of installed photovoltaic capacity.

Adow said Africa could easily become a renewable energy superpower.

But instead, he said, “European countries want to turn Africa into their gas station.”

Why the energy transition is so tough for Africa: 600 million people still have no access to power

Story by Jacopo Prisco • CNN

Thursday, Nov 17,2022

Africa’s energy sector faces a huge challenge: how to bring reliable access to electricity to hundreds of millions of people, while containing carbon emissions.

Currently, the continent only produces 3% of global greenhouse emissions, although it’s home to one fifth of the world’s population. Nearly all of Africa’s 54 countries have signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, and many have committed to reach net zero by 2050. However, much of the population still lacks access to electricity.

Ahead of COP 27, CNN’s Eleni Giokos discussed this and other topics at Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, with Verner Ayukegba, Senior Vice President of the African Energy Chamber, which works with businesses in the continent and promotes energy growth.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe the current state of Africa’s energy portfolio to a global audience?

Ayukegba: With 600 million people without any kind of access to energy, and 900 million people — mostly women and children — without any access to clean cooking fuels, we need to focus on investing significantly into generating power for all of those people. At the African Energy Chamber, we have decided to champion making energy poverty history by 2030. We need to throw everything at it, because at the core of development there is reliable and affordable energy. If you don’t have that, there’s no point talking about access to education or healthcare.

How do you reconcile this developmental challenge with the climate change agenda?

Ayukegba: We shouldn’t have it as a binary situation in that sense. We need to make sure that we solve, of course, the climate issues, but also the power issues. You do not have to get people into a situation where they have to choose either to have a job, or not have a job because of the climate situation.

Related video: World of Africa: Nigeria-Morocco sign gas pipeline deal

Duration 4:07 View on Watch

We need to be able to look at gas-to-power solutions to ensure that people have the power that they need. We need to transition, but we need to consider the social aspects of the transition. I think people miss that a lot and say, “Close this coal mine,” but what they don’t see are the families, the communities, that have grown in and around these industries. So when you talk about transition, it’s not just about power, it’s about people. It’s about people’s lives.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres last year referred to a UN climate report as “code red for humanity.” Does that worry you in terms of what that will mean for Africans?

Ayukegba: It absolutely does, but the thing is, you have to go where the pollution is and ask those who are polluting to cut the pollution.

Africa has several oil and gas-producing nations, but often they are not able to meet their own demand for energy, and end up importing refined oil products. How is that going to change?

Ayukegba: It is certainly not a new problem, and I think the authorities in many of these African countries are trying to address it. Obviously, it’s something that should have been addressed for some time.

It’s fair to say that Nigeria, with a number of projects, is looking to grow infrastructure internally to be able to address that. It’s appalling, there’s no running away from that, but we need to be able to address those deficits and certainly, the governments are trying to.

What do you think the messaging should be at COP27?

Ayukegba: We are going to be there to support a transition towards renewables and towards a world that goes closer to net zero. What we are saying, however, is that you can’t transition in Limpopo [South Africa] in the same way you transition in New York. You certainly cannot transition in London, or in Berlin, or in Stockholm in the same way you transition in Lagos. We have to be realistic about these things. If not, people won’t take us seriously.

Do you feel that African voices were taken seriously at COP26?

Ayukegba: No, clearly not. For anybody who has a constituency with 600 million people without power, you need to talk differently about these issues. We are seeing the problems and the issues that farmers are already having — longer droughts and all of that — and so we agree at the Chamber that we have issues with energy transition, with the way that the climate is changing. However, if in the US your fridge uses more power in a year than an African family, where do we start in terms of addressing the problem?